Dire warnings of regional war ... but is anybody listening?

If the Gaza protagonists succeed in grudgingly inching toward a ceasefire, despite most of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conflict objectives remaining unmet, the question then would be: what next?

Following weeks of intensified skirmishes across Lebanon’s southern border, Hassan Nasrallah’s speech in late August anticipated this question. In language wholly disconnected from reality and signaling his desperation to avoid provoking widened conflict, the Hezbollah leader declared that Lebanon could now “take a breath and relax.” Several observers noted that, while Tehran was willing to stand by and allow a major degradation of Hamas’ military capabilities, it did not want to see a comparable defenestration of Hezbollah, or other paramilitaries in Syria and Iraq.

This meant that Hezbollah and Iran had to stomach assassinations of their senior military echelons, including the humiliation of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh being killed in Tehran itself, with only token gestures of retaliation. Iran’s massive April fusillade against Israel was remarkable only for more than 300 missiles failing to reach their targets. An unprecedentedly direct exchange of fire with Israel may have accelerated Tehran’s drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons, something that Netanyahu has always been unequivocal about intending to forcibly prevent.

Extremist Israeli Cabinet hawks are goading Netanyahu into countenancing radical moves to save his own political skin, including exploiting the conflict’s momentum to decisively cut Tehran and its paramilitary allies down to size. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a “decisive war against Hezbollah that will remove the threat in the north and allow the residents to return home safely,” echoing broader media criticism that Netanyahu has failed to make Israel’s north and south safe to live in. This is despite incessant strikes against Lebanon and targeted attacks against Hezbollah, Hamas and Revolutionary Guards personnel. Israel has specifically indicated that a Gaza ceasefire would not necessitate a halt to strikes against Lebanon and elsewhere.

Netanyahu knows that, if he triggered war with Iran, it would force America and its allies to enter the conflict

Baria Alamuddin

Although Israel’s armed forces are exhausted from grinding battles on several fronts, Netanyahu knows that, if he triggered war with Iran, it would force America and its allies to enter the conflict: just witness how Western forces instantaneously mobilized to neutralize Iran’s missile barrage in April. Netanyahu may cynically believe that provoking a war could fatally undermine US President Joe Biden and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris on the eve of the presidential election, ushering in a more favorable US administration. Sources categorize relations between Biden and Netanyahu as being in a downward spiral, as Israel and Hamas escalate their ceasefire demands. The region bristles with US aircraft carriers, munitions, missile systems and additional forces, ready if Israel’s war spirals further out of control.

Meanwhile, Israel has been quietly preparing for a regional war: stockpiling food and water, installing backup power supplies, cybersecurity precautions and measures for the wider mobilization of reservists and citizens.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative US think tank, has issued an extensive report warning that, while the US has focused on slowing Tehran’s rush to enrich uranium to 90 percent purity, Iran has pursued other nuclear weaponization activities — including developing devices for delivering a nuclear payload. The installation of 1,400 advanced centrifuges at its Fordow enrichment plant this summer is just one measure for accelerating Iran’s race toward nuclear breakout.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has meanwhile been sounding the alarm regarding the curtailed access of its inspectors to Iran’s nuclear sites. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran required just “one to two weeks” to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon. He had less to say about what the US would do about this.

Iran’s latest consignment of missiles to Russia is a further example of how Tehran’s large weapons programs pose a direct threat to global security. Iran has also become a foremost state for cyberwarfare and malicious attacks on election processes and civil infrastructure.

The US has responded to incessant rocket and drone strikes on its bases in Iraq by agreeing to a full pullout of its forces during 2025-2026, representing a major victory for the Iran-backed forces that are increasingly the dominant power in Iraq — politically, economically and militarily. Disjointed Western responses to Houthi rocket attacks on shipping have similarly only served to embolden battle-hardened militants into believing that they can halt global trade with impunity.

Iraqi paramilitary figures were caught red-handed conducting a surveillance operation from the office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani. Almost the entire top echelon of political and judicial leaders was found to have been under surveillance — excluding Al-Sudani’s closest supporter, Qais Al-Khazali and his Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq militia, while including several of Al-Khazali’s paramilitary rivals. Iran hurriedly deployed a delegation to Baghdad to try and hush up this shocking discovery.

This scandal highlighted the manner in which Tehran-backed militias have relentlessly expanded their control over the security and intelligence apparatus in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. As well as exacerbating prospects for civil strife, this remorselessly expanding power grab also affords these forces greater freedom of action for staging attacks on their many regional enemies.

Iran’s latest consignment of missiles to Russia is a further example of how Tehran’s large weapons programs pose a direct threat to global security

Baria Alamuddin

Hence, a combination of gradual US disengagement and Israeli saber-rattling has encouraged Iran and its paramilitaries to become even more brazen in building up their military and strategic capabilities, weaponizing large parts of the region.

Nobody knows whether we are genuinely on the cusp of a ruinously destructive regional conflict, but provocative and escalatory moves by both Iran and Israel have brought us to the brink. The US and its allies are broadly culpable through decades of unwillingness to confront or rein in either party, making the eruption of such a conflict merely a matter of time.

As we have seen, that would immediately bring in Western states, with long-term destabilizing consequences for global security. Rather than sitting back and hoping for the best, America, Europe, China, Russia and regional powers should be energetically staking far more political capital on trying to stave off region-wide Armageddon.

My friend, the journalist Roula Khalaf, conducted a fascinating interview for The Financial Times with the heads of the American and British intelligence services, Bill Burns and Richard Moore, in which they both voiced dire concerns about the risks of regional conflict and emphasized how the chronic absence of a ceasefire in Gaza — or indeed a two-state solution to the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict — has made worst-case scenarios far likelier.

Moore stressed that a broader regional conflagration would be “vastly worse” than what had already occurred in Gaza. And the two men warned that the world order was under threat in ways not seen since the Cold War. With these heavyweight figures issuing such dire warnings, is anybody listening?

• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.