If one were to ask a casual observer to identify the Arabian Gulf’s historically dominant city or its most longstanding international airline, the likely response would be ‘Dubai’, or possibly ‘Doha’. Yet, throughout the twentieth century, Kuwait served as the Gulf’s primary trading nexus and a regional beacon of development. It is also home to Kuwait Airways, a carrier that took to the skies decades before Emirates Airlines or Qatar Airways were even conceptualised. Today, however, this historical primacy has faded. While decades of investment have transformed Kuwait’s urban landscape, the results have been checkered. 

Unlike its neighbours – particularly Qatar and the UAE – Kuwait has not forged a super-connector airline to take advantage of the Gulf’s geographic positioning between Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific, nor has it used transregional connectivity and related urban boosterism to diversify the economy by promoting local tourism or innovative offerings that could spur further growth. Kuwait Airways provides a useful entry point into this discussion about shifting developmental dominance in the region, but the challenges and opportunities it faces are inseparable from the wider aviation ecosystem in which it operates. Airlines do not function in isolation: their performance is shaped by airport infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, competing carriers, tourism strategies, and governance arrangements that determine how decisions are made and coordinated. In Kuwait’s case, understanding aviation as a system – rather than as a single firm – helps explain why substantial investment and historical advantage have not translated into premier hub status or economic spillovers comparable to those seen elsewhere in the Gulf in the last two decades. 

The Gulf’s Shift in Urban and Aviation Development 

To understand Kuwait’s current predicament, one must look at the populational and infrastructural shifts redefining the region. While Kuwait’s demographic dominance was a staple of the twentieth century, Dubai surpassed Kuwait’s population following the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, long-term population size has not correlated with airline connectivity (see Chart 1). While Dubai and Doha cultivated global hubs to bolster transit and tourism, Kuwait’s aviation sector languished. By 2024, whilst Emirates Airlines surged to 61.1 million in passenger traffic and Qatar Airways to 40.1 million, Kuwait Airways managed only 5.2 million. 

Chart 1: Gulf urban population (bars) and hometown airline traffic (lines), 2000-2024 

The divergence in international tourist arrivals is equally stark. In 2024, Dubai attracted over 18 million visitors following decades of rapid growth, whereas Kuwait saw just 2.6 million in the same year (see Table 1). 

Table 1: Annual International Tourist Arrivals (Millions) 

These figures reflect contrasting aviation systems: in Dubai and Doha, airlines, airports, and destination promotion are tightly coordinated; in Kuwait, development remains haphazard, with weaker integration between carriers, infrastructure investment, and national economic strategy – an imbalance that shapes outcomes as much as market competition does. 

Aiming for Strategic Renewal 

Under the New Kuwait Vision 2035 strategy, endorsed by the World Bank, the state is attempting to reverse this trajectory. Significant capital – over £3.5 billion (1 billion KWD) – is being invested in a spectacular new Terminal 2 at Kuwait International Airport, or KWI (Gottlieb 2025). This project aims to position the airport as a global connector while evoking a sense of place through stunning architecture with strong local inflections (see Images 1-3). 

Images 1-3: KWI’s bold new Terminal 2, under construction (2025)

Simultaneously, initiatives have been launched to overhaul Kuwait Airways into a carrier that both nationals and foreign travellers prefer. Yet, these efforts have been hampered by frequent turnover in leadership. In the last 15 years, numerous CEOs have attempted makeovers, but their diverging backgrounds – ranging from policy to entrepreneurship to piloting – have resulted in shifting priorities and disputed visions. While often framed as managerial shortcoming, it also signals a deeper governance issue. State-owned airlines operate under mixed mandates, balancing commercial viability, national symbolism, and public accountability. In Kuwait, unclear boundaries between political oversight, regulatory authority, and executive autonomy have made it difficult to sustain long-term strategic direction. The result is a system that struggles to translate investment and ambition into durable operational coherence. 

Navigating Turbulence: Structural Weaknesses and Competition 

While product quality at Kuwait Airways has improved, the airline remains unprofitable. It possesses a slight geographic advantage over Doha and Dubai for connecting Europe-Asia traffic, potentially reducing journey times by one hour due to its more northerly location, but its fleet and network are a fraction of its competitors. 

Several structural factors compound this weakness: 

• Market Focus: The airline emphasises the Indian Subcontinent and the Philippines as key markets – which have high volume but also a high degree of price elasticity, and thus low brand loyalty. There are also many leisure destinations in Europe, but there is little connective focus. 
• Isolationism: Unlike many regional neighbours, Kuwait Airways has never joined a global airline alliance – i.e., Star Alliance, SkyTeam, or oneworld – nor does its frequent-flyer programme have any airline partners, reducing cross-airline appeal, even though it has ‘codeshare’ partners to facilitate ticketing only. Furthermore, it has not developed a level of premium-brand reputation similar to Emirates, for example, which enables a more standalone, non-alliance strategy. 
• Domestic Competition: The state-owned carrier has also faced two decades of competition from Jazeera Airways, an aggressive private-sector low-cost carrier, with a destination network that now rivals Kuwait Airways. Moreover, our fieldwork conducted with the Kuwait Civil Aviation Authority in February 2025 revealed that, despite massive state investment in Kuwait Airways, officials indicated no explicit policy preference for the national carrier over the private upstart in future infrastructure allocations, including KWI’s Terminal 2, slated to open in late 2026. 

As Kuwait approaches the 2035 horizon, the challenges facing its aviation sector are not merely operational but deeply geopolitical and strategic. The state’s ambition to revitalise Kuwait Airways coincides with an unstable regional situation (most notably due to proximity to Iran) and intense commercial competition. Beyond all this, Kuwait Airways must carve out a new survival strategy in regional skies now dominated by the formidable duopoly of Qatar Airways and Emirates Airlines. 

Ultimately, the dilemma facing Kuwait Airways reflects a wider question confronting Kuwait’s aviation sector. Infrastructure, regulation, airline strategy, and destination development must evolve in concert if new investments are to yield meaningful returns. The challenge is not merely to improve one airline, but to design a governance framework capable of aligning aviation policy with broader economic diversification goals. Without a decisive resolution, the gleaming new Terminal 2 risks becoming a beautiful gateway with too few passengers passing through it. 

Note: This post was originally submitted before the commencement of multinational armed conflict in the region in early 2026, which shut down all Kuwaiti commercial air traffic for two months. Just prior to publication, limited commercial operations recommenced at KWI, on 26 April 2026. 

The post Kuwait’s Aviation Paradox: Urban Ambition and the Struggle for the Skies  first appeared on Middle East Centre.

Human migratory patterns have long been constitutive of Arab states and their political, social and economic makeup. But while travel is integral to the regional fabric, the present conditions of Arab state citizens’ mobility within the region – rather than vis-à-vis North America or Europe – remain understudied. Home to some of the strongest and weakest passports in the world, the region presents a rich context for the study of visa regimes and policies.

Visa regimes of Arab states trace their origins to colonial and imperial rule. Still, these regimes have endured and evolved with the independence of Arab states and as visas became a standard of international travel. Measuring mobility of Arab citizens through visa requirements reveals a limited scope for travel within the region with implications for tourism, trade, work and social relations.

A Snapshot of Intra-Regional Visa Access

Most Arab state citizens require visas not only to travel intra-regionally but also to visit bordering states. Citizens of war-affected states like Libya, Syria and Sudan face wide visa limitations for intra-regional travel. However, even citizens of relatively stable states, such as Jordan and Morocco, do not enjoy ease of access. Citizens of the most populous Arab country, Egypt, require visas to travel to most Arab destinations, while also applying visa requirements to many Arab states. In contrast, citizens of Arab Gulf states have wider visa-free access to countries within the region as well as freedom of travel within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc.

Economic and political factors influence these visa regimes. For instance, Saudi Arabia and Oman recently relaxed their visa requirements to support their economic diversification goals. Meanwhile, ongoing political conflicts in the region contribute to the intra-regional travel limitations.

Alternative Models of Intra-Regional Travel

While Arab states may limit visa access due to regional instability, they do stand to benefit from increased mobility. Freedom of movement among European Union (EU) member states, for instance, has been viewed as a preventative measure against intra-European conflict. Most remarkably, youth travel has been observed as central to this process of regional connectivity, fostering social and cultural exchange and reconciliation in post-World War II Europe. What if Arab youth, making up 25% of the region’s population, enjoyed similar travel prospects?

Indeed, zooming out to other geographic regions and regional organisations may be instructive. In South America, the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) established freedom of movement for six member states, including Argentina and Brazil. In Oceania, Australia and New Zealand have had a policy ensuring freedom of travel and work for their citizens since 1973. Most recently, the African Union (AU) proposed a pan-African passport in a move toward realising freedom of movement for citizens of the AU’s member states.

One may argue that Arab states are well-placed to consider similar policies, given their close linguistic, historical and geographic ties and given that twenty-two of these states are organised into the Arab League, the oldest regional organisation of its kind. Some efforts have been made in pockets of the region. In 2011, the Arab Gulf states considered extending freedom of travel within the GCC to Moroccan and Jordanian citizens, but ultimately this did not occur. Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia committed to form a trade zone with freedom of travel for their citizens in 1989. This was not fulfilled.

Today, Moroccan and Algerian citizens enjoy visa-free access to one another’s countries only through air travel. Land crossings have been closed since 1994, impacting communities living near the borders, who have to make expensive journeys to see their families on the other side. If the 1989 pledge had been actualised, it is estimated that the economies of both countries would have ‘almost doubled in size’. ‘Their [Algeria & Morocco’s] poor border regions would be booming crossroads,’ lamented an article from The Economist.

Learning with the Visa Regime

Global human mobility has been characterised by gross inequality, often seen as a North-South divide. Those with European, North American and some Asian passports receive unhindered access through most borders, while most of those with Arab, African and other Asian passports struggle to receive a fraction of the same. This has resulted in a skewed globalisation, wherein ‘the bulk of the world’s population lives in closed worlds, trapped by the lottery of their birth,’ as described by Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson.

But the state of human mobility is more multilayered and complex than a dichotomous poor versus rich or north versus south divide. A 2018 study suggests that the ‘international configuration of visa regimes is primarily realized as part of regional alliances and the formation of regional blocs. Instead of a global mobility divide, it is therefore perhaps more appropriate to speak of multiple regional mobility divides in an increasingly multi‐polar world.’

In this vein, using the regional scale to unpack visa regimes among Arab states opens a broad research agenda, ripe for exploration. Pursuing this research avenue further can enrich our understanding of the constraints and potentials of visa regimes and their impacts on Arab societies and provide an analytically rigorous account of human mobility among Arab states.

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The post The Distance Between Us: Visas Among Arab States first appeared on Middle East Centre.

The economic impact of this war is unlike the pre-globalisation-era oil shocks of the 1970s: it is a shock to the extensive global supply chains that have emerged since then. 

Early Assessments of the Impact of War…  

President Trump’s declaration that the US and Israel’s war against Iran, which began at the end of February, would be over quickly suggested it could be manageable for the global economy. After all, the Gulf economies only accounted for 2% of global GDP, and given the lower dependence of the global economy on fossil fuels, the oil price rise was limited to 40-50% compared with the 1973 oil shock, when it had quadrupled. There was also the cushion from ample stocks in storage, allowing the International Energy Agency (IEA) to release 400mb of crude in early March.

With the exception of KOSPI, financial markets avoided sharp corrections. Investors seemed reassured by White House announcements that the war would soon end – as they did by the April 8 cease-fire agreement. But, given the maximalist demands of all sides, it was no surprise that this latest ‘ceasefire’ would end like the others: continued selective bombing by Israel, Iran, and its proxies, accompanied by threats (the latest being the US blocking of the Hormuz Strait) and deadlines from President Trump, desperate for an exit given his falling poll rating.

…Underestimated its Broader Shock to the Global Supply Chain 

By the end of March, with thousands of civilians wounded and perished, and Gulf oil facilities and refineries damaged, it seemed the war could go on for some time and could even escalate. Unable to match the firepower of the US and Israel, Iran’s strategy of maximising the negative impact of the war on the global economy was working, resulting in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and potentially the Bab al-Mandab Strait (with the reactivation of the Houthis) and taking oil prices over $100/b. 

In addition, it became evident that the supply shock to the global economy extended beyond energy to key industrial inputs. World-scale industrial facilities damaged or shut in the Gulf included Qatar’s Ras Laffan, accounting for 20% of global LNG and 30% of global helium. Helium is used in semiconductor manufacturing, which will affect Taiwan, that relied on the Gulf for 37% of LNG and much of its helium and sulphur. Half of the world’s sea-borne trade in sulphur – a vital industrial input – is via the Straight of Hormuz. The disruption to petrochemical complexes and fertiliser supply has raised global food prices. Meanwhile, the damage to Aluminium Bahrain (ALBA), the world’s biggest outside China, and Emirates Global Aluminium created a shortage of automotive-grade aluminium for manufacturers including Toyota, Nissan, BMW, and Hyundai. In services, the disruption to shipping is severe, and the airline industry is cancelling routes due to the shortage of jet fuel.

A Risk of Prolonged Conflict with the ‘Houthification’ of the War 

An OECD report in mid-March made a brave attempt to forecast the war impact on the global economy with a downside scenario of oil prices averaging $135/b in 2Q2026 and, although falling thereafter, remaining higher than before the war into 2027. This suggested that global GDP growth could slow from 2.9% to 2.6% in 2026 and from 3.0% to 2.5% in 2027.

But these forecasts could be underestimates depending on how long the war will last, if it escalates, or how it will end. Even if the US declares a victory and pulls out, a war of attrition could persist with the ‘Houthification’ of the war, delaying reconstruction and repair of the damaged Gulf facilities. By mid-April, the IMF was suggesting that a prolonged conflict could lead to a global recession. 

Asian Economies Most Vulnerable 

The negative impact on the global economy outside the Middle East region is greatest on the Asian economies, which rely heavily on imports of Gulf energy, industrial supplies, and remittances. Gulf oil met 70% of Japan and South Korea’s and half of India’s imports. In 2025, around 87% of oil and 86% of LNG passing through the Strait of Hormuz were destined for Asia. By the end of March, the disruption to supply chains compelled the Asian Development Bank to offer a fast-disbursing Trade & Supply Chain Finance Programme to the private sector and fiscal support to governments. 

Central Banks Under Pressure to Hike Rates  

As signalled by higher bond yields, these wide-ranging cost/price rises and the impact on inflationary expectations suggest Central Banks need to raise interest rates. However, there is a reluctance to tighten monetary policy in response to a supply shock. This dilemma seems acute in the UK and Europe, which are heavily dependent on imported LNG whose price has doubled. Pre-war expectations of interest rate cuts in 2026 have now been replaced by rate increases, which could tip the already weak growth into recession. Meanwhile, as a net energy exporter, the US is less vulnerable. Yet, the broad inflationary pressures could make rate hikes inevitable the longer the war continues, creating headwinds to growth. But the major impact of this war on the US cannot be measured in slower growth but in declining global ‘soft-power’.

Chinese Growth Also Likely to Slow

The Chinese economy has been cushioned by high levels of energy stockpiles, Russian energy imports, and, until the threat of US blockade of the Hormuz Strait, Iranian supplies. Despite these early buffers, potential supply disruptions led China to block its fuel and fertilizer exports (later eased for hard-hit countries). Shortages of industrial inputs could make it more difficult to meet the 2026 growth target of 4.5-5.0% — lowest since the early 1990s. A longer war that slows global growth is a bigger risk given China’s dependence on exports.

The Gulf Economies Facing Long-Term Damage 

In the Middle East, the Gulf economies have been devastated with damage to the central pillars of their existence. The destruction from the war is not only on their fossil fuel and connected industrial base, but also in the services sectors of air travel, tourism, property, finance, and hospitality. Of the neighbouring non-conflict economies in the Eastern Mediterranean, oil importers will have to deal with major foreign payments constraints as their energy import bill rises. Turkey, with a 30% inflation rate, and Egypt, with a high debt burden, will both struggle to pursue their adjustment policies. 

As for the Iranian economy, it is having to absorb US and Israeli bombing of its military and economic infrastructure. The Iranian economy is more diversified than the rest of the Gulf and is largely self-sufficient in food. But its two biggest steel plants and petrochemical and gas complexes have already been damaged, and key infrastructure and the main oil export hub of Kharg Island targeted. With 50% inflation, years of sanctions, and dysfunctional infrastructure (water shortages were one of the factors driving the January protests), Iranians are facing desperate hardship.

…With A Shift of Supply Chains Away from the Hormuz Strait 

Six weeks into the war, the global economy has begun to adjust with major consequences for global trade and power relations. As seen after the COVID-19 epidemic, global supply chains are being reorganised as Asian and other countries seek alternatives to the Gulf. Already, secondary pipelines to avoid the Hormuz Strait are being revived and expanded. The rising cost of shipping is increasing traffic on overland routes such as the Gulf-Iraq-Turkey route and the Middle Corridor. The war is likely to support the shift to renewables and nuclear energy, even if in the short-run, there is increased focus on domestic coal and gas. Gulf states, too, may seek to diversify their security dependence on the US, but a return to their pre-war position in the global economy will prove more difficult.

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The post The Economic Impact of the Iran War: A Global Supply Chain Shock first appeared on Middle East Centre.

Algeria’s role as a central mediator in the Sahel is facing its most momentous test in over a decade. Long positioned as a key diplomatic intermediary, Algiers built its regional influence on a strategy centred on political mediation and non-interference. Today, however, the very foundations of this approach are being challenged by a swiftly evolving regional order marked by military coups, shifting alliances and the resurgence of armed actors.

Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in Mali, a country that lies at the heart of Algeria’s strategic environment. Sharing a vast border and connected through deep social and historical ties with northern communities, Mali’s stability has long been considered a matter of national security for Algeria. Yet, the fragmentation of the political architecture that once governed the Malian crisis signals a profound shift in the regional balance of power.

A Sahel Reconfigured: The Rise of the ‘Coup Belt’

The Sahel today is increasingly defined by what analysts have termed a ‘coup belt’, stretching from Guinea in the West to Sudan in the East. Military-led governments have become the dominant political rulers, reshaping both domestic governance and external partnerships. This shift has undermined multilateral frameworks that once structured crisis management.

Algeria’s relations with these governments reflect this new reality. While ties with Niger and Chad have shown signs of improvement, particularly through renewed economic and strategic cooperation, relations with Mali remain deeply strained. These tensions are not merely diplomatic; they reflect competing visions of how security should be managed in the region.

The decision by Bamako’s transitional authorities to withdraw from the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement marked a rupture with the diplomatic framework that had guided conflict resolution efforts for nearly a decade. By rejecting an agreement negotiated under Algerian mediation and endorsed by the United Nations, Mali’s military rulers have signalled a shift away from political compromise towards coercive approaches.

The Limits of Military Solutions

This shift is noticeable given the repeated failures of military strategies in the Sahel. Over the past decade, military interventions, most notably France’s Operation Barkhane, sought to contain jihadist groups through force. While these operations achieved relative tactical successes, they ultimately failed to prevent the reorganisation and expansion of armed groups across the region.

Rather than being dismantled, jihadist groups adapted and consolidated. The emergence of Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), bringing together several Al-Qaeda factions under a unified structure, illustrates this evolution. In parallel, Islamic State affiliates have expanded their influence, contributing to an increasingly complex and competitive jihadist landscape.

These groups are no longer peripheral actors. They have embedded themselves within local economies, exploiting governance gaps and positioning themselves as alternative providers of security and resources. In doing so, they have transformed from insurgent movements into entrenched actors within the regional order.

Recent developments in Mali underscore this transformation. The encirclement and blockade of Bamako by JNIM highlights the extent to which the Malian state’s authority is being contested. Even more contradictory is the very recent response of the Malian junta, which reportedly entered into negotiations with JNIM to secure a corridor into the capital. This development reveals a paradox: a government that fiercely rejected Algeria’s mediation and prioritised military solutions has been compelled to engage in direct negotiation under pressure.

Algeria’s Diplomatic Model Under Strain

For Algeria, these dynamics represent a structural challenge. Its approach to the Sahel has long rested on the premise that sustainable stability can only be achieved through inclusive political settlements addressing the root causes of conflict. The Algiers Peace Agreement embodied this vision, combining political and security arrangements with socio-economic development.

However, the conditions that enabled such an approach have significantly eroded. Sahelian governments have shown limited commitment to negotiation, favouring the consolidation of power through force. At the same time, the presence of external actors, particularly Russian-linked mercenaries, has introduced new dynamics that marginalise traditional mediation efforts.

This evolving landscape has created an inconsistency with Algeria’s diplomatic approach. While it remains analytically compelling, its practical implementation has become increasingly difficult in an environment characterised by fragmentation, militarisation and shifting alliances.

A Region at Risk of Strategic Spillover

Beyond the Sahel, these dynamics carry broader regional implications. The continued expansion of jihadist groups raises the risk of spillover into the Gulf of Guinea, where countries such as Benin, Togo and Nigeria are facing growing security pressures, with a significant risk that the mistakes that have fuelled jihadism in the Sahel will be replicated in the Gulf.

Both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates appear to have strategically prioritised Africa as a new stronghold following setbacks in the Middle East. Their ability to adapt, expand and integrate into local contexts suggests that the threat is not only enduring but evolving.

In this context, the Sahel is no longer a peripheral security concern but a central theatre in broader geopolitical and security dynamics. The failure to stabilise the region risks creating a continuum of instability across the African continent.

Between Continuity and Adaptation

Despite these challenges, Algeria has not abandoned its strategic approach. Algerian diplomacy has regained a more proactive posture, combining traditional mediation efforts with new instruments, including economic cooperation and development initiatives. The creation of the Algerian Agency for International Cooperation reflects an attempt to address the socio-economic dimensions of instability that were previously underemphasised.

At the same time, constitutional reforms have expanded Algeria’s strategic options, allowing for the possibility of external military engagement under multilateral frameworks. While Algeria continues to reject direct military intervention, these developments suggest a gradual adaptation of its posture to a more complex environment.

Yet, the central dilemma remains unresolved. Algeria’s political solution retains its relevance, particularly in light of the repeated failures of military approaches. However, the actors that dominate the current Sahelian landscape operate according to logics that do not align with negotiated settlements. The transformation of the Sahel is not merely a crisis of governance; it represents a reconfiguration of regional order. Algeria is not absent from this transformation, but it is navigating an environment in which its traditional role is increasingly contested.

The erosion of mediation, the redundancy of military coups and the growing influence of non-state armed actors all point to a shifting balance in which diplomacy alone is no longer sufficient.  As such, Algeria’s challenge is not only to defend its diplomatic model but to frame within a landscape where the boundaries between political negotiation, military coercion and non-state power are increasingly blurred. Its role in the Sahel will depend less on its past achievements than on its ability to recalibrate its strategy in response to a rapidly evolving regional order.

The post From Mediation to Erosion? Algeria and the New Sahel Order first appeared on Middle East Centre.

Middle powers often perceive bipolar and multipolar world orders as spaces where they can exercise greater leverage. However, this conventional wisdom must be checked. The strategy of ‘playing the China card’  – or the Soviet card, or American card – carries a risk that is often overlooked. What begins as tactical leverage can quickly become a strategic trap.

A few months before the Suez War, Egypt’s ambassador, Dr Ahmed Hussein, met U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to discuss American support for financing the Aswan High Dam. While Dulles was already sceptical about the economic feasibility of the project and concerned about pushback from Congress over Egypt’s Soviet ties, the Egyptian ambassador tried to regain leverage by arbitraging the bipolar world order. He claimed that Egypt had a Soviet offer ‘right here in my pocket.’ Dulles, who had been furious over Egypt’s Soviet arms deal a year earlier, replied sharply, ‘Well, as you have the money already, you don’t need any from us! My offer is withdrawn!’ 

Although often overlooked, the incident is well documented in multiple accounts, including the testimony of Dr Mahmoud Fawzy, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs (1952–64). While the Suez War had other underlying causes, this incident triggered a chain of reactions. Nasser’s nationalisation of the canal was only the beginning, as the crisis ultimately left Britain humiliated by the new superpowers and demonstrated Egypt’s resolve in ways that came to symbolise the ‘end of empire.’ 

The Perils of Entrapment and Unintended Alliance

Eventually, Nasser emerged victorious, retaining control of the canal and securing public endorsement across the region. Indeed, the crisis acted as a force multiplier, elevating his narrative into tangible political gains in Damascus and Baghdad shortly thereafter. However, this was also the moment when he had to abandon non-alignment and move closer to the Soviet orbit, bringing his domestic and foreign policies – in addition to the Arab-Israeli conflict – under the shadow of the Cold War. Yet, Nasser did not wish to become a communist. Although he pursued an egalitarian agenda, policies such as land redistribution were widely compatible with Western-style reformation. 

Nasser told the American ambassador, following Dulles’ cancellation of the financing offer, ‘I don’t like the Russians. I’ve had a lot to do with your people, and basically, I like your people.’ Feeling threatened by the US public embarrassment, he added, ‘But you fellows are out to kill me, and I am not going to be killed.’ Later, His words proved prophetic. Negotiations with the Soviet Union, now Egypt’s sole remaining partner, dragged on for three years, as Moscow leveraged its monopoly, knowing Cairo had nowhere else to turn.

This episode underscores the perils of entrapment that may result from playing great powers against each other. A middle power today might threaten deeper cooperation with China by pretending to suddenly cozy up to Beijing to push back on American pressure. However, it is likely that the threat turns into a self-reinforcing cycle with the middle power ending in Beijing’s camp, often unaware of the costs and dependencies incurred. If the threat triggers a US backlash, the middle power may find that its best alternative is now to take Chinese offers on less favourable terms – simply to fill the gap. 

Hence, middle powers pursuing this strategy must be genuinely prepared to embrace either option, not merely signal flexibility as a bargaining tactic. Otherwise, middle powers risk being taken less seriously. As European leaders increasingly visit Beijing to gain leverage in Washington, China appears to be growing sceptical of those treating it as a ‘photo booth’ for scaring the United States rather than a reliable partner.

Ideology Cannot Hold: The Long Arm of Transactionalism 

In principle, the Americans viewed Nasser and his ‘Free Officers’ colleagues as a nationalist movement. This assessment was largely accurate, given the group’s ideological diversity, which a communist organisation could not tolerate. Consequently, the United States assumed that nationalist movements like Egypt’s would naturally distance themselves from the Soviets. Americans therefore took for granted that Nasser would align away from the Soviets and remain independent of the traditional imperial powers, Britain and France. In contrast, the Soviets labelled Nasser as ‘bourgeois’ and maintained a cautious stance toward the region, even engaging with socialist-led Israel in its foundational years. 

The fact that Nasser ultimately became a Soviet ally despite these contradictions further demonstrates how ideology can be subordinated to realpolitik. Even at the height of the Cold War, ideological alignment was subject to the adaptability of middle powers and the pragmatism of great powers. Today’s world is less ideologically polarised than during the Cold War, meaning that support is often transactional, conditional, and contingent upon political commitments. Under the Biden Administration, democracies sought to leverage the ideological bonds of the Western ‘Free World,’ but this effort faltered due to weak structural fundamentals.

Also, India’s multi-alignment strategy provides a contemporary illustration. The country has robust relations with Russia and the United States, in addition to engaging with China through forums such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Yet, this balancing act could not continue unchecked, as all parties demand economic privileges tied to political obligations. The democratic bond between the world’s largest democracy and the United States’ role as a global guardian of democracy cannot offset trade deficits or compensate for India’s perceived reluctance to isolate Russia or confront China in a potential conflict scenario. After all, India has to relax certain tariff restrictions for the US and opened markets in alignment with Washington’s trade priorities, after it envisioned positioning itself as an alternative to China in U.S.-bound trade. 

Cautionary Tale

The Suez Crisis offers a cautionary lesson for middle powers. Overplaying the card of a rival power, whether Washington, Moscow, or today, Beijing, may seem tempting, offering leverage and short-term gains, but it carries significant risks. Nasser’s attempt to extract concessions from both the United States and the Soviet Union produced immediate political rewards, yet it also entangled Egypt in a relationship with many strains attached. 

In the contemporary context, middle powers face a similarly transactional environment. Attempts to signal alignment or threat to one great power to extract concessions from another can quickly become self-reinforcing, producing estrangement, dependence, and strategic entrapment. The lesson is clear; if a state seeks to play a rival power’s card, it must do so with a full readiness to pursue the option it signals, rather than treating it as a temporary bluff. Half-measures or posturing can leave a country locked into commitments it did not anticipate, undermining autonomy rather than enhancing it. 

[To read more on this and everything Middle East, the LSE Middle East Centre Library is now open for browsing and borrowing for LSE students and staff. For more information, please visit the MEC Library page.]

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Marouf Cabi’s Iranian Kurdistan under the Islamic Republic: Change, Revolution and Resistance is a timely and important contribution to the study of post-revolutionary Iran, offering a decisive shift away from entrenched centre-oriented narratives. Rather than reproducing the familiar state-centric and Persian-focused frameworks that have long structured the field, Cabi reorients the analytical gaze toward the periphery, placing Kurdistan at the heart of inquiry. In doing so, the book opens up a fundamentally different vantage point from which to understand the Islamic Republic – one grounded in the lived experiences, political struggles and social transformations of a region often treated as marginal. 

What emerges from this perspective is a broader rethinking of Iran itself rather than simply a regional history. Drawing on rich empirical material and a clear analytical framework, Cabi demonstrates that the dynamics of the periphery are not external to the making of modern Iran but deeply constitutive of it. Kurdistan, in this account, appears not as a peripheral appendage to a coherent national core, but as a critical site through which the limits, contradictions and adaptations of the post-revolutionary state become visible. This move effectively challenges a longstanding historiographical tendency to conflate the Iranian state with a singular ethnocultural identity and to reduce Kurdish political claims to questions of separatism. 

By foregrounding the socio-economic, cultural and political transformations of Kurdish society over four decades, the book offers what can be understood as a grounded ‘people’s history’ of the Islamic Republic from its margins. In doing so, it enriches our understanding of Kurdish politics and society while also inviting a more nuanced and relational approach to state formation, governance and resistance in contemporary Iran. 

Methodologically, the book is distinguished by its wide-ranging use of primary sources, including party publications, oral histories, regional press and official data. This empirical depth enables Cabi to move beyond both state-centric accounts and reductive readings of Kurdish politics. Crucially, he sustains a careful analytical balance – avoiding any romanticisation of Kurdish nationalism while offering a measured yet incisive critique of the Iranian state’s centralising, militarised and homogenising policies. This methodological and interpretive rigor enhances the book’s credibility and underscores its significance for both Kurdish studies and Iranian historiography. 

Structured chronologically across seven chapters, the book traces the transformation of Kurdish society from the late Pahlavi period through the post-revolutionary decades and into the contemporary moment marked by the 2022 uprising of ‘Women, Life, Freedom’. The opening chapters establish the historical and conceptual foundations by situating Kurdish society within longer processes of state formation, socio-economic change and resistance.  

Chapter 1 provides the historical background to the 1979 Revolution from a Kurdish perspective, showing how twentieth-century transformations such as land reform, urbanisation, centralisation and the spread of modern education reshaped Kurdish society long before the fall of the monarchy. Cabi demonstrates that the revolution was not an isolated rupture, but the outcome of deeper socio-economic, cultural and political changes that altered class relations, gender structures and forms of activism in Kurdistan, while also intensifying its marginalisation within a Persian-centric nation-building project. 

Chapters 2 and 3 turn to the revolutionary moment itself, examining the emergence of ‘revolutionary Kurdistan’ and a short-lived yet significant experience of de facto self-rule in the aftermath of 1979, before the state’s re-militarisation of the region in 1980. By recovering this often-overlooked episode, Cabi challenges dominant accounts of the Iranian Revolution that marginalise Kurdish agency. Instead, he demonstrates that Kurdish actors articulated alternative visions of governance, participation and democracy that were deeply embedded in the revolutionary process. Kurdish mobilisation thus appears as a central arena in which the promises and limits of the new regime were contested, ultimately exposing the gap between its claims to inclusivity and its practices of coercion. 

Chapter 4 extends the analysis into the 1980s, examining the full-scale militarisation of Kurdistan and the emergence of a prolonged armed struggle between Kurdish movements and the Islamic Republic. Building on the collapse of the revolutionary moment, Cabi situates this phase within both the regime’s consolidation of power and the broader context of the Iran–Iraq War, showing how armed resistance became the dominant form of political engagement. Crucially, he argues that the Kurdish armed struggle was neither a bid for outright regime change nor an expression of inherent separatism, but rather a defensive space for survival necessitated by the violent closure of peaceful political and cultural avenues (pp. 93–94). In this context, armed resistance emerged as a means of pursuing self-rule within a decentralised and democratic Iranian framework. The chapter ultimately demonstrates that the armed struggle of the 1980s was a critical crucible that ensured the survival of the Kurdish movement and profoundly shaped the political and cultural consciousness of contemporary Kurdish society. 

Chapter 5 examines the 1990s as a decade of ideological, organisational and socio-economic transformation in Iran and Iranian Kurdistan, shaped by the post–Iran–Iraq War context, globalisation, and the consolidation of the Islamic Republic under the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–1997). Cabi critiques post-war ‘reconstruction,’ showing how it empowered para-governmental foundations (bonyads) – state-linked economic conglomerates operating beyond formal accountability – and the IRGC, while deepening the marginalisation of regions such as Kurdistan (pp. 119–121). This uneven development, he argues, produced practices such as kolbaring as systemic outcomes rather than anomalies. At the same time, a limited reformist opening, culminating in President Khatami’s 1997 election, enabled the growth of Kurdish civil society and representation, though it soon stalled under hardline resistance. Alongside the decline of armed movements and the crisis of traditional Kurdish parties, the chapter highlights a shift toward more diversified, civilian-led forms of political engagement.

Chapter 6 offers one of the book’s strongest contributions through its detailed analysis of the rise of civil society in Iranian Kurdistan. Moving beyond frameworks that either generalise Iranian civil society or reduce Kurdish politics to violence, the chapter conceptualises civil society as an autonomous arena of struggle and democratisation. Drawing on a wide range of local sources, it maps the expansion of diverse actors, including women’s organisations, environmental groups and cultural associations. Importantly, the analysis extends beyond state repression to include socio-economic and cultural constraints such as poverty and patriarchal norms. While acknowledging severe repression, the chapter emphasises the dynamic interaction between state and society, arguing that ‘the Iranian case reflects a continuous struggle between civil society and an authoritarian state’ (p. 173), and that civil society actors actively reshape the contours of authoritarian governance. 

The final chapter compellingly frames the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising as both the culmination of four decades of social transformation and a rupture with the reformist paradigm that had shaped Iranian politics since the late 1990s. Triggered by the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, the movement evolved into what the author terms a ‘revolutionary uprising’ (p. 192), one that fundamentally questioned the regime’s legitimacy. Crucially, the chapter insists that the uprising cannot be understood in isolation, as it ‘could not have happened without a history of resistance and social change which have shaped present conditions’ (p. 191). 

Overall, Iranian Kurdistan under the Islamic Republic is a significant and thought-provoking contribution that successfully bridges empirical richness with conceptual innovation. By foregrounding Kurdish history as indispensable to understanding modern Iran since 1979, the book calls for a fundamental decentralisation of Iranian historiography. In highlighting Kurdistan as a critical site of resistance and transformation, Cabi demonstrates that any meaningful account of Iran’s past – and its democratic future – must engage with its unequal ethnic structures and diverse social realities, offering a compelling framework for rethinking the relationship between state, society and periphery in the modern Middle East. This work also paves the way for future scholarship on the historiography of peripheral and marginalised communities – whether in Iran or beyond – as constitutive and generative sites of history-making in their own right.

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On 28 February 2026, the United States (US) and Israel launched a second war against Iran within less than a year, amid significant setbacks suffered by Iran since Hamas’s deadly attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israeli military strikes in 2024, followed by joint operations with the US during the 12-Day War in June 2025, undermined Iran’s air defences and nuclear programme. In January 2026, the country experienced widespread protests, which were harshly suppressed as the regime conducted a nationwide campaign of mass killings (Human Rights Watch, 2026), further exacerbating its legitimacy deficit. Meanwhile, Iran’s regional allies — Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — had been weakened (though not defeated) in their respective wars with Israel. Israel’s decision to attack Iran can therefore be seen, in part, as an attempt to exploit this weakened position and realise the longstanding ambition of its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to ‘put an end to the threat of the Ayatollah regime in Iran’ and to ‘target Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities’ (PBS, 2026).

However, this explanation only partially captures the scope and nature of Israel’s current war with Iran, which represents the culmination of a broader strategic shift aimed at reversing its pre-7 October 2023 foreign and security policy in the Middle East. From Netanyahu’s return to power in 2009 until 6 October 2023, Israel’s regional strategy rested on two principles: entrenchment and containment. Entrenchment held that Israel would pursue peace with Arab states in exchange for peace, rather than territory. Under this approach, Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) could be granted limited civic autonomy but would remain under Israeli military occupation. At the same time, entrenchment prioritised the use of military force over diplomacy in Israel’s regional policy.

These rigid principles rendered prospects for peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Syria, and Lebanon largely unviable. Consequently, Israel adopted a conflict-management strategy of containment, applied most forcefully to Hamas after it seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2008. Together with Egypt, Israel imposed a territorial blockade and maritime siege on Gaza, accompanied by economic, diplomatic and military sanctions aimed at limiting Hamas’s ability to govern and develop its military capabilities. This strategy included periodic clashes and major operations such as Cast Lead (2009), Pillar of Defence (2012), Protective Edge (2014) and Guardian of the Walls (2021). Concurrently, Israel relied on Western-led economic and diplomatic sanctions against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, while seeking to degrade their military capabilities through limited force against Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, as well as through efforts to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme.

With the benefit of hindsight, Israel’s containment-based regional policy appears to have failed. Iran continued to advance its nuclear programme and expand its arsenal of drones, rockets and ballistic missiles. Hamas, despite the blockade and repeated military confrontations, consolidated its military capabilities, which were demonstrated during its 7 October 2023 deadly attacks on Israel. Similarly, Hezbollah evolved into a hybrid force with near-state capabilities, including a large rocket and drone arsenal and highly trained ground units. Particularly concerning from Israel’s perspective was Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, a special operations unit trained to infiltrate Israeli territory in a manner similar to the 7 October 2023 attacks. At the same time, the regional balance of power appeared to be shifting toward Iran, which increased coordination with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, effectively advancing a strategy of multi-front pressure that risked encircling Israel militarily and strategically. 

Against this backdrop, the war launched by Israel, in conjunction with the US, against Iran represents the culmination of an effort since 7 October 2023 to replace containment with an activist-offensive posture. The extensive decapitation campaign targeting the Iranian regime’s senior military and political leadership, combined with strikes on nuclear facilities, military assets, infrastructure and leadership compounds, exemplifies this shift. In relation to Iran, this strategy appears designed to compel the regime, after the war, to divert its limited resources toward domestic rebuilding and political stabilisation rather than restoring its pre-7 October 2023 eminent regional position. 

The strategic shift is equally evident on Israel’s second war front in Lebanon, which emerged following attacks launched by Hezbollah in support of Iran. In contrast to its pre-7 October 2023 containment approach, Israel has not relied solely on airpower. Instead, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have deployed inside Lebanon with the aim of controlling a significant portion of southern territory, according to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz (BBC, 2026). This would enable the IDF to establish a territorial buffer zone between Israeli communities along the northern border and Hezbollah ground forces and constrain use of short-range missiles against Israeli civilians, while also providing leverage in potential ceasefire negotiations.

Parallels can be drawn between Israel’s conduct in Lebanon and its modus operandi in the Gaza Strip and Syria, highlighting the contours of its emerging activist-offensive regional strategy. In Gaza, Israel has established military control over approximately 53% of the territory (BBC, 2026a), creating a buffer zone between Hamas forces and the civilian areas targeted during the 7 October attacks. Similarly, in Syria, the IDF has deployed between 2 and 10 kilometres inside the former United Nations disengagement buffer zone, established under the 31 May 1974 Israeli-Syrian Agreement on Disengagement. 

The activist-offensive posture offers certain advantages for Israel, notably in degrading adversaries’ military capabilities and creating buffer zones to protect civilian populations along its northern and southern borders. However, its opponents have demonstrated resilience in rebuilding their capabilities, suggesting that the activist-offensive approach may result in altering rather than eliminating the threats Israel faces. Moreover, the prolonged application of such a posture could further exacerbate Israel’s international legitimacy deficit and weaken its diplomatic standing. 

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Challenges

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the most arid of the world’s major regions. Providing adequate supplies of water to people and the economic activities which provide them with food and employment has long been a challenge. This situation has been made even more challenging by population growth and economic development (which have increased the demand for water) and climate change (which is reducing the availability of water and making it more erratic). In some cases, competition for water among countries that share a river basin has exacerbated the situation still further.

While the region is known for its aridity, there is sometimes too much water, arriving too quickly for the existing infrastructure to cope. The result is often catastrophic flooding.

Responses

MENA countries have responded in several ways. One has been the building of infrastructure. This has taken the form of dams (such as Syria’s Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates) to retain water for use in dry seasons or pipelines and canals to convey water from wetter regions to drier ones, such as Morocco’s autoroute de l’eau, designed to take water from the rainier North to drier and more populous regions to the South. Another response has been to modernise irrigation by installing sprinkler or drip systems, thus reducing water use in the agricultural sector – which everywhere in the region consumes the lion’s share of national water budgets.

MENA governments have also resorted to public information campaigns, urging citizens to use less water at home, for example, by turning off the tap while brushing their teeth. While much cheaper than infrastructure, the impact of these campaigns on water consumption has been limited. Even if the public were to comply wholeheartedly, such campaigns could only have a marginal effect, given that household consumption of water is everywhere in MENA just a small proportion of overall national water budgets.

The road not taken in almost all MENA countries is the pricing of water at a level that reflects the cost of delivering it to users (of all kinds). Such a step would give users a real incentive to consume less water. In financial terms, this is a value-for-money option – almost a no-brainer. In political terms, however, it is far less attractive. Consumers regard water as a basic right and, in many cases, a divine gift for which no charge should be made. For their part, political leaders are reluctant to impose higher tariffs that might be unaffordable for poorer demographic groups and that might well provoke discontent. Moreover, governments wish to avoid imposing tariffs on water use in agriculture that would lead to the loss of farming livelihoods and hence the acceleration of migration to the cities. What’s more, moves towards more economic water-pricing in agriculture may be resisted by vested interests: the owners of large agri-businesses are often well connected politically.

MENA governments have usually done better in terms of saving water in agriculture by using administrative measures to encourage farmers to give up or at least reduce the growing of ‘thirsty’ crops. In Jordan, for example, farmers have been persuaded to reduce or abandon the cultivation of alfalfa (a low-value fodder crop) in areas in which groundwater depletion is a concern. In Saudi Arabia, the cultivation of wheat (a crop readily available on the global market) had been phased out by 2018; alfalfa is due to go the same way.

In nearly all MENA countries, groundwater is a major source of water. In decades past, it served as a ‘buffer’, enabling farmers to have access to the water they needed during dry years. It now serves as a means of enabling unsustainable levels of economic activity, whatever the weather. With renewable aquifers being consistently overdrawn, water tables are falling. Those with the means, such as agri-businesses, are able to drill ever-deeper wells and pay the cost in fuel of pumping water from them. Small farmers frequently can’t and so go out of business. Media reporting suggest that this has been happening in the Souss-Massa region of southern Morocco (from which the EU and UK get most of their tomatoes).

In general, MENA governments have preferred to try to balance their national water budgets by increasing supply rather than constraining demand. Major infrastructure projects offer political leaders the opportunity to demonstrate to their publics in a very visible way that they are addressing the water-scarcity problem.

New desalination plants are a popular option. However, given the cost per cubic metre of producing water in this way, it is not a panacea – crucially, desalinated water is too expensive for all but the most valuable crops. Moreover, desalination damages the marine environment, as ‘brine’ (hyper-saline water), the main by-product of the process, is released into coastal waters. And in the GCC countries, the extreme dependence on desalination creates various forms of vulnerability (as shown by the Iranian drone attack on a desalination plant in Bahrain on 8 March 2026) that their governments are only now beginning to address.

One source of water that is increasing (due to population growth) is sewage (‘wastewater’) from homes, hotels and other urban facilities. To turn it from an environmental hazard into a valuable resource requires it to be treated, something that is happening to an ever-expanding extent in most MENA countries. The construction of the wastewater treatment plants and the treatment processes are inevitably costly, although still a good deal less so than desalination.

MENA governments are frequently criticised for the leakiness of their water distribution networks. However, much of the water put into those networks and for which no revenue is received (‘non-revenue water’) is in fact delivered to consumers but not paid for. The actual physical loss from leaking pipes may be relatively small (as in Jordan) and in any case some of this ‘lost’ water may be recoverable from the aquifers into which it drains.

Floods

In the MENA region, storm-drainage systems have often proved unable to cope with the more intense rainstorms which climate change has brought. The result is the sort of calamitous floods which occurred, for example, in Jeddah in 2009 and 2022, in Dubai in 2016 and 2024 and earlier this year in northern Morocco. The flooding question can only be addressed by increasing the capacity of existing storm drainage systems or installing them where they don’t. (Where cities have expanded rapidly, as in the Gulf, storm-drainage systems may simply not have been built.) Such systems are expensive and disruptive to install in existing cities. They are, however, necessary, if further destructive flooding is to be avoided.

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Iraq did not choose the current war in the Middle East.  Yet the confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran is shaping Iraq’s fate regardless. Iraq has become an active battleground for all three protagonists: Iran and its militia proxies have struck targets across the country, with the Kurdistan region bearing the heaviest toll, while US and Israeli forces have hit militia strongholds in central and southern Iraq.  With each exchange, the physical and economic damage mounts, and Baghdad’s efforts to remain neutral grow more desperate. 

The immediate costs, however, are only part of the threat. The violence is reopening domestic fault lines, exposing the fragility of the country’s post-2003 political order. The Iran war may yet prove the gravest challenge to Iraq’s political cohesion since the ISIS invasion of 2014, a crisis that unleashed powerful centrifugal forces testing Iraq’s territorial integrity to the core. 

Fractured Politics, Fragile State 

As in 2014, the domestic pressure stems from a fundamental divergence in how Iraq’s main communal groups perceive the same crisis, and from the absence of any common national agenda. Confronted by a regional threat, parochial reflexes rather than national calculations are driving their responses. Officials in Baghdad and Erbil appear to be operating in growing isolation, deepening an estrangement that already runs deep. More worryingly, the two governments risk ending up on opposing sides of the battle. As Erbil’s tolerance for militia attacks wears thin, the prospect of direct armed confrontation is growing, leaving the federal government with an invidious choice: challenge the militias and risk violent intra-Shia fragmentation, or permit a deepening conflict with Kurdish forces. 

What is at stake in this war differs sharply across Iraq’s communal landscape. For the Islamist Shia parties, Iran has long been a mixed blessing – a heavy-handed patron that has regularly compromised Baghdad’s independence, but also a crucial anchor of Shia solidarity and counterweight to regional rivals. A severely weakened Islamic Republic would alter the regional and domestic balance of power to the detriment of Islamist Shia factions. For some Kurdish leaders, by contrast, the erosion of Iranian regional power lifts a significant constraint on nationalist ambitions while undermining the main source of support for their principal political rivals. For Iraq’s Sunni factions, diminished, divided and never fully reconciled to post-2003 Shia and Kurdish dominance, a weakened Iran signals a regional shift in favour of their Arab and Turkish allies. 

Persistent Foundational Disputes

The domestic battle lines have not yet hardened as starkly as during the ISIS crisis, when Iraq was effectively partitioned along communal lines. Iraqi communal blocs have also grown more factionalised, spawning cross-communal alliances – most recently between Nouri al-Maliki, the KDP, and various Sunni parties – driven by a kleptocratic oligarchy’s shared interest in capturing state resources rather than ideological conviction.

But foundational disputes persist. Disagreements between Baghdad and Erbil over the constitution, especially budgets, oil-sector management, territorial control and the limits of federal authority, have been managed rather than settled. Erbil’s efforts to exploit the disruption to southern Iraqi oil exports to renegotiate its budget deal with Baghdad may be an early indicator of what lies ahead. Ahead of the November 2025 elections, the KDP campaigned extensively on resolving outstanding constitutional issues as economic and national security imperatives. Wartime conditions will only make those demands more pressing. 

The Collapse of External Guardrails 

Compounding the risks to Iraqi political cohesion is the erosion of the external stabilisers that ultimately contained Iraq’s centrifugal tendencies during the ISIS crisis. Iran provided Iraq’s Islamist Shia establishment with cohesion, strategic direction, and critical military support. Even if the Islamic Republic survives in attenuated form, Tehran will be inwardly consumed and outwardly diminished for years to come. Meanwhile, the Marjaiyah, the clerical establishment in Najaf, remains a deliberate non-factor, unwilling to deploy its religious authority as a political brake on Iraqi leaders.

The United States, whose military intervention preserved Iraqi territorial integrity in 2014–2017, may this time actively deepen domestic discord. As Baghdad drifts perilously close to being regarded in Washington as an adversary, Trump administration officials appear to be engaging the Kurdistan Regional Government as a de facto independent ally. US efforts to coopt Iraqi Kurdish support for Washington’s reported plans to mobilise Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are only likely to make matters worse – especially if Kurdish leaders believe they now enjoy White House backing to press a harder constitutional bargain with Baghdad or even revive the independence bid of 2017.

The Stakes of Endgame

The immediate scale of damage to Iraq’s political fabric will depend significantly on how the Iran war ends, and how quickly. A shorter conflict that leaves the Iranian regime diminished will be disruptive but not existential, given the fiscal dependencies and regional pressures keeping the KRG bound to Baghdad’s orbit. A longer war that dismantles the Iranian state would test Iraq’s fault lines far more severely, as spillover would become impossible to contain. In that scenario, renewed internecine violence within Iraq would become a genuine possibility – this time without the US military presence that restrained Iraqi leaders during the last major crisis. 

The risks to Iraq will also endure well beyond the immediate hostilities. However it ends, the Iran War has structurally transformed the Middle East: Iran weakened; Israel ascendant; and Turkey and the Gulf states recalibrating their strategies in an environment of both opportunity and anxiety. As regional powers manoeuvre for position, competition will create new strategic fault lines that history suggests will be contested violently. It is the weakest and most ethnically diverse states – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran itself – that are likely to absorb the greatest stress. In the years ahead, Iraq’s political elite may confront a more fundamental test of the post-2003 order than anything they have faced before. 

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A conventional wisdom emerged almost immediately after US President Donald Trump initiated war against Iran on 28 February 2026, namely that he had no clear war aims. In contrast, the official aim of Israel’s war on Lebanon is, on the face of it, crystal clear: complete disarmament of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Muslim organisation that is a military organisation, a political party, and an important social welfare provider, all-in-one. Dismantling Hezbollah completely and coercing the Lebanese government into concluding a peace treaty with Israel are not declared war aims, but are also seen, entirely plausibly, as Israeli objectives.

But the evidence is growing that Israel is drawing itself into the same trap as the US in Iran: on the one hand, the disappointment of initial expectations of immediate victory is spurring expansion of the Israeli war effort and aims in Lebanon, while on the other hand, the risks of mission creep increase. The extraordinarily close identity of US and Israeli political views and military might, amidst the collapse of any semblance of a rules-based international order, has removed any restraints on Israeli action and ambition. The temptation to go beyond defeating Hezbollah to redrawing Lebanon’s political system and social map completely appears to be luring Israeli decision-makers. Hubris rules the day — much as it did in 1982, when then Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon entertained the same grand designs of reshaping Lebanon, ironically, triggering the birth of Hezbollah.

Israel’s ramping up of its present military campaign in Lebanon confirms that its ultimate goals are more ambitious than simply maximising leverage against the central government of Lebanon to coerce it into forcibly disarming Hezbollah. Israeli officials and government media have issued new threats of conducting major ground incursions, destroying civilian infrastructure, and declaring that the entirety of the Lebanese capital Beirut, is ‘no longer considered a safe zone or beyond the reach of attack’ under new rules of engagement that abandon any attempt to spare civilian lives. Faysal Itani, an astute analyst, anticipates that Israel will displace tens of thousands of Lebanese to establish a permanent buffer zone in the South, condemning the country to an equally permanent state of war. This is likely. Less likely to materialise is the rhetoric of far-right Israeli ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious zealots who want to annex South Lebanon and settle it with Jews, but it fuels feverish speculation nonetheless.

At a minimum, it is clear that Israel cannot fully disarm Hezbollah on its own, let alone ensure its dismantling, without occupying extensive swathes of Lebanese territory far beyond the South, a venture whose long-term costs could be intolerable. A complementing effort led by the Lebanese government and army is necessary if the goal is to eliminate Hezbollah as a political organisation and social force, root-and-branch, as I have argued elsewhere. But because such an effort is not feasible, politically or militarily, the question of what Israel’s options and its endgame in Lebanon are comes to the fore once more.

There is a possibility, however remote, that a way to end the war can be found. On Monday 9 March 2026, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun proposed direct peace talks between his country and Israel, in the hope of heading off Israeli threats of a major expansion of the war and of bringing the military campaign to an end. Although Lebanon has no leverage whatsoever, this approach could gather pace – especially if the Trump administration favours it, which becomes conceivable if and when it seeks a deal with Iran. The US and other foreign governments, such as France, might also consider an incremental effort by the Lebanese government to curtail Hezbollah’s military activity and capability as an avenue worth developing. Egypt’s revival of its 2015 proposal to create a joint Arab force is addressed to Arab states in the Gulf but could be repurposed for Lebanon as part of a package of security measures to end the war.

Meanwhile, however, the Israeli campaign is unfolding in ways that suggest it seeks destruction of Hezbollah’s social base, along with the organization itself. Some Lebanese believe it intends to eliminate the Shia as a communal force in Lebanese politics, if not annihilate them as a close-knit community entirely. At the least, the systematic destruction of property in Shia-populated areas and of their future means of livelihood points to an effort to pauperise the entire community to an extent from which it cannot recover for many years to come. Pursuing social and political engineering of this kind and scale through brute force inevitably means massive and disproportionate firepower, resulting in indiscriminate harm to the civilian population.

Israel may be able to bring about these physical results, but the notion that it can reshape Lebanese society and politics is sheer hubris. For comparison, the US occupied an entire country, Iraq, and then spent years, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives reshaping its political system and reorienting its social alliances, and yet the Iraqi state remains incapacitated by its sectarian political system and unable to generate an economy that does not rely fundamentally on exporting oil. Whether or not Israel itself pays a long-term price, Faysal Itani is entirely justified in concluding that whatever path Israel takes next in Lebanon, the outcome for its citizens and hundreds of thousands of resident Palestinian and Syrian refugees, will be an absolute calamity.

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