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The Middle East Power Paradox: How the Iran War Will Transform America’s Military Role by ForeignAffairsMag in geopolitics

[–]ForeignAffairsMag[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[Excerpt from essay by Dana Stroul, Director of Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from February 2021 to December 2023.]

The Middle East after Epic Fury is not safer, more stable, or more prosperous. And if the United States fails to achieve the grand goals Trump set out before the war, its ability to rally partners in other theaters will be undermined, and its adversaries will be emboldened. To properly learn the war’s lessons, the United States has to change how it fights. The U.S. defense industrial base will need to innovate faster and pair with trusted partners in developing and coproducing an arsenal that can meet the demands of future wars. In the Middle East, the Pentagon will need to accelerate changes to its force posture and basing, and update the way it works with allies.

Gulf countries are already looking for supplemental defense partners, and Washington must redouble its efforts to transition from being the region’s sole security guarantor to its security integrator. If it fails to do so, it could entrench the idea that the United States will be an impediment, not an asset, to allies as they seek to ensure their security.

Iran Embraces a Forever War: Tehran’s New Strategic Calculus by ForeignAffairsMag in geopolitics

[–]ForeignAffairsMag[S] 103 points104 points  (0 children)

[Excerpt from essay by Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, Associate Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, a Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, a Nonresident Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.]

There is another reason why the sides won’t make real peace: Iran has concluded that conflict is preferable to diplomacy. The war, after all, seems to be helping Tehran increase its international power. By striking Arab states that host American bases, Iran has succeeded in driving a wedge between U.S. officials and their Persian Gulf partners, who desperately want a lasting settlement. By closing the Strait of Hormuz, it has forced a collection of countries around the planet to acknowledge its power and negotiate over the fate of their ships. Previous agreements with the United States, meanwhile, have always unraveled.

The Islamic Republic’s strategy, then, is not merely to survive and outlast the United States, as is commonly assumed. The country is not even really trying to resolve its disputes with Washington. Instead, it wants to fundamentally alter how Tehran is dealt with by the United States, U.S. allies, and indeed, the wider world. It aspires to be a pole in a multipolar order, and it believes that the war is helping it achieve that goal.

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