Some battles start slowly while others come to life quickly. It is transforming racing, nations, politics and loyalties at a phenomenal rate.
Diplomats from Iran and the US sat down in Geneva to discuss the details of a potential nuclear deal just days ago. Now, the Ayatollah is dead along with dozens of Iranian leaders, while Iranian missiles are fired at several countries across the region. Life is coming at us fast.
It is clear Iran It has three ambitions, and it has to do all of them at the same time.
First, it must find itself a new leader and a cadre of people to accompany him. That search, according to insiders, is being fast-tracked to allow a new ayatollah to be named within a week, allowing the central figure to be restored.
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Workers put up a billboard of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 2. Image: AP
Second, Iran is keen to tell the world that it is the victim here – that it has negotiated in good faith and its two greatest enemies, the US and Israel.
Under the rules of international law, it is certainly difficult to see how this war can be explained legally. Israel is not facing an imminent threat from Iran and the United Nations Security Council did not authorize the attack. What’s more, President Trump did not try to get Congressional support.
Of course, both Israel and the US knew very well that the Security Council would not support this move – a veto from Russia and perhaps China was inevitable. Donald Trump (to a lesser extent) and Benjamin Netanyahu (largely, repeatedly) know that the status of the UN has rarely been lower.
Iran’s third ambition, and by far the most overt, is to turn this war into a regional conflict. Eight months ago, the 12-day war consisted mostly of trading missile bombings by Israel and Iran. This time, it’s very different.
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Now, Iran has put the Gulf countries in a quandary, repeatedly attacking. Debris from a Saudi oil refinery, missiles are in the air over Jordan. Hezbollah, loyal to Khamenei, launched rocket attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon, triggering a ferocious response that killed more than 30 people.
The Strait of Hormuz has been largely decommissioned, Qatar has stopped selling natural gas, and oil prices have risen sharply. A British airbase in Cyprus was also attacked.
The ripples of this conflict are spreading, which is exactly what Iran wants – a war that disrupts life for a large part of the world, tests alliances and pushes countries to an early end.
But there may be another strategy here from Iran. If the remnants of the regime, mainly those left under the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard, feel that their grip is being appreciated by the country, they may be tempted to launch a final mass struggle against many of the countries they see as their enemies.
It’s a scary, daunting prospect. Is it feasible? Maybe – it’s definitely been talked about for years. But will they actually do it, or is it just another carefully curated piece, a dire threat that Iranians are happy enough to let live in the ether?
If Iran were to change course — to a more authoritarian, more moderate, or to a new type of government entirely — the knock-on consequences would be enormous. It is a country of central importance in every way. And these are difficult, uncertain times in a region fraught with prolonged volatility.
“Tell me how it ends” was the statement posed by General Petraeus when he faced the quagmire of Iraq, and it remains a very relevant question, at least to this day. Middle East.
We don’t know the answer and it’s not clear whether America or Israel is asking the question. The lessons of the past are that it is easy to start a war but hard to rebuild afterwards. Now, as the Middle East echoes to a chorus of air raid sirens, the future is being shaped. But no one knows how.
