Iran and the complexity of the world

The kitsch of power reflects the neurosis of power, as the dramatist Hermann Broch once wrote.1 This certainly seems true of ‘Epic Fury’ and ‘Lion’s Roar’, the names Washington and Tel Aviv have seen fit to give to the military campaigns that they launched on 28 February.

This new chapter of the Gulf Wars, which started with the annihilation of Iran’s Supreme Leader, senior military commanders, and the head of the Revolutionary Guards, as well as its defence minister, will likely not be a long one, for the simple reason that Tehran, which lost control of the skies early on, does not have the capability.

Estimates of Iran’s short- and medium-range ballistic missile stocks put the number of warheads at a few thousand. Its armaments supply chain, itself hit by targeted bombing, is incapable of replenishing these dwindling stockpiles. Even if Iran continues to be able to mass-produce drones, the mullahs’ regime will increasingly become militarily toothless. Hezbollah, whose entry into the Israel-Hamas war in 2023–2024 in no way assisted the Palestinians but cost Lebanon dearly, has opened a new front. But as the overpowering Israeli response has demonstrated, it will not be sufficient to affect the military balance of power.

Possible scenarios for Iran

Any attempt to speculate on Iran’s future while the war is ongoing is fraught with pitfalls, but divergent scenarios can already be seen on the horizon, none of which is likely to transpire in the precise form predicted. The United States certainly desires regime change but has not made it a goal of the war. Trump has argued that the best-case scenario would be that ‘somebody from within’ take the reins.2 A scenario, then, analogous to the one that played out in Venezuela, in which someone who happens to be in the right place at the right time takes power, puts an end to the country’s military programmes, and launches a process of ‘reconstruction’.

This possibility cannot be discounted, but the survival of the regime might alternatively involve the country turning into an isolated and tyrannical state, something akin to the surreal and cruel reign of terror depicted in Boualem Sansal’s 2084. Following the brutal repression of the unprecedentedly large uprising that rocked the country in January 2026 – resulting in thousands of extrajudicial executions and around 50,000 arrests – the regime’s survival could potentially mark Iran’s entry into a totalitarian era.

There is a precedent for this in the repressions following the end of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), regarded by Ayatollah Khomeini as a fresh instantiation of the Battle of Karbala, in which the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson was killed in 680. The Supreme Leader, then aged 89, avenged this humiliation by ordering the execution of several thousand political prisoners, many of whom were due to be released or had not yet been tried, and by issuing the fatwa calling for the death Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses.

Those in charge of the country’s military, paramilitary, legal and economic institutions know what the overthrow of a deeply hated regime would entail. They, or their parents and grandparents, displayed great cruelty in 1979, ordering vast numbers of extrajudicial executions, in which the victims were paraded half-naked, as well as confiscating the property of former leaders to enrich their bonyads (‘charitable foundations’). They know that, were they to fall from power, they would in turn be subjected to similar acts of brutality.

Another scenario, which seems to be the preferred option for many Israeli leaders, is the restoration of the Pahlavi monarchy, along the lines of the Bourbon return to power in 1815. But like the Bourbons, Reza Pahlavi, son of the dictatorial monarch overthrown in 1979, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Almost half a century after having paved the way for the Islamic Revolution through its ineptitude, corruption, and repression, the ousted dynasty blows hot and cold, sometimes promising a secular, democratic regime, and other times advocating for the establishment of absolute power.

Reza Pahlavi is still in opposition and thus (even if only for purely cynical reasons) needs to bring together all opposition forces. However, he has already ordered ‘his’ army to take steps to protect ‘the unity of the country’ against what he considers to be Kurdish ‘separatism’, namely Kurdish organizations’ demand for cultural, political, and administrative recognition.

The final scenario is an insurrection, which both Trump and Netanyahu have encouraged in several conflicting statements. An insurrection is not, however, a spontaneous riot – a phenomenon to which Iran has become accustomed since the first mass protest movement in 1999. Instead, it requires logistics, preparation, and armed forces capable of fighting, forces that, for the moment, are only available among the ‘minorities’, the Kurds chief among them.

Repression has always been harsher in Kurdistan, against which Khomeini declared the Islamic Republic’s first jihad in 1979. It is true that the Kurdish guerrilla forces have become weaker since 1983, but they have not disappeared, and this majority-Sunni cross-border region has a strong sense of national identity and is openly opposed to the central, Shiite, Persian power. Donald Trump took the time to personally call the two major Iraqi Kurd political figures to talk over ‘future scenarios’ with them, and he mentioned on 6 March that he would support any Kurdish uprising in the country.

All signs are that Iranian military installations on the other side of the Iran–Iraq border, which is above all else a Kurdish–Kurdish border, have been destroyed to lay the groundwork for a potential Kurdish armed revolt. In an article published in The Jerusalem Post on 2 March, A.J. Jaff argued that ‘Iran’s periphery holds the key’ and is its ‘centre of gravity’. But having been betrayed so many times in the past, will Kurdish actors agree to launch themselves into the breach without sufficient guarantees that they will be able to pursue their agenda, namely ‘a democratic and federal Iran’?

Israel: The new hegemon

It is clear that the war is taking place outside of any legal framework, illustrating once again the ineffectiveness of the international community, which has the unfortunate habit of calling in sick every time it is needed.3 But unlike many other conflicts, including the one that led to the invasion of Iraq by Anglo–American forces in 2003, this new war has a clear historical thread, being part of two chains of events: a long one that goes back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which set the destruction of Israel as its ultimate objective; and a much shorter one that began with the attacks of 7 October 2023.

Throughout the entire first chain of events, Israel has been demanding the destruction of Iran’s military capacities to ensure its own survival. But since 7 October, Israel is no longer being coy about its ambition to become the centre of gravity of the Middle East by the 2030s, seeking to reshape the region to suit its own ends. Proof of this can be seen in the warm welcome accorded to Narendra Modi in February 2026, who rhapsodized at length on the alliance between the two ‘democracies’ and ‘civilizations’.

Netanyahu is also seeking to involve his country in international axes that stretch far beyond the Middle East. The military alliance forged with Cyprus and Greece has also made Israel a major maritime power in the Mediterranean. Finally, having used the war to marginalize all opposition, the coalition of supremacist parties led by the Israeli prime minister has turned itself into a genuine ‘hegemonic bloc’ and is likely to be returned to power at the elections planned for autumn 2026.

Future historians will doubtless conclude that 7 October, which triggered the second chain of events leading to the outbreak of the current war, was not only a landmark event, but also a turning point, offering Israel a unique opportunity to take a strategic line (strategic thinking having been completely absent in Washington, whose Middle East policies have been utterly erratic since the end of the Cold War, and remain so today). Having buried the question of a legitimate Palestinian national cause under the ruins of Gaza, Israel has also been able to reduce Hezbollah in Lebanon to tatters, and as a result to destroy Syria as an Iranian protectorate.

Syria, the gateway to Lebanon, has been a crucial strategic zone for Tehran since the beginning of the 1980s. In September 2013, when Bashar al-Assad’s regime was weakened by the opposition, the former Basij commander Mehdi Taeb explained his country’s ‘geopolitical’ vision: ‘Syria is the 35th province and a strategic province for [Iran] … If the enemy attacks and aims to capture both Syria and Khuzestan, our priority would be Syria. Because if we hold on to Syria, we would be able to retake Khuzestan; yet if Syria were lost, we would not be able to keep even Tehran.’4

The weakening of the mullahs’ power began with Hezbollah’s defeat by Israel in 2024 and accelerated past the point of no return with the fall of Assad, over the course of just a few days in December the same year. Even if the Islamic regime manages to stay in power in Tehran, it will no longer have the means to achieve its hegemonic ambitions. It is already clear that it has precious little legitimacy on the international stage. The repression of the political and social dissent of January 2026 – in which the traditional small business-owning middle classes participated for the first time – was so brutal that the state has come to be seen as the embodiment of evil. This is why so few voices in Europe are speaking out against the war, and why even they insist that Tehran is primarily to blame for the conflict.

Is Israel set to emerge as the big winner from the cycle of wars and collapsing states and societies that has been sending shockwaves through the Middle East for decades, and which is only partially linked to the Palestinian question? Looking at the period 2023–2026, the answer would appear to be yes.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that confidence and certainty make poor advisors, and that power can become a hazard for those who wield it. The political philosopher Pierre Hassner knew this when, on the eve of George W. Bush’s ill-advised war in 2003, he ventured to prophesize that ‘in the long term, the complexity of the world will have its revenge’.5 And so it has proved. This time, we cannot say we haven’t been warned!

This article was originally published in Esprit on 6 March 2026. The English translation includes some minor revisions. Published in cooperation with CAIRN International Edition.