“The United States has always viewed the Middle East in two dimensions: its strategic location and its vast oil wealth.,” writes Abon Tsistiashvili in “Near East: Two Approaches to Conflict Resolution.” It provides context for the United States and Israel’s latest campaign of massive air and naval strikes against Iran, sparking a high-intensity war across the Middle East. The joint US-Israeli strikes resulted in the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several high-ranking Iranian officials and considerable material losses among Iranian forces. In response, Iran, along with its Iraqi and Lebanese proxies, struck the territories of ten states — Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the British overseas territories of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on the island of Cyprus, targeting US military facilities throughout the region and civilian and military infrastructure in the aforementioned states, as well as a French base in the UAE, and an Italian base in Kuwait. Moreover, at the time of writing, Iran has threatened the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, striking several ships, while the Yemen-based Houthis declared the resumption of attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea, threatening the world economy with a potentially ruinous crisis.

From a series of statements of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, it appears that the attack on Iran has three primary objectives: the replacement of the current Iranian government with a pro-Western one; the curtailment of Iran’s regional power; and the elimination of the “alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme.” However, the expectations of a “short, victorious war,” encouraged by the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3, 2026 in a spectacular and low-cost military-political operation, has been dashed due to fierce Iranian retaliation. The current Iranian regime is still in place, and the costs of the war for the US and its allies are rising. Meanwhile, with Iran’s leadership in disarray, population highly polarised, military capabilities substantially degraded, and ethnic minorities restless, the nation is confronted with serious political instability and economic ruin. Meanwhile, the Gulf Arab states, with their hydrocarbon-dependent economy, vulnerable civilian infrastructure, and relatively weak military capabilities, face severe economic dislocation in the case of a prolonged war.

The outbreak of the Iran-US-Israel war is a watershed event in the geopolitics and geo-economics of the 21st century. If the war is prolonged, it would have transformative effects on numerous states throughout the world.

Geopolitical roots

According to US geopolitician Nicholas Spykman, Iran constitutes a part of the Arabian-Middle Eastern Desert Land, which is one of the three constituents of the Rimland. Spykman posited that the control of the Rimland is the key to mastery over Eurasia and by extension, the whole world. Iran is located at a critical crossroads in West Asia, bordering Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Anatolia, the Arab Middle East, and South Asia, with crucial maritime territories in the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Its location anchors it into critical trade corridors, including the Russian-backed International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the Chinese-backed China-Central Asia-West Asia Corridor, the Iranian-envisioned Persian Gulf–Black Sea Corridor, and the Istanbul-Tehran-Islamabad Railway. The US, the current global superpower, exerts control over the entirety of the core of the Arabian-Middle Eastern Desert Land, except Iran. Between 1946 and 1979, Iran was a crucial US ally of the “Northern Tier” against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), but since the overthrow of the pro-US monarchy in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government has pursued a highly independent, anti-US, and anti-Israeli policy.

Meanwhile, US geo-strategist and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski viewed Iran as a geopolitical pivot on the grand Eurasian chessboard, capable of influencing power dynamics between Europe, Russia and East Asia, and to a certain extent, as an independent geostrategic player. He cautioned that in the post-Cold War world, an alliance among Russia, China, and Iran would present a serious challenge to US hegemony over Eurasia, and by extension, the world. In another instance, US political scientist Samuel Huntington viewed Iran as a significant state within the Islamic civilization, and pointed that a potential Sino–Islamic axis, involving Iran, would present challenges for the then-dominant Western civilization. On the other hand, Russian geopolitician Aleksandr Dugin advocates for the creation and maintenance of a “Moscow-Tehran axis,” as crucial to the resurgence of Russia to counter the “Atlanticist” Western powers. Iran’s independent power base, including its unconventional warfare capabilities, its vast missile and drone arsenal, its comprehensive network of regional proxies, and its scientific and technological potential, makes an anti-US tripartite alliance among Russia, China, and Iran particularly concerning to Washington.

Also, Iran’s persistent anti-Israeli policy, manifested through the extensive support of proxies such as Ba’athist Syria, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, led Israel to view Iran as an existential threat. Since Israel lacks the military-political capabilities to bring about a regime in Iran, it has used its strong lobbying networks in the US to convince Washington to do it on its behalf. Israel, with substantial US backing, has largely dismantled Iran’s axis of resistance in recent years, through the elimination of the Ba’athist government in Syria and the destruction of its strategic military capabilities, the severe degradation of Hezbollah, and the genocidal devastation and bifurcation of the Gaza Strip. Afterwards, Israel and the US sought the dismantlement of the Iranian government in a systematic manner, by unleashing the 12-Day-War, and finally through the current war.

Hence, if the ongoing war results in a regime change in Iran, it would solidify US control over the Rimland and Eurasia, shatter the possibilities of Iranian alliance with Moscow and Beijing, and ensure Israel’s long-term strategic security. If the ongoing war fails to destroy the Iranian government, it will likely adopt an even more anti-US and anti-Israeli position, rebuild its military, and forge a stronger partnership with Moscow and Beijing. A US failure in Iran, after similar experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, would further erode US prestige and credibility in the international sphere, weaken its hold on the Rimland, and strengthen the conception of the Russian- and Chinese-backed multipolar world order instead of its own unipolar world order.

Geoeconomic roots 

Based on recent data — with 209,000 millions of barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, Iran contains the 3rd largest oil reserves and 2nd largest gas reserves in the world. If an independent, anti-US, and anti-Israeli Iran can tap into its hydrocarbon reserves, it will be able to finance its military modernisation, expand its proxy networks, and enhance its regional clout. Accordingly, the US has sought to throttle Iran economically by effectively imposing an economic blockade on the country for more than four decades, depriving it of the opportunity to trade its commodities in the formal international market.

Moreover, Iran’s geographical proximity to the Strait of Hormuz — a maritime chokepoint through which approximately 20-27 percent of the world’s seaborne oil and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas (LNG) pass annually — provides it with a unique opportunity to strangle the rentier economies of the Gulf Arab states and destabilise the global energy market. Meanwhile, the US itself is currently the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, and it imports heavily to its North American neighbours, particularly Canada which makes up 60 percent of total US imports. So, the US is not directly dependent on energy imports from the Middle East, but its traditional allies — Western Europe and Japan — are heavily dependent on Middle Eastern hydrocarbons, and the US has, since the Cold War, sought to control the supply of energy from the Middle East to maintain substantial influence on its allies and dictate their policies. Hence, Washington has consistently sought to control the oil-producing and gas-producing states of the Persian Gulf, including Iran.

Finally, the US seeks to preserve its global hegemony by keeping emerging and regional powers, such as China, Russia, and India, weakened through economic means. Hence, it is opposed to connectivity projects such as the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Russian-backed INSTC, and the Indian-financed Chabahar Port project. Since Iran is a crucial component in all three, having a pro-Western government in Tehran would help the US throttle or at least weaken these projects. Washington pressurised India into exiting the Chabahar Port project shortly before the outbreak of the war, and if it succeeds in changing the regime in Iran, the other projects are likely to be shelved or delayed as well.

Endgame

While the current US administration with its quirks may struggle to present a coherent view of their objectives in Iran, the war’s roots lie in Iran’s strategic location and its vast hydrocarbon reserves. Iran is a great geopolitical prize for any great power, and the US is seeking to seize the prize for itself, while paving the way for Israel’s regional hegemony. However, so far, there has been no successful regime change through air operations alone, and if the Iranian government manages to maintain its cohesion, the US and Israel would have no way other than sending ground troops to Iran to attain their objectives. And if the mountains of Afghanistan and deserts of Iraq are any guide (Iran has both), the determined resistance of even a small but committed group of people can frustrate the designs of a much stronger and technologically superior power. The outcome of the war will be contingent upon the level of determination of the Iranian government to wage a war of attrition against the US and Israel, the degree of commitment of the US to sustain casualties in a war of choice, and the scale of effectiveness of US political machinations to bring about a Venezuela-style regime transition.

Md. Himel Rahman is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations, at Gopalganj Science and Technology University. 

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