Sweet Halva to Humble Pie: The Risks of the US-Israeli War on Iran
Iranians have an expression: Nobody distributes sweets (halva) in a fight—a cue that conflict is neither gentle nor generous. All sides are now experiencing this truism in real time. Eight days into the US-Israeli war on Iran, the endgame remains unclear. Initially framed as a war intended to bring regime change, the focus has since drifted. The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, appeared to be the declared first step in efforts to topple the regime, but the war’s expansion has cast that objective into doubt.
The negotiations that preceded the attacks did not expressly address regime change. The focus remained on Iran’s nuclear enrichment and its ballistic missile program – longstanding points of contention between the warring parties. Once the fighting broke out, President Trump seemed to elevate regime change from an implicit hope to an explicit objective of the conflict.
The abrupt pivot from talks to military actions to decapitate the regime and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions raises many concerns over a swift and durable resolution. American leaders have even invoked Islamophobic fears by asserting Western dominance vis-à-vis “radical Islamist” foes. Beyond these early dramatic developments, the United States has offered no political roadmap or transitional framework about who—or what—would replace the existing order, other than itself and Israel, as guarantors of peace. The absence of an articulated endgame is striking in such a serious and escalating conflict. Recent reports indicating that the CIA is preparing to arm the Kurds to foment uprisings throughout Iran have upped the ante. The United States and Israel have long banked on the idea of ethnic strife to break out in Iran. This tactic – going back at least to the Great War – designs to strain Iran’s borders and erode central authority, to splinter the country from within. Whether such a policy can succeed remains highly questionable.
Colonial Borders vs. Civilizational Identities
In contrast to many neighboring states whose modern identities and borders emerged from colonial arrangements such as the Sykes–Picot agreement, Iran stands as a continuation of older imperial traditions in a familiar heartland. Its territorial core, which stretches roughly from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, corresponds closely and quite consistently to the lands historically known as Iran, or Persia in Western sources. In the nineteenth century, Great Britain, unlike Russia, spread the idea of Persian dominance by referring to it as Persia rather than Iran, a geographic entity that accommodated both Iranic ethnolinguistic groups (Baluch, Bakhtiyari, Fars, Gilaks, Kurds, Lurs, Mazandaranis, Talysh, and Tati) and non-Iranic ethnolinguistic communities such as Arabs, Turks, South Asians, Africans and others who had migrated from elsewhere. Modern geopolitical frameworks, rooted in Orientalist biases and defined through a colonial lens, provide distorted portrayals of modern Iran and its multiethnic makeup.
The post‑WWI remapping of the Middle East left Iran in a chronic defensive posture. Surrounded by new, ethnically defined states that contested their borders and dismissed the rights of Iranian and Persian minorities, Iran faced persistent pressure along its periphery. Its ill-fated Persianization policies targeted and alienated other ethnic groups, even after they were mitigated somewhat over time.
The contemporary borders encircling Iran were partially drawn to contain its territorial reach and influence, but they produced instead enduring volatility, sparking border flare-ups. In its own way, the Islamic Republic has shared in this ambition to reshape the regional map, but its aspirations, too, reflect a profound miscalculation. Framed as deterrence, Iran expanded into the Levant to leverage its Shi‘a networks against its enemies. This approach has instead spawned rampant instability and plunged the Islamic Republic into an existential crisis.
In this climate, certain radical factions—some possibly supported from abroad to advance separatist aims—receive disproportionate attention in the West. They do not, however, reflect the consensus among many Iranians who simultaneously adhere to national and regional identities. Western academic and policy spheres typically sideline these pro-unity perspectives as nationalist bias in favor of a "minority politics" narrative that carries rival nationalist agendas. The discourse oscillates between framing Iran as an expansionist power and a vulnerable state—contradictory tropes used to delegitimize its sovereignty.
By reducing Iranian identity to mere regionalism, this rhetoric exploits Iran’s ethnic diversity and targets the integrity of the Iranian state itself, denying Iranianness as an equally valid and long-established identity, rather than limiting its critique to the policies of the Islamic Republic. This tactic has hardened the resolve of the Islamic Republic and the IRGC to suppress opposition. In response, the regime, the IRGC, and their supporters have grown more determined to quash dissent, often faulting critics for opening the door to foreign plots to fracture the country. This, too, is a problematic narrative, crafted to protect the regime and obscure its failures in foreign and domestic policy, including its approach to minorities.
While minority grievances regarding political freedoms and regional underdevelopment remain very serious and real, they are also civil rights issues within the framework of the Iranian state, rather than exclusively as mandates for secession. Even as these understandable contestations persist, Iran retains legitimate rights as both a sovereign state and a national identity—rights that some anti‑regime and anti‑Iran groups undermine by exploiting cultural rivalries and economic competition.
Democratic outcomes cannot be achieved through large-scale external military interventions that carry devastation and instability. Iranians deserve a voice in a war waged in their name. The collective longing for an Iranian state that reflects its citizens' will and a society that restores their rights and dignity must not be traded for widespread civilian suffering and the tightening grip of the Islamic Republic’s security state. The attacks have already cost many civilian lives, including the massacre of 175 Iranian schoolgirls and staff, residents of the Gulf Arab states and Israel, as well as American servicemen and women. Rather than opening political space, this war risks strengthening the structures of repression across the region.
The Politics Within and the Call to Arms
The decision by the United States and Israel to launch an attack came on the heels of the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown last month on protestors calling for the downfall of the government. That clampdown had already unmasked both the regime’s vulnerability and its willingness to use excessive force against its citizens. The eruption of war has trapped Iranian dissidents in an unenviable paradox and impossible quandary. While the longing for democracy and political agency remains profound, the specter of conflict forces a harrowing choice between internal liberation and national sovereignty.
To this point, the dynamics of the war suggest that the Islamic Republic is no mere antagonist. Defying insurmountable odds with brutal aptitude and resiliency, it has forged a layered command structure sustained by regional partners. It can, and likely will, deploy its religious networks, not through messianic ideology but realpolitik, to generate mass support across the region – from Pakistan to Lebanon and beyond – despite the significant erosion of its domestic support. Pundits have repeatedly noted that aerial campaigns will not bring about political transformations, making a ground campaign ever more likely. The Islamic Republic may hedge its bets and hope that a ground war will wreak widespread havoc, making it ever more difficult for the United States, Israel, and their regional allies to achieve lasting success. That remains a risky option.
Against this backdrop, what can the Iranian protestors hope for? At the moment, not much. The conflict has morphed into a war of survival for the Islamic Republic. By targeting Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf Arab states, the regime intends the war to carry prohibitive costs for its neighbors and Western adversaries alike, and not simply for Iran alone. With survival as its primary objective, the Iranian government stands to gain from the chaos and disorder of a widening war. A friendly‑fire episode in which Kuwait accidentally downed three American fighter jets has already illustrated this point. Likewise, Iran has admitted to mistakenly striking Oman, a key mediator, and blamed the incident on military units acting independently without direct orders, but it has since contained the damage.
The Islamic Republic broadened the war for tactical reasons, stemming from desperation and strategic calculations. By expanding the conflict, the regime has shattered the illusion of safety and neutrality and is ensuring that no country remains insulated from its consequences. Long accustomed to seeing its neighbors prosper under the very sanctions that constrained it, the Islamic Republic sought to inflict losses and pain on the Arab Gulf states that have flaunted their wealth and prosperity, from glitzy lifestyles to gleaming skyscrapers. The regime was intent on exposing them to war, economic strain, and the punishing bombing campaigns it had to endure of late. The Gulf Arab states are home to over one hundred thousand American diplomats, military personnel, and businessmen, whom the Islamic Republic regards broadly as collaborators in its declared destruction. Here, too, disputed borders and minority rights subtly shape the dynamics of the conflict. Iran's enemies recognize the pressures on its colonially created modern borders and have taken advantage of that vulnerability to threaten its territorial integrity. The diplomacy and ideological excesses of the Islamic Republic have only abetted this outcome, inspiring what appears to be an unmeasured and inhumane campaign of revenge against it.
What Lies Ahead
Facing severe damages — and anticipating further destruction — the Islamic Republic has asserted its right to exact revenge for the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei. The regime is banking on turning the conflict into a war of attrition to score long-term victories if it survives. For this reason, the leadership will tactically deploy every conventional instrument of force at its disposal despite recent apologies to the Gulf nations. Like some in the American Congress and the international community, the Islamic Republic has questioned the legality of the US-Israeli strikes, but for now, it shows little interest in returning to the hollow performance of negotiation.
The talks seemed doomed to failure as the parties were actively seeking a casus belli rather than a compromise. America and Israel have cast recent conflicts in civilizational terms (the West versus the Rest) to advance a regional realignment of power and resources, even turning to the Second World War as the analogy through which to justify their aims. This ambition recalls previous attempts to redraw the global political map and transform sovereignty worldwide, particularly after the Great War. Such redesigns typically backfire, however, by generating unintended imbalances and instability.
The final reckoning of this high-stakes gamble will only emerge over time and will likely fail to deliver security and prosperity. Washington and Israel claim the conflict will not turn into an endless war, but what comes next remains uncertain. Already, the seeds of future conflicts have been sown. In the short term, the Islamic regime still runs the country, however erratically, and counts on escalating regional violence to protect the country against a violent war and, at the same time, to prolong its rule. Elsewhere, the spiraling costs of this ghastly conflict will deepen fissures among European states and turn public opinion against American-Israeli brinkmanship, a trend already unfolding.
In the end, the menu may well turn from sweet halva to humble pie.
