Iran and the Order It Seeks to Destroy

The Middle East is once again showing how difficult it is to distinguish victory from disruption. Iran has spent years building a network of allies and armed movements across the region because it believes that a country confronted by Israel the United States and a hostile regional environment cannot afford to wait for war to reach its own territory. Strategic depth became Tehran’s answer to strategic vulnerability. Yet the same strategy that has given Iran influence beyond its borders may now be producing consequences that work against the very regional order Iran hopes to reshape.

It would be unfair to ignore why Tehran arrived at this strategy. The memory of the 1953 coup remains powerful in Iran. The Iran Iraq War left an enduring fear of encirclement and vulnerability. Decades of sanctions military pressure and repeated threats have convinced the Iranian leadership that conventional deterrence alone is insufficient. From Tehran’s perspective Hezbollah the Houthis and other regional partners are therefore not simply instruments of expansion. They are a way of ensuring that any enemy contemplating an attack on Iran knows that the consequences will not remain confined to Iranian territory.

That rationale deserves to be understood even when its consequences are questioned. Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause is also not merely a convenient slogan. Tehran has consistently opposed Israeli occupation and presented itself as an alternative to governments that chose accommodation. There is a genuine ideological conviction behind this position as well as a strategic calculation. The Palestinian question remains unresolved and the suffering of Palestinians cannot be wished away simply because Iran has made it part of its foreign policy.

But a strategy can be understandable in origin and still become self defeating in practice.

Yemen illustrates the problem. The Houthis have their own Yemeni history political objectives and ideological commitments and cannot simply be reduced to Iranian puppets. Yet Iranian support has strengthened their military capabilities and connected Yemen’s conflict to a much wider regional struggle. Their recent capture of Mocha and seizure of Mayun Island have given them a physical position inside the Bab el Mandeb Strait and significantly increased their leverage over a vital international waterway.

Bab el Mandeb is not merely a Yemeni concern. It links the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and therefore connects Asian trade and Middle Eastern energy with European markets. When shipping becomes dangerous vessels are diverted around Africa freight and insurance costs rise and supply chains lengthen. A regional conflict suddenly becomes a problem for manufacturers in Europe consumers in Asia and American businesses and households already exposed to higher energy prices. Recent disruptions have pushed Brent crude above 100 dollars a barrel.

The significance becomes even greater when Bab el Mandeb is considered alongside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran sits beside Hormuz while an Iran aligned movement has gained leverage near Bab el Mandeb. One chokepoint guards the exit from the Persian Gulf while the other guards the entrance to the Red Sea. Together they form part of the maritime system through which enormous quantities of energy and commerce move. The latest Houthi advance has therefore created a strategic problem not only for Saudi Arabia but for Washington and every major trading power.

There is a legitimate American interest here that should not be confused with a desire for endless intervention in the Middle East. Freedom of navigation is a basic condition of international commerce. The United States has built much of its postwar international role around the protection of maritime routes and the security of allies. When those routes are threatened Washington has a reasonable interest in responding. The question for American policy is not whether such interests exist but how they can be protected without creating another open ended military commitment.

This is precisely where Iran’s strategy creates an unintended consequence. Tehran seeks to reduce American influence in the region. Yet the more its allies threaten international navigation and the security of American partners the stronger becomes the argument for an American security presence.

For China the calculation is different but the underlying interest is similar. Beijing may regard Iran as an important partner in a more multipolar world but Chinese industry depends upon reliable energy and trade routes. India faces the same dilemma as it seeks Gulf energy and wider connectivity through Iran towards Central Asia. Russia may benefit from changes in energy prices but has no permanent interest in a Middle East where commercial corridors become unreliable. Europe bears the immediate economic costs through longer shipping routes higher transport costs and pressure on energy prices.

The new geopolitics is therefore not only about armies and borders. It is increasingly about ports shipping lanes pipelines sanctions technology energy markets and supply chains. The struggle for influence is becoming a struggle over the arteries through which Eurasia trades with itself and with the wider world.

This brings the question directly to Pakistan. Iran is Pakistan’s neighbour and a stable relationship with Tehran is essential to border security trade and regional connectivity. Saudi Arabia remains a major strategic and economic partner while Türkiye has become an increasingly important defence partner. China is indispensable to Pakistan’s long term strategic calculations and the United States remains a power with which Islamabad must maintain workable relations.

Pakistan therefore has little interest in choosing a camp. Its policy should be strategic autonomy rather than passive neutrality. Islamabad should maintain direct channels with Tehran while making equally clear that Pakistani territory cannot be violated and that attacks on Saudi Arabia or disruption of international shipping cannot become normal instruments of regional politics.

The exchange of strikes across the Pakistan Iran border in January 2024 demonstrated how quickly Tehran’s security doctrine can collide with the sovereignty of its neighbours. Iran may regard action beyond its borders as necessary to prevent threats from reaching home. Pakistan cannot accept that principle when Pakistani territory is placed at risk. At the same time Islamabad cannot afford a permanently hostile western border and must therefore keep diplomatic and security channels with Tehran open.

This explains Pakistan’s effort to mediate rather than militarise the dispute. Its engagement with Washington and Tehran and its role in the Islamabad Memorandum reflected an attempt to use relationships with both sides to reduce confrontation. Pakistan should preserve that diplomatic space rather than surrender it to the logic of competing blocs.

The Makkah defence arrangement with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye introduces another complication but does not automatically make Pakistan part of an anti Iranian alliance. Islamabad has explicitly said that no military response has been discussed under the pact following recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. The agreement should remain defensive while Pakistan uses its relationships with Riyadh and Ankara to encourage de escalation rather than confrontation.

The maritime dimension requires equal caution. Pakistan has a direct interest in keeping Hormuz Bab el Mandeb and the Arabian Sea open. It should strengthen maritime surveillance and cooperation with regional and international partners while avoiding offensive operations that could make it a party to a wider war. The objective should be protection of commerce rather than projection of power.

Pakistan should also use its unusual diplomatic access to Iran Saudi Arabia Türkiye China and the United States to press for practical arrangements on maritime security energy infrastructure border security and the use of proxy forces. Another declaration about Muslim unity will achieve little if the states of the region remain unable to prevent their disputes from damaging one another.

Most importantly Pakistan should not allow Palestine to become hostage to the rivalry between Iran and its adversaries. Islamabad can support Palestinian statehood humanitarian protection and international law while opposing attacks on civilian shipping and violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring states. There is no contradiction between supporting Palestine and refusing to endorse every strategy pursued in its name.

Such a policy also serves Pakistan’s economic interests. Pakistan cannot afford another regional crisis that raises energy prices disrupts shipping and diverts scarce diplomatic and military resources towards security emergencies. Gwadar Chabahar Central Asian connectivity and the wider Arabian Sea can become economic opportunities only if the surrounding region remains stable enough for trade to move.

This has consequences for Palestine.

Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause is genuine and cannot simply be dismissed as propaganda. Israel’s occupation settlement expansion and the suffering of Palestinians remain fundamental regional grievances. But political causes can be weakened when the means employed in their name continually shift international attention elsewhere.

Every escalation involving Iran and Israel makes the Iranian nuclear programme central. Every Houthi attack makes maritime security central. Every strike against Saudi Arabia makes Gulf security central. The Palestinian question remains present but becomes one element within a much larger confrontation.

This creates an uncomfortable possibility for Tehran. Its resistance may impose costs on Israel while simultaneously creating conditions that Israel can exploit.

The Abraham Accords illustrate the paradox. Arab normalisation with Israel resulted from several factors including economic interests American diplomacy technology trade and perceptions of Iran. The Gaza war placed enormous pressure on the agreements but did not erase their strategic foundations.

When governments perceive Iran as a growing security threat Israeli military and intelligence capabilities can become more valuable to them. Tehran may therefore seek to isolate Israel while strengthening the argument for Arab Israeli security cooperation.

The same dynamic operates in Washington. It would be simplistic to claim that American policy is controlled by AIPAC. US policy emerges from presidents Congress military and intelligence institutions strategic interests alliances public opinion and lobbying organisations. But Iranian conduct provides material for those who argue that Tehran represents a continuing threat to American and Israeli security.

The old language of an axis of evil belongs to another era. Yet Iran’s contemporary strategy risks giving its adversaries new evidence for an updated version of that narrative.

This does not mean Iran alone created the disorder of the Middle East. American interventions have reshaped the region. Israeli policies have contributed profoundly to Palestinian dispossession and regional anger. Gulf states pursue their own rivalries and ambitions while Türkiye Russia and other powers have their own strategic calculations. The region is not a morality play in which one state bears all responsibility and everyone else is innocent.

But complexity does not remove the need to examine consequences.

Iran’s historical grievances are real. Its fear of encirclement is understandable. Its desire for deterrence against militarily superior adversaries is rational. The question is whether the strategy has reached the point where its costs increasingly outweigh its benefits.

A missile can impose a cost but cannot construct a political settlement. A proxy can provide leverage but cannot determine what an adversary does next. Disrupting a shipping route can demonstrate military capability while encouraging other states to build alternative routes and stronger security arrangements.

This is the difference between disruption and strategy.

Iran has acquired considerable regional influence. The more important question is whether that influence can be converted into a stable political order favourable to the causes Tehran claims to defend.

The ultimate measure of resistance is not how much pain it can inflict but whether it produces the political future it promises.

Iran has proved that it can disrupt the regional order. The question now is whether it can prevent that disruption from becoming the very mechanism through which the order it opposes becomes stronger.

It may spend decades attempting to weaken an American Israeli order while strengthening the alliances that sustain it. It may champion Palestine while regional escalation pushes Palestine away from the centre of diplomacy. It may oppose foreign intervention while creating conditions for greater foreign intervention. It may seek Muslim unity while encouraging new security divisions within the Muslim world.

None of this means that Washington should automatically respond with another large military intervention. That would miss the larger lesson. American power is most effective when it works with regional partners diplomacy economic leverage and international institutions rather than assuming that every security problem has a military solution.

For Pakistan the lesson is equally important. Islamabad should neither become an extension of Tehran’s resistance strategy nor a junior partner in someone else’s containment strategy. Pakistan’s geography gives it little room for ideological foreign policy and much reason for strategic independence. Its western border must remain peaceful its maritime routes open its partnerships diversified and its diplomatic channels with competing powers intact.

Pakistan cannot redesign the Middle East. It can however refuse to allow the Middle East to redesign Pakistan’s strategic choices.

For Iran the choice is ultimately more difficult. Its grievances are real and its security dilemma is genuine. But deterrence is supposed to make war less likely not make permanent confrontation inevitable. If the network built to protect Iran instead produces stronger American partnerships deeper Israeli Arab cooperation new regional defence arrangements and greater economic isolation then Tehran will have to ask whether strategic depth has become strategic overreach.

That may be the central paradox of Iran’s present position.

It has built enough power to disrupt the regional order.

The harder task is proving that it can use that power to build the order it says it wants..