The Story isn’t Over: The Struggle to Build a Stable Regional Order

During a panel I moderated in the Kurdistan Region with regional leaders and thinkers at the Middle East Peace and Security Forum 2025, one that addressed how to manage a region in flux, it became clear that attempting to predict the future trajectory of the region would be difficult amidst the lingering prospect of renewed military conflict. After all, few could have predicted the surprising events of the previous year that significantly altered the balance of power and regional threat perceptions — the fall of the Assad regime, the 12-day war between Israel and Iran (which saw the first U.S. attack on Iranian territory that significantly degraded its nuclear sites), and the Israeli military strike targeting Hamas in Qatar. What was more certain was that this regional shakeup would likely have a lasting impact on the regional order, though what that order might shape up to look like is still an open and contested question. Few believe it is likely to be settled anytime soon.

Nonetheless, there is wide consensus on the urgency of ushering in a new Middle East focused on development and prosperity rather than continued war, failing governance, impoverished people, mass displacement, and climate induced crises. There is no shortage of supply for expansive plans for greater regional and global connectivity and infrastructure development to advance this more positive vision for the region’s future. But such plans are based on competing visions for how to move the region in this direction, and those competing economic visions are not divorced from geopolitics.

Some of these plans are U.S.-backed and prioritize Israel’s integration into regional development, while others strive for more regional agency and are open to including Iran and Turkey. Major regional powers like Saudi Arabia resist being penned into one bloc over another.  But beyond competing visions for regional order, the most serious stumbling block toward a more stable future is the instability caused by continuing military conflict. Indeed, the critical prerequisite for any development plan is security.

Unfortunately, the expectation among the prominent regional voices on the panel in Kurdistan was that whatever surprises 2026 might bring, the continued specter of military conflict persisted, in large part because the US-Iran-Israel confrontation was not over. Indeed, the June war hardly settled the sources of friction that underpinned the hostility that led to this war, including lingering concerns about Iran’s nuclear and missile development and its support for militant non-state groups operating across the region. And from Iran’s perspective, the war only bolstered voices who argued that the United States was never serious about diplomacy, and that Iran would remain vulnerable to continuous military attacks unless it managed to restore its deterrence.

Indeed, the war only seemed to embolden Israel’s reliance on overwhelming military force to keep its enemies weakened after the devastating October 7 Hamas attack in 2023. Israel’s tolerance for risk and willingness to change the rules of the game with Iran also increased in this new threat environment, and it was only a matter of time before Israel would set its sights on Iran itself given its backing for the militant groups fighting Israel.

This increasingly forceful stance was apparent in Israeli military action in Lebanon and even in Syria despite U.S. backing for the new post-Assad leadership. But the most shocking Israeli action, particularly from the Gulf viewpoint, was Israel’s attack in Qatar, a close U.S. ally and host to the largest U.S. military base in the region. This attack altered threat perceptions in the region, raising questions about the long-term viability of American security guarantees, even if in the short-term the United States is still viewed as an indispensable partner. That said, the political jolt of an Israeli attack on an American Arab ally has prompted leading voices in the region to point to Israel, not Iran, as the region’s most serious threat.

The other reason for regional concern about unfinished wars is uncertainty about how Iran is responding to its weakened position after losing its only Arab state ally, the Assad regime in Syria, and seeing the severe degradation of the so-called axis of resistance of its non-state allies, particularly Hamas and most significantly Hezbollah. 

After the June war, there was a view in Iran that it should not have accepted the ceasefire because it needed to restore its deterrence or it would face the continuous threat of attack. Since the war, Iran has been solidifying this message, replenishing its missile supply and warning of severe consequences should it be attacked again.

In the June war, Iranian missiles began penetrating Israeli cities as Israeli air defenses diminished, and even with Israel’s far superior military capabilities, the risk of renewed missile attacks continues to concern Israeli military planners. And despite Iran’s weakened state, Iran likely has capabilities to spare in the naval arena; the Houthis have already demonstrated success in disrupting global oil supplies during the Gaza war and have been threatening to renew attacks should the United States strike Iran again and threaten the regime itself. 

With U.S. military pressure mounting in the wake of the momentous protests in Iran starting in late December 2025, Iran has been increasing its threats to retaliate in a bid to deter an attack. But despite brutally repressing the protests in what may prove to be the bloodiest crackdown in the history of the Islamic Republic, it is clear the regime is facing an unprecedented crisis in the face of this immense internal and external pressure.  

Such increased vulnerability and Iran’s more aggressive posture since the war suggests a U.S. military attack will likely provoke a forceful Iranian response that can destabilize the wider region. The potential for regional escalation is at its highest point since the 12-day war. Kurdistan emerged in the discussion as an actor that is both exposed to this regional escalation and well placed to serve as a stabilising bridge, both between Baghdad and Iraq’s neighbours, and between the region and the international community.

On the panel, Iraq’s former foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, argued that the U.S. military presence in Iraq should not become a new flashpoint: there is nothing inherently illegitimate about hosting foreign troops with a sovereign government’s consent, he argued, before suggesting that greater clarity on the mandate, posture, and future of these forces would help de-escalate tensions and reduce the risk of miscalculation.

Nonetheless, the panel reflected the continued anxiety from the region about the sustainability of de-escalation and ceasefire agreements, and the expectation that more conflict is on the horizon. In other words, the regional consensus is that when it comes to the possibility of military escalation, especially between the United States, Israel and Iran, the “story isn’t over.”

Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and the author of Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy (Stanford University Press, 2026)