Waleed Hazbun, University of Alabama
The deadly Hamas-led attacks into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 led to a ferocious response by Israel and over a year of violent regional conflict. These events reflect the continuing effects of the turbulence in the Middle East regional system which was the focus of my chapter in Order and Region Making in the Middle East. The unexpected and uncoordinated actions by the Palestinian militant group based in Gaza led to a spiral of cross border attacks engulfing the region and resulted in levels of violence and destruction that will reverberate for years to come (see Del Sarto in this collection). These dynamics also expose the limits of American visions for promoting regional order in the Middle East as they fail to address the diverse sources of insecurity that impact states and societies across the region.
Since the rise of US efforts to impose regional order, the Middle East regional system has increasingly suffered from turbulence, characterized by the proliferation of armed non-state actors, the interconnectedness of insecurity at the domestic and regional levels, and the increasingly multipolar nature of regional and global politics. In a turbulent regional system, regional order–based on balancing, hierarchy, interdependence, or shared norms between states–is especially difficult to sustain. While states remain the most powerful actors (especially those with consolidated control over their territory and security), they must navigate a volatile regional system with powerful non-state actors, shifting alliances, and conflicting understandings of regional security.
While the US strongly backed Israel’s military efforts as the best route towards restoring regional order by hitting back hard against their shared adversaries, the post-October 7 regional conflicts disrupted the Biden administration’s existing strategy for establishing a regional order through economic and security integration between US allies, particularly the normalization of Israel’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. With the success of Israel’s destructive military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon as well as its strikes against Syria, Yemen, and Iran, the US appeared to embrace Israel’s strategy for transforming regional order based on Israel’s military dominance while exploiting the shift in the regional balance of power with the weakening of Iran and its allies.
The result, however, is likely to replicate the failure of past efforts to impose regional order through military dominance. Indeed, Israel’s continuing military efforts in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and especially Iran have thrown into question the future of any US strategy based on regional integration and normalization. The violence and destruction of the recent conflict as well as Israel’s maintenance of regional military dominance are likely to only foster the dynamics of regional turbulence, increase geopolitical rivalry, and intensify societal insecurity across the region.
Mapping the Evolution of Turbulence
The Biden administration had developed a clear ordering project prior to October 7, 2023. US national security advisor for the Middle East Brett McGurk (2021) referred to the administration’s approach to the region as going “back to basics.” This approach rejected the ambitious efforts of regional transformation promoted by the administration of George W. Bush and focused on rebuilding its security commitments to “traditional” US allies. Embracing the Abraham Accords that normalized Israel’s relationship with Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco, the Biden administration worked to extend regional economic and security integration aligning Israel with the authoritarian regimes of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt (Biden 2022). These policies sought to balance against Iran while countering the influence of China and Russia in the region.
To consolidate this vision, the Biden administration set as their goal an agreement expanding US military support and security guarantees to Saudi Arabia in exchange for a Saudi normalization agreement with Israel. It viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as contained, offered little recognition of the sources of insecurity impacting states and societies across the region, and downplayed the likely disruptive effects that non-state actors could have. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan even famously assessed in late September 2023 that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades” (Beckerman 2023, see also Sullivan 2023, 23).
How could the US have gotten regional order so wrong? To help explain the limits of US visions for regional order, my chapter draw on James C. Scott’s (1998) critique of high modernist planning in the 20th century. Scott shows how state interventions sought to reorganize society to conform to planners’ abstract and oversimplified maps while societies, in contrast, developed their own practices to navigate the unstable and unpredictable environment they inhabit. Likewise, US policy towards the Middle East in the post-Cold War era has often relied on the deployment of coercive power to transform regional politics according to US visions based on hierarchy among allies and balancing against rivals. These top-down efforts, however, failed to recognize and accommodate how diverse regional actors, both states and societies, might understand their own interests as well as the terms for regional security differently. As a result, US policies consistently ran adrift in the face of those unrecognized realities.
This shift from order to turbulence in the Middle East was not simply a product of a shift in the regional balance of power between states but also a reflection of the erosion of state capacities to provide security for their societies and the rise of self-organizing social movements and armed non-state actors often operating through transnational networks. Following Scott (1998), we might suggest that regional states and non-state actors with knowledge of local contexts, the ability to cultivate allies and access resources, and improvise diverse forms of governance – notably, but not exclusively, Iran – have been those best able to navigate the uncertainty and volatility of turbulence. The US, viewing the region from above and attempting to neatly order it, consistently did less well.
This turbulence was produced in the wake of past US efforts to impose a hegemonic regional order on the Middle East. In particular, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, its agenda for regional transformation, and the broader global war on terror generated intense insecurity for rival and allied states while witnessing the proliferation of armed non-state actors. The US military occupation of Iraq gave rise to a domestic insurgency and the mobilization of transnational jihadists bent on provoking sectarian conflict in Iraq and beyond. As a result, Iran expanded its influence in Iraq and its strategic coordination with Syria while supporting armed non-state actors that challenged Israeli and US influence in the region.
In 2011, popular protests led to the removal of US-backed authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt empowering long-repressed Islamist movements as well as other diverse political voices. As uprisings quickly spread across the region, the militarization of the rebellions in Syria, Libya, and Yemen led these territories to become violent geopolitical battlegrounds. Rival regional powers such as Türkiye and Qatar as well as Saudi Arabia and the UAE sought to influence regional politics by backing rival political forces and arming non-state actors. Violent conflicts across Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen led to the erosion and fragmentation of state territorial control.
Within this system of expanding turbulence and conflict, Iran was able to promote its own security and directly challenge US influence through its mosaic defense (defah-e mozaik) strategy (Krieg and Rickli 2019, 164-190). This system was shaped by the experience of the proliferation of popular militias during the 1979 revolution. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) emerged to manage these militias and develop a security sector that included a decentralized network of armed groups that were often autonomous from the central government. The IRGC al Quds Force helped develop foreign franchises, such as the Hizballah movement in Lebanon, the Shia Badr brigade in the context of the Iran-Iraq war, and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in Iraq in response to the rise of ISIS. Iran also supported other locally developed armed non-state actors, such as Hamas and Ansar Allah, with shared regional security interests.
In the context of increasing turbulence, Iran was able to expand its regional influence and security through a network self-styled as the “Axis of Resistance” that spans Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. Such forces were essential for projecting Iran’s influence in post 2003 Iraq, battling Israel to a standstill in the 2006 war in Lebanon, supporting the regime of Bashar Al Assad against Syrian rebels, and containing ISIS and other jihadist forces. By the 2010s’ Iran had shifted to a more offensive capable approach referred to as “forward defense” able to project power against threats to Iran’s security. Hizballah’s missiles and drones targeting Israel played a central role in this strategy. While there is no evidence that Iran planned the October 7 assault by Hamas, its network helped mobilize and coordinate attacks against Israel, the US, and others as the post-October 7 conflict escalated (Sobelman 2024). While these groups support Iran’s regional security interests while offering security to some local communities, not fully accountable to local states they also threaten rival communities and actors within and beyond those states and thus also contribute to the dynamics of turbulence.
Reconfigurations of Turbulence Before and After October 7
Not only were the October 7 attacks on Israel unanticipated by US officials, but the spread of intense regional conflict also exposed the limits of the Biden administration’s approach to regional order. With the focus on security and economic integration between US regional allies, US strategy failed to address ongoing regional conflicts and viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as contained due to Israel’s military strength and the other priorities of US Arab allies. As Andreas Krieg (2024) reflects, “The regional order has been increasingly shaped by non-state actors and networks who do not only challenge the position of the United States but the integrity, stability, and influence of states per se” (see also Darwich this volume).
While Hamas might have hoped its brazen attack, followed by Israel’s campaign of massive retaliation, would lead to a multifront war against Israel by forces across the Axis of Resistance, each actor within it had different security interests and capabilities while Iran had little interest in an expanded confrontation with Israel. Hizballah engaged Israel on its northern border with daily, but limited, rocket and missile attacks. Pro-Iranian militias struck US forces in Iran, Syria, and Jordan, but halted after Iran’s insistence. The Houthi Ansar Allah militia targeted Israel with drones and missiles and launched a campaign against “Israel-linked” ships in the Red Sea which disrupted shipping through the Suez Canal but posed a limited direct threat to Israel.
In response to the October 7 attacks, the US recommitted to backing Israel militarily and deploying US forces to the region to deter attacks against US forces and its regional allies. For almost a year, US officials appeared to hope for an end to the hostilities so it might return to its efforts to promote regional security and economic integration. Such an opportunity never appeared. Biden held back from applying the required pressure on Israel to accept a sustained cease fire while likely violating US law by continuing arms shipments (Borger 2024). Israel continued its destructive campaign in Gaza with so much unrestrained force and with seeming disregard for the civilian population that it was soon accused of war crimes and genocide (along with the military commanders of Hamas responsible for the October 7 attacks). As Mona Yacoubian (2024) observed, “The Middle East is no longer bound by established rules of engagement and modes of deterrence.”
During the prolonged conflict, key regional US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt feared the consequences of Israel’s actions for Palestine and the region. These states face domestic as well as external threats to their own regime security (see Ryan this volume). The extent of the physical destruction and human suffering in Gaza as well as parts of Lebanon horrified Arab societies fostering networks of Palestinian solidarity and challenging efforts to promote expanded integration with Israel. In recent years, most Arab states have a sought to dampen the effects of turbulence by limiting their involvement in armed conflicts, deescalating regional rivalries, and attempting to rebuild political order within war-torn states. In some cases, states have tried to expand state control over armed non-state actors (Ardemagni 2023). Most states have worked to deescalate regional rivalries including Saudi ending its blockage of Qatar, Türkiye trying to patch up relations fractured during the Arab uprisings, the negotiation of a truce in Yemen, the reentry of Syria into the Arab League, and the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between Iran-Saudi Arabia (Kaye and Wehrey 2023).
For many Arab states normalizing relations with Israel and regional security integration have been viewed as means to assure US support and security guarantees. Most Arab states wish to avoid a more polarized region and seek ties with Israel as part of the broader diversification of their security relationships and arms suppliers, which includes ties with China (opposed by the US). While they remain repressive and generally resist addressing societal inequalities and other threats to human security, many Arab regimes nevertheless recognize that a major threat to their regime security is the challenge of sustaining economic welfare and managing the socioeconomic needs of their populations into the future. For even states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have sought to expand cooperation with Israel and have suppressed pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the ongoing conflict strained their relations with Israel and exposed differences over the future of Palestine.
Israel’s extensive, multifront military campaign has sought to eliminate the threatening capacities of rival non-state actors and their main state backer Iran (the so-called “Axis of Resistance”). Israel seeks to insulate itself from the effects of regional turbulence. While waging its campaign against Gaza, Israel also continued bombing sites in Lebanon as well as Hizballah and Iranian targets in Syria and Houthi targets in Yemen. A year later, with the bulk of Hamas’s military capacity eliminated and Gaza in ruins, Israel escalated its conflict with Hizballah with an extensive campaign targeting its leadership, weapon stores, supply infrastructure, and eventually people and buildings across Lebanon that Israel viewed as associated with any aspect of Hizballah. By the end of 2024, Israel’s devastating campaign had eliminated what Hizballah had long touted as its deterrent capability, debilitated Hizballah as an organization, and inflicted so much damage on Lebanon and its people that the group agreed to a ceasefire before there was one in Gaza. As a result, Iran has been forced to reconsider its forward defense strategy and might consider the nuclear option if its program survives the ongoing assault. Responding to the strategic failure and trauma of October 7, Israel not only claimed to restore deterrence by denial but to drastically shift the regional balance of power enabling a new regional order based on Israel’s regional military dominance (Rachman 2024).
Violence, Insecurity, and Regional Order
With the success of Israel’s military campaigns and the rapid collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, in early 2025, the outgoing Biden administration spoke about the new opportunities to forge a “more integrated region and security architecture” created by the shift in the regional balance of power (Blinken 2025). It would be impossible to predict the future polices of the second Trump administration, but the lack of US commitment to ensuring a pathway to Palestinians self-determination, guaranteeing the ceasefire in Lebanon, and supporting post-conflict state-building and reconstruction in Syria suggest that the forging of a regional order remains perilous. As the major states of the region lack a shared understanding of security, the dynamics of turbulence are likely to persist as they are reconfigured with more assertive, autonomous armed non-state actors, regional geopolitical rivalry, and societies facing profound insecurity.
While the US has worked to promote the integration of the security capacities of its regional allies, it has done little to ensure these states embrace a common understanding of regional security. While the US has insisted on an Israel-centered approach to regional security, such a vision is unsustainable even with expanded normalization agreements. Israel continues to maintain its own exclusive security concerns and strategic approach leading it to reject Palestinian self-determination, impose its preferences on its neighbors, seek to maximize its regional military dominance, and deny accusations of genocide. Meanwhile, the overthrowing of the Assad regime in Syria by a Syrian backed jihadist militia will likely result in Türkiye expanding its influence and clashing with US, Israeli, Kurdish, and Gulf interests (Phillips 2025). And across the ruins of Lebanon and Palestine, regional powers will likely compete for influence while new armed non-state actors might emerge creating more challenges for state consolidation efforts. The collective capacity of the Axis of Resistance might be diminished, but Iran and its allies will likely reconfigure their strategies and seek new tools to advance their different interests. More broadly, the US-backed devastation to Palestine, as well as Lebanon, and now Iran may leave a long-lasting mark on the political perspectives of Arab societies posing challenges to normalization as well as to the US role in the region and regimes dependent on it for security.
Any sustainable regional security architecture would need to avoid polarization, craft shared norms and attempt to find ways to be inclusive of the security needs of all regional states, including Iran. Rebuilding political order and addressing the major threats to societal insecurity across the domestic space of regional states will likely need to come first. Unfortunately, the uncertainty and geopolitical rivalries likely to shape the post-October 7 era in the region will only increase the insecurities of societies across the region and the challenges to any effort to build a more stable and secure regional order.
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