The flaw was not in one decision, but in a complete pattern of thinking.!
Afrasianet - Abbas Mohammed Al Zein - In determining the political or strategic mistake of a country when it makes a decision, there are several factors that go into determining the causes and consequences of a decision.
When it comes to a country the size of the United States, the reasons for making the decision are often overshadowed by the consequences of it, given that American political history is full of falsification of facts and motives.
In its war on Iran, Washington, through the administrations of President Joe Biden and later President Donald Trump, took several steps to reach a direct military clash.
It was clear from the first moments after the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation in 2023 that Iran, with its support for resistance movements in the region, is in the circle of targeting and targeting, and that it will be in a confrontation with "Israel" for a certain period of time.
This was part of a plan for gradual escalation in the region, which Washington expressed through its military mobilization In the first days after Oct. 7, Israel defined it with the talk of its officials, especially Netanyahu, about changing the "face of the Middle East."
The first mistake
In the years leading up to the recent war on Gaza, American studies centers and security and political centers close to the sources of the decision and naturally influenced by the Israeli decision have been saying that Iran's "arms" in the region are the ones that provide it with protection, and that Iran maintains the existence of its regime by "creating" armed groups and organizations that stand as an impregnable barrier to any external movement against it, considering that these groups and organizations are the first, second, and third lines of defense according to their strength.
On February 28, 2024, Susan Maloney, vice president and director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a session titled "Iran's Shadow Army: Tackling Iran's Proxy Network in the Middle East.
"In her testimony, Maloney spoke of "a network of armed groups that Tehran has built over decades as one of the most important tools of power in Iran's arsenal," arguing that "this network — which included groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and groups in the Middle East — Iraq and Ansar Allah in Yemen – It provides Tehran with strategic depth, provides it with indirect protection and protects its leadership from immediate dangers, because it allows the conflict to be managed through proxies away from direct confrontation within Iran.
In her testimony, she also noted that the events of October 7, 2023 and the Gaza war were an opportunity for Tehran to strengthen the role of this network, as "proxy attacks against Israeli and American targets increased after that date," reflecting, from the perspective of her analysis, how Iran exploits such crises to expand its regional influence and "test" the will of its opponents, while these groups act as a "defense layer that works to prevent any direct attack on the Iranian regime itself," and concludes in some aspects of its analysis that "this is a Part of the regime's strategy to stay in Iran and give it protection from indirect risks."
These analyses practically intersected with the statements of American and Israeli officials at the time, about "dealing with Iran's proxies in the region, and that Tehran is the head of the octopus that must be detached, after neutralizing its allies."
Thus, the American idea was based on the idea that what it calls "Iran's proxies" are the ones who believe in its defense, and that their primary existence is centered on "protecting the regime in Iran," which means that targeting and weakening them will naturally lead to the collapse of the regime in Iran, or at the very least, the ease of swooping at a later stage.
Therefore, targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon, directing strikes against Iraq, and at a later stage against Yemen, occupying Gaza in this way, and expanding the circle of striking all Iran's allies in the region with the aim of eliminating or weakening them, leading of course to the central event, which is the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, was part of an American-Israeli plan, mainly aimed at reaching Iran, because their vision (Washington and the occupation) of these armed organizations was based on a vision based on "groups" and not "communities" and that they are subordinate Iran has a "mafia" dependency, which means securing money and weapons to "protect the leader and achieve his interests," and striking them will open the way to Tehran.
It can be said that the Israeli-American strikes weakened and affected Iran's allies, and Israel and the United States achieved an upward or upward rise in regional strategic influence.
But all of this was during the war, not after it ended. More precisely, the "achievements" made by Israel and the United States are not the result of the war, because they did not end in the first place, but during it.
When the United States reached the point where it felt it could wage war on Iran and topple its regime, the strategic mistake became clear. Iran's allies, who were hit and weakened to some extent, took advantage of the war to reschedule the battle against Israel with new goals that would regain what they had lost.
In other words, Iran's allies have found in its steadfastness, strength, and ability to repel the attack, bear its consequences, and respond to it, an opportunity to enter the battle and improve their local, regional, and strategic situation.
The battle against Iran has shown that the weakening of its allies has not only not weakened it, but also has not affected its regional presence and its ability to transfer the threat beyond its borders.
It appears here that talk of transferring the threat beyond its borders was specifically in countries where it does not have allies, and this in turn strikes a point that strikes the American strategy that Tehran is capable of threatening countries by creating "armed groups" allied to it.
Thus, it appears that Iran has been a strategic lever for its allies from During its war with the United States, it provided them with a protective umbrella that would enable them to enter the battle to regain gains they had lost and to exploit the results in the context of broader regional negotiation.
Iran is also present in the battle with all its might, and the question of what its allies can offer it remains under the headline: "What is it lacking now?".
The most prominent American strategic mistake here is that Washington has treated Iran as a country that requires external protection or is governed by a regime that cannot survive without "proxies" to defend it. In other words, Washington has treated Iran as "Israel."
Since the Biden administration, Washington has been guiding the Netanyahu government in the path of eliminating Iran's allies first, and then eliminating the Iranian regime becomes a matter of course. February 28 I have emphasized that the one who defends and provides an umbrella for Iran's allies is Iran itself by its own strength, and not the other way around.
This is currently being translated into a key clause in Tehran's conditions for negotiations, which is to stop the war on all fronts and secure the interests of its "strategic allies."
The second mistake
When Donald Trump comes out almost every day to say that the Strait of Hormuz does not matter to the United States and is not one of its priorities, he contradicts the foundations of American power, both in terms of enabling alliances and in terms of its international security and geopolitical presence.
The Strait of Hormuz is a key artery for one of the most prominent aspects of American influence in the international system: global trade and energy.
Based on this contradiction, the essence of the second mistake in the American approach is clear: not only did it misestimate the importance of the Gulf, but also extended to treating it as a space that could be neutralized or its strategic weight reduced in the midst of the confrontation with Iran.
This perception was reflected in practice in policies that raised the level of risks to the Gulf states, at the expense of momentary priorities linked to Israel's security, even though this region is a pillar in the structure of long-term American interests.
Thus, the mistake was in the contradiction between the discourse that diminishes its importance and the strategic reality that puts it at the heart of international balances, which paved the way for the transformation of this arena from a fulcrum of stability to an open arena of engagement within the broader regional conflict.
In the U.S. approach, there has been an exaggeration in exposing the Gulf region and its countries to high levels of danger, according to security calculations related to confronting Iran and ensuring Israel's security.
Over the past decades, the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, have been key pillars in the structure of the global economic system led by Washington, whether in terms of energy production, market stability, or the embrace of U.S. military infrastructure in the region.
This should have forced Washington to take a more cautious approach in the Any broad regional escalation, especially with the realization that any direct confrontation with Iran will make these countries the first arena for response, by virtue of geography, intertwining of interests, and the presence of military bases.
However, the U.S. behavior, from the moment of the transition to direct confrontation, reflected an implicit assumption that this region could be neutralized or protected within acceptable limits, through air defense systems or through conventional deterrence, without turning into an actual battlefield.
This assumption quickly proved inaccurate, as the strikes moved deep into the Gulf, targeting vital facilities, military bases, and sensitive economic corridors, putting the region at the center of the conflict rather than remaining on its margins.
What happened makes it clear that Washington treated the Gulf as a space guaranteed to be protected by virtue of military superiority, rather than as a potential weakness that could turn into a source of pressure on it and the global economy. Subjecting energy facilities, ports, and military bases in these countries to strikes not only threatens the stability of U.S. allies, but also strikes at the foundations of the economic system it seeks to protect.
Thus, the second mistake is inseparable from the first, but complements it, if Washington has misjudged the nature of the Iran's power and territorial structure have also misjudged the arenas of this power's rebound, especially the Gulf, which has turned into an open arena of engagement, with its repercussions that go beyond the military dimension to the broader economic and strategic dimension.
It is important to note here that Washington was not ignorant of the potential cost of this path, nor the nature of the risks that might result from taking the confrontation with Iran to a more exposed level in the Gulf.
But on the contrary, it was aware that any broad escalation would inevitably expose countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar to direct strikes, by virtue of their geographical location and their embrace of the American military structure. However, the mistake was to overestimate the ability to contain the Iranian reaction. Or adjust its rhythm within limits that are not out of control, or within certain limits.
More precisely, Washington assumed that it could manage the escalation according to the logic of "calculated strikes," so that it would strike hard blows against Iran, without leading to a full-scale explosion in arenas that are vital to it.
This assumption was based on two pillars: first, that Iran would avoid expanding the circle of response to a level that would significantly threaten the stability of the Gulf, lest it slide into a destructive war.
However, what happened showed that these two pillars were clearly questionable, as the Iranian reaction tended to expand the arena of engagement, targeting the depth of the Gulf and its vital interests, in the first hour after the US strikes.
The most prominent strategic mistake in the current U.S. approach is Washington's failure to properly balance risks between Israel's security on the one hand and maintaining the security and stability of the Gulf on the other. U.S. policies have focused on securing Israeli interests vis-à-vis Iran, seeing it as the bulk of securing its interests.
That's true, but Washington has also ignored that the region most important to its long-term interests is the Gulf states. In other words, Gulf security is no less important, and perhaps even more important, than preserving it, because it is a key lever of U.S. regional and international influence.
As the American thinker John Mearshmeyer argues, states in a chaotic system do not have the luxury of relying on intentions, but rather act according to capabilities.
The United States erred in assuming that stripping Iran of its allies would lead to its subjugation, while realistic logic suggests that the existential threat pushes regional powers to use their maximum self-capabilities to re-establish a new balance of deterrence, which has contributed to transforming the Gulf from a U.S. sphere of influence into an open arena of attrition.
They were supposed to be among the top protection priorities in the U.S. strategy, not arenas where they could be escalated or the limits of the conflict tested.
Iran's Toughness
Ultimately, the flaw was not in a single decision, but in a complete pattern of thinking. The United States dealt with Iran on the basis of its isolation, with the war on the basis of its ability to be controlled, and with the Gulf on the basis of the possibility of protecting it at no high cost. However, reality has shown that these assumptions do not stand up to the complexity of the region and its interconnectedness.
While Washington thought that dismantling the network of allies would inevitably expose and defeat Tehran, the facts proved that Iranian power is not just a mechanical structure that can be dismantled piece by piece, but rather an organic system that has a high capacity to adapt, take the battle to unexpected levels, and even reproduce the power of its allies on their own (not the other way around).
The miscalculation of Iran's toughness and complacency in protecting the "security of the Gulf" have put the United States in front of a pivotal historical entitlement: either to slide into a major regional war of attrition that topples the stability of the global economy, threatens the American presence in the region, and affects international balances as a whole, or accept a new balance of power in which Iran and the "axis of resistance" impose its conditions on the negotiating table, within a new vision of regional security.
The "change in the face of the Middle East," which Netanyahu aspired to and supported by Washington, now appears to be reproducing the Iranian presence more radically, perhaps putting American hegemony in the region to its final test.
The war proved that those who have the ability to survive on the ground are the ones who ultimately have the ability to draw the boundaries of the new political map, away from the illusions of "calculated wars" or "easy victories." Is the United States getting used to the new order in the region?
