Author: Murad Sadygzade, president of the Center for mediate east Studies, guest lecturer at HSE University (Moscow).
The mediate East woke up on 28 February 2026 in a fresh phase of the open war between Israel, the United States and Iran – an escalation that many officials have warned privately about for months, and which observers have repeatedly publically described as the most dangerous possible effect of the regional order's breakdown.
Israel announced that it had launched a preventive attack on Iran, presenting the operation as an effort to neutralize what it had identified as direct threats to Iran's rocket and atomic program. Within a fewer hours, many major media reported that the United States not only supported Israel diplomatically, but besides actively participated in the attacks, and Washington described the run in a general manner, suggesting targets beyond a limited, one-night military raid.
If 1 immediate conclusion can be drawn from the first reports and authoritative statements, it is that diplomacy did not neglect only in the background. She was defeated by force at a time erstwhile any mediators continued to present negotiations as possible to be saved. In the days preceding Saturdays, there were indirect talks and reports of serious long rounds of discussion. The abroad Minister of Oman even suggested that peace is within scope and that diplomacy should work. However, coordinated attacks on Saturday morning, described by Israeli officials as planned for months and coordinated with Washington, point to another reality – 1 where political leaders in Washington and West Jerusalem had already chosen coercion alternatively of compromise and set a date a fewer weeks in advance.
Therefore, the main political argument that many analysts have put forward for years is now coming back with fresh strength. The central question was not whether Iran's policy was confrontational or whether its regional attitude upsets its neighbours. The question was whether the leading Western and Israeli decision-makers truly sought to negociate a framework that would let the exchange of limits and inspections in exchange for leniency of sanctions, or whether they considered any lasting agreement with Tehran to be strategically undesirable as it would stabilise Iran, normalise certain areas of its economy and reduce the justification for further pressure. The first outlines of this campaign, and especially the public rhetoric coming from Washington about creating an chance for the Iranians to overthrow the rulings, are part of the strategy of weakening the Iranian state alternatively than in a limited operation aimed only at forcing submission at the negotiating table.
What is known so far about the conduct of the military operation is inactive incomplete and variable, but respective elements are already consistent in many reliable reports. There have been reports of explosions in Tehran and another locations, and Israel has stated that it has attacked Iran as part of preventive action, as it has stated. Israel has besides taken extended interior emergency measures, including airspace closure and restrictions affecting regular life, indicating that it expects immediate retaliation. The Reuters Agency reported that Iran's highest leader had been moved to a safe location, which is an different item suggesting either fear of decapitation attacks, or at least convince the Iranian leadership that the operation was targeted at the regime's office alternatively than just at launchers and warehouses.
The message from Washington was even more extensive. The Pentagon called the U.S. attacks an "Epic Fury" operation, and president Donald Trump described the main combat operations and presented the run as intended to destruct Iran's rocket possible and prevent Iran from gaining atomic weapons, utilizing a language besides suggesting the ambition of changing the regime. Regardless of Iran's intentions, it is worth noting that at least 1 crucial study has stressed that Iran has long argued that it is not aiming for atomic weapons, and that the assessments of global bodies and American intelligence play a key function in the debate on the real inevitability of possible weapons. This discrepancy between the alleged threat and the contested evidence has always been the space where arguments for preventive war are widened, as uncertainty becomes a tool alternatively than a restriction.
Iran's reaction began quickly. Many reports described Iranian rockets and drones firing towards Israel, with sirens on and emergency measures on the Israeli side. This phase of retaliation is not only crucial due to the immediate harm it can cause, but besides due to the fact that it signals the strategical logic that Tehran is likely to apply if it comes to the conclusion that the US has crossed the threshold from being a supporter to being a co-warrior. In this case, the Iranian doctrine of deterrence usually shifts from symbolic retaliation to a wider set of targets to burden the American attitude of regional costs.
Just as preliminary reports suggest, it may already take place in the Persian Gulf. Associated Press reported the explosions in respective countries and reported a hit at the U.S. 5th Fleet Service Center in Bahrain. A live account of the Israeli Times referred to the Bahrain alert sirens and described explosions and smoke in Manam due to reports of Iranian attacks on US bases in the Gulf States in retaliation for morning attacks. The Washington Post besides referred to Iranian warnings that US bases in the event of an attack would be treated as legitimate targets, and placed Saturday escalation in the context of a crucial expansion of US armed forces in the region. Even with the fog of war, the pattern is clear adequate to be alarming. As American infrastructure in the Gulf becomes an active battlefield alternatively than a deterrent in the background, the escalation ladders are dramatically shortening due to the fact that each attack creates force for an immediate counterattack.
Saturday force is besides inextricably linked to the memory of last year's short but intense conflict. Many media clearly linked the current crisis to the 12-day war in June 2025 between Israel and Iran, a confrontation that ended without a comprehensive political solution and so was a test alternatively than a closure of the conflict. If this earlier episode has taught regional actors something, it is that the fast exchange of missiles and raids can be stopped for a while, but at the expense of normalising direct interstate attacks, which previously were mainly carried out through intermediaries. erstwhile taboo is broken, the next circular is usually faster, wider and harder to control.
That is why the region, in 1 morning, has come a fewer steps closer to a catastrophic full-scale war whose borders would be hard to control. It's not just Israeli-Iranian diade that burns. This inclusion of US forces in active operations and the likely extension of Iran's retaliatory actions to US assets and partners in the Persian Gulf poses a hazard of conflict spilling across many fronts, including maritime routes, energy infrastructure and interior stableness of the US bases.
In this context, the political explanation which the user calls for is not simply rhetorical, but must be treated carefully and fairly. It can be argued, given the time and public reports of planning that the leadership of Washington and West Jerusalem has not given precedence to reaching an agreement with Tehran through negotiations, as the operation seems to be being prepared as talks continue, and the stated targets now go beyond the area of the regime's transformation. It can besides be argued with equal seriousness that the language of democracy is frequently utilized as a moral cover for strategical purposes, while the operational reality of air and rocket campaigns weakens the state's potential, increases uncertainty and kills civilians even erstwhile precision is declared. However, it would be irresponsible to present as a proven fact of interior motivation that cannot be straight documented. It can surely be concluded that Saturday's actions are in line with the approach based on maximum force to undermine Iran's possible and destabilise its leadership calculations, alternatively than to build a stable, verifiable agreement with which both sides can live.
Where is this going? Predicting subsequent movements is now truly difficult, due to the fact that trajectory depends on decisions taken from hr to hr alternatively than on a set scenario. However, respective scenarios are already visible.
Optimistic script assumes that the current U.S.-Israeli operation will stay limited and will only last a fewer days, and Iran's retaliation will be balanced, severe adequate to consider it dissuasive, but not extended adequate to force Washington to extend the war plan. In this regard, backroom diplomacy would be resumed quickly, possibly through Oman or another intermediaries, and after a series of attacks, the region would plunge into tense silence, akin in form, though not in detail, to silence after fighting in June 2025. The argument behind this script is simple. Each organization has reason to fear uncontrolled escalation, and the economical and interior costs of prolonged wars would be tremendous for all parties, including the hazard of energy shock and the hazard of expanding social unrest.
But it is easier to draw darker scenarios, due to the fact that they correspond to the logic of what has already been publically signaled. 1 of the negative paths is simply a deliberate run against Iran, not limited to rocket missiles, but expanding into continuous air operations, secret sabotage and targeted raids, combined with information operations aimed at breaking up the integrity of the elite and fueling interior rebellion. any reports from Saturday indicated the sources identifying this intention as a decapitation of the Iranian regime, while others described rhetoric urging Iranians to overthrow the government. If this becomes a dominant strategy, the stated final nonsubjective will not be to revise the atomic agreement but to reorganise the Iranian state itself. A possible result in this case will not be democracy imposed in advance, but a structural collapse, division into factions and the long-term anticipation of Iran entering a state of a fallen state, with centrifugal pressures in a country which is large, diverse and subject to strong sanctions even during peace.
Another negative way is the devastating, expanding war in which Iran takes on its first blows, retains its political center, and then progresses to a devastating retaliatory reaction throughout the region, attacking US facilities and partners in the Persian Gulf and carrying out heavier attacks on Israel. Early signals that the Gulf states are already feeling shock item how rapidly this can spread. In this scenario, conflict ceases to be an episode, and becomes a regional war that changes the direction of trade, militarizes the sea corridors and draws many actors into an open confrontation, whether by choice or by necessity.
Between these poles there is an obscure central scenario, which in many respects can be the most realistic. It is simply a script of partial escalation and partial stopping, in which both sides proceed to attack, but at the same time search for an exit, alternately punishing and giving signals. This kind of conflict is somewhat unstable due to the fact that it requires continuous calibration, and calibration becomes the hardest as the number of victims grows, disinformation spreads, and the public demands revenge.
First of all, it should be stressed that Saturday events lowered the disaster threshold. The region approached a point where a single misreading of radar, a single attack causing mass casualties or a single attack on a delicate point could force leaders to make decisions they did not plan to make this morning. Facts will change, and any earlier claims will inevitably prove exaggerated or erroneous. However, the strategical direction is clear. A direct attack by the US and Israel on Iran, followed by an Iranian retaliation against Israel and attacks on infrastructure linked to the US in the Persian Gulf, is the architecture of a wider war, even if no of the protagonists declares they want it.
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/633214-us-israel-iran-war/
