When listening to U.S. President Donald Trump or U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, one gets the sense that the war they are now pursuing in the Middle East is solely about Iran. The campaign, now six days old and apparently open-ended, is chiefly about Iran, but it is already having a profound impact across the region. Washington cannot undertake a military operation of this magnitude without causing significant transformation in political dynamics. This change will be especially pronounced when it comes to the future of Islamism, Palestinian resistance, the status of the West Bank, and the prospect of Arab normalization with Israel.
The establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 provided the ideological ardor for Islamists throughout the Middle East, whether Shia or Sunni. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumph came only a dozen years after the defeat of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies in June 1967. If Israel’s drubbing of three Arab armies in just a few days stripped bare the failures of Arab nationalism for all the world to see, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 animated Islamists, demonstrating for them what was possible. The Muslim Brotherhood, its various branches, and other Islamist groups around the region did not share Khomeini’s commitment to direct clerical rule, but they found inspiration and encouragement in his success. As a result, they seized the opportunity to fill an ideological and social void.
When listening to U.S. President Donald Trump or U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, one gets the sense that the war they are now pursuing in the Middle East is solely about Iran. The campaign, now six days old and apparently open-ended, is chiefly about Iran, but it is already having a profound impact across the region. Washington cannot undertake a military operation of this magnitude without causing significant transformation in political dynamics. This change will be especially pronounced when it comes to the future of Islamism, Palestinian resistance, the status of the West Bank, and the prospect of Arab normalization with Israel.
The establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 provided the ideological ardor for Islamists throughout the Middle East, whether Shia or Sunni. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumph came only a dozen years after the defeat of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies in June 1967. If Israel’s drubbing of three Arab armies in just a few days stripped bare the failures of Arab nationalism for all the world to see, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 animated Islamists, demonstrating for them what was possible. The Muslim Brotherhood, its various branches, and other Islamist groups around the region did not share Khomeini’s commitment to direct clerical rule, but they found inspiration and encouragement in his success. As a result, they seized the opportunity to fill an ideological and social void.
In response to the post-1979 challenge that Islamism posed, Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, and other leaders around the region combined a mix of “accommodation and confrontation.” To outmaneuver and outrun the Islamists, Arab leaders ceded legal, cultural, and educational space to them, which contributed to their prestige and influence in society. So much so that Arab governments, at times, appropriated the language and symbols of Islamism. Still, at moments when these groups accumulated too much power, they were repressed. This was a pattern, especially in Egypt and Jordan.
The Arab uprisings and failed political transitions were another watershed. In the last decade and a half, Islamists around the region were on the run. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had been brutally repressed since the 2013 coup that brought Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power; Morocco’s Justice and Development Party lost badly in a parliamentary election; Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman neutered Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment; Jordan banned the Muslim Brotherhood (though not its party, the Islamic Action Front); and Tunisian President Kais Saied defenestrated the Ennahda party. There were still potent Islamist groups out there and powerful sponsors, notably Turkey and Qatar, but, overall, it seemed that the tide had turned against Islamism. Even the Islamists of the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shed its hardest edges—at least publicly—after assuming power in Syria in December 2024.
Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and its aftermath gave Islamists a boost. Their narrative about the perfidy of Zionism and its primary sponsor, the United States, resonated around the region as the rubble and bodies piled up in the Gaza Strip. Now, with the blows that the Islamic Republic has taken from the United States and Israel (in addition to the damage that Israel has done to Hamas and Hezbollah), the Islamist project will be increasingly under strain in the Middle East.
Even if the Iranian regime does not fall, its claims to represent resistance will likely be compromised. On a social and moral level, many Iranians have been in open revolt against Islamist governance for well over a decade. Mahsa Amini died in 2022 at the hands of Iran’s morality police because they did not like the way she covered her hair. Iranian women burned their hijabs in response and have flouted cleric-imposed religious strictures ever since. The combination of the war and the rebellion of so many Iranians against the regime will no doubt demoralize Islamists around the region. Of course, there will continue to be Islamists and Islamist activism, but the idea that they could capture a country like they did 47 years ago in Iran seems farfetched. Whatever the war’s outcome, the primary front in the battle over Islamism will shift from the Middle East to the West.
The further weakening of Iran will have a profound effect on Palestinian resistance. Islamic Jihad had long been an Iranian project, and Hamas, which the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood created in response, will have far fewer resources. And within Hamas, its hard-line Iran faction will be at a disadvantage to those in the organization who align with either Qatar or Turkey. The group as it has come to be known may be finished. Neither the Qataris nor the Turks would be willing to provide Hamas with the means and political support to carry out a campaign like Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7. Qatar and Turkey are rivals and competitors with Israel, but neither of them is in the business of liberating all of Palestine, which is a core ideological commitment of the Islamic Republic. The Qataris and Turks prefer to contain Hamas and use it for their own regional goals.
If the ability of Islamic Jihad and Hamas to resist is diminished because of the damage that the United States and Israel have inflicted on Iran, then it stands to reason that Israel’s right will be even more emboldened to annex the West Bank. Of course, this has been a long-term goal of Israel’s settler community, but with Iran and its two Palestinian proxies weakened, obstacles to its ultimate objective of integrating the area into Israel proper have fallen aside. The Palestinian Authority is too weak to challenge Israel, leaving the settlers without any opponents on the ground. As a result, the settlers’ drive to normalize places like Gush Etzion, Ariel, and others so that they are indistinguishable from towns and cities west of the green line, within Israel proper, will accelerate. Operation Epic Fury may give Trump leverage with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop annexation in the short run, but it will likely do little to derail it permanently. The Israeli right may regard Trump as a hero but only so much as he is an instrument for deepening Israel’s hold over the Land of Israel.
It is doubtful that Saudi Arabia would move forward with normalization with Israel at a moment when the settler community is emboldened. But even if Trump could force a change in Israeli policy, Riyadh now has less incentive to establish ties with Israel. If the Iranian regime falls, the Saudis will not need the Israelis as much. Normalization is certainly about economic integration and all the good stuff in Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 project, but it is also largely about security. A greatly weakened Iran renders Israeli F-35s less useful for Saudi defense. If the Islamic Republic survives, then the Saudi leadership will not want to be associated with Israel. A weakened but still capable clerical regime in Tehran may not be able to wreak damage in Tel Aviv, but it will be able to do so in Dammam.
And finally, the Saudis have always made it clear in one way or another that they would develop nuclear technology if the Iranians acquired a nuclear weapon. As the United States and Israel further degrade Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, it is going to be harder for Riyadh to make the case to Washington for a civilian nuclear program. Even if the United States agrees to help the Saudis with a nuclear program, it will be hard for Mohammed bin Salman to continue to resist the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol. The risk here is that the Saudis would instead turn to the Chinese or Russians for help in achieving their nuclear ambitions.
Whether Trump and his aides have considered any of these potential second and third-order effects of the conflict is doubtful. Even their first-order objectives seem to fluctuate—from neutralizing the Iranian military threat to all-out regime change, and back again. I suspect that wherever the United States ends up in Iran, the president will declare that was his objective all along.
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