Why a major war in the Middle East feels inevitable

Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist writing roughly 2,500 years ago, said that ‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.’ As we stand on the precipice of a truly frightening regional conflict, which pits a technologically advanced Israel and its allies against Iran and its allies in a war of asymmetry, this tension between strategy and tactics will be a crucial determinant of whether this war ever ends. 

We are in an escalatory spiral of tactical exchanges, with both sides aiming for that elusive sweet spot of striking a blow so forceful that it deters the other side from further action, but not so forceful that it provokes a regional war. And yet national pride demands that each tactical strike be bolder than the last, for deterrence’s sake. And all of this to the backdrop of (hollow) protestations that no one seeks a regional war. These tactics seem designed to ensure the continuation of the status quo, not in the service of a greater strategy of victory or peace. The result is a continuation of a multi-decade covert war between Israel and its enemies in the region. A war of strikes and counter strikes. And from this vantage point, guessing our proximity to an all-out war feels less important than reasling just how far we are from peace. 

If the past quarter of a century of warfare in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa has taught us anything, it is that killing senior and mid-level commanders as Israel has done in recent weeks is not a reliable path to victory. For the simple reason that where there was one commander, there will be another. Where there is fighting, there are dead civilians, the most potent recruiting sergeants. And where there is a strategic imperative for both sides to continue fighting, fuelled by grievance, the death of one man rarely, if ever, sends a loud enough message to change the behaviour of your enemy. 

The result is a gruelling stalemate; frontlines changing hands every few decades. Civilians dying in their thousands. What is often damaged most is pride, innocents and masonry. The juggernauts of grievance and history will always be bigger than one commander, or a group of commanders. Just ask Afghanistan.

Perhaps the most totemic of tactical strikes against an enemy was the US’ operation to kill IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020, an operation which grabbed plenty of headlines, but which altered little in the way of Tehran’s policy, their commitment to prosecute a regional conflict. 

The Mossad are masters of the covert operation, at levelling the scores and at never letting a member of Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran’s nuclear programme rest easy in their beds. The roll call of Mossad assassinations around the world is a long one taking in PLO leaders, Iranian scientists and Hamas and Hezbollah weapons suppliers. In 2010 some 27 Israeli agents, posing as European tourists, travelled to Dubai, to target Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, an arms supplier for Hamas. Some were dressed for a game of tennis. Aside from the diplomatic fall out consequent on the use of British aliases by Mossad’s operatives, the operation was a tactical success in that it achieved its objective of killing al-Mabhouh with the use of a paralysing drug. At the time, it was seen as striking a blow to Hamas’ ability to conduct operations. Today, however, that tactical victory looks rather empty. Where there was one al-Mabhouh, there came another. Where there was one Ismail Haniyeh, there will be another.

Wars end in negotiation when parties to the conflict see nothing to be gained in continuing to fight. Or when one side is comprehensively defeated. Given America’s resolute support for Israel, Iran’s continued backing for its network of proxies across the region, and the self-perpetuating nature of these tactical exchanges, not to mention the profoundly deep hatred that exists between Israel and Hamas, both above scenarios feel increasingly remote.