As the US‑Israeli confrontation with Iran expands, a wave of retaliatory strikes and allied actions across the region is deepening instability. Governments and communities from the Gulf to the Levant are seeing rising violence, fracturing loyalties and mounting pressure on fragile political systems.
“The Middle East is burning,” wrote Mohamed Chtatou of Mohammed V University in Rabat, describing not a single conflagration but “a constellation of simultaneous blazes that respond to, feed off, and spread with their own logic.” Analysts at the European Council on Foreign Relations and other research centers this week warned that the region is immersed in fresh upheaval and that broader escalation remains a near‑term risk.
Iraq’s balancing act
Tensions in Iraq intensified after a high‑profile strike that Tehran blamed on Israel prompted days of protests in Baghdad outside the US embassy. Demonstrations turned violent, and observers say many participants were mobilized or encouraged by Iran‑aligned Iraqi paramilitary factions. Those militias have also launched strikes at US bases and airports in Iraq, including in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region.
Pressure in Iraqi Kurdistan rose further amid reports that the United States was considering support for Iranian Kurdish opposition groups that some fear might spark an insurgency inside Iran. Iranian Kurdish parties that maintain offices in Iraqi Kurdistan have been struck from the air; those parties deny their fighters are crossing the border. Muaz al‑Abdullah, ACLED’s Middle East research manager, warned that strikes in Kurdish‑majority western provinces and attacks on border and internal security positions point to peripheral destabilization that could prolong domestic instability and reshape regional security dynamics.
Kurdish authorities insist Iraqi Kurdistan will not be drawn into the wider confrontation, but persistent rumors and strikes compound existing friction between Erbil and Baghdad over oil revenues, autonomy and rights. Iraq’s federal government includes many Shiite politicians seen as sympathetic to Tehran; if Kurdish officials or forces were perceived as aiding an insurgency against Iran, relations with Baghdad and Tehran could be dangerously inflamed.
Threats in Bahrain
In Bahrain, anti‑war demonstrations against the US‑Israeli campaign and its effects on Iran turned violent in some places, and authorities arrested people for posting anti‑war content or for what officials described as “expressing sympathy” with Iran. Bahrain is a monarchy with tight restrictions on political dissent: the ruling family is Sunni while a slight Shiite majority lives in the country. Bahrain’s 2011 pro‑democracy uprising was crushed with support from the Saudi‑led Peninsula Shield forces—now the Unified Military Command—and unverified reports circulated this week that similar security assistance may have been deployed again.
Lebanon: communal tensions and a standoff with Hezbollah
The wider confrontation has sharpened the standoff between Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite movement aligned with Tehran. The United States and Israel have urged Hezbollah to disarm, and Beirut has signaled a similar preference to avoid further Israeli strikes. But Lebanon’s army lacks the capacity to forcibly disarm the group, creating a volatile standoff that risks breaking into direct confrontation.
After Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel and Israel responded with substantial strikes, Lebanon’s government on March 2 banned any military and security activities by the group, a move that brings the country closer to a showdown between state security forces and Hezbollah. Public opinion appears to be shifting: observers report growing opposition to Hezbollah, including within parts of the Shiite community that once broadly supported it. L’Orient Today described a turn from near‑unanimous solidarity with the “resistance” to anger at an escalation some see as pointless and self‑destructive.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced by fighting and evacuation orders, often with few safe options. Human Rights Watch has warned against forced displacement, and many of the uprooted now face public anger directed at Hezbollah. The crisis has also likely delayed Lebanon’s scheduled national elections by roughly two years.
What comes next?
Analysts say attacks on senior Iranian figures and the wider campaign against Iran’s network of allies carry deep political and religious implications. Mohammed Albasha, founder of the Basha Report risk‑analysis consultancy, noted that Iran’s supreme leader holds a profound spiritual role for some Shiite communities—analogous for them to the Pope for Catholics—so loyalty to that office is both political and religious.
Not all Shiite actors accept that religious authority. Albasha suggested the strongest reactions will most likely come from groups that do accept it: Hezbollah and some Iraqi militias could press Lebanon and Iraq toward wider confrontation. In Gulf monarchies such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Shiite communities appear less likely to mount large‑scale direct challenges to their governments, though small‑scale disruptions by fringe elements cannot be ruled out.
The broader picture is one of multiple fault lines being tested simultaneously: state versus non‑state armed actors, sectarian divides, intra‑state political tensions, and the real danger of cross‑border spillovers. As regional and international players respond, the risk of a wider, protracted period of instability across the Middle East remains significant.
Edited by: Maren Sass