Lina Khatib, associate fellow, Middle East and North Africa programme, Chatham House, tells Satarupa Bhattacharjya in a multimedia interview that the United States (US) and Israel wanted to demonstrate military superiority early to set the stage for what they are trying to achieve in the war with Iran — changing the geopolitical landscape of the region. Edited excerpts:
What you make of the present situation in West Asia?
It’s a historic time in the region and the world. For me, the transformation did not begin with the US’ strike on Iran on February 28. The transformation goes all the way back to October 7, 2023. It is the moment that changed US and Israeli appetite for the status quo that had until then been present for almost 50 years and that status quo was one in which Iran was a dominant actor all over the Middle East. October 7, of course, was an attack by Hamas.
But Israel and the US saw it as something larger than that, they saw it as something that is very much connected to Hamas’ patron, which is Iran. And since then, we have seen a change in the US and Israeli strategy to weaken Iran’s proxies and ultimately aim to eliminate the Iranian regime, as we know it. So, what is going on now is part of this big transformational process, which is not going to be swift, it’s not going to be easy and not going to be cheap.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other power elites, including military leaders, were assassinated in Israeli-US strikes. What does that mean for the region and, more importantly, for Iran?
The position of the supreme leader in Iran is hugely important, not just politically, but also religiously for the Shia community around the world. I don’t think anyone expected Israel and the US to be able to be so swift in eliminating not just high-level commanders in Iran but the ayatollah of Iran himself in such a short period of time. I think this caused a huge psychological shock, both for those who follow the ayatollah because of religious and ideological reasons and those who follow for political reasons.
I think that was the intention, a kind of shock and awe. It was a case in which the US and Israel wanted to demonstrate military superiority very early on to set the stage for what they are trying to achieve in this campaign, which is maximalist goals.
I don’t think those who were expecting this campaign to be a symbolic military strike or a limited military campaign were realistic in their expectations.
What role did technology play? For instance, the intelligence that came and the quickness with which the strikes were completed.
Some of the reports coming out have said that the US managed to infiltrate security cameras in Tehran. We know that the US has very sophisticated intelligence capabilities and this is not just technology. There is also a human element involved. It’s the combination of the two, combined with, I must say, miscalculation also and complacency on part of the Iranian regime. Because I don’t think they learned the lesson of Hezbollah. The lesson of Hezbollah (Iran-backed Lebanon-based armed group) being a group that was also infiltrated through technology and human intelligence leading to Israelis knowing exactly where the leader of Hezbollah was and being able to target him directly during the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024.
I don’t think the Iranian authorities were able to understand how vulnerable and how exposed they were and still are.
Iran has struck its neighbours in the Arab world. What is your understanding of how Iran is reacting?
The Iranian regime sees this war rightly, I would say, as an existential war. This is a war aimed at ending the Iranian regime. And the Iranian regime, therefore, is using all its available tools in this war against the US and its allies, as well as Israel, mainly but also Arab allies. Even though Iran officially says it is not targeting Arab allies of the US, in practice it is.
The counterattacks are not limited to US bases. They have hit civilian infrastructure, right?
This is leaving Iran with no friends. It has attacked even Oman, the country that had been involved in mediation (the stalled US-Iran talks on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme). This shows that Iran is desperate. It’s flailing. It’s strategy now is to inflict as much damage as possible. I would characterise it as a
Samson-and-the-temple scenario (from the Bible) in which it feels that if it’s going to be brought down, it wants to bring down the region with it. So that it becomes very painful and very costly for those around it.
The initial calculation was that perhaps the Gulf countries would tell the US to stop the campaign, because they were being hit by the implications. But that has not worked. I don’t think now that Iran has struck these countries and continues to do so that these countries are going to tell the US to stop at all because the last thing they want is an angry neighbour.
Ultimately, when the dust settles, the Iranian geography is going to be the same. Iran is not going to be transported somewhere else on the planet. These people will have to live with the repercussions and in a very close way. It is now in their interest to be prepared for a fundamental shift in the landscape (geopolitical) of the region. That means in Iran itself at the level of governance.
Would China or Russia that are perceived to be friends of Iran enter the war if it lasts long?
Iran has no friends. It’s something I’ve been saying for a while. There are reports that Russia may have provided some intelligence about US targets. But when you look at the bigger picture, Russia has not replenished Iran’s air defence system after it was attacked in the last war between Iran and Israel (in 2025).
China also has not jumped to Iran’s rescue even though they have signed a so-called strategic or comprehensive agreement that’s meant to be economic. Russia and China both have bigger calculations in their minds. They will not want to be cornered in a place where they are seen as stuck with Iran, which is fast losing its legitimacy around the world.
Yes, Iran remains a member of the United Nations, but the current regime is losing its legitimacy very fast. An indicator of this is the European Union putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the ‘terrorist list’ for the first time (on February 19) after having resisted doing this for many years. In a way, the position of this Iranian regime in international diplomacy has become untenable.Iran is quite isolated.
Is the rules-based order crumbling, as we have heard at this year’s Raisina Dialogue (international security conference) in Delhi?
Personally, I never really bought the framework of a rules-based order because if you go all the way back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example, that was not exactly an invasion. That was aligned with international law et al.
It was an illegal invasion. Since then we have seen multiple examples of countries breaking this so-called rules-based order. Unfortunately, I don’t think this order was actually there before this campaign (the West Asia war). The world has shifted into a model in which countries exhibit military prowess and technological dominance. It’s a world that is quite unipolar. I’m very critical of the notion that there is multipolarity where different countries form a sense of balance for the US. I don’t think so at all. The US is showing time and time again that it is the only superpower in the world.
The shift happening in the Middle East is changing the balance of power there, so the era in which Iran was dominant and trying to present itself as an alternative camp is basically ending and instead the region is moving — country by country — to be more and more in the US orbit. This is the landscape of the historic change that I have been talking about. And this is why I compared it to Europe in 1989. This is as important as the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s definitely a shift in the political alignments across the Middle East. With this kind of unipolarity, countries need to also think about the future. And because they’re thinking about the future, they are at the same time aligned with the US geopolitically thinking about their defence infrastructure, thinking about their economic relations, and being quite pragmatic.
When it comes to economics the situation is much more nuanced and variable. That’s why I’m critical of models that are kind of one-size-fits-all. We’re moving to compartmentalization, pragmatism, and countries having multiple kinds of relations with different actors, all in the pursuit of national security and national interest.
The economic impact of the war on the world is already visible. Will Iran use the Strait of Hormuz (waterway between Iran and Oman through which one-fifth of the global oil trade passes) as leverage?
Iran has barred US- and Israeli-flagged vessels, and restricted trade in general, citing the lack of insurance. We have to remember that the Strait of Hormuz is where Iran itself sends its oil to China. Iran is hugely dependent on China for the export of oil and the imposition of sanctions on Iran has made that relationship even more crucial for Iran, because it doesn’t have many other options for the sale of oil. It is not in Iran’s interest to shut the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely. This will have serious economic repercussions for Iran itself. But it is a card that it is trying to use.
Meanwhile, you have the US declaring that they have basically neutralized the Iranian navy. Iranian missile power is also being degraded quite significantly in this war. Iran will also be limited in how much it can disrupt the oil supply that way. The oil market has so far been more resilient than initially expected.
And that is also because there are alternatives being pursued, including some of the temporary lifting of sanctions that are allowing the purchase of Russian oil. This is the pragmatism that I’m talking about. For the US, this is a worthy exception to make. A temporary kind of period for the bigger long-term aim that it wants, which is to change the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East.
Geopolitics has become more creative, and countries are looking out for their national interests and aligning in a way that suits them more than bloc-thinking, for instance. Would you like to add anything?
This is going to be the new dynamic of international relations. Anyone who is still adhering to look at the Middle East, through sectarian terms or through ideological terms is not looking at reality as it’s unfolding, and the same applies all over the world. It’s very much about compartmentalization, pragmatism, national interests first (and) hedging bets.
Transcript
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November 07, 2025
 "'Maximalist goals' of the US and Israel")
18 min