The latest round of US-Iran escalation has thrust the Strait of Hormuz back to the forefront of the strategic landscape, making it the principal arena of confrontation and eclipsing the issues that originally justified US-Israeli military intervention.
For now, Iran’s nuclear programme, its ballistic missile capabilities, and even its regional proxy network have receded into the background—despite Tehran’s call for the Houthis to disrupt navigation through the Bab el Mandeb Strait. This shift underscores a broader transformation in the conflict: from a focus on military capabilities to a struggle over control of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints.
Thus far, military escalation has remained within carefully calibrated limits, aimed primarily at compelling Tehran to offer concessions at the negotiating table. Such restraint, however, is unlikely to endure if the Iranian leadership maintains its current position. The crisis has already strengthened hard line factions, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose leadership increasingly views any negotiations with the Trump administration as strategically futile.
Although the slowdown in US-Iran diplomacy has created greater room for manoeuvre in Israeli Lebanese negotiations, those discussions remain fragile and confined to preliminary efforts requiring complex implementation on the ground—particularly regarding the proposed pilot security zones in southern Lebanon. Time alone will determine whether these arrangements represent a genuine path toward restoring Lebanese state sovereignty or merely a precarious experiment that risks plunging the country back into instability and civil conflict.
Meanwhile, the Iranian political establishment is grappling with growing disarray following the loss of a significant portion of its senior leadership. The Revolutionary Guard has sought to project institutional cohesion by intensifying missile and drone attacks while simultaneously activating regional proxies—including encouraging Houthi operations against Bab el Mandeb—in an effort to compensate for the erosion of its strategic deterrence through disruption of global maritime trade.
Despite conducting concentrated and highly destructive air strikes, Washington remains acutely aware of the dangers of becoming trapped in a prolonged ground war inside Iran. This strategic caution provides Tehran with continued space to pursue its long standing policy of brinkmanship, using calibrated military escalation as a vehicle for political signalling.
Against this unprecedented backdrop, several scenarios could shape the future trajectory of the confrontation.
The first is a scenario of fragile deterrence, in which both sides eventually return to negotiations without crossing the red lines that would trigger full scale war. Iran would continue relying on ballistic missiles and drones to demonstrate defiance, while the United States would persist in targeting coastal radar systems, missile installations, and Revolutionary Guard fortifications to degrade Tehran’s military capabilities, safeguard maritime navigation, and stabilise global energy markets—without committing to a ground invasion.
Under such circumstances, regional and international mediators would intensify back channel diplomacy. A renewed negotiating framework could ultimately emerge, potentially compelling the current Iranian leadership to make concessions regarding its nuclear programme and missile arsenal in exchange for new administrative and security arrangements governing the Strait of Hormuz.
A second—and considerably more dangerous—scenario involves internal implosion, exploiting the structural weaknesses increasingly evident within the Iranian state following recent military strikes.
This approach would rely on intensified intelligence operations deep inside Iranian territory, potentially coordinated with opposition movements, including Kurdish groups in the west and Baluchi factions in the east. The objective would not be direct confrontation with Iran’s conventional military, but rather the paralysis of the central command structure while fuelling domestic unrest among a population already burdened by severe economic hardship and social discontent—ultimately accelerating the collapse of what remains of the regime’s governing apparatus.
Such a strategy would spare both Washington and Tel Aviv the immense costs and uncertainties associated with a direct military invasion of Iran’s difficult terrain, avoiding a repetition of the strategic, humanitarian, and financial burdens experienced during the US intervention in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, this scenario carries extraordinary risks. Iran could descend into widespread institutional collapse, leaving its decision making centres paralysed. Such instability could evolve into civil war, invite extensive regional intervention, or trigger internal power struggles within the Revolutionary Guard over control of the country’s missile arsenal—and potentially its emerging nuclear capabilities.
Equally alarming is the possibility that the remaining hard line leadership, potentially under the influence of Mojtaba Khamenei, might conclude that regime collapse has become inevitable under mounting intelligence pressure and sustained US military operations. Faced with such an existential threat, the leadership could resort to extreme measures, including the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz through missile strikes and naval mines, coordinated ballistic attacks against oil and gas infrastructure throughout the Gulf, the simultaneous closure of Bab el Mandeb through Houthi operations, and even deliberate oil pollution of Gulf waters. Such a scenario would generate unprecedented environmental, humanitarian, and economic consequences.
Indeed, the Strait of Hormuz is no longer merely a bargaining chip in diplomatic negotiations; it has become one of the Iranian regime’s most critical strategic lines of defence for its survival.
Although Tehran recently declared the collapse of the so called Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding following the resumption of military strikes and renewed pressure, Pakistani and Qatari mediation efforts have quietly continued behind the scenes, seeking to develop technical compromise formulas capable of providing an acceptable diplomatic exit once military escalation reaches its peak.
For the time being, therefore, a strategy of mutual attrition and controlled escalation—while deliberately avoiding attacks on the Gulf’s major oil production infrastructure—appears to remain the least costly option. It also grants diplomacy valuable time to reconstruct a negotiating framework based on a simple strategic reality: the cost of neither war nor negotiation is ultimately far greater than the cost of returning to the negotiating table.
Preserving that principle is imperative. The true catastrophe would begin only if the conflict crossed its remaining red lines, plunging the Middle East into a prolonged era of strategic vacuum and geopolitical instability that could endure for decades.
Prof. Hatem Sadek, Helwan University
