​​​​​​​​As the U.S.-Israeli-Iran war escalates, its consequences are reverberating across the region. In this collection, CHS researchers examine the crisis from multiple angles including the economic costs of conflict, the absence of diplomatic off-ramps, the UN's inaction, and the impact on cultural heritage. Each contribution offers an independent analysis of a distinct dimension of the conflict.


​Delusions of unchallenged empire

Mouin Rabbani, Non-Resident Fellow, CHS

U.S. Secretary of State Marcio Rubio has now provided formal confirmation that the United States and Israel lacked anything remotely approaching a legitimate justification to launch their latest unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. His rationale can be summarised as follows: if we don't bomb them, Israel will, and Iran will retaliate, so we bombed them.

U.S. President Donald Trump authorised this war because he was apparently persuaded it would be a short, sharp campaign with a quick and decisive ending. Thus far it is proving anything but. Iran has not only retaliated directly against Israel and U.S. facilities throughout the region, but is also seeking to wreak havoc with global energy markets and indeed the global economy.

That the U.S. and Israel enjoy overwhelming military superiority is beyond doubt. But as we have learned in so many other conflicts, most recently Iraq and Afghanistan, such matters are not decided by the power of arsenals alone, nor do conflicts end once the guns fall silent. In other words, the military balance of power and disposition of forces once the war ends will tell us little about its impact on regional stability and security.

At the end of the day this war is being waged to consolidate Israeli regional hegemony on Washington's behalf. Faced with a choice between relinquishing a century of dispossession of the Palestinian people and a forever war, the U.S. and Israel opted for the latter. The price is being paid not only by the Palestinians but also, as any television screen can confirm, by the entire region including Washington's Arab partners. These Arab states fully understood a war that is not their own would seriously affect them as well, and worked to prevent it. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed, which some would argue means they failed to use the full gamut of the influence they undoubtedly have. In the months and years ahead, we will all pay the price of Israel and Washington's delusions of unchallenged empire. 


Bored of Peace, Trump marches region to all-out war

Sansom Milton, Senior Researcher, CHS

On 28 February, Trump and Netanyahu – architects of Trump's much-vaunted “Board of Peace" – launched a war of choice against Iran that has pushed the region into an all-out escalation. After weeks of build-up in which war felt inexorable, the scale of the malice and miscalculation of the U.S. administration is becoming clearer by the day.

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Bush and Blair famously ignored advice that the country would be ungovernable and likely descend into chaos. In their hubris, those leaders persisted with a ground invasion and deluded neocon vision of democratising Iraq as a beacon for the Middle East. By contrast, the U.S. goal in Iran in 2026 appears to be regime change on the cheap – with erstwhile allies in the Gulf paying the price. Worse still, it has effectively placed the mediation architecture built up over many years – Oman and Qatar – directly in the firing line.

President Trump was publicly implored by John Bolton to make the case for war to the American public, which strongly rejects the Iran campaign. Iranian statements have sought to inflame these divisions, noting wryly and not wrongly that America is driven by an “Israel First" strategy that is anathema to Trump's MAGA base.

After five days of war, there are almost no reports of Iran's nuclear infrastructure being targeted – which was the threat claimed by the U.S. and Israel to justify the use of force. Rather, Iran reportedly possesses enough enriched uranium to make ten nuclear weapons, and the U.S. has killed the leader that issued a Fatwa prohibiting their production, only to be replaced in effect by hardline military generals. After seeming to abandon his grand tour in search of a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump appears to be positioning the U.S. to receive a Darwin Award for nation states.


Qatar Under Fire: The Cost of Being a Hub

Ghassan Elkahlout, Director, CHS

Qatar did not choose this war. But geography, infrastructure, and the presence of the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East have placed it squarely within range — politically and literally.

In five days, ballistic missiles have crossed Qatari skies, industrial facilities at Ras Laffan and Mesaieed have been struck, and LNG production has been halted. Sixteen people have been injured. More than eight thousand transit passengers have been stranded at Hamad International Airport. These are not abstractions. They are the costs borne by a country that is, by any measure, a victim of a conflict it played no part in starting.

What makes Qatar's position acute is that its strengths have become sources of exposure. Its role as a global energy supplier makes it a target whenever the Strait of Hormuz becomes a battlefield. Its diplomatic relationships — with Washington, Tehran, and actors across the region — generate expectations that it will absorb pressure and broker solutions others cannot. Its open-skies model means regional turbulence lands immediately on its doorstep.

Qatar's punishment in this crisis is, in part, a consequence of its usefulness. States that maintain dialogue with all sides, keep ports and channels open, and supply energy to fragile global markets are providing public goods. They should carry some form of collective protection. Instead, they carry additional risk.

Qatar's response has been composed: defending its sovereignty, managing the humanitarian fallout, and keeping diplomatic options open. Whether that composure is sustainable depends on how long the conflict lasts and how far it spreads. The harder question — one this war is forcing into the open — is what guarantees a small, exposed, strategically vital state can actually rely on when the shooting starts.


No off-ramp: The escalatory logic of the war on Iran

Omar Abdin, Research Assistant, CHS

The current U.S.-Israeli offensive, targeting Iran's Supreme Leader and senior command structure, signals a maximalist strategic objective: total regime change. By pursuing the physical elimination of Iran's political leadership and demanding unconditional surrender, Washington and Jerusalem have constructed a binary escalatory logic that leaves no off-ramp short of total Iranian capitulation or the exhaustion of American defensive and offensive stockpiles.

This creates inherent instability in the war's strategic calculus. It constrains the space for any potential off-ramp and de-escalation to almost zero as both sides face either undisputed victory or total strategic defeat. Current assessments acknowledge that sustained high-intensity operations are rapidly depleting missile defence interceptors in the region – systems already strained by demands in Ukraine and the “12 Day War" in June 2025. Analysts note the U.S. may be consuming interceptors faster than it has the ability to replace them. The question then arises, at what point will U.S. forces no longer be able to protect regional bases, Gulf energy infrastructure, or Israeli population centres from retaliation? If Iranian launch capacity degrades slower than U.S.-Israeli interceptor stocks, the balance shifts structurally in Tehran's favour.

Simultaneously, Iran's mosaic defence doctrine ensures that regime collapse is unlikely, even following successful leadership decapitation. Developed by the IRGC since 2005, it represents the doctrinal flexibility Iran is implementing to ensure continuity of security under heavy pressure. The strategy fragments the Iranian military into thirty-one autonomous provincial commands (one per province plus Tehran), each capable of independent asymmetric operations without central direction including ballistic missile and drone launches. Drawing lessons from the U.S. quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the objective of the mosaic defence is embedding resilience into the system rather than centralising cohesion. As such, there is no unified command and control that can be decapitated.

The collision of these strategies has created an escalatory spiral based on the existential nature of the conflict for Iran and the potential humiliation for the American military as the most powerful military in the world. Maximalist regime change objectives demand capitulation, which mosaic defence makes structurally unlikely but not impossible, while the material constraints of missile defence impose a ticking clock on offensive operations. With autonomous IRGC units continuing retaliatory strikes against American interests in the Gulf regardless of Tehran's command status, the conflict possesses no foreseeable braking mechanisms.


Why Iran is targeting Gulf infrastructure

Kareem Elgibali​, Research Associate, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and CHS

Iran's strikes on Gulf economic infrastructure follow a deliberate two-stage logic, moving from initial punishment to sustained coercion. The first wave of strikes was punitive. In the immediate aftermath of U.S.–Israeli operations, Tehran targeted LNG facilities, energy export systems, and commercial hubs in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as a penalty. The signal was political. Gulf states may have attempted to restrain escalation, but they failed to alter Washington's course. In Iran's strategic calculus, proximity to U.S. decision-makers implies influence. If influence did not prevent war, it warrants consequence. The early strikes were therefore about accountability and signalling failure.

The transition to sustained attacks reflects a shift in objective. Once punishment alone failed to generate visible diplomatic movement, the strategy evolved into coercion. Repeated targeting of hydrocarbon export infrastructure, core to Gulf economic stability and global energy markets, raises the cost of continued escalation not episodically but structurally. The aim is to alter incentives.

The mechanism is indirect but identifiable. Gulf states host U.S. forces, coordinate energy policy with Washington, and maintain security and economic interdependence. Sustained economic disruption raises the domestic and strategic cost of protracted war. Tehran's wager is that as economic exposure deepens, Gulf leaders will escalate their diplomatic pressure inside Washington – through security consultations, strategic messaging, and alliance leverage – seeking de-escalation more urgently and more forcefully than before.

The strategy is not without risk. While coercion may increase Gulf diplomatic intensity, it is more likely to narrow rather than widen Tehran's strategic space. Sustained attacks on economic infrastructure risk reinforcing U.S.-GCC security integration, accelerating defence coordination, and hardening alignment. Economic coercion can generate leverage only if the target believes pressure will produce policy change. If Washington remains insulated from Gulf economic stress, the strategy becomes escalation without conversion.

The decisive variable is whether Gulf economic pressure can shift Washington's strategic calculus enough to counterbalance Israeli influence and successfully achieve de-escalation. If it does not, Iran's move from punishment to coercion will have increased costs without increasing influence.


The Strait of Hormuz disruption and the rising economic costs of escalation

Irina Andriiuc, Research Assistant, CHS

Following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran launched on 28 February 2026, the escalation has activated Iran's most potent asymmetric capability through its power to control the Strait of Hormuz. The soaring costs, borne overwhelmingly by third parties, underline why Hormuz remains the single most consequential variable in any Gulf confrontation.

On 1 March, IRGC navy declared the strait closed to all vessels until further notice. Major container shipping firms, including MSC, Maersk, and CMA CGM, suspended all Hormuz transits. War-risk insurance premiums spiked 50%, with some underwriters withdrawing cover entirely.

Roughly 21 million barrels of oil-equivalent pass through Hormuz daily – 34% of seaborne oil exports and 30% of LPG. Brent crude surged roughly 15% to above $84 per barrel by 3 March, with forecasts above $100 if disruptions persist. Nearly 90% of crude transiting Hormuz flows to Asia, with China and India alone accounting for over half. India immediately activated contingency energy supply plans; China has pressed Tehran to keep the waterway open. The closure has thus forced the war's economic consequences onto states that are not party to the conflict.

In Europe, which relies more heavily on Qatari LNG (12-14% share) since reducing Russian supply, the disruption sent Dutch TTF benchmark gas prices up 45%, with April futures doubling. OPEC+ pledged a modest output increase of 206,000 barrels per day, though much of its spare capacity sits behind the chokepoint in question. Alternative routes can only partially offset losses.

Hormuz works as a lever because of the interdependence it embodies. Past episodes show Tehran's consistent use of maritime pressure as a coercive instrument in response to military aggression or economic sanctions. Iran has not ratified the 1982 UNCLOS, instead invoking its own 1993 maritime law, which classifies the strait as territorial waters subject to “innocent passage" rather than guaranteed transit, and permits closure under military threat. This legal ambiguity erodes the basis for any swift international challenge to the closure.

Iran's Hormuz leverage is historically consistent, yet its use in the current war is unprecedented. The closure follows the logic of internationalising the economic pain of the conflict, raising the collective cost of confrontation and increasing the pressure for de-escalation. Whether that price is yet high enough to produce a negotiated off-ramp remains the defining question of this escalation.


When war travels through civilian systems: Crisis management in the Gulf

Mona Hedaya, Research Fellow, CHS

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is not only a military confrontation. Its effects are travelling through civilian systems – aviation, shipping, and public information – faster than formal political de-escalation can contain them. For Gulf populations, the result is a layer of everyday disruption that falls hardest on those with the least flexibility: chronic patients, older persons, and low-wage migrant workers.

Gulf states have significant crisis management capacity, demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2017 Gulf Crisis. That experience is now being tested in real time. Recent airspace restrictions have disrupted mobility across the region – not just flight schedules, but medical appointments, family travel, and decisions made on incomplete or conflicting information. Meanwhile, Iranian threats against vessels in the Strait of Hormuz have driven up shipping and insurance costs, delaying time-sensitive goods including medicines, medical supplies, and essential spare parts. For vulnerable populations with few alternatives, even short delays can mean interrupted care and reduced access to essential services.

Information integrity compounds these pressures. Rumours and unverified reports can generate civilian harm that exceeds the triggering event itself  – collective anxiety, unnecessary movement, and disruption to emergency response. Gulf governments have responded: Oman's Ministry of Information urged reliance on official sources, while the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a public rebuttal of inaccurate reporting. These responses reflect a recognition that managing public communication – through short, frequent, and accurate updates – is as critical as managing supply chains.

The benchmark for institutional resilience in this crisis is whether Gulf states can absorb shocks across mobility, supply, and information without letting short-term strain cascade into lasting access gaps. The capabilities built through 2017 and COVID provide a foundation. The test now is whether they hold under sustained military escalation – and whether the most vulnerable are protected first.​


Heritage, the silent casualty

Nour Munawar, Senior Research Fellow, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and CHS

As the U.S.-Iran-Israel war escalated, global attention has focused on geopolitical, energy, and humanitarian ramifications. Yet, beneath the surface lies another casualty: the irreplaceable heritage of the world's cradle of civilisation. While combatants fight for political survival, hostilities are erasing the physical evidence of humanity's shared past, mortgaging the future's ability to learn from it. This heritage destruction represents a critical obstacle to long-term stability and recovery.

The conflict has already forced a cultural lockdown. Iconic museums across the region, including the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the National Museum of Iran, have closed. Other institutions are working to protect their collections from potential strikes. Similarly to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, relocating collections is a necessary emergency measure – a modern-day version of art collection evacuations during World War II. While these precautions preserve artefacts, the closures sever public access to culture when societal cohesion is most needed.

The warning signs are here. Early reports confirm that Tehran's 18th-century Golestan Palace – a stunning Qajar-era masterpiece and a UNESCO World Heritage site – was damaged. This represents a wound in a nation's collective memory. Each strike on a historic structure is irreversible. Such strikes are politically explosive, allowing hardliners to frame instability as a defence of the nation's soul against foreign aggression, while silencing the shared cultural ground where reformers once built bridges with the West. When conflict erases these sites, cultural continuity frays, creating a vacuum filled by division.

It is the vacuum that external powers seek to exploit. By erasing the physical symbols of a shared Persian heritage, they hope to replace a unifying national identity with the fractured landscape of ethno-sectarian conflict – one where they can succeed in weaponising internal divisions as part of their broader imperial blueprint on dividing Iran. In this shattered space, local identities can be radicalised and pulled toward foreign-backed movements, transforming a nation-state into a patchwork of warring factions easily manipulated from outside.

History offers a sobering lesson. Heritage destruction fuels cycles of resentment and extremism that persist for decades. From Iraq and Syria to Ukraine and now the Gulf, the pattern is unmistakable. Cultural sites must be placed off-limits to military operations, as 1954 Hague Convention obliges. The international community must act to protect heritage as a strategic prerequisite for long-term peace, essential for post-conflict recovery, social cohesion, and economic revitalisation. Without the physical evidence of a shared past, there can be no foundation for a shared future.


A regional war reopens Lebanon's front

Maya El Jundi, Research Assistant, CHS

On 2 March 2026, Hezbollah launched missiles toward northern Israel in response to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and repeated Israeli aggressions. Israel retaliated with airstrikes across Lebanon, in particular the suburbs of Beirut.

The escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran war has reactivated Lebanon's southern front and firmly closed the country's window of recovery that opened with the 27 November 2024 ceasefire. That agreement, based on the 2006 UNSCR 1701, ended over a year of war between Israel and Hezbollah. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continued to conduct periodic airstrikes, especially in the  South and the Beqaa Valley. Whilst Lebanese officials repeatedly denounced these violations, this only ever extended to words of condemnation. The Lebanese government proved equally unable to act on its much-discussed plans to limit Hezbollah's arms or bring the movement under state control.

Hezbollah's decision to enter the U.S.-Israel-Iran war – the first significant offensive action since the 2024 ceasefire – highlights public dissatisfaction and polarisation in Lebanon. Backers of Hezbollah's strategic gambit framed it as resistance and regional alignment against Israel. Opponents contend that Hezbollah has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into a regional war tied to Iran's strategic calculations, sabotaging the country's fragile recovery.

On 2 March 2026, the cabinet announced its decision to ban Hezbollah's military activities and confine its weapons north of the Litani River. Hezbollah responded that Lebanon's authority is meaningless when Israel continues its strikes, accusing the government of targeting Hezbollah rather than confronting Israel. These conflicting positions heighten Lebanon's polarisation, echoing the May 2008 crisis. Risks of internal conflict are rising, which would be highly destabilising in an already fragile country. The question of whether Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into war with Israel remains hotly contested. Some view Lebanon as implicated regardless of retaliation in the context of rapidly regionalising conflict, whilst others see Hezbollah's full disarmament as a prerequisite for national recovery.

Whilst the polarised debate over these issues will continue, civilians will inevitably bear the greatest burden. Many civilians who fled during the 2024 war and had only recently started to resettle have already been displaced once more. As the situation escalates, many more will be forced from their homes, struggle to find shelter, and find themselves targeted by Israeli strikes. Without urgent commitment to civilian protection and ceasefire enforcement, Lebanon risks becoming once again a battleground in which civilian lives are treated as collateral rather than protected as a priority.


Paralysed by design: The UN and the war on Iran

Manoug Antaby, Research Assistant, CHS

The widening U.S.-Israel-Iran war places the Middle East at great risk of prolonged instability. The UN positions itself as the global guardian of peace, which is one of the three pillars of the UN system. Under the UN Charter, the principal strategies for peaceful dispute settlement are mediation and conflict prevention, and the UNSC bears the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The UN response to the escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran war, however, has fallen far short of upholding these duties, negatively affecting its legitimacy and credibility.

So far, the UN has been reactive rather than offering a coherent response that could limit or resolve the crisis. During an emergency Security Council meeting, Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the war's expansion, urging de-escalation through dialogue and immediate ceasefire. The Council itself was sharply divided. While Russia and China condemned the U.S.–Israeli attacks, the U.S. and Israel, alongside the UK, condemned Iran's retaliatory attacks against other regional countries. With no agreement reached, the Council took no action.

Beyond political division, the UN's largely rhetorical reaction and operational inaction stem from structural deficiencies. A main contributing factor is veto politics within the Council, in which the U.S. – itself a belligerent in the war against Iran – can exercise its veto and override collective enforcement mechanisms. This paralyses UNSC efforts to contain the crisis and explains the gap between declaratory commitments and enforceable action. Consequently, the UN's role is limited to rhetoric without enforcement.

The UN's inaction during this war weakens both the entity itself and the wider global order, demanding urgent alternatives. Focus must move beyond the Security Council's operational paralysis to leverage regional actors – such as the Arab League – and General Assembly mechanisms, including the Uniting for Peace, as alternative multilateral avenues for mediation and diplomacy. Beyond institutional reform, informal coalitions and increased political willingness among the permanent members are essential to move crisis management from zero-sum logic toward cooperative de-escalation. At the same time, non-permanent members should collectively employ diplomatic pressure to raise the cost of veto use during armed conflicts, emphasising the primacy of collective security over the geopolitical ambitions of permanent member states and their allies.