The Middle East was already in a regional war

Amid the speculation, statements and analyses that have reacted to the wave of drones and missiles fired from Iran towards Israel, one thing should be clearly understood: the Middle East is not experiencing an “escalation” – it is witnessing a regional war. The tragedy is that it needn’t have come to this.

UN Security Council Resolution 2728, passed on March 25, called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the unconditional release of Israeli hostages and the urgent supply of aid to the devastated Palestinian enclave. Instead of taking this exit route out of the conflict, the Israeli government’s failing campaign of collective punishment continued, followed by a strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus that all but guaranteed a violent response from Tehran.

That response has arrived, but although we can say the rules of engagement have changed, people living in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Jordan would be forgiven for not seeing this as a mere escalation – all of the above countries have been hit by missiles or air strikes in recent months, many repeatedly so. The people of this region are currently caught between the destabilising international machinations of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the brutal actions of an Israeli war cabinet whose leading members are divided against each other.

The region is now in a new security paradigm in which these two rival countries are willing to strike each other directly, and across neighbouring states’ air space. Even if those who suggest that Iran’s wave of more than 300 drones and missiles was essentially a retaliatory gesture are right, it remains a dangerous development in which even a small miscommunication or a mistake could have grave consequences.

As well as frightening millions of civilians and forcing Arab countries into closing their air space, the Iranian response has also had the ignoble effect of overshadowing the human suffering taking place in Gaza. Israel, which was under real pressure following its forces’ killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers, has seized the chance to change the narrative at a time when several European allies, such as France, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, face court cases over arms sales to Israel.

For unstable states such as Lebanon and Iraq, both of which are home to significant Iran-backed proxies, the risk of further war is acute but it is not only regional countries that should be worried. Wars have a way of creeping outside their borders in this modern era. Also, when international markets next open, Iran’s seizure of an Israeli ship in the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with Tehran’s aerial retaliation, could increase oil prices and fuel international economic volatility. This is something that hurts ordinary families the world over, not just the rarefied world of high finance.

Where the region goes from here is unknown. The West Bank is a powder keg, Hezbollah and Israel are trading fire over the Lebanese border, Gazans continue to die, and any retaliation from Israel could worsen an already-precarious situation. A regional war is under way, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be stopped in its tracks with pragmatic diplomacy and statecraft. Given the human suffering we’ve witnessed over the past six months and failure of humanitarian calls to end the war, appealing to all parties’ self-interest is probably the best way forward.