Iran Is Going To War...With Everybody?
Iran's Middle Eastern War Is Becoming Not Arabs Against Israel, But Sunni Against Shi'a
There can be little doubt that Iran wants war in the Middle East.
We have already seen the results of Iran supplying missiles and drones to the Houthi militia in Yemen, which in turn has been poking and prodding the United States Navy into a conflict over the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
However, last week Iran escalated tensions in the Middle East even further.
First, on January 15, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on targets inside northern Iraq.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they struck what they claimed were Israeli "spy headquarters" in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region.
Four people were killed and six wounded in Monday's attack, according to the Kurdistan Region Security Council.
Iraq denounced the attacks, calling them a violation of its sovereignty.
Israel's government has not commented on the Iranian claims.
Then Iran did the same thing in Syria.
The Revolutionary Guards also said they had targeted Islamic State (IS) group positions in Syria on Monday night.
Explosions were heard in the north-western city of Aleppo and its countryside, where "at least four missiles that came from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea" fell, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
On Tuesday, January 16, Iran targeted presumed militant sites in Pakistan.
Iran launched a missile attack apparently targeting militant bases in western Pakistan which killed two children, officials in Islamabad said.
The operation targeted the militant group Jaish al-Adli, which Tehran's foreign minister described as an "Iranian terrorist group" in Pakistan.
The attack occurred in Balochistan, and comes after Iran attacked targets in Iraq and Syria earlier this week.
Pakistani officials said two children were killed and three others injured.
Islamabad said the attack was "illegal" and warned of "serious consequences".
Up until this point, Iran has been relying on its network of terror cells and rebel militias in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen to threaten US military forces in the region and otherwise create mischief (most notably the Houthi missile attacks in the Red Sea). These attacks involved Iranian military assets directly, which makes these attacks a significant escalation by Iran from earlier attempts at provocation.
War is indeed coming to the Middle East, it seems, but the fighting is with Iran, not with Israel. Instead of Arab vs Israeli, the growing conflict is taking on more and more of an internecine struggle between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.
Was this the war Iran expected?
One view of these attacks by Iran is that they are a naked show of military power. Within the space of 24 hours, Iran has attacked not one but three significant neighbors in the Middle East and Asia.
With its strikes on Iraqi, Syrian and Pakistani territory, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) is showing it has become a major regional military power.
The IRGC openly states that US bases in the Middle East, as well as Israeli bases in Tel Aviv and Haifa, are within range of its ballistic missiles.
In the space of only 24 hours, it gave a stark demonstration of its capabilities, launching missiles and drones at targets in three different countries.
As of this writing, Iran has not directly attacked any US base within Iraq. However, Iran is publicly connecting their attacks on Syria and Iraq with Israel’s war against Hamas.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that "one of the main Mossad espionage headquarters in Iraq's Kurdistan Region was destroyed with ballistic missiles".
A statement said it was "in response to the recent atrocities of the Zionist regime".
Iran’s opposition to Israel is well known, and their support of Hamas has been well documented. Not for nothing has there been significant speculation that Iran had a hand in the planning and organization of Hamas’ October 7th attacks on Israeli civilians. I have myself explored that possibility as the war between Hamas and Israel unfolded.
However, to target northern Syria and northern Iraq in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is, if nothing else, a curious choice of targets.
Neither Aleppo, the epicenter of Iran’s attack on Syria, nor Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish territory, are anywhere near Israel or Gaza.
That Iran is able to send missiles against Aleppo in Syria, however, is a none-too-subtle proof that the IRGC can reach not only US military assets in Iraq but Israeli military bases in northern Israel.
Was Iran targeting ISIS and Kurdish opposition to the Islamic Republic while simultaneously sending a message to the US and Israel that their assets are also vulnerable and can be targeted? That remains a distinct possibility.
There is another possible recipient of Iran’s missile messaging: Saudi Arabia.
While Saudi Arabia is the leading member of the OPEC oil cartel and thus is in many respects a regional hegemon in the Middle East, Iran’s military power is almost certainly superior. Global Firepower, in their 2024 rankings1 of the military strength of countries around the world, puts Iran at 14 and Saudia Arabia at 23.
A Global Firepower comparison2 of Saudi and Iranian strengths show that Iran bests the Saudi in several categories, both military and economic.
On paper, at least, in a head to head matchup between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Iran would likely win, just on the basis of these presumed advantages.
Iran, by flexing its military muscle against ISIS and the Kurds, and possibly Israel, could also be showing Saudi Arabia that the Saudis do not match up against Iran, that Iran is by far the stronger power. If Iran is vying for regional hegemony over the Middle East, that is certainly a message Iran needs to send to the Saudis.
Were Iran’s strikes on Aleppo and Erbil an example of that sort of warning to Saudi Arabia? We should not discount that possibility. If we look at Saudi Arabia and Iran through the lens of Great Power Competition, we can easily surmise that Iran very much has Saudi Arabia in their sights—they must, otherwise they can never become the acknowledged hegemon in the Middle East.
Iran’s attacks on Pakistan are somewhat more easily comprehensible: Their stated intent was to target the Sunni separatist group Jaish al-Adl.
Jaish al-Adl, or the Army of Justice, surfaced in 2012. It mainly comprises members of the Sunni militant Jundullah group, which was weakened after Iran arrested most of its members.
The anti-Iranian group wants independence for Iran’s eastern Sistan and Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan provinces. These goals make it a common target for both governments.
Regardless of intent, however, Pakistan has blamed Iran for the civilian casualties suffered as a result of the attack.
An Iranian strike on targets inside Pakistan killed two “innocent children” and wounded three other people, the Pakistani government said, calling the attack an “unprovoked violation” of the country’s airspace.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement confirming the attack, which were first first announced by Iranian media reports that were later withdrawn. The reports said the strikes were on bases of a Sunni militant group.
Those casualties as well as the violations of territorial sovereignty resulted in Pakistan launching a tit-for-tat reprisal attack against Iran.
Pakistan’s air force launched retaliatory airstrikes early Thursday in Iran allegedly targeting militant hideouts, an attack that killed at least nine people and further raised tensions between the neighboring nations.
The tit-for-tat attacks Tuesday and Thursday appeared to target two Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border. However, the two countries have accused each other of providing safe haven to the groups in their respective territories.
Iran’s decision to strike in Pakistani territory while comprehensible, is still rather risky, given that Pakistan’s military is generally assessed at being superior to Iran’s. Certainly Global Firepower gives Pakistan higher marks for their military forces than they give Iran3.
So far, the situation between Pakistan and Iran has not devolved into full scale war. That is not to say that it could not or that it will not, merely that it has not—yet. However, if Iran is going to be focusing a measure of its military might westward against Iraq and Syria, Pakistan might decide that now is the time to take on Iran in a bigger military way.
Yet we must pause to note something about Pakistan, Syria, as well as Hamas and Jaish al-Adl: they are all Sunni Muslim. Pakistan’s population is almost 86% Sunni Muslim4, while Syria is 64% Sunni Muslim5.
Only Iraq is majority Shi’a Muslim6.
Is there a religious component to Iran’s display of military might? Is Iran about to touch off—intentionally or otherwise—a Sunni-Shi’a conflagration across the Middle East?
While this has not happened yet, and indeed may not happen, Iran’s direct military action is giving some momentary concern to my preferred bellwether for gauging global sentiment about potential Middle Eastern conflicts, oil markets. In the wake of Iran’s attacks both west and east we have seen a small temporary uptick both in Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate.
Yet almost as quickly as the prices of oil rose in after Iran’s attacks on Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan, they started to fall again.
While the Houthi missile attacks on the Red Sea, and the subsequent rerouting of Red Sea shipping had pushed the price of oil up somewhat, that upward pressure had largely dissipated until just before the US began its retaliatory strikes on Houthi strongholds, and even that upward pressure had begun to fade when Iran attacked Syria and Libya. Iran’s aggressions have had a similar transient upward pressure on oil prices, but one that so far is unsustainable..
Oil markets are not applying a major risk premium to oil—and in particular Middle Eastern oil—as a result of tensions in the Middle East. More precisely, they are not yet applying a risk premium to oil prices.
If Iran continues to become more militant in its conduct of foreign policy, eventually Iran’s use of its own missiles and drones could very easily spark a region-wide conflict. If Iran does enter a state of war with anyone, their geographic position on one side of the Strait of Hormuz means oil shipments out of the Middle East would be greatly imperiled during a period of labor conflict. Oil prices would skyrocket under those circumstances.
Thanks to Iran, war is steadily spreading across the Middle East. Surprisingly, and contrary even to Iran’s own rhetoric, the escalation of attacks bears little direct correlation to the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza. For whatever reason, Iran is attacking Sunni states which notionally would be Iran’s allies if war should engulf the Middle East.
Will Iran’s wider Middle Eastern war turn out to be Sunni v Shi’a rather than Arab v Israel? If Iran keeps attacking its neighbors, that is a very real possibility.
Global Firepower. 2024 Military Strength Ranking. 9 Jan. 2024, https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php.
Global Firepower. Comparison of Saudi Arabia and Iran Military Strengths (2024). 9 Jan. 2024, https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.php?country1=saudi-arabia&country2=Iran.
Global Firepower. Comparison of Pakistan and Iran Military Strengths (2024). 9 Jan. 2024, https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.php?country1=pakistan&country2=Iran.
The World Factbook: Pakistan. Central Intelligence Agency, 2024, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/pakistan/#people-and-society.
The World Factbook: Syria. Central Intelligence Agency, 2024, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/syria/#people-and-society.
The World Factbook: Iraq. Central Intelligence Agency, 2024, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/iraq/#people-and-society.
I’m glad to see you addressing this possibility of a larger Sunni-Shi’a war because that’s what I’ve been concerned about for weeks. I’d even call it a ‘probability’ more than a possibility. When armed conflict arose at the Pakistan/Iran border last week I became alarmed. I realize that the key instigators of the conflict are Balochistan groups seeking autonomy. But I’ve also read that Pakistan’s economy is really horrible right now. If you have millions of unemployed young Pakistani men, without economic prospects and susceptible to religious indoctrination, you have millions of fighting-age men jumping at the offer of three meals a day in the army, plus religious meaning added to their lives, plus the chance to be revered as martyrs if they die. THAT is the raw fuel for a major jihad that could inflame rapidly. It has in the past. Subsequently, you’d have the major players of the world - Russia, China, NATO, the US - all selling arms and becoming dragged into taking sides. Yikes.
Is Iran playing a role in a larger Pakistan - India conflict?