The Imaginary Gains of the War on Iran

posted on: Mar 4, 2026

By: Ghassan Rubeiz / Arab America Contributing Writer

Imagine for a moment that the February 28 attack on Iran succeeds. A new leader is installed—perhaps Reza Pahlavi, son of the exiled Shah overthrown in 1979. He pledges loyalty to Washington, reassures Israel, and promises to end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Israel celebrates the collapse of a hostile regime and the severing of support and supply lines to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi Shiite militias. For a moment, it might appear that the region had been reshaped to American and Israeli advantage.

But how long would such achievements last? Iranians will quickly discover that the son of the Shah is not the leader they struggled for. No foreign-installed figure can long survive the political awakening of a nation that has endured revolution, war, sanctions, and decades of authoritarian rule. History offers no example of a people so schooled in resistance simply acquiescing to an externally implanted ruler.

Nor do the individual Arab countries require Iran to generate armed resistance. Their political structures and unresolved grievances produce them independently. In Libya and Sudan, militias survive through local patronage networks and illicit revenue streams. In Somalia and Yemen, armed movements draw on tribal loyalties that predate the Islamic Republic by centuries. Some are covertly sustained by regional powers—including Israel, the US, the UAE and Saudi Arabia —when it serves their interests. Removing Iran does not remove the conditions that create armed resistance; it merely removes one patron while leaving causative factors intact.

Nor can a war erase knowledge. Iran’s nuclear and missile expertise is embedded in its scientific institutions and military academies. Even if facilities are destroyed, the capacity to rebuild will return as soon as Iranians regain control over their political future. A battlefield defeat cannot extinguish a nation’s memory.

Consider first what Iran itself stands to lose—and it is more than infrastructure. The attack has diverted the energy of the Iranian people from resisting their unpopular rulers toward resisting foreign aggression and separatist movements. Years of sacrifice in the struggle for political reform risk being absorbed into a new narrative of national resistance against external enemies. A war meant to weaken the Islamic Republic may instead prolong its political life: a fractured society may be unified by the sight of the falling bombs of the adversaries.

The attack has also reignited sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, deepened suspicion between Arabs and Persians, and widened the rift between the Muslim world and the ideological and strategic alliance underpinning U.S.–Israeli policy. It has repositioned Israel as the indispensable partner for America’s projection of power in the region, even as that partnership grows more politically and financially burdensome.

For the United States, the costs will be profound. Americans will soon ask why their country maintains vast military deployments across the globe, and Particularly across a region destabilized by its own actions. They will confront the financial burden of an inflated defense budget, an open-ended , reflexive, war on terrorism, and a ballooning, unsustainable national debt. And as Washington becomes financially and diplomatically overstretched, China will seize the opportunity to challenge American primacy in a world already skeptical of U.S. motives and fatigued by U.S. wars.

The Arab world gains nothing. It received a region re-fragmented, sectarian tensions revived, the Palestinian cause pushed further to the margins. Lebanon may be further destabilized, with a deeper Israeli occupation. The presence of American forces becomes harder to justify, and the sense of regional agency diminishes as outside powers redraw the map once again. Above all, the possibility of democratic governance and durable peace—already remote—recedes further still.

The world order suffers most of all. International law is eroded, preemptive war of choice normalized, and global stability weakened. But the deepest losses will be human and generational. Iran’s scientists, its restless youth, its vast diaspora—the very forces most capable of building a different future—could end up spending the coming decade not opening the country outward but rebuilding what was destroyed. Whatever government eventually emerges in Tehran will be shaped by the residual impact of this attack, not despite it. That is the illusion at the heart of this war: the belief that military power can determine who a people becomes.

Ghassan Rubeiz is the former Middle East Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Earlier, he taught psychology and social work in his country of birth, Lebanon, and later in the United States, where he currently lives. He has contributed to political commentary for the past twenty years and has delivered occasional public talks on peace, justice, and interfaith topics. You can reach him at rubeizg@gmail.com

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.

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