World
What does the next year hold for the Middle East?
No matter what political or military changes we see in the Middle East by 7 October 2025, it will certainly be a more fragmented region.
No individual power will create more coherence than the current state of affairs.
This level of conflict won’t last at this level of intensity for another year.
If Israel can’t win a short war, it can’t fight a long one. Its economy is too small, and the leadership’s hubris may prove to be a danger.
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The conflict will most likely resolve itself into a grumbling, open-ended war on three or four different fronts.
The only big change that might occur is if there is a significant upsurge of violence on the West Bank.
In the present atmosphere, a lot of Israeli fundamentalists would use that as an excuse to grab the whole area and expel the Palestinians who live there now.
Israel probably calculates, especially the right wing in the country, that this would be the moment when they could do that and the world would not be able to stop them.
But it may well be that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will not survive another year, even though he’s on a high at the moment.
And while it’s difficult to imagine any regime change in Iran that may alter the course of the conflict, Ayatollah Khamenei is in trouble.
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His bluff has been called pretty thoroughly, with his strategy of manoeuvring through low-risk proxies in order to pressurise Israel and the West. Those proxies are being effectively dismantled by Israel.
This has left the regime losing face with its supporters, while the country is in great difficulty economically and socially.
And they’ve got a leadership problem – Mr Khamenei is 85 years old.
He’s not going to be around for much longer and Pezeshkian, the new, reformist president, is being sidelined.
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But repressive regimes can last an awfully long time by increasing the repression – which is what they’re doing. However, eventually all repressive regimes either collapse or change radically.
The other major factor in the future of the Middle East in the coming year is the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
We knew that US power over events in the region was declining, and has been declining for some years.
But it’s certainly declined at a much more rapid pace this year than expected.
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Nevertheless, if Kamala Harris wins the election, she’ll follow the basic Biden line, but will probably be tougher on Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians.
She would likely try to adjust American policy in favour of something more critical of Israel.
If Trump wins the election, the general belief is he will effectively give Netanyahu almost a free hand to pursue whatever policy he thinks is best.
And he will certainly line up behind Netanyahu to exert maximum pressure on Iran.
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The Democrats need this conflict like a hole in the head.
Michigan, one of the seven key swing states, has a significant Arab population.
And the Democratic vote is in danger of collapsing there as a result.
Harris may lose the election thanks to Netanyahu, but Bibi may not mind that.