The conflict with Iran has prompted many questions on what comes subsequent. Will the Islamic Republic regime survive? What might substitute it? Will Iran dissolve into chaos? What does this all imply for the Arab Gulf states, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, and the remainder of the area? What are the near-term, medium-term, and long-term dangers and alternatives?
The White Home has mentioned that the conflict will final 4 to 6 weeks, however what if it goes properly past that? What if america and Israel have unleashed a series of occasions that’s past their management? A worst-case state of affairs is that Iran descends right into a chaotic civil conflict — with competing armed factions and separatist actions — that drives sustained excessive oil and gasoline costs, triggers an enormous refugee disaster, destabilizes the area, fuels new or reinvigorated terrorist actions, and basically undermines U.S. affect globally. Whereas this may not be the most certainly consequence, it nonetheless warrants consideration.
The Worth of Worst-Case Situations
The conflict with Iran raises many legitimate questions and potential contingencies. After we are confronted with a lot uncertainty, state of affairs planning supplies a useful device to suppose by way of a number of potential futures. State of affairs planning can are available many kinds, however the objective is often to assist a corporation — public or personal sector — put together for a variety of prospects. It supplies a possibility to check how properly its assets, procedures, and insurance policies would carry out in several conditions and to evaluate what modifications it would have to make.
There are numerous methodologies, however all require a point of creativeness. In most workout routines, eventualities ought to all be believable, however they need to not all be doubtless. Finest-case and worst-case eventualities seldom signify the most certainly futures, however they supply essential bookends for testing a number of the outer limits of believable outcomes. In my expertise working with companies and authorities businesses, there’s usually a bent to concentrate on the center — extra doubtless — eventualities or the best-case state of affairs. This displays a cognitive bias for what looks like probably the most rational outcomes or the one that folks hope for. There usually is a bent to dismiss the worst-case state of affairs, which can be as a result of folks don’t need it to occur or as a result of they’re making an attempt to point out that they don’t seem to be alarmist.
Nonetheless, worst-case eventualities are necessary to suppose by way of. When completed properly, they’re believable and subsequently might realistically occur, even when they don’t signify the most certainly consequence. Planning is incomplete with out pondering by way of how a worst-case state of affairs might play out.
At present, the conflict in Iran opens the door to many potential outcomes, and policymakers and different stakeholders ought to suppose by way of all of them. Right here I describe one believable worst-case state of affairs: a full collapse of governing authority in Iran and a descent into civil conflict. This state of affairs is concentrated totally on a two yr timeframe however considers implications to a 5 yr horizon.
The State of affairs
Civil Warfare in Iran
U.S. and Israeli strikes early within the conflict kill or incapacitate many of the Islamic Republic’s prime officers and leaders. Whereas the survivors initially try and show unity, they shortly lose management of the nation and splinter into competing teams. Anti-regime protests get away throughout the nation to overthrow the federal government and achieve taking up varied prisons and authorities establishments. The navy experiences rising defections.
Nonetheless, none of those teams coalesce right into a motion sufficiently able to filling the facility vacuum. Quickly, factions of the previous regime, completely different protest actions, and remnants of the navy start preventing one another — generally turning into armed legal teams as a lot as political actions. Some teams search to regulate oil and gasoline services and different websites with vital financial worth, particularly these with uncooked assets which are comparatively straightforward for smugglers to take advantage of.
Within the chaos, ethnic minority teams which have lengthy sought elevated autonomy take their alternative. A few of them have arms and attempt to assert their authority over areas the place they’ve a demographic majority. Probably the most notable of those are the Kurds in Iran’s western areas neighboring Iraq and Turkey and the Balochs in Iran’s jap areas neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan. In each locations, low-level separatist actions predate the civil conflict and shortly ramp up into way more vital armed conflicts.
Another ethnic minority teams attempt to seize higher autonomy, together with some members of Arab communities in Khuzestan province and components of Azeri communities — the most important ethnic minority in Iran — within the north. The Arab communities lack the extent of armed resistance that components of the Kurdish and Baloch minorities have and focus extra on stabilizing their native areas and nurturing longer-term hopes for a point of autonomy. The Azeri minority is initially much less prepared to interact in separatist violence, however an more and more assertive Azerbaijan works to foment separatism amongst Azeris within the north, with the eventual purpose of incorporating a part of Iran’s northern territory into a bigger state of Azerbaijan.
Regional Spillover
The extreme instability and violence shortly spill over neighboring states. The Iranian Kurdish rebellion instantly creates each alternatives and issues for northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Authorities, the place Iranian Kurdish dissidents have lengthy sought shelter. Previous to Iran’s civil conflict, the Turkish authorities was working to finish its long-running battle with the Kurdistan Staff’ Celebration, and in March 2025, the group declared a ceasefire and later mentioned it might disband. Nonetheless, when the conflict in Iran started, implementation was shifting alongside slowly and uncertainly. The resurgent separatist motion amongst Iranian Kurds threatens to breathe new life into Kurdish nationalism, derailing the delicate deal between Ankara and the Kurdistan Staff’ Celebration. Equally, in Syria, the rebellion amongst Iran’s Kurds undermines the efforts of the federal government in Damascus to achieve phrases with the Syrian Democratic Forces. As Iran’s Baloch insurgency beneficial properties steam, it strengthens Baloch rebel teams in Pakistan and will increase insecurity for the Baloch group in Afghanistan. The border areas between the three nations have an extended historical past of safety issues, occasional clashes, and cross-border trafficking, and the chaos in Iran intensifies them.
Instability in Iran threatens to exacerbate different conflicts alongside its borders. Azerbaijan encourages separatism amongst Azeris in Iran, hoping to increase its management into bordering components of northern Iran. The peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan holds, given Azerbaijan’s dominant place, and the lack of Tehran as a good friend additional weakens Armenia. Preventing between Pakistan and Afghanistan was intensifying earlier than the conflict in Iran, and the elevated insecurity in Baloch areas and alongside the nations’ borders with Iran — plus a wave of Iranian refugees — additional fuels the battle. Iraq’s authorities struggles to take care of stability, because it copes with spillover results from the conflict, together with problem exporting oil.
There’s a big flood of refugees out of Iran. To grasp the dimensions, think about that Syria’s civil conflict despatched greater than six million refugees fleeing the nation between March 2011 and December 2024 — principally to neighboring states but additionally into Europe. The inflow to Europe created a socio-political disaster that fueled far-right political events and created political cracks throughout the European Union. Syria’s inhabitants initially of the conflict was greater than 22 million folks, and Iran’s inhabitants initially of its conflict was greater than 91 million folks. Hundreds of thousands now flee to states akin to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey — all of which have already struggled to soak up refugees from different conflicts and which expertise various ranges of fragility. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan additionally obtain refugees.
Some refugees try and cross the Caspian Sea or Persian Gulf or in any other case transit to 3rd nations, inflicting flows into Europe, the Arab Gulf states, Russia, Central Asia, and past. Members of the Iranian diaspora in Europe and america attempt to help family and friends in immigrating. At a time when the worldwide treaties, norms, and processes for managing refugee crises are practically damaged, the Iran refugee disaster breaks them.
Civil conflict and chaos in Iran enhance the dangers to Syria because it makes an attempt to get better from its personal brutal civil conflict, which in turns will increase the dangers to Lebanon, because it tries to get better from years of instability and to disarm Hizballah. The regional chaos and safety dangers arising from civil conflict in Iran additional set again any — admittedly small — hope of progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace, as regional nations and world powers are too distracted to speculate the required consideration and assets. The regional chaos gives Israel alternatives to consolidate its management over the West Financial institution and Gaza, in addition to its presence in southern Lebanon and southern Syria — strengthening Israel’s sense of safety within the brief time period however rising instability over the long term.
Piracy turns into a significant downside within the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Competing Iranian political factions overlap with legal networks and use accessible assets — together with a number of the small, armed boats that the Iranian regime had ready for navy functions — to pursue piracy as a income. Piracy and basic insecurity negatively have an effect on transportation by way of the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters. All these components create challenges for the Arab Gulf nations’ plans for financial diversification and development, particularly for the transportation, logistics, and tourism sectors.
International Unfold
Historical past means that chaos within the Center East dangers sparking new terrorist actions or reinvigorating outdated ones. The conflict in Iraq created fertile floor for the rise of the Islamic State, which additionally benefitted from the civil conflict in Syria. Instability and conflict in Yemen has supplied area for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Lebanon’s civil conflict and Israel’s invasion gave beginning to Hizballah, the 1979 revolution in Iran created a authorities with the means and curiosity to assist it, and regional instability through the years offered Hizballah with many alternatives to develop its affect. The mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 led to the event of Palestinian terrorist teams. Now, the rising regional insecurity supplies gasoline to each Sunni and Shiite terrorist actions, with damaging penalties within the area and past.
Financial penalties are multifaceted, together with driving up oil and gasoline costs over a sustained interval and undermining regional development. The maritime delivery business should adapt to new dangers. The inflow of refugees significantly strains Europe’s fiscal atmosphere, in addition to its social and political cohesion.
China and Russia discover it ever simpler to advertise a story that america is a reckless, unreliable, and irresponsible actor. Whereas the U.S. navy has demonstrated its extraordinary energy, the aftermath of the conflict convinces a lot of the world that Washington breaks issues after which doesn’t wish to personal the accountability. Many nations, particularly in Asia, reluctantly see Beijing as a safer, albeit domineering, possibility than Washington. Russia advantages economically from the rise in oil and gasoline costs, no less than early within the conflict.
Ukraine, nonetheless at conflict with Russia, comes beneath elevated strain to make concessions to Moscow, as European nations develop reluctant to assist Kyiv whereas making an attempt to handle a brand new refugee disaster and an rising feeling of insecurity. The US — nervous about its personal munitions, targeted on the conflict within the Center East, and shedding curiosity in Ukraine even earlier than the conflict with Iran — has already halted its assist for Ukraine, and Europe fails to fill the hole.
Getting ready for the Worst
All the weather of this state of affairs are debatable. And that’s the purpose. The method of going by way of a worst-case state of affairs — and taking it severely however not as an inevitability — helps to grasp which features are extra doubtless than others, and the way completely different actors can put together or what they will do to keep away from a horrible consequence.
There are believable eventualities which are way more optimistic — even ones that embrace chaos and conflict inside Iran. For instance, chaos in Iran may imply that Hizballah should concede to strain in Lebanon and disarm, which might assist stabilize Lebanon and enhance its relations with Israel.
However a civil conflict in Iran is a believable state of affairs, and many of the doubtless outcomes would have damaging penalties for peace, stability, and prosperity within the Center East and world wide. The conflict will have an effect on the pursuits of many stakeholders, starting from personal sector corporations to governments world wide. All these stakeholders must be pondering by way of worst-case eventualities now. U.S. policymakers may but be capable of take motion now to keep away from an extremely destabilizing consequence. Policymakers from different nations and enterprise leaders want to think about how you can shield their pursuits and mitigate their dangers, in case the worst involves move.
Kerry Boyd Anderson is a membership editor at Warfare on the Rocks. She beforehand offered political danger evaluation on the Center East and world safety points to personal and public sector shoppers and wrote a weekly column for Arab Information. She obtained an M.Sc. in worldwide relations from the London Faculty of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in world research from the College of Iowa. All opinions said listed here are her personal.
Picture: Hossein Zohrevand through Wikimedia Commons
