A New Forever War Is Brewing - And This Time, It’s Closer Than You Think

The Israeli strike on Iran may not have stopped a nuclear program, but it could ignite a regional firestorm, with the Gulf and the West both dragged in.

[Polistratics]

They called it Operation Rising Lion. A thunderous name, to match the drama: Israeli fighter jets, drones, and special operations struck deep into Iranian territory under the cover of darkness. High-value targets were hit—nuclear technicians, IRGC commanders, radar installations. On paper, a tactical success. In reality, the first act of yet another Middle East war that risks dragging the world, once again, into a vortex of endless conflict.

I write this from the Gulf, less than 400 kilometers from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. That distance matters. Bushehr is not in the shadow of Tehran, which sits more than 700 kilometers away. It’s on our doorstep. On the Gulf. On the waters that feed our desalination plants, support our economies, and host the region’s busiest shipping lanes. When things go wrong at nuclear facilities, they don’t respect borders. Fallout doesn’t check passports.

“Fallout doesn’t check passports. And Bushehr lies closer to my doorstep than to Tehran.”

Let’s dispense with the illusion that this was a measured strike to delay a nuclear breakout. It was something more volatile—and more political. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a career out of conflict. When domestic pressures rise, he looks outward. When his coalition frays, the drums beat louder. And now, with talks still ongoing between Iran and the United States—yes, talks were still happening just days ago—he pulled the trigger.

But here’s the rub: if the goal was to halt or meaningfully delay Iran’s nuclear program, it’s not clear that it worked. This isn’t 2009. You can’t bomb knowledge out of existence. You can’t erase the blueprints in someone’s head. Nuclear development in Iran is not confined to one site or even a dozen. It’s a network, resilient and redundant. Yes, some senior figures were killed. But the bench is deep. New commanders are already stepping forward. The regime isn’t destabilized. Control is intact. Production will resume—if it hasn’t already.

So what was achieved? Iran is now vowing retaliation. And they mean it. The drone swarms they’ve already launched are just the beginning. But they know what we all know: their drones and ballistic missiles are inconsistent at best. Israeli and U.S. air defenses—despite their limits—have proved largely effective against these kinds of attacks. Iran knows it, too.

That’s why the danger now lies in what they may try next.

When conventional tools don’t work, states often turn to unconventional ones. Asymmetric retaliation. Terror tactics. A car bomb in an unexpected city. A cyberattack against a financial hub. A “plausibly deniable” explosion at a U.S. facility in the region. Could it be in a GCC country? Could it be a strike on Western targets elsewhere in the Middle East? Or a synagogue in Europe? We don’t know—and that’s the point. Iran has been humiliated. Their command chain has been punctured. Their proxies degraded. They are cornered. And when power meets desperation, it doesn’t lead to restraint. It leads to chaos.

“When power meets desperation, it doesn’t lead to restraint. It leads to chaos.”

It’s not just the prospect of violence that should alarm us. It’s the ease with which the world is slipping into another open-ended conflict with no clear objective, no clear off-ramp, and no defined victory condition. We’ve been here before. Iraq. Afghanistan. Syria. Wars that were supposed to be quick, decisive, and self-contained. They became decade-long burdens, bleeding budgets, lives, and legitimacy. And now we’re watching the same movie begin again—same director, same cast, same tragic script.

The fallout, if not radioactive, will be geopolitical. Oil has already surged. Markets are rattled. Regional airspace is closing. Western embassies are drawing down. And make no mistake: if this escalates—and every signal says it will—the United States will be pulled in. The Gulf too. Europe, eventually. Whether through treaty obligations, forward-deployed troops, or sheer strategic gravity, this won’t be Israel versus Iran. It will be a regional war with global implications.

What makes it worse is that it was avoidable. Negotiations were underway. Imperfect, yes. Frustrating, often. But still, ongoing. Iran had not withdrawn from the table. The U.S. had not declared diplomacy dead. There was space to maneuver. And now that space is scorched.

We need to be honest about what this is. It’s not retaliation for an attack. It’s not a last resort. It’s not about imminent danger. It’s a political calculation turned military operation. It’s a government using war to distract from its own dysfunction. And it’s being sold as a preemptive necessity, when in fact, it may have just lit the fuse on a much bigger crisis.

The consequences are likely to come in waves. First, retaliation—whether directly from Iran or through fragmented networks acting in their name. Then, a tightening of alliances. Emergency summits. War rooms. News cycles full of speculation and misinformation. And finally, the slow, grinding normalization of this new conflict. It won’t be a bang. It’ll be a bleed.

“It won’t be a bang. It’ll be a bleed.”

I’ve seen this pattern too many times to be naive. What begins as a precise strike ends in years of open-ended entrenchment. And each escalation writes a new chapter in the same old story: the Middle East as theater, the West as actor, and the civilians as casualties.

What’s needed now is not more firepower. It’s clarity. Strategic clarity. Political clarity. Moral clarity. We need to say, collectively and without ambiguity: we will not walk into another forever war. We will not be lured into the illusion that a few successful strikes equal strategic victory. And we will not let regional instability be manufactured in the name of self-defense when the only thing being defended is political survival.

There is still time—narrow, urgent, but real—to pivot. To re-engage diplomatically. To apply pressure through leverage, not just lethality. To remind both allies and adversaries that peace is not weakness, and restraint is not surrender. The future of this region—of my region—depends on it.

“We will not walk into another forever war.”

Final Thoughts

Let’s be very clear: this isn’t just about Israel and Iran. This is about the direction of global security. It’s about whether great powers have the discipline to lead through strategy, or whether they will keep following the siren song of the quick fix, the flashy strike, the media moment that feeds the flames but solves nothing.

We know where that road ends.

And it’s not victory. It’s another war with no end, no exit, and no purpose.

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Nawaf Al-Thani is Editor-in-Chief of Polistratics and a former defense diplomat. His column “Nawaf’s Notes” runs weekly.

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