By Andrea Tucci,
Israel uses instability as a tool to weaken its rivals, but Iran’s resilience now risks upending this long-standing strategy.
History shows that Israel has often benefited from regional fractures. The fragmentation of neighboring states — their internal divisions, institutional collapse, and political paralysis — has frequently worked in its favor. This is not abstract chaos. It is produced and managed instability: the deliberate cultivation of disorder as a geopolitical method.
Some analysts describe this model as managed instability: weakening adversaries not through direct conquest, but by gradually hollowing them out from within. Societies divided and consumed by internal crises struggle to resist external pressure.
Israel’s military superiority is real, but its strategic environment is heavily shaped by the support of the United States. Without Washington’s constant backing — from advanced weaponry to diplomatic cover in international institutions — Israel’s strategic position would look radically different.
At the same time, permanent mobilization, domestic political polarization, and massive military expenditures place growing pressure on Israel’s economy, making it difficult to sustain a prolonged military confrontation without external support.
For decades, Israeli strategic thinking sought to build pragmatic relationships with certain Arab states in the region in an effort to reduce the hostility of surrounding countries and rebalance regional dynamics. Over time, however, this logic was accompanied by another geopolitical observation: divided neighbors pose a smaller threat than strong and centralized states.
Iraq is perhaps the clearest example.
The U.S. invasion of 2003 dismantled Iraq’s state institutions, dissolved its army, and triggered sectarian violence that paralyzed Baghdad’s ability to function as a regional power. One of the Arab world’s major military actors was transformed into a state consumed by internal conflict.
Libya followed a similar path in 2011. Western intervention destroyed the centralized Libyan state and replaced it with a constellation of militias and rival governments. A country that once carried significant weight in regional politics was transformed into a fragmented political system dominated by competing armed factions.
Syria was also engulfed by a devastating war. As the country fragmented under the weight of conflict and foreign intervention, the consolidation of Israeli control over the Golan Heights reflected the erosion of Syrian sovereignty while Damascus struggled for its own survival.
Lebanon, fragile and politically paralyzed, remains trapped in cycles of crisis that prevent the emergence of a fully cohesive national authority.
Within a few decades, several states that once helped shape the balance of power in the Middle East have been transformed into fragile or fragmented political systems.
Iran, however, has not followed this script.
For more than forty years, Tehran has faced constant pressure: sweeping economic sanctions, covert sabotage, cyber warfare, targeted assassinations of scientists, and diplomatic isolation. Yet the Iranian state has not disintegrated.
Its institutions and military structures have maintained cohesion. Despite periodic waves of domestic protest, the political system has not descended into sectarian civil war.
This resilience has significantly complicated Israeli strategic calculations.
In July 2025, Israel launched a twelve-day military offensive against Iran. The operation did not produce the hoped-for fragmentation; on the contrary, the Iranian state demonstrated a notable capacity for consolidation.
The subsequent escalation — which also involved the United States — was publicly justified in the language of preventing a nuclear threat. Yet in 2015 Iran had signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), accepting strict limits on its nuclear program under international supervision and signaling its willingness to negotiate.
The nuclear issue therefore appears intertwined with a broader strategic objective: containing Iran and limiting its regional influence.
Tehran has built and progressively consolidated a network of alliances that extends its strategic depth beyond its own borders: from support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad to its structural relationship with the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, and its ties with various Shiite militias operating in Iraq. Through this architecture of political and military relationships, Iran is able to exert influence across multiple regional theaters — from the Levant to Iraq and Yemen.
In the Persian Gulf, moreover, Tehran possesses an additional strategic lever thanks to its position along the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime corridor through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes. This factor strengthens Iran’s capacity for deterrence and geopolitical pressure without necessarily requiring a direct military confrontation.
Israel would like to replicate in Iran the same model of fragmentation that has characterized other regional contexts: isolating Tehran diplomatically and pushing it toward internal fracture. Yet unlike Iraq in 2003 or Libya in 2011, Iran retains ideological coherence, institutional continuity, and its own strategy of regional projection.
In this scenario, a prolonged confrontation would put not only Tel Aviv but also Washington under significant strain. A long and costly ground war against Iran could accelerate fatigue among the American public and increase skepticism in Washington toward unlimited alignment with Israeli maximalism — particularly in a political climate increasingly shaped by the logic of America First.
