Nicholas Noe is the director of the Beirut Exchange Foundation and co-founder of Mideastwire.com.
Even if Israel and its allies achieve a decisive military defeat of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the coming period—crushing its armed forces, scattering its leadership, and dismantling its nuclear program—the long-term consequences of such a triumph will be deeply corrosive and dangerous. Of course, the short-term gains of such a campaign against the last significant regional opposition to U.S.-Israeli power will be delicious for many in Washington and Tel Aviv who have spent 35 years agitating for war against the Islamic Republic. It will be hailed as definitive proof that brute strength and technological superiority are indeed adequate tools for reshaping global politics.
But this is exactly where the chief danger lies: this kind of victory, rather than securing lasting peace or stability, will usher in a far more dangerous world order defined overwhelmingly by “might makes right” and the wholesale abandonment of international norms.
Might Makes Right: From Exception to Rule
A successful campaign against Iran would be taken as final vindication by the interventionist camp in the United States and Israel. Their long-standing argument—that problems in the Middle East can and should be solved through overwhelming military force (with or without nation-building)—would gain tremendous credibility. Any blowback, if it did not materialize quickly or dramatically, would be dismissed as irrelevant. Predictions about the dangers of failed states would be parried by calls to just wall off or “Golden Dome” oneself and allies, with further brutality exercised at the gates as needed.
The lesson would be clear: force works, and those with unmatched capabilities should not hesitate to use them.
This shift is not likely to remain limited to the Middle East. A perceived success in Iran would become a century-defining precedent, eliminating what little remains of the post-WWII consensus that outlawed wars of aggression and emphasized collective security. International norms would be seen as entirely optional—quaint relics rather than guardrails essential for preventing suffering and chaos.
The U.S., already prone to bypassing multilateral mechanisms when convenient well before Donald Trump, would feel even less bound by diplomatic process or the logic of compromise. Israel, too, would be further empowered in its belief that its security lies not in negotiation or compromise, but only in permanent technological superiority and deterrence through mass or targeted destruction.
Blowback Deferred, Restraint Discredited
One of the central claims of those who advocate for greater restraint in foreign policy—a camp I have long belonged to—is that wars of choice tend to carry hidden, long-term costs that ultimately outweigh the short-term gains. These include insurgency, regional destabilization, terrorism, and the erosion of democratic institutions at home. The Iraq War was, and remains, the centerpiece of our argument. Initially declared a success following “Shock and Awe,” it led to multiple dimensions of disaster over time. Yet interventionists continue to claim that the war was lost not because it was illegitimate or ill-conceived, but because the U.S. lacked the will to see it through – especially “all the way” to Tehran. A similar narrative will likely develop post-Iran, should “Mission Accomplished” be declared: overwhelming force finally proved its utility, and past failures were merely a matter of poor execution and lack of will.
This narrative would empower a new era of interventionism. With restraint seemingly discredited and its often vague warnings relegated to the long term, the threshold for uses of force would drop even further. The appetite for war would grow until the interventionist machine finally encounters an adversary, or a combination of adversaries, capable of catastrophic retaliation. This capacity for catastrophe would most likely come in the form of a nuclear arsenal, which in every country that maintains such weapons would be paired with hard limits beyond which conventional war risks thermonuclear devastation.
Accelerating a Global Arms Race
Perhaps the most predictable consequence of an Iran defeat is the acceleration of a global arms race, particularly around nuclear weapons. Iran, a relatively large and sophisticated regional actor, has attempted to deter attack by developing nuclear capabilities, apparently below the threshold of actual weapons for now. If that deterrent fails and Iran’s nuclear program is dismantled, the signal to other regimes will be unmistakable: the only way to ensure your sovereignty in a U.S.-Israeli-dominated world is through acquiring nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
This logic has already played out, but to a far lesser extent. Libya gave up its WMD programs in 2003 only to see its regime violently overthrown. North Korea took the opposite path, developing a credible nuclear deterrent, and as a result has remained largely immune from foreign intervention. After Iran, more states will very likely pursue this path, viewing international treaties and inspections as traps rather than protections.
The risk is not just nuclear proliferation, but the normalization of preventive military action against non-nuclear states. The incentive structure becomes perverse: develop nuclear weapons quickly or risk regime change. The end result is a world more dangerous, more armed, and more unstable.
Authoritarianism at Home
The idea that success abroad through overwhelming force won’t impact the home front is a dangerous illusion. When a nation continually uses brute power to achieve its aims internationally, that logic inevitably seeps into domestic politics. The militarization of policing, the expansion of executive power, the erosion of civil liberties—all of these have already been seen in the U.S. after almost two and a half decades of the Global War on Terror we launched following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The past few months in the U.S. have only underscored the point with greater clarity.
A deconstruction of Iran’s ability and desire to exercise violence outside the framework of international law would further erode democratic norms. Presidents who view themselves as uniquely empowered to act without accountability abroad often bring that mindset home. We see this in the growing embrace of authoritarian rhetoric, the normalization of surveillance, and the dismissal of dissent as weakness or treason, both at home and abroad.
In Israel, the same dynamic could accelerate ongoing efforts to limit judicial oversight, marginalize minority voices, entrench ethnonationalism and, at the same time, move more decisively forward with plans to forcibly displace millions of Palestinians. The culture of military supremacy abroad will only embolden illiberal, illegal and immoral tendencies within.
Unresolved Grievances, New Enemies
The Iranian government’s behavior, however malign one views it, is largely anchored on a long history of regional dynamics, injustice and security concerns. Crushing the Iranian regime will not eliminate some of the key reasons why it acted aggressively in the first place. On the contrary, it will embitter many and make reconciliation far more difficult than the path of mutual compromise, addressing underlying grievances and diplomacy. It will also very likely create new, more determined and capable enemies in the process.
We’ve seen this before. As close as Israel or the U.S. believes it is to vanquishing enemies, new ones are created over time as long as the main factors driving opposition and anger remain.
In 2000, Israel missed a historic opportunity to strike a deal with Syria that would have returned the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and the disarmament of Hezbollah. After negotiations collapsed when Israel refused to return the Golan in its entirety, Hezbollah claimed victory for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. In doing so, Israel strengthened the logic of armed resistance and perpetuated conflict. Twenty-four years later, Israel applied massive force to momentarily cow Hezbollah, which had grown to become the most powerful non-state actor in the world. Here, too, restrainers seem to have lost the argument in the short term. But the organization is, by most accounts, rebuilding. It won recent local elections and has only increased its motivating grievances vis-à-vis Israel. It is learning from its military and security mistakes and lies in wait for an opportune moment to exacerbate U.S. and Israeli moments of weakness, whenever or however they come to pass.
Perhaps most importantly, Israel vanquished the PLO only to give rise to Hamas. Throughout, it has rejected the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers full normalization in exchange for a just resolution to the Palestinian issue. Rather than accept compromise and concede occupied territory for a Palestinian state, Israeli leaders have bet on massive force and technological superiority. But as long as core grievances remain unaddressed—the occupation of Palestinian territories, the displacement of refugees, the lack of political rights—no amount of bombing campaigns will bring lasting peace. New, more capable enemies in Palestine, as in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, are very likely being created every day in the rubble of what many observers now consider to be outright genocide.
The Challenge to Restraint
But all of this lies in the longer term and is difficult to prove right now. If Iran falls with minimal immediate blowback, the interventionist camp will have immediate proof of concept that the real problem with past wars was that they were too limited, too cautious, too concerned about failed states or too respectful of international law.
This will not just be a tactical shift. It will represent a fundamental change nearly impossible to put back in the proverbial bottle. Adherence to international law will be cast as outdated, ineffective, even dangerous. The pro-diplomacy worldview—that peace and stability come from mutual respect, compromise, and adherence to rules—will be sidelined by a new consensus that sees raw power as its own justification.
But history teaches that such a worldview cannot endure. Sooner or later, even the most powerful actors face adversaries they cannot crush. The more one relies on force alone, the more brittle one’s position becomes. A temporary triumph over Iran may feel like vindication for hawks, but it is likely to be the beginning of a far more dangerous period.
It is not too late to choose another path. Instead of war, the U.S. and Israel could return to diplomacy. Instead of domination, they could pursue mutual concessions that address root grievances. This includes accepting a viable Palestinian state, negotiating regional security arrangements, and ending the reliance on force as the first resort.
The lesson of the last two decades is not that force doesn’t matter—but that it is insufficient. Real security comes not from domination, but from legitimacy. And legitimacy cannot be won on the battlefield alone.
