After several weeks of major military confrontation between Israel, the United States, and Iran, the Middle East remains plunged into a phase of extreme instability. A fragile ceasefire appears to contain the direct escalation between Washington and Tehran for now, but tensions persist throughout the region: ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, difficult negotiations regarding the Iranian issue, global energy crisis linked to the Strait of Hormuz, and increasing concerns of Gulf monarchies.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration seeks to impose a new regional balance based on military pressure, economic coercion, and redefinition of strategic alliances in the Middle East. However, Iranian resilience, Gulf countries’ ambiguities, and the fragility of the ceasefire raise questions about the viability of such a project.
To analyze this major geopolitical sequence and its regional and international consequences, Le Diplomate Média interviewed Michel Fayad, a Middle East specialist and analyst of regional strategic dynamics.
Interview conducted by Roland Lombardi.
Le Diplomate: Several weeks after the start of the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran, how would you describe the current situation in the Middle East: actual de-escalation or strategic pause before a possible return to combat?
Michel Fayad: What we are witnessing is more of a tactical suspension than a political de-escalation. The ceasefire is holding for now because each party has reached a threshold of cost that it did not want to cross – not because there is a shared will to break out of the confrontation cycle.
Washington wanted to avoid entrenchment after its strikes. Israel seeks to consolidate its gains without opening multiple fronts simultaneously. Iran, on the other hand, seeks to preserve its strategic capacities while avoiding a confrontation that would endanger the regime’s survival. These are three temporary logic of prudence, not a fundamental convergence.
And the structural causes of the crisis have not disappeared. The nuclear program remains intact. Hezbollah retains significant capabilities. The Houthis continue to disrupt maritime balances. The crisis of trust between Washington and Tehran is profound. We are in an armed truce, not a peace process.
The ceasefire between Washington and Tehran appears particularly fragile. Can the ongoing negotiations actually lead to a sustainable agreement, or are we facing a classic cycle of tactical respite between phases of confrontation?
For a durable agreement to exist, there would need to be a minimum of strategic convergence between the two camps. However, today, the goals remain largely incompatible. Washington aims to durably limit Iran’s nuclear and ballistic capabilities, as well as Tehran’s regional influence. Iran sees these capabilities as guarantees of its survival against its adversaries.
What is being referred to as “negotiations” is more of a crisis management. The Americans seek to prevent a regionally uncontrollable explosion – particularly due to the energy risk around Hormuz. The Iranians want to loosen the economic noose while preserving the core of their strategic architecture.
The main problem is that there is no longer a solid mechanism of trust since the collapse of the JCPOA. Each party suspects the other of using discussions to buy time. A limited technical agreement remains possible. A genuinely durable strategic compromise seems extremely difficult in the short term.
Despite American and Israeli strikes, the Iranian regime seems to have maintained political and security cohesion. How do you currently analyze the internal situation in Iran and the posture adopted by Tehran in the negotiations?
This is a crucial point because some Western analyses relied on an assumption that has not materialized: that massive military pressure would quickly destabilize the internal situation. The regime has held on.
The Revolutionary Guards retain control over coercive apparatuses. Political power remains structured around a logic of national survival, and above all, external aggression historically triggers a patriotic unity reflex in Iran – even among segments that are critical of the regime in normal times.
This does not mean that Iran is in a comfortable position. The economy remains under intense pressure, and social tensions are real. However, the regime has clearly concluded that it can absorb high economic costs as long as its fundamental strategic capabilities remain intact.
In the negotiations, Tehran adopts a classic posture: calibrated resistance, rhetorical firmness, tactical pragmatism on the margins – but an absolute rejection of any image of capitulation to Washington.
The Strait of Hormuz remains at the heart of global strategic power dynamics. Have the U.S. blockade and control operations truly weakened Iran’s disruptive capabilities, or do they rather reveal the limits of American power in the region?
Both dimensions coexist, making the situation uncomfortable for everyone. The U.S. maintains overwhelming military superiority in the region – naval, aerial, technological. They can partially secure major maritime routes.
However, this crisis has also confirmed a well-known reality for strategists: it is enough for Iran to disrupt traffic, not completely block it, to produce a global shock. A few asymmetrical attacks, targeted threats, increased maritime insurance premiums – these are enough to destabilize energy markets.
American power controls the military space but cannot neutralize Iran’s asymmetrical disruptive potential without getting into a large-scale regional war. This has been Iran’s strategy for decades: compensating for conventional inferiority with a permanent disruption capacity. Iran does not seek to militarily defeat the U.S. It aims to make the cost of a sustained confrontation prohibitively high.
The situation in Lebanon remains extremely tense with continued Israeli strikes against Hezbollah. Is Israel now seeking to impose a new security order in southern Lebanon or to permanently weaken the regional pro-Iranian axis?
Israel is pursuing several objectives simultaneously. The first is security-related: to permanently distance the threat of Hezbollah from its northern border. However, beyond the tactical dimension, there is a larger strategic ambition – to weaken the entire Iranian projection architecture regionally. Hezbollah has been the most powerful element of this axis for years. Weakening it is a major priority.
The problem is that Israel faces a classic limit of asymmetrical conflicts. Significant losses can be inflicted, leaders can be eliminated, infrastructure can be destroyed. But total elimination is an operational illusion. Hezbollah’s heavy weapons are in Hermel, in northern Lebanon – precisely where the IDF will not go, for obvious political and military reasons. Additionally, Hezbollah has adapted its tactics. The use of fiber optic drones north of Litani allows them to strike as far as Galilee while bypassing Israeli electronic jamming systems. This is a significant capability evolution that significantly complicates Israel’s security equation.
What we are witnessing is thus a strategy of prolonged erosion – not a realistic perspective of total elimination.
What is the actual position of the Gulf monarchies – specifically Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar – regarding this confrontation? Are they discreetly supporting Washington or prioritizing regional stability?
The Gulf monarchies are in a much more nuanced position than ten years ago. They remain structurally linked to the American security umbrella, but they have deeply integrated the potential cost of an open regional confrontation.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are primarily seeking to preserve their economic stability, investments, and major internal transformation projects. A major regional war would directly threaten their energy infrastructure and financial attractiveness.
Hence, a balancing strategy: close cooperation with Washington on security matters while simultaneously maintaining dialogue channels with Tehran. The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in recent years was not just a symbolic gesture – it reflected a real desire to reduce the risk of uncontrollable escalation.
These states do not want an Iranian victory or a total collapse of Iran, which would open a phase of even more dangerous chaos for them.
Donald Trump seems to have chosen a strategy of show of force, maximum economic pressure, and constrained negotiations. Do you find this approach coherent and effective, or does it risk accelerating the dynamics of regional fragmentation and anti-American sentiment?
Donald Trump’s strategy is based on a logic of permanent power relations: hit hard to restore American deterrence credibility, then use this pressure as a negotiation lever. This approach can produce short-term tactical results.
However, it carries major risks. Firstly, excessive pressure mechanically reinforces nationalist and anti-American dynamics in the region. Secondly, it pushes targeted actors to speed up their bypass strategies – closer ties with Beijing and Moscow, development of alternative financial networks, increased asymmetric militarization.
Above all, this strategy rests on a debatable assumption: that a show of force is enough to produce a stable regional order. The Middle East is characterized by deep fragmentation dynamics, where non-state actors and identity rivalries make any stabilization extremely difficult.
Lastly, in your opinion, what are the possible scenarios for the coming months: a progressive stabilization around a regional compromise, prolonged entanglement in a low-intensity hybrid war, or a resumption of a major military confrontation directly involving Israel, Iran, and the United States?
The most likely short-term scenario is prolonged entanglement in a protracted hybrid confrontation. A situation where no actor desires a total war but where all continue to use forms of indirect pressure – targeted strikes, cyberattacks, maritime operations, economic warfare, actions by allied groups.
Partial stabilization is possible if a limited agreement emerges on nuclear and maritime security. However, this would require a minimal level of trust that is currently very low.
As for the risk of major escalation, it absolutely cannot be ruled out. The region operates under very high strategic tension, with imperfect communication mechanisms and sometimes blurry red lines. In such an environment, a miscalibrated incident, an exceptionally lethal strike, or a misinterpretation can quickly trigger an uncontrollable dynamic.
The Middle East has entered an extremely unstable phase of recomposition, where the logic of confrontation remains stronger than that of a genuine regional political settlement.
