The escalating conflict in the Middle East is fueling fears that Washington's pursuit of regime change in Iran, and Tehran's retaliation, could destabilize regions from the Gulf to Europe, leaving global leaders scrambling to assess the fallout.
The U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran over the weekend, killing the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting waves of attacks by Tehran across the region.
President Donald Trump made it clear in a video message Saturday following the initial wave of U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran that his objective was "eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people."
Geopolitical analysts warned that Saturday's strikes could be the opening salvo of a sustained military campaign aimed at dismantling the Iranian regime, with the U.S. seeking to assert dominance over the world's most critical oil-producing region.
"The scale of the strikes by the U.S. and Israel, along with the apparent goal of regime change in Iran, suggest the military conflict could escalate rapidly and unpredictably," said Rexon Ryu, President of The Asia Group, a business consultancy firm. "There is substantial immediate risk for regional and potentially global escalation, as Iran may now use any available option to respond."
"The previous strikes were targeted at the nuclear weapons program," said David Silbey, a professor of military history at Cornell University, referring to the 12-day war in June last year when the U.S. and Israel launched air strikes that damaged three key Iranian nuclear sites.
But "this one will be much broader, aimed at command and control, headquarters and leadership, and the military and secret police generally," said Silbey. "Since there doesn't seem to be a U.S. ground campaign in the offing, the goal is to get the regime overthrown domestically, either by a popular uprising or a palace coup."
Silbey warned that Iran could respond with retaliatory attacks, including missile strikes on Israeli and U.S. military bases and vessels in the Persian Gulf, as well as potential terrorist operations across the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
"If the regime feels threatened, it'll lash out harder than it would if it thought it could ride out the attacks," Silbey said.
The latest conflagration has already spread to other parts of the Gulf region. Iranian missiles targeted Israel and multiple Gulf states, including the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, all countries with air bases containing U.S. assets.
"Years of Iranian détente-building with the Gulf may be over," said Aysha Chowdhry, principal at The Asia Group.