The new year looks as if it could be just a continuation from the strategic point of view of the year that just ended. However, there is an important difference between 2024 and 2025 in that the new year looks as if it could see a possible military escalation.

Last year, the Israeli army waged military operations on seven fronts from Gaza to Yemen, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It undertook military operations in southern Lebanon and other areas where Hizbullah   fighters were stationed. Israel also assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, and some other leaders and commanders. Hamas has been weakened after more than a year of an unprecedented war with Israel that has left the Gaza Strip an almost total ruin.

The most dramatic development in the Middle East, which some would describe as a game-changer for the strategic equation in the region, same on 8 December last year when former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad left his country, bringing to a tragic end the 50-year rule of the Al-Assad dynasty.

Damascus is now ruled by a terrorist organisation led by someone known for almost a decade by the name of Abu Mohamed Al-Golani who has a US bounty on his head worth $10 million. His terrorist organisation, called the Jabhat Al-Nusra, was cited explicitly in UN Security Council Resolution 2254 of 18 December 2015, along with the Islamic State group (IS or Daesh). Al-Golani is now known by his real name of Ahmed Al-Sharaa.

In the aftermath of the downfall of the Al-Assad regime in Damascus, the Americans with the Europeans and several of their “strategic partners” in the region have been involved in an operation designed to launder terrorism in Syria and the Middle East.

In the meantime, and it is no coincidence, the Israelis have destroyed nearly 70 per cent of the Arab Syrian army, while the new rulers of Syria are restructuring the Syrian Ministry of Defence to incorporate former terrorists from Al-Qaeda and Jabhat Al-Nusra. In other words, a terrorist organisation will have a recognised army that will be armed and assisted by those same countries that fomented and armed the resistance to the former government of President Bashar Al-Assad.

The Middle East is now braced for a tripartite showdown between Israel and the US during the second term of former President Donald Trump, on the one hand, and a weakened Iran on the other. Post-Al-Assad Syria will be a silent partner in this showdown.

In the months to come, this confrontation will be a major preoccupation and most probably will lead to a diplomatic and military showdown with Iran. The message to the Iranians will be either to go along with Israeli and US demands, particularly those related to Iran’s nuclear programme, or face the credible threat of an American green light to Israel to attack all the nuclear sites in Iran.

Israel has already prepared the ground for future major military attacks against Iran.

In an operation called “Days of Repentance” on 26 October the Israeli Air Force hit multiple military targets inside Iran in attacks that were carried out in three waves, with the second and third wave, according to Israeli press reports, targeting Iranian drone and missile production sites and destroying more than 20 targets.

The attacks were deliberately focused on disabling Iran’s air-defence systems and damaging the country’s long-term ability to develop additional ballistic missiles.

In sum, the stage has been set for a major military confrontation with Iran in 2025 or for explicit US and Israeli threats if Iran does not yield in the way explained above. The new year is also fraught with uncertainties as far as the internal political situation in Iran is concerned. The battle for the succession to the country’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already started.

This year promises to be a dangerous turning point in the long and tortuous history of the Middle East since the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and the imperialist division of the Levant.

Unfortunately, the Arabs, or some of them, are silent parties in the new regional division of power.

The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly