The Most Patient and the Strategic Local Strongmen Will Ultimately Win the Day in a Post-War Iran

I'm in the midst of a lull in my main job of supporting high school students with college admissions, with last year's bunch nervously awaiting their results, while this year's haven't started brainstorming the essay topics. During the downtime, I had been partially consumed by a mobile game, in which the player is an independent trader in a galaxy in which the central authority collapsed, and a cult-like rebellion seeks to assert control. The player navigates the many lawless frontiers, visiting planets that are home to civilizations menaced by economic difficulties, civil conflict, or simply isolation from trading partners.

As the US and Israel drag the Middle East back into a regional war, the setting of the game is almost too close to reality. Like in the game, the erosion of central authority has opened up chaos, with regional military commanders acting independently to strike civilian targets across a slew of Arab neighbors. And like in the game, individual communities within Iran and beyond are faced with a new sense of uncertainty amidst Internet cutoffs, flight cancellations, and the potential of missiles and kamikaze drones destroying even the poshest residences of most cosmopolitan cities.

In the game, the solution to the issue is a rather simple one. Gather resources like metal and water wherever one comes across them in the galaxy. Build up one's transport, and find a home base that is safe from all the different violent actors. Making it big requires finding who is weaker, destroying them outright, and capturing their resources for one's own buildup. In a fractured Iran and the Middle East, the same logic could very much apply. With the global hegemon too busy bombing and likely to leave the locals on their own after (yet unclear) aims are achieved in the coming weeks, the aftermath will be messy.

Thankfully, no other region in the world is more prepared for this sort of upheaval. Many stateless but still powerful regional actors, like the Kurds, have navigated post-conflict chaos with deft, compromising and fighting when needed to advance their self-interest. Plenty of insiders from defeated past regimes, from the Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq, to the Taliban in Afghanistan, have found ways to get back into power by forming new alliances, rebuilding military strength, and waiting out the inevitable withdrawal of the Americans, who are too busy handling issues elsewhere.

They will certainly find plenty of safe shelters even if the bombs continue falling. Sure, the Israelis promised another 2,000 air strikes over Iran to take out high-value targets, but in a country of high mountains and population centers hosting a total of more than 90 million people, there are enough remote bunkers and crowded safe houses in dense towns to suit one's fancy. The best intelligence system and military-industrial complex cannot come up with sufficient information and firepower to truly "obliterate" a land of this size, no matter what Trump may say.

So, like the trader repairing his starship with looted resources, the players of the new chaos hide and bid their time. The idealists will take to the streets, calling for a new democratic regime of freedom and equality, forgetting that 15 years ago, their compatriots did the same across the Arab World, only to be disappointed by the outcomes of civil wars, new dictators, and unresolved economic malaise. There is no reason to believe an equivalent Iranian Spring will see anyone but the strongmen with guns, built up and hidden during the chaos, to emerge ultimately victorious.

As I got sucked into the mobile game, I started to see that success is layered, redefined at every phase, and needed to be sustained in the long term. Today's wins over rebels mean little when those victories do not accumulate into strategic positions that are left standing, stronger than ever, when the dust settles from the immediate military conflict. In my little corner of the galaxy, the visitors will always come, some friendly and others not so much, but eventually they leave, forcing the locals to pick up the pieces and rebuild by themselves.

Iranians of all shades and the various Arab countries that have been sucked into this ever-expanding war need to also be ready for that day. Safety can always be found even in an all-out war. Those who can find them, gather friends and resources, and patiently bid for the next opportunity to take control, through however ruthless means, will be left leading their peoples and shaping the next chapter of the region. Surely, they will gain the respect of the Americans, too. After all, Trump fights the weak, but balks at the strong.