Introduction:

This paper is produced at a highly complex regional moment, where trajectories of military conflict intersect with geopolitical and economic transformations, within an environment in which confrontations are managed through interconnected systems extending from the battlefield to the economy, from security to energy, and from the regional sphere to the international order.

What appears on the surface as a “temporary truce” between conflicting parties does not necessarily reflect a genuine end to the state of conflict; rather, it indicates a process of strategic repositioning and a redistribution of roles within a regional landscape characterized by heightened uncertainty and a declining capacity of traditional frameworks to maintain balance.

The complexity of this landscape is further intensified by the growing roles of international and regional powers, and the entanglement of issues related to energy, maritime chokepoints, and regional security. This renders the Middle East an open testing ground for the reconfiguration of power balances, rather than merely a confined arena of conflict.

Accordingly, this paper seeks to deconstruct the structure of this compound conflict through a multi-level analysis encompassing political, security, and economic dimensions, with a particular focus on the position of Arab states—foremost among them Jordan—and the limits of their ability to adapt to or influence these transformations.

Chapter One: The Repercussions of an Inflamed Geopolitical Landscape on Jordan

The national political sphere does not operate in an isolated vacuum; rather, it is shaped within an interconnected field of forces in which geography intersects with strategy, and the domestic overlaps with the transnational. In this context, the current moment in the region appears closer to a state of “compound conflict fluidity,” where wars are no longer fought except as cumulative extensions of a deep, long-term conflict that continuously reproduces itself in multiple forms.

The recent war, which erupted between an axis led by the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, can be read as a phase-specific explosion of a “chronic balance crisis” within the regional order. It emerged out of an accumulation of prolonged strategic frictions related to the redistribution of influence, the control of vital spheres, and the redefinition of who holds the right to act within the region.

Although military operations came to a halt under a temporary truce, describing this as a “moment of de-escalation” remains misleading. What occurred is closer to a “suspension of confrontation” than to a settlement. Hard indicators—from the continuation of military mobilization, to the escalation of threatening rhetoric, to the failure of negotiation rounds to produce common ground—reveal that the regional arena has shifted from a phase of direct confrontation to one of operational repositioning.

Within this framework, a central dilemma emerges regarding the nature of conflict management, as “assumptions of rapid resolution” have overshadowed assessments based on long-term attrition. Some international actors appeared to proceed from simplified perceptions of the adversary, assuming the possibility of dismantling its structure within a very short time. Yet the course of events exposed a miscalculation in assessing the strategic resilience of the opposing side and its ability to absorb the shock and reconstruct its internal cohesion.

At the same time, the conflict has come to display the characteristics of “multiple centers of decision-making within a single actor.” The divergence between political and military agendas, and between internal calculations and external extensions, raises questions as to who is actually leading the conflict: is it the institutions of the deep state, the ruling elites, or transnational ideological alliances?

This ambiguity in defining the actor, in turn, produces a parallel ambiguity in forecasting outcomes, leaving the region governed by a logic of “prolonged inconclusiveness”—a condition in which no party achieves decisive victory, none suffers final defeat, and all continue to generate successive rounds of confrontation beneath an elevated ceiling of risk.

For Jordan, the Kingdom lies within the sphere of direct impact of energy routes, supply chains, and military balances, making it vulnerable to the repercussions of any escalation, whether through threats to vital corridors or through the redrawing of influence maps in its regional environment.

Moreover, the rise of unilateral approaches to conflict management, coupled with the erosion of international legal reference frameworks, is pushing the region toward a pattern closer to “regulated chaos,” in which interactions are governed by balances of power rather than by the rules of the international order. In such a context, medium-sized states such as Jordan face a delicate equation: how can they preserve internal stability without slipping into the consequences of conflicts over whose trajectories they have no control?

What makes the situation even more complex is that the outcomes of the conflict are not confined to a scenario of victory or defeat, but extend to a deeper question concerning “the shape of the coming regional order.” The weakening of one major actor may create space for the unrestrained expansion of other actors, thereby reproducing instability in a sharper and more severe form.

In light of this, the regional landscape appears closer to an “incomplete phase of reconfiguration,” in which old structures are breaking down without any clear alternatives yet taking shape. This imposes on Jordan a cautious approach aimed at building a flexible strategic positioning, capable of adapting to rapid transformations without compromising the constants of stability.

Accordingly, any reading of internal transformations—including pathways of political modernization or patterns of public participation—remains incomplete unless it is situated within this broader context. Internal dynamics are only a partial reflection of a turbulent regional environment that is redefining state priorities and imposing a different rhythm on the management of political transformation.

Chapter Two: Jordan’s National Interest and the Redefinition of Strategic Positioning

This chapter proceeds from a central premise: that the regional environment surrounding Jordan is now being managed according to a logic of “geopolitical fluidity,” in which military fronts intersect with negotiation tracks, and instruments of hard power overlap with patterns of indirect economic and security pressure. In this context, the question of Jordan’s national interest becomes one that is continuously open to redefinition, rather than one that yields fixed and final answers.

The issue is no longer simply about determining Jordan’s position in relation to a particular conflict; rather, it is about how to build a form of “strategic resilience” capable of absorbing the successive repercussions of conflicts that may not occur within its borders, but nonetheless affect the depth of its political, economic, and social environment. This requires a conceptual shift from the logic of “traditional political positioning” to that of “managing compound national risks.”

Within this framework, there is a pressing need for a comprehensive review of public policies related to the regional environment, one that is grounded in deconstructing the gap between official assessments of the situation and the actual dynamics of transformation in the region. Recent experiences have shown that change emerges through strategic accumulations that gradually reshape equations of power, influence, and pressure.

One of the deeper challenges also lies in the widening gap between the reassuring official discourse and the actual level of complexity in the regional landscape, creating a condition of “unidimensional interpretation” of a multilayered environment. This calls for the development of a more sophisticated analytical discourse that simultaneously integrates considerations of national security, political economy, and political sociology.

From another angle, regional transformations reveal the growing impact of indirect interactions on Jordan’s domestic sphere, whether through pressure from economic files linked to energy and trade, through the effects of regional security on the structure of internal stability, or through the repercussions of political and ideological polarization in the public sphere.

Accordingly, any future-oriented approach to Jordan’s national interest should begin with reconstructing the tools of strategic assessment so that they are capable of reading regional transformations as an interconnected system rather than as isolated events. This would enable the formulation of policies that are more flexible and less exposed to the volatility of the region.

Ultimately, the core challenge lies in the ability to build a flexible national framework for managing “strategic uncertainty,” one that ensures the preservation of state cohesion while enhancing its capacity to adapt without losing its sovereign compass.

Chapter Three: Post-Truce Scenarios

This chapter proceeds from the premise that the truce which followed the regional confrontation constituted a “point of strategic repositioning” within an open conflict over the definition of victory and the redistribution of power cards among the United States, Iran, and Israel, with the indirect involvement of a number of regional and international actors.

The current scene can only be understood as a transition into a more complex phase of “managing deferred conflict,” in which military considerations intersect with instruments of economic pressure, and conventional wars recede in favor of compounded patterns of indirect deterrence, economic coercion, and selective escalation.

The dynamics of negotiation show that the first round of the negotiating track kept channels of communication open within an environment of high-intensity political pressure. The multiplicity of levels of international participation—including monitoring roles played by China, Russia, Gulf actors, and other regional parties—also indicates that the issue has moved beyond a merely bilateral dimension to become a matter of “multi-layered negotiations” governed by intertwined international balances.

Within this framework, three major scenarios can be identified as shaping the trajectory of the coming phase:

First: A Scenario of Reactivating the Negotiating Track under Mutual Pressure

This scenario is based on the assumption that the truce will continue in an unstable manner, accompanied by a gradual return to the negotiating table, but within an environment of “coercive negotiation” that leaves no party with broad room for maneuver. In this context, certain withdrawals or diplomatic escalations are understood merely as pressure tools aimed at reshaping the terms of negotiation.

Second: A Scenario of Multi-Layered Military Escalation

This trajectory assumes a return to military confrontation within the pattern of a “compound war” that employs tools extending beyond conventional weaponry to more complex systems in terms of impact and reach, including precision-guided weapons and strategic pressure instruments targeting critical infrastructure, energy routes, and supply lines.

In this context, the concept of “escalation short of the nuclear threshold” emerges as a possible framework—that is, the use of highly destructive tools without crossing into direct nuclear confrontation, while the option of tactical nuclear deterrence remains present in the background without full activation, given its catastrophic regional consequences.

Moreover, the use of bunker-busting strike systems reflects a shift in the nature of warfare toward targeting “deep infrastructure” rather than conventional objectives, thereby reinforcing the logic of a prolonged, multi-round war.

Third: Freezing the Conflict without a Comprehensive Agreement

This scenario rests on the continuation of a condition of “neither war nor peace,” in which a ceasefire is maintained without reaching a final political settlement, while the parties move into a phase of military, intelligence, and economic repositioning in preparation for a later round of conflict.

This scenario is understood within the logic of “reproducing balance through soft and hard power,” whereby losses and gains are distributed in a manner that allows deterrence to be reproduced without a final resolution.

The Economic and Energy Dimension: Energy as an Instrument of Strategic Pressure

This landscape intersects with transformations in the political economy of energy, where resources have become a central instrument in shaping conflict. In this context, local initiatives have emerged in some countries, including Jordan, to enhance partial self-sufficiency in the energy sector through projects aimed at converting primary resources into domestic energy products, reflecting a broader orientation toward “reducing energy vulnerability” within a turbulent regional environment.

Although these projects remain limited in relative scale, they carry important strategic significance in terms of attempting to build a “gradual margin of energy independence” amid rising geopolitical risks affecting traditional supply chains.

Redefining the Equations of Regional Conflict

The available indicators suggest that the core of the conflict has reshaped deterrence equations among major and regional powers, as U.S. considerations related to the security of its allies intersect with the priority of ensuring the stability of global energy markets, while regional actors seek to expand their margin of strategic maneuver.

Within this framework, the region becomes a space for reproducing balances rather than resolving them, making the current stability a fragile one, vulnerable to disruption at any new point of friction.

Chapter Four: The Strait of Hormuz… the “Bottleneck” of Global Energy

This chapter takes shape within the framework of an escalatory reading of regional equations, in which the Strait of Hormuz emerges as a central pivot in constructing strategic pressure on the Gulf states, extending beyond the direct military dimension to its use as a highly impactful geo-economic instrument of coercion. In this context, Washington—amid shifts in the energy market—has come to exercise influence through the management of supply lines and the shaping of maritime chokepoints, foremost among them Hormuz, as the “bottleneck” of global energy.

Accordingly, U.S. engagement in negotiation tracks—as in the case of the high-level delegation—does not appear to be directed toward ending the war so much as it reflects an attempt to recalibrate the equation of maritime chokepoint security, as the most sensitive node in regional deterrence balances. From this perspective, the assumption of the “end of the war” appears, in essence, closer to a redistribution of the tools of confrontation than to a dismantling of the structure of the conflict itself, particularly in light of the growing conviction that this conflict transcends individuals and governments and is instead connected to the nature of the political system in Iran.

Within this framework, an important analytical distinction emerges between the “Iranian state” as a constituted geopolitical entity, and the “Iranian political system” as an ideological order established after 1979, carrying a revolutionary transnational project in which the doctrinal dimension intersects with unconventional instruments of influence, including militia networks across the region. This distinction is used to explain the intractability of settlement, as the conflict becomes structural rather than circumstantial, rendering the idea of the “end of the war” impossible to fully realize so long as the structure of the system remains unchanged.

From here, three principal strategic scenarios take shape:

First, the scenario of continued limited attrition through targeted Israeli strikes inside Iranian depth, maintaining a condition of continuous exhaustion without sliding into full-scale war. In this scenario, the psychological and social dimensions are used as instruments of pressure on the Iranian الداخل, through attempts to create a gap between the regime and society.

Second, the scenario of reproducing change from within, which appears the most likely within Western intelligence literature. This scenario relies on dismantling the internal structure of the regime through deep penetration tools within state institutions, including the Revolutionary Guard and the security and political elites, with the aim of driving a process of “self-transformation” of the regime from within rather than overthrowing it from outside.

Third, the scenario of prolonged compound warfare, which combines indirect military pressure, economic sanctions, financial siege, and attempts to gradually suffocate the Iranian economy, similar to models of maximum pressure applied in previous international cases, while keeping the possibility of military escalation in reserve as a flexible deterrent instrument.

Conversely, a strategic assessment has emerged suggesting that the United States, at this stage, is inclined to reduce its direct military involvement and shift toward a model of “leading from behind,” while delegating the most sensitive operations to Israel as the operational arm most prepared to engage in a war with lower political cost for Washington.

Yet this trajectory cannot be separated from another, more complex dimension: the stabilization or eruption of the conflict is not tied only to Iran and Israel, but is intertwined with a broader equation that includes global energy security, market stability, and the balance of power between the United States and China. In this way, the region is transformed into a site of intersection between latent geo-economic conflict and traditional regional struggles for influence.

From a broader perspective, any attempt to understand the future of this conflict in isolation from the Palestinian question remains incomplete. The continued absence of a fundamental political solution to this issue sustains a constant reproduction of tension and prevents the achievement of a comprehensive “strategic extinguishing point” for conflict in the region.

Chapter Five: An Arab Strategic Awakening

The dynamics of conflict extend beyond the limits of direct military confrontation, falling instead within a broader architecture aimed at reshaping the centers of geopolitical and economic gravity in the region, with increasing emphasis on the Chinese dimension as one of the structural variables in the equation of international balance.

From a strategic perspective, it is possible to trace what resembles a functional sequence in the targeting of energy nodes linked to China, whether directly or through the disruption of global supply lines on which Beijing depends for the stability of its industrial growth. In this context, Western moves do not appear isolated from their broader setting; rather, they are connected to a wider attempt to re-engineer global supply chains and reduce China’s margins of influence in vital energy regions, particularly in the Middle East.

At the same time, the rising regional statements—especially from some Gulf states—reveal shifts in the rhythm of political-security discourse, reflecting a growing awareness of the scale of the ongoing repositioning and the nature of the risks that now extend to the regional security system as a whole. Here, a central question emerges: are we facing a defensive repositioning by states, or rather a strategic exposure that necessitates redefining the rules of engagement?

At the negotiating level, the fluctuation in American statements—particularly regarding claims of the parties’ imminent return to the negotiating table—reveals a mode of crisis management more than a genuine settlement process, in which political discourse is employed as a tool of pressure alongside the movement of economic and security files, rather than as an indication that the conditions for a final resolution have matured.

Within this framework, a deeper proposition emerges concerning the possibility of an Arab strategic awakening that would redefine the region’s role from being a field of consumption for grants and aid into an independent productive actor in the equation of regional economics and politics. Yet this proposition collides with a structural dilemma represented by the continued dependence on external actors and the limited capacity to produce a coherent Arab regional project capable of managing conflicts rather than merely adapting to their consequences.

Returning to the Jordanian case, the approach of the official narrative—despite the legitimate institutional logic it carries in managing balances—faces a challenge manifested in the gap of perception between the state and the street. There is therefore an urgent need to recalibrate the “compass of political discourse” in a manner that enhances the clarity of the overall picture and reduces the spaces of ambiguity in interpreting positions and transformations.

From another angle, it cannot be overlooked that Jordan stands at the heart of a sensitive geo-security equation, combining northern and eastern threats and placing it in the position of an interactive security depth for the Gulf states. This grants it a central role within the regional stability system, but at the same time raises the level of complexity in managing the balance between security, economics, and foreign policy.

Accordingly, the strategic question is no longer linked only to the nature of the threats, but also to the extent to which the state possesses a comprehensive vision for managing the post-regional shock phase: is there institutional readiness to redefine priorities? And is it possible to move from a logic of response to a logic of initiative in shaping the regional role?

Conversely, a highly significant factor emerges in the growing role of China and Russia as balancing powers within the international system. These powers move according to a logic of “selective positioning,” investing in points of tension and redirecting the pathways of the global economy toward new poles, including through indirect control over ports and supply chains.

The issue of rare strategic resources—including helium gas, which is used in advanced and technological industries—also acquires an additional dimension in the equation of conflict, as one of the elements of silent power that will reshape maps of economic influence in the future, especially in regions rich in non-traditional resources.

In conclusion, this chapter reflects the transition of conflict from the level of managing traditional influence to the level of redefining the global political-economic order, in which American, Chinese, and Russian calculations intersect with regional tensions within a single, highly complex structure—one that renders any one-directional reading inherently incomplete.

Conclusion:

In light of the foregoing analysis, it becomes clear that the region stands at a transitional stage marked by the redefinition of the nature of conflict—its boundaries, dynamics, and instruments. The current truce, while appearing as a temporary pause, contains within it clear indicators of the reproduction of tension rather than its resolution. This leaves the future open to multiple scenarios, ranging from limited escalation and proxy conflicts to strategic repositioning by major powers.

It is also evident that the center of gravity in the conflict is no longer confined to the military dimension. It has expanded to encompass maritime chokepoints, global supply chains, energy, and the broader international competition among the United States, China, and Russia—positioning the region as a central node within the emerging international order.

At the Arab level, the most pressing challenge lies in the ability to formulate a shared strategic vision that redefines interests, reduces structural vulnerability, and transforms states from passive recipients of shocks into active agents in shaping regional balances.

 

 

Issued by Jordanian Masarat for Development and Progress