Contemplating the disastrous American retreat from Kabul, Eran Lerman addresses how it will affect the Middle East:

If the perception of an Islamist ascendancy takes hold, the implications for the region, and for the world, are liable to be profound. . . . The direct strategic impact of what happens in Afghanistan, landlocked between Pakistan, central Asia, and Iran, may be limited. [But] on the level of symbolism, namely the sense that “the arc of history” now bends towards Islamist victories, the imprint of the scenes from Kabul may be devastating. The consequence for regional stability could be severe; and vulnerable regimes may feel the need to cast their lot with the winners, or even to look to Iran for shelter.

As former U.S. allies are executed in a public way, and women are relegated back to servitude, the message to the rest of the Muslim world, and beyond it, could be quite dangerous. Has the West, and specifically the U.S., become what the prophet Isaiah called “a broken reed”?

Lerman goes on to suggest some damage-control measures:

To counter this impact as much as possible, it would be vital for the U.S. to demonstrate—elsewhere, since the Afghan case is clearly beyond salvation—that it is not a spent force. . . . Central to any such demonstration, given what we witnessed in Afghanistan, would be the way the U.S. deals with Iran’s defiant conduct.

One of the keys to the survival of the pro-Western forces in southeast Asia, after the fall of Saigon in 1975, had been their ability to come together—despite deep historical differences and grievances—in the form of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). It was created already in 1967 but was given its present form and functions only . . . in 1976; it was only during the mid-1990s, after the Soviet collapse, that Communist former enemies, including Vietnam, queued up to join it. To some extent, and despite the obvious differences, [ASEAN] can serve as a general template for those Middle East nations who fear the consequences of American retreat.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.