A Historic Opportunity for a New Regional Order

Background and the Core Problem: The geopolitical system of the Middle East was shaped following the Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916) and based on the logic of the territorial nation-state, which was imported as a foreign Western model into a region with a different political culture. Arbitrary borders confined hostile ethnic and religious groups within artificial state frameworks, creating a chronic mismatch between borders and territory on the one hand and identity on the other. This mismatch, developing alongside a reality of state failure, led to violent and bloody conflicts that crossed state borders, enabled the intervention of external actors with foreign interests, and undermined the stability of the regional system.

The Severity of the Crisis: States such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia are failed states that cannot function as responsible sovereign entities. They export terrorism, refugees, and instability to both the near and distant environment. Scientific studies confirm that states with arbitrary borders suffer from conflict rates that are 25% higher than those of states with identity homogeneity.

The Systemic Factor: Iran, as a revisionist actor, has exploited the governance vacuum created under the auspices of state failure to build a “ring of fire” composed of violent proxies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Hamas, aimed at destroying Israel and expanding Iranian regional hegemony.

The Strategic Opportunity: The “Roar of the Lion” campaign — a direct continuation of the October 7 attack — has become a geopolitical earthquake. The weakening of Iran and its proxy network has opened a “strategic window of opportunity,” constituting a rare historic chance to design a new regional architecture. This window is limited to a few years and therefore requires swift and decisive action.

The Central Argument: A paradigm shift whose essence is the alignment of political borders with demographic identities. Instead of preserving failed frameworks, one should consider dismantling failed states and reassembling them as federations and confederations composed of relatively homogeneous ethnic autonomous provinces, based on the principle of ethno-religious self-determination and a weakened central government.

The Roadmap: The paper proposes two principal alternatives (with an emphasis on the possibility of additional hybrid alternatives combining the two): (a) “Controlled Disintegration” (Top-Down) led by the United States and the international community; (b) “Bottom-Up Self-Determination” through support for minorities — and identifies eight necessary conditions for implementation, foremost among them determined American leadership, a regional and international coalition, and the complete dismantling of Iranian proxies.

The Conclusion: The strategic choice is not between stability and change, but between preserving chronic instability and pursuing radical change that entails risk yet holds the potential for real transformation leading to stability. The proposed model is based on a process-oriented logic of managing change wisely and in a controlled manner, rather than avoiding it.

Key Findings

An Opportunity to Correct Sykes–Picot
The regional system in the Middle East was shaped on the basis of the agreement dividing spheres of influence between France and Britain (the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916) at the end of World War I, and on the logic of the territorial nation-state later adopted as an imported Western model into a region with an entirely different political culture. The stability of the system has been significantly undermined in a process that began with the outbreak of the upheaval in the Arab world (“the Arab Spring”) and has accelerated in recent years. Most of the new states established under the auspices of the great powers and by virtue of mandates approved by the League of Nations were constructed as artificial entities lacking a distinct national identity, with artificial and arbitrary borders that confined diverse ethnic and religious groups — often rival and hostile to one another — within a single territorial state framework.

The Arab upheaval intensified the phenomenon of state failure, weakened central governments in many countries, and led to bloody civil wars. Into the resulting governance vacuum entered terrorist organizations, which managed to establish themselves within those states and, in the case of ISIS, even to establish a terrorist state as the beginning of a new Islamic caliphate, while erasing a recognized international border between Iraq and Syria. Iran, as a revisionist actor that rejects the existing regional and global order and is led by a radical regime, exploited the weakness of collapsing states in the region and worked to build violent proxies as components of a “ring of fire” it sought to construct around Israel with the aim of bringing about its destruction.

Iranian proxies, most of them Shiite organizations but not exclusively, established themselves within their respective states as forces undermining central authority, eroding the state’s monopoly on the use of force, and consolidating their status and power by exploiting state failure — in fact contributing to its deepening. Thus Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in western Iraq and southern Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, alongside Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian arena.

The result is that the Middle Eastern system is in a prolonged crisis of legitimacy, governance, and sovereignty. States such as Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Iraq are unable to function as stable state units and responsible sovereign entities, but rather as empty shells within which violent non-state actors operate. Worse still, they export terrorism, refugees, crime, and economic distress throughout the region and beyond (for example, refugee waves reaching Europe and jihadist terrorism spreading worldwide), while Iran works to deepen its influence through its proxies, foremost among them Hezbollah.

The campaign (“Roar of the Lion”) against Iran and Hezbollah, which should be understood as a direct continuation of the October 7 attack, highlights the problematic role of Iran as a driver of chronic instability in the region and exposes the fragility and brittleness of the entire regional system. In fact, the war, which began as noted following the October 7, 2023 attack and quickly became a multi-front regional war with implications for the entire global system, constitutes a geopolitical earthquake that creates an opportunity to reorganize and reshape the regional system into one that is more stable, secure, and prosperous, through a paradigmatic shift whose essence is aligning political borders with demographic identities. The space created in the wake of the war should be leveraged to build a new regional architecture through the dismantling of failed state frameworks and the establishment of new and more stable state entities, as flexible federations or confederations with autonomous provinces where necessary, based on the principle of ethno-religious self-determination.

Research Questions
This policy paper seeks to answer six central questions:

1. Why is the geopolitical order of Middle Eastern states — particularly Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran — a fundamental source of chronic instability?
2. What inherent failures characterize the existing state frameworks, and why can they not be stabilized within their current borders?
3. Why and how does the war against the axis of resistance, led by Iran, create a window of opportunity for fundamental structural change?
4. What is the logic of separation — along which lines should the regional space be re-divided?
5. What institutional alternatives exist for dismantling and reassembling — confederation, federation, autonomous provinces, buffer zones, a Kurdish state?
6. What are the necessary conditions for implementing change — diplomatic, security-related, and institutional?

Dismantling for Recovery

The research literature indicates that states in which there is low overlap between collective identity and political borders tend toward chronic instability.¹ Failed states in the Middle East such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia are failed not by coincidence but due to a structural cause. They are the product of arbitrary borders established within an artificial and invented territorial nation-state framework, encompassing ethno-religious groups that do not share an organic national identity and, in some cases, are even historically hostile. Chronic instability in the Middle East stems from an “identity-territorial dissonance.” The centralized structure of failed states (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) enables armed minority groups (such as Hezbollah or Shiite militias) to take control of state institutions.

Accordingly, the creation of more homogeneous political units in the form of weakened federations and confederations, allowing for the existence of ethnically homogeneous autonomous provinces, would reduce violent conflicts, provide a better response to the phenomenon of state failure, and improve the stability of the regional system. State failure will not be resolved by preserving and rehabilitating existing frameworks, but requires dismantling old frameworks and reassembling them on the basis of aligning ethno-religious-national identity with territory/borders. If the process also leads to the establishment of a Kurdish state in parts of northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and northwestern Iran, this would also weaken Iran and neutralize its ability to continue leading the axis of resistance while supporting and cultivating violent and destabilizing proxies in the region.

Historical experience shows that in cases such as the breakup of Yugoslavia, Somalia, and even Sudan, despite high initial costs, more stable entities were ultimately created over the long term.

The argument rests on five central theoretical foundations:

1. “The Clash of Civilizations” (Samuel Huntington): the understanding that cultural and religious identities are the primary drivers of conflict.
2. The Westphalian order and its limitations in the post-colonial context – while the prevailing theory in international relations assumes that state borders are a fixed and even sacred given that must be preserved, a competing theoretical framework has developed based on the argument that state borders that do not reflect demographic (ethnic, religious, national) and cultural forces are a source of instability. The Middle East is an extreme example of this, though not the only one, as borders created by the great powers following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I reflected imperial interests rather than the interests of peoples and ethnic, religious, and national groups.
3. The “Artificial States” theory: studies by Alberto Alesina show that states whose borders were drawn arbitrarily suffer from lower growth rates and internal conflict levels that are 25% higher than those of homogeneous states.
4. The principle of national self-determination – since President Wilson’s Fourteen Points and later UN resolutions, the principle of national self-determination has been recognized as a fundamental right. Milton Friedman and others emphasized that the implementation of this principle in the Arab world has historically been blocked by two forces: the interests of autocratic regimes seeking to secure their rule and the interests of regional and global powers. In the reality that has emerged in the Middle East, these two forces have weakened, thereby opening a window of opportunity to correct the historical injustice and realize the right to self-determination.
5. Federalism as a mechanism for managing populations with diverse identities – the research literature on federalism indicates that federations (a central government with regions/provinces enjoying expanded functional autonomy) are the most stable and efficient mechanism for managing populations characterized by ethnic, religious, and national diversity. Examples include Switzerland, Canada, and Belgium. The case of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq also demonstrates that regional autonomy does not necessarily dismantle the state; in some cases, its very existence enables the state to continue functioning.

Description of the Existing Situation and Structural Failures

The current reality in the Middle East is characterized by chronic instability and security fragility, manifested in the campaign against Iran and Hezbollah, which is a continuation of the October attack and the regional war that followed. This is alongside violent and bloody conflicts in a number of failed states across the region. Iran can be found as an actor involved in all failed states, even in its current condition as battered and weakened. Its involvement perpetuates and intensifies the phenomenon of state failure in these countries and contributes to the export of problems from failed states to the region and beyond. Instability in the Middle East also affects the stability of the global energy market, maritime trade routes, and the international system as a whole, intensifying the interconnections between regional conflicts and great-power competition, as well as tensions between the United States and Europe.

In examining the characteristics of stability in the Middle Eastern system, three prominent features can be identified:

• State failure: In Lebanon and Syria, as in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia, central governments do not hold a monopoly on the use of force, and violent conflicts between ethnic and religious groups exact a heavy toll, with many civilians becoming refugees fleeing their countries or internally displaced without resources. A notable byproduct is the emergence of safe and convenient operating spaces for terrorist organizations and destabilizing foreign actors such as Iran.
• Ethnic mismatch: Artificial borders force hostile groups (Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, Druze, Alawites, Kurds) to live under a single political system, leading to zero-sum struggles over resources and power in the form of civil wars at varying intensities.
• Iranian exploitation: Tehran exploits the governance vacuum to establish a “land bridge” from the Gulf to the Mediterranean and to create a “belt of fire” and an operational mechanism that increases its leverage and deterrence, by activating proxies that it supports with weapons, funding, training, knowledge, and intelligence.
  To illustrate the argument, we will examine in greater detail four prominent and representative cases:

Lebanon
Lebanon originated (1920) as a French colonial project (a significant and important part of the French sphere of influence agreed with Britain in the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916), aimed at protecting the Christians of Lebanon, whom the French sought to cultivate as allies and protégés due to shared religious and historical backgrounds, and at establishing a state entity that would address their collective religious identity. Due to the presence of additional religious and ethnic groups within the territory of Greater Lebanon (as opposed to the Christian north), Lebanon was established on the principle of power-sharing among the different groups: the president for Christians, the prime minister for Sunnis, and the speaker of parliament for Shiites. This system, created under the National Pact (1943) and restored under the Taif Agreement (1989), has proven to be structurally and functionally unstable.

• The Shiite militia controlled by Iran is not subordinate to state authority, enabling Hezbollah to operate as an unrestrained political force within the Lebanese political system.
• The Lebanese army avoids direct confrontation out of fear of civil war and due to a significant Shiite component within the army, much of which identifies with Hezbollah.
• Despite eight major military campaigns conducted by Israel in Lebanon since 1978, no structural-political change has occurred that would alter Lebanon’s patterns of behavior as a state. It remains a failed state incapable of exercising the monopoly on force that characterizes a sovereign state.
• Since the civil war (1976), Lebanon’s economy has been in distress. Over the years, due to internal crises and political and security instability, Lebanon’s economy and recovery processes have been repeatedly disrupted, such as during the major crisis between 2019 and 2023, and it struggles to provide basic services to its citizens.
• The election of President Aoun and the appointment of a new prime minister have injected hope for change. Following IDF strikes on Hezbollah and its weakening, and the signing of a ceasefire agreement in November 2024, the Lebanese government assumed responsibility for disarming Hezbollah and preventing its presence in southern Lebanon. In practice, however, despite declarations and commitments by the new Lebanese government and its recognition of the necessity of disarming Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has failed to carry out this mission. Iran has accelerated efforts to rebuild the organization, and Revolutionary Guard officers have even arrived in Lebanon to oversee its reconstruction and, in some cases, to directly command parts of its units. The implication is that under current conditions there is no prospect for any political settlement with the Lebanese government, as it is unable to enforce the monopoly on force or fulfill commitments arising from any agreement.

Syria
Syria in 2026 is a faltering state entity. The takeover of the country by the jihadist organization led by Ahmad al-Sharaa (Mohammed al-Jolani), with Turkish support and following the weakening of the Assad regime, which lost Hezbollah’s backing after the organization was severely struck by the IDF, has not yet been completed. In practice, large territories continue to be controlled and administered by other actors: the Druze in southern Syria, the Kurds in the northeast, rebel organizations in other areas, the Alawites in the west (the coastal strip), and Turkey in northern areas adjacent to its border. Iran, although it has lost its foothold in Syria, continues to attempt to operate within Syrian territory, supporting jihadist terrorist organizations in the south and using them against Israel.

Although al-Jolani is gaining increasing legitimacy from the international community and the emerging government has begun to consolidate and promote reconstruction efforts, the fault lines between ethnic and religious groups remain. Members of al-Jolani’s movement, originating from a jihadist organization, struggle to adapt to state frameworks and continue to operate according to the organizational patterns to which they are accustomed. These fault lines, in a context of a nascent government, translate into violent and bloody confrontations.
Historically, Syria’s demography has never aligned with the borders of the state established under the French mandate. The Alawites (approximately 12% of the population) concentrated power disproportionately to their share of the population until the fall of the Assad regime, while violently suppressing other religious groups. The Kurds (10–15% of the population) were denied basic civil rights and, under the cover of the civil war, established autonomy in the northeast; negotiations are currently underway to integrate Kurdish military units into the Syrian army, yet they continue to control their autonomous region. The Druze, a small minority of about 3% of the population, who were considered loyal to the Assad regime and integrated into the army and security apparatus, are currently being persecuted by Sunnis, particularly Bedouin tribes in southern Syria, who enjoy the backing of soldiers from the regime’s army — many of them former members of al-Jolani’s jihadist organization. The Druze, relying also on Israeli assistance for their security, have effectively established autonomy in the Sweida and Jabal al-Druze region, while ongoing violent clashes with Sunnis and regime forces continue to exact casualties on both sides.

During the Syrian civil war, more than 600,000 civilians were killed, approximately 5 million Syrians became refugees, and around 10 million were internally displaced. The state was devastated during the war, and its economy collapsed. Syria was effectively controlled by Iran, with active and violent military assistance from Hezbollah, and was saved from total collapse to the rebels in September 2015 when Russia intervened, assisting the regime, together with Iran and Hezbollah, in suppressing the uprising in a brutal and violent manner that cost hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.

It is difficult to envision genuine reconciliation of sectarian fault lines in Syria without a profound transformation of the regime and likely of the state structure itself. It is doubtful whether today’s Syria is a state worth striving to preserve in its current form.

Iraq
Iraq became a state (a kingdom in its early days) under British auspices through the forced unification of three Ottoman provinces populated by different and even mutually hostile ethnic and religious groups: the Sunni Arab province of Baghdad, the Shiite Arab province of Basra, and the Kurdish province of Mosul. Following a military coup and the Ba’ath Party’s takeover, Iraq functioned as an authoritarian state governed by a brutal dictator (Saddam Hussein) and the Sunni minority. The Shiite majority and the Kurdish minority were repressed and marginalized.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the overthrow of the regime and the re-establishment of the Iraqi Republic on the basis of a new constitution intended to alter and balance the structure of power. However, the transfer of power centers to the large Shiite community led to the repression and marginalization of the Sunni minority, pushing many officers from Saddam Hussein’s disbanded Iraqi army to join ISIS and assist the organization in building its military capabilities, which enabled it to defeat the weak Iraqi army, take control of northwestern Iraq, and later northeastern Syria, and establish the Islamic State.
The Kurds exploited the weakness of the central government and consolidated the autonomy they had established in the north of the country. They control the oil fields and operate them under an agreement with the Iraqi government, but enjoy independent export capabilities that generate a significant source of funding for their autonomy. Their armed militia (the Peshmerga) functions as an organized army.

Shiite Iraq is largely controlled by pro-Iranian militias, and Iran has significant influence over Iraq’s conduct, both due to its deep penetration and the support base of the Shiite militias and their political patrons, and due to Iraq’s dependence on gas supplied by Iran.

The Sunni areas operate in a semi-autonomous manner, with remnants of ISIS continuing to operate in parts of these المناطق, exploiting them to establish terrorist infrastructure and as a base for attacks in the capital and against regime targets.

Today’s Iraq is more of an administrative fiction than a sovereign and independent state. The central government does not possess a monopoly on the use of force. The Shiite militias are subject to Iranian influence and act even against Iraq’s interests as a state, for example by attacking American bases or joining the ongoing campaign against Iran through the launching of missiles and drones toward Israel and American targets in Iraq and its vicinity. The government, structured on a logic reminiscent of Lebanon’s governance model, has failed to integrate Iraq’s three ethno-religious components into a coherent national group, and tensions among the three groups continue to function as a driver of chronic instability.

Iran
Historically, Iran is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, in which some minorities have suffered over the years from repression, primarily cultural, that prevented them from expressing their ethno-sectarian identity in daily life. However, despite the multiplicity of ethnic and religious groups, Iran’s uniqueness over the years lay in the existence of a shared national consciousness among all groups, which saw themselves as part of the Iranian nation and demonstrated Iranian patriotism.

Iran in 2026, however, finds itself battered both militarily and economically, with a regime that has lost many of its senior figures, who were eliminated during the campaign (“Roar of the Lion”), and is weakened and threatened domestically. Its regional and international standing has been damaged, and it finds itself isolated, as the two powers that support it (China and Russia) are not rushing to provide it with military and economic assistance that could generate a credible threat or deterrence against the United States and Israel or hasten the end of the war. Its proxies have been significantly weakened and can no longer provide the defensive and deterrent capabilities for which they were developed and strengthened over recent decades. Iran’s weakness, and that of its regime, creates a fragile reality that, under certain conditions, could also undermine the patriotism of some ethnic-religious groups (for example, the difficult economic situation in Iran, alongside its military failures and the collapse of its regional standing, has intensified internal unrest, with increased rebellious activity in Kurdistan, Khuzestan, and Baluchistan) and encourage them to promote structural change in Iran toward a weakened federation in which distinct ethno-religious autonomous regions exist, while the central government is weakened and stripped of authoritarian power.

The Opportunity Space and the Logic of Separation

The current campaign (“Roar of the Lion”), as a continuation of the regional war following the October 7 attack, alongside the weakness of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, has created a kind of political/state vacuum that allows for the intervention of external forces, which can assist, in cooperation with local actors in those states, in shaping new state and regime structures. In effect, this constitutes a “strategic window of opportunity” to stabilize the regional system by designing a new regional architecture that could address the widespread phenomenon of failed states. The weakening of the Iranian regime and its proxies, particularly Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas, means the weakening of the primary driver of instability in the regional system — the very factor that has contributed to the perpetuation of state failure in every failed state where it has intervened or activated its proxies.

In addition, the piratical and aggressive conduct of Iran and the Houthis, who have violently taken control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — recognized international maritime chokepoints — has harmed the global energy market and disrupted international shipping routes, affecting the global economy and reinforcing the understanding of the need for a fundamental international solution. Iran’s strength and the destructive capabilities of the Houthis have also been built with the contribution of failed states in the region. Therefore, any effort to stabilize the regional system requires addressing a root problem inherent to the region — the failed state.

The logic is the decentralization of power: instead of a cluster of failed states that perpetuate bloody conflicts and undermine regional stability, alongside one strong and dangerous radical revisionist terror state (Iran), a mosaic of smaller entities is created, homogeneous in ethnic and religious terms, within loose federal or confederal frameworks. This new structure would help correct the historical distortion created by the mismatch between identity and territory/state borders, reduce the intensity of violence, and facilitate the development of regional cooperation as a mechanism for improving the welfare and quality of life of citizens living in entities that address their identity needs and are motivated to preserve regional stability in order to ensure their own stability and prosperity.

It is important to emphasize that geopolitical windows of opportunity are always temporary. Historical experience shows that states recover from blows if they are not structurally defeated through a combined military-economic-political outcome that leads to regime change. Therefore, assuming that the campaign against Iran ends with the current regime remaining in place — even if battered, weakened, and wounded — the time window available to the United States, Israel, and potential partners for implementing the proposed shaping strategy will be limited to only a few years. The goal should be to design arrangements and a new regional architecture that would be difficult to undermine, even in the event of a resurgence of revisionist forces such as Iran that may seek to alter the new order.

Map of the New Structure – A Preliminary and Partial Proposal as a Model

Lebanon – A Federation of Provinces

• Maronite Province – Mount Lebanon, Jbeil, Jounieh
• Sunni Province – Tripoli, Sidon
• Shiite Province – Beqaa, Janoub (Southern Lebanon), subject to complete demilitarization
• Israeli Buffer Zone – a depth of 10–25 km along the border, under Israeli administration until the security situation stabilizes, followed by a transition to joint Israeli-international administration until the complete removal of threats and the Lebanese state attains the capacity to assume responsibility for managing the area.

Syria – A Syrian Federation or a “Greater Syria” Confederation

• Alawite Province – Syrian coast and Latakia, with clear mountainous boundaries
• Sunni Province – the Syrian interior plain, Homs, Deir ez-Zor
• Druze Province – Jabal Druze (Sweida), formalizing an entity already functioning as a community
• Kurdish Province – Northeast (Hasakah, Qamishli) – to later merge into a Kurdish entity

Option for the establishment of a Syrian-Lebanese confederation, with southern Lebanon remaining a security buffer zone under an agreement between Israel and the confederation.

The confederation would be governed by a council of provincial representatives (a parliament and an elected government based on agreed and fair representation), while the central authority would be limited to managing national infrastructure, external security, and foreign policy. Each province would have autonomous authority over internal affairs – education, policing and law enforcement, taxation, culture, etc.

Iraq – An Iraqi Federation

A Shiite province in the south, a Sunni province in the center, and a Kurdish province (assuming an independent Kurdish state is not established)

Kurdistan – An Independent/Autonomous State

The Kurdish state would be the largest state entity created in the region, based on the geographic and political unification of the Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, the Kurdish autonomy in northeastern Syria, and Iranian Kurdistan. The Kurdish state would not include Kurdish areas in Turkey, due to Turkey’s acute sensitivity on this issue, but would become a medium-sized state entity uniting approximately 25 million Kurds with strategic significance. The Kurdish state would also be established as a federation with three major provinces (Turkish, Iraqi, and Iranian Kurds).

Iran – A Loose Federation

Weakening the central government in Tehran through granting rights to minorities (Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds) or by detaching the Kurdish region in northwestern Iran for the purpose of establishing an independent Kurdish state linked to northern Iraq and northeastern Syria.

The federalization of Iran is the more complex alternative to implement; therefore, it would not be advisable to dismantle Iran as a state, but rather to create the conditions for advancing the process by agreement through three possible pathways:

1. Direct external track – diplomatic pressure accompanied by security arrangements: the United States and its allies offer sanctions relief in exchange for a federal constitution and structural regime change.
2. Minority support track – assistance by the United States and a coalition of supporting states to ethnic minorities, manifested through the application of “soft pressure” on the central government, such as direct economic support to various groups, international lobbying, and diplomatic engagement.
3. Kurdish track as a “domino effect” – the establishment of an independent Kurdish entity linking Iraqi and Syrian autonomous territories as a model of attraction for Iranian Kurds, which would encourage other minorities to pursue similar autonomy in their regions.

Yemen – Division into Two Independent States: South Yemen and North Yemen

In effect, a return to the pre-unification reality of two independent republics – South Yemen and North Yemen. The objective here is to integrate South Yemen into the framework of the Abraham Accords while isolating and weakening North Yemen until significant change occurs there.

Counterarguments (for Refining the Model)

The proposed model or logic of action can be challenged or weakened based on the following arguments:

• International experience in similar cases, though not all (for example, not in Czechoslovakia or Somalia), and numerous theories indicate that the dismantling of states may increase violence in the short term,⁵ or in certain cases where such processes are not conducted by agreement, as in Libya, may lead to the complete collapse of what was once a state without the newly formed entities being capable of functioning independently and responsibly, resulting in several failed or semi-failed entities instead of one.
• In processes of separation, especially if imposed on some or all parties, there is a risk of “ethnic cleansing.”
• The principle of territorial integrity and recognition of existing state borders is a guiding principle of the international community; therefore, the international community generally opposes changes to state borders and views them as a violation of the principle of non-intervention in state sovereignty.
• Efforts to promote regime change and transform Iran into a federation with strong autonomous provinces and a weakened central government are not consistent with Iran’s long historical trajectory and authentic Iranian nationalism, which is also reflected in the desire of various ethno-religious groups to remain part of a unified Iran.
• The greatest challenge in establishing a Kurdish state is Turkey. Ankara views Kurdish autonomy anywhere as an existential threat and has acted militarily against Kurds in northern Syria and northern Iraq. Turkish opposition, potentially including aggression, to any Kurdish arrangement is likely, even one that does not include Turkish Kurds.

The common denominator of all these arguments is the concern over harming stability and descending into violent civil wars that could spread to other states and undermine overall regional stability. However, it should be noted that preserving the current situation does not lead to stability either. Therefore, the strategic choice is not between stability and change, but between preserving chronic instability and pursuing radical change that entails risk but also holds the potential for stability. The proposed model is based on a process-oriented logic of managing change wisely and in a controlled manner, rather than avoiding it.

Possible Implementation Alternatives

In this chapter, we present two principal alternatives (in practice, additional alternatives may exist as combinations at varying levels between the two presented) for implementing the strategy of designing and stabilizing the new regional architecture through the dismantling and reassembly of existing failed state frameworks and the weakening of Iran as the primary driver of instability. The strategy for reshaping the region is based on the logic of federalism, which allows for the creation of relatively homogeneous population spaces — improving the alignment between territory/borders and identity, providing a response to the right of self-determination, and enabling autonomous governance of these spaces alongside a weakened central government.

Alternative A: “Controlled Disintegration” (Top-Down)
An international arrangement led by the United States and regional powers that imposes new federal governance structures on failed states and Iran, in models adapted to each country, based on new constitutions that define broad autonomy for each region.
Advantage: order and organization, prevention of total chaos.
Disadvantage: requires willingness on the part of the United States to lead the process, the construction of supporting coalitions, and readiness for extensive international military involvement.

Alternative B: “Bottom-Up Self-Determination”
Arming and supporting minorities (such as Kurds, Alawites, Christians, or Druze) in order to encourage them to take control of their organic living spaces and establish de facto autonomies.
Advantage: high local legitimacy.
Disadvantage: risk of prolonged civil wars and a dynamic of “Somalization.”

Necessary Conditions for Implementation
For the implementation of the two principal alternatives proposed, or any combination thereof, several fundamental and essential conditions are required.

1. American leadership and a regional and international coalition – historical experience shows that the advancement of significant and large-scale geopolitical arrangements requires American presence, involvement, leadership, and backing. In practice, without the United States, structural changes of this magnitude are not feasible. The U.S.-led coalition must be determined and willing to invest, over time, the economic, political, and military resources required to implement the process.
2. Regional agreement as a necessary condition and cooperation as a highly facilitating condition – pragmatic Sunni Arab states aligned with the U.S.-led camp, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, and Jordan, have an important and even essential role in enabling regional structural change. The minimum requirement is the absence of opposition on their part. The facilitating condition is agreement and active participation — through involvement, economic assistance, and willingness to contribute to military efforts as required.
3. International legitimacy – the new regional architecture must be led by a cohesive and determined coalition under U.S. leadership, with approval by the United Nations providing an additional desirable and essential layer. However, given the current global reality, it may be difficult to secure agreement in the Security Council; therefore, it is worth considering building broad international consensus through the Peace Council established by President Trump, expanding it and extending its mandate to include this challenge.
4. Effective multinational task forces involving leading Western countries alongside regional states, which would assist in stabilizing changes in each of the affected countries.
5. Internal support from the relevant communities – the communities/groups must view the structural change as serving their interests and actively support its implementation and success.
6. Regime change or severe weakening of Iran – without “cutting off the head of the octopus,” it will not be possible to suppress Iranian proxies at the required level; these proxies are themselves drivers of instability and perpetuate state failure in the countries in which they operate.
7. Dismantling Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shiite militias in Iraq – reform in these areas cannot be implemented as long as these proxies continue to exist as organized, strong, and influential military entities exercising coercive power and deterrence against central authorities and populations.
8. Financial backing (a regional Marshall Plan) – reconstruction of the new provinces in order to create rapid economic stability.

Summary and Recommendations
The regional system, historically based on the foundational elements of territorial nation-states, has deteriorated since the outbreak of the Arab upheaval into a fragile reality of undermined stability, rooted in the expansion of fault lines between ethnic, religious, and national groups that were forcibly consolidated into artificial and invented territorial nation-state frameworks. The phenomenon of the failed state has intensified due to inherently problematic and fragile initial conditions, while Iran has effectively exploited the system’s fragility to penetrate and operate subversively within a number of failed states. It has effectively become a revisionist regional power that rejects the existing order and seeks to change it by expanding its regional hegemony through a network of proxies, under the cover of a ballistic umbrella and progress toward a military nuclear capability.

The campaign against Iran and Hezbollah (“Roar of the Lion”) has significantly weakened Iran and its proxy network as a factor that perpetuated and intensified state failure in the region and has opened a historic and strategic window of opportunity to reshape the regional architecture. The United States, as the leading global power, now has the opportunity to detach the region from the problematic logic of the Sykes–Picot Agreement as the foundation of territorial nation-states in their unstable form and to lead a geopolitical, strategic, and historic process of redesigning the regional architecture based on structural changes in some of the failed states and on the logic of aligning territory and borders with identity.

The division and redesign of the region is not a simple task, but it is feasible and preferable to the current situation; therefore, it is appropriate to consider both the possibility and the pathway for its implementation.