Brandeis Stories

By Steve Foskett
March 17, 2026

Coordinated strikes against Iran by the U.S. and Israel have plunged the Middle East into war. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced; Israel has opened another front in Lebanon; spiking oil prices are sending shocks through the global economy; and the death toll continues to rise.

A panel of renowned experts from the Crown Center for Middle East Studies recently convened for a “teach-in” to help the Brandeis community make sense of how it is all unfolding, and how it might end.

Gary Samore, the Crown Family Director and Professor of the Practice of Politics said militarily, the U.S./Israel campaign has been extremely effective. Much of the Iranian leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, were killed almost immediately, much of the country’s navy has been destroyed, and its missile and drone program have been severely degraded. He said it’s interesting to note what has been left intact so far: Iran’s regular army has largely been spared, perhaps in the hopes that an intact army could challenge the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps if there was a popular uprising. And aside from a few attacks on oil depots, energy infrastructure has been left alone.

Samore said he sees shifting definitions of what an endgame might look like for U.S. involvement, from regime change, to the installation of compliant leadership in Iran, to declarations that military objectives have been met, with Iran being left isolated in the region. He said ending the war as soon as possible makes the most sense for both American interests and President Donald Trump’s political interests. But it could also trigger more war if the U.S. and Iran clash over transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We should recognize that ending the conflict with Iran in a weakened state is not a very good circumstance because Iran will rearm,” he said.

Naghmeh Sohrabi, the center’s director for research and the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History, said there are broad misconceptions about Iran in the West. It is thought of as a monolithic theocracy that has been the same for the past 47 years, but in reality, it is a complicated system in which the government is viewed differently from the state. She said the system keeps transforming itself with one goal in mind, she said.

“It’s a system that, first and foremost, protects itself for its survival, and it is resilient,” Sohrabi said.

That belief in the system is why the “decapitation” approach of killing the supreme leader did not have the desired effect of destabilizing the government, she said.

“We have to keep in mind that the supreme leader’s death, while a military success, was actually not considered to be a big deal within the system itself because it had been planned for,” Sohrabi said.