Iran’s War Strategy: Don’t Calibrate—Escalate

Commentary by Mona Yacoubian

Published March 16, 2026

Iran's aggressive retaliation against U.S. and Israeli strikes highlights Tehran's war strategy: eschewing calibrated retaliation for unbridled escalation. Iran aims to restore deterrence and ensure the Islamic Republic's place in the region's emerging order. Iran signaled its intent to widen and deepen the conflict from day one, and its unprecedented approach could spark multiple escalation scenarios with significant regional and global impacts.

By going big early, Iran appears to have absorbed the lessons from previous conflicts. Iran and Israel first crossed the Rubicon of open state-on-state conflict in 2024, with direct clashes in April and October. Then, the United States joined Israel in the June 2025 Twelve-Day War. These conflicts were marked by limited, tit-for-tat escalation, short durations, and a telegraphed and choreographed end. This time is different. Even before the outbreak of conflict, Tehran signaled that it would not repeat the Twelve-Day War. Threatened by regime change and determined to deter future attacks, Iran appears to have opted for unrestrained escalation.

Tehran's war plans include both horizontal escalation-widening the geographic scope of the war-and vertical escalation, ratcheting up the conflict through its choice of targets, tactics, and weapons. Given existential stakes-the U.S. and Israel's opening salvo killed the supreme leader and several senior officials-Tehran seeks to impose enormous costs on the region, the United States, and the global economy to establish deterrence and forestall future attacks by Israel or the United States. Iran's efforts to mine the crucial Strait of Hormuz-through which one-fifth of global oil trade passes-underscore Tehran's go-for-broke strategy, potentially strangling its own economic lifeline to choke the world's oil supply.

Iran's escalation strategy can be distilled into two key components: horizontal and vertical escalations. It forcefully pursued both types of escalation in the conflict's early days and continues to escalate vertically as the conflict enters its third week. Unpacking Iran's progression up these "escalation ladders" highlights both the speed and intensity of its escalation.

Horizontal Escalation: Expanding the War Across the Region

Less than 24 hours into the war, Iran expanded the geographic arena of conflict, hitting nine countries: Israel, five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. By March 5, Iran had embroiled 14 nations, opening a second front in Lebanon and targeting countries as far afield as Cyprus and Azerbaijan. An Iranian ballistic missile triggered NATO air defenses in Turkey.

Iran's horizontal escalation over several hundred miles is unprecedented and underscores Tehran's strategy of igniting conflict across the region to sow widespread fear and to essentially render the Middle East a "no-go zone." In his first statement since coming to power, the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, threatened to "open other fronts" in the war, highlighting Tehran's intentions to spread the conflict further.

Vertical Escalation: Expanding Targets and Raising the Stakes

From its opening retaliation, Iran began its ascent up a vertical escalation ladder by expanding targets beyond U.S. and Israeli sites to hit Gulf civilian and transportation infrastructure. These civilian targets included apartment buildings, shopping areas and hotels, and-most critically-major air transportation hubs, including Dubai and Doha. One day later, Tehran progressed to striking Gulf energy infrastructure targets in Saudi Arabia and Qatar-signaling a further ratcheting of escalation. Provoking global energy market disruptions, Iran has deepened its campaign over the past two weeks, broadening energy targets to include oil tankers and ports, and effectively closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz. It has also hit data centers and threatened to go after the banking sector and U.S. tech firms-the foundation of evolving U.S.-Gulf economic ties.

Yet Iran's vertical escalation does not occur in a vacuum; it can be seen as a response to U.S. and Israeli strikes. It has at times adopted an "eye for an eye" approach. For example, after Iran accused the United States of hitting a desalination plant, Tehran responded by targeting a desalination plant in Bahrain the next day. The incidents mark a particularly acute jump in escalation given the region's dependence on desalination plants for drinking water, posing potentially disastrous humanitarian impacts if the trend continues.

Escalation dynamics certainly go two ways. The U.S. bombing of Kharg Island-Iran's key oil export terminal-marks a significant vertical escalation by the United States. Possibly in response to Iran's attempts to mine the Strait of Hormuz, the attack signals U.S. willingness to target the heart of Iranian oil production.

Mobilization of proxies marks another instance of Iran's vertical escalation. While Iran's use of proxies is not new, Hezbollah's March 2 decision to launch drones and rockets on Israel marked a distinct departure from its more recent posture. Hezbollah refrained from hitting Israel during the June 2025 Twelve-Day War. It had largely respected the fragile November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, despite near-daily Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Hezbollah's March 2 intervention dramatically expanded the war, provoking a large-scale Israeli offensive that appears set to intensify over the coming days. While the Houthis, another important Iranian proxy, have not engaged in the conflict, Iran could yet seek to activate them.

Where the War Could Go Next

As the war with Iran enters its third week, various escalation scenarios are possible, with no off-ramps in sight:

• Straight-Line Escalation: This scenario would feature continued, if gradual escalation, marked by periods of stasis in the conflict. Both the U.S.-Israeli and Iranian sides would engage in a variety of escalation measures, expanding target selection, deploying new tactics, with the net effect of driving the conflict along an escalation trajectory. The conflict would continue to generate disruptive impacts across global markets and would also continue to imperil travel and business in the Middle East.
• Exponential Escalation: This scenario is marked by spiraling escalation that triggers new conflicts (e.g., Lebanon) or provokes unintended impacts (e.g., popular uprising) that then assume their own uncontrolled dynamics. The conflict in Lebanon offers a prime example. While a direct outgrowth of the war with Iran, the Lebanon war is on a separate trajectory that could lead to additional spinoff escalations. These range from widespread displacement leading to localized sectarian tensions to a potential civil war should the Lebanese government seek to disarm Hezbollah forcefully. Unintended consequences also loom large. Sporadic, small demonstrations ongoing in Shia-majority Bahrain could morph into a larger mass uprising similar to the 2011 widespread protests. This scenario would not only lead to sustained market disruption but could catalyze yet unknown second and third-order effects. For example, the Houthis' entry into the conflict could lead to the blocking of the Bab al-Mandab, the region's other strategic chokepoint, making for a "perfect storm" of energy disruption by ensnaring Red Sea navigation, alongside the Persian Gulf blockage.
• Asymmetric Escalation: A weakened Iran, largely deprived of its missile capabilities, would continue to wreak havoc via drone strikes. Iran's drone capabilities are likely to prove far more resilient and difficult, if not impossible, to completely neutralize. Relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, including in mobile manufacturing facilities, drones are the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) of this war-able to cause significant damage and disruption at a low cost. Not unlike IEDs in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, drones are devastatingly effective, especially against soft targets. Even a badly weakened Iran can escalate the conflict using these asymmetric weapons, especially in ways that disrupt global markets and shipping. This scenario would ensure regional instability continues, inhibiting efforts at stabilizing the region and global markets.
  

Staking Iran's Place in an Emerging Middle East Order

Perhaps counter-intuitively, Iran's escalation strategy also seeks to ensure Iran's place in an emerging Middle East order. Tehran has undoubtedly infuriated its Arab neighbors and deepened their distrust, but its aggressive response also serves as a reminder that Iran is part of the region. As many Gulf officials and analysts privately lament, Iran will forever be their neighbor. Currently living their "nightmare scenario," Gulf governments will need to find a way forward that acknowledges Iran's enduring regional presence. By hitting the Gulf where it hurts the most-their glittering infrastructure, burgeoning AI architecture, and wealth-producing energy production-Iran has imperiled the region's existential imperative of economic diversification and forced the Gulf to take Iran's equities into account-an extortion scheme on a grand scale, perhaps, but one that will bear close watching.

Mona Yacoubian is director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Programs & Projects

Critical Questions by Mona Yacoubian - March 1, 2026