As the US-Israeli war on Iran continues, the number of incidents of secondary instability in the region is also rising. Countries across the Middle East are dealing with increasing violence within their own borders as community loyalties and political systems are tested.
"The Middle East is burning," Mohamed Chtatou, a professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, wrote this week in an op-ed published in the Times of Israel. "Not with a single fire, but with a constellation of simultaneous blazes that respond to, feed off, and spread with their own logic."
In a joint commentary published this weekseveral fellows at the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote that "the Middle East and beyond is embroiled in new violent upheaval and wider escalation could lie just around the corner."
Iraq's balancing act
After Israel assassinated Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, there were several days of protests in Iraq, outside the US embassy in Baghdad. These turned violent and observers believe that many of the individuals attending were sent there, or encouraged to go, by Iraqi paramilitaries aligned with Iran.
The paramilitaries have also targeted US bases and airports around Iraq, including in the semiautonomous northern Iraqi Kurdistan region.
Tensions in Iraqi Kurdistan recently increased further following reports that the United States was planning to support Iranian Kurds in potentially starting their own insurgency inside Iran. Iranian Kurdish opposition parties have offices in Iraqi Kurdistan — Iran has already bombed these — but those parties denied that fighters were crossing the border into Iran.
"Strikes in Kurdish-majority western provinces, including attacks on border guard and internal security positions, suggest that peripheral destabilization may be underway," Muaz al-Abdullah, Middle East research manager for the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) monitoring project, wrote in an update this week. "[This risks] prolonged domestic instability, with potential wider implications for regional security dynamics."
All that puts Iraqi Kurdish leaders in a difficult position. They have been quick to stress Iraqi Kurdistan would not be part of this conflict.
Still, the rumors about an Iranian Kurdish insurgency only adds to long-standing tensions between Iraqi Kurdistan and the federal government in Baghdad. The two are meant to work together but often fight over things like oil revenues and Kurdish rights.
Iraq's federal government includes many Shiite politicians who support Iran. Should Iraqi Kurdish officials, who have their own military up north, be seen as supporting an insurgency in neighbouring Iran, that would be extremely problematic and potentially even dangerous.
Threats in Bahrain
In the smaller Gulf state of Bahrain, protests against the US-Israeli war on Iran turned violent. Locals there have been arrested for posting anti-war messages online and "expressing sympathy" with Iran.
Like other Gulf states, Bahrain is a monarchy and represses most political dissent. In contrast to some of the other Gulf countries though, Bahrain's royal family are Sunni while estimates suggest the majority of the population — just over 50% — is Shiite.
Bahrain saw major pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring uprisings. Authorities launched a harsh crackdown and the so-called Peninsula Shield forces, a Saudi-led security initiative now known as the Unified Military Command, entered Bahrain to help quell the protests.
There were rumors that the same forces were in Bahrain again to help control this week's protests although these have not been verified.
Lebanon: Communal tensions
The war has also exacerbated a standoff between Lebanon's government and Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite militant group aligned with Iran that is also a major political and social force in the country.
Israel and the United States demanded that Hezbollah disarm, but the group has resisted this. The Lebanese government also wants Hezbollah to disarm, partially in order to avoid further retaliatory incursions or bombing from Israel. However Lebanon's national army is not strong enough to facilitate disarming Hezbollah — hence the standoff.
After Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on Monday, drawing a massive Israeli response, Lebanon's government outlawed any military and security activities by the group on March 2. This brings the showdown between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army, avoided until now, ever closer.
There are growing societal tensions. Observers report that many Lebanese are now opposed to Hezbollah, including many members of the Shiite community who previously supported the group.
"Near-unanimous solidarity with the 'resistance' [Hezbollah] has given way to anger at an escalation considered as pointless as it is suicidal," Lebanese newspaper L'Orient Today wrote after interviewing Shiite families who sought shelter in Beirut, following Israeli evacuation orders for a huge swath of southern Lebanon.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, with nowhere to go. In some cases, they're bearing the brunt of what one observer described as "the immense popular anger" directed at Hezbollah.
In Lebanon, the war has also likely led to a two-year delay for the country's elections, which were meant to take place in May.
More to come?
"Many analysts miss the emotional and religious weight of losing [Khamenei]," Mohammed Albasha, analyst and founder of the US-based risk-analysis consultancy Basha Report, told DW. "For many, the supreme leader is not only a political figure. He is tied to a sacred system."
Albasha said Khamenei fulfilled the same spiritual role for some Shiite groups that the pope does for most Catholics. "Loyalty to him is not just political, it is also religious."
Not all Shiite groups — including the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and some groups in Syria — see Khamenei this way.
"Because of that difference, the strongest reaction is more likely to come from groups that accept this religious authority," Albasha said, when asked whether there will be more of these sorts of secondary conflicts.
"Hezbollah and some Iraqi militias may push Lebanon and Iraq toward deeper regional confrontation," Albasha said. "But, in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Shia groups are less likely to challenge their governments directly, although small-scale disruptions from fringe elements cannot be ruled out."
Israel launches ground offensive into southern Lebanon
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