The lightning conflict sequence between Israel, Iran and the United States illustrates the contemporary dynamics of strategic disorder, but also the instrumentalization of state fragility and the conditions for thinking about the conditions of lasting peace-in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Professor Emeritus at Sciences Po Paris and partner at the International Research Center (Ceri),, Bertrand Badie is a specialist in international relations and author of many works.
He notably published Helplessness of power (Fayard, 2004), The time of humiliated. International relations pathology (Odile Jacob, 2014) and When the South reinvents the world. Essay on the power of weakness (La Découverte, 2018). Published in 2024, The art of peace (Flammarion, 2024) envisages a redefinition of peace in order to release the concept of a contractual logic of non-war, and envisages the conditions to establish it in a sustainable manner.
Shooting & editing: Carl Petersen
Despite the signing of a ceasefire on June 24-ending the “ twelve day war Between Iran and Israel, with American involvement – Bertrand Badie stresses that the regional risks do not appear reduced, the Middle East being the scene of numerous and incessant conflicts for several decades. Even more, the objectives of Israeli and American bombings, beyond their official targets (Iranian nuclear sites) show a desire to weaken the institutions of the Iranian regime and to affect many economic infrastructure.
Chaos strategy and “ utility ” of the “ Collapsed states »»
Israel, with the support of the United States, thus appears to follow a “ Chaos strategy “Which consists of” Create a power differential », Logic also followed in multiple conflicting terrains, on several continents, to promote the failure or collapse of states – according to the concept of Collapsed State or failed statetrained and disseminated in the 1990s to designate the inability of certain states recognized in international law to exercise control of their territory.
“” We are entering a world where the collapsed state has at least functions as the institutionalized state. It is ultimately the face-to-face of the two that makes the news of the conflicts. This logic is also similar to the actions carried out by Russia in Ukraine. “” The collapsed state becomes the lust of the dominant or theHegemon regional or global, failing to create an order in its image.
Recalling that the nostalgic message of Donald Trump’s slogan, “ Make America Great Again »Also refers to the bipolar balance of the world to the second XXe A century, Bertrand Badie underlines the desire for emancipation and autonomy of many local actors in the Middle East, starting with Israel. The desire to show up on the initiative seems to have supported the Israeli bombing of June 13 as well as those of the United States in the days that followed.
A new triangulation of the world against power policies
For Bertrand Badie, as shown by this brief episode of the “ twelve day war “, International relations appear today structured by a” triangulation », A triple tension. The first is a tension between sovereignty and interdependence, the actors’ will to free themselves from the old guardianships being confronted with the entanglement of links and interests on a global scale. The second is an articulation between internal and external: “ Modern technology, but also depolarization, has released social energies and has made public opinion, social actors, social groups, individuals that we are in deliberation massively. The positions of state actors therefore also take root in taking into account public opinion.
Finally, the third element corresponds to the uncertainties surrounding force as an instrument of international relations, supported by an increasingly destructive and trivialized violence, but also expensive, and above all “ ineffective, that is to say incapable of producing a new order ». These three sources of uncertainty also explain the “ Zigzag diplomacy »Whose actions in recent weeks are the symptom.
What future for multilateralism ?
Like other recent or current conflicts, the Israeli-Iranian war episode shows the ineffectiveness of bilateral diplomacy, as well as any transactional diplomacy today. From then on, “ We can consider that by default multilateralism is the only solution »: The world thus seems to enter a phase where the expansion of the number of actors involved in any conflict exit appears essential to go beyond transactional aspects, both in Europe for the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Middle and Middle East.
Relying on multilateralism, however, implies inventing new frames, to bypass those, ineffective by their operation, of theUN and of its security council, institutions of a multilateralism “ trap ” because “ penetrated from the inside by the power logic ». Furthermore, the multilateral framework cannot work, and peace cannot permanently establish itself, without taking into account the leading role – behind their discreet practice of diplomacy – China, or Brazil or South Africa: “ These are countries that can create the conditions for a new order acceptable by all ».