The war involving Iran, Israel and the United States has entered a particularly dangerous phase, one in which the destruction of critical infrastructure could have consequences extending far beyond the Middle East. One of the most pessimistic assessments comes from Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian-American academic at the University of Tehran and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiating team. In interviews with geopolitical commentators, including Professor Glenn Diesen, Marandi has argued that Western policymakers are seriously underestimating Iran's capacity to retaliate against military escalation. His central warning is that an attempt to destroy Iran's essential infrastructure could provoke devastating attacks against the energy, electricity, water and transportation systems of neighbouring Gulf states, potentially triggering a global economic catastrophe. This is not merely a prediction of higher oil prices or another regional recession. Marandi envisages the possibility of a breakdown in the physical infrastructure upon which substantial parts of the international economy depend.
Professor Marandi brings an interesting perspective to the conflict. An Iranian-American academic who has lived in the United States and is familiar with American society and political institutions, he has also advised Iran's nuclear negotiating team. Although his analysis is informed by an Iranian perspective, it would be a mistake to dismiss his warnings as mere government propaganda. His arguments deserve examination on their strategic and economic merits, particularly because they concern vulnerabilities that exist independently of political loyalties. Indeed, his familiarity with both Iranian and American perspectives may help explain his emphasis upon the potentially disastrous consequences of escalation for all parties, including the United States itself.
There is a difference between accepting an analyst's interpretation of political events and recognising the military and economic vulnerabilities that he identifies. The Persian Gulf contains an extraordinary concentration of oil and natural gas production facilities, refineries, export terminals, electricity networks and desalination plants. Much of this infrastructure is expensive, geographically concentrated and difficult to replace quickly. The modern global economy assumes that these facilities will continue operating, but a major regional war could invalidate that assumption with alarming speed. Marandi's warnings are therefore not simply about Iranian military retaliation. They concern the vulnerability of an entire economic system to the destruction of a relatively small number of critical installations.
The essential feature of Marandi's argument is that Iran does not need to defeat the United States in conventional military combat to inflict enormous economic damage. American military superiority in aircraft, naval power, surveillance and sophisticated weapons systems is not seriously in question. Iran's strategic opportunity lies elsewhere. It possesses missiles, drones and other capabilities that can threaten infrastructure throughout the Gulf. The vulnerability of highly developed economies to relatively inexpensive attacks creates an asymmetric relationship between military power and economic consequences. A country may dominate the battlefield while suffering immense damage to the international economic system upon which its own prosperity depends. This is the strategic paradox at the centre of Marandi's analysis.
The distinction between interrupting the transportation of energy and destroying the infrastructure required to produce it is particularly important. A temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be extremely disruptive, but shipping could theoretically resume following a ceasefire. Destroyed processing plants, export terminals, pipelines and associated electrical systems present a fundamentally different problem. Even after hostilities cease, reconstruction may require specialised equipment, foreign contractors, substantial investment and many months or years of work. Marandi has emphasised precisely this danger: reopening maritime routes would accomplish relatively little if the facilities supplying the oil and gas had themselves been devastated. A military campaign lasting weeks could consequently produce economic disruption lasting years.
The potential consequences would extend through the international economy in successive waves. Energy prices would rise as available supplies contracted, increasing the cost of transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and electricity. Industries dependent upon natural gas as a fuel or industrial feedstock would face additional pressures. Fertiliser production would be especially vulnerable, with implications for agricultural costs and ultimately food prices. Shipping insurance, financial markets and international trade would also be affected. Governments already struggling with public debt, inflation and weak economic growth could find themselves confronting a simultaneous supply shock and financial crisis. The possibility of cascading economic failures is what makes Marandi's assessment especially disturbing.
There is a further vulnerability that receives insufficient attention in conventional military analysis: the dependence of several Gulf states upon desalination. Much of the Arabian Peninsula experiences extreme heat and possesses limited naturally available freshwater. Large urban populations depend upon industrial systems that convert seawater into drinking water, supported by reliable electricity supplies and complex distribution networks. Sustained disruption to these systems could produce humanitarian emergencies far more rapidly than the destruction of conventional economic assets. Hospitals, sanitation, refrigeration and ordinary domestic life would all be affected. Marandi has warned about the consequences of attacks upon desalination and electricity infrastructure, although the scale of any resulting disaster would depend upon the extent and duration of the damage and the availability of emergency supplies.
The disturbing possibility is that a war initially fought over Iranian military capabilities and regional influence could evolve into a campaign against the foundations of modern civilian society. Once electricity generation, water supplies and energy production become central targets, the distinction between military victory and civilian catastrophe becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. Such attacks also raise grave questions under international humanitarian law, which prohibits deliberately attacking civilian objects unless they qualify as military objectives and imposes strict requirements of proportionality and precautions. The fact that infrastructure supports an adversary's economy does not automatically make its destruction lawful. The humanitarian consequences could be appalling, especially in countries whose populations are heavily concentrated in large urban centres dependent upon vulnerable technological systems.
Marandi's most alarming argument concerns the possibility that escalation could become self-reinforcing. If American or Israeli attacks destroy Iranian infrastructure, Tehran may conclude that restraint simply invites further destruction. It could then intensify attacks against neighbouring states that host American military facilities or support American operations. Those states might demand stronger American intervention, generating further retaliation and expanding the conflict. What began as an attempt to weaken Iran could therefore produce an escalating regional confrontation in which each side believes that further military action is necessary to restore deterrence. The logic of escalation could become increasingly difficult to reverse, particularly if political leaders feared that accepting a ceasefire would be interpreted domestically as defeat.
The dangers become greater if additional regional powers are drawn into the confrontation. Yemen's strategic position near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait creates another potential point of disruption to international shipping, while attacks on Gulf infrastructure could place extraordinary political pressure upon neighbouring Arab governments. Marandi's broader concern is that the interconnectedness of the global economy, far from guaranteeing peace, could help transmit the consequences of regional warfare throughout the world. The assumption that economic interdependence necessarily discourages war may prove dangerously optimistic when belligerents begin treating that same interdependence as a source of strategic leverage.
There are, however, important qualifications to this catastrophic scenario. Iran's capacity to damage infrastructure does not mean that it can destroy every important installation throughout the Gulf, nor that regional governments would necessarily collapse following sustained attacks. American and allied defensive capabilities, emergency repairs, alternative energy supplies and diplomatic intervention could all limit the consequences. Iran also faces enormous risks from further escalation, including additional destruction within its own territory and the possibility of alienating countries upon which it depends economically and diplomatically. The very scale of the threatened catastrophe provides powerful reasons for all parties to avoid it. Marandi's assessment is therefore best understood as a warning about what could happen if escalation continues, rather than proof that economic collapse is inevitable.
Nevertheless, the economic dangers are substantial even without his most extreme predictions being realised. Modern energy infrastructure contains highly specialised equipment that cannot simply be replaced from ordinary commercial inventories. Major processing facilities and liquefied natural gas installations depend upon complex machinery, precision engineering and international supply chains. Repairing serious damage can require extensive reconstruction and lengthy commissioning procedures. This illustrates the extraordinary fragility of systems that appear permanent during peacetime but can be disabled relatively quickly during war. A missile may take minutes to reach its target, while replacing the industrial equipment it destroys can require years.
For Australia, the consequences of a prolonged Middle Eastern energy crisis would be particularly serious. Australia is an important exporter of natural gas and other resources, which could provide some economic advantages during a supply shortage. But these gains would not insulate households and businesses from higher fuel prices, increased transport costs, disrupted imports and weakening international demand. Australia's reliance upon imported refined petroleum products would be an especially significant vulnerability. A global recession triggered by sustained energy disruption could damage export markets while simultaneously increasing domestic living costs. The idea that geographical distance protects Australia from a Middle Eastern catastrophe belongs to an earlier and less interconnected economic era.
The ultimate question is whether political leaders adequately understand the distinction between winning a military confrontation and preserving the international economic order. Marandi's argument is that American decision-makers may be operating under the assumption that overwhelming conventional superiority gives them control over the ultimate outcome. Yet an adversary capable of inflicting disproportionate economic damage may possess forms of strategic leverage that conventional comparisons of military strength fail to capture. The United States could inflict devastating losses upon Iran and still confront a global economic emergency that would constitute a strategic disaster for itself and its allies. Military success and strategic success are not necessarily the same thing.
There is also a larger lesson concerning the vulnerabilities created by economic globalisation. Modern industrial civilisation has achieved extraordinary efficiencies through international specialisation, complex supply chains and the concentration of production in strategically advantageous locations. Yet these efficiencies often come at the expense of resilience. When essential commodities depend upon a limited number of production centres and transportation corridors, the destruction of relatively few installations can generate consequences extending across continents. The same interconnectedness that supports prosperity during peaceful times can become a mechanism for transmitting economic catastrophe during war.
None of this requires agreement with Marandi's interpretation of the origins of the conflict or the responsibilities of the parties involved. His predictions of governmental collapse and worldwide economic breakdown remain possibilities rather than established outcomes. But the central danger he identifies deserves serious consideration. Modern civilisation rests upon immensely complicated systems of energy production, transportation, electricity generation, water supply and international finance. These systems are interconnected, expensive to maintain and vulnerable to disruption. A sufficiently destructive war in the Persian Gulf could expose vulnerabilities that decades of economic globalisation have created but that political leaders have been reluctant to acknowledge.
The most frightening possibility is not simply that Iran could inflict massive damage upon its enemies. It is that the resulting economic destruction might extend to countries with little direct involvement in the conflict, including nations thousands of kilometres from the battlefield. In such circumstances, there would be no meaningful economic winners, regardless of which side claimed military victory. Marandi may be excessively pessimistic about the inevitability of catastrophe, but his warning raises a question that Western governments cannot afford to ignore: what happens when the pursuit of military victory threatens to destroy the economic foundations of the world that victory was supposed to protect?
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