As the world marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Middle East is still, in many ways, living in the long shadow of those events.The 9/11 attacks showed the global reach of armed non-state actors. The war on terror badly damaged Al Qaeda and eventually helped destroy ISIS aspirations for a so-called “caliphate”, but it did not eliminate the phenomenon. Instead, extremist organisations metastasised in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya and beyond, while regional states, especially Iran, doubled down on their own strategy of strengthening networks of such actors. Hezbollah has recently been dealt a strong blow, but groups like it continue to destabilise the region.The 9/11 attacks also showed that while superpowers remain immensely powerful, that power neither renders them safe from attack at home nor guarantees that they can prevail against demonstrably weaker adversaries.The attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was undertaken by the Imperial Japanese Navy; the attacks of 9/11 were perpetrated by 19 hijackers armed largely with box cutters. Russia today is unable to protect its homeland from attacks by a smaller and weaker Ukraine, or to impose its will on it. The US and Israel decapitated Iran’s leadership and have dominance over its skies, but they have not been able to protect American bases or American allies in the region, nor bend Tehran to their will.The dynamics of asymmetric warfare, unconventional fighting forces and the never-ending race between offensive and defensive weapons have scrambled the old neat hierarchy of international power.The US response to the 9/11 attacks demonstrated the peril of making the decision to go to war based on “rage first, reason later”. The American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly had some strategic thinking and goals behind them, but the Afghanistan conflict in particular was driven in large part by the George W Bush administration’s need, after being humiliated on 9/11 both politically and strategically, to react in a rapid and overwhelming manner.There was much thinking about how the first weeks of both wars would unfold, and indeed they produced quick and impressive military victories, but far less thinking about what the post-war political and security end state would be. Both conflicts ultimately proved strategic failures, leaving hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis dead, draining US lives and resources, empowering Iran in Iraq, and ceding Afghanistan back to the Taliban.We have been reliving this cycle over the past three years, after Israel suffered what it considered its own 9/11 – the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. Then-US president Joe Biden warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat America’s mistake of deciding policy based on rage rather than reason, but the Israeli leadership used rage to launch wars on “seven fronts”. And while these wars have swept away the old fragile order in the region, so far they have led to a condition of multiple and perpetual conflicts rather than to a new, politically thought-through order.In a more straightforward geopolitical sense, the ongoing Iran war is partly the result of the previous American conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.British and American forces fire artillery rounds during a live fire exercise at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan in June 2002. Getty ImagesShow caption: British and American forces fire artillery rounds during a l…Before 9/11, Tehran had been somewhat contained – hemmed in by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to its west and the Taliban regime to its east; the US’s post-9/11 wars removed both of them. It is true that the Bush administration figured Baghdad and Kabul would be conquered first, and that Washington could then turn its firepower on Iran and its ally Syria. But the wars played out very differently, particularly in Iraq. The US got bogged down in both wars, and far from it being weakened, Tehran emerged as the main strategic victor in Iraq, from where it could spread its influence more decisively into Syria, Lebanon and soon Yemen as well.QuoteThe sooner Iran, Israel and the US can put reason first – and rage second – the sooner the region can find a stable outcome to this latest round of wars and a co-operative and prosperous way forwardThe US launched its post-9/11 wars to remake the Middle East in its image, much as it had remade Germany and Japan after the Second World War; instead, these wars ended up remaking the Middle East, to a significant degree, in Iran’s image, with Iranian proxies dominating four Arab capitals as well as projecting power into Palestine. In that sense, this latest war is partly an attempt to undo the strategic damage done by the previous two.The 9/11 attacks were intended by their perpetrators to show that the US was a paper tiger, and to launch a series of confrontations that would chase it out of the Middle East. Indeed, the terrible logic of 9/11 was partly built on events two decades earlier, when Iran-backed militants, in co-ordination with the emerging Hezbollah, carried out devastating attacks on the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut. In response, the Ronald Reagan administration basically cut and run.The lesson drawn by Iran and armed non-state actors like Hezbollah was that America was indeed a paper tiger and that terrorism could work: inflict enough pain, and it would retreat. The attacks of October 7 were partly a playing out of that logic.The responses of the Bush administration and now the Donald Trump administration demonstrated that the US is not a paper tiger at all, and that it remains by far the world’s strongest military power and is willing to use that force. But while not a paper tiger, it has at times taken on the demeanour of an enraged bull, devastating opponents and causing widespread carnage, but without enough strategic forethought and with little to show for its rampages. Post-October 7 Israel has reacted in a similar way.Regardless of their causes or the forethought behind them, major wars have major consequences. The post-9/11 wars changed the Middle East, but not markedly for the better, ultimately spreading the scourge of armed non-state actors and empowering Iran. The new round of wars since October 7, and particularly the Iran war, will also have major consequences.In the Levant, Tehran is already markedly weaker, and in both Syria and Lebanon new states are moving to take advantage of this weakening to rebuild state sovereignty. In the Gulf, however, the wars – and intermittent negotiations – leave the fate of that region very much in the balance.A wall painting of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Wednesday. EPAShow caption: A wall painting of late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali…In the Palestine-Israel arena, the conflict has only been more deeply entrenched, with Gaza cataclysmically devastated and Israeli settlers on the West Bank escalating their attacks – but these rampages, without any long-term political vision, only deepen the conflict and bring no lasting security to either side.One of the main lessons of 9/11 should be the Clausewitzian one: war must remain subordinate to political purpose, rather than allowing passion and the momentum of violence to determine strategy. Today, Mr Trump is eager to bring this latest war to an end, reach a reasonable resolution for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb – which Iran itself publicly insists it does not want.But similar to the US and Israel – and maybe even more so – the Islamic Republic appears still largely driven by rage, both ideological and nationalistic; and while many voices even within the regime seem to be clamouring for a reasonable path forward, the voices of rage are winning the day.Rage over reason is not a strategy. The sooner countries such as Iran, Israel and the US can put reason, common interests and sustainable solutions first – and rage, trauma and grievances second – the sooner the region can find a stable outcome to this latest round of wars and a co-operative and prosperous way forward.