By [Author Name] | Senior Correspondent, Geopolitics & Strategic Affairs
The United States set out after the September 11 attacks to dismantle terrorist networks and remake the Middle East. Two decades later, the region's balance of power has tilted in a direction few planners in Washington predicted — toward Tehran.
That is the argument at the heart of The Hindu's analysis, "The global war on terror, an empowered Iran." It is not a report of a new event. It is a reading of two decades of consequence, and it lands at a moment when the region is still recalculating what those years actually produced.
The War on Terror Removed Iran's Two Most Dangerous Neighbours
Start with the map as it stood in 2001. To Iran's east sat the Taliban, a Sunni militant government that had murdered Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998 and treated Tehran as an enemy. To its west sat Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which had fought an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s and remained its most serious conventional threat.
Both were gone within 27 months. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 toppled the Taliban; the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 ended Saddam's government. Iran did not fire a shot. Its two most capable adversaries were removed by someone else's war.
How Tehran Converted Other People's Wars Into Its Own Influence
What followed was not conquest but penetration. In Iraq, Iran built deep ties with Shia political parties and, later, with militias that emerged during the insurgency and the fight against ISIS. In Syria, it became President Bashar al-Assad's most important foreign backer. In Lebanon, it worked through Hezbollah; in Yemen, through the Houthi movement — a network often described as the "Axis of Resistance."
The fight against ISIS after 2014 gave that network something valuable: usefulness. Iran-backed militias became ground forces in Iraq and Syria when few others were willing to fight, and that role hardened into political legitimacy and state access.
Why This Matters Well Beyond the Middle East
An empowered Iran is not a distant problem for Indians. A very large share of India's crude oil and LNG imports moves through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway Iran borders. Roughly nine million Indians live and work in the Gulf, and their remittances are a structural support for the Indian economy.
New Delhi also has its own stake in Iranian geography — the Chabahar port, which India has developed to reach Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan, and the International North-South Transport Corridor, which would run through Iran to Russia and Europe. When Iran's position shifts, Indian logistics plans shift with it.
From Kabul to Gaza: How the Thesis Took Shape
The pattern unfolded in stages. The 2003 Iraq invasion shattered a Sunni-dominated state and handed Shia parties — many with Iranian ties — political power through the ballot box. Syria's civil war from 2011 drew in Hezbollah and Iranian advisers to keep Assad in place.
Then came the sharpest turn. The rise of ISIS in 2014 pulled the United States back into Iraq and Syria, this time effectively on the same side as Iran-backed forces. In Yemen, from 2015 onward, the Houthis grew from a local insurgency into a movement capable of disrupting Red Sea shipping. Each phase expanded Iran's reach without Iran having to fight a major state war directly.
Who Actually Pays the Price When the Balance Shifts
The strategic gains were built on societies that bore the cost. Iraq lost hundreds of thousands of civilians across two decades of war and insurgency. Syria's conflict displaced more than half its population. Afghanistan's post-2001 order collapsed in 2021 when the Taliban returned to Kabul.
Yemen's war produced what the United Nations has repeatedly called one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Lebanon's economy imploded while Hezbollah's arsenal grew. For ordinary families in these countries — and for the migrant workers, including Indians, who moved through them — the geopolitical scoreboard has never been the point.
What the Region's Governments and Analysts Have Long Argued
This thesis is not new to specialists. Gulf Arab states, Israel and a section of Washington's own foreign policy establishment have argued for years that the 2003 Iraq invasion was the single most consequential gift to Iranian influence.
At the same time, Iranian officials have consistently framed their regional role as defensive — support for allies and allies' rights, not expansion. Both readings circulate widely; the difference lies in whether you treat Iran's network as security provision or as a threat, and the answer usually depends on which side of the Gulf you sit.
What the Argument Claims — and What It Does Not
The Hindu's framing is strategic, not legal or evidentiary. It does not claim that Iran orchestrated the war on terror, or that US planners intended to strengthen Tehran. It argues something narrower and more uncomfortable — that a strategy designed to prevent a repeat of September 11 produced an unintended redistribution of regional power.
That distinction matters. Unintended consequence is not the same as causation, and it is not the same as saying Iran "won."
Confirmed Facts vs What Remains Contested
Established: the Taliban government fell in 2001; Saddam's government fell in 2003; Iran-backed groups expanded their presence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen; ISIS was territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019.
Contested or interpretive: how much of that expansion should be attributed to the war on terror versus Iran's own long-term strategy, pre-existing sectarian politics, or the failures of post-invasion state-building. No single factor explains the outcome, and analysts weight them differently.
The Case Against: Iran's Position Has Been Badly Bruised Since
Any honest version of this argument has to survive contact with 2024. Israel's campaign against Hezbollah killed its long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah and much of its senior command, and a ceasefire in November 2024 left the group weakened and exposed. Direct Iranian-Israeli exchanges in April and October 2024 showed that Iran's air defences could be penetrated.
The bigger blow came in December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad was ousted in Syria — severing, at least for now, the land corridor that linked Tehran to Hezbollah. Add years of sanctions, a strained currency, water shortages and repeated domestic protests, and the picture is far more complicated than "empowered Iran" alone suggests.
Iran's gains were never free. They came with costs, obligations and exposure.
A Wider Pattern: Wars Rarely End the Way They Were Planned
The war on terror is not the first campaign to produce its opposite. Political scientists have long noted that large external interventions tend to reshuffle regional power rather than freeze it — often rewarding the actors who wait, adapt and stay locally rooted.
In the Middle East, that pattern has repeated across Iraq, Libya and Syria. The lesson is less about Iran than about the limits of designing outcomes from outside.
What This Means for India — and What Readers Should Watch
For Indian readers, the practical takeaways are concrete. Keep an eye on Hormuz: any sustained disruption raises crude prices, freight costs and insurance premiums almost immediately, with fuel and food inflation following.
Watch Chabahar and the INSTC separately. India's connectivity plans through Iran depend on sanctions policy in Washington, not only on Tehran. [Specific operational status should be verified against the latest official position before acting.]
If you have family or business in the Gulf, treat regional escalation as a remittance and travel-advisory risk, not just a headline. And for students and professionals weighing Middle East postings, the region's volatility is worth pricing into medium-term decisions.
What Could Happen Next
Three scenarios are plausible. Iran could rebuild its Syrian position over time through new partnerships. It could shift further toward asymmetric tools — drones, shipping disruption and proxy pressure — if conventional leverage stays degraded. Or regional states could move toward de-escalation agreements that freeze competition rather than resolve it.
None of these outcomes is settled. What is settled is that the strategic landscape Iran operates in today was shaped by the two decades after 9/11 — and that the bill for those years is still being calculated.
Our Take
The Hindu's argument is uncomfortable but largely defensible: the war on terror was never designed with Iran as its primary target, yet it reshaped the Middle East in ways that served Iranian interests. That was an outcome, not a plan — but outcomes are what count in geopolitics.
The caveat is equally important. "Empowered" is a relative word, and Iran's leverage has always depended on partners who are now weakened or displaced. The more useful framing is that the region moved from one unstable balance to a different, more fragmented one — and that India, sitting on the energy and diaspora fault line, has almost no margin to ignore either version.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the "global war on terror"?
It is the term used for the US-led military, intelligence and legal campaign launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks, targeting al-Qaeda, the Taliban and later ISIS and affiliated groups. It spanned Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen and parts of Africa, and lasted roughly two decades in its most active phase.
How did the war on terror end up empowering Iran?
Mainly through removal and disruption. The 2001 Afghanistan invasion and the 2003 Iraq invasion eliminated Iran's two most hostile neighbours — the Taliban government and Saddam Hussein's regime. The state collapses that followed created space for Iran-aligned political parties and militias, and the fight against ISIS in 2014 made some of those forces operationally indispensable.
Is Iran actually stronger today than in 2001?
Regionally, its reach is far wider than in 2001, with deep ties across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. But recent reversals have been serious. Israeli strikes in 2024 degraded Hezbollah's leadership and Iran's air defences, and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 cost Tehran a critical land route to Hezbollah. Sanctions and internal economic strain also persist.
Why should Indian readers care about this?
Because India's economy touches this story directly. A large share of India's oil and gas imports passes near the Strait of Hormuz, millions of Indians work in the Gulf, and India's Chabahar and North-South Corridor plans route through Iran. Instability there shows up in fuel prices, remittances and regional security for Indian citizens.