Dr. Amer Al Sabaileh

As the conflict with Iran enters a period of temporary suspension, the outlines of a new American counterterrorism strategy are beginning to emerge, revealing the direction of Washington’s next security doctrine.

Built around the principle of “peace through strength”, this strategy is no longer based solely on military force, but on pre-emptive action, dismantling the ideological and social incubators of extremism, and linking terrorism to transnational organised crime networks.

What is particularly striking is that Washington no longer views counterterrorism as a conventional war against specific organisations, but rather as an open confrontation with systems of financing, ideology, and cross-border operational structures.

The coming phase appears increasingly defined by rapid intervention and the capacity to conduct direct operations free from excessive bureaucratic constraints, whether through short military campaigns, targeted assassinations, special operations, or continuous cyber warfare.

Even America’s European allies have not escaped criticism.

The emerging strategy portrays Europe as an environment that has failed to establish an effective counterterrorism model due to weak security policies, legal complications, and political fragmentation, thereby allowing extremist organisations to rebuild ideological and operational networks.

Washington is therefore pressing for a more assertive European role based on higher security expenditure, stricter monitoring, and greater direct involvement in confronting extremist structures.

The most significant transformation, however, lies in the fact that the American strategy no longer separates armed organisations from the ideological environments that produce them. Whilst Al-Qaeda and the Daesh terror group — including Daesh-Khorasan and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — remain central targets within American security doctrine, the focus is increasingly shifting towards the intellectual roots that shaped modern jihadist movements.

Within this framework, the Muslim Brotherhood is increasingly viewed as part of the ideological infrastructure that paved the way for contemporary jihadist doctrine.

The debate is therefore no longer confined to designating branches of the organisation as terrorist entities, but extends to confronting the broader intellectual and cultural ecosystem that enables extremism to reproduce itself.

The real battle is no longer against the organisation alone, but against the ideology that enables it to regenerate continuously. This explains why the tools of confrontation are expanding to include monitoring transnational networks, tracing financial structures, dismantling the overlap between terrorism and organised crime, and targeting the interconnected systems that allow such movements to survive internationally.

Although the strategy divides threats geographically — from Latin America to Africa and from the Middle East to Europe — Iran appears across nearly every strategic track as the central node connecting multiple threats.

By explicitly linking narcotics trafficking to global terrorism and accusing Tehran of supporting armed networks, the strategy transforms Iran from a regional challenge into a comprehensive strategic issue in which terrorism, militias, nuclear ambitions, ballistic missiles, and maritime security intersect.

For this reason, the strategy places increasing emphasis on the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Houthis, treating maritime security as an integral component of the global counterterrorism architecture. The protection of shipping lanes and strategic waterways is increasingly framed as part of the confrontation with Iranian regional influence.

Beyond implicit interpretations, the American strategy places Iran directly at the centre of the global threat structure by classifying it as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and a principal source of militia financing and armament, whilst simultaneously portraying it as an ongoing nuclear threat.

This reflects the reality that operations against Iran are no longer tied to a temporary escalation, but have become part of a long-term strategic doctrine moving beyond traditional containment.

More importantly, this doctrine suggests that the conflict is no longer limited to changing the behaviour of the current Iranian regime, but increasingly concerns the nature of any future system that may emerge in Tehran. In other words, “behavioural change” is gradually giving way to a broader objective: reshaping the political and ideological environment that produces such behaviour in the first place.

This is why Iran, whilst seeking a return to negotiations, simultaneously finds itself at the centre of a much broader American strategic framework that extends far beyond crisis management or the containment of war. Most pathways within the evolving American counterterrorism doctrine lead, directly or indirectly, to Iran.

This means that the conflict imposed on Tehran is unlikely to end in its current form unless a profound strategic transformation is achieved — one that affects Iran’s policies, regional structure, and ideological foundations themselves.