The Atlantic's recent essay 'The Forgotten War That Iran Already Won' offers a visceral, personal recounting of how Tehran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bombings in the 1990s destroyed the optimism of the Oslo Accords. The author, reflecting on his Israeli adolescence, correctly identifies Iran's covert role in empowering extremists to assassinate the prospects of normalization with Jordan, the PLO, and beyond. Yet this narrative, while emotionally resonant, understates the strategic depth of Iran's triumph and severs it from the larger arc of declining Western dominance in the Middle East.

What the piece misses is that this was never merely a spoiling operation by Ali Khamenei against Yasser Arafat, whom he called a 'traitor.' It established the doctrinal template for Iran's 'axis of resistance'—a deliberate architecture of proxy warfare, deniability, and asymmetric costs that has since matured into a regional system. Synthesizing the Atlantic account with Trita Parsi's analysis in 'Treacherous Alliance' (2007) and the International Crisis Group's 2024 report 'Iran's Axis of Resistance: calibrated escalation,' a clearer pattern emerges: Tehran understood early that state-to-state diplomacy favored its adversaries. By investing in non-state actors—from Hezbollah's 1990s campaign in Lebanon to Hamas's terror infrastructure—Iran ensured that every peace overture would carry a prohibitive human price.

The original coverage correctly notes Iranian training for bombers like Hassan Salameh and the narrow 1996 electoral boost this gave Netanyahu. It falters, however, by framing this as a discrete historical tragedy rather than the foundational success of a long war. By 2023, that same strategy had evolved: Iran's material and doctrinal support enabled Hamas's October 7 attack, Hezbollah's northern front, and Houthi disruption of Red Sea shipping. These are not separate conflicts but expressions of the victory secured three decades earlier. The 'forgotten war' ensured no comprehensive Arab-Israeli reconciliation could exclude or neutralize Tehran.

This connects to broader patterns overlooked in most coverage. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, intended to contain threats, instead empowered Shia militias aligned with Tehran, creating an arc of influence from Baghdad to Beirut. The 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled retrenchment. Even the Abraham Accords, which sought to bypass the Palestinian issue, have been met with Iranian-orchestrated hybrid responses that expose the fragility of U.S.-backed normalization. Meanwhile, China's 2023 mediation of Saudi-Iran rapprochement—cited in Crisis Group reporting—illustrates the multipolar reality now replacing American hegemony.

Observation: Iran's economy remains sanctioned and strained, yet its strategic position has strengthened. Proxy networks allow power projection without direct conventional war. Analysis: This represents a genuine shift in the regional order. Western diplomacy assumed rational state actors operating in good faith; Iran recognized that chaos favors the patient disruptor. The suicide bombings of the 1990s were not tactical barbarism alone but the opening salvo in a campaign that has rendered the two-state solution functionally impossible and left Washington managing consequences rather than shaping outcomes.

The current multi-front crisis is therefore inseparable from that legacy, but not in the linear causal sense the Atlantic suggests. It is the logical endpoint of Tehran's realized strategy and the West's repeated misreading of regional dynamics. As new powers broker deals and proxies enforce red lines, the 'forgotten war' reminds us that Iran did not merely delay peace—it redefined the battlefield on terms that have consistently favored the Islamic Republic.