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Hi, I'm Zach Nelson, manager of the Global Insights team here at Everbridge and I'm joined by Zsolt Csepregi, our regional analyst for the Middle east and North Africa. Zsolt, thanks so much for joining us today. Hello. So today we're going to talk about the conflict in Iran which has already come to embroil much of the wider region.
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So Zsolt, at a high level, could you catch us up on what's happened so far and what would you say are you know, some of the biggest, most important developments for the last 24 to 72 hours? Sure. So on Saturday February 26th the United States and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran.
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Now immediately after the initial strikes that also killed the Supreme Leader of Iran, Iran has used a massive region wide retaliation strategy, to try to promote its position in the military conflict.
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And that meant that it didn't only retaliate against US forces in the region and Israel, but also launching a widespread missile and drone operation against neighboring Gulf and other Arab states including Jordan, Iraq.
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And this means that we are looking at a very complex operational picture. So I think that the most important to note here is that Iran is now unleashed in the way that their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the force, it's not the army, it's much stronger than the Iranian army is holding the launch buttons literally to the missile and drone capabilities of the Iranian state.
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And they are trying to push this war from them being attacked by the joint US and Israeli forces into something more region wide and trying to engulf the whole region into this war.
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So actually this is a race against the clock. And what it's also important to note is that the Iranian Foreign Minister was who said yesterday that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is acting independently and isolated.
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So that means that that is the force that that is driving the escalation ladder in this conflict. And that's why we are seeing all kinds of impacts against Gulf energy infrastructure. Airports, civilian sites, hotels are being attacked by the Revolutionary Guard.
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So while this is not the worst case scenario of escalating that the that the analysts were planning before the, before the attack, before the before this attack was launched after weeks of preparation.
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But still it's a, it's a very critical, dangerous situation that we're having. Right. So let's talk a little bit More about, possible escalation pathways. Right. We know, Iran has a network of, you know, proxy militant groups as allies, right?
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Hezbollah and Lebanon, the Houthis. And a concern that some people have raised is the potential for, asymmetric retaliation. Right. We've, you know, seen news of, of plots in the past, high profile assassinations, that Iran has been involved in in recent years.
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What forms do you think retaliation or, you know, escalation could, could potentially take? So I would highlight immediately that what Iran is right now doing is already asymmetric because the US and the Israeli forces are targeting military sites, governmental sites, nuclear facilities, and the domestic, security forces bases inside Iran.
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But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is targeting, as I said, energy infrastructure, ports, airports. So, completely different type of set of targets than the US and the Israeli forces are targeting. So this is already an asymmetric conflict.
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But referring to what you just mentioned about proxies, sure, the Iranian proxies can do, a similar, or follow a similar strategy that the Revolutionary Guard Corps is doing right now.
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But what we have seen in the last days that Iran's so called proxies, and I'm saying so called because right now we're seeing that they are not real proxies because they are more worried about their own survival than actually entering into this war, in a decisive manner on behalf of Iran.
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So Hezbollah, a day ago had, three rockets initially launched at, Israel. But Israel has launched a major operation in Lebanon and also now ground troops are pushing forward, in Lebanon. So Hezbollah doesn't really have a space to, to escalate much further, especially that the Lebanese government is also trying to, to, to crack down on Hezbollah activity.
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I think the biggest question right now is whether the Houthis in Yemen will enter the fight because they can open an additional front threatening the Bab El Mandeb Strait. That means the Red Sea, transportation and, by that the, Suez Canal, the security of, crossing the Suez Canal.
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And they can also open a southern front against, Saudi Arabia. But right now, after four days, they have not joined the war. They are probably afraid of additional forces allied with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who are present in Yemen.
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But that is the biggest, escalation driver that can happen apart from Iran itself. Iran stepping up, it's already asymmetric and region wide, retaliation strikes. Right. So if we look outside, you know, the immediate theater of operations, we've seen a, lot of protest activities, street mobilizations, demonstrations crop up all over the world really. Right.
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In response to this, in the Middle east, in Europe we've seen some in the United States here. What's your assessment of the protest landscape globally? Yes. So the protest landscape is much different than what would have been a, year ago, because of the violent crackdown on the Iranian protest in January 2026.
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So the Iranian regime doesn't really have a lot of supporters internationally. So we are seeing much less protests and demonstrations on behalf of the Iranian regime than what we would have if this war has erupted, would have erupted, a few months ago.
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That said, there are not so much pro Iran protests internationally, but anti war type of, mobilizations. I think that these are right now very small scale. But they need to be monitored.
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They invest on capitals and major cities. Sure. In the Middle east there are, I wouldn't say pro Iran, but more like anti American and anti Israeli protest from Baghdad to major Pakistani cities. Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Bahrain can be a significant spot in northeastern Saudi Arabia where these protests can happen.
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I would say that right now the protest landscape is much lower than what could have been expected before such a major military operation was launched against Iran. That said protest can be a vehicle for extremist actors to carry out their attacks.
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So that's why it's not the protests themselves which are the major threats. They can be disruptive, they can disrupt transportation, they can create some kind of a friction in downtown areas, worldwide. But the biggest threat is lone wolf attackers and also extremist small groups and cells using the protest to get close to their target.
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Right. Well, let's let's turn to the cyber front. Whenever we see a conflict like this pick up, there's often someone accompanying cyber activity. What do you think we're in store for here? Should we expect cyber targeting of companies or infrastructure or government services?
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What do you foresee on that front? Most of it's already ongoing and actually it has been ongoing for a month. So the cyber environment of this US Iran, Israeli Iran, let's say competition, but more like cyber conflict has been going on for years.
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So what we can see is an elevated level of cyber threats. Especially as the regime forces are running out of other options. So what they will have is relying more on their missiles and drones and also trying to create disruptions in the cyber realm.
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I would say that the most endangered areas of companies are on the two ends of the spectrum. Either if they are for example energy companies or telecommunications companies, and by attacking them, you can create a lot of disruptions and even threaten lives in for example even in the mainland United States.
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The other end are more soft targets where you can deliver a message to the population that you want to influence. So I would even envision delivery services, apps on your phone being hacked in the coming days and trying to get some upsetting message out.
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So soft targets that Since the most energy is going into defending critical infrastructure and all the it establishment behind that, so what the attackers will do is try to shift to the.
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To the more soft targets but where they can create an outsized effect. Right? And going off of that. Let's talk you know, economic impact more broadly. Right? You know, fuel prices, supply chain disruptions, shipping risks. What do you think that companies you know, in the near term should be planning for and expecting.
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In the near term, the biggest challenge is not I would say the actual damage that that can happen to the energy infrastructure in the Gulf, but the trust that this damage can be fixed quickly.
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Since prices are a matter of trust. I'm paying a certain amount of money for something because I trust that even tomorrow I can buy the same thing. We can see that with the current elevation in the oil and gas prices on the world market, that most of the traders think that these disruptions are not going to be They're not going to last for months.
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They might experience a supply chain disruption for weeks but not months and definitely not years. If that trust is eroding, then we're not speaking about for example in terms of the price of crude oil.
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We're not talking about 80 or 100 US Dollars for a barrel of Brent oil on the global market. But we are more talking about 130 or even higher prices. But that's a matter of trust.
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And I would say that right now, most of the market is assured that this conflict will end in a few weeks, four or five weeks or at least the main impact, and not longer.
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If that calculation changes that, then that can create a spiral out effect on prices and that would create inflation and other Economic disruptions in the world market. Right. Something else we've seen is, a lot of airport closures throughout the region in the Gulf and elsewhere.
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What are the top risk mitigation strategies that are steps that you might recommend right now for travelers who are either currently in the region or looking to transit through the region? Yes, I think that the biggest problem that after four days one can make with travel safety is thinking about the same mitigation step that everyone else is thinking about.
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So we can often, right now, I would advise for any planning to go one step further than you would logically think that it's that it's required. So for example, if the first people who are booking their flights outside of the region would probably choose Istanbul, Cairo or Mumbai to avoid, the core Middle east region and the Gulf, go one step forward, try traveling around the world in the other direction if that's possible for you.
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So, maybe you will lose a few hours, but you will save yourself much more trouble and disruptions if you're getting caught up. Not in the region, not in a war fighting zone, because that's of course the most horrible scenario where you can find yourself.
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But even just getting stuck at an airport where other tens or even hundreds of thousands of people are trying to pass through, in a very condensed, time period as this war is unfolding.
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Right. Okay. And yeah. So, lastly here, let me just ask you, are there any other, you know, mitigation actions that you might recommend to companies more broadly as we're looking ahead over the next week or so? Anything for you know, security leaders, operations leadership, teams.
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Anything else, that they should be keeping in mind or thinking about? Sure. So I think that the most important, and this cannot be repeated enough times, monitoring, like being up to date with what's actually happening. This is such a quickly, developing risk environment that we are now seeing in the Middle east with cascading effects on the board.
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I just mentioned, the whole, issue with energy, prices and you mentioned travel implications. So as these effects are really rapidly, radiating out, in the, in the region and beyond, that's going to create huge, disruption. So monitoring.
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The second is have multiple plans in place. Have, have a plan for all scenarios. We don't know how far the escalation will unfold. It's the qu. This is a, again as I said, a race against the clock. How far. The Revolutionary Guard will have the capabilities to launch missiles and rockets at the region, and whether proxies are joining the fight.
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So have a scenario in place for all these eventualities. And the third thing, and this is really important, have also a playbook for all of them and have solid communication plans who's speaking to whom. Once we see for example that the Houthis have actually joined the fight and they are trying to close shipping, in the Red Sea, and then what the company or the stakeholder has to do.
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So have those three things monitoring scenarios and the playbook in place for the coming days and weeks because this is going to get long and it's going to get worse before it gets better. Zsolt Csepregi, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your expertise.
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Thank you very much.
