The recent US-Israeli military confrontation with Iran is not merely a limited military operation or another round in the cycle of mutual deterrence. Rather, it presents a revelatory moment for the entire structure of the international order. This confrontation redrew geopolitical divisions in an unprecedented way, exposing the limits of assumptions that had governed the behaviour of major powers for decades, chief among them the belief that conflicts could be contained through neutrality or conventional diplomatic instruments.

What became clear in the earliest days of the war is that the world no longer operates according to the logic of managed tensions and deliberate restraint, but within a highly interconnected environment where geography intersects with transnational networks, and regional crises can rapidly transform into direct global shocks. Iran launched strikes across several countries in the region in the first few days of the war alone, targeting American assets as well as Gulf energy and other infrastructure – almost immediately causing global market disruption.

The limits of neutrality

The course of the war demonstrated that the concept of “neutrality” is no longer viable in contemporary regional contexts, particularly in the Middle East. When the instruments of conflict extend through armed proxies, the closure of vital maritime corridors and threats to global energy supplies, any state, regardless of its efforts, finds itself drawn into the trajectory of the crisis in one form or another. Qatar, for example, had invested years in mediation between Washington and Tehran, keeping channels open with all sides, yet faced Iranian strikes on its civilian infrastructure and energy installations hours after the war........

© Al Jazeera