Middle East and North Africa

Many of the immediate consequences of the Israeli-American war with Iran are already clear. The further emergence of drones and missiles as dominant weapons of war; the danger to the global economy from the threats to vital chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb; and the inadequacy of U.S. weapons procurement, among other issues, have garnered widespread and entirely merited attention.

Yet as important enough as those developments are, the Iran conflict could also have far wider and longer-term implications—changes that could be truly transformative for the Middle East region and the rest of the world. Decades from now, we might look back on this conflict as a watershed event that fundamentally reshaped what had been bedrock principles of modern geopolitics.

Many of the immediate consequences of the Israeli-American war with Iran are already clear. The further emergence of drones and missiles as dominant weapons of war; the danger to the global economy from the threats to vital chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb; and the inadequacy of U.S. weapons procurement, among other issues, have garnered widespread and entirely merited attention.

Yet as important enough as those developments are, the Iran conflict could also have far wider and longer-term implications—changes that could be truly transformative for the Middle East region and the rest of the world. Decades from now, we might look back on this conflict as a watershed event that fundamentally reshaped what had been bedrock principles of modern geopolitics.

While it would have been better to have discerned these potential break points before the war, there may still be time to take action to try to steer them in favorable directions. As always, the first requirement is to recognize the possible seismic changes that may already be underway.

Gulf States Shifting to Offense—and More War

A satellite view shows a major fire following an Iranian drone strike at the Port of Salalah oil storage tanks in Oman on March 11.Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2026

There has been no shortage of commentary on the new technologies of combat highlighted by the Iran war, with the United States having been mostly focused on defensive systems. Americans have both marveled at the superb performance of Western interceptors and hyperventilated over their dwindling stockpiles of them. However, the Persian Gulf states—and likely many other threatened middle and smaller powers—have taken another lesson from the conflict: The best defense is a good offense.

U.S., Israeli, European, and South Korean interceptor munitions have performed brilliantly, shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. Coupled with the ability of Western fighter aircraft to shoot down drones and cruise missiles—and to suppress the launches of ballistic missiles—Iran has done far less damage to its targets than would otherwise have been the case. In short, air and missile defenses have performed extremely well so far. That’s not nothing.

The problem is that it has not proved to be anything close to enough. Because drones; cruise missiles; and even, to a considerable extent, ballistic missiles are so much cheaper, easier to produce, store, hide, and launch than most of the interceptors that the United States and its allies use against them, Iran has been able to keep making more and launching them at targets across the Gulf, Jordan, and Israel. Even though the defenses are stopping roughly 90 percent of them, the 10 percent that are getting through are 100 percent too many.

Only the Israeli population is inured enough and its infrastructure hardened enough to prove undaunted by Iran’s counterstrikes. In stark contrast, the same levels of damage have proved catastrophic for the Gulf states. Energy companies, shipping companies, and insurance companies are all balking at the prospect of functioning with the residual threat of constant Iranian attacks, even if more than 90 percent are defeated. The 10 percent that have gotten through have done significant physical damage and far greater psychological damage. They called into question the current and planned future socioeconomic model of the Gulf states.

All of the modern Gulf economies were built in the expectation that their lands would be peaceful havens for commerce, hydrocarbon production, rest, and relaxation. Iran’s drone and missile attacks have shattered that, undermining the energy, manufacturing, trade, finance, investment, and tourism industries of the Gulf.

Who is going to want to invest, manufacture, or vacation in countries that are periodically subject to missile and drone attacks, even if nearly all of them are intercepted? Who wants to conduct business, import oil, invest money, trade goods, or take a vacation in a place where, a few times a week (or day), you hear explosions overhead, even if they are the sound of defensive systems successfully intercepting attacking munitions?

The Regional Order Iran Wanted Is Taking Shape Without It

Tehran has long called for greater cooperation among Muslim states. The Mecca pact is not what it had in mind. By Saeid Jafari

At some level, the Gulf governments understood this. However, what they assumed before the war was that the threat of massive retaliation by the United States (or Israel, after the Abraham Accords), would limit the size and scope of Iranian missile and drone attacks—enabling their defenses to defeat any small retaliations that Tehran thought necessary for honor’s sake.

They were counting on the restraint that Iran had consistently shown in the past, including as recently as the short June 2025 war, because Iran had always feared that a larger response would trigger a U.S. bid for regime change.

Of course, in this war, by trying—and failing—to achieve regime change and then taking it off the table altogether, the United States has turned that logic on its head. Iran now has the ability to threaten both the Gulf economies directly with missile and drone attacks and the global economy by throttling tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz without fear of a U.S. effort to overthrow its regime. Americans know that they can’t achieve regime change by air power alone and (so far) lack the political will to employ the ground forces that would be necessary to do it for certain. With the threat of regime change gone, it is Iran that has demonstrated that it can deter U.S. and Israeli attacks at least as effectively as the United States and Israel can limit Iranian attacks on the Gulf.

This state of affairs—in which the Gulf states now have such reservations about relying on the United States (or Israel) to deter Iranian attack—is intolerable. It is why they are all purchasing or........

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