The US-Israeli war with Iran has done much more than destabilise West Asia, send oil, gas, and other prices surging, and disrupt the global economy.

It has also left America’s allies and rivals scrambling to respond to an unpredictable and unreliable superpower, triggering an historic geopolitical realignment that will shift the global balance of power across the next decade.

The war’s effects are most immediate and profound, of course, across the region in which it’s being fought. The war has helped persuade many Gulf Arab States that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — a loose diplomatic, economic, and security arrangement long plagued by infighting — is no longer fit for purpose.

For the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which on April 28 announced its intent to end a nearly six-decade membership of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the war intensifies its rivalry with the Saudis. The UAE will now more closely align with Israel on intelligence, technology, and security in the hopes of crippling the regime in Tehran.

Saudi Arabia, in turn, intends to use a tighter military alignment with nuclear power Pakistan, as well as with Egypt and Turkey, in closer coordination with China, to find ways to live peacefully alongside the Islamic Republic. Both these blocs want to keep their close security ties with the US, but we’re about to see much less coordination of decision-making across West Asia.

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