As the Islamic regime in Iran implodes from within and is pummeled by Israeli and US bombardments from the outside, a strategic realignment is unfolding in the Middle East balance of power, one whose global impact will shape the future of the United States and Israel for decades to come. This strategic realignment will inevitably benefit both Israel and the United States strategically, militarily, and financially.

As Iran attacks Israel and its neighbors, many of which host US military bases, it has become crystal clear where each country strategically stands, both militarily and politically, as either US or Israeli ally.

Old and traditional allies such as the United Kingdom, which once relied on America for its very survival, are now among the first to publicly deny the United States the right to use military bases on their soil for sorties against the Islamic regime in Iran, even in a time of war.

While the United States has stationed troops and some of its largest assets in the region at Al Udeid in Qatar, the Qataris are busy spewing propaganda. Up until and even after Khomeini’s death, when Iranian state media issued a statement that has since been proven false claiming that Khomeini would speak, Al Jazeera was live and ready carrying the livestream of the speech, which of course never happened. Qatar has also spent the last 20 years trying to pierce the very fabric of Western democracy, American culture, and academia by financing American universities with extreme left, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Israel, antisemitic, and anti-American propaganda, while making it seem like their interests in Western academia were genuine. But when push came to shove this week, with Iran firing missiles even at Qatar’s non-military targets, the Qataris panicked but still refused the Americans use of their largest military base in the region and did not retaliate. Is this what President Trump considers a dependable regional American ally?

Watching Al Jazeera during the bombing of Doha, one could see the confusion among the Qataris, who no longer seemed to know where they should stand. On the one hand they claim to be a US ally, on the other they have spent the last 30 years supporting the left and the poster boys of the very regime that is now attacking them.

The same can be said for Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) reportedly spent the weeks leading up to the attack on Iran pressing President Trump to attack Iran to disrupt their nuclear weapons and proxies, all the while publicly saying that they wished to stay out of the conflict and also instructing Washington not to use Saudi-based US bases for its attacks on Iran. This glaring tactic by Arab leaders to project one thing publicly, yet an entirely different thing privately, further served to demonstrate who the allies are. But the stark reality is that whatever the Saudis said publicly became their de facto policy vis-à-vis America in practice. And the same can be said for most of America’s regional allies: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and unfortunately the United Arab Emirates. While the UAE has really been an incredible strategic partner to Israel and the United States, and a role model in the Arab world, their refusal to let the US use their soil to launch attacks against an enemy that ended up hitting them anyway, and hit they were more than everyone else, shows that this was a major strategic miscalculation that ended up failing miserably, with the UAE receiving many more times the amount of drone and missile attacks than anyone else. The UAE has also been a financial haven for Iranian capital, and that needs to stop as well. Hopefully this will redefine its future cooperation and strengthen its bond with both America and Israel.

While much of this war is focused on removing Iran’s nuclear, missile, and drone capability, there is an inevitable byproduct here: the petrodollar. Since the 1970s, the primary currency used in global oil transactions has been the US dollar. With Iran and Venezuela shipping oil illegally up until now, and the US most likely soon to be in full control of both of those countries’ oil exports, it stands to significantly benefit the US financial system and the petrodollar, weakening the BRICS states and the EU while strengthening the dollar.

The geopolitical reality now reshaping the Middle East will oblige every country in the region to choose a side. For decades, Washington distributed its military presence across a network of partners who publicly embraced American security while privately hedging their bets. This war has revealed which alliances are real and which are transactional.

If the United States is paying attention, the lesson is simple: when the fog of war settles, the allies who stand with you are the ones who matter. And in this conflict, that ally has been Israel.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)