Photo by Thiébaud Faix
As stakeholders navigate the catastrophic war launched by the United States and Israel on 28 February 2026, it is difficult to project how it will end. It is, however, safe to say that West Asia will not be the same. Also, it is most likely that the Islamic Republic of Iran has it in its power to reshape the politics of the region.
For more than 70 years, the United States has used its alliance with Israel to project power and control the geopolitical landscape of the region. And since the 1979 Revolution, Iran, unlike its Arab neighbors, has challenged their hegemony and refused to be a U.S. client state.
Washington and Tel Aviv want complete monopoly. As long as Iran stands in the way, Israel will be unable to fulfill its colonizing mission. The current all-out-war on the Islamic Republic is a last ditch effort to complete their scheme.
It is, therefore, not surprising that for a second time, the U.S. and Israel blindsided Iran during peace talks, choosing war over peace. And yet again, they demonstrated an arrogant ignorance of the country they unjustifiably attacked, believing they could overpower and bombard it into submission.
Both countries hubristically believed they could achieve an early and easy victory; simply remove a single leader and the entire system would collapse. For them it is an hegemonic war of choice. For Iran it has been a war of survival; to finally put an end to decades of U.S. economic sanctions and perpetual efforts to balkanize the country, as they have done in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
The sustained military campaign against Iranian officials, critical infrastructure and cultural sites has triggered a severe regional crisis with profound consequences for global energy security, and for West Asian and international economic stability.
After three months, the war has morphed into what can be described as an environment of “controlled chaos” that transcends traditional military tactics and exceeds geopolitical boundaries. It has generated technological, geopolitical and economic shifts that are altering the traditional international operating system; one that has, until now, favored and privileged the United States, Israel and their allies.
Technology has impacted every aspect of this asymmetrical war. It has become both a tool and a target. The conflict has also demonstrated that advanced military technology and hardware have not guaranteed an easy victory for the U.S. and Israel.
In its response to the overwhelming assault, Tehran has shown that in a technical world, “physical” war is no longer required to render a more powerful enemy helpless. It simply needed to disrupt global shipping by dominating the Strait of Hormuz. By establishing control of this vital chokepoint, through which roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies pass, Iran has gained critical strategic leverage.
It bears pointing out that Iran’s historical and geopolitical identity has always been fused with the Strait of Hormuz. The designation bears the legacy of thousands of years of Persian civilization. Long before it became an artery of the modern global economy, this narrow stretch of water was the sacred and strategic maritime gateway to the Persian empire.
Its very name is tied to the Sassanian dynasty (224-651 CE), the last great pre-Islamic Persian empire and initiator of Zoroastrianism (one of humanity’s oldest monotheistic faiths) as the state religion. Linguists and historians trace the etymology of “Hormuz” to “Ohrmazd,” the Middle Persian derivation of “Ahura Mazda”—the supreme deity of ancient Zoroastrianism.
The Strait of Hormuz is not only a strategic energy corridor it is an equally vital internet connectivity pathway. As part of its unconventional asymmetric warfare, Iran has threatened to attack the seabed fiber-optic lines laid in the waters of the strait. About 18 percent of the world’s data, carrying internet traffic between Africa, Asia and Europe, runs through these essential submarine cables.
In addition, Tehran, now in control of the strait, has threatened to impose licensing requirements and fees on U.S. tech firms to use the internet cables that traverse the waterway.
After more than 40 years of U.S. and Israeli aggression, the Islamic Republic has long prepared its defenses, focusing on asymmetric warfare, with large-scale missile and drone stockpiles.
Thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles are hidden in underground “missile cities” inside mountains (ready to launch) across several provinces. Iran also possesses a massive and diversified arsenal of advanced low-cost drones, used for surveillance, reconnaissance and combat, that are as accurate as missiles and able to evade radar.
To conduct naval warfare, Tehran has developed and created a large inventory of relatively inexpensive unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), designed to patrol underwater and act as a torpedo. These attack drones have eroded the traditional dominance of large surface vessels; the bedrock of the U.S. Navy.
Iran’s missile and drone, “mass-produced” technology, have put an end to the guarantee of U.S.-Israeli air and sea superiority.
The U.S.-Israeli plan to alter the regional geopolitical landscape through the forced removal of the Islamic Republic has not only failed, it has backfired. Instead, they have ushered in a new geopolitical era, in which Iran operates as the central axis of regional power. Certainly, not the outcome Washington and Tel Aviv had in mind.
The irony is unmistakable. The war has opened a new chapter in Iran’s revolutionary history. The nation suppressed for half a century under crippling constraints has risen to the top. The Islamic Republic has emerged from the crisis stronger, both internally and externally, determined never to return to the post-war status quo.
By wielding power over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has transformed from an isolated nation into the gatekeeper of Gulf energy exports. This new reality has forced consuming nations to reconcile with Tehran to secure vital energy supplies.
Tehran’s control of the strait also serves as a strategic mechanism to secure long-term concessions, fund reconstruction and provide compensation to the families of the 3,468 Iranians killed and 26,500 injured by U.S-Israeli bombs. According to government estimates, physical damages from the bombing totals approximately $270 to $300 billion.
There is little doubt that Washington is fighting a war against Iran for Israel, instigating regional divisions and instability that Tel Aviv welcomes. For decades, the central pillar of U.S.-Israeli policy has been containing Iran.
Since the 1980s, U.S. foreign policy in West Asia has functioned primarily to ensure that no regional power would be capable of challenging its hegemony. This stance was first solidified by the Carter Doctrine in 1980, that officially signaled a commitment to use military force to assure America’s control over the flow of oil from the Gulf.
In the 1990s, Washington’s strategy was reinforced through the Clinton administration’s “dual containment” policy, that utilized regional security to justify actions to isolate and control Iraq and Iran.
Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar were crucial in implementing the “dual containment”policy. They provided permanent basing rights for U.S. air and ground forces and allowed a large naval presence in the UAE and Bahrain. Several furnished essential logistical, financial and staging support for overt and covert operations against both countries.
Concurrently, the U.S. fostered military cooperation between Israel and the Arab sheikhs, connecting Israeli security with Arab security against invented “common” regional threats.
Since 1948, the United States has been attempting to persuade Arabs that accepting Israel in their midst and normalizing ties would be good for them and the region. The war has underscored that the regimes’ misguided pursuit of security under the U.S. umbrella has ensnared them into an unwinnable and costly fight.
Writing in Arab News (10 May 2026), Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., praised de facto Saudi leader, Mohammed bin-Salman, for having the wisdom to avoid being pulled into the U.S.-Israeli war. He wrote: “Had the Israeli plan to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran succeeded, the region would have been plunged into ruin and destruction….Israel would have succeeded in imposing its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings.”
Israel has always been the greatest threat to West Asian stability. It profits economically, militarily and territorially by hardening divisions between Iran and its Arab neighbors.
The war shocked America’s Gulf Arab allies. Their vulnerability shattered the “safe haven” narrative, causing a systemic collapse of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s economic model based on the export of key commodities (oil, liquified natural gas, helium, sulfur and urea) through the Strait of Hormuz, investment and tourism.
It has also forced them to reassess their security priorities. The UAE, for example, has made it clear that its “mecca” is Washington and Tel Aviv. Others, less hawkish, led by Saudi Arabia, are pivoting toward the idea of a Gulf-centric security architecture or aligning with Beijing and Moscow.
After decades of defining security in U.S.-Israeli terms, expending enormous resources to contain Iran, they have begun to contemplate a regional balance of power that recognizes Tehran as indispensable to the stability of West Asia.
Riyadh, for instance, has been pushing for a regional non-aggression pact with Iran, meant to ensure state sovereignty and provide the Islamic Republic with guarantees against future attacks. Missing from the talk of regional security, however, is Palestine. Implicitly they know that regional stability is chimerical until Israel is contained and Palestine is liberated.
The sentiments of the Arab public, particularly regarding Palestine, are rarely, if ever, reflected in the actions of their rulers. The gap between them has only widened because of the war and their failure to sever ties with or condemn Israel.
That Israeli Zionists do their utmost to foment division and chaos was evidenced by the recent (14 May) storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque—the third holiest site in Islam—by Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his followers, who danced and waved the Israeli flag, declaring the compound in Zionist hands.
The crisis in the Persian Gulf has also spurred China and Russia to greater involvement and solidified the China-Russia-Iran coalition. America’s failed security cover for Gulf states has forced them closer to China and Russia.
Beijing and Moscow, looking to fill the vacuum that will be left if and when America withdraws, have been laying the groundwork for an alternative security framework for the region.
In contrast to the U.S.-led exclusive alliance system, they have been promoting an inclusive “collective security” architecture to foster stability. In addition to security coordination, based on military balancing and mediation, their shared vision is anchored in state sovereignty, statecraft, economic development and investment.
The co-dependent coalition between the U.S. and Israel has yielded nothing but wars and instability. Washington’s alliance with Israel has killed and wounded countless innocents, devastated economies and ecosystems, destroyed America’s global standing, strained alliances with Arab states, expended enormous resources and has come at a huge cost to its own political and economic stability.
The Washington-Tel Aviv axis ushered in a regressive “dark age;” an era in which powerful states and their allies have operated with impunity, actively violated international law and discarded basic ethics and morality.
It will take generations to recover from the chaos created by the Trump administration’s decision to green light and to directly participate in Israel’s war against Iran—a course its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has relentlessly promoted since the early 1990s.
Israel’s ability to subcontract U.S. foreign policy to remake West Asia in its image through force may have finally run its course. Since dragging America into a war it cannot win or easily exit, Tel Aviv’s leverage over the political, military and media apparatus in the United States has begun to weaken.
The war has left the United States weakened, and its future uncertain. Iran’s ability to resist and stalemate the world’s only superpower and its Israeli proxy, has ended Washington’s power to dictate global outcomes. Tehran has essentially ended America’s tenure as the undisputed sole unipolar power.
The war has exposed not only the limitations of U.S and Israeli air power, but their benightedness with regard to the Islamic Republic as well. Arrogantly, they continue to underestimate Iranian skill, ingenuity, resilience and steadfastness, and fail to understand that a civilization with a recorded history dating back thousands of years, will never capitulate or surrender its sovereignty.
The post Harvest of Chaos: The U.S. and Israel War on Iran appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by M. Reza Behnam.