With the escalation of the American-Israeli war on Iran, the question is no longer confined to the scale of the strikes and Iran’s retaliation. The potential repercussions of the conflict and the way in which it will reshape the regional order are now front and center. The assassinations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ali Larijani, and other senior figures, as well as the spillover of the confrontation into the Gulf and Lebanon, indicate that the region is being strategically reconfigured and that the implications go beyond the military developments themselves.
The first repercussion is that we now have a weakened Iran, regardless of the future of the clerical regime and whether it endures in its current form, transforms, or collapses. The war has demonstrated the limits of Iran’s ability to withstand concentrated strikes on its leadership and military infrastructure, and it has also shown that the deterrence that had underpinned Tehran’s strategy for decades has been broken. This military setback does not necessarily signal that Iran’s regional role will collapse, but it does impose a profound reassessment of strategies and instruments.
The second repercussion is that Iran’s regional web of proxies, the backbone of Iranian influence, has been downgraded. The wars in Gaza and Lebanon have exposed the limits of these groups’ ability to alter the balance of power, as well as the heavy costs they generate for the societies in which they operate. This development raises a central question about the future of these actors: will they remain military proxies tied to a regional axis, or will they gradually evolve into political actors integrated within their respective nation-states? The answer to this question will largely determine the future of what remains of Iran’s regional project.
The third repercussion is the decline of the war-by-proxy model that has shaped the Middle East for decades. Regional powers have long managed their conflicts in third countries, but the shift toward clashes between the main belligerents suggests that this model is waning. As proxies become less effective for containing escalation, the region may move toward a new pattern of limited, direct confrontation between major players.
The fourth repercussion is that the space for what could be called “gray diplomacy” has shrunk: the informal, undeclared channels through which tensions had been managed to avoid fully-fledged conflicts. The current conflict has not made settlements untenable, but has made them more difficult and introduced more stringent conditions. Issues such as Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions, and Gulf security may eventually return to the negotiating table, but power balances would have changed and the parties involved would be more rigid. The “post-war phase” may therefore not unfold rapidly, becoming a prolonged transitional period marked by low-intensity tensions and interrupted by intermittent escalation and security and cyber operations.
The fifth repercussion is the need to reconfigure the Gulf security system. The attacks on the Gulf states have pushed them to accelerate their efforts to develop joint defense frameworks and to deepen their security partnerships. Energy security and maritime routes are no longer merely economic concerns; they have become integral to the military equation. This may, in turn, open the door to new regional security arrangements.
The sixth repercussion concerns the future of the Palestinian question. The war has granted the Israeli government greater latitude to postpone political progress under the pretext of security threats, thereby weakening the prospects for a Palestinian state in the near term. At the same time, however, the conflict could reinforce the conviction, among international and Arab actors, that the absence of a political horizon for Palestine will generate recurring cycles of violence, potentially bringing a settlement back into focus as part of a broader reconfiguration of the regional order.
The seventh repercussion relates to US-European relations. Contrary to expectations, the war does not appear to be fostering transatlantic convergence. Instead, it has heightened divergences between Washington and several European countries. Many have expressed clear reservations about involvement in the confrontation; the positions of Spain and France stand out in this regard, as Madrid and Paris have been critical of the military operations and not shown much willingness to join the escalation. This divergence reflects a deeper divergence in their respective approaches to regional security.
However, the most profound repercussions of the war remain less visible. The conflict has brought back a fundamental question about the meaning of sovereignty in the Middle East. A pattern of dual sovereignty had emerged: states coexisting with armed actors that have the power to decide war and peace. This model has weakened states and locked the region into recurring cycles of instability. Today, however, direct strikes on Iran and the attacks on its proxies suggest that the tide is turning, with the emphasis now on restoring the centrality of the state as the primary enforcer of regional security.
In sum, the Middle East is entering a prolonged transitional phase in which ideology will recede in favor of realism, with the value of a state capable of protecting its borders and interests becoming ever more pronounced. This war may not yield a swift peace, but it will reshape the rules of the regional game for years to come.
