The Structure of Built-Up Instability
The current crisis in the Middle East is not a temporary problem that can be solved through talks or limited military action. It is the result of structural deferral, which means that the underlying causes of regional conflict were dealt with for decades without being solved. They built up under the surface until they reached a critical mass. What is happening now is not just a military exchange; it is the end of a long series of hidden tensions, with each new crisis adding to the pressure on a system that can no longer handle any more shocks.
The current analytical framework is confined to the immediate and the observable. The coverage focuses too much on the military aspect—who is striking, where, and how hard—when the real stakes are in the chain reactions that are already changing the regional architecture. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is hard to get it back in. This is exactly what's happening right now: a system that's not just under stress but in systemic chaos.
It took years for the events that led to this point to happen. Israel killed Hezbollah's leaders in late 2024, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan. The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria in December 2024 cut off the main land route that Iran used to send weapons to its Lebanese proxy network. This happened faster because Hezbollah's operations were losing strength. Hamas had basically stopped being a military force in Gaza by early 2025. Iran's regional deterrence architecture was in bad shape when it entered 2025, and its Axis of Resistance was weakened on many fronts at the same time.
This degradation did not lead to stabilization. It made things more fragile and less predictable. When established balances started to break down, new actors, alliances, and ambitions rushed in to fill the gaps. By 2025, the geopolitical situation had changed from traditional interstate conflict to a fight for control of weak or failing states. The decline of Iran's proxy network did not bring peace but rather made the situation more unstable and divided.
From a regional system to an organism that is connected
Iran, Lebanon, the Kurdish regions, Baghdad, the Gulf monarchies, and Saudi Arabia are no longer separate strategic areas that work under different rules. They form a single organism that is very dependent on each other, and any major change spreads almost automatically throughout the body. This is a system of constant, cascading upheaval.
Each new crisis is worse than the last, not because it's more intense but because it's more complicated. Conflict management is no longer just about keeping a small number of state actors with clear interests and red lines in check. The IRGC and its affiliated militias, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, Hezbollah in its post-ceasefire reconstitution, and the Houthis in Yemen are all now part of a larger network of state and non-state actors. Each has its own interests, capabilities, and, most importantly, operational independence that does not depend on direct permission from Tehran.
In this situation, managing crises one at a time does not lower risk; it moves and increases it. Every "local" intervention moves tension to another place, brings in new people who are involved in the conflict, and makes the next phase more complicated. Analytical and diplomatic frameworks designed for a bipolar or multipolar state system have demonstrated structural inadequacy in the current reality.
A clear example of this analytical failure was the long-lasting misunderstanding of the Christian communities in the Levant, especially in Lebanon. Parts of the European intelligentsia kept calling these groups not historically indigenous peoples with deep roots in the region's social fabric, but privileged colonial intermediaries—an echo of a Western-engineered order. This interpretation was not just wrong. It was dangerous in a practical way. By bringing in outside ideas about how power works, it made it harder to understand how things really work. The result was not just a mistake in judgment; it was also a kind of political blindness that made whole communities unable to take part in diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts in which they were major players.
The Military Escalation and Its Boundaries
Israel started Operation Rising Lion on June 13, 2025. It hit more than 100 military and nuclear-related targets in Iran. Iran quickly launched Operation True Promise 3, which sent a wave of ballistic missiles and drones at Israeli infrastructure. After that, the United States hit three important Iranian nuclear sites at the same time. On June 23, 2025, a phased ceasefire brokered by the U.S. was announced after what became known as the Twelve-Day War. This was the most direct military conflict between Israel and Iran in modern history. The oil market was closely watching for a closure of Hormuz, which didn't happen during this time. The conflict briefly caused prices to rise by $5 per barrel before returning to normal levels.
The weak cease-fire only lasted for a short time. On December 28, 2025, huge protests against the government broke out all over Iran. At first, they were caused by the country's terrible economy, which was suffering from high inflation, a collapsing currency, and the weight of sanctions. But then they turned into calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. During what turned out to be the largest and longest-lasting popular uprising since the 1979 revolution, Iranian security forces killed tens of thousands of protesters. The protests spread to all 31 provinces, even those that have always been thought to be loyal to the government.
On February 28, 2026, the crisis reached its most important point when the US and Israel worked together to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, military bases, and high-ranking officials. The strikes killed Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, as well as a number of high-ranking officers in the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The operation built on the precedent and degraded capabilities set by the June 2025 conflict. It set off a chain reaction of secondary crises, including the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian retaliatory strikes across nine Gulf Cooperation Council states, the reactivation of Hezbollah on the Lebanese front despite its November 2024 ceasefire, the effective dismantling of what was left of Iran's Axis of Resistance, and the most severe disruption to global energy markets since the 1970s oil crisis.
During the June 2025 phase, Israel's layered air defense system, which included Arrow, David's Sling, and Iron Dome, as well as American naval assets, stopped almost all of Iran's missiles, resulting in only about thirty Israeli deaths. The 2026 campaign had similar uneven results: a ballistic missile attack on Beit Shemesh killed nine people, while the total number of Israeli deaths from Iranian attacks stayed at eleven as of mid-March 2026. These relatively low numbers show that Israel's multi-layered defense system is well-developed and that Iran's missile forces have been getting worse over time in each engagement.
The sharp drop in Iranian missile activity has made it look like the military is getting weaker. This picture is somewhat correct, but it is very misleading when it comes to making strategic decisions. Operational attrition is not the same as strategic neutralization. The IRGC is still a huge organization with a wide range of religious authority, a complex officer corps, several armed branches and affiliated militias, and a lot of control over important economic assets. Reserves do not disappear, the possibility of regrouping persists, and, crucially, the dynamics of the crisis are no longer solely contingent upon the measured military capability of any individual actor. The fight is still going on, but it has changed into a form that is less predictable and may be more dangerous. The lack of strong kinetic reactions does not indicate control. It shows that options are limited for a short time.
The Energy Dimension: How a Chokepoint Works and Why It Can't Be Replaced
The energy dimension of this crisis shows the structural weakness of the global order more clearly than any other part of it. The Strait of Hormuz, which is only 34 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, has been the world's economic jugular vein. In 2024, about 20 million barrels of oil and oil products passed through its waters every day. This was about 20% of the world's consumption of petroleum liquids, 25–27% of all seaborne oil trade, and 20% of the world's liquefied natural gas trade. The IEA thought that total flows would be about 20.9 million barrels per day in the first half of 2025.
The numbers become fully significant when there are no other options. Five of the world's biggest oil-producing countries—Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Iran—do not have any pipeline bypass infrastructure. Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pipelines that could, in theory, move crude oil exports around the Strait. The East-West Crude Oil Pipeline (Petroline) in Saudi Arabia runs from Abqaiq to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. It can handle 5 million barrels per day, but Aramco says that by March 2025, it will be able to handle 7 million barrels per day. However, they have not tested whether flows can stay at that level during a crisis. By early 2026, this system was already moving about 2 million barrels of oil per day, leaving only 3 to 5 million barrels of real spare capacity. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline in the UAE connects onshore fields to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, but it doesn't have as much extra capacity because it is used more often.
The total bypass capacity of both systems is about 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels per day, which is only a quarter of what usually goes through Hormuz. This one maritime passage is structurally locked to about 14 million barrels per day, and there is no other way to get there. There is no other way to use the Strait. There is no combination of options that can significantly make up for a long-term disruption in the near future.
People are now measuring the effects of this structural reality on people in real time. After the February 28, 2026, escalation, Iran's Revolutionary Guards started making statements that "not allowed" passage through the Strait, backed by the deployment of naval assets and reports of mining shipping lanes. By the beginning of March, most big shipping companies had stopped sending goods. There were about 150 to 170 tankers anchored outside the Strait, and they couldn't load or leave. Together, they could hold about 450,000 TEU. Iraq, which is the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, had to cut production in its oil-rich Basra region by 70%, from 3.3 million barrels per day to about 900,000 barrels. Saudi Arabia shut down the Ras Tanura refinery, which was its biggest facility and processed 550,000 barrels of oil per day. At the same time, energy companies like QatarEnergy, Shell, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, and Bapco used force majeure clauses, which is the first time this has happened in the history of Gulf energy production.
On March 8, 2026, the price of Brent crude oil went above $100 per barrel for the first time in four years, hitting a high of $126 per barrel. The rise was more than 40% higher than the levels before the war, which were about $65 per barrel. Analysts have called the disruption the biggest supply shock in the history of the global oil market. Structural models that predict the total shortfall over a three-month period put the deficit at between 630 and 1,080 million barrels. Right now, bypass and alternative supply methods cover less than half of that gap.
The alternative routes that are being used in emergencies show how bad the current bypass infrastructure is more than they help it. Iraq has started looking into exporting goods through the Syrian port of Baniyas and Jordan's Aqaba. They have also reopened the pipeline that goes through the Kurdistan region to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, which can hold 170,000 barrels per day, but that is not a lot compared to the scale of the disruption. The UAE has changed the flow of crude oil through Fujairah, and Saudi Arabia has changed the flow through Yanbu via the East-West pipeline. In March 2026, drones hit the port of Duqm in Oman, which is theoretically located outside the Strait in the Arabian Sea and could serve as an alternative transit hub. The drones damaged fuel storage tanks. The Red Sea route through Yanbu is also at risk of being blocked by the Houthis, which adds a second point of vulnerability to an already weak bypass network.
These are not changes to the technology. They are the makeshift responses of states that no longer trust the current system to work as a reliable framework. These states are no longer looking for the best routes, their are looking for ways to get away from a system that is falling apart. The market has taken into account not only the short-term supply disruption but also the long-term structural uncertainty of relying on a single, irreplaceable chokepoint in a region that is now in open conflict.
The Hazardous Fallacy of the Regime Change Remedy
In this context of systemic complexity, the most alluring, and perilous, analytical conclusion arises. The idea is that if Iran is the cause of instability in the region, then a change of government in Tehran is the only way to bring things back to normal. This hypothesis is appealing because it is simple in a situation that is not easy to understand. It is, however, fundamentally erroneous.
The crisis has already gone beyond Iran. It can't be fixed by changing something inside it. This is not a statement of ideology; it is is a fact that can be seen in the structure.
Think about the inside of Iran first. The IRGC is still a huge organization with economic interests, operational networks, and institutional inertia that go far beyond the power of any one leader. Even in the best-case scenario of a political transition without any opposition, which is very unlikely because Iran has many competing power centers, these kinds of changes need years of outside support and internal growth, not just a few months. The most likely short-term outcome after Khamenei's death is a power vacuum like the one that occurred in Iraq after 2003. This would mean that different groups would be fighting for control, military actions would be taken by people who no longer answer to a central authority, and there would be an opportunity for systemic chaos that outside forces, such as Russia, China, Turkey, and regional non-state groups, would quickly try to take advantage of. A fragmented Iran could be much more dangerous than a weak but unified one.
The regional network dimension makes the thesis even less believable. Iran's networks of power in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have grown stronger, more institutionalized, and more independent, so they don't have to rely on Tehran for direction all the time. Even after the ceasefire in November 2024 and after Nasrallah's death, Hezbollah was back in action within 48 hours of the February 28, 2026, strikes, firing missiles at Haifa. The quick return to operations was not due to Iranian command authority. Instead, it was due to the independent institutional logic of an organization that has its own political constituencies, funding streams, and strategic doctrine. The PMF in Iraq functions within a comparable realm of semi-autonomy, intertwined with Iraqi state structures in manners that obstruct straightforward disarmament or reorientation.
The larger regional players have taken this analysis and used it to make decisions. Saudi Arabia, which has long been Iran's main rival, joined Turkey, Qatar, and Oman in opposing a possible regime change in Tehran. This was a surprising move, given the long-standing hostility between the two countries. Saudi Arabia's worry is not just talk; the country has put its economic future on Vision 2030, a huge program to diversify the economy that depends on stability in the region and safe energy export routes. A shift in Iran toward chaos or a pro-American client government would create the kind of uncertainty that makes such investments impossible. One Saudi analyst said that Riyadh would rather have a weaker Iranian government that is focused on dealing with its own problems than an Iran that has broken up into the sectarian groups that have been fighting in Iraq since 2003. Turkey's reasoning is similar: Ankara is worried that an Israeli-shaped order after Iran would push Turkey out of the region while also creating refugee flows that would test its ability to manage its borders again and possibly give Kurdish political groups more power in areas that are directly important to Turkey's security.
Chatham House's analysis supports this structural interpretation: Arab states no longer view Iran as the sole origin of regional instability. Since the strikes in June 2025 and the ongoing Israeli operation in Gaza, more people see Israel as a cause of instability in the region. In 2023, China helped Saudi Arabia and Iran restore diplomatic ties, but things got worse after that. This set a precedent that major regional players prefer multilateral realignment over regime change to deal with Iranian power.
Most importantly, even if Iran underwent a major internal change, it would not automatically undo the interdependencies that have built up between Lebanon, Iraq, the Kurdish areas, and the Gulf monarchies. It could, and this is the biggest risk, set off forces that are currently being held back by the current (though weak) power structure. Letting those forces go free in an already unstable environment could lead to results that are much worse than managed decline.
The Worldwide Spread of a Local Crisis
The crisis is no longer limited to one area. It is growing in terms of function, adding new players at an ever-increasing rate, and turning what started as a regional conflict into a problem with global structural consequences.
India is one of the best examples. This is not a small problem for New Delhi. There are almost nine million Indians living in the Gulf, which supplies about half of India's oil imports and more than two-thirds of its LNG imports. Gulf remittances make up more than one-third of India's $135 billion in annual receipts, and the region is the destination for 15 percent of Indian merchandise exports. India's strategic weakness is made worse by its geography. It is not just a distant observer; it is also an immediate stakeholder. For example, Indian Navy destroyers are already in the Gulf of Oman to protect tankers, and five Indian-flagged LPG carriers were evacuated under Operation Sankalp between March 14 and 24, 2026.
Japan is similarly vulnerable. About 75 to 80 percent of Japan's oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz. Japan is almost completely dependent on the U.S. security umbrella to restore freedom of navigation and on IEA emergency stock coordination to fill the gap. This is because Japan has very few fossil fuel resources at home, and strict adherence to international sanctions means that it can't get discounted grey-market barrels that other importers can. Japanese refiners get about 95% of their crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar. All of these countries are currently in danger of losing their oil.
China is in a very important position because it gets about a third of its oil through the Strait and buys most of Iran's oil that is sent abroad. Beijing's choice to enforce or ignore sanctions, as well as its ability to mediate, could have a big effect on how long the disruption lasts. But China's own interests are contradictory: for example, China's energy security needs open Hormuz transit, but China's strategic interests include keeping power over both Iran and the US. Putin's public condemnation of Khamenei's killing as an "assassination" and "cynical violation of all norms of international law" makes things even more complicated for Russia. Moscow is very worried about a precedent that threatens the personal safety of heads of state. This is not an abstract worry for a leader who has kept a near-paranoid personal security regime since Gaddafi's death.
The sizes of the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea make things even less stable. The Houthis, whose stockpile of weapons has been damaged but not destroyed by repeated attacks, started threatening again in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea in March 2026, after not doing so since October 2025. According to security sources, there are plans for attacks in the Arabian Sea and the possible use of operational bases in East Africa. The coming together of fault lines in this theater, Sudan's civil war, Saudi-UAE tensions over Yemen's future, instability in Ethiopia, Somali-linked jihadist networks, and the strategic positioning of multiple outside powers create a zone of growing risk that stretches the crisis geography far beyond its Middle Eastern core.
Europe gets 12 to 14 percent of its LNG from Qatar through the Strait. It is still processing what it learned about energy security in 2022, but EU analysts say that these lessons were only partially absorbed. The continent knows how long and deep the crisis is, but it doesn't have the tools to respond strategically right away. The outcome is a gradual adjustment: energy costs are rising slowly, industry is facing more competition without a clear turning point, and the political cost is being spread unevenly across societies through inflation, lower household incomes, and the loss of energy-intensive manufacturing jobs. A long-term, structural decline instead of a visible shock. This is less dramatic but could be more damaging in the long run.
A New Normal: How Uncertainty Is Built into Structures
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, it looks like the cost of not resolving the issue is higher than the cost of fighting. Not necessarily as a single global conflict, but as a series of regional crises that build on each other, changing the balance of the system and making it harder to go back to the way things were before.
Going back to the old model, which was the perpetual postponement model that defined regional diplomacy from the Oslo process onward, is becoming structurally impossible. Too many parts of the system are broken, and too many actors have had to come up with their own ways of doing things and ways of thinking that can't be turned off by a diplomatic agreement made elsewhere. Analysts from CSIS, Chatham House, and the EU Institute for Security Studies all agree that the Middle East is going through a real change. The old order that defined the region for many years is giving way to a new order, but its final shape is still very unclear.
The most important factor in this change, which will decide if the new order is more or less stable than the old one, is not whether Iran's government changes. The question is whether the actors who are now gaining more power in the Middle East after Iran's dominance, mainly Israel and the Gulf states, but also Turkey, India, and to some extent China, can build a new system of mutual deterrence and functional coexistence that works with the region's inherent complexity.
This is a very hard job to do no matter what. It is much harder to do when there are active military operations, energy supply chains are falling apart, and oil shocks put pressure on every government with voters who are sensitive to fuel prices.
What is happening is not a temporary problem; it is the new normality. The crisis won't end quickly or in a straight line. It will happen through a series of tensions, each of which will change the balance of power in ways that can't be seen from where we are now. Uncertainty is no longer an odd thing about the Middle East system. It has become one of its most important parts, both structurally and durably.