The recent US-Israeli military confrontation with Iran is not merely a limited military operation or another round in the cycle of mutual deterrence. Rather, it presents a revelatory moment for the entire structure of the international order. This confrontation redrew geopolitical divisions in an unprecedented way, exposing the limits of assumptions that had governed the behaviour of major powers for decades, chief among them the belief that conflicts could be contained through neutrality or conventional diplomatic instruments.
What became clear in the earliest days of the war is that the world no longer operates according to the logic of managed tensions and deliberate restraint, but within a highly interconnected environment where geography intersects with transnational networks, and regional crises can rapidly transform into direct global shocks. Iran launched strikes across several countries in the region in the first few days of the war alone, targeting American assets as well as Gulf energy and other infrastructure – almost immediately causing global market disruption. The course of the war demonstrated that the concept of “neutrality” is no longer viable in contemporary regional contexts, particularly in the Middle East.
When the instruments of conflict extend through armed proxies, the closure of vital maritime corridors and threats to global energy supplies, any state, regardless of its efforts, finds itself drawn into the trajectory of the crisis in one form or another. Qatar, for example, had invested years in mediation between Washington and Tehran, keeping channels open with all sides, yet faced Iranian strikes on its civilian infrastructure and energy installations hours after the war began. Neutrality is easier to declare than to maintain.
Iranian strikes on energy infrastructure across Gulf states forced several producers to declare force majeure and suspend their operations. In Qatar, Qatar Energy halted LNG production, and the effects were felt almost immediately in Europe through a surge in gas prices of almost 50 percent in the Netherlands and the UK, a reminder that the global economy, energy security and supply chains are now directly tied to the stability of this region. Engagement with difficult or intransigent regimes has remained a persistent challenge.
Several NATO member states signalled reluctance, or declined altogether, to support Washington’s request for expanded cooperation. At the multilateral level, divisions within the UN Security Council became evident: while some members condemned Iran’s strikes on Gulf states, the Council was unable to reach a consensus regarding the US-Israeli strikes, underscoring deep disagreements among major powers over how to approach and engage with Iran. The ceasefire camp draws on a weighty historical record.
Military interventions, such as those in Iraq and Libya, for example, have demonstrated that toppling regimes by force does not necessarily lead to the construction of stable systems; more often, it opens the door to chaos and institutional collapse. In both Iraq and Libya, external military interventions contributed to prolonged conflict, fragmentation and institutional collapse, from which both countries are still recovering. This camp holds that war is a crisis multiplier and that the priority must be to halt the humanitarian and economic toll and return to the diplomatic track, even if that means coexisting with a difficult or intransigent regime.
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