The recent trip of President Donald Trump and the dialogues with his counterpart, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, opens up a new board in economic and political terms internationally, but it also does so in the Middle East.
The Islamic Republic of Iran finds itself at the most critical moment in its contemporary history. The devastating war that began on February 28, 2026 (known in strategic circles as the Western military campaign against Tehran) has destroyed much of its key nuclear infrastructure, eliminated its leadership, and created a regional power vacuum crisis following the weakening of its network of allies.
In this devastated landscape, the historic board that faces the Shia Persian power against the monarchies and Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia has ceased to be a mere "Cold War" to become a tactical struggle for survival.
Militarily isolated and with its "Axis of Resistance" fractured (following the fall of Hamas, the severe weakening of Hezbollah, the neutralization of the capabilities of the Houthis in Yemen, and the collapse of the Al-Assad regime in Syria), Tehran is racing against time to evaluate its remaining diplomatic options for deterrence or confrontation against a Sunni bloc that watches its decline with deep suspicion and great bitterness for having been targeted by Iranian missiles and drones.
It is true that there is a historical backdrop with a schism that has never been closed; therefore, to understand Iran's current options, academia inexorably requires going back to the year 632 AD (the date of the death of the Prophet Mohammad). The disagreement over his legitimate successor gave rise to the schism between Sunnis (who opted for the elected caliphs and who today represent about 90% of the world's Muslims) and Shia (those who remained faithful to the succession line of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, who are now majorities in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain).
Although many proponents of both currents deny their disagreements over time between the two sectors. However, the religious factor is frequently used in the modern era as a catalyst for geopolitical ambitions for resources and regional influence. The turning point of contemporary history occurred with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. By overthrowing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and establishing a militant Shia theocracy, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini directly challenged the legitimacy of the conservative monarchies of the Persian Gulf, especially "the House of Saud" (Saudi Arabia), which is recognized in the Islamic world as the custodian of the holy places of Mecca and Medina. Since then, Iran's foreign doctrine has been based on exporting revolution and creating satellite militias to the regime that ideologically pivot around Tehran's policies and are known as proxies in the "Fertile Crescent" (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq) and in Yemen.
The reality in the developing war scenario and the end of the mirage of Beijing that in 2023 held a global diplomatic meeting in which a historic agreement between Tehran and Riyadh was publicized, sponsored by China in March of that year, is now history of the past.
At first, the pact seemed to freeze the bloody rivalry that kept both countries opposed in proxy wars in Syria and Yemen during the past decade. However, those of us specializing in that region and its affairs, knew full well that there would be no thaw and that it was all a "temporary strategic imperative" in which Iran sought economic relief from sanctions, and Saudi Arabia aimed to shield its development plan Vision 2030 from drone attacks. The ongoing war since February shattered that fragile illusion. The launch of Iranian missiles that struck civilian infrastructure and Saudi refineries caused a definitive rupture in relations. Despite desperate attempts to control damage - such as the televised apologies from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after activating air defenses in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain - The distrust of the Sunni world has become irreversible, and they lie in wait for the time to make a move against the Shia of Tehran.
Given this scenario, Iran's strategies and options against the Sunni bloc of the Gulf are not simple as approaches emerge to seek to close Sunni geopolitical strategic alliances integrated by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan. In the face of the consolidation of that political quadrilateral that has been advancing since the first weeks of May, Tehran has three cards on the table, each of which embodies a high political and military cost: Firstly, Iran knows it is incapable of sustaining a prolonged conventional war against the United States, Israel, and any other country that positions itself in the Washington-Jerusalem Alliance. Tehran's situation is not good as its main regional proxies have been severely degraded militarily.
However, Iran can temporarily resort to suffocating international trade with some success. The Strait of Hormuz, through which most of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) transit, is still controlled by Iranian forces seeking to impose new maritime commercial sovereignty regulations, although Washington is already adopting a counter-blockade that will make things more difficult for Iran, which will only be able to fight an asymmetric war that will bring significant costs due to new bombings on its territory. At the same time, Iran will try to economically pressure Gulf economies (which are already suffering collateral damage to their technological infrastructures, data centers in Bahrain, and regional tourism) to force them to deny the use of their airspace and military bases to U.S. aircraft under the plan that Washington calls: Project Freedom.
Another option for Iran is to activate its shrewd and pendular variable geometry diplomacy where on one hand it excludes the topic of its missile programs and on the other says it is not determined to concede on the topic of nuclear development, which it qualifies as a right that belongs to it. This option is very unrealistic, and Persian diplomacy knows it, and only leans towards this negotiating variable to buy time through high-level contacts of their diplomats. Thus, Iran tries to exploit the strategic ambiguity of Saudi Arabia as Riyadh fears that a complete collapse of the Tehran regime could unleash uncontrollable chaos or push Iran to accelerate the detonation of a nuclear weapon before its remaining plants are destroyed.
Finally, it is clear that Iran evaluates acceptance of "a regional letter that it considers as auxiliary parachute." This option will play at its appropriate time - although with little likelihood of success and acceptance - is the offer to revive "a regional security architecture without interference from Western superpowers." In fact, there are several colleagues in European capitals and even in Washington, who, from their profound regional ignorance fueled by the factor of "academic naivety," are tossing around concepts previously unthinkable in academic literature, such as a "joint nuclear fuel bank" or promises of Saudi investments in the post-war in exchange for concessions on the kingdom's defense programs.
Tehran knows and stands strong in that knowledge: "that the Arab world similarly rejects Israel's so-called intentions to redesign the Middle East map by force." As a last alternative in the face of the isolation of the Sunni Islamic world, Iran could seek to consolidate its alliance with Moscow and Beijing. Although both powers have issued lukewarm condemnations of Western bombings on its territory, the clandestine flow of satellite intelligence, chemical components for solid fuel missiles from China, and cutting-edge drone technology is the real lifeline for the regime.
The possibilities and actions of the Islamic actors in the Middle East have revealed that the myth of "pan-Muslim solidarity" has definitively yielded to the reality of national interest (Realpolitik).
The military aggression of Iran against its Arab Muslim neighbors during the holy month of Ramadan undermined decades of skillful Persian diplomatic rhetoric. That has perhaps been the fatal error on the part of Iran, something unthinkable that has pushed the Gulf Arabs to strengthen the Sunni bloc that is sheltered under the umbrella of Western defense and even deepens the logic of "the Abraham Accords" to isolate the radicalism of jihadist groups.
The concrete reality today is that Iran is no longer competing for regional hegemony in the Middle East. Its current options against the Sunni world are reduced to a single premise: to negotiate pragmatically for its survival or risk the total disintegration of the revolutionary model established in 1979 by Imam Khomeini.
Prof. George Chaya, is a Senior Advisor on Middle Eastern Affairs USA National Security expert OSINT based in Washington DC.
Comments