Re-emergence of Iran and the Gulf's new reality

Illustration: TBS

When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on 28 February 2026, during the first day of Israeli and US airstrikes, the assumption in Washington and Tel Aviv was that Iran's centre of gravity had been struck. 

According to Reuters, the attack that opened the US-Israeli campaign also killed top Iranian officials. Reuters also reported that Khamenei's funeral is set to begin on 4 July and end with burial in Mashhad on 9 July.

Yet the Islamic Republic did not collapse. Instead, it absorbed the shock, moved quickly through succession, and forced its adversaries into a conclusion few had expected at the start of the war: Iran is hurt, but not defeated.

The first sign of recovery came from the top. Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader's son, later succeeded him as Supreme Leader, avoiding a visible power vacuum. 

BBC's public video listings also describe Mojtaba as having been chosen as his father's successor after the US-Israeli strikes. 

In a system where leadership rupture could have triggered elite fragmentation, the rapid succession mattered. The IRGC, clerical establishment, presidency and security services appeared aligned enough to keep the state functioning.

That institutional cohesion became the foundation of Iran's survival. Reuters described Iran as "battered but standing", with the Islamic Republic preserving both its political establishment and much of the leverage that brought Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table. 

The war's verdict is that the balance of power has remained broadly unchanged, Iran has emerged politically emboldened, and Gulf confidence in US protection has been deeply shaken.

For Tehran, survival itself became the message. Iran remained, in the view of Gulf states, a "formidable and undefeated force" capable of threatening Gulf Arab states and global energy flows, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz. 

Its capacity to disrupt regional order, rather than disappear under pressure, became the key fact of the post-war landscape.

"'Epic Fury' has been an epic disaster," said Aaron David Miller, a former US official and negotiator, referring to the US-Israeli campaign launched on Iran. 

For Washington, the emerging deal offers an exit from a costly confrontation that failed to deliver its most ambitious objectives: forcing Tehran's capitulation, dismantling its nuclear capability, and curbing its missile programme.

The Memorandum of Understanding, due to be signed on Friday, provides for a 60-day cessation of hostilities while the two sides negotiate a permanent settlement, including disputes over Iran's enriched uranium stockpile. 

But this is less a peace accord than a mechanism to halt the fighting. Fundamental disputes remain unresolved: Iran's enriched uranium, enrichment levels, sanctions relief, security guarantees and control of key waterways.

Miller called the MoU "a ticket to negotiation," a first phase that buys time for talks whose success is far from guaranteed. Its structure echoes Gaza ceasefire frameworks: a pause that postpones the hardest issues without ensuring they will ever be resolved.

More and more Gulf states are coming to realise that Iran is here to stay, that it retains the capacity to disrupt the regional order.

Fawaz Gerges, Former director, London School of Economics and Political Science

The deepest aftershock is being felt in the Sunni Arab Gulf states. The stability that underpinned decades of economic growth has been challenged. By this measure, Gulf states are among the war's main losers: spectators to decisions that reshaped their security landscape, now left to absorb the fallout.

For Gulf capitals, the US-Israeli campaign produced precisely what they had long feared: Iranian strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure, disruption around Hormuz, and a heavy economic blow. 

The conclusion now forming across the Gulf is sobering. Neither US nor Israeli forces removed the Iranian challenge, while the costs of confrontation fell disproportionately on those caught in between.

"More and more Gulf states are coming to realise that Iran is here to stay, that it retains the capacity to disrupt the regional order," Fawaz Gerges, former director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Reuters. 

"The Gulf states don't trust Iran. They had hoped the United States would bring about regime change. The reverse has happened," he added. "Now more and more Gulf rulers realise they cannot depend on the US or Israel to deliver security or stability."

That is why Gulf capitals are shifting towards engagement with Tehran. 

Washington will remain an indispensable partner, but the conflict is likely to accelerate a quiet realignment. Gulf states are expected to diversify defence ties and hedge against future shocks. 

Abdulaziz Sager, Chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center told Reuters, "Washington failed to deliver its declared objectives, from regime change to curbing Iran's nuclear programme, while handing Tehran two new points of leverage, the weaponisation of Hormuz and the ability to directly threaten Gulf states."

"They switched from unconditional surrender to an MOU. They caved in," said Sager. "They said they would change the Iranian regime; they couldn't. They said they would resolve the missile and nuclear file; that didn't happen."

Israel, too, appears to have been left with an unfavourable outcome. Three Israeli officials told Reuters that the deal omits Israel's core demands, including dismantling Iran's enrichment capability and curbs on its missile programme. 

They said they were caught off guard when US President Donald Trump signalled that a deal was close. Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue directly with Trump, while stressing Israel was not a party to the agreement. 

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rejected the deal, saying Israel was not bound by it "in any way".

With the US backing away from a wider war, Israel's ability to continue the campaign narrowed. Its subsequent strike on Lebanon underlined the risk of the conflict spreading, but Washington again refused to expand its role. 

That left Israel exposed to the same reality confronting the Gulf: US power remains vast, but not unlimited.

"What is about to be signed is not peace, but recognition: that the war's ambitions outran its achievements; that the battlefield produced a stalemate, and that Gulf states, which bore the heaviest costs, are recalibrating their security on shakier ground than at any point in time," said Miller.

Iran's recovery after Khamenei's death was not a clean military victory. It was a demonstration of regime resilience.