Does the military confrontation between the United States and Israel with Iran constitute a turning point for the security architecture of the Middle East, and what new balance of power is emerging in the aftermath? – ELIAMEP experts’ views

Ino Afentouli, Senior Policy Advisor; Head of the Geopolitics and Diplomacy Observatory, ELIAMEP

Barring those directly threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and despite the vast financial and military support their countries have provided, the peoples of the EU never felt that this war was “theirs”. And yet, this was the first military conflict in the heart of the continent since the end of World War II. This repression of the threat of war is largely due to the culture of peace that has been cultivated in Europe over the last eight decades—a culture encapsulated in the phrase “Never Again”. It is also the result of the institutional framework designed to ensure that disputes between European nations are resolved peacefully. Today, the nations of Europe find themselves confronted by a second war; though it is not being fought on their own soil, it poses an equally grave threat to their security.

In both the Ukrainian and the Iranian contexts, the nations of Europe are contending with the fallout from conflicts they neither chose nor planned, and over whose trajectory they lack meaningful control. Nonetheless, these are conflicts that will inevitably impact both the peoples and institutions of Europe. In other words, the present juncture is reminiscent of the summer of 1914, when our continent sleepwalked into the First World War. Now, as then, Europe remains unprepared.

The conflict with Iran, to which Greece and Cyprus are the closest European nations, will be protracted and is already escalating into a broader regional struggle. If Turkey, Syria and Lebanon should get involved, whether directly or indirectly, the consequences for us will be dire. The pre-emptive deployment of Greek forces to Cyprus underscores this reality. Even if the institutions to which we belong, the European Union and NATO, were to trigger their collective defence mechanisms, it would signify that our nations are facing a peril of the highest order. Regrettably, should this worst-case scenario materialize, we will be faced with a second European war, this time with the Eastern Mediterranean at its epicentre.

Triantafyllos Karatrantos, Research Associate, ELIAMEP

The ever-evolving regional security environment in the Middle East

The US-Israeli military conflict with Iran is another—and likely the most important critical—chapter in an ongoing reconfiguring of the Middle East’s security architecture and alliances. The process began after the terrorist attack launched against Israel on 7 October 2023 and the rapid succession of military and geopolitical events that followed it. Since October 2023, we have seen the systematic curtailing of Iran’s power, primarily by Israel. Initially through the weakening or overthrow—as in the case of the Assad regime—of the members of the infamous “Axis of Resistance”, the network which had effectively established Iran as a dominant regional actor. The region has changed radically in the period since the initial attacks: the Assad regime has fallen in Syria; Hezbollah, Hamas and various Shiite militias and paramilitary forces that acted as hybrid proxies for Iran have sustained crippling losses; and the Houthis have seen their influence severely diminished.

Iran had previously exploited the power vacuum created by Washington’s substantial disengagement from the region after 2011. This dynamic has now shifted so fundamentally that Tehran has not only lost its regional power; its theocratic regime is currently fighting for its survival.

Furthermore, Iran’s targeting of neighbouring states has failed to drive a wedge between them and the United States; instead, these provocations have pushed countries like Saudi Arabia into adopting a formal stance against Iran.

Israel has emerged with bolstered regional power and influence, appearing ready to resume the momentum of the Abraham Accords, which had stalled in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. However, it remains to be seen how Israel’s relations with the Arab nations will develop from here—most notably with Saudi Arabia, with which a landmark normalization deal was imminent prior to the conflict. Riyadh, alongside other Gulf countries like Qatar, has also seen its regional standing strengthened.

Nevertheless, the regional picture remains complex. Israel’s fraught relationship with Syria and Turkey—the latter of which also seems to be losing some of its previously amassed regional influence—must be taken into account.

Ultimately, the discourse surrounding a new security architecture cannot be finalized without considering the ultimate fate of the Iranian regime and the broader post-conflict landscape for the country. While the threat from Iran’s missile arsenal and proxies could be reduced, and its nuclear ambitions thwarted, we may see growing extremism, or even the emergence of new—or the evolution of existing—Shiite Islamist militant organizations.

Ultimately, the US has made a dynamic return to the Middle East and it remains to be seen how its rivalry with China and Russia will evolve within the region’s new geopolitical context, while it has become increasingly clear that the European Union must now develop its own distinct geopolitical footprint in the region.

Pantelis Ikonomou, Former Inspector, International Atomic Energy Agency; Research Associate, ELIAMEP

The reality about Iran’s nuclear weapons and the war

A list of the factual drivers, not a justification(!), of the actors involved in the Iranian crisis:

• It is widely held that “the capability to acquire nuclear weapons carries as much strategic weight as their actual possession” (for a historical analysis, see my book Global Nuclear Threat, [2019, in Greek], in which the above serves as an epigraph).
• Tehran utilizing its Possible Nuclear Military Capability since 2013 as strategic leverage to advance its international agenda.
• The landmark diplomatic agreement of 2015: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) placed Iran’s nuclear programme under stringent international oversight.
• The implementation of the JCPOA, which widened Iran’s breakout window (the time required to acquire the amount of fissile material required to build a nuclear bomb) from two to ten months, effectively containing the situation,
• Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu adamantly declaring since 2013 that “no deal will be a good deal”.
• US President Trump’s unilaterally withdrawing the US from the JCPOA in 2018 and reinstating sanctions against Iran. This counter-intuitive decision effectively reduced Iran’s breakout window back to a mere two months.
• Tehran ceasing to comply with the terms of the JCPOA in 2019/2020, following a series of targeted assassinations of Iranian politicians, military officers and scientists. Iran obstructing and ultimately barring International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from conducting meaningful oversight of its nuclear programme since then.
• The absence of a credible guarantee since then that Iran is not weaponizing its nuclear programme. Logically, however, had Iran already developed a nuclear capacity, it would have announced it to deter attacks against its territory.
• Israel’s status as an undeclared nuclear-armed state. As it is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is under no obligation to submit to international inspections. Nevertheless, this status affords Israel a decisive strategic edge and underpins its geopolitical standing in the region.
• A fundamental divergence in the objectives of the parties involved in the escalating conflict: For Iran, the goal is to annihilate Israel. For Israel, it is to dismantle the Iranian state. However, for the US, the ultimate goal remains ill-defined. It is likely linked to Trump’s mercurial temperament and narcissistic need to perform on the world stage.
• Trump’s irrational withdrawal from the JCPOA, followed by the impulsive decision to join the Israeli attack on Iran in June 2025—against the explicit counsel of his own national security advisers—points towards an absolute, if unexplained, subservience to Israeli interests. Historically, no American president (Obama, Bush Jr, or Biden) has ever sided with Israel in a war against Iran.
• The historical root cause of the crisis: the pogroms perpetrated by Christian Tsarist Russia in 1881-1906 against 2.5 million Jews; the anti-Semitic campaigns of Stalin’s Soviet Union after World War II; and, finally, the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed by Hitler’s—likewise Christian—Germany. These events led the global powers, acting through the UN in 1948, to establish a state of a few million Jews in Palestine—a state surrounded by a few hundred million Muslims.
• A pervasive indifference to the existential fallout currently confronting not only world Jewry and the Palestinians of that land, but the entire planet.
• A personal observation from a natural sciences perspective: the tendency towards chaos and disorder, which is the defining characteristic of universal entropy. In this shared journey, power imbalances are driving the collapse of hegemonies and the emergence of unpredictable multipolar shifts. We may also be experiencing the twilight of the American West. Unfortunately, the consequences remain impossible to foresee.