In less than a year, the Iran War has begun to reveal the contours of the multipolar world order.

“War has a momentum of its own,” US historian and diplomat George F. Kennan warned in September 2002, shortly before the United States invaded Iraq. “You know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.” The 2003 Iraq War brought the United States to Iran’s border, intensifying tensions that would culminate in America’s third Persian Gulf war in 2026.

For nearly eight decades, the United States has been the principal architect and guarantor of the international order. But the winds are changing. The new security paradigm is the rise of confident middle powers and a more multipolar world. Still, how the erosion of Pax Americana is unfolding in the Middle East warrants closer attention. Hegemonic powers rarely disappear overnight, or in a single decisive battle. Whether Roman, Ottoman, British, or Russian, they are gradually weakened by a series of events that expose their growing limitations and accelerate changes already underway.

In the case of the United States, three wars in the Middle East against Iraq and Iran stand out as defining milestones. The 1991 Gulf War established the United States as the region’s unrivaled security guarantor after the Cold War. The 2003 invasion of Iraq exposed the limits of American military power and statecraft. The 2026 Iran War may ultimately be remembered as the moment America’s closest regional partners began asking questions about their US relationship that would once have been unthinkable. Does the continued presence of American forces on Gulf soil enhance their security or place them in greater danger? In effect, the US-Iranian conflict may prove to be one of those moments that historians later identify as a catalyst. 

These three regional wars focused on the Gulf form a single strategic arc, fast-tracking the transformation of West Asia as alliances, trade routes and economic relationships are renegotiated. The newly signed Mecca Pact may be one of the first signs of that emerging order, with regional powers beginning to hedge against a future in which they can no longer assume that Washington will be their ultimate security guarantor. 

These three conflicts did not cause the decline of Pax Americana, but they laid the groundwork for its gradual unraveling. Any decline of American hegemony is likely to be a prolonged transition. The debate, then, should not be framed as the end of American power so much as its transformation.

Former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari told the authors: “There is no question that Pax Americana, in light of new circumstances, needs to be redefined,” even as the United States continues to enjoy “exceptional hegemony in today’s multipolar world.” American power has not disappeared, but the three-war arc has created more room for regional powers to hedge against it.

The 1991 Gulf War represented the high watermark of American power. With the Soviet Union collapsing, Washington assembled an unprecedented international coalition under a UN Security Council Resolution in the name of a “New World Order” to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Gulf monarchies welcomed permanent American military deployments, viewing the United States as the indispensable guarantor of regional security. Similarly, Washington served as a third-party mediator, alongside Norway, to push Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993 to accept the Oslo Accords framework, the basis of a two-state solution.

That dominance demanded enormous and sustained expenditures. After World War II, and especially after 1991, the United States built a global order based on military alliances, control of global security institutions, dominance of financial systems, and technological leadership, particularly in outer space and cyberspace. However, every hegemonic system faces pressure when commitments become costly, rivals develop alternatives, and allies seek greater independence. Per Ferguson’s law, any great power spending more money on servicing its national debt than on its military defense risks losing its superpower status. 

In 2003, the invasion of Iraq marked a turning point. Although the United States achieved a swift military victory, it proved a Pyrrhic one, and the occupation became protracted and enormously costly, with the United States largely withdrawing in 2011. Iraq’s institutions collapsed, Iran’s regional influence expanded, and America’s credibility suffered. The few US forces left in Iraq as part of an advisory mission are set to withdraw by September 30.

The 2026 war with Iran may prove to be the most consequential of all, because it fundamentally altered strategic thinking among America’s Gulf partners. In 1991, the United States coordinated with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, along with other European powers, to expel Iraq from Kuwait. In 2003, the United States and the UK were the primary powers behind the invasion of Iraq. In 2026, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, but left the Gulf countries to bear the retaliation. Yet even with Israeli military might and America’s advanced arsenal, the Trump administration could not prevent Iran from striking back in a techno-guerrilla war, using drones to retaliate, AI Lego videos to shape global opinion, and allegedly hacking American water infrastructure. 

For decades, hosting American forces was regarded as the ultimate security guarantee. Today, that assumption is being questioned. Some Gulf states are asking whether those same bases have placed their own populations and infrastructure at greater risk. That conversation would have been inconceivable a decade ago.

Rather than relying exclusively on Washington, Gulf capitals are now diversifying their foreign relations, strengthening ties with China, maintaining dialogue with Russia and pursuing more independent regional diplomacy. Hayder Al Khoei, an Iraq analyst, argues that the recent conflict has sped up that reassessment. “Despite Trump’s claims about Iran’s degraded military, Tehran’s ability to penetrate several layers of American, Israeli, and Arab air defenses and air forces across the region to effectively render useless the hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American air defenses, missile interceptors, and fighter jets,” he said in an interview, has prompted “a serious rethinking across the Gulf on whether American forces stationed in their countries are assets or liabilities.”

As former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis often points out, “The enemy gets a vote,” meaning that however decisive Trump thought Operation Epic Fury would be, Iran’s response muted its impact.

The conflict also forced policymakers to confront how badly they had misjudged Iran. As Al Khoei puts it, the United States and Israel “mistook [Iran’s] regional defeats [in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine] to signal weakness at home and assumed there would be a domestic uprising as soon as those first missiles struck, decapitating Iran’s leadership, but what we witnessed next was the exact opposite.”

“Iran’s immediate and sustained military response against American, Israeli and Arab targets across West Asia indicated a much stronger, more coherent and more confident Iran than the Israelis or Americans anticipated,” Al Khoei notes.

The conflict also appears to have reignited a sense of national cohesion that war plans had not factored in. A reported surge in nationalism in the face of foreign aggression suggested that ethnic and political divisions did not override national loyalty. There was, as Al Khoei describes, “a rallying around the flag.”

For his part, Khonsari cautions against overstating a shift in thinking in the Gulf. While the 2026 war has undoubtedly shaken Gulf confidence, he argues that the region is pursuing strategic hedging rather than strategic realignment.

“The stark reality,” he says, “is that there is no alternative to the US for the Gulf states.” Even as they build on ties with Beijing and Moscow, Gulf leaders remain unconvinced that either power can provide the security guarantees Washington still offers. 

As of now, Khonsari’s reading is closer to the current status quo. None of the Gulf states has expelled American forces from its bases. The last precedent was a quiet affair of US forces’ withdrawal from Saudi Arabian bases after the 2003 Iraq War. This was a mutual agreement, so Riyadh and DC did not appear to give in to Osama bin Laden’s demands. 

China intervened diplomatically in 2023 to bring the Iranian-Saudi Arabian post-Arab Spring Cold War to a truce, but was not in a position to mediate between the United States and Iran in 2026, nor has it indicated that it seeks to be the new extra-regional hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf.

In this case, Pakistan intervened as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, and then formed a trilateral alliance with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia’s new Red Sea alliance, involving more than 10 countries, is another example of this hedging. Where Washington once could deter the Houthis through airstrikes, Riyadh is spearheading a broader regional security network, spreading the burden of maritime security across more states rather than relying on a single external power. What has changed is the emergence of alternative security architectures.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has sought unsuccessfully to create a “Sunni Muslim NATO” to contain Iran. Washington would have approved that policy. The latest Mecca Accords between Turkey (also a NATO member), nuclear-armed Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the swing producer of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), were kept quiet until the eve of the announcement in August 2026, an indication that Riyadh was seeking a backup to Washington’s security guarantees that have been implicit since World War II.

Even Europe is adjusting. Spain, a member of NATO and the EU, resumed its diplomatic presence in Tehran before the conflict had fully concluded, signaling that engagement is an important instrument of statecraft. Of course, the contrast with its position two decades ago is striking. In 2003, Spain joined the “Coalition of the Willing” and took part in the occupation of Iraq. In 2026, it resisted the global hegemon of the unipolar era.

In the final tally, the three Gulf wars form a single arc. The 1991 Gulf War, despite ending in a decisive American victory, left a legacy that would impact everything that followed. President George HW Bush publicly encouraged Iraqis to rise against Saddam Hussein, only to abandon the uprising when it came.

When American forces returned in 2003, many Shia joined Sunni insurgents in resisting the occupation, creating the conditions for Iran to expand its influence dramatically. Tehran funded, trained, and armed a network of Shia militias that have since evolved into some of Iraq’s most powerful political and military actors. More than two decades later, those groups remain deeply embedded in the Iraqi state, bedeviling Baghdad’s relationship with Washington.

“It is a very awkward position for the Iraqi government to be in, because on the one hand it needs US support and investment but on the other hand it relies on those Iran-backed Shia militias to stay in power,” says Al Khoei.

This is where the three-war arc comes full circle. The contradictions, born from decisions made during all three wars, now define one of the Middle East’s many dilemmas. They compel Baghdad’s central government to conduct a difficult balancing act to placate both the hegemonic United States and the Shia militias.

These three successive Middle East wars accelerated the transition from an American-led order to one in which power is dispersed among a growing number of regional and global actors. As Khonsari puts it, despite all the posturing, Trump is now seeking “to make a deal with people he has called ‘scum.’”

If 1991 marked the birth of Pax Americana in the Gulf, 2003 exposed its vulnerabilities. The 2026 war with Iran may ultimately be remembered as the moment its closest allies began preparing for what comes next.

About the Authors: Tanya Goudsouzian and Ibrahim al-Marashi

Tanya Goudsouzian is a Canadian journalist who has covered Afghanistan and the Middle East for over two decades. She has held senior editorial roles at major international media outlets, including serving as opinion editor at Al Jazeera English. Her work has also appeared in The National Interest, Responsible Statecraft, War on the Rocks, The New Arab, and Engelsberg Ideas.

Ibrahim al-Marashi is an associate professor of Middle East history at California State University, on the board of the International Security and Conflict Resolution (ISCOR) program at San Diego State University, and a visiting faculty member at The American College of the Mediterranean and the Department of International Relations at Central European University. His publications include Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (2008), The Modern History of Iraq (2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (2024).

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