Nevertheless, it did so with aplomb.was based on the erroneous premise that if critical personnel are neutralised, the Iranian security establishment would readily disintegrate, especially given the massive street protests between late December 2025 and February 2026 that were brutally squelched by the regime, killing over 30,000 people.within days of his father's assassination. Fixed military installations throughout the Gulf now lie permanently within Iran's precision-strike envelope.In Gulf capitals, military experts and policymakers are publicly questioning whether the continued presence of American military installations still serve their interests, or if it has instead become a source of strategic and tactical risk.— for long, one of the defining features of Arab statecraft —Moscow rebuffed Arab entreaties to restrain Tehran, while Beijing continued its economic engagement and military support to Iran.Unsure of the efficacy of external guarantees, several Gulf monarchies have now intensified efforts at strategic self-help throughand discreet discussions over expanding trade settlements inIn May 2026, Riyadh floated the idea of a regional non-aggression compact that would include Iran and drew deliberate comparisons to the Helsinki Accords. Whatever its eventual fate,Khamenei's fatwa proscribing nuclear weapons effectively died with its author.The continuing US attacks have only reinforced that argument.nuclear deterrence enhances survivability; strategic ambiguity creates leverage; and unilateral disarmament risks the fate that befell Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussain or even Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons as a consequence of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Saudi Arabia's nuclear quest stands endorsed by the US itself, though currently it is behind the fig-leaf of civilian use.Closer home, for over 79 years, New Delhi has played only a very limited strategic role in shaping the politics of West Asia.It cannot become a justification for remaining absent from the room where decisions affecting India's vital sea lanes and energy security are made.The question no longer is whether US predominance has weakened in West Asia — that is a sequitur. All eyes are on the possible emergence of a new regional security order in the foreseeable future.