Since the 1945 Yalta meetings between President Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdel Azziz Al Saud, the United States pledged security in exchange for oil. That compact has never faced strain like this.
Arab Gulf states, once anchored firmly to American military protection, are now hedging across multiple regional partners. Saudi Arabia has signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Pakistan, stationing 8,000 Pakistani soldiers on its soil. Egypt and Turkey are deepening military cooperation through joint exercises. These moves reflect something deeper than tactical repositioning: a waning confidence in American power to maintain regional stability and protect vital interests.
This recalibration traces back to a cascade of military operations that have reshaped the Gulf over the past two years. In June 2025, American bombers conducted a 12-day campaign against three Iranian nuclear sites. In January 2026, U.S. forces apprehended Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a surgical raid. Then, on February 28, 2026, Operation “Epic Fury” launched, marking the beginning of sustained conflict between Israel, the United States, and Iran. Each operation appeared to offer quick victories. Each proved to be a strategic miscalculation.
The intellectual foundation for this approach reaches back to Senator J. William Fulbright’s 1966 critique of American foreign policy. Writing as the United States sank deeper into Vietnam, Fulbright warned in “The Arrogance of Power” that American economic and military strength could become a pitfall when confused with moral superiority. This “might makes right” ethos, he argued, leads nations to assume they possess a global mission to start and end wars, to reshape governments that do not conform to their worldview, and to police the world against perceived threats. In the 1960s, the threat was communism. Today the dynamics have shifted, yet Fulbright’s warnings remain strikingly relevant. The latest military operations in the Gulf have demonstrated not only what Fulbright meant but also exposed the practical limits of American power.
The intelligence assessments that preceded Operation “Epic Fury” proved to be wishful thinking. By Israeli estimates, Iran’s military losses in June 2025, combined with Israel’s defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the ouster of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, suggested that Tehran’s ruling clergy stood on the verge of collapse. Popular demonstrations across Iranian cities in early 2026 reinforced this perception. Analysts believed that a targeted strike against Iran’s religious, political, and military leadership would deliver the final blow, much as the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had weakened that organization.
But Iran is not Hezbollah. For decades, the Iranian state prepared for direct confrontation with the United States and Israel. The regime proved far more resilient than anticipated. Iran demonstrated its ability to control and close the Strait of Hormuz at will, a vital global economic lifeline through which nearly a quarter of global energy supplies pass. The U.S. fleet and airpower based in neighboring countries proved unable to prevent this closure.
Rather than reassess these miscalculations, the Trump administration doubled down. As Fulbright once observed, “When a nation is very powerful but lacking self-confidence, it is likely to behave in a manner dangerous to itself and to others. Feeling the need to prove what is obvious to everyone else, it begins to confuse great power with unlimited power.” After the June 2026 Islamabad Memorandum for a ceasefire collapsed, the administration carried out attacks on Iranian bridges, power grids, and transportation networks. Each strike invited further Iranian retaliation against the countries hosting American military facilities.
The human cost of this cycle has fallen heavily on the Gulf states themselves. Jordan, Bahrain, and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries have borne the brunt of Iranian retaliatory attacks. American bases in the region, which were meant to deter Iranian influence and protect the energy-rich Gulf states, came under sustained assault. The devastation extended beyond military installations to civilian infrastructure: airports, water desalination centers, oil refineries, and liquified natural gas production lines. The appearance of stability upon which Gulf states had built ambitious plans for aviation hubs, tourism centers, and financial safe havens was shattered. The American military presence that was supposed to guarantee security had become a liability, drawing attacks onto the very countries it was meant to protect.
Iran’s leadership structure has transformed through the conflict. The regime lost its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ali Larijani, the national security council secretary and de facto second in command, in the early stages of the war. Yet the state rapidly replaced them and maintained its institutional chain of command. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, considered the backbone of the Islamic Republic, has emerged more emboldened and radicalized, now wielding unprecedented influence over high-level decision-making. This shift toward a more hardline Iranian leadership does not bode well for Gulf stability, particularly given Iran’s demonstrated willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz whenever it chooses to signal displeasure.
Meanwhile, Israel has emerged as the primary beneficiary of this conflict. For decades, it sought to convince American presidents to take military action against Iran. Trump finally agreed. Israel has leveraged this opening to expand its regional reach dramatically. Its war in Gaza now controls nearly 70 percent of the enclave. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have expanded amid escalating violence against Palestinian civilians. In Syria, Israel has seized and enlarged a buffer zone. In Lebanon, Israeli forces decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership, bombed the Al Dahya district of Beirut, and currently occupy parts of South Lebanon. On September 9, 2025, Israel carried out a strike against a Hamas delegation in Doha, Qatar, even as Qataris were hosting the group as part of mediation efforts. Some Israeli hawks have begun discussing the need to address Turkey as the next threat after Iran.
This expansion of Israeli military power has alarmed regional actors including Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. These states now face the prospect of a hegemonic Israel unconstrained by American moderation, operating with confidence that its relationship with the United States can withstand any disagreements. The strategic calculus that once centered on American military protection has become unreliable.
The consequences are reshaping regional alignments. In March 2023, China mediated an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to normalize relations. Though that accord proved short-lived, new initiatives between the two countries are now being floated. Arab middle powers are moving toward a security architecture based on multilateralism and regional defense pacts. Pakistan has stationed troops in Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Egypt are conducting joint military exercises. Media reports speculate about an emerging bloc linking Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Egypt, with its long tradition of diplomacy and mediation, has already deployed forces in the UAE and other Gulf countries.
The country positioned to benefit most from this shifting environment is Turkey, which harbors its own ambitions to become the region’s hegemonic power. This potential clash of interests with Israel over spheres of influence appears to be unfolding already in Syria and could eventually extend beyond the Levant.
The transformation of the Saudi-American relationship is particularly striking. In December 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia, bringing with him China’s growing appetite for oil and inking deals worth billions of dollars. China also requested that Saudi Arabia accept payment in Yuan currency for part of its oil imports, a request that did not escape Washington’s attention.
The intellectual framework for understanding this moment remains Fulbright’s analysis, which can be explored further at https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-arrogance-and-limits-of-american-power-in-the-latest-gulf-war/. His warning about the confusion between great power and unlimited power, about the inability to admit error and the compulsion to win every argument regardless of consequences, captures the trajectory that has led to the current impasse. A more hardline Iranian leadership has emerged, emboldened rather than humbled by military losses. The Gulf states that once depended on American security guarantees now live with an Iranian threat at their doorstep and diminished confidence in American reliability. The promised days of comprehensive strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia have given way to hedging, multilateral alignment, and regional recalibration. Whether any actor in the region, American, Iranian, Israeli, or otherwise, can find an off-ramp from this cycle of escalation remains the question no one has yet answered.