Does Collective Security in the Middle East Still Have a Chance?

The war between Israel, the United States, and Iran has pushed the Middle East into a state of profound instability. On one side, Israel (assisted by the United States) maintains significant advantages in military, technological, and intelligence capabilities that have wreaked destruction on Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists, as well as its military capabilities.

On the other, the government of the Islamic Republic still retains missiles, drones, and remnants of its regional proxies to launch missiles at Israel, threaten U.S. military bases in the region, and block or hamper critical waterways for shipping. Meanwhile, much of the Gulf is sidelined.

As an uneasy ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds, it’s worth examining what comes next for a region with dramatically shifting power dynamics. Can an imbalance of power between Israel’s vast capabilities and those of its neighbors truly produce security or lasting peace? The Middle Eastern countries that seek collective security may be losing the strategic war to Israeli aggression.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran has used its network of proxies to exert its influence in the region.  But after Israel’s successful targeting of these proxies and allies—and Israeli and American attacks on Iran itself—the likelihood of Iran reclaiming its status as a powerful regional force, a rival to Israel, and an effective opponent of U.S. interests is difficult to envision. This may drive Iran toward reckless escalation. The Israeli and U.S. attacks have undermined the Islamic Republic’s image as a strong state, perhaps tempting Tehran to consider uncalculated, undisciplined retaliatory moves in the region.

These dramatic developments play directly into the vision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition. The Israeli leader claims that his country can reshape the Middle East’s balance of power and emerge as the sole actor with overwhelming dominance. Indeed, Israel is now the region’s top military, security, and intelligence power—capable of reaching its enemies on its own or with U.S. assistance. But the Israeli government views military force as the only path to its definition of security. As a result, it is driving the region toward a “new Middle East” in which it imposes its version of “peace through strength” and sends a threatening message to regional capitals: Our long arm is here, and we can reach anywhere.

Netanyahu and his far-right coalition intend to leverage this dominance in four ways, three of which center around the Palestinian cause. First, through the total annihilation of Palestinian rights, through settlement and displacement. Second, by pushing for normalization with Arab countries absent any recognition of Palestinians’ right to self-determination—a sticking point for countries such as Saudi Arabia. Third, ignoring land-for-peace proposals or collective security principles, long viewed as the sole path to regional stability. Finally, by dismantling Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities while it retains its own.

Here, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Türkiye, the UAE, and Qatar—the region’s key middle and mediating powers—are losing. Since October 7, 2023, these states have tried to halt the ongoing war of attrition across multiple fronts: Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. They’ve sought to use mediation and diplomacy to end the bloodshed in Gaza, stop settlement and displacement plans in the occupied Palestinian territories, revive the two-state solution as a path to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and propose new ideas for collective security that would curb both Israel’s direct military adventurism and Iran’s proxy-driven adventurism.

Before the war between Israel, the United States, and Iran, Egypt was pushing forward its reconstruction plan for Gaza, which the League of Arab States endorsed and Türkiye supported. Egyptian and Qatari mediators were tirelessly working to restore ceasefire arrangements between Israel and Hamas and to get aid into the decimated strip. Saudi Arabia, together with France, was promoting a return to peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians via the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. Arab states and Türkiye were discussing the future of regional security in the Middle East and signaling to Israel that peace can only be achieved by cooperation. Many of these efforts were awaiting policy shifts from the Netanyahu government, which never came.

These middle and mediating powers were also making it clear to Iran that it needed to change its regional policy direction, as its proxy-driven adventurism was undermining security and stability. They also tried to pull Trump onto their side and persuade him to join in peace-building efforts for Israel and the Palestinians and for everywhere else in the region.

When the war broke out, these states saw the nascent beginnings for more collective diplomacy in the Middle East stall. They condemned Israeli attacks on Iran, described Iran’s retaliation as an act of self-defense, and remained silent on the U.S. attacks on the Iranian nuclear facilities. When Iran attacked the U.S. military base in Qatar, Arab and Turkish condemnation was unequivocal. But condemnations alone do not yield to active collective diplomacy, and the Middle East’s middle powers seem paralyzed by the attacks on Iran, the military and intelligence might of Israel, and the ease with which the United States entered the war.

The environment emerging in the Middle East following the ceasefire is bound to be difficult for these states to navigate. The power imbalance against the background of Israel’s supremacy and the preference that Israel, Iran, and the United States showed for military force do not yield themselves to constructive efforts toward collective diplomacy and security arrangements. The cancelation (or postponement) of the scheduled meeting of the two-state solution global alliance was a case in point.

With an Israeli government flexing its strength, an Iranian government that will struggle to process the devastating results of the war (both domestically and regionally), and a U.S. administration interested in singular actions (both militarily and diplomatically), Arab states and Türkiye will find it difficult to reenergize their efforts for conflict resolution, multilateral diplomacy, and collective security arrangements. This setback is tragic not just for the Middle East, which requires peace, but also for a world in need of calm.