The ceasefire between Washington and Tehran not only revealed the limits of American power. He also challenged two other poles that hoped to benefit from a maximum pressure campaign against Iran: Israel and several Gulf monarchies. According to Axios, Donald Trump chose to move towards a settlement with Tehran despite pressure from Benyamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Republican allies who wanted to maintain a tougher line. The same media reports that Vice-President J.D. Vance and Steve Witkoff pushed, in the close circle of the President, for acceptance of the agreement. This sequence says a lot about the new regional power ratio: Iran has not been isolated, it has not been neutralized, and it has obtained that the exit from crisis takes place in a framework where its demands remain central.
American decision against the preferences of several key allies
The starting point of the analysis is political. Axios claims that Trump’s decision to move towards a settlement with Iran has been taken back from the positions defended by several major allies from Washington in the Middle East, first among them Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The site adds that in the presidential entourage, J.D. Vance and Steve Witkoff argued for the acceptance of an agreement rather than for a new escalation. This photograph of the internal American debate is essential. It shows that the final sequence did not correspond to Israel’s favourite line or that of several Gulf capitals, but to a decision to de-escalate imposed from Washington at a time when war might become too costly.
In other words, the allies most engaged in the logic of pressure against Tehran did not get from the White House the continuation of confrontation to a point of rupture. They saw, on the contrary, the US President suspend the strikes and accept a mechanism of exit from the crisis based on an Iranian proposal in ten points considered « practical » as a basis for discussion. This displacement of the decision centre has far-reaching consequences. It means that neither Israel nor the most hostile Gulf monarchies in Tehran managed to impose on Washington their maximumist calendar.
For Israel, the sequence resembles a political retreat more than a success
Israel has certainly publicly supported Trump’s pause on the Iranian front. But this support is more like forced alignment than strategic victory. According to the information available, Netanyahu had to accept a truce that did not resolve the issues he considered to be a priority: the sustainable neutralisation of Iran, the reduction of its ballistic capabilities, the dismantling of its nuclear programme and the decisive weakening of its regional relays. On the contrary, the truce defers these disputes to subsequent negotiations, without bringing any final result on the substance.
This fact weakens the Israeli narrative. A campaign presented as necessary to contain Iran eventually leads to a ceasefire in which Tehran remains a recognized interlocutor, retains its main levers and imposes a part of its agenda. Even in the field of communication, the result is mixed for Israel. The Israeli government had to hurry to clarify that Lebanon was not included in the truce, precisely to prevent Iran from turning the agreement into political protection of its entire regional axis. Had Israel won a clear victory, he would not have needed to correct the account of the truce so quickly. On the contrary, this defensive correction says that Jerusalem felt the risk of an Iranian symbolic benefit.
The very fact that Trump chose de-escalation despite Israeli pressure is, in itself, a setback for Netanyahu. For years, one of the sources of Israel’s strategy has been to bring the American posture as closely as possible into line with Jerusalem’s security requirements. In this sequence, this convergence cracked. Washington favored stopping climbing and reopening Ormuz over pursuing a potentially wider war. For Israel, this means that the ability to train the United States in a continuous pressure logic is no longer guaranteed to the same degree as before.
The Gulf monarchies discover the limits of the American umbrella
The other big loser is the Arab Gulf, or more precisely the states that thought they could rely on American military superiority to quickly neutralize the Iranian threat. The war has shown the opposite. The Strait of Ormuz was not reopened by American force, but by negotiation. Strategic infrastructure in the Gulf has been exposed to Iranian threats. Maritime companies maintained their caution even after the announcement of the ceasefire. Above all, the logic of regional security remained suspended from an Iranian decision on traffic in the Strait.
For the Gulf monarchies, the lesson is severe. The US umbrella did not prevent the crisis from directly reaching energy roads, markets and critical facilities. It also failed to restore full confidence in navigation immediately. Media sources reported that Maersk remained cautious after the announcement of the truce and that Hapag-Lloyd estimated the cost of disruptions at tens of millions of dollars a week. This means that at the very moment when the United States claims to guarantee the world maritime order, the Gulf has experienced a profound disorganization that only a negotiation with Iran could begin to mitigate.
The signal sent to the Gulf capitals is therefore worrying for them. The US military presence remains immense, but it has not produced invulnerability. It did not prevent Iran from weighing on shipping, insurance, energy prices and overall risk perception. In geopolitical terms, it changes a lot. A protector is judged not only on the firepower it holds, but on its ability to prevent impact. Here, the shock occurred. The Gulf States therefore discovered that the American umbrella could intercept, threaten, punish, but not prevent the adversary from imposing its central lever.
Ormuz became proof of Iranian centrality
The heart of Iran’s geopolitical victory lies in the Strait of Ormuz. Washington wanted to demonstrate that no regional actor could permanently take hostage the world’s main energy artery. The result is exactly the opposite. Iran has managed to make the Strait not a mere crisis zone, but a currency of diplomatic exchange. The truce was conditioned upon its reopening. The discussions incorporated an Iranian role in coordinating maritime security. And several press reports have reported that Tehran intends to retain a political leadership capacity on the passage, even partial monetization in some versions of the plan.
It is a structural victory for the Islamic Republic. It means that, despite American naval and air superiority, despite Western pressure and the Israeli will to go further, Gulf security remains impossible to think without Iran. Tehran has therefore turned its apparent vulnerability into a geo-economic lever. He was not content to survive the pressure. He forced his opponents to recognize that the end of the crisis was through him. In the strategic history of the Gulf, this type of recognition is worth much more than just a temporary halt to strikes.
This also weakens the position of the Gulf States most hostile to Iran. For years their security has been based on the idea that American power could contain, or even marginalize, Tehran. The current crisis shows the opposite: not only has Iran not been marginalized, but it has been able to set the conditions for a gradual return to circulation in the most sensitive area of the world economy. The Gulf thus discovers that it remains geographically and strategically prisoner of a neighbour that no American demonstration has managed to neutralize.
Iran won because it did not give in to the essentials
To say that Iran is geopolitically winning does not mean that it got everything. This means that he has obtained the essentials of what an actor wants out of a war without strategic defeat. He got an American strike stop for two weeks. He put his claims back at the centre of the game. He demanded that the reopening of Ormuz be negotiated. It has retained its levers on nuclear, missiles and its regional allies, which remain open and not concessions already granted. And he forced Washington to treat his proposal as a basis for work.
That is why the formula that Iran « imposing its conditions » has a background of truth, provided that it understands it correctly. Tehran does not yet impose a turnkey final agreement. On the other hand, it already imposes that no way out of the crisis will be done without taking into account its red lines. It imposes the maintenance of Ormuz as a lever. It requires that the ceasefire not be read as a capitulation. It also imposes a rhythm: that of open negotiations, not surrender. For Washington, Israel and some Gulf states, this is already a political defeat.
Neither NATO nor Europeans have validated Washington’s desired escalation
The sequence further worsens the difficulties of Israel and the Gulf monarchies on another level: that of Western alliances. Europe did not follow the US in climbing. The European institutions welcomed the ceasefire and called for a lasting agreement. Spain has publicly explained that US declarations on NATO are pushing Europe to seek security alternatives. Madrid also recalled that several European countries had refused to participate in American patrols in the Strait of Ormuz after the beginning of the war. This European prudence is not a detail: it means that the traditional allies of the United States and Israel have not considered war as a campaign that is legitimate enough or capable of being fully associated with it.
For Israel and the Gulf, this lack of Western enthusiasm is bad news. Their strategy towards Iran is largely based on the ability to internationalize the Iranian threat and rally behind them a broad front. However, the recent crisis has had the opposite effect. It reinforced calls for de-escalation, legal prudence, fear of strikes on civilian infrastructure and distrust of a war that could destabilize the entire global energy system. Again, Iran has resisted more politically than expected. It has not been transformed into an absolute pariah capable of bringing together a homogeneous international bloc against it.
Israel and the Gulf come out more dependent than before
Finally, there is a structural consequence. This war makes neither Israel nor the Gulf monarchies more autonomous. It makes them more dependent on American arbitration which has become more hesitant, more tactical and more sensitive to the economic and political cost of protracted war. Trump showed that he could threaten very far, but also quickly step back if he felt that the price of climbing became excessive. For allies who relied on a continuous line of firmness, this is a major problem. Their security depends on a partner who maintains military superiority but no longer guarantees the political continuity of confrontation.
In this context, Iran appears to be the only actor that has truly converted the war into a geopolitical benefit. He showed that he could disrupt global flows, survive pressure, push the United States to negotiate, divide Western allies and highlight the limits of the American umbrella in the Gulf. Israel, on the other hand, did not obtain the prolongation of the war it desired. The Gulf monarchies did not get the security demonstration they expected. And Washington had to arbitrate for a de-escalation that did not match the preferences of several of its regional partners.
The real balance sheet: Iran in the centre, Israel and the Gulf on the defensive
The sequence is therefore less military than political. Israel and the Gulf do not come out destroyed. They come out disillusioned. They discover that American power alone is not enough to impose a new regional order. They also discover that Iran, despite strikes, sanctions and threats, remains capable of blocking, negotiating and returning to the centre of the game. For Jerusalem as for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, this is bad strategic news. For it means that the next regional cycle will still take place with Tehran as an indispensable actor, not as a marginalized power.
It is in this sense that Israel and the Gulf appear as the other great losers of this sequence. Not because they would have suffered a classic defeat on the battlefield, but because they did not get the political outcome they wanted. They hoped for lasting pressure, a clear reduction in the Iranian margin and a reaffirmation of the American umbrella. They get a negotiated truce, an Ormuz reopened by compromise, an Iran still central and a White House that chose the deal despite their pressure. In the Gulf as in the Levant, it is a simple thing: at this stage, Iran has best transformed the war into a geopolitical advantage.
