The End of the American Middle East: Iran and the Last Gasp of a Failed Order

Foreign Affairs  |  Marc Lynch

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has shattered the Middle East security architecture established after the 1991 Gulf War, exposing the systemic limits of American military containment. Iran’s resilience against direct strikes and missile attacks targeting maritime trade and Gulf energy infrastructure demonstrated that Washington can no longer guarantee regional stability or secure the vital Strait of Hormuz.

For three decades, this strategic framework relied on stationing forces across Arab monarchies, containing Tehran through multilateral sanctions, and attempting to integrate Israel into a formal anti-Iranian alliance without resolving Palestinian statehood. However, asymmetric gray-zone warfare, low-cost ballistic missile and drone proliferation, and unconstrained regional escalation gradually eroded the core deterrence assumptions underpinning these foundational security bargains. As Gulf states pursue alternative diplomatic hedges and Israel expands military operations, Washington faces an unraveling order that continuously threatens to entangle American forces in perpetual regional conflict.

Comment

Cheap loitering munitions and ballistic missiles have inverted the cost-curve dynamics that historically favoured forward-deployed integrated air defences. During the 2019 Abqaiq-Khurais strike, asymmetric strike platforms bypassed radar coverage to disrupt Saudi crude output without triggering high-end military responses. The widespread proliferation of low-cost Shahed-series drones exposes how capital-intensive MIM-104 Patriot batteries face economic exhaustion when intercepting massed salvos.

This cost-imbalance creates a structural vulnerability for static air defence units stationed at Al Dhafra Air Base. Interceptor stockpiles of MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3 missiles face rapid depletion when countering saturated loitering threat vectors. Persistent attrition tactics using Shahed-136 salvos can effectively degrade the air defense coverage of U.S. Central Command assets across the Persian Gulf.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which factor presents a more immediate threat to integrated air defence networks across the Persian Gulf — the rapid exhaustion of MIM-104 Patriot interceptor stockpiles or the radar-evading flight profiles of Shahed-136 loitering munitions during saturation attacks?

The rapid depletion of interceptor inventories poses the more acute operational vulnerability because stock replacement cycles for advanced systems like the MIM-104 Patriot lag far behind adversary production capabilities. While low-altitude evasion creates sensor tracking challenges, the stark cost asymmetry of expending multi-million dollar missiles against cheap Shahed-136 airframes guarantees the systemic degradation of point defences during a prolonged campaign. Consequently, the defense of forward installations becomes unsustainable once magazine depth is exhausted.

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