Acceptable balance in the Gulf

The two and the sword...

The current conflict in the Middle East is part of the great rebalancing of the world that is at present time occurring. Israel's strong and aggressive survival instincts have their origins deeply rooted in history. Ensuring its nation’s and people’s survival is core to the Jewish nation’s mentality and not easily fully understood by outside observers. The assessment has long been that as long as no regional or hostile country has a nuclear capability Israel, with the backing of the United States of America, has the capability to ensure this.

Iran has for some time been building their nuclear and military capability and voices in Israel have begun to question their ability to protect itself. In response Israel has pushed hard to limit Iran’s nuclear and conventional capability and weaken their proxy networks. This even at the price of diminishing its status as the most favored ally of the US, a line not crossed in this way before.

Israel is politically dangerously polarised. Some factions in the nation assess that they are now in a time window where it is possible, not only to remake the region, but also to remake the country’s internal dynamics and the, in modern time, agreed borders of Israel.

The changes in structure ongoing in the Middle East, since some time now through open military conflict, constitute one theater in other interconnected global dynamics simultaneously developing worldwide. The order established after the Second World War is crumbling. China has established itself as the only nation capable of challenging the US. All other nations are trying to reorient in this new equilibrium.

Although these changes are global and all events are interconnected, influencing one another, different theaters can, in theory, still be described through a cluster structure and therefore to some extent be separately balanced.

If such a balance could be established it would be beneficial to all the region’s actors, including Israel and Iran. It would also provide part of the solution for the wider global restructuring.

Iran has clearly shown their capability to gravely hamper ship transit through the Strait of Hormuz and through proxies other strategic waterways. Through its nation’s size, military resilience and topography, Iran has demonstrated that even though it can not win, they still hold the capability of not losing, given the current stakes. It has also been clearly demonstrated that regime change caused by external interference has not been successful and has no prospect of being so currently. With that said, the country is under severe pressure, both internal and external. This pressure only looks to increase with time. Right now, the whole region is bleeding. The current situation will have to change. With no complete defeat or victory in the making, a balance will have to be found.

This could be achieved through the two and the sword.

The decisive reason for this conflict’s outbreak and sustained efforts is the fact that Israel and the US assessed that Iran would shortly have the capability of shielding their nuclear capabilities beyond reach, burying them too far below ground for an intervention other than involving a large-scale attack including substantial ground forces. These sites, possibly containing still-usable nuclear material, are being kept under real-time satellite surveillance.

Israel assesses that such a change would unacceptably change the balance of the region. It would no longer have the option to halt Iran’s nuclear development and the fate of its nation and its people would no longer be held in its own hands. This is why Israel even dared to stake its standing in the US and wider West to prevent this. A move that will most likely have a very high long-term strategic price if continuing on current trajectory.

Iran, on its part, views the nuclear imbalance in the region as a threat to its own nation and its regime. The argument could be made that an Iran with a nuclear weapons capability would balance and stabilise the region's power structure. This argument, however, does not hold. A single nuclear weapon hitting Israel could destroy the Jewish nation. A comparable weapon hitting Iran, 75 times the size of Israel, would not have the same existential impact. Nuclear weapons in Iran’s hands would therefore give them a strategic advantage, cause regional imbalance and certain region-wide disastrous war.

The current conflict has laid bare a few previously veiled truths. Even under bombardment from the most powerful military might in the world Iran has the capacity to bring traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to a halt and to severely bleed the whole region. If not a deterrent with the same symbolic effect as a nuclear weapon, it is still one of great value and much more flexible. This, combined with Iran’s proven conventional missile and drone capability, could constitute a base for a future balance.

With that said, Iran has suffered a monumental military defeat. The country is under siege. Life behind the walls will get worse, not better, until a deal is made. No one is in any decisive way coming to the rescue. The cost for Iran of making a deal along the lines of the two and the sword appears low. It continues its stated policy of not developing nuclear weapons and fully opens the Strait of Hormuz, knowing they could close it again should open military conflict erupt.

Balance in the region based on the two and the sword has few but unnegotiable parts.

• Iran can not have a nuclear weapon.
• Iran holds the capability to close the Strait of Hormuz, but they can not own it.
• If Iran continues its nuclear weapons development or tries to retrieve material at established sites, the Damocles sword would fall.

Given fulfillment of these core issues, much else could be discussed and solutions could be found.

Update 2026-09-28: Added “Given fulfillment of these core issues, much else could be discussed and solutions could be found.”