The Iran War may be backfiring on us. It may be losing us our towering position with the oil-producing countries of the Middle East.
On February 28th when the United States and Israel mounted a surprise strike on a meeting of Iran’s top leaders in the hope that the Iranian people would rise up and topple the regime, we muffed it.
At first it looked like Iran was bolloxing things up. On February 28th, within hours of the American attack, Iran fired drones and missiles on six of its neighbors: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman.
The move seemed insane. Just when Iran needed its neighbors most, it was turning six of them against it. But it turns out that we were playing the short game. Iran was playing the long game. Six months later, what looked like a catastrophic Iranian miscalculation has produced strange results.
On August 7th, Saudi Arabia announced a new military accord, an embryonic middle-Eastern NATO– the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement. An attack on one country would be considered an attack on all.
Iran was one of the threats on the new pact’s radar President trump hailed the Makkah Agreement as “A BIG, BOLD, AND IMPORTANT FIRST STEP — WOW!” But he shouldn’t have been so cheerful.
The three members of the new pact were Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.
It seemed this agreement was a win for our side. But it was a loss. It was a sign that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan could turn their backs on us. It was a sign that they were inching us toward future irrelevance. But there’s more.
We often think of Pakistan as a friend. After all, it pledged to help us fight the terrorists after 9/11. And it volunteered to mediate between us and the Iranians in negotiations to end the Iran War. But Pakistan is not the cheerful honest broker we think. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Even worse, Pakistan has military ties to, guess who? China. Our leading competitor.
Pakistan gets 80% of its imported weapons—its anti-aircraft systems, its tanks, its warships, and its fighter jets–from China. And it gets ports, power plants, highways and telecommunication systems from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, from China’s New Silk Road.
The result is that Iran is salivating. Iran foresees a new Middle Eastern order no longer subservient to Washington. An order centered around Iran. And around Beijing.
On Wednesday, August 19th, Iran’s official news outlet, the Islamic Republic News Agency, carried an analysis by former Iranian diplomat Abdolreza Ghofrani. In this front-page headline story, Ghofrani wrote that the “Hormuz crisis” has proved something. When a crisis blows up, you can no longer turn for help to the United States. In fact, if America steps in it will probably make things far, far worse.
The Iran War, Ghofrani, suggests, is shifting the Persian Gulf nations from “a superpower-dominated order toward a multi-layered, multipolar one.” In the language of foreign affairs, “multi-polar world order” is code for China.
Says Ghofrani, the “Persian Gulf requires a new mechanism for maintaining security.” Ghofrani foresees, “A triangle comprising Iran…Persian Gulf Arab States …, and China” Where will the USA be in all of this? Explains Ghofrani, “the United States falls outside this triangle.” Yes, outside.
But, writes Ghofrani, “no security arrangement can ignore Iran… Iran’s return to the center of the security equation for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is inevitable and certain.” In other words, Ghofrani believes we started a war with Iran and that we have lost it. He believes Iran has won.
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About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. And Bloom has appeared on Saudi and Iranian TV over forty times. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
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References:
IRNA — Abdolreza Ghofrani, “Persian Gulf Post-Hormuz: Is Regional Security Order Changing?” https://irna.com/en/news/86239224/
Saudi Press Agency — Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence https://www.spa.gov.sa/en/w2649227
Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs — “Makkah Al-Mukarramah Summit for Joint Defence” https://mofa.gov.pk/press-releases/makkah-al-mukarramah-summit-for-joint-defence
Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye — Joint Defence Agreement https://www.tccb.tr/en/news/542/165878/turkiye-saudi-arabia-and-pakistan-signs-joint-defence-agreement
The Jerusalem Post — Gulf states and the U.S. approach to Iran https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-905694
Blanchard, Christopher M., and Jeremy M. Sharp. The Arab Gulf States, the Iran Conflict, and U.S. Relations: In Brief. Congressional Research Service, R48971. June 3, 2026. CRS report PDF. https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2026-06-03_R48971_a456a73ab9da287746f46a13f7363d7d9e0386dd.pdf
Council on Foreign Relations — “The U.S.-Led Middle East Order Is Over. The Mecca Agreement Proves It.” https://www.cfr.org/articles/the-u-s-led-middle-east-order-is-over-the-mecca-agreement-proves-it
Financial Times, “The Realignment of the Middle East” https://www.ft.com/content/895ca028-33c7-4295-bf8c-13a3121b80ac
Reuters — “Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan Pledge Mutual Defence as Middle East Turmoil Escalates,” August 7, 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/saudi-arabia-turkey-pakistan-sign-joint-defence-deal-amid-regional-turmoil-2026-08-07/
Reuters — “Turkey Lays Out Plans for Defence Pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,” August 13, 2026 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/turkey-pakistan-saudi-arabia-will-form-political-military-mechanisms-coordinate-2026-08-13/
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2024 (Fact Sheet) https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/fs_2503_at_2024_0.pdf
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — “Global Arms Flows Jump Nearly 10 Per Cent as European Demand Soars,” 2026 https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2026/global-arms-flows-jump-nearly-10-cent-european-demand-soars
