If the United States concludes its military campaign against Iran without securing explicit post-conflict safeguards, the result could be an outcome that favors Tehran, not Washington. That is the central concern voiced by regional analysts and Gulf officials: a truncated exit from the war could leave Iran with a renewed capacity to exert pressure over regional energy routes and compel Gulf producers to shoulder the economic fallout of a conflict they neither initiated nor shaped.
President Donald Trump told Reuters in an interview ahead of a scheduled national address that the United States would bring the war with Iran to a close "pretty quickly," and on the following day signalled he might do so even without a negotiated settlement. Such a pullback, however, would carry distinct risks if it lacks clear guarantees about how Iranian behaviour will be constrained moving forward.
Gulf anxiety over an unresolved conflict
Mohammed Baharoon, director of Dubai’s B’huth Research Center, framed the core worry succinctly: the mere cessation of hostilities is not equivalent to a decisive outcome. "He (Trump) might stop the war, but that doesn’t mean Iran will," Baharoon said, underlining the asymmetry worrying Gulf capitals. Even with U.S. forces remaining at bases across the Gulf, Iran would continue to pose a threat, he added.
That asymmetry - the sense that Iran might endure the campaign and emerge with greater leverage - is what keeps Gulf leaders on edge. Analysts say Tehran could translate survival into leverage by threatening shipping lanes and energy flows, and by shaping security dynamics in the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that serves as a vital artery for global energy supplies. Such pressure, they warn, stretches beyond a purely military problem and into the economic lifelines of the region.
Pressure points in the global economy
Baharoon warned that the erosion of freedom of navigation would be of particular consequence for the Gulf. Iran, he argued, could begin "playing the territorial waters card" and assert new rules in the Strait of Hormuz. "This goes beyond Hormuz," he added, saying Iran had placed its hand on a leverage point of the global economy. The ability to disrupt energy shipments, he said, conveys a clear deterrent signal to any actor contemplating future action against Iran.
That strategic calculation helps explain the reluctance of Gulf states to be drawn into the fighting. Officials in the region describe their overriding objective as preventing a conflict that started as a U.S.-Israeli campaign from mutating into a wider Sunni-Shi'ite confrontation, a transformation that could reshape the Middle East for decades.
A misread response to leadership strikes
Political analysts argue that U.S. and Israeli decision-makers misjudged how Iran’s leadership and institutions would react to sustained, unprecedented strikes. The killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei early in the conflict, intended to be a decisive blow, instead altered the dynamics of the confrontation. He was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, and what had been designed to decapitate Iran’s leadership was perceived by Tehran’s ruling elite as a provocation that demanded resistance and revenge.
Scholar Fawaz Gerges described the consequence as a transformation of the conflict’s character. "In one stroke, Trump and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu have turned a geopolitical conflict into a religious and civilisational one," he said. By elevating Khamenei to the status of a martyr, the killing strengthened the theocratic leadership’s most uncompromising tendencies, analysts say, binding clerical authorities and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into a narrative where endurance and resistance are sacrosanct.
Observers note that assumptions about fracturing the system failed to take account of Iran’s institutional depth. The country’s layered governance and parallel power structures have, in analysts’ assessments, historically enabled resilience in the face of major shocks, from long wars to sustained sanctions. Rather than collapsing, the system appears to have tightened, producing what some describe as a more radicalised, defiant version of Iran.
Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert, underlined the taboo breached by the killing of an Ayatollah, arguing that the act violated deep norms for the Shi’ite clerical establishment. Those norms, he said, make foreign assassination of a senior cleric especially inflammatory.
Iran’s asymmetric leverage through energy
Analysts also assert that Washington underestimated Tehran’s ability to wage asymmetric retaliation. Iran does not need to prevail in the air to achieve its objectives; its strategy can be to inflict costs that make continuation of the conflict unsustainable for its rivals. For decades, Tehran has invested in identifying strategic pressure points rather than attempting parity in conventional force. Energy infrastructure and the Strait of Hormuz sit at the centre of that strategy.
By targeting energy facilities and threatening to close or disrupt the Strait, Iran has driven oil prices higher, contributed to global inflationary pressures and shifted economic strain onto the United States and its partners. The aim, according to analysts cited in the region, was not battlefield conquest but economic attrition. If the conflict's financial burdens grow intolerable, they argued, survival of the regime becomes equivalent to victory.
Implications of a hasty U.S. withdrawal
If the United States winds down the war without ironclad security guarantees, Gulf countries could be left exposed to future Iranian retaliation that might not be confined to the Middle East. Tehran retains long-standing networks and capabilities that could be activated to hit Israeli, U.S. and allied targets far beyond the region, analysts say. "They haven’t started yet, but they have a vast capability to punish the United States and Israel," said terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp, using a metaphor of a hydra-like threat whose tentacles can be mobilised globally.
That prospect looms over any U.S. exit. A reduction in U.S. engagement - and the consequent diminution of U.S. backing for Israeli operations - would not likely be interpreted by Tehran as defeat. Instead, the survival of the theocratic framework, combined with Iran’s demonstrated capacity to inflict economic and strategic pressure, would leave the balance of power in the region uncertain and Gulf states shouldering much of the cost.
Conclusion
Regional analysts and Gulf policymakers fear that an end to hostilities lacking enforceable guarantees would amount to a strategic victory for Tehran. The outcome they foresee is an emboldened Iran, able to wield its asymmetric advantages over energy routes and regional stability, while Gulf oil and gas producers and global markets face continued disruption. For Gulf states, the greatest concern is absorbing the economic and security consequences of a war whose most durable effects might last long after the last shot is fired.
Key quotes
- "He (Trump) might stop the war, but that doesn’t mean Iran will," - Mohammed Baharoon.
- "In one stroke, Trump and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu have turned a geopolitical conflict into a religious and civilisational one," - Fawaz Gerges.
- "They haven’t started yet, but they have a vast capability to punish the United States and Israel," - Magnus Ranstorp.