The war against Iran is not merely ravaging the Middle East. It is exposing, with rare brutality, the true state of global power relations. That is the essential point: we are not simply facing an expanded regional conflict, but a crisis involving Russia, China, Europe, the Western alliance system, and even the very idea of a multipolar order. The scale of this affair is such that, within a few weeks, it shatters many of the illusions accumulated over recent years: confidence in the BRICS as an alternative political infrastructure, the idea that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could provide a real security framework, the belief that Moscow and Beijing were now capable of protecting their strategic partners, and even the European pretension of living by abstract principles after having cut itself off from the continent’s major energy sources.
The first fact that stands out is the very nature of the war. It is not only about bombings, covert operations, targeted killings, or diplomatic pressure. What is striking is the sheer arrogance with which Washington has shown that it considers international law a secondary accessory, an inconvenience to be swept aside whenever it obstructs the will to power. It is not new that the United States has acted outside the rules it proclaims. What is new is the total lack of restraint with which this logic is now openly embraced. It is the passage from concealed transgression to proclaimed transgression. And it is precisely this brutal candor that has provoked, in Moscow and elsewhere, a profound shock: not only because of what has been done, but because of the way it has been displayed.
Moscow Between Silence and Disarray
The Kremlin’s Prudence Becomes a Weakness
If one looks at the Russian reaction, the contrast is clear. On one side stands the top of the power structure: the president, the foreign minister, the Kremlin spokesman. On the other are the commentators, the television panels, the political and media circles that accompany and often anticipate the moods of the Russian deep state. It is precisely here that a significant fracture appears. At the highest levels, Russia reacted with extreme caution, almost with embarrassed silence. Few words, very general statements, no real initiative capable of conveying the image of a power ready to use its diplomatic, economic, or strategic weight.
This caution stems from a precise choice: to keep channels open with everyone, to continue presenting itself as a universal interlocutor, not to break with Washington, not to compromise relations with Israel and the Gulf states, and to preserve its role as a mediator. But in a crisis of such magnitude, permanent mediation ceases to look like a virtue and begins to resemble a form of insignificance. When a regional order collapses, it is not enough to express regret. A great power must choose, take risks, and show that its influence is something more than a diplomatic posture.
And this is where Russia appears in difficulty. The war against Iran has also struck the Kremlin for another reason: it has exposed the inadequacy of the method followed so far in Ukraine. Within the Russian debate, criticism of the slow war of attrition waged by Moscow has surfaced with unusual clarity. Some commentators and public figures close to the authorities have suggested that a gradual, cautious, calibrated approach may have had its logic in a controlled context, but that it is no longer suited to an international system in which the United States and Israel show they can strike with sudden brutality while ignoring limits and consequences. In other words, the attack on Iran has also produced a psychological effect within the Russian camp: it has made more visible the idea that slow war is no longer enough.
The Iranian Surprise
Military Resilience and the Power of Economic Interdiction
But the decisive point of the crisis lies elsewhere: Iran did not yield. Many imagined that an offensive of such severity would quickly break command and control, paralyze response capabilities, and disarticulate the country’s political and military structure. That did not happen. Tehran demonstrated surprising resilience. It continued to maintain launch capabilities, targeting priorities, operational coordination, psychological pressure, and the possibility of strategic retaliation. In essence, it disproved the assumption that the technological superiority of its adversaries would by itself be enough to cause collapse.
This element is of enormous importance for Moscow and Beijing. Both have had to acknowledge that Iran, left practically without concrete cover from the major Eurasian structures, nevertheless managed to defend its interests better than expected. Hence an embarrassing question arises: perhaps Tehran was right not to bind itself completely to a formal military alliance with Russia or China. Perhaps it understood that, at the decisive moment, those guarantees would prove more political than real. The war seems to suggest exactly that.
The other major factor is geoeconomic. Iran has shown that it possesses leverage that goes far beyond the purely military dimension: the ability to make the entire Gulf energy system insecure. And here the Hormuz choke point is only part of the problem. If Tehran is capable of striking or endangering hydrocarbon production, vital facilities, and desalination infrastructure, then vulnerability no longer concerns only the transit of tankers. It affects the very existence of the energy flow itself. If production stops, there is nothing left to transport. In this sense, Iran’s control over the crisis goes beyond simple control of the strait: it is a systemic interdiction capability that touches the heart of the world economy.
The Failure of Multipolar Frameworks
The BRICS and Shanghai Reveal Their Limits
This war also leaves the multipolar narrative weakened, perhaps humiliated. For years, the BRICS were spoken of as the embryo of an alternative order, a platform intended gradually to replace the institutions born after 1945. It was imagined that cooperation among Russia, China, India, Iran, and other actors could build a system of mutual protection, if not military, then at least political and financial. Reality has been far harsher. At the moment of testing, the BRICS offered nothing concrete: no deterrence, no visible support, no common capacity for reaction.
The same is true, with a few nuances, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Here too, the Iranian crisis showed that forums, statements, and frameworks for dialogue do exist, but not yet a strategic bloc capable of acting. Too many divergent interests, too many dependencies on Western markets, too much reluctance to pay the price of a frontal confrontation with Washington. The war against Iran has therefore shattered not only Western certainties, but also a large part of Eastern hopes.
In retrospect, one better understands why the most ambitious projects aimed at building an alternative system to the Western-dominated financial and economic circuits remained unfinished. The absence of a real BRICS currency, the lack of genuinely substitutive exchange mechanisms, and the fragility of common structures were not simply technical delays. They were signs of a political weakness already present, one that the war has made impossible to conceal.
China and the Policy of Prudent Withdrawal
Beijing Avoids Risk and Loses Prestige
If Russia appears hesitant, China seems almost paralyzed. Its caution toward Iran has been even more marked, almost incomprehensible considering Beijing’s role as an economic pillar of Eurasia and promoter of regional stability. Yet its statements have been extremely restrained, its concrete gestures invisible, and its political support reduced to the bare minimum. This choice certainly responds to a calculation: China does not want to be drawn into a direct confrontation while it is already engaged in a long-term contest with the United States over trade, technology, and the Pacific. But every act of caution has a cost. And in this case, the cost is reputational and strategic. A power aspiring to lead an alternative order cannot appear absent when one of that order’s pillars is under attack.
Europe, Victim of Its Own Blindness
From Breaking with Russia to Total Dependence on American LNG
The war against Iran also hits Europe head-on, and the picture is almost grotesque. European governments celebrated the renunciation of Russian gas and oil as a strategic achievement. They transformed one form of energy dependence into an even heavier political dependence by handing themselves over to American liquefied natural gas and to supplies that are more expensive, more fragile, and more exposed to geopolitical blackmail. Today, with the Middle East swept into crisis, the continent finds itself cut off from a second major energy region as well. The result is simple: higher prices, inflation, industrial setbacks, social tensions, and a further loss of autonomy.
The most serious aspect, however, is political. The European Union continues to speak the language of solidarity and values precisely while adopting choices that run against the material interests of its own member states. In this regard, the current crisis could prove fatal for part of the European leadership. Because this is no longer a matter of tactical differences, but of a structural contradiction: one cannot lead a continent toward energy scarcity, deindustrialization, and strategic subordination without sooner or later paying a very high political price.
At the same time, the first cracks are appearing. Some European leaders are beginning to suggest that after the war it will become inevitable to normalize relations with Russia. The language remains cautious, ambiguous, full of reservations, but it signals that something is moving. Because part of Europe is beginning to understand that there can be no continental stability based on the permanent isolation of the largest European country in terms of territory, resources, and military weight. And here the Ukrainian question connects directly to the Iranian crisis: both reveal the cost of a Europe incapable of thinking in autonomous terms.
Ukraine in the Background of the Global War
The Two Crises Feed One Another
The war in Ukraine is also being affected by the consequences of the Middle Eastern conflict. The interconnection is obvious. The absorption of air defense systems, missiles, and American resources by the Iranian-Israeli theater inevitably reduces the availability of means for Kyiv. From a material point of view, the two wars are already interconnected. But they are interconnected politically as well. The diplomacy applied to Iran, made up of negotiations emptied of substance by the recourse to force, reinforces in Moscow the conviction that the decisive ground remains the battlefield. Thus, in Russia, the belief is growing that the Ukrainian question will not be settled through talks, but on the ground.
Meanwhile, along the front, signs of a new phase can be seen. The more visible use of heavy equipment and battle tanks by Russia suggests greater confidence in its ability to contain or neutralize the threat posed by Ukrainian drones. The goal remains the major Donbas strongholds still under Kyiv’s control, but the overall slowness of the advance also shows that this is no military stroll. Ukrainians continue to fight fiercely, but they are suffering an evident contraction in manpower and means. The political point is that in Europe the conflict is no longer conceived as something to be truly concluded; rather, it is imagined as a truce useful for reorganizing in preparation for a later confrontation.
A Disorder Deeper Than Any Forecast
The conclusion is harsh but clear. The war against Iran has not merely set a region ablaze: it has opened a crisis of truth. It has shown that the United States can still impose shock, but not control all the consequences. It has shown that Russia and China contest American hegemony without yet being capable of replacing it or of truly protecting their own political space. It has shown that Iran, so often portrayed as vulnerable or isolated, in fact possesses resources of resilience and capacities of interdiction greater than many wished to admit. And finally, it has shown that Europe is the most defenseless actor of all: deprived of autonomous strategy, trapped in its moralism, dependent in energy terms, and incapable of understanding the link between economy, power, and security.
We are not witnessing the orderly birth of a multipolar world. We are entering a far more dangerous gray zone: a system in which the American order is increasingly brutal and increasingly less legitimate, while Eastern alternatives remain too fragile to become a true system. In the middle of it all, the Middle East remains both the detonator and the laboratory. And the rest of the world, from Europe to Asia, is discovering that it is not living in an age of balance, but in a long transition dominated by chaos.
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