The video lasts 40 seconds. A speedboat focuses on one side of the oil tanker Safesea Vishnu, off the coast of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq. It is midnight on Wednesday. The water is calm. A powerful explosion, followed by another one likely triggered by the first, sets the ship ablaze and sends up a huge plume of smoke. It is an attack. The small boat filming the scene waits a few seconds before speeding off northeast toward Iran. One of the crew members shouts: “God is the greatest. Destruction of an American oil tanker in the northern Persian Gulf. At your service, Khamenei!” As the camera captures the burning bow of the Safesea Vishnu, another cargo ship, the Zephyros, appears alongside. The two vessels were transferring cargo from one to the other. The spokesman on the speedboat identified himself as a member of the Naval Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military pillar of the Iranian regime. A few hours later, the price of Brent crude oil exceeded $100.

The largest U.S. naval deployment since the 2003 invasion of Iraq has decimated the Iranian Navy. Washington has sent nearly 40% of its operational ships to the Middle East (16 warships plus the aircraft carriers USS Gerald Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln). According to the war report released Thursday by CENTCOM (the U.S. Central Command with jurisdiction in the region), approximately 60 Iranian frigates have been destroyed since February 28. This exceptional show of force, however, has proven insufficient in the face of Tehran’s asymmetric retaliation, as demonstrated by the attack carried out Wednesday night off the coast of Iraq.

Analysis of the video footage and the damage inflicted on the Safesea Vishnu suggests that the attackers used a naval drone to blow up the hull. The explosion damaged both cargo ships, which were moored side-by-side. This unconventional tactic has been used before with great success by the Ukrainian Navy to counter Russia’s powerful Black Sea Fleet.

The price for disabling a ship—the type and complexity of the naval bombs used by Iran are unknown, but the most sophisticated ones in the Ukrainian arsenal cost around $250,000—is low compared to the major blow dealt to the crude oil trading market on which the West depends. This is especially true given the target: according to records from the maritime traffic publication Lloyd’s List, the cargo ship that was hit is indeed owned by the American company Safesea Group.

South of Iraq, the waters of the Gulf flow toward the Strait of Hormuz, the heart of the current battle being waged between the United States and Israel against the Iranian regime. Its new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, reaffirmed on Thursday his intention to keep the waterway closed, under the de facto control of the Iranian armed forces—Oman, on the western shore of the strait, is unable to challenge Iranian supremacy in the region. Around 20% of the world’s traded crude oil passes through this strait. Its sellers are neighboring Gulf countries allied with the United States and, therefore, in Tehran’s crosshairs. Since the start of the Israeli-American offensive, traffic has been virtually blocked, with hundreds of ships waiting on both sides of the strait.

Iran holds the initiative in the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States struggles to extricate itself from the impasse and wage a maritime battle that is virtually unparalleled, both in terms of the weapons in use and the resources at stake. The strait’s narrowest point measures just over 20 nautical miles (39 km), but the navigable channel is less than 2.5 miles wide (4 km), a narrow and vulnerable space for mounting an escort to guarantee safe passage. “Defense vessels would have very little time to react to an imminent threat,” notes Mike Plunket, an analyst at the defence intelligence company Janes. According to his calculations, there are approximately 400 merchant ships waiting to pass. The U.S. Navy could provide about eight destroyers in the short term for escort duty. The result: it’s possible to form small convoys, perhaps with four or five merchant ships protected by two destroyers.

Beyond the risk and time such a solution would require, it would be insufficient to stabilize crude oil prices—to which must be added potential increases in rates from cargo ship insurers, something that shipping companies have experience with in Black Sea ports. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, after several contradictory messages earlier in the week, stated this Thursday that his country is not ready to implement a maritime escort, although perhaps it might be by the end of the month.

Plunket also points out that, while the Iranian Navy may have been significantly reduced, Tehran’s arsenal for asymmetric warfare includes so-called fast coastal attack craft, a flotilla of small, high-speed vessels under the control of the Revolutionary Guard. These boats, armed with machine guns and rocket launchers, similar to the one seen in the video of the attack on the oil tanker Safesea Vishnu, are used by the regime in a swarm-like fashion to harass and overwhelm large ships in the Gulf.

The report issued Thursday by CENTCOM estimated that approximately 30 Iranian minelayers had been damaged or destroyed in the nearly two weeks of the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump himself threatened Wednesday to launch a fierce attack if his military found a single mine in the Gulf waters, a tactic former president Ronald Reagan used in the late 1980s after the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck one of these mines in the same waters. According to CNN and CBS, the Iranian Navy has already begun laying mines. So far, no incidents involving these devices have been reported.

Iran’s arsenals are estimated to contain around 6,000 mines of various types, from conventional surface mines to the most sophisticated ones lying on the seabed. Again, the challenge lies not in the type of munition—many of the U.S. frigates are equipped with mine-clearing systems—that can damage and disable a cargo ship, but rather in the effect of a single mine.

“Once a mine is discovered,” the Janes analyst continues, “you have to assume there are many more in the water. This means that the routes will have to be swept continuously to ensure there are no more. It requires specialized ships, equipment, and personnel, and it’s a very slow and dangerous process even in peacetime. If you add to that the possibility of the minesweepers themselves being attacked, the complexity increases.” Ukraine’s experience has once again shown how costly it is, in terms of both resources and time, to clear the waters of these types of devices. There are still access routes to the Black Sea in the south of the country where demining operations are currently underway.

And while the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked at Tehran’s discretion, as reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal and corroborated by the maritime traffic monitoring company TankerTrackers.com, Iran is now exporting more oil than before the start of the U.S. and Israeli attack.

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Israel has intensified its appeals to Iranians to overthrow the Iranian regime — implicitly acknowledging its limited ability to topple it without an internal uprising.

The calls were made after U.S. President Donald Trump said the war in the Middle East is “very complete, preet much.” On Tuesday, the U.S. and Israeli military fact carried out their heaviest bombardments yet, after indications that Trump might be preparing to declare the conflict over. That, at least, is what global markets appeared to be betting on throughout the day, with Brent crude stabilizing around $92 after nearing $120 the day before.

“We are not looking for an endless war,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Iranian authorities, meanwhile, are maintaining an increasingly defiant tone. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has gone the furthest, urging Trump to “watch out”, warning that he could “be eliminated.”

After blocking shipments through the Strait of Hormuz — a route that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has also declared that it will block oil exports to the Gulf unless the attacks stop. It has added that Iran, not the United States or Israel, will decide when the war ends. Trump said if this happens, Iran “will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.”

The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also used language that reflects a certain shift in tone. This change follows the after the initial triumphalism in Washington and Jerusalem after the strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Monday to support the appointment of his son, Mojtaba, as the new supreme leader, in a show of strength by the regime. Qalibaf contradicted the U.S. president by stressing that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire, but rather intends to “strike the aggressor in the mouth” so that it “will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again.”

Failed plans

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that the United States and Israel believed they would achieve “a quick and decisive victory” and bring about regime change “in a matter of two or three days,” but that “the option plan A was a failure, and now they are trying other plans, but all of them have failed as well.”

At least one of those approaches does not appear to be working: the “unconditional surrender” demanded by Trump, who will ultimately decide when the war ends, despite public statements from both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming they are acting in coordination

Another strategy — the popular uprising called for by Netanyahu — has also not yet materialized. Israel has been increasingly explicit that its objective is not only military (destroying Iran’s missiles and nuclear program) but also political: to bury the Islamic Republic nearly half a century after its founding. Netanyahu has described this as a long‑held dream that he can now pursue, with Trump in the White House and after weakening the militias supported by Iran.

On Tuesday, following Trump’s remarks about the imminent end of the war, Netanyahu placed responsibility for the regime’s downfall on the Iranian people. “Ultimately, it depends on them,” he said, urging Iranians to seize power and take to the streets despite the bombings and the bloody repression of protests earlier this year. “Our aspiration is to bring the Iranian people to throw off the yoke of tyranny

Our aspiration is for the Iranian people to free themselves from the yoke of tyranny […] There is no doubt that through the actions taken so far we are breaking their bones,” he said during a visit to the National Center for Emergency Health Operations.

Meanwhile, Mossad — Israel’s well‑known foreign intelligence service — posted a message on its Persian‑language Telegram channel urging the population to provide information and join its campaign. “Only one more step remains. Join people like you who have made the right decision. With us, a safe and better future in the new Iran awaits you and your family. Contact us through the secure channel,” the message reads.

Israel has also received its first diplomatic visit since the start of the war on February 28. The visitor was German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, representing one of the European countries that has most closely aligned itself with Israel and the United States. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had previously sided with Trump when the U.S. president called Spain a “terrible” ally within NATO and threatened to cut all trade relations.

Wadephul said at a press conference in Jerusalem that Germany’s priorities regarding Iran are the “verifiable” end not only of its “military nuclear program,” but also of its “ballistic missile program,” and that it must “stop posing a threat to its neighbors.”

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The youngest country in the Middle East is the one redrawing the region’s contours. Israel didn’t yet exist when two diplomats—Britain’s Mark Sykes and the Frenchman François Georges-Picot—sketched a map of influence in May 1916 to divide the provinces of the dying Ottoman Empire. In the folds of those poorly drawn outlines, the seeds of a century of conflict grew. The agreement inaugurated the era of Franco-British tutelage, under the maxim of “divide and rule,” pitting Arab tribes against each other after seducing them with promises of nation-states.

Today, the new Trump-Netanyahu tandem has replaced the rules and guidelines of those diplomats with missiles and drones to reshape the Middle East. The order established after World War I by the Sykes-Picot Agreement has been challenged at least twice. The first time was with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, following the partition of Palestine and its subsequent occupation. The second time was with the rise of the Islamic State, which in 2014 temporarily erased the border separating Syria from Iraq.

With the last 29 months of the offensive there comes a third wave. Israel has bombed seven neighboring countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Qatar and Yemen, in addition to Gaza, and occupied new territories in the first two. This cartographic upheaval also has a political dimension that aspires to establish a new paradigm in the region. It puts an end to the era of Western tutelage—first Franco-British and then American—with the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and opens another where a Pax Israeliana is being imposed, with the Jewish state as the new regional hegemonic power. New alliances are being forged that revive old colonialist dynamics with a supremacist tinge of military domination.

The Cold War context has been replaced by an increasingly multipolar world in which the United States is reluctant to transition and relinquish its position as global leader. 9,500 km away as the crow flies from Washington, Israel is preparing to lead a new Middle East. The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, armed with his MAGA doctrine, and the rise of far-right figures in European leadership positions have opened what Israeli hawks consider “a unique historical opportunity” to fulfill the expansionist ambitions of the Zionist far right.

This is not only about consolidating Israel’s military and technological supremacy over its neighbors—Israel having emerged victorious from the two major Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, and ending in a draw in 1973—but also about reshaping regional alliances. The Abraham Accords have served as a roadmap by which the U.S. has shifted the international community’s focus from the recognition of a Palestinian state to placing Israel at the center, and its recognition by the rest of the Arab countries as the new objective.

Hamas’s attack on October 7, far from derailing these agreements and strengthening the recent rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, has left the Gulf monarchies between a rock and a hard place. The historic competition between the Sunni powers and Shia Iran for leadership of the Muslim world has been the flame that Netanyahu and his advisors have skillfully stoked over the past two decades to forge a tactical alliance, transforming their former enemies into new allies.

Morocco and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already positioned themselves as partners of Israel, even though Netanyahu’s sphere of influence simultaneously fuels the Islamophobic rhetoric of his other allies, represented by the far right in Europe. Three Sunni monarchies—Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—played a key role in Israel’s defense against Iran’s missile response during the 12-day war in 2025. However, for now, participating in the offensive is a much more significant undertaking.

The tired old Shia-Sunni dichotomy has proven far less decisive than the rivalry between two of the region’s three major non-Arab powers: Israel and Iran. The third, Turkey—a NATO member that has yet to make a move—remains Israel’s last remaining competitor. In this equation, the two Muslim theocracies—Sunni Riyadh and Shia Tehran—have ultimately been displaced in the Middle East by the Jewish state.

The only way out of the crossfire in which the Gulf monarchies find themselves is to join Israel’s side. This alliance is difficult for Arab public opinion to accept, given the vivid images of tens of thousands of Muslim children dying of starvation, bombings, or amputations by Israeli drones. Within their palaces, the region’s leaders also have fresh memories of the so-called Arab Spring, which since 2011 has dethroned six Arab autocrats—from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Syria—and plunged their countries into bankruptcy or war. The third path is embodied by the countries that have defied the established order: the oil powers of Iraq and Iran, along with pan-Arabist Syria. This is the path that has led to an inevitable and tragic end for Saddam Hussein, Ali Khamenei, and Bashar al-Assad—who together held power for 85 years.

The emerging new paradigm moves away from diplomacy and back to the law of the strongest: align with Israel or be eliminated—literally or economically. Even those who have submitted to the new Israeli order, such as Qatar and the new Syria, have been bombed by Israeli fighter jets. Just as the old European powers did, the young Israel is resorting to the same “divide and rule” strategy in Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, fomenting schisms between Shiites and Sunnis, and between Arab tribes and Kurds, Christians, or Druze.

Messianic vision

In this new tandem, anchored in the personalistic politics and messianic vision of both leaders, it is Netanyahu who leads the new strategy in the Middle East and who convinced Trump to derail the diplomatic process by attacking a country while still at the negotiating table. The Europe that was once the architect of the Middle East, now fading amidst smokescreens, has been left out of this new equation. The decision lies with its own leaders, who have preferred to be swept along by the expanding wave of this bellicose duo rather than defend international law or European interests in the region.

Trump and Netanyahu’s narrative about the need for regime change in Iran sounds like déjà vu, especially to Iranian ears. Iranians are trying to rid themselves of the ayatollahs’ regime, but not to have the U.S. or Mossad impose a new Shah on them. They haven’t forgotten Operation Ajax, through which the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6 reinstated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during 25 long years of repression and plundering of Iran’s national resources.

The original sin was the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadegh when he attempted to nationalize Iranian oil. This eventually triggered the 1979 Islamic Revolution and, subsequently, the co-optation of the militias it supports in the region. Seven decades later, young Iranians wonder what their country would be like today if British and American spies hadn’t thwarted its first democratic government. From a historical perspective, the current attempt at regime change in Iran is, in essence, a belated effort to undo the consequences of the 1953 coup.

There is nothing to suggest that reimposing a new order in the region by force will offer a different outcome in 2026 than it did a century ago.

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