The Escalation of the US-Iran Armed Conflict and the Prospective Reorganization of the Middle East Alliance System

Executive Summary

Following the death of Khamenei in February 2026, the US-Iran conflict has, for nearly five months, been repeating a pattern of prolonged stalemate and intermittent reignition amid the structural constraint of an absent negotiating counterpart. Since July 29, the US-Saudi coalition's strikes on Iraqi militias and Iran's retaliatory attack on a US base in Jordan have expanded the escalation across the Gulf littoral states, including Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt. The most likely scenario is one of prolonged stalemate and intermittent reignition (45–50%), while a phased resumption of negotiations (15–20%) would become more feasible only once the selection of Iran's new leadership and the outcomes of Pakistani-mediated talks are confirmed. Notably, Saudi Arabia's proposal to expand its maritime defense coalition from 14 to 43 countries represents an attempt to build an independent multilateral security framework beyond reliance on the US security umbrella, suggesting that the future Middle East security architecture may be reorganized into a form of 'joint US-Saudi management.' Meanwhile, the divergence in strategic objectives between the United States and Israel increases the likelihood that the alliance system will transform not into a single hierarchical structure but into multiple loosely coupled bilateral relationships. The Korean government and businesses should pursue a dual-track strategy premised on at least 6 to 18 months of continued instability—defending against risks in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb while simultaneously positioning themselves for integration into the Saudi-led new order.

I. Situational Analysis of the Issue

Situational Analysis: Intensifying US-Iran Armed Conflict and the Reorganization of the Middle East Alliance System

1. Background and Development of the Issue

The US-Iran military conflict, which began with a joint US-Israeli airstrike on February 28, 2026, is recorded as an event that triggered a fundamental reorganization of the Middle East security order, producing the unprecedented outcome of the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an airstrike on central Tehran on the very first day of the war[2][9]. President Trump declared immediately after the outbreak of hostilities that the war would end "within four to five weeks," but the actual conflict has far exceeded that projection, persisting for nearly five months and exhibiting a pattern of intermittent ceasefires followed by reignition[3][7]. In particular, since the negotiating authority of Iran's transitional leadership following Khamenei's death has remained unverified by the international community, local analyses commonly diagnose a structural stalemate in which none of the three core issues—the nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and support for regional proxy forces—has been resolved, with a recurring pattern of temporary containment followed by relapse becoming entrenched[2][9][11].

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in June 2025 under the mediation of Pakistan and Qatar, along with high-level talks in Switzerland, generated a temporary diplomatic momentum. However, just nine days after signing, the attack on a civilian oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz revealed the fragility of the agreement[11]. Iran subsequently reignited tensions by attacking merchant vessels near the Omani coast in the Strait of Hormuz, effectively signaling the collapse of the briefing-style ceasefire[3]. This recurring pattern serves as evidence supporting local think tanks' outlook that a structural breakthrough in negotiations is unlikely to materialize until a new Supreme Leader is selected in Iran[9].

2. Current Situation

The situation entered a new phase starting July 29, 2026. A combined US-Saudi force struck strongholds of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian military advisers; in retaliation, Iran launched a missile attack targeting a US base stationed in Jordan[4][6][8][14]. Jordan announced that it had intercepted the Iranian missiles within its own airspace, and President Trump personally confirmed that the joint US-Saudi operation was conducted in prior coordination with the Iraqi government, characterizing the Iran-backed militias as "a cancer on the world"[10]. This remark is read as suggesting that future military operations may extend beyond simple retaliation to target Iran's entire network of regional proxy forces.

At Egypt's Damietta port, a drone attack caused fires on two natural gas carriers, a fact confirmed by the British maritime security firm Ambrey[4]. The Houthi rebels denied involvement in the Damietta attack[16], but the pattern of escalation clearly spread across the Gulf littoral states as a whole, exemplified by the IRGC's claimed strike on Kuwait's Ali Al Salem Air Base and the UAE's condemnation of Iran's renewed attacks on Kuwait and Jordan[16]. US Central Command (CENTCOM) has continued its maritime blockade operations to interdict shipping to and from Iranian ports, announcing that as of July 29 it had rerouted 20 merchant vessels, disabled two, and boarded and searched two others[6]. However, the fact that commercial shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz itself continues to be permitted reveals that CENTCOM is pursuing a strategy of selective control rather than a complete blockade[6].

Amid this escalating phase, a Trump-Netanyahu White House meeting was held on July 28. While the shared goal of ending Iran's nuclear program was reaffirmed, local analytic institutions assessed that "the structural disagreement between the US and Israel over the direction of wartime strategy remained unresolved"[2]. Oil prices surged 4–5% on concerns over disruptions to global supply through the Strait of Hormuz[8][14][15], demonstrating that this escalation is perceived not merely as a military clash but as an event delivering an immediate shock to the global energy market.

3. Key Actors and Their Positions and Interests

Saudi Arabia has emerged in this phase not merely as an observer but as an active military actor and a redesigner of the regional security architecture. In response to the Houthi rebels' declaration of a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia and claimed attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea and on petroleum infrastructure within the kingdom[12], the Saudi Ministry of Defense announced the formation of a 14-nation maritime defense coalition including Gulf states such as Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, as well as Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan[1], and is understood to have further proposed a 'maritime defense coalition' encompassing as many as 43 countries[16]. This demonstrates that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has established freedom of navigation through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, international trade routes, and the security of global energy supply as its top security priorities. It is also notable that, by directly participating in US-led military operations, Saudi Arabia is shifting from its traditional role as a 'rear-echelon supporter' to that of a 'frontline actor'[4][10][12][13].

Iran, under a transitional leadership structure following Khamenei's death, faces a problem of legitimacy regarding its negotiating authority, which constitutes a structural constraint that undermines the sustainability of any diplomatic agreement[2][9]. Through the IRGC, Iran has demonstrated that its network of regional proxy forces can still be operationally mobilized, carrying out simultaneous retaliatory strikes across multiple fronts including Iraq, Kuwait, and Jordan[16][17]; however, an information war is also unfolding in parallel, as the US side has denied Iran's claimed results, including its assertion that six military aircraft were damaged[16].

The United States has maintained a hardline stance, with President Trump vowing to "hit Iran hard" and characterizing Iran-backed militias in Iraq as "a cancer on the world"[10][15]; however, as revealed in the meeting with Netanyahu, it has not fully resolved its strategic disagreements with Israel over wartime strategy[2]. According to CFR analysis, the Trump administration's Iran policy has effectively been cornered into a situation with "few good options" remaining[3], and as the initially promised scenario of a short-term end to the war has resulted in failure, damage to policy credibility appears unavoidable.

Israel, with Prime Minister Netanyahu describing the White House meeting as "excellent"[6], remains in step with the United States on the goal of ending Iran's nuclear program; however, by asserting that Hezbollah has violated the ceasefire[15], Israel is leaving room for independent military action on the Lebanese front, revealing a divergence in temperature from the US's approach to managing the escalation.

Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt, among other surrounding Gulf and Levantine states, have been inadvertently drawn into the direct blast zone of the escalation. Jordan bears the dual burden of having its own US military base targeted by Iranian missile attacks while simultaneously having to conduct interception operations within its own airspace[4][10][16]; Kuwait experienced a strike on its Ali Al Salem Air Base[16]; and Egypt has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the drone attack on Damietta port[12][13]. The UAE has publicly condemned Iran's attacks on Kuwait and Jordan, demonstrating solidarity at the level of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)[16].

Pakistan, having played a mediating role alongside Qatar in the earlier round of negotiations[9][11], continues to state that a channel is active for the "normalization" of US-Iran dialogue[16], positioning itself as a buffer actor seeking a diplomatic exit even amid the current escalation.

4. Summary of Key Issues

First, the question of the negotiating representativeness and legitimacy of Iran's transitional leadership functions as a fundamental obstacle to all diplomatic attempts. Local analysts commonly assess that no agreement can secure enforceability until a new Supreme Leader is selected and internal power restructuring is completed[2][9].

Second, the structural constraint persists whereby the three interconnected issues—the nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and support for proxy forces—cannot be fundamentally resolved through a partial settlement[2][9][11].

Third, Saudi Arabia's formation of an independent maritime defense coalition may be interpreted as an attempt by Gulf states to build their own security supply capacity within a US-centered alliance system, raising questions about the future balance between dependence on the US security umbrella and regional autonomy[1][12][16].

Fourth, as the dual maritime risks surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait are simultaneously highlighted, the instability of the entire energy and logistics supply chain running through the Middle East is becoming entrenched as a structure unlikely to be resolved in the short term, emerging as the primary concern for the international energy market[3][8][14][15].

II. In-Depth Analysis of the Issue

In-Depth Analysis: Root Causes and Structural Context of the US-Iran Armed Conflict

1. Analysis of the Root Causes of the Issue

The root cause of the current situation can be traced to the power vacuum within Iran that arose from Khamenei's death in the airstrike on Tehran on the first day of the war, February 28, 2026. Conventional war-termination mechanisms presuppose a structure in which the defeated leadership comes to the negotiating table to make a decision on either surrender or ceasefire; in Iran's case, however, the fact that the negotiating counterpart itself has either been absent or its legitimacy unverified for nearly five months has served as the core driver prolonging the crisis. The East Asia Institute (EAI) diagnoses this situation as follows: "With the negotiating authority of Iran's transitional leadership unverified following Khamenei's death, the three core issues—the nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and support for regional proxy forces—remain unresolved," and analyzes that this is the reason prolonged stalemate is regarded as the most likely scenario[2]. In other words, the structural defect of an absent negotiating counterpart continues to widen the gap between military outcomes and diplomatic conclusion.

The second root cause is the fundamental disparity between the war-termination timeline initially set by the Trump administration and the actual course of the conflict. President Trump declared immediately after the outbreak of hostilities that the war would end "within four to five weeks," but even four months later, following a brief lull, the war has intensified again with no sign of ending[3]. This gap between the optimistic timeline and reality suggests the absence of a clear exit strategy within the United States regarding the Iran issue, with the CFR assessing that the United States finds itself with "few good options" remaining[3]. The third root cause is that Iran's proxy network is not a single front but is composed of multiple layers, including Iraqi militias, Yemen's Houthis, and Lebanon's Hezbollah. As a result, a structure has formed in which, even when the United States and Israel strike Iranian territory or the IRGC directly, asymmetric retaliation through proxy forces occurs separately; indeed, Israel has claimed that Hezbollah violated the ceasefire, and militias within Iraq have been identified as being behind the attack on the US base in Jordan[15]. This means that ending the conflict cannot be achieved through negotiation with Iran's mainland alone, and that separate deterrence or dismantlement efforts are required for each proxy node.

2. Structural Context: The Overlap of Political, Economic, and Security Structures

In terms of political structure, the current situation embodies a structural tension arising from the divergence in strategic objectives between the United States and Israel. The Netanyahu-Trump meeting reaffirmed the shared goal of ending Iran's nuclear program, but according to EAI's analysis, "it revealed that the structural disagreement between the US and Israel over the direction of wartime strategy remained unresolved"[2]. This is interpreted as stemming from a difference in temperature whereby Israel seeks either a fundamental weakening of the Iranian regime itself or the complete dismantlement of its proxy network, while the United States, mindful of domestic political burdens and the risk of full-scale war, prefers limited and phased strikes. This strategic asymmetry within the alliance is manifesting in a pattern in which Trump vows to "hit Iran hard" while actual strikes remain confined to proxy forces within Iraq[15].

In terms of economic structure, the fact that two strategic bottlenecks—the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait—are directly linked to the global energy supply chain is a key factor amplifying the ripple effects of this crisis. The fact that oil prices surged 4–5% upon news of the strikes in Iraq and the missile attack on Jordan[8][14][15] demonstrates the structural vulnerability whereby military tensions in this region are immediately transmitted to global energy prices. In particular, as the Houthi rebels declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia and identified Red Sea oil tankers and Saudi petroleum infrastructure as targets[12], Saudi Arabia responded by forming a Saudi-led 14-nation maritime defense coalition (later proposed to expand to 43 countries)[1][16]. This represents a move by Saudi Arabia to no longer rely solely on the US security umbrella but to build its own multilateral security platform, suggesting the possibility of a multipolarization of the Gulf regional security structure.

In terms of security structure, it is noteworthy that a dual structure is forming in which the maritime blockade operation led by US Central Command (CENTCOM) coexists with the Saudi-led maritime defense coalition. CENTCOM has continued its blockade operation interdicting merchant vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports, announcing that it had rerouted 20 merchant vessels by July 29[6], demonstrating that the United States continues to serve as the ultimate guarantor of regional maritime security. At the same time, however, the fact that Saudi Arabia has formed a separate multilateral coalition encompassing not only Gulf states such as Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain but also Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan[1] suggests a transition from a single US-centered security system to a structure in which regional self-strengthening efforts centered on Saudi Arabia proceed in parallel. This dual security structure has the effect of distributing the US burden in the short term, but in the long term it may also be read as a structural seed for the relativization of US regional influence.

3. Historical Precedents and Comparison with Similar Cases

The current situation repeats patterns from past Middle East conflicts in several respects while also exhibiting qualitatively distinct features. First, the situation of an absent negotiating counterpart due to the death of the Supreme Leader bears a structural dilemma similar to the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime following the 2003 Iraq War. At that time as well, the power vacuum following the collapse of the regime led to prolonged civil war and the proliferation of proxy forces, and it is plausible that similar uncertainty will persist in the current Iran situation until the decisive variable of selecting a new Supreme Leader after Khamenei is resolved. EAI assesses that "a structural breakthrough in negotiations is unlikely to be achieved until Iran's new Supreme Leader is selected"[9], which aligns with the historical lesson that substantive agreements with external actors are difficult to achieve until the power restructuring of a regime transition period is completed.

Furthermore, the pattern of asymmetric escalation through proxy forces follows a trajectory similar to the 2006 Lebanon War or the period of heightened US-Iran tension in 2019–2020 (the rocket attacks on US bases in Iraq following the elimination of Soleimani). However, unlike past cases, which were confined to localized and short-term exchanges of retaliation, the current situation is distinguished by a far broader geographic scope of escalation, extending to Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz[4][6][16][13]. In particular, the fact that Saudi Arabia directly participated in US strikes against Iran-backed militias[4][14] can be assessed as a new milestone showing that Saudi Arabia has moved a step further from the pattern of proxy warfare against the Houthis in the Yemeni civil war into a direct military coordination system with the United States.

Meanwhile, the pattern of the MoU signed under Pakistani-Qatari mediation in June 2025, the subsequent high-level talks in Switzerland, and the renewed collapse just nine days later[11] reveals a fragility similar to the history of Iran's past nuclear agreement (the JCPOA), which was repeatedly signed and then abrogated. However, since there was at least no issue of the negotiating party's legitimacy during the JCPOA period, the current negotiating environment can be considered structurally worse. As the CFR points out, the situation in which Trump's Iran deal "has collapsed, leaving the US with few good options"[3] reconfirms, similarly to the precedent of Iran resuming nuclear activities after the Obama administration's withdrawal from the JCPOA, a pattern in which the collapse of negotiations directly leads to heightened military tension.

4. Key Variables in the Development of the Issue

The first key variable that will determine the future course of the situation is the process and outcome of Iran's selection of a new Supreme Leader. EAI points out that "a structural breakthrough in negotiations is unlikely to be achieved until Iran's new Supreme Leader is selected," specifying that "the direction of Iran's new leadership composition (hardliners vs. pragmatists) is a key variable for the likelihood of a negotiated settlement"[9]. According to the general assessment of local think tanks, should hardliners seize power, support for proxy forces and nuclear activity would rather intensify, raising the likelihood of the escalation scenario materializing (25–30%), whereas the emergence of pragmatists would create room for a shift toward the phased settlement scenario (15–20%)[2].

The second variable is the effectiveness and expansion of the Saudi-led maritime defense coalition. The fact that this coalition, initially launched with 14 countries[1], was subsequently proposed to expand to 43 countries[16] suggests that Saudi Arabia intends to develop it not as a mere stopgap measure but as a permanent multilateral security architecture. Should this coalition succeed in exercising substantive military deterrence to secure navigational safety in the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb, this could become a watershed accelerating the transition from a US-centered single alliance system to a regional multilateral security system centered on Saudi Arabia. Conversely, should the Houthi threat of blockade and attacks in the Red Sea persist, casting doubt on the coalition's effectiveness, Gulf states would likely increase their dependence on the US security umbrella once again.

The third variable is the direction of strategic coordination between Israel and the United States. The fact that "the structural disagreement between the US and Israel over the direction of wartime strategy" persists despite the shared objectives confirmed at the Netanyahu-Trump meeting[2] suggests that the tension between the possibility of Israel independently driving further escalation and US attempts to restrain it will continue. Should this coordination failure recur, indirect escalation through proxy forces is likely to continue.

Finally, whether the dual bottlenecks of the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea can be stabilized will serve as a key variable determining the economic ripple effects. EAI projects that "even with a temporary reopening, full stabilization of the Strait of Hormuz will take 6 to 18 months"[7][9], diagnosing that intermittent flare-ups of fighting are likely to recur during this period. Depending on how CENTCOM's continued maritime blockade operations[6] and the outcomes of the Saudi coalition's defense of the Red Sea interact, the duration of the supply-chain risk premium for major Asian economies—including Korea, which depends heavily on the Middle East for energy imports—will be determined.