When the Middle Powers Decide They Will No Longer Be the Meal
In early 2003, sitting in my office in Baghdad, I knew war was coming. More than 150,000 US and allied troops surrounded Iraq. UN weapons inspectors were still working, but the machinery of invasion was already moving.
A colleague brought me a newspaper column titled ‘Why War Is Inevitable’. Its author surveyed the Arab world, dismissing most countries as incapable of challenging Western power. Then came Iraq: immense oil reserves, an educated population, two great rivers, an industrial base and a once-formidable army.
Here, he argued, was a potential centre of Arab power the West could not permit to emerge.
He ended with a question: “What would post-war Iraq look like?”
We learned in blood. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, a state dismantled, and the conditions from which the Islamic State emerged.
Yet perhaps he foresaw something larger: the eventual unravelling of the regional order the invasion was intended to secure.
Lessons from a lifetime among conflicts
My decades of UN service including assignments across West Asia, Somalia and Sudan, taught me to distrust grand strategies conceived far from the societies upon which they are imposed.
Governments can be overthrown more easily than stable political orders constructed. Military superiority cannot manufacture legitimacy. External powers may enforce ceasefires, but cannot indefinitely substitute for political accommodation.
Iraq demonstrated these truths. The invasion weakened US credibility, expanded Iranian influence and destabilised neighbouring states.
The 2026 US-Israeli war against Iran exposed another contradiction. Iranian retaliation against US bases and Gulf infrastructure showed that hosting a superpower’s forces can make a country a target.
For Gulf governments, the question became unavoidable: whose security was being protected?
At the table, or on the menu
At Davos, Canadian PM Carney warned that the international order was undergoing a rupture. Middle powers, he argued, must cooperate because without a place at the table, they risk finding themselves on the menu.
He spoke of economic coercion. But the principle applies equally to West Asia, where security has long been negotiated in distant capitals.
In March, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye began coordinating diplomacy to contain the Iran war. The reported August defence understanding among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye suggested greater regional responsibility for collective security.
This is not yet a West Asian NATO. Agreements require operational capability and political resolve. But the direction matters.
The reported October security discussions in Tehran suggested something more consequential: regional powers discussing security with Iran rather than organising exclusively against it.
Historic rivalries remain. Meetings are not reconciliation. But peace rarely begins with trust. It begins when continued confrontation becomes intolerably costly.
Neither Israel nor Iran can be wished away. Lasting security must accommodate both without granting either unlimited freedom to threaten its neighbours.
That includes Palestinian rights.
Israel’s dilemma
Israel retains military and technological advantages. But military superiority does not guarantee lasting security. Repeated intervention can encourage the very alignments it seeks to prevent.
Emerging regional cooperation could constrain Israeli military freedom through collective deterrence and diplomacy rather than confrontation.
Israel can regard every regional understanding as a threat, or recognise that its security ultimately requires a more inclusive settlement.
Security cannot remain a privilege claimed by one people while denied to another.
Israel’s recent election sharpens this dilemma. Netanyahu’s bloc secured 53 seats, short of a majority. The opposition’s 48 seats, combined with 19 held by Palestinian parties, offer a theoretical alternative.
Yet several opposition parties resist depending upon Palestinian participation. These are Israeli citizens exercising democratic rights, not outsiders seeking permission.
Meanwhile, critics fear renewed confrontation with Iran could prolong Netanyahu’s political survival. Motives should not be assumed, but the danger is familiar: when political survival becomes entangled with national security, escalation becomes easier than compromise.
The irony history may record
The 2003 invasion sought to reshape West Asia in America’s favour. Instead, it helped produce a region increasingly skeptical of US intervention.
The 2026 war may accelerate that transformation.
States accustomed to external guarantees are exploring arrangements among themselves. Historic rivals are discovering overlapping interests.
This is not yet regional unity. Perhaps unity was always the wrong measure.
Middle powers need sufficient independence and coordination to prevent their vulnerabilities being exploited.
For smaller nations like ours, the lesson is equally relevant. Strategic independence requires neither hostility toward powerful friends nor submission to their interests.
Friendship must never be mistaken for subordination.
Twenty-three years ago, that columnist asked what post-war Iraq would look like.
Today, I ask: What will West Asia look like when its security is no longer organised primarily around US power?
The answer remains uncertain. US withdrawal is not inevitable, nor regional cooperation assured.
But the table is no longer being set exclusively in Washington.
It is increasingly being assembled in Riyadh, Islamabad, Ankara, Cairo and Tehran.
And those accustomed to writing the menu may discover that the table has been rearranged without them.
