This is already a regional war

Things are moving fast, so let’s start with a quick “previously on The West Wing” recap.

Since our last briefing, the US has achieved full air superiority over Tehran, broadened its target list (eg, a state TV broadcaster got hit), and its Israeli allies have broadcast a Netanyahu message in Farsi over Iran’s hacked TV networks, urging folks to rise up.

Iran has declared the critical Hormuz Strait closed, hit an oil tanker servicing the US navy, hit the world’s largest LNG export complex in Qatar (~25% of global supply), and scored other missile and drone hits across Israel, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia (including some damage to the US embassy in Riyadh).

And the broader region has downed two Iranian Su-24 fighter jets off Qatar, suspended land passage for Iranians fleeing into Turkey, while Kuwait accidentally shot down three US fighter jets (the pilots ejected).

So you’ve got a rapidly expanding conflict trapping a reported 10% of the entire global container shipping fleet, and rocking energy markets, while reported casualties keep climbing: ~700 in Iran, 52 in Lebanon, 10 in Israel, six US service personnel, and one each in Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain. And that’s before you look at the hundreds of thousands of foreign travellers now stranded across Middle East hubs.

So if that’s the chessboard leaders are waking up to, how are they playing each move?

Let’s start with Paris. 

President Macron just repeated a familiar point, urging his nation, “To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful.” But this time, he’s backing that rhetoric up with arguably the most significant European security announcement in decades:

• He just offered to station nuclear-armed aircraft in the UK, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark. To put it another way, he’s offering to semi-extend France’s nuclear umbrella to eight neighbours.

To be clear, it’s still in talks, and a French finger would still remain firmly on the trigger. But extending the offer to countries already covered by the US nuclear umbrella (NATO) is a reminder how much some now doubt the strength of that US commitment.

Now let’s cross the channel over to London.

More so than any EU counterparts, it’s Prime Minister Starmer copping strays from DC.

Why? Starmer initially distanced himself from the US/Israel attacks, then shifted to limited support: ie, allowing US use of UK bases to neutralise Iranian drones and missiles. It’s…

• a) partly because the UK (like other US allies) was sidelined pre-attack
• b) partly over concerns of legality and lessons from Iraq, but it’s also…
• c) partly his “Love Actually” moment to resist US bullying amid low approvals (though conservative opposition figures are also slamming him as too weak).

But nobody is copping more painful strays than the Gulf states…

Leading us to Doha

We could’ve picked any regional hub — the Emiratis, for example, have now suffered the most Iranian attacks (~170 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and ~600 drones!) for their US and Israel-friendly ties plus outsized economic leverage.

But Qatar also stands out because…

• It’s now the only Gulf state to shoot down Iranian jets, and yet…
• Qatar was long Iran’s closest Arab friend, partly because the two share a major gas field, but also partly as a way for the Qataris to balance against the Saudis.

So this is not just a collapse in relatively functional Qatar-Iran ties, but also a collapse in Qatar’s whole strategy of security via ambiguity: instead of staying safe by playing the giants against each other, it’s now somehow again been hit by both Israel (2025) and Iran.

Intrigue’s Take

So that’s a quick wrap of Iran’s many foes, but it’s worth a broader fireside chat about its dwindling list of friends.

First, we flagged yesterday the ways this war harms Putin’s counterweight branding and pariah strategy, but this war also brings Putin some upsides, at least initially:

• Higher energy prices help keep his war economy afloat a little longer
• Distracted and divided Western foes take their eyes off his atrocities again
• His non-serious peace talks in Abu Dhabi get delayed again, and
• Ukraine’s Zelensky is warning it could all drain Kyiv’s own air defence support.

Second, it’s important to retain a bit of nuance around China, too. Sure, we flagged how this all highlights the regional limits of its power. Plus losing Maduro then the Ayatollah — aka ~17% of oil imports — trims Xi’s manoeuvrability ahead of his Trump summit.

But it’s worth balancing those takes against others:

• i) Xi doesn’t care what happens to Maduro or Khamenei. They’re not allies, he had no investment in their survival, and he’s got deep oil reserves and suppliers. But in their demise, Xi gets to contrast US aggression against Chinese restraint.
• ii) Just because hits on Maduro or Tehran might impose costs on China, that’s not to suggest these hits are some kind of 4D chess against China. If that were the case, DC wouldn’t have also spent a year pissing off US allies across Asia; and
• iii) The idea of this all “distracting and diluting US power” is already taking shape: Korean outlets are flagging the US might remove its local THAAD air defence (for re-use in the Middle East). China has demanded this for a decade, and now might get it, not because of any concession or contrition, but because this Iran war has forced tough US choices: defend allies in Asia, or the Middle East.

Then third, there’s Cuba, widely seen as “next” on Trump’s list — that’s another reason why so much now hinges on this Iran conflict, but the causation isn’t one-way:

• Sure, it’s possible a regional debacle deters Trump from trying his luck in Cuba.
• But it’s also possible a regional debacle spurs Trump to try his luck again, if only to generate better mid-term headlines with an easier target.

But bottom line: the longer this war lasts, the more it shifts from who wins to who bleeds least.