Washington, United States. Regional analysts and officials warn that a US exit from the war with Iran without a formal agreement could leave Tehran with enduring leverage over Middle East energy supplies and impose costs on Gulf Arab states.
They say an inconclusive end to the fighting could strengthen Iran’s theocratic system, allowing its leadership to claim it was never defeated after weeks of US-Israeli bombardment and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Concerns over an inconclusive end to the conflict
Mohammed Baharoon, director of Dubai’s B’huth Research Center, said the central issue was “the cessation of the war without a real outcome.” He added: “He might stop the war, but that doesn’t mean Iran will.”
Analysts said this imbalance is driving Gulf anxieties, with Iran potentially emerging with enhanced leverage over shipping lanes, energy flows and regional stability, while Gulf states absorb the strategic and economic consequences of an unresolved conflict.
Strait of Hormuz seen as pressure point
Baharoon warned Iran could begin “playing the territorial waters card” in the Strait of Hormuz, described as the conduit for roughly a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. “This goes beyond Hormuz,” he said. “Iran has put its hand on a pressure point of the global economy.”
Assessments of miscalculation and political impact
Regional analysts described the campaign as based on a miscalculation that unprecedented strikes on Iran’s leadership would fracture the system rather than harden it.
They said the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei early in the conflict, intended as a decisive blow, transformed him into a martyr for Iran’s clerical establishment and Revolutionary Guards and reinforced a narrative of existential resistance.
Middle East scholar Fawaz Gerges said: “In one stroke, Trump and Netanyahu have turned a geopolitical conflict into a religious and civilisational one. They have elevated Khamenei from a contested ruler into a martyr.”
Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at the Middle East Institute, said the killing shattered long-established norms. “Khamenei was an Ayatollah, this is not something you do — certainly not a foreign power killing an Ayatollah,” he said.
Iran’s capacity for asymmetric retaliation
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert, said Washington had underestimated Iran’s capacity for asymmetric retaliation. He said the assumption was that air dominance, achieved by destroying missile launchers, command centres and senior figures, would deliver strategic containment.
Instead, analysts said, Iran’s system tightened rather than splintered, sustained by parallel institutions designed to regenerate under pressure.
Strategy focused on imposing costs
Analysts said Iran’s strategy was not to win an air war but to impose costs by driving up oil prices, fuelling global inflation and shifting economic pressure onto the US and its partners. They said that if the conflict becomes economically unbearable, survival itself becomes victory.
What outcome would you expect from a war ending without a formal agreement?
