A War With Iran Won’t Rewrite the Middle East

Foreign Affairs argues that a U.S.-led war against Iran is unlikely to deliver a stable, pro-American Middle East; even if Iran’s leadership is degraded, power vacuums and hard-line proxies could sustain regional wars, undermine Gulf alliances, and stagnate Arab-Israeli normalization, while China and Russia could benefit from Washington’s distraction—the only realistic path is cease-fire and targeted damage-control, not a wholesale ‘day after’ transformation.