A New Era in West AsiaThe Erosion of Hegemony and the Rise of Regional Agency

The international picture that emerged from the US and Israeli attack on Iran has become one of the clearest signs of the profound transformation in the balance of power, not only in West Asia but across the world. The attack aimed to strip Iran of its status as a regional power, restore US-Israeli supremacy, and bring West Asia back within Washington’s security framework. Yet the result was the opposite. Direct US intervention showed that its military superiority was no longer sufficient to determine regional outcomes. Israeli aggression, instead of uniting regional countries behind the US-Israeli line, strengthened their tendency to determine their own security and future.

These developments are the West Asian expression of the major shift in the global balance of power. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the weakening of its influence in Iraq, the failure of the attempt to divide Syria, and the collapse of Israel’s plans for regional hegemony are all parts of the same process.

At the root of this change lies a profound transformation of the world economy. The centres of production and accumulation are shifting; the relative superiority of the capitalist centres in the world economy is eroding; and, as a political consequence, the old hierarchical structure of the imperialist system is being shaken. The imperialist centres’ struggle to preserve their economic supremacy deepens their contradictions with the developing world while sharpening competition among themselves.

One consequence is the growing differentiation within the Atlantic camp in its approach to the developing world. Divergences of interest between the United States and Britain, Germany, and France are deepening. Countries on the lower tiers of the Atlantic system can also develop positions that diverge from Washington’s line. While the need to act jointly against the developing world becomes more urgent for the imperialist centres, competition among them pulls them away from a common position and intensifies their contradictions.

Developing countries, despite rivalries, divergent interests, and different political systems, are meanwhile coming together more frequently on the basis of sovereign equality in the fields of common development, security, and cooperation.

These conditions enable West Asian countries to make more independent choices about their own security and regional relations. Saudi Arabia’s maintenance of relations with the United States while developing strategic ties with China and preserving normalisation with Iran; and Türkiye’s expansion of security cooperation with Iran, Iraq, and Syria while deepening relations with China and Russia, demonstrate the region’s search for greater independence from imperialist centres. What is at issue is not the replacement of one external power by another, but the capacity of states with different systems to establish areas of common interest concerning their security and development on the basis of sovereign equality.

No completed new order yet exists in West Asia. US military and economic power remains significant, and differences of interest among regional countries continue. But the old order no longer functions as it once did. The changing global balance of power is creating the objective conditions for nation-states to strengthen their independence against imperialist hegemonism. West Asian countries are displaying a stronger will to determine their own security and future. The Mecca Agreement signed on 7 August 2026 is a concrete expression of this development.