TANVI RATNA: With one war, Trump is breaking Middle East's old power structure

But this is not unfolding like a typical war in the region.

Even as strikes continue, tankers are still moving through the Strait of Hormuz under constrained conditions. Backchannel communications have not collapsed. Key regional players are not fully committing to either escalation or restraint. Instead, they are doing something far more telling: they are adjusting.

That is the first signal that this is not just a military confrontation. It is a system under stress-one that is being deliberately reshaped.

To understand what is happening now, you have to go back to the system that existed before this moment.

For nearly two decades, the Middle East operated on a managed equilibrium. After the Iraq War, through the Arab Spring, and into the fight against ISIS, three distinct power structures emerged and learned to coexist without resolving their conflicts.

Shia-dominated Iran built what became known as the "Axis of Resistance," embedding itself across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. These were not loose proxy relationships. They were institutional footholds-militias integrated into state structures, political actors controlling territory and budgets. Iran's incentive was clear: expand influence without triggering a direct, overwhelming response. Stay below the threshold of full-scale war while steadily increasing leverage.

Israel, meanwhile, stood apart. By the mid-2010s, it had unmatched military capability and operational reach, but it remained outside the region's political framework. Its incentive was to preserve that advantage through deterrence-strike when necessary, but avoid becoming entangled in the region's unstable alliances.

The United States managed this system rather than resolving it. The Iran nuclear deal treated Tehran's nuclear ambitions as separate from its regional behavior. Conflicts like Gaza followed a predictable cycle of escalation and ceasefire. Stability was maintained, but only by compartmentalizing the underlying tensions.

That model allowed every actor to operate within the system without fundamentally changing it.

The incentive for Iran started to change. Expansion was no longer low-risk. Every additional node in its network now carried economic and operational consequences.

That pressure escalated in April 2019 with the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, and then in January 2020 with the strike that killed Qassem Soleimani. These actions were widely described as escalation at the time. In reality, they were consistent steps in a broader strategy: eliminate the assumption that Iran could operate indefinitely in the gray zone.

At the same time, Trump moved to reshape the other side of the system.

This created a new set of incentives across the Sunni world. Alignment with Israel was no longer politically off limits. It became a pathway to security cooperation, advanced technology and closer ties with the United States. Instead of waiting for a final settlement, states could now act in their immediate strategic interest.

For Israel, this was a structural shift. It was no longer operating outside the regional system. It was being integrated into it.

But alignment alone did not resolve the system's contradictions.

Saudi Arabia remained cautious. Turkey and Qatar continued to pursue their own networks. Iran's influence persisted through deeply embedded institutions. The region had new alignments, but they were incomplete.

This is where Trump's approach evolved from alignment to enforcement.

That logic carried forward into 2026 with the development of a U.S.-led reconstruction and governance framework involving Israel and its regional partners. The principle was clear: participation in the system would now be tied to measurable outcomes.

This changed incentives again. Cooperation was no longer symbolic. It became transactional and enforceable.

And yet, even with these changes, the system did not fully realign.

Iran's networks remained intact. Sunni divisions persisted. Israel continued to expand its own strategic relationships beyond the immediate region. The old structures were weakened, but not dismantled.

Sunni states are being pushed out of their comfort zone of strategic ambiguity. The ability to hedge between competing blocs is narrowing. As pressure increases, the cost of remaining non-aligned rises, and the incentive to consolidate around a clearer regional framework becomes stronger.

Instead of allowing these systems to evolve gradually, he is applying pressure that forces decisions now. Each actor is being pushed to reveal its position, not in theory, but in practice.

That is why this war appears inconsistent on the surface. Escalation and negotiation are happening at the same time because the objective is not a clean military victory. It is a forced realignment of incentives across the entire region.

Whether that works remains uncertain. What is clear is that the Middle East is no longer operating under the same rules.