NEWSWEEK
This map shows Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia's allies in a new Middle East
NewsweekAs the Middle East continues to reel from nearly three years of crisis since the outbreak of the war in Gaza and six months of open conflict between the United States and Iran, the region’s geopolitical map is shifting.
While much of the changes taking place are rooted in trends that have existed for years, ongoing turmoil has only accelerated the emergence of three fluid yet increasingly substantial blocs aligned with Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia, each vying to shape the future of the Middle East.
None of these groupings constitute a formal multilateral security pact and their membership remains largely informal, established primarily via a growing number of agreements and joint decisions rather than coordinating public declarations.
The war launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran appears to be solidifying at least one major drift: a decline in confidence in Washington’s leadership and an intensification of rivalries among regional players striving to fill the vacuum.
“Even if Washington and Israel achieve their immediate goals, the United States will emerge looking less reliable and predictable, and less capable of protecting its allies or keeping vital sea lanes open,” Marc Saxer, a geopolitical analyst with the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung whose research helped outline the emerging blocs, told Newsweek.
“Interlocking conflicts have accelerated the breakdown of the regional order, prompting every major power to pursue its own interests,” he added. “Israel and Iran are competing for regional hegemony, while a coalition of middle powers centered on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt is seeking to balance against both.”
New Middle East
The ‘Axis of Resistance’
Among the three blocs taking shape, the Axis of Resistance is arguably the most cohesive, with roots dating back decades to the beginning of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and efforts to counter international isolation through the establishment of a network of primarily Shiite Muslim non-state allies in the majority-Sunni Middle East.
The Lebanese Hezbollah, which emerged with Iranian support to counter an Israeli invasion in the 1980s, has been widely viewed as a linchpin of the coalition. The powerful militia and political movement has had outsized influence beyond Lebanon’s borders, including Syria, where former President Bashar al-Assad long served as another crucial Axis of Resistance ally until his downfall by an Islamist-led rebel coalition in December 2024.
The first group to intervene against Israel in support of the Palestinian Hamas movement’s surprise attack in October 2023, Hezbollah has also suffered some of the most serious casualties, having lost scores of fighters and its longtime leader, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, due to Israeli strikes.
Also having played a front line role in Syria in the fight against rebels and jihadis, such as the Islamic State militant group, are an array of Shiite Muslim militias that took up arms in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled longtime President Saddam Hussein, a mutual foe of Washington and Tehran, to battle rival Sunni insurgents and U.S. troops.
These Iraqi groups, many simultaneously affiliated with the state-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in the fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), later organized under the shadowy banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to strike U.S. troops and Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza. The most notable members include Kataib Hezbollah, the Nujaba Movement and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
Yet the most recent addition to the Axis has emerged as its most potent. When Yemen’s government collapsed amid the regional chaos of the Arab Spring in 2012, Iran began to step up support for Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement, a powerful rebel faction seeking a revival of the country’s historical Zaidi Shiite rule.
While Ansar Allah’s battle with the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition paused after an April 2022 ceasefire, the group once again captured global attention with its campaign of targeting commercial vessels in response to the war in Gaza. Now, it’s back in direct conflict with Saudi Arabia as well, once again threatening passage to the crucial Suez Canal at a time when Iran is wielding powerful leverage over the Strait of Hormuz maritime chokepoint, putting unprecedented stress on international trade.
Beyond these main players, other Axis-aligned groups hail from Afghanistan and Pakistan, with claimed activity taking place within Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states as well, most notably Bahrain, the only member of the Arabian Peninsula bloc with a Shiite Muslim majority.
“The Axis of Resistance is not gone,” Tehran-based analyst Amir Hossein Vazirian told Newsweek. “They exist, and in the near future, they hold some military capability, but they will probably convert to a security and political network rather than just a military network.”
gather during a funeral procession for Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei at Azadi Square in Tehran on July 6, 2026.
The ‘Sunni Diamond’
Saudi Arabia is widely viewed as the most influential nation in the Arab and Muslim worlds, owing not least to its unique status as host to Islam’s two holiest sites of Mecca and Medina. But the Kingdom’s clout is rooted not only in history, but also its fast-growing economy and an ambitious modernization drive under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan that has significantly elevated Riyadh’s status on the world stage.
The transformation and the future of the Kingdom is now at stake, however, as it faces a multifront threat brought on by a war it urged the U.S. to avoid. The conflict has prompted Saudi Arabia to lean further into historic partnerships with Egypt and Pakistan—the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim nation with which Riyadh signed a defense pact last September—and to recalibrate its competition with Turkey—another leading Muslim power and the only NATO member in the Middle East—into a strategic partnership.
Together, these four nations have formed what has been referred to as the “Quartet.” More broadly, they have also tapped into closer ties with a host of other governments in the Middle East and North Africa to enhance cooperation and coordinate crisis responses.
These countries also enjoyed largely positive ties with the U.S. But the ongoing war with Iran has raised deep questions about the extent and effectiveness of Washington’s security commitments as nations hosting U.S. bases come under sustained fire.
Saudi Arabia’s strikes against both Ansar Allah in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have demonstrated the Kingdom’s willingness to retaliate on the battlefield, yet Riyadh and its coalition partners have also strongly pushed for a diplomatic solution. Pakistan and Qatar have proven especially central to U.S.-Iran mediation efforts, while Oman—by far the most neutral among Middle East states—now leads in direct Strait of Hormuz talks with Tehran.
The position of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may also prove particularly consequential, given the praise he often receives from Trump. Ankara’s role in expediting Assad’s ouster in Syria, defending Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Unity against the rival Government of National Stability and aiding Azerbaijan’s forceful dismantling of the Armenia-backed Artsakh separatist state in the Caucasus has shown Turkey’s ability to secure desired military outcomes as well.
Trump even praised Erdogan for not getting involved in the U.S.-Iran conflict during the NATO summit hosted in Ankara last month, where the U.S. leader went on to criticize European allies for inaction.
As former Saudi diplomat Saad Abdullah Al Hammad recently told Newsweek, the uncertainty brought on by the ongoing conflict “creates a relative vacuum in security leadership, potentially driving regional powers—Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, and Iran—toward greater autonomy and an intensified race for indirect influence.”
“Conversely, the likelihood of all-out war diminishes, while the probability of ‘shadow wars’—limited strikes, cyber operations, and proxy conflicts—rises,” Al Hammad said. “This marks a transition for the region from ‘stable deterrence’ to ‘volatile deterrence.'”
The ‘Hexagon’ Alliance
Saudi Arabia also finds itself competing for influence closer to home as divisions among GCC members are exacerbated under the weight of the historic bloc’s most dire crisis to date.
The United Arab Emirates first broke with a longstanding Arab consensus by establishing diplomatic relations with Israel under the 2020 Abraham Accords, bringing Bahrain on board as well, later followed by Sudan and Morocco. Since then, the UAE has doubled down on partnerships with Israel, even despite Emirati officials’ public criticism of its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
The UAE has also played a role in backing non-state actors dividing Arab countries, including Yemen, where the Abu Dhabi-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council attempted to seize power from the Riyadh-supported government, only to be defeated in a counteroffensive earlier this year. The UAE has denied aiding the Government of National Stability in Libya and the Rapid Support Forces battling the government of Sudan in the face of persistent evidence provided by U.N. experts.
From Israel’s perspective, the UAE partnership serves as a vital foothold in the Arab world at a time when relations with the only two previous Arab nations to normalize ties, Egypt and Jordan, have soured. And while hopes fade for long-sought diplomatic recognition from Saudi Arabia—which demands such a process be tied to Palestinian statehood, even at the cost of Riyadh potentially losing a lucrative nuclear deal with Washington—Israel has cultivated fruitful collaboration elsewhere.
Israel-India ties have flourished under Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi. Together with the U.S. and the UAE, they cooperate directly through the I2U2 mechanism and have significantly boosted defense sector cooperation in recent years, though New Delhi has consistently called for de-escalation since the outbreak of the war on Iran.
To the west, Israel has also invested in partnerships with Greece and Cyprus, both of whom share a desire to counter growing Turkish influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The trio signed a deal in December to step up joint military exercises in the region.
Meanwhile, the feud between Netanyahu and Erdogan has only intensified. Some Israeli officials and analysts have argued that Ankara and a new “Sunni axis” pose an even greater threat than Tehran.
Yoel Guazansky, senior researcher and the head of the Gulf Research Field at the Institute for National Security Studies who previously served on Israel’s National Security Council and as adviser to several prime ministers, recently explained to Newsweek how “the war created changes” in notions of security, leading to a “zero-sum game in the Middle East” in which Israel’s ties with the UAE and others will only become more valuable.
“If Iran is weakened, countries will see Israel is getting stronger, or even Turkey, and they will balance against it,” Guzansky said. “This is 101 political science.”
The New Disorder
While these three blocs have begun to manifest as the primary concentrations of alignment in the Middle East, the current landscape can hardly be described as a new order.
With once-dominant U.S. influence giving way to a more fractured geopolitical environment in the region, “what is emerging is a highly competitive multipolar system in which states hedge, cooperate tactically and compete simultaneously,” argued Andreas Krieg, senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, Royal College of Defense Studies, and fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
“The war has accelerated several preexisting trends: the erosion of state sovereignty, the fragmentation of Arab states, the declining credibility of American protection, and the growing importance of indirect power,” Krieg told Newsweek.
“Iran, Israel and the UAE have all built regional axes involving militias, political movements, commercial networks, intelligence relationships and local armed partners,” Krieg said. “These networks cannot conquer the region or win conventional wars. They can, however, obstruct rivals, impose costs, shape local politics and make settlements impossible without their participation.”
And yet there’s one more hypothetical coalition. Earlier this week, Iranian acting Defense Minister Brigadier General Majid Ebn-e-Reza proposed during a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Yasar Guler that the Islamic Republic join forces with Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others to form a larger Muslim alliance.
While the concept may be premature given their differing goals and interests, Krieg pointed out that “the proposal matters even if it fails.”
“It reflects Iran’s assessment that the postwar environment offers an opportunity to move from informal influence to formal status,” Krieg said. “Tehran wants recognition that Hormuz, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and wider Gulf security cannot be managed without Iranian consent.”
“If the Islamic Republic survives the war, regional governments will have to recalibrate,” he said. “A return to a containment-only strategy will not work. Iran has demonstrated that it can absorb punishment, retain disruptive capabilities and widen the conflict beyond its borders. Equally, accepting Iranian regional primacy would be strategically disastrous.”
As players seek to balance military deterrence with diplomatic endeavors, all the while prioritizing immediate interests above formal allegiances, the outcome may not be so easy to map in the conventional sense.
“The new regional order will not be based on alliances in the traditional sense,” Krieg said. “It will be a shifting system of overlapping coalitions, bilateral bargains and competing networks. Iran is well positioned to operate in that environment, but so are Israel and the UAE.”
“The result will be a more multipolar Middle East, but also a more fragmented and continuously contested one.”
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