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The Other Iranian Energy Crisis: How Israeli Gas Disruptions Will Reshape East Mediterranean Energy Infrastructure

The global oil shock created by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz obscured a second energy crisis that unfolded much closer to Israel’s borders. The month-long shutdown of Israel’s Leviathan and Karish gas fields, caused by repeated Iranian and Hezbollah missile attacks, was the longest gas export disruption since Israel began supplying gas to Jordan and Egypt. This interruption, the third in the past two years, exposed how dependent Israel’s neighbors have become on Israeli gas for electricity generation, and reinforced a broader strategic lesson for them. Viewing Israeli supplies as unreliable, Jordan, Egypt and even Syria are now more likely to deepen hedging strategies by expanding renewables, maintaining costly backup fuels, increasing LNG flexibility, and looking for alternative regional transport and energy corridors. The bright side is that this shift may strengthen the case for IMEC by reframing it less as a Europe-oriented transit initiative and more as a domestic infrastructure project for ensuring intra-regional energy security.

Avoiding the Knife Fight: Defeating Iran’s Strait Strategy

Iran has long prepared to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a major conflict with the United States, hoping to trigger an energy shock, draw US naval forces into a confined battlespace, and impose enough cost to weaken Washington's will. The US has been fully cognizant of Tehran's intent for decades and planned accordingly. In the recent conflict, rather than accept a direct fight inside the Strait on Iranian terms, Washington and Jerusalem widened the campaign, degraded Iran's command structure, air defenses, naval forces, missile infrastructure, and supporting systems, and only then turned more directly to the Strait itself. Even so, reopening the waterway has proved difficult. The IRGC’s naval capacity, though significantly diminished, is still sufficient to threaten shipping through mines, small craft, and shore-based systems. As a result, the United States has shifted to a broader indirect approach that combines limited military operations in and around the Strait with strikes and threats of further strikes on vital targets, economic coercion, blockade measures, and a diplomatic alternative. Thus far, that approach appears to be working. Iran's Strait strategy has not forced the United States into the kind of fight Tehran had spent decades anticipating.

Why Did Trump Go to War with Iran? It Wasn’t Just Bibi

The popular premise that Donald Trump decided to go to war with Iran because Benjamin Netanyahu asked him to is a misleading distortion. Trump’s decision was the product of a 40-year personal grudge, a hard lesson learned from Kim Jong-un's nuclear immunity in Hanoi, and a cold-eyed calculation about China's cheap Iranian oil lifeline. Trump saw an opportunity to shatter the Iran-Russia-China-North Korea axis in a single blow and to remind the world that American power is by no means in decline. Netanyahu gave the door a push, but it was already wide open.

Deprived of Nukes, Iran Will Likely Ramp Up Its Chemical and Biological Weapons Capacities

Alongside Iran’s persistent progress towards nuclear weapons, which was recently stemmed – apparently for good – by Israel and the US, the Islamic regime possesses arsenals of other weapons of mass destruction, specifically chemical and biological weapons (CBW). Now that its nuclear strategy has been largely derailed, the Iranian regime is likely to continue to pursue and to considerably upgrade its ballistic capabilities, particularly in terms of CBW warheads. Ballistic CBW warheads (possibly including radiological weapons as well) will thus constitute Iran's primary strategic offensive alignment.

After the Iran War: Israel and the Threat of Nuclear War

 US Vice President J.D. Vance returned from Pakistan without achieving an Iran war settlement. For Israel, this failure is concerning not just because it signifies continuing nuclear danger from Iran, but because it portends further regional destabilization and nuclear proliferation. For Israel, nuclear threats are not just about Iran. Even a favorable end to the current war could produce another dangerous enemy or configuration of enemies. Over time, this adversary (e.g., Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia) could create a new risk of nuclear war, even if it were to remain non-nuclear. Jihadi terrorist groups could also act as force-multiplying surrogates of an “Iran replacement enemy”. To prepare for such threats, Jerusalem will need to engage in comprehensive theorizing, not the visceral seat-of-the-pants policies and intra-crisis hyperbole favored by US President Donald J. Trump. To enhance the credibility of its nuclear deterrent, Israel should consider ending its policy of nuclear ambiguity.

The Indo-Pacific:
Challenges and Opportunities

The Indo-Pacific region is at the center of global geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics. The region, encompassing pivotal powers such as Japan, India, China, and the United States, is a focal point for international relations, underscoring its significance as a power center. Over the past 25 years, the trajectories and implications of current events and policies in the region have strikingly shifted, with China taking on the role of rival. In view of the current conflict in the Persian Gulf, the countries of the Indo-Pacific region will have to reevaluate their relationships with Iran and consider the implications of the conflict for their own national interests.

North Korea and the Implications of Operation Epic Fury

The US-led Operation Epic Fury (Operation Roaring Lion in Israel), co-conducted with Israeli military forces (IDF), provided North Korea with useful lessons about America’s capability to attack a state with limited deterrent capabilities. For Pyongyang, it was a test case that illustrated what might happen if President Donald Trump ever decided to attack North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities and its leadership. The war between the US, Israel, and Iran will likely force Kim Jong-un to reevaluate North Korea’s security policies.

India as Israel’s Strategic Rear: A New Phase in India-Israel Security Relations

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in February 2026 was not just another diplomatic stopover. It represented a strategic reset that consolidates a shift from a procurement-based relationship to a model of systems integration. This shift positions India as a strategic rear and capability partner for Israel in a changing threat environment that now entails a saturation threat (UAVs, loitering munitions, multi-layer attacks), terrorism as policy, supply-chain vulnerability, and intensifying great-power technological competition. In this context, elements usually treated as “economic” – AI, quantum, digital public infrastructure, a free trade agreement – are no longer peripheral civilian add-ons. They are part of the infrastructure of national resilience, standard-setting, supply-chain endurance, and operational advantage. The core test after the visit is whether the strategic intent is translated into durable mechanisms like projects, standards, co-production, and standing working groups.

Welcome to the New Iran

While it is still too early to evaluate the effects of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion in terms of the internal situation in Iran, it can be argued that the operation was the tipping point that took Iran from a strong theocracy to a weak dictatorship. Within this framework, we can talk about the crumbling of the idea of ​​the rule of the clerics, segmentation of the regime's top echelon, the radicalization of its strategic approach towards the region, the increasing murderousness of the regime’s repression of the population, and the economic aid to the regime's supporters at the expense of the general public – the last of which will move into a battle for survival resulting in less protest and more violence. Iran is a completely different country from the one we analyzed prior to the most recent conflict. It is now a country that contains both risks and opportunities that require a completely new situational assessment and planning. 

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