Twenty years ago, in the midst of an Israel-Lebanon war triggered by a cross-border raid by Hezbollah, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously declared, “What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing — the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” She never explained what the old Middle East was nor did she articulate what she thought the new Middle East might be.
Clearly, Rice was premature. Presumably, the same can be said today in the midst of the U.S.-Iran war. So, it might be appropriate to deconstruct our understanding of the Middle East and consider the likely future of the region.
Defining the Middle East is a problem — it is an artificial construct that is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, the geographic conception of the “Middle East” conflates two strategically distinct sub-regions: the Levant and the Persian Gulf.
The Levant encompasses the following countries: Israel, the Palestinian territories (the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem), Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. Prior to the June 1967 war, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were controlled by Jordan, and Gaza was controlled by Egypt. The Persian Gulf consists of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain.
From the perspective of the United States, the Levant has no geostrategic value. The subregion has no significant oil and gas resources. Washington has never viewed the Suez Canal, the maritime choke point connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, as critical to the national security of the United States.
Not surprisingly, when the United Kingdom, France, and Israel tried to seize control of the Suez Canal in 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower forced the trio of American allies to withdraw and restore control of the Suez to Egypt. Also, although the Suez Canal was closed by Egypt for eight years following the June 1967 war, the U.S. did not force a reopening of the waterway.
Yet, within the framework of U.S. domestic politics, support for Israel is vitally important for emotional rather than geostrategic reasons that transcend the usual divisions within American society. This fundamental political reality is likely to remain constant, emerging challenges notwithstanding, for the foreseeable future.
In sharp contrast to the Levant, the Persian Gulf has loomed large as a vital national interest of the United States since the end of the Second World War. A key driver was control of access to the sub-region’s energy resources.
American control over access to Persian Gulf oil and gas resources has three key facets: (1) the ability to obtain energy resources to meet the needs of the U.S. and its allies; (2) the ability to deny U.S. adversaries access to such resources; and (3) the ability to deny Persian Gulf energy producers who are U.S. adversaries access to export markets. Although Washington frames such control in terms of America’s responsibility as a great power to safeguard the free flow of energy resources, in substance, such control magnifies U.S. military power and cripples the military power of adversaries who are dependent upon energy imports from the region (or exports in the case of hostile regional energy producers).
As early as August 1948, the National Security Council recommended that Persian Gulf oil and gas facilities be destroyed or disabled in the event of a Soviet invasion of the region. President Harry S. Truman approved this recommendation on Jan. 10, 1949. The 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup in Iran that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (seen as pro-Moscow) and restored Shah Reza Pahlavi’s monarchy reflected American determination to preserve its monopoly over access to the region’s energy resources.
It took the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, however, to trigger a public declaration of this vital U.S. national interest. President Jimmy Carter, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, 1980, declared, “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital national interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
As of 2024, the Persian Gulf accounted for about 55% of global proven oil reserves and about 40% of global proven natural gas reserves.
Yet, in 2025, the Persian Gulf accounted for about only 490,000 barrels per day of U.S. oil imports (8% of U.S. oil imports of 6.2 million barrels per day), or about 2.3% of total U.S. oil consumption of about 20.9 million barrels per day. By contrast, the Persian Gulf accounted for about 6 mbpd of China’s oil imports (54% of China’s oil imports of about 11.1 mbpd) or about 37% of total Chinese oil consumption of about 16.3 mbpd. China accounts for about 90% of Iran’s oil exports. Manifestly, it is China, not the United States, that is hugely dependent on Persian Gulf oil.
For the foreseeable future, ensuring access to Persian Gulf oil will be a vital national interest of China. Beijing’s solution, at least in part, is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that connects Pakistan’s port of Gwadar (near the junction of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman) to China’s oil terminal in Kashgar (near its border with Pakistan).
The question for Washington that the current U.S.-Iran war has crystallized is whether denial of access to Persian Gulf oil to its adversaries remains a vital national interest of America.
Uniquely, the United States, in its war with Iran, for the first time directly links (via Israel’s role as co-belligerent) the Levant and the Persian Gulf. Interestingly, at the dawn of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, it was Saudi Arabia’s king Abdul Aziz Ibn-Saud who reached out to Washington in late 1947 to delink the two sub-regions: “Although we differ enormously on the question of Palestine but still we have our own mutual interests and friendship to safeguard … I do not anticipate that a situation will arise whereby I shall be drawn into conflict with friendly western powers over this question.”
According to President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy of the United States of America (November 2025), the sun is setting on the Persian Gulf as a vital national interest: “As this administration rescinds or eases restrictive energy policies and American energy production ramps up, America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”
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Similarly, the National Defense Strategy (January 2026) suggests that the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf will diminish: “Likewise, in the Gulf, U.S. partners are increasingly willing and able to do more to defend themselves against Iran and its proxies, including by acquiring and fielding a variety of U.S. military systems.”
Ultimately, whether or not we are witnessing the birth pangs of a new Middle East is irrelevant. What is of existential importance is whether the United States and China are on an inexorable trajectory to armed conflict over access to Persian Gulf oil, in which case we must prepare to reimagine a presently unknown brave new world.
Samir Tata is the founder and president of International Political Risk Analytics, an advisory firm based in Reston, Virginia, and author of the book Reflections on Grand Strategy: The Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century.