The deadly attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Saturday was another reminder of how vulnerable civilian life and economic activity have become to the region’s wars. At least 13 people were killed, hundreds were injured and air traffic was disrupted. The consequences extended well beyond the airport itself. The attack also illustrated a larger strategic problem – an armed group does not need to win a war to make its continuation costly for everyone else.
This has become one of the defining features of conflict in the Middle East. Military power remains decisive in determining what happens on the battlefield, but it has proved far less effective in deciding what happens afterwards. The ability to inflict damage is increasingly detached from the ability to impose a political settlement. In some cases, preventing an adversary from achieving its objectives has become a strategy in its own right.
The war involving Iran, the US and Israel has brought this problem into sharp focus. Washington and Israel enjoy military and technological advantages that Tehran cannot match. Iran has suffered extensive military and economic damage. Yet it retains the means to prolong the confrontation and threaten interests far beyond its borders, particularly through its ability to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
This is not a balance of military power. Iran cannot impose losses on the US comparable to those it has sustained. However, it can complicate Washington’s calculations, raise the economic cost of continuing the war and make a satisfactory political conclusion harder to achieve. American military superiority, meanwhile, has not been sufficient to compel Tehran to accept Washington’s terms.
The result is a confrontation in which military pressure continues without producing the political outcome either side seeks.
What we are witnessing might be described as the emergence of a “veto over peace”. Certain states and armed groups have acquired the means to obstruct settlements even when they lack the power to impose their own. Their influence comes from the damage they can threaten, the agreements they can undermine and the violence they can resume.
Such a veto requires no formal recognition. A group capable of attacking an airport, disrupting a shipping lane or reopening a military front can make its effective consent necessary for a settlement to endure.
There is, of course, an important distinction between opposing an unjust agreement and deliberately sabotaging peace. A settlement that ignores legitimate rights or leaves the causes of conflict unresolved may create the conditions for another war. The problem arises when actors use the threat of renewed violence to preserve political influence or economic privileges that might be diminished by a return to stability.
This points to a distinction often overlooked in discussions about ending wars. Some conflicts continue because the parties cannot bring them to a conclusion. Others persist because influential actors have little interest in doing so.
In the first case, the obstacle lies in the balance of power and the difficulty of agreeing on enforceable terms. In the second, the obstacle is political. War may protect established interests, strengthen military institutions, postpone domestic decisions or provide leverage that would be lost in peacetime. Both conditions can exist within the same conflict.
Iran illustrates the complexity. The national interest in ending isolation and restoring economic activity does not necessarily coincide with the interests of every institution that has gained influence during decades of sanctions and confrontation. Greater openness could benefit Iranian society while unsettling entrenched centres of power.
That does not mean these actors necessarily oppose every settlement. But any agreement that alters the internal distribution of power may encounter resistance. This raises a question that goes beyond the terms negotiated with Tehran: can Iran’s political leadership ensure that all those who possess the means of escalation will comply?
An understanding over the Strait of Hormuz, for example, could be negotiated through diplomatic channels and then undermined by a single maritime incident. The problem is especially difficult when those capable of wrecking an agreement do not bear the full political or economic consequences of doing so.
An armed group does not need to win a war to make its continuation costly for everyone else
Similar difficulties are apparent elsewhere. Israel’s military superiority has not resolved the political future of Gaza or the Palestinian question. In Lebanon, durable stability remains tied to the state’s authority over decisions of war and peace, the future of Hezbollah’s weapons and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory. In Yemen, weakening the Houthis militarily would not, by itself, resolve the divisions that have undermined the state.
These conflicts are different in their causes and responsibilities. What they share is a widening gap between the ability to stop fighting temporarily and the ability to prevent its return.
Who, then, can actually end these wars?
In many cases, the necessary authority is divided among several actors. One has the military power to halt hostilities. Another has the political authority to negotiate and make concessions. Others may hold the means to enforce an agreement or undermine it.
A government can sign a peace deal without being able to bind the armed groups operating within its territory. An external power can enforce a ceasefire without resolving the political grievances that threaten it. Even the most capable guarantor will struggle if those able to restart the fighting believe the benefits outweigh the costs.
This is also where the limits of American power become apparent. The US remains the most consequential external security actor in the Middle East. No other country can match its regional military capabilities and intelligence resources. Yet Washington's ability to change the military balance does not give it equivalent control over the political decisions of every actor involved.
Additional mediation by China, Russia or European powers may help create opportunities for compromise. It cannot substitute for political authority capable of delivering on an agreement.
For the Gulf states, these questions are particularly consequential. Their economies depend on reliable maritime access, functioning airports, secure energy infrastructure and the confidence of international investors. Even limited military disruptions can have effects that extend far beyond the immediate target.
The challenge is therefore not confined to preventing another major war. It also involves reducing the ability of hostile actors to keep Gulf economies under the persistent threat of disruption.
The Strait of Hormuz is central to this problem. Any agreement that restores navigation would be welcome, but its terms matter as much as its immediate results. Reopening the waterway in exchange for recognising an Iranian right to determine which vessels may pass would merely institutionalise a new source of insecurity.
Co-operation among the states bordering the strait on navigation and maritime safety is both legitimate and necessary. Granting any one state discretionary political control over an international shipping route is a different proposition.
Gulf states must therefore have a substantive role in shaping the regional security arrangements that follow the war. Their security cannot be dependent on understandings negotiated by others, particularly when those understandings could leave the sources of future threats intact.
Military deterrence remains essential, but it must be accompanied by stronger economic resilience, diversified trade and energy routes, and diplomatic arrangements that make renewed aggression costly. Above all, the interests of states exposed to the consequences of war must be represented in the negotiations intended to end it.
The Middle East’s wars are not necessarily impossible to resolve. History offers many examples of conflicts that resisted military victory but eventually ended through political compromise. What changed was not always the balance of military power. Often, it was the calculation of those who had previously found reason to continue fighting.
That is the political challenge facing the region today. Ending wars requires more than persuading adversaries to accept a ceasefire. It requires changing the interests that make renewed conflict attractive.
As long as societies bear the greatest costs of war while some of those with the power to reignite it continue to benefit from its continuation, peace will remain fragile. The real measure of a settlement is not whether it stops the fighting today, but whether it deprives those who would resume it tomorrow of the incentive and the means to do so.