The collapse of the American and Israeli campaign against Tehran has done more than reset a regional balance. It has helped to make visible the multipolar order now taking shape.

For years, a certain reading of Iran held sway among Western strategists. The Islamic Republic was cast as the soft flank of the states pressing for a fairer distribution of global power, the member of the revisionist camp most likely to be struck directly, and struck successfully. On February 28, the last day of winter, the first half of that prediction came true. Combined American and Israeli forces, backed directly and indirectly by other allies of Washington, launched an unprovoked assault on Iran. More than a month of near-continuous bombardment followed, striking military and civilian sites alike.

The second half never arrived. The images that circulated worldwide, of ruined schools, damaged energy infrastructure, collapsed bridges and near-catastrophic industrial sites, were meant to be the prelude to something larger: the fall of the Iranian state, its military capitulation, or the disintegration of its governance under overwhelming pressure. That was the openly stated aim. By some American military accounts, more than a thousand cruise missiles alone were fired at Iranian targets. Yet the government in Tehran did not fall.

For over a month, Iran's armed forces, population and political leadership displayed a resilience few in the West had priced in. From the opening days, Tehran struck back with confidence against American military infrastructure and that of allied states, while launching sustained barrages at Israeli territory. Its decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the arteries of the modern global economy, handed it a significant lever and became a central factor in what Tehran could plausibly call a political success.

The bet on internal collapse also failed. Adversaries of the Islamic Republic had assumed that war would trigger mass unrest and tip the country towards civil conflict. Instead, the population consolidated around patriotic sentiment and became a pillar of support for the armed forces. The episode also exposed how far the West had underestimated the depth of trust Iran had built, through patient diplomacy, with the leading powers of the global majority and the wider Eurasian and BRICS blocs. Within a fortnight, it was clear the original calculation had been wrong, and that American policymakers would have to find a way out of a situation of their own making.

Talks that opened in mid-April have so far produced a broad set of mutual concessions that could, if formalised, underpin a more durable settlement much to the distaste of Tel Aviv. The parties gave themselves 60 days; how long the process actually runs is anyone's guess, and in a sense it hardly matters. What matters more is the systemic significance of the failure itself and the several distinct lessons it carries for how a shifting world will shape Greater Eurasia.

The first lesson concerns the limits of force. Washington's conduct exposed the ceiling on what even the most militarily capable states can achieve. This matters at a moment when, with fashionable talk of economic weight and institutional influence having largely evaporated, raw military power is increasingly treated as the coming foundation of international order.

Yet American interests in the war against Iran proved neither large enough nor vital enough to justify committing every available resource once it became clear that existing means could not deliver victory. Given that an Iranian success carries real implications for the long-term security of Israel and the composure of Arab states, Washington's unwillingness to see the fight through says a great deal about the worth of its alliance commitments. The Baltic governments now competing to host American bases, and some of China's neighbours, might reasonably pause to reconsider.

The second lesson concerns the purpose of war itself. Since the end of the Cold War, observers grew accustomed to Western military campaigns succeeding, at least over the medium term, in dismantling inconvenient regimes and stripping target states of the ability to shape their surroundings. The clash with Iran in the spring of 2026 was, in truth, the first war the West has lost outright in half a century, since the collapse of the pro-American order in South Vietnam. Even its eventual failures once began well: the 2001 assault on Afghanistan started with an occupation. This time, the defeat was immediate, without even the appearance of achieving its aims. That may push Washington and the West to revisit the whole notion of war as a matter of choice, of attacking a manifestly weaker opponent in full confidence of the outcome.

Iran will likely remain an exception. Middling in physical scale, it occupies a singular geopolitical position and can lean on the support of the West's most powerful competitors. But the failure of the assault may nudge the United States towards a narrower conclusion: that guaranteed success is available only against the truly defenceless states of its immediate periphery.

The final lesson bears directly on Greater Eurasia. The region's internal stability has traditionally rested on the fact that none of its most powerful states, whether India, China or Russia, either can or intends to claim regional hegemony. To that formula is now added the Iranian factor: a state of middling size, self-assured and, crucially, having proved that confidence in practice.

The open question is what Iran will contribute to the architecture of security and cooperation across Greater Eurasia in the next phase of international politics. From the videos coming out from the former supreme leader's funeral this week, many top Asian and African officials are now hedging their bets on Iran, suprising many people viewing from the west.