Three key developments took place in the Eastern Mediterranean’s geo-strategic scene in the past 15-months. Israel devastated Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza and acutely diluted Hizbollah’s military capabilities and political influence in Lebanon. And after almost 55 years in power, the regime that former President Hafez al-Assad had installed and entrenched in Syria and passed on to his son Bashar, fell to militant Islamist groups backed by Türkiye.

These developments gave rise to six strategic changes in the region.

One, for the first time in over 15-years, Israel has shifted its strategic posture from shielding itself behind walls and domes towards fiercely attacking the powers it deems risks to its national security. The significance of this change transcends military operations. Israel now sees itself as formally in war on multiple fronts, all in a strategic confrontation, not only against militant groups surrounding it, or even against Iran, but a confrontation that large segments of the Israeli society see as for the existence of their state. This mindset lasts much longer than military and economic mobilisation, and will continue to empower hard-right groups in Israeli politics for years to come.

Israel has been winning against Hamas and Hizbollah, and crucially against Iran. Hard-right thinking is always expansionary, seeking to build on successes. This is why there are influential voices in Israel that want to go after Iran now, either by further strikes to significantly delay its nuclear programme, or to encourage local opponents to challenge the regime of the Islamic republic there.

Two, Iran has lost most of the political grounds it had secured in the Eastern Mediterranean in the past two decades. Iran now lacks the political and economic means to attempt recapturing of the grounds it lost. This is why Lebanon and Syria (where Iran had strong influence for decades) are now moving sharply out of the Islamic republic’s orbit. But Iran will not accept total loss in the Eastern Mediterranean, because total loss would have acutely negative echoes back home, and because Iran continues to have serious interests in one particular place in the region: Iraq.

Iran will strive to preserve its influence in Iraq - especially that, whereas Iran was investing resources to perpetuate its presence in Lebanon and Syria, it is reaping economic benefits from its presence in Iraq.

Three, after over a century of absence, Türkiye is back in the Eastern Mediterranean. And the returning Türkiye is ideologically and nationally driven - by a belief in an expansive role of Islam, not only in domestic politics but also in international relations. The returning Türkiye is also driven by a sense that Türkiye deserves, and commands the means for, a highly influential role in its wider neighbourhood.

Four, militant Islamism has finally achieved the goal it has striven for in over a century, since the early twentieth century incarnations of militant Islamist groups had tried to create ramshackle caliphates after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Militant Islamist groups now have the primary political position in a strategically important Arab country: Syria. This has never happened since the fall of the Mamelukes at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Five, that momentous success of militant Islamism came at the expense of the idea of Arab nationalism. Of course, the Assad regime in Syria had long lost any real links to the legitimacy basis and identity tenets of Arab nationalism. Still, in theory and rhetoric, it attached itself, and Syria, to that ideology. Now Syria is in the hands of groups whose leadership blatantly have non-Arab fighters in its senior ranks - and who are backed by the power that modern Arab nationalism was born, 150 years ago, to wrestle the Arab world from its control: Türkiye.

Six, Maronite Christians might return to steer Lebanon. In the past 40-years, since the height of the Lebanese civil war, Lebanon was under major influence, and often outright control, of the Assad regime or groups close to Iran. Now, the Maronites - the initial founders of modern Lebanon, almost exactly a century ago - have been given a chance to lead a new project to redefine Lebanon.

This is consequential. Lebanon has long lost its position as the region’s media, educational, and entertainment hub, but it remains one of the most important geopolitical and political-economy theatres in the wider Middle East. Whether or not a new Lebanese project would be formed, and the nature of such project, would have spillover effects far beyond the country.

These six changes come at a time the Arab world faces key, not only challenges, but perhaps more importantly, questions about its meaning and definition, let alone its trajectory and future. The next article of this series will present these challenges and questions.