alt Hacker NewsThe Iranian government is terrible, but that doesn’t mean that the U.S. relationship with the gulf states isn’t worse off than in February. The United States made our alignment with Israel hard to ignore and was significantly unable to protect allied countries while drawing fire onto them. It’s entirely possible for both sides to lose a war and I’d bet we’re going to see enough of a shift away from us, likely to China, to solidly count this as a loss.
It hard to say which way this goes. It's a possibility. But China can offer even less protection than the US can.
We have seen that the US ability to project power is great. We've also seen (and I don't think anyone didn't know that) that power has its limits. Especially when it comes to fighting fanatics with nothing to lose.
The US is still the only world power that has the ability to e.g. prevent Iran from just walking in and taking the gulf countries. It's true that protection isn't hermetic.