这一转向与2022年俄乌战争有关。旧的中东“冷战”格局——以以色列/约旦/沙特/海湾国家阵营对抗以伊朗为首、由俄罗斯支持的抵抗轴心——在阿塞拜疆于2023年战胜亚美尼亚，并在土耳其支持下确立纳希切万走廊后出现裂解。2024年12月，阿萨德在叙利亚于12天内倒台；俄罗斯被乌克兰战事牵制，无法干预，叙利亚九年来投入的上千亿卢布支持未带来安全保障。2023年10月哈马斯在加沙的行动又引发更强烈的以色列压力，六月伊朗遭袭后，普京仅作谴责，没有提供具体援助。
战略误判是核心：普京在南奥塞梯、叙利亚、利比亚和克里米亚取得“切香肠式”成果并见证美国在伊拉克、利比亚、叙利亚和2021年阿富汗撤军中的困境，因此预期西方会弱反应。乌克兰反而成了代价高昂的消耗战。伊朗也高估了自己：虽于2007年受邀加入CSTO却从未加入，却仍依赖俄罗斯武器（2000—07年占其军购的85%）并依托1月17日签署的“20+5年”战略伙伴关系条约。2024年伊朗GDP为436.9亿美元，人口9157万，人均4771美元，与越南的GDP 476.3亿美元、人口1.01亿、人均4717美元接近；而中方相关项目接连受阻，包括恰巴哈尔前期投入的23亿元人民币后来部分转给印度，都显示其地缘判断延后。
On 28 February 2026, Iran’s Ali Khamenei died in a U.S.-Israel strike on Iranian territory. Tehran announced 40 days of mourning. The article says this was not an isolated surprise, but a result of regional power reordering. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, U.S.-Iran hostility was entrenched, yet Iran avoided direct attacks on its mainland until last June, when U.S. forces briefly joined Israel to hit three Iranian nuclear-linked military sites. The shock therefore reflects not abrupt Iranian weakness, but the collapse of a strategic deterrence framework.
This shift is tied to Russia’s 2022 Ukraine war. The old Middle Eastern “cold war” alignment—an Israel/Jordan/Saudi/Gulf bloc versus an Iran-led, Russia-backed resistance axis—eroded as Azerbaijan beat Armenia in 2023 and, with Turkish backing, secured a Nakhchivan corridor. In December 2024, Assad fell in 12 days in Syria; Russia, tied down in Ukraine, could not intervene, and years of more than 100 billion rubles in Syrian support brought no security return. A 2023 Hamas operation in Gaza then raised Israeli pressure, and after the June Iran strike, Putin offered only condemnation, not concrete help.
Strategic misreading is central. Putin believed repeated “salami-slicing” gains in South Ossetia, Syria, Libya, and Crimea, plus U.S. trouble in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, meant weak Western backlash. Ukraine instead became a costly drain. Iran also overestimated itself: invited to the CSTO in 2007 but never joining, it still relied on Russia for 85% of its military imports in 2000–07 and on a 20+5 year strategic treaty signed on January 17. In 2024 Iran had GDP $436.9bn, population 91.57m, per-capita $4,771, close to Vietnam’s GDP $476.3bn, 101m people, $4,717 per capita, while repeated setbacks in China-linked projects—including 23 billion RMB prepayment at Chabahar partly reassigned to India—showed a lagging geopolitical reading.