The war that began on 28 February has transformed the Iranian nuclear threat in Saudi strategic thinking from a hypothetical scenario into a concrete, long-term security challenge, reinforcing Riyadh’s view of nuclear capabilities as an instrument of strategic balancing and national security.

Ukraine and Iran avoided escalation through ambiguity, but the Caspian incident exposed how fragile that restraint remains

The course of the war reveals a fundamental paradox: while none of the principal actors appears capable of achieving a decisive victory, all retain sufficient capacity to obstruct a stable resolution.

For Tehran, the Zangezur Corridor thus represents less a binary choice between obstruction and acquiescence than a test of its ability to align strategic red lines with policy innovation.