India, Oct. 18 -- For most of the last century, the Middle East has been discussed as a prize - a board on which Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Ankara or Tehran move pieces. The 2026 war between Israel and Iran, and the Gulf's scramble to manage its fallout, might look like more of the same. It is not. The more consequential story is that the region's own states are no longer content to be moved.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies now describes the Middle East as entering a "hinge moment", in which local actors are acquiring far more say over their own futures than the old framework of great-power competition allows for. That framing matters more than another round of counting whose air force flew where. The real question i...