France’s pivot to Anglophone Africa

Macron’s visit centered on a major summit in Nairobi that brought together 35 African presidents and thousands of delegates. Awiti notes that the gathering was historically significant because it marked the first time such a French-led summit was held in an English-speaking African country. The decision reflected France’s growing interest in partnerships beyond its traditional Francophone sphere.

The shift comes after a difficult period for Paris. In recent years, military governments in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso expelled French forces and deepened cooperation with Russian security actors. Awiti describes France’s departure from the Sahel as a painful setback and suggests that Kenya offers an opportunity for France to demonstrate that it can still build influential partnerships on the continent.

Simultaneously, both speakers emphasize that France’s relationship with Kenya differs fundamentally from its relationships in former French colonies. Kenya’s interactions with France have largely been shaped by business, education and cultural exchange rather than the tensions that characterize many Francophone states.

From aid to investment

For Gatimi, the summit’s most important outcome was not a specific agreement but a change in mindset. She states that African leaders and participants increasingly reject relationships based on aid and dependency. Instead, discussions focused on investment, entrepreneurship and mutual benefit.

Awiti agrees that the event served primarily as a diplomatic and commercial opening rather than a venue for major policy breakthroughs. He characterizes it as a “charm offensive” designed to create a favorable environment for French businesses seeking opportunities in Africa.

The visit came with controversy. Macron’s widely discussed attempt to quiet a noisy audience during one event drew criticism and revived debates about lingering colonial attitudes. For some observers, the incident symbolized older power dynamics that France still struggles to overcome.

Nevertheless, both speakers acknowledge France’s substantial economic weight and longstanding presence in Africa. French companies remain active across multiple sectors, while institutions such as the French Cultural Center have played a significant role in supporting Kenya’s creative industries for decades.

Why Kenya matters

Gatimi believes Kenya’s growing importance explains much of the renewed international interest. The country is widely viewed as one of Africa’s more stable economies and attracts attention from the United States, Europe, the Gulf states, China and other partners.

She stresses that Kenya approaches these relationships pragmatically. As she puts it, “Whoever marries my mother becomes my father.” The saying captures a broader attitude that foreign partnerships should be judged primarily by the benefits they bring to Kenyan society rather than by historical loyalties or ideological commitments.

Awiti echoes this view. Unlike many Francophone societies, where France retains deep cultural and political influence, many Kenyans have a less emotional relationship with their colonial past. Foreign partners are evaluated according to investment, jobs and development opportunities rather than symbolic considerations.

This practical approach has allowed Kenya to maintain relationships with a wide range of global actors simultaneously, positioning itself as a diplomatic and economic hub in East Africa.

Kenya’s balancing act

The discussion places France’s outreach within a broader contest for influence across Africa. China has become a dominant economic player through infrastructure investment and trade. Russia has expanded its presence in areas where Western powers have retreated. The US remains influential but faces growing skepticism about its long-term commitment to the continent.

Rather than aligning exclusively with any single power, Gatimi argues that Kenya seeks partnerships that advance national interests. She emphasizes the importance of infrastructure development, technology transfer and investment while warning that corruption and weak institutions can undermine the benefits of foreign engagement.

Gatimi and Awiti both suggest that Kenya’s future foreign policy will continue to be guided by practical considerations rather than ideological preferences. The country’s leaders are likely to work with whichever partners offer the most useful opportunities for economic growth and development.

Economic pressures driving foreign policy

Awiti concludes that Kenya’s domestic challenges are ultimately the strongest force shaping its international relationships. The country faces rapid population growth, persistent unemployment and significant fiscal pressures.

According to Awiti, Kenya is borrowing heavily to sustain government spending, while debt is growing much faster than the broader economy. He notes that around one million young people enter the labor market each year while fewer than 100,000 jobs are created. These realities place enormous pressure on political leaders to secure investment and financing.

As a result, Awiti says, Kenyan policymakers are less concerned with ideological debates than with finding resources to fund development projects and maintain economic stability. “The Chinese, the Turks, Egyptians, the Indians, the BRICS, the UK, the US — I think these guys will go on a shopping spree. Wherever they get the money, they bring it home.” In that environment, Macron’s visit represents less a return of old colonial relationships than another chapter in Kenya’s search for partners capable of helping it meet urgent economic needs.

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Yet no one in the international community should have been surprised.

Qatar’s backing of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — weapons, money, diplomatic cover — had been an open secret for months. What that scene outside the embassy made plain was how transactional and mutually reinforcing the relationship had become, and how central one figure was to sustaining it: Lieutenant General , the SAF’s Deputy Commander and arguably the most ideologically committed senior officer in Sudan’s military leadership.

Al-Atta is not a household name in Western foreign policy circles. He should be. As the SAF’s chief of staff and a member of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, he has been more vocal than SAF commander General Abdel Fattah in prosecuting the war’s ideological dimensions, and more aggressive in cultivating the Islamist networks that now constitute a core part of the SAF’s fighting capability. Al-Atta’s ties to the (Kazan) are not incidental. They are foundational to his strategy and what makes him so valuable to Doha.

Qatar’s interest in Sudan, however, did not begin with this war.

Qatar’s long-standing influence in Sudan

Doha has long cultivated with the Sudanese Islamic Movement, reflecting its broader regional posture of backing political Islam as a counterweight to the influence of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. When the war between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in April 2023, Qatar saw an opportunity. Doha chose a side, providing, according to , funding for eight Chinese-made K-8 fighter jets and facilitating weapons shipments transiting through Doha to Port Sudan.

Al-Burhan a Qatari delegation to Port Sudan in April 2025 and praised Doha’s backing. The visit came with $86 million in humanitarian aid. The shipments went unmentioned.

That duality is, in many ways, Qatar’s signature move in conflict zones: humanitarian funding as diplomatic cover, and political and material support for preferred factions operating just below the threshold of visibility that would draw Western censure. It worked in Gaza. It is being attempted in Sudan, where the scale of — over 11 million displaced internally, millions more as refugees — offers ample opportunity to project an image of benevolent concern while quietly fueling the very war that generated the crisis.

Institutionalizing Islamist influence

Al-Atta has announced plans to fold Islamist militias, by the US, formally into the SAF. He calls it military consolidation. What it actually does is hand Qatar exactly what Doha has spent years cultivating across the region — Islamist networks inside the tent, not outside it. It is also precisely what the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has spent billions trying to stop.

As one put it, the idea that Islamist militias will become even more deeply entrenched within the SAF is unlikely to reassure anyone watching closely.

Cameron Hudson of Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the sharper observers of Sudan’s external dynamics, has that support from countries like Qatar has become a structural feature of the SAF’s war effort — one that comes with its own political price tag. Integrating Islamist fighters into the military cannot be a complete answer, Hudson , pointing out that the SAF is already accused of deep Islamist penetration and that adding more only deepens that problem, rather than resolving it.

Washington eventually said the quiet part out loud. On March 9, the State Department the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the same networks al-Atta has been absorbing into the SAF’s formal ranks. The designation noted that the Brotherhood had contributed upwards of 20,000 fighters to the war, many of them trained and supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. That is not a fringe militia. That is the backbone of the force al-Atta is now trying to give a uniform.

A divergence within the SAF

Burhan and al-Atta are supposed to be on the same side. They’re not. Burhan five Islamist generals in August last year, a move that came right after he US envoy Massad Boulos in Switzerland and that looked a lot like a concession to Washington. Al-Atta responded by doing the opposite: working to pull those same Islamist factions deeper into the army’s formal structure. One general is trying to appease the West. The other is trying to make the Islamists permanent. Qatar is backing al-Atta’s version of Sudan, not Burhan’s.

In addition, Qatar is cheering al-Atta’s side. Doha is not part of the Quad — the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE framework pressing for a ceasefire and civilian transition. It sits outside that process by design, backing a vision of post-war Sudan where Islamist influence is not dismantled but institutionalized. That is what makes the relationship between Doha and al-Atta more than opportunistic: It is ideologically coherent and runs directly counter to everything the international community claims to want from this war.

The militia leader outside the Qatari embassy in Khartoum was expressing gratitude. He was also, whether he knew it or not, drawing a map — one that connects Doha’s checkbook to al-Atta’s integration plans to a version of post-war Sudan in which the Islamist revival is not a bug, but the whole point.

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As access slowly returned, much of the commentary focused on the immediate effects: lost revenue, daily disruption and the public’s inability to verify events independently. That is why the debate surrounding Iran’s recent internet shutdown has often been framed as a question of censorship, digital rights or technological control. While these dimensions are undoubtedly important, they do not fully explain what the episode reveals about the evolving relationship between the state’s political power and technology.

The internet is no longer treated only as a communications service or a technical infrastructure. It has become a strategic that the state can withdraw and ration in order to manage state security and political authority. The Iranian state cannot indefinitely separate itself from the digital systems upon which modern governance increasingly relies. Therefore, the most significant lesson of the shutdown and subsequent connectivity restoration is that it exposed how deeply digital connectivity has become integrated into the mechanisms of governance itself.��

The rise of digital wartime governance

In modern warfare, military power alone no longer determines the outcome of conflicts. information flows has become an essential component of contemporary warfare. Narratives can affect morale, legitimacy, diplomatic support and public trust. Governments increasingly compete to shape perceptions, influence public understanding and control the interpretation of events. This objective reflects a longstanding concern about what officials frequently describe as “cognitive warfare,” “soft war” or “ warfare.” Within this framework, information itself is viewed as a battlefield. If policymakers genuinely believe that information flows constitute a security threat, then controlling those flows becomes a logical component of wartime strategy.��

Once citizens understand that connectivity can be suspended during periods of perceived instability, the internet acquires a new political meaning. It ceases to be an assumed public utility and becomes a conditional privilege whose availability depends, at least in part, on the state’s security calculations. This shift affects the relationship between citizens and the digital environment. It also affects the relationship between citizens and the state.

This dynamic matters because modern digital technologies have fundamentally altered the relationship between states and information. In effect, internet access begins to resemble a managed resource. Across the world, governments are increasingly concerned about what they perceive as vulnerabilities created by digital dependence. Cyberattacks, foreign influence campaigns, disinformation operations and information warfare have encouraged states to view digital infrastructure through a security lens.

Historically, governments exercised considerable influence over wartime narratives through state broadcasters, newspapers and official statements. Today, however, every smartphone owner possesses the potential to become a publisher. Images recorded by ordinary citizens can reach global audiences within minutes. Independent observers can challenge official accounts in real time. Events that once remained local can quickly become international stories. Images of damaged infrastructure, reports of military activity, public reactions, casualty information and unofficial narratives can all influence both domestic stability and international perception.

For governments seeking to manage crises, this creates a significant challenge. The internet reduces the state’s monopoly over information production. As a result, internet restrictions seek to reduce informational uncertainty by limiting the number of actors capable of generating competing narratives. That is why traditional discussions of internet freedom often focus on binary categories: access versus restriction, openness versus censorship, connection versus disconnection. These frameworks remain useful, but they no longer fully capture the realities of how many states interact with digital networks.

Rather than treating connectivity as either fully available or completely prohibited, governments increasingly seek to reduce, restore, filter, prioritize or geographically differentiate access according to political requirements. Connectivity becomes flexible rather than fixed. This represents a transition from censorship to governance. Under a censorship model, the objective is to suppress specific information. Under a governance model, the objective is to regulate the conditions under which information circulates.

Iran’s internet statecraft

Iran offers a particularly revealing case because of the interaction between security concerns, political control and economic constraints. The Islamic Republic has long viewed media and information management as central elements of state security. Since its founding, the political system has placed significant emphasis on controlling narratives surrounding both domestic developments and external threats. Wartime conditions intensify this tendency.

To understand why Iran repeatedly resorts to internet shutdowns during periods of crisis, it is necessary to understand how the Iranian state perceives the internet itself. In many democratic societies, digital connectivity is primarily viewed as an economic and social utility — a platform for communication, commerce and civic participation. In Iran, however, the internet increasingly occupies a different category. It is treated as a security domain.

This distinction is crucial. From the perspective of Iranian authorities, the internet is a space through which foreign influence can enter the country, political mobilization can occur, state narratives can be challenged and social unrest can spread at unprecedented speed. Consequently, internet governance in Iran has gradually shifted away from a purely regulatory model toward a security-oriented model. This means that Iran’s approach to the Internet is less about hard regulation and more about regulation to serve state security ends.

This evolution did not emerge overnight. It is the product of two decades of confrontation between the state and an increasingly connected society. Iranian authorities witnessed how digital communication platforms could facilitate the rapid circulation of images, information and political messaging. Although social media penetration remained relatively limited at the time, the events demonstrated the strategic implications of online communication during periods of instability.

Subsequent waves of unrest reinforced this perception. The 2009 protests, the 2017–2018 , the fuel-price in 2019 and the following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 all relied on digital platforms to organize, document and publicize events. Each crisis strengthened the state’s conviction that control over digital infrastructure was no longer merely a technological issue but a matter of national security.

As a result, the government invested heavily in what officials describe as the National Information Network (), often referred to outside Iran as the “national internet.” Officially, the project aims to improve cybersecurity, reduce dependence on foreign infrastructure and increase technological self-sufficiency. In practice, however, it also provides authorities with greater capacity to isolate domestic networks from the global internet during periods of crisis.

The recent wartime shutdown illustrates this logic clearly. When connectivity collapsed across Iran, it dramatically reduced the ability of citizens to independently document and disseminate information. Images, videos and eyewitness accounts that would normally circulate rapidly across social media platforms became more difficult to transmit. International media organizations faced greater challenges verifying events on the ground.

However, the January decision was not merely a reaction to specific content circulating online. Rather, it reflected a broader security calculation. This helps explain why Iranian authorities often describe internet restrictions using the language of security rather than censorship. Officials rarely present shutdowns as efforts to suppress free expression. Instead, they justify them as necessary measures to protect public order, defend national security or counter foreign interference. Whether one accepts these justifications is ultimately a political question. What matters analytically is that they reveal how the state conceptualizes the digital environment.

Restricting information dissemination can backfire

Yet the relationship between information control and legitimacy is complex. In the short term, restricting connectivity may reduce the circulation of unwanted information. From a tactical perspective, these outcomes can appear beneficial. In the longer term, however, information restrictions often generate new problems.

When citizens lose access to reliable information, uncertainty does not disappear. Instead, it frequently increases. Paradoxically, efforts to strengthen informational control can sometimes undermine confidence in official narratives. This dilemma is particularly significant during wartime. Governments require public trust to sustain social cohesion during crises. At the same time, they seek to control the information environment. These objectives are not always compatible.

The Iranian experience illustrates this tension clearly. The state’s desire to dominate the narrative collided with the realities of a highly connected society. Millions of Iranians depend on digital platforms not only for information but also for work, education, financial transactions and communication with relatives abroad. Restricting internet access, therefore, affects far more than political discourse. It directly shapes everyday life. As a result, the internet has become something far more consequential than a communications technology. It now occupies a central position in the relationship between the state and society.

Therefore, the state’s capacity to manage narratives is ultimately constrained by the economic and social functions that digital networks perform. That reality would become increasingly apparent as the costs of prolonged digital isolation began to accumulate. The government could restrict connectivity, but maintaining those restrictions indefinitely proved far more difficult than imposing them in the first place.

And this raises the next critical question: If internet control was considered necessary for security, why did authorities eventually decide to restore access? The answer lies not in information politics alone, but in the growing economic and administrative costs of digital isolation. The collision between these two realities would ultimately shape the government’s next decision: restoring access.

Why Iran could not keep the internet offline

If the internet shutdown served important security objectives, why did the government eventually begin restoring access? At first glance, the answer appears straightforward. The immediate military crisis subsided, reducing the need for extraordinary restrictions. Yet that explanation is incomplete. Even after the fighting eased, authorities continued to keep access , selective and slow.

This is because the internet in contemporary Iran occupies a paradoxical position. It simultaneously enables communication, commerce and access to information, while also creating opportunities for political mobilization, alternative narratives and external influence. 

This apparent contradiction reveals one of the central realities of digital governance in the twenty-first century: modern states depend on the very networks they seek to control. The shutdown imposed a direct economic on a country already weakened by sanctions that constrained economic growth and increased pressure on both the state and society.��

Over the past decade, Iran’s economy has become increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure. Millions of citizens rely on online platforms for employment, business operations, banking services, logistics, education and communication. When connectivity disappeared, these activities were severely disrupted. Small businesses that sell through social media, freelancers paid by foreign clients, e-commerce platforms, digital creators and online service providers all lost revenue when access disappeared. The blackout the economy tens of millions of dollars per day, with some estimates ranging from about $30 million to $40 million daily.

The damage extended beyond the private sector. Banking, logistics, travel, remote work, education and public administration all depend on stable connectivity. When the internet disappears, the state does not simply silence dissent; it also interrupts the systems it needs to tax, coordinate and govern. A government can switch off connectivity. It cannot easily suspend the economic and administrative functions that depend upon it. The longer restrictions remain in place, the more visible this contradiction becomes. That is why the restoration of access mattered. Reopening the network was not a liberal gesture but a response to economic pressure.

What Iran’s internet governance says about the future

The Iranian case demonstrates that internet restrictions are easier to impose than to sustain. This observation is significant because it challenges a common assumption about authoritarian governance. Discussions of digital control often emphasize what states can do: monitor communications, block platforms, filter content and restrict access.

Far less attention is paid to what states cannot do. They cannot fully escape the structural dependence created by digital modernization. In other words, the same technological transformation that expands state capacity also creates new constraints on state action. Digital dependence limits how long restrictive measures can be maintained without generating significant collateral consequences.

The question is therefore no longer whether the government can shut down the internet. The more important question is whether it is constructing a system in which connectivity can be continuously calibrated according to the state’s perception of risk. It is precisely this transition — from censorship to managed connectivity — that offers the clearest insight into the future of state power in Iran. 

That possibility points toward a broader transformation in the nature of governance itself — one that extends far beyond temporary wartime measures and into the future of political control in the digital age. Rather than asking whether citizens should have internet access, authorities increasingly ask what type of access should be available, to whom, under what conditions and for how long.

This is why the Iranian case deserves attention beyond the context of Iran itself. What occurred was a visible example of a broader transformation taking place in many parts of the world: the of digital governance as a central component of state power. The future of political authority may increasingly depend not only on the ability to control territory, regulate economies or command military forces, but also on the ability to manage the flows of information upon which modern societies depend.

However, the Iranian experience therefore offers a warning as well as an insight. It demonstrates how quickly internet access can become subject to political calculations during periods of crisis. As societies become more dependent on digital systems, connectivity is increasingly transforming from a public utility into a strategic resource. The governments that can control, regulate and manage that resource will possess a powerful new instrument of statecraft. Iran’s wartime internet policy reveals what that future may look like. The internet is no longer merely a space through which power operates. It is becoming one of the primary instruments through which power is exercised.

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Early casualty figures varied across outlets, but the political meaning of the massacre did not. This was not a freak breach in an otherwise secure order. It was another reminder that under Taliban rule, Afghanistan remains a space where sectarian terrorists can assemble, move, select soft targets and strike minorities in broad daylight. That is the real story of Herat: not just who was killed, but what the attack says about who is still able to operate.

The Taliban response is by now predictable. Officials repeatedly insist that Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). ISKP, also called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K) in UN reporting, has been defeated, dismantled or pushed outside Afghanistan.

In October 2024, the Taliban said an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group in the Ghor Province had after attacks on Shia civilians. In October 2025, the Islamic Emirate repeated this claim in a broader anti-Pakistan security statement, ISIS/Daesh had been dismantled inside Afghanistan and that remaining members had fled to Pakistan.

In February 2026, Deputy Information Minister of Afghanistan Zabihullah Mujahid said that no foreign or exist in the country and that ISIS had been defeated there. In May, he , saying ISIS had been eliminated in the country.

These are useful examples of the Taliban line. They are also the problem with it: Governments that are truly containing a terrorist network do not keep producing the same headlines year after year. Repetition is evidence. Continuity is evidence. Geographic spread is evidence. Afghanistan’s post-2021 record shows not eradication, but endurance.

A pattern of operational freedom

Consider the January 19, 2026, a Chinese-run restaurant in Kabul’s Shahr-e-Naw district, the Islamic State. The blast killed at least seven people, including one Chinese national, and wounded others. The attack hit a commercial neighborhood associated with foreigners and embassies, not some distant rural pocket beyond the reach of the state.

Its meaning was therefore strategic. The message was ISKP’s, not the Taliban’s: Chinese investors, diplomats, aid agencies and governments considering normalization should understand that the Taliban cannot reliably protect even politically sensitive foreign-linked targets in the capital.

That message did not appear out of nowhere. It followed the December 12, 2022, assault on Kabul’s , a property known for hosting Chinese nationals, that took planning, surveillance and follow-through. When ISKP can repeatedly hit Chinese-linked venues in Kabul, it is not merely causing casualties. It is undermining the Taliban’s most important diplomatic sales pitch: that engagement with the Emirate will buy stability.

The same logic applies to the September 5, 2022, the Russian Embassy in Kabul, which killed two Russian embassy staff and Afghan civilians and was claimed by the Islamic State. Before that came the October 8, 2021, massacre at a in Kunduz and the October 15, 2021, a Shia Mosque in Kandahar.

Those atrocities were central markers in a deliberate anti-Shia campaign, part of a of ISKP attacks on Afghanistan’s Shia minority. The bloodshed in Herat in April 2026 belongs to that continuum. It is the continuation of a campaign, not the exception to one.

How the Taliban enables the terror environment

The Taliban does not need to order every attack to be responsible for the security order that makes attacks possible. Nor should ISKP be treated as a simple Taliban proxy. ISKP is an ideological rival that has killed Taliban officials and embarrassed the regime internationally.

The more accurate charge is different: Taliban rule has created a permissive environment in which terrorists can recruit, transit, hide, communicate, raise money and choose targets with tolerable risk. That permissiveness comes from five overlapping features of the Taliban state.

First, Taliban counterterrorism . The regime strikes ISKP when the group threatens Taliban authority, but it has not built a neutral security order that suppresses all militant actors equally.

Furthermore, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had been given greater liberty and support, and Al-Qaeda continued to enjoy Taliban patronage, so Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) remained active in areas where the Haqqani Network exerts influence. Furthermore, yet more terrorist organization members had received identity documents and moved freely inside Afghanistan. This is not comprehensive counterterrorism. It is a hierarchy of enemies and tolerated allies.

Second, the Taliban is not a disciplined modern state in the way its suggests. It is a victorious insurgent coalition governing through clerical authority, intelligence services, provincial networks, former battlefield commanders and factional patronage. Central edicts can coexist with local protection, informal deals, family ties and old jihadist relationships.

That matters because terrorist ecosystems do not require an official ministry of terrorism. They require safe houses, documents, local guides, sympathetic clerics, non-interference at checkpoints, and the ability to disappear into communities or allied networks.

Third, the regime’s treatment of vulnerable communities worsens the problem. ISKP targets Shia, Hazara, Sufi, Sikh, Hindu and foreign-linked civilians for ideological and propaganda reasons. But the Taliban’s own sectarian bias, repression of minority civic life and unwillingness to build inclusive protection leave those communities exposed.

ISKP repeatedly attacked Hazaras and other religious minorities while the did little to protect these communities or assist victims. That failure is not merely operational. It is political.

Fourth, the Taliban has weak incentives to police the entire infrastructure that sustains armed groups. Afghanistan’s informal financial sector, porous borders, weapons markets and cross-border smuggling routes remain difficult to regulate.

The International Centre for Counterterrorism has noted that Taliban checks on informal banking remain , partly because the sector is economically vital. That weakness benefits ISKP, but also the broader militant field around TTP, Al-Qaeda and other groups.

Fifth, the Taliban profits politically from the wider militant ecosystem even when it suffers from ISKP attacks. Keeping older jihadist allies close reduces the risk that they defect en masse to ISKP. Tolerating or restraining groups selectively gives Kabul leverage over neighbors, especially Pakistan.

At the same time, the Taliban presents itself to Russia, China, Iran, Central Asian states and Western interlocutors as the capable of containing these terrorists. In other words, the Taliban benefits less from ISKP’s individual attacks than from the bargain that those attacks make possible: engage us, fund us, equip us or recognize us because the alternative is worse.

Different from the American occupation, but not innocent

There is an obvious objection that Afghanistan was also violent during the and the Islamic Republic. That is true. ISKP emerged before the Taliban returned to Kabul; the previous state was corrupt and unevenly present outside major cities, and insurgents exploited rural sanctuaries, cross-border networks, weak policing and factional politics. The difference is not that pre-2021 Afghanistan was secure. It was not.

The difference is responsibility and structure. Before August 2021, the internationally backed state was fighting the Taliban and ISKP while depending on foreign military, intelligence and financial support. Today, the Taliban controls the state, border posts, intelligence service, prisons, police, ministries, identity documents, checkpoints and most public spaces.

It also governs through the same movement that historically maintained relationships with Al-Qaeda and other jihadist actors. When terrorism persists under these conditions, the Taliban cannot blame a foreign-backed government, NATO operations or republican corruption. It owns the security architecture it has created.

The Taliban’s security narrative has collapsed

There is a tendency in some foreign capitals to separate Taliban incompetence from Taliban responsibility, as if repeated failure somehow absolves the regime. It does not. Once a movement claims sovereign authority, monopolizes force and demands diplomatic legitimacy, it owns the consequences of the security order it creates. The April 2024 in Herat already showed that western Afghanistan was vulnerable to anti-Shia terrorism.

��������-��’s make clear that the branch is not merely a local irritant. The Council on Foreign Relations tracker continues to describe and ISIS-K violence under Taliban rule. A regime cannot market itself as the provider of order while its adversary keeps staging headline attacks against civilians, diplomats, minorities and foreigners.

What matters most is not whether every attack is centrally directed from one command room or whether local cells vary in quality. What matters is the enabling environment. By that standard, Afghanistan is not hostile terrain for ISKP; it is permissive terrain. If a network can keep resurfacing from Kabul to Herat, keep selecting symbolic targets and keep forcing emergency responses after every supposed crackdown, then the crackdown is not solving the problem. It is managing headlines.

A wider terror ecosystem, not a single threat

The most damning evidence comes from the international monitoring architecture itself. The UN Monitoring Team report of , its predecessor and the broader UN monitoring point toward the same conclusion: Afghanistan under Taliban control remains a permissive environment for multiple terrorist entities.

An Amu summary of UN findings captured the blunt assessment that the a haven to terrorist groups, while SATP’s note on ISKP manpower putting ISKP strength around 2,000 fighters. A separate EU Institute for Security Studies brief warned years ago that from Afghanistan were not disappearing but diffusing outward. The wider terrorist ecosystem matters because it demolishes the fiction that the Taliban has delivered counterterrorism success.

The reality, then, is clear. Herat is not a tragic outlier. It is a fresh exhibit in an old case. ISKP survives under Taliban rule because Afghanistan has again become what the Taliban promised it would not be: a terror-permissive sanctuary. Minorities are paying the price first, foreigners are being warned in blood and the region will keep absorbing the consequences so long as rhetoric about Taliban stability outruns the evidence on the ground.

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The age of big, shiny and few is being challenged by the age of cheap, smart and many. In this new era, drones are not a mere add-on to existing force structures. They are transforming the economics, the geometry and the politics of war. That transformation is eroding traditional great-power dominance, empowering regional actors and pushing the US toward an uncomfortable role as an untethered superpower whose preferences matter less than before and whose high-end arsenals are increasingly ill-suited to the conflicts that count.

The Russia–Ukraine War and the revolution of drone warfare

The Russia–Ukraine War is the most important laboratory of drone warfare, offering a real-time glimpse into the emerging tactical structure of future wars. In contrast to the foxholes of the First World War, today’s trenches are often empty — not because the war is less lethal, but because the battlefield has become almost completely transparent from above.

Both sides now deploy millions of small, first-person-view () drones, devices only marginally more sophisticated than the hobbyist quadcopters tourists fly over beaches. Ukraine alone is expected to produce around drones this year, the vast majority of them being cheap FPVs with a camera and a grenade-sized warhead. Many are now linked to their operators by spools of fiber-optic cable that stretch 20–30 kilometers; unlike radio links, these tethers cannot be jammed by electronic warfare. The result is a black zone or kill zone across much of the front, an area in which any exposed human or vehicle is quickly detected and destroyed.

This dynamic has changed how Ukraine on land. Instead of massing infantry and armor near the front line, Kyiv relies on a thin crust of humans backed by dense layers of drones and an increasing number of unmanned ground vehicles. Drone pilots and ground-robot operators, often in their 20s, now do work that used to be performed by rifle squads and armored crews.

Evacuating the wounded from the ever-expanding, drone-infested “gray zone” can take weeks. Coffin-shaped evacuation robots and jury-rigged vehicles pick their way through mazes of hostile FPVs, making battlefield medicine slower, more remote and more technologically mediated than in any previous war. The line of contact barely moves, but underneath that seeming stalemate, the Russian army is being ground down by a brutal arithmetic of attrition.

What matters for the argument about geopolitics is not only that drones work, but that they work cheaply. A small FPV drone may cost hundreds of dollars, while the tank or self-propelled gun it destroys can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions. A high-end missile system like the US Patriot can cost several million dollars per shot, yet may be used to intercept a drone assembled from commercial components and Chinese-made electronics. This inversion of the cost curve — where the offensive system is radically cheaper than the defensive interceptor — undercuts the foundation of 20th-century military and strategic thinking.

Drones challenge traditional military strategies

The Ukraine war has also demonstrated that large, sophisticated drones are no more survivable than manned aircraft in contested airspace. In the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones captured the world’s imagination. They struck Russian convoys, supported the defense of Kyiv and even helped locate targets for the Ukrainian strike that sank the flagship Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva. indicate the drone was used to distract the Moskva’s radar and air-defense operators, allowing Ukrainian anti-ship missiles to strike the vessel while its defenses were focused on the skies. Once Russian air defenses and electronic-warfare systems were properly integrated, however, the TB2s all but disappeared from the battlefield.

This is not a surprise when one remembers their characteristics: a 12-meter wingspan, slow speed and reliance on data links that can be jammed, all flying in a sky dense with radars and missiles. Large drones have worked well in environments like Libya, Syria or Nagorno-Karabakh, where the adversary’s air defenses were incomplete or ineffective. In a high-intensity war between peers, they die quickly.

The lesson is stark. Western militaries have invested for decades in “exquisite” platforms, stealth aircraft, heavily protected main battle tanks, complex surface warships, under the assumption that better sensors, networking and precision would allow them to dominate cheaper systems. In a drone-saturated environment, that assumption breaks down. We are moving toward a world where anything large, slow and expensive is a liability near the front.

That applies not just to drones but to manned aircraft loitering without overwhelming air superiority, to big surface ships in confined seas, and to armored columns that cannot disperse or hide from persistent drone surveillance. The rise of cheap robotic systems is not simply a tactical novelty; it is an existential challenge to legacy procurement models in Washington, Moscow, and Berlin.

In Europe’s — also one of the world’s largest — this shift is already generating an industrial and political struggle. Traditional German defense champions, forged in the Cold War and oriented toward tanks, artillery and large manned platforms, are eager to absorb the recent surge in military spending by building more of what they know: heavy armor, long-range missiles and complex air-defense batteries. At the same time, a new generation of technology firms is pushing in a different direction, offering small, AI-enabled reconnaissance drones, loitering munitions and resilient satellite-based communication systems.

The battlefield in Ukraine has created intense demand for exactly these cheaper, rapidly adaptable systems, yet European procurement remains fragmented along national lines and biased toward established incumbents. The result is a widening gap between the weapons European treasuries are paying for and the tools the war is actually validating. German companies that embed their engineers in Ukraine and with front-line units have a clear edge, while those that cling to the old model of large, slow, exquisite platforms risk becoming the next generation’s version of the horse-breeding aristocracy on the eve of mechanized war.

If Ukraine shows how drones can reshape conventional land warfare, Iran illustrates how they transform asymmetric conflict and regional geopolitics.

Iran and the power of cheap precision

For years, Tehran has invested in relatively low-cost drones and missiles rather than trying to match US carrier groups or advanced fighter jets. Its kamikaze drones, now co-produced by Russia, are used to strike Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Similar systems have been used by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to harass US bases, Gulf shipping and critical energy facilities. These weapons impose real costs on much richer adversaries and can be fielded in large numbers despite sanctions.

Recent escalations in the Gulf highlight the limits of American power under these conditions. The US can surge carrier strike groups and shoot down incoming drones and missiles, but it cannot do so cheaply or indefinitely. Air-defense stocks are finite. High-end interceptors are expensive. Yet Iran can continue to manufacture large numbers of relatively simple drones using components sourced through shadowy global supply chains dominated by Chinese production.

Nor has massive US superiority in air and naval power delivered regime change in Tehran. Air power can pummel an enemy on the ground, but history demonstrates it cannot change a regime without ground forces. Without prepared local partners and a strategy for stabilization, bombing campaigns merely punish; they do not transform.

In that sense, Iran is a case study in how a mid-level power can survive and even expand its regional influence under the umbrella of cheap precision-strike systems and a willingness to absorb punishment. The economics are decisive. Defeating a $500 or $5,000 drone with a $3 million interceptor or a billion-dollar destroyer is a losing proposition in a long war. The more actors can field cheap drones, the more vulnerable the traditional tools of US hegemony become.

China: the foundry of the drone age 

The backbone of this cheap-drone revolution is not Ukraine, Russia or Iran. It is China. Chinese firms produce the majority of the world’s commercial and dual-use drone components: batteries, electric motors, cameras, sensors and flight controllers. Analysts that at least three-quarters of the key components in many frontline FPV systems are of Chinese origin. Both Kyiv and Moscow adapt these civilian-grade parts into lethal systems. Iran’s Shaheds, too, rely on microelectronics and subsystems sourced via convoluted networks that often lead back to Chinese suppliers.

Internally, Beijing is not just making parts; it is developing its own families of military-grade strike drones, maritime unmanned systems and swarms designed to overwhelm defenses in the western Pacific. But even if China never fired a shot, its role as the world’s drone foundry means it can influence conflicts at arm’s length by deciding which components flow where, and in what quantity. Any Western attempt to maintain technological dominance by simply hoarding advanced systems is no longer likely to succeed. Sanctions can slow but not halt the diffusion of low-end robotics. The knowledge is relatively accessible, and much of the hardware is indistinguishable from commercial consumer electronics.

China must now think not only about its rivalry with the US, but also about a neighborhood crowded with states that can build or import cheap drones at scale — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and India among them. These countries cannot match China’s overall industrial base, but they do not need that kind of infrastructure for the wars of tomorrow. As Ukraine shows, a medium-sized economy with high human capital can create a lethal drone ecosystem in a few years if need be. The cheap-drone revolution does not just level the playing field between one great power and its smaller adversary; it fragments power horizontally across many states and non-state actors. No one has a monopoly on lethality anymore.

Europe’s strategic awakening 

For Europe, the Trump era has accelerated a long-running erosion of US credibility. Europeans discovered, during US President Donald Trump’s flirtations with Russia and his to withhold support for Ukraine, that they had outsourced their security to a state whose foreign policy could swing wildly every electoral cycle. The , the gratuitous to Canada’s sovereignty and the US bombing campaign in , which began without any consultation with Europe or deliberation in the US Congress, were loud wake-up calls. The Europeans gave up trying to placate Trump, as they had done in his first presidential term, and have now concluded that the US cannot be treated as the predictable anchor of a liberal order. At the same time, the war in Ukraine revealed that Europe’s own defense industrial base had atrophied under decades of dependence on American power. The combination of a new drone-driven battlefield and an unreliable US has forced European elites to reassess.

The resulting geopolitical shift is subtle but significant. Europe, led increasingly by a Central-Nordic core (Poland, the Baltic states, the Nordics and Ukraine itself), is starting to think of itself as a security producer rather than merely a consumer. These states understand, often viscerally, that Russia is a long-term threat. They also see Ukraine not as a charity case, but as a frontline ally with the most combat-experienced army in Europe and a rapidly innovating defense industry.

NATO’s center of gravity is moving east. The of Finland and Sweden, combined with Poland’s and the Baltic states’ urgency, is gradually reorienting European security thinking toward land and air defense against Russia, and toward the unglamorous work of ammunition production, drone innovation hubs and counterdrone defenses.

The US remains vital but less central. American financial and military support to Ukraine is still crucial, but European and Ukrainian actors increasingly shape the war’s day-to-day dynamics. In the Gulf and in Asia, regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea and India are likewise less willing to rely blindly on Washington’s guarantees. Drone warfare accelerates this dynamic by offering mid-sized states a way to generate real military power quickly without buying into US hardware ecosystems. Future wars will reward industrial agility, software talent and civil-military innovation more than reliance on a massive, centralized industrial base.

A new battlefield, a new world order 

On the ground, drone warfare is also changing what a battlefield looks and feels like. In Ukraine, medics that they now treat far fewer bullet wounds; shrapnel from drone-delivered munitions and blast injuries from top-attack strikes have become more common than classic rifle and machine-gun fire. The “front line” is no longer a neat trench line but a broad, shifting zone of danger where any movement — an ambulance, a resupply truck, a small group of soldiers — is instantly spotted from the air and prosecuted by a remote operator whose thumbs on a joystick have replaced fingers on a trigger.

In this world, tanks and self-propelled guns can survive only by hiding, dispersing or staying well behind the range of cheap cameras and cheap explosives. The great metal icons of 20th-century land warfare are beginning to look like cavalry lances in 1916: still present, still lethal in some circumstances, but increasingly anachronistic in the face of new technology.

In such a world, the US is still the richest, most powerful state, but it is less able to dictate outcomes at an acceptable cost. Its own political volatility further undermines its capacity to serve as the linchpin of a stable global order. The combination of cheap drones and unreliable hegemony pushes international politics toward what might be called “multi-multipolarity”: overlapping regional security systems, messy alignments and frequent gray-zone conflicts mediated by cheap robotic violence. The core argument emerging from Ukraine and Iran is that the logic of asymmetry is spreading upward. It is no longer just guerrilla movements and insurgents who rely on cheap, expendable systems to bleed better-equipped forces. States are using them against other states.

Deterrence is therefore harder and more crowded today than during the Cold War, when the strategic balance rested largely on nuclear arsenals and a handful of large standing armies. Today, many more actors can threaten high-value assets — airbases, ports, power plants, refineries and headquarters — at low cost and with plausible deniability. The lines between war and peace blur when a handful of drones can shut a strait or paralyze an electrical grid for days.

On the flip side, nuclear proliferation becomes more, not less, attractive. Russia’s possession of nuclear weapons has deterred direct Western intervention in Ukraine. Other states will draw the obvious lesson that if you fear external aggression or regime change, a minimum nuclear deterrent plus a robust drone and missile force is a powerful insurance policy. South Korea’s open debate about acquiring its own nuclear capability is a harbinger of wider pressure on the non-proliferation regime.

Adapting to the age of the robotic swarm

Alliance structures must adapt or decay. Traditional alliance promises, like NATO guarantees and extended nuclear deterrence, were premised on the assumption that one or two great powers could credibly protect many. In a world of saturated airspace and ubiquitous drones, those promises ring hollow unless they are backed by shared industrial capacity, common doctrine, and resilient infrastructure. That requires deeper integration, not just declarations.

Regulation will lag behind reality. As with chemical weapons and landmines in earlier eras, the development and deployment of drones have far outpaced international legal and ethical frameworks. Autonomous targeting, AI-driven swarms and the use of drones against civilian infrastructure pose grave risks of escalation and humanitarian catastrophe. Yet states have little incentive to constrain themselves while others arm.

It is tempting, especially in Washington, to respond to all this by doubling down — to imagine that a new generation of smarter, stealthier, more networked systems will restore American dominance. Some of that investment is necessary. But the deeper lesson of Ukraine and Iran is that no one is going to dominate global violence the way the US briefly did after 1991.

Once lethality is cheap, precision is widespread and industrial know-how is broadly diffused, the fantasy of a benign hegemon enforcing order from above collapses. What emerges instead is a contested landscape of regional powers, coalitions of the willing, proxy wars and arms races in cheap robotics and missile technology. The US remains a major player — still the major player for now — but may soon be one actor among many, with limited leverage and less moral authority than it once claimed.

In that sense, drone warfare is not just changing tactics; it is exposing a deeper truth about 21st-century geopolitics. Superpowers built on expensive, exquisite technology are actually fragile. Regional powers armed with cheap, adaptable drones and missiles are resilient. And the art of war is shifting from the concentrated blow of the armored fist to the persistent stings of the robotic swarm.

For those who still hope for a rules-based international order, the task is not to wish this world away, but to shape it: to invest in affordable defenses, to rebuild industrial capacity in democratic states, to embed ethical constraints into autonomous systems where possible and above all to rethink alliances around mutual resilience rather than one-way dependence. Ukraine’s drone-filled skies and Iran’s asymmetric strikes are not anomalies. They are early snapshots of the future.

The US and China will continue to compete as traditional industrial superpowers well into the future, using the 20th-century nuclear triad and conventional strike forces. The superpowers will develop advanced strike capabilities, drone technology, laser weapons, and space and cyber capabilities. But beneath this familiar superpower rivalry, a new reality is taking shape: a crowded, drone-saturated battlespace in which many regional powers and even non-state actors can cheaply threaten what only great powers could once threaten. In that world, dominance becomes fleeting, vulnerability is widely shared and security depends less on towering arsenals than on how intelligently and ethically we manage a perpetual, low-altitude competition for advantage.

[ edited this piece.]

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Even though Xinjiang is theoretically autonomous, it has become an Orwellian nightmare, subject to severe restrictions by the central government. This region, which is half the size of Europe, has become a sophisticated system of social control and cultural repression. Under the gaze of millions of cameras, an entire people — the Uyghurs — is being slowly and methodically . Not through the gas chambers of the last century, but through intensive surveillance, forced sterilizations and family separations.��

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the CCP pursues a policy of “,” a systematic strategy to forcibly the Uyghur population. What was once a peripheral province is today China’s most militarized zone: a veritable open-air prison. Michelle Bachelet, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, recently “serious human rights violations” committed in Xinjiang that could constitute “crimes against humanity.” As early as 2005, Human Rights Watch raised the alarm, claiming that the systematic repression of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a deliberate political strategy that ultimately benefits the state of China.��

Most importantly, what happens in the Xinjiang re-education camps extends beyond China’s borders and encroaches on the international community. China is demonstrating to the world that cultural and religious identity can be rewritten or erased in the name of state stability and economic development. If the “Great Wall of Iron” prevails without meeting cohesive global resistance, the risk is that the Xinjiang model will become an export product: a world where technology serves not to liberate humanity, but to perfect its imprisonment.

Demographic manipulation broke Uyghur roots

Today, Xinjiang is home to approximately 12 million Uyghurs, who refer to it as East Turkestan (Sherqi Turkistan). While the ethnic Han population primarily speaks Chinese, the Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz populations are ethnically Turkic, predominantly Muslim and have their own languages. Uyghur culture a close affinity with Central Asian nations. Their roots trace back to the collapse of the ancient Karabalghasan Empire (which was located in present-day Mongolia) in 840 AD, followed by centuries of for independence.

In 1759, the Manchu Qing Dynasty invaded East Turkestan, and between 1750–1863, the population residing under military control rebelled 42 times. Then, in 1863, Yaqub , the emir of the Kashgaria kingdom, liberated East Turkestan, set up an independent state and entered into diplomatic talks. However, the Manchu Qing Dynasty formally incorporated East Turkistan in 1884, renaming it Xinjiang. After the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in 1911, Xinjiang continued to be ruled by various leaders.��

Nationalism began to spread in Xinjiang in the 1920s. On November 12, 1933, the peoples of Xinjiang declared independence as the East Turkestan Republic (ETR). It lasted less than a year — the ETR was overthrown on April 16, 1934 following an invasion by the Kuomintang (), the ruling political party of China from 1928 to 1949. On November 12, 1944, once again, the ETR declared independence. And, once again, it was short-lived. In 1949, a mysterious plane crash killed the ETR’s core leadership and the republic was invaded by the PLA. With the arrival of the People’s Liberation Army, Beijing began casting a veil of control that has never been lifted.��

Despite granting autonomy to Xinjiang (which is officially called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or XUAR) in 1955, the CCP’s promises of self-determination clashed with government policies. The first part of policy aimed at Xinjiang was not ideological, but demographic. Until the 1950s, Uyghurs represented about 90% of the population in the region; today, they account for a reduced 45%. They are effectively strangers in their own home. This was not a natural evolution, but rather a surgical operation of social engineering.

Following the fall of the Uyghur leadership, hundreds of thousands of people were driven into exile, primarily toward . Between 60,000 and 100,000 Uyghurs and Kazakhs fled the country. Then, through the paramilitary system of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (the , also known as Bingtuan), a paramilitary organization that manages farms, factories and mines, the State orchestrated a mass of Han, the ethnic majority in China. The government offered economic incentives, housing and careers to Han settlers to dilute the local identity. This relegated Turkic-speaking Muslims to an economic , excluded from the most prestigious jobs and subjected to forced labor and wage discrimination. Many career sectors continue to advertise “Han only” hiring.

In February 1997, tensions culminated into a series of initially peaceful protests led by Turkic-speaking Muslim communities in the municipality of . These demonstrations, however, were stifled by a violent counter-offensive launched by the Public Security Bureau and People’s Armed Police units. The outcome was dramatic: arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, unfair trials and death sentences.

However, the in July 2009 marked the definitive breaking point. What began as a peaceful protest by Uyghur students demanding an investigation into the killing of two Uyghur factory workers turned into extreme between the Han and the Uyghurs. According to CCP reports, nearly 200 people died, most of them Han. The Uyghur death and disappearance toll still remains unclear. The ensuing crackdown marked the final divorce between the Party and the minority. Beijing authorities that the World Uyghur Congress and its leader Rebiya Kadeer were the hidden directors of the unrest and accused them of planning the riots from exile.�� 

From that moment on, Beijing chose neutralization. Under the pretext of the “Global War on Terror,” China labeled every expression of Uyghur culture and resistance as a manifestation of separatism, terrorism and extremism. The separatist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement () is of particular concern to China. In 2002, the US designated ETIM as an international terrorist organization. However, there is a lack of consensus and information on ETIM. Nonetheless, the CCP has turned to an extreme surveillance strategy across Xinjiang on the pretense of the Global War on Terror.��

Nightmarish, radical punishments are used to control the Uyghurs

The CCP’s radical sinicization strategy is one of biological and social manipulation. Between 2015 and 2018, forced and the mandatory insertions of intrauterine devices caused the Uyghur birth rate to decline by more than . Approximately mosques have been demolished and villages renamed between 2009 and 2023 to erase any historical traces of the Uyghurs. Many children have been separated from their families and taken to state boarding schools that have banned the Uyghur language.

Everyday — such as sending messages containing Quranic verses, observing Ramadan, abstaining from alcohol, wearing a beard or donning a veil — are classified as “signs of extremism,” punishable by detention and forced indoctrination. The CCP has invested millions of dollars to build 1,200 “Vocational Education and Training Centers” () where, since 2017, more than one million Muslims — including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz — have disappeared.��

Analysis of leaked Chinese government documents such as the and the has shown that VETCs are maximum-security prisons with iron discipline and punishments. The Xinjiang Papers revealed that between 2017 and 2018, more than 12% of the adult population in a single county was detained in a camp or prison. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) used satellite data to reveal the existence of over detention facilities. However, obtaining precise statistics is nearly impossible.

Survivor testimonies are . Detainees are subjected to forced political indoctrination and torture practices such as sleep deprivation and confinement. There are also reports of unidentified pills or injections given to detainees that caused negative reproductive or psychological effects. Armed guards are ordered to follow a shoot-to-kill for anyone attempting to escape. Albeit with different technologies, the logic remains the same as Nazi Germany: the dehumanization, segregation and neutralization of a minority to ensure the purity and stability of the dominant social body.

Pervasive surveillance allows this system to thrive

The heart of the Xinjiang system is “grid-style social management.” This massive control apparatus rests on a sophisticated digital surveillance system and predictive policing. Through a massive database called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (), the state used AI to cross-reference personal information data such as private messages and spending habits in order to create lists of “suspicious” people. Cities are fragmented into zones, each monitored by a pervasive network of facial recognition technology and police stations. Big data, smart cameras and biometric databases track every breath of daily life.

The Xinjiang Papers also revealed that soldier-turned-politician Quanguo was the orchestrator of this intense security system. He forged his method during his time as Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) from 2011 to 2016, transforming the region into a laboratory for extreme surveillance. His tactic was labeled the “securitization strategy.” 

His success in the TAR earned the full confidence of Beijing leadership. He became the Party Secretary of the XUAR in 2016, and his ruthless model was rapidly exported to Xinjiang in order to neutralize all dissent in the region. Even though Chen retired in 2021, his system has left a deep cut in Xinjiang. The subsequent security buildup in Xinjiang surpassed that of Tibet. In Xinjiang, there are approximately 323 police stations per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the 216 stations per 100,000 inhabitants in the TAR. 

This strategy integrated social control with massive state-led job creation. Chen promoted mass police recruitment campaigns. He applied a colonial tactic: enrolling local populations to police their own people. Thousands of Uyghurs and Tibetans have been absorbed into a continuously expanding public security sector. While the private economy stifles under the weight of controls, a state salary becomes the only means of survival. Economic dependency transforms potential rebels into cogs of the system, guaranteeing Beijing a forced loyalty and a stability bought at a high price — a price that many have denounced and called a genocide. 

Global eyes have turned to the CCP’s abuses

In 2021, the Uyghur Tribunal in London issued a on the situation that profoundly shook the international landscape. Although an independent and non-judicial body in the strict sense, the Tribunal’s analysis concluded “beyond reasonable doubt” that the People’s Republic of China is committing genocide against the Uyghur minority. This verdict denounced the CCP’s systematic intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic and religious group. Even when faced with this evidence, however, the global community today appears dramatically split between the defense of universal values and economic pragmatism.

On one side, a bloc led by the US, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands has formally adopted the term “genocide” to describe Beijing’s policies. On his last day in office during the first Trump administration, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Chinese actions constitute “crimes against humanity.” At the time, President Joe Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, agreed. This stance is supported by rigorous reports from and Human Rights Watch, both of which have documented the described violence.��

On the economic front, the Western response has struck at the heart of commercial interests. Xinjiang produces more than of the world’s cotton. Investigations have provided significant evidence that more than half a million Uyghurs and other ethnic minority people are forced to pick cotton. New fNew factories have been built within re-education camps. When major Western retailers like H&M, Nike or Burberry expressed concern over the forced labor, China many of these brands from the Chinese web. Stores vanished from digital maps and disappeared from e-commerce platforms. Chinese celebrities boycotted the brands and taxis even refused to take consumers to physical stores. It is market blackmail: either accept our cotton (and the blood it carries) or lose millions of consumers.

 Legislation such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act () in the US now impose an almost total block on goods coming from Xinjiang, assuming that any product extracted or manufactured in that region is the result of forced labor. The EU has also introduced similar that draw a clear boundary line in global trade, making access to the single market conditional on respect for fundamental human rights.

However, this Western unity clashes with the silence of many Muslim-majority countries. Nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, despite their cultural and religious ties with the Uyghurs, remain constrained by heavy debt and close infrastructural agreements with China and have adopted a position of strategic neutrality. For these governments, the issue is officially downgraded to a Chinese “internal affair.” Economic dependence on the New Silk Road can, in many cases, silence confessional solidarity and the moral mandates of international diplomacy.  By claiming that the Uyghurs are waging a dangerous battle for independence, it asserts that counter-terrorism measures are a prerequisite for peace and prosperity in the region. The Uyghur minority has become isolated from their Muslim brothers for economic necessity and persecuted at home for ideological ambition. 

The CCP’s authoritarian model is changing the international stage

One example of how Beijing is isolating the Uyghurs is China’s relationship with Afghanistan. Following the of US forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent of Kabul in 2021, China has taken a turn in its Afghanistan policy. Beijing is moving to fill the strategic vacuum left by Washington. For China, Afghanistan is a fundamental piece in stabilizing the Xinjiang border and for securing BRI trade corridors. China had already woven a dense diplomatic with the Taliban. This is evidenced by over 140 diplomatic meetings between Afghanistan and China and the welcoming of Chinese Ambassador Zhao Sheng in Kabul.��

The pact is clear: oil, humanitarian and technological investments in exchange for security and silence. China has tariffs on Afghan goods, signed a $540 million oil contract (which has since been ) and $13 million in humanitarian aid. This support is the price for a guarantee of vital importance: the Taliban have ensured that Afghan territory will never serve as a base for Uyghur militants of the ETIM. It is a game Beijing knows well, having already woven similar threads with Mullah , ex-supreme leader of the Taliban, in 2000.��

Today, that historical precedent evolves into a digital alliance where Chinese cameras serve to seal a border that permits no terrorist infiltration and ignores human rights. Chinese tech giant Huawei and the Taliban have allegedly discussions about wiring Afghanistan with advanced surveillance systems. While the Taliban has claimed that the network would be used to counteract the Islamic State, there are concerns that China could use the surveillance to track Uyghurs in Afghanistan. Already the Taliban has relocated Uyghur fighters away from the border Afghanistan shares with China. It has also increased surveillance around the Uyghurs who live in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, while presenting themselves as defenders of the faith, have cynically sacrificed the Uyghur cause in exchange for economic oxygen and international legitimacy. This collaboration allows both regimes to proceed with internal repression without interference. Beijing offers Kabul a crucial lifeline to mitigate UN sanctions while the Taliban grant China privileged access to Afghanistan’s vast and unexplored mineral resources.

However, the agreement with the Taliban regime appears to be a risky bet. The threat from the terrorist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains an unpredictable variable that Beijing cannot control. This is evidenced by the 2021 suicide that killed nine Chinese workers involved in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan. Despite the dense surveillance network and Kabul’s reassurances, the region’s chronic instability risks turning these billion-dollar investments into a strategic boomerang..

The use of security rhetoric to justify the destruction of an identity creates a disturbing bridge between Beijing’s strategies and other dark pages of history and recent events. Xinjiang was made to be a model of digital authoritarianism, and now that model is being exported. China is challenging the foundations of international coexistence. The immense scale of the repressive operation in Xinjiang rules out the possibility that this is an isolated case of abuse. Absolute stability has been prioritized over fundamental rights, and such a strategy will not stop at Chinese borders. 

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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A predicted landslide becomes reality

The election has delivered Plaut’s expected outcome. Abiy’s Prosperity Party secured an overwhelming victory, reinforcing its dominance over Ethiopian politics.

Plaut argues that the result was never seriously in doubt. Although opposition parties participated and more than 10,000 candidates contested parliamentary and regional council seats, he maintains that none posed a meaningful challenge to the ruling party. Opposition groups had already questioned the credibility of the process, arguing that the vote lacked the conditions necessary for fair competition.

Plaut acknowledges that voter registration and mobilization efforts were extensive, but argues that participation alone could not guarantee legitimacy. Reports from local communities suggest that access to fertilizer and other essential services could be linked to voter registration, creating pressure on citizens to engage with the process. More broadly, he contends that the political environment favored the ruling party so heavily that the election functioned less as a competitive contest than a confirmation of existing power.

The key question was not whether people would vote, but whether they could do so in conditions that allowed genuine political choice.

The contrast between Addis Ababa and rural Ethiopia

Khattar Singh notes that Ethiopia’s capital has become a symbol of the government’s modernization agenda. Images of Addis Ababa’s renovated streets and new developments have attracted attention abroad, with some observers comparing the city favorably to urban centers elsewhere in the developing world.

Plaut does not dispute the visible transformation. He acknowledges that parts of the capital have been rebuilt and modernized, creating an image of rapid progress. Still, this picture captures only a small part of the country’s reality. Redevelopment projects have displaced residents from older neighborhoods, generating resentment among some communities affected by the changes.

More importantly, Plaut stresses that Ethiopia remains overwhelmingly rural. While international media and foreign visitors often focus on Addis Ababa, most Ethiopians live far from the capital. Understanding the country requires looking beyond showcase projects and examining the conditions faced by ordinary citizens in rural communities.

That perspective was largely missing from coverage of the election. The concerns of farmers, local communities and residents of conflict-affected regions received far less attention than the government’s development narrative.

Elections amid conflict

A central theme Plaut discusses is the extent to which ongoing conflicts limit the reach of the Ethiopian state itself.

Plaut points to the northern Tigray region, where the devastating war of 2020–2022 left at least 600,000 people dead and produced widespread atrocities. Although large-scale fighting has subsided, the region remains politically fractured and unstable. He argues that meaningful participation there was extremely difficult.

The situation in the states of Amhara and Oromia is similarly troubling. In Amhara, the Fano militia controls significant parts of the countryside and continues to clash with government forces. In Oromia, which contains roughly a third of Ethiopia’s population, insurgent groups operate in areas where government authority remains limited.

These realities lead Plaut to question whether a truly national election was possible in Ethiopia. Large sections of the country faced security conditions that restricted campaigning, voting and independent observation. The government could and did organize polling where it maintained control, but significant portions of Ethiopia remained beyond its effective reach.

The election result, therefore, does not resolve the underlying conflicts that continue to shape Ethiopian politics. Instead, it highlights the contrast between the government’s electoral mandate and the persistent instability affecting much of the country.

Regional rivalries and growing tensions

The conversation also places Ethiopia’s election within the wider geopolitical landscape of the Horn of Africa.

Although Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for helping end decades of hostility with neighboring Eritrea, Plaut argues that relations between the two countries have deteriorated. He points in particular to Abiy’s increasingly forceful statements regarding Ethiopia’s need for access to Red Sea ports. For Eritrea, whose independence struggle lasted three decades, control of those ports remains a core national interest.

Plaut describes a region increasingly divided into competing camps. Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates have developed close ties, while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and the Sudanese Armed Forces have found common ground on several regional issues. These alignments overlap with Sudan’s civil war, creating a complex web of rivalries that extends beyond any single conflict.

Reports of cross-border military activity and external support for armed groups suggest that tensions are already spilling across national boundaries. These developments create a volatile environment in which local disputes can quickly acquire regional significance.

Media blind spots and Ethiopia’s future

The discussion concludes with two issues that Plaut believes receive insufficient attention from international observers. The first is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which enjoys broad support across Ethiopia. Built largely through domestic financing after international lenders declined support, the hydroelectric project has become a symbol of national pride and a rare point of consensus in an otherwise divided political landscape. Ethiopians view the dam as proof that the country can pursue ambitious development projects on its own terms.

The second concerns the difficulty of reporting on Ethiopia itself. Independent journalism faces significant obstacles, particularly during periods of political tension. Foreign reporters can struggle to obtain visas, while local journalists operate under increasing constraints. He points to the Tigray war as a striking example. Despite being one of the deadliest conflicts in the world at the time, independent reporting from the front lines was exceptionally limited.

These restrictions create major gaps in international understanding of Ethiopia’s political and security challenges. For Plaut, the problem is not simply what the world reports about Ethiopia, but what it cannot report. Without greater access to events on the ground, outsiders risk misunderstanding both the country’s elections and the deeper forces shaping its future.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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That is not ambiguity. The contradiction is glaring and growing harder to ignore.

Egypt’s expanding military role in Sudan

Since at least mid-2025, Egypt has been Turkish-made Bayraktar Akinci drones from a military airbase at East Oweinat in its Western Desert, just 37 miles from the Sudanese border, striking targets belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) inside Sudan.

The intelligence architecture runs deeper than hardware. According to , the cooperation between Cairo and Khartoum includes not only surveillance and intelligence assistance but battlefield coordination in North Darfur and Kordofan, aimed in part at cutting off RSF supply routes.

After Head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Cairo in December last year, a joint operations room was reportedly set up in North Kordofan, with Egyptian officers making repeated trips to the front to coordinate logistics, targeting and battlefield with Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) commanders. The following month, Egypt’s intelligence chief, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, to Port Sudan for direct talks with Burhan, covering security cooperation, counterterrorism and Red Sea arrangements.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Burhan is a sanctioned figure. The question of what it means — legally and diplomatically — for a nominal US partner to be running joint operations with him has not been answered because Washington has not yet forced the issue. Washington’s January 2025 , however, did not come out of nowhere. First, there were findings of war crimes in December 2023. Then, chlorine gas was allegedly used against RSF fighters, at least twice.

And yet Egypt still has a at the Quad table alongside the US, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the grouping meant to be anchoring ceasefire efforts, while running drone strikes for the side Washington sanctioned. A foreign ministers’ meeting was planned for July 2025, but it was indefinitely postponed. Cairo’s strategic logic is not hard to follow. From Egypt’s perspective, an RSF-dominated Sudan would create a corridor on Egypt’s southwestern flank and threaten the Nile water arrangements that Cairo treats as a red line. However, those concerns don’t explain Egypt’s shadowy role in the theater of war.

Egypt’s complicated relationship with smuggling and regional networks

For years, Iran and Hamas-aligned networks have exploited Egyptian territory as a conduit for weapons moving toward Gaza. The Israeli military confirmed after the October 7 attack that Hamas had used tunnel systems to smuggle weapons and ammunition from Egypt into Gaza in the lead-up to the . Egypt’s relationship with Hamas has long been managed through Cairo’s intelligence services, which in 2017 reportedly struck a with the organization — opening the Rafah crossing around the clock in exchange for Hamas halting attacks on Egyptian territory.

Additionally, the Muslim Brotherhood’s networks inside Egypt have given Iran a persistent back channel for moving weapons across the Sinai — not official, not acknowledged, but .

Iranian arms bound for Palestinian factions have long moved through Sudan and across Egypt before disappearing into Gaza through tunnels. That pipeline predates October 7 and has never been fully shut down.  What that leaves is a country simultaneously brokering peace talks, flying combat drones for a sanctioned general and sitting atop smuggling routes it has never fully chosen to close.

The consequences of Washington’s silence

Washington has not publicly confronted Cairo on any of this, and this silence has familiar explanations: Gaza diplomacy, the Sinai, the Canal, decades of military aid that nobody wants to unwind. But silence has consequences. Every strike flown from East Oweinat on behalf of a general sends a message: US designations are negotiable if you’re useful enough. Every weapons shipment that transits Egyptian territory toward Gaza is a reminder that strategic partnerships have been allowed to paper over serious security failures.

Of course, Egypt is not the only regional actor playing both sides of Sudan’s war. However, it is the one with a chair at Washington’s peacemaking table, and a drone base 37 miles from the front.

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The role of Turkish drones in Sudan’s war

A trove of unearthed in March last year reportedly revealed that Baykar, the Turkish defense company behind the Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones, covertly funneled at least $120 million worth of weapons to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), including drone systems and warheads. Those Turkish drones proved a key component in the SAF’s ability to drive the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) out of Khartoum.

Russian Ilyushin aircraft were still military cargo out of Istanbul to Port Sudan into early 2026, one path in a wider web of foreign routes keeping the SAF armed. The relationship, however, has moved well past arms sales: Turkish personnel were reportedly on the ground training Sudanese soldiers to fly Akinci when the RSF struck Port Sudan last May, hitting the facilities directly. Several trainers were wounded and flown back to Turkey.

The line between arms supplier and active belligerent has effectively dissolved. What emerges is a portrait of Turkey not as a neutral humanitarian actor, the role Ankara long cultivated in Africa, but as a calculated participant in one of the world’s most destructive conflicts.

Turkey’s strategic ambitions in Africa

Nonetheless, Turkey has been planting flags across Africa for years, and Sudan has long been on its horizon: The Red Sea coastline, the farmland and the construction deals have all been part of a much larger picture. In 2017, Ankara a 99-year lease on Suakin Island, officially to restore its Ottoman-era port. However, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were sufficiently alarmed by the naval dock provisions to suspect Turkey had a military base in all along. Then, when fighting reignited in April 2023, the Erdoğan government declared it would not get involved. Few believed it back then. Nobody believes it now.

“I assess Turkey’s strategic logic to diplomatic and military engagement in these states as a long-term bid to gain markets, natural access, and political prestige,” says Will Doran, a former researcher of Turkey at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, during an interview we had, emphasizing that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long cast Turkey as a rival to the world’s established powers.

Africa is where that ambition is now being tested.

The escalation of conflict and regional spillover

Meanwhile, the SAF’s battlefield — including the lifting of sieges on Dilling and Kadugli that reopened supply lines from el Obeid southward and signaled a potential push further toward RSF-held western Sudan — have coincided with the of Turkish-made Eren loitering munitions, fired from Akinci UCAVs alongside TB2s already in the SAF’s inventory.

The RSF has found ways to fight back. In October 2025, it a Turkish-made Akinci drone near El-Fasher — the same aircraft, the RSF claimed, that had just killed more than 80 people in strikes on nearby civilian areas.

“Turkey’s cheap drones and training programs are game-changers,” political strategist John Thomas warns in another interview. “Countries get high-tech firepower, tying them to Ankara’s orbit. This boosts political clout but risks flooding unstable regions with arms, complicating security for all.”

The legal exposure, however, is considerable.

Legal violations and regional security risks

The UN, the EU and the US all have active arms on Sudan, meaning it is illegal to send weapons there. Turkish shipments appear to have broken all three. On top of that, a UN panel Turkish-made rifles turning up in neighboring South Sudan in July 2025, a country under its own separate weapons ban.

Doran points out that the spillover is already happening: “Ankara’s arms sales to Sudan and the SAF have already led to Turkish weapons bleeding into South Sudan,” he continues, warning that “it wouldn’t take much more for them to get into the hands of Sahelian Salafi-Jihadist groups.”

The UN Security Council has unanimously Sudan’s arms embargo — most recently through October 2026. Yet concerns continue that Turkey, a NATO member, is still evading enforcement a sophisticated delivery network.

Experts caution that Washington and its allies are dangerously slow to read the actual actions Ankara is taking. “If the US and Europe fail to understand these subtleties,” Thomas observes, “Ankara will increasingly shape African security decisions in its favor.”

Others are blunter still: “Turkey’s Africa posture exhibits far more willingness to subvert U.S. and European security efforts than accommodation towards broader security interests,” Doran adds.

With the UN warning that the killing is only going to get worse, Turkey’s fingerprints are on the aircraft making it happen.

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This is not simply a regional matter. It is a strategic opportunity for the US and the international community to support stability, economic growth and cooperation in a region that urgently needs all three.

Geopolitics meets economic reality

Cyprus’s geography places it at the frontline of regional developments. Instability in the Middle East, fluctuations in global energy markets and shifting security dynamics all have direct economic consequences. For an island economy on imports, rising transportation and energy costs quickly translate into inflationary pressures that affect households and businesses alike.

These pressures are compounded by the unresolved (the historically rooted conflict between the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus). The absence of a comprehensive settlement has created structural constraints — particularly for the Turkish Cypriot side — most notably restrictions on direct trade and transportation. These are not natural economic limitations; they are artificial constraints that distort markets, raise costs and limit opportunity.

Yet despite these realities, Northern Cyprus continues to demonstrate a remarkable capacity to adapt.

Tourism as strategy: authenticity, access and untapped potential

remains a cornerstone of the TRNC economy — and a powerful example of resilience in action. In 2024 alone, more than 1.3 million visitors stayed in tourist accommodation facilities, contributing to a broader ecosystem that supports employment, services and investment. Northern Cyprus offers something increasingly rare in today’s global tourism landscape: authenticity. Its coastline remains largely unspoiled, its cultural identity is distinct and its history is layered in a way that invites exploration.

Consider , the once-abandoned district of Famagusta. Today, its carefully managed reopening offers visitors a uniquely powerful experience — a place where history, memory and renewal intersect. Walking its streets is not only a journey through time, but a reminder of Cyprus’s unfinished story.

Equally compelling is the , often described as one of the last untouched corners of the Mediterranean. Its golden beaches stretch for miles, free from overdevelopment, while wild donkeys roam the landscape — symbols of a simpler, more authentic connection to nature. For travelers seeking meaningful, sustainable experiences, this is a destination that resonates.

Despite international constraints, access continues to improve. Ercan International Airport — recently with a modern terminal capable of handling up to 10 million passengers annually — serves as the primary gateway. Due to political restrictions, all flights currently operate via Türkiye, increasing travel times and costs. Yet even within these limitations, connectivity remains robust, with hundreds of weekly flights linking Northern Cyprus to major Turkish cities. Furthermore, tourism infrastructure continues to expand. New boutique hotels, restaurants and high-end hospitality investments reflect growing confidence in the sector. Port and airport data show millions of annual entries into the TRNC, underscoring the scale and resilience of visitor flows.

Sustainability is also becoming central to our long-term tourism strategy. A leading example is the Alagadi Special Environmental Protection , where conservation programs protect endangered sea turtles such as Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas. These initiatives not only preserve biodiversity but also position Northern Cyprus as a destination aligned with global ecotourism trends.

Beyond tourism: building a multipillar economy under constraint

While tourism remains vital, it is only one pillar of a diversifying economy. Higher education has emerged as a major success story. Universities such as Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) attract students from across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, creating a dynamic international environment. EMU’s global recognition — including its among the world’s top young universities by Times Higher Education — demonstrates the quality and competitiveness of TRNC institutions. These universities are not only educational centers but economic engines, supporting housing, services and innovation.

Other sectors are also gaining momentum. Real estate development, digital services and entrepreneurship are expanding, reflecting broader global trends. At the same time, policymakers are investing in infrastructure, renewable energy and digital connectivity to reduce external vulnerabilities. 

Yet here again, the Cyprus Issue imposes unnecessary costs. The requirement that all international flights route through Türkiye, for example, increases ticket prices, limits market access and contributes to broader inflationary pressures. These are constraints that could be alleviated through a political solution — unlocking efficiencies that would benefit the entire island.

The Cyprus Issue: from constraint to opportunity

For decades, the Cyprus Issue has been viewed primarily through a political lens. But its economic implications are equally significant. A comprehensive settlement based on sovereign equality would not only resolve longstanding disputes but it would also transform the economic landscape of the island. TRNC President Tufan Erhürman has put forward a pragmatic to restart negotiations, grounded in clear principles and a defined timeline. His approach reflects a recognition that progress must be structured, realistic and rooted in equality.

The potential benefits are substantial. Cooperation in energy, tourism and infrastructure could unlock new sources of growth. The Eastern Mediterranean’s resources, if managed collaboratively, could become a driver of regional stability rather than tension. Trade and connectivity could expand, reducing costs and increasing competitiveness.

But achieving this requires international engagement. The US and its partners have a critical role to play in supporting a fair and lasting solution — one that recognizes the rights and realities of both communities on the island.

Resilience is not enough

The story of Northern Cyprus is, in many ways, a story of resilience. For decades, the Turkish Cypriot people have navigated uncertainty with adaptability and determination. Businesses innovate. Institutions evolve. Society remains forward-looking.

But resilience alone should not be the end state.

The goal must be to move from resilience to opportunity — from managing constraints to unlocking potential. This requires addressing the root cause of many economic challenges: the unresolved Cyprus Issue.

A call for engagement

For international audiences, the message is clear. Northern Cyprus is not only a place shaped by history — it is a place defined by possibility. Its economy is dynamic. Its tourism sector is vibrant. Its people are committed to building a stable and prosperous future.

What is needed now is the political framework to match that ambition.

International support and engagement — particularly from the US — can help create the conditions for a comprehensive settlement based on sovereign equality. Such a resolution would not only benefit the people of Cyprus; it would contribute to broader regional stability at a time when it is urgently needed.

In a region often defined by uncertainty, Cyprus has the potential to become a model of cooperation, stability and shared prosperity. The opportunity is there. The question is: Will the international community seize it?

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According to recent reporting, hundreds of thousands gathered in Aden’s Al-Oroudh Square to express political demands tied to the future of southern Yemen. While precise crowd estimates vary, such mobilizations are consistent with earlier demonstrations documented by , where significant numbers have rallied in support of the Southern Transitional Council (STC). These developments take place within a highly fragmented political landscape.��

Competing claims to legitimacy

Yemen’s prolonged conflict has produced multiple centers of authority, with the STC emerging as a significant actor in the south alongside the internationally recognized government and the Houthis. As noted in a Council on Foreign Relations , competing claims to legitimacy remain one of the central challenges to resolving the conflict.

From an analytical perspective, the Aden rally can be interpreted in two ways. On one hand, it represents a clear expression of grassroots political sentiment among constituencies advocating for southern self-determination. On the other hand, scholars of conflict caution that public mobilization alone does not necessarily translate into institutional or inclusive legitimacy, particularly in fragmented political environments.

This duality is important when assessing claims of political mandate. The rally underscores that the STC retains a meaningful base of support, yet it operates within a broader, contested political field. Yemen’s recent trajectory demonstrates that authority remains fluid, shaped by both local dynamics and regional influences.

Enduring political grievances and regional dynamics

At the same time, the persistence of such mobilization points to enduring political grievances. Calls for self-determination in the south are rooted in historical divisions, as well as perceptions of marginalization within the Yemeni state. These underlying drivers continue to influence political behavior and public engagement.

For international stakeholders, these dynamics present both a challenge and a responsibility. The UN-led peace process has consistently emphasized inclusivity, yet progress has been constrained by fragmentation and competing agendas. In this context, the recent rally highlights the importance of grounding diplomatic efforts in observable realities.

It also raises a more specific consideration regarding the role of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg. As the principal mediator in the peace process, his approach has faced from segments of southern constituencies who feel that their political weight and aspirations are not adequately reflected in current frameworks. While such criticism is part of the broader contestation inherent in peace processes, it underscores the need for continuous reassessment of assumptions underpinning mediation efforts.

The path forward: inclusivity and diplomacy

Incorporating developments such as the Aden rally into diplomatic calculations does not imply endorsement of any single actor. Rather, it reflects the practical necessity of engaging with all relevant sources of influence and legitimacy. A durable political settlement is more likely to emerge from processes that are perceived as representative and responsive to realities on the ground.

Ultimately, the events in Aden should be understood as part of a wider pattern in Yemen’s conflict, where local mobilization, regional interests and international diplomacy intersect. Whether such demonstrations translate into lasting political outcomes will depend not only on their scale, but on how effectively they are integrated into an inclusive and credible peace process.

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This reliance reflects a broader shift in how information is evaluated. Digital platforms offer immediate, quantifiable feedback. Unlike traditional methods such as surveys or field research, social media provides continuous streams of data that appear precise and current. The appeal is clear: What people engage with seems to reveal what they care about.

Evidence suggests otherwise. In of more than 15,000 Arabic-language posts on X related to political discussions in Lebanon, the top 1% of users generated over 60% of total engagement, while the top 5% accounted for more than 90%. What appears prominent is often driven by a narrow segment of highly active participants.

This is not a marginal bias. It is a structural feature of how digital platforms organize attention. This distortion begins with how visibility itself is understood — and misinterpreted.

The illusion of public opinion

Social media creates the impression of open, large-scale participation. Anyone can post, react and contribute. The resulting stream of content appears to reflect a collective voice.

But visibility is not evenly distributed. A fraction of users produces a disproportionate share of content and interaction. What appears prominent is not necessarily what is widely believed. More often, it reflects what is most actively pushed into view. This creates a subtle but important illusion. High visibility feels like broad agreement; repetition feels like consensus. In reality, both can emerge from concentrated activity.

Engagement metrics reinforce this effect. Likes, reposts and replies are often treated as indicators of importance. They are precise, comparable and available in real time. For decision-makers, they offer a convenient proxy for public sentiment.

Yet these capture amplification, not distribution. They show what circulates —not how widely it is held.

A small minority drives attention

The concentration observed in Lebanon reflects a broader pattern across platforms. Social media systems reward frequency, speed and persistence. Users who post often and engage consistently are more likely to be amplified.

Over time, this produces a hierarchy of visibility. A small group of highly active accounts dominates attention. Their activity shapes trending topics, frames discussions and influences what others encounter. This pattern has been documented in multiple studies of platform usage, where a minority of users generate a large share of content and interaction, a dynamic consistently supported by . The implication is straightforward: Participation is widespread, but influence is concentrated.

Once this concentration is established, it becomes self-reinforcing. Visibility attracts engagement, and engagement sustains visibility. Accounts that are already prominent are more likely to remain so. The result is not a neutral arena of expression but an environment structured by unequal participation.

Why this distorts decision-making

The issue is not that highly active users exist — it is how their activity is interpreted. When engagement is treated as a proxy for public opinion, concentration turns into distortion. Signals generated by a narrow group are read as if they reflect a broader population; the difference between intensity and breadth disappears.

This has direct . Analysts may read spikes in engagement as shifts in sentiment. Journalists may amplify narratives that appear dominant without assessing how widely they are shared. Policymakers may respond to pressure that reflects a concentrated rather than a representative voice.

The effect is reinforced by loops. A topic that gains traction online is more likely to receive media coverage. Coverage increases visibility, which drives further engagement. What begins as concentrated activity can evolve into a widely perceived trend.

At each step, the signal grows stronger. It does not, however, become more representative. This extends beyond politics. Companies track online reactions to gauge consumer sentiment and investors monitor digital trends as indicators of market behavior. In both cases, decisions are shaped by what is most visible, even when that visibility reflects uneven participation.

The speed of this process makes the distortion more acute. A small, but highly active, group can push a topic into prominence within hours. often interpret this surge as a broad concern and respond with public statements or policy changes. In many cases, there is little evidence that the reaction reflects wider opinion. The response follows visibility not distribution.

How we should read social media

Social media remains a valuable source of information. It provides insight into how narratives form, how communities mobilize and how information spreads. But it should not be treated as a direct measure of public opinion.

A more accurate interpretation requires separating visibility from representation. Engagement indicates what is being amplified, not how widely a view is held. These are distinct questions, and they require different forms of evidence.

This distinction does not reduce the importance of social media; it clarifies its role. Platforms are effective at revealing intensity, coordination and narrative dynamics. They are less effective at capturing distribution across a population. For professionals who rely on digital signals, this requires a shift in interpretation. Social media data should be contextualized, not taken at face value. Claims about public opinion should be supported by methods that account for participation patterns, not just engagement levels.

The broader challenge is conceptual. As digital platforms shape public discourse, the meaning of visibility becomes more complex. What is seen is not simply what exists. It’s what is amplified within a system shaped by unequal participation.

Until this is recognized, there is a persistent risk of treating a distorted signal as a clear reflection of reality.

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A regional war with global consequences

Atul opens by asking Manu to map the immediate, medium-term and long-term implications of the conflict, along with its effects across different regions. Manu frames the crisis along both time and space, noting that what started as a regional war is already becoming something much larger. As he puts it, “we are seeing this grand convergence” as military disruption in one part of the world begins to reshape economic life in other parts of the world.

The most immediate shock comes through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints. Before the conflict, roughly 140 ships passed through the strait each day. Now traffic has almost completely stopped. That matters for crude oil, gasoline, jet fuel, petrochemicals and industrial inputs that move through the chokepoint.

The closed chokepoint has led to major consequencees. Air travel becomes more expensive as jet fuel supplies tighten. Hydrocarbon byproducts such as sulfur, lubricants, asphalt, plastics and chemical derivatives also grow scarcer. Since modern medicine depends heavily on these inputs, a prolonged conflict could drive up medical costs and disrupt pharmaceutical production. The first phase of the crisis hits energy, transport and the basic materials that support modern economies.

From fuel shock to food shock

As the discussion moves into the medium term, Manu explains how shortages in energy and industrial inputs begin to spread downstream. If fertilizer supplies remain constrained during the spring planting season, the effects will show themselves months later in weaker harvests and rising food prices. Modern agriculture, Atul notes, depends on both fuel and fertilizers. When both come under pressure at once, food shortages are inevitable.

The closed chokepoint also makes the Gulf monarchies especially vulnerable because they import almost all of their food. They also depend on steady flows of revenue from hydrocarbons to maintain social stability. If food becomes scarce and welfare systems come under strain, governments may have to sell their assets to stay in power.

The Iran war has made the investment climate highly uncertain. A “flight to safety” into hard assets such as precious metals and agricultural land is likely. This flight will be caused by the decline in normal economic activity because of the supply shock. It will also be exacerbated by declining confidence in institutions. Equities represent confidence in future growth. If that confidence weakens, capital retreats toward harder assets that appear more direct and less dependent on intermediaries. The result is a lower-trust global economy, marked by caution, volatility and a reordering of trade and investment patterns.

Stagflation and the strain on the dollar system

Looking further ahead, Atul asks what the world might look like five years from now if the conflict continues and critical infrastructure across the Gulf suffers sustained destruction. Manu sketches a grim scenario in which energy production capacity is damaged on a large scale, leading to long-lasting shortages and high input costs. That, in turn, creates the classic ingredients of stagflation: slower growth combined with persistent inflation.

Atul reminds viewers that the world experienced similar inflationary shocks after the 1973 Arab oil embargo and again after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Manu sees the current war as a possible third Iran-linked stagflationary episode, one that could once again shake the foundations of the global economy.

This also raises deeper questions about the petrodollar system. Atul explains the historical bargain at its core: US security guarantees in exchange for a dollar-based oil order. Manu replies that if the United States cannot protect infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and keep shipping going through the Strait of Hormuz, then Gulf states may begin rethinking the currency architecture tied to that security relationship. Manu does not predict the end of the dollar, but he does suggest that its position could come under greater strain if the war exposes the limits of American protection.

Asia and Africa are exposed

The regional discussion begins with East and Southeast Asia, which Manu describes as the industrial engine of the world. The economies in this region depend heavily on Gulf energy and raw materials. If those flows are disrupted, output falls, finished goods become scarcer and inflation rises globally. Cheap electronics, clothes and household goods no longer remain so cheap. Western consumers feel the loss through a lower standard of living, but the effect within Asia may be even more politically significant.

Manu notes that many East Asian states built social stability on a promise of rising incomes and steady growth. If that growth model falters, long-suppressed political volatility could return. He stresses that these societies have a history of rapid and dramatic political change, a reality many outside observers underestimate.

South Asia appears even more vulnerable. Countries across the region depend heavily on remittances from Gulf workers and on imported energy. The Iran war has hit South Asia with a double whammy: rising import costs and falling external income. Manu is particularly pessimistic about pressure on the Indian rupee. India is stronger than it was during the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis, thanks to its services sector and wider diaspora, but will face increasing strains. Manu also warns that the region could face a mix of inflation, capital outflows and political strain. 

In contrast to Asia, Africa is a continent rich in resources. Political structures are weak though. Manu sees intensifying competition for African resources with outside powers, private military actors and regional players jockeying to gain a greater share of the pie. Resource politics, proxy conflict and coercive competition all become more likely.

Europe’s bind and America’s test

For Europe, the war compounds an already difficult situation. After reducing reliance on Russian gas, many European economies now face further energy stress, inflationary pressure and rising borrowing costs. Manu believes Europe is also spending political capital by being associated with the US in a broader Western bloc whose credibility has weakened in the eyes of much of the world.

Atul closes by turning to the US. If Washington prevails decisively, its strategic and financial position may hold. If it fails to control the Strait of Hormuz or the war ends in stalemate, much larger questions emerge about the dollar, American power and the future of the global order. Should the US fail to prevail, the economic system that has shaped daily life across the world for decades will crumble.

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France, Italy and Spain pushed back against US military operations related to the war, while Britain kept its support carefully limited. Then US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to reaffirm America’s commitment to NATO’s core collective-defense principle. That sequence matters. It suggests that when the White House cannot win allied consent, it is prepared to make uncertainty itself an instrument of power.

When Article 5 becomes conditional

Hesgeth’s refusal to reaffirm the US’ commitment to NATO is a more serious development than the usual transatlantic quarrel. NATO was never meant to function as a protection racket in which security guarantees remain solid only as long as allies fall into line behind unrelated American wars. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is the political heart of the alliance because it every member that collective defense does not depend on whether the White House is pleased with them on any given week.

When Hegseth treated that commitment as something effectively subject to presidential discretion, he did more than create an awkward headline. He introduced a dangerous idea into the alliance’s bloodstream: that treaty credibility can be made conditional on political obedience. Even if no formal change follows, allies have heard the message. Once heard, it cannot easily be unheard.

A war allies will not own

The allied refusals themselves should not be dismissed as symbolic irritation. They reveal something larger about how this war is being seen outside Washington. France reportedly overflight rights for aircraft connected to the conflict. Italy to certain US war-related flights. Spain went further, its airspace and making it clear that NATO could not be used as a backdoor into a war Madrid considered unjustified.

Earlier, Trump had publicly NATO allies “cowards” for failing to support the campaign. Those are not the dynamics of a coalition rallying behind a shared strategy. They are the dynamics of an administration discovering that its partners see the war not as collective defense, but as a war of choice for which Washington wants retrospective buy-in.

Raising the price of dissent

What makes this episode even more revealing is the way Washington has begun to raise the price of dissent. European governments that American weapons through the Foreign Military Sales program have been to expect delays because the Iran war is draining US stockpiles. Estonia and Finland have publicly that they were notified about those delays. Now Trump has the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany and hinted at deeper reductions to come.

Taken separately, each move can be explained away as an inventory problem or a force-posture review. Taken together, they tell a clearer story. The White House is beginning to convert dependence on allies into leverage. If allies will not support the war, they may be reminded how much their own defense planning still depends on American decisions.

From leadership to leverage

This is where Trump’s contradictions become more than a personal weakness. He still talks as if American primacy remains intact: The US leads, others adjust and dissent can eventually be managed through pressure. But the response to the Iran War suggests something else. America can still coerce. It is less able to persuade. That is a crucial difference.

Hegemony, in its most durable form, does not rely on constant threats against allies. It rests on a mix of legitimacy, predictability and the sense that following Washington, however imperfectly, remains safer than resisting it. Once the hegemon begins punishing allies for declining to join its wars, it is no longer operating from unquestioned authority. It is operating from insecurity.

The British response offers a glimpse of where this can lead. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not staged a theatrical break with Washington, but he has that the war and the wider volatility around it strengthen the case for closer British ties with Europe on both security and the economy. That may sound modest, but in strategic terms it is not.

Hedging rarely begins with declarations of divorce. It begins with adjustments in habit. Governments start building alternatives, widening their options and reducing the political cost of future distance. The more Washington treats alliances as instruments to be switched from reassurance to punishment, the more allies will look for ways to dilute their exposure to American volatility.

What allies learn from pressure

For American policymakers, this ought to be a moment for sobriety. Instead, Trump and Hegseth seem determined to prove that coercion can substitute for strategy. They appear to believe that if allied capitals are reminded often enough of their dependence, resistance will soften. More likely, the opposite will happen. States that feel bullied do not become more invested in America’s wars; they become more careful about how much of their own security architecture is tied to American discretion. That means more scrutiny of base access, more appetite for European coordination, more demand for procurement diversification and, over time, more willingness to imagine a post-American security order even if no one is yet ready to name it outright.

That is why this moment matters far beyond the immediate question of Iran. The issue is not only whether Trump can compel a little more compliance from nervous allies in the middle of a war. The larger issue is what kind of international system the US is building when it uses treaty ambiguity, arms delays and troop withdrawals to discipline partners that refuse to endorse its choices.

A country confident in its leadership does not need to hold its alliances hostage. It can absorb disagreement without making its guarantees seem conditional. What Trump is revealing, perhaps more clearly than he intends, is that America’s problem is no longer just overstretch in the Middle East. It is the erosion of a form of power that once made allied cooperation feel natural rather than forced. When that kind of power starts to fade, punishment becomes tempting. It is also a sign that the old order is already weaker than Washington wants to admit.

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Having worked bilaterally and multilaterally with diplomats from the US, Iran and Pakistan between 2004 and 2021, I learned that negotiations often fail not only because parties disagree on substance, but because each side brings its own fears, incentives, habits and political clocks into the room. My diplomatic service reinforced a simple lesson: When urgency meets strategic patience, when democracy encounters the logic of theocracy and when both sides are surrounded by actors to undermine peace processes, even skilled mediation becomes extraordinarily difficult.

Negotiating on different timetables

Pakistan today sits between two profoundly different negotiating cultures. Iran tends to negotiate patiently, deliberately and with a long strategic horizon. Its system blends republican and clerical institutions in ways that privilege ideological continuity and layered authority. That structure allows decision-makers to absorb pressure, wait out deadlines and stretch negotiations.

The US, by contrast, usually negotiates in a more managerial style. It seeks timelines, structure, deliverables and visible progress. That instinct is sharpened by democratic accountability, media scrutiny, bureaucratic fragmentation and political turnover. In Washington, time is rarely neutral. It is shaped by elections, congressional pressure, public opinion and the need to show that diplomacy is producing results. In this sense, time and domestic legitimacy are to diplomatic bargaining.

These differences shape how each side defines seriousness, compromise and success. What Washington may view as an unnecessary delay, Tehran may regard as disciplined statecraft. What Iran may read as American impatience, Washington may see as practical problem-solving. These are not merely stylistic differences. They reflect deeper assumptions about legitimacy, leverage and political survival. When such approaches collide, the negotiation itself becomes part of the dispute rather than merely the means to resolve it, a recurring challenge in effective .

Recent events make this tension visible. The current moment has been framed as one in which pressure created diplomatic space, while indicates that Iran remains open to discussions in Pakistan only if Washington abandons threats and negotiations “aimed at surrender.” Pakistan, meanwhile, has described its role as supporting ceasefire diplomacy and renewed talks in Islamabad. Yet the coexistence of coercive signaling and diplomatic outreach continues to blur the line between negotiation and pressure, especially when maritime disruption and regional escalation global economic and security stakes inside the diplomatic room.

Under US President Donald Trump, this mismatch has become sharper. His public style remains transactional, commercial and fast-moving: get to yes, close the deal and demonstrate results. This approach privileges immediacy, visibility and leverage. But Iran does not negotiate from that mindset. Iranian official and semi-official messaging continues to dignity, resistance to coercion and refusal to yield under force, while warning that a hasty deal under pressure could be over the long term. The result is not simply disagreement over terms. It is a deeper misalignment over how each side understands time, pressure and compromise.

Pakistan in the middle

Pakistan is not an irrelevant bystander to this dynamic. Its own domestic and regional experience has made it familiar with prolonged bargaining, tactical flexibility and incremental positioning. At the same time, its diplomatic practice has required engagement with structured, outcome-oriented processes. This gives Pakistan a comparative advantage as a mediator: It can understand urgency without dismissing patience, and patience without abandoning progress.

That is Pakistan’s real opening. It can, at least in theory, translate between negotiating cultures that often talk past one another. This role becomes more important when mediation must both regional de-escalation and nuclear diplomacy, and when each side fears that compromise could be misread as weakness.

But Pakistan’s usefulness should not be confused with decisive leverage. It can facilitate, interpret and sequence, but it cannot impose trust or guarantee compliance by parties whose core incentives remain misaligned. That distinction matters because mediation can open a channel, but only the parties themselves can decide whether the channel becomes a serious process.

Yet style alone never determines success. As I have found in my ongoing doctoral research at the University of Colombo, the deeper problem is the incompatibility of interests and incentives. Where each side believes compromise will weaken its security, legitimacy, leverage or ideological standing, negotiations become structurally fragile. This is why the problem is not merely communicative. It is structural. In such contexts, even well-designed processes struggle to hold because the underlying logic of participation remains unstable, a challenge also recognized in on effective mediation.

This is where spoiler dynamics become decisive. The on spoiler problems in peace processes shows that actors who see a peace process as threatening their power, worldview or interests often work to undermine it. They may do so openly or quietly, from inside the process or outside it. In the present case, spoilers are not confined to the margins. They are embedded within the negotiating environment itself.

The parties themselves may act as total or limited spoilers, rejecting compromise outright or selectively undermining provisions that constrain them. Their allies may do the same, supporting talks only so long as outcomes protect their interests or preserve their influence. Even actions outside the negotiating room — military signaling, economic pressure, maritime confrontation or public messaging — can become spoiler behavior when they alter incentives or erode trust. Recent on seizures, pressure tactics and uncertainty surrounding follow-up talks illustrates how easily a process can be destabilized before implementation even begins.

That is precisely where Pakistan’s challenge lies. It must mediate not only between American urgency and Iranian patience, but also between democratic and theocratic political logics, incompatible incentives and active spoiler behavior. This is not conventional mediation. It is a mediation under structural constraint. Progress in one dimension can trigger resistance in another. No mediator, however experienced, can succeed if the structure of negotiation rewards delay, defection or coercive signaling more than compromise, a limitation recognized in process-design for mediation.

Designing a more durable peace

My diplomatic experience from 2004 to 2021, viewed alongside my ongoing doctoral research, points to several practical lessons for this unusually delicate US–Iran track.

First, incentives must be realigned. For Washington, Iranian compliance must produce concrete, verifiable changes that can be explained domestically as progress rather than concession. For Tehran, compliance must bring credible gains — whether sanctions relief, security assurances, access to frozen assets or recognition of Iran’s dignity — that do not appear as surrender under pressure. At the same time, non-compliance must carry enforceable costs. If Iran believes it can delay without consequence, or if the US believes it can escalate pressure without undermining talks, the process will reward the very behavior it seeks to prevent, contradicting the logic of .

Second, sequencing matters. Front-loaded concessions, especially when offered under threat or without reciprocal obligations, often embolden spoilers and deepen mistrust. A more durable approach would rely on phased reciprocity: limited steps matched by limited concessions, each tied to verification before the next phase begins. In a context where Iran prizes strategic patience, and the US demands visible progress, sequencing becomes the bridge between endurance and urgency. It allows Tehran to move without appearing humiliated, while giving Washington measurable outcomes that can sustain political support at home. Earlier nuclear diplomacy followed this logic through step-by-step and phased upon verification.

Third, verification and enforcement must be built in from the outset, not improvised after a political announcement. In US–Iran diplomacy, ambiguity may help parties enter talks, but unmanaged ambiguity can destroy implementation. The process, therefore, needs clear benchmarks, credible monitoring, and agreed consequences for violations or delays. This is especially important when questions of nuclear material, inspections and access remain central to trust, as reflected in ongoing concerns over and verification.

Fourth, spoiler management must be explicit. In this case, spoilers are not only armed groups, hardline factions or regional rivals. They may also include domestic political actors, allied states, bureaucratic constituencies, media narratives and policy networks that benefit from escalation or distrust. Durable processes do not assume goodwill. They anticipate resistance and structure around it, consistent with and mediation best practice.

For Pakistan, this means mediation cannot simply be about convening meetings or transmitting messages. Its most useful role is to help design a process in which both sides see greater value in staying engaged than in delaying, escalating or blaming the other. Pakistan cannot manufacture trust, erase decades of hostility, or reconcile democracy and theocracy through diplomatic skill alone. Nor should its usefulness be confused with decisive leverage. It can facilitate, interpret and sequence, but it cannot impose compliance where core incentives remain misaligned. Its task is to help synchronize tempo with substance: giving Iran enough political space to move without humiliation, while giving the US enough measurable progress to remain engaged.

The larger test, therefore, is not whether talks resume, but whether they are structured to survive the pressures that will inevitably follow. A process that rewards tactical delay, unilateral pressure or symbolic victories will likely collapse under its own contradictions. A process that links dignity to reciprocity, urgency to verification and mediation to spoiler management is more likely to endure.

In the end, Pakistan’s mediation may still prove useful, but diplomacy cannot succeed where incompatible incentives remain untouched, and spoiler behavior goes unmanaged. The real test is whether Washington and Tehran can move from performative negotiation toward disciplined, enforceable diplomacy. Pakistan’s task is to help make that shift possible, while recognizing that no mediator can substitute for political will.

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In the ensuing weeks, American and Israeli forces the largest naval fleet elimination since the Second World War, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. They destroyed over 140 Iranian vessels, crippled ballistic missile production facilities with 5,000-pound bunker-buster munitions and erased infrastructure that has menaced the world for decades.

Following the degradation of the regime’s military-industrial complex, a debate has emerged within Western diplomatic and academic circles. Proponents of conflict-resolution paradigms argue that the optimal is now a cessation of hostilities. They leveraging the regime’s current vulnerability to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, strike a diplomatic bargain and establish a stabilized status quo in the Persian Gulf.

However, this diplomatic approach rests on the assumption that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a conventional nation-state. It presumes the leadership in Tehran prioritizes traditional calculations of border security, economic self-interest and national preservation. Conversely, an of the Islamic Republic reveals a totalitarian framework whose foundational ethos, institutional architecture and worldview do not with the traditional Westphalian system of sovereign states.

To accurately assess the strategic requirements of this conflict, historical comparisons are instructive. The closest structural analog to the Islamic Republic is not a Cold War superpower or a conventional authoritarian dictatorship; rather, it is from 1933 to 1945. Both systems a reliance on a collective, totalitarian ideology oriented toward absolute endpoints. Both centralized authority at the expense of independent legal and legislative institutions, subordinating them to a supreme leader. Both utilized paramilitary organizations to enforce domestic compliance and pursue expansion. Furthermore, both regimes a systemic, religiously and racially defined antisemitism as a core tenet of their geopolitical objectives.

Therefore, proposing a negotiated settlement with the remnants of the current regime presents the same strategic risks as seeking diplomatic accommodation with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Such an approach risks allowing the regime to use treaties as tactical pauses rather than binding resolutions. As philosopher Karl Popper in his “paradox of tolerance,” extending unlimited tolerance to fundamentally intolerant systems ultimately threatens the liberal society itself.

Consequently, Operation Epic Fury represents more than a regional security dispute; it is a fundamental clash between incompatible governing models. A durable peace cannot be achieved through diplomatic compromise with the Islamic regime. A definitive resolution necessitates the comprehensive dismantling of the regime’s coercive apparatus and total ideological capitulation.

The Munich fallacy and the illusion of pragmatic diplomacy

A fundamental error of modern Western diplomacy is the cognitive trap of mirror-imaging — the deeply ingrained assumption that all adversaries ultimately share the same basic motivations regarding peace, economic prosperity and national survival. Western democracies, by their very nature, operate as “status quo” states. They seek geopolitical stability, predictable international markets, the peaceful flow of global commerce, and the management of disputes through established institutional frameworks and international law. The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, has operated entirely as a “revolutionary state” since its violent inception in 1979.

For the ruling clerics in Tehran, the state itself is merely a temporary, earthly vessel for perpetuating the revolution. The 1979 revolution was never conceived as a nationalist uprising to secure better material conditions or democratic rights for the Iranian populace; it was explicitly designed as a vanguard movement to overturn the entire global order. The first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, framed the revolution as an eternal struggle to export a radical, fundamentalist vision of Islam far beyond the borders of Iran, dividing the entire world into the oppressed and the oppressors, and completely the bipolar “East versus West” geopolitical structures of the era as inherently corrupt and illegitimate.

This revolutionary, totalizing imperative closely mirrors the underlying dynamic of Nazi Germany. Dictator Adolf Hitler did not view the German state as an end in itself, but strictly as the mechanism through which to achieve a racially purified, millenarian empire that would dominate the globe. For the Nazis, the ultimate goal was the realization of the thousand-year Reich, an ideological that necessitated permanent mobilization, relentless warfare and the subjugation or extermination of “inferior” peoples. For the Islamic Republic, the ultimate goal is the realization of an Islamist utopia, the destruction of Western liberal hegemony and the violent preparation of the world for the of the Mahdi, or the Twelfth Imam.

Because both regimes view their struggles through a messianic, existential and uncompromising lens, they cannot be contained by traditional, rational deterrence strategies. In an ideologically driven system, pragmatic calculations regarding economic stability or human life are always subordinated to theological or racial imperatives. If a regime genuinely it is executing the divine will of God — or the biological destiny of the blood — it will willingly absorb catastrophic human and economic losses rather than abandon its core mission. Asking the Islamic Republic to abandon its nuclear ambitions, cease its sponsorship of global terror networks or recognize the right of its neighbors to exist via a negotiated treaty is akin to asking the Nazi regime to voluntarily abandon its racial laws at a negotiating table in Geneva. The aggression is not a policy choice that can be bargained away; it is the regime’s very reason for existing.

Despite the overwhelming historical and empirical of the Islamic Republic’s totalitarian and exterminationist nature, there remains a persistent lobby in Western capitals that argues for de-escalation and diplomatic engagement. This argument is the direct intellectual descendant of the disastrous of the 1930s.

In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference clutching a piece of paper, having traded the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in exchange for a solemn promise of “peace for our time.” The fundamental flaw of the was the belief that a totalitarian dictator could be satiated by territorial concessions or diplomatic recognition. Instead of securing peace, the concessions merely validated Hitler’s utter contempt for Western weakness, bought the German war machine vital time to finalize its rearmament and paved the way for a devastating global war that consumed tens of millions of lives.

Over the past decade, Western diplomatic engagement with Iran — most notably through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action () and subsequent, desperate attempts to revive it — has exactly the Munich fallacy. The underlying premise of these negotiations was the belief that by lifting crippling economic sanctions, unfreezing billions of dollars in assets and welcoming Iran back into the community of nations, the regime would moderate its extreme behavior, empower its so-called “reformist” political factions and begin to prioritize domestic economic development over its revolutionary, expansionist ambitions.

The results of this diplomatic gamble were entirely predictable to anyone who understood the nature of totalitarian ideology. The Islamic Republic did not use the massive influx of billions of dollars to build hospitals, improve failing infrastructure or alleviate the suffering of the Iranian people. Instead, the regime this newfound wealth directly into its imperial, revolutionary project. They vastly expanded their ballistic missile arsenals, accelerated their drone manufacturing capabilities (eventually the Russian Federation with kamikaze drones for its brutal war of aggression in Ukraine) and massively the “Axis of Resistance” across the Middle East. The financial relief provided by Western appeasement the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, the relentless Hezbollah rocket barrages that caused large-scale in northern Israel and the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea that paralyzed global shipping

Providing a diplomatic off-ramp to the Iranian government following the military impacts of Operation Epic Fury could signal broader geopolitical vulnerabilities. It validating the strategic utility of employing proxy militant groups to test and exhaust Western diplomatic endurance. This could incentivize global militant organizations by demonstrating that a nuclear-threshold state utilizing aggressive regional tactics can compel diplomatic concessions and survive significant military retaliation.

Such a precedent could bolster anti-Western coalitions, signaling to nations like Russia and China that allied resolve can be outlasted. As former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid stated following the onset of the 2026 war, the current hostilities do not represent a conventional dispute over borders or tariffs, but rather an conflict with a regime fundamentally opposed to its neighbors’ existence. Consequently, an effective strategic goal must move beyond a temporary ceasefire that permits the existing ideological and military infrastructure to rebuild.

Velayat-e Faqih and the ��ü������������Գ�����

The political architecture of Iran functions as a totalitarian system that direct structural parallels to the Third Reich of the 1930s. To achieve their respective ideological visions, both regimes recognized the necessity of systematically eradicating all competing sources of moral, legal and political authority.

In Nazi Germany, the legal and moral foundation of the entire state apparatus was the ��ü������������Գ�����, or the “leader principle.” The word, will and desire of Hitler constituted the ultimate, unchallengeable law of the land, effortlessly overriding any constitution, legislature or independent judiciary. Hitler was not merely a political executive or a head of state; he was elevated to the status of the ideological conduit for the destiny of the German race, possessing absolute and unquestionable authority over every facet of public and private life. The state existed solely to execute his will.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is governed by an eerily similar doctrine known as (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), a concept pioneered and weaponized by Khomeini. Before 1979, traditional Shi’ite political thought largely advocated a form of ; because the Twelfth Imam (the Mahdi) was in occultation, all earthly governments were as inherently flawed and clerics generally advised waiting for his messianic return before attempting to establish a pure Islamic state. Khomeini radically and forcefully reinterpreted this centuries-old theology. He asserted that, in the Mahdi’s absence, a supreme, righteous cleric must wield absolute political and religious power over society to prepare the way for the end of days.

The doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih institutionalizes the absolute authority of the supreme leader over all state and religious affairs. This position structurally supersedes nominally republican institutions — including the elected presidency, the Majlis (parliament) and the judiciary — by maintaining direct, unilateral control over the armed forces, state media apparatuses and the centralized economic conglomerates that govern the national economy.

The doctrines of the ��ü������������Գ����� and Velayat-e Faqih both function to neutralize democratic institutions and reduce elections to performative exercises. Just as the ��ü������������Գ����� rendered the obsolete to consolidate dictatorial power, Velayat-e Faqih subordinates Iran’s republican structures to the supreme leader. The Guardian Council, an unelected body of clerics and jurists, strictly vets all electoral candidates based on their loyalty to the state. By disqualifying individuals who do not demonstrate ideological commitment to the revolution, the regime restricts political competition to approved loyalists and systematically eliminates genuine political pluralism.

The Nazi and Iranian dictatorships rely on procedural theater and absolute information control to mask their unaccountable governance. Nazi Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda weaponized the media for ideological mobilization, a function directly replicated by Iran’s state broadcasting monopoly, strict censorship apparatus and targeted internet blackouts. As a result, both systems profoundly moralize and securitize political dissent: Opposition to the Nazi party was prosecuted as treason against the race, while opposition to the Islamic Republic is legally as moharebeh (“enmity against God”), a capital offense.

The Schutzstaffel and the IRGC

The bifurcation of the military apparatus constitutes a primary structural similarity between the Islamic Republic and Nazi Germany. Because totalitarian regimes frequently distrust traditional armed forces — which typically prioritize professional ethics and loyalty to the nation-state over a specific radical ideology — they establish parallel military organizations dedicated exclusively to the ruling ideology and leadership to secure absolute power.

In Germany, the traditional army (the Wehrmacht) was with suspicion by Hitler. It was therefore shadowed, infiltrated and eventually dominated by the Schutzstaffel (SS). The SS was not merely a military unit; it was the elite, ideological vanguard of the Nazi Party. It operated completely outside the bounds of normal military law. It ran the vast network of concentration camps, enforced draconian racial purity laws, operated the domestic secret police (the Gestapo) to crush internal dissent and eventually fielded its own massive, fanatical combat divisions (the Waffen-SS) to wage wars of annihilation abroad.

In Iran, the traditional national army (the Artesh) has been entirely eclipsed and marginalized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).�� Established after the 1979 revolution to prevent conventional military intervention, the IRGC has into a dominant economic, political and military organization structurally mirroring the SS. By controlling substantial sectors of the Iranian economy, the IRGC secures independent funding that circumvents civilian oversight.�� Furthermore, it suppresses domestic opposition through its paramilitary , while its intelligence branch oversees political prisons and the systemic execution of dissidents.

Furthermore, both the SS and the IRGC extensive, deeply loyal foreign networks to export their ideology and wage war beyond their borders. During the Second World War, the Nazis commanded numerous non-German Waffen-SS divisions, recruiting ideological sympathizers, anti-communists and antisemites from across occupied Europe and the Middle East to fight and die for the Reich.

Similarly, the IRGC’s elite external operations branch, the Quds Force, has spent decades constructing and commanding a vast, multinational . The IRGC funds, arms, trains and directs a network of foreign proxy militias that as the expeditionary forces of Iranian totalitarianism. This includes the heavily armed Lebanese Hezbollah, the Palestinian terror group Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Syria. The IRGC has even organized specific foreign fighter divisions, such as the (composed of Afghan refugees) and the (composed of Pakistanis), deploying them as shock troops to prop up the murderous Assad regime in Syria.These proxies do not act independently; they are extensions of the IRGC’s will, holding foreign governments hostage, destabilizing the region and spreading terror on Tehran’s behalf.

Negotiating with the smiling, suit-wearing diplomats of the Iranian Foreign Ministry while the IRGC retains its military and economic hegemony is a fool’s errand. It is structurally equivalent to negotiating a peace treaty with the German Foreign Ministry in 1943 while allowing to retain full command of the SS, the concentration camps, and the military-industrial complex. The diplomats are merely the velvet glove hiding the iron fist of the ideological vanguard.

The fusion of European and Islamic Antisemitism

The ideological framework of the Iranian regime directly connects mid-century European fascism with modern radical Islamism. The antisemitism to the Islamic Republic is not merely a byproduct of the contemporary geopolitical dispute concerning Israel and the Palestinian territories. Rather, it as a foundational ideology that was significantly influenced and transmitted to the Middle East by Nazi Germany.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Third Reich engaged in a massive, propaganda effort directed specifically at the Middle East. Nazi ideologues realized early on that their specific brand of biological, racial antisemitism — which categorized Arabs and Persians as inferior alongside Jews — did not easily translate to Islamic populations. Therefore, the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, working closely with the Foreign Office, meticulously tailored its messaging.

Through the incredibly popular Persian and Arabic shortwave broadcasts of Radio Zeesen, Nazi propagandists European, pseudoscientific conspiracy theories of Jewish global domination with historic, anti-Jewish themes cherry-picked from early Islamic texts and traditions. These broadcasts manipulated religious sentiment; Hitler was frequently not just as a strong political leader fighting the British and the French, but as a quasi-messianic figure. In some Persian broadcasts, Hitler was even with the Twelfth Imam, a savior who had arrived to destroy the Jews, crush the communists and liberate the Islamic East. The Nazi struggle was explicitly compared to the Prophet Mohammed’s historical clashes with Jewish tribes in Arabia.

Among the dedicated, daily listeners to the Radio Zeesen broadcasts in the late 1930s was a young, radical cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini. The German political scientist Matthias Küntzel has how Khomeini absorbed these European antisemitic conspiracies and masterfully integrated them into his radical Shi’ite theology. In Khomeini’s seminal political tract, Islamic Government, the Jews are depicted not merely as temporal political rivals or infidels, but as a cosmic, supernatural evil attempting to establish a “Jewish world state” to subjugate humanity and destroy Islam from within.

When former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or senior IRGC commanders speak of “Zionists,” they are not referring to a political nationalist movement. They use the term identically to how Hitler used the word “Jew” — as the dark incarnation of absolute evil, a demonic force responsible for all global suffering, economic hardship and moral decay. This worldview makes the physical destruction of the State of Israel not just a political preference or a territorial ambition, but a profound theological and historical necessity.

For the IRGC and the supreme clerical leadership, history is not a slow march toward progress; it is hurtling toward an apocalyptic, bloody showdown. In this millenarian framework, the physical annihilation of the Jewish state is required to trigger the messianic age. It is a mindset that actively embraces and glorifies martyrdom. The regime views the death of millions — including the death of their own citizens and their proxy fighters — as an acceptable, even glorious, price to pay for ultimate ideological victory.

This is why the Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon is so uniquely terrifying. For a rational, status quo state, nuclear weapons serve as the ultimate deterrent against invasion. For a messianic, totalitarian regime that views extermination as a religious mandate, a nuclear weapon is not a defensive shield; it is an offensive tool of divine retribution. You simply cannot negotiate a rational, enduring compromise with a regime that the Holocaust while simultaneously the next one and the extermination of a neighboring nation as its most sacred duty.

Discerning the Iranian nation

The totalitarian regime must be clearly distinguished from the people it violently subjugates. Just as the Nazi party terrorized and murdered millions of Germans who rejected its racist fanaticism, the Islamic Republic operates not as a representative government but as a hostile occupying force over the Iranian nation.

A war against the Islamic Republic’s military infrastructure is fundamentally distinct from a war against the Iranian people. For decades, the Iranian populace has actively resisted the theocratic dictatorship. Through the 1999 , the 2009 , the 2017/18 , the 2022–2023 “” movement and the subsequent uprisings of 2026, citizens have repeatedly faced live ammunition to demand an end to clerical rule. In response, the regime consistently employs mass violence, utilizing the IRGC and the Basij to kill thousands of unarmed citizens, blind protesters and execute dissidents in sham trials.

Recent empirical data illustrate a distinct division between the regime’s ideology and Iranian public opinion. Polling by the Netherlands-based Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), which uses secure digital networks and virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent state censorship, reveals a rapidly secularizing, highly educated society that opposes the status quo.

According to GAMAAN’s extensive, weighted 2024 and 2025 surveys, the internal collapse of the regime’s legitimacy is nearly absolute:

• A staggering 81% of Iranians residing inside the country explicitly reject the Islamic Republic entirely, answering “No” when asked if they want the current system to continue. This opposition rises to an incredible 99% among the Iranian diaspora.
• Support for the fundamental “principles of the Islamic revolution and the Supreme Leader” — the very core of the regime’s justification for ruling — has plummeted to a mere 11%.
• Over 73% of the population explicitly supports a transition to a democratic, secular political system, entirely rejecting the concept of clerical rule.
• Crucially, the regime’s anti-Western and anti-Israel fanaticism is overwhelmingly rejected by the populace. Nearly 70% of Iranians believe the regime should immediately stop calling for the destruction of Israel, and over 60% the government should negotiate directly with the US to resolve diplomatic tensions.

In the wake of the 2026 US-Israeli military strikes targeting Khamenei and the IRGC headquarters, the streets of Tehran witnessed a profound, deeply duality. While regime loyalists and paid paramilitaries mourned in organized, state-mandated gatherings, vast numbers of citizens celebrated the strikes in the privacy of their homes, and occasionally in the streets, hoping they signaled the imminent collapse of the dictatorship.

The younger generation, deeply connected to global digital culture despite government firewalls, is actively turning away from state-sponsored Islam. They are meaning and identity in Iran’s rich, pre-Islamic, Persian heritage, increasingly viewing the 1979 revolution not as a moment of national liberation, but as an alien, barbaric imposition akin to the 7th-century Arab conquests. Treating the clerical regime as the legitimate, permanent representatives of the Iranian people is not just a strategic error; it is a profound moral failure. Such diplomatic engagement effectively abandons a captive, sophisticated nation that is actively striving for its own liberation and eager to reintegrate with the international community.

The imperative of ideological surrender and denazification

Mid-20th-century history offers a structural blueprint for addressing ideologically mobilized regimes resistant to traditional deterrence. The Allied victory in Europe did not stem from a negotiated truce with the Nazi party in 1944. It required the unconditional military and ideological surrender of the German state, followed by a systemic, generation-long process of .

The Allied powers recognized in 1945 that defeating the Wehrmacht militarily was insufficient for securing long-term peace. Allied forces systematically dismantled the institutional and ideological apparatus of the German state. Authorities outlawed organizations such as the SS and the Gestapo, banned ideological symbols, rewrote educational curricula to remove militaristic and racist doctrines, and prosecuted regime architects at Nuremberg. This realignment functioned as a necessary cognitive and institutional process to destroy totalitarian structures and reintegrate Germany into the international community.

Western policymakers must apply a similar strategic paradigm to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Operation Epic Fury achieved necessary military milestones. The of 140 naval vessels and the targeting of underground cruise missile facilities are significant tactical achievements. However, the ultimate strategic objective must remain the collapse of the regime and the complete dismantling of its ideological state apparatus.

A comprehensive strategy must target the institutions of ideological reproduction alongside kinetic military operations to secure the unconditional surrender of a regime rooted in a theology of martyrdom. A viable post-conflict blueprint must implement a systemic “de-Khomeinification” process, structured around several core objectives.

First, the IRGC and the Basij operate primarily as ideological enforcers and paramilitary networks, making their integration into a democratic state structure impossible. Post-conflict authorities must disband them entirely, return their economic assets to the public treasury, and hold their leadership accountable in international or legitimate domestic tribunals.

Second, the constitutional mechanisms elevating the clergy above the law, the judiciary and the electorate must be abolished. Future legal frameworks must codify the separation of religion and state to protect the political system from authoritarianism and religious institutions from political co-optation.

Third, the Iranian educational system requires a systemic overhaul to remove radical Islamist ideology and antisemitic propaganda. Similar to the removal of Aryan-supremacist textbooks from post-war German schools, educators must establish a secularized and objective curriculum.

Finally, Western allies must adopt strategies reminiscent of the Cold War toward the Soviet Union to empower the Iranian public. Democratic nations should actively support internal dissidents, fund independent labor unions, provide secure communications technology and strengthen civil society networks to organically fill the power vacuum following the regime’s collapse.

The post-regime transition period will inevitably generate significant security risks. The sudden loss of central command following leadership decapitation strikes currently leaves elements of the IRGC and its regional proxy networks operating autonomously. This vacuum increases the short-term probability of asymmetric warfare, piracy and terrorism. Nevertheless, the prospect of short-term instability must not deter the strategic objective of removing the totalitarian structure.

Israeli strategist Dan Schueftan this difficult phase as “violent maintenance,” reflecting the reality that uprooting an entrenched radical ideology requires sustained fortitude. Abandoning the objective of regime collapse due to concerns over short-term instability guarantees a more severe long-term outcome. An ideologically intact — even if militarily degraded — Islamic Republic will likely retreat, accelerate its underground nuclear program, and prepare for future geopolitical confrontations.

[ edited this piece.]

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To see the shift clearly, it helps to map the evolution in three stages.

Stage one was improvisational. In earlier crises, liquidity support resembled an emergency response — fast, flexible and episodic. Authorities intervened where stress was most acute, often with ad hoc tools and limited predictability. This model stabilized moments, not systems.

Stage two took shape after the 2008 global financial crisis. The Federal Reserve formalized standing swap lines with a small circle of advanced-economy central banks — the European Central Bank, Bank of Japan (BoJ) and Bank of England (BoE), among them. Liquidity provision became predictable. The point was not just to supply dollars during stress but to anchor expectations before stress emerged. Markets internalized the presence of a credible backstop, dampening the very dynamics that would otherwise trigger panic.

Stage three is now emerging. Liquidity is no longer only about stabilizing markets; it is about structuring relationships. Access is increasingly selective, and that selectivity carries strategic meaning. The boundary between monetary cooperation and geopolitical alignment is thinning.

The UAE at the solvency–liquidity boundary

The UAE sits squarely at this boundary. By conventional metrics, it is a strong candidate for self-insurance. Global Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), Abu Dhabi Inc. estimates Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth funds at and notes that its external balance is supported — albeit cyclically — by hydrocarbon revenues. Yet liquidity stress is not a function of net worth; it is a function of timing. When global financial conditions tighten — higher US rates, stronger dollar, volatile oil receipts — short-term dollar funding can become scarce even for asset-rich states. Liquidating long-duration holdings in stressed markets is costly and procyclical. The distinction between solvency and liquidity becomes operational, not academic.

A dollar swap line solves precisely that problem. It converts a potential scramble for funding into a pre-arranged channel, accessed without stigma and without fire sales. This is why swap lines matter even when they are barely used. Their value is embedded in expectations. The credible availability of dollars compresses funding premia, reduces rollover risk and stabilizes behavior across banks, corporates and sovereign-linked entities.

But the UAE case is not just about efficiency; it is about positioning. The country occupies a junction of financial corridors: deep ties to US markets and security arrangements, expanding trade and financial links with Asia, and a growing role as a regional hub for capital intermediation. Granting it direct, privileged access to dollar liquidity would not be a neutral extension of a technical facility. It would be a statement about where the center of gravity lies.

This is where comparisons with China clarify the landscape. The People’s Bank of China has built an extensive network — by early 2025, currency swap agreements with roughly . The breadth is real. The function, however, differs. These arrangements are used primarily to facilitate renminbi settlement and to deepen bilateral ties. They are not widely deployed as high-volume, crisis-time liquidity backstops. The constraint is not diplomatic; it is structural. A swap line only stabilizes if the currency it provides is supported by deep, liquid and trusted asset markets.

Here, the dollar system retains a decisive advantage. US Treasury securities offer scale, price transparency and a near-universal acceptance as collateral. This ecosystem allows liquidity to be absorbed and redistributed without severe dislocation. It is why, despite persistent narratives of “de-dollarization,” the dollar continues to anchor global finance — roughly of reserves, close to of foreign exchange (FX) transactions, and a dominant share of cross-border funding. Network effects reinforce this position: The more the system is used, the more valuable its liquidity becomes.

The UAE in the global dollar network

Against this backdrop, expanding swap line access to a country like the UAE would deepen, not dilute, the dollar’s role. It would extend the perimeter of the system’s most credible promise: that dollars will be available when they are most needed. Crucially, that promise is not universal. It is granted.

That selectivity introduces a new dimension of leverage. Traditional instruments of financial statecraft — sanctions, export controls — operate by restriction. Swap lines operate by provision. They do not directly compel behavior; they shape incentives by lowering the cost of alignment and raising the cost of exclusion. The power lies in the asymmetry: Access to stability is discretionary.

For the UAE, the calculus is pragmatic. A swap line offers immediate benefits — lower funding risk, reduced volatility in domestic money markets and insulation from global dollar squeezes. But it also embeds a relationship. Even in the absence of explicit conditionality, the existence of a standing facility creates expectations on both sides. In periods of stress, the presumption of support becomes part of the policy landscape. Over time, this can influence portfolio allocation, regulatory choices and even diplomatic posture at the margin.

Institutional shift and strategic liquidity

The institutional pathway matters as well. To date, the most credible and least politicized channel for dollar liquidity has been central bank cooperation. If, however, the locus of action shifts toward fiscal authorities — particularly mechanisms associated with the US Treasury — the strategic dimension becomes more explicit. Tools like the Exchange Stabilization Fund () allow targeted interventions with greater discretion. They also carry a clearer imprint of national policy priorities. A migration in this direction would not replace central bank swap lines, but it would complement them with instruments that can be calibrated more directly to geopolitical objectives.

The UAE is a plausible candidate for such calibration. Its role as a financial hub, its intermediary position between major blocs, and its capacity to absorb and redirect capital flows make it systemically relevant beyond its size. In an environment of elevated uncertainty — fragmented supply chains, regional tensions, more volatile commodity cycles — the value of reliable liquidity channels increases. So does the premium on being inside the network that provides them.

Exclusivity and tiered system

There is a counterargument worth taking seriously. Expanding access could be seen as diluting the exclusivity that underpins the signaling power of swap lines. If too many countries are admitted, the facility risks becoming routine, losing its edge as a marker of trust. This is a real constraint. The effectiveness of selective provision depends on maintaining a credible boundary.

The likely outcome is not universalization but gradation. We should expect a tiered system: a core of standing lines among advanced economies; a secondary layer of contingent or temporary arrangements with strategically significant partners; and a broader set of ad hoc tools that can be activated under stress. The UAE would fit naturally into the second tier — important enough to warrant structured access, but outside the original core.

Such a configuration would mirror the broader evolution of the global financial system. Rather than a clean bifurcation into competing blocs, we are seeing a layering of networks with different purposes. The dollar system remains central, providing liquidity and collateral of last resort. Parallel networks — most notably China’s — facilitate trade, settlement and bilateral engagement. Countries navigate both, optimizing across them.

Signals, risk and market implications

The risk in this environment is not fragmentation per se, but misalignment of expectations. If access to liquidity is assumed where it is not guaranteed, stress can propagate quickly. Conversely, where access is credible, volatility is dampened even before any facility is drawn. This is why the announcement effect of a swap line can matter more than its utilization.

For policymakers, the implications are straightforward but demanding. First, clarity of intent matters. If liquidity provision is to serve a strategic function, the criteria for access — however informal — must be internally coherent. Second, institutional design matters. The balance between central bank independence and fiscal discretion will shape both credibility and flexibility. Third, calibration matters. Overuse risks normalizing the tool; underuse risks leaving gaps that parallel systems can exploit.

For market participants, the signal is equally clear. Country risk is increasingly tied not only to fundamentals — reserves, fiscal balances, growth — but to network position: who has access to reliable dollar liquidity, and under what conditions. In periods of stress, that distinction will be priced.

System transition and strategic perimeter

All of this points to a system in transition. The move from improvisational support to institutionalized backstops, and now toward selective, strategic allocation, marks a qualitative change. The mechanism remains the same — a swap of currencies with an agreement to reverse. The meaning has shifted.

A single image captures the evolution: The system is less like a set of emergency hoses rolled out during fires, and more like a gated water network, where pressure and flow are assured inside the perimeter and conditional at its edges. Who is connected — and how securely — now matters as much as how much water exists.

The UAE case shows how that perimeter may expand. Not indiscriminately, and not without consequence, but in ways that reflect the priorities of a system still anchored in the dollar. In a world where uncertainty is persistent and shocks are frequent, the value of assured liquidity rises. So does the importance of being among those to whom it is assured.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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— Sun Zi, fifth century BCE

China is responding to the Persian Gulf War as it did to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: with a stance of strategic non-action. Chinese President Xi Jinping apparently did Russia planned to invade Ukraine, but once the action had begun, he took no side, passed no public judgment, maintained trade ties with both and urged them behind closed doors to stop. China has been passive in respect of the military conflict in the Gulf, but has been talking to all the regional belligerents behind the scenes. Working closely with Pakistan and using its particularly close relations with Iran, Beijing helped to the US-Iranian ceasefire in April. But China could not restrain Israel, and there was not a ceasefire so much as a cessation of hostilities between the US and Iran.

Beijing will likely have emphasized to Tehran’s leadership the economic damage the war has already inflicted and offered support for reconstruction and perhaps post-conflict rearmament. Tehran cannot, however, have accepted the pause in fighting easily, for Israel and the US Iranian diplomats after Iran accepted two previous invitations to parley. Tehran will not wish to risk a temporary peace today as long as the threat of a recurring war remains.

Washington, for its part, will be skeptical of Beijing’s impartiality, and while it may outwardly appear to acknowledge Iranian conditions for control of the Strait of Hormuz, security guarantees and the lifting of all sanctions, it will not, in reality. Lebanon is included in the Farsi version of the ceasefire demands, and Iran maintains the right to enrich uranium for civilian use, a point missing from the English version. In any case, the US is too committed to this folly and its economic interest in the region to withdraw now. 

Israel triggered this war, knowing the US animus toward Iran, desire for leverage in the Gulf and US President Donald Trump’s toxic need to demonstrate power and manipulate global markets. Israel is in fact fighting two wars: one to disable Iran’s military and civilian infrastructure, and the other to expand its borders north into Lebanon while consolidating gains in Gaza and the West Bank. The US, for its role, has already sown the seeds of decades of deadly reprisals: a future series of perhaps lesser, but no less deadly, September 11ths. 

In the past, China has taken on a passive but still influential role in dispute resolution, as opposed to the US’ proactive “Camp David” approach, in which US presidents would use military might and economic incentives as diplomatic leverage, shuttling between adversaries to secure firm, swift outcomes. Where Washington coerces, Beijing facilitates. Indeed, Beijing facilitated the Saudi-Iranian security agreement in April 2001.

Although it weakens the US’ ability to contain China, Beijing does not welcome the current war, for China depends on unimpeded flows of global trade, especially through potential choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz. China will nevertheless benefit in the medium term as it did after the Iraq War. It is now the of the oil so coveted by the US and its allies, and the control of which was one of the prime motives for their invasion of Iraq in 2003. China is also best placed to rebuild shattered Middle Eastern infrastructure once this Persian Gulf War ends.��

Who benefits? 

With each missile fired and each bombing run, Trump is handing China a military advantage in Asia. Washington is expending its military arsenal profligately, while redeploying missiles, missile defense systems, warships and marines away from China’s borders to the Persian Gulf. It will take the US years to replenish its arsenals, while China will continue to expand its own. Multiple Pentagon war games have China’s ability to resist US attempts to garrison Taiwan or strike Chinese bases in the South China Sea, and to even damage America seriously in a limited naval conflict, but the US remains and will remain the largest military force in the region for years to come.

China has already won the struggle for economic primacy in Asia, and it has no intention of being drawn into war while it consolidates its regional economic influence. This is not only because such adventurism is inimical to it, but also because China knows its limitations. It prefers trade agreements to political treaties, demonstrated by its of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation with Russia, which essentially states that China and Russia will not attack each other, but not that they will defend each other. It has one with North Korea, a loose mutual commitment to protect each other if attacked. Viewing alliances as dangerous political and military tethers, and often a historical cause rather than a restraint on war, Beijing is one of the world’s least allied nations. Another such nation is India.��

The US is reacting to the loss of its empire and primacy across the globe by attacking cities in nations posing it no threat, spawning anarchy and imposing arbitrary sanctions and tariffs, while China is building its domestic economy and extending commercial and diplomatic influence steadily. Trump’s largely amateur cabinet is alienating the US’ beleaguered allies, and in doing so, weakening the economic and military coalition its predecessors had striven over decades to construct in order to contain China’s rise. The US will still remain a global economic and military power for the foreseeable future, and rather than replacing the US, China will slip into an uneasy equilibrium, sharing complex multipolarity with India and Russia, and acting as the steadier economic player.

Empires of the mind 

US and Western soft power is embedded across Asia, which acknowledges the West’s education, cultures, brands, entertainment and much of the anglophone internet, and tries to emulate core aspects of Western institutions, including its civil and economic management and governance. China has its Belt and Road initiative, the largest developmental-credit endeavor undertaken by a sovereign nation in modern history. It has facilitated infrastructure and utilities, and generated greater trade, spawning economic growth and common wealth in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia, and establishing Chinese prestige while also creating degrees of obligation and dependence.

China has, however, yet to match the soft power of the West, or even the regional soft power generated by the popular cultures of its neighbors, Japan, South Korea and to a lesser extent, India. The combined yin and yang of soft and hard power form the complete, enduring power that sustains nations’ preeminence over generations, even centuries.

China’s strength lies in its scale, its ability to plan and organize, the industry and endurance of its people, and its geographical and relative political isolation. China is hard to attack and impossible to invade, let alone control. China’s political isolation is also a disadvantage, for it has no great-power partners; in fact, apart from Russia, it often counts India, the US and the EU as adversaries. Where in previous centuries Chinese creativity, culture and civil institutions attracted its friends, today more nations and individuals seek the material and transactional benefits of dealing with China. 

Hard power often comes from the barrel of a gun, while soft power flows from the endeavors of exceptional people — creating art, innovating, and directing scientific endeavors and inquiry into the self — unencumbered by government control. The American Empire seems committed to its own destruction, but it will take more than a few unbalanced presidents to significantly diminish its soft power. The British Empire unraveled swiftly after the Second World War, but Britain still projects soft power in language and culture eight decades later. China will enhance its comprehensive, lasting global influence when the government coerces and curates its society less and, rather than focusing on projects to grow soft power, allows it to emanate spontaneously. This will flow not only from China’s contemporary popular and modern classical culture but also from unlocking thousands of years of accumulated civil, educational, creative and metaphysical understanding. 

American Caligula 

In the Persian Gulf, Trump hoped, just as Putin did initially in Ukraine, that a short military campaign would secure territorial control and resources, allowing the more powerful nation to then sue for peace with a broken, humbled foe. After four years, Russia has failed to defeat Ukraine or end the War, despite its overwhelming advantage in military and human resources. After unleashing a localized armageddon, Israel is still struggling to drive Hamas out of one city in Palestine. Having forgotten the defeats of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and seemingly incapable of learning from deeper history, Trump and his coterie cannot reflect upon yesterday’s events, let alone last year’s largely ineffectual on Iran.��

By launching a war he cannot fight effectively or finish, and through the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and provocation of Iranian retaliatory strikes on the US’ bases in the Gulf States, Trump has wrought economic chaos on the world. Like the first-century Roman emperor, , Trump engages in military adventures abroad in part to distract the people from his economic and political incompetence and personal scandals at home. He is surrounded by men informed by distorted Christian and Rabbinic theology and who manipulate him through fawning displays of admiration and support. For Trump, the conflict with Iran is largely a performative war, undertaken to demonstrate his personal power and feed his vainglory, with little consideration for strategic objectives or humanitarian cost. Caligula allegedly appointed his horse to the Roman Senate; Trump has gone further and surrounded himself with a cabinet-coffle of asses.��

Wars without cause, wars without end 

The Chinese economy has been deeply affected by America and Israel’s attack on Iran, and this will continue. While China has oil reserves speculated to exceed 260 million tonnes and large, unknown stores of fertilizer, grain and other essentials, Beijing cannot afford to deplete them significantly as they are intended to be strategic assets in the event of direct attack or domestic natural disaster. Because belligerents in the Persian Gulf War lack viable off-ramps, despite any “ceasefires,” the conflict and its disruption will likely continue in some form for months. 

The Chinese government is already fuel prices to avoid the impact on the wider economy, but will subsidize gasoline and diesel prices soon and may impose car-free days. The Chinese Ministry of Finance has been vigilant in controlling inflation, particularly food prices. It has been grappling with deep in the pork, beef and dairy sectors due to the rapid spread of in recent years, a significant part of which has been state-backed to increase food self-sufficiency. Chinese food companies and firms in many key sectors have slim margins with which to adjust to inflation accelerated by the war.��

Although Chinese ships are able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz unmolested, as with all economies, China will struggle to sustain imports of petroleum and petroleum-derived products due to the destruction of processing capacity in the region. China will also suffer from falling demand from the damaged economies of its trading partners, while at the same time needing to pay more for imports of a wide range of goods and components.

Commentators have focused primarily on the disruption of oil supply for energy generation from the Persian Gulf and its cost to the global economy. Equally important is that petroleum products are used to make plastic and other synthetic materials, helium for microchips, and material for fertilizers such as urea and ammonium nitrate. Another 12 weeks of war will likely trigger famine in developing countries and potential widespread undernourishment of the poor in the West. 

Not since the immediate aftermath of the Second World War or the 1970s have leading economies been so burdened by debt and deficits at a time when solvency was needed to mitigate the impact of external shocks. China’s long-term strategic policies, such as its rapid transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles, and its history of positive relations with non-North American oil producers, will help cushion it from some of the deeper impacts of fuel inflation. China’s nearly $1.5 trillion trade surplus and $3.4 trillion foreign exchange reserves will also help it to endure this phase of global instability better than most. Non-US trading and currency coalitions, such as , will unify and continue to expand to become arbiters of global trade.��

With the US behaving increasingly as a rogue actor internationally, Western nations are forced to reassess whether siding with Washington on issues of security and war is strategically prudent, economically wise or even moral. Some continue to do so directly or tacitly: the EU out of Russophobia, and the UK and Australia, through the Australia–UK–US security partnership (), out of a fear of abandonment and loss of reflected power. Canada and the BRICs nations provide a different template, having taken against the war and American bullying, while exploring deeper economic ties with Beijing. As long as China presents itself as a counterpoint of stability, more and more nations will gravitate towards it. When caught in a leaking, storm-tossed vessel, it is better to be the passenger disembarking early than the one swimming frantically from the sinking wreckage.

[Mahon China first published this piece as a business report.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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By the time federal agents intercepted her at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on the night of April 19, 2026, Mafi was allegedly worth millions — paid, say, for brokering the sale of Iranian drones, bomb fuses and ammunition to a military engaged in what the UN has depicted as one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.

“While enjoying a life in the United States, this woman was allegedly breaking the law by brokering lethal weapons deals with Iranian adversaries,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche . Mafi, 44, is charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers . She is presumed innocent.

She made her first appearance before a judge on Monday, April 20, yet did not enter a plea and was behind bars on Tuesday awaiting a detention hearing later in the week. Investigators say Mafi was not planning to stay. Authorities her at LAX after she bought a ticket to Turkey, fearing she was attempting to leave the country.

A former member of the Los Angeles Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force, speaking to 51�Թ� on background, says the arrest fits a pattern that has been playing out in Southern California for decades:

Southern California has always been a hotbed of Iranian government activity. This has been going on for the last 20 to 25 years, and I have direct experience monitoring Iranian government operations in the United States and Southern California … It makes perfect sense that the woman arrested at LAX had a node or presence in Southern California. This is likely part of a much larger network spread throughout the United States — concentrated in cities with large Iranian diaspora communities.

So, how does a woman living among Los Angeles’s affluent suburbs allegedly end up as a linchpin in Iran’s global arms pipeline, and what does her arrest reveal about the reach of Tehran’s intelligence networks inside America?

A shell company in Oman, a contract in the millions

Mafi owns and operates an Oman-based, Atlas International Business LLC — also known as Atlas Global Holding and Atlas Tech LLC — through which, prosecutors allege, she brokered weapons deals on Iran’s behalf. In 2024, she allegedly facilitated a contract valued at over $72.5 million for the sale of Iranian-made Mohajer-6 armed drones to Sudan’s Ministry of Defense. She was more than $7 million for the deal. She also allegedly coordinated the Sudanese delegation’s travel to Iran to finalize the transaction.

The full scale of what prosecutors allege is staggering. Beyond the drones, court show Mafi allegedly brokered the sale of 500 non-guided aerial bombs, 55,000 bomb fuses, 70,000 AK-47s, 250 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 500,000 rockets, among other weapons. Payment was structured to evade detection — some transferred through informal money-exchange systems operating across the Middle East and Africa, others routed through banks in Dubai and part was delivered in crates of $100 bills.

In February 2025, Mafi sent her alleged co-conspirator the signed contract WhatsApp and later sent photographs and a video of the crate being opened. “It should be in small amounts,” Mafi allegedly a Sudanese contact over the encrypted messaging app while brokering a payment in 2024.

Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project, Hans-Jakob Schindler, tells 51�Թ� that the Oman routing is consistent with how Tehran operates:

It is indeed a whole-of-government and whole-of-economy approach that the regime undertakes, with both government authorities, in particular the Ministry of Information, which is the official name for the Ministry of Intelligence, the intelligence service of the Revolutionary Guards, economic entities, research entities, as well as a range of other government authorities such as the diplomatic service being involved in quite complex transnational procurement operations that are usually characterized by a high degree of sophistication and obfuscation.

He notes that the confidence in this case appeared to be particularly high: “The confidence that the obfuscation was sufficient that this route would not be detected seems to have been quite high.”

International political strategist and managing director of Nestpoint Associates, John Thomas, concurs:

This is textbook Iranian sanctions evasion … Tehran routinely uses third countries like Oman, the UAE, and Turkey as cutouts to launder weapons and money. It’s a well-worn playbook designed to keep the IRGC’s supply lines flowing despite United States sanctions.

A direct line to Tehran’s intelligence apparatus

Mafi maintained more than 60 bidirectional contacts with an Iranian intelligence officer between December 2022 and June 2025, according to information during search warrants, pointing to a more structured relationship with the regime in Tehran.�� 

The court filing goes further still: The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) allegedly directed Mafi to open a business inside the US using funds the Iranian intelligence service provided, framed as a way to help her recover properties Tehran had seized from her father’s estate in 2020.

Mafi told that MOIS had never tasked her with conducting any activities on American soil for Tehran. Prosecutors clearly see it differently. Court documents also she stated she was “more useful to them [i.e., MOIS] in Iran than in the United States.”

In connection with the bomb fuse transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent directly to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). She never applied for the required Treasury Department , nor did she register with the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade , prosecutors say.

Schindler says the phone contact between Mafi and Iranian intelligence is notable for what it reveals about tradecraft — or the lack of it:

This is surprising since it must be clear to Iranian intelligence that any phone conversation can be monitored … The fact that these conversations seemed to have happened over the span of three years indicates to me that these phone conversations were not part of the initial stages of Mafi’s recruitment process as an intelligence asset but more likely were part of her handling process. If this is the case, this is a surprising lack of professionalism on the Iranian side.

For Thomas, the alleged contact is less a failure of tradecraft than a window into standard Iranian operating procedure:

Mafi, a United States permanent resident, was not a lone actor. She was allegedly in direct contact with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security … This highlights how the regime embeds operatives inside the United States and Europe, using legal residency as cover for illicit activities.

The former FBI task force official, meanwhile, says the pattern is one he watched develop firsthand over two decades:

Both MOIS and IRGC operatives have also been finding and acquiring dual-use items restricted under United States and international sanctions, then trans-shipping them to Iran … They identify Americans, American companies, and ethnic Iranians willing to supply these goods — sometimes wittingly, sometimes not. This is classic sanctions evasion, and it has been going on for 25 years in the Southern California area.

Sudan as a theater of Iranian power projection

The destination of the alleged supply chain matters as much as its origin. Sudan has been by civil war since April 2023. The conflict has killed an estimated 150,000 or more people — though the true toll may be far higher given the near-collapse of documentation in affected areas — displaced over 12 million, and produced what the UN refugee agency has called the largest and displacement crisis on earth. Iran’s involvement in the war is not by accident.

Since Iranian cargo aircraft began arriving at Port Sudan’s airport, the Sudanese Armed Forces have launched attacks using Iranian-made Mohajer-6 unmanned aerial vehicles — the same platform Tehran has to Russia and other theaters. Tehran has been repeatedly accused of violating the UN arms embargo tied to the conflict.

Schindler told 51�Թ� that the strategic logic for Iran extends well beyond the battlefield:

Being able to have a good relationship with the power brokers in Sudan that control the coastline along the Red Sea is, of course, a strategic plus for the Iranian regime, as they already have a relationship with the Houthis on the other side of the Red Sea.

Thomas is more direct about what the case reveals:

Iran’s Mohajer-6 drones have been a game-changer for the Sudanese Armed Forces, providing critical aerial surveillance and strike capability that has prolonged the conflict and tilted the battlefield … This case reveals that the supply chain is sophisticated, multi-layered, and persistent — running from Iranian factories through Gulf shell companies to conflict zones in Africa.

As for whether a single prosecution can dent an infrastructure decades in the making, Schindler says the value lies in attrition and deterrence rather than disruption:

Any individual prosecution is, of course, not able to strategically disrupt an illicit procurement infrastructure of the size and sophistication that the Iranian regime has set up over the past decades … Nevertheless, each prosecution is of strategic importance — during the investigation into such cases, Iranian methodologies, obfuscation tactics, international connections, and communication methods are discovered, which can lead to further discoveries or at the very least force the Iranian side to reorganize part of their remaining intelligence and illicit procurement networks.

For the former FBI official, the Mafia arrest is not an endpoint; it is a glimpse through a narrow window into something far larger:

What we are seeing is only a small part of the iceberg … I am certain there are many other cases like this across the country. From my perspective, we must do everything possible — through law enforcement, intelligence, and, if necessary, military action — to stop the flow of American technology and information to one of our worst enemies.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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With the Trump administration still Operation Epic Fury as a triumph and evidence of American power, the gap between performance and policy is impossible to miss. At the start of the war, the of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was supposed, in the minds of its defenders, to shatter Tehran’s will. Instead, the assassination only hardened the regime’s posture. The leadership that emerged de-escalation proposals, which meant compromise became harder to achieve. It sent the message that Washington acted with no regard for the consequences — which later came in the form of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.��

Iran’s closure of the Strait as a response to US actions and the subsequent by Gulf importers to reroute food, medicines and factory supplies is more than a temporary logistics headache. It is a reminder that the region’s prosperity still rests on a narrow maritime doorway that can turn into a trap after one misstep in US overseas policy.

Trump is therefore stuck in the worst possible position. If he pushes harder, as he seems to be doing with the recent blockade, the costs rise fast. If he backs away, the failure is obvious. He cannot claim easy success because the Strait remains contested, the casualties keep rising and the market shock keeps spreading. This is what a rock in front and a ditch behind really looks like in foreign policy. It looks less like strength than like a leader who now hopes volume can pass for strategy. 

This is not clever brinkmanship. Trump started with slogans, and now the Gulf is boxed in by the consequences of US actions. If Trump wishes to solve the crisis, he cannot treat a war zone like a stage and a maritime chokepoint like a prop. The US must pivot to realistic policy and action before the effects of the Strait of Hormuz crisis on the Gulf are irreversible.

A US gamble puts the Gulf at risk

As Gulf oil producers to bypass Hormuz, the old assumption that trade will always keep flowing looks badly shaken. That was always a fragile belief. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has long the Strait of Hormuz as the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint. For years, Gulf economies enjoyed the efficiencies of concentration, fast ports, short sea links and lean inventories. Now they are learning that efficiency without backup is not strength, but exposure.

The costs are already visible. Oil prices have , American troop casualties are and the death toll numbers in the . The Financial Times that shipping in the region has turned into a kind of commercial wild west, with bookings suspended, cargo dropped at substitute ports and rates shooting higher. Meanwhile, oil prices have pushed above a barrel during the latest escalation, and the pressure is even sharper in physical markets, where Oman-related crude grades have surged above a barrel.

Shipping companies are making the same calculation in harsher terms. The commercial chaos is reinforced by Maersk’s own operational , which show surcharges, disruptions and a constant rewriting of schedules. Reuters that Maersk is redistributing vessel fuel and prioritizing critical cargo such as food and medicine. The International Energy Agency says the closure is also putting more than barrels a day of refining capacity at risk, which means this is no longer only about ships waiting offshore. It is about refineries filling up, downstream production losing outlets and the whole trade system becoming more brittle by the day.��

What makes this crisis especially serious is that it is not confined to crude exports. Even humanitarian concerns are now entering the debate, with a senior United Nations official for food and medicine cargo to be allowed through. Once a trade route becomes a corridor for exceptions and emergency pleas, the illusion of normal commerce is already gone.

The Gulf’s problem is its reliance on the Strait

Anyone who bothered to read the EIA or its that Hormuz is the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint knew this crisis was always going to turn on the Strait. All that was needed was a bad security gamble on the part of the US, and suddenly, the Gulf infrastructure is easily overwhelmed. This points to the larger problem of the Gulf’s heavy reliance on the Strait.

Gulf officials often talk about the region’s world-class logistics, and there is truth in that. connects to more than 150 ports worldwide, and the wider Gulf has spent decades building ports, free zones and storage facilities that many regions would envy. But scale is not the same as resilience. International Monetary Fund (IMF) work on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) resilience just how large the region’s trade exposure remains, while the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) continues to how central Hormuz is to tanker, bulk and container traffic. My view is that the Gulf’s real mistake was not relying on trade. It was relying on a model that prized speed and concentration over redundancy. That model looked modern in calm times. In a crisis — such as the one Trump’s strongman efforts created — it looks dangerously thin.

The larger lesson goes beyond this week’s headlines. Reuters notes that the current energy shock is already countries to rethink dependence on vulnerable fossil fuel routes. The Gulf should apply that same lesson to food, medicines and industrial inputs. It needs backup corridors through Oman and the Red Sea, deeper shared reserves, faster cross-border customs coordination and supply contracts that value reliability as much as price. The closure of Hormuz is exposing a development model that became very rich, very fast, and a little too confident that geography could be managed like an accounting line.

To the region’s credit, the search for alternatives has been immediate and practical. Saudi Red Sea exports are , which shows that bypass routes can soften the blow when the Gulf route is blocked. The kingdom is not improvising from nothing, because Aramco’s annual makes clear that the East–West pipeline was built to give Saudi Arabia export flexibility.��

The same logic is now spreading into the non-oil trade. Emirates Global Aluminum is exports and raw materials through Oman, a striking example of how companies are trying to stitch together land and sea corridors on the fly. These are sensible moves, but they also expose a deeper problem. A system that depends on emergency rerouting every time a single chokepoint is hit is not resilient, merely adaptive under stress. That shouldn’t be a long-term solution.

This matters more in the Gulf than in many other regions because import dependence is so deep. An IMF study notes that GCC countries import about of the food they consume. When a place relies this heavily on imported essentials, every delay becomes political, every detour becomes expensive and every freight decision starts to look like a national security issue.��

What infrastructure issues reveal about US policy

Failure to overcome such an infrastructure issue doesn’t just point to a strategic shortcoming on the part of the Gulf. It also points to the US’s security and policy shortcomings. That is not the message of strength Trump wanted to send. Now his actions read as reckless. Trump has also sent messages, hinting at winding down one day and fresh coercion the next.��

A more stubborn regime in Tehran can read that confusion as clearly as anyone else can, and it is acting accordingly. First, Tehran responded to the US’s actions in the Gulf by saying it can completely the Strait, while also saying it had already begun access by enemy-linked ships. Then, after Trump delivered a 48-hour , Tehran issued against Gulf energy and water systems. Finally, when Trump declared a US blockade of the Strait, he also said Iran promised to keep the Strait open indefinitely. Iran disputed this, there was no new agreement, and promptly closed the Strait once again.��

That is why Trump’s insistence that Hormuz must simply be opened on his command sounds childish, not presidential. A president cannot order a chokepoint open the way a hotel boss demands a door be unlocked. A president must understand that naval access, insurance, shipping confidence, allied cooperation and retaliation all matter. Trump acts like he forgot every one of those facts, and now it seems that forgetfulness is driving US policy. 

The US must act reasonably, rationally and realistically

Even worse for Trump, US allies still do not want to be a of Trump’s war. That is the part he either forgot or never understood — this is a war of choice. The countries he has called upon are restrained by legal limits, political limits, public pressure and their own judgment about whether this war was launched wisely. Trump’s actions paint the picture that he believes America can always bark orders and others will fall in line. But allies are not props either.��

As for Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon page and the department’s own office no longer even call him Secretary of Defense. They call him Secretary of War. Fine. Then let us speak plainly about war. Hegseth does not look like an independent steward of military judgment. He looks like Trump’s facilitator, the man who helps convert presidential impulse into operational momentum.��

Trump should stop talking magic. The situation now goes beyond the slogans. If Washington insists on reopening Hormuz on American terms, there may be no remaining path except military force, and even that would not be clean, quick or cheap. As the global energy system remains to Hormuz, any serious effort to force open the passage would be costly in lives and regional stability.��

Yet the opposite path also carries a brutal political truth for Trump. If he does not reopen it, his failure is plain. If he does reopen it by force, the price will expose how careless he was to stumble into this position in the first place. That is not victory. That is an expensive confession.

 A president serious about changing the balance of power in the Gulf would have immediately considered geography, shipping, escalation risk and allied limits. Trump started with slogans, and now the Gulf is boxed in by the realities he believed he could talk away.��

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Trump Gambled on the Strait. Now the Gulf Pays the Price appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The result is a war in which the heaviest economic consequences are being absorbed by those with the least influence over how it ends. That is not an unintended side effect. It reflects how modern conflict now interacts with an interconnected global system.

A war that moves through systems

The violence of the war may be concentrated in the Gulf, but the disruption is not. Pressure around the , which carries a substantial share of global oil and liquefied natural gas, is already translating into broader instability. Insurance premiums for shipping have . have been adjusted or delayed. Even limited disruptions have forced rerouting through longer and more expensive corridors. Energy markets have responded with volatility that reflects not only current supply risks, but uncertainty about how far escalation could extend.

These effects are not linear. They move through the same channels that sustain the global economy. Energy flows, maritime logistics, financial markets and supply chains react simultaneously, but unevenly. A disruption at one point in the system propagates outward, reshaping conditions elsewhere.

The Gulf states are encountering the first layer of this pressure. Infrastructure, once treated as secure, is now exposed. Oil facilities, ports and shipping terminals are at increasing risk. More critically, , which provide the majority of potable water in several Gulf countries, have emerged as potential vulnerabilities. Any sustained disruption to these systems would not only affect economic output but also the basic functioning of daily life.

These states are not directing the war, but they cannot distance themselves from it. Their exposure is structural, rooted in geography and infrastructure. Beyond the Gulf, the effects become less visible but more complex.

South and Southeast Asia are absorbing the next layer of impact. Countries such as , which rely heavily on imported energy, are particularly sensitive to even modest price increases. Currency pressure intensifies as import costs rise; inflation begins to move; governments face difficult trade-offs between stabilizing prices and maintaining fiscal discipline. These pressures do not appear all at once; they build gradually, often unnoticed at first.

Recent movements in global have already begun to translate into higher domestic costs across several Asian economies. Airlines face rising fuel expenses, manufacturing sectors dependent on energy inputs adjust output and households encounter rising costs that are not immediately traceable to the conflict, but are directly linked to it.

There is also a human dimension that remains largely overlooked. Millions of from South Asia are employed across the Gulf. Their income supports families and local economies back home. As uncertainty increases, their position becomes more precarious. Flight routes are disrupted; insurance premiums increase; mobility becomes more constrained at the very moment when flexibility is most needed. They are not participants in the conflict. Yet they are embedded within its consequences.

Further east, the constraints tighten. Japan and South Korea sit at the far end of the same energy chain, but with far less flexibility. Their dependence on Middle Eastern energy imports is not marginal; it is structural. A significant portion of their oil imports passes through the same contested maritime routes. When supply tightens, they are forced into competition for alternative sources, often at higher cost.

This has immediate effects: Industrial output begins to slow, petrochemical production adjusts, and financial markets react to uncertainty in input costs and output expectations. What begins as an energy shock extends into industrial and financial systems. The war is not expanding geographically in the traditional sense; it is expanding through systems.

The economies that carry the burden

The most consequential aspect of this dynamic is not simply the scale of disruption, but its distribution. The countries bearing the greatest economic pressure are not those setting the conflict’s trajectory. They are not determining strategy or shaping escalation. Yet their economies, infrastructure and populations are directly exposed to the consequences. What emerges from this is a structural imbalance that is difficult to correct.

The US, despite its central role, is relatively insulated from the immediate energy shock. As a major energy producer, it experiences price fluctuations differently. Domestic pressure exists, but it does not threaten systemic stability in the same way. Iran, for its part, is already operating under long-term economic constraints. Additional pressure intensifies existing challenges, but does not fundamentally alter the conditions under which it operates. Israel’s exposure is primarily security-driven, rather than rooted in systemic economic vulnerability of the same kind.

The most severe pressures are concentrated elsewhere. They are felt most acutely in economies that are deeply integrated into global systems, but lack the capacity to shape them. This is where the situation becomes more complex than it initially appears.

If energy prices continue to rise, governments across affected regions will be forced to respond. Subsidies may be expanded; strategic reserves may be drawn down; emergency fiscal measures may be introduced to stabilize domestic conditions. These responses are not cost-free; they shift pressure into financial systems.

Several large Asian economies hold substantial foreign-currency reserves, including . In periods of sustained stress, the liquidation of such assets can serve as a tool for maintaining domestic stability. If undertaken at scale, these actions would transmit pressure into global financial markets, affecting borrowing costs, liquidity and investment conditions.

A regional conflict begins to generate global financial consequences. At that point, the distinction between participant and observer begins to weaken.

A system that redistributes risk

What is unfolding is not simply economic disruption. It is a redistribution of risk across an interconnected system. Energy markets are beginning to fragment, as different regions experience different price pressures and supply constraints. are adjusting, but not uniformly. Some states are able to absorb shocks through reserves and diversification. Others face more immediate constraints. The longer the conflict persists, the more these differences widen.

Recent developments suggest that even limited escalation can have disproportionate effects. Temporary disruptions to shipping routes have already extended delivery times and increased costs. Insurance markets have adjusted faster than physical supply, amplifying the economic impact. Financial markets are reacting not only to current conditions, but to the possibility of further escalation.

Over time, this begins to resemble a feedback loop. Uncertainty drives cost. Cost drives policy response. Policy response introduces new distortions. The system does not stabilize quickly. It adjusts, but unevenly and often with delay. This is not a temporary disturbance that will dissipate once the conflict slows. It reflects a deeper shift in how war interacts with global systems. Conflict is no longer contained by geography. It is transmitted through connectivity.

The wrong economies

The countries most exposed to the economic consequences are not the ones making strategic decisions or defining objectives. Yet they are the ones managing inflation, stabilizing currencies, protecting supply chains and absorbing social pressure. They carry the cost without controlling the cause. This is increasingly how modern conflict operates. Power is exercised in one place. Consequences are distributed across many. The further a country is from the center of decision-making, the more likely it is to experience the conflict as an external shock rather than a controllable process. And the longer the war continues, the more entrenched this pattern becomes.

Wars are still fought between states, but their effects are no longer confined to them. They move through the systems that connect economies, societies and markets. And in that movement, the burden does not fall where power is concentrated; it falls where exposure is greatest. That is why this war is not just reshaping the balance of power; it is reshaping the distribution of vulnerability. And in doing so, it is placing the heaviest burden on the economies least able to shape the outcome.

[ edited this piece.]

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Economic toll

Unlike Iran, the other Middle Eastern states, especially the six members of the GCC, have strengthened their economic ties with the West. One major example of such economic ties is the one between the EU and the GCC. The 1989 has resulted in over $170 billion in exports and imports between the two sides in 2023.��

Over the past five decades, these countries have also worked hard to attract foreign investors, entrepreneurs, and even wealthy individuals seeking to invest in luxury real estate and opulent lifestyles. To name a few examples of such steps, Dubai a five-year multiple-entry visa for business trips in 2021, and the UAE began five-year residency and renewable 10-year visas to those who own real estate in the UAE valued at $5 million and $10 million, respectively. To attract foreign capital, both and have introduced Golden Residency programs that grant wealthy foreigners, including their families, long-term residencies of ten years or longer.��

States such as the UAE and Qatar have become reliable hubs for travelers reaching their destinations globally. In 2023, an 18.25% share of the UAE’s GDP was through aviation. In practice, this means $92 billion in revenue and 992,000 jobs. It is a similar trajectory for Qatar. In 2025, only Qatar Airways Group reported a 28% over the previous year, surpassing $2 billion. Qatar’s tourism revenue surpassed , up 25% from 2023.��

Saudi Arabia is another Middle Eastern power with considerable financial clout. Its economic reform for the post-oil Kingdom, known as , aims to sector to become not only self-sufficient but also an exporter and global hub for biotechnology. Within this project, other strategies include the mining sector with a focus on minerals, and even the gaming and Esports to host international tournaments, as well as attracting foreign companies to Saudi Arabia. The program is reliant on the non-hydrocarbon sector, comprising foundational pillars namely construction, tourism and tech, which are integral to Saudi Arabia’s economic growth, as the World Bank states, “the non-oil economy’s share of GDP grew from 60 percent in 2015 to 68 percent by 2024”.��

With the risks of collapsed tourism, damaged energy infrastructure and logistics disruptions growing manifold, the Gulf countries face an imminent crisis. Amid the worsening security crisis in the region, all of these countries face a heavy blow, with the looming threat of economic devastation, as they remain heavily dependent on such critical sectors to attract foreign investment and capital while diversifying away from oil exports. Their economic leverage rests on regional stability, which has been put under immense strain due to the volatile situation. 

More alarming is the emerging scenario in which large companies tend to act quickly to secure their assets and withdraw from a conflict zone; however, their return is a slow, cautious process. Consequently, if the war results in the departure of some foreign companies from the region within a few weeks, their return may take months or years, which would be detrimental to the economies of the GCC in the long term.

Ironically, Iran will not face such a risk, as the Islamic Republic has not been a destination for international firms due to sanctions and an inadequate environment that has not been conducive to foreign investment. 

Damaged reputation

Over the past few decades, the Gulf countries have built a reputation as a safe destination. This feature has attracted not only investors and foreign companies but also pensioners and those fleeing high taxation in their home countries. As their reputation is now tarnished by the escalating conflict, it will take a long time to rebuild it and recover from the damage inflicted. During the early stages of the war, Iran hit back hard. Missiles and drones were fired at numerous targets, including , and industrial complexes.��

One small example is the UAE. It to around 240,000 British expats. The US–Israel–Iran war has distressed the majority of expats living across the region. It has gone as far as being by some Western news outlets, such as tabloid Daily Mail, as “‘Dubai Is Finished’: Expats say they will leave and never come back as tax-free dream is shattered by war and officials begin prosecuting people for posting videos of missiles.” 

Worthy US alliance? 

Except for Iran and Yemen, the US is in some sort of alliance with all states in the region. The closest allies are Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan and others. Israel, for instance, has $330 billion in aid, both military and civil, from the US since its foundation.��

The alliance between the Gulf states and the US dates back to the 1940s, when, for instance, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Abdul Aziz Al Saud aboard USS Quincy in 1945. The result was access to Saudi oil for security assurance to the Kingdom. And other Gulf states suit and went into an alliance with the US.��

Fast forward to 2026, although the Gulf countries do not receive US military aid on the same scale as Israel and Egypt, their arms deals with the US are among the largest. Between 1950 and 2024, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE have $182 billion, $40 billion, $35 billion and $34 billion, respectively. These massive purchases have certainly helped these countries defend themselves against Iranian drones and missiles; however, the cost of munitions for them is considerably higher than for Iran, as a Shahed-136 drone costs under $50,000, compared with, say, Patriot interceptor missiles that cost per shot. The ineffectiveness of US military equipment to deter attacks, coupled with US’ waning commitment to uphold its allies’ defense under its security umbrella in the region, propels the Gulf countries to recalibrate their security ties with the US.��

After all, it was never their war to begin with, yet they face dire consequences simply for allying with the US (which now appears more to be a grave liability). Since the beginning of the war, Tehran has justified its attacks on Iran’s neighbors by claiming that any location in the region hosting a US military presence is a legitimate target. However, most of the missiles and drones thrown at the Gulf states were not precisely aimed at the American bases, either deliberately or due to a lack of precision, as it has been that the Circular Error Probable of Iranian missiles is between 20 and 500 meters. This makes it even harder for states such as the UAE to convince foreigners to stay or even consider returning, once the war is over. Expats, especially those who are attracted by luxury and 0% income tax rate, will hardly be willing to live in a place where even a one percent chance of missile penetration exists, should another round of conflict emerge.��

Post-war scenarios

While efforts were recently made to a peace deal between the US and Iran, with Pakistan acting as a primary mediator, the talks in Islamabad stalled; however, reports are now that the conflicting parties are expected to re-engage in negotiations soon.��

Regardless, for the Gulf countries, there are mainly two outcomes as of now. The first prediction is that the Iranian regime will be toppled and a new Iran will emerge. In this case, the Gulf states can simply claim that the old threat no longer exists. Hence, it will be relatively easier to convince expats and companies that departed in haste to return. And the Gulf states would emerge shaken but ultimately “victorious”, and their alliance with the US would be seen as worthwhile. Their domestic publics would also be less likely to question the rulers’ strategies and policies. However, this scenario appears very unlikely, given Iran’s position in surviving the war and transitioning to a ceasefire and negotiations, as well as the US stance shifting toward achieving a mere exit strategy.

A second scenario, which is the most likely one to consider, is that the  Iranian regime survives the war, in which case the main losers will be the Gulf countries. Iran, the US and Israel will all claim victory and, to an extent, those claims will be correct. The leaders of these three countries will be able to convince their publics that they have achieved their objectives, at least among those who support their governments’ policies. The new Supreme Leader, whether it is still Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei or a successor in case he is also killed, will claim that they have defeated the US plan to overthrow the regime, and the IRGC, Basij and regime supporters across all strata will buy it. President Trump will tell his MAGA supporters that he has “obliterated” the threat of a ballistic and nuclear Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu will tell Israelis, mainly his supporters, that Iran’s capability to attack Israel is diminished. 

However, for regional countries such as the UAE, there won’t be a victory narrative to pursue. They will not be able to convince their constituencies by claiming victory, as they have, at best, been defending themselves in a war that was not theirs. The public will be anxious about what the alliance with the US (and in the case of the UAE with Israel) will bring next. The Gulf states will face criticism from their people regarding the alliance with the US and any ties to the state of Israel. History bears witness to this, as public perception in Gulf states has often diverged from government narratives, and state decisions have not sat well with the public. 

The defiance was most noticeable in relation to the alliance between the US and Gulf state leaders, which does not always align with how the Arab public perceives the US and Israel. During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, a reservations to customers who would like to enjoy their meals while watching Iranian missiles roaring towards Israel. A similar case happened during the Gulf War. On January 18, 1991, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq launched missile attacks on Israel. In his book, The Achilles Trap, Steve Coll writes that five Iraqi Scud missiles hit Tel Aviv and Haifa while Saudi officers and American counterparts were in the coordination center, C3IC, observing the attacks. The Americans were shocked when they saw the Saudi officers cheering the Iraqi strike with Allahu Akbar.��

Now, while the times may differ, similar sentiments persist. Gulf states have to tactfully handle public opinion while simultaneously preventing their economies from falling into the doldrums. Henceforth, the path for the Gulf states is certainly fraught with difficulties on multiple fronts. 

In the end, therefore, it is not the US that loses investors and entrepreneurs, nor is it Israel, which is a startup country with the most powerful military in the region. Iran will not suffer from the mistrust of foreign investors either, as the country has few or no foreign investors, especially Western ones, due to sanctions and an unfriendly environment for foreigners. Tehran has little involvement in the international trade community to worry about losing it. What Iran has never had will not be a loss to Tehran in the post-war period. The real costs will be borne by the Gulf states.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How the US–Israel–Iran War Costs the Gulf States appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The US has long-standing ties with the Kurds, which date back to the 1970s during the Kurdish rebellions against the Iraqi central government. Following the uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan in March 1991 and the creation of the over the Kurdistan region of Iraq, relations between the Kurds and the US have improved significantly. This relation with the regime change in Iraq in 2023 has further enhanced as the Kurdish fighters play a key role in helping the US open a new frontline in northern Iraq to topple the Saddam regime.�� 

Similarly, during the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014, the US decisively supported the Kurdish figures in Iraq and Syria. The Kurds, with help from the US, played a key role in defeating ISIS in both countries. Hence, this historical partnership has laid the groundwork for Washington to publicly discuss the possibility of using Iranian Kurdish fighters as ground forces in a conflict against the current Iranian regime. 

Trump has sent mixed messages in this regard. On March 5, he argued that he would forces if they decided to launch a military offensive against Iran, describing the idea as positive. When asked whether the US would provide air support for the operation, he declined to give a clear answer, saying he could not discuss that.��

However, on March 7, Trump having Kurdish fighters join the war against Iran. In this regard, he said, “I don’t want the Kurds going in. I don’t want to see the Kurds get hurt, get killed. I told them I don’t want them. The war is complicated enough.” 

There is no clear answer whether the US will finally topple the regime or, at this specific stage, end this war. Hence, the key question is: Why has the Kurdish factor in Iran suddenly become an important topic in the US and Israel’s war against Iran?

In reality, there are many explanations for this. One possibility is that Israel and the US could move toward overthrowing the Iranian regime in Tehran. However, this has not yet been officially and clearly announced by the US. Moreover, Kurdish fighters could be viewed as an effective instrument in this context. In particular, the US and Israel seek to make western Kurdistan a platform for inciting and encouraging a general uprising in the rest of Iran.

Another possibility is that the US might have wanted to use Kurdish forces as a tool to pressure the current Iranian authorities and push them to make greater concessions to Trump’s demands. As he recently said, the aim of the war is “” of the Iranian authorities.��

Fear of abandonment: Kurdish demands for guarantees in any alliances against Iran

The Iranian Kurdish opposition parties are willing to seize the opportunity and ally with the US and Israel against Iran to achieve their historic ambition, manifested in establishing a federal or autonomous region in western Kurdistan. However, they have serious concerns about moving forward with such a policy without concrete guarantees of protection. In particular, the US doesn’t have a clear strategy, and it explicitly argues that the endgame is not regime change in Iran, but the destruction of Iranian military capacities. 

Furthermore, while the US has supported the Kurds at different times, it has also abandoned them on several occasions, leaving them to face existential threats. For example, following the Kurdistan in September 2017, the Trump administration allowed Iraqi federal troops and Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias — with direct support of Iran — to attack the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Kirkuk and disputed areas. As a result, the Kurds lost roughly 40% of the territory that Peshmerga had held.��At that time, Trump said the US would not take a side.

In January 2026, even though the Kurds were key partners of the US in the war against ISIS in Syria, they were abandoned once again. The Trump administration allowed the former commander of Al Qaida al-Sharia, with his Damascus-led army, to attack the Kurdish forces and take the territory under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As a result, on January 20, , US Special Envoy for Syria, declared that the Kurdish-led SDF’s role as the primary anti-ISIS force had “.”

This background indicates that Kurdish concerns are genuine, as they fear the possibility that the US could once again abandon them. Therefore, before taking further steps, they seek guarantees and assurances from the US. The key demands of the Iranian Kurds are a guarantee that they will not be abandoned in the face of an Iranian threat, in both cases, whether the Iranian regime collapses or remains in place.

This is a very important point, in particular, if the regime survives, it may again crush the Kurds and could even against them as it has done after 1979. Hence, in this case, establishing a no-fly zone in Eastern Kurdistan is crucial to ensure that the Kurdish people are protected. Further, the Kurds seek to convert their military achievements into political gains. Therefore, the US should back the Kurds by guaranteeing support both if the current regime collapses and in advancing their demands for some sort of autonomy.�� 

Between Iranian threats and proxy attacks: Kurdistan faces rising security risks

In fact, any cooperation between the US and Iranian Kurdish groups against the regime in Iran would have serious implications for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). It is clear that the KRG has sought to reassure Tehran that it would not pose a threat. However, increasing conflict with the US is pushing the Iranian regime to pursue a more aggressive policy in the KRG. In particular, Iran and its proxy militias in Iraq have frequently threatened and targeted the Kurdistan region.

Since the 2020 of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran has essentially turned the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) into a battlefield, sending a message to the US, Israel and its allies. Following the of the young Kurdish-Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, and the outbreak of demonstrations across Iran in September 2023, the country has intensified its attacks against the KRI. As a result, the IRGC  the Kurdish-Iranian opposition groups.��

Iran blames the Iranian Kurds for instigating and sustaining the protests in Iran. Even the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, , has  an unprecedented ground military operation against Iraqi Kurdistan if Baghdad does not disarm Iranian Kurdish opposition groups on Iraqi soil. Following the 12 days of with Israel in June 2025, Iranian proxies in Iraq hit oil fields and infrastructure in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. These strikes targeted oil facilities, airports and some military locations.

With the start of the new military operation by the US and Israel against Iran beginning February 28, once again, the KRI turned into a battlefield, and Iran and its proxies are intensively targeting infrastructure in the Kurdistan region. These attacks intensified following reports that Trump spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leaders by phone, urging them to support the Iranian Kurdish opposition. 

In a statement, the KRG strongly reports suggesting the Kurdistan Region is taking part in a plan to arm and send Kurdish opposition parties into Iranian territory. Furthermore, the KRG emphasized that it would not be part of the current conflict, which could expand across the region.��It reiterated the Kurdistan Region’s stance of avoiding further conflict amid the current regional turmoil.

Hence, it can be argued that if the US pushes Iranian Kurdish opposition groups to participate in a war against Iran, the KRG could face serious and even existential risks, even if it rejects or refuses to support such a policy. 

The Iranian authorities are clearly sending a very serious warning and threatening the KRI in case Iranian Kurdish fighters are involved in the war. On March 6, Iran’s Defense Council released a statement that so far, Iran has only focused on US and Israeli bases in the region, as well as opposition political parties operating within the Kurdistan region.��

It added that:

“Should their continued presence and plotting be permitted, or should these groups or [Zionist] regime elements enter the borders of the Islamic Republic through the Region, all facilities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq … will be targeted on a massive scale.”

Further, the Spokesperson of the Khatam Al-Anbiya, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, issued a to the Kurdistan region, stating that any attempt by the Kurdistan region to deploy hostile forces in the Iranian border strip will be met with severe action by the Iranian armed forces.��

Hence, in the case of involving the Iranian opposition Kurds in this war, the most dangerous scenario for the KRG would be if the political system in Iran remains in place and does not collapse, and if the US and Israel halt their attacks. There’s no doubt the KRG would face a serious threat, and Iran would do everything to undermine the KRG’s position. 

One of the key instruments that Iran could use, besides directly attacking the Kurdistan region, is using its militia proxies in Iraq and even the Iraqi government led by the Shia parties against the KRG. In particular, since the eruptions of the current war, the Shia militias have intensified their attacks against the Kurdistan region. According to Rudaw News, since the beginning of the war, more than 638 drones and missiles have the Kurdistan Region.��

Therefore, in any scenario where the US pushes Iranian Kurdish fighters to participate in a war against Iran, it should provide clear assurances and guarantees not only to the Iranian Kurdish groups but also to the Kurdistan Region, which could face serious security consequences from such involvement.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Leveraging the Kurds: Inside US Plans to Pressure Tehran appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Escalating violence across southern Yemen

According to Human Rights Watch, in a released on March 17, security forces “used excessive force against largely unarmed protesters,” in some cases firing directly into crowds. The events unfolded over multiple days and locations, pointing not to a single incident but to a pattern.

In February, protests intensified in Shabwa, where at least six demonstrators were killed when security forces opened fire, as also by The New Arab. Weeks later, in early March, similar scenes were reported in Hadramaut: In the coastal city of Mukalla, three demonstrators were killed during protests that witnesses insist were peaceful. Aden, too, saw repeated crackdowns throughout late February and early March, with arrests and injuries reported as security forces moved aggressively to disperse gatherings, a pattern reflected in broader coverage by .

Eyewitness testimony reinforces the findings of human rights observers and reveals the lived reality behind the numbers. One protester in Shabwa described the moment security forces opened fire: “There was no warning. They started shooting live bullets directly at us. People fell immediately. We were running, but they kept firing.” In Mukalla, another witness recalled, “We came out peacefully. We were chanting only. Suddenly, there was shooting — real bullets, not in the air. I saw a man next to me collapse.” In Aden, a resident described how the crackdown extended beyond the protests themselves: “They didn’t just stop the protest — they chased people, arrested many, and made it clear that any gathering would be punished.”

Taken together, these incidents raise serious questions about both the capability and the intent of government forces backed by Saudi Arabia. The repeated use of live ammunition across multiple governorates suggests more than mere weakness in crowd control. It points toward a deliberate strategy of deterrence — one that treats public protest not as a political expression but as a threat to be eliminated. As Human Rights Watch has in its reporting and in its broader Yemen documentation, the use of lethal force against protesters who do not pose an imminent threat violates international standards, which require restraint and prioritization of non-lethal means.

Political stakes and repression

The political context is crucial. These demonstrations are not isolated acts of unrest but part of a broader and long-standing movement calling for southern independence. The STC remains the most prominent vehicle for these aspirations, and the protests reflect continued popular support despite recent political and military setbacks. The response by authorities — live fire, arbitrary arrests and an expanding security presence — suggests an attempt not only to disperse crowds but to weaken the movement itself. In this sense, the crackdown is not simply about restoring order; it is about reshaping the political landscape of the south.

What is emerging is an atmosphere increasingly reminiscent of a police state, where fear replaces participation and where the cost of dissent may be death or detention. Yet history offers a clear lesson that appears to be ignored. Previous governments in Yemen attempted to suppress southern aspirations through force, detention and intimidation. They failed. The call for independence endured, adapted and re-emerged with renewed strength. There is little reason to believe that the current ruling authorities will succeed where others did not.

The killings in Shabwa, Mukalla and Aden are not just tragic incidents; they are politically consequential acts that risk deepening the very crisis they are meant to contain. Each life lost is not only a human tragedy but also a point of mobilization — fuel for grievance, anger and future resistance. Repression may silence voices temporarily, but it cannot erase the underlying demands that drive people into the streets.

Killing protesters will not restore stability in southern Yemen. It will entrench instability. It will harden positions, widen divisions and push the conflict into more dangerous territory. What is required is not more force, but a serious reckoning with the roots of the crisis — political exclusion, contested legitimacy and the enduring demand for southern self-determination. Until those issues are addressed, no amount of repression will bring lasting control. The previous regime could not crush the independence movement, and this one will not succeed by bullets either.

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A war built on flawed assumptions

Atul opens by asking Manu to frame the conflict. Manu describes it starkly as “a royal fight between… two thoroughly different military ideologies,” highlighting the clash between Western shock-and-awe doctrine and Iran’s long-prepared defensive model. The United States and Israel entered the war believing Iran was weakened by sanctions, internal unrest and economic decline. That assessment shaped a strategy centered on rapid decapitation strikes designed to collapse the regime within days.

Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or projecting power through regional proxies was a central objective. If left unchecked, Iran could potentially dominate Gulf energy flows, reshaping the balance of power in one of the world’s most critical regions.

Yet the early premise — that Iran would quickly crumble — has not held. Despite economic strain and political tensions, the regime has endured. Atul and Manu suggest that Israeli and American planners underestimated the depth of Iran’s institutional and ideological structures, as well as its ability to absorb and respond to sustained military pressure.

Iran’s resilience and asymmetric strategy

Iran’s response rests on preparation rather than improvisation. Instead of relying on centralized command structures vulnerable to decapitation, it has implemented what a decentralized “mosaic defense.” This system distributes authority across 31 independent military commands, making it difficult to disable the state through targeted strikes.

The same logic extends to governance. Iran’s layered redundancy ensures continuity even under extreme conditions. Leadership positions are backed by multiple successors, while the broader theocratic system provides an additional reservoir of authority. As Atul notes, this creates a depth that is not easily dismantled through conventional military means.

Manu explains that Iran has effectively built a different “operating system” for political survival. This system combines ideological commitment with military capability, allowing the state to withstand pressure that might destabilize more centralized regimes. The result is a conflict that has settled into a form of strategic stalemate, where none of the principal actors have achieved decisive political collapse.

Diverging political realities

While the battlefield remains contested, political responses differ sharply across countries. Atul says the war is highly popular in Israel, where even critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broadly support the campaign. In contrast, public opinion in the US is far more divided, creating what Atul calls a “tale of two countries.”

Iran, meanwhile, has focused on building support beyond its borders. Its diplomatic outreach across Asia, particularly among Shia Muslim communities, has generated both political sympathy and material support. There are visible signs of this mobilization, including donations and grassroots support, suggesting that Iran’s messaging resonates in parts of the Global South. Women are even donating gold, considered family treasure in Asia, to the Iranian war effort.

These dynamics reinforce a key point: The war is not producing uniform political outcomes. Rather, it is deepening fragmentation, both within societies and across the international system.

Economic warfare and Gulf vulnerability

Unable to match Israeli or American firepower, Iran has resorted to economic warfare. Iranian forces have targeted the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and shaken their economic foundations. Iran has also blocked the Strait of Hormuz and reduced the ships going through this chokepoint to a trickle. This strategy exploits structural vulnerabilities in a region that, despite decades of diversification, remains heavily dependent on energy exports and food imports as well as consumer goods and machines for critical infrastructure such as desalination plants.

By threatening shipping routes and energy facilities, Iran is effectively weaponizing geography. By blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is driving up oil and gas prices, while attacks on infrastructure in the Gulf states create long-term supply constraints. In our globalized world, Arab states generating wealth through energy exports are diversifying their economies by pumping money into frontier economic activities. Iran has interrupted this flow of capital, which will have cascading effects far beyond the region.

The Gulf’s role as a hub for trade, finance and transportation amplifies these risks. Cities like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Doha in Qatar, built as global hubs with international airports, high-end shopping and luxury tourism, now face the possibility that their greatest strengths — connectivity and openness — could become liabilities in a prolonged conflict.

Global spillovers and systemic risk

The economic consequences extend well beyond energy markets. Gulf capital has played a crucial role in funding innovation and investment across Western economies, from real estate to cutting-edge technologies. If the war constrains the flow of this capital, the effects will ripple through sectors such as venture capital, artificial intelligence and infrastructure development.

Simultaneously, physical disruptions to energy production threaten the supply of critical industrial inputs. Helium shortages could affect semiconductor manufacturing, sulfur constraints could disrupt metal refining and reduced fertilizer production could reduce global agricultural output. These are not isolated shocks but interconnected pressures that strain the foundations of the global economy.

Manu captures the scale of the challenge with a warning: “This is a world that nobody is prepared for.” The conflict is no longer simply about territory or regime change. It is about the stability of systems that underpin modern economic life.

As Atul concludes, the war has entered a new phase. Iran has survived the initial assault, the US and Israel remain engaged, but the Gulf economies — central to global energy and finance — are under growing strain. The longer the conflict continues, the more likely it is to trigger cascading crises that reach far beyond the Middle East.

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That leaves a more fundamental question: What comes next, where do we go from here and what does “winning” actually mean for Washington in a war defined by endurance?

The tools left in the toolbox are predictable: more military force, tighter constraints, a blockade, diplomacy and negotiation. But escalation is not a strategy. It is a bet. And there is little evidence that a second round of pressure will succeed where the first did not.

This is not a tactical miscalculation. It is a structural one. Washington still acts as if pressure, applied long enough, will force a decisive break. Tehran has already demonstrated the opposite. To persist under the status quo is not resolve. It is denial.

The mismatch is fundamental. The US is fighting to win. Iran is fighting not to lose, and, if necessary, to survive. That asymmetry is not a detail of the conflict. It is the conflict.

Victory in this war will not be decided by larger bombs or louder threats. It will be decided by how each side defines the game it is playing. Washington seeks a swift resolution with defined outcomes: restored deterrence, a diminished nuclear program and altered Iranian behavior. Iran seeks endurance, measuring success not in victory but in survival: regime continuity, deterrence preserved and pressure absorbed.

One side is playing a finite game. The other is playing an infinite one. This is a contest between speed and endurance, and the difference between them defines the war.

The infinite game and endurance

As American author Simon Sinek argues in , finite players pursue clear victories and defined endpoints, while infinite players aim to remain in the game, adapting and outlasting. This pattern is not new. In Vietnam, the US pursued a decisive victory while North Vietnam fought to endure. In Afghanistan, Soviet forces sought control, while the Mujahideen’s strategy centered on survival. In the longest US war in Afghanistan, a simple battlefield truth captured the asymmetry: “You have the watches, we have the time.” In each case, outcomes were shaped less by battlefield superiority than by endurance.

This is not only historical. It is structural. As a recent from the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies notes, escalation in the US–Iran conflict hinges less on battlefield dominance than on sustainability. Washington relies on high-intensity strikes and decapitation strategies, while Iran emphasizes decentralization and attrition designed to absorb pressure and extend the conflict over time. If one side is optimizing for rapid resolution and the other for survival, escalation does not resolve the conflict. It prolongs it.

Watch behavior, not rhetoric, and the contrast becomes sharper. Where Washington looks for breaking points, Tehran sees thresholds. Where the US applies pressure, Iran prepares to absorb it. Iranian leaders do not frame endurance as a burden; they frame it as a duty. What appears as strain from the outside functions as structure from within.

This is why the familiar playbook keeps failing. However many leaders Washington removes, Tehran replaces them, disperses authority and hardens its system against collapse. The US operates on a timetable, seeking a resolution. Iran stretches time, decentralizes power and extends the horizon of the fight. One side is trying to end the war. The other is built to ensure it does not end on those terms.

Strategic ambiguity and the need for a new approach

Part of the problem is strategic ambiguity. It remains unclear whether the US is attempting to counter a hostile regime, pursue regime change, or secure broader regional interests. That lack of clarity does not confuse Tehran; it empowers it. Ambiguity allows Iran to stretch the conflict across multiple fronts, adapt in real time and exploit the absence of a clearly defined end state.

A different approach begins with a simple recognition: Pressure alone will not produce surrender. If the objective is behavioral change, the strategy must shift from forcing collapse to shaping incentives over time. That requires pairing pressure with credible off-ramps, defining achievable objectives rather than maximal ones and aligning strategy with an adversary built for endurance. It also requires patience and coalition discipline as much as firepower.

The alternative is to continue mistaking persistence for progress. In a finite game, escalation can produce victory. In an infinite game, it can simply extend the conflict. And in wars like this, misunderstanding the nature of the game is often the fastest path to losing it.

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The world was waiting anxiously for his bombshell after the inconclusive talks in Islamabad. He didn’t take long to on his Truth Social: “Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” So, the US will now completely blockade the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had only partially blockaded during the war.��

Another strategic misadventure

Trump is a very capricious old man who will shamelessly renege on any position he has previously taken. He is also quite capable of throwing out the baby with the bathwater and shooting himself in the foot by making rash decisions that undermine his own efforts. Therefore, we can’t really say what the outcome of this situation will be. We are already hearing that the blockade will be to Iranian ports. But, if he presses ahead with this military action and stays the course — inspired by the US’ past blockade successes in and — it is likely to prove to be another huge strategic miscalculation against Iran.

Iran, in my view, had initially attempted to take similar action, or at least wanted to. However, after the US and Western propaganda machine began to construct a narrative that Iran was disrupting global energy security and economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the country began to backtrack from its initial maximalist position. It the strait to ease international ire and pressure by projecting a sense of normalcy along the Hormuz route, but this did not extend to its enemies.

Trump and his many advisers, it seems, have still not learned that the Middle East is not South America, and it is definitely not the US’ backyard.

Imperialist grudge

Perfected in the colonies, the Western powers — claiming to be civilized rather than savage — established a legal framework for exploiting the subjugated peoples, their lands and their resources. These laws were made by the colonial masters, who invoked, interpreted and applied them selectively to further their own metropolitan interests. In the post-colonial world, this Western imperialist practice has been institutionalized within the geopolitical landscape and extended to the whole globe, creating the so-called rules-based order that has governed international relations ever since.

After taking of the Strait of Hormuz during the war, Iran intends to maintain this dominance and impose a levy on tankers transporting oil and gas for safe passage. Iran argues that this is necessary to rebuild its war-ravaged country and views it as reparations for an imposed war. So far, Iran has made no rules, and it is allegedly levying transit fees selectively, exempting certain countries while charging others.

The US resents Iran’s attempt to impose its will in the region, viewing it as a disruption to the established international order. Only the US has the right to impose its will on other nations at the expense of international order; Iran cannot equate itself with the US. Moreover, this approach is seen as crude and unsophisticated compared to the Western way of “legally” advancing vested interests, although by the selective and discriminatory interpretation and application of laws and rules. However, it actually mirrors Trump’s tactics, from whom the world is quickly learning about arbitrary actions and bullying.

A coalition of international disorder

Trump that the Hormuz blockade will involve unspecified “other countries,” but he has not revealed which countries these partners might be. The United Arab Emirates? Bahrain? Kuwait? Who else, if the US’s European allies continue to shy away from involving their countries in the Iran war?

Israel is unlikely to act beyond securing its own national interest, and its participation in any operation to blockade Hormuz is highly doubtful. Trump can, of course, bring on board leaders such as Argentinian President Javier Milei, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and now acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez from his own hemisphere. He can also buy the participation of a few militarily insignificant countries in Africa, Oceania and Polynesia. However, if Trump’s Hormuz blockade coalition materializes, it will likely not represent the will of the so-called “international community.” Instead, it will harm more countries than it benefits, if it benefits them at all.

This US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will negatively impact its own strategic partners, as well as strategic rivals and neutral countries. Disrupting the global economy will ultimately hurt the entire world. The blame for disrupting global oil and gas supplies will now fall on the US rather than Iran. After all, the Hormuz route was fully open before the Iran war. 

Businesses and governments would rather pay to cross the Strait of Hormuz than have the US close the strait indefinitely. They are already facing a serious energy crisis, and a complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz would significantly exacerbate the situation. Oil is deemed more important than equality, after all.

Given the importance of the Strait of Hormuz to global energy supply, the implications extend far beyond just the businesses and governments directly involved. As tensions rise and the US maneuvers strategically in the region, another major player finds itself in a precarious position: China.

The Chinese dilemma

China may find itself cornered after this US strategic move in the Strait of Hormuz. Its Venezuelan oil supply was choked by the US just a few months ago, and now the Hormuz blockade will stop Iranian oil, necessary for powering China’s vast economic empire.

But, instead of confronting the US, China may once again chicken out as it did in Venezuela. While it verbally challenges the US with enthusiasm and responds firmly to economic pressures, it does not engage the US militarily. It seems China is waiting for its military muscle to grow bigger than that of the US. As an emerging superpower, China understandably appears to lack the confidence to directly confront a century-old reigning superpower.

However, it already has considerable military muscle, and all it needs is to flex it in the US. The right moment to act will arise, potentially in the Strait of Hormuz — though this seems unlikely, given China’s immense strategic patience and a long-term perspective. The descendants of the famous Sun Tzu, who wrote , may strongly believe in his advice that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” and “the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

The Iranian response

Iran has been battered by the US and Israel’s bombing, while inflicting far less damage to its enemies. Despite this, it has won the battle of perception by staying in the fight and successfully positioning itself to negotiate directly with the US in a third country for a long-term peace agreement. Iran’s morale is high, and its image has improved significantly, surpassing that of Israel after this war. Iran has presented itself as a tough and steely nation. Israel earned a name for itself by carrying out assassinations and defeating weak Arab nations, but Iran has successfully fought both the reigning superpower and Israel. Iran has displayed its unparalleled sacrificial courage, insurmountable will to resist and inexhaustible military arsenal in an all-out war.

Iran has that it is quite capable of taking on the US militarily, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has indicated as much after Trump’s Hormuz blockade announcement. Iran has other options, too. To make things worse for the world, besides the Strait of Hormuz, Iran can also block the Red Sea route involving the Bab Al-Mandab Strait with the help and support of its ally Ansar Allah (the Houthis). But what if Iran prefers to sit tight and see the world react? Then, in my view, this new US military venture is unlikely to last long because the entire world, already fed up and frustrated by Trump’s unending tantrums, would likely unite against the US and force it to withdraw.

On the other hand, if Trump is employing his trademark bullying tactic to extract maximum concessions from the other party and get the most favorable deal for himself, this approach is unlikely to work against Iran, as previous military threats and actions didn’t. This behavior only shows that he and his coterie of yes-men don’t understand the character of the Iranian nation. He seems to be a prisoner of his past pressure-tactic successes. A better strategy would be to reach out in good faith and with sincere intentions, treating Iranians as equals rather than trying to intimidate them into submission for a durable peace agreement. The US has recently bombed Iran twice in the middle of negotiations, and there is absolutely no reason why they should trust the US again.

Washington’s strategic incompetence

The Iran War and the ongoing crisis in the Middle East  — largely created by the US — highlight a severe strategic incompetence in Washington that is unprecedented in history. Ironically, this is the superpower with decades of accumulated collective experience in controlling the world and the best pool of geopolitical strategists, yet it finds itself in a dire situation. But what can these experts do if they are booted out, intimidated, forced to quit or altogether ignored by their government? This contradiction lies at the heart of the declining US empire, a decline that has been largely self-inflicted.

The disruption of an established order is the surest sign of the decline of a geopolitical power that had built and maintained that order. A new world order is born from the ruins of the old. The world dominated by the West is gradually realizing — and reluctantly accepting — that the locus of geopolitical power is shifting eastward, with China emerging as the new global superpower. Historically, incompetent rulers accelerate the decline of a fading empire and hasten the transition to a new power structure.

The stories we read in history about incompetent rulers at the end of a weakened empire differ from those of today in one fundamental sense: In the past, ordinary people had no say in choosing their rulers. In contrast, the US has a system in which citizens elect their leaders. Therefore, it is the citizens of the US — shaped by their educational and cultural systems — who must take responsibility if their country fades into mediocrity in the coming decades.

But who knows? Maybe I will be proven wrong, and this will not be the end of the US’ hegemony over the world. Maybe the people who voted for Trump really did want to “Make America Great Again.” The only problem with their desire is how do you make an already great thing great again? You can only make it greater, and that doesn’t seem to be happening in any sense right now, at least.

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The three dates that shape the conflict

Atul begins by identifying three decisive turning points: 1948, 1953 and 1979. In 1948, the UN established the state of Israel. It immediately had to fight the invading Arab states. For Israelis, that moment remains inseparable from the trauma of the Holocaust and the fear that the state could be destroyed at birth. Palestinians remember this moment as the Nakba, the mass displacement that accompanied Israel’s creation. Atul suggests these two memories still shape how the region understands security and injustice.

He then turns to 1953, when Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh faced an overthrow after nationalizing oil. Atul presents the coup as a foundational rupture in modern Iranian political memory. Britain and the US, he argues, removed a nationalist leader and restored a monarchy that ruled through repression. He says that the intervention weakened secular opposition and unintentionally strengthened the clerical networks that later filled the vacuum. By 1979, those clerical forces were organized enough to take power during the Iranian Revolution and build a theocratic state deeply suspicious of both Washington and domestic dissent.

Revolution, paranoia and the proxy strategy

The discussion portrays the Islamic Republic as a regime shaped by insecurity from the start. Atul explains that after the revolution, the new leadership distrusted the regular military and built Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a parallel force. The Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988 then hardened the regime further, reinforcing a political culture built around sacrifice, siege and martyrdom.

From that position, Iran gradually extended influence through allied armed groups across the region. Hezbollah, Hamas and later the Houthis became central as instruments of an Iranian strategy designed to offset conventional weakness. Atul argues that the regime sought legitimacy by presenting itself as the one power willing to resist both Israel and the US, while many Arab governments moved toward accommodation.

Simultaneously, he makes clear that opposition to Western power did not make the Iranian system admirable. He repeatedly stresses its repression of women, students and dissidents, as well as its economic failures and political brutality.

A decisive moment for Israel and the US

Atul argues that Israel and the US believe Iran is now weaker than it has been in years. From the Israeli perspective, the danger is existential. A small state with limited strategic depth cannot easily tolerate the possibility of a hostile regional power gaining stronger missile and nuclear capabilities. As Atul puts it, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his career around the doctrine that “peace through strength is the way forward.” In that framework, confrontation appears necessary.

Atul also highlights Israel’s confidence in its intelligence reach and military effectiveness. Atul describes a country that believes it has penetrated Iran deeply and can strike key personnel and infrastructure with precision. Yet he does not present victory as automatic.

Casey raises the possibility of Iran’s “Balkanization.” Atul explores the idea, noting that some American and Israeli thinkers see advantage in a looser, weaker or fragmented Iran. But he also warns that this could produce unintended consequences, including nationalist backlash, prolonged instability and deeper hostility toward outside powers.

Uncertainty inside Iran

Iranian society is fractured and complex. Atul notes widespread discontent with the regime, especially among younger and educated Iranians. Protest movements, secular aspirations and anger at repression all suggest that the Islamic Republic has lost legitimacy among many citizens. Yet he cautions against assuming that foreign bombing will automatically translate into regime collapse.

External attack can strengthen nationalism even where a government is unpopular. Atul remarks that “nationalism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” but he also considers it a real political force. The killing of senior leaders, especially the Ayatollah, may not weaken the regime in the way outsiders expect. Martyrdom carries powerful weight in Shia political culture, and the failing oppressive late ruler has now become a symbol of resistance after being killed by a foreign enemy.

Kaitlyn and others push the conversation toward possible futures, including a democratic Iran. Atul sees some hope there, especially in a decentralized federal model that protects minorities and devolves power. But he also emphasizes that opposition groups remain divided among monarchists, republicans, federalists and competing ethnic movements. That makes any clean transition unlikely.

The war’s economic danger

When Zania asks about stagflation, Atul shifts from battlefield dynamics to global markets. He warns that a prolonged conflict could disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, drive up energy prices and trigger a supply shock across the world economy. Oil above $90 per barrel is not just a regional problem; it hits transport, industry, fertilizers, food production and financial confidence all at once.

The risk is not merely higher inflation but the toxic combination of inflation and stagnation that defined the 1970s oil shocks. The Gulf’s importance extends beyond crude exports. Capital from Arab states is deeply embedded in global finance, technology, property and sport. If war erodes confidence, both trade and investment could suffer.

This discussion ends with a broader warning: This is not only a Middle Eastern war. It may become a global economic and geopolitical turning point whose consequences reach far beyond the region.

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The complications of reality

There are, however, four very basic counterarguments to this myth.

Firstly and historically, winning is usually based on power, not on goodness. There are many examples of bad winning over good, of the powerful winning over the weak. For centuries, slave traders won over the slaves, the imperialists won over the colonized and men won over women. 

Secondly, it is largely the victors who get to tell their stories to the world, and they naturally position themselves as the good ones. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is famous for transparently saying, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” And he did, because he was an excellent writer and a powerful man. Other powerful men of yore asked others to write for them. Nowadays, they can simply the media. The result is that we see and hear the spin that the powerful want us to.

Third, not everyone has bought into these fairy tales, even to begin with. While the winners saw themselves as good and righteous, others did not. Ask the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia, who had their lands taken away from them, and now largely live in isolated reserves with little basic resources. Ask the millions of Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves, and never saw their families or homes again. Ask the multitudes in the Global South who were subjugated by colonialism for generations and did not see any justice in their lifetimes. Ask the countless women who have been killed due to domestic abuse and can no longer tell their stories. They certainly did not see the winners as good.

Fourth, to complicate things further, good and bad are not static states; sometimes good guys turn into bad guys. The individual does not necessarily change, but the story about them changes — either because of new evidence, hearing the voice of previously marginalized groups, shifting moral standards or the long-term consequences of their actions becoming clearer. 

Falls from grace

History abounds with such individuals whose images have changed from good to bad. In some instances, the fall happened in their own lifetimes — as with Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and British Major General Benedict Arnold. In others, it took longer. While some still view Italian explorer Christopher Columbus as a brave discoverer, many now see him as a symbol of colonialism. While English politicians still love to compare themselves to Churchill, historians now look at him with more doubtful eyes, knowing his views on the colonized and his role in the , which killed some three million people.��

The present also offers many examples. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi fell sharply from grace after her refusal to stand up for the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Football star O.J. Simpson’s murder of his wife and her lover ruined his reputation and sent him to jail. Blade-runner and Paralympic poster-boy Oscar Pistorius was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Entertainer Bill Cosby, darling of the media and Dr. Huxtable to all, was disgraced and jailed after multiple sexual assault incidents surfaced. Successful financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was courted, supported and forgiven by the global elite until his papers were released.

Even Hollywood can sometimes reflect reality — the most famous example being the fall of ’s Michael Corleone, who journeyed from a young war hero surrounded by a large, loving family to a murderous, aging mafioso who died all alone.��

Falls from grace not only apply to individuals; they can also apply to countries and peoples.

Who’s good in this war?

This current war between Israel and America on one side and Iran on the other gives us a chance to apply these counterarguments.

Firstly, since the powerful win, we like to believe that power confers goodness. But are America and Israel good because they are more powerful militarily and economically? Are America and Israel good because they have nuclear arms? Because Jews were persecuted during World War II (WWII), is Israel now so good that it is exempt from international rules of conduct? Are America and Israel good because they are largely white and Judeo-Christian countries? Is Iran bad because it is a Muslim country, it has been consistently the long-persecuted Palestinians and yet have nuclear arms? It may be important to ask these questions.

Secondly, the stories we hear about the war largely favor the West. Often, the powerful place the mantle of good on their own shoulders — even if they are the ones who started the war or effected the regime change. They claim to have done so only out of humanitarian concern — only to free a people from tyranny, to restore their human rights and to bring them democracy. Or to protect the rest of the world from imminent danger. They also claim that is on their side — and God would only be on the side of the good.

As Ambassador Chas says, “the physical war is accompanied by an information war”. Who is good and who is the winner is strongly influenced by propaganda. Currently, from much of the mainstream Western press, we get pro-American and pro-Israeli, but anti-Iranian, perspectives. And therefore, our evaluation of good, bad and the situation at large is skewed. To get more balanced and complete news and analysis, we also need to hear independent media voices (e.g., Glenn Diesen, Jeffrey Sachs, Alexander Mercouris, Yanis Varoufakis, Douglas Macgregor).

Third, many are no longer buying into the American-Israeli propaganda — not even their erstwhile . Americans and Israelis think they are undoubtedly on the side of good. They see Iran as not just bad but downright evil: ‘the biggest danger to world peace’. However, much of the world, and especially the Global South, does not agree with this presentation. They see Iran as a revered ancient civilization that has been manipulated, robbed, interfered with and for decades by the West — and a country that is now retaliating in response to repeated attacks from Israel and the US.

And fourth, the characters are changing. America and Israel have fallen from grace. They no longer hold the moral high ground. Since WWII, the world has seen Israel occupy Palestine, displace Palestinians, perpetrate a in Gaza and currently persecute Muslims in the West Bank. It has noted Israel’s numerous , repeated in the region, of civilian targets, as well as its ambitions far beyond its borders. The world has seen America give Israel arms, diplomatic coverage and unconditional support in all its ventures. It has learned how America has instigated wars and effected in multiple countries for its own advantage. As Italian journalist Michele Serra quipped, “Americans are very lucky — because wherever they go to bring freedom, they find oil.”

The comforts of fantasy

Of course, most of us know that there are, by and large, no innately good or bad people; only our circumstances (i.e., skin color, religion, nationality, economic condition, suffering, etc.) and our actions make us so.  

But despite knowing the complicated reality, we prefer to revert to our simplistic fantasy. We like fairy tales and Hollywood movies because there is no ambiguity. We like to know who to love and who to hate. And if someone else can tell us that, that’s even better. We want a grand yet quick battle where we are not injured, a definitive victory and flawless heroes to celebrate at the end.

Maybe it soothes our souls, eases our conscience, and appeals to our innate intellectual laziness to assume that good always triumphs and therefore, those who triumph are good. That way, we don’t have to spend time and effort rummaging through the dirty gray areas, trying to judge individual actions, dealing with the messiness of the ambiguous and feeling unsettled by it all. We don’t have to question the “winner,” the process or the results because good always wins. Right?

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The political nature of counting casualties

My 2018 , “Grieving, Valuing, and Viewing Differently: The Global War on Terror’s American Toll,” demonstrates how the US has historically managed the visibility of its war dead. Focusing on Vietnam to Global War on Terror (GWoT) era policy and practice including the “,” my research illustrates how consecutive US Administrations (on of the aisle) worked to move dead and suffering soldiers out of public view, not because they were unimportant, but because they were politically sensitive due to threatening a biopolitical facade of care and protection and ultimately threatening the ability for America to wage long-term wars.

This is the key insight: Visibility is not accidental — it is governed.

The Novara article suggests that casualty figures are being obscured or selectively reported, but my work helps us understand why. As I have argued, soldiers are simultaneously treated as a “” within an intensely militarized political economy and yet rendered invisible in death, their suffering managed through practices that limit public exposure and political accountability.

What we are seeing today is not just the undercounting of casualties — it is the continuation of what I have identified as a broader system of statecraft that regulates how death is seen, counted and felt.

Grievability and the differentiation of lives

My research also highlights that the politics of counting is inseparable from the politics of valuing. The issue is not only whether deaths are recorded, but how they are framed, delayed, categorized or excluded altogether. Moreover, as author Thomas Gregory has recently pointed out in the case of produced by American wars, counting becomes a technique of governance: It shapes public perception, moderates dissent and ultimately enables the continuation of war.

This is where my continued emphasis on contested becomes especially relevant. If some lives (and deaths) are made and more readily recognized as more grievable than others, then the act of counting is never neutral. It is a process of differentiation. Some deaths are made visible, others are obscured; some are mourned publicly, others are quietly absorbed into statistical ambiguity.

The politics behind transparency and alternative narratives

The Novara report sits squarely within this logic. The discrepancy between official and estimated casualty figures is not simply a data problem — it is a political one. It reflects ongoing struggles over who has the authority to count, whose counts are recognized and what those numbers are allowed to mean.

Importantly, attention to grievability also reminds us that these processes are never uncontested. Even in the face of state efforts to suppress visibility, alternative forms of counting, witnessing and memorialization emerge. Families, journalists and researchers continue to demand recognition — to insist that these lives are not reducible to managed figures or bureaucratic categories.

That tension is still present now, as the search for the missing airman continues.

So rather than asking whether the US military is hiding casualties, a more productive question is this: What kinds of deaths are allowed to appear, and under what conditions?

Until we confront that question, debates about transparency will remain superficial. Because the issue is not simply that the numbers are wrong. It is that numbers themselves are part of the machinery through which war is made acceptable.

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These groups, which have formed an advocating the end of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a federal, democratic Iran, have long been treated by Tehran not just as external adversaries but as potential catalysts of internal uprising. The concern extends beyond Kurdish regions alone to the possibility that unrest could spread into other marginalized areas, including Baloch, Ahwazi, Azeri and others.

Following the announced by US President Donald Trump on April 7, Tehran intensified pressure on Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to these Kurdish parties, accusing them of links to the US and Israel. While framed publicly as a security measure, the underlying concern remained the prevention of these groups from becoming focal points for internal dissent and political mobilization within Iran as they have done during past political upheavals.

Iran’s domestic repression and surveillance campaigns

During the war, Iranian intelligence services and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) conducted a sustained campaign to deter Kurdish involvement in the conflict, according to sources that spoke to . Inside Iran, Kurdish civilians faced waves of threatening text messages warning against cooperation with foreign powers, followed by surveillance operations targeting satellite communications. These measures escalated into house raids conducted by IRGC officers in both urban neighborhoods and rural border areas suspected of links to opposition networks.

At the same time, Iran has maintained a broader and long-standing pattern of repression against other marginalized communities. Human Rights , and the for Human Rights in Iran have documented repeated arbitrary arrests, executions and violent crackdowns in Baloch and Ahwazi regions, particularly during periods of political unrest. Iran Human Rights has further recorded recurring waves of executions and security operations in Sistan and Baluchestan, reinforcing a wider pattern of coercive state control across multiple ethnic regions.

Cross-border military pressure and regional impact

Across the border in Iraq, Tehran applied direct pressure on the KRG, warning that Kurdish forces near the border would face attacks if they did not withdraw. Despite compliance by Iraqi Kurdish authorities, Iranian drone and missile strikes continued to hit Kurdish offices, compounds and training bases, killing fighters and civilians and destroying infrastructure previously believed to be secure. According to monitoring, the Kurdistan Region has been struck by more than 638 drones and missiles since the start of the war, underscoring the scale and intensity of Iran’s campaign. Many of these attacks were carried out by Iranian-backed militias operating inside Iraq, illustrating Tehran’s willingness to project force across borders to prevent internal mobilization.

IRGC deployments during this period were extensive and deliberate. Intelligence indicated the presence of forces stationed in forests, mosques, schools and even hospitals, reflecting a strategy of embedding within civilian environments to monitor, intimidate and deter potential uprisings. Senior commanders also personally oversaw operations in border regions while strikes continued against Kurdish exile offices and training bases in Iraq.

The Kurdish alliance and the threat of wider resistance

Although the Kurdish alliance does not currently field a large enough military force to conduct a major ground offensive, it has historically mobilized thousands in past uprisings and rebellions. Its networks extend across Iranian Kurdistan and carry the potential to inspire wider resistance in other marginalized regions, including Baloch and Ahwazi areas. Tehran fears this greatly because it is aware that previous waves of unrest, most notably the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, in Kurdish regions before spreading across the country and gaining international reach.

This historical precedent shapes the regime’s calculations and actions against Kurdish opposition forces both inside and outside of Iran. Local uprisings have previously diverted security forces and exposed the fragility of state control in peripheral regions. The concern is not simply rebellion in one area, but the possibility of coordinated unrest across multiple regions simultaneously.

The regime’s strategy and future outlook

Whether the ceasefire holds or collapses, the Islamic Republic continues to act with ruthless precision to maintain control. From threatening civilians to deploying forces in civilian locations, conducting drone and missile strikes, and pressuring the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, Tehran’s strategy illustrates a singular objective: to prevent the formation of organized opposition that could spark an internal uprising. The regime’s fear of losing control across Kurdish, Baloch and Ahwazi regions, and potentially beyond, drives both its internal repression and its external military operations into Iraqi territory.

The next phase of Iran’s internal conflict is likely to be shaped by this persistent fear. Historical precedent and recent events suggest that if the population is left with no safe avenues for protest, the potential for armed resistance may rise, not because citizens desire conflict, but because the Islamic Republic has left them no other options for meaningful change.

The regime’s approach ensures that Kurdish, Baloch and Ahwazi communities remain under constant pressure, illustrating its strong reliance on suppression to prevent revolt and highlighting why Tehran views these opposition movements as an existential threat to its grip on power. Regardless of what happens with the external war and negotiations, it is only an internal uprising that stands a chance of toppling the Islamic Republic and bringing about meaningful change for the people.

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That sentence should not be easy to read. But it needs to be said plainly, because the language coming from Washington in this war is the language of operational success, of degraded capabilities, of targets serviced: a language that hides human tragedy in the fog of strategic data. These schoolgirls were not collateral damage. They were innocent civilian lives — lives that the laws of war are supposed to protect.

Similarly, when Pete Hegseth announced the sinking of the IRIS Dena, he did so in the register of a man describing a kill from behind a screen. Hegseth is not the Secretary of Defense. He calls himself (and has spent millions of dollars in rebranding his office as) the Secretary of War. It is not a slip or a provocation. It is a declaration of intent.

The he was celebrating was a frigate returning home from India’s Milan 2026 naval exercise. It was in international waters when the USS Charlotte fired, without warning. Hegseth called it “.” sailors were killed. None of them were combatants in any meaningful operational sense when the torpedo struck.

Foundations and evolution of just war theory

There is a framework for thinking about how wars should be started and how they should be fought. It is older than the US. It begins, in its systematic form, with Christian theologian and philosopher of Hippo, writing in the early fifth century as the Western Roman Empire collapsed around him — not metaphorically, but literally. Responding to Christians asking whether a follower of Christ could take up arms, he did not grant blank permission; he set constraints. War might be permissible, but only under specific conditions, for specific purposes, conducted in specific ways. Fellow Christian theologian and philosopher codified what Augustine had begun: just cause, legitimate authority, right intention. that followed developed these into two operative branches: jus ad bellum, the conditions under which going to war is justified, and jus in bello, the rules governing how war must be conducted.

After 1945, this tradition was largely secularized. The established individual criminal liability for initiating aggressive war. The translated the core principles of discrimination and proportionality into binding international law. is explicit: Deliberate attacks on civilians are prohibited. Attacks causing civilian casualties disproportionate to the anticipated military advantage are prohibited. These are not aspirational norms; they are legal obligations that the US signed.

The current campaign fails both tests.

Failures of jus ad bellum and jus in bello

On jus ad bellum, the intelligence case for war was never made. Multiple assessments — including from within the American intelligence community — found of an active Iranian nuclear weapons program or an imminent restart. The foreign minister of Oman, who was overseeing negotiations between Washington and Tehran, that talks were close to a breakthrough when the bombing began. Hours before the first strikes, he appeared on American television to say a deal was within reach, a pledge Iran had made that US President Donald Trump would later claim it had refused. British government separately indicated that diplomatic channels had not been exhausted and that the strikes had no lawful basis. Forces were being positioned in the region while talks were still formally ongoing: preparation wearing the mask of diplomacy. That is not a last resort. Even the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whatever one thinks of it, involved months of attempted coalition-building and a formal UN Security Council process. That acknowledgment, however cynical, that unilateral action requires justification has now been abandoned entirely.

On jus in bello: Minab and the IRIS Dena are the answer.

In the immediate aftermath of Minab, the administration moved quickly to obscure responsibility. Trump initially Iran had bombed its own school, a claim requiring, implausibly, that Iran possesses Tomahawk cruise missiles, weapons only the US manufactures and deploys. When pressed, he claimed ignorance. Hegseth said the Pentagon was investigating. Within days, a Department of Defense found that a US missile was responsible. Independent investigations by The New York Times, NPR and BBC Verify reached the same conclusion, authenticated by of a Tomahawk striking the site. The posture of uncertainty was not confusion; it was a reflex.

As for the Dena, Hegseth reached for , invoking the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War. It is not a flattering comparison. The Belgrano was sailing away from the exclusion zone when the HMS Conqueror torpedoed her. The sinking killed 323 sailors and remains a stain on that campaign’s moral record. Hegseth appears not to have noticed.

The moral question: rightness over effectiveness

Just war theory does not ask whether a military operation is effective. It asks whether it is right. A school full of children, a warship returning home from a peacetime exercise sunk without warning in international waters; these are not aberrations or fog-of-war tragedies. Rather, they are the opening acts of an unnecessary war that is not being conducted with discrimination or proportionality and is being led by an administration that has renamed itself, at considerable public expense, to signal its intent to keep going.

The tradition Augustine began, and that international law eventually formalized, exists precisely for moments like this. But there is no world government, no global enforcement mechanism. International law is a system of voluntary restraint; it works only as long as powerful states choose to be bound by it. When the most powerful state opts out, it does not simply break the rules. It begins to dissolve them.

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Although the global transition to renewables is gaining momentum, the energy crisis during the Iran war has underscored a basic lesson: Oil and gas remain indispensable for a while, and no serious energy policy can neglect security, redundancy and resilience during the long years of this expected transition.

Therefore, a sound energy policy should pursue renewable energy while strengthening energy security. Strategic stocks, resilient pipelines, alternative routes and reliable firm power, such as nuclear, still matter because governments do not manage energy systems in theory. They manage them in the midst of shocks, shortages and war.

A chokepoint shock that markets cannot innovate away overnight

In 2025, around 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products moved through the . That was roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade, and around 80% of it was destined for Asia. These numbers explain why the Iran War is not a regional event for energy markets. When Hormuz closed, the shock spread immediately through oil prices, insurance costs and physical supply, especially for Asian importers.

For months, many analysts had already warned that if a US and Israeli attack on Iran began, Tehran’s greatest leverage would be the Strait of Hormuz. Yet despite that, the Trump administration openly that it did not expect Iran to close the strait. That was not simply a miscalculation. It was a serious policy failure that ignored an obvious strategic risk.

As the war has continued, fuel supply problems have begun to emerge, including shortages in gasoline and petroleum . Some Asian have stopped external sales, and prices have surged globally. In the US, the average gasoline price rose by nearly after the war began, while over oil export restrictions resurfaced and sanctions on were eased.

Meanwhile, the US has continued to threaten that keeping Hormuz closed would carry heavy consequences for Iran. Yet despite threats, potential and emergency measures, no truly reliable solution has emerged. That is why the search for alternatives has accelerated. The decision by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its member countries to coordinate a emergency stock release in March was important, but such a measure only buys time. If , it cannot substitute for real supply security. Because no government can replace a chokepoint-scale flow with brand-new infrastructure or a fully transformed vehicle fleet in a matter of months. That is why governments need a balanced approach that pushes decarbonization forward while also building buffers and alternatives for future crises.

Fossil fuels remain the base of the system

The uncomfortable baseline is that the global economy still runs mostly on fossil fuels. In 2024, fossil fuels still accounted for of the global energy mix, which means that oil, gas and coal remain the foundation of the system even as cleaner sources expand. This structural fact shows that the world still moves goods, powers industry, heats buildings and supports global trade through fossil-based systems.

The same pattern is visible in the gas trade. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is not a marginal fuel in today’s economy. GIIGNL reports tonnes of global LNG trade in 2024. And these volumes matter because crises rarely hit only crude oil. Disruption also affects refined products, gas logistics, petrochemicals, shipping networks and industrial production.

In other words, even a strong renewable build-out does not instantly eliminate dependence on oil, gas and the global infrastructure that moves them. Pretending otherwise only sets governments up for policy panic when the next shock arrives.

Renewables are growing, but the denominator is huge

None of this is an argument against renewables. It is an argument for realism about scale. For example, the transition is real, especially in the electricity sector. In 2024, renewables provided of global electricity generation. But the broader economy changes much more slowly. Modern renewables accounted for only of global total final energy consumption in 2022, which shows how difficult it is to decarbonize heat, heavy industry and transport at the system level.��

Transport is a good sign of this gap between fast growth and limited total impact. Global electric car exceeded 17 million in 2024, yet the total electric car fleet reached only about 58 million, or roughly 4% of the global passenger car fleet.

Even the clean energy build-out still depends on carbon-intensive industrial production today. Around of global steel relies heavily on coal. In other words, electrification and renewables are expanding fast, but the denominator is so large that the overlap period will be long. For years to come, energy security planning will have to assume that societies need both cleaner systems and conventional fuels at the same time.

Security tools that work in a crisis

In the short run, the first tool available in a crisis is emergency stocks. That is exactly why they exist, as can be seen in the IEA’s largest coordinated stock release in March. But emergency stocks are a bridge, not a new supply system. The more important question is what happens when a disruption lasts longer.

This brings us to pipelines and alternative routes. Existing bypass capacity around Hormuz remains limited relative to the scale of normal flows. The IEA estimates that only barrels per day can be redirected through existing pipelines. The main examples are Saudi Arabia’s from Abqaiq to Yanbu, which provides access to the Red Sea, and the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi crude oil to Fujairah, which bypasses Hormuz by reaching the Gulf of Oman. Their value is not theoretical. During the current war, Saudi exports from Yanbu rose to nearly 4 million barrels per day as volumes were rerouted away from the Strait of Hormuz.��

Another example, although far too small to replace Hormuz and not directly located in the Gulf, is Iraq’s northern export route through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, which ends at Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. After being largely inactive for the past two years, the pipeline resumed operations in March at around per day, with plans to increase flows toward 250,000 barrels per day.

These volumes are still too small to bypass Hormuz, but that is not the point. Countries with alternatives can better absorb shocks. Countries with only one route cannot. Optionality is not a luxury in energy security. It is one of its basic conditions. Pipelines, LNG terminals, storage, multiple entry points and diversified contracts all improve resilience because they reduce the cost of disruption and increase bargaining power in a crisis.

Nuclear is still part of the balance

Another important part of a balanced policy is firm, low-carbon power that does not depend on daily fuel shipments through contested sea lanes. That is where nuclear still matters. Europe’s recent energy experience, first with Russian supply risk and now with the shock created by the Iran war, has pushed many leaders to see energy policy not only as a climate issue but as a strategic one. This is why the debate around nuclear has returned so strongly.

In 2024, nuclear power plants in 12 EU countries produced of the EU’s electricity. That is not a marginal share. It is a major pillar of supply security as well as decarbonization. The political debate in Europe reflects this reality. In March 2026, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said that Europe’s decision to let nuclear power’s share fall from about one third of electricity generation in 1990 to around 15% today was a “.”

Germany illustrates the same tension. Even after shutting its reactors, debate continues over whether some nuclear capacity if price pressures and import dependence worsen. The implication is not that every country must expand nuclear power. It is that removing firm options before credible replacements are fully in place raises the cost of every geopolitical shock and makes policy reversals more likely when a crisis hits.

As prices rise and import dependence becomes more politically costly, arguments for rethinking earlier decisions return. That alone shows the issue remains alive whenever security and affordability come under pressure.

Build the future, but defend the present

The clean energy transition is moving, especially in electricity. But the Iran War is a blunt reminder that energy systems change more slowly than geopolitics. States should invest aggressively in renewables, grids, storage and electrification because these reduce dependence on imported fuels over time. But they also need a security portfolio for the overlap years.

That portfolio should include strategic stocks that can be released quickly, diversified supply chains for LNG and refined products, resilient routes that bypass chokepoints where possible and reliable firm power where politically viable. It also means maintaining and modernizing pipelines and interconnectors, not as an alternative to decarbonization, but as insurance during an unstable transition.

The central policy inference is simple. Build the future, but do not leave the present undefended.

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The instability of the justification is not merely a communications problem. It reflects the absence of a coherent legal premise, and that absence has consequences that outlast any single administration’s war.

Public debate has already moved on to a different question: not whether the operation was legal, but whether its will justify it. For some, the answer is already yes. An Iran without the Islamic Republic, a Middle East freed from the reach of Tehran’s proxy networks, an America that finally treated decades of hybrid warfare as the warfare it was — these outcomes, if they materialize, strike many observers as worth the legal ambiguity. Some even argue that modern international law has become the preferred for regimes that treat procedural restraint not as a principle but as a tactical resource. Iran exploited every available ambiguity, from plausible deniability to the rituals of multilateral consultation and the manufactured distance between the regime and its proxies.

Meanwhile, Western governments remained and split over how to handle an increasingly aggressive and unpredictable America. Observing the situation in disbelief and helplessness, many people around the world are increasingly frustrated by the rules-based international order’s inability to matter when it most counts.��

International law on the use of force provides some of the clearest and most unequivocal rules, especially within the post-World War II world order, but it also faces a serious enforcement problem. The gap between what the prohibits and what powerful states actually do has always been managed through creative interpretation and the selective will to enforce. Invoking legal prohibition as though it were self-executing is a form of bad faith that serves no one.

But a more fundamental difficulty is that self-defense arguments, followed to their conclusion, license far more than the dry law suggests. If law is camouflage for the weak and power reorganizes systems when institutions fail, that logic is available to every state with sufficient force and a grievance. The potential proliferation of certain types of weapons has been repeatedly cited as necessitating a preventive act of self-defense. Russia has deployed versions of it regarding NATO expansion and Ukraine. The door is increasingly being pushed open for others to deploy it regarding their own adversaries, their own thresholds of existential risk, their own calculations about when deliberation has run out.

Was it legal?

The short answer, on the publicly available evidence, is almost certainly not — though the legal analysis is more complicated than the volume of condemnation might suggest, and the complications matter for what follows.

The laws governing the use of force are grounded in of the UN Charter, which prohibits force against the territorial integrity of any state, and in , which preserves the right of self-defense in the event of an armed attack. Iran had not launched an armed attack on either the US or Israel before the strikes began. The retaliatory Iranian missile and drone strikes came afterward and cannot be used to retroactively justify what preceded them.

Anticipatory self-defense — acting before an attack lands — has a narrow, contested but not implausible basis in customary international law, rooted in the 19th-century . The standard requires that necessity be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation. What US and Israeli officials actually described, however, was something considerably broader: a preventive campaign aimed at long-term capabilities, regional restructuring and the permanent foreclosure of Iranian nuclear ambitions.

The legal distinction between anticipatory and preventive force is not a technicality. Anticipatory self-defense responds to a threat that is genuinely about to materialize. Preventive war responds to a threat that might materialize at some future point. The latter has no serious basis in existing law, and the operation as described maps far more closely onto preventive logic than onto the narrow anticipatory model.

The timing compounds the difficulty. Oman had progress in nuclear negotiations. Technical discussions at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were reportedly days away. The UN Secretary-General a diplomatic window had been squandered. The Caroline standard requires no moment for deliberation. The available chronology suggests there were moments and that they were deliberately closed. As Marko Milanovic, professor of international law at the University of Reading, : Using force would require a basis in self-defense, and there are many ways to respond to a threat that fall short of launching a war. Senator Mark Warner was more still: There was no imminent threat to the US from Iran. There was a threat to Israel. Whether a threat to Israel constitutes an imminent threat to the US, he noted, is genuinely uncharted legal territory.

The structural problem with imminence

At this point, the legal argument becomes structurally interesting rather than merely factually contested, and it connects directly back to the argument from the other side of the debate.

The defenders of the operation do not simply claim the facts support imminence. They claim imminence itself requires reconceiving. Mobile missile launchers, cyber capabilities, decentralized proxy networks, nuclear latency — all of these compress available warning time to the point where traditional temporal markers no longer apply. By the time a threat looks genuinely imminent in the older sense, the window for effective action may have closed.

This is not a frivolous position. It has been the subject of serious legal scholarship since the 2002 Bush National Security reopened the question after September 11, 2001. The problem is that accepting it transforms imminence from a temporal constraint into a capability assessment. Once the relevant question becomes not whether an attack is about to happen but whether a state possesses capabilities that could eventually be used against us, the constraint effectively dissolves. Any sufficiently powerful state can point to adversary capabilities and construct a legal rationale for force. The argument does not produce a principled limit. It produces a vocabulary.

This elasticity is not an accident of bad faith. It is a feature of the architecture. Legal scholars have long observed a dynamic they call — the embedding of legal advisers within military planning cycles, where their institutional position leads them to read ambiguous terms such as military necessity and definite military advantage in ways that preserve operational flexibility rather than constrain it. The framework appears to regulate force while structurally accommodating it.

The Security Council after the strikes illustrated this with uncomfortable clarity. Every actor reached for legal language. The US ambassador invoked lawful preemptive self-defense. Iran’s ambassador called the strikes a crime against humanity. Russia invoked the precedent of Iraq in 2003. China called the timing shocking. The Arab League noted Israel’s own refusal to submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. All of them cited international law. None of them agreed on what it said. This is not a failure of the framework. It is the framework operating as designed.

Why invoking the law may not be enough

The critical response to Epic Fury has understandably focused on its illegality. The legal critique is largely correct. But there is a prior question worth sitting with: What kind of order does international law on the use of force actually reproduce?

The framework was created by states, for states. It reflects a world order built by the most powerful actors in the post-1945 international system to manage interstate relations in ways broadly favorable to their interests. That order is preferable to its absence, and its erosion carries real costs. But it has never been neutral. It institutionalizes assumptions about sovereignty, force and legitimate violence that systematically favor technologically advanced states capable of fighting what are sometimes called clean wars — wars conducted with lawyers present, precision weapons deployed and proportionality assessments documented in advance.

The just war tradition, which provides the intellectual foundations of the contemporary self-defense framework, has always served this dual function. It constrains violence at the margins while legitimizing it at the core. Michael Walzer, one of just war theory’s most prominent defenders, that the triumph of just war thinking would normalize a world in which war is always, potentially, justifiable, provided the relevant criteria are satisfied. The shifting justifications for Epic Fury are a case study in meeting criteria after the fact, or attempting to.

When critics invoke international law to condemn the strikes, they implicitly accept this framework. The argument that the operation failed the legal tests — imminence not established, proportionality strained, necessity undermined by ongoing diplomacy — is probably correct in each of its particulars. But it concedes the premise that force is permissible when the tests are genuinely met. It leaves intact a structure in which powerful states can, with sufficient legal preparation and institutional support, always find a way to meet the tests, or to redraft them as the post-September 11 period demonstrated was possible.

There is a structural parallel here to the political dynamics that have followed right-wing populist challenges to democratic institutions in several countries. The progressive response has been to defend the institutions — to insist on norms, procedures and legal constraints. That defense is understandable and not without value. But it can also function as a restoration of an order that itself generated the conditions for the challenge: an order that worked well enough for a certain managed consensus but accumulated, over time, a substantial deficit of legitimacy among those it claimed to serve.

International law on the use of force is in an analogous position. Defending it against its most cynical exploiters is necessary. But defending it without asking what it was built to do and whose interests it has consistently served is insufficient.

Maybe the war is legal, and that is the problem

The uncomfortable conclusion toward which this analysis points is that Operation Epic Fury may, in fact, be legal under international law as it is actually practiced — not as it is ideally formulated, but as it functions in the real world of great power competition and doctrinal elasticity.

Not because the facts clearly satisfy the Caroline criteria, they probably do not, but because international law on the use of force has always been at its core. State practice is inconsistent. The Security Council is structurally incapable of enforcing the prohibition on force against its permanent members. The doctrinal debate about imminence has no clean resolution. In these conditions, legality functions less as a constraint than as a resource — available, in practice, to whichever actor can most effectively perform compliance with its terms.

The commentator who argued that law is camouflage for the weak is, in a narrow sense, describing this accurately. Where the argument fails is in treating that description as a justification rather than a diagnosis. The observation that powerful states exploit legal ambiguity is not an argument for abandoning legal constraint. It is an argument for understanding why the existing framework fails so consistently and in whose favor those failures tend to run.

The mimetic dimension of this failure is both real and urgent. When the US stretches self-defense doctrine to license what is, by any careful reading, a preventive war, that stretch does not remain local. Other states observe it, cite it and adapt it. The legal order that consolidates around such precedents is not one in which force is better regulated. It is one in which force is more widely licensed, and the licensing vocabulary is borrowed from the most powerful actors in the system.

The question that follows from Epic Fury is therefore not primarily whether this operation was lawful. It is what kind of order the legal tests, as they actually function, reproduce — who benefits from them, who is systematically disadvantaged by them and what alternatives exist beyond the horizon of a framework that has always, ultimately, found room for the wars that powerful states decide to fight.

International law will not save us from the next Epic Fury. It was not designed to. It was designed to regulate the world as it is, a world of unequal sovereign states in which the most powerful retain, in practice, the greatest latitude. Recognizing that is not counsel for despair. It is the beginning of a more honest conversation about what legal constraint on force would actually require.

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Ongoing repression and daily fear

and independent monitors report the in the tens of thousands, though precise figures remain difficult to verify amid severe reporting restrictions. Morally and psychologically, the number changes little. Families are shattered.�� continue to emerge of threats, executions, enforced disappearances, and individuals identified from protest footage later or abducted.��Demonstrations, including children, were met with overwhelming and often .��Yet beyond headlines and geopolitical analysis, something deeper is unfolding: a nationwide trauma response that almost no one is naming.

Since the beginning of the year, the Islamic Republic has called protestors rioters and that they must be put in their place. Iranians have witnessed scenes more often associated with combat zones: live ammunition fired into civilian crowds; citizens attempting to carry away the injured only to be shot themselves; nighttime raids pulling people from their homes; and entire communities severed from one another during prolonged communications blackouts.

from international human rights organizations describe mass arrests, torture in detention and bodies documented under coercive conditions. There have been accounts of marketplaces set ablaze during crackdowns and refrigerated facilities containing victims’ remains by fire under unclear circumstances. Funerals have been prohibited, and families have been for the bullets used to kill their loved ones. Medical staff have been threatened or detained. Journalists have been . Grieving families have been and arrested. The UN fact-finding mission’s has recognized the state of Iranian civilians’ lives to be caught between that may amount to crimes against humanity.

And these decades-long patterns of repression have not ended. For most Iranians, the  of fear and coercion continues daily; a reality exacerbated by a catastrophic  of global health governance that has left civilians without even the most basic protections of international law.

Trauma does not start with one event

The outbreak of the US–Israel–Iran war has brought Iran back into the center of global discussion. Television panels debate escalation, deterrence, and regional alliances. Social media is filled with arguments about sanctions, military strategy and international law. The world is debating Iran while largely overlooking the psychological devastation unfolding inside it.

The uprising that preceded the war and the violence used to suppress it have already begun to fade into the background of geopolitical analysis.

The and restrictions on reporting are not incidental to the violence; they are part of it. When information is , uncertainty grows. Families cannot confirm who is alive. Rumors fill the gaps left by silence. In human rights investigations, access to verified information is often the first casualty of repression. But the psychological impact of that uncertainty is profound. It destabilizes trust, not only in institutions but in shared reality itself.

The cumulative psychological impact is unmistakable. As trauma scholars have long observed, prolonged exposure to systemic violence erodes basic assumptions about safety, trust and the predictability of power. When violence becomes chronic and institutional, populations adapt to a worldview in which vulnerability feels constant and authority appears unrestrained. This is how collective shock takes hold.

Iran is not only in a political crisis. Its population is exhibiting signs of collective nervous-system .

Inside the country, people are living under sustained threat. Many describe sleeping in fragments, waking at small sounds, struggling to breathe evenly. Anger surfaces quickly and just as quickly gives way to numbness. These are not abstract political reactions. They are physiological responses to sustained threat. When violence becomes routine, the nervous system does what it is designed to do: It prepares for survival.

The massacre did not land on neutral ground. It struck a population carrying decades of accumulated trauma: a revolution that hardened into theocratic authoritarianism; a devastating war scarred by chemical attacks; sanctions that strained ordinary citizens while consolidating power among elites; and repeated protest movements met with imprisonment and execution.

Collective trauma rarely disappears with time alone. It accumulates, shaping how new events are interpreted and remembered, especially in societies that have experienced repeated cycles of repression.

When a new shock arrives, it reactivates what is already stored. To those living through it,  did not feel unprecedented. Instead, the  and total digital isolation felt like a grim confirmation of a of repression. The state’s playbook of repression, refined over decades, was being executed once again.

Resilience runs deep in Iran’s cultural memory, but it should not be romanticized. In the context of 2026, this endurance signifies not a lack of harm, but a state of  where the nervous system has adapted to a “hum of fear” just to survive.

What is unfolding now is not only grief but destabilization: a constant hum of fear, hypervigilance and a sense that the ground itself is unreliable. When a state deploys overwhelming violence against its own population, trust collapses not only in institutions but also in the future, further intensified by the absence of a meaningful global response. This is what externalized collective trauma can feel like.

The diaspora carries the trauma too

Outside Iran, another layer of trauma is taking shape. Across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, the diaspora watches in a state of externalized . It is a psychological weight that defies geography, where survivor’s guilt collides with moral urgency. This results in a  of the collective psyche as the social bonds that connect individuals to their homeland are systematically targeted. It is a state where survivor’s guilt collides with moral urgency, creating a vicarious trauma that is further weaponized by the state’s . Many feel compelled to act constantly by posting, organizing and protesting because they feel that rest is a betrayal.

As large demonstrations unfold globally, many continue to experience a painful sense of invisibility. With independent verification , skepticism often replaces empathy from the world. The diaspora experiences a as it asks for its collective reality to be witnessed. Casual suggestions that the numbers must be exaggerated, that the footage cannot be trusted or that it is better to stop watching the news, land as a dismissal rather than neutrality.

For the Iranian diaspora whose families remain in Iran, the crisis is not distant geopolitics. It is a daily negotiation between professional life here and fear for relatives there. When global attention shifts and reporting becomes sporadic, that distance deepens. In a democratic society that values civic participation and freedom of expression, the psychological well-being of diasporic communities is not peripheral. It is part of the civic fabric.

What is missed in these exchanges is the psychological cost. For Iranians, this minimization deepens isolation. It signals that their lived histories of repression and brutality are treated as uncertain, exaggerated or politically inconvenient. When suffering is questioned, identity itself feels destabilized.

, the temperature rises. Social media rewards outrage and punishes nuance. Political identities harden. Divisions sharpen. In private, there are tears and exhaustion. In public, fury.

This is what collective trauma does. It narrows cognition and collapses complexity. In times of threat, the brain seeks certainty, and black-and-white thinking feels safer than ambiguity. It is also why calls for rescue have intensified. Iranians inside and outside the country openly debate foreign intervention. When you are drowning, you do not ask who designed the life raft. When survival feels uncertain, people reach for whatever promises relief. Desperation reshapes judgment.

Why collective trauma matters politically

Recognizing that psychological reality does not mean endorsing every political conclusion that follows. Trauma can push societies toward extremes, toward savior fantasies, rigid ideologies and the belief that only overwhelming force can end overwhelming force. It also sharpens divisions, reducing complex differences to a binary of friend versus enemy and narrowing the space for democratic thinking.

History offers few simple answers. Peaceful uprisings succeed only when power fractures from within. rarely unfold as intended , and the lack thereof deepens mistrust. But none of that erases the emotional truth: Iranians feeling abandoned and exhausted, searching for any sign that the nightmare might end. What makes this moment especially dangerous is not only state violence; it is the perception that the world is speaking about the geopolitical entanglement with Iran while rarely speaking about the Iranians themselves.

The January massacre risks being absorbed into the background noise of permanent crisis and another headline in a saturated world. The February 2026 and executions of protesters have been largely ignored. But collective trauma does not dissipate when attention shifts. It embeds. It shapes political culture. It alters how communities trust, organize and imagine the future. If this  goes unrecognized, its consequences will not remain confined within Iran’s borders. Trauma reverberates across generations and across diasporas. It influences how societies polarize, negotiate power and respond to instability.

A rupture that will last decades

Recognizing is not an exercise in sentiment. It is necessary to understand how political behavior shifts under sustained threat. It insists that what is unfolding is not merely strategic conflict but a social reconstruction of meaning and mass psychological injury. Iranians do not need saviors. They need solidarity that respects and empowers their agency. They need humanitarian support that reaches civilians. They need platforms that amplify their voices rather than reduce them to geopolitical talking points.

Despite the  in political science, sociology and historical literature that military interventions rarely lead to effective regime change, a growing number of civilians are now vocalizing a desperate plea for their own country to be bombed. On a human level, intellectualizing the failure of foreign intervention does little to address the immediate agony of those living under the boot. To understand this shift, the world must recognize the , which is the cumulative and systemic wear and tear that occurs when an entire population is subjected to chronic institutional coercion. When this state of fear becomes unbearable, the collective psyche shifts into a mode of defensive dominance where even catastrophic violence is viewed as a  to an agonizing status quo.

When people become desperate enough to call for foreign intervention, it is not ideology speaking but an existential survival mechanism. It reflects a population that feels cornered and recognizes its very existence is under threat. For decades, Iranians have protested through strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance, often at enormous personal cost. Many have lost friends, family members or colleagues to imprisonment or violence. When peaceful protest is met with live ammunition, people are fighting a war without weapons. Thus, their request, which goes against the scholarly evidence, is an emotional response to collective trauma that is not being witnessed. They also need the world to understand that collective trauma, once unleashed at this scale, does not simply disappear and only intensifies.

The Islamic Republic regime’s 2026 of civilians will be remembered for its brutality and for the that followed. It should also be remembered for the courage of millions who risked their lives for freedom, and as the moment a nation’s psychological threshold was breached. Iran is in a political crisis, but it is also living through decades of overlapping  and a profound psychological rupture that will shape its political future long after the violence fades from headlines.

Collective trauma at this scale does not remain confined within national borders. Through migration, digital networks and transnational families, its psychological consequences travel outward. Democracies that fail to recognize this risk misunderstand both and the long-term political consequences of sustained state violence.

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Foucault believed Western society had grown stagnant due to bureaucracy. In Tehran in 1979, he saw what he called the birth of a “”, a rare moment of collective revolt in which a nation attempted to shed its old identity and reinvent its soul. While Foucault was mesmerized by the collective revolt, critics argue that he focused on the drama of rebellion. This article explores that fundamental tension: how a thinker dedicated to unmasking the mechanisms of oppression could so passionately embrace a movement that, shortly after his writings, established a rigid, absolutist theocratic system.

An unlikely convergence

Pairing Iranian Supreme Leader and Foucault seems unusual at face value. Yet they intersected at a decisive moment in 1979, a historical juncture where political Islam hijacked the Iranian revolution, transforming a national event into a global phenomenon.

Today, as the Iranian theocratic regime faces pressure, interest in this case has grown again. To understand this interest, we must briefly revisit the history that forged this connection. At the time, Foucault’s influence among the Liberal-Left intellectual circles of  Europe was at its zenith. As Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s fall approached, Foucault was contracted with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera to cover the Iranian revolution. 

The pillars of Foucault’s illusion

Foucault visited Iran twice, first in September 1978, after which he visited Khomeini in his exile near Paris. He returned to Iran in October. During his second visit, Foucault’s reports were met with a mixture of shock and loathing by the West, in stark contrast to his immense popularity among Khomeini’s supporters at Tehran University, who translated his articles and plastered them on campus walls.

Foucault centered his analysis on the concept of “political spirituality.” He sought a form of politics rooted in the organic beginning between man, religion, and politics — a connection he felt Modernity had severed. After the failed in France and disillusionment with the Soviet model, Foucault sought alternatives. He saw in the “anti-imperialist” discourse of the Iranian movement a way to overlook the specificities of Islamism in favor of a spiritual alternative.

Foucault drew parallels between the 16th-century Anabaptist movement in Europe and 1970s Iran, seeking an “inspiring alternative” for a Western audience. His reading of Khomeini proved deeply flawed. In  (1978), Foucault described Khomeini’s role in the Iranian revolution, “It is the same confrontation … between the master of the kingdom and the saintly man, the man of the armed power and the luckless exiled, the tyrant against the man who stands bare-handed and is cheered by a people.”

He portrayed Khomeini to Western readers as a legendary, unarmed figure representing a love for politics and spirit, divorced from the evils of “modernity.”

The historical blind spot

Foucault’s dismissal of Khomeini’s political history revealed a profound lack of contextual scrutiny. He turned a blind eye to the specific social and political alternatives that Khomeini had already outlined in his published books. Furthermore, he seemed unaware that Khomeini was imprisoned in his youth for opposing land reforms that reduced clerical power.

Foucault also overlooked the broader political context. Namely, the of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, who foreign powers such as the US and Britain sought to remove due to his nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. All of this historical data did not deter Foucault’s support. It appears he was either entirely ignorant of this history or chose to exist solely within the “illusion of the present moment.” In his reports, one finds a man “defending” a project he had long been searching for. : “But one can also dream of another movement … a movement that would allow the introduction of a spiritual dimension into political life … so that it does not become the obstacle to spirituality, but its container, its opportunity.”

Without hesitation, he produced texts in a romantic style reminiscent of Greek epics to describe a volatile political event. He treated the revolution as a kind of epic transformation while framing it as a search for spiritual renewal in political theory. 

Criticisms and excuses

Some scholars defend Foucault.�� (2009) argues that Foucault acted as a journalist, suggesting his errors stemmed from a lack of information. However, his writings suggest something deeper: the use of Iran as a validator for his own political theories. This obsession led him to ignore other actors in the revolution. He wrote:

When I walked through the streets of Qom and Tehran, I carried the question “What do you want?” in my head … I avoided asking this question of professional politicians … instead, I had long discussions with religious leaders, students, and intellectuals.

While Foucault focused on the “spiritual” actors, he ignored the fact that 70% of a strategic city like Isfahan was controlled by workers’ councils (shuras), and that in Kurdistan, peasants were reclaiming land. The political Islam movement hijacked the terminology of the Left (e.g., “Republic of the Poor”), a reality Foucault systematically ignored.

The dream of the Iranians or the dream of Foucault?

Foucault believed the world and revolutionary theory were at a “point zero.” He saw the Iranian revolution as a new path beyond modernity. He formulated this as a question: “What is the mystery of this search for something that we ourselves have forgotten since the Renaissance and the great crises of Christianity: a political spirituality?”

He relied on the assurances of clergy members who claimed that “water and land” would belong to no one and that minorities would be respected. Yet, within a month of the revolution’s success, the political spirituality manifested as the invasion of Kurdistan and the execution of “immoral” women, none of which appeared in Foucault’s reports. Foucault was not pursuing the Iranians’ dream; he was pursuing his own troubled dream. At the end of his , he wrote: “I can already hear the French laughing. But I know they are wrong.”

In the end, his involvement in the Iranian Revolution became a cautionary episode. It showed how theory can distort judgment, and history has treated this moment with both criticism and irony.

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The Houthi dilemma

Jeunot frames the discussion around a fundamental tension shaping Houthi decision-making. The movement is strengthening itself amid fragmentation in South Yemen, using the lull to consolidate territory, recruit fighters and rebuild capacity. Yet it faces a strategic choice between ideological alignment with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” and its own domestic priorities.

That tension is not abstract. The Houthis must decide whether to demonstrate commitment to Iran by joining the war or instead focus on expanding control toward resource-rich areas such as Marib in Yemen. Jeunot states, “The Houthi are for the moment at a crossroads in terms of objectives.” Entering the war may reinforce their ideological legitimacy, but it could also undermine their long-term economic and political stability.

Fighting capacity and ideological momentum

Lotus shifts the focus from strategy to motivation. While previous US and Israeli strikes degraded Houthi military infrastructure, she argues that capability alone does not determine action. The group’s ideological drive remains intact and may even outweigh material constraints.

She emphasizes that the Houthis are deeply embedded in the broader narrative of resistance aligned with Iran and Palestine. As she puts it, “They’re very passionate about being part of the Axis of Resistance.” That passion, however, exists alongside practical constraints, particularly the risk of reigniting conflict with Saudi Arabia.

Jeunot reinforces this point by describing the Houthis as a system sustained by conflict. War is not simply an activity, but a mechanism of governance and legitimacy. A prolonged peace could weaken the movement internally, making the presence of an external enemy central to its survival.

Geography, Saudi Arabia and strategic restraint

Carvajal grounds the discussion in geography and political reality. Yemen remains divided, with the Houthis controlling a smaller share of territory but the majority of the population. Meanwhile, South Yemen has shifted into Saudi-managed security control following the displacement of UAE-backed forces in late 2025.

This balance helps explain the Houthis’ current restraint. Despite their alignment with Iran, they have not targeted Saudi positions or escalated attacks in the Red Sea. For Carvajal, the key lies in their relationship with Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Houthis may see more value in securing a stable arrangement with Saudi Arabia than in immediate participation in a regional war.

This creates a paradox. The group maintains ties with Iran while preserving flexibility to negotiate with Gulf powers. The result is a calibrated ambiguity that allows the Houthis to remain relevant without overcommitting.

Chokepoints and the global economy

Khattar Singh introduces the broader strategic stakes by focusing on the Bab el-Mandeb strait. If the Houthis were to disrupt this maritime corridor, the consequences would extend far beyond the Middle East, affecting global trade, energy flows and major economies such as China and India.

This raises the possibility that Iran itself may be exercising restraint. Rather than encouraging escalation, Tehran may prefer to keep the Bab el-Mandeb as a latent threat. A simultaneous disruption of both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea would approach systemic economic shock.

The panel also considers whether Israel might attempt preemptive strikes on Houthi positions. Lotus warns that such a move could trigger a domino effect, pulling Yemen fully into the conflict. Jeunot, however, questions the strategic logic of opening another front, noting that escalation in the Red Sea would draw in a far wider set of international actors.

Yemen as a long-term battleground

The discussion closes with a broader reflection on Yemen’s enduring strategic importance. Carvajal situates the country as a historic crossroads, long contested by regional and global powers. Its position along critical trade routes and its complex internal divisions make it both valuable and volatile.

Looking ahead, the panel diverges on whether the war could redraw borders. Lotus sees a shifting geopolitical landscape in which rapid changes in alliances could produce unexpected outcomes. Jeunot is more cautious, arguing that sovereignty remains deeply entrenched and that meaningful territorial change would require large-scale ground operations rather than air campaigns.

What the panel agrees on is the scale of the conflict’s potential trajectory. Yemen is not yet the central battlefield, but it is no longer peripheral. If the Houthis enter the war, the consequences will not be contained locally. They will reverberate across trade routes, regional alliances and the global economy, transforming an already dangerous conflict into something far harder to control.

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The question, then, is not whether multilateralism should be rebuilt. It must be. It is how to make multilateralism more effective, more credible and more resilient against the political pressures that have historically unraveled it. This is where emerging technology — specifically, AI and blockchain — enters the picture not as futurism, but as practical infrastructure for a new kind of international governance.

The role of AI in multilateral governance

Consider the challenge of real-time monitoring. One of the chronic failures in conflict prevention is the gap between intelligence and collective action. States possess information asymmetries; multilateral bodies move slowly; by the time consensus is reached, escalation has already occurred, and windows of opportunity are lost. AI-powered conflict , trained on satellite imagery, social media signals, economic indicators and diplomatic communications, can now detect escalatory patterns faster than any human analytical process.

Had such systems been feeding shared, verifiable data fed into a common multilateral dashboard in 2025, the trajectory from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) to Israel’s 13 hours later might have looked very different. While the speed of information cannot substitute for political will, it can minimize uncertainty and clarify intentions and actions. Beyond early warning, AI prognostic models can simulate the downstream consequences of military action across economic, humanitarian and political dimensions — giving decision-makers a clearer picture of second- and third-order effects before the first missile is launched.

Blockchain as a trust-building mechanism

Blockchain technology addresses a different but equally critical failure: the trust deficit that makes multilateral agreements fragile. Smart contracts deployed on a distributed ledger can encode compliance obligations in ways that are transparent, tamper-resistant, automatically verifiable and less prone to resistance. A next-generation nonproliferation framework built on blockchain infrastructure would not require parties to trust each other — only to trust the protocol. Inspection data, enrichment levels and compliance milestones would be recorded in real time on an immutable chain, visible to all signatories simultaneously.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) collapsed in part because one party could unilaterally and privately, with no automatic mechanism to trigger a multilateral response. A blockchain-anchored treaty makes defection visible the moment it occurs, triggering pre-agreed consequences before escalation becomes irreversible.

Post-conflict reconstruction and accountability

The post-conflict dimension is equally urgent. History is unambiguous: reparations and reconstruction that are usually poorly coordinated, politically captured or opaque, producing grievance rather than stability. Iraq and Libya are cautionary monuments to that failure. Blockchain-based reparations frameworks offer a compelling alternative. Aid disbursements recorded on a distributed ledger are auditable simultaneously by recipient communities, donor nations and independent monitors. Smart contracts can condition tranches of reconstruction funding on verifiable benchmarks — civilian infrastructure restored, civil society institutions stood up and transitional justice processes initiated.

AI tools can model the distributional impacts of different reconstruction strategies in real time, flagging approaches likely to entrench elite capture or regional inequality before funds are committed. Crucially, these systems can also surface the voices of affected civilian populations — aggregating needs assessments, grievance data, community feedback and potential responses at a scale no traditional aid architecture can match. This is not technoutopianism; these capabilities exist today. What is lacking is the political architecture and will to deploy them multilaterally.

The Iran War has demonstrated, with painful clarity, what the world looks like when international institutions are bypassed, diplomatic processes abandoned and force is substituted for law. Whatever one’s view on the optimal path to reform, it must be multilateral and take seriously the of all states, rather than only the small handful with extraordinary wealth, power and military might. AI and blockchain will not generate that political will on their own. But they can build the infrastructure upon which a more honest, more transparent and more durable multilateralism can be constructed — one where compliance is verifiable, escalation is visible and the costs of unilateralism are harder to conceal. The technology is ready. The only question is whether the political will to use it will arrive before the next war.

[Daniel Wagner is managing director of Multilateral Accountability Associates and co-author of The New Multilateralism.]

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A war with shifting goals

Khoury begins by questioning the coherence of the American and Israeli approach. He notes that the stated goals keep changing, especially on the US side. US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric moves from promises of a quick end to talk of an open-ended campaign, making it difficult to know what Washington is actually trying to achieve. For Khoury, that inconsistency matters because it suggests that the war is not being driven by a stable strategic framework.

He argues that Israel’s goals are clearer and more expansive. The conflict is not really about an immediate Iranian nuclear threat, but about weakening any force capable of resisting Israeli regional dominance. He links the current war to the broader trajectory of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, arguing that force is being used not simply to deter Iran but to reorder the region. From that perspective, he warns, military escalation may temporarily damage adversaries but will not remove the political anger that generates future resistance. Violence keeps reproducing new forms of militancy rather than ending them.

Iran’s response and the failure of expectations

Khattar Singh presses the panel on the central question: Did Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expect a much faster collapse of Iranian resolve? The group suggests they did. Instead of mass unrest toppling the system after the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian state continues to retaliate with drones and missiles across multiple theaters.

Carvajal argues that this is now a regime-survival war for Tehran, Iran’s capital. Iran appears to have prepared for exactly this kind of confrontation and is responding in calibrated ways, including strikes on infrastructure and military targets across the Gulf. He also raises the possibility that some apparently irrational moves make more sense if Iran’s leadership believes its neighbors are also part of the threat environment. If Iran is being pushed backward, it may seek to ensure that the states around it do not emerge untouched or stronger.

Lotus goes further, arguing that Iran was underestimated during the months between the earlier 12-day war and the present crisis. She believes many regional actors assumed the US security umbrella would protect them, only to discover that alignment with Washington now carries serious liabilities. As civilian infrastructure, shipping and energy systems come under pressure, Gulf states must reckon with the costs of being drawn into a confrontation they did not choose.

Why the Houthis are holding back

A major theme in the discussion is the relative silence of the Houthis. Khattar Singh asks why Yemen’s Houthis, who had previously attacked Israel and maritime targets, have not yet entered this round of fighting with the same intensity as Hezbollah.

Al-Basha offers the most detailed explanation. He argues that the movement’s restraint reflects a combination of political calculation, financial weakness and operational vulnerability. The Houthis, he says, are cash-strapped, under pressure and eager to preserve the fragile truce with Saudi Arabia. They also do not want to hand their enemies a pretext for a renewed US–Israeli strike package while anti-Houthi forces are more coordinated than before.

Just as important, Basha says, the group wants to preserve its own agency. “The Houthi don’t want to be seen as an Iranian proxy,” he explains. They want to appear capable of choosing their own timing rather than acting automatically on Tehran’s behalf. Even so, Basha and Khoury caution that this restraint may not last. If the war drags on and Iran faces a more existential threat, the Houthis may decide they can no longer remain on the sidelines.

Khoury adds another strategic point: The Houthis know that closing major waterways would damage their own access routes as well. For now, that creates an incentive to hold back. But if the conflict becomes all-or-nothing, those calculations could change quickly.

Gulf anxiety, Pakistan’s balancing act and the risk of widening war

Lotus describes a Gulf region increasingly anxious about the consequences of a war fought in its airspace and across its infrastructure. Gulf monarchies historically aligned with the Western bloc for security, she says, but now find themselves paying the price for that alignment. If the US cannot shield them from economic and military blowback, the value of that partnership comes into question.

The discussion then turns to Pakistan. Lotus sees its capital of Islamabad as trying to maintain relations with everyone at once: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the US. Carvajal agrees that Pakistan is walking a narrow line, constrained by its own regional rivalries and unwilling to overcommit to any one side. Both suggest that this balancing act may work only for so long if the war expands.

Carvajal also highlights a growing divergence between Trump and Netanyahu. Trump, he argues, is transactional, while Netanyahu’s confrontation with Iran is ideological and long-running. That difference could matter if Washington seeks an exit while Israel wants escalation. He also warns that even if the US steps back, the conflict may continue through proxy networks, sleeper cells and asymmetric retaliation far beyond the immediate battlefield.

Can diplomacy still work?

Khattar Singh closes by asking the question only Khoury can answer as the diplomat on the panel: How does this end? Khoury insists that diplomacy remains possible because all wars eventually end in negotiation, however bitter the path there may be. Oman and Qatar, he says, are still the most plausible mediators when the fighting subsides.

But he also argues that diplomacy cannot succeed if the underlying injustices driving regional anger remain untouched. He rejects the idea that every armed actor in the region simply takes orders from Tehran, stressing that local groups often act from their own grievances, especially over Palestine, Gaza and repeated occupation. “There is always room for diplomacy,” he concludes, but diplomacy without justice will only postpone the next war.

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An embassy left in limbo

Aramburú opens by asking how the Afghan embassy in Vienna reached a point of financial and logistical isolation. Bakhtari situates the break not as a single moment but as a process that accelerates into rupture in August 2021. After the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, the Afghan government collapsed quickly. Bakhtari describes “the complete institutional disappearance of a state overnight,” where ministries stopped functioning, parliament broke down and the banking system collapsed. For embassies abroad, the consequences were immediate. Vienna lost salaries, operational funding and the basic infrastructure that normally keeps a mission alive.

Bakhtari also draws a line the embassy refuses to cross. She does not recognize the Taliban, arguing it is impossible to work with a regime that excludes women from education and public life. Yet she also insists the embassy’s obligations to citizens do not vanish with the government. The Vienna mission became, in her telling, a moral outpost for human rights and a place to preserve a country’s dignity when its political voice was forcibly muted. She stays because she believes diplomacy must be accountable to people, not only to regimes. As she puts it, “diplomacy is not only about governments; it’s about people.”

Making a film under threat

Aramburú then turns to the documentary’s origins and the practical constraints of filming a story shaped by censorship, danger and funding shortages. Halla describes her first hurdle as persuading Bakhtari to participate. The ambassador was “exposed” and “fragile,” still holding office while being persecuted by the Taliban. Halla began with what she had, filming alone without financing, because she did not want to lose time. Only later did she bring on a Vienna production company, Golden Girls Filmproduktion & Filmservices, and expand the project’s capacity.

Halla spent four years completing the film, making it her longest project to date, with an especially complex edit. She constructed an 80-minute narrative from a “mosaic” of footage, including filmed material, family archives and documentation from Afghanistan gathered through other sources. She avoided traveling to Afghanistan during production, fearing that filming there would endanger local people and her team. Her core aim was to build a film that does more than inform. She wanted viewers to leave feeling personally implicated, saying audiences often walk out thinking, “I cannot stay silent.”

Gender apartheid and the collapse of justice

From filmmaking, Aramburú moves into the reality the film documents. Bakhtari describes women’s lives under Taliban rule as a coordinated system designed to erase them from society. Women and girls are banned from higher education, restricted from work, barred from public gatherings and denied basic freedoms of movement and participation. Compounding the crisis is the breakdown of constitutional order. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world ruled without a constitution or a functioning legal system. Democratic institutions are dismantled, and what remains serves the Taliban’s purposes rather than the public’s rights.

Aramburú asks about justice and the heightened risks women face, including sexual violence. Bakhtari answers that without functioning legal protections, women have no system to defend themselves. The violence is not incidental but structural, backed by those who hold coercive power. Bakhtari names that structure using the term “gender apartheid,” emphasizing that legal codification lags behind lived reality. Language is part of the struggle because naming the system clarifies accountability, and neutrality becomes complicity. “Silence is never neutral; silence always sides with power,” she says. As long as the world fails to act, the Taliban will continue to rule Afghanistan.

Resistance that stays local

Aramburú asks what resistance looks like when public protest is met with imprisonment, torture and intimidation. Bakhtari stresses that Afghanistan’s situation is not easily comparable to other cases, including Iran, even when women’s aspirations converge. She argues that Afghan women do not need to be “rescued” through a Western lens. They need to be heard and supported in ways that respect local realities.

Bakhtari describes an early wave of street protests after the Taliban takeover that was violently suppressed. Over time, resistance shifted into quieter forms, which remain today. Women continue organizing through clandestine gatherings, social media and educational initiatives that operate outside formal public space. Internet access still exists for many, though not for all, given poverty and uneven infrastructure. Even so, networks form through pseudonymous online activity and decentralized support. As Bakhtari says, the fight is global, but resistance is local, shaped by what is possible under dictatorship.

The Daughters Programme and what solidarity can become

Aramburú closes by asking about “bright moments” and practical ways to help. Bakhtari describes the Daughters Programme, a small, decentralized, volunteer-led initiative. It supports school-age girls inside Afghanistan through a package that can include financial help, emotional support, mentorship and leadership guidance. The design is intentionally simple, minimizing administrative barriers so that individuals abroad can directly support one girl.

Both guests also reflect on the film’s reception. Halla says screenings across continents produce overwhelmingly positive responses, often well beyond the Afghan diaspora. Bakhtari notes some criticism of her chosen title, The Last Ambassador, but she insists it is symbolic. It marks a historical turn from a recent period with several women ambassadors to the present, where she is the only one still serving.

Looking ahead, Halla states that the film will continue to appear at festival screenings. She intends to travel to Berlin, Germany, for a Cinema for Peace nomination. It will be screened in London for diplomats linked to the “gender apartheid” campaign. She is also developing a new project on threats to the International Criminal Court.

For Bakhtari, the central question remains urgent. Condemnation is easy; action is harder. The Last Ambassador and the Daughters Programme are her answer to what can be done now, even if the work is incremental. Planting seeds is a resistance effort.

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The strikes that followed were dramatic and politically consequential: Leadership compounds were hit; command nodes were disrupted; retaliatory missile exchanges expanded across the Gulf; regional air defenses were activated from the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula. Yet the visible destruction risks obscuring the more consequential development: The opening of this conflict demonstrated the operational maturity of a model of war in which the first hour is no longer a prelude — it is the outcome.

What occurred was not merely a coordinated air campaign. It was a compressed, multidomain operation designed to fracture coherence before the defender could meaningfully respond. The war did not begin with impact; it began with integration.

Architecture before ordnance

Modern high-end conflict increasingly opens with degradation rather than detonation.

Long before kinetic strikes reached their targets, the battle space appears to have been shaped across multiple domains. Electronic interference, cyber pressure, signal distortion, decoy saturation and intelligence preparation of the environment preceded physical engagement. Military planners have long studied this model of integrated operations within what calls multidomain operations, which emphasize synchronized effects across cyber, space, maritime and air capabilities.

Whether achieved through airborne electronic warfare platforms, cyber access, space-enabled coordination or maritime stand-off positioning, the operational effect was similar. Defensive clarity was eroded before command authority could synchronize response.

In previous eras, suppression of enemy air defenses unfolded sequentially: Aircraft struck radar installations; follow-on waves targeted missile batteries. Air superiority was achieved in stages. For example, the 1991 required weeks of methodical dismantling before deep penetration became routine.

February 28 reflected a different logic. Degradation and strike were not staged in phases; they were layered.

Carrier strike groups positioned in the Arabian Sea and Eastern Mediterranean extended operational reach and redundancy. Long-range precision munitions provided stand-off pressure. Stealth aircraft functioned as networked data nodes within a broader ecosystem rather than as isolated strike platforms. Maritime assets contributed cruise missile salvos synchronized with airborne delivery systems. Tankers sustained persistence and flexibility. Intelligence and surveillance platforms integrated targeting flows across air, sea, space and cyber domains.

The result was not simply a simultaneous impact. It was simultaneous disorientation.

The decisive achievement was not the destruction of hardened infrastructure alone. It was the compression of the defender’s decision cycle. By the time kinetic effects became visible, the architecture that enabled coherent response had already been stressed.

Recent suggest that this architecture increasingly incorporates artificial intelligence systems capable of accelerating data synthesis across the battle space. AI models developed by companies such as Anthropic and other advanced machine learning platforms are now being in military analytical environments to process satellite imagery, electronic signatures and intelligence feeds in near real time. While these systems do not replace human command authority, they significantly compress the time required to identify patterns, detect anomalies and generate operational options.

This reflects a central shift in contemporary warfare. The objective is no longer gradual attrition through sequential dominance. It is temporal dominance through integration.

What distinguishes February 28 is not merely the targets struck, but the scale at which multidomain integration was executed in a live state confrontation. Elements that had previously been demonstrated in fragments, such as cyber intrusion, electronic warfare, stealth penetration, maritime stand-off strike and networked targeting, were fused into a single operational cycle. That fusion suggests that hybrid warfare has moved from theory to mature practice.

Time compression and systemic shock

Military planners have long relied on time-on-target calculations to synchronize weapons launched from different platforms so that they arrive simultaneously. On February 28, that principle appears to have been elevated from tactical coordination to strategic design.

Cruise missiles launched from maritime platforms, air-delivered precision munitions and follow-on suppression measures converged within tightly compressed windows. Simultaneity denies defenders the opportunity to triage threats. It complicates prioritization and fragments command flow. It compresses political decision time.

Hybrid war amplifies this dynamic by attacking not only physical infrastructure but cognitive bandwidth.

When radar inputs are distorted, communications are strained and decoys saturate detection grids, defenders confront uncertainty before they confront impact. The first-order effect is confusion. The second is paralysis. The third is delayed retaliation.

The leadership strikes in Tehran must be understood within this framework. Whatever their political consequences, the operational objective was clear. Collapse coherence before counterforce can mobilize. Reduce the adversary’s ability to transition from shock to organized response.

Increasingly, the compression of this decision space is also being reinforced by algorithmic assistance. AI-supported analysis platforms can process large volumes of battlefield data far faster than traditional intelligence cycles allowed. Satellite imagery, radar signatures, communications intercepts and open-source information can be fused into a rapidly updated operational picture. In such an environment, the tempo of conflict becomes shaped not only by weapons systems but by the speed at which data can be interpreted and translated into operational decisions.

This model reflects a broader transformation in high-end warfare. Space-based sensing, cyber operations, electronic warfare, stealth penetration, maritime precision strike and networked data flows increasingly function as a single operational ecosystem. Analysts have this convergence as a defining feature of next-generation conflict, in which networked command systems integrate targeting and intelligence across domains. The visible explosion is the final expression of an architecture that may have been positioned and calibrated weeks earlier.

Hybrid war, in this sense, is not irregular warfare; it is not proxy competition; it is an integrated state-on-state conflict across domains executed at compressed speed.

The strategic consequences of the first hour

The ongoing escalation across the region underscores the paradox embedded in this architecture.

Missile exchanges have reached or threatened the Gulf states. Air defense systems across multiple capitals have been activated in layered formations. Civil aviation corridors have narrowed. Energy markets have responded to uncertainty around maritime chokepoints, particularly the , through which roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption passes. Financial centers once considered insulated from direct confrontation have entered the strategic perimeter.

Recent maritime incidents in the Gulf further demonstrate how quickly hybrid conflict can expand into economic and logistical domains. Commercial shipping routes have experienced intermittent disruption, insurance costs for tankers have risen and naval patrols across the Strait of Hormuz have intensified. These developments illustrate how hybrid warfare blurs the boundary between military operations and systemic economic pressure. This is the structural tension of hybrid war. The architecture that enables surgical systemic shock can also accelerate escalation once activated.

By compressing the first hour, integrated operations force adversaries to reassess survivability. States observing these events will draw their own conclusions about resilience, redundancy and deterrence. Hardened infrastructure, distributed command systems, autonomous defensive layers and rapid decision protocols will become central to strategic planning.

The implications extend beyond the Middle East. In an era of renewed great power competition, first-hour survivability may determine campaign trajectories. The side that maintains coherent command and control under simultaneous multidomain pressure gains a disproportionate advantage. The side that loses situational clarity may find that retaliation becomes reactive rather than strategic.

This reality reshapes deterrence theory. Traditional deterrence assumed time for signaling, mobilization and escalation control. Compressed warfare reduces that time. Decision-makers may face irreversible outcomes before full information is available.

The February 28 operation, therefore, signals not only technological maturity but doctrinal adaptation. It reveals a confidence in the ability to integrate domains at speed and scale. It also reveals the vulnerability of centralized command structures to synchronized shock.

If conflict continues, analysts may ultimately study this opening less for the targets struck than for the lesson transmitted: War at the high end is no longer sequential; it is concurrent. Air superiority, cyber disruption, electronic suppression, precision strike and maritime maneuver now unfold as layered expressions of a single architecture. The most consequential battlefield may no longer be geographic, but rather temporal.

In previous eras, states prepared for long campaigns. They anticipated weeks of maneuver before decisive outcomes emerged. In this era, they must prepare for the first 60 minutes. Resilience must be engineered not only into physical infrastructure but into decision-making structures themselves.

The strikes over Tehran did not simply mark an escalation in a regional rivalry. They signaled that the decisive phase of modern conflict may occur before the public recognizes that war has begun. The first hour is no longer a threshold. It is a verdict.

As the conflict now expands toward maritime corridors and energy chokepoints, the logic of the first hour remains central. The architecture that compressed decision time at the outset may shape how escalation unfolds across domains. What began as systemic shock over Tehran now tests resilience from the Gulf’s airspace to its shipping lanes. Recent that AI-assisted analytical systems are being used to process battlefield intelligence further illustrate how the speed of decision-making is becoming as strategically decisive as the weapons themselves.

States that fail to protect that decision space may find that the war is effectively lost before it is formally declared.

[ edited this piece.]

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Under the shadow of economic sanctions imposed by the US and its Western brethren, Venezuela’s oil remained largely buried after nationalization. The country’s oil fields couldn’t be upgraded or developed due to a lack of investment, and whatever could be exploited still couldn’t be sold freely at the best price. The US thus successfully contained Venezuela’s strategic oil wealth, ensuring that no other country could challenge or alter the US’s will.

As if all this were not enough, the US has militarily seized of Venezuela’s oil, effectively turning the country into an oil colony after abducting the intransigent “narcoterrorist” President Nicolás Maduro and either coercing or bribing its remaining ruling leadership into absolute submission.��This is how an empire works.

Asymmetric Western wars

Western wars are always asymmetric in many ways. The unmatched military power and immense resources available to these predominantly Caucasian nations give them a tremendous operational advantage in warfare. Their enormously destructive military technology and ability to strike from a remote safe distance limit their own casualties and material losses to just a fraction of what they inflict on their enemies. Their lineal brotherhood and strategic alliances — which provide a vast pool of military, financial and industrial resources — serve as a powerful force multiplier. Moreover, their tight control over the global economy and financial institutions allows them to influence the official reactions and actions of almost all other countries to their liking. Their highly dominant and sophisticated propaganda machinery shapes the international public opinion in their favor. 

This comprehensive domination enables them to bring war to other people’s homes while their victims cannot retaliate in kind. The best these victimized nations can do out of vengeance and frustration is to carry out occasional bombings and shootings in the homelands of the Western powers. These occasional incidents are dubbed as the most heinous crimes of cowardly terrorism, while the hundreds of thousands of defenseless people killed in other countries by the relentless aerial bombings and missile strikes of Western nations are glorified as acts of valor and heroism.

Western powers wage such imperialist wars repeatedly under various pretexts, many of which are , full of lies, and marked by brazen dishonesty and double standards. They remain unaffected due to their domination over the international order. In the end, they always get away with their illegal and immoral deception and destruction. Their hegemonic wars are deemed just, while any resistance from others is labeled entirely unworthy and immoral. Others are only expected to surrender and accept the will of Western aggressors.��

That is how things have largely been for a long time. 

In a matter of a mere month

After the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s , which caused almost every country except China to fall in line, and the swift and impressive US military operation in Venezuela on January 3 — which even made the Chinese that their People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was lagging far behind — Iran has managed to greatly diminish the US’s larger-than-life image in just one month.��

In the eyes of the world, this marks a sudden decline of the US from the zenith of glory achieved in Venezuela. The mythical and mighty B2 bombers, F35 stealth fighters, Tomahawk missiles, Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), Patriots, THAAD systems and the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier were all proven ineffective. Trump’s much-trumpeted secret weapon, the “discombobulator,” which he was used in Venezuela, was nowhere to be seen. And the mockery of the Iranian, Russian and Chinese systems couldn’t be made.

The US’s acclaimed air superiority, along with its constant bombing and assassinations, couldn’t break the will of the Iranians. Nor could Western propaganda make pro-US Iranians march on the streets of Tehran. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s animated bullying and Trump’s cold threats on camera and faceless warnings on didn’t work either. Iran has stayed firm and held on to its tit-for-tat military strategy unwaveringly from day one.

The US arms lobby also found little to celebrate beyond supply orders, as there was nothing mind-boggling about its technological advancements to attract global interest. In contrast, Iran’s unparalleled sacrificial courage and fearless conduct have captured the public imagination. Its sustained and effective has taken the spotlight, sidelining storied Western military technology for the first time in memory.��

Despite tall that the US has decimated Iranian missile capability and decapitated its political and military leadership, there is no let-up in Iran’s retaliatory strikes. There are no signs of the nation weakening, much less surrendering and capitulating.

War of attrition and will to endure

The myth surrounding technology and generalship often falls apart during a war of attrition. Scholarly inquiries such as Canadian historian Cathal Nolan’s dispel the powerful myths of “military genius” and “decisive battles” and rouse us to see that victory is achieved “by grinding rather than genius.” However, the heroic tales of Carthaginian General , King of Sweden , John Churchill, 1st duke of , Holy Roman Emperor , French Emperor , German military commander Helmuth von and even German Dictator are still widely told and believed, especially in military circles. Nolan explains this phenomenon:

Modern wars are won by grinding, not by genius. Strategic depth and resolve is always more important than any commander … Losers of most major wars in modern history lost because they overestimated operational dexterity and failed to overcome the enemy’s strategic depth and capacity for endurance. Winners absorbed defeat after defeat yet kept fighting, overcoming initial surprise, terrible setbacks and the dash and daring of command “genius.” Celebration of genius generals encourages the delusion that modern wars will be short and won quickly, when they are most often long wars of attrition … We might better accept attrition at the start, explain that to those we send to fight, and only choose to fight the wars worth that awful price … With humility and full moral awareness of its terrible costs, if we decide that a war is worth fighting, we should praise attrition more and battle less.

History tells us that there is no quick victory in wars that are fought against ideologically committed and determined nations. We have seen it in our own lifetime in Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen. Iran, I believe, will be no different, given its conduct of warfare to date. And, it is not difficult to understand why.

Iran is neither Iraq nor Venezuela; it is neither Libya nor Syria. Iran is Iran, and its national honor and pride came out in its refusal to submit to Western money and military might. Today, it is evident to the whole world that the Iranian leadership, military and society are not corrupt like the Venezuelan government — they cannot be bribed — nor are they cowardly.

One cannot fight for long without absolute clarity and total commitment to one’s beliefs. Against sacrificial courage and an iron will to endure, bombs, missiles, death, destruction, duration, along with petty tariffs, are ultimately insignificant. The Iranian people have demonstrated their ability to withstand the world’s greatest military power. No empire can defeat this spirit. No technological superiority can subdue such people. Resistance is never a rational choice; it is always a moral imperative. Those who lead life pragmatically by calculating the costs and benefits of their decisions and actions can never understand why some people(s) resist against all odds.

Illusion of democracy and distortion of legitimacy

The conceit of politicians and intellectuals in democracies is well known. They strongly believe that only a democratically elected government is legitimate, even if the majority (opposition and abstentions) disapproves of their rulers. They are incapable of understanding that there could be other forms of government, backed by much greater majorities than Western-style democracies, due to the spontaneous convergence of minds shaped by shared ideologies and worldviews. 

This Western prejudice against Iran and its political system might have led Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their advisers to believe that after decapitation strikes, the Iranian people would overthrow the Islamic Revolutionary regime themselves. Instead, powerful religious and nationalist feelings have rallied them all against the aggressors, making the regime more resolute than ever to take on the US, Israel and their hesitant nonwarring enablers in the Gulf and Europe. 

Emergence of doubt and erosion of morale

Whose wars are the imperialist wars? What if we were to arm all supporters of war — including politicians, generals, industrialists, scientists, intellectuals, journalists and their young sons — and send them to the front lines first, with professional soldiers only taking over afterward? In all likelihood, there probably won’t be any wars because most imperialist wars are their wars. Despite the rich and powerful being the main beneficiaries of national projects, they don’t fight wars. Instead, wars are fought by the young sons of ordinary people, who stand at the broad base of the national pyramid. In the name of the nation, these countless faceless commoners make all the sacrifices in wars they have no control over starting or ending. 

In normal times, when life is comfortable and manageable, soldiers, along with their families and friends, have no doubts. They are co-opted completely by the overwhelming nationalist propaganda and brainwashed thoroughly by the hegemonic nationalist ideology. At the beginning of a war, people rally enthusiastically behind the nation and credulously believe in the judgment of their political masters. 

However, the seemingly solid national consensus begins to fracture when the death toll continues to mount in a war of attrition with no end in sight. Everyone knows that inside the endless truckloads of coffins that arrive neatly wrapped in the national flags lie the mutilated dead bodies of healthy and handsome young men and women whose lives have been cut short, along with their dreams. Against this dreadful and sorrowful reality, no amount of loud and skillful boasting, bravado, slogans and propaganda makes much difference.

Past that point, the same people — civilians and soldiers — now begin to question, doubt, and recognize the unfairness of the world and the unnecessary nature of the wars. Their common sense reveals truths that scholars discern after years of research. 

Scholarly critique of nationalist ideology and wars of choice

Historically speaking, nations as communities did not naturally exist; they were invented. They are the product of mass politics and its accompanying mythology. Irish political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson, therefore, calls them “” in his famous book of the same name. Similarly, US historian Howard Zinn :

Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. 

British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist Ernest Gellner also that “nations as a natural, God-given way of classifying men, as an inherent though long-delayed political destiny, are a myth” invented by nationalism. British historian Eric Hobsbawm that “nations do not make states and nationalisms but the other way round.” Then, he remarkably sums up the reality of this ideology in just one sentence: “Nationalism requires too much belief in what is patently not so.”

The problem with nationalism is that it not only seeks to make us believe in falsehoods, but it is an extremely hegemonic and intolerant political ideology. It claims absolute legitimacy and demands total loyalty from individuals it identifies as belonging to a nation. According to  Hobsbawm, nationalism “overrides all other public obligations, and in extreme cases (such as wars) all other obligations of whatever kind.”

On the topic of war, US psychologist Philip Zimbardo offers an interesting, yet often-overlooked, perspective when he , “Most wars are about old men persuading young men to harm and kill other young men like themselves.” In contrast, Nolan’s perspective is more inclusive and collective. He writes:

War remains the most expensive, complex, physically, emotionally and morally demanding enterprise that humans collectively undertake. No great art or music, no cathedral or temple or mosque, no intercontinental transport net or particle collider or space program, no research for a cure for a mass killing disease receives even a fraction of the resources and effort humanity devotes to making war. Or to recovery from war, and to preparations for future wars that are invested over years and even decades of always tentative peace.

And, we never seem to learn:

After every war we also write more heroic poetry and books preaching “the old lie.” We bury the dead while neglecting survivors. We mourn awhile … then write more war songs and speak of “pouring out the sweet red wine of youth” to another generation of boys breathlessly eager for war. We bury more dead, erect more granite statues, and write lists of soon-forgotten foreign place-names scored with acid in brass on stone. We admire oiled images of oafish, mounted generals in silk and lace who led armies to slaughter in endless wars over where to mark off a king’s stone borders. Perhaps most of all, we watch films with reassuring characters and outcomes which glorify war even while supposedly denouncing it.

We do all this without “a critical look at the societies and cultures that produced mass armies and sent them off to fight in faraway fields for causes about which the average soldier knew nothing.”

Humanity’s moral disengagement and characteristic human hypocrisy

Perhaps, the simplest and the best description of the grotesqueness of the Iran war and dispositional “Western hypocrisy,” or rather human hypocrisy, comes from the defense minister of Pakistan, Khawaja Asif, who on X, “The goal of the war seems to have shifted to opening the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war.”

Clearly, what is most important is the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz. Most deplorably, what is totally unimportant is the loss of countless human lives — least of all — and the immeasurable pain and suffering of all. We have just seen it in and are now seeing it in and Iran, too. Greed and power have made us all so dastardly pathetic and morally degenerate that we have lost the precious voice of human conscience completely.��

The disruptive Iran war and its geopolitical repercussions

Among the three geopolitical theaters where the US has established military bases — Europe, the Middle East and the Far East — the Middle East offers the least serious military challenge to the US. This is due to the absence of any great military power, such as Russia or China, there. Nonetheless, Iran has delivered a serious strategic blow to the US’s reputation as the greatest military and economic power in the world when it initiated an unprovoked imperialist war against Iran.

The war in Iran has disrupted the long-held awe associated with US military might, forcing a reconsideration of its ability to impose its will on others. While the US remains the largest economic and military power, retaining its global network of military bases and alliances, the real impact of the Iran War extends beyond material changes. The war has fundamentally altered global perceptions of the US, especially among nations dependent on US support.

In light of Iran’s resolute resistance, no reasonable person can have total trust in the so-called invincible and fabled military might of the US and its ability to protect anyone. Genuine skepticism has replaced the blind faith in the US’s ability to prevail over its enemy, which is militarily capable and determined to fight back. Above all, Iran has shaken the confidence of the US’s allies regarding the security offered by the US. And, in that sense, the global domination of the US is no longer the same as it was before February 28, 2026. 

Although the final word on the Iran war is yet to be written, I must say, it is impossible to believe that there has been no erosion of confidence of its dependent allies in the US, and that there will be no perceptible strategic repercussions. My theoretical understanding and limited foresight point to the following direction the world may take. 

In a rapidly changing world, the US may not have the luxury of time to restore the perception of its military superiority and magical invincibility, even if public memory shortens. Before China could do it, Iran has fundamentally changed the world forever.

The Greenland incident has also changed many things. After the US laid to Greenland, many in Europe and elsewhere, who had previously been vocal about wanting war without the means to fight it, fell silent, believing in the unwavering and formidable support of the US in their wars. European liberals, once too aggressive in their nationalist rhetoric, are more cautious and measured now; they have stopped roaring and begun to meow. And, the Nordic and Baltic nations are now thinking twice before flexing their infantile muscles to fight a great war.

If Greenland had called into question Washington’s reliability, Iran has cast a shadow on its capability. So, what now? Maybe, most US vassals in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and Oceania will come to their senses. Perhaps, they won’t talk about war. Hopefully, many won’t follow in the footsteps of their domestic fascist competitors. Probably, those in South Asia, Africa and South America who are scrambling and groveling to get some shade under the crowded canopy of the US security umbrella will reconsider and go back to their sensible nonalignment. Possibly, nations will rely on good old diplomacy again, choosing sanity over madness; they will sit around and talk, give and take to resolve contentious issues, and make concessions to buy peace.

It’s easy to talk about war. It’s extremely difficult to fight one, especially a protracted war of attrition. 

Lessons of history and the magical powers of propaganda

I will be pleasantly surprised if the world becomes saner as projected above, perhaps wishfully, after learning lessons from the Iran war. But, I will not be surprised at all if Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci is proven right again, when he perceptively , “History teaches, but has no pupils.”

Throughout history, we have seen that while things may change, nothing actually does. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We know well that the two-and-a-half millennia-old Thucydides’ dictum — propounded in his work — which states that “the strong do what they can; the weak endure what they must,” continues to hold its ground, defying countless resistance struggles waged by the exploited and oppressed people throughout human history.

It is easy to believe that “I am okay, you are not.” It is easy to invent an enemy and sell its imaginary threat as real and imminent to the public. Dangerous enemies have always been there in the world — the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria and so on. There are still plenty in our world — communist China, rabid Russia, nihilist North Korea, fundamentalist Iran, racist South Africa, terrorist Afghanistan, Yemen, Cuba, Colombia and more besides. Manufacturing a narrative around these invented enemies is not very difficult.

Propaganda is an organized and sustained misinformation campaign based on certain ideas, beliefs and, above all, lies, carried out for the purposes of capturing, securing or sustaining power. It is a political tool for manufacturing public opinion and rallying people behind a certain idea, ideology or individual. Propaganda tends to monopolize public discourse by discrediting competing narratives, punishing polemics and smothering dissent.

Propaganda has magical powers, and it is a great winner. It is said that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Imagine the fate of credulous and prejudiced masses with short memories when a million lies are bombarded from all directions and repeated endlessly. It can make them believe in anything. And, our beliefs and imagined realities can make us do and create anything. This fact is encapsulated in what is called . Propounded by US sociologists William and Dorothy Thomas, this theorem states, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Warning signs flashing red

The US private credit is facing the greatest stress since the 2007–08 financial crisis, following years of rapid growth. Signs of major trouble emerged this month.

Kunal Shah, the co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs International and global co-head of fixed income, currencies and commodities, that some of his iconic bank’s clients were “just glad there’s something to talk about that isn’t software exposures and private credit.” Blackstone Private Credit its first monthly loss since 2022. Ares Management has withdrawals from one of its marquee private credit funds pitched to wealthy individuals, as redemptions surged to 11.6% in the first quarter amid a broad flight from the asset class. Apollo Global Management redemptions from one of its flagship private credit vehicles, becoming the latest investment manager seeking to staunch outflows as wealthy investors retreat from the industry.

Investors are increasingly ditching private credit funds on worries over bad loans — Publicly traded vehicles are trading at steep discounts in a gloomy sign for the broader industry. Last month, Blue Owl permanently restricted investors from withdrawing their cash from its inaugural private retail debt fund. Investors are no longer able to redeem their investments in quarterly intervals voluntarily. In September 2025, twin bankruptcies of Tricolor Holdings and First Brands Group shook private credit markets. Fraud allegations shook investor confidence, which has not recovered since.

These developments, Atul suggests, should be treated as early indicators rather than isolated incidents. The private credit market grew rapidly during years of cheap liquidity, but now faces a more challenging environment of higher rates and slowing growth. Investors appear increasingly concerned about bad loans and liquidity mismatches. Glenn reinforces this interpretation by noting that stress in one corner of finance often signals broader fragility. Like JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, “cockroach theory,” explaining that “if you see one cockroach, there’s a likelihood there are many others,” implying that the visible problems may only hint at deeper systemic risks.

How private credit works, advantages and risks

To explain the stakes, Atul outlines the structure of private credit. Unlike traditional bank lending, private credit involves non-bank institutions — private equity firms, hedge funds and specialized lenders — providing loans directly to companies. Borrowers are often mid-sized firms that struggle to access public bond markets or face stricter bank regulations introduced after the 2008 crisis.

The model offers advantages. Companies benefit from faster deal-making, flexible terms and confidentiality. Investors, including pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, are attracted by higher yields and floating interest rates that rise with inflation. In an era of low returns, private credit became a major destination for capital.

Yet these same features create vulnerabilities. Loans are illiquid, meaning investors cannot easily exit positions during downturns. Borrowers are typically more sensitive to economic stress, increasing default risk. Limited transparency reduces regulatory oversight. As conditions tighten, these weaknesses become more visible.

The structure of private credit creates a mismatch between investor expectations and underlying assets. Many funds offer periodic redemption windows for investors, but they cannot sell the loans on their books quickly. If investors withdraw simultaneously, funds may face liquidity troubles similar to bank runs.

Atul and Glenn highlight additional warning signs. Some borrowers are paying interest with additional debt rather than cash, a practice known as payment-in-kind. This can mask deteriorating financial health. Covenant-lite deals — contracts with weaker lender protections — have also become widespread, leaving fewer tools to manage distress. Sources say that years of low rates reduced risk premiums and encouraged aggressive lending.

Glenn links private credit stress to wider economic vulnerabilities. Rising interest rates, slowing growth and technological disruption — particularly from artificial intelligence — are putting pressure on mid-sized companies that depend on this financing. If defaults increase, refinancing options may narrow, potentially triggering layoffs and bankruptcies.

Investor warnings and the threat of systemic risk

Atul and Glenn note that prominent investors and policymakers are already raising alarms. Dimon has also cautioned that risks may be “hiding in plain sight.”

Mohamed El-Erian, a legendary investor and the former CEO of investment manager PIMCO, has unequivocally sounded the alarm:

Is this a “canary-in-the-coalmine” moment, similar to August 2007? This question will be on the mind of some investors and policymakers this morning as they assess the news that, quoting the FT, the “private credit group Blue Owl will permanently restrict investors from withdrawing their cash from its inaugural private retail debt fund.” There’s plenty to think about here, starting with the risks of an investing phenomenon in advanced (not developing) markets that has gone too far overall (short answer: yes), to the approaches being taken by specific firms (lots of differences, yet subject to the “market for lemons” risk). There’s also the “elephant in the room” question regarding much larger systemic risks (nowhere near the magnitude of those which fueled the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, but a significant – and necessary – valuation hit is looming for specific assets).

Others are more optimistic than El-Erian and argue that financial markets will be able to shrug off private credit market risk. They think that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates low, avoiding excessive tightening of credit markets. Also, although software companies face terminal value risk, this does not impact their debt in most cases. They can cut costs rapidly and generate significant cash.

Atul argues that banks withdrew from riskier lending after the financial crisis, allowing private credit firms to fill the gap. This shift moved risk into less-regulated areas. Complex structures, limited transparency and overlapping exposures now complicate assessment of true valuations. If stress spreads, mid-sized companies that rely on private credit may struggle to refinance operations, amplifying the economic slowdown.

Glenn concludes by placing private credit within a larger narrative of structural fragility. He links the sector’s vulnerabilities to rising US debt, weakening demand for US Treasuries, delayed effects of the Trump administration’s tariffs and broader economic imbalances. Together, these factors suggest that financial markets may be underestimating downside risks. Atul echoes the concern, warning of “flashing warning signs” that point to a sustained downturn rather than a temporary correction.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Yemen and the limits of proxy conflict

Carvajal explains that the roots of today’s tensions lie in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE cooperated for nearly a decade after forming a coalition in March 2015. Saudi Arabia managed operations in the north, while the UAE focused on the south, cultivating close ties with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) through financial and political support. This arrangement helped stabilize the southern provinces after Houthi militants were expelled in 2015.

That balance unraveled in December 2025, when a local dispute in Yemen’s southern Hadramaut region escalated. A deputy governor seized control of a government oil facility, prompting UAE-aligned STC forces to intervene. Saudi Arabia responded by declaring instability near its border a national security threat and deploying its newly trained National Shield Forces into northern Hadramaut and the eastern governorate of Mahra.

While media narratives framed the episode as a proxy war, Carvajal argues it was “a natural consequence” of rival factions competing for territory and influence. Crucially, the crisis exposed an unspoken rule within the Gulf: Despite rivalry, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE will directly confront the other militarily. As Carvajal notes, this restraint reflects “basic tribalism” and an enduring awareness that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) remains inseparable and indivisible geographically and historically.

East Africa: Sudan as the new battleground

The rivalry now extends beyond the peninsula, particularly into Sudan. Carvajal points out that in late 2025, the United States delegated peace efforts in Sudan to Saudi Arabia after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington. With US engagement increasingly hands-off, Saudi Arabia moved from mediation to direct involvement.

Over recent weeks, Saudi Arabia announced it would purchase all of Sudan’s gold. This effectively underwrote the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and marginalized Iran’s role in the process. Carvajal observes that Iran has “taken a back seat” as Saudi Arabia stepped forward financially and politically. At the same time, the SAF signed a major arms deal with Pakistan, a move Carvajal links indirectly to Saudi funding.

These developments, he argues, are not isolated. They reflect Saudi Arabia’s effort to counter Emirati influence in East Africa while filling a vacuum left by the US. Sudan, in this sense, has become a testing ground for a more assertive Saudi regional posture.

Nuclear signaling and strategic optics

A major theme of the discussion is the emergence of new defense alignments involving nuclear powers. In September 2025, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a strategic defense agreement declaring that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on both. Turkey has since expressed interest in joining the pact.

Carvajal is blunt about the military realities. It is, he says, “highly unlikely” that Saudi, Turkish or Pakistani soldiers would fight and die for one another. Instead, these agreements function as geopolitical signaling. They give Saudi Arabia what Carvajal calls “the optic of going nuclear,” without crossing that threshold itself.

This signaling is aimed squarely at Iran and shaped by frustration with Washington. Saudi Arabia, Carvajal says, has been “begging” the US for a formal defense pact since the administration of US President Joe Biden, unsuccessfully. In parallel, the UAE has pursued its own balancing strategy, announcing negotiations with India over defense cooperation and nuclear sharing. Carvajal frames the UAE’s outreach as “showing the flag” rather than a literal expectation of Indian military protection.

China waits in the wings

Underlying all of these shifts is the perceived retreat of the US. Carvajal argues that Washington is gradually pulling away from the region under US President Donald Trump, creating uncertainty for Gulf monarchies accustomed to US security guarantees. Trump’s unpredictability, combined with looming US midterm elections, makes long-term planning difficult.

Carvajal sees Chinese caution rather than commitment. Gulf states are in a wait-and-see mode until the political direction of the US becomes clearer. Still, a shift toward Chinese weapons systems would be easy, especially as cheap, effective drones reduce reliance on expensive Western aircraft in conflicts like Yemen.

Rivalry without rupture

Despite escalating competition, Carvajal remains confident that Saudi Arabia and the UAE will reconcile. Yemen places such a heavy burden on Saudi Arabia that Saudi leaders will eventually ask the UAE to reengage under a new framework. The UAE has already signaled it is handing full responsibility for Yemen back to Saudi Arabia.

In the longer term, Carvajal envisions the two states acting as co-hegemons within the GCC, potentially positioning themselves as mediators beyond the peninsula, including in South Asia. The rivalry is real but temporary, a phase shaped by uncertainty rather than a permanent fracture.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Military dominance and the limits of victory

Olmert begins with a stark assessment of the battlefield balance. Iran’s conventional military capacity has suffered severe damage, particularly in the air and at sea. “It’s a major, major defeat to the Iranians,” he says, pointing to the destruction of naval assets and the absence of effective air cover. Without those capabilities, he contends, Iranian ground forces cannot alter the strategic equation.

Singh presses him on whether military degradation alone determines the outcome. After all, Iran continues to launch missiles and project resilience. Olmert makes a crucial distinction between material losses and political meaning. Olmert emphasizes that victory is interpreted differently across cultures. From a Western strategic perspective, he suggests, the loss of command structures and military infrastructure signals defeat. Yet the Iranian capital of Tehran can claim success simply by surviving and continuing limited strikes.

This difference means the two sides are judging the war by different standards. As long as Iran continues to resist and avoids collapse, it can tell audiences at home and across the region that it is still standing firm. That makes it more difficult for the US or Israel to claim a clear-cut victory, even if they have done more damage militarily.

The Strait of Hormuz and global leverage

The conversation then shifts to the economic and geopolitical stakes surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. Singh underscores the chokepoint’s significance: A substantial share of global energy, fertilizers and critical materials moves through the Gulf. Any disruption reverberates across Asia, Africa and Europe, raising inflation and questioning American credibility as a security guarantor.

Iran’s strategy of threatening shipping is predictable but risky. Olmert argues that Tehran is attempting to extract geopolitical leverage by challenging freedom of navigation, though superior military power will eventually counter this strategy. Regardless, the very existence of the disruption strengthens Iran’s narrative that the war is not settled.

The Strait thus becomes both a military and symbolic battleground. If shipping remains threatened, Iran can claim leverage despite battlefield setbacks. Conversely, reopening the corridor becomes a political necessity for Washington. The economic stakes, therefore, underline the same point: How the war is interpreted does not necessarily match what is happening on the ground.

Political pressures in Washington and Jerusalem

Singh and Olmert also examine domestic constraints on leadership. Olmert says that time may favor Iran politically, even if it does not militarily. “[US President] Trump doesn’t have a limitless amount of time,” he notes, pointing to electoral pressures and public opinion. A prolonged conflict risks eroding American support, especially if the people do not see any concrete results from it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces his own difficulties. Singh highlights Israeli public fatigue from continued missile threats and political controversies at home. Olmert agrees that Netanyahu is under pressure, though he believes Israel’s military achievements give him room to maneuver.

As a result, the political window is narrowing. Both leaders must demonstrate success without allowing the conflict to escalate out of control. This dynamic reinforces incentives for negotiation — but also for continued pressure to improve bargaining positions.

Negotiations and uncertainty about authority

Reports of potential talks, including mediation efforts by Pakistan, complicate the situation. Olmert questions whether negotiators on either side possess real authority. Iranian representatives may not fully control decision-making, especially amid leadership uncertainty. On the American side, internal divisions within the administration complicate strategy.

Israel, meanwhile, is not formally at the negotiating table but influences outcomes through continued military operations. Singh characterizes this as a “veto on the ground,” shaping conditions for diplomacy. Olmert agrees that Israeli actions will help determine whether any agreement emerges.

Despite discussion of a potential multi-point framework restricting nuclear activity and missile capabilities, Olmert remains cautious. He estimates the chances of success at less than even odds: “I would give it only 49%.”

Survival, escalation and possible outcomes

Singh and Olmert conclude with competing scenarios. Iran could capitulate, negotiations could succeed or escalation could continue. All parties have incentives to push further: Israel to degrade Iranian capabilities, the US to secure the Strait of Hormuz and Iran to maintain leverage through resilience.

Olmert ultimately argues that the Iranian regime’s primary objective is survival. Even limited concessions might be framed domestically as victory if the system endures. Historical precedent, such as Iran’s decision to end the Iran–Iraq War in 1988, suggests that ideological regimes may compromise when survival is at stake.

Whether that moment arrives depends on time, pressure and political calculations in Washington and Tehran. The coming weeks will be decisive. The battlefield may favor Israel and the US, but the strategic outcome will hinge on perception, leadership constraints and the fragile balance between escalation and negotiation.

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As Khattar Singh presses Alavi on military capabilities, regional reactions and global alignments, the discussion probes whether Washington and Tel Aviv have triggered a wider strategic shift they cannot easily control.

A miscalculation with unintended consequences

Alavi argues that the killing of Khamenei reflects a fundamental misreading of Iranian society and the broader Muslim world. Instead of triggering unrest, the attack appears to have consolidated support for the Iranian state. “The United States and Israel miscalculated and did not realize the popularity of Ali,” he says, pointing to emotional reactions across Shia communities and beyond.

Khattar Singh tests this claim against the expectation in Washington and Tel Aviv that regime change pressures would follow. In Alavi’s account, the opposite has occurred. The removal of a central figure has not fractured the system but instead strengthened it, reducing the likelihood of internal dissent in the short term. This inversion of expectations raises a larger question about whether external military pressure can still produce predictable political outcomes in the region.

The nuclear threshold

What lies in the future for Iran’s nuclear policy? Alavi suggests that Khamenei had acted as a restraining force against weaponization and that his absence may remove a key barrier. “With him gone, chances are Iran probably will go [for a] nuclear weapon,” he warns, framing the shift as both a response to public sentiment and a strategic necessity.

Khattar Singh connects this argument to the logic of deterrence. If Iranian leaders conclude that nuclear capability could have prevented such a strike, the incentive structure changes dramatically. The war risks accelerating precisely the outcome it may have sought to prevent. It is unclear whether this shift would be immediate or gradual, but strategic calculations can quickly evolve under pressure.

Missiles, drones and the balance of force

Turning to the battlefield, Alavi emphasizes Iran’s use of ballistic missiles and drones to target US and allied assets across the region. He claims that Tehran has already degraded American infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and retains significant reserves of more advanced weaponry. According to his assessment, the current phase of attacks may represent only a partial deployment of Iran’s capabilities.

Khattar Singh raises a critical point about sustainability. While the tempo of launches has fluctuated, the key question is how long Iran can maintain pressure. Alavi says that Iran has planned for a prolonged conflict and may be conserving its most destructive systems. US defensive capacity could erode over time. “The sky is very much open for Iran,” he warns.

Regional reactions and shifting alignments

The conversation widens to examine how regional actors are responding. Alavi portrays Gulf states as constrained, reliant on US systems they do not fully control, and increasingly uneasy about Washington’s priorities. At the same time, he suggests that public sentiment in parts of the Arab world is diverging from official policy, reflecting deeper frustrations with existing political arrangements.

Khattar Singh introduces the roles of India and Pakistan, highlighting how the war is reshaping relationships beyond the immediate theater. Alavi predicts strain in Iran’s ties with India while describing Pakistan as more cautious, at least for now. These shifts point to a broader reordering in which countries are recalibrating their positions amid uncertainty about US strategy and regional stability.

Toward a multipolar order

The discussion concludes by examining global implications. Alavi situates the conflict within a larger contest involving Russia and China, both of which he believes have incentives to support Iran through intelligence, coordination or economic alignment. The war, in this view, is not an isolated crisis but part of a wider transition in the international system.

Khattar Singh presses on whether this moment marks a turning point. Alavi argues that sustained conflict could weaken US influence and accelerate the emergence of a more multipolar order. While his conclusions are sharply framed, the underlying point is clear: the consequences of this war extend far beyond the battlefield. What began as a targeted strike may instead be catalyzing a broader transformation in regional and global power dynamics.

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A distinct identity, not a proxy pawn

The (Anṣār Allāh) are frequently labeled as Iranian proxies, but this characterization oversimplifies their nature. While Tehran has supplied weapons and technical know-how over the years, the Houthis are not a direct military arm of Iran and retain significant autonomy in their decision-making. Researchers that Iran lacks direct control over Houthi behavior, which is shaped by Yemen’s local dynamics as much as by transregional alliances.

Historically, the group emerged in the early 2000s from local grievances in northern Yemen long before any meaningful Iranian support, and its ideology — rooted in Zaydi Shi‘a traditions — differs from the Lebanese or Iraqi militias often described as Tehran’s “proxies.” 

1. Preserving diplomatic gains with Gulf powers

One central reason for the Houthis’ calibrated posture is their quiet diplomatic engagement with Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. After years of brutal conflict in Yemen, mediated talks — often facilitated by Oman — have created openings for a potential political settlement that could legitimize the Houthis’ control in the north and expand their role in national governance. 

Escalating militarily in a broader regional war could jeopardize these fragile diplomatic advances by provoking Riyadh and its partners, putting at risk the limited détente that has allowed a relative lull in Yemen’s .��

2. Lessons from past military reprisals

Another powerful deterrent has been the memory of punitive strikes on Houthi positions by the US and Israel. During the Gaza conflict and its aftermath, heavy bombardments Houthi infrastructure and leadership, including air strikes that significantly degraded their military capabilities.��

Analysts argue that the Houthis are acutely aware of their limitations against the superior air power of the US and Israeli militaries. They may well fear that renewed escalation on behalf of Iran could invite another round of devastating strikes, further eroding their ability to hold territory and govern effectively. 

3. Economic fragility and domestic priorities

Yemen remains one of the world’s , and Houthi-controlled areas have been economically devastated by years of conflict. The group faces severe budgetary constraints, disrupted port revenues and widespread socioeconomic hardship among its population.��

With many public sector workers unpaid and basic services collapsing, escalating into a full-fledged regional war could inflict catastrophic economic damage on areas under Houthi control, eroding the regime’s legitimacy among its own people.

4. Strategic patience and timing

A recurring theme across expert analyses is that the Houthis may simply be waiting for the right moment to act. Their leadership has suggested readiness, their “fingers are on the trigger,” but stops short of committing to open conflict.

This “strategic patience” could be aimed at preserving military capability for when it matters most — not necessarily in defence of Iran, but to strengthen their bargaining power in any future regional settlement or negotiations over Yemen’s political future. Such a move, analysts suggest, could enhance their leverage at a critical juncture rather than diminish it prematurely.

A broader regional balance

Finally, the Houthis’ caution reflects a broader recalibration of alliances across the Middle East. Even other Iranian-aligned groups in Lebanon and Iraq have shown restraint, balancing ideological solidarity with considerations of domestic stability and geopolitical risk. 

The Houthis’ restraint should not be interpreted simply as indecision or weakness. Instead, it underscores the complex interplay of local interests, diplomatic maneuvering and strategic self-preservation that defines Yemen’s role in a wider regional conflict. As the war evolves, so too might the Houthis’ calculations — but whatever course they take, it will likely be driven first by Yemeni considerations, rather than solely by allegiance to Iran.

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The White House had warned that Iranian power plants and energy facilities could be hit if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened. But by Monday, Trump had paused those strikes after what he called “productive” contacts, even as Iran any talks were taking place. Reuters also that the pause appears to apply only to energy sites, not to wider military targets. That is not a coherent strategy. It is a tactical retreat from one especially dangerous form of escalation.

The limits of military pressure and the tactical retreat

The most telling detail is why Trump pulled back. Reuters also that Gulf Arab states had warned Washington that strikes on Iranian power infrastructure could trigger severe retaliation against energy assets across the Gulf. In other words, the threat to hit power plants did not promise control; it threatened a wider regional breakdown. That matters because it changes how we should understand the original ultimatum. It was not a credible plan for reopening Hormuz. It was a way of shifting pressure away from a military bottleneck and onto civilian systems. When a government cannot quickly solve the problem in the water, it starts looking for leverage on land. Too often, that means ordinary life becomes the battlefield.

That shift should worry anyone who still believes strategy and restraint belong in the same sentence. The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, oil is still , and countries like Japan are reserves because the disruption has not ended.

The five-day extension: buying time, not solutions

The five-day extension did not reopen the channel. It bought time in the markets and perhaps time for mediation, but it did not change the underlying fact that the US has not found a workable way to force the strait open without risking . A threat against civilian infrastructure may sound forceful on television, but it does not move mines, widen shipping lanes or create political consent where none exists.

The military problem here is more stubborn than Trump’s rhetoric suggests. Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical , with about 20 million barrels per day of crude and oil products moving through it in 2025, or roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade. There are only a limited number of ways around it. That geography is why even some of Washington’s allies have being dragged into a rush to “unblock” it on Trump’s terms.

Allies’ reservations, geographic reality and humanitarian stakes

According to , several allies were unenthusiastic about providing military support, and some conditioned any role on de-escalation rather than war expansion. The problem is not a lack of threats; it is that threats do not solve geography.

This is also where the legal danger becomes impossible to ignore. International humanitarian law attacking or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. That principle matters everywhere, but it carries special weight in the Gulf, where electricity and desalination are not luxuries. They are part of how millions of people get water and keep hospitals, homes and public life functioning.

The EU’s leaders recognized the danger last week when they for a moratorium on strikes against energy and water facilities in the Middle East. That call was not a diplomatic decoration. It was an acknowledgment that this war is edging toward attacks whose civilian consequences cannot be brushed aside as collateral.

Trump’s defenders will argue that the threat worked because it created diplomatic space. Maybe. But even that claim looks thin. Iran publicly denied the existence of direct talks, and Reuters that Tehran has hardened its negotiating position and is demanding far more than Washington appears willing to accept. If so, the five-day pause is less a breakthrough than a holding pattern. It may for a few hours and allow intermediaries to shuttle messages, but it does not settle the central issue. A bluff against power infrastructure is not the same as a maritime solution. It is an attempt to compensate for strategic frustration by raising the civilian stakes.

The drift toward civilian targets and the erosion of strategy

That is what makes this episode larger than one deadline. The real story is not simply that Trump changed 48 hours to five days. It is that the war’s logic has drifted. The pressure is no longer confined to ships, missiles and naval patrols. It is being pushed outward, toward grids, pumps, ports and desalination plants, as if civilian vulnerability can succeed where military coercion has stalled. That is a familiar pattern in modern wars.

When leaders cannot deliver the outcome they promised, they do not always scale back. Sometimes they widen the pain until something breaks. The danger now is that what breaks first will not be the blockade. It will be the line separating war from the deliberate degradation of civilian life.

If the Trump administration were serious about reopening Hormuz, it would be investing its political capital in de-escalation, coalition diplomacy and a realistic assessment of what force can and cannot do in a narrow, mined, heavily exposed waterway. Instead, it flirted with the idea of turning energy and possibly water systems into bargaining chips, then stepped back only after Gulf allies warned that the costs could spiral beyond control. That is not strength; it is an admission that the original approach has failed. And once a war begins leaning on the infrastructure civilians need to live, it is usually a sign not that victory is near, but that strategy is running out.

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Tactical success, strategic uncertainty

Atul starts with the scale of the military campaign. By March 21, 21 days into the war, US and Israeli forces had struck more than 7,800 targets, destroyed over 120 vessels and flown more than 8,000 combat missions. The opening phase appeared to demonstrate overwhelming operational dominance. Yet the expected political result — rapid Iranian capitulation — has not materialized.

Instead, Iran has absorbed the strikes and continued to resist. Glenn emphasizes that tactical superiority does not automatically translate into strategic victory. The early assumption that Iran would collapse under pressure now appears misplaced. The discussion, therefore, pivots from battlefield metrics to the structural factors underpinning Iranian resilience.

The IRGC and the “mosaic” model

Atul and Glenn argue that Iran’s endurance stems largely from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its decentralized “mosaic strategy.” Over decades, the IRGC has built a dispersed command structure with redundant leadership layers, independent provincial decision-making and distributed infrastructure. This design reduces the effectiveness of decapitation strikes and allows continued operations even after heavy losses.

Glenn explains the logic by comparing centralized vulnerability to distributed resilience: “If you have a single point of failure, you cut a telephone wire and… the communication stops, but if you have 50 different telephone wires going 50 different routes, then you have a much harder problem.” The analogy underscores how Iran’s structure mirrors modern networked systems. Deep underground facilities, dispersed drone production and succession planning up to four levels reinforce this resilience. As a result, the conflict has shifted from expectations of quick collapse to the prospect of prolonged attrition.

Four scenarios, one dominant trajectory

Atul and Glenn outline four potential outcomes. The first, Iran folding, now appears unlikely. The second, an early negotiated settlement, is rational but improbable given mutual distrust and divergent objectives. The third scenario, unilateral cessation by Washington and Jerusalem, also seems doubtful because Israel perceives the conflict as existential and seeks continued pressure.

The fourth scenario, escalation, appears the most likely. Iran’s leverage lies in constraining traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States faces pressure to reopen the chokepoint. Glenn questions Washington’s strategic clarity, invoking a proverb to highlight the problem: “Whatever wind is blowing… serves no purpose if you have no destination.” Without a clear objective, escalation risks becoming self-perpetuating.

Atul adds that Israeli strategy resembles “mowing the lawn,” repeatedly degrading Iranian capabilities in hopes of weakening the regime. Yet this approach, combined with Iranian resilience, increases the likelihood of sustained conflict rather than decisive resolution.

Short- and medium-term economic shock

Beyond military scenarios, Atul and Glenn stress immediate economic consequences. Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz constricts energy supply, raising prices for crude oil, LNG and refined products such as jet fuel and diesel. Prices of fertilizers and industrial inputs will shoot up as well, causing high inflation globally. All “danger signs are flashing red.”

Within a year, the effects compound. Higher fuel and fertilizer costs threaten agricultural output, raising the risk of food shortages, particularly in import-dependent countries. Gulf monarchies, facing reduced energy revenue, may draw down investments, sell assets and pause purchases of US debt. These shifts could push interest rates higher and depress global asset prices.

The ripple effects extend across Europe, Asia and emerging markets worldwide. Energy-dependent economies face slower growth, while manufacturing centers confront rising input costs. Financial markets may be underestimating the persistence of these pressures.

Long-term consequences for global order

Looking further ahead, Atul and Glenn warn of a profound structural transformation. Sustained high energy prices could produce stagflation reminiscent of the 1970s, or even more severe inflation given today’s monetary conditions. Monetary policy has been far too loose for far too long. Furthermore, the petrodollar system may weaken if Gulf states lose confidence in US security guarantees. Reduced demand for dollars could gradually erode America’s financial dominance.

Glenn concludes with a broader geopolitical warning. He suggests what intelligence planners like him once envisaged as the worst-case scenario: Pax Americana is giving way to a fractured international system. The restraints of international law and the UN-Bretton Woods system on inter-state behavior are declining. Instead, the world is experiencing an increase in Hobbesian conflict, and increasing striation of states into “haves” and “have-nots,” in which the strong become stronger and the weak become de facto satellites. A system with several poles with several great powers is emerging. Weaker states increasingly orbit around these poles. A Hobbesian world where the powerful dominate and the weak suffer is increasingly coming into place. 

Atul concludes by saying that this could be America’s Suez and 2026 is the new 1956. If Iran prevails then it will extract geopolitical rent from the Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf will not be an American lake again. Donald Trump would end up as the American Anthony Eden who presided over the British disaster to retake Suez, another key chokepoint, in 1956. There is a further question about American global hegemony: If America cannot open the Strait of Hormuz, can the US Navy enter the Taiwan Strait?

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Their significance is linked to that of maritime transport itself, which represents the fundamental bloodstream of global trade. This transport carries of the world’s trade by volume, carrying vital crude oil and other raw materials, semi-processed goods or finished products. As such, it plays a fundamental role within international supply chains.

Different kinds of maritime routes

Maritime routes man-made or natural. Among the first group are the Panama and the Suez canals. Within the second, among others, are the Hormuz, Malacca or Gibraltar straits. In both cases, they represent funnels of high strategic significance. Some more than others, of course. Indeed, according to their strategic importance, they can be divided into primary and secondary chokepoints. The former refers to connectors that, if disrupted, could seriously impair global trade. The latter, on the contrary, represent support maritime passages that entail significant detours in the event of disruption. The best example of a primary chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz, while the Strait of Taiwan, the Sunda Strait (between the islands of Java and Sumatra) or the Dover Strait are examples of secondary ones.

The top four

The top four maritime routes (or chokepoints) are the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. The first of them represents the compulsory crossing pathway between the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Beyond being a very important merchandise transit route, representing of the global seaborne trade, it is one of the world’s two main energy chokepoints. It is indeed the inescapable transit route for 20 to 21 million barrels of oil per day, representing of global oil consumption and 25% to 30% of global seaborne oil trade. At the same time, it is the passage route for 20% of the global liquified natural gas (LNG) trade. Some of the world’s largest hydrocarbons exporters — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — rely on this route, as do the largest Asian consumers: China, India, Japan and South Korea.

The connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea (in the Pacific Ocean). It is the route through which 30% of global trade and 23.7 million barrels of oil pass daily. This includes two-thirds of China’s trade volume and around 80% of its energy imports. It is between the island of Sumatra (Indonesia) and the Malay Peninsula (Malaysia and Singapore). Around 29% of the global seaborne oil trade passes through the Strait of Malacca. In fact, to reduce its critical reliance on the Strait of Malacca, China has a major energy corridor through Myanmar. A corridor consisting of two parallel pipelines transporting crude oil and natural gas from the Indian Ocean coast of Myanmar to Southwestern China.

The , on its part, connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, which leads to the Indian Ocean. Between 12% and 15% of worldwide trade and about 30% of global container traffic transits this route. Roughly 9% of the global seaborne oil flows (about 9.2 million oil barrels a day) and 8% of liquified natural gas (LNG) volumes use this route.

The connects the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. About 5% of global marine trade passes through it. Meanwhile, barrels of oil per day pass through this waterway. However, while the Suez Canal allowed for the transit of supertankers of up to 200 thousand tons, the Panama Canal was limited to 65 thousand tons and to a configuration adapted to its particular standards. The so-called Panamax standards. Since 2014, as a result of the expansion of the canal, the standard has applied, substantially increasing both capacity and tonnage — now reaching 120,000 tons.

Other maritime routes

In addition to the aforementioned big four maritime routes, the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan must also be mentioned. While the former connects the Atlantic and the Indian oceans at the South of the African continent, the latter links the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans through the Southern seas of South America. The Cape of Good Hope has much greater strategic significance, not only because the economic emergence of China and the Indo-Pacific sphere has enhanced its relevance, but also because the Strait of Magellan has lost much of its significance in the last few decades. This was a result of the 1980s transcontinental , which allowed for the massive transport of containers between the US’s East and West coasts.

However, the Strait of Magellan could have better days ahead if climate change keeps affecting the Panama Canal. Indeed, lack of has hampered canal operations in recent years. In 2023, the El Niño climate phenomenon, which impacted rainfall, caused water levels to plunge in the lakes that feed the canal, leading to a forced reduction in vessel crossings.

Of much relevance, as well, are the Strait of Gibraltar, the Turkish straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles) and the Danish straits (Kattegat and Skagerrak). They respectively connect the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea (through the Sea of Marmara), and the Baltic Sea with the North Sea. 

As a result of global warming, two additional major maritime routes are opening in the Arctic — the North-East route (bordering Canada) and the North-West route (bordering Russia). While they are considered interior waters by both Canada and Russia, the US asserts that they are international straits conferring open transit rights. The US, indeed, both countries’ claims as illegitimate. The geopolitical and economic significance of the Arctic routes may be enormous, as they could represent new active passages between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. This would diminish the geostrategic importance of the Strait of Malacca and, as a consequence, that of Singapore as a maritime hub.

Highly sensitive geopolitical spots

Needless to say, in addition to their economic relevance, or precisely because of it, maritime routes are highly sensitive geopolitical spots. The Suez Canal has a longstanding history in this regard. In 1956, after Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser the canal, an invasion by Britain, France and Israel took place. For several months, the canal remained closed, significantly disrupting global shipping and trade. Ten years later, in 1967, the Suez Canal was again closed, as it became the frontline between the combatant forces of Israel and Egypt, during the . Following the conflict, this waterway remained shut for eight years, adding around 8,000 to 10,000 kilometers to trade shipping routes that depended on the canal.��

At the opposite end of the waterway that connects with the Suez Canal — in the Southern tip of the Red Sea that joins the Indian Ocean — there have also been recent problems. In the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden, the Iranian-backed Houthis of Yemen have been commercial shipping since the end of 2023. This is in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Although the Strait of Malacca is not a contentious international spot, its adjacent South China Sea remains one of the world’s most disputed maritime areas. Stepping over the claims of several South East Asian countries, as well as over the normative of the on the Law of the Sea and the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, China asserts its rights over 90% of the South China Sea.

Moreover, in 2010, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi that the sea represented a “core national interest” for his country, while telling his Southeast Asian counterparts at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting that “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact.” Additionally, in order to assert control over this waterway, China has built and militarized to the teeth 27 within it.

China’s claims are not only rejected by its South China Sea neighbors but also by the US and a significant part of the international community. The US and many Western nations assert a right of free passage through this sea, challenging China’s claim by periodically sailing its warships through it. Although 80% of China’s crude oil imports and the bulk of its exports sail through this waterway, the same happens to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Moreover, it is a vital trade route for the 620 million people who inhabit Southeast Asian countries. A trade of more than takes place annually in those waters, representing more than one-third of the world’s maritime traffic.

The Panama Canal has also become a sensitive geopolitical spot in recent times. By asserting American rights under the Monroe Doctrine, US President Donald Trump has to take it, while forcing Chinese interests out of the canal. Indeed, Hong Kong’s company CK Hutchinson, which controlled two ports within it, was as a result of Washington’s pressure and forced to sell such assets to the American BlackRock group. However, the represented by Trump’s threat of taking possession of the Panama Canal has not disappeared.

Geopolitical significance of the Strait of Hormuz

The previous geopolitical issues provide the background for the current state of belligerence in the Strait of Hormuz. America’s bombardment of Iran, being the result of a war of choice, led to what should have been anticipated — Tehran’s blockade of the strait. This has led to an in oil prices that, amid fluctuations, have reached up to 40% above pre-crisis levels, while halting about 20% of global oil and liquified natural gas flows. This makes the current crisis even worse than the two oil shocks of the 1970s put together.

This situation had its antecedent in the so-called Tanker War of 1984–1988, a critical phase of the , during which both sides targeted oil shipping in the Persian Gulf. As a result of Iraq’s attacks on Iranian oil exports, Iran retaliated by targeting not only Iraqi shipping but also neutral vessels. Over 400 oil tankers and commercial ships were struck during that period, making the targeting of civil shipping a tool of war. More recently, as mentioned before, the Houthis carried out attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, in retaliation for events in Gaza.

Both cases show a worrisome pattern of maritime insecurity. Within it, state and nonstate actors exploit maritime chokepoints to exert pressure on global energy flows as an instrument of war. Maritime routes represent the ideal setting for asymmetric warfare, as they allow for weaker actors to exploit geography, cheaper technology and economic vulnerability to inflict maximum damage. Whereas in sea or on land, narrow paths have always been the perfect spot for the few to successfully confront the many. A good historical example in this regard dates back to 480 BC, when King Leonidas’s 300 Spartan hoplites stopped for several days hundreds of thousands of Persian invaders, at the Pass of .

Current events in the Strait of Hormuz have become a perfect example of both the paramount importance and the extreme vulnerability of maritime routes. Especially so when there are no alternative routes involved, as in this case. Contrary to the closure of the Suez Canal in the 1960s and 1970s, which had an optional, although much longer shipping route around the Southern tip of Africa, the Strait of Hormuz presents no alternative. There is no other waterway, indeed, to go in or out of the Persian Gulf.

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