As Trump waged a war he could not end, Gulf states closed ranks, revived diplomacy with Tehran and prevented a wider regional crisis [originally published at MEE] For 30 years, the Gulf monarchies rested their security on a single assumption: that the United States would keep them safe. The war that US President Donald Trump and Israel waged against Iran has buried that assumption. The American bases scattered across the Gulf did not shield states from a conflict they never c

The UAE must abandon the illusion of strategic exceptionalism, and rebuild its autonomy through a collective Gulf security order [Article was originally published by MEE] The United Arab Emirates has spent two decades trying to escape the ordinary fate of small states through the network power of hyper-connectivity. It built ports, bought influence, cultivated militias, courted Washington, hedged with Moscow and Beijing, and projected the image of a country too nimble, too w

The Iranian and Israeli attacks on Qatar in June and September this year, respectively, signify a profound shift in the Gulf's security...