This piece was originally published on Iranian attacks on Gulf vessels trying to transit via Omani sovereign waters have once again pulled the region into a tit-for-tat spiral of escalation. The US responded by cancelling the waiver permitting Iranian oil exports. Two nights of punitive airstrikes by the US air force against targets across southern Iran followed. Iran answered with ballistic missile and drone attacks on US installations in Bahrain and Kuwait. The reluctance o

As American power becomes more erratic and extortionate, Europe and the Gulf could help each other building strategic autonomy When empires decline, they rarely do so gracefully. They become fiercer. They try, with increasing desperation, to defend their pole position through ever riskier military adventures and ever harsher forms of economic coercion. Their rulers appear more erratic. They overestimate their own judgement, their country’s strength and the resilience of the i