Tag: iran

• The Solidarity Debt

  When the decapitation strikes came, the Western assumption was clinical: remove the head, and the body collapses. Instead, Iranians who had recently protested did not celebrate—they rallied. This was not an endorsement of the Supreme Leader; it was an assertion of civilizational sovereignty. From Alexander to the Mongols, from the British to the Americans, invaders have misread internal fractures as weakness, only to discover that Persian identity, Shia mourning culture, and a deep distrust of foreign domination form an alloy, no missile can shatter.

  The West views Iran through the regime; Iranians view it through the lens of Iran. Survival, however, is not legitimacy. The people set aside grievances over justice, freedom, and economic despair to face a common enemy. That sacrifice was a down payment on a promise: We stood by you; now stand by us.

  The $300 billion the West dangles is beside the point. Iran’s true wealth is human—engineers, poets, women, diaspora—but trapped in a siege mentality that equates internal reform with capitulation. The regime’s paradox is cruel: to protect the nation from foreign domination, it has domesticated a form of internal domination that alienates the very citizens who just proved their loyalty.

  Consider Fiji. Tourism publicists have long known that our strength is not merely our coral reefs, but the living culture, warmth, and dignity of the iTaukei. Travelers return speaking not of beaches alone, but of the warmth of our smiles, lovo feasts, and genuine hospitality no resort can manufacture. Yet internal empowerment has historically lagged external recognition. The nation must learn what our promoters already know: strength lies in elevating its indigenous population, not sidelining them as a backdrop.

  The same applies to Iran. Its true potential is not missiles, nuclear thresholds, or regional proxies. It is the engineers who kept the internet running during cyberattacks, the women who organized neighbourhood defense networks, the ethnic minorities who defended borders they are often told do not belong to them. They are not subjects to be policed; they are the nation’s enduring asset. Outsiders—whether Western strategists or Chinese investors—already see their value. The regime’s task is to see it first.

  If Iran honours its civilization, it must recognize that its greatest threat today is not the US or Israel, but the gap between external resilience and internal stagnation. Post-war solidarity is fleeting. If not seized to address economic decay, social restrictions, and political exclusion, it will curdle into bitterness more potent than pre-war protests.

  Realizing Iran’s potential requires three shifts, all flowing from valuing its people:

  First, economic renewal—unleash the private sector, tech startups, and diaspora returnees as partners, not potential dissidents. Iran cannot rebuild on oil rents alone.

  Second, civic integration—the Kurds, Baloch, and Azeris are pillars, not minorities to be managed. True peace requires constitutional recognition of this mosaic, just as Fiji’s path to stability is through acknowledgement and entrenchment, not erasure, of its indigenous people.

  Third, a new social contract for women—they defended the nation while demanding their place. The regime cannot ask them to die for the flag and then deny them the right to live freely under it. Like Fijian women, they are the architects of the next generation.

  History will not judge Iran by whether it survived a foreign onslaught—empires have survived before. It will judge whether Iran used that survival to become a nation that does not need to suppress its own people to repel its enemies. The West’s colonial mindset assumes reform comes from outside; true reform must come from within, born of the same defiant spirit that just repelled aggression. Iranians are the nation. The regime must prove it belongs to them, not above them.

  Just as Fiji’s publicists grasped that our islands’ magic lies in our indigenous people, Iran’s rulers must grasp that its true strength lies in its own citizen who chose solidarity over fragmentation. The window is narrow. If the regime mistakes wartime loyalty for permanent acquiescence, it repeats the fatal error of every empire that misread its own subjects. But if it seizes this moment—making peace with its own people, recognizing them as its greatest asset—Iran will not just survive. It will thrive as a sovereign civilization, finally at peace with itself.

  That is the peace that matters. That is the favour that must be returned.

  2026.06.22

• The Iran-Türkiye Condominium: West Asia’s New Geographical Order

  The Fall of the Old Guard

  The post–World War II order is dead. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where Iran—by geographic presence and civilizational endurance—has survived the US-Israeli war and now firmly controls the Hormuz Strait.

  A decade ago, Western strategists could sketch the region’s power map with confidence. Egypt commanded Arab political weight. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE anchored Gulf economic might under an American umbrella. Iraq and Syria contained Iranian influence. Today, that map is torn up. The center of gravity sits in Ankara and Tehran, while the Gulf monarchies have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they neither chose nor can control.

  The events of the past three weeks have only confirmed this reality. The US-Iran framework agreement, signed on 18 June, represented not merely a ceasefire but a formal acknowledgment that American primacy in West Asia has been superseded. But we must be precise about who has superseded it—and who has not.

  The War That Backfired

  The US-Israeli war against Iran, tacitly supported by the GCC in late February, was meant to cripple Tehran. Instead, it accelerated the emergence of Iran and Türkiye as West Asia’s indispensable powers. A war for American deterrence achieved the opposite.

  Before February 2026, the Gulf states had leveraged hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration—technology, logistics, finance—that kept Washington invested in their security. But that model rested on a fragile assumption: that US protection would remain reliable and the Gulf could insulate itself from regional storms. The war shattered both. As Tehran retaliated against US bases across the region, Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint signaled that the US guarantee is conditional at best.

  Analysts warned that if Iran survived with even limited control of the Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf. After months of war, the regime stands. Tehran can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching drone campaigns—while Washington had no political endgame.

  The Only Axis That Matters: Iran and Türkiye

  Much has been made of Israeli alarm over a “Türkiye-Qatar-Pakistan axis.” But this framing confuses tactical mediation with strategic weight. The axis that truly matters is not Türkiye-Qatar-Pakistan—a coalition of a rising power, a US-protected gas emirate, and a subcontinent-focused state. It is the geographically ordained bipolarity of Iran and Türkiye.

  These two powers possess what no other regional actor can match: military depth, demographic weight, geographic centrality, and genuine strategic autonomy from Washington. Between them, they command West Asia’s northern and eastern arcs. They are the only indigenous great powers in the region.

  Iran: Survival as Victory

  Iran now firmly controls the Hormuz Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. It has shown it can impose direct costs on the Gulf. Militarily weakened by the US-Israeli offensive but diplomatically rehabilitated by the agreement, Iran emerges in a paradoxical position of strength. It has traded military confrontation for international legitimacy, secured the rehabilitation of its economy, and retained its regional network intact—from Baghdad to Beirut, from Damascus to Sanaa. The agreement has not dismantled Iranian power projection. It has brought Iran back into the international system while leaving its strategic depth untouched.

  The GCC’s restraint throughout the war now reads for what it was: a signal that they view Tehran as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder, not just an adversary to be contained. That is a profound shift.

  Türkiye: The Northern Pole

  Türkiye’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire, warning that instability in Iran would sharpen anxieties over Kurdish militancy, refugees, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and diplomatic interlocutor, Türkiye has enhanced its standing while avoiding direct costs. Its strategic autonomy—moving between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

  Erdoğan has made Türkiye’s position unambiguous. He declared that Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Syria had reached a point where it threatened Turkey directly, and called Israel the single biggest obstacle to regional peace. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Russia’s Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, welcomed the US-Iran agreement but crucially called for it to evolve into “a structural and lasting security architecture rather than a temporary period of calm.”

  That phrase captures Ankara’s ambition. Türkiye is not interested in episodic crisis management. It is seeking to institutionalize a new regional order in which it is a permanent rule-setter—the Ottoman inheritance reframed for the twenty-first century. Crucially, Türkiye has drawn a red line over Lebanese and Syrian territory, declaring that Israeli operations there now threaten Turkish security directly. Under the old American-anchored order, no such red line existed.

  Managed Bipolarity

  This is not a partnership in perfect harmony. Türkiye and Iran are rival civilizational powers with a long history of strategic friction. The more precise framework is managed bipolarity—two hegemons who converge sufficiently on the containment of Israeli expansionism to cooperate diplomatically, while competing for influence across the Arab world’s contested spaces. But on the foundational question of this historical moment—that the old externally-imposed order must be replaced by one reflecting the region’s own balance of forces—they are aligned. That alignment is sufficient to constitute a genuinely new architecture.

  The Coming Reckoning for the GCC

  The states that bet on the old order—Bahrain, UAE, and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia and Qatar—now face a reckoning. They signed the Abraham Accords and backed the US-Israeli war premised on American durability. Every premise has been shaken.

  Bahrain and the UAE are now exposed on multiple flanks: caught between an American patron recalibrating its commitments, an Israeli partner increasingly isolated from the new regional consensus, and an emerging bipolar order constructed without their input. Their most likely path is quiet hedging—softening public identification with Israeli positions, deepening economic ties with Türkiye, expanding back-channel contacts with Tehran. But the window for comfortable hedging is narrowing. The longer they remain identified with a receding order, the less leverage they will carry when they eventually seek terms with the one that is rising.

  Lebanon: The Proving Ground of Bipolarity

  Lebanon is the theatre where the Iran-Türkiye bipolarity is being tested in real time. Israel’s continued strikes on south Lebanon, even after the agreement, reveal the central tension of this transitional moment. Netanyahu, sidelined from the deal, is using Lebanon as the one theatre where he can still project agency. In doing so however, he is accelerating the dynamic that isolates Israel further.

  Erdoğan’s red line over Lebanon and Syria—declaring that Israeli attacks threaten Turkey directly—is an unprecedented assertion of Turkish strategic depth into the Levant. Iran, meanwhile, retains Hezbollah as its Lebanese strategic depth. The two hegemons do not coordinate perfectly, but they converge on a shared outcome: the stabilization of Lebanon as a buffer state within the new order, not as a perpetual battlefield for Israeli operations.

  For Israel, this is the core dilemma: military operations in Lebanon that once carried manageable costs now risk triggering a broader regional response that the new Iran-Türkiye bipolarity makes structurally coherent for the first time.

  No Plan, No Order—But Geography Has Reasserted Itself

  By launching an ill-defined campaign against Iran without a credible endgame, Washington accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Türkiye and the exposure of Gulf dependence on an unreliable protector.

  The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Türkiye-Iranian frontier, and in boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself.

  The only indigenous geographical powers with the strategic autonomy, military depth, and demographic weight to shape West Asia’s future are Iran and Türkiye. Their bipolarity—rivalrous but convergent on the rejection of external domination—is the defining structural fact of the region.

  The question is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it. The answer, increasingly clear, is that no external power does. The region is building its own order—around its own geographical poles.

  2026.06.20

• Beyond the Chokehold: A Call for Solar Sovereignty

  My wife and I had been discussing solar power. Retirement brings a certain slo-mo consideration to everything—there was always a reason to wait for tomorrow, next month, or after the next trip. Then the world intervened, and that slow deliberation was jolted into fast-forward.

  First came the Iran-US war. Then the Hormuz Strait effectively closed. The strategy was to strangle Iran’s economy—and it succeeded. But it also strangled the global economy, including ours here in the Pasifika. For small island nations utterly dependent on shipped fuel, the pain arrived as fast as the breaking news. Higher prices at the pump. Canceled cargo shipments. EFL, Fiji Airways, and our inter-island ferries burning cash they do not have.

  Earlier today, Foreign Minister Sakiasi Ditoka offered a glimmer of hope: global fuel prices have dipped to around US90–$100 range. But here is the cruel arithmetic of island dependency—he cautioned that Fijians will wait. There is a “lag time” between international purchases and local supply. While the world pays $83, we continue to bleed at the old rates until the delayed shipments catch up. We are always the last to feel relief and the first to feel the squeeze.

  To his credit, Minister Ditoka has been tireless. He travelled to Singapore—the origin of our supply chain—to secure assurances that Fiji’s shipments would not again be pushed to the back of the queue. He travelled to Australia, securing $30 million in budget support and discussing strategic fuel reserves in Geelong with Viva Energy. Talks are even underway with Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. These are the frantic, expensive shuttles of a nation trying to secure a lifeline it does not control.

  Yet reading between the lines, the truth is unavoidable. Singapore confirmed it cannot control global prices. Australia admitted its own reserve situation is challenging. And even if we build regional storage or bulk-buy with neighbours, we are still playing a high-stakes game of geopolitical whack-a-mole. A tanker in Geelong or a promise from Kuala Lumpur does not insulate us from the next Hormuz crisis. It merely buys us time until the next rerouted shipment.

  This brings me to Vani Catanasiga’s recent warning: our vulnerability to global fuel shocks is not merely an economic headache—it is a social justice emergency. Every lag day at the pump hits the families in our villages and settlements hardest. When the Minister asks the public to be “understanding,” I empathise with his diplomatic burden. But empathy does not cool a fridge or fill a bus tank.

  That is why, two weeks ago, my wife and I made our start at home. Panels on the roof. Batteries on the wall. A meter that now spins backward. The upfront cost was not lite, but we saw it as an investment in sovereignty. Because the sun has no lag time. It does not require a flight to Singapore for assurances. It does not fluctuate with West Asian ceasefires, and it never gets pushed to the back of a queue.

  Minister Ditoka’s shuttle diplomacy is admirable, and those $30 million in Australian funds are welcome. But imagine if even a fraction of that regional maneuvering—the flights, the memoranda, the storage talks—were redirected into subsidising rooftop solar for every vulnerable household. Imagine if our “strategic reserve” were not barrels in Geelong, but batteries distributed across our islands.

  Our ancestors crossed these vast oceans by reading stars and currents. They understood self-reliance intrinsically. Today, our version of that is far simpler: sunlight falls on our shores every single day, free of geopolitics. The Government will continue its necessary, but ultimately reactive, work to secure the tankers. That is their job.

  But for us—the families, the retirees, the households who feel every lag day at the pump—the only lasting security is the one we generate ourselves. The war will end. The strait will reopen. The price will drop to $80, then climb again. The tankers will come, or they will not.

  The sun, however, never cancels its cargo. For us in the Pasifika, sovereignty is not found in a diplomatic note from Singapore or a reserve in Geelong. It is harvested from the sky above—one panel, one home, one island at a time.

  2026.06.18

• Baghdad, 2003 – Tehran, 2026: The 30‑Year Dream That Became a Quagmire

  Sitting and reflecting in my Canal Hotel office in Baghdad in early 2003, I knew the war was inevitable. Over 150,000 troops massed on Iraq’s borders. Saddam stalled with weapons inspectors, but it didn’t matter. The war came.

  A colleague shared an Algerian newspaper’s opinion piece, translated by our UN linguist. Its thesis: Why War is Inevitable. The author toured the Middle East, dismissing each nation—Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia—with the same phrase: “nothing to write home about.” Then came Iraq. Oil, an educated workforce, two great rivers, a formidable army. The only country that could unite the Arab world against the West. Therefore, the West could not allow it to stand. The question posed: What would a post‑war Iraq look like?

  We learned in blood. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, ISIS born from the ashes.

  Now, June 2026. That same sinking feeling has curdled into bitter confirmation.

  For Benjamin Netanyahu, war with Iran was a 30‑year dream realised. On February 28, with the US alongside, he unleashed a full‑scale attack on the Islamic republic. He persuaded President Trump that regime change was achievable. At last, the existential threat would end.

  It has gone badly wrong.

  The Iranian regime is still firmly in place, still firing missiles. The Hormuz Strait is effectively closed. Iran has hit US bases and Gulf infrastructure—and survived retaliation. Hizbollah shells northern Israel, battles Israeli troops in Lebanon, and has forced over a million Lebanese from their homes. Israel is now bogged down in a Lebanese quagmire, on top of nearly three years of war since October 7, 2023.

  Trump now calls the shots—publicly saying, “I call all the shots. He doesn’t.” He has instructed Netanyahu, in abusive terms, to curtail the Lebanon campaign. The US president is working on a peace deal that would likely leave Iran financially stronger, with residual nuclear capability.

  Netanyahu faces an impossible choice: defy Trump and lose American weaponry and air defenses, or back down and look weak at home, in an election year.

  He has pursued a purely military solution—ignoring political and diplomatic dimensions. Assassinated leaders are replaced. Bombed populations fight harder. You cannot kill your way to security.

  The exiled crown prince, reconstruction pledges, calls for the Iranian people to rise… I have seen this script before. It was called Iraq, 2003. It ended in chaos.

  Now Israel is militarily overstretched, internationally isolated (the International Court of Justice is considering genocide accusations), and locked in a war that has achieved none of its goals. Netanyahu will likely face elections with Iran’s regime still standing, Hizbollah still fighting, and American support falling sharply.

  What strikes me most is the arrogance of repetition. In 2003, the West convinced themselves that Saddam’s removal would unleash democracy across the Middle East. Instead, they unleashed sectarian slaughter, Iranian influence, and a power vacuum that took years to partially fill. Now, the same delusion is being peddled for Iran—only this time, the United States is unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill. Trump wants victory without occupation, regime change without troops, and a peace deal that rewards the very regime he helped attack. That is not strategy. That is magical thinking.

  And what of the Israeli public? After three years of continuous war—Gaza, Lebanon, now Iran—exhaustion is setting in. The northern evacuation zones remain empty. Reservists are burning out. The economy is strained. Yet Netanyahu continues to speak of “total victory” as if it were one more airstrike away. He has silenced debate at home, branded any critic a traitor, and convinced himself that military force alone can solve political problems. It cannot. It never could.

  History did not repeat. It rhymed. And the rhyme is a dirge.

  The author of that Algerian piece asked what a post‑war Iraq would look like. We should now ask: what will a post‑war Israel look like after this 30‑year dream? I fear the answer will be just as grim.

  2026.06.08

• Borrowed Time – Tough Choices Fiji Can’t Keep Putting Off

  While President Trump insists “talks with Iran are going well,” the US attacked a fuel tanker near Kharg Island. Iran retaliated against targets in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And here in Fiji, we are beginning to feel the painful threshold of the coming fossil fuel crisis.

  Trump lives in a Washington bubble where words still matter. But Hormuz doesn’t negotiate. Oil tankers burn or sit idle. The only thing that will reopen that strait is an Iranian decision—not a White House press release. And certainly not an Israeli foreign minister’s spin about a war that Israel nudged the US into, selling it as a quickie. But quickies never provide any satisfaction.

  For Fiji and the Pasifika, this is no longer a foreign war. It is a domestic energy emergency.

  Our Pasifika neighbours face the same vulnerability. No regional fuel reserves, no strategic buffer. If shipping lanes are disrupted further, the entire Blue Pasifika feels the pain together. But Fiji, as the regional hub, must lead. Not with speeches, but with action.

  A major newspaper warned last month that the world is on “borrowed time” because of the growing energy crisis. Seventy-six countries have already taken emergency action. Fiji isn’t on that list—yet. But if we wait until we are, only damage control will be left.

  Global oil demand is far outpacing supply. Stockpiles are draining fast. Fiji has no real fuel reserves. Our economy is fragile. Our power grid already struggles at peak times. Already, families are paying double for bus fares. Market vendors are raising prices because transport costs have exploded. Small businesses are one blackout away from closing for good.

  Government must get off its high horse. The National Security Council (NSC) should now be meeting weekly, track global oil markets, and issue binding orders. Silence right now is negligence.

  Here is what the government must consider seriously—before the crisis forces its hand:

  1. Mandatory work from home – All non‑essential public workers should work from home at least three days a week. Private sector should follow. Every car kept off the road saves fuel immediately.

  2. Cut traffic aggressively – Alternate day driving based on odd/even licence plates; bus lanes on the Suva‑Nausori corridor with cheaper fares; restrict fuel sales for non‑essential trips if shortages hit; vehicle pool mandates for government fleets, including ministers.

  3. Planned power cuts, not random chaos – EFL must prepare load shedding now. Publish a clear rotating schedule in newspapers, on social media, by SMS. Example: “Your area loses power 8am–6pm Tuesday and Thursday.” Hard, but predictable. Hospitals, water pumps, and the airport must be exempted. Predictability saves lives and food.

  4. Government must lead by example – Every ministry: AC at 24°C minimum, lights and equipment off after hours, shift work to daylight hours. You can’t ask families to sacrifice while government lights burn all night.

  5. Four‑day work week for non‑essential sectors – Work four longer days, shut down completely on the fifth. No commuting, no lights, no AC.

  Outer islands and rural areas – Fuel shipments to Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Lomaiviti, Lau, Kadavu, Yasawa, and Rotuma could become irregular. Pre‑position fuel and essentials now. Every district needs a local emergency plan, not waiting for Suva.

  Tourism – Hotels must publish backup plans. Tourists will cancel if they hear of chaos. Acting now protects jobs and foreign income.

  State of Emergency – The mix of energy, drugs, HIV, and NCD crises now calls for a State of Emergency. Not military rule, but legal power to act fast: work‑from‑home mandates, driving limits, load shedding schedules, conservation orders—without parliamentary delays. We did it for COVID. This is just as urgent.

  What ordinary Fijians can do now – Start vehicle pooling. Turn off appliances at the wall. Freeze water bottles—if power goes, they keep your fridge cold for hours. Talk to your neighbours. Community preparedness is our secret weapon.

  Beyond individual action, consider the economic ripple: every week of delayed action pushes more families into poverty. The cost of diesel for fishing boats has already doubled in some areas. If we wait for a full-blown shortage, the price of fish, root crops, and imported rice will spiral beyond reach for thousands of Fijian households. Acting now is not just about lights—it is about food security.

  The war is at a stalemate. The ceasefire shows no sign of moving to the next stage. Negotiations are checkmated. Tit‑for‑tat attacks illustrate the chaos that will return without serious goodwill on both sides. Iran has geography and time. The US has the watch and its midterm elections.

  Fiji must act like it. We are living on borrowed time. The only question is: will our government make these hard decisions before the lights are flickering and the pumps are dry?

  Act now. Because borrowed time runs out faster than anyone expects.

  2026.06.08

• The Fall of the Old Guard and the Emergence of a New West Asian Order

  The post–World War II order is dead. What rises in its place will be shaped by conflicts still raging, diplomatic gambits still unfolding, and economic policies still being written. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where the Iranian regime—by sheer geographic presence and the endurance of a disciplined civilization—has survived the US-Israeli war and retains control over the Hormuz Strait.

  Less than a decade ago, Western strategists could sketch West Asia’s power map with reasonable confidence. Egypt commanded the Arab world’s political weight. Saudi Arabia and the UAE anchored the Gulf’s economic might under an American security umbrella. Iraq and Syria were containment zones for Iranian influence. Today, that map has been tossed aside. The region’s center of gravity is no longer in the Arab heartland. It sits in Ankara and Tehran. The Gulf monarchies that Washington counted on as pillars of a “rules-based” order, have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they did not choose and could not control.

  The war that backfired

  The US-Israeli war against Iran, supported tacitly by the GCC, was supposed to cripple Tehran’s power. Instead, it has hastened a slow-motion transition that strategists had been tracking for years: the emergence of Iran and Turkey as West Asia’s indispensable powers. Worse, the same miscalculation has diminished the Quad as a meaningful counterweight to China and accelerated Beijing’s rise as Asia’s pre‑eminent power. A war intended to restore American deterrence has done precisely the opposite.

  Let’s be clear about what was already happening before February 2026. The regional redistribution of power was visible. The Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—had leveraged their hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration: advanced technology, logistics, tourism, finance. That “Gulf model” offered a post‑oil future while keeping Washington invested in their security. But it rested on a fragile assumption: that American protection would remain reliable and that the Gulf could insulate itself from geopolitical storms. The war shattered both assumptions.

  As Tehran retaliated against American bases across the Gulf, the very facilities designed to shield the GCC became magnets for attack. Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively for fear of escalation, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint, born of necessity, signaled to every regional actor, that the American security guarantee is conditional at best.

  Western commentators warned that if the Iranian regime survives and retains even limited control over the Hormuz Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf states. After months of war, the regime has not fallen. Tehran has demonstrated it can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching sustained drone and missile campaigns—while Washington struggles to articulate a political endgame.

  The unintended rise

  The war’s most consequential effect has been to accelerate the ascent of Iran and Turkey as the region’s indispensable powers. For Iran, survival is victory. Despite relentless airstrikes, the regime has retained control over the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. More importantly, Tehran has shown it can impose costs on the Gulf directly, forcing a reconsideration of alignment with Washington. The GCC, through their restraint, have signaled that they now view Tehran not as a regime to be eliminated but as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder in any future regional order. That is a profound shift: the Arab Gulf’s long‑term calculation now includes Iran at the table, not just as an adversary to be contained.

  Turkey’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire and warned against steps that would destabilize Iran, recognizing that instability in Iran would immediately sharpen Turkish anxieties about Kurdish militancy, refugee flows, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and a diplomatic interlocutor, Turkey has enhanced its regional standing while avoiding the costs of direct involvement. In a multipolar West Asia, Ankara’s strategic autonomy—its ability to move between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

  The Quad’s quiet fade

  These shifts have not occurred in isolation. The same American resources consumed by the Iranian war have been drawn from the Indo‑Pasifika, with direct consequences for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Since his return to the White House in 2025, President Trump has refused to participate, leaving the Quad leaderless and degrading its geostrategic value. The downgrade from a leaders’ summit to a foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this week, was a stark indicator of waning US political commitment.

  The Quad is now diminished politically and strategically. Its erosion is not accidental; it reflects a deeper logic. China’s strategy of “managed equilibrium” seeks not to dismantle the Quad by force but to weaken its cohesion, lower its political profile, and encourage accommodation in Washington. As the US becomes preoccupied with West Asia and its European allies face their own pressures, Beijing’s diplomatic space expands. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri‑La Dialogue this week—calling for “partners, not protectorates” and warning that “the era of the United States subsidising the defense of wealthy nations is over”—sounded less like a reassurance to allies than a notice of retrenchment.

  China has been quick to exploit the opening. Where the Quad has stalled, Beijing has advanced bilateral arrangements—with Indonesia, with the Gulf states, across Central Asia—that quietly extend its influence without the confrontational rhetoric of a formal alliance. The war on Iran, as Chinese state media has noted, is undermining supply‑chain resilience across the Asia‑Pasifika and exposing the contradictions in Washington’s simultaneous pursuit of two distant theaters.

  No plan, no order

  The post–World War II order has come to an end. The war in West Asia has not merely confirmed that verdict; it has written the first chapter of whatever comes next. By launching an ill‑defined campaign against Iran without a credible political endgame, Washington has accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Turkey as the region’s gravitational centers; the exposure of the Gulf states’ dependence on an increasingly unreliable protector; and the quiet fading of the Quad as Asia’s preferred counterweight to China.

  The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Turkish‑Iranian frontier, and in the boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself, and the lack of strategic thinking in Western interventions has merely hastened its return. The question now is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it.

  2026.05.30

• The Civilizational Blind Spot: How the US and Israel Miscalculated Iran

  The war with Iran was sold as a quick decapitation—a replay of Venezuela, where a brittle regime would crumble under the first real shock. Instead, it became a strategic catastrophe. The US and Israel believed they were targeting a government. They discovered, too late, that they were confronting a civilization.

  Iran is one of the oldest, most resilient civilizations in human history. The Persians have fought wars for three thousand years, survived invading hordes, and revived every time. This insight—obvious to any student of history—was entirely absent from US and Israeli war planning.

  The False Analogy: Iran as Venezuela

  Weeks before the conflict, Netanyahu briefed Trump on a promise: a quick, easy war. Decapitate the leadership, the regime collapses, victory declared. Trump bought it. The premise was that Iran was a hollow shell like Venezuela. But Venezuela is a 19th-century nation-state. Iran is heir to Cyrus the Great and millennia of resistance. No invader has ever erased Persia.

  When decapitation strikes failed, Washington was surprised. Instead of weakening, Iran gained a powerful burst of energy. A civilization under existential threat does not send armies into hopeless battles. It strikes the global economy’s jugular: the Hormuz Strait.

  The Strait That Broke the War

  Iran had warned for years it could close the strait. The US and Israel bombed nuclear facilities while leaving this obvious lever unaddressed. Within days, Iran imposed de facto control. Oil prices spiked. Suddenly, Trump’s overriding concern—November’s midterm elections—became Iran’s primary bargaining chip. Iran is not waiting for a military knockout. It is waiting for an electoral clock.

  The Unraveling Alliance

  The US and Israel are no longer in unison. Trump, facing domestic pressure, desperately wants an off-ramp before November. Israel insists on finishing the job but cannot. This war is fundamentally between Iran and Israel. The US was dragged in by undue Israeli influence and, Washington embraced the Venezuela fallacy. You cannot decapitate a civilization. You can only bleed against it.

  Businessmen Negotiators

  The final insult: Trump appointed businessmen Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as negotiators. Their expertise is real estate, not Persian history or Shiite theology. They expected to out-haggle Iran. Instead, Iran holds the upper hand—because when a civilization feels existentially threatened, it does not negotiate from weakness. It waits. It plays the long game.

  As one seasoned observer put it: “Any other country would have surrendered from day one. Iranians didn’t surrender. In fact, they retaliated very strongly.” That is not bravado. That is three thousand years of muscle memory.

  Conclusion: The Cost of Forgetting History, Felt Even Here

  The US and Israel launched this war believing Iran would fold like a house of cards. Instead, Iran closed the Hormuz Strait, kept its economy afloat, and forced Washington to beg for a way out. The magnitude is undeniable: a civilization was underestimated, and the global order is paying the price.

  But this price is not paid only in Washington or Tel Aviv. Even here in Fiji—thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf—we are already feeling the direct effects, and we will continue to feel them long after the fighting ends. The closure of the Hormuz Strait has sent energy costs soaring. Imported goods, from food to fuel to manufactured basics, have become dramatically more expensive. Inflation presses down on every Fijian household. Our small island economy, already vulnerable to global shocks, has no shield against a war we did not choose and cannot influence.

  This should be a wake-up call. The era of stable fossil energy flowing through chokepoints controlled by distant powers is over—at least for now. It is time for Fiji to look seriously at alternative energy sources, as China has shown. Beijing understood years ago that strategic vulnerability follows the oil tanker. Today, China leads the world in renewable energy—not out of environmental idealism, but out of hard-nosed strategic, visionary calculation. Fiji can learn from that. What we lack is the political will to accelerate the transition.

  The Iran war has reminded every nation without its own oil fields of a simple truth: when great powers clash over civilization and empire, small countries get crushed by the wake. The only defense is resilience. And for Fiji, resilience means less reliance on fossil fuel. The Americans and Israelis miscalculated Persia. Let us not miscalculate our own future. The war will end. The lesson should not.

  2026.05.24

• The Student and the Master: Asymmetric Negotiation in the Iran Playbook

  There is a quiet irony unfolding in the back channels of West Asian diplomacy. As the Trump administration attempts to reassert maximum pressure on Iran, a different dynamic has taken root. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Iranians understand Donald Trump far more deeply than he, or his hand-picked emissaries, understand them. With the likes of son-in-law Jared Kushner and billionaire friend Steve Witkoff serving as his primary interlocutors, the Islamic Republic has found itself across the table from diplomatic Lilliputians. And for seasoned State Department veterans watching from the sidelines, the spectacle is one part amusement, two parts quiet horror.

  But the miscalculation runs deeper than personnel. America’s attempts to outsource pressure have backfired in ways that only further reveal Tehran’s strategic patience. First, Washington tried using Oman as a negotiating proxy—a quiet, trusted intermediary long accustomed to shuttling between the Islamic Republic and the West. Omani mediators, discreet and effective, had managed to build enough trust to keep channels open. Then came February 28. In the midst of active Omani-mediated discussions, the United States launched an attack without any prior consultation with Muscat. The Omanis were not merely blindsided; they were insultingly barbecued. A proxy’s only currency is credibility, and Washington spent it carelessly. That channel is now dead, another casualty of transactional impulsiveness.

  The Americans then turned to Pakistan. The logic is understandable on paper: Pakistan has its own complex relationship with Iran, shares a border, and possesses the one thing that commands respect in the region—an Islamic nuclear arsenal. But Pakistan is no compliant proxy. Islamabad dances to no American tune, least of all when it involves mediating with a neighbor that also happens to be a Shia-majority state facing Sunni-majority Pakistan’s strategic calculations. The Pakistanis are nuclear-armed, proudly independent, and deeply skeptical of being used as Washington’s errand boy—a skepticism forged since the USSR waged war in Afghanistan. More importantly, Pakistan understands what Iran already knows: in the current administration, there is an audience of one.

  That audience is POTUS. Not Senator Lindsey Graham, whose boorish, hawkish chants echo into an empty chamber. Not Kushner or Witkoff, whose real estate playbooks have no chapter on nuclear thresholds. Not J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio, however loudly they posture in press interviews. When Pakistan’s interlocutors sit down—whether with Iranians or with American intermediaries—they know that the only number worth dialing is POTUS’s. Every other voice in Washington is background noise. That knowledge alone, fundamentally warps negotiations: it means Pakistan will act not as a faithful agent but as a free agent, advancing its own interests, withholding its cooperation when it sees fit, and never forgetting that it holds nuclear cards of its own.

  The contrast with Iran is stark. Iran’s negotiators do not need to guess who is in charge; they have internalized that POTUS prizes deals over doctrine, loyalty over expertise, and spectacle over substance. They watched Oman get burned and learned the lesson: American intermediaries are expendable. They now see Pakistan entering the fray not as an honest broker but as another variable to be managed. And they understand that whether the messenger is Muscat, Islamabad, or Witkoff himself, the real conversation is not about enrichment thresholds or sanctions relief. It is about whether Trump can be made to believe he is winning.

  This is the heart of the asymmetry. The Iranians have spent decades learning to read American domestic politics, presidential psychology, and the gap between threat and action. Trump’s envoys, by contrast, are still learning that a handshake in West Asia, does not survive a tweet from Mar-a-Lago. The State Department career corps watches with a mixture of amusement and disdain: amusement at the spectacle of real estate developers and compliant proxies being cycled through like failed properties, disdain because the stakes are a nuclear programme, not a condominium.

  In the end, Iran knows how to deal with POTUS because they have made him the centre of gravity. He has not returned the favor. Until Washington understands that no proxy—whether a low-key Oman or a prickly nuclear-armed Pakistan—can substitute for disciplined, professional diplomacy, the pattern will repeat. Oman learned this the hard way on February 28. Pakistan, ever the survivor, will likely do the same. And the Iranians will continue to watch, wait, and quietly advance, knowing that the audience of one is the easiest stage to manipulate. After all, they have the time while the administration has the watch. And it is ticking towards the US midterm elections.

  2026.05.17

• The Fog of War and the Vacuum of Aims: Two Months of Confusion in the Gulf

  What began on February 28th as a thunderclap of coordinated American-Israeli strikes against Iran, has now dragged into a third month of bloodshed, reprisals, and regional chaos. Yet, more than two months later, a durable peace is nowhere on the horizon—and perhaps the most frightening reason is that Washington still cannot articulate why it is fighting.

  Back on that February night, the United States and Israel launched their war without informing their Western allies, let alone the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, who sit just across the water and have taken the full brunt of the war up close—from missile debris to disrupted shipping lanes to the economic strangulation of the Hormuz Strait. Now, 66 days into a conflict with no endgame, the prevailing whisper in Washington is that the Gulf should be grateful.

  Grateful for what? For being blindsided? For being turned into a frontline buffer zone?

  This is not strategy. It is arrogance wrapped in amateur hour—and the passage of time has only laid bare the rot underneath.

  Two months in, the most dangerous weapon in this war is not an Iranian drone or an Israeli bunker buster. It is the profound, paralyzing confusion over America’s ultimate aim. Is this a war to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program? A campaign to cripple the IRGC? A perpetual open-ended commitment to defend Israel, leaving America’s oldest Arab allies to absorb the shrapnel? Or—as daily headlines of stalled back-channel talks suggest—is it merely a tantrum masquerading as policy?

  The Gulf states have spent nine weeks asking a question that the White House cannot answer: What does victory look like? Without a coherent objective, this is not leadership; it is a bar fight where the instigator cannot remember why he threw the first punch. And when the brawl grinds on for two months with no exit strategy, the instigator’s confusion becomes indistinguishable from sheer incompetence.

  That incompetence now hides in plain sight at the highest levels of the administration. The Secretary of State, who is also the National Security Advisor, has effectively abdicated diplomacy to two real estate developers. Let that sink in: the world’s sole superpower has handed the intricate, bloody, and delicate file of containing Iran to men whose career highlights involve steel, glass, and closing deals.

  Diplomacy for a durable peace is not a real estate transaction. It does not reward impatience. It requires the gravitas to sit in a room for months, to achieve a tenuous ceasefire. And the wisdom to know that after two months of war without peace, the real estate approach has failed. The developers lack the patience for deterrence and the nuance for escalation management. They see “deals” where there are only dilemmas. And now, with the war grinding into its third month and no cease-fire in sight, their handiwork has produced the worst of all worlds: a conflict with no purpose, no timeline, and no off-ramp.

  The result is a policy of maximum pressure with minimum thought, leaving the UAE’s ports, Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, and Bahrain’s coastline as perpetual collateral damage in a war whose purpose shifts by the hour—or, increasingly, seems to have no purpose at all.

  The greatest casualty of this administration’s incompetence is trust. By sidelining the Gulf on February 28th, and by offering no coherent vision in the two months since, Washington has proved that its Arab partners are not allies. They are insurance policies—to be billed after the accident, but never consulted before it.

  For the GCC, the lesson is brutal. They have taken the full brunt of a war launched by others. They have endured two months of economic turbulence, missile warnings, and diplomatic whiplash. And in return, they are lectured about gratitude.

  If this is the new American way after 66 days of aimless conflict, the Gulf will not rush to spend its treasure defending a superpower that cannot explain why it is fighting—or, more damningly, whether it even remembers. The fog of war is one thing. A vacuum of aims is quite another. And that vacuum, far more than any Iranian missile, is the real threat to a durable peace.

  2026.05.12

• When Good Relations Are Worse Than Bad: The Trump–Netanyahu Trap

  There’s a dark joke quietly circulating among geo political observers: with two men like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, you can’t decide whether good relations or bad relations are more dangerous. After reading Julian Borger’s masterful pice of the Iran war fiasco (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/09/tensions-emerge-bejamin-netanyahu-donald-trump-alliance), I have reached an uneasy conclusion. Good relations are worse. Bad relations are just the hangover.

  Let me explain why.

  Borger’s piece is a devastating portrait of what happens when two transactional strongmen—both masters of populist grift, both allergic to institutional constraint—bind their fates together. For decades, Netanyahu played a long game: coax, flatter, and manipulate successive US presidents into attacking Iran. Trump, a man who views every relationship as a zero-sum extraction, was the perfect mark. Their “good relations” produced the worst foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War: a 37-day air campaign that failed to collapse the Iranian regime, closed the Strait of Hormuz, triggered a global energy crisis, and left America looking like a paper tiger.

  The tragedy is that neither man will admit defeat. Instead, they’re now trapped in an oscillating nightmare—sometimes coordinating almost daily, sometimes publicly rebuking each other, but never truly disentangled. And that oscillation, I’d argue, is the real poison.

  The case for “good relations” being worse

  Consider what their alignment enabled. Netanyahu fed Trump the fantasy that Iran was “an overripe fruit ready to drop.” He dangled Venezuela’s lightning regime change as proof that war could be “painless, effortless, beautiful.” Trump; already contemptuous of his own intelligence community, bit hard. The result was not just a failed war, but a strategic defeat that will outlast both men’s political careers. Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz. China and Russia are strengthened. America’s allies are hedging desperately.

  Good relations between a con-man and a grifter don’t cancel each other out—they amplify the worst impulses of both. Netanyahu got his war; Trump got to feel like a strongman. The rest of us got $150-a-barrel oil and a crumbling global order.

  But bad relations aren’t a solution

  When Trump finally realised he’d been sold a lemon, he froze Israel out of ceasefire talks, publicly scolded Netanyahu (“PROHIBITED” in all-caps on social media), and forced a truce that leaves Iranian power intact. On the surface, that seems better. It stopped the bombing.

  Yet Borger’s reporting reveals the flaw. Netanyahu knows Trump’s attention span is measured in weeks, not years. He knows that ceasefire or no, he can “mow the grass” later—resume strikes on Iranian proxies or nuclear sites once the president is distracted by China or the election. Bad relations just drive the coordination underground. The mutual dependence remains. The strategic failure is now baked in.

  What we’re witnessing is not a clean break. It’s a toxic codependency. One day Trump praises “full coordination.” The next he bans Israel from striking Lebanon. Neither posture is coherent. Neither restores deterrence or trust.

  The real lesson: oscillation is the enemy

  Stable good relations build disastrous wars. Stable bad relations at least produce predictable distance—allies adjust, adversaries calibrate. But the Trump–Netanyahu relationship offers neither. It lurches from embrace to estrangement and back, leaving US allies in the Gulf, European partners, and even the Israeli security establishment unsure whether Washington is leading, following, or fleeing.

  That uncertainty is more corrosive than any single defeat. It tells the world that American power now depends on the mood swings of two aging populists who have, in Borger’s memorable phrase, “screwed each other pretty badly.”

  So here is my answer to the question. Good relations are worse because they start catastrophic wars. Bad relations are merely the aftermath. But the truly dangerous state is the one we occupy now: neither together nor apart, just conjoined in failure, unable to admit it, and all too capable of lurching into another disaster when one of them needs a distraction.

  The only way out is to stop treating this as a personality problem. It’s a structural one. The United States cannot afford to build its Middle East policy on the back of a prime minister who manipulates US politics for personal survival, nor on a president who mistakes grift for strategy. Until that changes, it doesn’t matter whether Trump and Netanyahu are smiling or snarling at each other. The rest of us will pay the price either way.

  2026.05.11