Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian

A place to share my thoughts and reflections

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Tag: israel

  • The Art of Losing: Sun Tzu’s Warning for a Region at War

    Imagine the ancient strategist, scroll in hand, peering over a map of the modern Levant and West Asia. Sun Tzu would not be impressed by satellite imagery or precision-guided munitions. He would be horrified by the calendar. In his view, time is the deadliest weapon—and it is the one currently being wielded against every major player in this conflict.

    Consider the Iranian theater. What began as a gambit for “decapitation”—the coordinated strikes on nuclear infrastructure and the elimination of Supreme Leader Khamenei—was meant to be a thunderbolt. Yet five months later, nearly 30,000 sorties have failed to deliver the knockout blow. Instead, Iran’s missile production has mysteriously rebounded, and the closure of the Hormuz Strait is impacting a global economy already gasping for air. The strategic objective has quietly morphed from “regime change” to the far more modest goal of merely “reopening the strait.” This is the classic pathology of prolonged war: when the price of victory doubles, the definition of victory halves. America and Israel are no longer fighting to win; they are fighting to stop losing worse.

    Then we turn to Gaza, where the quicksand is deepest. On paper, the IDF has accomplished what militaries are supposed to do—tunnels destroyed, commanders eliminated. But insurgencies do not obey paper. Every fallen militant is replaced by a brother or a son, radicalized not by ideology, but by the rubble of his own home. The deeper wound, however, lies outside the battlefield. Israel is bleeding diplomatic capital at a rate that no ally can replenish. Global public opinion has shifted seismically, and the very alliances that guarantee Israel’s long-term survival are fraying. Sun Tzu taught that the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting—not out of mercy, but out of pragmatism. A victory that costs you your international legitimacy and drains your reserves is not a victory; it is a pyrrhic lease on temporary security.

    But it is the latest front—the West Bank—that troubles me most. Opening a second internal front while the IDF is already overstretched is not a military move; it is a strategic confession. The West Bank is not Gaza. It is a densely woven tapestry of civilian life and fragile governance, where people are watching their neighbors in the strip and drawing their own conclusions. By expanding operations there, Israel risks converting passive non-combatants into active fighters, extending the conflict indefinitely. Sun Tzu explicitly warned against besieging walled cities without a clear exit strategy; doing so while simultaneously fighting in Gaza and monitoring a volatile Iran is the strategic equivalent of bleeding out from a dozen small cuts.

    What haunts me about this moment is the collective refusal to admit the arithmetic. No nation—not the United States, not Israel, not Iran—is emerging from this triangle stronger than when it entered. Treasuries are emptier, arsenals are thinner, reputations are tarnished, and the next generation of adversaries is being forged in the very fires meant to destroy the current one.

    Sun Tzu’s greatest lesson was never about how to fight well—it was about knowing when not to. Victory is only valuable if you have a kingdom left to rule when the dust settles. Today, in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the Persian Gulf, everyone is winning the tactical battles. But step back, look at the horizon, and ask honestly: who is winning the war?

    The silence, me thinks, is the answer.

  • Trump’s Double Defeat—And the New Axis Rising in Its Wake

    Look at these two screenshots below side-by-side, and you witness the unraveling of American regional diplomacy in real-time. One headline this morning, from the Washington Post, captures a defiant ally. The other, from the New York Times, captures an emboldened adversary. Yet the most profound message lies not in what the US is losing—but in what the region is building to replace it, and who is filling the vacuum.

    Consider Gaza first. The WaPo image tells us Netanyahu has publicly shredded the president’s prized “Board of Peace” plan. “Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” the prime minister declared, rejecting simultaneous Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal. For a president who markets himself as the ultimate dealmaker, this is mutiny. If Washington cannot compel its closest regional ally to sign off on its own blueprint, trust in US guarantees evaporates.

    Now flip to the Hormuz Strait. The NY Times screenshot exposes Iran’s calculated leverage. Tehran is “holding firm,” using geography to force Washington back toward a June framework—conceding on frozen assets, sanctions, and naval blockades just to get oil flowing. The US is not leading; it is being herded toward terms it previously resisted. This is not brinkmanship; it is a masterclass in exploiting American retreat.

    Enter the Trilateral Hedge

    This is precisely where the new Pakistan-Saudi Arabia-Türkiye agreement enters the frame. Announced amid these very crises, this trilateral security and economic pact is the region’s explicit vote of no confidence in American reliability. Riyadh, deeply unsettled by Washington’s impotence in both Gaza and the Gulf, is actively diversifying its defense partnerships. Ankara sees a chance to lead a Sunni-consortium independent of NATO constraints. Islamabad gains strategic depth and economic corridors, beyond its traditional Gulf patrons.

    This axis is not merely symbolic. It encompasses joint military production, intelligence-sharing, and alternative trade routes—directly challenging the US-centric security architecture. But here is the irony: while this pact is partly designed to counterbalance Iran, it simultaneously signals to Tehran that the US is no longer the sole gatekeeper. Iran watches these developments with quiet satisfaction. The very act of Riyadh hedging its bets weakens the anti-Iran coalition, giving Tehran more room to maneuver.

    Iran: The Silent Victor

    In this post-American West Asia, Iran emerges as the primary beneficiary. Without US naval dominance in the Strait, Tehran’s leverage multiplies. Without US diplomatic credibility in Gaza, Iran’s proxies gain legitimacy. And without a unified Sunni bloc anchored by Washington, Iran’s détente with Saudi Arabia becomes not a concession but a strategic triumph—a recognition of Iranian parity. The trilateral pact, far from containing Iran, inadvertently acknowledges that the region’s future will be negotiated with Tehran, not against it.

    Taken together, the dual crises and the emerging counter-alliance deliver a devastating verdict. In the Levant, the US is impotent. In the Gulf, it is reactive. In the broader Islamic corridor, it is being bypassed. And in Tehran, the Mullahs are watching with glee—their nuclear program advances, their proxies thrive, and their economic pain becomes Washington’s bargaining chip.

    This is no longer about Trump’s “maximum pressure” or dealmaking legacy. It is about structural decline. The screenshots are not just daily news; they are diplomatic obituaries. The US is neither the arbitrator of Israeli policy, nor the enforcer of maritime order, nor the indispensable partner it once was. In this new West Asia, adversaries set terms, allies act unilaterally, middle powers forge their own security arrangements, and Iran stands tallest among the ruins. Washington is left to pick up the pieces—ahead of the mid term elections.

  • The Strategic Trap: Why Zarif’s Vision Exposes the Bankruptcy of America’s Iran Policy

    For nearly five months, the United States has bombed Iran with the stated aim of neutralizing a regional adversary. Yet after thirteen consecutive nights of airstrikes, American intelligence agencies have concluded that the campaign is unlikely to force Tehran to make concessions. The war that was sold as a short “excursion” has become a strategic quagmire—and the administration, having once demanded “unconditional surrender,” has run out of ideas.

    Into this vacuum steps Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s former foreign minister, with a comprehensive vision recently published in Foreign Affairs. His argument is deceptively simple: ending the war and sustaining the peace requires a fundamental shift in regional security architecture. But buried beneath the diplomatic prose is a devastating indictment of US strategy—and a warning that Washington ignores at its peril.

    Zarif writes that the US and Israel initiated these conflicts assuming that sustained military pressure could either coerce Tehran into submission or trigger the collapse of the Islamic Republic. None of their actions—including unprecedented attacks on Iran’s political and military leadership—has forced Tehran to pivot. This miscalculation is fatal. The administration has sold the public a narrative of total victory so many times that the term has lost all meaning. If Iran has been “obliterated,” why is it still fighting? If the U.S. has won, why is it still bombing?

    Thomas Friedman’s recent NY Times column; which I shared below earlier, rightly grouped Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin as a triumvirate of leaders who all drank their own Kool-Aid. Putin convinced himself Ukrainians would welcome Russian rule and that Kyiv would fall in days. Trump and Netanyahu applied the same logic to Iran and Gaza. Each started a war of choice expecting quick victory; each discovered the adversary would not fold. Netanyahu has expanded the Gaza war to Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria—for him, forever war is the only option. The US, at least theoretically, seeks a negotiated settlement to pivot to the Indo-Pasifika. These objectives are incompatible, yet Washington prioritizes the counsel of Jerusalem over its own intelligence.

    Zarif’s most provocative claim concerns Israel’s role. “Israel has demonstrated repeatedly that it wants to sow chaos throughout West Asia to sustain its military dominance,” he writes. Israel’s systematic elimination of credible Iranian interlocutors, threatens to foreclose the diplomatic space that Trump’s dealmaking calculus requires. This is not mere anti-Israeli rhetoric; it reflects a genuine structural obstacle to peace.

    To break the cycle, Zarif proposes a Muslim West Asian Dialogue Association, to negotiate collective security, economic integration, and non-aggression pacts. The proposal is ambitious, even idealistic. But it rests on a truth Washington has stubbornly refused to accept: Iran cannot be bombed into submission. “Only diplomacy, a new peace agreement, and a new security framework produced by regional states and for regional states will allow the US to turn its attention elsewhere,” he writes. That line exposes the administration’s greatest vulnerability.

    Successive US administrations have shared the goal of reducing America’s long-term burden in West Asia to focus on the Indo-Pasifika. Past instruments—the 2015 nuclear deal, the Abraham Accords—were all aimed at neutralizing Iran so Washington could pivot. This war has done precisely the opposite. It has diverted strategic attention and redeployed critical weapons systems from Asian theatres. The pivot has become an empty promise. Zarif understands this irony: the US has trapped itself in a conflict it cannot win nor leave.

    The common thread binding Trump, Netanyahu, and Putin is arrogance—the refusal to acknowledge that the adversary has agency, resolve, and a stake in survival. That arrogance turns wars of choice into wars of attrition. Zarif’s vision may not be the answer—it is, after all, a proposal from an adversary seeking to preserve its regime. But dismissing it out of hand would be a strategic error. For the first time in this conflict, a senior Iranian official has offered a pathway that acknowledges US interests while insisting on Iran’s legitimate role in regional security.

    The question is not whether Iran can outlast US bombs—it will. The question is whether Washington possesses the wisdom and the courage to try something different. Until the United States recovers a sense of strategic humility and stops mistaking noise for leadership, it will remain trapped in a cycle of perpetual escalation with no exit ramp. Zarif has cracked open a door. The only question that remains is whether anyone in Washington is willing to walk through it.

  • The Illusion of Victory: Why Trump’s Iran Strategy Collapses Under Its Own Weight

    The definition of strategy is deceptively simple: patience, discipline, and an unflinching grasp of consequences. Without these, a policy is not a strategy; it is a performance. And when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the current US approach has devolved into little more than dangerous theatre—theatre that confuses allies, emboldens enemies and mocks the very concept of “winning.”

    A former colleague recently put it succinctly: Trump’s Iran policy has demonstrated the opposite of strategic thought. We see impulsive decisions that shift with the wind, discarded diplomatic channels and a blind faith in the optimistic assumption that dropping more bombs can change a nation’s civilizational calculus. Yet, as the past year has proven, war cannot validate what propaganda merely asserts.

    Consider the confusion now gripping even the administration’s most loyal supporters. When Maria Bartiromo of Fox News recently asked; in genuine bewilderment, how Iran still possesses the capability to strike Gulf nations and US bases after America had “obliterated” its military, she was voicing a crisis of credibility. The administration has sold the public a narrative of total victory so many times that the term has lost all meaning. If Iran has been “obliterated,” why is it still fighting? If the US has won, why is it still bombing?

    This is the dangerous echo chamber of body counts and strike tallies—a modern rerun of General Westmoreland and Robert McNamara in Vietnam. In that conflict, Washington quantified success by enemy casualties and sorties flown, convincing itself that arithmetic could substitute for strategy. It could not. Iran, like Vietnam, is fighting an existential threat to its civilization. When a nation believes its very survival is at stake, no amount of massive ordnance will alter its stance. Bombing only hardens the resolve; it does not change the strategic calculus of a regime that views surrender as extinction.

    The tragedy is that President Trump walked into this trap with his eyes wide open, listening to the wrong voices. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will undoubtedly arrive in Washington with a blunt message: “You have threatened a massive strike. Now carry it out, or Iran will call your bluff, and the ‘TACO’ label—talk and cave—will become your legacy.” But this is precisely how the president fell for this war in the first place—by prioritizing the counsel of a foreign leader over the sober assessments of his own military and intelligence officials.

    Netanyahu’s strategic interests are not synonymous with America’s. He views Iran through the lens of Israel’s immediate security, which is understandable. But US strategy must be global and sustainable, not a subcontractor for regional vendettas. By outsourcing decision-making to Jerusalem rather than the Pentagon, the president has transformed a geopolitical challenge into a personal vanity project.

    The president’s compulsion for public pronouncements has only exacerbated the damage. Strategy thrives in silence; it dies on social media. By telegraphing every move, every threat and every frustration, the administration has surrendered the element of surprise and ceded the narrative to Tehran. Iran’s leadership knows that the bluster is louder than the bombs. They have learned to wait Washington out, understanding that America’s attention span is shorter than their missile range.

    Now, the United States is left with an uncomfortable truth: the president has run out of ideas. He has applied maximum pressure without a maximum plan. He has bombed his way to a stalemate and declared it a victory so many times that even his own base is beginning to doubt the scoreboard.

    Strategy requires patience—the willingness to endure stalemate while building a coalition. It requires discipline—the restraint to keep your powder dry and your options open. And it requires a clear understanding of consequences—the wisdom to know that military force is a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, and that even a scalpel leaves scars that can last for generations.

    Trump’s approach to Iran has demonstrated the opposite of all these virtues. Until the United States recovers a sense of strategic humility—and stops mistaking noise for leadership—it will remain trapped in a cycle of perpetual escalation with no exit ramp. The question is not whether Iran can outlast US bombs; it is whether America has the wisdom to realize it is bombing itself into irrelevance.

  • Five Months In, and Still No Answer to the Only Question That Matters

    A war that was supposed to last four to six weeks is now in its fifth month. Nightly bombings. Iranian drones striking US bases across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Syria. Seventeen US service members dead. Brent crude again above $90 a barrel. And still, no end in sight.

    This is not how it was supposed to go. On March 10, Trump declared at a military ceremony: “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks”. By July, that prediction had become a cruel joke. The war has now dragged on for nearly five months, with no end in sight.

    The administration has tried three strategies so far: regime change, relentless bombardment, then diplomacy. Each has come up short. Trump declared victory, signed a ceasefire, declared it “over,” bombed again, floated a 20% toll on ships using the Strait—then reversed within 24 hours. Trump appears to have put himself in a box.

    The administration’s stated aims—regime change in Tehran, ending Iran’s nuclear program, curbing its military, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz—remain unachieved. The Strait was open to free navigation before the war. Now it is a battleground. Iran has effectively closed it to shipping traffic, and Trump is fighting to restore a status quo that existed before he started the war.

    Meanwhile, the conflict has expanded dangerously. On July 17, Iran launched attacks across the Gulf region, targeting US military sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Oman and Iraq. Two US service members were killed and one remains missing after Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks in Jordan. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei declared that America’s “repeated breaches” of the ceasefire had “laid bare a fundamental truth: the signature of the US president is utterly worthless and devoid of credibility”.

    Trump’s latest gambit—a 20% fee on all vessels transiting the Strait—lasted all of 24 hours. He abandoned it the following day. This is not strategy. This is flailing.

    Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney offered a grim assessment: “The war will continue now until the Iranians don’t want to continue in hostilities”. In other words, the end is not in American hands. It is in Tehran’s. And Tehran shows no sign of relenting.

    I learned this lesson in Afghanistan in 2009, sitting in a NATO military meeting chaired by General Stanley McChrystal. Watching American officials speak with arrogant condescension about Afghan army efforts, it became crystal clear to me: the Afghans would win that war. Not because they were stronger, but because resentment builds. The “green-on-blue” attacks started shortly after. The rest, as we all know, is history.

    The parallels are unsettling. America’s Gulf allies publicly distanced themselves before the war even began. Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan have all come under Iranian fire, caught in a crossfire they never asked for. The joint investigations and statements of solidarity continue, but the trust is fraying.

    Now, five months in, the same question haunts us: What is the endgame? POTUS still hasn’t answered. And until he does, every bomb, every death, every escalation is just more evidence that he is making this up as he goes. The Strait that was open before the war is now a war zone. The nuclear program he vowed to stop is still there. The regime he promised to topple is still standing.

    Trump may be reluctant to escalate given the war’s unpopularity, rising energy prices, and the risks to US forces. His approval rating has fallen to 34%, returning to the lowest level of his second term. But backing down in the face of Iranian defiance could add to Tehran’s sense of leverage. He is trapped.

    As one analyst put it, “This has turned into a war of attrition, and wars of attrition tend to go on for a long, long period of time”. The question is not whether Trump can start this war. He already has. The question is whether he can end it—or whether he has simply added another chapter to America’s long, sad history of Middle Eastern quagmires.

  • The Weight of Witness: A Narrative on the UN Gaza Report

    The documents arrived with the quiet authority of devastation. Three senior international jurists, chaired by a former Indian judge, had spent months compiling testimony that would challenge the conscience of the world. Their conclusion lands like a hammer on the glass house of international law: the Israeli military deliberately targeted children in Gaza—an act amounting to genocide—and in the West Bank, war crimes.

    The Children’s Calculus

    There is a particular horror in the mathematics of this report. The commission documented the deliberate shooting of children by soldiers, the systematic destruction of hospitals and maternity centers, the indiscriminate use of explosive munitions in densely populated areas. Seventeen medical workers who served in Gaza told investigators they observed a pattern: children arriving with single gunshot wounds, “suggesting that the shot was carefully aimed rather than incidental or the result of indiscriminate fire.”

    Consider the case of the 15-year-old boy in Khan Younis, holding a white flag—the universal symbol of surrender and civilian status. He was shot by a sniper from 200 meters away, a distance that demands precision. His brother came to rescue him and was also shot. Their mother rushed to save both children and was shot as well. All from .338-caliber rounds, all from relatively close range, all while displaying the emblem that should have guaranteed their protection under international law.

    Or consider Jad Jadallah, a 14-year-old boy shot outside his home in the Jordan Valley. For 45 minutes, he bled to death while Israeli soldiers stood by, refusing medical aid, firing warning shots at his mother when she tried to reach him. They placed a stone next to his body, apparently to frame him as armed. The IDF later claimed they provided “initial medical treatment,” but the commission’s evidence tells a different story.

    The Architecture of Denial

    The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s response follows a familiar pattern: dismiss the report as “propaganda,” a “libelous sham,” a document lacking “credible verification.” The ministry invoked “modern blood libels”—a term that carries the weight of centuries of antisemitic persecution—to deflect attention from the commission’s meticulous documentation.

    This is not the first time Israel will vehemently disagree with an internationally staffed and issued report. The pattern is predictable: challenge the mandate, question the motives, dismiss the methodology. But the days of gaslighting are behind us. The commission interviewed victims, families, health care workers, and lawyers. They reviewed medical records. They documented specific incidents with specific dates and specific wounds. The evidence is not abstract; it is written in the bodies of children.

    The Framework of Intent

    What transforms these acts from war crimes to genocide is the pattern. The commission found that the destruction of hospitals, schools, and maternity centers—the very infrastructure of Palestinian future—reflects a strategy to destroy the future of Palestinians. When Israeli forces continued targeting children even after a ceasefire was reached in October, the commission saw confirmation of genocidal intent.

    This is the critical legal distinction: not every atrocity constitutes genocide. Genocide requires specific intent—a deliberate, systematic effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The commission argues that Israel’s actions, particularly those affecting children, demonstrate such intent. By systematically eliminating the young, Israel is attempting to destroy the Palestinian future itself.

    The term “genocide” carries enormous weight, and it is not deployed lightly by international jurists. But a growing number of genocide experts—including Israeli scholars and human rights organizations—have echoed this finding. The Israeli government’s strenuous denials notwithstanding, the legal consensus is shifting.

    The Culture of Impunity

    Christopher Sidoti, the former Australian human rights commissioner and member of the UN commission, posed questions that cut to the heart of this tragedy:

    “What kind of people are your soldiers, who would allow a 14-year-old child to bleed to death over a 45-minute period? What kind of people are your military leaders that would inculcate a culture that soldiers feel free to do this? What kind of people are your leaders when they give orders, they give statements, that encourage this kind of conduct?”

    The questions are devastating because they point not to isolated incidents but to a systematic culture. When soldiers can shoot a child holding a white flag from 200 meters away, when they can run a tank over a wounded 16-year-old, when they can watch a boy bleed to death for 45 minutes—these are not the actions of rogue individuals. They are the manifestations of institutionalized impunity.

    The commission’s most radical conclusion is this: “Anyone who has served in the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza since October 2023 must be considered a suspect for the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.”

    This is not rhetorical excess. It is a legal judgment based on evidence—and it demands a response beyond diplomatic condemnation.

    The World That Watches

    For years, the international community has expressed “deep concern” and issued “strong condemnations.” The commission argues—and the weight of evidence supports—that such responses are no longer sufficient. The phrase “We must move beyond” is not a suggestion; it is an indictment of the world that has watched these events unfold.

    Israel and its allies will argue that this report is biased, that it ignores Hamas’s atrocities, that it fails to acknowledge the complexity of urban warfare. The Israeli Foreign Ministry claims the report “actively conceals clear evidence of terrorist atrocities” and overlooks crimes committed against Israeli children.

    These arguments have force—no conflict can be reduced to a single narrative of victimhood. But they do not erase the evidence documented by the commission. The deaths of Israeli children do not justify the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children. The atrocities of Hamas do not transform Israeli war crimes into legitimate acts of self-defense.

    The Unfinished Reckoning

    We are at a moment of historical reckoning. The UN commission has done its work; it has documented, it has analyzed, it has concluded. Now international institutions must act. The commission has called on international bodies to hold Israeli officials accountable.

    But accountability cannot stop at government officials. Sidoti’s pointed questions extend to all of us who have watched, who have expressed concern, who have issued condemnations, who have moved on to the next headline. What kind of people are we, who allow such acts to continue?

    The answer to that question will be written not in reports but in actions. The commission has done its part. The rest is up to the world.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.