The Long Shadow of the Iran War: Trump’s Most Consequential Foreign Policy Mistake

A coalition of Sunni regional powers to contain both a resurgent Iran and an increasingly aggressive Israel seems indeed to be the most logical consequence of that war. Although it remains to be seen how well its members will be able to work with each other, particularly since Saudi Arabia and Turkey will likely both want to be the leaders of that coalition. No country has ever been powerful enough to dominate the whole of the Middle East in the last few centuries, not even Turkey did in its Ottoman Empire glory days, and I don’t think it will change now.

What I don’t understand is what the hell is the strategy of the UAE ? Making enemies of both Iran and Saudi Arabia when they are a much smaller and weaker country stuck between both doesn’t seem smart no matter how I look at it. And I doubt that building a military alliance with Israel is enough to compensate for that. It also already looks like the UAE discreetly made a backroom deal with Iran to no longer get attacked in that war, reportedly paying them billions of dollars in exchange, so that alliance now seems fragile at best.