The Middle East is no longer organised around sovereign states and formal diplomacy. From Yemen to Somaliland to Iran, competing models of power are reshaping the region around ports, networks, recognition, and economic pressure. This long read examines how Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, and the United States are driving a post sovereign order whose consequences are only beginning to emerge.
The United States is not short of power. It is short of closure. From Iran to Venezuela, Greenland to the Red Sea, Washington’s reliance on visible coercion is widening its obligations faster than it secures compliance. The result is not imminent collapse or world war, but a growing mismatch between reach, endurance, and political outcome.
When Iran shut down the internet in January, it did more than silence social media. It severed coordination, visibility, and momentum. This analysis explains how information control, Starlink disruption, and force on the ground stalled a protest movement many assumed was unstoppable.
Western governments presented satellite internet as a democratic safeguard against repression. Iran treated it as hostile infrastructure and moved to deny it. As communications collapsed, protest momentum faded. The lesson is strategic rather than moral: satellite internet is now a contested battlespace.
As Iran imposed one of its most comprehensive internet shutdowns in years, a different kind of connection began to flicker above the country. Starlink terminals came online, authorities moved to interfere, and a deeper truth about the limits of censorship began to emerge.
Iran’s unrest is driven by economic collapse and loss of confidence. But its sudden global amplification coincides with quieter procedural changes in Gaza, the West Bank, and key maritime corridors that are likely to outlast the protests themselves.
Is war with Iran Approaching. The choreography of logistics, diplomacy, and rhetoric suggests a narrowing path to confrontation that could reshape the region or plunge it into chaos.
Leaked Russian export tables suggest Tehran has signed a €6 billion deal for 48 Su-35 fighters, with component deliveries set for 2024–26 and aircraft in 2026–28. Meanwhile, Moscow quietly rushed frontline MiG-29s to Iran as a stopgap. If real, the pact deepens Tehran’s strategic dependence on Russia — and complicates the balance of power across the Middle East.