Pakistan should honor its defense commitments to Saudi Arabia through strictly defensive cooperation and protection of maritime commerce, while avoiding offensive military action against the Houthis that could drag Islamabad into a wider Middle Eastern conflict, alienate Iran, and deepen its domestic and strategic vulnerabilities. The Makkah Joint Defense Agreement between Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi […]

Donald Trump has set a political deadline for ending the war with Iran: immediately after the US midterm elections. On September 9, he linked that prediction to allegations that Tehran was trying to influence the vote. But what will change on the battlefield or at the negotiating table after the election that cannot change before […]

What were supposed to be moments of immense joy turned out to be the dance of death, brought by the harbingers of war and suffering! On September 1, 2026, in the coastal town of Kuhestak (Sirik County) in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, a large gathering was underway to celebrate the wedding of a […]

J.B. MacKinnon files a remarkable dispatch from among the members of the so-called Ostrich Army, who convened last fall in British Columbia to protest the planned culling of 300 or so birds following an H5N1 outbreak. The plight of the birds and the various claims made in their defense—that their antibodies could yield a cure for bird flu or COVID-19, for instance—are intriguing enough on their own. But it’s MacKinnon’s study of the Ostrich Army itself that helps this story take flight (even if the subjects at its center cannot). As helicopters pass overhead and a suspected kill pen mysteriously catches fire, suspicion mounts among the troops, and interpretations diverge. A genuinely surprising portrait of a loose, wayward movement, delivered with peak dramatic tension.

This was the Ostrich Army way: every event called for interpretation, an attempt to see through to hidden endgames. “One thing with black magic,” one camper would later say to me, “is they tell you what they’re going to do before they do it.” And so, at first light, when firefighters had won the day and the smoke cleared to reveal the ostrich flock still standing, the sight didn’t lead to any reconsideration of the night’s theories of clandestine slaughter. The Army simply moved on, hoping to make better sense of the next move, or the one after that. The birds really could die this day.

As American troops face renewed danger in the Middle East, with Iran striking U.S. positions across the region, President Donald Trump is busy contemplating something rather more personal: renaming the Strait of Hormuz the “Trump Strait.” Perhaps “The Trump Quagmire” would be more appropriate—not as a name for a body of water, but for a […]

Even as Americans commemorate the pain of the September 11 attacks, at the same time, the Houthis of Yemen, under coordination along the “axis of resistance,” are taking absolute control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the entire Yemeni coast of the Red Sea. On Friday, September 11, 18 hours of warfare were enough to […]

Having provoked a new round of conflict with the Yemeni Houthis, Saudi Arabia has landed itself in a dire situation. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the US and its allies in the “Islamic NATO” have so far taken up the role of outside observers. Essence of the Conflict The Shi’a “Ansar Allah” movement (the […]

In an increasingly unpredictable and multidimensional strategic environment, states can no longer rely solely on anticipating future crises; they must complement strategic foresight with national resilience capable of absorbing and withstanding crises they fail to predict. The Erosion of Strategic Predictability Technological advancement, especially in warfare and security, has made certainty an illusion. For much […]

The Western takeover of Syria, the weakening of Hezbollah, and now the capitulation of Hamas signal that Western/American/Israeli penetration of Iranian outer defenses is essentially complete. The only remaining coherent and unassailed bastion outside of Iran is found among the Houthi. There remains Iran itself, which has weathered six months of American and Israeli aggression. […]

In 2026, Lebanon finds itself at a historic crossroads. Fighting rages in the south, while political instability grips the north. The once “Switzerland of the Middle East” is enduring its most severe crisis since the 1975 civil war. Since the start of Israel’s large‑scale military offensive against Lebanon on March 2, about 3,700 people have […]

Even with the full-scale involvement of Saudi Arabia and its regional allies in the conflict against Ansar Allah, the fighting could develop into a protracted war of attrition. Any large-scale escalation could also trigger a chain of reactions that would be difficult to contain. Introduction In June and July 2026, conflict between the Aden and […]

The stabilization of the Iran-Israel confrontation could well be the calm before the storm, only this time the storm would be between Israel and Türkiye. In this context, the question arises: how would such a conflict affect NATO? Reasons for Escalation Relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv are rapidly deteriorating amid the war in the […]

The Strait of Hormuz ultimately places Trump in a dilemma of choosing between only two ways to lose: to forgo it and bury his career, or to go through with it and bury the hegemony he claims to be preserving. In any case, these two options are inextricably linked, so that choosing one is implicitly […]

For decades, Washington has justified its military presence in the Middle East as necessary to protect global energy security. American naval forces would safeguard shipping, military partnerships would deter attacks on oil-producing states, and sanctions would restrain governments regarded as threats to the US-led regional order. The promise was simple: American power would keep energy […]

The growing public discontent with the presence of American troops in Jordan, fueled by the regional conflict and Iran’s strategy, is putting the country’s government in a serious crisis of trust, forcing the authorities to choose between a strategic alliance with the United States and the internal stability of the state. Some 4,000 U.S. troops, […]

Israel’s strategy in the Middle East is changing: the country is shifting from a targeted response to threats to a systemic containment of all regional players capable of challenging it. After Iran, Turkey has come into focus. For years, Israel’s wars were presented as responses to threats. But as Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran have […]

The Iran War has exposed the limits of US military power and weakened its credibility as a global security provider, accelerating the erosion of US-led unipolarity while reinforcing the emergence of a more competitive and multipolar international order. The US President Donald Trump termed the US-Israeli war on Iran a mere “short-term excursion”. However, even […]

Oil prices rose more than 2% Monday after the United States attacked an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz and drew retaliation from Tehran, as the six-month-old conflict between the two countries showed no signs of easing. Brent crude futures climbed $2.21, or 2.51%, to $90.31 a barrel as of 0436 GMT. U.S. West ... Read more

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“The Strait of Hormuz cannot be separated from the broader regional conflict,” Rezaei said.

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The war in Iran began five months ago. Headline news about the conflict tends to focus on when and how it might end. In the meantime, the impacts of the conflict are felt worldwide—by drivers, farmers, business owners, and families. The Associated Press shares the stories of seven people suffering because of the war. Among them is Edgar Funelas, a jeepney driver in the Philippines who lives with his ten-year-old daughter:

He uses laundry soap—harsher, but cheaper—to wash his body and his clothes in the same motion, stretching what little money he has. Even before the war in Iran, he was living on the margins. A fire took their home and their belongings, forcing them to move into the brightly colored minibus he drove.

He’d hoped to be able to rent a room by now. Then diesel prices surged, and he could no longer afford the fuel to run his jeepney.

He hasn’t earned a single peso in days. There will be no breakfast. Hunger gnaws, but it’s the small rituals of privacy that he misses most: to be able to wash out of sight, to sleep behind walls, to keep his desperation from being laid bare.