Orientul Mijlociu

Damascus, Syria – The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were dissolved by their commander-in-chief, Mazloum Abdi, on 25 August, bringing an end to Rojava, a 14-year-old experiment in autonomous self-administration in northeast Syria.

Abdi is to take up a new role as a special adviser to President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whilst the senior leadership will occupy various positions within the government.

On August 7, 2026, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the “Mecca Joint Defence Agreement” at the Summit of Joint Defence, which represents an emerging form of cross-regional security cooperation amid growing geopolitical uncertainty. It seeks to ensure “collective deterrence against any act of aggression”; the central question it raises is why three countries from three different geographical regions came together at this particular moment to sign it.

As it happens, we are the first generations of people simultaneously capable of engineering a genuine apocalypse and of averting it, perhaps at the very last moment. It seems to me that one of the reasons for the current, rather lamentable, state of affairs in the world owes much to humanity’s lack of experience in handling the power that has fallen into its hands.

The ongoing war with Iran is driving countries in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean to invest in new security alliances. This is partly driven by the drubbing Gulf Arab states have taken from Iranian missile attacks and by regional powers’ estimation that the United States may be less interested in underwriting the region’s security needs.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz responded to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s assertion that the Golan Heights are Syrian territory, saying the strategic plateau in northeastern Syria is an “integral and eternal part of Israel.”

Key Takeaways

• Iran’s deteriorating economy and apparent difficulties exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz may have contributed to Iran’s recent willingness to engage with the United States. Iran’s renewed engagement with the United States does not indicate that the regime has softened its negotiating position or is willing to make meaningful concessions on core demands.
• The Houthis are attempting to deter the United States and other Saudi partners from any external response that would support Saudi Arabia against the Houthis.
• ISW-CTP is considering five possible Houthi military courses of action (COAs) that the group could take against the United States or other Saudi partners if these parties increase their military support for Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, including by providing defensive air support or conducting airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. In a most likely COA (MLCOA), the Houthis expand their naval blockade against Saudi vessels to include vessels affiliated with the United States or other Saudi partners.
• The Shia Coordination Framework, which includes multiple Iranian-backed Iraqi actors, has reportedly approved some details of an unfinalized Iraqi government plan to disarm Iranian-backed Iraqi militias by June 2027. The Iraqi militias will almost certainly exploit certain provisions of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al Zaydi’s plan to retain their arms.
• Iraq’s most prominent militias continue to condition disarmament on demands that the federal government is highly unlikely to meet, which indicates that they have no intention to disarm.

On regarde le Yémen sur une carte et l’on voit un pays pauvre, fragmenté, ravagé par plus d’une décennie de guerre.

On regarde son PIB et l’on voit presque rien.

Mais on regarde sa population, ses montagnes, son histoire et surtout sa position devant Bab el-Mandeb : soudain, le Yémen change de dimension.

Key Takeaways:

Saudi Arabia built the East-West Pipeline in the Iran–Iraq War as redundancy past Hormuz, moving crude from the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea. A 10 September drone strike—Riyadh blames Iranian-backed militias in Iraq—forced a temporary shutdown. The piece says that hits about 4% of world oil supply. Rystad: as of late August, up to 4 million b/d on the line. Prior hits: Houthis at Afif (2019) and Iranian drones in the 2026 Iran war.
Bypassing Hormuz shifts risk to Bab el-Mandeb. The author says Houthis now hold more ground around Perim, Hanish, Mocha, and Dhubab. Hormuz flows: 21.6 million b/d in Q4 2025 to 4.9 million in Q2 2026; Bab el-Mandeb 5.4 million to 8.1 million; Suez/SUMED ~5.8 million. Aramco’s 15% SUMED stake is a backup, but much of that still needs the pipeline and Yanbu; ship size and pipe capacity cannot swap every barrel.
2019: pipeline hit, Hormuz open. April 2026: Hormuz squeezed, Bab el-Mandeb less constrained. September 2026: pipeline, Hormuz, and Bab el-Mandeb under pressure at once. Author: alternatives that share the same nodes are not independent risk. Count independent capacity under simultaneous hits, not the number of maps on the wall.

Key Takeaways:

The author rejects “why Arabs can never be democratic” as Orientalist essentialism (Said). Ask instead which institutions, rents, and power balances have so far blocked transitions—without treating 22 unlike states as one culture. Bellin and Sadiki are used to put discourse and coercive institutions ahead of an “Arab mind.”
Proposed mix, not one cause: Khaldunian asabiyyah recast as modern clientelism (Morocco’s “bak sahbi”); oil and aid rents that buy compliance without taxation-for-representation (Ross); Sharabi’s neopatriarchy; colonial security states plus Cold War and counterterror backing; cohesive armies that fear opening. Culture is not the independent variable.
Tunisia after 2011 is the counterexample: an Arab-Muslim society ran competitive politics, then reversed—proof of possibility and fragility, not destiny. Youth and digital protest can punch holes in narrative control but not replace parties and unions. Democracy, following Sen, is treated as a universal value whose fate is the distribution of power, which can change.