Two Weeks That Shook the Middle-East

 

(And Why Washington Can’t Walk Away)

1. A 2,000-km drone punch
   On Tuesday the Houthis did it again: two cheap drones flew the length of the Arabian Peninsula, slipped through overlapping Israeli and American air-defences and slammed into two targets in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat.
   Tel Aviv imposed an almost total news blackout, but smartphones are faster than censors: videos of panicked families sprinting for shelters went viral, and a leaked hospital tally says more than twenty people were admitted, several in serious condition.
2. The blame game that broke the Sunni firewall
   Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s first reaction was the usual “their leaders are dead men walking”.
   His second outburst was the one that rewrote the rules: he publicly accused Egypt and Saudi Arabia of helping the Houthis guide the drones.
   In the fractured politics of the Arab world that charge is radioactive.
   For seven years the “Sunni bloc” – Riyadh, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Amman – has watched from the bleachers while Israel and Iran’s Shia axis bled each other.
   Shia-Sunni hatred is older than any border in the region; the Abraham-accord photo-ops did not turn ancient rivals into friends.
   At most, the Gulf States hoped the Jews and the Persians would exhaust one another.

   
3. Iran’s paper empire
   I have argued before that Tehran’s “Shia crescent” is a low-budget empire built on the chaos America left behind.
   Iran’s GDP is roughly the size of Shaanxi province’s; its Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Yemeni clients are loyal only as long as the next payroll arrives.
   When Washington and Israel escalated from pin-pricks to systematic decapitation strikes, the crescent began to fold.
   Many analysts marked the scorecard: Israel up, Iran down, curtain falling.

   
4. The curtain rips open – Israel bombs … Qatar?
   Two weeks ago Israeli jets hit a site inside Qatar itself.
   Doha is the ultimate Sunni hedge: it hosts the largest U.S. air base in the region, bankrolls half the Arab media, and keeps talking to everyone from the Taliban to Tel Aviv.
   If the international socialite of the Gulf can be punched in the face, no palace in the peninsula is safe.
   The psychological shock was instant: silence is no longer insurance.
5. Riyadh’s nuclear panic button
   Within days Saudi defence minister Prince Khalid was in Islamabad signing a military pact that had been stalled for years.
   The deal is refreshingly honest: cash from the Kingdom in exchange for a Pakistani nuclear umbrella.
   The text is public: any nuclear warhead used against Saudi soil will be answered by a Pakistani one.
   Islamabad celebrated the contract – its first big diplomatic win since the May 7 cricket victory over India – but the real message is aimed at Tel Aviv:
   Israel has bombs; Pakistan has bombs.
   Israel has stealth jets; Pakistan can buy them too.
   The regional deterrence equation just doubled in size.
6. Washington’s invisible tanker
   How did Israeli F-35s reach Qatari air-space without mid-air refuelling?
   Flight trackers picked up a U.S. KC-135 that took off from al-Udeid base, orbited over the Gulf and then switched off its transponder.
   The strike happened minutes later.
   Donald Trump shrugs – “I don’t know anything about it” – but the logbooks tell the story.
   The United States did not merely green-light the raid; it pumped the gas.

   
7. The real Israeli mission statement
   Successive U.S. administrations have dreamed of a local hegemon that can police the Middle East on the cheap.
   The brief was never “just defeat Iran”; it was “make everyone else submit as well – Shia and Sunni alike”.
   Bombing Qatar was not impulse; it was advertising:
   “If we can touch the concierge of the Gulf, we can touch anyone.”
8. Arithmetic meets hubris
   Israel plus American air-power can dismantle the Shia militia network; it cannot subjugate 400 million Sunni Arabs.
   The gap between the dream – a compliant “Middle East frontier” – and the usable power on the ground is a swamp, not a bridge.
   Yet Washington will keep wading in, because the northern shore of the Indian Ocean is the hinge of world primacy.
   Lose the Gulf and the title “super-power” starts to sound nostalgic.
9. Epilogue: the empire’s muddy boots
   Two years ago, when Gaza first flared, I wrote that once America steps into this particular quagmire it will not step out.
   The last fortnight proves the point.
   The drones in Eilat, the Israeli strike on Doha, the Pakistani-Saudi nuclear handshake – these are not scattered headlines; they are the sucking sound of a swamp closing over an imperial ankle.
   Sunset tours usually end at dusk; this one is just beginning.