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The strait changes hands: How the Red Sea design collapsed into Iran’s favour

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Thomas Karat, behavior analyst

Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv spent years building to control the Bab el-Mandeb and the Horn. The chokepoint has now passed to the one actor the plan was meant to exclude, and the states it pressed have drawn together against it.

For a decade the southern approaches to the Red Sea were ordered around one assumption, that the states which counted on this water were those with the deepest treasuries and the closest ties to Washington. In September that assumption failed. Fighters of the Houthi movement, under Iranian direction, took the island of Mayun in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb and with it working control of a strait through which roughly 12 percent of world trade passes. The power that had spent eight years assembling the architecture to hold this chokepoint, the United Arab Emirates, was no longer on the coast to contest it.

The Gulf press reads the episode as a new Iranian front against the United States. It is that. It is also the clearest sign to date that the design Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv pursued across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa has yielded the reverse of what it promised, and that the actors now setting terms in the region are those who plan around national interest rather than around the guarantees of a fading order.

The Emirati doctrine

To read the collapse only as a Gulf quarrel is to miss the method behind it. Since the counter-revolutionary turn that followed the Arab uprisings, Abu Dhabi has pursued a consistent strategy across three theatres. In Libya it backed Khalifa Haftar against the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, where Türkiye emerged as the principal external patron of the other side, the sharpest earlier collision between the two projects. In Yemen it built and armed the Southern Transitional Council against the government it had nominally joined the war to restore, and it worked to root out the Islah party, the Yemeni movement linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders had found refuge in Türkiye. On the Horn it cultivated Somaliland and other regional administrations rather than the federal centre in Mogadishu. The through-line, as one Italian analysis put it, is that the UAE prefers sub-national clients because they let it weaken rivals and carve out platforms for maritime power at the same time. The two aims reinforced one another. Every client that undercut a central government also delivered a port, a runway or an island, so the map of Emirati proxies became, over time, a map of Emirati bases.

Those rivals are named plainly in the record. The Saudi-Emirati axis that formed after 2011 defined itself against Iran, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and Türkiye, and for years Riyadh and Abu Dhabi moved together against all four. Türkiye read the doctrine from the receiving end. Ankara accused the UAE of financing the 2016 coup attempt against President Erdoğan, and only later, when it set about repairing Gulf ties, did it curtail the activities of Islah figures on its own soil. What separates Ankara and Riyadh from Abu Dhabi is not tactics alone. Both Türkiye and Saudi Arabia, whatever their other differences, treat strong central states as the basis of a stable order, while the Emirati approach has repeatedly favoured the actors that hollow those states out. The Red Sea is where that difference became a fault line.

The design on the water

The maritime side of the project was never hidden. From 2018 Abu Dhabi built what one analysis called a circle of bases around the Gulf of Aden: Socotra, administered by some accounts as something close to an overseas territory; runways on the smaller islands of Abd al-Kuri and Samhah; a base on Mayun itself; and on the African shore, Berbera in Somaliland and Bosaso in Puntland. The stated aim was to watch the water and interdict Iranian weapons bound for the Houthis. Israeli strategy converged on the same map. According to reporting attributed to the Middle East Monitor, Israel had long been weighing a base in Somaliland to monitor Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb, and on 26 December it became the first state to recognise the breakaway republic, in language its prime minister tied to the Abraham Accords.

The Horn divides

For Ankara the recognition was a direct challenge. Türkiye has treated Somalia as a pillar of its Africa policy since 2011. It operates its largest overseas base, Camp TURKSOM, in Mogadishu, trains Somali forces, and casts itself as the guarantor of Somalia’s unity against the secession of Somaliland. Israel’s move placed it, in the reading of regional analysts, on a collision course with Türkiye. President Erdoğan called the recognition illegitimate and unacceptable and set out to rally Arab and Muslim governments against it, issuing a joint declaration with the Saudi crown prince in early February.

Egypt arrived at the same position by a different road. Cairo regards the Bab el-Mandeb as a strategic extension of the Suez Canal, and a senior Egyptian strategist has called securing the strait a national security priority, because canal revenue depends on the traffic that passes through it. When Ethiopia signed a memorandum with Somaliland in January 2024 to lease coastline for a naval base, Egypt read it as an attempt to redraw the Horn against its interests, and in August 2024 it signed a defence pact with Mogadishu and began sending troops and materiel, with plans that envisaged as many as ten thousand personnel for Somalia. Cairo’s interest runs past the canal. Its long confrontation with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has taught it to treat the Horn as an extension of its own water security, and the Somaliland question folded neatly into that older anxiety.

The pattern was consistent across the capitals. The UAE cultivated Somaliland and the sub-state administrations, while Egypt, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia placed their weight behind Somalia’s federal government. Warning that Israel intended a base on its soil, Mogadishu signed defence pacts with Qatar and with Saudi Arabia, and its president said an Israeli base would never be allowed. More than fifty states condemned the recognition, and the African Union and the European Union restated Somalia’s territorial integrity. What had been sold as a low-cost foothold hardened a counter-alignment, running from Cairo through Riyadh and Doha to Ankara, that stood behind the very central state the design was meant to erode.

The collapse in Yemen

On the Yemeni shore the design came apart faster still. In December the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council pushed into Hadramaut and al-Mahra, the provinces that run along Saudi Arabia’s southern border. Riyadh read the advance as an attempt to complete a separatist state on its frontier, and on 30 December it bombed the port of Mukalla, striking what the coalition described as an Emirati weapons shipment landed from Fujairah. The internationally recognised government gave the UAE 24 hours to withdraw, and Abu Dhabi complied. Within about eight days it lost Socotra, Mayun and the coastal outposts it had taken eight years to build, dismantling its own island infrastructure as it left. The coalition’s spokesman later accused Abu Dhabi of running a covert operation to move the STC leader by sea to Berbera and onward to the Emirates, a charge the UAE did not answer. By 9 January the council had dissolved itself.

The rupture between the two Gulf capitals was strategic before it was personal, and it left the anti-Houthi front without its principal paymaster and without the coastal positions that front had relied on. The consequences of that vacuum arrived within months.

The strait changes hands

The timing was decisive. Iran had been at war with the United States and Israel since late February, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was already disrupted. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter, had rerouted much of its crude through the Red Sea, which raised the value of the far end of the same route at the very moment its Yemeni shore stood undefended. The Houthis advanced through the summer and took the coast in September. They seized Mokha on the tenth, Perim the following day, the strait by the twelfth, and the Hanish islands within the week, ground the UAE had abandoned months earlier. The coastal forces that gave way were those of the National Resistance Front, part of the fractured camp the Gulf rupture had left without a patron.

That the operation served Iran as much as the Houthis is not seriously disputed. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that the advance advanced Iranian aims, with United States officials describing IRGC personnel on the ground. The Abu Dhabi-owned National reported that the Quds Force commander Abdul Reza Shahlai was directing operations in person and that fighters had arrived on a flight from Tehran. Iran’s object, on the Institute’s reading, is to establish the Houthis as the guarantor of passage through the Bab el-Mandeb, the posture Tehran has adopted at Hormuz. The provenance of that reporting warrants a note of its own, since the Emirati press has an evident interest in foregrounding Iran’s hand and passing over the vacuum Abu Dhabi’s own withdrawal created.

The geography compounds the point. The Houthi advance has carried the movement to within twenty miles of Djibouti, the state across the water that hosts American, French, Chinese and other bases, the densest concentration of foreign force on the Red Sea. None of it moved to hold the island in the middle of the strait. For Riyadh the effect is measurable. The Houthis have declared an embargo on Saudi shipping while letting other vessels pass, and Saudi crude loadings through the strait fell by more than a third in two weeks. Analysts reckon that a full closure of a waterway carrying close to a quarter of the world’s container traffic would place a comparable share of global oil and gas at risk. Iran’s allies now hold the Yemeni bank of the Bab el-Mandeb; the UAE and its partners retain the African bank at Berbera and Bosaso. The chokepoint has, in practice, been partitioned between two rival camps.

What Ankara reads in it

The lesson taken in the region is not obscure. A strategy built on the fragmentation of states and the purchase of coastlines, underwritten by an order that assumed American guarantees would hold, has left its chief author without the prize it sought and has driven the states it pressed into a common front. The clearest statement of how this looks from Ankara came in Harici’s own pages, where the former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy described an Israeli vision of regional primacy that depends on weakening and collapsing surrounding states, and named Türkiye as the country Israeli officials now discuss in the terms they once reserved for Iran. Levy was careful to add that Israel was neither the sole nor always the primary agent of state collapse, and that qualifier is worth keeping. The claim that Türkiye is a designated target is a characterisation, advanced by an interested party and serving Ankara’s own purposes, and it should be weighed as such.

What does not depend on characterisation is the record of the past year. The doctrine of backing sub-state clients against central authorities reached its furthest extent, in Yemen and on the Horn, and then it broke. The states that were meant to be fragmented drew closer together, from Cairo to Ankara. The power that built the ring of bases lost half of it in a week. And the chokepoint at the centre of the whole enterprise passed to the actor the enterprise had been built to exclude. For a region long instructed that security flowed from alignment with Washington and its partners, the year offered a different instruction, that presence without the will to hold ground decides nothing, and that the order which promised to keep the strait open no longer commands the coast. The powers that gained were those that never staked their security on that promise, and the map they are now redrawing runs from the Suez Canal to the Gulf of Aden without waiting on a guarantee from abroad.

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“Blue wave” fears at Mar-a-Lago: What will the midterms bring for the US?

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03/11/2026

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The US is heading to the midterms under the shadow of the Iran War. While the American media debates whether Trump will use nuclear weapons against Iran after the midterm elections, a more realistic tension looms over Mar-a-Lago: a blue wave.

If the Trump administration can wrap up the night having surrendered only the House of Representatives, I am certain Trump will frame this as a victory. In part, one might even say it would be. Amidst so much public discontent—economic troubles, oil and electricity prices, broken promises regarding wars—nobody could plausibly claim Trump had lost if he emerged from battle carrying the Senate on his back. In any case, it is hardly unusual for the governing party to forfeit one chamber of Congress in a midterm election.

Although expectations long pointed to the Senate either remaining red or coming down to a razor-thin outcome, the situation has turned even bleaker for the Trump administration over the past month. According to polls, Democrats are leading in every single neck-and-neck state in the Senate race.

Let me lay out the arithmetic:

Presently, Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority in the Senate. If the Democrats pick up three states tonight without losing any of their own, they reach a 50-50 tie, which can be broken by the vice president’s vote. Consequently, the Democrats must flip four states blue. For this cycle, Alaska, Kansas, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, and North Carolina can be considered the battleground states. Contests in Iowa and Kansas are particularly likely to be fierce. It is worth noting that Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, and Kansas has not done so since 1932.

Will the polls be wrong?

The accuracy of polling varies considerably from cycle to cycle in the US. In the 2024 elections, for instance, the forecasts proved roughly accurate. Even in 2024, however, Republican support was slightly understated in the final count. One should not automatically ascribe this to malice. While Republicans are generally strong in rural areas, urban Republicans often prefer to conceal their leanings in liberal settings. This complicates the work of pollsters.

It remains possible that the surveys are overly optimistic on behalf of Democrats. Nonetheless, the absence of Trump’s name on the midterm ballot demobilizes the Republican base. When the expected “red wave” failed to materialize in the 2022 midterms, it was claimed that Trump had lost his aura, prompting a search for new leadership. Tonight, too, Republican turnout may fall short of projections.

The road to 2028

Beyond determining the composition of Congress, this election carries another critical function: it will chart the course to 2028 for both parties. Although the Democratic Party has begun to attract interest due to Trump’s missteps, it faces formidable internal struggles, marked by both a leadership deficit and an ideological vacuum.

Following the 2024 debacle, as resentment swelled against centrist Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and the Clintons, a new current emerged on the progressive left. Spearheaded first by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and subsequently by Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, this 2026-model leftist movement dwells less on identity politics than its predecessor, striking Republicans directly at their points of vulnerability: the economy and Israel.

These two battlegrounds are the decisive factors in the 2026 midterms. Americans heading to the ballot box are squeezed by an electricity bill crisis stemming from the massive power consumption of expanding data centres following the AI boom, alongside oil prices driven by the Iran War and diesel costs tied to the Russia-Ukraine War.

In the first Trump term, an economy that performed well in its early years was derailed by the pandemic, costing him re-election. Now, however, Trump is being held accountable not for crises that developed outside his control, but for his own failures. He initiated the Iran War himself. He failed to honour his pledge to deliver peace regarding Ukraine.

El-Sayed and progressive leftists went before the public with promises to combat the cost of living and halt support for Israel, a message that resonated across the wider electorate. Yet, as in every election, what truly matters are the independents in the battleground states.

The Israel question

The Democratic Party’s mainstream establishment is uneasy with the party drifting away from Israel. Chuck Schumer, who could be regarded as the party’s leader, once even remarked, “my job is to keep the left with Israel.”

Yet centrist Democrats are currently avoiding an open confrontation with progressive leftists in light of their own recent failures. The pressure and dismissive conduct once directed at Bernie Sanders no longer seem tolerable to the party’s rank and file.

Dissenting voices persist, of course. For instance, Democratic Representative Haley Stevens of Michigan could not contain herself just days before the vote: not only did she withdraw her endorsement from El-Sayed, but she also crossed the aisle to back his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers!

Stevens faced fierce condemnation within her party, explaining her decision by claiming that “Sayed did not involve her in the campaign.” Those close to Stevens even suggested that she was pressured by her fiancé, who is Jewish, though she is not.

Radical Zionists like Stevens and Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman are attempting to hold the line against internal party transformation.

Another major consequence of this election will be the fate of this new progressive leftist current, also characterized as “Woke 2.0.” El-Sayed is attempting to defend an already Democratic-held seat, and he looks strong in the polls. Should an upset occur and he loses, Democratic hopes of securing the Senate would require a miracle, and the progressive momentum inside the party could evaporate overnight. Ultimately, with El-Sayed, this new progressive left faces its first true test outside major metropolitan centres.

Rubio waits in the wings

This election holds significant stakes for the quiet rivalry playing out within Trump’s cabinet. If Republicans suffer a devastating defeat, Marco Rubio and JD Vance, both jockeying for the 2028 presidential nomination, may find their ambitions dampened. Entering an election weighed down by the record of an administration widely judged a failure would carry severe risks. That dynamic brought defeat to Kamala Harris, who bore the burden of Joe Biden’s missteps. Rubio is a politician who avoids unwinnable contests; because he remains well regarded by the establishment, he can afford to bide his time.

JD Vance, on the other hand, made a sudden ascent through the ranks straight to the vice presidency. While he enjoys support from Peter Thiel and his circle, his backing among the party’s senior leadership is far thinner. Because he is vice president, convention dictates that the broader party will defer to his candidacy. For that reason, 2028 remains Vance’s best opportunity despite everything.

Lame duck

In summary, while the situation heading into the midterms looks grim for Republicans, it is hardly bright for Democrats. A persistent lethargy has hung over them since 2024. They produce few compelling arguments, scarcely raising their voices against Trump as they once did. The rift between the centrist establishment and the progressive left may well generate more friction than the turmoil among Republicans. Trump exploited this fault line throughout his campaign. Conservative media and politicians did not hesitate to target El-Sayed over his Muslim faith and his ties to the controversial Turkish streamer Hasan Piker.

Should Trump truly suffer a rout tonight, the incoming Congress seated in January will curtail his room for manoeuvre on international matters. It is still too early to predict the course of the Iran War, as the political landscape that emerges in both Israel and the US will exert a direct influence on its trajectory.

Ultimately, the fate of the war also hinges on the blue wave that may crash ashore in Florida tonight.

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What are Europe’s ignorant leaders failing to see?

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03/11/2026

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The European Union (EU) has reportedly reacted against the agreement reached between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which temporarily lifts US sanctions on Russian diesel. While Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, demanded that pressure on Russia be intensified to end the war, the foreign ministers of EU member states stated that sanctions targeting Moscow would continue despite the US decision.

While this report is striking for laying bare the ignorance of those governing the EU, it also demonstrates that, contrary to European perceptions, the US does not view the EU as an ally and does not care about its sensitivities. Clearly, priorities, goals, concerns, definitions of threats, and threat perceptions between the two sides of the Atlantic are starkly different.

What those who govern Europe fail to understand is this: neither is the US the old US, nor is Europe the old Europe, nor is the world the old world. Sadly, the EU’s rulers are blind to this plain truth. Clearly, the ignorance that is so deeply organized and institutionalized in academia, politics, and the bureaucracy in our own country is widespread in Europe as well.

Those who rule Europe need to be reminded of the words of my late, revered master, Attila Ilhan: “If only you had known a little political economy.”

At international summits and in bilateral meetings, European leaders unashamedly applaud US President Trump even as he insults them to their faces.

Yet this is not the first time in history that the US has scolded Europe; it has done so before. It was none other than the US that drove Europe from the American continent, declared “America for the Americans” (the Monroe Doctrine), and defined Latin America as its backyard. Indeed, they were the first to introduce the term “backyard” into political science. They maintained that there was no room for any other state in their backyard. Under the Monroe Doctrine, no European power, including Spain, had any place anywhere in Latin America. Only the US was to call the tune across the continent. And for long years, with the exception of Cuba, that was precisely the case.

The dictators, the presidents, the prime ministers, the chiefs of the general staff, and the senior bureaucrats were all appointed by the US. Coups, political assassinations, and conspiracies were executed or orchestrated by the US. To that end, a school was even established in the US in 1946 for their training: The School of the Americas.

The political influence of the US in the region opened the wealth of regional countries – be it oil, coffee, gold, or sugar – to plunder by US corporations. In the end, the peoples of Latin America were reduced to impoverished watchmen over bountiful resources. They were ruthlessly exploited by politicians elected by themselves, yet working for and on behalf of the US. For that reason, the US could never stomach the changing political climate in Latin America, nor could it accept losing in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras. It feared the influence of Hugo Chavez’s line across the countries of the region. It viewed China’s growing weight, trade volume, and investments in the region as a threat.

Because Europe’s current leaders view the US as an unshakeable ally, they fail to grasp what the US has done, including its actions in Latin America, and how the US actually views its own hemisphere, the world, and Europe. What is more, they are afraid. And because they are afraid, they cannot respond to the humiliating remarks about Europe made by Trump and his close associates, or to their contempt for Europe’s history, values, culture, and political understanding. They dread finding themselves in the predicament that Ukrainian leader Zelensky faced at the White House a few years ago.

Those who govern Europe do not know this: no one respects those who lack self-respect, and a leader as insolent, arrogant, egotistical, and untrustworthy as Trump will have no respect for them at all.

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Energy and electoral politics in Gagauzia: the promise of Russian gas through Türkiye’s image

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03/11/2026

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Dr. Violeta Stratan İlbasmış, lecturer

A few weeks before the presidential election scheduled for 15 November 2026 in Gagauzia, the promise of cheap natural gas is returning to the region’s political discourse. This time, the message in question is being linked to Türkiye, the TurkStream natural gas pipeline, and the possibility of procuring gas under more favourable terms. Beyond an economic pledge, this initiative raises a geopolitical question: How can Türkiye’s image be used to bolster Russia’s interests in the Republic of Moldova?

An electoral promise with geopolitical dimensions

Fiodor Gagauz, the candidate for the presidency of Gagauzia supported by the Socialist Party, announced on 21 October that he had been invited to the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum held in Istanbul on 22–23 October 2026. According to his statement, his son Dmitri Gagauz was to attend the event and discuss with Turkish partners the possibility of allocating a quota for supplying natural gas to Gagauzia under more advantageous conditions via the TurkStream pipeline.

This initiative comes at a time when Igor Dodon, leader of the Socialist Party and former president of the Republic of Moldova, announced that the socialists had reached an agreement with Russia regarding cheaper natural gas, and that a company was being sought to transport the gas to the border of the Republic of Moldova. To date, however, public statements lack sufficient detail regarding a concrete contract, the final price of the gas, transport costs, or actual delivery terms.

Türkiye: an image capable of lending credibility to Russian gas

Türkiye is a major regional actor and an economic partner to many countries, including the Republic of Moldova. It also plays a strategic role in the transit of Russian gas across the Black Sea via the TurkStream pipeline. This standing provides a concrete and credible basis for discussions concerning energy routes. In political communications, however, Türkiye’s image can serve a purpose extending well beyond the mere promotion of a transit route.

Associating the promise of cheap Russian gas with Türkiye can make the initiative more persuasive to the public: Russia is presented as the supplier of an affordable resource, and Türkiye as the regional partner capable of facilitating access to it. Thus, the image of a state with multifaceted economic and diplomatic ties can contribute to legitimizing a political message that ultimately promotes reliance on Russian gas.

From a geopolitical perspective, Russia seeks to maintain its influence in the Republic of Moldova and keep alive the notion that dependency on Russian energy sources can yield economic benefits. Particularly in a region where the cost of living and energy expenditures represent major concerns, promises of lower prices can feed this narrative. It should be noted here that citizens of the Republic of Moldova pay 26 Moldovan lei per cubic metre of natural gas, or roughly 1.30 euros.

The impact of the message can be examined independently of the actors’ intentions: Türkiye’s image can be utilized for political ends to make an offer involving Russian gas appear more credible and to serve Moscow’s geopolitical interests.

A relevant precedent: the promise of 10-leu natural gas

The issue of cheap natural gas is not being deployed in Gagauzia’s political arena for the first time. Supported by the fugitive politician Ilan Șor, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a finalized ruling concerning the Republic of Moldova’s bank fraud case, Evghenia Guțul pledged in 2023 to provide natural gas at a price of 10 lei per cubic metre. That offer was tied to the local company “NordGaz-Furnizare” and a chain of intermediaries, including the Türkiye-based Zen Solar Enerji. Investigative journalism published at the time raised questions regarding the supply model’s structure and feasibility. Ultimately, the promise did not materialize for consumers under the announced terms and within the stated timeframe.

This precedent demonstrates how potent the issue of cheap natural gas can be as an electoral tool, and how the names of foreign companies or partners can help generate a perception of reliability around an offer. Nevertheless, the involvement of a Turkish company in an earlier supply model does not, on its own, prove the involvement of the Turkish state or the existence of coordination orchestrated by Russia.

Beyond the price: who gains politically?

As the 15 November election approaches, the promise of cheap natural gas can operate on two levels simultaneously. On the economic plane, it offers voters the prospect of lower utility bills. On the political plane, it can reinforce the idea that the solution to the region’s difficulties must be sought in energy ties with Russia and in the partnerships that make this option appear viable.

The mention of Türkiye introduces a significant dimension to this message. Rather than being framed solely as an initiative tied to Russian gas, the proposal is linked to an influential regional power and an existing energy route. Türkiye’s image can thus play a role in legitimizing a pledge that serves the discourse advocating for the preservation of energy ties with Moscow.

Even so, the existence of the TurkStream pipeline does not automatically mean that Gagauzia can access natural gas at a preferential rate. Such an offer requires contracts, suppliers, transport capacity, compliance with the regulatory framework, and transparency regarding the final cost. Until verifiable documentation and explicit supply terms are put forward, this pledge remains an electoral promise.

The essential issue is not merely whether Gagauzia will receive cheaper natural gas, but how this promise is framed. When Türkiye’s image is paired with Russian gas to enhance the credibility of an electoral offer, the potential gains may extend well beyond the economic realm and help advance Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Republic of Moldova.

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