Wednesday 4 March 2026 The question of whether the recent United States-Israeli strikes upon Iran and the risk of a broader regional war benefit Ukraine or Russia more is complex and fraught with strategic, diplomatic and economic implications. In considering this it is essential to ground the analysis in the actual shifts in geopolitical alignments, military supply networks and global economic forces that have followed the outbreak of these hostilities in early 2026.  The St

Wednesday 4 March 2026 For two decades the Gulf States have sold the world an unusually coherent proposition—come here because the region is politically complicated, but our cities are not. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and, increasingly, Riyadh have marketed themselves as places where capital can move faster than diplomacy, where disputes can be arbitrated rather than fought, where a global workforce can live comfortably and where an airport timetable is a more reliable document th

Wednesday 4 March 2026 In the past three days the long-dormant conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has erupted once again, widening the Middle Eastern conflagration. Hostilities that began when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a combined United States–Israeli strike on Saturday 28 February 2026 have drawn Hezbollah into another active confrontation with Israel, prompting the latter to expand her air campaign against Lebanese territory and to move ground forc

Wednesday 4 March 2026 The removal of Ali Khamenei from Iran’s political architecture marks a rupture not only in symbolism but in constitutional mechanics. For decades, she — the Islamic Republic — balanced upon a paradox. Her Supreme Leader was at once the ultimate source of authority and the principal brake upon centrifugal ambition amongst clerics, elected politicians and the armed guardians of the revolution. With his departure, the Islamic Republic confronts a structura

Wednesday 4 March 2026 Reports emerging from Tehran suggest that Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been selected as the Islamic Republic’s new Supreme Leader following the death of his father at the beginning of Iran’s now-expanding regional war. Should this appointment prove durable, it would represent one of the most unusual successions in the history of the Islamic Republic — the elevation of a figure who has spent decades exerci