What appears as a series of disconnected crises in the Middle East is, in fact, one unfolding story. The region’s instability is no longer driven primarily by old rivalries or proxy wars but by something more dangerous: the normalization of force as a routine tool of politics.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
The Implosion of “Stable” Alliances: Saudi, UAE and Yemen
The Middle East’s fracturing is no longer just about ancient rivalries and sectarian divides. What’s striking today is how allies are turning on each other, exposing fissures beneath the veneer of long-heralded regional stability. Nowhere is this clearer than in Yemen, where a battle once framed as a united front against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels has given way to an open rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), two of Washington’s closest partners.
When alliances are built around military force rather than political settlement, they fracture under strain, as Yemen now shows, and threaten wider conflicts
At the end of 2025, Saudi Arabia bombed what it said were weapons shipments linked to the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) in southern Yemen, prompting Riyadh to demand all Emirati troops leave the country. This was not a minor disagreement; it was a direct confrontation between supposed allies on Yemeni soil, underscoring how divergent aims have created a dangerous wedge, one that is threatening to boil over even further.
Indeed, a crisis that started as an attempt to defeat the Iran-backed Houthis has turned into a collision over Yemen’s future governance and control of its energy-rich regions, making the conflict more intractable and more dangerous. In effect, Riyadh now interprets the STC’s moves and alleged UAE support as a security threat to its own southern border, rather than an asset in the fight against what it long saw as the Iran-backed Houthis.
This unravelling of Saudi–UAE cooperation shouldn’t be dismissed as a local power struggle. It reflects a broader pattern in which military power, once a tool for decisive outcomes, has become an instrument of zero-sum competition and distrust, even among friendly states. The instability has an uncanny resemblance to the unravelling of US-EU relations in the wake of President Trump’s threats to use military force to occupy Greenland.
The Iranian Case
The Saudi conclusion vis-à-vis the Houthis is also informed not only by its normalisation with Iran but also by the wider geopolitical war Iran is fighting against the US and Israel. This war now seems to have reached well within its domestic arena amidst growing unrest. Therefore, while Yemen illustrates how alliances fracture under stress, Iran’s domestic turmoil shows how internal pressures are amplified when compounded by external coercion and geopolitical isolation. Over the first days of January 2026, Iran has experienced its most significant protests in years, with unrest spreading from Tehran to major regional cities including Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashhad.
In these protests, triggered in part by sharp economic distress such as the rial’s collapse, hundreds of people have been killed, and the government has tightened control, including imposing internet blackouts. Iranian officials have even issued veiled threats to strike US military bases and key shipping lanes if “provoked,” i.e., if attacked by the US and Israel. The US President has repeatedly threatened Iran with direct military attacks. Reports indicate that such strikes may well happen, which means Trump will extend his ‘Venezuela formula’ to Iran in the Middle East.
This reaction is not surprising given the long shadow of foreign coercion over Iran’s politics. Western powers—particularly the US—have repeatedly embraced militarised coercive policies, from sanctions to threats of regime change. Indeed, sustained foreign pressure often narrows the political space for reform and empowers hardliners rather than moderates, making peaceful domestic transitions more difficult. So Iran’s unrest, while driven by local economic grievances, is unfolding in a geopolitical environment where the use of military power is normalized as a policy instrument. For the region’s future, the question for states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE themselves is: how long before they are threatened by the same levels of internal and external pressures? After all, what is happening in the Middle East is not unique. It might already be a new global normal.
The global playbook of force
The crises in Yemen and Iran are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a broader transformation in how global power is exercised. Across continents, a troubling pattern has emerged: the normalisation of coercion as a routine instrument of policy. In Latin America, for example, US intervention in Venezuela—and threats of “running” the country’s economy and politics — have revived the language of regime change not seen since the Cold War, signalling to regional actors that force is a legitimate tool of influence. Meanwhile, the spectacle of a sitting US president publicly discussing the potential takeover of Greenland showed that even absurdly ambitious power grabs can enter mainstream political discourse. And in the Middle East, persistent talk of military strikes against Iran reinforces the perception in Tehran that regime change is an ever-present threat, narrowing political space at home and hardening the government’s posture.
These global precedents are not isolated episodes of brinkmanship. Rather, they are lessons for states across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for example, have learned that even partners cannot be fully trusted when strategic interests collide. Iran, similarly, interprets foreign threats not as theoretical exercises but as existential pressures that justify preemptive defence and aggressive messaging. In both cases, the logic of force—rather than negotiation or restraint—shapes decisions. Military might, or even the credible threat of it, becomes the primary language of policy.
The result is a dangerous feedback loop. Global powers signal that coercion is acceptable, regional actors respond by militarising alliances or asserting unilateral influence, and internal unrest within states is magnified by the perception of external threats. Yemen’s fractured coalition and Iran’s destabilized domestic politics are thus more than regional failures; they are early warnings of a world where the erosion of diplomatic norms and the normalization of force combine to make instability self-reinforcing.
Beyond Isolated Threats and Theatres
Thus, the danger facing the Middle East today is not a single war spiralling out of control, but a convergence of pressures that reinforce one another. When alliances are built around military force rather than political settlement, they fracture under strain, as Yemen now shows, and threaten wider conflicts. When internal unrest unfolds under constant external threat, as in Iran, it becomes harder to de-escalate and easier to miscalculate. And when global powers normalize coercion as an acceptable instrument of policy, regional actors learn the same lesson.
More dangerously, the erosion of restraint at the global level feeds fragmentation at the regional level, turning manageable conflicts into systemic risks. The Middle East, long treated as an arena for power projection and strategic experimentation, is once again absorbing the consequences of a world where force substitutes for diplomacy. If this trajectory continues, the region will not simply remain unstable; rather, it will become the place where the costs of unrestrained power politics finally come due.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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