For decades, the Strait of Hormuz stood as the maritime pillar of American power in the Middle East, with Washington seen as the primary guarantor of economic security for global trade. However, the recent Iranian military and economic response to the American-Israeli-led attack on its soil has fundamentally shattered this role, as Washington can no longer secure the maritime architecture it once claimed to command.

Yet, while the world remains fixed on the fallout within the Persian Gulf, a more permanent collapse of American authority is unfolding across Iraq. One where Washington’s ability to influence internal sociopolitical and economic dynamics is being replaced by the very actors the U.S. needed to sustain its presence in the nation. This is nowhere more apparent than in Baghdad’s Green Zone, where the U.S. presence has been reduced to a localized and increasingly isolated retreat.

​To understand how this collapse was engineered, one must look at the financial infrastructure that once tethered Iraq to Washington. For years, the Iraqi state was forced to circulate its oil wealth through U.S.-monitored correspondent banking channels. The system acted as a financial cage, turning Iraq into a mere administrative arm of the U.S. Treasury and granting Washington the power to track, sanction, or freeze the nation’s revenues at will.

This leverage turned the Iraqi state into a mere administrative arm of the U.S. Treasury, effectively trapping it within a financial cage. It also became an intense source of friction between Iraq ​and Washington as Baghdad’s political elite increasingly chafed under the oversight and began to search for measures that would bypass the system entirely.

The result was the creation of what is now known as the ‘Black Box,’ a sovereign digital framework that would replace the U.S.-managed architecture with a closed, internal settlement grid. Thus, by shifting national capital flows onto this independent, closed-looped ledger, specifically m-Bridge, Baghdad effectively decoupled its economic sovereignty from the dollar-based surveillance system that once enforced its dependency.

​This mechanism was simple yet revolutionary. While the U.S. continued to monitor the nominal price of assets in dollars, the actual movement of value occurred in a parallel, private ledger. By the time Washington attempted to track the funds, the settlement had already been finalized. As a result, the U.S. was left holding only the symbol of power, while the actual movement of capital had transitioned into a closed system that answered only to Baghdad. ​

This shift, in turn, rendered the existing network of officials and fixers, those who had long operated as conduit for American interests, largely obsolete. As Baghdad continued to consolidate its control over this economic grid, it systematically began to dismantle the very infrastructure Washington needed to maintain its power in Iraq.

For the United States, this was not merely economic loss; it was the total collapse of its political and military leverage. By cutting Washington out of the ledger, Baghdad didn’t just reclaim its money; it opened the door for fundamental realignment. That realignment, in turn, cleared the path for Iran, Washington’s arch-rival, and its regional partners to effectively end America’s ability to dictate the political, economic, and military security of Iraq.

The reality of this new alignment became undeniable as the internal dynamics of the Iraqi state transformed. This was perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the sudden shift regarding the Kurdish region, which had long served as the primary anchor for U.S. influence. By tying all regional budget disbursements to the new centralized digital ledger, Baghdad gained the ability to monitor and restrict the flow of funds in real-time. By neutralizing the region’s independent alignment, Baghdad forced fiscal compliance on the Kurdish region that Washington could no longer easily counter or bypass.

​This was not to say that Washington no longer exercised influence within the halls of power, particularly given its persistent military footprint in the Kurdish region. Nonetheless, this financial shift fundamentally weakened Washington’s grip on the political and security sector in Iraq.

Under the leadership of Hamid al-Shatri, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) Director, for example, Baghdad began an aggressive decoupling operation, moving away from acting as an extension of U.S. intelligence and toward a model of sovereign autonomy. The recalibration of the state’s security posture became evident during the recent internal corruption purge led by Hamid al-Shatri. Through ‘Operation Dawn Strikes,’ the Iraqi security apparatus targeted corruption networks previously considered untouchable. By detaining numerous figures within the Green Zone who had long operated under the U.S.-backed frameworks, al-Shatri signaled that the old order had been discarded and was now obsolete.

Furthermore, by issuing mandates requiring all factions, including those previously labeled illegitimate by Washington, to surrender their weapons to state control, Baghdad effectively transformed these groups into formal elements of the Iraqi security apparatus. Thereby, denying the United States the ability to act against these factions as ‘independent militias.’ Also, by absorbing them into the state, Baghdad ensured that its national security priorities, rather than American demand, dictated the country’s internal order.

For the United States and the region as a whole, this shift, from a security apparatus that functioned as an extension of American oversight to one of sovereign autonomy, became the practical proof that the American era in Iraq had been dismantled.

Ultimately, this new reality was reaffirmed by the decision to hold state funeral processions for the late Supreme Leader through the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. By placing these ceremonies within the sacred geography that has defined Shiite political authority for more than a millennium, Baghdad sent a massive political and theological message: a permanent realignment and total integration of the two states.

It also reconfirmed that Iraq has transitioned from a U.S.-led client into a cornerstone of a new, sovereign-led order. One where the authority to dictate the future of Iraq no longer originates in Washington, but within a regional gravity that has decisively moved on.

I want to start by saying a sincere thank you to all of my subscribers. Whether you have been a long-time subscriber or a new voice in the comments section, I truly appreciate your response and comments.

Many of you have asked if I would ever teach a live class. While I do teach a separate, ongoing course for adults, I have been thinking about how to bring that same interactive experience to this incredible nd lively community.

So, I have decided to open up a few spots for an upcoming six-week seminar on domestic and international affairs.

Please note:

1. This is an interactive class for adults that already includes approximately two dozen participants from various professional backgrounds, including law, military, and intelligence. I am excited to open up fewer than 10 seats specifically for this Substack community to join this ongoing group.

2. We will meet weekly on Tuesdays, from June 30th through August 11th. While the sessions are scheduled for an hour and a half, we may occasionally run a little longer if the conversation is flowing well!

3. I want to be clear about the tone: this is not a “politically correct” class.

   We will be diving into complex domestic and international issues, and I encourage everyone to bring their own perspective, a sense of humor, and a thick skin. So, you can’t and shouldn’t take anything said here personally.

4. Because we have a diverse audience with such different backgrounds, including law, diplomacy, and intelligence, and with most participants being over 40, we will certainly have unique and interesting perspectives.

Details:

· Duration: 6 weeks

· Schedule: Tuesdays, June 30 – August 11

Time: 10:30 am-12: pm

· Cost: $120 for the full course

· Registration:

Since I am only opening a small number of seats from Substack to join this group, they are very limited. If you would like to join, please send your payment of $120 via my secure link here: paypal.me/mitraraheb

Once the payment notification is received, you will receive a Zoom invitation within 24 hours.

I am really looking forward to seeing if this format works for us.

If it goes well, we can certainly look at doing more of these in the future. Thank you again for being part of this, and I hope to see you in class.

Best regards, and thank you again for subscribing and allowing me to express my views.

Dr. Mitra Raheb

Several days ago, the world witnessed an event that would have been dismissed by most Western analysts, particularly those who pushed for the war with Iran, as a strategic impossibility: an unprecedented, direct bilateral memorandum between the United States and Iran. It was a temporary transactional agreement designed to reopen maritime shipping lanes and relieve the immediate economic pressures mounting on both Washington and Tehran.

Yet, this unprecedented memorandum immediately faced fierce bipartisan criticism. From the halls of Congress to the capitals of its regional allies, critics condemned the deal as an official abandonment of American security architecture. A concession that prioritized a short-term survival strategy over a regional order that was, until several days ago, considered non-negotiable.

​Yet, for Washington, the decision to formalize the agreement was not a matter of choice, but rather a response to a strategic reality that made it clear that its regional policy was no longer sustainable: Washington simply lacked the economic or military capabilities to sustain an ongoing conflict.

Economically, the war was costing a billion and a half dollars a day at a time when the government was actively gutting public resources, including funds for education, health, and essential social needs. Furthermore, the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz had triggered a sharp rise in inflation at a time when the U.S. economy was being compounded by a $39 trillion national debt.

​Militarily, the outcome was equally definitive, as the regional bases that once allowed the United States to project power were significantly compromised within the first three weeks of the conflict. By successfully penetrating regional air defense grids and destroying high-value assets, including more than three dozen various aircraft and one-third of the American THAAD systems globally, the Iranians had been able to eliminate the very architecture that guaranteed American hegemony in the region.

​Politically, the damage was even more profound as the United States found itself, for the first time, virtually isolated on the global stage. Decades of military intervention, paired with a glaring double standard in its policy toward Israel, had stripped away American international support and exposed its behavior to global scrutiny.

Yet, this was not merely a loss of diplomatic capital but the total evaporation of the American triad of influence. By failing to secure the regional architecture militarily and proving unable to maintain the economic flow that fueled the status quo, Washington was effectively forced to forfeit its responsibility of defending the very regimes it had long pretended to protect. For the regimes in the region, which had staked their entire existence on the permanence of the American umbrella, finding themselves abandoned to a new, non-Arab-American-Israeli reality, left them exposed to forces they could no longer manage.

​Nowhere was this more precarious than in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its King, King Abdullah. For decades, the Kingdom functioned as a pro-Western anchor, held together by a sacred, unwritten covenant between the throne and the East Bank tribes, notably the Bani Hassan. A sacred covenant in which the tribes provided the military and domestic muscle to secure the Kingdom, while the monarchy guaranteed their economic protection and tribal status.

​The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, however, shattered this contract by destroying the two pillars that sustained the relationship between the monarchy and the tribes. By initiating a conflict that drew a massive Iranian response, the king effectively voided his primary responsibility to protect the soil from foreign-provoked chaos. Furthermore, with the Persian Gulf closed and the total halt of financial inflows, the monarchy also broke the economic pillar that sustained its commitment to the tribes. With both security and economic guarantees nullified, the covenant between the King and the tribes was effectively dead.

​Seeing the state’s failure to maintain the covenant that had defined the tribes for more than a millennium, major tribal confederations, specifically the Bani Hassan, Bani Sakher, Howeitat, and Bani Ahmad, took direct, systematic actions designed to enforce the agreement.

They began by controlling the borders, which halted the transit of goods to Saudi Arabia and Israel, restricted access to electricity, water, and other vital utilities, and acted as the eyes and ears for Iranian interests along the Jordanian-Iraqi border. Effectively demonstrating to the King that the Palace’s authority was no longer absolute or accepted.

Consequently, the palace was unable to suppress tribal actions because the state’s security apparatus was not a monolith. Rather, two distinctive entities under the same system. One being, the Special Royal Guard, an elite force of 25,000 traditionally drawn from non-Arab minorities like the Circassians to ensure loyalty to the throne. The other, the Jordan Arab Army, made up of 115,000 soldiers who are the very sons of the tribes challenging the palace.

​With the conventional military and state structure largely neutralized by its own tribal composition, the confederation began to galvanize around Prince Hamzah, King Abdullah’s half-brother and former Crown Prince. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to his father, the adored King Hussain, the tribes saw in Hamza a return to the soil and a restoration of the tribal pact that King Abdullah had squandered.

​This pivot toward a legitimate successor, a direct challenge to the Palace’s fading authority, was strengthened and codified by the recent U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). For the tribes, who had long viewed the American military footprint as a foreign intrusion and a threat to their cultural and political status, the MOU ironically was not necessarily a setback but rather a profound vindication. It proved that King Abdullah had traded internal security for a Western security architecture that Washington had now actively abandoned.

Today, the Palace, once the impenetrable anchor of American influence in the region, is now tethered to a fading patron while attempting to navigate a relationship with a rising hegemon.

Consequently, King Abdullah finds himself standing at the end of an era where the path forward offers very little room for his survival. With both pillars of his rule, the American security umbrella and unequivocal tribal support, no longer in existence, the ultimate geopolitical question is no longer about the durability of the Hashemite throne, but rather, the fate of King Abdullah II himself.

The situation on the ground, however, presents a far more pragmatic reality. The framework under negotiation represents neither a historic triumph nor a sudden alignment of shared strategic goals. Rather, it is a calculated tactical pause driven by a cold, inescapable reality: Washington’s desperate, urgent need to stop its own fiscal hemorrhaging.

​For the United States, the ongoing war with Iran has been an economic catastrophe: a relentless and punishing drain on the American treasury. This bleeding, however, reached a critical point when Tehran weaponized its geographic advantage.

By leveraging the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran was able to engineer a multi-billion-dollar shockwave that devastated not only the American economy but also the world. Through a combination of surging crude oil prices and an inflationary grip on the American domestic market, Iran successfully implemented a war of economic attrition that sapped the United States at a staggering pace of a billion and a half dollars a day. Factoring in a $39 trillion national debt, where the annual interest alone surpassed the entire defense budget, Washington finally hit a wall of pure financial exhaustion, which in turn sent it to the negotiating table out of pure self-preservation.

​The core of this proposed memorandum, however, hinges on a sixty-day ceasefire, a condition designed specifically to reopen maritime shipping lanes and relieve that immense economic pressure. For the U.S., however, this reliance on such a transactional arrangement exposes a permanent fracture in its regional security architecture.

​For decades, American defense strategy in the Middle East relied on a ‘managed outpost model,’ where host nations provided the secure logistics, political compliance, and stable local infrastructure necessary to project American military power.

​That system, however, collapsed with the massive military damage inflicted by Iran on American bases in the region. By successfully penetrating regional air defense grids to cripple advanced assets such as the THAAD and AWACS early-warning systems, the Iranians proved to the host nations that their military hardware provided by the United States could no longer guarantee regional security.

​States such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain, for example, watched the superpower struggle to shield its own hardware, an observation that completely altered their internal stability. In Bahrain, for example, the Shiite majority became the eyes and ears for the resistance. In Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the impact was even more severe when the local tribes actively halted the transit of goods across their lands. Recognizing that the American security umbrella was no longer a reliable guarantee and witnessing Washington prioritize its own survival above all else, the local populace ensured that the American presence was effectively cut off and paralyzed.

​With its regional bases physically paralyzed and its domestic economy bleeding daily, Washington has been forced to navigate Tehran’s non-negotiable demands. From the unfreezing of twenty-four billion dollars in Iranian assets to the comprehensive removal of sanctions to the financial reimbursement for the costs of the war, it has become clear to the United States and the world at large that Iran holds sufficient maritime and military leverage to secure most of its objectives. Tehran, thanks to the war, has emerged as the clear economic and military powerhouse, forcing the superpower to negotiate on its own terms.

​That became clear today when President Trump declared that a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran was “now complete.” However, the reality is that the deal is not complete, because what currently exists is a finalized memorandum of understanding, and not a settled peace. Yet, even if a formal peace were eventually to be signed, it would not change the fact that Tehran has not only won the conflict but also established a new order.

By damaging the structural pillars that have historically allowed the United States to project power, regional military bases, strategic reputation, and economic hegemony, Iran, backed by its strategic allies, China and Russia, ultimately was able to dictate the terms of the negotiation with a superpower. Demonstrating a feat that very few actors on the global stage possess.

That being said, if the President can finalize this agreement and open up formal negotiations, it would mark the first time in 48 years that an American president has established a direct, bilateral framework with Iran. A historical geopolitical pivot that was forced entirely by the urgent need to salvage the domestic economy, and one that ironically left a dominant Iran with a direct role in determining American security in the region.

Over the past 72 hours, the United States launched a series of high-intensity airstrikes against Iranian targets. The official pretext was retaliation for the downing of an Apache helicopter, an incident that the international intelligence community viewed as a manufactured casus belli, as the details did not add up. Nonetheless, using this as justification, American forces struck radar, air defenses, and civilian infrastructure, including Qeshm Island’s water desalination facilities.

​However, these American strikes, despite their potency, exposed a dark reality: that the United States had already lost the conventional military war in this theater. To understand the sheer magnitude of this reality, one needs only to examine this conflict through the lens of strategic planning.

Historically, any comprehensive campaign relies on land, air, and sea power. In the case of land, Washington has long known that a land invasion is a strategic impossibility due to a lack of manpower, rugged geography, and hostile neighbors. Therefore, the United States was forced to rely exclusively on air and sea supremacy, both of which have collapsed.

​The first sign of this collapse became clear when American land bases across the region were left exposed. This vulnerability was the direct result of a six-week war of attrition where Iranian saturation attacks successfully dismantled American advanced defense networks. By targeting and destroying multiple THAAD installations, E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, and critical early-warning radars in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the Iranians effectively stripped away the bases’ protective umbrella. Without these sensors, the remaining bases were left structurally blind and defenseless against the subsequent barrages.

​Over the past four days, that blindness proved fatal. Constant Iranian retaliatory barrages pulverized installations that the US could no longer protect. The Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, for example, was isolated by kinetic strikes and an increasingly hostile local population, while critical airpower at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan was rendered mostly non-operational. All indicating once again that the U.S.’s ability to sustain its power via its regional bases was no longer possible.

​The other critical sign of American systemic collapse, however, was the total disintegration of regional socio-political architecture. For decades, the U.S. footprint relied on an “spider web” of compliant monarchies and pacified tribal networks. Today, that web is broken as indigenous tribes, particularly in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have risen against their Western-aligned rulers and are working in tandem with the Axis of Resistance.

​At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, for example, non-cooperative tribes now control the roads, water, and supply lines, creating a silent blockade. Concurrently, the Jordanian-Iraqi border is entirely porous, used by Iraqi resistance factions with the assistance of sympathetic border tribes. The US didn’t just lose the airspace; it lost the ground.

With Gulf and Jordanian runways damaged or blocked, the U.S., out of desperation, has been forced to shift most of its air operational hub to Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean. The shift, however, has failed to resolve the underlying crisis because not only does Israel lack the massive infrastructure of the bases, but due to its distance, it is just as vulnerable to saturation strikes as the ones that fell to the bases.

​For Washington, the current reality confirms a bitter truth; in that, the era of projecting power through regional land bases has ended. This was clear when, yesterday, as part of its strikes on Iran, the U.S. relied heavily on sea-and submarine-launched cruise missiles. By burning through these finite inventories of stand-off munitions to compensate for the loss of land-based air power, the U.S. has openly admitted that its regional networks were no longer functional enough to sustain conventional air campaigns.

​With land-based power neutralized, the sea has become Washington’s final option. Yet, the reliance on naval power has led the United States directly into a geographic trap. A trap defined by a ruthless math of attrition where the U.S. Navy’s traditional advantage in scale and technology has become a disadvantage. The USS Abraham Lincoln, for example, may be a multi-billion-dollar technical triumph designed to dominate the vast, open oceans, but in the narrow, restricted waters of the Persian Gulf, its size makes it an easy target for low-cost missiles and swarming drones.

It is this vulnerability that sits at the cornerstone of Iran’s naval doctrine. It is a doctrine not built to sink every U.S. vessel, but to force a confrontation that Washington cannot afford to maintain. For every billion-dollar U.S. asset deployed, for instance, Iran can flood the zone with hundreds of mass-produced, low-cost submarines, swarm drones, and anti-ship missiles that effectively constrain American maneuverability

This, in turn, has forced the U.S. Navy into a high-tempo defensive posture, where the cost of sustaining power projection in the Gulf is now dwarfing the mission’s original intent.

The recent, desperate scrambling of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to hunt for a hidden underwater threat is evidence that the U.S. Navy has lost the luxury of commanding these waters. By forcing Washington to burn through its most sophisticated sensors and limited operational hours just to react to ubiquitous, inexpensive threats, Iran has fundamentally altered the strategic landscape. In other words, by applying the same method to the sea that it applied to erode U.S. air dominance, Iran is forcing the U.S. into a war of attrition that the U.S. is not designed to win.

​​For the U.S., the loss of its air and naval supremacy implies that it is trapped in an unwinnable situation. Washington’s recent threats to seize Kharg Islands from Iran illustrate this point perfectly. Rather than a sign of strength, this threat is a glaring admission of a disastrous gamble: by attempting to achieve a ‘decisive’ victory to escape the grind, Washington is handing Iran a perfect way to keep the grind going indefinitely. By moving the U.S. from a contained naval struggle into a static, ground-based quagmire, Ian ensures that the U.S. presence remains mathematically unsustainable.

​Ultimately, for the U.S., its era of unquestioned power projection is closed. It must now decide whether to persist in a theater where it can no longer dictate the terms of engagement, or accept the cost of maintaining a global order that has finally outpaced its capacity to pay. The math in the Middle East is no longer on the side of the superpower; it belongs to the one who can endure the longest.

​Financially, the current military posture is devastating. The United States is spending nearly $1 trillion a year on defense while paying $970 billion in annual interest on the national debt; a combined expenditure that hollows out the federal budget and preempts all other national priorities.

For the U.S., this trajectory is simply unsustainable. Unlike the post-9/11 era, when the U.S. could borrow heavily to fund its war in Iraq and Afghanistan, often relying on foreign creditors like China to finance those ambitions, the current fiscal environment has fundamentally shifted.

Today, following more than two decades of American military ventures, the global appetite for U.S. debt has evaporated and has been replaced by a strategic preference for alternatives to the dollar. Consequently, the United States no longer possesses the luxury of borrowing at scale without risking its currency or eroding its global creditworthiness.

Yet, the United States, driven by long-standing political and military aspirations, continues to fund a massive global footprint that its economy, in many ways, can no longer sustain. Furthermore, because it refuses to accept the current military and economic realities on the ground, the U.S. is forced to cannibalize its own resources to maintain these legacy commitments. As a result, the U.S. is effectively hollowing out its future for the present that it has already lost.

For the United States, this economic attrition has bled into the domestic political sphere, where the significant majority of Americans, tired of decades of military ventures and declining economic conditions, are demanding an end to the war with Iran and America’s exit from the region. This pervasive discontent has, in turn, triggered a deepening political crisis, as the administration insists on maintaining a regional strategy that stands in direct opposition to the will of the electorate. For the administration, as economic conditions worsen, the domestic rift will only widen, thereby creating an unsustainable environment where its refusal to pivot only intensifies the public backlash that will ultimately force an American exit from the region.

Beyond this domestic instability, the strategic foundation of American global authority will also erode significantly. The credibility of the United States, already under massive strain, will face deeper damage as the cost of failing regional strategy is passed onto allies. This became clear recently when Germany’s recent bid for the rotating seat on the UN Security Council was rejected. A development that would have been unthinkable in the post-WWII era, or even just five years ago.

For the world, this rejection was not merely a diplomatic shuffle; it was a targeted rebuke of Germany’s unwavering and increasingly isolated support for U.S. regional policies. By forcing its allies to share in the diplomatic fallout of this failing strategy, Washington has ensured that its partners are punished alongside it, and Washington’s clinging to an outdated hegemonic model is leaving the entire Western bloc increasingly isolated.

​Today, Washington finds itself shouting into a void where its historical weight no longer commands the same gravity, forcing the establishment to confront a reality: it must either adapt to a multipolar environment or accept an accelerated, and potentially irreversible, decline in global standing.

​If Washington continues to ignore these realities, the transition will not be managed; it will be forced. History shows that empires that fail to recognize their limits do not get to choose their exit. By refusing to initiate a controlled transition, Washington risks transforming a manageable strategic realignment into a total loss of the economic and geopolitical autonomy it seeks to preserve. The final tragedy is not the loss of a region, but the loss of the ability to dictate an economic future because the focus remained on fighting a war that had already been lost.

Part 1 of a two-part series on the structural end of American and Western hegemony.

As the world watches ceasefire negotiations stall once again and waits with bated breath for renewed talks between the United States and Iran, Washington finds itself in a no-exit scenario driven by the decline of its regional leverage. This erosion of power in the region has left the United States trapped in a strategic deadlock in which every choice will exact a severe price. That is, if Washington decides to stay, it faces a slow, grinding bankruptcy. If, on the other hand, it decides to leave, it risks destroying the complex yet fragile network of influences that has sustained its power for over a century.

​The question becomes, how did Washington trap itself in such a situation? How did the great American empire find itself in a no-win scenario where it is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t? That question can be partially answered by examining an outdated strategic mindset deeply rooted in a post-World War II mentality.

For decades, the American political establishment operated under the illusion that conventional military superiority automatically translated into geopolitical control. A fallacy laid bare when the overwhelming air and military power in Libya and Iraq failed to secure stable political outcomes.

By carrying the same mindset into its current standoff with Iran, Washington assumed its presence would always guarantee regional dominance. Instead, that persistence transformed what were once seen as symbols of strength, exposed forward bases and naval assets, into major liabilities. These forces now sit largely isolated, serving as static, easily tracked targets for an adversary that has mastered modern containment.

​In addition to its outdated mindset, America’s inability to grasp the mechanics of the modern war of attrition also led to this chaotic no-win scenario. Nowhere was this more evident than when Iran masterfully weaponized the concept of attrition by deploying swarms of mass-produced, low-cost drones and missiles that significantly damaged exposed regional bases and forced Washington to respond with multi-million-dollar interceptors. By “pitting” cheap munitions against expensive American defense systems, Tehran engineered a ruinous military and financial ratio where the United States spent two million dollars for every twenty thousand dollars spent by Iran.

The impact of this strategy, however, wasn’t strictly military; it was also economic. By blocking the Straits of Hormuz, Iran was able to disrupt the very entities, specifically the flow of oil and global trade, that directly dictated America’s domestic conditions. For the United States, already burdened with a $39 trillion debt, adding these severe financial pressures meant Washington would find it very costly to stay in the region.

Faced with this stark reality, where Iran’s war of attrition has become both economically and strategically unviable, the question for the United States is no longer how to win, but how to execute a strategic realignment that preserves its core strength. Though difficult to achieve, Washington could succeed if it follows three necessary vital steps.

The first step, though a severe blow to Washington’s imperial prestige, demands a radical strategic retrenchment. This option would require pulling American forces back from exposed, vulnerable forward outposts and lily pads across the region.

For decades, these small, isolated positions were treated as a symbol of American power and regional commitment. In a modern war of attrition, however, they ceased to be strategic assets and became largely static, defenseless targets that served only as liabilities, thereby inviting perpetual attacks that Washington could no longer afford to defend or ignore. By withdrawing from these outposts, Washington removes the physical bait that an adversary, such as Iran, can use to force the United States into a continuous, costly defensive engagement.

The second step requires an immediate abandonment of the mindset rooted in the air superiority fallacy. For too long, Washington operated under the convenient belief that absolute command of the skies was the ultimate arbiter of political stability. This conviction was tested in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where, despite absolute air superiority, the U.S. failed to stabilize either nation or secure a lasting political outcome.

For Washington, these past failures, combined with Iran’s current strategy of missile attrition, make it clear that conventional air power and a heavy bombing campaign can no longer force the regional outcome Washington desires. Furthermore, this reliance on air superiority becomes a critical strategic liability when considering that critical interceptor inventories cannot be replenished before 2029.

For the United States, however, if the first two steps are difficult, the third is the most vital, and arguably the most unpopular. To sustain a viable regional presence, the United States must either seek a comprehensive, strategic, and realistic accommodation with Iran, including the dismantling of economic sanctions, the cessation of maritime blockades, and the release of Iranian funds, or accept the necessity of a total military exit from the region.

In short, the U.S. must either strike a deal with Iran where it accepts the Iranian regional dominance in exchange for a continued, limited American presence or admit it no longer has the power to dictate terms and thus begin a full, managed withdrawal from the region.

There is no middle ground. Attempting to maintain the status quo, ignoring Iranian concerns while clinging to outdated hegemonic attitudes, is a structural dead-end that will ultimately force a total American expulsion from the Middle East.

Ultimately, Washington can no longer rely on an outdated post-World War II playbook to project power in an evolving global order. As history has repeatedly shown, clinging to a broken imperial model guarantees defeat for any power.

In the subsequent installment of this series, the article will examine the exact cost of this denial, detailing the geopolitical fallout and the domestic economic crisis that will follow if the United States refuses to accept this strategic shift.

For some, however, the surface-level activity represented a deeper, contrary operation. That is, even with those heavy arrivals, the deployment was, in fact, a tactical deception. This was less a preparation for a longer war and more of a frantic American effort to sustain a position in a country that had effectively revoked the invitation. A desperate attempt to secure the logistics necessary for a quiet extraction.

To understand, however, whether the U.S. is truly preparing for a wider war or a safe, successful exit, one must first look at the foundational structure of the Saudi state and the collapse of an ancient contract between the King and his people.

For nearly a century, the Saudi Kingdom was anchored on a sacred 1932 Covenant, which tied the House of Saud, the tribes, and the religious establishment into a single, cohesive power structure. It was a pact of mutual reliance where the King provided protection and respect for the desert’s traditions, and in return, the tribes and the clergy, the stewards of the nation’s soul and land, provided the mandate to rule. That balance of power, however, was shattered when the American-led war on Iran triggered a rapid, asymmetric Iranian response.

​By successfully striking the American bases and subsequently closing the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians exposed the Kingdom’s fatal flaw: Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) could no longer guarantee the two pillars, economic stability and military security, that had defined the covenant for almost a century. Thereby, rendering the pact between the King and his people obsolete.

With the covenant dead, the two primary tenants of the nation, the tribes and the clergy, responded by reclaiming their authority. In the case of the tribes, MBS’s authority began to be rejected throughout the kingdom. In the North, for example, the Shammar and the Howeitat tribes exerted their power by physically halting all commercial movements between Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, Jordan and Iraq, while in the West, the Harb tribe made a similar stance.

For the tribes, however, the logistical chokehold was not merely directed towards MBS but also against his American backers. By severing the land routes and preventing the flow of all goods through their territory, the tribes stripped away the American military protection, which left them even more vulnerable to Iranian attacks.

For the first time, the U.S. found itself in an expensive and precarious “air bridge” situation where everything from food and water to artillery components had to be flown in because the tribes no longer provided the permission needed to operate via the land.

The tribal leverage extended immediately to the national grid, turning water and electricity into explicit political instruments. In the West, the Harb tribe exerted its influence over desalination plants and power output centers near Jeddah. By throttling the output, they ensured that the city suffered from intermittent water access and constant rolling blackouts that the government could no longer control. In the center, near Riyadh, local tribal coalitions exerted similar pressure, throttling the power stations that fed the capital’s core infrastructure.

For the United States, this internal conflict between MBS and the tribes created an immediate and unsustainable crisis. As was the case with the logistic blockade, the problem did not end merely at the tribal door. It extended to America’s ability to sustain its war.

That is, the United States may have had its own internal generators and secondary water reserves, but it remained fundamentally tethered to the national supply chain. A supply chain that, if disrupted during military operations, could result in massive human and military losses.

Today, the U.S. finds itself in a situation where it is totally dependent on a land whose tribes control the very energy, water, and infrastructure it requires to endure a war against Iran. This logistical deficit, compounded by the strategic reality of depleted missile stockpiles, is an absolute fact that cannot be overcome. When the math of supply chains and interceptor inventories no longer supports a prolonged conflict, the arrival of heavy equipment ceases to be the precursor for a wider war. Instead, it becomes a necessary cover for a controlled retreat.

In other words, the equipment, the fuel, the water, and the defensive batteries may not be intended to expand the battlefield. Rather, it may well be the logistical cushion required to manage a safe withdrawal from a site that has already become a siege site.

Nonetheless, this does not indicate that a wider war will not occur. The conflict between Iran and Israel, for example, has not been resolved and will not likely be until a clear victor emerges.

However, the conflict involving the U.S. in Saudi Arabia is fundamentally different. While Washington may look to pivot its strike capabilities to more secure footholds like Kuwait or the UAE, the specific position in Saudi Arabia has become logistically untenable.

Despite Washington’s posture and influx of heavy armaments, the fact remains that the Kingdom is no longer a viable base of operations. Thus, whether Washington chooses to wither on the vine or execute a full, quiet withdrawal, the strategic reality remains the same: the United States has lost its ability to project power from within the Kingdom.

The United Arab Emirates was founded in 1971 on a silent, merchant-prince agreement: a partnership of equals between seven states that provided a framework for regional and domestic stability.

For nearly a quarter of a century, the seven states worked cohesively to create a modern and stable financial and political system that would be the bedrock of the modern-day UAE.

But it would not be till the mid-1990s that the foundation truly began to bear fruit. Fueled by massive influx of foreign investments, particularly from Iran, the UAE, Dubai began to emerge as a “Switzerland of the Desert.” A financial and political sanctuary where capital could sit in safety and neutrality and discretion were the primary currencies.

But today, after decades of stability and trust, that foundation is in tatters. The UAE of 2026 is no longer a partnership of seven sovereign states; rather, it has become a centralized security state, managed as a private domain of a single family.

​The transition to this new system, however, did not begin with a missile, but with a ledger. The release of the Epstein files earlier this year provided the pretext for Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) needed to execute a decapitation of Dubai’s historical autonomy. By leveraging the names in those documents to sideline the established merchant elites, most notably figures like Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, MBZ was able to successfully frame a hostile takeover as a “moral cleanup” and a return to traditional values.

In the vacuum that followed, MBZ purged the old guard and placed the country’s highest echelons of economic and security power under the direct control of his son, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed.

​To ensure no challenges could be made to his authority, MBZ purposely dismantled the other Emirates’ economic independence by using a foreign conflict into a domestic hammer. Within a span of two months, using the war with Iran as an excuse, MBZ moved to freeze an estimated $530 billion in Iranian-linked private assets, the very capital that was used to help to build the modern Dubai dream.

The act by MBZ was a deliberate “liquidity heart attack” that severed the economic umbilical cord of Dubai; the very connection that had allowed the city to thrive independently of Abu Dhabi since the mid-90s.

Simultaneously, the government began the mass deportation of over 15,000 Pakistani Shiite workers, many of whom held residencies for decades. By revoking Golden Visas and seizing bank accounts based on sect and nationality, MBZ signaled that property rights were now a temporary privilege subject to the whims of a new family “dynasty.”

​With the domestic front silenced, MBZ moved to cement a pack with the West to secure his family’s future. By openly siding with the Israel and the U.S. against Iran, including allowing an attack on Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to originate from the UAE territory, MBZ signaled to the world that not only the old social contract between Abu Dhabi and the other six states was over but just as importantly, UAE had moved from a neutral sanctuary to a frontline Western security outpost.

MBZ’s illusion of a secure fortress, however, was recently shattered by Tehran’s inevitable and quick response. By successfully striking the UAE’s Borouge petrochemical facility and the Fujairah oil terminals, Tehran proved to MBZ that the high-tech shield was no guarantee of business continuity. More critically, by implementing a “Transit Permit” blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran essentially turned the UAE’s economic lifelines into an Iranian-controlled checkpoint.

​For the other six states, the Iranian retaliation transformed a sense of dread into an existential fear. They watched decades of trust and neutrality, the very things that made them global hubs, being slaughtered for a military vision they never authorized.

​The dread finally forced the other states to break their long-standing deference by sending a memo to MBZ which warned about the hollowing of their local economies for a war that serves no interest but Israel’s.

​For the rulers of UAE and the world as a whole, the nation they once knew, and the Dubai they celebrated, is now little more than a historical artifact. From shutting down of the unsupervised party scene to the end of the “Switzerland of the Desert,” the federation is now entering an era of deep restriction and uncertainty.

Its future is no longer a mirage of endless prosperity and peace; it is now a chaotic and uncertain landscape where neutrality has been traded for a frontline war.

For UAE, the question remains: will it be able to navigate these treacherous and uncertain times, or will it be swallowed by the desert sand? Only time will tell.