The United Arab Emirates is expected to continue making high-risk geopolitical moves with potentially high rewards, following its exit from the Opec oil cartel, as the small but extremely wealthy Gulf state strives to become a global power. Framed by Emirati officials as an orientation towards strengthening economic autonomy, the UAE’s decision to leave the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) on Tuesday coincided with the downgrading of its diplomatic participation in the Gulf...

Amid the rubble of the US-Israel war on Iran, a new Middle East appears to be taking shape as a constellation of regional powers jockey for a seat at the table. Led by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the grouping stretches from the Gulf across the Caucasus to Central and South Asia, binding together countries with overlapping interests, interlocking partnerships and a shared conviction: that the post-war order should not be dictated exclusively by the US-Israel alliance or Iran and its battered but...

Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthi movement has threatened to besiege a second key Middle East waterway as Iran launched drone attacks against US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend after a diplomatic effort to end the war appeared to collapse. A closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, would effectively sever Saudi Arabia’s only remaining oil export route. The kingdom has been shipping up to 7 million barrels of crude per day through the...