As the smoke clears over the Fordo facility, the global community is left to contemplate the wreckage of the previous status quo. The strikes have created a vacuum where a coherent regional policy used to sit. To the north, Russia and China watch with calculated interest, weighing how this American entanglement can be leveraged to their own advantage in their respective spheres of influence. To the south, the Gulf monarchies prepare for the inevitable blowback, their skylines of glass and steel looking increasingly fragile against the backdrop of potential drone swarms and ballistic threats. The night of the 2026 strikes has effectively reset the clock of the Middle East, and no one is quite sure what time it is. Continue reading…
