The Middle Eastern kaleidoscope tilts again

THE strategic map of the Middle East has been transformed once again, and expect it to change again sooner than you think.

Indeed, the Middle East region can be compared to a kaleidoscope. And just as how the many pieces of coloured glass move to form a new configuration with a tilt of a kaleidoscope, any military or diplomatic change in the Middle East will set a realignment of the national, ethnic, sectarian and tribal forces in the region, as well as of global players. Nothing is permanent.

Until recently, the region has been dominated by Iran at the centre of a “Shiite crescent” or “the axis of resistance” of proxies that included Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, in addition to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas. This axis of resistance – that also included Shiite groups in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen – was supposed to weaken Israel and its patron, the United States.