Sanam Vakil
@SanamVakil · Iran watchers, nuclear experts & opposition
Sanam Vakil directs Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program.
One additional obvious point is that Houthi expansionism is not just a Saudi problem although everyone will want it to be. This is clearly a problem for the whole GCC. Even the UAE that abruptly drew down from South Yemen last December can again be impacted through the resumption of drone strikes hitting AD. It is high time the GCC coordinate and manage their way forward collectively.
Discussions between Oman and Saudi are obvious and very normal with such serious escalation taking place impacting both bordering nations and another key international waterway. Muscat has moreover been a key interlocutor with the Houthis having managed the US Houthi 2025 ceasefire.
The Iran comparison is about the logic of sanctions, not identical circumstances and this is where Israelis split the difference but shouldn’t. Limited economic impact does not mean there is no political objective. So not in Israel but yes to elsewhere? Here the objective is to distinguish between Israel and settlement activity beyond the Green Line because that distinction matters to the possibility of two states which remains the focus. Whether the policy can be enforced effectively is a different question. Anyway…
the thread tends to tackle two questions ignoring the antisemitism. Will the sanctions have a large immediate behavioural effect? Probably not. Do they nevertheless serve a political and legal objective connected to preserving a two-state outcome? Yes. The same distinction on sanctions plus effectiveness is routinely made in debates over Iran but not suddenly not here. Which is it?
💯 agree: post November Trump will be more unbound, focused on his legacy and very likely resume if not resolve the Iran mess he created
How is this hideousness from the Israeli right alongside the appalling settler violence in the West Bank not generating more action from policymakers and loud opposition from the public??!!
The Russian Iranian relationship continues to hum along with Russia secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles https://t.co/ni56Jk1APw
Thanks to the indefatigable @peterson__scott for including my comments in his timely piece on the war’s impact on the Iranian people
With strikes recommencing between US and Iran and Israel continuing its dangerous pre election expansion in the West Bank while also destabilising in Syria, the Middle East is beset with interconnected crises. Listen to our @ChathamHouse podcast with @bronwenmaddox @KseniaSvetlova @DrJulieNorman2 and myself where we unpack these dynamics.
Welcome to the party, @Ludo_Hood. After watching the Middle East for this long, you’ll know Iran is no monolith. It was not a monolith under the Shah and has not been for 47 years. Like every political system in the region and, dare I say, in the West, it has factions. Iran factionalism has always been visible, unlike the cleavages that exist in many regional states. To reinforce what we all really should know by now: they may be united in defending the system, but they are often sharply divided over the policy to do so.
Kuwait stripping political rights of its naturalised citizens https://t.co/mjKoGzN0vm
Iranian hardliners are clearly calculating that without further concessions they cannot give Trump an off ramp that might allow him to win in November, rebuild stockpiles for round 3 while reducing Iran’s leverage. Over to Trump to weigh the unchanged options: escalate - capitulate or lumber along in this attritional phase of the war.