TinDrumMar 9

Nesrine Malik

'Gulf powers have in effect tried to neuter geopolitics as much as possible to underwrite the stability required to make their countries centres of global traffic. Not provoking Iran, not antagonising Israel and keeping the US close as a security guarantor. In the space of little more than a week – with a fresh wave of Iranian missile and drone attacks hitting the UAE and Saudi Arabia on Sunday – this model has been disrupted'

#iran #middleEast #gulfStates #israel

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/09/us-israel-war-iran-gulf-monarchies

The war on Iran is already upending the Middle East. Look to the Gulf states to see how

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are finding their carefully projected image of stability has been blown away, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

The Guardian
Show threadTinDrumMar 9
'UAE has been engaged in intense and bloody empire-building projects, funding proxy groups and wars...It is a transactional state that has energetically embraced the new world order of the supremacy of might and money, and has none of the religious or cultural baggage of Saudi Arabia'
Show threadskuaMar 9

@oscarjiminy

Bone Saw Corporation fits Trump's Might Is Right international order better than Bone Saw Kingdom?

Show threadTinDrumMar 9
@skua do what thou wilt shall be the whole of th bone saw
Show threadskua
@oscarjiminy
Just remembered that passage in Shantaram where the other taxi driver who had been doing what he willed and driving very aggressively caused an accident and an angry mob formed and didst as they willed, while the narrator was hurried quickly away by his guide.
#Shantaram
Mar 9 at 8:38amMastodon for Android
Show threadTinDrumMar 9
@skua i've not read shantaram but he used to drink at the dog bar with some of my workmates and i'm willing to bet he's as much of a mythmaker (as distinct from a journalistic commentator) as any of the hyper masc narrators from back in the day
Show threadskuaMar 9

@oscarjiminy
I'm sure he is a mythmaker.

Though compared to the actual mob violence of say Partition, or against Dalit, he seems to have minimised it in the taxi driver story.