Within a matter of days, unprecedented protests erupted in the heart of Tehran, renewed military escalation in Yemen threatened one of the world’s most vital maritime corridors, and Venezuela returned to the forefront of global conflict over energy amid fears of severe disruption to international oil markets.
This convergence was neither accidental nor the product of isolated crises. It revealed a single global moment in which the features of uncontrolled disorder condensed, exposing the fragility of the international system and its diminishing ability to contain crises or manage them through stable, conventional frameworks. Events can no longer be read as purely domestic disturbances confined to individual states; they have become indicators of a broader reconfiguration of power, spheres of influence, and mechanisms of pressure and coercion in an emerging international order.
To analyze these developments separately would be a serious analytical error. Arab national security, as articulated by Arab political thought since the 1960s, was never conceived as a narrowly military concept. It emerged as a comprehensive framework for understanding interconnected threats that transcend borders and operate simultaneously on political, economic, strategic, and civilizational levels. From this perspective, Iran represents a direct and central threat through its active regional influence project; Yemen embodies a chronic vulnerability undermining maritime, economic, and political security; and Venezuela, despite its geographic distance, poses a dangerous indirect threat through its capacity to destabilize global energy markets, placing pressure on both oil-producing and non-oil Arab economies alike.
What we are witnessing is not a series of parallel crises but a single manifestation of an unrestrained global disorder, in which the interests of major powers—foremost among them the United States—intersect with fragile regions at the expense of stability. The Arab world lies at the heart of this intersection.
Since the 1960s, Arab political thinkers conceptualized national security as a response to a complex existential condition rooted not only in external adversaries but in the structure of the international system itself and the Arab world’s position within it as an open arena for intervention, penetration, and reengineering. Arab national security was defined as a continuous historical process aimed at preventing fragmentation, resisting external domination through proxies or economic dependency, and preserving a minimum capacity for independent decision-making. The gravest danger was never direct aggression alone, but the collapse of the surrounding regional environment and its transformation into externally managed arenas of conflict. Instability in adjacent regions—or disruption in global energy systems—was therefore understood as a direct threat to Arab security regardless of geographic distance.
Following the end of the Cold War, this concept entered a period of deep confusion. Rather than ushering in a more stable international order, unipolarity redefined threats according to the interests of the dominant power. Security challenges were no longer framed around clear enemies, but through fluid categories such as “failed states,” “counterterrorism,” “energy security,” and “protection of maritime routes,” all of which expanded the scope of international intervention in Arab affairs. In this context, comprehensive Arab national security acquired renewed urgency, encompassing not only military defense but also economic stability, energy markets, maritime chokepoints, and the stability of the Arab world’s surrounding environment. Ignoring geographically distant arenas such as Venezuela, or treating Yemen as a localized conflict, became strategically dangerous misreadings of reality.
The current international system is not experiencing random chaos, but a form of managed global disorder—one in which crises are not resolved but deliberately prolonged and instrumentalized as tools of pressure, negotiation, and redistribution of influence. Within this framework, the United States appears increasingly less interested in producing stability than in preventing the emergence of independent, resilient regional powers; keeping major rivals in a state of permanent exhaustion; and exercising indirect control over the global economy, particularly energy flows. This strategy targets fragile environments rather than specific states—regions of strategic importance lacking the capacity to impose balanced rules of engagement. By virtue of its geography, resources, and maritime corridors, the Arab world occupies the epicenter of this equation.
Pressure on Iran serves to recalibrate Middle Eastern balances; prolonged instability in Yemen functions as leverage over the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab; and the Venezuelan crisis becomes part of a broader struggle over global energy markets and spheres of influence. These arenas differ in form and timing, but they are governed by a single logic.
In early 2026, Iran appeared to be experiencing an unprecedented level of structural tension, not only internally but in its position within regional and international systems. The state no longer operates from a position of confident deterrence, as it did for much of the past two decades, but as a crisis-ridden actor facing the convergence of domestic unrest and external pressure. The current protests reflect a qualitative shift: the regime is no longer confronting marginal discontent but sustained pressure in major urban centers and decision-making hubs, where the implicit social contract is eroding and traditional instruments of repression are losing political effectiveness. Economic hardship has evolved from a byproduct of sanctions into a structural crisis undermining the governing model itself.
At the same time, Iran’s regional project—built around forward strategic depth through proxy arenas—has suffered successive blows. For the first time since 1979, Tehran finds itself defending its core rather than expanding its periphery. Compounding this vulnerability is a shift in great-power behavior. Russia, bogged down in a war of attrition in Ukraine, has demonstrated its willingness to abandon allies when costs exceed returns. China, meanwhile, views Iran primarily as an energy supplier rather than a strategic pillar, making clear that it will not confront Washington on Tehran’s behalf. This emerging vacuum grants the United States greater freedom of action, particularly under an administration that views time as working against it if Iran is allowed to advance its nuclear program amid mounting internal pressure.
Any prospective strike would likely be limited and precise, aimed not at immediate regime collapse but at inducing strategic paralysis by targeting command structures, nuclear infrastructure, and the core of the security apparatus. For Arab national security, this presents a complex dilemma: a weakened Iran may be less capable of regional domination, yet more prone to reckless escalation and asymmetric disruption.
Yemen, meanwhile, remains the most visible embodiment of accumulated Arab failure. Its strategic location at the crossroads of the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab has made it a perpetual site of regional and international contestation, but its tragedy is rooted in deep structural collapse. The disintegration of central authority transformed Yemen into a multi-actor conflict zone in which the state has largely ceased to function. Control over maritime chokepoints threatens global trade and energy flows, instability spills over into neighboring states, and prospects of fragmentation threaten to redraw regional power balances.
For Egypt, the linkage between Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, and the Suez Canal renders the crisis a matter of direct national interest. Cairo’s approach reflects a consistent foreign-policy principle: preventing the collapse of Arab nation-states as the first line of defense for Arab national security. Political solutions have therefore been favored over military escalation, based on the understanding that the transformation of Yemen into a permanent failed state would generate cascading regional consequences.
Venezuela, despite its distance, has emerged as a direct pressure point on Arab national security through oil markets and global economic stability. The arrest of President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. special forces marked an unprecedented violation of sovereignty and a radical redefinition of American policy. This was not merely the removal of a leader, but a declaration of a new strategic doctrine in which sovereignty is subordinate to control over resources and strategic environments. Statements emphasizing Venezuelan oil made clear that resource control has become inseparable from security doctrine.
What occurred in Caracas represents the clearest application to date of an American approach that divides the world into zones of direct influence, managed by force when necessary and outside traditional legal frameworks. It signals a shift from long-term containment to decisive intervention when time is perceived to be running out.
What links Caracas, Tehran, and Sana’a is not coincidence, but a single governing logic: sovereignty is no longer sacrosanct. States that fail to control their resources, geography, or regional impact are increasingly treated as legitimate arenas for intervention under great-power logic rather than international law. Arab national security today is threatened not only by traditional adversaries but by the restructuring of the international system itself. Without a unified Arab framework capable of reading these threats as interconnected rather than isolated, the Arab world risks becoming a permanent arena rather than an active player. In a system that recognizes only power and agency, reviving a comprehensive Arab national security vision is no longer an intellectual exercise—it is an existential necessity.
*The writer is the editor-in-chief of Alsiyassa Aldawlya and Al-Democratia magazines, published by Al-Ahram Foundation.
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