Episode 86 - How the US blunder in Iran accelerates its decline and dooms Israel | Andreas Krieg | UNAPOLOGETIC

We sat down with Andreas Krieg for the fourth time on UNAPOLOGETIC, this time in the aftermath of the war on Iran, to ask what it has done to the balance of power across the Middle East. His answer is stark: this is the most fundamental shift in regional order in thirty years, and it has undone the American empire in a way he does not think it can recover from.

We get into why the Gulf no longer believes the United States can protect it, why its bases have become magnets for attack rather than deterrents, and why nobody in the region has a plan B for the order that is now crumbling. Andreas lays out the battle between the Israel lobby and the Gulf lobby that he believes will decide Washington's approach for years to come, the split between Marco Rubio and JD Vance, and why Iran has emerged able to impose its will without ever building a bomb.

We also talk through Iran as a network state, the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint, Saudi Arabia's strategic drift, Qatar's network power, Egypt reduced to a beggar state, the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Syria under Sharaa, and why Andreas argues Israel has become a hammer that sees everything as a nail, isolated and digging itself into a hole it may not climb out of.

UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim.