{"text":[[{"start":4.96,"text":"The moment Donald Trump ignored the advice of Arab allies and ordered US forces to attack Iran, he gambled with the future of the Middle East. Almost six months into an operation the US president predicted would last four to five weeks, the region is trapped between war and peace, grappling with the consequences of the conflict he and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unleashed."}],[{"start":29.34,"text":"The Iranian regime that Arab states have considered a grave threat since the 1979 Islamic revolution remains intact. It is belligerent and, despite the devastating costs of the US-Israeli bombardment, feels emboldened. It retains a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, while its proxies in the so-called axis of resistance, though weakened, still pose a lethal threat."}],[{"start":53.32,"text":"The result is a crisis reshaping the Middle East in ways likely to have lasting repercussions for Washington, as regional leaders adapt to a new reality."}],[{"start":62.48,"text":"Gulf states are reassessing their reliance on the US as their principal security guarantor after Iran struck military bases, energy facilities, airports and other infrastructure across the region. The conflict has also deepened Arab and Muslim leaders’ concerns that Israel is a destabilising force. For many, Netanyahu dragged the region into the Iran war in pursuit of Israeli interests at the expense of regional stability."}],[{"start":88.08,"text":"An early sign of where this may lead came when Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan recently agreed a mutual defence pact, symbolically signed in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. The three Sunni-led powers insist the agreement is defensive and not directed against any particular country. But it reflects a shared recognition that Iran — and the instability created by the war — will increasingly have to be managed by regional powers amid doubts about the US’s reliability."}],[{"start":116,"text":"The pact builds on a Saudi-Pakistan defence agreement reached last September. It gives Ankara the prospect of lucrative defence deals and Islamabad further financial support from Riyadh. For Saudi Arabia it offers at least a symbolic strengthening of its deterrence against any further attacks by Iran or its proxies, as Houthi rebels in Yemen have reignited a decade-long conflict with the kingdom."}],[{"start":138.72,"text":"All three will use the pact to project influence and leadership. Yet neither Turkey nor Pakistan is likely to rush into war with Iran to defend Saudi Arabia. Nor is the agreement likely to deter Iranian or Houthi attacks. Saudi Arabia will not be sending troops to Kashmir. And despite growing talk of strategic hedging, the US will remain the Arab world’s principal defence partner."}],[{"start":166.16,"text":"The pact’s significance, for now, lies instead in its symbolism, and what it says about emerging new alignments after almost three years of conflict in the Middle East following Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel."}],[{"start":180.6,"text":"It is too early to speak of opposing axes. But the Mecca agreement exposes the region’s shifting faultlines. While the Iranian threat is at its forefront, the trio will view it as a potential counterweight to Israel. The Israeli attack on a Hamas office in Qatar last September accelerated their co-operation."}],[{"start":200.28,"text":"In the other corner sit the Abraham Accords allies, notably the United Arab Emirates, which is in a simmering rift with Saudi Arabia and increasingly charting a course independent of its traditional Arab partners while deepening ties with Israel. The dynamics will remain fluid, and other Arab and Muslim states will be wary of taking sides. Egypt, though closely aligned with the Mecca trio, notably did not join the pact."}],[{"start":225.56,"text":"But if Trump and Netanyahu believed that war with Iran would draw regional states closer to Israel and pave the way for an expansion of the Abraham Accords, they are likely to be disappointed. The war will reshape the Middle East. But it will do so in ways they did not intend or foresee."}],[{"start":241.92,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787035694_4177.mp3"}