Yossef Bodansky, the Director of Research at the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA) and Senior Editor of Defense & Foreign Affairs publications (including the Global… There was little doubt by late September 2019 that Iran’s clerical leadership was truly in command of the dynamic of the transformation of the Persian Gulf region. The crux of the Iranian regional strategy – including the Iran-sponsored rôle of the Houthi pre-dawned unmanned aerial vehicle strikes on Saudi Arabian oil facilities on September 14, 2019 – became increasingly clear as the shock of those strikes began to be absorbed. Tehran was playing a masterful game, delicately balancing between its publicized confrontation with the US in the Persian Gulf and its real quest for a regional power status. The Iran-proxy strike on Saudi Arabia and the ensuing threats to the US served both as a demonstration of the impotence of Saudi Arabia and its […]