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Saudi-UAE rift risks tearing Middle East apart: ‘anything can happen’
The Gulf neighbours have turned from friends to foes, fighting proxy wars across the region and forcing global powers to pick a side
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The arrival of 2026 has brought anything but peace to the Middle East, caught in the gravitational pull of rival ambitions and with the uneasy sense that the next war may already be under way.
From Gaza to Syria, conflict hotspots are flaring as the region finds itself at the epicentre of a global order in flux.
The result is a landscape in which rivalries are multiplying, former partners are pitted against each other and more violence appears inevitable, analysts say.
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“While it is still early days for the Middle East’s emerging order, the premature outlines of flexible alignments are starting to take shape,” said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ Middle East programme.
At the heart of this reordering is an intensifying rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, former close allies now pursuing competing visions of regional leadership.
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According to Yacoubian, one bloc is coalescing around Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, while another draws together the UAE, Israel and India.
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