Opinion: How a pragmatic axis could reshape the Middle East

Opinion: How a pragmatic axis could reshape the Middle East Nearly three years after the 7 October Hamas attack shattered the illusion of a manageable status quo - one serving US-Israeli interests, while harming Palestinian rights - and midway through President Donald Trump’s second term, the Middle East no longer maps neatly onto the two axes that have defined it for decades. The region’s fault line long ran between Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” - comprising Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi armed groups, and a battered but defiant Syria under the Assad regime - and the Israeli-inspired “Pax Americana”: an informal architecture of deterrence, normalisation, and military primacy that Washington and Tel Aviv sought to impose through the Abraham Accords, blatant double standards, international law violations and overwhelming force. Today, a third pole could be emerging: an increasingly institutionalised “Sunni axis” anchored in Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad - with Doha, Cairo, and to a lesser extent Abu Dhabi at its edges. Read more: How a pragmatic axis could reshape the Middle East Opinion by Marco Carnelos Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Riyadh, on 17 September 2025 (Saudi Press Agency/AFP)