The US isn’t the biggest power in the Middle East any more. Iran is

With China and Russia as its allies, the authoritarian regime is assembling a Middle Eastern coalition as Washington's influence wanes

The first of what may be many US-led air strikes on Iranian-backed Houthi Shia militants in Yemen marks another dismaying milestone on a long trail of western policy failures in the Middle East - the most pivotal and consequential of which remains the decades-old failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The fact the US, backed by Britain, was obliged to use force in response to trade-strangling Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping reflects an unpalatable reality: Washington's political leverage is waning, its diplomacy ineffectual, its authority scorned. Undaunted, the Houthis vowed attacks would continue.

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