by Ausaf Sayeed | May 4, 2026 | Uncategorized
The United Arab Emirates left the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on 1 May, ending a fifty-nine-year membership without consulting Riyadh, Moscow or anyone else. The cartel’s most senior officials learned of the decision on the wires. The oil...
by Ausaf Sayeed | Apr 28, 2026 | Energy, Geopolitics, India-UAE
When the United Arab Emirates announced on 28 April that it was walking out of OPEC and OPEC+ after fifty-nine years, the news was framed in most Western capitals as a story about Saudi Arabia’s loss and Donald Trump’s gain. It is both. But for New Delhi, which...
by Ausaf Sayeed | Apr 10, 2026 | Geopolitics, India, Iran, Middle East, West Asia
When President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran on April 7, 2026 — barely ninety minutes before his own military strike deadline expired — the world heaved a sigh of relief. Oil prices plunged 14–16 per cent. Equity markets from Tokyo to Frankfurt...
by Ausaf Sayeed | Apr 7, 2026 | Geopolitics, India, Middle East, West Asia
The Middle East has become a testing ground for a new multipolar world, one where no single power dominates, but none can enforce rules either. As the United States recalibrates, China advances quietly, and regional actors pursue multi-alignment, the result is not...
by Ausaf Sayeed | Apr 5, 2026 | Geopolitics, India, Iran, Middle East, West Asia
One month into the US-Israeli assault on Iran, the conflict has produced outcomes few anticipated or desired. Indirect peace talks between Washington and Tehran—facilitated through Oman and Qatar—were still active when the strikes began on 28 February 2026. Goalposts...
by Ausaf Sayeed | Mar 5, 2026 | Geopolitics, Iran, Israel, Middle East
In the lexicon of international diplomacy, silence is rarely the absence of a position. For a civilisational state that once anchored its global identity in moral authority — the land of Gandhi’s non-violence and post-Independence non-alignment — India’s studied...
