Lead:
Sabhi Shabana in Al-Jazirah argues that the Middle East faces a new security paradigm in which armed non-state groups wielding drones and missiles now shape regional threats beyond traditional state militaries, while Mansour Al-Malik counters that the international community has paid the price of halting wars prematurely—leaving root causes of conflict intact—rather than paying the cost of finishing them.
Voices & Positions:
In Al-Jazirah, Mansour Al-Malik contends that the world has made a strategic error by treating ceasefires as victories for peace without eliminating underlying threats. A peace that preserves sources of danger is not peace but war postponed, he argues, and the Iranian regime learned that the international community will accept half-measures. The cost is not war itself but the cost of stopping it before objectives are met.
In Al-Jazirah, Sabhi Shabana describes a transformed Middle East where armed militias equipped with advanced weapons now decide when and where conflicts ignite. The danger lies not merely in weapons possession but in who controls their use and under what accountability, he writes; in a region of overlapping calculations and competing power centres, a reckless move by a non-state actor could unleash a confrontation no one can contain.
In Al-Jazirah, Talal Al-Harbi asserts that military conquest cannot grant the Houthis legitimate rule over Yemen. Armed dominance grants temporary control but not the legitimacy needed to sustain it, he argues; Yemen is not a territory conquered by armoured columns but a complex fabric of tribes, cities, and sects that require an inclusive covenant—something a group built on sectarian supremacy cannot produce.
In Al-Jazirah, Abdel-Karim bin Youssef Al-Youssef praises the relationship between Saudi leadership and citizens as a unique model of cohesion and reciprocal trust. Leadership provides vision and protection; citizens translate that support into productivity, loyalty, and genuine patriotism, he writes.
Tension & Convergence:
Agreement emerges around the proposition that state security now requires more than hardware: it demands social solidarity, inclusive governance, and long-term strategic clarity. Yet columnists diverge sharply on whether present peace arrangements in the region address root causes. Al-Malik sees capitulation to incomplete settlements; Shabana sees structural instability rooted in the rise of armed proxies; Al-Harbi sees the impossibility of illegitimate conquest yielding stable rule. Al-Youssef's emphasis on citizen-state reciprocity implicitly supports a model that legitimacy cannot be imposed by force alone.
Editorial Takeaway:
The dominant voice today is that military power without legitimacy, strategic completeness, and social consensus cannot produce lasting security—and that the region's largest states must pursue wisdom in statecraft, not merely dominance in weaponry.