When Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea forced vessels to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope and the Gaza war intensified regional instability, attention naturally focused on rising freight costs, supply-chain disruptions and oil-price volatility. Yet another consequence received far less attention: every disruption weakened confidence in the political and institutional environment on which long-term regional energy cooperation depends. The Middle East has never lacked energy resources. What it increasingly lacks is the strategic confidence necessary to transform those resources into durable regional partnerships. For decades, energy diplomacy in the region has been understood through the lens of production, pipelines, export terminals and maritime chokepoints. Power was measured by the size of reserves, production capacity or [...]
