Four days into a confrontation between Iran, Israel and the US, the Gulf has been caught up in a conflict that it sought to avoid. Civilian infrastructure across the region has been damaged, including in the UAE, jolting a country better known for its stability than sirens and air defences.

At the centre of the nation’s response is Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president and a veteran of the country’s foreign-policy establishment. As regional leaders field dozens of calls from capitals around the world, Gargash is helping to shape the Emirates’ posture: defensive but resolute, wary of escalation yet clear about its right to act.

Monocle’s Gulf correspondent, Inzamam Rashid, spoke to Gargash as airports began partially reopening on Monday evening and Gulf governments weighed their next steps.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

How would you describe the mood within the UAE government after several days of Iranian bombardment across the Gulf, including here in the Emirates?
The mood operates on three levels. First, there is the larger conflict – the US-Israel-Iran confrontation – which will determine the geostrategic shape of the region for years to come. It is still early and the picture is unclear. The Iranians appear to want a longer, protracted conflict; the Americans and Israelis prefer something shorter and sharper. Whatever the outcome, the repercussions will be significant.

Second, there is a sense of shock at Iran’s decision to target its Gulf neighbours. These are countries that have consistently called for negotiated settlements and an off-ramp to conflict. Yet we have seen drones aimed at civilians and public infrastructure. Iran has moved from what it once described as a “good neighbourly” policy to outright aggression.

Third, there is the domestic front. The UAE is not a society used to war, so there has been a psychological impact. But our institutions are functioning. Our air defences have performed remarkably in protecting lives and property. Airports and ports are partially reopening. There is resilience and a determination not to panic.

Before Israel and the US struck Iran, how much warning did the UAE receive?
In these situations, there are rarely formal warnings. When the Geneva talks failed in late February, it was clear that a confrontation was likely within 24 to 72 hours. But we did not expect this level of intensive Iranian aggression against the Gulf collectively. If we had not had capable air defences in place, the consequences could have been catastrophic. Iran has antagonised precisely those neighbours that were calling for political solutions.

Why do you think Iran has retaliated so strongly against the Gulf states?
Frankly, there is no rational justification. Over the past few years, Iran pursued reconciliation with Gulf countries, including a Chinese-brokered agreement with Saudi Arabia. Contacts improved across the board.

My analysis is that it is more difficult for Iran to target the US and Israel directly. It might have viewed the Gulf as a softer underbelly. But this has backfired. By targeting its neighbours, Iran is sowing long-term enmity among Gulf populations.

The UAE in particular appears to have been heavily targeted. Do you see a political motive in that?
Kuwait and others have also been targeted. Oman, which facilitated negotiations for more than a decade, has been targeted. Qatar has been targeted. It is irrational. This is, in my view, a failed Iranian policy rather than a calibrated political message.

What conversations are taking place among Gulf states? Is military retaliation on the table?
Definitely. The Gulf has a history of coalescing in the face of common threats. We are co-ordinating closely. We want a political solution and good neighbourly relations with Iran, however strained trust might now be. At present, we are in a defensive posture, intercepting missiles and drones. But I can envisage a shift to a more active self-defence stance, independent of the US-Israel campaign, if required. Geography does not change; Iran will remain our neighbour. These are decisions that require deep calculation.

How much more can the UAE absorb before retaliating militarily?
Our president has received close to 50 calls in three days from leaders around the world. There is broad solidarity and recognition of our right to self-defence. Our objective is to contain the war and seek an off-ramp, not expand it. But if necessary, we will do everything required to protect the UAE and everyone who lives here.

Has this conflict damaged the UAE’s reputation as a safe haven for residents and investors?
There will always be an initial reaction. But I believe that the UAE will emerge stronger. I draw an analogy with the pandemic: a severe crisis that ultimately demonstrated the strength of our institutions. You can already see daily life returning, albeit cautiously. The resilience of our leadership and systems will, I believe, reinforce the UAE’s attractiveness.

As flights gradually resume, what confidence do you have that there will not be further attacks?
We cannot rely on Iranian restraint. The decision to target neighbours has been, in my view, foolish and callous. What we can rely on is our preparedness. We assess the situation day by day, maintain normal life where possible and refuse to be cowed by threats.

Finally, what is the UAE’s position on reports of civilian casualties inside Iran following US and Israeli strikes?
We have opposed this war from the outset – for geostrategic reasons and because wars in this region have repeatedly failed to resolve conflicts. The loss of civilian life and the targeting of infrastructure only reinforce our position that political solutions are urgently needed.

The autumn/winter 2026 edition of Milan Fashion Week delivered creative debuts, sophomore collections and the reaffirming of Italian manufacturing’s prowess. While Georgian designer Demna delivered a blockbuster first chapter for Gucci, Jil Sander’s creative director, Simone Bellotti, showed his sophomore collection for the brand. Finally, luxury houses Max Mara and Tod’s proved that dedication to craft and quality materials are still ambitions worth pursuing. Here are the 10 shows that stood out.

1.
Jil Sander 
Simone Bellotti’s second collection for Jil Sander cemented the designer’s status as one of the most exciting and revered creative directors showing in Milan. For his sophomore line-up, he has honed his approach to the minimalism for which the German brand has been synonymous with since the 1990s. 

In a near-exclusively black-and-white palette, Bellotti played with proportions and volume, proving that minimalism does not restrain creativity. While distorting classic lines of tailoring with dipped hems, origami folds and jaunty pockets, the collection introduced a feeling of lightly worn spontaneity. Elsewhere, butter-soft leather jackets looked like a second skin, gathered bandeau dresses were hitched up at the front and worn with black tights and flats, while off-the-shoulder dresses were structured yet slinky. The result is a feeling of ease and romance culminating in a finale that brought the audience to rapturous applause. 
jilsander.com

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2.
Fendi 
Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut at Fendi heralded the start of a new era at the Roman fashion house. The collection marked the first time since the label was established in 1925 by Edoardo and Adele Fendi that a member of the Fendi family hasn’t had a hand in the women’s and menswear collections. It was a full-circle moment for Chiuri, who began her career at Fendi under its famous five sisters – Anna, Carla, Paola, Franca and Alda – and Karl Lagerfeld in the 1990s before enjoying an astonishingly successful career, first at Valentino and later as the first female designer to become the creative director of Dior. Aptly, her debut at Fendi was a finely tuned amalgamation of the design signatures that she has developed along the way. Easy suiting with unbuttoned tuxedo shirts and satin dresses were countered by boilersuits, cropped parkas, cargo shorts and glittery gilets that brought an effortless feel and modern edge. 

Meanwhile, the A-line silhouette, which she made famous at Dior, lost its strictness and was delivered with an ease better suited to the everyday. Her motto for this collection was “Less I, More Us”, referencing the teamwork that it takes to continue the legacy of a brand such as Fendi – and few know better than Chiuri how to make that stick.
fendi.com

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3.
Gucci
Gucci’s new creative director, the one-name designer Demna, leant into the Florentine house’s role in the public consciousness as a purveyor of mass sex appeal for his debut runway show. Staged in the Palazzo delle Scintille amid recreations of statues found in the collection of Florence’s famed Uffizi Museum, Demna sent female models prowling down the runway in skin-tight mini dresses paired with vertiginous heels, while male models squeezed into even tighter T-shirts. More wearable clothing also featured in the collection: attractive skirt-suit sets would work well in an office while the jeans and leather coats echo the style already present on the streets of Milan, Mexico City or Miami. The references to Tom Ford’s fondly remembered time at the house were overtly apparent.

A lot rides on Demna’s ability to bring star power to the brand. Kering, Gucci’s parent company, has reported losses and sales decline for three consecutive years. Last year the group reported a 13 per cent drop in total revenue. Stripping the brand back to its basics, and injecting it with a sense of fun, might help pull Gucci out of this prolonged slump.
gucci.com

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4.
Max Mara 
Max Mara’s creative director, Ian Griffiths, alluded to the difficulties of our current times through the use of hooded silhouettes, page-boy tunics and over-the-knee suede boots, which he defines as “neo-medieval”. This season’s muse was Matilde di Canossa – the Tuscan countess, born in 1046, who rose to prominence as a diplomat, military commander and patron of the arts. As such, Griffiths aims to imbue those who wear his designs with this sense of female empowerment – albeit in the boardroom, not the battlefield. 

Rather than feeling gimmicky, the effect was eminently wearable with an emphasis on materiality that the Italian brand, a cornerstone of Made-in-Italy manufacturing, is known for. Nubuck patches adorned cashmere jumpers while gloved hands appeared out of wide-cut sleeves. Floor-length coats came in earthy shades of brown, beige, anthracite grey and oxblood. Each piece could easily be seen in regular rotation during the colder months, reinforcing – or should we say fortifying – the structure of a winter wardrobe.
maxmara.com

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5.
Prada
This season, Prada’s co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons delivered a high-energy spectacle – akin to a striptease – set to pulsating music at the house’s Fondazione. Fifteen models took to the runway four times each, removing layers at every appearance. “As a woman, your life is layered – each day demands not only a shifting of clothes but a richness of identity within yourself,” said Prada backstage after the show. “This collection reflects the complexity of life. We were interested in a fundamental expression of these endless possibilities.” 

Trench coats and small scarves were gradually removed to reveal embroidered satin dresses, knitted vests and knee-high socks. It was a compelling demonstration of how the format of a runway show can be reimagined while acknowledging the reality of how people deploy their wardrobes in the real world, superimposing different pieces according to the weather or occasion. “There are sport elements mixed with high artisanship,” added Simons. “Pieces are aged, afforded a patina, a sense of a life lived.”  
prada.com

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6.
Marni
For her debut collection as creative director of Marni, Belgian designer Meryll Rogge turned to her own memories of the Italian brand. “The starting point is my personal relationship to Marni, which started when I was a teenager,” she said backstage after the show. “It shaped my vision of fashion and followed me through my life and career.” As it often is for a creative director’s first outing with a brand, the first port of call was the archive. Rogge dug out some of Marni’s first collections from the 1990s by Swiss designer Consuelo Castiglioni. “It was too tempting not to revisit,” she added. 

The recurring motif of polka dots – be it as supersized sequins, circular cut-outs in a top or mother-of-pearl embellishments – provided an enjoyable fil rouge. The colourful knitwear was another highlight, a strong suit of the designer’s, whose own brand, BB Wallace, specialises in. “I wanted to bring the brand back to real life,” said Rogge. The set design by Milanese studio Formafantasma, which featured hand-painted mirrors and brown-and-yellow walls, was intended to feel ordinary. “Marni was always a brand intended to be worn from day to night, not for special occasions,” added Rogge. “That’s what we tried to capture in the abstracted space, which could feel like a home, a government building, an office or a gallery.” 
marni.com

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7.
Tod’s
The prowess of Italian manufacturing and Tod’s own artisans were the focus of this season’s collection. At the show, guests were welcomed by craftspeople at their atelier benches working on the brand’s signature leather loafers and bags, but also artisanal fans, embroidery and metal hardware. On the runway, the ready-to-wear pieces continued on this theme of materiality. The use of Pashmy – an ultra-fine calf leather developed by the label – was used throughout the show on outerwear, skirts and trousers. 

From there, Tod’s creative director since 2023, Marche-born Matteo Tamburini, played with proportions to sculptural effect. Drawing inspiration from the works of artists Marta Pan and Henry Moore, leather-panel dresses draped over models’ shoulders while asymmetric pony-skin shawls brought added interest to otherwise minimal outfits. The colour palette was kept warm, with shades of ginger, chocolate and cream. Ultimately, Tamburini’s vision – brought to life in the capable hands of Tod’s artisans – proves that fashion is at times best when the focus remains unapologetically on quality and creating clothing intended to accompany its wearer throughout their lives.
tods.com

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8.
Ferragamo 
Ferragamo’s creative director since 2022, Maximilian Davis has been widely praised for bringing a renewed sense of relevance to the heritage Italian brand. Still only 30 years old, this season represented a continuation of his exploration of 1920s references – this time rooting it in maritime and nautical codes. Sumptuous navy peacoats and wide sailor collars came deconstructed, and with detailing such as satin lining, riffing off the uniforms of sea men who have gone off to lay down their roots overseas. 

“That’s something that both Salvatore [Ferragamo, the founder of the brand] and my own family experienced – he left his home in Italy for the US before returning home and my family moved from Trinidad and Jamaica to Manchester,” Davis shared in his show notes. “They all crossed the water to discover new beginnings.” Elsewhere, the silhouettes of the era’s speakeasy culture came to the fore, with velvet slip dresses and gowns that looked as though they had been conjured from liquid gold. The footwear for which Ferragamo originally made its name came by way of monk-strap oxfords and wedges. 
ferragamo.com

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9.
Bottega Veneta 
At her first show for Bottega Veneta last September, creative director Louise Trotter revealed how much she was enjoying getting to know her newly adopted home of Milan. Six months later, it seems she has gotten intimate with its juxtapositions. “This is a season of structures, softened,” she said in the show notes. “A study of intimacy as much as protection. The way an austere façade belies beauty on the inside.” It translated to exaggerated volumes in butter-soft leathers and feathers across menswear and womenswear, knitwear with leather panelling and precision-cut tailoring. The palette, meanwhile, was for the most part industrial grey and punctuated with pops of bubblegum pink and retro yellow. 

The intrecciato leather-weaving technique for which the brand is famed for was presented in multiple guises, from XL shoulder bags and coat collars, to a trench coat where it was realised in a tartan pattern. To close the show, the fibreglass creations that the designer debuted at her first collection appeared again – this time in a trio of black, blue and pink – that was technically crafted so to mirror the appearance of fur and bounced along the catwalk creating a spontaneous counter to the sobriety seen earlier in the show – a juxtaposition that is inherent to the city of Milan and its style codes.
bottegaveneta.com

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10.
Giorgio Armani
The fashion industry has been rife with speculation about what the world of Giorgio Armani would look like without its eponymous founder who died in September aged 91. The group’s two shows – for Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani – provided the answer, which is familiar but not the same. With menswear designed by Armani’s long-term right-hand Leo Dell’Orco and womenswear by his niece Silvia Armani (who both worked across the collections when Armani was alive), it was no surprise that the needle didn’t move far from the work of its founder. 

The big question now is, does it need to? At the Giorgio Armani show on Sunday morning, the womenswear collection comprised the embellished velvet co-ords and styling combinations favoured by the late Armani but also included origami-pleat tailoring in grey and brilliant white that infused the old with a new modernity. Meanwhile, evening gowns riffed off the black-tie silhouettes synonymous with the archive, while outerwear included a long leather trench coat and petrol-blue satin bomber jacket that felt more trend driven – something the Armani output has never been about before. With the two designers’ debuts under their belts, an evolution rather than reinvention appears to be on the cards. 
armani.com

From my balcony in Dubai, the first thing that I registered was the sound. Not the sharp crack of impact but a low, rhythmic thud rolling across the coastline. Then another. And another. In the half-light, faint streaks cut across the sky above Dubai Marina before blooming into brief flashes.

Many of those thuds, it became clear, were not impacts but interceptions. The UAE’s air-defence systems were engaging, punching holes in incoming Iranian drones and missiles before they could reach their targets. The percussion was, in part, the sound of protection working as designed. Yet even successful interceptions take a toll. Dubai is not accustomed to the acoustics of war.

Following confirmation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death, the instinct is to look ahead. But it is difficult to do so while missiles are still in the air and targets extend beyond military facilities to civilian infrastructure. Airports, ports, hotels. Places where people work, holiday and live. This is not abstract geopolitics, it is national infrastructure with civilians inside, forced to calculate shelter routes between supermarket aisles and basement parking lots. 

The UAE has said that Tehran crossed a red line and that the Gulf is reviewing its options. The phrasing is deliberate. For years, Gulf capitals urged de-escalation, arguing that diplomacy was the only route to protect the trillions invested in cities built as global hubs for finance, logistics, tourism and aviation. Safety here is not simply a policy objective, it is a commercial proposition. Stability underpins sovereign wealth, property values and airline schedules. That proposition has been stress-tested before. But rarely so visibly.

Mahdi Jasim Ghuloom, junior fellow in geopolitics at the Observer Research Foundation, described the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader as “the worst-case scenario.” The killing of a figure who was not merely a political authority but a spiritual one has pushed the regime into survival mode. Crucially, he notes that Khamenei was killed alongside other senior figures, disrupting established lines of communication. Even if back channels technically remain and interim leaders dictate the Iranian response, it is unclear who now holds decisive authority in Tehran. That uncertainty makes Iran “very unpredictable and more dangerous.” It also complicates the question that many in the Gulf are pondering: “Does the region feel safer with the Ayatollah gone?”

In the immediate term, the answer appears to be no. The dangers that Gulf cities are now facing are a direct consequence of the assassination. The distant prospect that Iran might eventually produce a more pragmatic leadership is overshadowed by the immediate need to halt attacks causing casualties and disruption.

But there is another uncomfortable truth. The Gulf didn’t choose this fight; it has been drawn into the crossfire, effectively reduced to collateral damage. Gulf states host US bases but did not author the decision to decapitate Iran’s leadership. Yet retaliation rarely distinguishes between the architect and the host. Neutrality offers limited shelter when revenge becomes emotive.

This is also the moment when questions about planning surface. It is not clear that any amount of preparation could fully manage the fallout. But if Washington’s objective extends beyond decapitation to durable stability, then the transition in Tehran – and the reactions across the Gulf – will require more than tactical success.

Strategically, the Gulf faces a narrowing corridor. If Iranian strikes increasingly affect civilian areas, Ghuloom warns that the region might feel it has “no choice but to deter by confronting.” That shift from reluctant collateral to active combatant would further entangle the region in a confrontation that it has long tried to contain.

As night falls, life in Dubai resumes with studied normality. Traffic slowly hums along Sheikh Zayed Road, restaurants remain open and supermarket shelves still carry imported fruit from continents away. Yet the psychological rupture is real. The thuds overhead are reminders that safety, even in cities built as sanctuaries of order, is no guarantee.

Looking ahead is necessary. But for now, the Gulf’s future feels suspended between interception and impact, between red lines and retaliation. Whether this moment marks the beginning of a safer regional order or merely the start of a more volatile chapter will depend not just on what was destroyed but also on what, if anything, is built in its aftermath.

Frank Darling was one of Canada’s greatest and most prolific architects, amassing more than 360 projects across the country, a third of these in Toronto. Practising from the 1870s to the 1920s, he created grand banks, homes for the wealthy and university buildings, many of which still stand. So why do so few people, even in Canada, know about his life and work; how come he lingers in the shadows of architectural history?

Well, three separate office fires meant that many of his records went up in flames (sounds like an archivist with a heavy smoking habit). A dedicated bachelor, there was no immediate family to keep his story alive after his death in 1923. But now he has David Winterton, a senior associate at Era Architects and author of the new book, Toronto Edwardian: Frank Darling, Architect of Canada’s Imperial Age. Also a historian, Winterton is desirous that his years-in-the-making project will set the record straight. “I’m hoping that we can resurrect an architectural hero so that people can identify his buildings and know about the building culture of the period,” he says.

While Darling was successful across several decades as the book’s title suggests, he was at the peak of his powers and influence at the start of the 20th century. It was a time when Canada’s railroads and banking systems were rapidly expanding and a generation of plutocrats was amassing great wealth. These grandees were keen to make evident their successes through architecture. Darling was their man. From a privileged background himself, he understood their ambitions and motivations. “Just look at the University of Toronto,” says Winterton.

“Before Darling got involved, the university was a smattering of Victorian pavilions in a park-like setting,” adds the author. “The plutocrats of Toronto wanted to improve higher education in Ontario, so they got money from the provincial government and tapped Frank Darling to revise the old campus. He designed several new faculty buildings, including the Chemistry and Mining Building, Convocation Hall, a physics laboratory and thermodynamics building. The imprint of Darling on the University of Toronto is still visible and important.”

Yet the deepest pockets belonged to the bankers. In Darling they had found someone who could erect branches not just in the key provincial cities but also in small towns. “He was instrumental in making, reifying, the banking system,” says Winterton. “The architect designed hundreds of banks for five of the six chartered companies in Canada. In many towns, big and small, at important intersections in all these towns, there is a Frank Darling building, or at least there was. For a lot of people in these towns, their first exposure to capital ‘A’ architecture was an Edwardian bank by Darling.” 

And when it came to constructing their main branches in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, their ambitions – and Darling’s designs – seemed to know few limits. Many of his banking halls outshone those in New York and London, the heart of the British Empire (Canada being a dominion at this time). New architectural heights were reached elsewhere too. Darling designed Canada’s first true skyscraper in Winnipeg and then brought the idea back to Toronto where, says Winterton, he developed a row of towers in the city’s business district.

What made Winterton so intrigued by Darling? “Back in the late 1990s when I started my architectural career, I started working for a firm called Era Architects, which at the time was a very small heritage firm. We helped church ladies fix up their steeples, chimneys and things. And now we’re a firm of more than 130 people. But we touched on a lot of the older buildings in Toronto and it became apparent to me that there were many by Darling and Pearson. It was obvious that this firm had had an outsized effect on the architectural production in Toronto and the institutional core of the city. The Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Toronto General Hospital – all these buildings had their first iteration through Frank Darling.”

Despite years of research, it has not been possible to fully bring Darling into the spotlight. Winterton, like others, thinks it likely that he might have been gay. Yet there’s no real proof. “I’m indebted to Bill [William] Dendy, who was a gay architectural historian in Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s, and was one of the first to delve into Darling’s life,” says Winterton. “I think he [Dendy] kind of cocked an eyebrow about bachelorhood. There aren’t any family records. But he was nevertheless embraced by the elite of Toronto and Edwardian culture. He was a member at many of the clubs. He had the trust of the most important people operating in the country. They went to him to design their homes. He thrived, regardless of any kind of internal struggles.”

For Winterton, his book is not only about the past, however. “In Toronto we have the greatest number of heritage, small-scale buildings being used as podiums for condominiums and glass skyscrapers rising behind them. We’re trying to make sense of that. Part of what I want the book to do is develop a conversation about the city’s urban culture and see whether that can lead to a consensus, as well as a more beautiful public realm,” says Winterton. Could wealth and developers align to deliver a new civic architecture fit for today?

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The Islamic Republic of Iran, founded in 1979, was created in the image of its inaugural Supreme Leader: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the fundamentalist firebreather who encouraged his acolytes to seize the US Embassy in Tehran, offered to underwrite the murder of a British novelist and ordered hundreds of thousands of his country’s young citizens to pointless deaths in a war against Iran’s neighbour, Iraq.

It is arguable, however, that the crucial figure in the history of the Islamic Republic was Khomeini’s successor, the cooler and cleverer Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been confirmed dead in US-Israeli strikes, aged 86. Iran’s power politics flourished on his watch, at least for a while, taking advantage of the Middle East’s chronic chaos to assert itself as the dominant regional power – albeit one which had no friends or allies, merely clients and vassals.

Ali Khamenei was born in Mashhad on 17 July 1939. He was set on his path early, enrolled in Islamic schools from the age of four. By his early twenties, Khamenei was studying in the Islamic seminary at Qom, one of the most prestigious – and one of the least compromising – centres of learning for up-and-coming Shia clergy. Among Khamenei’s teachers was a charismatic agitator with firm views regarding Iran’s then-leader, the repressive – and US-backed – Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The name of Khamenei’s early and lifelong mentor was Ruhollah Khomeini.

When the Shah wearied of Khomeini’s fulminating and drove the turbulent priest into exile in 1963, Khamenei remained in Iran. He paid a price for his enduring loyalty to the older cleric: he was arrested and tortured, spent three years in prison and another three in internal exile. When Khomeini returned to Iran to lead his revolution in 1979, Khamenei was welcomed into the inner circle. This was no guarantee of safety: an assassination attempt in June 1981, attributed to the eccentric militant organisation Mojahedin-e-Khalq, cost Khamenei the use of his right arm; he was elected president four months later while still recuperating. When Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei was the obvious choice as the Islamic Republic’s second Supreme Leader.

Khamenei’s most impressive accomplishment might have been preserving his role as long as he did. Pro-democracy protests in 2003 and 2009, some of them bloodily suppressed, did not untowardly wobble him and nor did the upheaval of the Arab Spring from 2011 onwards. Indeed, Iran seized the opportunity presented by the latter tumult, becoming a significant – if not the significant – power broker in five Arab centres: Beirut, Sana’a, Gaza, Damascus and Baghdad. 

Domestically it was difficult to acclaim Khamenei’s rule a success. Iran was economically hobbled by bureaucracy and corruption, and by sanctions imposed to thwart the country’s ambiguous nuclear ambitions. Iran, a potential powerhouse, stayed needlessly poor. Khamenei’s unbending interpretation of Islam saw Iran remain a country in which, well into the 21st century, gay men were hanged for being gay men, and women were assaulted by employees of the state for failing to adhere to a dress code.

And yet despite setbacks Khamenei’s forbidding visage continued to glower, apparently inextinguishably, from posters overhanging Iran’s public spaces. In 2020 the architect of Iran’s regional machinations, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Major General Qassem Soleimani, was killed by a US drone strike. Other IRGC officers and Iranian nuclear scientists met picturesque demises, either overtly or covertly, at the hands of Israel. There were further mass protests against Khamenei’s rule in 2022, occasioned by the death of a young Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini in the custody of the goons ordered by Khamenei to punish immodest flashes of female hair.

It began to unravel for Khamenei on 7 October 2023. The Palestinian militant group Hamas, long supported by Iran, broke from the confines of the Gaza Strip and killed more than 1,200 people. Israel’s response was not confined to Gaza, or to Hamas. Israel hit Iran’s proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and targets associated with the regime in Syria, where Iran had propped up former president Bashar al-Assad through the Arab Spring and beyond. 

By June 2025, Hamas was destroyed, Hezbollah decapitated, the Houthis diminished and Assad defenestrated. Israel, with the assistance of the US, came for Iran directly, bombing nuclear and other sites. Iran was unable to muster much response beyond ineffectual rockets and blundering drones. Iran’s people sensed weakness, rose again – and were, again, put brutally down. Thousands were killed.

Towards the end, as the US and Israel prepared a decisive strike against him, Khamenei found himself in the impossible position of being a stubborn old man ruling an impatient young people. He probably understood, and just as likely did not care, that his ossified theocracy could not have survived compromise or engagement with the modern world. It is altogether unknowable whether he derived much satisfaction from embracing the martyrdom to which he urged – and condemned – so many others.

1.   
We start this Sunday with a thank you to all those readers who took the time to drop a few encouraging words of support and additional ideas off the back of last week’s column. In case you missed it, you can read all about my take on continuing education and the importance of doing a stint in the military or hospitality here. If you’re still in a state of confusion and despair, then might I suggest you enrol your son or daughter in the SFS? While it might sound like an elite, heavily armed sibling of the UK’s SAS or SBS, this SFS is a far more rigorous and perhaps essential institution in today’s challenged workplaces. Officially launched at the Kulm Country Club in St Moritz several weeks ago, Sagra’s Finishing School (SFS) is designed with a clear and simple mission – to ensure your offspring have qualifications in a manual service such as plumbing, upholstery or carpentry, or help them become a master in a craft like hand embroidery or dog manicures.

Based in London with roots in Galicia, SFS encourages both parents and children to recognise that a degree from Princeton or McGill is something to be rightly proud of but, when entire business strategies and court arguments can be cranked out by one of Anthropic’s services, there is an urgent need for a plan B that involves rolling up sleeves, dirtying hands and delivering a product or service for which consumers will increasingly pay luxury margins. If you’d like an introduction to the SFS, drop a note to info@monocle.com.

2.   
Speaking of initialisms, I have three more for you that defined my past week in the UAE.
 
NPO (Nissan Patrol Office). This is what you get when you cross four Monocle staffers with a busy schedule, a hundred kilos of print and a fresh-off-the-lot 2026 Nissan Patrol. Laptops and smartphones might be essential tools for daily business but when you need to make calls, turn up looking sharp and stay secure on the Sheikh Zayed Road, there’s nothing better than a solid set of wheels. Having a driver with an eye for Gulf modernism also helps.
 
PDR (private dining room). Standard in so many corners of the world but still so rare in corners of Europe and the Americas. Just as restaurants need to have enough emergency exits and accessible bathrooms, there should be a code demanding that all proper establishments have PDRs for emergency summits with Australian clients who demand special previews of large-format printed work at the end of an evening.
 
MMM (Martin’s Midnight Majlis). This is a new organisational tool that we employed all last week while in the UAE. It involved six colleagues assembled for nightcaps led by Martin, who ran down the diary for the next day and ensured that there were enough NPOs for people to get from Abu Dhabi to Dubai and PDRs for top-secret meetings.

3.   
And no, I’m not stuck in the UAE. Thankfully the NPO got all of us to the airport before things kicked off in the Gulf and I’m tapping out this column under a very sunny Lisbon sky. That said, closed airspace has prevented one colleague from getting back from Tokyo but she’s found some more business in Hong Kong and, of course, we’ll have full coverage of the conflict on Monocle on Sunday, live at 10.00 CET. Finally, if you happen to be in Taipei this coming Thursday, drop us a note and we’ll send you an invite to a little cocktail reception that we’re hosting for our loyal Taiwanese readers and anyone who happens to be in town. I look forward to seeing you then.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.

This fast-changing news event continues to evolve and we will provide updates as new information becomes available. The article was last updated on 28 February at 14.00 (GMT).

It is the kind of decision which would normally be announced in a solemn address from the White House, clearing the prime-time schedules of major broadcasters. Instead, at around 02:30 US east coast time, President Donald Trump cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war with a video posted on his own social media platform, Truth Social. Tieless, sporting a white “USA” cap and standing behind a lectern erected in an indeterminate location, Trump spent eight minutes making some extremely vague arguments in favour of a very large gamble.

Trump declared that the US had launched “major combat operations” against Iran because of “imminent threats from the Iranian regime”. He did not offer any hints as to what these were. For Israel, whose forces have joined the attack, it is – as it has always been – less ambiguous. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, focused on Iran’s nuclear programme, which Israel has always regarded as an existential menace. Whether one likes a given Israeli government or not, it should be possible to understand why Israelis generally don’t extend much benefit of the doubt to people calling for their extermination.

As for the excellent question “why now?” the answer might be, as the US and Israel see it, “why not”? The Islamic Republic is weaker than at any point since the revolution of 1979. At home, Iran’s economy is languishing, its people furious; nobody knows how many demonstrators were killed by the regime in the most recent wave of protests but all estimates run into the many thousands. Abroad, Iran’s proxies across the Middle East have been destroyed, decapitated or disoriented by Israel’s settling of accounts since 7 October 2023. If Tehran picks up the phone now to Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen or the various brigades it sponsors in Syria and Iraq, there might not be an answer. 

Atop all of which, last June’s 12-day campaign of air strikes by the US and Israel against Iran demonstrated that Tehran could neither defend its airspace nor muster much by way of retaliation. The initial scattershot of retaliatory strikes that Iran has made against targets in Israel, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates look very much of the “use them before we lose them” variety. 

This decision by Trump might seem difficult to reconcile with his long-held disdain for foreign entanglements (social media archaeologists are gleefully disinterring old Trump posts in which he accuses former president Barack Obama of spoiling for a fight with Iran as a distraction from his own incompetence). But it also might not be. If there is a Trump Doctrine discernible in the foreign policy of his second term, it is a belief in short, sharp shocks, on the assumption that the results, unforeseeable though they always are in war, will be an improvement on the status quo. In Trump’s first year back in office, US forces were sent to kidnap Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, an American drone and missile blitz was launched against Islamist militants in Nigeria, and further strikes were made on similar groups in Syria, Yemen and Somalia. There was little follow-up, either because Trump believes he has made his point or has lost interest.

The attack on Iran might fit into this framework. Nobody, at least as of this writing, is suggesting that the 1st Marine Division march to Tehran and drape the Azadi Tower in red, white and blue. As it stands, Operation Epic Fury, as the US is calling it, is not inconsistent with isolationist indifference. Speaking recently to Monocle Radio’s The Foreign Desk, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, reflecting on the nation-building hubris surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq – for which Bolton was an avid cheerleader – said: “My view back in Iraq was that we should give them a copy of The Federalist Papers and say ‘Good luck’. We’re not good at nation-building.”

Trump’s statement suggests that he believes he is creating the opportunity for Iran’s people to liberate themselves. “When we are finished,” he said of the US action, “take over your government. It will be yours to take.” He further urged “now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”

It’s a fine idea, and no less than Iran’s people have long deserved. But the list of wars that have panned out as their instigators intended is short, and the list of people marooned in the gulf between Trumpian sensationalism and reality is rather longer. 

For further updates from the region, tune in to ‘Monocle on Sunday’ and ‘The Globalist’ on Monocle Radio.

I don’t want to embarrass the gentlemen, so will obfuscate on the exact location of our rendezvous. The person in question is a senior diplomat, a British one, in a part of the world that invests heavily in all manner of things, including design and architecture. In short, it’s a place that believes that, sorry, appearances do matter.

Our diplomat is no doubt a very clever man but, well, he looks like he shares a wardrobe with Boris Johnson. On the day I visited him, his pointy shoes needed a polish. He had also clearly been forced to partake in too many banquets of late. His suit jacket looked rather taut and the bottoms of his trousers had kissed goodbye to his ankles (and not in a hipster way). I know, that’s not very kind of me but he is out in the world selling an image of our nation and supposedly doing his best to boost British trade.

As I listened to him talk, I wondered what packing instructions the Foreign Office gives to the men and women heading off to represent the UK. You would hope that they suggest purchasing some smart, made-in-Britain shoes from, say Crockett & Jones, and a suit that looks the part. If they can’t stretch to Jermyn Street, at least something new from Marks & Spencer.

I have always been wary of people who say things such as “I’m not interested in fashion,” or “I don’t care what it looks like, as long as it works.” These same people tend to be dismissive of art and architecture, indeed any touchpoint where the mundane can be elevated, where small moments of considered beauty can transform a person’s day, even impact health and educational outcomes. And the trouble is, perhaps like our diplomat, they miss the bigger picture. Something that functions well and looks the part is often good for commerce too – and certainly good for a nation promoting its soft-power assets. 

On Wednesday, Monocle co-hosted an event at the Hungarian embassy in London. It was to mark the publication of Hungary Today, a book that Monocle has produced in partnership with Visit Hungary to promote tourism in the country. It’s a thing of beauty. Shot by a single photographer, Julia Sellmann (she also shot our Expo on the Castellers – the Catalans who build human towers – in issue 179), it has a consistency of tone and colour that is very pleasing. There’s also a unique binding process at play. The design by our art director, Sam Brogan, is flawless. It was edited by Steve Pill, who guides many of these partnership programmes. But what’s also special is that we found a tourism organisation with ambition, one that wanted to make something that told their country’s story afresh.

The evening’s main host was the Hungarian ambassador to the UK, Ferenc Kumin. He has a nice suit, he’s charming and knows how to promote his nation. We did a fun interview midway through the evening, where he explained the wines that were being served, told people where he likes to spend his Hungarian summers (he’s a north Lake Balaton kind of guy), and unpacked the musical and engineering educations that have helped his country excel in both fields.

And the embassy is good too. More than a century ago the building was an outpost for the Austro-Hungarian Empire but after they parted ways the Austrians moved around the corner and the Hungarians kept this property on Eaton Place. It remained the embassy during the communist era and today, in a rather pristine state, continues its work of keeping Hungary on the diplomatic map and looking tight.

For the April issue of Monocle, our foreign editor, Alexis Self, who came to the bash too, has been working on a special feature about the modern embassy. So you can expect to read much more on this topic soon. We have even persuaded the British ambassador to Somalia to pen a piece. Well, he is married to Konfekt’s editor, Sophie Grove, so we had an in.

But in the meantime perhaps we all need to channel our inner ambassador of a morning, think about how we are going to tell our stories – and our company’s as well – as we step out of our front door. Appearances matter. Shoes too.

To read more columns by Andrew Tuck, click here.

One Italian newspaper calls it Italy’s Super Bowl. A more accurate description for Sanremo Music Festival might be a cross between Eurovision and New York’s Met Gala – albeit a more insular version. Regardless, Italians are glued to their screens for five days each February as they watch musicians most of the world has never heard of competing to be crowned king or queen on the song contest’s final night, which takes place tomorrow.

This glitzy, establishment event held in the Teatro Ariston in coastal Liguria is set-piece Italia: a reassuring mainstay that helps viewers beat the last of the winter blues with spring on the doorstep. Now in its 76th edition and broadcast on the Rai state network from 20.40 until well after 01.00, the media furiously unpicks the previous night’s shenanigans (including, this year, a bizarre attempt to use AI that saw audience members briefly turned into yellow ducks). But beyond new gimmicks, ratings (or “lo share” in Italian) are what matter most to the network.

And yet this year has been blander and more boring than ever. Everything about the programming is nostalgic and retrograde, from the graphics to the songs themselves. Il Foglio newspaper has called the song competition representative of a “calm and melancholy Italy” with “songs that seem to be written in a temporal limbo.” And it’s hard to disagree. Who better to host it, then, than the vanilla, housewives’ favourite Carlo Conti (pictured above) – back for a second year – his perma-tan somehow an even deeper shade of mahogany in 2026.

This is exactly how the government wants the festival to unfold. After rumours circulated that far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni would attend, she took to social media to rebuff the suggestion. “And I’m sure Sanremo will shine without imaginary guests,” she added. “Because it’s the greatest celebration of Italian music – and there’s no need to force political controversy into it.”

Much as the government might want political controversy to be absent from the show, it rarely is. Meloni’s words were a thinly cloaked attack on previous editions under the artistic direction of Amadeus. He had attempted to shake things up by making the show more diverse and more representative of contemporary Italy. That led to several on-air controversies, including rapper Ghali, who is of Tunisian origin, calling to “stop the genocide” on the 2024 edition, a reference to the war in Gaza. His apparent snubbing at this month’s Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Milan (his performance was never given a camera close-up and RAI commentators didn’t name-check him) was seen by some as a reprisal for his Sanremo statement.

The sanitised 2026 edition might be stripped of satire and spice but even vanilla Conti has managed to court a smidgen of controversy. This year he invited comic Andrea Pucci to co-host the third night, seemingly brushing over accusations of stereotypical and homophobic tropes in his jokes. After a backlash, Pucci pulled out – but not before being defended by Meloni, suddenly happy to talk politics. “The illiberal drift of the left in Italy is becoming frightening,” she said.

And that’s as juicy as it gets. From feting celebrity bad boys made good (Achille Lauro) to celebrating family values through the appearance of Olympic-medal winners (speed skater Francesca Lollobrigida got a big round of applause when she mentioned her son), Sanremo has been a snore fest. And it even seems to be affecting “lo share”. This year’s second night had a little over nine million viewers and 59.5 per cent of the viewing audience, compared to 11.8 million people (a 64.6 per cent share) at the same juncture last year. Italians could do with a little more spice. 

Ed Stocker is Monocle’s Europe editor at large. 

The concentration of US firepower around Iran now looks less like signalling and more like sequencing. For months, tensions between Washington and Tehran have simmered over nuclear thresholds, regional proxies and the careful choreography of red lines repeatedly tested but never quite crossed. What distinguishes this moment is not the rhetoric but the hardware. The assets now in play suggest that the US is no longer merely demonstrating resolve – it’s positioning itself for choice.

Since late January, a carrier strike group built around the USS Abraham Lincoln has been operating in the region – substantial enough on its own. But increasingly, there are more. The USS Gerald R Ford, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, has been positioned at the mouth of the Mediterranean and is moving eastward. Two carrier strike groups – one in the Arabian Sea and one in the Mediterranean – would give Washington overlapping arcs of airpower and cruise-missile reach. Around them sit at least 11 air-defence destroyers, three littoral combat ships and two to three attack submarines equipped with Tomahawk missiles. That is the naval element of the equation: visible, mobile and readied to project force. 

The second part is both logistical and defensive. In the past month, more than 250 US military airlift flights have landed in the Middle East and surrounding hubs, moving large equipment and air-defence assets. Over the past two weeks, C-17 Globemasters and C-5 Super Galaxies – the US Air Force’s broad-shouldered, heavy-lifting aircraft – have been shuttling equipment into American facilities across the Gulf. The likely purpose is straightforward: harden bases against retaliation before any strike begins.

At Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, aircraft numbers have climbed from 16 to 29, including seven C-17s and 17 KC-135 refuelling tankers. Unlike those behemoth aircraft carriers, tankers are a more subtle indicator of intent. They extend range, loosen political constraints and allow aircraft to operate from further afield if host nations hesitate.

The final element is geographical. Flight tracking over the past week shows multiple waves of KC-135 tankers moving from the US via the UK to bases in Greece and Bulgaria. Six were tracked on 16 February; another 10 followed on 18 February, staging through the UK before heading southeast. The message is implicit. Even if access to some Middle Eastern bases becomes politically fraught, aircraft could operate from southern Europe, with tankers bridging the distance. The movements of US assets confirm that Washington is deliberately widening its geography. 

Overlaying all the traffic and hardware is command and control. Six E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft – the distinctive radar-domed platforms that map the battlefield in real time – are now in theatre. With sufficient tankers and airborne early warning cover, a large-scale air campaign moves beyond theory and threat.

For now, diplomacy provides the choreography. Warships and aircraft provide the leverage. If Washington were to move beyond signalling, its target set would likely be precise, not expansive. 

Where might the US and Iran target if negotiations fail?

The most obvious focus would be Iran’s nuclear infrastructure: enrichment facilities such as Natanz and Fordow, centrifuge assembly workshops, heavy-water production sites and supporting research centres. These are hardened, dispersed and in some cases buried deep underground. A campaign against them would require sustained sorties, bunker-penetrating munitions and careful sequencing rather than a single dramatic strike. 

A second tier of targets would sit outside the nuclear file but within Iran’s military architecture. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command-and-control nodes, missile depots and drone-production facilities have become central to Tehran’s regional strategy. In recent years, Iran has refined its use of precision-guided missiles and long-range drones via proxy networks stretching from Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Yemen. Disrupting those supply chains – storage sites, launch platforms and transport corridors – would form part of any broader attack strategy. 

Energy infrastructure presents a more politically fraught category. Iran’s oil export terminals, refineries and petrochemical hubs are critical to state revenue but also deeply entangled in global markets. Direct strikes on such facilities would reverberate well beyond the Gulf. Historically, Washington has been cautious about triggering energy shocks that punish allies as much as adversaries.

Tehran’s options in return are asymmetrical but potent. US bases in Iraq, Syria and particularly the Gulf (including Al Udeid in Qatar and naval facilities in Bahrain) sit within range of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains an enduring pressure point; even limited disruption can rattle markets. More plausibly still, Iran could activate allied militias to apply calibrated pressure while maintaining deniability.

A fresh round of US-Iran talks begin today in Geneva, with Oman mediating. The timing is awkward; negotiations are resuming just as the military appears closest to operational readiness. Taken together, the naval mass, reinforced air defences, tanker bridge to Europe and expanded airborne command assets suggest that Washington could sustain a significant campaign. Donald Trump’s administration, perhaps more than others, is capable of tilting leverage toward action. The open question is not capability, it is intent. Hopefully Omani negotiators and a little Swiss hospitality can keep these foes from deadly escalation. 

This article was originally published on 24 February 2026 and was updated on 26 February 2026 to reflect the pending talks in Geneva.

Inzamam Rashid is Monocle’s Gulf correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.