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Middle East Eye
How the Iran war broke the ambitions of 'Little Sparta'
How the Iran war broke the ambitions of 'Little Sparta' Submitted by Andreas Krieg on Tue, 05/19/2026 - 20:04 The UAE must abandon the illusion of strategic exceptionalism, and rebuild its autonomy through a collective Gulf security order UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed is pictured in Moscow on 29 January 2026 (Maxim Shipenkov/AFP) On The United Arab Emirates has spent two decades trying to escape the ordinary fate of small states through the network power of hyper-connectivity
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