
In the Shadows of the Iran War: The Horn of Africa
From Into Africa by CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies
March 26, 2026 · 29 min
About this episode
This episode explores the geopolitical implications of the Iran war on the Horn of Africa.
As the U.S.-Israel-Iran war intensifies, global attention is focused on the Middle East, but a profound geopolitical restructuring is unfolding along the Red Sea. For years, the Horn of Africa has been a critical arena for understanding global geopolitical competition and shifts, and the Iran war is exposing the risks and gaps that analysts had foreshadowed. As international attention and diplomatic bandwidth for the Horn’s overlapping crises decline, the region is undergoing rapid political repositioning and transformation as the attention of Gulf states turns inward. In this special episode of Into Africa, Samira Gaid, founding director of Balqiis Insights, rejoins the Into Africa podcast to dive deeper into the geopolitics of the Horn and unpack how the Iran war is reverberating across the region.
People in this episode
Guest: Samira Gaid
Topics covered
- geopolitics
- Horn of Africa
- Iran war
- U.S.-Israel relations
- Gulf states
- political transformation
Keywords
- Iran war
- Horn of Africa
- geopolitical competition
- Gulf states
- political repositioning
- U.S.-Israel relations
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Balqiis Insights, CSIS
Places: Horn of Africa, Iran, U.S., Israel, Red Sea
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