U.S. diplomatic vacancies
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U.S. diplomatic vacancies is John Kiriakou's account of how the mass dismissal of career American ambassadors, dozens fired and never replaced, hollowed out U.S. diplomacy just as war with Iran approached. Visiting Abu Dhabi and Dubai days before the attack, he found government ministers and senior royals asking him personally, "do you think he's going to attack? Because we genuinely don't know", there being no U.S. ambassador in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait or Dubai to tell them. Diplomacy, he notes, must happen at the ambassadorial or chargé level; the military attachés who remain are there to collect intelligence and sell weapons, not to conduct dialogue.

See also

- Gulf security bargain
- Iran strike factions (2026)
