Kuala Lampur, March 1 -- Less than a week ago, at a dinner attended by Malaysian diplomats and foreign dignitaries, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was cryptic yet piercing in his warning.

The Asia-Pacific region, he said, is fine. Others are not.

At the time, some may have interpreted this as diplomatic flourish. It was not. It was a sober assessment of a world inching toward conflagration.

In Panama and the Caribbean basin, tensions have been escalating over canal access, maritime security, and great power manoeuvring. In Cuba, renewed geopolitical rivalry is stirring echoes of Cold War brinkmanship.

But it was in Persia - modern-day Iran - where the storm clouds were thickest.

For weeks, military analysts had observed force mobilisat...