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A dark corridor, the smell of dampness emanating from it, a broken or unpowered elevator, dirty stairs, then another dark corridor, strewn with coffee cups whose grounds have splashed the floor, empty water bottles, crushed cigarette butts... There, in an office plunged into darkness, a rickety chair awaits its occupant, who settles in, waiting for the generator to deign to light up the premises. Then there was light, revealing the decrepitude. This is not the setting of a post-apocalyptic film, but indeed that of the Palace of Justice in the city that the poet Nonnus of Panopolis, in the 5th century, named guarantor of order and mother of laws: Berytus Nutrix Legum. Two kilometers from a presidential palace maintained with remarkable care (although it has seen more periods of vacancy than occupation in recent decades) stands another Palace of Justice, the nightmare of all jurists: that of Baabda, next to which the capital's palace looks like Versailles. All modern societies rest on a fundamental pillar: Justice. Order is not the absence of chaos, but the presence of efficient justice, of a true functioning third power. However, in our country, the first two powers take precedence over the third. Worse still, they weaken it knowingly, with premeditation. The proof? The 2026 budget project. While in some countries, criminals assassinate judges with car bombs or ambushes, in Lebanon, the weapon of crime is economic, legislative, and executive all at once. The 2026 budget allocates 3.37 million dollars to the judges' mutual fund, which includes nine hundred magistrates, three hundred of whom are retired, compared to 11.235 million for that of the parliamentarians. For the purchase of equipment and office supplies, 90,000 dollars are earmarked for Justice, compared to 382,000 for the Executive and 203,000 for Parliament. As for maintenance costs, Parliament receives 2.34 million dollars, the Council of Ministers and the Presidency 2.05 million… and Justice, barely 200,000 dollars. There is no error here. It should be noted that, unlike Parliament, the Council of Ministers, and the Presidential Palace, each of which has only one or two infrastructures, Justice in Lebanon is exercised through six main Palaces and about thirty premises housing courts. It is therefore hardly surprising that the buildings in which justice is supposed to be rendered are in an advanced state of disrepair. Two hundred thousand dollars per year for maintenance: this is the price of a car that some parliamentarians buy for themselves, all the more easily as they benefit, during their mandate, from tax rebates on customs duties. Judges are nevertheless asked to declare the law and to ensure it is respected, a law often drafted nonchalantly, awkwardly, or even erroneously by deputies, who sometimes blend foreign legislations, a simple «copy/paste» of standards unsuited to our society. And it is then up to the judge to find the balance and the correct application... The State is not content with depriving judges of coherent legislative means: it also deprives them of financial means. The average salary of a judge is around two thousand dollars, compared to three thousand for a parliamentarian. But the difference lies elsewhere: in retirement, the judge depends on an anemic mutual fund, unable to cover their essential needs. The deputy, on the other hand, receives between 50% and 75% of their salary for life, benefits from free medical coverage, and upon their death, their spouse inherits these benefits. A magistrate is first and foremost a human being who, by vocation, performs only one function. Conversely, parliamentarians and ministers generally have a parallel professional activity. Asking a judge to carry out their mission under such degrading conditions (unhealthy premises, lack of equipment, etc.), not to mention political pressures, and sometimes even personal threats, is simply inhumane. Themis, goddess of Justice, wears a long white robe, is blindfolded, and holds the scales in her left hand and the sword in her right. The Lebanese Themis is not only blindfolded, but also has her arms tied and her mouth gagged. In Lebanon, justice is not abolished: it is simply left without light, without budget, and without dignity, until it ceases to exist on its own. This is more discreet, cleaner, and above all, more politically economical. An administrative death sentence, decided and voted by a show of hands by those who, ironically, benefit from judicial immunity...

Every twenty years, a gambler arrives, who stakes the country, its people, its inheritance, sunrises and sunsets, boys and girls, waves and sea on a poker table. Nizar Qabbani Thus, Naïm Qassem seeks to sacrifice Lebanon for Iran. After sending his followers to die for Assad’s Syria, after allowing the inhabitants of his revolutionary home to be atomized for Hamas, he now seeks to conclude in style, through a collective suicide, at a moment when the Iranian mother-house itself is under threat, facing the supposedly invincible armada deployed by Donald Trump in the waters of the Middle East. The latest statements by Hezbollah’s Secretary-General might almost pass for the bravado of a hardened strongman—and perhaps they still do for part of his flock, weaned on the myth of the Aryan Übermensch manufactured by Iranian clerics. Yet this so-called “bravery”—once acknowledged in the late 1990s by the vast majority of Lebanese when it came to defending Lebanese territory against Israeli occupation—has since degenerated into strategic suicide, even if the word “strategic” itself now sounds grotesque in this context. Planes dive over our heads. War is not won with dissertations, nor with metaphors, nor with adjectives. How many times have we paid, at a very high price, the tax of empty talk. The problem with Naïm Qassem’s rhetoric is that it is simply stupid. Where his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, was particularly skilled—wrapping his speeches in a political virtù acquired over decades, to the point of becoming a true mass hypnotist—the doctrinal guardian who was catapulted by default to replace him after the serial liquidations carried out by Tel Aviv among militia leaders possesses the charisma of a depressed crocodile. Nasrallah sought to justify his blind loyalty to Tehran, and its natural consequence—the conquest of power in Lebanon—through a blend of supposedly rational argumentation, political bluster, and formulas that oscillated between the ideological and the populist. He did so with the mastery of a historic leader. Qassem, for his part, is trying to sweep up the broken pieces—and he does so with the clumsy, caricatural ineptitude of those who fall victim to the Peter Principle. In other words, Nasrallah was a virtuoso of verbal sleight of hand. Even when he admitted, in moments of calculated lucidity, to being a soldier in the army of the velayat-e faqih , he did so from a position of strength, inscribing himself within an Iranian imperial logic sweeping across the region without any real counterweight—often even with Western complicity in practice. With Qassem, and his latest speech provides the clearest proof, discourse either descends into the delirium of a sect that has nothing left to lose, or into the crude display of muscle of a steroid-pumped wrestler destined for a certain knockout. This is no longer honest lucidity. It is homicidal irresponsibility. Homicidal recklessness. By asserting that any threat against Iran, and even more so against the Supreme Leader, constitutes a direct threat requiring Hezbollah’s intervention, the party’s Secretary-General is no longer merely raising his voice in a rhetorical escalation that has become familiar. He is openly designating the true locus of the sovereignty to which he submits. And that locus is not Lebanon. True, this comes as no surprise. The party-militia’s allegiance to the Persian revolutionary Internationale is an open secret. The problem lies in the persistence of blindness, to the point of forgetting that Hezbollah’s most recent adventure, in the service of Hamas, turned into a tragedy—not only for the party itself, but for the inhabitants of southern Lebanon and Beirut, for the Shiite community as a whole, and above all for Lebanon. Every twenty years, a complicated man arrives, his pockets full of detonators. Naïm Qassem once again formalizes the explicit subordination of Lebanon’s destiny to an external, confessional, transnational architecture of power, transforming the country yet again into a mere surface of exposure, a dispensable space, a sacrificial satrapy for a confrontation that transcends it. What this speech ultimately consecrates is the pure and simple abolition of collective decision-making. War and peace, life and death, future and ruin no longer stem from a national debate, shared institutions, or a political contract—however fragile it may be. They become the mechanical extension of an axis-based logic, of an ideological loyalty that recognizes no legitimacy other than that of the center it serves. In this vision, Lebanon is neither a state, nor a society, nor even a people in the full sense of the word. It is merely a relay. A pawn. Nothing more than a vulgar front among others, with little tin soldiers and an abundance of cannon fodder—one of the last still in service to the Iranian despot, along with Iraq. Every twenty years, a ruler arrives by decree, who leads the sun to the execution post. The image Hezbollah has assigned to Lebanon is inevitably that of a corridor-state, a frontline-state, a permanently martyred state, doomed to pay the price for the confrontations of others. A logic that has already destroyed the state, hollowed out institutions, fractured society, and turned sovereignty into an empty slogan. The paradox is cruel, almost obscene: Hezbollah today invokes sovereignty at the very moment it proclaims its negation; it presents itself as a shield while acting as a vector of maximal exposure; it accuses the state of weakness after having methodically stripped it of its fundamental attributes. This duplicity is not merely tactical. It is ontological. It stems from a profound inability to accept historical time, with its limits, its defeats, and its responsibilities. It is another name for delirium. Lebanon is not a myth to be nurtured nor a sacrificial stage to be exploited. It is a real, inhabited, fragile, plural country that can no longer survive a permanent economy of proxy war. Naïm Qassem’s discourse does not merely threaten external adversaries. It threatens the very idea that Lebanon might still exist as an autonomous political space—that is, as a place where collective decision prevails over imposed faith, and where the lives of citizens are not subordinated to an armed eschatology. Every twenty years, a man comes to slit unity in its bed and abort dreams. Once again, Hezbollah denies the country’s constitutive plurality. It erases all those who refuse to accept that a para-state power—which has lost all legitimacy even within its own camp, to the point of being gradually abandoned by its closest allies; which has lost its strategic depth with the fall of Assad; which is confronted with a Lebanese will to restore sovereignty and the monopoly of legitimate violence across the national territory; and which, above all, is so exhausted by successive catastrophes that it can no longer bear the physical, material, and moral cost of yet another disaster—should continue to preside over the country’s destiny. Moreover, this is a militia power whose misdeeds, ranging from criminal violence to obstruction of justice and all manner of mafia activity, are innumerable. But worse still, Hezbollah now locks the Shiite community itself into a violent identity assignment, reducing it to a supposedly homogeneous bloc, ready to sacrifice itself unconditionally for a cause that, in its real diversity, does not command consensus. Lebanon’s Shiites have suffered persecution and political, social, and economic marginalization since the Ottoman era. Yes, it took Moussa Sadr, and then the Iranian Islamic Revolution, to change that context. Yes, Hezbollah, after Sadr’s disappearance, restored a sense of pride and dignity to the Shiite community. But it also enslaved it to its law, founded on brute force. It Basij-ized the community, “purified” it by liquidating intellectual elites who did not share its doctrine or its geopolitical and military alignment with Iran, and extended its political control, through the terror of arms, over the entire community—mortgaging it in the process. In a perverse and insidious way, it galvanized the community in the name of a hollow and illusory glory, assigning it a function of territorial resistance while simultaneously developing a social, political, and mafioso infrastructure network tied to Iran. Under the guise of resistance, it de-Lebanonized the Shiites in the service of Tehran. Every twenty years, a narcissist in love with himself arrives, claiming to be the Messiah, the Savior, the One, the Eternal, the Wise, the Omniscient, the Holy, the Imam. What Naïm Qassem’s discourse ultimately reveals is the ideological heart of the system: the sacralization of command, which renders any contestation illegitimate, any dissent suspect, and any criticism assimilable to treason. In this millenarian and totalitarian mental universe, the leader is not a political actor accountable to reality, but a figure invested with a transcendent mission. Such a construction is by nature incompatible with the state, which presupposes finitude, responsibility, the possibility of failure, and accountability. This is where Hezbollah’s current fragility lies, desperately masked by martial rhetoric. Behind the posture of firmness looms a profound anxiety: that of loss. The party has entered a phase of vulnerability it has never experienced to this degree. Totemic figures have been struck down. The regional axis is cracking. The imperial space that once gave coherence and depth to its power is contracting. And with it, Hezbollah’s very identity wavers. What is Hezbollah without its fallacious preaching of territorial resistance? What remains without its weapons? And above all, what future would it have if its directorate in Tehran, the IRGC (Pasdaran), and its ultimate referent, the velayat-e faqih , were to collapse? It is its very existence—indeed its essence—that is at stake. And faced with this erosion, the reflex is old, almost mechanical. Hezbollah does not know how to lose. It cannot conceive of itself in defeat, because accepting defeat would mean renouncing its status of exception, its symbolic monopoly, its founding narrative. So it shifts the stage of conflict. It expands the theater of operations. It turns local fragility into a cosmic issue. It attempts to reconstruct through words a centrality that reality is stripping away. It implodes into spectacular sacrifice, like a sect refusing to confront bitter reality after a messianic delirium of superiority and invincibility. After all, are not angels, prophets, and Hussein himself fighting at its side? To accept defeat would be to validate the failure of the doctrine. And for a theocratic party, the collapse of doctrine amounts to decompensation, derealization, a total dissociation from reality. Naïm Qassem’s objective, and that of his circle, is not merely to defend Tehran against the “Great Imperialist Satan”, its Israeli satellite, and its flotilla. It is to survive the absurd, the void—even if that must paradoxically be achieved through death. Lebanon, in this framework, no longer counts. It does not belong to the calculations or the mental space of a sect whose gurus and disciples have sunk into unreason. Naïm Qassem is, in fact, nothing more than another Jim Jones or David Koresh. Cornered, he will not hesitate to throw himself into the abyss, taking the Shiite community and the entirety of Lebanon hostage if necessary. It is not so much for his masters in Tehran that he would do this, but to prove that he was right. Every twenty years, writes Nizar Qabbani. Far less, tragically. But Lebanon’s time can no longer be that of sacrificial cycles. It is now the time of an unavoidable choice: to become a country again, with all that entails—limits, responsibilities, renunciations, neutrality vis-à-vis regional axes—or to disappear definitively as a political subject, dissolved in the convulsions of a disintegrating empire. And this time, no decree, no slogan, no empty talk will be able to delay the reckoning. This time, someone must stand in the way of Qassem and his kind, whoever they may be—not through their logic of violence and madness, but through the rule of law and through firm, clear-eyed dialogue, if some within Hezbollah can still hear reason and wish to avert collective catastrophe. And that someone cannot be the United States, and even less Israel. The cruel irony is that a new confrontation with the Hebrew state would only strengthen its influence, or even entrench its occupation in Lebanon. Better, then, not to provoke the beast—especially since it lies in wait, eager to be handed the scythe. In principle, it is the role of the Lebanese state to actively deter the pro-Iranian party. And if there still exists a Lebanese popular and political will concerned with acting in Lebanon’s own interest, it is time for it to express itself without reserve, sovereignly, through all democratic means, loudly and clearly against war—so as to prove that it still wants to live, far from the eternal return of madness-violence and all its demons.

For more than seven decades, the US Federal Reserve stood as a fortress at the core of America’s economic success: the steward of the world’s reserve currency and the institution markets trusted to anchor financial stability. It acted as lender of last resort with a dual mandate – controlling inflation on the one hand, supporting economic growth on the other. For most of this period, monetary policy was entrusted to independent professionals, formally insulated from both the executive and legislative branches of government. That independence, however, was never a constitutional given. It was a carefully constructed institutional equilibrium – one that markets gradually came to treat as permanent. That assumption is now being tested. Why Central Bank Independence Matters More Than Interest Rates Markets tend to focus on what central banks do – raise or cut rates – rather than why their actions are believed. Yet monetary policy works only because it is credible. Credibility allows a central bank to influence long-term expectations with short-term actions. It rests on a simple but essential principle: the central bank must be able to act against political convenience. In the United States, that principle has been protected since the Treasury–Federal Reserve Accord of 1951 and reinforced by statutory language allowing Federal Reserve governors to be removed only “for cause.” In practice, the Fed functioned as a technocratic fortress – not because it was unassailable, but because challenging it carried a high political and legal cost. This distinction matters. Markets do not only price policy decisions. They price the credibility of the institution making them. And that credibility is now under direct threat. Presidential Control Over the Fed Becomes a Political Priority Since returning to office for a second mandate, Donald Trump has been unusually explicit about his desire for a more accommodative Federal Reserve: lower interest rates to ease the burden of a highly leveraged economy, and a monetary posture more closely aligned with the White House’s priorities. Tensions with Jerome Powell were always expected to be vocal. Until recently, markets largely dismissed them as political theatre. January 2026 changed the category entirely. The Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Powell, while the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could redefine – or even eliminate – the legal protections shielding Federal Reserve governors from presidential removal. The investigation into Powell – officially related to a building renovation, but widely perceived as politically motivated – represents a qualitative escalation. Never before has a sitting Fed Chair faced criminal exposure in connection with monetary policy decisions. The message is unmistakable: restrictive policy may now carry personal legal consequences. This is not merely pressure on one individual; it is a warning to every current and future Fed Chair and Governor. Simultaneously, in Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court will revisit the doctrine underpinning Federal Reserve independence. A ruling allowing governors to be dismissed at will would fundamentally alter the Fed’s reaction function – not through ideology, but through incentives. A central banker who knows that policy disagreement can end a career will behave differently. Not out of weakness, but out of institutional logic. Succession Risk: The Nomination of a Dovish Chair A third risk now enters the equation: succession. Powell’s term as Chair expires in mid-May 2026, and the very public search for a replacement has become part of the market signal. Personnel, in monetary policy, is policy. One name increasingly associated with a more dovish, market-friendly turn is Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income at BlackRock – widely regarded as pragmatic, market-savvy, and sympathetic to the view that interest rates should fall sooner and faster. The nomination of a dovish Chair is not, in itself, bad news for the Federal Reserve. Rieder has overseen approximately $2.4 trillion in global bond strategies and would likely be the most market-experienced Fed Chair in history. His understanding of fixed-income mechanics and financial plumbing is widely respected. His views on monetary policy also appear broadly aligned with President Trump’s preference for lower rates. Past statements suggest he might favour an early move toward less restrictive policy and a more active use of the Fed’s balance sheet to achieve targeted outcomes – for example, redirecting reinvestments toward agency mortgage-backed securities rather than Treasuries to support housing affordability. However, the very qualities that could reassure markets also carry risks. A Chair with strong trading-floor instincts may be more reactive to asset-price volatility, raising concerns that monetary policy could adjust more frequently than necessary. A willingness to use the balance sheet to influence specific sectors could blur the line between monetary and fiscal policy – precisely the boundary central bank independence was designed to protect. Senate confirmation would also pose a significant hurdle. Democrats would likely scrutinize potential conflicts of interest with BlackRock and question the absence of prior public-sector experience. Markets Remain Calm – Perhaps Too Calm For now, financial markets remain remarkably composed. Bond volatility is subdued. Equity markets continue to price an orderly easing cycle. The dollar trades as if the Fed’s institutional architecture were intact. That calm is deceptive. The credibility risk is still underpriced. And it may not survive contact with reality. The danger is not simply that inflation returns – although rising commodity and energy prices already point in that direction. The deeper risk is that the mechanism anchoring inflation expectations – the perceived independence of the central bank – begins to crack. When that happens, adjustment is rarely smooth. The front end of the yield curve may rally on promises of easier policy, while the long end sells off as investors demand a higher premium to hold dollar-denominated duration in a world where monetary policy is no longer insulated from politics. The secular debasement of the US dollar, already visible in the surge of gold and silver prices, could accelerate. The recent 5% decline in the US Dollar Index over just two weeks may prove an early warning. At the same time, US long-dated Treasury yields are increasingly compressed within a critical technical wedge around the 4.90% level. A decisive break to the upside would open the door to a rapid repricing toward 6%–6.5% — a move that would send powerful shockwaves through global bond, equity, and currency markets. Conclusion The Federal Reserve and its new Chair may cut short-term rates – but still trigger a repricing of both the dollar and the bond market – if investors conclude that it has lost its institutional shield. The greatest risk confronting markets today is not inflation itself or monetary policy. It is the erosion of the mechanism that has anchored inflation expectations for more than three quarters of a century: the credibility of an independent central bank. That credibility, once questioned, is extraordinarily difficult to restore.

Although Russia and China are among Iran's major strategic partners, their support for the Islamic Republic, weakened by internal protests and under threat from Donald Trump, would remain limited in the event of an American attack. According to several experts, neither Moscow nor Beijing is willing to confront Washington militarily. Iran nevertheless holds a significant place in the geopolitical calculations of the two powers. Tehran contributes to the Russian war effort in Ukraine by supplying the famous 'Shahed' type drones that have greatly served Moscow's troops. Iran also came to Putin's rescue by re-exporting Scud-type ballistic missiles once acquired by the Islamic Republic, which produced a modernized version of them. Iran is also a key player in oil exports to China and a member of the BRICS group. Subject to a strict international embargo due to its nuclear program, Tehran manages to circumvent sanctions by selling part of its crude oil to the Chinese market. The mullahs' regime thus secures a valuable inflow of foreign currency to sustain a bleeding economy. But this cooperation does not constitute a binding strategic alliance. « Despite Tehran's efforts for decades, they have not succeeded in creating an alliance with Beijing and Moscow, » emphasizes Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). She recalls that during the 12-day war in June, « China and Russia did not want to oppose the United States frontally. » In the event of an American intervention, « both countries will prioritize their bilateral relationship with Washington, » she believes. « China is in a very delicate rapprochement process with Washington, and the Russians obviously want to have Trump with them on Ukraine: they each have much more important priorities than Iran. » On the Russian side, the partnership with Tehran does not include direct military engagement. « Russia and Iran are allies, but the agreements concern political, diplomatic, and economic support, without a military support component, » specifies analyst Sergei Markov. For him, « the Ukrainian crisis is existential for Moscow and much more important than the Iranian crisis. » Alexander Gabuev, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, confirms that while « Iran is important » for Moscow, and Russia will do « whatever it can to keep the regime afloat, » its room for maneuver remains very limited. « Russia cannot become a giant market for Iran (in the midst of an economic crisis) and cannot grant a giant loan, » he notes, adding that military aid would remain conditioned by Russian needs in Ukraine. Nikita Smagin, a specialist in Russian-Iranian relations, shares the same assessment: in the event of American strikes, Moscow « could do almost nothing. » « They don't want to risk a military confrontation with a great power, » he explains to AFP, mentioning at most the possibility of « sending weapons. » He specifies that this restraint is not solely linked to discussions about Ukraine, even if « using Iran as a bargaining chip would be entirely normal for Russia; it has already done so in the past. » For Beijing, whose relations with Washington structure the global balance, support for Iran would remain essentially indirect. Assistance is conceivable « on economic, technological, military, and political levels » in the face of non-armed pressures, such as trade sanctions or cyberattacks, explains Hua Po, an independent Chinese analyst. However, in the event of strikes, « it would condemn the United States diplomatically » and strengthen its economic and military ties with Tehran « to help bog down the United States in a Middle Eastern war. » For now, Beijing is exercising caution. « The Chinese are cautious as always and express themselves with restraint, » observes Théo Nencini, a specialist in Iran-China relations at Sciences Po Grenoble, recalling « two stakes for China: oil and regional stability. » « China benefits from a weak Iran, which allows it to secure low-cost oil, representing 10% to 13% of its supplies, and to have a significant geopolitical partner without excessive cost, » he analyzes. Like Hua Po, he does not anticipate an escalatory reaction in the event of American strikes: « They will condemn diplomatically, but probably not take retaliatory measures. They haven't done so on many points in the past; I find it hard to see them engaging in a standoff with the Americans for Iran.» Finally, « the current Iranian crisis will have a very limited impact on Sino-American relations, » concludes Hua Po, estimating that « the Iranian issue is not at the heart of relations between the two countries. Neither will break off its relations with the other because of Iran. »

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's game in Iraq was not a mere clever political maneuver or a misjudgment, but a meticulously planned political conspiracy, orchestrated from within a corrupt system, to reproduce power by causing failure and profiting from it. Sudani is not external to the system that destroyed the state, nor above it, but rather at its very heart, benefiting from its mechanisms and mastering its methods. What distinguishes him from others is not integrity, but his ability to manage corruption discreetly and without fuss. Nouri al-Maliki's return to the forefront of power was neither a coincidence nor a forced compromise. It was a carefully calculated maneuver. Maliki, with his heavy legacy, unresolved files, and widespread popular rejection, was the ideal candidate to bear the burden of the imminent collapse. He was not called to succeed, but to perish. He was not recalled to lead, but to serve as a scapegoat, to bear responsibility for the failures, thereby preparing the ground for his downfall and the dismantling of the entire coordination mechanism. However, it is deliberately obscured that the one who orchestrated this game, allowed it to fester, and profited from it, is neither an impartial observer nor an opponent of corruption, but rather a full accomplice. Al-Sudani intimately knows the system from which he emerged: he masters financial flows, influence networks, conflicts of interest, and knows how corruption is managed without scandal. Therefore, corruption during his tenure was not an isolated incident, but a deliberate policy: less blatant, but deeper, more widespread, and more lasting corruption. If he allowed al-Maliki and his entourage to get bogged down in affairs and scandals, it was not out of a rejection of corruption, but because he wanted to use it as a political weapon. He allowed the coordination system to disintegrate from within, not out of a desire for reform, but as a prelude to its loss of popular legitimacy and its transformation into a political liability. In this logic, al-Maliki was not the only target, but the entire system, thus preparing the ground for al-Sudani's return, presented as the 'lesser evil.' This is where the great deception lies: presenting the situation as a struggle between corrupt individuals and a savior, when in reality it is a conflict within the corrupt establishment itself, between those who corrupt openly and those who corrupt silently. Al-Sudani does not represent a break with al-Maliki, but rather a colder evolution in his style and more dangerous in its consequences. He does not fight corruption because he is part of it, but because he understands that corruption is an instrument of governance, and he therefore redistributes it instead of dismantling it. Al-Sudani has not opened a real corruption file affecting the heart of power. He has not addressed the underground economy, nor the networks of major contracts, nor the quota system that fuels the collapse. He has merely managed the calendar: who is sacrificed now, who is spared later, and who is eliminated if necessary. A reformist rhetoric intended for public consumption, without any concrete action. In this context, the collapse itself becomes a political tool. The greater the devastation, the greater the need for a 'savior.' And the more victims there are, the more acceptable al-Sudani appears. It's a sordid game played on the ruins of the state, where failure is deliberately orchestrated and the proposed solution arises from the problem itself. The real question today is no longer: who will fall? Maliki or the regime? But rather: will Iraqis once again accept the masquerade of a 'savior' manufactured within corruption itself, or will they demand a genuine alternative, born from outside? The answer to this question will determine whether Iraq remains trapped in a cycle of collapse, or if it finally has a chance to break free.

Thus, after the 'brilliant' military performance (!) of the 'support war' for Hamas and Gaza, Sheikh Naim Kassem now promises us a new 'support war,' but this time with the objective of coming to the aid of an even more distant regional actor: Ayatollah Khamenei and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The leader of Hezbollah has therefore decided, or rather has announced (since he is not the one who decides on such matters…), that the Lebanese must show blind self-sacrifice, without any limit, up to the ultimate sacrifice, to 'defend' (?) a foreign force… For all those who still had some doubts in this regard, or who refused to acknowledge the truth, Sheikh Naim Kassem has just brilliantly confirmed what was, for informed observers, a truism: Hezbollah is not a Lebanese party. Its members are indeed Lebanese, but its political decisions, its line of conduct, its political project, are transnational and take no account of local realities or the higher interests of the Land of the Cedars. In fact, from its formation in the mid-1980s, the party very clearly stated in its political charter that for all strategic decisions, including the decision of war and peace, it pledges allegiance to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, in his capacity as the divine, direct, representative of the twelfth occulted Shiite Imam, Imam al-Mahdi. Hezbollah thus pledges to the Iranian Leader, the walih el-faqih, a total 'religious obedience' that does not overly concern itself with the contingencies of this world, whether national, state, or socio-economic in nature. From the perspective of this doctrine, which grants to the walih el-faqih absolute power exercised in the name of the occulted imam, the existence of an Islamic Republic based on these foundations defined in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as the perpetuity of 'armed resistance' – in service of this project – become a deeply religious duty, all the more dogmatic as it aims, like a catalyst, to pave the way for the return of the occulted imam. In order to adhere, regardless of the circumstances, to the sacred nature of this doctrinal edifice, the most irrational behaviors become permissible, in this case, for example: repression, even bloody and large-scale, of any opposition, presented as an 'offense against God' (which provides the pretext for the summary verdicts pronounced by Iranian Islamic courts against protesters); systematic obstruction of any attempt to build a strong and sovereign central state, as illustrated notably by the Iraqi case and the current attitude of Hezbollah, which refuses to hand over its military arsenal to the army; the destabilization manu militari of the Levant countries through the export of the Islamic revolution, initiated in 1979 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. With the aim of progressively and meticulously creating favorable conditions for the success of this transnational Khomeinist project, the mullahs' regime plays on the 'time' factor… The deconstruction of the established order can indeed only be carried out slowly and gradually, while creating blockages and extending tentacles to different levels of power and economic sectors. When the current circumstances or the balance of power are not favorable to this theocratic project, the strategy followed is clear: to give the impression of wanting to 'dialogue' and 'negotiate' an agreement with the opposing party. But this is only a deceptive perception, the true aim being to gain time, to procrastinate, while waiting for unfavorable circumstances to change or evolve. This explains the notion of 'strategic patience,' advocated by Khamenei, which is merely a diplomatic version of taqiyya, which consists of concealing one's true intentions while awaiting better days. Unfortunately, some high-ranking Lebanese and Western officials are naively falling for this game. Negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program have been ongoing for more than twenty years! Throughout this period, the power in Tehran gave the impression that it sought an agreement on this issue, but at the same time, uranium enrichment continued steadily, away from the spotlight. It is also based on this same pernicious approach that Hezbollah constantly emphasizes its willingness to 'discuss' its disarmament. Except that this 'discussion' has been ongoing, episodically, since… 2006, when Speaker Nabih Berry organized a dialogue conference that deliberated at length on the matter! Do the Lebanese remember how many times the supposed 'defense policy' has been, since Taif, at the center of debates and 'discussions' in the highest spheres of power? The dramatic upheavals of recent months, in Gaza as well as in Lebanon, and most recently in Iran – with the veritable bloodbath suffered by the civilian population – illustrate the urgent need to finally put an end to the naivety, or perhaps political hypocrisy, demonstrated by some leaders in the shadow of the pernicious and deadly maneuvers of ideologues who cling to medieval, and above all inhumane, methods in the exercise of power. Weakness, complacency, and cowardly behavior in the face of militia blackmail and mafia-like intimidation campaigns can ultimately only result in the transposition of state terrorism to Western societies, as demonstrated by the direct threats made as recently as Tuesday by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs against European Union countries, 'ordered' without scruple not to list the Pasdaran as terrorist organizations.