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There is, in the image of Nicolás Maduro paraded in New York like a petty drug trafficker, something that echoes Vercingetorix being displayed as a war trophy in Rome before Julius Caesar in September 52 BC, after the siege of Alesia. No one is suggesting shedding crocodile tears for a populist dictator at the helm of a defiant state. Maduro, moreover, is neither Lumumba nor Che Guevara. He is simply one of those figures Latin America has always known how to produce in its darkest hours: characters straight out of The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez, whose outward flamboyance masks a total absence of grandeur. Spectral. Ridiculous. Through this show of force, Donald Trump clearly sought once again to demonstrate the supremacy of the American empire, just as George W. Bush did twenty years ago by sending Saddam Hussein to the gallows after the Iraq expedition. Yet, despite the striking nature of the U.S. operation, it is not necessarily a sign of strength. On the contrary, it acts as a brutal revelation: the return, unspoken, to a world governed by spheres of influence, close in spirit to what was formalized between the USSR and the United States in the Helsinki Accords of 1975. But with one crucial difference. Since the end of the Cold War, the international order has sought to present itself as universal and normative, grounded in law, democracy, and the sovereignty of peoples. In reality, this narrative long concealed a selective interventionism, often justified by the fight against terrorism or against so-called “rogue” regimes. The new world order was American. An “hyperpower,” as Hubert Védrine famously put it. For two decades, the United States targeted figures operating outside the classic framework of statehood: the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Qasem Soleimani. Even Saddam Hussein, a notable exception, was absorbed into a broader narrative of proliferation and systemic threat. With Maduro, the logic shifts. This is no longer about neutralizing a transnational actor, but about intervening directly against a sitting head of state, in a region historically viewed by Washington as part of its natural strategic sphere. The gesture is less ideological than geopolitical. What is emerging increasingly resembles an informal Helsinki, without negotiation tables or solemn signatures. A tacit rule now prevails: each major power acts as the enforcer of its vital space, carefully avoiding direct confrontation with others. Israel imposes “its” regional security order in the Middle East through preventive deterrence and targeted military action; Turkey redraws its red lines from Syria to the Caucasus; Saudi Arabia manages its immediate neighborhood through an existential reading of security; the United States reinvests in the Western Hemisphere in an explicitly Monroeist spirit; Russia acts in Ukraine (and previously in Syria) in the name of strategic depth; China insists that Taiwan is a non-fragmentable red line; India and Pakistan revert to their familiar refrains… without even mentioning the Horn of Africa and its endless intrigues. With the collapse of the Yalta order, the world is no longer governed by universal norms, but by localized balances of power. Here is where the analogy with Helsinki reaches its limits. In 1975, mutual recognition of spheres of influence operated within a strict bipolar framework. The nuclear arms race followed a paradoxically stabilizing logic: deterrence. Each side knew the other’s red lines. The existential risk of nuclear annihilation acted as an ultimate brake. Competition within coordination was the rule. Today, that framework has vanished. The world is multipolar, fragmented, crossed by middle powers, hybrid actors, militias, failed states, and disruptive technologies. Nuclear weapons still exist, but they no longer structure the entire system. They coexist with prolonged conventional wars, targeted strikes, covert operations, cyberattacks, and proxy conflicts. Deterrence is no longer a shared language. As for coordination… one might ask the judoka Putin what he thinks. This return to regional policing produces a world that is more legible for major powers, but infinitely more dangerous for gray zones. States too weak to impose sovereignty yet too strategic to be ignored become permanent theaters of contained tension. Above all, the absence of a credible global framework introduces an unprecedented risk: miscalculation, a localized escalation spiraling out of control, in a system where no one truly believes in the rules they invoke. That is another name for chaos. And it will not be “constructive.” Helsinki froze the world through fear of mutual annihilation. Today’s world advances without a safety net, convinced that local force can solve everything, while forgetting an essential truth: brinkmanship always carries the risk of falling into the abyss. Perhaps that is the real omen for tomorrow: an international order less “hypocritical,” but more unstable; more honest in its brutality, yet stripped of safeguards. A world where everyone polices their own backyard, until the borders between those “backyards” once again fail to hold. “I’ve seen the future, brother, it is murder,” sang Leonard Cohen after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the bipolar order. He was right. Between dreams of freedom and democracy and the nightmarish disillusion of unbounded violence, there is often only a single step.

Longevity is often mistaken for stability. In geopolitics, this is one of the most costly analytical errors. Some regimes do not survive because they are strong, adaptive, or broadly supported. They survive because they have learned how to manage decline: suppress dissent, fragment opposition, externalise internal failures, and stretch coercion beyond legitimacy. Over time, this creates an illusion of permanence. But permanence built on control rather than consent is, by nature, brittle. As we move into 2026, two states stand out as emblematic of this dangerous illusion: Iran and Venezuela . Both regimes are routinely described as resilient. Iran projects power far beyond its borders through an extensive network of regional proxies. Venezuela’s leadership has outlasted sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and economic collapse. To many observers, endurance itself has become proof of stability. That conclusion is deeply flawed. Regimes do not fail only when economies weaken. They fail when control mechanisms erode faster than legitimacy can be rebuilt . They fail when repression substitutes for consent, when founding narratives lose credibility, when elite cohesion frays, and when regional leverage no longer compensates for domestic exhaustion. This is the phase both Iran and Venezuela are now entering. In both cases, the foundational stories that once justified power have worn thin. In Iran, the nearly five-decade-old religious revolutionary narrative has lost its hold over a young, urban, hyper-connected population that no longer sees sacrifice, ideological purity, or permanent confrontation as pathways to dignity or prosperity. In Venezuela, the Chávez–Maduro Bolivarian project has degenerated into a system of managed decay, where regime survival depends less on ideology than on patronage, coercion, and the exhaustion of society. This is how modern regime failures unfold: not through sudden collapse, but through the accumulation of internal pressures inside tightly controlled systems — pressures that appear manageable until an external shock exposes their depth. States fail because they become overextended, internally hollowed, and unable to absorb stress. When that moment arrives, external events — even limited ones — can produce disproportionate consequences. In both Iran and Venezuela, domestic dynamics have reached the boiling point . Externally, both regimes are also confronting a quiet but decisive shift: their regional relevance is diminishing . For nearly half a century, Iran’s clerical regime has defined itself through two core pillars : establish a Shia crescent in the Arab World, competing for Muslim Leadership with Saudi Arabia and Qatar AND its ideological drive to destroy Israel, a prerequisite to establish its credibility in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Iran’s external strategy has profoundly destabilised the Middle East in the past fie decades. It has triggered civil war and famine in Yemen, fuelled the political and economic collapse of Lebanon, and prevented the emergence of a two-State solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by supporting Palestinian extremist factions. The October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas triggered a forceful regional response that severely degraded Hamas in Gaza, crippled Hezbollah ’s leadership structure in Lebanon, and significantly weakened the operational capacity of the Houthis in Yemen. Far from consolidating influence, Iran’s long-standing ambition to impose a “Shia Crescent” has exposed the limits of its power projection. That strategy is now yielding sharply diminishing returns. Iran’s proxy network has become more costly to sustain and less effective strategically. In Venezuela , the trajectory has been different but the outcome similar. Hugo Chávez rose to power in 1998 on a wave of popular anger against corruption and inequality, promising radical reform under the banner of the Bolivarian Revolution. What followed was not renewal, but institutional erosion: authoritarian consolidation, economic mismanagement, massive underinvestment, and one of the largest peacetime emigrations in modern Latin American history. Once a leading economy in the region, endowed with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela has seen its strategic weight steadily evaporate. Externally, its geopolitical utility to allies has narrowed as its economic, diplomatic, and regional relevance has continued to shrink. History suggests that the most dangerous phase for entrenched regimes is not open crisis, but the moment when governance gives way entirely to survival management . That moment has come. 2026 matters not because it promises a headline-grabbing event, but because it may mark the point at which delay strategies stop working . Leadership aging, succession uncertainty, generational rupture, information leakage, and declining external buffers are converging. When that happens, even tightly controlled systems can destabilize with remarkable speed. After weeks of attacks by US forces on Venezuelian drug-smuggling vessels and a tight blockade on its il exports, On January 3rd 2025, the US army carried out “a large scale strike against Venezuela and captured Nicolas Maduro and his wife” as announced by the White House this morning. Jan 3rd operation marks the final demise of the Bolivarian Revolution and a new beginning for Venezuela. When it comes to Iran and the Middle East, January 2nd meeting between Benyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, at the time where large scale popular uprisings in many Iranian cities may also point to a massive military operation by Israel in Iran in Lebanon, a prelude to the completion of the tectonic shift that has started on October 7th. Israel needs strong regimes at its borders to achieve a lasting peace. Syria and Lebanon are the two remaining missing pieces. Taking Lebanon’s Hezbollah away permanently and installing a strong regime in Lebanon is the next step. That also requires a radical change to its failed sectarian democratic system. And it needs to free itself permanently from the threat of Iran’s Mollah’s regime. The conditions are ripe for such action. And the time may have come.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or at least the top brass of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (the Pasdaran), likely did not read, or even try to understand, La Fontaine's fable, "The Frog Who Wished to Be as Big as an Ox," when they were at the height of their power. Had they done so, they would undoubtedly have recognized that they could not compete with powers possessing potential, in every domain, that was light-years away from their actual "divine" capabilities through ideology, empty slogans, fiery speeches, populism, demagoguery, and, above all, terrorism. If they were aware of the realities of this world, they would have been far more realistic in their expansionist and geostrategic ambitions. From the early 2000s onward, a series of indicators emerged, clearly demonstrating that not only the United States and Israel, but also the entire international community, including Russia and the main countries of the European Union, could not possibly accept that a radical Islamist regime, displaying a belligerent stance, could possess advanced nuclear weapons. It appears from official documents declassified a few days ago in Washington that, during a meeting he held in Slovenia in June 2001 with the White House chief, George W. Bush, President Vladimir Putin emphasized that he had credible evidence explicitly indicating that the Iranian regime was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, expressing his grave concerns to the American president. During another meeting held between the two heads of state at the same time at the White House, President Bush emphasized to Putin, in a clear allusion to Iran, that "we don't need religious extremists in possession of a nuclear weapon." These were the first signs of the emergence of a long diplomatic and media standoff that would pit the Islamic Republic against the international community over the Iranian nuclear program for more than two decades. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, the UN Security Council imposed UN sanctions on Iran (with the approval of Russia and China) because of its suspiciously persistent pursuit of uranium enrichment at a rate that could only lead to the acquisition of the bomb. Since then, feverish behind-the-scenes discussions, diplomatic maneuvering, and negotiations have continued, making virtually no progress, Tehran's objective clearly being simply to buy time. Even the 2015 agreement brokered by Barack Obama had flaws and made no mention, for example, of Iran's intensive production of ballistic missiles, as demanded by the then French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, who advocated a sufficiently firm stance toward the Islamic Republic. But Barack Obama was "vigilant" in order to counter any attempt to adopt too harsh a position toward the mullahs in Tehran… We know how events unfolded in this regard. Long before this diplomatic battle waged since the early 2000s, Israel did not hesitate to take action, without getting bogged down in sterile debates, and in June 1981 bombed the nuclear reactor that Iraq was working to build. And in 2007, the Israeli air force carried out a raid in Syria against a nuclear site in the Deir ez-Zor region. All of these indicators confirmed, day after day, the firm determination of Israel, the United States, European countries, and even Russia to prevent autocratic powers, and in particular a regime as radical as that of the Iranian mullahs, from completing a nuclear program whose military purpose was obvious to everyone. Despite this near-unanimity, the Islamic Republic persisted for over two decades in investing hundreds of billions of dollars in a highly strategic project whose realization was demonstrably chimerical, irrational, and even utterly suicidal given international realities. To make matters worse, and further its suicidal stance, Iran undertook, through investments of tens of billions of dollars, to establish and maintain militias completely subservient to the Revolutionary Guards in five countries and regions of the Levant (including Gaza). This resulted in an exacerbation of the age-old tension between Sunnis and Shiites, accompanied by the chronic destabilization of this part of the world, solely to satisfy the hegemonic ambitions of the Revolutionary Guard apparatus. All of this...cloaked in anti-American, anti-Western rhetoric and a belligerent attitude toward the Gulf states. In light of the sheer number of these indicators and considerations that have accumulated over more than twenty years, a troubling question arises: how could leaders who aspired to play a key, even dominant, role in the region have displayed such political blindness, allowing themselves to be convinced that they could extend their reach with impunity, everywhere, disregarding the societal, historical, political, cultural, and geopolitical realities of the Levant region? The hurricane that is currently striking the capital and numerous Iranian cities is, to a large extent, a consequence of this obstinate desire to forge an outsized power structure, completely out of proportion to the regime's actual capabilities and the extraordinary potential of the adversary the mullahs presumed to confront.

It is not the first time that Iranians have taken to the streets to challenge their rulers. But this latest popular movement is distinguished by the mobilization of a new actor: the Bazaar merchants, considered one of the pillars of the Islamic regime. It all began on December 28, when Tehran merchants launched a strike to protest against hyperinflation and economic stagnation. The movement has since expanded to include political demands. Since the beginning of the protests, the authorities have adopted a dual approach, combining appeasement, by recognizing "legitimate demands" related to economic difficulties, and firmness against any attempt at destabilization. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in power since 1989, stated on Saturday, the seventh day of the popular uprising, that the economic demands of the demonstrators were "just" but that the "rioters" should be "put in their place"... Decades of popular dissent Protest movements have punctuated the life of the Islamic Republic since 1999. In July of that year, a student protest movement erupted, seeking to defend the reformist president Mohammad Khatami. The violent intervention of the Bassij virtually put an end to the protest. In June 2009, the disputed re-election of ultraconservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khamenei's favorite, triggered a protest movement denouncing fraud. The authorities eventually crushed the revolt with severe repression that left dozens dead and thousands arrested, thereby crushing opposition political and intellectual circles under the weight of often very heavy sentences. In late December 2017, hundreds of people demonstrated in Mashhad, the country's second-largest city, and in other cities against rising prices, unemployment, and the government. In November 2019, demonstrations were organized shortly after the announcement of a sharp increase in gasoline prices. Hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests were also reported. In July 2021, protests erupted against water shortages in the drought-stricken Khuzestan province. Meanwhile, in Tehran, people protested against electricity cuts. An increasing number of Iranian women are appearing bareheaded in public in Tehran and major cities, defying the obligation to wear the veil in force since the advent of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The last, and probably most bloody, uprising dates back to September 2022. The death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly violating the dress code with a poorly adjusted veil, triggered months of demonstrations across the country, under the rallying cry "Woman Life Freedom!". Several hundred people died, including dozens of security force members, and thousands of protesters were arrested. An unprecedented mobilization Returning to the current wave of defiance, it has mobilized large cities such as Isfahan, Shiraz, and even the holy city of Qom, a bastion of Khomeinist thought, where a man was killed by the explosion of a grenade he intended to use. Some protesters did not hesitate to chant "death to the dictator!", the famous slogan launched against the Shah during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This slogan is now being used by the people against the tyranny of the mullahs... According to Lebanese journalist and Iran specialist Ali al-Amine, "for the first time, we are witnessing a movement that has emerged from within the Iranian bazaar," which, in his opinion, is "a significant indicator that will have a considerable impact." Mr. Al-Amine recalls that this "takes us back to the Iranian revolution, to its beginnings in 1979: what tipped the course of events at the time was the strike organized by the bazaar, which played a major role in the fall of the Shah's regime." Why the bazaar? "The mullahs' regime rests on three main pillars: the seminaries (the Hawza) and religious authority, the Revolutionary Guards, and the bazaar," says Ali al-Amine. "All previous movements took place outside this trio." He adds, "Today, the bazaar has entered the scene and even influences religious authority thanks to 'Khoms' (one-fifth or 20%), an Islamic tax that is an obligation for all Shiites. This tithe effectively serves to finance the clergy. Seminaries are funded by Khoms funds, etc. This money is always in the hands of the wealthy classes, i.e., the bazaar merchants." One ill, several triggering symptoms The Iranian streets are stirring because the country's economy is weakened by decades of Western sanctions related to its nuclear program. The chronic depreciation of the Iranian rial leads to hyperinflation (52% year-on-year in December) and high price volatility. Discontent is also generated by the consequences of "the 12-day war" that pitted Israel against Iran last June, during which Iran's nuclear facilities were hit by Israeli and American raids. "Iran is currently at a dead end," states Ali al-Amine. "Even during past demonstrations, Iran could always address its population by saying: 'We are at Israel's borders, we are at the Mediterranean borders, we control Iraq, we control Syria...' This constituted a kind of guarantee for the regime's internal survival." "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran!" The Iranian authorities also find themselves isolated after the blows dealt to their regional allies: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of Bashar al-Assad's Alawite regime. Some Iranians harbor long-standing resentment against Tehran's financial and military support for these allies, while the country suffers economically. Iran International , a Persian-language television channel based abroad and critical of the government, reported a slogan "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran!", chanted by some demonstrators. "With its withdrawal from Syria and the revelation of its activities in other regions it had not previously targeted, Iran now faces several problems: growing internal crises, declining regional and international influence, strained foreign relations, and increasing American and Israeli pressure," continues Mr. al-Amine, before adding: "One of the most striking developments, according to Iranian sources, is that the demonstrations now involve both the middle and upper classes. Protests are observed in the heart of Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz, cities traditionally marked by movements from the affluent and middle classes, and this is another important indicator. These movements are among the options currently available to the Iranian regime, and their fate depends on the evolution of the situation." Ali al-Amine states that "Trump's declaration, according to which he will intervene to defend the protesters, is a significant indicator. It strengthens the motivation of the Iranian people and encourages them to mobilize!" Notably, Israeli Mossad last Wednesday called on Iranian protesters to intensify their social mobilization: "Come out together into the streets. The time has come. We are with you," Israel's external secret services emphasized on their X account, addressing the protesters in Farsi! Quo vadis? The options available to Iranians, given this internal and external stalemate, also depend on the evolution, duration, and escalation of events. "I believe that Iran is currently faced with a choice: either conclude an agreement and accept significant concessions regarding its nuclear and ballistic programs, or simultaneously negotiate a definitive agreement with the Americans, which would effectively amount to a surrender," states al-Amine. According to Ali al-Amine, "this is a major asset for the regime, and we could also witness the implementation of a plan already almost publicly discussed, aiming to replace the Supreme Leader with a three-member committee. This committee would include Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, a very close collaborator of his father and head of his office, effectively controlling the main state institutions and the decision-making process in Iran. This would pave the way for the concessions demanded by the Americans." State institutions are not limited to the religious apparatus or the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). Mojtaba Khamenei also oversees a network of companies that form a kind of parallel economy, equivalent to 60% of Iran's GDP. The volume of this industrial, commercial, and energy empire has been estimated at 95 billion dollars by a Reuters study...

Like a play. Last act in Venezuela… The deus ex machina from the United States, so long announced, has finally intervened. Donald Trump's administration materialized its threats of a direct intervention on Venezuelan soil against the government of Nicolas Maduro, early Saturday, January 3, 2026. For the record, it's worth noting that it was also on January 3rd that Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force (part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), was assassinated in Baghdad in 2020, on the orders of President Donald Trump. It was also on January 3rd that the President of Panama, Manuel Noriega, surrendered to the Americans following a U.S. intervention in Panama. Returning to the operation of January 3rd, 2026, alongside air strikes launched near military positions in the capital Caracas and other regions of the Bolivarian Republic, Maduro was captured with his wife by a unit of US special forces and evacuated to the United States, where he faces criminal charges for drug trafficking. This US military operation obviously upsets the geopolitical landscape in Latin America and across the American continent, but its impact also extends beyond this part of the world. More specifically, for the populations of the Levant, the Middle East, and the Gulf generally, a fundamental question arises in light of these upheavals: will the fall of Maduro consequently weaken, by ripple effect, the already struggling Iranian mullahs' regime, especially in recent days? The American administration indeed affirms that close ties exist more than ever between Caracas and Tehran. The Islamic Republic would consequently be deprived of a precious ally at a time when it faces a popular uprising, an unprecedented socio-economic crisis, and increased American pressure. A second question arises acutely in this context for the countries of the Levant, and more particularly for Lebanon: will the changes in Venezuela truly contribute to further drying up the funding sources of Hezbollah, accused by the Trump Administration of exploiting the Maduro regime's card to engage in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering operations? While awaiting credible answers to these questions and also more precise information regarding the developments of the last few hours and their short-term repercussions on Venezuela, three other equally fundamental questions arise concerning the circumstances and the short-term impact of the American intervention. First major question: was Maduro's “exit” the result of a negotiation? Despite the state of emergency and statements by Venezuelan officials, who early Saturday claimed not to know the whereabouts of the Bolivarian leader, the option of a negotiated exit had been mentioned by the media and Western chancelleries for several months. While American interventionism in the Caribbean Sea has been justified since mid-August by the fight against drug trafficking, the net tightened around Nicolas Maduro from the start, accused for several years by Washington of being at the head of the supposed Cartel de Los Soles, in addition to being called an illegitimate president. Nicolas Maduro had repeatedly called for direct talks with Trump, and recent visits by American officials to Belarus had hinted at a possibility of fleeing to Minsk. The equivalent of a Bashar in Moscow… An admission of weakness? The fact remains that an operation of this kind, like the one that occurred on January 3, takes the unprecedented form of a forced extradition; a scenario not seen in Latin America since the capture of Noriega in Panama in 1990. The fact remains that the idea of a negotiated exit is not new, knowing that the outcome of such a negotiation could only be to Maduro's disadvantage. But negotiations still allowed for saving face, in a way… A sign, no doubt, that Maduro had become aware of his lack of legitimacy in the face of the crises his country had been confronting since the great wave of repression in 2017. What about the short-term future? Second unknown, for now: should we expect a power vacuum in Venezuela? It must be noted in this regard that the opposition is fragmented in the face of Chavism. In 2017, Juan Guaido was President Trump's protégé in the wake of unprecedented demonstrations that had shaken the country, causing one of the largest exoduses in the world: according to the UN, more than 8 million Venezuelans have left the country since then. However, Guaido was relegated to the background in his golden retreat in Florida. Following the controversial 2024 elections, Edmundo González Urrutia had been declared the winner, but he had been forced into exile. Despite promises of return, it was ultimately Maria Corina Machado, recently honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, who was openly supported by Washington. This change of figure internally betrays a difficulty in maintaining a united and coherent opposition, especially since Machado's voting instructions were not followed by the opposition base. This is without counting a part of Venezuelan society committed to the ideals of Chavism and opposed to the American embargo. This public, beyond its appreciation or not of Maduro, maintains ideological – rather than concrete – support for the regime in place. In this context, it is important to emphasize President Trump's attitude towards Iran – Venezuela's great ally. Saturday's muscular intervention will obviously facilitate access to Venezuela's mineral, oil, and gas resources, but it also aims, and above all, to cut off Russia, China, and the Iranian axis. It remains to be seen whether internal dissensions in Venezuela will cause chaos that may have been underestimated by the United States. The fight against drug trafficking Last unknown, in conclusion: what impact should be expected at the regional level? The unprecedented deployment of American forces, especially since November 13, the official launch date of “Operation Southern Spear,” has as its proclaimed raison d'être the fight against drug trafficking. However, Venezuela is far from being, according to UN experts, the main producing country and the main transit country for cocaine. The first place in this regard goes to its Colombian neighbor. Colombia, led since 2023 by left-wing president Gustavo Petro, it should be noted, has experienced the worst bilateral relations in its history with the United States since President Trump's return to the White House. From the migratory issue to the Gaza war, via the fight against drug trafficking, almost everything opposes the South American leader to Donald Trump. Customs tariffs, visa restrictions, threats to end funding for the Colombian army, nothing works… The Colombian president was even placed on the famous OFAC Clinton list, putting him and several of his relatives under the purview of US Treasury sanctions. The question is whether, in the shadow of the current situation, the current escalation also concerns him, five months before the Colombian presidential elections which will take place in an unprecedented context of a shift to the right, since 2022, of elected governments in the countries of this part of the world.

Who ever said Hezbollah thrived only on skirmishes and armed conflict? Since the 1990s, it has been steadily “Lebanonizing” itself—smoothing its rough edges, choosing the language of compromise. Or at least pretending to, simply to muddy the waters. At the outset—at the moment of its creation—Hezbollah made no effort to hide its hand. It openly proclaimed its ambition to establish a regime modeled word for word on Khomeini’s. From there, it distanced itself entirely from the Lebanese political sphere, dismissing it as an unworthy arena fit only for unbelievers. But then, reconsidering its approach, it embarked—cleverly and deliberately—on a long-term project to burrow into the Lebanese state apparatus. So much so that by 2005 it had secured a fatwa from Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi legitimizing its participation in government. A veneer of legality was thus achieved after a long, silent march forward. The self-satisfied and the naïve swallowed the bait whole. In their view, Lebanon’s political “alchemy” had finally managed to reclaim the party of the Islamic Revolution. Hezbollah, they assured us, would become Lebanese at heart, and adopt our prosaic trading mentality, the same one we’ve carried since Phoenician times. Yes, perhaps the Iranian party had diluted its wine a little—but those hopeful souls declared victory far too soon. Reality would swiftly expose their mistake. Democracy would not emerge the winner in this game. No longer content to remain aloof, Hezbollah infiltrated the public administration to better advance its agenda—short-term and long-term alike. It infused the system with its own subversive logic. And since the state was ripe for capture, the Shiite duo would tame it from the inside out. Infiltration and Penetration This strategy of entrism , that classic Marxist-Leninist tactic, consisted of deliberately inserting members of a militant organization into rival structures—or even directly into the so-called bourgeois state itself. What could be simpler than gaining power from within and never letting go? Both the regional and internal environments lent themselves perfectly to such deception. And if Hezbollah remains deeply grateful to President Emile Lahoud, it is precisely because under his presidency it managed to weave itself into every layer of power and administration. Shielded by impunity and protected by their patrons, these infiltrated pawns—these “sleeping agents”—took root in public institutions and steadily climbed the hierarchy. In day-to-day governance, their allegiance was never in doubt: they followed the directives of their handlers and willingly became accomplices to every transgression. The Misdeeds of the Conspiracy The catastrophic double explosion at the port on that fateful August 4 stands as the ultimate proof of a nationwide conspiracy. Are we not still asking the same questions today? How were tons of explosive material allowed to sit in the heart of the city without collusion at every level? Why were so many glaring warnings ignored? How many acts of cowardice—and how many assassinations left unresolved—must still be counted? What a model public administration indeed! So many institutions looked away—the judiciary, customs, security services alike. And to crown it all: a grand conspiracy of silence. Well done, gentlemen of Hezbollah: your project of entrism has certainly borne fruit. Never before has infiltration so effectively revealed so many vices and machinations.