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A precarious — and unsettling — calm has prevailed for nearly 48 hours across the Levant and Gulf region, following attacks launched earlier this week by the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi militia against Saudi positions along the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border, as well as against areas held by Yemeni loyalist forces under the government recognized by the international community. These loyalist units were set to launch major offensive operations against Houthi positions overnight Friday into Saturday morning. The only notable security development on Saturday, August 8th, was an attack carried out by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against a UAE tanker in the Strait of Hormuz region. The UAE condemned the attack, describing it as an act of "Iranian piracy."

In April 2026, Wissam Saadé delivered four lectures at the University of Bologna at the invitation of Professor Giovanni Giorgini. The first lecture, entitled The Prophet and the Philosopher: The Hierarchy of Knowledge between Avicenna’s Falsafa and al-Kirmānī’s Isma ʿ ili Neoplatonism , is presented here in its revised and expanded essay form, published as a ten-part series. The series explores the intellectual landscape of Islamic Neoplatonism through a comparative reading of Avicenna and al-Kirmānī. Although both thinkers share a broadly Neoplatonic horizon, shaped by an emanationist metaphysics, a hierarchy of being, and a synthesis of Aristotelian and Platonic thought, they develop distinct philosophical projects: Avicenna within the tradition of Peripatetic falsafa , and al-Kirmānī within Ismaʿili theology. Despite these different intellectual settings, their systems remain in continuous dialogue on the nature of knowledge, the relationship between reason and revelation, and the ascent of the soul. Their respective projects also embody contrasting approaches to the political, illuminating different ways of understanding the place of philosophy in relation to authority, law, and the ordering of the community. This article is the second installment of that ten-part series.

The region stretching from Iraq to Lebanon, Syria and Israel, with the United States in the background, is undergoing a profound transformation in the function of weapons within the state. The broader trajectory points toward a redefinition of the role of armed force, whether through disarmament or its integration into security arrangements that go beyond the traditional concept of the nation-state. This reflects a gradual shift from a logic of hard sovereignty to one of managed security. At the same time, the contours of a new military-strategic bloc are taking shape in the region, where the Saudi and Turkish roles converge and whose influence extends to nuclear-armed Pakistan, against the backdrop of a sensitive Iranian repositioning. This convergence cannot be understood merely as a set of temporary alliances, but rather as part of a broader reengineering of the region, driven by a logic of “new imperial planning,” in which balances are reshaped by linking security, energy and economics within an interconnected network of interests.

There is a heavy legacy between Lebanon and Syria, but there are also many opportunities. The past between the two countries weighs enormously. From independence under the Mandate in 1920 to actual independence in 1943, and through the most recent phases, issues have piled up to the point where fraught relations between the two countries have become an almost permanent state of affairs. But the time has come for this to end and for a new chapter to be opened, one whose fundamental principle is mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. The bitter experience of Syrian tutelage, which the Lebanese endured from Syria’s entry into Lebanon in 1976 until the military withdrawal of April 26, 2005, remains deeply etched in their memory. That withdrawal came amid the international reactions that followed the assassination of President Rafic Hariri on February 14 of the same year. While analyzing the reasons behind Syria’s entry into Lebanon would require articles of its own, the period that marked the height of the tutelage began after Syria’s participation in the operation to liberate Kuwait in 1990, when its control over Lebanon was effectively granted as a kind of “reward.”

After being endorsed in Washington, General Joseph Aoun was then officially welcomed in Ankara at the end of July — a capital that received him with all the honors befitting his rank. The red carpet, the presidential guard presenting arms with fixed bayonets, süngü tak , and cannon salutes were no small thing in the eyes of the career military man that the Lebanese president is. Obviously, he would not be the one to pick a fight with a Turkish trade delegation, as President Elias Hraoui had done at the very start of his term. A complete map of the sanjaks of the vilayets of Beirut and Syria in 1909. The vilayet of Beirut encompassed the sanjaks of Nablus, Acre, "Bilad al Bechara" (present-day South Lebanon or Jabal Amil), the city of Beirut, and the sanjaks of Tarablus ash-Sham and Latakia. The term Tarablus ash-Sham was used to avoid confusion with another Ottoman city: Tarablus el-Gharb, the city of Tripoli in Libya, which retained its name. (Wikimedia Commons)

Since the start of the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran, the Gulf's oil monarchies have been paying a heavy price: unable to strike Tel Aviv or Washington directly, the Islamic Republic has not hesitated to target its Arab neighbors on the pretext that they host American military bases — bases that have largely been evacuated. As a result, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar — despite being considered an Iranian ally — as well as Oman and Jordan have all come under attack. Recently, Tehran activated its proxies in Iraq and Yemen — Iraqi Shia militias and the Yemeni Houthis — who have targeted Saudi oil infrastructure.