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Day after day, the radical wing of the Iranian regime – at least as it is characterized by certain Western circles – is working to demonstrate its capacity to gradually extend its reach into new areas of the Middle East. Following the reactivation of their Yemeni militia, the Houthis, aimed at holding hostage the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the corresponding Red Sea shipping lane (after the Strait of Hormuz), the Revolutionary Guards were keen to show that they have "a long arm" when it comes to missile range. They attacked the port of Damietta in Egypt using an explosive-laden drone, striking two gas storage vessels – one of which was American.

Some evenings quietly fade into memory. Others simply wait for someone willing to bring them back to life. In 1967, under the High Patronage of Princess Grace of Monaco, the Order of Malta Ball was held in Paris, embodying the understated elegance that has long distinguished great charitable endeavors, where refinement finds its true purpose only in the cause it serves. Then the years passed, and this prestigious gathering gradually disappeared from the Parisian social calendar. Nearly six decades later, the Ball has returned in the exceptional setting of the Cercle de l’Union Interalliée. Under the High Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Caroline of Hanover, this new edition represents far more than the revival of a distinguished social event. It rekindles a shared memory, restores a bond between generations, and reminds us that there are still places where beauty can become a language of solidarity.

The attacks launched from Iraqi territory against Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan underscore the fragility of a country that remains unable to regain its balance. Saudi Arabia’s response, which targeted positions belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the umbrella organization for Iraqi sectarian militias aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), confirms that the regional conflict has entered a new phase. Riyadh has made it clear that it is no longer willing to submit indefinitely to Iranian blackmail. The Islamic Republic is now playing every card at its disposal in an effort to escalate its confrontation with the United States. It is incapable of acknowledging that it is not a superpower and that it must reach an understanding with Donald Trump’s administration that would allow it to become a normal state rather than a hegemonic power imposing its will on others through Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza… On Tuesday, Iran decided to mobilize its fourth major proxy in the region to ramp up pressure on the United States and its allies: Iraq, where the Islamic Republic continues to maintain a network of armed groups overseen by the Revolutionary Guards. Washington announced Wednesday airstrikes in Iraq targeting pro-Iranian armed groups, carried out jointly with Saudi Arabia, which had itself been hit earlier by missiles fired from Iraqi territory. These attacks, carried out in several Iraqi cities, killed 20 people — including five Iranians — and wounded 32 within the ranks of the Hashed al-Shaabi, according to this predominantly Shia network of factions, which is integrated into Iraq's armed forces and encompasses several pro-Iranian armed groups.

Having examined the emergence of the Maronite Church in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon, we must now turn to the role of language in the formation of the nation. It is particularly noteworthy how fully the Maronite ecclesiastical hierarchy grasped the importance of this issue and how deliberately it sought to act upon it. For the Maronite patriarchs, beginning with St. John Maron, language was the expression of their culture, spirituality, faith, and identity. This conviction found particularly clear expression in the seventeenth century through Patriarch Estephanos Douaihy. He referred to Syriac as la nostra lingua syriaca (“our Syriac language”) and attributed to it an almost mystical quality, comparable to the mysteries of the Christianity. By this, he meant that no translation could ever replace the Syriac original or fully convey its meaning. Words, after all, possess a memory of their own, and every culture establishes a unique relationship between the signifier and the signified.

In the NATO 3.0 framework that emerged from the Ankara summit (July 7-8), the Alliance has strengthened its ability to simultaneously address a continental threat in the East (Russia) and hybrid instability (terrorism, migration crises, military conflicts) on its Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flanks. For this second dimension, NATO is now relying on Ankara, which has not only become a major arms supplier to member states but has also established itself as a mediator between the West and the Moscow-Tehran axis. Turkey has refused to sever ties with Russia and Iran while containing the former in the Black Sea and the Caucasus, and the latter in Syria and Lebanon.