The New World

By imposing Mojtaba Khamenei as "Guide" to succeed his father, the Revolutionary Guards have brought to an end a regime whose very cornerstone was the categorical rejection of dynastic succession. The first directive issued by Mojtaba in the immediate wake of his accession to the office of "Guide" — the supreme and absolute authority of the "Islamic Republic" — is proof enough. The directive, which lays bare the Guards' appetite for escalation, reads as follows: “First: we grant the armed forces full and unconditional authorization to choose the time, place, and means appropriate for responding to any aggression threatening our national security. “Second: the protection of vital and nuclear installations constitutes an inviolable red line. Any transgression thereof confers upon you the authority to strike strategic targets deep within the territory of the aggressors and their allies, without awaiting prior authorization. “Third: the response must be resolute and shattering, so that global arrogance understands that a change of leadership in Iran signifies no weakness — on the contrary, it inflames the spirit of vengeance and defiance.” The Guards appear to have resolved upon escalation in every direction — including toward the neighboring Gulf states — driven by this "spirit of vengeance." Mojtaba Khamenei is, when all is said and done, nothing more than one instrument among many in the very game his father designed and set in motion. The selection of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father can scarcely be called a surprise. Ever since Ali Khamenei rose to the office of "Guide," he had labored ceaselessly to entrench his grip over the apparatus of the state in close symbiosis with the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards are now the power itself — and they exercised that power in practice by deciding that Mojtaba would be the "Guide," with the single purpose of protecting the shared interests between the supreme authority of absolute prerogatives and the Guards themselves. Under the reign of Ali Khamenei — which stretched across thirty-seven years, from 1989 to 2026 — the Revolutionary Guards were transformed into the backbone of the regime; more than that, into a creature beyond all taming. Recent events have illuminated with merciless clarity that it is the Revolutionary Guards Corps that governs Iran. The pronouncements of President Massoud Pezeshkian carry virtually no weight. In practice, the traditional balancing act between reformists and hardliners has ceased to exist. In the shadow of permanent war, the elaborate game that Khamenei père had mastered — and wielded so deftly in service of the regime and its maneuvers — has lost all purpose. In the absence of Ali Khamenei, the survival of the Revolutionary Guards' state could not be secured through any means other than his son. Precisely as it was unthinkable that anyone other than his son should have succeeded Hafez al-Assad after thirty years of uncontested rule. Upon Hafez's death, keeping power and fortune within the family was an inexorable imperative, so indissolubly intertwined had those two elements become. Ali Khamenei, in his capacity as wali al-faqih — the shadow of the Hidden Imam upon the earth — exercised power in an absolute manner. Through the Guards, he secured for himself a commanding share of the economy by means of various companies and institutions affiliated with the "Guide." The Guards' economic activities were by no means foreign to Mojtaba, who devoted the greater part of his time to forging his own power through the accumulation of wealth — much as Bashar al-Assad did in Syria over a quarter of a century, before being compelled to flee to Moscow. The elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei to the rank of "Guide" — despite his manifest lack of the religious culture and qualifications the post demands — signals the Iranian regime's entry into a new phase: that of hereditary succession. This designation, within an "Islamic Republic" founded on the explicit rejection of dynasticism, compels a precise question: to what extent will Mojtaba adhere to the intransigent policies embraced by his father? Is the new "Guide" a replica of his departed predecessor — or a pragmatist, aware that the regime's survival rests exclusively on the perpetuation of the Guards' hold on power? How ready does Mojtaba, now fifty-six, appear to be to reach some modus vivendi with the Trump administration and with Benjamin Netanyahu and his government? The new "Guide" knows, better than anyone — in light of what befell his father on the twenty-eighth of February last — that the choice before him is between living underground and being exposed to assassination. No sooner had the announcement of Mojtaba's designation reverberated than the Revolutionary Guards hastened to unleash a fresh salvo of missiles toward Israel. There is little doubt that such a gesture is aimed at saving face. The matter is one of days, after which it will become plain whether the Guards' interests lie in the continuation of the war or in finding some path to capitulation — on the premise that the overriding priority is salvaging whatever can still be salvaged, including the financial coffers and investments managed by Mojtaba and members of his family. The road to capitulation is clearly mapped. Known conditions exist from which neither the Americans nor the Israelis can retreat — from the nuclear program to the Iranian proxy networks, through ballistic missiles and launch platforms. On the surface, the Iranian regime cannot accept these conditions. Yet in reality it will be compelled to adapt to them through compromises dictated by the existential necessity of remaining in power at any price. For, in the end, if Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba, and the Guards amassed all that wealth, it was not for the sake of self-sacrifice — it was to endure in power. Power begets fortune, and fortune serves the permanence of power. Circumstances did not spare Khamenei père. But nothing in what is known of Mojtaba's conduct suggests that he is among those disposed toward self-destruction. He may differ from his father — radically so — not least because he has mastered the art of accumulating considerable wealth and placing it in the service of power: the power of the Guards, who want of Mojtaba nothing more than a pliant instrument in their hands. Will this servitude to the Guards prevent the suicidal trajectory along which the "Islamic Republic" advances, step by deliberate step?

The unified position of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members regarding the Iranian attacks against the six member states suggests a form of renaissance for this bloc, at least in appearance. It must be acknowledged that the Council has experienced deep internal turmoil since late 2025, following Saudi-Emirati disagreements in Yemen, disputes that had already come to light in Sudan. Some believe that the initial spark was in Libya. These disagreements have paralyzed the Council, even leading to an unprecedented internal crisis in the 45-year history of this regional bloc. The Iranian threat was precisely the raison d'être of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The name given to this six-member council was carefully chosen. The apparent objective was to avoid provoking Iran by refraining from using the phrase «Arabic Gulf», considered taboo in Iran. The Gulf States, under the impetus of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, strove to contain the threat posed by the slogan of «exporting the revolution», launched by Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1979, after the fall of the Shah's regime. Sheikh Zayed hosted the first summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi. This event paved the way for a long process aimed at creating a bulwark against Iranian aggression, which was manifested by Iran's refusal to end the war against Iraq, regardless of the conflict's origin. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), established in Abu Dhabi in May 1981, thus served as a bulwark for its six member states following the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980. The Council largely succeeded in preventing the escalation of the conflict, despite its eight years of war and Iran's desire to retaliate against GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Council largely succeeded in containing the extension of the conflict. It is well known that the GCC member states supported Iraq throughout the war. The fall of Iraq, the eastern gateway to the Gulf, would have led to the fall of the entire Gulf region, regardless of the mistakes made by Saddam Hussein, then Iraqi president. Iraqi mistakes can be recognized if one considers that Saddam, with his limited political experience and imprudence, did not understand from the outset that starting a war against the Islamic Republic was falling into Khomeini's trap, seeking an external enemy to stir up Iranian nationalism and Persian chauvinism. It is also well known that Iran sought revenge against Saudi Arabia by attempting to politicize the Hajj pilgrimage and provoke unrest while hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were in Mecca during that period. Iran also attacked Kuwait, attempting to assassinate the Emir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad, and causing security incidents on several occasions. Saudi Arabia successfully defended itself against Iranian aggression. Similarly, Kuwait managed to protect itself and ensure the continuity of its oil exports. In response to Iranian attacks on these ships, it notably hoisted American and Soviet flags on its oil tankers. Every member state of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) suffered Iranian aggression. The Islamic Republic spared neither Bahrain nor the United Arab Emirates, the latter having played a crucial role in developing a common Gulf position aimed at ending the war, given the potential consequences of an Iranian invasion of Iraq at that time. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) withstood the shocks it experienced, notably Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It worked for the liberation of Kuwait and its restitution to its people. Later, in 2003, the GCC absorbed the repercussions of the Iraqi earthquake – the handover of Iraq to the Islamic Republic by the George W. Bush administration – with all the strategic imbalance that this created for the entire region. This imbalance coincided with the complete fall of Syria and Lebanon into Iran's hands. During the Arab Spring, the GCC played an essential role in protecting Bahrain, where Iran exploited sectarian tensions. The direct intervention of GCC member states was decisive in thwarting a blatant Iranian attempt to overthrow the regime of this peaceful country. Whether one likes it or not, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has lived, since its creation, under the shadow of the Iranian crisis, or even the Iranian threat. A new Middle East, a different Gulf, and a different Iran will emerge from the Israeli-American war against Iran. Will a new Gulf Cooperation Council also emerge? What role will the GCC and its member states play in the face of the new challenges posed by the profound upheavals in Iran, especially given fears of the disintegration of this country which has sought to dominate the Gulf since even before the establishment of the «Islamic Republic»? The GCC will face a different Iran, whose form and nature of regime are difficult to predict at this stage. The only certainty is that the current regime, the «Islamic Republic», is doomed to disappear. Nothing demonstrates this better than the attacks launched by the Revolutionary Guards against GCC countries for specious reasons, thus revealing the true face of the regime. These attacks even targeted the Sultanate of Oman, which has always maintained friendly relations with Iran. The Sultanate adopted a political school based on the principle that friendly relations with Iran, a neighboring country, are inevitable, regardless of the nature of the regime in Tehran… Aside from Iran, the question remains: what about Iraq, a country that must change and which, since the creation of the Gulf Cooperation Council, has been a source of concern for every member state, whether under Saddam Hussein or after his fall?

The least that can be said about dragging Lebanon into the war targeting the “Islamic Republic” of Iran is that it constitutes a crime against the country and against the people of the South in particular. It appears that the aim is to finish off Lebanon at the very moment the United States, in coordination with Israel, has decided to rid itself of the Iranian regime. What is the point of binding Lebanon's fate to that of a regime in Iran that wants to commit suicide? What is to be done when the Israeli occupation continues to expand in the South, the number of displaced persons keeps rising, and even parts of the Bekaa are affected? Is the underlying Iranian demand to push Lebanon into an internal crisis from which it can never escape, by turning the South of the country into another Gaza? More important than all of this: can Lebanon avoid the catastrophe into which Hezbollah has plunged it, or find a way out? There are currently approximately 110,000 displaced persons from among the inhabitants of the South, while around 30 villages have been destroyed. Hezbollah appears to have decided to raise that number to some 350,000, for spurious reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Lebanon. In the end, what does the “Islamic Republic” want other than to drag Lebanon down with it, now that it has become clear that the regime governing it is no longer viable? Hezbollah's decision — an order that came from Tehran — comes in the wake of the greatest upheaval the entire region has witnessed since 1979, the year Iran's nature was transformed by its conversion into an “Islamic Republic” and by the redefinition of its regional role. This decision, suicidal in character, also arrives as the contours of a new regional balance begin to take shape, born from the womb of the Gaza war that began on October 7, 2023 — a war that the 'Islamic Republic' sought to exploit, and failed, through its armed proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The problem Hezbollah faces at present is its refusal to learn from the experience of the “Gaza support war”, which ended as it ended. It waged that war and suffered enormous losses, including the elimination of its leadership and the enabling of Israel to return to occupying Lebanese territory. The Party refuses to draw lessons from that war and from the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, killed in the manner in which he was killed. It remains unclear how a party — which is nothing more than a sectarian militia bound to a foreign power — can embark on a new war without taking into account that its outcome is known in advance. It is a mystery with no explanation other than this: the Revolutionary Guard is pushing Hezbollah into committing suicide alongside it. It is clear that the Party is now under Iran's full control and is, in effect, merely a brigade of the Revolutionary Guard — nothing more. Before Hezbollah fired its rockets from southern Lebanon, the Lebanese state received clear warnings from Israel. The substance of those warnings was that Lebanon's entry into the war Iran is waging would have catastrophic consequences for the country. Despite this warning, which was conveyed to the Party, Hezbollah surprised the Lebanese by firing rockets from southern Lebanon… There is no explanation for what happened other than the Lebanese state's inability to exercise its authority over Hezbollah. The state still fears the Party. Will the Council of Ministers' decision — characterizing the Party's security and military activities as 'a breach of the law' — represent a major turning point on the Lebanese scene and a break from the logic that had imposed the ill-omened Cairo Agreement of 1969? Will it effectively break the barrier of fear toward a Party that has done nothing since its founding but systematically destroy Lebanon and the institutions of the Lebanese state, one after another? The Lebanese state is expected to demonstrate that it can implement the Council of Ministers' decision, in order to turn its attention to addressing the consequences of the catastrophe that has befallen the country. In reality, the Lebanese state — now facing a genuine new test — is dealing with a party that has made servitude to Iran its vocation, and has placed the interests of the “Islamic Republic” above those of Lebanon, and indeed above those of the Shia community itself. It is a party that sees in the death of Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei the death of its own leader. Simply put, it is difficult to deal with a party that regards suicide as a goal in itself and that views Lebanon as a component of the “Islamic Republic” led by the wali al-faqih . Very well. Hezbollah wants to commit suicide. It wants Lebanon to commit suicide alongside it, and to share the fate of the “Islamic Republic”. There is no room for the language of reason with those who wish to commit suicide. It is useful, for Lebanon, to define what it truly wants. It is useful to disengage from the logic of suicide — nothing more… and the time has come!

Were things normal between America and Israel on one side, and Iran's "Islamic Republic" on the other, there would have been no need for all this time and all these frictions to reach an agreement between the three parties — which are, in reality, only two. In the end, America and Israel cannot be separated when it comes to the essential questions: the chain of demands made of Iran, whether regarding its nuclear file, its ballistic missiles and launch platforms, or the proxy arms controlled by the Revolutionary Guard beyond Iranian soil. Were things normal, Iran would have acted as Germany and Japan did at the end of the Second World War, when they surrendered to the Americans and their European allies. That is how Germany saved itself — and Japan likewise. Japan required a second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki after the first on Hiroshima, to grasp the meaning of America's resolve to inflict a crushing defeat upon it. Military defeat freed both countries from despotic regimes that had made each of them a threat to their surroundings, and indeed to the entire world. It enabled Germany to catch its breath and reclaim its standing in Europe and the world, while Japan's economy became one of the most significant on earth — once Japan was convinced that military confrontation with the United States served no purpose. The "Islamic Republic" still refuses to acknowledge its defeat. Such an acknowledgment would allow it to recover its role in the region and the world, and would allow the Iranian peoples to belong once again to a culture of life — a culture they were compelled to abandon the moment Ayatollah Khomeini triumphed over the Shah's regime, with its merits and its failings, in 1979. The "Islamic Republic" still believes it holds its cards in the region and that it can negotiate as an equal with the American "Great Satan," and thereby reach understandings with Israel — of the sort that paved the way for the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in the year 2000, or the "rules of engagement" that remained in force until the day Hezbollah decided to launch its "war of support for Gaza." Beyond this, Iran still views Iraq as an Iranian card. It likewise sees a card in Hezbollah in Lebanon, or in Ansar Allah (the Houthis) in Yemen. The Iranian delegation that negotiated with the Americans in Geneva — through Omani mediation, and sometimes directly — does not realize that it speaks a language long eroded by time, in light of the events and upheavals the region has witnessed since the "Al-Aqsa Flood" attack on 7 October 2023. To this day, the Iranian leadership — with "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei at its head — continues to live in the past, in the era before the "Al-Aqsa Flood." It believes that give-and-take is still possible on the question of Iran's nuclear program, while what is demanded is the complete elimination of everything connected to Tehran's nuclear program. There is no room for any procrastination if one is to reach an understanding that averts a new war against the "Islamic Republic." What applies to the nuclear program applies equally to ballistic missiles and their launch platforms, and likewise to the Iranian proxy arms in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. More than that, Iran attempted to entice Donald Trump by offering to open the Iranian market to American oil and gas companies. Tehran appears incapable of grasping the concept of a country that is safe for investment. What American company would send its employees to a country capable of turning American nationals into hostages overnight? What is needed is an Iranian upheaval at every level in order to reach an understanding with America. Until further notice, the regime in Tehran is incapable of such a transformation — incapable because there is no one in Tehran, save for a silent minority, who is able to comprehend the meaning and dimensions of what has occurred in the region since the "Al-Aqsa Flood." No one understands what it means that an American decision to twist the Iranian arm has existed since Trump tore up the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file reached with the Barack Obama administration in the summer of 2015. During his first term in the White House, the American president shredded that agreement in 2018, then ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani — who may be described as the most important Iranian figure after the "Supreme Leader." Trump did not go to Caracas to arrest Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in order to discipline a head of state who had defied his orders or cultivated close ties with Cuba. The arrest of Maduro and his wife and their transfer to New York can only be understood as part of an operation to clip the wings of the "Islamic Republic" across various parts of the world. A military American-Iranian confrontation — in which Israel will in all likelihood participate — is difficult to avoid, given the existence of two minds and two approaches that cannot be reconciled. The Iranian mind and approach rest on the notion that nothing has changed in the region, and that it is enough to dangle the prospect of investments in Iran before Trump to create a rift between the United States and Israel. The Iranian method of negotiation betrays a naive mindset that refuses to acknowledge defeat. And nothing expresses this defeat more eloquently than Iran's departure from Syria. Where was Syria, and where has it ended up after Bashar al-Assad's flight to Moscow? All the elements of the Iranian defeat are now assembled. The true act of courage lies in acknowledging that defeat. After that, one might speak of negotiations between two sides each holding its own cards — if, that is, there are any Iranian cards left to hold. When speaking of leverage, it is essential to point to the internal situation in Iran. For before the system of the wilayat al-faqih failed abroad, it first failed within Iran itself. Therein lies its fundamental weakness, above all else.

Nothing reveals the beginning of the end of the regime in Iran more clearly than the situation in Iraq. In Iraq, the “Islamic Republic” has failed to impose a loyal figure in the position of Prime Minister. It was enough for President Donald Trump to place a veto on Nouri al-Maliki’s return to office for Maliki’s fate to become suspended. It was from Iraq that Iran’s expansionist project found new momentum after the administration of George W. Bush overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Baathist, family-based regime. And it is from Iraq that this same project now appears to be nearing its end. More importantly, Iran’s inability to reinstall Maliki as Prime Minister exposes the deep crisis afflicting the Iraqi system established after 2003. Gradually, it becomes evident that Iraq is facing a systemic crisis, a system that cannot endure. What is built on false foundations cannot last, particularly in a country marked by religious, sectarian, and ethnic diversity. The “Islamic Republic” in Iran sought to export its own failed model to Iraq. If the system based on the doctrine of wilayat al-faqih has failed within Iran itself, how could it succeed in neighboring Iraq? The U.S. war on Iraq followed directly from the war in Afghanistan after the catastrophe of September 11, 2001. On that day, the terrorist organization “Al-Qaeda,” led by Osama bin Laden, carried out its twin assaults on Washington and New York. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which sheltered bin Laden and his network, had first to be removed. The Bush administration, dominated by the neoconservatives, toppled the Taliban. Yet it remains unclear why the U.S. president then chose to proceed against Saddam Hussein while American forces were still deeply engaged in Afghanistan. The Americans went into Iraq without a clear plan and without a genuine regional ally other than the “Islamic Republic” of Iran, which played a central role in unifying the Iraqi opposition to topple and inherit the Baghdad regime. They arrived with naïve assumptions, such as the belief that Iraq’s Shiites were primarily Arabs whose religious authority lay in Najaf rather than Qom. There was no real American understanding of the weight of Iraqi Shiite militias that the Iranians brought into Baghdad on the tanks of the American occupier. I witnessed firsthand the U.S.–Iranian coordination during the London conference of the Iraqi opposition in December 2002. Most opposition leaders, Shiites and Kurds alike, flew to London together from Tehran. Iranian instructions to Shiite leaders, represented by the late Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, were explicit: endorse the American proposal at the conference. The conference’s final communiqué, for the first time, referred to the “Shiite majority” in Iraq and described the future state as “federal.” The inclusion of the term “federal,” open to multiple interpretations, aimed to reassure the Kurds, particularly Massoud Barzani, who was observing developments with caution. Barzani participated in the conference and declared that the train to remove Saddam Hussein had “already departed,” and there would be no place in the new Iraq for those who failed to board it. His speech was the most compelling, warning against “revenge” while recalling the crimes of Saddam’s regime against the Kurds and his own family. Iran alone benefited from what has unfolded in Iraq since 2003. It was an earthquake that altered the regional balance of power, placing Iraq in the pocket of the “Islamic Republic.” Khomeini had failed over eight years, from 1980 to 1988, to swallow Iraq. The Americans fulfilled his dream in 2003, effectively waging a war that served Iranian interests. President Donald Trump now seeks, through his warnings to Iraqi leaders, to correct a strategic error nearly a quarter of a century old. The error began with the decision to wage war in Iraq before concluding the Afghan campaign and with the belief that there was a distinction between Sunni terrorism and the terrorism represented by pro-Iranian Shiite organizations spread throughout the region, including Iraq. Practice has shown the failure of the regime established in Iraq in 2003. Baghdad lacks the capacity to impose Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister, especially under the threat of U.S. sanctions in the event of defying Donald Trump’s wishes. Moreover, nothing suggests that a new president can be elected any time soon. As for “federalism,” it remains subject to divergent interpretations. Iraq must now seek a new political system free from Iranian hegemony. Much will depend on the outcome of the confrontation between the “Islamic Republic” on one side and the United States and Israel on the other. Yet the central question concerns Iran itself, whose regional expansion began in Iraq—an Iraq that now symbolizes the waning of the “Islamic Republic’s” expansionist project.

There was no objective behind the negotiations conducted by the American administration with the Iranian side in Muscat and Geneva other than conveying a single message. The substance of that message is that the “Islamic Republic” must change. Change must occur, whether peacefully or by force. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to declare recently that the fall of the Iranian regime would be “the best thing that could happen.” From this perspective, one can understand the repeated insistence of the American president on rejecting the return of Nouri al-Maliki to the post of Prime Minister in Iraq. From the same perspective, one can also understand the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his transfer to New York along with his wife. A carefully calculated process of encirclement is underway against Iran, accompanied by the continuous clipping of its wings after its expulsion from Syria and the practical elimination of Hezbollah, the crown jewel of the expansionist project of the “Islamic Republic.” What must be noted at present is the determination within the American administration to return to Iraq. Trump appears to have what might be called an Iraq complex. The United States paid dearly for toppling Saddam Hussein’s Baathist familial regime in 2003. It paid in blood and in hundreds of billions of dollars, only for Iran to emerge as the sole victor in a war whose rationale remains unclear to this day, particularly regarding what drove the administration of George W. Bush to undertake it. The renewed focus of the American president on the question of Nouri al-Maliki is not a mere coincidence in the current circumstances, which are marked by a dangerous escalation between the “Islamic Republic” on the one hand and both the United States and Israel on the other. It is a serious escalation, especially in light of the transfer of war by America and Israel into Iranian territory last June. Within Trump’s mind lies a set of precise calculations, among them a calculation related to Iraq, which has fallen into Iran’s embrace. The Americans, specifically the administration of George W. Bush, handed Iraq to Iran on a silver platter. This appears to remain lodged in Donald Trump’s thinking, as he has undertaken to put an end to Iranian hegemony in the region, beginning with Iraq. The United States brought Iraqi Shiite militias affiliated with Iran’s “Revolutionary Guard” and entrusted them with power in Baghdad. These militias hastened to turn against the American “occupier” and began serving Iranian interests. The Bush administration erred in everything it undertook in Iraq, particularly once it became clear that it possessed no coherent plan for the post-Saddam Hussein phase. Trump also understands that the renewed launch of Iran’s expansionist project in the region began from Iraq. With the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the balance of power in the region shifted. Likewise, with the fall of Iraq, Syria fell entirely into Iran’s hands, and Lebanon fell as well, where the “Islamic Republic” assassinated Rafik Hariri twenty-one years ago after determining that he stood as an obstacle to Iranian expansion, which fundamentally relies on investing in sectarian instincts and replacing state institutions with militias affiliated with the “Revolutionary Guard” in one Arab country after another. King Abdullah II had warned of the dangers of handing Iraq to Iran even before the assassination of Rafik Hariri in February 2005. In October 2004, he spoke of the “Shiite Crescent” in its political meaning, as a Persian crescent stretching from Tehran to Beirut via Baghdad and Damascus. The Jordanian monarch made these remarks in an interview with the American newspaper The Washington Post. His words revealed his foresight and his penetrating understanding of the consequences that would follow Iran’s seizure of Iraq. Since entering the White House in January 2016, Trump has focused on the Iranian threat. He tore up the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file that the Barack Obama administration had worked to achieve in 2015. This occurred in May 2018. In the early days of 2020, the United States eliminated Qassem Soleimani, commander of the “Quds Force,” the spearhead of Iran’s expansionist project. This took place shortly after Soleimani left Baghdad airport, having arrived from Beirut via Damascus airport, which had served as a secure transit point for the “Islamic Republic.” The elimination of Qassem Soleimani constituted a decisive turning point at the regional level. Nothing illustrates this more than the appearance of Hassan Nasrallah, the late Secretary-General of Hezbollah, when speaking about Soleimani’s character and the nature of the relationship that bound him to him at every level, including coordination between Iran and the party in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and in more than one Gulf state. Trump returned to the White House approximately a year and a month ago. He returned under new circumstances in which Iran had weakened and its expansionist project had become a thing of the past after the “Islamic Republic” lost all the wars it fought on the margins of the Gaza war. From this perspective, it appears entirely natural to pursue the campaign against Iran beginning with Iraq, which can no longer be permitted to remain a playground for the “Revolutionary Guard,” as Lebanon and Syria once were before Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut’s southern suburbs and before Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow. It is not important to delve into the labyrinths surrounding the personality of Nouri al-Maliki or to attempt to measure the degree of Iranian influence over him. For Trump, what matters is Iran’s departure from Iraq. It is unnatural for America to remain trapped in the Iranian snare. In the end, Iraq has been governed since 2003 by individuals who returned to Baghdad atop American tanks. Donald Trump rejects this ingratitude with which the American war on Iraq was met twenty-three years ago. Now, after the Trump administration has placed Iran before the choice of surrender or exposure to a broad attack from sea and air, it appears logical for Trump to seek the recovery of Iraq if the objective is truly to bring Iran’s expansionist project to an end.

With each passing day, it becomes increasingly clear that the Iranian regime, now forty-seven years old, is currently facing only two options, with no third alternative available. Either it surrenders to American conditions, which do not differ significantly from Israeli conditions, or it faces a war with the United States from which Iran would not emerge unscathed. Is the “Islamic Republic” capable of acknowledging that there is no escape from dealing with the new reality in the region, instead of persisting in arrogance in the manner of Saddam Hussein? At the beginning of 1991, Saddam, the ruler of Iraq, believed that he would be able to negotiate with the United States on equal footing, despite the fact that the position of the administration of George H. W. Bush was perfectly clear. He was left with only two choices: withdraw from Kuwait unconditionally, or expose Iraq to a war that would return it to the Stone Age. The late Iraqi ruler did not understand the region, the world, or the meaning of balances of power. It is not the habit of the United States to deploy a military force of the scale it has deployed in the Middle East and the Gulf merely to stage a symbolic display of strength. A country the size of America does not move such power without clearly defined objectives. These objectives consist of reaching an agreement with the “Islamic Republic” that includes, at a minimum, ending the Iranian nuclear program, ending the ballistic missile program, and dismantling their launch platforms. The missiles are important, and the platforms are equally important, if not more important. There remains a third condition related to Iran’s regional arms. The most prominent of these arms is Hezbollah in Lebanon, which continues to practice stubbornness while ignoring that it has lost the “Gaza support war” and that its weapons have never been anything other than weapons serving Israel and serving everything that can contribute to the destruction of Lebanon. The most striking example of this remains the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in these very days of the year 2005. The party, which is nothing more than a brigade within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, assassinated Rafiq Hariri in order to eliminate a serious attempt to return the country to the regional map and to halt its use as a card in the promotion of the Iranian expansionist project toward the Mediterranean. A second American aircraft carrier will arrive in the region: the Gerald Ford. It will come to join another aircraft carrier already present in the Gulf, the Abraham Lincoln. There are American intentions that cannot be ignored. Iran will have to submit, either peacefully or by force. It cannot be ignored that the “Islamic Republic” has lost all the wars it has fought on the margins of the Gaza war that erupted on October 7, 2023. There is no need to repeat that the jewel of the Iranian expansionist project, namely Hezbollah, no longer exists in the form it once did. The party now possesses nothing but the card of threatening the Lebanese with civil war in the context of its attempt to retain its weapons, despite the fact that it has been proven that these weapons are of no notable use when it comes to confronting Israel. Moreover, the party refuses to acknowledge that Syria is no longer under Iranian dominance. At the beginning of 1991, a meeting was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva between the American Secretary of State James Baker and the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Baker explained to Tariq Aziz and to the delegation accompanying him that there was no room for negotiation and that Iraq had no option other than withdrawal from Kuwait. The Iraqi minister read the letter handed to him by the American Secretary of State, then left it on the negotiating table, claiming that the language used made him unable to transmit the message to Saddam Hussein. The letter remained in its place. I personally saw it lying on the table in the room where James Baker and Tariq Aziz had met. I later learned that this historically important letter is still preserved in the hotel’s safe. Has Iran understood, in light of the negotiations that took place in Muscat between its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the American delegation composed of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, that there is no possibility of betting on differences between the United States and Israel? Has it understood that there is no escape from recognizing that the file of ballistic missiles and their launch platforms is no less important than the file of the Iranian nuclear program and the file of the arms affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard in this Arab country or that one? The regime in Iran has no choice other than seeking to benefit from the experience of Saddam Hussein, whose political blindness prevented him from understanding the meaning of the United States assembling a military force in the Gulf immediately after the Iraqi army’s occupation of Kuwait. Saddam believed that America was joking and that his army was still capable of holding out in Kuwait. He never understood balances of power. What is alarming in 2026 is that Iran appears to be committing the same mistake that Saddam committed in 1991 and repeated in 2003 when George W. Bush and his aides decided to remove him from power. What further complicates matters in Iran is the internal situation in the country. External failure is accompanied by internal failure at every level, particularly in the economic sphere. It is not true that there is an Iranian majority that embraces the slogans launched by the regime. There is an Iranian majority that prefers a culture of life over a culture of death. If this were not the case, the Iranian people across the country would not have been in revolt against the regime since the beginning of the year. There is no doubt that American intelligence services are fully aware of what is taking place in Iran, as is Israel, which had already realized in 1979 that the Shah’s regime had ended and called upon Iranian Jews to leave the country. Most Jews left Iran at that time in response to the instructions of the Israeli embassy, headed then by Ori Lubrani. Within a few weeks, it will become clear whether the Iranian regime has chosen to follow the path of Saddam Hussein or the path of prudence, which requires acknowledging that there is an inevitable price to be paid as a consequence of losing wars, just as Germany and Japan did at the end of the Second World War.

A single question imposes itself on anyone attempting to unravel the mystery surrounding the assassination of Saif al-Islam, the most prominent of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, a man of singular ideas and conduct, and the presumed heir of a ruler who governed Libya from 1969 to 2011. The question is simple yet decisive: who lifted the protection from Saif al-Islam, at a time when he was living in a house in Zintan under tight security provided by local forces? One thing is certain: Saif al-Islam was betrayed. A betrayal that enabled an armed group to enter the place where he resided, with the explicit aim of assassinating him. Seasoned observers of Libyan affairs largely agree in dismissing the hypothesis that local forces, acting alone, could have been behind the operation targeting Saif al-Islam. He had played a role both domestically and internationally and had prepared himself to succeed his father — or so he believed. There are no local forces in Libya capable, on their own, of carrying out an operation of this nature, requiring such a degree of coordination and professionalism. What was at stake, in reality, was the settling of accounts with any internal or external force likely to support Muammar Gaddafi’s son and help him one day reach the presidency. It should be recalled in this regard that the presidential elections scheduled for 2021 were cancelled as soon as opinion polls revealed that Saif al-Islam’s victory constituted a serious possibility. In recent months, the emergence of new actors on the Libyan stage, such as Pakistan and India, has not gone unnoticed. This should not be interpreted as evidence of a Pakistani or Indian role in Saif al-Islam’s assassination, but rather as a sign of the widening conflict and competing interests surrounding Libya. The country remains torn by deep fault lines between East and West. In the East, the forces of Khalifa Haftar and his three sons — Saddam, Khaled, and Belkacem — exercise their dominance. In the West, power is held, within certain limits, by the government of Abdelhamid Dbeibah, who, like Haftar, has begun to rely on his own sons. Yet the most significant event Libya witnessed roughly two months ago was the death of the Libyan Chief of Staff, Mohamed Haddad, while he was in Ankara at the head of a military delegation. His private plane, an aging Falcon, crashed shortly after takeoff. The circumstances of the accident remain obscure. The aircraft was carrying one of Libya’s most senior military officials, whose exact coordination with Turkey remains unknown, despite Ankara’s close relations with the Dbeibah government on the one hand and with Islamist movements in Libya on the other. What matters today is that a major actor has exited the Libyan stage, for reasons that are both internal and external. This does not mean, however, that Saif al-Islam was an exceptional politician. He was above all a figure who knew the world and, at a certain moment, attempted to play a role, despite his father’s opposition, which prevented him from going too far in the relationships he had established with Western countries and certain American circles. In reality, Saif did not possess the means necessary to implement the reforms to which he aspired. His ability to control Libyan state funds always remained limited. Muammar Gaddafi, fully aware that money constituted one of the principal sources of his power, retained total control over the country’s resources. He never accepted sharing absolute authority, not even with one of his sons. From this perspective, Saif remained a secondary actor for as long as his father was alive, despite the image he cultivated as a reformer and as the embodiment of a possible future for a Libya that Muammar Gaddafi had succeeded in turning into a pariah state. The failure of the satellite television channel he launched in Libya offers a telling illustration of this reality. The channel’s employees endured severe hardship when the funds allocated to it were abruptly cut off, even though Saif personally supervised the project. Saif al-Islam was not only marginalized outside Libya during the years of his father’s rule and of what was known as the “Jamahiriya”; he was also marginalized internally, where centers of power were directly controlled by Muammar Gaddafi himself. Abdullah Senussi constituted one such pole of power, as did some of Saif’s brothers, notably Moatassem and Khamis. Other figures close to the elder Gaddafi carried out specific missions on his behalf. Contrary to a widespread belief, it was not Saif who negotiated the agreement by which Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction. That agreement was concluded by George Tenet, then Director of the CIA, who established a direct channel with Moussa Koussa, head of Libyan intelligence. It was Muammar Gaddafi himself who ordered the abandonment of those weapons after realizing, in light of the exchanges between Tenet and Moussa Koussa, the futility of any attempt to evade rigorous American surveillance. After the death of his father Muammar and of most of his brothers, Saif remained the sole survivor of the family. He managed to adapt to the phase that followed the fall of the regime. The chaos that took hold in Libya nourished his ambitions — a chaos that has persisted since the end of the “Jamahiriya,” resulting both from a genuine popular revolution and from NATO’s intervention, which pursued Gaddafi until his physical elimination. Only time will make it possible to identify those who assassinated Saif al-Gaddafi. The days ahead will reveal whether political Islam in Libya and its networks, benefiting from external support, played a role in eliminating a figure capable of filling the political vacuum from which the country has suffered for more than fourteen years. Ultimately, Saif al-Gaddafi, who at one point attempted to publish a book bearing his name, held political ideas that were largely naïve. Yet he consistently refused to enter the game of political Islam and remained, like his father, deeply hostile to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and to all organizations born from the intellectual matrix of Hassan al-Banna and his companions.

When one delves into the evolution of the Iraqi situation since the spring of 2003, the date marking the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist family regime as a result of an American war waged by the United States, one can then understand a specific stance adopted by President Donald Trump. It is a negative stance toward the return of Nouri al-Maliki to the post of prime minister, a position he was forced to relinquish in 2014. The issue is less about an Iraqi politician as such than about, on the one hand, the symbolism embodied by Nouri al-Maliki and, on the other, an American decision to reclaim Iraq from Iran. The American position must be understood in light of Iran’s retreat in the region. There is a reality that cannot be ignored: the “Islamic Republic” has lost all the wars it waged on the margins of the Gaza war, including the war in southern Lebanon and the war to preserve the Alawite regime in Syria. If one sets aside the Houthis in Yemen and their control over most of the country’s north, including Sanaa and the port of Hodeidah, Iran has no genuine leverage left other than Iraq. What, then, prevents the United States from reclaiming Iraq from Iran, after having handed it over on a silver platter twenty-three years ago? It appears that Trump seeks revenge for the American failure for which the administration of George W. Bush was responsible. A resounding failure, stemming from an administration that decided to invade Iraq without planning for the post-Saddam era and the consequences that would follow. The Bush administration failed to grasp that sectarian parties and militias loyal to Iran could not produce democratic systems capable of serving as models for the region. Ultimately, the Iraqi system established after 2003 has done nothing but drive a large segment of Iraqis to long nostalgically for the bloody and backward regime of Saddam Hussein. Saddam left no mistake uncommitted from the moment he monopolized power in the summer of 1979, when he eliminated his predecessor Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and anyone whose loyalty to him he even remotely questioned. Despite this, there are those today who lament Saddam Hussein, who did not content himself with fighting the eight-year war against Iran, which had assumed he would be an easy target. In fact, by declaring war on the “Islamic Republic,” Saddam fell into an Iranian trap, as Ayatollah Khomeini in 1980 was seeking an external enemy through which to rally Iranians around national solidarity. Time passed, and Saddam committed another fatal error by invading Kuwait in the summer of 1990. That, however, was not sufficient reason for George W. Bush to decide to hand Iraq over to Iran, under the pretext of the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Yet the logic of illogic embraced by the Bush administration led it to Iraq, despite the absence of any link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It was logical for America to pursue Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was based. Conversely, it was illogical to go to Iraq, in a gamble that cost the United States dearly. Does Trump, in 2026, seek to correct the misguided course taken in the aftermath of September 11, 2001? From this starting point, namely the invasion of Iraq in a war whose sole victor was Iran, Donald Trump has decided to put an end to Iran’s expansionist project. The American invasion of Iraq was the new launchpad for that project. Consequently, Trump has no option but to reclaim Iraq from Iran if he is to achieve his objective. This is the meaning of his opposition to Nouri al-Maliki returning as prime minister, the most powerful man in Iraq under the system that has governed the country since the 2003 earthquake and the constitution it produced. There is no joking with Donald Trump since he tore up the nuclear agreement with Iran during his first presidential term in 2018, followed by the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in Baghdad at the beginning of 2020. Soleimani was not a marginal figure; he was the de facto ruler of Iraq, whose orders were not open to debate. It is becoming increasingly clear that Donald Trump is not Barack Obama, who in 2010 struck a deal with Iran that kept Nouri al-Maliki in the prime minister’s post, even though the largest parliamentary bloc resulting from that year’s elections was that of Iyad Allawi, generally accepted in the Arab world. Iran sidelined Iyad Allawi, despite his constitutional right at the time to become prime minister. In 2026, it is natural for Iraq to seek a new prime minister who reflects the new regional reality. It is even more natural that this prime minister be of a different kind altogether, far removed from Nouri al-Maliki and his sectarian zeal, or from Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. Al-Sudani has never managed to be a prime minister equidistant from all Iraqis, regardless of sect, community, or ethnicity. In other words, regional developments compel Iraq to emerge from Iranian domination, just as Syria did at the end of 2024. Is it too much to ask that Iraq have a prime minister for all Iraqis, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Shiites, Sunnis, and what remains of Christians and Yazidis? Has the existence of such a prime minister become an Iraqi dream? That dream may not be far-fetched, especially if Donald Trump completes the task of ending Iran’s grip on Iraq, and if he remembers that those who rule Iraq today would never have reached their positions were it not for the American tanks.

Rifaat al-Assad, who passed away a few days ago, on January 20, 2026, embodied one of the most revealing faces of Syria’s great transformation toward what may rightly be called a “State of Barbarism”: a state whose claimed legitimacy rested on repression, enforced communal ʿasabiyya , and the relentless pursuit of an “alliance of minorities.” This transformation effectively began with the Syrian-Egyptian union of 1958, a fleeting experiment that survived barely three years and a few months. At heart, Rifaat al-Assad was no more than one cog among others within that Syrian State of Barbarism which he defended without reservation, long before the Hama massacre of February 1982 and through the invasion of the countryside into the cities. This enterprise sought to impose archaic values upon urban populations, in retaliation against everything Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia embodied as civilizational values. That invasion unfolded within Syria itself. But the Syrian State of Barbarism soon overflowed its borders and extended into Lebanon. For years, Rifaat al-Assad maintained a tangible military presence there, through the deployment of forces from the Saraya al-Difaʿ at the al-Nahda Club stadium in Ras Beirut, near the Military Bath. He and his gang were responsible for disgraceful practices, including the kidnapping of the Jordanian chargé d’affaires Hisham al-Muhaysin, who was later released under pressure. Rifaat also sought to mobilize the Alawites of Tripoli, attempting to enlist them in the service of his project based on an alliance of minorities against the Sunni majority, wherever it existed. The drift toward the Syrian State of Barbarism had already been deeply consolidated with the coup of March 8, 1963, carried out by Baathist and Nasserist officers determined to annihilate any possibility of Syrian renewal. That putsch swept away the last hopes of Syria returning to a normal state after the end, both grotesque and tragic, of the union dissolved on September 28, 1961. The union had produced nothing but economic disaster, opening the way to nationalizations and laying the foundations of the security state, under the direction of the officer Abdelhamid Sarraj. Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of Hafez al-Assad, fully embodied this Alawite figure driven by a thirst for power and money, incapable of expressing himself in any language other than violence and blackmail. He thus became an organic component of the State of Barbarism established by Hafez al-Assad, who methodically laid its foundations. Until 1984, Rifaat remained one of the instruments of the “elder brother,” founder of the Alawite state that collapsed on December 8, 2024, the day Bashar al-Assad fled headlong to Moscow. Rifaat al-Assad did not confine himself to crimes against ordinary people. He even went so far as to impose himself by force as a “doctor,” adopting the airs of an intellectual while being incapable of articulating a single sentence correctly. He played every role the system expected of him, notably by founding the Saraya al-Difaʿ , Alawite military units whose sole mission was to protect the regime and serve as its shield. These forces were later dissolved and replaced by the Republican Guard, itself commanded by Alawite officers. Rifaat briefly held the post of vice-president of the Republic, before being sidelined when he attempted to seize power during his brother’s serious health crisis in 1984. He believed that all conditions were then ripe for him to appropriate absolute power. But Hafez al-Assad, saved by his doctors, mobilized other senior Alawite officers to block any succession bid. The defense minister at the time, the Sunni Mustafa Tlass, assumed the role of public invective, lifting the final veil of protection from Rifaat. Tlass always knew how to satisfy Hafez al-Assad and mastered perfectly the role assigned to him, while his “master” prepared his eldest son, Bassel, for succession. That was what was supposed to happen in 2000. But Bassel had died in 1994, and the heir to the throne became Bashar. During the long years he spent outside Syria, Rifaat al-Assad benefited from considerable financial largesse from several Arab sources. He acquired lavish properties and hotels in France, Britain, Spain, and elsewhere. He also attempted to reinvent himself through media ventures. His behavior, shaped by a shabbiha culture, changed little. What did change was his discourse: he began presenting himself as a defender of the Gulf states, claiming to be far removed from any attempt at blackmail through rapprochement with Iran, a practice his brother Hafez and later Bashar had turned into an instrument of power. Hafez al-Assad possessed a formidable political mind, driven by a desire to conceal his sectarianism and his hatred of urban Sunnis, as well as of all those who still believed in freedom in Syria. He seized power in the autumn of 1970 and acceded to the presidency in 1971, becoming the first Alawite to hold that office. All-powerful… until fate struck him brutally in 1994, when his eldest son, Bassel, was killed in a car accident while on his way to Damascus airport. Hafez received that day the most violent blow of his life. Rifaat, for his part, remained convinced to the very end that circumstances would eventually allow him to return to Damascus and play a political role, long before Bassel’s death. He did return in 1993, on the occasion of the death of the mater familias, Naissa. But the Syrian president continued to treat him with extreme caution, especially after deciding to groom Bashar as his successor. Hafez al-Assad, who described Rifaat as “stupid,” according to the testimony of a U.S. ambassador who served in Damascus, allowed his younger brother to occupy minor roles while keeping him under close surveillance. Rifaat soon left Syria when he realized that all political activity was definitively closed to him. Alea jacta est . The most Bashar al-Assad ever did for his uncle was to allow him to flee from Paris to Damascus in order to escape a French prison sentence. Rifaat al-Assad thus avoided incarceration. He remained, until his last day, a fugitive from justice — a justice that, sooner or later, will catch up with Bashar al-Assad and, with him, many others as well.