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Economy Geopolitics

Cuba Joining BRICS Is A Quiet Warning To Trump

In another sign of changing power relations in the ‘post-Western’ world, the BRICS group of emerging economies could frustrate the United States’ bid to sink communism in Cuba by strangling its economy.

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Geopolitics

How Turkey Is Seizing More Middle East Power — At Iran’s Expense

Regime change in Syria is a big point Turkey has scored against its regional rival the Islamic Republic of Iran, which may soon be pushed out of another crucial sector, trade and transportation in the Caucasus, Shahram Sabzevari writes in Kayhan-London.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Who Won? The Gaza Truce Sparks A False Debate Across The Arab World

The joys of victory, the tears of defeat, all the while ignoring the Zionist deterrent known as “peace.”

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Geopolitics

How Tehran’s Defeats Abroad Are Starting To Boomerang Back To The Home Front

Iranian officials have been unnerved by the Assad regime’s collapse, with one top general admitting the country was “defeated very badly” in Syria. A shaky ceasefire in Gaza follows 15 month of war in which Tehran’s proxy Hamas was decimated. Will unrest in the region spill over to Iran, where problems — both foreign and domestic — are piling up for the regime?

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis: What Happens Now To The “Axis Of Resistance”?

Israel has killed thousands of Hamas fighters. But the Gaza-based terrorist organization has not yet been completely destroyed, nor have its allied militias in the region.

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Eyes on the U.S.

After Biden Appeasement, Iran Braces For Trump’s Wrath — Or Deal

The incoming Trump administration will likely abandon its predecessor’s efforts to persuade the Iranian regime to change its disruptive and violent policies. Yet for ultimate survival, Tehran may be counting on an unexpected factor: Trump’s erratic mindset.

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Geopolitics

Cecilia Sala’s Liberation Is A Huge Win For Meloni — With A Wink From Trump

The release of journalist Cecilia Sala from Iranian prison after 21 days is a triumph of diplomacy and urgency, orchestrated by the Italian Prime Minister herself. Meloni used an urgent meeting with Donald Trump to help unlock the negotiations.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics In The News Israel-Palestine War Russia-Ukraine War special series Trump And The World War in Ukraine

Trump’s Return: Predictions And Paradoxes For 2025

With the unpredictable Donald Trump returning to the White House in January, what will global politics be like in 2025? In addition to major issues like the war in Ukraine, the conflicts in the Middle East and China, there’s another nagging question: What about Europe?

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Geopolitics

Would The Army Also Ditch The Regime In Iran? An Assad Scenario Is Spooking Tehran

Iranian officials are still wondering how its dear ally Bashar al-Assad fell so fast, and why his military was lost before the rebellion even started.

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Geopolitics

How The Kurdish Question Has Come To A Make-Or-Break Moment

Stunning reports of positive exchanges between the long imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish government, coupled with the collapse of the Syrian regime, are reshaping the dynamics for the Kurds scattered across the Middle East. But beware of betrayal.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Has A New Middle East Order Already Sealed Tehran’s Fate?

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Israel are reshaping the Middle East in a possible, bigger deal involving a peace deal in Ukraine. With the regional militias and Syria out of the strategic equation, is the next step removing the Tehran regime?

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Geopolitics

Damascus Postcard: The Donkey Deposed, A Magnificent City Reborn

A post-Assad tour of Damascus, that singular Middle East capital, from which the Ba’ath Party spared nothing and desecrated everything. How quickly it shed all the ugliness that the Assad regime had spread over more than five decades!

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Geopolitics

Ever More, Iran’s Regime Is A House Of Cards

Israel’s decimation of Iran’s proxies in Gaza and Lebanon, and now events in Syria, have shown the Tehran regime is far weaker than it had wanted the world and its neighbors to believe. The Supreme Leader is now scrambling to rationalize it all, as the Islamic Republic clings to power.

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Geopolitics

What Syria’s Future Means For Jordan

Amman and its allies, much like the skeptical secular Syrian opposition, await tangible actions on the ground to match the promises of pragmatist rhetoric from Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who is marketing himself as a statesman committed to building an inclusive new Syria that’s a good neighbor after abandoning extremist ideologies.

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Geopolitics

Trust Your Neighbors? Why Iran Regime Is So Jittery After Assad’s Fall

While the Islamic Republic of Iran mulls an official response to the fall of its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, Iranian politicians are already voicing their anger at the “backstabbing” conduct of two key powers, Turkey and Russia. Could Tehran be the next to get left to fend for itself?

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Geopolitics

The Fall Of Assad: Winners, Losers, Known Unknowns

We must first recognize the joy of the Syrian people at the fall of a brutal regime that ruled for more than half a century. Yet, there’s also major geopolitical stakes in this highly sensitive region, with its losers — Russia and Iran — and its winners, foremost among them Erdogan’s Turkey. And a ton of uncertainty.

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Geopolitics

What The Narges Mohammadi Release Says About Iran’s Place In The World Right Now

Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was released from prison in Iran yesterday, but only for three weeks. This raises questions about the Iranian regime’s strategy following a series of regional setbacks and on the eve of Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House.

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Geopolitics

Israel To Syria To Iran, When Silence And Evil Become One And The Same

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, use of the term “evil” has increased. The more heinous and public the murder, the more the evil of the murderer would be revealed and “the world” would be pushed to intervene. Yet in both Syria and Gaza, that world has been satisfied with symbolic responses.

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Geopolitics

Iran? Syria? Trump? The Next Twists On Netanyahu’s War Path After Lebanon Ceasefire

The Israeli Prime Minister has been clear: The ceasefire in Lebanon will allow him to focus on Iran and on Syria, through which Hezbollah’s weapons are transported. But the underlying factors are Iran’s nuclear program and Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

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Geopolitics

The Israel-Hezbollah Truce Will Only Hold If There’s A Deal Beyond Lebanon — That Means Iran

One might think that the rush to announce the completion of the deal refers to its preemptive failure with each party blaming the other for this failure. But there are many moving parts in the negotiations, like there are in the region.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Iran: What Khamenei Succession Whispers Reveal About Regime’s Decay

Members of the Tehran regime are cautiously broaching the question of who will be Iran’s next Supreme Leader, but is this of real public concern or a ploy to distract an exasperated population from the country’s dismal socio-economic conditions?

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Geopolitics

A Trump Carrot-And-Stick For Iran? New Nuclear Talks, Crushing Sanctions

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he is not out to topple Iran’s revolutionary regime, but his administration may, at the very least, seek intolerable concessions to the West from Tehran, or sink it with sanctions if it refuses.

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Geopolitics

Iran-Lebanon: When Larijani Laughed Amid The Rubble Of Beirut

A photographer captured the seasoned Iranian official Ali Larijani laughing on his visit Thursday to Beirut, fully aware of what laughter means in such a situation. The seasoned Iranian diplomat knows that many Lebanese hold his regime responsible for dragging their country into a bloody, senseless, and destructive war.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Tehran Says It’s Not Afraid Of Trump — It Should Be

Iranian officials insist another Trump presidency could never change its policies — including fighting Israel where it can. But given the first Trump administration, Tehran should expect hard times ahead.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics special series Trump And The World

Why Trump’s Victory May Put Warming Iran-Egypt Relations On Ice

Relations between Egypt and Iran have been growing closer. But the return of Donald Trump to the White House could be a setback for the rapprochement, given that Iran is among his top enemies.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

What If Iran Has Cut A Secret, Pre-Election Deal With Trump — Like Reagan In 1980?

It may seem an outlandish idea given Iran’s anti-Western posturing, but could its regime have cut a secret deal over future ties with the Trump team, like its hostages deal with Ronald Reagan ahead of the 1980 U.S. elections?

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Will There Be An Israel-Iran Escalation? Now It’s Up To U.S. Voters

A Donald Trump victory would likely mean that the expected calm in the confrontation between Israel and Iran in the coming weeks will be just a warrior’s rest.

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Geopolitics

Why Iran Is So Nervous: The West Is Set To “Reorder” The Middle East For Trade Routes

Israel and the West are seeking a stabilized Middle East to shorten the trading corridor with India and Asia. It’s a win-win situation for prosperous economies and the West, but what about Tehran’s truculent regime?

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

The Endgame Of The Israeli “Generals’ Plan”? Push Gazans Into Egypt

Israel’s new offensive in northern Gaza is trying to make the region uninhabitable, and force Palestinians into the south, toward the Egyptian border and into the Sinai. But since the start of the war, Egypt is dead set against taking in more war refugees.

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Geopolitics

How Iran’s Obsession With Destroying Israel Has Undermined Its Own Hold On Power

Iran’s 40-year policy of seeking the destruction of the Jewish state and “taking back” Jerusalem became the north star of the Tehran’s foreign policy. Now it may be its undoing.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

After Sinwar, Will Hamas Break From Iran — And Turn Back To Muslim Brotherhood?

The question of who will succeed Yahya Sinwar is essentially a question of whether Hamas will return from its “Iranian exile” and embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Geopolitics

Iran’s Hitmen: The New Rise Of Western Terror Agents Working For Tehran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has specialized in getting gangsters and low-lives to undertake its terror operations abroad, making it more difficult to thwart its longstanding, and laughable, claim that it is a victim, not a sponsor of terrorism,.

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Geopolitics Ideas Israel-Palestine War

After Sinwar? A Palestinian Critique Of The Militarization Of Resistance

The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack is just the latest Israeli strike against those who have tried to monopolize the notion of “resistance” as a purely military pursuit. The result has been the absolute destruction of Gaza, and now Lebanon, and the reinforcement of the Israeli occupation.

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Israel-Palestine War

Sinwar Is Dead: How Palestinians Viewed The Mercurial Hamas Leader

The Israeli military says Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, has been killed in Gaza. The strike is a major victory for Israel, closing a chapter in recent Palestinian history in which Sinwar rose to the top of Hamas, and bet everything on the Oct. 7 attack, which made him more divisive than ever among the people of Gaza.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Siege Of Jabalia — Ground Zero For Israeli “Generals’ Plan” To Occupy Northern Gaza

Observers believe that the military operations targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid in northern Gaza is the prelude to Israel reoccupying the region and establishing Jewish settlements.

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Israel-Palestine War

Salafi Islamists And Gulf Leaders Agree: Iran Is More Dangerous Than Israel

The Salafis, along with Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, consider the Shias as a greater threat to Islam than Zionism.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Israel’s “Revenge Attack” On Iran Is Coming — But It May Be Mostly A Decoy

Israel is keeping the Tehran regime and outside observers guessing on the scope and timing of its threatened strikes on Iranian territory. Some say it is seeking to win itself time to “finish up” in Lebanon and Gaza, others say a massive attack on Iran could help reorder the whole region.

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Society Women Worldwide

Iranian Court Orders Woman To Obey Her Husband — And Promises To Enforce It

The decision is yet another example of how Iran’s laws since the 1979 revolution have restricted women’s rights both inside and outside the home.

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Geopolitics Israel-Palestine War

Gaza And Beyond: Why The Middle East Will Be A War Zone For Years To Come

Benjamin Netanyahu escaped the growing calls to stop the war in Gaza and bring the hostages back, by launching another war on Hezbollah. It’s a taste of what’s to come.

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Society

Top Iran Health Official: Girls Should Start Having Children At 15

The nation’ deputy health minister, concerned about declining birth rates, wants more young brides, and expects them to start procreating as soon as possible.

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