Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Gordon G. Chang • February 12, 2025 at 5:00 am
President Trump, according to reports, wants to go to Beijing in his first hundred days and reach a bargain with China. Unfortunately, an enduring accommodation with the Chinese regime is not possible. China is not done killing with disease. Driven by these beliefs [replacing the Westphalian order of sovereign states with the Chinese imperial-era system], the Chinese regime has always thought it had the right to do whatever it wanted to others. Try as Americans might, they will never have amicable relations with China as long as it is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. There can be only one survivor, either the People's Republic of China or the United States of America.
China is not done killing with disease. Researchers at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology are now studying Ebola, undoubtedly to weaponize it. Try as Americans might, they will never have amicable relations with China as long as it is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. There can be only one survivor, either the People's Republic of China or the United States of America. Pictured: A laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump, according to reports, wants to go to Beijing in his first hundred days and reach a bargain with China. Unfortunately, an enduring accommodation with the Chinese regime is not possible. Why not? For one thing, the Communist Party of China (CCP) appears determined to kill every person in the United States. A quarter-century ago, General Chi Haotian, China's defense minister and vice chairman of the CCP's Central Military Commission, reportedly gave a secret speech advocating the extermination of Americans. "It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans," he said. "But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the Communist Party leads the world." Chi's plan was to use disease to clear out the vast spaces of North America so that the Chinese people could settle in the areas left uninhabited.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • February 11, 2025 at 5:00 am
The Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other Palestinians on October 7, 2023 could have been released a long time ago had the Biden administration exerted pressure on Qatar to use its good relations with the Islamist group to force it to do so. All Qatar had to do was to summon the Hamas leaders in Doha and give them an ultimatum to release all the hostages immediately or face deportation from the Gulf state. It is hard to see how the Hamas leaders would have been able to say no to their major political and financial patrons and backers.... The Qataris were never under the slightest pressure. "For years, Qatar supported the Taliban, and last year [2021] it helped it in its coup against the democratically elected Afghan government, and 13 American service members were killed in the violence. Today, Qatar is doing everything it can to give the Taliban international legitimacy and aid." — Yigal Carmon, President and founder of the MEMRI, who served as counterterrorism advisor to two Israeli prime ministers, Haaretz, May 10, 2022. "Any Arab who hears American officials say that Qatar is America's ally would burst into laughter.... Ask Egypt, not just the rulers, but the people and journalists. Ask the Emirates, the government and people. Ask Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan. They all know that for decades Qatar has been promoting Islamist and terrorist organizations. There are lawsuits against Qatar in the U.S. and Europe in connection with its support for terrorism." — Yigal Carmon, MEMRI, November 1, 2023 The Trump administration needs to understand what Arabs have known for years: that Qatar's support for Hamas and other extremist Islamist groups is the main reason thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died over the past few years.
Qatar is Hamas's most important financial backer and foreign ally. Then Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first state leader to visit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in 2012. Qatar, in addition, has reportedly transferred $1.8 billion to Hamas over the past two decades. Pictured: Al-Thani holds hands with then Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during his visit to the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip on October 23, 2012. (Photo by Wissam Nassar/AFP via Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump's recent statements regarding Qatar's role in reaching the Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal surprised many, especially those who are familiar with the Gulf state's longtime support for radical Islamist groups. "Qatar is absolutely trying to help," Trump told reporters in Washington. "I know them well, and they're doing everything they can. Very tough situation, but they're absolutely trying to help." Many other people also know Qatar very well. They know, for example, that Qatar is Hamas's most important financial backer and foreign ally. Then Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first state leader to visit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in 2012. Qatar, in addition, has reportedly transferred $1.8 billion to Hamas over the past two decades. For many years, Qatar hosted several leaders of Hamas, including Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh. They lived in hotels and villas in Doha and were treated as heads of state.
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by Lawrence Kadish • February 11, 2025 at 4:00 am
We know China is investing enormous sums into fusion energy research that seeks to create a sustained reaction that would be channeled to create unlimited electricity. America must create technology that is far superior to China's tokamak fusion reactors. Pictured: China's HL-2M nuclear fusion device, at a research laboratory in Chengdu, on December 4, 2020. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
America's next great economic revolution -- to be spearheaded by President Donald J. Trump -- is currently being studied by the preeminent polling firm, John McLaughlin Associates. A poll will investigate America's next great economic and technological frontier: clean, limitless, inexpensive energy through nuclear fusion by a made in America nuclear reactor superior to China's tokamak. This new 21st Century Manhattan Project would entail a trailblazing, all-out effort to compete against Communist China, already investing billions into this field. Just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt headed the original Manhattan Project, when America raced to develop a nuclear weapon before scientists in Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan could unlock its enormous deadly power and use it against the Allies in World War II, Trump could usher in a new Clean Controlled Fusion Energy Revolution.
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by Lawrence A. Franklin • February 10, 2025 at 5:00 am
If the US fails to support its ally by treaty, the Philippines, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda machine and Chinese diplomats will likely seek to sow doubts about US resolve into the capitals of America's Pacific allies. China seems to claim a lot of waters, such as "almost all" of the South China Sea, as well as land, including Tibet; Arunachal Pradesh in northern India; the "near-Arctic," and Taiwan, which has never been part of mainland China. The Trump administration immediately needs to short-circuit all "exploratory" moves by China. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might order Seventh Fleet and US Pacific Command's air assets to strengthen their presence near the Philippines and the Pacific. Any firm message to China that America will stand by its allies throughout free Asia would be of help.
The Trump administration immediately needs to short-circuit all "exploratory" moves by China. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth might order Seventh Fleet and US Pacific Command's air assets to strengthen their presence near the Philippines and the Pacific. Any firm message to China that America will stand by its allies throughout free Asia would be of help. Pictured: J15 fighter jets on China's Liaoning aircraft carrier during a drill at sea, in April 2018. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The "Tariff Wars" have begun. China's State Council Tariff Commission released a list of 72 items that would fall under the 10% tariffs. Much of that list was related to agriculture, including several types of tractors, harvesters and other large pieces of farming equipment. The list of U.S. imports that will be subject to 15% tariffs was far shorter, listing just eight types of coal and natural gas. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) President Xi Jinping might gin up further crises to test the mettle of President Donald J. Trump, just as he has tested the resolve of all recent incoming administrations.
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by Nils A. Haug • February 9, 2025 at 5:00 am
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw, March 31, 1977. Jordan... actually was in possession of Jerusalem, if illegally, between 1948 and the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan nevertheless, the first day of the war, insisted on joining the other Arab countries in attacking Israel, even though General Moshe Dayan had warned Jordan's King Hussein at the time to stay out of it.... The Al-Aqsa Mosque would therefore have been constructed six years after Muhamad's death: c. 570- June 8, 632 CE.
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw, March 31, 1977. Pictured: Mohsen in 1975. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
While Islamism can be understood as an extremist political and ideological facet of Islam, Palestinianism comprises a narrow ideological expression of such Islamism. In particular, Palestinianism can be regarded as a subset of the broader jihadist Islamist agenda; one of its "action-arms" so to speak. On the world stage and promoted by the legacy media, the Palestinian issue is relentlessly and often callously exploited by ruthless jihadist Islamists and their sympathizers, despite the immense suffering of many innocent civilians from both parties to the conflict. It is the gross misuse of the Palestinian people's predicament for tactical purposes that has led to the fabricated ideology of Palestinianism. Admittedly, the Islamist propaganda "machine" has been partially successful in persuading the West as to the justice, however fabricated, of the Palestinian cause.
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by Amir Taheri • February 9, 2025 at 4:00 am
In a year or so, Khamenei has tried to repackage those setbacks as great victories for his now defunct "Axis of Resistance." His assumption was that if the worst came to the worst, he would play his joker: signaling readiness to revive the defunct Obama "nuclear deal" with a shaky Biden administration keen on securing any deal with Tehran to justify Kumbala's "greatest diplomatic achievement." Here is the ayatollah's latest masterpiece:
Iranian "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's great masterpiece.
After weeks of speculation about "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei's strategy for dealing with the new Trump administration in Washington, it seems that he has opted for a cocktail of tantalizing pledges and boastful threats. Tehran circles sum the posture up with a simple formula advanced by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi: We don't want war but are ready for it! The signal that the Supreme Guide has decided to authorize new talks about his nuclear project but is also preparing for a putative war with the US or Israel came with a poem he put in circulation last week. Khamenei has been writing or, as his unkind critics suggest, committing poetry since he was in his teens in the 1950s. But he has always been reluctant to offer his oeuvre to the public, refusing to publish a diwan as even the greenest saplings in the garden do.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • February 8, 2025 at 5:00 am
Possessing nuclear weapons provides any regime with a protective shield against foreign intervention, removing the fear of retaliation. Given this reality, no diplomatic effort -- regardless of its structure -- will convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions voluntarily. For the Iranian regime, the tactic of negotiating to buy time has paid off really well. Iran successfully reached a deal with the Obama administration which provided it with financial relief, and diplomatic legitimacy, and the promise of nuclear weapons in just a few years, which just so happens to be this coming October. Unfortunately, Iran appears to be dangerously close to achieving nuclear breakout The only viable solution is to neutralize Iran's nuclear facilities now. The correct course of action from the Trump administration is clear: reimpose maximum pressure, support Israel in targeting Iran's nuclear infrastructure, and ensure that the regime's delaying tactics do not succeed once again.
Possessing nuclear weapons provides any regime with a protective shield against foreign intervention, removing the fear of retaliation. Given this reality, no diplomatic effort -- regardless of its structure -- will convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions voluntarily. Pictured: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian looks on as a 'Qasem Soleimani' missile is displayed during a military parade in Tehran, on September 21, 2024. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iranian regime, currently at one of the weakest points in its recent history, presents a crucial opportunity for the United States and its allies. The collapse of its strongest regional ally, Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, has left Tehran without a key pillar of support in the Middle East. Iran's most powerful proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, have suffered significant setbacks thanks to Israeli military operations. With Iran's economy in shambles and its isolation increasing, the regime is more vulnerable than ever before. This moment should not be squandered. It presents an unparalleled opportunity to curb Iran's ambitions -- permanently. Since Donald Trump's return to the presidency, the Iranian regime is now extending an olive branch, supposedly willing to negotiate on its nuclear program.
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by Gordon G. Chang • February 7, 2025 at 5:00 am
The Chinese military is firmly embedded in a country not far from Key West, Florida. At the moment, Cuba needs Chinese cash and might therefore accede to granting China greater access to the island. [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, however, is focused on the Caribbean basin, as the itinerary for his first trip shows. Moreover, the new secretary of state is apparently willing to use raw American power to strong-arm countries.
The Chinese military is firmly embedded in a country not far from Key West, Florida. At the moment, Cuba needs Chinese cash and might therefore accede to granting China greater access to the island. Pictured: Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel (R) greets Li Xi, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, in Havana on September 15, 2023. (Photo by Yamil Lage /Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Forget Europe or the hotspots of East Asia and the Middle East, Marco Rubio's first foreign trip as secretary of state took him to one Caribbean and four Central American states. The tour tells us that the Trump foreign policy is focusing on the region closest to the American homeland. That is bad news for the leftists and hardline regimes in the Western Hemisphere, especially the Republic of Cuba and its new patron, the People's Republic of China. The Chinese military is firmly embedded in a country not far from Key West, Florida. In June 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cuba had agreed in principle to establish a new eavesdropping site on Cuban soil. The Biden administration termed the story inaccurate, but two days later the White House declassified intelligence showing that Chinese signals intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • February 6, 2025 at 5:00 am
Hamas is basically saying that if the Trump administration dares to implement the relocation and reconstruction plan, the terrorist organization will unleash a wave of terrorism against Americans and Palestinians. Hamas does not want any US intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terrorist group, together with Iran's terror proxies, fear that this would disrupt their Jihad (holy war) against Israel. For the Trump plan to succeed, the US must insist on the removal of Hamas from power and the disarming of all the terror groups in the Gaza Strip. It will take several years to rebuild the Gaza Strip and make it habitable once again. The Trump administration will be gone by then. The biggest fear is that a future US administration will fail to block the return of terrorists to the rebuilt Gaza Strip. If that happens, it will be a matter of time before the Gaza Strip once again becomes a large base for jihadists not only from Hamas, but other Islamist terror groups for whom Israel and the US are the Number 1 target.
Hamas is basically saying that if the Trump administration dares to implement the relocation and reconstruction plan, the terrorist organization will unleash a wave of terrorism against Americans and Palestinians. For the Trump plan to succeed, the US must insist on the removal of Hamas from power and the disarming of all the terror groups in the Gaza Strip. Pictured: Hamas terrorists n Khan Yunis, Gaza, on February 1, 2025. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has responded to US President Donald Trump's plan to relocate the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip by threatening to resort to violence against Americans. In a statement, Hamas said that the Palestinians will "confront the plan with resistance and necessary force." This threat is directed not only against the US, but also against Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, many of whom would be happy to move to another place where they could live in security and peace. Hamas is basically saying that if the Trump administration dares to implement the relocation and reconstruction plan, the terrorist organization will unleash a wave of terrorism against Americans and Palestinians.
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by Drieu Godefridi • February 5, 2025 at 5:30 am
The truth is that the reduction in CO2 emissions in Europe is almost exclusively due to industry leaving Europe. That is the dirty little secret of the Green Deal: Europe is reducing its CO2 emissions to the extent and in proportion to the destruction of its industry. The EU elite has lost control of the narrative. Europeans are turning away from the lies and myths of the Green Deal en masse. Given the absence of precise definitions, the censors do whatever they want.... In practice, these censors massively quash so-called "right-wing" content, while leaving the abundant anti-Semitic, Islamist and Marxist literature untouched. [T]he EU is, in reality, a Potemkin democracy. It looks like a democracy, but is in fact an authoritarian bureaucracy. There is no election by the citizens of a parliament worthy of the name, no transparency, no recourses and, it seems, no way of eliminating the organization or any part of it. European citizens can vote as they please, but it is a self-appointed elite within the European institutions who decide the future of Europe. These "elites" will do anything to keep themselves and their ideology in power. In addition, Qatar has massively infiltrated the European Parliament, buying parliamentarians to promote its interests and its Islamist vision of the world. Can one measure the sense of alienation that must be felt by Europeans, forced to finance a corrupt bureaucracy working against their interests? When it comes to migration, the economy, free speech and democracy, the EU is not the solution to any problem. The EU is the problem.
The truth is that the reduction in CO2 emissions in Europe is almost exclusively due to industry leaving Europe. That is the dirty little secret of the Green Deal: Europe is reducing its CO2 emissions to the extent and in proportion to the destruction of its industry. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
The founding idea of the European Union was to build, through shared prosperity, solidarity and a sense of shared destiny among the nations of Europe. That was why three communities were formed: the economy, coal and steel, and nuclear energy. Until around 2000, in terms of growth and innovation, the European economy, year in, year out, was on par with the American one. Of that initial -- and fairly brilliant -- gesture of "peace through prosperity," literally nothing remains. None of the EU's current leaders cares about the financial well-being of Europeans. Coal is regarded as the devil's fuel, and nuclear energy is abhorred by Europe's elites, who say they prefer the inefficient and erratic wind turbines. Since 2000, the European economy has been mired in stagnation, which has worsened since 2008 and threatens to reach its height in the coming years -- ending in the destruction of Europe. Green Deal
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by Daniel Greenfield • February 4, 2025 at 5:00 am
Fresh from his success of implementing the Biden plan and saving Hamas, Steven Witkoff, acting as President Donald Trump's Middle East Envoy, went to Saudi Arabia, homeland of the 9/11 hijackers, and met with Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) General Authority of Civil Affairs, who is apparently the leading candidate to replace PLO chief and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Al-Sheikh has a vision. Terror and more terror. In English, Al-Sheikh is referring to the 'Pay-to-Slay' program under which the Palestinian Authority funds terror by providing payments to imprisoned terrorists or the families of dead terrorists. The Saudis are proposing some sort of deal under which Al-Sheikh gets a terrorist state in Israel to run. Witkoff ought to be asked why he's pulling America into nation-building terrorist states. That's not America First. That's Jihad First.
At a January 7, 2023 ceremony marking Palestinian Martyr's Day, PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh claimed the Palestinians would spend every single penny they have on the so-called martyrs (dead terrorists) and their families as well as imprisoned terrorists. (Image source: MEMRI)
Fresh from his success of implementing the Biden plan and saving Hamas, Steven Witkoff, acting as President Donald Trump's Middle East Envoy, went to Saudi Arabia, homeland of the 9/11 hijackers, and met with Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) General Authority of Civil Affairs, who is apparently the leading candidate to replace PLO chief and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting between Witkoff and Al-Sheikh took place amid efforts by the Trump administration to end the war in Gaza and push for a Saudi-Israeli peace deal that includes a path toward a Palestinian state. Al-Sheikh isn't just an Abbas adviser, he's a possible successor to the aging PLO tyrant (or at least he was until he was recorded badmouthing Abbas) to run the Palestinian Authority. And Al-Sheikh has a vision. Terror and more terror.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • February 3, 2025 at 5:00 am
The failure of the Palestinian Authority's security operation against the Jenin gunmen shows why the PA cannot be trusted to assume control over the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Hamas and PIJ terrorists continue to operate, especially after the recent US-brokered ceasefire-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. Like Abbas, no Arab country will invest in or get involved in the Gaza Strip as long as Iran's Islamist proxies continue to dominate it. Given the recent return of hundreds of convicted terrorists released from Israeli prisons to the streets in exchange for hostages -- many of whom are dead -- the possibility of another October 7-style atrocity against Israelis is still all too real. President Donald J. Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, may have the best of intentions, but unfortunately appears to have placed his trust in his real estate business associate, Qatar, which is a major funder of Hamas. Witkoff, who regrettably took a terrible, ready-to-wear deal from the Biden administration... is proving an unfortunate embarrassment to Trump. From the beginning, the deal should have been, as then-President-elect Trump put it, that all the hostages must be released before his inauguration or "all hell will break out." Such a warning presupposes that all the hostages, dead and alive, are placed at the border, on a certain date at a certain time. No negotiations, no release of hundreds of terrorists, nothing... It would be interesting to know how Trump's strong, original vision got so badly derailed. "Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran." — Ehud Levi, retired head of the Mossad's unit for economic warfare against terrorist organizations, Ynet, April 18, 2024. Qatar's plan undoubtedly is to see that Hamas, one of its preeminent clients, remains in power. As the mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas through its vast television empire, Al Jazeera, Qatar does not want to see Israel in the region any more than Hamas does. There is only one viable way to address the Gaza Strip's problems: discard Qatar as a supposedly honest broker (it is not), designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization (it is), disarm all the terrorist groups, and oust Hamas completely from power.
The failure of the Palestinian Authority's security operation against the Jenin gunmen shows why the PA cannot be trusted to assume control over the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Hamas and PIJ terrorists continue to operate, especially after the recent US-brokered ceasefire-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. Pictured: Palestinian terrorists in Jenin on March 8, 2023, at the funeral of fellow terrorists who were killed the previous day when they attacked Israeli soldiers. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
Qatar and Egypt are now spearheading efforts to bring the Palestinian Authority (PA) back to the Gaza Strip. The two countries are apparently trying to persuade the US administration to back the idea. If the PA has been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to rein in dozens of gunmen in the West Bank, how can anyone expect it to take control of the Gaza Strip, where thousands of terrorists from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) continue to operate? PA President Mahmoud Abbas is not foolish enough to send his men to the Gaza Strip, where they are likely to be slaughtered again, as they were in 2007. In the eyes of Hamas and many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Abbas and the PA are traitors, mainly because they conduct security coordination with Israel in the West Bank. Abbas is aware that if and when he dares to enter the Gaza Strip, he will meet the same fate as Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel: he will be murdered.
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by Con Coughlin • February 2, 2025 at 5:00 am
For Trump to make genuine progress in bringing peace and stability to the region in his second term, though, his administration must first focus on the root cause of much of the unrest blighting the region. In response to the Muslim Brotherhood's violent ideology, a number of pro-Western Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have designated the organisation as a terrorist entity. The need for the world's major Western democracies to take firm action against the Muslim Brotherhood has become even more urgent following the October 7 attacks, with militant groups inspired by the Brotherhood's ideology said to be responsible for provoking anti-Jewish riots on American university campuses and staging weekly hate marches in many European capitals, such as London. [Ed] Husain, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is among a number of Middle East experts arguing in favour of the incoming Trump administration designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. He argues that such a move would "force Europe to reconsider the financial, media and mosque networks used by Iran and the Brotherhood in their own countries to project power back into the Middle East." At the same time Trump should confront the Gulf state of Qatar over its blatant double standards in supporting terror groups such as Hamas, whose leaders have drawn heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood's dogma, while at the same time pretending to be an ally of the West. [Qatar's state-owned media] described the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history as a "heroic operation," a "miracle" and a "historic turning point" that restored the honour of the Muslim nation, while placing the Palestinian cause back on the world's agenda. Qatar played a similar role during the Afghan conflict, when its willingness to provide Taliban negotiators with a base in Doha ultimately resulted in the Taliban regaining power in Kabul, re-establishing its uncompromising Islamist rule over the Afghan people. While the Qataris maintain that their mediation efforts on the Gaza conflict are aimed at ending the bloodshed, their real motive is to ensure that Hamas, the group whose terrorist infrastructure they have helped to finance, survives the conflict, enabling it to maintain its threatening presence on Israel's southern border. This mission of Qatar's is a goal about which President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and even President Trump himself, might not be aware. Given Qatar's overt sympathy for the Hamas cause, at the very least the Trump administration should undertake a serious review of its dealings with Doha, and consider relocating the US military's Al Udeid Air Base from Qatar to a more friendly location in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates.
If US President Donald Trump is really serious about making a positive impact on the Middle East, a good place for him to start would be to designate the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement as a terrorist organisation and scale down Washington's ties with the Gulf state of Qatar. Pictured: President Donald Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani meet in the White House July 9, 2019. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
If US President Donald Trump is really serious about making a positive impact on the Middle East, a good place for him to start would be to designate the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement as a terrorist organisation and scale down Washington's ties with the Gulf state of Qatar. Since he won re-election, there has been much speculation that Trump, architect of the ground-breaking Abraham Accords, intends to use his second term in office to negotiate a wide-ranging peace deal aimed at bringing lasting stability to the Middle East. Before he had even taken office, Trump was credited with helping to finalise the Gaza ceasefire deal, after he threatened that "all hell will break out" if Hamas did not release the remaining Israeli hostages held in captivity.
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by Amir Taheri • February 2, 2025 at 4:00 am
The Americans told the Chinese: If you want us to do something that you want, first deliver what we want. The Chinese complied and were rewarded. Applying the Chinese model to normalization with Iran's mullahs will have to start with a long laundry list that Iran has to deal with in domestic and foreign policy fields. Is "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei ready for a seven-year ordeal in the hope of securing relief at the end? Does he have the clout that Mao had when he agreed to dramatically change course? Will he even last that long?
The Nixon-in-China episode was about hard-nosed diplomacy, which had little to do with realpolitik. The Americans told the Chinese: If you want us to do something that you want, first deliver what we want. The Chinese complied and were rewarded. Pictured: Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong welcomes US President Richard Nixon to his house in Beijing, on February 21, 1972. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
"Trump in Tehran!" This is the name of an operetta imagined by some American advocates of realpolitik calling themselves the Council on Foreign Relations, rather than the sobriquet that G.K. Chesterton would have suggested: The Club of Queer Trades. The "real" part of the English-German cliché is misleading; what is offered has nothing to do with reality but a fantasized perception of it. The realpolitik crowd looks at a country, decides who is Big Cheese at any given time, and tries to make a deal with him regardless of ethical, idealistic or even geostrategic considerations. One prominent advocate of the approach was Hans Morgenthau, a German-American academic. Like his fellow German Karl Marx, who looked for "laws of history," Morgenthau tried to find "the laws of politics" as applied to international relations. In his worldview, the concept of power was the overriding goal in international relations as it defined national interests.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • February 1, 2025 at 5:00 am
The Iranian regime's motivations are rooted in its desperation to ensure its survival and to advance its expansionist agenda, not in any willingness to abide by international norms or foster peace. By re-entering the global financial system and emerging from international isolation, Iran would gain the political and economic breathing room it needs to consolidate power and suppress dissent in the full knowledge that it had bought itself time and reduced the likelihood of coordinated international action against it. A deal would also provide Iran with political legitimacy and be seen as a victory for the regime, allowing it to portray itself as a credible and lawful actor on the global stage when in truth it is anything but that.
The Iranian regime's motivations are rooted in its desperation to ensure its survival and to advance its expansionist agenda, not in any willingness to abide by international norms or foster peace. Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a graduation ceremony for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers, on May 20, 2015 in Tehran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)
The Iranian regime has recently demonstrated an unusual eagerness to negotiate with the Trump administration to reach a deal with the West. This sudden shift should not deceive the West, particularly the United States, into believing that Tehran's intentions are either genuine or benign. The Iranian regime's motivations are rooted in its desperation to ensure its survival and to advance its expansionist agenda, not in any willingness to abide by international norms or foster peace. Recognizing this is critical to preventing what could become a fatal mistake.
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