Already eight years ago, the head of Iran's Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani boasted to the US General David Petraeus that: "You should know that I... control policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan. The ambassador in Baghdad is a Quds Force member. The individual who's going to replace him is a Quds Force member."

An honest analysis of acts of terrorism in the Middle East, and throughout the world, reveals that nearly every conflict, war, and tension in the Middle East, can be traced back to the Iranian government. Despite the illusion that those who would like to appease the Iranian leaders attempt to create, it is clear that the Iran, still racing toward nuclear-breakout capability, has no interest in peace.

The Quds Force has also apparently found new sources of funding to evade current US sanctions.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has apparently decided to shift strategies. Its latest initiative is apparently to use their "Christian" lobby — and various organizations that lobby creates — to infiltrate Christian pro-Israel communities through a carefully crafted narrative designed to appeal to Christians' love for all humanity and desire to pray for the Middle East. The PA's end goal, apart from displacing Israel, is both to dilute Christians' pro-Israel beliefs and their influence, and to convert Christians outright to the PA's narrative and cause.

"The organisation I lead," Mae Cannon wrote, "Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), has long been a friend to Israelis." Regrettably, a serious review of the history and activities of Cannon and CMEP illustrates that her statement is demonstrably false.

Does her audience know that she is accusing Christian supporters of Israel of increasing antisemitism and hate crimes? Does her audience know that she is writing and promoting Palestinian propaganda in media outlets? Do they know that she is working closely with the Palestinian Authority to implement the PA's strategic plan for targeting Israel by chipping away at Christian support for Israel through eroding support for Christian Zionism? Most likely they do not: Cannon's hidden agenda is disguised by a carefully constructed facade — one that claims simply to be introducing her audience to multiple narratives and perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The current goal is shifting the balance of power so that Congress, specifically, buys into the PA's political and legislative agenda as pushed by the PA's "Christian" lobby.

While Cannon pays lip service to opposing antisemitism and to being a "friend to Israelis," she leads CMEP in strategizing with Israel's enemies on the best way not only to undermine Christian Zionism but also — at the behest of the Palestinian Authority — to target the PA's putative enemy, the State of Israel, in the halls of the government of the United States — arguably, Israel's greatest ally.

One of the more disturbing discoveries regarding Iran's ever-expanding terrorism horizons has emerged in London where it was revealed by the Daily Telegraph earlier this month that a terrorist cell with links to Iran had been caught stockpiling tonnes of explosive materials on the outskirts of London at a secret bomb factory.

British intelligence officials have now concluded the stockpile was part of an international Hizbollah plot to lay the foundations for future terror attacks in Europe.

One positive outcome from Iran's increased terrorist activity has been to persuade the British government finally to designate the entire Hizbollah organisation as a terrorist organisation.

Now, with Iran being held responsible for the latest escalation in tensions in the Gulf, Britain and other European powers should demonstrate their resolve to oppose Iran's well-documented sponsorship of terrorism by backing the Trump administration in its latest confrontation with the ayatollahs.

In an address to the 7th Annual Hellenic Air Force Academy Air Power Conference on May 15, Pyatt stressed America's strong support for its long-standing alliance with Greece, but he seemed to imply that the State Department would be pressuring Athens and Cyprus to cede to Ankara in its dispute over drilling rights in the Aegean Sea.

The phrase: "win-win" -- and the sentence: "At the end of the day, Turkey is a NATO ally" -- triggered Greek fears that U.S. President Donald Trump intends to use Greece as a decoy in order to bring Turkey back in NATO's orbit.

[Former Greek Prime Minister Costas] Simitis is not the only figure, political or otherwise, to have interpreted Pyatt's words as he did. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for instance, is likely to have understood Pyatt's remarks to mean that the U.S. is preparing to impose an "agreement" on Greece that favors Turkey. Such a sense on Erdogan's part would only make him hungrier for hegemony in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The sense in Greece is that the American embassy in Athens is not conveying Trump's messages in many areas, such as illegal immigration, Islamic terrorism, Iran and U.S. trade disagreements with the Eurozone.

In China, censorship, now largely automated, has reached "unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition." — Cate Cadell, Reuters, May 26, 2019.

As in other Communist regimes, such as that of the former Soviet Union, the Communist ideology does not tolerate any competing narratives. "Religion is a source of authority, and an object of fidelity, that is greater than the state... This characteristic of religion has always been anathema to history's totalitarian despots..." — Thomas F. Farr, President of the Religious Freedom Institute, in testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, November 28, 2018.

In 2018, China had an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras, with plans for 626 million surveillance cameras by 2020. China's aim is apparently an "Integrated Joint Operations Platform" which will integrate and coordinate data from surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology, citizen ID card numbers, biometric data, license plate numbers and information about vehicle ownership, health, family planning, banking, and legal records, "unusual activity", and any other relevant data that can be gathered about citizens, such as religious practice, travels abroad, and so on, according to reports of local officials and police.

At the moment, China is in the process of fulfilling what Stalin, Hitler and Mao could only dream about: The flawless totalitarian state, powered by digital technology, where the individual has nowhere to flee from the all-seeing eye of the Communist state.

To make matters worse, many of Maduro's 2,000 generals are also heavily involved in the drug trade, aiding the very networks they are supposed to be battling.... Meanwhile, much of the country is also controlled by "pranes," crime lords who run gangs from within the country's prisons.

"Illicit narco trafficking through Venezuela is up some 40 percent." — Navy Admiral Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, The Hill, May 23, 2019.

"The administration's strategy seeks to force the estimated 15,000 Cuban military and security personnel out of Venezuela. '[O]nce the rocks start rolling downhill, the regime itself is unsustainable,' Bolton said." — U.S. National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, as reported by Bill Gertz in the Washington Free Beacon, June 17, 2019.

The Palestinian Authority has chosen to crack down on anti-corruption activists as part of an effort to silence its critics and deter others from demanding transparency and accountability.

Stories concerning rampant financial and administrative corruption in the Palestinian Authority do not surprise those who have been reporting on Palestinian affairs in the past two decades. What is surprising is the growing number of Palestinian individuals and groups who are openly defying Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior officials by talking about and exposing corruption.

What Palestinian leaders are actually telling their people, in other words, is that anyone who complains about corruption is a traitor working with the Americans and Israelis against the interests of the Palestinians. This charge not only carries the death penalty, it brings shame to the accused and his or her entire clan. Palestinians are thus understandably wary of such an accusation.

Palestinian leaders not only deny their people the right to institutions of proper governing, they are now doing their best to block any chance of improving their living conditions by boycotting the upcoming Bahrain conference, whose main goal is to offer Palestinians economic prosperity and rid them of failed leaders whose sole interest seems to be enriching their own bank accounts and those of their family members.

The Arctic -- where both the United States and Russia maintain a military presence -- is known for being rich in hydrocarbons. The Chinese, in their claims to such a valuable energy source, clearly do not wish to be left behind.

As China already has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles -- while planning to build and deploy floating nuclear reactors -- in the South China Sea, it is certainly plausible that Beijing has similar plans for the Arctic.

Both China's Arctic Policy and its Belt and Road Initiative seem paths towards what appears to be China's aim at achieving global hegemony.

Recently, some major conservative intellectuals have been sacked in the UK. One is the peerless philosopher Roger Scruton, who was fired from a governmental committee...

Then it was the turn of the great Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose visiting fellowship at Cambridge University was rescinded...

By refusing to confront the speech police, or to support freedom of expression for Salman Rushdie, Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, Charlie Hebdo, and Jyllands-Posten -- just the tip of a huge iceberg -- we have started down the road of submission to sharia law and to tyranny. We all have been covering up our supposedly "blasphemous" culture with burqas to avoid offending people who do not seem to mind offending us.

That leaves the remaining members of the P5+1 with a clear choice: either pronounce the Obama [Iran] "deal" dead and seek a framework for new talks on how to solve the perennial "Iran problem" which, paradoxically, all say they are concerned about, or to unite to neutralize the United States and help Iran carry on as usual.

The present impasse may be breached in two ways.

The first is for actual or wannabe mediators to side with the US and tell the mullahs that they cannot have their cake and eat it. Once the mullahs have understood that putative "mediators" could direct their efforts at finding ways of organizing a retreat that avoids utter humiliation for the Khomeinist regime. That should not be difficult as all the remaining P5+1 nations, including Russia, share Washington's concerns about Tehran's "exporting revolution" and developing long-range missiles capable of carrying yet non-existent nuclear warheads.

The second way to breach the impasse is to admit that the Obama "deal" is a dead horse that will not come back to life no matter how one kicks it.

Iran recently produced a program on its state television channel demonstrating that the government is currently practicing missile attacks, with the purpose of carrying out actual attacks on Israel.... The video excerpt included in the television broadcast showed how the operations the Iranians are striving to put into action will bombard Tel Aviv.

From the perspective of the Iranian leaders, if they continue to increase their threats against Israel, the United States will be pressured to change its strategy and lift pressure that has been placed on the clerical establishment, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its elite branch, the Quds Force.

It is an unacceptable double-standard that the United Nations and the international community have been, and continue to be, silent about Iran's threats against Israeli citizens. If the situation were reversed and if Israel threatened to annihilate Iran, the international community would be up in arms, and quick to defend Iran. Through political and economic pressure, the ruling mullahs of Iran should be held accountable by the international community for endangering global security and regional stability.

A significant development in this election was that anti-immigration parties generally fared poorly.

"Many citizens wrongly think that the immigration issue is under control and that it can therefore safely be left to the Left. It is not under control... [B]y the year 2050, we will see a doubling of the Muslim population in Denmark... that would not be a problem if we had a solution for how to integrate them, but nowhere in Western Europe has a solution been found". — Kasper Støvring, author and commentator, Debatten-DR, June 6, 2019.

Another new development was that for the first time, according to a report in Jyllands Posten, Muslim voters were organized, in certain urban areas.... [A]n electoral group was set up, which, in co-operation with a mosque and various other associations, recommended that people vote for the two parties: the center-left Det Radikale Venstre and the far left Enhedslisten... Both parties have a pro-immigration stance. Det Radikale Venstre, for instance, wants to make it easier for refugees to gain permanent residence in Denmark.

Immigration policy will be one of the main challenges for the Social Democratic Party, as it attempts to form a government with the seats of Det Radikale Venstre and Enhedslisten, in addition to the Socialist People's Party.... the Social Democrats [wanted] the bulk of their policy focusing on how to reduce and control the influx of refugees and migrants, including the use of reception centers outside of Europe. In addition, their policy included making all stays for refugees in Denmark temporary, and extending border controls and reforming the Schengen cooperation so that individual countries decide when and how long they can control their own borders. Their policy also backs sending rejected asylum seekers home and tightening the laws in order to stop illegal migrants from working in Denmark.

"Fatah regularly exerts heavy pressure on Christians not to report the acts of violence and vandalism from which they frequently suffer, as such publicity could damage the PA's image as an actor capable of protecting the lives and property of the Christian minority under its rule.... That image could have negative repercussions for the massive international, and particularly European, aid the PA receives." — Dr. Edy Cohen, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Considered another way, the bread and butter of the PA and its supporters, media and others, seems to be to portray the Palestinians as victims of unjust aggression and discrimination from Israel. This narrative could be jeopardized if the international community learned that Palestinians themselves were persecuting fellow Palestinians — solely on account of religion.

"Far more important to the Palestinian Authority than arresting those who assault Christian sites is keeping such incidents out of the mainstream media. And they are very successful in this regard. Indeed, only a handful of smaller local outlets bothered to report on these latest break-ins. The mainstream international media ignored them altogether." — Dr. Edy Cohen, Israel Today.

As Justus Reid Weiner, a lawyer and scholar well-acquainted with the region explains, "The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs... In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no protection it is no surprise that they are leaving."

Turkey, which is located between the Middle East and Europe, was one of the first countries to establish a UNHCR regional office in 1960, and was given economic incentives to do so. Every year after that, the Turkish government received a large budget with which to provide aid to refugees.

The UNHCR, the organization that is supposed to advocate for the rights of refugees, has done the opposite. It has placed their care in the hands of an indifferent and hostile Turkey, which they leave to its own terrible devices.

Perhaps the UN has washed its hands of the misery of refugees in Turkey -- who have become virtual slaves -- but the rest of the international community must hold Ankara accountable for its inexcusable treatment of people who escaped danger in their countries of origin, only to be abused by the authorities that vowed -- and took money -- to protect and resettle them.

Lebanon says it fully supports the Palestinians in their fight against Israel -- but would like to see them leave the country as soon as possible.

This is the modern-day version of Arab "solidarity" with their Palestinian brothers: discrimination and apartheid -- no jobs, no citizenship, no health care and no social services.

Nor do Palestinian leaders give a damn about the welfare of their people. If they did, it would be hard to justify their impressive efforts to foil an economic conference whose main goal is to lift their people out of the economic hell these very leaders created and vigorously maintain.