Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Amin Sharifi • July 9, 2025 at 5:00 am
Iran's suspension of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not a turning point. It is business as usual. Tehran's decades-long strategy -- deny, delay, deceive -- continues, and the West still refuses to call it for what it is: a slow-motion march toward nuclear capability.... It has never stopped. The problem is not that Iran has "suspended cooperation." The problem is that the West keeps treating each step as if it is a fresh crisis that can still be reversed with enough diplomacy. Iran will not stop, and diplomacy has an extremely low probability of working for a serious, long-term solution. Forty-six years of sanctions, deterrence, and inspections have all failed. Regime change appears the only realistic solution. It is what many Iranians still risk their lives demanding, what most of Iran's neighbors would welcome, and what the broader international community would ultimately benefit from.
Iran's suspension of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not a turning point. It is business as usual. Tehran's decades-long strategy -- deny, delay, deceive -- continues, and the West still refuses to call it for what it is: a slow-motion march toward nuclear capability. Pictured: Reza Najafi, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, speaks to journalists shortly at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria on June 23, 2025. (Photo by Joe Klamar/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran's suspension of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not a turning point. It is business as usual. Tehran's decades-long strategy -- deny, delay, deceive -- continues, and the West still refuses to call it for what it is: a slow-motion march toward nuclear capability. Some commentators are now warning that Iran has suspended cooperation and may finally pursue the bomb, as if that is not already taking place. Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons for decades. It has never stopped.
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by Daniel Greenfield • July 9, 2025 at 4:00 am
Jackson received a $893,750 advance for her memoir and is now reporting $2 million in profits last year. These would be record numbers for a Supreme Court Justice's biography from a book that hardly anyone had noticed when it came out. And while books can become unexpected successes once released, there was little sign of that happening. Penguin Random House will be publishing Justice Amy Coney Barrett's book for which she received a $2 million advance. That's money the publisher seems even less likely to recoup considering that Barrett is hated among leftists and has a mixed approval rating among conservatives. Past polls show that the majority of the country can't even name a single Supreme Court justice, yet they are receiving celebrity level advances for books no one cares about. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had been previously criticized for not recusing herself in cases involving Penguin which had paid her over $3 million. Penguin is actually Bertelsmann: a German ex-Nazi publishing giant that has waged war on American parents, promoted racism and is trying to monopolistically gobble up all of American publishing. Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an Antiracist", Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility", Ta-Nehisi Coates's "Between the World and Me", and, during WWII, "The Christmas Book of the Hitler Youth" all came out of Bertelsmann. While the ex-Nazi foreign corporation operates under familiar names like Penguin, Random House, Doubleday, Ballantine, Knopf, Viking, Putnam, Bantam, Del Rey, Golden Books and many others, it's actually a foreign company pushing deeply destructive products. Even as parents tried to stop their children from being exposed to sexually inappropriate content, former CEO Markus Dohle went to war against them with a $500,000 legal fund. [A] foreign company that has tried to completely monopolize American publishing by seizing control of Simon and Schuster, and has intervened in American politics, is ... troubling. Bertelsmann millions have gone mostly unexamined even as ProPublica, a leftist advocacy group, launched a smear campaign against Justice Thomas. The Thomas smears were repeated by every media outlet in the country which pursued the 76-year-old justice's 96-year-old mother to find out where exactly she lives and who paid the tuition for his grandnephew, yet shrug when the Supreme Court can't even form a quorum over millions from a multinational giant that has business before the court being directed to justices Justice Jackson making millions for a ghostwritten memoir after spending less time on the bench than most dustcloths is an equally obvious exercise in cashing in, not literary inspiration.
Pictured: Justices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo, in Washington, DC on October 7, 2022. (Photo by Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)
Last year, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite being in her early 50s and having an undistinguished career before her affirmative action appointment, published a memoir. You might be forgiven for having missed it when "Lovely One" came out. As the media politely notes, it was "briefly" on the New York Times bestseller list and is now going for half price on Amazon. That is mostly to be expected of the ghostwritten memoir of an obscure judge. Except that Jackson received a $893,750 advance for her memoir and is now reporting $2 million in profits last year. These would be record numbers for a Supreme Court Justice's biography from a book that hardly anyone had noticed when it came out. And while books can become unexpected successes once released, there was little sign of that happening.
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by Drieu Godefridi • July 8, 2025 at 5:00 am
In the West, it is not the executive that threatens the separation of powers. It is faceless judges lacking democratic legitimacy who legislate on the pretext of judging.... [T]his judicial imperialism... [has] become a judicial tyranny.... These innovations... have gradually established the Israeli Supreme Court as the ultimate arbiter of all questions, not only legal but also political. Any Israeli citizen -- and any NGO, even one funded from abroad -- has the right to ask the Supreme Court to overturn any democratic decision.... There is no decision of the Israeli government and parliament that cannot be overturned by unelected judges. [Marine Le Pen and her supporters] argued, accurately, that the judges were essentially preventing the French people from voting for Le Pen. There is effectively no longer a single "right-wing" measure that can be adopted in any field by Parliament or the government without being struck down by the Constitutional Council or the courts. When the left loses at the ballot box, it is certain to win in the courts. In France, the judge reigns and the people no longer seem to have sovereignty over anything. The torrents of universal rules and requirements deriving from articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (e.g. privacy, dignity), and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights are probably the worst modern example of tyrannical judicial imperialism. The anarchy of immigration in Europe is entirely of its making. The US Supreme Court decided last week that the district court judges had jurisdiction over specific cases and plaintiffs in their districts -- not across the nation.
In the West, it is not the executive that threatens the separation of powers. It is faceless judges lacking democratic legitimacy who legislate on the pretext of judging. The torrents of universal rules and requirements deriving from articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (e.g. privacy, dignity), and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (pictured) are probably the worst modern example of tyrannical judicial imperialism. (Photo by Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images)
"The judges of the nation are only the mouth that pronounces the words of the law, inanimate beings who can neither moderate its force nor its rigor."
— Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Book XI, Chapter VI
From Israel to the United States, via Europe, the judicial coup d'état has become permanent. In the West, it is not the executive that threatens the separation of powers. It is faceless judges lacking democratic legitimacy who legislate on the pretext of judging. Here are four salient examples of this judicial imperialism -- which have become a judicial tyranny -- and a proposed American solution. Israel
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 7, 2025 at 5:00 am
There are also concerns that the tunnels could be used to smuggle terrorists into Gaza. The Egyptians chose to ignore the smuggling as long as the weapons were making their way into the Gaza Strip and not staying in Egyptian territory. After all, these weapons were being used against Israel, not Egypt. The weapons did not pose any threat to Egypt's national security. In addition, Egyptian military and police officers apparently benefitted by accepting bribes. By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel. Egypt never did anything to stop Hamas from staging a coup against the Palestinian Authority and seizing control of the Gaza Strip. Egypt failed to stop the flow of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Egypt does not care about the Palestinians or Israel. It only cares about its own interests, and that is why it would be a big mistake to rely on the Egyptians or any Arab state to bring security and stability to the Gaza Strip.
By turning a blind eye to the massive smuggling industry, Egypt significantly contributed to transforming the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip into a major base for Islamist terrorism, paving the way for the October 7 attack on Israel. Pictured: A large Hamas tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, discovered by the Israeli military, photographed on September 13, 2024. (Photo by Sharon Aronowicz/AFP via Getty Images)
Since the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have discovered an estimated 90 tunnels crossing under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The tunnels have been used by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups to smuggle rockets and weapons into the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli military sources, there may be additional tunnels that have not been discovered. There are also concerns that the tunnels could be used to smuggle terrorists into Gaza. The smuggling, which increased after Hamas's violent and brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, took place under the watchful eyes of Egypt, if not with its willing assistance.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • July 6, 2025 at 6:00 am
"This is not a farmer-herder clash. It is a genocidal campaign. Our communities are being wiped out methodically. The international community must not remain silent." — Dr. Joshua Riti, a local administrator, persecution.org, May 25, 2025 - Nigeria "Typically, kidnapped girls... some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their 'legal wives.'" — Morning Star News, May 28, 2025 – Pakistan Despite fierce opposition from Pakistan's top Islamic authority and other Islamist groups, on May 29, President Asif Ali Zardari, signed into law a landmark bill banning child marriage, setting the minimum age for marriage for both genders at 18 years, but only in the Islamabad Capital Territory, not the entire country. "Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion... It also requires that laws comply with sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence." — Morning Star News, May 27, 2025 That there are so many "accidental" fires of churches in Egypt suggests one of two things: either the extremists have...become more sophisticated... in their attacks on churches... or else Coptic Christians, for some inexplicable reason, have become the most careless, fire-prone people in the world: more Coptic churches than any other kind seem to keep "accidentally catching fire." A Christian woman managed to record the savage destruction and arson the Muslims carried out. (She was ordered by State Security to remove the video, which she did; some copies, however, evaded censorship.) — Egypt This is hardly the first time in Berlin that Muslims target and attack people for being Christian. — Germany "Posters on the fences of the Christian and Alawite city of Tartus in Syria: Either you immediately change your religion from Christian to Muslim and convert to Islam, or you pay protection and tribute fees with your lives. Unknown individuals are distributing posters throughout the city, and at the end it is written: All religions are infidels, and only Islam is the true religion." — X, May 20, 2025 -- Syria "We live like refugees in our own country." — Monsignor Najeeb, Assyrian International News Agency, May 29, 2025, -- Iraq
On May 16, a judge in Lahore handed Jessica Iqbal, a 16-year-old Catholic girl, back to her 32-year-old Muslim abductor, despite clear signs that she was coerced into claiming she had converted to Islam and married him. Pictured: The Lahore High Court. (Photo by Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of May 2025. The Muslim Slaughter of Christians Nigeria: In the opening days of May, Muslim Fulani militants killed six Christians in Plateau State. "They hacked dead three Christians... and injured four others," said a local, adding that their aim is "to drive away Christian victims of terror." A pastor warned of "a grand design... to wipe out more than 200 Christian communities." The same report notes that over 3,100 Nigerian Christians were murdered last year. On May 7, Fulani herdsmen killed two Christians in central Nigeria, "after killing 10 others in the same area the previous month." On May 12, the Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, killed two Christian educational workers near an army base.
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by Amir Taheri • July 6, 2025 at 4:00 am
When I propelled Ali Aqa into the imamate slot by claiming Khomeini had chosen him, he was honest enough to publicly say he didn't merit the job. He even added : If you choose me as Supreme Guide, we must cry blood for Iranian nation! Yet, nobody listened. World leaders, including US presidents, wrote flattering letters to him. Leftist intellectuals praised him as hero of anti-Imperialism. Our operatic generals saluted him as commander-in-chief and told him he had conquered Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen and won the hearts of European and American youths. Here is the bitterest part: Many Iranians chose to treat him as a passing bad odor and didn't join those brave young men and women who at the cost of their lives challenged him in the streets of over 900 Iranian cities
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Do you have an oujia board? No? Well, I have one and think everyone should also have it. It is a board through which you communicate with the ghosts of the past, even in the deepest recesses of Hades. The board's name comes from a mixture of "oui" (yes in French) and "ja" (yes in German) but you could use any of the 6000 languages still in use in our shrinking Tower of Babel. Tokok, you Morse a name on the board and the ghost you invite responds. The other day I used the board, acquired from an old Kalmuk Ishan in Kyzilyar in Caucasia, to summon Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Bahremani Kermani. At first, there was some confusion because the late President of the Islamic Republic used many different names to disguise his identity and protect his secret bank accounts. In the end, however, the board shook with his answer: "Yes! What do you want?"
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by Majid Rafizadeh • July 5, 2025 at 5:00 am
Now comes the more difficult and longer-term task: making sure Iran's regime does not rise again.... Iran is still a revolutionary Islamist state that sees the US as the great Satan, sees Israel as a cancer, and believes that its divine mission is to conquer and export its Islamist revolution to the West. Khamenei's declaration was that of a theocrat who thinks that Trump's Western talk of "you often get more with HONEY than you do with VINEGAR" is laughable, pathetic and that of a "loser." In Khamenei's view, if Trump were not weak or stupid or both, Trump would have killed him. Khamenei no doubt believes that Allah is on his side; that Allah, not Trump, saved him; and that his regime is therefore invincible. Anyone who knows this part of the world understands that Khamenei will not thank Trump. Khamenei clearly does not see Trump's reprieve as mercy. Khamenei doubtless sees his survival as a confirmation that Allah protected him, and that it is infidel America that is worthy of contempt and being eliminated. The Iranian regime has a long history of attacking and killing Americans, starting with having kidnapped the members of the US embassy and held them for more than a year. There is also the possibility that other countries might be eager to sell Iran nuclear components -- for "peaceful purposes," of course. There appears to be a dangerous tendency in the West — especially among liberal elites and international bureaucrats — to celebrate ceasefires as solutions. A ceasefire with a regime such as Iran is not a solution or "peace." It is a pause, a breathing space, to regroup, re-arm and resume plotting. This must be the end of the Iranian regime. Not a pause. Not another "negotiation." The end. Would the US have let the Nazi Party remain in power after World War II? Anything less, really, is a betrayal of the American people, the amazing Israelis, the extraordinary American pilots, and the West.
Pictured: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vows in November 2023: "Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about, America will no longer have any important role." (Image source: MEMRI) Thanks to the courageous and unapologetic leadership of US President Donald J. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, severe and long-overdue blows were dealt to the Iranian regime. The United States and Israel reminded the world that tyranny can be confronted. Now comes the more difficult and longer-term task: making sure Iran's regime does not rise again. That means crippling sanctions, backed by military readiness. That means exposing and dismantling Iran's war machine, propaganda machine and foreign influence operations in Europe, America and Latin America, and preferably the regime itself. Iran is still a revolutionary Islamist state that sees the US as the great Satan, sees Israel as a cancer, and believes that its divine mission is to conquer and export its Islamist revolution to the West.
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by Robert Williams • July 4, 2025 at 5:00 am
"Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners might be at risk of executions." — Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization, June 26, 2025. Iran... has reportedly executed 1,700 people in 2025 alone -- and it is not even August. US President Donald J. Trump deserves every credit for bombing the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan uranium enrichment plants. However, forcing Israel to terminate its "Operation Rising Lion," just as it was finally giving the Iranian people a glimpse of hope for freedom in the course of destroying Iran's nuclear program and its key institutions of oppression, was a terrible move. It left Iranians abandoned to a gruesome fate under a regime that had been likely weeks away from facing total destruction. Why? For another 46 years of "fake talks"? The Trump administration cannot thank Qatar enough for "helping" to negotiate every transition. Qatar is doubtless delighted to help, to make sure that none of its well-funded clients gets hurt. Qatar does not want regime change in Iran. Qatar has also promised Trump more than a trillion dollars in investments in the US. By rescuing Iran's regime, is Trump signaling to the people of Iran that actual peace in the Middle East might be just a dream; that more than 90 million Iranian people are seemingly not worthy of the same freedom that other nations have and that they should suffer unspeakable persecution forever? Throughout the war, most Western leaders aside from Trump, from their comfortable clubs, called for "ceasefires" and "de-escalation", while Israel was fighting for its existence -- and theirs. Would they have preferred to wait for the ballistic missiles Iran was launching at Israel to be nuclear-tipped? Iran's mullahs are not going to put their country back in shape: they are going put their nuclear weapons program, war machine and private militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), back in shape. The mullahs must be congratulating themselves on how much better it is to be America's enemy than its friend. Trump's newfound generosity towards the Islamic Republic of Iran -- whatever happened to "maximum pressure"? -- will only allow it to strengthen its hold on power, rebuild its terrorist proxies, establish additional terrorist sleeper cells in the West, continue arming Venezuela, all while the Iranian people will see neither freedom nor prosperity. In addition, it will guarantee further war later on, not only in the Middle East, but also in the West.
US President Donald J. Trump deserves every credit for bombing the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan uranium enrichment plants. However, forcing Israel to terminate its "Operation Rising Lion," just as it was finally giving the Iranian people a glimpse of hope for freedom in the course of destroying Iran's nuclear program and its key institutions of oppression, was a terrible move. Pictured: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine watch a video of a bombing test of the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) used in the attack on the Iranian Fordow nuclear installation at the Pentagon on June 26, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The day after Israel began to strike Iran on June 13, the Islamic Republic ratcheted up its crackdown on the captive Iranian people The only activity at which Iran's regime seems to excel is brutally attacking its innocent, unarmed population. Since then, at least 1,295 people have been arrested on security-related charges, including "espionage for Israel," according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. In addition, it noted, "at least 301 individuals were detained nationwide for sharing content, expressing opinions, or participating on social media." The Iranian regime also began to round up its Jewish citizens and other minorities. They interrogated at least 35 Jews over their ties with Israeli relatives, while security forces raided at least 19 homes of the minority Baha'i community. Fox News reported that "in the past 48 hours, the Iranian Regime has executed more of its own civilians than were killed in the entire Twelve-Day War with Israel."
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July 4, 2025 at 4:00 am
With countless thanks to our forefathers and all those who sacrifice so much each day to preserve the precious values in the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. If we do not protect them, they will be taken away. We have so much to be thankful for. Wishing everyone a most Joyous Fourth of July! — All of us at Gatestone.
(Image source: Architect of the Capitol/Flickr)
by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 3, 2025 at 5:00 am
Allowing Qatar to be part of an Arab consortium that would replace Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip is essentially placing the alpha-fox in charge of the henhouse. Al-Jazeera, Qatar's flagship media network, operates around the clock as a propaganda outlet in the service of Hamas. After America's attack on Iran's nuclear sites on June 22, journalists and those who shape public opinion in Qatar condemned the US and President Donald J. Trump. Al-Jazeera presenters and columnists for Qatar's government newspapers took to social media to slam the US and Trump, calling him a "brazen liar", "the leader of a modern crusade", and a "war criminal"... "... Israel must be destroyed and eliminated and must disappear. This should be a strategic Arab doctrine. [Operation] Al-Aqsa Flood showed us that the Israelis have no connection to the land...." — Qatari General (ret.) Mubarak Al-Khayreen, X.com, June 22, 2025. In 2017, [Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates] severed ties with Qatar and imposed a sea, land and air blockade on it. They accused Qatar of supporting various terrorist groups and extremist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and demanded the closure of Al-Jazeera. Qatar has never abandoned its goal of promoting the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, including Hamas. Anyone who watches Al-Jazeera (in Arabic) can see that the Gulf state and its media outlets are fully mobilized in favor of Islamist Jihadis engaged in terrorism against Israel and the West. Qatar cannot be allowed to play any role in the administration of the Gaza Strip.
Allowing Qatar to be part of an Arab consortium that would replace Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip is essentially placing the alpha-fox in charge of the henhouse. Pictured: Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal meets with Qatar's then Crown Prince (today's Emir) Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the Royal Palace in Amman, Jordan on January 29, 2012. (Photo by Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)
According to a recent report, the Trump administration is floating the idea of having four Arab states administer the Gaza Strip as part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas. On June 26, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported: "Gaza hostilities will conclude within two weeks, ending conditions will encompass four Arab nations (including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) to administer the Gaza Strip, replacing the murderous Hamas terrorist organization."
Although the newspaper did not name the two other Arab countries that would take part in administering the Gaza Strip, there is speculation in the Arab world that one of them is Qatar, which has expressed readiness to help rebuild Gaza after the Hamas-Israel war ends.
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by Lawrence Kadish • July 3, 2025 at 4:00 am
(Illustrative image by iStock/Getty Images)
For the second time is as many weeks, we have witnessed unspeakable violence in our nation. Last weekend, residents of the small community of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho lined a highway to honor two firefighters shot to death in an ambush. These professionals were responding to a blaze that police believe was deliberately set for the specific purpose of luring, then murdering, firefighters. Bruce Mattare, a commissioner for Coeur d'Alene's Kootenai County, told CNN: "The people we lost were absolutely top-notch professionals. It's unheard of for something like this to happen in this community. People are still trying to process exactly what happened."
Aren't we all. Police still have not suggested a motive for the deadly ambush but, at the end of the day, it does not matter. The murders of first responders are incomprehensible on any level.
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by Lawrence Kadish • July 2, 2025 at 5:00 am
Qatar's job, if it is part of a consortium controlling the Gaza Strip, will be to make sure that the jihad against Israel continues. If Egypt is in any way involved in securing the Gaza Strip, it is certain there will be renewed smuggling of weapons and terrorists into Israel through and under the Rafah Crossing. The weapons-and-terrorists industry has always been far too profitable and far too successful at attacking Israel just to give up. Trump's original plan to make Gaza an American Riviera, together with Israel -- or Israeli sovereignty by itself -- is a far more dependable way to guarantee security. It is, in fact, the only way to ensure that Israel can either defend itself, or has a US shield nearby to deter aggression -- the same way the US stations the forward HQ of Central Command and Air Forces Central Command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, to protect its survival.
If a consortium of Arab countries controls the Gaza Strip, one of those countries is bound to be Qatar. One of Qatar's main reasons for existing is to make sure that radical Islamic organizations stay active and well-funded. It is hard to think of an Islamist terrorist group that has not been a large beneficiary of Qatar -- from ISIS, to al-Qaeda, to the Taliban, not to mention Hamas. Pictured: U.S. President Donald Trump and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, after a state dinner in Doha, Qatar, on May 14, 2025. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
There were rumors this week that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas might ultimately include a consortium of Arab countries taking charge of the Gaza Strip. Unfortunately, hardly anything could be more dangerous than that for the stability of the region. A consortium of Arab countries governing the tiny strip of land next to Israel is, in fact, is a sure-fire recipe for a monstrous conflict just around the corner. This plan will make all the breathtaking achievements of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the great US Air Force and the Israel Defense Forces be for naught.
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by Robert Williams • July 1, 2025 at 5:00 am
Iran sees al‑Burhan's regime as a strategic opportunity to extend its influence along the Red Sea. Al‑Burhan has opened the door for Iranian operatives, drones and advanced weaponry to flow into Sudan, transforming the country's tragic internal conflict into yet another front in Tehran's regional confrontation with the West and its allies. Every day that al‑Burhan remains in power, Iran grows more entrenched in Sudan, using the country as a potential staging ground to threaten Israel and international shipping routes, particularly those critical lanes through the Red Sea. The Trump administration, drawing on the president's history of unconventional diplomacy and deal-making, could play a pivotal role in this process. The Abraham Accords demonstrated the ability to broker agreements that shift regional dynamics through pragmatic, incentive-based negotiations. [N]one of these initiatives is possible while al‑Burhan remains in power. His regime has become a conduit for Iranian ambitions and a shield for Muslim Brotherhood-linked gunmen. So long as he rules, efforts to rebuild Sudan's economy, restore its sovereignty, and protect regional security will fail. Now is the moment for decisive action and Trump's unparalleled negotiating skills.
Sudan's General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has opened the door for Iranian operatives, drones and advanced weaponry to flow into Sudan, transforming the country's tragic internal conflict into yet another front in Tehran's regional confrontation with the West and its allies. Pictured: Al-Burhan in Gedaref State, Sudan, on April 10, 2024. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
Sudan's General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's continued hold on power represents a serious threat not only to Sudan's stability but to regional security and global interests. For years, al-Burhan has cultivated an image of pragmatism and order, while in practice he has forged deep ties with the Muslim Brotherhood — an Islamist movement whose ideological and logistical networks have directly supported violent groups like Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. These groups have been responsible for a wave of bloodshed, terrorism, and instability across the Middle East, undermining regional security and threatening international trade corridors.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 30, 2025 at 5:00 am
"The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose." — Henry Kissinger, Foreign Affairs, January 1969. Iran's regime may have lost its nuclear sites, but it has not lost its appetite to kill Jews and wipe Israel off the map. Would the Allied forces have left the Nazi Party as the rulers of Germany after World War II? Ideally, such a campaign should be spearheaded by the Iranian people themselves with the backing of Western countries, including the US, and Arabs and Muslims who oppose the Iranian regime and view it as a direct threat to their national security. These countries include Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in addition to the recognized governments of countries home to Iran's current and former proxies: Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. They will cooperate once they see that the US is serious about standing against, not appeasing, those who threaten the security and stability of the Arab countries. With China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran and its proxies, Trump may be underestimating the intensity of their desires. With an enriched Iran, freely selling its oil to China, the temptation to rebuild a war machine might be hard to resist. The weakening or removal of the Iranian regime can only facilitate the mission of obliterating Hamas and PIJ in Gaza, and freeing all the Israeli hostages they hold. It is time for the Trump administration and its Western allies to understand that there can be no genuine deals or compromises with either Sunni or Shiite jihadists who consider America and Israel as the big and small "Satans." If the US and the West do not want to be directly involved in bringing about regime change in Iran, they should at least encourage and back any opposition individuals or groups working to topple Iran's Islamist regime. Reinstating economic sanctions on Iran could help accelerate the downfall of the mullahs and their terror proxies. That is the only way to bring peace and stability to the Middle East and prevent further violence and bloodshed. When your enemies say they want to eliminate you, you have every right to eliminate them first.
Iran's regime may have lost its nuclear sites, but it has not lost its appetite to kill Jews and wipe Israel off the map. Would the Allied forces have left the Nazi Party as the rulers of Germany after World War II? Pictured: A funeral procession, featuring banners memorializing senior officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran's Enqelab Square on June 28, 2025. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
The United States and Israel have, according to reliable sources, "obliterated" or "severely damaged" Iran's nuclear installations, but so long as the regime and its terror proxies continue to exist, the mission remains unaccomplished. "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose," Henry Kissinger observed in 1969. The continuing rule of Iran and its terror proxies remains a major threat to security and stability in the Middle East. Let us not forget that their main goal is to destroy not only Israel (the "Little Satan"), but also the US (the "Great Satan").
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by Lawrence Kadish • June 29, 2025 at 5:00 am
Iran's regime has not only been committed for nearly half a century to "Death to Israel" and – as "a policy," according to Iran's Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei -- to "Death to America." To implement this policy, the regime has also been committed to acquiring nuclear weapons and the intercontinental ballistic missiles to fire them across the Atlantic. Pictured: Khamenei gives a speech on November 1, 2023, televised on Iran's Channel 1. (Image source: MEMRI)
The Iranian regime, by violating US President Donald J. Trump's ceasefire after only four hours, did the world a great favor. It should now be clear, if it was not, before, that Iran's government -- called by the US Department of State, the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism for the 39th year running," -- does not look as if it will suddenly agree to become the compete opposite of itself. As big-hearted as it is for Trump -- who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for bringing an end to the war with Iran in just 12 days, and the US operation in just 37 hours -- to agree to talks with Iran's ruling mullahs, in Shiite Islam, unfortunately, whenever Islam might appear under threat, dissimulation, taqiyya, is recommended.
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