By Wesam Bahrani 

Israel's Rafah closure is a death sentence for Gaza's patients

TEHRAN – Israel's continued closure of the Rafah crossing amounts to a death sentence for thousands of Palestinian patients and wounded trapped in the Gaza Strip.

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Lebanon’s paradox: An unfinished state and a necessary resistance

BEIRUT — The central challenge facing Lebanon today is often misrepresented as a confrontation between the “state” and the “Resistance.” In reality, it is a struggle between a state that has yet to be fully realized and a defensive necessity imposed by persistent danger.

By staff writer 

A truce in words only: Israel keeps bombing Gaza

TEHRAN – Israel’s killing of two Palestinians in Gaza City’s al-Tuffah neighborhood on Tuesday reflects a familiar pattern. Israel is once again violating the October truce it claims to uphold. On paper, the ceasefire exists. On the ground, Israeli gunfire, airstrikes, and shelling continue. 

By Wesam Bahrani 

U.S. interference in Iraqi politics 

TEHRAN – Iraq stands at a critical point as parliament prepares to elect a new president and form the next government. 

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Lebanon: Rising pressures amid Syria’s instability and Israeli threats

BEIRUT — With the Israeli enemy maintaining continuous attacks from the south and the resurgence of ISIS and other extremist groups in Syria, Lebanon faces unprecedented security challenges. 

By Ranjan Solomon

Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza and the monetization of ruins

GOA — Gaza today is not emerging from conflict; it is still being crushed by its consequences. Entire neighbourhoods have been erased, civilians displaced en masse, famine conditions allowed to fester, and allegations of international crimes hang unresolved over the ruins. Any serious discussion of Gaza’s future would begin with a ceasefire, accountability, and the restoration of Palestinian political agency. Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” begins elsewhere. It begins with money, authority, and control.

By staff writer 

The ceasefire illusion: Israel’s cover for calculated aggression in Lebanon

TEHRAN — Despite the ceasefire agreement signed with Israel in November 2024, the promised peace remains a distant hope for the people of Lebanon. Israel’s military has effectively transformed a signed truce into a period of controlled aggression, conducting near-daily strikes that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives.

By Shahab Sarmadi 

Minneapolis: Ground zero of American hypocrisy

Alex Pretti’s death exposed a US that champions freedom abroad even as federal agents take the lives of its own citizens at home

TEHRAN — Anger is surging across the United States — particularly in Minneapolis — after federal agents shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old American ICU nurse, during a chaotic immigration raid. His death has become a symbol of what critics describe as a violent and uncontrolled federal crackdown — one that is now claiming the lives of U.S. citizens.

By Wesam Bahrani 

Nouri al-Maliki nominated for Iraqi premiership

TEHRAN – In a major development, Iraq’s Coordination Framework has officially nominated former Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki as its candidate to lead the next government.

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Economic fragility and militarized escalation in Trump’s foreign policy

BEIRUT — Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been characterized by confrontation, escalation, and a growing reliance on military force. 

No breakthrough in Abu Dhabi as Western policy toward Ukraine faces new questions

TEHRAN — The first trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States since the start of the Moscow–Kyiv war in 2022 have concluded in Abu Dhabi with no sign of progress. The two-day meeting, which wrapped up on Saturday, brought the three sides together for direct discussions for the first time in nearly four years. But the core disagreements that have defined the conflict from the start remain firmly in place, and none of the parties suggested that a breakthrough is anywhere close.

By Wesam Bahrani 

What Palestinians endure in Gaza amid Israel’s continued demolition and siege

TEHRAN — Palestinians in Gaza are hoping for real changes that could ease their suffering and help them survive the harsh reality they face. 

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

The US and Lebanon’s trilateral trap

BEIRUT — The United States is intensifying pressure on Lebanon to abandon the existing military “mechanism” overseeing the southern front and move instead toward a Washington-sponsored trilateral committee that would pave the way for political-security arrangements with Israel. 

By staff writer 

A state in protest: Is Minnesota becoming the fault line of US immigration policy?

TEHRAN — Recent events in the US state of Minnesota have exposed the deep tensions created by President Donald Trump’s immigration strategy. The mass protests on Friday, the widespread business shutdowns, and the willingness of thousands to gather in dangerous cold weather show a community reacting forcefully to a federal operation it sees as excessive and harmful.

By Wesam Bahrani 

‘Board of Peace’: A new tool for American control

TEHRAN – U.S. President Donald Trump officially unveiled the so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza at a signing ceremony in Davos on Thursday. 

By staff writer 

Abu Dhabi talks spotlight Western missteps in Ukraine

TEHRAN — The first trilateral engagement between the United States, Ukraine and Russia since the outbreak of the 2022 conflict is taking place in Abu Dhabi at a moment when Western governments are reassessing the trajectory of a war that has become strategically, economically and politically burdensome. In whatever direction these discussions develop, their very initiation reflects a deeper reality: The US and Europe are seeking to unwind a crisis that their own longstanding policies helped set in motion and then prolong.

By Wesam Bahrani 

Israeli wars deepen domestic anxiety 

TEHRAN – Rather than increasing settlers’ sense of security, the Israeli regime’s aggression across the region has had the opposite effect.

Trump’s Greenland obsession turns Davos into a test of Europe’s resolve

TEHRAN — President Donald Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday was a display of geopolitical brinkmanship, delivered with the swagger of a leader who treats alliances as leverage rather than partnerships. 

By staff writer 

Fox in the henhouse: Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ lets Bibi off the leash

TEHRAN — The decision to include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a so-called U.S.-led “Board of Peace” for Gaza highlights the deep incoherence of Washington’s approach to Israel’s war against the enclave and its aftermath.

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

From ceasefire to coercion: How Lebanon is dragged into a surrender framework

BEIRUT — What is unfolding around Lebanon’s so–called “ceasefire oversight mechanism” is not a misunderstanding nor a technical dispute—it is a deliberate campaign of pressure. 

By Shahrokh Saei 

Trump’s second term: Thunder at home, flames abroad

TEHRAN — One year after Donald Trump returned to the White House, the national mood is uneasy. Polls show that half of Americans believe the economy has worsened under Trump’s leadership, and his approval rating remains stubbornly low.

By staff writer 

Davos showdown over Greenland: Europe confronts Trump, faces its costly US reliance 

TEHRAN — Europe and the United States remain locked in a tense political standoff. That tension was on full display at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, where European leaders openly criticized President Donald Trump’s push to take control of Greenland and his threats to impose new tariffs on European countries. Their remarks underscored a growing sense of frustration in Europe over Washington’s increasingly confrontational approach.

By staff writer 

From occupation to expulsion: How Iraq’s withdrawal accord laid bare US failures

TEHRAN — The Iraqi government’s announcement of a full U.S. withdrawal from its federal territory is more than a procedural update; it is the culmination of years of public anger, political pressure, and a growing national conviction that the American military presence was never truly about Iraq’s security. For many Iraqis, the U.S. presence was a revolving door of justifications — each one crafted to replace the last whenever it became too discredited to sustain.

By staff writer 

Syria’s shifting northeast: A new step on ground long shaped by foreign powers

TEHRAN — The main Kurdish fighting force in northeast Syria — commonly known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — has reached a centralization agreement with the government under Ahmed al-Sharaa, reflecting a shift in how several key areas in the northeast will be managed following recent developments on the ground.

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Hezbollah’s rational sovereignty in the face of imperial subjugation

BEIRUT — Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem's speech on Saturday, addressed to Israel’s and America’s tools in Lebanon under the striking declaration, “We are the most rational,” was not a rhetorical flourish, but rather a political indictment. 

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Northern Syria at a crossroads: Deir Hafir and the Kurdish question

BEIRUT — The announcement by the army of the de facto authority in Damascus on Saturday, January 17, 2026, that it had fully taken control of the city of Deir Hafir in eastern Aleppo countryside marks a significant turning point in the evolving Syrian conflict. 

By Ranjan Solomon

The new mandate of recolonizing Gaza: ‘Peace’ boards and the architecture of erasure

GOA — In the lexicon of modern geopolitics, language is rarely used to describe reality; more often, it is used to camouflage it. The emergence of proposals such as a "Gaza Board of Peace" represents a sophisticated linguistic pivot—a transition from the raw violence of military occupation to the sterile, bureaucratic violence of recolonization. By framing the administration of Gaza as a "peace-building" initiative, proponents are attempting to revive the Mandate System of the early 20th century, effectively stripping a population of its agency under the guise of humanitarian necessity.

By staff writer 

Hostage to the hegemon: How Trump's Greenland tariff exposes Europe's strategic impotence

TEHRAN — The tariff threat issued by US President Donald Trump over Greenland represents a profound rupture in the logic of the transatlantic relationship. It is not merely an economic measure, nor even a diplomatic provocation, but a demonstration of how far Washington is willing to go to impose its will on its closest allies.

By Sondoss Al Asaad 

Hybrid warfare on Iran and intensified squeezing of Hezbollah 

BEIRUT—As regional and international powers escalate what can only be described as a sustained hybrid war against the Iranian people, Lebanon finds itself perilously exposed—trapped in a web of pressures it neither commands nor can evade.