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By Dan Lieberman

The aftermath of a crime has five objectives — define the crime and its extent, find out who did it, learn the motive, convict the assailant(s), and ascertain a method to prevent similar crimes. The Bondi Beach massacre has been defined and the assailants identified. Similar to other instances when Jews are victims, speculation replaces actuality, and the motive, which is often a complex mixture of economic, political, psychological, and emotional, is replaced by one word ─ anti-Semitism, and with one objective ─ stifle dissent to Israel’s genocidal policies.

A segment of the public is aware of the exploitation of the killings of Jews to shape minds and favor Israel’s extermination policies, but the exploitation is not sufficiently recognized and not well attended. Israel’s military demolishes those who confront it at its doors; Israel’s worldwide army of dedicated followers demolishes those who confront Israel at external public and government levels. Inciting hatred of the Jewish people and using the expressions of hatred to rationalize Zionist policies and convince others of their necessity is the principal tool of those who advocate Israel above all. In order to subdue the criminal enterprise known as Israel and prevent the genocide portrayed as defense of the Israel state, highest priority should be given to a study of the terrifying “hatred” tactic and determine how to combat it. Start with examination of the latest atrocity to Jews and the compounding of atrocity to the victims ─ keeping their deaths alive to satisfy Zionist plans.

The perpetrators of the Bond Beach massacre have been linked to supporters of the notorious ISIS, haters of all peoples — Christians, Shi’a, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, Atheists, Jews, and all non-believers. As heirs to al-Qaeda, ISIS members reflect Osama bin Laden’s’ trenchant views on Israel, expressed in his Letter to the American People, where he explains, “Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (a) You attacked us in Palestine.” This significant piece of history has been ardently suppressed, disappearing from original Internet sources and only available from those who maintain copies of the original.

Israel has identified itself as the spokesperson for Jewish people and linked world Jewry to its genocide of the Palestinians. Unable to attack the Israel mainland directly, ISIS extremist, who have no relation to or contact with those who endeavor to prevent Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, attacked what it perceived as Israel’s external population.

Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, immediately claimed, “there was an obvious link (ED: Obvious link????) between Bondi and the three hundred thousand people who marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge against the genocide in Gaza.” The Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, said his state, “is moving to block mass protests from going ahead in the wake of the Bondi massacre.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with these words, “”You took no action. You let the disease (ED: anti-Semitism) spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” A less gracious Anthony Albanese would have responded, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the horrific attack on Jews worldwide, and not only on Bondi Beach, are directly due to your genocidal policies and linking all Jews with your apartheid state, which provokes hatred of Jews.”

What happens in Australia and elsewhere deserves mention in the United States, but the happenings should remain in Australia and elsewhere. When Jewish life is involved, the usual course of events is misappropriated. Happenings to Jews all over the word, especially unfortunate occurrences, become everyday reading in America, adding to a recurring list of victimhood, as if the happenings were to neighbors. They remain in the public conscience forever. The Holocaust, which occurred in Europe, by Europeans, and to Europeans, is a daily part of American life. This does not occur for the Armenian genocide, the Rohingya genocide, the Rwanda genocide, and the many other atrocities committed upon ethnicities. Their victimhood barely enters the extensive U.S. media’s attention. How many Americans are aware of the atrocities committed by ISIS against Americans and their religious institutions?

NEW ORLEANS (AP), Jan1, 2025: “Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street, plowing into crowds celebrating New Year’s Day, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others. Police shot and killed Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who had proclaimed his support for the Islamic State militant group on social media.

Homeland Security News Wire:

On Sept. 28, 2025, at least four people were killed and eight others injured during a Sunday service at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Just a month earlier, two people died and 21 were injured during a Mass for students at the Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis….From 2000 to 2024, the dataset records 379 incidents and 487 deaths at religious congregations and religious community centers

Violations of Jewish life are given prominence over violations of other lives, and, no matter the cause — animosity to Israel or Zionism, severe hatred of Jews, triviality, accident, or misinterpretation — the violation is given a special designation ─ anti-Semitism. The word anti-Semitism daily bombards the senses, carries with it images of pogroms, holocaust, and Jew-hatred, and enters the psyche similar to the word Jihadist, provoking a Pavlovian response that immediately protects the supposed victim and lashes out at the designated accused. Hopefully, times are changing.

After organizers of an Adelaide Writers’ Festival announced it was “removing from its program Randa Abdel-Fattah, a lawyer, academic and writer who has been a fervent critic of Israel,” saying, “her presence was not ‘culturally sensitive’ after a mass shooting that targeted Jewish Australians,” almost 200 writers protested and withdrew from the festival. Soon, half of the festival’s eight-member board, including its chair, resigned. Later, the board cancelled the event and apologized for its decision to disinvite Ms. Abdel-Fattah.

This noteworthy response, numero uno priority for defeating Israel among our midst, is encouraging. Knowing that the movement to dislodge the Zionists from their grips on the cultural, political, and information institutions is growing and is active should encourage mass desertions from events that exclude those who express aversion to Israel and its extermination policies. Extending the desertions to all groups and persons that hint at support for apartheid Israel, so that these groups and persons are sidetracked, left to dwell alone in their fantasies, has rewards. Shunning, effective with Amish communities, can be effective with the worldwide community; why should the inhuman, those who approve tanks rolling over Palestinians lying in their tents and soldiers shooting children in their heads, be allowed to spread inhumanity? This might satisfy the fifth objective that appears after a crime; ascertain the method to prevent similar crimes and enable the Jews who faithfully follow the Ten Commandments to lead the other Jews out of their slavish devotion to the demented Zionists.

All well and good, but Israel’s supporters’ principal and most effective strategy has been, as explained previously, “have the word anti-Semitism daily bombard the senses, carry with it the images of pogroms, holocaust, and Jew-hatred, enter the psyche and provoke a Pavlovian response that immediately protects the supposed victim and lashes out at the designated accused.” Defeating that strategy is essential to defeating genocidal Israel. One effective means is to use a similar strategy.

The Zionists capture contemporary generations by using incidents of “anti-Semitism” from past generations, you know — Captain Dreyfuss, Russian pogroms, False Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Leo Frank, etc. The latter person is still being well played and is an example of the manner in which a spurious charge of anti-Semitism is used to advance a cause. A short study reveals a lot.

Although convicted in 1913 by a jury of his peers for murder of a thirteen year old girl, after indictment by a Grand Jury that contained four Jews, Leo Frank has been portrayed as a wrongfully convicted victim of anti-Semitism. Not unique that defendants might be wrongfully convicted, thousands of examples; not unique that prejudice may drive the conviction, thousands of examples. In this case, we have one Jewish person during centuries of U.S. history, who has not been definitely proven to be either innocent or convicted by a prejudiced jury. Compare Frank’s case to hundreds of African Americans, who were proven not guilty and convicted solely by prejudice. Does the case warrant attention the person is still receiving in the year 2025?

We learn of the centuries old Leo Frank trial through the testimony of Leo Frank’s contemporary supporters and not from those who participated in the events of the era. Many legal experts at the trial, and many of those who have read the newspapers and records of the trial, agree with the jury verdict. One person’s well-researched opinion, who concluded Leo Frank was guilty, can be found at Leo Frank Papers, edited by a descendant relation of the murdered Mary Phagan, who, coincidentally, has the same name. It might be true that Frank was unfairly convicted; it is not true that evidence, mostly circumstantial, did not tend to a guilty verdict. Frank was one of the only persons in the factory where Mary Phagan was killed and was in position to commit the crime.

Frank was lynched by an angry mob, whose anger came from the belief that Frank’s New York lawyers had bribed Georgia Governor, John M. Slaton, into reducing Frank’s death sentence to a life-term sentence and were plotting to have him pardoned. This came after the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, refused to overturn the conviction. There might have been bigoted extremists who uttered defamatory words against Jews, but, if this happened, it occurred after the New York lawyers, who represented a high powered Northern intrusion on the local Southern legal system, provoked racist insensibilities. It is not authenticated that hostility to the Jewish religion, if it existed, played any role in the conviction — juries are shielded from the world outside the court room, Jews, as the chosen people, have never been persecuted in the bible thumping South, and no credible evidence of hostility to Jews among the jury has been proven.

The manner in which diabolical Zionists use a disputable past to capture each generation is apparent. A 1999 lugubrious musical, Parade, staged 86 years after Frank’s conviction (ED: Why was this event important in 1999?), eerily uses the murder of a young girl, the real victim, to portray the innocence of her convicted murderer. The plot is sickening. Having this hideous musical staged reveals the disturbed minds of those who glorify anti-Semitism myths. Twenty five years after its premiere, and 112 years after the trial, the play was revived at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Why? To capture the present generation in the world of the contrived anti-Semites who, supposedly have spanned history and caused Jews continuous pain and sorrow, which if true, would still be infinitesimal in the fifty states when compared to the afflicted Native Americans, Asiatic, Blacks, Amish, Mennonites, Catholics, Mormons, and gays.

Turn it around, take charge of the brainwashing, and instead of having the word anti-Semite conjure images of brutal gentiles lashing innocent Jews, have it portrayed as a Zionist lashing out at the Semitic Arab. Aren’t Arabs Semites? The image shows and the caption reads, “Anti-Semitic Israelis oppressing the Semitic Palestinians.” Making a mockery of anti-Semitism does not have to be done in a specific manner; stories, articles and press releases can display the anti-Semitic Zionists harming the Semitic Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, and other Arabs. New generations will be confused and the word anti-Semite will be diffused. It will lose its meaning and become superfluous.

Attach a group, an institution, or a person to a blasphemous word and repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and soon the group, institution, or person will be automatically identified with the blasphemous word. This has been the modus operandi of the Zionists and their followers — terrorist Hamas, terrorist Hezbollah, Nazi Mufti and tens of others, anti-Semite Martin Luther and hundreds of others, self-hating Jew George Soros and tens of others. Demagogues make use of this technique to manipulate audiences, and for the Zionists, it has worked effectively. Why permit them to gain advantage with lies; why not gain advantage with truths?

The word Israel does not stand alone. Either of the adjectives genocidal, apartheid or oppressive should always precede the country word, forming a new name for the state without borders. Organizations, such as AIPAC and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are now “apartheid Israel’s AIPAC” and “apartheid Israel’s ADL.” Individuals who support Israel are, as one example, “Israel above all Miriam Adelson.”

These recommendations to counter the brainwashing performed by Zionists on the entire world might appear rash, simple minded, and disorderly. I’ll be blunt. Nothing has advanced the genocidal Zionist cause as much as creating a Pavlovian response in the innocents who favor Israel. Nothing has been more detrimental to the Palestinian cause than incompletely recognizing the power of this brainwashing and inadequately responding to it. Revelations of the horrific genocide committed upon the Palestinians are meaningful, prominent and widely distributed. Revelations of strategies to halt the genocide are meaningful, not sufficiently prominent, and not widely distributed. The unending and daily toll of the helpless Palestinians tells the story.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at https://dlieb10gmailcom.substack.com/.

25 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Gideon Polya

After 2 years of the Gaza Genocide and Gaza Holocaust the important and ancient city Gaza was reduced to rubble and Gazan deaths from violence and deprivation totalled 875,000. However non-seeing, eyeless and Zionist-perverted Western Mainstream media report 71,000 deaths. My poem Eyeless in Gaza addresses Zionist criminality, praises the extraordinary resurrection resilience of the Gazans, and the fundamental commitment of decent Humanity to beauty and truth in a chaotic universe.

I claim no poetic licence in this poem. Thus from data published by expert epidemiologists in the leading medical journal The Lancet, 175,000 Gazans had been killed violently after 2 years of the Gaza Genocide. It was “conservatively” estimated by epidemiologists that deaths from deprivation were 4 times the deaths from violence i.e. 4 x 175,000 = 700,000 for a total of 875,000 Gazan “deaths from violence and deprivation” (Google this phrase). Based on the relative proportions in deaths reported by Gaza health officials (and in the absence of other data), the total of 875,000 Gaza deaths was estimated to include about 325,000 children, 207,000 women and 342,000 men. However these estimates are conservative because they do not consider the extreme vulnerability to deprivation of under-5 year old infants. Thus in impoverished countries 70% of avoidable deaths from deprivation are under-5 year old infants (Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”). Further, Gaza is not just any city, it is a huge, ancient and culturally important city. According to William Dalrymple,“The Golden Road. How Ancient India Transformed the World”, Crusader-occupied Gaza played a key role in transmission of Arab and Indian learning to Europe.

Gaza will resurrect itself once the American and Zionist Israeli occupiers leave. My huge painting “Qana” was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s famed anti-war painting “Guernica” about the fascist bombing of the Basque town of Guernica and includes 3 resurrection themes, those of Adonis, Jesus Christ and the Lebanese town of Qana of Jesus’ “water into wine” fame” that suffered repeated bombing destruction by the Zionist Israelis (see “Qana”: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/ ). My science-informed prose having failed to dent the denial of the Gaza Genocide by mendacious Western Mainstream journalist, politician and academic presstitutes I have here resorted to the more powerful medium of poetry.

Eyeless in Gaza

The universe contains one trillion galaxies,
Each galaxy contains one trillion suns,
And every sun has a dozen planets,
With sentient life confined to one
And blossomed into one thousand tribes,
A thousand trillion trillion tribes
But only one supposedly Chosen
By a supposedly omnipotent Creator saying:
“Obey my Laws and I will smite
Your enemies, those whose land you covet,
But break my Laws then I will smite
You, favouring your direst enemies.”
The Lord said “Attack Amalek,
And utterly destroy all that they have,
And do not spare them. But kill both man
And woman, infant and nursing child,
Ox and sheep, camel and donkey”.
But Saul was punished by the Lord for sparing,
Succeeded by Michal-betraying liar
And merciless killer of all, David,
The first genocidally racist Zionist.

Millennia later and cruelly unmoved
By love thy neighbour as thyself,
Netanyahu cried “Remember Amalek”
And ancient Gaza that shipped to Rome
The hard-won cleansing perfumes of Arabia
And the spices of distant and wondrous India,
That taught Europe the mathematical secrets
Of the brilliant Muslim and Hindu worlds,
Was no more – all buildings gone,
Reduced to grey mountains of rubble,
Half a million women and children
Killed by violence and imposed deprivation,
In a Zionist concentration camp that bravely
Defied chaos with roads, sewerage,
Schools, clinics, hospitals, and universities
But now the world’s biggest cemetery.

Yet – like destroyed but resurrected Qana,
Adonis, Jesus, Mongol-destroyed cities,
Nazi-destroyed Warsaw and Stalingrad,
America-destroyed Tokyo, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, Korea, Mosul and Fallujah,
Gaza lives on with university classes
Resuming without desks in the rubble.
In the Zionist- planned Rafah Concentration Camp
Obscenely shadowed by the Riviera-style skyscrapers
Of psychopath Trump and his billionaire friends,
Gaza will endure as testament to resilience
Just as universe-comprehending sentients
Seek beauty and truth in the entropic chaos
Of a blind and acceleratingly expanding universe.

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades.

25 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Chris Hedges

The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis, including the killing today of the intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province. They were terrorized by heavily armed American execution squads for decades. It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarized police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability. What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang. Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, Thucydides noted, it finally, with the collapse of Athenian democracy, imposed on itself. But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of color. We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, worked for nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, National Public Radio and other news organizations in Latin America, the Middle East and the Balkans.

25 January 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander, New Age Islam

Protests in Iran arise from the tension between anti-imperialist ideology, harsh sanctions, economic mismanagement, regional ambitions, and a restless youth demanding justice and renewal within an Islamic framework

· Understanding how Iran’s post-1979 anti-imperialist identity both legitimizes defiance of the U.S.–Israel axis and obscures internal decay, corruption, and suppression of dissent.

· Analysis of economic paralysis caused by sanctions, structural mismanagement, inflation, unemployment, and the unfulfilled project of a self-reliant Islamic economy.

· Discussion of regional ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and how external interventions and alliances drain resources and intensify domestic grievances.

· Examination of youth-led protests rooted in faith, frustration, and demands for participatory governance, accountability, and socioeconomic justice rather than rejection of Islam.

· Argument for an ijtihad of governance—renewing Islamic principles in economics, politics, and diplomacy to reconcile resistance with prosperity and restore moral legitimacy.

….

Iran occupies a unique and paradoxical position in the modern world order. It stands as one of the few nations that has consistently defied the hegemony of the United States and Israel—two powers often perceived by its leadership as the embodiment of global injustice. This defiance has won Iran both admiration and isolation. While its resistance to Western domination epitomizes a quest for sovereignty, the internal fractures within Iranian society reveal a more complex picture—one where ideological steadfastness coexists with deep economic distress and generational dissent.

In recent years, waves of protest have repeatedly swept through Iran. While the government and its allies frequently dismiss these movements as foreign-sponsored or Zionist-engineered, reducing them solely to such conspiracies obscures the genuine grievances of the Iranian people. Inflation, corruption, unemployment, and power shortages have become part of daily life. The sanctions imposed by the West, particularly by the United States, have crippled the economy, deepened social inequality, and stripped away the optimism of youth who see little reward for their education, faith, or patriotism.

This essay examines the genesis of contemporary protests in Iran through a layered analysis of its ideological commitments, geopolitical strategies, and internal socioeconomic dynamics. It explores how Iran’s defiance of Western imperialism, though morally and politically laudable in some respects, has become entangled with its own internal contradictions—creating conditions ripe for domestic unrest.

The Anti-Imperialist Identity and Its Consequences

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s political identity has been anchored in anti-imperialism. Imam Khomeini’s revolutionary discourse positioned the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as its regional embodiment of injustice. To this day, Iranian state rhetoric denounces U.S. and Israeli policies as manipulative, coercive, and in defiance of international law. The historical context—especially the 1953 CIA-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh—renders this suspicion neither baseless nor paranoid. Iran’s defiance, therefore, is as much a product of painful national memory as of ideological conviction.

Yet, opposition to Western domination has not insulated Iran from internal decay. The theocratic system that promised spiritual authenticity and social justice has, over time, evolved into an intricate power structure, where clerical elites and military-industrial networks dominate political and economic life. The revolutionary narrative that once galvanized the poor and inspired the oppressed now risks losing credibility among a population facing inflation rates that erode purchasing power and corruption that betray revolutionary ethics.

Thus, the very identity that once united the nation against foreign enemies now fuels domestic division. When the ruling elite frame all dissent as imperial conspiracy, legitimate grievances lose their voice. The ideological shield that once protected Iran’s sovereignty becomes a barrier separating the leadership from the realities of its people.

Economic Crisis and Structural Constraints

At the heart of Iran’s protests lies an economic paralysis shaped by both external sanctions and internal mismanagement. Western sanctions, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), devastated Iran’s access to international banking and trade. Unable to integrate into the global capitalist system, Iran finds itself marginalized from conventional markets. The problem is not merely exclusion—it is the absence of an alternative.

Here lies a critical paradox. The broader Muslim world, fragmented and complicit with neoliberal systems, has failed to construct a viable alternative to Western capitalism. Iran’s dream of building a self-reliant Islamic economy has thus remained aspirational rather than operational. As sanctions tightened, Tehran was forced to sell crude oil at drastically reduced prices, often through clandestine channels. Revenues that could have been invested in infrastructure, welfare, and employment were instead diverted into sustaining regional influence campaigns, leaving domestic sectors starved of capital.

Inflation and unemployment have become chronic. Power blackouts, rising food prices, and a collapsing rial have made daily survival increasingly difficult. The educated youth, once proud of Iran’s scientific and technological progress, now struggle to find avenues for meaningful employment or expression. They inhabit a psychological contradiction: deeply nationalistic yet disillusioned with their government’s capacity to translate patriotic sacrifice into tangible well-being.

The Regional Ambition and Its Domestic Costs

Iran’s geopolitical ambitions have also contributed to its domestic discontent. The Iranian leadership has prioritized expanding influence across the Middle East, presenting itself as the vanguard of resistance against Zionism and Western imperialism. Its extensive involvement in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Syria through support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and in Iraq through allied militias reflects this broader strategic agenda.

While such policies have enhanced Iran’s regional stature and deterrence capability, they have also come at a grave economic cost. The resources spent supporting allied regimes and non-state actors amounted to billions of dollars, even as citizens at home struggled with rising poverty and decaying infrastructure.

This contradiction is increasingly visible to ordinary Iranians. It is difficult to justify financing wars abroad when bread and electricity become scarce at home. The ideal of Ummah-based solidarity loses moral resonance when accompanied by domestic deprivation.

Moreover, Iran’s partnership with Russia, though strategically beneficial, further entrenches its dependency on external powers that pursue their own interests. Moscow’s support in military technology and energy cooperation has enabled Iran to withstand Western isolation, but it also tethers Tehran’s autonomy to Russia’s geopolitical calculus. The Iranian dream of leading the Muslim world thus comes at the cost of partial subordination within a different power bloc.

The Youth Factor: Between Faith and Futurity

No analysis of Iranian protests can neglect the generational dimension. A majority of Iran’s population is under thirty-five—a demographic that has grown up after the revolution, with little memory of the Shah’s tyranny or the moral euphoria of 1979. Their world is mediated not by revolutionary sermons but by social media, technology, and global cultural exposure.

This youth remains proud of its Islamic and Persian heritage but is impatient with the rigidities of the regime. They yearn for economic opportunities, political participation, and cultural openness. The government, however, views liberalization as a gateway to ideological subversion, often comparing it to the Glasnost and Perestroika reforms that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union. From the regime’s perspective, allowing excessive openness would unravel the Islamic Republic’s moral fabric. From the youth’s perspective, suppression of individuality and expression stifles both personal and national potential.

The protests, therefore, are not necessarily anti-Islamic; they are anti-stagnation. The Iranian Street does not demand abandonment of faith—it demands renewal of justice, the very principle on which the Islamic Revolution was built. The call is for ijtihad not in theology alone, but in governance: a creative, courageous reinterpretation of Islamic principles in economic, political, and social spheres suitable for contemporary realities.

Ideological Rigidity and the Need for Renewal

The Islamic Republic’s ideological foundation draws heavily on Shia theology, especially the concept of resistance against tyranny. This theological resistance provided moral legitimacy to the revolution and continues to justify Iran’s defiance against global powers. Yet, when this same resistance is turned inward—to suppress critique and diversity within the ummah—it ceases to be emancipatory and becomes authoritarian.

Imam Khomeini’s project was not merely political; it was profoundly moral. He engaged in ijtihad—reinterpretation of jurisprudential traditions—to create structures capable of guiding an Islamic state in the modern era. However, over four decades later, Iran’s leadership often appears to invoke his legacy more as a dogma than as a dynamic method. The world that Khomeini faced in 1979 has transformed. Globalization, digital communication, environmental crisis, and youth consciousness demand new forms of engagement. A radical ijtihad—one that addresses economic justice, participatory governance, and social inclusion—is essential for Iran’s ideological survival.

Such renewal does not mean Westernization. Rather, it demands reclaiming the spiritual and ethical essence of Islam while unshackling it from bureaucratic and militarized interpretations. To continue invoking resistance without introspection only deepens alienation.

The Moral Economy of Protest

Protests in Iran are not purely political—they embody a deeper moral economy. The ordinary citizen protests not only against poverty or unemployment but against perceived betrayal of revolutionary ideals. When people risk imprisonment or death by raising their voices, they act from moral conviction that the system has deviated from justice. These protests are not against Islam; they are appeals to its ethical promise.

This is where foreign narratives often misinterpret Iran. Western media tends to frame Iranian uprisings as secular revolts seeking liberal democracy. In truth, they are more complex—driven by a dialectic of faith and frustration, loyalty and loss. Many protesters invoke Islamic symbolism even as they criticize clerical authority. Their resistance is simultaneously against economic deprivation and moral hypocrisy.

The government’s strategy of labelling dissenters as Zionist agents may temporarily consolidate loyalist ranks, but it erodes long-term legitimacy. To portray every protest as an external conspiracy is to deny the capacity of Iranian society to think, feel, and self-correct. The most dangerous threat to the Islamic Republic is not foreign aggression, but domestic deafness.

International Isolation and the Cost of Defiance

Iran’s enduring isolation further exacerbates domestic woes. Sanctions are now a form of economic warfare. Banks, industries, and even humanitarian imports face restrictions under the pretext of nuclear containment. Such policies from the West are indeed unfair and coercive, violating principles of collective human welfare. Yet, Iran’s own diplomatic choices have often intensified its predicament.

Its insistence on absolute ideological purity has limited diplomatic flexibility. While countries like China and India maintain pragmatic engagement with Western and regional powers, Iran’s posture remains polarized. This unyielding stance, though morally grounded, restricts opportunities for trade diversification and economic recovery. The failure to establish broad alliances within the Muslim world demonstrates both Iran’s political isolation and the fragmentation of Islamic unity.

Ironically, the more Iran tries to lead the Muslim world through defiance, the more alienated it becomes from Muslim societies that are economically entangled with Western systems. This isolation perpetuates the cycle of sanctions, poverty, and protest.

The Paradox of Resistance and Prosperity

Iran’s predicament mirrors an enduring paradox in revolutionary politics: the tension between principle and pragmatism. A state built on resistance cannot easily pivot toward economic liberalization without appearing to betray its values. Yet, prolonged resistance without corresponding prosperity undermines legitimacy.

The leadership views economic hardship as the price of dignity—resistance economy—but for the youth and working class, dignity without bread is hollow. When inflation devours salaries, when corruption denies fairness, and when ideological rhetoric replaces policy innovation, martyrdom loses its moral glow. A revolution must feed its children not only with slogans but with sustenance.

Iran’s success in developing indigenous defence technology, nuclear capability, and world-class universities demonstrates its potential for excellence. However, when such achievements coexist with social inequality, their legitimacy diminishes. A missile that can reach Tel Aviv means little to a family that cannot afford rice or fuel.

The Way Forward: Ijtihad of Governance

To transcend this impasse, Iran requires intellectual and political courage. It must embrace the spirit of ijtihad—not as theological revisionism, but as governance renewal. The premise is simple: Islam is not static; it adapts to changing conditions through reasoned reinterpretation. Khomeini himself invoked this principle when establishing the Wilayat al-Faqih system. His successors must now do the same in socio-economic and political domains.

This renewal could take several forms:

· Economic Diversification: Reducing dependency on oil exports by investing in technology, renewable energy, and small-scale industries.

· Participatory Reform: Opening controlled spaces for civic dialogue and youth involvement within the framework of Islamic ethics.

· Transparency and Accountability: Institutional mechanisms against corruption, grounded not in fear of punishment but in moral responsibility.

· Diplomatic Recalibration: Building partnerships across Asia, Africa, and Latin America beyond ideological binaries, to stabilize trade and political standing.

· Cultural Openness: Encouraging creativity, art, and education as expressions of faith rather than threats to it.

Such reforms do not weaken Islamic authority—they renew its vitality. Islam’s greatest strength was always its capacity for adaptation without assimilation.

Conclusion: Toward a Just and Self-Renewing Iran

The genesis of protests in Iran is neither a Western plot nor a purely domestic failure—it is the manifestation of a complex dialectic between ideology and reality. Iran’s defiance of U.S. and Israeli aggression remains morally justified when viewed against the long history of colonial and imperial exploitation. Yet, the moral courage to resist external oppression must be matched by moral responsibility toward internal justice.

A state cannot champion global resistance while neglecting the hunger of its citizens. Nor can it silence youth aspirations by invoking old slogans. The Iranian nation stands at a crossroads: either to persist in rigid defiance, risking internal erosion, or to embark on a journey of renewal grounded in faith, justice, and pragmatism.

To once again become the beacon of the Muslim world, Iran must perform a new ijtihad—one that redirects its revolutionary energy from external confrontation to internal reconstruction. The truest measure of resistance is not how long one withstands sanctions, but how well one upholds justice, equity, and human dignity within. Only then can Iran transcend the cycles of protest and repression to achieve a revolution of spirit that matches the promise of 1979.

…

M.H.A.Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir.

27  January 2026

Source: newageislam.com

By Dennis Small

After convening on January 12, 2026 in an international virtual emergency roundtable dialogue, we the undersigned have issued this appeal to the world community. We join together to catalyze actions we believe must be taken to avert the plunge of human civilization into a potentially fatal catastrophe.

With the beginning of the year 2026, the world has moved into a new phase. International law is being abolished and replaced by the law of the jungle, by the so-called principle that “might makes right.” This complete breakdown of even the pretense of any adherence to a world order based on real principles of law threatens to escalate various regional conflicts into a new dark age, or even a global nuclear war.

For example: after the repeated commission of acts of piracy against the nation of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of the head of a sovereign country, we now have the announcement of the planned invasions and theft of natural resources of more countries such as Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Iran, and possibly others, and territories such as Greenland. A militarization not seen in approximately 90 years evokes the panorama of a coming new world war, while the Western-dominated financial system, now almost entirely severed from the real economy, is threatened with a systemic meltdown even worse than the crisis of 2008.

The fig-leaf of “humanitarian interventions” and defense of the “rules-based order” has been entirely dropped in favor of an openly demonstrated aggressive imperialism and neocolonialism. So-called “Western values” are betrayed in favor of the threadbare illusion that there is any legitimacy left after those values have been buried. The absence of any efficient statecraft, and the use of military and economic force as a replacement of diplomacy as a means of conflict resolution, has led to the failure of post-World War II institutions such as the United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly. The failure to enforce the decisions of the highest courts, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity unpunished.

This deplorable condition of current affairs requires an urgent intervention, both by institutions, and the world’s people of good will. We therefore propose the creation of a World Civil Society Initiative, to work together with religious organizations and other civil groups, and the UN as a central partner, in order to uphold the UN Charter and the 1954 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Its immediate foci, among others, must be:

• The urgent convening of an international conference to discuss the principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, and

• The creation of teams to work on aspects of the reconstruction of the world system. For example:

a) the elaboration of a “World Land-Bridge,” of economic development corridors for every continent;

b) the creation of ad hoc teams which must condemn the brazen foreign intervention into the internal affairs of Venezuela, and any similar interventions into the internal affairs of sovereign states in any part of the world, as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza and similar violations of human dignity elsewhere;

c) the reorganization of the world financial system, including the creation of national banks for every country, and a new payment system devoted to the physical economy;

d) the revival of the best traditions of each world culture or civilization; and the encouragement of dialogue among them to promote

e) the exploration of new methods of thinking designed to establish a new paradigm in human history, such as the method of the Coincidence of Opposites.

An Immediate Action Group to implement this outlook is hereby constituted. It is open to representatives of any organization/institution, as well as to individuals, who wish to participate in the creation of a worldwide civil society initiative committed to the interest of the one humanity, and to guarantee the adhesion of a reformed UN to that ideal. It should be up to the respective representatives of all nations to determine what is the appropriate nonviolent direct action in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela in their country.

Let us create a movement of world citizens!

Initiating signers:

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Schiller Institute founder, EIR Editor-in-Chief

• Dr. Naledi Pandor (South Africa), former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and current chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation Board of Trustees

• Zhang Weiwei (China), Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai and Director of its China Institute

• Dmitri Trenin (Russia), Director and Academic Supervisor of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the HSE University in Moscow

• Donald Ramotar (Guyana), former President of Guyana

• María de los Ángeles Huerta del Río (Mexico), former Mexican Congresswoman

• Namit Verma (India), Indian author and security analyst

• Dennis Small (United States), EIR Ibero-America Editor

• Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard (Switzerland), former military advisor to the OSCE Secretary General

25  January 2026

Mass deportations violate U.S. and international law.

They’re also crimes against humanity.

By Dr. Gregory H Stanton

Founding President

Genocide Watch

President Trump’s order to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of refugees, violates US obligations under the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees. The US Senate ratified that treaty unanimously in 1968. 147 nations are States Parties to the treaty.

The US adopted the Refugee Protocol into US law in the United States Refugee Act of 1980, passed unanimously by the Senate and signed by President Jimmy Carter, who noted, “The Refugee Act reflects our long tradition as a haven for people uprooted by persecution and political turmoil.”

The Refugee Protocol applies the operative Articles of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees:

Article 1 defines “refugee” as any person who is outside the country of his or her nationality owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, and who is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to his or her country.

Refugees seeking asylum who cross borders illegally are not to be considered criminals. Article 31 says states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees coming from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened. They must present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.

Article 33, the heart of the Refugee Convention, says: “No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Convicted criminals are not eligible to be protected as refugees. Article 1 F denies refugee status to anyone against whom there is evidence of a war crime, crime against humanity, or a serious non-political crime.

However, Article 32 holds that States Parties shall not expel a refugee in their territory except in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with due process of law. Massive ICE roundups and forced deportations without trials fall far short of that standard.

Couldn’t the US invoke Article 9 of the Refugee Convention and claim that smuggling of fentanyl by undocumented migrants is a grave and exceptional circumstance that threatens US national security and requires their expulsion?

The fatal flaw in this rationale is that the people being deported are already in the US and pose no more threat to national security than ordinary American citizens. Two-thirds of undocumented immigrants in the US have lived in the US for ten years or more.

Countries expected to resettle deportees may invoke Article 4 of the Refugee Protocol and dispute any “national security” claim in the International Court of Justice. Such countries are not legally obligated to accept the return of their citizens who have fled to the USA.

Couldn’t President Trump simply withdraw from the Refugee Protocol? Not so fast. To withdraw from (denounce) the Protocol, the US must give one year’s notice to the UN Secretary-General. US denunciation would not take effect until one year after the Secretary-General receives notification.

Trump’s deportations are crimes against humanity.

At Nuremberg, Nazi leaders were tried for crimes against humanity that included forced deportations of Jews. Today forced deportations are outlawed by many decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In 2002, the International Criminal Court became a permanent world tribunal to try such crimes.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article (7(1)(d)) makes deportation or forcible transfer of a population a crime against humanity.

The Rome Statute defines deportation as “forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area where they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law.”

The US is not a State Party to the Rome Statute. US citizens cannot be tried by the ICC unless they committed a crime against a citizen or on the territory of a country that is a State Party to the ICC.

125 nations are States Parties to the ICC Statute, including 25 in Latin America and 33 in Africa. If the US deports a citizen of El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Brazil, Bosnia, DR Congo, Nigeria, Ukraine or 114 other ICC States Parties, those countries could ask the ICC Prosecutor to bring charges against a US official who participated in the deportation of their citizens.

There is no head of state immunity in the ICC for crimes against humanity committed by heads of state or government officials. Though it is politically unlikely, even President Trump himself could be charged for these mass deportations and put on trial.

Refugees who have sought asylum are lawfully present in the US under both US and international law. They are not criminals for entering without visas. So, too, are persons granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by Presidential Order. Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, Salvadorans, and others fleeing Marxist dictatorships or countries controlled by criminal gangs were granted protected status by President Biden.

President Trump has now rescinded TPS for Venezuelans and wants to deport 600,000 Venezuelans back into the tyranny run by the Marxist dictator Maduro of Venezuela. President Trump’s revocation of their Temporary Protected Status was arbitrary and capricious. It should be struck down by the US Supreme Court because it violates both the US Refugee Act and international law.

Universal Jurisdiction

Crimes against humanity, like genocide, torture, and war crimes are crimes of universal jurisdiction. Like piracy, they can be prosecuted no matter where the crime was committed and regardless of the defendant’s nationality. Such crimes constitute peremptory norms (jus cogens) and violate duties owed to all of humanity (erga omnes.)

Fifteen countries enforce universal jurisdiction in their courts: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The US has universal jurisdiction for torture and genocide.

Any US official who orders or carries out mass deportations is committing a crime against humanity.

The U.S. Congress should subpoena their names and their full records of participation in ICE raids. State laws should prohibit the wearing of masks by all law enforcement personnel and should require that all such persons wear and use body cameras at all times subject to downloads by city and state law enforcement authorities. State laws should make it a felony to violate these laws and to resist arrest for violations.

In the future, they may travel to Europe for business or vacations. If they travel to a country with universal jurisdiction, their identities are verified, and evidence is prepared against them, they could be arrested and charged as soon as they step off their flights in Paris or Berlin. They could be put on trial there for crimes against humanity.

It would not be an auspicious way to begin a vacation.

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton is Founding President of Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide. He founded the Cambodian Genocide Project.

28 January 2026

Source: genocidewatch.com

Genocide Emergency: Myanmar

January 2026

By Jeanne Macé

On September 30, 2025, a “High-Level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar” was held on the sidelines of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Genocide Watch urged UN members to take strong measures to sanction Myanmar for its systematic persecution of its Rohingya population.

Since Myanmar’s independence from the U.K. in 1948, the Rohingya Muslim minority has faced systematic persecution in Rakhine State. It has included the 2012 attacks by the Buddhist Rakhine majority and Myanmar security forces, and the 2016-2017 genocidal military operation carried out by the Myanmar army, the Tatmadaw.

In 2026, Rohingya civilians in Rakhine State are still being systematically attacked, displaced, and killed by both the Arakan Army (an ethnic Rakhine armed militia) and the Myanmar junta forces (Tatmadaw), which have been fighting each other since 2018 for control of Rakhine State. The Arakan Army terrorizes the Rohingya population, which it accuses of collaborating with the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

The Arakan Army commits crimes against humanity of extreme brutality against the Rohingya, including beheadings, detentions, “disappearances”, forced labor, forced conscription, looting, burning, and pillage. On August 5, 2024, a drone and mortar attack by the Arakan Army killed 200 Rohingya fleeing fighting in Maungdaw, near the Bangladesh border. 2024 saw the most atrocities against Rohingya since the genocide of 2016-2017.

Staying in Myanmar and Living under Apartheid

Approximately 630,000 Rohingya still live in Myanmar under a system of state-sponsored discrimination and ethnic segregation imposed by laws, policies, and practices aimed at isolating the Rohingya community. Myanmar has denied Rohingya citizenship since the 1982 Citizenship Law, which reserves this right to citizenship to ‘national races’ that the law lists as settled in Myanmar before 1823.

The list pointedly excludes Rohingya. Myanmar claims Rohingya immigrated from what is now Bangladesh since 1832, despite conclusive evidence that they lived in Rakhine State over a century before 1832. During the 2014 census, Myanmar required Rohingyas to self-identify as “Bengali” immigrants, thereby emphasizing their foreignness and providing a ground for deportation. In the long-promised sham elections of January 2026, designed to ensure the junta’s continued grip on power, Rohingyas were again barred from voting.

Myanmar subjects Rohingyas to extreme restrictions on movement. In the open-air detention camps in Sitwe, where 150,000 are confined, military and police checkpoints have been set up, and entry and exit authorizations are required. This blatant deprivation of liberty severely hampers Rohingyas access to food, work, and healthcare.

These discriminatory laws and practices, combined with widespread violations of the Rohingya’s economic and social rights and their systematic social and political exclusion, have led Amnesty International and other organizations including Genocide Watch to denounce Myanmar’s systematic crime of apartheid.

Leaving Myanmar and Fearing Repatriation

Most of the 1.1 million Rohingya who have fled Myanmar since 2017 have sought safety and shelter in Bangladesh. In the past 18 months, the border town of Cox’s Bazar has taken in 150,000 more Rohingya in already overcrowded refugee camps, which face shortages of water, food, healthcare, and shelter. US cuts in aid have already exacerbated their plight. Rohingya refugees are subjected to restrictions imposed by Bangladesh on their livelihoods, movement, and education.

Bangladesh has never ratified international refugee conventions. Bangladeshi authorities refuse asylum to Rohingya refugees and will not allow them to become citizens of Bangladesh. It is official policy to organize their repatriation to Myanmar. But few Rohingyas want to return for fear of further persecution in Myanmar. A symbolic repatriation of 1,100 refugees to Myanmar’s Rakhine State took place in May 2023. Rohingya activists say this operation was only meant to appease the International Court of Justice’s investigation into Myanmar’s genocide.

In May 2025, India detained and deported at least 40 Rohingya refugees living in Delhi, most of whom held identification documents issued by the UN Refugee Agency. Indian authorities forced them onto an Indian naval ship before abandoning them in international waters in the Andaman Sea, near Myanmar. The refugees, including children and elderly people, were only given life jackets with no choice but to attempt to swim to an island in Myanmar territory. Many drowned. Such violations of the principle of non-refoulement must cease.

Starvation is the New Weapon of Genocide

Since November 2023, the Myanmar junta has imposed a blockade on almost all humanitarian aid in the areas it still controls in Rakhine State. The Arakan Army further restricts Rohingya livelihoods in areas they control. This deliberate policy threatens more than 2 million people with starvation in Rakhine State. Over 500,000 belong to the remaining Rohingya community. The destruction of agricultural equipment and the contamination of land with landmines and unexploded ordnance are resulting in rising famine.

The survival of Rohingya people confined to Myanmar internment camps depends on international humanitarian aid. Myanmar authorities refuse to allow the distribution of food and medicine to Myanmar. More than 25,000 people in Pauktaw Township are deprived of food, leading to deaths from starvation.

Denial of humanitarian access is one of the official elements of the Tatmadaw’s ‘Four Cuts’ military strategy. This tactic consists of deliberately targeting unarmed civilians in order to prevent and deter them from supporting or joining the resistance. When starvation deliberately targets a specific ethnic and religious group, as is the case for the Rohingya community, it is an act of genocide.

Due to Myanmar’s apartheid system maintained by the ruling military junta, through the denial of Rohingya citizenship and deprivation of their freedom of movement, Myanmar is at Stage 3: Discrimination. Due to Myanmar’s deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid intended for the Rohingya community, Myanmar is committing the crime of Stage 8: Persecution. Due to the systematic killing of Rohingya people, Genocide Watch considers Myanmar to be at Stage 9: Extermination. Myanmar is committing Genocide against the Rohingya ethnic and religious group.

Genocide Watch recommends that:

●      Nations with universal jurisdiction should prosecute the Myanmar generals primarily responsible for past and present genocide against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups.

●      The International Criminal Court (ICC) should ask all ICC States-Parties and the UN Security Council to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrants against General Min Aung Hlaing for his crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution, and the crime of genocide against the Rohingya people.

●      Myanmar’s neighboring countries should take effective measures to ensure the safe passage and protection of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution and genocide in Myanmar.

●      Bangladesh must ratify the international conventions on refugees.

●      Bangladesh authorities must stop pressuring Rohingya to return to Myanmar.

●      Bangladesh should allow the Rohingya living in camps near Cox’s Bazar and elsewhere full access to education, freedom of movement, and self-support through work.

●      Donor nations should devote more resources to helping Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

27 January 2026

Source: genocidewatch.com

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Tehran will respond in a way that eliminates any incentive for restraint, unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control

Iran is facing a crisis unlike any it has seen in decades. Between domestic unrest, economic instability and heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Tehran is navigating a perilous landscape with profound regional and global implications.

The United States has carried out a major military build-up around Iran, deploying additional naval forces, aircraft, and support assets amid escalating tensions. As one of the most significant US military concentrations near Iran in decades, the move is widely viewed as preparation for a potential confrontation and has drawn sharp warnings from Tehran.

In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump has pursued a regime-change strategy in Iran.

Last June, Israel launched a dramatic military campaign based on a strategy known as “top-down government collapse, bottom-up uprising”. Israeli and American planners assumed that by assassinating top Iranian political, military, security and nuclear officials, the population would embrace regime change and flood the streets.

They further assumed that by targeting Iran’s missile capabilities, they would prevent any counterattack, paving the way for a rapid collapse. The June strikes killed dozens of senior Iranian officials, yet the population largely rallied behind the government.

Iran retaliated with hundreds of missile and drone attacks against Israel, delivering significant counterblows. Analysts now agree that these two factors were decisive in the failure of the 2025 operation.

In response, Trump authorised strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities, potentially delaying Iran’s nuclear breakout by several years. A temporary ceasefire followed, primarily aimed at protecting Israel from further Iranian missile attacks.

By the end of 2025, however, economic grievances had ignited a new wave of protests, as merchants in Tehran took to the streets to decry the rial’s collapse and soaring living costs. The unrest quickly spread to other cities.

Hijacking protests

This environment created an opportunity for the US and Israel to deploy Plan B, whose strategy could be summarised as “bottom-up uprising, top-down military assault”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israeli-affiliated networks of infiltrating the protests, engaging in sabotage, targeted attacks and acts of violence to escalate clashes and increase casualties.

Trump indicated that a surge in civilian deaths could justify US military intervention. Casualties among security forces and protesters were significantly higher than in previous rounds of unrest.

But the US-Israeli strategy to hijack the protests ultimately failed. Public revulsion against violent infiltrators prompted hundreds of thousands of people to join a government-organised rally in the second week of January, signalling opposition to foreign interference. Iranian security forces dismantled internal networks, cut off external communications, and arrested thousands of people, forcing a US retreat from direct military action.

The next potential phase of the US-Israeli strategy may involve an attempt to remove Iran’s top leader – a scenario inviting comparisons to the recent operation in Venezuela.

Trump has publicly stated that the time has come to remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has likened the Iranian regime to the Nazis, noting on X (formerly Twitter): “We cannot allow this historic moment to pass … The downfall of the ayatollah and his regime would be on par with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned against such a move, vowing that “an attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation”.

Moreover, US-based pro-Israel hawks have suggested that rather than launching a full-scale invasion, President Trump should revive a 1979 proposal by Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, which calls for seizing Iran’s Kharg oil terminal – responsible for roughly 90 percent of its oil exports – as a way to economically cripple the country and potentially force regime change.

Risk of destabilisation

Several factors will shape Iran’s trajectory in the days and months ahead. The first is domestic governance and social cohesion. Economic hardship, unemployment, corruption and deep social divides remain the primary sources of public unrest.

While the government has regained control for the time being, simmering dissatisfaction could reignite large-scale protests. Political fragmentation among Iran’s four main currents – conservatives, reformists, moderates and nationalists – complicates national cohesion, making broad-based reform and unity essential to long-term stability.

The people of Iran cannot withstand the escalating trend of rising prices and inflation. The most important factor is thus how Iran’s ruling establishment can contain the economic crisis and improve people’s living conditions in the face of crippling US sanctions.

Moreover, the thousands killed and injured in the January 2026 unrest have left thousands of Iranian families in mourning, dealing a devastating blow to the people’s psyche.

The second factor is the US-Israeli drive for regime change. Unchecked hostility from both nations, combined with punishing sanctions, creates an unprecedented level of external pressure on Iran. Trump’s overt calls for regime change in Tehran mark a historic escalation in decades of bilateral relations.

These pressures not only threaten Iran’s security, but also risk destabilising the wider region. It remains to be seen whether Trump will enter into negotiations with Iran for a mutually satisfactory, face-saving deal, while distancing himself from Israel’s policies – or whether he will continue the “surrender or war” approach.

The third factor that will shape Iran’s trajectory involves the capabilities of US allies in the region. Crucially, US-aligned Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Qatar – have opposed military intervention in Iran, amid fears of regional escalation and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of an ever-expanding “Greater Israel”.

Will Muslim countries allied with the US be able to prevent another war and facilitate a deal with Iran, or will Israel’s ambitions prevail?

The way forward

The fourth factor amid this backdrop, Iran has strengthened ties with Russia and China, joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Brics.

This alignment seeks to provide Tehran with military, economic and political support against western destabilisation efforts, creating a new axis of geopolitical tensions. This will serve as a critical test of Iran’s “pivot to the East” policy, with far-reaching implications for the future of the region.

Last but not least, several of Iran’s key regional allies, often referred to as the “Axis of Resistance”, have publicly warned that they would enter a wider conflict if the United States or Israel attacks Iran. Lebanon’s Hezbollah leadership has expressed it would not remain neutral.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi government hinted it was ready to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Moreover, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group issued a direct threat in response to any attack targeting Iran, warning a “total war” in the region would be a result.

This suggests that, unlike earlier conflicts where Tehran’s regional allies stayed largely on the sidelines, an attack on Iran now risks activating parts of the “Axis of Resistance” in a wider war.

Some American and European experts told me that Trump has made his decision to carry out a new attack on Iran.

This moment is a “bloody pause” before a potential “regional explosion”. For Iran, a next US–Israeli attack would be an “existential war”, eliminating any incentive for restraint and unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control.

If catastrophe is to be avoided, President Trump must rethink a “surrender-driven strategy” and move toward a “broad, face-saving deal” with Iran – ending 47 years of confrontation before the region is pushed into irreversible war.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Visiting Research Collaborator with Princeton University and a former Chief of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Relations Committee.

27 January 2026

Source: middleeasteye.net

By Gerald A. Perreira

Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP) unequivocally condemns the criminal US attack against Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuela’s first lady, Cilia Flores, in the early hours of January 3, 2026. This attack tramples on Venezuela’s sovereignty and inalienable right to self-determination and can only be described as State terrorism.

Centuries of US and West European imperialism, and their current behavior worldwide, has shown us that international law is a myth, a mental construct existing only on paper. We who are a part of the global resistance are well aware that international law does not exist in reality, since it cannot be enforced. It is very clear that the type of criminal activity and naked fascism being pursued by the Trump administration and its allies in Western Europe and the Apartheid State of Israel cannot be stopped by the invoking of international law, resolutions and declarations issued by an impotent and obsolete United Nations.

For centuries we have experienced the brutal reality: that US hegemony and continued plundering of our resources is enforced with miliary might alone, and that any country who dares to chart its own course will be subjected to ruthless sanctions and brutal military assaults. The US and West Europe, since the colonial project was initiated in our Americas and the Caribbean, have intervened in the affairs of our sovereign nations with impunity. In the face of this criminal and life-threatening behavior it is clear that we must resist by any means necessary. This attack on Venezuela is a pyrrhic victory. It may seem like a massive defeat for revolutionary and progressive forces worldwide, but the decline of the US Empire is in motion and cannot be reversed by the demonic trio, Trump, Hegseth and Rubio. Their reckless actions, supported by the governments of Guyana and Trinidad, will have dire consequences for all those involved.

The era of US fascism dressed up as “friendly fascism” pretending to be about ‘human-rights; and ‘democracy’ is over. The way that Donald Trump, members of his administration, US senators and congressman are brazenly expressing their racist and fascist views, is a signal that the threat to our very survival is becoming graver by the day. There is no better example of this brazen bravado, than the tweet from former US Secretary of State and war criminal, Mike Pompeo, on January 2, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”
In the words of our sister Assata Shakur, who made the transition a few months ago having dedicated her life to the struggle against US imperialism: “Where there is oppression, there will always be resistance”.

3 January 2026

Gerald A. Perreira
On behalf of the National Directorate, Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)
Georgetown, Guyana
www.ovpguyana.org

January 19, 2026

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