Iran

Sunday

Jason M. Brodsky

Who will lead Iran now?

The longest-serving autocrat in the Middle East, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead. This is a historic moment for the Iranian people, the region, America, and US allies and partners around the world. Given the unprecedented nature of this US and Israeli military operation, it remains hard to predict events in Iran. But several developments give us clues about Iran’s direction of travel in the near-term. Khamenei was a brutal ruler who not only abused his people and fomented terror around the world but was also a tyrant to his own family. His estranged sister Badri Khamenei once recounted how Qassem, a good friend of her brother, was murdered by the

Charlie Gammell

Could Iran descend into civil war?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man whose life has been defined by the harshness of his rhetoric against the West (specifically, the US and Israel) and his ruthless rule, has died a martyr’s death under the rubble of his compound in Pasteur, Tehran.  It was always going to end this way. Khamenei came to prominence as a revolutionary first and then second as a wartime leader when he assumed the role of President of Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. What is needed is a clear plan that can unite Iranians behind a shared, inclusive vision of their country The Islamic Republic is facing its most serious crisis since January, when it

Saturday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is this Trump’s Sarajevo moment?

Here we go again. Switch out Saddam Hussein for the Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmed Chalabi for Reza Pahlavi and you have a fresh war for regime change in the Middle East, this time with Israel as America’s sidekick. With Operation Epic Fury, the American and Israeli bombing of Iran and push for regime change, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” runs the risk not only of triggering wider upheaval in the Middle East, but also globally. Is this a new Sarajevo moment? With Trump’s own generals having warned him that attacking Iran could be a debacle, he may have torched his own presidency Unlike George W. Bush in 2003, who worked

iran
Freddy Gray

Trump launches a remote-control regime-change war on Iran

“We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” said Donald Trump, as he stood at the lectern in his white USA cap and announced the launch of a “massive and ongoing” military operation against Iran.  “It will be totally, again, obliterated.” He had to say “again” because he has insisted over and over that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “utterly obliterated” last summer, after Operation Midnight Hammer.  But the objective of these latest midnight or very early morning strikes, conducted again by US and Israeli forces working together, is already far broader than the wiping out of weapons of mass destruction – whether that

Thursday

Jason M. Brodsky

Iran is ready for war – is America?

In 2001, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met privately with Spain’s then-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar recounted how Khamenei dubbed Israel a “cancer condemned to disappear” and said that an open confrontation with Israel and the United States was inevitable. Iran, the Supreme Leader insisted, would prevail. Fast forward to 2026, and the war that Khamenei prophesied is getting closer by the day. The Islamic Republic is already operating under the assumption of a US military operation For decades, durable diplomacy between America and Iran has failed because of the ideological nature of the Islamic Republic. It makes its decisions based on a mix of ideology and a desire for

Thursday

Spectator Editorial

Trump’s worrying appetite for war

As The Spectator goes to press, a great fleet of American war machines is whirring through the skies toward the Middle East. More than 50 fighter jets, plus stealth bombers and support aircraft, are joining what Donald Trump called an “armada” of US naval forces in the Arabian seas. The White House continues to say that it is pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran. It’s possible that this latest military escalation is another of President Trump’s elaborate bluffs, designed to pressure the Iranian regime into accepting American and Israeli demands. But the President has been unusually mute about the situation on Truth Social. It’s fair to assume that the movement

war

Friday

Daniel DePetris

US troops finally leave Syria

In December 2018, to the shock of pretty much everybody in the US national security establishment at the time, President Donald Trump publicly ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from Syria. The announcement caused a panic within the Defense Department, State Department and National Security Council, whose officials teamed up to dissuade Trump from going through with it. A similar story unfolded ten months later, in October 2019. Again, the bureaucracy pushed back; in October 2019, the House went so far as to pass a resolution opposing a US withdrawal, with senior Republican lawmakers signing onto the measure. Fast-forward more than six years later, and the US troop withdrawal

Syria

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Will Trump ‘totally obliterate’ Iran’s nuclear program – again?

Donald Trump spent much of the second half of last year boasting about the total and utter success of his military strikes on Iran. “As you know,” he said in August, “we took out the nuclear capability of Iran, and to use the term that people try to dispute without any knowledge, it was obliterated.” Iran’s nuclear program, he assured the world, had been set back by “decades.” Yet yesterday, just six months on, there he was again – meeting Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu once more to discuss the urgent need to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. In the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer – that quick and spectacular bombing mission

Tuesday

Daniel Thorpe

Why Turkey wants to help Iran

The Iranian regime remains firmly in the crosshairs of American bombers. As President Trump mulls whether to strike, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has personally offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington. At the same time, Turkish authorities have tightened their grip on exiled Iranian opposition figures. Turkey’s sudden support for Iran is not born of friendship. Over the past two decades, the two countries have repeatedly found themselves on opposing sides. In the Syrian civil war, Iran sent Shi’a proxies to prop up the dictator Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey armed and trained Sunni rebel groups. Ankara’s push for dialogue

erdoğan turkey

Wednesday

Daniel DePetris

Iran is out of good options

Over the last week, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, additional F-15 fighter planes and naval vessels carrying sea-launched cruise missiles have been making their way to the Middle East in what can only be described as a bid by President Trump to squeeze Iran into submission. In case anybody doubted this is what Trump was after, he took to Truth Social early in the morning to send the Iranians a message: give me what I want or face bombing the likes of which you’ve never seen. “A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” Trump wrote. “Hopefully Iran will quickly

Iran

Tuesday

Cockburn

Playing ball with Team Trump

The State Department has a “secret playbook for using sports to advance Trump’s agenda,” according to Politico. Foggy Bottom has a tough assignment ahead. Witness the opening ceremonies of Sunday’s NBA game in London between the Memphis Grizzlies and Orlando Magic, the first NBA game in the UK in six years. As Vanessa Williams sang the National Anthem, someone shouted “Leave Greenland alone,” which the arena cheered. Cockburn doesn’t think Williams is much of a threat to Greenland. President Trump’s appearance last night at the College Football Championship – along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ivanka and Jared, Kai Trump and Steve Witkoff – went without a hitch. The real

Friday

Cockburn

Won’t somebody think of the freezing cold press corps?

Journos on ice How hot is the White House briefing room? Pretty scorching if you’re Niall Stanage, the Hill reporter who was drawn into a back-and-forth with press secretary Karoline Leavitt over ICE’s conduct. Leavitt asked for Stanage’s opinion on why Renee Good was shot, he gave it… and she branded him a “biased reporter with a left-wing opinion.” “You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat, you’re pretending like you’re a journalist but you’re a left-wing activist,” Leavitt continued, in a moment that was rapidly clipped for Team Trump’s social media and posted by a flurry of White House staff. The temperature is considerably lower for most other journalists, however. During briefings, the

Thursday

Roger Kimball

Why can’t Democrats speak frankly about Iran?

The manicured grounds of Harvard University are tranquil. Ditto the expensive quads of Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford. All across the fruited plain, the self-denominated paragons of virtue who just yesterday sported “Free Palestine” buttons and joined in “No Kings” rallies are greeting today’s greatest enormity – the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens by their insane Islamicist government – with the repetition of that hit by Simon and Garfunkel: “The Sounds of Silence.” Or, as the headline of a story in National Review put it: “Iranian Civilians Are Being Massacred to the Sound of Progressive Silence.” Accurate numbers are hard to come by since the murderous Islamic regime in Iran has shut down

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ayatollahs
Charlie Gammell

The rule of the Ayatollahs is broken. What happens now?

“Help is on the way,” promised Donald Trump to the people of Iran defying the Islamic Republic. In the same social media post, the President, characteristically light on detail, also urged Iranian protesters to take over the institutions of the Islamic Republic (presumably by force) and to keep a note of the names and numbers of their oppressors for retribution’s sake. Whatever these words presage – be it air strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij facilities, or cyberattacks on Iran’s intelligence agencies, to blind the regime as the regime has blinded protesters by shutting down the internet – it remains to be seen if such an intervention

Wednesday

Jason M. Brodsky

How Trump can squeeze the Iranian regime

The Iranian people have shown true courage as they protest against the Islamic Republic. As the pressure mounts, some elements of Iran’s regime have been pushing to negotiate with the Trump administration – trying to create the impression they are ready to drink from the “poisoned chalice” as the Islamic Revolution’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini did to end the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. Saeed Laylaz, a reformist economist, told Euro News last week that, “I have information that Iranian political officials are ready for dialog with the other side.” More pragmatic figures within the Islamic Republic – namely Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani, President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi

iranian

Monday

Philip Patrick

Why has Hollywood got so little to say about Iran?

It was the Golden Globes last night in Tinseltown and as per usual Hollywood’s finest strutted and peacocked on the red carpet to the click and flash of the massed paparazzi cameras. Images of their 1,000-watt smiles and 10,000-dollar couture outfits were beamed around the world to a million Instagram and X feeds. And yet, something was missing. These days a celebrity glamfest is not complete without a healthy dose of woke posturing on the issue du jour, whether it be underrepresentation of black people (“#OscarsSoWhite” or Black Lives Matter), women’s empowerment, climate change, or most recently of course, the plight of the Palestinians. This time, not so much. As

hollywood

Saturday

Mani Basharzad

The end is drawing near for Iran’s mullahs

As a wave of protests swept across Iran last night, the internet was completely shut down. I have no idea what is happening to my friends, my family, or anyone else. My best friend Champ was at the demonstration. I desperately hope he is safe. Iran is a nation wanting its soul back. Protesters burn the Islamic Republic flag and replace it with Iran’s real flag Overnight, there were protests throughout Iran. From Qom and Mashhad, the most religious cities, to Rasht and Anzali, the most secular, people took to the streets. In Tehran, there were protests in the poorest parts to the richest parts of the city. I couldn’t believe

iran mullahs
iranian regime collapse
Alissa Pavia

Will the Iranian regime finally collapse? 

These are tense hours for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and head of state. Thousands of protesters are flocking to the streets to protest the economy. Iran has not seen a wave of unrest like this since the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, after Amini was killed for allegedly not wearing her veil properly. During a televised speech in Tehran Friday, Khamenei showed little restraint, vowing he “would not back down” in the face of what he described as “saboteurs.”  The protests began in Tehran in late December and quickly spread across the country. They have since turned bloody, with Amnesty International reporting at least 28 people killed. “We have seen these protests before,” said Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia Group. “In 2009, there was the

Friday

Justin Marozzi

What Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran

In a city awash with visual propaganda, one mural in Caracas is especially striking for the western visitor. In it, Jesus Christ stands alongside Imam Mahdi, a prophesied messianic figure who many Muslims believe will appear with Christ during the End Times to restore peace and justice to the world. There is only one Venezuelan – the late president Hugo Chávez – among the six smaller figures on the mural. Three are Iranian, including Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force, killed by a US airstrike in 2020. One is an Iraqi commander killed in the same strike, and the last is Lebanese, Imad Mughniyeh,

Charlie Gammell

Unrest is spreading across Iran

“If they shut down the internet, you know it’s serious,” said a well-informed observer of Iran to me yesterday morning. The internet blackout came yesterday afternoon – along with over a million Iranians marching in streets across the country. Strikes are continuing in bazaars and the cries for the end of the Islamic Republic are becoming more brazen. A video was sent to me before the blackout from Iran’s upscale northern suburbs, home to the sons and daughters of the regime elites, in which the cries of “death to the dictator” could be heard loud and clear. “We are excited,” was the caption to the video. And this morning there