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Iran: Fear and Braggadocio by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21379/iran-fear-and-braggadocio

In a year or so, Khamenei has tried to repackage those setbacks as great victories for his now defunct “Axis of Resistance.” His assumption was that if the worst came to the worst, he would play his joker: signaling readiness to revive the defunct Obama “nuclear deal” with a shaky Biden administration keen on securing any deal with Tehran to justify Kumbala’s “greatest diplomatic achievement.”

Here is the ayatollah’s latest masterpiece:

Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s great masterpiece.

After weeks of speculation about “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei’s strategy for dealing with the new Trump administration in Washington, it seems that he has opted for a cocktail of tantalizing pledges and boastful threats. Tehran circles sum the posture up with a simple formula advanced by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi: We don’t want war but are ready for it!

The signal that the Supreme Guide has decided to authorize new talks about his nuclear project but is also preparing for a putative war with the US or Israel came with a poem he put in circulation last week.

Khamenei has been writing or, as his unkind critics suggest, committing poetry since he was in his teens in the 1950s. But he has always been reluctant to offer his oeuvre to the public, refusing to publish a diwan as even the greenest saplings in the garden do.

Thus, those who follow his poetic career know that he publishes a poem only when a major challenge faces him or the regime he inherited from another poet, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The latest poem is a sonnet (ghazal in Persian and Arabic) of 14 rhyming hemistiches or seven lines (be it in Persian and Arabic) and is supposed to depict the poet’s inner struggle with rising fears and persistent doubts.

The message it wishes to pass is one of steadfastness regardless of the Islamic Republic’s recent setbacks in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and parts of Yemen held by Houthis.

A Paradigm Shift for the Middle East How Trump Can Build on Israel’s Success and Keep Iran Off Balance Elliott Abrams

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/paradigm-shift-middle-east-trump-israel-iran

The Middle East that U.S. President Donald Trump faces today features dangers and opportunities that were not present when he first took office, eight years ago. The greatest dangers are Iran’s advances toward nuclear weapons and the close relationships that the Islamic Republic has forged with Russia and China. The best opportunities have emerged from Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah and Hamas, its successful attacks on Iran, and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

The dangers are unquestionably grave. But on balance, the potential upsides outweigh the possible downsides. Indeed, it has been a long time since the Middle East has offered an environment so favorable to American interests.

A year and a half ago, Iran’s foreign policy could possibly have been considered enormously successful. The country’s nuclear weapons program was steadily producing enriched uranium; by 2024, it had enough for several bombs. Washington was largely not enforcing its sanctions on Iran. China was purchasing about 90 percent of Iran’s oil, greatly improving the regime’s finances. Political and military relations with China and Russia were growing closer; Iran had secured their protection against action in the UN Security Council and had earned money and gratitude from weapons shipments to Moscow. And the “ring of fire” of Iranian proxies and allies—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen—seemed to be a problem Israel could not solve.

But since then, Israel has turned the tables. Hamas has survived the invasion of Gaza that Israel carried out after the group’s attacks in October 2023, and Hamas remains dominant there. But it will never again pose a serious military threat to Israel. The Israelis have wiped out Hezbollah’s leadership and given Lebanon a chance to reclaim its sovereignty. Assad’s regime is gone, and the weapons highway that has long run from Iran through Syria to Lebanon—and to terrorist groups and their supporters in Gaza, Jordan, and the West Bank—appears to be closing.

USAID Sent Over $18 Billion to Islamic Terror States by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/usaid-sent-over-18-billion-to-islamic-terror-states/

“It is really, really a sad day in America,” Rep. Ilhan Omar declared at a rally by Democrats outside USAID headquarters protesting President Trump’s reconstruction of the aid agency.

It wasn’t a sad day for America, but it was so for Somalia.

Over the last two years, USAID had funneled $2.3 billion in “humanitarian assistance” to Omar’s native Somalia. Last year it reported a request for $1.6 billion in aid and even with the Biden administration on the way out the door, it sent an additional $29 million in December 2024.

USAID support for Somalia had doubled under the Biden administration and with $3.3 billion from USAID allocated in the last 5 years, the end of the USAID gravy train for the Islamic terrorist state of Somalia must have been a painful blow for Omar, who is very close to the Somali regime. Former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Khaire had reportedly celebrated that “the interest of Ilhan are not Ilhan’s, it’s not the interest of Minnesota, nor is it the interest of the American people, the interest of Ilhan is that of the Somalian people and Somalia.”

It’s unknown if any of Omar’s Majerteen clan members benefited from the billions in American money, but considering the prominence of the clan in Somali politics, it’s likely to be the case.

Somalia, along with other Islamic terrorist entities, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza, were among the top beneficiaries of USAID cash.

USAID boasted of having sent $2.1 billion to Gaza and the West Bank since the Hamas attacks of Oct 7. In 2024 alone, $917 million was programmed for the terrorist areas occupying Israel.

USAID provided over $3.7 billion to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over with $832 million in the previous fiscal year alone. The money was so unaccountable that USAID refused to cooperate with the U.S. Government’s Afghan War watchdog tracking money going to terrorists.

Even while the United States of America was at war with the Houthis, the Iran-backed Islamic terrorist group firing on US Navy vessels, USAID continued to direct billions of dollars to Yemen.

Iranian Regime’s Survival Strategy: Delay, Deceive, Outlast Trump by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21376/iran-nuclear-survival-strategy

Possessing nuclear weapons provides any regime with a protective shield against foreign intervention, removing the fear of retaliation. Given this reality, no diplomatic effort — regardless of its structure — will convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions voluntarily.

For the Iranian regime, the tactic of negotiating to buy time has paid off really well. Iran successfully reached a deal with the Obama administration which provided it with financial relief, and diplomatic legitimacy, and the promise of nuclear weapons in just a few years, which just so happens to be this coming October.

Unfortunately, Iran appears to be dangerously close to achieving nuclear breakout The only viable solution is to neutralize Iran’s nuclear facilities now.

The correct course of action from the Trump administration is clear: reimpose maximum pressure, support Israel in targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and ensure that the regime’s delaying tactics do not succeed once again.

The Iranian regime, currently at one of the weakest points in its recent history, presents a crucial opportunity for the United States and its allies.

The collapse of its strongest regional ally, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, has left Tehran without a key pillar of support in the Middle East. Iran’s most powerful proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, have suffered significant setbacks thanks to Israeli military operations. With Iran’s economy in shambles and its isolation increasing, the regime is more vulnerable than ever before. This moment should not be squandered. It presents an unparalleled opportunity to curb Iran’s ambitions — permanently.

China’s Spies Move to Cuba by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21375/china-spies-move-to-cuba

The Chinese military is firmly embedded in a country not far from Key West, Florida.

At the moment, Cuba needs Chinese cash and might therefore accede to granting China greater access to the island.

[Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, however, is focused on the Caribbean basin, as the itinerary for his first trip shows. Moreover, the new secretary of state is apparently willing to use raw American power to strong-arm countries.

Forget Europe or the hotspots of East Asia and the Middle East, Marco Rubio’s first foreign trip as secretary of state took him to one Caribbean and four Central American states. The tour tells us that the Trump foreign policy is focusing on the region closest to the American homeland.

That is bad news for the leftists and hardline regimes in the Western Hemisphere, especially the Republic of Cuba and its new patron, the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese military is firmly embedded in a country not far from Key West, Florida.

In June 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cuba had agreed in principle to establish a new eavesdropping site on Cuban soil. The Biden administration termed the story inaccurate, but two days later the White House declassified intelligence showing that Chinese signals intelligence collection facilities had been operating in Cuba since at least 2019.

Washington had repeatedly tried to downplay Chinese involvement on Cuban soil, and the declassification was, as a practical matter, misleading. It is not clear when China first started collecting signals intelligence, commonly termed SIGINT, in Cuba, but it was evident that the effort began more than a decade before 2019.

“Rumors of China’s intelligence presence on the island appear to have begun with Chi’s visit,” states a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), referring to a trip by then Chinese Defense Minister General Chi Haotian in 1999.

R. Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College told Gatestone Institute that the Chinese may have been engaged in this activity in Cuba since 1993. Some believe that the Chinese military moved into the Lourdes facility, the Soviet Union’s largest listening post outside its territory, soon after the fall of the USSR.

What Is Really Destroying Europe? The EU. by Drieu Godefridi

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21373/destroying-europe-the-eu

The truth is that the reduction in CO2 emissions in Europe is almost exclusively due to industry leaving Europe. That is the dirty little secret of the Green Deal: Europe is reducing its CO2 emissions to the extent and in proportion to the destruction of its industry.

The EU elite has lost control of the narrative. Europeans are turning away from the lies and myths of the Green Deal en masse.

Given the absence of precise definitions, the censors do whatever they want…. In practice, these censors massively quash so-called “right-wing” content, while leaving the abundant anti-Semitic, Islamist and Marxist literature untouched.

[T]he EU is, in reality, a Potemkin democracy. It looks like a democracy, but is in fact an authoritarian bureaucracy. There is no election by the citizens of a parliament worthy of the name, no transparency, no recourses and, it seems, no way of eliminating the organization or any part of it. European citizens can vote as they please, but it is a self-appointed elite within the European institutions who decide the future of Europe. These “elites” will do anything to keep themselves and their ideology in power.

In addition, Qatar has massively infiltrated the European Parliament, buying parliamentarians to promote its interests and its Islamist vision of the world.

Can one measure the sense of alienation that must be felt by Europeans, forced to finance a corrupt bureaucracy working against their interests?

When it comes to migration, the economy, free speech and democracy, the EU is not the solution to any problem. The EU is the problem.

The founding idea of the European Union was to build, through shared prosperity, solidarity and a sense of shared destiny among the nations of Europe. That was why three communities were formed: the economy, coal and steel, and nuclear energy. Until around 2000, in terms of growth and innovation, the European economy, year in, year out, was on par with the American one.

Of that initial — and fairly brilliant — gesture of “peace through prosperity,” literally nothing remains. None of the EU’s current leaders cares about the financial well-being of Europeans. Coal is regarded as the devil’s fuel, and nuclear energy is abhorred by Europe’s elites, who say they prefer the inefficient and erratic wind turbines. Since 2000, the European economy has been mired in stagnation, which has worsened since 2008 and threatens to reach its height in the coming years — ending in the destruction of Europe.

Witkoff Meets PLO Leader Who Vowed to Spend ‘Last Penny’ Financing Terror by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21370/steve-witkoff-hussein-al-sheikh-terrorism

Fresh from his success of implementing the Biden plan and saving Hamas, Steven Witkoff, acting as Trump’s Middle East Envoy, went to Saudi Arabia, homeland of the 9/11 hijackers, and met with a top PLO leader, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs, who is apparently the leading candidate to replace [PLO leader Mahmoud] Abbas

Al-Sheikh has a vision. Terror and more terror.

In English, Al-Sheikh is referring to the ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program, under which the PLO funds terror by providing payments to imprisoned terrorists or the families of dead terrorists.

The Saudis are proposing some sort of deal under which Al-Sheikh gets a terrorist state in Israel to run. Witkoff ought to be asked why he’s pulling America into nation-building terrorist states.

That’s not America First. That’s Jihad First.

Fresh from his success of implementing the Biden plan and saving Hamas, Steven Witkoff, acting as Trump’s Middle East Envoy, went to Saudi Arabia, homeland of the 9/11 hijackers, and met with a top PLO leader.

Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee and head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs, who is apparently the leading candidate to replace PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The meeting between Witkoff and Hussein al-Sheikh took place amid efforts by the Trump administration to end the war in Gaza and push for a Saudi-Israeli peace deal that includes a path toward a Palestinian state.

Why The Palestinian Authority Will Not Be Able to Control Gaza The US Must Cut Ties with Qatar, Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21371/palestinian-authority-gaza-hamas-qatar

The failure of the Palestinian Authority’s security operation against the Jenin gunmen shows why the PA cannot be trusted to assume control over the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Hamas and PIJ terrorists continue to operate, especially after the recent US-brokered ceasefire-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas.

Like Abbas, no Arab country will invest in or get involved in the Gaza Strip as long as Iran’s Islamist proxies continue to dominate it. Given the recent return of hundreds of convicted terrorists released from Israeli prisons to the streets in exchange for hostages — many of whom are dead — the possibility of another October 7-style atrocity against Israelis is still all too real.

President Donald J. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, may have the best of intentions, but unfortunately appears to have placed his trust in his real estate business associate, Qatar, which is a major funder of Hamas.

Witkoff, who regrettably took a terrible, ready-to-wear deal from the Biden administration… is proving an unfortunate embarrassment to Trump.

From the beginning, the deal should have been, as then-President-elect Trump put it, that all the hostages must be released before his inauguration or “all hell will break out.” Such a warning presupposes that all the hostages, dead and alive, are placed at the border, on a certain date at a certain time. No negotiations, no return of hundreds of terrorists to Gaza, nothing ….It would be interesting to know how Trump’s strong, original vision got so badly derailed.

“Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran.” — Dr. Udi Levi, retired head of Mossad’s Economic Warfare Division, ynetnews.com, April 18, 2024

Qatar’s plan undoubtedly is to see that Hamas, one of its preeminent clients, remains in power. As the mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood through its vast television empire Al Jazeera, Qatar cannot want to see Israel in the region any more than Hamas does.

There is only one viable way to address the Gaza Strip’s problems: discard Qatar as a supposedly honest broker – it is not — designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization – it is — disarm all the terrorist groups, and oust Hamas completely from power.

Qatar and Egypt are now spearheading efforts to bring the Palestinian Authority (PA) back to the Gaza Strip. The two countries are apparently trying to persuade the US administration to back the idea.

14 years in limbo: A journey from Darfur to building a life in Israel

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/14-years-in-limbo-a-journey-from-darfur-to-building-a-life-in-israel/ar-AA1yfg87?ocid

When Mahmoud Usman was 25 years old, the war in Sudan was already years under way. Situations had grown dire in his native Darfur, Sudan, so much that he uprooted his life and fled for fear of what was to come.

After navigating treacherous borders and enduring uncertainty, Usman reached Israel in search of safety. Fourteen years later, in 2024, his asylum application was tentatively approved, allowing him to remain in a country where he has built a new life.

By 2010, the conflict showed no signs of abating. Entire villages were destroyed, and millions of civilians were forced into refugee camps or exiled from their homeland. Usman, like many young men from Darfur, faced the harrowing reality of either conscription into militias or becoming a target of ethnic cleansing campaigns.

More than a decade after he fled his home, conflict raged on. In 2023, Sudan descended into chaos once again, as conflict erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, a mercenary group with roots in the Janjaweed militias responsible for atrocities in Darfur. The violence in Khartoum and other regions has led to further displacement and devastation. Attacks by militia groups on civilians were ever increasing.

In 2010, Usman had been watching atrocities being committed in his community. There were frequent explosions and famine, and he knew that staying put could be fatal. At this point, he became a refugee, as had 700,000 others from Sudan since the early 2000s. Darfur had faced total devastation, and Usman knew that if he didn’t leave with the resources he had managed to provide for himself, his life could be cut short.

On his treacherous overland journey from Darfur to Israel, Usman headed north, through Egypt, his first stop in the asylum process that ultimately acted as a six-month layover on his way to Israel.

Trump Must Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Scale Down US Ties to Qatar by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21369/trump-muslim-brotherhood-terrorists

For Trump to make genuine progress in bringing peace and stability to the region in his second term, though, his administration must first focus on the root cause of much of the unrest blighting the region.

In response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s violent ideology, a number of pro-Western Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have designated the organisation as a terrorist entity.

The need for the world’s major Western democracies to take firm action against the Muslim Brotherhood has become even more urgent following the October 7 attacks, with militant groups inspired by the Brotherhood’s ideology said to be responsible for provoking anti-Jewish riots on American university campuses and staging weekly hate marches in many European capitals, such as London.

[Ed] Husain, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is among a number of Middle East experts arguing in favour of the incoming Trump administration designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. He argues that such a move would “force Europe to reconsider the financial, media and mosque networks used by Iran and the Brotherhood in their own countries to project power back into the Middle East.”

At the same time Trump should confront the Gulf state of Qatar over its blatant double standards in supporting terror groups such as Hamas, whose leaders have drawn heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood’s dogma, while at the same time pretending to be an ally of the West.

[Qatar’s state-owned media] described the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history as a “heroic operation,” a “miracle” and a “historic turning point” that restored the honour of the Muslim nation, while placing the Palestinian cause back on the world’s agenda.

Qatar played a similar role during the Afghan conflict, when its willingness to provide Taliban negotiators with a base in Doha ultimately resulted in the Taliban regaining power in Kabul, re-establishing its uncompromising Islamist rule over the Afghan people.

While the Qataris maintain that their mediation efforts on the Gaza conflict are aimed at ending the bloodshed, their real motive is to ensure that Hamas, the group whose terrorist infrastructure they have helped to finance, survives the conflict, enabling it to maintain its threatening presence on Israel’s southern border. This mission of Qatar’s is a goal about which President Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and even President Trump himself, might not be aware.

Given Qatar’s overt sympathy for the Hamas cause, at the very least the Trump administration should undertake a serious review of its dealings with Doha, and consider relocating the US military’s Al Udeid Air Base from Qatar to a more friendly location in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates.

If US President Donald Trump is really serious about making a positive impact on the Middle East, a good place for him to start would be to designate the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement as a terrorist organisation and scale down Washington’s ties with the Gulf state of Qatar.

Since he won re-election, there has been much speculation that Trump, architect of the ground-breaking Abraham Accords, intends to use his second term in office to negotiate a wide-ranging peace deal aimed at bringing lasting stability to the Middle East.

Before he had even taken office, Trump was credited with helping to finalise the Gaza ceasefire deal, after he threatened that “all hell will break out” if Hamas did not release the remaining Israeli hostages held in captivity.

More recently, he has called on Egypt and Jordan to accommodate displaced Palestinians in Gaza in order to “clean out” the enclave after significant areas of the territory have been reduced to rubble following 15 months of intense fighting between Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists and Israel.