The recent announcement of US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” (BoP) has stirred intense debate over what Phase 2 of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like. In reality, figuring this out is rather simple: it is a mission destined to crash and burn, similar to how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and the Floating Aid Pier did.
Proponents of the Trump administration’s BoP have little to show other than fancy rhetoric, churned out unironically, due to their lack of any basic understanding of Gaza’s predicament.
The Board Of Zionist Failure
As of the White House press briefing issued on January 16, the so-called Board of Peace was initiated with seven appointed members to its “Executive Board.” None of them is Palestinian, let alone from Gaza, and none possesses even the slightest credibility in dealing with such a sensitive and arduous task.
They include Trump administration officials Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Robert Gabriel, and the demonstrably incompetent son-in-law of the US President, Jared Kushner. Then there is former British Prime Minister—the butcher of Baghdad himself—Tony Blair. That leaves pro-Israel billionaire Marc Rowan and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.
However, the individual granted the most consequential role, the High Representative for Gaza, is none other than Nickolay Mladenov. While serving as a United Nations envoy to the Middle East, he developed a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also earned the favour of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and was awarded the ‘Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem’ by its President, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mladenov is presented as a man who maintains relations with all sides, yet those citing his ties to the PA as evidence of this are doing so disingenuously. Setting aside questions of the PA’s legitimacy, it has not ruled Gaza since 2006. As such, his relationship is not with the governing authorities of the besieged territory.
In addition, Mladenov left his UN post to become director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. He not only resides in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but also serves as a Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).
His affiliation with WINEP should raise major red flags. The institute is often referred to as the think-tank wing of the Israel Lobby in Washington and, according to the Quincy Institute’s ‘Think Tank Funding Tracker,’ is funded by dark money. Mladenov is also a passionate supporter of the Trump administration’s so-called “Abraham Accords,” an initiative aimed at pushing Arab states to abandon the demand for a Palestinian state before normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.
While there is much more to be said about the so-called BoP, it suffices to note that it is a pro-Israel endeavour—one that reportedly demands a $1 billion sign-up fee for participating nations, as though it were a subscription service, a kind of Netflix for states.
The mere existence of the BoP constitutes a clear violation of international law and even contradicts the US’s own newly adopted National Security Strategy doctrine. None of this would have been possible, however, without the utter cowardice of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members back in November.
UNSC Resolution 2803 authorized this colonial throwback board—an unelected, illegitimate authority imposed upon Gaza—while effectively rewarding Israel for committing genocide. Every state that voted in favor is complicit, with no exceptions. The resolution erased decades of UNSC and UN General Assembly resolutions, undermined the Geneva Conventions, and authorized a plan that violates rulings issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s own legal body.
Why It Will Fail
As for what the BoP is actually meant to do, meaningful analysis is nearly impossible at this stage. It has no clear vision—only a pro-Israeli orientation. The BoP is a cash grab, trafficking in vague concepts such as “peace,” “accountability,” and “reconstruction,” while offering no substance. Its continued existence rests largely on the unwillingness of states to challenge it, out of fear of the occupant of the White House.
What is clear is that this project has no viable options. Already, the Israeli government has begun objecting to it, as members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet openly call for the permanent occupation of the Gaza Strip to facilitate illegal settlement construction. Netanyahu himself is demanding the return of the body of Israel’s last captive and the disarmament of Hamas—both demands that remain unresolved.
Under only one condition are Israeli leaders prepared to consider extending the ceasefire into Phase 2: the violent overthrow of Hamas through “disarmament.” In a Monday address to the Knesset, Netanyahu echoed Trump’s threat—“we do it the easy way or the hard way”—in reference to demilitarisation.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Israel has killed nearly 500 Palestinians since the so-called ceasefire began. It has also refused to halt attacks on civilian infrastructure and violated the “Yellow Line” meant to separate the 53 percent of Gaza under occupation, instead seizing roughly 60 percent of the territory.
These ceasefire violations—including the restriction of agreed-upon aid flows—have been monitored by the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), led by the United States and involving more than 20 national militaries.
The CMCC does not engage in combat; it merely monitors violations—a mission it has clearly failed. It has made little to no tangible difference, aside from rendering the US military directly complicit in facilitating Israeli war crimes.
For the BoP to coordinate an “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) tasked with disarming Hamas, it would require not tens of thousands of troops, but hundreds of thousands. Alternatively, as suggested by Israeli and American officials and private military contractor UG Solutions, private mercenary forces could be deployed to compensate for an incoherent and vastly outnumbered ISF.
Compounding this is the existence of five Israeli-created ISIS-linked militias operating in Gaza, reportedly backed by the UAE, which may be used as cannon fodder in such a conflict.
Israeli officials themselves previously estimated that occupying Gaza City alone would require approximately 200,000 soldiers and could take up to a decade, simply to replicate a West Bank-style occupation. How, then, are tens of thousands expected to succeed where Israel could not?
If the ISF, under the direction of the BoP’s Zionist loyalists, truly wages war on Hamas, it would likely collapse—and in doing so, confirm that the so-called international community has chosen to resume Israel’s genocidal campaign. The proposition borders on madness.
Either Trump’s “peace plan” will be subordinated entirely to Israeli dictates, or it will be blocked altogether—leaving regime change in Gaza and foreign occupation as its core objectives. Phase 2 was supposed to begin months ago, yet it remains stalled because no one is willing to confront the current ultra-Zionist American administration.
On October 8, even before the ceasefire was announced, I wrote in The Palestine Chronicle that what lay ahead was a prolonged limbo between Phases 1 and 2. I warned it would amount to little more than a glorified pause—one Israel would violate whenever it suited its interests. Thus far, that prediction has proven accurate.
A BoP may well be assembled, and an ISF may even be deployed, but it will neither deliver sustainability nor realize the fantastical visions being proposed. Eventually, something will break—and this prolonged stalling, misleadingly labelled a “ceasefire,” is likely to backfire catastrophically.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on French wines and champagne after French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to be unwilling to join his “Board of Peace” on Gaza, according to media reports.
The so-called Board of Peace is part of a “20-point peace plan” proposed by the US to end the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. According to the draft charter of this board, it will be chaired by Trump. Membership would be by invitation from the chairman, who would hold key authority over terms, renewals and removals. What shocked the international community even more was that the US plan openly priced the board’s “permanent seats” at $1 billion each. This act of “privatizing” international affairs and “commodifying” regional peace not only disregards the will of the Palestinian people but also poses a huge challenge to the existing international governance system and norms of conduct.
The current Israel-Palestine conflict has lasted nearly 30 months, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen. The White House’s push to form a “Board of Peace” is primarily aimed at demonstrating US influence over the situation in Gaza. However, this institution, which should be responsible for peace in Gaza, is a typical product of “transactional diplomacy.” The nomination list is filled with US politicians and their cronies, but conspicuously absent is the most critical stakeholder – the Palestinians. This “absence” has drawn widespread criticism from the international community, with some even suggesting it reveals the institution’s “colonial” nature – attempting to privately outline Gaza’s future without the consent of the Palestinian people.
Even more shocking is the White House’s explicit offer of a “permanent seat” for $1 billion. This move reduces the solemn cause of international peace to a game of money. Gaza’s future should not be a commodity to be bought; under the influence of capital and hegemonic will, it will find it difficult to achieve true peace.
Judging from the proposed charter of the “Board of Peace,” this mechanism is unlikely to resolve the current crisis and may even poison the political landscape of the Middle East. First, it has not prioritized the imminent humanitarian crisis in Gaza, instead focusing more on the capital operations of postwar reconstruction.
Second, this board seriously hinders a comprehensive and just solution to the Palestine-Israel issue. The US-led Gaza peace plan not only eliminates the political role of the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza but also establishes a so-called Board of Peace controlled by external forces above the Palestinian technocratic committee. In essence, this replaces sovereign governance with external intervention, undermining the political foundation of the “two-state solution.” The US thereby deprives Palestinians of their fundamental right as a state to handle their own affairs, effectively further dividing the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and making a just and lasting peace even more unattainable.
Third, this move has severely impacted the global governance system. The current Gaza crisis is a brutal illustration of the disorderly state where “might makes right.” If peace seats can be bought and major powers can arbitrarily establish their own systems outside the existing international order, the fairness of the postwar international order will be undermined. This “club governance” model reduces international law to a private contract among major powers, forcing the world back into the law of the jungle.
To truly resolve the Israel-Palestine issue, we must return to the international order of fairness and justice. Any arrangements regarding the postwar governance of Gaza must be discussed within the framework of the UN and must fully respect the fundamental principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine.” Genuine peace should be built on the basis of the “two-state solution” and the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, not on a “small group” privately established by a hegemonic power. The international community should be wary of the dangerous tendency to place geopolitical games above international law and ensure that the reconstruction of Gaza is the reconstruction of justice, not an expansion of hegemony.
The author is a research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On 15th January alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitating Israel’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
I’ll stifle the impulse not to say the obvious, and say it: An Israeli-American regime-change operation is underway in Iran.
It’s “right out of the US-Israel playbook” for such operations, notes Professor John Merisheimer, a scrupulous scholar of “great-power politics,” or, more precisely, of naked imperial power.
First, the US “wrecked the country’s economy through crippling sanctions, making the populace profoundly unhappy, poor, desperate, hungry.” Next, cheek-by-jowl with Israel, massive protests were fomented, confirmation for which came in a December 29, Jerusalem Post article, the headline to which read as follows:
“Mossad spurs Iran protests, say agents with [the] demonstrators, in [a] Farsi message: As protests grow across Iran, the Mossad posted an unusual Farsi message urging demonstrators to act, saying it is with them in the streets, amid rising economic pressure and public unrest.”
To Israel, the United States of America offers service and subservience.
Thus, comments from Trump on Truth Social and Mike Pompeo, more openly, backed the fact of an orchestrated, malevolent intervention, in what were initially organic, peaceful protests that stemmed from ruthless economic warfare (American) against the Islamic Republic.
Duly, on January 2, 2026, Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of state and CIA director, wrote: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”
As reported by the Times of Israel, on January 16, “Channel 14, seen as close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” initially said that “‘foreign actors’ are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.” A little later, a typically oleaginous Israeli source quipped: “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.”
We’ve sensed as much. The Iranian January 2026 protesters are acting out-of-character. More like Israelis than ordinary Iranians. These protesters appear thoroughly Israelized—it is certainly unusual historically for the generally demure, respectful Iranians to burn down and desecrate their own holy sites; acts that conform, however, to the rules and customs of Israeli “transnational terrorism.”
Historically, Iranians in protest have targeted government symbols, but not national and religious symbols.
And, Lo: These Iranian protesters had enjoyed access to 40,000 StarLink terminals, a news tidbit confirmed by the Times of Israel and Fox News, in bursts of good cheer and cheerleading. The “live” firearms provided were in keeping with Israel’s terror-state tactics. Recall that, in June of 2025, in connivance with the CIA, Mossad, MI5 and Trump—Israelis had smuggled needed materiel into Iran for their war of aggression. Trump had done his part in the subterfuge by pursuing “diplomacy-as-deception” with his trusting Iranian interlocutors, thus distracting and deceiving them.
The third stage in the “US-Israel Axis’” “four-part regime change playbook,” avers Mearsheimer, is the disinformation campaign.
Before their respective, well-coordinated air forces and armies alight on their Iranian victims in targeted attacks and assassinations—the “transnational terrorists” of the “US-Israel Axis” have a trifling task: Convince the most-propagandized minds in the world, Westerners, that this grotesque burlesque of a regime-change farce is a naturally occurring thing.
In other words, that America’s color-coded, plant-based “democratic” revolutions, you know the kind—“Purple” in Iraq, “Blue” in Kuwait, “Cotton” in Uzbekistan, “Grape” in Moldova, “Orange” in the Ukraine, “Rose” in Georgia, “Tulip” in Kyrgyzstan, “Cedar” in Lebanon, “Jasmine” in Tunisia, “Green” in Iran, still un-christened in Russia and Syria—these are but natural uprisings, led by noble patriots, who just happen, all-too frequently, to be aligned with and sponsored by Foreign Policy Inc., the clubby DC foreign-policy establishment and its Israeli offshoots and operatives.
Mearsheimer appears to imply that the stages of regime change are consecutive, or sequential. I would argue that, as in all formulaic stage theories—the stages of regime change overlap, run into each other, reoccur and repeat. To wit, Iran has and will continue to endure this devilry for decades.
Over and above regime change, Israel, by Mearsheimer’s careful estimation, has a “deep-seated interest” in “wrecking Iran,” in breaking the Islamic Republic apart, and fracturing the surrounding nations.
I should revise that: According to the twinned belief-systems of Jewish supremacy and American exceptionalism; all ‘good,’ ‘happy’ human beings are either those who are like Americans or like Israelis, or en route to becoming clones of the one or the other.
Those involved in these foreign-policy drives honestly believe that to be American or Israeli is the existential Gold Standard. Lowly humanity is a pilgrim en route to the Promised Land, whether they know it or not —sometimes by hook or crook. Ultimately, the lives of all the Others being roused to revolt are just not worth much until they “arrive.”
As to their deep involvement in inciting regime-change riots in Iran: News tidbits to that effect have come to us directly via the Israelis themselves.
By now you know that Israel is “amoral,” it acts outside the laws of both man and God. By now you know that bursts of pride accompany Israeli barbarity. As is often the case, Israelis and their media openly report their crimes. And they are especially proud to be inciting regime-change in Iran. On the ground.
Take the X account titled “Mossad Farsi.” So nauseatingly audacious in content is it, that I doubted its authenticity.
In sickeningly sugared tweets, “Official Mossad in Farsi” and its bots (the programmed, online Artificial Intelligence responders or Israel’s paid lickspittles) profess the love Israelis have for the largely pro-Palestinian Iranians.
These are the same Israelis, still mid-murder in Gaza and the West bank, who were posting and celebrating imagery of murdered Palestinians with the flesh hanging on their bones in ribbons. That amoral Israel is now “loving on” the Iranians, a people who have generally resisted for Palestine.
Filled with love, “Mossad Farsi” has been loud and proud about its role in attempting to break the Islamic Republic. Here is the Mossad Farsi tweet that got world attention. Dated December 29, it reads as follows: “Let’s come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally, we are with you in the field as well.”
Speaking in unison, Israeli media—Channel 14, i24, Israel Hayom, and others, no doubt—confirmed the authenticity and impetus of this account. In identically scripted messages, all outlets announced that a “Mossad X account in Farsi urges Iranians to protest as unrest sweeps the country.”
The criminal Svengali Bibi tips the nose toward Iran (allegedly), in a December 29 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump runs. “Fetch,” says Netanyahu to a pack of dreadful American curs, and they fetch. (Apologies, again, to animals for using them as the source of metaphor for things stupid and evil. It’s a regrettable feature of the English language.)
What might I add to the information provided by Mearsheimer (and reported by Max Blumenthal) in hashing out the finer points of the Israeli scheme? I can provide a translation from the Hebrew of the motto embedded by Mossad Farsi in its X account’s graphic. It reads as follows:
“Without connivance [as in scheming], a nation will fall”:
באין תחבולות יפול עם
Mossad Farsi’s motto is The Message. Israel’s message.
For nearly 15 years, US flags flew over Syrian territory with near-total impunity – from Kurdish towns to oil-rich outposts. In the northeast, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) manned checkpoints, American convoys moved freely, and local councils governed as if the arrangement was permanent.
The occupation was not formal, but it did not need to be. So long as Washington stayed, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) had a state in everything but name.
Then, in the first week of January, that illusion was broken. What had passed for a military partnership was quietly dismantled in a Paris backroom – without Kurdish participation, without warning, and without resistance. Within days, Washington’s most loyal proxy in Syria no longer had its protection.
A collapse that looked sudden only from the outside
Since late last year, Syria’s political and military terrain shifted with startling speed. Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s rule came to an end, and shortly afterward, the SDF – long portrayed as the most disciplined and organized force in the country – followed the same trajectory.
To outside or casual observers, the SDF collapse appeared abrupt, even shocking. For many Syrians, particularly Syrian Kurds, the psychology of victory that had defined the past 14 years evaporated in days. What replaced it was confusion, fear, and a growing realization that the guarantees they had relied on were never guarantees at all.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – an extremist militant group stemming from the Nusra Front – advanced with unexpected momentum, achieving gains few analysts had predicted. But the real story was the absence of resistance from forces that, until recently, had been told they were indispensable.
The question, then, is not how this happened so quickly, but why the ground had already been cleared.
The illusion of fixed positions
To understand the outcome, it is necessary to revisit the assumptions each actor carried into this phase of the war.
The SDF emerged in the immediate aftermath of the US-led intervention against Damascus. It was never intended to be a purely Kurdish formation. From the outset, its leadership understood that ethnic exclusivity would doom its international standing. Arab tribes and other non-Kurdish components were incorporated to project the image of a multi-ethnic, representative force.
Ironically, those same tribal elements would later become one of the fault lines that accelerated the SDF’s disintegration.
Militarily, the group benefited enormously from circumstance. As the Syrian Arab Army fought on multiple fronts and redeployed forces toward strategic battles – particularly around Aleppo – the SDF expanded with minimal resistance. Territory was acquired less through confrontation than through absence.
Washington’s decision to enter Syria under the banner of fighting Assad and later ISIS provided the SDF with its most valuable asset: international legitimacy. Under US protection, the Kurdish movement translated decades of regional political experience into a functioning de facto autonomous administration.
It looked like history was bending in their favor.
Turkiye’s red line never moved
From Ankara’s perspective, Syria was always about two objectives. The first was the removal of Assad, a goal for which Turkiye was willing to cooperate with almost anyone, including Kurdish actors. Channels opened, and messages were exchanged. At times, the possibility of accommodation seemed real.
But the Kurdish leadership made a strategic choice. Believing their US alliance gave them leverage, they closed the door and insisted on pursuing their own agenda.
Turkiye’s second objective never wavered: preventing the emergence of any Kurdish political status in Syria. A recognized Kurdish entity next door threatened to shift regional balances and, more importantly, embolden Kurdish aspirations inside Turkiye itself.
That concern would eventually align Turkiye’s interests with actors it had previously opposed.
Washington’s priorities were never ambiguous
The US did not hide its hierarchy of interests in West Asia. Preserving strategic footholds mattered. But above all else stood Israel’s security.
Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023 handed Washington and Tel Aviv a rare opportunity. As the Gaza genocidal war unfolded and the Axis of Resistance absorbed sustained pressure, the US gained a new and more flexible partner in Syria alongside the Kurds: HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani when he was an Al-Qaeda chief.
Sharaa’s profile checked every box. His positions on Israel and Palestine posed no challenge. His sectarian background reassured regional capitals. His political outlook promised stability without resistance. Where the Assads had generated five decades of friction, Sharaa offered predictability.
For Washington and Tel Aviv, he represented a cleaner solution.
Designing a Syria without resistance
With Sharaa in place, Israel found itself operating in Syrian territory with unprecedented ease. Airstrikes intensified. Targets that once risked escalation now passed without response. Israeli soldiers skied on Mount Hermon and posted selfies from positions that had been inaccessible for decades.
Damascus, for the first time in modern history, posed no strategic discomfort.
More importantly, Syria under Sharaa became fully accessible to global capital. Sanctions narratives softened while reconstruction frameworks emerged. The war’s political economy entered a new phase.
In this equation, a Syria without the SDF suited everyone who mattered. For Turkiye, it meant eliminating the Kurdish question. For Israel, it meant a northern border stripped of resistance. For Washington, it meant a redesigned Syrian state aligned with its regional architecture.
The name they all converged on was the same.
Paris: Where the decision was formalized
On 6 January, Syrian and Israeli delegations met in Paris under US mediation. It was the first such encounter in the history of bilateral relations. Publicly, the meeting was framed around familiar issues: Israeli withdrawal, border security, and demilitarized zones. But those headlines were cosmetic.
Instead, the joint statement spoke of permanent arrangements, intelligence sharing, and continuous coordination mechanisms.
Yet these points were also clearly peripheral. The real content of the talks is evident in the outcomes now unfolding. Consider the following excerpt from the statement:
“The Sides reaffirm their commitment to strive toward achieving lasting security and stability arrangements for both countries. Both Sides have decided to establish a joint fusion mechanism – a dedicated communication cell – to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.”
Following this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office “stressed … the need to advance economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries.”
Journalist Sterk Gulo was among the first to note the implications, writing that “An alliance was formed against the Autonomous Administration at the meeting held in Paris.”
From that moment, the SDF’s fate was sealed.
Ankara’s pressure campaign
Turkiye had spent years working toward this outcome. Reports suggest that a late-2025 agreement to integrate SDF units into the Syrian army at the division level was blocked at the last minute due to Ankara’s objections. Even Sharaa’s temporary disappearance from the public eye – which sparked rumors of an assassination attempt – was linked by some to internal confrontations over this issue.
According to multiple accounts, Turkiye’s Ambassador Tom Barrack was present at meetings in Damascus where pro-SDF clauses were rejected outright. Physical confrontations followed. Sharaa vanished until he could reappear without explaining the dispute.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was present in Paris and played an active role in the negotiations. Its demands were clear: US support for the SDF must end, and the so-called “David Corridor” must be blocked. In exchange, Turkiye would not obstruct Israeli operations in southern Syria.
It was a transactional alignment – and it worked.
Removing the last obstacle
With the SDF sidelined, Sharaa’s consolidation of power became possible. Control over northeastern Syria allowed Damascus to focus on unresolved files elsewhere, including the Druze question.
What followed was predictable. Clashes in Aleppo before the new year were test runs. The pattern had been seen before.
In 2018, during Turkiye’s Olive Branch operation, the SDF announced it would defend Afrin. Damascus offered to take control of the area and organize its defense. The offer was refused – likely under US pressure. On the night resistance was expected, the SDF withdrew.
The same script replayed in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh. Resistance lasted days. Supplies from east of the Euphrates never arrived. Withdrawal followed.
The American exit, again
Many assumed that the Euphrates line still mattered. That HTS advances west of the river would not be repeated in the east. That Washington would intervene when its Kurdish partner was directly threatened.
The shock came when HTS moved toward Deir Ezzor, and Arab tribes defected en masse. These tribes had been on the US payroll. The message was unmistakable: salaries would now come from elsewhere.
Meanwhile, meetings between Sharaa and the Kurds, which were expected to formalize agreements, were delayed twice, and clashes broke out immediately after.
Washington had already decided.
US officials attempted to sell a new vision to Kurdish leaders: participation in a unified Syrian state without distinct political status. The SDF rejected this, and demanded constitutional guarantees. It also refused to dissolve its forces, citing security concerns.
The Kurdish group’s mistake was believing history would not repeat itself.
Afghanistan should have been enough of a warning.
What remains
Syria has entered a new phase. Power is now organized around a Turkiye–Israel–US triangle, with Damascus as the administrative center of a project designed elsewhere.
The Druze are next. If Israel’s security is guaranteed under the Paris framework, HTS forces will eventually push toward Suwayda.
The Alawites remain – isolated and exposed.
The fallout is ongoing. On 20 January, the SDF announced its withdrawal from Al-Hawl Camp – a detention center for thousands of ISIS prisoners and their families – citing the international community’s failure to assist.
Damascus accused the Kurds of deliberately releasing detainees. The US, whose base sits just two kilometers from the site of a major prison break, declined to intervene.
Washington’s silence in the face of chaos near its own installations only confirmed what the Kurds are now forced to accept: the alliance is over.
Ultimately, it was not just a force that collapsed. It was a whole strategy of survival built on the hope that imperial interests might someday align with Kurdish aspirations.
US President Donald Trump is pressing his team to draw up “decisive” options for an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, after canceling a planned strike earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 20 January.
Officials told the outlet that Trump repeatedly used the word “decisive” when telling his aides what desired outcome he wanted from striking Iran.
As a result, the Pentagon has devised several scenarios including attacks that aim to overthrow the Iranian government, the report said.
One of the options is described as more limited, however, and includes strikes on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facilities.
The officials added that Trump has not yet authorized an attack and that his final decision is still unclear at this point.
Washington is moving the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier toward West Asia after redeploying it from the South China Sea.
Aerial refueling tankers and additional squadrons of fighter jets are also being moved to the region.
The report coincides with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s most stern warning yet, which was conveyed in his own op-ed for the WSJ.
“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack. This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war,” Araghchi said.
He also commented on the recent unrest in Iran. “The White House ought to be impervious to the wave of demonstrably false stories in western media about recent events in Iran, but it may be necessary to clarify some points. The protests began peacefully and were recognized as legitimate by the Iranian government.”
“They suddenly turned violent when foreign and domestic terrorist actors entered the scene, so blocking communication among organizers of the rioters and terrorists was an imperative. As those cells are being wrapped up by our intelligence and security agencies, the internet and all communications are slowly being restored,” the foreign minister added.
Over the past few weeks, Iran faced widespread riots after protests turned violent following the collapse of the Iranian currency, caused by years of brutal US sanctions.
Western-based rights groups claim thousands of peaceful protesters have been killed. Iran has detained hundreds of armed rioters, many of whom have been found with links to the Mossad, and are behind the killing of scores of civilians.
A former CIA director recently admitted that Mossad agents were on the ground in the protests.
Multiple reports confirmed Iran’s use of military-grade GPS jammers to shut off Starlink, which had been deployed to Iran in a US-backed effort to ‘aid’ protesters amid an internet shutdown.
As a result, Iran was able to significantly reduce riots and foreign-backed sabotage operations – which included the killing of over 100 security forces and police officers. Tens of thousands of Starlink devices were seized or shut off.
“The Americans and Israelis are shocked,” former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke, previously a British diplomat as well, told The Cradle in an interview.
Trump called off his planned attack on Iran earlier this month, after vowing to hit the country “hard” and “rescue” protesters. The president claimed he changed his mind after Iran decided against executing hundreds of detained rioters.
Abd al-Bary Atwan, a Palestinian-British journalist and editor of Rai al-Youm newspaper, said Trump “was forced to call off his attack” after US-Israeli destabilization efforts failed to weaken the government.
According to the WSJ, Israel requested that Trump call off the strike because Tel Aviv was not prepared for an Iranian retaliation.
Lindsey Graham, the Neo-con Republican Senator, at the Zionist Tzedek conference, gave the real reason for America’s policy of regime change in Iran, namely to isolate the Palestinians in the Middle East and pave the way for Israeli domination.
Graham, referring to regime change in Iran said, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, Lindsey Graham and the U.S. believe that regime change in Iran would lead to the collapse of Palestinian resistance and allied groups Hezbollah and Ansar Allah and lead Middle Eastern powers to normalize with Israel without any concessions to Palestinians, thus paving the way for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, and further expansion into Syria and Lebanon in service of the Greater Israel project.
This motive is not only driving the desire for regime change in Iran, but has been the main motive for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11, not fighting a “war on terror”.
In 1996, key figures who ended up in high level positions in the Bush administration, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, who were at the time advising the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu, sent him a letter titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, which called on him to make a “clean break” from peace talks with Palestinians and instead focus on isolating them in the region, first a for-most by, “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
Netanyahu kept to his word and made his “Clean Break” from the Oslo Accords during his first term as Prime Minister, later boasting:
how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. ‘They didn’t want to give me that letter,’ Netanyahu said, ‘so I didn’t give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”
Soon after, the authors of the clean break document became key advisors on the Middle East in the George W. Bush administration.
After 9/11, they used the attack to carry out the “important Israeli strategic objective” of “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”, who was seen as too sympathetic to Palestinians.
As David Wurmser, one of the authors of the clean break document and the Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, later admitted , “In terms of Israel, we wanted Yasser Arafat not to have the cavalry over the horizon in terms of Saddam”.
George W. Bush aide, Philip Zelikow said , “the real threat (from Iraq) (is) the threat against Israel”, “this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat”, “the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell”.
But for Israel and the Bush administration, the war in Iraq was just the first phase of the “clean break strategy”, to take out all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.
As the U.S. General Wesley Clark revealed the clean break went from a plan to take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq to a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”. (Emphasis added)
As Clark later explained on the Piers Morgan show, the list came from a study which was “paid for by the Israelis” and said, “if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding”.
With every other country on the hit list either weakened (Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan) or taken out (Iraq, Libya, Syria) from the ensuing years of U.S. and Israeli intervention, Neo-cons and Zionists see Iran as the last bulwark in the way of carrying out the Clean Break plan.
It was truly astonishing, the speed with which online influencers, including many self-styled anti-war leftists, took to social media in order to espouse regime change propaganda against Iran over the past few weeks. This then begs the question as to how many times this has to happen before people finally wake up?
For each regime change war waged by the West in the MENA region, it is almost as if the collective memory of the Western anti-war movement somehow dissipates. As a result, some principled activists and honest journalists, who retain their memories, are forced to go around in circles, arguing that the latest war is wrong, just like the last one and that lies are being pushed to justify a moral outrage.
The US and “Israel” pick a new target. The same decades old propaganda is pulled out of the draw, and then serious people have to argue endlessly, as they are attacked as “regime defenders”, simply for establishing basic truths. What is perhaps the saddest part of this is that over two years of genocide in Gaza, which the Western Left has collectively come together to oppose, has seemingly failed to impress upon them that their government never cares about human rights or so-called “international law”.
When it comes to the recent series of allegations made against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is nearly impossible to even engage in rational dialogue, as the pro-regime change crowd appear to be living in a parallel universe. This time, just like the last, they buy that the West is genuinely concerned by the alleged suffering of a foreign civilian population. However, in order to demonstrate just how ridiculous the latest round of propaganda has been, it is necessary to preface that with a little bit of history.
The same old pro-war lies again
If you are to listen to the mainstream corporate media and Western politicians, their portrayal of the Islamic Republic of Iran is of a “malevolent regime” that is negative in every conceivable way. That’s why none of them can ever mention something about Iran that is positive, or address the political climate of the country in any considerable kind of depth.
The primary excuses you’ll hear for why Iran needs a US-led regime change are that it will bring about “women’s rights”, “democracy”, “stop them developing weapons of mass destruction” and that the Iranian government is “killing its own people”.
Remember when we were told that Afghanistan had to be invaded and that the US had to kill innocent people as “collateral damage” in order to “free the women of Afghanistan”? The US invaded and remained there for 20 years, spent over 2 trillion dollars, and the government it built immediately fled the moment the Americans withdrew their forces.
These Colonial Feminist arguments aren’t even worth considering when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran, because they are disingenuous to begin with. The Israelis and elements of the Trump administration argue for re-installing the son of the deposed Shah of Iran. The Shah and his views on women were outright repulsive, yet the US government didn’t care about the repression of women’s rights when the Shah was in power, just like it didn’t care while Saudi Arabia prevented its women from driving cars.
Often, you may see people share old footage from Iran, in which women are seen in swimsuits on the beach, advertised as a magical time when the country was “free”. What you are watching is the former Iranian elite, a small segment of the economically advantaged who benefited from a repressive system.
But this all aside, just like was the case with the invasion of Afghanistan, it never had anything to do with women’s rights. Equally, you will see that the US’s soft power institutions use the issue of women’s rights as a means of social control and coercion. It’s not about empowering women, it’s about imperialism.
Iran is also accused of developing weapons of mass destruction. It is a well-established fact that when the US and UK claimed that former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, possessed such weapons, it was a lie.
Some may then come along and cite human rights groups for various statistics they provide regarding the death toll amongst protesters and rioters in Iran. Amnesty International even labelled the protests as “largely peaceful”. Bear in mind here that Amnesty also helped spread and give credibility to the claim that the Iraqi military had thrown 300 babies out of incubators, one of the key lies used to justify the First Gulf War.
While this isn’t to simply discredit all human rights reports, it suffices to say that we must still check their sources and accept the reality that they are not beyond political pressure and the power of their donors. Recently, the major human rights groups have proven extremely diligent on the question of Palestine in particular, but one should note that this hasn’t always been the case, it is instead a newer phenomenon that the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have taken such brave stances, particularly beginning in 2021.
Therefore, we should always be critical of everything we see when it comes to claims without any credible sources behind them, especially surrounding the buildup and justifications provided for regime change wars. In Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and even in Gaza, these human rights organizations and UN human rights reports have aided in justifying the arguments for interventionism and the alleged Israeli “right to self defense”.
Then we come to the next popular argument, which is Identity Politics at its core. This is the “listen to Iranians”. By this, of course, what is implied is that you only listen to a select group of Iranians who are in favour of bombing and destroying their own country.
Simply put, this is no different to the “ex-Muslims” who are paid to talk about how bad Muslims are, it is an argument devoid of any logic and relies purely upon emotion. This time it is “listen to Iranians”, in the past we were told to listen to members of the Iraqi, Afghan, Syrian and Libyan diaspora who would be paraded across all major broadcast media platforms to tell their extremely biased and personalised stories in order to argue in favour of regime change.
There is no difference between Iranians going on the BBC or CNN to argue for more sanctions and intervention, and Iraqis doing the exact same thing in the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many Palestinians are also given jobs by pro-war think tanks and invited to tell their stories in the corporate media, if they simply choose to side with Israel over Hamas.
‘It’s a monstrous regime, but…’
Another popular argument you will see made, is one that automatically accepts all the propaganda used to justify illegal wars of aggression, before going on to make the counter point that “we still shouldn’t support this war”. In essence, this is a coward’s way out of being criticized and labelled.
This tactic is something we saw on display when it came to addressing the Israeli genocide against the people of Gaza. The entire Western media establishment demanded the condemnation of Hamas by any journalist or activist arguing in favour of the Palestinians. Many simply went along with this, blindly accepting much of the propaganda about Hamas without actually knowing anything about the group. Very few dared to go into the details of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and point out the lies about it.
By starting with a condemnation of Iran, or the Palestinian Resistance, you immediately cede to the US-Israeli propaganda framing. These Western media ghouls do not actually care about the details, or the loss of human life on any side, they simply seek to frame the situation in a very specific way. They work to manufacture a controlled media environment, one in which anyone who refuses to utter condemnation is deemed an “extremist” and lacking in credibility.
If you don’t understand the accusations, the best course of action is to refrain from discussing something out of your depth. Alternatively, if you do understand the issue in depth, then explain it in its proper context.
The lies against Iran
There is no need to beat around the bush here, the riots that we saw on January 8-10 were part of an Israeli backed war on Iran. On December 28, legitimate protests began against the government’s mismanagement of the financial crisis, resulting in no violence and no arrests. One day later, suddenly, the former Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, Naftali Bennett, releases a video encouraging a nation-wide Iranian uprising to overthrow the government, something that would not begin until January.
What also occurred at the end of December was that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had just arrived in the US, where according to sources cited by Axios News, he was urging the US President to strike Iran. All of a sudden, violent rioters just so happened to hijack the totally peaceful protests and ignite a campaign of utter chaos.
The Western corporate media claims that the rioters, whom they refer to as “protesters”, were overwhelmingly peaceful and were subjected to massacres. They also acknowledge that over 160 Iranian security force members were killed over only a matter of days. Which begs the question, during which peaceful protest movements in history have there been so many members of the security forces killed over such a short period of time?
It’s not only police officers, as many civilians were brutally beaten to death by the rioters, as others were burned alive, and there were even cases of beheadings; women and children were also murdered by these rioters.
Peaceful protesters don’t attack 250 mosques, 20 religious centers, thousands of private vehicles, 364 large stores, 419 small shops, 182 ambulances, 4,700 bank branches, 1,400 ATM’s, 265 schools, 3 major libraries, 8 cultural heritage and tourism sites and 4 cinemas. They also don’t burn the Quran in the streets, destroy bus stops, the metro stations, burn down buses, or carry firearms and explosive devices. Although the exact statistics are difficult to ascertain and cannot yet be confirmed, these are the ones provided from sources inside Iran. At the very least, there is video evidence to confirm attacks on these targets.
The evidence about what just happened is there for the world to see. The statistics for the overall death toll range so dramatically that determining it at this moment has been rendered impossible. From the videos and photos of the bodies in morgues, it would appear as if hundreds are dead at the least.
There was no anti-government protest that numbered more than into the tens of thousands, at most, it was more likely only thousands, according to the footage available. Most of these riots and gatherings were small, not more than a few hundred, and in some cases, there were only small teams of men who showed up to cause chaos and then quickly ran away.
On the other hand, the pro-government protests numbered in the millions across the country. Initially, some tried to deny the footage and make up all kinds of lies about it. Everything from “that’s old” to “that’s AI” was claimed. Finally, when these excuses wore out, the pro-regime change media pivoted to “they were coerced”.
Days after the anti-government riots and protests had ended, the Western corporate media and Zionist social media influencers were still sharing old footage to claim that their imaginary “revolution” was still ongoing.
Without going into every minute detail, it suffices to say that the pro-regime change media and social media influencers are simply living in a parallel universe when it comes to this topic. It is impossible to even argue with them, they make up anything they choose and care not for objective realities.
As in any country, there are legitimate grievances from the people against their government in Iran, but these riots had nothing to do with the popular will and beliefs of the masses, this was an Israeli Mossad backed attempt to destabilize the country, then used to justify military intervention.
For saying this, you will be labelled, just as we were labelled before. But the truth is the truth: regime change in Iran serves the Israelis. Iran is the only country, along with the Ansar Allah government in Yemen, that has backed the Palestinians and retaliated against “Israel”. Tehran backs the Palestinian Resistance, which is why it is being targeted for regime change. If it were to abandon its values and the Palestinian cause tomorrow, the regime change threats against it would cease outright.
The posturing here (Washington) and there (London and Brussels) around Greenland is just one key indicator of the disintegration of the Western world, which must be included in a sui generis approach.
Indeed, far from being a mere Arctic territory, the island of Greenland reflects a decaying Western world, where alliances are crumbling under the weight of their own duplicity. Europe, paying dearly for its vassalage, is discovering that its American friend is a predator; while NATO, far from being a bulwark of peace, is a shadow play where former allies stab each other in the back, all the while smiling for the cameras. What if Greenland, this white and silent land, were to become the loudest stage for the disintegration of this alliance founded on lies? What if, beneath the melting icebergs, the immutable truth of a vassalized Europe, a predatory America, and an Atlantic alliance that has never been anything but a pact of convenience, cemented not by trust, but by a common hatred of the Other – yesterday the USSR, today China and Russia? Greenland, far from being a periphery, has become the nerve center of a simmering confrontation between “allies” who silently hate each other.
From a geostrategic perspective, this article demonstrates, based on the convergence of the questions raised, how the posturing, first American, then European, around Greenland reveals the long-hidden enmity of the North Atlantic allies.
Greenland, a strategic sentinel and the scene of competitive imperialism
In reality, Greenland has never been a forgotten territory. Since the Cold War (1947-1991), it has been a key component of the American military apparatus. The Thule Air Base, established in 1951, was imposed without consulting the Greenlanders, or even the Danish Parliament. It was not cooperation, but a disguised occupation. Greenland has never been a partner in the true sense of the word; it has always been an outpost, a buffer zone, a territory to be monitored, exploited, and militarized. In this context, NATO is merely a convenient smokescreen for unilateral domination.
But it was in 2019 that the absurdity became truly revealing. Donald Trump, in a fit of imperial brutality, proposed buying the island, which, it argued, was autonomous from Copenhagen, so close to it, and from the rest of the world, so far away. Europe, true to its role as a diplomatic bystander, offered only half-hearted indignation. Denmark, humiliated, protested weakly, then fell silent. For Europe had long ago traded its sovereignty for an illusion of protection, supposedly guaranteed by the American nuclear umbrella. Today, it is paying, in full, the price of its servility and vassalage to Washington. Greenland thus became the symbol of a Europe that, even humiliated, continues to bow its head, convinced that humiliation is the price of security. Will it break free from Washington this time? I don’t think so. not having prepared for this, and not having the means to do so anyway.
In 2025, and then again in January 2026, the situation shifted dramatically. Faced with Trump’s repeated threats to “buy up or, failing that, invade” the island, European chancelleries, initially paralyzed with fear, finally reacted. Not out of courage, but out of an instinct for survival. Fearing a de facto annexation of the territory by the United States, several European countries – France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, and, of course, Denmark – decided to discreetly send troops to Greenland, after the failure of talks between the United States and Denmark, under the guise of Arctic cooperation and rather pathetic military exercises. This deployment, unprecedented since the end of World War II in 1945, marked a turning point where Europe, without daring to name its adversary, began to treat Washington as a strategic threat. The first European soldiers thus set foot on Greenlandic soil, not to defend NATO, but to contain the ally that had become a predator. Unpredictable, Trumpism is now a political science in Europe.
Since 2020, the United States has methodically strengthened its grip on Greenland with the opening of a consulate in Nuuk, massive investments in infrastructure, funding of mining projects, and, above all, the deployment of radar and surveillance equipment without prior consultation. Washington does not negotiate; it imposes. Greenland is becoming the focal point of an intra-Western war of influence, where each side seeks to appropriate Arctic resources under the guise of collective security. NATO, far from being a pact of solidarity, is proving to be a hidden battleground between rival Western powers.
An alliance built on hatred, undermined by duplicity
NATO, founded in 1949, has never been an alliance of equals. It was a coalition of convenience, united by fear of Moscow, and later Beijing. But from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 onward, cracks began to appear, leading to the war in Iraq (2003), the intervention in Libya (2011), tensions over military spending, and disagreements over China. Greenland, today, reveals this structural hypocrisy; and, taken aback, the rest of the world is astonished and wonders: will the world finally be freed from the Western violence and terror that the peoples of the Global South, and even others within the Western sphere of influence, have suffered since 1945?
While Donald Trump ordered an illegal military operation in Venezuela on the night of January 2-3, 2026 – an operation that resulted in the abduction of the constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were then exfiltrated and tried in the United States in a sham extraterritorial trial – far from condemning this flagrant violation of international law, European leaders rushed to downplay it, minimize its significance, and justify the unjustifiable, as if it were a mere diplomatic adjustment. And when he demanded, in a truly imperial whim, that Denmark sell him Greenland, they ignored his outrageous demands and looked the other way, as if the Venezuelan episode had never happened. Yet, in the hushed corridors of power, one truth is undeniable: Washington is now perceived more as an enemy than an ally. This feigned loyalty, this diplomatic servility, is proving more dangerous today than open resistance. For it feeds Washington’s arrogance while simultaneously undermining the very foundations of European sovereignty.
The paradox in all of this is that Europeans realized, too late, that Washington is more of an enemy than an ally. An enemy that doesn’t bomb their cities, but humiliates their leaders, dictates their energy policies, sabotages their industrial projects (see the Alstom affair in 2014), and drags them into wars they didn’t choose, as the annals of the history of destabilizing military interventions by the NATO coalition clearly show. A predatory coalition under whose cover have been hidden free-riding states , incapable of pursuing an independent policy and deprived of any military, industrial, logistical, and financial autonomy, and which, through strategic opportunism and collective action, have contributed to the destruction of sovereign states like Libya. By becoming a pawn in this circumvented sovereignty, Greenland reveals this dynamic of tacit consent to domination.
In fact, NATO is now nothing more than a shadow play, where former allies act out a drama written in Washington. Europe, a docile spectator, zealously recites its role, even when it demands betraying its own interests. Greenland, by exposing this duplicity, becomes the mirror of an alliance that was never founded on trust but on a shared hatred – first of Russia, then of China, of course. And what is built on hatred can only implode into mistrust.
The world will remember that it took a divergence of interests over an island for the North Atlantic allies to split, presenting to the rest of the world a key indicator of the disintegration of the Western world, so desired and so long awaited to consolidate economic polycentrism and multipolarity in international relations.
In conclusion, as Brussels and London realize that Washington is more of an enemy than a friend, the transition to a multipolar world is now only a matter of time.
It remains to be seen whether they (Europeans) will remain at the feet of the master (Washington) for much longer, affectionately wagging the tail.
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in the geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Human and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
The latest Substack from Sy Hersh is a doozy because it is rife with false claims and propaganda. I have known Sy for 45 years and consider him a dear friend. His latest article is an abomination and, in my opinion, represents a stain on his legacy. I feel like I’m watching a basketball legend who is still trying to play the game, but he can no longer run or shoot the basketball. To continue the basketball metaphor, this latest article from Sy is an air ball shot from the free throw line… It does not even hit the rim.
The article is titled, PUTIN’S LONG WAR, and it is an unwitting indictment of the US intelligence community’s analytical competence. The opening paragraph sets the tone for the piece:
Despair and anger are growing in some parts of the US intelligence community about Vladimir Putin’s refusal to consider ending the war with Ukraine. The Russian president is facing devastating economic problems at home and is ignoring his restless senior military command—in pursuit of what?
Despair and anger? What the hell!!! Why despair? Is this an admission that the CIA’s plans to defeat Russia are in ruins? Is the CIA, or some other component of the intelligence community, agonizingly frustrated because Vladimir Putin won’t perform as a dancing organ grinder’s monkey? Ditto for the anger bit.
But it is the last sentence that is a stunner because the official (or officials) talking to Trump apparently genuinely believe that Russia faces devastating economic problems and that Putin — who has made at least three visits to the front lines in the last two months — is ignoring the Russian General Staff. Nonsense!
Here is the next whopper of a lie in this article:
Businesses are reeling and shops are closing—in part due to international sanctions—in Moscow and throughout Russia.
More Male Bovine Excrement… I’ve been to Moscow twice in the last four months and saw nothing of the sort. Businesses were thriving, not closing up shop. The latest Levada poll (independent, non governmental) just recently released reports Putin’s current approval ratings at a whopping 85%!!! If the economy was collapsing there is no way that he could be so popular!
Sy’s next paragraph reveals the lack of critical thinking on the part of his source:
One experienced US official, who has been involved in Russian issues for decades, remains both mystified and frustrated by Putin’s refusal last fall to accept an American offer, approved by President Donald Trump but bitterly resented by Ukraine. . . “As of January,” he told me, “Russia’s war with Ukraine will have lasted longer than their war with Germany. In 1945, they were in Berlin. In 2026 they won’t even control Donetsk,” an eastern Ukrainian province with a large Russian-speaking population that shares a border with Russia.
Yeah, Russia’s military really sucks. They are fighting a NATO-proxy army that has the full backing of NATO, which includes advanced weaponry and sophisticated intelligence, and are advancing all along the line of contact… Just not as fast as this clown in Washington, who is gibbering away to Sy, believes that Russia should move. So if Russia’s slow pace is an indictment of its military competence, what does that say about the US military, which spent 21 years fighting in Afghanistan against lightly-armed insurgents — who had no foreign backing — and fled the country in August 2021, leaving behind $7.1–7.2 billion worth of US-funded military equipment. Trump officials who live in big glass houses should not be throwing rocks at a brick house.
Next, Sy regurgitates a demonstrably false claim provided by his source:
“Putin knows the ghost in the Kremlin closet,” he said, “is revolution.” The official quoted General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of staff: “I no longer have an army. My tanks and armored vehicles are junk, my artillery barrels worn out. My supplies intermittent. My sergeants and mid-grade officers dead, and my rank and file ex-convicts.”
This official is lying. Let’s examine recent public comments from Gerasimov (and they are on video) about the condition of the army that he leads:
In late December briefings (e.g., December 29 meeting with Putin and commanders), Gerasimov reported that Russian forces had liberated 334 settlements and over 6,400 square kilometers throughout 2025 overall, framing the army as steadily pushing deeper into Ukrainian defenses with consistent momentum.
On December 31, 2025, during an inspection of the Sever (North) Grouping of Forces command post, Gerasimov stated that Russian troops were “confidently advancing deep into enemy defenses” and that December 2025 saw the highest rates of offensive operations by the Russian army. He highlighted the liberation of over 700 square kilometers of territory in a month, the expansion of a “security zone” near the Russian border (in Sumy and Kharkiv regions), and the occupation of seven settlements. He described these as record paces and tied them to fulfilling objectives set by President Putin for border security in Belgorod and Kursk regions.
On January 15, 2026, while inspecting the Tsentr (Center) Grouping of Forces in the Donetsk direction, Gerasimov praised the group’s advances in liberating parts of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). He claimed Russian forces were advancing “in virtually all directions” on the front, that Ukrainian attempts to halt them were unsuccessful, and that over 300 square kilometers had been seized in the first two weeks of January alone. He also reiterated ongoing successes in areas like Kupyansk (claiming final stages of control) and emphasized high operational tempo.
I can understand why this unnamed offical would lie, but I don’t understand why Sy is so gullible. He is allowing himself to be used as a propaganda mouthpiece. The next paragraph belongs in an episode of the Twilight Zone:
“The West reached the same stalemate conclusions and seeks to undermine Putin’s internal resolve. Not by military attack but with economic sanctions which affect the elites as well as the population as a whole. It is working—the standard of living is dropping rapidly as taxes, isolation, and casualties grow. Disillusionment and resentment are increasing. Last weekend Russia shut down all cell phone use and mobile internet service nationwide.”
Let’s start with the big lie… i.e., Last weekend Russia shut down all cell phone use and mobile internet service nationwide.” I exchanged messages with a number of people in Russia — three of them Americans — over the weekend. They all had functioning cell phones and mobile internet service. I asked one of my friends (he is a retired US Army officer who attended West Point, and now is a permanent resident of Russia) about life in Moscow. Here is what he told me via a cell phone text message that is supposedly not working:
There have been some internet access problems. Whatsapp is becoming less usable, but most people switch to Telegram or something else. The internal messenger service, Max, still has some glitches, especially for people with older iPhones like my wife and me. I read someplace that it will only work in iPhone 15 or newer models. If that’s so, it’s definitely a screwup or glitch. However, most people have Chinese made Android smart phones, and our kids’ Androids were easily able to upload Max on them.
I just bought two boxes of eggs on Tuesday afternoon. My wife asked me to get a particular brand found at one of the nearby supermarket chains, two of which are within very close walking range (2 blocks!).
Eggs are sold here mostly by the metric dozen: 10 eggs.
At the time I bought them, the exchange rate was 77.78 rubles = $1.00 USD.
One metric dozen cost me 54.99 rubles! That’s 10 eggs for 71 cents ($0.71)! That’s 7.1 cents per egg, and is the equivalent of $0.85 for 12 eggs!
This is one of the most basic high quality and high protein staples, non-GMO!
Studies have shown that most salaries have actually gone up! Of course, it also all depends on what business or line of work people are in. Sure, inflation is still present, and taxes have gone up somewhat. But isn’t that happening all over the world? I dare say that these economic effects are a lot better than in many other countries in the West.
Electricity, home internet and mobile phone bills are so cheap compared to when we lived in the US that it is laughable!
Medical bills are zilch! as one can pay if one wants to. But my wife and I have both had major (cutting open) and minor surgical procedures, all absolutely free! Kids, too, of course. We had to pay for my son’s braces, but that was also a pittance compared to what they charge in the States.
As an official retiree/pensioner, I can have orthopedic dental work now done for free! I need another implant, as I had to have a tooth extracted several months ago. They told me that after 6 months, that they can give me a new implant there.
If I order a Swiss implant, it would cost me 55 000 rubles ($708 USD). What the heck do I care? I’ll have a Russian made implant for free. Heck, I turn 74 next month. Who needs a fancy Swiss implant?
I also have free public transportation now. And because our daughter is handicapped, she and my wife also have free public transportation. (Not long distance trains, but for almost anywhere within both Moscow and the Moscow oblast.)
Let me remind you, this is the testimony of a retired US Special Forces officer. If this official who is talking to Sy Hersh is also briefing Donald Trump then we cannot blame Trump for failing to understand the actual situation on the ground in Ukraine… He is being fed monstrous lies.
One final point about the alleged economic distress in Russia. The official told Sy:
“The army is losing respect, national oil and gas income is down 22 percent and with no ability to borrow from abroad to finance the war with Ukraine.
While it is true that oil and gas revenues are down, the official apparently forgot to mention that the oil and gas sector (including production, not just budget taxes) was 9.67% of GDP in 2021, according to the World Bank. Statista/Rosstat data show the oil and gas industry’s share in GDP hovering around 10–15% in recent quarters (through mid-2024; 2025 figures not fully updated but consistent with downward pressure).
With respect to finances, Russia’s deficit widened to 2.6% of GDP in 2025 (highest since 2020), partly due to this revenue shortfall. But that is half of the financial challenges confronting the US… For Fiscal Year 2025 (ended September 30, 2025): The deficit was 5.9% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) final Monthly Budget Review and Treasury data. This reflects a total deficit of $1.8 trillion (down slightly from $1.84 trillion or 6.3% in FY 2024).
When we look at the comparative debt-to-GDP ratios for Russia and the United States, we get a clearer picture of which country is facing financial disaster. Russia has a debt-to GDP ratio of 16–20% while the United States‘ ratio is a gargantuan 118–125% (gross federal debt), which is more than 6 times Russia’s level. The US ratio is among the highest for advanced economies, driven by persistent large deficits (5.9% of GDP in FY 2025), pandemic-era spending, and structural issues like entitlement growth. Russia’s debt burden is far lighter relative to its economy, giving it more fiscal flexibility despite sanctions and defense spending. By contrast, the US faces greater long-term challenges from interest costs and entitlement pressures.
I do not know if Sy’s source genuinely believes the pack of lies he fed to Sy, or if he is engaged in some sort of misinformation operation designed to keep the American public in the dark. Either way, Sy got played.
Here are my latest podcasts. The first is an abbreviated conversation with Danny Davis. The second is my session, recorded last Friday, with Pascual Lottaz of Neutrality Studies. The last video comes courtesy of Marcello, who is temporarily in Brazil:
The European Parliament has voted to refer a trade agreement with the South American bloc Mercosur to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU). The move comes amid criticism of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for bypassing normal EU procedures and widespread protests from farmers across the bloc.
On Saturday, the EU signed a trade pact with Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The agreement that was projected to create the world’s biggest free trade zone still requires approval before it can take effect.
On Wednesday, the EU Parliament voted 334 in favor to 324 against, with 11 abstentions, to ask the CJEU to determine whether the deal is compatible with the bloc’s rules. The move now significantly delays the pact that had been negotiated for 25 years, and could potentially derail final approval.
The vote took place against the backdrop of criticism of von der Leyen for handling the Mercosur deal in a non-transparent way, splitting it into separate agreements to bypass national parliaments and reduce the European Parliament’s role to a formal opinion.
The deal has also faced widespread resistance from the agricultural sector, with farmers across the bloc staging mass protests over concerns that cheap imports could undercut their livelihoods. The latest rally began on Tuesday outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg and drew support from some lawmakers, continued overnight, and ended on Wednesday.
Von der Leyen had pushed the deal, describing it as a “clear and deliberate choice,” highlighting that the EU opts for “fair trade over tariffs” and “a productive long-term partnership over isolation.” The pact came just six months after she signed an agreement with US President Donald Trump that imposed a 15% tariff on most EU exports. The EC president faced strong pushback over the US deal from current and former EU officials and heads of member states.
The EU is Mercosur’s second-largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 17% of the bloc’s total trade in 2024, at €111 billion.
Russia has benefited from a surge in gold prices since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, earning windfall gains comparable to the value of the country’s sovereign reserves frozen in the West, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The Bank of Russia’s gold holdings have gained over $216 billion since February 2022, calculations show.
Western countries froze about $300 billion in Russian central bank assets as part of Ukraine-related sanctions. The majority of the funds are held at Belgium-based depository Euroclear. The EU has been debating using the funds as collateral for a so-called ‘reparations loan’ for Kiev, and in December extended the freeze with a long-term measure that would keep the assets blocked indefinitely.
The rise in the value of Russia’s gold holdings restores much of the country’s lost financial capacity, even if blocked reserves remain inaccessible, the outlet said. Unlike securities and cash frozen in Europe, the metal can still be sold or used as collateral if needed.
The value of Russia’s gold reserves more than doubled from February 2022 through end-2025, while holdings of foreign currencies and assets fell by about 14%, central bank data show. Gold now comprises 43% of total reserves, up from 21% prior to the Ukraine conflict.
Total international reserves stood at $754.8 billion as of January 1, data showed, with monetary gold accounting for $326.5 billion. The bank’s gold holdings were valued at $141 billion on February 1, 2022.
Gold prices have surged over the past four years, jumping by 60% in 2025 alone, driven by robust demand from central banks, persistent inflation concerns, and heightened geopolitical tensions.
Precious metal futures surged to a record high on Tuesday, surpassing $4,720 per ounce and marking a 2.71% gain, exchange data showed. Analysts linked the rally to increased geopolitical risks, including US President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff threats against European countries opposed to his Greenland takeover plan.
The Russian Finance Ministry expects gold prices to continue to climb towards $5,000 per ounce and beyond.
Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev said in December that the current rally stems from eroding confidence in global reserve currencies, adding that attempts to expropriate Russian assets are further bolstering demand.
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | February 13, 2019
Caracas – In an interview over the weekend, “interim President” of Venezuela Juan Guaido promised he would work on restoring relations with Israel.
Despite not actually having a government or being in any type of official position of power within Venezuela Juan Guaido is still somehow making big promises. Last week it was the promise to sell oil he doesn’t control to the US and this week he is setting foreign policy for a state, a military, and a diplomatic core that he doesn’t have.
Regardless of Juan Guaido’s material position, Israel has been more than willing to indulge in the US fantasy in Venezuela and was one of the early states to recognize the fraud as “interim President.” Now it seems Guaido is more than willing to repay the favor should he ever actually hold office.
Guaido made this promise in a recent interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper where he told the interviewer that he was “very happy to announce that the process of stabilizing relations with Israel is in full swing.” While what exactly that means when you’re a President with no power is rather ambiguous, for some reason Guaido has said restoring relations “is very important for us.”
Regardless of all these factors, there are still several reasons the new President has made this a high priority. Even without any actual diplomatic staff recognized by the state, Guaidó has still been in contact with Israel and has even discussed opening a new Venezuelan embassy in Israel, saying it “is one of the subjects we are talking about.”
Another reason Guaidó claims he wants to restore relations with the Zionists is due to the fact that there “are many Venezuelans in Israel and many Jews in Venezuela.”
According to Guaidó, this Venezuelan Jewish community “is very active and prosperous”… continue
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