Opinion Archives - Page 18 of 40

Iran-US Talks in Muscat: Winners and Losers

CrossFireArabia
April 12, 2025

EDITOR’S NOTE: This editorial, written by Abdul Bari Atwan, chief editor of the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm website, on Saturday, 12 April, relates to the first talks of the Tehran-Washington negotiations that started in Muscat, Oman relating to the Iran nuclear file.

Iran succeeded in scoring a major goal against the United States in the clash of wills that began today, Saturday, in the Omani capital, Muscat, by insisting that the negotiations be “indirect,” contrary to what its American adversary wants: Namely “direct” negotiations as announced by US President Donald Trump at the White House in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, who was surprised by this shocking announcement.

The US delegation, led by Trump’s Advisor Steve Witkoff, is participating in these talks from a weak and defeated position, especially after the failure of the US plan to impose tariffs on more than 200 countries worldwide. America has become friendless, and even turned its friends into enemies, especially in Europe and Southeast Asia like South Korea and Japan.

Strategies of negotiations

Iran, represented in the negotiations by veteran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the man who led the negotiations for the first nuclear agreement with the six major powers in 2015 and possesses extensive experience in the art and strategies of negotiation, did not submit to the “threats and intimidation” adopted by President Trump.

They imposed their conditions in full on their American opponents and insisted on limiting the negotiations to the nuclear issue, not addressing other issues such as missile and drone systems, and severing ties with the arms of the resistance in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. And they got what they wanted.

The one who called for a return to a diplomatic solution to the Iranian-American crisis and backed down from his threats of a devastating military strike was President Trump. This happened when he realized the threats of military strikes, coupled with the dispatch of three American aircraft carriers and squadrons of giant B-52 bombers, backfired.

These did not intimidate the Iranians, but prompted a response from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who declared a state of emergency in the Iranian military, placed giant missile platforms, advanced submarines, and ground and naval forces on high alert, and threatened to destroy all of the 10 military bases surrounding his country and housing 50,000 soldiers, close the Strait of Hormuz, and prevent Gulf oil exports to the entire world.

The Iranians do not trust President Trump, who tore up the nuclear agreement in 2018, and is well aware he has become an Israeli puppet. He also realizes that America, defeated in Ukraine, did not simply march to Moscow waving white flags, ready to sell Ukraine and its people to the Russians and surrender to all of its conditions, including the annexation of a fifth of Ukrainian territory to Russia, without consulting its European allies, whom it has become embroiled in this war.

When President Trump demands that the Muscat negotiations reach a quick agreement within two months, this is due to his bitter experience in the Vienna negotiations, which lasted a year-and-a-half and ended in failure due to Iran’s cunning use of the “yes, but” theory, without offering any concessions.

Globally hated…

We do not believe that this theory will be abandoned in the Muscat negotiations, especially since America, which is now globally hated and has lost all of its allies in the West and the East, has become weak, and is on the brink of bankruptcy due to the huge deficit in its annual general budget ($1.4 trillion) and its public debt that has reached more than $42 trillion.

What will encourage Iran to harden its position in these negotiations is China’s strong and defiant stance in the trade war against the United States. Its president, Xi Jinping, declared he will respond in kind to America and its president, and will fight this war to the end, no matter how costly the results.

He has decided to raise customs duties on American goods by a historic rate of more than 125 percent, and has given the green light to his allies in the BRICS group to declare war on the dollar and the global SWIFT financial system, through which America controls the global economy and financial movement.

Trump, wounded by the failure of his gamble to ignite a trade war, and the internal and global revolt against it, with the beginning of the decline in the value of the dollar and the escalation of the recession in the American economy as its first fruits, was forced to stop this war less than three days after its announcement under the cover of a three-month freeze on the application of customs duties.

Crushing military strike

Hence, his threats, i.e. Trump’s necessity of quickly to reach a nuclear agreement didn’t have any effect despite the threat of a crushing military strike. Iran’s respond to Trump forced him to make a major, unprecedented concessions to save face.

Iran, which has suffered significant losses in Lebanon, with the weakening of its powerful military arm in that country (Hezbollah), and in Syria with the fall of the President Assad’s regime, undertook rapid reviews internally and regionally, abandoning many of its policies pursued in recent years, after realizing that the knife is approaching its neck, and that the American-Israeli conspiracy does not only seek to destroy it and remove its military claws and fangs, but also to change the Islamic regime there.

The results of these reviews reflected in the transition from a phase of patience and long-suffering to a phase of confrontation in its military and political aspects, and the strengthening of its allied military arms, starting with the striking Yemen whose arm there is waging heroic wars not only against aircraft carriers and American warships in the Red and Arabian Seas, but also by intensifying ballistic missiles and drone bombardment of the occupied Palestinian interior in Jaffa, Haifa, and Eilat, accelerating the recovery process for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and finding other ways to deliver military supplies to it.

After the historic Syrian corridor was closed with the fall of the Assad regime, America became a farce in the first months of Trump’s rule. It’s no surprise that Iran and its allied proxies are among the biggest beneficiaries and gloaters. He who laughs last laughs loudest… and the days will tell!

Opinion

How The West Came to Control Arabism

CrossFireArabia
April 12, 2025

Dr Elias Akleh

The Arab world lies in one of the most important global strategic locations, controlling most of the major commercial transportation routes. It is rich in natural agricultural and industrial resources and has always been a prime target for Western colonial powers, which periodically launched military campaigns to occupy and control our world, starting from the heart of the Arab world, Palestine, known as the Holy Land, and expanding to the Levant in the north — Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan— then to Egypt, and it’s rich in its fertile Nile River, and finally to the Arabian Peninsula in the south.

When we look back in history, we find these military colonial campaigns against the Arab world—especially Palestine—were numerous, even dating back to before Christ, such as the campaign of Alexander the Great (336 BC–323 BC) and the Roman colonial rule (63 BC–324 AD). Moving on to the ages after Christ, we recall, for example, the eight Crusades over nearly two centuries (1096–1291), followed by Napoleon Bonaparte’s campaign (1799–1801), and finally the Talmudic Zionist campaign initiated by Theodor Herzl in 1896, which continues into the present day.

These post-Christ colonial campaigns were primarily charged with religious fervor and can be termed as religious wars. In fact, Pope Urban II in 1095 described them as a “holy war” to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem from the “brutal” Muslim Arabs. As for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was defeated at the walls of Acca, he promised the Jews he would help them reach the “Promised Land,” holy Jerusalem, if they aided him in his colonial campaign.

Finally, at the present time, Britain, France and Germany came first, followed by all the US presidents who started supporting Zionist colonialism financially, politically and militarily to “recover” the “Promised Land” promised by a “racist” god biased towards the Jews to “rebuild” the alleged Temple of Solomon in the city of Jerusalem and to build Greater Israel.

All these colonial campaigns attempted to divide the Arab world into small, weak states by perpetrating genocides against their many Arab peoples. They destroyed and burned cities, tortured and killed civilians, and raped women, girls, and even boys, just as Zionist Israel is doing now in Palestine. However, past genocides cannot be compared to the brutality and brutality of the Zionist genocide against the Arabs of Palestine, from 1947 to the present day, due to the power of modern, highly destructive and lethal weapons.

The Arab nation was able to defeat all past colonial campaigns because of the people’s sense of belonging to their homeland and their unity, undivided by distance or borders, and led by brave, honorable, national leaders who sought the best for the entire nation.

The western colonialists noticed this inherent sense of belonging within the nation and decided to target it. After World War II, Britain, then the Great Power, agreed with France in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, to break the pact it signed with Sharif Hussein bin Ali. This agreement divided the Middle East into small states, appointing rulers loyal first to Britain and then to the current American administrations.

How can the men in the Arab world sit back while the carnage is unfolding in #GazaGenocide ? Have you all forgotten who you are? Children of Azzam, Mukhtar and the Ouled Darradj? Here are the words from a brother in Khan Younis less than an hour ago. “The Israelis have killed 490… pic.twitter.com/ZhECfHaic3
— Yvonne “Newcastle 🏆” Ridley (@yvonneridley) April 6, 2025

To further weaken these Arab states, the Western Axis powers divided the economies and financial systems of these states, rendering them alien and compete with each other. They also sowed division and religious, regional, and ethnic animosity among the Arab nation, allowing Zionist colonialism to penetrate the Arab world, beginning with Palestine.

Unfortunately, most Arab leaders failed to attempt to restore Arab unity and unify the people, economy, and currency, as the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to. Instead, what was spread was division, hatred, competition, animosity, and even war among Arab peoples, as has happened in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and what is currently happening in Arab African countries such as Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan.

Worst of all is the spread of the philosophy of distancing oneself from the problems of any neighboring Arab country. Some leaders consider that the wars that take place in a neighboring Arab country do not concern them as long as these wars do not affect their country, even in the short term. We see this now clearly in what is happening in Palestine, especially the extermination of the Arabs of Gaza.

The heads of neighboring Arab countries are trying to convince their people that their national interest requires non-interference and to distance themselves to avoid destructive wars and to leave the Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation alone.

Israel, launching pad

It would be better for these leaders to warn and inform their people that Israel is a launching pad for a broad western colonial campaign aimed firstly at destroying the Arab homeland and colonizing it by planting Zionist terrorism in the form of the Israeli entity which aims to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates, from the far south of the Nile – on the Sudan borders – to the far north of the Euphrates – to the Turkish borders – to build what is called Greater Israel in the Promised Land promised by a racist land broker god to a criminal, savage, genocidal people.

Secondly, for this Zionist entity to grow from Great Israel to Greater Israel it is going to move to the south to include all of the Arabian Peninsula – to recover Khaybar and Yathrib and their dependencies – then move west to the northern coast of the African continent, extending to Morocco and control the entire Arab world, monopolizing the most important strategic locations internationally, and global maritime trade routes between East and West, including the Strait of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, passing through Bab al-Mandab Strait to the Red Sea, then via the Suez Canal to the ports of occupied Palestine, and from there to the Western world via the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. And across the Giberalter Strait to the Americas – the ultimate goal of the Greater Israel Project.

All we have to do is listen to and understand the Israeli (and American) statements, both public and broadcast, clearly and vociferously, that the goal of Israel and the West is to exterminate all Arabs, just as they did to the Native Americans—they call them Red Indians— to build Greater Israel and control the Arab world and its natural resources. The evidence of these goals is clear, such as the destruction of Iraq and the theft of its wealth, and the establishment of American military bases along the Arab states on the western coast of the Persian Gulf.

We also witnessed how the Western colonial powers destroyed, divided, and weakened Libya and stole its wealth, then spread enmity between Algeria and Morocco, waged a war of extermination in Sudan, and then divided Syria and Lebanon, weakened Jordan, and effectively occupied it with American, British, and French military bases. All that remains is Egypt, which is subjected to economic occupation through conditional World Bank debt and by allowing other countries to purchase Egyptian land, real estate, and companies, which will ultimately lead to Egypt’s economic collapse.

Many people from all over the world, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language, are taking to the streets in massive, daily and weekly marches and demonstrations in solidarity with the Arabs of Palestine, against Israeli brutality, against Western countries, and against their own governments, which fund and supports Israel politically and militarily.

They wonder why the Arab peoples don’t take to the streets in solidarity with the Arabs of Palestine, demanding that their Arab governments personally intervene to protect and assist the Palestinians, instead of these governments begging for assistance from the powerless United Nations. Have the Arabs lost their humanity and solidarity with their Arab brothers in Palestine, or are they simply cowards and selfish and unable to do anything?

Dr. Elias Akleh is a Palestinian writer who contributed this article the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm website. This is a translated piece that was slightly edited at the end for the sake of brevity.

Opinion

Can Israel Change The Middle East?

CrossFireArabia
April 9, 2025

By Mohammad Abu Rumman

In the short term, Israel is no longer in a hurry to normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, which it considers the grand prize in the Islamic world. Although its leaders view normalization as necessary, indeed inevitable, over the long run, what Netanyahu and his team currently see is an unprecedented historical opportunity that has not occurred since the founding of the State of Israel. They are thus pushing to implement sweeping and profound changes to the Palestinian situation, through displacement, expulsion, settlement expansion, annexation, and the Judaization of Jerusalem, from Gaza to Jerusalem and the West Bank. For the Israeli right, these policies take precedence over any other strategic interests.

It is not only about the Palestinians. The Israeli right’s ambitions today extend to constructing new and unprecedented spheres of regional influence and redefining Israeli security. This includes striking at any source of potential future threats and establishing Israel as the dominant regional power.

There are three key variables that must be taken into account when analyzing the current geopolitical shifts and the repercussions of Israel’s war on Gaza, not only in terms of the Palestinian issue, but also on a regional and global scale.

The first variable can be described as “Political Netanyahuism.” Today’s Israel is no longer the Israel of the past—this marks the era of Benjamin Netanyahu, especially post-Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood.” This era has unleashed the historical project of the Israeli right-wing in full force, with no intention of reversing course. The key features of this project include, first, a complete abandonment of the peace process, a rejection of the Oslo Accords and their consequences, and the annexation of large parts of the West Bank—effectively nullifying the Palestinian Authority’s political relevance and perhaps returning to a system of disconnected “cantons.” Additionally, this entails the Judaiztion of Jerusalem. Second, Netanyahuism is reflected in a complete structural shift of Israel toward the right, with the near-total erosion of the secular-leftist stream in Israeli politics. Third, it involves the deep penetration of religious ideology into Israel’s security and military institutions, leading to their full domination by religious-nationalist elements.

Even if Netanyahu were to exit the political scene, this would not alter the course of these policies or shift current events. Israel post-Netanyahuism will not be the same as it was before. The historical Zionist dream persists—ideologically, strategically, and religiously—even if tactical approaches differ. This new political reality is not merely shaped by individuals like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich; rather, they are products of a broader environment and not anomalies within it.

The second variable is the major Arab strategic collapse—a process that began decades ago but reached a far more dangerous stage in the past 15 years, especially after so called “the Arab Spring”. The resulting transformations led to the fragmentation and collapse of numerous Arab states and the weakening of the entire Arab geopolitical map—in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya. It now seems as though the Arab geopolitical landscape, shaped after World War I, is disintegrating. This has created a strategic opportunity for Israel to expand, particularly following the recent decline in Iran’s regional influence over the past year in the wake of the war on Gaza.

The third variable is the return of Donald Trump to the White House—this time accompanied by a team that is more Zionist and ideologically aligned with the Israeli right than ever before. The unprecedented genocide unfolding in Gaza, the (implicit) green light granted to settlers and Netanyahu’s government in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and the statements made by Trump’s team concerning Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria all suggest an unprecedented alliance—perhaps even an organic one—between a hardline right-wing American administration and an extremist Israeli right. Although US policies have historically been biased in favor of Israel, the situation has never reached this level of alignment and support.

These three variables together shape a new political landscape, they significantly impact Jordan’s strategic perspective on national interests and security and necessitate a reevaluation by political elites who previously believed that there were multiple factions within Israel with whom one could engage, or that American influence could constrain the Israeli right, or that an effective Arab strategic space could be mobilized to counter such dangerous transformations.

The writer is a columnist in the Jordan Times

Opinion

Netanyahu Has Irked Trump. Why?

CrossFireArabia
April 9, 2025

What should one make of the recent White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

Well, this time Netanyahu was almost summoned to the White House to be told few home truths. This meeting was not like the first time when Netanyahu came to the White House in early February when it was all glow to be unexpectedly told that Trump wants the USA to take over Gaza.

This time around, the meeting was more subdued, almost in a rush, like an after-thought on the part of Trump who keeps chopping and changing as he figures out how he wants to conduct America’s foreign policy in his second “robust” administration.

This time around, although Trump displayed the usual friendliness to Netanyahu, he was somewhat distant because of the tariffs the White House is set upon to start imposing on the rest of the world including best-friend Israel. Its leaders, businessmen are still in shock because Washington has slammed a 17 percent tariff on its products entering the United States.

Israeli industrialists continue to be up-in-arms. It was they who appealed to Netanyahu to seek Washington clarification because they argued that the new tariffs will cost them up to $3 billion in losses, reduce Israeli exports by 26 percent and increase unemployment by 26,000. They are already in a bad situation because of the war on Gaza but this latest step will surely cripple them.

At the White House meeting last Monday, with a chitchat in front of the cameras that looked as if it was a rehearsed meeting with Trump dominating the conversation and everyone taking their que to speak only when they are told, he pointed out to Netanyahu that he “may not” consider reversing tariffs on Israeli exports because “we give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot.” He really sounded like lecturing to the Israelis.

For a man considered to be greatly influenced by the Israeli lobby that seemed to be tough talking for in the immediate conversation Trump told Netanyahu that there would be and for the first time direct face-to-face talking with Iranians about their nuclear file.

This seemed to be another unsuspecting blow. If there was a “shock” on his face, Netanyahu didn’t show it as he just nodded; the Israeli Prime Minister was looking for a tough military stance on Iran, possibly going to war and striking the country’s nuclear facilities. It was he, who persuaded Trump in 2018 to exit from the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the UN with other world powers of Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany at the behest of the Barack Obama administration.

Now with Trump in the driving seat, and wanting a “tainted-Donald” deal, Netanyahu couldn’t but agree with an alluring American president. If he had any misgivings, he kept them to himself except to say Tel Aviv and Washington had an objective not to let Iran have nuclear weapons, but Tehran constantly said and throughout the past years that their nuclear program was for peaceful purposes unlike the clandestine extensive Israeli nuclear program.

Although he may not have outwardly shown it, Trump may have been a little irritated by Netanyahu in other ways. Take Gaza for example when Israel restarted its war on the enclave on 19 March exactly two months after a ceasefire took effect ending a 15-month genocide and which was brokered by Trump and his team lead Steve Witkoff.

The recent talks in the White House, and shown in front of the cameras suggest Trump would have like more time for the Doha negotiations to take hold between Hamas and Israel to see the release of the 59 remaining hostages – which include one American who is still deemed to be alive – hidden in the Gaza enclave.

The relaunching of the war, and so quickly, and with the breaking of the 19 January ceasefire is adding to the tension between Washington and Tel Aviv and is sending signals that Netanyahu wants to continue the war in Gaza and doesn’t particularly care about the remaining hostages, and whether they come out of their nightmare dead or alive.

Trump, and as shown by the White House meeting, is showing a diversion from thoughts projected by Netanyahu. As well as Iran, he has told Netanyahu, he favors Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and that he has a ‘very, very good relationship with Turkey and with their leader…”, adding that “I happen to like him, and we never had a problem” and he offered to mediate between Israel on any problem between the two countries.

Such words may have suddenly added to the glum mood of the Israeli PM who fears that Turkish influence in Syria despite the fact it is Israel that is today bombarding different Syrian cities and occupying parts of their territory, a situation that increased after the toppling of the Bashar Al Assad regime on 9 December, 2024 by a new government in Damascus, and which is seen as a threat to Israeli security by Tel Aviv.

What is worrying Netanyahu is the fact Trump recognizes Turkish influence and Syria and Ankara’s relationship with the new government in Damascus, and apparenty the man in the White House, is “ok” with it.

With all this going on, Netanyahu is not sure anymore of the way the White House is going despite the fact that Washington continues to be the main supplier of weapons to Tel Aviv. But with Trump as “fickle-minded” as he is, all cards are on the table for a new and changing relationship between the USA and the rest of the world with the strong possibility of including Israel in the new international set of thinking.

This comment is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website.

Opinion

Middle East Psychosis

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 8, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

As far as one is concerned, the Middle East has been for a long time a matter of balance of power overlapping with strategic reluctance to change its status quo. But the advent of US President Donald Trump is ushering a new era with all sorts of possibilities.

On the microcosm level for instance, Arafat’s Fateh movement in the PLO was checked in a formula of a balance of power by the leftists organizations as well as the Palestinian organizations sponsored by some Arab countries, the affiliation of all in the PLO created the sense of a balance of power.

However, with the emergance of the PNA and the affiliation of the Palestinian groups in it, albeit with variable influence, created a unit which under the balance of power notion, necessitated the creation of a check and balance on its power.

Consequently Hamas was created, and what seemingly appeared as contradiction between them, turned out to be a symbiotic relationship between them. Now, one cannot say with certainity what will happen next, however, if the objective is to maintain the balance of power by just weakening Hamas, this will require symbiotically weakening the PNA as well, but if the objective is to eleminate Hamas, the next step will be to eleminate the PNA.

As for the macro level, and as one often repeats, the Middle East, has at least for the last five decades was strategically governed by the famous triangle, Iran-Israel-Turkey, with the Arab world having little say in their own affairs , if at all.

However, since the fall of the Shah regime in Iran, the search started for a third angle to replace Iran in governing the Middle East, considering the open hostility of Iran towards West. Consequently some Arab countries jumped into the frey as possible candidates, like Egypt, then Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. But as it seems, a preference for the old triangle was decided upon by the world powers, accepting the inconvenience of having to negotiate with Iran.

Now, we can see a new development that breaks the taboo of the old balance of power in the region.

Starting mid-way from the Biden administration, and with the start of the second Trump administration, the notion of balance of power by the usual triangle has turned into a balance of aggressiveness in the region, as Israel and Iran “bombard” each other, Turkey’s involvement in toppling Assad, and now the distinct possibility of confrontation with Israel in Syria, while being threatened itself by Iran if it cooperates in any possible American attack on Persia. Thus the stability which this triangle had sustained itself, is no more.

From appearances, at least how things look like: It seems Israel is being supported by Trump explicitly and by many other international parties implicitly, to be either the major power that has a say in Middle Eastern affairs. This means that Iran’s grip on the region will be curtailed through negotiations at least if not war; and here the symbiotic issue appears again, with Turkey’s role curtailed through pressures and/or and economic threats.

Here, as well, the aim is to designate Israel as only point of compass on the map of the Middle East, which Arabs are expected to flock to and normalise with.

In this case events will inevitably take a nasty symbiotic turn, meaning Iran will have to be attacked and taken out altogether with its surrogates from the power relations of the Middle East, and Turkey forced to take a more insular step from the affairs of the region, even with a regime change if required.

But we will have to wait and see what lies in store!

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.