Cobwebs and Impotence!

Dr Khairi Janbek
Opinion
September 15, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

A few personal reflections which certainly don’t resolve the Middle East puzzle, and one hopes don’t add to the already existing puzzle.

In any case, the Arabs tend to be a vocal people of tradition, consequently, all that can be done, is limited to the terms of providing the best description to circumstances rather than providing practicable and working solutions.

One can’t say that at times there are in fact idealistic solutions which can work only in the imagination, and indeed there is plenty of that, but to face other nations’ aggression; specifically Israel’s self-proclaimed defense of its national security, Arabs tend to counter that with competition between themselves as who is the most eloquent electronically.

Essentially and apparently, the Rabs are currently in a weak state, and weakness does corrupt, and if the current circumstances persist, will lead to absolute impotence.

For generations the Arabs have followed the so-called western path to development, while some, in order to spite the West, followed the socialist path to development, the mirage was the same, and failure no different, and with international relations, the policy has been habitually leaning on the Americans to fend off Iranian threat, leaning on Russia to fend off American threat, and leaning on Israel to fend of the threat coming from each other, which prompts the logical question: Why don’t they lean on each other?

Well, part of the answer comes from an incident from my pre-retirement days, as one was looking out of the window of the airplane passing over an area in Turkey full of dams, the VIP I had the honor of accompanying said the prophetic words which stayed with me “good luck to them, all what we did, we conspired against each other.”

The fact remains, that a form of catharsis is needed in inter-Arab relations, which probably requires more of psychological analysis than political, because the phenomenon of seeking allies from the presumed enemy lines, as opposed to allies from the so called brethren camp, requires plenty of reflection. The ethos of common culture, religion, geography are nothing but folklore the doesn’t have the idea of common interest in its composition.

Alas, a folkloric nation that derives its strength from rhetoric can only remain a reactive nation, and in order to become an active nation, it has to clean up from its mind, the cobwebs of memory and start acting to the basis of common Arab interests.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France

Dr Khairi Janbek

Opinion

Netanyahu Has Lost Against Iran and He Knows it!

CrossFireArabia
July 5, 2026

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Benjamin Netanyahu must have been the most ardent observer, from a position of frustration, defeat, and helplessness—indeed, a sense of utter defeat—of the largest, longest, and most organized funeral procession for the martyred Imam Ali Khamenei. The assassination he had boasted about completely backfired.

Most notably, the Iranian regime emerged from the Israeli-American war of aggression stronger and more resilient, retaining its missiles, its nuclear program, and its stockpile. Even more importantly, more than one 100 international delegations participated in the funeral procession, in addition to tens of millions of Iranian citizens. Israel, along with the deceived and misled United States, had gambled on these millions joining a massive popular uprising in most Iranian cities to overthrow the ruling regime and install one subservient and loyal to the American-Israeli camp.

The fact that leading Iranian figures were at the forefront of the mourners on the first day, in an open space, with no aircraft in the sky and no tanks, armored vehicles, or missile launchers on the ground, confirms the falsehood claim of US President Donald Trump that he pledged to protect this funeral procession and prevent the Israeli occupation state from carrying out any assassination attempts against these figures, especially the two key negotiators, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Foreign Minister Dr. Abbas Araqchi.

The appearance of General Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, at the forefront of the mourning procession for the first time, perhaps confirms that the decision was purely Iranian. The Iranian leadership has repeatedly affirmed, through numerous high-ranking officials, its complete distrust of its American adversary, and it is justified in this assessment. It possesses a long list of practical and on-the-ground evidence to support this, because the consequences of any attack on the funeral procession by Israel and the United States would be extremely costly—politically, militarily, and economically—and would drag the world and its security into a third world war, the course and end of which no one can predict.

Based on this logic, I am inclined to believe the denial issued by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding a report published by The New York Times. The report stated that President Trump feared Israel might assassinate the Iranian negotiators Qalibaf and Araqchi, and therefore warned against such an action due to its repercussions on relations between the two countries.

The Israeli terrorist government, which specializes in assassinating Arab and Islamic political and military leaders—from the martyred Imam Ali Khamenei, through the martyred Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, to the third Sayyed, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, and dozens of Iranian, Lebanese, and Palestinian military leaders—cannot be transformed overnight into a docile lamb.

The undeniable truth is that Israel today is not the Israel of yesterday. Today’s Israel is terrified and defeated. All its plans have failed against the rock of Iranian steadfastness and resistance. Most, if not all, of its strategies have been exposed, its falsehoods revealed, the latest being its bet on dragging America, the superpower, into a war against Iran to completely destroy it and its missile and future nuclear capabilities.

Israel, for whom the incursion into Lebanese territory and the direct aggression against Iran with hundreds of aircraft and seen as a walk in the park, cannot these days bomb the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut with a single missile, because it knows full well that the direct response with hundreds of precision missiles and highly advanced drones to destroy Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Dimona would be immediate.

This process of change, currently taking shape in the region, reveals and confirms a radical shift in the balance of power in the “West Asia” region—not the Middle East, the odious colonial term—and it is thanks to two key leaders and a group of brilliant minds surrounding them:

First: The martyred Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader of Iran, who assumed leadership of the Iranian Revolution after the death of its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini. He combined the two best qualities: Political, military, and executive leadership, serving as president for many years, and spiritual leadership as the Supreme Leader and Ayatollah of the Islamic “Imamate.” He developed Iran’s nuclear capabilities, transforming it into a nuclear threshold power with a stockpile of 460 kg of highly enriched uranium.

He also established a missile power with hundreds of highly advanced missiles and drones. He was one of the most ardent supporters of the Palestinian cause, providing it and its resistance fighters with all the necessary weapons and equipment, and fostering unity among the various fronts. He firmly believed that America and Israel are the primary source of danger to the Islamic nation and must be confronted and defeated.

Second: The martyr Yahya Sinwar and his comrades, those geniuses who planned, engineered, and executed the 7 October, 2023, attack, or the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” which shattered the sanctity of Israeli cities and settlements. They breached the heavily fortified borders, equipped with cameras and electrified fences, in the largest military intelligence penetration operation in the region’s history, rivaled only by the Egyptian army’s storming of the Bar-Lev Line in Ramadan of October 1973.

***

Of course, I am not comparing the two men, nor of equating them. Rather, they are the sons of a single, integrated path, deeply-rooted in the faith and history of Islamic resistance and honor. This path leads to dignity and victory, and the second, deeper, and greater phase of resistance against colonialism. With it has begun the process of radical change that will redraw the maps of West Asia and Africa according to the Islamic and Arab vision.

As for Netanyahu, who was merely a figurehead when he threatened to undertake this task and vowed to establish Greater Israel just a few months ago, will be the first victim of this change and so will his entity, and he is currently searching for an “honorable” withdrawal without appearing defeated, but his fate is inevitably prison, if he survives… And time will tell.

Abdel Bari Atwan is the Chief Editor of the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm Arabic website. He is a prolific writer and commentator on the Middle East political scene and has several books to his name including The Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (2015).

Opinion

The Lebanese-Israeli Accord is War on The Resistance

CrossFireArabia
June 28, 2026

Dr. Nassib Hateit

The announcement of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement, sponsored by the United States, constitutes a dangerous turning point in the war against the Lebanese resistance and its people. It is intended to compensate for the occupation army’s field failures in achieving its objectives of disarming and eliminating the resistance, after suffering significant moral and military losses and realizing its inability to achieve these illegitimate goals on its own.

The enemy’s impotence has driven it to resort to using the Lebanese government, whose legitimacy and constitutionality are still guaranteed by the resistance forces (in the dual alliance). This provides the government with a constitutional—albeit immoral—cover for cooperating with the enemy and legitimizing a comprehensive war against the resistance. It also involves assembling a US-led military coalition that includes Arab and international (multinational) parties, mirroring the “Desert Storm” coalition led by the United States against Iraq.

The aim is to support a beleaguered Israel and eliminate the resistance in all its cultural, economic, social, and health-related aspects, not just its military ones. This agreement confirms the beginning of a new phase of confrontation following the end of the “Hundred Days’ War,” in which Israel failed to achieve its objectives, despite the resistance suffering approximately 20,000 martyrs and wounded, the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, and the destruction and occupation of more than 50 villages and towns.

This shifts the war from a confrontation between Israel and the Lebanese resistance to a war between the resistance and an international coalition led by Washington, with the participation of Israel and the Lebanese government and opens the door for the involvement of Arab and foreign armies, most notably the new Syrian regime army, which US President Trump announced he would task with eliminating the resistance.

This will be facilitated by the Lebanese government’s initiative to formally request the support of Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government for the Lebanese army and will force the resistance to fight on three fronts:

Against the Israeli enemy in the south

Against the US military, multinational forces, and the Lebanese army within Lebanon

Against the Syrian army and takfiri groups in the Bekaa Valley. The US has effectively nullified the first clause of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran through the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Washington, placing the memorandum in a precarious position that threatens its collapse. According to its terms, violating the first clause invalidates the remaining clauses. This precariousness is further evidenced by the timing of the agreement’s announcement, coinciding with the US airstrikes in the Strait of Hormuz. It reinforces concerns that the 60-day period the US needs to reassess its position might be shortened or canceled, or that it could be exploited to forcibly separate the Lebanese and Iranian tracks through the Lebanese government. The aim would be to break the military and political alliance between the resistance and Tehran, and to further fragment the axis, isolating its members and preventing them from uniting their forces to compensate for the imbalance of power.

This agreement grants the Israeli enemy a clean bill of health by the Lebanese government, implicitly acknowledging that the invasion was a response to threats from the resistance. It also includes a pledge not to file any complaints or seek compensation before international institutions and courts—a clever preemptive move by the enemy to shield its military and political officials from accountability and represents a complete surrender by the Lebanese government, which has become something akin to the “12th Division” of the occupation army.

The initial response to this surrender document should be as follows:

Restraining this government and ceasing the sin of granting it legitimacy and constitutionality. It must abandon its hesitation, ambiguity, and incompetence in ministerial representation, the latest glaring example of which is passing the agreement’s presentation to the cabinet without objection from the resistance ministers, who merely issued a statement that condemns them more than it exonerates them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran should take the initiative to freeze the implementation of the MoU with the United States, given that Washington is responsible for this agreement, which contradicts the memorandum’s first clause. The Resistance Axis (Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen) has declared its complete readiness to engage in the new round of war, united and collectively, without delay, and to move from a state of “finger on trigger” to one of “fire.” Otherwise, the Axis’s fronts will fall one by one, as Israel and America plan.

The coming phase is the most dangerous since the outbreak of war in 2023 due to the expansion of the fronts and the multiplicity of parties participating against the Resistance. It comes after a war of attrition and exhaustion that has plagued the Resistance and its support base for three years, necessitating the formulation of a new defensive strategy. The Lebanese government must be considered an “unfriendly” entity, having made the Resistance a common enemy for itself and Israel. Participation in a government that collaborates with the enemy against the Resistance is unjustifiable, as experience has proven its futility.

We are not weak… the proof is the global mobilization against us, which cannot be countered with motorcycles and statements!

Manage the power you possess wisely! Take advantage of the enemy’s motto against you (kill first) and kill the government “politically” and bring it down to prevent it from carrying out its plans!

Dr Hateit is a Lebanese writer. An architect by training from Nabatieh in south of Lebanon he teaches at the Institute of Fine Arts in the Lebanese University and is a political columnist contributing to different Lebanese newspapers. This article is published in the Arabic Al Rai Al Youm website and reprinted in crossfirearabia.com.