Iran is Writing The Final Chapter!

CrossFireArabia
Opinion
May 20, 2026

By Ziyad Farhan Al-Majali

In major wars, results are not always measured by the ‘noise volume’, number of airstrikes, or the extent of the military maps displayed on TV screens. Sometimes the noise is louder than the decisive action, and the roar is stronger than the ability to end the battle.

From this perspective, the Israeli-American war on Iran can be read as a tumultuous moment in the history of regional conflict. Here however, it was not the final moment which Israel desired and was looking for.

Tel Aviv wanted to present the war as its declaration of its superiority, one that would be final. It wanted to say that its reach could penetrate deep inside Iran, that the old balance of deterrence was broken, and that the aftermath of the strike would not be the same as it was before.

Therefore, Israel’s “lion roar” was to be loud from the very beginning: Threatening rhetoric, painful strikes, psychological warfare — a clear attempt to portray Iran as a state exposed to Israeli and American power.

But the roar by itself, however loud it boomed, was not enough to bring about a political end. True, Iran suffered heavy blows, with sensitive facilities, infrastructure and sites sustained significant damage, finding itself facing a broad economic, military, and psychological siege and pressure.

Yet, despite all this, the war did not topple the Iranian government, nor did it remove the state from the regional equation, nor did it end its nuclear program as a negotiating issue, nor did it break its deterrent and maneuvering capabilities.

Herein lies the central paradox of this war. Israel raised the stakes to their highest points, but it did not achieve a decisive victory. Israel sought to eliminate the so-called Iranian threat with a single strike or a series of blows, only to discover that Iran is not a military site that can be wiped off the map, nor a single facility whose destruction would end the conflict.

Rather, it is a deep-rooted, expansive state with multiple levers of pressure: From the Strait of Hormuz to Lebanon, from missiles to air corridors, from allies to the capacity for long-term patience. Iran is a tough nut!

Perhaps the most dangerous revelation of the war is that it did not produce a definitive answer, but rather raised even greater questions. Can military force alone reshape Iran? Can bombing impose a stable political settlement? Will weakening Tehran lead to its expulsion from the region, or will it push it to rebuild its influence more cautiously and covertly? Was the war the beginning of the end, or the start of a new phase of a postponed conflict?

Iran emerged from the war wounded, but it didn’t exit the negotiating table. It appeared battered, but it did not collapse. Maybe besieged but it is still holding cards. Whilst today Iran might be in a predicament, but it has not lost its ability to negotiate, to threaten, and wait for the next move.

This is precisely is what is making the outcome far more complex than what Israel has tried to portray: The war may have succeeded in inflicting pain on Iran, but it did not eliminating the Iranian state and its apparatus.

While Israel may have achieved a significant show of force, it did not achieve an outright and decisive victory. The decisive outcome it sought remained incomplete, and the deterrence it aimed to restore remained contingent on what would follow after the war: Would Iran back down? Would it retaliate? Would it accept American terms? Would it open the Strait of Hormuz according to Washington’s wishes? And would the Lebanese front be detached from Tehran’s calculations, or would it remain part of the long-term equation of retaliation?

Therefore, the war does not appear to be the end of the conflict with Iran, but rather a new chapter in a broader, protracted struggle. In this chapter, Israel raised its voice to the maximum, but it could not write the final chapter. States do not fall through mere bluster, regional projects do not end with a single blow, and conflicts that have accumulated over decades are not resolved in days, no matter how intense the fighting is.

In short, Israel’s “roar” was loud, perhaps painful, and perhaps unprecedented in some aspects, but it was not enough to topple Iran or remove it from the scene. The din of war has risen, the region has been shaken, and calculations have shifted, but Iran remains on the precipice, not outside history.

Therefore, the most accurate description of this phase is not a complete Israeli victory, nor an Iranian resistance without cost, but rather a war whose end is not yet in sight: A war in which Israel roared loudly, but was not able to bring down Iran.

This article was reproduced from the Jo24 Arabic website in Jordan and appears in the www.crossfirearabia.com.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Opinion

‘I Hate Israel’

marwan
June 8, 2026

By Ismail Al Sharif

On 4 June, the Pew Research Center released a survey titled: “Most People in 36 Countries Have a Negative View of Israel and No Trust in Netanyahu.”

The study, which polled 44,657 people worldwide, revealed that negative views of Israel have become prevalent in most of the surveyed countries. On average, 67% of respondents hold a negative view of Israel, compared to only 25% who expressed a positive one.

Notably, the study found only a handful of countries—no more than a handful—where Israel enjoyed a positive view among the majority of their people.

Perhaps most importantly, this decline is no longer limited to Muslim-majority countries or societies historically known for their negative stance toward Israel. It now extends to Western countries whose people were traditionally considered supporters of Israel.

In Europe, North America, and Australia, negative views are growing, particularly among young people and those on the political left. The study indicates that young people in several countries hold more negative views of Israel than the older generations there, making the crisis far from a passing phenomenon and giving it a generational character that could have long-lasting effects.

The study also shows the division over Israel has become clearly ideological. In the United States, for example, liberals hold far more negative views than conservatives, and young Americans are more critical of Israel than the older generations. This pattern is repeated in other Western countries, where the left tends to hold even more anti-Israel positions than the right.

President Donald Trump was right when he told the war criminal [Benjamin] Netanyahu in a phone call that the world hates him; the world’s hatred for him even surpasses its hatred for Israel. The study found that a majority in most countries do not trust him. In the United States, 59% of respondents do not trust him, compared to only 27% who do. Even among American Jews, although the positive view of Israel remains relatively high, trust in Netanyahu appears to be significantly low.

The study also indicates that some countries register very high levels of negativity toward Israel, such as in Turkey, where the negative view reached 97%. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 85% expressed a negative opinion, compared to only 4% who expressed a positive one. It should be noted that the study did not include Gaza.

The few remaining points of support are mainly confined to some African countries, such as Kenya and Ghana, due to Zionist influence in them, but they do not amount to a clear majority in support of Israel. As for Netanyahu, he enjoys the trust of a majority of the population in only two countries: Kenya and the Philippines, where he is seen as a strong leader.

Unfortunately, this study did not include the opinion of Jordanians regarding Israel or the war criminal Netanyahu, an opinion that, in reality, does not require extensive polling. The Jordanian position on Israel and Netanyahu is well-known and consistent, and is confirmed by other studies.

A recent Arab Barometer survey revealed that Jordanians’ view of Western policies has sharply declined due to the Gaza war, with 81% believing that the United States defends Zionist interests. A 2023 Washington Institute poll found that 84% of Jordanians oppose establishing trade relations with Israel, even if they bring economic benefits to Jordan, and 76% refuse to accept humanitarian aid from Israel, even in times of disaster.

A 2025 survey of Jordanian university students showed that 92.6% consider Israel as the “main enemy” of Jordan and the Arab world.

Besides Jordan, the study omitted the countries surrounding Israel: Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. This omission is perhaps questionable, as the populations of these countries hold a deeply negative view of Israel and its prime minister. Their figures would have provided conclusive evidence that Israel remains a foreign entity in the region, despite peace agreements and economic interests that have failed to alter public opinion.

These figures would have raised broader questions among the world’s populations about the very notion of Israel’s acceptance within its surrounding region. If this entity is indeed surrounded by such rejection and hatred, then the logic of history and geography dictates that the region will ultimately reject it.

This article was first published in the Arabic Addustour daily newspaper and reprinted in crossfirearabia.com

Opinion

Memorizing The 1967 War Defeat!

Dr Khairi Janbek
June 5, 2026

By Dr Khairi Janbek

What can one say about the defeat of 1967 war, more than what the experts, the memoirs, and the active participants in it have said and written already, save from the eyes and ears of a child; for after all one was a child at the time and one must admit that growing up with defeat did have profound effect on one’s developing personality.

As it happened, in fact we were on a family holiday driving to Turkey when we heard the first actions in the war. By the time we crossed Damascus towards the north, the car radio was blasting with the advances made by the Arab armies on the path towards liberating Palestine.

However, by the time we reached an area close to the Syrian-Turkish border somewhere near Jabla in Syria, we discovered the the border was closed on the Syrian side and people including my late father were stuck around the big radio in the small roadside hotel talking about the destruction of the Israeli military forces, and the remarks that in a couple of days, Israel will cease to exist,

But low and behold, after a few days and by the time the border was opened, Egypt had lost Sinai, Syria, the Golan Heights, and Jordan the West Bank and Jerusalem; the jewel in the crown.

The car was tense, and for the first time I was disappointed, not because of the news of defeat rather, rather because I was no longer the centre of attraction for the family. As we entered Iskenderun in Turkey, a couple of young men crossing the streets, seeing our car number plate in Arabic, spat on the ground and said in Turkish; Pis Arap, meaning dirty Arab.

I didn’t undrestand Turkish at the time, until my father smiled bitterly and said, so we have just become dirty Arabs. In the small hotel in Iskenderun owned by a generous Armenian family, they brought us their transistor which could catch Syrian broadcasts and heard my father saying Nasser has resigned, and I was wondering how could he do that. For me, Nasser’s image was a cross between a king and an idol football player.

By the time we reached Ankara, it was all over. We were nothing in the eyes of the Turks at the time, but lying impotent Arabs. As the years passed, maturity set in as a strong slap in the face, with my childhood’s main scar left inside me, engulfing me with doubt, and disbelief, not only regarding what I now hear but also in what I see: with Arab politics to me, becoming just a mixture of cynicism, blatant lies, and regimes self-preservation.

The disaster from top to bottom was, unqualified military officers in Egypt, only accustomed to internal security and privileges were punching above their weight and carrying ranks which were above their undrestanding of warfare. Their ignorance was stark obvious when they knew about the attack and opted for absorbing the first blow before counter-attacking, not knowing they’ll have nothing left to counter with.

Jordan was squeezed between the hammer and the anvil diplomatically, though there were voices among the statesmen at the time urging not to participate in the impending whilst recognizing the perils, yet the decision to participate in the war and opening the Jordanian couldn’t be avoided because first of all the belief in Nasser’s victory held sway among the people, and secondly, to imagine an Arab defeat would not spare Jordan who will be blamed for this defeat due to the lack of giving support in the war.

In the case of Syria, how could an army in which the first officer who wakes up before the others and carries out a coup d’état, fight a war; and how could an army in which a general has to walk behind the coup d’état lower ranks whom are only concerned about preserving their own hold on power, conduct warfare? In fact the fall of the Golan Heights was declared by the Syria representative in the UN, 36 hours before it actually fell. And why was this? All in aid for withdrawing the army to protect Damascus.

Has anything changed? Everything has changed so that nothing changes!

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France

Or check our Popular Categories...

Or check our Popular Categories...

Iran is Writing The Final Chapter!

CrossFireArabia

Related Posts

‘I Hate Israel’

Memorizing The 1967 War Defeat!

You Missed

A Red Flower And a Little Love

Diving in a War Zone

Netanyahu, Iran and The ‘Destructive’ Israeli Personality

Iran Anounces End of Israel Attacks, Warns of More If…

31 Missiles Fired on Israel From Iran, Yemen

‘I Hate Israel’