Opinion Archives - Page 18 of 41

Trump’s War in The Red Sea

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 28, 2025

Dr Khairi Janbek

The US foreign policy in the Red Sea today is characterized by a robust military response to Houthi threats, aiming to protect critical maritime trade routes and assert influence in a geopolitical strategic area. While these military operations garnered international support, the ongoing conflict underscores the complexities and challenges of Middle East interventions.

The US military’s increased involvement in the Red Sea, including the deployment of two aircraft carriers, signals a commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation and countering the Iranians in the region. However, the present ongoing escalation also risks entangling the US in a prolonged conflict.

This is reminiscent of past Middle East engagements which the Americans should be well-aware of, and may put additional strain on the US military resources amid other pressing global priorities if faces.

That said, the present military strikes on Yemen are not just about the Houthis. They are also widely seen as demonstration of US strength towards the group’s main backer: Iran.

The Washington administration is currently locked in a series of negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and Trump has not ruled out military action if those talks fail, yet, it is possible still, that the US, and judging by recent history, the Americans may change their mind and everything is put on hold yet again.

But we need to wait and see! The US has already moved its patriot and THAAD missiles from Asia to the Middle East, and only in the first month of the preparedness campaign, $200 million of ammunition has been used and this is making military officials greatly concerned about the impact on stocks the US Navy might use in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

At the same time, there are various Yemeni groups opposed to the Houthis with regional backing, and dare one say with some international backing, reportedly considering taking advantage of the situation to launch a ground campaign to oust the Houthis once and for all, but Washington is yet to make a decision on whether to back such operations or not.

Most analysts and officials say that, American troops participating in any ground operations in Yemen is highly unlikely, moreover, even more limited support for ground operations would still be another case of the US backing armed groups in a messy middle Eastern war; exactly the sort of situation Trump blasted previous administrations for falling into.

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

Opinion

‘Zionism a Mistake’ – Israeli Historian Tom Segev

CrossFireArabia
April 27, 2025

Tom Segev, one of Israel’s most renowned historians, has broken a decades-long silence. On his 80th birthday, he declared that Zionism—Israel’s founding ideology—was a mistake.

In a deeply personal interview with Haaretz, Segev said, “Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel.” He added that Zionism created myths instead of solutions.

Born in Jerusalem in 1945 to Jewish German parents who fled the Nazis, Segev has spent more than 50 years researching Israel’s history. His books include 1967, The Seventh Million, and Soldiers of Evil, all known for challenging Israeli narratives.

In the interview, Segev shared a painful truth about his father’s death. He grew up believing his father was killed by an Arab sniper during the 1948 war. “I was able to say that he was killed during the War of Independence and that I was a war orphan.”

But later, Segev’s sister revealed a different story. Their father had actually died in a freak accident—falling from a drainpipe while trying to deliver coffee to guards. He stated that he was brought up on a lie.

This moment of reckoning made him question everything—including the stories Israel tells about itself.

Segev now says the Zionist project was never meant for people like his parents. “My parents started to plan their return to Germany”, he revealed. “They were never Zionists and they wanted to go home. A month after the last letter my father wrote to a friend about how much he wanted to go back – he was killed.”

Despite growing up in Israel, Segev never fully embraced Zionist ideals. He stressed that much of what Israelis were told was myth.

In his academic work, Segev often turns to documents rather than oral testimonies. He famously challenged former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in a 1968 interview, questioning the idea that Ben-Gurion became Zionist at age three.

Segev believes the Holocaust has been politically weaponized. In The Seventh Million, he argued that instead of teaching democracy and human rights, Israel used the Holocaust to fuel fear and justify wars.

He also criticized internal discrimination within Israeli society. In his book 1949: The First Israelis, Segev exposed how Jewish colonial settlers from Arab countries were pushed into camps, while Europeans were given hotels.

Segev insists he isn’t ideological. “People have also said I am anti-Zionist, but I am not an ideologue and not a philosopher, and I don’t think in terms of ideologies,” he says. “It was said that I want to shatter myths. But that’s not true, either. I was not part of the ‘New Historians’ but rather of the ‘First Historians.’ With respect to the state’s establishment there was no history here – just mythology and a great deal of indoctrination. In the 1980s we opened documents in the archives and said, ‘Wow, this isn’t what we were taught in school.’”

“We need to remember that the majority of the Holocaust survivors did not come to live in Israel and that the majority of Jews in the world are not coming to Israel”, he stressed. “They can, but they don’t want to live in this country. So Zionism is not such a great success story. It also doesn’t provide security to Jews. It’s safer for Jews to live outside Israel,” as reported in the Quds News Network.

Opinion

Sheep in a Wolf Clothing

CrossFireArabia
April 22, 2025

When Donald Trump become US president and just before, many in the world and the Middle East thought he would have the imagination to end the Israeli war on Gaza.

But everyone, including this writer, were sadly mistaken. He appears to be fueling the conflict on the little enclave and satisfying the inclination of Israeli Prime’s Benjamin Netanyahu’s appetite for repeated genocide on the territory.

It has become quickly, and blatantly obvious that Trump was not in interested in wrapping up this catastrophic war and ending it but to follow the machinations of the previous Joe Biden administration of adding fuel to the fire, giving Israel more open-cheque, deadly arms under the pretext of finishing the presence of Hamas in Gaza.

The fact that the Israelis with the help of the Americans were only killing more helpless civilians most of whom are babies, toddlers, children and women was neither here nor there. Their bombs fall on what used to be residential areas and certainly not on Hamas fighters and other operatives.

While Trump must be credited for achieving a ceasefire on Gaza in 19 January, 2025, just days before he officially entered the White House, he did nothing to stop Netanyahu when he re-started the war on the strip exactly two months later on 19 March and continues to do so today with no end in sight.

Despite the diplomatic trips of his personal envoy in the name of Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu is thought to be telling Trump that the war on Gaza will continue till Israel roots out Hamas from the enclave regardless of the mostly-Israeli hostages, now standing at 59 and half of whom are in body bags, thanks to the constant Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.

Despite his “peace” boasts, Trump has long appeared to be giving Netanyahu the green light to continue the war on the strip as he already stated he wants to displace the Gaza Palestinians to safer places such as Jordan and Egypt while the United States goes into the Strip and clns up the Israeli-purpetrated ruins and develops into a so-called Middle East Riviera under the pretext that Gaza has become an unlivable area.

It would have been nice of the new peace-tainted US president to say that Gaza was unlivable because of the mass Israeli bombing but Trump is well-aware of that since America has been the superpower behind this genocide since 7 October, 2023.

While he may have since backtracked on the transfer issue because of the mass opposition to it not least of all from Arab countries and the Palestinians themselves Trump’s displacement idea has since become a catchphrase for Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians in his extremist government as a feasible idea to be carried out on a “voluntary” basis and which they are now preparing the ground framework for.

Today Gaza is in a ruinous state. After the 19 January ceasefire, UN food and aid trucks started to enter the beseiged enclave, however all that has stopped when Israel re-started its war on the lone-standing territory. Israel has reinstated the sieged, sealing the Strip with no aid lorries being allowed with the trucks once again standing on the dfifferent entry points of Gaza including Rafah.

For Gaza it is back to the bad old days of starvation, Israeli bombardment, targetting at civilian tents in places like Mawasi and bombing hospitals, a bloody status quo that continued from just after 7 October, 2023 till 19 January 2025 and is resumed today.

Only Trump can stop the present carnage. Only he can put an end to the bloody actions that are being dictated by Natanyahu who is hell-bent on continuing to destroy and kill the people of Gaza who presently stand at 2.1 million.

It is ‘sealed’ starvation for Gaza. It has been now over 50 days when nothing has been allowed to enter the strip but the road is long and the people are bracing themselves for more deaths, not to mention the deadly strikes carried by Israeli planes and drones carried out on a daily basis.

Opinion

Rehabilitating Iran?

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 14, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

All eyes now are on the new game in the Middle East: The US-Iran negotiations. One would say the aim here is far more advanced than the Iranian nuclear programme when the agreement was torn up by US President Donald Trump himself who was more concerned with details which would eliminate all threats against Israel, and would that in all liklihood, transform the whole region.

It seems that in this early intense stage, the ambiance is for reaching an amicable agreement through the recognition that no matter of the outcome, there will be nothing divisive. Trump will continue creating crisis just for the sake of showing that he can control those crises, and act in the manner of the old Arabic adage, for neither the wolf to die nor the sheep to parish. While for the Iranians, they have everything to gain from a positive outcome to those negotiations.

Of course, the Iranian nuclear programme is an important component of these negotiations, and most often than not, at times Iran and at times its enemies, exaggerate the potential of the country to making nuclear weapons for political purposes.

Yet the fact remains that despite the possibility of Iran being still far from creating weapon-grade enrichment programme, if carried on unchecked, it is inevitable that at one point in the future it will have nuclear weapons. Consequently the fact remains, the onus is on Iran to prove credibly that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, and accept periodically, the checks of the international nuclear inspectors.

The other dimension is the relationship of Iran with its proxies in the region, which falls under the category of threats to Israel. Well, and under the circumstances, Iran has to decide the reasons for its continued alliances with its proxies – whether such alliances served their purpose, or have become a burden than an asset – or if it can maintain these alliances with definte no threat commitment Israel but with political clout in Arab world affairs, which incidentally may not seem such a bad idea for Trump.

After all eliminating the threat against Israel is the primary concern, while at the same time his rich Arab allies buy their protection from him, a protection which Iran cannot dare to test.

But what is in it for Iran to reach an accord with the United States? One would say plenty. For a start it’s reintegration back into the region. After all it kept claiming it’s nuclear programme, is in reality, a peaceful programme and Tehran never had the intention of enriching weapons grade uranium.

Well, and with an accord it can now easily prove, and then can start dealing with the issue of not being a threat to Israel by either dissociating itself from these proxies which have become costly to its image and/or work in their transformation to political, unarmed forces and parts of the political structures wherever they exist in the Arab region.

Essentially if the sanctions against Iran are lifted and its assets are no longer frozen, Iran will be able to assume a very strong position in the Middle East region based on its economic strength and its enormous trade potential. In fact, Trump knows that any military action he takes against the Iranian nuclear installations, and any possible response will not have a decisive result. Therefore, the most likely decisive result will be, a new Iran, big in the region as well as moreover, that will owe him a favour.

In the meantime , we are still at the very early stage to even try to guess, but we can safely assume, that no matter how those negotiations proceed, nothing tangible is likely to happen before the visit of President Trump to the Gulf region in May.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian analyst based in Paris, France

Opinion

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!