Hassan Kabalan

PhD War Studies @Kingscollegelon. Forthcoming: Amal, Hezbollah, and Political Shi’ism in Lebanon: Militia Politics and State Transformation

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

https://t.co/qW1JGHmB7b The world has spent
decades worrying about what Iran might do if it acquired a nuclear
weapon. It should now worry about something even more
consequential: an Iran that has defeated the United States, no
longer fears American attack, and controls access to the Persian
Gulf. Nuclear weapons alone could never have given Iran this kind
of power. The failed U.S. and Israeli war with Iran has.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

كان علي لاريجاني ينادي بـ”الأخوّة الإسلامية”لاستمالة العرب. أمّا خليفته، فأعلن بالأمس أنه إذا استمر الحصار فلن يخرج النفط من الخليج، وأن على إيران الاستعداد لامتلاك القنبلة النووية. يبدو أن ترامب كان على حق: لقد حصل بالفعل 'تغيير في النظام' الإيراني.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

أمين المجلس الأعلى للأمن القومي الإيراني محسن رضائي يتحدث عن امتلاك القنبلة النووية ويهدد بـ"حرب مقبلة مختلفة"

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

سيكون ذلك السيناريو الأكثر “ترامبيةً” على الإطلاق: أن يصدر القائد الإيراني الجديد فتوى تُجيز امتلاك السلاح النووي تحت عنوان حماية الجمهورية الاسلامية.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

هيبتها؟

[Pierre BouAssi @PierreBouAssi]

الحكم هيبة. بقاء المواطن الإيراني محمّد شيباني في #لبنان يعرّض الدولة وهيبتها للخطر.
#بيار_بو_عاصي
#القوات_اللبنانية #الجمهورية_القوية

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

The most Trumpian “let them eat cake” moment ever

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: For you to pay a TINY little bit more for your gasoline, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a nuclear weapon. Remember that when you’re paying $4. I’ll never apologize.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

صحيح، الحصار الاقتصادي فعّال في إيذاء إيران، بس حاليا غير فعّال في إجبارها على تقديم التنازلات السياسية التي يريدها ترامب. المشكلة الأساسية أن إحداث الضرر الاقتصادي ما بيعني بالضرورة القدرة على تحويله إلى مكاسب سياسية، خصوصاً أن أزمة هرمز تفرض بدورها كلفة اقتصادية ضخمة على الولايات المتحدة والعالم

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

دعنا من هراء ترامب حول ضمّ هرمز، وكأن واشنطن لا تزال في موقع يمكّنها من فرض شروطها. الأجدى التوقف عند ما يقوله جون ميرشايمر، الذي حذّر من هذا السيناريو قبل بداية النزاع: "الولايات المتحدة لم تعد تملك خيارات استراتيجية قابلة للتنفيذ في مواجهة إيران، لأنها، بحسب تقديره، خسرت الحرب. وما نشهده الآن ليس سوى محاولة للتعامل مع تداعيات هزيمة استراتيجية قاسية."

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

How peaceful of you. Prick

[Ambassador Mike Huckabee @GovMikeHuckabee]

"Settlers" are not the problem in Judea/Samaria. "Unsettlers" are. Very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel. Real settlers like Ysrael Ganz, Governor of Judea/Samaria condemn the actions of the few. Let's hope the media gives attention to this & balances their stories.

‘This is not our way’: Settler leaders denounce Kusra violence | The Jerusalem Post https://t.co/9RTVBLt62Q

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

نواف سلام: على إسرائيل وضع جدول زمني واضح للانسحاب من لبنان.
حلو، وإذا ما وضعت جدول واضح شو العمل؟

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

It is easy to get carried away by worrying what people think. After all, today’s newspapers are tomorrow’s fish-and-chip wrappers—that is to say, all gets forgotten in due course— Peter Frankopan

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

Who would have thought so?

[The Hormuz Report @HormuzReport]

BREAKING: A source close to Iranian officials says Tehran has documented a pattern of oil market manipulation tied to Axios reports and Trump administration insiders, including evidence of a $9 billion insider trading operation linked to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

Some of the documented timeline from the $9 billion insider profit:

Between April and May 2026, a series of suspiciously timed trades in oil futures markets preceded major Iran war announcements—each tied to reporting by Axios.

On March 23, approximately $500–580 million in shorts were placed 15 minutes before Trump announced he was postponing strikes on Iran. Oil dropped.

On April 7, roughly $950–960 million in shorts were placed hours before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Oil fell around 15 percent.

On April 17, around $760 million in shorts were placed 20 minutes before Iran's foreign minister announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil dropped.

On April 21, approximately $430 million in shorts were placed 15 minutes before Trump extended the ceasefire. Oil dropped again.

On May 6, nearly $920 million to $1.7 billion in crude oil shorts were placed approximately 70 minutes before an Axios scoop claimed the U.S. and Iran were near a "14-point agreement." Oil dropped 12 percent. Traders made an estimated $125 million. Iran called the report "the Americans' wish list."

Previously, a senior Iranian official told investigative outlet Drop Site News that Tehran privately warned JD Vance during Switzerland talks that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were "abusing" negotiations—"more interested in exploiting insider knowledge to profit in financial markets than reaching a deal."

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

ترامب اعطى ايران الفرصة الأخيرة (للمرة العاشرة من شهرين).

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

What a headline

[Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy]

Trump needs to learn the diplomatic art of losing well. https://t.co/CwS7mxXgSY

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

A few years ago, I read The Colonial Present by Derek Gregory. One point has stayed with me ever since: wars are fought not only with bombs, but also through the way people are portrayed. Whether in Iraq, Gaza, Iran, or Lebanon, dehumanizing an entire population is often part of the process that makes violence against it easier to justify.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

For years, Israel was using 2,000lb American bombs to kill Gazan refugees in tents. Both the Biden and Trump administrations permitted it.

A precedent was set.

Now it appears the US is doing the same in Iran.

A 2000lb bomb was dropped on a family house in Qeshm, killing a taxi driver (the father), the mother, and a 2-year-old, according to @nytimes.

Yes, a taxi driver. And a toddler. And his mother.

"The Times found no indication of a military site near the family’s home or any reports of military casualties from the strike."

https://t.co/DrD08nibGq

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

@MarioNawfal What’s so shocking about this?

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

The greatest delusion of all is believing the real world follows a Hollywood script. Many still haven’t grasped that.

[John Spencer @SpencerGuard]

Finish the job!!

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

The forever war, in full swing

[Esfandyar Batmanghelidj @yarbatman]

Iran's latest ballistic missile attacks and the continued rejection of compromise solutions on the Strait of Hormuz might seem like indications that "hardline" thinking is dominating Iran's national security strategy.

But my conversations with counterparts in Tehran suggest that something else is at play. Iranian decisionmaking is increasingly shaped by an intense pessimism about what diplomacy with the U.S. can achieve. Most senior figures, whether pragmatists or hardliners, simply do not believe a deal is possible. This pessimism has gotten worse since the MOU was signed.

Part of this is about the repeated experience of U.S. escalation during the course of negotiations, but the pessimism is no longer confined to the question of "does Trump want a deal?" Increasingly the belief is that "Trump can't do a deal, even if he thinks he wants one."

Policymakers in Tehran are looking at several things. At a technical level, the Trump administration was unable to execute even the most basic confidence building measures of the MOU. No assets were released and the oil waiver was never really operationalized. Iranian leaders are also looking to other contexts. Even in Venezuela, where the administration has complete political control and a full court press approach to economic reengagement, sanctions relief has floundered (eg. it took a whole month after the massive earthquake for FinCen to take proactive steps to try and provide banks comfort to support humanitarian transactions).

At a political level, the Iranians have seen the overblown reaction to the MOU from the full range of politicians in Washington. Democrats eager to score political points attacked provisions in the MOU that would be fundamental to *any* viable agreement with Iran. The Iranians are also watching the growing rift between the Rubio and Vance camps and are concluding that the administration is inherently dysfunctional. During the Biden years, the issue was whether the president could defend his deal from political rivals in Congress. Now, the rivals are within the cabinet itself.

At an individual level, there is also a growing sense that Trump is too erratic to stick by his own deals. Even Saudi Arabia, the country with perhaps the greatest influence in the White House after Israel, could not shield its own nuclear deal from Trump's excessive demands.

This may be an unprecedented situation. The U.S. has started a war it does not know how to end. Meanwhile, the arguments for diplomacy in Tehran have been reduced to "this has a low chance of succeeding, but we have to still try." That's not a strong, positive case for diplomatic engagement and understandably the strategic thinking is tending towards the idea that U.S. dysfunction will continue to manifest in the form of economic pressure and kinetic action against Iran for a long time to come.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

البلد كلو 😁

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Does someone have the list of Lebanese "journalists" on the payroll of Antoun Sehnaoui?

Thank you.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

Good riddance

[Dave DeCamp @DecampDave]

Lindsey Graham celebrating the start of the Iran war. Dark stuff.

[Hassan Kabalan @Hkabalan86]

Official status: It’s complicated.

[Gregory Brew @gbrew24]

Not peace, not war, but a mysterious third thing.