Janne Bjerre Christensen

Anthropologist, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, Dialog mod Vold, Iran-aficionado, RT not endorsement

[UN Human Rights Council Investigative Bodies @uninvhrc]

Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 children & injured 44,000 more since 7 Oct. 2023, Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the @UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory & Israel, told reporters today. #HRC62

More on their new report ➡️ https://t.co/gK2KhtlgFb

[Sarah Leah Whitson @sarahleah1]

Very important to note that the UN Commission of Inquiry's conclusion is not only that Israel is indiscriminately killing children in Gaza, but *deliberately* targeting them.

In all my years covering conflicts in the Middle East, I've never before seen armed forces *deliberately* targeting children. But the receipts are there for all to see...

https://t.co/JZ9sOhQU6q

[Alireza Talakoubnejad @websterkaroon]

The pessimism here is warranted, but this is also a very American view.

From the Iranian perspective, the pre-Feb 28 status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable.

The country was already an economic catastrophe suffering from hyper inflation and a lack of liquidity before the war. Now it has to deal with incredible damage that will cost billions of dollars to fix.

The prospect of actual, lasting sanctions relief is quite appealing. Frankly most doubt the US is ever willing to give that.

But if, as a result of unsuccessfully trying the all out military option that has been flirted with since at least 9/11, Trump has finally reached the conclusion he doesn't have a better choice than to give that, then that changes things.

A large stockpile of 60% enriched uranium doesn't do anything in and of itself. You either build a bomb or use it as leverage for a deal to save the economy. If the first can't be accomplished (whether from a domestic leadership decision or because the US military preventing it) then you go with the second.

Iran is a country of 90 million people that are used to a moderate standard of living. It's not just some paramilitary group.

And the people in power know they can't indefinitely rule over those 90 million if they can't offer some sort of economic relief & improvement in life.

That's a powerful incentive to find a way to make to work. There's still a lot of room for miscalculations of leverage on both sides and outside spoilers, but I wouldn't entirely rule out the chances that the lack of better options makes them figure something out.

[Sina Toossi @SinaToossi]

Israeli Telegram channel with 180K+ members is in mourning and fury:

"God will curse Trump."

"The first war in Israel's history that we lost."

"We have to admit the facts: Iranians taught America a lesson."

"Hopefully in 10 years we won't be dependent on American idiots."

[Dan Shapiro @DanielBShapiro]

Until the text of the US-Iran deal is signed and released, there is going to be a lot of spin on both sides. But here is my initial take.

This war was a mistake, and it needs to end. The President thought that the Iranian regime would collapse quickly, but it did not. In fact, it has been strengthened strategically by its survival against a heavy US-Israeli assault and carrying out some effective counterstrikes. Many countries in the region are now courting Iran and looking to deescalate and rebuild ties. A sign of which way the wind is blowing.

Getting the Strait of Hormuz open is the most important outcome of this MOU. Of course, the Strait was open before the war. Now we are paying to reopen it with sanctions relief. Iran has taken a theoretical point of leverage and turned it into a very real and powerful one, imposing costs across the global economy and rattling President Trump.

As for the nuclear issues, there really is no agreement, other than to negotiate over the HEU stockpile and an enrichment moratorium. Iran knows how to drag out those negotiations, and try to pocket concessions along the way. It is possible that no deal will every be reached, and very likely that if one is reached, it will be worse than what we could have achieved through diplomacy before the war.

Iran is not likely to take seriously that the US would return to war, certainly before the US midterms. So that means we will be conducting diplomacy without a credible threat of force.

If any agreement ultimately reached actually safely puts Iran's nuclear ambitions out of reach, I'll acknowledge it. It's just too early to make that judgment.

Trump is mainly focused on comparing his deal favorably to the JCPOA. But we are a long way from being able to make that comparison, and it may end up no better, or weaker than that deal.

But in some ways, Trump's deal and the JCPOA are already similar. Nothing on ballistic missiles, nothing on proxies, nothing on weakening the regime or helping the Iranian people. And plenty of sanctions relief that will strengthen the regime, and be poured into the missile program and proxy network. Honest critics of the JCPOA will not twist themselves into pretzels to defend Trump's approach.

Israelis are deeply disappointed in this outcome, but they should not be surprised. After some initial overlap of Trump's and Netanyahu's interests, there was a strong divergence. The United States needed this war to end. Netanyahu wanted to continue.

Trump's claim to include Lebanon in the ceasefire and his harsh shutting down Israeli attacks on Hezbollah is also a win for Iran. After the JCPOA was signed, Obama and Netanyahu worked together to strengthen Israel's campaign of strikes in Syria to intercept Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So let's hope we see the removal of Iran's enriched uranium and a long-term suspension of enrichment, with full verification. But to achieve those goals, Trump's team is going to need to engage in far more sophisticated diplomacy, backed by qualified experts, than they have to date. If it is a phase one splash with no follow-up on implementation of later phases, like in Gaza, we will be much worse off after, and because of, this war.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

I have fought the neocons and warmongers in Washington for more than 25 years. Throughout, they have tried to silence, discredit, slander, and cancel me. Only recently, however, have they tried to deport me.

At least, that appears to have been the aim of a hit piece in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which claimed that Marco Rubio’s State Department was “investigating” me for allegedly seeking to “undermine the U.S.”—presumably because of my opposition to war with Iran.

Yet just hours later, the State Department issued a statement to reporters clarifying that “the State Department has no plans to revoke the green card of Mr. Parsi at this time.” Nor did it provide any confirmation for the central premise of the Free Press story—that an investigation of me existed in the first place.

So here’s what I think happened.

Read the full piece on my Substack: https://t.co/bjh5aEoLnL

[Rania Khalek @RaniaKhalek]

Hi Nikki Haley,

If the Israelis are “targeting Hezbollah,” why do they keep murdering medics, over 133 since March 2?

Why have they displaced over 1 million people? Do you think a fifth of the population of Lebanon, including all the children that are included in that number, are Hezbollah?

Why did they kill a Christian family over the weekend? Were they Hezbollah?

Is desecrating Virgin Mary statues “targeting Hezbollah”? Because they’ve done that.

They’ve also bombed churches and mosques and blown up entire villages. Is that targeting Hezbollah”?

The Israelis have destroyed 50,000 homes. Is that “targeting Hezbollah”?

The Israelis say Lebanese Shias can never return to their homes south of the Litani. They are carpet bombing Tyre and Nabatieh and their leaders openly declare they want to settle Lebanese land with Israeli Jews.

I know you support all of these criminal acts, Just correcting the record that none of this constitutes “targeting Hezbollah.”

[Ali Vaez @AliVaez]

Told @guardian: Iran’s water crisis has left the country with virtually no margin for error. Further disruptions could prove catastrophic for the population. But Tehran is more likely to endure a deepening thirst at home than satisfy Trump’s thirst for a political victory.
https://t.co/ak8lhP3tJb

[Alex Shams @alexshams_]

Trump is investigating Trita Parsi, a prominent critic who has spent decades warning that war with Iran would be disastrous

For years, Israel has spread propaganda against Parsi, who is Zoroastrian, falsely labelling him an "Islamic regime agent" - lies further spread by the right-wing Zionist Iranian diaspora

Now we see what it was all for - they're doing everything they can to shut him up

Some still think Trump will "free" Iran when he can't even tolerate critics in his own country

[Iran Nuances @IranNuances]

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spox: We have not reached a final conclusion [on the text of the MoU] yet. The relevant authorities of the establishment must reach a conclusion on every single detail of the text. As soon as we reach final conclusion, we will announce it officially.

[Janne Bjerre Christensen @JanneBjerre]

Absolutely insane if true

[Daniel Davis Deep Dive @DanielLDavis1]

Trita Parsi @tparsi, Executive Vice President of Quincy Institute, is reportedly being investigated by the U.S. Administration and may be in danger of being deported. I can only hope that is a scare tactic, or just fake news, bc not only would such an attempt to silence a critic of America's foolish war in Iran be unconstitutional, it would be incredibly foolish.

Trita has been on our show many times, and has ALWAYS been a voice of reason, of intelligence, and perhaps most of all: pro-America. He is a genuine America-firster and all of his advice and critique has been centered on trying to convince the government to avoid policies that are harmful to us and to pursue policies from which we can benefit.

We need more men like Trita Parsi in the national dialogue.

[Daniel Davis Deep Dive @DanielLDavis1]

Trita Parsi @tparsi, Executive Vice President of Quincy Institute, is reportedly being investigated by the U.S. Administration and may be in danger of being deported. I can only hope that is a scare tactic, or just fake news, bc not only would such an attempt to silence a critic of America's foolish war in Iran be unconstitutional, it would be incredibly foolish.

Trita has been on our show many times, and has ALWAYS been a voice of reason, of intelligence, and perhaps most of all: pro-America. He is a genuine America-firster and all of his advice and critique has been centered on trying to convince the government to avoid policies that are harmful to us and to pursue policies from which we can benefit.

We need more men like Trita Parsi in the national dialogue.

[Hamidreza Azizi @HamidRezaAz]

#Iran strikes #Israel after the Beirut attack: What it signals

🔹Israel’s strike on the Dahiya in southern Beirut today, followed within hours by an Iranian ballistic missile barrage on Israel, marks the first direct Iranian fire on Israeli territory since the April 8 ceasefire. The significance lies primarily in what it reveals about the logic now governing the Iranian approach.

🔹The sequence began with rocket fire on the north that Hezbollah did not claim, followed by an Israeli strike on what it described as a Hezbollah command center, and then the Iranian response. Tehran’s decision to answer a strike on Lebanon with missiles launched from its own soil is the operative development here.

🔹That decision gives concrete form to Iranian FM Araghchi’s earlier formulation that the ceasefire applies on all fronts, and that its violation on one front is a violation on all. For weeks, this remained a rhetorical position, but today Tehran attached a cost to it.

🔹The choice of instrument matters as much as the decision to act. Iran responded directly, with its own missiles, rather than through Hezbollah of other members of the Axis of Resistance. This continues a pattern that has defined the war: as the regional network has thinned, the missile force has become Tehran’s primary tool for direct retaliation and coercive signaling (I have explained this process in my book in detail).

🔹At the same time, the strike appears calibrated. It was limited in scale, largely intercepted, and produced no reported casualties, with Iranian airspace closed early. The IRGC framed wider strikes on “all American and Israeli targets” as a contingency reserved for repetition, which suggests deterrence and leverage rather than a drive toward full-scale war.

🔹Israel is signaling in the opposite direction. The IDF called the attack a grave mistake, warned it would not allow Iran to establish a “new equation,” and indicated the chief of staff was approving response options, with officials promising a forceful answer even if delayed.

🔹Trump’s reaction carries the clearer message. He told Iran it had made its point and should return to the table, and said he would press Netanyahu not to retaliate, arguing both sides had already acted. Washington is reportedly working to contain the Israeli response in order to protect the negotiating track.

🔹This fits the broader pattern of the “ceasefire” period. Iranian military action kept below the threshold that matters most to Washington, namely American casualties, has repeatedly caused rhetorical reframing and pressure on Israel rather than punishment on Iran. That pattern strengthens the argument Tehran’s security-oriented elites have been making for months; that leverage is built through demonstrated strength, and that concessions follow force rather than words.

🔹The constraint that has – so far – kept today’s exchange contained is therefore an American one, and it holds for as long as Trump chooses to impose it. Israel’s calculus runs the other way, shaped by Netanyahu’s domestic position and his commitment to answering any direct Iranian strike. The gap between Washington’s preference for restraint and Israel’s preference for response is where a renewed escalation cycle would most likely begin.

🔹Overall, Tehran has now demonstrated that the regional fronts cannot be treated separately, which raises the cost of any arrangement built on handling them in sequence. The exchange stayed bounded today because both sides are still calibrating the limits of acceptable confrontation through trial, and that same dynamic is what keeps the longer trajectory unstable.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🔴 NEW: Iran FM Spokesperson Baghaei: “No one in the region believes that the Zionist regime (Israel) carries out any action without prior coordination and cooperation with the United States… the consequences of any escalation will also fall on Washington.”

🔸 “The U.S. State Department has explicitly stated that the main reason for imposing this war on Iran was support for the Zionist regime (Israel). That has been the official American position. Furthermore, despite the claims of U.S. officials, we know that CENTCOM is fully coordinating and cooperating with the Zionist regime in both defensive and offensive operations.”

🔸 “The idea that the Zionist regime does not even listen to the United States and acts independently of American wishes, or seeks to humiliate U.S. officials through its actions, is something that can always be debated.”

🔸 “The United States bears responsibility as a party to the April 8 ceasefire understanding. Whatever happens in the region, whether the U.S. itself violates the ceasefire by attacking Iranian commercial ships or targeting southern parts of the country, or whether violations are carried out through the Zionist regime in Lebanon with U.S. complicity, the direct responsibility of the United States is clear, and the consequences of any escalation will also fall on Washington.”

🎥 Via SNN Iran, translated by Drop Site.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Esfandyar Batmanghelidj @yarbatman]

Iran has included three important tests within the terms the MOU it is negotiating with the United States. These tests are intended to give Iran's leaders confidence that Trump, a counterparty they see as highly unreliable, is ready to make credible commitments, opening a pathway for further diplomacy.

First, the Iranians are testing the credibility of American security commitments by insisting that the MOU encompasses a Lebanon ceasefire. They are not doing this for the sake of Hezbollah or Lebanese Shias. Rather, they want to see if Trump can restrain Israel in its own backyard. If Trump is able to do that, then he might be able to defend his own deal with Iran from further Israeli sabotage.

Second, Iran is insisting on a nominal fee for vessels passing the Strait of Hormuz. This is not because they want more revenue, which would be negligible. They are insisting on this arrangement because they want to test whether Trump will endorse a deal that includes a clear instantiation of Iranian sovereignty and authority, especially one that did not exist before the war. Iran believes in the logic of a win-win agreement. Trump does not. Forcing him to accept a fee forces him to give Iran a "win" and to defend it as such from the Iran hawks in his circle. This is politically meaningful.

Finally, Iran is insisting on a the release of frozen assets. The sums in question are a tiny fraction of the economic cost of the war and the release of assets is not as valuable as sanctions relief that Iran will also be targeting. But by insisting on the release of funds at an early stage of the negotiations, Iran can test whether broader economic commitments, such as sanctions relief, will be credible. Iran will only consider the promise of sanctions relief to be credible if Trump's sanctions bureaucracy allows Iran to move and spend its own money. The Iranian side will insist on transactions that push the Trump administration to set new precedents for how sanctions relief can be operationalized, especially through guidance to banks.

For many in Washington, these demands seem unreasonable. But that is entirely the point. Iran's leadership won't tolerate a kind of narrow deal that allows U.S. policymakers to avoid putting political capital at stake. Iran wants a deal that reflects the unprecedented nature of the war and ensuing crisis. To meet the moment, the diplomacy has to be transformative.

Iran's leaders don't trust Trump, so they are testing him. So far, he is failing these tests.

[Sina Toossi @SinaToossi]

How should Iran's latest attacks on U.S. bases and infrastructure in Kuwait and Bahrain be understood?

The key point is that Iran appears intent on breaking what some Iranian analysts describe as the current "controlled tension" equilibrium.

Over the past week, the already fragile "ceasefire" framework has become increasingly unstable. The United States and Iran have each continued efforts to enforce their respective blockade measures in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington has continued limited military operations and efforts to move shipping through the region, while Iran has responded with calibrated strikes and pressure of its own.

The result has been a series of tit-for-tat exchanges, escalating to more U.S. strikes on Iranian territory and Iran's retaliatory attacks on facilities in Kuwait in recent days.

But from Tehran's perspective, this equilibrium has become unacceptable.

The negotiations appear deadlocked. Trump still has not made a decision on key concessions reportedly contained in the emerging framework, while facing pressure from pro-Israel groups, donors, and hawkish senators opposed to compromise.

At the same time, economic realities are becoming harder to ignore. Summer energy demand is increasing, global energy inventories are dwindling under extraordinary strain, and concerns continue to mount around diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, and broader supply-chain disruptions.

Against this backdrop, Iranian strategists increasingly seem to believe that proportional responses merely normalize an unstable, unfavorable status quo.

From Tehran's perspective, if Washington can continue applying military and economic pressure while bearing only manageable costs to the viability of the "ceasefire," that pressure risks becoming the new status quo.

This is why these new attacks matter. The message is not simply retaliation. The message is that Iran no longer accepts a model in which the U.S. can sustain pressure below the threshold of a major confrontation while negotiations remain deadlocked.

The growing consensus among the Iranian analysts and debates I track is their view that deterrence is not created by merely matching an adversary's actions. It is created by raising the cost of continuing them.

From this perspective, Iran's objective is not necessarily to trigger a wider conflict, but to force Washington to confront a choice it has so far sought to avoid: move toward meaningful de-escalation and genuine compromise, or accept *rising* military, economic, and political costs across the region.

Taken together, the recent attacks suggest that Tehran is no longer trying to manage the existing equilibrium.

It is trying to break it by going higher on the escalation ladder in response to U.S. actions.

[Vali Nasr @vali_nasr]

In this article Narges Bajoghli and I argue that the war has brought about a generational change in Iran’s leadership, bringing to the fore men with different experiences and outlook on state, society and foreign policy. This new generation is now confident that it ways has won significant strategic wins which it intends to translate not only into a new regional order but also a new domestic order and social contract with the population.

The scale of the war and it took for Iran to survive it and fore the U.S. into a stalemate has also changed Iranian society in profound way. Social grievances remain but will express themselves in this new context. We explain why pre-war ways of understanding Iran don't explain it anymore.

“The emergent Islamic Republic will remain highly authoritarian. But the categories that Western analysts have often used to describe the Islamic Republic’s various factions—hard-liner versus moderates, ideologues versus reformists—will be less accurate than ever. The new Islamic Republic’s priorities, and how it pursues them, will be shaped by the specific experiences of its two wars with the United States and Israel: the losses Iran sustained, the confidence its leadership gained, and the new social contract the fighting has made necessary and possible.”
https://t.co/RATaDcKLBK

[Hamidreza Azizi @HamidRezaAz]

Tasnim News Agency - affiliated with the IRGC - reports that #Iran's negotiating team is suspending the exchange of texts and messages with the US through mediator Pakistan, citing ongoing Israeli military operations in #Lebanon.

Tehran's stated ground is that Lebanon was a precondition for any ceasefire arrangement, and that arrangement has now been violated. Iranian negotiators say talks will not resume until Israeli operations Lebanon stop and Israeli forces withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory.

The announcement also carries a threat: full closure of the Strait of Hormuz - after some incremental ease of transit over the past couple of weeks - and "activation of the Bab al-Mandab front" as punitive measures against Israel and its allies.

This comes days after reports of a tentative US-Iran MOU to extend the ceasefire 60 days and launch nuclear talks. That was the cautious optimism of last week, but this is what followed it.

What this suggests is that the U.S. - and likely Israel - have consistently underestimated how structurally central Lebanon is to Tehran's position. The assumption appears to have been that enough pressure on Iran would render its Lebanon commitments rhetorical. That calculation looks wrong.

Lebanon matters to Iran both strategically and ideologically, and the pressure from the Islamic Republic's own support base to act - not just signal - on Lebanon has been building. Accepting a deal while Israel continues operations there would carry serious domestic costs. That's not a detail Tehran can paper over.

[Joe Kent @joekent16jan19]

President Trump is frustrated because the Israelis sold him the pipe dream that arming the Kurds & other Iranian dissidents would quickly topple the Iranian regime, leading to a quick victory. This failed to happen because it was a plan based on wishful thinking not the realities on the ground.

Instead of being mad at the Kurds, who are our critical counter terrorism partners, he should focus his ire on the Israeli government officials who lied to him to get us entrenched in this war and whoever in his inner circle that allowed the Israelis to manipulate U.S. policy to support Israel's primary goal.

Israel's primary goal was to get us into the war, not to make sure the pipe dream they were selling would actually work.

Israel has always understood that they can't topple the Iranian regime without us doing the majority of the fighting, they needed to get us into the war.

The Israelis kept their goal in mind when feeding us "intel" about Iran. Unfortunately, President Trump's inner circle failed to keep Israel's main goal in mind when receiving Israeli "intel" and providing context to the President.