zarmeeneh

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

WOW!

Haaretz investigation is a MUST-READ!

The Netanyahu gov received numerous warnings - incl from the UAE's ruler 10 days before Oct 7 - that Hamas was planning an attack.

The ultimate source of the warning was Hamas' own Sinwar.

Netanyahu ignored all the warnings and took no precautions. He didn't even convey it to the Israeli intelligence apparatus.

But there's more. Immediately after Oct 7, Hamas offered to release all the civilian hostages - without asking for anything in return. The Biden admin was aware of this as well. But Israel wasn't interested, leaving both Hamas and the Qatari mediators baffled.

So much bloodshed could have been avoided. So many innocent lives could have been spared. But Netanyahu appeared to have been uninterested - and Biden, of course, never put any real pressure on Israel - effectively allowing Netanyahu to determine US policy.

https://t.co/EJUwMiwEzq

[Rabia Akhtar @Rabs_AA]

Pakistan’s Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament comes at a time when global arms control is under severe strain. Why does it matter and what does it mean for Pakistan, South Asia and the principle of equal security?

My latest: The Table Still Matters https://t.co/uZLCISiCBp @TahirAndrabi @ForeignOfficePk @PoliticoPak

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

The Trump White House has put into place a series of mechanisms to fix or invalidate the midterm elections. Congress will not save us. The courts will not save us. Our only hope — should the election be rigged or stolen — is nationwide strikes. Our only hope is to cripple the machinery of commerce and government, although this militancy will be met with savage state repression.

Otherwise, we are doomed. There will be no exit.

If the measures advocated by the Trump administration are implemented, emergency powers will be invoked to assert unprecedented federal control over voting. Federal agents will seize election materials. They have already seized ballots from previous elections.

The U.S. Postal Service will only send ballots to those included on federally approved eligibility lists drawn from state voter rolls. These rolls, subject to citizenship checks, will deny election-mail services entirely in states that refuse the administration’s demands for voter data.

Federal troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — with $113.5 billion in additional funding allocated by Congress through September 2029 — will be deployed to or near polling stations which have a traditional Democratic Party majority. Those branded as “anti-capitalist” and “anti-Christian” or charged with belonging to antifa will be intimidated or blocked from voting.

Trump told The New York Times in January he regretted not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. Trump not only wants to abolish mail-in ballots – Democrats vote by mail in higher numbers than Republicans – but voting machines and tabulators which allow election boards to post results on election night.

Trump and his supporters in Silicon Valley are acutely aware that the level of their corruption and disdain for democracy — unlike anything seen in U.S. history — makes them vulnerable if they lose power. They have no intention of allowing this to happen no matter how egregious the constitutional violations. They seek to extinguish the last vestiges of democracy. They believe, as PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel wrote in 2009, that “freedom and democracy” are not “compatible.”

Theil is sweeping up all our information gleaned from government tax, medical and law enforcement records. This information is being delivered to databases that can be exploited for state control and profit. Thiel and his coterie of technocratic billionaires are implementing the agenda he envisioned 16 years ago: to make technology an “alternative to politics.”

Read my full column, "The Next Election May be Our Last", at Substack — link below.

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the U.S. Administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel.

Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he "influenced" America through 1,000 hours of airtime on U.S. networks.

In English, he praises POTUS' leadership.

Serpent.

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

Colonel Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of State, explains how they [the White House] bought European leaders and "taught the dogs to bark".
- "We bought newspaper editors"
- "We bought union heads"
- "We bought parliamentarians"
- "We bought two secretaries general: Jens Stoltenberg and Mark Rutte"
- "We bought whole countries in terms of their political apparatus and what influences them"
https://t.co/27stzS0IKM

[Raza Ahmad Rumi @Razarumi]

This is a major win for Pakistan and its people, who face the Indian government’s brazen attempt to disregard a binding treaty and impose collective punishment.

[The Express Tribune @etribune]

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday directed Adiala jail authorities not to keep Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in solitary confinement, restore their meetings with family members and facilitate telephone conversations between Imran and his sons.

The court also directed the superintendent of Adiala Jail to submit an implementation report to the court within 15 days.

For more: https://t.co/i6vULG2sQ3
#etribune #news #latest

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

It's quite stunning really. Only a week ago, Scott Bessent said sanctions would make military action unnecessary.

6 days later, the US bombed Iran again. And now, Axios reveals that all along, the Pentagon was preparing a plan for “periodic” bombings of Iran to prevent it from suppressing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

What does this tell us? First, the administration is apparently giving up on solving the issue militarily, economically, or diplomatically. Instead, permanent warfare is needed to manage the problem.

Make no mistake - to periodically bomb a country is to fight a forever war.

In fact, a US official is even quoted by Axios calling it “mow the lawn.” This is the Israeli strategy of never making peace, never winning the war, but just keep bombing the countries surrounding it to ensure they never gain the capacity to deter Israel. It’s what Israel has been doing in Gaza and Lebanon for years.

During previous administrations, Israel tried to sell war with Iran to the US and conceded that military strikes would not knock out Iran’s nuclear program, but would require “periodic” return to kinetic action to keep the program in check.

The US rejected the plan precisely because it didn’t want to be in a permanent state of war with Iran.

Now, Trump’s Secretary of War is pushing for it.

So there is much to discuss. I am scheduling our next Q&A session for Sunday, September 6, at 4.00 pm ET.

Register for the Zoom here: https://t.co/8JXZyIvyrJ

[Atif Khan @akhan4pakistan]

Four years ago, two of the richest and most successful Pakistanis, with a combined estimated net worth of more than US$25 billion, spoke about Prime Minister @ImranKhanPTI , his leadership and their confidence in Pakistan’s future.

“Before Imran Khan, I had not traveled to Pakistan for nearly 20 years. But because of the hope and confidence he gave me in the country, I traveled to Pakistan every year while he was Prime Minister.

When COVID-19 struck and economies around the world were facing an unprecedented crisis, Imran Khan navigated Pakistan through an extremely difficult period with great care and, above all, with deep concern for the country’s poor and vulnerable.

Look at Pakistan’s history and compare Imran Khan’s leadership with those who came before and after him. I have known Imran Khan for some time, and I have seen the extraordinary challenges under which he led the country. Despite those extremely difficult circumstances, he gave millions of Pakistanis, including those living overseas, renewed hope and confidence in Pakistan’s future.”(Syed Javaid Anwar)

“I have hope. I think the future of Pakistan is going to be fabulous with Mr. Imran. It’s proud to be Pakistani again. Imran Khan is larger than life, and it’s the best thing that has happened to Pakistan, at least in my lifetime.”(Shahid Khan)

Four years later, look at where Pakistan stands.

Imran Khan was removed from power, and the political order that followed was ultimately consolidated through the most rigged elections in Pakistan’s history.

Now comes perhaps the most significant admission from within the system itself: Mohsin Naqvi, one of Pakistan’s most powerful and influential sitting federal ministers, has publicly acknowledged that the current system has failed.

That admission matters.

The same system presented as the alternative to Imran Khan has failed to deliver political stability, economic confidence or national unity. Millions of Pakistanis are struggling with poverty and the rising cost of living, yet we continue to see priorities disconnected from their daily reality, including the Punjab government under Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz moving to acquire a new aircraft for official travel.

The contrast could not be clearer.

Pakistan does not merely need money. It needs confidence. It needs its diaspora, investors, entrepreneurs, professionals and young people to believe in the country again.

Overseas Pakistanis can bring billions of dollars in investment, deposits, technology, expertise and global market access. But that confidence cannot be commanded. It must be earned.

And today, no Pakistani political leader has demonstrated the ability to unite and mobilize the global Pakistani diaspora on the scale of Imran Khan.

This is bigger than one person or one political party. Pakistan’s revival requires constitutional supremacy, an independent judiciary, fundamental and human rights, free and fair elections, rule of law, political stability and respect for the people’s mandate.

Four years later, the question is no longer simply what those two Pakistani billionaires said about Imran Khan.

The question is whether Pakistan can afford to continue with a system that one of its own most powerful sitting ministers now acknowledges has failed.

[brief. @brief_pk]

We examine whether Pakistan is truly being governed in the interests of its people or for something else entirely. The decisions made by the military and government have consistently failed to benefit the public. This system of rule operates at the public’s expense while failing to provide even the basic services necessary for survival. https://t.co/DqFqP1fj8U

[Husain Haqqani @husainhaqqani]

Excellent article. Everyone interested in Pakistan’s politics must read it.

[Evan @EvanWritesOnX]

The US is selling the Middle East.

The war with Iran was the closing transaction.

American defense firms billed the Middle East for 30 years, and that business is now worth less than the European one.

Defense firms have committed to rearmament programs that will run for decades, Ukraine has to be restocked, and the order backlogs at the major contractors have shifted toward Europe.

The US does not exit a region while it still needs the revenue; it exits once the replacement customer is signed.

Europe is signed.

So the American presence in the Gulf is being run down, and the US needed a final event that would let it leave looking strong rather than beaten.

The Iran war was that event, and the behavior of the participants during the war says everyone is partaking in the managed theatre.

Negotiations continued through the strikes.

Oman announced a framework on the nuclear file the day before the bombing started.

When oil spiked to levels that hurt the big importing economies, coordinated reserve releases pushed it back down within 2 days, while the fighting was still going.

Financial markets never priced a real regional war; gold rose the way a hedge rises rather than the way a panic does, and shipping insurance never charged more than the standard war premium.

Money is the honest witness in these situations because it costs something to move, and money behaved throughout as if the ending was already agreed.

Each government got something from the war it could not get in peacetime.

Iran wanted out of 45 years of confrontation, because the militias and the nuclear standoff stopped producing returns while membership in the Gulf and BRICS economies produces better ones, and no Iranian government could make that shift voluntarily without looking defeated by its own choice.

The Gulf states wanted Iran normalized and its militias gone, because their investment programs need a quiet region.

US wanted cover for the drawdown.

All three got what they needed, which is why the war has already ended in a deal none of the participants is trying to reopen.

The factions that made their living from instability, the Iranian hardline command above all, were killed in the war or sidelined after it, and the people now in charge on every side own a piece of the rebuild.

Yes, there have been strikes and violations since the ceasefire, and each one has been absorbed rather than answered, because nobody with actual power wants the deal dead.

The division of the region is going to be straightforward.

The Gulf states get the most: the reconstruction contracts, the broker role, Iran integrated on their terms, and cheap entry into an Israeli economy weakened by war spending, capital flight and emigration.

What 5 Arab-Israeli wars could not achieve militarily, Gulf money is achieving commercially.

China gets the trade: more Gulf and Iranian oil priced and settled outside the dollar, moving through payment channels the US cannot sanction.

Iran downgrades to survival but with market access.

The US keeps the arms business and turns to Europe and Asia.

Israel downgrades from the region's dominant military power to a state dependent on outside money, excluded from the settlement of a war it started, and being quietly distanced by its patron.

The UAE's exit from OPEC means the demolition phase of this transition is over and the construction phase has started.

We are entering a new decade.

Where a Gulf-run Middle East will be financed by sovereign wealth rather than policed by American carriers. Iran will enter inside the regional economy.

Israel will operate on Gulf capital with shrinking room for independent action and will be forced to contend with emerging Palestine.

There's going to be a growing share of regional oil trade settled outside the dollar, with central banks holding more gold as insurance against the system they are slowly leaving.

Iran will assert its right to charge for Hormuz transit as part of the settlement, and every government sitting on a strait will study that precedent, because the era when passage was free by default ended with the enforcement capacity that made it free.

People really don't understand that a year of noise has sat on top of a deal that keeps getting implemented, and every state who signed it is getting paid.

Nothing has changed since my assessment from the beginning of this "war". Nothing has changed since my posts from over a year ago.

This is all managed theatre, and it's coming to an end.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Ukraine is not trying to just enter the war with Iran. Rather, it appears it is trying to merge the Ukraine war with the Iran war.

Why? Because if these two wars merge, Ukraine will be a belligerent in the Iran war and America will be a belligerent in the Ukraine war.

That is, the US will no longer just be arming Ukraine, but also actively and openly fighting Russia with US personnel.

That is the key objective Zelensky has tried to achieve since 2022...

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

🇷🇺 STATE DUMA ASKS PUTIN TO ACCELERATE

“I'll reveal a secret. During the award ceremony, one of the awardees whispered to me: ‘We will win, but we need to be bolder.’ I really want to. But a question arises. Even more boldly?”

Duma: “YES!”

“Here, as in the economy, there are risks, the price of which is losses on our side on the battlefield. Here too we will act carefully, but persistently and consistently, achieving the goals set before the country. And we will achieve them.”

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

🇮🇷🇺🇦🇪🇺 IRGC EU TARGET LIST!

Iran reportedly draws up list of EU-linked energy targets over Zelensky provocations

According to reports circulating on Persian-language channels, Iran has compiled a list of European-linked energy infrastructure as potential targets, since Zelensky is a European proxy force whose actions could trigger a response against EU energy interests.

Pipelines linked to Europe:

— Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan
— Baku–Supsa
— Saudi East–West Pipeline
— Southern Gas Corridor
— Trans-Caspian Pipeline
— East Med Pipeline
— Arab Gas Pipeline
— El Arish–Ashkelon Pipeline

Oil and gas fields linked to Europe:

— Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli (ACG), Azerbaijan
— Shah Deniz field, Azerbaijan
— Absheron field, Azerbaijan
— Leviathan field, Israel
— Zohr field, Egypt
— Cronos field (Block 6), Cyprus
— GGIP project, Iraq

LNG facilities linked to Europe:

— Idku LNG plant, Egypt
— SEGAS LNG plant, Damietta, Egypt
— Revithoussa terminal, Greece
— Alexandroupolis terminal, Greece

Other:

— Green hydrogen projects in Oman backed by European investment

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

Never forget that Epstein was trafficking and grooming girls in Ukraine.

Putin was correct.

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

USA stockpile depletion!

[DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics]

🇮🇶☪️ SEE YOU IN KARBALA!

Last year, we were blessed to attend Arba’in in the holy city of Karbala, Iraq.

Arba’in is one of the world’s largest annual pilgrimages, with tens of millions of people traveling (many on foot) to Karbala to commemorate the 40th day after the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.

The journey is a profound expression of faith, sacrifice, justice, and solidarity, with pilgrims welcomed along the route by volunteers offering free food, water, shelter, and medical care.

We are incredibly honored to be making the journey again this year.

See you on the road to Karbala. Sound on.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

Chris Affleck, mother of actors Ben and Casey Affleck and a longtime advocate for Palestine, has died. Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha said Affleck became “like a mother” to him and his wife while they lived in Cambridge, helping care for their children and supporting the family during the pandemic. He remembered her displaying a “Free Gaza” sign on her car and praised her “unwavering solidarity.”

[Yousuf Nazar @YousufNazar]

Annual cost of elite capture is more than $36 billion.

Pakistan’s most expensive economic problem is not debt, taxation, or even corruption in the conventional sense. It is a political economy where access to the state has become one of the country’s most profitable businesses.

In the earlier article, I estimated that elite capture costs Pakistan roughly Rs 6.7 trillion annually — equivalent to about 5.8 percent of GDP, or about $25 billion in 2024-25. This was the first comparable estimate since the 2020 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study on elite privilege, which attempted to quantify the benefits received by powerful groups using available official data. https://t.co/ciUE1Lrd9c

Many of the largest transfers of wealth in Pakistan never appear in these documents. They occur through privileged access to land, regulatory protection, restricted competition, under-taxation of assets and state-created economic advantages. These channels are harder to measure, but they may be far larger in aggregate. The Rs 6.7 trillion estimate should therefore be viewed not as the total cost of elite capture, but as its minimum measurable cost. The question is how much larger the real burden might be.

https://t.co/ciUE1Lrd9c