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Globe and Mail
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Trump's strategy on Iran: Is it TACO or FOMO?
Walking a dog is against the law in Tehran. The rule has not been widely enforced, but in recent weeks officials in Iran signalled that the ban would be given bite, and extended to other parts of the country. The regime frowns on pet dogs as unclean, and avatars of westernization. Also forbidden: riding in a car with a dog. The prosecutor in Mashhad recently said that 'dog walking is a clear crime' and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the theocrat atop the theocratic state, said in 2017 that having dogs as pets is 'reprehensible' and 'forbidden.' None of the above speaks to how far along Iran is in building a nuclear weapon, or whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to have launched an attack, or whether U.S. President Donald Trump should join in. Instead, I share this little tidbit as a small insight into the big problem of ending this war, and ending it well. There are three players in this conflict, each with his own obsessions and his own degree of disconnection from reality. It starts with Iran, but does not end there. Collapse of Iranian regime could have unintended consequences for U.S. and Israel Trump says Iran's Supreme Leader is 'an easy target,' demands country's unconditional surrender Israel's military and intelligence agencies have a history of tactical genius, and this week's feats take that to new heights. But even the smartest bomb is just a tool, not a strategy. And Israel's tactical feats have been repeatedly squandered by a government with blinkered strategic vision. After more than 20 months of fighting in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu has no plan to end the war, and no plan for the day after. It's a complete strategic void. Has he got a better idea for how to end this war with Iran? Then there's the U.S. President. With uncharacteristic prudence, he initially distanced himself from the Israeli strikes on Iran. That lasted a day. Having been mocked on tariffs as a TACO – Trump Always Chickens Out – he suddenly appeared to be seized by FOMO – the fear of missing out on Israel's success. On Tuesday, he wrote on social media that 'we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.' It was unclear if 'we' was foreshadowing or a Freudian slip. Surrounded by a cabinet of yes-men and a confederacy of dunces, it's a given that Mr. Trump is not getting the best advice. That means America is the second party to this conflict whose strategic vision may not be 20/20. And then there's the third player: Mr. Khamenei. Having spent decades fighting the decadence of the flesh – human and canine – while crushing any signs of popular opposition, his government is half Handmaid's Tale, half Sopranos. But he is now in hiding, his closest military advisers are now obituaries, and instead of leading Friday prayers with rote recitations of Death to America, Death to Israel, yada yada yada – the last speech posted on his website before the Israeli attack was titled 'Based on a definite divine decree, the Zionist regime is collapsing' – he's filming videos in an undisclosed location. He's 86 years old, in poor health, and has long had half his mind in the afterlife. Mr. Khamenei is also not likely to be the most level-headed decision maker. The best-case scenario is that Mr. Trump is threatening FOMO with the aim of getting to TACO; that Mr. Khamenei responds by agreeing to give up on nuclear weapons in return for an end to the war; and that Mr. Trump compels Mr. Netanyahu to embrace diplomatic success. In other words, the best hope is that Mr. Trump is bluffing, but that Mr. Khamenei isn't certain of that – and in any case his regime's survival is in peril from Israeli strikes alone – so he agrees to make the big concession. This whole process, however, involves multiple steps, and multiple opportunities for things to go wrong. And what happens if Mr. Khamenei calls Mr. Trump's bluff? On Thursday afternoon, the White House released a statement from the President: 'Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.' That's just about the most sensible thing Mr. Trump could have said. Given his track record, he may yet contradict or undermine it. He may become impatient and lose focus. But if he can stick to it, it offers both a path forward and the time to walk it. A win-win, ending the war and Iran's nuclear ambitions, without U.S. military intervention, is, for the moment at least, not impossible.
Arab News
a day ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Afghans start fleeing Iran in fear of Israeli bombings
KABUL: Abdulsaboor Seddiqi was in the middle of his mid-term exams at a university in Tehran when Israeli bombardment started to wreak havoc in the city. He decided to leave as soon as classes were suspended, and traveled 1,200 km to cross to Afghanistan. Israeli airstrikes on Iran began last week, when Tel Aviv hit more than a dozen Iranian sites — including key nuclear facilities and the residences of military leaders and scientists — claiming it was aiming to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Daily attacks have been ongoing for the past seven days after Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes against Israel. The Israeli military has since been increasingly targeting civilian infrastructure. 'During the last week, we didn't have proper phone and internet connectivity. Power cuts were more frequent,' Seddiqi, a computer science student, told Arab News. 'My family back in Herat was worried for my safety. I decided to leave.' He is one of the thousands of Afghans who are now crossing the border every day. At the Islam Qala crossing alone — part of the main route connecting Herat and Iran's Mashhad — the number of people crossing daily has surged from 1,500 to as high as 8,000. 'The number of Afghans returning from Iran has drastically increased during the last week. The majority of the returnees were individuals prior to the conflict, while a lot of families also returned in the last week,' said Naser Azimi, a health worker at the Islam Qala health center. 'The number of Afghans returning through Islam Qala every day increased to 3,000 and even reached 8,000 people in a day.' Abdulbasit Qazizada, who has been working in Tehran for the past two years, arrived in Herat on Monday. 'There was an unusual rush at the Islam Qala border crossing when I was coming back,' he said. 'There's so much fear and anxiety across all cities of Iran, especially Tehran. Many Afghans also work or live there.' Over decades of armed conflict at home, about 5 million Afghan refugees and migrant workers settled in neighboring Iran, according to official data. Iran is home to the largest Afghan diaspora in the world. Most of them live in Tehran. Some Afghan families have lost contact with their relatives living in the Iranian capital since the outbreak of violence. 'My brother went to Iran a few months ago for work. We heard in the news on Friday that Israel attacked Iran and killed a lot of people,' said Mohammad Naser, a resident of Kabul, whose brother and two cousins were in Tehran. 'It's been a week that we don't know anything about them. My mother and my family members are very concerned. We don't know if they are OK. We feel helpless because we can't do anything.' According to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 224 people have been killed and 1,481 wounded in Israeli attacks. Various media outlets have reported, however, that casualty numbers could be at least twice as high.
Sky News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News
British-Iranians struggling to contact friends and family who fear punishment by Tehran regime
With Iran now in the midst of a near-total internet blackout, communication is dire - but we've managed to piece together a picture of a country where there is fear and panic, but where activists say the ruling regime is still in control. We meet British-Iranians Amir Javadzadeh and Attieh Fard in the UK - struggling to get through to their friends and family in Iran. Hour by hour, it's getting harder and harder. Amir finally makes contact with a friend in the eastern city of Mashhad. We are calling the friend "Ali" to protect his identity. Ali paints a worrying picture of people struggling to get hold of basics like bread and fuel. He later sends us a video he's taken of a huge fuel queue in the city. "My wife is in hospital and I have to go there all the time and I don't have any fuel or medicine for her. "Really it's a difficult time for us, and we don't have gasoline, we have problems preparing food. All the people have fear,' he adds. Not only is there a shortage of fuel - but some people who have fled the capital Tehran are coming to Mashhad, he adds. 'I'm really angry… we're actually, you know, we are stuck in the middle of a war between our government and the Israelis,' Ali said. People in Iran are terrified to speak to Western media - afraid of being punished by the Iranian regime. Although some have been prepared to share videos with us anonymously, like the one below, that they've filmed of the bombing in Tehran. Attieh Fard shared with us a message exchange between her and one of her relatives, one says: 'Everyone has worries and stress….They (the Israelis) won't stop until they hit the target.' Despite the dangers, one member of a group of anti-regime activists agreed to speak to us from the capital Tehran - we have changed his name to "Sam", to hide his identity. With America threatening to bomb Iran, Sam described the ongoing conflict as a "very historical moment in our Iranian history'. Asked if he is afraid of US intervention, he said: "Not at all because the Americans, we believe, are not going to fight with the people, they are fighting with the Islamic Republic. They're against the ideology of the Islamic republic. So that's why we're not afraid. 'The view from inside Iran is that if a US attack happens, I think it will result in the fall of the Islamic Republic. I think these are the tools and the people inside are ready to take over the situation once the regime is weakened."
New York Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Who Is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader?
As the conflict between Israel and Iran has intensified, one central character has remained out of the public eye: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's reclusive supreme leader. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not ruled out targeting Ayatollah Khamenei, who has led Iran for more than three decades. Mr. Netanyahu told ABC News on Monday that any strike on Iran's supreme leader would not kindle a wider war but could instead prove decisive. 'It's not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict,' he said. And President Trump on Tuesday threatened the ayatollah in a social media post, saying 'we know exactly where' he is. But he added that 'we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.' Killing foreign leaders is against the law in the United States. He added, 'Our patience is growing thin.' Here is a closer look at Ayatollah Khamenei, his rise to power and his role in the deepening confrontation with Israel. From revolutionary aide to supreme leader Born in 1939 into a religious family of modest means in Mashhad, a pilgrimage city in eastern Iran, Mr. Khamenei came of age in the years leading up to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah. He was imprisoned repeatedly by the security services of the U.S.-backed autocrat Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and he rose through the ranks of the religious opposition as a close ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the revolution and founded the Islamic Republic of Iran. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ali Khamenei: ruthless defender of Iran's revolution with few good options left
When he appeared in public for the first time in five years in October, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, had an uncompromising message. Israel 'won't last long', he told tens of thousands of supporters at a mosque in Tehran in a Friday sermon. 'We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,' the 84-year-old told the gathering. Days before, Israel had killed Hassan Nasrallah, the veteran secretary general of Hezbollah, with huge bombs dropped on the militant Islamist movement's headquarters in Beirut. The assassination was a personal blow to Khamenei, who had known Nasrallah for decades. The Israeli air offensive against Iran, launched on Friday, is another such blow. It has prompted more defiance from Tehran, and a barrage of missiles and drones launched at Tel Aviv, but neither appear likely to stop the Israeli attacks. Iran's air defences are apparently ineffective and the coalition of Islamist militias that Khamenei had built up to deter Israel is effectively shattered. Khamenei now has few good options – a situation this careful, pragmatic, conservative and ruthless revolutionary has always sought to avoid. Born the son of a minor cleric of modest means in the eastern Iranian shrine city on Mashhad, Khamenei took his first steps as a radical in the febrile atmosphere of the early 1960s. The then shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had launched a major reform project largely rejected by the country's conservative clergy. As a young religious student in Qom, a centre of theology, Khamenei had soaked in the traditions of Shia Islam and the radical new thinking of the emerging leader of the conservative opposition, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. By the late 1960s, Khamenei was running secret missions for Khomeini, who had been exiled, and organising networks of Islamist activism. Khamenei soaked up other influences too. Though an avowed aficionado of western literature, particularly Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and John Steinbeck, the young activist was steeped in the anti-colonial ideologies of the time and the anti-western sentiment that often went with them. He met thinkers who sought to meld Marxism and Islamism to create new ideologies, liked works describing the 'westoxification' of his country and translated works by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who would inspire generations of Islamist extremists, into Farsi. Imprisoned repeatedly by Iran's feared security services, Khamenei was nonetheless able to take part in the vast protests of 1978 that eventually convinced the shah to flee and allowed Khomeini to return. A protege of the implacable cleric, he swiftly rose up the hierarchy of the radical regime that seized power and by 1981, after surviving an assassination attempt that deprived him of the use of an arm, he had won election to the largely ceremonial post of president. When Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei was selected as his successor, once the constitution changed to allow someone of lesser clerical qualifications to take on the role and with much greater powers than before. Khamenei swiftly deployed these to consolidate his control over the sprawling and fragmented apparatus of Iran's post-revolutionary state. One key power base was the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the beating activist heart of the new regime and a powerful military, social and economic force. But Khamenei, as ever, was careful to find other powerful allies and clients too. Through the 1990s, he further strengthened his grip, eliminating opponents and rewarding those loyal to him. Even poets Khamenei had once professed to admire were targeted by security services. Overseas dissidents were hunted down, and the relationship with Hezbollah, which the IRGC had helped found in the aftermath of the revolution, was reinforced. At all times he followed his strategy of pragmatically advancing the inflexible principles of the project bequeathed him by his late mentor. When in 1997, Mohammad Khatami, a reformist candidate won the presidency in a landslide, Khamenei allowed him some freedom of action but worked hard and often forcefully to protect the core of the regime and its ideology from any serious challenge. Khamenei did not, however, stop Khatami reaching out to Washington in an ultimately abortive effort to establish better relations in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and, following Khomenei's example, forswore weapons of mass destruction. But he also backed the IRGC's efforts to bleed US forces in Iraq after their 2003 invasion and extend Iranian influence in the neighbouring country. This marked the further extension of his strategy of relying on proxies to project power across the region and deter and threaten Israel, named Little Satan by the revolutionaries in 1979 as the Great Satan of the US. Khamenei was sceptical of the nuclear deal painstakingly negotiated by Iranian officials with the US and others, but he did not oppose its implementation in 2015. Analysts argue over whether he has sought to restrain or encourage hardliners in the IRGC who have pushed for Iran to acquire a bomb. Successive waves of unrest and reform efforts have been met with surges of vicious repression alongside continuing harsh treatment of measures targeting women, gay people and religious minorities. This, along with deteriorating economic circumstances, have disillusioned many erstwhile supporters of the regime and broadened existing unrest. Overseas, Khamenei chose to invest heavily in the so-called axis of resistance – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi movement in Yemen and a motley assortment of Islamic militant militias in Syria and Iraq. This may have seemed a clever tactic but it has collapsed under the weight of Israeli attacks, while Iran's historic alliance with Damascus was ended with the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December. Living in a compound with his wife and children on Palestine Street in Tehran, Khamenei has stressed his humble lifestyle. Some sceptics have doubted whether his asceticism is quite as authentic as presented, but his reputation for modesty, which contrasts with the ostentatious wealth of many other officials, has deflected some popular anger. For more than three decades in power, Khamenei has sought to navigate the pressures of conflicting forces within Iran, to avoid outright war and to preserve Khomeini's legacy – as well as his own power and that of his immediate loyalists, of course. He is now ailing. Speculation over a successor is rife. A long career is drawing to a close with an old man's greatest challenge yet. The brutal balancing act may soon be over.
