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    Trump Backs Down From Iran Threats, for Now

    US President Donald Trump, who is nothing if not direct, had threatened to intervene on behalf of demonstrators calling for the removal of Iran’s ruling theocratic regime. But by mid-week, he decided to hold off. The ostensible reason for his turnabout was the apparent decline in protest activity and the government’s failure to follow through… Continue reading Trump Backs Down From Iran Threats, for Now
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    The Devil’s Advocate in a World Without Saints

    Readers of this column should by now have an idea of what I should honestly call the dramatis persona from whose script I am reading: the Devil’s Advocate, a historical function required for every canonization process submitted to the Vatican. Like every other professional role, it depends for its prosperity on the existence of a… Continue reading The Devil’s Advocate in a World Without Saints
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    The End of the Liberal Garden Era

    US President Donald Trump’s surprise military operation to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and announce that the US will “run” Venezuela for an unspecified transition period has been widely described as the rebirth of the Monroe Doctrine. At Mar-a-Lago, he even tried out a new label — the “Donroe Doctrine” — and promised that “American… Continue reading The End of the Liberal Garden Era
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    Iran’s Protest Moment: Four Stakeholders, One Coherent Vision

    Iran’s latest wave of protests did not begin as a romantic revolution. It started as an economic alarm — a warning flare from the country’s commercial heart, where shopkeepers and bazaar merchants shuttered their doors as the rial plunged to record lows. Within days, a market shock evolved into a national political crisis. The driver… Continue reading Iran’s Protest Moment: Four Stakeholders, One Coherent Vision
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    US Strike on Venezuela: A Violation of the Sovereign Equality of Nation-State Principle

    The US strike on northern Venezuela’s establishment on January 3 is a gross violation of international law and the principle of the sovereign equality of the nation-state. This noble principle, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — which ended the balkanization of Europe — was later reiterated in the Charter of the… Continue reading US Strike on Venezuela: A Violation of the Sovereign Equality of Nation-State Principle
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    Why Iran’s Collapse Requires Decisive American and Israeli Intervention

    January 2026 marks an irrevocable geopolitical shift. The Islamic Republic of Iran faces terminal systemic failure. What began on December 28, 2025, as local economic protests has rapidly escalated into the clerical establishment’s gravest existential threat since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Unlike past unrest, this uprising demands revolution rather than reform.  The regime’s internal survival… Continue reading Why Iran’s Collapse Requires Decisive American and Israeli Intervention
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    South Yemen’s Near Moment of Independence: Hadramaut, Regional Anxiety and the Saudi Reset

    Earlier this month, South Yemen came closer to independence than at any point since unification in 1990. A combination of rapid military advances, a constitutional declaration by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the collapse of effective government authority across much of the south appeared to set the stage for a decisive break. Yet regional… Continue reading South Yemen’s Near Moment of Independence: Hadramaut, Regional Anxiety and the Saudi Reset
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