Philippa Kaur

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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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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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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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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In the early hours of January 3, US forces stormed a military compound in Caracas, capturing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. Hours later, from his Mar-a-Lago estate, US President Donald Trump dismissed Venezuela’s democratic opposition, asserting the US would “run the country until transition.” Thus began what US forces dubbed “Operation Absolute Resolve.” The name implies… Continue reading Gunboat Diplomacy Returns: US Resource Grab in Venezuela
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When US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared at the Doha Forum that federalism and decentralization “have never worked” in the Middle East, he was not offering a bold insight. He was repeating a familiar and deeply flawed argument, one that not only misdiagnoses the region’s crises and risks but… Continue reading What The US’ Syria Envoy Got Wrong About Middle East Governance
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