Mustafa Fahs

US President Donald Trump exposed the deep crisis of governance in Iraq with a tweet that threatened the future of the political system and paralyzed the towering figures of Iraqi politics. These partisan elites emerged, under exceptional conditions, as a result of the intersecting interests of…

The generational clash in Iraq is changing. It is no longer tied to the political class’s struggle for power and spoils. While this class is busy managing a transition, a new generation is forming: the post-“October Uprising” generation. The elite seeks to maintain power and wealth through the…

The Coordination Framework’s nomination of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to head the government has exposed a major crisis of Shiite politics in Iraq. This crisis cannot be reduced to a struggle for political power, influence, or wealth. Rather, it reflects a deeper conflict that reflects…

The existential challenges facing the Iranian regime will end with this wave of protests or their suppression. They would not be overcome if negotiations with Washington succeed and a strike is averted either. Recent developments are the culmination of problems that have been accumulating for years…

It is too early to judge whether Iran’s president can contain the anger on the streets. The protest movement that erupted days ago in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar — triggered by the collapse of the Iranian currency — quickly spread to universities, some state-run industrial facilities, and other cities. …

In the 22 years that passed between September 11, 2001, and October 7, 2023, many things changed and much remained the same in Iraq. It continued to occupy a crucial geopolitical position, and the nature of its politics changed. After 9/11, Iraq became the arena for a globalization of regional…

Lebanese equivocation is a chronic existential threat engendered by successive periods of subjugation and occupation. These factors have generated two discourses: both considered “patriotic” by those who espouse them but irreconcilable. Together they encapsulate Lebanon’s divisions over major and…

The reformist and conservative wings of Iran’s political elite and ruling class converge around former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Driven by imperial aspirations to retrieve Iran’s historical strategic orbit, the 1979 regime developed its geopolitical narrative by fusing imperial and…

Lebanese people - especially southerners - tied their anxiety about the possibility of war to the period following the visit of Pope Leo XIV, assuming that the countdown would begin once he departed. Some residents of the South and the southern suburbs began preparing to relocate beyond what was…

The advisor to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Dr. Ali Velayati, went to extreme lengths in trivializing the lives of Lebanese people. He borrowed from religious text books to narrowly tailor his conception of the situation to his ideological priorities, disregarding the lived experience of the…