Trump’s ‘Crazy’ Rebuke Undercuts Netanyahu at a Critical Momenthttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280695-trump%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98crazy%E2%80%99-rebuke-undercuts-netanyahu-critical-moment
Trump’s ‘Crazy’ Rebuke Undercuts Netanyahu at a Critical Moment
US President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump’s ‘Crazy’ Rebuke Undercuts Netanyahu at a Critical Moment
US President Donald Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they shake hands during a press conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025. (Reuters)
Benjamin Netanyahu has long portrayed himself to the Israeli public as being uniquely adept in dealing with Donald Trump, capable of winning and sustaining the US president's backing.
But an acrimonious phone call this week where the president called the prime minister "[expletive] crazy", first leaked to the media and later publicly confirmed by Trump himself, laid bare the strains that have at times emerged between the two leaders.
Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the call was among the most heated the premier has had with Trump. One of the officials said the leak had damaged Netanyahu politically ahead of this year's national election.
The US website Axios broke news of the call on Monday, saying Trump had angrily confronted Netanyahu over Israeli threats to resume air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs. "Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this," Trump was quoted as saying.
The US president told Netanyahu not to target Beirut after Iran had warned that Israeli strikes in Lebanon were undermining talks to end the war, which began with joint US-Israeli attacks and which is deeply unpopular among Americans.
US-ISRAEL DIFFERENCES 'NOW VERY PUBLIC', SAYS THINK-TANK HEAD
A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Netanyahu had made clear to Trump that any pause in Israeli plans to strike Beirut would only work if Hezbollah stopped hitting northern Israel. Trump was receptive to this position, the official said.
Following their call, Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop shooting each other, prompting accusations by Netanyahu's political opponents, and some within his own government, that he had ceded Israel's sovereignty to the US.
"A total protectorate," said opposition leader Yair Lapid, suggesting Netanyahu had put Israel in the position of an American client state.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, has repeatedly clashed with Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet, Israel has remained Washington's closest Middle East ally.
Nimrod Goren, the president of Mitvim, an Israeli think tank, said "the differences are now very public", unlike in the past when they were usually quietly managed behind closed doors.
Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday that he was "a little bit perturbed" by Netanyahu constantly attacking Lebanon, but added: "We've worked very well together."
Trump's decision to join Israel in striking Iran, not once but twice in the space of a year, appeared to mark a major victory for Netanyahu, who had spent decades urging Washington to use its military power to halt Tehran's nuclear program.
But Trump has also taken a series of steps that many in Israel have viewed as cutting against the country's interests, including ending US strikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis and ordering a halt to Israel's 12-day war with Iran in June 2025.
ISRAEL NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN US-IRAN PEACE TALKS
And while the United States and Israel jointly launched the campaign against Iran in February, Israel has not been directly involved in the US-Iran talks to end the war. Those negotiations have been conducted through Pakistan, a rare intermediary that has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel.
The wars with Iran and Hezbollah have been widely popular in Israel, including among supporters of Netanyahu's political rivals, and much of the public wants the fighting to continue.
That stands in contrast to the US, where many voters, including members of Trump's conservative base, oppose the war.
Trump has repeatedly said that the US was close to an agreement with Iran on ending the war. Tehran insists any deal include Israel halting attacks on its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"We are basically being forced to stop," said Israeli pollster Mitchell Barak. "We don't have a say in this anymore."
At the start of this year's war with Iran, Netanyahu said that the Iranian government would be toppled, and its nuclear and missile programs destroyed. He has also said that Hezbollah, which attacked Israel in March in support of Iran, must be disarmed in southern Lebanon. So far, none of these goals have been achieved.
Recent domestic polls have repeatedly shown that Netanyahu's coalition government, the most right-wing in the country's history, would fail to win a majority at the next election.
Netanyahu, Goren said, was working to accommodate Trump's demands because the Israeli premier will need the president's support closer to the elections, including a possible visit by the US leader to Israel. Before the war with Iran, Trump was widely expected in Israel to visit in April to be awarded the state's highest civilian honor. He last visited in October.
NOTION OF TRUMP-NETANYAHU RIFT OVERSTATED, EX-ADVISER SAYS
But some Israelis were not comfortable with the extent that Trump appears able to influence Israeli military decisions, Goren said. In contrast, in the US, some Trump critics say that Netanyahu has outsized influence on US foreign policy.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu's national security minister said on Thursday that there are times when an Israeli leader must know how to say "no" even to the US president.
Nadav Shtrauchler, a former Netanyahu adviser, said the Israeli premier was counting on Trump's support in the election.
"The way the war (with Iran and Hezbollah) will end will affect, more than anything, the result of the election."
Trump has often lavished public praise on Netanyahu and has publicly lobbied Israel's president to pardon the prime minister, who is on trial in Israel on corruption-related charges.
But Trump has also publicly emphasized how much, he says, Israel needs Washington, and has used expletives in the past when talking about Israel, including publicly saying last year that Israel and Iran "don't know what the [expletive] they are doing."
For his part, Netanyahu describes Trump as "the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House", offering the kind of public praise that resonates with the Republican president, who is known to prize personal loyalty and validation.
Since the US and Israel opened the war with Iran, Netanyahu has at times said that he speaks with Trump almost daily, often characterizing their relationship to the Israeli public as one between peers who make decisions together.
Asked about the call in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that like in the "best of families" there at times had been "tactical disagreements" with the US president.
A US official told Reuters the phone call was one of several in which the president has been very direct with Netanyahu but that the two remain friends and close allies.
"Their conversations are pretty direct," the official said.
The official, and another Israeli source briefed on the US-Israel relationship, dismissed any suggestion of a material change in the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump.
However, the Israeli source acknowledged that the leak of the call - and Trump's subsequent confirmation of it - was not helpful to Netanyahu ahead of an election that he is polling to lose.
Shtrauchler, the former adviser to Netanyahu, said the perception of a rift with Trump was overstated and that the two leaders still appeared to remain aligned on most major issues.
But an abrupt end to the wars with Iran and Hezbollah, however, would pose a "huge problem": for Netanyahu, he said, as many Israelis would see it as Trump having forced his hand.
"No one wants here to feel like we are another star on the (US) flag. We want to feel independence," Shtrauchler said.
Mojtaba Khamenei: Iran’s New Supreme Leader Lurking in the Shadowshttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280656-mojtaba-khamenei-iran%E2%80%99s-new-supreme-leader-lurking-shadows
A woman holds up an Iranian flag in front of a banner showing a portrait of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei during a religious festival in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP)
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Mojtaba Khamenei: Iran’s New Supreme Leader Lurking in the Shadows
A woman holds up an Iranian flag in front of a banner showing a portrait of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei during a religious festival in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP)
Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, appointed after a career entirely out of the spotlight as a behind-the-scenes figure, faces the challenge of occupying a role incarnated by his father for most of the regime’s existence.
Mojtaba Khamenei was barely known to Iranians when he was named shortly after the killing of his father and longstanding supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who had been in the post-for-life since 1989, in a US-Israeli airstrike at the start of the Middle East war.
Unseen in public since being named and said to have been wounded in a US-Israeli strike, Mojtaba Khamenei has issued a dozen written messages as leader that have reprised the confrontational ideology of his father.
In a statement read out on Thursday taking aim at Israel and the United States, Mojtaba Khamenei said "the malicious enemy" was seeking to "plant the seeds of doubt, despair, fear, mistrust and division".
Unlike his father, a prominent opponent of the shah who was president in the first decade of the republic from 1981-1989 before becoming leader, Mojtaba Khamenei has until now held no government position.
But he was believed by observers to be the second-in-command at the office of the supreme leader under the longstanding chief gatekeeper Mohammad Golpayegani.
He is also seen as close to the leadership of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, a connection that may have proved crucial in his selection by the Assembly of Experts clerical body.
- Sanctioned by US -
One of the few official insights into the importance of Mojtaba Khamenei came in November 2019 when the US Treasury announced sanctions against him and other senior Iranian officials, including Golpayegani, on the grounds they were pushing Iran's "radical" agenda around the world.
It said he was designated for representing Ali Khamenei "in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father".
It added: "The Supreme Leader has delegated a part of his leadership responsibilities to Mojtaba Khamenei."
It said Mojtaba Khamenei had "worked closely" with the commanders of the Quds Force -- the branch of the Revolutionary Guards ideological army responsible for operations outside Iran -- and the Basij militia "to advance his father's destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives".
A sign of his potential behind-the-scenes sway came in 2005 presidential elections, when former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi wrote a letter to the supreme leader complaining that Mojtaba Khamenei had been intervening on behalf of his ultra-conservative rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad went on to cause a sensation by defeating former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mojtaba was again seen by some commentators as coordinating the crackdown on protests that followed Ahmadinejad's disputed 2009 election victory.
Leaked US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks said in 2011 that Mojtaba was "seen by many second only to Golpayegani within the office of the supreme leader".
According to an investigation by Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources and Western intelligence agency reports, Mojtaba Khamenei has amassed wealth estimated at more than $100 million.
It reported he has earned money from oil sales channeled into investments in luxury British real estate, hotels in Europe and property in Dubai through shell companies in tax havens.
Born in his father's home city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei studied theology in the clerical hub of Qom where he also taught.
Mojtaba Khamenei's wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, the daughter of former parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, died in the US-Israeli strikes that killed ex-supreme leader Khamenei, according to the Iranian authorities.
Three Precious Gifts to Tehran from Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and George W. Bushhttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280397-three-precious-gifts-tehran-saddam-hussein-osama-bin-laden-and-george-w-bush
(FILES) Photo taken 01 February 1979 at Tehran airport of Ruhollah Khomeini (C) leaving the Air France Boeing 747 jumbo that flew him back from exile in France to Tehran. Getty Images
Three Precious Gifts to Tehran from Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and George W. Bush
(FILES) Photo taken 01 February 1979 at Tehran airport of Ruhollah Khomeini (C) leaving the Air France Boeing 747 jumbo that flew him back from exile in France to Tehran. Getty Images
Most people in today’s Middle East were born after 1979. Yet they often overlook how profoundly that year shaped their countries, their stability, and their daily lives. It unleashed storms, wars, and leaders whose ambitions and dangers far exceeded the borders from which they emerged. Some observers even see a direct link between that pivotal year and what is unfolding today around the Strait of Hormuz following the recent US-Israeli war against Iran and its military arsenal.
Few years in modern history can rival 1979 in significance or consequence.
That year, Khomeini returned to Tehran from exile in Paris. The reactor of the Iranian Revolution quickly began emitting its political radiation, especially after the institutionalization of the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist.
The same year, Iraq’s presidential palace effectively fell into the hands of the country’s strongman, Saddam Hussein, who eased President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr into retirement under the burdens of age—and perhaps regret.
In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat also signed the Camp David Accords with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington under the sponsorship of President Jimmy Carter.
These developments soon intersected with a major international event. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev committed what many would later regard as the grave error of invading Afghanistan. The Kremlin walked into a trap. From among the fighters who flocked to that battlefield would emerge Osama bin Laden, the man who would inaugurate the new century with the attacks on New York and Washington, unintentionally paving the way for the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
On January 16, 1979, amid mounting protests and demonstrations, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left Iran, entrusting the country to the government of Shapour Bakhtiar. Those around him tried to portray the departure as a temporary vacation. In reality, it was a one-way journey. America had abandoned its ally.
The decisive turning point came swiftly. On February 1, a plane from Paris landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport carrying an extraordinary passenger: Ayatollah Khomeini, returning after fourteen years in exile. The massive crowds that greeted him delivered an unmistakable message. The Shah’s regime had fallen. The revolution had triumphed.
Ruhollah Khomeini (L) prays with the Iranian opposition leaders after receiving them at his Pontchartrain mansion, west of Paris, on November 6, 1978. (Photo by Joel ROBINE / AFP via Getty Images)
Decision-makers across the region watched carefully. Few were more alarmed than Saddam Hussein, then the powerful deputy leader of Baathist Iraq. Events in Tehran accelerated rapidly. The Islamic Republic was proclaimed. The doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih was enshrined. The constitution incorporated language committing the new state to “exporting the revolution” under the banner of supporting the oppressed.
Saddam Refuses to Kill Khomeini
History could easily have unfolded differently.
During Khomeini’s years in Najaf, he was a difficult guest. Iraqi authorities frequently complained that he sought to evade the restrictions attached to his residency. After the Algiers Agreement of March 6, 1975, signed by the Shah and Saddam Hussein under the auspices of Algerian President Houari Boumédiène, both sides pledged to cease supporting each other’s opponents.
Iraqi officials repeatedly reminded Khomeini of the understanding. He effectively refused to commit himself to ending political activity against the Shah.
According to former Iraqi officials, Iraqi intelligence one day proposed arranging Khomeini’s assassination and blaming the Shah’s security services. Saddam’s response surprised them. He reportedly asked: “Do the people making this proposal not understand that Iraq does not betray its guests?”
Thus Khomeini remained alive.
Once the Iran-Iraq War began, however, eliminating him became an obsession for Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, the head of Iraqi intelligence. Reaching Khomeini was difficult, though Iran in 1981 had not yet fully consolidated its security institutions.
Iraqi intelligence developed ties with the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and with the Mujahedin-e Khalq. It helped coordinate operations that culminated in the devastating bombing of Iran’s parliament complex, killing dozens of senior figures. Soon afterward, Ali Khamenei was targeted by a bomb hidden inside a tape recorder, leaving him permanently injured in one arm.
Barzan remained determined to reach Khomeini himself. According to accounts from former Iraqi intelligence officials, Baghdad eventually recruited a cleric close to the Iranian leader and managed to plant a small explosive device inside Khomeini’s wool pillow. The bomb detonated when he was away from it. The attempt failed.
The Paris Interlude
Chance played an important role in Khomeini’s journey to power.
Forced to leave Iraq, he searched for a new place of exile. Years later in Paris, former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam recalled that Khomeini’s associates discreetly explored the possibility of relocating to Syria. President Hafez al-Assad was not interested.
Khaddam said Assad feared that hosting Khomeini could trigger not merely a political crisis with Iraq but perhaps even war between the two Baathist rivals. Khaddam advised Khomeini’s entourage to consider Algeria instead. They dismissed the idea, believing Algeria was too distant and likely to impose strict restrictions.
What surprised Khaddam was France’s willingness to receive Khomeini and provide him with a global platform.
During his stay in Neauphle-le-Château outside Paris, visitors streamed in from around the world.
Iraqi authorities sought to gauge his intentions. Khomeini had already demonstrated his ability to move Iranian public opinion through audio recordings that supporters distributed secretly inside Iran.
The Iraqi intelligence officer responsible for liaising with Khomeini during his years in Najaf was Ali Baweh, who had often facilitated his activities. Baghdad decided to send him to Paris. Former intelligence officials claim Baweh traveled with another man wearing a watch capable of recording conversations. Khomeini received them politely but showed no flexibility.
Asked about his plans after the Shah’s fall, he delivered an answer that landed like a bomb. After overthrowing the Shah, he said, the next objective would be “the overthrow of the infidel Baath regime.”
Saddam’s Obsession with Wilayat al-Faqih
When Khomeini appeared in Tehran surrounded by unprecedented crowds, Saddam understood that the storm would soon reach Iraq.
According to former presidential aides, the issue that troubled him most was not the revolution itself but the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih. Saddam believed it implied that a non-Iraqi cleric could demand the allegiance of Iraqi Shiites. To him, this represented a direct threat to Iraq’s sovereignty and cohesion.
He reportedly kept a booklet explaining the powers of the Supreme Jurist as understood by Khomeini and studied it carefully. By September 1980, Saddam had concluded that war was inevitable. He believed Khomeini intended to penetrate the Arab world by first bringing down Iraq. Waiting, in his view, meant eventually fighting Iran in the streets of Baghdad. Better to fight on the border.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein visits soldiers in northern Iraq. (Photo by Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images)
Many who knew him believe this conviction also strengthened his determination to remove Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and assume full power. Since the Baath Party’s return to government in 1968, Saddam had chosen to remain formally second in command, benefiting from Bakr’s legitimacy while gradually reshaping the military and state institutions around himself.
On July 16, 1979, Bakr finally departed. The age of Saddam had begun.
Former Foreign Minister Hamed al-Jubouri later recounted a revealing conversation with Bakr. When Jubouri once attempted to resign, Bakr reportedly pointed to the presidential chair and declared: “I would urinate on the presidency if it cannot even preserve the dignity of the president.”
Then, with tears in his eyes, he added: “Forget resignation. I cannot accept yours. Who can accept mine? We are prisoners. We do not possess the right to resign.”
“We Will Smash the Iranians’ Heads”
Saddam’s decision to go to war preceded his formal assumption of the presidency.
Salah Omar al-Ali, one of the veteran Baathist leaders who helped bring the party to power in 1968, recalled a revealing conversation during the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana in September 1979.
Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam met Iranian Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi. Despite tensions along the border, the atmosphere was constructive.
Hoping to reinforce that mood, Salah Omar al-Ali later spoke privately with Saddam and stressed the importance of peaceful solutions and economic development.
IRAQ - JANUARY 01: Iranian POW's waiting in line for food at the Ramadt detention camp under a smiling portrait of Iraq leader Saddam Hussein during the war between Iran Iraq. (Photo by Bill Foley/Getty Images)
Saddam listened attentively before responding.
“Pay attention, Salah,” he said. “This opportunity may come only once every hundred years. The opportunity exists today. We will smash the Iranians’ heads. We will recover every inch they occupied. We will restore the Shatt al-Arab.”
Then he added sharply: “I never want to hear you speak again about peaceful solutions, humanitarian solutions, or settling problems with Iran. Listen carefully. I will smash the Iranians’ heads and recover every inch from Khorramshahr to the Shatt al-Arab.”
A year later, he launched the war.
Saddam believed several factors worked in his favor. Khomeini’s revolution had turned America into Iran’s enemy. The Soviet Union feared revolutionary contagion among its Muslim republics. The Gulf monarchies felt threatened by Tehran’s ambitions.
He convinced himself that Iraq alone could break the revolutionary wave threatening regional stability. He miscalculated.
He assumed Iran’s post-revolutionary chaos would guarantee a quick victory. He failed to understand how rapidly Iranian nationalism would fuse with religious fervor once Iraqi troops crossed the border.
The war did not destroy the Islamic Republic. Instead, it strengthened it. Khomeini ruthlessly consolidated power and entrenched the rule of the Supreme Jurist. Saddam’s greatest achievement after eight years of war was a ceasefire. Iran survived. Iraq was exhausted.
The Kuwait Gift
In the years that followed, Tehran received another unexpected gift.
General Nizar al-Khazraji, Iraq’s chief of staff at the time, later described how he learned of the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
“I was asleep at home,” he recalled. “Early in the morning I received a call summoning me to General Headquarters. When I arrived, I was told: ‘We have completed the occupation of Kuwait.’”
Khazraji was stunned. Defense Minister Abdul Jabbar Shanshal was informed in exactly the same way.
Imagine, Khazraji said, an army being pushed into such an adventure without the knowledge of either its defense minister or its chief of staff.
A few days later Saddam explained that secrecy had been necessary to preserve surprise. He added that Kuwait had been liberated by forces reporting directly to him rather than to the regular chain of command.
Khazraji saw the decision as the product of arrogance born from Saddam’s belief that he had emerged victorious from the war with Iran.
The consequences were enormous.
The world’s attention shifted decisively from the “Iranian threat” to the “Iraqi threat.” Operation Desert Storm expelled Saddam from Kuwait and left Iraq wounded, isolated, and under sanctions.
Meanwhile, Iran caught its breath and resumed its long-term regional project.
The Gifts of Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush
Another chain of events that began in 1979 would transform the Middle East.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan triggered alarm throughout the West. Washington resolved to make Moscow pay dearly. Volunteers poured into Afghanistan from across the Arab and Muslim worlds. The United States encouraged the jihad against Soviet forces and supported many of the fighters.
Among them was a wealthy young Saudi named Osama bin Laden.
On Afghan soil, al-Qaeda was born.
ARLINGTON, VA - SEPTEMBER 12: President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld survey the damage at the Pentagon building September 12, 2001 in Arlington, VA. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)
On September 11, 2001, bin Laden carried the conflict to the American mainland. Civilian airliners destroyed the towers of the World Trade Center. Thousands were killed.
America had been struck at the heart of its power and prestige. The world waited for the response.
Under President George W. Bush, encouraged by military and security institutions and by the neoconservative movement, the United States first overthrew the Taliban and then invaded Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein.
For the generals of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the scene was almost unbelievable.
The Taliban regime, hostile to Tehran, had fallen at American hands. Saddam’s regime, which Iran had failed to overthrow during eight years of war, met the same fate.
Iran neither obstructed these outcomes nor mourned them. Yet Tehran also saw American forces deployed on both its eastern and western frontiers.
A new phase in US-Iran relations began.
Qassem Soleimani and officers of the Quds Force focused on undermining the American military presence, especially in Iraq, while avoiding direct confrontation with Washington.
Without intending to, bin Laden had delivered Iran another extraordinary gift.
After the attacks on New York and Washington, the world became obsessed with al-Qaeda. Soon afterward, attention shifted toward Saddam Hussein, whose danger was magnified relentlessly by Western political and media narratives.
The result was that Iran moved out of the center of the international spotlight.
The Bush administration advanced numerous arguments to justify war against Iraq: alleged weapons of mass destruction, obstruction of international inspectors, and suspicions that Saddam had never abandoned nuclear ambitions.
Most consequential was the effort to suggest a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
No meaningful partnership ever emerged between the Iraqi regime and bin Laden’s organization. Yet Saddam did make the mistake of exploring the possibility.
While bin Laden was living in Khartoum, Iraqi intelligence officer Farouq Hijazi met him through the mediation of Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi. The discussion was lengthy and difficult. After returning to Baghdad, Hijazi advised Saddam to close the file. Contacts ended.
But the allegation lingered—and helped justify the invasion.
Syria, Soleimani, and the Iraqi Prize
Another event left a lasting mark on the region’s future. Days before the American invasion of Iraq, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Tehran. Anxiety about the coming war dominated his discussions with President Mohammad Khatami and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Bashar Assad meets with Qassem Soleimani
Both sides agreed that if American forces consolidated their position in Iraq, Syria or Iran could be next.
The answer, they concluded, was to bleed the American presence through resistance movements. Qassem Soleimani participated in some of those discussions.
Syria subsequently facilitated the movement of fighters into Iraq, while Soleimani methodically built resistance networks.
Iran wagered on geography—and won.
It encouraged its Iraqi allies to participate in governing institutions and successive governments, especially after executive power became concentrated in the office of the prime minister, a position conventionally held by a Shiite politician.
When the last American soldier left Iraq in December 2011, Iran had become an indispensable actor in Iraqi affairs.
The fingerprints of Soleimani were visible throughout the Iraqi state. After his death, many of those networks remained under the stewardship of his successor, Esmail Qaani.
Then came another opportunity. In July 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in Mosul after the dramatic collapse of Iraqi army units. Soleimani moved immediately, dispatching weapons to both Baghdad and Erbil.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued his famous call to arms. Iran later helped transform the resulting mobilization into the Popular Mobilization Forces, which eventually became an official institution under the authority of the Iraqi prime minister.
Iranian influence now extended across parliament, government, the military, and the PMF. From Iraq to Lebanon, from the Palestinian arena to Yemen, Tehran steadily expanded its reach.
The cumulative result is difficult to miss. Khomeini survived. Saddam’s war failed. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait redirected international attention. Bin Laden’s attacks transformed global priorities. George W. Bush’s invasion removed Iran’s most formidable Arab rival. Each actor pursued his own objectives. Together, however, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and George W. Bush delivered three of the most valuable strategic gifts the Islamic Republic of Iran has ever received.
‘If Ebola Comes, We’ll Be Wiped Out’: Fear Grips Camps in DR Congohttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5280009-%E2%80%98if-ebola-comes-we%E2%80%99ll-be-wiped-out%E2%80%99-fear-grips-camps-dr-congo
A staff member hangs up protective equipment to dry after washing them at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Munigi on June 2, 2026. (AFP)
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‘If Ebola Comes, We’ll Be Wiped Out’: Fear Grips Camps in DR Congo
A staff member hangs up protective equipment to dry after washing them at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Munigi on June 2, 2026. (AFP)
Dorcas Mapenzi fears the worst if Ebola comes to the Kingonze camp, where she lives alongside more than 25,000 other displaced people in the conflict-hit eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
"If Ebola comes, we'll be wiped out as we're packed like sardines," the displaced woman told AFP at the sprawl of tarpaulin and tents on the outskirts of Bunia, the capital of the northeastern Ituri province, the epicenter of the latest outbreak.
Spread by close contact, the deadly viral disease has spread like wildfire in the vast central African country's east, where decades of armed conflicts have forced millions of people from their homes and into camps where they live cheek-by-jowl.
Nearly a million of those displaced are in Ituri -- among the provinces of the desperately impoverished DRC most prey to the east's litany of armed groups -- where the prospect of the epidemic spreading throughout the refugee camps has sparked alarm.
The World Health Organization's director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that the eastern DRC "faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict", with the fighting hampering efforts to tackle the epidemic.
Visiting Bunia on Saturday, Tedros called for more international help and financial aid to combat the spread of Ebola.
He also said it was essential to assuage fears among affected communities who are deeply distrustful of authorities and halt the spread of false information about the virus.
The current outbreak was officially declared in the DRC and neighboring Uganda on May 15.
As of May 31, the WHO said 321 cases had been confirmed in the DR Congo, including 48 deaths. Thjere are nine confirmed cases in Uganda, including one fatality.
- 'Everyone will die' -
No infection has yet been recorded at the Kingonze displaced persons' camp, where Mapenzi now lives.
But conditions in the camp are ripe for a disease passed on through close physical contact and bodily fluids.
"I've already heard of Ebola and it's a disease that scares me a lot," Mapenzi said as she washed her laundry in a basin on the ground.
"We displaced people here have no hygiene.
"Our children play next to filthy toilets and even relieve themselves on the ground, in the middle of the tarpaulins that serve as our homes," the young woman said.
Deborah Nzale, a widow and head of her family, lives with nine people in a small tarpaulin shelter of barely three square meters (32 square feet).
"Given these conditions, how are we going to protect ourselves against this disease, when everyone tells us we need to distance ourselves to fight Ebola?" she asked.
No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the latest outbreak.
So attempts to contain the virus's spread have had to rely mainly on protective measures and rapid contact tracing.
"We sleep piled on top of each other, with everyone's sweat," Nzale said.
"If a single person gets infected here in this camp, everyone will die."
- 'Ebola really kills' -
So far, Kingonze's displaced residents have not received any protective gear.
"Ebola really kills," a poster at the entrance warns.
"People looking to raise awareness come through here with messages but, surprisingly, we don't have the kit we need to protect ourselves," Budjo Amos complained.
"I don't even have soap to wash my hands," said Amos, who fled the province's common communal violence.
"The most urgent thing is to give us clean water," he insisted.
There is just a single borehole in Kigonze. Empty jerrycans pile up in front. Water flows from the tap for just a few hours a day.
"The state has to intervene urgently," Amos pleaded.
Already long absent from swathes of Ituri, the Congolese state has been criticized for its delayed response to the outbreak, which was declared several weeks after the first cases emerged.
Many hospitals in the region still lack essential equipment, especially isolation tents for patients.
According to Ituri's military governor, the province counts around 61 displaced persons camps housing nearly 970,000 people.
"We need to deploy equipment and qualified, specialist medical staff as quickly as possible," Lieutenant General Johnny Luboya Nkashama told AFP on Friday, "to spare this province from disaster".
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