Khamenei calls on Iranians to drive the enemy to despair

Khamenei calls on Iranians to drive the enemy to despair

JNS

Iran’s foreign minister vowed that Tehran will never abandon uranium enrichment, even if it means war with the United States.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday urged his nation to unify as the United States has been boosting its military presence in the Gulf region.

“The enemy must be driven to despair. The enemy’s despair comes through [our] unity, strength of thought and determination, and steadfastness in confronting the enemy’s temptations. These are what build national power,” Khamenei tweeted.

AFP cited the Iranian leader as calling on his citizens to show resolve ahead of the 47th anniversary this week of the Islamic Revolution that brought the mullahs to power.

Since 1979, “foreign powers have always sought to restore the previous situation,” he said, referring to the monarchy, as represented today by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and steadfastness of the people. Show it again and frustrate the enemy,” Khamenei said.

Meanwhile in Israel, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz said on Monday that he hopes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can convince the Trump administration to make a historic decision that would put an end to Iran as a strategic threat

Iran “is a regional challenge,” Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff and defense minister, told JNS.

“And I am also aware that it is a threat to the State of Israel. Nevertheless, it is not our business alone. … Iran is a global challenge,” he stressed.

“We are at the edge of a historic crossroad that I would say can affect the entire Middle East and, in a way, the entire global, the entire world, in terms of strategic threats, and I don’t think we should give Iran the next 50 years to play the role it did in the last 50 years,” he continued.

Gantz said he hopes “the prime minister can convince” U.S. President Donald Trump of his capacity to be the catalyst of this shift during Netanyahu’s visit to the White House scheduled for Feb. 11.

“The relations between Israel and the United States are very important, very candid relations, regardless of the political manipulation that [people are] trying to create. I hope that [Netanyahu and Trump] will have a productive conversation over there,” Gantz said.

China People’s Liberation Army’s Push for Political Loyalty May Signal Preparation for War

China People’s Liberation Army’s Push for Political Loyalty May Signal Preparation for War

Antonio Graceffo

The People’s Liberation Army has released new political regulations as Chinese leader Xi Jinping pushes for greater Party loyalty, a move that may mark a critical step in preparing the military for a potential war with the United States over Taiwan. The new rules formalize how Communist Party organizations conduct elections inside the armed forces, reinforcing institutional Party control over military governance.

They standardize the selection of Party delegates and leadership bodies at every level of the military, embedding Party authority directly into the PLA’s internal structure and ensuring that political oversight remains inseparable from command functions.

The PLA is a political army by design, built around absolute subordination to the Chinese Communist Party rather than professional military independence. Its governing doctrine holds that political loyalty to the CCP and to Xi Jinping as chairman of the Central Military Commission is the foundation of combat effectiveness, with ideological discipline treated as more important than technical skill or battlefield experience.

Party organizations are positioned as the core mechanism for leadership, cohesion, and operational effectiveness, with political reliability treated as a structural requirement. This reflects continuity with Mao-era revolutionary doctrine, in which the principle that “the Party commands the gun” remains central and the PLA exists first to defend Party rule rather than operate as an independent national military.

By institutionalizing Party elections across the PLA, the CCP reinforces its doctrine of absolute control over the armed forces. All outcomes are reviewed and approved by higher Party organs, ensuring advancement is limited to officers fully aligned with the Chairman Responsibility System and locking command authority into a top-down structure anchored in personal allegiance to Xi Jinping.

These measures are closely tied to the PLA’s 2027 centenary goal, the first major milestone in China’s three-stage military modernization plan, widely interpreted as readiness to conduct a Taiwan operation. Modernization and reform through organizational restructuring, troop reductions, new combat formations, and advances in information warfare, data dominance, and joint operations are pursued to improve efficiency while preserving centralized Party control.

To meet the 2027 benchmark, the Central Military Commission is seeking a leadership corps thoroughly screened under the new political standards. Party theory holds that ideological wavering undermines combat effectiveness, and the regulations are intended to ensure orders are executed without hesitation or internal resistance. The PLA’s external activities, including peacekeeping, anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, and disaster relief, function as political signaling rather than neutral participation in globalization.

CCP propaganda uses these missions to frame China as a “responsible great power” and a provider of global stability, countering the “China threat” narrative. Domestically, images of PLA troops in blue helmets reinforce the claim that only under CCP leadership can China achieve national rejuvenation, tying military modernization directly to Party legitimacy.

The result is a Leninist fusion of Party and army, increasingly personalized around Xi Jinping. Unlike Western militaries that serve a constitution or state, the PLA is a Party-army with no separation between command authority and political will.

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The 21-Mile Trigger: How a Narrow Strait Holds the Global Economy Hostage

The 21-Mile Trigger: How a Narrow Strait Holds the Global Economy Hostage

BP

The global economy sells itself as weightless, an elegant lattice of algorithms, financial derivatives, satellites, and cloud servers humming beyond the reach of geography.

This story is comforting. It suggests resilience, redundancy, and control.

But it is also a lie. Beneath the abstractions, the modern world still runs on pressure points. It still breathes through arteries. And the most vulnerable of them all is a 21-mile-wide channel of water in West Asia: the Strait of Hormuz

At its narrowest point, this corridor between Iran and Oman funnels roughly 20 percent of the world’s petroleum liquids consumption. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, oil flow through the strait averaged 20 million barrels per day in 2024, and remained at that level through the first quarter of 2025. On any given day, around one out of every five barrels traded worldwide passes through this single passage. In addition, approximately one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade, primarily from Qatar, transits the same waters.

There is no parallel route that can meaningfully replace it. Saudi Arabia and the UAE operate pipelines that can bypass the strait, but their combined unused capacity amounts to roughly 3.5 million barrels per day, a fraction of what flows through Hormuz. No technological workaround neutralizes its importance.

Hormuz is not a bottleneck because of politics. It is a bottleneck because of physics.

To stand on Oman’s Musandam Peninsula and watch tankers drift through its calm waters is to witness a paradox of modern power: a global system of unprecedented scale, complexity, and interdependence, resting on a maritime corridor barely wider than a major city borough.

This is not merely a strategic vulnerability. It is a structural trap.

THE ILLUSION OF DISTANCE

In Western capitals, Gulf tensions are often treated as external noise and manageable, containable, ultimately distant. Sanctions are imposed, statements are issued, war games are simulated, and the assumption persists that escalation can always be dialed back before it becomes systemic.

Hormuz shatters that assumption.

The Strait collapses distance. It translates regional friction directly into global consequence. When Iran references Hormuz, it is pointing at the mechanical center of the world economy and reminding it how narrow its margin for error truly is.

We saw this in June 2025. When U.S. warplanes joined Israel’s twelve-day campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran retaliated by striking a U.S. airbase in Qatar, the world held its breath. Iran’s parliament voted to close the Strait of Hormuz, a step that has never actually been taken. The decision awaited approval from the Supreme National Security Council. Oil prices spiked. Tanker traffic through the strait fell by nearly 15 percent in five days.

The closure never came. But the message was delivered.

This is why even talk of disruption reverberates through markets. Unlike other geopolitical flashpoints, Hormuz does not need escalation to produce impact. It only needs uncertainty.

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Strait of Hormuz

Why Some Of Trump's Muslim 'Allies' Fear A Loss Of Iran More Than They Fear Iran

Why Some Of Trump's Muslim 'Allies' Fear A Loss Of Iran More Than They Fear Iran

 PIERRE REHOV

US President Donald J. Trump's Gulf Arab allies, according to the New York Times, oppose an American strike on Iran primarily out of fear of regional instability and the possible damage to economies, tourism, and domestic security.

While this explanation may sound credible on the surface, a deeper and far more uncomfortable reality is that for several of these regimes, the real danger is not Iran's collapse, but an ideological exposure that could follow decisive American action, as well as concern about Israel becoming more prominent in the region.

A serious confrontation with Iran would not only reshape the regional balance of power; it would also force a number of Arab states to clarify positions that for decades they have fought to keep ambiguous.

Iran, since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, is not merely a rival or destabilizing neighbor. It is the ideological and operational core of modern Islamist warfare in the Middle East. 

Since 1979, Tehran has armed, funded, trained, and coordinated proxy organizations with the explicit aim of undermining Western influence. "Death to America," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced in 2023, "is not just a slogan, it is a policy." For decades, Iran has also been encircling Israel in a "ring of fire" the better to destroy it.

Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza; Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen are not independent actors pursuing local grievances. They are integral components of a coherent Iranian strategy, backed by Russia and China, aimed at expanding Islamist Iran's influence in the region by force; destabilizing sovereign states, and eroding the regional order from within. This strategy is not reactive; it is doctrinal.

Trump's Iran policy, after years of hesitant US engagement at best, has consistently combined economic pressure and military deterrence, with limited diplomatic patience, to restore America's international credibility.

Trump's restoration of credibility has apparently unsettled not only Iran's regime, but also some of Washington's supposed regional allies, who have grown accustomed to maneuvering Washington when desirable. Some, such as Qatar, have built fancied empires by never committing to any side and instead playing every side. Just as much blame, however, must go to those leaders in the Middle East and Europe who agreed to be played.

What many have largely avoided addressing is the extent to which some governments, such as Qatar's and Turkey's -- which host American military bases -- benefit from U.S. security guarantees.

While publicly Qatar and Turkey affirm their commitment to "stability", at the same time they zealously set about destabilizing half the planet by funding, promoting, and even training Islamist terror networks that presumably serve their own strategic interests. To Western audiences, they speak the language of moderation, while churning up grievance narratives and ideological victimhood at home.

A decisive confrontation with Iran might shatter the carefully maintained duplicity that these countries have so tenderly nurtured for decades.

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Middle East on the brink of war: Why US-Iran talks may be the last chance for peace

Middle East on the brink of war: Why US-Iran talks may be the last chance for peace

RT

Another round of talks between the US and Iran is expected to be held in the upcoming days. With regional allies on edge and militant groups warning of escalation, the outcome of the negotiations could determine whether diplomacy holds or whether the Middle East slides toward a broader war.

What’s at stake in the new round of US-Iran talks?

Iran and representatives of the Trump administration are expected to hold another round of talks in the coming days, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday.

The announcement follows a six-hour marathon of talks in Muscat, the capital of Oman, where Araghchi and his team met with Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Steve Witkoff, the US special representative for the Middle East, and Gen. Brad Cooper, chief of staff of US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The venue for the next round has yet to be finalized. Oman may be replaced by another Gulf country or possibly Türkiye, but the focus of the discussions is expected to remain unchanged: Iran’s military capabilities.

At the center of the agenda is Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran insists is designed solely for civilian energy and research purposes. 

Washington, however, remains deeply skeptical, arguing that Iran’s enrichment levels, stockpiles, and technological advances point toward potential military use. The US wants the program either sharply curtailed or dismantled entirely.

But the nuclear issue is only one of several major fault lines separating the two adversaries.

Speaking at a press conference last Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined what he described as the minimum conditions for the talks to succeed. In addition to nuclear restrictions, Rubio said Iran’s ballistic missile program must be addressed, and Tehran must halt its support for armed Islamist groups across the Middle East.

Those demands reflect long-standing US concerns. Iran’s missile program is viewed in Washington as a delivery system for a future nuclear weapon, while Iranian backing of groups such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Iraqi militias is seen as a destabilizing force across the region.

Red lines that don’t move

Iran, however, has consistently rejected such conditions. Officials in Tehran argue that their missile program is defensive and non-negotiable, especially given the country’s experience with war, sanctions, and isolation. Likewise, Iranian leaders have repeatedly framed support for allied groups as a legitimate response to Israeli and Western influence in the Middle East.

For that reason, expectations for a breakthrough remain low.

Iran is unlikely to make meaningful concessions on its ballistic missile program, nor is it expected to abandon its long-standing allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. If those positions remain unchanged, analysts warn that the path toward military confrontation becomes increasingly narrow.

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