Sadegh Khalkhali became Iran’s first revolutionary Sharia judge after the 1979 Revolution. The role would eventually earn him a notorious nickname abroad: the “Hanging Judge.” In his memoirs, Khalkhali took responsibility for executing “five hundred and some” people, and the true number of people executed under his command was much, much higher. He wrote explicitly that he felt neither regret nor torment of conscience over the executions.

Few sentences better capture the disregard for human life that began with the Islamic Republic and continues today than Khalkhali’s own words: “I actually believe I killed too few.”

The monarchy fell on February 11, 1979. Within days, executions had begun. On February 24, Khomeini formally gave Khalkhali authority to sit in the revolutionary tribunal and issue judgments according to “the standards of Islamic law” (mavazin-e shar’i).

Khalkhali favored firing squads. In May 1979, he explained his position clearly: “There is no room in revolutionary courts for defense lawyers.” Lawyers, he complained, quoted laws and wasted time. The revolutionary courts had emerged from the anger of the Iranian people, he said, and those people accepted Islamic principles.

For him, procedure obstructed justice because justice had already been decided under Islam. The accused stood before the court after the moral judgment had effectively been made. The court’s role was to use religious and revolutionary authority to hand down whatever punishment it deemed appropriate.

A legitimate legal system places obstacles between accusation and death for a reason.

Presenting evidence and letting a defense lawyer make a case takes time. So do appeals and the possibility that the court might be wrong. Khalkhali had little patience for any of it. He helped build a justice system in which revolutionary certainty could outweigh a human life. Decades after he left power, that same thinking still runs through the Islamic Republic.

When people facing death begged for their lives, Khalkhali dismissed their pleas as “crocodile tears.” He saw only enemies of God. Once someone was given that label, there was little room for pity, and their fear was dismissed as an act. Khalkhali might be gone, but that way of seeing people survived him.

The revolution that brought down the Shah was much bigger than Khomeini and his clerics. Liberals wanted political freedom and an end to authoritarian rule. Marxists opposed the monarchy and the inequality they associated with it. Nationalists resented foreign influence, while religious Iranians had their own grievances against the Shah’s secular rule. They did not agree on what should replace him. They agreed that he had to go, and each group could imagine that the Iran that followed might look something like the country they wanted. Khomeini understood how useful that uncertainty and shared dissatisfaction was.

Speaking to Western journalists from France before the revolution, he carefully presented himself as a spiritual guide rather than the future ruler of Iran.

In November 1978, when asked what role he would have after an Islamic republic was created, Khomeini said: “I don’t have any intention to head this government or be part of it.”

The clerical movement had something many of its allies lacked: organization embedded throughout the country. Mosques provided networks that could mobilize people quickly, and Khomeini possessed religious authority that secular opposition figures could not reproduce. Once the common enemy disappeared, the revolutionary coalition began to fracture. The clerical faction did not.

This is where I think the “trick” of 1979 is often misunderstood. Where we find ourselves today did not require every Iranian who joined the revolution to want a theocracy. It just needed enough people to postpone the argument about what would replace the Shah until the Shah was gone. By the time that argument could no longer be postponed, men like Khalkhali already had prisons and revolutionary courts under their control.

In the same statement in which he rejected defense lawyers, Khalkhali listed involvement in the Shah’s 2,500-year celebration and promotion of the Shiraz Arts Festival among the activities associated with people condemned by the revolutionary courts.

Even something like a cultural festival could be treated as efsad-e fel-arz, or “corruption on earth,” a charge that is still used to sentence people to death in Iran today.

Khalkhali even wrote a pamphlet attacking Cyrus the Great, titled Cyrus the Liar and Criminal. In it, he branded the ancient emperor a “tyrant, a liar, and a homosexual,” portraying him as bloodthirsty and morally corrupt. Accounts from the early revolutionary period describe his effort to destroy Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire. The exact circumstances are contested, though contemporary witnesses and later researchers say that resistance from locals and officials prevented its destruction

History was only useful when it served Islam. When it competed with the cleric’s story, repeating it became dangerous. The same hierarchy applied to human life. When religious certainty and the life of an accused person clashed, Khalkhali told us which mattered more.

And he was exceptionally crude about it. That may be the sole difference between him and the system that followed. The modern Islamic Republic is smarter and more subtle.

Today, the system looks far more formal than the one Khalkhali ran. Courts, case numbers, and defense lawyers exist, even if prisoners are often denied meaningful access to them. The process may look different, but it can still lead to the same gallows. That is what makes Khalkhali’s contempt for defense lawyers feel so familiar decades later.

In February 2026, Amnesty International documented cases of young Iranians facing death sentences after fast-tracked proceedings connected to nationwide protests. Some had been denied access to lawyers during interrogation. In one case involving an 18-year-old defendant, the organization reported that a judge refused to recognize lawyers his family selected.

Charges rooted in the Islamic Republic’s religious view of political crime can still carry the death penalty. Amnesty International has documented Revolutionary Courts handing down death sentences after sham trials that systematically violate basic fair-trial rights. What Khalkhali once did personally has since become part of a much larger, industrialized state system. In 2025 alone, Amnesty recorded at least 2,159 executions in Iran, more than twice the number it recorded in 2024.

Khalkhali’s final years looked very different from the beginning of the revolution. The man who had once decided people’s deaths in minutes became physically frail, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and serious heart and brain problems before dying in Tehran in November 2003.

But the system he helped build outlived him. The Revolutionary Courts are still operating. Efsad-e fel-arz, or “corruption on earth,” can still carry a death sentence. Defendants can still be denied access to lawyers, and nearly half a century later, the state still executes people it considers enemies under a system that gives them few, if any, protections.

Khalkhali died more than two decades ago, but the system he helped create did not die with him. Iran no longer has a single “Hanging Judge.” The Islamic Republic built a network of judges who could carry on his legacy.

I was fifteen the morning the towers fell, watching from a small television screen in rural Australia late at night, confused and terrified as a second plane careened through the towering skyscraper live on air. I had no way of knowing then that a country I knew next to nothing about that day would go on to define most of my adult life and career.

But here is what the anniversary coverage rarely sheds light on: Afghans did not fly those planes; they were not the ones directly responsible for that horrific terrorist plot, and yet they are the ones still paying the price.

Let’s not forget that nearly all the hijackers, including the ultimate financier, were Saudi nationals. Bin Laden was not even hiding in Afghanistan when American forces found him in 2011. He lived covertly across the border in Pakistan, within walking distance from the country’s military academy. The offense Afghanistan committed in the invasion was that its leadership, the Taliban, was harboring a guest it couldn’t control.

The Afghan people have been paying for that failure for twenty-five years.

Today, I still try to go back to Afghanistan. Not as often as I once did, and not for the long stretches I used to, as objective reporting there has become increasingly dangerous under Taliban rule. But in 2021, I was there when the beautiful, bleeding nation fell once again, watching the Taliban ride motorcycles into Mazar-i-Sharif as bank lines swelled outside shuttered storefronts.

I wince when I remember watching as the women marched defiantly in the streets weeks later. Some wanted desperately to leave; others told me they would never give up on their country. Their home, the only home they knew. I wonder what happened to these women… if they found a way out, or if they are now banished to a sea-blue burqa in the basement.

That is the part of this anniversary few of us dare to grapple with: the war didn’t end in August 2021. It just stopped being American.

This year, for the first time since the towers fell, Afghanistan does not appear by name in either of the country’s core national security documents—not the National Security Strategy, not the National Defense Strategy. A nation that ingested two decades, thousands of American lives, and more than two trillion dollars has gone, in the space of five years, from a central concern of U.S. foreign policy to little more than a footnote folded into a larger debate.

I’ve asked officials in Washington about it. The answer I keep getting, more or less, is that there’s an “ongoing process” to figure out what America’s Afghanistan policy even is anymore. Others are more obtuse, telling me off the record that the country, and the maniacal end to the conflict, are moments most leaders would rather not think about.

Still, six years on, Afghanistan sits uncomfortably in the back of our collective memory. The country, meanwhile, hasn’t gone quiet.

This summer, in the mountains of Badakhshan, a resistance faction claimed its most serious clashes with the Taliban since the takeover—dozens of fighters were killed, positions seized and lost, and the first stretch of fighting that analysts are willing to call something closer to an insurgency than scattered raids occurred. It probably won’t unseat the Taliban. It doesn’t have the money or the outside backing for that yet. Nevertheless, it reminds us that nothing about that country’s story ended when the last American aircraft lifted off the runway at Kabul airport. It just stopped being covered.

When I visited Kabul’s EMERGENCY hospital for the war-wounded, weeks after the Taliban’s return in 2021, I met a boy named Abdul—thin, wide-eyed, maybe fourteen by my guess. A landmine had taken both his legs in Logar province just days before, planted most likely by the former regime now back in power. Abdul wasn’t alive for September 11, 2001. Had no stake in the towers, no memory of that Tuesday at all. He was still paying for it twenty years on.

I think, too, about a twenty-year-old named Halimsah, whom I met inside the grounds of the Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif two days before that city fell to the Taliban five years ago. It was a Friday, his only day off, and he was sitting quietly with friends among the white doves, trying to hold onto something ordinary while the ground shifted underneath the country.

He’d come to Mazar to study economics after violence chased him out of his home in Badakhshan province—the same province now, half a decade later, hosting the most serious armed resistance the Taliban has faced since it retook power.

“There is too much war,” he told me in broken English. “I just want to go to the university, and now I don’t know.”

Then, when I asked what he knew about September 11 and Osama bin Laden, he glared back at me like I’d spoken a foreign language.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Who is that?”

I paused. That was the whole war, condensed into one confused stare. An entire generation of Afghans has now grown up knowing only the after—after the invasion, after the surge, after the withdrawal, after the second collapse—with no memory of the event that supposedly started all of it, and no real say in why it happened to their country at all.

Remembering the towers, the lives lost, the way the country came together that week—that grief is real and it deserves its place in every anniversary written about this day. However, twenty-five years out, there’s another question worth sitting with too: what did we do in the two decades of war that followed, and what do we still owe a country we occupied for an entire generation?

Afghan women gained access to classrooms and workplaces they’d been locked out of for years, and many of them fought—genuinely fought, in the street, with their bodies—to keep that access after the Taliban returned. Some of them are still fighting for it, quietly, in ways that don’t make headlines anymore because no American soldier is standing next to them.

Those of us old enough remember that morning all too well—the crumbling towers, the ash-lathered bodies, the missing posters and the flags on every porch—we are worse at acknowledging what happened in the two decades after, and even worse at facing what happens to a country once we stop talking about it.

The chapter on Afghanistan didn’t close in August 2021 even though the United States and its allies walked, or more accurately, chaotically flew away. Forty-million people still live with the effects of a war they did not ask for, in a country that has slipped from the news cycle and from the lips of our political leaders. Twenty-five years later, that silence leaves a haunting legacy. Are we ever going to care again about Afghanistan?

In January 2006, Palestinians went to the polls to elect a new parliament. This was the first legislative election since 1996, and none have happened since.

In 1996, Fatah had emerged victorious, winning 50 out of the 88 available seats. Hamas, meanwhile, had boycotted that election, rejecting the Oslo peace framework that had established the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was supposed to be a temporary and transitional body that would eventually be dissolved with the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Following Yasser Arafat’s death in November 2004, a presidential election was held in January 2005. Once again, Hamas did not field a candidate. This allowed Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas to win easily.

By 2006, however, Hamas was ready to participate and compete against Fatah for political influence—even if it still was not fully signed up to the peace framework.

At the time, Fatah had serious weaknesses that Hamas sought to exploit. After a decade in power, many Palestinians associated it with nepotism, jobs-for-loyalists, misuse of public money, and an entrenched political elite.

Meanwhile, for ordinary Palestinians, there were problems with large scale unemployment (which was at 23.5% in 2005). The Median monthly household income had fallen from $500 in 2000 to $349 by 2005.

To make matters worse, parts of Gaza and the West Bank were experiencing kidnappings, armed clashes, militia activity, and a general sense that the PA under Fatah was unable to impose order.

Clearly, there was an appetite for a different political direction.

Hamas answered the call.

Hamas’ entry to electoral politics was not under their own name. Rather, they ran under the seemingly more innocuous-sounding banner of “Change and Reform” (al-Taghyīr wa-l-Iṣlāḥ).

The campaign focused on the internal situation for Palestinians—emphasizing fighting corruption, restoring order, and alleviating poverty—rather than resistance or jihad against Israel.

Hamas candidate Muhammad Abu Tir was quoted in The Guardian in January 2006 as saying:

“We will reform this system, we have to be rid of the corruption... Our first priority is not Israel but Palestine.”

Yet, although they emphasized other issues first and foremost, they still remained ideologically committed to Islamism.

In their platform for the election, they said:

“True Islam with its civilized achievements and political, economic, social, and legal aspects is our frame of reference and our way of life.”

And they also remained committed to Islamic ownership of all of the land from the river to the sea:

“Historic Palestine is part of the Arab and Islamic land and its ownership by the Palestinian people is a right that does not diminish over time.”

Under this platform, “Change and Reform” won the legislative election with 44.45% of the vote, winning 74 of the now 132 available seats. Fatah received 41.43% of the vote and won 45 seats.

The consequences of this were disastrous, both immediately and in the longer term.

In March 2006, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh became the new prime minister and formed a new government, creating an uneasy situation in which the presidency and government were controlled by rival movements.

The Middle East Quartet—the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia—demanded that the new government recognize Israel and accept the political agreements previously signed by the Palestinian Authority. Hamas refused these conditions. Major donors consequently suspended direct financial assistance to the Hamas-led government, while Israel stopped transferring tax revenues that it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Meanwhile, tensions between Hamas and Fatah increasingly descended into violence, with armed clashes becoming common by late 2006.

Saudi Arabia attempted to broker some kind of compromise via direct negotiations held between the two factions in February 2007, leading Hamas and Fatah to form a national unity government. It lasted barely three months.

In June, the conflict erupted into open warfare in Gaza. Hamas forces attacked Fatah-controlled security installations and, within days, overwhelmed their rivals and seized control of the Strip. The fighting left more than 160 Palestinians dead and led to Fatah’s expulsion from Gaza.

Hamas alone now ruled Gaza, and used this opportunity to develop an architecture of jihad in the enclave—building up a rocket arsenal, developing weapons-manufacturing capabilities, constructing extensive tunnel networks, and building the security apparatus necessary to maintain its rule.

No doubt, some Palestinians who had voted for Hamas in 2006 would have been happy with this. For them, armed jihad against Israel was the goal, and voting for Hamas was their best hope to achieve this.

For others, the promises of “Change and Reform” left a bitter taste in their mouths.

In the long run, especially after the start of the war in 2023, support for Hamas in Gaza collapsed. By October 2024, a poll by AWRAD revealed that only 3% of Gazans named Hamas as the group they trusted most to lead Gaza.

This is a particularly revealing statistic, as the people in Gaza actually had to live with the consequences of Hamas’ policies. Meanwhile, in the West Bank—which has not had to live with these consequences—23% named Hamas a the group they most trusted. That is a huge gap.

There is a new Palestinian legislative election scheduled for the 28th of November this year. Whether that election will go ahead remains to be seen. Elections were also scheduled in 2021, only to be postponed before voting could begin. And there are still enormous practical questions over how a credible election could be conducted in the devastated Gaza Strip.

For the moment, however, preparations are proceeding. Hamas has indicated that it intends to participate, although nominations do not formally open until late September.

Twenty years is a long time to live with the consequences of a single election. An entire generation of Palestinians has grown up without the opportunity to choose its representatives, while Gazans have experienced firsthand what Hamas rule has meant.

If November’s election goes ahead, Palestinians will finally have the chance to pass judgment on what followed 2006 and decide whether they want something different. The result will reflect the views of voters who have lived with its consequences for two decades.

In 2004, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned that the fall of Saddam Hussein at the hands of America risked creating a new crescent of Iranian influence stretching from Tehran to Beirut.

Speaking as Iraq prepared for its first post-Saddam elections following the American invasion in 2003, King Abdullah laid out what he saw as a danger in a remarkably clear manner during an interview with NBC’s Chris Matthews.

First he asked:

“There is Iranian influence on the Iraqi street. And that is I think the worst-case scenario, that an Iranian-influenced government comes to power and then, where do we go from there?”

And then he asked:

“If it was a Shia-led Iraq that had a special relationship with Iran, and you look at that relationship with Syria and with Hezbollah-Lebanon, then we have this new crescent that appears that would be very destabilizing for the Gulf countries and actually for the whole region.”

This was a clear-sighted warning.

The invasion of Iraq greatly affected the balance of power in the wider Middle East, including in ways that the Bush administration did not anticipate.

In fact, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice saw it in quite the opposite direction, with her expecting that the fall of the Hussein regime in Iraq and the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan would pressure the clerical-theocratic regime in Iran. She said:

“We do believe that if you have a stable and democratic Afghanistan and a stable and democratic Iraq… sooner or later the Iranian leadership is going to have to listen.”

The Iranian regime, of course, would never have seen the situation this way. Their view of the world is Islamist, theocratic, and revolutionary. They viewed the American interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan not so much as attempts toward the establishment of stable democracies, but as a kind of Western/Zionist neo-imperialism—and something that they needed to push back against.

Could they have felt pressured if liberal secularists had taken control in Iraq and Afghanistan? Undoubtedly so. They would have felt tremendously isolated if this had happened. So, rather than allowing this, their strategy was to support pro-Islamist forces in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, this included Shia Islamist parties such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, its armed Badr Organization, and later a constellation of militias including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. In Afghanistan, this included a pragmatic turn to support for the Taliban, whom they had previously opposed during the 1990s.

Of course, the fall of the Taliban and the Hussein regime did create a power vacuum in both countries. While many may have hoped that American victories in Kabul and Baghdad might have created an impetus for the same kind of economic development and modernization seen in Europe after the fall of Berlin in 1945, this was never guaranteed.

There was already a precedent for Iranian-supported Islamist militancy. Hezbollah in Lebanon had since the 1980s benefited from support from the Iranian revolutionary regime. And there had also been mutual support between the Assad regime in Syria and Iran stretching back to 1979, including in the 1980s when Hafez Assad had supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.

The King of Jordan recognized this. He explicitly warned even in 2004 that there was already Iranian influence in the Iraqi street.

The intent was clear then, too.

Indeed, ever since 1979, the regime in Tehran had been explicit about its international revolutionary aspirations.

As Ayatollah Khomeini said in 1980:

“We should try hard to export our revolution to the world… We shall confront the world with our ideology.”

Indeed, Iran’s post-1979 constitution calls for ensuring “the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad.”

Since then, the King’s warning has come true, and then some.

Tehran named this new emerging system as its “Axis of Resistance,” a loose mixture of governments, militias, and Islamist movements tied together by opposition to Israel and American influence in the region.

Some of these groups were Shia. But others were not.

Iran became a longstanding patron of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, providing large-scale support to anti-Israel jihadists in Gaza despite the fact that Hamas is a Sunni Islamist organization.

That relationship illustrates an important caveat to the original “Shia crescent” concept: Iran’s leadership may be radical Shias, but Tehran’s strategy turned out to be more pragmatic and diverse than specifically sectarian.

Indeed, in Yemen, Iran developed a close relationship with the Houthis, who are Zaydis, which is a branch of Shia Islam, but is not the same branch as the rulers in Tehran. Iranian assistance helped the Houthis develop increasingly sophisticated drones and ballistic missiles, eventually giving the Houthis the ability to threaten Saudi Arabia, Israel, and commercial shipping through the Red Sea.

And so, this network allowed for a multi-pronged offensive against Israel in the war since October 7.

The “crescent” Abdullah warned of in 2004 has effectively become a network stretching from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

And as Abdullah warned, during the recent war between America and Iran, Iran’s network of revolutionary sympathizers has posed a direct threat to Gulf countries and the whole region. Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have all been targeted.

Twenty-two years later, his warnings proved remarkably prescient. Washington believed the fall of hostile regimes in Baghdad and Kabul would put Tehran on the defensive. Instead, Iran exploited the disorder that followed and spent the next two decades expanding its influence across the region.

The result turned out to be larger than the “crescent” Abdullah imagined. Iran built a network capable of threatening Israel, attacking Gulf states, disrupting global shipping, and dragging countries with no interest in its revolutionary project into its wars. The danger Abdullah saw coming in 2004 eventually reached almost every corner of the region.

In 2005, Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein published an account of what he believed to be al-Qaeda’s plan for jihad around the world in the coming years.

He based his book on conversations with al-Qaeda figures. Hussein was jailed alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1996 in Jordan for his opposition political activities and critical journalistic work linked to the Arab Ba’ath movement. Al-Zarqawi, who went on to establish al-Qaeda in Iraq during the years of the American invasion in 2003 and infamously beheaded the American hostage Nick Berg, was arrested for attempting to establish a militant cell to pursue jihad in Jordan. He was later killed in an American airstrike in 2006.

Hussein spoke with other al-Qaeda figures while researching this book, too, including Saif al-Adel and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.

Hussein identified that al-Qaeda had a seven-stage plan for jihad, which was later summarized in an article by Der Spiegel promoting Hussein’s book, also in 2005.

The plans lay out clear vision, split into phases, and ultimately lead to the rise of an Islamic caliphate and “definitive victory.”

The first phase was designed “to provoke the U.S. into declaring war on the Muslim world” so as to “awaken” Muslims. This phase was supposed to last from 9/11 up until the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad, and at the time the book was published, these events had already occurred.

But this phase was built around a foundational error. America did not, in fact, declare war on Islam generally, but on “terror.”

George W. Bush was careful in the wake of 9/11 to define Islam as “ peace”, saying in a speech to an Islamic center in Washington, DC, on September 17th, 2001 that:

“Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that.”

The second phase, according to Hussein, al-Qaeda planned to “recruit young men” and pursue jihad in Syria and Iraq, as well as launch attacks against Israel, Turkey, and Jordan. From there, it hoped to produce the collapse of Arab governments in the region. According to Hussein, they aspired that “between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced, and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared.”

After 2016, they hoped for “total confrontation” and a “fight between the believers and the non-believers.” According to Hussein, al-Qaeda hoped that the rest of the world would be “beaten down by 1.5 billion Muslims,” which would achieve an Islamic caliphate in the region by 2020.

It’s now 2026, and some of these predictions seem to have been quite prescient. Others appear to have been completely wrongheaded.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq—the organization founded by Zarqawi, and which later rebranded itself as ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham—undoubtedly did try to found an Islamic caliphate. In fact, they managed to achieve this by 2014, when the group (then led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) announced the foundation of a new caliphate. As the BBC wrote on June 30th 2014:

“Jihadist militant group ISIS has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.”

It also proclaimed the group’s leader, al-Baghdadi, as caliph and “leader for Muslims everywhere.”

Setting up a state governed under strict Islamic law has long been a goal of many jihadists. But, Iraq’s army continued an offensive to retake the northern city of Tikrit from the ISIS-led rebels.The city was seized by the insurgents on June 11, 2014 as they swept across large parts of north-western Iraq.

This occured sooner than Hussein suggested it would. At its fullest extent, ISIS did control substantial territory in Iraq and Syria, roughly equivalent in size to Portugal, and it was home to an estimated 8 to 10 million people.

The caveat here is that most of this land is empty desert. But there were rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates, lakes, dams, and major cities such as Mosul and Raqqa.

From there, things did not go as al-Qaeda hoped. Most Muslims worldwide did not accept the new “Islamic caliphate,” and the group lost control of the lands it had won by 2019. Today, it has evolved back into what al-Qaeda originally was—a decentralized global network of militant insurgencies rather than a territorial “caliphate.”

What never materialized was the conflict al-Qaeda had sought to provoke all along—a global confrontation between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Yes, America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, but American governments—including under Bush and Obama—were always careful to differentiate between groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban on one hand, and Muslims generally on the other.

Yes, al-Qaeda leveraged the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, particularly the civil war between Bashar al-Assad and his opponents, as a way to grab land, power, and establish their theocracy.

A major tripping point, though, was that although there had been a lot of anger directed at the previous Iraqi government, and also with the Assad regime, Iraqis and Syrians living under the caliphate did not like it very much. ISIS in Iraq: The Social and Psychological Foundations of Terror by Munqith Dagher et al interviewed Iraqis who lived under the caliphate:

“Most Sunni Iraqis who experienced the arrival of ISIS, particularly in Mosul, say the group was largely accepted at first, as an alternative to what was viewed as a corrupt, abusive, and sectarian Iraqi state. In retrospect, however, many of the people interviewed about ISIS’s governance thought that although ISIS was superior in some aspects of governance to the Iraqi state, the group largely wore out its welcome through its brutal imposition of an interpretation of sharia that was far more extreme than even relatively conservative Sunni Iraqis were willing to accept.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that people living in the 21st century—and in a world with internet access—would not wish to live under a literal interpretation of 7th-century Islam, imposed by masked jihadists who publicly executed those who got in their way.

Medieval-style Sharia law—with hand amputations for theft and the stoning to death of adulterers—is a harsh system for modern people to live under.

It’s equally unsurprising that America under Bush did not fall into the trap of declaring war against Islam, and instead declared war against “terror.”

America as a global hegemon had longstanding relationships with multiple Muslim-majority countries, and Bush’s advisers understood that the balance of power in the region required them to maintain good relations with these states, including with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and others.

Whether an American government under Trump would have been so circumspect, well, I am not so sure about that. But President Trump certainly appears to wish to continue positive relations with multiple Muslim-majority countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Hussein’s book does reveal the modus operandi of jihadists. By engaging in extreme violence against their foes, they seek to provoke an extreme reaction that draws the wider world into confrontation with Muslims.

Falling for this kind of provocation is a mistake. Terrorism is designed to make its enemies behave in ways that advance the terrorist’s political project. Al-Qaeda understood that it could never force 1.5 billion Muslims into a global religious war on its own. It needed its enemies to help create one.

That is what makes the distinction between fighting jihadists and treating Islam itself as the enemy so important. Al-Qaeda’s grand strategy depended on collapsing that distinction. Two decades later, refusing to do so is still one of the simplest ways to deny them the confrontation they have always wanted.

For years, Gaza has been reduced to images of war, destruction, and humanitarian catastrophe, while its historical and cultural depth has faded into the background. “Gaza, the Future Has an Ancient Heart. Materials and Memories of the Mediterranean,” a major international exhibition now open at Fondazione Merz in Turin until September 27, 2026, seeks to restore that lost dimension and present Gaza not only as a site of conflict, but as a place with a long and layered history.

The project is a collaboration between Fondazione Merz, Turin’s Museo Egizio, and Geneva’s Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (MAH), with the support of the State of Palestine. It brings together around eighty archaeological artifacts dating from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, placing them in dialogue with works by seven contemporary Palestinian and international artists. Together, the institutions frame the exhibition as both a scholarly undertaking and a public reflection on memory, identity, and responsibility.

An important aspect of the exhibition concerns the history of the artifacts themselves. The objects from Gaza shown in Turin are drawn from a wider collection of around five hundred pieces currently held in temporary custody at Geneva’s MAH on behalf of the State of Palestine. The collection had originally been intended as the foundation of a future archaeological museum in Palestine, a project left unfinished because of the conflicts that engulfed the region. Their display in Turin, therefore, also tells the story of a displaced heritage, preserved abroad while awaiting the possibility of return.

Beatrice Merz, president of Fondazione Merz and one of the exhibition’s curators, says the project inevitably carries political significance. “Art institutions do not operate in a neutral space: they are immersed in the present and must engage with what is happening in the world,” she says. “We believe it is important not to withdraw from this responsibility, especially in the face of complex and dramatic situations such as the Palestinian one.”

Yet Merz insists the role of culture differs from that of political campaigning. “Our intervention does not take the form of slogans or direct political positioning, but through the tools of culture: research, storytelling, and the construction of meaning.”

For years, the name Gaza has been associated almost exclusively with bombardment, siege, hunger, and ruin. The Turin exhibition seeks to recover a much longer, nuanced history. Since antiquity, Gaza served as a strategic node linking Africa, Asia, and Europe—a gateway, trading center, and meeting place of cultures.

The artworks on display reveal that layered history. Ceramics, amphorae once used to carry the famous “Gaza wine,” coins, amulets, sarcophagi, and artifacts from Egypt, Greece, Babylon, and the Arabian Peninsula all testify to centuries of trade, cultural exchange, and overlapping identities.

The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections. The first, “Past, Present and Future in Danger,” examines the destruction of cultural heritage. It considers not only ruined monuments and damaged archaeological sites, but also the disappearance of communities that inhabited, celebrated, and protected those places.

Further sections present Gaza as a bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia, tracing the movement of goods, ideas, and people across the Mediterranean and the Levant. Everyday objects, funerary remains, and religious artifacts show a territory shaped by coexistence, adaptation, and cultural mixing over nearly five thousand years. The exhibition also includes photographs from the UNRWA archive, offering rare glimpses of civic life, streets, and families in Gaza before the current destruction.

A parallel public program of talks, film screenings, workshops, and music performances extends these themes beyond the gallery itself, connecting archaeology to contemporary political debate. Turin’s National Cinema Museum also hosted a retrospective dedicated to Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari, expanding the citywide focus on Gaza’s cultural voices. In this sense, Gaza is presented not only as a local tragedy, but as part of a broader global pattern in which war threatens memory, heritage, and cultural life itself.

Alongside the ancient artifacts are works of art by Samaa Emad, Mirna Bamieh, Khalil Rabah, Vivien Sansour, Wael Shawky, Dima Srouji, and Akram Zaatari. Their presence is central to the curatorial concept.

“From the beginning, the project was built in direct dialogue with the invited artists,” Merz explained, “the selection of works emerged through continuous exchange.” Their involvement helped avoid an external or purely Western perspective on Palestinian history and present realities.

“The contemporary works do not simply accompany archaeological objects; they establish a living and necessary dialogue with them,” Merz says, “if the ancient objects restore historical depth and make the destruction of cultural heritage tangible, the artists’ works question memory in the present, through loss, resistance and survival”. Several works focus on food, seeds, domestic rituals, and photography as carriers of identity. Others confront exile, fragmentation, and mourning, suggesting that memory can remain active even when land, homes, and institutions are under threat.

The exhibition’s title holds an unresolved tension between future and past. Asked where Gaza’s future lies today, Merz offers no easy answer: “It would be reassuring to say clearly where Gaza’s future lies, but that very possibility is constantly being called into question.”

Instead, she says, the future has become something uncertain and suspended. “More than a defined place, the future appears as something fragile, exposed to the uncertainty of the present.”

Memory is a vital resource: “Gaza’s long history, cultural density and enduring identity are fundamental elements for imagining a future not reduced to permanent emergency.”

The title echoes the thought of Italian writer Carlo Levi. “The idea is that the future is never separate from the past, but carries within it traces, layers and inheritances,” Merz noted, “looking back is not nostalgia, but a necessary condition for imagining what may still come.”

Beyond the exhibition itself, the program includes talks, workshops, film screenings, music, and book presentations focused on Palestinian culture and history.

At a time when debate over the Middle East across Europe is increasingly shaped by polarization, prejudice, and instant reaction, Turin has chosen a different approach rooted in historical depth and cultural memory. The exhibition does not pretend to solve the conflict or substitute for politics. But it insists on something essential that is often lost amid the noise of war. Gaza is not only the site of a present catastrophe. It is also an ancient, plural, Mediterranean city with a history that long predates its destruction. Recovering that memory cannot end the conflict, but without it, any meaningful future risks becoming impossible.

I write this from Baghdad, where April never passes quietly. It brings to mind 1941, when a coup d’etat led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the “Golden Square” generals overthrew the pro-British Regent Abd al-Ilah. Seeking to break free from British influence and siding with the Axis powers, the new government triggered the 30-day Anglo-Iraqi War, which ended with British forces reinstalling the Regent in May.

Here, many still refer to it as a degga, a word Iraqis use for an impulsive act that ends badly. The label reflects how that moment is remembered not just as a failed uprising, but as a collision between ambition and poor judgment.

That episode was a defining moment in Iraq’s modern history. It exposed a recurring problem: attempts to assert independence without a clear grasp of the balance of power needed to sustain it.

In April 1941, with World War II upending global power dynamics, al-Gaylani tried to overturn the status quo and confront British influence directly. The mistake was not in resisting British control, but in choosing where to turn next. By moving toward the Nazi axis, he bet that global conflict would create an opening for Iraq. Instead, it triggered the Anglo-Iraqi War. It lasted four weeks and one day and ultimately ended in defeat.

The result strengthened British influence rather than weakening it. Iraq had aligned with a losing side without the means to defend that decision or protect itself from the fallout. The outcome was clear even at the time: misjudged alignment does not lead to sovereignty; it leaves the state more exposed and dependent.

I have spent more than two decades watching Iraq deal with the consequences of similar patterns. From here in Baghdad, the question has never been whether foreign influence exists. We all know it does. It is how deeply it penetrates the system, and how often decisions bend under pressures that are neither fully visible nor openly acknowledged.

It’s no secret that Iraq today has moved steadily into Iran’s orbit. This wasn’t the result of a single, deliberate decision, but was developed through uneven political relationships and the rise of armed groups that operate inside the state while maintaining loyalties in Iran.

These groups are formally part of Iraq’s structure, but they do not function like a unified national force. Many of them align more closely with Tehran than with Baghdad. This is a defining feature of how authority operates in the country.

In U.S. policy circles, Iraq is no longer seen as a stable anchor in the region. It is viewed as contested ground, where influence is shaped from outside and authority is divided within. That perception now drives how Iraq is handled diplomatically, economically, and strategically.

The cost of this position is already visible from here. It shows in declining international confidence, growing strain in Iraq’s relationships with Western partners, and in how Iraqi territory has become a space for proxy confrontation.

It is deeply embedded inside the political system. The repeated paralysis in forming governments is not only the result of domestic disagreement, but reflects external pressures corrupting the process. Competing powers shape outcomes from behind closed doors. Decisions that should be sovereign are delayed, redirected, or covertly realigned.

In 1941, Iraqi leaders acted under pressure from a larger global conflict, searching for an advantageous position within it. Today, Iraq operates under a different set of pressures, but the driving logic is similar. The country is again navigating between larger powers, feverishly seeking protection or leverage where there is none to be found.

In recent days, Iraq’s dominant political bloc has put forward a new prime minister after weeks of deadlock, while external pressure has intensified. Washington has moved to restrict dollar flows into Iraq, signaling growing frustration with the role of Iran-aligned armed groups inside the country. At the same time, security concerns have prompted warnings and partial evacuations linked to the risk of militia attacks.

None of this was borne out of a single decision, but through a series of accommodations that gradually narrowed Iraq’s options. What appears pragmatic in the moment often leads to dependence over time, trapping the state between a dominant global power and ideologically motivated, foreign-backed militias. The parallel to 1941 is not exact, but it is close enough to be useful. Then, Iraqi leaders misread their position and formed alliances without the means to sustain them. Today, the same dynamic is taking hold again, weakening Iraq’s position and limiting its future options.

From Baghdad, the problem is clear to those of us working toward a free and sovereign Iraq. The country does not lack options; it lacks the will to enforce them. Those in power are divided, operating within confines of their own making, as the line between national interest and external alignment continues to fade out of view.

Whether this pattern holds or gives way to something else will depend on what comes next.

Soon after a ceasefire was announced between the United States and Iran, both sides began claiming victory.

In Washington, officials were quick to argue that Donald Trump’s brinkmanship forced Tehran to the table. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pointed in particular to the President’s apocalyptic warning on Tuesday evening that “a whole civilization will die” as the decisive moment behind the agreement.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council also claimed victory, saying the US and Israel were forced to accept Tehran’s 10-point plan. The Trump administration will also discuss tariff and sanctions relief for the regime.

The two-week truce was brokered by Pakistan at the 11th hour, after 40 days of intense US-Israeli strikes on Iran as part of “Operation Epic Fury.” The campaign has prompted Iran to launch unprecedented strikes on neighboring Gulf nations and close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow Gulf waterway through which around 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas shipments pass. Iran’s navy has largely been decimated, but the war has effectively cemented Iran’s strategic domination of the strait.

Cracks have already appeared in the fragile truce. While Shehbaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, and Iran both insist the ceasefire also covered Lebanon, this was disputed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and backed by the Trump administration. On Wednesday, Israel launched its biggest bombing campaign of the war on what it claimed were Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, hitting the capital, Beirut, and leaving nearly 300 dead.

Iran has warned that it could withdraw from the ceasefire if the war against all components of the “axis of resistance,” including Hezbollah, continues. In the past four weeks, Israeli strikes have killed around 1,500 people, displacing more than one million civilians, roughly a fifth of Lebanon’s population.

“It will be interesting to see how much Israel is willing to play along with the negotiations or whether it is going to continue its operation in Lebanon. If it continues, that could potentially derail the truce,” says Jonathan Hackett, a US Marine Corps veteran specializing in counterintelligence and the author of Iran’s Shadow Weapons: Covert Action, Intelligence Operations, and Unconventional Warfare.

This tension will likely be central to upcoming diplomatic discussions, as delegations from Washington and Tehran meet in Islamabad this weekend. Whether the ceasefire holds remains to be seen, but some parties are already emerging as immediate beneficiaries.

“The winner is clearly Israel,” says Hackett. For decades, Benjamin Netanyahu had been trying to persuade America to go to war with Iran, and he has at last found a willing participant in Donald Trump, first in the 12-day war in June 2025, and again this year.

Russia has also been cited as a major victor of rising oil prices following a temporary reprieve on sanctions and a realignment of international relations that could play to the Kremlin’s advantage.

Pakistan has also benefited by adopting the role of mediator in one of the most striking developments of the conflict. Sharing a border with Iran and maintaining close ties with Washington, Islamabad was uniquely positioned to act as an intermediary—despite being mired in a war with Afghanistan.

Domestic dynamics also play a role. Pakistan has a significant Shia minority, estimated at 15-20 percent of the country’s 250 million population. Following Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s killing on February 28, angry protesters tried to ransack American consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad.

President Trump has previously heaped praise on the head of Pakistan’s armed forces, General Asim Munir, referring to the de facto leader of Pakistan as “an exceptional human being” and his “favorite field marshal” who knows Iran “better than most”.

China could prove to be one of the quieter beneficiaries. While not the principal broker of the ceasefire, Beijing helped create the conditions for it, providing political weight and strategic backing. Iran is also China’s partner. Beijing doesn’t need Iran to win, but to survive. An isolated, weak Tehran serves China’s interests. A stronger or Western-aligned Iran would not.

The “losers” are clear. Iran’s Gulf neighbors have borne a heavy toll while seeking to avoid direct confrontation. Even after the ceasefire announcement, several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain, reported incoming missiles and drones from Iran on Wednesday.

The war has also exposed the limits of the Gulf’s security bargain with the US, which involves hosting bases and troops in exchange for Washington’s protection. But it was precisely these ties with Washington that made them Iran’s primary target.

“The Gulf countries never had the intention to fight a war or be the aggressors. We built our defense system just for defense, not for aggression,” says Ahmed Khuzaie, a Bahraini political analyst. The region may now reassess whether to remain purely defensive or move towards a more proactive posture, he adds.

For years, countries like the UAE touted themselves as regional safe havens, seeking to attract expats with the lure of low taxes and golden visas. That confidence has now been shaken, further undermined by a sweeping censorship crackdown.

In recent weeks, around 70 British nationals, including tourists, residents, and airline crew, have been detained in the UAE for filming or sharing images of Iranian missile and drone strikes, or even forwarding footage in private messages. These arrests highlight how the conflict has permeated everyday life across the Gulf.

While the status of Iran’s nuclear program and stockpile of enriched uranium remains unresolved, the “biggest loser” in all this is the Iranian people, says Hackett. “Nobody has represented their interests at all; nobody knows what’s going on inside the country.”

Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured, and there is still an internet blackout. Although Ayatollah Khamenei’s bloody reign has ended, the regime he headed survives.

As Washington and Tehran both claim some success, the reality on the ground tells a different story—a region left more unstable, and an Iranian population that has paid the highest price. The aim of the bombing, according to Trump at one point, was regime change, but the Islamic Republic continues under the same authoritarian theocracy that has been in place since the Revolution in 1979.

It’s highly likely that the war has given more power to the hardliners, and this hardened regime will undoubtedly double down on the repression of its own citizens over time.

Recent weeks have brought new images of disorder to Syrian streets: protesters massing outside the American and UAE embassies in Damascus and in city squares across the country, demonstrators on motorcycles in Daraa attempting to rush the border with Israel before being turned back. To casual observers, these scenes fit a familiar template—an unstable post-revolutionary state losing its grip, streets filling with anti-Western sentiment, the transition unraveling.

That reading is not entirely wrong. But it is incomplete. What is playing out in Syria’s streets is not a spontaneous popular uprising against normalization or foreign influence. It is a performance—staged by a coalition of actors with distinct agendas, united less by shared conviction than by shared opportunity. Understanding who they are, what they want, and why this moment suits them is more important than the footage itself.

Among the most active participants in the embassy protests were members of Palestinian factions long resident in Syria, most prominently the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command. The PFLP-GC’s record in Syria requires no elaboration for anyone familiar with the country’s recent history: it backed Assad throughout the civil war, participated in the suppression of the Syrian uprising, and served as one of the regime’s auxiliary instruments of violence. It is not a liberation movement in any operative sense. It is a militia sheltering behind a cause—well, the Cause.

That shelter is now being reclaimed and renovated. The holy vocabulary of resistance—al-muqawama, al-qadiyya (the resistance, the cause)—is being deployed with renewed confidence, doing what it has always done: foreclosing accountability, immunizing its users from scrutiny, and allowing the reassertion of failed projects without any reckoning with their failure.

But the PFLP-GC is not alone in rediscovering the Cause’s lingering utility. They are all back—the Ba’athists, the Nasserists, the Syrian nationalists, the members of the Syrian Social National Party, the assorted ideological “whateverists”, and the residual Assadists who populate the left-nationalist spectrum of Arab politics. The fall of Assad, paradoxically, gave them oxygen: the regime in its final years had been suffocating its own base. Now the transitional government’s pragmatic engagements with Washington and its implicit accommodations with Israel have handed them the narrative they needed—betrayal, normalization, and the abandonment of the cause. They did not need to update their arguments. They only needed to dust them off.

None of these movements has undertaken any serious ideological reckoning with what they actually produced, not even regarding their own role in sustaining the Assad regime through more than five decades of repression and fourteen years of civil war. There is no accounting, no self-criticism, no apology, and no attempt to explain why their ideas and the institutions built around them failed, or what would be different this time. There is only the reassertion—louder now, emboldened by the chaos of transition—that the real problem was always imperialism, Zionism, reactionary tendencies, and the enemies of the Arab nation.

Among those rejoining the fray is a different kind of leftist: those who were part of the revolution from the beginning and watched with bitterness as it was forced into armed insurrection and then captured by Islamist factions flush with Turkish, Qatari, and Saudi funding. These are not Assadists. Their grievances against the hijacking of the revolution are real. But by boarding the anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism bandwagon now, they too are choosing the comfort of a sacred vocabulary over the harder work of reckoning with what went wrong and why.

The embassy protests have given all these currents a megaphone and a moment. Anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Gulf, anti-normalization: this is the register in which the left-nationalist tradition feels most alive and most legitimate. It is also the register in which it most reliably avoids answering for itself. The sacred vocabulary does what it has always done: it elevates the argument to a plane where ordinary scrutiny cannot follow. The Cause is the vehicle. The destination is a return to relevance.

The pressure on Syria’s transitional government does not come only from outside its circles. Within the Islamist current that brought Ahmad al-Sharaa to power, there is growing consternation, expressed carefully, but unmistakably, about the pragmatic line he has chosen to follow.

Engaging Washington, tolerating rather than confronting Israeli military actions on Syrian soil, and accepting the constraints that come with international recognition. These are the calculated compromises of a leader who understands that Syria cannot afford another cycle of isolation and war. But to those who fought and bled under the banner of a different vision, they look like surrender dressed in diplomatic language.

The Muslim Brotherhood wants to recover the influence it considers rightfully its own. Radical factions—some inside the governing structure, some hovering at its edges—want to assert their presence before the transition hardens into an arrangement that leaves them marginal. Both can point to the same evidence: talks with Israel that yielded no tangible gains, painfully slow sanctions relief, and living conditions that have hardly improved since the fall of Assad.

What makes this moment structurally distinctive, and dangerous, is the convergence it produces. Islamist hardliners and leftist nationalists arrive from opposite ends of the ideological map, carrying irreconcilable worldviews, and find themselves marching toward the same intersection. The Palestinian cause, anti-Israel sentiment, anti-normalization, anti-American, anti-Gulf—this is the shared terrain where the two traditions meet without having to resolve their contradictions.

The transitional government finds itself, then, in a pincer: squeezed from without by spoilers exploiting the language of liberation, and from within by factions that supported its political rise but are losing patience with its compromises. President al-Sharaa’s room for domestic maneuvering is considerably narrower than the optics of his Berlin and London visits, or his reception of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would suggest. The performance of statesmanship abroad does not resolve the contest for legitimacy at home. And that contest is increasingly being waged in a vocabulary designed not to build Syria but to prevent anyone else from doing so.

Today, the United States is known in Iran by one of the most famous and colorful political insults in modern history: the “Great Satan.” It is easy to assume that this hostility reflects something ancient or inevitable, that Americans and Iranians were always destined to view each other with suspicion. But history tells a far stranger story.

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iran did not see America as an imperial threat at all. Many Iranians saw the United States as the opposite.

Historian John Ghazvinian notes that when Americans first appeared in Iran in the nineteenth century, they did not arrive as soldiers or colonial administrators. They came as missionaries, doctors, and teachers. They built schools and hospitals, not military bases. In the city of Urmia, American missionaries opened some of the first modern schools in the region and introduced Western medical training. One physician, Dr. Joseph Cochran, helped establish what became one of the first modern medical schools in Iran. Patients traveled from distant villages to seek treatment. At a time when foreign powers were often seen as domineering outsiders, many Iranians instead encountered Americans as surgeons, nurses, and teachers.

These early encounters mattered.

For villagers arriving after days of travel to reach an American clinic, the United States was simply the place where the doctors came from.

Some Americans became deeply woven into Iranian political life. The Presbyterian missionary Howard Baskerville became something of a legend during Iran’s Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1909. Baskerville was teaching at an American mission school in Tabriz when fighting broke out between constitutionalists and royalist forces. Against his superiors’ wishes, he left the safety of the mission and joined the constitutionalist fighters. He was killed by a sniper at the age of twenty-four.

Thousands attended his funeral. One Iranian mourner reportedly said, “He gave his life for us though he was not one of us.” More than a century later, Baskerville’s grave in Tabriz is still visited by Iranians who remember him as someone who died defending their parliament.

Baskerville was just one of many cases showcasing America as the friendly outsider. In 1911, Iran hired an American financial administrator, Morgan Shuster, to reform the country’s chaotic finances. Shuster attempted to build a modern tax system and challenge the privileges of powerful elites and foreign interests.

His efforts angered Russia, which issued an ultimatum: remove Shuster from his position, agree to seek Russian and British approval before hiring foreign nationals in the future, and pay an indemnity for the costs of deploying Russian troops from the Caucasus.

The Iranian parliament cracked under pressure, and crowds gathered in Tehran shouting in support of the American adviser who had done his best to defend Iran’s sovereignty.

These stories explain why many Iranian reformers once viewed the United States differently from other foreign powers. As Ghazvinian writes, America appeared to them as “a disinterested outsider,” a country that seemed free from the imperial ambitions that defined European involvement in the region.

Iranian intellectuals followed American politics with fascination. Newspapers wrote admiringly about the American constitutional system. Some reformers believed the United States was proof that a powerful modern state need not become an empire.

Iranian students soon began traveling to American universities. Some returned home describing New York and Chicago with amazement, writing letters about electric lights, modern industry, and universities filled with students from across the world.

For a brief moment in history, America was not the Great Satan. It was the foreign country that many Iranians trusted the most.

But that perception did not last long.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the relationship gradually changed, with admiration slowly giving way to suspicion. Strategic interests, regional politics, revolutions, and ideological battles reshaped how the two countries viewed each other.

By the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the image of the United States in Iran had transformed dramatically. Anti-American rhetoric became one of the defining slogans of the new Islamic Republic. The chant “Death to America” echoed through the streets and soon became an integral part of the political language of the state.

In the United States, the embassy hostage crisis seared the image of Iran as an enemy deep into the American political imagination. For many Americans, the future story of U.S.–Iran relations effectively began at that moment.

Over time, both societies forgot the earlier chapters. Americans came to see Iran through the lens of revolutionary slogans, hostage crises, and regional confrontation. Iranians were taught a narrative of foreign interference and humiliation.

By the late twentieth century, the relationship had shifted from curiosity to direct confrontation.

Historian David Crist describes the modern phase of this relationship very differently from Ghazvinian’s early story. In The Twilight War, Crist writes that the United States and Iran fought a long “shadow war” across the Persian Gulf.

American sailors stationed in the Gulf during the 1980s lived with the constant possibility of confrontation with Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats. Small speedboats packed with rockets and machine guns could suddenly appear on the horizon. Encounters at sea were tense and unpredictable. Sailors knew that any confrontation could escalate within minutes.

The same Iran that chants against America once mourned an American who died defending its freedom. The same United States that now treats Iran as a permanent adversary was once admired by Iranian reformers who studied its institutions and imagined a similar future for their own country.

Two histories sit side by side. In one, America is a distant country associated with schools, hospitals, and a young teacher buried far from home. In the other, it is a rival power, representing warships, sanctions, and regional conflict.

Both are real. Both are part of the same relationship.

Each side remembers its own grievances more clearly than the other’s intentions.

And yet the earlier history does not disappear. It sits in the background, largely forgotten, but still there.

A century ago, Iranians gathered to honor an American who died for their parliament. Decades later, Americans watched images of their fellow citizens held hostage in Tehran. Each moment shaped how the other side would be understood for generations.

Neither tells the whole story on its own.

The relationship between the United States and Iran was not always defined by confrontation. It does not have to remain that way forever.

Ali Hosseini Khamenei ruled Iran for more than three and a half decades. He outlasted presidents, uprisings, sanctions, and generations of dissent, building a system that fused theology with security apparatus and leaving little room for political oxygen. When news broke that he had been killed in a joint U.S.–Israeli strike, reactions inside Iran sugge…

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Few words in modern Arabic and postcolonial discourse have been praised, invoked, and misunderstood as much as revolution. It has inspired generations who hoped it could deliver both renewal and deliverance. Yet beneath that hope sits an old tension: some imagine revolution as a transformation of meaning, others as a transformation of lived reality. That divide shapes not only the disagreements between the Syrian poet Adonis and the anticolonial theorist Frantz Fanon, but also the inconsistencies of Subhi Hadidi, one of Syria’s sharpest exiled intellectuals. Hadidi’s embrace of the Syrian uprising, followed by his recent dismissal of Venezuela’s María Corina Machado, shows how even the most discerning critics can become captive to their own assumptions when events run counter to their expectations.

For Adonis, revolution begins not in public squares but in language, imagination, and myth. His body of work—from al-Thābit wa al-Mutahawwil to his post-2011 interviews—treats it as a civilizational rupture and a renewal of cultural foundations that must precede political change. That belief guided his 2011 open letter to Bashar al-Assad, where he addressed the ruler not as a culprit but as someone capable of leading Syria’s “renewal.” The demonstrations rising from mosques signaled to him a society not yet ready: without a secular consciousness, he argued, genuine change could not take hold. “Nothing will change unless there is a separation between religion and the state,” he said in 2016, insisting that without such distinctions, Arab decline would deepen.

His project has always been aimed at the underlying symbols and assumptions that shape the possibility of democracy and citizenship. In his 2019 Kalam al-Bidayāt, he wrote: “Revolution is not about overthrowing a regime so as to establish another in its place; rather it is about abolishing the regime insofar as it is law—that is, insofar as it is the instrument and symbol and justification of oppression, and insofar as it stands between the human being and his/her self-creation.” It is an almost theological hierarchy: the word must be transformed before the world can be. But when real people finally demanded change in Daraa and Homs, he hesitated, unable to see in their actions the very opening he had long described.

Fanon started from the opposite direction. In The Wretched of the Earth, he wrote: “Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”

Those who live under it do not wait for clarity or consensus. Their existence is denied, and liberation only begins with reclaiming that existence through struggle. Meaning emerges through action, not before it. Revolution, in Fanon’s vision, is not the fulfillment of a philosophy but the moment when one is born.

Hadidi once wrote with Fanon’s instinct. From exile in France, he condemned Adonis for distancing himself from the Syrian uprising, accusing him of siding with authority over the people’s demand for dignity. In columns for Al-Quds al-Arabi, he celebrated the Syrian revolt as an assertion of life that required no prior justification, and he pushed for sanctions and isolation of the Assad regime. He rejected the posture of the “neutral intellectual” who tries to balance oppressor and oppressed.

Yet in 2025, when the Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who mobilized millions against Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship, Hadidi’s tone shifted. In a scathing column, he derided Machado as a puppet of Washington and a disciple of Israel’s Likud, mocking the Nobel Committee for “humiliating nations and cheapening words like democracy and opposition.” The same writer who demanded recognition of Syrian agency now denied Venezuelan agency altogether. The critic of metaphysical distance became a gatekeeper of ideological correctness.

This reversal exposes a larger pattern. Hadidi faulted Adonis for letting fears of Islamism cloud his judgment; yet he now allows fears of imperialism to do the same. Both assume that revolution must meet a standard of purity before it counts. For Adonis, the Syrian uprising’s religious undertones contaminated it. For Hadidi, Machado’s liberal language and Western ties make her untrustworthy. Both use purity tests that reduce complex human struggles to ideological archetypes. And in both cases, the people disappear. What Adonis denied the Syrian demonstrator, Hadidi now denies the Venezuelan protester the right to define the meaning of their own rebellion.

This blindness also ignores reality on the ground. Machado enjoys broad popular support. In 2023, she won the opposition primary with over 90 percent of the vote. When barred from running, she backed Edmundo González Urrutia, who went on to win the 2024 presidential election by a wide margin according to independent monitors. Unlike many exiled leaders, Machado stayed in Venezuela until recently, often in hiding, working with citizens despite constant threats. Her presence and her insistence on acting before theorizing match what Fanon described as the first gesture of liberation. To call her a “hawk of war” is to confuse discomfort with clarity.

The parallel between Adonis and Hadidi points to a deeper ailment in Arab intellectual life: the struggle to reconcile universal principles with the specific contexts in which people fight for them. The leftist fears imperialism, the secular poet fears religion, and the Islamist fears modernity; each reacts to inherited anxieties rather than contemporary realities. Their revolutions remain hypothetical, always waiting for conditions that never arrive.

Fanon, despite his flaws, grasped something elemental: liberation is lived first and explained later. The task of the intellectual is not to bless or veto revolutions from above, but to accompany them critically and humbly, aware that meaning follows being, not the other way around. Adonis’s task was not to lament the Syrian revolution’s lack of meaning, but to participate in its creation—to seize the opportunity that history had offered him, to help breathe life into the very debates that were striving to shape the better future he claimed to desire.

Recovering that humility is one of the great challenges of our time. The new wave of uprisings—from Caracas to Tehran to Damascus—calls for a different ethic of solidarity, one that moves beyond the old binaries of Islamism and secularism, imperialism and resistance. Adonis demanded metaphysical perfection, and now Hadidi demands ideological alignment. Both are responding to their own fears. Yet history, as Fanon reminds us, is never tidy. The work of the intellectual is not to decide a revolution’s meaning from above, but to listen to what people are trying to bring to fruition—and then add their voice to that unfolding effort.

I grew up in a country where there was a particular word you didn’t say. You could hint at it, gesture toward it, refer to it by titles like “the enemy,” “occupied Palestine,” or “beyond the border,” but never speak it plainly. In Lebanon, to utter “Israel” was to cross an invisible boundary everyone recognized, even if no one ever described it. It was a taboo woven into schoolbooks, news bulletins, political speeches, Friday sermons, Sunday Masses, dinner conversations, and the quiet pauses adults used when they didn’t want to answer tough questions.

There were no debates about peace. Not because the country had weighed it and rejected it, but because even considering dialogue—or imagining negotiations—felt treasonous. The law reinforced that feeling. Contact with Israelis was a punishable offense. Speaking of normalization made you a suspect. Universities discouraged research that touched anything related to the neighboring state. The word itself felt like a live wire: spoken in low tones, often replaced with metaphors.

Yesterday, Lebanon crossed that boundary when a civilian Lebanese delegation sat down with Israeli officials and entered a negotiating framework with the goal of implementing a “cessation of hostilities”. Not a secret back channel, not a militia-mediated exchange, not a UN shuttle. A meeting between civilians, face to face, with names known, and a formal agenda—something we were raised to believe was impossible.

Watching the news, I felt dumbfounded. The country I grew up in, where acknowledging Israel’s existence as a state could cost someone their job or reputation, was suddenly talking to it.

Today, I find myself suspended between cautious optimism and the history that demands pessimism remain on the table. Decades of conflict with Israel have exacted a heavy toll on Lebanese lives, yet even the smallest step toward de-escalation feels like a rare and necessary opening.

I was a child when I first understood that the Lebanese state did not fully command its own authority. The realization came in bits and pieces, from people speaking in hushed tones, breaking news flashes, tense neighborhoods, and the peculiar instinct every Lebanese person develops to read political weather.

I remember the killing of Officer Samer Hanna in 2008. He was flying an army helicopter when Hezbollah fighters shot him down because he was flying too close to their bases. No consequences followed. No confrontation. No insistence from the institution sworn to defend its own. I learned then that some actors in Lebanon operate above the state, and the state knows its limits.

I remember the days of May that year, when Hezbollah’s militias invaded Beirut and the city fell under their control. I’ll never forget how the army did not confront them, nor how officials ordered journalists to abandon their posts because the army could not (or would not) protect them. Sometimes, the collapse of state authority arrives through a message delivered by someone wearing the uniform of a country that cannot enforce its sovereignty.

And then there was the recent confession by the Minister of Defense, in response to a dispute over an image of deceased Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah projected onto the Raouché Rock. He supported the armed forces’ refusal to implement the Prime Minister’s orders, warning that confronting Hezbollah’s supporters could fracture the institution. In other words, the army’s cohesion itself could be jeopardized if it tried to enforce state authority against a powerful domestic actor.

These memories surfaced as I watched headlines report that Lebanon and Israel were speaking directly.

Because if the state fears collapse over a projected image, how does it intend to negotiate war and peace? If an officer’s killing passes without institutional response, who guarantees the outcome of any future agreement? If past confrontations ended with the army stepping aside, can the country truly stand alone in setting its borders, making decisions, and shaping its relationships?

These events shaped the air we breathed, the assumptions we internalized, and the boundaries we never should have been taught.

And still, I cannot deny that yesterday felt different.

There was something extraordinary about seeing Lebanese civilians engage directly with Israelis. For decades, the idea of dialogue was treated as a fantasy, a betrayal, or a foreign imposition. It was easier to imagine the border as nothing more than a line over which to exchange airstrikes, not a frontier between two actual states.

The meeting did not change laws, topple taboos overnight, or dissolve threats. But it changed something. It made visible that Lebanon could—under some constellation of pressures and decisions—sit down and speak. This has long been a forbidden image to even imagine.

That was what unsettled me most: not the negotiation itself, but the realization that our political imagination had shifted. The unthinkable had been spoken aloud. The forbidden had been enacted by officials of the very state that once criminalized its possibility.

A new space exists now, and it will not simply vanish, despite many trying to deny it.

I do not know what yesterday will lead to. Nobody does.

Maybe it will become a symbolic footnote that fades into obscurity. Maybe it will mark the start of a slow political recalibration. Maybe it will change nothing at all. In Lebanon, history has taught us to be cautious with hope and mercilessly honest with memory.

But I know this: a country that has labeled something impossible for seventy-six years cannot perform it without consequences. Even if Hezbollah remains armed—an unacceptable reality— even if the state remains tentative and the red lines intact, something has shifted.

For the first time in my lifetime, the taboo cracked.

Yesterday, Lebanon used a word it had avoided for generations, and it did so in the context of formal dialogue. Whether the outcome endures or evaporates, the line that was crossed is now part of the record.

When Taliban officials in Herat began blocking women from entering hospitals this month for not wearing the blue chadari (or burqa, as it is known in the West), it appeared to be yet another tightening of Taliban rule. But the garment, now used as a gatekeeping tool in healthcare, did not begin in Afghanistan, nor in religion, nor in the customs of ordinary people. Its origins lie in a very different world: the elite royal households of empires.

The story starts long before the Taliban, long before modern Afghanistan was created, and long before Islam.

Across the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, seclusion was synonymous with status. In classical Greece, women of aristocratic households veiled heavily in public; those of lower status did not. In the Achaemenid Persian world, elite women traveled behind curtains in enclosed carriages, unseen by outsiders. Seclusion worked less as a moral prescription and more as a social hierarchy. The more invisible a woman was, the higher her rank.

This logic then spread into the Persian, Timurid, and Mughal courts. From the medieval period to the 1500s, royal and noble women lived behind purdah, literally “curtain” in Persian, enforced through screens, balconies, and palanquins. When elite women appeared outside, they wore a chador cloak and a separate face veil: the rū-band or pīcheh. The system was architectural as much as sartorial. It kept noble women hidden, while ordinary women worked publicly without these restrictions. There was still no burqa as we recognize it.

That changed in the late sixteenth century.

A folio of the Akbarnāma, painted around 1590 in Mughal India, shows three women travelling by boat. Two are enclosed in fully tailored garments: a cap, a long pleated cape, and a screened panel over the eyes. The third woman’s veil is pushed back, revealing her face. Sitting beside them is a servant, unveiled, hair showing. The hierarchy is deliberately on display. This is the first visual evidence of a true mesh burqa form, worn exclusively by elite women. Servants were not allowed to wear it. Ordinary women wore bright clothes, jewelry, patterned fabrics, perhaps a dupatta or light scarf. The full-body veil was not a religious symbol. It was a court uniform of prestige, used by both Hindu and Muslim aristocratic households.

From this Mughal epicentre—Agra, Delhi, Lahore, and Kabul—the garment spread through elite marriage alliances and courtly imitation. Kabul, culturally tied to both the Persian and Mughal worlds, absorbed these styles not through rural tradition but through royal families, administrators, merchants, and Qizilbash households. By the early nineteenth century, the chadari appeared in paintings by James Atkinson and James Rattray: white, pleated, with a mesh screen over the eyes. These images depict Kabul’s urban elite. They do not show farmers’ wives, nor nomads, nor women of the northern valleys. The chadari was still urban and still class-bound.

Around the same time, in Qajar, Iran, elite women wore face-covering veils and horsehair masks, garments related to the Mughal burqa. But in 1936, Reza Shah banned these forms entirely under the Kashf-e hijab decree. The courtly face veil in Iran disappeared. In India and later Pakistan, the burqa experienced no legal abolition, but it declined steadily throughout the twentieth century with urbanization, women’s education, and the spread of lighter head coverings. The full-body veil faded across much of the region.

Afghanistan then decided to take the opposite path and began enforcing it more widely.

By the early nineteenth century, a small number of ordinary urban Afghan women were wearing the chadari, but it remained limited. Rural regions maintained distinct traditions of dress: brightly embroidered shawls in Badakhshan, patterned robes in Bamiyan, light scarves in Kandahar. The chadari was overwhelmingly an urban garment, tied to class and respectability.

That began to shift by the late nineteenth century. As urban life expanded, the chadari became an aspirational marker. Respectable families, not wealthy enough to be elite but close enough to the city’s social institutions, adopted the garment as a sign of modesty and status. By the early twentieth century, it was widespread enough for the state to intervene.

In 1903, King Habibullah banned the white chadari and introduced color rules: khaki for Muslim women, yellow for Hindu women, and slate for others. This system of differentiation has roots across the Islamic world, but its Afghan application shows how central the chadari had become to public space. For the first time, color was used to identify communities of different ethnic and religious groups through clothing—a political decision, not a cultural one.

The twentieth century then reshaped the garment again.

Synthetic fabrics and machine pleating allowed mass production. New regional palettes took hold. Burnt oranges and deep greens become common around Jalalabad. In the Hazara regions, yellow versions appeared. In the northern provinces, white remained popular among older women. Around Kabul, a mid-blue synthetic fabric became fashionable—light enough to manage, sturdy enough to pleat, and inexpensive.

When the Taliban enforced strict dress codes in the 1990s, Kabul’s blue version became the de facto uniform in areas under their control. Western media now codifies it as the defining image of Afghan womanhood. What began in palaces became a national symbol.

It is against this backdrop that the Herat hospital restrictions land. A garment engineered centuries ago to protect elite women from the public gaze is now being used to deny ordinary women medical care. Afghanistan already suffers from one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. Restrictions on women’s movement, shortages of female medical staff, and the collapse of parts of the healthcare system make the problem worse.

For the Taliban, the chadari today is not just clothing; it is a governing tool. It functions as a visible measure of obedience and a way to compress all Afghan women into a single silhouette that can be policed at a glance. A woman who appears without it is read not as improperly dressed, but as defiant, a threat to the moral and political order the Taliban claim to embody. In this logic, enforcing the burqa at hospital gates becomes a test of submission. The message is simple: healthcare is conditional on conformity.

Afghan women understand this politicization clearly. Many describe the chadari not as modesty but as necessary for survival: you disappear inside it so you can move through Taliban-controlled spaces without being noticed. Younger women who never grew up wearing it now experience it as a uniform of erasure, the garment the Taliban use to signal that public life belongs only to men. And so they push back in small but deliberate ways: removing the chadari once past checkpoints, wearing thinner or shorter versions that technically pass inspection, using masks and long coats as alternatives, and sharing information on lenient clinics and sympathetic guards. These micro-acts do not overthrow the rule, but they carve out slivers of autonomy within it.

And there is one more layer to this story—the way the garment has come to define Afghanistan in the global imagination. No other Muslim-majority country uses the Afghan chadari in this form: the stitched cap, the pleated canopy, the mesh screen. It is visually distinct, instantly recognizable, and therefore easily generalized. Colonial photography fixed that image early. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western travelers and soldiers depicted Afghanistan as a tribal frontier, a place outside time, its women hidden behind unfamiliar veils. Those images circulated widely, and postcards, travelogues, geopolitical reportage, and the chadari became shorthand for a society described as backward, unknowable, and unchanging. That impression stuck.

A garment born in royal courts has become a tool for restricting movement, visibility, and even access to life-saving care. But its long history shows that meanings shift, and Afghan women—through small acts of noncompliance—are already imagining a future where the chadari no longer defines their place in the world.

Perhaps few among the new generations of Iraqi journalists have ever heard of the royal-era writer who called himself “Alwan Abu Shararah.” It is almost certain they have never read his sharp and daring satirical writings from the roaring 1920s.

Behind that pseudonym stood Musa al-Shabandar—a diplomat, politician, and intellectual who lived through Iraq’s defining decades. He was one of the country’s most prominent foreign ministers during its turbulent struggle for independence from Britain, serving in several governments, including that of Rashid Ali al-Kaylani during the 1941 uprising against British domination.

When al-Shabandar died in 1967 at the age of seventy, his most enduring legacy was not his political career but his Baghdadi Memoirs, an extraordinary record of a city and a nation in transition. Written with candor and wit, these memoirs chronicle Baghdad’s transformation from Ottoman rule to British occupation and the early years of Iraq’s monarchy.

Born in Baghdad around 1897 into a respected merchant family, al-Shabandar came of age as the old Ottoman order was collapsing. At just twenty, he witnessed one of the most dramatic moments in modern Iraqi history—the fall of Baghdad in 1917, when British troops entered the city as the Ottoman army withdrew.

He described those hours vividly:

“The news was confused and the rumors many. What was certain was that the Turkish army was in continuous retreat before the British advance. Fear filled the hearts of the people — fear of the retreating Turks, fear of the advancing British forces, and, worse than both, fear of the surrounding tribes during the interval between withdrawal and occupation.”

That night, an explosion shook his home; the detonation of a Turkish ammunition depot marked the empire’s retreat. In the aftermath, he witnessed chaos and looting, reflecting bitterly on the illusion of liberation:

“We had been angry and resentful of the Turks for their oppression, yet God showed us at the hands of the British occupation what made the Turks’ injustice seem gentle and merciful.”

In the decades that followed, al-Shabandar rose through Iraq’s political and diplomatic ranks. Fluent in several European languages and educated abroad, he served as Iraq’s representative to the League of Nations, held postings in European capitals, and twice served as foreign minister during the monarchy.

But his political fortunes shifted with the tides of history. In 1941, as part of the nationalist Rashid Ali government that sought to free Iraq from British control during World War II, al-Shabandar found himself on the losing side of the Anglo-Iraqi War. When British forces defeated the insurgent regime, he fled to Tehran, only to be arrested and extradited back to Iraq.

In 1944, he was sentenced to four years in Abu Ghraib Prison, where he endured solitary confinement. It was there, in a small, dimly lit cell, that he began drafting the reflections that would later become his Baghdadi Memoirs.

He described those years with painstaking clarity:

“Yes, I am now in Baghdad, in Iraq, in Abu Ghraib, in this desolate room of this desolate building, a prisoner in solitary confinement. The door is locked, the guard paces the dark corridor back and forth before the cells. Is this a disturbing dream or a bitter reality?”

Even in captivity, al-Shabandar’s sharp humor and intellectual rigor persisted. He compared Iraq’s prison system to Europe’s darkest institutions:

“If the Dachau concentration camp is a stain of shame on the German people, then Abu Ghraib Prison will bear the same shame upon those who created it in Iraq.”

The words would prove prophetic, echoing across decades as Abu Ghraib became infamous once again under foreign occupation.

Al-Shabandar’s Baghdadi Memoirs are not only political testimony but also an intimate portrait of a city in flux, from its narrow alleyways and riverside markets to the salons where politicians and poets debated the future of the new Iraqi state. He wrote of floods, uprisings, and court intrigues, but also of the humor, irony, and contradictions that defined Baghdadi life.

He recorded his impressions of key figures—Nuri al-Said, Tawfiq al-Suwaidi, Muzahim al-Pachachi, Taha al-Hashimi, and others—offering insight into the personalities who shaped modern Iraq. Yet his writing remains intensely personal, driven less by political ambition than by a desire to understand his country’s restless soul.

Half a century after his death, al-Shabandar’s voice resurfaced when his son prepared the memoirs for publication, and Faisal al-Damlouji helped bring them to print through Riyad al-Rayyis Publishing House in London and Cyprus in the early 1990s.

For readers today, his writings serve as both historical record and moral reflection, tracing the dreams, failures, and perseverance of a generation that sought to define Iraq’s place in the modern world.

Baghdadi Memoirs can serve as a mirror of Iraq’s current fractures. In a country still reeling from foreign interventions, institutionally hollowed out and struggling to reclaim its sovereignty, his reflections acquire renewed urgency. He wrote with prescient clarity about prisons that would “bear the same shame” as Europe’s darkest camps—words hauntingly echoed when Abu Ghraib Prison re-entered global infamy under another occupation.

His intimate portrayals of Baghdad’s alleyways, cafés like the famed Shabandar Café (which he owned), and the political salons where “the people are one” despite difference, stand today as a counter-narrative to sectarian geography, splintered national identity, and institutional decay in Iraq. The fact that al-Shabandar was both insider and prisoner—diplomat, foreign minister, exile, and inmate allows his memoirs to speak simultaneously of ambition, hope, and the limits of power.

In Iraq’s present moment, where public trust is low, governance is weak, and debates about identity, sovereignty, and reform are urgent, his writings should challenge all of us to inquire: Are the structures of the state being rebuilt? Are citizens truly “under the roof of law and justice,” as he insisted? The book compels us to remember that the past was not simply a prologue but a living component of today’s political culture.

Thus, al-Shabandar’s voice remains vital. For Iraq to move beyond its cycles of interference and stagnation, it must engage with the lessons of a leader who chronicled not only the rise of a modern state, but its vulnerability when power is unaccountable and history is forgotten.

Musa al-Shabandar—the witty satirist, the exiled diplomat, the prisoner with a pen—remains one of Iraq’s most overlooked storytellers. From the confines of his cell, he wrote not merely to remember, but to ensure that Baghdad’s story, in all its pain and vitality, would be known, understood, and learned from by the generations to come.

In 2010, I cast my first vote in Iraq’s national elections. I voted for Ayad Allawi, the secular candidate who promised to break the stranglehold of sectarianism and reclaim Iraq’s sovereignty from the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein’s fall. That year, Allawi’s coalition actually won the most seats in parliament. And yet, he lost. The post-election maneuvering that returned Nouri al-Maliki to power taught me my first hard lesson in Iraqi democracy: in Iraq, victory at the ballot box does not necessarily translate to power.

That moment shattered much of my faith in the political process. But it did not extinguish the conviction that Iraq’s future cannot be outsourced, not to Tehran, not to any of its neighbors, and not to the networks of militias and party bosses who profit from our paralysis. Fifteen years later, as Iraq prepares for yet another election, the question is no longer whether Iraqis believe in democracy. It is whether democracy still believes in them.

The parliamentary elections are marketed as a democratic ritual, but the substance of power lies elsewhere. In an interview with journalist Imad al-Din Adib titled “Who Rules Iraq?” several Iraqis spoke bluntly about their disillusionment. “Every candidate wants office for the benefits, not for service,” one man said. Another added, “We have seen their programs. They have none.”

This sentiment captures the essence of Iraq’s modern predicament. The institutions exist: elections, a parliament, ministries, a judiciary, yet they function more as stages than as legitimate engines of governance. The actors change, but the script remains written in the language of factional loyalty and external influence.

Behind the scenes, Iran’s tentacles reach beyond its borders. Through a complex web of militias, political proxies, and economic networks, Tehran exerts decisive leverage over the country’s security and decision-making. The Quds Force (one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) does not need to occupy Baghdad to rule it; influence has replaced invasion as the currency of control.

In another recent discussion, “Can Iraq and Iran Part Ways?” one analyst summed up the dilemma with brutal clarity: “Iran does not see Iraq as an equal. It sees it as strategic depth.” That statement echoes across Iraqi life, from the appointment of ministers to the distribution of contracts to the intimidation of journalists.

Iran’s presence in Iraq began as a security alliance in the war against ISIS, but it has metastasized into something more enduring. Iranian-backed militias now control checkpoints, border crossings, and entire neighborhoods. Their leaders wear suits instead of fatigues, sit in parliament, and negotiate cabinet positions.

And yet, Iran’s dominance is not absolute. The Iraqi public, especially the younger generation, increasingly sees Tehran not as a protector but as a parasite. Protests that erupted in 2019 under the slogan “Nureed Watan,” meaning “We want a country,” were driven by anger at a political order shaped more by foreign agendas than by public will.

The populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr captures this tension better than anyone. In a segment from “From the Last Episode,” al-Sadr warned that “selling the homeland,” meaning surrendering sovereignty, is the ultimate betrayal. But his own movement has at times empowered the very system he condemns. He mobilizes nationalist rhetoric, yet his fighters, too, have benefited from the same sectarian spoils that keep the country divided.

Al-Sadr’s shifts between confrontation and compromise reflect Iraq’s broader dilemma—a country torn between the desire for autonomy and the fear of instability. Each election becomes a test of how far people can push for change without risking collapse.

The people no longer believe their leaders represent them, and the leaders no longer pretend to care. Turnout in elections has steadily declined, and trust in institutions hovers near zero. The state has become an arena for negotiating power, not a framework for delivering justice.

In Who Rules Iraq?, one interviewee put it plainly: “We have a parliament, but no sovereignty.” That line captures a national tragedy, a republic whose form survives while its substance has been hollowed out.

But legitimacy can also be rebuilt. Iraq’s civil society and youth movements continue to push back, showing that Iran’s influence may be entrenched, but it isn’t absolute.

Iraq’s challenge is not to sever ties with Iran; geography and history make that impossible, but to redefine the relationship. Iraq must live with Iran as a neighbor, not as a master. That requires political courage, institutional integrity, and international support that strengthens Iraqi sovereignty rather than outsourcing it to another patron.

Foreign policymakers often treat Iraq as a footnote to Iran policy, a terrain on which to balance sanctions, energy interests, and counterterrorism priorities. But Iraq is its own actor. Ignoring that reality only empowers the militias and their sponsors. The international community should invest not in personalities or parties but in the infrastructure of independence, education, economic opportunity, and a functioning state that answers to its citizens, not its neighbors.

When I voted in 2010, I believed the ballot was our weapon against tyranny. Fifteen years later, I see it as a way of holding on—not to power, but to the idea that change is still possible. Voting in Iraq today is not an endorsement of the system; it is a protest against conceding what has the potential to be a thriving nation.

The next election will not produce a miracle. It will likely reproduce many of the same faces, slogans, and disappointments. But somewhere within that ritual lies a generation that refuses to let its country remain a satellite state.

Democracy in Iraq is precarious, distorted, and repeatedly betrayed. But it still exists, and that alone is worth defending. Iraq’s only real choice is perseverance.

Because while Iran’s influence may be entrenched, it is not eternal. And as long as Iraqis continue to demand a country —a real one —the promise of 2010 is not entirely lost.

We now find ourselves caught between moral absolutism and historical amnesia. As the world is once again debating the foundations of global order, some lament the erosion of liberal norms; others mock them as hypocritical inventions of the West. In this polarized climate, basic historical truths are buried beneath moral absolutism and ideological distortion. In what follows, I aim to offer a more nuanced perspective by revisiting how the modern international system emerged, why its norms remain tenuous, and what challenges confront them today. Some of this ground may feel familiar, but we retrace it in order to properly frame the analysis that follows in the second and third installments of this series.

The Long Shadow of Empire

For most of human history, expansion was the norm. From the Sumerians to the Romans, the Ottomans to European colonial powers, empires rose and fell—annexing territories, exploiting resources, and subjugating peoples. Conquest conferred legitimacy and glory, not moral shame. Grand narratives abounded: Islam’s promise to lift nations “from the darkness of religion to the justice of Islam,” or the European “civilizing mission” cloaked in the white man’s burden. But beneath these exalted slogans lay the raw pursuit of power.

Paradoxically, this violent story of empire enabled human survival. Had our ancestors not jostled out of Africa, dispersing and competing globally, a single pandemic might have eradicated the species. Likewise, technological diffusion—however brutal—was often a byproduct of conquest and war.

The principles we now take for granted—sovereignty, self-determination, human rights—are not timeless truths. They are recent human inventions, born of struggle, debate, and compromise. And they emerged largely through the philosophical, legal, and political traditions of the very Western powers so often demonized today. While their imperial crimes warrant scrutiny and critique, their intellectual contributions to global norms cannot be denied.

But this legacy should inspire responsibility, not supremacist nostalgia. Universal values are not expressions of civilizational destiny. They are fragile and contingent ideals that demand constant stewardship.

The Early Experiments of War and Innovation

These ideals didn’t emerge fully formed. Their first modern iteration, after World War I, was deeply flawed. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points called for self-determination, open diplomacy, arms reduction, and collective security via a new League of Nations. But in practice, the League sanctioned a mandate system that allowed Britain and France to expand their imperial possessions under the guise of trusteeship.

Arab hopes for independence were quickly betrayed. The Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and conflicting promises to the Hashemites stoked tensions that still reverberate. Yet to condemn these actions by today’s moral standards, however tempting, is historically naïve. The principle of national self-determination was embryonic; few statesmen viewed it as sacrosanct.

A more profound shift came only after World War II. The United Nations, created to replace the League, embedded human dignity and sovereign equality into its Charter. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights followed in 1948. Though the Charter avoided explicit references to democracy, its ethos—cooperation, dignity, and rights—marked a normative leap forward.

Still, the liberal order was never universal. The Cold War split the world into ideological camps.

Decolonization gave rise to fragile states, vulnerable to coups, insurgencies, and foreign manipulation. Not all regions experienced decolonization after World War II: the Soviet Union maintained and expanded its imperial holdings, while China embarked on its own colonizing ventures in Tibet, Xinjiang (East Turkistan), and Inner Mongolia. Even after 1991, with the apparent triumph of the liberal order, the seeds of today’s crises had already been sown.

The New Anarchy

By the 21st century, the liberal order faced mounting challenges—external and internal. Its core ideals are now under siege on multiple fronts:

• Authoritarian Resurgence: China and Russia reject liberal values, promoting stability and sovereignty over liberty and pluralism. Their assertiveness undermines multilateralism and empowers autocrats elsewhere. This is not just rhetorical: Russia has intervened militarily in Ukraine and Syria and operates through proxies and mercenaries across Sub-Saharan Africa. China, meanwhile, asserts imperial claims in the South China Sea, exerts growing influence across the Global South through infrastructure and debt diplomacy, has tightened authoritarian control over Hong Kong, and openly threatens democratic Taiwan. Together, they offer alternative models of order that normalize authoritarianism and transactional geopolitics.

• Democracy Backsliding: Even in established democracies, liberal values are under strain. Polarization fueled by identity politics, unchecked economic inequality, disinformation, and migration crises has eroded public trust in democratic institutions. Illiberal movements are gaining ground in Europe and the United States, often aided by external actors exploiting domestic divisions. The moral authority of democratic systems is thus weakening from within, making it harder to defend the liberal order abroad.

• Global Economic Inequality: Globalization lifted millions out of poverty—but also entrenched oligarchies and fueled populist rage.

• Climate Change: A planetary emergency demands collective action, yet national interests and institutional gridlock prevail.

• Cyber Insecurity & Disinformation: Digital interdependence creates new vulnerabilities—from election meddling to infrastructure sabotage.

• Geopolitical Fragmentation: U.S.-China rivalry, regional conflicts, and transactional diplomacy erode the cooperative spirit underpinning the liberal order.

• Pandemics & Migration: COVID-19 exposed global governance gaps; mass displacement strains both humanitarian norms and political institutions.

• Technological Disruption: AI, biotechnology, and automation outpace ethical and regulatory frameworks, raising profound dilemmas.

Overlaying all of this is a growing legitimacy crisis. Many now see the liberal order not as a universal project, but as a Western scheme serving Western interests. This perception, sharpened by historical grievances, undermines the moral credibility required to sustain global cooperation.

The Sovereignty Dilemma

A paradox lies at the heart of today’s turbulence: sovereignty is sacred and porous. States invoke it to shield themselves from interference, even as they outsource governance to supranational institutions or succumb to market dependencies. Humanitarian interventions, cyber operations, and economic sanctions further blur the boundaries between the domestic and the global.

Can sovereignty—as once imagined—survive in an era of climate breakdown, global pandemics, transnational terrorism, and digital warfare? Or must it evolve—preserved in principle but adapted to interdependence?

Why Historical Honesty Matters

Defending norms requires historical honesty. The global order we live under was not delivered from on high. It was forged, however imperfectly, within the political cultures of Western democracies, where the past is still debated openly, unlike in most autocracies. Even mature democracies like Japan and South Korea struggle with full reckoning. To ignore this asymmetry is to misread how norms are created and sustained.

Likewise, to romanticize the West’s role is folly. Its success was not foreordained, but rather the product of a messy convergence between Enlightenment ideals and imperial ambition—of moral progress entangled with material exploitation. That duality, still present today, should neither excuse nor erase—but help explain.

Between Arrogance and Amnesia

The liberal order’s survival hinges on humility and clarity. Humility requires recognition that its norms are not eternal or self-sustaining, and clarity requires resisting the creeping nihilism that treats all ideals as instruments of power.

Both extremes—nostalgic supremacism and cynical relativism—are recipes for disorder. The global norms we now invoke were won through centuries of struggle, revision, and compromise. They can neither be taken for granted nor weaponized indiscriminately. To forget this is to forget that history’s most brutal lesson is repetition.

Up Next: II. Between Victimhood and Supremacy

In the rubble of eastern Rafah, armed men in mismatched uniforms stop aid trucks at gunpoint. Their leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, an illiterate former drug trafficker who escaped a Hamas prison during an Israeli airstrike, now controls humanitarian routes using Israeli-supplied weapons. On November 16, 2024, his anti-Hamas militia, “Popular Forces,” raided 109 UN aid trucks, looting 98 of them while Israeli troops watched from posts just 500 yards away.

In Khan Yunis, another militia self-described as the “Counter-Terrorism Strike Force” is led by Hussam Al Astal, a man Hamas once sentenced to death, who patrols territory carved out with Israeli backing. To the north, in the ruins of Jabalia and Beit Lahia, Ashraf Al Mansi’s People’s Army (PA) controls checkpoints, warning Hamas forces to stay away from “their” areas.

This is Gaza in October 2025: a patchwork of competing militias—criminal gangs turned “security forces.” Whoever thinks that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing what he can to destroy these militias and stabilize the region is delusional. The case is quite the opposite. To understand the Israeli government’s stance on the militias operating in the Palestinian territories, one has to look carefully at the past.

Before ascending to power, Netanyahu made a promise to destroy Hamas and solidify Israel’s security. After all, Netanyahu assumed office after the Oslo Accords in the 1990s in opposition to the agreements, claiming they endangered Israel’s security and inciting against then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the deal.

Supporting Hamas Against the People’s Army (2012-2023)

In October 2012, under Netanyahu, Israel allowed Qatar to transfer $400 million to the Hamas government in Gaza, claiming the move would “stabilize Gaza” and “maintain quiet.”

A year later, Israeli officials, including members of Netanyahu’s National Security Council, formalized a policy known as “separation” (מדיניות ההפרדה), aimed at keeping Gaza and the West Bank divided to prevent the creation of a unified Palestinian political entity.

In 2018, Israel—again under Netanyahu—began formally allowing monthly Qatari cash transfers to Hamas, amounting to as much as $30 million per month, delivered in suitcases through the Erez crossing. The policy ignited controversy and led to the resignation of then–Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who condemned it as “surrender to terrorism.” At a Likud Party meeting in March 2019, Netanyahu reportedly told members, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state must support bolstering Hamas. This is part of our strategy—to isolate Gaza from the West Bank.”

Netanyahu believed that supporting Hamas would weaken the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PA, effectively burying the prospect of a Palestinian state alive.

That policy collapsed on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its devastating attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping over 250, most of them civilians. The money Netanyahu believed could buy Hamas’s silence was instead invested in an elaborate tunnel network, tens of thousands of rockets, and the training of the Nukhba Unit that carried out the assault. Whether intentional or not, Netanyahu’s strategy ultimately undermined Israel’s own security.

Supporting Anti-Hamas Militias (2024–2025)

After the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, who could still believe that militias provide security? Netanyahu could—and did.

On June 5, 2025, the prime minister confirmed reports of new anti-Hamas militias in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter), stating: “On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with that? It’s only good. It saves lives of IDF soldiers.”

Israeli support for these militias reportedly began in May 2024, during the offensive on Rafah.

The Popular Forces soon spread to other areas. In Khan Yunis, the Counter-Terrorism Strike Force was founded on August 21, 2025, led by Hussam Al Astal, a 50-year-old former Palestinian Authority officer who had worked in Israel before joining the PA. Hamas imprisoned him several times and even sentenced him to death for alleged involvement in the 2018 assassination of Palestinian scientist Fadi al-Batsh in Kuala Lumpur.

In northern Gaza, the PA emerged in Beit Lahia and Jabalia, led by Ashraf Al Mansi, while in Gaza City’s Shuja’iyya neighborhood, the Khalas Clan Militia—led by Rami Khalas and Fatah Central Committee member Ahmad Khalas—claimed control.

Netanyahu’s rationale for arming and supporting these groups, despite their criminal reputations, mirrored his earlier justification for backing Hamas: they undermined his political rivals. Multiple reports have accused these militias of looting aid convoys.

Jonathan Whittall of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said such gangs were responsible for “the real theft of aid since the beginning of the war,” and acts carried out “under the watch of Israeli forces.” Nahed Sheheiber, head of Gaza’s private truckers’ union, said, “Our trucks were attacked many times by the Abu Shabab gang, and the occupation forces stood idle. They did nothing. The one who looted the aid is now the one protecting it.”

This logic—that militias can serve as tools against Hamas—echoes Netanyahu’s earlier argument that supporting Hamas would weaken the PA. His far-right coalition continues to view a Palestinian state as a greater threat to Israel’s security than the chaos of armed militias. In 2015, current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared, “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset.”

The consequences of this thinking have been catastrophic, not only for Palestinians but also for Israelis.

The current power vacuum in Gaza, as the sociologist Max Weber might note, represents the collapse of the state’s core function: the monopoly on legitimate use of force. Without it, there is no weak state—there is no state at all.

From U.S. support for the Afghan Mujahideen to India’s covert backing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), history offers repeated lessons: arming militias may yield short-term gains but breeds long-term disaster. Hamas’s October 7 attacks, the LTTE’s assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and the regional chaos unleashed by the M23 all prove that proxy militias often outlive and outgun their sponsors.

Netanyahu and Israel’s right wing must confront the hard truth that a weak or fragmented state cannot produce security. Only a stable, moderate government—one that monopolizes legitimate force—can guarantee lasting peace.

One year ago today, Hassan Nasrallah, the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, was killed by an Israeli air force strike while inside the militant group’s war operations room. To truly dismantle his ideology and legacy, we have to confront his life and death with unflinching honesty. Only by critically examining the consequences of his leadership—both the allure of his defiance and the devastation of his choices—can we break the cycle of martyrdom and perpetual struggle that he so masterfully wove into his narrative. An honest reckoning will challenge the glorification of resistance for resistance’s sake and expose the cost of his vision: generations trapped in conflict, a nation in ruin, and dreams extinguished by the very ideology that promised liberation.

Growing up in Iraq, a country where Shia Islam is the majority, it was impossible to escape the presence and powerful speeches of Nasrallah. Even for those of us who were not raised with a Shia upbringing, his charisma was undeniable. Nasrallah’s voice reverberated across televisions and radios, his words infused with a vigor that captured the imagination of millions.

He spoke the language of the people, particularly resonating with the lower classes of southern Lebanon and Iraq. Yet, his appeal was not limited to the disenfranchised. He managed to instill confidence in the middle and upper classes, positioning himself as a populist in the truest sense. Energetic, eloquent, and exuding a certain vitality, Nasrallah had the rare ability to engage audiences across the social and political spectrum—even those who identified as secular found themselves drawn to his uncompromising vision.

Born in 1960 in the bustling, poverty-stricken neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud in Beirut, Nasrallah came of age during a tumultuous period in Lebanon’s history. After being displaced by the Lebanese Civil War, his family moved to the southern town of Bazourieh, where his exposure to Shia clerical teachings began. He would go on to study in Najaf, Iraq, where he was mentored by influential Shia scholars, including Muhammed Baqir al-Sadr, a prominent cleric who greatly shaped his ideological worldview. Baqir al-Sadr believed the state should be led by the most learned jurists from the Shi’a clerical establishment and should protect Islamic values, while also embracing some aspects of modernity.

Nasrallah’s ascent within Hezbollah, the militant group and political party founded in the early 1980s with Iranian backing, was swift. Following the assassination of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, Nasrallah became the youngest leader of the terrorist organization. Under his command, Hezbollah evolved from a local militia into a formidable paramilitary force and was revered as a symbol of resistance against Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon.

What made Nasrallah particularly compelling was not just his oratory prowess or strategic acumen; it was his ability to tap into a collective psychological narrative—one characterized by a sense of historical failure and grievance. For many in the Arab world, he personified the fight against overwhelming odds, especially against Israel and Western power. This was not merely a matter of political struggle; it was about reclaiming one’s dignity. Even secular Arabs, who did not necessarily align with his religious ideology, found in him a champion who refused to bow to geopolitical realities.

Nasrallah’s rhetoric skillfully navigated this landscape of loss and longing. He offered a vision of resistance that felt empowering, even liberating. But there was a dark side to this narrative. His defiance often blurred into delusion, promising victories that were never fully realized, leading his followers down a path of perpetual struggle with no end in sight.

Nasrallah’s legacy took a dramatic turn with his decision to involve Hezbollah in the Syrian Civil War. What had once been a narrative of resistance against Israeli occupation—a cause that commanded near-universal support across the Arab and Muslim world—morphed into a sectarian conflict. By deploying his forces to support Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Nasrallah turned his weapons on fellow Arabs, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians. Under his leadership, Hezbollah militants perpetrated unspeakable atrocities.

This strategic pivot revealed the extent of his allegiance to Iran. Rather than being an independent leader fighting for Lebanese or Arab interests, Nasrallah was now seen as an enforcer of Tehran’s regional ambitions. His credibility suffered immensely. Those who once viewed him as a hero of resistance began to see him as a pawn in a larger geopolitical chess game.

Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon has played a central role in the country’s decline. Once known as the “Paris of the Middle East,” Lebanon is now mired in economic collapse, political paralysis, and social decay. The nation has become a battleground for proxy wars, isolated internationally and burdened by financial ruin.

The mass exodus of Lebanon’s brightest minds speaks volumes. Engineers, doctors, artists, and entrepreneurs are fleeing a country that can no longer offer them security or opportunity. This collapse is a cultural and moral disintegration that has occurred under Nasrallah’s watch, not to mention the havoc it has wreaked on the economy.

Nasrallah embraced a culture of resistance for resistance’s sake, even when it led only to death and destruction. His worldview glorified martyrdom and eternal struggle, viewing life through the lens of historical victimhood and perpetual conflict. He valued death over life.

Nasrallah chose war over progress, death over life, and in the end, failure over the possibility of something better. His legacy is a tragic testament to what happens when resistance becomes an end in itself, rather than a means to a just and prosperous future.

Nasrallah will forever be remembered by those who loved him and those who hated him. To some, he is a heroic figure who stood up to Israel and the West. To others, he is a leader who betrayed his people, leading them into ruin for the sake of ideological purity and foreign interests. To those living in Israel and the United States, he is simply a terrorist.

One year ago today, he ultimately met his end in a fire that he flamed.

History will judge him, as it should. But for now, as Lebanon stands on the precipice of collapse and Syria remains a shattered nation, the weight of his choices are impossible to ignore. His defiance once inspired hope, but his legacy may well be remembered as a cautionary tale of ambition without vision, and resistance without reason.

Published in 2021 to mark the centenary of the Iraqi state, Faisal I of Iraq (فيصل الأول ملك العراق ) is more than a biography of the country’s first king. It lays bare Iraq’s troubled beginnings and is startlingly relevant to the crises the country faces a century later. Reading it today, one cannot help but feel that King Faisal I diagnosed Iraq’s ailments with painful clarity, leaving behind warnings that remain unheeded.

Faisal was no stranger to loss and disappointment. Ousted by the French from Damascus in 1920, he was placed on Iraq’s throne by the British the following year. But the book shows that he quickly realized his role could not simply be that of a compliant pawn. He needed to balance British interests with the yearning of Iraqis for independence, all while trying to forge unity among communities that shared little other than being under Ottoman rule. As he told his advisor Ameen al-Rihani: “Every day we have enough work for two days… If necessary, I work twelve hours a day.” This was the burden of trying to build a state from scratch.

Perhaps Faisal’s most famous reflection, captured in the book, was his admission that Iraq was not yet a nation at all. He knew the trajectory was unsustainable. He also recognized that Iraq’s diversity could only be an asset if it was woven into a national identity.

In Beirut, addressing Arab intellectuals, Faisal insisted: “Independence is not granted or taken simply… it is built on foundations we lay with our own hands. We must achieve our independence free from ambiguity.” This philosophy guided his rule in Baghdad: he knew that British promises meant little unless Iraqis themselves created the institutions of sovereignty.

When a poisonous booklet in 1933 claimed Iraq’s Shi’a were “heretics of Iranian origin,” Faisal’s response was to jail the author and denounce the booklet in a letter he wrote to Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Kashif al-Ghita. At a time when divisions were stark, the king defended the dignity of Shi’a citizens, understanding that such slanders threatened the cohesion of the state.

Unlike the pomp of other royal courts, Faisal’s palace impressed with its simplicity. The poet Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahiri recalled: “King Faisal, the greatest king in the Arab lands at the time, lived in a court that was a court in name only… a simple room with a table, a carpet, and three chairs.” This modesty telegraphed that Faisal’s legitimacy was to be rooted in service and nation-building, not extravagance.

The book’s pages resonate with today’s Iraq. Sectarian divisions are still the country’s greatest weakness. Tribal and ethnic loyalties still eclipse civic ones. These divisions pit communities against each other in politics and society, often fueling conflict and mistrust.

Foreign powers continue to manipulate Iraq’s fate. Faisal understood this dynamic a century ago. The book recalls, “Faisal’s Arabist vision could not make sense unless it transcended the historical divisions between sects.” His insistence that Iraq’s future depended on unity, education, and inclusion is as urgent in 2025 as it was in 1921.

This is where the book should shame Iraq’s leaders. A century later, they are still repeating the same mistakes Faisal warned against. Iraq remains hostage to sectarianism, its politics reduced to bargains between clerics, warlords, and foreign patrons. Leaders talk of sovereignty while surrendering decision-making to Tehran. Protesters fill the streets shouting “We want a country!” because they live in one that still doesn’t function as one.

Faisal’s story is a reflection of the present and a rebuke to those in power today. He worked twelve-hour days to build a state. Politicians today spend their hours dividing its spoils. He jailed those who incited sectarian hatred. Elites today thrive on it, using it to their advantage whenever possible. He dreamed of an Iraq that could stand on its own, but they are content with Iraq as a pawn even as its citizens suffer because of it. If a century later, Iraqis are still quoting King Faisal, it is not only a testament to his vision, but to the catastrophic failure of those who came after him.