Ragui Assaad

One of Donald Trump’s achievements was to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, even if an imperfect one.

The collapse of the Iranian regime in its present form now seems more plausible than its survival as a functioning state. Yet the emergence of a democratic Iran remains far from certain. Between these two outcomes lies a volatile and dangerous middle ground. But much will depend on four factors.

As the rivalry between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi sharpens in Yemen and beyond, Turkey has begun edging closer to Saudi Arabia, sparking claims that a new regional order is taking shape: a Turkey-Saudi axis backed by a NATO-like defense architecture, implicitly aligned against Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This reading overstates the case.

Iran is once again in the midst of nationwide unrest. Protests that erupted in late 2025—initially driven by an acute economic crisis rapidly spreading across the entire country—are ongoing. Whether this latest wave culminates in revolutionary rupture, regime adaptation, or a familiar cycle of repression and exhaustion remains uncertain. What is already clear, however, is that the structural forces animating the unrest extend far beyond the present.

At the heart of Iran’s protests lies a set of sharp and enduring regional disparities that have long shaped patterns of development, political control, and social mobilization. These center–periphery divides have repeatedly rendered Iran’s border provinces more vulnerable to deprivation, marginalization, and protest, while allowing the political and economic core to absorb shocks with greater resilience. Today, those divides are under unprecedented strain, as economic hardship is no longer confined to the margins but increasingly shared across the country.

President Donald Trump has sharply warned the Iranian regime to halt its brutal crackdown on protesters. Amid speculation that the US is preparing for military action in Iran, Washington should take the lessons and fundamentally different context of its successful June 2025 operation against the Islamic Republic into account as it plans for how to respond.

People are not protesting because they suddenly discovered activism. They are protesting because the habits of coping and waiting for conditions to improve have finally stopped working.

Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei effectively greenlit mass killing to save his regime. His message was blunt: blood would be spilled to preserve the system. His security forces followed through, unleashing a level of violence against protesters that even by the Islamic Republic’s grim standards marks a dangerous escalation.

After months of building tensions, full-blown hostilities erupted between Syria’s transitional government and militia fighters linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo on January 6. Through four days of fighting, government forces have now assumed full control of Syria’s second city, after expelling SDF-linked forces from its northwestern districts.

Saudi Arabia is making a bold push to rewire the rules of the game for foreign investment within the Kingdom. The proposed lifting of the 49 percent foreign‐ownership cap in publicly listed companies is emerging as the next frontier of that effort. This reform, scheduled to take effect on February 1, could change the calculus for active and passive global capital, drive fresh scrutiny of regulatory constraints, and test the Kingdom’s ability to follow through in what may prove to be a tight balance between opening up and preserving sovereign control.

America’s dramatic capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has set the stage for the conduct of America’s national security strategy in 2026.  It has also raised questions.