The Iran Cease-Fire Was Doomed to Fail

 July 22, 2026

Neil Quilliam and Sanam Vakil

Why Transactionalism Won’t Deliver Peace in the Middle East

موجود هوشمند

 آیا ما تنها موجود هوشمند در این دنیا می‌باشیم؟ جهان ما آنقدر وسیع است که بسیاری از دانشمندان احتمال وجود موجودات هوشمند در منظومه‌های دیگر را قریب به یقین می‌دانند. فرضیه‌های بسیاری در مورد اینکه این موجودات چگونه هستند وجود دارد، تا جایی که حتی ضریب هوشی آنها برآورد شده است. 

Iran war live: Kuwait desalination, power plants damaged in fiery attack

July 21, 2026
Mariamne Everett and Christine Maguire

• A desalination facility and power plants caught on fire and suffered serious damage in Kuwait after new Iranian strikes targeted the crucial facilities, along with areas of Bahrain and Jordan, following a 10th-consecutive night of US bombing.
• “Massive fires” broke out on two tankers that “took an unsafe route” in the Strait of Hormuz, says Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
• Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen declare a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia threatening to further disrupt the fragile global energy supply.
• US President Donald Trump warns Iran it will pay “many times over” for the deaths of American soldiers after a week in which at least three US personnel were killed.
• Lebanon’s army says its soldiers have begun deploying in the southern town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh after the withdrawal of Israeli forces as part of a US-mediated agreement.

An Iranian Vision of the New Middle East

July 20, 2026
Javad Zarif

Ending the War and Sustaining the Peace Requires a New Approach to Regional Security

Iran’s Kuwait Water Plant Strike: Oil Prices and Trans-regional War

July 19, 2026
Juan Cole
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In response to the renewed American bombing of southeastern Iran ports and facilities, including civilian infrastructure, the Iranian military responded Saturday with attacks on US bases and the infrastructure of Arab allies of the US, such as a desalinization plant and oil facilities in Kuwait and US personnel and installations in Jordan, where two American soldiers were killed and several more wounded.

Photo of Kuwait City by Optical Chemist on Unsplash

A blockade at Hormuz, a crisis for all humanity

July 19, 2026
W Julian Korab-Karpowicz

Military escalation in Middle East is exposing deep material and moral vulnerabilities in our hyper-optimized, globalized society

 
Ships idling in the Strait of Hormuz. Image: X Screengrab

What to expect after the US reimposes naval blockade on Iran’s ports?

July 18, 2026

Maziar Motamedi

Pressure is expected to build up against average Iranians, as well as global energy markets due to the US blockade.

Vessels are seen anchored in Bandar Abbas along the Strait of Hormuz [Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP]

The US military just emptied a third of its deepest missile magazine into Iran — and the Pentagon’s own wargames say the next war empties it in days

July 17, 2026
The U.S. Military’s Tomahawk Crisis: How Many Are Left, What the Iran War Used, and What a China War Would Take: As of July 17, 2026, the United States has fired well over 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran, the largest expenditure of the weapon in history, and with the ceasefire declared dead on July 8, the meter is running again. Roughly 2,000 to 3,000 missiles are estimated to remain, against a production line that has built about 90 a year. The sharper question is the one the war has forced into the open: whether the magazine that just emptied into Iran could sustain the conflict it exists to deter, against China or Russia. The honest answer, drawn from the Pentagon’s own wargames, is unsettling.

 

Donald Trump is running out of options in Iran

July 16, 2026
Andrew Gawthorpe
(The Conversation) – Serious hostilities between the US and Iran have resumed. On July 8, Donald Trump said that the ceasefire agreed by the two countries in June was “over”. Since then, he has ordered the US military to carry out intensive airstrikes on Iran and has reimposed an economic blockade of the country.

How the Strait of Hormuz is testing the Iran–Oman alliance

July 15, 2026
Fereshteh Sadeghi

The US-Israeli war on Iran has transformed the strategic waterway into a new flashpoint, placing unprecedented pressure on relations between Tehran and Muscat.

جنگ

نخست ببینیم تعریف جنگ چیست. یکی‌ از لغت‌نامه‌های مشهور مریم‌وبستر می‌باشد. بر طبق این لغت‌نامه اینترنتی، جنگ عبارت است از وضعیت درگیری مسلحانه، معمولاً آشکارا و اعلام شده بین دولت‌ها یا ملت‌ها. البته زمانی‌ که حیوانات با یکدیگر درگیری پیدا می‌کنند ما آنرا نیز جنگ می‌نامیم. اگر جنگ بین دو حیوان از دو نژاد متفاوت باشد، عموما به منظور شکار است. به عنوان مثال یک پلنگ با یک آهو می‌جنگد، چرا که پلنگ گوشت‌خوار است و حیوانات ضعیف‌تر از خود را شکار می‌کند. اگر جنگ بین دو حیوان از یک نژاد باشد، مثلا جنگ دو پلنگ نَر با یکدیگر، عموما بر سر جفت‌گیری با یک پلنگ ماده است، که البته این قانون طبیعت است، بدین منظور که فرزندی که در نتیجهٔ آمیزش دو پلنگ نَر و ماده به وجود می‌آید همواره قوی‌تر باشد. عموما در این گونه جنگ‌ها، حیوان ضعیف‌تر خود را از جنگ کنار می‌کشد، و قویتر به جای تعقیب رقیب، به سراغ پلنگ ماده می‌رود! تنها موجودی که هدفش از جنگ، نیستی‌ و کشتار طرف مقابل است، انسان است.

Trump knocks US-Iran war back to square one

July 14, 2026
Trita Parsi

Yet another round of war won’t fundamentally change realities on the ground or the power balance between US and Iran

Chekhov, the Military Budget, and Endless Wars

July 14, 2026
Bruce Altschuler

After the 2024 election, the White House website described what it called Donald \Trump’s “mandate,” beginning with “putting a stop to endless wars.” Nevertheless, on Feb. 28, the United States and Israel began an unprovoked war with Iran by bombing strikes that not only destroyed military targets but killed thousands of Iranians, including the country’s Supreme Leader and much of its other leadership as well as many civilians. A first day strike on a primary school reportedly killed 170 children. Trump then threatened to destroy an entire civilization if Iran did not capitulate.

 

Iran War 3.0

July 13, 2026
Alastair Crooke

A market downturn in the U.S. – exacerbated by an energy crisis – could spell disaster for Trump’s midterm hopes.

‘Now Face Reality’: Iran Strikes US Bases across Five Countries after New Attacks

July 12, 2026

Iran launched a three-phase retaliation against US military sites across the region and closed the Strait of Hormuz after renewed American attacks.

Iran says it targeted US military bases across the Middle East in a multi-phase retaliatory operation following renewed American strikes on Iranian territory. (Photos: Social Media)

Trouble with Persia? Ask the Romans

July 11, 2026
John Limbert

Donald Trump is far from the first foreign leader to get bad advice when it comes to Iran and its formidable antecedents

Iran Is Losing Iraq

July 10, 2026
Kamaran Palani

Baghdad Goes Its Own Way

Iran's biggest weapon against the US may be slipping away, experts say

July 10, 2026
Morgan Phillips
Iran's latest attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz sent oil prices sharply higher in recent days — a reminder that Tehran can still rattle global energy markets.

US Begins Bombing Iran for the Second Night

July 9, 2026
Dave DeCamp

Iranian media reported explosions in several Iranian cities along the coast

Why Iran Ceasefire was always going to Break

July 9, 2026
Ben Soodavar, King’s College London
(The Conversation) – Less than a month after a ceasefire was signed between the US and Iran, conflict has returned to the Middle East. The peace agreement Donald Trump signed at the palace of Versailles in France on June 18 – which he hailed as Iran’s “unconditional surrender” – is now, in the US president’s own words, “over”.