‘Iran in Focus’ emerges from an urgent necessity: to confront the “war of words” and strategic framing that have long defined the West’s engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As the Middle East enters a period of unprecedented military escalation, the latest issue of Thinking Palestine, ‘Iran in Focus’, examines the rhetoric, political narratives, and media distortions that continue to shape perceptions of Iran, often through the predictable mainstream media’s lens of a supposed “clash of civilizations.” In doing so, this issue seeks to place Iran within its actual political and historical context: a country that has become central to the regional axis of resistance.
‘Iran in Focus’ approaches Iran not simply as a regional power, but as a political and strategic actor shaped by decades of sanctions, war, isolation, and confrontation with Western colonialism and hegemony. Bringing together world-renowned scholars, journalists, and political analysts, these contributions challenge the image of Iran as a ‘rogue state’ — an image repeatedly used to justify military aggression, sanctions, and intervention.
From a military perspective, Jeremy Salt uses the metaphor of a “grandmaster” to examine how Iranian strategic planning and advances in missile and hypersonic capabilities have undermined long-standing US “security architecture” across the Gulf region.
Iran’s Chess Game: The Grandmaster is Not far from Checkmate
Hanieh Tarkian focuses on the gap between Western portrayals of Iran and the country’s internal realities, highlighting Iran’s scientific development, advances in stem cell research, and the dramatic expansion of female education despite decades of sanctions and isolation.
Beyond the Veil of Propaganda: The Realities of Iranian Society
Richard Falk reflects on the genocide in Gaza “beneath the shadows of the Iran war,” arguing that the 2026 assault on Iran served as a geopolitical diversion aimed at weakening the axis of resistance and consolidating Western-Israeli regional dominance.
The Gaza Genocide beneath the Shadows of the Iran War: The Limits of Power
M. Reza Behnam traces the roots of Iranian political defiance from the 1953 coup to the present day, presenting the Islamic Republic as a product of a long anti-colonial struggle against foreign domination and imposed dependency.
Resistance as Ideology: Iran’s Political Culture of Survival
Iqbal Jassat examines the broader global implications of the war, arguing that although the conflict exposed tensions within the BRICS bloc, Iran’s endurance has further weakened the credibility of regime-change politics and accelerated the shift toward a multipolar international order.
BRICS, Global South, and Iran: Multipolarity and Shifting Power
Ramzy Baroud challenges the accusations of “Iranian agency” often used to delegitimize Palestinian resistance. He argues that Tehran’s cautious approach to Gaza in ceasefire negotiations reflects a refusal to politically erase or fragment the Palestinian national struggle, rather than a retreat from its long-standing position on Palestine.
Romana Rubeo examines what she describes as the European Union’s “strategic suicidalism,” arguing that Europe’s alignment with the Washington-Tel Aviv axis has accelerated both its political irrelevance and its economic decline, particularly as threats surrounding the Strait of Hormuz place Europe’s industrial infrastructure at risk.
Blueprint of Failure: On Iran, Gaza, and How Europe Plotted Its Own Irrelevance
Finally, Robert Inlakesh analyzes the erosion of Israel’s deterrence doctrine, arguing that the reopening of the Lebanon front and Hezbollah’s battlefield performance have exposed the deeper failures of Netanyahu’s long-promoted “short war” strategy.
Deterrence, Doctrine: Revival of Lebanon Front Spells Strategic Disaster for Israel
Together, these contributions argue that Iran’s position in the region cannot be understood through the language of Western ‘security’ discourse alone. Rather, Iran’s insistence on sovereignty and its alignment with anti-colonial movements have made it a central dimension of the wider struggle for justice and political self-determination in West Asia.
These articles are really good. I scan them hopefully looking for a deep analysis of the IMEC project in all its ghastly details. According to Patrick Wood, the primary reason the U.S. and Israel are assaulting Iran is to secure the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a massive infrastructure project designed to dominate global trade and establish a new technocratic world order.
Wood argues that the war is not fundamentally about nuclear weapons, human rights, or even regional security, but is a strategic military action to eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, the critical chokepoint for the IMEC’s eastern shipping lane. He views the conflict as the military phase of a long-term, deliberate geopolitical strategy that began with the Abraham Accords.
His key arguments are:
IMEC as a “Control Corridor”: IMEC is more than a trade route; it’s a fully integrated system of transport, energy, and digital infrastructure designed to control the flow of goods, data, and money between three continents.
A Sequenced Strategy: The Abraham Accords created a political and economic bloc of nations aligned against Iran. The war on Iran is the necessary step to remove the military obstacle (Iran’s naval power) to ensure IMEC’s security and functionality.
Technocratic Goals: The ultimate goal is the establishment of a global technocracy. The reconstruction of Gaza, overseen by a U.S.-backed “Board of Peace,” is seen by Wood as a pilot project for a technocratic state, directly integrated into the IMEC framework.
Jared Kushner’s Central Role: Wood identifies Jared Kushner as the key architect who designed the diplomatic preconditions (Abraham Accords), positioned himself financially with Gulf investors, and is now overseeing the governance of the territory IMEC requires.
In essence, Wood synthesizes the conflict as a war for economic and technological dominance, where the official narratives are a smokescreen for a deeper plan to restructure global trade and power under a technocratic system, with IMEC as its central artery.
It seems that once again Iran is being put in the role of having to block the ambitions of Palantir and associates which seek global dominance via control of the Strait of Hormuz. The results of which may determine the fate of Palestine and its heroic but horribly traumatized people. Does this rung true to you?