🔴The Rise of China and the Shifting Middle East: A Call for Arab Unity

Dr Ramzy Baroudi

US President Donald Trump’s recent state visit to China marks a historic turning point, signaling Washington’s acknowledgment of Beijing as an equal global superpower. Unlike Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to an isolated agrarian nation, Trump engaged with a financial and technological giant from a position of defensive pragmatism, attempting to manage a declining empire's contraction.

This global shift is highly visible in the Middle East, where decades of failed US military campaigns and political alienation have eroded Washington’s credibility. The 2026 US National Defense Strategy confirms this strategic retrenchment, prioritizing a homeland-first posture and Indo-Pacific containment over Middle Eastern dominance. Destructive US-Israeli escalations against Iran represent desperate attempts to maintain relevance, mirroring the failed 1956 tripartite aggression against Egypt by fading European empires.

As the US exits, China—already the region’s largest trading partner—is poised to fill the political vacuum through its model of economic integration and development. However, this model could turn more muscular if Beijing is forced to defend its energy routes.


For the Arab world, this transition presents both a threat and an immense opportunity. A sudden, chaotic US exit could leave an aggressive Israel acting as a volatile local hegemon. To counter this, Arab nations must seize the opening to fill the political space on their own terms. This moment demands total Arab political unity, genuine sovereignty, and a new political contract focused on human development and rejecting foreign meddling. A unified Arab position must take concrete action to hold Israel accountable, liberate occupied Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian lands, and leverage these priorities in all future partnerships with global players like China.

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🔴According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, IDF attacks on Lebanon killed at least 30 people and wounded 92 others over the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll since March 2nd to 3,696 killed and 11,413 wounded.

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🔴 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:

🤔 Israel’s attacks on Syria and Lebanon are now also threatening Turkey.

🤔 The Israelis are directing threats toward Turkey, and we are aware of their intentions.

🤔 Our response will be extremely harsh if Turkey’s rights and those of Turkish Cypriots are targeted.

🤔 If things spiral out of control, “the fire will not only burn our region.”

🤔 The entire world will pay the price if Israel is not restrained.

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🔴 “The Gulf’s Glass Houses Are Shattering”: Iran War Exposes the Myth of U.S. Deterrence

💬Middle East Eye reports that the era of permanent U.S. military bases in the Gulf is rapidly declining — and that Iran’s resilience and devastating counterattacks are the driving force behind this major shift in regional power dynamics.

🔻 The large U.S. bases, originally intended to deter attacks, have now become attractive targets — as the recent confrontations with Iran have demonstrated.

🌕When clashes erupted last week, Iran launched strikes on Kuwait in response to U.S. attacks. Despite Washington’s claims of successful interceptions, satellite imagery showed damage at Ali Al-Salem Air Base, and a building at Kuwait International Airport was also hit.

🔻 Shift toward a smaller, more flexible presence

Current and former U.S. officials told Middle East Eye that American control of bases in Kuwait has effectively become unsustainable.

🔻 Kuwait currently hosts around 14,000 U.S. troops — the largest number in the region — across bases such as Camp Arifjan and Ali Al-Salem Air Base, both of which have come under significant attack.

🔻 Rather than investing further resources in fortifying these installations, the United States ultimately chose to evacuate its personnel.

🔻 Reports also indicate that limited air defense stockpiles have made full protection impossible.

👍The focus is expected to shift toward smaller, more dispersed facilities located farther from Iran’s reach, similar to the “Jenkins Logistics Support Area” near Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast. That base was reportedly designed to provide “strategic depth” beyond Iran’s reach.

🔹 Defense sources say the war with Iran will push the United States away from a model of “permanent presence” toward one of “priority access” — similar to the approach used in Oman. U.S. agreements across the Gulf already vary significantly: permanent basing in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar contrasts with Oman’s lighter footprint, which has left it relatively less exposed to escalation.

🔹Furthermore, Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz has created major sustainment and logistics challenges for the U.S. Fifth Fleet and for ports such as Jebel Ali in the UAE. This is why Washington is now exploring alternative logistics routes, including ports such as Jizan on the Red Sea.

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🔴 Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force:

Are you making the sacred Strait of Hormuz unsafe?! We will make the region hell for you.

🔰 Brigadier General Mousavi: Are you making the sacred Strait of Hormuz unsafe?! From all corners of Iran, we will make the region hell for you. This is the response to the audacity and insolence of the Americans in the region, God willing."

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🔴 Violent explosions rock the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain following missile strikes... and a drone attack by the 'Army' targets 'Patriot' systems


✌Media and international sources reported the sounding of sirens and the sound of a series of consecutive explosions that rocked Bahrain, after the headquarters of the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet was subjected to intensive missile and air attacks.

👌According to what was reported by the 'Fars' News Agency, the Iranian Army executed an attack with a wave of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) targeting the American base, in response to American aggression against areas in the south of the country.

💬According to reports, the Army's aerial attack focused on the vital infrastructure of the fleet, directly targeting and hitting communication antennas and radar facilities belonging to the 'Patriot' air defense system, amid the continuous sound of explosions in the area.


#Iran #America #Bahrain"

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🔴 Unprecedented escalation:

⭕️Revolutionary Guard targets 18 American targets, the Army completely closes the Strait of Hormuz... and oil jumps above $96
The region witnessed a wide-scale military escalation over the past few hours, represented by an exchange of violent strikes between the Iranian Armed Forces and the US military, amid a complete closure of vital waterways and the ignition of global energy markets.


⚪️ Refuting American claims and confirming the continuation of the response:


🎙The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that its forces carried out on June 10, under orders from President Donald Trump, a new wave of strikes against targets inside Iran and claimed they had concluded. This announcement came hours after a similar claim by Trump; however, media sources confirmed that American attacks continued for several hours after those statements.
For its part, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters confirmed that the US retreat and its president's announcement of the cessation of attacks came as a result of the strict and earth-shattering response delivered by the Iranian Armed Forces, describing what happened as "a new defeat imposed on the US military," and stressing that the Iranian response to any aggression will remain ongoing.


⚪️ Revolutionary Guard destroys 18 vital targets:


🔻Regarding the details of the military response, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that its Aerospace and Naval forces carried out two waves of military operations at dawn today, targeting 18 vital targets and routes belonging to the US military, in response to its previous attacks that hit service facilities, IRGC and police coastal headquarters, and the vicinity of Bandar Abbas Airport.
The concentrated missile strikes included the destruction of strategic targets inside the "Ali Al Salem" and "Ahmad al-Jaber" air bases, in addition to the "Sheikh Isa" air base.


⚪️ Complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a jump in oil prices:


👌On the strategic and economic fronts, the Armed Forces imposed a tight blockade on maritime traffic; a complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz was announced to all types of commercial and oil ships and tankers, with a decisive warning that any naval vessel attempting to cross would be targeted.
Immediately following the news of the complete closure of the strait, global energy markets reacted instantly; oil prices jumped by more than $4 in less than an hour, with the price of a barrel surpassing the $96 barrier amid international fears of a major supply crisis.
#Iran #America #Khatam_al-Anbiya #Strait_of_Hormuz"

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🔴The Illusion of "Endless Possibilities": Decoding Netanyahu’s Psy-Ops Campaign to Lebanon


🗂Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent video address to the Lebanese people—packaged with standard Western-facing rhetoric of "cafés, culture, and calm"—is not a diplomatic overture. It is a calculated psychological operations (psy-ops) campaign designed to mask deep strategic gridlock. By claiming Israel "yearns for peace" while simultaneously boasting of killing 10,000 Hezbollah fighters and "systematically clearing South Lebanon," Netanyahu attempts a classic colonial maneuver: separating a population from its indigenous resistance framework. 

✍️From an analytical and Axis of Resistance perspective, this speech reveals several critical vulnerabilities within the Zionist entity’s current political and military calculus:


🔘The "Divide and Conquer" Fallacy:

👍Netanyahu’s assertion that "Israel is not at war with the Lebanese people" directly contradicts the material reality on the ground. Just as the address went live, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians in Sidon and across southern Lebanon, adding to a legacy of total warfare that targets civilian infrastructure, medical teams, and residential blocks. The Lebanese collective memory does not forget the massacres of Qana (1996, 2006), Sabra and Shatila (1982), or the ongoing destruction of southern villages. 


🔘Fabricated Metrics of "Victory":

🌕The claim of eliminating "10,000 Hezbollah elements" is a highly inflated political metric meant for domestic Israeli consumption. Netanyahu faces immense pressure from displaced settlers of the northern colonies who refuse to return without a total security guarantee. Inventing high casualty counts is an old military tactic to simulate a "decisive blow" against a decentralized guerrilla force that operates via underground networks and strategic depth, not conventional army formations.


🔘The Hegemonic Vision of Peace:

🎙When Netanyahu states that once the resistance is dismantled, "the possibilities are endless," he is referencing the Zionist-American vision of a subjugated Middle East—one stripped of its deterrent capabilities, economically dependent, and fully integrated into the Abraham Accords framework. In the lexicon of the Axis of Resistance, this is not peace; it is total capitulation to structural hegemony.


📌Challenging Questions for Benjamin Netanyahu:

1⃣ If your war is truly not with the Lebanese people, why do your artillery and airstrikes consistently deploy white phosphorus and carpet-bombing tactics across civilian agricultural hubs and residential zones in South Lebanon?


2⃣ You claim Hezbollah is "weaker than ever," yet your forces remain bogged down along the border, unable to secure the return of over 60,000 evacuated Israeli settlers to the north. If the resistance is dismantled, why does the Israeli security cabinet panic at every tactical drone and rocket volley that breaches your air defense systems?


3⃣ Historical precedents from 1982 and 2006 prove that every time Israel attempts to forcefully re-engineer Lebanon’s political landscape, it triggers a more sophisticated, deeply entrenched resistance generation. What makes you think your current campaign will yield a different historical result?


#Lebanon #Palestine #AxisOfResistance #Netanyahu #ZionistAggression #SouthLebanon #AlMuraqeb #Geopolitics #PsyOps

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🔴Behind Trump’s Oil Rhetoric: Market Mythmaking vs. Axis Resistance



📼In a newly surfaced video statement, former US President Donald Trump claims that the United States has secretly been "taking out millions of barrels of oil" from Iran, specifically noting an operation targeting "22 ships late at night with no lights." He asserts that this covert economic warfare is the sole reason global oil prices are sitting between $85 and $90 a barrel rather than skyrocketing to $250.
As an analysis of the text, video, and the broader geopolitical landscape reveals, these claims reflect the classic contradictions of American exceptionalism—blending hyperbole with real-world economic aggression.
Fact-Checking & Economic Reality


⚪️The Physical Impossibility of "Taking" Oil:

✌From an oil and gas engineering standpoint, a state cannot simply "take out" millions of barrels of crude oil from an adversary's shipping vessels in the middle of the night to manipulate global supply curves. If Trump meant "seizing" or "interdicting" tankers to enforce unilateral sanctions, the historical record shows only occasional US civil forfeitures of Iranian fuel cargoes (such as the Suez Rajan incident). These are legal and naval disruptions, not a continuous, stealthy extraction mechanism that physically siphons oil into global markets.


⚪️The $250 Barrel Myth:

👌Trump’s assertion that his actions prevented $250-a-barrel oil is economically unfounded. Global crude pricing is determined by OPEC+ production quotas, non-OPEC output (particularly US shale), and macroeconomic demand signals from major consumers like China. Sanctions on Iran have historically created a multi-tier market where Iranian crude is sold at a discount to independent refiners, but it has never possessed the unilateral leverage to trigger a 300% price explosion on its own.


⚪️Context of the Footage:

🫶The visual layout, including the White House Oval Office setting and the "Text POTUS to 45470" call-to-action banner, matches official press pool footage from Trump's first presidential term. This confirms the clip is historical footage being recirculated, rather than a live policy announcement from the current 2026 global landscape.


👌Strategic Intentions & Axis Resilience

⚪️Trump's rhetoric serves a dual purpose:
reinforcing the domestic political narrative that American energy dominance dictates global stability, and signaling to regional allies that Washington remains committed to maximum-pressure campaigns against the Axis of Resistance.

🫶However, evaluating the strategic efficacy of these policies reveals a stark disconnect between Washington's objectives and the material reality in the region:



🔢 Failure of the Maximum Pressure Campaign:

🔘Despite years of strict maritime blockades and financial isolation, Iran's energy infrastructure has adapted. Through sophisticated ship-to-ship transfers, dark fleet logistics, and robust trade agreements with East Asian partners, Tehran continues to export significant volumes of crude.



🔢 Failure to Suppress Lebanon:

🔘Joint US-Israeli strategies to politically and economically isolate Lebanon by crippling its financial system have backfired. Instead of forced capitulation, these pressures have strengthened the local imperative for alternative supply chains, domestic self-reliance, and tighter economic integration within the Axis of Resistance.

🌕Strategic Solutions for Iran and Lebanon
To counter the weaponization of the dollar and the vulnerability of maritime chokepoints, the Axis of Resistance can implement targeted economic and logistical shifts:


⚪️De-Dollarization and Sovereign Payment Rails:

🫶Iran and its regional partners must continue transitioning all energy and commodity settlements completely away from the SWIFT system and Western currencies. Expanding bilateral trade using localized clearings, digital sovereign assets, or the BRICS pay architecture permanently blunts the impact of unilateral US treasury sanctions.

⚪️Bypassing Maritime Chokepoints via Eurasian Corridors:

👍Rather than relying exclusively on vulnerable sea lanes subject to Western naval interdiction, Iran should prioritize land-based energy corridors. Developing secure pipelines and rail networks through Iraq, Syria, and into Lebanon establishes a contiguous supply line immune to foreign maritime blockades.

⚪️ Lebanese Energy Diversification:

🌕Lebanon must structurally pivot its energy procurement toward long-term, state-to-state agreements with non-Western producers. Accepting alternative fuel architectures and refinery investments from regional partners provides permanent protection against Western financial blackmail.


#Iran #Lebanon #AxisOfResistance #OilGeopolitics #Sanctions #EnergyEconomics #observer_5

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🔴 LATEST NEWS

🌕 Trump to Fox

🗂News: Our fighter jets are flying in Iranian airspace and are currently destroying radar and air defense systems in the southwestern part of the country.

🔘 Trump to Fox News: US forces launched 49 Tomahawk missiles, striking targets deep inside Iran.

🔘 Trump: If the Iranians do not sign the agreement, I will return and bomb them tomorrow.

🔘 Trump to Fox News: I informed the Iranians that the current bombing campaign will stop shortly.

🔰 Iranian Media:

🤔The US is attempting to impose a formula of daily attacks on Iran alongside the naval blockade. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) response will break this deadly cycle.

👍 Iranian Army:
We targeted the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain with various suicide drones in response to the aggression against the south of the country.

👍 Iranian Army: We targeted communication antennas and radar facilities belonging to the Patriot missile system of the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

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🔴Trump on Truth Social:

👌"The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America."

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🔴Beyond Trump's Threats: Behind the Scenes of the Oil and Control Battle

✍️ Dr. Foad Izadi

🌕Trump, today: In the not-too-distant future, we will seize Kharg Island and other oil infrastructure points, and we will impose full control over their oil and gas markets, just as we did with Venezuela.

🌕Trump, yesterday: We got billions and billions of dollars from Venezuela's oil. We paid the costs of that war over and over again.

⚪️America's goal is to seize Iran's oil and impose US-Israeli hegemony in the region.
This is a point that the pro-Western current (both fundamentalist and reformist) insists on not understanding.

✌The Conclusion:

1⃣ Please publish a list of water desalination plants and oil facilities targeted by Iran in the region. In the event of any new attack on Iran, these facilities must be destroyed in a way that requires at least two years to rebuild.

🤔Limited destruction does not create the required deterrence; Trump views the limited destruction of these facilities as a "reconstruction project" for American companies. Comprehensive, large-scale destruction, however, will keep global oil and gas prices high for at least two years, which will achieve the necessary deterrence.

2⃣ Please do not reopen the #Strait_of_Hormuz for at least another two months.

3⃣ Please do not forget to impose transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz. According to international estimates, the revenues collected from Strait of Hormuz fees could exceed twice the revenues of oil sales. This is part of the solution to the country's economic crises, rather than remaining in the illusion of lifting sanctions.

4⃣ Reopening the Strait of Hormuz means lowering gasoline prices in America, which means solving Trump's electoral crisis, and consequently reducing the cost of attacking Iran.

5⃣This means repeating the cycle of: (attack, ceasefire, negotiations, then attack again); which is exactly what has been experienced and lived through to this day.

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🔴The Heron 1 drone shot down by Hezbollah in the Beqaa town of Nahle.

🔘 The cost of the Heron 1 drone is $8.5 million, and it constitutes an airborne operations room in its own right.

🔘 In short, it is the most expensive piece of Israel's reconnaissance air force.

🔘 It is a fourth-generation Israeli-made reconnaissance drone, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

🔘 It is capable of remaining airborne for long periods, exceeding 45 continuous hours.

🔘 It is being shot down for the first time at the hands of your mujahideen sons in the Islamic Resistance using a qualitative missile


🤔The military significance of shooting down a Heron 1 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) centers on several key tactical and strategic implications:


1⃣Denial of Persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
The primary value of the Heron 1 is its ability to stay airborne for over 45 hours, acting as a continuous, long-range surveillance platform.


👍Blinding the Network:
By downing the platform, the adversary disrupts the continuous collection of signals intelligence (SIGINT) and high-resolution optical imagery over the targeted area.


🌕Disrupting the Kill Chain:
The text refers to the drone as an "airborne operations room." The Heron 1 often acts as a data-relay hub and target acquisition platform. Intercepting it severs the real-time link between reconnaissance assets and strike platforms (artillery, loitering munitions, or fighter jets).


2⃣ Demonstration of Advanced Air Defense Capabilities (AD)
The use of what the statement calls a "qualitative missile" indicates the deployment of structured surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems rather than man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) or small-arms fire.


🚨Radar and Guidance Systems:
Operating a MALE drone typically involves flying at altitudes out of reach for basic shoulder-fired missiles. Hitting it requires radar-guided or advanced electro-optical tracked SAMs, demonstrating an integrated and functional air defense network capable of locking onto and destroying high-altitude targets.

🔻Contested Airspace:
This forces the adversary to recalculate the risk of flying non-stealthy, slower-moving reconnaissance aircraft over that airspace, effectively establishing a localized anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) zone.


3⃣ Financial and Resource Asymmetry
The cost discrepancy between the interception mechanism and the target favors the defensive force.


👌Attrition:
At an estimated cost of several million dollars per unit, losing a strategic asset like the Heron 1 is a non-negligible material loss.


✌Supply and Replenishment:
Unlike small tactical quadcopters, platforms of this class require sophisticated supply chains, specialised command structures, and long manufacturing timelines, making rapid replacement difficult.

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🔴Fars News Agency: Iran has not yet agreed on the text of a memorandum of understanding with the United States.

⚪️Main Points

🔘Denial of an agreement:
👍An informed source reported that no official text or memorandum of understanding has been adopted between Iran and the United States.

🔘Background on the source:
👍This report was issued by Fars News Agency, an Iranian state-affiliated media outlet close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

✌Context and Implications
🗂Reports issued by semi-official state media, such as Fars News Agency, often reflect the strategic messaging or internal stance of specific political blocs within Iran, particularly the security apparatus.

⚪️An official denial of an approved memorandum of understanding typically indicates the following:

🔢Negotiations may still be ongoing but have not yet reached a final stage, and an internal political consensus
on the terms has not yet been achieved.

🔢The state is working to manage public and international expectations regarding the progress of bilateral talks.

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