Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Middle East Page 1 of 23

I’d Like To Be Optimistic About the Latest Gaza Peace Plan

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On October 9, 2025

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Sounds on good on screen:

Hamas & Palestinian factions agree to Gaza ceasefire plan. A formal agreement is set to be signed today, Thursday, in Egypt, with Hamas officially approving the deal. The agreement includes the immediate opening of five crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, adjustments to the Gaza withdrawal map, and the release of 20 Israeli captives alive in the first phase. The deal is guaranteed by the U.S., Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, ensuring that attacks will not resume as long as both parties adhere to its terms.

But, after all, this is basically the same agreement as in January, with release of Israeli captives in phases. You’ll remember how quickly Israel broke that deal. The only good, possibly, will be getting some food and medicine in Gaza. (Remember, again, that Israel let in very little last time.)

Netanyahu, and most Israelis, want to commit genocide. The polling and their own statements are really clear on this. The vast majority of Israelis don’t want to stop till all Palestinians are dead or gone, whether from Gaza or the West bank.

That means the only way a deal like this can work is if Trump will cut off all military supplies in order to enforce it if Israel breaks it. Odds of that? Pretty close to zero, I’d guess.

Rarely have I wanted to be wrong about something more than this, however, and I pray I am. The counter-argument is that Israel is, in fact, exhausted economically by the war, reservists are increasingly refusing to call up, and Israel has become a pariah nation and thus it is time to declare victory, at least for now. May that argument prove correct.

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Israeli Actions Encourage the Formation of the Coalition That Will Ultimately Defeat It

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On October 6, 2025

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~by Sean Paul Kelley

A little lesson in history is in order to understand why Israel remains dominant in the Middle East and continues to wage war against just about everyone. To understand better Israel’s strategic dilemma we have to look back at the Crusades.

The First Crusade established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. But, before the Kingdom of Jerusalem could be established invasion routes from the north had to be secured, which occurred in 1098 when the Crusaders conquered Antioch, modern Antakya in Turkey. Second, its flank had to be secured, which is what Baldwin of Boulogne did in 1098 by capturing Edessa, modern day Şanliurfa in southeastern Turkey. Baldwin then created the County of Edessa.

Between 1099 and 1144 the Kingdom of Jerusalem fought against the Fatimids of Egypt, defeating them several times. The kingdom then attacked Damascus several times; winning some fights and losing others. The Crusaders attacked and captured Tyre, Tripoli, Acre and Beirut. They only held Beirut for a time.

The Byzantines were also active in keeping the Arab and Seljuk princedoms in the region divided. They won more battles than they lost. The Byzantine strategic goal was the reconquest of Anatolia. They had some success under Alexis Comnenos, but when he died so did his genius. That said, for most of fifty years Crusader Jerusalem was safe. It would take two to three thousand words to narrate this all comprehensively so I’ve oversimplified. Please be sympathetic.

One might get the impression that with the Byzatines knocking the Seljuks about in Anatolia, keeping them on their back heels and the Crusader States growing steadily and beating Fatimid Egypt several times that victory seemed assured. But even before the first Crusaders captured Jerusalem time was not on their side.

In 1094 the governor of Seljuk Aleppo, Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, was beheaded on accusations of treason by the Seljuk emir of Damascus, Tutush I. Aq Sunqur al-Hajib’s son, Imad al-din Zengi escaped to Mosul and was raised by its governor. As he matured he grew into a fierce warrior, becoming a scourge upon the Crusader states; one they were unable to answer. As the years passed Zengi fought, relentlessly. After many losses but more victories Zengi, in 1144, captured the Country of Edessa, dealing a crippling blow to the Crusader States. This blow necessitated the Second Crusade. For the next quarter century the Kingdom of Jerusalem muddled through, fending off most challenges. But the loss of Edessa caused a persistent drain on the kingdom’s power.

In the year 1171 Saladin came to power in Egypt, a development that would rapidly end the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s decades long containment of Fatimid power. Saladin’s life goal was the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. With Egypt under his complete control, Saladin immediately inaugurated the first part of his great project: unifying the divided states surrounding the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

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Saladin was largely successful in unifying the region, notwithstanding his loss to King Baldwin IV in 1177. The Leper King, Baldwin IV, husbanded a large force and defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard on November 25, 1177. Saladin had the good fortune of defenses in depth and quickly rebuilt his nearly eradicated forces quickly as he ruled both Syria and Egypt.

Catastrophe struck the Kingdom of Jerusalem when King Baldwin IV died in August of 1186. This set off a series of political machinations in Jerusalem wherein ultimate power was gained by a coterie of bigoted incompetents. In 1187 they marched their army towards the Sea of Galilee to challenge Saladin. At the Horns of Hattin, where there was no water, the heavily armored Crusaders quickly grew parched and exhausted. Saladin defeated them easily. The way to Jerusalem was now open. Saladin was ultimately successful in its conquest and by late 1188 the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem was under Saladin’s control.

The point of this brief history is this: the only way the Israelis can be defeated is exactly how the Crusaders were defeated. A coaliton of Arab and Islamic states must unify in common action against Israel.

On the other hand, all Israel must do to exist is maintain a divided region. This has been Israel’s grand strategy since its inception and remains so today, even though Netanyahu is making a mess of it by attacking everyone, everywhere, committing genocide in Gaza while expecting unconditional US support of its every action. A tall order at a time when the US public has begun seriously questioning continued support of Israel, especially in the face of the genocide in Gaza.

So, can the states of the region find common cause? Well, Turkey’s president Erdoğan is sitting on the fence, but could make life very difficult for Israel by simply shutting of its energy supplies, which come from the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Never mind the size and technological sophistication of its armed forces, that dwarf anything Israel has.

Turkey’s indecision notwithstanding, signs of potential unified effort by several Islamic states are beginning. First, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact that includes a Pakistani nuclear umbrella. Second, “Egypt’s Sisi has called Israel the “enemy’ and is renewing ties with its neighbors,” says Ted Snider at Responsible Statecraft. In a September speech at the Emergency Arab-Islamic Summit in Qatar Sisi gave an unprecedented speech. His three main points were that Israel is the enemy. He then warned the Israelis that there would be no new diplomatic progress in regards to the Abraham Accords, adding that Israeli actions could possibly violate the 1979 Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty. But the really shocking statement came, as Ted Snider recounts, when Sisi said, “it has become imperative for us to establish an Arab-Islamic mechanism for coordination and cooperation to enable us all to confront the major security, political, and economic challenges surrounding us.” Adding to this, “[that] the geography of any Arab country extends from the Ocean to the Gulf and its umbrella is wide enough for all Islamic and peace-loving countries.”

A second round of war with Iran might trigger a more formal defensive alliance structure like that between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. One that would be more comprehensively Islamic, as Iranians are not Arabs, but Persians. The Turks might buy into it as well. I’ll explore what a potential coaliton might look like in a subsequent post. But for now, the ultimate consquences of such an event are not heartening.

The wild card happens when Israel stares down total defeat. At this point Israel’s nuclear ambiguity will be clarified, necessity being the mother of all forced decisions. If Israel faces certain destruction what will it do? Lash out and let the nukes fly? Or accept defeat in the hopes of preserving something? In our complex adaptive global society nothing is inevitable. However, the day is coming when Israel will face a hostile, well armed and coordinated Arab-Islamic coaliton. The results are unforseeable, but more than likely devastating.

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Bad Faith and Criminality

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On September 19, 2025

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~by Sean Paul Kelley

In the aftermath of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, US president Teddy Roosevelt brought together negotiators from Russia and Japan to hammer out a peace. This was the first time the US was ever seen as an ‘honest broker’ in international relations. In 1919 President Wilson sailed to Paris with his 14 Points doing his level best to get the Europeans to negotiate an honorable peace. The wily Europeans outfoxed the rigid and moralizing Southerner in just about all the negotiations. Nevertheless, the US retained the aura of ‘honest broker’ until this century. I can’t say exactly when we lost it—probably when Colin Powell lied to the UN in testimony before the Second Iraqi War—but lost it we did. Somewhere in there we lost the aura of exceptional power we possessed by pissing away a metric shit-ton (yes, an American who can do metric!) of blood and treasure in the sands of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan—and with that loss, we shot whatever credibility we retained right in the foot. But those, shall I say, are different discussions for a different day.

Lost auras being the one thing—at least we still got a chakra, right? (Ugly and poisoned though it may be.) It’s the second thing that grates the teeth at night: an everlasting chronicle of bullshit deeply eroding any sense of diplomatic norms that’s transfigured us into OG rogue nation. So, grab some popcorn, rewind the Wayback Machine and head back to 2014 cause I got a whopper to tell you.

It’s late summer of 2014 and a brushfire war is simmering between Russia and the Ukraine. The US and its European allies are eager to see the Ukraine join NATO. They bring Russia and the Ukraine together and pretty much force feed them the Minsk Accords. Then, over the course of the next eight years the NATO allies string the Russians along encouraging the Ukraine in its ever persistent demands to renegotiate the Minsk Accords.

Nota bene: yes, I write it as the Ukraine. I know the Ukrainians desire their benighted lot to be call Ukraine.

Do I care?

Not one iota.

It was always called the Ukraine—I mean, the Russians use the partitive genitive (don’t ask) when describing the Ukraine as a nation—and it will ever thus be called the Ukraine.

Now, it took the Russians—rarely gullible—a long time to figure out our stunning acts of “bad faith.” But “bad faith” it was. The US and its European allies had no intention of ever compelling the Ukraine to live up to its international agreements with Russia. They were only ever playing for time, waiting for the day they could present Ukrainian membership in NATO as a fait accompli, hoping for a démarche, a dénouement. Damned if we got war in its place.

But the forever-war nation ain’t gonna let a little war-war stop it, no, no, no! Once America sets a precedent it’s game on, bitches! So, in late May-early June 2025 the US negotiated directly with Iranian diplomats signaling that no military action was imminent. While negotiations were held, the US and Israel agreed on America logistical support for an Israeli attack on Iran. A week after Israel launched its first strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, the United States followed suit. Not only is this acting in “bad faith” it’s outright deceit, a line no nation should ever cross in the conduct of negotiations. It’s one thing to bring two sets of instructions to negotiations, one always needs a fall-back position. But deceit? WTF?

Twice then, the US has acted in “bad faith.” It’s at number three when the wise recognize a pattern, three also being proof of outright illegality in the conduct of international affairs, at least according to international and domestic law. So, there is that, you know?

Domestic law, you ask? How so?

“Young grasshopper,” says Master Po, “sit and I will tell you.” (Anyone who gets the reference wins a cookie.)

Treaties signed by the United States and ratified by the Senate are, in accordance with the 1920 Supreme Court ruling Missouri v Holland, the supreme law of the land.

Skeptical-like, you query, “what treaty did we violate, Sean Paul?”

Easy, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. This treaty enshrined, in international and domestic law, a norm of diplomacy dating back 575 years to the city-state of Milan and its then ruler Francesco Sforza—a norm, or custom only violated three or four times in the last century it’s so sacred. So basic, so important is the principle of the personal sanctity of the negotiator, aka the diplomat, that it is respected by every nation on the goddamned planet.

It is the singular, fundamental law of diplomacy from which spring all the other elements of reciprocity evident in the conduct of international relations. And in typical American fashion, just days ago, we nuked that norm into oblivion when we in concert with Qatar and Israel arranged for an attack on credentialed Hamas negotiators.

I don’t have anything else to add except a few questions. Why would any nation enter into negotiations with us ever again? Who would be that stupid and reckless? And what, if anything, can ever be done to regain international trust? What I’ve detailed are fundamentally outrageous betrayals of diplomatic norms, norms developed over 500 years ago and used for centuries.

It’s not rocket sceince. Hell, it ain’t even algebra. Christ, it’s more basic than fractions. It should be easy to comprehend. And the behavior is so fucking counter-productive I would expect even the stupid to fathom.

I would be wrong.

P.S. And consequences,those things be bad, like ju-ju bee tree bad shit. Didnae take long, aye?

P.P.S. Oh, and by the way, this leads directly to the massive diversification away from petrodollar settlements, which gets us a fuckton closer to the end of the dollar as global reserve currency. That’s going to be one serious painful adjustment for Americans to make, domestic production notwithstanding.

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The Nuremberg Movement

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On August 14, 2025

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It’s time to start a movement for new Nuremberg trials. After WWII many Nazis were tried for genocide and various war crimes, and they were executed.

I remember a long time ago my friend Stirling Newberry told me that western elites had only one moral rule, “Don’t be Nazis.” Anything short of being a Nazi was OK: mass murder that didn’t quite reach genocide, mass impoverishment, police states that didn’t quite reach “we are the Gestapo” levels, etc…

This struck me as not much of a red line, you can do a lot of evil without being as bad as the Nazis, after all.

But they’ve crossed even this red line. They’re Nazis. Trump, Trudeau, Biden, Harris, almost every leader and politician in Europe, outside of Spain and Ireland, certainly virtually every German and British politician, has aided and abetted genocide. We’re not just talking looking the other way, they’ve locked up those opposed to genocide and they’ve sent weapons and in many cases (Britain) they’ve actively defended Israel from those trying to stop the genocide militarily, like Yemen and Hezbollah.

Nor are we just talking politicians. One journalist was executed at Nuremberg, and most of the journalists in the West have covered for genocide now. The New York Times, the BBC, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Telegram, every major TV news show, etc, etc… They knew genocide was happening, they lied about it, they did everything they could to make sure it could continue.

And, of course, almost every Israeli politician and almost all members of America’s congress, many members of Britain’s and Canada’s House of Commons, most Germany politicians, most EU officials, and so on.

All of these people need to hang from the neck till dead. All of them. If we don’t have “supports genocide” as a red line, we have no red lines at all.

This isn’t politically possible now. They’re in power. But they won’t be in power forever. Never forget. Never forgive. And ensure justice.

Fair trials and if they aided genocide, hang them from the neck till dead. There is no statute of limitations on genocide.

And if you’re completely selfish, understand this. They think they can even commit genocide and get away with it. This time it was a bunch of brown people in another country, but having crossed that line, the next line is “what if we mass murder white people in the first world? Could be we get away with it? They let us make them poor and homeless, is killing them that big a step? They’re just useless eaters, anyway.”

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Real Time Iraq War Death Estimates Were Wildly Off

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On July 29, 2025

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During the Iraq War, we were fed very low death estimates:

  • The Iraq War Death count had an upper estimate of 43,000 by the end of 2006.
  • The Iraqi Ministry of health and the US armed forces (really the same thing) said about 20,000 by the end of 2005.

But when the Lancet did a population study in 2006 they came up with about 655,000, and in 2013 PLOS revised that number down to 461,000.

Either way the Iraq War Death count was about ten times too small. The official count was at least twenty times too small.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s death count is simply not credible, especially as it has risen more slowly over time, which is the opposite of what one would expect as water and food, medical services and supplies and shelter have all become radically rarer as the genocide has continued. It is surely an undercount. The indirect to direct-deaths ratio is also likely to be higher than in previous wars. The US deliberately hit a lot civilian infrastructure in Iraq and dismantled the economic supply networks which had kept Iraqis fed, but it wasn’t going all out to kill civilians or trying to demolish every building in Iraq.

We are also now into the early stages of a famine, and the amount of aid that Israel is letting in is pathetically small, plus in most cases to get it Palestinians have to risk being shot, and all accounts are that a few hundred Gazans do indeed get shot every day trying to get a few scraps food.

The last official death toll number from the Gaza Ministry of Health was 59,866. Multiply that by ten, and you have a death toll of 600K, and that’s a conservative estimate, and is before the worst of the famine hit.

This is genocide. It is entirely deliberate and being done with the aid of most of the Western world. We now know that our leaders, had they been Germans in the 30s and 40s, would have gone along with the Holocaust and in many cases, enthusiastically participated. We also know that most of our journalists would have provided cover, along with most of our pundits. (Yglesias is a good example as is almost everyone at the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post and so on.) Britain, Germany and America in particular have gone after anti-genocide activists hard.

Out entire elite class is not just OK with genocide, they’re onside and actively helping it.

If you think they wouldn’t do it to you, you’re in lalaland. They’ve proved they are OK with mass murder, and even if you’re white, don’t think it would save you. Look at Trump’s massive health care and food cuts, or Labour’s Starmer taking away aid from disabled people and cutting off heating for old folks, not to mention both being completely callous towards the exploding number of homeless people. In America far more homes are empty than there are homeless people, yet all the vast majority of politicians do is criminalize homelessness more and more.

You aren’t even the dirt beneath your elites’ fingertips. The only reason you aren’t Soylent Green yet is they haven’t been able to figure out how to make it pay. But your deaths mean nothing to them if they have any reason to kill you, no matter how slight. Your suffering isn’t a consideration either. They’ve spent 50 years systematically reducing pensions, health care and increasing poverty so they could make themselves richer.

You’re just sheep. They’ll sheer you as long as they can, and when they have any reason to, they’ll slaughter you.

And not only won’t they lose any sleep over hurting and eventually killing you, they’ll feel good about doing so.

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The Serious Starvation Deaths Are About To Begin In Gaza

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On July 21, 2025

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I’ll keep this one brief. Almost no food or water has gone into Gaza for months. What I’m seeing is that it’s hit the crisis point. I’d expect a few hundred thousand more people to die in the next two to three months. The minimum death toll pre-Trump was about 400K as I read it, and probably more.

This is a holocaust.

There wasn’t much anyone who reads this site could have done about it, but I hope, for your sake, that you were consistently against it.

As for Israel, they have damned themselves and so has every politician and corporate executive in the world who could have done something and didn’t.

Forgive the lack of a long article with sources. We’re past that. Anyone who doesn’t see this and doesn’t expect it at this point simply doesn’t care to know.

Iran Screws Up & Gaza Death Toll

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On June 24, 2025

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So, Iran has accepted the ceasefire offer. Iran was winning, as best I can tell. The Iron Dome could not stop their more advanced missiles and was days from running out of interceptor missiles (maybe two weeks if the US sent its entire stockpile). The US attack on Iran’s nuclear facility was a dud, the enriched uranium has been moved, etc…

I said that Iran had finally gotten over its caution, and that I feared it would revert, and so it has. It’s clear that the sooner Khameini dies and is replaced, the safer Iran will be — especially because that will be the end of the non-nuclear fatwa. (It should be noted that 60 percent-enriched is enough to create a dirty bomb which would render Israel uninhabitable, and Iran should inform Israel that it has created a number of them, ready for missile deployment.)

Iran could have kept going and insisted that Israel withdraw from Gaza and Lebanon (to be confirmed by Russian and Chinese satellites). Once again, Iran has abandoned its proxies as disposable proxies, not allies.

That said, this is an Iranian victory, just a very limited one. Israel and the US were the ones who begged for a ceasefire, not Iran.

Meanwhile, we have further confirmation that Gaza casualties are likely at least 377K.

A year ago, I estimated Gazan casualties at 500K. A new estimate has come out based on fairly conservative metrics, which puts them at a million.

(Source)

I find this estimate plausible, unfortunately — especially given the ongoing starvation campaign. (Regular reports now come in that the few aid stations permitted by Israel are being used to draw civilians in, then murder them.)

I reiterate that the only moral nation in the world appears to be Ansar-Allah’s Yemen. In a few years, everyone is going to be scrambling to pretend they were against this genocide or “didn’t know,” but we have the receipts.

There is no statute of limitations for genocide.

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TACO Trump Bombs Iran

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On June 23, 2025

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If you’re getting a bit tired of Iran all the time, so am I. We’ll see if we can slip in an article on something else.

In the meantime, Trump hit Iran’s nuclear enrichment site. As best as I can tell, the attack was ineffective and did essentially no damage. Even if it had, Iran’s highly enriched, 60 percent stockpile had already been moved. I’ve seen Israel claims they know where it was moved, but there’s a good chance they’re lying. If the Iranians are smart, they’ve split it up, and made sure that only a few people know where each package is, and further that no one knows where all the packages are, which doubles as, “If you hit it, you lose your spy.”

Iran’s parliament has passed a motion asking to close the Straits of Hormuz; it’s waiting for Khameini’s approval. Some ships appear to be already turning away. Parliament is also planning to vote to end Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Agency, which is exactly the right thing to do, as they’re both politicized and almost certainly spy for the Israelis and Americans. At least make your enemies work to get data on your secure nuclear sites and scientists.

Given the US couldn’t even stop the Houthi blockade, there is zero chance they can re-open the Straits of Hormuz with military force. It will stay closed as long as Iran wants it to. Among other things, very few civilian shipping companies are going to take the chance. One missile or mine is all it takes.

It should go without saying that Trump’s strike is a direct violation of international law, which requires the approval of the U.N. Security Council to declare war. Honored more often in the breach, etc. This is yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that anyone should pay even the least attention to international law, as the countries that created it sure don’t.

Meanwhile, the missiles keep raining down on Israel. While firm data is hard to get, I’m almost certain the “Iron” Dome” is not stopping most of them. Indeed, the WSJ reports that Israel is interested in peace.

Iran shouldn’t give it to them without conditions. They have the upper hand. At the least, they should demand a withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to the bombing there, and an end to the food and supplies blockade in Gaza, with immediate retaliation when they break the deal, which they always do.

A lot of my predictions about the Middle East have been wrong since October 7th. There are two reasons: I didn’t realize how cripplingly cautious the “Resistance” was (other than Hamas and Ansar-Allah), and I underestimated Mossad’s and American’s intelligence penetration of both — especially of Hezbollah. Fortunately, Israel has been at pains to teach everyone a lesson, and a lot of the overly-cautious Hezbollah and Iranian leaders are now dead.

There were a number of reasons for the intelligence penetration. One was that India’s intelligence was working with Mossad and had (has?) a huge network of spies in both the Indian tech diaspora and guest workers. The second is that Iran, in particular, has used Western tech — especially Western phones. (Admittedly, everyone runs Android or IOS, so it’s hard to avoid.)

Israel’s signals intelligence division (SIGINT), called Unit 8200 had been monitoring these targets for over a decade, compiling detailed itineraries — homes, workplaces, travel routes, and even bedroom locations. The precision of Operation Namiya (June, 2024) relied on a triple-layered surveillance ecosystem: Apple devices and unencrypted iPhones provided real-time GPS tracking.

General Soleimani’s 2020 assassination had already proven this vulnerability, yet Iranian officials continued using them. They also used Google/Microsoft Services: Gmail accounts, Cloud backups, and Android devices leaked metadata, revealing behavioral patterns and social graphs.

Regarding telecom backdoors: Iran’s telecom infrastructure, built on Ericsson (which exited in 2012 under sanctions) and Nokia hardware, remained vulnerable. Huawei and ZTE briefly replaced Western vendors between 2012 and 2016, but by 2018, Iran resumed purchases from European suppliers -— a fatal regression.

It’s clear that any country which doesn’t want similar issues has to rely on entirely non-Western tech from a trusted supplier — and even then, as revealed by the Hezbollah pager attack (which is really what defeated Hezbollah, along with knowledge of their missile stockpile locations), you have to secure the entire supply chain, including delivery, then check like a paranoid, because you have enemies.

It’s best to own your entire own tech stack, and a LOT of countries are going to be working feverishly towards this. Using Western tech this way is a great way to destroy markets for Western tech.

It should go without saying that every Western country is fatally compromised. The US knows everything they do. Even as a Canadian, I would want to get to a domestic stack, and Europeans are fools if they don’t, unless they intend to remain American satrapies for the rest of time.

Iran has finally thrown off its caution. I pray they don’t revert. They’re winning this war, and they shouldn’t let up until Israel is publicly humiliated and forced to actually stop their constant provocations and genocide.

As for TACO Trump, he wants the war over, and his attack was a PR stunt so he could declare victory and flex US muscles, worthlessly. I don’t think he has the guts for a real war, which is a good thing. (I could, of course, be wrong. The problem with Trump is that even he doesn’t know what he’s actually going to do most of the time. It is also amusing to watch Vance doing everything he can to distance himself from the attack, in preparation for running in 2028.)

Update: Iran says it has bombed Iraq, Qatar, Bahrein, and Kuwait US military bases.

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