Mohamad Bazzi

Trump’s Board of Peace Will Help Strong Countries Dominate Weak Ones In Gaza, it will legitimize Israeli land grabs and ethnic cleansing.

My analysis for Foreign Policy on the Board of Peace (gift link)

Tl;dr it's a dangerous gift, putting it mildly

foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/27/t...

Iran football great Ali Karimi leads call for Infantino to speak up on protest deaths A group of prominent Iranians with links to football have called on Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, to condemn the killing and arrest of footballers in Iran

Iran football great Ali Karimi leads call for Infantino to speak up on protest deaths

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

As @washingtonpost.com international & local correspondents, we have risked our lives, side by side, because we believe reporting from the ground serves the public good. To choke that engine of brave, committed colleagues would be devastating. If you value our work, tell Jeff Bezos to #SaveThePost.

Tom Friedman never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity

How Minnesotans became Palestinians: Top 5 Ways they are Occupied Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - The people of Palestine are occupied by the Israelis. In my experience most Americans do not even know this basic fact. Ignorance of it makes it impossible to underst...

Occupation ideology holds that the occupation is necessary to protect the majority population, since the people being occupied are inherently violent and irrational and any leniency in their treatment will simply allow them to kill and act savagely. www.juancole.com/2026/01/minn...

Exclusive: Weapons flow to RSF via Libya continue despite pressure on Haftar Eastern Libyan commander undecided after Egypt and Saudi Arabia urge him to stop facilitating UAE weapons shipments to Sudan’s RSF

"Weapons continue to flow from Libya to Sudan despite Saudi and Egyptian pressure on Khalifa Haftar to stop Emirati military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Middle East Eye has learned."

www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusi...

The @nytimes.com is capable of writing an active voice headline that clearly identifies the perpetrator — as long as it's not the Israeli military

if you’re in Minneapolis and want some of these to give out, DM me

The largest socialist organization in the US (which, notably, does have a council-level presence in the Twin Cities) really ought to return to the kinds of discussions it was earnestly having during Trump's 1st term: constitutional overhaul. How can we be the parliamentary agitators for new law?

Trump has defused a bomb of his own making. For now | Mohamad Bazzi After a bombastic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump backed away from his threat to impose tariffs on European countries

“Greenland is the latest example of how Trump, the first convicted felon elected president, unleashed his basest instincts in his second term: the state exists to serve the ego of its leader, and if the world refuses to validate him, the world will pay a price” — my latest for @theguardian.com

Substantial US military escalation around Iran. Experts are again predicting strikes /n x.com/ianellisjone...

Beyond Black and White: Notes from Tehran These on-the-ground notes from Iran reject oversimplification and one-sided narratives: "There is layer upon layer."

An account of Iran’s protests from someone who just returned to the U.S. —“I write here as a person with a deep love for the country and the people, and after decades of research into its culture and history. I ask that you hold all of the pieces below together, not in opposition to each other….”

Trump has defused a bomb of his own making. For now | Mohamad Bazzi After a bombastic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump backed away from his threat to impose tariffs on European countries

”Trump is transforming the US from a superpower into a protection racket ruled by his whims. For the past year, he has grown more vindictive, narcissistic and erratic – and a greater danger not just to America, but to the world” — my latest for @theguardian.com

Does @nytimes.com really need to sprawl this story at the top of its homepage? Just let Mamdani use his bidet in peace

In break with Trump, PM says makeup of key Gaza oversight panel ‘contradicts’ Israeli policy * * *

Netanyahu and his government are very upset that Trump has allowed Qatari and Turkish ministers to serve on high level committees in the "Board of Peace".

Erdogan himself is expected to be on the Board, and his right hand man Fidan is on an important executive subcommittee.

Send Trump Your Old Trophies

Trump has pulled back from the brink on Iran – for now | Mohamad Bazzi When he returned to power last year, Trump was eager to negotiate a new deal with Tehran, but a diplomatic breakthrough has been elusive

“While some of Trump’s acolytes argue that he’s making effective use of Richard Nixon’s ‘madman theory’ of foreign relations, Trump doesn’t have an overarching strategic policy or goal. He is motivated by showmanship, vengeance and self-aggrandizement” — my latest for @theguardian.com

Trump has pulled back from the brink on Iran – for now | Mohamad Bazzi When he returned to power last year, Trump was eager to negotiate a new deal with Tehran, but a diplomatic breakthrough has been elusive

“Trump’s warmongering ignores the exhaustion of his own electorate – not to mention the constitutional reality that the power to declare war rests with Congress, rather than a presidential post on Truth Social” — my latest for @theguardian.com

Overshadowed by Gaza, Venezuela and Iran but US designation of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as "terrorist organizations" is one of the more blatant and nakedly antidemocratic actions taken by USG abroad in a while.

The image of people wandering among black body bags looking for the corpses of their missing loved ones is just devastating.

Iran’s Gulf Rivals Warn U.S. Against Strike on Iran Saudi Arabia is leading the charge to persuade Washington not to intervene.

“[B]ehind the scenes, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar are telling the White House that an attempt to topple the Iranian regime would rattle oil markets and ultimately hurt the U.S. economy, according to Arab Gulf officials. Most of all, they fear the blowback at home.”

International Aid in Syria's War I'm delighted to announce the launch of the fifteenth (!) season of the Middle East Political Science Podcast! For over a decade, I've been hosting authors of new books and articles in the field to ta...

The new season of the Middle East Political Science Podcast launches today with Rana Khoury’s new boom on international aid and changing modes of activism in Syria’s long war. Listen here and dig into the liner notes!

abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/internationa...

I wrote for @theguardian.com on the parallels between Iraq and Venezuela | www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump is repeating mistakes of Iraq in Venezuela | Mohamad Bazzi As it did in 2003, the US is underestimating the potential for instability as Trump resurrects one of the Iraq war’s biggest myths

“Trump is resurrecting one of the Iraq war’s biggest myths – that an oil-rich country can pay for its own occupation and reconstruction” — my latest for @theguardian.com

Will the Islamic Republic of Iran be able to Celebrate its 47th Anniversary? One hospital in Tehran has received more than 70 corpses of demonstrators shot in the head and chest by security guards

Will the Islamic Republic of Iran be able to Celebrate its 47th Anniversary?

“All That’s Left of You” — a moving and brilliant film by Cherien Dabis that captures the trauma of the Palestinian nakba.

Film opens in a limited number of US theaters on Friday.

Once in a while, @nytimes.com goes with a local headline on a major international story

Trump's Threat to 'Rescue' Iranian Protesters Is Reckless The last thing that protesters in Iran need are threats of intervention from the U.S. government.

"The last thing that protesters in Iran need are threats of intervention from the U.S. government. The last thing that the U.S. needs is another conflict in the Middle East." daniellarison.substack.com/p/trumps-thr...

NY Post home page on Mamdani’s inauguration.

You can always count on Rupert Murdoch’s Post to scrape the bottom of the journalistic barrel.

They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition | Molly Crabapple When I look at Mamdani, I don’t see some radical departure. I see him as an heir to the Yiddish socialism that helped build New York

“When I look at Mamdani, I didn’t see some radical departure from the past. I see him as the heir to an old and venerable Jewish tradition – that of Yiddish socialism – which helped build New York” — powerful essay by the inimitable @mollycrabapple.bsky.social