Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Mahdi Motlagh
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When a ceasefire becomes an offensive system
Ceasefires are usually treated as the negative space of war: the moment when fire stops, diplomats return and the strategic temperature begins to fall. That reading is dangerously incomplete. In the present Iran-US-Israel confrontation, the ceasefire is not merely an interruption of violence. It is becoming a coercive architecture in…
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Talks without balance: Why Tehran and Trump remain locked in escalation
Negotiation is being spoken of constantly, yet a meaningful settlement has rarely been farther away. In an existential war, talks are not a neutral return to reason. They become another theatre of the conflict itself. That is the central reality of the current war involving Iran, Israel and the US.…
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The myth of a fractured Iran: Why pressure consolidates the civilisational state
This essay responds to a Washington Post argument that treats the fragmentation of Iran as a plausible, or even tolerable, endpoint of regional strategy. The premise is familiar. Iran is not a coherent nation state in the classical Westphalian sense. Its borders are historically contingent. External pressure may accelerate internal…
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The chaos that calculates: Unveiling Tehran’s strategy of “managed ambiguity” against Israel
In the post-war strategic landscape of the Middle East, silence constitutes the most deceptive variable. While the balance of power appears to have shifted, security circles in Tel Aviv grapple with a reality far more complex than headlines suggest. Israeli strategists seemingly agree on one unwritten consensus: the “Iran issue”…