The Levant Files

Please note that the Persian service of TLf is currently in a beta phase. We have launched this initiative with the support of our followers, volunteers, and AI technology. Please keep in mind that during this first phase, the Persian text may contain slight phrasing or translation errors. We aim to launch a fully professional Persian service in the near future. لطفاً توجه داشته باشید که بخش فارسی TLf در حال حاضر در مرحله بتا قرار دارد. ما این ابتکار را با همراهی دنبال‌کنندگان، داوطلبان و با کمک فناوری هوش مصنوعی راه‌اندازی کرده‌ایم. لطفاً در نظر داشته باشید که در این مرحله نخست، متن فارسی ممکن است حاوی برخی ناهماهنگی‌ها در نگارش یا خطاهای جزئی در ترجمه باشد. هدف ما این است که در آینده نزدیک، یک بخش فارسی کاملاً حرفه‌ای راه‌اندازی کنیم. نزدیک به نیم قرن پیش، مردم ایران در یکی از بزرگ‌ترین خیزش‌های مردمی قرن بیستم به پا خاستند. آن انقلاب، جنبشی واقعی و فراگیر بود؛ دانشجویان، کارگران، بازاریان، ملی‌گرایان سکولار و نیروهای مذهبی، همگی علیه یک نظام سلطنتی فاسد متحد شدند. اما آن انقلاب به ب...

Almost half a century ago, the Iranian people rose in one of the great popular mobilizations of the twentieth century. It was a genuine, broad-based revolution — students, workers, merchants, secular nationalists and the devout, united against a corrupt monarchy. That revolution was hijacked. The religious establishment captured the energy of millions and bent it into a clerical state that has ruled in the name of a people it never truly represented. Today the consequences of that theft are impossible to ignore. After enduring more than a year of economic and military pressure from Israel and the United States, the Islamic Republic now seeks accommodation with the very power it long branded its archenemy. The regime has shown it can absorb bombardment and survive under assault. What it cannot do is offer Iranians a dignified future. The economy lies in ruins. Inflation devours wages, the currency collapses, and a generation of educated young people sees no horizon at home. Internationa...

As US and Iranian negotiators put the finishing touches on the so-called “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding”—a 60-day framework to harden their shaky ceasefire and launch multidimensional talks on Iran’s nuclear program, its regional proxies, frozen assets and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz—one capital is conspicuously missing from the choreography of peace: Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone out of his way to stress that Israel is “not a party” to the emerging agreement. The posture is telling. Having helped ignite the February 2026 war with joint strikes on Iran and having argued for months that Tehran’s capabilities must be smashed rather than negotiated away, Israel now finds itself watching its principal patron walk toward the very diplomacy it spent years trying to kill. The crack with Washington is no longer subtle. Trump has reportedly told Netanyahu bluntly: “Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.” That sentence is the ...

The Levant Files Sunday Night Movies returns this Sunday at 20:00  (Cyprus Time)  with a special historical screening tracing, hour by hour and day by day, the dramatic events of Romania’s 1989 Revolution and the violent collapse of one of Eastern Europe’s last communist dictatorships. Drawing extensively on rare footage from the ITN Archive, the documentary follows the uprising from its origins in the western city of Timișoara, where protests erupted in mid-December 1989, through to the chaotic final days in Bucharest that culminated in the overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. The Romanian Revolution began as a local protest but rapidly evolved into a nationwide movement that brought an end to more than two decades of authoritarian rule.  Viewers will witness the extraordinary scenes that shocked the world: Ceaușescu’s final public speech on 21 December, when a carefully orchestrated mass rally unexpectedly turned against him; the growing street battles between prote...

The United States and Iran moved closer on Friday to signing a memorandum of understanding meant to halt their months-long war, even as the two governments offered sharply different accounts of what the document actually commits each side to do. President Trump said a deal was effectively done. Tehran insisted nothing was final until its leadership formally signed off. The Trump administration is preparing a signing ceremony — most likely in Geneva, possibly as early as this weekend — for an accord brokered by Qatar and Pakistan that mediators have begun calling the “Islamabad declaration.” U.S. officials say Vice President JD Vance, not Trump, would attend. They describe a “performance-based” arrangement under which none of Iran’s frozen assets are released until Tehran honors its commitments. According to terms a mediating diplomat described to Axios, the Strait of Hormuz would reopen immediately without tolls, sanctions relief would be tied to compliance, and the memorandum would ex...

Iranian media responded with skepticism on Friday to President Donald Trump’s latest claim that an agreement between the United States and Iran is ready, with state-linked outlets insisting that no final text has been approved and that reports of a breakthrough are premature. According to Reuters, Iranian officials said no final decision had been made on any deal, even as Trump suggested a peace agreement could be signed within days. The same line was echoed by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, which said the text of a possible memorandum of understanding had not yet been finalized and rejected Western reports describing a completed draft as inaccurate. Fars News took an even firmer tone, reporting through an informed source that Tehran had not approved any draft agreement or initial memorandum and directly contradicting Trump’s suggestion that Iran had accepted a finalized text. In another report, Fars described the notion that the arrangement was nearly complete as “inconsiste...

Israeli officials and Hebrew-language media reacted with a mixture of surprise, skepticism, and barely concealed alarm on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump declared that a landmark agreement between Washington and Tehran was largely in place and ready to be signed — a statement that, according to Ynet News, caught Israel "clearly off guard." Trump's announcement, which came after months of indirect negotiations mediated largely through Qatar, stated that both the United States and Iran had approved a framework that would extend the current ceasefire for 60 days while nuclear talks proceed. Speaking to reporters, Trump declared: "Iran and Israel have agreed, and we ended the war today." The statement, broadcast widely across Israeli news channels, prompted an immediate wave of commentary from officials and analysts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As reported by Ynet News, one of Israel's most-read Hebrew-language outlets, the Israeli government had not bee...

Pro-Trump and MAGA media are reacting to the latest U.S.-Iran developments with a split screen of triumphalism and caution: many outlets are portraying Trump’s response as decisive strength, while a smaller faction is stressing the need to avoid a drawn-out conflict. The dominant message is that Trump is acting forcefully to protect U.S. interests, but the war must still end quickly and on his terms. According to Fox News, Trump defended the recent strikes on Iran as “powerful,” and a senior U.S. official told Fox that 20 targets inside Iran were hit, including air defense systems, ground control stations, and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz. Fox also reported Trump saying the United States would strike Iran “very hard” again if needed, reinforcing the network’s emphasis on military pressure and presidential resolve. In that framing, the action is not presented as a strategic problem so much as a demonstration of leverage. As stated by LindellTV, the preferred outcome is “swift a...

Lebanon’s pursuit of an agreement with Israel, despite the fierce objections of Hezbollah and the ambivalence of Amal, is best understood not as appeasement but as a calculated bid for strategic autonomy. The government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam—the first administration since 1992 to take office without Hezbollah’s implicit blessing—has concluded that the Lebanese state cannot recover sovereignty while a non-state actor monopolizes the decision of war and peace. The opportunity is structural. Hezbollah’s role within Iran’s regional architecture has itself changed: from an autonomous strategic deterrent capable of independent action, it was downgraded to a support front, coordinating fire alongside direct Iranian missile strikes rather than acting as the primary shock absorber for Israeli retaliation. The strategic case for its heavy weapons has weakened accordingly. The February 2026 Israeli-American strikes on Iran and the wider regional conflict left the...