"Every country that moved toward normalization with Israel has found itself targeted by Tehran, which has been willing to threaten oil infrastructure, destabilize neighbors, and deploy missiles against capitals that chose a different future."
Excellent analysis, as usual. I think it may also be fair to say that not only countries that moved toward normalization have been targeted and “taught a lesson.” Iran has gone after Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia as well, yet none is formally part of the Abraham Accords. Do they feel particularly rewarded for holding back?
Same in Germany, where you have schools with 90% Muslim kids, where Christian kids convert to Islam, to avoid bullying by the majority. And if you talk about that you are a Nazi, of course.
This is an interesting article and particularly new in the sense that the ideological aspects of Iranian revolution might end up in Europe. In fact the founding fathers of the Islamic revolution brought it from Europe and the US to Iran. They were mostly Europe and US educated. Does that mean that they owe something to The West.
These pieces pushing the boundaries of geopolitical analysis are bracing. When other media either ignores events, or spends a week repeating the same thing. Thank you!
Zineb Riboua’s essay “The Resistance Moves West” (2026) provides a geopolitically confident assessment of Iran’s setbacks after Operation Epic Fury, yet her reading of the westward migration of “resistance” ideology risks mischaracterising legitimate dissent as ideological defeat. What she presents as retreat in the Middle East may instead reflect sustained global scepticism toward interventions that privilege alignment over legal consistency. Selective application of rules, evident in tolerance of Israel’s nuclear capability versus sanctions and strikes on Iran, undermines claims of a neutral “rules-based order.” Riboua’s emphasis on protests in London, Paris, and Berlin, while largely omitting comparable opposition within the United States, further frames dissent as externalised rather than systemic to hegemonic power structures.
From a Westphalian perspective, Operation Epic Fury breached sovereign equality and non-intervention (UN Charter, Article 2(4)), with Article 51 self-defence offering limited justification for pre-emptive action. Sustainable order in West Asia requires reconciling stability with sovereignty through genuinely multilateral processes, not selectively applied coercion.
“….The resistance doctrine is losing its audience in the Middle East and finding a different kind of host in the West, among populations with their own grievances against the Western order, their own suspicions of American power, and institutions sufficiently open to make the resistance proposition feel like dissent…..”
Ironic that it’s the useful idiots in the West who are supporting this oppressive Theocracy while enjoying the privilege of actually being able to voice their opinion without censure.
I'm somejwhat comfused, ZR, for in your concluding graf, you appear to say that "doxtrime taking hold" in Ole Yurrrp is sign that the "ideology is being soundly defeated"?
That doesn't make any sense to say it's a middle eastern ideology. Hamas specifically operated under a western anti colonial ideology based in fanon. The un operated under that as well and westerners, to no one's surprise, is interpreting their politics in terms of whatever Iran is thinking up. You see that in the odd coalitions that show up *exclusively in the west*.
…”Tehran’s regional strategy drew on grievances too local, too accumulated, and too genuine to be manufactured from outside. What it contributed was not the grievance but the apparatus around it. “
Can you outline these grievances? Have you done that elsewhere (where?)?
The grievance is “we were on top five hundred years ago but now we’re losers who can’t win wars against a tiny country and produce nothing except oil and lunatics and it’s all your fault, evil West”.
"Every country that moved toward normalization with Israel has found itself targeted by Tehran, which has been willing to threaten oil infrastructure, destabilize neighbors, and deploy missiles against capitals that chose a different future."
Excellent analysis, as usual. I think it may also be fair to say that not only countries that moved toward normalization have been targeted and “taught a lesson.” Iran has gone after Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia as well, yet none is formally part of the Abraham Accords. Do they feel particularly rewarded for holding back?
Here in Londinistan we can confirm it is well underway.
Same in Germany, where you have schools with 90% Muslim kids, where Christian kids convert to Islam, to avoid bullying by the majority. And if you talk about that you are a Nazi, of course.
Well they’ll find subsidies too so there’s that!
Don’t feel bad, the Western Academy is the last redoubt of Marxism on earth too.
This is an interesting article and particularly new in the sense that the ideological aspects of Iranian revolution might end up in Europe. In fact the founding fathers of the Islamic revolution brought it from Europe and the US to Iran. They were mostly Europe and US educated. Does that mean that they owe something to The West.
These pieces pushing the boundaries of geopolitical analysis are bracing. When other media either ignores events, or spends a week repeating the same thing. Thank you!
Zineb Riboua’s essay “The Resistance Moves West” (2026) provides a geopolitically confident assessment of Iran’s setbacks after Operation Epic Fury, yet her reading of the westward migration of “resistance” ideology risks mischaracterising legitimate dissent as ideological defeat. What she presents as retreat in the Middle East may instead reflect sustained global scepticism toward interventions that privilege alignment over legal consistency. Selective application of rules, evident in tolerance of Israel’s nuclear capability versus sanctions and strikes on Iran, undermines claims of a neutral “rules-based order.” Riboua’s emphasis on protests in London, Paris, and Berlin, while largely omitting comparable opposition within the United States, further frames dissent as externalised rather than systemic to hegemonic power structures.
From a Westphalian perspective, Operation Epic Fury breached sovereign equality and non-intervention (UN Charter, Article 2(4)), with Article 51 self-defence offering limited justification for pre-emptive action. Sustainable order in West Asia requires reconciling stability with sovereignty through genuinely multilateral processes, not selectively applied coercion.
More like The Dumbass Doctrine…no one cares about “international law” except people like you with their heads stuck in their backsides.
“….The resistance doctrine is losing its audience in the Middle East and finding a different kind of host in the West, among populations with their own grievances against the Western order, their own suspicions of American power, and institutions sufficiently open to make the resistance proposition feel like dissent…..”
Ironic that it’s the useful idiots in the West who are supporting this oppressive Theocracy while enjoying the privilege of actually being able to voice their opinion without censure.
You mention Iran's role in Syria, which damaged its regional popular support. Could you explain this in more detail?
Iran sent in Hizbullah mercenaries to fight for Assad’s regime and they brutally massacred tens of thousands of Syrians and flattened cities.
I'm somejwhat comfused, ZR, for in your concluding graf, you appear to say that "doxtrime taking hold" in Ole Yurrrp is sign that the "ideology is being soundly defeated"?
That doesn't make any sense to say it's a middle eastern ideology. Hamas specifically operated under a western anti colonial ideology based in fanon. The un operated under that as well and westerners, to no one's surprise, is interpreting their politics in terms of whatever Iran is thinking up. You see that in the odd coalitions that show up *exclusively in the west*.
…”Tehran’s regional strategy drew on grievances too local, too accumulated, and too genuine to be manufactured from outside. What it contributed was not the grievance but the apparatus around it. “
Can you outline these grievances? Have you done that elsewhere (where?)?
The grievance is “we were on top five hundred years ago but now we’re losers who can’t win wars against a tiny country and produce nothing except oil and lunatics and it’s all your fault, evil West”.
They can't. If they did then they'd have to change their name to "in an ideology that purports to be neutral by a failed epistemic framework".