On the night the Ayatollah Khomeini died, 3 June 1989, I was fast asleep in a guest room at the Tehran home of a famous cinematographer, a friend of my bohemian parents. The adults were glued to state TV in the living room. Contraband booze flowed, as usual, fortifying the voices of the speculators. The commotion woke me, prompting me to waddle downstairs to berate the adults: “Can’t you people see some of us are trying to sleep here!” I was four years old.
Iranian activists of all stripes opposed to the Islamic Republic and many citizens were in celebratory mood on social media after Israel’s June 13, 2025, attack on military and nuclear targets in Iran.
An anonymous activist with 157,000 followers on X wrote, “It appears that Israel has eliminated the entire command structure of the Revolutionary Guard. This is an extraordinary opportunity. The Islamic Republic is at its weakest. Let us seize this moment to bring an end to this absolute ruin.”
To stop Iran’s drive to build nuclear weapons, Israel eliminated nine top scientists and experts whose knowledge was critical to Tehran’s initiative. Israel explained that it struck on the night of June 12-13 because Iran’s nuclear weapons activities had “accelerated significantly” in recent months.
Tehran has long denied that it ever had a nuclear weapons program, but the evidence clearly shows otherwise. The effort was initially known as the Amad Plan, but amid fear of discovery in 2003, the clerical regime downsized and dispersed the program’s activities to preserve them while allowing the work to progress on a more limited scale. Many became part of the Organization for Defense Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym, SPND.
• Relations transatlantiques • Ukraine • Économie américaine • Europe • Moyen-Orient • Axe autoritaire • Innovation et résilience en matière de défense • IA, dissuasion et sécurité nationale • Prolifération • Géopolitique de l’énergie et des minéraux critiques • Dépeuplement et migration
Quatre hauts responsables de grandes entreprises technologiques comme Meta et Palantir vont prêter serment au sein de la Réserve de l’armée usaméricaine en tant qu’officiers directement commissionnés, au grade exceptionnellement élevé de lieutenant-colonel, dans le cadre d’un nouveau programme visant à recruter des experts du secteur privé pour accélérer l’adoption des technologies.
Le monde moderne n’est plus gouverné, il est possédé. Possédé par des individus enivrés par leur propre reflet, imprégnés d’un délire de grandeur qui dépasse les limites de la simple ambition pour se muer en pathologie. Cette maladie du pouvoir, qui touche certains hommes et parfois même des foules entières, s’appelle le syndrome d’hybris. Ce n’est pas seulement une maladie psychologique, c’est une mutation, une forme de folie collective, qui se répand comme une traînée de poudre à travers les rouages du monde moderne. Ce mal, à l’apparence clinique, défigure la réalité, transforme la gestion d’une nation en une scène de théâtre où l’autorité devient une idolâtrie et où le pouvoir se confond avec l’omnipotence divine. Ces dirigeants psychopathes, de plus en plus nombreux, se voient désormais investis d’une mission divine, d’un pouvoir infaillible et immortel. Ils sont convaincus de ne jamais pouvoir être touchés, et cette certitude devient leur curseur moral. Ils se croient au-dessus des lois humaines, des frontières de la morale, au point d’imposer à d’autres peuples une vision du monde aussi fanatique qu’implacable.
The international system, which developed after the unipolar period of the Cold War, now faces sustained transformations in power relations because of nationalist populist movements. These populist movements, which Donald Trump exemplifies as “America First,” have revealed weaknesses in international organizations and alliances and simultaneously driven new developments in protectionism and democratic regression, and strategic ambiguity across all regions of the world. These global developments demand a full comprehension to develop suitable strategies that would strengthen the current fractured international system.
Nine years after the “Anglophone Crisis” in October 2016, violence has engulfed the northwestern and southwestern regions of Cameroon. The current crisis stage began with demonstrations by lawyers and teachers protesting against the marginalisation of the Anglophone education systems and the judiciary. It has since progressed into several stages, with several factional leaders devastating the regions.
