www.bam.org/film/2026/co... Funny, poignant movie, really the best of all that is Egyptian. Highly recommend.
The Stories
An Egyptian-Austrian love story unfolds against 1970s upheaval.
bam.org
Neil MacFarquhar
@nmacfarquhar.bsky.social
New York Times correspondent and author covering Russia, the Middle East and sometimes homegrown extremism.
A way to share the Gulf without going to war over it www.nytimes.com/2026/07/19/w...
A Modest Proposal for the Strait Dispute: A Shared Pact Among Gulf States (Gift Article)
A London-based research group has invoked a now-defunct European pact on coal and steel to suggest forming a coalition of countries that would share control of the Strait of Hormuz.
nytimes.com
Trump using his “king” instinct s to try to squelch a free press. www.nytimes.com/video/inside...
Video: Our Top Editor on Subpoenas of Times Journalists
The Trump administration issued subpoenas to reporters who wrote about security concerns involving the new Air Force One. Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The New York Times, responds to what he call...
nytimes.com
Think my favorite Sam Neill role was Reilly Ace of Spies, much of it set in pre-revolutionary Russia. Great spy yarn even if you do not happen to love matters Russian. Series available to stream on You Tube among other places. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Reilly Ace of Spies - YouTube
youtube.com
Iran determined to hang on to its newfound leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/w...
Tanker Attacks Risk Overplaying Iran’s Hand and Reigniting a War
nytimes.com
Trump, already flailing in ending the war against Iran with anything to show for it, decided this would be the ideal moment to try to strong arm major states in the region including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to join the Abraham Accords normalizing ties with Israel.
The past record of the members of the hardline alliance making decisions in Iran suggests they are unlikely to capitulate in the ways President Trump seeks. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/w...
Military Fraternity Running Iran Has Long History of Hard-Line Positions
nytimes.com
Yevgeny Prigozhin the war hero: Wagner Group veterans marched with his portrait during today's Immortal Regiment procession on St. Petersburg's Nevsky Prospekt. This is the guy who led a mutiny in 2023 and was very clearly killed by the Kremlin in a plane bombing. t.me/paperpaper_r...
Caspian Sea provides means for Russia & Iran to avoid US blockade, sanctions www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/w...
Long Overlooked, Caspian Sea Provides Strategic Trade Route for Iran
nytimes.com
Satellite images indicate that Iranian drones caused $1 billion in damage to US Mideast bases. www.nytimes.com/video/world/...
Video: Iranian Propaganda vs. U.S. Talking Points: How We Determined the Real Damage to U.S. Military Bases
Amid the barrage of messages and misinformation swirling online and on Capitol Hill, about what damage U.S. military sites incurred during the conflict with Iran, a Times analysis of satellite imagery...
nytimes.com
In keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed, Iran relies on the threat from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, a separate force that was damaged but -- despite Pentagon claims that Iran has no navy -- not destroyed in the American and Israeli attacks on Iran. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/w...
Why Iran’s ‘Mosquito Fleet’ Remains a Potent Threat in the Strait of Hormuz
nytimes.com
Geopolitical Noir: If Hormuz was Chinatown (#AIArt)
Whole lot of wishful thinking in Trump's social media posts about resolving the Iran conflict, not to mention his serial telephone interviews with reporters who never seem to question what he is spouting . www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/u...
Optimism Rises for Iran Talks, but Hard Work Awaits
nytimes.com
As Trump zizagged over war aims, Iran stuck to demanding no future attacks, war reparations and nuclear enrichment. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/w...
Iran Has Been Consistent in War. Will It Be Consistent in Peace Talks?
nytimes.com
Over on Fox tonight, the rosy "czar can do no wrong" ethos prevails. "Iran will surrender its enriched uranium." Says who? "Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz." Under supervision of its military, unlike before. "They should arm the people like Reagan succeeded in doing in Afghanistan and...
One pillar of the post World War II order has been that the might of the U.S. Navy guarantees the right of free passage for shipping globally. If Trump cedes control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, he will be abandoning that principle.
In his speech,Trump repeated that former President Obama handed Iran $1.7 billion in cash. It was unfrozen Iranian assets. Trump also trashed the nuclear deal that Obama negotiated and that he ripped up. But Obama got 97% of Iran’s nuclear stockpile out of the country, something Trump has yet to do.
Life of an Iranian insider: Worry about the assassination of so many leaders and coloring with his kids www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/w...
A Diary of War From an Unlikely Author: the Son of Iran’s President
nytimes.com
Attempts to build “a new Middle East” often take a deadly detour into unanticipated consequences. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u...
For U.S., Unmet Expectations in Iran Fit a Familiar Pattern in the Region
nytimes.com
Iran has proven to be a briar patch for previous U.S. presidents www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/w...
Iran and the United States: A Long History of Antagonism
nytimes.com
Lots of Americans are seeing a completely different version of the war via the White House video accounts: www.wsj.com/video/series...
Inside the White House’s Meme Strategy to Sell the Iran War
The Journal analyzed over 100 video posts shared by the White House on TikTok and X since the beginning of the war. The pop-culture-filled strategy is drawing lots of views, and backlash.
wsj.com
New Supreme Leader Inherits Sprawling, Secretive Office That Dominates Iran www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/w...
New Supreme Leader Inherits Sprawling, Secretive Office That Dominates Iran
nytimes.com
A Beirut Hotel Sheltering the Displaced Comes Under Fire www.nytimes.com/video/world/...
Video: A Beirut Hotel Sheltering the Displaced Comes Under Fire
A Christian hotel owner opened her doors to Shia Muslims fleeing Israel’s bombardment of the southern outskirts of Beirut. Then a missile struck the hotel, killing her 34-year-old receptionist.
nytimes.com
There is a common misperception that at some point the Revolutionary Guards might shove aside the Supreme Leader to rule Iran directly. This ignores the fact that the Guards were created to protect the Islamic revolution, as this article details.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: The Spine of a Militarized State
nytimes.com
A voice of reason and intelligent analysis amid the unhinged clamor surrounding the Iran war, CNN source of interview
Speaker Johnson: "We are not at war right now." Sounds rather like President Putin calling his invasion of Ukraine "a special military operation" and sending Russians who call it -- rightfully -- a war to prison for up to 15 years.
Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, issues a statement warning the residents of more than 40 villages across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa valley to evacuate for their own safety. (First strikes in Beirut suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, came without warning.)
Hezbollah claims responsibility for missile attack on military target near Haifa as response to Khamenei assassination. Israel now striking across Lebanon. (Hezbollah refers to itself as “the Resistance.”)