Al Majalla continued with its cover story, Iran’s waning influence, last week. James Jeffrey lays out a working plan for Middle East states to capitalise on Iran’s regional setbacks. In it, the US security umbrella would focus on Iran's direct threats, but regional states would deal with Tehran's residual proxy groups in the region. And Majed Kayali explains What the war took from Iran and what it spared. In his piece, he notes that despite suffering strategic setbacks, Tehran remains standing. “Is that a victory of sorts?” he asks. Read his piece to know the answer.

Meanwhile, Steve Hewitt pens a piece titled Diplomatic deceit: US faces trust deficiency after tricking Iran. In it, he says, “The notion of the US as an honest broker was always a dubious one, particularly given its largely unquestioning support for Israel, but its recent actions towards Iran shatter the concept completely.” For his part, Christopher Phillips pens a piece titled Trump’s selective intelligence on Iran echoes past missteps, drawing parallels between Trump’s prioritisation of intelligence reports to support US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and how former President George W. Bush did the same to get backing for his invasion of Iraq.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Hamidi interviews Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a key architect of the Abraham Accords, who explains why Trump is key to Israel-Syria peace. For his part, Hussein al-Sharaa explains why administration is integral to Syria’s state-building task. 

And Paul Salem looks at Lebanon’s second chance at statehood. He says, “The crippling of Hezbollah’s dominance and the Assad regime's fall in Syria has opens a narrow but historic opening for the Lebanese people.” But Houssam Itani explains why the issue of Hezbollah’s arms is far from the only thing holding Lebanon back, adding that “disarmament is hardly a magical pill that will resolve Lebanon’s myriad problems.”

Meanwhile, Hala Al-Naji pens a piece titled Gaza’s ‘death trap’ aid distribution centres: a real-life Hunger Games. In it, she says, “If people are not killed by starvation, they are killed by bullets or stampedes at the US-Israeli-backed GHF centres.”

And Neil Quilliam explains How Oman is quietly redefining its development model and quietly setting a new standard for sustainable economic development in the region. And finally, Khodr Al Agha reviews some of the books he believes are worth a read this month, across the rich and diverse offerings of the world of Arabic literature, while Tarek Emam writes on how One of the Arab world's great stories gets a new lease of life. He says, “Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs has been adapted into a graphic novel, in a compelling version that does justice to it and may take it to a younger audience.”