Al Majalla’s cover story last week tackled Iran’s sleeper cells and its bid to export disorder in the Gulf amid a shaky US-Iran ceasefire. For his part, Subhi Franjieh looks at Iran’s attempts to destabilise Syria through its proxy groups in Lebanon and Iraq, and Lina Khatib sheds light on Europe’s key role in keeping Hezbollah’s finances afloat. Meanwhile, Thuraya Shahin pens a piece titled Strings attached: Lebanon’s economic rescue tied to its openness to Israel. In it, she says, “Israel wants to draw Lebanon into a framework in which economic incentives eclipse strategic considerations.”

Meanwhile, Con Coughlin explains how Pakistan is proving its utility as a US-Iran mediator, while Yang Xiaotong argues that a cornered Iran is also a problem for China. Read both articles to learn the reasons why. And Rustum Mahmoud looks at How the Iran war changed Türkiye’s security calculus. “Ankara’s national security priority is no longer Kurds or Gülenists, but Israel. Likewise, in Tel Aviv, Türkiye is increasingly seen as a likely future Israeli adversary. Both are preparing accordingly,” he writes.

Meanwhile, Abdel-Rahman Ayas pens a piece titled Global airfares soar amid ongoing US-Iran turmoil. In it, he says, “Airspace closures, rising fuel costs, shifting flight maps and delayed aircraft deliveries have repriced flights around the world, with some travel routes hit worse than others.”  For his part, Marco Mossad explains how tracking apps offer an unfiltered view of the US-Iran conflict. “The growing popularity of these apps shows how people like the ability to monitor events themselves and draw their own conclusions, without media spin,” he says. And Alex Vatanka examines Iran’s Real splits and the myth of division. In it, he argues that the dispute centres on price and presentation, not on the basic instinct to preserve the revolutionary system. 

And last but not least in Culture, Abdullah Al-Rashid pens a piece titled Arabic calligraphy: the Nabataeans' gift to the world. “From the rock-cut façades of Mada’in Salih to the earliest Koranic manuscripts, a quiet transformation in Nabataean writing gave rise to one of the world’s most enduring scripts,” he writes.  And El-Sayed Hussein interviews Algerian writer Said Khatibi, who recently won the  International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel Swimming Against the Tide, which chronicles half a century of Algerian history, from World War II to the early 1990s.