Anthony Samrani

⚡️Très ému de la sortie de mon @TractsGallimard le 5 décembre VU DU LIBAN, la fin d’un pays, la fin d’un monde ? Un texte très personnel, qui doit beaucoup à @LOrientLeJour et qui tente de tracer un chemin, de défendre une ligne de crête, au milieu des monstres.

There is very little in this piece that demonstrates that Hezbollah has rebuilt significantly since late 2024. Its strategic arsenal was meant to punish and deter and it failed to so then and now. Israel has the military strength and advantage. Can Hezbollah fighters perform well on the ground against the Israelis? Yes but at high cost and without strategic effect. Hezbollah failed in every possible way. It misread its enemy, it misunderstood what it was facing, it connected Lebanon to Gaza without going up the escalation ladder, it lost its leadership and much of its security cadre but the Iranians declined to intervene, it lost its strategic depth and supply route (Syria), it went against the Lebanese consensus.

The real question should be whether Iran will retain the capability to enrich uranium or produce ballistic missiles after the war.

I’m convinced most officials & specialists are too immersed in the moment to realize a certain basic fact about why Iran is striking the Gulf. When Iran was fighting in Syria & Iraq, its field commanders & their proxies (and their ecosystems in countries of Iranian influence) always promised that the next battle would be in the Gulf. This was conveyed, explicitly or otherwise, by Qassem Soleimani and allies like Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, Hassan Nasrallah and the Assad regime. It was part of a doctrine guiding Iran’s regional strategy, not mere passing comments. (The same language that Israel began using against regional countries only recently. “Qatar is next” or “Turkey is the new Iran” etc. Iran has used that language for many years.) Now, Gulf countries look at Iran and wonder: Why is Iran hitting us when we tried to talk Trump out of striking it? Iran knows we tried our best. Iran’s action is understandable if it targeted the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but why mediators like Qatar? Yes we have US bases, yes we can scream at the US, but it still makes little sense, even from a basic divide-and-conquer strategy. But Iran sees this war as having begun at least a decade or so ago, and the Gulf states played a vital role in getting Iran to where it is today. The Gulf is the problem, not just Israel or the US. Strategically reckless, but that is the plain IRGC logic. This is clear if those officials had followed the rhetoric over the last 1-2 decades and the nitty-gritty behavior of Iran on a ground level outside Iran.

My new piece for @ForeignPolicy. The most likely outcome of the war is a weaker but nastier Iran. What this means for Iranians (more repression), the region (weaker Axis; bitter legacy), & US-Iran relations (the cycle of violence will repeat itself): foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/19/ira…

So you want to understand risks and options in the Strait of Hormuz? The @IISS_org has brought together - a retired fighter pilot who has designed and conducted air campaigns - a former officer who knows everything about ground operations and weapons systems - a naval specialist who has studied every major maritime deployment - a shipping industry analyst who understands maritime risk - a Gulf specialist who studies Gulf economies and supply chains iiss.org/events/2026/03…

⁦.⁦@KimGhattas⁩ I think it’s time to re-read

The Iranian theory of the war boils down to "everyone else has a lot more to lose than we do". A question that should follow: what if that's true, but it doesn't end up mattering on a timetable that's helpful to the regime? There's a scenario in which the world staggers out of this with a prolonged energy crisis that does enormous damage to the global economy *and* things end very, very badly for the regime and Iran as a whole.

Dans les « îlots chrétiens du Liban-Sud », l’heure est à la résistance pacifique lorientlejour.com/article/1499809 via @LorientLeJour @HayekCaroline

One other half-formed thought about Larijani: There's a seeming dissonance where some people are arguing both "the system is bigger than one man" and "he could have been the Delcy figure". Larijani couldn't steer the system to make a deal with America before the war, nor to find a diplomatic off-ramp once it started, and the whole system is specifically set up to prevent the emergence of a Delcy figure reuters.com/world/middle-e…

Après l’Iran, la guerre éternelle russo-américaine reprend : la « fonction historique » de Donald Trump selon le Kremlin legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/03/19/…

Because it's often getting lost in the discussion here, this is a partial list of Iran's attacks on energy *before* the Israeli strike on South Pars: - Ras Laffan LNG complex in Qatar - Ras Tanura oil refinery in Saudi - hundreds of drone attacks on Saudi oil fields - Ruwais refinery in Abu Dhabi - Shah gas field in Abu Dhabi - port of Fujairah - Bapco oil refinery in Bahrain The list goes on. Point is that, yes, South Pars was an escalation in American/Israeli targeting, but it comes after weeks of Iranian attacks on GCC energy infrastructure.

Le Hezbollah ne se cache même plus. À ses yeux l’ennemi est autant à l’extérieur qu’à l’intérieur. À lire absolument Le Hezbollah plus radical que jamais lorientlejour.com/article/1499750 via @LorientLeJour

Israel is targeting the Islamic Republic’s pillars of repression. The question is whether these are structural pillars, or men who can be easily replaced. The regime’s deep unpopularity and isolation have hardened its resolve. CNN with @andersoncooper

🎥 #Vidéo | Les États-Unis et Israël sont-ils ou non, en train de gagner la guerre en Iran ? @AnthonySamrani fait le point ⤵️

One DC myth shattered by the war is the secret alliance between Iran and Qatar! This insane position that some have is equal to one in the Middle East that claims Iran and Israel have a secret alliance, and they’re all just acting as enemies.

‘Khamenei or we burn the country’ What the Islamic Republic learned about repression from its Syria experience. @hdagres outlines the parallels for @newlinesmag. newlinesmag.com/argument/what-…

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇷"Israel doesn't hate the chaos": Trump aides foresee Iran endgame divide with Israel, despite close coordination between Trump and Netanyahu. @MarcACaputo and me write for @axios axios.com/2026/03/18/isr…

#Beirut this morning, after a series of Israeli airstrikes. #Lebanon 📸 Matthieu Karam/L’Orient-Le Jour

« La guerre est arrivée à Beyrouth » Reportage à lire absolument de @LyanaAlameddine Au coeur de Beyrouth, la guerre change d’échelle lorientlejour.com/article/1499737 via @LorientLeJour

Hezbollah & affiliates own several apartment buildings in Lebanon. Many are residential—apartments are only sold to those Hezbollah sees as its community. Buyers know exactly who owns the buildings—a system of mutual profiteering. Israel’s strikes aim to punish this community.