Jerome Drevon

Five years in the making, based on dozens of travel to Idlib under HTS control, multiple interviews with Ahmad al-Sharaa, his closest associates, other factions, ministers, dissidents, opponents, civil society, diplomats, and more hurstpublishers.com/book/transform…

JUST IN: The Strait of Hormuz is open. It has been open every day since February 28. The IRGC never closed it. What the IRGC did is convert 21 miles of international waterway into a permissioned gate with a toll booth, a vetting process, and a guest list. Traffic has collapsed 70 to 80 percent. But the handful of tankers that transit each day do so with IRGC clearance, paid in yuan or USDT, at $2 million to $4 million per vessel. The process is now documented. A tanker operator contacts an IRGC-linked intermediary. The operator submits vessel ownership, flag state, cargo manifest, destination, crew list, and AIS transponder data. The IRGC runs background checks: no US-linked ownership, no Israeli cargo, no flagging to aggressor states. If approved, a toll is negotiated. Payment is executed in cash, Chinese yuan, or USDT on the Tron network. The IRGC issues VHF radio clearance with a specific time window and route through Iranian territorial waters near Larak Island, where IRGC Navy performs visual confirmation. The vessel transits. No physical escort is provided. The “protection” is the removal of the interdiction threat. You are safe because the entity that would attack you has decided not to. China passes. India passes. Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Iraq, Bangladesh pass. Shadow fleet operators aligned with Russia pass. Not all pay the full toll. Some receive exemptions through government-to-government arrangements. Some pay reduced rates. Some pay nothing because the geopolitical alignment is payment enough. The system is not a blockade. It is a membership club with a cover charge denominated in currencies that are not the US dollar. And here is what nobody is covering. Lloyd’s of London and the international insurance market have withdrawn standard hull and machinery coverage for Hormuz transits. War-risk policies now carry premiums of up to 5 percent of vessel value, $5 million for a $100 million tanker, per voyage. But the actuarial models that price those premiums now incorporate IRGC vetting status as a risk-reduction variable. If a vessel can prove it has paid the toll and received VHF clearance, the probability of loss drops from above 20 percent to below 5 percent. The same models that price hurricane risk and earthquake exposure are now pricing IRGC compliance as a safety factor. The insurance industry has done something no government intended: it has formalised IRGC authority over the strait in actuarial mathematics. A tanker that pays the toll is insurable. A tanker that does not is stranded. Dozens of vessels sit outside the strait right now, unable to transit because no underwriter will cover them. The insurance withdrawal is not a market reaction. It is a structural enforcement mechanism that makes IRGC permission the prerequisite for commercial shipping. Every toll paid in yuan is a barrel that settled outside the dollar system. Every USDT transaction on Tron is a 3-second settlement bypassing SWIFT and sanctions. Iran’s parliament is drafting legislation to formalise the toll as “security compensation.” If that bill passes, ad-hoc extortion becomes sovereign law, and the precedent for chokepoint monetisation enters the international legal framework. Gold watches from the side. Spot prices muted at $5,000 to $5,400 by dollar strength and rising yields, while central banks in China, Russia, and India quietly accumulate on every dip. The short-term safe-haven has not fired. The long-term de-dollarization trade is loading. The strait is open. The molecules move. But only for those who pay the toll, in the currency the toll booth accepts, after the vetting the toll booth requires. The rest wait. The clocks tick. Saturday arrives. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

It was a giant wooden horse

My forthcoming book, "Reds, Revolutions, and Rebellions: How China, Cuba, and Vietnam Transformed Guerilla Warfare," with @CornellPress now has a webpage! Scheduled to come out on July 15, 2026. You can pre-order now. #bookTabs=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/978150178…

My job is open! More on my exciting next steps very soon, but this is a dream role on the best team in the business. Please spread widely!👇

This @FT report is among the best I’ve seen on Saudi Arabia during this conflict. It captures the nuances of the Saudi-Iran relationship, the detente, and the tensions and questions around this war extremely well👇great reporting as usual from @ahmed @cornishft ft.com/content/272194…

Umm, isn't that the point

What does my latest paper, “Toward a Unified National Army: The Ministry of Defense’s Restructuring Plan” published with @OmranDirasat, offer? The paper provides an analytical reading of the process of rebuilding #Syria’s military institution after the fall of the Assad regime. It unpacks the political and military context of restructuring, examines the main features of the Ministry of Defense plan, and explores the challenges of unifying command and consolidating weapons, the file of defected officers and military hierarchy, the shift toward a professional army and a new military doctrine, as well as operational performance and field discipline. It also addresses civil–military relations within the constitutional framework of restructuring and the impact of a tense regional environment on this process. The paper is structured around the following main sections: 1.Introduction 2.The Political and Military Context of Restructuring 3.Core Features of the Ministry of Defense Plan 3.1 Unifying Command and Consolidating Weapons 3.2 The Defectors and Military Hierarchy 3.3 Toward a Professional Army and a New Military Doctrine 3.4 Operational Performance and Field Discipline 4. Civil–Military Relations Within the Constitutional 5.Framework of Restructuring Restructuring Amid Regional Uncertainty 6.Conclusion For more: bit.ly/40EFudf English PDF: bit.ly/3OZwUmC Arabic: bit.ly/4tNv08n

Several factors that limited the previous IL/US-Iran war to just 12 days now carry less weight. The Israeli leadership would prefer this war to be long. Why? Decreased rate of Iranian missile fire at Israel: Compared to the 12 Day War, the daily rate of missiles fired at Israel is lower, meaning less material damage, fewer lives lost, and slower depletion of interceptor missiles (which were running low by the end of the previous conflict). The lower intensity also allowed the Israeli government to partially reopen the economy five days in, with further restrictions lifted today. All businesses near shelters can now operate. This limits the economic cost of prolonging the war. Larger bank of targets due to more ambitious goals: In the 12 Day War, the Israeli target set included only sites linked to the nuclear and missile programs. Israel completed this list and then sought to end the war. Some regime targets were hit on the 12th day to compel Iran to accept a ceasefire, but they were not struck otherwise. The current target set is much larger. Israel wants the war to continue until the Iranian regime is stripped of all military and repressive capabilities, creating optimal conditions for collapse. A senior IDF official told @mako_feed: Israel wants to destroy "every missile, tank, jet, artillery cannon and ship" of the Iranian Army and IRGC... "we have enough work for weeks, maybe even more." Targets linked to the regime's repressive apparatus include all IRGC, Thar Allah, Basij, police, and "Morality Police" bases and stations, plus alternative locations once those forces flee their headquarters. Any gathering of such forces (numbering in the hundreds of thousands) would also be a relevant target. Unclear cut-off point: In the 12 Day War, the goals were limited and the endpoint was clear. In this war, the regime's breaking point is unknown. Regime collapse is notoriously hard to predict. I suspect Israeli intelligence is seeing signs of destabilization (such as soldiers refusing orders, per information they provided to @TheEconomist), while other parts of the regime are holding. In such uncertainty, it is easy to believe that a few more days of strikes will bring the regime to its breaking point. This is a recipe for an attrition war (which is mostly one-sided in the case of Israel and Iran, but not Iran and its Arab neighbors). The U.S. factor: In the 12 Day War, Trump's pressure contributed to ending the war when it did. In this war, Trump's position appears unclear, with varying durations for the war mentioned. A senior IDF official noted last week that the initial target set was developed for two more weeks of strikes. He was rebuked by the Prime Minister's Office (per @Haaretz), as this seemed out of line with Trump's recent mention of a 4-5 week campaign. Bottom line: At minimum, the initial target set will likely be completed. If the U.S. maintains its demand for "unconditional surrender," the war could last considerably longer. Israel definitely won't be the one to pull the plug.

1. Is Trump planning to "Venezuelize" Iran? This analysis deviates from the mainstream media portrayal of a fickle, senile, or Bibi-led president. It assumes Trump is evil but rational. A thread. 🧵

Literally, everyone in the Gulf is asking this question, quietly. These voices will get louder $3.6tn dollars in Gulf money invested in Washington, and America still pivots ideologically to support Israel, its greatest net consumer of US power in the world

Tahrir Podcast resumes soon. Independent analysis & reporting on Egyptian politics + in-depth interviews with authors of new books on the region. Please consider supporting our independent media platform via Patreon for as little as $3/month. 👇🏽 patreon.com/TahrirPodcast

It's crazy, risky & wrong that we live in a world where one person can risk the future on elective war. Congress, courts & natsec lawyers from both parties created this mess. Now they/we need to fix it. 🙏 @ForeignAffairs foreignaffairs.com/united-states/…

Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is now the dominant jihadist group in the central Sahel. Our latest report unpacks how states can address the growing risks of jihadist expansion. crisisgroup.org/rpt/africa/sah…

في هذه الورقة البحثية أقدّمُ قراءةً لمسار إعادة بناء الجيش السوري بعد سقوط #نظام_الأسد عبر تحليل خطة #وزارة_الدفاع السورية في توحيد القرار العسكري وحصر السلاح من خلال دمج الفصائل وتنظيم الرتب، وما يرافق ذلك من توجه لبناء تعليم عسكري وعقيدة وطنية والانتقال إلى جيش أصغر وأكثر مهنية قائم على التطوع. تخلص المادة إلى أن اختبار السيادة الحقيقي يتجسد في استكمال الدمج غير المنجز ولا سيما مسار "قوات سوريا الديمقراطية"، وفي ضبط ملف التراتبية والضباط المنشقين بمعايير تعيين وترفيع شفافة تقلص الاستثناءات وتمنع الوساطة، بالتوازي مع تحويل الانضباط الميداني الذي برز مطلع 2026 إلى سياسة مؤسسية دائمة عبر قواعد اشتباك ورقابة ومحاسبة، مع توظيف الشراكات الإقليمية لبناء القدرات دون الارتهان، بما يفتح فرصة لعلاقات عسكرية مدنية متوازنة تسمح بتأسيس جيش وطني مهني خاضع للدستور والقانون والرقابة المدنية وقائم على الكفاءة لا الولاء. للمزيد: bit.ly/4tNv08n

Résumé : pour l'imposture @FBBlackler, tous ceux et toutes celles qui ne pensent pas comme elle sont (c'est selon) des agents infiltrés / des complices / des idiots utiles des Frères musulmans On le savait déjà. Mais c'est toujours utile de le redire lemonde.fr/idees/article/…

For Syria’s state-building project to succeed, the public must buy into it, write @jeromedrev and @NanarHawach. “For that to happen, their views must be meaningfully integrated into decisions about what the country is to become.” foreignaffairs.com/syria/trouble-…

To ensure long-term stability in Syria, the country’s new leaders must “truly open up the political system,” argue @jeromedrev and @NanarHawach. “It is better that they invite in the rest of Syrian society now rather than later.” foreignaffairs.com/syria/trouble-…

People will consistently ignore that Netanyahu is looking to spoil any progress on Gaza, while simultaneously annexing the West Bank in all but name. But will then blame Palestinians

For Syria's new leadership, taking steps to share power "will be difficult, especially for a set of leaders who spent the last decade operating in an environment in which political dissent typically manifested in armed violence and in which keeping strict control was essential for survival. But now, clinging too tightly to power could cost the central government its domestic legitimacy"

"Un Palestinien sodomisé par un chien de geôliers israéliens et d'autres otages palestiniens obligés de regarder" youtube.com/watch?v=PHizfe…