Wishful warriors by Robert Perez

If one thing has become abundantly clear in the early days of the U.S. military campaign against Iran it’s this, the administration’s public strategy appears to be written in sand, blown constantly this way and that by the winds of television cycles, political calculation and reflexive bravado. What was billed as a narrowly tailored strike, justified by a handful of opaque warnings and old grievances, has quickly morphed into something far murkier, a blend of bellicose wish‑casting and improvised justification that no serious strategist would ever proclaim as “the plan.”

At the heart of this confusion are two very different impulses. On the one hand, there is the mercurial commander‑in‑chief, whose rhetoric shifts from “four to five weeks” of combat to declarations of “complete destruction and certain death,” often within the same day. On the other, there is his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, as resolute in his willingness to justify every fluctuation as purposeful as he is relentless in dismissing questions about coherent policy. Watching the two together is a bit like watching a reality‑TV host and his enthusiastic sidekick wing their way through a news cycle, sometimes confident, sometimes contradicting themselves and rarely anchored to anything resembling a clear endgame.

Consider, for example, the dizzying evolution of public rationales for the war. Early on, Trump and his allies framed the strikes as retaliation, a muscular response to years of Iranian provocations. Within days, the narrative shifted to something seemingly loftier, stamping out a missile threat, averting a nuclear nightmare and even, at times, implicitly encouraging an internal Iranian upheaval. But just as swiftly, defense officials publicly distanced themselves from the more politically fraught terminology like “regime change,” only for Trump to resurrect it in post‑strike speeches and social media posts. The result is not strategic clarity but strategic whiplash: allies, adversaries and the American public alike are left guessing what, exactly, success looks like.

This is more than rhetorical drift. The real danger is that these constantly shifting aims reveal an unsettling truth: there may not have been a serious, coherent strategy at all, at least not one that extends beyond a wish list scribbled on the back of a fast‑food napkin. A strategy, in the classical sense, is not merely what you say in press conferences, it is the articulation of achievable goals, clear pathways to reach them, and honest acknowledgment of the costs and risks involved. What we have seen instead is something closer to a grab‑bag of justifications, repurposed on the fly to fit whatever claim the administration feels will play best on prime‑time news.

And so we get serious talk about limited campaigns intertwined with rhetoric about total destruction; solemn claims of narrowly defined military objectives alongside casual flirtations with boots on the ground; proclamations that this won’t be “Iraq” paired with unmistakable echoes of it. If this is how policy is made in a modern superpower, it is a worrying spectacle. Incompetence can be forgiven when intentions are good and stakes low — but here, the stakes could not be higher.

History will judge whether the military actions against Iran were justified by events on the ground or driven by miscalculation and miscommunication. But already, it is becoming painfully obvious that what the administration calls strategy may have been nothing more than a litany of wishes, lifted from the headlines, shaped by television narratives and stitched together without any coherent sense of purpose. That is not leadership. It is improvisation

The white gaze #Poem by Abigail George

 

“To create is to live twice.” - Albert Camus
“I used to think the goal was to be loved. Now I know it’s to be understood.”
- Emma Thompson

We are kind to each other
The cooking utensil to the other
cooking utensils in the drawer
The spoon to the other spoons, yes, everything
must have its place, every trace
of prey, each invisible doorway
into the kitchen
What is courage,
what is increase? It is only a
place to start
The garden is cool,
the tree’s shade
My father’s voice
I murmur a response
The washing hangs on the line
My brother’s daughter strums
a toy guitar, we have a
butternut pizza for supper
We can’t get the boys out of the angry green sea,
nor can we get them out of the jacuzzi
The white gaze lies dormant
in the shade like our brown bodies
We put a plaster on her finger
the wound is bloodless now
I make iced matcha lattes for myself and my dad
I lick the white moustache off my upper lip
Overnight I have turned into a capitalist
My fingers into stars, my legs
into a wave, the bead of the presenter’s
tongue on the television into a fig
The current moves through me
This time it’s personal
It catches the light of the fire
inside my father, inside all of us
The smell of burning meat, drumsticks
The kitchen is time and memory
Legs are tanned, burned by the sun’s time and memory
The boys and my sister play a board game
My mother screams and screams at me
The room grows quiet
A pink geranium grows out of my mother’s throat
Something within me is crushed like a pill
Slowly the sun in my mother’s eyes
turns into a mocking face, a laugh
Its poison is killing me slowly. She is just a woman
and I am just a woman
The moment passes
The child starts to laugh too because my mother is laughing
I break, I break
A wave flows into me and I lose consciousness
It’s evening
The game continues
A woman walks by the house with her dog
The dog barks
There’s a white feather in my mouth
It tastes like snow

Firewalls and strongmen by Shanna Shepard

World Day Against Cyber Censorship arrives each year as a reminder that the internet, once hailed as the great equalizer of speech, remains vulnerable to the oldest instinct of power: control the narrative, control the people.

In the early days of the web, the promise seemed almost revolutionary. Borders would fade, citizens would bypass state media and the flow of information would overwhelm the machinery of propaganda. That dream has not disappeared, but it has been steadily challenged by a new coalition of forces: authoritarian governments, populist strongmen, and powerful tech platforms that increasingly shape the digital public square.

Across the world, governments are discovering that censorship no longer requires clumsy book burnings or shuttered printing presses. Today it is subtler and far more efficient. A law framed as “online safety” here. A pressure campaign on tech companies there. A quiet algorithmic tweak that buries dissent beneath a mountain of distraction.

The rise of far-right politics in many Western democracies has complicated this landscape further. Populist movements often present themselves as champions of “free speech,” railing against so-called elite censorship. Yet when in power, the same movements frequently attempt to intimidate journalists, undermine independent media and label critical reporting as fake or treasonous.

The phenomenon surrounding MAGA politics in the United States illustrates the paradox. The movement claims to defend open expression, yet it thrives on attacks against the very institutions that sustain it: investigative journalism, fact-checking, and the messy but essential accountability of a free press. When the credibility of journalism collapses, the loudest voices win by default.

And then there is the role of the tech titans who now sit astride global communication networks.

Few figures symbolize this tension more clearly than Elon Musk. His self-declared mission to defend free speech online has earned both admiration and deep skepticism. On one hand, the argument that digital platforms should resist excessive moderation resonates with legitimate concerns about corporate control over public discourse.

On the other hand, the reality is more complicated. When a single billionaire controls a platform where political narratives are amplified or suppressed by opaque algorithms, the question is no longer simply about censorship. It is about power. Private power. Unelected power.

The digital town square cannot truly be free if it is shaped by the impulses of governments on one side and tech oligarchs on the other.

Cyber censorship in the 21st century is not just about blocked websites in authoritarian states. It is about the erosion of trust, the manipulation of visibility, and the subtle throttling of inconvenient truths. It happens when journalists are drowned in coordinated harassment campaigns. It happens when platforms reward outrage and conspiracy over verification. It happens when political leaders encourage citizens to treat facts as partisan weapons.

The danger is cumulative. Every time independent journalism is discredited, every time transparency is replaced by propaganda, the internet inches closer to becoming what authoritarian leaders have always wanted: a tool not of liberation, but of control.

World Day Against Cyber Censorship should therefore be less about celebration and more about vigilance. The fight for digital freedom is no longer confined to distant regimes or obvious dictatorships. It is unfolding in democracies, in boardrooms, and inside the code that determines what billions of people see every day.

Free speech online will not survive on slogans alone. It requires institutions strong enough to defend truth, journalists courageous enough to pursue it, and citizens wise enough to recognize that the greatest threat to freedom is rarely announced as censorship.

More often, it arrives disguised as its defender.

Is this conversation helpful so far?

Berserk Alert! #083 #Cartoon by Tony Zuvela

 

Tony Zuvela and his view of the world around us in a constant berserk alert!
For more Berserk Alert! HERE!
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In Tune with the Infinite: The Start of Gandhi's Salt March by Rene Wadlow

On 12 March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi began a twenty-six day, two hundred mile march to the sea with some 80 members of his Satyagraha Ashram located near Ahmedabad.  This was his first large scale campaign within India, drawing international attention, especially in England and the USA.  Today when non-violent methods have gained victories in the Arab world and peaceful protests in Libya have developed into armed confrontation, it is useful to look at Gandhi’s first important effort in India with its combination of spiritual and political means.

When Gandhi returned to India from his work in South Africa in January 1915, he was known among the political elite of India for his South African campaigns, but he was not part of any existing Indian organization and had no political base of his own.  He was confronted with three basic facts of life: First, the world was at war and English troops were heavily engaged.Secondly, the British administration in India (who also governed what is now Burma, decision-making being done from Calcutta), were preoccupied with stability and not with the nature of colonial decentralization. A fairly liberal Indian Council Act of 1909 had given some aspects of representative government at the level of provincial governments and most British administrators thought that this was “going far enough for the moment.”

Thirdly, the one major Indian national political movement, the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885 by the English Theosophist, A.O. Hume, former high administrator who died in 1915 just as Gandhi returned, was made up of elite, educated Indians such as its later President, Motilal Nehru, father of Jawaharlal Nehru but with little impact among the Indian masses.

As in South Africa, with Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi began his work in India with the creation of an ashram, a small intimate community in which life could be disciplined both on a spiritual and a physical level.  Some of the members of the ashram were relatives and others had been with Gandhi in South Africa.  Life consisted of a routine of prayer with reading of scriptures of different faiths, singing and talks, of manual labour, of social service to nearby villages and training in non-violence.  Ashrams are part of religious life in India, but it must be noted that none of the Hindu religious leaders who had their own ashrams joined Gandhi’s non-violent efforts, nor invited Gandhi to join them. 

Gandhi became a Mahatma — a great soul — to ordinary Indians and to Indian intellectuals such as Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first to publicly use the term, but not to Hindu religious leaders.At the ashram, Gandhi steadily Hinduized his public persona and his manner of life.  He quoted from Hindu religious-political reformers such as the founder of the Arya Samaj, Dayanand Saraswati (1824 -1883) and the Bengali reformer Vivekananda (1863-1902) who was one of the first Indian religious leaders to go to the USA. Gandhi spent nearly 15 years in preparation for the Salt March in training his close followers, in developing contacts throughout the country and in trying to understand the issues which would move people to action.
It is from his Satyagraha Ashram that Gandhi at sixty-one years of age set out for the Salt March, early morning of 12March after a long evening prayer meeting at which some 2000 people participated.  Gandhi closed by saying to his band of 79 marchers, “I have faith in our cause and the purity of our weapons… God bless you all and keep off all obstacles from the path in the struggle that begins tomorrow. 

Let this be out prayer.”Gandhi had been for some months before March thinking about what issue he could select around which to organize a campaign of non-violence that would have national significance, would be meaningful to many Indians and send a strong signal to the British administrators that their rule would no longer be tolerated.  The decision-making body of the Congress Party with which Gandhi had an on-again-off-again relationship called the “Working Group” had met for a week over New Year’s Day, 1930. 

Gandhi drew up a grab bag of eleven demands around which he thought that Congress could organize non-violent campaigns. The first was the total prohibition of making and drinking alcohol and the eleventh was that Indians should be able to buy fire arms, there being a total prohibition on the sale of fire arms. Among the eleven demands was the abolition of the Salt Tax. The Working Group thought that the non-payment of taxes could be done without violence but had no idea as to how to carry this out in a dramatic way. Gandhi returned to his ashram and kept largely to himself in meditation. Then, as Gandhi later wrote, the answer came to him “like a flash”

The importance of intuition — of ideas that come as a flash once the form has been created in another dimension — came to Gandhi largely through the writings of the American New Thought writer Ralph Waldo Trine (1866-1958). His parents were from New England and named him after Emerson. Kathryn Tidrich has written an interesting new biography of Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhi: A Political and Spiritual Life (London: I.B.Tauris, 2006, 380pp.).  Tidrich puts the accent on the spiritual and intellectual contacts that Gandhi had when a law student in London and in his years as a lawyer and non-violent activist in South Africa.  She highlights the friendship with Edward Maitland and Gandhi’s connections with the Esoteric Christian Union founded by Anna Kingsford and Maitland in 1891. It is probably Maitland who introduced Gandhi to the writings of Ralph Waldo Trine. 

It is from Trine’s writings that Gandhi received the term “soul power or soul force “ – the term Gandhi used as a translation into English of his Indian term satyagraha.  Satyagraha  is more often translated today by the term nonviolence, but there was already in use in India the term ahimsa— a meaning non and hinsa, violence.  Gandhi wanted another term that was more active, and he took from Trine the term soul force.

As Kathryn Tidrich notes “All Trine’s books contained the same message: spiritual power – also termed ‘thought power’ and ‘soul power’ – could be acquired by making oneself one with God, who was immanent, through love and service to one’s fellow men …The Christ he followed was one familiar to Gandhi — the supreme spiritual exemplar who showed men the way to union with the divine essence. Trine promised that the true seeker, fearless and forgetful of self-interest, will be so filled with the power of God working through him that ‘as he goes here and there, he can continually send out influences of the most potent and powerful nature that will reach the uttermost parts of the world.”

Gandhi seems to have remained interested in Trine. He read his My Philosophy and My Religion (1921) in Yeravda jail in 1923, and in 1933, as he recovered from his 21-day fast for self-purification, he observed that the fast had sprung from ‘a yearning of the soul to merge in the divine essence.  How far I have succeeded, how far I am in tune with the Infinite, I do not know.’ In Tune with the Infinite was the title of Trine’s best known book. In Tune With the Infinite or Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty (New York: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1899, 175pp.)

For Trine, thought was the way that a person came into tune with the Infinite. “Each is building his own world.  We both build from within and we attract from without.  Thought is the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces.  Like builds like and like attracts like.  In the degree that thought is spiritualized does it become more subtle and powerful in its workings.  This spiritualizing is in accordance with law and is within the power of all.“Everything is first worked out in the unseen before it is manifested in the seen, in the ideal before it is realized in the real, in the spiritual before it shows forth in the material.  The realm of the unseen is the realm of cause.  The realm of the seen is the realm of effect.  The nature of effect is always determined and conditioned by the nature of its cause.“The great central fact in human life is coming into a conscious vital realization of our oneness with this infinite Life, and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow. In just the degree that we come into a conscious realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and open ourselves to this divine inflow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the Infinite Life, do we make ourselves channels through which the Infinite Intelligence and Power can work. 

In just the degree in which you realize your oneness with the Infinite Spirit, you will exchange disease for ease, inharmony for harmony, suffering and pain for abounding health and strength.”For Gandhi, the Salt Tax, because unjust and touching especially the poor, had already been abolished within what Trine called “the realm of cause”.  Gandhi had the intuition to see that salt was then freely available for all who would take it from the sea of life (either the actual sea or from rock salt on land). Into the realm of effect one had to walk to manifest this change, and so the march to the Dandi beach on the Gulf of Camby began.

*******************************

Rene Wadlow, Representative to the UN, Geneva, Association of World Citizens

fARTissimo #023 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

fARTissimo is what people do not see when they see a piece of expression
but what they project in what they think they see.

For more fARTissimo, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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The beast squeals louder, when it knows it is about to die by Christos Mouzeviris

As feared and expected, the great peace-making US President Donald Trump, the one who aspired to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve world peace, has started a war in Iran.

It was sadly obvious to many, that it wouldn't take long for a US-Iran war after the recent developments in the country and the ongoing threats by Mr Trump, about an iminent response to the country's recent demonstrations and strikes. We just hoped that reason would prevail; obviously not in US politics.

Naturally this conflict was brewing for much longer, not only between the US and Iran, but in Israel too. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted recently after the killing of Iran's former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, that he has a long-held desire- a 40 year long one, to deliver a decisive blow to the Iranian "regime". He emphasised the importance of military action for Israel's future, citing unprecedented support from the United States, which for some reason always seem to hop on one leg for their protectorate (or is it vice-versa?). It is also well known that the US and many of its allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia, always saw Iran as a threat and an adversary to their own interests.

Therefore the two close allies, started bombarding Iran on February 28th 2026, dragging the rest of the world in a most perilous situation. For us Europeans it means that now we won't just have to pay billions of our tax payers money to support the war in Ukraine, which was caused by decades long mistakes of US and European foreign policy towards Russia. Never mind the fact that we were forced to accept millions of war refugees from Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan over the past few decades- all result of US military interventions, straining our economies and social cohesion, with the Far Right gaining power everywhere as result.

The same situation will be something that we surely must be prepared to repeat pretty soon again, as the whole region of Middle East is in flames because of Israel's and US interests, or shall we say rampant nationalistic and ego delirium. In addition we must also face the consequence of higher costs of everything, as the price of oil has since the beginning of this war skyrocketed by 20%, with no end in sight.

However for the region of the Middle East, things can't be more dangerous right now. Israel is bombarding Iran but also Lebanon, in order to punish and destroy Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group, known for its military and political influence in Lebanon and its close ties to Iran.

In other words, the leadership of both USA and Israel, are tearing up any international laws that exist, in order to achieve their long dreamed goals of US and Israel hegemony in the region, by eliminating any opposing forces. To make sure that no one objects to their plans, they have long accused Iran of human rights violations-of women for example, by the cruel Islamist theocratic "regime" of Iran. But if they took it upon themselves to fix all evils in this world, something that no one has asked them to do, why they do not bomb Saudi Arabia too, for their oppressive theocratic regime, which is in fact worse that the one in Iran? Selective justice we promote, don't we?

Consequently, missiles are currently flying at any direction, as Iran in order to retaliate against its aggressors and avenge the death of many its political and religious leaders- like Ali Khamenei, has its missiles and drones hitting Israeli and US military targets in most Gulf and Levant states since the war broke out, plus Cyprus and Azerbaijan.

They are all sadly coming to terms of their pro-US policies and close relations choices. When you allow military bases of a foreign power, in order to gain protection, favour, money or influence, there will be a day when this foreign power engages in a conflict, that you will also have to pay the price. You are making yourself a target of whoever this country that "protects" you, is fighting against. Somehow USA and Israel have managed to establish military bases all over the Middle East, encircling Iran, yet it was always Iran that was the problem and the aggressor.

Lest we forget, that it was USA under Trump that withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and now they are blaming the Iranians for their aspirations to develop nuclear weapons! Haven't we heard this excuse before? Besides, who decides who gets to have them after all? You see the Americans are a nation that has leaders suffering from megalomania, and think that every country in the world must abide by their wishes and vision for their region, either it is in their interests or not; as long as it serves the 1% of the American and Western elites.

Thus currently we have a raging war in the Middle East, something that costs way too much the US tax payers as Iran has damaged and destroyed 11 US military bases, with a total cost of destroyed American military equipment approached $2 billion, that of course someone will have to pay it one way or another, and it won't be only the American tax payers in the end.

But to make things even more dangerous and worse, it is reported that both Russia and China are assisting Iran in this conflict. Russia in particular is returning the US attitide in the Ukraine war towards Russia, as it is providing intelligence to Iran about U.S. positions, helping them strike considerable damage to US troops.

In other words, not only the US, Israel and Iran are involved in this conflict, but most of the Middle East, plus Russia and China, albeit more cautiously. This can escalate even worse, to a full on War World 3, since the conflicts around the globe do not stop and they keep sprouting like mushrooms everywhere. Naturally this is deliberate and there is a reason for it.

Iran has become a member of BRICS since 2024,an organization created by Russia and China, with the goal of counter balancing US and Western hegemony in the world. The block is for sometime now one of the driving forces behind the world's de-dollarisation efforts and that of course brings them in direct collision with vested US financial and political interests. The US clearly cannot go to into direct war with either Russia and China, as they are both nuclear powers and that will mean a total destruction of the world as we know it. Yet they are getting there slowly.

They use proxies, like Ukraine and now Iran, in order to bully their adversaries into submission. They disregarded all international and humanitarian law in Venezuela, a country aspiring to join BRICS too, regardless of the hurdles it faced by other members of the block. All of them are oil rich nations, and in oil the US economy and world dominance relies upon, together with the use of dollar worldwide as a reserve currency. Take these two together away from US control and you get the picture why America is so pissed with the world ganging up against it and revolting towards its hegemony in recent years.

They are itching against China over Taiwan, against Russia for decades now, North Korea and currently Iran. They are menacing all nations to comply with their interests or else and they even threatened and applied sanctions against their own allies, like U.K, Canada and the EU. They were fixated under Trump to take Greenland, a Danish overseas territory and an allied nation of the US, and the America President is now threatening to attack and interfere with Cuba once again after "he finishes with Iran"!

That is an evident sign that the US is preparing for an all out war, but they do not dare yet to go ahead with it... for now! And what is Europe doing to prepare itself for it or try to avert it? Has it tried to negotiate with or condemn America for its actions, which will affect the already badly affected European economy from the Ukraine war that we are forced to pay? Will it push for Israel and USA to be kicked out of sports and arts festivals and events, like they did when Russia invaded Ukraine? Will we even hit USA and Israel with 20 rounds of sanctions like we did to Russia in an effort to make them stop, or will we perhaps condemn the killing of 175 people, mostly young girls in an Iranian school recently, even when there are mounting evidence that the US was behind this war crime and attrocity? It is highly unlikely.

So far, only Spain out of all EU nations, dared to defy America and say "No to War"! In his familiar bullying style of course, The US president already threatened a trade war against Spain, after being refused the use of Spanish bases for his war with Iran, by the country's PM Pedro Sanchez. But Spain won't budge. Good on them! They obviously remember the consequences they had to suffer, after they agreed to join America in their Iraq war, and the humiliation they endured when it all turned out to be a fiasco of fabricated lies.

As can one clearly see, the US with the help of its protectorate states across the globe, is trying desperately to hold on to what it knows it is about to lose; its hegemony and economic dominance upon the rest of this world. It disregards entirely international laws, which obviously must apply only on its enemies like Russia, but never upon themselves; they are simply above them. They do not care how many people get killed in the process, the desolation they will cause in entire countries and regions for generations to come, the aftermatch and who will have to deal with or be affected by their actions, just as Europe must be prepared for another refugee influx pretty soon.

In Greece we have a saying; "The beast squeals louder, when it knows it is about to die". And that is exactly what we observe happening in the world right now. American and Western elites are exposed since the Epstein files scandal broke out, developing countries are getting organized and speeding up their efforts to counterbalance Western and US hegemony, money is running out due to all the previous wars and corruption scandals, oil is becoming scarce in some areas and there is the need to find new affordable sources. Thus, all states that stand in the way and do not comply or dare to raise their voice and defend their interests are being targeted, excluded, smeared and ultimately attacked.

The world is changing and the old ways that existed since the last wars (WW2), are fading away. The status quo is shifting and new powers emerge, leaving the West-both USA and Europe, scrumbling for importance and relevance. In their desperation to achieve this, they will squeal, cry, threaten, fight, claw and bare their teeth to any new challengers and threats that may face, just as a beast which feels that is fighting its last stand to survival. The problem is for us Europeans though, that America is escalating all its efforts to achieve its goals and they are not afraid to sacrifice our continent to their cause. So what are we going to do about it, are we going to support them to our own detriment and downfall, or will we unite behind Spain, re-engage with Russia and China and all the emerging economies and powers, in order to assert ourselves against US interests?

Our elites' choices will define Europe in the new era and world order, but for now, let's all hope that WW3 will be averted for the benefit of all humanity.

First Published in The Eblana European Democratic Movement

Luxury turned liability by Marja Heikkinen

For years, Dubai has carefully crafted an image that borders on the surreal, a glittering oasis where the wealthy sip cocktails in rooftop pools, influencers photograph golden sunsets over the desert and millionaires retire among marble towers and climate-controlled malls. It is a city that sells the promise of immunity from the world’s chaos. But recent events have delivered an uncomfortable truth. Even the most polished illusion cannot shield a place from the consequences of war.

The latest escalation in the confrontation surrounding Iran has sent tremors through the Gulf. For many observers, the focus immediately turns to missiles, military strategy and oil markets. Yet another consequence is emerging quietly but powerfully: the realization that being a tourist, a celebrity or a wealthy retiree enjoying Dubai’s famous luxury lifestyle can suddenly become risky.

That shift in perception may prove to be one of the most damaging long-term effects of the conflict. Dubai’s success has always depended on something fragile: confidence. Confidence that it is stable. Confidence that it is safe. Confidence that global elites can live there insulated from the geopolitical storms that swirl around the Middle East. Unlike traditional economic centers built on industry or manufacturing, Dubai’s economy thrives on mobility, travellers, investors, expatriates and visitors who come because they believe the city offers security wrapped in extravagance.

But war changes how people think about geography. Missile ranges do not respect the carefully curated marketing brochures of luxury destinations. Neither do regional tensions pause politely at the edge of a skyline filled with five-star hotels. When military conflict looms in the Gulf, the psychological distance between Tehran, Riyadh and Dubai suddenly shrinks in the minds of outsiders who once viewed the city as a separate universe.

That perception matters. For the retiree from Europe who bought a penthouse overlooking the Persian Gulf, the question now becomes unavoidable: what happens if tensions escalate further? For the influencer who built a brand around Dubai’s endless sunshine and luxury shopping, the thought of air-raid sirens interrupts the narrative. Even the billionaire investor, accustomed to risk in financial markets, may reconsider risk when it involves the possibility of regional conflict.

Dubai’s remarkable rise over the past three decades was built on the idea that it could function as a global crossroads untouched by the region’s instability. The formula worked brilliantly. Airlines connected the world through its airports. Wealth poured into its real estate. Celebrities treated it as a glamorous playground between Europe and Asia.

But geopolitics has a way of intruding on carefully constructed fantasies. The truth is that Dubai never existed outside the Middle East’s strategic tensions. It simply benefited from a period in which those tensions remained contained. Now, with a confrontation involving Iran threatening to expand, the illusion of distance is fading.

And perception, more than reality, is what drives the decisions of travellers and investors. No missile needs to land in downtown Dubai to create economic consequences. The mere possibility can shift travel plans, slow property purchases and redirect global attention elsewhere. Luxury tourism, after all, depends on comfort and comfort evaporates quickly when headlines mention war.

Dubai will likely endure. The city has proven remarkably resilient before. Yet the psychological damage could linger longer than the immediate crisis. Because once people begin to realize that paradise sits within range of geopolitics, the dream becomes harder to sell.

#eBook Compounding Threats by Brea Willis

 

For decades, the discourse on climate change has been framed as an environmental concern, a matter of conservation, emissions targets, and scientific modeling. While not incorrect, this framing is dangerously incomplete.

To understand the full gravity of our predicament, we must shift our lens, climate change is the paramount “threat multiplier” of our age, fundamentally redefining the landscape of national and global security. This book moves beyond polar bears and melting ice to examine how rising temperatures are actively dismantling stability, amplifying existing fractures, and creating new, unanticipated vectors of conflict.

Climate change and national security in the 21st century

Brea Willis is a botanical phantom. For three decades, she’s moved between the canopies of the Amazon and the halls of academia, her skin weathered by sun and her eyes sharp with knowing. A lifelong activist, she now lives off-grid, trading scientific papers for quiet rewilding, her radical hope planted firmly in the soil.

Ovi eBook Publishing 2026

Compounding Threats

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Ma-Siri & Co #119 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Ma-Siri is a mother, a grandmother and a very active social life,
searching for the meaning of life among other things and her glasses.

For more Ma-Siri & Alexa, HERE!
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Robert Muller The U.N. Networker by Rene Wadlow

Decide to Network, use every letter you write, every conversation you have,
every meeting you attend to express your fundamental beliefs and dreams,
affirm to others the vision of the world you want. 
In a world of big powers,  big media and monopolies, networking is a new freedom,
the new democracy, a new form of happiness.
Robert Muller

Robert Muller, whose birth anniversary we mark on 11 March,  devoted his life to the ideals of the United Nations, working both within the organization in which he became Assistant Secretary-General and in his talks and activities with many associations and conferences.  As he wrote, his guideline was the pledge which all U.N. Secretariat members must sign when joining: " I, Robert Muller, solemnly swear to exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as an international civil servant of the United Nations, to discharge these functions and to regulate my conduct with the interests of the United Nations only in view, and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any government or other authority external to the organization."

Muller joined the United Nations in 1948 with a doctorate in economics.  Most of his U.N. work was related to socio-economic development in the States born with the end of Western European colonialism.  As he wrote, "The human adventure on earth is taking world-wide proportions.  We must be bracing ourselves for the staggering problems that lie ahead, and it is fortunate that we possess world-wide instruments at the precise moment of history and evolution when the human species enters its global age.  Humanity is equipping itself slowly but surely with collective analytical tools, world-wide warning systems, and a network of feedbacks and monitoring.  In other words - a kind of brain and nervous system... The United Nations has become a kind of incipient brain for the human species as a whole.  It has taken stock of our planetary home and of our species, so that now we have a good inventory of our present as well as valuable appraisals of our potential futures... If something begins to go wrong on the global level, the United Nations can give a warning.".  

Robert Muller was particularly active in the preparation and follow up of a series of stocktaking U.N. conferences held especially in the 1970s:

1)  World Conference on the Environment - Stockholm - 1972
2)  World Food Conference - Rome -1974
3)  World Conference on Population - Bucharest -1974
4)  World Conference on Women - Mexico City - 1975
5)  World Conference on Employment and Basic Needs - Geneva -1976
6)  World Conference on Human Settlements - Vancouver - 1976
7)  World Water Conference - Mar del Blata -1977
8)  World Conference on Desertification - Nairobi - 1977
9) World Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries - Buenos Aires - 1978
10)  World Conference on Land Reform - Rome - 1979
11) World Conference on Science and Technology - Vienna -1979

The 1970 Decade ended with the International Year of  the Child.  The Decade had also seen from 1974 to 1981 the World Conference on the Law of the Sea.

As Muller wrote "We must believe in peace, human ascent and justice.  As for all things on this Earth, a period of preparation, of takeoff is needed.  This is typically the case for economic development, and the same is true of peace, disarmament, and worldwide cooperation.  The beginnings are slow, but suddenly a progress which seemed so difficult, nay impossible, begins to accelerate and to gain momentum... Therefore we must think and act years ahead.  We must begin to manage our resources, our actions, behavior and interventions in a new fashion, taking into account the new world-wide dimensions and long-term effects which are being imposed on us with an iron fist by our own discoveries, intelligence and drives ahead." 

Muller understood clearly that the U.N. Secretariat had a great deal of information arising from these conferences and from U.N. field workers.  However, it remained the task of the Member States to use this information to guide their policies.  Yet national governments usually did not act on the information.  There were very few, if any, follow ups to the U.N. conferences.  U.N. Reports and studies had very limited readership.  Later, Muller suggested that "The United Nations and its agencies should transform their mere information activities into active public relations and communications reaching the grass-roots level of society.  Consideration should be given to the creation of a UN Planetary Information and Public Relations Agency."

Although no such U.N. public relations agency was created, Muller was an active U.N. networker reaching out through talks and publications, especially to religious groups and schools.  On retirement, he bought a home in Costa Rica to be near the U.N.-created University for Peace, whose aim was to train world-minded socio-economic activists.  Robert Muller also became the Honorary President of the Association of World Citizens.  He was a model of perseverance, work, faith and imagination.

His concern on how the knowledge contained within the U.N. system can be shared with a wide public in an action-oriented language remains a key issue.  Too many U.N. documents are writtten in UNese, edited to offend no Member State nor to present ideas which might be disputed.  Consensus-building styles of writing are not very exciting.  Networking is stilla priority need.

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Note: Also from Rene Wadlow in Ovi magazine: Robert Muller: Crossing Frontiers for Reconciliation,

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Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens