Washington’s New Red Lines

Welcome back to the MBN Agenda, our look at the events driving the news in the Middle East in the week to come.

First up, a must-read on one of the region’s defining stories: A Shroud of Silence Falls over Iran by Mahtab Qolizadeh. Drawing on first-hand testimony obtained despite the internet shutdown, Qolizadeh shows how the authorities are using the communications blackout to erase evidence of mass killings.

Next, let’s go inside the decisions reshaping the region — not just on the battlefield, but also in the quiet recalibration of red lines, alliances, and strategies. From Syria’s north to Gaza, Tehran, Beirut, and beyond, Washington and regional capitals are testing how far pressure can go without tipping into open war.

We look at how the United States quietly stepped aside in Syria, clearing the way for a forced Kurdish rollback; why Gaza’s Phase Two is stuck on disarmament rather than reconstruction; and how Gulf diplomacy helped pull Washington back from the brink with Iran. This story is changing by the minute. Follow our flagship MBN news sites (in Arabic or English) for the latest updates.

If you prefer to read this in Arabic, click here. Share your thoughts anytime at mbnagenda@mbn-news.com. And if the MBN Agenda was forwarded to you, please subscribe.

– Joe, Ringo, Randa, Ghassan and Rasha

Washington Signals

 

Syria’s Kurdish Crisis: Red Lines Redrawn

The U.S. has revised its red lines in Syria, and Kurdish autonomy is no longer one of them. According to a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, Washington has quietly moved from military guarantor to political referee. As long as U.S. personnel are protected, ISIS detainees remain secure, and escalation between state actors is avoided, the United States will tolerate local power resets, even at the expense of former partners.

That shift cleared the way for Damascus to move. Syrian government forces launched a rapid offensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led coalition that partnered with the U.S. against ISIS, reclaiming territory across eastern Syria as Arab tribal fighters joined the advance. A Turkish official told MBN the outcome was inevitable once Washington’s limits became clear: “Damascus moved because the U.S. would not stop it.” The Syrians were careful to avoid any violations of the red lines laid out by the Americans, so officials in Washington were happy to sit back and let it happen.

Behind the scenes, three factors converged: the collapse of a stalled agreement meant to return Kurdish forces to Damascus’s control, Turkey’s domestic Kurdish calculus, and Ankara’s determination to block a permanent Kurdish belt along its border. As one former Trump adviser told Joe Kawly, the U.S. did not approve the offensive; it simply stopped blocking it. “The Kurdish project wasn’t crushed overnight,” he said. “It was traded, quietly, for narrower objectives and fewer liabilities.”

For more, read Joe’s full story here

 

 

Gaza Phase Two: Disarmament Deadlock

The real obstacle in Phase Two of the Gaza plan is not reconstruction or governance. It’s disarmament. Washington now expects Hamas to give up its weapons as part of the territory’s transition to technocratic rule, a demand reiterated publicly by U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli intelligence assessments, however, conclude that Hamas, while weakened, remains armed, organized, and capable of blocking the entire process.

A European diplomat based in Washington told MBN that the problem is structural: “Hamas is still armed enough to veto everything.” Hamas refuses to disarm without an irreversible path to Palestinian statehood. Israel, meanwhile, insists it will not withdraw while Hamas retains weapons, and that the Israelis alone will decide what qualifies as “real” disarmament. As one diplomat put it to Joe Kawly, this is “a mutual veto dressed up as a transition plan.”

Washington’s answer is a U.S.-designed Board of Peace and an interim technocratic committee. Permanent seats reportedly require a $1 billion contribution, a pay-to-play model endorsed by the UN Security Council but already drawing objections from Israel. “This isn’t aid,” the diplomat said. “It’s equity, and equity comes with control.”

The immediate test is Rafah. Israel has delayed reopening the crossing pending the return of a final hostage. U.S. officials expect it to reopen under a revived model involving the Palestinian Authority, Israeli monitoring at a distance, and European oversight. “Rafah is the proof-of-life test,” the diplomat warned. “If it doesn’t open, everything else collapses into theory.”

For more, read the full analysis here

The U.S.–Iran Crisis: Why Washington Pulled Back

Mid-January rarely rattles Washington. This year, it did. Between Jan. 13 and 15, President Donald Trump openly threatened military action against Iran as protests inside the country were crushed under an internet blackout. What mattered more than the threat itself was what followed: the strike never came.

During a 48-hour window, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, and Turkey engaged in urgent shuttle diplomacy aimed at the Americans. Their message was blunt. An Egyptian official in Washington told MBN that escalation would spill across borders, threaten U.S. bases, rattle energy markets, and rebound on American interests. Parallel messages were delivered to Tehran, cautioning that retaliation against U.S. assets in the Gulf would shatter a fragile regional reset.

Saudi Arabia’s role was pivotal. A source close to Saudi decision-making circles told MBN that Riyadh’s concern was not the strike itself, but the day after. The region, the source said, is already fragile and deeply interconnected, and the Gulf’s internal front is no longer cohesive, particularly amid a widening rift with the UAE. Saudi Arabia also quietly conveyed to Tehran that it would not participate in any military action and would not allow its territory or airspace to be used under any circumstances.

A senior U.S. diplomat told MBN’s Joe Kawly this moment marked a clear departure from 2020, when regional capitals tacitly backed the U.S. strike on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qasem Soleimani. This time, they positioned themselves between Washington and Tehran. U.S. intelligence assessments warned that Iranian retaliation would likely target U.S. bases and Gulf energy infrastructure, a risk that host governments deemed unacceptable.

The episode exposed a quiet Gulf split. While Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman pushed for de-escalation, no comparable effort came from the UAE, Kuwait, or Bahrain, reflecting differing threat perceptions. The result is not regime change but calibrated pressure: sanctions, tariffs, and economic leverage designed to isolate Iran without triggering war.

For more, read the full story here

Regional Signals

Baghdad Moves to Mediate U.S.-Iran Crisis

An Iraqi government adviser told MBN that Baghdad has stepped into a growing mediation effort between the United States and Iran, as tensions spike following the latest protests inside Iran and U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of strikes. According to the source, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein launched a de-escalation initiative during his visit to Tehran on Sunday, aimed at easing tensions between Washington and Tehran and preventing the region from sliding into another war. The adviser stated that Iraq has received positive messages from Tehran, without disclosing their content, and confirmed that Baghdad is maintaining direct communication with the United States on the issue.

It remains unclear whether Iraq’s initiative is a standalone effort or part of a broader regional push involving Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Egypt, all of which moved last week to forestall Washington’s threat of military action against Iran.

During his Tehran visit, Hussein met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Ali Larijani, secretary general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Ahead of the trip, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry said Hussein also held calls with counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Oman, France, and Turkey, as well as with the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, all focused on rising regional tensions.

“They’re Killing Everyone”: Voices from Inside Iran’s Blackout

During Iran’s mass uprising, President Donald Trump repeatedly signaled that the United States would intervene if Iranian authorities killed protesters. Those statements, amplified on social media, raised expectations inside Iran that U.S. action was imminent. For many Iranians, that belief fueled the decision to keep protesting despite an intensifying crackdown.

When U.S. strikes did not materialize, that hope collapsed into anger and a sense of betrayal. Iranians interviewed by The Washington Post described waiting through nights of speculation, convinced an attack was coming. “Our eyes were fixed on the sky,” said a Tehran resident. Others said Trump’s promises made them believe this time would be different, that the world would not look away.

What followed was not restraint, but silence

With Iran sealed off, what reaches the outside world comes in fragments — whispered calls, relayed messages, brief windows of Starlink access. Together, they tell a chillingly consistent story.

From Mazandaran, a relative told a woman in Europe that armed security forces now dominate every street. “You can’t walk a block without seeing them,” she said. Public space has become a zone of intimidation.

From Shiraz, a family relayed something worse: violence no longer aimed only at protesters. One woman, they said, was shot while grocery shopping. “During the Mahsa Amini protests, there was at least some restraint,” one source explained. “Now, it’s gone.”

From Tehran, another harrowing account: a father and his young son stepped outside to see what was happening. The boy pointed at something burning nearby. He was shot in the head moments later.

Outside Iran, the fear is relentless. In Australia, a man described days of silence after the blackout cut him off from his grandmother and uncle. When contact was finally restored through a fragile chain of Starlink calls, his uncle said only two words: “I’m okay.”

In a brief appearance inside a Telegram group, an Iranian user wrote that so many people had been killed in his area that residents were now afraid to leave their homes. Another described conditions like martial law. “If you look in their eyes,” he wrote of the armed men, “you see no humanity.”

The final words came through a mother on a monitored phone call, repeating the same sentence until her son begged her to stop speaking: “They’re killing everyone.”

This is only a fragment of what is emerging from inside Iran.

More accounts are documented here

 

 

Close Look

Saudi Arabia, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Washington’s Quiet Test

U.S. policy toward the Muslim Brotherhood is hardening, and Saudi Arabia is adjusting accordingly.

The issue surfaced during Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s Jan. 6 meetings in Washington, days before the State Department designated Brotherhood-linked groups in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as terrorist organizations. According to a congressional aide familiar with the discussions, U.S. lawmakers pressed Riyadh on its continued cooperation with Yemen’s Islah party, aware that Washington’s tolerance for selective engagement with Brotherhood-affiliated actors was narrowing.

That shift has sharpened an existing Saudi–Emirati divergence in Yemen. Riyadh continues to view Islah as a wartime necessity against the Houthis, while Abu Dhabi treats Brotherhood-linked actors as a long-term security threat and has worked to marginalize them. What was once managed quietly is now harder to contain.

Saudi Arabia’s response has been to hedge rather than concede. According to the aide, Riyadh has pointed to expanded security ties with Pakistan and warming relations with Turkey, signaling that as Washington narrows what it considers acceptable, Saudi Arabia is widening its strategic options.

Read the full story here

In Conversation

Washington’s Message to Beirut: Time Is No Longer a Strategy

In a pointed exchange with MBN’s Randa Jebai, Congressman Darin LaHood laid out Washington’s increasingly hard line toward Lebanon’s political leadership. LaHood spoke bluntly about U.S. frustration with entrenched power structures, singling out Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as emblematic of a system that has stalled reform, blocked presidential elections, and shielded political elites from accountability.

Since that interview, events in Lebanon have underscored the very impasse LaHood described. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem has publicly rejected any discussion of disarmament, warning that the group would not lay down its weapons under pressure. LaHood also referenced Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka’s visit to Lebanon as part of a broader U.S. effort to look beyond official narratives and better understand the gap between political leadership and public anger. The message from Washington, he suggested, is clear: support is no longer unconditional, reform is no longer optional, and time is no longer on Lebanon’s side.

Watch the full interview here

What to Look Out for Next

The Saudis Got Tough with the Emiratis in Yemen. Is Sudan next?

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been at odds in Yemen for years. A few weeks ago the Saudis decided to act: they bombed allies of the UAE and pushed Eidrous al-Zubaidi, a leading proponent of independence for the South, into exile.

Now Sudan could be next. Press reports speak of a Saudi role in a massive arms deal: a $1.5 billion agreement between Pakistan and Sudan. The aim: to supply the Sudanese army with combat aircraft and drones. These actions threaten the Emirates’ allies in Yemen and Sudan.

From Riyadh, Tareq Al-Shammari, head of the Arab International Relations Council, says it is “impossible for Saudi Arabia to enter Sudan or to pursue a scenario similar to what happened in Yemen.”

So, what options are available to Riyadh? Diplomatic pressure?

Ben Fishman, a researcher at the Washington Institute, says that the Rapid Support Forces “cannot be a strong fighting force without material support from the UAE.” Therefore, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “wants to prove to Trump that the UAE is the bad actor.”

In Sudan, there is a regional player that cannot be ignored: Egypt. Control of Sudan by the Rapid Support Forces represents a direct threat to Cairo’s water supplies. Sudanese journalist Hisham Abbas says that “the Egyptian government understands that if key Nile sources fall into the hands of the Rapid Support Forces, that effectively means they have fallen into Ethiopia’s hands.”

Weeks ago, the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, visited Cairo, coinciding with Egyptian hints about activating the joint defense agreement signed between the two countries in 1976. So will Cairo move toward direct military intervention?

Amani Al-Tawil, a researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, rules this out, saying: “Any overt military action in Sudan would likely create unnecessary complications with no real gains.”

Read the full analysis here and watch the video here

Did you know?

Iran Has an Embassy in Washington, But…

There is an Iranian embassy in Washington, D.C. — and almost no one knows it. Tucked along Embassy Row, its doors have been shut for more than forty years, its flagpole standing empty, its halls frozen in time. The building isn’t abandoned, though: the U.S. government quietly maintains it, mowing the lawn, fixing the heat, preserving a place that officially doesn’t exist. As Iran once again dominates headlines and talk of change resurfaces, this forgotten embassy tells a story of rupture, memory, and the strange afterlife of diplomacy.

Watch what Rami saw behind the closed doors here