Simon Mabon

Jeff Whyte.

⚠️New #openaccessarticle online!

🇪🇺 Spatialising Security, Securitising Space: Ways into the Politics of the #MiddleEast and #NorthAfrica

🔍 Discover more: shorturl.at/ucjfY

✒️ Javier Bordón & @profmabon.bsky.social (@lancasteruni.bsky.social)

Nothing says “we are liberating you from a bad regime to give you a better life” like bombing desalination plants and oil refineries

Bahrain says an Iranian strike damaged a desalination plant overnight, following the US/Israeli attack on Iran’s desalination plant on Qeshm Island.

If water infrastructure is now considered a target it’s going to be disastrous for the people living there.

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The Gulf’s delicate balancing act between the US and Iran is now in flames Simon Mabon talks to The Conversation Weekly podcast about how the evolution of the relationship between Iran and its Gulf neighbours.

Professor of International Relations Simon Mabon is interviewed for a Conversation podcast about how “The Gulf's delicate balancing act between the US and Iran is now in flames”
theconversation.com/the-gulfs-de...

The United States Could Lose the Gulf Iran’s attacks on its neighbors are a reminder that the United States cannot protect them.

“Iran has, for the first time, shattered the illusions of Gulf citizens about their immunity from regional politics… and brought them firmly, and likely permanently, back into geographical reality.“

@abuaardvark.bsky.social on Iran’s Gulf retaliation and the hollowness of US security guarantees:

Systematic Iranian attacks on radar facilities to degrade missile defense systems

The Gulf’s delicate balancing act between the US and Iran is now in flames Simon Mabon talks to The Conversation Weekly podcast about how the evolution of the relationship between Iran and its Gulf neighbours.

Simon Mabon talks to The Conversation Weekly podcast about how the evolution of the relationship between Iran and its Gulf neighbours.

📢 New #SpecialIssue Online!

👉 Spatialising Security, Securitising Space: Ways into the Politics of the Middle East and North Africa

🔗 Read it here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/rspe20/6...

Trump’s War With Iran Is Also a Climate War Fossil fuels are structurally embedded in modern warfare.

“The linkages flow in both directions. Wars unleash gargantuan amounts of planet-warming emissions…Those extra emissions drive deadlier heat…and other impacts that..[make] armed conflict more likely… Yet war has the perverse effect of pushing the climate story down the news agenda.”

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi | The dry and the wet burn together The war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel is a war of choice and of hubris. There is scarcely even...

‘Iran’s aim now seems to be not to secure immediate victory but to raise the cost of the war to prohibitive levels. It sees the conflict as existential. If regime change is the declared objective, then compromise is not an option.’

@eskandarsadeghi.bsky.social:

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

On Navigating the Vortex | Ethnopolitics Edition, I talk about the special issue I co-edited with Simon Mabon, and how it frames debates on power sharing and contentious politics in divided societies

Pro-American Kurdish Forces Are Preparing Possible Iran Incursion

Bad idea for everyone except those seeking regional anarchy and forever war. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/u...

Moral Maze - Is it moral to attack Iran? - BBC Sounds Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories.

Last night I recorded an episode of Radio 4’s Moral Maze on whether it is moral to attack Iran. Short answer: it’s not. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, gave a truly unhinged interview on Tucker that zealously genuflected to the Israeli right (see left).

Huckabee’s interview was so insane that it united the whole rest of the region—including the UAE—to make a joint statement against his remarks (see right).

Exciting workshop by @maricalc.bsky.social & @profmabon.bsky.social for @europeanisa.bsky.social 's EWIS in Izmir this year: "Empire without Hegemony:
The unmasking of US dominium over the Middle East and beyond" eisa-net.org/wp-content/u...

Will Israel end its occupation of Palestinian territories? Talks to implement Donald Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza are under way.

This was a good watch, with @victorkattan.bsky.social and @profmabon.bsky.social not being shy about blasting the stupid idea of having Blair run Gaza. Who ever thought of that one should read some history books. It's hardly a secret why that's a terrible idea. www.aljazeera.com/video/inside...

Schism by Simon Mabon | Waterstones Buy Schism by Simon Mabon from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Please excuse the self promotion but Waterstones have selected my new book Schism for a 25% preorder discount. It doesn't run for long (& I know it's not out until May) but apparently pre-orders are important. If you could spread the word I'd hugely appreciate it www.waterstones.com/book/schism/...

The two years of fighting since October 7 have transformed the Middle East The impact of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s response will reverberate for decades to come.

The two years of fighting since October 7 have transformed the Middle East: MIddle East expert Simon Mabon @profmabon.bsky.social looks into the aftermath of the Hamas attacks and Israel's war on Gaza
theconversation.com/the-two-year...

The two years of fighting since October 7 have transformed the Middle East The impact of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s response will reverberate for decades to come.

The impact of the October 7 attacks and Israel’s response will reverberate for decades to come.

🇸🇾 🎉Thank you to all who joined us in Parliament for our roundtable on Syria’s transition nine months on.

Our expert panel reflected on interim governance, legal reform & the prospects for meaningful accountability.

📝 A takeaway report will be out soon: fpc.org.uk/join/

The quiet war: What’s fueling Israel’s surge of settler violence – and the lack of state response Violence in the West Bank has intensified since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

As U.S. aid flows to Israel, settler violence in the West Bank is surging – with little state restraint. Experts say it’s part of a larger strategy to forcibly reshape the region. buff.ly/CpMDami
By @aperliger.bsky.social, UMass Lowell

Much deserved!

I’ll get you a celebratory coffee next time you’re around. (Catch up long overdue).

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza Israel controls the flow of food into Gaza. It has calculated how many calories Palestinians need to stay alive. Its data shows only a fraction has been allowed in

The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza.
Israel controls the flow of food into Gaza. It has calculated how many calories Palestinians need to stay alive. Its data shows only a fraction has been allowed in.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

John Simpson
“The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights warns that countries are becoming bolder in attacking dissidents in the UK. Russia, China & Iran are the worst, but Bahrain, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, & the UAE have all attacked people here.”

The Trump administration believes it has the legal authority to abduct any individual-citizen or immigrant, documented or not-and illegally deport them to another country without due process. It further claims that it can extinguish all of that person's constitutional rights by imprisoning them in a foreign nation. And it asserts that once that person has been locked away abroad, the U.S. government has no power or responsibility to bring them home, even if they were indisputably deported in error.

Trump’s Justice Department is currently asking the Supreme Court for permission to build a deportation machine that can disappear anyone, citizen and immigrant alike, to a foreign prison forever, permanently extinguishing their constitutional rights with zero due process. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Gaza is starving – how Israel’s allies can go beyond words and take meaningful action Israel’s allies should look at what was done to isolate South Africa during the apartheid years.

"There are other more incendiary options. One would be for the UK and others to properly adhere to their obligations under international law." @profmabon.bsky.social on the Gaza genocide.
theconversation.com/gaza-is-star...

Gaza is starving – how Israel’s allies can go beyond words and take meaningful action Israel’s allies should look at what was done to isolate South Africa during the apartheid years.

Israel’s allies should look at what was done to isolate South Africa during the apartheid years.

And how this sits alongside what is happening in Syria.

Neoliberal pragmatism in operation again?

Trump and Miller are intent on building an unaccountable domestic secret police force that would be the world's third-biggest security force by funding levels, after the US and China's *militaries*.

That kind of funding dwarfs its stated purpose, which tells you what its real purpose will be.