"Annus horriblis", a Latin phrase meaning ‘a horrible year’, seems an understatement when describing the indescribable horrors endured by the Palestinian people in Gaza, the occupied territories, Yemen, and now Syria. This year has been marked by relentless bloodshed, famine, massacres, destruction, and death. It has been a time of regime collapse and resistance, a year of martyrs and heroes.

2024 has witnessed it all, and sadly, I foresee even more sorrow and inhumanity in the ongoing struggle for justice, dignity, and security going forward into 2025, not only across West Asia but beyond.

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7-2023 highlighted many things.

It definitively shattered the myth of Israeli invulnerability and the illusion of American - and by extension European - efforts as genuine participants in fostering peace in the region. On the contrary, it exposed to the world the complicity of the American deep state and its political class in destabilizing the region, driven by their ongoing attempts to control its governments and resources.

The Zionists' reaction to the events of October 7, 2023, has unmasked a society built on the foundations of colonial racism and evolved into modern psychotic fascism. This is evidenced by the use of  2000-pound bombs on displaced families living in tents,  the weaponization of starvation, and the invocation of Amalek as justification for a campaign of genocide aimed at erasing a chosen enemy from existence.

Through the lens of social media, the global community is witnessing the true face of the Zionist "chosen people": a society that perpetuates its existence through genocide and is built on the twin pillars of colonialism and imperialism. Its preferred method of subjugation — replacement through displacement — targets not only the Indigenous people of Palestine but also the broader Persian, Arab, and Muslim collective, "the Ummah".

Sadly, if you believe the assertions of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir (all European settlers), and other key figures in positions of power within the Zionist entity, it becomes clear that their ambitions align with the expansionist vision of the "Greater Israel project." Viewed through this lens, the massacres in Gaza - much like all the other pogroms against the indigenous population of Palestine from 1948 and even earlier - are just another stop on the road toward eradicating the native population and supplanting it with the foreign settler presence.

The steadfastness of the people in Gaza is beyond heroic: the resistance, to the people who refuse even under threat of starvation to evacuate Northern Gaza.

Bravery, heroism, self-sacrifice, endurance, and an unconquerable will not to surrender epitomize the "Sumud" of the people.

I watch in horror as I witness babies freezing to death, hospitals being bombed and burnt out while doctors, medical staff, and seriously ill and injured patients are cruelly mocked, beaten, arrested, and tortured.

With over 1 million forced under death sentence to flee Northern Gaza, nearly 2 million displaced people are living and dying in tents, which are inadequate as shelter: too hot in summer exacerbating disease and too cold in winter months leading to the tragic deaths of newborn babies and vulnerable adults. "Israel’s" barbaric and indiscriminate murder campaign in Gaza shows no signs of abating. Reports detail soldiers taking selfies with tortured and raped prisoners, looting valuables, and desecrating churches and mosques, all while reveling in the mass death of an estimated 200,000 people – approximately one-tenth of Gaza’s population - as reported by the British medical journal The Lancet.

Will this barbarism finally end?

The simultaneous attacks on the Palestinians in the West Bank show clearly – at least to those willing to see - the ultimate goal of the racist, fascist regime in Tel Aviv: the total occupation of Palestine by a foreign horde of land thieves, mainly American and European settlers. These actors have now become mass genocidal murderers, using religion in their "Jewish-only State" as a pretext to advance their true agenda - the promotion of Zionism. Zionism, a national political ideology akin to German National Socialism, relies on racism, fascism, and racial supremacy as the foundation of its national unity. It is built on "Jewish exceptionalism" and a claimed divine right from God to kill, maim, replace, and destroy anyone or anything that opposes its ideological extremism. This worldview asserts that their lives are inherently more valuable, while the lives of others are deemed expendable. That, in essence, is the definition of fascism.

The Lebanese people have also paid a heavy price in lives, lost property, lost security, and lost sovereignty.

The tragic loss of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah marks a significant blow to the resistance movement in West Asia and the broader global collective. Like General Qassem Soleimani, his strategic thinking, patience, and unwavering commitment to liberating the region from foreign colonial imperialist intervention have been invaluable. Yet, their legacy may inspire others to rise to the challenge, striving to overcome division and sectarianism while advancing the cause of freedom, liberation, peace, and justice in the Levant.

The Lebanese Resistance stood valiantly against American-backed forces South of the Litani River. While it was Zionist tanks and soldiers they defeated, the relentless rain of missiles, bombs, and airstrikes were US supplied, underscoring the broader imperialist support behind the aggression.

While America’s attack dog pummeled Beirut and Southern Lebanon, displacing over 1 million people, the twin-track approach of military power and political subterfuge was deployed simultaneously. As part of this effort, Macron advanced the US and Israeli demands to the Lebanese Parliament, exemplifying the coordinated pressure on Lebanon’s sovereignty.

There are still some Lebanese Western-financed and -controlled puppets, relics from the imperialist-inspired civil war in Lebanon, who work tirelessly for the benefit of their paymasters in Washington, Paris, London, and Tel Aviv. These collaborators may sacrifice their sovereignty at the altar of Western hegemony. Those who have sold their soul to the beast now wish to sell others too.

The 60-day ceasefire has allowed "Israel" to achieve through political maneuvering what it failed to accomplish militarily in the presence of the Resistance: the illegal occupation of parts of South Lebanon. As for the Lebanese Army, which was supposed to replace the evacuated positions, my concern is that the Zionist entity may simply roll over the Lebanese Army, in a race to the Litani River. This could push Lebanon and the Resistance into yet another fight for liberation and national integrity, echoing the 2006 war.

Syria has fallen. What will happen next?

In my opinion, President al-Assad, much like Colonel Gaddafi, may have been politically seduced into believing a rapprochement with his enemies was on the horizon. Tony Blair, for instance, brought Gaddafi in from the political cold, even after the Americans and British tried to kill him and succeeded in murdering his granddaughter, only to later have Italy and NATO destroy Libya, acting in the interests of America and "Israel".

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President al-Assad appears to have been deceived into believing that distancing Syria from Iran and the Lebanese Resistance would pave the way for full rehabilitation with his Arab neighbors, leading to reconciliation and a possible end of American and European sanctions. The reopening of embassies as part of this strategy might prove that this approach could indeed be correct.

In the end, Syria was betrayed - not by its people, nor perhaps even by its president - but by the time-honored deceit of international players who appear to be allies but are, in reality, working to undermine the country.

The real betrayal by Turkiye, in hindsight, may not come as a major surprise. The compromise of some senior military figures may have swung the balance.

I met President al-Assad in Syria twice. On our first meeting, when we warmly shook hands, I told him, "Many leaders would have abandoned their country under the American-led war of destruction against Syria," and I expressed my view that "he was a very brave man staying under hard pressure to defend the secular state of Syria and the Syrian Arab Republic." That was my opinion then, and it is still my opinion now.

He may have been duped, badly advised, and, in the end, abandoned. He may have had no other option. To prevent widespread bloodshed, he may have decided to leave and lessen the carnage.

I have seen a seven-point paper that purports to outline an agreement ensuring the security of Syria’s Army, population, and constitution if President al-Assad were to depart. I believe he took the moral high ground under Russian pressure, choosing to abdicate in order to preserve Syrian lives.

Today, Syria is effectively balkanized: one-third is under Zionist control, one-third under Turkish and American control, and the remnants of Syria are under the control of Takfiri terrorist groups.

American unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) of nations hostile to or non-compliant with American unipolar, white racist world values or its abhorrent military interventionist foreign policy have, out of necessity, led to the formation of the BRICS. Similarly, I believe the Syrian people - now living under terrorist Israeli American, Turkish, and Takfiri occupation forces -  may eventually unify - to rise up against oppressors and, ultimately, free Syria.

A new, people-led Syrian revolution may be taking shape, emerging in opposition to the false regime change project we have witnessed.

Like Iraq and Afghanistan, the interlopers might be forced to retreat but only after a prolonged liberation struggle.

A Hezbollah-type resistance might yet flourish in Syria.

Yemen. What can be said about Yemen? An honorable indefatigable and undefeatable people. They have suffered famine, an American-directed war of aggression via Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which was brought to an end when Ansar Allah targeted oil facilities in both of these countries.

Iran is the heartbeat of the Axis of Resistance. It is the King on this particular geopolitical chess board, under direct and indirect threat from America, "Israel", and the European Union since the inception of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Iran has always been the prize coveted most by the enemies of peace and liberation in West Asia.

Having attended a conference in Tehran over the new year as the Irish coordinator of the Global Gathering to Support the Choice of Resistance, I witnessed first-hand civic and political determination in Iran, not only to defend the Islamic Revolution from internal and external threats but also to defend Palestine to remain steadfastly against colonial and imperialist threats.

It was not mere rhetoric that I heard, but heartfelt sincerity rooted in a deep understanding of what is right and what is wrong - not only from a religious obligation but as fellow human beings supporting the oppressed.

I was genuinely inspired by such beautiful sentiments, ones with which I totally concur.

I understand there is a Fatwa banning the production and use of nuclear weapons in Iran.

Every country that has nuclear weapons – whether declared or undeclared - claims they are kept solely as a deterrent against aggression. These weapons are not meant to be used as a first-strike option, but rather to prevent others from attacking, as we can see with DPRK.

If Iran also had the "nuclear bomb" as a deterrent, in line with its Fatwa against their use, could it be enough to prevent the United States and others from attempting to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran with conventional weapons?

Iraq. I visited Karbala in August 2024 and I saw a nation under reconstruction, a country swamped with pilgrims and revolutionaries, like those in the Popular Mobilization Forces. Iraq is off its knees and standing firm against its invaders and interlockers. 

Had the entire Axis of Resistance challenged the Israeli-American front simultaneously at the outset of the genocide in Gaza, we would never know how it might have played out.

The war continues through the vehicles of military political economic power and cyberspace.

At times, I despair at the tremendous loss of life in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and now Yemen. Yet my political comrades in the Axis of Resistance consistently reinforce the belief that while battles may be lost, the war is far from over. They remind me that the implosion of "Israel" both internally and externally is closer than many realize. The more they say it, the more I find myself believing it.