- Brève introduction
- Internet shutdown in Iran: Pezeshkian orders restoration; the IRGC questions its authority
- New American attacks against Iran: negotiations remain blocked over a dispute over wording
- The Quad takes action: stopover in Fiji, framework on critical minerals and maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific
- Magnifica Humanitas: Pope Leo XIV publishes his first encyclical on artificial intelligence
- First single infusion therapy against cholesterol: a revolution in preventive cardiovascular medicine
- Averages
- Editorial
Brève introduction
Five vectors of tension dominate the news, and their intersection paints the most precise portrait of the strategic disorientation of our time: the Iranian jihadist oligarchy continues to use the digital blackout as a weapon of internal war while Pezeshkian tries, in vain, to restore normality in the face of the Guards Corps. the Islamic Revolution (IRGC), which holds the real power; The United States launches new “self-defense” attacks against Iranian positions in the Strait of Hormuz, while negotiations bog down in an editorial dispute that highlights the depth of the divide; the QUAD meets in New Delhi and moves – finally – from declarations of intent to a concrete architecture, with a first common infrastructure project in Fiji and a framework on critical minerals which directly contradicts Chinese extractive hegemony; and Pope Leo
Added to all this, in the medical-scientific field, is the first single infusion therapy against cholesterol, which opens a new era in preventive cardiovascular medicine. The complexity of the day calls for rigorous analysis, committed and without concession to the ease of lukewarm analysis.
Internet shutdown in Iran: Pezeshkian orders restoration; the IRGC questions its authority
Facts
After 87 consecutive days of near-total Internet shutdown – the longest ever recorded in a modern society – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday ordered the Communications Ministry to restore international access to the Internet as it was before last January. The restoration was confirmed by Minister Sattar Hashemi and the presidential spokesperson, and sources from the semi-official ISNA agency predicted it for this Tuesday.
However, the IRGC-affiliated Fars Agency immediately questioned the civilian government’s authority to issue such an order, arguing that the decision to restrict Internet access was made by the Supreme National Security Council – the body within which the Corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) exercises a decisive influence – and that only this body could cancel it. Secretary of the High Council for Cyberspace Aghamiri – kept in his post by Pezeshkian himself although he was appointed by the previous government – sided with the IRGC, voting against reconnection at a meeting where nine votes were in favor of reinstatement and three were opposed.
During the 87 days of outage, connectivity fell to approximately 1% of pre-war levels, with an estimated direct economic cost of between $35 million and $40 million per day. Users of Starlink terminals have been persecuted with a relentlessness that reveals the totalitarian nature of the regime: mass arrests, sentences to years in prison and, in several documented cases, death sentences.
Implications
What the conflict between Pezeshkian and the IRGC over the Internet highlights is not a technical dispute, but the definitive crystallization of the beheading paradox: without Khamenei – the only one with sufficient moral authority and rank to impose internal discipline – the IRGC triumvirate operates as a parallel power that systematically blocks the civilian executive, including in administrative management decisions. Pezeshkian does not have the capacity to impose his will when it conflicts with the security interests that the Revolutionary Guard considers its own.
The digital blackout was not only an instrument of social control during a period of massive demonstrations – which left more than 3,100 dead – but also a veil of deliberate opacity over the damage caused by the American attacks and Israelis since February 28. The IRGC has turned the disconnection of 90 million Iranians into an information warfare strategy.
The fact that citizens who attempted to circumvent this shutdown using Starlink terminals or VPNs were treated as enemy combatants – prosecuted, convicted and, in some cases, executed – places this regime at odds with any civilized definition of the state.
We are not facing a theocracy with an authoritarian dimension: we are facing a jihadist oligarchy which uses the state as an instrument of totalitarian domination.
Perspectives et scénarios
- Scenario A (probability: 45%): The IRGC partially relents and authorizes controlled restoration of access, with renewed filters and intensified surveillance, as a tactical move in preparation for negotiations with the United States, where Pezeshkian’s image in as a reformist interlocutor proves useful.
- Scenario B (probability: 40%): Pezeshkian’s order is effectively suspended – partial application, ineffective in practice – and the conflict continues for several weeks, aggravating the economic cost and popular frustration.
- Scenario C (probability: 15%): The Supreme National Security Council itself formally approves the reinstatement, providing institutional cover for a decision that the IRGC cannot veto in public without revealing the command dysfunction that this analyst describes as a fracture contained system.
New American attacks against Iran: negotiations remain blocked over a dispute over wording
Facts
American military forces carried out on Tuesday what the Pentagon spokesperson described as “self-defense” attacks against missile launch positions and IRGC ships in southern Iran, in the Strait of Hormuz area. The explosions were initially reported by Iranian media at the port of Bandar Abbas. Simultaneously, the IRGC announced that it had shot down an American Reaper-type drone which, according to Tehran, had entered Iranian airspace.
These attacks come hours after an Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – who reports to Vahidi, not Pezeshkian – met with Qatari mediators in Doha, in coordination with Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on an official visit to India for the QUAD meeting, acknowledged that the negotiations were blocked by “wording differences” and that it would take “a few days” to resolve them.
The sticking points include the release of frozen Iranian funds in exchange for the partial lifting of the blockade of the Strait, the restoration of maritime traffic to its pre-war level within 30 days and the launch of a “real and limited” nuclear negotiation in time.” Iran has denied making any commitments regarding enriched nuclear material.
Implications
The scenario that is emerging is that of a contained systemic divide, worthy of a textbook: neither total war nor negotiated peace, but a conflict of variable intensity where exchanges of fire coexist with diplomatic talks without one of these two paths canceling the other. The new attacks – even though Ghalibaf was sitting at the Qatari table – can be interpreted in two ways: they can be a sign of calculated pressure (wishful thinking, that is to say American wishful thinking regarding the Iranian malleability) or the result of a lack of synchronization between Trump’s military command and diplomacy.
In any case, they reveal the absence of a reliable communication mechanism between the two parties making it possible to distinguish a military operation from escalation. The “drafting” dispute mentioned by Rubio is, in reality, a dispute of political architecture: Iran cannot sign any agreement that the IRGC would interpret as a capitulation, and the IRGC cannot accept any text that would mean ceding control of the Strait of Hormuz – for the blockade of which he paid an enormous price, but from which he draws his main negotiating leverage.
The absence of a post-conflict plan remains the greatest strategic irresponsibility of this administration: attacking without having planned what to do if the regime collapses, negotiates or resists is a recipe for chaos.
Perspectives et scénarios
- Scenario A – Minimal Strait Agreement (probability: 40%): In the coming days, a limited Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is signed, opening the Strait in exchange for partial sanctions relief and a commitment to nuclear negotiations The violence persists at a moderate level.
- Scenario B – Tactical escalation (probability: 35%): Today’s attacks are interpreted by the IRGC as a humiliation that breaks the informal truce, and Tehran retaliates by attacking US naval assets, temporarily derailing negotiations.
- Scenario C – Prolonged blockage (probability: 25%): discussions drag on for several weeks without reaching an agreement, the strait remaining partially operational, oil prices reaching worrying levels and the world economy paying the price for diplomatic inaction.
The Quad takes action: stopover in Fiji, framework on critical minerals and maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific
Facts
The foreign ministers of Australia (Penny Wong), India (S. Jaishankar), Japan (Toshimitsu Motegi) and the United States (Marco Rubio) held the third Quad ministerial meeting since September 2024 in New Delhi on Tuesday at the Hyderabad House.
This meeting resulted in three significant concrete results: first, the announcement of the Quad’s first joint infrastructure project – the construction of a port in Fiji, explicitly designed to fill the port capacity gap in the Pacific Islands –; second, the adoption of the Quad Framework on Critical Minerals, which will coordinate investments and economic policies across the value chain of mining, processing and recycling of strategic minerals; and third, the launch of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Cooperation Initiative, which will leverage the capabilities of each member country to develop a common operational picture of the maritime domain.
Rubio insisted before the meeting that Washington wants the Quad to be “a vehicle for action,” not a forum for declarations, and confirmed that a leaders’ summit was in the works for later this year, although no date has yet been set.
Implications
The Quad meeting in New Delhi has a geopolitical importance that goes beyond the framework of its concrete agreements: it marks the fact that this mechanism has gone beyond its embryonic phase of dialogue to become a functional alliance of variable geometry, capable of setting up common infrastructure, regulations and surveillance.
Fiji’s port is not a diplomatic whim: it is a direct response to China’s infrastructure diplomacy offensive in the South Pacific, where Beijing has built a network of economic dependencies and strategic presences that threaten Australian and American maritime lines of communication. The Critical Minerals Framework, meanwhile, addresses the most vulnerable point in the Western supply chain: China controls between 75 and 80% of global rare earth production and 95% of refining capacity.
Coordinating to diversify this dependence is not a geopolitical luxury: it is a national security necessity for the four countries. Finally, joint maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific completes deterrence in the face of Beijing’s expansionist claims in the South China Sea. This analyst believes that the Quad, far from being the Asian NATO that some had predicted, is becoming something more sophisticated: an architecture of variable geometry that acts without renouncing the sovereign autonomy of each member.
Perspectives et scénarios
The central question is whether the Quad can maintain this momentum without a leaders’ summit that gives it a long-term political mandate. The confirmation of a summit in 2026 would be the clearest sign of true institutionalization. The risk is that dispersing the agenda (minerals, ports, surveillance, energy, cyber security) without strong executive coordination dilutes the impact.
Beijing’s reaction will be predictable: it will label the Quad as having a “cold war mentality” and will put pressure on each member individually – particularly India, which has intense economic relations with China – to erode the group’s cohesion.
Magnifica Humanitas: Pope Leo XIV publishes his first encyclical on artificial intelligence
Facts
On May 25, 2026, on the 135th anniversary of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIV officially presented Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), his first encyclical, signed on May 15. The document – between 110 and 235 pages depending on the edition, divided into five chapters – presents artificial intelligence (AI) as the great ethical challenge of humanity in the 21st century, in continuation of the social concern that Leo XIII had dedicated to the industrial revolution in 1891.
The Pope categorically condemns the delegation of lethal and irreversible decisions to AI systems, declaring “inadmissible” the use of lethal autonomous weapons systems: “There is no algorithm that can make war morally acceptable “. It warns against the concentration of technological power “in the hands of a few” – with implicit references to large technology platforms – and calls for “disarming AI” to prevent it from “dominating humanity”.
The encyclical also addresses the environmental impact of data centers, the protection of minors from manipulative AI, the risk of mass disinformation and the need to ensure that technology serves human work and does not destroy it. Among the experts invited to the presentation was Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic.
Implications
Magnifica Humanitas is much more than a pastoral document: it is a geopolitical intervention of the first order. At a time when AI is already influencing military, political, economic and social decisions around the world, the moral voice of the Vatican – which speaks to 1.4 billion Catholics and dialogues with virtually all governments in the world – acquires an importance that goes beyond the framework of theology.
The explicit ban on lethal autonomous weapons comes in the context of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, where precisely drones and precision attack systems guided by algorithms are used in abundance. It is no coincidence that this document appears now, and the tensions between the Vatican and certain sectors of the Trump administration – which has used religious arguments to justify military actions – constitute the immediate context. The comparison between unregulated technological progress and the Tower of Babel – a civilization that raises its pride to the sky until God confuses its language – is a powerful and deliberately universal image.
Leo XIV demonstrates that he understands the nature of this historical moment better than many political leaders: AI is not just a tool; it is a reconfiguration of power, truth and moral responsibility. His call to regulate AI before it “dominates humanity” is unexpectedly in line with the regulatory efforts of the European Union and the warnings of scientists in the sector themselves.
Perspectives et scénarios
The encyclical will spark an intense debate on three fronts: the political-military front (the powers with autonomous weapons programs – United States, China, Russia, Israel – will have to position themselves in the face of the Vatican’s condemnation); the technological front (the large AI platforms will see in this document moral support for the regulations they wish to slow down); and the internal ecclesial front (the more conservative sectors of Catholicism who supported Trump will find the implicit criticism of the logic of unlimited military power embarrassing).
This analyst believes that Magnifica Humanitas will go down in history as the text of the social doctrine that marked the threshold between AI as a tool and AI as an autonomous power, in the same way that Rerum Novarum defined labor rights in the industrial age.
First single infusion therapy against cholesterol: a revolution in preventive cardiovascular medicine
Facts
British researchers have announced the development of a single-dose infusion therapy for cholesterol, based on gene-editing technology or long-acting antibodies that can sustainably reduce LDL (“bad cholesterol”) levels in a single dose. treatment. This announcement, relayed by the specialized press and major daily newspapers, represents a leap forward compared to daily statins and existing injectable treatments (such as PCSK9 inhibitors), by eliminating dependence on chronic therapeutic compliance, which is the main factor in prevention failure. overall cardiovascular.
Implications
Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of mortality in the world, with more than 17 million victims per year according to the World Health Organization. A single infusion therapy against cholesterol would have a health impact equivalent, in terms of lives saved, to that of vaccines in the 20th century.
The implications are also economic: the pharmaceutical sector of statins and chronic treatments represents hundreds of billions of dollars per year; a unique and disruptive treatment would reshape this market, while reducing the systemic cost of cardiovascular diseases for public health systems. Challenges include accessibility in developing countries and global production capacity, as well as confirmation of the durability of the effect in long-term clinical trials.
Perspectives et scénarios
If trials confirm effectiveness and safety at five and ten years, this treatment could be approved by 2028-2030, transforming cardiovascular prevention protocols around the world. The question of global equity – who will have access and at what cost – will be the ethical battleground of the next decade in international health.
Reuters and Associated Press (AP) lead coverage of the Iran-Quad dual axis, with dispatches from Bandar Abbas and New Delhi respectively. CNN en Español and El Español offer the most detailed coverage of the conflict between Pezeshkian and the IRGC on the Internet live. Iran International – a key source thanks to its access to internal sources – reveals the institutional conflict between the civilian executive and the Guard over who has authority to reestablish the connection.
Al Jazeera follows the attacks and the position of the IRGC minute by minute. El Español and El Mundo report on the progress of the negotiations from Secretary Rubio’s point of view. The encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” is followed by L’Osservatore Romano – a front page with theological and social analyzes – as well as by Le Monde, Le Figaro, the Financial Times, Corriere della Sera, FAZ and virtually all major Western dailies, with approaches ranging from the geopolitics of AI regulation (FT, Wall Street Journal) to doctrinal exegesis (La Croix, La Stampa).
The New York Times and the Washington Post link the encyclical to the American debate on the regulation of AI. Euronews and Infobae offer the most comprehensive analyzes in Spanish of “Magnifica Humanitas”. The Week India, Outlook India and The Manila Times highlight the importance of the Quad for the Indo-Pacific security architecture. Fox News and Iran International agree – from different angles – to emphasize the total control of the IRGC over Iranian strategic decisions, even above the President of the Republic.
No leading Russian media today analyzes the Quad beyond a brief mention, which reveals Moscow’s embarrassed silence in the face of a containment architecture that includes India – Russia’s key partner – as an active member.
Editorial
What is happening in Iran deserves more than the attention of security analysts: it deserves the moral indignation of all those who believe in freedom. That a jihadist oligarchy – let’s call it by its name, not “theocracy”, but an armed jihadist oligarchy using religion as an instrument of domination – sentences its own citizens to death for using a satellite Internet terminal is an act of barbarity without precedent in the history of modern telecommunications. And the fact that the President of the Republic, elected on reformist promises, is systematically blocked by the Revolutionary Guards, even for something as basic as restoring access to the Internet, tells us everything we need to know about who governs actually in Iran.
The IRGC is not just an army: it is the state within a state, the network that sucks up all the country’s resources and decides who lives and who dies, who speaks and who remains silent. We support the attacks against this regime, but we demand – and this is the criticism we continue to make – that a plan finally be drawn up for the post-regime. Attacking without planning what to do when the regime implodes, negotiates or fractures is a strategic irresponsibility that could transform a military success into a political disaster of incalculable proportions.
The Iran negotiations perfectly illustrate what this analyst defined as a contained systemic divide: a conflict that no one can completely win or lose, and where the “drafting” dispute mentioned by Rubio actually hides the deeper question – can the IRGC accept a any agreement without committing political suicide? — to which no one in Washington seems to have an answer. The paradox of decapitation operates here with all its cruelty: without Khamenei, there is no internal arbiter capable of imposing the discipline necessary to sign a real concession.
The three members of the triumvirate – Vahidi, Zolghadr as secretary of the National Security Council and Rezaei as military advisor to the Supreme Leader – are all equal to each other, ultraconservative to the core, and none has the moral authority to imposing himself on others and dragging the regime towards an agreement which will inevitably be presented as a defeat.
The Quad meeting in New Delhi is, on the other hand, one of the best news of this Tuesday. That four democracies – two Asian, two Anglo-Saxon – are able to move from dialogue to concrete action on infrastructure, critical minerals and maritime surveillance is exactly the type of effective multilateralism that Europe should study with envy and urgently emulate. Fiji’s port is not a diplomatic whim: it is the smartest geopolitical response to the debt and dependency trap that China has patiently woven in the Pacific.
The Critical Minerals Framework is not bureaucracy: it is the architecture of technological sovereignty for the 21st century, because whoever controls rare earths controls the energy transition, the defense industry and the digital economy. Europe, which falls into the trap of “wishful thinking” – desiderative thinking – believing it can maintain both strategic neutrality and market access, would do well to look to New Delhi and learn from it.
Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” is a historical event that deserves more in-depth analysis than this report allows. Suffice it to say that Leo dilutes the chain of responsibility until it becomes invisible.
The comparison to the Tower of Babel is theologically apt and politically devastating: a civilization obsessed with technological power that loses the ability to communicate with itself is exactly the risk we face if we allow algorithms to replace moral judgment. In a world where AI already decides who lives and who dies on a battlefield, the voice of the Vatican is not an anachronism: it is perhaps the only global actor capable of saying what no one wants to hear without anyone being able to accuse it of having a strategic interest.
In short, a day to remember. Chaos, as I keep repeating, is not the absence of order: it is a different order, more complex and more dangerous, which demands more rigor, more courage and more clarity of thought than the world seems ready to offer.
