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Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Professor of History, Australian Catholic University

Pope Leo XIV is among the world leaders invited to join Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”. Initially aimed at ending the conflict in Gaza, Trump says it will also resolve conflicts globally. The Vatican’s secretary of state has said the pope needs time to consider whether to take part.

Leo, the first pope from the United States, forcefully decried conditions in Gaza in a Christmas Eve address. He has told journalists the only solution to the conflict is a Palestinian state. But the Vatican has long described its foreign policy as “positive neutrality”.

Formal membership of state-sponsored commissions has usually been avoided by the Holy See, the central government of the Catholic Church – which has diplomatic relations with 184 countries, plus the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as well as a permanent observer status at the United Nations.

Across nearly two millennia, popes have been deeply involved in peace efforts. They have mediated disputes, facilitated negotiations, opened humanitarian corridors and applied moral pressure to restrain violence. Yet they have almost always done so from the sidelines: carefully positioned close enough to influence outcomes, but far enough away to preserve credibility with all parties.

Papal peacemaking has worked best when the pope could speak to everyone, even those who rejected the political order of the day. Neutrality is not a rhetorical posture, but a practical asset: hard won and easily lost.

Can the papacy maintain independent authority in an increasingly polarised world?

Influence without command

The Holy See has no army, no coercive economic power and no capacity to enforce compliance. What it has possessed, in varying degrees across time, is moral authority, diplomatic reach and access to networks that cross borders, ideologies and regimes.

In late antiquity, popes intervened at moments of acute danger, relying on prestige and symbolic authority rather than force. Pope Leo I’s encounter with Attila the Hun in 452, near Mantua in northern Italy, illustrates this approach. The pope’s message of peace persuaded the ruler of the Huns not to destroy Rome.

The episode captured a durable pattern. Papal influence worked through persuasion, reputation and the claim to speak in the name of a higher moral order.

Between the 10th and 14th centuries, the Peace of God and Truce of God movements sought to limit who could be attacked, when fighting was permitted and how warfare should be conducted. These were not state treaties, but moral frameworks, designed to protect the vulnerable. The church established the right to asylum by proclaiming immunity from violence for those who could not defend themselves.

As medieval diplomacy matured, popes increasingly acted as mediators between rulers. Though the pope was never a neutral observer in a theological sense, he could function as a neutral broker in political terms: precisely because he was not a competing territorial power.

Mediation lowered the cost of compromise by allowing rulers to frame concessions as obedience to moral authority rather than weakness before an enemy.

Neutrality as modern strength

The early modern period expanded the ambition and limits of papal peacemaking. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI drew up boundaries for Spain and Portugal’s colonisation of non-Christian lands. Other European powers increasingly rejected the pope’s authority to allocate sovereignty beyond Christendom.

In 1518, Pope Leo X promoted a general peace among central European Christian rulers, resulting in the Treaty of London. But a century later, the region’s Thirty Years’ War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. After it ended, European diplomacy became more overtly secular. While the pope could create peace architecture, he could not sustain it once political incentives shifted.

For 1,114 years, popes ruled as absolute monarchs over the Italian territories known as the Papal States, strategically located in central Italy. With their loss, completed in 1870, the pope gained a different kind of leverage.

In the late 19th century, the Holy See aligned itself with emerging legal approaches to peace, including arbitration and international adjudication. It endorsed mechanisms that restrained unilateral force. Neutrality was no longer a defensive posture, but an active diplomatic resource.

Moral authority in total war

The first world war tested the limits of that resource. Pope Benedict XV confronted industrialised mass conflict, in which moral appeals struggled to gain traction. His peace proposal of August 1 1917 outlined principles that would later become familiar: disarmament, arbitration, freedom of the seas and territorial restitution. Governments acknowledged the initiative, but largely rejected its premises.

While unsuccessful, Benedict XV’s intervention reinforced a papal vision of peace grounded in law and justice, rather than domination. It entrenched the Holy See’s role as a humanitarian actor, supporting prisoners of war, refugees and civilian relief – even when diplomatic leverage was minimal.

During the second world war, Pope Pius XII adopted a similar posture. His 1939 radio appeal warned war would destroy everything peace could preserve. Throughout the conflict, the Holy See relied on discreet diplomacy and humanitarian networks. Its capacity to mediate was constrained, but its credibility as a channel of communication endured.

In the early nuclear age, successive popes increasingly addressed the ethical implications of weapons capable of annihilation. The emphasis shifted toward global norms, restraint and the need for institutions capable of preventing catastrophe.

Speaking to the world

That shift became explicit in the United Nations era. When Pope Paul VI addressed the UN General Assembly on October 4 1965, his message was not tied to any state interest. “Never again war,” he urged, framing peace as a universal moral obligation rather than a diplomatic bargain.

This has defined much modern papal diplomacy. The Holy See acts through agenda-setting, moral language and support for multilateral norms. It rarely produces treaties directly, but shapes the terms in which peace and war are debated.

At times, however, the papacy has returned to hands-on mediation. The Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile in 1978 brought the two states close to war. Both accepted papal mediation, culminating in the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Its conditions were consent from both parties, trust in neutrality and a willingness to frame compromise as honourable rather than humiliating.

More recently, Pope Francis was involved in the restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, announced on December 17 2014. Symbolic gestures, such as Francis kneeling before South Sudan’s rival leaders in April 2019, reinforced his role as a moral catalyst rather than a governing authority.

Why this invitation is different

Against this long history, Trump’s “Board of Peace” stands out. It is not an ad hoc mediation effort, nor a quiet facilitation role requested by all parties. It is a formally constituted, state-led body, with clear political ownership and governance ambitions. Membership would signal alignment with a specific national framework.

Accepting a seat on such a board might offer influence over humanitarian access, reconstruction priorities and the protection of civilians. It could give the Holy See a voice inside a process that will shape lives on the ground.

But the risks are equally real.

Formal participation could narrow the pope’s room to manoeuvre, making it harder to engage actors who distrust the board’s sponsor. It could blur the line between moral authority and political endorsement.

Joining a state-led board could increase short-term influence, but at the possible cost of long-term credibility. And once neutrality is perceived to be compromised, it is difficult to restore.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. If Pope Leo joined Trump’s Board of Peace, it would compromise centuries of ‘positive neutrality’ – https://theconversation.com/if-pope-leo-joined-trumps-board-of-peace-it-would-compromise-centuries-of-positive-neutrality-274283

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Gibson Ncube, Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch University

The film Rafiki is a charming love story that plays out in urban Kenya. It follows two teenage girls whose close friendship slowly turns into first love. Directed by rising filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, it was celebrated as groundbreaking by critics and at festivals when it was released in 2018. But back home in Kenya, where homosexuality is criminal, the film was banned.

On 23 January 2026, after a lengthy legal campaign by the filmmaker, the Kenyan Court of Appeals unbanned Rafiki for public screening in that country.

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In 2018, the state-funded Kenya Film Classification Board had justified the ban because the film’s happy ending was perceived to be “promoting homosexuality”. The ban quickly became a symbol of the problems filmmakers face whenever they challenge traditional views on sex, gender and morality.

The unbanning marks more than the rehabilitation of a single film. It signals a subtle but significant shift in how African film might negotiate censorship in the years to come.

My research as a scholar of African queer cinemas has focused on how such moments reveal the fragile yet transformative possibilities through which African film cultures negotiate visibility and legitimacy. And the right to imagine queer futures and freedom of speech on their own terms.

At first glance, the unbanning might appear modest. Kenya has not decriminalised same-sex relations, and legal restrictions on LGBTIQ+ lives remain firmly in place. Even so, Rafiki’s return is very important.

It marks the first time a Kenyan film previously prohibited for queer content has been permitted full public circulation. Other recently banned queer-themed films like I am Samuel remain banned.

Although largely symbolic, the gesture disrupts long-standing assumptions about what African films can show, who they can centre, and which lives can be made visible.

Censorship and representation

African film industries have historically operated under difficult systems of moral, religious, and political regulation. From colonial censorship boards to postcolonial classification authorities, film has been treated as requiring constant surveillance.

Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, has been one of the most heavily policed domains. Films tackling same-sex desire have often been banned, restricted to festival circuits, or forced into underground circulation. In South Africa, the film Inxeba/The Wound was effectively banned from mainstream cinemas. In Nigeria, the first independent queer film Ìfé was prohibited from cinemas.

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Read more:
How young filmmakers are protecting artistic freedom in Kenya

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Rafiki’s initial banning followed this pattern. Despite being selected for screening at the important Cannes Film Festival, it was deemed unsuitable for Kenyan audiences. An internationally celebrated Kenyan film could be screened overseas but not in Nairobi.

So the unbanning disrupts this asymmetry. It shows that national cinemas cannot indefinitely insulate themselves from transnational circuits. Overseas, African queer films increasingly gain visibility, prestige and market value.

Kenyan law appears, in this sense, to be more flexible and changing in response to international attention, cultural pressure and public image.

African audiences

One of the most significant implications of the unbanning concerns the question of audiences. Bans don’t just suppress content; they also actively shape who is imagined as the viewers. For decades, queer African films have been implicitly addressed to foreign audiences, festivals and academic readers, rather than to local publics.

Allowing Rafiki to screen at home challenges this idea. It opens a space, even if it’s a fragile one, for Kenyan audiences to encounter queer lives. Not as abstract political controversies but as intimate, everyday narratives. Rafiki tells a deliberately modest story, grounded in the innocence of first love and the textures of everyday life in the city.

This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition.

In this sense, the unbanning contributes to a slow reconfiguration of African film publics. It suggests that African audiences are not uniformly conservative or inherently hostile to queer narratives. Instead, they are plural and capable of engaging with complex stories about identity, love and desire.

These publics have been changing, thanks in part to streaming platforms and digital technologies. Even where films are banned from cinemas, viewers can still watch, share and debate them online. This shift is important as cinema spaces themselves are declining across many African countries.

African filmmakers

For African filmmakers, the unbanning carries both practical and symbolic importance. Practically, it signals the possibility that national classification regimes may become more negotiable and more responsive to legal challenges and public pressure. The 2018 High Court ruling that temporarily lifted the ban to allow limited screenings had already established an important precedent. The current unbanning consolidates that into institutional practice. It has set a legal precedent.

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Read more:
Banning African films like Rafiki and Inxeba doesn’t diminish their influence

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Symbolically, the decision offers a measure of protection to filmmakers who dare to take aesthetic and political risks. Rafiki was shot cautiously in order to evade state surveillance.

It teaches us that queer storytelling is no longer automatically incompatible with national cinema. This may encourage a new generation of African directors, screenwriters and producers to pursue narratives once seen as too dangerous, too marginal, or too commercially unviable.

But caution should not be thrown to the wind. The unbanning does not signal the end of censorship, nor does it guarantee a hospitable environment for filmmakers. Classification boards still retain broad powers, and political backlash remains likely.

A fragile opening …

The unbanning of Rafiki should not be overstated. Legal prohibitions against same-sex relations remain in force. Violence against queer communities persists, and cultural backlash is inevitable. Yet openings in cultural policy often precede legal and social change, not the other way around.

Cinema, precisely because it works through emotions and the visual, can create the conditions for new ethical and political sensibilities to emerge.

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Read more:
Queer film in Africa is rising – even in countries with the harshest anti-LGBTIQ+ laws

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Rafiki’s return ultimately represents a possibility that African films can speak more openly about intimacy, vulnerability and difference. A possibility that African audiences can encounter these stories on their own terms.

Gibson Ncube receives funding from the National Research Foundation (South Africa).

– ref. Rafiki unbanned on appeal: why it’s an important moment for African film – https://theconversation.com/rafiki-unbanned-on-appeal-why-its-an-important-moment-for-african-film-274542

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Farah N. Jan, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Pennsylvania

The United States is seemingly moving toward a potential strike on Iran.

On Jan. 28, 2026, President Donald Trump sharply intensified his threats to the Islamic Republic, suggesting that if Tehran did not agree to a set of demands, he could mount an attack “with speed and violence.” To underline the threat, the Pentagon moved aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln – along with destroyers, bombers and fighter jets – to positions within striking distance of the country.

Foremost among the various demands the U.S. administration has put before Iran’s leader is a permanent end to the country’s uranium enrichment program. It has also called for limits to the development of ballistic missiles and a cutting off of Tehran’s support for proxy groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Trump apparently sees in this moment an opportunity to squeeze an Iran weakened by a poor economy and massive protests that swept through the country in early January.

But as a scholar of Middle Eastern security politics and proliferation, I have concerns. Any U.S. military action now could have widespread unintended consequences later. And that includes the potential for accelerated global nuclear proliferation – regardless of whether the Iranian government is able to survive its current moment of crisis.

Iran’s threshold lesson

The fall of the Islamic Republic is far from certain, even if the U.S. uses military force. Iran is not a fragile state susceptible to quick collapse. With a population of 93 million and substantial state capacity, it has a layered coercive apparatus and security institutions built to survive crises. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s military wing, is commonly estimated in the low-to-high hundreds of thousands, and it commands or can mobilize auxiliary forces.

After 47 years of rule, the Islamic Republic’s institutions are deeply embedded in Iranian society. Moreover, any change in leadership would not likely produce a clean slate. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged as much, telling lawmakers on Jan. 28 that there was “no simple answer” to what would happen if the government fell. “No one knows who would take over,” he said. The exiled opposition is fragmented, disconnected from domestic realities and lacks the organizational capacity to govern such a large and divided country.

And in this uncertainty lies the danger. Iran is a “threshold state” — a country with the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons but that has not crossed the final line of production.

A destabilized threshold state poses three risks: loss of centralized command over nuclear material and scientists, incentives for factions to monetize or export expertise, and acceleration logic — actors racing to secure deterrence before collapse.

History offers warnings. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s produced near-misses and concern over the whereabouts of missing nuclear material. Meanwhile, the activities of the A.Q. Khan network, centered around the so-called father of Pakistan’s atomic program, proved that expertise travels – in Khan’s case to North Korea, Libya and Iran.

What strikes teach

Whether or not regime change might follow, any U.S. military action carries profound implications for global proliferation.

Iran’s status as a threshold state has been a choice of strategic restraint. But when, in June 2025, Israel and the U.S struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, that attack – and the latest Trump threats – sent a clear message that threshold status provides no reliable security.

The message to other nations with nuclear aspirations is stark and builds on a number of hard nonproliferation lessons over the past three decades. Libya abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 in exchange for normalized relations with the West. Yet just eight years later, NATO airstrikes in support of Libyan rebels led to the capture and killing of longtime strongman Moammar Gaddafi.

Ukraine relinquished its nuclear arsenal in 1994 for security assurances from Russia, the U.S. and Britain. Yet 20 years later, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, before launching an outright invasion in 2022.

Now we can add Iran to the list: The country exercised restraint at the threshold level, and yet it was attacked by U.S. bombs in 2025 and now faces a potential follow-up strike.

The lesson is not lost on Mehdi Mohammadi, a senior Iranian adviser. Speaking on state TV on Jan. 27, he said Washington’s demands “translate into disarming yourself so we could strike you when we want.”

If abandoning a nuclear program leads to regime change, relinquishing weapons results in invasion, and remaining at the threshold invites military strikes, the logic goes, then security is only truly achieved through the possession of nuclear weapons – and not by negotiating them away or halting development before completion.

If Iranian leadership survives any U.S. attack, they will, I believe, almost certainly double down on Iran’s weapons program.

IAEA credibility

U.S. military threats or strikes in the pursuit of destroying a nation’s nuclear program also undermine the international architecture designed to prevent proliferation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency was, until the earlier Israel and U.S. strikes, functioning as designed – detecting, flagging and verifying. Its monitoring of Iran was proof that the inspection regime worked.

Military strikes – or the credible threat of them – remove inspectors, disrupt monitoring continuity and signal that compliance does not guarantee safety.

If following the rules offers no protection, why follow the rules? At stake is the credibility of the IAEA and faith in the whole system of international diplomacy and monitoring to tamp down nuclear concerns.

The domino effect

Every nation weighing its nuclear options is watching to see how this latest standoff between the U.S. and Iran plays out.

Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has made no secret of its own nuclear ambitions, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman publicly declaring that the kingdom would pursue nuclear weapons if Iran did.

Yet a U.S. strike on Iran would not reassure Washington’s Gulf allies. Rather, it could unsettle them. The June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran were conducted to protect Israel, not Saudi Arabia or Iran. Gulf leaders may conclude that American military action flows to preferred partners, not necessarily to them. And if U.S. protection is selective rather than universal, a rational response could be to hedge independently.

Saudi Arabia’s deepening defense cooperation with nuclear power Pakistan, for example, represents a hedge against American unreliability and regional instability. The Gulf kingdom has invested heavily in Pakistani military capabilities and maintains what many analysts believe are understandings regarding Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Turkey, meanwhile, has chafed under NATO’s nuclear arrangements and has periodically signaled interest in an independent capability. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan questioned in 2019 why Turkey should not possess nuclear weapons when others in the region do. An attack on Iran, particularly one that Turkey opposes, could well accelerate Turkish hedging and potentially trigger a serious indigenous weapons program.

And the nuclear cascade would not likely stop at the Middle East. South Korea and Japan have remained non-nuclear largely because of confidence in American extended deterrence. Regional proliferation and the risk of a destabilized Iran exporting its know-how, scientists and technology would raise questions in Seoul and Tokyo about whether American guarantees can be trusted.

An emerging counter-order?

Arab Gulf monarchies certainly understand these risks, which goes some way toward explaining why they have lobbied the Trump administration against military action against Iran – despite Tehran being a major antagonism in Gulf states’ desire to “de-risk” the region.

The American-led regional security architecture is already under strain. It risks fraying further if Gulf partners diversify their security ties and hedge against U.S. unpredictability.

As a result, the Trump administration’s threats and potential strikes against Iran may, conversely, result not in increased American influence, but in diminished relevance as the region divides into competing spheres of influence.

And perhaps most alarming of all, I fear that it could teach every aspiring nuclear state that security is attainable only through the possession of the bomb.

Farah N. Jan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. US military action in Iran risks igniting a regional and global nuclear cascade – https://theconversation.com/us-military-action-in-iran-risks-igniting-a-regional-and-global-nuclear-cascade-274599

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University

The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran are once again on the brink of a major confrontation. This would have terrible ramifications for both countries, the region and the world.

All signs point in this direction, but the two sides also have an off-ramp: the possibility of reaching an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and other disputed issues.

The Iranian regime has never been so besieged both internally and externally. It has just faced yet another widespread protest movement demanding the government’s ouster, while dealing with the threat of military action by the US, supported by its ally, Israel.

Even so, the regime remains resilient and defiant. It brutally crushed the recent protests at the cost of thousands of lives and mass arrests and has warned the US of an all-out war if it attacks.

At the same time, it has signalled a willingness to reach a deal with the US over its nuclear program to avoid such an outcome.

So, what happens next, and can war be avoided?

A regime in survival mode

The regime’s tenacity is embedded in its unique theocratic nature, in which societal subordination and confrontation with outside enemies are the modus operandi.

Since its inception 47 years ago, the regime has learned how to ensure its longevity. This requires having a strong and defendable state, armed with all the necessary repressive instruments of state power, along with an ideology that mixes the concept of Shia Islamic martyrdom with fierce Iranian nationalism.

Given this, the regime has operated within a jihadi (combative) and ijtihadi (pragmatist) framework for its survival.

It has prepared for both war and making deals. This is not the first time Iran’s clerical leaders have been put in a tight corner by their own people and outside adversaries. They have always found a way to work through challenges and threats to their existence.

Still, the current challenge is bigger than any they’ve faced before. Over the past month, US President Donald Trump has vowed to punish the regime for its repression of the Iranian people, and now for its refusal to reach a deal on its nuclear program.

Some believe his ultimate goal, though, is to create the conditions for regime change.

Regime change not a given

Trump must know that regime change in Iran will not happen easily. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his fellow clerics are ready to fight to the very end. They know that if the Islamic system they created goes down, everyone in the regime is most likely to perish with it.

The regime has built sufficient fanatical forces (namely, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij paramilitary force) and advanced missiles and drones to defend itself. It also has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz, though which 20% of the world’s oil and 25% of its liquefied natural gas flows every day.

The regime also has the backing of China, Russia and North Korea, which means any US assault could quickly escalate into a broader regional war.

Although Trump has not favoured regime change in the past, he now seems as if he’s not ruling it out. (His ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long had this aim.)

But even though Trump now has a “massive armada” of ships and fighter jets in the region, the Iranian regime cannot be toppled by air and sea alone. And a ground invasion is not on Trump’s agenda, given the United States’ bitter experiences with ground offensives in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The regime could only crumble if a sizeable part of its security forces defected to the opposition. So far, they have remained quite loyal and solidly behind the leadership – as the brutal crackdown to the recent protests shows.

A possible destabilising future

Even if the regime were to crumble from within by some chance, what would come next?

Iran is a large and complex country, with an ethnically mixed population. While Persians form a slim majority of the population, the country has significant minority groups, such as the Kurds, Azeris, Arabs and Balochis. They all have a history of movements for secession and autonomy.

With the exception of two short periods of experimenting with democracy in the early and mid-20th century, Iran has been governed by authoritarian rulers. In the event of a power vacuum, it remains prone to chaos and disintegration.

It is doubtful that Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941–79, will command sufficient public support and organisational strength to ensure a smooth transition to democracy. He has lived most of his life in exile in the US and has been closely identified with Israeli and American interests.

Netanyahu would be pleased to see a disintegrated Iran, as he has always wanted to prevent the formation of a united Muslim front against Israel. But the fall-out from a destabilised Iran would be problematic for the region.

These considerations are probably weighing on Trump’s mind, delaying his promise to the Iranian protesters that “help is on its way”.

Diplomacy is the better way forward. The time has come for the Iranian and American leadership to compromise and resurrect their July 2015 nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew in 2018.

This should be urgently followed by Iran’s clerical rulers opening their iron fist and allowing the Iranian people to determine their future and that of their country within a democratic framework.

Otherwise, the volatility that has long dominated this oil-rich country, where between 30–40% of the population lives in poverty, will eventually devour the regime.

Amin Saikal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. With Iran weakened, Trump’s end goal may now be regime change. It’s an incredibly risky gamble – https://theconversation.com/with-iran-weakened-trumps-end-goal-may-now-be-regime-change-its-an-incredibly-risky-gamble-274626