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Category: Politics

Major escalation: Israel strikes Iran natural gas facility in coordination with U.S.

Major escalation: Israel strikes Iran natural gas facility in coordination with U.S.

Axios reports: The Israeli Air Force struck a natural gas processing facility in southwestern Iran, two senior Israeli officials said. Why it matters: This is the first time Israel has struck natural gas facilities in Iran, which are key to Iran’s economy. The Israeli officials said the strike was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration. A U.S. Defense official confirmed that. The semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that several facilities in the South Pars gas field near Bushehr were targeted. According to the report, emergency teams…

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Germany’s foreign minister warns Iran war could plunge ‘entire world into major crisis’

Germany’s foreign minister warns Iran war could plunge ‘entire world into major crisis’

Politico reports: German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Wednesday warned of a dangerous spiral of unintended consequences if the Middle East war escalates further. “There is a real risk of escalation, which could plunge not only this region but the entire world into a major crisis,” Wadephul said during a joint press conference with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, in Berlin. The German government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz was initially far more supportive of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on…

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U.S. intelligence saw no change in Iran’s missile capabilities before war

U.S. intelligence saw no change in Iran’s missile capabilities before war

The New York Times reports: Two top intelligence officials directly contradicted one of the Trump administration’s justifications for going to war with Iran, repeating on Wednesday the intelligence community’s conclusion that Iran was years away from developing missiles capable of hitting the United States. Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, would not say whether the intelligence community had determined that Iran would be able to launch such…

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Avi Shlaim: ‘Trump is Netanyahu’s poodle, he plays him like a fiddle’

Avi Shlaim: ‘Trump is Netanyahu’s poodle, he plays him like a fiddle’

  One of Israel’s most highly regarded and world-renowned professors of history and international relations, Avi Shlaim, says that Donald Trump is “Netanyahu’s poodle”, adding that Netanyahu “plays him like a fiddle”. Prof. Shlaim says that Donald Trump is the only American President who is gullible enough to become part of Netanyahu’s plan for regime change in Iran. However, Prof. Shlaim believes that regime change is almost impossible to achieve from the air and what is far more likely is…

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How Silicon Valley became part of the military-industrial complex

How Silicon Valley became part of the military-industrial complex

The New York Times reports: As the war in the Middle East enters its third week, intelligence gathered by the Pentagon is being analyzed by technology from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, on a system run by the data analytics firm Palantir. Drones created by defense tech start-up in Arizona have emerged as a key piece of the U.S. war arsenal. And anti-drone systems made by a California start-up have been deployed to protect U.S. forces in the region. Silicon…

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Duplicity: Israel publicly encourages Iranians to rise up but privately assesses they’ll be ‘slaughtered’

Duplicity: Israel publicly encourages Iranians to rise up but privately assesses they’ll be ‘slaughtered’

The Washington Post reports: Senior Israeli officials have told U.S. diplomats that Iranian protesters will “get slaughtered” if they take to the streets against their government even as Israel publicly calls for a popular uprising, according to a State Department cable reviewed by The Washington Post. The cable, circulated by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Friday, relayed an Israeli assessment that Iran’s regime is “not cracking” and is willing to “fight to the end” despite the Feb. 28 killing…

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‘They hold the cards now’: Trump allies fear Iran is slipping beyond the president’s control

‘They hold the cards now’: Trump allies fear Iran is slipping beyond the president’s control

Politico reports: When the U.S. started firing Tomahawk missiles at Iran late last month, many of President Donald Trump’s allies hoped it would be a quick, surgical operation, similar to last year’s strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities or the ouster of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January. Though uneasy, they were reassured by the belief that Trump’s open-ended objectives gave him the flexibility to declare victory whenever he saw fit. Now, more than two weeks into the campaign, some of…

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Joe Kent has quit. Will Tulsi Gabbard be next?

Joe Kent has quit. Will Tulsi Gabbard be next?

Shane Harris writes: Joe Kent, the U.S. government’s top counterterrorism official and a self-identified “America First” Republican, is not the only Donald Trump ally to disagree with the president’s decision to attack Iran. But today he became the first senior government official to do so publicly, quitting his job and offering an explanation that undercut Trump’s rationale for starting the war. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter, an extraordinary statement from an…

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UK security adviser attended U.S.-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach

UK security adviser attended U.S.-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach

The Guardian reports: Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, attended the final talks between the US and Iran and judged that the offer made by Tehran on its nuclear programme was significant enough to prevent a rush to war, the Guardian can reveal. Powell thought progress had been made in Geneva and that the deal proposed by Iran was “surprising”, according to sources. Two days after the talks ended, and after a date had been agreed for a further round…

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The world’s most credible democracy watchdog: ‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’

The world’s most credible democracy watchdog: ‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’

Martin Gelin writes: The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey. “Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding…

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Epstein and his academic friends bonded through male supremacy

Epstein and his academic friends bonded through male supremacy

Lydia Wilson writes: When I read through many of the email threads between [John] Brockman [host of Edge], Epstein and various intellectuals, what was most jarring wasn’t the crude codes about women and sex that wouldn’t have been out of place in messages between teenage boys — the mass media coverage had to some extent prepared me for this boorish childishness of successful men. What unsettled me was, in fact, the familiarity of how these men were speaking to each…

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Trump was ‘high on his own supply.’ Now he is confronted with the reality of war

Trump was ‘high on his own supply.’ Now he is confronted with the reality of war

Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write: Trump has grown accustomed to doing what he wants and then quickly improvising if things go south. But this time, some in his inner circle have what one official called “buyer’s remorse” — growing fears that attacking Iran was a mistake. A source close to the administration said some key officials around Trump were reluctant or wanted more time. “He ended up saying, ‘I just want to do it,’” the source said. “He grossly…

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Iranian leaders taunt ‘U.S. Epstein class’ during war

Iranian leaders taunt ‘U.S. Epstein class’ during war

Middle East Eye reports: Senior Iranian officials have repeatedly invoked the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to attack Washington’s political elite during the ongoing Israeli-US war on the country. Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, accused figures linked to Epstein’s network of plotting to provoke a global crisis and blame Tehran. Posting on X, Larijani said: “I’ve heard that the remaining members of Epstein’s network have devised a conspiracy to create an incident similar to 9/11 and blame…

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Trump’s threats against NATO reveal glaring absence of any strategy on Iran

Trump’s threats against NATO reveal glaring absence of any strategy on Iran

Dan Sabbagh writes: If there was a moment when the absence of a US strategy on Iran was exposed, then this was it. Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that the UK, China, France, Japan and others participate in a naval escort for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz. Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow. Iran had few good military options for fighting…

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Germany to Trump: We won’t help you reopen the Strait of Hormuz — ‘It’s not NATO’s war’

Germany to Trump: We won’t help you reopen the Strait of Hormuz — ‘It’s not NATO’s war’

Politico reports: Germany’s government rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that NATO allies help secure the Strait of Hormuz, declaring that the alliance had no place in the war. “This war has nothing to do with NATO. It’s not NATO’s war,” Stefan Kornelius, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “NATO is a defensive alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory,” he added. Trump had warned NATO allies on Sunday they face…

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Starmer distances UK from Iran war as EU leaders rule out sending warships

Starmer distances UK from Iran war as EU leaders rule out sending warships

The Guardian reports: Keir Starmer has insisted that the UK will not be drawn into the wider war in the Middle East as European leaders ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz. In his clearest signal yet of the UK’s divergence from Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, the prime minister said he would stand firm in the face of US pressure despite the decision being “difficult, there’s no hiding that”. As concerns mounted at home over US demands…

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