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Category: War

Trump and Netanyahu’s war is turning Iran into a major world power

Trump and Netanyahu’s war is turning Iran into a major world power

Robert A. Pape writes: In recent years, the conventional geopolitical wisdom has been that the world order was moving toward three centers of power: the United States, China and Russia. That view assumed that power derived primarily from economic scale and military capability. That assumption no longer holds. A fourth center of global power is quickly emerging — Iran — that does not rival those three nations economically or militarily. Instead, its newfound power derives from its control over the…

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John Mearsheimer: Israel is the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East

John Mearsheimer: Israel is the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East

  The greatest threat to stability in the Middle East is not Iran, but “the US working closely together with Israel”, argues United States political scientist John Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer tells host Steve Clemons that the notion that the US and Israel are making a safer, more stable Middle East is “ludicrous”. And the idea that Iran is “the great destabiliser” in the region is “a myth that the US and Israel purvey”. After US President Donald Trump insisted that “We…

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How China can survive without the Strait of Hormuz

How China can survive without the Strait of Hormuz

Reuters reports: The world’s largest importer of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is, paradoxically, also one of the best placed to weather the waterway’s closure. China consumes oceans of oil from the Gulf and imports roughly as much from the region as India, Japan and South Korea combined. In response to the closure of the Strait, officials across Asia are asking citizens to take shorter showers or work from home to save energy. In China, the ruling Communist Party’s…

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War-driven energy crisis gives China a boost for its renewable exports

War-driven energy crisis gives China a boost for its renewable exports

The Washington Post reports: As the oil and gas crisis set off by the war in Iran drives governments to accelerate their transitions to renewable energy, one country above all stands to benefit. China dominates renewable energy supply chains, producing a vast majority of the world’s solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. Exports of these technologies were already climbing to new heights in the first two months of 2026. Now volatility in the supply of fossil fuels is…

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As Trump threatens to commit war crimes in Iran, his ‘own morality’ is nowhere to be found

As Trump threatens to commit war crimes in Iran, his ‘own morality’ is nowhere to be found

Edward Wong writes: Power plants, desalination stations, oil wells, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. They are the foundations of civilian life in Iran, and their destruction by American and Israeli forces would cause widespread suffering among the country’s 93 million people — and in most cases would be considered a war crime under international law. Yet President Trump has repeatedly threatened to do exactly that, with the aim of sending Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” as…

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Pope Leo: ‘Let those who have weapons lay them down!’

Pope Leo: ‘Let those who have weapons lay them down!’

The Washington Post reports: Pope Leo XIV used his first Easter speech Sunday to deliver a resounding call for peace in times of renewed war, declaring, “Let those who have weapons lay them down!” “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!” Leo said. “Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them! We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent….

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Life and death aboard cargo ships stranded near the Strait of Hormuz

Life and death aboard cargo ships stranded near the Strait of Hormuz

The Wall Street Journal reports: On the 19th day that the oil tanker ASP Avana was stuck in the Persian Gulf, its 47-year-old captain, Rakesh Ranjan Singh, died. ​Singh had boarded the vessel in early February and sailed to the Persian Gulf to load crude. But his journey back to Asia ground to a halt Feb. 28 when U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran. With no ships allowed to cross the Strait of Hormuz, under threat of attack, his ship…

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Gulf funds reconsider American investments, including backing for Paramount merger, as Iran war rages On

Gulf funds reconsider American investments, including backing for Paramount merger, as Iran war rages On

Ryan Grim reports: Gulf sovereign wealth funds are undertaking a sweeping review of American investments, driven by a combination of commercial necessity and political recalibration driven by the Iran war, according to sources familiar with deliberations around the high-level financing deals. In particular, the planned merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery, made possible as a result of Gulf financing, is getting a new look. A postponed meeting of the board of the Qatar Investment Authority will reconvene within…

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Control over Strait of Hormuz will determine who wins the war with Iran

Control over Strait of Hormuz will determine who wins the war with Iran

The Wall Street Journal reports: Oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers shimmer all over the horizon to the left of the windswept beach here at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. They have been bottled up in the Persian Gulf ever since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran more than a month ago. To the right, with the Iranian coast only 40 miles away, the dark-blue sea is completely empty. Only a handful of vessels…

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U.S. success in destroying Iran’s missile capability is being overstated, intelligence indicates

U.S. success in destroying Iran’s missile capability is being overstated, intelligence indicates

The New York Times reports: Iranian operatives have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs, returning them to operation hours after an attack, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Iran has also retained a significant amount of its missiles and mobile launchers, the reports say. The Pentagon and White House this week claimed to have made substantial progress against Iran. At a briefing this week, the Pentagon said it had struck 11,000 targets in…

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Iranian drone strike on U.S. embassy in Riyadh caused more damage than disclosed

Iranian drone strike on U.S. embassy in Riyadh caused more damage than disclosed

The Wall Street Journal reports: An Iranian drone attack last month on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia did more extensive damage than previously disclosed, current and former American officials said, showing Iran’s ability to hit Washington’s assets in the kingdom. The attack happened March 3, when an Iranian drone evaded the air defenses guarding Riyadh’s gated Diplomatic Quarter and slammed into the American compound. A minute later, a second drone flew into the hole made by the first one…

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Fertilizer blockade: Record numbers of people could face acute hunger if Hormuz remains closed

Fertilizer blockade: Record numbers of people could face acute hunger if Hormuz remains closed

The Guardian reports: The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend. A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it. The waterway’s near-total shipping…

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Two U.S. warplanes shot down; search ongoing in Iran for one missing crew member

Two U.S. warplanes shot down; search ongoing in Iran for one missing crew member

The Washington Post reports: Two U.S. military aircraft were shot down in separate incidents Friday while conducting combat operations against Iran, setting off a frantic search-and-rescue effort that remains ongoing for one missing crew member, U.S. officials said. The F-15E fighter jet and the A-10 attack plane both were hit by incoming fire, U.S. officials said. One of two crew members aboard the F-15, which crashed inside Iran, was rescued, though their condition was not immediately clear, the officials said….

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Hegseth wants to remake the U.S. military in his own adolescent image of masculinity

Hegseth wants to remake the U.S. military in his own adolescent image of masculinity

Garrett Graff writes: Ahead of his book launch next month, I interviewed Jasper Craven last week for Long Lead’s newsletter, Depth Perception. Jasper has made a career out of what he describes, dryly, as “veterans’ issues in the age of forever wars,” but much of his beat turns out to provide insight into what I called “a sprawling crisis in masculinity that’s fueling an interconnected toxic stew of misogyny, internet culture, gambling, and violence.” His beat is where the Venn…

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Iran’s president addresses ‘the people of the United States of America’

Iran’s president addresses ‘the people of the United States of America’

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian posted the following message on X: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life: Iran—by this very name, character, and identity—is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never,…

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Why batteries may save the world

Why batteries may save the world

Paul Krugman writes: The war goes on, and so does the global energy crisis. In fact, I believe that prices of oil futures remain too low given how much spot prices will need to rise to resolve the shortages that will hit once oil supplies that were shipped before the Strait of Hormuz was closed are exhausted. But a better future is coming, despite Donald Trump’s assault on renewable energy as he tries to drag us back into the fossil…

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