Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump launched Saturday’s wide-ranging attack on Iran after a weeks-long lobbying effort by an unusual pair of U.S. allies in the Middle East — Israel and Saudi Arabia — according to four people familiar with the matter, as Israeli and U.S. forces teamed to topple Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei after nearly four decades in power. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating…

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Ellie Geranmayeh writes: The US and Israel have jointly launched an unprecedented military campaign against Iran, in violation of international law. President Donald Trump’s announcement of the war leaves no doubt that his end-goal, at least for now, is regime change. He has left no off-ramps but complete surrender for Iran’s leadership. A cornered Iran is now fulfilling its threats to respond with widespread counter-strikes on targets across the Middle East. This is Trump’s war of choice. But that does…

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Nicole Grajewski writes: For decades, Tehran calibrated its enrichment activities as a form of what strategists call “coercive ambiguity,” maintaining a threshold position that was threatening enough to matter politically without being unambiguous enough to justify an overwhelming response from adversaries. The logic was straightforward: Stay below the red line, use the program as leverage in negotiations, and extract concessions from a West that preferred a deal to a war. This approach worked, up to a point. The JCPOA [Joint…

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The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran – which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war – is fraught with contradictions, and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention. In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US and that the country was “working to build missiles that…

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Shaun Walker writes: William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, his CIA director, to warn Putin that the economic and political consequences if he did so would be disastrous. Fifteen years…

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The Washington Post reports: As the Trump administration weighs an attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top general has cautioned President Donald Trump and other officials that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel, according to people familiar with internal discussions. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his concerns at a White House meeting last week with Trump and his top…

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Simon Tisdall writes: Viewed from Europe, the US’s failure to defend the people of Ukraine against Russian aggression is the greatest and most consequential of a host of recent American betrayals. It’s not just the sickening subservience shown to Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal and mass killer. It’s not only the victim-blaming and bullying of Kyiv into making concessions. It’s not even Donald Trump’s crass attempts to monetise the war and milk the misery of millions for Nobel glory,…

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The New York Times reports: In early January, as Iran faced nationwide protests and the threat of strikes by the United States, the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, turned to a trusted and loyal lieutenant to steer the country: Ali Larijani, the country’s top national security official. Since then, Mr. Larijani, 67, a veteran politician, a former commander in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council, has effectively been running the country….

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Axios reports: The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon. Why it matters: A U.S. military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela, sources say. The sources noted it would likely be a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign that’s much broader in scope — and more existential for the regime — than the Israeli-led…

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Axios reports: The Ukrainian people would reject a peace deal that involves Ukraine unilaterally withdrawing from the eastern Donbas region and turning it over to Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios in an interview Tuesday. Why it matters: As Zelensky was speaking to Axios, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were meeting for a third round of direct talks in Geneva. The main sticking point is control of the Donbas, around 10% of which is still in Ukrainian hands. Zelensky said U.S. mediators Steve Witkoff and…

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