Music: Jon Hassell — ‘Empire V’
Why the U.S. and Israel are losing the war against Iran
Patrick Wintour writes: The price of oil is the key metric for Iran’s success, along with its remaining supply of missile launchers. As a result, 95% of traffic through the strait of Hormuz remains blocked, depriving the markets of 10-13m barrels of oil each day. Such is Iran’s stranglehold even Trump describes Iran allowing ships through as a “present” to the US. Trump admits he is surprised the price of oil is not higher. Jason Bordoff, the founding director at…
Trump getting ‘bored with Iran’
MS NOW reports: Nearly one month after the U.S. began strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump is sending thousands of troops to the Middle East to potentially fight in a war he said he has “already won.” That contradiction has frustrated some senior White House aides and outside allies, three of whom spoke to MS NOW about the president’s public messaging. They described it as confusing, internally inconsistent and increasingly detached from battlefield reality. Trump calling the war already won…
Trump faces new oil shock threat as Iran eyes Red Sea
Politico reports: It’s not just Hormuz. There’s a second strait in the Middle East vital to global energy markets that Iran is threatening to close if President Donald Trump fails to wind down the Iran war. The world is already experiencing the worst disruption to global energy markets in history following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. But if Iranian proxies close the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a busy Red Sea choke point — it would compound global financial woes…
Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos and documents
Reuters reports: Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.” The hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while…
A pliant autocracy in Iran won’t solve America’s problems in the Middle East
Fawaz A. Gerges writes: Over the past few weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump and his team have voiced contradictory objectives for the war they, together with Israel, launched against Iran. But it is clear that after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, Trump hoped to deal with a transactional authoritarian figure. He called “what we did in Venezuela”—forcing the replacement of one autocrat, President Nicolás Maduro, with another, Delcy Rodríguez—a “perfect scenario” for Iran and insisted on being “involved with…
MAGA is growing anxious over Viktor Orbán’s fate
Ian Ward writes: As the war with Iran continues to dominate headlines in Washington, another overseas battle is quietly capturing attention among the elite echelons of the MAGA movement: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s fight for reelection. Orbán, who has consolidated power over Hungarian politics since re-entering the prime minister’s office in 2010, is facing one of his most challenging reelection contests to date, as voters chafe at a sluggish economy, the rising cost of living and a string of…
The rapid rise of China as a scientific superpower
Ross Andersen writes: If China finally eclipses the United States as the world’s preeminent scientific superpower, there won’t be an official announcement. Neither will there necessarily be a dramatic Promethean demonstration, a bomb flash in the desert, a satellite beeping overhead, a moon landing. It will be a quiet moment, observed by a small, specialized subset of scientists who have forsaken the study of the stars, animals, and plants in favor of a more navel-gazing subject: the practice of science…
Music: Terrace Martin — ‘Spirit Refresher’
Gulf states may soon have to ‘repatriate tens of billions of dollars in investments’ from the U.S.
Politico reports: President Donald Trump is counting on money from the Gulf Arab States to power his economic golden age. But as the war with Iran nears its fifth week and the regional economy enters a free fall, hundreds of billions of dollars that Middle Eastern governments have pledged for U.S. projects are under threat. That has the Trump administration concerned that Gulf leaders may not be able to fulfill promises to invest heavily in the U.S., according to three…
Robert Pape describes the ‘escalation trap’ that the U.S. is falling into in the war against Iran
Is America’s war in Iran headed toward an escalation trap? Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and an expert on global security, argues that the decapitation of Iran’s leadership failed to break the regime, while upping the pressure for more force — including raising the specter of a ground war. Pape joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the difference between initial tactical success and long-term strategic success.
How Iran’s calibrated disruption of shipping threatens global energy
Soran Mansournia writes: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) does not need aircraft carriers, command of the sea or even a total blockade to threaten the global energy supply. In the Strait of Hormuz, it relies on something older, cheaper and, in some ways, more effective: the weaponization of geography. The corps does not need to destroy fleets or physically block every vessel to produce systemic disruption. It only needs to raise the risk of transit high enough that normal…
Is Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf the kind of Iranian leader Trump might work with?
The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran’s combative Parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, is emerging as an unlikely figure in Washington’s search for a deal to halt a widening Middle East war. Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air-force commander and Tehran mayor, has denied any talks with the U.S. are under way. He has taunted President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and called the U.S.-Israeli air war with Iran a quagmire. He served in the Revolutionary Guard during Iran’s…
DOJ agrees to let Michael Flynn loot Treasury to the tune of $1.25 million
Liz Dye writes: Two years ago, a court in Florida threw out Michael Flynn’s malicious prosecution lawsuit seeking $50 million from the US government. Yesterday, the government agreed to settle it anyway, handing $1.25 million in taxpayer dollars to the former national security advisor. Clearly this is an outrageous abuse by the Trump DOJ. It’s also a template for the looting to come, as everyone from Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio to Trump himself lines up to feed at the government…
Deputy attorney general endorses illegally sending ICE agents to voting sites
Democracy Docket reports: During a norm-shattering appearance at a conservative political conference Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he couldn’t understand why anyone would disagree with a president deploying federal agents to the polls. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Blanche was echoing recent calls from far-right activists for President Donald Trump to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to voting sites during the 2026 midterms — a tactic clearly meant to intimidate voters and poll…
Why China insists on internal unity and international harmony
Peter C Perdue writes: If you think that the People’s Republic of China is still a communist country, you are in for a shock. It is, of course, a single-party state ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. But what is the role of the CCP today? The Party celebrates billionaires, runs a capitalist economy, and depends heavily on global trade and investment. This is far from what Mao Zedong imagined when he took power in 1949. Then, the CCP claimed…