Iran
Trump’s goals in Iran have always been clear
The bombing of the Revolutionary government in Iran is drawing comparisons with the war in Iraq. But the comparisons are…
What’s Britain’s place in the post-Iran world order?
Midway through James Joyce’s Ulysses, the character J.J. O’Molloytips his hat to ‘Our watchful friend, the Skibbereen Eagle’, a playful…
Who’s actually winning the wars in the Middle East?
If you read the New York Times or watch the foreign policy establishment’s “best and brightest,” you will be told,…
Sorry, but America still holds all the cards
“Negotiations.” Are you heartened or dismayed by that word? Those who remember or who have read up on the seemingly…
If Trump hates the Wall Street Journal so much, why is its editorial board dictating Iran policy?
For the better part of a decade, Donald Trump has been an avid, if irascible, reader of the Wall Street…
The truth about Pakistan’s role in the US-Iran conflict
Pakistan was always an unlikely mediator for peace negotiations between the United States, Iran and sotto voce, China. It would not…
Portrait of the week: Trump threatens Iran, Kanye is banned and Artemis II heads to the Moon
Home The government withdrew an offer to create 1,000 more training posts for doctors in England after the British Medical…
The only ‘civilisation’ Trump will destroy is his own
If, as Donald Trump had threatened, ‘a whole civilisation’ had died on Tuesday night, the whole civilisation concerned would have…
Trump: the boy who cried war
Did Donald Trump ever intend to obliterate Iranian civilisation? Some will see the past week as one in which the…
What do you do with a captured soldier?
What do you do with a captured soldier? In 255 BC, fighting the Carthaginians, the Roman consul and general Marcus…
If only TACO were true
A useful rule, when trying to understand current affairs, is AAL: Acronyms Always Lie. A case in point would be…
The Pentagon’s holy war with Rome
America is having its Golden Age, Iran is about to get blasted into the Stone Age… and Elbridge Colby wants…
We’re stuck at the worst possible oil price
A ceasefire has been agreed with Iran. The Straits of Hormuz will reopen. And the oil market will get back…
The winners and losers of the Iran ceasefire deal
The abrupt announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the war between the US, Israel and Iran resolves none of the…
Trump’s fantasy of victory
Among the many gifts the Watergate scandal gave us was Nixon’s White House press secretary declaring: “This is the operative…
What will the Iran ceasefire cost Trump?
Might Donald Trump travel to Tehran this spring to open an American embassy and declare that he’s fallen in love with the new…
Why Trump is tempting 25th Amendment talk
During his remarks in Budapest, Vice President J.D. Vance, who is trying prop up Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as he runs for reelection, appeared to think the unthinkable.…
Is the US nuclear bomber base being targeted for a strike?
A lockdown at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana triggered by a mysterious drone swarm last month didn’t last long.…
Is Pete Hegseth waging a Christian Zionist war?
By pushing religion almost as much as US military might in his war briefings, Pete Hegseth has raised questions about…
Will Trump really obliterate Iran on Tuesday?
Was Donald Trump’s profane and threatening tweet, which included an F-bomb and an allusion to Iran’s leaders as “crazy bastards,”…
Why Pakistan is brokering peace in Iran
Pakistan, the world’s only Muslim nuclear power, has traditionally been an international sideshow. No longer. The country has reportedly been…
Portrait of the week: Oil prices surge, Scott Mills is sacked and the Houthis join the war
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We are working on a viable plan for the Strait of Hormuz.’…
Russia has its eyes on Svalbard
Svalbard The quiet hillside by Longyearbyen’s church gives visitors to the capital of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago an austere but beautiful…
Britain must recognise Somaliland
Somalia has been a byword for failed statehood and violence for so long that the calm of Somaliland, its neighbour…
Hong Kong is the new Dubai
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that National Savings and Investments (NS&I) began life in 1861 as the Post…
