The war in Gaza stops for a polio crisis breather

If only the war in Gaza would stop because of the death of 40,000 people, 17,000 of them Hamas fighters according to Israel. But there is no sign of that. The fighting will come to a halt, or an agreed halt, tomorrow, to allow the World Health Authority to enter Gaza and start the massive task of vaccinating 640,000 children against polio. They will have three days, an almost impossible task. It is a tragic and bitter irony that the first evidence of a child polio victim in 25 years should come in a war where thousands of homes have been obliterated by artillery and rocket fire. What other diseases are lurking in Gaza to create more suffering for the Palestinian people? It's time surely to bring this terrible conflict to an end. It has become now a battle of wills between Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, whose political survival rests on his winning the war, and Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader. Neither are going to compromise. They will fight to the bitter end, whether polio spreads or not, whether malnutrition spreads or not, or whether the whole Gaza Strip is destroyed. Amidst this Armageddon, good luck to the WHO doctors and nurses who will have the gargantuan challenge of preventing polio from spreading to all Palestinian children.

Kamala Harris smiley but a bit bland

The first interview on tv for Kamala Harris was not exactly a blockbuster. She didn't thump the table once. She didn't give any glacial looks at the CNN interviewer. And she didn't reveal what sort of president she would be if she wins in November. Perhaps at the ABC tv debate with Donald Trump on September 10 she will come out fighting and finger-pointing. But right now she has revealed little of herself and her polcies other than her promise to be a president for everyone. But, to be fair, every president has promised that, even Trump. In the next ten weeks it's going to be absolutely vital for her to lay out what she plans to do in her first four years in office if she really is going to defeat Trump. The polls are in her favour right now but that could change if voters doubt she has the strength to confront America's enemies.

The Hamas tunnels are still undermining Israel's attempt to defeat the organisation

The tunnels and underground bunkers under Gaza are so complex and so comprehensive that it seems impossible for the Israel Defence Forces to carry out what they have been ordered to do which is to destroy everything to do with Hamas. Israel knew all about the tunnels but even their intelligence services appear to have underestimated the size of the underground network. It's an extraordinary feat of engineering which must have taken years to complete. Entering every tunnel is dangerous for the IDF as they hunt for Hamas leaders and for the remaining 108 hostages. They've tried every way of finding and destroying the tunnels but a vast number are still in existence which is why the Hamas overall leader Yahya Sinwar is still alive and still in charge and still stopping Israel from achieving the victory it so desperately wants. As the IDF has discovered this week, when they enter tunnels they can suddenly come across a hostage. The latest discovery saved one more life but it demonstrated how carefully the IDF commandos have to be every time they go down a tunnel. They can't blast their way in because of the risk of killing a hostage. Perhaps one of these days, Israeli commandos will enter a bunker and find Sinwar sitting there. But I suspect he always keeps one step ahead of the IDF. It's an extraordinary cat and mouse game.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine are long term

Despite all the ceasefire hopes to end the fighting in Gaza, nothing has come of themn; and for all the hopes that Putin might start to relent following the bold Ukrainian attacks across the border into western Russia, they have turned out to be unrealistic. Putin will carry on the war in Ukraine whatever challenges he might face. That's the way he is. And Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, is never going to give up until he has achieved his strategic objective which is the total destruction of Hamas. So all this diplomacy in the Middle East and military pressure by Ukraine is not actually having any impact. Today Israel has launched a massive raid in the West Bank against Palestinian extremists. It's never-ending. Putin just keeps on launching missiles into Ukraine, day after day, and his troops are beginning to make more headway in eastern Ukraine. Again, it's never ending. There is no expectation of any change in either Ukraine or Gaza for months and months, if not years and years. Very depressing.

Is Kamala Harris going to be the 47th president of the United States?

The latest polls for Kamala Harris are looking good, putting her several points ahead of Donald Trump. The 45th president who is desperate to be the 47th president must be seething. In fact, you can see he is seething. Ten weeks is a long time in politics, so the polls in her favour could dip or rise depending on what happens between now and November 5. But more could go wrong for Trump than for Harris. He might suddenly find himself being sent to jail for the business charge convictions, or at the very least given a suspended sentence or a hefty fine. Or, if there is going to be a TV debate between him and Harris next month, he could actually look Bidenesque with his mumbling and fumbling comments. He has a tendency to stray off the agreed track and if Harris comes out sounding like the prosecutor she formerly was, he could have a real hard time trying to get the better of her. I don't think he or his team can be looking forward to the debate because whatever else Harris says or does she is bound to win over the voters watching with her very amiable and smiley face. Trump looks such a grumpy old man these days and unless he rises to the occasion, Harris will come out top in the debate, and that will have an affect on her polling figures. By November, it's just possible she will be streets ahead of Trump and he knows it.

Putin is getting angry and frustrated by the war in Ukraine

Russia has hit Ukraine all over the country with about 200 missiles and drones, aiming particularly at energy plants. It's one of the biggest missile attacks since the war began two and half years ago and indicates that Vladimir Putin is getting increasingly angry. This is Putin stamping his foot loud and clear. Ever since 3,000 or so Ukrainian soldiers burst over the border into western Russia and started seizing territory and firing rockets at air bases as they went, the Russian leader appears to have been at a loss at what to do. His own troops have failed to dislodge the Ukrainian combat units who have set up a bridgehead for launching deeper attacks into Russia. So his only answer it seems was to order a massive missile strike to hurt Ukraine by way of retaliation.Kyiv's hope of forcing Putin to seek ways of ending the war by seizing Russian territory as a bargaining chip is not really working at the moment. Putin just hits back with more destructive power. He always wanted to reduce Ukraine to rubble and that's what he is still trying to do.

Israel goes for preemptive strike

Preemptive strike was a well-worn phrase that came up a lot during the George W Bush administration. The argument was, better to hit hard first before being attacked. It seemed to make sense, provided the intelligence warning of an attack on the way was good and accurate. But the concept of a preemptive strike was always going to be controversial. At what point do you launch a pre-strike? When the enemy is literally about to launch, when the enemy is loading up the wagons with rockets and shells? When the enemy is thought to be sitting round a table planning an attack? You see what I mean. Timing is everything, otherwise a country might as well launch a preemptive strike any day of the week as a precautionary measure on the grounds that it is better to strike first than be hit and then retaliate. Israel, in this case today, seems to have had very good intelligence of Hezbollah preparing to launch missiles and rockets at Israel. Satellite pics and other airbone intelligence-gathering systems will have sent back all the relevant images. So a preemptive strike was launched in order to remove or at least limit the imminent attack across the border. Hezbollah effectively proved Israel's point by launching hundreds of rockets into Israel, most of which were shot down. Israel's justification for the premmptive attack on Hezbollah positions was that it would forestall a longer and more dangerous war. Again, the argument appears to be reasonably based because after its huge launch of rockets, Hezbollah announced that would be an end of it, for the moment at least. Other attack phases are anticipated, if not promised. But Hezbollah is now on notice: if they try to carry out another series of rocket launches, Israel will get in first. Preemptive strikes are now part of the Middle East lexicon.

Kamala never said she would be the first woman if she wins in November

I guess Kamala Harris didn't want to tempt fate but throughout her 40-minute speech to adoring supporters at the Chicago Democratic convention she never once said that if she wins in November she will be the first woman to become president of the United States. It's also a sign of the times. Don't confess to being a woman. Don't confess to being a man. Don't confess to any gender in case it upsets someone. Or maybe she didn't want to state the obvious. But the fact is that if she beats old man Trump in November she will be a first in many respects, her gender, her origins and the extraordinary way she has suddenly leapt from being Number Two to Number One in the top hierarchy of the Democratic party. Her running-mate is a bit folksy but apparently Americans like that, so the combination of Kamala and Tim looks headed for victory over disgruntled-looking Donald and a not-much-liked JD. Trump must be particularly enraged that he is facing a far more attractive rival for the presidency. He doesn't have a very good reputation for his dealings with women, he wanted to jail Hillary Clinton remember, so he knows that unless he can dig up some seriously damaging dirt on Kamala (his team must be searching the internet) by November, and unless he cheers up and tries to smile a bit, he is going to be undone by a woman who does little else but smile.

Biden desperate to burnish his legacy with a Gaza peace deal

The omens for a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Israel and Hamas are looking alarmingly bleak following the latest shuttle diplomacy by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state. The US “bridging proposal” aimed at resolving contested issues raised after the three-stage peace formula offered by President Biden on May 31 appears to be dead in the water. Key to the impasse is the insistence by Benjamin Netanyahu that Israeli troops must be allowed to remain in two security corridors in Gaza to ensure that even if the fighting has stopped Israel will retain the ability to watch for and deter any future attempts by Hamas to rearm or launch attacks across the border. They are identified by Israel as the Philadelphi Corridor which runs for 8.7 miles along the length of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt; and a 3.7 mile stretch of land called the Netzarim Corridor which runs south of Gaza City from the Israeli border to the sea, effectively cutting the Strip in half. Israel’s aim in both cases is to maintain a military presence, albeit much reduced in size, acting as an occupying mini-force to protect Israel’s security interests and to stop the smuggling of arms. Hamas which has demanded the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza as part of any ceasefire deal is expected to reject any notion of a remaining Israel military presence. The messaging from Blinken’s latest verbal skirmishing with Netanyahu which lasted three hours this week, have, not for the first time, been confusing, if not contradictory. Blinken returned to Washington saying that he had had good talks with the Israeli prime minister and that the bridging proposal had been accepted. Yet Netanyahu made clear to hostage families that he would never give up his demand for Israeli troops to stay in the two security corridors and appeared to suggest that the Americans accepted this. Blinken said otherwise. He insisted that Israel had endorsed the deal under which a schedule for the withdrawal of Israel troops from Gaza had been clearly set out. After Blinken’s return to Washington, Biden spoke with Netanyahu on the phone to impress on the Israeli leader the urgency of coming to an agreement. Blinken had previously warned that now was probably the last chance to reach a deal to free the hostages. There are 109 hostages still in Gaza according to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) of whom more than 70 are thought to be still alive. The bodies of six hostages were found this week in a tunnel under the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and were returned by Israeli commandos to Israel. All six had been captured during the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel. The plight of the hostages has been the driving force behind all the negotiations involving the US, Israel, Hamas, Qatar and Egypt. But after ten months of war in Gaza following the October 7 atrocities, there are so many competing issues at stake that every attempt to reach a deal has been thwarted by one party or other. The three-stage ceasefire proposal of May 31 had raised realistic hopes of an endorsement by all parties. Under the agreement, there would have been a six-week ceasefire, a release of all hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees held by Israel, followed by a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of IDF troops and a reconstruction of Gaza lasting up to five years. Yet nearly three months later, there remain fundamental differences and gaps between Israel and Hamas which would seem to be unresolvable. For Biden, time is running out. He is desperate to burnish his legacy as a departing president by ending the war in Gaza, preventing further bloodshed and suffering amongst the Palestinian people, and eliminating the risk of a wider Middle East conflict. Iran has held off so far from retaliating against Israel for the assassination of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. But the threat is still there. So, too, is an expanded war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both exchanged fire this week. Biden’s hope is that if he can fix a ceasefire deal in Gaza in the next few days, that might be enough to persuade Tehran to call off any plans for a direct strike on Israel. Neither Israel nor Hamas seem ready to help the US president achieve his goal.

The anointing of Kamala Harris

Three remarkable, unprecedented things have happened in the 2024 presidential election campaign: first, Donald Trump is still the Republican nominee despite being convicted of business fraud and facing a mass of other criminal charges, second, Joe Biden was tapped on the shoulder in a coup by his Democratic "friends" and forced to step down as their nominee, and third, Kamala Harris has been plucked from relative obscurity and turned into the dream ticket for a gasping, adoring party and anointed queen of the universe. All three are extraordinary but perhaps the third one is the most gobsmacking. She looks the part, she never stops smiling and waving but actually no one really knows for sure what she will be like as president, what her driving policies will be and whether what she has (or might have) in mind will be benficial for the United States of America and for the free world. She has only campaigned for a month but in that time she has become a kind of goddess with everyone's hopes and dreams resting on her shoulders. Joe Biden, after being pushed to one side, is being hailed at the Democratic convention as a great president, and yet Hillary Clinton claims Kamala Harris will be one of the true greats. As I said, it's extraordinary. Let us hope all this new-found adoration of Kamala Harris bears fruit if she beats Trump, as she probably will, in November.

The first US super carrier to fight with unmanned aircraft

Conflicts such as the Battle of Midway and fictional depictions including the Top Gun films lionised the image of US Navy pilots risking their lives flying dangerous missions from aircraft carriers. But in future such operations may be flown without having a pilot on board, after the American military installed its first high-tech command centre for controlling all types of unmanned drones. USS George HW Bush is the first of the US Navy’s 11 carriers to be fitted with an unmanned air warfare centre, a dedicated command system which will be capable of masterminding what will become an increasingly important role in naval operations. With armed and surveillance drones now an endemic part of battlefield planning on land, as highlighted by the war in Ukraine, the US Navy has been pushing ahead with introducing unmanned systems to fly alongside the fighter wing of advanced combat jets. The first drone to become operational on USS George HW Bush will be the MQ-25A Stingray, a $136 million unmanned air-refuelling tanker, set to be tested next spring. It will be the world’s first operational, carrier-based unmanned aircraft. “The upcoming tests will be an historic moment in naval aviation,” a US Navy official involved in the unmanned carrier aviation programme, said. Having Stingray on board the carrier will extend the combat range of the warship’s F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets from around 500 miles to 800 miles. The tanker drone, developed by Boeing, is 51ft long with a 75ft wingspan and can carry more than ten tons of fuel. The significance of the special drone command centre is that following the introduction of the Stingray tanker, the US Navy will then focus on putting a whole range of different types of drones onto the carrier, including surveillance and armed aerial vehicles. Landing a drone on a carrier has involved the creation of complex algorithms to ensure safe arrival on the flight deck. It’s always a challenge for a pilot to land on a carrier, especially if there is a strong cross wind or the sea is turbulent. But since manned fighter jet carrier landings first began in the late 1940s, pilots have learned to adapt swiftly to different weather and sea conditions. Drones, lacking the human judgment capability, face a bigger challenge. But the new command system fitted to USS George HW Bush will enable the Stingray to land with little if any human involvement. The MQ-25 Stingray first carried out an air-to-air refuelling test with a Super Hornet jet in June, 2021, launching from an airport in Illinois. Currently the carrier-based refuelling mission is performed by the F/A-18E Super Hornet which means there are fewer fighter jets available for operational flights. The US navy plans to buy about 70 Stingrays at a total programme cost of $16.5 billion. All Nimitz-class and the new Gerald R Ford-class carriers will eventually carry Stingrays on board.

What will happen when Ukrainian troops withdraw from Russia?

Nearly two weeks into its audacious incursion into western Russia, Ukraine faces a tactical conundrum: how long to stay, when to withdraw and how to do so safely while retaining long-term strategic advantage? Crossing the border on August 6 and taking the Kursk and Moscow leadership by surprise was relatively straightforward. Under the cover of a heavily forested border area which was inadequately guarded by inexperienced, lightly-armed frontier forces, Ukraine’s toughest combat units met with little resistance. However, with Moscow now on full alert after a slow start, how challenging would it be for an estimated 10,000 Ukrainian troops and hundreds of vehicles to simply turn round and go back over the border? Kyiv has declared it has no wish permanently to occupy seized Russian territory but hopes the arrival of thousands of well-equipped soldiers trained in western-style combined-arms skills will force Moscow to switch its focus away from eastern Ukraine and, eventually, persuade President Putin to consider negotiating an end to the war. However, if Putin makes no concessions and refuses to countenance negotiations, except on his terms, Kyiv will have little alternative but to stay in Kursk and advance further to ratchet up the pressure on Moscow. In anticipation of this scenario, Ukraine has set up a “military commandant’s office” in occupied Kursk as a demonstration of the new battlefield frontline confronting Moscow. Despite the military successes, not everything has gone Ukraine’s way. Russian forces have continued to advance in eastern Ukraine, threatening to seize new territory, notably in the strategic Povrovsk district within Donetsk Oblast. At some point, the combat-proven Ukrainian units now in Kursk may be needed back home or risk leaving vulnerable gaps in eastern Ukraine for Russian troops to exploit. Kyiv will want to hold onto the seized Russian territory for as long as possible, as a bargaining chip with Moscow, but there will come a moment, especially if Putin gets round to launching a large-scale counter-attack on Ukraine’s occupying forces in Kursk, when Kyiv’s cross-border incursion could start to falter. As Russia found to its cost when it launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, reliable logistical back-up (fuel, food, ammunition, spare parts) makes the difference between military success and failure. So far, the Ukrainian forces in Kursk have been well supplied. But what happens if Russian bombers and artillery start to pound the supply lines? Withdrawing under fire or without a pre-planned strategy could prove fatal for Kyiv. History is littered with disastrous retreats, such as the panic withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait City in the 1991 Gulf war when convoys of vehicles heading up the highway to Mutla Ridge close to the Iraq border were obliterated in an ambush by US Abrams tanks and Apache attack helicopters. However, the Ukrainian troops in Kursk have four distinct advantages: they plan to withdraw only when the Kyiv leadership decides it is the most opportune time, politically and strategically; they have the firepower, including air-defence weapons, to protect themselves, as well as thickly forested ground to provide cover; and they have with them hundreds of Russian conscript prisoners. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War says the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk and the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine “are not in themselves decisive military operations that will win the war”. However, even if the Ukrainian troops successfully withdraw when Kyiv gives the order, Moscow has been put on notice that the 720-mile border it shares with Ukraine in the western regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk are never again going to be safe from attack. Ukraine’s dramatic incursion has proved that.

Why aren't Russians in Kursk shouting at Moscow?

Russian people in Kursk know all about the war in Ukraine because it's going on across the border. They might even have heard the noise of gunfire when Putin's invasion began on February 24 2022. But they probably felt it had nothing to do with them and when their leader hundreds of miles away in Moscow said it was just a special operation to rid their neighbour of Nazis, they believed him and went on with their lives. Now that has all changed. The war over the border is currently bang in their midst after the Ukrainian military incursion nearly two weeks ago. Houses are being wrecked, people are being killed, bridges are being blown up. But where are the Russian soldiers to protect them? Nowhere to be seen. So why aren't these Russian people screaming and shouting and demanding Moscow explain the total failure to keep them safe? Do they still believe that the operation in Ukraine is just a Nazi-removing mission or do they now realise perhaps for the first time that it's a real war and they are becoming victims? I'm sure they are all complaining and worried but will this ever amount to a rebellion against Moscow and the Putin elite? So far there is no sign of it. They are too afraid to demand anything of their leader. This is Putin's Russia for you.

Is a ceasefire in Gaza so close, as Biden claims?

Joe Biden has suggested several times over the last few months that a ceasefire deal in Gaza was imminent but every time the optimism faded away and the bombings continued. Now Biden claims the deal is closer than ever before. I suspect it's more in hope than in concrete. First of all, Hamas is not even present at the current round of talks and second, the new overall leader of Hamas is the very man whom Israel has been desperate to track and kill ever since the October 7 atrocities committed by hundreds of Hamas invaders. Yahya Sinwar who took over the top political Hamas post after the assassination of his predecessor Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran, is Israel's arch enemy. Doing a deal with Hamas under his leadership would surely be anathema to Benjamin Netanyahu. Sinwar, as far as is known, is hiding in a tunnel under one of the cities in southern Gaza and there is no way Netanyahu will allow him to come out and walk around a free man under a ceaefire deal. So the latest imminent ceaefire deal could just as easily fall apart. It's also becoming increasingly clear that many of the Israeli hostages who have now been held for ten months are no longer alive. This is a tragedy which is not going to go away either for Israel or for the Palestinians who have suffered appalling casualties, caught in a terrible war which Yahya Sinwar started.

Putin official claims Nato planned the Ukrainian attack inside Russia

Despite denials from Washington, Nikolai Patrushev, a senior Kremlin figure, has said what Putin clearly believes, too, that Nato and the West collaborated with Ukraine to launch the incursions into the Kursk region of Russia with thousands of troops and tanks and other armoured vehicles. Patrushev is no ordinary Kremlin flunkey. He was until a recent job shuffle the secretary of the national security council of the Russian Federation and is a former director of the FSB, the huge national security service . From Moscow's point of perspective it must seem that the Pentagon was behind the Ukrainian incursion but as far as one can tell, the Kyiv government ordered the attack without telling anyone, including the US. But of course the fact that it has been so successful is totally down to the US and Nato because for months and months Ukrainian troops have been trained abroad to fight the Nato way, with combined all-arms manouevres. So the units sent over the border had everything to fight a battle with, such as air defence, logistical back-up and artillery. But that doesn't mean Kyiv sought the advice and expertise of the Pentagon before launching the raid. Reportedly, Washington was as surprised by the dramatic incursion as Moscow was. Patrushev, however, and undoubtedly Putin, too, believes it was all preplanned by the US, and this is potentially dangerous because Putin has always said he might turn to other means (tactical nukes) if he judged Russia to be under an external existential threat. But for Putin to admit to the Russian people that he had failed to prevent such an existential threat would be such an admission of failure on his part that I seriously doubt he would say it. Using tactical nukes would be his ultimate leadership failure. It would also undermine if not destroy his carefully engineered strategic partnership with China.

Putin is having the toughest week of his life

When Valdimir Putin is angry he seriously looks angry. Right now after a week of bedlam following the arrival of thousands of Ukrainian troops across the Russian border into the Kursk region, he has glowered, obviously furious that his incompetent generals have once again failed him. But the failure lies with the Russian president and his acolytres in the Kremlin. They totally underestimated the capabilities of the Ukrainian military just as they did way back in February 2022 when Russian forces invading Ukraine were stopped in their tracks and prevented from reaching Kyiv. The planned Russian blitzkreig turned into a damp squib and piles of casualties and smashed tanks and armoured vehicles. In the latest example of poor Russian fighting abilities, the Kremlin reacted so slowly to the Kursh incursion that by the time Putin and co had come to realise it was a serious event, the Ukrainians were rampaging all over the place, seizing towns and villages and taking hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner. Now, belatedly, they are digging trenches across the area in the hope of preventing further advances but the damage has been done. Two things have emerged so far which will provide comfort to Ukraine and its western backers and dismay for the Russian people: the Russian borders are vulnerable, improperly defended and badly managed, and the Russian president is not after all either omniscient or totally in charge of their lives and their safety. The Russian Motherland has been shown to be incompetentaly run. Shock news. Putin is not invincible.

Trump should listen to Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and ex-presidential candidate, has some very sensible advice for Donald Trump which he would be wise to take on board if he wants to win the White House in November. She has said in an interview with Fox News that Trump should stop all this talk about Kamala Harris's crowd sizes and other peripheral topics which the former president appears to be obsessed withm and focus on the subjects which the American poeple are more concerned about such as buying a house and getting a job and facing a more hopeful future without wars always on the horizon. She's right. Ever since Joe Biden stepped down - forced out by Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney et al - and replaced by Kamala Harris, Trump and his campaign team have been floundering around, not knowing which way to turn. Trump began with a bunch of insults trying to do down Kamala, mispronouncing her name and querying whether she was Indian or black, and others started to attack her running mate, Tim Walz, denigrating his service as a National Guardsman. All predictable stuff but all petty schoolboyish and unnecessary. So Haley says, come on, if you want to win in November, you've got to show you have what it takes to keep this country flourishing, safe and economically prosperous. Trump of course won't like being preached at by his former rival for the Republican nomination but he should listen to her advice. The trouble for Trump is that the removal of Biden from the Democratic ticket was a blow which, mysteriously, he hadn't really anticipated. So he was caught on the hop and he has yet to recover. The way things are going right now he is going to lose big time. Who'd have thought it just a few weeks ago.

Zelensky wants to topple Putin!!!

The embattled, ever-optimistic president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to think that his troops now fighting inside Russia can push on and topple Putin from power. This is clearly cloud cuckoo land unless... Unless the US and the whole of the coalition of nations supporting Kyiv backs Ukraine to try and effect regime-change in Moscow. And that's never going to happen. Indeed, the US claims to be in full support of Ukraine's current incursions into Russia to give Moscow a taste of its medicine, but the Ukrainian units now holding 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory in Kursk have neither the capability, nor manpower, nor Western backing, nor deep-strike weapons to get anywhere near Moscow. It's a foolhardy venture even though the West seems secretly pleased that Putin is getting a shock of his life. At some point, if for logistical reasons alone, the Ukrainian troops will have to withdraw, having made the point that cross-border incursions are now going to be part of Kyiv's tactics for the future.The fact is, whatever Zelensky dreams of achieving, the West has no interest in regime-change in Moscow. Not that they wouldn't like to see Putin retire to his fancy dacha, but since that is not going to happen, no one anywhere in the 50-nation coalition is going to back Zelensky to topple Putin. It's a total non-starter. So the current incursions by Ukraine are good for morale, good for lifting spirits, but ultimately foolish and pointless, and dangerous.

Why did the US send a guided-missile submarine to Middle East?

It was announced late last night, the Pentagon said it was sending a guided-missile submarine to add to the US naval strength in the region as a warning to Iran. This is the USS Georgia, one of four Ohio class nuclear ballistic-missile submarines converted to carry long-range Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. There is no question it is a hugely potent platform for land-attack strikes. But what does the Pentagon have in mind? It's not a platform for shooting down enemy ballistic missiles. So is the warning to Iran suggsting that any attack on Israel will lead to an American Tomahawk attack on targets in Iran? Surely not! That would be seen as a huge escalation. It would also encourage Israel to respond miitarily if attacked by Iran. Then we are talking about a full-scale war which no one wants. So the deployment of the guided-missile submarine to the Middle East is a very potent but symbolic move by Washington. Far more relevant is the Pentagon's order to the captain of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, to speed up and get to the Middle East region as fast as possible. The carrier laden with fighter jets had been ordered to move from the Asia Pacific to the Middle East some weeks ago. A carrier of course with its full display of aircraft including surveillance-gathering planes, would be very useful for taking on a flurry of Iranianh ballistic and cruise missiles if that is what happens. Nobody really knows what is going on in Tehran right now but they have waited 12 days so far before retaliating for the assassination of the Hamas political leader in the Iranian capital on July 31. Will the dispatching of the USS Georgia and the "hurry-up" order to USS Abraham Lincoln stir the Iranian regime to launch its promised attack on Israel soon or will it have the opposite effect?

A Middle East war on a knife edge

On the face of it, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 was a brilliant, opportunistic strike by one of the world’s most dedicated and fearless intelligence services. The presumed targeting by Mossad, however, has disrupted negotiations to bring a ceasefire to Gaza and the release of more Israeli hostages, has provoked a sharp telephone call between President Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s combative prime minister, and has inflamed the Middle East to such a dangerous level that a full-scale war cannot be ruled out. Much is being made of the urgent diplomatic efforts underway to try and persuade Iran, now with a new president, to hold back or limit its promised retaliation against Israel for the killing of the Hamas leader on its soil. Ten days have passed since the assassination and so far., apart from a flurry of rockets by Hezbollah across the Lebanese border into Israel and urgent appeals by the US and Europe for their nationals in Lebanon to grab the first available flights out of the country, the feared “severe” retribution has yet to materialise. So, does this mean that diplomacy is winning and the threat of war, at least for the moment, is on hold? The intensive diplomatic efforts include some of the most secretive “back channel” arrangements that have been developed over years as the Middle East swayed from one crisis to another. The CIA’s Bill Burns, director of the agency after a career of unrivalled experience in the diplomatic service, is America’s supreme mastermind of back-channel deals, notably the behind-the-scenes negotiations with Iran which led to the April, 2015 deal restricting Tehran’s nuclear programme. Burns played a crucial role. Now the CIA chief is among a heavyweight assortment of top US officials and intelligence operatives working day and night to stop a catastrophic war. Every back channel is being exploited, ranging from the formal framework under which communications are passed from the US to Iran via the Swiss embassy in Tehran, to a more informal set-up in which Oman is playing the key facilitator role for confidential contacts between Washington and Tehran. There have been no official diplomatic relations between the US and Iran since April 1980 after Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and held 52 diplomats and staff hostage for 444 days. The aim of the diplomacy, as Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has said, has been to avoid the risk of “dangerous outcomes that no one can predict and no one can fully control”. To back up the diplomacy, the Pentagon has sent additional warships and a dozen F/A-18 fighter jets to the region to act as a deterrent and to demonstrate to Iran that if it goes ahead with attacking Israel, the US will be in position to help shoot down any missiles or drones. It’s a deja vue crisis. The same emergency diplomatic manoeuvres were engaged after Israel bombed an Iranian consular building in Damascus on April 1, killing Brigadier-General Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, and his deputy. That time, Iran waited 12 days before launching a direct attack on Israel for the first time, with more than 300 ballistic and cruise missiles and drones. But, bizarrely, Iran gave prior notice of its intentions and most of the missiles were brought down by Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow missile defence systems and by the US Navy and allied partners in the region. This time it could be different. Iran has been sorely bruised by what Tehran sees as Israel’s outrageous acts both in Damascus and now in the Iranian capital itself. The yearning for revenge appears to be even higher than it was in April., judging by what the Five Eyes club of western intelligence services, led by the US, will have been picking up in recent days which led to the urgent call for nationals to escape from Lebanon. The phone call between Biden and Netanyahu on Thursday last week, in which the US president urged his Israeli ally to be a “good partner” in the search for peace, according to the Washington Post, underlined yet again how Washington has been frustrated by Israel’s strategy, agreeing to Gaza ceasefire talks on the one hand while, at the same time, never ceasing to hunt down the Hamas leaders responsible for the October 7 atrocities. The very public presence of Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, was just too tempting for Israel. There was already a kill notice on his head for October 7, and the order was given even though Netanyahu knew the repercussions could be devastating. After more than a week of whirlwind back-channel diplomacy there seems to be some optimism in Washington that the warnings to Iran and Israel may have paid off. However, the optimism may be short-lived. There is such a build-up of anger and determination in Tehran and amongst its proxy militia allies that it may be unrealistic to expect this latest crisis in the Middle East to go away without a fight.

Who would be in Kamala Harris's cabinet?

Much has still to be known about how a President Kamala Harris would confront the world's challenges. One key question is who she would pick to be her chief security policy officials. Can it be taken for granted that she would ask Antony Blinken to stay on as secretary of state, and Jake Sullivan as national security adviser? Both have performed brilliantly under Joe Biden and built up excellent reputations amongst American allies. It's possible, of course, that even if offered their current jobs, they might choose to leave government after such an arduous four years. But normally when given the privilege of serving their country, they would accept the burden for another four years. Certainly, a Harris administration without Blinken and Sullivan might struggle in the early months. Lloyd Austin as defence secretary has been a steady figure in the administration without being either provocative or particularly influential. His decision to overturn the judgement made by a top Pentagon official to approve the plea deal for three Guantanamo detainees accused of masterminding 9/11 may have pleased victims' families and all Republicans but it means the Guantanamo issue will never be resolved and the trial of the accused, if it ever goes ahead, will be all about the torture they endured at the hands of their CIA interrogators. The more courageous decision would have been for Austin NOT to have intervened. So perhaps he will not remain at the Pentagon. If Trump wins the presidency, he won't care about closing Guantanamo and whoever he chooses as defence secretary would be under orders to spend more money on the deteriorating detention camp and stop all plea deals.

Putin's shock at Ukrainian "invasion" is perfect schadenfreude

To see Vladimir Putin outraged over the incursion into Ruussia of about 1,000 Ukrainian troops with tanks and armoured vehicles is more than ironic. It's pure schadenfreude. Perhaps he had forgotten that in February 2022 he ordered the invasion of Ukraine with tens of thousands of troops, armoured convoys, missiles and rockets and all the paraphernalia of military aggression. Now, two and a half years later, Ukraine has decided to give Russia a bit of its own medicine. Potentially, it's a high-risk move by Kyiv which won't be officially supported by the US-led coalition which has always been anxious, under Joe Biden's leadership, to avoid anything that might lead to escalation. But that argument has gone by the board now that the West has supplied Ukraine with the sort of equipment that could be used for striking deep into Russian territory. This is the way the war is going now. There will be more and more attacks on Russian territory in the hope that Putin will start to think about calling for an end to the war - on his terms of course. The key thing is this: will Ukrainian offensive action across the border into Russia make a difference with the Russian people? Will they begin to think that Putin's adventure has now failed and Russia is at risk? The trouble is, Russia is a massive country and most Russians live nowhere near the border with Ukraine and can get on with their lives, believing everything that's told them by the Kremlin. So a few incursions into Russia won't persuade them to oppose the war. Very few people dare to oppose Putin's war, anmyway. But in Putin's mind, these incursions just might make him wonder whether he can carry on the war for ever. He can suppress any internal opposition but what if Ukrainian troops achieve some significant victory inside Russia? His response would normally be to hit back and hit back hard. But there is no question, this latest development is a mighty blow to his prestige and authority.

Does Kamala Harris have steel in her bones?

Nobody sensible wants Donald Trump back in the Oval Office but if Kamala Harris is going to be the next president does she have and will she have the steel in her make-up to fight the world's crises and win? I always thought, despite her unpopularity in many parts of the US, that Hillary Clinton would have been a tough president. I've seen her at work and knew instinctively that she would be capable of dealing with the most obdurate of male international leaders. She was and is a tough cookie. Can one describe Kamala Harris as a tough cookie? I sincerely hope so because what she will have in her in-tray hardly bears thinking about. To name but a few: a nuclear-armed Iran, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a major war in the Middle East (if it doesn't happen in the next few days), a ballistic missile attack on the US from North Korea, the launch of an orbiting nuclear device in space by China. All of these things could happen in the next four or five years. How would Harris and her good-natured schoolteacher vice president cope with any of these, let alone all of them at the same time? Her three and a half years as vice president should, one hopes, have given her the steel and backbone to handle such crises. If there is any doubt about it in the mind of the American voters, I fear they might turn to Donald Trump.

Elon Musk thinks the UK is in the middle of a civil war. Ha!

I don't know whether Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, knows anything about civil wars. But as an American across the other side of the Atlantic, newspaper headlines over here about riots in UK towns and cities by a bunch of right-wing racist thugs appear to have convinced him that this whole country is in violent uproar. Ninety-eight per cent of the people of this island are living peaceful lives, struggling a bit like most families around the world, but generally speaking calm and busy with their lives. These bunch of hoodlums are cauuing mayhem in a few places at night because they are angry, hate immigrants, especially Muslim ones, and have nothing better to do with their lives but attack the police, loot shops and shout abuse. They are a tiny minority and althoughb it's very unpleasant for the police and for Muslims inside mosques and shopkeepers who have broken front windows, most of the country is unaffected. Civil war? Absolutely not. It dramatises what is just thuggery and mindless stupid anger from people who are extremists and are not supported by any of the vast majority of nice, friendly, non-racist people who live in this amazing country. We certainly don't need people like Elon Musk pontificating from across the water and putting labels on what will soon, I hope, calm down, once several hundred of the thugs have been put into prison where they belong.

Could Iran launch 600 missiles and drones on Israel?

Iran has threatened a severe attack on Israel in retaliation for the assassination of the Hamas leader in Tehran last week. Bizarrely, Iranian leaders have been getting calls from Washington and probably from European capitals asking Tehran to keep the planned retaliation to a minimum to avoid an all-out war in the Middle East. In other words, it is accepted that Iran WILL attack Israel but the hope is that it will be small-scale. What a world we live in. The last and first time Iran attacked Israel, on April 13, they fired 300 ballistic missiles and drones. I guess, having warned of a severe response, Tehran will want to do more than 300. Will they go double and launch 600 missiles and drones? This seems highly likely. How many of them get through Israel's Iron Dome defence system and past the US Navy's Standard anti-ballistic missile systems on board cruisers, destroyers and one carrier in the area, will be crucial. If even 20 per cent or ten per cent get through and hit targets, it could persuade Israel to respond and start hitting Iran. Then, we will be in a far more dangerous ball game. The war that no one wants could then unfold very rapidly.

Could back-channel diplomacy prevent a Middle East war?

Everyone in the US, from President Biden to Bill Burns, the CIA director, to Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, are working overtime this weekend to persuade/deter/prevent Iran from launching an all-out war against Israel, alongside Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis in Yemen. Previously when Iran has threatened war with Israel, the US had been reasonably sure that Tehran really didn't want outright conflict but preferred rather to use its proxies to attack the Israelis. Then on April 13, Iran launched a huge drone and missile barrage on Israel in retaliation for the Israeli airstrike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus. It was the first time Iran had directly attacked Israel and although the majority of the ballistic missiles and drones were shot down by Israeli air defences, it set a dangerous precedent. So the chances of Iran launching another attack directly on Israel are very high after the assassination of the Hamas political leader in Tehran. Can Washington persuade Tehran to hold fire? I seriously doubt it which is why the Pentagon has moved an aircraft carrir and dozens of fighter jets to the Middle East in preparation for a crisis. The attack from Iran could come this week. The world awaits.

Diplomacy rules. Sometimes

Having allies as friends works wonders when emergencies arise. One of Joe Biden's main legacies will be that he knew how to forge long-term friendships and relationships across the world, so that when a favour was needed, it would more often than not be granted. The mass exchange of prisoners following a year of hard bargaining with Russia is a classic case in point. More than anyone, Biden needed to use his friendship with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, to get the final details sorted out. Vladimir Putin wanted, above all, to get his friend and employed assassin, Vadim Krasikov, released from jail in Germany where he had been convicted of murdering a Chechen dissident. Releasing this convicted killer was never going to be easy for Sholz, especially with the murdered victim's widow and family to appease if he did. But Biden explained in a phone call that it was in the interests of a much wider strategy and that without the release of Krasikov, none of the others, including the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovic, would be freed from their prison cells in Russia. I assume Biden called the German chancellor starting with "my dear Olaf". Can you imagine Donald Trump starting a telephone conversation like that with Scholz? No. So, diplomacy has had a good week even if it has meant a trained Russian killer going back to Moscow into the embrace of Vladimir Putin.

Are ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas now doomed?

Israel was never really interested in ceaefire talks to end the war in Gaza until three key Hamas leaders had been killed. Well, two of the three are now dead. But I suspect until the Israel Defence Forces or Mossad can find and eliminate the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, there will be no real sense of urgency about trying to forge a ceasefire. So until then, the war will go on. And anyway I guess Hamas is not going to be in any sort of mood to do any deal with Israel after the assassination of its top political leader in a bomb explosion in Tehran and the military commander in Gaza in an airstrike. Even Joe Biden had to admit today that the killing of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniya would not help the ceasefire negotiations because he was the man leading the talks for Hamas in Qatar. Israel had already killed two of his sons in an airstrike in Gaza. So what hopes for a ceasefire and a return of the Israeli hostages in the near future? About zero. And just when Biden thought the negotiations were beginning to look like they might get wrapped up soon. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be one of the most difficult allies to work with when Biden wants to bring peace to the Middle East and Netanyahu wants revenge against Israel's enemies. There's not a lot of compromise potential between those two extremes.

Foreign news has gone ballistic

In just 48 hours the following major foreign stories have broken, providing daily newspapers with a tornado of potential front page "splashes" and almost never enough space to place everything: Israel airstrike on a building in Beirut kills a top Hezbollah commander; Hamas political leader Ismail Hanniyeh, assassinated presumably by Israel's Mossad in Tehran while attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president, possibly by an explosive device hidden in the room where he was staying; Mohammed Deif, the military commander of the Hamas combat brigades in Gaza, confirmed dead after being hit by an Israeli airstrike some weeks ago; Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and two other Americans held in prison in Russia are released in a mass prisoner swap; and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and two other detainees in Guantanamo, also charged with the 9/11 terrorist murders of nearly 3,000 people, agree a plea deal to serve life sentences and avoid the death penalty. It's non-stop. And because of all the assassinations carried out by Israel, more and more commentators are talking about a Third World War. I tell you what, now more than ever in modern times we need a very strong leader to stop this all from turning into a total disaster for the whole planet. We don't want Donald Trump but will Kamala Harris be that leader? It's all too late for Joe Biden. So who is it going to be?