Trump has laid bare the limits of superpowerdom

Iran has been a much much tougher nut to crack than Iraq.The fact that Donald Trump has called off his latest planned mass aistrikes on Iran's power plants and bridges is not a sign of strength on his part but a confession of weakness. He can't defeat Iran or bring its rulers to their knees. The Tehran regime is sinply not going to back down from its absolute red line which is that in future and for eternity the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is going to control the Strait of Hormuz, with or without sharing financial proceeds with Oman across the other side of the chokepoint. Trump said he stopped the strikes because Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Iran asked him to, in return for an imminent, almost-ready settlement deal. Whether Iran put in a call, we don't know. Iran denies it. And Iran has also denied that talks with the US are to renew this afternoon. In fact, the only talks going on have been between Iran and Oman, sorting out who gets what re the Strait of Hormuz to keep it open by way of charging every ship a fee for safe passage. So, there is no imminent deal to end the war. In fact, Iranian rulers, according to reports, have indicated to Trump that if he launches further strikes, they will just respond with widespread missile hits on energy plants across the Gulf region. In other words, Iran has called Trump's bluff. This mighty superpower has been found wanting. It's running out of missiles, both offensive and defensive ones, abd even if there was an inexaustible supply, which there isn't, the US would still not be able to defeat Iran which is a huge country run by people who enjoy war. This is a moment of true disaster for the US and for the US military. China will be grinning all the way to its arms factories.

Trump calls off the new bombing raids

Keeping up with Donald Trump is like running a marathon where the final tape changes location every few minutes. You never know in which direction to go. Yesterday, Trump was definitely in bombing mood and mode. Today, he has had a change of mind. Something happened overnight which made him think maybe Iran would be sensible after all. I don't believe it, the sensible bit, but obviously the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps read the runes and rang someone to plead for peace. Well, mot peace, but renewed peace talks. Whether anything comes of it we will have to see. But this brinkmanship diplomacy does work sometimes. Maybe the IRGC, basically the rules of Iran, believe it when Trump warned, as he does, that he was planning to destroy every energy plant and bridge and reduce Iran to a pile of rubble. Anyway, a lot of leaders took fright, not just the Iranian ones. Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, rang Trump and urged caution. Please, no escalation, he asked. Others, probably the Pakistanis, Qataris etc, also made phone calls. Trump is suggesting that the new talks will lead, or will have to lead, to the total unhindered reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and no nukes. And he wants the agreement to be rapidly concluded. It's fingers-crossed time for everyone, especially for Trump.

Trump poised for more bombing

There has been a relatively quiet period for a few days but all the signs and signals in Washington are that Donald Trump wants to return to bombing Iran big time. He has been promising to knock out all of Iran's bridges and power plants and it might be on the cards for this coming week. Many of his advisers will be cautioning against it. For a start, it will be devastating for the Iranian people whom he promised to protect and help after the savage regime killed thousands of protesters in the streets of Iran's cities. But also, what will Iran's response be? It will inflame the whole of the Middle East. But Trump is getting more frustrated every hour as he sees the regime in Tehran staying resilient and unmoving. Perhaps Trump hopes that by warning of a massive bombardment in the comping days, the Iranian generals and mullahs will give in and start negotiating again.But if they don't and the bombing starts, no one, especially, Trump, will be able to predict the consequences.

Will Hamas really disarm?

No one imagined that Hamas would voluntarily hand over its weapons and turn to politics and peace in the Gaza Strip. Even when President Trump announced his Board of Peace and the 20 stages towards a settlement to end the war with Israel, the sticking point, every analyst insisted, would be the disarmament of an organisation designated a terrorist group by the United States, Britain, the European Union, Australia and many other nations. Now, after months of negotiations, involving Trump’s two Middle East envoys, and mediators, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, carried out without any fanfare, the seemingly impossible has been achieved. In what could be on one his most auspicious Truth Social posts, Trump announced that Hamas had finally agreed to disarm. Nothing in the Middle East is as simple as that. There are conditions which at this point might also appear to be unresolvable. For example, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will have to withdraw totally from their current occupation of around 53 per cent of Gaza. The announcement by Trump envisions a phased and concurrent disarmament and troop-withdrawal process. Under its new leader, Khalil al Hayya, appointed less than two weeks ago and with a reputation as a tough negotiator, it’s unlikely that Hamas will cooperate unless Israeli troops withdraw as per the agreement. Indeed, Hamas’s position prior to the Trump announcement was that the IDF had to withdraw from its so-called Yellow Line occupation before any disarmament took place. Nevertheless, the Trump Truth Social post provided the US president with the first piece of positive diplomatic endeavour for a long time. The five-month war with Iran has not gone the way he had wished and the Pentagon had promised, and the challenges ahead are becoming more complex and more frustrating for the White House as the strikes and counter-strikes continue. The Hamas breakthrough, if it turns out to be a genuine breakthrough, might just give Trump a new momentum towards his dream of a grand bargain for the Middle East, with or without the hardline mullahs and generals in Tehran. Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff, the president’s billionaire business friend, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, have been putting in the hours along with the regional mediators to push Hamas to this point. But there is still a long way to go and a large part of the future focus will be on persuading Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and his most right-wing cabinet members that this is a golden opportunity, not to be missed. Under pressure from Trump who has said he will be “very, very disappointed” if Netanyahu fails to back the progress that has been made in recent months, the Israeli government will have little choice but to react positively, although no doubt with a large slice of scepticism and caution. History has shown that terrorist organisations do disarm (the Provisional IRA in 2005 and the Basque separatist group ETA in 2017, as just two examples). However, so much more is at stake with the Hamas decision. Could this lead, as Trump hopes, to a new, democratic and incorrupt government in Gaza, a decent life for the two million Palestinian people, and ultimately an independent nation, living in harmony with its Israeli neighbour? All these political objectives might seem far-fetched today when one remembers what happened on 7 October, 2023. Will Hamas genuinely transform itself from being what Israel views as a band of murderers, rapists and hostage-takers to an organisation prepared to sacrifice its bloodcurdling past for a fresh start? There are too many questions to be answered before any judgment can be made. For example, despite the IDF’s destruction of much of Hamas’s weapons stocks and underground war tunnels, the organisation still has an, albeit limited, arsenal of anti-tank missiles, short- and medium-range rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, and the means to produce more in bunkered workshops. Who will they hand the weapons to, where will they be held, or will they be destroyed? And how will the withdrawal of IDF troops from the Yellow Line in Gaza be orchestrated? Trump talks of a new Palestinian government. But will Hamas be represented if the disarmament process is completed? And will the Israeli government under its present leadership ever agree to an independent Palestinian state? Netanyahu is standing for re-election in October. There would seem to be zero chance that he will accept any such concept if he wins.

More and more countries being absorbed into the war with Iran

The number of countries being caught up in the US war with Iran is increasing by the week. Now it's Egypt being targeted by Iranian drones. The military rulers in Tehran are trying to incite a total Middle East war. Why they think this will help their own country and the poor Iranian people is difficult to fathom. But the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps don't need any reminding that they were set up as a revolutionary force. In other words, their job is to spread revolution throughout the Arab/Muslim world. Iran wants to be the dominating nation, so it's all in their interest to show they can project power in opposition to what they see as the interfering western nations, mainly the United States. This is a revolution without end, and therefore Donald Trump, having started the war, must now contemplate the reality that Iran is never going to give up, or more specifically, the IRGC is never going to give up. The IRGC rulers are lapping up the chance to target everyone in the region to bring them to their knees. Reports in Washington today say Trump is getting angrier and angrier that he can't persuade Iran to do a deal. That will only encourage the IRGC leaders to keep going. This war is not going to end any time soon. If ever.

Europe will never patrol the Strait of Hormuz with a war on

A new government in London and suddenly there is an expectation rising in Washington that the UK, France and other European countries will send their navies to help patrol the Strait of Hormuz and keep the Iranians out. It isn't going to happen. Wes Streeting, the government minister translated from Health to Defence, seems keen keen to muster up some warsips to ride alongside the US Navy as a signal to Iran that the western world is now united against them. I'm not sure how this enthusiasm has suddenly emerged because I just don't see it happening. The UK position has always been that naval help is available for the Strait of Hormuz but not, repeat not, when the war is still uhderway. Well, as we see almost every day, the war IS still on and ships in the strait are being fired at. So any warships from Europe in the Gulf would become targets. While Trump would be delighted if his European allies helped out - and that would help with dodgy relations between the US and Nato as a whole - it's never going to take off. Did Andy Burnham say to Trump in his phone call that he would send the Royal Navy to the Strait of Hormuz? Did Streeting say the same to Pete Hegseth, his counterpart in America, that the Royal Navy was ready and willing? If they did, then they did so without the backing of any of the other European partners who will continue to say non, non, non, nein, nein, nein.

Netanyahu makes his pitch with Trump

It could be a very tricky conversation for Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office today when the Israeli prime minister and President Donald Trump get together. The last time Trump spoke on the phone to Bibi, an expletive was used by the president. Netanyahu will be desperate to softsoap Trump and yet at the same time get his message across that the US cannot, must not, back out of the confrontation with Iran because it's now or never. The last thing the Israeli prime minister wants to hear is that Trump is desperate for the renewed peace talks to succeed so that he can end the war and claim victory. Netanyahu knows that victory against Tehran is still a long way off and however well the talks go, the likelihood is that the outcome will be bad for Israel. So there will be some sharp words today, I suspect, althugh Netanyahu knows how to play the game and he will want to leave the Oval Office with Trump's arms wrapped round him or at least holding on to his arm to show that he is once again back in his favour.