Happy Easter to a pretty desperate world

At least the Pope made it for church, although he has looked somewhat ropey in recent months. Easter needs the Pope somehow. But the rest of the world is a mess apart from the odd Pacific island and tiny villages in Cornwall and Tuscany. Too many things are going wrong, too much hatred, too much uncontrollable anger, frustration and general fed-upness. A bomb explosion in Syria, murder mayhem in Haiti, anticipated mass missile strikes across Ukraine, Putin in power for ever, US election coming up which could be a disaster for the western world, an election in the UK which won't solve anything, destruction beyond nightmares in Gaza, Islamic terrorism anywhere and everywhere, Sudan and Yemen population suffering every day, like Palestinians in Gaza, and the families of the 1,200 Israelies slaughtered by hateful Hamas, there is no end to the traumas, and I have only mentioned a few. The problem is there is no sign that anything is going to improve. Whatever the Pope says today about peace and love, most of the world will shout yes yes yes but the evil ones on the planet will do their best to screw it all up for everyone.

Trump "doesn't have the brains" to be a dictator

According to John Bolton, the former national security adviser, Donald Trump doesn't have the brainpower to be a dictator. Obviously Bolton, the guy with THE moustache, is not counting on getting a job in a future Trump adminstration because every time he is asked about his former boss he is very rude about him. Trump is on record as saying that he will only be a dictator for his first day and then will knuckle down as a democratic-style president. But Bolton doesn't seem to think that he has sufficient dictator assets. I don't know what he means by that because the current family of dictators around the world don't seem to have many brain cells between them but they keep ruling without too much trouble. I think Trump would be a pretty formidable dictator, issuing edicts as and when he decides. He doesn't need brains, he just needs total obstinacy and a determination to do what he wants without anyone, from Congress to the Justice Department, getting in the way. Joe Biden, on the other hand, doesn't have a dictatorial cell in his body. He is a Congress man through and through and when they screw him, he pleads and pleads but doesn't even lose his temper. I can imagine Trump has a fiery temper - indeed, biographies have confirmed it. So, John Bolton, your remark about Trump is pretty pointless. If Trump is elected in November, he's going to try to get his own way, and if he has to step into dictator's shoes, he will do just that.

What ARE Putin's next plans?

Vladimir Putin believes in revenge. Defectors, troublesome opposition leaders, journalist investigators reporting on Kremlin corruption, anyone threatening his leadership and regime gets the revenge treatment, often involving a fatal "incident". The shooting at the concert hall in which 143 people died is going to lead to much more than the arrest of the four alleged terrorists, their torture and eventual execution. Putin is still making it clear that he believes the government in Ukraine and thus its western backers, too, were behind the atrocity in one way or another and dismisses the total denials from Kyiv and from Washington. So what he plans next is probably a massive revenge attack on Ukrainian cities. Soon after the shootings, Russia launched missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and other cities but I suspect this was a gesture strike which will be followed in due course by something much heavier and more widespread. Ukraine was innocent of the concert hall attack but the Ukrainian people are going to suffer because Putin wants to demonstrate to the Russian people that he is in charge and that he knows who was behind the massacre, even though he has himself acknowledged that the four arrested are Islamic terrorists, and not from Ukraine. The Russian people will expect and will support revenge because the atrocity was a tragedy for the whole country and they will want those responsible to suffer, and if their leader says Ukraine was behind it they might just believe him. So I fear that in the next few weeks, there is going to be a huge stepping up of attacks on Ukraine. Perhaps Putin will also order a mass mobilisation of fresh troops which would have been unpopular only a few weeks ago but now might be more acceptable. That may well be what Putin is thinking. The omens are bad for Ukraine.

Don't worry, Putin says he's not going to invade Poland, the Baltics etc

So we can all sit back and relax. Vladimir Putin has pooh-poohed the fear expressed throughout the western alliance almost ever since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022 that he next plans to attack Poland, the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and any other Nato nation he fancies. Speaking at some event, Putin has declared that this is all nonsense and that he has no such ambitions. Do you know, for once, I believe him. First of all, there is no way he could try and invade Poland etc without getting immersed in a conventional war with the alliance. He knows that, and secondly, it's not like he has had brilliant success in Ukraine. Ok, in recent weeks, the Russian troops have moved forward a little and have had a better period than Ukrainian forces. But the war could go on for ever, not just draining Russia's economy but also reducing the size of the young-to-middle-aged male population by an alarmingly high rate. So, although one should never trust Putin to tell the truth - after all, he told the world he had no intention of invading Ukraine - I really do believe he has no grand scheme to commit Russia's dwindling army to perpetual warfare thrughout Europe. It makes no sense, militarily, economically or realistically. I'm sure Putin loves it when he hears Nato leaders and their advisers giving dire warnings of a Russia on the charge to take over eastern Europe. It no doubt makes him feel pretty big and tough but I doubt it puts ideas into his head. That's not to say the alliance can really relax. It needs to keep spending tons of money on defence just so as to remind Putin that the whole of Nato is off limits, including and especially, what's left of Ukraine when the war is over and it joins the alliance.

Is Biden going to fail in Ukraine as well as in Gaza?

President Joe Biden vowed to back Ukraine all the way and then said the same for Israel after the Hamas atrocities on October 7. But in each case the Biden Doctrine is failing. Thanks to the Republicans in Congress, US funds for sending desperately-needed weapons to Ukraine, have stalled. So that's not Biden's fault. That's the fault of short-sighted, electioneering Republicans who are putting domestic politics ahead of Ukraine's future existence. But from the very beginning Biden has made it clear he was going to arm Ukraine in order for it to "defend" itself against the Russian invasion. But more and more, Kyiv is going on the offensive and is almost daily attacking targets inside Russia, including its oil infrastructure, arms depots, and airbases. They are doing this based on the oldest of adages which is that if you want to defeat an enemy you hit them where it hurts most. But Biden has urged Kyiv not to use America's advanced weaponry to strike at Russia itself but to focus on defending itself within the territory of Ukraine. Indeed, the Biden administration has deliberately not sent really long-range weaponry because of the apparent fear in Washington that attacks with US weapons inside Russia could provoke Putin to resort to terrible revenge - ie, resort to tactical nuclear weapons on the basis that the Russian motherland is facing an existential threat. So, for example, there's a longer-range HIMARS rocket system available but the US won't send it. They have just sent the more basic system with a shorter range. Now Biden has appealed to Zelensky not to attack Russia's oil infrastructure. What! This is what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Surely Kyiv has the right to answer back in kind? It's a bit of a contradiction. The same goes in Gaza. Biden, for good humanitarian reasons, doesn't want the Israel Defence Forces to assault Rafah in the south because of all the Palestinians living there. But, in a sense, both in Israel and in Ukraine, Biden wants Tel Aviv and Kyiv to fight back with one arm tied behind their backs.

Donald Trump now has two out of four trial dates

We now know for sure that Donald Trump, Republican nominee-designate for the White House, multi-billionaire and mass property owner, is going to face trials this year in at least two out of the four cases confronting him. The first one involves his alleged attempt to hide within his business accounts a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about her claim they had sex together which the former president has denied. That trial is set for April 15. There seems little chance he can delay that any further. The next one will take place on May 25, according to current scheduling. This is the one where Trump is accused of taking hundreds of classified documents to his resort residence in Florida which, even for a former president, is illegal. It's possible this date might slip but it will still go ahead before the November election unless the US Supreme Court waves a magic wand (magical for Trump that is) and declares that anything Trump did as president and as an ex-president is above the law and unprosecutable. This unlikely potential ruling is supposed to be focused on the most serious charge Trump is facing which is his alleged involvement in the events which led to an insurrection and an attack on the Capitol after he had lost the 2020 election. But if the judges on the Supreme Court decide he should be alllowed some form of immunity, then I guess Trump's lawyers will try to use that ruling to get rid of all the charges, including the stashing of classified documents in his bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. We're just over seven months from the election, so a lot could happen to swing things in or away from Trump's favour. But if he is found guilty at the April 15 trial of paying hush money and burying it in the Trump business accounts, will that be enough to turn off a lot of his loyal supporters? Somehow, I doubt it.

Israel has little choice but to extract Hamas from Rafah

The appeal to Israel by the Biden administration not to "invade" the town of Rafah in southern Gaza makes no military sense. How can Biden and his security team believe that it would help Israel if they left Rafah alone and thus forget about trying to eliminate the main hierarchy of the organisation that killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7? It would be like Israel appealing to the US not to invade the town of Raqqa in northern Syria when it was the stronghold of the Isis terrorist caliphate. I assume what Biden and Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, mean is that the Israel Defence Forces should not go headlong into Rafah with all guns and tanks blazing and reduce it to rubble. But they can't mean the Israelis should give up on its mission and objective which is to destroy Hamas for good. Rafah is Hamas. As far as is known this is where the October 7 plotters are hiding, so it seems to me to be perfectly understandable, militarily, for the IDF to want to enter the town to seek out the remaining Hamas leaders and combat brigades. But of course for humanitarian reasons, it would be disastrous if the IDF did to Rafah what they did to Gaza City because there are still 1.2 million Palestinian people in or around the town in temporary camps. So, an "invasion" of the town would be calamitous but precise military strikes targeting Hamas with accuracy and with absolute care to avoid civilian deaths, that would surely be approved by Washington? Binyamin Netanyahu has announced he is going ahead with the attack on Rafah whatever Washington says. He just better make sure it's carried out in a way that doesn't kill civilians and destroy relations with the US and bring condemnation from around the world.

Whatever the US says, Putin refuses to listen

So bad are relations between Moscow and Washington that it doesn't matter what the US administration says, whether it be about Ukraine or about the appalling terrorist attack at the concert hall which killed 133 Russian people, Putin either won't listen or won't believe what's being said. He just ignores it and goes ahead with what he wants Russians to believe. So he deliberately dismissed the US intelligence warning of an imminent terrorist attack in Moscow as propaganda and made no mention of it in his address to the nation on Saturday night. And even though the US has made it clear it has intelligence evidence that the terrorists were from the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (Isis-K), Putin just persists with his accusation that Ukraine was behind the attack and promptly ordered a mass barrage of missiles and drones against Kyiv and other cities in revenge. Even though the Russian security authorities have supposedly arrested the "four gunmen" involved in the terrorist attack and must already have their names, birthplace, where they went to school, where they trained with Isis-K and how long they have been members, elicited no doubt under some considerable physical pressure, Putin still wants the Russian people to believeuthat Kyiv was pulling the strings behind the terrorist attack. The leaders of Isis-K are probably miffed that Putin won't believe the Americans that they, and not Ukraine, were responsible for the concert hall slaughter. But this is Putin for you. He believes his own propaganda and nothing will change his view that Kyiv was to blame. I hope for the sake of the poor Russian people that there won't be another terrorist attack. But surely it's more important for Russia to act against Isis than take the easy option by blaming Ukraine for everything and retaliating with more and more missile attacks.

Why did Isis attack Moscow?

Even Putin must realise deep down that the terrorist attack on the concert hall outside Moscow which killed more than 130 people was not inspired or authorised or carried out by Ukraine. This was pure Isis, brutal, ferocious, unforgiving, single-minded and fanatically planned. Why a concert hall in Moscow? Because Russian Spetsnaz special forces have been ruthless against Isis in Syria and this is their revenge. I have no doubt they timed the attack to coincide with Putin's reelection for another six years to demonstrate to him that as a militant Islamic organisation they can strike when they want and where they want. The Isis faction involved appears to be the Islamic State - Khorasan Province (Isis-K) which operates from Afghanistan. Their remit, certainly in Moscow, was to kill as many civilians as possible over a short period before trying to make a getaway. This is the same terrorist group which caused mayhem when American troops were trying to evacuate from Kabul, killing at least 150 Afghans and 13 US service personnel. Putin claims to have arrested the four gunmen involved, so presumably, if they are the real shooters, this will help to lift the finger of suspicion from Kyiv. Isis-K will remain one of the most deadly terrorist groups in the world, now that what is left of al-Qaeda is in hiding and no longer operational. Not at the moment, anyway. Their new leader is, interestingly, based in Iran and no doubt being looked after by the ayatollahs. Without a shadow of doubt, Putin and the Kremlin were caught napping with this latest terrorist atrocity, despite a warning from the US that an attack of this kind was imminent. Putin laughed at the US and has now paid the price. Or at least more than 130 Russian people and 100 others wounded in the terror strike, have paid the price for Putin's complacency.

The terrible thing about war is that we get used to it

The war in Ukraine has been going on for two years and one month and it has to be said that we newspaper readers and television watchers have now become almost immune to the appalling images of slaughter and death. This is what happens when wars drag on and on. Even the poor Ukrainians suffering from Putin's butchery and inhumanity have become accustomed to the new normal. The new normal is being shelled and missiled and droned every day and having to hunt for food and shelter. That's their daily life. They hate it and fear it but it's what happens every day and it has been going on for ever and there is no reason to imagine it will stop any day soon. So you become accustomed to the new appalling way of life and survive if you can. Likewise, here in the West we worry about Ukraine and hate Putin for what he is doing but we can't disrupt our lives every day by getting too immersed in the mayhem thousands of miles away. Today Putin launched missiles on Ukraine's largest dam and set it on fire. The consequences will be dreadful for the people of Ukraine but it's just another day in a war which won't go away. It's not quite the same yet in Gaza because it has only been going on for five and a bit months and the images of destruction and suffering are still almost too awful to see. There is a picture in The New York Times today of a man and woman and a child sitting round a primitive cooker making what looks like a thin pancake and a tiny pot of beans, surrounded by broken, destroyed buildings. This is their life, probably for years. Shocking and terrifying but this is what war does to innocent people. We get used to it from our comfortable homes the longer it goes on, and they, the victims, have to get used to it in order to survive.

Biden has more money than Trump for campaigning

Winning the US presidency prize is all about money. Who has the most to cover promotion, marketing, advertising etc and right now Joe Biden is loaded. He has around $155 million to play with from donors and that's a bigger sum than billionaire Trump has in his coffers. What's more, Trump is facing a financial nightmare with a $464 million penalty payment to pay arising frm the court judgment that found him guilty of business fraud by exaggerating his wealth to get bank loans. That sum is gathering interest every day although Trump is appealing against the court sentence. If he loses the appeal the penalty is going to be closer to $500 million. Big trouble for him, and if his donations are not matching Biden's it's going to be difficult for him to flood the market with campaign-boosting adverts. This will be a new experience for Trump who normally gives the impression he is rolling in money and could finance his own campaign if the worst came to the worst. Not now. The key will be for Biden to maximise his money advantage to bash Trump and remind every voter what they are letting themselves in for if he wins in November. It's going to be a dirty fight.

Trump backs Nato really but watch out penny-pinching allies

For the last few months, as Donald Trump marched ever rapidly towards the Republican nomination for the presidency, Nato allies have been fretting about what he might do to the alliance if he returned to the White House. Would he take the US out of Nato and abandon Europe to the war-threatening Russian president? But actually, as with most things said by Trump, there was never any real danger of Trump leaving the alliance. He just likes to frighten what he sees as scrounging members of the alliance to spend more on defence and to relieve the US of the mighty burden of propping up the whole of Europe. He has now told Nigel Farage in a TV interview that he would keep the US in Nato ("100 per cent") provided the rest of the alliance paid their way properly. Trump did exactly the same when he won the presidency in 2016 and got the whole of Nato's knickers in a twist. But it did work because many more alliance members raised their spending to the required two per cent of GDP. So if Trump wins in November, Nato can expect to survive but at a cost. What worries me is that defence spending is too often about wasting money. Vast sums are spent on major programmes that either don't work properly or overrun in both cost and time. The UK is as bad as any of the Nato countries. We now have two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers but more often than not they are back at port after some breakdown, and they still don't carry the number of fighter jets for which they were designed. Armoured vehicles that should be in service have had nothing but trouble. If, as the current UK defence secretary is demanding, our defence spending rises to three per cent of GDP, it will probably lead to even more money-wasting projects that don't work. What we do need is more manpower. Men and women in uniform can be guaranteed to work properly.

No end in sight for wars in Gaza and Ukraine

The war in Ukraine was supposed to have taken a few weeks, according to President Putin's plans/hopes, and the war in Gaza should have all been over in four or five months, according to the expectations in Tel Aviv. Yet here we are with two wars disrupting the whole world, and there is absolutely no end in sight for either of them. In fact, it would be safe to predict that this time next year, both wars will still be raging and the combined casualty toll will have reached astronomical levels. The only way for either of the wars to end is for there to be compromise and I don't see that happening for a long time, if ever. Israel is not going to stop fighting Hamas in Gaza until Binyamin Netanyahu's desire for total annihilation has been met, and neither Russia nor Ukraine are going to give an inch. Indeed, Putin, given another six years as president, is now talking about creating a buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine to try and stop long-range attacks from Ukrainian missiles and drones against the Belgorod region. That will mean more fighting. Putin is clearly intent on carrying on with the war in Ukraine until the Kyiv government begs for mercy and that's not going to happen. This is a major headache not just for Kyiv but for the western alliance because even though President Biden said the US would back Ukraine "for as long as it takes" I doubt he thought the war would go on for years. There is no realistic scenario any more in which Ukraine can claim victory over Putin because the Russian leader will never give up. With the US unable to continue sending Congress-approved military aid because of the political impasse in the Senate, Putin has every reason to pursue the war for "as long as it takes". If the war in Gaza continues for another year or more, there will be almost nothing left of the territory. Both wars are relentless and it would seem there is very little the US can do to bring either of them to a close. So it's a grim future of war, war and more war.

Ceasefire talks start as Gaza hospital at heart of battle

Renewed ceasefire/hostage-release negotiations have started at a critical point in the five-month-old war in Gaza. Like so often in wars, events tend to contradict each other. Everyone wants a ceasefire even if it's only for a few weeks, to stop the killing and property destruction. But even as the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic security service, were heading to Qatar for the talks, there was a sudden escalation of violence in northern Gaza after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) returned to the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to seek out Hamas leaders who, according to Israeli intelligence, had once again materialised at the major medical complex. Hamas has always denied using the hospital to launch attacks on Israel and on IDF troops. But Hamas denials fell apart when the IDF came under fierce assault when troops, tanks and artillery turned up outside the hospital. The use of hospitals as Hamas hideaways has been one of the most sensitive and controversial issues for Israel because in propaganda terms, the world sees Israeli troops attacking a facility which should be safe from the war because it is full of wounded patients and mothers giving birth and others having non-war medical treatment. But if the enemy is using the hospital as a shield, in Israeli eyes that becomes a legitimate target. However, the fighting at al-Shifa today will cast a shadow of doom over the ceasefire negotiations in Qatar. It also demonstrates that the Hamas leaders are still able to transfer from one hideout to another, using the complex tunnel network. The IDF thought the leaders were all located underground beneath or nearby the southern town of Rafah and plans had been laid for an attack. But have they all now switched back to Gaza City? This is a hugely complex war where Hamas enjoys many of the territorial advantages. The ceasefire talks are likely to be protracted with no guarantee of success.

Trump's rhetoric is getting scarier

Donald Trump knows how to frighten people. He uses rhetoric which is both alarming and threatening. In his latest speech he referred to many illegal immigrants as "not people" and warned that if he is not reelected in November there will be a "bloodbath". He didn't explain what he meant by bloodbath but his choice of word was obviously very deliberate. He clearly wanted to make his warning ambivalent. Did he mean that if the border situation wasn't cleared up it would lead to a bloodbath - ie on the border? Or did he mean, as a general statement, that if he is not returned to the White House, there will be a bloodbath because his supporters will go on a rampage just like they did on October 6, 2021 after he had lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden? Either way, the Republican party's choice for president has put the country on notice that if voters fail to throw Biden out of the White House, the nation is going to fall into anarchy. It's an alarming and pretty irresponsible prediction. The US Supreme Court judges should take account of Trump's inflammatory language when they make their ruling over whether he should be allowed immunity from prosecution, as he and his lawyers are demanding. Common sense and a basic understanding of the law would seem to suggest that the judges will decide against giving Trump immunity. But just in case any of them are tempted to rule in Trump's favour they should monitor every word spoken by him as the campaign progresses. In the next eight months, Trump's rhetoric is bound to get even more alarmist and threatening.

How much longer will Israelis support Netanyahu?

The war in Gaza is now all about Binyamin Netanyahu. What is he orepared to do to defeat Hamas and what is he prepared to do to survive as prime minister? The answer is, he is prepared to do whatever it takes to destroy every member of the Hamas organisation and he will fight to stay as Israeli leader because he believes only he is capable of saving Israel from its enemies. Senator Chuck Schumer, the US Senate majority leader, has said that it is time for an election in Israel so that someone else can lead the country. Netanyahu has to go, he says. He is probably right. There is no real hope of peace, let alone a permament solution for the Palestinian people, while Netanyahu is in charge. But this is a leader who will never give up. Even though he and his government failed to prevent Hamas from committing terrible atrocities against the Israeli people on October 7 and even though a lot of Israelis probably blame him personally for the historic failure, they continue to support the objective of destroying Hamas because they feel the safety and security of the nation depends upon it. So, Netanyahu will probaby survive as prime minister, at least until the Gaza war ends, which means that the expected assault on the town of Rafah where the Hamas leaders are supposed to be hiding, will go ahead soon. According to the US newspapers, he has already approved the battle plan to attack Rafah. The world awaits the consequences of that decision.

What is going on in the war in southern Gaza?

Because of a lack of information from the ground inside southern Gaza, it's difficult to keep pace with how the Israel Defence Forces are getting on with their mission which is to destroy Hamas. With no reporters allowed into Gaza on a daily basis - only when there are special IDF-guided press trips - there is no intelligence or outside assessment of what is being achieved other than what the IDF spokesman puts out in regular briefings. But there seems to be a sort of hiatus in the battle between the IDF and Hamas. When the Israeli action started five months ago it was shock-and-awe stuff with massive bombing and artillery strikes. But right now there seem to be far more limited airstrikes and, as yet, no comprehensive move to send in the infantry and specialist combat engineers to blast the Hamas leaders out of their underground bunkers in Rafah in the south. Is this because Binyamin Netanyahu is taking some notice of what Joe Biden has been saying for the last few weeks about preventing further Palestinian bloodshed, or has he now settled for a long war, as the US intelligence community predicted the other day? I suspect it's a bit of both. But principally, there must now be a much greater effort to release the remaining hostages who have endured terrible trials for too long. For this to happen, a large-scale strike on Rafah will have to be put off. But there are no signs of a breakthrough in the hostage-release negotiations. So, the war in Gaza has reached an impasse, and Hamas holds the controlling cards.

Putin loves to bring up the nuclear card

Everyone is now saying we are living in a more dangerous world than ever before. Why? Because Vladimir Putin who is about to win the election in Russia, keeps on warning the West that he is fully prepared to launch nuclear weapons and incinerate the planet. I mean, I know it's all rhetoric and muscular stuff typical of Putin but does he really want to bring the planet to an end? Or does he think that if he, say, fires half a dozen tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine, the US-led Nato alliance will do nothing in return? He just might be thinking this because as sure as hell Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron and Rishi Sunak et al don't want to incinerate the world, so if Putin did fire nuclear weapons at Ukraine to bring the country to its knees what actually would Nato do? It's a frightening question because I'm not sure of the answer. They could not, absolutely not, do nothing in reply but I cannot believe Nato would respond with a nuclear response against Russia. So this is why Putin keeps on waving the nuclear card. It's to remind the West that they are in a helluva dilemma.

Is Hamas winning?

The Israel Defence Forces claim to have killed 13,000 Hamas terrorists which means they have probably eliminated about half of the available Hamas organisation in Gaza. Binyamin Netanyahu says there are seven Hamas combat brigades still fighting in southern Gaza. In five months of war in Gaza, that Hamas death toll could be assessed as a high achievement by IDF and if the rest of the brigades can be wrapped up, once Netanyahu gives the go ahead for a full-scale assault on the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, then victory could be Israel's. But the reality is totally different. In the five months since October 7 when Hamas launched its terrible slaughter across the border into Israel, the strategic landscape has changed beyond recognition. Hamas cannot defeat the IDF, so tactically they are losing. But stategically they are winning the argument on the world stage. They have successfully made the world turn against Israel but, most importantly, they have forced the administration of President Joe Biden, Netanyahu's strongest ally, to do a complete about-turn. Now, Biden keeps on ringing Netanyaho to tell him to stop killing civilians, he is air-dropping food supplies to the Palestinians and has ordered the US military to build a temporary port so food can be brought in by ship. The US is thus reacting to the daily claims by Hamas of rising casualties. Of course there are huge casualties, and of course, it's largely the Israeli troops and bombers who are causing the deaths and injuries among the civilians, but all of this serves the interests of Hamas who want the world to condemn Israel in order to stop the IDF from going ahead with attacking Rafah where half Gaza's population is sheltering. Israel says it's all the fault of Hamas because they are hiding and fighting behind the Palestinian people, using them as human shields. That's unquestionably true. But right now Hamas is winning the strategic battle. It's an extraordinary and dangerous state of affairs. The CIA and other US intelligence agencies assess it's unlikely Israel can eliminate Hamas and fear the war may go on for years. The tragedy is that if Hamas IS winning the strategic battle, will the 100 or so hostages ever be released?

Joe Biden's Red Line to nowhere

Why do US presidents get sucked into issuing ultimatums which they can't or won't stick to? Barack Obama did it when he warned Syria that any use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people would lead to instant major retaliation by the US but failed to follow it through. Now Joe Biden has told Binyamin Netanyahu that he personally has a Red Line: Israel cannot attack the town of Rafah in southern Gaza where about 1.2 million Palestinians are sheltering. But if Netanyahu goes ahead with attacking Rafah, what will Biden do about it? Will he stop arming Iarael, will he break off all contact with Israel? I seriously doubt it. So why issue the Red Line, or what George W Bush used to call a "line in the sand", when he knows that Netanyahu is committed to finishing the job in Gaza and that means overrunning Rafah where Israel believes the main Hamas leaders are hiding. Netanyahu doesn't have any red lines in terms of achieving his objective. His only argument to Biden is that he has to stop Hamas from ever again being capable of repeating what they did on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis. Therefore, if the remaining brigades and leaders of Hamas are in or under Rafah, that's where his forces have to go next. It's a logical argument and makes sense if you're sitting in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But in Washington, the picture has changed completely. Now it's a question of preventing more Palestinian deaths and saving the people of Gaza from starvation. There is therefore a clash in strategy between Tel Aviv and Washington which is why declaring a Red Line is pretty pointless and ultimately an empty warning. Somehow, and Israel has failed to do this so far, the Israel Defence Forces have to find the remaining Hamas leaders and their command structure in Rafah without causing unacceptable destruction and death. Netanyahu could then tell Biden that he has not crossed the US president's Red Line but has still managed to achieve the ohjective of annihilating Hamas. But this is a terrible war and terribe mistakes are made. If Rafah is given the same treatment that was dished out to Gaza City and Khan Younis, there will be destruction and civilian deaths. It's inevitable, so Biden will face the nightmare decision of how to punish Israel if this happens. It could be a decisive moment in the war and for Biden's hopes of being reelected in November.

Why is Mitch McConnell endorsing Trump?

Senator Mitch McConnell, retiring Senate Minority Leader, is 82. Perhaps that's why he is endorsing Donald Trump as nominee for the Republican party. Old guys stick together. It's difficult to understand what other justifiable reason he might have for supporting a man whom he denounced after the January 6 riot against the Capitol. The real reason of course is that everyone else pretty much is backing Trump within the Republican party and McConnell doesn't want to retire from his leadership role in the Senate and then be ostracised by all his peers. McConnell is staying on as a senator. The whole Republican party, apart from the so-called but uninfluential No-Trumpers, is backing Trump because he is the only who has a chance of giving them back the White House and the country, never mind what he will do once he is in the Oval Office. They don't seem to care about that. So, presumably they will back him all the way if he wins the election when he announces on day one that he is going to stop all funding and arming of Ukraine in order to bring the war to an end (in Putin's favour). According to Viktor Orban, the autocratic leader of Hungary who loves Trump, the former president is going to do just that, and he approves because the other leader he likes is Putin. And when Trump, if elected, declares an end to the war in Ukraine and signs up a delighted Putin, there is one senior Republican figure who will presumably give his blessing. None other than Mitch McConnell who until now has been a staunch friend and supporter of Ukraine. Politics is truly a cynical business.

US has a bombing and feeding strategy in Gaza

There is something bizarre and unsettling about a policy which involves helping a country to bomb its enemies while at the same time airlifting and shipping food into the combat zone to prevent the population under fire from suffering starvation and malnutrition. This is what the US is doing in Gaza, all for the right humanitarian reasons but it still doesn't stand quite right. The problem for the Biden administration is that it wants to support Israel in its determination to rid Gaza of the Hamas terrorists who killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7 but it also desperately does NOT want the Israel Defence Forces to bomb and shell every town and city in the thin strip of territory, causing massive collateral damage to the civilian population. Yet the US continues to provide munitions for the IDF so that they can do exactly that. It's a huge contradiction and as every day passes it is becoming more and more difficult to justify. The decision by Biden to send 1,000 US troops to build a temporary port for the delivery of food to the Palestinians is another ingredient in this contradictory strategy. Meanwhile, the Americans and Jordanians and others are air-dropping pallets of food onto the Gaza beaches. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is unrelenting in his aim of annihilating Hamas and won't stop until his troops have found, captured or killed the organisation's leaders who have remained unscathed so far. Biden has appealed to him to limit military operations and to refrain from attacking the town of Rafah where more than 1.2 million Palestinians are trying to survive. Netanyahu, I suspect, will ignore Biden. But has the US president threatened to stop providing munitions? Not yet. So the bombing and feeding contradiction will continue for the foreseeable future.

Is it a bird, is it a flying saucer?

More wonderful UFO stuff. The latest Pentagon UFO department report gives the impression that pilots see so many unexplained flying whatsits at high and low altitude that aliens in spaceships just must be circling the Earth at regular intervals. The Pentagon calls them Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) but us lesser mortals still call them UFOs. The trouble is, every report that gets published always ends up the same, basically with the Pentagon dissing all such incidents. No, there are no aliens, no, there's no government cover-up, no, there has been no secret reverse-engineering of alien spaceships. This time, in the latest report, the UFO-checking officials indicate that any highly suspicious objects doing acrobatic stuff at wizzy speeds close to passing jet fighters were probably classified air force aerial platforms taking part in black research programmes. But hang on a minute. First of all, anything that goes up from the ground in the US has to be logged and even if it's secret, pilots of military and commercial aircraft in the same air space have to be warned to steer clear. It makes sense. Likewise, when the US launches flight tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles, all aircraft and ships are given due notice to stay the hell out of the way. So if these "UFOs or UAPs" are really the latest bit of kit out of the Lockheed Martin skunkworks, there should be a log somewhere. All very mysterious. But it all adds to the fun and games when the Pentagon produces its latest UFO report. I'm sure there are a lot of comedians in the UFO-investigating department. It makes a change from the usual diet of wars and military shenanigans and over-priced weapons projects

Joe Biden steps up a groove

The Democrats in Congress must have sighed with relief. Joe Biden was positively upbeat and bouncy. You could mostly hear what he was saying and when he got heckled he handled it. The annual State of the Union address is always a big challenge for the encumbent president but especially for Biden because he speaks so quietly and has a habit of saying something slightly skewed or plain wrong. His speech wasn't perfect but he sounded like a president ought to sound and he bashed Trump as often as he could although, bizarrely, he didn't actually mention him by name but referred to him as his predecessor. We had all the democracy versus dictatorship stuff and a wonderful reminder to the assembled elected that Trump had recently called on Putin to do what he liked to Nato nations who didn't pay their way. This, Biden said censoriously, was "unacceptable". So it was a good night for the president and a demonstration to Democratic doubters that he wasn't yet an old git dying for a cup of hot cocoa and bedroom slippers. The Biden/Trump battle is going to be a helluva slanging match.

Houthis are winning their war in the Red Sea

The latest missile attack by the Houthis in Yemen killed three people and sunk a commercial ship in the Red Sea. So now the Houthis are getting away with murder as well as massive disruption of shipping. No matter what the US and coalition military forces throw at them by way of retaliatory strikes on their missile depots and other logistics facilities, the Houthis don't seem to care and it certainly doesn't stop them from carrying on firing cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones at every passing ship heading for Israel. By contrast, the hefty strikes carried out by the US against Iran-backed militia in Iraq and Syria following the killing of three soldiers at a base in Jordan have done the trick. After the US killed one of the top leaders of the Iran-funded Kataib Hezbollah with a drone strike in Iraq, Tehran got the message and told their proxy killers to stop attacking US troops in the region. That was more than a month ago. But it seems Tehran is very happy to encourage the Houthis to persist with their attacks on shipping in the Red sea, or at least the ayatollahs are not telling them to hold fire. It's strange but I suspect unless the US carries out a really big strike on the Houthis, or even targets someone very senior from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force which arms and funds both the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah, the Yemen-based militia will just keep going with their almost daily attacks until Israeli troops leave Gaza which looks like never happening.

America is voting for two leaders they don't want

All the polls say that most American people do NOT want a rerun of the 2020 presidential election. So they don't want to vote for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump but that is exactly what they are doing at every primary and caucus. Biden and Trump have just won big time in the Super Tuesday elections. It's one of the extraordinary contradictions of the 2024 presidential election but that's the political system in the US. No one else, not even the ever-determined Nikki Haley, stands a realistic chance. Haley only won one primary this time (Vermont) to add to her first the other day (Washington DC) and will have no choice but to step down. So it's Biden and Trump all the way to November unless something dramatic happens of course. The border issue is such a mess that Trump could win the election just on his pledge to close it on day one. A conviction and jail sentence now are the only things standing in the way of a Trump victory. Biden must be praying every night for the Gods of Justice to act to prevent Trump from taking the White House away from him. As for Trump, he probably believes that even if he is convicted of a criminal charge he will be able to persuade his loyal supporters that it's all a Democratic plot and they will keep voting for him. It certainly looks that way at the moment.

Pilotless fighter jets is the new big thing

The US is moving rapidly towards developing a new-generation of jet fighter drones piloted by artificial intelligence (AI) which are intended to outsmart China and Russia in any future conflict. The Pentagon is due soon to select a shortlist from five companies competing for the project with the aim of beginning production of more than 1,000 of the super-fighter drones by 2028. The lessons learned from the intensive use of drones in the war in Ukraine, as well as the huge cost of building manned fighter aircraft, have transformed US air force planning for future combat. The initial batch of crewless fighter drones will cost between one-quarter and one third of the unit price of an F-35 stealth fighter, around $20.5 million to $27.5 million compared with $82.5 million, according to Frank Kendall, US air force secretary. One of the fighter drones expected to make the shortlist is the MQ-28A Ghost Bat developed by a Boeing subsidiary in Australia jointly with the Australian air force. Named after a predatory bat found only in Australia, the multi-mission drone has been designed to fly ahead of manned fighter aircraft, such as the F-35, seek out the potential threats ahead and open fire on enemy aircraft if necessary. The Ghost Bat is only 38ft long with a 24ft wing span and will have a range of more than 2,300 miles. Others currently competing for the contract include the Fury, developed by Anduril, a California-based technology company, and Gambit, designed by General Atomics. The two other companies involved in the competition, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, have yet to reveal their designs. The programme to produce the AI-piloted fighter drones is called the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) project and is part of the Pentagon’s plans for future air dominance in potential wars with rival great powers – China and Russia. Kendall said the US was moving with a “sense of urgency” on the programme. The US air force said it planned to deploy several different types of CCA fighter jets for missions that would include strikes, surveillance, electronic jamming and also to serve as decoys to draw enemy fire. "Collaborative Combat Aircraft are being designed to work in conjunction with current and next-generation aircraft to provide operational flexibility in achieving air superiority," Ann Stefanek, spokeswoman for the US air force, said. She said that 392 million dollars was being invested this year and expected further funding to be announced next week. The use of long-range armed drones by both Russia and Ukraine, as well as by the Houthis in Yemen against shipping in the Red Sea and also in conflicts in Ethiopia in 2022 and Azerbaijan in 2020 have transformed modern warfare. However, the focus on unmanned systems is not new. The Pentagon has been developing unmanned aerial systems for years because of the increasing risk faced by pilots flying the most sophisticated and expensive jet fighters in dense anti-aircraft environments. Even the new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider which has now been test flown and is due to replace the B-1B and B-2 long-range bombers, has been designed with a potential unmanned capability.

US Supreme Court gives blessing to Donald Trump

Well it wasn't really a surprise but the US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled against their fellow judges in Colorado who decided it as right to ban Trump's name from appearing on the ballot sheets in the state because they concluded he had violated the Constitution by being involved in an insurrection to throw out the legitimate government. The New York supreme court said only Congress could throw someone out of the presidential race. Everyone except the judges in Colorado knew that to be the case but well done for trying. Anyway, Trump of course has leapt on the ruling as a great victory for him which I guess it is, even if it was widely anticipated. Now he has his much bigger challenge coming up in April when the Supreme Court will hear the arguments over whether he should enjoy immunity from prosecution whatever dastardly deeds he has been accused of. The assumption among the legal community is that Trump will lose this one, otherwise it sets a very dangerous precedent for errant presidents in the future. So I doubt even Trump thinks he will win this one, but if he did, he would be off the hook altogether. But I anticipate the judges will say Trump cannot enjoy immunity and should face trial on the 91 criminal charges like any other citizen of the United States would. So Citizen Trump will have to spend a lot of time in the dock between now and November.

Israel discovers that breaking up the opposition in urban warfare is hard to do

I'd love to know how long the Israel Defence Forces thought it would take to defeat Hamas and get the whole of Gaza under control. Six months maybe? Perhaps three months? The reality is that urban warfare is the toughest type of conflict because unless you are a barbarian, you have an obligation and a desire to limit collateral damage, ie keep civilian deaths to a minimum. But this is almost impossible when the enemy is hiding within and under the civilian population, just as the Islamic State fighters did in Mosul in Iraq and in Rafa in Syria. Hamas from the very beginning has exposed civilians in Gaza to maximum danger by using people and residential properties as shields for attacking the IDF. This method of fighting a war has both prolonged the conflict and guaranteed a high casualty toll. The IDF in response have literally turned large swathes of Gaza into rubble. It's claimed 80 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been destroyed. Just as the US-led coalition killed civilians in Mosul and Raffa and elsewhere in Iraq and Syria in the hunt for Isis, so the IDF have killed thousands of Palestinians while pursuing their objective, or the objective given them by Binyamin Netanyahu, of annihilating Hamas. Wars like this always lead to appalling collateral damage and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool.

Trump has to face his trials BEFORE the November election

There is still masses of uncertainty about Donald Trump's forthcoming trials. When the US Supreme Court announced that the judges had agreed to look into Trump's claim that as a former president he should enjoy immunity from prosecution even after his office had come to an end, all his trials were effectively put on hold. It's suggested that the judges will make their decision in June, so theoretically, provided of course they reject the immunity defence, there is no real reason why the trials shouldn't go ahead swiftly. Except that when lawyers are involved every kind of delay can be thrown into the system, and if a scheduled date gets too close to the election, it's highly unlikely that a judge will take the risk of going ahead with a trial, given the prospect of having the Republican Party's nominee for president sitting in court rather than out campaigning. Nikki Haley, for obvious reasons, wants all the trials to be wrapped up before the election date because she thinks - and she's right - that it's only fair on the voters to know what they are voting for. If they have no idea whether Trump is going to be tried and convicted or not on any of the charges, how can they make a valued judgement? So, somehow, between the US Supreme Court and the judges preparing the trials for Trump's 91 criminal charges, there has to be an agreement that the sooner they are held and completed the better for the country. But that's a Big Ask, as they say.

The horror of rising death statistics in the Hamas/Israel war

The killings began on October 7 when hundreds of Hamas militants piled over the border into Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people. Since then, according to the latest alleged statistics, 30,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. The Israel Defence Forces claim to have killed 10,000 Hamas terrorists. That figure, I assume, is included in the 30,000 figure provided by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. Whether it is or isn't included, the rising death statistics are horrendous. The incident in which 100 Palestinians died while queuing for aid is yet another example of the horrors of war. The UN seems intent on believing that it was the IDF who caused the 100 deaths and is demanding a full inquiry but the truth appears to be very dfferent. A few warning shots by IDF soldiers may have started it off when the crowds were getting out of control but it seems the driver of the aid lorry panicked and ran over the Palestinians surging around him. Others were trampled to death. It was a tragedy of gross proportions. The ceasefire negotiations which looked relatively promising only a few days ago will probably now falter. That inevitably means there will be more and more deaths until a deal is reached. It hardly bears thinking about.