How will Israel control Hamas if there is a ceasefire?

Not for the frst time there is optimism in senior US diplomatic circles about a potential ceasefire in Gaza. It has been said before and then nothing happened. But this time, because of what is being described as "a very generous" offer by Israel on the number of hostages to be released, there is more hope. But what if there is an agreed ceaaefire of, say, 40 days? What will happen at the end of that time? Israel has pretty well made it clear it will be back to normal and attacks to eliminate Hamas will restart. But also during those 40 days, Israel is going to come under huge pressure from around the world, and particularly from the US, to extend the ceasefire and then make it permanent. In other words, Israel will be pressurised to give up its main objective which is to remove Hamas from the planet. If I was Hamas I'd go for the deal being offered in the expectation that President Biden will do everything he can to stop the Israelis from carrying on the war once the ceasefire is over. But Binyamin Netanyahu is never going to agree to this, and Hamas must know that. However, its leaders down underground in southern Gaza might just gamble that now is the right time to do a deal. This will put Netanyahu in a spot. He has offered the "generous" deal - only 33 hostages to be freed at this stage - and can hardly turn down Hamas if its leaders come back and say ok. He will no doubt look at the small print and if Hamas conditions acceptance to a much longer or perpetual ceasefire, then he will have no choice but to reject the whole deal. But if he does, the hostage families will denounce him and his government. Netanyahu wants to survive as prime minister, so he will have to come up with a pretty convincing argument for reneging on the deal he has offered.

Hostages' lives in Gaza are a bargaining chip

Trading is going on for the release of the 100 or so hostages still believed to be alive in Gaza. It seems appalling but it's the reality of trying to do business with a designated terrorist organisation. For some time Israel has stipulated that in return for a six-week ceasefire it wanted 40 hostages freed. Now, according to the latest reports, that figure has come down to 33, most of whom would be women, the sick and the elderly. "You get six weeks of no fighting and we get 33 hostages." It's an unpleasant business. And think of the poor hostages, knowing that instead of having a team of Israeli special forces suddenly arriving and freeing them all, they have to wait in turn while their government plays the numbers game with their kidnappers. If the 33 figure is accurate, then around 70 hostages, presumably mostly younger Israelis, men and women, boys and girls, will have to wait for the next round of trading whenever that might be. But if, in the meantime, the Israel Defence Forces launch their much-anticipated assault on the town of Rafah in the south of Gaza, then the 70 hostages might have to wait a long time before they are freed. Or, the worst scenario, they are never released. Israeli airstrikes are already going on in Rafah, so in some ways you could say that the invasion of the town which is hosting more than a million Palestinian refugees, ousted from their homes in the north and other parts of Gaza, has already begun. Of course it's possible the trading and the bargaining over the hostages may be fruitless. Hamas has yet to reveal whether it's happy to free 33, instead of 40. They are surely likely to hold on until Israel can be persuaded not to invade Rafah at all. There is potentially a total impasse here.

Will the rush of US weapons to Ukraine make a difference?

(My piece in the Spectator this weekend) It’s a race against time for the Kyiv government to make best use of the new batch of American weapons now being assembled for delivery to Ukraine. With the much-delayed American funding available at last, Ukraine will have to build up its defences to withstand a new Russian offensive in the summer and to make enough headway to prove to the US, and in particular a sceptical Donald Trump if he wins the November election, that all this taxpayers’ money is being well spent. Whether the money and weapons will buy victory for Kyiv has to remain in doubt. The Russian invasion force has been making limited but steady territorial gains. But, more crucially, while US Congress wavered for months over approving the multi-billion-dollar aid package for Kyiv, Moscow has been hammering the country’s power infrastructure, turning the lights off for millions of Ukrainians. More than anything else, Ukraine needs air defence systems to counter the barrage of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and armed drones that have succeeded in recent months in getting past existing defences and causing massive destruction. Additional batteries of US Patriot missile launchers should be at the top of the Pentagon’s list. These anti-air missiles have the capability to protect Ukraine’s cities and towns from Russian strikes. But there is no sign of extra Patriot systems being included in the first $1 billion delivery order. The reason is simple. There just aren’t enough available to hand over to Kyiv, so Ukraine will have to make do, at least for the moment, with the single Patriot battery it currently has deployed. This could be a serious weakness at a time when Russian forces are expected to ramp up their air and missile strikes across Ukraine. However, the list of weapons en route to Ukraine include hundreds of thousands of rounds of 155mm and 105mm artillery shells which are the bedrock of battlefield systems in a war where relentless firepower keeps the enemy at bay. At present the Russians have a 10-1 advantage in stocks of artillery rounds. Ukraine lost territory and surrendered strategic towns and villages because of dwindling munition supplies. The first tranche also includes more than 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, additional munitions for the super-effective High Mobility Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and 200 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. However, even if, as promised by President Biden, the first batch of new weapons and munitions arrive “within hours”, will they be in time to make a significant difference on the battlefield or has the recent Russian momentum gone too far to be reversed? There is no doubt that the approval of the $61 billion in aid for Kyiv will lift spirits among the Ukrainian soldiers, giving them a better chance at last to fight back against advancing Russian troops and perhaps recapture small areas of eastern Ukraine where they were forced to retreat. However, a sizeable proportion of this huge investment in Ukraine’s survival will be spent on replenishing US stocks of munitions and weapons which had been prioritised for Ukraine’s use. The first US F-16 fighter jets being supplied from Europe are also not expected to be operational until July. Yet there is optimism that the new deliveries of weapons will improve Ukraine’s fortunes. ”The US aid and the new UK military package [worth £500 million and includes air-launched precision-guided Paveway IV bombs] will definitely make a difference on the battlefield by enabling the Ukrainians to protect their critical infrastructure , equalling up the artillery battle of attrition and enabling Ukrainian deep strikes to target Russian logistics in Crimea and elsewhere behind the lines, “said Eric Edelman, a former top defence policy official at the Pentagon. “That being said, it will help the Ukrainians stabilise the front lines and can perhaps prevent the Russians from making large mechanised breakthroughs. But Ukraine is likely to be on the strategic defensive for most of 2024,” he said. “In an ideal world they would use that time to get after their military manpower shortfalls and develop their indigenous defence production so that they might go on the offensive in 2025,” he said. Edelman added a warning. “If Trump is elected [in November], all bets are off. He would be likely to try and pressure the Ukrainians to negotiate, although the only thing [President] Putin seems willing to negotiate is a Ukrainian capitulation,” he said. Other analysts are less hopeful that Ukraine will now be in a position to make a lasting stand against Russia. “It’s difficult to see how this latest aid package is going to shift the balance significantly in Ukraine’s favour,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Pentagon official. “Nato does not appear to want to risk providing Ukraine with the support it will need to defeat the Russian invasion and risk Putin escalating the conflict but it fears a Ukrainian defeat. And so the war goes on,” he said. After all the sighs of relief in Washington over the successful passing of the Ukraine aid bill, US officials say the objectives have not changed. But there is less talk of victory for Kyiv. The main focus is to help the Ukrainian military make sufficient gains for the Kyiv government to be in a strong position to achieve a good outcome in a negotiated settlement with Moscow. But Russia will always have the advantage in terms of manpower, munitions and weapons production. The one thing which might make a substantial difference in Putin’s mind is if Ukraine multiplies by a huge amount its attacks on Russia itself and on Russian-annexed Crimea. The revelation that the Pentagon last month secretly sent the longer-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine appears to demonstrate that Biden has been persuaded to drop his reluctance about sending weapons that could escalate the war. The 190-mile-range ATACMS has already been launched twice to strike deep behind Russian lines. The previously deployed ATACMS has a range of only about 100 miles and fires cluster munitions, not precision-guided missiles. This weapon, more than anything else in the pipeline, might spoil Putin’s day.

What IS going to happen to the Israeli hostages?

How much longer do the more than 100 Israeli hostages have to wait in their Hamas-controlled bunkers, tunnels and apartment prisons in Gaza? They should surely be the priority for the Binyamin Netanyahu government, both in terms of their survival chances and for his political survival as prime minister? The figure of 130 hostages is always given, but the fear is that at least 30 are already dead. How many more will die before a deal is done? The BBC has an agonising interview with one of the hostages who was released in November. The hostage, a woman, recounts the mental trauma and physical suffering she experienced, and no doubt still experiences, and that was after six or so weeks of being held captive in a number of different flats with armed Hamas guards. The remaining hostages have been held for more than six months. Their state of mind and their fear of death, but also their bewilderment over why their government has not managed to get them freed must be overwhelming. The negotiations to release them have made little progress after numerous attempts by the most senior of US, Israeli and Qatari officials. There is obviously little incentive for Hamas to negotiate cooperatively while Israel is threatening to attack Rafah in the south of Gaza where their remaining four combat brigades and leaders are hiding. So who will break first? Netanyahu wants to give nothing to Hamas, understandably, but the problem is that without concesions of some sort, the poor hostages will never be freed. It is a truly agonising time for the hostages and for their families back home.

The attack on the Gaza town of Rafah appears imminent

It has always been the case in modern times that where the television cameras are, that's where the news will be. And moe often than not, the TV cameras can't be everywhere in the world at the same time, so a lot of bad stuff gets unreported while the cameras are concentrated elsewhere. For example, the civil war in Sudan has been going on for a year between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces but we know little of what is going on. There are too many other conflicts for the TV crews to cover. In the same way, the war in Gaza was almost put to one side when Iran and Israel attacked each other. That became the headline news. What went on in Gaza while the world was focusing on the terrifying possibility of an outright war between Israel and Iran was lost in translation. Now Gaza is back in the news big time, with the desperately tragic reports of the Palestinian baby pulled from its dead mother's womb following an Israeli air strike. And the attack on the town of Rafah in the south by the Israel Defence Forces is imminent. Perhaps even next week. One hopes that the IDF will have such strict rules of engagement that Rafah will not be reduced to a pile of concrete rubble. However, after more than six months it is one of the most extraordinary facts that the main leaders of Hamas are still alive and hiding in an underground tunnel or bunker and are still able to mastermind retaliatory strikes against the IDF. AND that more than 100 Israeli hostages are still being held, despite all the firepower and combat experience the IDF has at its disposal and the ingenuity and skills of Mossad and other secretive special agencies. Rafah is truly going to be a momentous battle, and the TV cameras will be watching.

Trump immune from prosecution or (definitely) not?

The wisest judges in the US of A will start considering today all the arguments over whether Donald Trump should enjoy immunity from prosecution. Looking at all the claimed precedents in US legal history where immunity has been discussed, it is truly difficult to see how the federal Supreme Court could conclude anything other than downright rejection of the Trump lawyers' case. But the Supreme Court is a wonderful body of men and women, all appointed by presidential choice, who may have dfferent ideas about the constitution and the role of the president. But basically Trump has been charged with interfering in the US 2020 election and trying to subvert the result, a charge so serious, especially since he was president at the time, that even the most loyal Trump-appointed judge would find it hard to think of any reason why he should be granted immunity. Nevertheless, the ruminations by the Supreme Court today will be absolutely key to what happens in the US in the next seven months. If, as anticipated, the judges come back in June with a unanimous ruling that Trump cannot be given immunity from prosecution, then other trials, even the one about the 2020 election, could go ahead before the 2024 election, and, if so, that would be a devastating blow to Trump's chances of beating Joe Biden. If, somehow, there is a majority ruling in favour of Trump getting immunity, it would be a massive boost to his chances of returning to the White House. It's that simple.

Does China want to warm relations with the US?

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, is in China in an attempt to improve relations between Washington and Beijing. But is Beijing interested? All the recent signs are that China wants to focus more of its diplomatic efforts in strengthening ties with the very countries that are at the top of Washington's adversary list: Russia, North Korea and Iran. China, too, is on the same potential adversary list, but Washington right now is more interested in persuading Chinese leaders to stop helping Russia in its war against Ukraine. China is not arming Russia as such but is sending weapon components and dual-use systems which are being used to modernise Russian arms factories. So, indirectly, China is supporting Russia in the more than two-year war. Beijing has said in the past that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine, should be respected. No doubt Blinken will throw this at the Chinese leaders he meets. But also no doubt, Beijing will deny helping Russia in its destruction of Ukraine and will underline its wish to see a peaceful settlement. When American and Chinese officials get together, there is a kind of ritual involved where each side has its say but there is very little room for a genuine change of heart or strategy. The ritual is better than silence but one wonders what Blinken will actually achieve during his visit. There are too many disagreements in the Washington and Beijing relationship.

Will voters still back Trump if he is a convicted felon?

We are still several weeks away before we find out whether the Republican nominee for the role of president of the United States will be a convicted felon but the huge question is there in front of us as each day of the trial of Donald Trump on 34 criminal charges passes. Trump looks angry, frustrated, bitter and lonely in court. This will multiply if he is found guilty of business fraud offences arising from his payout of $130,000 as legal expenses to keep porn star Stormy Daniels hush-hush about their alleged sexual encounter. If he is convicted Trump will still be able to continue as Republican nominee but it will be very very different both for him and for the Republican party as a whole. Trump will continue to claim that the trial was a political witch hunt. But if the seven men and five women on the jury all agree he is guilty, his claim of a witch hunt will have less weight. Independent voters who have yet to make up their mind between Trump and Joe Biden or any of the other minor candidates who could get the fed-up vote could well decide that a convicted felon as president is a mighty step too far. Some in the Republican party in the House and Senate might also begin to wonder whether it is wise to continue to back Trump as their leader. So the stakes are very high. A convicted Trump would also be a dangerous politician and a scary president-in-the-making, a man seeking revenge. Much will depend on whether any of the other trials he is facing take place before November. One conviction would hamper Trump's campaign for the presidency, two convictions would surely be near-fatal for his chances of winning back the White House, three convictions or four convictions would finish him off for good. But there is another scenario. What if he is acquitted of all 34 charges in this current trial? If that were to happen, then the mood in the country might well change dramatically. Trump would claim that his proven innocence in the first trial would be followed by acquittals in the other three trials and most of his supporters would probably agree. Biden would then have a much tougher challenge to fight him off. An acquittal would save Trump's campaign all the way to the November election. We will know the answer to all these unprecedented questions probably some time in early June or possibly late May.

What are US expectations for the war in Ukraine?

After all the sighs of relief in Washington over the successful passing of the Ukraine aid bill in the House of Representatives, what are now the US expectations for the way the war in Ukraine will progress? US officials will say that the objectives have not cbanged. These range from victory to Kyiv, helped by the weapons and money given them by the US-led coalition, or for the Ukrainian military to make significant gains for the Kyiv government to be in a strong position to achieve a good outcome in a negotiated settlement with Moscow. I seriously doubt either of these objectives are any longer realistic and Washington knows it. The Russian invasion troops have been expanding their occupation in the east and all that the new deliveries of weapons will do will be to help Ukraine defend its unoccupied territory and protect its towns and cities and power infrastructure from further destruction. So that means a long haul of hard-grind warfare with no end in sight. So far, Vladimir Putin has shown no qualms about losing men and armour. He just sends more of both. The only thing which might make a difference is if Ukraine multiplies by a huge amount its attacks on Russia itself and on Crimea. That would anger Putin more than anything and just might persuade him to consider an end-of-war settlement with Kyiv but only if the deal allows him to declare victory. In Putin's eyes, any such settlement would have to include formal handover of all territory won in the east and south, full acceptance that Crimea belongs to Russia and no Nato membership for Ukraine at any time in the future. None of these conditions would be acceptable to Kyiv. However, the only way forward for Ukraine for the time being is to use the new weapons now in the pipeline to target Russian bases across the border and in Crimea to at least make Putin think about a settlement. But even this scenario might not be enough to get Putin to move an inch from his stated objective which is to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign nation. The $61 billion aid package that has gone through the House and should be approved by the Senate will give Joe Biden a boost for his election chances but in reality in the battle zone in Ukraine it's unlikely to change the war in Kyiv's favour.

Will Mike Johnson's triumph save Ukraine from defeat?

Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, might lose his job but will his successful behind-the-scenes manouevrings and negotiations to get approval for Joe Biden's Ukraine aid bill save the Ukrainian people from a humbling defeat by the Russians? It should do. The Pentagon will now have the green light to send a mass of desperately-needed artillery shells, Patriot anti-air missiles and a whole host of other munitions and weapons to reverse the territorial gains made by the Russians in recent months. Mike Johnson will go down in Biden's books as the hero of the hour. Being a Republican and basically helping the Democratic president to get his crucial legislation through the Republican-controlled House was a feat requiring courage, selflessness, vision and downright obstinacy. He succeeded but the most conservative elements of the Republican party, including the scary Marjorie Taylor Greene, House representative from Georgia and devotee of Donald Trump, will be out to get him unseated as Speaker. But I suspect they will fail. Last night when the bill passed, allowing $61 billion to be allocated for Ukraine, was Johnson's night. Ukraine will now survive and Moscow will be seething. Putin was counting on Johnson failing, leaving Ukraine under-armed, under-funded and facing a grim defeat. Bill Burns, the CIA director, had warned that Ukraine faced defeat by the end of this year if the bill wasn't passed by Congress. Burns is one of the wisest voices in Washington, and the most trusted. So Republicans with any doubts about continuing to help Ukraine would have been persuaded by his arguments. So, huge relief for Biden and massive relief for Zelensky in Kyiv. And relief, too, for the whole Nato alliance.

Israel's damp-squib attack on Iran must have delighted Biden

Perhaps, at last, Binyamin Netanyahu actualy listened to Joe Biden. A major attack on a sensitive target in Iran, with loss of life and huge damage, would have undermined everything Biden has been trying to do - ie calm things down and return to getting the war in Gaza back to talking about the release of hostages and a six-week ceasefire. By most accounts, all Netanyahu did by way of retaliation for the 300 missiles and drones fired by Iran against Israel was to order a few drones to be launched against a military base near Isfahan and against Tehran's proxy force in Iraq. Very interesting that the drones fired on the base in Iran were launched from inside Iranian territory. Israeli special forces or some proxy anti-Tehran military unit? No one seems to know. But the result was that Tehran was able to dismiss the strikes as inconsequential and made it clear there would be no further retaliation. At least for now. This means that Netanyahu no longer has the distraction of dealing with Iran directly and, as promised by the Israeli leader, moves will start soon to assault Rafah, the southern Gaza town where the remaining Hamas leaders are hiding. Netanyahu will no doubt feel that he did what Biden had requested re hitting Iran gently and can now go ahead and ignore his entreaties to do dothing about Rafah. This already targeted town is likely to get the full works. The images of destroyed houses and apartments and injured children which had covered the front pages of newspapers and on television during the assaults on Gaza City and Khan Younis will be back big time. Then the brief honeymoon period between Netanyahu and Biden will be over.

Will Iran now back down and return to the shadows?

The air-launched missile strike back by Israel agaist an Iranian military base has potentially opened up the possibility of direct and prolonged confict between the two countries, something which has been lurking in the background for decades. Unwilling to test Israel too far, Iran has until now relied on its many proxy militia forces in other countries to carry out strikes against Israel, what is universally known as the shadow war between the two countries. By the way, that shadow war HAS included direct attacks by Israel on Iran, but always involving secret undercover missions by Mossad, Israel's spy agency, carrying out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for example. But now it has changed. Now the red lines have been crossed and the dangers have risen by a dramatic amount. Will either side back down? Iran has already warned it could leap ahead with its nuclear programme and threaten Israel so the government of Binyamin Netanyahu is never going to back down. The future of Israel itself would be at stake. So it has to be Iran. Somehow the Tehran regime has to stop this war from expanding and already the signs are encouraging. Statements put out officially have denied Israel has caused any damage, playing down the retaliatory strike. But we will have to see how long that lasts. Once the battle damage has been fully assessed, then we will know whether Iran is going to continue with this dangerous tit-for-tat strikes. Meanwhile, what is happening and what is going to happen in Gaza? When will this war end? And will the attacks between Israel and Iran influence what happens in Gaza? The omens look truly bleak.

Is Ukraine heading for defeat?

The rhetoric is getting wilder and wilder. Ukraine's prime minister is warning that Russia will win the war unless the US provides the weapons Kyiv desperately needs, and that defeat for Ukraine would lead to the Third World War. Wow! I know it was intended as a wake-up call to Congress to pass the necessary legislation to get the $60 billion in military aid, but if it all goes wrong and the current legislative impasse continues into the summe, is the future for Ukraine and for the whole world as bleak as the Ukrainian prime minister is warning? My personal view is that although Vladimir Putin is pretty bad he is not Hitler. If he starts to invade the whole of Europe as some people are predicting, what would China do, for example? It would definitely not be in China's interest for there to be a European war, Third World War scale or otherwise. Beijing may have a strategic partnership with Moscow but would President Xi Zinping really want calamity in Europe? I don't believe it. So Beijing would be a constraining influence, one would hope. Also, however boosted Putin might be by a victory over Ukraine, he cannot want a major war with the whole of Nato. So, please, less talk of a Third World War.

So Israel WILL respond, and then what?

When a political leader makes a decision, it is to be hoped that at least one of his/her advisers will ask the one crucial question: what will be the consequences? Thus, Binyamin Netanyahu and his alarming war cabinet came out of their meeting yesterday with the decision that Iran will be punished for daring to attack Israel with missiles and drones. Punished with a military strike. Whether on Iranian territory or on a target linked to one of Tehran's many proxy militia forces, no one was saying. But whatever Netanyahu has in mind there will be consequences because then Tehran will have to decide how to respond and so on and so on. When does tit-for-tat end? Who blinks first? It's clearly not going to be Israel. But this is where that vital question has to be examined again and again. What are the likely worst-case-scenario repercussions if Israel and Iran continue to bash each other? Attempting to put myself into Netanyahu's mind, the Israeli leader will want to carry out a retaliatory strike which not only matches the thunderous barrage from Iran on Sunday but also sends the clearest warning to the ayatollahs that at the end of the day Israel can and will launch a full-scale attack on Iran if required. So, for these reasons, I suspect Netanyahu's choice is to select a target in Iran itself, a very significant target, and destroy it, just like he did in Damascus on the Iranian consulate building. My prediction would be a strike on an Iranian ballistic-missile base which would be seen by the Israeli war cabinet, if not in Washington, as an appropriate and proportionate strike - targeting the missile units that launched the attack on Israel. But how would Tehran respond to such an attack? Could they do nothing and just take the punishment? I seriously doubt it which is why that question about consequences has to be asked again and again and again.

Wars are won by air defence

Ukraine discovered a long time ago that if it was going to defeat or at least keep at bay Russia's invading forces, they needed air defence, air defence, air defence. With drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles filling the skies, Kyiv's survival was going to depend on having the most advanced air defence systems to shoot them down. The US sent them Patriot missile batteries, though not enough. Kyiv must be very irritated that as soon as Israel needs air defence help to counter the barrage of missiles and drones from Iran, they get fantastic support not just from the US but from European countries and key Arab nations including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Iraq. Which is why 99 per cent of the 300 Iranian drones and missiles were shot down. But, of course, the US and Europe can't physically help Ukraine destroy Russian air attacks, as they did for Israel. The Ukrainians have to do that themselves because none of Kyiv's allies in the West have dared or wanted to intervene in case it led to a full-scale war between Nato and Russia. Whereas the world and his wife have been able to go to Israel's aid because, hopefully, that is not going to lead to a bigger war. But the lesson from the Israel/Iran confrontation is obvious. Ukraine must be given a huge amount of extra air defence systems to knock out every missile and drone fired by the Russians. Right now, a helluva lot are getting through and destroying Ukraine's energy infrastructure. It's a disaster for the Ukrainians. Congress should get off its hands and approve the $60 billion aid package for Kyiv and start delivering more and more Patriots to confound that man in the Kremlin and ruin his ambition to bring Ukraine to its knees.

Iran must have known its attack mission on Israel would fail

Iran fired around 300 drones and missiles at Israel and pretty well failed to make any impact whatsoever. The drones, travelling at no more than 100mph, took several hours to reach their intended target which meant Israel, the US, the Brits and French and others in the maritime coalition in the Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean had plenty of time to get their weapons ready to shoot them all down. Israel, with its heavyweight supporters both at sea and in the air, shot down 99 per cent of the barrage of missiles and drones. Pretty spectacular air defence capabilities. But Iran knew that. Just by witnessing what Israel and its backers have achieved in the last five months, shooting down nearly every missile fired by the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran absolutely knew there was a very good chance every weapon they fired against Israel would be stopped. So why did they do it? Why launch drones and missiles against their hated enemy if they expected to fail abysmally. Well, first of all, it was the first time Iran had directly attacked Israel from Iranian territory. So, symbolically, a really big deal. Iran was telling Binyamin Netanyahu it wasn't afraid to attack Israel and that at some point in the future, there might be further attacks and much more serious ones. But also, even when a mission fails, you learn lessons. Iran has learnt that it cannot overwhelm Israel's defences, especially with US backing, with just 300 weapons. Israel knows this, too, of course, and will fully understand what Tehran was trying to do. It was testing the wind for future reference. My fear is that it is for this very reason that Israel will want to respond to Iran's attack - directly on Iranian soil - to see how the Iranian defences work. Israel will feel it now has justification for testing Iran's defences.

Should Israel retaliate or let sleeping dogs lie?

Everyone except John Bolton, former US national security adviser (under Trump), wants the Israel/Iran thing to come to an end now. So, Israel destroyed the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, killing seven people, and Iran responded with 300 missiles and drones against Israel - no one killed, very little damage. That should be it. We've had one-for-one, tit-for-tat, so call off the revenge addiction and get on with life. But Bolton says differently. He says Israel has no choice but to deliver a mighty blow to Iran for daring to fire missiles and drones at Israeli territory. Otherwise, he says, Iran and other adversaries will think they can get away with launching direct attacks on Israel. Strictly speaking, Bolton is right. In the big arena, backing down is seen as a sign of weakness. Israel said it would retaliate if Iran attacked. But in this dangerous world, the last thing we need is a non-stop direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran and all that that implies. Some very stupid people are already warning of a Third World War. Give us a break, we need diplomacy not more war. China has called for calm, and that's exactly what we need right now. A bit of calmness and grown-upness is required. We've had an eye-for-an-eye outbreak of violence. Now go back to your corners and lick your wounds. But no more escalation.

Joe Biden's new deterrent policy - don't do it.

When the US president says to a potential adversary about to lanch an attack - "don't" - I guess a lot depends on the implied threat in the word "don't". If it just means, "plese don't because it will cause a lot of trouble for everyone", then the adversary might think, "let's do it anyway, sod it." But if the word "don't" actually means, "if you do, we, the United States, are going to make you pay for it in a way that will make you regret you got out of bed", even the most vociferous adversary mgbht think twice and call the whole thing off. Donald Trump when president once warned Kim Jong-un that if he ever attacked the US he would order the annihilation of North Korea. I'm not saying Joe Biden should have told Tehran that if it launched an attack on Israel he would personally order a strike on Iran's nuclear weapons programme facilities. It's just that the word "don't" didn't cut it for me and probably didn't cut it for the ayatollahs. I think they will go ahead with an attack on Israel of some sort and will risk upsetting Biden. If that happens, the only conclusion one can come to is that the Biden "don't" warning had no impact. And that's not good. A "don't" plea has to have a helluva lot of heavy metal behind it.

Is China interested in ending the war in Ukraine?

In the past, China has come up with its own peaceful solutions to end the war in Ukraine but they came to nothing. The US was dismissive of the Beijing plan. I am not aware of any new or more recent moves by Beijing to try and resolve the war. Why is this? The reason is simple. It's in Beijing's long-term interest to have the US tied up in wars which don't affect China's vision for the future which includes domination of the South China Sea and an absence of US aircraft carriers anywhere near China's shores. The US has been spending billions of dollars on sending weapons to Ukraine and has been raiding its stocks for artillery shells and air-defence missiles. That's good for Beijing. The US commitment to aid Israel is another benefit to Beijing because the war in Gaza is not something which needs to bother the Chinese. They can just watch as the US struggles to maintain its relationship with the Tel Aviv government and gets political and diplomatic flak for delivering arms and weapons to a country which is then using them to obliterate the Palestinian people. So, all in all, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are posing massive problems for the US and the West in general and, meanwhile, China's strategic partner, Vladimir Putin, is on a roll, surviving perfectly well in his two-year war and confident of hanging on to the territory he has seized in Ukraine. In Beijing's eyes, China is backing the winner without getting too involved, and if Putin eventually gets what he wants in a so-called peace deal, his counterpart in China, President Xi Zinping, will no doubt seek to add his influence by paticipating in the background to claim some credit for the war ending. It's a win, win for Beijing and it's costing them nothing.

Does Beijing want Trump or Biden as the next US president?

I imagine China is as obsessed about who is going to be the next US president as everyone else in the world. My guess is, based on where Chinese leader Xi Zinping wants to be by 2027, Beijing would prefer to risk Trump back in the White House than have four more years of a Biden administration, following the incumbent president's vow at least twice in public to go to the aid of Taiwan if China were to invade the breakaway republic. President Xi wants the People's Liberation Army to be ready by 2027 to take Taiwan by force if necessary. That would be smack in the middle of the next US administration. Beijing doesn't know what Trump would do if he was president again but Xi and his national security advisers would study every remark Trump has made about Ukraine and might well come to the conclusion that if he is so keen to get shot of the Ukraine war issue by forcing a deal with Putin on Day One, he might possibly feel the same way about a war in the South China Sea, and not intervene. Biden, on the other hand, is today meeting with the Japanese prime minister and the president of the Philippines in the White House to discuss a tighter and broader defence pact to ensure that everyone is ready for a war in the South China Sea. So Beijing has little reason to put their money on Biden winning the election in November. Better to risk hoping for Trump and then see what gives. Xi probably thinks strategically better than most global leaders and will no doubt have taken on board the pluses and minors of having either Biden or Trump in the White House. If Bidens wins a second term it won't put Xi off sticking to his ambition for Taiwan to be returned to mainland ownership, but I doubt he will rush into it and to hell with the consequences. So a Biden second term might make him think harder about the best way to get Taiwan under his wing. But with Trump in charge, Xi might just be a little bit bolder. The world is going to change dramatically in the next decade for all sorts of reasons - climate change being just one of them - and Xi might hope that Trump would think of Taiwan as not such a big deal in the great scheme of things. Whereas Biden has already made it clear that Taiwan IS a really big deal.

It doesn't seem to matter what Joe Biden says to Netanyahu

I've lost count of the number of times Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, and others from the US administration and also different leaders in Europe, have rung Binyamin Netanyahu and appealed to him to give up the idea of invading Rafah, the remaining stronghold of Hamas in southern Gaza. The Israeli prime minister is going to ignore all of them. For two reasons. First, he said from the very beginning that he planned to destroy the Hamas organisation so that it could never agan either rule Gaza or threaten Israel like it did on October 7, and that meant seeking out and annihilating the remaining Hamas combat brigades and, most importantly, the top hierarchy of the organisation, all of whom are supposedly underground in and around Rafah. Second, if he doesn't invade Rafah, then he will lose the political support of the most extreme right-wing members of his coalition cabinet and he will be out of a job. Netanyahu has three objectives: to kill every member of Hamas, to release all the hostages (about 130 left) and to survive as prime minister. All of these objectives are inextricably linked. If he fails with one he will probably fail with the other two. So that's why he remains rigidly focused on his objectives and why he is not listening to Biden/Blinken etc. Biden has said he thinks Netanyahu's whole approach to the war in Gaza has been mistaken. But you have to ask, what was the alternative from the very beginning? Not invade Gaza at all? Leave Hamas in charge and thus, able, to carry out further attacks on Israel? Put off revenge and try for an international diplomatic solution to free the hostages? Let Hamas get away with killing 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 250 more? None of thse alternatives would have satisfied the Israeli people, let alone the fiery right-wingers in his cabinet. But I guess what Biden meant was that Israel should have sent special forces and Mossad into Gaza to find and capture/kill the Hamas leaders responsible for the October 7 massacre, and free the hostages, but NOT invade Gaza with thousands of troops and bomb every city to rubble. But then how successful would Israel's special forces have been without the back-up of combat battalions to protect them? The problem is that Netanyahu and his military commanders went for the shock-and-awe option which was to pulverise anything that appeared to be hiding Hamas fighters and/or infrastructure, and because Hamas was using the civilian population as human shields, that meant pretty well everything, from hospitals to mosques to apartment buildings, was targeted which is why the images from Gaza are all of totally destroyed towns and cities. That, I agree with Biden, was a huge mistake because now these images, as well as the warnings of mass starvation, have alienatated the rest of the world. But Netanyahu is still not listening. He has set a date for the invasion of Rafah and I guess he will not change his mind.

Britain's reputation abroad has lifted - because of David Cameron

It was viewed as an extraordinary decision when UK Prime Minister Rishu Sunak appointed David Cameron, one of his predecessors, as foreign secretary. But the appointment was undoubtedly shrewd and clever. Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, as he is these days, has turned out to be an inspired choice. Few people, I suspect, will forgive him for holding the referendum on leaving or staying in the European Union which led to disastrous Brexit. But since becoming foreign secretary in November last year, Cameron has added gravitas to the job and has been welcomed by leaders around the world who knew him when he was prime minister for six years. He has been in the thick of all the major foreign policy issues of the day and is today in the US talking about Ukraine and the need for Congress to stop obstructing the provision of $60 billion in US aid to the Kyiv government. He even went to see Donald Trump at his "palace" resort in Florida to try and persuade him to unblock the impasse caused by the Republicans. That was quite a brave move, seeing as how Cameron has called Trump "stupid" in the past. Cameron looks and sounds good. He looks and sounds experienced and sensible, characteristics needed for such a job which has been somewhat lacking in UK foreign secretaries for quite some time. So, despite his Brexit legacy, Cameron's sure-footed presence as Britain's top diplomat has given this poor country of ours a bit of a boost. It's a shame that before the end of the year, it's almost definite that both he and the man who appointed him will be out of office once Labour's Keir Starmer takes over the reigns of government. In the meantime, let us hope Cameron can play a significant role in reviving support for Ukraine against Vladimir Putin and, perhaps, contributing towards an end to the terrible war in Gaza.

Khan Younis has been destroyed, what now for Rafah?

Much has been made about the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Gaza but I think it's pretty clear this is a tactical and psychological, and temporary, withdrawal. Tactical, because the Israel Defence Forces'(IDF) mission in the southern town of Khan Younis has been completed - it's destroyed - psychological, because the pull-out has been timed to coincide with renewed ceasefire/hostage-release talks starting in Cairo, and temporary, because most of the withdrawn troops will be needed back in Gaza once the go ahead is given for the assault on Rafah, the last bastion of Hamas leaders. As John Kirby, the head of strategic communications in the White House, has said, the Israeli troops have left southern Gaza for "rest and refit". So they will be back. Meanwhile, the pictures coming out of Khan Younis reveal a town hammered to the ground. There seems to be almost nothing left unscathed. Palestinians returning to the town after sheltering in Rafah for months are discovering they have no homes to live in. They might as well have stayed in their tents in Rafah. I wonder how many of these poor families are thinking to themselves: if Hamas had not committed that gross act of brutality, murder, rape and kidnapping on October 7, none of this would have happened; or do they just hate the Israelis for destroying their homes? Either way, their lives have changed for ever, and the majority of Palestinians who have stayed in Rafah must be fearful of what is going to happen next. Israel has said it will move the more than one million civilians away from Rafah before they attack the town but where are they going to go? Where will they be safe? Israel has aready come under worldwide criticism for the number of civilians killed in the six-month war, so it will be their responsibility to ensure that a safe zone is found and protected from airstrikes. But I suspect Rafah itself will then be destroyed, just like Khan Younis and Gaza City have been destroyed.

After six months of war the two-state solution for Israel/Palestine is dead

Binyamin Netanyahu is not a leader who likes to compromise. He states his political/military objective and then goes for it, whatever the consequences. Thus, the Israeli military have fought Hamas in Gaza for six months and there is no hint of compromise, let alone back-tracking. The Israeli prime minister wants/needs to destroy Hamas as an organisation and he will continue fighting until the job is done. And because of that determination, the chance of there ever being a two-state solution under which the Palestinians would be given a chunk of territory to call their own, including the West Bank, is dead and buried. It's never going to happen, not under Netanyahu's leadership. Never, never, never. Whether it might happen under a new Israeli leader is another issue but after what has happened in the last six months, I don't see any would-be prime minister in Israel risking going for the two-state solution which is the only proposal on the table pushed by the US. There is too much hatred, too many deaths, too much suffering, too much destruction for any agreement between Israel and Palestine to forge a peace deal in which the Palestinians will be granted sovereignty over land which Israel believes it has a right to keep for its own citizens. So the future is grim. The war will go on and on, Israel will fail to kill every member of Hamas, Gaza will almost cease to exist and, if anything, Israel will grab more territory and certanly won't hand over any real estate to the Palestinians. However hard the US pushes Netanyahu, he is not going to budge. Not on this issue.

Is the US heading for political disaster?

I have American friends who tell me that the sensible people of the United States will have learned the lessons of the 2016-2020 Donald Trump presidency and will not vote for him again in November, even Republicans who were happy to have him in the White House after the indecisive Obama years. So, why, if that's the case, is money still pouring into the Trump campaign coffers, why are polls suggesting Trump is ahead of Biden in the key states, why is Nato preparing itself for a second Trump term, why is Putin looking so pleased these days and why does Trump go about as if he is already the next President of the United States? Where are all these sensible Americans, why aren't they speaking out against the very idea that Trump could be returned for another four-year term? Is there really a silent majority of American voters who are saying nothing now but on the day will march confidently into the ballot booth and cast their vote for anyone but Trump? Basically, why is there not a nationwide outcry by sensible Americans against the possibility of Trump in the Oval Office once again? The reason is that most people in America probaby think it's no one's business but their own and they don't want to get involved until voting day, and even then they will stay quiet and won't reveal who they voted for. So none of the polls really reflect the mood of this silent majority and there are actually a helluva lot more Biden supporters around. If I'm right, then Trump is going to be beaten, and badly, in November, and the world, excluding Putin, will breathe a sigh of relief, and the big Trump donors will lose all their money and get nothng back in return. Ha!

Are the two sacked Israeli officers scapegoats for horror drone strike?

In a very short time, Israeli military chiefs have pinpointed five people for punishment for the drone missile strikes on three vehicles in Gaza which killed seven humanitarian aid workers. None of them are very senior. Two are described as officers, one a reserve colonel and the other, a major. They have been booted from their jobs. The three othere sre called commanders, whatever that means. They have been reprimanded. For a drone missile unit hunting for targets in Gaza, there are very strict rules of engagement which are agreed and checked and authorised by officers further up the chain of command, officers of three star and four star rankings. Will any of them get punished? And what about the legal boys? For every agreed target list, military lawyers have to pore over the evidence and advise whether the targets are legitimate. So it begs the question: once the three vehicles carrying the seven aid workers had come up on their computer screens, surely someone would have pointed out that they were vehicles linked to the charity, World Central Kitchen, that they had just dropped off food at a designated warehouse and were on their way back to base, as authorised and directed by the Israeli military? If so where was the lawyer's voice, saying, "hang on a moment, these are the usual people from World Central Kitchen, call off the drones". Presumably no one did. Responsibility for such an outrageous lapse in procedure should go all the way to the top.

After all this, is Netanyahu still going to invade Rafah?

Killing seven aid workers in what looks remarkably like three deliberately-aimed drone-launched missile strikes - one after the other - might possibly make Binyamin Netanyahu think twice before ordering his troops into Rafah in southern Gaza for a full-scale fight with the remaining Hamas combat battalions, putting at risk, potentially, the 1.2 million Palestinian civilians trying to survive in camps in the area. I'm sure when he talks to Joe Biden on the phone today that is exactly the issue which the US president will raise. After killing seven aid workers, including three Britons, how can you even think of attacking Rafah and endangering more innocent lives, Biden will say. But I somehow doubt Netanyahu will give up on his intention to hit Rafah hard because he will say the future security of Israel depends on him annihilating Hamas. And in war, as he has already said, innocent people get killed. The trouble with this argument is that the Israeli leader is playing a dangerous game with the rest of the world. Israel always needs friends but right now it is losing friends fast. Imagine the images that will go around the world if civilians start dying in Rafah in large numbers. The killing of seven aid workers has provoked outrage in western capitals because it looked so deliberate. The idea that it was a grave mistake, as the head of the Israeli military said, is a difficult one to fathom when you hear the evidence and see the pictures of the three vehicles. So, for Netanyahu, he has to decide: to go all out to destroy Hamas in Rafah and risk terrible images emerging or to listen to Biden's entreaties and adopt a different approach, one that doesn't put civilian lives at risk.

Aid workers in war are the bravest of the brave

The death of seven aid workers in Gaza is tragic and unforgivable, and clearly a huge mistake on the part of the Israeli air force and targeteers who picked out the convoy of vehicles for bombing. But these extraordinarily brave people who go to war zones to provide humanitarian help know that every day presents a risk to their lives. They are the bravest of the brave, determined to help those in need whatever the dangers. The outcry around the world is understandable because these dedicated people play a unique role in war zones and should be protected. But war is not a clean, clear-cut exercise. Innocent people, men, women and children, as well as aid workers, are killed because they are never far from the bullets and bombs. They are always vulnerable not just to crossfire and bomb explosions meant for others, but also as a result of terrible mistakes made either by commanders away from the battlefield or by operators in the air or on the ground who believe they have spotted a legitimate target for attack. The Israelis are not alone in targeting aid workers in error, or indeed civilians in general during bombing raids. The fog of war is usually blamed, as it seems in this case. In every war innocent people die, brave aid workers included.

Iran and Israel in increasingly dangerous shadow war

The destruction by an Israeli airstrike of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing three Revolutionary Guard generals, was one more step towards what could become an outright war between the two countries. Neither Iran nor Israel wants it because of the potential nightmare scenarios involved. But it's getting closer. Iran wages war by proxy, but no one is in any doubt that Tehran is pulling the strings. The latest violent eruption between Iran and Israel began with a deadly drone strike launched by an Iranian-backed militia force in Iraq which targeted the Israeli naval base in Eilat. It's possible that the intention was to hit an advanced corvette in the port but the drone instead hit a building close by. Had the corvette been hit, the repercussions might have been even more dramatic. The retaliation, whether ordered as a result of the drone strike or preplanned, was devastating enough. The consulate building in the Syrian capital was demolished but the building next door remained unharmed. It was an attack which Israel must have had as a contingency option for some time, but the timing of the strike must surely have been linked to the drone strike. Israel normally takes instant revenge for attacks on its territory, so I would have thought, once the drone strike had taken place, Binyamin Netanyahu chose the consulate option, knowing from intelligence that it was the headquarters of the senior command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, the Iranian organisation responsible for all attacks by the Tehran-backed so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq. The likelihood is that there will now be more of these long-range drone attacks but Israel will hope that the destruction of the consulate in Damascus might deter the ayatollahs from going too far down the path of all-out war.

Putin calls up more cannon fodder

It's easy for Vladimir Putin. When he runs out of soldiers to fight his war in Ukraine he just calls up more conscripts. The latest call-to-war has gone out to 150,000 Russian men. Will there be a revolt among Russia's 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds or do they believe their leader who claims that Russia itself is under attack. He tells the Russian people that the hated Nato alliance under the leadership of the even-more-hated United States is determined to destroy Russia and is using Ukraine as a proxy war to achieve ths objective. He has been promoting this line for so long that a lot of Russian people probably go along with it. So, conscripting another 150,000 young men is unlikely to lead to nationwide protests, let alone calls for Putin to resign. If there were such protests, Putin would order his security organisations to stamp on demonstrators, so protests are pretty pointless. Right now, Putin, reelected and full of confidence, can do what he likes, and fresh troops for Ukraine, even if with only basic training, will serve as useful cannon fodder. It always was an unevenly balanced war between Ukraine and Russia. But with more Russian troops arriving, Ukraine is going to have to be even more cunning and technologically astute to stop the Russians from inching closer to Kyiv. I'm sure Zelensky is ringing the US every day and saying: "Where the hell are the F-16s you promised me. I need them now." So far, the US Abrams, British Challenger and German Leopard tanks haven't made the sort of difference on the battlefield that was anticipated. Will the F-16s provide the great breakthrough? Somehow, I doubt it. What would make a difference would be much longer-range missiles and rockets, all aimed at targets inside Russia and Crimea as well as at the Black Sea fleet. No sign of that happening at the moment.