Does Iran have any other option but surrender?

Iran retaliated massively against Israel after the first Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites last month. Many of the ballistic missiles got through and killed Israeli civilians and damaged property. So, unlike the first retaliation against Israeli raids in April when Tehran launched a fairly modest retaliatory strike and achieved very little, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this time round might feel satisfied that his military dealt a significant blow to Israel. Nevertheless, the overall result of the twelve days of war and then the intervention of Donald Trump and the B-2 Spirit bombers is that Iran has been hugely weakened, its nuclear programme has been set back potentially by years, its stockpile of ballistic missile launchers have been partially destroyed and its air defence systems have been ravaged. Iran, therefore, has nothing to show for its strike back against Israel, and as for its retaliation against the US for the B-2 bombers, no one died and every missile aimed at the American al-Udeid base in Qatar was intercepted. All the ayatollahs have got as a bargaining chip is the relative mystery of whether they have managed to hide away the 400 kilos of 60-per cent-enriched uranium and whether they have an unharmed inventory of gas centrifuges also concealed somewhere. TRhey could play on that if there are going to be negotiations between Iran the US. But, basically, Iran is in a pretty poor state to negotiate anything and if the regime refuses to cooperate, then Israel and possibly the US will return with more bombs and missiles.

Will Trump bomb again?

President Trump has already warned Tehran that he’ll be back if Iran tries to revive and advance its nuclear programme, following the strikes by B-2 stealth bombers.Judging by the comments of the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Trump may find himself with this dilemma sooner than he thinks. Iran could return to enriching uranium in “a matter of months”, according to Rafael Mariano Grossi, IAEA’s director-general, in an interview with CBS News at the weekend. However, a number of questions need to be asked before the B-2s take off again from their Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri.Trump hopes that the combination of twelve days of Israeli air raids and the one-off attack by seven B-2s each armed with 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) will persuade the Tehran regime to give up any ambitions of building a bomb and focus all efforts on a long-term diplomatic deal to bring the nuclear nightmare to an end. The chances are slim. The survival of the Islamic Republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei largely depends on its often-stated position which is that Iran has the right to enrich uranium and it will never give that up, however many “western” bombs fall. The IAEA chief clearly believes that, despite serious damage to the three main nuclear sites, Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, Iran still has sufficient stocks of unharmed gas centrifuges secreted away to continue the process of enriching its stock of 400 kilos of 60-percent-grade uranium, potentially to reach the 90 per cent level required for a bomb. Grossi’s assessment, unfavourably, for Trump that is, echoes the sombre report leaked from the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency soon after the B-2 bombing of the three nuclear sites which claimed the strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear programme by a few months. There are important nuances here. There can be little doubt that the 14 MOPs dropped through ventilation shafts to reach a long way down towards the deeply buried nuclear plants caused a lot more damage than the DIA seemed to be implying. Furthermore, and crucially, the bombings did destroy (or obliterate in Trumps’ language) the metal conversion facility at Isfahan whose role was to transform enriched uranium gas into dense metal, a process known as metallization, which is one of the key last stages of forging the explosive core of a bomb. CIA director John Ratcliffe reportedly told a classified congressional hearing that the destruction of the sole metal-conversion plant would put back Iran’s suspected nuclear bomb programme by years. So, whether the 400 kilos of highly-enriched uranium Iran developed are buried under rubble at Isfahan or one of the other sites, or have been removed to an unknown bunker (depending on which report you believe), the destruction of the metal-conversion plant is a plus for Trump’s obliteration mantra; and possibly a reason for the US president to hold back the B-2s for a second go for the moment. That’s not to say he won’t be tempted to launch another bombing raid if Tehran refuses to cooperate on the offered diplomatic path. Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told the BBC that the US would have to rule out any further strikes if diplomatic negotiations were to be resumed. Trump isn’t going to fall for that one. Trump knows that he won’t face any trouble from Congress if he decides to bomb again. Attempts by the Democrats to obligate the president to seek authority from Congress before pursuing more attacks on Iran were thwarted by the Republican-majority Senate in a 53-47 vote. The other big question of course is Israel. Mossad and the rest of the Israeli intelligence apparatus will be keeping the closest eye and ear on what Iran does next after seeing its prized nuclear facilities hammered by nearly two weeks of targeted strikes. Last week, Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, ordered the military to draw up an “enforcement plan” against Iran, including maintaining air superiority over the country and taking whatever steps are necessary to prevent progress in Tehran’s nuclear programme. “Operation Rising Lion [codename for the Israel Defence Forces’ twelve days of attacks] was just the preview of a new Israeli policy,” Katz wrote on X. So, Operation Rising Lion has been granted longevity. That has to mean further attacks on nuclear sites and against nuclear scientists in the future, whether Trump and the B-2s are going to be involved or not.

Iran is now the most-watched country on the planet

Whatever happens in and to Iran in the next six months, every move the ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard make that looks like they are trying to revive their damaged nuclear programme and advance towards 90-per-cent enriched uranium for a bomb will be watched and eavesdropped on by both Israel and the United States. Nothing they do will go unnoticed. Mossad agents who have penetrated the Iranian regime for years will be sending back intelligence reports to make sure Tehran's intentions are going to be assessed in the finest detail. There will be no escape for Tehran's nuclear scientists. Many of them have been assassinated already. Others will no doubt be wondering every day they awake whether Mossad will be waiting for them. How diplomacy can succeed when there is this sort of pressure on the regime is difficult to fathom. But both the US and Israel must be hoping that the tension will increase to such a level that the regime itself will fall or be toppled. But one should feel pity for the younger generation in Iran who are probably desperate to lead a decent more western-style life, free of repression by the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard but who will be too scared to protest at the state of their lives.

Kim Jong Un must be laughing his head off

The 41-year-old Supreme Dictator of North Korea must be grinning and slapping his thighs in enjoyment. He's sorry for Iran, of course, for the Israeli and US attacks on the three nuclear sites, but Kim Jong Un is sitting pretty with his nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBMs) and his plutonium-producing reactors and thinking to himself: "There's no way anyone, including and especially the United States even under Donald Trump, is going to do the same to me and my stockpile of nukes. I'm a winner." And he's right, he has somehow managed to develop nuclear warheads, carry out nuclear tests when all other nuclear nations had stopped doing them, launched ICBM tests over Japan and has got away with it. No one has done anything to stop him. And now it's all too late. There is absolutely no way Kim Jong Un is ever going to give up his nukes. He has built himself a super-deterrence to stop anyone attacking North Korea (not that anyone wanted to) and he knows he can actually threaten almost every city in the United States with a nuclear-armed ICBM. Iran could never do that and won't ever be able to do that. North Korea has won every battle, diplomatic, political and military (by deterrence). With all the fuss about the "successful" strikes on Iran's nukes, hardly anyone dares mention North Korea and why the Little Dictator was able to build his nuclear bombs with impunity. The sanctions have made no difference. He just exports and imports clandestinely. There are always countries who will trade with anyone when they need to. China backs him. Putin backs him. Kim Jong Un is laughing all the way to the nuclear bunker.

The US it seems can't avoid wars

Coming into office and saying there will be no more for-ever wars is a perfectly respectable platform but if you are the president of the United States, avoiding wars seems to be an impossible objective. That's one of the lessons learnt by Donald Trump. Ok, the attack on Iranian nuke sites doesn't signify a for-ever war. But I doubt the attacks over last weekend will be the last. Iran will always pose a threat, nuclear or otherwise, so in some senses the confrontation between the US and Iran is for ever. Then there's the Putin issue, what might he do after Ukraine? If he marches towards a Nato country (which I doubt he'd be foolish to contemplate), then Trump could find himself involved in a much bigger war. And there's China and Taiwan. If Beijing invades Taiwan, will Trump send in the carriers? So, the lesson is, however much you want to be a peacemaker and not get the US further involved in wars of any kind, the US is and has always to be a global force because it is a military and economic superpower. So, I fear the attacks on Iran will definitely not be the last time the US has to go to war under this administration or any future administration.

So much confusion over the US bombing of Iran

Who is right about the US bombing of Iran nuke plants? The leaking of the initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the US bombing in Iran last week sent all the wrong messages around Washington. President Donald Trump had declared the bombings by B-2 stealth bombers had “obliterated” Iran’s three main nuclear sites. But the leaked DIA report rejected the president’s triumphant announcement. It dealt a political blow to the president and provoked a huge debate about whether the bombings had achieved the objective which was to destroy Iran’s ability to develop and build a nuclear bomb. Whether the leaker acted deliberately to undermine the president’s case is not yet clear. But the reality is that the DIA assessment was far too premature to give the true picture of what level of destruction those bombs achieved. Every expert in this field has said that it takes weeks for a proper assessment to be made; and it’s not just a question of looking at satellite images. A full assessment has to take into account a whole range of other sources – for example, on-the -ground human intelligence and electronic eavesdropping of Iranian government communications. Even then, it won’t be possible to be absolutely sure of the damage unless international inspectors are allowed down to the underground bunkers and see for themselves. The Iranian regime has, meanwhile, acknowledged that the nuclear sites have been damaged. The problem for the Trump administration is that the leak of the DIA assessment has created doubt, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exploited that confusion by claiming the US had failed to destroy the country’s nuclear programme. The media has played a significant part in fomenting doubt about the bomb attacks, but that was inevitable and unavoidable after CNN first received the leaked DIA report. The report was a genuine document and the media seized on it. To try and downgrade the DIA assessment, Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave an incredibly detailed account of the bombings by seven B-2 stealth bombers which painted a very different picture. It appeared to be an immaculately well-planned operation, with twelve of the Pentagon’s heaviest and largest bombs dropped one after the other through a ventilation shaft at the main underground site at Fordo, south of Tehran. Assuming they all detonated, that must have caused immense damage to the facilities more than 2,000ft feet below. If that turns out to be the case, then the DIA report was basically not just premature but wrong. No wonder the FBI has been called in to investigate who leaked the document. The lesson learned from last week is that in this crazy social media world, everything becomes political. What was intended to be a triumph for Trump and for the Pentagon turned into a political battle, with the media and Trump critics seizing on the DIA assessment to cast doubt on the US military’s ability to damage, let alone, obliterate Iran’s nuclear sites.

Iran's Supreme Leader claims victory over America!!

It's extraordinary how one man's victory is another man's defeat or the other way around. Seven US B-2 Spirit strategic bombers armed with 14 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs flew into Iran with ease and total immunity and bombed three of their nuclear plants and flew home again unscathed, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, emerges from his own secret bunker and pronounces victory over the Americans. Perhaps he hasn't had time to speak to his intelligence people or go on a trip to Fordo, Natanz or Isfahan, the three attacked sites. But to declare victory would seem to be somewhat bizarre. Ok, the Iranians were obviously smart because it looks like they removed the 400 kilos of 60 per cent-enriched uranium, plus some key enrichment equipment before the B-2s arrived. But their programme to build a bomb which the ayatollah still denies, has clearly been set back by a considerable time whatever the different US intelligence agancies are saying. Obviously Khamenei feels he has to rouse his people to support him against the US but will the average Iranian actually believe their master when he declares victory? The reality is that if he and his regime try to restart their clandestine bombmaking programme, the Israeli air force will be back, and probably the B-2s as well, although the US will have to get on fast with producing more Massive Ordnance Penetrators, having used up possibly more than half of the existing stock. Judging by Khamenei's statement today, Iran will always remain a threat while he is in charge.

Was Iran's uranium-enrichment plant "obliterated"?

Donald Trump chose the word "obliterated" when he announced the successful hits by 30,000lb bombs onto Iran's nuclear facility underground at Fordo. Ever since there have been doubts cast on how much damage was actually done. The US Defence Intelligence Agency which I guuess will now be abolished, reported (and it was leaked of course) that only enough damage was done to put back Iran's nuke programme by a few months. Trump is furious and has stuck to his favourite adjective, "obliterated". I hope for the sake of the world that Trump is right and the DIA is wrong or at least premature with its assessment. But if the DIA turns out to be right, then it means the dropping of FOURTEEN Massive Ordnance Penetraors(MOPs) by seven B-2 staelth bombers didn't do the trick after all. To be honest, there was always doubt about whether these mighty bombs could actually reach the parts that had to be reached, way way down under a mountain. Anyway, Iran smartly removed key equipment as well as the 400 kilos of 60 per cent-enriched uranium from Fordo and from Natanz, another nuke facility hit by MOPs. General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that battle-damage assessment still has to be completed. But Trump has made up his mmind that the Iranian sites have been obliterated. So someone must have told him that this was the case, or was that someone too scared to tell him the truth. Even Marco Rubio, the secretary of state who has been totally loyal to his master so far, has suggested the bombing caused severe damage but didn't use the word "obliterated". The battle-damage assessment is going to be pretty tricky if it's seen through the eyes of spy satellites because the images, while showing big craters in the mountain, don't show us the inside of the plants down below. This is not going to be resolved one way or the other in a matter of days but it certainly hasn't helped Trump's case that someone inside the DIA leaked the initial findings to the media. But then this is what always happens in the US.

Trump curses Israel and Iran for violating his ceasefire

The overnight announcement by Donald Trump of an agreement by both Israel and Iran to stop attacking each other was a rabbit-out-of-the-hat surprise. It didn't last long, but then Trump with some choice expletives told Israel to turn its bombers back and Tehran to stop firing missiles. When both sides are so fired up, perhaps it's to be expected that a few wild shots will be launched as the tempo starts to fall. Trump's intention was to fly off from Washington to The Hague in The Netherlands for the two-day Nato summit with peace in his pocket. As he boarded Air Force One he must have been looking forward to the cries of praise and congratulations from alliance leaders. But all will depend on whether the ceasefire holds. I would have thought Israel feels it still has much to do to stop the nuclear threat from Iran. Fordow, the deeply buried uranium-enrichment facility, is not "obliterated" as Trump claimed. It's badly damaged but could Tehran in the future rebuild it and get back to enriching uranium, this time to weapons-grade, 90 per cent, level? They have removed the 400 kilos of 60 per cent enriched-uranium in steel caskets to a secret site and nobody seems to know where it is. No doubt Mossad will find it and then we'll see what happens, as Trump likes to say. While Trump is distracted in The Hague, I fear Israel and Iran will continue to breach the "deal", each accusing the other of being the first to do so.

How can Trump keep it a short war with Iran?

The length and scale of the American confrontation with Iran will depend on two things: how much destruction was actually caused by the 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrators dropped by the seven B-2 Sprit bombers on the nuclear sites at Fordow and Natanz, and by the US Navy submarine Tomahawks on Isfahan; and how Iran retaliates to the bombings. If, after battle-damage assessments have been completed, it's discovered that much of Fordow still survives and Natanz, too, Trump will have little alternative but to send the bombers back for another round of MOP strikes, although the inventory of these mighty bombs is limited. Likewise, if Iran launches attacks on American troops based in the Middle East or tries to close the Strait of Hormuz entrance into the Gulf waterway with mines, then Trump will have to do what he said he would do which is to strike back at multiple targets in Iran. Either way, the result will be a more prolonged battle with Iran, something which neither his political supporters at home nor the American people want. Iran will no doubt feel that it has to respond to the B-2 strikes but Tehran knows that if it goes big, the US response will be huge. Can they take that risk? And if they block the Strait of Hormuz, stopping all shipping, much of it carrying oil around the world, the repercusions will be enormous economically and Iran will face significant American military action. Also, blocking the narrow channel into the Gulf waterway will hurt Iran's economy because oil from Iran bound for China goes through the waterway. Not that long ago, Iran might have been able to rely on Hezbollah or Hamas to carry out retaliatory attacks on the Americans, but each of these organisations have been devastated by Israeli attacks over the last 20 months. Iran's proxy forces are no longer capable of launching major attacks on the Americans. My feeling is that the US battle-damage assessment carried out by the Pentagon will show that insufficient damage has been done to the nuke sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, and the B-2s will be back. Then the Iranian retaliation will follow.

The US attacks Iran's nuke sites!

Donald Trump has done it and he didn't wait two weeks. It was obvious Iran wasn't goinbg to play ball. Tehran wasn't going to budge on new nuke talks unless Israel stopping bombing. Trump was never going to agree to that, let alone Benjamin Netanyahu. So Trump called his national security team for a meeting last night and he gave the go ahead to bomb in the early hours. The six B-2 Spirit bombers assigned for the bombing run and a collection of air-to-air refuelling tankers were all set to go. Instead of going to the base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the B-2s flew off from their Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri for the long-haul flight to Iran. This was the better option because it guaranteed more surprise. Six B-2s each armed with two Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, 30,000lb in weight and with devastating explosive power, were dropped on the main uranium-enrichment bunker at Fordo, 100 miles spouth of Tehran and, according to Trump, it was obliterated. The only way it could have been put totally out of action would have been if the B-2s followed in a line and dropped the 12 MOPs one after the other into the same hole created by the first one. Twelve MOPs falling through the same hole wold have reached the floor of the bunker and devastated the whole place. Assuming that's what happened, it was a simple but unprecedented-in-history attack on a single underground installation by conventional bombs. Two other nuke sites at Isfahan and Natanz were hit by dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles fired fromn US submarines. All the talk of diplomacy and deescalation urged by everyone except Israel was also obliterated. But, despite all the appeals and concerns and fears and criticism emanating from around the world, it is just possible that the US, along with Israel of course, has saved the world from facing a nuclear-armed Iran, a nightmare for the whole globe. As the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the other day when referring to Israel's action, Israel was doing the dirty work for everyone. Now Trump has also done the dirty work for the planet. Let us hope that's an end to it and Iran realises there is nothing it can do against the might of the US without huge retaliation. They can try with attacks on US forces and embassies in the region. But if they do that, Trump will just bomb more sites until Iran is thrown back into the 14th century. Ultimately, all countries, especially in the Middle East, will be grateful.

Will two weeks bring the result Trump wants?

Donald Trump likes putting things off for two weeks. He has done it before. The thinking is that it builds up pressure on "the enemy", whoever that is, and forces them to plead for a deal. But will it work this time? With Israel continuing every day and night dropping bombs and firing missiles at Iran, there will be no let-up for the Tehran regime. But throughout the next two weeks, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will know that Trump is waiting for him to crumble and give in. As the days tick by, that pressure is going to get bigger and bigger. It doesn't matter what the Europeans and Canada do to try and forge some diplomatic deal. This is all about Trump versus Khamenei. The die has been cast and the Iranian leader will be the one who blinks, not Trump. I think that if by the time the two weeks have passed and Tehran has refused to budge, Trump will order the US military to finish the job the Israelis have started. Khamenei must know that. So it's all up to him. His whole purpose in life is to make sure he and the Islamic Republic under his leadership survive. And it may not survive if the US enters the war. So, to avoid regime change, the ayatollah will seek a deal. That's my prediction. However, there is a big extra ingredient here. How will the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps react if the Supreme Leader caves in? It could cause a revolution of a different kind, not the demise of the Islamic Republic but a take-over by the IRGC, the military taking even more control than they do today. Trump would hope that US bombing of Iran's nuke plants will lead to an uprising in the country with democracry shining through. That outcome would seem unrealistic even if the Supreme Leader is toppled.

Trump's big decision time

The danger with having a weapon system that was specifically developed to destroy deeply-buried military/nuclear bunkers is that if they don't do the job properly, there will be a huge anti-climax. Donald Trump, by all accounts, is worried that the Pentagon's Massive Ordnance Penetrator, 30,000lbs in weight and supposedly capable of breaching 200ft of concrete, won't actually reach Iran's most secret uranium-enrichment plant at Fordow south of Tehran which is half a mile down. Will the detonation from the MOP spread down far enough to destroy the plant? The reality is that the US might have to drop four or five of the $3 million MOPs, each one going down through the hole achieved by the previous one. Then it might be possible for the MOPs to get their targets. It's a big IF. Trump won't want to drop the bombs and discover that Iran's fuel-enrichment facility is untouched. That would be seriously embarrassing and make the whole effort look unachievable. That would be a huge bonus to Iran. Wars are rarely, if ever, won by airstrikes alone. Can the MOP do what other bombs in the past have failed to do - bring Iran to its knees and force it to give up all idea of building a nuclear bomb? Trump must be hoping so but it's why he has so far hesitated to give the go ahead for an American strike.

US involvement in Israel war with Iran inevitable

There are really only two options facing Donald Trump: either saying no to joining Israel in attacking Iran or start bombing. The only other possible option, but now seemingly vanishing fast, is to try one last diplomatic push as the bombs keep falling on Tehran. But Trump is a realist. He must know that diplomacy is now off the table because Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is resolved to fight Israel all the way. So the war option is really the only answer which is tragic but practical. I don't believe Trump will hold back now that the Israeli air force has cleared the way for a bombing run on the nuclear plants with America's Massive Ordnance Penetrator. But what will Russia do if Trump gives the go ahead? Russia and Iran are strategic partners. Iran is providing crucial armed drones to Russia for attacking Ukraine. Putin will feel obliged to support Iran. What will that mean? And China is not going to stay quiet. If China comes out on the side of Iran, this could turn out to be a mighty confrontation between the three big power rivals. All of this will have to be taken into account when Trump makes his final decision. The B-2s with a payload of Massive Ordnance Penetrators are waiting for the go.

Only the US has the weapon to destroy Iran's nuke bunkers

There is only one weapon system, apart from nuclear warheads, that could destroy Iran’s underground stock of highly enriched uranium and nuclear bomb components. The United States has it, and Israel does not. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which is 6m-long, weighs 30,000lb and has never been fired in anger, was developed to destroy bunkers that other weapons could not reach. Technically identified as the GBU-57F/B, it is approved as an operational payload to be launched only by the strategic B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, although tests have also been carried out with B-52s. President Trump has not joined Israel in taking military action against Iran, but there has been a build-up of warships, carriers and fighter aircraft in the Middle East, ready to carry out strikes. The clearest sign that Trump had decided to join Israel in trying to eliminate the threat of Iran developing nuclear bombs would be the arrival of B-2s at the British-owned Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Six B-2s were sent there in April as a show of force to Tehran, although in the end they were involved in missions against Houthi targets in Yemen. No MOPs were deployed or used. Even this huge bunker-busting bomb would face a challenge to reach Iran’s deepest clandestine nuclear facilities, at least some of which are known to be about half a mile — or about 800m — down, beneath layers of reinforced concrete. The latest version of the MOP has been fitted with a smart fuse that delays detonation until the maximum penetration has been achieved, reported to be more than 60m of concrete. The explosion would have a chance of destroying what was beneath it. By comparison, Israel has GBU-28 bunker busters, which can penetrate only 6m of concrete. It has not been supplied with the MOP; the US air force is believed to have limited supplies, perhaps no more than 20. In preparation for a potential US strike against Iran, Trump has already approved the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East. The USS Carl Vinson battle group will soon be operating alongside the USS Nimitz with accompanying warships in the Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, after the Nimitz was redeployed from the South China Sea. The Carl Vinson has F-35C Lightning II stealth fighters on board. In its Operation Rising Lion, Israeli F-35s have succeeded in carving a relatively invulnerable aerial pathway towards Iran’s four nuclear facilities by targeting the country’s air defence systems with multiple raids. That same pathway could be used by the B-2 or other US aircraft to hit the plants suspected of developing Iranian nuclear warheads.

Netanyahu waited for the right president to come along

Donald Trump likes to see himself as the Great Negotiator but on this occasion Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, appeared to have all the cards and outplayed him. Since April, the Israeli leader had been pressurising Trump and his White House aides to give him the green light for a large-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Netanyahu was reassured by his military advisers that Israel could go it alone to target Iran’s four nuclear sites, he wanted not just US backing but also American firepower to achieve what Trump and his predecessors all agreed on: that Iran must never be allowed to build a nuclear bomb. However, Trump entered the White House for his second term on a no-war ticket. He announced his intention to bring the war in Ukraine to an end and sent his special envoy and billionaire friend Steve Witkoff to pave the way and to divide up his spare time to sort out the war in Gaza, too. Neither of these objectives have yet to bear fruit. The nuclear challenge presented by Iran was also high on Trump’s list. But he made it clear his priority was to be a peacemaker. He wanted to avoid conflagration. This was a message that clearly didn’t go down well with Netanyahu who apparently told every American official who came to Jerusalem and in every phone call to the White House that this was the moment, the unique moment, when Iran’s nuclear sites could be bombed before it was too late. Netanyahu and his complex operational plan to attack Iran, codenamed Operation Rising Lion, which had taken months, if not years, to develop and hone, was ready to launch two months ago. But Trump demurred. He wanted Witkoff to keep going with diplomatic efforts. He made his case to Netanyahu earlier this week when he said he wanted Witkoff to complete his round of negotiations with the Iranians in Oman. One more meeting to give peace a chance had been set for Sunday. However, Trump was becoming increasingly aware that his appeals were falling on deaf ears. Operation Rising Lion was as good as set in stone. Mossad agents who had covertly entered Iran were in position to launch deadly drone attacks on the homes of the top hierarchy of Iranian generals and nuclear scientists. The call between Trump and Netanyahu on Thursday was, by the sound of it, a one-way declaration by the Israeli prime minister. Israel was going to bomb Iran, and he hoped Trump would not stand in his way. Trump came away from that conversation, knowing that within hours 200 Israeli jet fighters and bombers would be hitting pre-selected targets in Iran. It was a fait accompli. There was nothing Trump could have done. He had been out-negotiated. In one way, it was his fault, He had set a timetable of 60 days for Iran to reach a diplomatic deal to resolve the nuclear crisis. Thursday was the last day of Trump’s own timeline. It was a gift for Netanyahu. All he had to do was remind Trump of his own deadline and then push the button for Operation Rising Lion. There has been no transcript of the Thursday phone call. But Marco Rubio, secretary of state and acting national security adviser, confirmed that Washington had been notified of the imminent attack on Iran. After the attack began, a further statement was made which emphasised that the US played no role in the strikes. The challenge for Trump now is whether the US should switch from this non-participant position to being a full player. Only the US possesses the type of weapon system capable of penetrating the concrete and reinforced steel to reach the underground facilities where Iran carries out its most sensitive and critical nuclear research and development programmes. Even the US Air Force’s 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) dropped by B-2 stealth bombers would have difficulty detonating close enough to these facilities, some of which are half a mile down. However, MOP would have a better chance of actually reaching Tehran’s most secret underground plants. So far, Israel has caused extensive damage but largely to surface laboratory facilities., as well as Iran’s air defence systems. The greatest achievement of Operation Rising Lion so far has been the killing by Mossad of so many high-powered generals and nuclear scientists. That alone will set back Iran’s nuclear programme. The question for Trump is whether he has the appetite for taking on Iran once and for all. At present he has adopted a different line: warning Tehran to grab the diplomatic route before facing annihilation. However, if Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, refuses to send his diplomats to meet with Witkoff in Oman and focuses only on military retaliation against Israel, Trump might find himself forced to do what Netanyahu has been urging on Washington for a long time: to join with Israel in totally destroying Iran’s nuclear programme. If that is what happens, Netanyahu will have achieved his greatest legacy: picking his moment and the right American president to end the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Israel and Iran set for long missile-attrition war

Is anyone actually trying to stop Israel and Iran from hurling missiles and drones at each other? This could go on for weeks or months and the death and destruction toll is going to climb steeply. There is a purpose to this war which is to stop Iran going nuclear. It's a purpose which every other country in the world is going to be grateful for, provided it succeeds and everything to do with Iran's clandestine nuclear bomb project is destroyed or long-term damaged. So, secretly, every country, including Britain under Keir Starmer who has been increasingly critical of Israel, will be saying:"Go, Israel, get it done." But Israel won't be able to destroy Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities without a lot of help from the US, along with the full support of Britain, Europe and the whole Arab world. Will this happen? No. For uhderstandable reasons, all the focus right now is to try and stop the war. Britain and everyone else are calling for restraint. But the truth is, if Israel uses restraint it won't be able to finish the job of preventing Iran from going nuclear. If no one else is going to help, ie the US, then Israel must be allowed to go it alone and end Ira's nuclear dreams. But that means Israel and the Israeli people will have to suffer from Iranian retaliation. So, Israel is losing lives while doing the one job which every other country wants them do. This is a very weird paradox.

Israeli strikes on Iran a huge challenge for Trump

The series of airstrikes by Israeli military jets against Iran’s nuclear sites poses a huge challenge for President Trump. The president has made it clear he does not want the United States to be involved in any more wars, at least not ones which other nations should be able to prosecute themselves. He told Tehran that the US was not involved in any way with Israel’s decision to attack the nuclear sites, even though the devastating bombing raids were in the interests of the United States because Trump and his predecessors all said they would never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. The Israeli strikes will never completely eliminate the nuclear facilities because the most secret plants are about half a mile down beneath concrete and reinforced steel. The damage done by the Israeli raids will put back Iran’s nuclear programme by a significant amount, and that will suit the US and the Trump administration. However, if the intention is to destroy Iran’s whole nuclear project, then at some time it will require the US to be involved militarily, if diplomacy fails, because only the US has the weapons to penetrate that far down into the nuclear bunkers to destroy them. So what will Trump do? Will he join Israel in finally removing the nuclear threat posed by Iran? Or will he push ahead with diplomatic pressure? The answer is that Trump will probably do everything he can to avoid what could be a catastrophic war. The Middle East is in enough turmoil without having a full--scale war between Israel and Iran. And the US is the only country with the power and influence to stop the conflict from breaking out into a more serious conflagration. One can only hope that every ounce of US diplomatic effort is deployed to bring this latest crisis to an end. However, there is no question that it is in the interests of the whole Middle East region that Iran never succeeds in developing nuclear weapons. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is so terrifying it is to be hoped that whatever the Israeli airstrikes achieve they will make Tehran and its leaders give up any ambition to go down this dangerous route. This is where the US can and will play a pivotal role, making it clear to Tehran that it will face future military strikes if it continues to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons. However, for the moment, the confrontation between Israel and Iran presents another major challenge for the Trump administration. Even though the president wants to avoid wars, it seems he can’t escape the consequences of conflicts waged by other countries, especially Israel which is one of the most important allies for the US. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, the US will want to protect Israel from retaliation by Iran and that means the US will be a participant in a war that could spread throughout the Middle East.

Are we about to face yet another Middle East war?

There seems to be an appetite for war wherever you look in the Middle East. If it's not enough that Israel is waging war in Gaza, the West Bank, Hezbollah/Lebanon and Syria, there is now every chance that within weeks or even days Israel will launch strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, with or without American help. The truth is that without the huge firepower which the US Air Force possesses, a conventional attack on Iran's deeply-buried nuke plants will make little difference. The most secret and sensitive sites are half a mile underground. Half a mile!! The only bomb which has even a sporting chance of reaching that far through earth and concrete is the US 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) which would be dropped by a B-2 stealth fighter. But could even that go all the to the very floor of the nuke facility and blow it all up? Israel doesn't have this bomb, so they would be forced to use less powerful bombs which would cause immense damage but not be able to surge through the concrete all that way. The International Atomic Energy Agency has now officially warned that Iran is violating its obligations under the nuke deal signed by Obama in 2015 and has developed hundreds of kilos of 60 per cent enriched uranium, which is way above the level required for peaceful, civilian use. Tehran wants the bomb and it looks like they could get it this year if the Supreme Leader gives his permission. So Israel has told Washington it's going to go ahead and strike. This is the biggest test for Donald Trump since he began his second term. He and Benjamin Netanyahu don't get on, and it could well be that the Israeli leader will give the go ahead for the strike with or without Trump's say-so. That would lead to a nmjor conflict between Israel and Iran. Then what?

Now the US Joint Chiefs chairman says he believes Putin will march on into Europe

It has become the view of the moment among the west's top military commanders to pontificate about what Putin will do next, after Ukraine, and all seem to be saying the same thing, that the Russian leader will march his troops on into Nato Europe and chance his arm in, say, Finland or Latvia or Poland. Of course they could all be right. So why do I remain so sceptical about these gloomy predictions? Principally because taking on Ukraine which Russia has totally failed to subjugate, is a helluva lot different from waging war of any kind with Nato, whether it be in Finland or Poland. Putin absolutely knows this. Any overt invasion of Poland, for example, would lead to a catastrophic counter-attack by Nato. Catastrophic for the Russians, that is. Again, Putin knows this, even if on some days he suspects Nato might not invoke Article 5 of the Nato Treaty. He may be building a war economy and producing more missiles and tanks, but he has lost so many in the war in Ukraine that he is desperate to fill the huge gaps in his arsenal. He won't have the ability to take on Nato in a conflict for years to come, probably never, so why on earth would he risk everything by charging around Europe trying to bite into Nato's alliance? It would be a huge mistake. He must know this. Even Trump is not going to turn his back on Poland or the Baltics and leave it to the Europeans. His legacy would be shot to pieces. Nato would stand firm against any Russian moves made against the alliance. So, all you top generals in the US and Europe, stop trying to scare us into believing that Putin is the next Hitler. Calm down the over-the-top rhetoric and stop showing us you're scared of Putin. It will only make him feel considerably taller than he is.

Trump sends for the Marines

It's the one-liner that all US presidents are tempted to use: send for the Marines. The US Marine Corps is the ultimate symbol of heavyweight fighting power. They have saved the day for America on so many occasions in history. Now, however, Trump is sending hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles to quell the protests that have erupted in the city for days over immigration raids. Sending for the Marines to fight American citizens on the streets of one of America's most famous cities is not what former presidents had in mind when they turned to the Marine Corps for help. It was always to fight overseas. But, having deployed the National Guards to the streets of LA now Trump wants hundreds of Marines to join them. LA citizens must be thinking it's another Hollywood movie in the making. But not under Trump. He has always thought it was constitutionally ok to use the military against protesting Americans. But now he has done it, I suspect there will be many Republicans who will see this as a step far too far. If Marines kill protesters, there will be an outcry. It's a potentially dangerous move for democracy in the US. Let's hope it all calms down and the Marines can return to their barracks.

Will Trump try again with Kim Jong Un?

Donald Trump probably has enough on his hands: the riots in LA where he has sent National Guard troops much to the anger of the California governor; the war in Ukraine which is still raging despite his promise to bring it to a close; the war in Gaza where there is no end to death and destruction; the tariff war with China, Europe and everywhere; his tempestuous break-up with Elon Musk; the continuing friction and argument over his Big, Beautiful Bill, to name just a few issues. So what about North Korea and his old one-time friend Kim Jong Un? Has Trump made any moves to reignite the charm offensive he launched in his first term in office, or is that a dead end issue? If all else is failing, perhaps Trump will turn his attention to Kim Jong Un, if only because the North Korean dictator has cemented his ties with Vladimir Putin and the two are thick as thieves, with North Korean troops having fought alongside Russian soldiers in the Kursk region in western Russia against Ukrainian forces. Not much has been heard of them in recent weeks. We don't know if Trump has tried to rekindle his efforts with Kim Jong Un but if he had he would probably have made it public on his Truth Social platform. But it seems strange that Trump has not even mentioned North Korea. Perhaps when he saw North Korea sink its latest warship by mistake when launching it made Trump think Kim Jong Un doesn't pose a threat at the moment.

Would massive new sanctions against Russia make any difference?

What is going to force Vladimir Putin to change his course with Ukraine? Total defeat is never going to happen, despite all the initial optimism around in the US and Europe when Putin's war faltered in the first few weeks. International sanctions have bitten into Russia's economy but Putin and his empire have survived and thrived. Now Senator Lindsay Graham, the influential supporter of Donald Trump, has come up with a staggeringly brutal new sanctions package which he hopes will finally cripple Russia's economy. He has put forward a bill which would impose a 500 per cent tariff on all countries which still trade with Russia. This is mainly aimed at China and India who have continued throughout the war in Ukraine to buy Russian oil and gas, but also Europe which still, amazingly, buys natural gas from Moscow. If this goes ahead and this extraordinary tariff is deployed, the huge sums Moscow is getting from exporting its oil and gas will be largely cut off. This would have a huge impact on the country's war economy and its ability to continue fighting Ukraine. But it would also cut a swathe through the economies of China, India and Europe. Putin will be calculating that the Trump administration will never go along with it. But it just might be the only option left to bring Putin to his senses. Russia is a country with huge natural resources and relies on other countries to buy its oil and gas to maintain the economy and the war in Ukraine. It will probably be one of those things which Trump will wave around as an option against Moscow but not actually do it.

Can Trump and Musk ever make up?

Right now the arguments and tirades and social media blastings going on between Donald Trump and Elon Musk make it near-impossible for there ever to be a reconciliation. But it all seems so pointless and silly and childish for these two individuals to carry on stamping their feet and vowing enmity etc etc. Children throw their toys out of the pram, adults are supposed to be more reasonable and wise and practical. So this massive battle between the two biggest egos in the United States has to come to an end at some point. Otherwise Musk is going to deploy all his money towards the Democratic party and disaffected Republicans in order to have Trump's big, beautiful bill thrown out. Could he do that? It sounds like he could. So, Musk has the potential to do almost as much damage to Trump as Trump can do to Musk. There's talk of Trump removing all government aid to the Tesla company. But that would undermine the economy, crash the job market and put efforts to go electric in the car business on the back burner. Everyone loses out. It's time the president of the United States and his ex-buddy, the richest man in the world (or was), to call a halt to all this stupidity and get back to being on the same page for the sake of the nation as a whole. But I doubt it will happen.

Goliath versus Goliath

There have been numerous examples in history of David v Goliath, with the smaller one winning against the big brute. But now we have two Goliaths going at each other, Donald Trump v Elon Musk.Two mighty beasts, one with more power than the other and the other with more money than the other. Musk is taller than Trump but he doesn't have a MAGA support base behind him and he hasn't been elected to anything. So, however this mighty clash of egos goes down, Musk will lose and will regret taking on the president. In fact, he could face ruin if he doesn't kiss and make up. So far there is no sign of that happening despite hints from Trump that he might have a call with Musk and sort it out. That all fell through when Trump declared he wasn't interested in talking or thinking about Musk. Musk is pissed off, seeing all his work on slashing budgets and sacking people to save money being washed down the sink with Trump's big, beautiful bill which will add more than $2 trillion dollars to the nation's defecit, undoing all his hard work to chop the federal budget into a meaningful size. Musk has left the White House and Washington and gone to save his company Tesla from collapse. He has already lost as much money as most Third World countries have in their coffers to last the year. It sounds like we need a moderator here to bring the Goliath v Goliath boxing bout to an end before things get totally out of hand.

Will Putin invade the Baltics?

Senior military types across Europe are warning that Putin will turn his attention to the Baltics once he has either crushed Ukraine or forced a surrender by Kyiv. If this is true, and it might be, then we are talking about a potential war between Nato and Russia in the next two to five years. Is this really realistic or are people now getting so jumpy about this crazy world that they have convinced themselves that Putin wants world domination and is hell bent on carving up Nato once and for all.? Again, it's a scenario that can't be dismissed. These military chiefs read the intelligence every day and should know what they're warning about. Or is it really about persuading their governments to spend a helluva lot more on defence, on the basis that deterrence prevents wars and our deterrence and Europe's deterrence is currently unimpressive? All of this foreboding, of course, has been brought on by the man in the White House, Donald Trump, who has not given the sort of assurances about defending Europe to which all his predecessors have been committed. So, a major incursion (not quite an invasion) by Russia against, say, Lithuania, should trigger Article 5 of the Nato Treaty and every member of the alliance then goes to its aid. Putin would be gambling that Nato will do no such thing because Trumpo might say to Europe, "You do it, we're not going to get involved because we have China to worry about." It's a gamble Putin might think worth taking. My view is that Putin has been so humiliated by the way Ukraine has fought back aginst his invasion army that I think he will hesitate to make the mistake of attacking any member of the Nato alliance. This hesitation will be doubled if every member of the alliance starts spending big money on defence, like the five per cent of GDP which Trump is demanding. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has claimed today at a Nato defence ministers' meeting that many alliance members are already showing enthusiasm for five per cent, but he didn't include the UK in his list. There is no way Keir Starmer is going to find the money to commit to five per cent of GDP on defence. He's struggling to commit to three per cent and won't get to 2.5 per cent until 2027. Putin will be watching and calculating.

Iran Supreme Leader rejects Trump's nuke proposal

This is not good news for Donald Trump. Very recently he indicated there would be a hig deal with Iran to stop them working on a nuclear weapon as if an announcement was imminent. But it never happened and now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, has rejected outright the proposal from Trump that Iran gives up enriching uranium. Iran has always said that it has every right, like all countries in the world, to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and that it will never give up this right. The trouble is Iran is rapidly pushing ahead with enriching uranium towards a weapons-grade level which means the ayatollah's talk of "peaceful purposes" doesn't hold much water. It looks, and has always looked, like Iran actually wants to build a nuclear bomb, whatever the ayatollah says, and he only has to give his say-so and within months they could be enriching uranium to the 90 per cent level required for fissile material for a weapon. So, there's a total impasse yet again, and no sign of a deal which is very bad news. Trump really hasn't yet had any sort of breakthrough foreign policy success. In fact, the opposite. The war in Ukraine is raging on. The war in Gaza is getting worse by the day. More deaths, more destruction. What's Trump going to do if Iran continues to block attempts to reach a diplomatic deal to end the nuke threat. That would be three foreign policy failures.

Britain's strategic defence review is a hollow plan without the right cash

The Labour government's ambitious strategic defence review publishd yesterday was full of bold talk and fancy phrases that when analysed sound like they were written by someone well-versed in the gobbledigook of Whitehallese lingo. For me, the stand-out fiugure was the promise by the government to increase the size of the regular army from its current figure of around 70,000 to 75,000 by 2034. That pretty much sums up the state of our armed forces today. An army of 75,000 in the next nine years is not going to put off people like Vladimir Putin or any foreign leader who fancies his chances to grab a bit of Britain's diminished empire around the globe. Ok, the review is also full of dreamy talk of drones and other unmanned vehicles and super hi-techness and a dozen nuclear-powered submarines. But where is the money going to come from? The hoped-for 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence won't be enough, not for the long term. The aspirational three per cent ain't going to happen for years and as for the Naop secretary general's wish for all alliance members to increase their spending to 3.5 per cent or even five per cent of GDP, how can the UK agree to that when it's struggling to reach 2.5 per cent? Of course, there is only way out and that's to increase income tax by one or two percentage points. But the Labour government "promised" in its manifesto that it wouldn't raise income tax. Ever. This promise will have to be cast aside, and very soon. Then the popularity of the governemnt is going to sink. It's a hard road ahead for this country and for this government. The strategic defence review could end up just being 140 odd pages of unfulfillable wish lists.

Ukraine's attack on Russian bombers is a massive turning-point in the war

Carried outwith precision and daring, Ukraine's security forces have damaged or destroyed dozens of Russia's strategic bombers inside Russia, depending on whether you believe Kyiv's claims or Moscow's downplaying statements. Whatever is the full truth, there is no question that Ukraine has dealt a huge blow to Russia's military and to Putin's confidence. In a covert operation codenamed Spider's Web, 117 drones were launched against Russian strategic bombers in five different bases, allegedly attacking 34 per cent of Moscow's long-range cruise-missile-armed aircraft. Not from a long range but from close up, with the drones fired automatically from trucks nearby. It's a staggering achievement and it will make Putin realise that all his treasured military aircraft parked in the open air on bases without hangers to keep them safe, will now be vulnerable to Ukrainian attack. It's a turning point so massive that I believe Putin will be forced to take drastic action to try and show that he is still winning the war. Could he use tactical nukes against Ukraine? He will be sorely tempted. If he does, then the war will spread to Nato. This is such a dire thought that I hardly dare put it into print. But far from seeking an end to the war, Putin is going to accelerate and expand the conflict. He has built a war economy and is producing so many tanks that he will want to use them. The promise by Sir Keir Starmer today to start converting Britain into war-readiness sounds bold but perhaps too late. Al the things he has promised, such as more nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered submarines, will take years. Putin might make his move well before then.

What does Pete Hegseth mean by "imminent"?

Talking to a bunch of top people in the foreign and security policy business in Singapore, Pete Hegseth, the Trumpite US defence secretary, warned that a Chinese attack on Taiwan was "imminent". What does he mean by "imminent"? The definition of imminent is "likely to happen at any moment" and is generally accepted to mean that whatever it is is on the very point of occurring. Like, a person's death is "imminent", ie he has hours to live. So is that what Hegseth meant? That China is literally poised to invade Taiwan, like tomorrow or the next day at the latest? Surely not. I don't think so. If it was true, there would be signs of a massive build-up of PLA warships, amphibious craft, fighter jets, ballistic missiles all turned in the direction of Taiwan and so on. But there is no sign or any intelligence of this going on. Nor do I think Beijing is actually ready for an invasion of Taiwan. Politically, Xi Zinping might just risk it in the belief that Trump won't bother to retaliate by defending Taiwan, but, militarily, the PLA needs more time for rehearsals. They've got until 2027 when Xi said Taiwan will be back under the Beijing fold whether by diplomacy or force. So, not imminent then, not tomorrow or next week or even next month. Hegseth was stirring it up, I guess, and he certainly did that with Beijing which warned him to stop interfering.

Joe Biden has no regrets

Poor old Joe, as Donald Trump calls him, he does seem to be a bit in cloud cuckoo land at the moment. In an interview, Biden says he has no regrets about standing for reelection and then dropping out with only three months left of the presidential campaign. Je ne regrette rien. Well, I can tell you who does have regrets, Kamala Harris and the whole Democratic party. Biden is convinced that it wouldn't have made any difference even if he had dropped out much earlier or not stood for reelection at all which doesn't say much for his opinion of Kamala Harris whom, after all, he chose to be his running mate. Does that mean Biden thinks Trump was on an unbeatable path to the White House. If so, why did he say repeatedly that he was the only one in the Democratic party who could beat Trump - for the second time. To say he has no regrets is a bit of slap in the face for the Democrats who now have four years of being shoved into the background and with probably little hope of winning the 2028 election. At some point, Biden will regret that if nothing else.

How has Hamas survived this long?

Since the October 7, 2023 atrocity when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and captured 250, the terror organisation has suffered a huge death toll at the hands of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - perhaps 17,000 kiled - and have lost nearly all of their top commanders. And yet, somehow, Hamas still survives both as a fighting force and as rulers of Gaza. How is this possible when Israel has the military power to annihilate them? It's yet another golden rule learnt by the superior of two military forces, that might and firepower don't necessarily bring victory. The Taleban survived against the huge superiority of the US-led coalition forces over 20 years because it was their territory, they knew where to be, where to hide, and how to fight a superior force. The same has been the case with Hamas versus Israel. Hamas still have their underground tunnels and bunkers, they have the remaining Palestinian population to hide amongst and when their commanders have been killed - the latest one killed this week - they bring on new ones. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to destroy Hamas once and for all. I don't think the IDF are ever going to be able to achieve his objective.

Putin's summer offensive in Ukraine has begun

While Donald Trump seeths with frustration over Putin's failure to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine, and Europe ponders whether it will be on its own supporting Kyiv, the Russian leader is just getting on with the task of mounting a new offensive. About 50,000 Russian troops are gathered on the northern border of Ukraine and seem poised to try and seize control of the whole of the Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine. They may not succeed because the Ukrainian forces are wise to what he is up to and will no doubt do their best to target the incoming troops. But what the summer offensive tells us more than anything is that Putin is not remotely interested in a ceasefire or reaching a peace settlement and that at least for the next few months he will order his troops to grab as much territory as possible. The general view is that this is his way of gaining leverage if and when settlement talks begin. But I don't think this is the case any more. I think Putin has decided that he no longer has to fear what Trump will do, if he ever did, and that he's prepared to screw over Trump and pursue his war aims whatever the US president does or says. Trump has claimed he doesn't understand what the crazy Putin is doing, especially after their nice two-hour chat on the phone which gave Trump some hope that his personal relationship with the Moscow leader would be critical in ending the war. But while Putin is obviously prepared to play along with Trump, he is not really listening. The gathering of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian northern border shows he is getting a second wind. He is ready for a long war.

Nobody knows what to do with Ukraine

Attempts to end the war in Ukraine have failed beyond hope. So now what? Nobody really knows what to do and how to bring this appalling conflict to a close. Donald Trump was the most confident that he could do it but his efforts have come to nothing. Europe has stuck with Kyiv and have kept sending arms and making promises, but, basically, the UK and the whole of Europe desperately want it all to end so that they can spend money on other things, like defence and welfare and health and education and poor roads. The one person who knows all of this and is exploiting it is, of course, Vladimir Putin. He is just winning, winning, winning. Europe now apparently has authorised Zelensky to use his donated long-range missiles to hit inside Russia. So, in the next few weeks, watch out for a huge increase in attacks from Ukraine into Russia, possibly into Moscow itself. This will exacerbate and make more dangerous the war between these two countries. It might make Europe feel good and it will certainly make Zelensky happy, but will it help to bring the war to a negotiated end? I fear not. It will just make Putin angrier and more determined to crush Ukraine. And so the war will go and on. Nobody, either in the US or Europe knows what steps to take next because all efforts to forge a ceasefire, let alone to sign a peace settlement, have fallen on deaf ears in Moscow. Putin is happy to carry on and watch the US and Europe throw up their hands in dismay and frustration.

King Charles and his tricky address to Canada's parliament

With anyone else in the White House, King Charles's state visit to Canada would have been a routine affair with plenty of pomp and processions and an obliging speech for the state opening of parliament. But with Donald Trump as US president, the same man who said he wanted Canada to become America's 51st state, it presents a huge problem for the monarch. Charles has asked Trump to come to the UK for a state visit in September, so he can't go too far in saying he wants Canada to remain part of the Commonwealth, an indepdent sovereign country which just happens to share a long border with the US. Charles can't criticise Trump's crazy notion of absorbing Canada into the United States, but on the other hand if he ignores the threat totally he will disappoint every Canadian both in and out of parliament. Charles and his speech writers are pretty clever at avoiding controversy but his address to parliament can't be anodyne. It has to underline Canada's importance as a sovereign nation without mentioning or even hinting at Trump. But yet getting the message across: keep out, Trump! Whatever he says, Trump will be reading between the lines, so good luck, Your Majesty, with coming up with the right formula to ensure everyone is happy.

The Kremlin accuses Trump of being over-emotional

The Kremlin (Putin) thinks Donald Trump is getting overwhelmed with emotion about all the recent deaths in Ukraine. Clearly the Kremlin (Putin) is not worried about all the deaths the Russian drones and missiles have been causing in recent days, men, women and children cut down by these flying bombs. But Trump is fed up with Putin for failing to do what he wants which is to negotiate a long ceasefire and stop the killing. He called Putin "absolutely crazy" for carrying on killing people when he promised on the phone last week to start immediate negotiations with Ukraine to forge a 30-day ceasefire. Have those negotiations begun? No, they haven't. So that hugely promoted phone chat between Putin and Trump was just blather. Blaa blaa blaa. Trump is getting increasingly angry that Putin is not playing ball. But, seriously, did Trump really think that Putin would cave in and bring the war to an end just because the US president was getting all emotional about the continuing deaths. The statement from the Kremlin today was perfect evidence that Putin plans to go on sending drones and missiles to cause maximum death and destruction for as long as he wants. He will decide when to stop, if ever, and doesn't care less about Trump's intervention. Instead, he approves the condescending statement from the Kremlin about Trump getting all emotional. It is not a good sign!

Has Zelensky run out of hope for his country?

For more than three years, the former comedian turned president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has fought the Russian invaders and tried to win the support of the the West to back him. His achievements have been phenominal. Ukraine still survives despite a massive onslaught of violence from Russia and he succeeded in corralling the United States and Europe into supplying him with the weapons he needed to defend his country against the invasion force. He is now one of the most famous and recognisable figures on the planet. But is it all now going to go wrong? The US under President Trump wants to stop spending more money on Ukraine and Trump himself has effectively said he will walk away if he can't get Moscow and Kyiv to sign a peace settlement. Europe is still backing him all the way but the Europeans are no substitute for the US. Meanwhile, the missiles and drones keep raining on Kyiv and other towns and cities. Has Zelensky finally run out of hope for the survivability of his country or is he resigned to non-stop war for the next decade? Either way, this is a bad moment for him and for the Ukrainian people. All the effort Zelensky put in to build an alliance with the West to save his country could now be wasted. Putin looks more confident by the day and holds all the cards. He is clearly not afraid of Trump and is just as happy to play him as he is to play Zelensky. Putin is also not remotely afraid of Europe which he sees as divided and run by hopeless governments. Putin sees himself as the new emperor. Zelensky is a brave and resourceful leader. But I fear it's all going to end in humiliation for him.

Drone war goes on and on in Ukraine and Russia

The war between Ukraine and Russia is almnost exclusively now fought out by drones and missiles. You never hear about tank attacks or artillery strikes, let alone infantry combat. It's drones, drones, drones and they are getting more and more deadly and with longer ranges. To such an extent that the Ukraine military are now confident about launching drones which will reach the outskirts of Moscow. Both Russia and Ukraine are producing drones on a massive scale, so there is never a shortage. This sort of war can go on for ever, and right now, with Vladimir Putin dismissing any attempts to agree a ceasefire, let alone end the war, he will just carry on launching the drones every day and night. Likewise, Ukraine has factories and research facilities to produce better and better drones. Even as Moscow and Kyiv were engaged in a transfer of hundreds of prisoners of war, both sides were launching drones against each other. We never hear anymore about American Abrams tanks, or German Leopard tanks or British Challenger 2s. The only thing that counts are drones, as well as missiles, It's a frightening, ever-present type of warfare and because both Russia and Ukraine are building more and more, it means neither side is going to win. It will just be relentless. I don't see it ending for years.

Is Trump's big bill beautiful or ugly?

Making a judgment about Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" is almost impossible because it is so complex. It's more than 1,000 pages long with detailed clauses on every page and financial imlications that are difficult to guage with any degree of certainty. It's claimed the bill which covers a multiple range of political issues will increase the national deficit by another $3.8 trillion. The figure is so staggering you wonder whether that's accurate. If it is accurate then the US deficit, currently around $2 trillion will be nearly $6 trillion. You don't have to be a financial expert to work out that a deficit of such huge proportions cannot be good for a flourishing economy. The interest on the national debt is so enormous that it has been claimed last year it exceeded the total amount spent on defence in the US - $997 billion. How can a country be financially stable if it pays interest on borowing at that rate? No wonder there are a lot of Republicans in the Senate who will be looking at this situation when they come to examine and "approve" the bill. These days most countries talk about the need to have fiscal responsibility which means trying to balance the books without borrowing huge sums. The US under the Trump administration doesn't seem that worried about the piling-up debt. But at some point the mathmaticians in the administration will realise the massive debt is no longer sustainable.

Why did Joe Biden not know he was a prostate cancer risk?

There are all kinds of questions being raised in Washington about Joe Biden's latest medical shock. Principally, how come the former president of the United States was not checked for prosrate cancer every year as part of his annual medical check-up? In 2014 he was given a PSA test, the normal blood check to see if there are any signs of prostate problems, but no PSA test since then. This goes against all that is known about checking for this disease. For all men, president or not, as soon as there is the slightest signal that the prostate is not behaving the way it should, then doctors advise two ways forward: to have a biopsy to detect any sign of cancer or to watch and wait which means having checks every year to see if the PSA level has increased to an unacceptable figure. None of this appeared to have happened with Biden. We don't know what the 2014 PSA level was but eleven years later he is suddenly diagnosed with an aggressive cancewr in the prostate and also in his bones. This is quite shocking and makes no sense. In the lead-up to this diagnosis there must have been clear signs that Biden's prostate was malfunctioning. There would have been a build-up over a period of years and if annual PSA tests had been carried out it would have been detected. A full explanation is needed.

Can the Qatari 747 be converted into a proper Air Force One?

Converting the Qatari “gifted” luxury Boeing 747 into an Air Force One, equivalent to a flying White House, could turn into a significantly more expensive and technically challenging task than envisaged by President Donald Trump. Trump has indicated he wants an interim Air Force One – the Qatari option -by the end of the year. However, it’s likely to take far longer than the three years and eight months left of Trump’s presidency., unless the specifications for the aircraft are drastically reduced; and that could be seen as playing Russian roulette with the president’s safety. The controversial announcement that Trump had accepted the offered gift of the 747during his recent Middle East tour, followed years of frustration and delay arising from the Boeing company’s attempt to build two new Air Force Ones, now not expected until 2029. Transforming a luxury aircraft into a flying beast capable of withstanding the totality of potential hostile targeting, from cyber attacks and electronic jamming to “worst scenario” nuclear explosions, is going to require the most advanced expertise and a timetable which so far has been beyond the capability of one of the biggest defence companies in the world.The $400 million Qatari 747 is currently parked at the airport in San Antonia, Texas, waiting to be officially handed over to the US Air Force. The gift has been met with an alarmed reaction from Congress over the ethics of accepting the plane at all. But the president said he would be a fool not to be grateful for the gift and has now left the task of transforming it into an Air Force One in the hands of the air force and the Pentagon. What will be involved? Richard Aboulafia, managing director of Aerodynamic Advisory and an expert on the aviation industry, told The Times: “It’s an enormous challenge. We have two ‘buckets’ [stages] here, first the stripping down to the nuts and bolts to make sure that there is nothing there that could compromise the aircraft’s security. “This is the Qatari government, so, obviously I’m not making any accusations, but it would still be necessary to make sure there are no hidden listening devices, like electronic bugs, or a concealed transponder [which acts like a radio that reveals the aircraft’s location and altitude].“Then in the second bucket, you have the upgrade, to turn it into an Air Force One. It has to be wired so that the communication system is survivable under every scenario. Boeing’s new Air Force One programme is building in all new systems, including the battle management system.” He added:“It’s difficult to see how a Qatari aircraft could be ready for operational use before the Boeing one, so what is the point, unless President Trump wants to keep the aircraft for when he leaves office. {Trump has denied this].” The Boeing 747 is the obvious choice for an Air Force One. It has four engines, specifically designed for long-haul flights. The 747-8, the 13-year-old luxury variant donated by the Qatari royal family, also has four engines. The current Air Force One, called Boeing VC-25A, is based on the Boeing 747-200B and was designed with in-flight refuelling. However, the new-generation model which, like the Qatari aircraft, is based on a 747-8 and is designated VC-25B, will not have this facility. The Qatari luxury jumbo jet does have an air-refuelling capability but it would probably need substantial upgrading to meet the specifications required for an Air Force One. The most crucial aspects of an Air Force One are its survivability as an airborne command centre as well as a means of transport for the president and his key staff. Communications have to be invulnerable to attack or jamming and must be as secure as if the president was sitting in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. The US Air Force which is responsible for ensuring the commander-in-chief can continue to govern and issue executive orders at all times when in midair will ensure that whoever adapts the Qatari Boeing into an Air Force One will include back-up systems to ensure 24-hour operability. The advanced communication system has to be capable of withstanding the impact of electromagnetic pulses (EMP), one of the additional “ingredients” of a nuclear explosion which can wipe out electronics. One way to provide such protection is to build what is known as a metal “Faraday Cage” around the communications systems to keep out the EMP threat. The current Air Force One is fitted with sophisticated self-protection devices to ward off incoming surface-to-air or air-to-air guided missiles. The AN/AAR-54 missile launch warning receiver gives notice of incoming missile threats and the AN/AAQ-24 Nemesis directional infra-red countermeasures system ,when launched against missiles can disrupt the guidance equipment. The presidential plane also has flares to confuse incoming missiles, and chaff, which, when fired, consists of a cloud of aluminium reflective strips that act as a decoy to draw radar-guided weapons away from focusing on the real target. The Qatari 747-8 would need all such systems to provide sufficient protection for the president. “The key to Air Force One is the security of POTUS [president of the United States] and his communications,” Paul Beaver, British defence analyst and aviation historian, said. “To modify an existing airframe will take time, possibly years. It would be better to start from scratch,” he said. However, starting from scratch would also take years, probably into the 2030s. But Trump wants it in the next seven months. The only way this would be feasible would be if corners were substantially cut and the security features normally associated with the aircraft were reduced, making it a less secure presidential aircraft than the current Air Force One. Boeing’s new programme is already well over cost, with estimates rising from the initial $3.9 billion in 2018 to more than $4.7 billion. Even the Qatari option with fewer security features will cost millions, if not billions.

Trump's Golden Dome anti-missile system outlined

The Golden Dome, Donald Trump's grand Reagan-style vision of an all-embracing missile defence system on land, at sea and in space, was formally unveiled by the president in the Oval Office although the actual details remain unknown. The most dramatic claim made by Trump was that the system would be up and running before he completes his presidency in about three and a half years' time. He said it will cost $175 billion. It's a big ambition and a lot of money, but Trump seemed super-confident that the military will be able to produce aqd deploy the system in this short timescale. At the moment there is an already pretty robust layered system which involves silo-based interceptors in California and Alaska, space-based sensors and warships armed with Standard missiles capable of shooting down medium-range missiles. But this system was designed to deal with the perceived ballistic-missile threat posed by North Korea and Iran, not Russia and China. Now Trump wants to protect the US homeland from every type of missile threat, including the longest-range ballistic missiles (with nuke warheads), cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles and even long-range drones from wherever they come from. That's a pretty tall order even though technology has advanced significantly since Ronald Reagan first came up with the idea of a perfect shield protecting the US from missile attack. It was swiftly called his Star Wars programme. Much of it was based on the idea of having lasers and other Star Wars-style weapons up in space. It never happened. It was unaffordable. Now Trump reckons it is affordable and $25 billion has already been set aside for the first phase of the new layered defence. Will this mean that, after all, the US is going to havespaced-based lasers and particle beam weapons and goodness knows what else protecting the US homeland? There's a long time to go before that is going to happen I suspect.

Trump and Putin chat about peace or war

Donald Trump wants an end to the killing and an end to the war in Ukraine. Does Putin have an interest in either of these ogbjectives? This is the question behind the telephone call whcih Trump and Putin are having this morning. If Trump gets the feeling that Putin is simply not interested in a peace settlement, then it will be very difficult for Trump and the Trump administration to continue to fight for Ukraine's cause. There have been enough warnings from the White House that Trump is not going to go on for ever putting in the effort to broker a deal. If Putin is sensible, he will give Trump just enough to make it worthwhile for the president to stay interested but no more. I doubt Putin is going to say, "Okay, Donald, for you I'll stop fighting." The first nobjective is to get a 30-day ceasefire and then within that period to start negotiating the framework for ending the war. But this is not going to happen if Putin rebuffs Trump. Trump could then say, leave ot to Europe to sort out the war. But is in no position to back Ukraine for ever against Russia. Putin knows this, of course. So he may think it's in his interest to play the White House v Europe and see what comes of it. In all of this, what Zelensky wants and calls for will be largely ignored.

World crises keep swapping around

Only recently the news headlines were warning of a potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, ceasefire hopes were being raised in Ukraine and Gaza and the Roman Catholic cardinals voted for an American Pope. It was non-stop Big News. Today is the same but the emphases have changed. India and Pakistan are not at war any longer, restraint was imposed, diplomacy worked, so no nukes were drawn out of their bunkers; ceasefires in Ukraine and Gaza have disappeared into the dust as Vladimir Putin in Moscow refuses to consider peace deals and Benjamin Netanyahu has launched his latest offfensive to grab control of the whole of Gaza, and Palestinians are dying every day. The Pope, on the other hand, is being inaugurated today and the sound of ecstatically cheering crowds in St Peter's Square is so much better than the sound of gunfire and bombs falling. Maybe there is hope in this Pope. The last one got tangled up in chruch crises. Wouldn't it be great if suddenly all the terrible wars going on at the moment just came to an end and the poor people suffering under the bombs and missiles and drones managed to retrieve their lives and have a future? But no, that is far too unrealistic a hope I fear.

Trump still optimistic he will persuade Putin to do a deal

Putin shows absolutely no interest in ending the war in Ukraine. But Donald Trump who announced he will be phoning Putin on Monday, remains convinced that the Russian leader is ready for a deal. Russia is now such a war economy that even if the confict in Ukraine were to come to an end, the military build-up is not going to stop and it will give Putin ideas about future "special operations". But Trump is optimistic Putin really is anxious for a deal and if he wants to stay in the good books of the US president, he might just play ball. It would be an amazing achievement if, under pressure from Trump, Putin caved in and went for peace. But the signs are not good. Only today a Russian drone attack killed a busload of civilians in Ukraine. So, even while the presidents talk on the phone, the killing will go on. This is the reality of the world today. It's the same in Gaza. Lots of talk about ceasefires and peace and hostage releases, but every day the killings go on. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have to stop. The sooner the better.

Trump hints at nuclear deal with Iran

President Donald Trump says a nuclear deal with Iran is “close” and that Tehran has “sort of” agreed to curbing its suspected clandestine atomic weapons programme. Speaking to reporters on his Middle East diplomatic tour, the president gave a response to questions with his characteristic, casual choice of words that hint of a dramatic breakthrough without actually providing evidence of a deal which could potentially be his biggest foreign policy achievement to date. The US and Iran have now had four meetings of indirect negotiations in Oman, and although the content has remained confidential, the atmosphere between the two sides has been candid but amicable, raising expectations that a deal to end the threat of Tehran “breaking out” and building a nuclear bomb could be brokered diplomatically without the need for Trump to resort to military force. However, despite Trump’s enticing sound bite, there remain so many sticking points before a meaningful agreement can be signed that there have to be doubts about whether Iran is yet ready to bend to the US president’s demands. The biggest obstacle of all are the red lines which the US and Iran have set for themselves in the negotiations mediated by Oman. Initially, when the first round of talks began in Muscat last month the US position appeared to be that Iran would need to limit all enrichment of uranium to 3.67 per cent which would be the level appropriate for use in a civil nuclear programme. However, this position changed when Trump declared in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on 4 May that his goal was the “total dismantlement” of Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy at the Muscat talks, underlined his boss’s demand by saying it was Washington’s “red line”. Abass Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister and the official chosen by the Tehran government to be the negotiator at the Oman talks, said the continuation of the enrichment programme was Iran’s red line. He accused the US of “inconsistency” and said it was unhelpful. Trump also wants any deal with Iran on its nuclear programme to embrace two other areas of concern to the US: the Iranian ballistic-missile programme and the support Tehran provides for proxy militia and terrorist groups in the Middle East, notably Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and the Popular Mobilisation Force in Iraq. When Trump in his first administration withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015 during Barack Obama’s presidency, he cited the failure to include any clauses on Iran’s state funding of terrorism as one of the reasons. He also described the deal, agreed by Iran with the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, as a “horrible one-sided nuclear agreement” which wouldn’t stop Tehran from building a bomb eventually. This was partly because there was a finite period for limiting Iran’s enrichment programme of only 15 years. Iran has insisted that it has no intention to build a nuclear weapon. But the rapid development of its uranium-enrichment programme tells another story. The number of gas centrifuges required to “spin” the uranium at accelerating speeds to higher grades have proliferated at Iran’s key nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz. Enrichment has also progressed way beyond what is suitable for civil nuclear power and is approaching weapons-grade level – 90 per cent enrichment. In its latest report for 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has had the job of trying to keep track of Iran’s overt and covert nuclear programme, said nearly 275 kilograms of uranium had been enriched to 60 per cent. Another 606 kilograms had been enriched to 20 per cent. The Hiroshima bomb used about 64 kilograms of uranium. The IAEA is due to produce an updated report at the end of this month. Different estimates have been given about how long it might take Iran to build its first nuclear bomb after a decision is made to go ahead. But the timescales have come down rapidly. The estimates range from a few months to a year. However, that doesn’t take into account the time and expertise required to fit a nuclear warhead to a delivery system. The talks between the US and Iran have been constructive for a number of reasons: Attempts at moving the nuclear issue along failed to make any headway during the administration of President Joe Biden, although efforts were made to put new life into the JCPOA which, by the way, is still supported by the other 2015 signatories. The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House for a second term gave new impetus to the nuclear threat posed by Iran. Trump said he would prefer a diplomatic solution but made it clear the military option was one he would take if necessary. When six B-2 Spirit strategic bombers arrived at the British-owned US base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in March, joined a few weeks later by four B-52 bombers there was widespread speculation that the military option might be on the cards sooner than anticipated. The US military focus, however, was at that time on the Houthis in Yemen, but Tehran would have got a fright. The political and strategic dimension has also changed dramatically. Israeli military action against Hamas and Hezbollah, and US attacks on the Houthis dealt massive blows to Iran’s so-called “forward defence” aimed at deterring the US and Israel from launching an attack. Also, crucially, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian air defence systems in October in retaliation for Tehran’s direct strikes on Israel, have made Iran more vulnerable to any attempt by the US to bomb its nuclear facilities. Last month Iranian foreign minister Araghchi said Iran was ready to “seal a deal” provided the US withdrew its “military solution”. While it seems unlikely Trump would want to rule out an option that can only put pressure on Iran to sign a new nuclear deal, the optimistic comments coming out of the talks so far suggest that Tehran is now more desperate than ever to get an agreement with Trump that will remove at least a proportion of the sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy and provoked unrest in the population, particularly among the younger generation. Whether Trump’s comment about an imminent deal proves right, other rounds of talks are being planned and the signs are looking more positive than they have for months. Much will depend on whether those red lines can be nuanced.

Putin no-show dooms the Ukraine "peace" talks

So, Vladimir Putin's name is not on the manifest nor on the list of Russian delegates heading for peace/ceasefire/anything talks with Ukraine in Istanbul. Had he gone, Donald Trump would probably have gone, too, and there might just have been a better chance of a decent outcome. But Putin has stayed in Moscow, and Trump will go back to Washington after completing his Middle East trip. A golden opportunity lost. It was never really on the cards. Putin is nowhere near the stage when he wants or needs to have a face-to-face on the war in Ukraine with Trump. If he had met Trump in Istanbul the world would have expected some sort of grand result, if not a declaration that the war was going to stop on a certain date. So Putin's best option, only option, was to not bother with the Istanbul meeting and instead, send his former culture minister with nothing to say except the usuual formula about needing to eliminate the root causes of the problem with Ukraine, ie its very existence. Putin also has the tricky matter of being wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and could be arrested if he leaves Russia, although Turkey is not a signatory, so he would have been fine. But it was probably a tiny issue for the Russian president. Mostly it was a case of Putin saying no, not yet, if ever. He doesn't want to sit down in the same room as Zelensky anyway and will now wait to see if Trump insists on calling for a summit. But he is in no hurry.

Trump welcomes rebel Syrian leader with a no-sanctions gift

President Donald Trump was in a generous mood on the first day of his Middle East diplomatic tour, announcing the lifting of sanctions against Syria and offering a similar gesture to Iran, though with strict conditions. The decision to end sanctions on Syria came as a surprise and was greeted with applause by his audience in Riyadh. Trump said he had been asked by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Turkey to consider lifting sanctions to help the new government in Damascus which took over after the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad on 8 December last year. To underline the changed strategy by the Trump administration, the US president will meet with President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new Syrian leader, in Saudi Arabia today. It will be a dramatically symbolic meeting for the Syrian president who seized control of Damascus last year at the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, previously linked to al-Qaeda and designated by Washington as a terrorist organisation. Since taking power, al-Sharaa has been wooing western leaders and international institutions to give him a chance to bring stability and peace to a country that had been torn by civil war for t14 years under Assad, now living in exile in Moscow. Today in Riyadh he won his biggest scalp, the president of the United States who reversed Washington’s policy at a stroke. Although Syria’s future still remains uncertain and unpredictable, because there are so many competing political and militia groups, Trump’s backing will be a prize he can take back to Damascus to cement his leadership status in the country. Syria has been one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, although since al-Sharaa’s seizure of power in Damascus, some of the sanctions have already been eased. In February the European Union suspended certain economic sanctions to help with the development of democracy in the country. President Erdogan of Turkey which is now the dominant foreign power supporting al-Sharaa, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, played the crucial role in persuading Trump to drop sanctions against Syria. Trump said Erdogan had called him the other day to end sanctions. Giving his reasoning for lifting sanctions, Trump said:”There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace.” Iran which was the dominating power in Syria when al-Assad was president, was given an option by Trump during his speech in Riyadh. He offered a “new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future”. But he warned that Tehran would never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. “The time is right now for them to choose,” he said. There are currently high-level talks underway between the US and Iran over the Tehran regime’s nuclear programme. Trump warned that “things are happening at a very fast pace, so they have to make their move right now”. He highlighted Iran’s “destructive” involvement in causing “unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon. Gaza. Iraq, Yemen and beyond”. The speech was a tour de force in Trump-style foreign policy-making. He also raised his hopes of one day persuading Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel and join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 agreement he brokered in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two of Saudi Arabia’s neighbours, established diplomatic relations with Israel. This vision, however, was greeted with stoney silence. The concept is unpopular in Saudi Arabia and rejected by the Saudi leadership until the war in Gaza comes to an end and an independent Palestinian state is created. Trump acknowledged the doubts in Saudi minds. “You’ll do it in your own time, and that’s what I want and that’s what you want,” he said. Trump’s first day of his four-day Middle East tour, which will include visits to the UAE and Qatar, was notable for its warmth towards Mohammed bin Salman. Trump made frequent remarks praising the Crown Prince for transforming Riyadh into a major global business and technology capital. He also said “Mohammed” was his friend. His praise was in remarkable contrast to the views of his predecessor President Joe Biden who had frosty relations with the Crown Prince whom he accused of being responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist and critic of the Saudi government. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October, 2018.

Why Hamas released the last surviving American hostage in Gaza

The last surviving American hostage held by Hamas has been released, coinciding with the arrival today of President Trump in the Middle East. The timing could not be more significant. Previous attempts to negotiate the release of Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier from an elite army unit, failed despite high-level talks in Qatar. However, Hamas, not a terror organisation known for its nuanced approach to diplomacy, clearly realised that with Trump in the region, the “gesture of good will” might pay additional dividends. Alexander was serving on the border with Gaza on 7 October 2023 when Hamas gunmen arrived in force and killed 1,200 Israelis and other nationals and seized 251 hostages. The young soldier was one of 59 hostages left to be released, only 24 of whom are thought to be still alive. Four other American hostages are believed to be dead. Alexander, born in Tel Aviv but raised in New Jersey,was held in Gaza for 583 days. Trump who is due to land in Saudia Arabia tomorrow as part of a Middle East trip that will include visits to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel, described the freedom for Alexander as “monumental” and said it was “a step taken in good faith”. The decision by Hamas to release the American hostage without preconditions – in other words, no consecutive release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel – has underlined how the dynamics of the Gaza war have been changing. There are multiple competing objectives: *Hamas wants the war to end without being comprehensively defeated. They want to survive to continue playing a leadership role in Gaza and to achieve that, they need all Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops to withdraw from the territory. The holding of hostages has been key to this strategy. *Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu, has now made it clear that the total defeat of Hamas and the occupation of the whole of the Gaza Strip is the priority, even more important than the release of the remaining hostages; and thousands of reservists have been mobilised to flood Gaza with troops. *The Trump administration has backed Israel to eliminate Hamas but the president has other objectives and needs the war to end and the hostages released, to achieve it. His arrival in Saudi Arabia is a reminder that Trump’s long-term vision is to persuade Riyadh to agree formal diplomatic relations with Israel as part of an expanded framework of peace and stability in the region. Saudi Arabia has shown willingness to consider this strategy but not until the war in Gaza comes to an end. The release of Edan Alexander is, therefore, a clever chess move by Hamas to gain favour with Trump as he lands in the region and to put pressure on Netanyahu to call off his plan, approved by his security cabinet, to launch a new all-enveloping offensive to seize the whole of the Gaza Strip. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s ubiquitous special envoy, slipped away from the Trump delegation to Saudi Arabia in order to fly direct to Israel to speak to Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has so far treated the freedom for Alexander as a bonus and a sign of desperation by Hamas rather than as an incentive to suspend or cancel his new offensive in Gaza. Netanyahu, of course, is under all sorts of pressure, political and diplomatic. Trump is getting almost as frustrated with the Israeli prime minister as he is with President Putin and the Russian leader’s ambivalent response to Washington’s demands for an end to the war in Ukraine. Domestically, Netanyahu is being accused of deliberately expanding and prolonging the war in Gaza in order to safeguard his own position. He still faces corruption charges which he has described as “an ocean of absurdity”. The release of Alxander has also intensified the demands of the hostage families, a potent political force in Israel, to focus far more effort on gaining the return of the other hostages, dead and alive. One of the principal players on the American side in recent negotiations with Hamas was Adam Boehler, Trump’s special envoy for hostage response. The other key members of the Trump administration involved were Steve Witkoff and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and temporary national security adviser. Most of the talks between the US and Hamas have been carried out indirectly, with Qatar acting as mediator. But earlier this year, Boehler held direct talks with Hamas in Doha, Qatar to try and secure Alexander’s freedom, as well as the bodies of the four dead Americans. But those talks faltered, partly because of Israeli objections. The last time there were hostage releases was in January and February during the two-month ceasefire. Thirty-eight hostages were freed in exchange for 1,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The ceasefire ended in March after a breakdown in talks to agree the next phases in a longer-term settlement which should have led to the release of the remaining 24 surviving hostages and 35 dead captives, held by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.