What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, subject to a “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” The announcement defused his threat from earlier in the day that “a whole civilization will die tonight” absent a deal.

Iran said it would abide by the ceasefire, proposed by Pakistan, but maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel also agreed to stop attacking Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday morning the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” contradicting an earlier statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Who said what

Iranian state TV said Trump had accepted Iran’s terms in a “humiliating retreat.” Trump told APF that the ceasefire was “100%” a “total and complete victory” for the U.S. His “apocalyptic threat” of civilizational erasure “certainly helped him find” the “offramp he had been seeking for weeks,” said The New York Times. But his “down-to-the-wire tactical victory” resolved “none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.”

The ceasefire’s terms were “clouded in uncertainty,” The Associated Press said. Trump said on social media that Iran’s 10-point plan was “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” But that plan appears to cross several of Trump’s red lines. Notably, Iran and Oman “plan to charge transit fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz,” CNN said, something that wasn’t in place before the war. Iran’s caveat that “safe passage” through the strait was contingent on “coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces” and “technical limitations” means Iran will keep the “power to speed up passage, or slow it down,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. will be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted. “Big money will be made,” and “Iran can start the reconstruction process.”

What next?

The “ceasefire appeared shaky in its early hours,” Politico said, with Iran firing missiles at Gulf Arab countries and Israel continuing to strike Iran. The U.S. and Iran “are expected to hold peace talks on Friday in Islamabad,” Axios said.

“In the end, cooler heads prevailed – at least for now,” said North America Correspondent Anthony Zurcher on BBC News. After Donald Trump’s threats to launch attacks on Iran that would wipe out the “whole civilisation” in the country, both countries agreed a two-week ceasefire.

The President has since claimed that this could lead to a “Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”, while Vice-President J. D. Vance called the ceasefire a “fragile truce”.

As peace talks are expected to take place in Pakistan, both sides have claimed the ascendancy, though uncertainty surrounding key elements of the agreement, such as the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian nuclear capabilities, have left many sceptical of continued peace.

What did the commentators say?

This ceasefire move is “check, not checkmate”, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. In fact, we shouldn’t even consider this a proper ceasefire; it is merely a “fragile” and “conditional” “pause” in the conflict, which is “already under strain”.

“Beneath the surface, fundamental disagreements persist” in a logistical sense. There has been “no clearly defined start time” and “key uncertainties” remain. The proposed 10-point plan issued by Iran contains “discrepancies” between its Farsi and English versions, “most notably” over the state of uranium enrichment, as well as ambiguity surrounding movement through the Strait of Hormuz. “If this is the Third World War, it is not over.”

“It’s TACO Tuesday!”, said David Charter in The Times, using the Trump Always Chickens Out acronym coined last year during Trump’s “on-off tariff threats”. Even if the ceasefire holds, the US has “left in place a cadre of battle-scarred leaders, no doubt harbouring thoughts of revenge”.

As “king of the ultimatum”, Trump has “played fast and loose in pursuit of his goals”, isolating himself from “shocked” allies, who are now “on their guard” more than ever before. The “reckless” flip-flopping could have “far-reaching consequences for America’s standing in the world”. On the world stage, countries may come to fear America’s “increasingly unpredictable behaviour” more than its “terrifying” military might.

“Both sides have good reason to hope the talks succeed, despite the obstacles,” said The Economist. For the US, the war is “deeply unpopular at home”, and Trump is “keen to have it finished” before his mid-May summit with Xi Jinping in China. “For Iran, renewed fighting would be catastrophic,” with America and Israel expected to continue striking key economic assets. The only outlier may be Israel, which maintained that the ceasefire does not include Lebanon.

“Diplomatic jujitsu” will be required to bridge the gap between the views of a final peace agreement held by Iran and the US, said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. It is hard to imagine that a settlement between the nations could be reached in “two years, much less two weeks”. Neither Trump’s “tactic of escalating his rhetoric to astronomical levels” or the “down-to-the-wire” negotiations have resolved the “fundamental issues that led to the war”. It took the Obama administration two-and-a-half years to negotiate the 2015 nuclear accord – which Trump tore up in 2018 – “and that was in peacetime”. Notwithstanding, “this negotiation will be held under the sword of a possible resumption of hostilities.”

The last-minute ceasefire is “in theory, a victory for real-estate geopolitics”, said Senior Foreign Correspondent Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. However, “as any real estate agent knows”, the devil is in the detail, and “closer inspection suggests Mr Trump’s triumph may not be quite as unalloyed as he claims”. Iran’s position is stronger than before the war, and has now “agreed to allow shipping through the chokepoint”, but “on its own terms and has not relinquished its claim to control it”. The country may have agreed to a ceasefire, but its negotiating position, “rhetorically at least, is now more hardline than before the war began”.

What next?

“What is certain is that the clock has been reset yet again,” said Sacerdoti in The Spectator. Providing the ceasefire holds, the “decisive moment” will come in two weeks’ time, when the “temporary pause” ends and the “question of whether it can be extended, or gives way to renewed fighting, will be answered”.

“The talks in Islamabad will be complicated, to say the least,” said The Economist. Significant work needs to be done, as the positions of both sides “could not be further apart”. “If both sides stick to their current positions, the talks could end up at the same impasse they reached just before the war in February.”

If talks were to fail, we would likely see an “uneasy return to the status quo”. Iran would face American sanctions and the continued “threat of further American strikes”, as well as remaining a “menace” in the Gulf region, and have “strong motivation to build a bomb”. “That would be a bad outcome for everyone: a weakened, hostile regime; an impoverished Iran; and a lingering threat to the global economy.”

Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out a civilisation and Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus in Lebanon have once again shone a spotlight on the rules of war.

“Collective punishment on a population and the targeting of protected civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law,” legal experts told ABC News of Trump’s threats, while his promises to take the country’s oil, “which could amount to pillaging” is also “barred under the law”.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said it was able to verify that Israel was again using the “notorious weapon”, “reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war”, said The Guardian.

When asked whether his threats constituted a war crime, Donald Trump answered, “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

So what constitutes a ‘war crime’?

War crimes are “violations of international humanitarian law” that, unlike genocide and crimes against humanity, “always take place in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or not”, said the United Nations.

These include cases of murder, torture, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and non-combatants such as humanitarian aid workers, as well as the deliberate targeting of religious and educational buildings, hospitals and, in some cases, vital infrastructure such as power stations and key transport links.

The use of weapons banned by international conventions, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions, can also be considered a war crime.

What are the major conventions and treaties?

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols introduced in subsequent decades are international treaties that serve as the “most important rules limiting the barbarity of war”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ratified by all 196 UN member states, in times of war they protect non-combatants, such as civilians, medics, aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded, sick or prisoners of war.

There are also additional conventions banning the use of biological weapons (1972), certain conventional weapons (1980), chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel mines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008).

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression”.

“Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities,” said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Yet it has, since inception, also “faced criticism from many parties” and has been fundamentally weakened by the refusal of several major powers to join.

As well as the US, Russia and China, non-signatories include India, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Recent arrest warrants for national leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “generated mixed reactions from Washington and raised questions over the future of the court”, said the CFR.

As “no formal ICC jurisdiction applies” to countries that have not signed up to the ICC, the “more immediate legal framework” remains the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, said The Guardian.

The Conventions and their Protocols contain stringent rules to deal with those who commit what are known as “grave breaches”, who must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality.

The key point here, said Professor Andrew Clapham in OpionioJuris, is that the rules for offences deemed war crimes under the Geneva code apply to “everyone irrespective of whether their state has ratified the ICC Statute, and they can be tried in multiple states around the world, irrespective of whether those states are parties to the ICC Statute”.

“The idea that anyone can avoid accountability for grave breaches by sticking to non-ICC states for one’s trips is fallacious when that person is alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”

Donald Trump has repeated his threat to pull the US out of Nato, after Britain and other allies refused to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Dismissing the alliance as a “paper tiger”, he told The Telegraph’s Washington correspondent that the idea of removing America from the defence treaty had now gone “beyond reconsideration”.

“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine,” Trump said. “And we would always have been there for them”. But, in an apparent misunderstanding of the limits of the alliance, the US president believes that, in the Iran conflict, “they weren’t there for us”.

What would it mean for Nato?

Nato, formed by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 by 12 founding countries, does not have its own army. Instead, member states pledged to provide collective defence and security. The US is Nato’s largest single military power, as well as funding 62% of its spending, so American withdrawal would dramatically weaken the alliance. Without Washington’s military might behind it, Article 5 – the treaty clause that states that an armed attack against one or more members will be considered an attack against all – would lose credibility .

Trump’s recent threats will further encourage Canada and the European member states in their efforts to rely less on the US for security – a shift that is a boon to their own domestic defence industries.

What would leaving Nato mean for the US?

The US would save money, both by ending its contribution to Nato spending and by no longer maintaining a presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But it would also lose access to many military bases around the world, meaning the US Navy would have to “operate closer to America’s shores”, and US bombers would no longer be able to “reach targets halfway around the world”, said Modern Diplomacy. More broadly, the shift away from US global leadership would accelerate, with America increasingly divorced from an international framework.

Buyers for US arms could also dry up, as America’s former allies seek to re-arm elsewhere. The US spends more on its own military than any other country but that wouldn’t be enough to keep all its arms manufacturers afloat. Without crucial foreign sales, hundreds of thousands of US jobs would be at risk.

What would the process actually look like?

Leaving Nato wouldn’t be easy for the US because a 2024 law prohibits the president from doing so without the approval of a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress. Even if all Republicans in the Senate voted for it, Trump would still need at least 14 Democrats to join them, and it’s unlikely he would even get unanimity from Republicans: Thom Tillis, Republican co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, has already warned that leaving Nato would be an “enormous, enormous risk”.

Given the political obstacles, most Nato observers don’t think Trump will try to withdraw, “despite his obvious displeasure at alliance leaders”, said The Times. But he could use an executive order to suspend US participation, and eke that suspension out while legal challenges are mounted.

But, even without leaving, Trump could still “cause irreparable damage” to the alliance, said UnHerd. He could ignore an Article 5 request, withhold intelligence from Nato partners, cancel weapons deliveries, and limit the export of security-related technologies.

What happened

The U.S. military over the weekend rescued two airmen whose F-15E was shot down over Iran last week. U.S. forces quickly rescued the pilot deep in hostile territory, but the second crew member was not exfiltrated until early Sunday following a “sprawling, high-risk rescue mission” involving about 100 Special Operations commandoes, the CIA and dozens of military aircraft, The Wall Street Journal said, citing President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.

Who said what

The F-15E crew member, a weapons system officer, was injured when he ejected from the jet, but was able to climb about 7,000 feet and wedge himself into a crevice to evade the Iranian forces searching for him, officials said. The “almost cinematic mission” also “faced major obstacles,” The Associated Press said. Iran said it shot down at least two MH-6 helicopters during the rescue, and the U.S. bombed two of its own MC-130Js to protect sensitive technology after the $100 million stealth transport planes got stuck on a makeshift runway in remote Iran.

What next?

The rescue mission gave both Iran and the U.S. “a new narrative as the war enters its sixth week,” the Journal said. Tehran “portrayed the downing of the jet as proof that the U.S. could be bloodied” and did not have full “air superiority,” while Trump called the operation an “Easter miracle” in “triumphant interviews and posts” as he “seeks to mobilize flagging public support for the war.”

What happened

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday celebrated his first Easter as pontiff by urging leaders “who have the power to unleash wars” to instead “choose peace!” President Donald Trump invoked God in obscenity-laced social media posts threatening to bomb all of Iran’s power plants and bridges unless it agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday evening. Indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets constitutes a war crime.

Who said what

“Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!” Trump posted over the weekend. “Open the F--kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” the president wrote, adding: “Praise be to Allah.” Trump’s post was “notable” for both its “vulgar language” and “somewhat desperate-sounding tone,” said The New York Times. It “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”

The Vatican has become “alarmed” at the Trump administration’s “invocations of God” to “defend” the Iran war, The Washington Post said. Pope Leo has generally been “careful in his language,” leaving “more overt criticism” to U.S. bishops and “other senior proxies,” but he has “grown blunter in pushing back against suggestions that divine providence supports the use of force or violence.” In his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing, Leo prayed that “those who have weapons lay them down” and choose a peace not “imposed by force” or the “desire to dominate others,” but through “dialogue.”

Some critics were more direct. Trump “is not a Christian,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump ally, said on social media over a screenshot of his Easter post. “Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.”

What next?

Before Trump, no “other recent American president has talked so openly about committing potential war crimes,” the Times said, and his “language and actions could have far-reaching consequences” for the U.S., Iran and the world. A “defiant Iran” responded to Trump’s threats by striking “infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries” and threatening to “restrict another heavily used waterway,” The Associated Press said.

Oil prices jumped last night after Donald Trump said the Iran conflict was “nearing completion”. Despite the US president saying the attacks on Tehran would end in “two to three weeks” and America doesn’t “need their oil”, the markets were not soothed.

“A word – or social media post” – from Trump “used to spark big moves in prices”, said the BBC. Investors would leap on “signs” that things “could escalate or come to an end”. But now traders seem “to be growing more sceptical about the value of his comments”.

What did the commentators say?

At the outset of the conflict, oil prices were “sensitive to Trump’s comments” but his view of the war “seems to change hour by hour”, said Tom Saunders and Eir Nolsoe in The Telegraph. “His stream of often contradictory statements” have made many wonder “whether they can trust the messaging” coming from the US administration, and some traders have drawn back from the market, “leaving prices increasingly untethered from reality”.

However many solutions to the current global oil crisis Donald Trump comes up with, the oil market isn’t listening anymore – “and the price of oil keeps rising”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. There’s simply no point in Trump “trying to talk the price of oil back down again. It just won’t work.”

His “Persian Taco” tactic “may have run its course”, said Eduardo Porter in The Guardian. “Making extreme threats” and then walking them back may “provide Trump with the illusion of agency” but he “no longer has control of events in Iran”. The markets are “figuring out” that it will probably be Tehran, not the US, that gets to decide when the conflict ends.

What’s next?

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is today chairing a virtual summit with almost three dozen nations, to explore measures to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government is determined to find a solution to the energy challenges, although “it will not be easy”.

And yet, “after nearly three weeks of this conflict”, the global financial system is “functioning without panic or alarming signs of stress”, said Zachary Karabell in the The Washington Post. “It’s important to distinguish between price movements” and stability. “The smooth functioning” of the financial system, “in the face” of crises like the oil shock, “gets little attention, probably because stability is not news”. But central banks, financial institutions and governments have “improved at monitoring” risks, and that should “at least provide some relief in a world full enough of fears”.

The U.S. may soon put proverbial “boots on the ground” in Iran. President Donald Trump is considering an operation to seize Kharg Island, a key oil hub for the Islamic regime, as he tries to bring about the end of the war on terms favorable to the United States.

Kharg could prove an attractive target as Trump seeks to “hobble Iran’s oil industry for leverage in negotiations,” said The Associated Press. But experts say a U.S. attack “would risk American lives” and possibly “still fail to end the war.” Kharg is not far from Iran’s mainland, so the regime “can potentially rain a lot of destruction on the island, if they’re willing to inflict damage on their own infrastructure,” said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. American forces will find the island “hard to take,” said Danny Citrinowicz of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It will be hard to hold.”

Iran will probably respond to a Kharg invasion with “escalating strikes on energy infrastructure across the Middle East,” said Bloomberg. That would create additional turmoil for global oil markets, “where prices have already topped $100 a barrel” because of the war.

What did the commentators say?

Seizing Kharg “could be militarily feasible,” former Gen. Mark Hertling said at The Bulwark. But to what end? The U.S. can “seize terrain, conduct raids” and conduct other military operations with “unmatched precision.” But military campaigns require “alignment between ends, ways and means,” and right now “that alignment is not evident.” If the United States attempts to seize Kharg without a clear understanding of the end goal — regime change, the end of Tehran’s nuclear program or something else — “success will be temporary.” U.S. leaders owe troops a “strategy worthy of the risk we ask of them.”

“There are grounds” to believe that taking Kharg could force Iran’s regime to “capitulate before it implodes,” Marcus Solarz Hendriks said at The Spectator. The country’s economy “cannot limp on without crude oil exports.” A political system should not deflect such economic pain on its people, but the “Islamic Republic is capable.” The regime does not appear amenable to compromise or surrender. Tehran will back down only if “America projects unwavering resolve.” Trump’s path to victory, then, is “through escalation, even if the stakes are immense.”

What next?

Kharg is not the only potential target for U.S. troops. They could also try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or seize Iran’s nuclear material, said The New York Times. The risks of any of those options “are enormous.” If troops do take the island, they could “be there for a while,” Trump said to the Financial Times.

The Pentagon is preparing for “weeks of ground operations” in Iran, said The Washington Post. That does not mean a final decision has been made. The Defense Department is working to “give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

As AI adoption across personal and professional vectors increases so do the risks the industry takes on in the name of commercial growth and financial dominance. Mere weeks into the Iran war, the conflict has laid bare many of the fault lines upon which the AI industry has built its foundations. The result is a potentially perfect storm of intersecting factors that could pop the artificial intelligence industry bubble.

What did the commentators say?

The sprawling artificial intelligence industry has “propped up global trade and investment” and “pushed stock markets from the U.S. to Asia to record highs” for the past three years, said the Financial Times. But as one of the most “power-hungry inventions ever,” with a “slick chip production line that can cross more than 70 borders before reaching the final consumer,” the “fragilities in the AI supply chain” are now at particular risk from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “Hidden behind the fury” of the war have been new insights into AI and its mass adoption that will be “felt by all of humanity,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Foreign Policy.

Admitting he’s been an “AI enthusiast since 1991,” Chakravoriti said that while research suggests AI “can be transformational in a breadth of areas,” he is now “placing a high probability on an AI doomsday.” Multiple distinct “horsemen” of possible disaster range from an “epistemic crisis” to “wars, hot and cold.” Industry observers have “fretted publicly about an AI bubble” for the “better part of the past year,” said The Atlantic. But where fears of an AI crash leading to a “chain reaction across the financial system” once “felt hypothetical,” they now seem “plausible and, to some, almost inevitable.”

The Iran war has particularly unveiled a “paradox” for AI, said Bloomberg. The war could “destabilize” significant monetary investment in AI from Gulf State allies, while “surging energy costs threaten to make data centers far more expensive to run.” The resulting “aftershocks of the conflict” seem “less likely to kill the AI boom entirely” than to “cleave the market in two,” leaving juggernauts like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon the “most exposed to the shifting financial landscape.” High-profile startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, conversely, are poised to be “more insulated” from the fallout.

If the Iran war is what truly “brought conflict to Silicon Valley,” said Fox News, then the industry “was not ready” for what this conflict would expose. “Consider the threat receiving almost no attention,” which also carries perhaps the “greatest economic consequence for Americans at home”: helium production, a third of which takes place in Qatar. “No helium. No chips. No AI.” Without these elements, the “military edge carrying this war degrades.” The Middle East conflict “is proving, in real time” that the large-scale data centers used to power AI platforms can themselves be “wartime targets.”

What next?

The present day AI industry is “not made for the turbulence its leaders have helped usher in,” said The Atlantic. Even if AI manufacturers are “merely forced to slow down,” the “viability” of the enormous amounts of money leveraged to support the industry will “likely be called into question” in ways that could be “devastating for many.”

Although the war, as it currently stands, won’t see hyperscalers “walking away” from their existing infrastructure in the Middle East, it may “impact future investment in the case of drawn-out hostilities,” said CNBC. The war could “reduce the region’s appeal” as an AI data center hub, said the Financial Times, while national sovereign wealth funds might move to “redirect planned AI investments to local security needs.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday claimed “great progress” in his administration’s “serious discussions” with Iran’s “NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME.” But if a deal is “not shortly reached,” he added in a social media post, and “if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating” all its power plants, oil wells and “possibly all desalination plants!”

Who said what

“Deliberate attacks on desalinization plants” would “be a major escalation that could constitute a war crime under international law,” Politico said. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday the Trump administration “will always act within the confines of the law,” but Trump “is going to move forward unabated” to achieve his objectives in the war.

The “biggest danger” for the region “may not be what Trump could do to Iran, but how Tehran could retaliate,” The Associated Press said. Iran isn’t as reliant on desalination as its Gulf Arab neighbors, who “depend on it” to “sustain their current populations.” After Trump’s post, Iran “attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker off Dubai,” Reuters said, and Kuwait said Iran hit a key power and water desalination plant.

What next?

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tehran wasn’t negotiating directly with the U.S. but had received a 15-point proposal filled with “excessive, unrealistic and irrational” demands. Trump claims a “new government is in charge in Iran,” The New York Times said, but the killing of its previous leaders makes it “more difficult” for the “fractured” leadership that remains to “negotiate with American envoys or make significant concessions.”

Iran’s success at throttling fuel shipments through the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz has forced President Donald Trump to reframe his war in petrochemical terms. Bolstered by its ability to regulate oil shipping lanes, Iran has moved to weaponize its growing Gulf dominance. Last week, the Islamic Republic began to facilitate the passage of approved tankers through the bottlenecked waterway, a process that includes a reported $2 million transit fee to pass what is increasingly referred to as the Tehran tollbooth.

What did the commentators say?

Charging selective fees on ships hoping to move through the Strait of Hormuz is “another sign” of Tehran’s dominance over the world’s “most important maritime energy channel,” said Bloomberg. Although the current payment system is happening on a “case-by-case basis,” Iran has “floated the idea of formalizing the charges as part of a broader postwar settlement.”

Tehran is experimenting with a “new vetting and registration system” as part of its pivot toward a “selective blockade of the strategic waterway,” said Al Jazeera. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s pledge earlier this month that the strait is “open, but closed to our enemies,” signals a “de-escalation from earlier remarks” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatening violent reprisals. Multiple nations, including India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia and China, are “understood to be discussing vessel transit plans directly with Tehran,” said Lloyd’s List. Iran has created a “de facto ‘safe’ shipping corridor through its territorial waters” in the Strait of Hormuz, providing passage for approved ships in exchange for, “in at least one case, a reported $2 million payment.”

Collecting selective tolls is a sign of Iran’s new “sovereign regime” in the straits, said Iranian MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi in an interview with state media, per The Cradle. Charging $2 million “transit fees” from certain vessels “reflects Iran’s strength.” But this emerging toll system is a “shakedown” for which “tankers are happy to pay,” said the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The dynamic is “only exacerbated” by the Trump regime’s decision to enact “effectively condition-free, monthlong authorization for the sale of sanctioned Iranian oil.”

Iran’s chokehold on the Gulf has forced the White House to explore previously unimaginable fuel futures, including what a “potential spike” of up to $200 per barrel in oil prices would “mean for the economy,” Bloomberg said. Domestically, the “most visible impact” to date of the growing fuel crisis is an estimated 30% increase in retail gasoline cost, which has wiped away declines that Trump had “touted as a key economic achievement.”

Even if crude shipping was at 50% of prewar rates in the Strait, rather than the near-zero it is at now, it would produce “strong global economic headwinds” that would hit the U.S. “in the form of high energy prices and a general ‘supply shock,’” said military historian Bret Devereaux on his website. “Historically at least,” these types of economic jolts have “not been politically survivable for the party in power.”

What next?

The White House has been “effective, so far, at jawboning” crude prices below the $120 to $150 per-barrel levels some analysts have predicted, said Fortune. This works “for now” because “physical shortage hasn’t actually reached most of the world yet,” resulting in a spread between actual barrel prices in the Gulf and, for instance, “Texas futures, which have hovered below $100.”

Opening the Strait of Hormuz has become a “clear objective for ending” the war, said NPR. Multiple oil executives who had “privately begun” to push for a permanent U.S. presence in the Strait of Hormuz that would “remove Iran’s ability to attack oil tankers in the strait” were “caught off-guard” by Trump’s sudden push for a negotiated ceasefire last week, said Politico. However much one might argue that “‘the world’ will not allow the Tehran tollbooth to persist,” and the U.S. military will ultimately intervene successfully, “current events in Iran have not followed the predicted course,” said Lloyd’s List. “So don’t be too sure.”

What happened

Tehran on Wednesday rejected a 15-point U.S. proposal to pause the increasingly costly Iran war and offered its own maximalist demands while insisting the country was not in negotiations with President Donald Trump. The U.S. plan, as described by Pakistani intermediaries, included Iran agreeing to abandon its nuclear program, hand over its enriched uranium, curb its missile arsenal and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials said on English-language state-run Press TV they wanted war reparations, an end to hostilities and assassinations, safeguards against future attacks and recognition of Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty” over the strait.

Who said what

The passing back and forth of “warnings” and “positions” is not negotiation, just “an exchange of messages,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday to state broadcaster IRIB. “We have no intention of negotiating,” and “that they are now talking about negotiations is an admission of defeat.” The Iranians “are negotiating, by the way,” Trump said at a fundraiser Wednesday night, “and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they figure they’ll be killed by their own people.”

Trump “can’t stop talking about how much his administration is negotiating with Iran,” and Iranian leaders “can’t stop denying” it — “almost as if they’re trying to troll him,” The New York Times said. And both “strategies make sense.” Trump is “raising hopes that the war might end soon” because rising gas prices and other costs have made it increasingly “unpopular with the American public.” Iranian leaders want to “keep oil prices high” and “would also like to stay in power,” and defying Trump “might help them do that.“ These “competing incentives are probably pushing both parties toward more serious negotiations.”

What next?

Trump “appears increasingly interested in finding an off-ramp with Iran,” the BBC said, but the recent “head-spinning developments” did not ease “growing concern inside the administration that Trump doesn’t have a concrete plan for what comes next.” Of course, “ending the war isn’t up to Trump alone,” The Wall Street Journal said, as Iran and Israel are showing no interest in pausing the fighting. “Iran will end the war when it decides to do so,” an unidentified Iranian official said on state TV, “and when its own conditions are met.”

“Amid the fog of war and the propaganda being pushed by all sides”, it’s hard to tell what’s going on with the Iran conflict right now, said Abubakr Al-Shamahi on Al Jazeera. On Tuesday, Donald Trump claimed that Washington was speaking to the “right people” in the Iranian regime, which wanted a deal “so badly” and had given the US a “very big present worth a tremendous amount of money”. Tehran, however, insisted that the talks were “fake news” and accused the Trump administration of negotiating with itself. This confused picture followed days of conflicting messages from the US.

Last Saturday, Trump talked of “winding down” the war, but also threatened to attack every power plant in Iran in 48 hours unless Tehran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz. The regime responded by vowing to strike power plants in Israel and across the Gulf region. On Monday morning, shortly before US markets opened, Trump declared that he would postpone the power plant strikes for five days, citing his claimed diplomatic progress.

‘Trump’s evaporating credibility’

It’s “a measure of Trump’s evaporating credibility” that even Washington insiders were sceptical about whether talks with Iran had taken place, said Simon Marks in The i Paper. The postponement of the ultimatum looks like another case of what Wall Street investors call “Taco”, or “Trump always chickens out”. It could be that, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. But it may indeed be a response to backchannel negotiations, or a piece of “dislocation” designed to sow doubt and confusion within Iran’s leadership. Trump likes to keep people guessing.

Some sort of diplomatic effort does now appear to be in motion, led by Pakistan, said Andrew Roth in The Guardian. The reported interlocutor of the US is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament. But this process may just be another way for Trump to buy time before launching commando raids in Iran: the US is “still moving marines and airborne soldiers into position”.

There’s no mystery here, said Edward Luce in the Financial Times. “The truth inside Trump’s tornado of piffle is that he wants to get out of the mess he created.” He never expected the attack on Iran to lead to this desperate standoff, despite everybody warning him that it would. He thought the regime would swiftly collapse in the face of US might. He now wants Tehran to surrender its ability to disrupt energy markets, but it will never do so, no matter how much Trump blusters and rages. “It does not take a seer to guess that at some point he will hint at using nuclear weapons.”

Winding down the war certainly won’t be easy, said William Hague in The Times. The Iranian leadership is now “more hardline” and will “drive a hard bargain”: its officials have reportedly outlined five conditions, including a halt to assassinations, assurances against further attack, and hefty reparations.

To win, Iran needs merely to survive

Tehran appears in no mood to capitulate, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. It’s still launching drones at nearby Gulf states, and last week demonstrated its wider threat by firing two missiles at the British-American military base on the Chagos Islands, some 2,400 miles away.

To win this war, the regime needs merely to survive, said Ilan Goldenberg in Foreign Affairs. Trump should cut his losses, declaring that the US has achieved its main aim of degrading Iran’s military capabilities. The regime may reject such a ceasefire initially, but if the US keeps pushing for de-escalation, Tehran will come under international pressure to follow suit. Admittedly, this will leave the US “entangled in the region, managing a weakened but more aggressive Iran”, but to double down in search of a decisive outcome would risk “a far worse result”.

I’m encouraged by reports that J.D. Vance is involved in Iran negotiations, said James Ball in The i Paper. The US vice-president is a “committed American isolationist” who stands zero chance of succeeding Trump if the Iran war doesn’t end soon. If he’s surfacing now, he must think there’s a chance of a deal.

The warring parties will have to reach a settlement at some point, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. Iran’s regime can’t sustain an indefinite conflict. There must be some within it who are “rational enough” to realise this and understand the potential rewards of striking a deal with America. As things stand, Trump is demanding the freezing of Iran’s missile programme, zero uranium enrichment, and the decommissioning of Iran’s main nuclear facilities. The irony is that the US had all but secured agreement on these demands before Trump launched his “stupid, chaotic” war a month ago.

If the price of oil continues to rise, it could trigger a “steep and stark” global recession, said Larry Fink, CEO of US financial giant BlackRock. There will be “profound implications” for the world economy if Iran “remains a threat” and oil prices hit $150 a barrel.

The BlackRock boss has a “unique insight into the health of the global economy”, said the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack, because of his investment management company’s colossal “size and spread”, controlling assets worth £11 billion across the world.

What did the commentators say?

“The Iran war is metastasising into a global economic calamity,” said the Financial Times’ editorial board. Until now, financial markets have been “lulled by the belief that the conflict would not last long” but, as hostilities enter a fourth week, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, “lasting damage” has been inflicted on critical energy infrastructure in the region, and “the worst-case scenarios for investors and policymakers are coming into view”.

If this crisis continues, “no country will be immune to the effects”, said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency on Monday. The global economy faces a “major, major threat” as the Iran war has a worse impact on energy prices than the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Prepare for the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel,” said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iranian militias last week. And what seemed then “like bravado” is now “closer to becoming reality”, said Jesus Servulo Gonzales in El Pais. Were prices to rise above $150, let alone near $200, there would be “an inflationary crisis”: “the world would become poorer, and economic activity would grind to a halt until the situation recovered”.

The current oil-price “ructions” would have “to get much worse” to trigger a global recession but “less happily, they will almost certainly further stoke popular anger over the cost of living”, said The Economist. The price of Brent Crude is currently around $100 a barrel (it was $60 at the start of the year); two months at $140 “would push parts of the global economy” into a slump. Consumer confidence is already “close to an all-time low in America and scarcely higher elsewhere”, given many countries “seemed primed” for an economic downturn “even before the Middle Eastern chaos began”.

In the US, “many economists believe” the country “will scrape through this year without a recession”, said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. “But this is simply guesswork.” Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has said the surge in oil prices is “an energy shock” that has created so much uncertainty, “we just don’t know” what will happen.

What next?

We urgently need to get the Strait of Hormuz opened, oil market expert Rory Johnston told The New Statesman. It’s “too important” to the global economy to remain closed. The most likely path “is that the Trump administration and Israel pull back on their attacks in Iran, and Iran says, OK, we’ll re-allow” tankers down the waterway. But even if the strait “reopened to 100% of its prior flow” today, it would take two to three months “to renormalise the global system”.

Under the “doomsday scenario”, in which the strait stays closed indefinitely, “we’re not talking recession; we are talking depression”.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday paused until the end of the week his ultimatum for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or see its energy facilities “obliterated.” He said he was holding off because his envoys were making progress in “very, very strong talks” with a “respected” Iranian leader. Iran denied Trump’s claim, posted shortly before markets opened. “No negotiations have been held with the U.S.,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on social media. “Fakenews [sic] is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the U.S. and Israel are trapped.” Markets did rally, but oil prices, which dipped on Trump’s suggestion of peace talks, rose again after Iran’s rebuttal.

Who said what

It wasn’t clear which Iranian official Trump was casting as the U.S.’ negotiating partner, but Trump envoy Steve Witkoff has reportedly “had direct communication” with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “in recent days,” said The New York Times, citing American and Iran officials. An Israeli official and two other sources told Reuters the interlocutor was Qalibaf, though European officials said there have been “no direct negotiations” between the U.S. and Iran.

The White House is “quietly weighing” Qalibaf as a “potential partner — and even a future leader,” Politico said. Some White House allies viewed Trump’s kingmaking aspirations as “premature, even naive,” but his “interest in pinpointing a negotiating partner signals a desire to find some way out of the quagmire that Iran has quickly become.”

Trump “seized on initial contacts” with Iranian officials to “buy time to try reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to extract himself from a box of his own construction,” the Times said. But even as he “retreated from one military option, U.S. and Israeli officials said they were continuing to carry out other strikes against Iran,” and some 5,000 Marines are still headed to the region.

What next?

A “spate of diplomacy in recent days” carried out “through Middle Eastern intermediaries” has given U.S. officials “hope an agreement to settle the conflict was possible,” The Wall Street Journal said. And it “prompted early discussions about an in-person meeting in Pakistan or Turkey later this week.” Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Vice President J.D. Vance “were expected to meet Iranian officials in Islamabad this week,” Reuters said, citing a Pakistani official.

The Iran war is unlike any other conflict of the modern era, marked by shifting justifications, mysterious end goals and growing friction between the two primary aggressors, the U.S. and Israel. A new generation of large-scale artificial intelligence tools is further reshaping the way both countries approach and execute their military operations.

What did the commentators say?

The Pentagon is “leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools” in the war on Iran to help “sift through vast amounts of data in seconds,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, the chief of U.S. Central Command, in a video on social media. The tools allow military leadership to “cut through the noise” and make “smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react.”

Pentagon AI systems can offer targeting recommendations “much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought,” said Newcastle University lecturer Craig Jones to The Guardian. The “scale” and “speed” of AI military systems means the Pentagon can conduct “assassination-style strikes” while simultaneously “decapitating the regime’s ability to respond with all the aerial ballistic missiles” in a process that would have taken “days or weeks in historic wars.” Battlefield AI programs from the MAGA-aligned software company Palantir can “identify and prioritize targets, recommend weaponry” and account for “stockpiles and previous performance against similar targets,” said The Guardian. Palantir even has access to “automated reasoning to evaluate legal grounds for a strike.”

At the heart of the Pentagon’s shift to AI-animated warfare is Palantir’s Maven Smart System and its integrated use of Claude, the AI platform from software company — and occasional administration foil — Anthropic. While Claude had been used for “countering terror plots” and in the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, the past several weeks mark the “first time it has been used in major war operations,” The Washington Post said. Over the past year, the government has allowed the Maven/Claude system to “mature into a tool that is in daily use across most parts of the military.” Ours is now officially an “age of AI warfare,” said Paul Scharre, the executive vice president at the Center for a New American Security, to CNN. Given the sheer volume and volatility of battlefield data needing to be assessed, “AI is incredibly valuable.”

State-level AI warfare isn’t “confined to physical territory” either, said The New Arab. Iran has deployed “AI-generated disinformation,” as well as “manipulated images and videos designed to create false impressions of events on the ground.” American and Israeli forces have meanwhile launched AI systems of their own to “detect and counter manipulation attempts in real time,” creating a “multi-dimensional battlefield” wherein information control is as “strategically important as control of airspace.”

What next?

We are currently in the “early stages” of what AI is “going to do to transform warfare over the next several decades,” said Scharre, particularly in terms of the “cognitive speed and scale” at which armies operate, which could “accelerate” the “tempo of operations” on the battlefield. But as AI use expands across the military, so has a commensurate effort to “focus on the protections that should govern its use,” said NBC News. Although none of the lawmakers contacted by the outlet said that AI should be “completely removed from military use,” many expressed a sense that “more oversight is needed.”

This is the “next era” of warfare, said Queen Mary University professor David Leslie to The Guardian. But overreliance on AI in the military might ultimately lead to “cognitive off-loading,” in which the human tasked with overseeing a particular operation feels “detached from its consequences” since the responsibility to “think it through” was made by a computer.

As an “inflection point” in demonstrating how “modern technology could work with existing military systems,” said The New York Times, the AI-fueled war in Iran is likely to “speed the adoption of more technologies” with “legacy and modern systems to be melded together, along with more powerful AI” in the coming decade.

What happened

President Donald Trump over the weekend gave Iran until Sunday to “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz” or the U.S. would “obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump later announced he was temporarily postponing these attacks, telling reporters Monday he had held “very strong talks” with Iranian officials. Iran said if Trump followed through with his threats, it would retaliate by destroying critical regional infrastructure used by the U.S. and its allies and sending soaring oil and gas prices even higher.

Who said what

If Iran’s power plants are eventually targeted, “vital infrastructure and energy and oil facilities” across the Gulf region “will be destroyed irreversibly, and oil prices will rise for a long time,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on social media. An Iranian military spokesperson said “fuel, energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure” would be attacked, and the Strait of Hormuz would be “completely closed” until damaged Iranian power plants were rebuilt.

Trump is “cycling through an increasingly desperate list of options” as he seeks a solution to the “crisis in the Strait of Hormuz,” The Associated Press said. His latest threat just “fueled criticism that he is grasping for answers after going to war without a clear exit plan.” It was a “dramatic reversal from just a day earlier,” when Trump said he was considering “winding down” the war without reopening the strait, Axios said.

Trump’s threats are “the only language the Iranians understand,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News on Sunday. “Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.” Attacks on power plants could “hurt Iran,” Reuters said. But “they would be potentially catastrophic for its Gulf neighbors,” which use roughly “five times as much power per capita” to make “their gleaming desert cities habitable” and desalinate nearly all of their drinking water.

What next?

Trump’s energy infrastructure threat and “surge” of 4,500 more U.S. troops to the region “have set the stage” for “the war’s possible endgame: a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz,” The Washington Post said. Reopening the strait to ship traffic now appears to be Trump’s “paramount objective,” but such an operation “could take at least weeks, put U.S. sailors and other forces at risk, and expose U.S. warships to attacks” for “an unknown duration.”

One of the most powerful and feared organisations in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plays central roles in the country's internal security, economy and foreign policy; it runs Iran's ballistic missile programme; and directs support to its network of allies.

The IRGC was founded soon after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, as Islamists, nationalists and Leftists competed to set the course of the new republic. Initially, it was a street militia, designed to protect Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's leadership from the army and the police, which he did not trust. After a referendum, Iran became a constitutional republic, with universal suffrage, a president and a parliament, but one wrapped in a theocracy; ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader. The IRGC began to operate as a sort of parallel state, bypassing the government and answering directly to the leader.

How did it evolve?

The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) transformed the IRGC into a conventional fighting force, with a structure similar to that of a Western military. Its soldiers fought alongside the regular army, the Artesh, supported by units from the Basij, the youth volunteer militia set up by the IRGC in 1980. The Guard and the Basij became known for their “human wave” attacks, in which waves of religiously inspired Iranian teenagers overran better-equipped Iraqi positions, incurring massive casualties (in some units, more than 40% of troops were “martyred”).

By the end of the war, the IRGC had built up great engineering and construction capabilities, for military logistics. To prevent a postwar collapse and to keep the IRGC funded, the government tasked it with rebuilding the nation. The result was Khatam-al Anbiya (“Seal of the Prophets”), today one of Iran's largest construction and industrial contractors.

How is the IRGC structured?

There are five main branches. It has about 200,000 troops in the three wings of its military service: ground forces, navy – which has a special responsibility for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz – and the aerospace force, which runs Iran's ballistic missile programme. In addition, there's the Basij paramilitary force, which claims it can mobilise some 600,000 volunteers, and the Quds Force, an elite unit tasked with spreading the influence of Iran and the Islamic Revolution abroad.

What does the Basij do?

It is best known in the West for enforcing Islamic codes and suppressing dissent: masked Basij gunmen on motorbikes patrol streets during periods of unrest. They were accused of beating, shooting, sexually assaulting and torturing Iranians during the 2009 election protests and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement in 2022. There are about 100,000 employees of the Basij, and a much larger number of volunteers. These are mostly young working-class men, who are paid cash bonuses for going on patrols, and also receive benefits comparable to those of party members in Communist states: access to welfare schemes, jobs, and university places for their children, for instance.

And the Quds Force?

The Islamic Republic has a constitutional commitment to “export the revolution”, and the Quds (Jerusalem) Force is the section of the IRGC tasked with that. It began sponsoring armed groups in the region in the 1980s: first, the Shia militias that would become Hezbollah during the Lebanese Civil War; in the 1990s, the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Shia groups in Bahrain and Afghanistan. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Quds Force played a vital role in organising and aiding Shia militias fighting there against the US and its allies. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, the force was deployed to Syria, to prop up the rule of Bashar al-Assad; more recently, it has supported the Houthis in Yemen.

How about the IRGC's economic role?

It controls great swathes of Iran's economy, particularly in construction, energy and telecoms. Many of its interests are run via religious foundations, known as bonyads. US-led sanctions, since the 2000s, have actually bolstered the IRGC's position: it has developed sophisticated black-market and smuggling networks, orchestrating the sale of oil to China and drones to Russia, as well as, reportedly, smuggling drugs and alcohol. It is estimated that upwards of a third of Iran's GDP is controlled by the IRGC. “A lot of Revolutionary Guard commanders have become billionaire generals, more businessmen than military leaders,” opposition spokesman Shahin Gobadi told The Times.

What about its role in politics?

The IRGC is highly influential. Many former members have moved on to senior government roles – often appointed by the late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was closely involved with the IRGC. At least 16% of seats in the Majlis, the parliament, are held by veterans or active commanders. Former Guards tend to advocate a hardline foreign policy, and to support Iran's nuclear programme. Senior former IRGC officers include Ali Larijani, the head of the National Security Council, who was killed week. The IRGC's new commander in chief, Ahmad Vahidi, is the former minister of the interior.

What is happening to it now?

At least 30 IRGC generals were assassinated in the 12-day war with Israel last year; during the current war, the Israel Defence Forces claim to have killed 6,000 Guards, including the commander-in-chief – and the Basjij chief. Basij check points have been attacked by drones. Even so, the IRGC has played a leading role in launching missile and drone attacks. And its influence is arguably growing: Mojtaba Khamenei is said to have been the IRGC's choice as leader. Some analysts now describe Iran as a militarised “IRGC republic”.

“Just a few weeks ago, Nato marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with fresh pledges of solidarity and assistance,” said The Daily Telegraph. Today, that war “risks becoming the forgotten conflict”.

Advanced US-made weapons that Kyiv's allies could have bought to help it deflect Russian attacks are being fired at cheap Iranian drones instead – depleting supplies that could take years to restock. European leaders are distracted by threats to their allies in the Gulf region, and the potential shocks to their economies.

Feeding the war machine

To cap Kyiv's dismay, Donald Trump has suspended sanctions on Russian oil, said the Daily Mail. The deal – apparently struck during an hour-long call with Vladimir Putin – should “curb rising prices” on US forecourts, but at what cost to Europe's security? It was recently reported that Moscow might be forced to slash its non-military spending by 10%, owing to the spiralling cost of its war in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions. Now it can feed its “bloody war machine” with billions in extra oil revenues instead.

The war presents “political opportunities” for Russia too, said Mark Galeotti in The Sunday Times. Trump's broadsides against Keir Starmer, and Madrid's fury at Berlin for not backing it in the face of his attacks, have great propaganda value. The Kremlin is also looking at this as a case study for just how united Europe is likely to be against future challenges, “especially as America pivots away”. Still, any glee in Moscow will have been tempered by Washington's decision to strike Iran while nuclear talks were ongoing. This caught Moscow off-guard, and dented its confidence in its ability to read the US president.

‘Extremely triggered’

Tehran is not just an ally of Moscow, said Cathy Young on The Bulwark. It has also been a role model for it – showing the possibility of surviving both Western sanctions and popular discontent. Now the Americans have killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Putin has again been exposed as unable, or unwilling, to help an ally in trouble – a humiliating outcome for a man who liked to pose as the “leader of global resistance to Western hegemony”.

Events in Iran may shake Putin in other ways, too: he is said to be “extremely triggered” by the assassinations of dictators elsewhere. And while Ukraine being pushed down the agenda would be a win for him, this war could also leave Trump too busy to force Kyiv into a bad peace deal with Russia. Similarly, if the war drags on, it might boost Putin, or cost the Republicans the midterms, and so empower Kyiv's allies in Washington. In the fog of war, future-gazing is a mug's game.

Three weeks into this war, “it is clearer than ever that Donald Trump miscalculated”, said The Independent. “If he was warned that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz, he ignored it.” The president seems surprised that the odious Islamic regime has still not fallen; and America's allies in the region are bearing the brunt of its furious response. Trump seems to have no realistic policy for dealing with the resulting global oil shock.

‘Another forever war’

He is “a man without a plan”, said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian, and “hasn't the foggiest what to do next”. The costs for the US – 13 dead, 200 wounded, $11 billion spent in the first week alone – are mounting. Trump sought a “swift, painless victory from the air”; instead, “another forever war” looms.

Even with its leadership decapitated, “the Iranians fight on”, said David Patrikarakos in the Daily Mail. But then they have spent 20 years preparing for this moment. Their strategy, the Decentralised Mosaic Defence, is built around a “single brutal principle” – the “body” keeps fighting even if the “head” is cut off. Local commanders can “launch missile strikes, drone swarms, and even harass ships without seeking approval from above”.

The idea was to never “give the enemy a single target whose destruction can end the fight”. To some degree, it is working. Iran continues to deploy relatively cheap drones, which are expensive to intercept. Meanwhile, the US and Israel have burned through years' worth of munitions.

‘Remarkable progress’

If, as seems likely, the regime survives, it will only become more militant and hostile, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian – with “every reason to double down on its nuclear ambitions”. Iran's increasingly paranoid leaders are cracking down even harder on internal dissent, said Tom Ball in The Times. The Basij paramilitary unit has been deployed into residential areas of Tehran. Thousands of people are thought to have been arrested or “disappeared” since the campaign began.

The broad consensus seems to be that the US intervention is “unwise, unjust, is going very badly and certain to fail”, said Gerard Baker in The Times. But consider the facts. In just a few weeks, the US has achieved “remarkable progress” in wreaking “destruction on the capacity of a mortal enemy to wage war”. The strikes have wiped out an estimated 60% of Iran's missile launch facilities. Tehran's rate of missile and drone fire has been drastically reduced. Its navy and air force have been effectively destroyed. Iran's desperate decision to lash out at its neighbours and close the Strait of Hormuz has left it isolated. Key leaders – including security chief Ali Larijani, seen as Iran's day-to-day ruler – have been killed.

Trump's critics behave as if “the costs of inaction were zero”, said Muhanad Seloom on Al Jazeera. “They were not.” The regime is drenched in blood. Left unchecked, it would certainly have developed nuclear weapons, making it capable of holding the region hostage “indefinitely”. War is never clean, and the execution of this one has been far from perfect. “But the strategy is working.”

As the Iran war enters its third week, there is a divergence between how the United States and Israel conduct its operations against Tehran and what each nation hopes to accomplish. While President Donald Trump and his administration struggle to articulate an overarching goal for the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed ahead with expanding the front lines of his army’s assault not only on Iran but across Lebanon and Syria as well. With little end to the fighting in sight, is this still a single war of unified purpose, two separate conflicts being fought concurrently or a bit of both?

What did the commentators say?

The war on Iran may have been launched by Israel and the U.S. “at the same time,” said CNN, but it’s “becoming clear” the two nations have “some differences in how they see the war proceeding.” The pair enjoys a “number of overlapping objectives,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro to the outlet. But there remains “some divergence” between Israel and the U.S., which is only likely to increase “as time passes.”

The longer the conflict lasts, the more likely their “endgames and risk tolerance” may differ, said Axios. Trump, in particular, currently stands “more aligned” with the Israeli government’s “maximalist objectives” than many among his own staff. Israeli and American armed and intelligence services are “moving in concert,” although “their targets vary,” with the U.S. focused “almost exclusively” on military targets, while Israeli assassinations and other operations are “intended to lay the groundwork for regime change.”

Netanyahu may appear to be “flying high” after finding an American president “willing to go all the way” with his long-telegraphed war on Iran, but Israeli analysts are “increasingly aware of where the two countries’ strategies” may bifurcate, said The Economist. Netanyahu has been “blunt” about his nation’s wish for regime change in Tehran, even as Israeli leadership has come to feel that Trump’s goals rest “primarily on controlling the flow of oil from Iran.” Israel is “willing to use the war to inflict deeper damage” on Iranian state infrastructure, while Washington “shows little sign of a clear political endgame,” said Bloomberg. Netanyahu is thus “far more likely to favor a drawn-out campaign” than Trump, given the “growing economic and political pressure” the president faces domestically.

At the onset of this war, both Israel and the U.S. “stated their desire to lay the groundwork for regime change,” The New York Times said. But as the war goes on, Trump has acknowledged that a popular uprising “didn’t seem imminent.” Israel would “prefer” to extend their war “for as long as possible, potentially for weeks, to weaken the Iranians,” said Israeli policy analyst Ahron Bregman to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. Trump, meanwhile, will “seek a way to end this war, especially as oil prices continue to rise.” His goals “did not include regime change,” said CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a House Intelligence Committee meeting.

It is within this context that Israel’s “related but separate agenda” of concurrent attacks on Hezbollah is taking place, said Shapiro to CNN. Netanyahu is waging an “ulterior campaign to try to do significantly more damage to Hezbollah” in the hopes of spurring a “diplomatic process” with, or within, the Lebanese government. Trump generally supports dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure, yet Israel’s operations in Lebanon are “not of the same level of priority for U.S. interests.”

What next?

For the time being, the Trump administration seems publicly comfortable with the U.S. and Israel’s parallel-and-diverging strategies in Iran. The Trump regime “holds the cards” and has “clear” objectives, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday in a press conference. Israel is “pursuing objectives as well.”

Q: Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives?HEGSETH: We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well.

— @atrupar.com (@atrupar.com.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T19:47:25.485Z

Netanyahu, for now, “appears to be operating on the assumption that Trump shares his goals,” said William Usher, a former CIA Middle East analyst, to Bloomberg. That may be true “regarding the total elimination of [Iran’s] nuclear program, but perhaps not much beyond that.”

What happened

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday defended an upcoming funding request to pay for the ongoing Iran war, as Congress balked at the reported $200 billion price tag. The global cost of the conflict rose again as oil prices surged above $119 a barrel before settling at just under $109 after a chaotic day of trading. Qatar’s state energy company said retaliatory Iranian strikes on its Ras Laffan energy hub had cut its natural gas capacity by 17%, costing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and affecting deliveries to Europe and Asia.

Who said what

“Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys,” Hegseth told reporters Thursday. “As far as the $200 billion, I think that number could move.” Trump called the unspecified funding request “a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy-top,” pointing to the “vast amounts of ammunition” needed. It “was not immediately clear” how long the $200 billion was intended to last or “what operations it would cover,” The New York Times said. But the “significant sum” suggests that the Pentagon is “preparing for a significant engagement.”

The funding request “met with stiff opposition” in Congress, Reuters said, “as Democrats and even some Republicans questioned the need for the money” after they “approved record funding for the military” over the past year. Republican leaders “do not believe they have the votes to fund the war even in their own party without far more detailed plans from the White House,” CNN said.

While some House Republicans “blanched” at the $200 billion price tag, others are “embracing the eye-popping number to help energize a stalled” effort to pass a second GOP-only reconciliation bill, Axios said. Senate Republicans are “decidedly cooler” on that plan. “The alternative — relying on a handful of Democrats to push it through the Senate — doesn’t look any more likely,” Politico said, as “energy prices rise and more Democratic lawmakers dig in against an unpopular war.”

What next?

The $200 billion funding fight “could turn into a referendum on the war in Congress,” Axios said, which could be harrowing for Republicans given the “unpopularity of the war” and “the Pentagon’s existing $1 trillion budget.” Already, “anxiety is creeping up in the GOP,” CNN said, as the war drags on and energy prices soar ahead of this fall’s “critical election.”

The war in Iran has caused airlines “their biggest test since the Covid-19 pandemic”, said The New York Times.

Air traffic has been “paralysed” and more than 52,000 flights to and from the Middle East have been cancelled since the war began – that is “more than half of all flights planned in the region”.

“Costs are adding up” and tourism in the region has “effectively ground to a halt”. For Emirates and the other Gulf airlines, who “have the highest profit margins in the industry”, continued disruption could take a “substantial” financial and reputational toll.

‘Scrambling’ for alternatives

Since the first missiles were launched, air traffic controllers have been “shepherding passenger jets through safer but congested airspace on the edge of the war”, said the BBC. On a normal day, each individual controller would be responsible for around six aircraft “in their area at a time”. But in times of war it can easily be “double that”.

Shifts would normally be around “45-60 minutes long with 20-30 minutes off” but during times of conflict “they will likely only do a 20-minute stint and then break for the same length of time”. In times such as these, more controllers are brought in to manage the volume and “rotated more frequently to ensure they don’t become overwhelmed”.

Airlines “have been scrambling to find alternatives” to normal routes through Iranian airspace, and the effects are “rippling across the region”, said The New York Times. “Tens of thousands of flights” have been cancelled since war broke out, and the total numbers in the Gulf remain “well below normal levels”.

Airspace restrictions have become an “increasingly common challenge for airlines navigating a world shaped by geopolitical conflict”. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had a similar effect: the “Siberian corridor” over Russia used to be a “relatively direct connection” between Europe and Asia but is has become a “patchwork of workarounds”. Likewise, the airspace over Iran, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Qatar is now “largely devoid of commercial planes”. The war in the Middle East is “further fragmenting a once efficient and finely tuned global aviation network”.

As “established east-west routes are narrowing, the skies over Central Asia matter more than they did before”, said The Times of Central Asia. Countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are “not immune to the crisis” and cannot match the “far larger networks” and “deeper fleets” of other Gulf hubs.

But they can provide “overflight planning, air traffic management, and route resilience rather than headline passenger numbers”. Their “aviation systems clearly now carry far greater strategic and economic importance than they did only a few years ago”. Governments in the region have acknowledged the “strategic value of their territory for rail, road, and trade corridors”, but the disruption caused by the war in Iran has “added aviation to that argument”.

‘Ballooning cost’

The war in Iran has “exposed the fragility of modern travel”, said Bloomberg. As flight paths become “increasingly narrow”, airlines’ “long-term growth plans” have been thrown into “disarray”.

Diversions add many hours to flights so planes must carry more fuel, which is “an expensive burden in light of the spike in energy costs”. With shipping channels through the Strait of Hormuz “effectively shut”, the markets have been “driving up prices of crude and products like diesel and jet fuel”.

This will inevitably affect consumers. Carriers may “hike fares” and add “fuel surcharges to cover the ballooning cost”. Equally, airlines and other large energy consumers could begin to “panic buy oil derivatives contracts” to “shield them from wild price swings”.

In the longer term, continued instability could also change flight culture, with safety concerns “likely to remain front of mind for many travellers” for the foreseeable future. Higher inflation around the world could mean demand to fly is “reshaped”, even “spurring passengers to rethink long-haul trips” and “favour cheaper holidays closer to home”.

The Bank of England today held interest rates at 3.75% and warned of higher-than-expected inflation, as the US-Israel war with Iran delivers a “new shock” to the UK economy.

“War in the Middle East has pushed up global energy prices,” said Bank governor Andrew Bailey. “You can already see that at the petrol pump and, if it lasts, it will feed into higher household energy bills later in the year.”

The direct impact of rising energy prices is likely to add about 0.75% to inflation this autumn, instead of an expected fall. And, if businesses pass their higher costs on to consumers, that could add a further 0.25%. All the signals point to “households and homeowners” suffering “further financial hardship”, if the Iran war does not end soon, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

Seventy years ago, we had petrol rationing, triggered by the Suez crisis, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. That’s “ancient history now – or it would be, if it weren’t for what looks increasingly like” America’s “version of Suez”. Yet again, a global superpower is “starting a war it seemingly doesn’t know how to finish, against an enemy it woefully underestimated”.

Oil experts have warned that Britain “could be only weeks away from needing to ration fuel”, if tankers don’t resume sailing through the Strait of Hormuz soon. Other countries are “already being forced into drastic steps”. In Pakistan, schools have been closed and government offices have been put into a four-day week, Vietnam is “urging people to work from home”, and Bangladesh has stationed soldiers at fuel depots.

“The financial impact on the UK from” this war is “yet to fully play out, but the outlook is bleak”, said Rosa Prince on Bloomberg. Donald Trump’s “folly” has “kiboshed” Keir Starmer’s “economic revival”. For a “brief moment”, green shoots emerged, and a path opened up for him “to salvage his beleaguered premiership”, only for “Trump’s addiction to foreign escapades” to crush it.

The Iran crisis could “easily accelerate the death of manufacturing” in Britain if “vicious” energy-price rises last longer than a few weeks, said Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. They could crush “the life out” of our heavy industry, shutting down production lines and mothballing “entire factory complexes”. There is a “real risk of widespread de-industrialisation”.

There is “deep energy-linked frustration” in Europe, too, said the BBC’s Katya Adler. “The knock-on effects” of this Middle East conflict is “awakening ghosts of crises past” when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rocked the EU’s energy market. Europe has since ended its reliance on Russian gas and oil but it now depends heavily on the US and Norway for energy provision – “which won’t solve its problem with energy security” and won’t shield it from the current price spikes.

What next?

I see a “similar financial anxiety” in the UK as when Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, said Albert Toth in The Independent. “And that had a long-standing impact on the cost of living.” Volatility in the oil market directly impacts household finances in various ways, some of them more “subtle” than others. People will expect energy bills and petrol prices to go up but “less obvious” will be the rising cost of food, pushed up by increasing transport costs and disrupted fertiliser supply chains.

For Starmer, dealing with Trump’s demands for military back-up may be difficult, but managing the “war’s economic blow is trickier”, said Bloomberg’s Prince. He may as well blame the US president for “sending Britain’s cost of living spiralling”. This week, he announced £53 million in support for low-income households who are most exposed to the sharp increase in heating-oil prices but his government “will need a much bigger package if the conflict drags on”. And “that won’t be easy, given existing strains on the public purse”.

What happened

Israel on Wednesday struck Iran’s part of the massive South Pars/North Dome natural gas field it shares with Qatar, prompting two Iranian ballistic missile strikes on Qatar’s main energy hub, Ras Laffan Industrial City. Qatar condemned both Israel and Iran, while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warned other Gulf Arab neighbors that the U.S.-Israeli strikes on South Pars made their refineries and gas fields legitimate targets as well.

The attacks and counterstrikes, combined with Iran’s ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil and natural gas prices soaring on global markets. The U.S. and Qatar “knew nothing about this particular” Israeli attack, President Donald Trump said on social media, but if Iran strikes again, the U.S. “will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field.”

Who said what

“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL” on South Pars “unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” Trump said. His comments “seem to be an effort to de-escalate the situation,” but Trump “green-lit the Israeli strike,” Axios said, citing U.S. and Israeli officials. “While Qatar didn’t know about the Israeli strike in advance, Trump did,” having coordinated it with Israeli leaders.

“Trump approved of the strike” to “pressure Iran to unblock the Strait of Hormuz,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing U.S. officials. But Israel “struck at the crown jewel of Iran’s energy industry” to quash “an important source of revenue” for the country. While Israel hit oil tanks in Tehran earlier, striking South Pars was “orders of magnitude more alarming,” the Journal said. And Gulf Arab states, which had “aggressively lobbied the Trump administration” to prevent escalatory strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, were “furious about Israel’s attack and the U.S. failure to head it off.”

What next?

Iran’s ongoing ability to damage U.S. interests “evokes a decades-old pattern of unrealized expectations for American interventions” in the Middle East, The New York Times said. “Air power is the U.S. drug of choice — we love to believe that it can achieve big political effects and also big military effects,” Caitlin Talmadge, a Gulf security expert at MIT, said to the Times, but the “historical record doesn’t support that.” Trump is reportedly “considering deploying thousands of U.S. troops to the region,” Reuters said, as the Pentagon “prepares for possible next steps” against Iran.

When the US and Israel attacked Iran, many turned to China to see its response.

For decades, Beijing had been the Islamic Republic’s most important economic ally, maintaining close diplomatic ties with Tehran through years of Western sanctions and international isolation.

But China’s relatively muted response to the US-Israeli strikes, its lack of military intervention and calls for de-escalation on both sides, has led many to question whether leader Xi Jinping is a fair-weather friend – or whether there’s a bigger game afoot: its delicate truce with the US, and their battle for global supremacy.

What is the background between China and Iran?

China was once “an important supplier of arms to Iran” before joining UN sanctions in 2007, said The Wall Street Journal. US officials say Chinese companies continued to be “a critical supplier of goods with potential military applications”, such as motors for Iran’s Shahed drones.

When in 2002 George Bush declared Iran part of an “axis of evil”, Beijing “saw an opportunity”, said Richard Spencer in The Times. It “began signing multibillion-dollar oil and gas deals” with Iran, culminating in a 25-year economic cooperation agreement in 2021 that centred on the sale of Iranian oil to China, reportedly worth $400 billion.

About 90% of Iran’s crude exports are sold to China every year, at a steep discount. In return, Iran “kept Washington bogged down in the Middle East”, said Geoffrey Cain in The Spectator. Its regional proxies “added just enough chaos to stop Washington focusing on China”. That was “extraordinarily useful” and cost Beijing “almost nothing”.

In 2023, China helped Iran restore diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, among its other mediation efforts in the Middle East. It denounced what it called “unilateral” US sanctions and brought Iran into Beijing-backed diplomatic alliances. Beijing’s ties with Iran “blunted America’s efforts” to isolate Tehran, said Michael Schuman in The Atlantic. China has held regular joint military drills with Iran, and Chinese firms have even supplied chemicals used in Iran’s missile programme, according to Reuters.

How has China responded to the US-Israeli attacks?

Iran says China is helping in various ways, including with “military cooperation”. According to its foreign minister, China is a strategic partner in the war. But so far, China hasn’t provided any direct military support, or deployed any forces, or provided “new weapons assistance to any party involved”, said The Diplomat. It has “primarily engaged through diplomatic channels”.

China has expressed opposition to the US-Israeli strikes, emphasising that they could undermine regional stability. But that has been “notably more restrained” than after the strikes on Iran last year. Beijing has also criticised Iran’s retaliatory attacks on its Gulf neighbours, and its de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

But it is also not willing to assist the US. Trump has demanded that China send warships to the Gulf. In response, the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing called on “all parties to immediately cease military operations”.

Why has China’s response been so muted?

For Xi Jinping, “a hard-nosed pragmatism is at play”, said CNN. Iran “ranks below his top priorities”, including China’s fragile détente and trade truce with the US, ahead of the upcoming summit with Donald Trump in Beijing. China “sees no benefit in heightening tension with the US over Iran,” said International Crisis Group analyst William Yang.

Iran’s “strategic importance” to China is far more limited than many assume, as trade and investment flows are “eclipsed” by those with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. China might even appreciate Washington’s resources being diverted from the Indo-Pacific. A sustained campaign could “deplete America’s weapons supplies”.

Trump this week announced that he is delaying the summit, as he pressures China to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But a delay could also be in China’s interests. “If the war drags on, added pressure on Washington could mean more leverage for China,” said The New York Times.

China also “gains diplomatically from the worldwide perception that America is an out-of-control bully”, said Spencer. It does not lose much “whatever happens to Iran” – except oil.

Despite its massive investment in renewables, China is heavily reliant on crude from the Gulf. And as much as 40% of its imports are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.

China is better placed to weather the storm than most. It had “long braced for a Gulf oil supply shock”, stockpiling one of the world’s biggest oil reserves and diversifying its supply, said the BBC. Still, disruption is “putting its resilience to the test”.

President Donald Trump likes his military campaigns short and victorious. The quick overnight strike that removed Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro from power is his preferred model of warmaking. But the U.S. president may not be able to exit the war against Iran so easily.

Some of Trump’s supporters are concerned the president “no longer controls how, or when, the war ends,” said Politico. Iran’s Islamic regime still has a vote, and it’s voting to keep the conflict alive with its closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The resulting fallout for the global economy means Iran’s leaders “hold the cards now,” said a White House ally.

Trump’s advisers had hoped he could and would “declare victory whenever he saw fit” and end the war quickly, said Politico. But now the conflict appears stickier than they anticipated. The “off-ramps” to de-escalate things “don’t work anymore,” said a second Trump ally.

Trump “expects a quick, clear victory,” said Axios. But the war’s outcome is “beyond unilateral control and quick fixes.” The president could “pull out tomorrow.” Iranian officials, though, have made it clear they “could continue shooting missiles and rockets” unless they get a guarantee that the U.S. will not reengage at a future date. Iran wants more than “just a temporary ceasefire.”

What did the commentators say?

The president’s options to end the war “keep getting fewer and worse,” said Thomas Wright at The Atlantic. Trump is getting closer to a point where he can either pursue a “decisive tactical success” and “prepare the country for a prolonged conflict” or seek a settlement involving “real compromise” with Iran.

The regime has proven “more aggressive and more resilient” than he anticipated, and if the government does collapse, it could “take a long time,” said Wright. Most wars start with hopes of a quick victory. “Few end as expected.” Trump chose to start the war, but the decision to conclude it is “no longer entirely his to control.”

The strait’s closure is “giving the Iranians leverage,” said the National Review. If the strait remains closed for months “rather than a few more weeks,” the global economic damage may become “truly disastrous.” Iran could end the war with its regime still in place and in “de facto control” of the strait. If that happens, Trump’s war will end up “eroding American deterrent power rather than enhancing it.” His administration must have some “urgency about reopening the strait” to ensure that does not happen.

What next?

Military officials are routinely including “off-ramps” in their war plans if Trump wants to end the conflict quickly, said NBC News. “So far, he hasn’t” chosen to. Some administration allies are going public with their push to end the campaign. The U.S. “should try to find the off-ramp,” said David Sacks, Trump’s AI czar.

Trump himself is sending mixed signals. The war in Iran is “just a military operation to me,” he said to reporters on Tuesday. Iran is “something that was essentially largely over in two or three days."

What happened

Israel assassinated Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of the feared Basij plainclothes militia, in overnight airstrikes Tuesday. Iran confirmed the deaths and vowed revenge, especially for the killing of Larijani, the country’s de facto leader since Israel killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening hours of the Iran war.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed U.S. allies for declining to send warships to free up the oil languishing on tankers as Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz. But he also faced domestic dissent as his National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, resigned, saying in a letter posted to social media that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation” and he “cannot in good conscience” back Trump’s war.

Who said what

The deaths of Larijani and Soleimani were the “most damaging blow to the Iranian leadership” since Khamenei’s assassination, said The New York Times. It also “highlighted how heavily Israel is relying on targeted killings to achieve its war aims,” a strategy that “carries a risk of backfiring in unforeseeable ways.” Larijani’s death “will deprive the Iranian leadership of one of its most astute and powerful voices,” said CNN. But losing such an influential pragmatist “may make any negotiations to end the war more difficult,” prolonging the conflict.

Israel’s targeted killings of “thousands of regime members” has fueled a mounting “sense of disorder” in Iran, The Wall Street Journal said. In the short term, the “likely outcome” of Larijani’s death is “a more volatile situation: a harder military posture in the war and harsher repression at home,” said the BBC. But over time, “a system that continues to lose senior figures may find it increasingly difficult to function effectively.”

What next?

Kent’s “stunning defection” highlights how much Trump’s Iran war has “divided some of the most loyal corners of his administration,” Politico said. It also “raises questions” about the status of Kent’s boss, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, another “outspoken critic of U.S. wars in the Middle East.” Gabbard and other top U.S. intelligence chiefs are scheduled to testify before Congress this week on the Iran war and threats to the U.S.

Dubai is known for being one of the world’s most opulent cities, as well as a bastion of safety in a region under the perpetual threat of violence. But the recent start of the Iran war has shattered the image of peace in the United Arab Emirates’ largest city. Iranian drone attacks and missile launches against the Persian Gulf have turned Dubai into a place where its residents must walk cautiously.

‘Built itself this image’

The war in Iran has “punctured the notion that towering skyscrapers, financial clout and the embrace of luxury and diversity in the Persian Gulf can act as impenetrable shields against the region’s turmoil,” said The Wall Street Journal. Since the war broke out, Iran has launched over 1,900 missiles and drones toward the UAE, according to the country’s defense ministry, with Dubai bearing the brunt of these. Iran is largely attacking the city in an effort to disrupt global trade routes.

Iran’s attacks have been “shutting down the airport, striking the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel and Dubai’s deep-water port, and killing several people across the UAE,” said the Journal. This marks a significant change for Dubai, as its wealth and status as a financial hub have largely made it “impervious to conflict — a haven of stability untouched by the wars, corruption and upheaval around it.”

Dubai has “built itself this image that people aspire to,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor from the UAE, told The Washington Post. And publicly, leaders in the region say Dubai is still safe and have “projected confidence in their defense capabilities,” said the Post. The UAE’s anti-missile system has had a “94% overall intercept success,” the Emirati embassy in Washington, D.C., said on X. This system has “largely kept” the “country safe from Iranian attacks.”

‘The shine has definitely been taken off’

Despite the public confidence in Dubai’s safety, many residents seem to feel differently, especially in a city where “more than 90% of its roughly 4 million residents are foreigners,” said the Post. There are “tens of thousands of residents and tourists that have fled Dubai” since the shelling began, said The Guardian, though the city’s “large population of migrant workers largely don’t have that privilege.”

“The shine has definitely been taken off,” John Trudinger, a British teacher and resident of Dubai for 16 years, said to The Guardian. Many of his colleagues in the city are “deeply traumatized and really struggling to cope.” Zain Anwar, a taxi driver from Pakistan, had a similar story. “I don’t want to be in Dubai anymore, there is no business, we are earning nothing since this war and I don’t see the tourism coming back,” he told The Guardian.

Life is going on in certain ways for those who do remain. The situation in the city is “functioning but tense,” Nick Rowles-Davies, a lawyer who moved to Dubai in 2022, said to CNBC. There is “visible vigilance in some areas, particularly at night when interceptions have been audible.” Those living in Dubai are not in a “panic, but there is a clear recognition that this is no longer distant geopolitics.”

Five key Western allies have “urged Israel not to pursue a ground offensive in Lebanon” after Tel Aviv launched a “significant military operation” in response to Hezbollah missiles, said Politico.

Israeli troops on the ground “could lead to a protracted conflict” with “devastating humanitarian consequences”, said the leaders of the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Italy in a statement. “The humanitarian situation in Lebanon, including ongoing mass displacement, is already deeply alarming.”

Despite a ceasefire agreed in November 2024, tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have reignited, with reports of up to a million Lebanese citizens already affected by the renewed conflict.

What did the commentators say?

“Just how far the Israeli military intends to push into Lebanese territory – and for how long – remains unclear,” said Tom Ball in The Times. Troops are heading to al-Khiyam, a “strategically valuable” town just over the border and the “apex of several major routes leading deeper into Lebanese territory”. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said the operation is designed to establish “forward defence, which includes destroying terrorist infrastructure and eliminating terrorists”.

Israel’s “extended campaign” against Hezbollah is “likely to continue beyond the end of the war against Iran”, said James Shotter in the Financial Times. Israeli officials had said they expect the joint offensive with the US against Iran to last “weeks”, and the expectation is that the operation in Lebanon “would last at least as long”.

We are going to see a “major impact on the population” of Lebanon, Michael Young, from the Carnegie Middle East Center, told Time. Between 850,000 and one million civilians have been displaced in the Hezbollah-controlled south since the latest conflict began. Israel wants to “ensure that that area becomes uninhabitable”.

The conflict in Lebanon is the “price” international communities must pay for their “silence”, said Laure Stephan in Le Monde. Ever since the signing of the “theoretical truce” in late 2024, world leaders have been “implicitly accepting the rule of force over international law”. This “lopsided ceasefire”, which “Israel never respected”, is the “root of today’s war”.

Despite the “unprecedented efforts” of the US-backed Lebanese government to uproot Hezbollah, it has not made any tangible progress. In fact, “Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm has also weakened the authorities”.

Two “terrible experiments” are playing out simultaneously on the streets of Lebanon: “Israel’s theory of total war and Hezbollah’s theory of nihilistic power”, said Thanassis Cambanis, director of think tank Century International, in Foreign Policy. Like Iran against the US, Hezbollah won’t “slink away” from an existential fight. Even if it can’t maintain control of Lebanon, it can still “act as a spoiler”. “No amount of Israeli warfare will be able to eliminate Hezbollah by force.”

What next?

The French government has drafted a proposal to end the war in Lebanon, said Barak Ravid on Axios. The framework could “de-escalate the war, prevent a prolonged Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon” and “increase international pressure to disarm Hezbollah and open the door to a historic peace deal”. The Lebanese government has reportedly “accepted the plan as a basis for peace talks”, which are expected to take place in Paris.

President Emmanuel Macron is “ready to mediate a truce”, said Al Jazeera. Lebanese officials’ offer for direct negotiations with Israel could be seen as a “major concession in a country where ties with Israel, a longtime enemy, are a divisive issue”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “finally found a president willing to buy into his Iran dream,” said Alon Pinkas in The New Republic. Eliminating Iran’s threat to Israel has been “the be-all and end-all of Netanyahu’s political identity,” and he clearly helped talk President Trump into a joint, all-out assault on Iran. The hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also has boasted of playing a key role in helping Israel manipulate Trump into embracing a regime-change war contrary to his “America first” foreign policy. Graham, who golfs with Trump and knows his psyche, reminded the president of Iran’s 2024 attempt to assassinate him and urged him to take decisive action, saying that it would cement his legacy as a president even more consequential than Ronald Reagan. “If you can collapse this terrorist regime, that’s Berlin Wall stuff,” he told Trump. Graham even traveled to Israel, met with its intelligence agency, and coached Netanyahu on what to say to get Trump on board.

Don’t blame Israel for Trump’s decision, said Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic. He’s the most powerful person on Earth, and the U.S. attack on Iran “is the responsibility of the man who ordered it.” Despite his isolationist rhetoric, Trump has shown “an abiding belief in military coercion as a solution to American problems” and has advocated attacking Iran and seizing its oil since 1980. Unfortunately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio fed into right-wing scapegoating of Israel by saying the U.S. knew Israel planned to attack and joined the bombing to defend its bases from Iranian retaliation. But Trump then denied that, insisting, “I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

Still, Israeli officials are worried about how this ends, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. They reportedly are anxious about maintaining “good relations with the U.S.,” as Americans in both political parties voice concerns about the costs of a prolonged war. Support for Israel among young Americans, especially progressives, has already eroded. The risk of antisemitistic blowback is real, said Michael A. Cohen in MS.now. Blaming Israel for manipulating Trump into attacking Iran plays “into a millenniaold antisemitic trope” about all powerful Jews pulling the strings behind the scenes. Critics on both the Left and Right are already pointing fingers at Israel, with some portraying Netanyahu as Trump’s puppet master. “This is, as American Jews are prone to say, ‘bad for the Jews.” If the war drags on, casualties mount, and gas prices stay high, the need for a familiar scapegoat will grow. That could put “a target on the backs of American Jews.”

What happened

A defiant Iran intensified its attacks on Arab states and U.S. assets across the Middle East this week, as President Trump seesawed on America’s war aims and when the joint U.S.-Israeli offensive on Iran might end. Thousands of Iranian missiles and drones have rained down on Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other Arab nations, smashing into oil refineries, airports, residential buildings, and hotels and killing at least 16 people. At least 11 U.S. military bases have been hit, damaging communications infrastructure and air defense systems and partially collapsing some buildings, according to satellite imagery reviewed by The New York Times. The Pentagon said at least 140 U.S. troops have been wounded, eight seriously, and seven have been killed; in Israel, Iranian strikes have killed at least 13 people. As the damage mounted, Trump judged the operation “very complete, pretty much.” Within hours he backtracked, saying the U.S. was bent on “ultimate victory,” while still asserting it would end “very soon.” Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted the assault was at “just the beginning.” Asked which of those things was true, Trump said, “I think you could say both.”

Inside Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of assassinated
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was selected to replace his father as the nation’s supreme leader. Trump, who insisted he must approve any new leader, said the selection of Khamenei—a hard-line cleric with deep ties to the elite Revolutionary Guard—was “unacceptable,” judging it would “lead to more of the same problems.” The U.S. and Israel continued to pound targets across Iran; more than 1,300 Iranians have died in the strikes, most of them civilians, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. “They are striking everywhere: homes, schools, mosques, hospitals,” said one Tehran resident.

In Washington, Democrats berated Trump’s failure to articulate a clear plan. After a closed-door briefing, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called the administration “incoherent.” He said it had backed off the previously stated goals of regime change and destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and that it had “no plan” for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has come to a standstill. Meanwhile, defiant Iranian leaders ruled out a ceasefire or mediation. “Iran will determine when the war ends,” said Iranian Revolutionary Guard spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini.

What the columnists said

There’s a growing realization inside the administration that Trump and his team “misjudged” how the Iranian regime would respond to a conflict it views “as an existential threat,” said Mark Mazzetti in The New York Times. They thought the war would follow the same pattern as last year’s U.S.-Israeli strikes, when Iran’s retaliation was fairly muted. That Tehran responded with far more aggression has forced administration officials to “adjust plans on the fly.” Some “are growing pessimistic” about the lack of an exit strategy. But they are “careful not to express that directly” to Trump, who’s called the operation a “complete success.” “It is not too late” for Trump to build a case for the war, said Thérèse Shaheen in National Review. The Iranian regime has been “an active, aggressive foe” of the U.S. for 47 years, and was building “capacity to cause catastrophic damage” with its nuclear program. The public’s not buying it, said Greg Sargent in The New Republic. A poll aggregator found only 38% of Americans approve of the offensive—“the lowest initial support for an American war perhaps ever.”

Among Iranians, faith in the U.S. project is also in short supply, said Najmeh Bozorgmehr in the Financial Times. At the war’s outset, opponents of the brutal regime hoped better days were at hand. But the “terrifying” air campaign “has shattered that belief.” Choking on “toxic black smog” from burning oil depots, many Tehran residents are “shocked” by the destruction of schools, thousands of homes, and historic landmarks, and dismayed by the “resilience of the Islamic regime.” There’s no sign of the “anti-regime unrest” that erupted in January; instead, one sociologist in Tehran, a critic of the regime, sees a rising “sense of nationalism.”

Mojtaba Khamenei’s ascent is a grim sign, said Marc Champion in Bloomberg. Instead of a shift toward a “less confrontational” government, his selection “represents regime consolidation.” And Trump’s “tone-deaf demand” for veto power over Iran’s supreme leader is yet another sign he “profoundly misunderstands his opponents.” He thought they’d crumble at his shock-and-awe campaign. But “Iran has been preparing for this fight since 1988,” and they are “ready for a long war.” Now Trump must “decide if he is too.”

Trump should declare victory and “walk away,” said Jason Willick in The Washington Post. Regime change would be the ideal outcome, but that would require ground troops and take years and many American lives. As it stands, U.S. and Israeli strikes have severely damaged Iran’s military capability, knocking out missile launchers, air defenses, and more than 60 naval craft. Quitting now—as some advisers are reportedly urging—would serve Trump best politically while saving the U.S. from a potential “quagmire.”

Trump is “confounded by the war he started,” said Andrew Egger in The
Bulwark. Pumped with “hubris” after last year’s Iran strikes and the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, he and his team thought the U.S. “could simply impose its will on smaller countries,” with “little cost.” Now they’re waking up to the fact that they have “plunged into a morass” without the support of the American people. The president and his advisers didn’t anticipate an actual war, “but now they’ve got one, and they don’t have the faintest idea how to end it.”

What happened

President Donald Trump said on social media Sunday he was “so thrilled” that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr was “looking at the licenses” of some “Highly Unpatriotic ’News’ Organizations.” Responding to complaints from Trump about media coverage of the Iran war, Carr on Saturday threatened the broadcast licenses of any networks “running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news” — unless they “correct course.”

Who said what

The Trump administration is “turning its fire on reporters and threatening news outlets” as the war becomes mired in “dismal polling and a muddled message,” Axios said. In a “similar vein” to the comments from Trump and Carr, The New York Times said, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday “delivered a lengthy complaint about CNN’s coverage of the war,” especially a report that the administration wasn’t prepared for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Carr posted his broadcast license threat from Mar-a-Lago, where he was “seen talking with Trump,” said CNN. But Trump’s “attack dog atop the FCC” has “very little power to follow through” on his “crusade” to police the news. The FCC doesn’t regulate cable news or broadcast networks, just their local stations and affiliates. Carr’s threats “violate the First Amendment and will go nowhere,” said Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democrat, on X. “Broadcasters should continue covering the news, fiercely and independently.”

What next?

Carr’s “threats are hollow” on revoking broadcast licenses, said public interest lawyer Andrew Jay Schwartzman. But the “implicit threat” of stifling regulatory approvals provides him a “real hammer.” What Carr “is describing is government control of the press,” said Tara Puckey, CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association. But “journalists aren’t intimidated by a bully with a briefcase.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday said he was “demanding” that “about seven” countries reliant on Middle East oil help force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has effectively halted traffic through the narrow, heavily trafficked strait, sending oil and gas prices sharply higher.

Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One after a weekend of golf and fundraising in Florida, did not identify the seven countries. But in a social media post Saturday, he said “many” countries “will be sending War Ships” to help the U.S. “keep the Strait open and safe,” and “hopefully” that list will include China, France Japan, South Korea and Britain. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” Trump told the Financial Times. “Whether we get support or not,” he said on Air Force One, “we will remember.”

Who said what

Trump and his top aides “spent the weekend framing their Iran operation as a resounding military success while imploring other countries to join” a Hormuz escort coalition they plan to unveil “as soon as this week,” The Wall Street Journal said. Trump’s call for help in this “costly and risky” campaign was “notable because it was the first time he had sounded eager to build a broad coalition to counter Iran,” The New York Times said. And notably, “he was asking for backup from allies who were largely not consulted about the decision to plunge into the war.”

Trump has “grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates” with a U.S. public worried about mounting deaths and soaring gas prices, The Associated Press said. “Iran wants to make a deal,” Trump told NBC News on Saturday, but “I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet.” Iran “never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiation,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CBS News. “We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes.”

What next?

U.S. allies have “responded to the idea of sending warships to the strait with caution, if at all,” the Times said, and Beijing has “little incentive” to participate because “Iran is allowing Chinese ships through the strait.” It is in the European Union’s “interest to keep the Strait of Hormuz open,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday morning. “We have been in touch with the U.S. colleagues,” but this “is out of NATO’s area of action.”

Donald Trump’s call for an international coalition to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz has been met with a muted response. Japan and Australia have definitively ruled out sending support and escort vessels, and Keir Starmer has said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war”.

With the US-Israeli war against Iran now entering its third week, Tehran has effectively closed the waterway through which a fifth of all the world’s oil and gas passes. Trump first demanded the help of China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK but he then extended the invitation on Truth Social to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait”. Yet, despite threatening to cancel a planned trip to China unless Beijing offers support, and warning Nato that it faces a “very bad future” if it fails to come to Washington’s aid, his demands seem “to have fallen on deaf ears”, said Reuters.

What did the commentators say?

European governments in particular “have reacted cautiously to Trump’s persistent pressure to help him reopen the strait”, said Milena Wälde on Politico. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he was “very sceptical” that widening the EU’s naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz “would provide greater security”.

Even if Trump is able to secure an international coalition, his “biggest hurdle” in any attempt to reopen the strait will be “interoperability”: “that’s the ability of crews to work together or with different units and different doctrine when basic communication would be an issue”, maritime security expert Alexandru Hudisteanu told Al Jazeera. There is also the challenging geography of the strait, which is only 31 miles wide at its entrance and exit, and narrows to 20 miles at one point. It is a “very unforgiving” environment to sail through, especially with “wartime threats”, such as mines or “unmanned systems that could damage or destroy ships”.

With growing unease in the US about the war and its economic impact on ordinary citizens, Trump has been forced to change tack in recent days. Having launched his campaign with Israel without consulting other allies, he clearly now needs other countries “to join a war that not only hasn’t been won, but is spreading and escalating out of control – and that the US is arguably losing”, said The Independent’s editorial board.

What next?

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that the strait is not open to vessels belonging to the US and its allies. But Tehran has “signalled it is considering allowing Chinese-linked ships through”, said The Telegraph – a move that would “spare Iran’s strategic ally the economic pain of the war, while doubling down on the impact felt by the West”.

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today to discuss ways of keeping the strait open. But any military assistance provided by European nations, including the UK, must come with “a say in US decision-making”, and a “demand that Operation Epic Fury be de-escalated before it becomes Operation Epic Disaster”, said The Independent. “This is a rare moment when medium-sized powers such as Britain, France and Japan can exercise some leverage on the White House; they must make full use of it.”

“Every now and then, world events take a turn that exposes Britain’s decades of self-deception” on the subject of defence, said Fraser Nelson in The Times. On 1 March, the RAF’s main base in Cyprus was hit by a drone apparently launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon. It caused only minor damage; what was shocking was that the UK seemed unprepared for such an event, although Lebanon is just “a short drone-hop away”, and an attack like this had been anticipated for years.

Our response was to dust down HMS Dragon, a Type 45 destroyer then undergoing maintenance at Portsmouth. (With a fair wind, she’ll arrive next week.) In a panic, Cyprus turned to Greece and France, “asking to be protected from the risk Britain’s bases had exposed them to”. Greek frigates and F-16s were on the scene within hours. A French warship and air defences followed. “Quite the humiliation” for Britain. And proof that “our commitments far outpace our resources. Holes are showing, in shocking places.”

‘Point of maximum weakness’

The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, the attacks on the Gulf states, where around 300,000 British citizens live: this is exactly the kind of emergency that “would once have found the Royal Navy in its element”, said David Blair in The Telegraph. But for the first time in centuries, Britain does not have a single warship in the Persian Gulf or the eastern Mediterranean. Three of its six destroyers and both its aircraft carriers were out of action, undergoing repairs or refits.

After years of slow decline, the Navy has “reached its point of maximum weakness” at a moment when a crisis is exploding in the Middle East “and Russia threatens the whole of Europe”. Both Bahrain and the UAE have reportedly expressed concern about the UK response; Cyprus voiced its disappointment publicly. Britain could also only send a few extra fighter jets to the region because the RAF, too, has been “cut to the bone”, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. It has 130 active jets, down from 850 in 1989. The Army is “in no better shape”, with just 70,000 active personnel, a third of the number it had in 1990.

Our current malaise “is the result of politicians from all parties trying to outrun” the same question for decades, said Matt Oliver in The Telegraph. How can Britain be “a great military power” if it won’t pay for it?

At the start of the 1990s, Britain’s health and defence budgets both hovered at 4% of GDP. Today, health accounts for 8% and defence just over 2%. New Labour was often accused of failing to invest in the forces. But the “squeeze” was harder during the Coalition years: the budget fell by 22% in real terms from 2010 to 2016. Yet even today, the Ministry of Defence has one of the largest military budgets in the world, at £66 billion per year.

So taxpayers may wonder what has gone wrong. The answer lies in part in “a string of procurement disasters”, for which civil servants and top brass must share the blame. We have expensive platforms – aircraft carriers, F-35 jets, nuclear subs – but insufficient manpower, weapons stockpiles and all-round resilience. As ex-defence secretary Ben Wallace recently put it, our forces have been “hollowed out”.

End of ‘peace dividend’

The challenge is formidable, said Larisa Brown in The Times. Al Carns, the Armed Forces Minister, has said that, by 2029, “Europe could be at war with Russia”. Former senior military chiefs warned in a letter to the prime minister this month that Britain “is facing its 1936 moment”. Assuming that funding can be found, the UK and Europe’s defence industries will have not only to ramp up production, but also to cope with the transformation of the modern battlefield already seen in Ukraine – by drone technology, robotics, cyberwarfare and, increasingly, autonomous weapons.

Add to that the likelihood that Donald Trump’s America would not “fight for us”, said Edward Lucas in The Times – or certainly cannot be relied upon to do so. “Europeans may loathe Trump, but they’re not ready to fill the gaps... They lack the hi-tech weapons, high-end intelligence, logistics expertise and ‘mass’ (quantity) that the Americans have provided since D Day.” Filling these will be costly and difficult, “if we manage at all”.

Yet politically, defence remains a hard sell, said The Independent’s editorial board. Among voters, there is no clamour to build “new cyber-defence units in the way there is demand for, say, cutting NHS waiting lists”. Keir Starmer and his cabinet know that the era of the “peace dividend” is over, said George Eaton in The New Statesman – that Britain and Europe “need to go faster on defence”, as the PM put it last month. But nothing much is happening. Labour may or may not increase defence spending from 2.4% of GDP to 3%, as the Ministry of Defence wants, by 2029 – the year that Carns thinks we could be at war with Russia. The government shows no willingness to confront voters with the fiscal trade-offs that come with higher spending. Britain remains “in denial on defence”.

Why is America at war with Iran? When will the conflict end? Two weeks after the launch of the joint US-Israel campaign, the answers to these questions remain no clearer, said Lee Siegel in The New Statesman.

Donald Trump's declared goals change all the time: it's to liberate Iranians; to eliminate an imminent nuclear threat; to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles; to avenge the US. As for how long the war could last, Trump declared last Friday that the US wouldn't stop until it secured Iran's “unconditional surrender”.

But in response to rising fuel prices and market turmoil, he softened his language on Monday, saying the war was “very complete, pretty much” and would end soon. His words helped calm markets: the price of a barrel of oil, which had soared to nearly $120, dipped back below $90. However, Trump later reverted to tough rhetoric, insisting that the US was set to press on as “we haven't won enough”.

‘Scorched-earth treatment’

Tehran, for its part, shows no sign of capitulating, said Arash Reisinezhad and Arsham Reisinezhad in Foreign Policy. While the tempo of its missile and drone attacks on neighbouring countries has declined since the opening days of the conflict, the strikes haven't stopped. The regime is aiming to prolong and widen the conflict – Azerbaijan and Turkey are the latest countries to be targeted with Iranian drones – to “generate pressure across multiple domains: energy markets, maritime logistics, regional alliances and domestic politics within the US and its partners”.

Wars between asymmetrical adversaries are rarely decided by the opening exchange of blows. More often, they become “contests of endurance”. Iran is now getting the “scorched-earth treatment”, said Patrick Cockburn in The i Paper. More than 1,000 civilians are thought to have been killed in the bombing so far. But air power alone is unlikely to defeat the Iranian regime. Just look at Gaza, where Hamas remained in control even after cities were razed to the ground.

Iran's ace card is its control over the Strait of Hormuz, said David Patrikarakos in the Daily Mail. About a fifth of the global oil supply normally passes through this narrow stretch of water, which is also a vital conduit for commodities such as nitrogen fertiliser and helium.

Tehran has effectively blockaded the strait by threatening to attack passing vessels, and several commercial ships have already been targeted. While Iran's regular navy has been largely put out of action, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for the strait, has access to many small, fast-moving craft and remote-control suicide drone boats. It also has missile launchers and drone systems deployed all along the coast.

If the strait remains closed for an extended period, the impact will be catastrophic: Qatar's energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, has warned that it could “bring down the economies of the world”. Trump has talked of providing naval escorts for vessels in the strait, said James Rothwell in The Daily Telegraph, but that would commit American forces to a complex and expensive logistical operation – one with the potential to become “a kind of maritime Vietnam”.

‘Escalation dominance’

Trump is in a trap of his own making, said Edward Luce in the FT. Two “very risky gambles” are available to him. One would be to launch a commando raid to seize what remains of Iran's 400kg stockpile of enriched uranium. “Success would offer Trump a spectacular off-ramp.” The other gambit would be to seize Kharg Island, the outcrop 15 miles off Iran's coast that serves as the nation's principal crude oil export hub. But that would require more boots on the ground, and there's little tolerance in America for more US casualties.

Trump's best option is to call it quits after degrading Iran's military capabilities, said The Economist. Critics will claim that he has left the job half done, and Iran may seek to rebuild its nuclear programme, obliging the US to launch future strikes. But “better for America to declare victory early than limp out of an unpopular war because of exhaustion”.

The markets are expecting Trump to do just that, before “he is overwhelmed by a supply-chain shock to match Covid”, said Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. However, the defiance of Iran's regime will make it harder for him. “It is we who will determine the end of the war,” the IRGC declared on Tuesday. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran would fight on even after a US declaration of victory. The question now is which aspect of Trump's thinking will prevail: “his fear of losing the US midterm elections? Or his injured vanity and his psychological need to command ‘escalation dominance', always and everywhere?”

With the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran now two weeks old, Iranians are coming to terms with the new normal of daily conflict. But the war has not only affected those living in the country currently under attack, as Iranians living overseas also find themselves caught in the middle of a geopolitical storm. While the Trump administration views the war as a net positive for the world, many of the Iranian diaspora say their feelings are more complicated.

‘Attacking each other on social media’

With the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the installation of his son as his successor, media outlets have “rightly focused on trying to understand how the conflict came about, where bombs have fallen and how many have died,” said The Guardian. But what can “easily get lost are the voices of the people directly affected,” including Iranians living abroad, whose views are “far from uniform.”

In the United States, various factions of Iranian emigrants are “attacking each other on social media, bullying shopkeepers and restaurant owners to promote their political agenda,” Kowsar Gowhari, an Iranian-born attorney living in Maryland, said to The Christian Science Monitor. Despite the new Iranian supreme leader coming to power, there are “some who believe this government is done, finished,” but others “don’t want [President Donald Trump] to destroy the place and to put in place a puppet government.”

Iran has always been a “melting pot with diverse views,” Mohamad Machine-Chian, an author and researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who is a native of Iran, told the Monitor. When the first ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini, took over Iran in 1979, Iranians “thought that the Islamic revolution was the way to go. Forty years later, they can see the disaster that has been created.”

The cultural divide has been especially prominent in California, where “half of all Iranian-Americans live,” said The Economist. And many of the “American-born children of Iranians who left after the revolution are now in their 30s and 40s.” Their memories of Iranian politics are “not of the regime but of America’s forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Many fear that the current situation in Iran could “bring continued conflict rather than liberation.”

Other countries

It is not just the U.S. where Iranians have mixed feelings about the war. Since the conflict began, Iranians abroad feel like they are “living in a parallel universe,” Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini, a council member in Oxford, England, who previously lived in Iran, told The Guardian. This parallel world is one where “life carries on normally — looking after patients, talking to colleagues — while at the same time you open your phone and see the destruction of places that mean so much to you.”

But it isn’t just the emotional toll of the war that could have an impact; Iranians living overseas have been threatened with the seizure of their property and could “face other legal penalties if they express ​support for the United States and Israel,” said Reuters. Those who do “will be met with the confiscation of all their properties,” Iran’s prosecutor general said in a statement.

This hasn’t stopped Iranian emigrants from speaking out. No “Iranian outside, ​in the diaspora, is really and truly worried about themselves and their properties and equity ‌and belongings ⁠when people inside Iran, they go out, barehanded, without anything, they will stand in front of live ammunition, and they actually get killed," Meyam Aghakhani, an Iranian living in London, told Reuters. “So my war and my fight continues without any hesitation.”

What happened

Iran’s secretive new leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed vengeance on the U.S. and Israel on Thursday for their ongoing strikes and said Iran would continue throttling the world’s oil shipments. The statement, Khamenei’s first since being named supreme leader earlier this week, was read on state TV. He has not been seen publicly since the war began.

Who said what

“We will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,” Khamenei warned. Iran will “continue” to use “the leverage of closing the Strait of Hormuz” and is considering “opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable.” Iranian attacks have left the strait “littered with damaged tankers, charred and abandoned,” said PBS “News Hour,” and Khamenei’s statement “dismissed any hope of Iran backing down from its unrelenting attacks in the Gulf.”

With Khamenei still hidden, the “central question remains unanswered,” CNN said: “Who is truly calling the shots?” According to Israeli officials, “Khamenei was in the compound that was attacked on the first day of the war,” where “his father, mother, wife and daughter were killed,” Axios said. “He was wounded but survived.” Khamenei is “likely in a secure, secret location to avoid a threatened Israeli operation to kill him,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

“Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated,” President Donald Trump said on social media Friday morning, and it is “a great honor” to be killing their leaders. “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” he added. As the war enters Day 14, oil prices are once again above $100 a barrel and “stocks sank worldwide over fears that the conflict could drag on longer than hoped,” the AP said.

A power struggle in the Middle East is rippling across the Red Sea and fuelling Sudan’s bloody civil war.

Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has “torn the country apart” since 2023, said The Times. Each side is backed by different Gulf countries and “their network of African allies”. Now, growing tension in the Gulf is causing the Sudan conflict to spread.

Violence on Sudan’s borders with Chad and Libya, increased fighting in South Sudan and massive troop mobilisation in neighbouring Ethiopia have been “raising the spectre of more conflicts”, ones marked with “the fingerprints of foreign actors”.

“The war is getting worse, and way more complex because of regional dynamics,” said Sarra Majdoub, a former UN security council expert on Sudan. “I don’t think it’s a civil war any more.”

How are Gulf states involved in Sudan?

“Gulf states have become increasingly prominent in the squabbles, civil wars and inter-country tensions in the Horn of Africa over the past decade,” said Brendon J. Cannon, professor at Khalifa University, on The Conversation.

The UAE has long been accused of supporting the RSF with weapons and funds. Experts believe it uses its ties to neighbouring countries, such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Libya and Chad, to support the paramilitaries. But Saudi Arabia and Qatar back the SAF, along with Turkey, Egypt and Eritrea. Even Iran has played a role, allegedly supplying Sudan’s army with drones and missiles.

What is their motivation?

The UAE has been “funding proxy groups and wars in Yemen, Libya and Sudan as a way of securing strategic influence and gold assets”, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. It has established itself as a “global trading hub in gold”, said Middle East Eye, and Sudan offers “untapped” gold reserves; it is already Africa’s third-largest producer.

Access to Sudan’s ports is also an advantage in the “contest for control of the Red Sea”, Ahmed Soliman, from the Chatham House think tank, told The Times. Almost a third of global container shipping flows through the Suez Canal.

Sudan’s “geostrategic location” explains why “outside powers remain deeply invested”, said Shewit Woldemichael, International Crisis Group’s analyst for Sudan, on Al Jazeera. Sudan is “at the crossroads of the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and North Africa”. For some countries, Sudan’s war is an opportunity to advance their own interests “in a rapidly changing and contested regional order”.

How is the conflict spreading?

The frontier with Chad is “the border to watch”, Majdoub told The Times, “because of cross-border communities and how heavily everyone is militarised”. Chad has closed the border, which experts say has been a major entry point for weapons and foreign fighters for the RSF.

South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011, is also deteriorating back into civil war. Many suspect Sudan’s army has been supplying the breakaway state’s anti-government militias, according to the International Crisis Group.

But “the most worrying theatre for future conflict” is between Ethiopia and Eritrea, said The Times. The two signed a peace agreement in 2022, but Ethiopia has recently sent “tens of thousands of troops” north. Alliances have “crystallised” along the same lines as in Sudan: the UAE and Israel back Ethiopia, while Saudi Arabia and its allies have “thrown their weight behind Eritrea”.

What might happen?

Mounting tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE “overshadow” their joint peace proposal for Sudan and risk “merging multiple regional conflicts, with Sudan at the epicentre”, said Woldemichael

On the other hand, the crisis in the Middle East could also “create an opening”. Faced with the “unprecedented security threat” of Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia could "find reason to set aside some of their differences, including over Sudan” in the name of regional unity. This could “help revive stalled diplomatic efforts to end the war”.

Gulf states will “likely begin focusing inward on their own security” as the situation in the Middle East deteriorates, said Cannon on The Conversation. ”Sudan’s civil war may last even longer now that Gulf states are focused elsewhere. Neither side in the civil war will have the ability to land a knock-out punch.”

Why are Saudi Arabia and the UAE at odds in Africa? How will a new president change Chile? And why did Meta just buy a social network built for AI?

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

A podcast for curious, open-minded people, The Week Unwrapped delivers fresh perspectives on politics, culture, technology and business. It makes for a lively, enlightening discussion, ranging from the serious to the offbeat. Previous topics have included whether solar engineering could refreeze the Arctic, why funerals are going out of fashion, and what kind of art you can use to pay your tax bill.

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcasts:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Global Player

What happened

A preliminary Pentagon investigation has determined that the U.S. was responsible for the deadly Tomahawk missile strike that destroyed a school in the opening hours of the Iran war, killing at least 175 people, most of them children, several news organizations reported Wednesday. The Feb. 28 strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab was provisionally found to be the “result of a targeting mistake” by U.S. Central Command, which used “outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency,” The New York Times said. It is “sure to be recorded as one of the most devastating single military errors in recent decades.”

Who said what

The findings are preliminary but “consistent with what had become increasingly obvious as new evidence continued to emerge,” CNN said: “The U.S. military conducted the strike.” President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, and his “attempts to sidestep the blame” have “already complicated the inquiry,” the Times said. Asked earlier this week why nobody in his administration was supporting his claim that Iran was culpable, Trump said, “Because I just don’t know enough about it.”

It is not clear why the school “was on a U.S. target list,” The Washington Post said, or who signed off on the strike “just as parents were hurrying to the two-story schoolhouse to take their kids home to safety.” But until 2015, the school grounds were part of a neighboring Iranian naval base. Publicly available satellite images showed playgrounds and other civilian markers. The school was also “clearly labeled as such in online maps,” The Associated Press said, “and has an easily-accessible website full of information about students, teachers and administrators.”

Congress “created a special Pentagon office to prevent the accidental targeting of civilians” in 2022, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “dramatically” downgraded it soon after taking office, NPR said. The staff and budget cuts meant Central Command “had only one staffer assigned to civilian casualty mitigation operations” when the war started.

What next?

The investigation is “expected to take months and will include interviews with all those involved, from planners and commanders to those who carried out the strike,” NPR said. Investigators “do not yet fully understand” how the DIA’s “outdated data was sent to Central Command,” the Times said, or why it wasn’t verified multiple times before the school was targeted.

Donald Trump accused Tehran of “making us look a bunch of fools” and said he would “go in and take” an island from Iran. But this threat wasn’t made in 2026. Trump said it in 1988.

In an interview with The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee nearly 40 years ago, the now US president raged against the Iranians, saying: “One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island.”

Situated northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, the strategically important shipping route in the Gulf, Kharg Island has long been seen as Tehran’s Achilles’ heel. Grabbing it today could “let Trump beat Iran without sending a single soldier”, said The Telegraph.

What is Kharg Island?

Roughly 15 nautical miles from the Iranian mainland, this small coral outcrop is widely regarded by Iranians as the “Forbidden Island”. It is just five miles long and three miles wide.

Beyond its “imposing steel fences and military watchtowers” is a “pristine landscape” where “millennia of diverse human history quietly coexist”, said Al Jazeera. It is also home to the “beating heart of Iran’s modern energy empire”.

It has history with the US. When Iranian militants kidnapped 52 US diplomats in 1979, advisers to President Jimmy Carter suggested seizing Kharg but the plan was rejected as being too inflammatory. In 2016, 10 US marines were held after straying into Iranian waters near the island.

Why is it important?

It processes 90% of the nation’s total oil exports, handling approximately 950 million barrels a year. So if the US captured the island, it could cause a huge problem for Iran’s economy for years to come.

“Seizing” Kharg Island would “cut off Iran’s oil lifeline, which is crucial for the regime”, Petras Katinas, from the Royal United Services Institute, told The Telegraph. It could be used as a bargaining chip as oil exports make up nearly 40% of the Iranian government’s budget, so this would “give the US leverage during negotiations”, regardless of “which regime is in power after the military operation ends”.

The move “would be reminiscent” of the US intervention in Venezuela, when it “effectively took control of the country’s oil sector”, oil analyst Tamas Varga told CNBC.

So why hasn’t Trump seized it?

Taking the island would make American and Israeli troops vulnerable to attacks by Iranian forces. In the longer term, it would damage any future regime’s chances of managing the economy, something Washington might be keen to avoid.

Neil Quilliam, from the Chatham House think tank, told The Independent it is “unlikely” Trump would take over the territory. Previous US presidents have “steered away from Kharg understanding its strategic importance to global oil markets”.

But if Trump did control Kharg Island, he could “pressurise the existing regime into compliance”, or “all-out collapse”, forcing any new government to “toe Washington’s line” if it wanted to “regain sovereignty over oil exports”, said The Telegraph.

President Donald Trump has called himself the “peace president,” but throughout his second term in office he has demonstrated an ongoing willingness to use the military in overseas operations. Ecuador and Iran represent the latest conflicts the United States has engaged in, but they are just two of several countries to become entangled with the U.S. military once Trump reentered the White House

Ecuador

In March 2026, the Trump administration launched a military operation in another country, though not against its government: The White House “announced it is collaborating with Ecuador to combat ‘terrorists’ in the South American country,” said Al Jazeera. Joint military efforts have already started in Ecuador, with operations launched against “designated terrorist organizations.”

Several questions remain, as “both Ecuador and the United States haven’t specified who they’re targeting, locations of operations or the scope of military actions,” said USA Today. But Trump’s decision to send in the military marks an “embrace of past American strategies fighting drug traffickers in Latin America.”

Iran

Trump has been jawing at Iran since retaking office over the country’s alleged attempts to develop a nuclear weapon. Following a bombing campaign in June 2025 that destroyed several of Iran’s nuclear facilities, in February 2026 the U.S. “joined Israel and attacked more than 1,000 targets in Iran,” said Reuters. This full-scale assault killed several of Iran’s top officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

While Republican officials and members of the Trump cabinet have variously called the Iran conflict a “mission” or “defense operation,” Trump himself has repeatedly used the term “war.” Trump’s calculation “has been that he can launch military operations with the loss of few American lives and minimal disruption to the economy,” said The New York Times, but the “opening days of the war in Iran are challenging that assumption.” No American ground troops “have yet been sent to Iranian soil,” but “the administration has not ruled out deploying soldiers.”

Venezeula

As with Iran, Trump also pushed to remove the leader of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro, alleging that he was a national security threat. Trump accomplished this goal in January 2026 when the U.S. “launched an incursion” into Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, that captured Maduro and left the “country in a state of uncertainty over its political and economic future,” said Time.

Maduro was brought to the United States to face charges of narco-terrorism, but Trump “has never formally declared war on Venezuela, despite overseeing an aggressive military campaign on the South American country,” said Time. The White House has “justified its attacks using the president’s Article II constitutional powers, which give the president the authority to defend the country against threats.” Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has since taken over Venezuela. Meanwhile, Trump “has offered conflicting statements on the future of U.S. involvement in the country,” said the Council on Foreign Relations.

Syria

In response to an attack by the Islamic State militant group, Trump in January 2026 “carried out large-scale strikes against Islamic State group targets in Syria,” said BBC News. These strikes were “conducted in an effort to combat terrorism and protect U.S. and partner forces in the region.” The initial strike involved more than 90 munitions fired at more than 35 Syrian targets, according to BBC News.

It later came out that the Islamic State’s assault was performed by a “member of Syria’s security forces slated for dismissal over his extremist views,” said the Times, though the Islamic State itself “has not claimed responsibility for the attack.” While White House officials have continued to say they will seek vengeance, the “Syrian leadership has pledged continued cooperation with the United States and its allies to combat ISIS in the country,” said the Council on Foreign Relations.

Caribbean territories

While not an attack against one specific country, more than 40 U.S. strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats “have been carried out in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September 2025,” said NBC News. Democrats in Congress have criticized the strikes, which have reportedly left over 130 people dead, though Trump “has repeatedly argued that the strikes are preventing illicit drugs from entering the U.S.”

Though most Caribbean nations have criticized the use of U.S. military force, at least one has sung a different tune: Trinidad and Tobago “came out strongly on Washington’s side” with a “full-throated endorsement of President Donald Trump’s belligerent drug policy in the region,” said Bloomberg. This makes the nation one of the only Caribbean locales to take Trump’s side.

Yemen

From March to May 2025, the United States “launched naval and airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in what was code-named Operation Rough Rider,” said Time. This was, up to that point, Trump’s largest military operation of his second term. The strikes were aimed at a variety of Houthi targets in the country, including “radar systems, air defenses, and missile and drone launch sites” in response to the Houthi’s attack on international ships in the Red Sea.

At least one of these attacks by the U.S. “caused dozens of civilian casualties and significant damage to port infrastructure,” said Human Rights Watch, and the event should be “investigated as a war crime.” This assault, in the town of Hodeidah, targeted the port through which 80% of Yemen’s humanitarian assistance arrives, Human Rights Watch reported. U.S. officials have denied any wrongdoing.

Iraq

A more minor military incursion took place in March 2025, when the military “conducted a precision airstrike in Al Anbar Province, Iraq,” that killed the Islamic State’s second-in-command, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, according to the U.S. Central Command. Al-Rifai was “one of the most important ISIS members in the entire global ISIS organization. We will continue to kill terrorists and dismantle their organizations,” Gen. Michael Kurilla of the U.S. Central Command said.

After the Iran conflict broke out in February 2026, Trump administration officials also had discussions “with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran about potentially arming groups opposed to the Iranian regime,” said NBC News. This would be the latest in a decades-long saga of military action between the U.S. and Iraq.

Somalia

Since February 2025, just weeks after taking office, Trump “has been conducting strikes in Somalia to target ISIS and al-Shabaab,” said NewsNation. There have been “more than 100 strikes launched, mostly using drones.” As with Ecuador, Somali officials seem receptive to the military usage.

The operation “reinforces the strong security partnership between Somalia and the United States in combating extremist threats,” Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in a post on X. Somalia “remains resolute in working with its allies to eliminate international terrorism and ensure regional stability.” An “initial assessment by the Pentagon indicated that ‘multiple’ operatives were killed in the operation,” said Deutsche Welle. It also stated that “no civilians were harmed in the strikes.”

Tehran said today it will “not allow even a single litre of oil” to pass through the Strait of Hormuz to reach its war enemies. “Any vessel or tanker bound to them will be a legitimate target.” Tellingly, three cargo ships in the strait were earlier damaged by “unknown projectiles”, said UK Maritime Trade Operations.

Donald Trump has already said that he “will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply”. And, overnight, US Central Command said it had destroyed 16 Iranian mine-laying ships, in response to intelligence reports that Iran had begun laying explosives in the strait.

Since the conflict began, there have been 13 reports of ships being attacked in the strait. Global insurers are increasingly unwilling to allow oil tankers to pass through, and the world’s oil supply is now “at severe risk”, said Sarah Shamim on Al Jazeera. As prices per barrel spike, Trump has floated the idea of the US Navy escorting tankers through the shipping channel.

What did the commentators say?

Millions of barrels of oil “are now effectively stranded in the Gulf” because regional oil-producing countries, such as Iraq and Kuwait, have “no alternative” shipping channel. This is no small incentive for Trump’s naval escort plan, said Natasha Bertrand on CNN. But the risks are high, with the strait described as a “death valley” for vessels attempting to navigate it.

Escorting tanker convoys in the region has been “effective” in the past, said former Royal Naval officer Tom Sharpe in The Telegraph. Both the EU’s Operation Aspides and the US-UK Operation Prosperity Guardian – which “positioned warships in defensive missile boxes” – had success against Houthi engagements in the Red Sea. Given Iran’s “rapidly diminishing” missile threat, a “similar” approach to protecting tankers on their way through Hormuz “would work”. But the strait is shallow, “has a U-bend shape” and is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s “home turf”.

Right now, there probably “aren’t enough” US ships “for the task”. Japan, South Korea, Australia and Italy could “help out” with “serious air defence warships”, and France has an aircraft carrier “en route to the Mediterranean” and “a frigate standing off Cyprus”. Britain’s destroyer, HMS Dragon, should arrive in Cyprus next week. But even with these reinforcements, it’s not clear “how long” such an operation “could be kept up”. I think “a short-but-unsustainable effort” is more likely. “Never underestimate what the demand for quick wins can do to political decision makers.”

Despite initial reports to the contrary, even Chinese vessels aren’t getting through the strait, said Harrison Prétat on the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Commentary. China, an ally of Iran with an “outsized reliance on energy imports”, has “not yet received similar assurances” to those given to by Iran-backed Houthis in 2024. This not only underscores “China’s limited ability to shape the course of the conflict, even to protect its own strategic and commercial interests” but makes it clear how seriously Iran’s leaders are playing for the regime’s survival.

What next?

If the US naval escort plan goes ahead, it “may give Iran juicy American targets”, said The Economist. Despite being “pummelled from the air”, Iran still “enjoys layered defences and forbidding terrain” in the strait. It has “long prepared for such strife”, and its threat “comes in many forms”. In the air, it has missiles and drones; on the water, it has “fast-attack boats” armed with “missiles, explosives or rocket-propelled grenades”, and below the surface it can “deploy thousands of sea mines and unmanned vehicles” and “divers with limpet mines”. All that, and America’s “technological advantages are blunted” in such “confined waters”. Unlike modern oil tankers, “destroyers have single hulls, so are easier to sink”.

The Iranian regime seems “determined to set the terms for how the war ends” and, let’s not forget, “maritime chokepoints favour the defender”.

What happened

The Pentagon on Tuesday night said the U.S. had destroyed several Iranian naval vessels, “including 16 mine layers near the Strait of Hormuz,” during another day of market turbulence triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. CNN, citing U.S. intelligence sources, reported Tuesday that Iran had already begun laying mines in the strait, the shipping chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes. Iran has effectively shut the narrow route with threats to attack any ship attempting to pass through.

Who said what

“If Iran has put out any mines in the Hormuz Strait, and we have no reports of them doing so,” President Donald Trump said on social media Tuesday afternoon, “the Military consequences” will be “at a level never seen before” unless the mines are “removed forthwith.” The mining “is not extensive yet, with a few dozen having been laid in recent days,” CNN said. CBS News said U.S. intelligence reports indicated Iran was “taking steps to deploy mines” in the strait, and likely had “roughly 2,000 to 6,000 naval mines” in stock.

The uncertainty about Iran’s mining efforts “came on a day when the Trump administration officials sent mixed messages about the war, including about oil transport,” The New York Times said. The “confusion was typified” by Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying on social media that Navy warships had “successfully escorted” an oil tanker through the strait, then quickly deleting the post after the Pentagon said it had not happened. Wright’s deleted post was “enough to wipe out million-dollar trades,” The Wall Street Journal said, as oil prices dropped then rose above $90 a barrel again, leaving investors “struggling to see through the fog of war emanating from the Trump administration itself.”

The U.S. Navy “has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz,” Reuters said. At least three merchant ships — two cargo ships and a tanker — were hit by projectiles near the strait Wednesday morning, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.

What next?

Tehran’s threats and attacks may be keeping most ships out, but Iran’s own tankers are “exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war,” throwing it a “financial lifeline” amid the “blistering attack from the U.S. and Israel,” the Journal said.

As the Iran war enters its second week, violence from the U.S. and Israel’s western assault and counterstrikes by Iranian forces and their allies threatens not only Iranian, Israeli and American targets but the broader region as a whole. While U.S. and Israeli forces have struggled with unclear and potentially conflicting orders, as well as questionable AI-influenced operations, Iranian forces have long been preparing for an attack of this sort in principle, if not in specific execution.

What did the commentators say?

With violence expanding across multiple fronts in the region, Iran is operating with a “complex strategy” designed to combine “military escalation, economic leverage, domestic mobilization and diplomatic signaling,” said Middle East Monitor. By resting on “several interconnected pillars,” Iran’s strategy is meant to address both military maneuvers and prevent the “broader objective” many officials believe animates this war: regime change.

Iran is “fighting for survival, and survival on its own terms,” said the BBC, with the nation’s leaders having been “preparing for this moment for years.” Although it would be “naive” to expect Iran to hope for a “straightforward battlefield victory,” the evidence instead suggests they have “built a strategy around deterrence and endurance.” Theirs is a calculus that “rests partly on the economics of war,” in which “prolonged conflict” forces the U.S. and Israeli militaries to expend “high-value assets” like missile defense systems to intercept “comparatively low-cost threats” like kamikaze drones.

During the Israel-Iran war of 2025, Tehran’s barrage against U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar was “prewarned and largely seen as a face-saving exercise,” said Al Jazeera. Now, Tehran has seemingly “revised its military strategy to a more aggressive one focused” on national survival.

The updates include repairing facilities damaged by previous air assaults and “fortifying” several nuclear facilities, using “concrete and large amounts of soil to bury key sites,” said CNN. Past conflicts have also highlighted “weaknesses in Iran’s command structures under pressure,” leading a “new authority, the Defense Council, to govern in times of war.”

Iran’s newly established Defense Council is led by Ali Larijani, the country’s “top national security official,” a “veteran politician” and a former commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said The New York Times. Since the council’s creation in the wake of last year’s Israel-Iran war, Larijani, 67, has “effectively been running the country,” sidelining heart surgeon turned politician President Masoud Pezeshkian as someone who can’t be expected to “solve the multitude of problems in Iran.”

Iran is “definitely more powerful than before,” Larijani said in an interview in Doha before the Iran war began, according to the Times. Tehran has “prepared in the past seven, eight months” and “found our weaknesses and fixed them.”

In February, the Revolutionary Guard Corps moved to “revive its so-called mosaic defense strategy,” which gives field commanders the “autonomy to issue orders to their units,” making the country “more resilient to foreign attacks,” said The Wall Street Journal.

The RGC also established about “100 monitoring points” in Tehran to “block potential insurgents or foreign forces” in the days leading up to the U.S.-Israel assault to preemptively neuter any “disruptive antigovernment unrest,” said the Journal. While last year’s war with Israel highlighted Iran’s “military inferiority” and the “limits of regional militia allies” like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, it also gave Tehran an “opportunity to test and refine its war tactics.”

What next?

Iran’s military says it has amassed “enough supplies to continue their aerial drone and missile war” against U.S. and allied positions across the Middle East “for up to six months,” said the National Post. President Trump’s refusal to rule out a ground invasion has also pushed Iranian officials to address the prospect of foreign troops on Iranian soil. “We are waiting for them,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to NBC’s “Meet The Press” last week. Iranian forces are “confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”

Ultimately, Iran’s planning and in-war actions rest on the belief that it can “absorb punishment longer than its adversaries are willing to sustain pain and costs,” said the BBC. Their “calculated escalation,” then, is to “endure, retaliate, avoid total collapse and wait for political fractures to emerge on the other side.”

When he first became Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presented himself as humble. A mid-level Shiite cleric who lacked the popularity and charisma of his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, he stepped into the post in 1989 calling himself “an individual with many faults and shortcomings, and truly a minor seminarian.” But as he settled into the dictatorial role he showed his mercilessness. Khamenei presided over decades of internal repression, as he blocked even mild attempts at reform, and external belligerence, as he transformed Iran into a state sponsor of terrorism. His regime supported the “Axis of Resistance” network of mostly Shiite militias and terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Badr group in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza. In his speeches and rulings, he blamed any whiff of dissent or dysfunction at home on the U.S., which he called the “Great Satan,” or on Israel, the “Zionist regime.” To maintain control, he once admitted, “We need the United States as an enemy.”

“Revolution was in his blood,” said Foreign Policy. “The grandson of clerics who supported a revolt against a previous dynasty,” Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei wore the black turban signaling direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad. At 19, he fell under the sway of Khomeini, who was then a top cleric in Qom. Khomeini was a leader of opposition to the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, an authoritarian who wanted to modernize the country. Khamenei worked as Khomeini’s courier, spending several stints in prison for his activism. When Khomeini led the 1979 revolution and took 52 U.S. hostages, Khamenei was the one who created a propaganda film suggesting the captives “were being well looked after,” said The Times (U.K.). From then on, he was the supreme leader’s “trusted lieutenant.” After surviving a 1981 assassination attempt that paralyzed his right hand, Khamenei served as Iran’s president, brutally repressing dissent. When Khomeini died in 1989, he was chosen by a panel of senior clerics as successor.

He consolidated power quickly, said The New York Times, turning the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into “a powerful tool of repression.” When Iranians elected a reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, in 1997, Khamenei hamstrung him by jailing cabinet ministers and shuttering friendly newspapers. Regional instabilities were “cannily exploited.” When the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum there, he armed Shiite militias and backed Shiite parties, “giving Iran significant clout in Iraqi politics.” His regime also pursued nuclear weapons, even though he’d issued a fatwa banning their use. He “adamantly refused to give up Iran’s uranium-enrichment program,” said The Washington Post, and repeated calls to annihilate Israel. Still, desperate for sanctions relief, he reluctantly endorsed President Obama’s 2015 deal limiting the nuclear program—though he “appeared to regret it” three years later, when President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact.

Many Iranians “despised living under his firebrand form of theocratic governance,” said The Wall Street Journal, in which women could be jailed for failing to wear a hijab. Torture was common in prisons, and dozens of crimes brought the death penalty. Nationwide protests broke out repeatedly, in 2009, 2017, 2019, and 2022, and the regime responded with deadly force and mass arrests. Then came the event that changed everything, something that at first “appeared to be a victory”: the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas militants Iran had trained and armed. Israel responded by taking out Iran’s proxies one by one, and it humiliated Iran by assassinating the head of Hamas while he was in Tehran. Then last June, U.S.-Israeli air strikes crippled Iran’s nuclear program. And when sanctions and runaway inflation sent the Iranian rial plummeting to 1.4 million per dollar, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets again.

The resulting crackdown “has been ruthless,” said The New Yorker, with some 30,000 protesters massacred. But Khamenei remained largely out of sight. In his final weeks, before he was killed on the first day of a joint U.S.-Israel attack, he remained so secluded that Iranians nicknamed him “Ali the Mouse.” Still, he continued to rail against the U.S. As American forces assembled in the Middle East, he vowed to fight back with his proxy forces. “If they start a war,” he said, “this time it will be a regional war.”

“We’re winning this fight!” shouts the narrator, as the White House video cuts from clips of “Call of Duty” to footage of US fighter jets and slo-mo missile strikes on Iran. “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” clocked up 58 million views in three days. A second video, “Justice the American Way”, soon followed, blending bombing footage with memes and references to “Top Gun”, the “Halo” series and “Dragon Ball Z”.

The US administration’s use of imagery from video games and pop culture is, to some, just a modern way to celebrate “the nation’s war-fighting power”, said Drew Harwell in The Washington Post. But, to others, it’s a “sick and callous joke from the nation’s highest public office”.

What did the commentators say?

Donald Trump’s second presidential campaign was “marked by a rage-baiting style of communications”, and his social media output has “not shifted tone since he took office”, said Emerald Maxwell on France24. When millions took to the streets last October for anti-Trump “No Kings” protests, the president posted a “fake AI video showing himself wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet” that “dumps excrement on crowds of protesters”.

Now ,“the White House is transforming the Iran war effort into a meme campaign”, said Harwell in The Washington Post. By “mixing unclassified missile footage” with the kind of “fictional and fantasy content young people share online for laughs”, Trump’s digital team is attempting to “win political points by running serious policy issues through the irreverent lens of internet culture”.

They are harnessing “some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture” to “promote the freshly launched war with Iran”, said David Bauder and Lou Kesten on The Associated Press. “It’s hard not to see the thinking here: the more cinematic the content, the more people might support the war.”

The “sober charts and briefings” of past conflicts have “largely been replaced by a public relations campaign” with a “video-game vibe”, said Helen Coster and Tim Reid on Reuters. Past administrations used PR campaigns to “explain why the US has gone to war” but, for a Trump White House that has “struggled to articulate a clear case” for its operations in Iran, “it’s about how the US has gone to war” instead.

The “online propaganda campaign” is not about “intimidating Iran or projecting US strength abroad”, said J Oliver Conroy in The Guardian, but about getting support in future elections from “young right-wing American men who spend a lot of time online”. It is, as yet, “unclear” if those Gen Z males “universally appreciate the Trump administration’s narrowly tailored jingoism”.

What next?

Trump’s “precedent-smashing style of politics” has helped him “build a passionate bond with his political base”, said Michael Birnbaum in The Washington Post. But his “lack of visible effort” to expand support for the war to the wider public “carries risks”. While 81% of Republicans “supported Trump’s initial decision to strike Iran”, according to flash polling, “even at that early stage” only 54% of them supported a prolonged engagement. Support among independents and Democrats is even lower and falling. Trump’s “muscular, meme-driven imaging around the war effort” may be building support “within a slice of his existing base” but “it is less clear that it is winning over sceptics on either side of the political aisle”.

There are only so many weapons to go around. The United States is waging war on Iran, and some observers are concerned the massive expenditure of munitions will make it more difficult to supply Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Conflict in the Middle East may deprive Ukraine of weapons to “defend itself from Russia’s bombardment,” said The Wall Street Journal. The intensity of the U.S. war on Iran “will affect the amount of air defense we receive,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the “sudden depletion” of air defense munitions will make it more challenging to “credibly project U.S. power against Russia in Ukraine,” said Time magazine. America’s “resources and supplies are limited,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). That has raised concerns in Kyiv, said Time. “Everyone understands that the right weapons are our lifeline,” Zelenskyy said.

The Iran war “could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion,” said The Atlantic Council. Russia “stands to benefit more than most” from the surge in oil and gasoline prices caused by the war in Iran, which could also “distract the Trump administration” from its efforts to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin “will now likely be able to breathe a little easier” while the U.S. is distracted.

What did the commentators say?

The “obvious truth” is that Ukraine’s struggle is “not a priority for the White House,” Bohdan Nahaylo said at the Kyiv Post. The Iran war also increases pressure on Europe, which now must “deal with instability in two important areas simultaneously.” European energy markets that “had just stabilized after cutting off Russian supplies” have been thrown into renewed turmoil. That will create new challenges for a continent already “stretched thin” by its backing of Ukraine. The newest crisis will be a “test of Europe’s ability to remain focused and united.”

War in the Middle East “offers Russia several opportunities,” Stefan Wolff said at The Conversation. The oil shock gives Moscow a “new lifeline for financing its ongoing war” while the diversion of U.S. arms to Iran gives Putin an advantage in his “relentless campaign of missile and drone strikes” on Ukraine. The war in Iran will not give Russia a victory in Ukraine, “but it has thrown the world into additional turmoil for no good reason.” That will delay a “much-needed restoration of peace” for a war-weary Europe.

What next?

President Donald Trump is “looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran,” said Politico. Zelenskyy’s government has extensive experience with the kind of drone warfare at the center of the Iran conflict, making Ukraine a “world leader” in the kind of “anti-drone defenses” that the U.S. needs right now. The Ukrainian leader said the country would help as long as that assistance “didn’t weaken its own defenses.” Doing so may give Ukraine leverage with Trump: Assistance to the U.S. “serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.