Politics

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Spectator Editorial

The Iran war has exacerbated the failure of European energy policies

The history of the global trading system is a story of narrow and vulnerable waterways: the Suez and Panama Canals, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Straits of Dover and the Skagerrak, which defends the entrance to the Baltic. But none has the power to seize up the global economy as much as the Strait of Hormuz. Barely 30 miles wide at the narrowest point and bounded on one side by the state of Iran, this passage is used for a quarter of the world’s oil supplies and a fifth of its liquified natural gas (LNG). As we have now discovered, the consequences of disruption are severe: on the day that

energy
Freddy Gray

Will the Iran war propel Gavin Newsom to the presidency?

“I’m very angry about this war,” said Gavin Newsom, the California Governor, on stage yesterday. Newsom has a memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, to plug, and a serious bid for the presidency in the offing. Like many other ambitious Democrats, he spies in Donald Trump’s new war an opportunity to cause grave damage to the Republicans in November’s midterms – and in the 2028 presidential election, too.  “Six Americans dead, including a young man from Sacramento,” he said, beating his chest in a nauseatingly theatrical manner. “You have a President who still cannot explain the rationale. Why now, and what’s the endgame?” Operation Epic Fury, now into its sixth day,

Ben Clerkin

Like that poor dog, Kristi Noem turned out to be untrainable

When Kristi Noem disclosed she once shot the family dog, Cricket, because Cricket was “untrainable”, the world wrote her off as unfit to be Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate. According to a new book, her dog-killing ruthlessness was, in fact, one of the key reasons Trump picked her for Homeland Security Secretary. It may have helped that Trump doesn’t like dogs.  Now that uncompromising approach has been her downfall. Trump has finally snapped and fired her for overshadowing his administration’s immigration achievements – achievements she has made – by turning public sentiment against ICE. There was the crackdown in Minnesota and the protester killings, but also the spending of hundreds

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on March 3, 2026. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
Sam Olsen

Trump isn’t the greatest threat to the Special Relationship

Britain’s refusal to fully back the United States over strikes on Iran has triggered an unusually public transatlantic row. It has also revived an old question about the future of the so-called ‘special relationship’. When Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, many in Westminster doubted Keir Starmer could build a workable relationship with him. The two men could hardly be more different in temperament or politics, and predictions of an early rupture were widespread. For a time, however, Starmer appeared to defy those expectations. Britain weathered Trump’s latest tariff wars better than most countries, and the Prime Minister seemed to have found a cautious way of managing

special relationship

Yesterday

Daniel McCarthy

America’s last war in the Middle East

Win or lose, Donald Trump has begun the last war the United States is ever likely to fight in the Middle East. That might sound wildly optimistic, but what it really means is that war with Iran has been decades in the making. If the mission succeeds, it will mark the end of an era. And if it fails, this war will have exhausted what’s left of America’s willingness to remake the region by force. It’s not just that Iran puts the case for regime change to the ultimate test. America’s relationship with Israel is also on trial. That relationship has been strained lately by the war in Gaza –

neoconservative

Thursday

Eliot Wilson

Does Trump really have ‘whatever it takes’ to win in Iran?

With Operation Epic Fury in its sixth day, it is hard to tell how long the current United States military campaign against Iran will last. It may not be swift; yesterday, the Senate rejected a resolution to halt further action. Meanwhile, President Trump has been alarmingly indifferent to the question: Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes. Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth struck a different note with reporters: “This is not Iraq, this is not endless.” Yet he has refused to rule out deploying

iran
John Jenkins

Why Iran is not Iraq

At the moment, a lot of people – notably including the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer – are comparing the current war with Iran with the Iraq invasion of 2003. Do they have a point? There are several common claims of comparison, some good, some bad. When Saddam fell, there was little appetite in Iraq for a western-aligned replacement The principal claim, in Starmer’s case, is that what happened in Iraq means the UK should steer well clear of any further involvement anywhere. It reminds me of the final scene in that magnificent film, Chinatown. A private detective moves to intervene to stop a horror unfolding but one of

Wednesday

Tim Shipman

‘Whose side are you on?’: how Keir Starmer alienated Britain’s allies over Iran

The American-Israeli attacks on Iran were publicly called Epic Fury, but behind the scenes it is Britain’s handling of the war which provoked that reaction – not just from Donald Trump but from the UK’s allies in the Gulf. A Labour peer was in Washington when the first missiles slammed into Tehran on Friday evening and Keir Starmer refused to voice support. A member of the Trump administration told the peer: “Britain used to not contribute that much, but you were a good ally. Now you’re contributing nothing and you’re not even a good ally.” A version of events has quickly become established: a Prime Minister with a near-religious belief

starmer
Jacob Heilbrunn

The Texas Republican revolt

Following last night’s primaries, Texas Democrats have a clear Senate candidate in James Talarico. Texas Republicans have a civil war. Ken Paxton and John Cornyn are headed for a nasty and expensive three-month runoff that will culminate in an election on May 26. Cornyn has made no secret of his disdain for Paxton, deeming him a “dead weight.” Are Texas Republicans facing an Alamo scenario, a last stand as the Democrats swarm over their defenses to reclaim the Lone Star state and the Senate majority? More than 2.4 million Texans cast ballots in the Democratic primary, the highest number in nearly two decades. The significance of Talarico’s victory over Jasmine

Andrew Cockburn

Does Trump even know why he invaded Iran?

Napoleon is supposed to have defined strategy as “on s’engage, et puis on voit,” loosely translated as “get stuck in and then see what happens.” Donald Trump is not normally deemed Napoleonic, yet in his approach to strategy he appears to have taken the great general’s precept to heart, launching initiatives without much forethought regarding consequences or further steps in the light of unexpected developments. When the consequences turn out to be unwelcome, he swiftly readjusts, discarding the initial scheme in favor of an alternative course of action, as often as not headlong retreat. Thus the swingeing Liberation Day tariff regime unveiled with much fanfare in April 2025 was swiftly suspended

Tuesday

Robert Skidelsky

What comes after America’s retreat?

What is happening to the “rules-based international order” despairingly invoked by bewildered European leaders? The broad answer is that we are living through the retreat of American hegemony, masked by bluster and marked by contradictions. The retreat has two aspects, economic and geopolitical. Economists talk about Trump’s tariffs breaking up the free-trade order; geopoliticians about the Trump Corollary breaking up the NATO system. These are part of a single, reasonably coherent story. But the retreat is not as straightforward as it sounds. How does the bombing of Iran fit into it? What do people mean when they talk about a global “rules-based order”? The starting point must be the UN

Ben Clerkin

Did Israel bounce the US into war?

Operation Epic Fury has developed from a war to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons into a political war of blame. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Marco Rubio told reporters at the Capitol last night. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them [Iran] before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.” The rationale came as a surprise to lawmakers. It sounded as though Israel had effectively bounced America into military action. Trump had told the American people from the outset that the war was to defang Iran of

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The Middle East’s Muslims are cheering Khamenei’s death

The killing of ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes on Saturday was cheered by many Iranians who have suffered innumerable atrocities under his ruthless Islamist rule of the country. While the diaspora were vociferous in their jubilation over the death of Iran’s supreme leader, many in the country also braved violent crackdowns to rejoice in the streets. These Iranians chanted the slogan that has become a common anti-Khamenei refrain over the past four decades: “Death to the Islamic Republic.” The chant has echoed alongside others: “death to the dictator… death to Khamenei” of the 1999 student marches; the 2009 election protests; the 2019 agitation against economic policies; the 2022 demonstrations over

Monday

Freddy Gray

Will Iran descend into civil war?

33 min listen

Freddy is joined by historian and former diplomat Charlie Gammell. They discuss the situation in Iran, whether the US is heading for a decisive confrontation, and examine the regional consequences: proxy warfare, Gulf energy security, Pakistan’s delicate position, and migration pressures on Europe.

Charles Lipson

What Iran means for the world

The Israeli-American air campaign against Iran will have profound global repercussions. What those repercussions will be depends on two crucial factors. First, will the bombing campaign remove the Shi’ite Islamist regime from power? We do not yet know if the campaign can accomplish that ambitious goal without foreign troops on the ground. If the US and Israel can do that, it would be an unprecedented achievement. Second, if the Islamists are removed, will the successor regime be stable and effective? Will it be able to control the streets and countryside, prevent successful breakaway regional movements, and begin the arduous process of rebuilding the country? Can the factions currently opposing the

David Loyn

Chaos in Iran spells trouble for the Taliban

The US-Israeli attack on Iran presents an opportunity to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan. If there is a collapse of central authority in Iran, tens of thousands of Afghan former soldiers living in exile there could use the power vacuum to mobilize, return home and fight against the Taliban. There are several resistance groups who have advanced plans to fight but need a reliable haven outside the country to launch attacks inside Afghanistan. Iran, which has a 600-mile border with the country, could be the launchpad they need. This represents a unique opportunity for Afghanistan, as for the first time the country faces conflict on both sides. While

Roger Kimball

When will Kash Patel unleash epic fury on the FBI?

As I write, the Washington Post is carrying an obituary about the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – or maybe it is about Santa Claus? You tell me. “With his bushy white beard and easy smile,” the Democracy Dies in Darkness paper told its readers,  “Ayatollah Khamenei cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor [Khomenei], and he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic western novels, especially Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables… Some Iranians who knew Ayatollah Khamenei before he became supreme leader described him as a ‘closet moderate.’” Did they now? Many other Iranians, some say about 250,000, did not have a chance

Saturday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is this Trump’s Sarajevo moment?

Here we go again. Switch out Saddam Hussein for the Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmed Chalabi for Reza Pahlavi and you have a fresh war for regime change in the Middle East, this time with Israel as America’s sidekick. With Operation Epic Fury, the American and Israeli bombing of Iran and push for regime change, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” runs the risk not only of triggering wider upheaval in the Middle East, but also globally. Is this a new Sarajevo moment? With Trump’s own generals having warned him that attacking Iran could be a debacle, he may have torched his own presidency Unlike George W. Bush in 2003, who worked

Daniel DePetris

It’s unclear what threat Iran actually poses

Donald Trump has urged Iranians to “take over” their government after the United States and Israel struck targets across the country. A multitude of Iranian military and government targets were hit by missiles in what is turning out to be a joint operation far more comprehensive than the 12-day air campaign last June. Back then, Trump’s objectives were limited: degrade Iran’s three largest nuclear facilities. This time, Trump’s eyes are on a bigger prize – a full-scale decapitation of the Iranian leadership and a degradation of Tehran’s military power. Trump has just rolled the dice and plunged the United States into yet another war in the Middle East “We are

Thursday

Cockburn

Lauren Boebert’s sneaky texts derail Hillary’s Epstein deposition

Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill austerely complied with a House Oversight Committee subpoena in order to explain their ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Yet Hillary’s testimony today didn’t exactly go to plan. Proceedings were halted after a breach of the hearing’s protocols – by a member of the committee. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert took two surreptitious photos of the closed-door hearing… and sent them to conservative influencer Benny Johnson. Johnson, in turn, plastered his watermark all over them and posted them on X. The Clintons had agreed to testify in a gambit to demonstrate that presidents and cabinet secretaries are not above congressional scrutiny – to put pressure on

lauren boebert
Ed West

Britain’s Green party is playing with fire

A good quiz question in the year 2050 will go something like this: “True or false, the ‘green’ in the ‘Green Party’ originally referred to the environment.” By this point, the etymological origins of Britain’s sectional Islamic party will be as obscure as the relationship between British Conservatives and 17th century Irish bandits. A key milestone, our mid-century quiz regular will inform his teammates, was the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election in which the Greens stood neck and neck in a three-way race with Labour and Reform before voting opened. If decades of generous immigration policies have created constituencies where people vote along religious lines, there is nothing to stop someone

Edward Howell

North Korea’s boundless nuclear ambition

North Korea’s ninth party congress, held this week, was little more than a rubber-stamping exercise. That much was clear when the Chinese premier Xi Jinping congratulated Kim Jong-un on his re-election as the general secretary of the Workers’ party of Korea. But we would be wrong to dismiss this gathering as merely symbolic. The last time North Korea held such a congress, in January 2021, Kim outlined a shopping list of desired weapons and missiles. Since then, North Korea has tested or obtained each item. All this week’s congress did was cement North Korea’s self-perceived status as a nuclear-armed state. While Kim underscored how North Korea’s nuclear weapons will never

Owen Matthews

How Silicon Valley is calling the shots on the battlefields of Ukraine

Sometime in the late morning of February 4, somebody at SpaceX headquarters pressed a computer key. A command line was beamed to Starlink’s 9,600 satellites in low Earth orbit. Their onboard processors, circling 550 kilometers above the Earth, instantly obeyed the command and fractionally changed their operational settings. Back down on the frozen ground, in the trenches, bunkers and ruined cities of Russian-occupied Ukraine, hundreds of Starlink terminals lost internet connectivity. As another freezing night set in, the Russian army’s drones and tactical comms went dark. “We are left without communication!” complained a frontline Russian military officer in a video posted on the Telegram channel “Voenkory Russian Spring.” “Virtually on