All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As the joint American-Israeli military campaign in Iran continues, President Trump’s coalition is starting to exhibit some cracks. The war in Iran has emerged as a proxy battle over a broader, long-simmering conflict within the right about Israel. And the fight over Israel is, in some important ways, a proxy battle about Jews in general.
The war with Iran is exposing a vulnerability at the heart of the global gas market: the extraordinary concentration of liquefied natural gas supply in the Persian Gulf. Qatar alone accounts for roughly a fifth of global LNG exports, almost all of it passing through the narrow Strait of Hormuz. The conflict has illustrated how easily a
“Donald Trump is a complicated person with simple ideas,” said Kellyanne Conway, the former White House senior counselor. “Way too many politicians are the exact opposite.” It’s a good way of understanding the 45th and 47th President and his extraordinary success. His turbulent personality causes mayhem, yet his political aims have remained constant, straightforward and
In 1989, as tanks rolled into central Beijing to crush the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, Australia’s then prime minister, Bob Hawke, spontaneously offered asylum to all Chinese citizens who happened to be in Australia. Thousands took up his offer and made lasting contributions to the country that gave them shelter. Last Tuesday, the women
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President Trump has signaled that the Middle East war could be “over soon” and pledged to lift sanctions after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Freddy is joined by Jacob Heilbrunn and Robert Bryce to discuss why Trump was potentially unprepared for Iran’s retaliation, what could come from the talks with Putin, and why Britain
In April, King Charles is scheduled to visit the United States to mark 250 years since America achieved its independence. Given that Britain has hosted President Trump twice – once in each term – it seemed a relatively easy piece of reciprocity. Pageantry, pomp, the King and Queen smiling and waving a lot, photo opportunities
I know that the world is focused on Iran but here’s what President Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday about the so-called “SAVE Act” (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility): “It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE
French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating rose by six points last week. It will likely continue to climb following his visit to the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on Monday. The pride of the French navy recently arrived in the eastern Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, and Macron was in his element as he strode across
What next for Iran? Donald Trump appears to have a plan: the Venezuela model. The US president has hinted that, just as with the South American nation, he wants to try working with elements inside the existing regime, rather than backing exiled opposition figures. The biggest massacres in Iran’s recent history happened under so-called reformers
Donald Trump has become something of a sole man. His cabinet members and White House visitors report that the president has developed a penchant for handing out $145 Florsheim shoes in an effort to up their sartorial game. In his Life of Johnson, Boswell reported that Dr. Johnson recoiled at an “eleemosynary supply” of shoes as an impecunious student
Albertans are very good at keeping things that damage their prosperity out of their province. Take rats, for instance. The vermin were designated an agricultural menace in the1950s and after 18 months of chemical warfare Alberta – which is the same size as Texas – was declared rat-free. Today a poison-laced buffer zone with Saskatchewan
Of all the parties watching the chaos in the Middle East unfold, one should be rubbing its hands together with particular satisfaction. Russia has not fired a shot in this conflict, lost no allies it cannot afford to lose and has so far gained rather a lot, with more to come. A cynic might call
In February, Timothée Chalamet said to his fellow actor Matthew McConaughey, as part of a CNN and Variety town hall: “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things that are, hey, let’s keep this thing alive even though it’s like no one cares about this thing anymore.” The studio audience laughed
After Iran unleashed a torrent of missiles against its neighbors – including those with whom it had enjoyed friendly relations such as Turkey and Azerbaijan – few regional leaders are in the mood to congratulate the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. Few, but not none. “At a time when Iran is confronting armed aggression, your
George W. Bush’s war haunts Donald Trump, who is now calling the Iranian operation a “little excursion”. But Iran differs from Iraq in one significant way: Bush spent years fending off accusations that he had invaded for oil, whereas Trump wholeheartedly embraces the idea. In fact, he doesn’t even need to invade a country to
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As the crisis in the Middle East has escalated, Donald Trump’s posturing has led many to question his strategy – and if he even has one. Geoffrey Cain, former foreign correspondent, expert on authoritarian regimes – and the author of this week’s cover piece in The Spectator, joins Freddy to explain why Trump’s ultimate target
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith’s seminal text in the history of economics. Smith gave his name to the institute that I co-founded, so you might expect me to advocate for reading his most famous text. But you shouldn’t. It’s very long, written in elegant but
Amid growing uncertainty caused by the US-Israel offensive against Iran and surging gas prices, Germany had its first major election of the year yesterday, with the new state parliament of Baden-Württemberg elected. Forecasts indicate that the Greens, who have been governing the state for the past 15 years, will remain in control of the premier
Did Mariah Carey mime or not when she headlined the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan? That was the main takeaway from last month’s jamboree. Organizers have since suggested that the US singer did indeed lip-sync to Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and the song that followed, her very own, “Nothing is Impossible.” “The technical, logistical and organizational complexities of an Olympic ceremony
Analogies in international politics are tricky and easily abused, yet they remain irresistible because they can illuminate patterns that are otherwise hard to see. Consider the present moment. Just as Ukraine has become a growing burden for Washington and its Western allies, Iran is now a strategic burden for Moscow and Beijing. The US, particularly
The social media video with which the White House has promoted its attack on Iran is, even by the standards we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration, grotesque on a level that still manages to be flabbergasting. Prefaced in the usual block capitals “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY”, with a flag and flame emoji of
MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) is not a foreign policy doctrine, nor should it become one. Nevertheless this week the movement experienced a split with some members urging Congress to introduce a war powers resolution to curb US military action in Iran. But they should be aware that mission creep – the gradual expansion of
I am in Dubai where we are doing our best to keep calm and carry on. Granted, the sudden instruction to “seek immediate shelter’ in the early hours of Sunday morning was unnerving, but with the exception of excitable “influencers,” few people are cowering in their basements. On Saturday evening, I’d hotfooted it to the
“Did you ever think that maybe there’s more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking?” So asks Derek Zoolander, before pulling his trademark pout, exhibiting cheekbones that look like they were engineered by Brunel. Zoolander came out a quarter-century ago, but now looks prophetic. Ben Stiller’s gullible, self-obsessed moron would fit right in
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
“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
Spain’s refusal to allow the United States to use its military bases at Morón de la Frontera (Seville) and Rota (Cádiz) for its war on Iran, arguing that the US-Israeli attacks are “unilateral military actions outside the United Nations charter” has brought the simmering conflict between Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s socialist Prime Minister and President Trump
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
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Spectator columnist and Heritage Foundation fellow Daniel McCarthy joins Freddy to explain how Trump’s war with Iran could mark the end of an era, that of neoconservatism. For Daniel, there is no contradiction between Trump’s “America First” policy and its overseas interventions: Trump is pursuing a version of hegemony that will reduce the need for
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
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
In the early hours of February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury commenced with large-scale American and Israeli air strikes against Iranian military, command, missile and infrastructure targets. Since then, the United States and Israel have conducted extensive operations against Iran, while Iran has retaliated with missile strikes against US bases, Israel and its regional neighbors.
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
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Today NATO forces intercepted an Iranian missile headed for Turkey. While it remains unclear where that missile was intended to land, questions have emerged over whether President Erdoğan can continue his strategy of geopolitical pragmatism. So far the Turkish leader has managed to appeal to China, Russia, Europe and the US. But will he be
