Donald Trump is teaching the world a lesson, but not the one he thinks. The attack on Iran was meant to be a dazzling display of military supremacy. It has instead illuminated chinks in the US’s armour. The US president’s formidable arsenal cannot summon up an insurrection from Iran’s tyrannised and leaderless opposition. It cannot force merchant ships to run a gauntlet of missile and drone attacks in the strait of Hormuz. The government in Tehran and the facts of geography that give it leverage over global trade are unchanged.…
Tag: US-Israel war on Iran
Trump’s threats to Nato reveal glaring absence of any strategy on Iran
If there was a moment when the absence of a US strategy on Iran was exposed, then this was it. Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that the UK, China, France, Japan and others participate in a naval escort for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz. Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow. Iran had few good military options for fighting back, but attacking US bases, US allies and merchant shipping in the Gulf…
Iran’s Hormuz blockade is its most powerful card against Trump and Israel. It won’t back down easily | Jack Watling
The US and Israeli decision to attack Iran has sent economic shockwaves around the world. About 20% of global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships, resulting in a huge jump in oil prices. Militarily, while the United States has the firepower to significantly reduce Iran’s capacity to use the strait as leverage, it is unlikely to be able to eliminate the threat entirely. Reopening the strait, therefore, is not only a question of military capabilities but of diplomacy, and…
China ‘still communicating’ with US over Trump visit despite talk of delay
China has said it is in communication with the US about Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing, despite hints from the US president that he might delay the trip if his prospective hosts do not help to unblock the strait of Hormuz. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said: “Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-US relations. The two sides are maintaining communication regarding President Trump’s visit to China.” Trump had suggested the highly anticipated trip to Beijing this month could be suspended if China did not…
Trump’s call for allied deployment to strait of Hormuz meets muted response
Countries including the UK, Japan, China and South Korea have said they are still considering their options but without making commitments after the US president, Donald Trump, urged them to send warships to the strait of Hormuz to secure the vital shipping route. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called on the UK, China, France, Japan, South Korea and other countries to send ships to the waterway, the world’s busiest shipping route, which is being violently blockaded by Iran. In his post, Trump alleged that “many countries,…
Fears about nuclear war are reaching a fever pitch. Another grim sign of the times | Judith Levine
Intimations of world war three – the big one, nuclear Armageddon – didn’t arise yesterday. But they got more urgent when Donald Trump was elected the second time. In December 2024, Newsweek published a map of the “safest US states to live during nuclear war”. The article was not reassuring. “Nowhere is truly ‘safe’” from such consequences as “contamination of food and water supplies and prolonged radiation exposure”, said the senior policy director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Another expert noted that “even a ‘small’ nuclear war…
If oil price shocks weren’t bad enough, Trump’s war could have other unintended consequences | Adam Hanieh
With the US-Israeli war against Iran in its second week, energy markets are in turmoil. On Thursday, the price of Brent Crude Oil topped $100, only slightly lower than the $119 peak per barrel on Monday. These swings have focused attention on key energy choke points such as the strait of Hormuz, where about one-fifth of the world’s shipped oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes each day. This shutdown of the strait will be felt in people’s everyday lives for months to come, particularly in the form of spiralling…
China’s foreign minister says Iran war ‘should never have happened’
War in the Middle East “should never have happened”, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has declared, even as he struck a more conciliatory tone with the US ahead of a highly anticipated visit by Donald Trump. Regime change, a key stated aim of the US president as the US and Israel continue to attack Iran, “will find no popular support”, Wang said on Sunday. “A strong fist does not mean strong reason. The world cannot return to the law of the jungle,” he added. Speaking on the sidelines of China’s…
‘Imperialist undertones’: global south condemns US-Israeli war with Iran
The US-Israeli war on Iran has been condemned as illegal across much of the global south, with China saying it was unacceptable to “blatantly kill the leader of a sovereign state”. Many countries objected that negotiations between the US and Iran over its nuclear programme and missile capability were not given a chance to succeed before Washington and Israel began bombing, and analysts often saw the war in terms of a colonial-style exercise of might. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, offered condolences over the killing of the Iranian supreme leader,…
Trump’s show of force in the Middle East creates a weakness China can exploit
As the US and Israel opened a new chapter of chaos in the Middle East, China stands to benefit from a Washington establishment that does not have the political or physical resources to focus on Asia. Officially, China has condemned the attacks. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, called them “unacceptable” and called for a ceasefire, rhetoric that is typical of Beijing in response to Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic foreign policy moves. Wang made similar comments after the US capture of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in January. The Chinese government…