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"'This has been a bad week for the Army for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution,' one commander at Fort Bragg told @militarydotcom.bsky.social on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. 'This was shameful.'" www.military.com/daily-news/2...

submitted 27 minutes ago • 2 comments

On further steps Iran might take after the IAEA censure vote: "Sources in Tehran indicated to @amwajmedia.bsky.social that the 'special measures' may include the expulsion of foreign inspectors. Such a step would be a major escalation and potentially cross US red lines." amwaj.media/en/article/i...

submitted 44 minutes ago • 0 comments

The US embassy in Israel today instructed staff and their families not to travel outside greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be'er Sheva. It issued similar restrictions in April and October last year after the Iranian ballistic-missile attacks on Israel

submitted 5 hours ago • 0 comments

Exactly right: "Regardless of the location, it is hard to see why Saudi Arabia would entertain a significant nuclear partnership with Iran—let alone one that hands the Islamic republic dominance over a sector the kingdom is keen to develop and control." amwaj.media/en/article/d...

submitted 6 hours ago • 0 comments

One other thing: worth noting that US media leaks overnight were non-specific. No intel about Israel taking operational steps for an imminent strike. Just that it was "considering military action" or "fully ready" to strike, which is common knowledge www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-...

submitted 7 hours ago • 0 comments

Don't have a clear answer what's happening with US/Iran (no one who's talking about it publicly does!) but will just say that last night's news can be, simultaneously, a stunt to pressure Iran to make concessions and the kind of concrete step you'd take before military action

submitted 8 hours ago • 2 comments

A trade war run by ideologues and buffoons: "[Chinese] exports have risen by 6% overall, owing to increased shipments to Europe and South-East Asia. China's currency, meanwhile, is stronger now against the dollar than it was before April 2nd." www.economist.com/finance-and-...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

All of the "flaws" here were entirely predictable. "The military and GHF had prepared for smaller crowds than the tens of thousands who have come to the sites" — what on earth did they expect, setting up only a handful of centers to serve 2m people? www.wsj.com/world/middle...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Well, this explains that Tucker Carlson tweet denouncing Levin last week (and the claim is indeed untrue: it conflates enriching some weapons-grade uranium with building a nuclear weapon)

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

As ever with Trump, this could be a very newsworthy admission or it could be meaningless word salad, and there's really no way to be sure which it is www.reuters.com/world/middle...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Couple of thoughts here, beyond pointless hand-wringing about how this is an enormous breach of diplomatic norms (🫠). If Huckabee is personally intervening to try and save the Israeli government, it tells you how worried Netanyahu is about losing his coalition www.timesofisrael.com/us-ambassado...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

"Every day, we lose more ways to survive. My son is only asking for the bare minimum — a loaf of bread. We're not asking for proper housing or clothes or even meat. All we want is a loaf of bread to stop the children's crying. Is that too much to ask?" www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/w...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

In the 1980s Israel allowed an Islamist group in Gaza to start gathering weapons, in the hope that it would fight Fatah, Israel's main enemy at the time. That group went on to become Hamas. Glad to see everyone has learned the right lessons from history www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/w...

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

The GHF ignored weeks of warnings that its model would mean overwhelming crowds. And then the inevitable result: "Senior commanders had considered managing the crowds through the use of live fire. 'The intent was to direct the population using gunfire.'" www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

The idea that Russia might "be helpful" on Iran talks has been floated for months. There's not much evidence it's actually happening. But it's useful for Putin to keep the idea alive in Trump's mind

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Iran shipped less oil to China in May, at least according to preliminary data, but it seems unclear how much of that is due to tighter sanctions and how much is down to weak demand + refiners that stockpiled Iranian oil earlier in the year. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Will the UAE break OPEC? "It is only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia and the UAE openly clash. A descent into disorder, fuelled by conflict between OPEC’s largest and third-largest exporters, could then make the cartel unworkable." www.economist.com/finance-and-...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

"As leaders from Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh competed to pledge trillions of dollars for US investments during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East, bankers behind the scenes quietly agreed: Saudi Arabia isn’t the draw it once was." www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Good @hdagres.bsky.social analysis on how Araghchi is COPYING Trump's communication style, down to his weird Capitalizations: "Since the current talks began, he has methodically cultivated a narrative designed to catch the ear of Trump and his base." www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analy...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

If you force large crowds of desperate people to congregate in a war zone in the hope they can obtain scarce aid, it's going to end badly. This isn't just an issue of needing better signage or fences or something. It's a problem with the entire GHF concept www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-aid-gro...

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

"What awaits them is suffocating overcrowding, one of the densest concentrations of human beings in the world. Unlike in other heavily populated urban settings, such as the slums of south Asia, there is no sanitation and no running water." www.ft.com/content/ba6e...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

This sounds as if someone got really creative and proposed building the enrichment facility on the Tunbs or Abu Musa, where theoretically both Iran and the UAE could claim it was on their soil www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/u...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Israel for the past six months: we will work to prevent the new Syrian government from having any authority in the south Israel, yesterday: why doesn't the new Syrian government have any authority in the south? www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_ent...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

The same issues as ever: "A senior Hamas official said the deal contradicted previous discussions between the group and Witkoff. The official told the BBC that the offer did not include guarantees the temporary truce would lead to a permanent ceasefire." www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

So an obscure court blocked most of Trump's tariffs, but he can use a different authority to reinstate limited tariffs for five months and start laying the groundwork for open-ended ones on big trading partners. Great news for businesses, who famously love chaos and uncertainty

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

I mean, it's possible they agree to something in the coming weeks (although it will be far short of a formal nuclear deal). But this is also just how Trump talks: excessive, unwarranted optimism about dealmaking is kind of his thing edition.cnn.com/2025/05/28/p...

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

For all of Witkoff's optimism yesterday, the sticking points here are basically the same as always. Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire in Gaza; Israel does not. Hamas wants to keep hostages as leverage until the end of the deal; Israel wants them out immediately.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Day one of the new "aid mechanism": maybe 2% of Gazan families were able to collect food parcels before thousands of hungry people overran one of the distribution centers and forced it to close temporarily. www.timesofisrael.com/gazans-overr...

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

On the one hand, yes, this is Israel's "diplomatic nadir". But even at the nadir it's still getting kid-glove treatment: its Western allies are searching for symbolic measures to show their displeasure, not ways to impose real consequences. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/w...

submitted 16 days ago • 3 comments

In which the director of the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" finally discovers what should have been clear months ago to anyone who did a modicum of due diligence www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

If Trump really wants the horror show in Gaza to end "as quickly as possible", he can tell Netanyahu to end it. Otherwise these sorts of comments are no different than all of the "Biden is fed up with Bibi, for real this time" leaks from last year www.axios.com/2025/05/26/t...

submitted 17 days ago • 4 comments

Think Rubio was exaggerating quite a bit when he said Syria was weeks from "full-scale civil war of epic proportions" without sanctions relief. But if that's what it takes to sell the policy and give it some urgency, then exaggerate away, guys www.wsj.com/world/middle...

submitted 22 days ago • 5 comments

Headline is dramatic but the details aren't. Israel has been making preparations to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities for years: common knowledge. This reads like a leak aimed at pressuring the Iranians, not a sign that Israel's preparations have accelerated edition.cnn.com/2025/05/20/p...

submitted 22 days ago • 2 comments

More details about the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation", the dodgy group meant to take over aid distribution. It claims to have raised $100m, but won't name its donors; and one of the prominent humanitarian figures listed as a "board member" says he is not, in fact, on the board.

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

A trickle of aid entered Gaza. But the UN says Israel hasn't yet allowed it to collect that aid from the Palestinian side of the border crossing. So nothing has been distributed yet www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

"Perhaps there will be a last-minute compromise. Without it, the coming weeks will be bleak. Netanyahu says he will end the war only once he has 'total victory'. Total devastation for Gaza and isolation for Israel are more likely." www.economist.com/middle-east-...

submitted 23 days ago • 4 comments

"Crypto has not just facilitated fraud, money-laundering and other financial crime on a gargantuan scale. It has also developed a grubby relationship with the White House that outstrips any other industry. Crypto has become the ultimate swamp asset." www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

submitted 26 days ago • 5 comments

This by @hooks.bsky.social, about Trump's Greenland fixation, is a thoughtful musing on his second term and this moment of frenetic ferment in American politics. "Why are the Americans doing this? My worry is that the answer is simple: We're bored." newrepublic.com/article/1947...

submitted 26 days ago • 7 comments

"The general feeling among Palestinians all over Gaza, not just Beit Lahiya, is that Hamas doesn't care about their lives or suffering. The general feeling is that Hamas cares more about its own survival." www.wsj.com/world/middle...

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

Insanity. Skeptical that there's a serious "plan" (rather than spitballing). But the underlying premise is correct: the Trump administration has spent months approaching various countries to see if it could bribe them into helping out with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment