opendemocracy.net

1 week ago | opendemocracy.net | Paul Rogers

Donald Trump’s decision to allow “two weeks” to decide whether the US will join in Israel’s assault on Iran may be an effort at conflict resolution via diplomacy, or may have more to do with waiting for a second aircraft carrier strike group, the USS Nimitz, to arrive in the Middle East next week. To give the US president the benefit of the doubt, he may genuinely hope to do some kind of deal with the Iranians.

2 weeks ago | opendemocracy.net | Paul Rogers

As tensions rise between Iran and the United States and Israel, the US has this week announced that it is reducing staff numbers in its embassy in Iraq, while US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has authorised the voluntary departure of dependents of military personnel right across the Middle East. Both moves came after the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, found Iran is not complying with its commitments to international nuclear safeguards.

3 weeks ago | opendemocracy.net | Paul Rogers

Labour’s new Strategic Defence Review was finally announced this week after numerous leaks. Keir Starmer was keen to present it as new thinking in facing up to new threats, but the message was hardly radical. Britain must be ready for war and rebuild its armed forces accordingly, the prime minister said, echoing Tory prime ministers and ministers before him. The review was not only rehashed and uninspired, it also completely overlooked by far the biggest threat to UK security.

1 month ago | opendemocracy.net | Paul Rogers

Conditions for Palestinians are getting progressively worse as Israel’s effort to control Gaza intensifies. Aware that his war can continue only as long as he has the backing of a highly unpredictable US president, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is ramping up efforts to bring the territory under total control as quickly as possible, whatever the human cost.

1 month ago | opendemocracy.net | Paul Rogers

As Gaza’s traumatised and grieving Palestinians continue to suffer Israel’s daily bombing and the collapse of food and medical supplies, the aim of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is clear. His government wants to clear the area of its population, whom it plans to replace with Jewish settlers. Gazans will first be herded into a grossly overcrowded area in the south-west of the Gaza Strip, close to the Egyptian border, and held in appalling conditions.