All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
From the modern metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk on the permafrosted northern coast and Khabarovsk on the Chinese border, for over a week now, Russian cities have been experiencing unprecedented interruptions to mobile internet coverage. Ostensibly for security reasons, the rumor mill has inevitably cranked out all kinds of alternative explanations, from
The politics of the Iranian war feature an observable gap between interest and action for nearly all parties. The Americans possessed overwhelming casus belli versus Iran for nearly half a century, and did not act upon it until three weeks past. The Iranians possessed none against America for just as long, but exerted themselves with
Iran’s most powerful leaders are being picked off one by one by Israeli and American military strikes. The latest scalp claimed by Israel is Ali Larjani, Iran’s security chief, and widely believed to be the most powerful figure in the present Iranian leadership. The reported killing comes just days after Larjani went on a public walkabout in Tehran,
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Freddy speaks to James D. Boys, author of the new book US Grand Strategy and the Madman Theory. He is also a senior research fellow at UCL. They discuss the origins of the madman theory – which applies insights from psychology to understand how your enemies think. James covers it from from Nixon to Trump
Supporters of regime change in Iran have long argued that if the United States and Israel weakened the country’s rulers then the Iranian people would finish the job. But the likely outcome is instead a wounded regime, one that emerges more paranoid, more repressive, and more convinced that only force ensures its survival. Iran has
Some readers may remember a particularly infamous episode of The Simpsons which saw the town of Springfield descend into anarchy during their annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. As the crowds thronged Main Street, a drunken brawl erupted, prompting a shocked TV newsreader to declare: “What you are seeing is a total disregard for the things
Something queer’s afoot in the Islamic Republic. As Mojtaba Khamenei was announced as Iran’s new Supreme Leader last week, reports emerged that his own father, the late ayatollah Ali Khamenei, didn’t want him to take power and even went as far as making this explicit in his will, according to the New York Post. Now,
I am sorry to hear of the death of Stanford University Professor of Biology Paul R. Ehrlich at the age of 93, but to read his writings you wonder whether it is an event he might actually want us to celebrate. It does, after all, mean one less mouth to feed. Just another 6.5 billion
As soon as Operation Epic Fury, America’s latest campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, got underway on the last day of February, political, military and economic minds around the world should have turned their attention to the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway provided the only shipping route from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf
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Freddy speaks to Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion and Spectator writer, about Trump’s SAVE Act – a bill to tackle voter integrity soon to be voted on in the Senate.
The results of this year’s Oscars were so predictable as to be entirely unexciting. Months ago, the pundits had called the major results: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Pynchon adaptation One Battle After Another to win Best Film and Best Director, Jessie Buckley to win Best Actress for Hamnet, Sinners to win Best Original Screenplay. It wasn’t
Last week, Rene Redzepi – often credited as having created the world’s greatest restaurant – stepped down amid explosive allegations of abuse. In my view, if the allegations of physical brutality are true, he should face criminal charges. Redzepi, founder and proprietor of Noma in Copenhagen, founded in 2003, wrote on Instagram about the recent
“Vanity of vanities… all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes had a point, but he never met a Luftwaffe fighter pilot. For the young Germans who hurled their Messerschmitts at enemy planes over the Channel, the Reich, and the Eastern Front, there was one object that could make them forget their odds of survival: a small iron cross,
While Americans anxiously watch the price of gasoline tick higher as the war in the Middle East squeezes the global oil supply, the conflict has highlighted another energy vulnerability that could prove just as costly: Taiwan’s dependency on foreign natural gas. At first blush, energy issues an ocean away seem peripheral to American interests. They
Remember Signalgate? It was quite the story, and worth revisiting now in light of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and its dire implications for the global economy. In March last year, Donald Trump’s then National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, somehow added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a
Thomas Massie’s predicament, as he fends off a Trump-backed challenger – and Trump himself – in the Republican primary for his seat in Congress, is symbolic of the vexed relationship libertarians have with the right these days. Massie was not only a Tea Party Republican when he was first elected in 2012, he was a
Sir Keir Starmer wants everyone to know how sorry, really sorry, he is for giving Lord Mandelson the job of Ambassador to the United States. On a visit to Belfast yesterday, the British Prime Minister issued his latest and perhaps most abject mea culpa so far. It came just hours after the publication of embarrassing
I’ve been thinking a lot about the phrase “unprovoked war.” It’s been rolling off leftist tongues since the explosion of hostilities in Iran. This week, Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana and scores of hoary peaceniks wrote a letter to the Guardian insisting Britain should have nothing to do with America and Israel’s “unprovoked war” in Iran.
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
The Islamic Republic in Iran is not only at war with the United States and Israel. For years, the country’s government has been waging war on Iranian culture. Music, poetry, storytelling, dogs, dancing, singing, art, dice and card games, romance, tolerance and the honoring of women are central to Persian culture and its ancient history.
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
Those for whom the welfare state does not provide as much welfare as they would like might care to reflect on the plight of the Romans, for whom there was no such thing as the welfare state. A superb monograph by Kim Bowes, Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent, drawing on papyrus
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
“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
I am glad that BBC Radio 4 is producing a series called How Reading Made Us, presented by the subtle, super-literate Times of London columnist James Marriott. I must declare an interest. Roughly 98 percent of my earnings over 45 years have depended on the fact that plenty of people like reading. Now we are
A Labour MP, reflecting on the problems UK Prime Minister faces over the war in Iran, observed: “Keir got it right, but things keep going wrong.” His point was that Starmer kept Britain out of the Israeli-American air strikes, a position popular both with the parliamentary Labour party and the electorate, yet the impact of
The Communities Secretary Steve Reed recently rose in the House of Commons to unveil “Protecting What Matters,” the British government’s new “action plan” to “strengthen social cohesion” and “tackle division.” According to the accompanying press release: “Millions of families, friends and neighbors will feel a stronger sense of community, unity and national pride thanks to
“That’s really meta,” said my husband, attempting to imitate a stoned hippie at a festival, but only achieving his usual character role of a tipsy retired major in a Hampstead saloon bar. I had been trying to pin down what people think they mean by meta. The dominant element is the self-referential, as in a
“I want to learn Iranian,” said my father, resolutely, as he watched the bombing on TV. “Farsi,” I said, thinking I would talk to him about that very happily on the basis it was better than helping him contact the Ukrainian government so he can fight the Russians. “What’s that?” he said. “Farsi,” I repeated.
Q. I’m getting married next year and, instead of having a wedding list, my boyfriend and I would like to ask for donations toward our honeymoon. We are aiming to travel to South Korea with any proceeds. My future mother-in-law has said it would be very rude to ask people for money, but the problem
I recently delivered a speech to mark the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s second-best book: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The year 1776 was a momentous one for many reasons. It saw the installation of James Watt’s first steam engine, the recognition of Captain Cook by the Royal
I’m thinking of becoming a magistrate. Before applying, I was advised to attend a few sessions and find out how it all works. My first case was a bag theft from a London pub. The accused, an Algerian football ace, pleaded guilty through an interpreter. The court heard that his glittering football career had been
I’m conscious that, just as the easiest way to lose an argument is to mention Hitler, so the easiest way to lose journalistic credibility is to invoke the 1930s. Yet the similarities to our own dismal decade are now too numerous to ignore. There is the same collection of morbid symptoms: the rise of strongmen,
