France will expel two Iranian diplomats after Tehran’s security services detained and interrogated two French Embassy staffers last month, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced Tuesday evening.
The row dates back to July 19, when two French Embassy employees in Tehran — one of them the cultural attaché — were questioned for several hours and “beaten,” according to Barrot. Paris accused Iranian security services of carrying out a “premeditated and deliberate” act of intimidation in “flagrant violation” of diplomatic protections, summoning Iran’s chargé d’affaires two days later.
“It is precisely because France stands alongside the Iranian people” that the July 19 incident was especially outrageous, Barrot wrote on X Tuesday. The two French diplomats were “scandalously and deliberately assaulted,” he said, calling their treatment “intolerable.”
Tehran disputes that account. Iran’s foreign ministry says the French diplomats violated the Vienna Convention through activities it considers interference in Iranian affairs and has since declared both persona non grata, barring them from returning to Iran after they left the country.
French foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux hit back Tuesday, accusing Tehran of making “completely false accusations” against the French diplomats and of “fabricating an interference case” to justify its actions.
Over the last couple of weeks, hackers have targeted and broken into the systems of several water plants in the United States. Here’s what we know and don’t know about this wave of attacks allegedly carried out by the Iranian government.
The USS Abraham Lincoln deployed in the Arabian Sea on April 16, 2026. | US Navy via Getty Images
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: The cracks are starting to show in President Donald Trump’s Iran campaign.
What’s happening? Conditions on a US warship deployed in the Middle East have grown so dire, multiple sailors have reportedly tried to go overboard (at least one did so but was rescued safely, according to CNN).
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier has been deployed for more than 250 days, starting last November, including a stretch of more than 200 days at sea — a modern record. Its deployment was supposed to end months ago, in May, but has continued as Trump’s Iran war stretches on.
How is the administration responding? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that reports about conditions on the Lincoln are “completely misrepresented.” Help is on the way for the Lincoln, though, with another US aircraft carrier en route to the area to replace it (according to the Wall Street Journal, the replacement was already planned, and not in response to deteriorating conditions on the Lincoln).
Why does this matter? Conditions on the Lincoln are not the only recent stumbling block for the US war with Iran. Earlier this month, we learned more about the US’s increasingly serious shortages of key offensive and defensive missiles, including THAAD and Patriot interceptors used to protect US troops and allies. On top of that, the Washington Post reported Thursday that the US has run through around a quarter of its Reaper drones, which cost tens of millions of dollars apiece.
It’s the latest example of how the math of the war is starting to slant against the US: Reaper drones and Patriot missiles are incredibly expensive, while Iran has figured out how to mass-produce attack drones on the cheap. And with no end in sight, shortages and situations like the Lincoln will only become a larger problem.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Here’s some good news from my colleague Adam Clark Estes: As wrecked as your attention span may feel, it’s not permanently degraded. He talked with attention experts to figure out how to repair his, and how we can all do the same. You can read his full story here with a gift link — and then, for all of our brains’ sake, let’s log off. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.
President Donald Trump denied Tuesday that he played a role in orchestrating a dramatic ruse to secretly switch planes to depart Turkey in early July, following reports that most of the decoy plane’s passengers were unaware of the move.
“It’s only up to Secret Service,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Ohio. “I just follow what they like to do.”
The clandestine operation, first reported by The Washington Post on Monday, involved the president being covertly shuttled off an Air Force One jet to a smaller military plane by an airport catering truck.
The switch took place after the president boarded the traditional jet in front of television cameras. Journalists and many administration staff who remained on Air Force One were unaware of the switch and their role as unwitting decoys, The Post reported.
Trump claimed at the time that he was riding the recently retired Air Force One jet — instead of a Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-800 which the president flew into Ankara on — for “old time’s sake.” But subsequent news reports suggested the Secret Service had become aware of an Iranian threat, leading to the older jet to be used. The flight out of Turkey on July 8 occurred just a day after the U.S. renewed military strikes on Iran after the collapse of peace talks.
Trump then reboarded the older jet to descend its stairs upon his arrival to the United Kingdom, though the Post story was unable to determine how he reentered the plane.
Trump on Tuesday didn’t elaborate much on the threat, telling reporters: “I guess there was a threat out here. I really didn’t ask too much.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the White House Correspondents’ Association said it had expressed concerns to administration officials about how the subterfuge impaired reporters’ ability to report on the president’s movements and their safety, CNN reported.
But, Trump argued Tuesday that he believed the plane he was flying on was “at greater risk because that would be the plane that they would be more likely to go for.”
The originally represented decision to travel on the older Air Force One jet instead of the Qatari-gifted plane raised questions about the security of the newer plane. The Trump administration subpoenaed reporters for The New York Times over their reporting around the security of the plane, but later withdrew it after the Times challenged the demands in courts.
U.S. allies see Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of Washington’s 15-point plan for Gaza as undermining confidence in the Board of Peace — and in the Trump administration’s ability to influence the Middle East more broadly.
It increasingly appears that the U.S. either doesn’t have — or isn’t willing to exercise — the leverage needed to deliver on Gaza, a number of diplomats and others familiar with U.S. strategy in the region told POLITICO. And that has them concerned about U.S. efforts at negotiations across the region.
“Netanyahu’s rejection of the peace plan carries significant implications for long-term regional stability and Israeli security,” said an Arab diplomat familiar with U.S. policy in the Middle East. “President Trump is the only one to have the potential to influence this situation, as he could seek to reassert his political relevance by pressuring Netanyahu to reconsider his position.”
Netanyahu’s defiance adds to the growing list of woes Washington faces as it struggles to reshape the Middle East, from ending the Iran war to winding down the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Arab diplomat warned: “Arab and regional leaders may find themselves in a complex position, needing to balance their interests amid these evolving dynamics.”
Netanyahu disavowed the White House-backed peace plan for Gaza on Sunday, declaring that Israel requires Hamas to have “genuinely disarmed” before it withdraws its troops from the territory. That hard line could further threaten the viability of Trump’s Board of Peace, a 27-country initiative formed as part of Trump’s deal last year to end the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The Board of Peace has a distinct limp to its gait at the moment,” said Robert Jordan, who served as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the George W. Bush administration.
“It never appeared to be a broadly based, highly viable substitute for the United Nations,” he added, referring to Trump’s assertions in January that the board could be used as an alternative to the world body. “That’s compounded by the political situation in Israel at the moment.”
The Board of Peace declined to comment, but an official with the organization insisted that work is continuing apace, with Israel’s buy-in. The official pointed to a logistical support area under construction that is meant to serve hundreds of troops expected to deploy to Gaza as part of the international stabilization force envisioned by the board.
“The roadmap is between the Board of Peace and Hamas,” said the board official. “Separate discussions with Israel are continuing. Israel is not being asked to rely on trust or to make irreversible moves before verified steps are taken on the ground.”
The official, like others, was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiation process.
A Western diplomat familiar with Middle East policy argued Netanyahu’s action is a sign that U.S. strategy toward Israel is misguided.
“This latest rejection once again shows that appeasing Israel only leads to more maximalist demands,” the diplomat said. “I don’t think it kills the [Board of Peace] but what it does do is once again show that Israel remains one of the obstacles to a viable two-state solution.”
Trump has avoided clashing publicly with Netanyahu over the roadmap, telling reporters Monday that he had a “good relationship” with the Israeli prime minister even though Netanyahu rejected the U.S. proposal. The White House declined to comment further on Israel’s rejection of the deal.
A Trump administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the White House doesn’t see Netanyahu’s action as derailing the peace process at all.
“Broadly speaking, we see this as election-posturing by Bibi for a domestic audience,” the official said. “The [Board of Peace] has actually been getting good cooperation on the ground as of late. So that’s what’s important.”
Netanyahu’s rejection of the road map comes as his popularity has been eroding in Israel ahead of an October parliamentary vote that could lead to his unseating.
In Europe, some governments are still holding out hope that the Board of Peace can rescue the Gaza peace process.
“I extremely appreciate the work of chief negotiator [Nickolay] Mladenov on behalf of the Board of Peace, his achievements in the 15-point plan are absolutely substantial,” said Hildegard Bentele, a center-right German lawmaker in the European Parliament. He said he was confident the U.S.-led effort would make progress “if re-submitted after Israeli elections and targeting the core point of full weapons’ decommissioning.”
Others with experience in the region said that Netanyahu appeared to be successfully pushing the Board of Peace in a direction more favorable to Israel.
Netanyahu’s actions are “testing the tolerance of the American or Board of Peace team,” said Nimrod Novik, who served as senior diplomatic adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and is now a fellow at the New York-based Israel Policy Forum.
“It’s really a Trump personal enterprise,” said Zaha Hassan, who advised the Palestinian negotiating team during its bid for U.N. membership from 2010 to 2012 and is now a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “So if it can’t get Israel to stand down in Gaza, to withdraw, to allow the Board of Peace to do its work, how can any other regional actor believe that the U.S. can restrain Israel in their neighborhood?”
A European diplomat said the disillusionment with Trump’s sway in the Middle East was already evident in his failure to wrap up the war in Iran quickly.
“The solution is not as close as anticipated or as Trump told us at some point. I think Trump is losing credibility,” said the diplomat, granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “Everything seems to be in limbo and in a high degree of uncertainty that affects us all.”
Jerry Wu, Megan Messerly, Myah Ward and Nicholas Vinocur contributed to this report.
Last month, President Donald Trump visited Turkey for a fairly banal reason: a routine NATO summit. But when the president left the country on July 8, he took a secret route home. As he left, the White House reported he was on Air Force One. Trump even made a big show of boarding the plane in front of cameras before later sneaking out the back. But he was really on a different plane, unbeknownst to the public and many in his entourage.
To get people off the trail, Trump even posted on his social media site Truth Social, “For old time’s sake, we’ll be taking the former Air Force One, from Turkey to Mildenhall, a short trip that is totally worth doing in order to give our Great Military Heroes a chance to appreciate our beautiful new addition to the Air Force Fleet!”
Trump was referring to the “flying palace” — the Boeing 747-8 gifted last year to the Trump admin by Qatar, in what has widely been characterized as a bribe — which he took to get there. Instead of leaving on either that jet or “former” Air Force One, the president secretly hopped into an airport catering truck and shuttled to an Air Force C-32A, a smaller military plane.
The clandestine mission was first reported by the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources who say the move fooled some journalists and some White House staff members “who believed they were on the same plane as the president.”
The breakdown in negotiations to end the war with Iran at the time is cited as the reason for Trump’s hide and seek charade, fearing some sort of attack. Such behavior is rare for U.S. presidents.
“In the first hours after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush administration officials did not immediately disclose the president’s whereabouts, saying only that he had been taken to an ‘undisclosed location,” the Post reported. “But they did not say he was somewhere he was not, and within hours officials revealed that he had been flown to a military facility in Nebraska.”
The same week that Trump switched planes, the New York Times, citing anonymous officials, reported that the Qatari-gifted Air Force One lacks the defensive countermeasures of the previous model. The White House later subpoenaed the Times journalists over the report, demanding to know who disclosed the information, and even brought FBI Director Kash Patel into the investigation. The subpoenas were later withdrawn.
BERLIN — Europe is scrambling for more Patriot interceptors to donate to an increasingly desperate Ukraine, which is racing to reinforce its ballistic missile defenses before Russia’s expected winter assault.
Kyiv is seeking hundreds of interceptors, but new production will come too late, the war with Iran has strained U.S. supplies, and several of Ukraine’s leading European backers say they have few left that they can safely donate.
“Over the last few months, Russia fires more missiles a week at us than we get from partners over months,” former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week. In July, Ukrainian air defense intercepted only 29 out of 195 Russian ballistic missiles, with another 40 failing to reach their targets, Ukraine’s defense ministry said.
Germany, one of Ukraine’s top military aid donors, has already transferred Patriot systems and missiles to Ukraine. But Berlin must now balance Kyiv’s increasingly urgent needs against the minimum stocks required to protect Germany and meet its NATO commitments. Other European countries are also weighing whether to hang on to their interceptors or give them to Ukraine.
“We are really reaching our limits here,” Brig. Gen. Jürgen Schrödl, a senior German defense ministry official, said at a panel in Berlin shortly after last month’s NATO summit in Ankara. “We also have to ensure our own protection.”
Berlin and other Northern European capitals have urged counterparts elsewhere on the continent to examine what more military equipment and financial support they could release.
“I think it’s not sustainable for Europe in the long run,” Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik told POLITICO. “All the European countries have to step up.”
That’s putting pressure on countries with stocks of Patriot interceptors like Poland, Spain and Greece. The shortage primarily concerns Patriot PAC-3 and PAC-2 missiles, which are among Ukraine’s few effective defenses against fast-moving Russian ballistic weapons.
Ukraine can use other, often cheaper, air-defense systems against drones and cruise missiles. The country is racing to develop its homegrown Freyja interceptor, but the anti-ballistic system still requires investment, engineering work and testing before it can fill that role.
Until Freyja is ready, Ukraine needs an immediate answer to Russia’s ballistic missiles. “One of the priority directions is Patriot — PAC-3 or PAC-2,” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, told POLITICO. “The first [solution] is buying, or receiving from stockpiles, PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptors.”
Stuck in Washington
The Patriot dependence makes U.S. President Donald Trump essential to Kyiv: Most PAC-3 interceptors are produced in America, which means their sale and any production deals are subject to White House decisions.
During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump last month, “The main topic was Patriot interceptors,” according to a senior official familiar with the talks.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump speak on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey on July 8, 2026. | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Trump raised hopes at the Ankara summit when he said Ukraine would be allowed to produce U.S.-designed Patriot interceptors under license — a step that could eventually reduce Kyiv’s dependence on scarce American deliveries.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker made clear that production would not solve the immediate shortage.
“A long-term production agreement will not be concluded before this winter,” he told Fox Business, and manufacturing the first missiles would take longer still.
But Trump has now walked that back, last week saying: “We have not agreed to that. We’re talking about it. But it’s a hard thing to give away, that kind of technology.”
Following a Reuters report that the U.S. had almost exhausted its missile stocks thanks to the war against Iran, Trump is now focusing on rebuilding U.S. supplies. Asked on Thursday about Zelenskyy’s calls for more Patriot missiles, he said: “We want missiles too.”
Ukraine has also signed a deal to get PAC-2 interceptors being made in Germany, but they are unlikely to arrive before next year.
Faced with a shortage of interceptors, Kyiv is now looking at a more aggressive campaign to hit Russian launchers.
“The Russians must understand that a few minutes after the launch, the entire team that launches the rocket must die from our ballistic missile,” Fedorov said.
Europe’s unbalanced effort
That puts the immediate burden on Europe, where allies are once again searching their own arsenals — and one another’s — for interceptors that could reach Ukraine before winter.
Germany supplied three Patriot systems from its own military stocks and subsequently arranged two more through a deal under which the U.S. would replenish the Bundeswehr. The Netherlands assembled the components for another complete system, including five launchers, a radar and missiles.
But with stocks now stretched thin, governments face limits of their own.
Warsaw confirmed in July that it had released several PAC-3 interceptors after requests from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and senior U.S. commanders. Polish outlet Defence24 reported that just five missiles were transferred.
Mark Rutte speaks at a press conference ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara on July 6, 2026. | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Even that triggered a political backlash. Opposition lawmakers accused the government of weakening the country’s defenses at a time when Russian missiles and drones have repeatedly strayed across its border.
Countries closer to Russia are now becoming less likely to give up existing Patriots because their armed forces already regarded their air defenses as insufficient for national requirements, according to a European diplomat granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic contacts.
That is shifting attention toward Southern European countries, which have contributed less to Ukraine than Germany and many Northern European donors.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed in 2024 that Madrid was sending missiles to Ukraine, but the government has not disclosed their type or amount.
Spain’s defense ministry did not respond to a question from POLITICO whether it had recently been approached for more interceptors or was considering another transfer. It instead pointed to Spain’s wider military support for Ukraine and its NATO commitments.
Greece — which traditionally sees fellow NATO member Turkey as its greatest security threat — has not announced any Patriot transfers to Ukraine. Greek media reported in July that Ukraine had requested as many as 200 older PAC-2 interceptors from Athens.
The Greek defense ministry did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Prying open Europe’s arsenals
This isn’t the first time European allies have had to cobble together Patriot missile deliveries from their own limited stocks.
At a February meeting, Ukraine’s Fedorov said he and Rutte worked through a list of interceptors held by European allies, asking governments for whatever they could spare.
“Dear defense minister of Poland, can you give us five?” Fedorov recalled in this week’s interview.
Berlin offered to top up the effort. “If you get 20 out of all the countries, I’ll give you an extra five,” Fedorov quoted German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as saying. “That’s the exercise we had to perform to get more than 20. And it is a hard mission.”
Kyiv is continuing those types of talks with its allies.
“Of course, Ukrainian diplomats have been working with Spain, Greece and everyone in the world who has [PACs],” said the senior official familiar with the talks. “Everything depends on the U.S., and the lack of political will to help influences everyone else.”
“The American administration could have helped, but they don’t do this. And as the result it’s been hard with everyone else,” they added.
For Kyiv, the arguments over allied stockpiles are unfolding against a ticking clock. With demand for PAC-3 interceptors surging in the Middle East, the Pentagon replenishing its own stock and many European countries worrying about their own ability to fend off a future Russian attack, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine was struggling to buy, exchange or secure any available rounds.
“We are literally fighting for every missile,” Sybiha said.
One of our great doctrines here in the Editors’ Blog is that all power is unitary. Lose or gain it in one place, and you lose or gain it in equal measure everywhere else. That’s catching up with Donald Trump. He got into the Iran War as a way to escape the emotionally crushing experience of declining popularity and power at home. But his ebbing power went with him to the Persian Gulf. And now it’s arrived in Israel, too. This was obscured for a while by the fact that the U.S. has almost unimaginable military power and a constitution which, as it has evolved if not how it was originally intended, puts almost no short-term limits on a president’s ability to wage war. But the two were always umbilically connected. It was the pain of bad news at home that spurred Trump to jump so recklessly into his Iran debacle. And it is the same unpopularity that has him so desperate to end high gas prices and inflation before the midterms. They’re all connected.
Trump has no poker face. To live in Trump’s era is not only to see his inner life but to be engulfed by it. It’s hard to think of a case in which the deciding player between warring powers has more clearly signaled his desperate desire to get out of a conflict on almost any terms. The Iranians have internet too. And they can see all of this. They have now issued a fresh set of new demands: end sanctions, leave the region, pay reparations, release frozen assets and more — in addition to make the Strait of Hormuz a permanent Iranian toll road. More or less total capitulation.
BERLIN — Europe’s reserves of natural gas are running dangerously low, risking fresh energy woes if the Iran war rages on and cold spells drive up heating demand over winter.
But the continent’s top energy user doesn’t seem too bothered.
Germany is the EU’s biggest vulnerability because its sheer size means gas shortfalls there could be felt in neighboring countries, driving up prices across the bloc if it fails to restore its reserves.
That’s prompted growing calls for Berlin to do the unthinkable: intervene outright to direct its state-controlled energy giants to buy gas at any price, abandoning years of free-market doctrine on energy policy.
So far, the government has refused to budge, even as it falls short of EU targets and faces the risk of physical supply shortages as early as November. It’s a gamble that the markets will figure everything out, even as war and hot weather distort traditional incentives and upend global supply chains.
“Storage levels are not only exceptionally low for this time of year, but historically low,” said Sebastian Heinermann, the managing director of Germany’s top gas storage association, INES.
But Germany, he warned, is still relying on an outdated, market-oriented approach to refill its reserves, even when there are “hardly any market-economic incentives left.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, EU countries have been required to hit gas storage targets of 90 percent of national capacity by winter to prevent serious supply shortfalls. The EU lowered that target to 80 percent following the outbreak of the Iran war to prevent panic buying.
Typically, refilling is the responsibility of traders and utilities, which buy gas cheap in the summer to store and then sell in the winter for a profit. But buyers say higher summer prices as a result of the Iran war and climate change have upended that dynamic, leaving gas reserves across the bloc at around 58 percent of national capacity, 16 percentage points below the five-year historical average and the lowest level since 2011.
The low reserves have already added to the increased pressure on gas prices linked to renewed tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, with the European natural gas benchmark now consistently higher than it was for the first four months of the Iran war.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has said the bloc faces no winter supply risks. But a report by energy analytics firm Rapidan projects that reserves will rise to only 65 percent of total storage capacity by November, arguing that hitting the EU’s target by winter won’t be possible without “materially higher prices.”
That risk has been exacerbated, analysts say, by the bloc’s move in recent years to replace its long-term supply deals with Russia with short-term purchases of globally traded liquefied natural gas. These seaborne cargoes are highly mobile and go to the highest bidder — leaving buyers more exposed to volatility on international markets, especially in the wake of the loss of key supplies from Qatar and rising demand in Asia.
A tanker passes through the Strait of Hormuz on Feb. 25, 2026. | Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
Germany, the bloc’s largest gas consumer, has seen its reserves fill up even more slowly than others, in part thanks to its more hands-off, market-led approach to restocking than many of its neighbors. As a result, reserves stood at only 47 percent of national capacity in August, according to the latest data — the lowest fill level since records began. That’s especially worrying as the country’s reserves are important for the bloc as a whole, representing over 20 percent of the EU’s storage capacity.
Nevertheless, Berlin is staying the course. While its energy ministry has acknowledged the country’s historically low reserves, it has refused to intervene to direct its main state-controlled gas buyers, SEFE and Uniper, to buy gas at current prices to ensure its targets are met, instead of waiting for market conditions to improve.
“It is the responsibility of companies and traders to fill the storage facilities for the winter,” a spokesperson for the German energy ministry told POLITICO. “Government-led filling of the storage facilities would further constrain the gas market and drive prices even higher. The supply situation over the coming months would actually deteriorate.”
Whether this is the right approach will become clearer by winter, said Laurent Ruseckas, a senior gas analyst at S&P Global. If temperatures are unseasonably low, traders may be forced to buy additional supplies at late notice, driving up prices, especially if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. On the other hand, intervening could raise prices prematurely if winter turns out to be mild.
“If you start buying now to get storage to some politically predetermined level you’re making prices higher now to get insurance that you won’t get higher prices in the winter when it’s cold,” said Ruseckas.
Germany’s reluctance to move quickly also highlights the difficulty the EU’s fragmented energy sector has in competing with more centralized Asian economies that have acted more quickly to secure supplies, consistently outbidding European countries even as their reserves run low.
Others warn that physical supply strains are also possible. Heinermann, of INES, warned that even filling the country’s reserves to 76 percent of capacity — which SEFE says is achievable — would not necessarily meet its supply needs if winter is “exceptionally cold.” That could ripple out to neighboring countries to which Germany is treaty-bound to provide emergency gas assistance, including Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Denmark.
Heinermann called on the German government to encourage faster restocking by lowering network charges at storage facilities or abolishing the conversion levy, fees imposed for the conversion of gas on national grids. Berlin has already unveiled plans for a new emergency gas stockpile, but that will only cover 10 percent of the country’s gas capacity and kick off officially next summer.
It’s no surprise that other major gas consumers have already waded into the private sector. The Netherlands, another free-market champion suffering from low gas reserves, earlier this summer allocated €1.2 billion for its state energy company, EBN, to more swiftly top up its reserves.
But Berlin’s energy giants are sticking to their guns — for now.
A spokesperson for SEFE told POLITICO that even though “international conflicts” could weigh on European storage levels, the 70 percent target “remains achievable” without intervention. He pointed out that 78 percent of German storage capacity has already been booked, though acknowledged that doesn’t necessarily translate to actual volumes of gas stored.
Regulatory measures could be useful if “necessary” but could distort markets and increase costs, he added, without specifying what.
A Uniper spokesperson was less confident, warning it would be “increasingly challenging to reach the target storage levels before the winter season starts” at the current rate of filling. But she too stopped short of calling for intervention, arguing instead for better incentives for refilling — mirroring growing calls from gas lobbyists in Brussels to scrap the rules outright.
Most of Donald Trump’s success in politics has stemmed from his reputation as a savvy dealmaker. But in his 11 years on the national political scene, that has been exposed as a fiction — a persona invented by Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter for the president’s bestselling book “The Art of The Deal,” who followed him around for 18 months and realized in the process that no one would want to read a book about the real Trump.
After Trump announced his run for president in 2015, Schwartz told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer he felt deep remorse for creating this erroneous image of Trump, saying if he wrote the book today, he would call it “The Sociopath.” He said, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”
His words were startling, to say the least, but Schwartz’s description of the president’s true personality was revelatory. The man who touted himself as the world’s greatest dealmaker was a pathologically dishonest hype artist with the attention span of a four-year-old, described by Schwartz as having “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance” who seemed “driven entirely by a need for public attention.” His alleged negotiation prowess was actually nonexistent, as the multiple failures of his businesses should have made clear.
In Trump’s first administration, it became obvious that his idea of dealmaking consisted of willingly succumbing to flattery by malevolent actors and ineffectually bellowing at allies. Professional diplomatic and national security advisers managed to steer him away from most disasters, although he commonly embarrassed the nation on the world stage by displaying his ignorance and fondness for sucking up to adversaries.
Trump’s second term is a whole other story.
The president has confused his “Art of the Deal” with the art of diplomacy, and they are most definitely not the same thing. Even if he were actually talented at the former, which he is not, it would have no bearing on the latter, and the consequences of that are turning out to be substantial and damaging. By this point, it’s a cliché that Trump is “transactional,” which many (if not most) people understand to mean he is negotiating on behalf of the American people, bringing riches and security to the nation. In reality, Trump’s often self-serving deals are gravely harming the national interest.
Credibility is everything for a country like the United States, and now, without it, we are unleashing powerful forces that will be very hard to control.
Diplomacy isn’t just signing a particular agreement between two countries. That may be the culmination of negotiations or just the beginning, but it isn’t actually the goal, especially for a superpower. The aim is to manage relations between countries over the long term to maintain stability and predictability; it’s not a “winner take all” proposition. Credibility is everything for a country like the United States, and now, without it, we are unleashing powerful forces that will be very hard to control.
Trump is a pathological liar. Schwartz discovered that from the very beginning. He was attached to Trump at the hip for many months, listening in on every phone call, observing his conversations and racking his brain to figure out how to present the man as a lovable rogue rather than the damaged personality he really is. The whole world has seen this up close for the past decade.
At first, allies depended upon the professional diplomatic and national security apparatus to continue to run things in spite of Trump’s erratic behavior and belligerence. They understood early on he loved pomp and circumstance, and that he was easily flattered by obsequious compliments, so they played along, giving him the pageantry of over-the-top state visits and paying homage to him at his properties and the White House. But for the most part, they were just trying to wait out the term, expecting that the American people would realize the error of their ways and revert to being a serious nation.
This time around is different. A recent report in the Washington Post by Steve Hendrix and Anthony Faiola revealed that the world is no longer taking the U.S. seriously, leaving the government with no credibility. As a result, international relations are unstable and dangerous.
When Trump regained office the second time, the world quaked at his swagger, backed up by a bizarre tariff regime that seemed to be put together by Mad Libs. The markets dropped, recriminations flowed, and it looked as if Trump had finally been completely unleashed. To some extent, he had been. He and his close circle had decided to do whatever they wanted and see what they could get away with. But it soon became evident there wasn’t really any strategy or even any particular goals, despite the apparent participation of people like Elon Musk and the authors of Project 2025. In the end, it was all about Trump’s whims, which changed from minute to minute.
The short attention span Schwartz described is now even more pronounced. The president’s obsession with building monuments to himself notwithstanding, he flits from subject to subject, bellowing threats to all who oppose him and rewarding his cronies with ever more obvious modes of corruption.
The world has decided to stop paying attention. “[M]ost consequently,” Hendrix and Faiola wrote, “Iran refuses to bend under American bombs and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and Russian President Vladimir Putin persists in his war in Ukraine. Europe met Trump’s recently renewed demands for Greenland with a collective sigh, and trading partners have shrugged off the latest tariffs.”
Over the years, world leaders have had varying reactions to American presidents of both parties. But the country’s leaders have never been disregarded.
Jeremy Shapiro, director of the U.S. program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the Post he was surprised at how long Trump’s bluffs and bellicosity had worked, crediting it to the “awesome power and deep, long-stored-up diplomatic capital of the United States” that Trump has “finally started to blow through.”
The president’s threats are now seen as empty, and his so-called deals aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. This was most recently on display in mid-July when he made a big, splashy announcement of a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. Within a day, Trump added a poison-pill requirement by way of a Truth Social post that left the Saudis reeling. His threats to annihilate Iran are now falling on deaf ears because he’s all over the place, usually lying about the progress of diplomatic talks, showing that he’s full of bluster and bombast but lacks a strategy to win and ideas about how to get out.
America’s political dynamics have us all just trying to hold on until he’s out of office so we can try to rebuild from the rubble. But the loss of credibility, the exposure of the nation’s weaknesses and the people’s willingness to put such a man in charge will not be easily repaired. The long-term damage to our international reputation, coupled with the weakness we are demonstrating in any number of areas, will leave us vulnerable for a long time to come.
A US soldier stands near a Patriot missile system at a Turkish military base in Gaziantep, Turkey, on February 5, 2013. | Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: As the Iran war drags on, the US may be running perilously low on key munitions.
What’s happening?According to reporting by Reuters this week, the US has used “virtually all” of its stockpiles of two kinds of precision long-range missiles since the start of the US-Iran war in late February. Its defensive capabilities may be slipping, too. CNN reported on Tuesday that the US has also depleted “nearly 80%” of its supply of THAAD interceptor missiles and around half of its Patriot interceptors.
What do these shortages mean for the Iran conflict? 1) They could limit the US’s military options against Iran. Reporting suggests that this is already happening. According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump decided against a “major escalation” of the US-Iran war late last month after three US troops were killed, at least partially because of concerns about munitions shortages.
2) The shortage of interceptors increases the danger for US troops and allies in the region. According to the Atlantic, US forces are now at the point where they have to make snap decisions about whether to use an interceptor or ride out an attack. They’re also at a mathematical disadvantage; the US has relatively few interceptors, which cost millions to produce. Iran, meanwhile, can hurl mass-produced drones at the US for about $35,000 each.
How is Trump responding? Not well. The shortages are reportedly causing friction between Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the president has lashed out on social media.
“The U.S. has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types,” Trump posted on Friday. “The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down. Long term jail sentences will be sought!”
What’s next? One effect of the shortage could be to encourage an end to the fighting. A new agreement over the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman is reportedly in the works, which could be a step toward ending the war — if the US is willing to make some concessions.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Hi readers, this newsletter will be off tomorrow. We’d like to preemptively encourage you to log off and enjoy the summer weekend. We’ll see you back here on Monday.
Now, before we go: Did you know there are World Dog Surfing Championships? I did not, so I was especially delighted to encounter this photo gallery from the Atlantic, collecting competitors from several recent years. You can find them all here with a gift link — enjoy!
Negotiations between Iran and Oman on delineating a shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz have reached the final stage, the Iranian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
The shipping lane would primarily lie within Iranian territorial waters, with parts extending into Omani waters.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei told journalists that “the geographical coordinates of the proposed maritime route have been agreed upon by both sides,” adding that the bilateral process was “professional” and “forward-moving.”
U.S. President Donald Trump announced last weekend that Tehran had asked Washington to hold off any attack on Iran due to the pending agreement on the strait. “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The U.S. reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports on July 14 after hostilities between the two countries resumed. The blockade has since become one of the main sticking points in ceasefire negotiations, with Tehran insisting it must be lifted as part of any broader agreement.
The strait remains closed as a result of the military strikes launched by the U.S. and Israel, Baqaei maintained in his remarks.
Europe wants to kick its U.S. tech habit, but it’s struggling to detangle itself from American data analytics firm Palantir.
The problem is, the company’s tools are already deeply embedded in critical sectors across the bloc like policing, national defense and health systems. A report released today also shows that the tech firm has found ways to pay minimal taxes in Europe. On the show, hosts Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart discuss European alternatives and why detaching is easier said than done.
Next, our colleague Seb Starcevic has interviewed Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Šuica. The role that was originally thought to be low profile has instead thrust the Croatian official into the limelight as various crises hit the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Plus: Three new foods are being added to the EU’s list of products with geographic indicators. These are the labels given to products that can only be made in a specific region, like Champagne or … yes, you guessed it, halloumi.
Questions? Comments? Get in touch! You can message us or send a voice message to our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
The ease with which tens of thousands of migrants penetrated the border has ramped up a sense of vulnerability to hybrid attack. And that alarm has only been amplified by a fear that traditional NATO allies in the U.S. and the EU are no longer fully dependable because of their political feuds with Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Buoyed by an increasingly warm relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, Rabat is seizing the moment and doubling down on its claims to Ceuta and Melilla, which it sees as occupied territory, in Morocco’s state-aligned press.
But, more alarmingly for Madrid, that argument is no longer coming exclusively from Rabat. Questions over Spain’s centuries-old control of the fortress cities have also been raised in a U.S. Congress report, and by Israel’s ambassador to the U.N.
It is a sign of the level of concern in Madrid that the government is now having to make public declarations on a point of international law that — only a week ago — it would have thought was self evident.
“Ceuta and Melilla are not to be touched,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles said during a press conference on Monday. “Everyone must be very clear that Spanish territorial integrity and sovereignty are not up for debate.”
The government’s rejection of Morocco’s claims has done little to reduce worries in Spain over what would happen if Rabat dials up the pressure. This week, national newspapers have been filled with columns expressing fears of a “Green March 2.0” — pointing out the parallels with Morocco’s use of a mass popular mobilization to take over the province of Spanish Sahara in 1975.
José Manuel García-Margallo, who served as Spain’s foreign minister between 2011 and 2014 and is a member of the center-right People’s Party, said it was vital for Spain to show its control over the cities is not negotiable.
“Do you think the British would have allowed 60,000 Spaniards to enter Gibraltar?” he asked. “I’d encourage this government to be a little bit more British.”
“We should aim to be friends with Morocco,” he added. “But it’s important to ensure that even your friends understand that there are red lines that simply cannot be crossed.”
Imperial legacies
Ceuta and Melilla are among the few remaining vestiges of the vast Spanish Empire. They have been under Madrid’s rule since 1668 and 1497, respectively, and are fully-integrated parts of Spain — and the European Union.
But since gaining independence from France in 1956, Morocco has consistently claimed sovereignty over both settlements, which it characterizes as “colonies” that are “occupied” by Spain. And those territorial aspirations have been underscored in the country’s largely state-aligned press following last week’s events.
Migrants receive water on the beach next to the CETI (Centros de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes) in Ceuta on Aug. 2, 2026. | Adri Salido/Getty Images
“The central question is no longer whether these cities will be reintegrated into their natural environment, Morocco, but how long it will take and how many human tragedies will have to be endured in the meantime,” wrote Le360, a publication considered close to the Moroccan royal household.
Morocco’s claims on Ceuta and Melilla have lately been boosted by Rabat’s international allies — among them, a prominent Republican politician in the U.S.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Español in April, U.S. Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, who serves on the powerful Committee on Appropriations, stated “Ceuta and Melilla are in Moroccan territory” and questioned whether the autonomous cities “are part of Spain or should be part of Morocco.”
He also noted that while Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez was “jeopardizing” the alliance between the U.S. and Spain by opposing the war in Iran, Rabat had been Washington’s steadfast ally.
Weeks later, as U.S. lawmakers prepared an appropriations bill that included a proposal to allocate $40 million to Morocco for defense and security expenditures, Díaz-Balart submitted a congressional report noting “the Spanish-administered cities of Ceuta and Melilla are located in Moroccan territory and remain the subject of Morocco’s longstanding claim.”
The document additionally expressed support for “diplomatic engagement” on “the future status” of the autonomous cities.
Speaking to POLITICO, Díaz-Balart denied the congressional report had been intended to signal a major shift on Ceuta and Melilla.
“It’s been an issue of dispute for some time. Morocco has been a strong ally of the United States — it was the first country to recognize the United States. And we’ve had good ties with Spain over the years. All we were asking is for Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio to keep an eye on this and be sure that both sides are talking about this issue,” he said.
But the congressman’s willingness to give a platform to Rabat’s claims on Ceuta and Melilla reflects how close Morocco and the United States have become since 2020. That year, Trump took the landmark step of recognizing Rabat’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara in exchange for the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel.
Last week, Trump reaffirmed that recognition in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Rabat at the same moment as the migrants surged into Ceuta. Rabat showed its pleasure with this decision by announcing that it had renamed a major highway after the president.
Adding to Spain’s concerns about its territories in North Africa, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon reacted to the images of last week’s migrant influx by hitting back against Madrid’s criticism of the war in Gaza and challenging Spain’s presence in Ceuta and Melilla.
A February 2024 image showing the fences and wall marking the border between Morocco and Spain’s North African Melilla exclave. | Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images
“Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa,” he wrote on X.
Israel’s head of mission in Madrid, Dana Erlich, later clarified that Danon’s comments did not represent an official position.
García-Margallo said the problems with Díaz-Balart and Danon were a consequence of Sánchez’s foreign policy.
“I’m also not surprised that those claims are being amplified in other parts of the globe … The current government’s relations with the Trump administration and with the government of Israel have deteriorated tremendously in recent times,” he said. “When you make a point of showing you’re against specific countries, consequences are to be expected.”
The specter of the ‘Green March’
For Spaniards, the idea that Morocco could engineer a situation to annex territory is far from theoretical speculation. Many still remember Morocco’s 1975 “Green March,” an operation that forced the handover of Spanish Sahara.
“Rabat deployed tens of thousands of civilians to overwhelm border posts in Spanish Sahara in 1975 as dictator Francisco Franco lay dying,” said José Luis Rodríguez Jiménez, history professor at Madrid’s Rey Juan Carlos University and author of a book on the fall of Spanish Sahara.
“At the time, it wasn’t clear who was running — or would run — Spain, and Morocco took advantage of the weakness of the Spanish state to take over the province,” he said.
As former Foreign Minister García-Margallo put it: “I don’t have the slightest doubt that the current government’s weakness has contributed to this crisis.”
Historian Rodríguez Jiménez said Rabat had sporadically tested Madrid’s willingness to defend its territories in northern Africa.
In 2002, a squad of Moroccan marines launched an “invasion” of Perejil Island, an uninhabited Spanish islet off the coast of Ceuta, sparking a week-long crisis that only concluded when Spanish special forces were deployed to evict them.
And in a strikingly similar incident to last week’s massive influx of migrants into Ceuta, in 2021 some 8,000 people surged into the autonomous city after Morocco abruptly withdrew its gendarmes from the border.
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska at a press conference called in response to the recent influx of migrants into Ceuta on Aug. 1, 2026. | Adri Salido/Getty Images
Rodríguez Jiménez argued Sánchez had blundered by responding to that incident by reversing Spain’s historic support of Western Sahara’s self-determination and accepting Morocco’s bid to control the disputed territory.
“The government opted to placate Rabat, failing to understand that this was seen as a sign of weakness in Morocco, a country which is not our friend, and which has every interest in exploiting our vulnerabilities,” he said.
“What happened last week was a dress rehearsal for an eventual invasion,” he added. “And Rabat has noted Madrid’s complete inability to repulse that attack.”
Spanishness ‘beyond all doubt’
Spanish officials reject the accusation that the Ceuta crisis has made Madrid look weak, with Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Tuesday insisting the crisis showed the country to be a “strong” and respected regional player.
That ability to project strength to Rabat is increasingly important as NATO’s commitment to defending Ceuta and Melilla appears less certain than it once did. Back in 2022, then-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg specifically listed the North African cities as falling under the alliance’s aegis.
But things have changed since then. Trump has cast doubt on NATO’s commitment to common defense and his relationship with Spain, which he has repeatedly lambasted for its lackluster defense spending and failure to support the Iran war, is particularly rocky.
When asked about NATO’s position now, an official said: “We don’t speculate on hypothetical scenarios,” while adding the alliance was “ready and well-postured to protect and defend all allies.”
García-Margallo said that NATO’s common defense commitment is only as strong as “our allies’ willingness to support us … the interpretation of the terms of any treaty is ultimately a political decision.”
POLITICO asked the Spanish foreign ministry what measures the government had taken to address concerns about the international conversation over Ceuta and Melilla, especially in relation to Díaz-Balart’s congressional report.
The ministry did not answer the questions directly, but hit back at any assertion that the cities’ sovereignty could be negotiable.
“The Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla is beyond all doubt and is recognized as such by international law and the entire world,” a spokesperson said.
Eric Bazail-Eimil contributed reporting from Washington. Victor Jack contributed reporting from Brussels.
When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz five months ago, experts predicted oil could spike to $150 or $200 a barrel. It has barely topped $100. According to Rogé Karma, writing in The Atlantic, the reason may be China, which abruptly cut its oil imports by half. — Read the rest
The energy markets, which typically favor stability and predictability, responded with little more than a shrug.
Crude prices dipped slightly and gas prices remained steady. Even as the war stretches past the six-month mark and the midterms creep closer, Trump has been able to keep retail prices lower than experts say they should be through the sheer power of promises – which have yet to come through – of a swift end to the conflict. On Monday, he took that a step further, chastising the major oil companies for “making too much money” off global oil shortages as a result of the war.
“They better cut the retail price, the consumer price,” Trump said. “I’ll say it loud and clear. I’m not happy about it.”
But Trump’s ability to jawbone the markets may be diminishing at a critical time, three months before the midterm elections when control of Congress is hanging in the balance and his approval is sinking to new lows amid voter anger over cost of living concerns. It comes as global crude oil supplies are running low, the war threatens more energy flows, refiners are running out of spare capacity and the administration has few tools to keep gas prices low.
“Labor Day is the point where gas prices are baked into the election,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “That last summer trip determines how voters evaluate their cost of living.”
And the higher gas prices come at a time when Trump repeatedly promises to escalate the war and then says it’s almost over a few hours or days later. That is starting to degrade his ability to cause price drops, a former adviser cautioned.
“His credibility has been a little bit shot,” said a former Trump adviser close to the White House, granted anonymity to avoid reprisal.
“The markets aren’t paying attention to him, they’re paying attention to what’s happening and, with respect to oil prices, it is a huge liability for the Republicans,” the adviser said.
Trump on Monday acknowledged that dynamic but expressed no urgency. He told reporters in the Oval Office that he was in no rush to end the conflict, though he acknowledged the need to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of global energy supplies flowed before the war. He hinted at the midterm stakes for his party if the conflict does not end soon.
“I’m under no time constraint,” he said. “I don’t happen to be running, but a lot of very good Republicans are running.”
Trump’s ability to move the markets may be the only tool the administration has left to keep gas prices in check, said Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of the Commodity Context newsletter.
The Trump administration has drawn down the U.S. Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level since President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Oil majors are warning that the lack of refinery capacity could keep prices high for the foreseeable future.
“The market is so entrenched on this idea that eventually this will resolve by Trump deciding and ceding some ground on some issue, likely kind of even symbolic control of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “So the market’s going to be constantly watching for any sign that he’s shifting there.”
While experts continue to marvel at Trump’s ability to get the markets to bend to his whims, there is little consensus on when that power will dissipate.
Trump has “less credibility” in terms of moving markets, but it has not totally dissipated, Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis at pricing service GasBuddy.
“I don’t think credibility completely goes to zero,” he said. “Hard to know though when it really bends.”
Trump’s push to keep energy prices low has also been buoyed by reduced Chinese oil imports, the successful rerouting of about 7 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabian crude through the Red Sea and releases from strategic petroleum reserves.
The administration released nearly 3 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last week, bringing the reserves down to their lowest level since February 1983, according to Department of Energy data. About half of the 218.5 million barrels the Department of Energy said it would make available to the market have now left the salt caverns along the Gulf Coast.
As the summer driving season winds down, consumers expect gas prices to fall as well.
If the national average price of a gallon of gas is still above $4 by Saturday, de Haan noted, it will set a new record for the latest in the calendar year that prices are so high.
Donald Trump at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, on July 31, 2026. | Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: It’s clearer than ever that President Donald Trump has no way out on Iran.
What’s happening? Over the weekend, Trump posted to social media that he had agreed to “hold off any attack” on Iran because “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” The deal, he said, would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a nebulous “end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”
That should all sound fairly familiar, since it’s essentially what the US and Iran agreed to — and subsequently abandoned — in June. As of Monday morning, though, Trump had already pivoted, accusing Iran of being “unbelievably duplicitous” in negotiating.
“This is a last chance for them to sign a good document,” he told reporters in the Oval Office Monday afternoon, threatening “decapitation” — essentially the same warning he issued in April.
What’s the context? Since the collapse of the June “memorandum of understanding” between the US and Iran, which ended the immediate conflict and set out a path for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the two countries have resumed hostilities, if not full-scale war. In July, three more US servicemembers were killed in Iranian attacks.
Why does this matter? The Logoff has tried to steer clear of blow-by-blow coverage of the Iran war, because this kind of reversal happens a lot: Trump is constantly blustering, promising a deal, threatening massive retaliation, backing down, and doing it all over again.
This latest episode, more than five months into the war and tidily compressed into just a few days, is little different. We’re writing about it anyway because it’s a good reminder of what has emerged as the essential fact of the war: Trump may have started the conflict, but he doesn’t seem to have any real plan in place to end it — and the longer things drag on, the greater the risk to the US troops fighting it.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Vox’s Unexplainable podcast is tackling the “holy grail of sensory biology” — magnetoreception, which lets birds navigate using Earth’s magnetic field — this week with some help from author and journalist Ed Yong. You can listen here, and I also recommend Yong’s newsletter, which regularly features some spectacular bird photos.
Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
President Donald Trump continued to claim the United States and Iran were in active peace talks on Monday, despite denials from Iranian and U.S. officials.
“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They ask for a meeting, some would say’ beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman.'”
Trump told reporters over the weekend that Iran came to the U.S. hat in hand to avoid further airstrikes. The president said that the Pentagon had planned “the biggest attack since World War II.”
“It would have been disastrous for them,” he said. “They didn’t want us to do it, and frankly, Saudi Arabia didn’t want it either.”
Trump called the denial a bit of “their usual bather.” He said that Iran needs to reach a deal with the U.S. or surrender unconditionally. Speaking to a reporter in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he was offering Iran “every last chance before decapitation.”
“Very tough to do what we have planned, still planned,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Here in the U.S., we’re looking at the Iran War in terms of whether the U.S. should have started it in the first place, how it’s affecting oil prices, how it’s going to affect the midterms and a bunch of other things. But there’s another way to look at it, which is that Iran is putting on a global performance of standing head to head with the full might of the U.S. military and pulling it off. By their actions, we can see pretty clearly that the Iranian government does not fear Donald Trump. They’re not acting scared. If anything, they’re upping the rate of their provocations, as the state of war and effective stalemate transitions to a new normal of sorts.
It is fair to say that this is not actually the full might of the U.S. military in a theoretical sense. The president could order the U.S. military to mount a full scale ground invasion of Iran, occupy the country, dismantle the state’s system of command, control and repression. Those things are very likely possible, albeit at vast cost. But the real test of a military is not what it can do in some theoretical sense, the precise armaments it has and so forth but what the country which controls that military is able and/or willing to do in a specific economic, geopolitical, and political context. And the U.S. is clearly not willing to do those things. So in a practical sense — not the abstract power and capabilities of the U.S. military but the country’s ability to do those things — this is the full force of the U.S. military.
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