Middle East crisis live: Iran steps up campaign to disrupt energy markets as oil price spikes above $100 a barrel
Earlier today, Iran appeared to set ablaze two tankers in Iraqi waters. Here are some images of the aftermath:
We attacked Iran with no clear plan for regime change, Israeli security sources say
Israel did not have a realistic plan for regime change when it attacked Iran, multiple Israeli security sources have said, with expectations that airstrikes could drive a popular uprising driven by “wishful thinking” rather than hard intelligence. Iran has now survived nearly two weeks of bombing raids and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Trump is publicly contemplating ending an increasingly costly war. If Iran’s new leadership keeps its grip on power, the long-term measure of the success of the conflict may hang on the fate of 440kg of enriched uranium, buried under a mountain by US strikes last June, former and serving Israeli defence and intelligence sources said. Enough for more than 10 nuclear warheads, Iran could use it to race towards construction of a weapon if it stays in the country. “These 440kg of uranium are one of the clearest litmus tests for how this war ends, whether it is a success,” said one former senior Israeli defence and intelligence official who worked on Iran. “We need to be in a position where either this material is out of Iran, or you have a regime where you are confident that it is safeguarded [inside Iran] in a very meaningful way.” Hardliners in Iran have long argued a nuclear deterrent is the only guarantee of survival for the Islamic republic. The overwhelming military dominance of US and Israeli forces in this war is likely to bolster that view if the regime survives. The US is reportedly weighing sending troops on an extremely high-risk mission to secure the uranium. Negotiations before the war also included proposals for Iran to surrender the enriched uranium to another country. “It’s a high-risk game this war, because if it succeeds, it would completely change the Middle East for the best,” the former official said. “But if we bomb everything and the regime stays in power, and they continue to maintain those 400kg of uranium, I think we will be starting the countdown to an attempt by Iran to go to a nuclear weapon.” Joab Rosenberg, the former deputy head of Israel’s military intelligence research division, was even more blunt, describing any conclusion of the war that leaves the uranium in Iranian hands as a pyrrhic victory. “The worst result of this war will be the declaration of victory of the type of June 2025, leaving the Iranian regime weak with 450kg of enriched uranium in its hands,” he said in a social media post. “So they will 100% be going for a nuclear bomb and our victory will become our loss.” The assassination of Ali Khamenei may have compounded the nuclear threat from Iran. He poured economic and political resources into a programme that could easily be turned to military use, but for decades held off on the final stage of ordering construction of a weapon. The views of his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, are less clear. “With [Ali] Khamanei we knew almost everything about his decision making,” said another former senior intelligence official. “He was doing a lot of things we were concerned about, and that’s why there was a war. But he never took the decision to run [to a bomb] no matter what. “With Mojtaba, I am not so sure we have the knowledge to assess what he will do with the nuclear programme,” the source added. “He could run to a bomb right now.” The devastation caused by Israeli and US bombing would delay work on a nuclear weapon, but even with limited technical capacity the political decision to move forward with creating a bomb would escalate the long-term threat to Israel, he added. Despite these risks, the US-Israeli war has broad support inside Israel’s military establishment, multiple serving and former defence and intelligence officials have told the Guardian, reflecting popular backing in Israeli society. After the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks, Israel’s military has prioritised acting to remove potential immediate threats to Israel, such as Iran’s ballistic missile programme, as soon as possible, according to multiple sources. Nearly two weeks of airstrikes have destroyed or degraded much of Iran’s military capacity, taking out missiles, launchers and the military industrial supply chains that produced them, as well as political leaders, military commanders, academics and engineers. Regime change ‘wishful thinking’ The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Donald Trump launched the war with calls for regime change, immediately turning the conflict into an existential one for Iran’s rulers. Trump may have been intoxicated by the success of his raid to capture the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and replace him with more US-friendly elements from the same system. For this report the Guardian spoke to a number of serving and former Israeli defence and intelligence experts, including individuals who had played key roles in the country’s long fight against Iran’s nuclear programme. Some of them say it was never realistic to expect an air war could immediately collapse the Iranian government or replicate the policy pivot forced on Caracas. “It’s wishful thinking,” said one of the intelligence sources. “We used to have a plan how to take out the ballistic missiles, how to deal with the nuclear sites, how to take care of the military industry in Iran. But I never heard that we knew how to do a campaign [of regime change] from the air. “We never knew how to get into the heads of 90 million people. So how would we know how to assess whether they would go to the streets or not? We are hoping they will go.” In January mass anti-regime protests were brutally repressed by the regime, with tens of thousands reportedly killed. At the time Trump promised “help is on its way”, and since the war began Netanyahu has repeatedly called on the Iranian people to rise up. Israel says it is targeting the structures of domestic control to make this easier. Airstrikes have reportedly hit the Basij, the volunteer police arm of the Revolutionary Guards, and buildings belonging to internal security forces. Another popular uprising during war was always extremely unlikely, said Sima Shine, an Iran specialist and former head of research at Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. There have been no signs of Iranians taking to the streets or significant defections from security forces that could undermine their grip on the country since the US-Israeli campaign began. “I belong to those who don’t think that regime change can happen from bombing from the outside,” Shine said. However, she does not rule out the longer-term security and economic impacts of the bombing campaign leading to the government’s collapse. “It’s not black and white. It might be that Iran will finish the war so weak, everything will be so fragile, that it will ease the capability for changes from outside the regime.” Many in the Israeli intelligence and defence community who did not expect regime change also feared that a battered, decapitated Iran would pose significant nuclear risks if it retained possession of the enriched uranium. Even so they backed a bombing campaign over further negotiations, on the grounds that airstrikes could take out many of Iran’s missiles and much of the industry that produced them, as well as further devastating its economy. That prioritising of immediate tactical military dominance reflects the impact of 7 October 2023 on approaches to national security, multiple Israeli defence and intelligence officials have said. Dramatic victories, but unable to capitalise Israel’s priority now is to make Iran and its proxies as weak as possible as soon as possible, even though the war risks spurring longer-term Iranian efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, multiple current and former officials have said. “After October 7, Israel is not the same state it used to be before. The policy changed completely. There is zero tolerance, about 70 or 80% of Israelis are not willing to accept any bullshit from our adversaries that want to kill us,” one said when asked about longer-term strategic fallout from the war. “The first priority of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is to protect our families … then we will deal with all the rest.” Nearly two weeks of bombing has already destroyed much of Iran’s military industrial base, running through targets from missiles to the factories far downstream, and the academics and engineers who design and run the programme. “The IDF are on the verge of concluding this campaign. They are not going to say this, because it’s a political directive [when it will end], but from a military point of view they’ve fulfilled almost all the mission,” he said. “Two weeks, and it’s over after that.” The damage would take years to fully repair, a third former senior security official said, making Israel safer in the immediate future even without regime change. “This is not some small terror cell, it is a huge country with lot of academic, intellectual depth and resources. So once the kinetic phase of this war ends, assuming the regime is not toppled, we should expect a new weaponisation race. “You need to target the experts, the facilities, the equipment, and in some cases at least, in the nuclear issue, the materials. If you achieve a severe blow on those capabilities, that can really delay renewal of the threat for a much longer period.” The bombing has been more extensive than during the 12-day war in June, multiple sources have said. Netanyahu then claimed a “historic victory” had removed the threat from Iran’s ballistic missiles, but the country rapidly restored production. Achieving freedom to operate in the skies of a vast and distant country, more than 1,000km away from Israel and with more territory than Germany, France and Spain combined, is another strategic success that will make it easier for Israel to project power at a greater distance in future wars. Air defences cannot be taken out in a single surprise strike; gaining air superiority required waves of attacks against anti-air missile batteries, mostly launched when the enemy was prepared. Iran’s response to this onslaught has been to wage asymmetric attacks across the region and into Europe, pushing up fuel costs and destabilising regional economies. Many Israelis who see this war as an existential struggle back a longer bombing campaign in the hope that if the regime is not destroyed, it could be weakened enough to cede control of the enriched uranium, handing Israel a “much broader deterrence”. They are willing to risk extending an open-ended conflict that began in Gaza and has lasted more than two years on shifting fronts, moving on to Lebanon, Syria to Iran and Yemen. As oil prices spiral, fuelling inflation and discontent, many leaders in the region and beyond are making very different calculations. Israel’s embrace of military power as the only path to security risks leaving it isolated in the Middle East and in the longer term perhaps internationally. “Israel is not willing or able to capitalise on its dramatic military achievements by trying to move to the more political aspect of building new alliances,” another former senior official said. “I am fearful we will still be stuck in this place.”
Dismay as ancient heritage sites across Iran damaged in US-Israel bombing
The governor of the historic Iranian city of Isfahan has accused the US and Israel of a “declaration of war on a civilization” as heritage sites across the country suffer damage in their bombing campaign. The most serious confirmed damage to date has been to Tehran’s Golestan palace, dating back to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon palace in Isfahan. Judging from videos and public statements, neither historic building was hit by a missile directly but the shock wave from nearby blasts and possibly some missile debris, shattered glass and brought down tiles and masonry. Video from the scene showed that the Golestan palace’s celebrated hall of mirrors had been shattered with shards of intricate mirrorwork scattered across its floor. The palace is a world heritage site under the protection of the UN’s cultural body Unesco, which issued a statement of concern after it was damaged on 2 March, saying it had “communicated to all parties concerned the geographical coordinates of sites on the world heritage list”. In the past few days, there have been major explosions in the centre of Isfahan, Iran’s capital in three historical eras, where much of the architecture dates back to the Safavid dynasty era, from the 16th to 18th centuries. The Chehel Sotoon palace suffered the worst impact but broken windows and doors, as well as dislodged tilework, have been reported in the Ali Qapu palace and several mosques around the vast Naqsh-e Jahan square. Videos filmed by residents from inside the square showed plumes of smoke rising from nearby airstrikes. The Isfahan governor, Mehdi Jamalinejad, said the damage had been inflicted even after coordinates of the historic sites had been circulated among the warring parties and after blue shield signs – denoting historical treasures under the 1954 Hague convention for the protection of cultural objects in war – had been put on the roofs of important buildings. “Isfahan is not an ordinary city, it’s a museum without a roof,” Jamalinejad said in a speech posted on social media. “In none of the previous eras, not in the Afghan wars, not in the Moghul conquest, not even during the ‘sacred defence’ [the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war] was this ever done,” the governor said. “This is a declaration of war on a civilisation,” he added. “An enemy that has no culture pays no heed to symbols of culture. A country that has no history has no respect for signs of history. A country that has no identity sets no value for identity.” An Iranian geologist who worked in Isfahan for many years said in a message forwarded to the Guardian that the ancient capital was particularly vulnerable. “Isfahan has long been attacked from below, by land subsidence that is destroying the Safavid-era structures, and now from the above, by the Americans,” the geologist said. “Isfahan seems to have fewer friends than ever today.”
‘Light in this darkness’: communities push back against Cape Town gang culture
In 2015, Deniël de Bruyn moved almost 300 miles to Cape Town, to live with relatives and try to overcome a drug problem. Nine months later, he was dead, shot in what gangsters in the township of Wesbank claimed was a case of mistaken identity, according to De Bruyn’s cousin Lindy Jacobs. The shooting was witnessed by Jacobs’s 12-year-old son Zunadin. “My son’s life was never, never ever the same again,” she said. In 2018, Jacobs said, gangsters tried to kill Zunadin. She went to the police. But just two months later her son was dead too. Jacobs is now raising her 12-year-old grandson Noah, whose father was another casualty of gang violence. The Cape Flats townships, where Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans were forced to move by the white minority apartheid regime in the 1960s and 70s, are full of stories like Jacobs’. Of people whose families were torn apart by gangs, but who, despite everything, are committed to their communities. After the man who allegedly killed her son was himself killed by a rival gang, Jacobs refused to celebrate: “I said to myself, ‘He is also somebody’s child.’” She focused on running home gardening workshops and football training for children, leading the local chapter of Balls Not Guns, a collective of Cape Flats women’s volunteer groups that promotes participation in sport. “I always remember light, light, light in this darkness,” she said. “Because if there’s nobody that is trying to light, what is going to happen with our youth?” *** Last year, there were more than 1,037 gang-related murders in the wider Western Cape province, according to police data. That was 16% higher than in 2024. The splintering of gangs has escalated the turf wars over territories where they sell drugs and extort businesses, while also trapping ordinary people in the crossfire. The surge in violence prompted South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to announce in his annual state of the nation address on 12 February that the military would be deployed to combat gangs. Many community members were sceptical, noting that when the army was sent into the Cape Flats in 2019, gangsters merely laid low before returning. “They’re going to instil fear, it’s going to happen for a short while … and then what?” said Gloria Veale, an activist who runs Balls Not Guns. “Those concerns are legitimate … I do think that, in the circumstances, in order to save lives and restore some calm, this action was necessary,” the acting police minister, Firoz Cachalia, said in an interview. The army will support the police rather than carrying out policing themselves, he said, adding: “This is not a magic bullet … What these communities need … is development.” Gangs proliferated in Cape Town during apartheid, when the forced removal of about 150,000 people from designated “white areas” to the Cape Flats ruptured families and communities. Ben de Vos, a criminologist who runs an NGO in the township of Mitchells Plain, reeled off the problems: “The spatial inequalities, the congested communities, the unemployment, which is sky-high. The drug economy gives an alternative economy.” South Africa’s unemployment rate stands at more than 40%. While the Western Cape has lower unemployment than the rest of the country, non-white South Africans, who still make up the vast majority of township populations, are least likely to have jobs. Local experts also expressed concern about the growing recruitment of children by gangs, including of children they said were left without state support after being excluded. “The whole of government has failed to come up with a youth intervention strategy,” said Martin Makasi, the chair of the Nyanga community police forum, a body linking the police and residents. “There’s a huge lack of trust [in police],” said Irvin Kinnes, an associate professor in criminology at the University of Cape Town. Meanwhile, he said, corruption, from police on the ground to the very top of government, is fuelling gang crime: “The violence on the Cape Flats is a symptom of the bigger problem of corruption, in a system of accumulation that’s not working for people.” The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found in 2019 that Cape Town’s 13 largest gangs, which include the Fancy Boys, the Americans and the Hard Livings, had a membership of about 72,000. It said in a research note last year that there were no up-to-date figures, adding that splintering had increased both the number and size of gangs. *** In Hanover Park, on the other side of Cape Town’s international airport from Wesbank, people lined up outside a community centre to get handouts – peanut butter, mouthwash and deodorant – from a charity. Inside the centre, Craven Engel, who runs the anti-gang organisation CeaseFire, worried about a split that had birthed three new gangs: the Ghetto Kids, Only the Family and the Young Gifted Boys. The Mongrels, another gang, had also fractured in two, with the two sides now supporting different gangs. “You’ve got this kind of horrible dynamic that, if things happen, you don’t know who is doing it on behalf of whom,” he said. CeaseFire employs former gangsters to mediate between warring groups and support people who want to leave. Dalton (not his real name) entered the CeaseFire offices for the first time, a slight, nervy figure, his hood up. A few weeks earlier, the 24-year-old’s younger brother was shot dead by a rival gang. Dalton followed his cousins into his first gang when he was 17. “I wanted to be a gangster because they shot my father when I was five months old,” he said. Now Dalton wanted out: the gang that had killed his brother was hunting him too. “Before he died, his word was he don’t want to lose me, because I’m the oldest,” he said. “The reason why he was in this gang was because of me. He was just 20 years old.” Glenn Hans, a CeaseFire outreach officer, promised to take Dalton out of Hanover Park temporarily, tell the gangs he had left and help him to build a new life. He was optimistic for Dalton: “There’s gates up, out of the gang. You can go up. So he wants to move up in life.” In every township, there are volunteers carving out safe spaces. On a Tuesday in Manenberg, a couple of miles east of Hanover Park, the local Balls Not Guns chapter provided a weekly lunch for pensioners and a chance to decompress. Afterwards, members of a grandmothers’ football team showed off their skills with a ball. Deidre Richards, 55, one of the chapter leaders, said she sometimes felt like giving up. “But then again, if it’s your passion, you will just get up and try something or somebody else.” A few streets away, professional dancer Darion Thorne runs dance classes for children every Saturday and fortnightly screenings of local films and children’s animations. “There are things that exist that are negative, but in the same way, things can exist that are positive,” he said. A patter of shots sounded from outside the house the 33-year-old shares with his mother and nephew. Thorne cocked his head: “Is it shooting?” He waved it off. Later, Thorne admitted he was always on alert, trying to keep the events he runs safe: “I’m in constant awareness of danger.”
Hungary’s Orbán claims Ukrainians ‘threatened’ his family as election campaign ramps up
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has accused Ukrainians of plotting to attack his family, as an increasingly bitter standoff between Kyiv and Budapest continues. Orbán and his allies appear to be using the dispute for maximum political gain before the election due next month that could end the 16-year rule of his nationalist government. Orbán released a video on Wednesday night purporting to show him speaking to his daughters on the phone. “I’m sure you’ll see on the news that the Ukrainians have threatened not only me but you as well,” he said, apparently emotional. “My kids and my grandkids … We have to take this seriously but we must not be scared.” Orbán was apparently responding to the words of Hrihoriy Omelchenko, a retired politician who served in Ukraine’s SBU security service in the 1990s. A marginal figure who frequently makes outlandish claims, he issued threats to Orbán in a televised interview this week suggesting vigilantes could hunt down the Hungarian leader if he did not change his anti-Ukrainian position. Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had threatened to “give this person’s address to our armed forces” while speaking about Orbán, in comments that reportedly prompted European allies to ask the Ukrainian president to tone down his rhetoric. Orbán has long been the most pro-Russian leader of EU nations, leading to messy relations with Kyiv, but as polling has him up to 20 points behind the challenger Péter Magyar before next month’s parliamentary elections, the anti-Ukraine campaign in Hungary has gone into overdrive. The trigger for the latest round of tensions was Ukraine’s claim that it would take several weeks to repair an oil pipeline that transports Russian oil to Hungary, which was reportedly damaged in a Russian drone attack. In response, Orbán vetoed further EU sanctions on Russia as well as an additional €90bn loan for Ukraine. Last Friday, in an escalation that shocked Kyiv, Hungary’s anti-terrorism police impounded a convoy of two armoured cars belonging to Oschadbank, Ukraine’s state savings bank, and arrested the seven Ukrainians accompanying it. The convoy was transporting tens of millions of euros in cash and 9kg of gold bars from Vienna to Kyiv, in what Ukraine said was a normal government cash transfer of which the Hungarian authorities had been notified. Budapest suggested the money was being laundered. The seven men were held incommunicado for more than 24 hours before being driven to the border with Ukraine and deported. The money and gold is still in Hungary. “Every aspect of the procedure was unlawful, in particular the withholding of legal assistance,” Lóránt Horváth, the men’s Hungarian lawyer, told the Guardian. One of the seven, who has diabetes, was taken to hospital during the interrogation, he said. “He did not know exactly which hospital, as he was transported in handcuffs and with a hood over his head.” According to a statement from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, the man was taken to hospital after being “forcibly injected with a drug after which his blood sugar level rose sharply and hypertension began”. Horváth said he had no information about a forcible injection, but that he was only able to speak to his clients by phone because the authorities had denied him access to the men. The Ukrainian foreign ministry said “psychological and physical pressure was exerted on the detainees” throughout their detention. A security source in Kyiv said the authorities there had been stunned after debriefing the men on their return, claiming the Hungarians had been trying to pressure them into making a confession video. “We know that Hungarian counterintelligence can be aggressive, but these seem like Russian-style methods,” the source said. This week, officials from the two countries continued to trade accusations over the incident. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote: “The mask has slipped … They openly confess to taking hostages and stealing money with the aim of demanding ransom. Such actions must be called by their name: state terrorism.” His Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó, called Sybiha’s accusations “pretty pathetic” and said he should answer questions that arose from the incident: “Why did they deliver a huge amount of cash to Hungary? What did they want to spend this money on? Is this the money of the Ukrainian war mafia?” The Hungarian election takes place on 12 April, leaving plenty of time for further escalation. This week, the Financial Times reported that a Kremlin-aligned thinktank has drawn up plans for a disinformation campaign to boost Orbán’s re-election chances. Orbán has been one of the few EU leaders to call for keeping positive relations with Moscow, and Szijjártó has visited Russia 14 times since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Orbán has claimed that a win for Magyar would drag Hungary into the war on the side of Ukraine, and has attempted to portray himself as a peace candidate who is neutral in the conflict. “Is Zelenskyy forming a government, or am I? And if we only have these two options, I suggest myself,” Orbán told supporters at a rally on Wednesday in the town of Vecsés.
Thursday briefing: What an Iran negotiator thinks could happen next – and why Trump still has an off-ramp
Good morning, and apologies for the interruption to your usual programming. Stepping out from behind the editing desk to write today’s newsletter feels somewhat like a player-manager throwing himself on to the pitch, but I’ll try not to destabilise your morning routine too much. Lord knows, the world doesn’t need any more chaos. Since the US and Israel first attacked Iran two weeks ago, it’s been a scramble to keep up with events. The death of a supreme leader, speculation about his successor, global implications ranging from oil price spikes to drones raining down on once-safe cities like Doha and Dubai – the world has rarely felt so unstable. Adding to that sense of insecurity is the lack of accurate information coming out of Iran. Journalists are few and far between in the country, and what is left of the government is scattered to avoid a repeat of the assassination of Ali Khamenei and his senior lieutenants. To try to make sense of the conflict, today’s newsletter is with Robert Malley, the US special envoy to Iran in the Joe Biden administration and lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was scrapped during Donald Trump’s first term in office. Before that, today’s headlines. Five big stories Iran | Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic. UK news | Keir Starmer overruled officials who warned of a “reputational risk” in making Peter Mandelson US ambassador, despite being handed a dossier of evidence about the peer’s relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, documents reveal. Artificial intelligence | Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!” Oil | The International Energy Agency is poised to call for the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. UK politics | Keir Starmer warned his cabinet against an “overly deferential” approach to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish governments, telling ministers they should be prepared to make spending decisions “even when devolved governments may oppose this”, according to a leaked memo. In depth: ‘You have somebody whose immorality is kind of bottomless’ When Robert Malley negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under Barack Obama’s presidency, the normalisation of relations between Iran and the US had never seemed closer. Iran had agreed to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, the material needed to build a nuclear weapon, limit enrichment up to 3.67% purity (well below the weapons-grade threshold of 90% or higher), cut the number of centrifuges it could operate and allow enhanced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In return, sanctions that had collapsed the country’s economy would be lifted and Iran would have full access to the global oil market. But whether because it wasn’t his deal or due to a sincere belief that it didn’t go far enough, Trump collapsed the deal in 2018, reinstating sanctions and pushing Iran back into pariah status. Malley returned to the negotiating table with his Iranian counterparts under Biden, but progress always stalled. “One of the big problems we had,” says Malley, “was that every time we would get a message from the Iranians saying, ‘What guarantee do we have that Biden’s successor is not going to tear it up?’ We’d say: ‘None. Either you go for it, or you don’t’”. Before the strikes of the past two weeks, renewed negotiations had been ongoing (in fact, that may have been one of the reasons the US and Israel knew where the Iranian leadership were located), and Malley had genuine hope that something could be achieved. “A lot of people were telling the Iranians, ‘Play to Trump’s ego. Have a phone call between the president. Have a meeting. Say you’re the best. This is the best deal ever,’” says Malley. Ultimately, Malley believes that even if there was a deal to be had, the distrust of Trump was perhaps too high. “It may have been the supreme leader simply said, ‘No, we’re not going to kneel in front of the guy who killed Qassem Suleimani [in 2020], who bombed us [in 2025].’” *** Send in the psychologists When it comes to what’s happening now, and what the US may be planning next, Malley admits that he may not be the most qualified to answer, despite his decades working in the region. “Being an expert in the Middle East … doesn’t help all that much,” he says. “It helps to be an expert on Trump’s psychology, and I confess I’m a real amateur when it comes to that. I would not have expected him to do what he did – I’m trying, in hindsight, to make sense of it.” He identifies clues from Trump’s first term such as moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and this term’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza and the bombing of Iranian military sites last year – perhaps this is just a logical next step? The escalatory path that Malley identifies is something others have warned of. Democratic congressman Pat Ryan, an Iraq war veteran, said on an episode of Pod Save America this week that “this echoes Iraq and Afghanistan to a certain significant degree, but remember Vietnam started with this slow trickle …‘We need to take one escalatory step’, and then each time more and more Americans are sent.” And all the while, Trump has people whispering in his ear, pushing for more. “He sees himself as a historical figure,” says Malley. “If he could be the president on whose watch not one, not two, but three traditionally ‘anti-American’ regimes start doing business with America – Venezuela yesterday, Iran today, maybe Cuba tomorrow … I’m sure people like Netanyahu have really fed this image [as someone] who could do what none of his predecessors did.” But however unknowable the US president’s motivations might be, the future of the Middle East, and possibly the world, now sit with Trump. It’s not a prospect Malley welcomes. “It’s particularly worrisome because you have somebody whose immorality is kind of bottomless. That is married to power that is infinite, and this is the first time we’re seeing him truly play with the instruments of American power almost to their limit. “He was very proud of what he did in Venezuela, but it wasn’t the unleashing of American power to its maximum. Anything is possible now. I don’t know what that actually means, but I think there would be no regard for either civilian casualties, for infrastructural damage, or for long-term consequence.” *** Divergent priorities If the Trump administration’s motivations seem unclear, those of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu seem more transparent to Malley. The Israeli prime minister has made no secret of his desire to take out what he sees as the primary threat to his country – but he has never enjoyed the cover and support he has now to undertake such bombastic action. “When Trump was elected, we heard all these reports about how Trump hates Netanyahu,” says Malley. “But this is the first time I can remember the US and Israel had openly, overtly, entered a war hand and glove.” That dramatically changes the calculations of what happens now, and what may come next. “In every experience that I either was part of or that I witnessed, there was a desire by the US to keep Israel at arm’s length precisely because they didn’t want it to look like an Israeli-American conspiracy against the Arab world,” says Malley. “This president throws a lot of these orthodoxies out the window.” (Surely a maxim that deserves to be embossed in gold above the entrance to Trump’s new White House state ballroom when it’s completed.) And while Netanyahu’s endgame may lie in creating a permanently unstable Iran – “they want to go as far as they can to fragment, destabilise [and] weaken Iran, even at the cost of chaos, civil war” – a lengthy conflict and fragmented Iran may not suit Trump or the US. There’s the immediate threat the rising price of oil causes – to the global economy and Republican electoral chances in November’s midterms – and it’s shaken the faith of previously reliable US allies in the region. “[The Gulf Cooperation Council] really are between a rock and a hard place,” says Malley. “I’m sure a number of them are extremely upset at Israel and the United States at having put them in this position. From my conversations with Gulf officials, they still want this to end sooner rather than later, even though they feel extraordinarily betrayed by Iran.” Curiously, Malley doesn’t think it’s likely to cause irreparable damage to the hard-won relationships between the Gulf states and America. “The US hasn’t proven to be particularly reliable in terms of defending them … [but] years of investment in improving their relations with Iran hasn’t paid off either, and they certainly can’t trust that Iran won’t do something like this again. So, I think they’re kind of stuck where they are – relying on an unreliable US and trying to normalise with a not particularly normal Iran.” *** An endgame? For all the geopolitics at play, there is still the rather thorny issues of more than 400kg of enriched uranium in Iran. While Malley talks of the Israelis’ “extraordinary intelligence feat” in assassinating so many of Iran’s leaders – which must have required access to “all levels of the Iranian system” – there is no sense that the US or Israel would be able to secure Iran’s uranium deposits with boots on the ground, even if it wanted to. “I’m not sure people know exactly where it is,” says Malley, suggesting it’s likely to be split up and divided across a country around seven times larger than the UK. “I had assumed that part of the Israeli-American plan was to send special forces to try to dig up Iran,” admits Malley. “If killing [Ali Khamenei] wasn’t enough for the president to take care of victory, I think getting the 400kg might well be his exit plan. I just don’t know physically how possible it is.” Will this at least have set back the nuclear programme oft cited as a justification for the war? Malley isn’t convinced. “An expert once told me before the 12-day war and the strike on Fordow [nuclear plant last year] that Iran was about six to nine months away [from developing a bomb]. After the 12-day war, that same expert told me Iran is about six to nine months away,” says Malley. Destroying infrastructure is relatively simple, but the knowledge of how to build a bomb is much harder to eradicate. “They couldn’t rebuild the programme the same way any time soon, but if they really wanted to, and were undetected, they could dash for a bomb in the same amount of time.” So if that route to “victory” may be cut off for Trump, is there another off-ramp for a president who once spoke so vociferously against getting stuck in long, foreign wars. “The only good news about a president who’s unpredictable is that he could surprise us and decide tomorrow [to end it],” says Malley. “He’s given maybe 20 different objectives. It is possible that at one point he declares victory and says he’s accomplished everything he aimed to accomplish.” If that feels like a relatively upbeat way to end (I know, I’m grasping at straws), Malley was keen to stress that the long-term consequences of the past fortnight are likely to spring up for decades in the “seeds he has planted”. “We’re going to see that bloom over generations,” he says. “Between what happened in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iraq. The reservoir of hatred, of rage, of desire for revenge, of the number of people who have nothing to lose and therefore have nothing to fear. It has created a very explosive situation. It may not happen tomorrow, it may not happen next year, but at some point I think we’ll see the long-term repercussions of this destruction.” What else we’ve been reading Patrick Greenfield’s poignant investigation into how mining threatens some of the world’s last areas of wilderness, focusing on Indonesia’s Weda Bay, is brilliantly reported and beautifully written. Poppy Noor, newsletters team The latest instalment in our Against the tide series looking at the lives of young people in coastal towns has a focus on Scarborough, and how youths are torn between pride in where they come from and moving away. Martin I loved Arifa Akbar’s piece for how her mother coaxed her out of dressing in baggy, all-black sports clothing and into wearing bolder colours. Poppy Veteran art-pop brothers Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks are as eloquent as ever in this interview with Forbes as they prepare to tour their 26th(!) studio album. Martin I, too, have clicked on a piece of unhappy content and found myself drowned in similar stuff served up – it’s one of the reasons I left Instagram. So I empathised with Polly Hudson’s column on how she fell for the same trick – again and again and again. Poppy Sport Football | Vinícius Júnior also had a penalty saved in Real Madrid’s 3-0 win against Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League last 16. Chelsea were beaten 5-2 in the first leg of their Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain, as a goalkeeping error handed the holders the initiative. Bayer Leverkusen took the lead from a corner but Arsenal made it 1-1 in the 89th minute when Kai Havertz scored against his former club. Winter Paralympics | Team Ukraine have launched a stinging attack on the International Paralympic Committee and Winter Paralympics organisers, claiming they have been under “systemic pressure” to reduce their presence at the Games. Football | The prospect of Iran playing at this summer’s World Cup appears remote after the country’s sports minister, Ahmad Donyamali, said on Wednesday that “under no circumstances can we participate”. The front pages “PM was told of ‘reputational risk’ over Mandelson links to Epstein,” is the splash on the Guardian today, a story that dominated UK headlines. “Aide warned Starmer of risk in Mandelson’s appointment,” says the FT. “PM was warned on ‘reputation risk’ of hiring Mandelson,” writes the Express. “PM flouted Mandelson warnings,” has the Times. “Mandelson demanded £500k pay-off,” says the Mirror. “Mandelson was shown secret files before ‘weirdly rushed’ vetting,” says the i paper. “£500k to walk away,” quips the Metro, while the Star runs with “Golden Mandshake.” Finally the Mail with “Not fit to lead the country.” And the Record with “Silence on the bams.” Today in Focus What teenagers really see on their phones As 15-year-old Abbey explains to Helen Pidd, scrolling through her phone, she is assailed by misogynistic content day and night whether she wants to see it or not. Why has the internet become like this for teenagers? And why are so many boys seemingly seduced by it? Cartoon of the day | Artist Name The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Country radio still has a gender parity problem – there is just one female artist in the current top 15 country airplay charts – but last week, singer-songwriters Ella Langley and Megan Moroney made history as the first two women in country music to top the all-genre Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts simultaneously. Their success arrives during a generational boom for country music that has been aided by social media. “There’s this young female fan demographic that’s turning these songs into shared cultural moments,” says Cameo Carlson, CEO of mtheory, a company that provides support to artists and their managers. “Both artists really understand that conversation.” “And they’re doing it while country radio remains male dominated,” adds Leslie Fram, co-founder of creative consultancy FEMco. “That contrast makes it extra satisfying: the fans and streaming metrics are speaking louder than gatekeepers.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Martin Belam’s Thursday news quiz Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
Gordon Brown calls for international criminal court for crimes against children
Gordon Brown has called for the creation of an international criminal court for crimes against children, saying “no child should ever become collateral damage in a conflict”. Writing for the Guardian, the former prime minister drew on the tomahawk missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school at the start of the Iran conflict, which killed 168 schoolgirls, to argue that “schools deserve the same moral status as hospitals – protected places – and the same protection under international law”. “Schools, which should be safe havens, are increasingly being drawn into war, with pupils and teachers easy targets who cannot fight back,” said Brown, the UN’s special envoy for global education. International law, including the founding statute of the ICC, has long prohibited assaults on children or schools in war. But in a world where modern warfare increasingly takes place in built-up civilian areas, he argues, classrooms can be as dangerous as the frontline. Brown notes that Donald Trump has denied culpability and blamed Iran for the Minab school bombing but analysis has indicated that this is not true. “On whoever the blame finally lies,” Brown says, “the school massacre is no isolated event.” Two excuses are normally used by perpetrators of attacks on schools: that they were not intentional, or that the schools in question were being used as military bases. This has allowed them to “claim a defence that is still recognised in international law”, he says. But, he continues, “on any plausible interpretation of humanitarian law, those who attack a school are manifestly failing to act on their legal responsibility to avoid all known risks to children and to shelter and protect them as innocent civilians”. To emphasise the seriousness of these crimes, and their unequivocal interpretation under international law, Brown recommends the creation of a dedicated international criminal court for crimes against children. Its jurisdiction would complement the current ICC’s but have a narrower focus: the bombing of schools, abduction of pupils, and enslavement of children by militias. This would come alongside special protocols for prosecuting attacks on educational facilities. Brown also demands that UN countries implement the organisation’s monitoring and reporting mechanism for children involved in armed conflict. “Arrest and prosecution should face leaders who order, authorise, or knowingly permit such attacks,” he writes, adding that the same amount of judicial accountability should apply to those leaders as other war criminals. Brown concludes: “There will be no hiding place for those leaders who permit attacks on children.”