By Elijah J. Magnier – President Donald Trump is caught in a strategic trap of his own making. Bombing Iran every night, or expanding the campaign to additional targets, has neither persuaded Tehran to concede nor deterred it from enforcing its own rules governing navigation and security in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, every threat […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The United States House of Representatives has passed the $1.1 trillion National Defense Authorization Act by 216 votes to 212, advancing legislation that could transform Israel’s military future. The most consequential provisions do more than facilitate weapons deliveries. They seek to institutionalise technological, industrial and logistical cooperation between Israel and […]

By Elijah J. Magnier There is a growing possibility that President Donald Trump will attempt to end the war against Iran with a highly visible attack on the country’s remaining nuclear related sites. The objective would not necessarily be to eliminate Iran’s nuclear knowledge or future capacity, an outcome air power cannot guarantee, but to […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The United States is no longer fighting Iran merely to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It is fighting to prevent Tehran from demonstrating that American dominance in the Middle East has been fundamentally weakened. Ships, oil exports and navigation fees remain the immediate instruments of confrontation, but the deeper subject […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The most significant consequence of the renewed war between the United States and Iran may ultimately prove to be political rather than military. In Iran, Israel and the United States, influential factions believe continued warfare can deliver strategic gains. The essential difference is that Iran’s most uncompromising forces do not […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the United States and Iran now appears effectively frozen, leaving wide scope for further military escalation. The confrontation has evolved into something less than a declared war but far beyond a limited exchange of fire. Washington appears to be combining sustained military pressure with […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The war between the United States and Iran has returned not through a formal declaration, but through the language of ships, airstrikes, congressional notifications and the contested sovereignty of the Strait of Hormuz. Every night, American aircraft strike targets inside Iran. Every following round, Iran answers across the Gulf, targeting […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The dispute over Iran’s proposed service fee in the Strait of Hormuz is being presented as a provocation, a power grab or a disguised toll on international shipping. That reading is too narrow. The fee is not the real issue. It is the test. The real issue is whether the […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – More than 1,000 days after the 7 October 2023 attack and the beginning of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, the conflict has entered one of its most deceptive phases. The word “ceasefire” exists on paper, but killing has not stopped. Israeli strikes continue almost daily, Palestinians continue to die, reconstruction […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Benjamin Netanyahu is expected at the White House encounter with Donald Trump carrying the burden of a strategic miscalculation. The Israeli prime minister did not merely ask for American support against Iran. He reportedly helped frame the war as a campaign that could deliver a rapid political result: severe military […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Donald Trump has regained enough room to manoeuvre on Iran, but room is not control. He has prevented Congress from closing the door on future military action, kept the interim US-Iran memorandum alive, and opened a narrow economic channel through temporary sanctions relief. Yet none of this settles the Iran […]