By Elijah J. Magnier The American confrontation with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz may have consequences extending far beyond the Gulf. Donald Trump appears to possess neither a coherent war strategy nor a credible route out of the conflict. Having failed to compel Iran to capitulate or restore navigation through Hormuz on American terms, […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Washington expecting to revive the image that has sustained much of his political career: that no Israeli leader understands the United States better than he does, and that no American president, Republican or Democrat, can resist his pressure. Instead, he received less than ninety minutes behind […]

By Elijah J. Magnier Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can already present himself as a winner in the war against Iran, although he has not achieved the collapse of the Iranian political system. His success lies elsewhere. He persuaded President Donald Trump that a short military campaign could break Tehran, accelerate internal disintegration and produce […]

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 […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – After one thousand days of war, Israel has discovered that impunity is not victory. It believed it could fight on every front, destroy without limits, kill without accountability and still impose deterrence. The Western community gave Israel that illusion on a golden plate, shielding it politically and diplomatically while it […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Iran enters the post-war negotiations with the United States convinced that the balance has shifted. Tehran does not see itself as a defeated state seeking relief, but as a power that endured a US-Israeli assault, preserved its strategic depth, and now intends to convert survival into political gains. Nowhere is […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The 60-day US-Iran MOU was presented as a negotiating window. In reality, it is becoming a battlefield of manoeuvre and a bras-de-fer. Washington is not using this period simply to reach a final agreement with Tehran. It is using it to reduce the leverage Iran gained after the Israeli-American war, […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Since the MOU was announced and mechanism cells were created to implement its paragraphs, Israel has violated the ceasefire in Lebanon daily. Washington has remained silent, giving the impression that the attacks were carried out with US consent or, at the very least, without any visible American objection. This silence […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Benjamin Netanyahu is facing one of the most dangerous political moments of his career. For more than three decades, he presented Iran’s nuclear programme as the central existential threat to Israel and repeatedly argued that only decisive force could remove it. What began as warnings in the Knesset in the […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – Public debate surrounding the American-Iranian framework agreement has focused primarily on uranium enrichment, sanctions relief, ballistic missiles and regional security arrangements. Yet President Donald Trump himself pointed to a different concern when explaining why the agreement had become necessary. According to Trump, the United States was approaching a dangerous level […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The most important development in southern Lebanon is not the battle around Ali al-Taher, the destruction of Israeli tanks, or even the casualties suffered by both sides. The real story is political. Donald Trump, who repeatedly vowed to destroy Hezbollah and weaken Iran’s regional influence, now finds himself preventing Israel […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – History occasionally offers ironies so striking that they appear almost deliberate. In June 2026, President Donald Trump signed the American-Iranian framework agreement in Versailles, France, at the very location where the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. The symbolism was impossible to ignore. The original Treaty of […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – The American-Iranian framework may have ended the war, but it has not ended Iran’s preparations for the next one. To many outside observers, this appears contradictory. Why would a country that has just signed an agreement simultaneously keep its missiles, military plans and command structures on high readiness? Yet from Tehran’s […]

By Elijah J. Magnier – For months, the Trump administration attempted to achieve what previous American initiatives had repeatedly failed to deliver: separating Lebanon from the wider confrontation between Israel and Iran. The objective was practical and politically ambitious. If Lebanon could be stabilised through a negotiated arrangement, one of the most dangerous fronts in […]