The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is caught between a rock and a hard place. He risks being doomed if he does and doomed if he doesn’t. Despite causing significant damage and Israeli casualties with its missile barrages, Iran is incapable of winning a war against Israel.

The Embassy of the United States in Tel Aviv was temporarily closed after the building sustained minor damage following an Iranian missile strike overnight, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee confirmed on Monday. Though no injuries or casualties were reported among US diplomatic staff, videos surfaced on the internet showing the consulate building impacted by the concussive force of nearby explosions Our US Embassy in Israel and Consulate will officially remain closed today as shelter in place still in effect. Some minor damage from concussions of Iranian missile hits near Embassy Branch in Tel Aviv but no injuries to US personnel," Huckabee wrote in a post on X.

Is Israel against a negotiated resolution to Iran’s nuclear programme_TRT 16062025 by James M. Dorsey

Beyond shifting the paradigm of Middle Eastern geopolitics, Israel’s dramatic strikes against Iran are likely to shape the outcome of a battle within the Trump administration over US policy towards the region. The battle, with Israel at its core, pits Make America Great Again proponents against pro-Israel figures in the administration, with Iran constituting a major battlefield. Putting Iran on the front burner, Israel’s attacks have presented US President Donald J. Trump with his most serious foreign policy conundrum to date. Mr. Trump’s problem is foreign and domestic.

Iran has vowed a strong response to an Israeli airstrike on its nuclear program early Friday. James M. Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, explains how Tehran is expected to react following Israel’s major military offensive targeting its nuclear and military sites.

To say Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is a highly controversial figure in Israeli politics is, at best, an understatement. Yet, his notion of a forever war against Palestinians resonates with a significant segment of Israeli public opinion, despite differences over strategy, tactics, and the prioritisation of the war’s goals.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may be grasping at straws in his hope that US President Donald J. Trump will continue to back his refusal to end the Gaza war and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The prime minister is placing a risky bet that Mr. Trump’s recent suggestion that he is focussing on Iran nuclear negotiations, China, and Russia rather than Gaza means that the continued rise of Make America Great Again protagonists within his administration will not shift the president’s attitude towards the war. Speaking about his feud with billionaire Elon Musk, Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "Honestly, I've been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran... I'm not thinking about Elon Musk.” By implication, Mr. Trump suggested that he was also not thinking of Gaza by not mentioning the war as part of his agenda. To be sure, by doing so, Mr. Trump was allowing Mr. Netanyahu to continue the war. Nevertheless, Mr. Netanyahu could be on shaky ground with pro-Israel figures in Mr. Trump’s administration losing battles to Make America Great Again proponents.

Israel’s throttling of aid for Gaza is as much about weaponizing food and other essential goods as it is about eventually installing a post-war Palestinian administration empathetic to Israeli concerns. Similarly, Israel’s refusal to end the war intends to create space for an alternative to Hamas to emerge as the group’s popularity in Gaza hits rock bottom. So is Israel’s sidelining of the United Nations, despite its decades of experience in delivering aid to Gaza and extensive infrastructure in the Strip. An outspoken Palestinian American Hamas critic who lost 33 relatives in the Gaza war, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, believes that Israel is following the example of the United States in Iraq, where it funded and trained Awakening Councils to counter Al-Qaeda.

Critics have long argued that Israel’s 58-year-long occupation of Palestinian lands conquered in the 1967 Middle East war has brutalised Israeli society. Israel’s 20-month-old assault on Gaza and the Israeli public’s attitudes towards Gazan Palestinians serve as Exhibit A of the degree of brutalisation. So does last week’s pummelling of two Palestinian public bus drivers by militantly racist fans of soccer club Beitar Jerusalem, a far-right darling, after a Palestinian soccer player, Zaki Ahmed, secured the 2025 Israel State Cup title for his team, Hapoel Be'er Sheva.

President Trump's Gulf Yatla-Indian Futures 26052025 by James M. Dorsey

The Trump and Netanyahu administrations may diverge on immediate issues, including Iran, Gaza, and Syria, but are weighing a long-term strategy to strengthen Israel militarily while making it less dependent on the United States.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accelerated the Jewish state’s travels towards international pariah status by declaring that the Gaza war aims to expel Gazan Palestinians from their homeland. Mr. Netanyahu added resettlement of Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinians to his war goals after earlier adopting as official Israeli policy a plan to move Gazans out of the Strip first put forward by US President Donald J. Trump in February. Earlier, Mr. Netanyahu insisted that he would only end the Gaza war once the Israeli military has destroyed Hamas or if the group agrees to disarm and send its leadership and fighters into exile. By making Mr. Trump’s plan a war goal Mr. Netanyahu has officially changed the nature of the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Trump’s plan envisions Palestinians being resettled in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere so that Gaza could be turned into a high-end real estate development. The international community has virtually unanimously condemned his plan. Many charge that it would amount to ethnic cleansing and violate international law.

European members of the world soccer body FIFA staged a dramatic walkout at the world governing body’s congress in Paraguay when President Gianni Infantino arrived late earlier this month. The Europeans accused Mr. Infantino of prioritising his personal political interests by attributing greater importance to meetings with US President Donald J. Trump in Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup, than to FIFA’s highest decision-making body. Mr. Infantino was part of Mr. Trump's extended entourage on the president's three-nation Gulf tour, which also included visits to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. With their walkout, the Europeans highlighted a core problem with global sports governance that has dogged FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and virtually all other global, regional, and national sports associations for decades: the insistence on the fiction that sports and politics are separate.

The winds didn’t just blow hot when Donald J. Trump recently touched down in Qatar on the first visit ever to the Gulf state by a sitting US president, which generated deals worth US$s1.2 trillion. They also blew cold, chilled by a long-standing, Israel-inspired campaign aimed to sully Qatar’s reputation.

Donald J. Trump and the American economy are two beneficiaries of the president’s Gulf road show. So are the Gulf states, Syria, and Make America Great Again supporters within Mr. Trump’s administration. In less than 24 hours in the kingdom, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation from Arab leaders and hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Syrian towns and cities to celebrate his lifting of long-standing crippling sanctions—a rare achievement for an American president. On the surface, Syrians, Saudis, and Israel critics have much to celebrate, including Syrians’ prospects for reconstruction, Gulf states’ defense, technology, and aviation mega deals with the United States, and seemingly upgraded Gulf relations with the US that potentially put them more on par with Israel. Even so, Mr. Trump has yet to pass the litmus test on whether, how much, and what history he wrote on his Gulf tour, packaged in pomp and circumstance.

Syria could be the Middle East’s next exploding powder keg.

Alarm bells went off in Jerusalem and pro-Israel circles in Washington when US President Donald J. Trump this week announced a truce in America’s Red Sea tanker war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels that failed to take Israeli interests into account. Mr. Trump’s announcement of a deal that protects US assets and international shipping but leaves space for continued Houthi targeting of Israel suggested that the president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu differed on multiple issues, including Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

US President Donald J. Trump and Hamas have separately opened a Pandora’s Box that could fuel Middle Eastern fires for years to come. Hamas did so when it unleashed Israel’s assault on Gaza with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. With more than 50,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded and/or maimed for life, Palestinians have paid a stark price. Israel’s assault has devastated the Strip and opened the door to Israeli reoccupation 20 years after the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the territory. Mr. Trump played his part when he called in February during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s first visit to Washington this year for resettling Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turning the Strip into a high-end luxury real estate development. In doing so, Mr. Trump allowed Israel to adopt a plan long envisioned by ultra-nationalists but not the general public as its official policy. Now, the Pandora’s Box could come home to haunt Mr. Trump as he prepares to visit the Gulf next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s embrace of the global far-right faces a difficult choice. The question for Mr. Netanyahu is whether to maintain Israel’s boycott of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s second-largest political party, and Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) amid an escalating feud between the Trump administration and Germany over attitudes toward the far right.

Algeria may be the latest target in efforts to garner further Arab recognition of the Jewish state, despite its Gaza war conduct and rejection of Palestinian national aspirations. To that end, a Philadelphia-based far-right pro-Israeli organisation, the Middle East Forum, has put Algeria in its crosshairs in an apparent attempt to build pressure on the North African state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Algeria would be a prize catch.