Once hostages are returned, the hard part of Trump’s peace plan begins

October 13, 2025

Optimists cite what they see as key differences between the failed January ceasefire and today. While accurate, neither necessarily foreshadows rapid progress.

With the last Israeli hostages living and dead to be released from Hamas captivity imminently, there is every reason for them and their families to celebrate and for everyone to hope for a more peaceful future.

But in the modern Middle East, we have been in a similar position many times before. As recently as this year’s January-through-March cease fire, Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages but the path to a long-term solution collapsed.

Woe to those who echo Neville Chamberlain’s 1939 boast that he had achieved “peace for our time”. US President Donald Trump has already gone much further, promising “eternal peace” in the region. He will doubtless say more when he arrives in Israel even though he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize last week.

Tellingly, however, Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying the Nobel Prize committee has rewarded people who have “done nothing for the world” while Trump “solves complex problems, crises that last for decades”.

Optimists cite what they see as key differences between the failed January ceasefire and today: notably that all Israel hostages will be returned and that Trump has applied pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While accurate, neither necessarily foreshadows rapid progress.

Firstly, the hostage returns will eliminate a major factor in Israel’s anti-Netanyahu politics since Hamas’ 2023 attack.

There will still be opposition to his policies in Gaza and the wider regional war caused by Iran’s ring of fire strategy, but the most emotional concern for average Israelis is closed. After Israel announced the deal, early polls showed improvement in Netanyahu’s political standing. He may also hope to benefit from Trump’s visit and the actual return of the hostages.

Secondly, Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu, widely attributed to Israel’s unsuccessful attack on Hamas leadership in Qatar, reflected Trump’s personal ire more than a change in US strategic views. He believed he hadn’t received adequate notice of Israel’s strike which, combined with predictable outrage from Qatar and others, is hardly likely to recur. While controversy over the incident was significant, its effects could well be short term.

Media coverage has concentrated on the returning Israelis held by Hamas, but Jerusalem will release approximately 2000 Palestinian prisoners, some 250 of whom are serving life sentences for terrorist activity and include some of the worst offenders in Israeli prisons. Hamas is pressing for releasing additional Gazans.

The return of these Gazans will serve as a tangible signal to others that Hamas is reconstituting its terrorist and military capabilities despite being severely damaged after two years of fighting. Indeed, Hamas fighters reportedly moved quickly in Gaza City to reassert control after the agreed-upon pullback of the Israel Defence Forces.

Whether we are at “the end of the beginning” is unknowable. International leaders must be more resolute today than they have ever been.

And that is the easy part. Further down the road, Trump’s peace plan is filled with vague, aspirational statements including the first of its twenty points: “Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.”

There are more. “Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” handling day-to-day Gazan affairs “with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the ‘Board of Peace’” chaired by Trump himself. Hamas and other terrorist groups have already stated they reject any “foreign guardianship” over Gaza.

As abstract as disputes over these points might be, they have palpable effects on what happens after the hostage/prisoner swaps are successfully concluded. The most critical question is whether Hamas will demilitarise.

That point is largely aspirational and expresses the objective that Hamas will have no role in Gaza’s governance but does not say how that will be achieved. Obviously, further negotiation with Hamas is required – about, ironically, the central role it will have in its own unlikely military demise.

One little-noticed point in the peace plan addresses the eventual transfer of Gaza’s governance to the Palestinian Authority “at such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform programme … and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza” as described in earlier proposals.

But making the Authority “modern and efficient” is as likely as King Canute turning back the tide – or Hamas’s willingness to hand back Gaza to its principal Palestinian opponent.

Even if implementing Trump’s plan came close to such a turnover, there is no provision to ask Gazans themselves by whom they want to be ruled – through a referendum or an election, for example. And the risk of renewed authoritarian rule in Gaza, especially if Palestinian statehood is reached, remains unacceptably high.

Whether we are at “the end of the beginning”, in Winston Churchill’s words, is unknowable. International leaders must be more resolute and clear-eyed today than they have ever been.

This article was originally published by Australian Financial Review, on October 12, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump’s Plan for Gaza: Reality or Drama?

October 06, 2025

Donald Trump proclaimed (https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-closest-weve-ever-come-full-text-of-trump-netanyahu-statements-on-deal-to-end-gaza-war/) that his Middle East peace plan marked “a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.” Four days later, Hamas said it was prepared to release all remaining hostages to Israel.(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/world/middleeast/hamas-trump-gaza-deal.html) Trump responded(https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/03/hamas-gaza-peace-ceasefire-deal/) that Hamas had shown “they are ready for a lasting peace,” adding “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!”

Now, reality sets in. First, the “plan” accepted by Arab leaders after meeting Trump in New York during the UN General Assembly was not the same as the plan Trump actually announced. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu persuaded him to make several changes favorable to Israel(https://www.axios.com/2025/09/30/trump-gaza-peace-plan-israel-changes-hamas-response) before their joint White House appearance last week.

While Arab states were reportedly “infuriated” by the changes, they nonetheless publicly supported the plan to allow it to move forward. Nonetheless, weeks, even months, of negotiation will be necessary to advance the plan, even if the hostage exchanges happen quickly. At any point, these negotiations could deadlock, as so many before have. Even after key points have been agreed, they can quickly come apart, a repeated experience in Middle East peace efforts.

Second, the plan is long on aspirations, short on operations and implementation. For example, commentators have focused on what they call an Israeli concession in Point 19 on Palestinian statehood. The text itself, however, is so highly contingent and qualified that it is almost a parody. The plan states that “while Gaza development advances” and the Palestine Authority reform program “is faithfully executed,” then “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” Caveat emptor, as ancient Romans would say.

Third, and most importantly, Hamas’s announcement Friday was not an unqualified acceptance. It was a “yes, but,” with several potentially debilitating conditions, and implicit attempts to renegotiate the plan as presented. By contrast, it was relatively easy for Israel to accept Trump’s plan without comparable conditions not only because of the changes Trump conceded to Netanyahu, but because, as written, the plan has numerous “off ramps” Israelis can take advantage of when it suits them. Thus, Hamas and Iran, its principal terrorist supporter, are at a political disadvantage from the outset. Trump explicitly gave Neyanyahu his blessing “to do what you would have to do,” and his “full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.”(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/trump-netanyahu-hamas-ultimatum.html) No wonder Jerusalem found it easy to accept the plan.

Finally, Trump has a penchant for declaring victory when the moment suits him, as it did when Hamas gave its initial reaction. He took partial agreement to the potential release of Israeli hostages as a fait accompli, and then proclaimed the entire deal a success. Trump did much the same thing in June after US B-2’s dropped bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. He declared victory in the “Twelve-Day War” Jerusalem had launched against Tehran, and called for an immediate cease fire. In fact, both America and Israel should have continued the strikes, which had significantly damaged, but certainly not destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The moments Trump chose to congratulate himself were indeed high points, but they were not final results. This is particularly true in hostage negotiations, which have obsessed Trump since his first term. At the very beginning of his second term, Trump obtained the release of several hostages (and the remains of those deceased) by forcing Israel and Hamas to accept a plan that had essentially been negotiated by the Biden Administration. But after the Biden deal’s hostage exchange had been carried out, the remainder of the deal (aimed at a full resolution of the Israel-Hamas conflict) collapsed. There is every reason to believe the same will happen here.

Hostages raise highly emotive images, but the hard disputes between Israel and Iran and its terrorist surrogates, especially Hamas, are far more difficult to address if the goal is finding a sustainable, long-term solution rather than just social-media excitement.

Obviously, in these early days after the Trump-Netanyahu announcement, neither Israel nor Hamas wants to be publicly shamed as “the obstacle to peace.” We have been through enough similar scenarios to know that much of what we are seeing and hearing is merely performance art. Most importantly, Iran’s silence this past week is deafening. Until Iran signals its support, if ever, the plan will be just words on paper.(https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/is-donald-trumps-sweeping-gaza-peace-plan-really-viable)

Trump’s twenty-point plan is vague, complex, and grandiloquent. It could well simply fall of its own weight. As World War I ended, Woodrow Wilson issued his famous “Fourteen Points” to establish conditions for world peace thereafter. In response, France’s Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau reportedly said, “Fourteen points; why, that’s a little strong! The good Lord had only ten.”(https://www.nytimes.com/1918/11/02/archives/wilsons-commandments-four-more-than-the-lord-laid-down-said.html) We will see whether Trump can do better than Wilson.

This article was originally published by Independent Arabia, on October 6, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump may be abandoning Taiwan to China’s tender mercies

September 25, 2025

Recent reports that the Trump administration is withholding roughly $400 million of military assistance to Taiwan are deeply disturbing. Although the White House maintains no final decisions have been made, the pause is eerily similar to Trump’s summer 2019 withholding of security assistance to Ukraine, for reasons entirely unrelated to Kyiv’s defense needs.

China’s threat to Taiwan is beyond dispute. Congressional support for aiding Taiwan militarily, and thereby hopefully deterring Beijing’s aggressive intentions, remains firm and fully bipartisan — highly compelling in an otherwise highly partisan, politicized Washington. If anything, the principal criticism of Taipei’s national security efforts since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 is that they have been insufficient, although those criticisms are now badly outdated.

Unfortunately, the case for America’s interest in Taiwan’s self-defense and de facto independence has long been less than clearly stated. Since 1949, the United States has been vitally interested in preventing Taiwan from being swallowed by the mainland Peoples Republic of China. Taiwan’s critical geographic location in the “first island chain” between China and the open Pacific, an island once prompted Douglas MacArthur to call it “an unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Taiwan’s economic importance and its vibrant, constitutional, representative government also underline its centrality to U.S. national security.

That is why the reported halt in military assistance is so troubling. The apparent reason for the arms cutoff is Trump’s obsession with a trade deal with China and his palpable hunger for a summit with Xi Jinping. In his first term, Trump spoke repeatedly of making “the biggest trade deal in history” with China, which he failed to do. Today, reaching a China deal is significantly harder because of the incoherent, worldwide “reciprocal” tariffs he promulgated this spring, which deny Washington numerous potential allies in blocking China’s deeply invidious trade policies.

On Sept. 19, Xi and Trump spoke to discuss several issues, including the status of Tik Tok. As with his overall kid-glove treatment of Beijing, Trump has defied clear statutory deadlines to shut Tik Tok down or else sell it to new owners with assurances that it will no longer vacuum up American users’ information. Trump’s initial opposition to Tik Tok’s espionage threat disappeared when he concluded that it boosted his re-election campaign, and the ownership interests of several key supporters.

Taiwan has long feared Trump might trade away its interests in pursuing mega-trade arrangements with the Chinese communists. There is already ample evidence, beyond arms-supply issues, that he is going out of his way to placate Beijing.

Since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, China has been, by a considerable margin, the largest international purchaser of its oil and gas. Nonetheless, despite threating rhetoric, Trump has imposed no additional tariffs or secondary sanctions on China.

In contrast — India, a clear strategic priority for Washington to constrain Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions — has been hit with 25 percent U.S. tariffs on top of 25 percent “economic” tariffs. This burdens Indian exports to the U.S. by 50 percent, a level far higher than other trading partners.

And despite Russia’s s clear disdain for his proposals to stop the Ukraine war, Trump has rejected new sanctions on Russia. He has, in fact, conditioned such action on European nations hitting India and China with significant tariff increases. Whatever Trump’s motives, the net effect is to spare both Moscow and Beijing.

Taiwan is America’s seventh-largest trading partner and the world’s key manufacturer of sophisticated computer chips, which underlines the enormous risk of mainland Chinese hegemony over the island. But what troubles Taiwan most deeply is the risk of political concessions. If, for example, Trump agreed to revise the Shanghai Communique (or even reinterpret it unilaterally) to concede communist China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, it would gravely compromise Taiwan’s political viability. Asian governments especially would see such a concession (or lesser versions of it) as Washington effectively abandoning Taipei to Beijing’s tender mercies.

A radical restatement of the U.S. position on Taiwan could well violate the commitments to support Taipei’s defense that were legislated in the Taiwan Relations Act and undoubtedly cause a political firestorm in Congress. Of course, as the Tik Tok case demonstrates, Trump ignores statutes he dislikes, and Congress remains quiescent. Violating the Taiwan Relations Act might seem easy for an emboldened Oval Office occupant. It would unquestionably incentivize Xi to increase his squeeze on Taiwan.

This is no time for Taiwan’s supporters to be passive. Taiwan could be cast adrift at a moment’s notice. In Trumpworld, posts on social media, government by whim, are the preferred medium of communications, all too often without considered analysis by the National Security Council, let alone close consultations with allied governments.

Whether Trump can negotiate the biggest trade deal in history is problematic. Even more problematic is whether China would deign to adhere to any “commitments” it might make. The U.S. should urgently restore the suspended military assistance and make clear that Beijing will not rule Taiwan any time soon.

This article was originally published in The Hill, on September 24, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump’s utterly incoherent Ukraine strategy

August 26, 2025

Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy today is no more coherent than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office. Collapsing in confusion, haste, and the absence of any discernible meeting of the minds among Ukraine, Russia, several European countries, and America, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/23/trump-ukraine-frustration/), along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign.

The administration has tried to camouflage its disarray behind social-media posts, such as Trump comparing his finger-pointing at Vladimir Putin to then-Vice President Richard Nixon during the famous kitchen debate with Nikita Khrushchev. Why Trump wants to be compared to the only President who resigned in disgrace is unclear. Trump also asserted Ukraine can only win by attacking inside Russia(https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-truth-social-ukraine-russia-a545b8a3?mod=article_inline), even as his own Pentagon blocked Kyiv from missile strikes doing just that(https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-has-quietly-blocked-ukraines-long-range-missile-strikes-on-russia-432a12e1), reversing the Biden administration. Russia’s attack on a US-owned factory in Ukraine, which Moscow hasn’t acknowledged, only highlighted the disarray(https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/kremlin-casts-doubt-trumps-push-ukraine-peace-rifts-remain-unresolved-rcna226742).

Russia’s unprovoked 2022 aggression against Ukraine is painfully straightforward, and the views of the combatants are completely contradictory. Kyiv believes it is fighting for its freedom and independence, while Moscow seeks to recreate the old Russian Empire, positions which leave no middle ground. They may ultimately agree to a ceasefire, but the threat of renewed hostilities will continue as long as the Kremlin maintains its imperialist goals. Trump has called the conflict “senseless” and “ridiculous,” but Kyiv and Moscow, for widely varying but strongly held reasons, vehemently disagree.

Trump’s furious pace trying to move an extraordinarily complex conflict to resolution over the past two weeks was one of several significant mistakes. So doing inevitably made reaching agreement even on a ceasefire, let alone a full-scale peace agreement, more difficult. US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on August 8, and immediately returned to Washington to inform Trump, among other things, that Putin wished to meet with him. Two days later, Trump announced the requested summit (soon thereafter revealed to be held in Alaska) would occur one week later, August 15. Trump noted that he wished the meeting could have been held even sooner, but it is almost surely unprecedented in modern history that a summit between leaders of two major powers on such a contentious issue has been arranged so expeditiously. After the Putin-Trump meeting, Trump executed a stunning about-face. He said that, despite his pre-summit threats that sanctions would be imposed on Russia if Putin did not agree to a cease fire, he there would be no new US sanctions or tariffs. Moreover, Trump announced he no longer favored a near-term ceasefire, but wanted instead to proceed directly to a final agreement. Moscow and other capitals could hardly miss these U-turns.

Trump’s subsequent August 18 meetings in Washington with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and several European leaders also occurred with dizzying speed. Emerging from that meeting, interrupted by a forty-minute Trump phone call to Putin, came the idea of a soon-to-follow bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, perhaps joined at its conclusion by Trump, or with a follow-up trilateral meeting, presumably at which the three leaders would wrap up a final deal. None of this was realistic, and now appears unlikely any time soon,

A corollary mistake was the very high level of generality at which the major substantive issues were discussed. National leaders often converse together in broad terms, but almost always after their subordinates have plowed through the same ground in much greater detail prior thereto. Inevitably, this more-traditional “bottoms up” process takes longer than the pace Trump wanted. Speaking in broad generalities may seem to enhance chances of reaching agreement, but they may instead merely paper-over vast differences, potentially serious enough to derail discussions entirely. We are not necessarily at that point, but today there is no clear path ahead.

Finally, other bilateral relationships have suffered considerable damage because of the fallout from the administration’s failing diplomacy. India in particular feels deeply aggrieved by Trump. It is the only victim of his threat to impose tariffs and sanctions, either directly on Russia or secondarily on countries purchasing Russian oil and gas. Moscow has not been sanctioned in any way, essentially ignoring White House threats. China, a considerably larger purchaser of hydrocarbons from Russia than India, also remains untouched, as Beijing-Washington trade negotiations continue. By contrast, India has not only been subject to the comparatively high level of “regular” Trump tariffs of 25%, but also hit with another 25% tariff level because of its oil and gas trade with Russia. The longer India hangs out to dry, the worse the New Delhi-Washington relationship gets.

Of course, it’s never over until it’s over, especially with Trump. But his efforts over the last two-plus weeks may have left us further from both peace and a just settlement for Ukraine than before.

This article was originally published by Washington Examiner, on August 26, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

A Bad Summit’s Silver Lining

August 21, 2025

Vladimir Putin led Russia out of international isolation on Friday, striding down a red carpet to greet an applauding Donald Trump. He accepted a ride with President Trump in “the Beast,” and one-on-one applied his KGB training to restart one of Moscow’s most effective influence operations ever. After the Alaska summit, Mr. Putin could legitimately say, as generations of victorious generals have, “The day is ours.”

Since his first encounter with Kim Jong Un, Mr. Trump has argued that U.S. presidents lose nothing by meeting rogue foreign leaders without previously exacting a price. Most everyone else disagrees, especially the rogues. Friday’s summit should clear up Mr. Trump’s misapprehension. Mr. Putin emerged from diplomatic purdah with flags unfurled, literally. How long before Europeans like France’s ever-opportunistic Emmanuel Macron phone Mr. Putin or visit him in Moscow? And how does India, under sanctions from Washington for buying Russian oil, feel about still hanging out to dry?

At the summit’s concluding media event, the leaders were addressing multiple audiences: America, Russia, Ukraine, Europe and, never forget, China. Worried about all these audiences, the White House worked assiduously beforehand to lower expectations. Among Americans, only MAGA loyalists could assert their leader had a good day. Russians seemed exuberant, and in Kyiv and other European capitals the mood was disquiet or dismay. Xi Jinping may now be more inclined to meet with Mr. Trump, having noted his evident fatigue during the press conference.

We don’t know whether the economic teams—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and their Russian counterparts—took advantage of their free time to confer. From Moscow’s perspective, it was a real opportunity. Even if these ministers reached no conclusions, they could have laid the basis for future discussions between Messrs. Trump and Putin, or at least arranged for their own subordinates to prepare the way.

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The far north has become NATO’s soft underbelly

August 12, 2025

ALTHOUGH LONG a factor in American strategic thinking, the Arctic now receives far more attention in Washington than in decades. Several forces are at play: increased use of Arctic maritime passages for military and commercial purposes; Russia’s historical focus on its northern territories, now magnified by its aggression against Ukraine; and, most salient geopolitically, China’s undisguised aim to be an Arctic power, using the developing Beijing-Moscow axis. America and its allies have yet to cope adequately with these challenges.

In the second world war, Greenland was critical to North Atlantic convoy routes, hosting significant American deployments. The Pentagon clearly understood the Arctic’s cold-war role, building the “DEW [distant-early-warning] Line” across Alaska, Canada and Greenland to detect nuclear-equipped Soviet bombers or ballistic missiles heading to the continental United States. Responding to the Sputnik satellite, in 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower sent the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, under the Arctic ice cap from the Bering Strait to the Atlantic, in the first submerged transit of the North Pole.

Unfortunately, cold-war victory led to geostrategic complacency, not just in Washington, but across NATO and bilateral American alliances with the likes of Japan and South Korea. This complacency is disappearing as the race for Arctic hegemony picks up, but the West has much to do, and quickly, to counter the rising threats from China and Russia.

The prize is potentially vast. Opportunities to exploit the fabled Northwest Passage across Canada, or its counterpart across Russia’s northern coast, are enormous. Greater access to Far North natural-resource deposits, both at sea and ashore, are also generating a lot of attention.

Updating the jocular insight of General Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general, is a good starting point for the West’s Arctic grand strategy: “Keep the Chinese out, the Americans in, and the Russians down.” The alliance’s soft underbelly is now probably the Far North, not the Mediterranean. NATO has four front-line Arctic Ocean littoral states (Norway, Denmark, Canada and America) facing off with Russia, although the full mix of Arctic players and threats is far more extensive.

President Donald Trump remains sceptical of NATO and, indeed, the very concept of collective-defence alliances. Nonetheless, America is a front-line Arctic power, as Alaska’s congressional delegation relentlessly reminds Mr Trump, and the region’s importance to his presidency’s legacy should be obvious.

Unfortunately, American military resources are currently wholly inadequate to the task, with insufficient Navy and Coast Guard vessels worldwide, let alone those required for Arctic (and Antarctic) operations, such as specialised icebreakers. NATO’s admission of Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024 helped plug some of the gaps in the alliance’s Arctic naval capabilities.

William Seward, Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, looks ever more prescient. Had he not led the United States to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867, and Russia had remained a North American power, the cold war might never have ended. He also tried to purchase Greenland from Denmark in 1868. Had he succeeded, today’s circumstances might have been easier.

Mr. Trump did not discover Greenland in 2019—when he first mooted buying it—but he has seriously complicated addressing how the huge island and its tiny population can once again be fully integrated into NATO defences. The 1951 US-Danish Defence of Greenland treaty is a workable basis for guarding against the thrusting Chinese and Russians, while allowing Greenland’s political status to evolve. America had as many as 17 military facilities there during the cold war, and today’s focus hopefully precludes China and Russia from acting covertly against NATO’s security interests.

Norway’s Svalbard islands graphically embody the alliance’s dilemmas. John Longyear, an American businessman, initially exploited their coal deposits in the early 20th century (more evidence of how ahistorical today’s American isolationists are). However, allowable under the 1925 treaty confirming Norwegian sovereignty, Svalbard also features Russian mining operations about 30 miles from its major habitation, appropriately named Longyearbyen.

A European intelligence official said recently that “Svalbard has to be near the top of a list of where Russia might try something.” This is not fantasy. China poses an analogous threat to Taiwanese islands like Kinmen and Matsu, just off the mainland, which it could readily seize without invading Taiwan outright. These are inviting targets, testing allied resolve in the Far East and the Far North. Can Svalbard’s treaty-based demilitarisation be preserved? As I discovered during my own visit there in April, the islands provide NATO’s adversaries excellent locations for naval or air bases.

Among NATO’s Arctic Ocean members, Canada is the hole in the doughnut. Persistent Canadian underspending on defence during Justin Trudeau’s several governments remains uncorrected. Helpfully, however, relations between America’s and Canada’s armed forces are otherwise quite good, including through long-term development of national missile defences for both countries. It is Canada’s politicians who have failed.

Moreover, disagreements between Canada and America over whether various aspects of the Northwest Passage are international waterways or Canadian territorial waters must also be resolved. One approach would be to agree that passage by NATO-member warships would be freely permitted in fulfilling their alliance obligations.

These are merely preliminary considerations. Formidable issues remain, including the need for massive increase in NATO defence expenditures, not just for the Arctic but worldwide. Cold-war victory didn’t “end history” in the Arctic any more than anywhere else. And, critically, isolationism can play no part in strategising about a region so close and vital to American national-security interests. Time to pick up the pace.

This article was first published in the Economist on August 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump is favoring China over India on trade

August 07, 2025

As Donald Trump’s tariffs begin to bite more widely, considerable amounts of hard data on their actual consequences will soon arrive. Of course, the rationale for many of Trump’s tariffs remains opaque, and, despite the August 1 “deadline,” negotiations continue with several important trading partners.

The tariffs’ economic impact continues to emerge, but their international diplomatic and political effects remain hard to measure. From a geopolitical perspective, it is entirely logical to ask how tariffs fit into America’s grand strategy, although the Trump administration has not done so. Unfortunately, based on international reactions so far, the United States, by tariffing friend and foe alike, has likely suffered a considerable loss of trust and confidence, built up over decades of effort, in exchange for minimal economic gains, if any, and risk of formidable losses.

The central, still-unresolved issue is China, in recent years always among America’s top three trading partners (with Canada and Mexico), and especially how China fares compared to India. The White House seems headed toward more-lenient treatment for Beijing on tariff rates and other metrics than it imposed on New Delhi. If so, it will be a potentially enormous mistake. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent(https://apnews.com/article/us-china-trade-stockholm-tariffs-bessent-lifeng-2cffb7de31169afc8de0c02bedb4683a) has suggested that China’s August 12 deadline could be extended if negotiations looked promising.

Trump announced on July 30 that India’s tariff rate would be 26%, one percent lower than originally proposed on April 2(https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trump-hits-india-25-tariff-rcna221907), but a major increase from the previous average rate of 2.4%. Moreover, Trump harshly criticized India’s acquisition of Russian military equipment, underlining a longstanding US-India disagreement, and Indian purchases of Russian oil and gas in violation of America’s Ukraine-related sanctions. (India is also one of the “BRICS” countries, which Trump separately singled out for a 10% tariff.) Indians were surprised and angered by the relative harshness of India’s treatment(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-31/trump-blasts-india-over-russia-ties-pushing-modi-into-a-corner), and the threat of additional, unspecified penalties if Washington and New Delhi could not quickly strike a deal.

That anger could grow exponentially if China snagged a better agreement, especially if Trump is seen as sacrificing US strategic interests(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/29/us-china-trade-war-talks-trump-xi-summit-partnership-cooperation/) in his “zeal for a deal” with Xi Jinping. China has a significantly higher trade deficit with the US than does India, and Washington has long complained about Chinese trade practices. These include stealing intellectual property, unfairly subsidizing their international companies, and denying access to China’s domestic market, contrary to repeated commitments.

Geopolitically, China (and its emerging Russia axis) is this century’s principle strategic threat to America and its allies. Many analysts believe Trump could offer significant concessions on key security issues, such as Taiwan, to get a China deal, citing the recent reversal of the long-standing practice(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/world/asia/trump-taiwan-china.html) of allowing Taiwan’s president to make transit stops in America and not reaching a trade deal with Taipei(https://www.ft.com/content/3c48233d-dca6-4cd6-8ba9-c86fcfa853b0) before August 1. Graham Allison says “Trump’s view of Taiwan is more compatible with China’s than any U.S. president since World War II(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/29/us-china-trade-war-talks-trump-xi-summit-partnership-cooperation/).” Further examples of Trump’s softness include allowing Nvidia(https://www.ft.com/content/ba0929bd-5912-44fb-9048-c143aced4c8a) to resume exports of sensitive information technology to China; and ignoring US statutory requirements(https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/us-attorney-general-cited-this-justification-for-trumps-power-to-ignore-tiktok-ban) to ban TikTok or divest Chinese ownership.

Critical for Washington is Beijing’s strengthening axis with Moscow. This “partnership without limits” as Xi and Vladimir Putin have described it, has already resulted in significantly increased Chinese purchases of hydrocarbons, and negotiations to build new oil and gas pipelines between the two, plus increased financial and military cooperation. This axis raises risks all along their peripheries, from Asia through the Middle East to Europe. Beijing’s hegemonic, threatening behavior against Taiwan and the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, and against competing territorial claimants in the South China Sea, endanger key US allies and trading partners. China and India themselves face off across a long, much-disputed border. Moreover, China aids Pakistan, India’s intense rival, including militarily as demonstrated in the recent Pahalgam crisis. To make matters worse, Indians have noted that both Pakistan and Bangladesh scored lower tariff rates from Trump(https://indianexpress.com/article/business/us-tariffs-india-pakistan-bangladesh-50-countries-trump-market-10163029/).

Having China emerge better than India in their respective trade relations with America is entirely counterproductive. Instead of advancing cooperation within the Asian Security Quad (India, Japan, Australia and America), Trump could well push India into closer economic and political ties(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/28/india-china-normalization-trump-second-term-geopolitics/) with Russia and China. Beijing would see Trump’s trade concessions as expressions of fundamental American weakness and dependence on trade with Beijing. At least Secretary Bessent did make clear(https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bessent-warns-china-russian-oil-purchases-that-could-bring-100-tariffs-2025-07-29/) after the last round of US-China talks that China also risked heavy tariffs due to its purchases of Russian (and Iranian) oil and gas.

This reality, and Beijing’s intransigence on trade issues, could stem Trump’s lust for an agreement with Xi, but the outcome is uncertain. If the tariffs’ negative effects unfold as economics theory indicates, Trump’s domestic political support will weaken correspondingly. Giving China a sweetheart deal on trade will only worsen his problems. We may be saved, therefore, by Trump’s highest priority: his own well-being.

This article was originally published by The Hill, on August 6, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump and Netanyahu are heading for an Oval Office showdown

July 05, 2025

Bibi Netanyahu’s Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump on Monday could be a game-changer. They will undoubtedly focus on Iran, Gaza, and Syria’s new regime among other subjects. But how close are the two leaders’ positions, and can their differences be reconciled?

Both will declare the meeting “successful,” but the reality may be quite different. On Iran, Trump crossed a Rubicon by ordering direct US military action against nuclear-weapons-related targets in Iran. He may think the strikes were simply a “one and done” affair, but, if so, he is badly mistaken. Trump put his personal prestige on the line, not to mention America’s. Despite his contention that the B-2 bunker-buster raids “completely and totally obliterated” the targeted nuclear-program sites, much remains to be done.

No one knows that better than Netanyahu, who has focused on the Iranian nuclear threat for over three decades. Although he persuaded (or manoeuvred) Trump into using military force, Trump swerved immediately after receiving favourable reports on the strikes to impose a cease-fire on Israel and Iran. Netanyahu had little choice but to stand down, having achieved two major objectives: getting Trump into the fight and imposing significant, albeit not fatal, damage on Iran’s nuclear project. Iran also had little choice, having been pounded by Israel and the US, but to launch merely pro forma retaliation, shake its rhetorical fist in defiance, and hope to escape any additional destruction.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu sees that the time is ripe for further action against Iran, including actions to encourage the domestic opposition to move against the ayatollahs. Iran’s air defences are now essentially flat, but the moment will not last forever. Top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists have been eliminated, but their ranks will reform, and their respective work will resume. The ayatollahs have clearly signalled their continuing resolve by effectively expelling all International Atomic Energy Agency personnel from the country.

The last thing Netanyahu wants is for Trump to throw Tehran an economic or political lifeline. Israel seeks regime change in Iran, and Netanyahu needs at least Trump’s acquiescence for Israel to continue deconstructing the remains of Iran’s nuclear enterprise. Further US participation would be icing on the cake. By contrast, Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he reasons, Barack Obama received one (which he didn’t deserve), so why not Trump?

Trump’s Nobel obsession now seems concentrated on Gaza, where the ongoing conflict has intensified since the Israel-Iran ceasefire took effect. He has pressured both Israel and Hamas to reach agreement to effect the return some still-unsettled number of Israeli hostages and remains, in exchange releasing possibly 1,000 Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody, plus a 60-day ceasefire. The sticking point remains Hamas’s insistence on a complete end to the war, or, reportedly, a commitment that talks to end the war commence immediately after the hostage/prisoner exchanges.

This sort of framework has been used before, but its durability remains just as doubtful as other post-October 7, 2023 efforts. Trump wants to announce a cease-fire on or before the Monday meeting, but how long it lasts is anyone’s guess. Hamas undoubtedly wants relief from Israeli military strikes, and domestic political pressure to secure the release of more hostages has left Netanyahu little manoeuvring room. But, apart from humanitarian objectives regarding the hostages, Israel gains no strategic upside from yet another cease fire. Israel has repeatedly suspended combat operations and withdrawn from already-secured positions in Gaza, and then been forced to re-take them, at considerable human and material costs to the Israeli Defense Forces. Lengthening the war also imposes additional strains on an already stressed Israeli economy.

The collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, replaced by former Al-Nusra Front terrorists (now known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or “HTS”), was undoubtedly a serious setback for Iran. Acceding to Saudi Arabia’s requests, Trump lifted US economic sanctions previously imposed against Assad’s government, but substantial questions remain whether HTS has actually renounced terrorism.

Its leader, Syria’s de facto head of government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is also an unknown, having shed his combat fatigues for a suit, trimmed his beard, and dropped his nom de guerre for, apparently, his real name. In the meantime, Israel continues military operations inside Syria, in addition to holding onto an extended buffer zone occupied after Assad’s fall.

Perhaps nothing concrete regarding Syria will emerge from the Netanyahu-Trump meeting, but the two leaders need a better sense of each other’s concerns and objectives. Since the First World War, the Middle East has seen more diplomatic efforts crash and burn than any other geographic hot spot. Iran and Gaza today are unlikely to prove more successful.

Monday’s most important outcome in the West Wing will be decisions on the possible further use of US and Israeli military force to achieve key objectives on both fronts.

This article was originally published in The Telegraph on July 5, 2025. To read the original article, please click here.

Iran’s Ayatollahs Are Weaker Than Ever

June 16, 2025

Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program, air defenses and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation has so far been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it.

But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains power in Tehran, and it could rebuild its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and terrorist networks. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the ayatollahs. America’s declared objective should be just that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case last week, telling the Iranian people: “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”

Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate. Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades, and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression. International antiproliferation and antiterrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics. There is widespread outrage at the corruption and self-enrichment of senior clerics and flag officers (and their families) in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regular military.

The regime’s imperial projects have done nothing for Iran’s people. They have brought only devastation in Iran itself and elsewhere. Untold billions of dollars were spent over decades to empower terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and to undertake massive nuclear and missile projects that now lie in ashes.

Click here to read the full article.

Will Trump TACO on Iran?

June 11, 2025

The world is undeniably close to learning whether Iran can yet again out-negotiate and out-last feckless Western politicians and save its nuclear-weapons program. On June 5, Donald Trump said(https://www.axios.com/2025/06/04/iran-nuclear-deal-trump) Iran was “slow-walking” nuclear negotiations with the United States. His two-month time limit to the Ayatollah Khamenei has either expired already or soon will(https://www.axios.com/2025/03/19/trump-letter-iran-nuclear-deal).

The moment of decision is near, but there is no credible evidence which way Trump will go. Is he prepared to accept Israel using force against Iran’s nuclear program, either acting alone or alongside the United States? Or will we see another episode of what Wall Street calls the “TACO trade”: Trump Always Chickens Out? At this point, not even Trump knows the answer.

He may hope to proclaim he has produced a better nuclear deal than Barrack Obama’s flawed 2015 agreement, but this is a risky domestic gambit. Trump faces palpable political vulnerability if he agrees to something that looks, in substance, like Obama’s deal, permitting Iran to continue any uranium-enrichment capability, let alone one as large and sophisticated as Tehran has already developed. Indeed, if Iran were allowed to do so under whatever guise, including an “international consortium,” Trumpian claims of outdoing Obama and actually stopping Tehran’s drive for nuclear weapons will be immediately exposed as false.

This risk to Trump of appearing to “chicken out” to Iran is just as high even if an agreement is disguised as “interim,” or “time limited” or qualified in any cosmetic way. A poorly camouflaged deal is so intellectually dishonest that, when inevitably discovered, the political damage to Trump would be extensive and lasting. Trump’s “zeal for a deal” has already united congressional Republicanshttps://jewishinsider.com/2025/05/most-congressional-republicans-insist-on-no-enrichment-for-iran/), notably tame on almost every other issue, against allowing Iran any enrichment capabilities. Trump says repeatedly he doesn’t want to see force used, but he will soon have no choice, given his own framing of the Iran issue, let alone political and military reality.

Middle Eastern oil-producing states are reportedly working quietly to facilitate a US-Iran deal. Of course, Gulf Arab states would respond affirmatively if asked whether they prefer seeing Iran’s nuclear-weapons program ended peacefully. But in real-world terms, they are confronted by a different question. If they must face the risk of hostilities with Iran, would they prefer to do so before Tehran possesses deliverable nuclear weapons, or after? Understood fully, there is only one correct answer, unless Gulf Cooperation Council members wish to live in Tehran’s nuclear shadow, or to launch full-scale efforts to achieve nuclear-weapons status, precipitating an arms race in which they start far behind

Unsurprisingly, Arabian Peninsula leaders have indicated their worries that, given Tehran’s bizarre worldview, they might be targets of Iranian retaliation should Israel and/or America attack the nuclear program. The United States also worries that its deployed forces in the Middle East are possible targets, and that Iran’s support for international terrorists and murder-for-hire criminal efforts might also be expanded. Israel need not speculate. Tehran and its terrorist proxies, particularly Hezbollah, will try to strike Israel, in whatever way they can.

But assessing possible Iranian retaliation means more than simply listing measures the ayatollahs can take. So doing affords all manner of possible threats a level of credibility that only plays into Iran’s hands. Right now, Iran is in its weakest geostrategic position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Its terrorist surrogates Hamans and Hezbollah have been battered, if not yet fully destroyed; Syria’s Assad regime has fallen; the Houthis are at least damaged; and Iran itself has sustained catastrophic losses to ballistic-missile production facilities and some damage to its nuclear program.

Is a country already in such dire straits really prepared to add as many as four-to-six new enemies, risking the survival of the regime itself, which is already under enormous threat internally and externally? In short, Iran’s threats sound decidedly hollow. In any case, American and Gulf Arab interests coincide, arguing for Washington to meld both its defensive and its deterrence strategies against Iran with interested GCC members, and legitimate for Gulf Arabs to be included in US protective measures for military forces in their territories.

Many believe Israel will not act decisively against Iran’s nuclear program without explicit US approval. This is incorrect. As a geographically small nation, like Singapore and most GCC states, Israel knows that nuclear weapons are an existential threat: just a few nuclear detonations, and there is no more Israel. Jerusalem acted without Washington’s blessing against Iraq in 2001; Iran and Syria in 2007; and against one facility of Tehran’s nuclear-weapons enterprise (never inspected by the IAEA) at the Parchin military base in 2024. Faced with Iran’s existential threat, Israel will do what it must, Bibi Netanyahu in particular understands the American saying, “better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” And if the Israelis fail to act, they will have only themselves to blame.

This article was first published in The Independant Arabia on June 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

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Optimists cite what they see as key differences between the failed January ceasefire and today. While accurate, neither necessarily foreshadows rapid progress.