Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Guy Millière • August 23, 2026 at 5:00 am
[T]he terrifying fact [is] that Europe's erasure as a civilization is underway. Economically, Europe is in ghastly shape. For nearly five decades, the European Union's economic growth and productivity rates have lagged behind those of the United States. European Union countries have established welfare states that have steadily expanded since 1980 and stifle economic growth. The European Union has also proliferated stifling regulations that place a heavy encumbrance on businesses. Restrictions on gas and electricity production, combined with a drive for a rapid and extremely costly transition to "renewable energy", have resulted in natural gas prices in Europe that are now three to five times higher than in the US, and electricity prices that are 2 to 4 times higher than in the US. To survive, many European companies have relocated production outside Europe. International investment is turning away from Europe. Nine of the world's top ten tech companies are American; the tenth is Taiwanese. Although heatwaves have been affecting Europe for more than two decades, the continent remains resistant to air conditioning, viewing it as an expensive luxury (AC consumes costly electricity).... In 2003, a heatwave in Europe killed more than 20,000 people. Almost nothing was done to prevent a recurrence, so in 2026, another heatwave has already claimed 25,000 lives. Pessimism about the future — fueled by the questionable narrative berating "man-made global warming" and the hyped-up fear that the planet may become uninhabitable — is on the rise in Europe. Most new immigrants in Europe come from the Muslim world and appear to have no interest whatever in assimilating or becoming more westernized. Many are emphatically discouraged from doing either by the leaders of their communities, for instance, by "honor killings...." There appears to be a growing demand among immigrants, in fact, to make Europe more like the Third World countries they abandoned. The proportion of Muslims in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden has been increasing decade after decade – with consequences that anyone even slightly versed in history could have expected. Warnings have gone unheeded. Political parties defending Western civilization and values — while asserting their opposition to the Islamization of Europe and "civilizational erasure" — are gaining electoral momentum. Meanwhile, political leaders across major European nations and at the helm of the EU appear determined to prevent those parties from governing. The "offense" of those political parties disfavored by Europe's "elites" consists of defending the values of the West, fighting the Islamization of Europe, and opposing the erasure of European civilization. These political parties are consequently subjected to exclusionary maneuvers and are relentlessly harassed by rival political leaders who not only seem to disagree but are also dragging the continent into a free fall and a possible cultural death.
Europe's erasure as a civilization is underway. Europe is on a path toward rapid, widespread decline — potentially irreversible. It is already extremely late in the day. Unless drastic actions are taken to reverse firmly entrenched trends, European civilization, simply demographically, will soon be part of the past. (Image source: iStock)
On February 14, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a laudatory speech about Europe and its legacy at the Munich Security Conference. He noted, however, that Europe is weakening. "We don't want our allies to be weak," he said. His remarks initially were well received by the European political leaders and journalists in the room; not for long. Several journalists soon mentioned that, while Rubio appeared friendlier toward Europe than US Vice President J.D. Vance's had been a year earlier, he was still "arrogant" in presuming that Europe needed advice on how to be stronger. Some recalled that the Trump administration's November 2025 National Security Strategy had warned that Europe faces the "prospect of civilizational erasure" — a claim they described as an "insult" to Europe.
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by Amir Taheri • August 23, 2026 at 4:00 am
The real issue, however, is the decline in the status and authority of what was once seen as the world's highest diplomatic position. The unwritten rule was that the UN secretary-general must be seen as an institution above the interests of member states. That unwritten rule was more or less observed when Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish diplomat, succeeded [UN Secretary-General Trygve] Li. Regardless of who gets the job, the real issue is what the job is for? What can the secretary-general do when veto-holding nations, such as Russia and the US, start wars, or, like China, threaten to do so? If the job is to be part of the décor, as was the case with Annan, any photogenic multilingual man or woman would do. And if managerial skills are needed to run a sprawling and costly gravy train, one must look beyond diplomats to a new, younger generation of business leaders.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
As António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, will soon start clearing his desk and prepare for retirement, assessments of his tenure vary between "passable" and "mediocre". There are those who appreciate his passionate defense of the Palestinians and critical stance on the Israel-US war against Iran. Then there are those who castigate him for precisely those controversial positions. The real issue, however, is the decline in the status and authority of what was once seen as the world's highest diplomatic position. The post was created when the post-World War order was edging towards the Cold War with the idea that a diplomatic buffer between the two emerging blocs could absorb shocks and prevent another armed conflict. One key idea was to make war, unless specially sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, practically impossible. The US-led intervention in the Korean Peninsula was the first war sanctioned by the UNSC.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • August 22, 2026 at 5:00 am
What, then, must accompany economic pressure? First, the military option must remain explicitly on the table -- and be exercised, preferably before the regime uses President Donald Trump's ceasefires to organize attacks that are even more lethal. Recent reports indicate that Iran has been rapidly restoring its ballistic missile production and infrastructure after earlier strikes. Satellite imagery and intelligence assessments show reopened underground facilities, repaired access roads, and renewed manufacturing at a pace that has surprised observers. Economic measures must be paired with persistently removing the regime's ability to rebuild its war machine. The Trump administration, as distasteful as they might find the task, must urgently see to it that the regime is changed. Only adding military strikes to economic strangulation — and arming and training dissidents among the Iranian people — will create regime change. Anything less just leaves the threat intact — louder, more entrenched and more dangerous for the region and the United States sooner than you think.
Recent reports indicate that Iran has been rapidly restoring its ballistic missile production and infrastructure after earlier strikes. Satellite imagery and intelligence assessments show reopened underground facilities, repaired access roads, and renewed manufacturing at a pace that has surprised observers. Pictured: Iranian-made Zolfaghar missiles are displayed at Azadi Square in Tehran on August 2, 2026. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
The main focus in confronting Iran's regime and its sponsorship of terrorism has shifted toward economic sanctions and a naval blockade of Iranian ports. This pressure, driving oil exports to multi-year lows and squeezing the regime's primary source of hard currency, constrains the resources available for ballistic missiles, proxies, and internal repression. Yet it is a dangerous delusion to believe that sanctions and blockade by themselves will change the regime's fundamentalist and Islamist ideology or force a fundamental shift in its behavior. The Iranian regime's only objective is to stay in power beyond the Trump Administration. Iran's ruling elite lives in relative comfort, insulated by corruption and control of state resources. They divert public wealth into personal and institutional networks — real estate, front companies, and overseas holdings — while ordinary Iranians bear the brunt of inflation, shortages, and mismanagement.
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by Peter Huessy • August 21, 2026 at 5:00 am
Who doesn't like free stuff? Capitalism, however, is not the villain. Without capital (funding), there would be no economy, free or state-run. The issue, therefore, is not between capitalism and socialism. It is between free enterprise and economic liberty on the one hand and a state-run, often totalitarian, market on the other. North Korea and Cuba also use capital. Both are, in a way, state capitalisms: the state has all the money; the citizens are the oppressed serfs. The state provides for them, to an extent, but is careful to do so as stingily as possible. The socialist or communist state's first concern will not be delivering services; it will be cutting costs. As the money that comes in becomes scarcer -- who is making money, the state? The first casualty invariably ends up being quality. Yes, there is free healthcare -- if you can wait months for an operation, and if you qualify for it under the state's cost-cutting rationing. Are you too old or too sick, or too medically compromised in some other way, and is someone younger and healthier more worthy of receiving the care than you? Yes, you receive free housing, but who will guarantee that there will be sufficient heat in the winter, clean running water, that the garbage will be collected, that there will be no vermin, or that the elevator will work. Under communism, land belongs only to the state. The price is immaterial. Ask the "kulaks," peasant farmers in Ukraine whose land and grain were stolen by Stalin's Soviet Union during the Holodomor in 1932-33, with the result that five million people in Ukraine starved to death. The DSA candidates do not describe themselves as communists. What does that mean, however, when many of the DSA's official policies are the essence of communism? Unlike the DSA, communist leaders from Lenin to Mao to Castro did not aspire to abolish the police, the military or the border patrol. If anything, these totalitarian rulers expanded the police, the prisons, and the military. They were more than happy to put millions in prison or the gulags while widening the powers of the police and security forces... What is being overlooked at the moment is that the current communist rulers from Cuba to China would love the DSA to abolish the police and border patrol in America, empty the prisons, open the borders, and shut down oil and gas production. Those moves would thoroughly cripple the United States and significantly weaken its ability to defend itself -- both internally and externally. No self-respecting communist government would ever adopt such crazy policies.
Commentator Ryan Mauro notes that New York City's DSA Mayor Zohran Mamdani and "chaos" funder George Soros both admire Slavoj Žižek, whose In Defence of Lost Causes calls for the return of the French Revolution's guillotine and what he calls "emancipatory terror." The goal, it seems, is the destruction of the West, to be replaced with Stalinist communism. Pictured: US Senator Bernie Sanders (R) speaks to the crowd at a rally for Mamdani (L) in New York City on April 12, 2026. (Photo by Jason Alpert-Wisnia/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
The country is debating whether the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the new face of the Democrat Party. There are two impediments, however, to accurately discussing what the DSA is all about. The first is that Americans are learning about DSA through the lens of the dominant media -- what Rush Limbaugh often called "the drive-by media." Largely missing is a balanced media source despite the almost universal use of the term "mainstream media" to describe the current collection of highly partisan and slanted journalists from whom most Americans get their news. While "mainstream" implies balanced and informative, most of the dominant media of today are neither.
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by Bassam Tawil • August 20, 2026 at 5:00 am
The survey, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between August 5 and 8, 2026, reveals that... the fundamental political attitudes that have plagued Palestinian society for decades remain largely intact. Hamas remains a major political force; convicted terrorists and Hamas leaders remain popular candidates for the Palestinian Authority (PA) presidency; overwhelming majorities oppose the unconditional disarmament of Hamas; and Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen continue to enjoy remarkably high approval ratings. Asked who is most suitable to succeed PA President Mahmoud Abbas, 39% chose imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti... An Israeli court convicted him in 2004 of five counts of murder stemming from three terrorist attacks. Barghouti was sentenced to five consecutive life terms plus 40 years. Yet this is the man whom a majority of likely Palestinian voters would like to see as their next president. The second-place candidate is the head of Hamas. The PA parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 28, 2026, with presidential elections expected in early 2027. The PSR poll offers a warning of what those elections could produce. Hamas could still win another Palestinian Authority election (as it did in 2006). An overwhelming 72% say Hamas should not disarm before Israel completely withdraws from the Gaza Strip. US envoy Jared Kushner recently met Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya and other Hamas officials in Cairo as part of US efforts to advance President Donald J. Trump's Gaza peace plan. Whatever the administration's intentions, such meetings provide Hamas with something it has sought for years: international legitimacy. When representatives of the world's leading superpower sit directly with Hamas leaders, Hamas can present the encounter to Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims as evidence that its strategy has succeeded. The message is that terrorism pays. If you carry out attacks, take hostages, retain your weapons and survive long enough – eventually the Americans will negotiate with you. These figures are difficult to reconcile with claims that Palestinian society is undergoing a transformation toward moderation. What exactly are these elections expected to accomplish? Elections are not automatically synonymous with democracy, moderation, or peace. The PA held a parliamentary election in 2006. Hamas participated and won. A year later, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. Now the Palestinians may be heading toward another election in which Hamas could again emerge as the largest faction.... Why, then, should the international community rush toward elections that could legitimize extremists and terrorists rather than marginalize them? Before elections, Palestinians need real political reform. The Palestinian Authority needs accountable institutions, independent courts, freedom of expression, an end to corruption, and, most importantly, a political culture that does not glorify terrorists or treat armed groups as legitimate alternatives to government.
Asked who is most suitable to succeed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, 39% of Palestinians surveyed chose imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya came second with 16%, followed by former Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan with 15%. Pictured: A poster of Barghouti in prisoner's uniform, in a campaign office in Ramallah on March 3, 2021. (Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP via Getty Images)
Nearly three years after Hamas's October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel and following the devastating war in the Gaza Strip, one might have expected a fundamental change in Palestinian public opinion. Palestinians might have turned away from Hamas, terrorism, and the Iran-backed "Axis of Resistance." Palestinians also might have demanded new leaders committed to democracy, reform, an end to corruption, and peaceful coexistence. The latest Palestinian public opinion poll, however, presents a disturbing picture.
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by Drieu Godefridi • August 19, 2026 at 5:00 am
Large infrastructure booms have often developed in this uneven way. Railways, electricity and telecommunications networks all passed through phases of enthusiasm, overbuilding, financial stress and consolidation. The failures were real, but the underlying networks continued to expand. China has been investing heavily for years in nuclear fusion technology -- a resource the United States would do well urgently to adopt as a 21st-century "Manhattan Project" if it wants to make sure that China does not ultimately win the AI race for global preeminence. Nuclear fusion energy produces a massive supply of clean, inexpensive energy, and the United States is blessed with three large bodies of water around it for an unlimited supply. Without significant government investment in developing nuclear fusion, by relying only on private firms to supply their own electricity and nuclear fission reactors, the West seriously risks being left behind. The sooner the US government prioritizes developing nuclear fusion, the sooner it will be commercially available -- preferably before China dominates the market first. These other solutions are slow and costly. A committed rush is needed toward developing the energy of the future: fusion. Now take a break and ask yourself how many times you've used AI today, and the tools that themselves use AI. The question no longer makes sense: AI is everywhere, permanent; it has already expanded the possibilities of our world. Corrections will come, capital will be reallocated, and some business models will fail; that is the ordinary price of progress. What will not reverse is the deeper shift already under way: the permanent embedding of advanced computation into the productive core of life.
(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Warnings about an artificial-intelligence crash have become increasingly common. Financing is becoming harder to obtain, the argument runs, and companies are questioning whether AI projects produce enough value, whether electricity supplies are sufficient, and if cheaper Chinese systems could undermine the revenues of American technology leaders. Put together, these pressures are said to threaten the vast investments now rolling out in data center construction, AI chip and memory manufacturing, and power generation. Some of these concerns are real. There seem to be four separate main questions: Can the projects still be financed? Do businesses still want the technology? Can enough electricity be supplied? And will low-cost competitors destroy the economics of the market?
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by Lawrence Kadish • August 19, 2026 at 4:00 am
(Image source: Google Gemini)
America is in an artificial intelligence arms race with China but we are continuing to miss a crucial technology required to secure the win. AI demands a level of electricity that no other technology in history has ever required. Training a single AI model can consume as much power as thousands of homes use in a year, and the data centers being built to run AI on a global scale are being sized in gigawatts, not megawatts. It is staggering. Every proposed fix to this problem — more efficient computer chips, smarter cooling of data centers, building nuclear fission reactors — does not solve the underlying arithmetic of supply and demand. Only fusion power offers a path that matches the scale and safety to feed AI's enormous appetite for electricity.
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by Gordon G. Chang • August 18, 2026 at 5:00 am
"Beijing's real intention is to create a rationale for the presence of the People's Liberation Army Navy in the Arctic. The goal for China's Communist Party is to create its own Arctic Bastion so that Chinese navy ballistic missile submarines can threaten the U.S. from the northern hemisphere." — James Fanell, a former U.S. Navy captain who served as director of Intelligence and Information Operations at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, to Gatestone Institute, August 12, 2026. The U.S. Navy, by the way, has no base in Alaska, America's window on the Arctic. China, warned EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas this year, could militarize Arctic shipping lanes. In fact, China, with partner Russia, has been working hard to militarize the top of the world. "The U.S. and its allies expect Beijing will be able to send armed submarines to the North Pole within a few years." — Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2025.
This month, China's Sea Legend Shipping launched the first regular container service through the Arctic, along what it calls the Ice Silk Road. "Beijing's real intention is to create a rationale for the presence of the People's Liberation Army Navy in the Arctic. The goal for China's Communist Party is to create its own Arctic Bastion so that Chinese navy ballistic missile submarines can threaten the U.S. from the northern hemisphere," according to James Fanell, a former U.S. Navy captain. Pictured: A banner reading "Warmly Congratulate the first annual voyage of the China-Europe Arctic Container Route at Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in 2026," is displayed on a container belonging to Sea Legend on August 15, 2026, in Ningbo, China. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
This month, China's Sea Legend Shipping launched the first regular container service through the Arctic, along what it calls the "Ice Silk Road." The route, dubbed "China-Europe Arctic Express," connects Ningbo, on China's east coast, with England's Felixstowe. The Chinese-run shipper plans eight voyages this summer season from this month to early October. Sea Legend, which will use Russia's Northern Sea Route, promises to cut in half the current 40-day sailing time. The passage, the Financial Times stated, "bypasses shipping chokepoints." Sea Legend ships will not go anywhere near the Suez Canal at the top of the Red Sea or the Red Sea's southern exit, the now-dangerous Bab el-Mandab strait, where the Iran-backed Houthi militia has been targeting vessels. The Northern Sea Route hugs Russia's coast.
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by Ahmed Charai • August 17, 2026 at 11:00 am
Netanyahu's substantive concern must remain at the center of any agreement. Israel cannot withdraw only to discover that Hamas has preserved tunnels, weapons, command structures or the capacity to rebuild them. October 7 made such a risk unacceptable. His requirement is therefore clear: Hamas must take irreversible steps toward genuine disarmament before Israel assumes an irreversible security risk. Iran remains the central strategic challenge.... It retains financial resources, instruments of coercion and the capacity to rebuild. Time cannot be offered to Tehran as a strategic gift. The answer, therefore, is not to resolve Gaza first and return to Iran later. Israeli withdrawal cannot depend on promises; it must follow verified security guarantees. The equation is not peace instead of security. It is security as the condition for peace, and peace as the foundation for prosperity. For Netanyahu, the immediate question is not whether Hamas can be trusted. It cannot. The question is whether Kushner can construct an agreement in which trust is replaced by verification, reciprocity and enforcement—one that delivers Hamas's disarmament without compromising Israel's security and makes Israeli withdrawal the consequence of verified implementation rather than political promises. It would put back on the table the proposition the Middle East urgently needs: that security can make peace possible, and that peace can make prosperity more powerful than confrontation.
Jared Kushner is not asking Israel to trust Hamas. Nor is he proposing that Israel exchange security for a diplomatic achievement. His approach is built around a more rigorous equation: measurable disarmament, independent verification and phased Israeli withdrawal, with each Israeli step conditioned on implementation of the corresponding security commitment. Pictured: Kushner presents plans for Gaza in Davos on January 22, 2026. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/ AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a consequential decision on Gaza. The political environment is difficult, the Israeli election is approaching, and every concession will be contested. But Israel's security cannot be subordinated to an electoral calendar. The question is more fundamental: can Hamas be verifiably disarmed while Israel withdraws without recreating the conditions that produced October 7? Jared Kushner is attempting to provide Netanyahu with a mechanism to achieve precisely that—and Netanyahu has strong strategic reasons to support it. Kushner is not asking Israel to trust Hamas. Nor is he proposing that Israel exchange security for a diplomatic achievement. His approach is built around a more rigorous equation: measurable disarmament, independent verification and phased Israeli withdrawal, with each Israeli step conditioned on implementation of the corresponding security commitment.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 17, 2026 at 5:00 am
While the Mecca Agreement is being touted by some as countries finally taking responsibility for their own defense instead of relying exclusively on the United States (as Saudi Arabia currently does), this arrangement looks set to produce "unintended consequences." The US seems to forget that after World War II, the last thing it wanted was for Europe and other regions to have strong military forces. Many in the West concluded that Germany had effectively started two world wars in one century and, in general, had trouble playing nicely with others. While protecting its allies might be expensive for the US, not protecting them could well cost more. The same holds true for an alliance such as the Mecca Agreement. At first glance, it looks as if the Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish alliance might help the United States share a defense burden. In a longer view, the pact could well end up creating a far bigger defense burden. The countries in the Mecca Agreement are not necessarily becoming America's enemies. They could, however, work against the interests of the US and the West. Saudi Arabia, which may have been flirting with the idea of joining the Abraham Accords but always came up with some "poison pill" and has just been permitted by US President Donald J. Trump to enrich uranium for nuclear reactors, has chosen to enter a defense partnership with Turkey and Pakistan – two countries whose governments have fiercely anti-Israel positions. The concern, therefore, is that an increasingly powerful Turkey is seeking to translate the expansion of its military capabilities into a regional hegemony while simultaneously embracing an aggressive posture toward Israel, Cyprus and Greece. If, for instance, Turkey receives the F-35 stealth fighter jets it is seeking from the United States, then attacks Israel, and Israel retaliates, will Pakistan then claim Turkey has "been attacked" and launch nuclear weapons at Israel? Is that long-term desire, in fact, at the root of the "defense pact"? Turkey, moreover, is rapidly expanding its influence in Syria. Both Turkey and Qatar are major allies of the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, while Turkey has been deeply involved in developing Syria's new armed forces. Turkey is positioning itself as a leader of an increasingly assertive Sunni Islamist-oriented bloc. Pakistan is trying to convert its nuclear status into greater political influence, and Saudi Arabia is their financier and potential nuclear weapons partner. The real danger is the strategic direction it represents, in response to a perceived decline in American influence, growing Turkish power, weakening prospects for a peaceful Middle East, and now the emergence of a new regional bloc whose leading members increasingly regard Israel, Cyprus, Greece and the West in general not as potential partners, but as adversaries.
The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on August 7 should serve as a wake-up call for the United States and Israel. While it is being touted by some as countries finally taking responsibility for their own defense instead of relying exclusively on the United States (as Saudi Arabia currently does), this arrangement looks set to produce "unintended consequences." (Image source: OpenAI)
The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on August 7 should serve as a wake-up call for the United States and Israel. The agreement, which states that an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be considered an attack against all of them, has been presented by its signatories as a purely defensive agreement. Pakistani and Turkish officials insist that it is not directed against any particular country. That, however, is possibly not quite true, and only part of the issue. While the Mecca Agreement is being touted by some as countries finally taking responsibility for their own defense instead of relying exclusively on the United States (as Saudi Arabia currently does), this arrangement looks set to produce "unintended consequences."
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by Robert Williams • August 16, 2026 at 5:00 am
We have now arrived at a time when European leaders and "elites" are, once again, in desperate need of deradicalization -- from being "pro-Hamas." Sometimes the sentiment is presented as "pro-Palestine," but it really has nothing to do with Palestinians and everything to do with hating Jews. If these protestors were actually pro-Palestinian, they would be demanding freedom of speech, equal justice under the law, better educational opportunities and better governance, where Palestinian leaders were less corrupt and did not shoot at their own people to prevent them from taking aid, or plant weapons depots among them to increase their own citizens' casualty rates. "Do the Government and Parliament not understand that singling out the world's only Jewish state, holding it to standards not applied to anywhere else, and falsely accusing Israel of committing these terrible crimes is bound to drive hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community?" — Lord Austin, speaking at a debate in the UK House of Lords, June 10, 2026. "The anti-semitism of today... is nothing but a wrench to unscrew, bit by bit, the whole machinery of our civilization... like a hand grenade tossed over the wall to work havoc and confusion in the camp of democracy. That is its real and main purpose." – German author Thomas Mann, NBC radio, March 9, 1940.
"Do the Government and Parliament not understand that singling out the world's only Jewish state, holding it to standards not applied to anywhere else, and falsely accusing Israel of committing these terrible crimes is bound to drive hostility towards people who are identified with Israel, which is the vast majority of the Jewish community?" — Lord Austin (pictured), speaking at a debate in the UK House of Lords, June 10, 2026. (Photo © House of Lords)
After World War II, many of Europe's "elites," notably in Germany and Austria, were in grave need of denazification. We have now arrived at a time when European leaders and "elites" are, once again, in desperate need of deradicalization -- from being "pro-Hamas." Sometimes the sentiment is presented as "pro-Palestine," but it really has nothing to do with Palestinians and everything to do with hating Jews. If these protestors were actually pro-Palestinian, they would be demanding freedom of speech, equal justice under the law, better educational opportunities and better governance, where Palestinian leaders were less corrupt and did not shoot at their own people to prevent them from taking aid, or plant weapons depots among them to increase their own citizens' casualty rates.
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by Amir Taheri • August 16, 2026 at 4:00 am
Is the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran already over bar the shouting? As far as the war that the Islamic Republic of Iran started in 1979, the answer is no. The regime created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini built its legitimacy around its claim of fighting against the "Great Satan" and its "Little" acolyte. The latest phase of the 47-year war has weakened the regime to the point that it fears that an end of hostilities could reignite the street. Today, by the best count, the positions of at least 20 provincial governors out of 31 and more than 20 ambassadors and at least 100 military and security commanders need to be filled either because traditional terms are over or because occupants have been "eliminated."
Is the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran already over bar the shouting? As far as the war that the Islamic Republic of Iran started in 1979, the answer is no. The regime created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini built its legitimacy around its claim of fighting against the "Great Satan" and its "Little" acolyte. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Is the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran already over bar the shouting? As far as the war that the Islamic Republic of Iran started in 1979, the answer is no. The regime created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini built its legitimacy around its claim of fighting against the "Great Satan" and its "Little" acolyte. Almost all US presidents understood that fact. What they all tried to achieve was a prolongation of the lukewarm version of that war in the hope that one day, who knows when, there may be regime change. Donald Trump is the first US president to believe that the desired change may be achievable during his tenure. And that, paradoxically, is why he may have unwittingly delayed that change with his erratic strategy. For the first time in almost 48 years, what is left of the Khomeinist leadership is taking the possibility of regime change seriously and is trying to deal with it.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • August 15, 2026 at 5:00 am
Tehran believes its path to victory is not necessarily through defeating the United States militarily, but through managing the confrontation until President Donald Trump's term ends in January 2029. For the remaining time of Trump's presidency, the regime plans to play a familiar game of opening and closing the waterway, dangling intermittent negotiations, employing intermediaries, walking up to the table and then walking away. Before anyone notices, two years will have passed. The only priority is surviving Trump. Iran's regime evidently plans to control who passes, under what conditions, and to impose fees or "navigational services" the minute Trump leaves office. The wealth that Iran would obtain by extorting global energy markets would reinvigorate its support for proxy militias and terrorist groups, and, above all -- with continuing help from China, Russia, and North Korea -- the regime's ultimate insurance policy: its nuclear program, which is now reportedly tucked under Pickaxe Mountain. Are free nations prepared to accept an expansionist revolutionary theocracy that wholly rejects Western norms and violates freedom of navigation as the permanent gatekeeper of a key maritime shipping chokepoint? Probably. That is the peril of leaving the job half-finished. Trump's campaign has already inflicted severe damage. Allowing the regime to stay in place to continue developing nuclear weapons and asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab at the mouth of the Red Sea would squander that advantage. The necessary objective is unconditional surrender, not some bogus deal. The only responsible response is to deny the regime the opportunity. Continue the economic pressure, resume the military pressure, remove every layer of leadership, support those inside and outside Iran ready to end the theocracy's rule, and refuse any outcome short of complete unconditional surrender. With anything less, Trump will go down in history as having ushered in a far more dangerous world.
The wealth that Iran would obtain by extorting global energy markets would reinvigorate its support for proxy militias and terrorist groups, and, above all -- with continuing help from China, Russia, and North Korea -- the regime's ultimate insurance policy: its nuclear program, which is now reportedly tucked under Pickaxe Mountain. Pictured: A Fattah ballistic missile is displayed during the annual military parade in Tehran, on September 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
For decades, the Iranian regime has guarded its strategic intentions behind ambiguity, denials and carefully calibrated statements. Its current strategy has now become unusually explicit. Recent comments attributed to Majid Shakeri, an adviser to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, suggest that Tehran believes its path to victory is not necessarily through defeating the United States militarily, but through managing the confrontation until President Donald Trump's term ends in January 2029. Shakeri described the approach as maintaining a state of neither war nor peace and exercising "strategic patience" and "getting along with him [President Trump] until his term ends." It is a strategy that Washington and its allies should take seriously.
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by Gordon G. Chang • August 14, 2026 at 5:00 am
And where was China in the rankings last year? Sixth place, with 4.3 million barrels per day. The other half of oil dominance is refining capacity. The Economist calls China the world's second-largest oil refiner, which by implication means that publication believes the U.S. is the largest. America reversed a slump and began increasing oil output in 2008, but it was Trump who saw the significance and raced to high production levels. It is no coincidence that in the middle of his first term, America became the world's No. 1 energy producer. When the U.S. is determined to use its vast power over energy, there is no way that Beijing can manage oil prices.
The Economist declared on August 9 that "China Is Now the World's Great Oil Power," but that title belongs to the United States of America. The U.S. has been the world's largest producer of crude oil for eight straight years, from 2018 through 2025, and will almost certainly retain that crown indefinitely. And where was China in the rankings last year? Sixth place, with 4.3 million barrels per day. Pictured: Oil rigs dot the countryside in Pyote, Texas, on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
"China Is Now the World's Great Oil Power," The Economist declared on August 9. So, what is the significance of this pronouncement? The world's oil power is also the world's energy power. The world's energy power, in turn, is a leading contender for the world's dominant power. "Energy is the foundational brick of the global economy," Jonathan Bass, the CEO of Argent LNG, told Gatestone. China, the world's largest importer of crude oil, exerts great leverage over markets, but The Economist is nonetheless wrong. The "Great Oil Power" is the United States of America. The U.S. has been the world's largest producer of crude oil for eight straight years, from 2018 through 2025. Moreover, the U.S. will almost certainly retain that crown indefinitely. Last year, the U.S. produced 13.6 million barrels of oil and lease condensate per day.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 13, 2026 at 5:00 am
Is Hamas preparing to contest the Palestinian parliamentary election scheduled for late November? If so, the United States and its European allies need to make one thing clear immediately: Hamas must not be allowed to participate. After October 7, Hamas has no right to exist as a military organization. It should have no right to exist as a political organization either. Hamas's latest statements suggest that the terrorist group has no intention of disappearing from the Palestinian political scene. "Weapons of all the militias shall be decommissioned and stored under NCAG (National Committee for the Administration of Gaza) authority according to an agreed upon timetable." — Roadmap presented by US President Donald J. Trump's Board of Peace for the Gaza Strip. The lesson could hardly be clearer: allowing terrorists to participate in elections does not necessarily turn them into nice guys. Usually it just gives them the legitimacy and institutions they need to consolidate power. Eighty percent of Palestinians surveyed wanted Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to resign. Among those who said they would vote in a presidential contest between Abbas and Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader, Mashaal would crush Abbas. Even more disturbingly, 69% of the Palestinians oppose disarming Hamas to permanently end the war. An overwhelming 86% also said they did not believe that Hamas terrorists committed the atrocities against Israeli civilians depicted in videos from October 7. Why, then, should anyone assume that another Palestinian election would produce moderates committed to peace? That is precisely why the United States and Europe should act now. There should be no repeat of 2006. Hamas and its affiliates should be barred from participating in any elections. Candidates who belong to Hamas, represent it, or openly advocate its terrorist program should not be allowed to use elections to legitimize an organization responsible for mass murder. That would be the message to terrorists throughout the Middle East: commit atrocities, start wars, sacrifice your own people, survive the military response, and eventually the international community will rehabilitate you as a legitimate political actor. Did the Allies, after World War II, allow the Nazi Party to continue governing Germany? The objective after the October 7 massacre should not be to find Hamas a new role. It should be to ensure that Hamas has no role. No weapons, no militia, no control of Gaza, no participation in Palestinian government — and no electoral rehabilitation whatsoever.
Hamas's latest statements suggest that the terrorist group has no intention of disappearing from the Palestinian political scene. Eighty percent of Palestinians surveyed wanted Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to resign. Among those who said they would vote in a presidential contest between Abbas and Khaled Mashaal, a Hamas leader, Mashaal would crush Abbas. Pictured: Abbas (L) meets with Mashaal (R) and Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani on August 21, 2014 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)
Is Hamas preparing to contest the Palestinian parliamentary election scheduled for late November? If so, the United States and its European allies need to make one thing clear immediately: Hamas must not be allowed to participate. The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group that carried out the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel cannot be permitted to reinvent itself as a legitimate political party. After October 7, Hamas has no right to exist as a military organization. It should have no right to exist as a political organization either. Hamas's latest statements suggest that the terrorist group has no intention of disappearing from the Palestinian political scene. On August 11, Hamas urged Palestinians to register for the upcoming election and update their details in the electoral registry:
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