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The fanfare will be huge when…if…Trump touches down in Beijing on Thursday for his much-heralded visit to China. Flag-waving crowds, motorcades, cameras, pomp and ceremony…all the empty spectacle Trump loves more than anything.

His fragile ego will be burnished and he’ll luxuriate in public attention while client journalists ask passive questions. So many Comfort Boxes will be ticked he’ll consider it a massive win for his reputation.

It won’t be. The trip will reveal very clearly, particularly to those countries in the Global South, how China is in the ascendance and Trump has brought America down.

Watch Beijing’s subtle shaping of the event unfold.

In one year, Trump has done more to destroy the US’ reputation than anyone thought possible. His erratic tariffs regime has alienated every continent. The Iran War, with its Trump-driven oil shock and disruption of the global economy, is currently driving real fury.

This is what will really be on display.

Trump has never met an authoritarian he doesn’t love and like the weakest bullied kid who wants to join the school bullies club to appear strong he comes cap in hand and reeking of desperation.

As with all these kinds of high-level visits, many deals will have been agreed in advance so both sides can plausibly claim success. Something on soybeans to placate US farmers who are being crushed by Trump’s policies. Jet engines, perhaps. Don’t expect anything substantial.

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The main focus — both in China and across the world — will beTrump’s catastrophic handling of the Iran War which could still lead to an embarrassing postponement of the trip for a second time. While Trump will be desperately pressuring Xi Jinping to influence Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz rapidly, Xi will be in no hurry to help.

Half of China’s oil passes through the Strait and a third of its liquefied natural gas, but China is actually doing okay. It’s built up huge reserves in recent years, has a network of overland pipelines and has invested heavily in renewables. No pressure on them to move fast.

It’s the US that is suffering from this self-inflicted wound, with soaring gas and food prices putting a strain on America’s social fabric. Trump knows that, adding to his unpleasant odour of desperation.

A polite refusal of help from Beijing, in whatever diplomatic language it’s couched, will leave Trump dangling on the hook for the whole world to see.

Trump’s narcissism and stupidity will, of course, blind him to how this is perceived globally. In the foolishness of his American exceptionalism, he believes that it doesn’t matter what other countries think. Xi knows better.

Longstanding Gulf allies are already splintering with both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait this week refusing to allow the US to use their bases or airspace to police the Strait of Hormuz. This was a huge break and required some frantic backroom dealing by the US administration to get them to open up.

Even so, statements by Saudi Arabia showed a harsh change in mood. International relations require more than one partner, they said, with the implicit suggestion that they were already talking to others. And that other is China.

Meanwhile, countries in Africa and Asia see the threat of starvation among their poorest caused by Trump’s war. Trump has cancelled international aid, angering them further. One country is stepping in. China.

Where Trump makes an enemy, China sees a friend.

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It’s unbelievable that a dictatorship with its own agenda could be seen as a more reliable partner than the US, but that’s how many countries across the world perceive it. Even in Europe, where nations contemptuously dismissed by Trump are now looking to the East.

The tragedy for Americans is that it takes decades to build a reputation and just as long to build reliable partnerships. Once they’ve been destroyed and new things have been put in place, they won’t return quickly, even with a Democrat in the White House.

Trump’s cold-shouldering of NATO is another huge strategic mistake. The US needs the alliance to counter Chinese influence in Europe where Beijing is looking for economic gains which will ultimately harm the US. America also needs NATO for traditional reasons, to expose Chinese intelligence operations in the EU.

Ceding its responsibilities at the power table makes the US look weaker to many nations and only emboldens China.

As Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said: “There is no NATO without the United States. There is also no power of the United States without its participation in NATO. This is a two-way relationship.”

Meanwhile, Trump plans to use his Beijing visit to get big, high-dollar investments in the US, going against a decades-long party consensus that Chinese investment is a threat to national security.

In January, Trump told the Detroit Economic Club “Let China come in” if they want to build cars on US soil. The response from Michigan Democratic Rep Debbie Dingell was: “We must not cede the American auto industry to a strategic competitor intent on global dominance.”

Trump, guided by profit and stupidity, won’t see the risks. China, of course, will love to get a larger economic foothold in America and the Beijing meeting, with Trump off-piste and freestyling as usual, will be the perfect place to achieve it.

Xi will manoeuvre Trump into the spotlight in Beijing because he knows that all his massive flaws will be on display to China’s new allies.

Any talk about the Iran War will remind the world that its Trump’s war.

Any discussion of tariffs will remind the world that they’re Trump’s tariffs.

By standing next to Trump, Xi will look like the adult in the room. Strong, reliable, a friend.

There’s a way to take off that sheen, by focusing on China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans or the brutal clampdown in Hong Kong. But Trump has no interest in human rights so there will be no pushback, leaving Xi’s reputation burnished.

When Trump gets off Airforce One in Beijing, the world will see him standing next to Xi. Both men will be smiling.

But every single person involved in shaping the world to come will know which is Master and which is Slave.

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The Truth Social posts have become more desperate, the public pronouncements increasingly detached from reality. He’s lost. He knows it. Everyone knows it.

With trillions of dollars of military hardware at his disposal, Trump has somehow conspired to be defeated by a country teetering on the brink of economic collapse and with a government hated by its citizens.

Not only has he lost the Iran War, the scale of the defeat is staggering. As things stand, Iran will come out of this conflict stronger, with a more powerful, hardline leadership, with greater oil riches and with a new-found knowledge that they have an economic weapon greater than nukes. Closing the Strait of Hormuz and the access to the Red Sea can throw the world off its axis.

And America has been badly weakened. Munitions depleted, billions wasted, lives lost, a self-inflicted economic wound at home that it going to take a long time to heal and reputational destruction globally.

As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in an address to students this week: “At the moment, I cannot see what strategic exit the Americans are opting for. The Iranians are negotiating very skilfully. Or rather, very skilfully not negotiating. An entire nation (the US) is being humiliated.”

It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. And that failure is all down to Trump and who he is as a person. His racism drove a succession of bad decisions that will ultimately be his downfall.

America has never before embarked on such a poorly planned conflict. No war aims were decided in advance — or rather several war aims were put forward, all constantly changing depending on who was speaking to what camera at what particular time. And if you don’t have an aim, you don’t have an exit strategy.

Nobody in the administration took the time to define the aims of the conflict because no one cared. Everything was an excuse — regime change, getting rid of Iran’s ability to build a nuke, stopping their missile programme.

The only reason that mattered was the one that has defined Trump’s entire second term: his legacy. Huge monuments, renaming institutions, remodelling the White House. He knows his time on this world is limited and he wants to be remembered throughout history as Caesar. And he will be — though whether it’s Nero or Caligula is still to be decided.

Becoming the only President to “solve” the “Iran problem” was a key part of that legacy.

And it might have worked. If only Trump wasn’t a racist.

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His virulent racism is buried deep in his bones in the way that faith is in religious people. Learned from his father when he was a child, it’s defined his entire life. From his public hatred for the wrongly-charged Central Park Five in 1989 through to his attacks on Rep Ilhan Omar and Somalia, Trump has poisoned the American public discourse for decades.

His regular tirades about low-IQ people are generally only directed at black people. It’s code for what he really wants to say. And his prejudices are stitched throughout the administration he’s put together.

His worldview goes beyond simply hating. The foundation is a belief that white people are simply superior on every level — intellectually, physically, creatively, views shared by those in his administration, most publicly his Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, an unalloyed Fascist, and his Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth.

The Iran War was lost because Trump and Miller and Hegseth simply couldn’t believe that White people wouldn’t be triumphant. That notion was truly incredible to them.

There was no need to develop an adequate plan because they were only — in their eyes — dealing with a country of uneducated, uncivilised, cowardly barbarians. All it would take would be to send in overwhelming military force and mop up.

Anyone who wasn’t a racist would have pointed out the US was dealing with a 5,000-year-old civilisation culture with high levels of education and sophistication that easily rivalled the West. But Trump and Hegseth — as is their wont on so many levels — were living out the caricatures of a Reagan-era action movie.

It took three days for the scale of the catastrophe to become apparent. Iran struck US bases across the Middle East, causing billions of dollars of damage and evacuations (something that the administration has attempted to cover-up), hit warships, downed jets.

In the public arena, Iran trounced America with their cosmopolitan propaganda campaign, hilarious videos which showed they were not only wittier than the Trump team, but cleverer too and with a far better understanding of contemporary pop culture than the man in the White House who still thinks the Village People are a thing.

And by that stage it was too late. Trump can sit it out and lose or retreat and lose. You can call it karma or simply the natural order of things but the irony is sharp: what he saw as his greatest strength— his contempt for other races — is what has destroyed the legacy he was trying to build.

Racism is a sign of colossal weakness that ultimately destroys the haters. Trump’s pre-election Madison Square Garden event, designed to mimic the 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue, was a parade of swaggering White Supremacy that was sculpted to show the Master Race about to take control. In future times, this will be a huge source of mockery for everyone involved, the flexing bullies who thought they were the strongest but who turned out to be the biggest losers on the planet.

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Racism underpins everything Trump has overseen, from Elon Musk’s DOGE stripping away programs like USAid on which many developing countries were reliant through to the eradication of any measure to redress the historic iniquities of America’s treatment of non-whites.

And as with the Iran War, anything built on the fantasies of racists will ultimate destruct on contact with reality.

Trump’s Immigration policy is kicking the legs out from under the US economy. It’s not the Silicon Valley Apartheid Bros who make America strong. DEI isn’t just a liberal sop. Companies with an ethnically diverse workforce significantly outperform their peers — higher profitability, enhanced innovation, better decision making, better talent acquisition and retention and 70% more like to capture new markets.

Trump’s racism will make America weaker and poorer on every level.

That will be his legacy.

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The celebrations in Hungary’s capital, Budapest, continued deep into the night. After 16 years, the Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had been crushed in an election landslide. His successor, Péter Magyar, promised an end to corruption and repression.

While this was a new dawn for the Eastern European nation, the election result has massive repercussions across the globe, but most notably in the US, the EU and Russia.

Trump was so desperate to keep Orbán in power, he shipped out JD Vance to campaign for him. That was the touch of death for Orbán’s campaign. In his blinkered arrogance, Trump doesn’t realise how despised he is throughout the world. When Vance rolled up, Orbán’s dire polling fell even further.

But there’s a reason why Trump was so interested in the inner workings of a small nation of just 9.49 million people 4,600 miles away from the White House — and why Orbán’s defeat is such a blow to the MAGA project.

Those who follow my newsfeed on Bluesky know that my big theme is Everything is Connected. This is particularly true for the Far Right. Globally they exist in a supportive ecosystem, a transnational system of corruption, repression and hatred. From Trump to Putin, Milei to Bolsonaro and all the mini-Fuehrers of the European white supremacist parties, the success of one strengthens the others.

Funding flows among them all. Information is passed back and forth. Dirty tricks are planned and instigated in countries far from where they disrupt.

Orbán was key to that network.

Over several years, Hungary became a Far Right testing ground. Under the guidance of his puppet-master Vladimir Putin, Orbán steadily reshaped his nation, stripping away freedoms, taking control of the judiciary, warping the electoral system and embedding corruption so that funds were diverted into the coffers of many in Orbán’s Fidesz party.

The transformation was so complete that many in Hungary feared Fidesz would never be defeated. Orbán’s control of the levers of power was complete.

In return, Putin got a Fifth Column in the heart of the EU. Hungary could be relied on to veto any policy that threatened Russia’s interests. More than that, Putin could count on being briefed about the secret decision-making processes of the EU. During the election campaign it was revealed that Orbán’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó would regularly pass on confidential information to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov while those meetings were taking place. (Szijjártó now seems to be missing without trace in Hungary with suggestions that he has fled the country.)

The forever-rule of a corrupt party enriching its favourite sons and daughters on the backs of a repressed people? Easy to see why Far Right parties across the West were salivating at the prospect of using Orbán’s Hungary as the template for their own attempts to seize and hold on to power.

And nowhere was this more visible than in America. The Heritage Foundation used Orbán’s approach as the underpinning of Project 2025. The taking over of the Supreme Court. The cowering and controlling of the media. The attacks on educational and cultural institutions which were seen as the bedrock of liberal society.

With all of them, Orbán got there first and stress-tested them to see how they would cope with opposition.

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JD Vance said in 2024 that Orbán’s crackdown was the “closest conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with the left-wing domination of universities.”

One of Vance’s backers, the Far Right billionaire Peter Thiel, raised funds and political support for Orbán’s initiatives in Europe through his backing for the Rockbridge Network, an umbrella group that steers dark money organisations and super-PACs. Rockbridge is also backed by the Winklevoss twins, Rebekah Mercer and others.

Thiel, who famously wrote “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible” was a regular guest of Orbán in Budapest.

In 2022, the same year that Project 2025 was published, Orbán was a speaker at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, where he said the West was locked in “a clash of civilisations” and criticised Obama, Democrat donor George Soros and “globalists”.

“We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels,” he said. “We must co-ordinate the movement of our troops, because we face the same challenge. You have two years to get ready,” he added, referring to Trump’s return in the 2024 election.

Orbán’s speech ended with a standing ovation after he declared marriage to be only between one man and one woman. “Less drag queens and more Chuck Norris.”

Under Orbán, CPAC became a fixture in Budapest, strengthening those Far Right links, while Trump cemented Orbán’s reputation among MAGA acolytes by calling him friend and saying he was “a big fan”. Visits to the White House followed.

The success of one member of the Far Right network strengthens the others, but a defeat — especially of someone as crucial as Orbán — weakens them all.

Putin has lost a vital tool of destabilisation and the EU has grown stronger and more unified in the process.

But it’s in America where Orbán’s loss will be most profoundly felt. For MAGA, Orbán was totemic, a sign that they could achieve all their cruel hearts desired and keep hold of it. Many had decided, like his opponents in Hungary, that he was unbeatable.

The loss of such a powerful symbol of the Far Right project has shaken them, because if Orbán could lose after taking complete control of the political system then their own survival was no longer guaranteed.

When the landslide results rolled in, Elon Musk voiced their terrors when he whined that the Soros Organisation had seized power.

Fear was everywhere. Because as it turns out, you can cheat and lie and corrupt the electoral process and the people can still turn out in mass numbers and wipe you away.

And the aftermath of the Hungarian election is going to prove even worse for the grifters of the MAGA project.

On election night, Péter Magyar announced that he would be signing Hungary up to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office which investigates transnational and complex financial crimes and money-laundering. Orbán kept Hungary well out of its jurisdiction, for obvious reasons.

As Magyar said, “No mercy. They will need to take responsibility for all their actions.”

That is what MAGA fears most.

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As the deadline approached for Trump to inflict his promised genocidal war crimes on Iran, the Pentagon was still making preparations for a massive missile barrage. His decision to announce a ceasefire agreement with the enemy came as a surprise to everyone.

“We had no idea what was going to happen. It was wild,” a Pentagon insider told Axios.

Allies were relieved. Apart from the moral aspect, they feared Iran would retaliate in devastating style. Every right thinking person everywhere was cheered, especially as the Trump administration had dropped broad hints about using nukes while at the same time denying it.

Yet no one should have been surprised. Trump Always Chickens Out — TACO — has become common currency for a reason.

Trump is a coward. The yellow streak has been deeply embedded in his back since childhood, through the Vietnam draft right up to refusing to accept consequences for his criminality. As President, he has taken no action where the unforeseen might come back to bite him.

Like the toddler doing a nervous u-turn in the internet meme, he swaggers on, boasting and beating his chest, until he’s teetering on the edge of the abyss, peers down into the dark and realises he’s massively overreached, then turns tail and flees while blaming everyone else or saying he has, in fact, actually won.

Iran is the ultimate example of that. Billions wasted, American lives lost, jets destroyed, munitions depleted and no war objectives achieved. Zero. The deal he’s now trying to reach will be worse than Obama’s which he tore up.

The more he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pronounce victory, the more foolish they both look. Even many of his own supporters don’t believe it.

Iran is emboldened, as are America’s other enemies, and richer too. The US has been weakened on the world stage and by association so has Trump because this is a catastrophe entirely of his own making.

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He realised very early on that he’d got it all wrong and his Bully’s Charter of overwhelming force wasn’t going to work. As a racist white supremacist, he didn’t have the slightest inkling that another culture might react differently to how he imagined. By the time realisation dawned it was already too late — there was no option that wouldn’t appear as a defeat.

He might have been able to frame his final decision as a win to a few simple-minded Fox News viewers, but everyone else knows this is an Operation Epic Failure for the history books.

And Trump knows that too. He can see all those former allies that he derided laughing at him. Iran is laughing at him.

The strongman image he’s desperately been trying to cultivate all his life has collapsed. And that is why we’re now all in a dangerous situation.

Understanding Trump’s psychology is important to know what comes next.

A classic narcissist, Trump is a bully and a coward, venal, and, underpinning it all, incredibly stupid — he doesn’t read and as such he’s developed no critical faculties so he can’t extrapolate consequences from any information presented to him. That’s a toxic combination.

He’s not strong like the embarrassing lickspittles around him say. He’s very, very weak, fundamentally frightened that he’s not up to the challenges he faces and so overcompensating on every front.

Being seen to be weak is the ultimate crushing blow for someone who grew up with a bullying father declaring that the weak were losers undeserving of any rewards, emotional or material.

As the Mayo Clinic points out, people with narcissistic personality disorder have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, humiliation and fear of being exposed as a failure.

The only way to ease that torment is to be seen as being strong again, even if that means lashing out.

We saw the first evidence of that as the scale of his failure began to become known: an all caps Truth Social rant blaming NATO for his own inadequacy. It was the whine of a spoiled child who’d been denied the reward he expected.

But however embarrassing it was, the post had a sinister ending. The mention of Greenland wasn’t a throwaway comment — it showed where his mind was going.

From the start of his term, he’s stated publicly that he wants to seize Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally, because he believes the US/he himself deserves it. He was denied before when his former European allies stood firm against him.

After that, he turned his attention to Venezuela, deposing its President Nicolas Maduro and taking control of its oil, a minor victory which assuaged him for a while.

But following his Iran humiliation he needs a Venezuela-style win to soothe his psychic agony. Another attempt to gain Greenland is now clearly in his thoughts.

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But his compulsion to be seen as strong could push him even further. Nothing should be ruled out. He’s already destroying Cuba economically as a precursor to taking it over. He could turn his attention back to Canada, or move on to Colombia.

His private Gestapo ICE have already murdered two American citizens. The public outcry forced him to take his foot off that repressive pedal for a little while. He may now feel he needs to double-down to show his strength domestically.

Or like the wounded child he is, he could go back into Iran to bring about that civilisational destruction to erase the stain of his defeat. In that case, another loss cannot be tolerated. He will need to go all out. If you think he wouldn’t use a nuke to save himself, I would suggest you haven’t been paying attention to the kind of man he is.

We are now at the point of greatest danger. Trump is not psychologically capable of admitting defeat. That means he has to win, at any cost.

Much of his term has been characterised by failure and pushback, not the least with tariffs, the keystone of his economic platform and perhaps of everything he wants to do. He’s fast running out of psychological road, particularly with the midterms approaching and with Democratic victories in recent key races suggesting another big loss is on the cards.

A Democrat-controlled Congress would end his Presidency. Impeachment would be a distinct possibility.

Would a cornered, wounded, mentally unstable man like Trump allow that to happen? How far is he prepared to go?

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Trump continues to insist negotiations with Iran to end the war are taking place. Iran continues to deny. It’s entirely possible both are right. The Iranian regime has several factions and some initial backchannel discussions could be underway with one or the other. It’s unlikely that any of those factions have the power to reach a binding agreement on their own, however. But Trump is clutching at straws in his desperation to end the war and prevent the potentially devastating economic fallout hitting the homeland.

• That Trump desperation is clear in the leaked 15-point peace proposal which included some big concessions to Iran: American assistance in developing a civilian nuclear project in Bushehr for electricity production; Removal of all sanctions; Removal of the threat of renewing sanctions.

• The former head of MI6 Alex Younger says Iran has the upper hand in any war negotiations.

• Ebrahim Zolfagharihas, spokesperson for Iran’s military command Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said in a video message to “the self-proclaimed global superpower” - “do not call your defeat an agreement”. He added that Iran had rejected Trump’s plan: “Our position has not changed from day one and will not change. We will never reach an agreement with people like you, not now and not ever. What you called strategic power has become strategic failure.”

• A ground war seems inevitable. Trump continues to redeploy troops to the region. WSJ reporter Alex Ward spoke to several senior Republicans, including the chairs of House and Senate Armed Forces who told him that a ground operation is planned and could be underway soon.

• Iran has reinforced its oil facility Kharg Island with troops, air defences, and mines in preparation for a US ground operation, CNN reports. US officials warned of heavy casualties due to layered defences and recent deployments of Iranian MANPADs and anti-armour mines.

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• Russia is evacuating remaining staff from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant where the situation is developing along a “worst-case scenario” after a US-Israeli strike near the facility, Alexei Likhachev, the head of Rosatom said.

• Meanwhile, the rest of the world continues to shift away from the US. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell has been in talks with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, discussing the need to “deepen co-operation in all fields and to effectively manage disputes”. The sensitive nature of the discussions is shown in that they were not announced by the UK government, only revealed by the Chinese state broadcaster.

• According to a study by the Royal United Services Institute, the US-Israel coalition is burning through munitions at a financially and industrially unsustainable rate. The real danger is not just how much has been spent, but how hard it will be to replace. $26B worth of munitions in 16 days, $50B to replenish in a year.

• The Iranian regime is threatening to invade UAE and Bahrain if the US sends in ground troops: “If the United States makes a mistake, Iran’s armed forces are ready to seize the coastlines of the UAE and Bahrain and reshape the region.”

• Who are the winners and losers of Trump and Netanyahu’s war? Crude oil exports during the first 23 days of March 2026 vs first 23 days of February 2026:

• - Kuwait: -72%

• - Iran: +4%

• - Iraq (North): -49%

• - Iraq (South): -76%

• - Oman: +7%

• - Russia: +14%

• - Saudi Arabia: -52%

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The Iran War isn’t over, but thanks to Trump it’s already become a dangerous, bloody and destructive joke.

To an imaginary laugh-track, Trump is in flailing, screeching retreat, wheedling and lying his way towards some kind of exit strategy where he can hang on to a semblance of dignity. His options are limited, with plenty of space for pratfalls and pies in the face.

The Iranians are already mocking him relentlessly online.

Across the world countries despairing at the economic harm being inflicted upon them are laughing behind their hands at the clown show that started with threats of death and destruction from above and ended with desperate pleas for help as the global economy spun off its axis.

Everyone likes to see a boastful bully taken down a few pegs. But for most countries the comfort came in the reassuring truths that have been revealed.

Hubris is real, certainly. But most notably that you can’t elect one of the stupidest leaders in your country’s history without there being terrible consequences.

And the biggest consequence is for America itself — it’s inadvertently become the punchline in Trump’s Benny Hill routine.

In a matter of months, Trump has dismantled the US’ global standing to a point where it can’t be repaired. People won’t forget. The history books won’t forget.

Now that he’s blundered into this Middle East conflagration he’s also destroying the US as a world power. Vietnam was an exercise in humiliation for a nation that thought it could simply flex its huge military muscles and win. This is by degrees worse.

That’s because we’re in a far more dangerous world now, one with multiple predators prowling around the perimeter waiting for their opportunity to take it all.

Through his incompetence and ignorance, Trump has:

• Taught Iran how to win.

• But not just Iran. He’s also taught China how to win, and any adversary the US has to face in the future.

Power is at its greatest when it’s not exercised. We saw that with Russia. It was once the second-most feared military in the world…until it invaded Ukraine and was brutally exposed as a crumbling, badly-commanded, corrupt operation that turned a three-day show of brute-force into a years-long battle for patches of mud. Seven thousand Russian soldiers became casualties in just five days this month.

With Iran, Trump exposed the US in a similar manner. Not in the same way as Russia. The US military remains formidable, the strongest in the world based on the vast resources available to it (ridiculously huge for a country that is never likely to be invaded.}

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Trump threw everything at Iran — billions of dollars worth of military hardware, carrier groups, fighter jets, missiles…and lost.

No regime change which was one of the stated aims. Likely no stopping of Iran’s nuclear program. His deranged idea of a successful outcome as stated this week is keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to oil shipping. He was the one who forced it to be closed in the first place.

The huge flaw that has been revealed in US might is not in the military but lies at the very heart of the American system: with the President as Commander-in-Chief.

However great the military power, it means nothing if the weakest link is an idiot at the top (or idiots, if you include the so-called Secretary of “War”), a leader so mentally unfit that he thinks he knows better than any expert on any subject.

Something, presumably, that the founding fathers never envisaged. Because honestly, what voters would be stupid enough to elect a man like Trump.

But now the world has seen and America has been fundamentally weakened.

Iran has discovered that if it can survive the bombardments it merely needs to disrupt the global economy to win.

China now knows the same.

Trump was too stupid to realise, even though Iran trumpeted its strategy years ago. But Trump is the product of a damaged psychology, a child brutalised by his father who learned the wrong lesson from being bullied — that you only need to punch down hard to claim victory.

Other countries are far cleverer than that.

Iran’s military might has been thoroughly degraded, its leadership savaged. But a win for Iran is a low bar — it simply needs to survive. And unless Trump sends in the army to conquer the country (see Russia in Ukraine for the toll there), the regime will keep going.

More than that, it now knows it only needs to threaten to blow up a few tankers to deter any future attack. By failing so badly, Trump has taken that option off the table. That leaves Iran free to develop nukes, because like every other country in the world, it has learned from Trump that is the only way to frighten off bullies.

With Iran’s resilience, Israel too has lost. It can no longer count on an invasion force from a US ally and it will have to deal with a possibly nuclear-armed Iran nurturing even deeper hatreds.

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For all his blather, Trump still seems likely to send in ground troops, whether that’s to secure the opening of the Strait of Hormuz — which will need a permanent presence because the moment they pull out Iran will step in again — or a suicide mission to try to capture Iran’s enriched uranium.

Maybe he’ll even try to take Tehran. You can’t put anything past someone who doesn’t seem capable of basic reason.

Whatever happens the US has still lost.

As with Russia, every adversary will now look at America and think, they’re beatable, if you’re smart enough.

Trump and the lickspittles who’ve allowed a dumb, deranged man to do whatever he wants have ensured the US is no longer feared as the greatest power in the world.

Alliances have been destroyed. Trump’s irrational and punishing tariff regime and his widespread contempt for every country that used to stand by America has seen to that. Canada, the UK, the EU, Korea and Japan are all moving away from the US. They won’t be coming back. They might currently be tied in to networks of defence, intelligence and trade, but they’re all looking for alternatives and will gradually put them in place.

Trump believed that allies weren’t important. That having the largest and most expensive military in the world was enough to be a superpower. The Iran War has given the lie to that.

Though Trump will find some way to extricate himself from the quagmire, the damage has already been done.

China is watching carefully and learning from his mistakes. They now know that in his attempt to be the biggest bully on the block, Trump has made America smaller and weaker. And the consequences of that could be huge.

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Both Trump and Netanyahu have teased the possibility of sending in ground troops to try to find a resolution to what is increasingly looking like an intractable war. Trump: “I am not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly would not tell you.” Which is exactly how he answered a question about attacking Iran a few weeks ago.

• At his Proof of Life press conference, Netanyahu said: “You can’t do revolutions from the air—that is true. There has to be a ground component. There are many possibilities for this ground component. I take the liberty of not sharing all these possibilities.”

• Meanwhile Newsmax reported that the US military is speeding up the deployment of thousands of Marines and sailors. The USS Boxer group and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are leaving early, with about 4,000 personnel.

• Trump has mused on two ground operations: taking Iran’s premier oil facility Kharg Island and capturing any uranium that might be used to make a nuke. Both would be incredibly risky. Trump on Kharg Island: “We can take out the island anytime we want—I call it the little island that sits there. It’s totally unprotected. We’ve taken out everything but the pipes. We left the pipes because rebuilding them would take years.”

  

• Iran continued to attack gulf nations - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. Strikes hit Kuwait’s main oil refineries at Mina Al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah.

• Cathay Pacific cancelled all flights to Dubai and Riyadh until the end of April.

• Oil prices continued to soar, hovering above $110 a barrel.

• Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever: “There is no desire in Belgium to be involved in the war against Iran. And I think that won’t change. I think it’s a shared sentiment among European Union member countries that we didn’t want this war, we didn’t start this war.”

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• Shortages of jet fuel and flight cancellations are expected as early as next month.

• Former Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan has been appointed Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council to replace the assassinated Ali Larijani.

• German Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger told CNBC: “If (the war) lasts another month, I think we will nearly have no missiles available.” Stockpiles in America, Europe and the Middle East are empty or near-empty.

• However fast Trump ends this war, the fallout is going to be around for a long time: an Iranian attack knocked out 17% of Qatar’s natural gas export capacity with repairs expected to take three to five years, according to QatarEnergy’s CEO, Reuters reports.

• Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth said: “The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, and even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to Trump: thank you.” He added: “Ultimately, it will be the president’s decision when we say, “We’ve achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security”. So, no—there is no set timeline. But we are very much on track. Absolutely.”

• Houthi Leader AbdulMalek al-Houthi said: “We affirm our support for Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and our readiness at the military level to respond to whatever developments may require. All military options are on the table.”

• Israel’s IDF chief has told officers “we’re not even halfway done”, Channel 12 reported.

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Things continue to go from bad to worse for Trump. He’s been left on his own to deal with his massive miscalculation after all allies refused to risk their own citizens’ lives in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and oil flowing. Trump is panicking as gas prices soar across the US — and there’s not much he can do about it. He launched a furious rant on Truth Social at what he called “allies” — in scare quotes — adding “We do not need the help of anyone!”

• US diesel prices have now risen by 34% since the war began, gas prices by 27%.

• The Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent resigned over US involvement in the Iran War. He’s a core MAGA stalwart. It’s a big blow for Trump.

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• Later the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released her first statement on the Iran War, and a coded one, which stressed that it was Trump’s decision alone to make the strike. In other words: this is all on you, Mr President.

• Europe continues to insist it will have nothing to do with the war. The Vice President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas said: “The main concern of the European countries is that we were not consulted before starting this war… the feeling is that this is not Europe’s war… If the US is not putting their ships to keep the navigation routes open, then the question for our member states is the same… We are allies with America, but we don’t really understand their moves recently… It is absolutely time to bring the Iran War to an end. The problem with wars is that they are easier to start than to stop, and they always get out of hand.”

• In the UK 70% oppose joining Trump and Netanyahu’s war compared to just 17% who support it, according to new YouGov polling for Sky News.

• In January, Trump and Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth decommissioned every US mine sweeper which could have been used to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Retired US Ambassador Ken Fairfax said: “Evidently they could never imagine a scenario in which the US needed minesweepers. In Trump’s America, we are governed by idiots.”

• Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett said US consumers — that’s everyone — were the least of the administration’s concerns: “If the war were to be extended, it wouldn’t really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we’d have to think about what we’d have to do about that, but that’s really the last of our concerns right now, because we are very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.”

• Israel assassinated one of the most senior figures in the Iranian regime, security chief Ali Larijani.

• An Iranian missile strike killed two in Ramat Gan south of Tel Aviv and Tel Aviv Savidor Central train station was hit by an Iranian cluster missile.

• The USS Gerald R Ford is heading to Crete for repairs after a massive fire on board last week. The administration blamed it on a fire in the laundry. Impossible to know if this is true as there are no journalists embedded among US forces for the first time.

• CENTCOM, the US military command in the Middle East, said: “Hours ago, US forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Trump is getting extremely sensitive about the oil shock caused by his and Netanyahu’s war driving up gas prices and hitting his approval ratings. He’s called on China, Japan, South Korea, EU nations and the UK to send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and oil flowing. This is one week after he petulantly told the UK he didn’t want their ships because they didn’t support the war from the start. And after he’s attacked all those nations with his tariffs. Maybe isolationism isn’t such a great thing after all.

• Trump insists that Iran wants to “make a deal” but he’s refused because the terms aren’t good enough.

• A missile hit the US Embassy in Baghdad.

• The US embassy in Baghdad is now warning Americans to leave Iraq “immediately” and urges anyone who is thinking about staying to “reconsider”. “Do not attempt to come to the Embassy in Baghdad or the Consulate General in Erbil due to the ongoing risk of rockets, drones, and mortars in Iraqi airspace.”

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• Switzerland has closed its airspace to US military flights directly related to the war against Iran.

• Iranian General Mohsen Rezaei outlined Iran’s demands before any negotiations to end the war could begin: “The US must compensate Iran for damage caused by the bombing. American military bases must withdraw from the Gulf region.”

• Professor Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins said: “The strike on Kharg Island could be a turning point in this war. Trump may see escalation as his off-ramp but so could Iran. The end will likely not be Iranian backing off but inflaming the Gulf.”

• Russia is now supplying Iran with advanced tactics and Russian-produced drones to target US allies. Fragments of Russian drones have been found and identified.

• Following the US bombing of the girls elementary school in Minab which killed 160 children and 15 adults, it emerged that Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth axed officials who could have prevented the atrocity.

• France and Italy have opened talks with Iran in the hope of securing safe Hormuz passage, the FT reports.

• Italy is pulling its troops out of Iraq.

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There are clever ways to conduct a war and there are stupid ones. One of the stupidest would be to go in with no clear strategic aims and therefore no idea of how an endgame would play out. Layer on that an overinflated if not fantastical view of ability — the very basis of American Exceptionalism — and you have a recipe for disaster.

The Iran War has been lost. It was lost before a single missile was fired. There’s now no way Trump can claim a win, even with his stratospheric lying. His most gullible supporters won’t be able to ignore the fallout.

Billions wasted on military buildup. US lives lost. And an affordability crisis about to smack into the American public like a truck speeding down the freeway.

How does Trump say it was all worth it?

• “Iran won’t be able to develop nukes.” He said that last June before using the same argument again.

• “Iran’s ballistic missile capacity has been destroyed.” Never a threat to the US anyway — only Israel — and they can rebuild easily. See you all next year!

• “Regime change.” A big and resounding Nope. Trump has ensured a hardline leader has been replaced by someone even more hardline. And if they kill him they will get someone more hardline. Because that’s how it works with a cult of religious fanatics. This is not Venezuela.

In contrast, the Iranian regime has a clear definition of victory: simple survival. On that front, they have already won. The people haven’t risen up as Trump foolishly suggested. They’ve already had their fingers burned by his “promises”. If Trump wants to destroy the regime he’ll need to massacre a million people because there’s always someone next in line.

And as former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: “It’s very hard to change a regime from the air, and it is also very hard to shape the politics afterwards from the air.”

As she pointed out, it would take weeks to get a large enough force in place, even if Trump was prepared to see lots of flag-draped coffins return to American shores.

So there is no path to victory for Trump. But the losses he is incurring are escalating and they’re all going to hit the US homeland very soon.

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• In the run-up to his war, Trump ignored warnings that Iran could retaliate across the region and stop oil shipments, the NYT reports. He downplayed risks as a short-term concern that shouldn’t overshadow the mission to decapitate the regime. Now the energy markets are in chaos.

• The White House still believes it can tolerate higher oil prices for about three to four weeks before they become a serious political problem, Politico reports.

• The largest ever oil release from global strategic reserves was authorised in a desperate attempt to keep down prices.

• Three cargo vessels were hit while attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. One ship caught fire. Crews evacuated. Thai officials identified one vessel as the Mayuree Naree.

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• Iran says it will not allow even one litre of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of the US and its allies. “Oil prices cannot be kept low artificially.”

• The war is failing. Not only was a hardline leader replaced by someone even more hardline, Trump is making the repressive Iranian regime richer. It’s now exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war, according to tanker-tracking firm Kpler.

• Shell, TotalEnergies and other companies have declared force majeure to customers receiving LNG sourced from QatarEnergy which has halted production at its 77 mtpa LNG facility, Reuters reports.

• After the oil shock, a global food shock. A third of the world’s fertiliser passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

• A Washington Post investigation revealed the bombed Iranian girls school, where 175 mostly children died, was on the US target list and may have been mistaken for a military site.

• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni: “I express firm condemnation of the massacre of little girls that occurred at the Minab school in southern Iran, solidarity with the families of the young victims, and request that the responsibilities for this tragedy be quickly established.”

• Senator Lindsey Graham to Fox: “You worry about gas prices. Let me tell you what the world would be like if Iran had ten nuclear weapons. It would be miserable. They’d hold us all hostage and eventually they would destroy the state of Israel.”

• Steve Bannon on The War Room: “Lindsey Graham should be registered as a foreign agent for the Netanyahu government.”

• CNN confirmed earlier reports that Moscow is giving Iran specific advice on drone tactics to hit US and Gulf nation targets in the Middle East.

• Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Standard Chartered have told staff to leave their Dubai offices and work remotely with Iran threatening attacks on banks and financial institutions in the Gulf.

• US authorities are increasingly worried about terrorist attacks at home. A memo has been circulated about a potential Iranian drone attack on California.

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• The Pentagon previously announced it was spending $1 billion a day on Trump and Netanyahu’s war. The truth? It’s $3 billion…and that’s just for munitions. On top of that they’ve alarmed everyone by burning through scarce munitions in a matter of days.

• EU Council President Antonio Costa said Russia has emerged as “the only winner” from the Iran War.

• Responding to evidence published around the world that the US bombed a girls school in Iran, Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth said: “No nation takes more precautions to ensure there is never targeting of civilians than the United States of America. Iranians target civilians. We do not.”

• At the same press conference, General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “We continue to strike the Iranian Navy and their capabilities in order to do things like sustained movements through the Straits of Hormuz.” The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

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• A screeching 180 from the UK’s Far Right Reform leader Nigel Farage who’s gone from Trumpian “Bomb the Islamists” to “We cannot get involved directly in another foreign war” overnight. He’s seen the polling showing the UK public overwhelmingly doesn’t support the war.

• Iran has begun laying a small number of mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Only a few dozen mines have been placed so far, but Iran still has most of its mine-laying boats available and could deploy hundreds if it chooses.

• Trump has refused to help Ukraine in any significant way, but Zelenskyy is the better person. He said: “Ukraine has sent three professional teams to the Middle East that will work in different countries in the region…Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. There, they will assist with security matters and countering drones.”

• Anyone looking for a US plan to end the war will be disappointed. CNBC: “How do you see this war ending?” Trump envoy Steve Witkoff who negotiated with Iran: “I don’t know.”

• Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said: “The claim that Iran was planning on attacking the US or US Forces, whether preventively or preemptively, is a sheer and utter lie. The sole purpose of that lie is to justify Operation Epic Mistake, a misadventure engineered by Israel and paid for by ordinary Americans.”

• The International Energy Agency proposed the largest ever oil release from strategic reserves to counter the economic devastation being created by Trump and Netanyahu’s war.

• A drone hit the major US diplomatic facility in Baghdad, Iraq, as the chaos caused by the war continued to spread.

• Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said: “I was in a two hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can’t defend this war in public. I obviously can’t disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• How badly is the war going for Trump? Very badly indeed as he showed in a panicked, incoherent press conference last night. Oil prices are soaring, inflation is going to hit the US public hard very shortly, munitions are running out, American soldiers are dying and Trump and Netanyahu haven’t come close to reaching the endgame (not that they have any idea what that might be). The Iranian regime remains in place and there’s no sign of the people rising up. The complete disarray was captured in one reporter question: Reporter: “You said the war is “very complete.” But your Defense Secretary says “this is just the beginning.” So which is it?” Trump: “You could say both.”

• At the start of the day The FTSE 100 dropped 1.4% in the first 2 minutes of trade - investors reacting to the surge in oil prices. Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed down by more than 5%. In South Korea, the Kospi index triggered the circuit breaker, a 20-minute halt to trading to curb panic selling. Things calmed a little after Trump’s assertion that the war was “very complete”, but oil prices are still high.

• France’s former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has called for sanctions against Israel and the US over their attacks on Iran: “We say clearly to the United States that their war against Iran is illegal, illegitimate, and dangerous.”

• A seventh US service member has died - they were injured in Saudi Arabia on 1 March.

• Qatar Minster of education Lolwah bint Rashid Al Khater demanded of the US: “…we just need you to leave us alone. To stop igniting wars so that weapons’ companies can make more money. We need you to Stop Bombing Schools, to stop trafficking and raping little kids.”

• Jared Kushner and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff cancelled their planned trip to Israel scheduled for today.

• Iran struck the BAPCO Energy Company’s fuel tanks in Bahrain.

• The US ordered non-essential staff and families to evacuate the Adana consulate in southern Turkey.

• Iran fired a ballistic missile towards NATO member Turkey.

• France plans a “purely defensive” mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Macron: French deployment in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz will include eight warships, an aircraft carrier, and two helicopter carriers.

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Trump’s massive miscalculation on Iran is going to hit hard. The NYT spoke to US officials who say Iran is fighting back more effectively than the Trump administration expected, with stronger military capability and continuing attacks on US targets. More American casualties are likely, they say.

• Mojtaba Khamenei was announced as Iran’s Supreme leader. Israel said it would continue targeting every potential successor to Iran’s Khamenei, including “any individuals or bodies attempting to appoint or install a new leader for the Islamic Republic”.

• The US is considering the seizure of Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal, Axios reports.

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• In Isfahan, Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters, police command, and Basij centers were hit in Shahin Shahr, Fooladshahr, and Najafabad. In Bushehr, there was heavy bombardment of air and naval bases and military centres.

• Black rain has fallen over Tehran after strikes on oil facilities, coating streets and rooftops in dark, oily water. “The rain is actually apparently saturated with oil,” CNN reports. Now imagine people’s lungs.

  

• White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox soaring gas prices are “a short-term disruption for the long-term gain.” Crude oil reached $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022. Gamblers on Polymarket believed there is a 40% chance of recession before year end.

  

• Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox: “Just wait and see what happens in the next two weeks — truly, the next two weeks. We’re going to blow the hell out of these people. This regime is on death row. Now it’s going to be on its knees. It’s going to fall. We’re going to have prosperity unlike anything anyone could imagine.”

• Independent investigators Bellingcat uncovered video footage of US Tomahawk missiles hitting Minab, Iran, close to the girls’ school where 175 were killed in a missile strike. This directly contradicts Trump’s claims that Iran bombed the area.

• The UAE Ministry of Defence says it detected 17 ballistic missiles, intercepting 16 of them, and 117 drones, intercepting 113, while four fell into the sea.

• A Texas business which makes bomb shelters for nuclear war has seen trade skyrocket this week, Raw Story reports. Recent clients include two members of the Trump administration. The others were almost all “Christian, conservative CEOs,” which included “several of the wealthiest men on the planet.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• We seem to have settled on a figure for the direct cost to the US of the Iran War - $1 billion a day (though some analysts think it might be as high as $2 billion). That figure doesn’t include * the cost to US businesses from soaring energy prices which could hit jobs and * the warflation that consumers will soon be seeing at the checkout and gas pump.

• Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi said the Iran war could “bring down the economies of the world”. He predicted that all Gulf energy exporters would shut down production within weeks and drive oil to $150 a barrel. He told the FT that even if the war ended immediately it would take Qatar “weeks to months” to return to a normal cycle of deliveries of liquefied natural gas.

• No oil tankers have passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 24 hours.

• Russia is now providing Iran with intelligence to attack US forces, several media outlets reported based on briefings from US officials. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox it “didn’t matter”. Trump castigated a reporter for asking him about it.

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• UK counterterrorism police have arrested one Iranian and three dual British-Iranian nationals on suspicion of spying for Iran. They allegedly carried out surveillance of the Jewish community.

• Israel carried out a “broad-scale wave” of strikes on Lebanon’s capital Beirut while the IDF also launched its 14th wave of attacks on Iran.

• Trump said there would be no deal with Iran. He would only accept “unconditional surrender”. Which would be remarkable without ground troops.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Arab Foreign Ministers the war could last several more weeks, Axios reports.

• The cancellation of an army exercise involving the 82nd Airborne has raised speculation about Middle East troop deployment.

• US Intelligence believes China could be preparing to provide Iran with financial assistance, spare parts, and missile components, CNN reports.

• An Iranian ballistic missile hit Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox: “Due to the temporary global oil gap, we may also unsanction other Russian oil.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• Commander Brad Cooper of CENTCOM, the US’ military command in the Middle East, revealed the results of American attacks on Iran. “In the last 72 hours, America’s bomber force has struck nearly 200 targets deep inside Iran, including around Tehran. In just the last hour, US B-2 bombers dropped dozens of 2,000-pound penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers. We also struck Iran’s equivalent of Space Command.”

• Iranian ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90% since the first day of the war, drone attacks by 83%.

• Drones hit the airport in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, widening the war zone. Iran denied they were responsible, but Azerbaijan has now withdrawn its diplomats from Iran.

• Turkey has threatened reprisals if Kurdish volunteers join the fight against Iran, as the US wants. The Turkish Ministry of Defence said: “We emphasise that we reserve the right to respond to hostile actions regardless of where they originate, and we are closely monitoring developments in close coordination with NATO and our other allies.” They added: “We are closely monitoring the activities carried out by the terrorist organisation PJAK in Iran and the developments in the region in close coordination with the relevant institutions of our state.” PJAK is the Kurdish Free Life Party which Trump is encouraging to attack Iran. Turkey has a long and bloody history with the Kurds.

• Sweden’s central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, has advised people to keep 1,000 kronor ($110) in cash at home, enough for a week of essentials like food and medicine in case of war, cyberattacks, or other crises.

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• Iran hit two hotels in Bahrain’s capital Manama.

• Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth held another press conference that was economical with the truth. He claimed the US had no shortage of munitions which goes against every military analyst in the world. He also said, “The dumb politically correct wars of the past were the opposite of what we are doing here. They had vague objectives with restrictive rules of engagement — no more.” So politically correct wars like…Vietnam?

• Trump says Iran keeps calling to “make a deal”. Trump said they’re too late. “We want to fight now more than they do.” Iran has denied multiple times that they’ve contacted the US about reaching a deal.

• US oil prices passed the $80 a barrel mark for the first time in 13 months, up 45% since December. US gas prices are set to rise above $3.30 a gallon.

• Trump attacked allies Spain and UK for not doing what he wants. “We have a lot of winners, but Spain is a loser, and UK has been very disappointing.”

  

• The Economist’s view: “Trump…is more likely to end up having to deal with regional chaos or a new hardliner. Surrounded by sycophantic courtiers, Trump has become rash… His opportunistic grabs for power whenever he sees weakness are dangerous. America needs a strategy in Iran, just as it needs one in the world.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• The CIA has been shipping arms to thousands of Kurdish volunteers in western Iran and encouraging them to rise up against the regime. Turkey is not happy at the Kurds getting arms and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is warning that any force linked to Kurdish groups entering Iran would trigger war with Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Meanwhile, the Kurds feel they’re being forced into an attack by the US

  

• The ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a US attack, despite his public support for a diplomatic solution, the Washington Post reported.

• An Iranian military official has warned that if the US and Israel attempt regime change through armed unrest, Iran will strike Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor.

• The UN refugee agency says about 100,000 people fled Tehran in the first 2 days of the war. Around 2000 vehicles per day have been leaving the city, mostly heading north. So far, no increase in people crossing international borders has been reported.

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• US House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to perpetuate the myth that the US is not at war, for a whole host of legal reasons: “We’re not at war right now. We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission, an operation, Operation Epic Fury.” A Special Military Operation, say, just like Russia.

• Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth held another bizarre press conference that played fast and loose with the truth. Among his nuggets: “This was never meant to be a fair fight and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they are down.” Which is not the flex he imagines. And he once again stressed this war will go on for a while: “The only limits we have in this is Trump’s desire to achieve specific effects on behalf of the American people. You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three.”

• General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff outlined US strategy: “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory.”

• A US submarine has sunk the Iranian IRIS Dena warship off Sri Lanka. 101 people missing, 78 injured.

• Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters in Qom and Tabriz have been destroyed.

• Senator Richard Blumenthal was one of many lawmakers distressed after the Iran briefing: “I just want to say I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground.”

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The US-Israeli attack on Iran is fast-moving and it’s not easy to stay on top of the volume of interconnected events. Here’s what happened in the last 24 hours…

• At the start of the day, Trump said he wasn’t ruling out sending ground troops into Iran. At the end of the day, he said he didn’t think there’d be a need for ground troops, just part of the erratic US approach to the war. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has 190,000 fighting men and 600,000 reserves.

• The State Department told Americans to evacuate the entire Middle East. Airports in many countries are closed. No help is being provided.

  

• The number of US service members seriously wounded in the Iran War now stands at 18, up from the five reported yesterday. Four are dead.

• Trump, Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff Dan Caine all told the public to brace for more American casualties.

• Three F-15E Strike Eagles were downed over Kuwait by friendly fire.

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• The US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was hit by Iranian drones. US officials claimed it was empty at the time.

• Trump told NewsNation “you’ll find soon what the retaliation will be for the attack on the US embassy in Riyadh and for the US service members killed.”

• Secretary of Defense/War Pete Hegseth held a bizarre press conference packed with lies. The most notable being: “We didn’t start this war. But under President Trump, we are finishing it.”

• Bahrain Ambassador to the US Abdulla R Al-Khalifa: “Bahrain’s air defences intercepted 70 Iranian ballistic missiles and 59 drones targeting the Kingdom. Attacks on civilian sites are a grave violation of sovereignty and international law. We reserve full right to respond.”

• Keir Starmer said: “The use of British bases is limited to the agreed defensive purposes. We are not joining the US and Israeli offensive strikes.”

• The oil tanker MKD Fium was hit by a drone boat in the Gulf of Oman, fifty nautical miles north of Muscat.

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The toll for Trump’s attack on Iran currently stands at four American lives lost, three F-15s destroyed, billions of taxpayer dollars expended — and tens of thousands of dead Iranian civilians, including many children, Trump encouraged to face regime bullets with the promise of help that never materialised.

The secondary effects are spreading too. The price of oil is surging. At time of writing it has hit $80 a barrel with analysts saying it could reach as high as $100. Americans will pay the price at the pumps in a few weeks. In Europe, the cost of gas has rocketed 25%.

Trump’s attack has also painted a target on Americans everywhere.

Two Iranian ayatollahs have issued fatwas. Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi described retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as a religious duty for Muslims worldwide “until the evil of these criminals is eradicated from the world.”

Americans travelling, Americans at home, US institutions everywhere, all are now less safe.

And it’s only going to get worse. Here’s why.

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Netflix’s attempt to buy the vast Warner Bros Discovery empire is over. Paramount is now in pole position to snap up the feted company with its enormous library of intellectual property.

But the real winner is Trump.

This goes far beyond who gets to control Harry Potter and Superman. It has serious and far-reaching repercussions for the US — and for the rest of the world.

Paramount is the MAGA studio, pumping out Red State dramas under the guidance of the Trump-supporting David Ellison and his Trump donor father Larry. It already has control of CBS News. If the deal goes through as expected it will also own global news network CNN.

The combined Paramount-Warner Bros will become another cog in the powerful propaganda machine that Trump is assembling which will sustain him and MAGA far into the future.

This is how Far Right empires are built. Take charge of the information flow, shape the message. The only truth is the one you decide.

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Warner Bros is a media powerhouse with its HBO Max streaming service, CNN, a library of classic films going back decades, top level brands like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and the DC Comics stable and hit shows like Succession and The Sopranos. Merging with Paramount, which owns Top Gun, the Tyler Sheridan universe of shows and The Godfather, creates a juggernaut that has the force to drive through the financial challenges of the coming years.

This has always been the dream of Paramount boss and Hollywood nepo-baby David Ellison. But it came at a high price —$111 billion to be exact. To seal the deal, Ellison had to bring on board his billionaire father Larry, the founder of Oracle, whose shares in the cloud computing company behemoth essentially guarantee the bid.

Netflix made its announcement shortly after business closed on February 26: it wasn’t going to raise its bid for Warner Bros after Paramount submitted its final offer for the whole WBD business of $31 a share, significantly more than Netflix’s $27.75 per share.

In its statement, Netflix said: “The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval. However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”

But it wasn’t that simple.

It’s hard to deny that Trump pulled all the strings to get his favoured supporters the Warner Bros prize. Although Trump announced that he was “not involved” in the Paramount-Netflix battle, he privately met with David Ellison about it.

One day before Netflix dropped the bid, Trump publicly went after Netflix board member Susan Rice who used to work for the Obama administration. He said Netflix would “face the consequences” if she wasn’t removed.

Netflix boss Ted Sarandos had a private meeting with Trump at the White House when he clearly refused to drop Rice and hours later Netflix announced it was pulling out of the bid to buy Warner Bros.

The Mafia boss in the White House got exactly what he wanted.

Trump has already seen the value of the Ellison family. When junior’s Skydance took over Paramount, the well-respected CBS News was gutted and brought in line with Trump’s vision under the newly installed conservative journalist Bari Weiss who had no experience in the TV industry.

CNN employees now fear that Weiss will be given control of their news service too.

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University of Pennsylvania scholar Victor Pickard describes this as “media capture” modelled on what Hungary’s authoritarian Viktor Orban has achieved. “Autocrats needn’t take over newsrooms at gunpoint; instead, they can count on friendly oligarchs to police the media for them.”

The Washington Post, which has always seen itself as a defender of democracy, has been gutted by billionaire Jeff Bezos who bought the paper for less than half of what he paid for his superyacht. He’s since been altering the Post’s values and approach to bring it more in line with Trump’s vision.

LA Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the paper’s board from endorsing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, suggested “taking a break” from writing about Trump and insisted the LA Times should become more “fair and balanced” which is Right Wing code for More MAGA.

And the New York Times is so terrified of Trump’s retribution that it’s been forced to create a new language of euphemisms and symbols to comment on his presidency, like some ancient Greek oracle, in the hope that Trump is too stupid to understand and its readers are clever enough to get it.

But it’s not just about news outlets. Fiction is, if anything, a more effective propaganda channel because it slips the message in the back door while viewers are concentrating on the human drama, and in that way normalises it.

If the characters you love are climate change deniers, anti-trans, hate socialists and are low-key racists the unconscious sifts that into acceptable mainstream views.

David Ellison has already said that from now on he wants Paramount’s TV and film stories to reflect a conservative America. His aim is to recreate the Reagan-friendly action flicks of the 80s and 90s which he grew up on.

Paramount’s streaming service is already defined by Taylor Sheridan’s highly successful shows like Landman and Yellowstone which carry the MAGA philosophy across the globe.

Sheridan champions a world where fossil fuels are all that matter and the climate crisis doesn’t exist, where outspoken women get unceremoniously tossed into swimming pools, where educated is stupid and stupid is clever, and where non-binary people are merely a collection of every Right Wing podcaster’s snide jokes.

The danger is clear. Trump’s news outlets stifle criticism and promote his beliefs. His TV and film stories project an image of white conservatism to which everyone should aspire.

And it’s not just a danger to the US. In a globalised world this propaganda leaks out to pollute every country, subtly changing minds and beliefs.

The only answer is to seek out alternatives, whether that’s independent journalists or storytellers who are not beholden to these power blocs.

If not, with the number of dissenting voices in US media fast diminishing, Trump will control the landscape.