Yes, it has been quiet here on the newsletter recently. Apart from multiple business commitments and events, I have last week started radiation for a pituitary tumour. It is not life threatening, the thing has been sitting there for a long time, but the various side effects could no longer be managed with medication only. And the technology has progressed, at least that is my understanding, to a point where thirty days of radiation treatment will do the job. Hopefully it will all be done in early June and the side effects will largely be limited to feeling tired. That was the general message, I am now finding out how it will all fall into place over the next few weeks. I have scaled back on commitments (including this one) and resolved to take it easy and rest, but it will be hard to do that, there is too much going on. Anyway, I appreciate your patience and I will try to check in with some news and news assessments in the weeks ahead.

Needless to say, the developments in and around Iran, the gruesome attacks in Golders Green, the escalation of the immigration debate in Europe as well as the continued economic uncertainty have kept me pre-occupied to a larger degree than before. Yet, amid all the alarm bells it was comforting to witness King Charles’ visit to the United States. To all those critics who wonder what the use of a royal family is and who consider it some sort of fossilized institution, look no further to the calm, poise, humour and care with which the King deftly placated the American president. It is all about the institutions and the values, the joint history and survival and far less about the people who take care of them on a temporary basis. That is why we should be so aware of the pointless and misguided anti-American sentiments that are prevalent now, in particular in Europe and Canada. Where would we be without the Brits and the Americans, those shining beacons of imperfect freedom and democracy? They are the best we have in an ever dangerous world and it requires a good fight to preserve them. From time to time we need a fresh reminder of that. Thank you, your Royal Highness.

As for the knife attacks in Golders Green, my regular readers will know how I have raised the alarm about antisemitism and how its emergence is a harbinger of potentially worse things to come. The pogroms that preceded the Russian Revolution, and the antisemitism that fuelled the Third Reich and paved the road to Auschwitz are more than instructive. Today’s Jew hate is, sadly and alarmingly, the same thing and therefore the precursor of yet another dramatic turn of history. Changing demographics, upstaging of global power balances, an energy and monetary crisis, growing inequality in western countries, all of them are fertile soil for those who want to upset and destroy all that was built over so many generations. The Jews are, like so often before, the first in line when the avalanche of distrust, hate and violence overtakes our societies.

And it sits deep and is mainstreamed in many ways, below and above the radar, potent and often incredibly effective. Take for instance how Dutch intelligence services reported last week how the many Gaza protests over the past few years have been infiltrated by Hamas. It was something often reported and noted, but largely ignored and now the ‘officials’ catch up, finally in what may be a case of ‘too little, too late’.

But there is more. Look at this talkshow of only a few days ago where the interviewer, Patrick Kielty, intimates that antisemitic violence is somehow understandable given the ‘horrors in Gaza and it is a complex thing’. The interviewed star, Boy George, who actually was in Golders Green when it happened last week, is not intimidated and clearly makes a stance for Jews and explains his why. It is remarkable how George lays it out and both the interviewer and studio guests are left stumbling for a proper response. I always liked Boy George. He is such an honest human and stays true to very simple and basic values in a time where many are led astray into the darkest corners of history.

As my regular readers will know I have always been quite skeptical about the UN established Holocaust Memorial Day which falls in January. The day has been hijacked by political interests and certain performative behaviours from especially those that seem to have limited interest in Jewish history. References to the Holocaust on that day without actually referring to Jews is just one recent example of that.

No, the day when the six million murdered are commemorated by Jews worldwide is the 27th of Nisan (usually in April/May) and is the same day the uprising in the Warzaw Ghetto in 1943 started. This year it started at nightfall on April 13 and ends at the same time tonight, April 14. You can probably see the not so subtle difference here, the international remembrance day is linked to the Red Army’s liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp, the Jewish day is related to Jews standing up and launching an armed revolt against the killers. On social media Yom HaShoah has got traction over the years through numerous videos of how at 10AM in Israel all public life and traffic comes to a halt for two minutes and everyone stops to remember, in silence. I experienced it a few years ago while visiting the coastal city of Ashdod, it was impossible for me to take any photos or video, it was just too solemn and too moving to do anything else but quietly stand there on a street among the survivors and their descendants.

There are many ways to remember and when I visit my Dutch hometown Vlaardingen I tend to walk along the very few places where there are Stolpersteine, small brass inserts on the street in front of the houses where deported and murdered Jews once lived. One of those is of Ida de Groot on the Vaartweg in Vlaardingen. Through one of the town’s local historians who recorded this witness testimony I was able to figure out how Ida’s last journey started:

“ I was playing with my friend on the Vaartweg. Suddenly, a large army car arrived. I found that interesting. I was standing behind the army car and the driver who got out of the car stroked me on the head. Suddenly there was a huge screaming that I will never forget. The woman was taken out of the house between two soldiers and two others helped her into the car and pushed her onto a bench. We went to the house afterwards. Everything was still ready for lunch “

Ida was not even given the time to finish her meal. She also had zero chance to survive. She was alone and was, as opposed to Jews from bigger cities like Amsterdam, far less aware of what was going on and probably not well connected. All Dutch jews ended up in Westerbork, a transition camp from where trains to notably Sobibor and Auschwitz left on a weekly basis, gruelling rides in cattle wagons that lasted three to four days. Some were able to extend their stay in Westerbork for weeks and months, or sometimes even negotiate a temporary release. All the odds were against Ida, she was taken out of her home on December 3, 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz only eight days later.

We know very little about Ida other than where she lived, who her parents were, Levie de Groot and Maria van Leeuwen, and how her life ended in the most horrific way imaginable. If there is one thing we can do now however is to keep people like Ida alive in some way. There are six million stories like hers, but if we bring these down to an individual level they become much more tangible and emotional. The stories take shape and become a reality and in that we give these perished souls at least the sort of stage that they were denied eighty years ago: as real and unique human beings.

It also tells us we may have made some progress since those fateful years, but looking around me not much has changed really. There still is this flip of the switch whereby compliance kicks and where once respectable people and institutions see nothing wrong with excluding and cancelling others. And once that slippery slope to dehumanization sets in, the next phase usually is violence followed in the end by plain murder.

And here is why. I always watch the Yom HaShoah ceremony in Israel and each year six survivors take the stage and their story is shared after which they light a fire. The most telling one this year was from Avigdor Neumann. Not just his survival, but the very fact that he mentions how he as a Holocaust survivor has been working with October 7th survivors. Imagine how Avigdor bridged that eighty year gap of survival and recovery only to be confronted again with the same mindless urge to destroy people, to terminate Jews in the year 2023. But there is hope, always and Avigdor tells these traumatized young people: “don’t let the grief overwhelm you”.

Keep remembering. Give a thought to Ida and think of Avigdor. And remain vigilant.

Note: When I originally mentioned Ida de Groot on social media a number of weeks ago I referred to Dutch policemen who often were used by the Germans to carry out this task. In this case it appears it were Germans that raided the house and took Ida away. The Stolperstein reads:

Here lived

Ida de Groot

Born 1893

Interned on December 3, 1942

Deported

From Westerbork

Murdered 11 December, 1942

Auschwitz

A number of you often ask me where I get all my information. Well, I consume copious amounts of mainstream news as well as multiple social media channels and also, thankfully, have some unique sources. But the go-to channels and the recognized journalists have over the years become increasingly biased, although I still think that many of these sources do produce quality information. But the war in Iran has taken the question of media reliability to another level.

The aversion to both Donald Trump and Benjamin Nethanyahu (see NYT’s Tom Friedman above) has blinded many observers to give us a realistic or truthful assessment of the war and its underlying dynamics. The focus is on the mistakes each leader has made and the resulting chaos in and around the Gulf area. This has taken us straight to the idea that Iran is the ‘winner’ in the conflict so far and that the US does not have the plan or the wherewithal to bring this war to a close. Worse, we will hear that the world economy has now been shattered and that the US has gambled away it superpower status. While there are some kernels of truth in the latter two claims, it is often more a form of positing false historical analogies and wishful thinking than reasoned thinking based on facts. Because by definition Netanyahu, and certainly Trump, must be wrong. if you go down this rabbit hole there are things you are a lot less likely to hear:

A Damaged Iran - In the space of a six weeks of war Iran has lost most of its political and military leadership, its navy, 50% of its missile systems, a huge chunk of its defence production capabilities, thousands of troops and of course significant economic damage, not to mention a further loss of confidence among its already angry and disgruntled citizens. Furthermore, its proxies have suffered huge losses (Hezbollah notably) where Syria already had fallen off Tehran’s table. Worse, and this is game shifting territory, it has isolated itself in the Middle East where most Arab countries have turned away from Iran. This is hardly a winning scenario. Teetering on the brink of collapse is closer to the truth, but there are few places where you will read that.

The Region - And we should fully grasp that the one factor that initially played a role in holding back US attack - relations in the Arab world - is now actually a factor in favour of the US continuing the war and indeed finishing it. While Iran was a force to reckon with, it gave many Arab countries pause to align with the US and Israel, also to not be seen as too closely aligned with Israel. But now that we have a damaged and derailed Iran the choice is not all that harder as all of a sudden, the opportunity to remake the Middle East is now a viable reality. Do you want to take it or not?

That scenario would be a huge win for Israel as it would see an expended Abraham Accords and peace on its borders, possibly. And that also would not sit well with the deep anti-Nethanyahu sentiment that has over the past few years morphed into mainstream Israel and Jew hate. The story on the ground does not fit the preferred narrative.

Only this weekend I had to dig through multiple reports and TV shows arguing how Israel has embarked on another ‘genocide’ in Lebanon and that now is the time for in particular the European Union to sanction Israel and potentially suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Little if any time is being spent on the EU‘s notable absence in implementing UN resolution 1701 (from 2006) that demilitarizes the areas in Lebanon south of the Litani river and which calls for Hezbollah to disarm. The latter never complied and has through the years continued to make northern Israel difficult to inhabit with random murderous attacks on civilians in the area. Believe it, after the incursions, of in particular 1982 and 2006, Israel has zero appetite to enter Lebanon again. It is the unchecked violence from Hezbollah, which by the way also ruptured and destroyed a viable Lebanese state, that leaves it very little choice other than to act.

You just won’t read that a lot in western mainstream sources, nor will you hear a lot about the victims like Noa and Nir Baranes who left three children behind after they were killed after a Hezbollah missile hit their car in 2024.

The framing of the war with Iran and the related conflict with Hezbollah has of course direct implications. Diplomatic pressure on Israel, fractured relations and communication with Washington, DC; the consequent mainstreaming of antisemitism, all of these things carry on well beyond Trump’s and Nethanyahu’s respective terms in office. Like Orban yesterday in Hungary, a simple general election can flip it all in a very different direction and Israel and the US are no exceptions to that.

Worse, it will be hard to get people to understand that Israel and the US are indeed still functioning democracies on the right side of history. That a nuclear Israel tied to the west and in peace with the Muslim world is a far better guarantee for freedom and stability than an Iran with a similar set of weaponry. That wars inevitably cost lives, are often poorly managed and that no one wants the blood of innocents to be needlessly spilled, apart from those to whom it is an integral part of their strategy.

Sifting through the news is no longer enough, we all have to fight back at the bloodstained framing of a war that some feel should be won by our adversaries because, politics. It feels at times that we are that far away from home, from the wars where we could see through the smoke and blood and consider the moral clarity. If we lose that ability, we lose ourselves and the very freedoms our free societies once fought for.

Photos: the city of Homs destroyed in Syria’s civil war where Iran played an outsized role in keeping the murderous Assad regime in place, screenshot of an interview with Tom Friedman, and the Baranes family, only the children are alive today.

If you are paying attention to the stock markets, you will have noted the pattern. Indications of a ceasefire will result in a quick market uptick, persistent news that the war will continue and expand and most stocks, apart from energy and defence plays, will take a beating. For the right type of trader this war has so far been a unique trading opportunity, for the more value type of investors it is a confusing zigzag with no end in sight. And so it is with the war itself, we are balancing between pundits who decry the absolute failure and recklessness of Trump’s war in Iran versus the calmer assessments that point to a steady degradation of the Islamic Republic’s lethal capabilities. Many, and I happen to find myself to be one of them, see a truly unique opportunity for peace, stability and growth for the Middle East when all of this is over.

So it is hard to navigate between the anger, in particular yesterday over Trump’s commentary to do a civilizational wipe out of Iran, and the reality on the ground. None of it is of course helped by Iran’s continued internet and media blackout which makes drawing any conclusions hard. And in the mix we also have Israel where the civilian toll sadly is mounting and the Gulf States where the physical and economic damage has reached significant levels.

What happened yesterday was expected: Trump ramped up the threats to the point many started to believe he was going nuclear, Pakistan stepped up as intermediary and a two-week ceasefire was brokered. Trump was walking on a dangerous piece of rope, delivering on his threats meant openly committing war crimes Putin-style, while potentially losing the support of significant parts of the Iranian people.

It appears that the agreed two-week period will ensure that Iran will re-open the Strait of Hormuz and Israel is supposed to back off from attacks as well, although the war in Lebanon is continuing. There are a few important interim observations to make, so here we go:

Elections - So did the United States blink? This is how many media will interpret it and yes of course the pressure on Trump is phenomenal. An economy that is not in the best of shapes and that will now face rising energy prices and inflation in a mid-term election year is lethal for any sitting US administration. The wild market swings reflect not only that weakness, they may also actually cover up much worse to come in terms of economic setbacks once quarterly earnings and consumer data decompose the first quarter of this year. Trump had to walk back things fast.

But at the same time you can make the argument that trying to save the economy while the actual war is not being won, while costing reported US$1 billion per day, is hardly material to help win a mid-term election. Nethanyahu by the way is in the same boat, Israel will have a general election on October 27 at which point - if nothing changes - its wars will have been going for a three full years with, as of today, Hamas, Hezbollah and the regime in Iran still in place. All those players are less lethal now, sure, but Bibi will have serve up something far more definitive if he wants to win another election, the polls at the moment are favouring the Israeli opposition.

The Junta in Tehran - It is one thing if you erase the leadership of a country in war, the question becomes what is left to run the place. Although there are no firm reports, the consensus is that there is no longer a spiritual leader (Khamenei’s son is reported severely injured or in a coma) while most of the military leadership has been decimated and is operationally fragmented. That leaves the fanatics of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the real power and it may well be that they are now calling most of the shots on a day-to-day basis in Iran.

This is of course a tragic turn of events for Iran’s domestic resistance; news of trials and executions of ordinary Iranians keep coming over social media every single day. They are sobering and brutal. So yes, we are dealing with a hardline junta that will lash out domestically and seek to stay in control at all costs, while it is also keenly aware that its military capabilities have been seriously diminished.

The Region - Worse for Iran is that it has burned its bridges in the region with its random attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf States, all of them are now much firmer in the American fold when it comes to this war. Rumours have been circulating that a behind the scenes extension of the Abraham Accords is being negotiated which would bring Israel closer to a number of Arab states that will now willingly pay any price for a return to peace, stability and pumping oil. So, whatever strength it has got left, Iran is now isolated and it is not winning the war. The real fear however is that it could hold on and terrorize its own population up until a future collapse. It is eerily reminiscent of Saddam Hussein in Iraq whose forces and regional power was degraded during the first Gulf War (1991) after which he managed to hold on in a reign of blood until his final dismissal in 2003, the second Gulf War.

Europe is Out - It is not unexpected that, having not been consulted, key European nations and in particular NATO members are not on board with supporting the US and Israel in Iran. Trump’s anger about this is, up to a point, justified: NATO members are within their rights to refuse to participate in this war, but to deny access to airspace (Spain) seems an overly draconian response. On the other hand, Trump may well be using all of this as a final pretext to blow up the alliance and force Europe to swallow the bitter economic pill that the war is serving up everywhere. Both the EU and European NATO members are utterly unprepared for this, they so far have not been able to meaningfully address the war in Ukraine or find a common defence strategy. So prospects of a unified approach to open up Hormuz and play a role in this Middle East war will remain a mirage for now. Europe could well end up being the real loser of this war as America retreats and the Middle East rebuilds.

But the latter is of course something that remains to be seen. Iran will use the stoppage to reorganize and re-arm over the next few weeks while the Trump administration will have to formulate a better thought out road to success. And that is more than facilitating an opening Hormuz or defanging the Iranian leadership: only fundamental regime change in Iran can bring a lasting peace to the region and to the long suffering people of Iran. Expect many more market gyrations in the meantime and within two weeks we could well be back in a full blown war.

Photo: the surreal spectacle of Trump talking war while the Easter Bunny looks on somewhat mystified at all of it, at the White House on April 6, 2026.

It is not an easy exercise to determine where we are in the war on Iran. A weekend of endless commentary and analysis from all directions tells you either that either the regime in Tehran is about to collapse, or that we are about to enter another bloody slow grinding Ukraine-type war. And everything in between. With it come the macro-economic assessments and they are almost all negative, even a ceasefire and a resumption of oil and gas exports will apparently not quickly address the damage done to energy markets so far. And you are no doubt feeling it, inflation across the board is getting another unwanted boost.

Consumer and investor confidence are taking a consequent beating and these will only slow any near term recovery. Even I liquidated a sizeable portion of my stock portfolio in the first week of the war and that is something that I have never done during previous global escalations. This one is by far larger, more consequential and is lacking the once imperfect mechanism of a global order acting as a cushion. When relations are fraught and fractured they may only respond slowly to crises or not at all.

The economic fallout is of deep concern to Washington which is now letting up all sorts of trial balloons to ensure that oil flows again and markets can stabilize. The most desperate one was Trump threatening to destroy Iranian power infrastructure in order to force an opening of the Strain of Hormuz. If the United States were to open this kind of front and directly attack and destroy civic infrastructure in Iran it would literally take a page out of the Putin handbook of ‘waging a war you are not winning’. Not only that, it would constitute a war crime and it would potentially swing some in Iran into a direction that runs opposite to the goal of regime change.

And guess what? Trump pushed out the deadlines and mitigated that threat this morning, alluded to talks with Iran, which the latter denied, and markets rallied into green territory. Could it be over, is there an off ramp from this war?

That is doubtful. Note that the regime is down but far from out and has continued its attacks on Gulf States, and Israel over the past few days, and even activating sleeper cells in other countries. Last Wednesday a Dutch cop of Iranian descent was shot and seriously injured in the Dutch town of Schoonhoven, to give you just one example. What is left of the regime is not prepared to give up and probably even more radicalized, note the executions last week of democracy protestors, among them the nineteen year old wrestler Saleh Mohammadi.

All of it has been dragging the US and Israel deeper into war to a point where serious concerns will be raised about the capabilities of the decision makers running this war. On the one hand that prompts the question how a very capable military leadership in Washington is getting directions from an impatient and somewhat reckless president while wondering to what extent team Trump is able to leverage diplomatic resources to get support internationally. The singular way in which the war was started has not exactly excited leaders in Europe and the Gulf, but a protracted global economic and security crisis will force many to reconsider and support team Trump and by extension, team Bibi. The neo-liberal take of ‘there is no alternative’ can be dusted off as European leaders, once critical of the war, will have no choice but to roll up their sleeves and help America out of this escalating crisis.

Saudis and Qataris will do this out of necessity. Iran for instance may indeed deliver on its threat to attack the desalination plants in the Gulf that gets about 70-90% of its drinking water through these facilities, triggering immediate water shortages. For Israel the situation is equally precarious. The entire country is in war mode again with schools closed and this weekend registering many serious casualties with children among them. Even more dangerous is that Iran targeted, but missed, Israel’s nuclear facilities in Dimona. Imagine a closer hit and Israel’s resulting answer.

None of this diminishes the goal of the war, a neutralized Iran with a new regime that could pave the way to a far more stable region. There is also no use in tearing down Trump: the war is and remains something the world was reluctant to face for many decades. Whatever we think of this president’s methods and behaviours, his instincts about Iran have been correct. The removal of its regime as a cancerous growth was never going to be easy and required a level of boldness that few leaders have been able to put on display so far.

So maybe we have to face an uncomfortable truth, a truth that for all of us born well after 1945 has never been one to reckon with. And that is that real peace and real progress come only once a heavy price has been extracted. Ask the Iranians and ask the Israelis about the damage and suffering that have been inflicted on them. An increased food bill or expensive fuelled up tank is a small price to pay for many of us. And it is not going to be a temporary or short one this time, so buckle up.

Photo: bombing attacks on various targets in Iran on March 22, 2026.

After a few weeks in The Netherlands I wrapped up the old continent trip with a few days in London. As I have sweet memories of my time there during the early nineties, I thought it was important to share that with the next generation. With that in mind I took my youngest daughter to Harrods to take in the experience of luxury shopping. It was a watch party more than a buying exercise, prices are insane, but we wrapped it up in the champagne bar and after reporting on it back to the family were drawn back into the politics of today. Reason is that I remembered that Harrods was no longer owned by the al-Fayed family and had been taken over by private equity. It was my other daughter who wasted no time to explain that her father and sister had just sponsored Hamas and other odious outfits: Harrods has been in the hands of the Qatar Investment Authority for quite some time. Yes, that’s how things roll these days.

Only a day later we were shaken to learn that two antisemitic attacks had taken place back home in The Netherlands, a firebomb was set off at a synagogue in Rotterdam, while a similar device had gone off at the Jewish school in Amsterdam. Thankfully no victims and for the attack in Rotterdam four young people who were hired by a Shi’ite terror group, quite possibly one of Iran’s sleeping cells, were arrested.

Of course, the real drama unfolded after these events as the rising tide of Jew hate, escalating to unprecedented levels, became the focus of intense and divisive debates. The newly minted Dutch prime-minister Rob Jetten - think of him as a brainier version of Justin Trudeau - called a meeting with Jewish groups last Monday. It was a get together that according to reports yielded nothing of note, Jetten was interested in ‘the emotions in the community’ and offered further Holocaust education. This is the go-to nothing burger that is guaranteed to not bring any solution closer and it will certainly not end any bomb attacks.

Jetten’s party is not exactly pro-Israel and although he has a duty to protect and engage with the Jewish community, he appeared to be more focused on tweaking Dutch foreign policy while limiting his response to the attacks to only a symbolic set of measures to placate the situation. Israel, the war in Iran and the role of Jews in Europe is somehow just to too complex to handle for a lot of European leaders, moral clarity is very hard to come by here these days.

Binyomin Jacobs, a Dutch rabbi, pointed out that according to him antisemitism was not so much the issue, but rather the extreme polarization that is now ripping apart western democracies where a common middle ground is increasingly rare. The Jews, he argued, are merely first in line as the recipients of the violence as it is spreading across Europe. And with that it is not hard to establish what the Dutch and other governments should really be doing to thwart these ever escalating incidents.

One would be naming the problem and clarify where it originates. Second would be to articulate what antisemitism actually is and how it is spreading and that includes, thirdly, to critically look at how publicly funded media report on Israel as a starting point. And also maybe as a fourth point to not condone or look away from the hate and violence that has captured Dutch universities ever since October 7th, institutions that are also underwritten by the taxpayer. Fifth, to call out other parties on the moral bankruptcy that informs calls to target only Israel for boycotts and even seek to deny it the delivery of parts for its missile defence system as the Dutch Green-Labour party sought to do last year. And yes, more security, although one has to wonder what else can be done to keep children safe in a building that has already been turned into a fortified military bunker. Imagine what it does to the children’s mental state going in and out of such a facility every single school day.

Clarity is what is needed and decisive action that avoids placating certain electoral groups, not minimizing political risks. But with a minority government and a limited mandate don’t expect any bold moves to call out the deep fissures in Dutch society from PM Jetten. And the same holds true across the pond in the UK where Keir Starmer is ever so careful to keep his distance from the Trump administration in particular when it comes to the Iran war.

And if that war succeeds in dislodging the regime, something more likely since yesterday’s decapitation of another set of Iran’s key leaders, then the prize for moral clarity will most likely go to Washington, not to London, The Hague or Madrid to name a few. And it will also not go to me, sipping champagne in a Qatari-owned department store.

Photos: Harrods on March 13, 2026 and a Jewish kid photographing the damage to the Rotterdam synagogue a day later.
Update: a reader contacted me to say that Binyomin Jacobs is not the rabbi in Rotterdam, but head of Chabad and located in another city, Amersfoort. I have made that edit.

So let’s do a thought experiment.

More evidence is pointing to the key American motive that by removing the Iranian regime it neutralizes a key China proxy. If you accept that, then that also then means that the Chinese are on the defensive. It is now potentially blocked from access to the Gulf region with concurrent political (influence) and economic (oil and gas) consequences. It also closes an open route into resource rich Africa. It is a massive blow for Xi to see this strategic advantage evaporate in a matter of days. At the same time we also know that Russia, also resource rich, is becoming economically weaker under the Putin dictatorship and is drained by the war in Ukraine. So rather than confront the US (Xi and Trump meet later this month), the US and China could enter into a stalemate much like the US-Soviet standoff that defined the Cold War years. The incentive for that is not just a military one but also an economic one.

Now if that is a workable assumption where does that leave Europe? The past week has been a comedy of errors, funny if it wasn’t so serious, to take a position on the war in Iran. The most vocal anti-US voice was Spain’s Pedro Sanchez campaigns against anything that might seem to even slightly benefit Israel or support Trump. The UK’s Starmer has been going out of his way to distance himself from the attack as opposed to his illustrious predecessor Tony Blair who realized quickly that being close to Washington, whatever the political cost domestically, serves the national interest. Starmer has abandoned that, Great Britain is out of European Union but also out of American favour, although they are of course still a NATO member. France’s Macron saw a window of opportunity to manifest himself as a world leader and opine on the Middle East where his country’s role ended in 1946, but that did not stop him. The rest of the European leaders waffled in all directions, condemning Iran, but also urging restraint and keeping a distance from both Trump and Netanyahu. Not helpful.

Well then, what about the European Union itself? And there too, the entity that should provide clarity is struggling. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat is careful and playing the restraint card, while Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission’s president has displayed a more hawkish tone in confronting Iran. Interestingly NATO’s secretary-general Mark Rutte has emerged as the one person who has taken on the unifying role and even in its absence somehow manufactured a message of strong European support to keep Trump calm and aligned.

The zigzag performed by Mark Carney of Canada is of a different level, in the span of a short week he has supported all possible positions in the playbook to placate everyone and thus in the end accomplish nothing:

Why am I running you through all of this? Well it seems to be clear that if we assume a China that will move closer to a Russia that needs a closer relationship too - oil, weapons - in particular with a view on Ukraine and Europe, then the Euros could find themselves in a deep pickle. They are not unified, they lack the weapons and the political appetites are all over the map. And that makes them a prime target for further joint Sino-Russian disruptions in the areas of cyberattacks, energy pressure, migration manipulation, election interference and a lot more. Both Moscow and Beijing are way more likely now to spend energy on challenging a fractured Europe than a powerful America. And there is a lot to get in Europe in economic terms, they may even get away with grabbing Ukraine.

Europe is ripe for it. There is a remarkable convergence of the continent’s far right and the far left when it comes to Ukraine which they both will happily throw under the bus keep Putin calm. Their anti-war and increasingly anti-American stance plays well electorally as mainstream centrist parties are struggling to project a clear narrative in a changing world. The bizarre utterances of leading voices in media and politics that now appear to support the regime in Tehran over the United States tells you how fertile the ground is to turn Europe in a very different direction.

You may think it all a bit far-fetched, but war in Iran has been an opening to accelerate economic and political trends that were well underway for many years and they now also shed a lot more light on Trump’s efforts to bolster his North American fortress. His expressions of interest in acquiring Greenland and Canada came as a surprise to many, but if you put them in the picture of a reshaping global order today, they all of a sudden seem to make a lot more sense.

My call is really to encourage everyone to see the Iran war and the different sideshows in this global context rather than the oversimplifications we get to read every day. Israel did not drag America into this war, this war is a piece of a broader wave that has been years in the making. And as so often with history the moment joint interests overlap, something dramatic will happen as it did last weekend. America may well carry on and leave both Iran and Israel to figure things out on their own.

Trump (almost 80), Putin (73) and Xi (72) are older guys and they are in a hurry to shape the world and leave their legacy. No one in Europe can match the cloud and determination of each of these three men. Hold on to your seats.

Photo: Churchill’s statue in the heart of Westminster was defaced yet again, two weeks ago. I had planned to write about it, but then the Iran War got going. Yet to vandalize the very man who turned the tide and saved Britain and Europe from fascism and communism while solidifying the bond with the United States is symptomatic of where Britain and Europe today stand and where they may be headed: a return of authoritarian political parties, antisemitism and losing the US as a partner and friend.

There are so many moving pieces at the moment that it is hard to give attention to everything. But some themes and trends have now emerged and I want to run through them quickly and end it with an emotional bang that goes right to the heart of what is at stake in Iran.

A New Iran?

Yes, there is an incredible level of enthusiasm and gratitude that Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei is no more, look for instance at the crowds in Berlin this weekend. Iranians celebrated everywhere and there were other unique signs of sheer joy, take for instance people tweeting out a photo of Salman Rushdie with the words ‘you won’. The evil beast is no more, but as with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, I lack the ability to really start cheering. The late leader had been marked for being neutralized for a long time and while symbolically important, the search for real breakthroughs and change in Iran starts now. And it will be far from easy. A council of three has been appointed to select a successor while Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security, appears to be calling the shots now in Iran.

What this means is that, even after the unparalleled intelligence work of the Mossad and the CIA that wiped out not just Khamenei but a significant slice of the Iranian leadership, the power infrastructure still stands. It is like slaying the multi-headed dragon, you cut off one or two of its heads and new ones instantly emerge. No collapse Nazi Germany style after Hitler’s suicide: the Islamic Republic has been around for forty-seven years, not twelve, and the power structures are so entrenched into society that it is hard to dislodge them. A well organized and armed opposition force might have a chance, but none that has the capabilities to do this is readily available yet.

And it may well be that the Trump administration whose 2025 National Security Policy specifically rules our ‘boots on the ground’ doesn’t care what is next. Maybe the remnants of the IRGC can provide a viable and compliant alternative to work with, the military may take control and agree to a ceasefire, or the chaos Iran just continues internally without posing an external threat for the foreseeable future. And that then begs the question for how long the massive US military apparatus will remain deployed and operational in the Middle Eastern theatre.

Global Context

That brings me to the argument made by Moroccan and US-based foreign policy analyst Zineb Riboua who points out that the attack on Iran has to be seen as part of the American strategy for China. It is putting some pressure on Xi ahead of Trump’s visit to China (March 31-April 2) by toppling one of Beijing’s key economic and military partners. Moreover, a rapid end to hostilities in Iran would allow Trump to move a large section of US firepower to the South China Sea: Taiwan is still very much at play. And I would add that Ukraine is also part of the discussion, yet very few mention it. Russia will now have to go without the Iran-manufactured Shahed drones of which it has so far used some 6,000 in the war with Ukraine. That stream of weaponry, at $193k a pop, could soon come to an end.

It is this sort of deeper and broader analysis that is often lacking in mainstream media outlets. It is on both sides of the ocean littered with platitudes, but also with many ‘bad takes’ like the one that focuses on Trump launching the attack to divert people away from the Epstein files. I take these monocausal explanations with a huge grain of salt, they bring me back to Bill Clinton launching cruise missiles at Saddam Hussein during the peak of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Sure, maybe, but probably irrelevant.

Doubt

But of course we are in a war where disinformation or ‘uninformed takes’ are quickly disseminated and we all make some mistakes. I reported on the girls’ school in Iran that had come under fire and where multiple casualties apparently had occurred. This was qualified as fake news - see the image, but even that was subsequently doubted - while at the same time al-Jazeera and the BBC reported it and so the story kept floating around. I did some research and ran it through some AI platforms, but it is as of today unclear whether it was an American, Israeli or indeed a misfired IRGC missile that hit the school. We just don’t know yet and Iran’s internet has gone dark which creates another opportunity for guesswork and misinformation. Moral of the story: take every piece of battlefield news with a grain of salt and wait with recycling it. Someone somewhere will correct it.

Bad Takes

Now let me return to the quality of reporting where in particular European media often struck a neutral tone over the past few days. A good example would be, when talking about Khamenei, describing ‘a fatherly figure and spiritual leader killed in Israeli attack’ Or suggesting that Iran funded Hezbollah and Hamas as a line of defence to protect itself. You get the drift, not everyone was celebrating while trying to flip the narrative and make Israel the evil actor.

Worse are the endless, and again you have to be in Europe to get the full scope of it, reiterations that the attack has no basis in international law. Last night on Dutch TV in one of the most watched talkshows a group of politicians and experts were joined by two Iranian refugees: Keyvan Shahbazi and Negin Nafissi.

Shahbazi and his family in particular have suffered immensely under the repression, endless intimidation and unimaginable torture. During the chat the foreign policy experts kept going down the rabbit hole of the legitimacy of the war, until Shahbazi asked where international law was for all those tortured and killed by the Khamenei regime. He put it pretty directly to the rest of the panel and the audience: “international law is a European fantasy”. For good measure he added that Israel and Iran are historically intertwined as peoples and that he carries no animosity to Israel at all, on the contrary.

But then it happened. The interviewer then asked Nafissi and Shahbazi if they wanted to return to Iran. After some silence Nafissi said she never wanted to flee her homeland and then broke down in tears and the panel went quiet. Shahbazi’s tears came as well and he explained there was nothing for him there anymore while outlining the intense suffering he and his family had endured.

I have seldom seen such a piece of television that not only hit emotionally, but that also made it visible as to how deep the gap is between the predominant mainstream thinking about Iran and the gruesome realities that Iranians have endured over the years. Dutch ‘X’ is on fire today of what happened in the show and I share the end of it in a short video here. It is in Dutch, but you don’t need to understand the words, just look at these two incredible human beings who share their deepest feelings and traumas live on TV:

The question of the war is not one of legality, but one of humanity and who has paid the price already. Let’s hope for some better media takes in the weeks and months ahead.

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A longer post on Europe was in the works here - after a few weeks silence - but events today, the joint American-Israeli attack on Iran, have overtaken it all.

For weeks we have been going through the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ scenarios, guessing what Trump was thinking, wondering about the state of military supplies, where the Gulf States stood and, yes, the emotions and progress at the negotiation table. And although it is now the second time that during actual talks military action was launched, it still somehow surprised a lot of us.

And it is different this time. Very different. It is not just a US operation; it is a joint American-Israeli effort and Trump in his statement explicitly referred to an end to the regime and the unique opportunity for the people of Iran to make that happen. Again, this is not a slap on the wrist, this is a major war effort that seeks to overturn forty-seven years of Islamist rule in Tehran. And there is no turning back, this is it and it will have far-reaching consequences. Key thoughts:

• The negotiations about nuclear enrichment were indeed not going anywhere. The parties were too far apart where the US kept pushing for a deal that Iran would probably never accept. The Iranian leadership may well have opted to just buy time and decided to let the war takes its course. An authoritarian regime rooted in divine law is not going to walk away from what it has, it will fight to the bitter end while dragging its enemies down as far as possible.

• Israel is in and also under attack. Israelis are used to the fire drills and shelter routines, they were all fully operational on what is Shabbat today. Nethanyahu has moved everything he has in political capital into his efforts in getting America to buy into a more decisive attack. The attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon earlier this week were, we can now conclude, pre-emptive. If it all works out this war will remove the regime that has threatened Israel for decades culminating in the attacks of October 7th, 2023.

• Nethanyahu is facing a general election later this year. His gamble is to see if Iran can be removed as a both an Islamic and nuclear threat, and if that pays off it will be electoral gold for Bibi. And, not unimportantly, with an aging and politically challenged Trump the time to undertake this project was beginning to run out.

• For Trump too this is not without risk. A majority of Americans does not support this war according to recent polls and indeed among the more hard-right echelons of Trump’s base (Tucker Carlson as their lead champion) there is outright disagreement and harsh criticism. Overseas wars of course run counter to the MAGA philosophy of ‘America First’ and firmly against regime-change efforts. The president’s gamble however is this: if the people of Iran rise up, they can manage the change, not America. Do not expect a ground invasion, that is what is different now.

• Because the real change will have to come from the people of Iran. Yes despite the call from the shah-in-waiting, Reza Pahlavi, and the excitement on some streets in Iran and in the Persian diaspora, it is impossible to say as to how and when the regime will be toppled. Hope is not a strategy, but that is where we are now. If anything, all of our thoughts and hopes should be with the people of Iran.

• I will spare you all the reactions from European leaders, but the prime minister of Spain, above, captures the overall spirit. And that is to ‘call for restraint from both sides’ and to a ‘return to the negotiation table’. Taking a neutral position. With barely any references to the long suffering people of Iran. When you read these it is like entering a parallel universe, an alternate reality where we can still be friends with the mullah regime, ignore the raped, tortured and murdered Iranians and the devastation that the regime has created inside and outside Iran for such a long time. Europe is never at the table where decisions are made and this is why.

• Credit where it is due: Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney delivered a much clearer statement supporting the US and the people of Iran earlier today.

• If Europe banks on uncertainty and doubt, today’s America gives you exactly what it said it would do. Iran has been a sore spot in Trump’s world and the president is old enough to very consciously remember the humiliation of the hostage drama (1979-81) and the murder of 241 US Marines in Beirut it 1983. The “help is on its way” statement he made in January has been under intense scrutiny ever since but Trump, think about him what you want, delivered.

• Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear. The US now rules the Middle East, politically and above all militarily, together with Israel. Add to that its partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Gulf States and Syria, there is no other superpower now influencing the region. Russia and China are out. If this holds and if the regime in Tehran falls then the Middle East will be the world’s next engine for economic and technological growth. And peace. Together with India by the way, note Narendra Modi’s successful visit to Israel only last week.

• Where do we stand right now? As of this moment we know that multiple military and government facilities have been attacked across Iran, the palace of Supreme Leader Khamenei is apparently destroyed. The leadership however, again based on early indicators, appears to have survived the first wave of attacks intact although Israel is reporting that some key leaders have been killed.

• We also learned a girls’ school in Hormozgan province of southern Iran was accidentally hit with many casualties.

• Iran has launched ballistic missiles at Israel, but there have also been attacks at locations in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrein, Kuwait and Qatar. Jordan intercepted two ballistic missiles in its airspace, no doubt these were on their way to Israel. With the Saudis in the lead it will be clear soon that the Sunni Arab world will align with the US and yes, Israel.

What is next? It is expected that the first wave of attacks will last for three to five days and that Iran will keep trying to launch counter attacks on select targets in Israel and the Arab world. At the same time we can expect developments in Iran domestically to effect regime change. It will come down to how certain power structures like the Iranian military will behave and possibly change sides as this war drags on.

This is momentous. Stay tuned.

Photo: traffic jams as people rush to leave Tehran on Saturday February 28, 2026.

One of the things I am often at pains to explain is that Hong Kong is not China. It had its own emergence and journey through history, separate from the mainland or the motherland as Beijing prefers to see it. Although that is slowly disappearing, it still has its own culture, traditions and language. With British help it became one of the most unique places of the world where thanks to a light colonial hand freedom and openness ruled. A fast moving multicultural 24/7 money engine where anyone could make it. It created many fortunes and illustrious business magnates, one of whom was Jimmy Lai who arrived from Guangzhou as an impoverished lonely child in the territory. He went on to build a Gap-like clothing retail chain called ‘Giordano’ and ploughed his textile winnings into real estate, but above all into media, free media. Apple Daily News became Hong Kong’s most vocal and most China critical newspaper in the run up to Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. The publication no longer exists.

Ignoring multiple warnings Lai was instrumental in the pro-democracy movement which culminated in the protests and riots of 2019 until 2020 when the Hong Kong government with Beijing support cracked down mercilessly on dissent. Lai disappeared in prison and faced a trial that was deliberately slowed down so that it took a good five years to deliver a 20-year sentence to the now seventy-eight year old Lai. As many commented, a death sentence.

Lai is the embodiment of the city and he made it clear again and again that he had no other choice then to stand up and fight the fight. He owed everything to the city that gave him everything.

It was not for nothing that a movie about him - and one of my earlier posts - refer to the ‘Hongkonger’. Lai was not just rebellious as a champion of a democratic movement that could hop the border and cause unrest in China, he was the living evidence of Hong Kong as a separate entity that could well be independent of China. At the very least he personified the ‘one country, two systems’ deal that Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping agreed to in 1984 and which guaranteed Hong Kong’s relative freedom until 2047. It only lasted until 2020 and the People’s Republic in quelling the territory’s relative sovereignty effectively breached a UN-registered international treaty.

Not that this has in any way animated the international community. The desire for red carpet treatments and access to riches in mainland China has been the sole driver for western nations, most recently Canada’s Carney and the United Kingdom’s Starmer. Both men, in their quest to raise their domestic standings, never fully understood the significance of what many see as the Nelson Mandela of our time. In particular Starmer could have been expected to see to it that one of his own citizens - Lai is British - would be treated fairly and be released. Even Pope Leo XIV has remained silent so far about one of his more famous congregants.

It is that faith that has kept Lai going in the depressing solitary confinement that he has found himself in, deprived of contact with his family and confronted with an increasingly frail health. No protest marches in London, Amsterdam or New York, no passionate calls to release the man who literally gave it all up for his beliefs and principles. And for the place he loves most: Hong Kong.

We are now finally treated to more calls for his release, especially this week, often crafted around Lai’s age and health, in order to avoid offending or needlessly irritating Beijing. We all know too well that the real reason to ask for his immediate release is political, not personal. But try and sell that idea to the PRC’s leadership who are motivated to make their point on Hong Kong and will not risk even the tiniest spark of freedom to be lit in the territory they have now fully under their boot. While hopeful, we should not expect imminent miracles. The only leader with the leverage, the willingness and the undiplomatic recklessness to just stick his foot into it to get Lai released would be Donald Trump. Let’s hope.

Through it all we are taught a real and consequential lesson in civil disobedience and in standing up. Billions of dollars only have meaning when you understand how they came to you and that stepping away from them is the only viable path to try and ensure that others can also have a shot at freedom and wealth. Watch the last interview with Jimmy Lai here and see how his journey into prison is his destiny, his redemption. With God on his side it is not torture or suffering, but the fulfilment of a sacred moral duty.

Free Jimmy Lai.

Personal Note: for new readers, I lived and worked in Hong Kong from 1992 to 1999 and followed Lai’s journey with great interest over the years in addition to getting my t-shirts and shorts at Giordano.

The magnificence of the city state and the often reserved but very warm attitudes of Hong Kongers have always stayed with me. Driving home in a taxi after a late night at work or partying; against the backdrop of Cantonese voices on the taxi driver’s radio always captured the city’s never ending vibes. Then Governor Chris Patten - who I met a few times - always emphasized that nations can thrive only where the rule of law and the free flow of information govern. China has put the hammer to both and they have thus not only undermined Hong Kong’s economy but its very raison d’être.

There are no firm metrics or numbers that can prove it conclusively. But you know it when you see it, feel it and hear it. I follow many online social and news channels across the globe and you can sense how certain viewpoints and theories are disseminated and propagated and then somehow, all of a sudden, they accelerate. That swift increase happened over the past few weeks and here is a sampling:

A friend on Facebook posts about general mental health issues and casually refers to “grief for the ongoing genocide in Gaza” as a potential cause. A neighbour sends me a nine-point list of how the Israeli government was complicit in the events of October 7th. A well-known Dutch singer, who I wrote about here before, can no longer safely live in her home land announced this week she will make aliyah and go to Israel. Graffiti appeared on a campus of a Canadian university with slogans like “Jews out of McGill Med” and “Kill all Jews”. Media giving serious consideration to commentators who feel that Israel as a state should be disassembled in the spirit of “hey, that is an original idea, let’s explore this a bit further”. UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese calling Israel humanity’s common enemy. And then of course students who see violence as the next step (in English) in The Netherlands just this week, see the opening video above.

For good measure: this acceleration of hate and concurrent calls for destruction are all taking place against the backdrop of an actual four-month old ceasefire in Gaza with aid flowing into the territory. Even the Rafah border crossing was opened last week. These were the original protestors demands, right? End the war, send in the food? No?

Sure the truce is imperfect with multiple incidents that consisted of serious breaches by Hamas with subsequent Israeli responses. There is also no progress to the second phase of disarmament and the first steps to rebuild the place. But we are a long way away from the intensity of the two-year war which did indeed cause significant civilian suffering often inflicted by Hamas on its own citizens on purpose. But even for the Washington-crafted, Arab-supported and UN-endorsed plans to stabilize and address humanitarian emergencies the opponents have an answer ready: they now question the legitimacy of the Trump’s administrations plans for Gaza. Even a lasting peace and a two-state solution will not satisfy them, you know exactly what they really want by just listening to them.

And in the process the initial borders that these forces once used, like it is ‘criticism of Israel’, ‘we are only calling out Nethanyahu’, or ‘it is anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism’ have all blurred as they amalgamate in the call to ‘kill Jews’.

What unites it all is a deep lack of historical knowledge, an equal misunderstanding of the history of the Abrahamic religions and an apparent willingness to be swayed by falsehoods and untruths turbocharged by emotional outbursts. And just like in the 1930s you will find the most unstable personalities leading the charge who in time will get more followers who gladly and mindlessly spread the lethal vitriol. It is a pattern; and that is how it goes mainstream and morphs into an everyday sentiment that calls for the expulsion and murder of Jews.

And it is not that there are other things to be really alarmed about, like for instance Iran for which crowds turn out to protest like yesterday in Amsterdam (see above, photo from Comité Iran Vrij).

The trickle of reports out of Iran is becoming ever more worrying as a solution is further out of reach, or so it seems. The regime has used fear and violence so effectively that there is no chance of a successful democratic revolution against the mullah regime without material outside support.

And yes, it is clear by now that Trump is playing his cards with extreme care. America only wants to bring change around in global hotspots with a light touch: it will certainly not make the neoconservative mistake of endless entanglements like the failed exploits in Iraq or Afghanistan. Measured but effective approaches to force change (like in Venezuela) and then manage it from a distance to the benefit of Washington and allies.

The other part is - and we should not take this lightly - is that Iran still has considerable missile power and that US and Israeli defence systems (think of the US bases across the region) are not ready just yet for multiple waves of likely Iranian counterattacks. The military build-up takes time.

As I write this the talks between US and Iranian representatives in Oman have gone through a first round on Friday. Trump has been sabre-rattling, but only in relation to the talks on a potential deal on nuclear arms which is hard to translate into direct help for the people in Iran fighting for their freedom. Again, the president may be buying time to strike or stepping back from attacking while developing alternative solutions.

In the meantime the carnage in Ukraine continues. Every single night drones are being launched from Russia into the urban centres of the country like Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kramatorsk (see photo from today). The list of murdered and wounded families keeps growing while the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian power stations is putting many Ukrainians into months of extreme suffering in what is a particularly cold winter. Just try and imagine the indiscriminate brutality amidst these freezing temperatures.

All of these nightly attacks are actually disrupting the various talks that are ongoing, even blatantly violating the temporary ‘energy ceasefire’ that the Trump administration announced last week. It is a pattern, the talks indicate a pause but before it can be solidified the missiles and drones fly again. We are into this now for four full years this month and it is unlikely the world will see a change anytime soon.

The one pattern that is recognizable is that of the recalcitrant regime, the one that will keep murdering until its time to go will arrive. Unless the world takes drastic action, Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Khamenei will keep their killing machines going without pause. The fact that they are contained to their own geographical areas should be of no comfort to any of us.

Personal Note

Quite a few thoughts still around the Epstein files which I discussed last week. In a podcast I heard someone say that we often say that banks ‘are too big to fail’ and that this saga is a level of ‘evil, too big to fail’. Meaning the darkness is so strong that it won’t go away, it is too powerful, whatever you do. There is some truth in that and it is quite sinister if you let that concept sink in. It is like Jew hate, shooting down protestors and murdering innocents in their homes. Features of history that keep coming back.

And finally, thanks everyone for tuning in and reading. Please feel free to comment here directly on the site as it helps spark a debate, drives traffic and maybe community learning. Also, many thanks for those who want to contribute but don’t want to go through online channels, thank you so much for making the offers, we will make it work. For all the others: the easiest way is to convert your free subscription to a paid one. Thanks!

It took me a while to dive into it, I thought of it as a tabloid story while the world was tuning into Ukraine, Iran and Israel; there was far more important stuff. I also felt that it would not be impactful enough to shake up Trump’s presidency as his involvement appeared to be somewhat immaterial. Yet, with the latest disclosures there is no way to any longer ignore the Epstein files. Every release takes down a figure of import, be it a businessman, a royal, a rockstar or a politician, and each time the scale of this sordid affair widens and deepens.

And it happens in context. While this saga a few decades ago would be classified as another scandal of the rich and famous, in today’s world of affordability crises, divisiveness, resentment and renewed antisemitism it is quite possibly the last thing western democracies need. The Epstein files reveal how a creeping moral rot is eating away at the foundations and power structures of our free and open societies.

Take for instance one of the bigger scalps that was taken this week. Lord Mandelson, the man behind Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, one of the architects of New Labour, who was one of the symbols of the progressive neo-liberal zeitgeist that promised a world of free trade and abundance for all in the 1990s. Few could foresee that all of that carried the seeds of the financial crisis of 2008 and eventually Brexit and the emergence of Trump. I had the pleasure once of running into Mandelson, at Web Summit in Lisbon, and saw a man who could comfortably rake in the rewards of his reputation with wise and informed commentary.

That resulted last year in the plummest of plum positions, the appointment to be his Majesty’s ambassador to the United States. A role that ended after only seven months as his involvement with both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell came to light. The latest release of documents by the American Department of Justice (DOJ) last Friday makes it clear how deep that relationship was. It was less about sex - Mandelson is gay and was probably not into teenage girls - but more about influence peddling and money. Nick Cohen in this long expose makes it clear that Mandelson was actively working with Epstein against the UK government that he himself was a part of. Epstein rewarded him for his services and you could indeed ask yourself if $75,000 was worth it, but Mandelson has a long track record of improprieties and he always managed to somehow get away with it.

The relevance here is that Mandelson was Starmer’s pick, a sitting UK prime minister who should well have been aware of the past dealings of his appointed ambassador to Washington. Starmer put forward a man whose moral turpitude had been an integral part of Mandelson’s career. And the same by the way goes for Bill Gates - see his former spouse Melinda’s response to the STDs stories here - and of course Bill Clinton who has now volunteered to testify before Congress, a pre-emptive move to spite Trump or to salvage his reputation? Who knows. All of them were complicit.

The biggest surprise may be not so much the named people themselves, but the fact that their sexual and financial proclivities often totally overrode any instincts they should have had as normally functioning human beings, indeed as public figures. And in most cases they continued their relations with Epstein well after his guilty plea for sex crimes in 2008. And while the public is lapping up the gory details about Russian hookers and what not, the real unanswered question remains where Epstein generated the hundreds of millions to finance his enterprise came from. Why is this angle so underexplored?

But yes, in a time when weak leadership collides with global crises and deep economic uncertainties, the roles the rich and famous play will come under intense scrutiny. The moral outrage over the abuse of young women can now be combined with all sorts of unsavoury financial dealings. The ‘elites’ will be targeted and their ideological make-up is totally irrelevant: the left and the right were all in on it.

It is the fact that a separate class can do whatever it likes at whatever the cost, while continuing to enrich themselves. Fertile soil for populist agendas. It is also fuelling the rising tide of antisemitism, the presence of people like Ehud Barak and Larry Summers on the list is not helpful. Already the most disgusting theories about Jews controlling the world are doing the rounds on social media, exploiting myths that hail all the way back to the dark Middle Ages. This is fodder for the conspiracy theorists and nutters on all sides of the political spectrum, and it spreads like wildfire on social media.

Another area of concern is that a large chunk of the Epstein files is still under wraps and unlikely to be released by the DOJ. That will not only fuel more and wild rumours, it also means that the Epstein name will be with us for some time to come and will impact future election cycles, in the US, but also in the UK. It is one of the harbingers of further political instability and will help the new Marxists and Fascists everywhere.

So yes, these files and their staged releases are putting a blunt hammer to our social fabric and political conventions. They reveal the unthinkable and erode confidence at a time when we need to be able to trust our leaders more than ever. The enemies from within will exploit this and the resulting damage may be irreversible. The few incorruptible leaders that we have left may be unable to save it all. Jeffrey Epstein will be with us for a long time.

Photo top: Lord Mandelson (he will probably also lose his peerage so we can call him Peter again) and Jeffrey Epstein in 2005. Below, Mandelson on the left, chatting at Web Summit in 2021.

Yes, you read that sign correctly: on the streets of London, yesterday, large crowds carrying Iranian regime and Palestinian flags were making the point that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the butcher of Tehran, somehow represents the ‘right side of history’. The man who has ordered the killing of some 36,000 people on the streets of Iran and ignited conflict across the Middle East continues to have a sizeable following. His support in fact may have grown as for some he is becoming a symbol of standing in opposition to the United States and Israel. That appears to be reason enough to double down and consider the regime a viable model of governance for Iran. The gruesome evidence however tells us what we really need to know, from the latest videos here (very disturbing, you may not want to watch it) and in the calls for action from the overseas Persian community. Here is one from a neighbour in my street:

As someone who has been to Iran twice, who has been to Tehran, has shopped in the Bazaar, has many Persian friends, whose wife is Persian and kids are half Persian, I ask anyone who sees this to please do whatever you can to inform yourself and others of mass killing of the Persian people going on in Iran right now. The Islamic Regime is a terrorist organization, both around the world and in its own country towards the Persian people.

Over 16,000 mostly young girls and boys between 17 and 30 are being slaughtered, that number is climbing as I write this. The Regime is losing control of its own forces, and have now brought in militants from other Islamic countries in the region to do the slaughtering.

There are reports of hospitals being used as a secondary place to kill the wounded who seek treatment. A single gunshot to the head of an already wounded body is becoming a regular strategy used to try to deter the uprising.

The regime is charging families who come to claim their daughter’s and son’s bodies for the cost of the bullet used to kill them.

There is a revolution underway in this world, one that could return freedom to the beautiful people of Iran. They have lived for the past 47 years under a brutal dictator who will stop at nothing to maintain control and continue to spread terror throughout the world. Revolutions need help from outside forces, for once and for all western nations need to use force and eliminate this regime.

The images that have popped up into social media feeds when the internet is restored intermittently are heartbreaking to see. Parents searching through warehouses full of body bags for their dead children. Crying uncontrollably.

I’ve had messages translated for me of young people leaving their last message before returning to the streets, only to be killed. The messages state their willingness to die for the freedom of their country.

To my Persian friends, I know how hard this is on all of you. I pray to you, I pray for your families back home, and I pray for a free Iran very soon.

Note how the writer asks everyone to inform themselves and he raises a valid and urgent concern. The world has been subjected to an insidious and decades long campaign that sought to win mainstream support for Iran in Western nations. From friendly diplomacy to covert aggression and intimidation, Iran has always been able to leverage its position and maintain tangible pockets of support in many countries. The United Nations - now in deep financial trouble as the US is steadily pulling out - was another venue where Iran was often shielded from serious consequences for its behaviour.

All of that has lasted for too long. For instance the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was not listed as a terrorist organization in the US until 2019, the European Union finally came to its senses last Friday when it put the organization on the terror list. Canada did so in 2024, while the UK is still making its mind up apparently. That ambivalence has only helped the regime. Note that this is far from a trivial move as it has far reaching financial, legal and military consequences for the Khamenei regime that is now deprived of ever more oxygen that it needs to survive. It also gives law enforcement teeth to act when calls for terror fill the streets like yesterday in London.

At the same time the Trump administration continued to give off mixed signals about a possible attack on Iran as its naval fleet is moving closer to Iran, headed by the USS Lincoln, pictured above. For Trump is will be the hardest foreign policy decision as not doing anything will now only strengthen the Iranian regime, but to launch a comprehensive attack might take a lot more than any military plan can currently project. Destroying what is left of the nuclear facilities is no longer sufficient, only a decisive blow that will topple the regime can create a new order and at the same time put an end to the senseless killing on Iran’s streets. Trump’s language (see his comments from yesterday below) is one thing, the people’s revolt another, and together they can be unpredictably potent in taking the situation in Iran into uncertain territory.

Khamenei himself today entered the discussion and, somewhat predictably, threatened a regional war if the US would attack. It is one of the last arrows in Iran’s arsenal, blanket threats, but we should not discount it as it requires Trump to ensure alignment with almost all of its regional partners in the Arab world before he makes any move.

In a weird way I am thinking of the late John McCain’s campaign for the presidency back in 2000 when he launched his ‘rollback rogue regimes’ foreign policy platform. They were designed to address the most dangerous threats in a post-Soviet world. In an interesting twist of fate it is the current president, known for his dislike of McCain, who may now be doing what is necessary to secure freedom in Iran. There is no doubt there will be a significant cost and risk of Middle East instability, but it would still be picking the right side of history. The only right side of history: freedom, democracy, human rights and open societies.

The noise picked up last week as various international airlines started cancelling flights to the Middle East. At the same time reports of ever more US troop movements hit the news, including the repositioning of the USS Lincoln which is now said to be moving in westward direction away from the Straits of Malacca.

With Steve Witkoff dangling ever more proposals in front of an isolated and pressured Iranian regime, it is clear that we are going into a second round of ‘imminent attack’ momentum after the Trump let the air out of the first one only a few weeks ago. Apparently the pressure from some Arab states and Israel contributed to his careful maneuvering, but also the rumoured postponement of executing some 800 imprisoned protestors, including Erfan Soltani helped delay an attack. But a lot has happened since then.

First, Trump’s hands are free after his trip to Davos and the establishment of Gaza’s Board of Peace (more on that below). At the same time the news from Iran is getting progressively worse, there are now at least 30,000 people confirmed to have been killed making at mass murder of epic proportions. And no, this is not a genocide, a term which of course is being bandied around, but a massacre of citizens by their very own government, their own people. It is of the utmost importance to delineate the differences between what happened in Gaza, which was an actual war between two entities where one side deliberately offered up their own in the battle, from what is happening in Iran. This is not a war but a democratic protest smothered in blood. The Gaza death toll stands at around 71,000 after two years, in Iran we are now at well over 30,000 in less than a month.

Some of the details like executions in hospitals of the wounded defy the imagination and we can only hope that something will snap in the coming week with action from US forces. Iran has been rebuilding some of its damaged nuclear and missile facilities since last year’s American and Israeli attacks and this may provide the necessary pretext to re-engage with force.

Which takes us to Israel. Some readers have been asking me where things stand as of today and what is next. Trump announced that we are now moving to Phase 2 of the peace plan which will focus on Hamas disarming and the start of the rebuilding of Gaza. It may mean that retired Hamas fighters could be repurposed and be integrated into Gaza security forces, not exactly something to look forward to, but it may be a Trump compromise to get things moving. Few seem to be aware of the exact plans or details.

The first step in to get it all rolling is the re-opening of the Rafah crossing, giving direct access to traffic between Gaza and Egypt. Israel seemed fine with a partial opening, but was rightly dragging moving forward completely because one hostage, the deceased Ran Gvili, had still not been returned and that violated the ceasefire and hostage release agreement. That all changed this morning when the Ran’s body was found, the last hostage to return to Israel after 843 days.

Israel itself is entering an election year and its economy is on solid footing again while its forces are recuperating after the long war. As such there is limited interest to resume hostilities and that sentiment may also extend to another round in and with Iran, as mentioned above. But that does raise the question as to how Hamas is going to be disarmed and more crucially how the ‘Board of Peace’ is going to operate.

Note that it consists of a board that is comprised of primarily US members and then there is an executive committee that has a more international make up. The salient piece in all of this is how Trump used UN support for his plans while proceeding with establishing a framework for Gaza outside any UN structures and thus creating his own parallel organization of collaborating countries. There is another feature of the ‘New World Order’ which is fast moving to sidelining the UN, leaving the real peace and rebuilding work to impromptu alliances between different countries who often have a financial interest in its ultimate success. And that of course means that you have a free hand as to how you create your own mandate and the resulting plans. Like for instance projecting the future vision of a New Gaza with hotels, casinos and a new international airport for everybody needing a break and some entertainment.

A high bar? Yes, probably. A crazy idea? Far from it.

We have witnessed how for some eight decades the international community has sought to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with borders and land swaps and all it did was giving us October 7th. This is radically different as the key players are moving the peaceful outcome into the economic domain. I still vividly recall attending a speech by Jason Greenblatt, Trump special representative during his first term, in Jerusalem a few years ago. Already then the argument then was clear: Palestinians want wealth and their young will want to build up start-ups too. That idea hasn’t died and American and Arab investors, no doubt with the assistance of some influential tech bros, will give peace an unconventional shot. Yes it lacks details, but after everything else has failed it may be worth for everyone to give it all they got and buy into this vision for the future. It’s a guiding idea to move away from violence.

A Historic Moment

Time flies. It has been a year since the hostage releases started and only a few hours before I posted this entry the news came out that the body of Ran Gvili z’’l has been recovered, finally. One of the first men in, was the last one to come out of Gaza. And that in a week where a decisive attack on Iran is contemplated, the country that was at the root of the evil and murderous attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023.

It is the end of a phase - there were Israeli hostages in Gaza since 2014 - but also the beginning of another, equally uncertain period.

May the memory of Ran and all the others that have perished since that fateful day be a blessing.

By the time I got to listen to it in detail my entire social media feed was humming with praise for the speech Canada’s prime minster delivered in Davos yesterday. Was it good because of what he said, or was it unusually refreshing because it was so different from what his inept predecessor (who was also seen Davos hand in hand with Katy Perry) used to produce? Or because it tried to put a stick into everything the American president accomplished in exactly one year in office? Was it the contrast between the analytical former central banker and the wayward real estate tycoon who sits in the White House?

Maybe it was because Carney quoted Thucydides. Or that he compared the facade that the rules-based world order once was to the communist regimes that the late Czech dissident and president Václav Havel described as ‘living within a lie’. That was the hook into the speech and it was also the moment that alarm bells started to go off: a leader who had just brushed aside any moral compunctions to kneel to the authoritarian leaders in Beijing and Qatar, was now quoting Havel? The man who suffered immensely for fighting against totalitarian regimes? A risky analogy.

More than anything it revealed Carney’s ambition for a global audience to educate us that all that we accepted before as the order of things had crumbled. We are not in Kansas anymore and it was the prime minister of Canada to deliver that message to the world. To put a finer point on it, Carney argued that ‘nostalgia is not a strategy’, which is a most un-Canadian statement for the leader of country mired in endless references to the past. Seriously, the war of 1812 is still a current item for discussion here when assessing the country’s chances of a direct conflict with the United States.

Yet despite its global ambition the speech was still very much directed at all the Canadians that were tuning in. It was a sales pitch as to what the Carney cabinet is setting out to do going forward, while explaining why it sometimes will have to end up in bed with the devil when doing deals outside Canada’s borders. He urged his fellow countryfolk to get to work by building what they claim to believe in. And he continued by highlighting Canada’s immense natural resources, fiscal capacity, well educated people and its investment savvy.

Yet here is where critical minds started the proverbial eye roll. Energy is hard to get out of the ground in Canada these days given its complex regulatory frameworks. The country is also crushed by staggering piles of government and household debt, hardly a fiscal superpower that can come to the rescue. But that was not the point, Carney needed to rally Canadians because he still is governing a few seats short of a majority. He needs to keep his party aligned and anchored in the centre while pulling a majority of Canadians along. For every reference to energy there was a nod to sustainability. It was a very clever speech for domestic purposes while giving a poke to Trump and announcing that after a decade of absence Canada was back on the world stage.

On that note we should not forget that Russia and China have been the actors that have worked so diligently to make the world deeply unstable. Trump only reacted but did it in a such a way that no one was expecting: throwing America’s erstwhile allies under the bus. Canada as one of the middle powers now has to navigate a chaotic world with an unpredictable entity on its southern border.

That was how Carney claimed his role as a new global leader and why he got so many accolades yesterday. But within Canada the question remained as to how all of it was going to be delivered to an electorate that could not even give him a majority nine months ago. For them housing affordability, jobs, resource management, immigration, crime and an under-resourced military are issues that have not gone away because their sole worry should be Trump, far from it. And in fickle times these are potent and disruptive agenda items.

It was indeed an intelligent and ambitious speech that put Canada back on the map, material for the history books for sure. But just like Trump is finding out, posturing and pitching are a far cry from executing and delivering. That is the task and if Carney fails, the ‘living within a lie’ quote could well become the epitaph of his tenure as Canada’s prime minister.

Postscript: Trump just wrapped up his speech and interview in Davos. It was a lot longer than Carney’s as he tends to ramble on and of course he took swipes at Canada and Europe. But he stepped away from military action on Greenland so let’s see where discussions - with a big role for NATO - go. Ukraine is also on the agenda and that would seem, given the dire state of the war, to be a far more urgent issue than Greenland.

Not too long ago I connected with a recent Chinese immigrant to Canada. He explained that he had done a lot of research as to what city to move to and after a while he settled on Vancouver. His rationale was not the mountains or the sea like everyone else does, no, he figured with so many properties in the city bought and owned by Chinese Communist party elites, China would probably never directly threaten or attack the city.

An outlying opinion? Maybe. But it does point to the fact that mainland China has had a far reaching influence on life in Canada. There is a long list of evidence to support this: manipulating elections (in favour of the more China friendly Liberals over the Conservatives), operating covert Chinese police stations in Canada, threats to a sitting Canadian member of parliament and his family (Michael Chong), intimidating pro-democracy figures (Hong Kongers in particular) on top of which we can layer the standard industrial espionage and intellectual property theft.

The People’s Republic plays by its own rules and the relationship between Canada and China as a result has been in steady decline over the past ten years. The absolute bottom was hit with the imprisonment - although hostage taking is a far better term - of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in China. That drama ended in 2021.

But with Trump re-entering the White House a few things happened in Canada. It got a new prime minister who turned around all poll projections by playing into Canada’s fear of Trump and his tariffs. Mark Carney declared the end of normal relations with the US and realizing the imminent threat to Canada’s economy started to diversify exports into Europe and other places like China. This week he went a step further while visiting Beijing and alluded to a ‘new world order’ in which more economic deals between China and Canada became a necessary building block.

And looking purely at the numbers they could well be. Lower barriers for electric cars from China going to Canada, and agricultural products from Canada to China. Maybe even natural resource experts to China. Fine. Even Trump did not care that much when asked about it last week.

But Xi Jinping does not roll out the red carpet for Carney just to get some more dollars to flow back and forth. If Canada wants economic benefits from the Middle Kingdom it will have to play nice and preferably in line with China’s rules of engagement. Expectations they’re called. This implies no campaigning for human rights, or expressing concerns over Uyghurs or pursuing deeper bonds with Taiwan. Indeed two Canadian members of parliament where pulled from a mission to the island state right before Carney took off for Beijing. And of course it is hard to imagine Carney arguing for the release Jimmy Lai who is wasting away in a Hong Kong prison cell. Play nice and leave your principles at the door.

Canada’s performance in China last week was everything that our favourite old China hand, former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, alluded to when he said that kowtowing to Beijing for an illusory great pot of gold will always end in disappointment. Chinese leaders look down on characterless leaders who acquiesce and trade dignity for short-term gains. And that is exactly what Carney did.

Greenland

Little thought was given to longer term shifts and if Carney’s view of the new world order is a Canada being subservient to China than that is a position that over time will definitely not be shared in Washington DC.

Trump has argued for a while now that the Western Hemisphere is to be protected from Chinese and Russian interference, supposedly the reason to acquire Greenland. It could also be an interest in the natural resources that are located underneath the Danish territory’s deep ice pack, but also Trump’s sheer ego to expand US sovereignty. Whatever it is, the idea that western democracies need to pre-emptively draw some lines in the sand when it comes to Chinese and Russian expansionism is not strictly a Trumpian sentiment. It is an acknowledgment of a changing global order and to use the Greenland analogy you could ask yourself what on earth Carney is playing for long-term. The United States will never let foreign influence materialize on North American soil to the point it becomes a threat. Canada be warned.

Iran’s Revolution

Carney on his way back from Beijing stopped over in Qatar. The very country that has been acting as the go-between between Hamas, Israel and the United States in a role it seems to relish. It also acts as a mediator when it comes to connecting Iran to its adversaries and that is precisely what happened last week. As evidence of thousands of dead Iranians made its way, despite the internet blackout, to media channels with Trump ramping up the rhetoric that he would support the protestors, hope was up. For a brief moment the world was bracing for a US attack on Iran, but it turned out to be misguided hope.

The risk was Iran lashing out in a situation where not just its nuclear facilities but its very existence was under attack. Then it could close the Strait of Hormuz and send shockwaves through the world economy (China buys 80-90% of Iranian crude), attack Israel again, target American interests or indeed some American partners like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Oman. No one was up for that, in fact most Arab countries prefer a weak Iran under mullah rule. Some argued that even Nethanyahu, who was also not keen on the attack, would benefit from an Iranian enemy with little muscle left to kick around perpetually. A handicapped and manageable adversary is the safer option, at the expense of blood on Iran’s streets. Not for the first time Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the willing messengers and Trump retreated.

So?

In one week we witnessed the ever further erosion of morality and human decency to score some short term gains. Carney will never talk about freedom or human rights in relation to China, but he’s got some deals in his hand to prop up his position domestically. Trump steamrolls Greenland and is willing to lose relationships and allies that were the backbone of what once was a stable western democratic alliance. And finally the consensus appears to be that the ongoing slaughter of Iran’s finest is secondary to temporary regional stability. That is your ‘new global order’. Transactional, vacuous and creating ever more uncertainty.

If you are wondering, Elon Musk’s Starlink has satellites in low orbit around the earth and to connect with them you need a Starlink receiver of which some 50,000 have apparently been smuggled into Iran to date. It feels like a large number given the sparse reports we are getting, but who knows, maybe more will come in now that Musk announced access to his network from Iran will be free. This also means that the regime is now actively looking for and confiscating Starlink receivers.

And with that you can also see how the revolution in Iran is entering politics in many western countries. I cannot begin to count the negative references to Starlink in the wake of Musk bankrolling Trump’s campaign and running the president’s government efficiency efforts last year. Musk was bad. Apart from the fact that he is not, because if it weren’t for his efforts we would not be seeing the evidence of what is going on in Iran (and Ukraine) right now. Like this:

All of this is happening while talking heads in the media are now beginning to question whether Reza Pahlavi is indeed the right person to lead the opposition. Or equally baffling: that the CIA and Mossad have planned and organized the protests in order to install a friendly regime in Tehran. It is quite alarming to see how these sort of ideas that totally ignore the agency of the Iranian people get traction online. At the same time the rule of the previous Shah, who was deposed in 1979, is now under a microscope as if it were a determinant of his son’s behaviour some fifty years later. Interesting stuff, sure, but it does not help the Iranians on the streets who are risking it all right now.

The lack of unanimous support on all levels for Iran, by everyone, thus appears to be lacking somewhat. It’s strange, because if there is ever a humanitarian cause to support and help ring in freedom and democracy, it is this. But note that ever since its establishment in 1979 the Islamic Republic has counted on significant support in pockets of western intelligentsia and media which was directly translated into access and diplomatic capital. One of the reasons the Iranian regime has held on for so long is exactly that, the belief that there was an equal partner that the world could do business with. Even the Trump administration initially believed it, at least that was the impression it was giving by continuing the nuclear talks.

That is now turning, hopefully. The US president has consistently called out the bloody mess and today put this out, note the time stamp:

This is similar not in words, but in spirit, to what George H.W. Bush communicated to the Shiite rebels in southern Iraq at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Yet Bush, despite his words, stayed within his UN mandate to liberate Kuwait, never moved into Iraq proper and it allowed Saddam Hussein to violently crackdown on the Shiite communities in Iraq’s southern river delta. And that contributed to a second Gulf War conducted by George Bush Jr. twelve years later.

All of this to say is that: (a) calls for action do not always translate into effective support as there are significant political and military risks; and (b) even with US intervention there may still be a lot of blood on the streets of Iran before it can see a return to freedom and peace. Trump could also exploit the fissures Iran’s leadership, take out Khamenei and strike a deal with the generals that step in which could involve some financial incentives. Who knows. I sincerely hope Trump will intervene and help with whatever means to end it all, but please be realistic with expectations.

The level of suppression by the Iranian regime is vast, it uses all tools at its disposal and reaches many corners. German media reported today for example that in Southern Iran gangs with knives and axes have started to attack regime opponents. Add to this the live rounds being fired on demonstrators in the larger cities and it is not hard to see that the number of dead hit 12,000 dead today according to a number of online reports.

And arrests are being made, followed by torture and death sentences. One of them is Erfan Soltani (photo above) who was arrested a few days ago and charged with “waging war against God”. He was sentenced to be executed tomorrow, Wednesday. A large online campaign is going on right now to get his name out in the hope that making him famous will at least get him a reprieve from being hanged. That is why he is featured here, please share and say his name in the short time window we have.

And that short time window also applies to the revolution itself. It needs a dramatic intervention for the slaughter to end soon.

As of this writing the internet has been shut down, communications are - safe for Starlink here and there - not working and even electricity has been shut off in major cities. Iran’s mullah regime appears to be on its last legs, but that points to the dangers ahead: desperation creates desperate moves and who knows how many innocent Iranian citizens have been murdered over the past week. This is Tiananmen on steroids, firing into unarmed crowds on multiple locations across the country. The Khamenei regime rests on the power of its security apparatus: the police and army, but more crucially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basiji militia. The latter two are the most ruthless and they have a stake in the current order. They are the last ones to lay down arms; joining the other side is not an option, nor are there enough planes to carry them all to Moscow.

This is monumental and history in the making which is why it is all the more baffling that many Western media were slow to pick up on this as the revolution gained momentum over the past two weeks. Initially billed as ‘protests’ against inflation and economic hardships, anyone familiar with Iran’s recent history will know these were merely accelerants. The discontent in Iran runs very deep and earlier attempts to shake off the blood-drenched misogynist regime all ended in violent crackdowns on the Iranian people. It was hard for many to recognize and report on this as it would mean at least some acknowledgement that Donald Trump was right (departing from the nuclear deal, applying sanctions, attacking the nuclear sites) as was that other ‘bogeyman’ of the past few years, Benjamin Nethanyahu.

Iran’s revolution was cheered in 1979 as a people-led and anti-colonial force that deposed the US-backed Shah. It was soon forgotten that it was a Socialist-Islamist alliance that took over and installed ayatollah Khomeini who proceed to literally snuff out his progressive partners in order to solidify the Islamic State. In newsrooms that were pre-occupied with Gaza for the past two years it was hard to shift gears and actually see how American and Israeli moves actually were helping to liberate a brutal Islamist dictatorship.

Yet any sane journalist could have quickly spotted the deeper story here. Much like Nicolae Ceaușescu’s offer to raise minimum wages moments before helicopters evacuated him to - as it turned out - his execution, was the Iranian’s regime offer of a stipend of $7 for each Iranian. Too little, too late. What is left is branding each protesting Iranian on the streets as an accomplice of foreign powers, US and Israel, sufficient grounds to start shooting. A just released yet unverified report mentions over 2,000 dead, including children, in the last 48 hours.

The regime is weakened on many levels. Not only did its international adventures fail miserably, domestically the economic bite and a serious water crisis further undermined its legitimacy. And what has been underestimated so far is the ultimate will of its people, in particular Iran’s young. Fearless and determined to see an end to the powers that subjugated their freedoms, intimidated its women and frustrated its economic opportunity, these are the forces that are now ready to end it all with whatever means they have.

It brings up the question as to what is next and if America will intervene. It should be remembered that during the 2009 Green Uprising the Obama administration stood aside in order to avoid any success being seen as US intervention. It was up to the Iranian people and that approach dovetailed with the policy of working with and appeasing the regime, in particular to secure a nuclear treaty (which came into being in 2015). Simply put, this approach legitimized and emboldened an evil regime that quashed the will of its people while rolling out and aggressive map of proxy wars in the Middle East. Stability without asking the hard questions created a regional monster, something Trump recognized. So his administration has turned this equation upside down, but the real question now is if it is indeed willing to go one step further and directly support the current revolution. The US has no shortage of intelligence to target specific regime strongholds (IRGC, Basiji) to ensure it could fall, yet it is a risky operation. It is a lot harder than lifting Maduro and his wife out of their palace. Based on Trump’s statements so far something may happen, but no one knows what.

Now if the regime falls the question will also be what leaders will emerge to take over the power structures that are now in play. Reza Pahlavi is the frontrunner and it seems he is now much better organized than before and indeed seen as the legitimate candidate to unify the various opposition groups under one banner. If this happens his role will be decidedly different from his late father’s, it will be one of a constitutional monarch who can lead and inspire, but who will have to share power and pave the way to a functioning democracy.

Now, I will be getting too much ahead of myself to describe what a liberated Iran will mean for the Middle East and the world, but here are a few important things to consider here. First it will shake up and reduce the tensions between Sunni Muslims and Shi’a Muslims. That means that large Sunni nations like Saudi Arabia can refocus their attention on other problem areas, direct conflict with Iran will be less likely than at any time in the past five decades. There is also a big bloody nose and a loss of influence for the other two pillars of world power: Russia (arms partner) and China (who has been buying the bulk of Iran’s oil supplies). It will also cripple Iran’s violent proxies like Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and indeed Hamas. It will validate what Nethanyahu has been arguing for his entire time in office and he will absolutely use it as the platform to run on in this year’s Israeli elections which he is in a very good position to win now.

A new flourishing and peaceful Middle East with open borders and trade? Yes. Caveat one is that an emerging power is waiting in the wings to take the mantle of expansive adventures in the Middle East powered by Islamism: Turkey. Caveat two, the more important one, is that anything can happen over the coming days including a defeat of the people’s rebellion and rivers of blood. Let’s hope it will not come to that and that the people will finally win.

I will leave you with the lone guy who today changed the flag on Iran’s embassy in London:

What if I told you that calling emergency responders - during their busiest night of the year - and directing them to a certain location in order to attack them, was a thing? Or if these first aid workers and firefighters were deployed and working hard to save people to start launching heavy fireworks at them, like directly? Or even use Molotov cocktails? In one case making it nearly impossible to reach a young woman’s house who needed urgent help while giving birth? Would you actually believe that?

Welcome to The Netherlands where last week’s New Year’s Eve turned into an orgy of deadly violence. A few people were killed by fireworks, many more severely injured, in Amsterdam a landmark church went up in flames and law enforcement was at its limits as to what it could do to stop the mayhem: all reserves were called up. The police were stretched and exhausted, many suffering burn injuries and it was a miracle that no officer was killed. And no, not just the big cities. Everywhere.

In the days after, as the smoke had literally cleared, the recriminations and anger filled the airwaves while key politicians, the sitting PM and the likely future PM, remained silent. Police unions registered their deep frustration making it clear they did what they could given the resources they had. But you could also hear that the lack of political support to actually enforce with sufficient resources was hindering their work. In talkshows the question was brought up, finally, as to why the police would not arrest rioters and charge them with attempted murder or indeed use live ammunition.

And predictably the focus turned to immigrant youths as the culprits. But while I don’t have the numbers for this horrendous night it is safe to say that native Dutch youngsters - mostly young men - were in on it as well. For these people the social contract where you respect the government and pay your taxes in return for which it provides you with the services ranging from saving your life to providing education has long expired. Extreme individualism and seeking kicks after all other options - alcohol, sex and drugs - have been exhausted drives you somehow to random and often extreme violence.

That social contract was never fully understood by immigrant youths. If you are a young Syrian or Afghan or Somali you wouldn’t even recognize the existence of it. In their countries of origin citizen-government relations are often bitter, in fact there the police officer is actually your direct and stated enemy. If you then decide to go wild in a country where rules appear to be optional and where police is not even trying to use decisive force against you, the streets are pretty much yours.

And again, police are not to blame. Years of cost cutting law enforcement budgets, political correctness urging restraint, a criminal justice system that often centers the criminals rather than the victims, have among other things dominated Dutch life and politics. But many are going further and point to an education system that is failing to produce responsible citizens while at the same time many wonder about the increasingly absent parents that will hold their young, native and immigrant, to account. The New Year’s chaos appeared to be yet another culmination of a deep crisis of authority that has been decades in the making. The police are caught between a rock and hard place: attacked on the street while political support is hard to find.

My comments here about antisemitism over the past few years fit into this bucket too. Apart from obligatory tweets and a speech here and a museum visit there; there have not been any forceful attempts to quell it. Even millions of euros of damage to university buildings by pro-Hamas rioters has been ignored. It happens. And calling for the murder of Jews is treated as freedom of expression and although I am sure there is a statute somewhere that can be used to throw at people who shout this, no politicians wills it. It is an attitude ingrained in an ever weaker society.

This was a trend foretold by the late - murdered in 2002 by an animal rights activist - Pim Fortuyn - who in 1995 wrote ‘The Orphaned Society’ in which he outlined how the erosion of the family, church as well as moral leadership form the state itself would create a disconnected and disoriented society. A society in which some twenty-five years later policemen and women no longer experience that framework and the tools they grew up with and who now had to run for their lives as the mob took over the streets.

The Dutch still have no governing coalition as negotiations between the parties drag on. Absent any formal parliamentary meeting the political news yesterday focussed on whether the Dutch should or should not register their disapproval with the US Government over its actions in Venezuela. Another ill-fated diversion it seems. Yet it underlines that there isn’t the will among the ruling elites to try and begin to turn the tide of its eroding authority.

Earlier this week snow hit The Netherlands. One metro train station stop from where I grew up, a group of young boys were throwing snowballs at cars. A man in his sixties dared to say something about it and maybe suggested that they should not be endangering the people and cars passing by. The snowballing kids took offence and beat the man to death.

The Dutch have long way to walk back to where they once stood as a civil society where everyone accepted that commonly accepted rules and authority made the place work. Perhaps it is too late.

Photos: rioters attack police on New Year’s Eve with fireworks, the scene at metro station Schiedam-Nieuwland after the murder last Monday.

A first reaction: long overdue and good riddance. Removing a dictator who ignored the outcome of free elections, abused, tortured and murdered his opponents, opened the door to Iranian, Russian and Chinese presence in Latin America and who enabled vast quantities of drug being trafficked pretty much disqualifies you to enjoy a carefree and never ending reign. It was finite, the only question was when it would end. There is of course quite a bit more context to the US surgical incursion into Venezuela and the arrest of President Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Let’s touch on the key takeaways here:

The Prerogative - America has always exercised its unique position ever since the Monroe Doctrine was established in 1823. It was just that at times it was exercised vigorously and openly and at other times it was more covert or low level. The Trump administration let it be known that it was building up to this moment very publicly. That it was done so quickly and cleanly points not only to excellent preparation but also to well organized collaboration inside the Venezuelan leadership.

The Cause - It was tempting to talk about a ‘casus belli’ here, but there is no war, not even a prolonged armed conflict, it was a precise removal of a noted regional disruptor. The argument of ‘drugs’ was presented as the direct cause, but it is safe to say that this line of arguing was really used by team Trump to wrap everything in an acceptable legal framework ending in a US court (remember how the late Manuel Noriega of Panama received a similar treatment by the elder Bush in 1989).

The less explicit motives that drove Trump can be listed as facilitating access to natural oil resources and establishing territorial dominance which encompasses a clear warning to China and Russia to stay out of America’s western hemisphere. It is also part of Trump’s immigration policy: stemming the endless tide of Venezuelan refugees, no less than 7.9 million have departed from the country so far. Lessons from the Syrian civil war have surely not gone unnoticed.

All of Trump’s motives and actions also contain a veiled warning to for instance Cuba and Colombia, possibly even left-leaning Brazil, to stay clear of the sort of adventures Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez engaged in.

The Real Winners - Ahead of the Trumpies, oil executives and whoever else stands to benefit from dispatching Maduro, the real winners are the people of Venezuela. They have suffered through twenty-six years of abuse and were forced to witness how Latin America’s wealthiest economy was reduced to rubble. We will see who will take the reins (María Corina Machado, Edmundo González, or both in some sort of co-presidency) and if the new rulers need sustained US military support, but for now Venezuelans have at least a fair shot at better times.

And no, this does not negate the MAGA theme of no more foreign wars and involvement. This targeted decapitation of the Venezuelan leadership precisely serves the Trump journey towards safer and self-sufficient Americas with the ultimate force residing in Washington, only to be used judiciously as and when the situation requires.

A New World Order - If you would take the temperature of the global reaction you will find that the theme that deals with violating ‘the international rules based order’ is dominant. Trump’s actions were illegal and defied that what took us centuries to build, or something like that. Except that it didn’t. By what international mechanism do we remove dictators like Maduro? The world was not all that interested in ousting him, on the contrary, he was treated as a friendly partner by many and indeed got the red carpet treatment at the UN where every rogue ruler can count on warm welcomes and handshakes. It is even a farther stretch to compare Russia’s four year long bloody incursion into Ukraine to what Trump carried out in Venezuela, but unfortunately many were trying to make this very argument yesterday. American-led efforts have always sought to extinguish evil threats and to insert economic interests at the same time. But now it may be done in a much different way. Trump may well have established a new benchmark in this area, a far cry from for instance the bloody removal of Salvador Allende in Chile in the early seventies.

Risks - But yes this move is of course all that Putin and Xi will need to provide the necessary justification for their adventures in Ukraine and in Taiwan. The latter in particular is now seriously exposed. Both do not compare to what happened yesterday in Caracas as these are territorial conquests that seek to extinguish independent nations and their own unique identities. But such differences will not change the mood in either Beijing or Moscow who will view these only as a matter of interpretation when it comes to exerting regional dominance.

Get ready for some more dominoes to fall in Asia and Europe. And no, this does not have to be the entry point of an all-out world war, rather this is the next phase of reordering the world. And if it is up to Trump that can be accomplished with very little bloodshed and with the benefit of long term economic rewards. For Americans. But for Venezuelans too.

Photos: Nicolás Maduro in better days, welcomed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Trump observing the operation’s progress from his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida: