Oil prices surged past $100 a barrel this week as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran threatens global energy supplies and the broader economy. Iranian officials say no oil will be allowed to leave the Middle East until the bombardment stops, raising fears of disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil and gas flows. This comes as Israel has struck oil depots in Tehran, blanketing the capital in smoke and toxic rain. “What we’re seeing is just one of the clearest depictions yet of the frailty of a global order that is grounded in fossil fuels. All sides in this war are using fossil fuels as a weapon of war,” says independent investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz, who reports on […]

We speak with Kareem Shaheen, Middle East editor at New Lines Magazine, about the regional response to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. He says the Gulf countries are in a no-win situation, stuck between a belligerent Israel that has no qualms about using violence to achieve its strategic aims and a desperate Iran lashing out against U.S. allies in the region as it tries to survive. He says that no matter which side prevails, Gulf states have realized how vulnerable they are despite U.S. security guarantees. “In either scenario, I don’t think that the Gulf states will be happy with the outcome,” he says. Shaheen’s recent article is “The Gulf Fears Whoever Wins This War.”

As President Trump gives conflicting statements about the length and objectives of the war he launched with Israel against Iran, fears are growing that the conflict could continue to expand throughout the region and beyond. Lawrence Wilkerson, retired U.S. Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says the U.S. and Israel are committing wanton “war crimes” in Iran. “We have bombed civilians relentlessly. We have bombed a school. We have bombed a hospital,” says Wilkerson, who also suggests Western media outlets are downplaying the extent of the damage in Israel and how successful Iran has been in defending itself. “This is a war with long legs. Trump has completely misinterpreted it,” says […]

Trump Denies U.S. Responsibility for Bombing of Girls’ School That Killed 175 in Iran, Huge Crowds Rally in Tehran to Support New Supreme Leader and Oppose U.S.-Israeli Assault, State Department Orders U.S. Diplomats to Leave Saudi Arabia as Iran Strikes Gulf Neighbors, U.N. Warns Israel’s Assault on Lebanon Has Displaced 700,000 People, Oil Prices Fall After Soaring to Nearly $120 a Barrel as Trump Sends Mixed Messages on Iran War, Ukraine Sends Drone Experts to Counter Iranian Attacks Across Mideast, FBI Requests Arizona Voting Records Related to Joe Biden’s 2020 Election Victory, New Mexico Investigators Search Epstein’s Former Ranch After Reopening Probe Closed in 2019, DOJ Releases Previously Withheld Documents from Epstein […]

U.S. military commanders have reportedly been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric to push war on Iran, selling the conflict to American troops as an existential “holy war” in apocalyptic language that experts fear could exacerbate the violence and death toll of military operations. Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, attributes the rise in extremism at the Pentagon to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who “has created a template that the only approved member of the U.S. military is to be straight, Christian, nationalist and male.” Weinstein warns that “whenever you attach an extremist aspect of any religious faith to that machinery responsible for war … we end up with one […]