The war in the Middle East

The Middle East conflicts between Iran’s proxies and Israel are difficult to end. The two sides have understandable  aims and also  aims that are incompatible with peace. Neither is yet willing to compromise sufficiently to secure a negotiated settlement.

Hamas and Hezbollah are hybrid parties. Both have extremist terrorist wings. The extremists  want to drive the Jews out of Israel. They are happy to murder civilians, take hostages, keep military men and weapons in hospitals or schools and embed armies in civilian areas to make it difficult for Israel to counter them

There are more moderate Palestinians who want an end to civilian deaths in the war, an end to Israeli settlements spreading, the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops  and the creation of a Palestinian state.

There are Israelis who think there can be no peace for Israel until all the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists have been killed, all the weapons destroyed and Israel plays a part in policing Gaza and parts of Lebanon  to prevent  their reintroduction. They favour continuing the use of great force until the terrorists have been eliminated. If this also involves pre emptive action against Iranian nuclear installations and missile capabilities, so be it.

There are more moderate Israelis who want their hostages home,  and some negotiated peace that gives them some guarantee of no more rocket attacks.

In order to pull off a ceasefire followed by a peace the  Middle East and US interlocutors need to get the moderates on both sides to hammer out a common approach and to marginalise the more extreme elements. This is not proving easy. it also leaves open what the Iran facing terrorists might do to upend a peace.

The US and Iran both have considerable leverage. Iran could instruct her proxies to stop sending missiles and terror groups to Israel but  does not want to. The US can influence Israeli military activities by offering help as with the shooting down of incoming missile attacks when the two are aligned, or witholding weapons and support if Israel goes too far in her aggressive responses.

US foreign policy was altered substantially by Joe Biden when he became President. He  dropped the Trump strategy of creating a strong alliance between Israel, the US, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia against Iran. He relaxed the attempt to starve Iran of money by sanctions to make it more difficult for her to finance an arsenal against the democracies, to train and arm proxies  and to develop a nuclear weapon. President Biden decided to join  the EU in trying to get a negotiated settlement with Iran, but failed. More recently Joe Biden has been trying to reconstruct the US/Arab/Israeli alliance against a background of Arab states hostile to Israeli military activities against Palestinians.

 

 

74 Comments

  1. Mark B
    October 15, 2024

    Good morning.

    A war without end. For which we have had a hand in, and have been burned. (eg The King David Hotel bombing). Best leave them all to it.

    —-

    In other news ! How many illegals / invaders arrived here yesterday I wonder ? 😉

    1. PeteB
      October 15, 2024

      Indeed Mark, the peoples of these lands have been fighting for 3000 years. Not sure how it gets solved.

    2. Berkshire Alan
      October 15, 2024

      Too many, and it looks like they will keep on coming for the next 8 years given the reported new contracts the Labour Government have just handed out for accommodation.
      More promises broken and another “U” turn on another “Smash the Gangs” manifesto pledge.
      No wonder we are running out of money and housing given the record numbers being imported, legally and illegally

    3. Cynic
      October 15, 2024

      Successive governments have made it their business to import the problems of the Arab/Israeli conflict, as can be seen by pro Hamas demonstrations.

  2. iain gill
    October 15, 2024

    It is hard to make peace with people who have been taught since they were tiny children learning to speak to want you dead and forced into the sea. It’s hard when education levels are so poor, and belief in medieval superstitious sky fairies is regarded as the literal truth, and is beyond criticism, and easily manipulated to have a poorly educated population do evil things. It’s hard when both the USA and the non nationally aligned international mega rich ruling classes have decided to use your part of the world as an experiment.

    1. Donna
      October 15, 2024

      +1

    2. Berkshire Alan
      October 15, 2024

      +1

  3. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2024

    All very depressing and hard to see any easy or peaceful solution, given all the religious propaganda and indoctrination, much of it evil and being pushed into the minds of young children.

    At least the BBC largely confines itself to climate alarmist and socialist indoctrination with a bit of anti-Semitism thrown in.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2024

      Plenty of anti-British racism and anti-Christianity as the bedrock of the BBC.

      1. Jim+Whitehead
        October 15, 2024

        Lynn, I thoroughly agree, the BBC is deplorably biased against Israel, and I see the same animus in the News from ITV also. I see it and I switch off.

    2. Dave Andrews
      October 15, 2024

      The BBC also confines itself to reporting on Palestinian misery, whilst ignoring the practice of Hamas to locate in schools and hospitals so as to maximise collateral damage for propaganda purposes.
      The BBC also refuses to challenge the Hamas narrative, whilst being totally prepared to question Israel’s actions. Not that there would be any benefit if they did, as the Hamas supporters just spout bile about Israel and refuse to answer fair questions.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2024

        And they never mention the famous Hesbollah leader who lives in Berkshire!

  4. Ian Wraggg
    October 15, 2024

    Speaking as someone who lived and worked in the Middle East for over 20 years I can assure you there can never be a negotiated settlement with guarantees for Israel. The mad Mullahs of Iran are he’ll bent on destroying what they call the Zionest Entity. You can see the barbarity they use on their own women so foreigners have no chance.
    If Israel is defeated then the extreme factions of Islam will be exported West via the proxys we’re Importing all over Europe and the USA via undocumented immigrants.
    As I said yesterday I remember Syria, Afghanistan and Lebanon being Christian countries. Now due too the head bangers they are failed states. Sadly Western politicians are too gullible or stupid to realise we’re Importing a fifth column who will strike when the numbers permit.
    Look at London every weekend.

    1. Peter Wood
      October 15, 2024

      Very interesting comment. I too have lived and worked in mainly Muslim countries, but in SE Asia. There the aggressive and violent aspects of Islam are almost entirely absent, and in fact governments seek to remove it. There are extremist groups, but even they do not act violently, for the most part. I never felt at risk while there working with mostly Muslim colleagues.
      Conclusion: the way the religion is managed appears to be the difference. As ever, it’s the leaders that are either a force for peace or conflict. Just have to chose the path.

      1. Wanderer
        October 15, 2024

        PW, very interesting comment and comparison.

        In SE Asia most countries have been left somewhat alone by the US post-colonialism/Vietnam. In the middle east the US has been constantly militarily engaged and extraordinarily inept in its political meddling. I think that is another factor that has helped the extremists to flourish and the moderates to flounder.

      2. forthurst
        October 15, 2024

        Extreme Islam is a response to the violent invasions of their lands by Western governments and their proxies. There is absolutely nothing in these conflicts for us, the people, as opposed to the politicians with their execrable moral values who are far more interested in meddling abroad than protecting our country from the mass immigration of unassimilable aliens who are well on the way to destroying the country into which I was born.

      3. Mitchel
        October 15, 2024

        Islam spread to South East Asia peacefully via the seaborne Arab/muslim traders that controlled trade across the Indian Ocean.Islam came to the middle east by conquest – of the Egyptian and Syrian provinces of the Byzantine empire and the wholesale takeover of the Persian empire.

    2. Mitchel
      October 15, 2024

      Well,Methuselah,you have a defective memory(perhaps not surprising at your age!);Syria hasn’t been Christian since the Arab conquest in the 630s.Afghanistan has never been Christian.

    3. MBJ
      October 15, 2024

      My fear as I see more an more mocking us whilst asking for free help.Why are they all so blinkered when we can see their organisations growing?

  5. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2024

    Pure anti-free speech and job destroying evil and lunacy from this appalling government.

    “Under the government’s reforms to workers’ rights, equality laws are to be updated to make employers liable for staff being “offended by third parties” such as customers or members of the public”

    1. Mike Wilson
      October 15, 2024

      Well, the easy answer to that is to have no staff. Many businesses already have no phone number – so they are impossible to speak to – and emails are answered by bots. We are close to living in a lunatic asylum.

      1. Lifelogic
        October 15, 2024

        Indeed and very time wasting this all is. Either a rather dim bot or someone thousands of miles away on a bad telephone line and with limited English and a heavy accent.

  6. David Paterson
    October 15, 2024

    One cannot ignore the split between the Shia and Sunni religions. Perhaps the Shiite Iranians are tiring of the extreme actions taken by the Shiite Hamas and Hezbollah. The Sunnis do not appear to want to engage. It is notable that the Israelis appear reluctant to take retaliatory measures against the Iranians in the belief that the latter may be trying to establish a rapport with the Western world and want to distance themselves from the terrorists’s activities i.e by not supplying the terrorists with more armaments. Restraint by the Israelis may be an indication of a desire to see the USA (and others) and Iran getting together to help resolve the apparently intractable issues involved.

    1. Mike Wilson
      October 15, 2024

      the Israelis appear reluctant to take retaliatory measures against the Iranians in the belief that the latter may be trying to establish a rapport with the Western world

      I thought Iran recently sent a load of missiles to bomb Israel. You think Iran may be trying to establish a rapport with the West?

    2. Mitchel
      October 15, 2024

      More likely Israel has been taught that it’s much-vaunted defences are not able to protect what is a densely packed population from a mass Iranian missile attack.

      The Russian assessment from last week is that Hizbullah’s capabilities have not been significantly degraded.A few trophy kills do not destroy an essentially decentralised organization.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2024

        I don’t believe Russia.

  7. agricola
    October 15, 2024

    It is undoubtedly a mess. For as long as Iran remains untouched by the conflict it will continue.

    Israel has an absolute right to defend herself against the barbarian proxies of the Iranian regime. The real losers are those who get in the way, the palastinian people, the lebonese, the iranians, and israelis. Additionally I would add the commercial activities of the free world.

    The aims of Iran are the complete destruction of Israel and her people. Check your memory banks for evidence of the same intent in the recent past. Do not repeat the appeasement errors of 1933/1939. Short of Iran and her proxies ceasing their malign intent, there is only one course of action. That is to degrade Iran financially and militarily in one short devastating shock and awe. Put another way, cut off the head of the snake. The proxies will then wither. You could precede it with a warning of the consequences of not backing down, but zealots rarely listen and the snake retains its head for future use.

    The western world would need to support the return of Lebanon and Iran to their once commercial and civilised place in the World without imposing our ideas of how to govern themselves. Both have enormous potential.

    1. Jim+Whitehead
      October 15, 2024

      Agricola, ++++++

  8. Lifelogic
    October 15, 2024

    So it seems they are going to increase employers NI which is of course a tax on wages for working people, another tax on transfers between employers and employees. So employers can only afford lower wages. Almost everthing this government is doing will damage the economy amd destroy growth. Net Zero, workers rights, Non Doms, VAT on school fees, red tape
 total insanity. Starmer now even less popular than the dire Net Zero, tax to death throw the towel in early socialist Sunak. The one who lies to the house about Covid Vaccine safely.

    1. Mickey Taking
      October 15, 2024

      Please give the daily multiples of comments on Covid vaccines a break, this incessant complaining makes me/us want to ignore what you write, which is a shame.

      1. agricola
        October 15, 2024

        Mickey,

        Yes tbe war on the Covid vaccine (CV) has become somewhat tedious. It was not created out of malign intent. That it was found to be less than ideal for some people is par for the course for most medications. My partner has a very adverse reaction to penicillin, but this does not damn penicillin, and fortunatly there are now alternative antibiotics. Early versions of CV may have been less than ideal for some, but versions throughout its evolution have done me no harm. Yesterday I had a six month CV top up from Moderna in my righr arm and an annual flu jab in my left. Neither to any ill affect beyond a slight realisation that I had had them. That CV must have been my sixth or eigth. Question, has our friend LL had any in Covid’s history and what ill effects has he suffered. He may be right about the CV for his own use, but it is wrong to condemn it for the majority. Whatever, he is still firing on all four it seems.

      2. Lifelogic
        October 15, 2024

        Well eventually the tide will turn and the Covid vaccine scandals (over 100 times worse than the contaminated blood scandal) will come out. The “vaccines” were not remotely safe or effective (or even needed had they been so) Sunak – as I am sure he knows full well.

      3. John Hatfield
        October 15, 2024

        Leave him alone Mick. He’s one of the good guys.

  9. Lynn Atkinson
    October 15, 2024

    What the ‘moderate’ or the ‘majority’ want is irrelevant. Surely the Brighton bombing taught you this? It is the few who are uncompromising in their objective, through the generations, that change history. Brexit taught us that too – the majority wanted to recover our Sovereign Nation but Theresa May and Boris Johnson wanted to remain locked in the institutions of the EU, with or without a vote which they know is irrelevant in that unelected body.

    Biden has ‘achieved’ much. He reversed the anti-Iran movement that was beginning to tolerate the existence of the ancient Jewish homeland. He attacked Russia via a proxy and caused Russia to wonder how to attack the USA via a proxy too – Russia sees that Iran is the route to causing the USA and the decadent west to spend it’s treasure and people and to reduce itself to a non-threatening sidelined entity.

    Russia wanted to be included in the west, but we pushed it away and now we are faced with Iran armed with hypersonic weapons which nothing can stop, giving the lie to Zelensky’s crazy claims – and the economic powerhouse of Russia and China United against us.

    The U.K. is a shadow of its former self, with a new ‘morality’ that no previous generation would recognize, and a British Attorney General seemingly demanded that the U.K. is replaced on the Security council by the most populous areas of the world – Africa and China.

    Let’s hope the Jews don’t pay the ultimate price for all this childish idiocy.

    1. Mitchel
      October 15, 2024

      China is already on the Security Council.Russia and China are calling for Brazil and India to join together with a representative of Africa,while vetoing the possibility of Japan.Frankly,both France and the UK need to go;neither will be in a position to influence world affairs looking ahead despite all the expensive,empty posturing.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2024

        France no longer exists. It is not legally entitled to a seat even in the UN according to their Charter, much less the Security Council.
        Britain is irreplaceable. We have a problem until we can replace the political class but it’s transitory.

    2. Mitchel
      October 15, 2024

      Iran is much,much more than a proxy;like India and China it is a fellow civilizational state and has been around for thousands of years-thousands of years before there was even the idea of Europe or a west.

      Moreover,Russia has for a couple of centuries at least wanted influence over Iran-“to wash our dusty boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.”

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 15, 2024

        Iran will have influence over Russia!
        Putin is making serious mistakes. They think that anyone could run the British empire better than did Britain. They are in for several shocks, maybe existential.

  10. Lynn Atkinson
    October 15, 2024

    Sir John the EU, which has destroyed Europe and Britain, is now in existential crisis. Really we have no capacity to deal with anything other than our own survival – so says Mario Dragi – the arch-European-unionist.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-13/europe-faces-unstoppable-decline-economic-malaise-and-mounting-external-threats?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    1. Ian wragg
      October 15, 2024

      The sooner the EU slips under the waves and returns to a loose coalition of sovereign countries the better. Competition spurs innovation which is absent from the one size fits all EU.

  11. James4
    October 15, 2024

    I don’t think we would be too happy either if the nazis came here and carved out a place for themselves in Devon and Cornwall – which nearly happened

    But of course we had a hand in creating all of this mess when Arthur Balfour made his famous Declaration back in 1917 hoping to entice the Americans into WW1 via the American jewish influence – The result after more than one hundred years is that the jewish presence in the palestinian lands has been a disaster for all.

  12. Philip P.
    October 15, 2024

    Israel has a right to peaceful co-existence with its neighbours. That goes along with not attacking them as it did, shooting first, in 1948, 1956, and 1967. The cycle of conflict that has developed ever since is indeed hard to break, but it cannot be based on allowing any country to behave as it likes. If it is a signatory to the UN Charter, it must respect international law. Otherwise it will rightly be regarded as a pariah state. Progress was being made recently by patient negotiation between the US and Arab states, towards a comprehensive acceptance by them of Israel’s right to exist. I understand Saudi Arabia, which is very influential in the Arab world, was on board. Difficult though that is at the moment, it is the only way to go.

    1. Mitchel
      October 15, 2024

      People forget that Israel (as well as France) was a party to the Suez debacle-which a more sensible US government than now put an end to.

      Saudi Arabia has made it crystal clear that it will not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state coming into being.The rapprochement between Saudi and Iran (and Syria) continues to progress;I understand Prince ‘MBS’ will be visiting Iran and meeting the Ayatollah before the year end.

  13. Donna
    October 15, 2024

    Biden foreign policies:

    1. Re-created a Taliban-run Afghanistan, but this time equipped with $billions of American military equipment
    2. “Encouraged” the Russia-Ukraine war and has funded it just enough to keep it going for 4 years
    3. Lifted sanctions and played appeasement with Iran with the consequences playing out in Israel and Gaza

    Trump encouraged/involved the USA in no new wars; he dealt effectively with Fat Kim and he created the Abraham Accords.

    The best thing the American people can do – in their interests and the rest of the world – is to re-elect Mr Trump. With Vance on the ticket and Robert Kennedy in support, it could prove to be the best Presidential Administration since Reagan.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2024

      +1 but much irreparable damage already done.

    2. Sharon
      October 15, 2024

      @Donna

      + 1

  14. Richard
    October 15, 2024

    It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this war (and that in Ukraine) would not have happened had Trump been president. Iran was under huge pressure, almost bankrupt due to sanctions, and the Arab world except for Iran was at least partially reconciled with Israel. The Abraham accords were a massive achievement by the trump administration, perhaps his greatest. But because it was trump Biden had to undo it and go back to the flawed Obama-EU Iran appeasement deal. And so here we are.

    I don’t see how Israel can do anything other than seek to eliminate the existential threat to its existence and to the lives of its (Jewish) citizens posed by the radical Islamist terrorist groups. The only possible alternative would be such massive pressure on Iran that the terrorist groups are stood down. But that probably needs the return of trump.

    1. Rod Evans
      October 15, 2024

      Agree completely with your overview Richard.
      The latest instructions from the Taliban on how the Afghanistan peoples must avoid any depiction of any living thing even taking pictures of such on their mobile phones in order to conform with Islamic adherence, tells the world where their Islamic future lies.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2024

      +1

    3. Rita (aka REET)
      October 15, 2024

      +1

  15. javelin
    October 15, 2024

    You’re over thinking this. You can’t see the wood for the trees.

    The problem is Islam and what it has become since the second world war. Destroy the theocracy in Iran and the people in the middle east will go back to peace.

    1. Jim+Whitehead
      October 15, 2024

      Javelin, ++++++ another post which cuts to the core.

      1. glen cullen
        October 15, 2024

        Agree

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2024

      There is one path – it must be walked.

      1. glen cullen
        October 15, 2024

        The path is called a ‘religious reformation’

  16. Cortona
    October 15, 2024

    In many years of following your blog daily I’ve never disagreed with you more Sir John and your lack of judgement here rather sums up the problem. The Hamas leadership live as billionaires in Qatar and if you watch documentaries on Oct 7th (should be compulsory viewing to balance general media coverage) you will see its soldiers have a frenzied blood lust and delight in killing disabled young girls. Would the world allow Hitler to live in a luxury hotel in a friendly state without questioning this? You say their aims are reasonable on both sides? You should know they’ve been offered a state many times and rejected it choosing death to Jews every time as a preferred option, just ask Clinton.
    The fact that the world and even you don’t seem to understand the problem perpetuates violence. We wouldn’t give the Nazis a neighbouring state and hope they adopt a more reasonable vision for their future than the current focus of resources on eradicating Jews. The UN allowed Hezbollah to flourish on the border and had staff involved in Oct 7th in Gaza but pretend to be helping and are taken seriously?!
    No other people have been refugees since 1948 and are used as pawns in a sick game.
    If the world quite rightly saw these proxies as they saw Isis then we could have a serious conversation about how to prevent them holding power and how to help those in need suffering from their actions.

    Reply Try re reading it. I distinguish between the terrorists who want to evict the Israelis, and Palestinian moderates!

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 15, 2024

      Sir John – there are NO Palestinian moderates. That’s why Egypt and Jordan will not accept even women and children from Gaza. Indeed there is not and never has been a tribe called Palestinians much less a state. These are Arabs and they have flooded into Gaza because Gaza is richer than surrounding areas in that the Jews provide for them!

      Iran used to have young women in summer dresses under the Shah. My cousin lived in Tehran when he was President of P&G Middle East. Now they hide the mutilation of females (cutting off of noses, acid in the face etc) under the black shroud!

      Iran under the mullahs cannot be tolerated! Even the Iranian people are desperate to be rid of them. They must certainly and at all cost be denied Nukes – even if that means all out war with Russia!

      1. hefner
        October 16, 2024

        foreignpolicyjournal.com 26/10/2010 ‘The myth of the U.N. creation of Israel’, J.R. Hammond.
        ‘UN Resolution 181 (29/11/1947) neither partitioned Palestine nor conferred any legal authority to the Zionists for the unilateral declaration of Israel’s existence’.

        At the time (end 1946) there 1,203,000 Arabs and 608,000 Jews with the former in possession of 85% of the land, the Jews 7%, and the remaining 8% occupied by various groups including Christians.
        The UNSCOP (Special Committee on Palestine) however proposed 45.5% given to an Arab state and that the Jews were given 54.5% of the total area for their state.
        This UN Resolution was never applied and on 14/05/1948 the Zionist leadership unilaterally declared the Israel’s existence.

  17. Michael Saxton
    October 15, 2024

    Biden and his State Department have allowed Netanyahu to dominate policy both in Gaza, the West Bank and in Lebanon. Biden’s policy shift away from Trump’s Middle East Alliance has been yet another disaster. Israel’s problem both before and after the atrocity on 7th October 2023 is their control and dominance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In short the Balfour Declaration has been a failure because both parties want Territory and domination. The military and economic power of Israel (with US/UK support) exerts control and takes land and property from Palestinians. Resentment and hatred builds among Palestinians and hatred is obvious among Israeli Zionists. A form of apartheid exists in the West Bank whilst in Gaza before the atrocity, all power, fuel and goods were controlled by Israel. Is it really surprising the ‘powder keg’ of resentment blew? The Israeli response to the attack has been completely disproportionate with thousands of Palestinians killed, especially women and children, their homes and livelihoods destroyed along with Hospitals and Universities. Gaza now is devastated with survivors living in tents or bombed out buildings. Well over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed with the final death toll significantly higher. Israeli’s search for Hamas has turned into genocide. With the conflict escalating into Lebanon and Iran it’s difficult to see a resolution. How will a so called two state solution work now?

  18. formula57
    October 15, 2024

    I cannot play the four dimensional chess of diplomacy but wonder could Hamas and Hezbollah have been pawns knowingly and deliberately sacrificed to facilitate moves otherwise impossible with them still on the board?

    The Israelis for all their known prowess have still enjoyed remarkable success at eliminating much of Hamas and Hezbollah.

  19. Rita
    October 15, 2024

    Good morning.

    I have spent much of my life in the middle east and have spoken to many Israelis (living in a Muslim country), Arabs and Persians who fled Persia (now Iran) when the Shah was deposed, who indicate the issue is not a Muslim/Jew one, but more of interference from outside interested parties creating tensions in the region. There is a lot of money being made by a few as a result of this never-ending conflict. One Arab gentleman did mention their aversion to zionism (which many don’t believe is Jewish) having taken over the state of Israel.

    My observations led me to the very beginning of the state of Israel being formed and especially the way in which those few wrested control of a land in which Jews, Christians and Muslims had lived in peace for many generations. So many were dispossessed of their livings and way of life and that suffering continued for generations which was never fairly addressed/recognised. ALL those i spoke to simply want the chance to live a peaceful life, rearing and educating their children and the opportunity to create a better life for their families.

    Outside influences and vested interests have created all proxy wars in recent times all of which involve the major “powers” in our world. Genuine “issues” not being addressed have given rise to formations of extremist ideologies of one sort or another. Nothing can change whilst this status quo is maintained. President Trump’s Abraham Accords were a masterpiece in coordinating a basis for achieving lasting peace, but as you say in your excellent summing up, this has been discarded.

    There needs to be the will to achieve peace by the influencers for there to be one. The (silent) majority of people in the region want it. What it needs is the “honest brokers” to bring their will to bear on changing the status quo to empower the people to get on with their lives. Not so simple in our current reality.

  20. Bryan Harris
    October 15, 2024

    Biden has made the whole thing worse – he too quickly abandoned the strategy from Trump that had been working, and allegedly has been providing cash to the terrorists for arms.

    The UN has also been accused of funding arms for terrorists.

    The Americans assumed the role of world policeman, but in this certainly during democrat rule they have failed badly. There are more terrorists than ever before. It seems that American policy was to awaken the radicals lurking behind normality. In this last thing they have exceeded expectations, and we now have a bomber on every corner.

  21. Rod Evans
    October 15, 2024

    Sir John, your final section given over to what Joe Biden has done speaks volumes.
    There was no Middle East crisis during the Trump administration. There was no Ukraine conflict during the Trump administration.
    Now here in 2024 in the final year (hopefully) of the Biden/Harris administration we have conflicts and hot war with every chance that hot war expanding to the Indo Pacific region.
    I am not sure the World can cope with another four years of Democrat induced conflicts.

    1. Rita (aka REET)
      October 15, 2024

      Couldn’t agree more.

  22. Ian B
    October 15, 2024

    OFT
    From the MsM
    Google has struck a deal to buy the world’s first private mini-nuclear reactors, as technology companies race to secure power for their data centres.

    The UK Governments stance appears, and is confirmed by some sectors, is that Nuclear has no place in its energy portfolio as it undermines the highly subsidised renewable sector. One suspects it also undermines theirs and Red Ed’s major sponsor

    Energy at 10 times the World competitive price for UK industry is a price worth paying, to ensure ideological vandalism is maintained.

  23. Burning Injustice
    October 15, 2024

    To view the conflict through the moderate-extremist lens doesn’t work in this case. Iran is not a rational actor whose leadership contains moderate elements; it is a fundamentalist theocracy that craves the elimination of Israel and primacy in the entire region. All the West’s missteps since Obama have been wilfully blind to that fact. I suspect a number of Middle Eastern states are privately pleased at the actions Israel is taking.

  24. glen cullen
    October 15, 2024

    108 irregular (as defined by this government) and/or illegal criminal (as defined under law) immigrants arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France

    1. Mark B
      October 15, 2024

      Thanks Glen

      Any news on how many we have sent back ?

      1. glen cullen
        October 15, 2024

        Same as yesterday ….a great big zero

  25. Bryan Harris
    October 15, 2024

    Did anybody notice any plans in the election campaign for further devolution?

    It seems we are going to get it whether we want it or not:

    Starmer promises to shift power from Westminster

    Starmer has committed his party to delivering the “boldest devolution project in a generation” in a policy speech.

    Will include:
    The replacement of the House of Lords with an Assembly of the Nations and Regions;
    A Council of the Nations and Regions;
    A ‘solidarity clause’ – this is a ‘legal obligation of co-operation between the different levels of Government and institutions across the UK’;
    An ‘explicit constitutional requirement to rebalance the UK’s economy’;
    The codification of ‘constitutionally protected social rights’;
    A ‘greater role for the public in making and enforcing the rules followed by politicians’ policed by an ‘anti-corruption Commissioner’.

    Is this a prelude to the NWO we’ve been promised?

    1. Sharon
      October 15, 2024

      The council of Nation and Regions is already up and running. They had their first meeting last Friday!

      I was wary when I heard this…. sounds a bit dubious to me!

      1. Bill B.
        October 16, 2024

        Who picked its members?

    2. The Prangwizard
      October 15, 2024

      ‘Nations and regions’.

      England is again beimg denied an identity. The plan is to break us up into parts so they have total control.

      Members of the Estabishment like it. Socialists don’t csre. The Tories don’t care either and none of them dare speak with any determination. Just pretence. All will defend and promote Scotland and Wales but not England as a nation.

      They all know if England is granted its rights they will fall.

  26. rose
    October 16, 2024

    A big problem is that the Biden regime is now pursuing the Obama policy rather than the Trump/Pompeo one of peace through strength. The Obama project in the Near East is to take down Saudi Arabia and Israel, and the Sunni states, and boost up Iran and Qatar, both patrons of the death cult which will get us all in the end if it isn’t stopped. Obama’s rebalancing involves giving billions and billions to Iran and her proxies, which they spend on weapons and terror and tunnels; and it deprives Israel and Saudi Arabia of support against the terrorists they face. Saudi Arabia wasn’t allowed to deal with the Houthis who are now diverting world trade round the Cape of Good Hope; and Israel isn’t allowed to defeat Hamas or Hezbollah. On no account must Iran be upset. This is a recipe for anarchy, chaos, and nuclear war.

    Netanyahu is an irenic PM, cautious about using military force, but has at last found the courage to be a great war leader, edging slowly and carefully over the American red lines to possible victory. Or will the world mafia stop him?

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