Trump in Qatar on high-stakes mideast trip
President Trump arrived in Qatar on the second leg of his mideast trip, where he touted hundreds of billions of dollars of new investment by Qatar in the U.S. And, he also faced more Republican pushback on his acceptance of a proposed gift by Qatar of a new Air Force One jet. NBC News' Garrett Haake reports.
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The Herald Scotland
40 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Israel and US perilously ‘gaming' over the fate of entire Middle East
But those were precisely the words posted by US Republican Senator Lindsay Graham on social media on Friday shortly after Israel launched its massive air strikes against Iran, targeting its nuclear programme, military facilities and killing two of the Islamic Republic's top military commanders. Graham - a Trump ally - was far from alone, with at least three other senior Republican politicians using the exact words; 'Please join me in praying for Israel' in their statements. Not to be outdone, US House Speaker Mike Johnson was also at pains to make clear that Israel's actions were justified, declaring on social media, 'Israel IS right – and has a right – to defend itself!' Many of course would choose to differ, arguing with some justification that Israel's attack was unprovoked and in clear violation of the international law as enshrined in the United Nations Charter and of anything that can be labelled a rules-based international order. In making their case, the same people might also point to the fact that today this is now almost par for the course when it comes to Israel. They might argue too that by embarking on ethnic cleansing in Gaza and persistently using excessive force in serial attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and the occupied West Bank, it's Israel itself that currently constitutes the biggest danger to the region. It was at around 3.30am Iran time on Friday that Israel launched at least six waves of air strikes in what it is calling Operation Rising Lion. In the wake of the strikes, Iran's state news agency confirmed that several senior military figures including Major General Hossein Salami, head of the elite Revolutionary Guards, were killed. (Image: First-responders gather outside a building that was hit by an Israeli strike in Tehran) Scientists killed Iran's armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, was also killed, state television reported. Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a prominent physics professor, and Fereydoon Abbasi, a former head of Iran's atomic organisation, also died, the state news agency confirmed Israel's wave of attacks also struck command-and-control centres, ballistic-missile bases and air-defence batteries. Some of the attacks are reported to have been carried out by operatives from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and the electronic surveillance and targeting commando, military Unit 8200, who reportedly located key Iranian commanders and two leading nuclear scientists with precise accuracy. Israel also claims the operatives installed swarms of explosive drones deep inside Iran to neutralise air defence systems near Tehran. But aside from decapitating Iran's military leadership and missile production facilities, the prime target was the country's nuclear facilities at sites like Natanz and Fordow. Shortly after the attacks, social media showed footage of smoke rising from the uranium-enrichment plant near the city of Natanz about 150 miles south of the capital Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog, later confirmed the plant was 'among targets,' adding that it was in contact with Iranian authorities over radiation levels. Read more 'Messianic vision' Israel arming Gaza's crime gangs is certain to backfire badly 'Stakes could not be higher' Poland's election is a pivotal moment for all of Europe Scotland's oldest international medical charity is bringing hope to Himalayas Trump's sledgehammer politics are wreaking havoc in every sphere both home and away For three decades Netanyahu has spoken of the need to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons which he says poses an 'existential' threat to Israel. Israel has announced that the operation to knock out Iran's nuclear programme is likely to last four or five days. But the fear is that Israel has opened a new phase of war across the Middle East that has seen nearly two years of consistent conflict on a scale not witnessed in decades. Putting aside the fact that an escalation is now inevitable, predicting what will happen next is more tricky. But as Amir Tibon, diplomatic correspondent of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz has highlighted, three questions will determine the pace and trajectory of events to come. The first of these is just how much damage did Israel's attack inflict? The second is what will be the nature and extent of Iran's retaliation? And finally, and perhaps most significantly, how will America be involved? Regarding the first of these questions, then certainly the killing of Iran's military chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Bagheri, and Maj. Gen Salami as well as several nuclear scientists and destroying swathes of Iran's air defence systems is unprecedented. (Image: People look beyond a barrier toward buildings heavily damaged after an overnight strike in Israel) Regime change Some reports also suggest that Ali Shamkhani, a national security adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who has oversight of the nuclear programme, was injured. This indicates Israel has struck parts of Iran's political leadership too, signalling that among its objectives may in fact be regime change. Netanyahu suggested as much when on Friday in a speech he told Iranians that he hoped Israel's ongoing military operation will 'clear the path for you to achieve your freedom.' What is certain about the strikes however is that they pile pressure on an Iranian military infrastructure already degraded from previous Israeli strikes. Last year, Israel attacked Iran using air-launched ballistic missiles from far beyond the reach of Iran's most advanced air defences, the Russian supplied S-300 surface to air missiles. These Israeli strikes severely degraded Iran's most advanced air defences, particularly the S-300, and it is not clear what remains. But it's the question of how much damage Israel has been able to inflict on Iran's main nuclear sites that will be uppermost in the minds of the Israeli leadership right now. Israel on Friday said it had struck Natanz and 'damaged' the underground area of the site, a multistorey enrichment area with centrifuges, electrical rooms and other infrastructure. But both of Iran's nuclear facilities have been built to withstand the heaviest of strikes, buried as they are deep below mountains and under dozens of feet of reinforced concrete. Experts have previously estimated that even America's largest 30,000-pound 'bunker-buster' bomb, the GBU-57, which cannot be carried by Israeli warplanes, would need to be used many times on the same point for any significant damage to be done. The US has thus far refused Israeli requests to provide the biggest bomb in its arsenal, but reports last month indicate that the US sent fresh supplies of smaller bunker busting bombs such as the CBU-28 which the Israeli air force is capable of carrying. These may have enabled Israel so far to have targeted the entrances, tunnels and ventilation shafts of Natanz or Fordow in an attempt to put them out of action. Which brings us to the question of Iran's capacity to retaliate. Overnight Friday into Saturday Iran hit back at Israel with retaliatory missile strikes. Israeli paramedics said yesterday that at least three people had been killed and dozens injured by Iran's overnight salvos, with missiles slipping through the country's air defences and destroying buildings in Tel Aviv and Rishon Le Zion. But as The Economist magazine has highlighted, Iran faces few good options in the scale and type of retaliation it can mount. 'If its response is too weak, it will not deter Israel; too strong, and it might draw America into the war. That would only compound the threat to the regime, which has not looked so vulnerable since the 1980s, when it fought a long war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq,' The Economist's assessment concluded, a view shared by other analysts. As it stands, Iran's most likely strategy will be to carry out further attacks using missiles and drones in the hope of depleting Israeli stocks of interceptor missiles and then send in its more advanced and harder-to-shot-down ballistic missiles. (Image: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu) No secret Israel's resupply of interceptors has become an issue of late. According to a report in the Financial Times (FT), Israel Aerospace Industries, the state-owned company which makes the Arrow interceptors used to shoot down ballistic missiles, said it was having to run triple shifts to keep its production lines running at full tilt, and that it was 'no secret that we (Israel) need to replenish stocks' In the past, any retaliation would have seen Iran turn also to its proxies in the region the most formidable of which was Hezbollah, the Shia militia and political party in Lebanon that had an enormous arsenal on Israel's northern border. But Hezbollah is not the force it once was, weakened by a year of war with Israel, in which its leaders were killed and many of its missile depots destroyed. Where Iran could turn tactically towards are its other proxies in places such as Iraq, mobilising them to attack American bases there or it might be tempted to go after other US installations in the region including in Qatar and Bahrain. All of that though has enormous risks of pulling America fully into the conflict, even if as many argue, Washington as ever is already committed when it comes to defending Israel. Other risky Iranian options - long discussed by regional strategists - might include blocking or disrupting oil exports from the region by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. Merchant shipping is still passing through the Strait, but with increased caution. Iran has previously threatened to close this critical trade route through which a quarter of global oil supplies and a third of liquefied natural gas production is transported. Even the suggestion of such a move has already sent shockwaves through global markets, and sent the price of oil soaring, something that doubtless worries the Trump administration that's keen to keep the Gulf monarchs happy. Which brings us to the most significant question of all, as to what America knew about Israel's attack and the likely extent of US involvement in the conflict? To begin with, some observers now believe that the talks between Iran and the US that were scheduled for today in Oman were little more than a ruse, lulling Iran into a false sense of security before Israel struck. Or, to put this another way, while Trump was talking about 'diplomacy' Israel was preparing its onslaught. All the signs were there that Washington knew what was coming say some diplomats and observers. Just over a week ago the US moved some anti-missile defences from Europe to Israel. It then raised threat levels to US citizens, started withdrawing personnel and their families, putting major military bases on standby, and also recently supplying bunker busting bombs such as the CBU-28 to Israel. All this too before Israel's dependence on US intelligence and air defence support. It beggars belief then attest analysts, that team Trump wasn't aware of Israel's real plans. Washington 'knew this was coming, and they helped maintain this fiction that there would be a meeting' on Sunday (today) between Iran's foreign affairs minister Abbas Araghchi and Steve Witkoff, Trump's envoy, said Aaron David Miller, a former US state department negotiator in the Middle East now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'So to that degree, they co-operated with the Israelis in the ruse, and it clearly worked,' Miller added, in an interview with the FT, echoing the views of other Middle East experts. Deception Seen from an Iranian perspective, Trump's talk of giving diplomacy a chance will doubtless now be considered as the deception many now believe it was. In other words, Tehran was lured into a diplomatic trap orchestrated between Israel and the US aimed at blindsiding Iran as to the military operation that Israel had clearly long been planning with Washington's approval. If indeed that perception persists, then it's' unlikely the Iranians will return to the negotiating table any time soon. It signals too that despite so called 'differences' between Netanyahu and Trump, support for Israel in the US body politic remains - as most suspected - as strong as ever. It would also help explain the rush from some Republican politicians to send 'prayers' for Israel, as the bombs fell on Tehran while other less hawkish elements, expressed serious concern over the escalation. For Netanyahu, once regarded as a risk-averse leader, the strike on Tehran is a huge gamble. For Trump meanwhile, a president who campaigned on ending wars, not starting them, it's another arguably ignominious landmark in a shambolic foreign policy strategy. This weekend as the exchange of missile attacks between Israel and Iran intensify, it's hard to ignore the sense that both men are perilously 'gaming' over the fate of the Middle East, and that the region's future is being forged between them.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Gathering stormclouds can't wipe smile from Trump's face as long-held dream of military parade is realised
It may have been billed as a military parade to celebrate the American military's history, but it said even more about the country's present and future under Donald Trump. Soldiers, tanks and even robot dogs paraded along Constitution Ave. on Saturday, as paratroopers swooped in from overhead and military aircraft buzzed past the Washington Monument for the first major military parade held in the US capital since the victory after the first Gulf War of 1991. Or was this all a celebration for Trump's 79th birthday? As the president took the stage under ominous stormclouds, it appeared that the celebrant could not have beamed any wider, his eight-year-old dream of holding a military parade in the capital finally coming to fruition. For both his supporters and opponents who flocked to the National Mall on Saturday, this was 'Trump's parade' (he even billed it as his own in a fundraising email this week). 'This could only happen under President Trump,' bellowed one voice after the Star-Spangled Banner played on the National Mall as families queued to sit in Army helicopters and atop anti-aircraft batteries. It felt like it could have been a scene from Moscow. Such is the line-blurring taking place as America's military finds itself at the centre of the most contentious legal fight in decades. While the Trump administration has vowed to limit the military's footprint abroad, it has also greenlit the deployment of hundreds of marines to Los Angeles in a controversial move that has led to legal battles and the eruption of protests around the country against the aggressive use of law enforcement to arrest and deport immigrants. For Trump, the parade is an opportunity to signal the ambitions of his administration's second term: no longer constrained by concerns over a price tag estimated as high as $90m or the concerns of comparisons to authoritarian leaders who also love to parade their tanks and missiles. 'Every other country celebrates their victories. It's about time America did, too,' Trump said on Saturday night. 'That's what we're doing tonight.' It is also a paradox: Donald Trump campaigned on the premise of ending foreign wars, and yet what Americans got was a show of strength in the heart of Washington DC. JD Vance, the voice of Trump's anti-interventionist foreign policy, spoke to that contradiction, telling the assembled soldiers that the parade was a sign of the administration's respect for America's servicemen and women. 'To our soldiers, we're so proud of you,' he said. 'And let me tell you, the way that we honor and respect you, number one, we never ask you to go to war unless you absolutely have to.' Trump's love of military pomp is well known. His desire for a parade goes back at least to his attendance of the French Bastille Day parades in 2017, when he was so in awe of the event that he said it was a 'tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France.' 'We're going to have to try to top it,' he added. Whether he succeeded in that is a question that will be fought on cable television and in internet forums. There were sour notes, as when several second world war-era tanks creaked past the tribune. Yet many of the attending faithful appeared overjoyed at the spectacle. Administration officials have pushed back at criticism that it is a reflection of an authoritarian turn under Trump. 'No one ever calls Macron a dictator for celebrating Bastille Day,' one official told CNN. Yet Trump has also indicated that his parade is meant to keep up with the real heavyweights, including the yearly Victory Day parade in Russia meant to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany. 'We had more to do with winning World War II than any other nation,' he said this week. 'Why don't we have a Victory Day? So we're going to have a Victory Day for World War I and for World War II.' Parades do not exist in vacuums – they expand and change to reflect the political times in which a country lives. Russia's Victory Day celebrations became muted marches under the administration of Boris Yeltsin. In 2008, Putin reintroduced the T-90 tanks and heavy ballistic missiles to recognise Russia's resurgent military might and geopolitical ambitions. Months later, Russia invaded Georgia in a war that many say presaged the later invasion of Ukraine. Yet sitting in front of the assembled crowds on Saturday evening, the president managed to hold his event – defying the skepticism over the spectacle and even the forecasts of a downpour that would rain on his parade.
Powys County Times
2 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Military parade rolls through Washington as protesters across US decry Trump
A massive military parade to celebrate the US Army's 250th anniversary, requested by President Donald Trump to coincide with his birthday, rolled through Washington DC on Saturday. It came as opponents of the president's agenda rallied in hundreds of cities nationwide for 'No Kings' protests. Despite concerns about lightning and thunderstorms, the rain held to a slight drizzle during the march of soldiers and machinery. Heavy cloud cover and low visibility seemed to contribute to less of an aircraft presence in the parade. As the parade was underway, police in Los Angeles fired tear gas and flash bangs to try to disperse demonstrators challenging immigration raids. Clouds of gas wafted toward a family-friendly demonstration that had been going on for hours outside City Hall. The procession, with more than 6,000 soldiers and 128 Army tanks, was one Mr Trump tried to make happen in his first term after seeing such an event in Paris in 2017, but the plans never came together until the parade was added to an event recognising the Army's 250th anniversary. 'Every other country celebrates their victories. It's about time America did too,' Mr Trump declared in brief remarks at the parade's end. The president praised the strength of the military's fighting forces and said US soldiers 'fight, fight, fight and they win, win, win' — putting a new twist on a line he regularly delivered during his 2024 campaign rallies after he survived an assassination attempt. At times, Mr Trump stood and saluted as troops marched past the reviewing stand. Attendance appeared to fall far short of early predictions that as many as 200,000 people would attend the festival and parade. There were large gaps between viewers near the Washington Monument on a day when steamy weather and the threat of thunderstorms could have dampened turnout. Hours before the parade started, demonstrators turned out in streets and parks around the nation to voice opposition to the Republican president. They criticised Mr Trump for using the military to respond to people protesting his deportation efforts and for the muscular military show in the US capital. As armoured vehicles rolled down the street in front of the president, on the other side of the country the Marines he deployed to Los Angeles appeared at a demonstration for the first time, standing guard outside a federal building. Dozens of Marines stood shoulder to shoulder in full combat gear beside the National Guard, Homeland Security officers and other law enforcement. Hundreds of protesters facing them jeered in English and Spanish, telling the troops to go home. In Washington, hundreds protesting Mr Trump carried signs with messages that included 'Where's the due process?' and 'No to Trump's fascist military parade' as they marched toward the White House. A larger-than-life puppet of Mr Trump was wheeled through the crowd, a caricature of the president wearing a crown and sitting on a golden toilet. Other protesters waved Pride flags and hoisted signs, some with pointed messages such as 'I prefer crushed ICE,' referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Other messages included: 'The invasion was HERE Jan. 6th, NOT in LA' and 'Flip me off if you're a FASCIST.' 'No Kings' rallies unfolded in hundreds of cities, designed to counter what organisers said were Mr Trump's plans to feed his ego on his 79th birthday and Flag Day. Organisers said they picked the name to support democracy and speak out against what they call the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration. On the National Mall, a display of armoured vehicles, helicopters and military-grade equipment was set up to commemorate the Army's birthday. Vendors outside the army festival sold gear marking the military milestone. Others hawked Trump-themed merchandise. Larry Stallard, a retired American Airlines pilot, said he travelled to Washington from Kansas City for the weekend 'to see the military and see Trump.' Mr Stallard, who voted for Mr Trump, said it was 'hard to believe' people were upset about the cost of the event when 'they blow that in 10 seconds on things that we don't even need'. The parade was added just two months ago to the long-planned celebration of the army's birthday and has drawn criticism for its price tag of up to 45 million dollars (£33 million) and the possibility that the lumbering tanks could tear up city streets. About six in 10 Americans said Saturday's parade was 'not a good use' of government money. The vast majority of people, 78%, said they neither approve nor disapprove of the parade overall, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
