Jared Kushner’s Diplomacy for Hire
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | November 7, 2026
Many observers of the highly dysfunctional President Donald J Trump administration have noted how a major contributing factor for the foreign policy disasters might well derive from the appointment of two real estate billionaires personally linked to the president as its top negotiators. That Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had no diplomatic experience right from the beginning the presumption should have been a given that they would be managed and consistently out-maneuvered by their counterparts from other countries. That Kushner possessed unique access to Trump and might be inclined to give him bad advice in return for business “favors” also should have been reckoned by Congress and the national media.
In fact, there have been a lot of good reasons to be most particularly suspicious of son-in-law Jared Kushner given his history of shady business dealings. Indeed, any concerns have proven to be valid with one only needing to cite the complete failure of the two presidential special emissaries judging by their involvement in the so-called peace negotiations relating to the conflicts in Russia-Ukraine and in the Middle East. In both cases, the situation seen from a perspective of US actual interests, has deteriorated in spite of clear evidence that other parties to the negotiations were seeking a solution. Kushner, an unashamed Israel Firster, like his partner in crime Witkoff, did everything he could to protect war criminal Israel and those Arab states considered to be friends and was ineffective in dealing with the Russians, who rightly do not trust him. Kushner’s family is meanwhile extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to stay at the Kushner family home in New Jersey some years ago when he was in the US. The Kushner family foundation has also been funding Israeli settlements on the Palestinian West Bank, which is illegal, all of which makes Jared a ridiculous choice as US designated negotiator.
Kushner is, of course, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism which is how he was able to step up into his White House designated position. He also was and is a business partner of the president and his family. Reckoned altogether, it has meant that Jared Kushner has been able to exploit his status with the White House to take steps to enrich the Trump family as well as himself and his own family through both connivance and manipulation of his interlocutors in the foreign policy world, most particularly in the Gulf States.
To cite only one example of how politics, Israeli interests and the profit motive all come together one only has to review Kushner’s glowing account of the splendor of a future redeveloped Riviera style resort, quite likely to be named after Trump and featuring a gilded statue of the president, constructed on the rubble remains of old Gaza that will cover or otherwise dispose of tens of thousands of Palestinian bodies. It is a developer’s dream that is too disgusting to contemplate and is the mark of the man, unfortunately. Kushner’s participation in Trump’s phony Board of Peace has been little more than a cover story giving Netanyahu license to kill coming from America’s president, a man also owned by Israel, who believes that the only real thing that matters is ignoring his responsibilities as president and manipulating his position to make money, lots of it!
Jared Kushner has apparently inherited genes that make him acquisitive beyond all reason. His father Charles is currently serving as Trump appointee US Ambassador in France, where he speaks no French and is constantly complaining about antisemitism in the country. He was previously convicted and served nearly two years in prison more than a decade ago in a felony tax fraud case that grew into a bizarre tale involving sex tapes including the hiring of a prostitute. Kushner had hired the woman to seduce his brother-in-law who was testifying against him over the fraud charges, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister to force the relative to back off. Charles subsequently received a full pardon from Trump after contributing heavily to the Trump presidential campaign and was subsequently given the ambassadorial post.
Real estate mogul Jared followed in his father’s footsteps to include possible involvement in the aftermath of the 2018 murder and dismemberment of US resident Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi agents when he reportedly became the White House’s most ardent defender of the Saudi monarchy in exchange for an offshore substantial dollar bank account arranged by Riyadh. As a result the murder of an American resident by the Saudis was never seriously challenged.
And Jared has also been in the news lately over a not-altogether-legal scheme involving the Rothschild banking dynasty that was coordinated with corrupt local officials to acquire an island offshore of Albania to develop into an Adriatic Sea luxury resort. Local people were revolted by the development itself and the corruption involved and turned out in their tens of thousands to protest, forcing the government to back down on the deal.
Corruption might be Jared’s middle name! Beyond the development projects erected over both environment devastation and a mountain of dead bodies, the tragedy of Jared Kushner is his destruction of his slice of US foreign policy out of deference to Trump and his own family interests, which also meant making billions of sometimes insider trading generated dollars as part of the process. A new book by Matthew Cole on his perfidy has just appeared entitled “Princes and Thieves.” There have also number of articles on it and related issues, one of which by Charles P Pierce in Esquire magazine bore the possibly appropriate title “Jared Kushner Is the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to This Country, Maybe the World” subtitled “A new book reveals the extent of his shady dealings in the Middle East.”
The book makes the claim that Jared Kushner conducted something like diplomacy for profit without regard for actual American interests, behavior that might be regarded as treasonous by many. Also considering that Jared was privy to intelligence secrets through his White House access, one might reasonably argue that he shared such information with his “investors” from the Persian Gulf and Israel, meaning that he was engaged in espionage. A major revelation is how he and several United Arab Emirate leaders conspired during Trump’s first term in office to establish a $2 billion in slush funds as part of a plan to influence US foreign policy in the region. Kushner’s ties to Gulf money have also drawn scrutiny more recently. After leaving the White House in 2020, his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a deal that has drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs. Affinity has also invested in an Israeli weapons manufacturer, making one question his sincerity in “negotiating” to bring a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Jared Kushner certainly knew then and knows now that any efforts made by him to shape US policy that came from a foreign government that had provided him with money would make him an agent of a foreign power and require his registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. The act requires citizens who lobby in that fashion to declare themselves and the country they are working for to the Justice Department. Once registered, the individual or group would be required to observe complete transparency over the sources of its income and it political contacts with foreign officials. It is presumed that Kushner might be investigated and charged by the new Congress that will be installed as a consequence of the recent election regarding any number of crimes but even if it does happen in the next two years he will likely be pardoned by Trump.
What does Jared Kushner have to say about his behavior? Inevitably, he has denied the claims made in the Cole book, though he has refused to be interviewed on the subject. His lawyer has promised lawsuits however and has already filed one against Vanity Fair, which published an article by Cole on the subject. The book’s claims are in fact supported by descriptions of the access of Cole’s often anonymous sources in his notes, citing, for example, “a confidential source with direct knowledge” and “author interview with source who attended the meeting.” What is already known confirms that Kushner’s key relationship initially, beyond that with Israel, was with the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed (widely known as MBZ). It developed after the first election of Donald Trump in 2016, with Kushner being identified as the key player supported by the substantial secret bank account to be able to influence the new president on Middle Eastern policy. Per Cole, four senior officials from Trump’s first term, including two national security advisers, stated to him that they knew of no presidential approval for Kushner to have access to any foreign government’s bank accounts which means the UAE relationship was secret right from the beginning.
A highly respectable source that has been plausibly identified by Pierce in his article relating to the Kushner-UAE relationship is, perhaps surprisingly, Dutch government intelligence. “Sometime in late 2017, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) made a startling discovery: A General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) operative, a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data, was traveling to the UK for an espionage mission. When the Russian national arrived in England, the Dutch informed him that he had two options: he could work for them against the GRU, or the British would arrest him. Once in UK government custody, the operative would be charged with espionage. If convicted, he would spend years in a British prison. The Russian chose to change his employer. Later that year, the Russian operative gave the Dutch spies access to one of the GRU’s most sensitive assets. Located in Rostov, Russia, the GRU’s hacking and cyber team operated a remote server on which they stored some of their bounty. During their search through these secret files, the Dutch found something astonishing: screenshots of Jared Kushner’s iPhone. As they monitored Kushner’s phone, they discovered he used it to log in to a UAE bank account. By the time the Dutch spies had visibility into the phone, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. Their initial assessment was that the bank account was affiliated with the government there.”
The connivance between MBZ and Kushner in what was to follow, whatever its provenance, would represent what must surely be the worst case ever of US foreign policy being managed clandestinely without any regard for the Constitution, the established federal government bureaucracy, nor both the president and Secretary of State, neither of whom were aware of the relationship. In this case, Cole demonstrates how Kushner worked with the UAE to determine US policy across the Middle East and, in return, he was given full access to “slush fund” bank accounts set up for that purpose. Beyond the UAE, it is believed that Kushner used the money to cultivate relationships and come to secret agreements with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Some of the money was apparently also used to establish friendly regimes in Egypt, Yemen, Qatar and Libya. One major objective was to support the rise of Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince of Saudi Arabia and, ultimately, the normalization of relations between Israel and many of the Muslim powers, the so-called Abraham Accords.
As it turned out, the UAE’s expectations were borne out by what followed. Trump did indeed make Kushner his senior adviser with a broadly conceived brief that included the pursuit of a final settlement in the Middle East that would benefit both Israel and the UAE. Kushner benefited from the development in that he was able to operate without any oversight while having access both to top secret information and the ear of the president, all of which was financed by what was in practice unlimited dollar accounts coming from the Saudis and the Emirates.
And one should not ignore what was in it for Israel. Israel-firster Kushner, for his part, gained the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his arrangement with MBZ produced results for Jewish State in terms of the Gulf States often noted failure to align with the Palestinians as Israel moved to takeover both Gaza and the West Bank. Kushner was also able to manipulate Trump, a relatively easy task as both he and the president were already largely dominated by Netanyahu. Interestingly, Kushner and his family as well as several Trumps, including the president, were also getting rich as a side benefit while allowing US foreign policy to be largely influenced and even controlled by several foreign powers.
Russia backs Tehran’s conditions in talks with US, Iran’s envoy says
Al Mayadeen | November 7, 2026
Moscow understands and supports Tehran’s firm position on negotiations with the United States, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said on Saturday, stressing that dialogue alone cannot advance diplomacy without the fulfillment of Iran’s strategic conditions.
Speaking about a three-hour meeting between Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jalali said the discussions addressed strategic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow, as well as Iran’s position on Washington’s failure to honor its commitments.
Jalali explained that Rezaei conveyed to Putin that direct negotiations with Washington would serve no purpose without guarantees, adding that the fundamental condition for any diplomatic initiative is the full and unconditional acceptance of Iran’s seven conditions by the US.
According to Jalali, Rezaei stressed that “negotiations will not be the basis for ending the war, and experience has proven that Washington uses the dialogue process to commit aggression.”
Iran and Russia discuss strategic and military cooperation
Jalali also said Russia supports Tehran’s position that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) treats Iran with “discriminatory and irregular conduct.”
He further confirmed that military cooperation between Iran and Russia remains ongoing, pointing to consultations at the highest levels on deepening military and defense ties between the two countries.
Meanwhile, a senior Iranian political and security source told Al Mayadeen on Thursday that Tehran sees no point in taking any step to advance diplomacy before Iran’s seven conditions are fully and simultaneously implemented.
The source also dismissed reports claiming that Rezaei had presented a new political initiative to Putin, saying they are “pure fabrication.”
Rezaei also revealed that discussions with Putin covered a proposed pipeline project to transport Russian gas to Iran, which he said would meet Tehran’s domestic needs while allowing it to resell part of the supply.
He further said Putin condemned attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, said that the war on Iran is unjust, and pledged to help bring it to an end. “President Putin said that he would do everything possible to help end the war,” Rezaei stated.
An Iranian source told Al Mayadeen that Tehran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until its seven conditions were met, adding that the decision was not open to negotiation. The source said the talks between Rezaei and Putin focused on efforts to end the US war on Iran.
Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi highlighted the depth of bilateral ties, saying, “Never in the history of cooperation between Iran and Russia have we been this close.” He also praised his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Tehran, which covered various areas of cooperation between the two countries.
Would President Vance really ditch Israel?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 6, 2026
Never hesitate to state the obvious: Everyone with eyes to see is recognizing that the US midterm elections have been sensational. The Democrats have achieved a stupendous – “historic” according to the Financial Times – triumph; the Republicans have suffered a crushing, Stalingrad-scale rout.
Let’s focus on the rout: This is the moment when, on the same day, a New York Times front page main headline promises to explain the GOP’s “historic collapse” while Tucker Carlson starts his show with a wry “well, that was a disaster” (adding that he really means “disaster,” as in the sinking of the Lusitania, not rain at a wedding party).
You may suspect both America’s paper of liberal Centrism and the former Fox host turned MAGA dissident of bias or, at least, Schadenfreude. Yet bias is simply irrelevant in this case, where, for once, the facts really do speak for themselves: The great, enormous, humungous GOP midterm catastrophe is quantifiably worse than the 2006 drubbing the party received for George W. Bush’s Iraq War insanity or the “shellacking” – in his own words – voters administered to Barack Obama and his Democrats in 2010. As the staid Economist has summed up the Republican fiasco, this is “not a normal midterm swing against a sitting president, but the biggest wave-election since the aftermath of Watergate more than 50 years ago.”
What is even clearer than that the Republicans have been devastated is that one man in particular has taken a stunning hit: US President Donald Trump. He may insist that he was not on the ballot as much as he likes. No one is fooled. Of course, he was, if not officially – as no president ever is during midterms – then all the more in reality. This was, the Wall Street Journal has noted correctly, “one of the most decisive repudiations of a president in modern history.”
The causes of this “blue tsunami” will keep commentators and, later, historians busy. Here, let’s just note two things: They go beyond the key issues of “affordability,” a typical US euphemism for mass impoverishment and the “Iran War,” in effect another euphemism, standing for a US defeat much worse than Vietnam, incurred for no real reason other than to please genocidal Israel. In particular, the spike in gasoline prices resulting, most of all, directly from this perfectly avoidable war and defeat has delivered a gut punch to Trump’s party.
But also recall that US voters, as we know from polls, are angry as well about such things as the tariff wars that made their lives more expensive even before the Iran War, the blatant rapacity of the Trump clan and their cronies, and the shooting of US citizens in brutal ICE crackdowns.
Not to speak of bulldozing part of the White House in a quixotic quest for the biggest, blingest ballroom of them all. Most of all, perhaps, there is a deep background noise of resentment at a president who seems to make a point out of displaying how little he cares. About his countrymen and about his own promises of no more wars and putting America first, and not Israel.
And now? That is, of course, the most important and most urgent question of this moment. Rumors are swirling: The (political) heads of Secretary of War (On Behalf of Israel) Pete Hegseth and Trump’s chief of staff and single most important adviser Susie Wiles are said to be on the chopping block, for instance.
In this volatile dog-eats-panicked-dog world, one man seems to have made up his mind rapidly. Vice President J. D. Vance, former vehement Trump critic, then devoted Trump convert, has had another moment of revelation and rebirth. With the battle scarcely over and lost, he has addressed the public via X to, in essence, put as much distance between himself and his losing boss as he possibly can while, perhaps, keeping his job.
In a long post, Vance has outlined his theory of why the GOP was crushed. Unusually rich in detail about polling, turnout, and voter movements from one camp (the GOP) into the other (the Democrats), the gist of the post is one clear if implicit message: It’s Trump who is to blame.
Because that’s what you are saying when you say, as Vance does, that the key issue that lost the election was the war against Iran. If you add, as Vance also does, that voters wanted not only an end to that war but also a “focus on cost of living/inflation,” putting America truly first, and a “change of our relationship to Israel,” the point gets only clearer. The Wall Street Journal is right: This was a “stunning repudiation” of Trump.
For while Trump is by no means the only one to blame for the perverse American dependency on and support of a hyper-aggressive and genocidal midget state (that would be virtually the whole US establishment), he has made himself the single most prominent epitome of this national syndrome. And that makes him the single most convenient fall guy, too.
There’s no reason to pity Trump for being stabbed in the back by his very own Brutus. It was always clear that Vance is, to put it mildly, highly flexible in his positions and values as well as unscrupulous. His burning ambition is, if anything, even more obvious: Hire a Vance, don’t complain when he’ll kick and stab you when you’re down.
The Iranian leadership has made no secret of being highly unimpressed by Vance’s latest self-update. “Losing gambler energy, can’t walk away from the table. Boss is prepping the next war phase while America teeters on an Israel-First cliff. Skip the TED talk. Why not say this to your boss?” That was the response of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament.
Tehran has every reason to be harsh as well as skeptical. But for the rest of us, it makes sense not to dismiss Vance’s sally so quickly. His motives are certain to be selfish. The fact that he was launched by one of America’s most devious and power-hungry oligarchs, Antichrist-obsessive Peter Thiel, makes his CV even less appealing. But we still have to ask what he may have in mind with his “break” with Trump.
Clearly, Vance is positioning himself for a potential run for the presidency. But what would be his agenda if he ran and won? Skeptics see a massive psyop: Vance will only pretend to offer MAGA cleansed of Trumpian contaminations, in other words, to really put America and Americans first, and cut Israel loose. In reality, they predict, his aim is to betray his potential voters no less than Trump has. Trust neither Vance nor his friend and MAGA rebel Tucker Carlson, the skeptics warn, because they will, in the end, sell out to Zionism and give you the same old, same old again.
There is no compelling reason to rule out such a scenario. Yet there is no reason to find it inevitable either. It is equally possible that Vance – out of opportunism, not because of the conscience he does not have – could really stand for a great right-wing turn away from Israel. Not because Israel is genocidal and all-purpose criminal, but because being tied to it is becoming far too politically costly.
This possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. For two reasons: First, being Israel’s tool in the Middle East has really produced catastrophe for the US and its establishment. And second, until now – or perhaps recently – supporting Israel come-what-may has been a vile bipartisan consensus. To break it down entirely will require great changes both among Democrats and Republicans.
US politics is exceptionally dark and often outright evil. But the geopolitics and the domestic calculus of the long decades of America’s “Israel First” obsession could shift even in that world of darkness. For Israel’s victims, the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemenis, Iranians, and many others, it won’t matter why exactly the US will finally stop propping up their tormenters. A realistic commitment to their liberation must focus first of all on getting the US out of the Middle East. Under what regime at home it will make that retreat may matter. Or not.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Using nuclear weapons, the US-Israeli alliance still can’t beat Iran
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2026
While it is true that conventional weapons cannot penetrate Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site, there is no guarantee that using a nuclear weapon will actually yield results. Instead, the fall-out is the only thing that is certain.
The United States, at the behest of their Israeli partners, are speculated to be weighing the nuclear option against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has continued to make threats against Tehran, claiming that he will even deploy the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB).
However, the target that the Trump administration and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu appear the most obsessed with, is the facility located under Pickaxe Mountain, near the Natanz Nuclear Facility. Satellite imagery suggests that there has been significant activity at the site, at least according to US media.
All the talk of bombing this site, which Trump himself has publicly threatened to do, is predicated on the concept that Iran’s highly enriched Uranium is located at this underground facility. Based upon this assessment, there’s only one way to go about destroying that target. A MOAB is not a bunker buster munition, it is an airburst weapon, therefore officials in Washington can’t be seriously considering this as their weapon of choice.
Conventional weapons have failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and underground missile facilities, meaning that the only natural last option is a tactical nuclear weapon.
Yet, there are a number of problems with this strategy, beyond the obvious implications of using nuclear weapons in the first place. The first obvious issue is that the US and Israelis don’t actually know with any degree of certainty that Iran is storing its enriched uranium at this site, at best it is an educated guess.
The next issue they face is that tactical nuclear weapons have never been used in combat, yet alone against this specific kind of target. While hypothetically the force of the weapon would destroy the underground facility, it is also possible that the mountain will absorb a lot of the shock, meaning that what will be felt will be like an earthquake, but not necessarily enough to destroy the infrastructure.
Another major issue that the US has is that they have no idea how deep the infrastructure is actually buried underneath the mountain range. They estimate that the nuclear facility could be buried around 80-100 meters, but have no blueprints and are again guessing. No nuclear inspectors have gained access to it to inspect, so there is no way of telling for sure. It is also unknown precisely where the US, or the Israelis, would have to strike in order to have any hypothetical success.
Let us assume that the US or their Israeli partners use the nuke and still fail to destroy the facility, or that Iran’s nuclear material is not even located there, would it be worth it to deploy such a weapon? Iran has built these facilities and its missile cities, with the threat of nuclear weapons in mind, meaning that they are more than likely prepared for such an eventuality also.
The response that would come to a nuclear attack on Pickaxe Mountain would then be enormous, killing any hope of a negotiated settlement in the short term, ensuring a long and bloody war. As we have seen demonstrated since the Israeli attack on Iran in June of 2025, conventional weapons cannot destroy Iranian underground missile facilities, meaning that they would then have to use countless nuclear weapons if they hoped to penetrate them. It would then be a doomsday scenario, and every front would ignite in a way that cannot be anticipated. In addition to this, the use of these weapons is not even guaranteed to achieve their goals.
Overall, the US-Israeli alliance is not actually attacking Iran over the nuclear weapons issue; they have attempted to inflict regime change. Using nuclear weapons against nuclear sites will do nothing to achieve the overthrow of the Iranian government.
For every offensive action that Washington carries out at the behest of Tel Aviv, Tehran has an answer for it. If there was a quick and simple road to victory, Netanyahu and Trump would have already taken it.
Using nuclear weapons would be a ridiculous and reckless mistake, with potential far-stretching consequences that span much further than the scope of this article. While the third round appears inevitable, the outcome will ultimately have to be a US retreat from the region. First, it is clear that the Zionist regime must be dealt a strategic defeat in order for that to be allowed to happen.
US-‘Israel’ alliance faces growing rupture after midterms
Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2026
The 2026 US midterm elections have exposed a deepening political crisis in Washington’s longstanding relationship with “Israel”, as Democratic victories, declining public support, and statements from senior Republican officials raise questions about the future of American military assistance and diplomatic backing, Bloomberg reports.
Michigan elected Abdul el-Sayed as the country’s first Muslim senator on Tuesday. His campaign included a pledge to end US military aid to the Israeli occupation and characterized its war on Gaza as genocide. His victory came despite the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) reportedly spending $30 million against him.
In Georgia, Senator Jon Ossoff secured reelection, reinforcing the growing presence of Democrats critical of American weapons transfers to “Israel”. Ossoff was among the first Senate Democrats to oppose offensive weapons sales in 2024, a position that has since gained support across much of his party’s caucus.
The electoral developments reflect a broader transformation in American political attitudes toward the occupation and the military campaign in Gaza.
According to a March NBC News poll cited in the original report, only 13% of Democrats held a positive view of “Israel”. The figure was comparable to the share among young American voters overall, regardless of political affiliation.
Minority of GOP support Israeli regime
The trend also extends into Republican ranks. A Pew Research Center survey published in October found that only slightly more than a quarter of young Republicans supported the Israeli government.
For decades, successive US administrations maintained bipartisan backing for the Israeli occupation, providing military financing, advanced weapons, and diplomatic protection. The changing political landscape now threatens the assumption that this support will remain unaffected by electoral competition.
Bloomberg reports that Michael Allen, managing director and partner at Beacon Global Strategies, said the developments had put “Israel” in a precarious position.
“For the foreseeable future I think they’re in a lot of trouble,” he said, pointing to the political developments following the Israeli elections.
AIPAC influence faces mounting electoral resistance
El-Sayed’s election carries significance beyond his victory in Michigan. It challenges the influence of pro-“Israel” lobbying organizations that have traditionally sought to shape congressional positions and electoral outcomes.
The reported $30 million campaign against him illustrates the financial resources deployed against candidates advocating restrictions on military assistance. His victory, however, demonstrates that opposition to unconditional support for “Israel” is gaining electoral ground despite substantial lobbying pressure.
The growing divide within the Democratic Party is particularly consequential as Democrats prepare to assume commanding majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Although legislative efforts to restrict arms transfers remain unlikely to become law under the current administration, a larger bloc of lawmakers opposing military assistance could increase scrutiny of weapons sales, military financing, and Washington’s diplomatic protection of “Israel”.
The shift also presents a longer-term challenge. Younger voters are increasingly approaching the issue differently from previous generations, potentially reshaping the foreign policy positions of both major parties.
Trump and Vance signal Republican reassessment
The political pressure has also reached the Republican leadership with US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly described himself as the most pro-“Israel” president in US history, announcing on Tuesday that Washington would end its annual $3.8 billion in military assistance to “Israel”.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said the arrangement would end this year, arguing that “Israel” had become sufficiently successful to operate without direct American military financing.
He also acknowledged the domestic political implications, describing the issue as “almost too easy a target.”
US Vice President JD Vance reinforced the significance of the announcement in a social media post published after the Republican electoral losses. He identified the need to “change our relationship to Israel” as central to the party’s efforts to regain control of Congress and the White House in 2028.
Vance is widely expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, making his intervention particularly significant.
The remarks suggest that maintaining unconditional support for “Israel” is increasingly being viewed as an electoral liability, even within Republican political circles.
Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, described the election results as a rejection of Netanyahu’s government.
“It is a clear vote of no confidence in the outgoing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” she said, Bloomberg reports. “This marks a huge, huge shift in the US-Israel relationship.”
Netanyahu faces political fallout as aid agreement comes under scrutiny
The developments in Washington coincide with Netanyahu’s struggle to retain power following the inconclusive October 27 elections in “Israel”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is expected to decide whether Netanyahu or his principal challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, will receive the first opportunity to form a government.
Opposition figures have already used the American election results to challenge Netanyahu’s political position.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid argued that the results eliminated the possibility of a unity government led by Netanyahu. Liberal opposition leader Yair Golan said they demonstrated “just how toxic Netanyahu is among both Democrats and Republicans.”
Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, head of US-“Israel” research at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, described the situation as a major political emergency.
“Politically, this is a five-alarm fire,” he told Bloomberg.
He argued that Trump’s announcement demonstrated how politically damaging “Israel” had become, potentially sending negative signals to its regional rivals.
‘We made a deal that we’re stopping’
The financial implications remain uncertain. Earlier this year, Netanyahu reportedly expressed interest in gradually reducing dependence on US military assistance over the following decade. In June, American and Israeli officials announced negotiations over a new agreement expected to take effect in 2028, focusing on joint investment in research, development, and weapons production.
Trump told Fox News, “Netanyahu and I have made a deal … We made a deal months ago that we’re stopping — and they’re fine with it. They’ve become a very successful country. They don’t need it. And we won’t be paying anymore.”
However, the announcement appears to have caught Israeli government officials off guard.
Two Finance Ministry officials told Bloomberg that they and their counterparts in the Ministry of War were surprised by the reported agreement. Two Foreign Ministry officials separately said they had not been informed of any changes to the existing memorandum of understanding. All four requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The apparent discrepancy raises questions about the agreement’s status and whether Washington is preparing to alter the financial foundations of its relationship with “Israel”.
GOP’s Crushing Midterm Loss Could Reshape US Political Landscape – Analyst
Sputnik – 05.11.2026
The Republicans suffered one of their worst defeats in decades, driven by the US administration’s catastrophic decision to unleash aggression against Iran, says Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, speaking to Sputnik.
He warns that the GOP’s midterm fiasco will have serious political blowback, chiefly by weakening Trump’s standing at home and abroad.
Domestically, the US is certainly in for an extremely fierce political struggle, Suslov cautions.
- The US could be plunged into a series of never-ending government shutdowns, especially next year
- A budget crisis could blow up as investigators launch probes into every corner of GOP activity
- Secretary of War Pete Hegseth will “undoubtedly face impeachment proceedings,” and his future remains uncertain
Suslov suggests that US foreign policy as a whole will not change, though the Democrats will most likely try to throw a wrench in the works by passing bills to tie Trump’s hands.
When it comes to the Ukraine conflict, the GOP’s painful midterm rout will have far-reaching implications, the expert points out.
- Ukraine and Europe will now see Trump as “a lame duck,” and Zelensky will undoubtedly grow ever more insolent, relying on Democrat backing
- Trump’s ability to apply coercive measures on Ukraine will be far more limited
- For Russia, a Democrat win spells rapidly fading hopes for better ties with the US once the Ukraine conflict ends — and a growing threat of fresh sanctions
That leaves Russia with no incentive to make concessions on Ukraine in exchange for future US economic cooperation — now appearing to be an increasingly remote prospect, Suslov concludes.
Midterm loss gives Congress power to rein in US war on Iran
Al Mayadeen| November 5, 2026
Tuesday’s midterm elections have left US President Donald Trump facing a Congress with the constitutional means to restrain the US war on Iran, while strengthening Tehran’s hand in negotiations over its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Washington.
Retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski and Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, reached that assessment on Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff on Wednesday.
They tied the Republican losses to Trump’s abandoned promises to end wars and prosecute the “Epstein class,” the economic toll of the war on Iran, and a growing American backlash against Israeli influence in Washington.
Marandi called the result “a major turning point,” though he stressed that the war is far from over.
Congress holds the power to act
The Congress to be seated in January 2027 “was elected to stop the Iran war,” Kwiatkowski argued, and it has several levers to do so. House appropriators can freeze funds not yet disbursed, she explained, while the Senate can pass binding resolutions and refuse a declaration of war, which the Constitution requires.
She noted that Trump has already exceeded the 60-day limit on military action and dismissed his move of halting at day 58 and restarting the clock as “a joke.” A non-binding Senate resolution criticizing the war passed this summer by only a vote or two, she recalled, but a Senate majority now opposed to it could bar him from acting and censure him.
Kwiatkowski cautioned that change will not come overnight, since AIPAC has lobbied lawmakers of both parties for decades. She pointed out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer still avoids admitting the war was fought for “Israel,” even though Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have acknowledged that Netanyahu wanted it.
Marandi stressed that the vote also raises the political cost of escalation. A renewed attack would be seen as illegitimate because Americans voted against the war, he predicted, adding that “the price would be much heavier for him and his allies” than before the election.
‘Israel,’ AIPAC take the hit
Both guests named “Israel” as the election’s biggest loser.
Marandi pointed out that Vice President JD Vance himself conceded “Israel” was a key factor in the Republican defeat, since all four reasons Vance cited link directly or indirectly to it.
Kwiatkowski judged Vance’s reading correct but suggested he is trying to distance himself from a sinking Trump, and doubted he would act on it after helping Trump attack anti-war conservatives.
Winning Candidates refused AIPAC money and used the word genocide, Kwiatkowski observed, singling out incoming senators Talarico of Texas and El-Sayed of Michigan, who both voiced moral revulsion at US taxpayer money funding a genocide in Gaza. “That is a slap in Netanyahu’s face,” she said, adding that candidates who defy AIPAC and still win will encourage others to follow.
Marandi cited polls showing young Jewish Americans oppose genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and credited Americans with waking up “despite being the most propagandized people in the world.” He warned against naivety about the Democratic leadership, though, noting that Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries backed Biden’s policy on Gaza.
A president unlikely to change course
Kwiatkowski rejected Trump’s claim that election results would have been different had he been on the ballot, describing the vote as a referendum on his executive-centered rule.
She also doubted he would adjust, arguing that “the Trump who is 80 years old is irrational” and that only Congress and sustained public pressure can constrain him.
In her view, he is more likely to pick a fight with a Democratic Congress over Ukraine, where Democrats want to keep funding Kiev and maintain tariffs on Russia.
Iran prepares for war
Marandi warned that a US attack could come at any moment. Iranian forces are on full alert, three US aircraft carriers are in place, and “the nights will be very dark” as the weekend approaches, he said.
He added that the Axis of Resistance is active on all fronts, from Lebanon to Sanaa and from Iraq to Tehran, and extended congratulations to Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine for helping shift opinion in the United States.
Iran, he continued, will keep tightening the noose in the Strait of Hormuz and demand full US compliance with the MOU. Tehran would shorten the implementation timeline and is ready to “sugarcoat the MOU,” but it will not withdraw its seven demands or allow the substance to change.
He contended that Iran is now in a much stronger position and Trump a much weaker one, noting that Jimmy Carter, whose comparison Trump has long feared, “looks far more successful” in hindsight.
Carter’s shadow over Trump
The discussion turned to the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, which Marandi argued Americans are taught to see as the origin of the US’ conflict with Iran, as though the takeover were an irrational act with no cause. Iranians view it differently, he explained, because it followed decades of US interference.
Washington overthrew Iran’s government in 1953, installed the Shah and helped build the SAVAK secret police. During the revolution, the army killed protesters across the country, including on Black Friday in Tehran, and Carter phoned the Shah the next day to reaffirm his support.
After the revolution, Marandi continued, the embassy supported separatist groups and kept contact with officers who might carry out a coup. The decision to admit the Shah to the United States then revived fears of a repeat of 1953, and that was what pushed Iranians to take the embassy.
He hoped that Americans, now more politically aware because of the war, would come to understand that history better.
Kwiatkowski saw the same continuity in Washington’s present-day aims, arguing that US goals toward Iran have barely changed since Carter and still amount to making Iran “kneel before the hegemon.”
She called it a long war, but affirmed that “Iran is winning it.”
Midterms Were ‘Vote of No Confidence’ in GOP, But Iran Has No Illusions About Democrats – Marandi
Sputnik – 05.11.2026
Tuesday’s crushing midterm defeat for Republicans was a “good sign” showing “that the American people are pushing the elites” and “putting pressure on them,” but the Democrats’ victory won’t bring positive changes to US foreign policy, Tehran University professor and prolific political commentator Mohammad Marandi has told Sputnik.
“The Democratic Party is not a party of peace,” Marandi emphasized, pointing out that Democrats were in charge when Israel unleashed its bloody campaign in Gaza in 2023, and initiated or greenlit the bombings, dirty wars and proxy conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as the crisis in Ukraine.
As far as Iran is concerned, the change of power in Congress “doesn’t mean the war is over.” The US “may attack Iran at any time. But it does mean that the regime in Washington, the political establishment in Washington, recognizes that the American people are sick and tired of war,” Marandi said.
“The working assumption is that the United States will carry out aggression,” Marandi emphasized.
“The [pro-Israel lobby] will not give up, and they are the ones who are still in charge,” Marandi said. He warned, however, that any new war will be “much more costly” for the US and Israel, both politically and militarily.
“Any attack on Iran will be met with a decisive response, and that will lead to a global economic calamity.”
Israel will inevitably also work to try to rope the US into a new conflict, because they can’t fight alone, the observer noted.
Israel “needs, for example, the refueling planes of the United States. That would mean US involvement…And that, of course, would mean the involvement of the Arab regimes in the region…because the United States uses their bases, airspace and jet fuel,” Marandi said.
“Iran is both prepared for a very decisive battle in the coming days or weeks, and they’re prepared for a very long-term conflict as well,” with the government putting a wartime economy in place, Marandi said.
The military has received “a very large budget,” with the country traditionally having “the smallest military budget in the region” for decades.
The military is building “new underground cities,” expanding existing missile city and command and control infrastructure, developing new missiles, drones, and producing so much equipment they’re running out of places to store them, Marandi said.
The Islamic Republic is ready to fight through the remainder of the current US administration’s term, if necessary, and will not relent, Marandi stressed. The US will have to come to the negotiating table in the end.
Did Israel lose the midterms?
Trump is paying a heavy price for joining Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran
RT | November 4, 2026
The view from Washington is clear: President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran cost the Republican Party the midterm elections. RT looks at how Benjamin Netanyahu’s war became Trump’s problem and whether Israel will bear any costs.
The Republican Party suffered an unequivocal wipeout in Tuesday’s midterm elections, handing Democrats their largest House majority since Bill Clinton entered the White House in 1993, along with a majority of at least ten seats in the Senate. Democrats flipped Senate seats in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, and Maine, while Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Greg Abbott lost in Ohio and Texas respectively – states Trump won comfortably in 2024.
All of this is a dramatic about-turn from 2024, when Trump and the GOP won a decisive mandate after promising to lower costs and keep the US out of foreign wars.
Did Israel cost Trump the elections?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House five times between Trump’s inauguration and the start of ‘Operation Epic Fury’ this February. The Israeli leader consulted Trump’s closest neoconservative allies, among them the late Senator Lindsey Graham, for advice on how to persuade Trump into war with Iran, and when the war began, an army of pro-Israel podcasters and influencers reassured Trump’s base that it would be easily won and would have no impact on the midterms.
“I think in the midterms this will be kind of a mild footnote,” conservative journalist Will Chamberlain predicted in April, two months into the war. “Whatever happens in the midterms, it doesn’t appear that Iran’s going to drive anything one way or another,” pro-Israel radio host Mark Levin told podcast host Ben Shapiro in September.
Shapiro, who like Levin has spent years lobbying for war with Iran, claimed that Trump’s unpopularity in the run-up to the elections was “not because of this stuff.”
Trump entered the war with no clear victory conditions or exit plan and, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the direct behest of Israel. Although the war is the least popular American military adventure since Vietnam, Pew Research ranked foreign policy the sixth-most important issue among midterm voters, with the economy in first place. Trump and the GOP could likely have survived an unpopular war had the closure of the Strait of Hormuz not driven gasoline prices to record highs, undermining his campaign trail promises to reverse the sky-high costs of the Biden years.
What’s the view on the right?
To many in Trump’s original MAGA base, the war was a catastrophic unforced error that directly cost the Republicans the elections. “Trump launched an unpopular and pointless war. Gas prices are too high. People can’t afford groceries. Trump abandoned the American First message. This is why Republicans are getting crushed. It’s very simple,” podcast host Matt Walsh wrote on X.
“Tonight is a massacre because of Iran,” right-wing influencer Scott Greer posted, adding that “denying that is pure cope.”
“President Trump, and it’s hard to even understand why, continues to do whatever Netanyahu tells him to do,” former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told RT. “We will continue to see this war go on.”
The pro-Israel right has shirked responsibility for the loss. “The vast majority of us are utterly unaffected by that war,” Levin said on election night. “If we lose… it’s not because of the Iran war.” Neoconservative influencer Joel Berry blamed the loss not on Trump’s war or high gas prices, but on “a sophisticated foreign demoralization campaign” that drew attention to these issues, and on Republicans going “socialist on economics and soft on abortion.”
In Tehran, the prognosis is [dis]similar. “I think the war of aggression against Iran played the key role in Trump’s defeat,” University of Tehran professor Mohammad Marandi told RT. “The Iranian resistance and resilience and steadfastness against Trump and Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby… it has turned the tide against Trump.”
“While there is a uniparty of sorts [in Washington],” Marandi continued, “ordinary people felt that this is the only way that they could make their views known. It was a bad defeat for Trump and for Zionism.”
Did Israel lose its bet?
In pressuring Trump into attacking Iran, Netanyahu succeeded where he had failed with George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Trump, the Israeli prime minister remarked last year, “is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. No American president has ever done more for Israel. And it’s not even close.”
Pro-Israel donors spent around $123 million on Trump’s 2024 campaign, with Israeli-American megadonor Miriam Adelson coughing up the lion’s share at $106 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Since then, Trump has purged anti-Israel voices – including Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, and a host of formerly loyal media allies including Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones – from his MAGA movement, and given Netanyahu the war he wanted for decades, but at a cost to West Jerusalem.
American sympathy for Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians is at an all-time low, more than half of all Americans want military aid to Israel cut off or decreased, and 71% of Americans told Ipsos in April that they want nothing to do with Israel’s various Middle Eastern conflicts. Tens of millions of dollars in donations from the US’ powerful Israel lobby failed to prevent candidates such as Senators-elect Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan and Representatives-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, Adam Hamawy in New Jersey, and Donavan McKinney in Michigan from winning on an explicitly anti-Israel message.
A Democrat-dominated Congress may be slightly less compliant to Netanyahu’s demands, but regardless of whether the GOP won or lost on Tuesday, the Israeli leader is currently fighting to form a coalition after losing his majority in last week’s parliamentary elections, and may not be in power in January.
Moreover, the Israel lobby remains a potent force in American politics, and its influence transcends party lines. Hakeem Jeffries, who will assume speakership in January, is among the 354 of 433 sitting members of the House who have received funding from AIPAC, while el-Sayed will be the only Senator not to have taken money from AIPAC or another pro-Israel group such as J Street or the Republican Jewish Coalition.
AIPAC spent $120 million on this year’s midterms, and 245 of 267 candidates – 92% – backed by the group won their races on Tuesday, according to data from ‘Who Funds my Rep?’
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Democratic Party or the Republican Party,” Marandi told RT. “Both parties are utterly corrupt and bound to the ‘Epstein Class’, as I would call it. The issue isn’t so much who replaces whom, but that the mood among ordinary Americans has shifted. If the elites don’t take this into account, they will get into trouble.”
Did Iran win the elections?
Whether or not Iran benefits from the Republican loss depends largely on what Trump does next. The midterms may have rendered Trump a lame duck and dealt the GOP a generational defeat, but the president still retains the power to wage war, and that’s exactly what some of his most vocal ‘Israel-first’ allies want him to do.
There is “nothing to lose now,” pro-Israel influencer Laura Loomer wrote on X. “Time for President Trump to deal with Iran once and for all. Just do it.”
“Trump still has time to topple the [Iranian] regime and be remembered as one of the greatest US presidents,” Israeli analyst Dr. Eli David posted.
Trump has strongly suggested that he could restart the war after the midterms, telling supporters at a rally last week that “you’ll see Iran in a couple of weeks.” Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, the president said that “in a short period of time, we have to do something large” against Iran, and that this would likely involve a “heavy hit.”
Should Trump go down this route, he is on a clear countdown timer. The new, Democrat-controlled Congress will be sworn in on January 3. Although Democrats have voted on several resolutions this year aimed at preventing Trump from waging war against Iran, these have all been destined to fail with Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress. Now, voters expect even their AIPAC-funded Senators and Representatives to follow through and rein in Trump’s war powers.
“If Trump chooses to attack Iran now,” Marandi told RT, “Democrats and some Republicans will be under some pressure to stand up to Trump, whether their funders like it or not.”
Tehran is not holding out hope for a course correction in Washington, but Tuesday’s election taught both parties a lesson that will reverberate for years to come: picking a fight with Iran is economically unviable, domestically unpopular, and political suicide for whoever is in the White House.
The bottom line
Trump and the GOP paid the ultimate price for agreeing to fight Benjamin Netanyahu’s war, with only the most die-hard Israel-firsters in the Republican camp suggesting that anything else was to blame for the shellacking the party received on Tuesday.
For Israel, the results are less clear. Netanyahu, or whoever succeeds him, may never get another American president as amenable as Trump. However, the Israelis still have a powerful lobby in Washington that will get to work on the new Congress, just as it has done for decades, to make extricating the US from the Iran war as difficult as possible.
Desperate For A Renewed Iran War, Israel Dusts Off The WMD Deception.
Just As It Did In Iraq And Syria , Israel Has Launched A New WMD Deception.
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | November 4, 2026
Israel, increasingly desperate to have the U.S. launch a new war on Iran, has dusted off the WMD deception sharing clearly manipulated “intelligence” with the U.S. claiming that Iran is planning on using chemical weapons.
Even the New York Times acknowledged that “Some American officials see the Israeli intelligence as part of a pressure campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to persuade the Trump administration to return to major combat operations against Iran” and that several Gulf State countries that Israel shared the “intelligence” with “doubted that Iran was developing plans to use chemical weapons and believe Israel is trying to push the United States and its partners to return to a more intense phase of the war.”
“For some American officials, the talk of chemical weapons threats from Iran has evoked the flawed U.S. intelligence in 2002 about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”, the paper added.
In fact, it was Israel, that played a large role in collaboration with its neo-conservative allies in the Bush administration to cook up that WMD deception used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Journalist Bob Dreyfuss in 2003 reported that, “feeding information to the Office of Special Plans (OSP)”, the special unit created in the Pentagon to launder the deception “was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit … which has not previously been reported–prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans” adding, “This secretive unit,… may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official”.
The Guardian reported at the time that the OSP “forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel, specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorize,” adding, “The Israeli influence was revealed most clearly by a story floated by unnamed senior US officials in the American press, suggesting the reason that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq was that they had been smuggled into Syria. Intelligence sources say that the story came from the office of the Israeli prime minister”.
The LA Times in 2005 reported that “A former senior Israeli military intelligence official asserted Thursday that the nation’s spy agencies were a ‘full partner’ to the United States and Britain in producing flawed prewar assessments of Iraq’s ability to mount attacks with weapons of mass destruction”.
Similarly, Israel played a key role in cooking up the “red line” comment used to justify the covert dirty war on Syria.
When Obama said that his “red line” for intervention in Syria would be the use of chemical weapons on rebels from the former Assad government, the journalist Charles Glass reported that a former US ambassador to the Middle East told him that this was seen as an “open invitation to a false-flag operation”.
The “red line” comment “started with Israeli officials, who used the phrase in private discussions with their American counterparts”, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal at the time.
In 2013, when the red line was crossed in Ghouta, Syria, where rockets containing Sarin were launched, killing hundreds – likely from rebel-controlled territory – it was Israel that “shared” the dubious intelligence reports blaming Assad’s forces for the attack.
Journalist Seymour Hersh reported at the time that “A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening,” adding, “One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the administration’s assurances of Assad’s responsibility a ‘ruse’. The attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’, he wrote.”
This was backed up by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, who reported that, “Director of National Intelligence James Clapper interrupted the president’s daily briefing to tell him that the intelligence on Syria’s use of sarin gas was ‘not a slam dunk’” adding that this was a “carefully chosen term” referring to when “CIA Director George Tenet infamously told President George W. Bush that intelligence leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a ‘slam dunk.’”
According to the Guardian at the time, “The bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime’s deployment of chemical weapons – which would provide legal grounds essential to justify any western military action – has been provided by Israeli military intelligence”.
Hacked emails later showed that at the time, Samantha Power, then US ambassador to the United Nations, thanked the ambassador of Israel to the UN, Ron Prosor, for sharing “technical information … of significant value in dealing with the Syrian chemical arsenal.”
“‘For my non-technical brain, this is extremely helpful,’ she wrote. ‘I know that these options are being worked aggressively,’ she continued — a reference to her ongoing crusade to enforce Obama’s ‘Red Line’ policy by bombing Syria and assisting the Al Qaeda-led armed opposition”, journalist Wyatt Reed reported.
Desperate for Trump to carry out regime change in Iran, Israel yet again is dusting off the same deceptive playbook in order to have the U.S. carry out the final war on the “clean break” hit list.
Broke Princes: Saudi Arabia’s Powder Keg
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – November 3, 2026
Iran Weathering The Storm, But Saudi Arabia Is Sinking
By Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities | November 2, 2026
While the disastrous US-Israeli attempt to impose regime change on Iran has commanded the world’s attention, most people are oblivious to the rising probability that regime change is instead coming to a major US and Israeli partner: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Owing to financial strains, demographics, military failures, and simmering domestic discontent, it may only be a question of magnitude. That is, will Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) be removed by fellow members of the House of Saud, or will the 94-year-old kingdom collapse altogether? Most likely, we’ll see both things happen in fairly rapid succession.
To understand why Saudi Arabia is in danger of falling apart, it’s important to first understand what’s been holding it together since Ibn Saud united a land of many tribes into a huge new state in 1932:
- Power-sharing across the branches of the Saudi royal family. Traditionally, authorities were shared among many senior princes, with their ministries providing each with a base of power and a well of patronage to tap. Major decisions were made by consensus, consistent with the Islamic principle of shura, which is expressly encouraged by the Quran.
- The integration of the Wahhabi religious establishment into Saudi government. Wahhabism is an austere and puritanical variant of Sunni Islam that arose in central Arabia in the 18th century and came to dominate it. In exchange for the Wahhabists’ bestowing of religious legitimacy on the monarchy, the Wahhabi religious authorities — or ulema — were given authority to guide schools, run charitable entities and enforce social norms.
- Tribal loyalty given in exchange for patronage and influence. The Arabian peninsula is home to dozens of tribes, with histories stretching back several hundred years or more. Their acquiescence to rule by the House of Saud has been secured via ongoing consultations and by government jobs, subsidies and contracts. Tribes have helped maintain internal peace by recognizing the monarchy’s authority, and by acting as mediators of disputes, and negotiators of access to tribal land and resources.
Everything changed when MBS became crown prince in 2017, as he radically concentrated power and decision-making in his own hands and those of a tight circle of trusted allies, to the detriment of the tribes and other members of the royal family. More than just a political maneuver, this was a bona fide revolution against the arrangement that had hitherto ensured the House of Saud’s survival.
In one of his first moves, MBS rounded up hundreds of Saudi royals and top business leaders and imprisoned them in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton hotel. Most of them were reportedly abused, both psychologically and physically. Seventeen were hospitalized, and a major general died in custody. Faced with corruption accusations, detainees secured their freedom by forking over $107 billion, according to the claims of Saudi officials.
MBS also provoked the Wahhabi ulema, as he undertook an agenda of liberalization and Westernization aimed at improving Saudi Arabia’s image and keeping the country’s youth content. These moves included allowing women to drive cars, ending the requirement for traveling women to have male guardians, relaxing women’s dress codes, re-opening cinemas after a decades-long ban, and allowing rock concerts and art festivals. He also stripped the Saudi religious police of their investigation and arrest powers, shifting the overseers to an advisory role.
“He has offended virtually every constituency of the royal family,” Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said on Judging Freedom. “He’s also offended the reactionary religious establishment, so he’s made a hell of a lot of enemies.”
MBS’s concentration of power isn’t entirely self-serving. His power grab was driven in part by a sense of urgency as Saudi Arabia stares down a looming financial disaster, which is rooted in the nature of the Saudi state, and exacerbated by its demographics.
Like many other states in the region, Saudi Arabia is an example of a rentier state — a state that derives the great majority of its revenue from sale of resources to other countries, rather than from the taxation of domestic economic and entrepreneurial activity.
In rentier states, the relationship of the people and the government is far different from the norm. Instead of relying on the citizenry as a source of funding, rentier states use their resources to distribute money to the citizenry. “The state doesn’t need its citizens to work hard and pay taxes. It needs them to stay content,” explained The Marrow in a video report on Saudi Arabia’s challenges.
Rentier states are put in danger when revenue becomes insufficient to sustain the flow of money to the people. For Saudi Arabia, two variables have been moving in dangerous directions: the population has grown by leaps and bounds since the 1970s, and oil revenues haven’t kept up.
Saudi Arabia now has an extraordinarily young population: Nearly two-thirds of Saudi citizens are under age 30. In a typical state fueled by economic activity, a large, youthful population can be a great asset. In a rentier state, it’s a liability — one that strains the government’s ability to keep them financially secure, with the failure to do so carrying the risk of dangerous discontent.
A primary means by which the Saudi government has distributed wealth — and prevented idleness that facilitates mischief — is government employment. As of 2016, an extraordinary two-thirds of employed Saudis held government jobs, and their salaries consumed 40% of the kingdom’s budget.
Government jobs’ domination of a market becomes a self-sustaining phenomenon. Private industry struggles to hire workers who’d prefer the lower demands, higher pay and greater job security of a government job. That, in turn, inhibits the growth of a private sector that could reduce the need for a large and costly public sector.
Recognizing the need to completely re-engineer the Saudi economy and relieve its reliance on oil money, MBS in 2016 unveiled “Vision 2030,” with a goal of spurring private-sector investment and employment, and improving the quality of life for Saudi citizens.
Many of MBS’s visions were the stuff of science fiction. A huge ski resort in the desert. A gigantic cube-shaped skyscraper in Riyadh as voluminous as 20 Empire State Buildings. A city for nine million people called “The Line,” comprising two parallel buildings 1,640 feet tall, 660 feet wide and stretching a staggering 110 miles.
One by one, Vision 2030 projects meant to dazzle the world have gone dim as the 2030 due date grows closer. The ski resort, which was supposed to host the 2028 Asian Winter games, has been put on ice. The Line has been suspended, leaving only a few kilometers of construction and a 70-mile-long trench. The colossal cubic skyscraper has been halted after initial excavation and installation of foundation pilings.
The curtailing of those ambitions reflects an irony embedded in the kingdom’s predicament: Its quest to end its dependence on oil revenue itself depends on oil revenue. Since the announcement of Vision 2030, oil prices haven’t cooperated.
As MBS’s grand visions evaporate, they’re increasingly regarded as wasteful vanity projects that have only worsened Saudi Arabia’s situation. Questions about his judgment aren’t confined to economic matters — his military decisions have been even worse.
After his appointment as Saudi defense minister in 2015, MBS immediately sought to establish his military credentials by intervening in Yemen’s civil war, which had seen that country’s Saudi-allied government ousted from the capital by Ansar Allah, a Zaidi Shia group widely referred to as “the Houthis.”
It was an enormous failure. Even with refueling, arms and other assistance provided by the United States, the Saudi intervention failed to defeat Ansar Allah. It also inflicted enormous damage on Saudi Arabia’s reputation, as bombings routinely caused mass casualties among Yemeni civilians, and a Saudi blockade created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
Saudi Arabia finally joined a truce in 2022. Despite his earlier humiliation, MBS stirred things back up again in July of this year, violating the truce by bombing an airport in Yemen’s capital to prevent a Yemeni delegation from landing in an Iranian jet, after attending the funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei.
What followed has been devastating to Saudi Arabia. Ansar Allah retaliated, declaring the imposition of a blockade on Saudi Arabia to counter the Saudi blockade on Yemen. Furthering their ability to make good on that promise, Ansar Allah unleashed an offensive in which they rapidly seized the remainder of Yemen’s west coast, positioning their forces to easily threaten Saudi shipping entering the Red Sea via the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Worse, Ansar Allah has taken the battle into Saudi territory, repeatedly inflicting damage on oil and gas facilities. Iraqi Shia militias joined them in that endeavor, shutting down the east-west pipeline that Saudi Arabia had been using as an alternative to the Iranian-blockaded Strait of Hormuz. Ansar Allah has also struck Saudi airports. In the worst such attack, a Yemeni cruise missile hit a passenger terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, killing 13 people, wounding more than 300, and causing a weeks-long closure. President Trump has compounded MBS’s ongoing military humiliation by refusing his repeated pleas for US forces to rejoin the war on Ansar Allah.
The destruction resulting from MBS’s renewal of the war in Yemen comes on top of damage caused by Iran, which has deemed any country that hosts US forces as fair targets for retaliation. Some analysts predict it will take seven to 10 years to replace all the specialized oil and gas equipment and fully restore production.
The physical damage from missiles and drones will be hard enough to repair, but the most enduring damage may have been inflicted on Saudi Arabia’s reputation as a safe place to visit and to open businesses — directly undercutting the kingdom’s quest to attract foreign investment and remake its economy.
In a vivid illustration of such damage, Ansar Allah’s attacks recently forced the postponement of Saudi Arabia’s annual Future Investment Initiative, which is hosted by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. First held in 2017 and nicknamed “Davos in the Desert,” the highly-anticipated October event was poised to bring major-corporation CEOs — including the leaders of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Blackrock — to Riyadh. Major sports events, such as F1 races, have also been cancelled or postponed, and the E-Sports World Cup was moved from Riyadh to Paris.
“MBS has staked everything on Vision 2030, the promise that Saudi Arabia will become a global hub for business, tourism, sport and investment,” writes former CIA intelligence analyst Larry Johnson. “Every one of those businesses depends on one thing: the perception that the kingdom is safe. The Houthis are attacking that perception directly.”
As bad as the military situation is for Saudi Arabia and MBS, it may get far worse. As Ansar Allah continues to expand its control of Yemen — where the group already has the capital and territory in which 70 to 80% of Yemenis live — there’s growing wariness the group could retake three provinces from southwest Saudi Arabia that were historically part of Yemen, but were annexed by Saudi Arabia in 1934.
With Saudi Arabia facing increasingly dire circumstances, MBS could be targeted for removal by those who see him as incapable of steering the kingdom out of peril. There are Saudi precedents for that. Faulted for extravagant personal spending and poor management of the kingdom’s finances, King Saud al Saud saw his powers reduced in the late 1950s. Then, in 1964, he was dethroned in a bloodless coup organized by his younger brother, Crown Prince Faisal, who became king.
Eleven years later, King Faisal was himself removed from power — in bloody fashion. In 1975, after returning from a trip to the United States, he was shot to death by his nephew Prince Faisal bin Musaid, who was apparently outraged by the king’s drive to Westernize and liberalize Saudi Arabia. Revenge was also thought to be a factor, as the prince’s brother was killed in 1966 amid a violent protest of the introduction of television to the kingdom.
In October, there were reports that MBS was moving from bomb shelter to bomb shelter beneath heavily-guarded palaces. “[Supposedly] for fear of a Houthi assassination,” Alistair Crooke told Judge Napolitano. “Actually, what he’s frightened of is an assassination by one of his own family or a military officer.”
“There’s a long history in the Arab world of the overthrow of monarchy,” Freeman noted. “It’s facilitated because Islam, in the Holy Quran, is actually very much against monarchy.”
As Saudi Arabia’s condition weakens, its political and economic landscape has become fertile ground for countless seeds of discontent:
- Vision 2030 construction projects have forced thousands from their homes and granted compensation that many say is far too little.
- Government jobs have lost some of their luster; pay raises are harder to come by, and limits on overtime and annual leave have been imposed.
- Citizens who were accustomed to a largely tax-free existence are getting a taste of non-rentier-state life: In 2018, Saudi Arabia adopted a 5% Value Added Tax and later tripled it to 15%.
- Saudi royals — which number between 15,000 and 25,000 — have seen their perks and stipends reduced, forcing many of them to sell homes, yachts and art to raise cash. Princes who were subjected to abuse at the Ritz-Carlton and the confiscation of their assets are likely yearning for revenge.
- Resentments are growing over uneven financial treatment. Crooke offers an illustrative example of two military officers working side by side: one, a highly-placed tribal member who isn’t well-paid, the other a royal of the same rank whose income is padded by a stipend.
- Military cohesion and operational efficiency has been impaired by the silo-ization of the various service branches — which is meant to reduce the ease with which a coup could be mounted. “[MBS] has divided the military, set them against one another, [and] used the National Guard to keep an eye out for any disaffection within the army,” explained Crooke.
- Though often characterized as a Sunni country, Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority, accounting for about 12% of the population. Critically, they’re concentrated in two important areas: Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Region, which is the center of the kingdom’s oil production, and Saudi Arabia’s southwest corner, adjacent to the Shiite population in northwest Yemen, where Ansar Allah rules.
- The kingdom faces reputational damage and a major financial hit that’s likely to arise in a US civil suit in which victims of the 9/11 attacks are building an overwhelming case that Saudi government officials aided the Al Qaeda plotters.
- MBS’s marginalization of the Wahhabi religious establishment holds great peril. Clerics may no longer tell their followers to ignore the lavish royal lifestyles that violate the core tenets of Wahhabism, setting the stage for a radical Islamic insurrection.
Saudi Arabia isn’t alone among Middle East countries in facing the likelihood of major upheaval. Other Gulf rentier states are similarly exposed, and Kuwait could vanish via conquest by Iraqi Shiite militias. As Crooke recently said on Daniel Davis Deep Dive, “People just do not see the huge geopolitical shifts that are taking place today. The Middle East is going to change. You will not recognize it in two years’ time.”
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Book Review
Book review: Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine
By Tim Kirby | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 14, 2026
Did Vladimir Putin just wake up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decide to invade Ukraine in February of 2022 or is there a lot more to this single decision that has been reshaping the 21st century geopolitical landscape?
Obviously, from the way that I just posed the question you can see that I am on the side that views the causes for the war in Ukraine to be very deep, long-term, historical and consciously nefarious, and most importantly, not from within the halls of the Kremlin. So it was a pleasure to take a look at the book “Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine” by author Stephen Kinzer, who like myself, also believes that the real reasons behind military conflicts around the world are not what CNN and the BBC have been telling you. The main thesis of this book was stated clearly by its creator; the war “may have been illegal, but it was definitely not unprovoked.” … continue
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