F-Bombs, Love Bombs and Bunker Busters
Will Trump’s ceasefire last between Israel and Iran?
What was the F-bomb on the White House lawn really about?
What to make of the NATO Secretary General calling Trump “Daddy”?
Amid all the talk of peace have people forgotten the killing still raging every day in Gaza?
We often speak of the world stage when covering international events but rarely have the players taken their role quite so literally.
So much of this week seemed performative. Trump bombed Iran and posted about regime change but apparently didn’t mean it. Iran fired back at a US base in Qatar but phoned first so nobody would be hurt. And Trump’s hunkering down in the Situation Room to consider his military response seemed equally performative.
And all for what?
The American intelligence establishment seems divided over how much damage has been done to Iran’s nuclear programme. Depending on who you want to believe it is somewhere between a few months setback, substantial damage and total obliteration.
If the US President is running his administration a bit like it was a TV channel in this week’s episode all sides came out claiming victory. All the while, the killing of people desperate for food in Gaza carried on and nobody is talking about an Israeli ceasefire there.
And as NATO gathered in the Hague to discuss five per cent funding levels and the war in Ukraine, the secretary general took his role as Trump-whisperer very seriously, with some extraordinarily obsequious text messages.
Missile strikes and a fragile truce
With the weekend came US strikes targeting key nuclear sites in Iran, and Iran promising a vengeful response.
But Iran’s strikes on US airbases - seemingly well telegraphed in advance to avoid American casualties - were intercepted. So was it all symbolic?
Trump turned to social media to declare a ceasefire had been reached. But when that didn’t stop the missiles immediately, the president unleashed his fury at Israel and Iran for jeopardising his fragile peace.
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Who actually won the war?
In Tel Aviv Netanyahu hopes this will make him Israel's Churchill, Trump wants a Nobel Prize and the Iranian Ayatollah wants to hold onto power … and his rumoured 400kg of enriched uranium and emerged to declare Iran delivered a ‘hard slap to America’s face’.
Operation Midnight Hammer utilised B-2 bombers flying across the Atlantic Ocean and into Iranian airspace, dropping bunker buster bombs on nuclear sites, in tandem with missiles fired from Navy ships.
There's confusion too over exactly how much of Iran's nuclear programme was actually destroyed, and doubts over its efficacy expressed in a leaked intelligence report. President Trump however maintains his belief that every facility in Iran capable of developing a nuclear weapon has been ‘obliterated’.
But today they took the extraordinary step of releasing new video of a bunker buster test to show just how effective the strike would have been.
Gaza aid crisis
Never to be forgotten is the ongoing tragedies in Gaza, and Israel's military chief said he had already moved his focus back to the strip - "to bring home the hostages and topple Hamas's rule".
For the people of Gaza, it doesn’t matter who won the so-called 12 Day War, as more than 600 days of war has left babies malnourished, while others are killed queuing for what food there is.
‘Daddy’ Trump at Nato Summit
With the Iran Israel conflict quickly wiped off the agenda, it was one for all and all for one Donald Trump in The Hague. The US president is back in Nato’s embrace as a mix of hard cash and abject flattery win him over.
And as Cathy Newman saw first hand - the flattery has bordered on the obsequious. But that, and the pledge to spend five per cent of GDP on defence seems to have done the trick.
After praising him as a 'man of strength but also of peace', Nato boss Mark Rutte - woo-er in chief - compared him to a 'Daddy' helping to break up a playground fight between Israel and Iran.
And Keir Starmer puts a ring on it all, saying planning for another state visit for Trump is underway, where the red carpet will be rolled out for him again at Buckingham Palace.
But back home the Prime Minister has to broker his own ceasefire - as he faces an unprecedented rebellion over benefits in the coming week.
Have you seen this on Channel 4 News?
Skin whitening IV drips exposed
A new IV drip claiming to whiten or lighten skin is rapidly gaining popularity, but at what cost?
The key ingredient, glutathione, is linked to serious health risks and potentially deadly side effects when administered improperly.
We went undercover to expose how this trend is spreading across hundreds of clinics in the UK, despite urgent warnings from campaigners and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI).
‘Brexit cost me my marriage’
Does Westminster make good people awful or does it attract awful people? As far as Sarah Vine is concerned, it’s the former – corrupting those with the best of intentions, turning them “mad and toxic.”
For twenty years, Sarah Vine was on the frontline of UK politics – married to former Secretary of State Michael Gove, friend (and later, foe) of the Camerons and a tabloid columnist. She witnessed Brexit up close – so close in fact, that it cost her her marriage.
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You have come a long way since the early days of 'Reportage'. From one north westerner to another, thanks for writing this Krish, great summary of the madness of Kings and the suffering of babies. Keep it coming....
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