Trump May Launch Strikes on Iran — Regime Change, Not Nukes, Is the Goal.
January 30, 2026, By Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/30/exclusive-trump-may-launch-strikes-on-iran-regime-change-not-nukes-is-the-goal/
A Drop Site News exclusive reports that senior U.S. military officials have informed the leadership of a key Middle Eastern ally that President Donald Trump could authorize direct military strikes on Iran as early as this weekend, with targets potentially extending beyond nuclear and missile facilities to include senior Iranian leadership — a push some strategists say aims at precipitating regime change rather than merely halting Tehran’s military programs. This after new sanctions were placed on Iran by the US treasury department.
With Drop Site reporting “This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who consults for Arab governments and is an informal advisor to the Trump administration on Middle East policy. He told Drop Site that U.S. war planners envision attacks that target nuclear, ballistic, and other military sites around Iran, but will also aim to decapitate the Iranian government, and in particular the leadership and capabilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is a branch of the Iranian armed forces created after the country’s 1979 revolution whose leadership now plays a major role in the country’s politics and economy.
Trump not sharing that regime change is part of the plan posted “Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!”
From Senator John Cornyn: in a foregin realtions meeting with Rubio: Cornyn stating: “I know the President is being presented with a range of options. We’ve noticed a lot of movement into the region by our Navy… but what happens if the Supreme Leader is removed in Iran?”
From Marco Rubio: “We have to have enough force and power in the region to defend against the possibility that, at some point, as a result of something, the Iranian regime decides to strike at our troop presence in the region.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I think what you’re seeing now is the effort to posture assets in the region to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel.”
This came from Department of War head Pete Hegseth during a recent Cabinet meeting: the Iranians “have all the options to make a deal,” he said. But if the goal is purely regime change, what deal is even possible? Hegseth also claimed that the war in Ukraine and the October 7 massacre “would not have happened” if Trump had been in power.
Iranian officials have made clear that they would respond with a major counterstrike using all means necessary if the U.S. attempts a Venezuela‑style operation or, worse, targets Iranian leadership — a scenario that has regional allies deeply concerned about the risk of a wider war. With Iran’s misison to the UN tweeting…..
While the region waits Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated in Istanbul saying about the above issue “The Islamic Republic of Iran, just as it is ready for negotiations, it is also ready for war,”
adding:
“Our position is exactly this: Applying diplomacy through military threats cannot be effective or constructive,” Araghchi told journalists Wednesday outside of a Cabinet meeting. “If they want negotiations to take shape, they must abandon threats, excessive demands and the raising of illogical issues.”
Looking at Iran’s past stance versus what could be coming, a recent interview sheds some light with Dr. Foad Izadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, telling Drop Site that in the past:
“a number of high-ranking military officials … made the decision to inform the United States when they were attacking the U.S. bases.”
“The idea was basically trying to ride out the Trump administration, not to confront him in a serious manner, respond to him, but respond in a very limited style so they don’t start a huge war with the United States,” he said. “This was their decision. And they were killed in June,” during the 12-day bombing campaign unleashed against Iran by the U.S. and Israel.”
The report comes amid escalating U.S.–Iran tensions that have woven together diplomatic brinkmanship, regional alliances, and conflicting strategic priorities. While U.S. and Israeli forces previously carried out coordinated strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in 2025 — prompting retaliatory missile barrages and suspending negotiations — the Trump administration has continued to oscillate between threats of further military action and claims it prefers a negotiated settlement over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
International concern is growing, with Arab states urging restraint to prevent a wider regional conflagration, even as Tehran signals readiness for both talks and defense in the face of mounting pressure.
With at least two nations, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have made it clear they will not allow their airspace to be used for any potential U.S. strike on Iran. Yet the United States has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers into the region, assets capable of launching attacks from the sea. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry emphasized diplomacy, with top diplomat Badr Abdelatty engaging both Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff to “work toward achieving calm, in order to avoid the region slipping into new cycles of instability.”
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, and Qatar have all been in contact with Washington and Tehran, warning that any escalation could destabilize the region and disrupt energy markets. Arab and Muslim states fear that even a limited U.S. strike could provoke immediate retaliation from Tehran, potentially targeting regional or American interests and causing collateral damage. Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, currently in Washington for high-level talks, reinforced this message, noting on social media that he discussed “efforts to advance regional and global peace and stability” with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other top U.S. officials. With Saudi prince Khalid bin Salman tweeting from the west wing:
This is a developing story, but in Washington, it feels like the only ones pushing it are Trump and his allies. The Saudis are calling for calm, Israel is en route to the capital, and the only thing anyone can predict is that more fuel might soon be thrown on an already blazing fire. Tensions are high: Iran warns it will strike at the heart of Tel Aviv, and whispers of war are spreading across Israel.
The memories of past conflicts remain sharp for Israelis. The latest round of threats between Tehran and Washington has stirred anxiety and put the country on edge. During previous wars, Israel’s air defenses were remarkably effective—but citizens still ran for shelter at the sound of sirens, and the fear of another confrontation has only intensified in recent weeks.
As U.S. warships draw closer, Israeli headlines have been dominated by speculation over a potential American strike on Iran—and the grim expectation that Israel, as the closest U.S. ally in the region, would bear the first wave of retaliation.
Some towns are reopening public bomb shelters. Airlines are canceling flights, hotels are seeing reservations vanish, and citizens are stockpiling food and water. Yet the government and the Home Front Command—Israel’s alert system based on real-time security intelligence—have issued no special guidance.
Without official word, rumors flourish. Both Trump’s and Iran’s statements are heavy on drama, light on specifics, and in Israel, everyone knows “someone who knows something.” Daily chatter revolves around alleged knowledge of a U.S. strike—hours or days away—and debates over whether to cancel travel or postpone events.
In the end, nobody—neither in Tehran nor Tel Aviv—can say for sure what’s coming next.
What we all know is this: war is bad for humans, and our leaders don’t care.
After Trump Declared Gaza War ‘Over,’ Media Lost Interest
Julie Hollar, January 28, 2026, https://fair.org/home/after-trump-declared-gaza-war-over-media-lost-interest/
Since President Donald Trump declared that “the war in Gaza is over” on October 3, 2025, US news outlets’ interest in the occupied territory has plummeted. In a FAIR search of US-related news sites using Media Cloud, a news media database, coverage of Gaza post-ceasefire agreement averaged just 1.5% of the news hole—significantly less than the level of coverage before the agreement.
From July 2 through October 1, 2025, mentions of Gaza appeared in 2.3% of news stories in Media Cloud’s US–National dataset, which indexes 248 online outlets. Starting October 2, the day before the ceasefire agreement, coverage in the next three weeks jumped to an average of 4.5%. For the following three months (October 23–January 22), that average dropped to 1.5%. That’s less than two-thirds the level of coverage it received prior to the agreement.
It’s also the lowest three-month average at any point since the current crisis began on October 7, 2023.
As FAIR (10/21/25, 12/18/25) has pointed out—along with many others—Israel did not cease firing after signing the ceasefire agreement. It has killed more than 480 Palestinians since then, including more than 100 children. (Israel claims three of its soldiers have been killed since the agreement—Washington Post, 1/8/26.)
And despite the agreement—and multiple binding orders from the International Court of Justice—Israel has kept in place the near-total blockade of Gaza that perpetuates the genocide (Amnesty International, 12/17/25; UNRWA, 1/21/26).
Israel has treated the line it committed to withdraw to in the agreement—the so-called Yellow Line—as a license to kill Palestinians who cross it, thereby ethnically cleansing more than half of Gaza (Al Jazeera, 1/26/26). Israel has begun treating the line as a new permanent border (Drop Site, 1/23/26).
Gaza is at least as newsworthy as it was before the ceasefire deal was signed. The general US media decision to back off covering an ongoing genocide, apparently because Donald Trump declared the conflict over, is both cowardly and complicit.
The United States of Consumption
To put this crudely, we consume far beyond our means because our military keeps enough of us feeling secure, and we have such a large military because we consume far beyond our means
Our Trash and Our Lives, Here and Abroad
By Andrea Mazzarino, Tom Dispatch, 28 Jan 26
I learned one of my most valuable lessons about U.S. power in my first year as a Brown University doctoral student. It was in anthropology professor Catherine Lutz’s seminar on empire and social movements. I’d sum up what I remember something like this: Americans consume one hell of a lot — cars, clothes, food, toys, expensive private colleges (ahem…), and that’s just to start. Since other countries like China, the United Kingdom, and Japan purchase substantial chunks of U.S. consumer debt, they have a vested interest in our economic stability. So, even though you and I probably feel less than empowered as we scramble to make mortgage, car, or credit-card payments, the fact that we collectively owe a bunch of money globally makes it less likely that a country like China will want to rock the boat — and that includes literally rocking the boat (as with a torpedo).
In classes like that one at Brown, I came to understand that the military power we get from owing money is self-reinforcing. It helps keep our interest rates low and, in turn, our own military can buy more supplies (especially if Donald Trump’s latest demand for a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget goes through!). Our own debt somewhat ironically allows this country to continue to expand its reach, if not around the globe these days, at least in this hemisphere (whether you’re thinking about Venezuela or Greenland). Often when I splurge on a fancy Starbucks latte or a new pair of shoes, I think about how even critics of U.S. military hegemony like me help prop up our empire when we do what Americans do best — shop!
To put this crudely, we consume far beyond our means because our military keeps enough of us feeling secure, and we have such a large military because we consume far beyond our means.
And boy, can we shop! As of August 2025, U.S. consumer debt ballooned to nearly $18 trillion and then continued to rise through the end of last year.
Here’s one consequence of our consumptive habits: we Americans throw a lot of stuff out. Per capita, we each generate an average of close to two tons of solid waste annually, if you include industrial and construction waste (closer to one ton if you don’t). Mind you, on average, that’s roughly three times what most other countries consume and throw out — much more than people even in countries with comparable per capita wealth.
Reminders of our waste are everywhere………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Military Contamination
Our military, far from being just another enabler of unequal consumption and suffering, contributes mightily to the waste we live with. In the U.S., hundreds of military bases are contaminated by so-called forever chemicals, such as PFAS, in the drinking water and the soil. We’re talking about chemicals associated with cancer, heart conditions, birth defects, and other chronic health problems. The civilian populations surrounding such bases are often low-income and disproportionately people of color. Of course, also disproportionately impacted are the military families and veterans who live and work around such bases, and tend to have inadequate healthcare to address such issues.
An example would be the Naval Submarine Base in New London……………………………………………………………….
Andrea Mazzarino, Waste Not, Want Not (on a Trumpian Planet)
Posted on January 27, 2026
In the age of Donald Trump, “garbage” has a distinctly new meaning — or do I mean an all too old one in the United States of America? In the view of “our” president, garbage now means “Somali” or “immigrant” or simply anyone on the streets of Minneapolis who doesn’t look nice and White. (And give him credit: at one point, he even managed to call Somali immigrants to this country “garbage” four times in seven seconds, which should be considered a record for anyone on more or less anything.) And don’t forget that he threw Representative Ilhan Omar, who arrived in this country from a devastated Somalia at age 12, under the Trumpian garbage truck. (“We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”) And, of course, anyone trying to do anything about protecting us from climate change is certainly the definition of garbage in Trump’s America.
Only recently, in fact, his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) went to work to wipe out the government’s “endangerment finding,” allowing fossil fuels to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. No more, it seems. As EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin put it, “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.” So, give President Trump and crew full credit for preparing to turn the rest of us into so much… well, yes, garbage in a garbage country on a garbage planet.
But I should put a caveat on all of this. Maybe there’s still a little hope. After all, once upon a time (in the 2024 election campaign), Donald Trump spoke of Venezuela’s oil supplies in just that classic Trumpian fashion. “Their oil is garbage,” he said. “It’s horrible. The worst you can get. Tar. It’s like tar.” Now, of course, it’s pure gold to him, but perhaps one day he’ll remember what he once thought about it and even (though I wouldn’t count on it for a second) change his mind. In that context, let TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino consider American trash, the garbage of our world, and what to make of it all. So, hold your nose, and read away. Tom
The United States of Consumption
Our Trash and Our Lives, Here and Abroad
I learned one of my most valuable lessons about U.S. power in my first year as a Brown University doctoral student. It was in anthropology professor Catherine Lutz’s seminar on empire and social movements. I’d sum up what I remember something like this: Americans consume one hell of a lot — cars, clothes, food, toys, expensive private colleges (ahem…), and that’s just to start. Since other countries like China, the United Kingdom, and Japan purchase substantial chunks of U.S. consumer debt, they have a vested interest in our economic stability. So, even though you and I probably feel less than empowered as we scramble to make mortgage, car, or credit-card payments, the fact that we collectively owe a bunch of money globally makes it less likely that a country like China will want to rock the boat — and that includes literally rocking the boat (as with a torpedo).
In classes like that one at Brown, I came to understand that the military power we get from owing money is self-reinforcing. It helps keep our interest rates low and, in turn, our own military can buy more supplies (especially if Donald Trump’s latest demand for a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget goes through!). Our own debt somewhat ironically allows this country to continue to expand its reach, if not around the globe these days, at least in this hemisphere (whether you’re thinking about Venezuela or Greenland). Often when I splurge on a fancy Starbucks latte or a new pair of shoes, I think about how even critics of U.S. military hegemony like me help prop up our empire when we do what Americans do best — shop!
To put this crudely, we consume far beyond our means because our military keeps enough of us feeling secure, and we have such a large military because we consume far beyond our means.
American Trash and the Politics of Consumption
And boy, can we shop! As of August 2025, U.S. consumer debt ballooned to nearly $18 trillion and then continued to rise through the end of last year.
Here’s one consequence of our consumptive habits: we Americans throw a lot of stuff out. Per capita, we each generate an average of close to two tons of solid waste annually, if you include industrial and construction waste (closer to one ton if you don’t). Mind you, on average, that’s roughly three times what most other countries consume and throw out — much more than people even in countries with comparable per capita wealth.
Reminders of our waste are everywhere. Even in my state, Maryland, which funnels significant tax dollars into environmental conservation, you can see plastic bags and bottles tangled in the grass at the roadside, while the air in my wealthy county’s capital city often smells like car exhaust or the dirty rainwater that collects at the bottom of your trash can. Schoolchildren like mine bring home weekly piles of one-sided worksheets, PTA event flyers, plastic prizes, and holiday party favors. Even the rich soil of our rural neighborhood contains layers of trash from centuries of agricultural, household, and military activity, all of which remind me of the ecological footprint we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren.
To our credit, some of us try to be mindful of that. In recent years, three different public debates about how to fuel our consumptive habits (and where to put the byproducts) have taken place in my region. Residents continue to argue about where to dispose of the hundreds of thousands of tons of our county’s waste (much of it uneaten food) that’s currently incinerated near the scenic farmland where I live. Do we let it stay here, where it pollutes the land and water, not to mention the air, and disturbs our pastoral views? Or do we haul at least some of the residual ash to neighboring counties and states, to areas that tend to be poor majority-minority ones? While some local advocacy groups oppose the exporting (so to speak) of our trash, it continues to happen.
A related dispute has taken place in an adjacent county that’s somewhat less wealthy but also majority White. That debate centers on the appropriate restrictions on a data center to be built there that will store information we access on the Internet and that’s expected to span thousands of acres. How far away need it be from residents’ homes and farms? Will people be forced to sell their land to build it?
While many of our concerns are understandable — I’m not ready to move so that we can have a data center nearby — it turns out that some worries animating such discussions are (to put it kindly) aesthetic in nature. Recently, a neighbor I’d never met called me to try to enlist our family in a debate about whether some newcomers, a rare Indian-American family around here, could construct a set of solar panels in a field along a main road, where feed crops like alfalfa can usually be seen blooming in the springtime.
My neighbor’s concern: that the new family wanted to use those fields for solar panels to supply clean energy to their community (stated with emphasis, which I presumed to denote the Asian-Americans who would assumedly visit them for celebrations and holidays). Heaven forbid! She worried that the panels would disrupt the views of passersby like us and injure a habitat for the bald eagle — ironic concerns given how much of a mess so many of us have already made renovating our outbuildings, raising our dogs and chicken flocks, and chopping down trees that get in the way of our homes or social gatherings.
Many such concerns are raised sincerely by people who care deeply about land and community. However, the fact that, to some, solar panels are less desirable than the kinds of crops that look nice or feed our desire for more red meat should reframe the debate about whose version of consumption (and garbage) should be acceptable at all.
Indeed, not all of us create or live with garbage to the same degree. Compared to White populations, Black populations are 100% more likely and communities of Asian descent 200% more likely to live within six miles of a U.S. Superfund site (among America’s most polluted places). Such proximity is, in turn, linked to higher rates of cancer, asthma, and birth defects.
Nor do Whites suffer such impacts in the same ways. According to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency — and let’s appreciate such an analysis while we still have access to it, since the Trump administration’s EPA just decided to stop tracking the human impact of pollution — Black Americans live with approximately 56% more pollution that they generate, Hispanic Americans experience 63% more than what they create, and — ready for this? — White Americans are exposed to 17% less than they make.
Military Contamination
Our military, far from being just another enabler of unequal consumption and suffering, contributes mightily to the waste we live with. In the U.S., hundreds of military bases are contaminated by so-called forever chemicals, such as PFAS, in the drinking water and the soil. We’re talking about chemicals associated with cancer, heart conditions, birth defects, and other chronic health problems. The civilian populations surrounding such bases are often low-income and disproportionately people of color. Of course, also disproportionately impacted are the military families and veterans who live and work around such bases, and tend to have inadequate healthcare to address such issues.
An example would be the Naval Submarine Base in New London, where my family spent a significant amount of time. Encompassing more than 700 acres along the Thames River, that base was designated a Superfund site in 1990 due to contamination from unsanctioned landfills, chemical storage, and waste burial, all of which put heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxic substances into the environment.
Rather than bore you with more statistics, let me share how it feels to stand on its grounds. Picture a wide, deep river, slate gray and flanked by deciduous trees. On the bank opposite the base, multifamily housing and the occasional restaurant have been wrought from what were once factories. After you pass the guard station, a museum to your left shows off all manner of missiles, torpedoes, and other weaponry, along with displays depicting the living spaces of sailors inside submarines, with bunks decorated with the occasional photo of scantily clad White women (presumably meant to boost troop morale).
To your right, there are brick barracks, office buildings, takeout restaurants, even a bowling alley, and submarines, their rounded turrets poking out of the water. Along roadways leading through the base, old torpedoes are painted in bright colors like children’s furniture and repurposed as monuments to America’s military might. The air smells like asphalt and metal. Signs of life are everywhere, from the seagulls that swoop down to catch fish to the sailors and their families you see moving about in cars. It’s hard to comprehend that I’m also standing on what reporters have called “a minefield of pollution… a dumping ground for whatever [the base] needed to dispose of: sulfuric acid, torpedo fuel, waste oil, and incinerator ash.”
Empire of Waste
When I say that our military produces a lot of garbage, I don’t just mean in this country. I also include what it does abroad and the countries like Israel that we patronize and arm. Last summer, I corresponded with anthropologist Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins, who spent more than a year documenting the human casualties and costs of what the Israeli military and other Israelis have done in Israeli-occupied Palestine. That includes the mass dumping of garbage there from Israeli territories and the barricading of Palestinian communities from waste disposal sites, all of which have led to environmental contamination……………………………………………………………………………….. https://tomdispatch.com/the-united-states-of-consumption/
Trump’s war on international justice
By Hassan Elbiali | 29 January 2026
When the U.S. sanctions international judges to shield Israel, power decides who is accountable, not law. Hassan Elbiali reports.
SINCE RETURNING to office in January 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched an aggressive campaign to dismantle international legal accountability.
His Administration imposed sweeping sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel investigating Israeli conduct in Gaza — not just a policy disagreement, but an assault on the institution itself.
The Trump Administration sanctioned judges, prosecutors and Palestinian human rights organisations that cooperated with ICC investigations. By December 2025, nine ICC staff members faced economic penalties. These sanctions cut them off from banks, credit card companies and platforms like Amazon, treating international judges the same way the U.S. treats Russian oligarchs.
The executive order Trump signed in February 2025 declared the ICC had engaged in actions targeting America and its ally Israel, calling the arrest warrants baseless. The Administration expanded sanctions in June, August and December, each time targeting those involved in the Gaza investigation.
ICC judges reported losing access to credit cards, having purchased e-books vanish from devices and Amazon’s Alexa stopping responses. One sanctioned judge told reporters she now appears on lists with terrorists and organised crime figures — punishment for doing her job.
The Gaza reality
The stakes couldn’t be higher because the underlying facts demand accountability. By January 2025, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported at least 46,645 Palestinians killed, with the vast majority being civilians. Independent research suggests far worse. A Lancet study estimated that total violent deaths by October 2024 exceeded 70,000, with 59% being women, children and the elderly.
A November 2025 Max Planck Institute study estimated total violent deaths between 100,000 and 126,000, of which 27% were children under 15. UNICEF reported that 74 children were killed in just the first week of 2025 alone.
The pattern of destruction meets definitions that scholars and institutions can no longer ignore. Multiple human rights groups and numerous international law scholars have recognised what’s happening as genocide. UN satellite analysis found that nearly 78% of all structures across Gaza had been destroyed.
The starvation component particularly demonstrates intent. For extended periods, humanitarian aid was blocked, with Israeli officials declaring that restricting aid was official policy. When food becomes a weapon against a population of over two million, including one million children, legal frameworks either mean something or they don’t.
Western complicity
Trump’s sanctions represent the most brazen effort to shield Israel from accountability, but complicity runs deeper.
The U.S. has supported Israel’s military campaign by continuing to supply billions in military aid throughout the genocide. The Trump Administration sanctioned three Palestinian human rights organisations – Al-Haq, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – for documenting violations and asking the ICC to investigate, effectively criminalising the documentation of war crimes.
Britain applied similar pressure. Then-Foreign Secretary David Cameron privately warned ICC prosecutor Karim A A Khan in April 2024 that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if it issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Cameron told Khan that pursuing warrants would be like “dropping a hydrogen bomb.”
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham threatened Khan with sanctions if he applied for the warrants, warning that “if they do this to Israel, we’re next”.
When powerful states actively work to prevent accountability for mass atrocities, they expose the conditional nature of their commitment to international law.
Power always shaped law
International law never existed independently of power. Law and power are constituted together and are therefore interdependent. When the balance of power shifts, the legal order shifts with it.
The post-1945 system reflected American dominance and Western liberal values. As that power wanes and new centres emerge –China, India, the Global South – the legal architecture must change. This isn’t collapse; it’s reconfiguration.
History proves the point. During the 1930s, the League of Nations failed when Nazi Germany rose to power, Italy invaded Ethiopia and the USSR fought Finland. Yet international law survived, adapted and emerged stronger after World War II.
What this means
The Hague Group, founded by Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa in January 2025, responds to growing cracks in international legal enforcement and its politicised, selective application. These states seek to reshape international law around different principles than those that dominated the past 70 years.
If you’re analysing global politics, understand that we’re not witnessing the end of international law — we’re watching its transformation through the crucible of Gaza. But the Gaza genocide and Western efforts to prevent accountability reveal something more troubling.
When powerful states systematically dismantle legal institutions investigating their allies’ war crimes, they demonstrate that international law applies selectively based on political alignment rather than universal principles.
Trump’s sanctions, combined with continued weapons shipments to Israel, expose the hypocrisy at the heart of the current system. UN experts called the sanctions an attack on the global rule of law that undermines international justice. When the world’s most powerful state treats international judges like criminals for investigating genocide, the pretence that law governs power becomes untenable.
What you’re witnessing isn’t the end of international law — it’s the painful birth of a multipolar legal order. Whether this transition happens through negotiation or conflict will determine if the coming decades bring greater justice or greater chaos.
The difference now is that Gaza has exposed this reality so starkly that denial becomes impossible. When thousands of children die while powerful states actively block accountability, the question becomes whether any international legal system can emerge that commands genuine respect rather than cynical compliance.
The answer will shape not just Palestinian lives but the prospects for justice everywhere.
A High-Stakes Effort to Relax Radiation Limits and Restart Nuclear Growth
Oil Price, By Haley Zaremba – Jan 28, 2026
- The Trump administration wants the NRC to reconsider core radiation safety models to accelerate nuclear development.
- Critics warn that weakening safety standards may erode public trust without meaningfully speeding up new reactor construction………………………..
Next month, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is slated to overhaul the level of radiation that Americans can legally be exposed to in response to an executive order issued by Donald Trump in May of 2025. The Trump administration is seeking to loosen regulations related to the nuclear energy industry in the United States in order to jumpstart the struggling sector.
The United States generates more nuclear energy than any other country, but it won’t hold that distinction for long if current domestic and global trends hold true. The domestic nuclear energy sector has been in near-terminal decline for decades now, and the United States is now home to an aging fleet and very few plans for new and expanded nuclear energy projects.
In large part, this is due to the reality that building a new nuclear reactor is extremely expensive and logistically and bureaucratically nightmarish, leading to long and frequently delayed timelines. Plant Vogtle, the only new nuclear energy plant to be brought online in the United States in decades, was enormously over budget and years behind schedule. When its final reactor finally came online in Waynesboro, Georgia, in 2024, the plant had taken $35 billion and 14 years to reach completion.
In order to avoid such issues, the Trump administration is seeking to minimize the prodigious amount of red tape involved in developing a new nuclear power plant. And it’s targeting public safety measures to do so. The May 23 executive order mandates that the NRC “reconsider reliance on the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for radiation exposure and the ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ standard,” among other requirements, in order to “reestablish the United States as the global leader in nuclear energy.”
However, experts contend that loosening or doing away with the NRC’s licensing and review process could have some major downsides for public health and for the Trump administration’s own aims. “The [Trump] administration may be working against its own long-term goals by short-circuiting the public arbitration process moderated by the NRC that is critical to building and maintaining public acceptance and confidence in nuclear energy,” warned a recent column from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Moreover, the executive order may not even result in an acceleration of nuclear production while unduly and unnecessarily increasing risk factors for Americans, argues a recent op-ed by Katy Huff for Scientific American. “As a nuclear energy advocate and former Department of Energy official,” Huff writes, “I want to see more nuclear energy on the grid soon. But loosening the protections of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model is not supported by current research.”
In the past, such suggestions to the NRC have been tabled because of insufficient evidence to support such a relaxation of radiation protections. Huff argued that, by ignoring these precedents based on rigorous research findings, the executive order is asking the NRC to act politically rather than scientifically. She called for more evidence-gathering on the topic, especially to validate or complicate early findings that raising radiation exposure could pose a particular risk to women and children. …………………………………………………………….https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-High-Stakes-Effort-to-Relax-Radiation-Limits-and-Restart-Nuclear-Growth.html
The Justifications For War With Iran Keep Changing
The justifications for war with Iran keep changing. First it’s nukes, then it’s conventional missiles, then it’s protesters, and now it’s back to nukes again. Kinda seems like war with Iran is itself the objective, and they’re just making up excuses to get there.
As the US moves war machinery to the middle east and holds multi-day war games throughout the region, President Trump and his handlers have been posting threats to the Iranian government on social media warning them to “make a deal” on nuclear weapons.
The following appeared on Trump’s Truth Social account on Wednesday:
“A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Venezuela. Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary. Hopefully Iran will quickly “Come to the Table” and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence! As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
It’s interesting that we’re back on the subject of needing to bomb Iran because of nuclear weapons, given that just a couple of weeks ago we were being told it was very, very important for the US to bomb Iran because of Iran’s mistreatment of protesters. Earlier this month Trump was openly saying “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY” while issuing threats to the Iranian government not to respond violently to the uprising. The president then backed off of these threats, reportedly at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu who told him Israel needed more time to prepare for war.
Prior to that, Trump was saying he would bomb Iran if it continued expanding its conventional missile program. Asked about reports that the US and Israel were discussing plans to strike Iran to stop it from building on its ballistic missile arsenal and reconstructing its air defenses that were damaged in the Twelve Day War, the president told the press “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”
The US justified its airstrikes on Iranian energy infrastructure during the Twelve Day War by citing concerns that Tehran was building a nuclear weapon, after which Trump confidently proclaimed that “All three nuclear sites in Iran were completely destroyed and/or OBLITERATED. It would take years to bring them back into service.”
And yet here we are a few months later back on the subject of nuclear weapons, with the US president citing urgent concerns over nukes to justify its renewed brinkmanship with Iran.
I kinda think they’re lying to us, folks.
Trump’s October 10 ceasefire, Board of Peace, simply continues Israeli Palestinian genocide in slow motion.
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL , 26 Jan 26
That was some ceasefire Trump negotiated with Israel October 10. Since then Israel has killed nearly 500 Palestinians with bullets and bombs. Many more are likely dead from starvation and disease as Israel lets in less than 170 trucks of food daily instead of the required and promised 600. ‘Ha ha…little nourishment for you starving Palestinians.’
Water, medicine, everything needed to sustain life is restricted to drive out the beleaguered living in makeshift tents. Why tents? Israel, with over 50,000 tons of Biden, Trump bombs, pulverized over 80% of all Gaza buildings, including over 90 % of all housing. Likely over 10,000 Gaza corpses are rotting under the 60 million tons of rubble including over 9 million tons of hazardous material. Ceasefire notwithstanding, Israel has knocked down or damaged over 2,500 post ceasefire buildings.
In order to force Palestinians from Gaza, Israel has reopened the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt. But it’s Israel’s version of a reverse Roach Motel. Palestinians can check out…but they can never check back into their rightful homeland. Every Palestinian that leaves, along with every Palestinian shot, bombed or starved to death, is one less pesky Palestinian to get rid of in absorbing Gaza into Greater Israel.
Israel has exploited the ceasefire to occupy over 50% of Gaza territory, shooting any Palestinian who strays over or close to Israel’s yellow boundary lines.
Astonishingly, the UN Security Council’s November 17 Resolution 2803 (2025) certified Trump’s Board of Peace which effectively makes Trump Gaza’s ruler, totally excluding Palestinian involvement. In doing so it upends over 70 years of UN resolutions and requirements that Palestinians in Gaza have the right to live and govern their homeland free from subjugation; indeed annihilation.
Why did this Security Council resolution pass? Simple, Trump essentially blackmailed Council members that it was either Trump’s ceasefire and Board of Peace, excluding Palestinians, or he would greenlight continuing the horrific 2 year bombing obliteration of Gaza and its citizens till they were all dead and gone. .
Israel, with US support, will never allow a Palestinian state in Gaza the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The horrific daily slaughter may be reduced to a trickle, but it will continue indefinitely till every Palestinian in Gaza is gone.
Trump’s ceasefire and Board of peace have the additional benefit to both Israel and Trump administration of removing the daily ethnic cleansing of Gaza from mainstream media coverage. They have moved on to more dramatic foreign hotspots in Venezuela, Iran and Greenland as well as Trump’s ICE thugs murdering fellow citizens in Minneapolis
Israel and the Trump administration’s slow motion genocide of Palestinians in Gaza should be opposed by all decent, moral nations and persons as fervently as their opposition to the preceding two yearlong all out genocide. Trump’s ceasefire and Board of Peace has put lipstick on the pig of Israeli genocide destroying Palestinians in Gaza.
Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence.
The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.”
ProPublica, by Jesse Coburn, January 26, 2026,
The Trump administration is planning to use artificial intelligence to write federal transportation regulations, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records and interviews with six agency staffers.
The plan was presented to DOT staff last month at a demonstration of AI’s “potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings,” agency attorney Daniel Cohen wrote to colleagues. The demonstration, Cohen wrote, would showcase “exciting new AI tools available to DOT rule writers to help us do our job better and faster.”
Discussion of the plan continued among agency leadership last week, according to meeting notes reviewed by ProPublica. Gregory Zerzan, the agency’s general counsel, said at that meeting that President Donald Trump is “very excited about this initiative.” Zerzan seemed to suggest that the DOT was at the vanguard of a broader federal effort, calling the department the “point of the spear” and “the first agency that is fully enabled to use AI to draft rules.”
Zerzan appeared interested mainly in the quantity of regulations that AI could produce, not their quality. “We don’t need the perfect rule on XYZ. We don’t even need a very good rule on XYZ,” he said, according to the meeting notes. “We want good enough.” Zerzan added, “We’re flooding the zone.”
These developments have alarmed some at DOT. The agency’s rules touch virtually every facet of transportation safety, including regulations that keep airplanes in the sky, prevent gas pipelines from exploding and stop freight trains carrying toxic chemicals from skidding off the rails. Why, some staffers wondered, would the federal government outsource the writing of such critical standards to a nascent technology notorious for making mistakes?
The answer from the plan’s boosters is simple: speed. Writing and revising complex federal regulations can take months, sometimes years. But, with DOT’s version of Google Gemini, employees could generate a proposed rule in a matter of minutes or even seconds, two DOT staffers who attended the December demonstration remembered the presenter saying. In any case, most of what goes into the preambles of DOT regulatory documents is just “word salad,” one staffer recalled the presenter saying. Google Gemini can do word salad.
Zerzan reiterated the ambition to accelerate rulemaking with AI at the meeting last week. The goal is to dramatically compress the timeline in which transportation regulations are produced, such that they could go from idea to complete draft ready for review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in just 30 days, he said. That should be possible, he said, because “it shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes to get a draft rule out of Gemini.”
The DOT plan, which has not previously been reported, represents a new front in the Trump administration’s campaign to incorporate artificial intelligence into the work of the federal government. This administration is not the first to use AI; federal agencies have been gradually stitching the technology into their work for years, including to translate documents, analyze data and categorize public comments, among other uses. But the current administration has been particularly enthusiastic about the technology. Trump released multiple executive orders in support of AI last year. In April, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought circulated a memo calling for the acceleration of its use by the federal government. Three months later, the administration released an “AI Action Plan” that contained a similar directive. None of those documents, however, called explicitly for using AI to write regulations, as DOT is now planning to do.
Those plans are already in motion. The department has used AI to draft a still-unpublished Federal Aviation Administration rule, according to a DOT staffer briefed on the matter.
Skeptics say that so-called large language models such as Gemini and ChatGPT shouldn’t be trusted with the complicated and consequential responsibilities of governance, given that those models are prone to error and incapable of human reasoning. But proponents see AI as a way to automate mindless tasks and wring efficiencies out of a slow-moving federal bureaucracy.
Such optimism was on display in a windowless conference room in Northern Virginia earlier this month, where federal technology officials, convened at an AI summit, discussed adopting an “AI culture” in government and “upskilling” the federal workforce to use the technology. Those federal representatives included Justin Ubert, division chief for cybersecurity and operations at DOT’s Federal Transit Administration, who spoke on a panel about the Transportation Department’s plans for “fast adoption” of artificial intelligence. Many people see humans as a “choke point” that slows down AI, he noted. But eventually, Ubert predicted, humans will fall back into merely an oversight role, monitoring “AI-to-AI interactions.” Ubert declined to speak to ProPublica on the record.
A similarly sanguine attitude about the potential of AI permeated the presentation at DOT in December, which was attended by more than 100 DOT employees, including division heads, high-ranking attorneys and civil servants from rulemaking offices. Brimming with enthusiasm, the presenter told them that Gemini can handle 80% to 90% of the work of writing regulations, while DOT staffers could do the rest, one attendee recalled the presenter saying………………………………………………………………………………………..
Academics and researchers who track the use of AI in government expressed mixed opinions about the DOT plan. If agency rule writers use the technology as a sort of research assistant with plenty of supervision and transparency, it could be useful and save time. But if they cede too much responsibility to AI, that could lead to deficiencies in critical regulations and run afoul of a requirement that federal rules be built on reasoned decision-making. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-artificial-intelligence-google-gemini-transportation-regulations
The ‘Peace President’ Who Bombed 10 Countries and Wants $1.5 Trillion for War
SCHEERPOST, Joshua Scheer,
Donald Trump keeps insisting he’s a “peace president.” The record shows something closer to a global arsonist with better PR. In just one year of his second term, he bombed seven countries—adding to a list that now reaches ten, more than any president in U.S. history—while demanding a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget that would eclipse the military spending of nearly the entire planet combined.
This video dissects the chasm between Trump’s self‑mythology and the reality of an empire that has only expanded its reach, its violence, and its appetite for public money. It also exposes the bipartisan machinery behind it: Democrats and Republicans alike feeding the military‑industrial complex while slashing social programs at home and calling it “efficiency.”
As Ben Norton lays out, the U.S. isn’t just waging endless wars abroad—it’s waging a class war at home, shifting wealth upward while telling working people to tighten their belts. Trump’s rhetoric may promise peace, prosperity, and fiscal responsibility, but the policies tell a very different story: more bombs, more debt, more suffering, and more power for the same billionaire class that bankrolls Washington.
This is the reality behind the branding. And it’s why journalism that cuts through the mythology is more essential than ever.
Some facts to consider
Trump repeatedly brands himself a “peacemaker” and “peace president,” despite overseeing more bombings than any president in U.S. history.
In 2025 alone, he bombed seven countries; across both terms, the total reaches ten
The countries bombed so far include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Iran, and Venezuela—on top of ongoing U.S. military actions and blockades throughout Latin America. And now Washington is posturing against Mexico as well.
In the last few days, a Cuban diplomat accused the United States of “international piracy” as Washington continues blocking Venezuelan oil shipments to the island in the aftermath of the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. Carlos de Céspedes, Cuba’s ambassador to Colombia, told Al Jazeera that the U.S. is effectively imposing a “marine siege.”
Trump, meanwhile, is bragging that “Cuba is ready to fall.” On January 5 he declared, “Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. Cuba literally is ready to fall.”
All of this sits atop a much longer record: Brown University researchers estimate that U.S. wars since 2001 have caused at least 4.5 million deaths and displaced 38 million people worldwide.
This is certainly not a peace president or a peaceful country. And for anyone who still needs to understand how U.S. policy devastates other nations through coercive measures that overwhelmingly harm children, an October study published in The Lancet found that sanctions imposed by the United States and its Western allies from 1971 to 2021 caused more than 550,000 deaths every year—a toll comparable to the annual global deaths from war, both military and civilian, over the same period.
For more on his campaigns, remember that “Little Marco” and his own State Department were hailing Trump as the “Peacemaker‑in‑Chief” as recently as August—a whiplash‑inducing reversal given today’s situations globally.
For more stories about these issues:……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/26/the-peace-president-who-bombed-10-countries-and-wants-1-5-trillion-for-war/
US military moves Navy, Air Force assets to the Middle East: What to know
Trump says US ‘armada’ is heading towards the Gulf, raising fears of a military escalation in the region.
Aljazeera, By Yashraj Sharma, 25 Jan 2026
A United States aircraft carrier strike group is heading towards the Gulf as tensions build with Iran.
The US military last staged a major build-up in the Middle East in June – days before striking three Iranian nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with Tehran.
This month, US President Donald Trump backed antigovernment protesters in Iran. “Help is on its way,” he told them as the government cracked down. But last week, he dialled down the military rhetoric. The protests have since been quashed.
So what are the US military assets moving to the Gulf? And is the US preparing to strike Iran again?
Why is the US moving warships?
Trump said on Thursday that a US “armada” is heading towards the Gulf region with Iran being its focus.
US officials said an aircraft carrier strike group and other assets are to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days.
“We’re watching Iran. We have a big force going towards Iran,” Trump said.
“And maybe we won’t have to use it. … We have a lot of ships going that direction. Just in case, we have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens,” he added.
The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln changed its path from the South China Sea more than a week ago towards the Middle East. Its carrier strike group includes Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking targets deep inside Iran.
The US military vessels en route to the Middle East are also equipped with the Aegis combat system, which provides air and missile defence against ballistic and cruise missiles and other aerial threats.
When Washington hit Iran’s nuclear sites, US forces reportedly launched 30 Tomahawk missiles from submarines and carried out strikes with B-2 bombers.
When asked on Thursday if he wanted Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to step down, Trump replied: “I don’t want to get into that, but they know what we want. There is a lot of killing.”
He also reiterated claims that his threats to use force stopped authorities in Iran from executing more than 800 people who had taken part in the protests, a claim denied by Iranian officials.
An unnamed US official told the Reuters news agency that additional air defence systems were being considered for the Middle East, which could be critical to guard against an Iranian strike on US bases in the region.
Iranian state media said the protests killed 3,117 people, including 2,427 civilians and members of the security forces.
How widespread is the US military presence in the Middle East?
The US has operated military bases in the Middle East for decades and has 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers stationed there.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US operates a broad network of military sites, both permanent and temporary, at at least 19 locations in the region.
Of these, eight are permanent bases, located in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The first US deployment of soldiers in the Middle East was in July 1958 when combat troops were sent to Beirut. At its height, almost 15,000 Marines and Army soldiers were in Lebanon.
The US naval movement towards Iran was ordered despite a new National Defense Strategy being released on Friday. The document is drawn up every four years by the Department of Defense, and the latest security blueprint outlines a pullback of US forces in other parts of the world to prioritise security in the Western Hemisphere.
How has Iran responded?
Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, who heads coordination between Iran’s army and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned on Thursday that any military strike on Iran would turn all US bases in the region into “legitimate targets”.
General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said two days later that Iran is “more ready than ever, finger on the trigger”.
He warned Washington and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation”……………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/25/us-military-moves-navy-air-force-assets-to-the-middle-east-what-to-know
U.S. Department of Energy signs additional OTAs to accelerate nuclear reactor pilot projects
Energies Media, by Warren, January 24, 2026
The U.S. is aiming to lead the surge in new nuclear energy developments across the international market
Since taking office for his second term, Donald Trump has shaken the U.S. energy market to its core. Trump signed several executive orders aimed at increasing the oil and gas production in the U.S., and has actively been approving the nuclear buildout as part of the government’s efforts to increase nuclear energy output in the United States.
The U.S. DOE has now finalized two new Other Transaction Agreements with Terrestrial Energy and Oklo. The new OTAs form part of the U.S. Reactor Pilot Program, which has outlined a target of fast-tracking the deployment of the reactors by July 4 of this year.
The context behind the new nuclear development in the U.S.
In August of 2025, the U.S. DOE formally selected ten companies as part of the Reactor Pilot Program, a new path for nuclear energy developers to leverage the accelerated DOE approval instead of the standard Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process. Initially, the U.S. was targeting to get up to three reactors online within a year, but that target was amended by Energy Secretary Chris Wright at the 2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo.
Other notable selections by the Department as part of the Reactor Pilot Program include:
- Aalo Atomics
- Deep Fission
- Last Energy
- Natura Resources
- Standard Nuclear
Oklo and Terrestrial Energy will boost the U.S. nuclear energy output capacity
Oklo is as unique as it gets within the framework of the Reactor Pilot Program, as it has three distinct nuclear energy projects in the United States, namely the Aurora Powerhouse development, the Pluto reactor, and a third reactor being developed by the company’s subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy…….
Terrestrial Energy, on the other hand, follows a more conventional OTA process. The company’s Project Tetra has been slowly developing over the past few months and has now been added to the Reactor Pilot Program by the U.S. authority………………………. https://energiesmedia.com/us-department-of-energy-signs-additional-otas/
Trump shamelessly plays the Russia/China bogeyman card for Greenland grab
NATO’s civilian head, Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister and abject flunky, appeased Trump at Davos by offering more NATO defenses deployed to Greenland. Rutte, who previously referred to Trump as “daddy”, made the “deal” in private with Trump. No details have been made public nor even shared among other NATO members. How’s that for contempt of underlings?
Since the end of World War Two, the United States paid lip service to global law and order along with its European allies. Under Trump, there is no longer any pretense of lip service. It’s outright imperialist power for naked domination. At one point in his rambling Davos speech, Trump declared such might-is-right land grabbing as normal.
Russia and China, among others, have repeatedly declared the paramount need to abide by international law and the principles of the UN Charter. U.S. imperialist power has no such respect. Trump has openly said so.
Sat, 24 Jan 2026, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/01/23/trump-shamelessly-plays-russia-china-bogeyman-card-for-greenland-grab/
Under Trump, the European appeasers are inviting disaster as they indulge his bogeyman games over Greenland.
The old saying that a week is a long time in politics is especially true under the U.S. Presidency of Donald Trump, given his propensity for unhinged bombast, zig-zags, U-turns, vendettas, and theatrics.
So, last week, he was threatening to take over the Danish Arctic territory of Greenland by military force, if needed. Trump was also gearing up to launch an unprecedented trade war against European states that, with pipsqueak temerity, dared to support Denmark, a move that would have cratered the eight-decade-old transatlantic Western alliance.
This week, in a 70-minute rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump, seemingly magnanimously, announced that he was not going to deploy military power to subordinate European NATO “allies”. But he insisted that Greenland must be annexed under U.S. control.
In a telling quip, he said: “I don’t have to use force.” Trump is right on that score. There is no need for military coercion because the European “allies” have been exposed as a bunch of dithering vassals who were pathetically clutching their pearls for the past week out of fear and angst that Uncle Sam was slapping them.
However, when vassals appease, they only end up being abused. The American Don may have softened his contemptuous rhetoric at Davos, but there is little doubt that the expansionist ambitions to grab Greenland will be pursued, and the Europeans will be, in time, further degraded in their submission to the American overlord.
Oddly enough, for a president who boasts about flexing military muscle for imperialist aims, Trump couched his takeover of Greenland as a matter of “national security.” He is claiming that the United States needs to take control of the “big, beautiful piece of ice” to defend it from Russia and China.
He lied that it wasn’t because of Greenland’s vast mineral resources, including oil and rare-earth metals. Trump was claiming that the U.S. is the only NATO member strong enough to keep Russia and China from gaining a foothold. Beijing slammed Trump’s claims as baseless.
In an insulting and absurd remark, he likened Russia and China to how Nazi Germany tried to take Greenland from Denmark during the Second World War, and it was the U.S. that prevented that.
Only a few days before, Trump contradicted himself (not hard for him) by posting a comment deriding how Russia and China are used as “bogeymen”, that is, as false enemies.
Another anomaly was seen with Trump inviting Russia and China to join his dubious Global Board of Peace initiative, which he unveiled with much corny fanfare in Davos. Enemies for peace?
In other words, on Greenland, Trump is cynically playing the Russia and China threat as a pretext for blatantly violating the sovereignty of an ally.
Not that Denmark deserves sympathy. It is questionable how it retains any territorial right to a distant Arctic island whose people have consistently demanded independence from Copenhagen’s colonialist control.
NATO’s civilian head, Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister and abject flunky, appeased Trump at Davos by offering more NATO defenses deployed to Greenland. Rutte, who previously referred to Trump as “daddy”, made the “deal” in private with Trump. No details have been made public nor even shared among other NATO members. How’s that for contempt of underlings?
Trump hailed the so-called framework agreement as a “great deal” for the United States and Europe without sharing the details. It’s believed to permit the installation of Trump’s futuristic Golden Dome missile defense system. If that goes ahead, it will heighten strategic tensions with Russia by militarizing the Arctic, not bring peace or stability. Denmark is reportedly wary that its sovereignty is being sold out in a grubby behind-closed-doors private takeover.
Hence, the transatlantic storm may have subsided somewhat for now, but the damage and mistrust that have shattered the alliance are not going to be repaired. It will only get worse because of the thug-vassal relationship unravelling.
The Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, in his speech at Davos, made a shocking admission when he said that the “fiction of rules-based order” between the U.S. and its Western allies is dead.
Trump may have been appeased and placated for a while. But it’s like keeping a predator at bay by throwing pieces of meat at it. Sooner or later, the minions will be on the menu.
Only last week, Denmark and the other European states were dismissing Trump’s outlandish claims about defending the free world from Russia and China by taking control of Greenland. They knew it was a brazen land grab. Now, however, Rutte, the European NATO chief, is saying that NATO must accede to Trump’s demands to protect Greenland from the alleged threat from Russia and China.
After saying there is no such threat, now the Europeans will indulge Trump’s fantasy about Greenland, just to restrain him from overtly abusing them.
The trouble for the European and other Western allies of the United States is that they have consorted with decades of American violations of international law. They have played along with the charade of using Russia and China as enemies of convenience. This has hollowed out any claim of upholding international order and norms.
The U.S. and Europe have played the bogeyman card with regard to Ukraine. The Europeans supported Trump’s aggression against Venezuela and Iran, and they have been complicit in the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza.
This week, while French President Emmanuel Macron was admonishing Trump to respect international order concerning Greenland, he ordered French troops to seize a Russian-linked oil tanker in neutral maritime waters. The latter act of piracy on the high seas was probably an effort by France to demonstrate its loyalty to Washington’s policy of hijacking Russian cargo ships.
Since the end of World War Two, the United States paid lip service to global law and order along with its European allies. Under Trump, there is no longer any pretense of lip service. It’s outright imperialist power for naked domination. At one point in his rambling Davos speech, Trump declared such might-is-right land grabbing as normal.
During the past eight decades of charade and lip service, the U.S. needed the Europeans as a facade of multilateralism for its stealth imperialism. Washington indulged the Europeans, Canadians, and others as “allies”. In reality, they were always vassals.
Now, in the latest historical phase of returning to flagrant imperialism and brazen power, the United States has no use for the pretense of allies. They can be slapped around for the lackeys they are. And we are seeing that with brutality.
Ironically, the European powers have a historic tendency for appeasement. The British and French appeased Nazi Germany in the 1930s with disastrous results. Today, the Europeans are appeasing the United States in its every criminal demand. That is only emboldening the U.S. to expand its outright abuse of international law, or, in other words, its descent into barbarism.
This is not merely about Trump as a maverick megalomaniac. He is but a symptom of the U.S. global empire in desperation mode to maintain its waning power as a new multipolar world potentially emerges. U.S. hegemonic ambitions are untenable, but in a desperate bid to assert itself, the world is being turned upside down and intimidated into submission.
Russia and China, among others, have repeatedly declared the paramount need to abide by international law and the principles of the UN Charter. U.S. imperialist power has no such respect. Trump has openly said so.
Total domination is the only acceptable end for U.S. imperialism. Russia and China should not have any illusion about it, even if, in the short term, Trump wants to make an expedient withdrawal deal in Ukraine, or if he invites them to join his “Bored of Peace” boondoggle.
History shows us that rampant imperialist violence ends in disaster. Under Trump, the European appeasers are inviting disaster as they indulge his bogeyman games over Greenland.
Is Trump a Useful Idiot? Project 2025 Is in Power Now.
January 24, 2026, by Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/24/is-trump-a-useful-idiot-project-2025-is-in-power-now/
With Project 2025 in full effect, Chris Hedges explains that Trump is neither necessary nor a real player. The “death grip” on our society is already in full force—this goes beyond Trump, threatening to destroy the very fabric of our existing ways of resisting it.
The very idea of elections being free, fair, or even occurring at all is now in question. Far more alarming than Trump’s musings about canceling the midterms was what the president told the New York Times in another Oval Office interview. he admitted that he “regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election.”
One of the central tenets of Project 2025 will be a direct assault on election officials. The Brennan Center warns that Project 2025 “threatens to reverse progress made over the last four years by stripping crucial federal resources from election officials and weaponizing the Department of Justice against officials who make decisions the administration disagrees with.”
With many Americans—and the other useful idiots in the Democratic Party—counting on elections to save us, we are living in a perilous moment that demands action, not hope. Chris Hedges warns that the U.S. has entered an age of authoritarian consolidation, where meaningful resistance must be rebuilt from the ground up. In a fractured society marked by economic precarity, surveillance, and the hollowing out of collective power, traditional movements have been systematically dismantled, leaving dissenters vulnerable. True resistance, Hedges insists, requires disciplined, long-term organizing—starting from zero—because corporate and state power is more entrenched and repressive than ever.
Another crucial step is supporting all independent media, because the New York Times and other media monopolies are not serving our interests. Real resistance requires amplifying voices outside the corporate mainstream.
The ridiculous 2026 “National Defense Strategy”
As for the National Defense Strategy, it concludes in climactic fashion by declaring that the US must maintain capability to “conduct devastating strikes and operations against targets anywhere in the world.” As if that’s just the most obvious imperative of responsible statecraft that anyone could possibly fathom.
As for the National Defense Strategy, it concludes in climactic fashion by declaring that the US must maintain capability to “conduct devastating strikes and operations against targets anywhere in the world.” As if that’s just the most obvious imperative of responsible statecraft that anyone could possibly fathom.
Michael Tracey, Jan 25, 2026, https://www.mtracey.net/p/2026-national-defense-strategy?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=303188&post_id=185665591&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The new 2026 “National Defense Strategy,” released yesterday, contains a lot of airy rhetoric about finally transitioning to “hardnosed realism,” and away from the misbegotten “grandiose strategies” of yesteryear, wherein the US had foolishly set out to “solve all the world’s problems.” More tangibly, however, the document doesn’t call for a single discernible reduction to America’s comically-large global military footprint. In fact, it calls for expanding that footprint, rather dramatically.
Among these expansions will be for the US to “erect” new military installations in close proximity to China. Per the jargon of NatSec Speak, this means establishing “strong denial defense” in the “First Island Chain” — which may sound like a modestly-sized region to the unschooled reader, but actually encompasses Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and perhaps a smattering of other places like Vietnam and Malaysia, depending on what the cockamamie Grand Strategists decide to theorize and war-game next.
There will also be unspecified measures to “guarantee US military and commercial access” to what is now described as the “key terrain” of Greenland and Panama. On top of “deepening” US military involvement in the Middle East, so as to “enable integration between Israel and our Arabian Gulf partners.”
The document gestures vaguely at Europe needing to take more responsibility for its own defense, but then talks about US-directed efforts to “expand transatlantic defense” with Europe, and affirms the “vital” role of the US in leading NATO — including to counter “Russian threats to the US Homeland.” No specific adjustments in force posture re: Europe are identified.
Iran is back as an urgent threat, as it’s allegedly in the process of “reconstituting its conventional military forces,” and is again seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon. Even though its nuclear facilities were supposedly “obliterated” last June. Naturally, confronting Iran will require the US to “further empower” Israel — what more “empowerment” could they possibly be given at this point? — in recognition of our profound “shared interests” with this “model ally.”
Even in Africa, the document says the US must “empower allies and partners” to prevent Islamic terrorists from establishing “safe havens” — apparently anywhere throughout that vast continent — and the US is itself prepared to strike where deemed necessary. As we already saw with the random bombing of Nigeria last month. (Whatever happened with that? Did we eliminate the Terrorists?)
The document also calls for accelerating US military-industrial production to levels not seen since the Second World War. Yet another devastating blow to the “military-industrial complex.”
It lambasts ill-fated “regime change” expeditions of the past, but heralds the most recent foray into Venezuela, which was legally designated by the Trump DOJ as an explicit “regime change” operation.
“Nation-building” is predictably derided — mere weeks after Trump unilaterally declared himself the new ruler of Venezuela, the economy and governmental structures of which he now wants to personally “rebuild.” This open-ended endeavor could last “much longer” than people think, he says. That’ll be in addition to his other signature “nation-building” initiative — making good on his landmark pledge to “take over” Gaza, which was widely dismissed as outlandish when he first announced it last February. But then by October, there he was, bestowing himself with ultimate governing authority over Gaza. Jared Kushner just rolled out their innovative new “master plan” for nation-building the hell out of that place — complete with cool little diagrams showing how each quadrant of land will be granularly organized. The deal has apparently been sealed for Gaza as a newly-established US military protectorate: an American General was just named Commander of the “International Stabilization Force,” putting him in charge of “security operations” across the territory. A fun new dialect of Arabic might have to be invented for all the American-originated euphemisms.
As for the National Defense Strategy, it concludes in climactic fashion by declaring that the US must maintain capability to “conduct devastating strikes and operations against targets anywhere in the world.” As if that’s just the most obvious imperative of responsible statecraft that anyone could possibly fathom.
Sooooo…. there’s your historic pivot from “grandiose adventures” abroad — which the self-congratulatory document writers hold themselves out as repudiating — and toward a glorious restoration of “practical, hardnosed realism.” Of course, trying to translate the predilections of Trump into some grand strategic treatise is a pretty pointless exercise to begin with — but the intellectual warfighter Pete Hegseth and his underlings evidently felt they should at least give it a whirl. So they “fucked around and found out,” as Pete loves to smugly bluster, and out plopped whatever this is.
True “realism” would necessitate swiftly discarding the document as little more than a collection of meaningless pablum and cliches — just like the differently-named, but weirdly redundant “National Security Strategy” produced in November 2025. Among other silly items, that cousin document contains the assertion that “the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over.” And further, when it comes to changing sub-optimal systems of government in that neck of the woods, “we should encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it from without.”
Then within a matter of weeks, right on cue, Trump was boisterously posting that he was “locked and loaded,” and ready to attack Iran again — this time ostensibly in defense of the besieged Iranian protesters. He also announced it’s time for the imposition of “new leadership,” i.e. removal of the Ayatollah. “Freedom” and “human rights” have even been resurrected as viable pretexts for punitive US action. Currently, large-scale US military assets are reassembling in the region.
To comprehend these bewildering developments, perhaps we’ll have to wait in suspense for a revised edition of some supplemental “strategy” document. Which we can then all download together in PDF format, and earnestly ponder, perhaps with coffee and donuts, like a book club brooding over Moby Dick.
Back in some version of “realist” reality, these “strategy” documents are really only notable insofar as they give some morbid insight into how presidential subordinates are required to haphazardly “ideologize” whatever their superior is doing at any given time. A well-worn heuristic would be much simpler, and more instructive: “America First” is still whatever he says it is.
A Note On the 2026 US National Defense Strategy and Extended Deterrence
What does the NDS have to say about nuclear weapons and the nuclear environment facing the United States? Turns out, not much.
Ankit Panda, Jan 25, 2026, https://panda.substack.com/p/a-note-on-the-2026-us-national-defense?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=10286&post_id=185656884&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Trump administration’s unclassified summary of the National Defense Strategy (notably, they can’t call it a National “War” Strategy, by statute) is here (PDF). It released on a Friday evening, after 5 p.m.. My understanding is that the classified version has been complete for about a couple months now and this unclassified summary was going through reframing after the release of last month’s much-discussed National Security Strategy. Anyway, it’s here now, so let’s talk about it.
Much ink will be spilled elsewhere on what this document tells us about the United States’ defense priorities as the Trump administration continues to take a sledgehammer to longstanding principles of U.S. grand strategy. I want to focus on how nuclear policy-minded readers should approach this document.
If you haven’t heard, this administration is not planning on publishing a Nuclear Posture Review, which is not currently required by law, unlike the NDS. The 2026 NDS itself has very little to say on nuclear weapons. Page 17 contains this bullet, which sums up nearly the totality of what this document has to say about U.S. nuclear forces and policy:
“Modernise and adapt U.S forces: The United States requires a strong, secure and effective nuclear arsenal adapted to the nation’s overall and defense strategies. We will modernise and adapt our nuclear forces accordingly with focussed attention on deterrence and escalation management amidst the changing global nuclear landscape. The United State should never – will never- be left vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.”
Note the lack of any mention of the role of U.S. nuclear weapons or declaratory policy. Insofar as the role of U.S. nuclear forces is discussed, it is done so in a single sentence on page 3: “We will maintain a robust and modern nuclear deterrent capable of addressing the strategic threats to our country…”
There’s also no nod to allies here, either. In many of my conversations in Europe and Asia over the last year, there’s been quite a bit of interest in what the Trump NDS would have to say about alliances and extended deterrence. Silence, I suppose, is not the worst outcome, especially given the spotlighting of active U.S. hostility toward European allies in the last few weeks amid the Greenland imbroglio. Some allies took solace in the fact that the NSS did include a sentence on nuclear weapons that did allude to some role in their defense: “We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland—to protect the American people, American assets overseas, and American allies” (emphasis added, NSS, pp. 3).
Close allied readers of the NDS, however, might find that the document does appear to have something to say about how the United States views their security interests. Page 8 of the NDS observes that what makes the Trump administration’s strategy “fundamentally different from the grandiose strategies” of the past is that this document is apparently tethered to “Americans’ practical interests.” The document continues:
‘It does not conflate Americans’ interests with those of the rest of the world—that a threat to a person halfway around the world is the same as to an American.”
Part of the very premise of extended deterrence is that the United States would treat threats to allied persons (and nations) halfway around the world the same as those to the U.S. homeland. This, naturally, has been a very difficult premise to render credible—hence much of the history of our alliance management efforts over the last seven-ish decades.
It doesn’t seem far-fetched to me that allies will be willing to believe what the Trump administration is telling them here. There’s actually much in this NDS that I find doesn’t correspond all that well to the president’s views of the world (for starters, I don’t think Trump knows what the first island chain is). This bit, however, does correspond to much of what we know about how this president reasons about allies. Here you have the United States, I think, stating rather openly that, actually, it would not be willing to trade “Paris for New York,” as De Gaulle once famously asked of Kennedy. As I’ve written elsewhere, the ripple effects of this will likely be severe.
So, there’s that on extended deterrence.
Through the rest of the document, there’s very little on nuclear matters. There’s considerable attention on Iran’s program, with the expected commitment to denying Tehran the bomb (this also got a lot of attention in the NSS). North Korea is acknowledged as a country “increasingly capable of threatening to the U.S. Homeland” with its nuclear forces (a view that’s hardly controversial now in the United States). Very little else; even China’s historic nuclear build-up is not discussed head on in any detail.
It’s probably the case that the classified NDS has more to say on some of these questions, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of attention to nuclear matters in the unclassified version. Insofar as this document communicates U.S. priorities, it suggests an administration deeply uninterested in nuclear matters and aloof, at best, toward allies.
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