Good morning, and apologies for the interruption to your usual programming. Stepping out from behind the editing desk to write today’s newsletter feels somewhat like a player-manager throwing himself on to the pitch, but I’ll try not to destabilise your morning routine too much. Lord knows, the world doesn’t need any more chaos.
Since the US and Israel first attacked Iran two weeks ago, it’s been a scramble to keep up with events. The death of a supreme leader, speculation about his successor, global implications ranging from oil price spikes to drones raining down on once-safe cities like Doha and Dubai – the world has rarely felt so unstable.
Adding to that sense of insecurity is the lack of accurate information coming out of Iran. Journalists are few and far between in the country, and what is left of the government is scattered to avoid a repeat of the assassination of Ali Khamenei and his senior lieutenants.
To try to make sense of the conflict, today’s newsletter is with Robert Malley, the US special envoy to Iran in the Joe Biden administration and lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was scrapped during Donald Trump’s first term in office. Before that, today’s headlines.
Five big stories
-
Iran | Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic.
-
UK news | Keir Starmer overruled officials who warned of a “reputational risk” in making Peter Mandelson US ambassador, despite being handed a dossier of evidence about the peer’s relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, documents reveal.
-
Artificial intelligence | Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”
-
Oil | The International Energy Agency is poised to call for the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
-
UK politics | Keir Starmer warned his cabinet against an “overly deferential” approach to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish governments, telling ministers they should be prepared to make spending decisions “even when devolved governments may oppose this”, according to a leaked memo.
In depth: ‘You have somebody whose immorality is kind of bottomless’
When Robert Malley negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under Barack Obama’s presidency, the normalisation of relations between Iran and the US had never seemed closer. Iran had agreed to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, the material needed to build a nuclear weapon, limit enrichment up to 3.67% purity (well below the weapons-grade threshold of 90% or higher), cut the number of centrifuges it could operate and allow enhanced inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In return, sanctions that had collapsed the country’s economy would be lifted and Iran would have full access to the global oil market.
But whether because it wasn’t his deal or due to a sincere belief that it didn’t go far enough, Trump collapsed the deal in 2018, reinstating sanctions and pushing Iran back into pariah status.
Malley returned to the negotiating table with his Iranian counterparts under Biden, but progress always stalled. “One of the big problems we had,” says Malley, “was that every time we would get a message from the Iranians saying, ‘What guarantee do we have that Biden’s successor is not going to tear it up?’ We’d say: ‘None. Either you go for it, or you don’t’”.
Before the strikes of the past two weeks, renewed negotiations had been ongoing (in fact, that may have been one of the reasons the US and Israel knew where the Iranian leadership were located), and Malley had genuine hope that something could be achieved. “A lot of people were telling the Iranians, ‘Play to Trump’s ego. Have a phone call between the president. Have a meeting. Say you’re the best. This is the best deal ever,’” says Malley.
Ultimately, Malley believes that even if there was a deal to be had, the distrust of Trump was perhaps too high. “It may have been the supreme leader simply said, ‘No, we’re not going to kneel in front of the guy who killed Qassem Suleimani [in 2020], who bombed us [in 2025].’”
Send in the psychologists
When it comes to what’s happening now, and what the US may be planning next, Malley admits that he may not be the most qualified to answer, despite his decades working in the region. “Being an expert in the Middle East … doesn’t help all that much,” he says. “It helps to be an expert on Trump’s psychology, and I confess I’m a real amateur when it comes to that. I would not have expected him to do what he did – I’m trying, in hindsight, to make sense of it.”
He identifies clues from Trump’s first term such as moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and this term’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza and the bombing of Iranian military sites last year – perhaps this is just a logical next step? The escalatory path that Malley identifies is something others have warned of. Democratic congressman Pat Ryan, an Iraq war veteran, said on an episode of Pod Save America this week that “this echoes Iraq and Afghanistan to a certain significant degree, but remember Vietnam started with this slow trickle …‘We need to take one escalatory step’, and then each time more and more Americans are sent.”
And all the while, Trump has people whispering in his ear, pushing for more. “He sees himself as a historical figure,” says Malley. “If he could be the president on whose watch not one, not two, but three traditionally ‘anti-American’ regimes start doing business with America – Venezuela yesterday, Iran today, maybe Cuba tomorrow … I’m sure people like Netanyahu have really fed this image [as someone] who could do what none of his predecessors did.”
But however unknowable the US president’s motivations might be, the future of the Middle East, and possibly the world, now sit with Trump. It’s not a prospect Malley welcomes. “It’s particularly worrisome because you have somebody whose immorality is kind of bottomless. That is married to power that is infinite, and this is the first time we’re seeing him truly play with the instruments of American power almost to their limit.
“He was very proud of what he did in Venezuela, but it wasn’t the unleashing of American power to its maximum. Anything is possible now. I don’t know what that actually means, but I think there would be no regard for either civilian casualties, for infrastructural damage, or for long-term consequence.”
Divergent priorities
If the Trump administration’s motivations seem unclear, those of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu seem more transparent to Malley. The Israeli prime minister has made no secret of his desire to take out what he sees as the primary threat to his country – but he has never enjoyed the cover and support he has now to undertake such bombastic action. “When Trump was elected, we heard all these reports about how Trump hates Netanyahu,” says Malley. “But this is the first time I can remember the US and Israel had openly, overtly, entered a war hand and glove.”
That dramatically changes the calculations of what happens now, and what may come next. “In every experience that I either was part of or that I witnessed, there was a desire by the US to keep Israel at arm’s length precisely because they didn’t want it to look like an Israeli-American conspiracy against the Arab world,” says Malley. “This president throws a lot of these orthodoxies out the window.” (Surely a maxim that deserves to be embossed in gold above the entrance to Trump’s new White House state ballroom when it’s completed.)
And while Netanyahu’s endgame may lie in creating a permanently unstable Iran – “they want to go as far as they can to fragment, destabilise [and] weaken Iran, even at the cost of chaos, civil war” – a lengthy conflict and fragmented Iran may not suit Trump or the US. There’s the immediate threat the rising price of oil causes – to the global economy and Republican electoral chances in November’s midterms – and it’s shaken the faith of previously reliable US allies in the region.
“[The Gulf Cooperation Council] really are between a rock and a hard place,” says Malley. “I’m sure a number of them are extremely upset at Israel and the United States at having put them in this position. From my conversations with Gulf officials, they still want this to end sooner rather than later, even though they feel extraordinarily betrayed by Iran.”
Curiously, Malley doesn’t think it’s likely to cause irreparable damage to the hard-won relationships between the Gulf states and America. “The US hasn’t proven to be particularly reliable in terms of defending them … [but] years of investment in improving their relations with Iran hasn’t paid off either, and they certainly can’t trust that Iran won’t do something like this again. So, I think they’re kind of stuck where they are – relying on an unreliable US and trying to normalise with a not particularly normal Iran.”
An endgame?
For all the geopolitics at play, there is still the rather thorny issues of more than 400kg of enriched uranium in Iran. While Malley talks of the Israelis’ “extraordinary intelligence feat” in assassinating so many of Iran’s leaders – which must have required access to “all levels of the Iranian system” – there is no sense that the US or Israel would be able to secure Iran’s uranium deposits with boots on the ground, even if it wanted to. “I’m not sure people know exactly where it is,” says Malley, suggesting it’s likely to be split up and divided across a country around seven times larger than the UK.
“I had assumed that part of the Israeli-American plan was to send special forces to try to dig up Iran,” admits Malley. “If killing [Ali Khamenei] wasn’t enough for the president to take care of victory, I think getting the 400kg might well be his exit plan. I just don’t know physically how possible it is.”
Will this at least have set back the nuclear programme oft cited as a justification for the war? Malley isn’t convinced. “An expert once told me before the 12-day war and the strike on Fordow [nuclear plant last year] that Iran was about six to nine months away [from developing a bomb]. After the 12-day war, that same expert told me Iran is about six to nine months away,” says Malley. Destroying infrastructure is relatively simple, but the knowledge of how to build a bomb is much harder to eradicate. “They couldn’t rebuild the programme the same way any time soon, but if they really wanted to, and were undetected, they could dash for a bomb in the same amount of time.”
So if that route to “victory” may be cut off for Trump, is there another off-ramp for a president who once spoke so vociferously against getting stuck in long, foreign wars. “The only good news about a president who’s unpredictable is that he could surprise us and decide tomorrow [to end it],” says Malley. “He’s given maybe 20 different objectives. It is possible that at one point he declares victory and says he’s accomplished everything he aimed to accomplish.”
If that feels like a relatively upbeat way to end (I know, I’m grasping at straws), Malley was keen to stress that the long-term consequences of the past fortnight are likely to spring up for decades in the “seeds he has planted”. “We’re going to see that bloom over generations,” he says.
“Between what happened in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iraq. The reservoir of hatred, of rage, of desire for revenge, of the number of people who have nothing to lose and therefore have nothing to fear. It has created a very explosive situation. It may not happen tomorrow, it may not happen next year, but at some point I think we’ll see the long-term repercussions of this destruction.”
What else we’ve been reading
-
Patrick Greenfield’s poignant investigation into how mining threatens some of the world’s last areas of wilderness, focusing on Indonesia’s Weda Bay, is brilliantly reported and beautifully written. Poppy Noor, newsletters team
-
The latest instalment in our Against the tide series looking at the lives of young people in coastal towns has a focus on Scarborough, and how youths are torn between pride in where they come from and moving away. Martin
-
I loved Arifa Akbar’s piece for how her mother coaxed her out of dressing in baggy, all-black sports clothing and into wearing bolder colours. Poppy
-
Veteran art-pop brothers Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks are as eloquent as ever in this interview with Forbes as they prepare to tour their 26th(!) studio album. Martin
-
I, too, have clicked on a piece of unhappy content and found myself drowned in similar stuff served up – it’s one of the reasons I left Instagram. So I empathised with Polly Hudson’s column on how she fell for the same trick – again and again and again. Poppy
Sport
Football | Vinícius Júnior also had a penalty saved in Real Madrid’s 3-0 win against Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League last 16. Chelsea were beaten 5-2 in the first leg of their Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain, as a goalkeeping error handed the holders the initiative. Bayer Leverkusen took the lead from a corner but Arsenal made it 1-1 in the 89th minute when Kai Havertz scored against his former club.
Winter Paralympics | Team Ukraine have launched a stinging attack on the International Paralympic Committee and Winter Paralympics organisers, claiming they have been under “systemic pressure” to reduce their presence at the Games.
Football | The prospect of Iran playing at this summer’s World Cup appears remote after the country’s sports minister, Ahmad Donyamali, said on Wednesday that “under no circumstances can we participate”.
The front pages
“PM was told of ‘reputational risk’ over Mandelson links to Epstein,” is the splash on the Guardian today, a story that dominated UK headlines. “Aide warned Starmer of risk in Mandelson’s appointment,” says the FT. “PM was warned on ‘reputation risk’ of hiring Mandelson,” writes the Express.
“PM flouted Mandelson warnings,” has the Times. “Mandelson demanded £500k pay-off,” says the Mirror. “Mandelson was shown secret files before ‘weirdly rushed’ vetting,” says the i paper. “£500k to walk away,” quips the Metro, while the Star runs with “Golden Mandshake.” Finally the Mail with “Not fit to lead the country.” And the Record with “Silence on the bams.”
Today in Focus
What teenagers really see on their phones
As 15-year-old Abbey explains to Helen Pidd, scrolling through her phone, she is assailed by misogynistic content day and night whether she wants to see it or not. Why has the internet become like this for teenagers? And why are so many boys seemingly seduced by it?
Cartoon of the day | Artist Name
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Country radio still has a gender parity problem – there is just one female artist in the current top 15 country airplay charts – but last week, singer-songwriters Ella Langley and Megan Moroney made history as the first two women in country music to top the all-genre Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts simultaneously.
Their success arrives during a generational boom for country music that has been aided by social media. “There’s this young female fan demographic that’s turning these songs into shared cultural moments,” says Cameo Carlson, CEO of mtheory, a company that provides support to artists and their managers. “Both artists really understand that conversation.”
“And they’re doing it while country radio remains male dominated,” adds Leslie Fram, co-founder of creative consultancy FEMco. “That contrast makes it extra satisfying: the fans and streaming metrics are speaking louder than gatekeepers.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
