انتهى الاجتماع الرباعي في طهران بين تركيا وباكستان وإيران والسعودية. لمن يتساءل عمّا حدث، فمن الواضح لي أن السعوديين ذهبوا إلى طهران حاملين عرضاً يتضمن تنازلات كبيرة للإيرانيين، مقابل التوسط لدى أنصار الله لوقف هجماتهم على السعودية، والحصول على ضمانات بإبقائها خارج نطاق الرد الإيراني في حال أقدمت الولايات المتحدة على قصف منشآت الطاقة الإيرانية. ولكن إيران لن تقدم شيئاً ملموساً للسعودية إلا إذا تضمن العرض السعودي تنازلات استراتيجية حقيقية، تبدأ بسحب القواعد العسكرية الأمريكية من منطقة الخليج، وتنتهي ببناء تحالف أمني إقليمي تعترف فيه دول الخليج بسيادة إيران الكاملة على مضيق هرمز، وبحقها في نقض أي وجود عسكري أجنبي في الخليج. باعتقادي، هذا الاجتماع عنوان لمرحلة جديدة في المنطقة، تتلخص باعتراف خليجي واضح بأن إيران أصبحت سيدتهم الجديدة، وأن عليهم التفاهم معها لضمان أمنهم واستمرار دولهم. ولكن هنا تكمن المعضلة السعودية. فالسعوديون مطالبون بالتعقل والتفاهم مع إيران بما يضمن مصالحهم، بعيداً عن الأمريكيين، بينما هم في الحقيقة لا يمتلكون الاستقلال السياسي والعسكري الذي يسمح لهم باتخاذ مثل هذا القرار بحرية. ولفهم هذه المعضلة، يكفي العودة إلى تاريخ الهند تحت الاستعمار البريطاني. فقد كانت هناك مئات الإمارات والممالك التي يحكمها الراجات والمهراجات والنواب، مثل حيدر آباد وكشمير. وكانت لهذه الممالك قصورها وحكامها وجيوشها وإداراتها الخاصة، وتبدو وكأنها دول مستقلة، بينما كانت بريطانيا تتحكم في علاقاتها الخارجية وتفرض عليها سيادتها العليا. والأمر نفسه حدث في مصر بعد الاحتلال البريطاني عام 1882. فقد بقي الخديوي على عرشه، واستمرت الحكومة المصرية في ممارسة مهامها، ولكن القرار الحقيقي في القضايا الكبرى كان بيد البريطانيين. وهكذا هي طبيعة العلاقة بين دول الخليج والولايات المتحدة. فالاستقلال الشكلي ووجود الحكومات والجيوش والأعلام لا يعني بالضرورة امتلاك السيادة الحقيقية، خصوصاً عندما تكون الدولة عاجزة عن اتخاذ قراراتها الأمنية والعسكرية الكبرى بمعزل عن إرادة القوة الأجنبية التي تعتمد عليها لحمايتها. وهنا مأزق السعودية تحديداً. فهي تريد التفاهم مع إيران لإنقاذ نفسها من حرب قد تدمر منشآتها النفطية واقتصادها، ولكن هذا التفاهم سيصطدم بالضرورة بالمصالح الأمريكية، لأن ما تريده إيران يتعارض جذرياً مع استمرار الهيمنة العسكرية الأمريكية على الخليج. السعودية عالقة بين نارين: نار إيرانية قد تحرق منشآتها النفطية إذا استمرت في الارتهان للأمريكيين، ونار أمريكية قد تواجهها إذا قررت الخروج عن إرادة واشنطن والتفاهم مع طهران. والمشكلة أن السعودية أمضت عقوداً تبني أمنها على الحماية الأمريكية، لتجد نفسها اليوم أمام تحول هذه الحماية إلى السبب الذي يعرض وجودها للخطر.

Why were Jonathan Powell, Peter Mandelson and Lord Hermer appointed without vetting? The answer is that Chagos was a deal Starmer couldn't refuse to make. Here's a timeline of the key stages of the Chagos treachery. In 1982, after it became known that the Chagos seabed may contain vast mineral wealth, Mauritius set up a select committee to examine the matter. However, sea-mining technology was in its infancy, and it was too expensive to be commercially viable at that time. In 2003, as underwater mining technologies advanced and the value of minerals and rare earth elements soared, mining the Chagos seabed became an exciting possibility again; Mauritius appointed the eminent international barrister Sir Ian Brownlie as advisor for the Chagos Archipelago. A former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Brownlie was a good friend of Sir Satcam Boolell, a former Labour deputy prime minister of Mauritius, and High Commissioner in London. In 2009, Brownlie led the first Mauritius delegation to the Foreign Office in London seeking a Chagos deal. Among the delegation was Sir Satcam Boolell's son Satyajit, who became Mauritius Director of Public Prosecutions the same year. In 2010, after Brownlie died in a motor accident in Egypt, Sir Keir Starmer’s “great mate”, Philippe Sands, a leading human-rights lawyer who has publicly boasted of humiliating the UK in international courts, took over as counsel to Mauritius for Chagos. In 2013, Satyajit Boolell invited Keir Starmer, whom he had become friendly with during Starmer's time as the UK's DPP, to a legal conference at the 5-star Balaclava resort in Mauritius. During the trip, Starmer discussed the future of the Chagos Archipelago with then Mauritius prime minister Navin Ramgoolam. After Starmer’s 2013 visit, Ramgoolam wrote that he and Starmer were aligned over Chagos. In 2015, Ramgoolam was arrested on money-laundering charges when large sums of cash in foreign currencies, suitcases full of brand-new luxury watches, and blank British visas were found in his home. Also in 2015, Starmer was elected to the British Parliament. In 2019, Philippe Sands, after a campaign of lobbying the UN, obtained an International Court of Justice ruling (advisory opinion only, and non-binding) that the Chagos islands should be given to Mauritius. Sands used the ICJ ruling as leverage in the following years in his efforts to persuade the Conservative government to give Chagos to Mauritius. In 2020, Starmer became leader of the Labour Party. In 2021, Sands received Mauritius' top honour, The Most Distinguished Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean. In 2022, Sands made an unauthorized entry into the Chagos Archipelago for a flag-raising ceremony. Sands tweets at the time, “It’s morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies." In 2023, Sands became a Mauritius citizen, but retains his British and French citizenships. 🧧In November 2023, David Cameron replaced James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and, with the support of other senior Tories, stopped a Chagos deal saying, it’s not in the national interest, as reported in Hansard. In July 2024, Starmer became UK Prime Minister and just ten weeks after entering Downing Street, he agreed a deal with Mauritius, despite there having been no mention of Chagos during the election campaign, and the Labour manifesto pledging to protect the BOT. in November of 2024, Ramgoolam was elected Mauritius prime minister again after a snap general election, and took over from the incumbent PM, Pravind Jugnauth, to lead the Chagos negotiations with the UK. In December 2024, after 14 years in the role, Philippe Sands steps down as Mauritius counsel for Chagos. In January 2025, Attorney General Lord Hermer recused himself from signing off on the Chagos deal, and declined to say why. In February 2025, Jugnauth was arrested on money-laundering charges after large sums of cash in foreign currencies and suitcases full of brand-new luxury watches were found in his home. In May 2025, twelve years after discussing the future of Chagos in Mauritius, Starmer and Ramgoolam sat down in London to sign the treaty that transfers the archipelago's sovereignty to Mauritius. The Fall Out. The Chagos deal does🟥NOT secure the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia. The deal operationally hobbles the base, and increases the dangers to the British and American military personnel, and the civilians who work there, and in the wider Central Indian Ocean region. Diego Garcia's remoteness made it easy to defend in the past. This deal leaves the base horribly vulnerable to the growing threats posed by the new longer-range missiles, and more sophisticated and lethal drones. When Keir Starmer, Lord Hermer and Vijay Rangarajan, the Director General at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, made the deal it was fully understood that the outer islands of the Chagos Archipelago were by far the best locations to deploy early warning, and air-defense systems, to protect the main base from missile and drone attacks. Yet they still decided to lease only Diego Garcia. Andy Burnham, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, and Defense Minister Wes Streeting, know the deal increases the dangers to the lives of British service personnel, and our NATO allies personnel, in the strategically important Central Indian Ocean region. To double down and push the deal with that knowledge is a shameful act of betrayal. While the deal leaves Diego Garcia vulnerable to attack, it also renders the base itself ineffective and operationally hobbled. Mauritius is a signatory of the Pelindaba African Weapon-Free Zone Treaty which bans all nuclear weapons from treaty members' territory. Pelindaba gives each of the more the 40 countries who have signed it the right to inspect the facilities on Diego Garcia if they suspect nuclear arms are being stored there. The UK's nuclear-armed Trident submarines will no longer be able to enter Chagos waters, or visit Diego Garcia which is the only island in the region which has suitable anchorage and facilities for maintenance and restocking provisions, etc. The US's nuclear-armed submarines, ships, and planes will also be banned from Diego Garcia and the Chagos Archipelago's waters. Mauritius gets complete sovereignty over everything, including control of the airspace above the Chagos Archipelago, which at 250,000 square miles is the same size as France. The implications of controlling such a vast area of airspace in a strategically vital region are huge. Mauritius has shown it will ban planes entering its current airspace when China asks. The Chagos Deal does not ‘secure the base’. It methodically destroys every element required for operations. The text and annexes state it will: ❌Constrain future Ops and use of the base ❌Prevent the placing of sensors and other maritime installations ❌Require us to sight our foes on defence planning ❌Mean we’re unable to use our preferred contractors ❌See us lose of control over electromagnetic spectrum.

Pathetic, weak, self interested and a total embarrassment to a once great Country.

In much of the world, trust in America is collapsing. President Trump believes he is making America's allies support themselves and pay their own bills. But he may instead end up making them build their own nuclear bombs. My latest column: washingtonpost.com/opinions/…

"Trump’s consistent indulgence of Vladimir Putin has been slavishly supported by the great mass of the Republican Party in both Houses. Not a single member of the administration has dissented, let alone resigned over it." Read why Dominic Lawson believes "a lust for proximity to power has seen supposedly principled conservatives betray their country"🔗 telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…

SpaceX is on track to make $1 TRILLION per year. But Elon says the constraint is “more in power and cooling and infrastructure than it is in chips.” 6 stocks that get paid when SpaceX builds:👇 1. Super Micro ( $SMCI ) - $35.57

Trump on Ukraine War: The Russians had a thousand tanks riding up a concrete highway. They would have been in Ukraine in four hours, going maximum tank speed, which is 48 miles an hour, to be exact. Nothing to stop them. The war would have been over in one day. And this very stupid general—I have no idea who he is. I doubt he’s still with us. I doubt he’s still living. He decided to hang a right onto the farmland and then take a left and go up to Kyiv, rather than staying on the highway—the concrete highway, perfectly good highway—where they were doing very nicely. It would have been three and a half, four hours, and the whole war would have ended. He ended up getting stuck in the mud.

Rubio: I spoke with Zelenskyy for 45 minutes today. Nothing has changed in what the Department of War does for Ukraine, including PURL. Trump ordered no change to intelligence sharing. None of it has changed. Reports that say otherwise are simply not true. 1/

Rubio: "President Trump is most certainly angry and frustrated at the lack of progress in Russia-Ukraine negotiations after having dedicated almost 2 years to it now." Marco, oh Marco... The cause of your anger and frustration, your lack of progress, sits in the Kremlin and has a name. He is rejecting every ceasefire you propose except the ones where Ukraine is asked to surrender. You suggested an unconditional ceasefire back in March 2025. Ukraine accepted, so why isn’t it happening? Probably because someone else didn’t. The aggressor, maybe? We suggested a ceasefire on energy strikes, exactly what you want, too. So why isn’t it happening? Who is refusing? Russia. I get it, it must be so annoying that some pesky Ukrainians and their fight for literal survival stand between you and your bestie merging in a sweet ecstasy of… dealmaking. But we will not surrender, regardless. Seriously, what happened to this man???

Our offer.

There can now be precious little confidence in Donald Trump’s professed desire to secure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, or indeed in his commitment to the peace and security of Europe. The United States Congress passed legislation expressly intended to weaken Putin’s war machine through severe economic sanctions. Yet Donald Trump, having signed that very legislation into law, has now issued an executive order suspending its principal provisions, mere days before they were due to take effect. The contradiction is as extraordinary as it is deeply troubling. At the very moment when Congress sought to tighten the economic stranglehold on Moscow, the President of the United States chose instead to loosen it. Whatever justification Washington may offer, the practical consequence is to afford Putin precisely the breathing space that Congress intended to deny him. One must therefore ask whose interests are truly being served. Certainly, it is difficult to see how such a decision advances the cause of Ukraine, a sovereign European nation whose people continue to endure the appalling consequences of Russia’s unprovoked aggression. The increasingly erratic pronouncements and deeply questionable decisions emerging from the White House should serve as a stark warning to the international community. America’s traditional allies must now confront an uncomfortable reality: the assurances upon which European security has depended for generations can no longer be accepted without question. The forthcoming American midterm elections have consequently assumed a significance extending far beyond the domestic affairs of the United States. At stake are the constitutional checks upon presidential power, the credibility of NATO, the security of Europe and the preservation of an international order painstakingly constructed in the aftermath of two devastating world wars. What makes this moment particularly alarming is the apparent disregard for the lessons of history. Peace is not secured by indulging aggression, rewarding territorial conquest or weakening the collective resolve of democratic nations. Such conduct risks emboldening those who regard military force, rather than international law, as the ultimate instrument of political ambition. We should harbour no illusions about the gravity of the present circumstances. The possibility of a wider European conflict, with consequences reaching far beyond the continent and potentially involving nuclear powers, is no longer a danger that responsible governments can afford to dismiss. Donald Trump may continue to proclaim himself a peacemaker, but grand declarations are rendered meaningless when contradicted by the decisions of the man making them. The measure of any statesman lies not in the extravagance of his promises, but in the consequences of his actions. And those consequences now demand the most searching scrutiny, for the price of political recklessness on this scale may ultimately be paid not merely by the people of Ukraine, but by generations who had every right to expect that the catastrophic lessons of the twentieth century would never again be so casually disregarded. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxr5…

Zelensky is the single biggest obstacle to achieving peace in the Ukraine. Once everyone realizes that, this war will end and people of that region of the world can start rebuilding their lives.