The midnight brawl at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is not a Polish problem. It is the local flare-up of a continental disease. Across Europe, when voters pick the wrong candidate, the establishment reaches for a judge, an intelligence service or the EU’s checkbook, and calls the result “defending democracy.” The Journal of Democracy wrote the textbook....

Washington has a plan for Iran. According to a source close to the White House, the plan is to seize one or more of Iran’s islands in the Persian Gulf. Senator Chris Murphy, who says he has been briefed on what the administration intends to do after Tuesday’s midterms, summed it up this week in...

There is a certain kind of travel itinerary you learn to recognize after a career in the intelligence business. A politician under criminal investigation, ordered by his country’s Supreme Court to surrender his passport, slips across a border at night. Within forty minutes he is aboard a private jet with a colorful ownership history. The...

If you want to understand what Washington’s war with Iran is costing ordinary people, forget the think-tank reports. Go to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, where a few hundred mostly American retirees spent Wednesday packing their lives into suitcases on a few hours’ notice. They had bought a home on the sea. The sea, it turns out, runs...

On Monday, while Donald Trump was publicly pondering whether to “make a deal” with Iran or “finish them off,” something happened in Tehran that should have set off alarms in every office of the State Department, assuming anyone is still left there to hear them. Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the brother...

I spent enough years at the Central Intelligence Agency that I learned how to read the press stories that the agency’s friends place for it. Shane Harris’s new profile of CIA Director John Ratcliffe in The Atlantic, published October 23, is one of those stories. It is written to make Ratcliffe look like the sober...

Before diving into the latest analytical piece from Karl Miller, just a comment on President Lula’s surprising victory in the just concluded presidential election in Brazil. The betting markets favored Bolsonaro and quite a few people lost money betting on his victory (but the bookies are happy). Lula’s victory means that BRICS remains intact and...

Good news from the Persian Gulf: the war is going so well that the sea itself has joined the fight. While Washington’s experts debate missile counts and the price of oil (around $115 for Brent on Friday, in case anyone in the White House is still checking), Karl Miller, who is actually on the ground...

Good news, everyone. The war is over, at least in the United Arab Emirates. That is the only conclusion you could draw from this month’s headlines. On October 14, Bloomberg reported the International Energy Agency’s estimate that UAE oil supply hit a record 5.3 million barrels a day in September. Fujairah, the port the Emirates...

Donald Trump has discovered a remarkable statistical phenomenon. In Iran, the dead multiply on their own, unassisted, between speeches. You don’t need a morgue, a name, a death certificate or a human rights group. You need a microphone and a rally. Let me walk you through it, because the trend line is breathtaking. The Trump...

Earlier this month, Aramco’s chief executive, Amin Nasser, assured the markets that “our system is intact” and that Saudi Arabia could restore its full 12 million barrels a day of capacity within days. It is a comforting message, and Washington, European capitals and oil traders have every reason to want to believe it. It is...

If you get your picture of the war in Ukraine from the Institute for the Study of War, you could be forgiven for thinking Russia has spent 2026 standing still. According to reporting on ISW’s latest assessments, Russia’s actual territorial gains this year come to roughly 100 square kilometers, about 40 square miles, or a...

Washington and Israel are talking again about “finishing the job” in Iran. Before they do, someone should take a hard look at the bill for the jobs already done. My friend Karl Miller, who has called this region correctly more often than most of the people paid to do it, sent me his latest assessment...

Saudi Arabia went looking for allies against Ansar Allah, and so far it has gotten statements of support. Egypt has declared its readiness to back the Kingdom, but its statement does not commit to any military involvement. Pakistan and Turkey have pledged troops under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed in August, but both governments...

For most of the Saudi war in Yemen, Ansar Allah’s ballistic missiles were more political than military. They were noisy and frightening, but rarely decisive. In 2017 the press could fairly report that the group’s missiles were often lightened by reducing their payloads and seldom hit what they were aimed at. Saudi air defenses picked...

Karl Miller’s new report says the Gulf paid for protection it never got, and that it is time to walk away For years the Gulf monarchies have been told that the path to security runs through Washington and Tel Aviv. Sign the Abraham Accords, buy Israeli defense and surveillance technology, invest in the right American...

I’ve had this article sitting in storage waiting for the right moment to publish it. Tonight, Mario Nawfal hosted a debate on Iran that featured Robert Barnes and Matt Tardio. Matt put out so much disinformation and falsities that I believe now is the time to set the record straight about what happened to the...

I am back in NYC at the invitation of the Russian delegation to the United Nations. Unlike my previous appearance before the full UN Security Council, this was an Arria session. An Arria-formula meeting is an informal meeting called by one or more Security Council members to hear from people who normally can’t address the...

When the Strait of Hormuz closed at the end of February, Saudi Arabia had what almost no other Gulf producer had: a way out at scale. The East-West pipeline, known in the industry as Petroline, carries crude 1,200 kilometers across the desert from the oil fields of the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red...

Karl Miller’s new assessment: a seven-to-ten-year rebuild, a trillion-dollar bill, and a diesel crisis that Saudi Arabia can no longer cushion For most of this war, Saudi Arabia has been the shock absorber of the world oil market. When Hormuz closed, Riyadh pushed crude west through the East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea...