Palestinians feel "terror," as Israeli settlers push to expand territory, encouraged by Netanyahu www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Settlers Torch Mosques and Villagers Guard Homes: West Bank Violence Is Surging

A deadly clash sparked fresh attacks on Palestinian villages in what critics say is a push to expand Israeli territory.

wsj.com

NATO's arms race relies on drones, computing power - and cotton. And it doesn't have enough. My latest story on guncotton, a key chemical material in virtually all modern ammunition systems. Europe has for centuries relied on China for it, and that's now a problem. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Wanted for Rearming Against Russia and China: More Cotton

To fire big ammunition, militaries need explosive chemicals derived from natural fibers that suddenly are in short supply.

wsj.com

Jeff Landry, Trump's Greenland envoy, got an icy reception this week from Greenlandic officials who accused him of circumventing official channels. Instead, he met Greenlanders in private homes and cafés. "I don’t want them to see who I’m talking to," he told me. www.wsj.com/world/trumps...

Trump’s Envoy Gets Chilly Reception on First Trip to Greenland

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry brushed off criticism of his visit. Greenland’s leaders accuse him of circumventing official channels.

wsj.com

The war on Iran has divided the six Arab Gulf states, except on one issue: they unanimously think Israel is trying to drag them into a war, and to exert dominance in the region. Gulf states are now rethinking relations with Israel, and w the US and Iran. My latest: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Muted U.S. Response to Iranian Attacks Deepens Gulf Fears About Cease-Fire

Persian Gulf states are worried that a negotiated end to the war will leave them exposed to security threats.

wsj.com

I first investigated Babak Zanjani 10 years ago while I was living in Iran. Now, a decade after being sentenced to death, Iran's most famous sanctions buster has been released and is back in full swing, this time using crypto. My story: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

How Iran’s Chief Sanctions Buster Went From Death Row to Crypto

Babak Zanjani has emerged at the forefront of Iranian efforts to skirt sanctions after being sentenced to death a decade ago.

wsj.com

Iran suffered way worse destruction during the 40-day war than it did through the 1980-88 war with Iraq. The scale of reconstruction ahead puts pressure on Iran to negotiate sanctions relief. My story: www.wsj.com/world/middle... #trump #israel

Iran’s War-Shattered Economy Means It Has an Urgent Reason to Negotiate

The damage done by U.S. and Israeli attacks will take years to repair and puts pressure on Tehran to seek financial relief in talks.

wsj.com

📉 Metrics show the internet blackout in #Iran is ongoing into its 48th day after 1128 hours. The censorship measure, unsurpassed in scale and severity in a connected society, has had an economic impact of ~$1.8bn to date per COST methodology in addition to human rights harms.

In side discussions and over dinner meetings in and around NATO, a fallback plan to ensure Europe can defend itself it the U.S. leaves the alliance is gaining traction. The crucial shift is happening in Germany. www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Exclusive | Europe Is Accelerating a NATO Fallback Plan in Case Trump Pulls Out

The Continent is drawing up a contingency for greater European involvement as tensions rise over the Iran war.

wsj.com

Donald Trump is only the latest U.S. president to flirt with owning Greenland I recently travelled across Greenland to find an old abandoned American military base that dates back to the last time the U.S. tried to own the island. My story: www.wsj.com/world/americ...

America Has Wanted Greenland for Over a Century. Trump Isn’t Giving Up.

The remnants of Bluie East Two stand as a reminder of the last time the U.S. tried to own the island.

wsj.com

"Any deal Trump gets now is worse than the one that was on the table when he decided to blow things up" Sounds about right. www.wsj.com/world/middle... #iran

President Trump says it's now up to other countries to secure the Strait of Hormuz. That gives Iran even more power over the strait, and one-fifth of the world's oil. Our story about what makes the strait so tricky, and what securing it would look like. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Trump’s Mission Impossible for Allies: Reopening the Strait of Hormuz

European leaders say forcing the passageway open militarily is unrealistic and more likely to come about through international pressure.

wsj.com

A recent trial against Antoine "Tony" Kassis, a cousin of Bashar al-Assad, offers a rare window into a trans-Atlantic trade in weapons and drugs between Iranian allies in the Middle East, and cartels and rebel groups in South America. My story for @wsj.com www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Inside the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Iranian Weapons for Colombian Coke

A recent conviction offers a rare window into the illicit global network that brings money into the Islamic Republic.

wsj.com

Interesting piece by @yarbatman.bsky.social who does the math on the Iranian Shahed-136 drones. He concludes the production cost of one Shahed is not $35,000, as is often cited, but roughly $7,000. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cos...

Drones Like Bicycles | Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

Assessing the cost of a Shahed kamikaze drone

phenomenalworld.org

"For now, there is but one certainty—that the hopes and lives of Iranians don’t matter. Not to Israel, not to the U.S., and certainly not to their own regime, gunning them down in the street." Excellent by @rezaian.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/news/the-led... #iran

A Former Prisoner of the Iranian Regime Watches Trump’s War

A journalist who was wrongfully detained for five hundred and forty-four days never got to say goodbye to Tehran. Now he’s fielding messages about chaos and destruction in the home he left behind.

newyorker.com

This is what it looks like when the U.S. gets bogged down in a Middle East war it thought would be swift. “I think it will take weeks to reach a point where there can be safe operations in the strait... Even then, a lot of the Iranian assets will survive.” www.wsj.com/world/middle... #iran

U.S. War Planes and Helicopters Kick Off Battle to Reopen Hormuz

The effort has taken on new urgency nearly three weeks into the war with Iran, as oil prices soar above $100 a barrel.

wsj.com

Danish PM Mette Frederiksen is an international superstar, but at home, her party can expect the worst election in a century. The only thing that helps her w Danish voters is standing up to Trump. The conflict over Greenland has been a lifeline. My profile of her: www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Trump’s Greenland Pursuit Gives Danish Leader New Lease on Life

Mette Frederiksen is seeking a third term leading the nation of six million people, after getting a polling boost from the president’s push for the territory.

wsj.com

"America’s Arab allies are now fuming that they don’t seem to have any influence with the Trump administration despite heavy investments of time and money." www.wsj.com/world/middle... #Iran #israel #war

Escalating Attacks on Gulf Energy Assets Plunge Iran War Into New Phase

Strikes targeting infrastructure in Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have put strategic oil-and-gas facilities at the center of the conflict.

wsj.com

Good reminder (if we needed it) that for all the talk of Dubai being a safe haven for business and tourists, the UAE is not a democracy 21 ppl have been charged under UAE cybercrime laws for sharing videos and social media posts relating to recent missile strikes www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

British man charged in Dubai for alleged filming of Iranian missiles

Foreign Office officials are understood to be supporting his family.

bbc.co.uk

Trump might not want Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader of Iran, but the US and Israeli war has helped elevate him, and bolstered his legitimacy. My latest about how Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died a martyr, and how that will benefit his son. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

How Iran Is Building a Religious Mythology Around Its New Supreme Leader

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died a martyr. That fate will benefit his son.

wsj.com

Iran has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late ayatollah and a close associate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as the next supreme leader. Seems unwise, perhaps, to announce a successor while bombings are still ongoing. Israel has said it will target a new supreme leader.

Khamenei leaves behind a system with no obvious successor, largely by design, and an Islamic Republic in a fight for survival. Any new supreme leader will have less personal authority than Khamenei and serve a more ceremonial role. My latest: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Khamenei’s Death Leaves Iran at Historic Turning Point—Without a Clear Successor

The Islamic Republic the late ayatollah led for nearly four decades is in a fight for its survival.

wsj.com

Many of us who have followed Iran for years, and lived there, have imagined and debated Khamenei's death for years. Yet I feel unprepared for what comes next. My obituary of the man who more than any other one individual shaped the modern Middle East: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei Dies

The leader of post-revolutionary Iran expanded the country’s global ambitions while facing domestic anger over a failing economy.

wsj.com

Greenlanders are perplexed by Trump’s plan to send a hospital ship to the island. The seed of the idea, I discovered came from one of their own. Meet Jørgen Boassen, a Greenlandic bricklayer who during Mardi Gras inspired Gov Jeff Landry to propose the idea to Trump www.wsj.com/world/the-gr...

The Greenlandic Bricklayer Behind Trump’s Plan to Send a Hospital Ship

Jørgen Boassen says he was the one who inspired the governor of Louisiana to propose the idea to President Trump.

wsj.com

I embedded with a team of U.S. Special Forces, veterans the global war on terror, as they retrained for Arctic warfare. The U.S. military is experts on all kinds of warfare, but not in the Arctic. "People don’t understand how absolutely absurd it is to operate up there" www.wsj.com/world/europe...

U.S. Elite Troops Hardened by War on Terror Retrain for Arctic Combat

A Wall Street Journal reporter trained for 10 days with a team of Green Berets during a grueling winter warfare training.

wsj.com

The top 0.1% richest households' share of America's new wealth is now more than 14% Politics aside, the risk is that the U.S. economy becomes increasingly dependent on a narrow group of very rich, whose spending is tied to the performance of the stock market. www.wsj.com/finance/bill...

Billionaires’ Low Taxes Are Becoming a Problem for the Economy

Tax avoidance by the superwealthy is an economic issue as well as a political one.

wsj.com

I lived and trained for 10 days with a group of U.S. Special Forces as they learned how to operate in extreme cold, to prep for potential war with Russia in the Arctic. I took the ice plunge so you don't have to. www.wsj.com/world/europe... #sweden #russia #arctic #usarmy

How U.S. Special Forces Are Training in an Arctic Warfare Bootcamp

WSJ’s Sune Engel Rasmussen is the first civilian to take part in this grueling training with a unit of American Green Berets.

wsj.com

Even at the lower end of estimates, Iran's crackdown on protesters would rank as one of the most violent deployments of state power against protesters, exceeding the toll at China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. And 10,000 is just an unfathomable number. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Iran’s Protest Crackdown Looks Deadlier by the Day

Rights groups’ estimates grow to 10,000 or more dead as new details trickle out.

wsj.com

A US aircraft carrier is steaming its way to the Persian Gulf, possibly to help attack Iran. But a strike, no matter the type, will have unpredictable consequences for Iranian protesters, and may not help them at all. My latest: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Trump Has Options in Iran. None Are Likely to Help Protesters Much.

A U.S. aircraft carrier is heading to the region. If Trump decides to intervene over Tehran’s crackdown, there could be unpredictable consequences.

wsj.com

In Iraq, Martin Tamm Andersen sat beside a dying Danish soldier who had stepped on an IED fighting America's war. Now Trump threatens to take Greenland and Vance calls Denmark a bad ally. "You feel betrayed. It’s extremely uncomfortable." My story from Copenhagen www.wsj.com/world/europe...

‘You Feel Betrayed.’ In Denmark, Public Stunned by Trump’s Designs on Greenland.

Of all the U.S.’s allies in Europe, Denmark was among those that fought closest alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan

wsj.com

IRAN: Ayatollah Khomeini once described the humiliating 1988 cease-fire with Iraq as drinking from a “poisoned chalice.” Ali Khamenei now faces a similar situation. To save his rule he must give up lifelong ideological positions and strike a bitter compromise. My story: www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Is Running Out of Road

With his room for maneuver shrinking fast, he faces a climbdown on deeply held beliefs to bring relief to his country.

wsj.com