Foreign

Saudis, Israel pushed Trump to attack Iran

Published

5 months ago

March 2, 2026

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a US attack, despite his public support for a diplomatic solution

US President Donald Trump launched Saturday’s wide-ranging attack on Iran after a weeks-long lobbying effort by Israel and Saudi Arabia, said four people familiar with the matter, as Israeli and US forces toppled Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei after nearly four decades in power.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a US attack, despite his public support for a diplomatic solution, the four people said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continued his long-running public campaign for US strikes against what he views as an existential enemy of his country. The combined effort helped lead Trump to order a massive aerial campaign against Iran’s leadership and military, which in its initial hour led to the death of Khamenei and several other senior Iranian officials.

The attack came despite US intelligence assessments that Iran’s forces were unlikely to pose an immediate threat to the US mainland, marking a stark shift from Trump’s earlier, narrower military forays.

The Saudi push came as envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner pursued negotiations with Iranian leaders over nuclear and missile programmes. As talks proceeded, Riyadh said—after a call between the crown prince and President Masoud Pezeshkian—that it would not allow its airspace or territory to be used in an attack on Iran.

However, in discussions with US officials, the Saudi leader warned Iran would emerge stronger and more dangerous if the US did not strike now, after amassing the largest military presence in the Middle East since 2003, said people familiar with the matter. His stance was reinforced by Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman, who held closed-door meetings with US officials in Washington in January and warned about the downsides of not attacking.

The Saudi leader’s position likely reflected a balance between fears of Iranian retaliation against vulnerable oil infrastructure and viewing Tehran as Riyadh’s ultimate foe. Iran, dominated by Shiite Muslims, and Saudi Arabia, led by Sunnis, have long had an intense rivalry that has generated proxy wars in the region. Following the US attack, Iran retaliated against Saudi Arabia.

Witkoff and Kushner held final talks with Iranian officials in Geneva on Thursday—their third since early February—but left believing Tehran was playing games over nuclear enrichment, a senior US official said.

The decision to launch the attack was in some ways foretold by the massive buildup of US forces over the past two months. In explaining his decision, Trump on Saturday reached all the way back to Iran’s 1979 revolution. Earlier on Saturday, Trump said the US had faced “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” Tehran was continuing to work toward producing a nuclear weapon and development of “long-range missiles that … could soon reach the American homeland.”

Both of those assertions have been challenged. Trump himself has vehemently maintained that the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program with airstrikes this past summer. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said there is no evidence Iran has restarted its uranium enrichment program following those strikes or that it has an active bomb-building plan. In an assessment last year, the US Defence Intelligence Agency cited no indication that Iran was embarking on development of an intercontinental ballistic missile. If it decided to do so, the DIA said, it would take a decade to produce.

Trump directed anti-government Iranians to “take over” their government, but his call included no details. He declared that those within Iran’s extensive military and security infrastructure would be given “complete immunity” but provided no explanation how or by whom that would be done.

And it remains unclear whether aircraft and missile strikes can achieve his ever-expanding goals – among them new, US-friendly regimes in Iran and Venezuela; an end to Iran-backed militant operations in Yemen; and the defeat of Islamic terrorist operations in Nigeria and Somalia. “History is not kind to efforts to fundamentally alter and restructure the internal politics of a country using air power alone,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat.

Months of planning for the 2003 US toppling of Saddam Hussein included thousands of invading American forces that remained there for nearly a decade. Top Trump officials – some of whom have been sharp critics of the Iraq effort and other US forays into the Middle East – have insisted in recent days that this time will be different. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday told The Washington Post that he still considers himself a “sceptic” of foreign military interventions – a description he said still applied to Trump, too. He said there was “no chance” any military operation by the US in Iran would lead to a drawn-out war involving the Trump administration.

For now, Trump says that he hopes that in the face of the death of Khamenei, Iran’s security forces and police “will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves.” In January, those security forces killed thousands of Iranian protesters.

He vowed that “the heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”

Souad Mekhennet, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson in Washington; Matt Viser in Corpus Christi, Texas; and Greg Miller in London contributed to this report.

Foreign

Iran demands war damages compensation for reopening Strait of Hormuz

Published

1 day ago

August 9, 2026

Austin Ojomah

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Iran on Saturday gives conditions for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damages, complicating a potential deal to open the waterway essential to the world economy.

Tehran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait since the United States and Israel struck Iran in late February, and wants to charge tolls for passage, attacking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.

Continued attacks in the strait, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire. Mediators have since urged both sides to return to the terms of a June memorandum.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit and management of the strait were “approaching the final stages”, but added the reopening of Hormuz “is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation” of the June agreement.

Security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr on Saturday laid out a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.

He also demanded the lifting of a parallel US naval blockade of Iran, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by Tasnim news agency.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, said Hormuz’s reopening had “nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman”, adding that the “enemy is forced to accept Iran’s conditions for the opening of the strait”.

The comments came as transit through Hormuz has dropped significantly, with Iran targeting ships it accuses of skirting its preferred route through Iranian waters.

The United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry on Saturday condemned what it called a “hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker belonging to ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) with a missile while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz, without causing casualties”.

Later on Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said a ship was hit by a projectile off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, causing a fire that was extinguished but no casualties. It was unclear whether they were referring to the same ship.

On Friday, ADNOC had put out a statement saying that since the start of the war, 15 of its vessels had been attacked in Hormuz, “including three vessels this week alone”.

Oman’s foreign ministry on Saturday condemned “repeated attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz”, without naming Iran.

It also said that “ongoing negotiations regarding navigation arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz are proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere”, and urged against any actions that might jeopardise the progress.

The previous Iran-US deal — meant to serve as a jumping-off point for negotiations on a permanent settlement — had said Iran and Oman would hash out future arrangements for the strait in discussion with other Gulf countries and “in line with the applicable international law”.

International law generally forbids tolling in such waterways.

Security agreement

Turkey’s foreign minister said Saturday he expected Egypt to join a joint defence agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan designed to stabilize the region, calling the country a “natural partner on all issues”.

“I believe that at the next stage Egypt will also be among us in the alliance. We already act toward one another as if we were alliance members,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in an interview.

A drone struck US assets at an Egyptian port on the Mediterranean last month, marking the first drone attack on Egyptian territory since the outbreak of the Iran war.

Fidan said the agreement does not target a specific country.

“There is no common threat that we have put in writing,” he said, according to the news agency.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Friday the pact meant an attack on any member would be regarded as an attack on all, adding it was “intended to strengthen collective deterrence”.

AFP

Foreign

Spain imposes border checks on Italy over migrant dispute

Published

2 days ago

August 9, 2026

Admin

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Spain on Saturday started border checks on travellers arriving from Italy, responding to similar measures Rome imposed following an unprecedented migrant rush into the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta.

“I don’t see a lot of the word ‘diplomacy’ used in these decisions, not by the Italian government, nor by the Spanish government,” said one 36-year-old Italian tourist, Maria Celeste Grillo, who had just flown into Madrid.

She said she had not seen any added checks as she stepped off the plane, but found their implementation “sad”.

Spain announced Friday it would proceed with the heightened controls, citing “persistent irregular migration pressure” facing Italy — deepening a row between the EU partners and NATO allies.

Spain’s left-wing government has complained that Italy’s hard-right government on July 31 unfairly imposed one month of border checks on travellers from Spain — suspending the EU’s Schengen Area visa-free travel arrangements — because of the Ceuta influx.

More than 70,000 migrants had crossed from Morocco into the Ceuta enclave on July 30 and 31, though almost all of them subsequently returned to Morocco within 48 hours.

The inflow alarmed European nations, especially right-wing ones urging tougher rules on irregular migrants. However, rules for Ceuta mean migrants cannot travel onward to continental Europe without passing another layer of border checks.

Spain’s interior ministry said the new checks on incoming travellers from Italy would apply until September 7.

AFP

Foreign

Court Halts Trump’s White House Ballroom Project, President Kicks

Published

2 days ago

August 9, 2026

Admin

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An appeals court on Friday upheld an order halting work on Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom, enraging the US leader and setting up another Supreme Court battle over the limits of presidential authority.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which had allowed construction to continue while it considered the case, agreed with a lower court that such a massive White House overhaul required the explicit consent of Congress.

It stayed its own decision for two weeks to give Trump time to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.

The Republican president lashed out after the 2-1 ruling, calling it “horrendous, politically motivated, and unlawful”.

The two majority judges were appointed by Democratic presidents, while the dissenting judge was nominated by Trump himself.

The President vowed in a lengthy social media post to immediately appeal to the Supreme Court.

“This decision, made after much of the work has been done and paid for, is a National Security Threat at the highest level. It is also a National Disgrace,” Trump said in another post on his Truth Social platform on Friday night.

Trump initially touted the construction of the ballroom as necessary to host galas but has since repeatedly pointed to the concurrent addition of an underground military bunker and other security features.

Under the district judge’s initial order, work was to be allowed to continue only on a limited set of structures, including those that were underground.

“This holding has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable or not as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom,” the majority wrote on Friday.

“What it does mean is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court’s expeditious litigation without securing Congress’s authorisation, as the Constitution and laws require.”

Trump, who has repeatedly complained that the White House lacks sufficient space for grand galas such as state dinners, unilaterally ordered construction of the massive ballroom.

Work on the project began last year with the sudden demolition of the White House’s entire historic East Wing.

Since then, photographs have shown significant work on a basement complex, with some concrete walls rising above ground level.

Trump has insisted that the ballroom will be privately financed, but media reports in June showed that significant taxpayer funds were going towards the project, which could cost as much as $600 million.

While the White House initially cited a $200 million price tag for the project, it quickly doubled the estimate to $400 million.

The ballroom is just one of Trump’s pet projects aimed at leaving his mark on Washington by the time he leaves office in 2029, along with a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and other parks, as well as the construction of a gigantic arch.

Several of the projects have similarly faced legal challenges, but the ballroom project would be the first to reach the Supreme Court.