Globalities – Helena Cobban explores today's changing world

Cracking the U.S. taboo around Israel’s nuclear bombs

Helena CobbanMarch 30, 2026March 30, 2026Antiwar, Israel, Nuclear weapons, U.S. politicsLeave a comment

One thing the current Israeli-U.S. war is not about is the (completely unsubstantiated) accusation that “Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon.” One thing it actually is about is the well-substantiated fact that in West Asia it’s Israel that has a robust nuclear arsenal— and that the contortions that all of the U.S. policy elite has gone through for decades now to obfuscate this fact have done a lot to push Washington into its present, world-impacting war against Iran.

Back in the 1950s it was the French government, as well as several well-placed individuals inside the U.S. nuclear-weapons complex, who helped Israel attain the technology and materials it needed to develop its own production of nuclear weapons, which it achieved shortly before its PM Levi Eshkol launched the “Six Day War” against three surrounding Arab states in 1967. (A footnote: that war was also associated with a decision— in that case, by Egypt— to close a key waterway.)

But from then until today, Israel’s leaders have always shrouded its possession of nuclear weapons in a deliberate policy that they call amimut (opacity.) I recall, in the late 1980s, attending several sessions of well-meaning “Track Two” discussions on “nuclear weapons in the Middle East” in which Yehoshafat Harkabi and other key Israeli decisionmakers/experts, along with experts and analysts from Egypt, Europe, and the U.S. all took part.

Harkabi was a true expert of projecting obfuscation!

This policy of deliberate obfuscation was also extremely well developed and maintained among all key branches of the U.S. policy elite. Especially the corporate media, but also all branches of the government, at all levels. A person could very easily get tarred as an “Israel-hater” or an “anti-semite” if she/he dared mention publicly the fact, or even the suspicion, that Israel commanded a weighty nuclear arsenal at the same time that its leaders and supporters around the world were frantically pointing fingers at Iraq, Syria, Iran, or Libya for their supposed dedication to attaining a “the bomb.” (Of those, only Libya ever came close. But in 2003, Pres. Qadhafi unilaterally and verifiedly ended the program. As for Iran, for many decades now the country’s successive Supreme Leaders have repeatedly stated that it is against their religion and their policy to attain nuclear weapons.)

The U.S.-Israeli defeat, and its implications

Helena CobbanMarch 27, 2026March 27, 2026Antiwar, China, Diplomacy, Iran, IsraelLeave a comment

The reality of the defeat of the Israeli-U.S. Axis in the outrageous war of aggression they launched against Iran (and Lebanon) on February 28 is starting to sink in for significant portions of the political elite in “Western” countries.

Above, see the cover art produced by the influential U.K. news magazine The Economist on March 7, 14, 21, and 28 (left to right.) Even prior to the launching of the war, in the issue it distributed February 27 (dated February 28), the mag warned in an editorial that “Starting a war with Iran without a clear objective would be recklessly dangerous.”

In the issue that dropped today, the cover art was unambiguous: “Advantage Iran.” And the wording of its editorial was stern:

Mr Trump must agree to a full ceasefire, and compel Israel to abide by it… Any eventual deal will be worse than what could have been struck before the war began, because Mr Trump has unwittingly strengthened the hand of hardliners and made clear the leverage they have over the strait [of Hormuz.] The result is that for now, at least, the advantage lies with Iran.

I am far from being someone who agrees with all the policy prescriptions peddled by free-marketeer publications like The Economist, the Financial Times, or the Wall Street Journal. But I’ll say this for the first two of these outlets: because they consider that a good part of their mission is to provide information to big shots in the financial markets that is accurate, timely, and non-ideological, a lot of their reporting and their commentary is both on the mark and pretty thought-provoking.

What this war is about

Helena CobbanMarch 23, 2026March 24, 2026Antiwar, Diplomacy, Global balance, Global economy, Indian Ocean, Iran, Israel, U.S. policy1 Comment

Let me first state what this Israeli-U.S. war against Iran is not about. It is not about “democracy” in Iran. It is not about Iran being anywhere near to– or even working to reach– the threshold of nuclear arms possession.

So what is it about?

For the Zionist settler colonialists of Israel’s always hyper-militarized political elite this war is quintessentially “about” the continued existence of an independent, coherent Iranian state and the ability of this state to project power across much of West Asia. To be precise, for the Israelis, the war is about destroying the Iranians’ capability to maintain any such state.

For much of the (hyper-Zionized) U.S. political elite it is also about this. But in the ruling Republican Party here, the influence of the pro-Israel crowd has been sharply contested in recent months. And even in the (chronically pro-Zionist) Democratic Party leadership circles, the pro-Israel narrative has lost considerable power, especially among the broad ranks of politically engaged, and mainly younger, people. The perennial pro-Israel narrative does retain a strong grip on most of the country’s legacy media; but the reach and influence of that media has waned sharply in recent years, especially since October of 2023.

So a very large mass in the U.S. engaged body politic no longer buys Israel’s narrative about this war. Meantime– and this is worth noting– a very large portion of the engaged body politic has important family investments in the U.S. stock market, through their (our) retirement funds. Plus, nearly everyone in the U.S. is concerned about prices at the gas pump and their knock-on effect. So if they do not buy the Zionist narrative, for most of these people, why should they support this war, especially knowing that its economic costs will certainly continue to balloon, the longer it continues?

I have a different framework for looking at this war. I do not see it as being “just” about West Asia (the region formerly known as the Middle East), or “just” about the next one or two rounds of U.S. elections. I look at it from a perspective that is both historically and geographically much broader.

The War on Iran: Notes on Day 14

Helena CobbanMarch 14, 2026March 15, 2026Antiwar, China, Diplomacy, Global balance, Iran, Israel, U.S. military

Some careful analysts have been declaring a victory for Iran for several days already. Pres. Trump and Poppinjay Pete (Hegseth) have been declaring victory for the U.S. My judgment is closer to that of the “victory for Iran” people– although (1) the war is by no means over yet, and (2) the cost imposed on the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine is, and will continue to be, horrendous. Here anyway, are my four current key takeaways, with more explanation below:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been holding up well. Its central decisionmaking structure remains in place and it’s been pursuing a smart, long-prepared plan for dealing with this assault.
The stakes in this contest are global. The IRI deliberately globalized it from the first hours. China has an irreplaceable role in any termination or substantial de-escalation of the conflict. This affects the entire balance of geopolitics.
The planning, execution, and nature of the Israeli-U.S. assault on Iran have been closely tied to (and grown out of) the Abraham Accords. The failure of the assault should now lead to the end of those accords.
The choices that GCC leaders make over the coming days will be crucial.

Let’s take these one at a time:

War on Iran: Global consequences and off-ramps we should support

Helena CobbanMarch 6, 2026March 6, 2026Antiwar, China, Diplomacy, Iran, Israel, U.S. military, United Nations1 Comment

(The photo shows Trump being prayed over in the White House yesterday by a group of evangelical pastors.)

Today is Day 7 of this mass-murdering, mass-destruction project that Pres. Donald Trump named “Operation Epic Fury” (OEF). Already, the dimensions of many of its (quite foreseeable, and by many people clearly foreseen) consequences are becoming evident.

Most crucially, as of today, these:

The Iranians’ governance and command structure has survived, despite “decapitation” strikes since its first hours that killed Supreme Leader Khamene’i and dozens of top commanders.
Iranian forces continue, in response to OEF, to undertake stand-off attacks that seem well aimed and well coordinated and have in many cases inflicted real damage on their intended (military and economic) targets.
Israel has exploited this situation of war, impunity, and lawlessness to (a) reimpose its super-tight siege on the two million people of Gaza, (b) sharply escalate its bombings of Lebanon and peremptorily order the ethnic cleansing of South Lebanon as well as Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs, and (c) continue to oppress and dispossess Indigenous inhabitants of both the West Bank and Syria.
The Iranians’ response to OEF has included attacks not just on Israeli and U.S. military bases across West Asia but also on key economic facilities in Arab Gulf countries.
Through those latter attacks and by closing the Straits of Hormuz to shipping from OEF-associated countries, Tehran has delivered a huge blow to the global economy and especially to the Gulf Arab states that have been major bankrollers of Trumpian projects worldwide.

There are still, as of now, no signs of any imminent collapse of Iran’s command/governance structure. And meanwhile, all around the world a chorus of questions is growing louder around two key issues, either of which could rapidly increase the pressure on Washington to end the war. The first such pressure-point is the durability of U.S. stockpiles of key missile-defense and air-defense munitions needed to fend off Iran’s continuing volleys of low-cost drones and high-altitude missiles. The second is the degree, speed and temporal extent of the damage that the war inflicts on the global economy– a process that has already started.

No to war on Iran! No to U.S. hegemony!

Helena CobbanFebruary 21, 2026February 21, 2026Antiwar, Iran, Israel, Nuclear weapons, U.S. policy

Most people in the United States and other Western nations seem to consider it “normal”, or anyway unremarkable, that the U.S. should, on its own, have the authority to control and police the nuclear-enrichment projects of another country far away.

It is not.

There are a number of high-level UN bodies, with the Security Council at their apex, that have that authority. In 2015, the United States, the other four veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, and Germany jointly negotiated an arrangement with Iran that sought to address concerns that some countries had had about Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program. The agreement they reached, the “JCPOA”, was immediately endorsed by the Security Council.

In 2018, Pres. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA and restored many of the unilateral U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had earlier been lifted under its terms. The JCPOA’s other (non-Iran) signatories expressed mild concern at Trump’s move, but took no other action. (When Joe Biden became president he took some inconsequential steps to rejoin the agreement, then abandoned the project.)

The U.S.-Israeli plot against Iran: The record of the past 15 months

Helena CobbanFebruary 20, 2026February 20, 2026China, Diplomacy, Global balance, Iran, Israel, U.S. military

The Trump administration has now ordered a second Carrier Strike Group to join the one that is already sailing in the Gulf of Oman, close to Iran, and has deployed large amounts of military equipment (both offensive and defensive) to U.S. bases across West Asia, and to Israel. Trump’s envoys have now had two rounds of “proximity talks” with Iranian counterparts this month, discussing new limitations on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Both sides have said those talks went fairly well. But Washington now expects Tehran to present more detailed plans by March 3 and Trump has warned that if Iran fails to reach a satisfactory agreement, then it will face very serious military consequences.

Some analysts have gauged the probability of an all-out war at “80 to 90 percent.” Such numbers are still wildly speculative (and personally I would peg them far lower than that.) But in assessing the possibility of any major military engagement between the U.S.-Israeli alliance and Iran it is crucial also to assess the range of outcomes and knock-on effects that we can plausibly foresee from any such conflict, at a number of different levels:

within the immediate theater of the conflict (Iran, the Gulf region)
in the Mashreq (Levant) region which has Israel at its geographic core, and specifically, on Israel’s ability to continue imposing its diktat on its neighbors in the region, and
on the stability and integrity of the global system as a whole.

In this essay, I shall review the record of the project to weaken or topple Iran’s current, 47-year-long system of governance that the Trumpists and the government of Israel have jointly pursued in the period since Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, and identify six key takeaways we can take from that review.

In a later essay, I plan to build on this analysis to provide a few preliminary guidelines for what the effects of any new Trump-Israel assault on Iran might be, at the three levels identified above.

Tracking the Trump-Israel plot against Iran

U.S. sanctions are terrorism on an industrial scale

Helena CobbanJanuary 22, 2026January 23, 2026Global economy, Iran, Sanctions, U.S. policy

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blurted out an important truth at the Davos conference, January 20. He described the way Washington has wielded the weapon of economic sanctions against Iran as “economic statecraft” crowing that:

It’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets… Things are moving in a very positive way here.

Journalism prof Azadeh Moaveni gave a detailed account in this powerful piece in the Financial Times January 17, of how Bessent and the rest of Trump’s team had tightened the screws on the Iranian economy starting back last March:

Trump’s Iran backdown

Helena CobbanJanuary 16, 2026January 17, 2026Iran, Israel, Persian Gulf, U.S. policy2 Comments

There was Trump, on Tuesday, shouting all over the internet, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! … HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.” And there was Trump just a day later saying, “We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping — it’s stopped — it’s stopping… And there’s no plan for executions, or an execution, or execution — so I’ve been told that on good authority.”

He was racing backward from the incendiary regime-change rhetoric of the previous day.

This was– for now, anyway– a clear case of “TACO, Iran-style”, to borrow the FT’s great acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Read on to see where I think this leaves us all now. But first, a bit of essential background.

Back in late June, in the aftermath of the “12-day War” that the U.S.-Israeli axis launched jointly against Iran June 13, I made a number of judgments, and shared some of them here and here. In the first of those essays, I judged that the reason that war ended so (relatively) swiftly and cleanly was that by June 24-25 both Israel and Iran found themselves locked in a “mutually hurting stalemate.” It was most certainly not any kind of “cakewalk” for the U.S.-Israel axis, and it certainly did not result in the unassailable U.S. win that Pres. Trump hurried to present it as.

Why a set of treaties from 1648 CE is more important than ever

Helena CobbanJanuary 5, 2026January 6, 2026Diplomacy, Europe, Global governance, U.S. policy, United Nations

If you’ve never learned about the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, then now is an excellent time to do so. This set of treaties, agreed to by the leaders of more 100 little European statelets and dukedoms in an era in which the modern-style “nation state” was only just emerging, laid the ground rules for the international state system that has existed until today. Its core principle was the sovereign independence and equal standing of all states in the system.

That principle, as extended to and embraced by all the 193 states in today’s international system, lies at the heart of the Charter of the United Nations, as adopted in San Francisco in 1945. In Article 2, the UN Charter states clearly that:

(1) The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members…

(4) All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

As we know, in the 80 years since 1945 many states have violated these principles of the Charter (and many others.) But the action the U.S. government took on January 3, sending military forces to violently blast their way into the home of the head of another sovereign state and to snatch him and his wife and take them to U.S. territory on a flimsy judicial pretext, has been among the most egregious and the most threatening to today’s whole system of international law.