Tag: politics

Chess king in checkmate on dissolving board symbolising Trump Iran war strategic collapse with no endgame

Trump’s Iran Blunder

· 4 Comments ·

Robert Reich knows Trump has no endgame for his Iran war. What he doesn’t see from inside the American story: the munitions arithmetic is catastrophic, the legal basis non-existent, and Canberra has made us part of it without asking a single question in Parliament.

Editorial illustration representing a small power directing a large military force — a metaphor for Israel's strategic influence over US military action against Iran in 2026.

The Tail That Wags the Dog: Israel’s War, America’s Blood

· 9 Comments ·

Three American soldiers are dead. A girls’ primary school in Minab is rubble. The Strait of Hormuz is under threat. Regional war has arrived — exactly as every credible analyst, diplomat and international lawyer predicted. Urban Wronski on how Israel wagged the most powerful dog in the world into the most dangerous Middle Eastern conflagration since Iraq 2003.

Rubble and scattered schoolchildren's backpacks outside a bombed girls' elementary school, dawn light, Iran

We Bombed a School Full of Children. Call It What It Is.

· 4 Comments ·

Sara Shariatmadar was six years old. She went to school on Saturday morning and did not come home. At least 108 girls died — the governor says 148— when US and Israeli munitions struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran. International humanitarian law is unambiguous. This is a war crime. The perpetrators should be indicted.

Construction workers at a union rally — the CFMEU has faced decades of political and media campaigns despite winning better wages and safety conditions for Australian builders.

The Perennial Persecution of the CFMEU: Demonisation as a Defence of Power

· 2 Comments ·

For thirty years, Australia’s most powerful construction union has served as a moral punching bag for the nation’s political and media establishment. Every few years another “reckoning” arrives: a Royal Commission, a regulator’s dawn raid, a media exposé discovering organised crime in high-vis. Each time, … Continue reading The Perennial Persecution of the CFMEU: Demonisation as a Defence of Power

Satirical illustration of a large cartoon dog in the Oval Office, its wagging tail scattering military documents, while a small figure holds its leash and an aircraft carrier is visible through the window against a blood-red sky.

America’s Wag-the-Dog Moment

· 3 Comments ·

A flailing administration, a nuclear pretext recycled from the WMD workshop of 2003, and an Israel that appears to be setting the tempo of a potential world war. Before the missiles fly, Urban Wronski asks the question Washington’s press won’t: is this about Iran — or about saving Trump from himself?

Empty presidential chair at an Oval Office conference table, briefing papers scattered, Middle East map on the wall.
· 7 Comments ·

When Donald Trump declares victory over Iran’s nuclear program, his own intelligence chiefs exchange glances. The IAEA knows otherwise. But in the mind of a man with frontotemporal dementia, facts are optional. This is the story of an empire on autopilot — steered by a president whose most dangerous weapon is his own deteriorating mind.

Shuttered shopfronts in a Middle Eastern bazaar at dusk with scattered leaflets on wet cobblestones and distant fire glow through tear gas haze.

The Arson Investigator: How Western sanctions built Iran’s bonfire; and now, the firebugs demand to lead the rescue

· 3 Comments ·

Every empire tells itself its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate. Edward Said wrote that about Iraq. It reads as though written yesterday, about Iran. New two-part series from Urban Wronski examining how Western sanctions engineered Iran’s economic collapse — and why the same powers now present themselves as liberators. Part 1: The Arson Investigator.