Gustavo de Arístegui: Geopolitical Analysis of 14 October

1. Introduction
2. Dhahran and Riyadh: Houthis strike Aramco and Trump defers response until after 3 November
3. Youngstown: Trump admits the paradox of decapitation
4. Fairford: The absences that speak louder than signatures
5. Pope Leo XIV: Successful surgery and diagnosis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma
6. Media Rack
7. Editorial Commentary

Introduction

The Houthi terrorist organisation has once again struck at the economic heart of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On the night of Tuesday, 13 October, a ballistic missile triggered a "limited" fire at an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran — the company's executive headquarters, according to Bloomberg —, with no casualties. Over Riyadh, the debris of two intercepted cruise missiles injured four people — two women, a man, and a child — and damaged fifteen homes. This is the third major strike in six days, following the massacre on Saturday the 10th at King Khalid International Airport: 13 dead and over 300 injured, making it the deadliest attack on Saudi soil since 2015.

The US President falls woefully short. Writing on Truth Social that the Houthis "are behaving very badly" is almost laughable. We are talking about a bloodthirsty and barbaric terrorist organisation that has been active for decades: born in the early 1990s as "Believing Youth", at war with the Yemeni state since 2004, and with a war cry that says it all: "God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam." The West only woke up to them a few years ago.

Those of us who belong to the circle of thought created by Antoine Pinay and Konrad Adenauer were fortunate to count on some of the best analysts in the world, who explained their true nature to us long ago. Things must be called by their proper names. Donald Trump is right, however, to attribute the attacks to Iran and to the desire to drive up oil prices ahead of the elections; he errs in promising he will be there "after the elections", in line with his commitment not to attack Iran before 3 November. Meanwhile, the Kingdom is running short of interceptors, and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) forecasts a 3.3% contraction in its economy for 2026.

In Youngstown (Ohio), Trump acknowledged on Monday what we have been analysing since day one of the decapitation campaign: "Maybe we've gone too far with the leaders, because we no longer know who the hell we're dealing with." Washington is negotiating with authority-free interlocutors whilst real power remains in the hands of Mohsen Rezaei and General Ahmad Vahidi. Rezaei dismisses the US response to Iran's seven conditions for reopening Hormuz as "insufficient" and threatens the Gulf's submarine cables and data centres, whilst the Foreign Ministry cynically offers its "good offices" between Riyadh and its own proxies (armed intermediaries): the arsonist playing firefighter.

In Europe, the joint statement on the plot against the Fairford base reveals cracks as telling as the signatures. Poland is the sole European Union state absent from all its versions, and Turkey, which proclaims itself a sister nation to Riyadh, likewise refuses to sign. Spain has indeed signed, via the very social-communist government that in March denied "any kind of assistance" from Rota and Morón for operations against Iran. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV, aged seventy-one, successfully underwent surgery for pulmonary adenocarcinoma and spent "a quiet night". The thread connecting the day's news is a question as old as diplomacy: who truly rules and who protects whom?

Dhahran and Riyadh: Houthis strike Aramco and Trump defers response until after 3 November

Facts

On the night of Tuesday the 13th, Saudi defences intercepted a fresh salvo of Houthi missiles and drones. Civil Defence reported that the debris of two cruise missiles destroyed over Riyadh injured four people and damaged fifteen homes. The Energy Ministry subsequently acknowledged that an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran, in the Eastern Province, had suffered a "limited" fire, with no casualties. Bloomberg identified it as the company's executive headquarters, and a company source spoke to Reuters of a "headquarters complex"; neither Aramco nor the authorities have officially confirmed this. A local resident stated it was "the loudest explosion" he had ever heard in his life. The coalition also intercepted a ballistic missile before it reached Dhahran, another targeting Haradh, and three drones north of Riyadh.

Shortly before, the Saudi-led coalition had struck the Al Sabaha central station in Sana'a, underground fuel depots, and the cargo docks of Hodeidah, Sana'a, and Dhamar, alongside targets in Saada, after issuing the first evacuation order in the Yemeni capital since July. Its spokesperson, General Turki al-Maliki, accused the Houthis of using "civilian goods and vital resources to sustain their war effort". The Saudi Council of Ministers warned that it "will not allow" threats against its security or against navigation in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told AFP (Agence France-Presse) that Saudi oil facilities and airports "have now become legitimate targets" and threatened a "swift and painful retaliation" against US interests if Washington intervenes.

King Khalid Airport will remain closed at least until 17 October, according to GACA (General Authority of Civil Aviation). AP (Associated Press) tallies at least 14 dead across the recent wave of attacks. The US has recommended its citizens reconsider any travel to the Kingdom, and France advises avoiding the airports of Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. In Yemen, the WHO (World Health Organization) warns that suspected cholera cases have tripled in three weeks.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Houthis, having been bombed "thoroughly" a year ago, have re-emerged "probably at the behest of Iran, which is a failing nation, with no Navy, no Air Force, with the worst economy in the world and 301% inflation", to attack Saudi Arabia and attempt to "purposefully drive up oil prices, probably ahead of the US elections". He added: "Someone should explain to them that I am not running for office; I've already won," and promised to be there "after the elections". Regarding Ankara, he said: "President Erdogan, I believe, would do whatever I asked." Erdogan has declared that "Turkey stands alongside Saudi Arabia" and that the Joint Defence Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, signed on 7 August, is moving forward. Egypt offers "all kinds of support" and Jordan has reiterated its backing. Brent was trading in the early hours at $106.58, according to Reuters. "Supply anxiety stemming from the conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is pushing prices upwards," summarised Hiroyuki Kikukawa, chief strategist at Nissan Securities Investment.

According to AP, Saudi Arabia is the world's leading buyer of US armaments — accounting for 12% of US arms exports between 2021 and 2025 according to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) —, is dedicating 83 billion dollars to defence in 2026, and has purchased 730 Patriot missiles this year for 9 billion. Even so, the territory is immense — roughly three times the size of Texas — and the border with Yemen stretches over 1,300 kilometres of rugged desert. The Wall Street Journal reveals that the Kingdom is relocating anti-missile batteries to protect energy infrastructure and palaces, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman moves between residences equipped with bunkers, and that text-message alerts to the populace have ceased being sent.

Implications

What occurred in Dhahran and Riyadh is the deliberate continuation of a terrorist campaign against the Kingdom's civil aviation and energy infrastructure, executed by a proxy of Tehran's oligarchic-jihadist regime. Reports by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen have documented for years the Iranian origin of key components in their missiles and drones. Andreas Krieg, from King's College London, sums it up precisely: the Houthis "have learned to saturate radars", and no layered shield can create "an impermeable dome over a country the size of Saudi Arabia". The terrorists do not need to pierce the system every time; once in a while is enough. The airport massacre proved it: a single impact is enough to shut down the country's main gateway for a week and sow fear among investors and foreign workers upon whom the Saudi economy depends.

The arithmetic is relentless. Each Patriot interceptor costs on the order of twelve million dollars, support included; a locally manufactured drone or cruise missile costs a fraction of that figure. That equation, which already bled the US Navy dry in the Red Sea, is now shifting to Saudi territory. The UN estimates that the Houthis fielded up to 350,000 combatants in 2024, compared to around 30,000 in 2015: this is no gang, but a terrorist army with a range of over 1,600 kilometres controlling a third of Yemen. That the Gulf's largest arsenal is running out of interceptors against them is the ultimate proof that the Kingdom cannot defend itself alone.

Figures for available interceptors are not public; The Wall Street Journal and AP report shortages, citing Saudi and regional sources.

The promise to act "after the elections" is simultaneously a credible threat and a calendar gift: the Houthis and their Iranian mentors know they have three weeks to keep striking whilst fuel prices campaign against Republicans. The phrase "I am not running for office; I've already won" further betrays a dangerous confusion between the president's personal fortunes and those of his party, which faces control of Congress on 3 November. Tocqueville warned in Democracy in America (1835) that foreign policy demands almost none of the qualities inherent to democracy whilst demanding nearly all those it lacks. Rarely has this been seen so clearly as when an electoral calendar dictates the tempo of an ally's defence.

Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey are closing ranks, but that does not exonerate the West. The Kingdom needs the United States, Israel, and Europe: intelligence, early warning, interceptors, ammunition, and, if necessary, direct fire against Houthi launchers, radars, and depots. Riyadh is the anchor of Gulf stability, the custodian of Islam's Holy Sites, and an indispensable partner against Tehran; leaving it alone would be a strategic blunder of the highest order. Henry Kissinger is attributed the idea — though it does not appear in his writings — that being an enemy of the United States can be dangerous, but being its friend can prove fatal. Washington has three weeks to prove him wrong.

Former US Ambassador to Riyadh Michael Ratney, an adviser at CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), speaks of a "paradigm shift": the Kingdom did not believe the Houthis would attack civil airports. "They cannot stop responding: they have been attacked very brutally by their arch-enemies," he warns, whilst recommending "exercising military pressure on the Houthis and then finding a way to de-escalate". He further describes a symbiotic relationship with Tehran: "It is no coincidence they have ended up with a similar approach." It is no puppet, but something worse: an advanced partner of the Iranian regime. Thomas Juneau, of the University of Ottawa, maintains that the Houthis want to "rewrite the rules of the game" and do to Saudi Arabia "what Saudi Arabia does to them", and concludes bluntly: "For Saudi Arabia, this is an absolute disaster."

The Saudi press reflects the Kingdom's mood. In Arab News, editor-in-chief Faisal J. Abbas reproaches major international media for dismissing the airport massacre in a few lines and summarises the Houthi justification with an Arab proverb: "the excuse is worse than the sin". Chris Doyle calls in the same daily for more naval assets to keep the Bab el-Mandeb open and assistance to protect airports and desalination plants. This is precisely the agenda Europe should make its own.

The cost is also economic. King Khalid Airport is the showcase of Vision 2030. The IMF has shifted from forecasting 3.1% growth in April to a 3.3% contraction for 2026, pinning recovery — a 7.9% bounce in 2027 — on the reopening of Hormuz. The resilience of the global economy "is under strain", warned Fund Chief Economist Silvana Tenreyro on Tuesday. Every attack on aviation and energy is an attack on investor confidence in the Arab world's most ambitious modernisation project.

Outlook and Scenarios

• Limited US response post-3 November (probable): targeted strikes against Houthi launchers, radars, and depots, with Turkey and Egypt playing a political support role. Their efficacy will depend on whether the Iranian supply chain is also struck.
• Proxy warfare without Saudi troops in Yemen (probable): airstrikes and increased support for anti-Houthi Yemeni forces. "It will be proxy warfare," Krieg summarises, with the risk of reigniting a full-scale war across the Arabian Peninsula. Farea al-Muslimi, of Chatham House, warns: "It is very difficult to convince a man he is on the wrong side if he has just advanced and holds a weapon in his hand."
• Houthi escalation on energy and aviation until the elections (possible): fresh impacts on Aramco, refineries, Red Sea terminals, or airports, with Brent hovering above $110.
• Iranian mediation accepted by Riyadh (highly improbable): would represent the political victory of the arsonist turned firefighter and a strategic humiliation for the Kingdom.

Youngstown: Trump admits the paradox of decapitation

Facts

At a rally held in Youngstown (Ohio) on Monday, 12 October, Trump uttered the phrase summarising the quagmire with Tehran: "Maybe we've gone too far with leaders, because we no longer know who the hell we're dealing with." He previously said of the Iranians: "They have no ships, they have nothing; they don't even have leaders, that's the problem." He added: "We could have stopped at level one," and concluded: "Nobody wants to be president of Iran." Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died in the 28 February airstrikes; his son and successor, Mojtaba, was wounded and has not reappeared in public.

The diplomatic track is deadlocked. At the UN General Assembly, Tehran offered to reopen Hormuz in seven days if Washington accepted seven conditions. The US response arrived via Qatari mediators. On Sunday the 11th, Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, dismissed it as "insufficient": "They have accepted some of our conditions, whilst others remain unclear." Iran, he added, "is no longer in the process of responding to the Americans", and the strait "will not open for them, nor will there be any negotiation" until their demands are met. The following day he threatened that if hostilities resume, "many cables, data centres, and artificial intelligence facilities" in the Gulf will be within their reach. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei insists instead that messages via Qatar and Pakistan "continue".

On the ground, General Ahmad Vahidi, IRGC Commander-in-Chief, warned against any foreign interference in the Persian Gulf, and Rear Admiral Ali Azmaei threatened to sink approaching US vessels. CENTCOM retorted that its forces assisted in escorting over nineteen million barrels out of the strait on Monday.

UKMTO reported a projectile impact on a container ship, and ISW (Institute for the Study of War) points out that Iran is attacking ship-to-ship crude transhipments. Rezaei himself boasts that his forces strike around five "smuggling vessels" every night.

Trump has pledged not to attack Iran before 3 November, though in Alaska he promised: "Wait and see what we do to Iran." The New York Times reports that the Pentagon has prepared roughly three-day strike options targeting missile, drone, and energy assets. The Israeli press attributes pressure from Netanyahu to resume fighting before the US polls, a claim denied by his office; Israel votes on 27 October.

Implications

Trump's Youngstown remark confirms what we have been maintaining: the decapitation campaign has been a military and tactical success and a geopolitical failure. Academic literature had warned of this. Jenna Jordan (Security Studies, 2009; Leadership Decapitation, Stanford University Press, 2019) demonstrated that eliminating top leadership rarely dismantles old, large, religious-based organisations; on the contrary, it tends to harden them. The IRGC meets all three conditions. By eliminating "level one", Washington decapitated those who could sign whilst leaving intact those capable of preventing it.

Those truly in charge are Rezaei and Vahidi, both carrying Interpol Red Notices for the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Permanent tension suits them: it justifies the militarisation of power, neutralises President Pezeshkian — who favours a negotiated exit but lacks the authority to impose it —, and sabotages any agreement. Hannah Arendt wrote in On Violence (1970) that power and violence are opposites: where one dominates absolutely, the other is absent. The IRGC no longer governs by legitimacy, but by coercion, and precisely for that reason it needs war.

Trump must be taken seriously, but not literally. The bluster strategy works when outrageous demands are followed by an agreement with trade-offs, as in Greenland. Negotiating with someone who cannot sign whilst the one who can sign sets Hormuz ablaze, arms the Houthis, and threatens submarine cables is not negotiation: it is theatre, paid for with Brent crude, Washington's credibility in the Gulf, and Europe's security. Furthermore, what has always been missing in this war is missing once again: a plan for the day after.

The threat against digital infrastructure deserves special attention. Submarine cables underpinning communications between Europe, Asia, and Africa run through the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, whilst the Emirates and Saudi Arabia aspire to be global artificial intelligence powers. Threatening these nodes is threatening twenty-first-century economy, not just oil: gray warfare taken to the seabed. That this threat is formulated by the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, rather than a junior spokesperson, indicates it forms part of the IRGC's deterrence doctrine for the day hostilities resume. Europe, whose data traffic with Asia traverses those waters, would do well to take it literally.

Outlook and Scenarios

• Negotiations stalled until after 3 November (probable): messages via Qatar and Pakistan yielding no breakthroughs, daily incidents in Hormuz, and Brent hovering above $100.
• Forced recomposition of the Iranian interlocutor (possible): Washington demands guarantees that any signature binds Rezaei and the IRGC, not just the Foreign Ministry.
• Resumption of strikes post-elections (possible): execution of the Pentagon's three-day strike options, risking retaliation against critical Gulf infrastructure, including digital nodes.
• Major pre-election incident (less probable, extreme impact): the sinking of a supertanker with casualties or the cutting of submarine cables.

Fairford: The absences that speak louder than signatures

Facts

The joint statement by foreign ministers regarding the RAF (Royal Air Force) base in Fairford and Iranian state threats was published on 12 October in several versions: twenty-nine signatories on the State Department, Swedish, and Dutch chancelleries' version, thirty-two on the Spanish one, and thirty-four plus the EU High Representative on the Foreign Office version. Poland is absent from all of them. So are Turkey, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, allies within NATO.

Signatories condemn "in the strongest terms" Iranian lethal plots, arson, sabotage, and cyberattacks, back British attribution of the 27 September incident, and link it to the HAYI group's campaign (Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya) targeting Jewish communities, Iranian journalists, and US interests in Europe. "Iran must have no doubt that we stand united," they conclude.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham stated before the Commons that the plot was "almost certainly directed" by the IRGC. "We will not tolerate these threats on our soil," he affirmed, deeming it "inconceivable that this was the first time". On 27 September, police intercepted three vans carrying petrol near the base, which is used by US bombers. The seven detainees, all in their twenties, are on bail without charges. The US withdrew its bombers from Fairford last week; London had authorised their use for "defensive strikes" against Iranian missiles and launchers.

The British government has sanctioned Ruhollah Bazghandi, head of IRGC counter-intelligence operations, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, a facilitator for the Zindashti criminal network involved in various plots against Iranian dissidents. The Iranian ambassador, summoned to the Foreign Office, denied any involvement and demanded proof. Tehran maintains that any base used to attack its territory is a legitimate target and accuses London of a "false flag" operation. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood stated that Fairford "fits a wider pattern".

MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum confirmed on Tuesday that Fairford "is not unique" and that this year has seen a shift in "Iranian ambitions to go after harder targets, such as military installations". Iran-linked operations have triggered over fifty arrests in a year across the United Kingdom. McCallum qualified that Iranian capability on British soil remains limited by the criminals and proxies it employs, but the UK, which formally designated the IRGC in July as a national security threat, has seen hostile-state cases surge by 50% in barely six months.

Implications

Discrepancies between versions are no bureaucratic detail: they reveal who hesitated and who tagged along. Italy arrived late. Cyprus warrants a more nuanced judgement: in March, an Iranian-manufactured drone launched from Lebanon — according to various sources, by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation — struck the British base at Akrotiri, and Nicosia reacted by demanding guarantees from London regarding the use of bases its president once termed "colonial". Malta had no reason to require a second draft.

Poland's absence, as one of Washington's firmest allies, is the most striking: Warsaw, so vocal regarding Russia, falls silent concerning Iran, and that omission demands explanation. Turkey's is even more revealing. Ankara proclaims itself a sister nation to Riyadh against the Houthis whilst refraining from condemning its patron's state terrorism. This is the two-faced diplomacy Erdogan has made his hallmark.

The Spanish irony is textbook. Pedro Sánchez's social-communist government has signed the condemnation of Iranian state terrorism. Well done. Yet that very government proclaimed "No to war" in March; Foreign Minister Albares warned that Rota and Morón would not be used "for anything not included within the treaty", and Defence Minister Robles boasted of having provided "no kind of assistance" to operations against Iran. The result was a threat from Trump to cut trade with Spain and Madrid's isolation among its allies. Signing now, six weeks before the 29 November elections, does not erase that disloyalty.

Signing, moreover, is not enough. In Madrid, in November 2023, Alejo Vidal-Quadras narrowly survived an assassination attempt which he blamed on the Iranian regime. Rota and Morón are potential targets for the very same IRGC that organised Fairford. The EU's designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation remains the step Europe resists taking. John Stuart Mill wrote it down in St Andrews (1867): bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

Outlook and Scenarios

• Broadening of signatories and pressure to designate the IRGC (possible): consolidation of Italy, Cyprus, and Malta, public explanation by Poland, and debate in the Foreign Affairs Council on the EU terrorist list.
• Symbolic declaration without operational consequences (probable): individual sanctions, communiqués, and scarce real coordination regarding the protection of bases, Jewish communities, and dissidents.
• New hybrid incident in Europe (less probable short-term, high impact): another plot by criminal networks serving the IRGC against installations hosting US forces.

Pope Leo XIV: Successful surgery and diagnosis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma

Facts

Pope Leo XIV, seventy-one years old and history's first American pontiff, underwent surgery on the afternoon of Tuesday, 13 October, at Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic. According to the medical bulletin issued by Dr Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora, the lower lobe of his right lung was removed via video-assisted technique "to ensure radical resection", and intraoperative examination "confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma". The procedure lasted roughly ninety minutes and passed "without complications".

This morning, the Holy See reported that "the Pope spent a quiet night". The removed tissue will be analysed in coming days, and any complementary treatment will depend on those results. Leo XIV himself had announced on Sunday, following the Angelus, that check-ups had detected a small, localised nodule and that doctors advised its removal. Audiences are suspended until 20 October and a week-long hospitalisation is anticipated. For now, the Vatican maintains its November trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, the country where then-Father Robert Prevost served as a missionary and Bishop of Chiclayo.

Implications

Those of us who admire Leo XIV — and the author of these lines does so unreservedly — follow his convalescence with concern and hope. An American pontiff in the midst of war between Washington and Tehran, with Russia pressing on Ukraine and a fractured Europe, is a factor of moral stability in an international system that has lost it. His first words from the loggia of St Peter's on 8 May 2025 called for a "disarmed and disarming" peace. That voice matters now more than ever, at a time when Vatican diplomacy is one of the few channels still speaking to all actors in the Middle East.

The Vatican's transparency contrasts starkly with the opacity of the regimes to which we dedicate these pages. The Holy See has communicated a cancer diagnosis, naming doctors and medical team, in under twenty-four hours. In Tehran, no one knows for certain the state of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has been missing since 28 February. The difference between an authority that is accountable and a power that hides could not be better illustrated.

Churchill recounts in The Gathering Storm (1948) that when Pierre Laval suggested in 1935 that Stalin take the Pope into account, Stalin retorted mockingly: "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?". History answered for him: John Paul II, with his 1978 "Do not be afraid!", contributed more to the fall of the Soviet empire than many armoured divisions. The Holy See has no armies, but it possesses the world's oldest diplomatic network and a moral authority that weighs heavily in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and across Ibero-America, which the Pope is preparing to visit.

Media Rack

• AP (Associated Press): Publishes the most comprehensive analysis on why Saudi Arabia, the top buyer of US weaponry, fails to halt the Houthis (12% of exports according to SIPRI, 730 Patriots, 1,300-km border), featuring Ratney, Krieg, and al-Muslimi.
• AFP (Agence France-Presse): Carries al-Bukhaiti's threat against Saudi oil tankers and airports alongside analysis from Krieg and Juneau on the impossibility of an "impermeable dome".
• Reuters: Prices Brent at $106.58 and reports Rezaei dismissing the US response as "insufficient".
• Bloomberg: Identifies the struck building as Aramco's executive headquarters.
• The Wall Street Journal: Reveals shortages of Saudi interceptors and the relocation of batteries to energy infrastructure and palaces.
• The New York Times: Reports on roughly three-day strike options prepared by the Pentagon against Iran.
• Arab News: Focuses on national unity and foreign solidarity: casualties in Riyadh, airport testimonies, Cabinet backing, Egyptian support, and Erdogan's call. Faisal J. Abbas accuses international media of downplaying the massacre ("the excuse is worse than the sin") and Chris Doyle demands a response beyond condemnation. This reflects a country feeling attacked and poorly accompanied by the West.
• Le Figaro: Devotes extensive space to Fairford and Burnham's attribution; tracks Leo XIV's convalescence and reactions in the Elysée.
• Euronews: Leads with Trump's "not nice" comment and, via an AFP dispatch, covers the evacuation order in Sana'a, French advice on Saudi airports, and cholera in Yemen. Lacking analysis or expert voices: reflects a European perspective reading the Saudi crisis through a Trump lens rather than as a threat to continental security.
• Fox News: Broadcasts the presidential Truth Social and the remark about Erdogan ("he would do what I asked").
• CBS News: Publishes a letter from twelve senators opposing the Russian diesel deal.
• The Jerusalem Post: Leads with Trump's admission of having gone "too far" with Iranian leaders.
• L'Orient-Le Jour: Carries Baghaei's offer to mediate between Riyadh and the Houthis.
• Asharq Al-Awsat: Highlights the IMF's forecast of a 7.9% Saudi bounce in 2027, conditional upon the reopening of Hormuz.
• Kyiv Post: Details General Licence 135 and Zelensky's reaction to the diesel agreement.
• Vatican News: Publishes the official surgical bulletin and news of the Pope's "quiet night".

Editorial Commentary

Who truly rules

Some statements are not slips of the tongue, but diagnoses. When Donald Trump said in Youngstown that "maybe we've gone too far with leaders, because we no longer know who the hell we're dealing with," he confirmed from the rostrum of American power the paradox of decapitation we have been analysing since the start of this war: military and tactical success, geopolitical failure. Ali Khamenei and successive tiers of the apparatus were eliminated; bets were placed on Ghalibaf, Araghchi, and President Pezeshkian, who lacked the authority to impose a settlement; and it was discovered, at exorbitant cost, that those truly in charge are Rezaei and Vahidi, whom Interpol seeks for the AMIA bombing. Both sabotage negotiations because permanent tension is their business model. Trump has described the symptom; the West must now treat the disease.

The disease has a name and a geography. Whilst Washington wonders whom it is talking to, the Houthi terrorist organisation — a proxy of Tehran's oligarchic-jihadist regime — sets fire to an Aramco building in Dhahran and injures civilians in Riyadh. Saying those terrorists "are behaving very badly" is as inadequate as deferring the response until "after the elections". The bluster strategy — demanding the impossible to obtain the reasonable — bore fruit in Greenland. Announcing to the adversary the window of impunity gifted by the electoral calendar does precisely the reverse: it is the inversion of the "madman theory" H. R. Haldeman attributed to Nixon in The Ends of Power (1978). The madman is terrifying because no one knows his limit; anyone who publishes their limit on Truth Social becomes predictable.

The Kingdom cannot wait until 4 November with arms folded. Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Pakistan offer alternative insurance policies that do not replace the United States, yet underscore the erosion of its strategic monopoly in the Gulf. A clear coalition is needed — United States, Israel, and Europe — providing intelligence, interception, ammunition, and, if necessary, direct fire against Houthi launchers and depots. Leaving Saudi Arabia alone would be a blunder of the highest order, and not solely out of solidarity: if Houthi terrorism succeeds in paralysing the Kingdom's airports and energy supplies, no Gulf capital will feel secure and all will seek in Beijing, Ankara, or Islamabad the guarantees Washington fails to provide. Anyone believing Brent prices are merely a pollster's concern ignores that Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are the arteries of the global economy. Vision 2030 cannot be defended with communiqués, and arithmetic speaks louder than rhetoric: the world's leading buyer of US arms is running out of interceptors against a terrorist organisation controlling a third of Yemen. Thucydides put it in the mouths of the Athenians during the Melian dialogue: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. The Gulf is learning that an ally without ammunition becomes weak very quickly.

In Tehran, the contradiction between Rezaei and Baghaei is an X-ray of dual power. The Foreign Ministry speaks of messages continuing to flow and offers to mediate between Riyadh and the Houthis; the Supreme National Security Council dismisses the US response as "insufficient" and threatens the Gulf's cables and data centres. George Kennan wrote in the 1946 Long Telegram that Soviet power was impervious to the logic of reason and highly sensitive to the logic of force. That sentence describes the IRGC today with exactitude. Negotiating with someone who cannot bind the IRGC is signing with invisible ink. Our central thesis is confirmed once more: the success of bombs is offset by the failure to foresee who would be left in charge once the bombs had done their work.

Europe, meanwhile, displays both its virtues and wretchedness in Fairford. Burnham has had the courage to point the finger at the IRGC before the Commons. Yet the varying drafts of the text betray who hesitated: Italy joined at the last minute, Cyprus and Malta required a second draft, and Poland is missing from all of them. Turkey, so solidaristic with Riyadh, refuses to sign against the patrons of those attacking Riyadh. To this is added Spanish irony: a social-communist government that in March denied our main ally "any kind of assistance" from Rota and Morón, and made "No to war" a slogan, now signs, six weeks before the polls. That is well and good, but signing does not absolve past disloyalty. Rota and Morón are on our soil and are potential targets for the very same IRGC that organised Fairford. Vidal-Quadras nearly died on a Madrid street, and the EU's designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation remains unfinished business.

None of this criticism is anti-Americanism, that chronic affliction of a certain European left confusing censure of a president with rejection of the nation that liberated and protected the continent throughout the Cold War. Quite the contrary. The staunchest defenders of the Atlantic tradition sit today in the US Senate: Republicans such as Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, and John Cornyn, alongside Democrats like Jeanne Shaheen and Richard Blumenthal, are urging the White House to rescind the agreement permitting sales of Russian diesel under OFAC General Licence 135, valid until 7 April 2027. "This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies," they write. Zelensky puts it with equal clarity: it is "an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged." One trusts that Marco Rubio's judgement and institutional checks will ultimately prevail over transactional impulses. The Atlantic Alliance is, as Louis St. Laurent and Lester Pearson intended when introducing Article 2 of the 1949 Washington Treaty, a community of free institutions, and that community is defended also by refusing to finance the aggressor with its diesel and gifting calendars to the IRGC.

The conclusion fits in few lines. The West needs decisions, not more untimely lists of signatories. First: that the European Union designate the IRGC a terrorist organisation once and for all. Second: that the United States, Israel, and Europe provide the Kingdom — and our own bases — with the air defence Riyadh's saturation has revealed indispensable, without waiting for 4 November. Third: that Washington stop negotiating with extras and demand interlocutors capable of binding Rezaei and Vahidi. Fourth: that the White House heed its own Senate and cease easing Russia's war machine with diesel. Churchill warned over the radio on 20 January 1940, whilst neutrals still hoped to save themselves through concessions: each of them hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. The crocodile viciously attacking Hormuz, Riyadh, and the rest of the Gulf monarchies has the exact same memory and appetite. Against those who understand only the logic of force, calculated weakness is not prudence: it is complicity. History rarely forgives those who sacrifice the next generation on the altar of the next election.