- Introduction
- Iran: more carriers, mines in Hormuz, and a regime playing with the US electoral calendar
- Yemen and the Kingdom: 73 recruits assassinated in Shabwa and British fighters for Saudi Arabia
- Ukraine: progress in Oslo, Witkoff before Putin, and missing Patriots
- France braces for Saturday whilst Spain enters campaigning amidst Ceuta and DANA
- Media Rack
- Editorial Commentary
Introduction
Washington is sharpening its knife and Tehran is stretching the clock. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed on Tuesday that he had met Netanyahu in Israel, and the Pentagon is dispatching the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt strike group to the region alongside roughly 10,000 additional sailors and marines, with arrival expected in late November (Fox News). The White House, however, has tied its own hands in public: the United States "will not attack Iran at any time before the midterm elections".
The oligarchic-jihadist regime has read the calendar better than anyone. Its Revolutionary Guard claims to have set fire to three oil tankers with mines in Hormuz, Mohsen Rezaei warns Pakistani Marshal Asim Munir that "not a single gram" of enriched uranium will leave the country, and, according to Reuters, Tehran is deliberately dragging out talks so as not to hand Trump a victory before 3 November. Marco Rubio sums it up bluntly: it is "difficult" to forge a deal with a regime ruled by "radical Shia clerics".
In Yemen, the Houthi terrorist organisation has assassinated 73 recruits aged between 18 and 20 in Shabwa, according to the provincial governor, and another 14 remain missing. The Kingdom intercepted a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh and several drones on Tuesday. The UK is deploying Typhoon fighters, but solely for "defensive operations": a half-hearted gesture that deters no one. Tehran, which arms the Houthis, has the audacity to offer itself as a mediator; Turkey has submitted a Mecca pact to its Parliament which, according to its Foreign Minister, is "not offensive", and in Taiz, besieged by the Houthis, the United Nations is demanding that humanitarian aid be let through.
In Oslo, Zelenskyy, Støre, and Stubb met Witkoff and speak of "real progress"; today the US special envoy is seeing Putin in St Petersburg. In France, curfews remain in place, the anti-terrorism prosecutor's office is examining the arson attack on the Limoges Town Hall, and the Government promises a "massive" deployment for Saturday. In Spain, Trump claims again the country was "invaded" in Ceuta, Sánchez is received to jeeps in Oliva, and Feijóo is negotiating the Senate with Vox. In Rome, Leo XIV is today presiding over his first general audience since surgery.
Iran: more carriers, mines in Hormuz, and a regime playing with the US electoral calendar
Facts
Hegseth confirmed on Tuesday his Monday visit to Israel: "I was there visiting our troops" and "had the opportunity to speak with the prime minister"; regarding the content, "it's not something I'm going to talk about" (CBS News). According to Netanyahu's spokesman, Doron Spielman, they met at the Ovda air base in southern Israel. That same day, two US officials confirmed to Fox News the dispatch of the Theodore Roosevelt strike group and the 13th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit), numbering around 10,000 personnel. Netanyahu acknowledged on public broadcaster Kan that toppling the regime before the 27 October Israeli elections is "unrealistic". He added, however: "This regime must fall."
The counterpoint came from the White House itself. Deputy press secretary Anna Kelly stated that the United States "will not attack Iran at any time before the midterm elections" (Fox News). Donald Trump said in the Oval Office that he only has to decide whether he wins "the easy way or the hard way". Regarding Europeans, he gave two versions in the same briefing: that they rejected his requests for help, which he found "unkind", and that he didn't actually need it because he was "testing them" (CBS News).
In Hormuz, the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) claimed that two "offending" tankers burned due to mines in a southern passage of the strait Tehran deems "illegal", and that a third, carrying over two million barrels, struck another mine. It also claimed to have shot down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone (CBS News). Neither Iranian claim has independent confirmation.
According to CENTCOM (United States Central Command), cited by Fox News, the container ship GFS Pride was hit by an Iranian projectile in the strait and ended up sinking, and according to Bloomberg, the IRGC is increasingly targeting engine rooms. UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations) tallied ten attacks against merchant shipping in the week prior to 19 October and considers October to be the worst month for navigation since early March. Rubio, on an official visit to India, accused Tehran of employing "Nazi submarine tactics" not seen "since World War II".
On the diplomatic front, Tehran is not relenting. Pakistani army chief Marshal Munir arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for his fifth visit since the April ceasefire (Al Jazeera). Pezeshkian demanded that Washington lift "pressures, threats, and sanctions" prior to any negotiation. Major General Rezaei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, went further: "Not a single gram of enriched uranium will leave Iran," and there will be no negotiation "until the US takes steps to build trust" (Fox News). Qatari daily Al Araby al Jadid reported that Qatar and Pakistan propose handing over to Iran the interest on $6 billion frozen in Qatari banks in exchange for a discreet IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) visit to its nuclear facilities, without independent confirmation.
Reuters, citing three senior Iranian officials and a source knowledgeable about the negotiations, reveals that Tehran is deliberately prolonging talks to weaken Trump ahead of the midterms: "Iran is preparing for new attacks from Israel and the US, not a deal," one of them said; "the regime is determined not to hand Trump a political victory." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent maintains that crude loadings have halted on Kharg Island, Iran's main export terminal. Brent closed Tuesday at $108.79 after touching $111.99, a five-month high, and traded around 109.6 on Wednesday.
Implications
Rezaei has spoken, and it is wise to listen to him. We have maintained that real power in Tehran does not lie with the presidency, but within the axis formed by Mohsen Rezaei and Ahmad Vahidi, IRGC Commander-in-Chief, both carrying Interpol Red Notices since 2007 for the 1994 AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) bombing in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Permanent tension suits both because it is the instrument with which they consolidate internal power against Pezeshkian.
Tuesday saw a clear division of labour: Pezeshkian set conditions whilst Rezaei put down a veto. That Reuters confirms, via Iranian sources, that the regime is dragging out negotiations to influence US elections will surprise no one familiar with its history; the grave aspect is that it confirms Washington has spent months talking to interlocutors lacking authority to bind the regime.
The White House deputy press secretary's remark deserves a nuance that has been missed. Announcing there will be no strikes before 3 November is, electorally speaking, understandable: expensive petrol punishes the incumbent party. Strategically speaking, however, it hands the adversary a two-week window of impunity and confirms their calendar gamble is correct. Deterrence that sets its own expiry date ceases to deter.
At sea, international law is unequivocally on the side of those navigating. The 1907 Hague VIII Convention prohibits anchoring automatic contact mines off an adversary's coasts and ports solely to intercept commercial navigation. The International Court of Justice, in the Corfu Channel case (1949), condemned Albania for failing to warn of a minefield in an international strait and invoked "elementary considerations of humanity, even more exacting in peace than in war".
That Tehran has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, whose Article 44 prohibits suspending transit passage, is a weak argument: that regime forms part of customary law today. A state that mines an international strait and boasts of it is practicing state-sponsored maritime terrorism. Its "80 to 100%" figure, however, withstands no scrutiny: Kpler data points to 82%, and thanks to alternative Saudi and Emirati pipelines and an improvised escort system. Our central thesis (military and tactical success, geopolitical and geostrategic failure) still stands.
Outlook and Scenarios
Resumption of bombings after 3 November (probable) with the Theodore Roosevelt in the area by late November, nuclear and missile infrastructure as targets, and Iranian threats against Gulf ports and undersea cables.
Partial agreement via Qatar and Pakistan (possible) frozen fund interests in exchange for an inspection; it would resolve neither uranium nor Hormuz, and Rezaei has effectively already vetoed it.
Naval escalation prior to the elections (possible) a sunk tanker with casualties or an incident involving a US vessel would test the White House's pledge not to strike before 3 November.
Yemen and the Kingdom: 73 recruits assassinated in Shabwa and British fighters for Saudi Arabia
Facts
The toll from the Houthi strike against the Al Alam training camp in Shabwa province has risen to 73 dead and 14 missing, according to provincial governor Awad bin al Wazir, cited by state agency Saba. Reuters, which obtained the same figure from the provincial press office, verified the attack video; there are over 200 injured.
AP (Associated Press) confirms the 73 dead and specifies the recruits were aged between 18 and 20. Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad al Alimi formally asked the UN to designate the Houthis a "terrorist organisation" (Al Jazeera).
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea maintains the camp was run by Saudi forces, without independent confirmation, and claimed six operations inside Saudi territory within 48 hours, including against Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, Aramco facilities in Yanbu, and the Shaybah oil field, under the slogan of "escalation for escalation" (CBS News).
On Tuesday, coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al Maliki announced the Kingdom had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis towards Riyadh, following a Civil Defence alert, followed by a drone over the capital region (Arab News, CBS News). This Wednesday, the coalition intercepted another drone launched towards the Eastern Province. The National, from Abu Dhabi, adds that Aramco's Dhahran headquarters and a pipeline have also been hit, and that the Houthis reportedly developed the Palestine-2 manoeuvrable missile designed to evade defences.
London is moving, but only halfway. British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting announced that RAF (Royal Air Force) Typhoon fighters will conduct "defensive air operations" over Saudi Arabia to protect cities, civilians, and critical infrastructure, without offensive strikes against the Houthis. The UK will also send an A400M Atlas transport aircraft and military advisers, and extends in-flight refuelling by 90 days (BBC, franceinfo).
This latter commitment stems from September, when minister Luke Pollard announced the deployment of a Voyager tanker aircraft based in Akrotiri (Cyprus), in Prime Minister Andy Burnham's first major foreign policy decision. "The Houthi relentless attacks against our ally, Saudi Arabia, are utterly despicable," Streeting said. Turkey has submitted to its Parliament the Mecca joint defence pact signed in August with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, treating an attack on one as an attack on all and whose Article 2 obliges immediate assistance to the attacked party "with the full range of mutual assistance measures" available; a committee could debate it on Friday.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was quick to clarify that it is not an "offensive agreement" and that Turkey will not send troops to attack another country's territory, whilst Presidential Communications Director Burhanettin Duran maintains it seeks to "reinforce collective deterrence". A senior Turkish official limits Ankara's contribution to equipment, intelligence, and weapon systems, and the Constitution additionally requires specific parliamentary authorisation to deploy troops abroad (Reuters, Al-Monitor, Geo News). The Egyptian Parliament postponed debate on President al-Sisi's request authorising military support to the Kingdom, to be resumed on 26 October (CBS News). Araghchi, meanwhile, laments that neither Riyadh nor the Houthis have responded to his mediation offer and warns that Egyptian intervention would worsen the conflict (The Jerusalem Post).
The humanitarian toll is mounting. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanded the Houthis let aid into Taiz: closing the sole supply route with Aden "places civilians in grave danger". In Taiz province, at least 32 civilians, **14 of them children**, died between 1 August and 19 October.
The WFP warns that 800,000 people have been left without assistance, mostly in Taiz, and that **over 18 million Yemenis** suffer severe food insecurity (Al Jazeera). The Houthi Health Ministry attributes nine deaths, including five children and two women, to a Saudi bombing in Saada over the weekend, without independent confirmation.
Implicaciones
Shabwa is no longer a provisional figure: it is the slaughter of 73 youths aged 18 to 20, trained to protect their country and assassinated with ballistic missiles whilst forming up for instruction. The signature belongs to Tehran's proxy. Al Alimi did well in asking the UN for what the EU should have done long ago, though the scope of his request needs precision.
The United Nations holds no general list of terrorist organisations: the Security Council designates individuals and entities through its sanctions committees, and in Yemen's case via the regime created by Resolution 2140 (2014) and reinforced by 2216 (2015), which imposed an arms embargo on the Houthis. The United States, by contrast, re-designated Ansar Allah as a foreign terrorist organisation in March 2025. Europe has no excuse to keep waiting.
For Araghchi to offer himself as mediator on that very day is an insult to intelligence and decency (see Editorial Commentary): the one who arms, trains, and funds the aggressor pretends to arbitrate and, incidentally, threatens Egypt not to help the victim. The British response, which many have bought as extraordinary, is not. It is a half-hearted move, like a poor goalkeeper coming out for a cross, missing it, watching the ball sail over, and leaving the striker to tap into an empty net: a tanker in September and some Typhoons for "defensive operations" in October. Each Typhoon costs around €200 million factoring in engines and support (Spain's Halcón II contract totals €4.6 billion for 25 aircraft); it carries 13 hardpoints, a 27mm Mauser BK-27 cannon, and air-to-air missiles costing anywhere from several hundred thousand to over a million euros per shot. Facing them are drones costing a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars; a Houthi Qasef costs barely a couple of thousand, according to The War Zone. Furthermore, no fighter jet stops a ballistic missile like the one fired at Riyadh: that is the task of Patriots and THAADs.
A Typhoon is truly only good for deterring, and to deter one must strike Houthi launchers, depots, and factories in Yemen. It will be said that British fighters free up Saudi jets to strike; that is true, and confirms London wants the benefits of deterrence without assuming its risk. Halving measures is akin to doing nothing. It is even worse, because it proves to Western enemies that even the UK — that singular Europe outside the EU yet considering itself a NATO leader — prefers gestures to action. It is the same country whose Typhoons bombed Houthi targets alongside the US in January 2024 and destroyed a drone factory south of Sana'a with Paveway IV bombs in April 2025. That London precisely, so often bold on defence, should make such a pusillanimous and useless gesture says much about the era.
Clausewitz wrote that the rapid and energetic transition to attack, "the flashing sword of vengeance", is the brightest moment of defence. Churchill, after Munich, told the Commons that "a total and unmitigated defeat" had been suffered; the lesson of 1938 is that confusing prudence with cowardice always extracts a price. Too many politicians and countries in the 21st century still fail to learn that lesson: they have plenty of electoral calculation and lack vision and a sense of history. This century is beginning to look like a black hole of democratic and leadership quality. The Kingdom's defence is the defence of the Gulf, of world trade, and of the Arab world's principal reformist endeavour, and it brooks no half measures.
Outlook and Scenarios
Fresh Houthi barrages against Riyadh, Yanbu, and the Eastern Province (probable) with British Typhoons intercepting yet failing to deter, alongside Saudi reprisals over Sana'a and Saada.
Favourable Egyptian vote and Turkish ratification (possible) would broaden the coalition around the Mecca pact, with a deterrent effect more political than military short-term.
Fall of Taiz or humanitarian catastrophe in the city (possible) if Houthi terrorists maintain the siege and government counter-offensives remain stalled.
Ukraine: progress in Oslo, Witkoff before Putin, and missing Patriots
Facts
Zelenskyy met Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo on Tuesday; Jared Kushner participated via video due to illness, and the UK, France, Germany, Poland, the EU, and NATO sent representatives (The Moscow Times, Norwegian Government). According to a US official, topics included a comprehensive peace framework with long-term security guarantees, a post-war economic plan, and a European security architecture (NBC News). Stubb spoke of "real progress" and a process "back on track"; Støre insisted Europe "has to be at the table" (BBC, Reuters). Zelenskyy stated he discussed guarantees "similar to NATO's Article 5".
Following a 45-minute call with Rubio, Zelenskyy affirmed that the exchange of early warnings regarding Russian missiles "is working now" (BBC, AP). Rubio called accusations that Washington is withdrawing support "outrageous": "That is simply not true." He admitted, however, that a batch of interceptors paid for by Europeans may not have arrived: "When a country doesn't receive interceptors from the US, it's not because we are denying them. We also have our own needs" (NBC News). A source cited by Reuters specifies that Hegseth has not approved the latest Ukrainian Patriot requests. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz lamented Washington's "mixed messages" (BBC).
Trump pressed the victim once more: "Ukraine has to want to settle this war." He described Russia as "a great machine" that "keeps advancing" and has taken "a very large piece of land", adding that hatred between Putin and Zelenskyy is "tremendous" (Reuters, Fox News). Witkoff is meeting Putin in St Petersburg today, again with Kushner via video, to open "a path" toward trilateral negotiations (NBC News). Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expects Witkoff to "brief" Putin on contacts with Ukrainians and Europeans, whilst Lavrov rules out "political concessions" (BBC). Putin continues demanding the entire Donetsk oblast as a preconditions for a ceasefire (The Moscow Times). Trump hinted at the upcoming release of US national Stephen Hubbard, imprisoned in Russia: "Remember this question in a couple of days." Russia killed at least ten people in Kyiv, Donetsk, and Dnipro on Tuesday, and two others near Kharkiv overnight (BBC).
Implications
Oslo has achieved something, and that must be acknowledged. Ukraine and Europe succeeded in seating Witkoff alongside the Nordics and the E4 (UK, France, Germany, Poland), recovering early warnings and establishing a common stance before the envoy travels to Russia. The facts that matter, however, remain unchanged: already-paid-for Patriots lack Hegseth's signature, and Rubio justifies this with Washington's "own needs", spiked by the war with Iran. Simultaneously, Trump repeats that the war must be ended by Ukraine, as if Kyiv were the aggressor.
Guarantees "similar to Article 5" deserve legal scrutiny, not headlines. The Washington Treaty's Article 5 (1949) does not mandate an automatic military response: each ally commits to taking "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force". Its effectiveness has never rested on the letter, but on the credibility of whoever backs it. Ukraine knows better than anyone the value of unsupported promises: in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum it surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for "guarantees" from the US, UK, and Russia, which turned out to be mere political assurances. A guarantee offered by someone simultaneously withholding already-purchased interceptors would repeat that mistake.
Moscow, for its part, makes no move without purpose. Peskov speaks of "mediation" and Lavrov rules out concessions on the same day, whilst the Kremlin tightens ties with Tehran. If Witkoff returns from St Petersburg with Hubbard and no ceasefire, Russia will have cashed in a humanitarian gesture for nothing.
Outlook and Scenarios
St Petersburg meeting without a ceasefire (probable) release of Hubbard, kind words from Peskov, and Donetsk as a non-negotiable condition.
Unblocking Patriots post-Oslo (possible) if pressure from Rubio, the Senate, and the E4 overcomes Pentagon reservations.
Trilateral summit convened before year's end (possible) only if Moscow accepts the Oslo framework as a basis and Kyiv is guaranteed its seat at the table.
France braces for Saturday whilst Spain enters campaigning amidst Ceuta and DANA
Facts
France remains under the shock of Saturday 17 October's protests against the cost of living, called by former yellow vests and youth collectives: 550,000 protesters according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez (800,000 according to organisers), 1,200 arrested, and 150 police and gendarmes injured, according to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who called it "a miracle" the toll wasn't graver (Brut). Two deaths are under investigation. Curfews remain in Paris around Republic and Les Halles. Lyon renewed its inner-city curfew where over 150 shops were wrecked; Marseille is introducing one for minors, and Toulouse will apply it from Thursday (franceinfo).
Lecornu denounced to the Assembly "the planning, in certain places, of an insurrectionary scheme led by far-left and ultra-left fringe groups," urged LFI to "choose its side," and promised a "massive" deployment for Saturday 24 (Europe 1). Organisers are calling an "Act II" that day. Nuñez announced that Operation Sentinelle soldiers, the counter-terrorism military force deployed domestically since 2015, will replace police on static guard duties (Euronews). In Lyon, moreover, a far-right procession marched during curfew despite a ban, and the prefect has referred the matter to the Prosecutor's Office.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin counts 149 jailed, over 800 people referred to court, and some fifty active judicial investigations. He warned that if the judicial response isn't "extremely firm", shopkeepers "will take justice into their own hands". The RAID elite unit arrested the prime suspect in the Limoges Town Hall arson: a 34-year-old man flagged for ultra-left affiliation (TF1). The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office is weighing whether to take the case.
In Spain, Trump claimed in the Oval Office that the country was "suddenly and massively invaded" by foreigners in Ceuta on 30 and 31 July and is "doing nothing about it" (RTVE). It is not the first time: he spoke of "invasion" on 31 July and, in early September, of "a ruined country" with "zero control" of its borders (Euronews).
Ceuta's Government is studying an appeal to the Supreme Court over the "inactivity" of the State Administration regarding adults remaining in the city. Government spokesperson Elma Saiz denied this "in any way" and travels to Ceuta today. According to the Executive, 12,700 migrants have voluntarily returned to Morocco since 10 August. Sánchez visited Oliva, where he was received "with jeeps and also applause", announced the declaration of a seriously affected zone for municipalities damaged by DANA Adam, and called for a "great country agreement against the climate emergency". Generalitat President Juanfran Pérez Llorca stressed that this time "warnings were given in time" (RTVE).
The 29 November pre-campaign plays out on candidate lists, which must be registered by Monday 26. PP President Alberto Núñez Feijóo confirmed on COPE negotiations with Vox over the Senate: "It would be a mistake to grant sanchismo direct or indirect control of the Senate." According to RTVE, a deal would grant both the three-fifths majority needed to elect the four Constitutional Court magistrates corresponding to the Upper House. The Supreme Court applied the amnesty to Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Dolors Bassa, and Raül Romeva, who remained barred from office over embezzlement (RTVE).
Implicaciones
France has moved from bewilderment to response. Max Weber in 1919 defined the state as the human community successfully claiming the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a territory. That is precisely what is at stake: when Darmanin warns that merchants will take justice into their own hands, he describes a state beginning to lose that monopoly, and extremes always fill the vacuum.
Ortega warned in his prologue for French readers of The Revolt of the Masses that being left or right are two forms of "moral hemiplegia". The lesson applies both ways: the far-right procession defying the Lyon curfew deserves the same harshness as Limoges's arsonists. Six months ahead of the April 2027 presidential election, Saturday the 24th will show whether the State has regained control of the streets.
Spain is not France, but the Government has received two warnings in a single day. Trump exaggerates, as usual; his "invasion" is a bluster to be taken seriously, but not literally. The grave matter is that the bluster rests on a fact: July's Ceuta crisis remains unresolved, to the point that the autonomous city's own Government threatens to take the State to the Supreme Court. The 12,700 voluntary returns to Morocco demonstrate, incidentally, that cooperation with Rabat works when Madrid does its part.
In Oliva, the Prime Minister discovered that an emergency well managed by the Generalitat does not erase the memory of 2024's 229 dead, nor the "if you need help, ask for it" he uttered then. The social-communist Government reaches the campaign with amnesty applied to procès convicts, the southern border rudderless, and an extreme left that is not equidistant: Sumar, the PCE integrated within it, and Podemos, born of 15M revolutionary assemblies, align with Moscow, stay silent before Hamas and Hezbollah, and Vice-President Yolanda Díaz went so far as to proclaim "from the river to the sea". The PP-Vox pact in the Senate, by contrast, is a perfectly legitimate operation to prevent sanchismo from completing the colonisation of the Constitutional Court.
Perspectivas y escenarios
Tense yet contained Saturday 24 (probable) massive deployment, Sentinelle on static watch, and immediate briefings; isolated incidents in Marseille and Lyon.
Takeover of the Limoges case by the Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (possible) would consolidate the Government's diagnosis of an organised ultra-left and increase pressure on LFI.
Ceuta and immigration as axes of the Spanish campaign (probable) with Trump's remark, Ceuta's Supreme Court appeal, and the PP-Vox Senate pact.
Media Rack
Reuters: Reveals, via three senior Iranian officials, that Tehran is dragging out negotiations to deny Trump a victory before 3 November, and raises the Shabwa death toll to 73 after verifying the attack video.
CBS News: Details the three mines which, according to the IRGC, set oil tankers ablaze in Hormuz and Trump's phrase: winning "the easy way or the hard way".
Fox News: Previews the dispatch of the Theodore Roosevelt and 13th MEU; publishes the White House's pledge not to strike before the legislative elections.
Al Jazeera: Covers the siege of Taiz and Al Alimi's petition to the UN to designate Houthis terrorists; reports on Munir's fifth visit to Tehran.
Arab News: Carries Major General Turki al Maliki's briefing on intercepting the missile aimed at Riyadh and the joint condemnation by Saudi and Kuwaiti foreign ministers.
The National: From Abu Dhabi, contextualises the British deployment and warns of the Houthis' manoeuvrable Palestine-2 missile.
BBC: Explains that British Typhoons will be restricted to freeing up Saudi jets to strike Houthis and cites Merz on Washington's "mixed messages".
Le Figaro: Collects Darmanin's arrest figures (95% men, 70% adults) debunking the narrative of a youth revolt.
Franceinfo: Publishes the curfew map, reaching Marseille and Toulouse, and Streeting's line on attacks against the Kingdom.
Euronews: Details the role of Operation Sentinelle, with 10,000 soldiers, in the 24 October deployment, and recalls the chronology of Trump's verbal attacks on Spain over Ceuta.
Editorial Commentary
Tehran's clock
There are regimes that negotiate to reach a deal and regimes that negotiate to buy time. Tehran's has belonged to the second category since 1979. This week Reuters confirmed it through three senior Iranian officials: the oligarchic-jihadist regime is deliberately dragging out talks so Trump cannot present a victory before 3 November. Mohsen Rezaei confirmed it too, without intermediaries, to Marshal Munir: not a single gram of enriched uranium will leave the country. Meanwhile, in Washington, the president wonders aloud whether he will win the war "the easy way or the hard way", and his deputy spokesperson announces that the hard way won't be before the elections. Eight months after the first bombings, Tehran sets the clock.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 that foreign policy demands almost none of democracy's own qualities and instead demands nearly all those it lacks: secrecy, patience, constancy in design. The ayatollahs and IRGC generals have never read Tocqueville, but they apply him. They know a democracy votes every two years, that petrol prices weigh at the ballot box, and that one merely needs to hold out a few weeks for the adversary to tie their own hands. That is the true meaning of the decapitation paradox we have been describing: eliminating the leadership did not produce a weaker regime, but a tighter, more militarised, and patient one, run by those with an interest in the crisis never ending (see news item 1).
Henry Kissinger repeated for years that Iran must decide whether it wanted to be a nation or a cause. The regime has decided: it is a cause, and it exports it through its terrorist terminals. Shabwa is the most recent proof. The Houthi terrorist organisation has assassinated 73 recruits who were not at the front, but in a training camp. That Tehran offered itself as mediator between the Houthis and Riyadh on that very day is a grave insult to intelligence, decency, and elementary logic. The regime arming, training, funding, sending ballistic missiles to, and equipping the aggressor with killer drones has the audacity, the indecency, of presenting itself as referee. It is as if the prosecuting attorney offered to act as defense counsel for the defendant: he would do the utmost to convict him. The metaphor falls short. It is the instigator who placed petrol, orders, and money in the pyromaniac's hands and who, with the forest already ablaze, offers to convince him not to burn it. Even that image is inadequate. It is simply vomiting-inducing, all the more so when Araghchi accompanies his offer with a warning to Egypt not to help the victim. That is no mediation: it is extortion under another name.
Equally concerning, not to say hair-raising, is observing how little pacts are worth. The Mecca agreement was signed in August with great fanfare, and its Article 2 obliges immediate succour to the attacked party. The Kingdom is attacked daily, and Ankara's first reaction was to clarify it is not an offensive agreement. What is a defensive pact, then? Waiting to see whether missiles and drones are intercepted, and counting the dead when not? A defence renouncing strikes against the origin of aggression is no defence, but resignation. The Turkish Parliament still has to ratify it, and one must listen closely to Foreign Ministry and Presidency spokespersons to know whether Duran's "collective deterrence" means anything.
The British response, which many have bought as extraordinary, is not. It is a half-measure, like a poor goalkeeper coming out for a cross, missing it, watching the ball sail over, and leaving the striker to tap into an empty net: a tanker in September and some Typhoons for "defensive operations" in October. Each Typhoon costs around €200 million factoring in engines and support (Spain's Halcón II contract totals €4.6 billion for 25 aircraft); it carries 13 hardpoints, a 27mm Mauser BK-27 cannon, and air-to-air missiles costing anywhere from several hundred thousand to over a million euros per shot. Facing them are drones costing a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars; a Houthi Qasef costs barely a couple of thousand, according to The War Zone. Furthermore, no fighter jet stops a ballistic missile like the one fired at Riyadh: that is the task of Patriots and THAADs.
A Typhoon is truly only good for deterring, and to deter one must strike Houthi launchers, depots, and factories in Yemen. It will be said that British fighters free up Saudi jets to strike; that is true, and confirms London wants the benefits of deterrence without assuming its risk. Halving measures is akin to doing nothing. It is even worse, because it proves to Western enemies that even the UK — that singular Europe outside the EU yet considering itself a NATO leader — prefers gestures to action. It is the same country whose Typhoons bombed Houthi targets alongside the US in January 2024 and destroyed a drone factory south of Sana'a with Paveway IV bombs in April 2025. That London precisely, so often bold on defence, should make such a pusillanimous and useless gesture says much about the era.
Clausewitz wrote that the rapid and energetic transition to attack, "the flashing sword of vengeance", is the brightest moment of defence. Churchill, after Munich, told the Commons that "a total and unmitigated defeat" had been suffered; the lesson of 1938 is that confusing prudence with cowardice always extracts a price. Too many politicians and countries in the 21st century still fail to learn that lesson: they have plenty of electoral calculation and lack vision and a sense of history. This century is beginning to look like a black hole of democratic and leadership quality. The Kingdom's defence is the defence of the Gulf, of world trade, and of the Arab world's principal reformist endeavour, and it brooks no half measures.
Time is also running out in Ukraine, and there too the aggressor handles the clock. The Kremlin has learned the same lesson as Tehran: it is enough to wait for Washington to tire and Europe to divide. Tacitus placed in the mouth of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus the condemnation of empires that create a desert and call it peace. A peace handing over Donetsk as a precondition, without interceptors to defend what remains of Ukraine, would be precisely that. Guarantees "similar to Article 5" deserve legal scrutiny, not headlines. The Washington Treaty's Article 5 (1949) does not mandate an automatic military response: each ally commits to taking "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force". Its effectiveness has never rested on the letter, but on the credibility of whoever backs it. Ukraine knows better than anyone the value of unsupported promises: in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum it surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for "guarantees" from the US, UK, and Russia, which turned out to be mere political assurances. A guarantee offered by someone simultaneously withholding already-purchased interceptors would repeat that mistake.
Spain, meanwhile, arrives at the 29 November elections with its southern border pending in the courts, an amnesty rewarding procès convicts, and a Government still failing to state what it will do for Rota and Morón, for our air defence, and for the Kingdom.
Five demands stem from all this.
- First: stop negotiating with extras; with Tehran only a verifiable agreement endorsed by those in charge will suffice, and the first point is uranium.
- Second: that the EU include the Houthi terrorist organisation on its terror list, as it already did with the IRGC, and translate it into sanctions and the dismantling of their financial networks.
- Third: that Europe coordinate with the UK, France, US, and Israel a real defence of the Kingdom that is not limited to interception, because deterrence demands striking Houthi launchers, depots, and factories, and that Spain contribute capabilities and not just press releases.
- Fourth: that Patriots paid for by Europeans reach Ukraine, and that no summit on Ukraine is held without Ukraine.
- Fifth: that Ceuta, Rota, and Morón cease to be campaign slogans and return to being state policy. Tehran's clock runs in favour of those who know how to wait. The West must decide whether it wants to keep watching the time or start setting it.