PATRICK LAWRENCE: Epic Desperation
Before the world’s eyes, Iranians have turned Operation Epic Fury into Operation Epic Desperation. Iranians are Hô Chi Minh’s grasshoppers taking on a colonial elephant. No one can say with certainty, at this writing, how Iran’s defense against U.S.–Israeli aggression will…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump’s Trap, Trump’s Sanity
The U.S. president has lost the war he started with Iran — or at the very least he has no chance of winning it — but accepting defeat and repairing the damage of the error is simply beyond his reach….
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Iran & Ukraine — Two Theaters in the Non–West’s Single War for Parity
In Iran and Ukraine, what is at stake — what is fought for and against — is a rebalancing of power that will prove of world-historical magnitude when it is at last accomplished. First came news that, on April 8, Israeli…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: US Diplomacy’s Last Breath
Trump, in his regime’s serial dishonesty, has reshaped the conventions of American diplomacy in the Israeli fashion. He has turned the U.S. into the same sort of pariah — never to be trusted. How long did it take for the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A German Journalist’s ‘Civil Death’
Hüseyin Dogru is the first E.U. citizen to be sanctioned by the union and the first journalist to land on the list because of his work. What is Dogru’s crime? Don’t ask: He has not committed one. The following note…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Another War We’re Not Supposed to See
You have to figure, if those waging war — and covering it — dedicate themselves this assiduously to keeping things hidden, there are surely things to hide. I know for a fact that The New York Times has a multitude of correspondents on…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Germany Learns From the IDF
The Israelis are to teach Germans how to use artificial intelligence based on the I.D.F.’s experience in Gaza, where, among other things, it used A.I. to identify targets, guide drones, and conduct remote assassinations. A year ago this month — St….
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Serial Buffoon at the Pentagon
Trump elevated outsiders without necessary experience to his cabinet to avoid the deep state subversion that was rampant during his first term. The “blob” responded by making some of them irrelevant. Someone wondered aloud on a social media platform the…

PATRICK LAWRENCE: History Turned in Beijing
To say not much happened during Trump’s two days in the Chinese capital, as a lot of people seem to think, is to miss the forest for the trees. How polished are the Chinese, how delicate in their gestures, after…