Trump's America

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I covered the Middle East when Saddam was America’s friend. The bloodletting hasn’t stopped

Iranians deserve better than the ayatollahs – and they deserve better than an illegal war waged by a felonious, feckless president with no plan for what follows.

  • Geraldine Brooks

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Leaders behaving badly or if not, woefully

Readers evaluate the actions of Trump, Netanyahu and the words of Albanese and the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and only one of them gets a positive result.

US President Donald Trump has threatened higher tariffs on any country that “played games” with his new tariff regime.

Bad energy: Trump will be forced to end his reckless war very soon

It is astonishing that Donald Trump has created an energy crisis that America is not set up to handle.

  • Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Israel hacked Tehran traffic cameras to spy on Khamenei

Israeli spies spent years watching Iran’s late supreme leader and his entourage on the streets of their own capital city.

  • Allegra Mendelson
“This is not Winston Churchill we are dealing with”, Trump has said of PM Keir Starmer.

No, he’s not Winston Churchill. But Starmer’s learnt something from history Trump hasn’t

Publicly rebuked by the president and deeply unpopular at home, Keir Starmer is sticking to his guns over Iran and wants to avoid “the mistakes of Iraq”.

  • David Crowe
Illustration by Dionne Gain

Trump’s opening military strike against Iran was ‘exquisite’. Now comes the tricky bit

“I don’t think he has a plan and that’s the problem,” security expert John Bolton says.

  • Peter Hartcher
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Canada’s PM, Mark Carney, at the Global Progress Action Summit held in London in September.

O Canada, O Albanese: This middle power roars as Australia’s exemplar

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who visits Australia this week, dares to project his nation as an important player in global politics. Australia must do the same.

  • George Brandis
Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, on Saturday.

The stakes for Australia in Trump’s Iran gamble

The US-Israel attack on Iran is high-risk. It may fail. It may distract America from the Indo-Pacific, but if it succeeds, it could also strengthen deterrence in our region and enhance Australia’s security.

  • Jennifer Parker
US President Donald Trump

Trump orders military to stop using Claude chatbot in clash over AI safety

World-leading AI start-up Anthropic had sought assurances from the government that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance.

  • Matt O'Brien and Konstantin Toropin

Trump is pushing America closer to civil war

The US president’s reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on his tariffs has compounded an unfolding national tragedy.

  • Ambrose Evans-Pritchard