Competence Was Yesterday, Loyalty Is the Job
Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk to the Board of Visitors of the United States Air Force Academy. She takes the seat that had been intended for her late husband Charlie Kirk before he was murdered. In doing so, a position that is meant to serve independent oversight is turned into an act of political continuity. The Board of Visitors oversees morale, discipline, curricula and finances of the academy. It concerns the education of future officers, the internal culture of a military elite institution. Whoever sits there shapes the framework in which leadership is formed.
The decision appears less like a professional selection and more like a signal inward. The name remains, the environment remains, the proximity to the political movement from which Charlie Kirk came remains. Instead of institutional distance, the impression of personal continuation emerges. Especially in a phase of international tensions, in which military decisions are once again routine, this personnel choice raises questions. Not about formal legality, but about the political attitude behind it. An oversight body is meant to exercise control. When loyalty becomes the dominant criterion, the purpose of such a post shifts.
Seven Days - and a Feeling
Question: Trump said he had to attack Iran because he believed Iran would attack the United States within seven days. What is he basing that on?
Leavitt: That was a feeling of the president, based on facts.
Donald Trump declares that he had to attack Iran because Tehran would have attacked the United States within seven days. A journalist’s follow up is obvious: What is this assumption based on? Karoline Leavitt answers briefly. It was a feeling of the president, supported by facts. Which facts are meant remains open. No concrete intelligence assessment is cited, no publicly verifiable evaluation by an agency, no clearly defined timeframe from official documents. Reporting likewise shows that the claim is simply absurd.
Leavitt’s statement shifts the standard. From a non verifiable threat emerges an assessment that arose in the president’s mind. At the same time it is emphasized that this assessment did not come out of nowhere, but was based on information that is not further explained. When military decisions are justified by a narrow time window, many expect a transparent presentation of the basis. Instead, a formulation remains that leaves room for interpretation. It connects subjective perception with the reference to facts, without disclosing them. That is where the actual debate begins.
North Korea Stands Behind Tehran - and Sends a Clear Message
“Our nuclear test served peaceful purposes. We are not challenging anyone … but if you believe you can bring North Korea under control like Venezuela, then remember: You are playing with fire.”
North Korea supports the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader of Iran. In a statement by an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Pyongyang declared that it respects the right of the Iranian people to determine their leader themselves. At the same time, the leadership in Pyongyang sharply attacked the United States and Israel. The military actions against Iran were “illegal,” as were attempts to interfere in internal affairs or advocate the overthrow of the political system. That deserved global criticism, it said.
At the same time, state media reported that Kim Jong Un had once again overseen tests of nuclear capable cruise missiles from a new warship. It is the second time in two weeks that this platform has been presented. Observers see more than routine in this. After the killing of Ali Khamenei and the sinking of Iranian naval units by the United States, Pyongyang is demonstrating that its own ships could be equipped with nuclear weapons in an emergency. While Tehran is under military pressure, North Korea shows that it defines deterrence differently.
Moscow’s Text Without Names
Russia submits a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling on all sides in the Iran war to immediately halt military activities. The text sharply condemns attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and demands their protection. Russia, one has to imagine that. The text does not name specific states. Neither Iran nor the United States nor Israel are explicitly mentioned. Instead of assigning blame, the draft places the Charter of the United Nations at the center. It recalls the prohibition on the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a country. Russia presents itself in this context as a defender of human rights - a portrayal that, given its own record, hardly convinces.
At the same time a rapid return to negotiations and diplomacy is suggested. The text emphasizes the importance of the security of all states in the Middle East and beyond. The wording is broad, the addressees remain unspoken. In this openness lies the political message: demand de escalation without directly naming individual actors. Russia, one has to imagine that.
Territorial Gains and Ceasefires That Are Not
Russia and Ukraine are reporting military successes almost simultaneously, while U.S. mediated talks are postponed indefinitely. In Kyiv it is said that Ukrainian troops have recaptured more than 400 square kilometers in the Dnipropetrovsk region and pushed Russian units back more than ten kilometers. General Oleksandr Komarenko speaks of a counteroffensive that has brought almost the entire previously lost area back under Ukrainian control. A battalion commander reports poorly supplied Russian soldiers and breached defensive lines. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin paints a different picture. Russian forces have expanded their positions in the Donbas. Six months ago Ukraine still controlled around a quarter of the region, now it is only 15 to 17 percent. Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov says the president informed Donald Trump about “successful progress.” This is meant to encourage Kyiv to move toward negotiations.
While both sides claim territorial gains, bombs and drones continue to hit residential neighborhoods. In Sloviansk four people die after glide bombs strike, several are injured. In Kharkiv emergency services extinguish fires after nighttime attacks. The Ukrainian Air Force reports shooting down 122 of 137 drones in one night. At the same time Ukrainian rockets strike Bryansk. Six civilians die, dozens are injured. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the target was a facility producing control systems for Russian missiles. The Ukrainian army speaks of the use of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles against the Kremniy El microchip factory. The next round of talks in Turkey was to begin on Tuesday. American negotiators have postponed it, possibly until next week. The war between Israel, the United States and Iran has shifted attention and is changing the framework conditions. Zelenskyy warns Washington against easing sanctions on Russian oil sales to dampen energy prices. Such a step would financially relieve Moscow and indirectly support the invasion.
The Kremlin is apparently counting on rising oil prices to generate additional revenue and on the West coming under pressure from multiple crises at the same time. Zelenskyy is trying to gain political leverage by supplying proven drone technology to the United States and its partners in the Gulf and in return receive modern American air defense missiles. On the battlefield there is fighting, in the markets calculations are made, and at the negotiating table there is waiting.
A Country on the Run
Almost 700,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Lebanon. According to the United Nations, more than 667,000 people have registered on the state platform, including more than 100,000 within 24 hours alone. The actual number is likely higher because many families fled without registering. The trigger is comprehensive evacuation orders and intensive Israeli bombardment against the Iran backed Hezbollah. Since rocket fire by Hezbollah after the killing of Ali Khamenei, Israel has expanded its attacks and ordered the evacuation of large parts of southern Lebanon as well as neighborhoods of Beirut. According to Lebanese figures, nearly 600 people have been killed since then. Especially Dahiya in southern Beirut, once densely populated, has been largely emptied after days of massive airstrikes.
At the same time Hezbollah is firing rockets and drones at Israeli territory and engaging in clashes with Israeli troops expanding their ground offensive in the south. The new government in Beirut is coming under pressure. President Joseph Aoun signals willingness for talks with Israel, while domestically demands grow to disarm Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of displaced people are sleeping in schools and public buildings, others in cars or on the Beirut promenade. In Alma al Shaab the last residents left their homes under the escort of UN peacekeepers. Mayor Chadi Sayah spoke of a dangerous environment after a resident was killed in an airstrike. Hotel owner Milad Eid emphasized that there had been no military activity in his area. Human rights organizations warn that blanket evacuation orders south of the Litani River pose significant risks to international humanitarian law. Israel defends the measure as protection of civilians.
Ladies and Gentlemen: “We Take Them at Their Word”
Steve Witkoff, chief negotiator of the most powerful nation on earth, stood before the cameras and delivered the most remarkable sentence in American foreign policy in years: The Russians had said they were not sharing intelligence information about Iran. “We can take them at their word.” Period. Done. Next question. One has to let that sink in for a moment. The Kremlin assured something, and that suffices. No verification, no protocol, no independent evidence. One man told another man something, and because the first man phrased it politely, the second believes him. That is apparently how geopolitics works now. That is how, ladies and gentlemen, the security policy of the leading power of the Western world functions.
What is frightening is not even the credulity. What is frightening is the ease with which it is presented. No hesitation, no qualification, no discomfort. As if the word of a state that demonstrably lies when it serves its interests were a sufficient document. As if trust were a strategy and not something that must be earned. In the intelligence headquarters of Western allies someone is reading this sentence right now. We take them at their word. And has no words left.
Minister Under Protection - and Behind Barracks Gates
Attorney General Pam Bondi has left her apartment in Washington and is now living on a military base in the greater capital area. According to sources close to her, she reacted to threats from drug cartels as well as hostility related to her role in handling the Jeffrey Epstein case. Another trigger is said to have been an increase in threats following the arrest and criminal prosecution of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro.
Bondi is not the only one. Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll and Navy Secretary John Phelan are also now living in military housing in or near the government district. Officially it is about security. It remains unclear what rent is being paid for these often historic properties. A spokesperson for Kristi Noem stated that she paid “market rate rent.” Bondi’s spokesperson merely asked that the exact location not be published.
Military housing has in the past been used occasionally, for example by Jim Mattis, Mike Pompeo or Robert M. Gates. But on this scale it is new that political officeholders without direct military function are moving into taxpayer funded barracks housing. The image that emerges is double. On the one hand an indication of real threats. On the other the question of how far political leadership is now shielding itself from the public. When ministers move behind barbed wire, that also changes the relationship between power and society.
