Last month the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported finding 84% enriched uranium in Iran’s Fordo underground plant – near enough weapons grade. Analysts had hitherto estimated that Israel had more than a year to complete preparations for an attack on Iran and any retaliation that might follow in its wake. Israeli hawks now believe their window of opportunity is reduced. The White House is reportedly concerned that Israel could pre-empt matters.

The two most senior figures in the Pentagon, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and the Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, are visiting Israel for talks with Israeli defence and political leaders. General Milley met his opposite number Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi last week. Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, is due to arrive in Israel on Thursday this week. The White House and the Pentagon allegedly fear that the new hawkish Israeli government will surprise the United States by striking Iran and dragging Washington into a military conflict in the Middle East, even as the United States and NATO allies focus most of their resources on the war in Ukraine and the intensifying conflict with China. Israel may not be in a mood to risk waiting… 

The Financial Times is accused of badly misinterpreting a keynote speech made by American Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in Singapore yesterday when giving the International Institute for Strategic Studies Fullerton lecture. In the article The Financial Times claims that:

“The US defence secretary said Britain might be more helpful as an ally if it did not focus on Asia, highlighting US concerns that forays by European allies into the Indo-Pacific could weaken defences closer to home.”

However, almost everyone else who attended the event, including the British High Commissioner to Singapore, UK diplomats and the Director General and CEO of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) agreed that the whole tone of the lecture was the power of partnerships and the dangers of division, describing the Financial Times’ bizarre take as “odd” and “surprising”. Guido wonders whether or not the FT’s anti-Brexit editorial line is compromising its reporting on the UK…

James Crabtree, who is himself a former FT hack and was the chair of the event, has critiqued the FT concluding that “it’s hard to see that Austin’s remarks were genuinely intended to question the UK’s role in Asia in the way the story suggests”. Though the FT has subsequently updated elements of their article, the headline and crux of the story have remained the same. The British defence and diplomatic establishment is bemused at the slant of the article. Guido encourages co-conspirators to watch the event and determine for themselves whether or not the Financial Times is misleading its readers…