Will last week prove to be just another boring news week?
Israel bombed Qatar, attempting to kill several of Hamas’s leaders and managing to knock off a few Qatari security forces as well. Israel employed U.S.-made F-35 stealth radar avoiding jets, probably armed with U.S. weapons.
Presumably, the U.S. was alerted in advance so as not to employ any defensive weapons from its huge Al Udeid air base in Doha. But the warning apparently was not made in sufficient time for the U.S. to inform the Qataris.
However, one wonders if the U.S. early warning systems had detected the low flying F-35’s. If not, does that suggest a problem?
The repercussions are huge. Qatar is a close American ally. It is officially a neutral territory in the Gaza war. And it has acted as a negotiator to facilitate resolution of the Hamas-Israeli conflict.
By any definition, Israel committed an act of war against Qatar by using military force to attack another state’s sovereign territory.
Although not quite a Pearl Harbor in terms of consequences and certainly not regarding a Qatari response, the strike probably means that further negotiations are pointless — clearly Israel’s intent.
And President Trump’s reply that he “was not thrilled,” is unlikely to make any impact on Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.
What Trump should do is to cut off aid to Israel until serious negotiations resume. He will not do this, of course.
And despite his intention to end the war in Ukraine, as with Israel, Trump is unlikely to impose secondary sanctions on China to limit buying Russian oil and thus force Russia to negotiate.
Meanwhile, Poland shot down Russian drones that overflew Polish territory en route to Ukraine. What will happen if overflights continue is not clear and potentially very dangerous, as no one wants to start a war by accident.
And, Russian President Vladimir Putin was unhelpful as he made a direct threat to one of NATO’S two newest members, Finland.
France has its seventh prime minister under President Emmanuel Macron. Whether the 39 year old former defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, the replacement for ousted François Bayrou as head of government will have better luck is an open question.
This comes only a few days after Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was forced to resign after failing to pay certain property taxes.
Meanwhile, the U.S. was filled with news.
While debate over the attack that destroyed a small boat the administration said was carrying drugs in the Caribbean killing all 11 aboard has abated, the disgraced, convicted and dead Jeffrey Epstein continues to haunt Trump from the grave.
A 2003 bound leather birthday book gift to Epstein surfaced. In it was a bawdy card signed “DTrump.” The White House claimed it was a hoax. But the letter was bound into the book’s spine, which challenged the claim of hoax.
Who could have inserted the card into the book just as inserting another page into a bound book? That seems impossible.
The card will only inflame further outrage on the part of those who are demanding complete visibility on the Epstein scandal and access to the so-called file that may or may not exist.
The Supreme Court made headlines. Chief Justice John Roberts “temporarily lifted” a lower court’s decision preventing the president from withholding $4 billion for foreign policy aid approved by the Senate, which would have mandated that the money must be spent presumably before the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
But this serves as a precursor to the main events. The Supreme Court has accepted the case to determine whether the president, by claiming a national emergency, can bypass Congress and unilaterally impose tariffs. The Constitution makes clear that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises” lies with Congress, and that all revenue-raising bills (including tariffs) must originate in the House of Representatives.
Claiming that the trade imbalance and national debt are emergencies is a weak argument. The court should vote, if not unanimously, by a large majority to deny the presidential motion.
My bet is that the Trump-aligned court will vote 5-4 to sustain the tariffs on the grounds of ceding precedence to presidential autonomy in foreign affairs. But we shall see.
A federal judge also ruled Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook could not be fired. That, too, is headed for appeals higher-up.
And then there was the murder of activist Charlie Kirk.
One can only guess what this coming week holds.
Harlan Ullman, Ph.D., is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and former United Kingdom Defense Chief David Richards are the authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.
