A Look Outside the U.S.

August 9/10, 2026

“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

George Orwell

With the House and Senate out of Washington for the month, I was wondering what there would be to write about. MSNOW is focusing on the upcoming midterm elections. I find what’s going on in the world at large to be more interesting and —possibly —important.

The United States has lost the war Donald started with the nation of Iran. Donald doesn’t know this. The leadership of Iran does know this. Without saying so explicitly, they have demanded the United States surrender in conditionally. They didn’t have to use the word Donald did, it’s implicit in their list of demands that must be met before they reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran demands an immediate end to the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and the outer rim of the Strait. The U.S. must pay billions of dollars in war reparations and remedies for what Iran calls a violations of the previous June ceasefire agreement otherwise known as the “Memorandum of Understanding”,

There must also be a full unfreezing of Iranian foreign reserves and assets held globally.

Also, U.S. military forces must withdraw from the region surrounding Iran and there must be a permanent end to the war.

The United States must end attacks on Iran’s regional allies and threats against the country. Translation: Israel must stop defending itself against Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis left free to attack international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and environs.

In response to the ongoing tensions in the region and the tendency of Iran to strike at both American installations and civilian infrastructure in the Persian Gulf states and more broadly in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed a landmark Mecca Joint Defense Agreement creating a collective security pact modeled on NATO in which an attack on any one of the three of them will be considered to be an attack on all of them.

Today, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel rejects the Trump backed so-called “Board of Peace” plan for Gaza, demanding the full disarmament of Hamas before any Israeli forces withdraw.

The comments come more than a week after Trump announced a his Board of Peace 15-point plan supposedly aimed at securing lasting peace in the territory. But in his first remarks directly addressing the plan, Netanyahu said: “I want to be precise here: Israel rejects the 15-point document.” He said the Israeli military would “not withdraw at all until Hamas is genuinely disarmed and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and citizens.”

“We are now discussing this with the Americans,” he added. “They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some are not, and we know how to stand up to those things. As long as I am prime minister, no Palestinian state will be established — not in Gaza and not in the West Bank,” he said without any nuance or circumstantial possibility.

And in Ukraine, Russian missile attacks kill 21 as Russia strikes Kyiv and Odessa as Russia makes slow progress in Donetsk claiming to have captured two villages as Kim Jong Un sends 50,000 troops in support of Russia, Ukraine is in serious need of anti-drone and anti-missile munitions but successfully struck two Russian refineries 2,000 or more kilometers from the fighting in Ukraine. In the meantime, a dangerous new front is emerging in the war as alleged intelligence operatives on both sides increasingly target executives and engineers developing the cutting-edge drone technology that is reshaping the battlefield.