• Why did Netanyahu and Trump attack Iran and start this war?
• Why did the US decide to attack without a clear reason to do so and without strategic planning nor a legal argument for it?
• What impact will this war in the Middle East have on US Midterm Elections?
• And what of independent operators in this conflict, such as European states, why do they risk being drawn into this US-Israel Middle East War?

You can follow this podcast via the following podcast platforms:
 

COMMENTARY: By Michael West

We are led by fools and sycophants. The illegal, unprovoked invasion of Iran is not just garden-variety stupidity. This is stupidity on a grandiose, stratospheric scale.

The Israeli propaganda narrative that Iranians would sprinkle rose petals at the feet of their invaders has not come to pass. It has already been demolished in fact.

Instead of bringing freedom and democracy — “regime change” — we have brought chaos, possibly a world war, and definitely the destruction of the Middle East.

The world economy is being hit hard as we write; oil prices spiralling, energy prices about to soar, and the inexorable spectre of inflation and recession.

And it didn’t have to happen.

This was a war of choice. Even without the “Epstein Coalition” — as the Iranian media so aptly dubs their invaders — murdering 165 Iranian school girls on day one, “peace through strength” was never going to happen.

Quite the contrary. The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iran has hardened the resolve of Iranians, who are massing in their hundreds of thousands across the country to mourn their dead and chant “Death to America”, to back their regime.

Where was the advice?
The Epstein Coalition killed the Ayatollah, who was actually against nuclear power; he was a moderate.

Did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong not seek advice from Foreign Affairs that attacking Iran was folly, that the anti-regime protesters were a minority, that the pre-invasion protests were a Mossad and CIA psyop, that Iran might attack US proxy states in the region, that invasion would be a Brobigdadgian mistake?

Or did they ignore the advice in favour of a Washington regime compromised by the Epstein pedophile scandal?

And now, we see the feeble, hypocritical whining by Israel and its supporters about Iran attacking the Gulf states. Is that our only moral defence?

Decades of supporting these regimes: Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — US proxy states all — regimes now unravelling, the oil price is soaring, inflation and recession are beckoning globally.

Images are emerging from Bahrain of locals cheering on the Iranian missiles. Were DFAT and our politicians unaware of popular angst in the Gulf states against American imperialism?

And what did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat? Not blow up American bases and infrastructure while the US attacked them; after the US betrayed them at the very negotiating table when they were offering significant concessions on nuclear enrichment, all to avoid war? This war.

War drums over Tehran.             Video: The West Report

Australia, the US flunkies
Yet here was Australia, Saturday night, first out of the blocks worldwide to throw its support behind Donald Trump and his preposterous “Operation Epic Fury”, a probable pedophile being blackmailed and led around by the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu like a pony at the fairground show.

“Operation Epstein Fury”, it was fast labelled. The soaring, craven stupidity is hard to grasp. Both major parties backing it.

Albo first, then Angus Taylor rushing to tow the Donald’s line. Then, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, too, who even congratulated and praised Netanyahu. We are led by fools and sycophants.

The flawed defence of atrocity
To address the empty rhetoric of the pro-war lobby, criticism of this war does not equate to support for the regime in Iran. Defenders of the US-Israel atrocity are busy with their swarms of social media bots peddling the argument that “you are an Islamist terror supporter” if you criticise the invasion.

This is the 2026 version of “You are a Hamas supporter” if you argue against genocide in Gaza.

The cold facts of this debacle are that regime change does not work, that Iran did not want this war, that Iran appears to be exceptionally well prepared, that the Epstein Coalition, which Australia supports, is daily backing war crimes: blowing up hospitals, schools and civilian infrastructure.

This is a war which has already been lost.

The obvious reality is that regime change wars are a demonstrable failure. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Iraq — a million dead, irretrievable regional stability. In Afghanistan, 20 years, trillions of dollars spent, four US presidents, six Australian PMs — all to replace the Taliban . . . with the Taliban.

And here we are, the world’s busybodies, doing it again.

Who would ever negotiate with the US in good faith again, or Israel for that matter? Iran did not want this war. Iran has not attacked another country in 300 years.

The US lured them to the negotiating table, then, without warning, murdered their leadership. This echoes last year’s 12-day war, where Israel and the US lured them in on the premise of good faith talks, then murdered them and now play the victim.

What did they expect Iran to do in the face of this existential threat?

The record speaks for itself. The US is the biggest invader of other countries in history. Israel has, last year alone, attacked Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia, Malta, and Greece.

Six illegal attacks of sovereign nations, as well as three illegal attacks in international waters equals nine all up. In one year.

And now they are invading Lebanon again, seizing more territory as their puppets, America, fight their campaign against Iran.

Albo, what are you doing?
We know who the warmongers are. We are the warmongers. Yet, in his bizarre statement of support, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the fastest out of the blocks of all the allies on the weekend, issuing a false statement.

Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression.

For decades, the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force, through its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence and intimidation.

Iran…

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 28, 2026

The claim, echoed by the usual warmongers of the Lib-Lab establishment, is that Iran is guilty of attacks on Australian soil, referencing alleged attacks on a deli in Bondi.

Apart from the common sense, why would Iran commit an act of terror on a deli in Bondi? Senior police have conceded that there is no evidence of this.

The nuclear furphy
Then there is the age-old claim that Iran is about to produce nuclear weapons. The US and Israel’s nuclear risk claims have been so roundly discredited it’s a joke.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to instigate a war against Iran for 30 years — claiming Iran is days away, weeks away, months away from nuclear missiles.

And they were at the negotiating table again when the Epstein forces murdered them.

The propaganda
We are now seeing mainstream media decry the “illegal attacks” on Israel and the Gulf states. Yet the ‘victim card” is tapped out.

Around the world, outside the legacy media propaganda, there is little sympathy for Israel having razed Gaza and slaughtered between 72,000 and 700,000 Palestinians while stealing more land in the West Bank daily.

It will continue. The media and political classes have failed so majestically that they can only try to salvage their authority with more propaganda.

The deplorable coverage of the murdered schoolgirls in Iran is a case in point. The “40 beheaded babies” and the “mass rapes” of Hamas filled the headlines in the West on October 8, 2023. Yet real murders — 165 murdered schoolgirls — have hardly rated a mention. Yes, a mention perhaps, but a side story, buried, no headlines of outrage.

Can’t handle the truth?

Is the truth too hard to handle? Is it not evident to everybody except the most brainwashed advocate of the Epstein lobby that Israel — the government, the state — is the problem here?

Netanyahu has won his ambition to drag America into a war against Iran, and if you follow the money, while world stock markets teeter, the stock market in Tel Aviv is surging, replete with weapons companies as it is.

Meanwhile, the ASX is tanking, ergo our savings. Oil prices are surging, ergo higher energy prices and inflation. The Houthis, Iran’s allies, are shooting again in the Red Sea while, on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, Iran has blocked the Straits of Hormuz, choking off a large chunk of the world’s oil supply.

Higher prices in India and China will mean higher prices for imports and inflation around the world.

The lessons of history have not been learnt; in fact, they have been discarded in spectacular fashion.

> 70 years ago, Iran looked just like any Western country.
> Short skirts, rock’n’roll, open universities.
> It’s 1953. Iran elects a secular socialist: Mohammad Mossadegh.
> He nationalizes oil. That pisses off BP.
> Cold War excuse.
> CIA and MI6 stage a coup. Operation Ajax.
>… pic.twitter.com/ZNWaLdBlCN

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddek) March 1, 2026

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Funny . . . back when Russia invaded Ukraine, New Zealand didn’t wait for Vladimir Putin to tell us whether his acts of aggression were legal under international law. Instead, we immediately decided the invasion was illegal, and forthrightly condemned Russia’s actions at the time, and ever since.

Different story when it comes to the Americans. Apparently, we’re on Team USA when it comes to international law, which forbids aggression against a sovereign state in the absence of an imminent threat to the aggressor.

Repeatedly though, Christopher Luxon told RNZ this morning that it is up to the US and Israel to tell us whether their attacks on Iran are in breach of international law.

Given that diplomatic negotiations were still under way in Geneva to find a peaceful compromise — a process supported by all of Iran’s immediate neighbours — there is no credible case that Iran was posing an imminent threat.

For 20 years, Israel has been claiming that Iran is on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon, but this threat has never materialised.

Last June, the US claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon. (Israel, btw, has a large stockpile of them.)

Unfortunately, the babbling doofus we have in place of a Prime Minister seems to be intent on remaining in denial about such matters.

Luxon appears determined to exempt his friends — the US and Israel — from compliance with the rules of international law that apply to everyone else. So much for us being honest brokers on the world stage.

In reality, letting our traditional allies break international law whenever they see fit, is the surest way of undermining the entire system.

Regime change – how?
US President Donald Trump says he aims to bring about regime change in Iran. If so, that can’t be brought about entirely from the air, no matter how intensive the bombing campaign may be.

Decapitation strikes against the top tiers of Iranian leadership will also not, in themselves, bring about regime change. Others will surely replace the fallen.

Besides, the US and Israel can hardly urge Iran to negotiate a peace, while continuing to kill everyone with the authority to make a credible deal.

In all likelihood, it will take tens of thousands of foreign troops on the ground to (a) topple the regime and (b) protect from guerrilla action whatever regime the US puts in its place.

The last 20 years of Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein should have taught the Americans just how long, bloody, costly and unpredictable that aftermath is likely to be.

Yet here we go again. As veteran political analyst Fred Kaplan put it on Slate:

“It is worth recalling that, in 2003, President George W. Bush sent 150,000 troops to depose Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, yet even they were unable to impose order but instead incited an insurgency and a civil war that lasted nearly a decade and destabilised the entire region.

“It is not clear how Trump’s stab at regime change without any ground support — in a country three times the size of Iraq — will be any smoother . . . [even] assuming the war succeeds in its strategic aim of regime change, the likeliest outcome will be a new dictatorship, a civil war among various armed factions, or utter anarchy and chaos, reminiscent of Libya after the killing of Muammar Gaddafi.”

Do we care about the outcome? Or are we waiting for the US to tell us not to worry out little heads about such matters?

Bombing is the easy part
Before launching this offensive, Trump made no attempt to enlist allied countries — in Europe or elsewhere — in this campaign. At present, this is solely a US/Israeli joint operation, with the indirect help of those states in the region that have American bases on their soil.

So far — cross fingers — Iran has chosen not to sabotage the Straits of Hormuz, a key transit route for oil and gas exports from the region, and a waterway on which global commerce depends.

At this point, Trump is talking of waging a bombing campaign lasting for days, or a week, after which . . . what? Trump has also called on the Iranian people to rebel. (That seems unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the ferocity of the suppression of Iran’s recent “cost of living” protests.)

The mullahs appear to be planning on a longer conflict. Reportedly, Iran has been limiting its initial missile responses in order to conserve its estimated 3000 missile stockpile for attacks on Israel and regional US bases in the weeks and months ahead.

From this distance, and given the internet blackout, it is impossible to gauge where the balance of public opinion currently lies in Iran.

No doubt, there will be elation in some quarters that the leaders of a hated regime are dead or suffering, and that the regime’s survival is now in question. “Anything but the status quo” is likely to be a common response.

Millions of other Iranians however resist the attacks, and have been out on the streets mourning the Supreme Leader. If the regime falls, its true believers will still regard it as their sacred duty to continue to resist, by all means possible.

Even the current elation is likely to be tempered by the knowledge that Iran’s “liberators” — the US, Israel, the Gulf states — do not have the wellbeing of the Iranian people in mind.

Meaning: the last democratically elected government in Iran was the Mosaddegh government. This was overthrown in 1953 by the Americans, who bankrolled a coup and then installed the Shah on the Peacock Throne.

The coup gave American oil companies continued access to Iran’s vast oil supplies, until the Islamic revolution occurred in 1979. In the 1980s, the West also backed Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran, a conflict that turned into a grinding deadlock estimated to have cost a million lives.

America has earned the hostility of Iran, over decades.

Iran, at a crossroad
Iran has a proud history, and a rich national culture. Normally, the mullahs could have relied on that fierce national pride to unite the country against foreign forces. In addition, Shia Islam has a strong tradition of sacrifice and martyrdom, commemorated annually in the day of Ashura.

That said, the recent slaughter of tens of thousands of people protesting the country’s economic conditions (caused by global sanctions) has put a question mark over how many Iranians will be willing to bury their differences, and fight back against foreign domination.

To repeat: the US had no credible reason for starting this war, and has no credible end game for it.

Over the weekend, Trump has desperately — and absurdly — delved back into history to paint Iran as posing an existential threat to the United States and the region, in order to justify this war to his MAGA sceptics.

Let’s be clear. Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. Furthermore, its ability to intervene in the affairs of the Middle East has been sharply reduced over the past 18 months.

This hasn’t stopped the US from distorting the relevant history. For example: Trump and his minions have cited the deaths of 241 US Marines in Lebanon in 1983, and laid the blame at Iran’s door.

For the record, those 241 Marines — and 58 French troops — were killed by suicide bombers, in attacks claimed by Islamic Jihad, a Sunni extremist group only later linked to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.

These attacks came in the wake of (a) the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and (b) the return of a multinational peacekeeping force to Beirut after (c) hundreds of Palestinians living in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps had been massacred by Christian gunmen, egged on by the Israeli commander, Ariel Sharon.

To paint this terrible episode as being caused solely by Iran is a travesty. Undaunted, Trump has also blamed Iran for the attack in 2000 on the American warship the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in the port of Aden.

Even the US intelligence agencies have attributed the USS Cole attack to Al Qaeda. Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda are Sunni Islamic extremist groups, and were long time opponents of the Shia theocracy in Iran.

I’m not trying to defend the regime in Tehran. The point is to emphasise that there was no credible justification for the US offensive and New Zealand should be backing up UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his criticism of the US aggression.

(Not) going nuclear
As for the nuclear weapons “threat” that Iran allegedly posed . . . In 2015, Iran signed a deal with the US via which Iran promised to forego the development of nuclear weapons in return for the US (and Europe) lifting trade sanctions.

This was a victory for the Iranian moderates within the regime.

Iran also agreed to allow in UN inspectors, who regularly confirmed that Iran was in full compliance with the terms of that deal. However, Trump tore up the deal as soon as he was elected, thereby boosting the hardliners in Tehran who had claimed all along that the US could not be trusted to keep its word.

Since then, Trump has engaged in indirect talks with Iran to re-negotiate a new version of the 2015 pact, and twice Israel and the US have bombed Iran and killed its leaders while those negotiations were still being held.

To the US and the Israelis, diplomacy seems to be merely a trick to lure out into the open the people that they have been planning to assassinate, all along.

Footnote: In Venezuela, the US has taken military action to secure control of that country’s oil reserves. It may well have oil wealth in mind in Iran, too.

If the US can install another puppet in Tehran as obedient as the Shah, Iran’s refineries will once again be at the mercy of US oil companies. No doubt, access to oil will be at heart of any further “negotiations” over a ceasefire.

Republished with permission from Gordon Campbell’s column in partnership with Scoop.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“We warned you,” says Iran’s national security commission head after Israel-US missiles attacks on the capital Tehran and other cities.

Al Jazeera reports comments from Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of the Iranian Parliament.

“We warned you!” he wrote on social media.

“Now you have started down a path which end is no longer in your control,” he added.

We warned you!
Now you have started down a path which end is no longer in your control.

— ابراهیم عزیزی (@Ebrahimazizi33) February 28, 2026

Explosions were also reported in the cities of Kermanshah, Lorestan, Tabriz, Isfahan and Karaj, according to local news media.

Al Jazeera’s chief US correspondent Alan Fisher reports that people were expecting that there may well be an attack by the United States.

US President Donald Trump had been talking about it.

‘Some US action expected’
“Most people expected some sort of United States action. So there is surprise that Israel has gone first.

“But there will be speculation here in the United States — inevitably — that this is [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu once again trying to force the United States to take action against Iran.

“And the reason he has done this is to try and force their hand.”

News media report US President Donald Trump as stating that the joint Israel-US attacks were aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”.

In an eight-minute video message shared on Truth Social, he said: “Short time ago, US military began major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel appeared to have “launched an attack designed to derail the [nuclear] negotiations” between the US and Iran. A new round of talks had been scheduled for next week.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Democracy Now!

In Gaza, a senior Hamas leader involved in the ceasefire negotiations has told Drop Site News that Hamas will not agree to demands that it unilaterally disarm.

Basem Naim also said that Hamas would not submit to Israel’s demand for a total demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip.

This comes amid reports that President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed back in December that Hamas would be given a two-month deadline to disarm.

As President Donald Trump prepares to convene the first official meeting of his so-called Board of Peace in Washington tomorrow, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have re-escalated demands that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions imminently disarm — with Netanyahu insisting that all small arms must be turned over before the Israeli military withdraws any of its forces.

“Very importantly, Hamas must uphold its commitment to Full and Immediate Demilitarisation,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

This demand is being presented as a condition for any reconstruction to begin in Gaza, with no guarantees for Palestinian security or sovereignty.

Criminal complaint
On Monday, the Hind Rajab Foundation said it had filed a criminal complaint in Chile seeking the prosecution of Rom Kovtun, an Israeli soldier accused of taking part in the deadly 2024 siege of Al-Shifa Hospital.

The World Health Organisation reports at least 21 patients were killed during attacks on the hospital.

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is demanding greater access to Gaza to expand aid and recovery efforts.

Administrator Alexander De Croo spoke from Gaza City:

Alexander De Croo: “More than 300,000 families in Gaza are looking for housing. Only 10 percent of people today living in Gaza have housing which has the basic accommodations, so 90 percent of the population is today looking for housing.

“You have seen in what very difficult circumstances people have to live or have to survive.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Protesters have condemned Indonesia’s plan to take part in the International Stabilisaton Force for Gaza as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire on an almost daily basis.

Carrying placards declaring “Break the siege”, “Gaza is not for sale”, “So, when will the Palestinians get to decide their own future” and crosses over the Israeli flag, protesters marched through streets in Jakarta dressed in keffiyeh and Palestinian flags.

Reports from Jakarta say that the country is preparing to send about 8000 troops to Gaza as part of the so-called peacekeeping force.

President Prabowo Subianto is due to join a meeting of what US President Donald Trump calls the “Board of Peace” in Washington on Thursday, reports Al Jazeera.

Indonesia’s involvement is controversial with Prabowo facing mounting criticism for the deployment plans.

Many critics are saying the plan could “sideline” the Palestinians and are accusing Subianto of “serving Israel’s goals”.

He has sought to reassure Muslim leaders that Indonesia would withdraw if Palestinian interests in self-determination are not advanced.

Indonesia peecekeeping force plan                       Video: Al Jazeera

Fiji is also facing controversy over reported plans that it may also be deploying troops for the ISF.

However, Fiji’s Defence Minister Pio Tikoduadua has clarified that Fiji has not yet made any commitment to participate, saying six days ago that the country has only received an invitation, reports Pacnews.

In a statement posted on social media, Tikoduadua stressed that no response had been given at this stage.

“Let me be clear: Fiji has only received an invitation to be part of the Gaza international stabilisation force. We have not yet responded,” he said.

Writing for Asia Pacific Report, former Fiji military officer Jim Sanday who commanded Fijian peacekeeping battalions in Lebanon and Sinai, was highly critical of the proposal, saying its United Nations reputation risked being damaged while being “excluded from decision-making”.

In 2025, Sanday led the National Security and Defence Review (NSDR) and co-authored the National Security Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in June 2025.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When peace is being designed, Fiji is not invited into the room.

When peace needs enforcing, Fiji is asked to send soldiers.

That uncomfortable reality is exposed by the emergence of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” for Gaza.

While New Zealand was formally invited to join the Board — and chose to decline — Fiji was not invited at all.

Yet Fiji has reportedly been asked to contribute troops to a proposed “stabilisation force” linked to Gaza.

The contrast is revealing. It highlights how global security is increasingly organised — and where Fiji is positioned within that order.

The Board of Peace is reportedly structured as an exclusive body with a joining fee of around US$2 billion.

That cost alone places participation far beyond the reach of most developing countries.

For Fiji, whose entire national budget is only a fraction of that amount, membership is not simply impractical; it is structurally impossible.

In this model, peace is something designed by those who can afford entry — a “pay to play” arrangement.

Yet although Fiji cannot afford to “play”, its military presence is required.

The peacekeeping paradox: Respected soldiers, limited voice

For decades, Fijian soldiers have served with distinction in peacekeeping missions under the United Nations flag. Their professionalism, discipline and reliability are widely recognised.

But that reputation now risks confining Fiji to a familiar role: valued for its manpower but excluded from decision-making.

This is not partnership. It is subcontracting.

Fiji should not carry the risks of other people’s decisions without having a voice in them.

New Zealand had a choice. Fiji did not.
New Zealand’s refusal to join Trump’s Board of Peace, underscores the imbalance.

Wellington cited concerns about mandate clarity and alignment with international norms.

New Zealand had the opportunity to make that choice.

Fiji did not.

One country was offered a seat at the table; the other was offered boots on the ground.

For Fiji, this raises serious foreign policy questions.

The issue is not opposition to peacekeeping. The issue is peacekeeping without political voice — being asked to assume risk in missions shaped by others and detached from established multilateral oversight.

Alignment with existing policy
These concerns align closely with Fiji’s National Security and Defence Review (NSDR), which recognises that national security includes the adherence to international law, and the maintenance of trust in Fiji’s external engagements.

Central to the NSDR is the requirement that security commitments be legitimate, transparent and accountable, supported by clear civilian oversight.

Being asked to deploy troops into a stabilisation force designed outside the UN system, while being excluded from the political body determining its mandate, sits way outside those espoused principles.

The moral burden on soldiers and the families
Fiji will bear the operational and political risk but has little influence over strategic direction. Fiji will carry the risks without shaping the outcome.

This puts RFMF soldiers in an unclear and fraught position. They — and their families — are the ones who will carry the risk in this venture. It is a morally and ethically unfair burden for the government to place upon them.

This moment therefore calls for clarity and restraint by the decision makers in Fiji’s Parliament and Cabinet.

The question is not whether Fiji can contribute troops — history shows that it can and has done so with honour.

The question is whether such contributions serve Fiji’s national interest and upholds international legitimacy.

Honouring our legacy
Fiji’s peacekeeping legacy should not be used to justify accepting deployments where authority, accountability and purpose are unclear.

Peacekeeping without representation is not partnership.

Fiji has earned international respect as a contributor to global peace. It should not accept a future in which it is always invited to serve but never invited to decide.

No soldier should be sent into harm’s way without clear purpose, lawful authority, and their nation’s voice at the table.

Jim Sanday was a commissioned military officer in the pre-coup Royal Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) and commanded Fijian peacekeeping battalions in Lebanon and Sinai. In 2025, he led the National Security and Defence Review (NSDR) and co-authored the National Security Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in June 2025. This article was first pubished by the Fiji Sun and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

I don’t know what to say today. We are ruled by abusive monsters.

The US is preparing for war with Iran.

They’re going in for the kill shot on Cuba.

The latest batch of Epstein emails looks horrifying.

The US is full of protests because ICE keeps killing people.

Israel is still massacring civilians in Gaza as Australia prepares to host its president for an extended visit.

Reuters has confirmed that Biden officials actively obstructed the circulation of internal USAID reports that Gaza was being turned into a nightmarish hellscape in early 2024.

There’s so much cruelty. So much abuse.

Our rulers are psychopaths                               Video: Caitlin Johnstone

You’d think all this evidence that we are ruled by deranged psychopaths would unite us against them, but it doesn’t. The population is more angrily, bitterly divided against itself than ever.

Political discourse has gotten as intensely vitriolic as I’ve ever seen it as Donald Trump supporters take their stand behind the current abuser-in-chief and defend the status quo warmongering and tyranny with all their might.

Discussing politics on social media feels like stepping into an emotional blast furnace these days.

They’ve done such a good job dividing us and conquering us. It’s really incredible how good at it they are. It would be awe-inspiring if it wasn’t so evil and destructive.

I haven’t felt like I’m in the zeitgeist recently. Usually I feel like I’m surfing the crest of dissident political consciousness and can provide insight and information into what’s coming up for us as a collective, but everything’s been so chaotic and frenzied lately it’s like trying to ride a bucking bull. I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone but me, but that’s what it feels like.

I don’t really have anything to add to that right now. I try to write something every day, but today all I’ve got is a feeble “There’s so much cruelty, and it hurts.”

It fucking hurts, man.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Western leaders defend the rules-based international order when it suits them, but remain largely silent as those same rules are breached by the United States and Israel.

The result is a system that shields the powerful and abandons the vulnerable — most starkly in Palestine.

The white men and a few women couldn’t hide their anger over Trump threatening to take over Greenland. NATO members joined in at the horror of Trump subverting the rules-based international order (RBIO).

They were appalled at this breach of the RBIO, that Australian Foreign Minister Richard Marles and all right-thinking people in the West keep talking about.

But these very same people — including the Australian and New Zealand political elite — say precious little or nothing at all when the rules are broken by the US and Israel to attack the poor and vulnerable of this world.

Greenlanders are special, but not Palestinians.

The breaches of RBIO didn’t come with Trump. The West has been breaching the rules for decades. Trump’s rule-breaking is just more gross and explicit.

Not only are we very selective in our concerns, but we also tug the forelock in joining the US and Israel in numerous and wilful breaches of the RBIO, breaches that have brought death and misery to tens of millions of people.

With impunity the rich and powerful break the rules and punish the poor and vulnerable. Or as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it, “the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.”

And those that suffer are not white Christians or Jews but brown Muslims. No wonder our Muslim brothers and sisters believe that the system is loaded against them. They are right to feel aggrieved.

The cruellest example in the world today of breach of rules is the genocide which Israel, with the support of United States, is inflicting on the brave people of Palestine.

This is not to suggest that Mark Carney’s Davos speech is not to be welcomed and applauded. But the RBIO is selectively applied. Are Palestinians of less value than Greenlanders?

Just look at some instances of how the US has breached the RBIO.

1. Use of force without UN authorisation
Under the UN Charter, force is legal only in self-defence or with UN Security Council approval. The US has violated this rule multiple times.

Iraq (2003)

• The invasion had no explicit UN Security Council authorisation.
• Claims about weapons of mass destruction were false. It resulted in massive civilian casualties and long-term regional destabilisation.

Kosovo / Serbia (1999)

• NATO bombing campaign (led by the US) proceeded without UN authorisation.

Panama (1989)

• US invaded to arrest Manuel Noriega. It was condemned by the UN General Assembly as a violation of international law.

Syria (from 2014 onward)

• US military presence and airstrikes occurred without Syrian consent or UN authorisation.

2. Undermining state sovereignty through regime change
The US has frequently violated the principle of non-intervention.

Latin America (1970s–1980s)

• Chile (1973): Supported the overthrow of democratically elected President Allende
• Nicaragua: Funded and armed the Contras, despite a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) condemning US actions.

Afghanistan (1980s)

• Covertly armed insurgents to weaken the Soviet-backed government, contributing to decades of instability.

Libya (2011)

• UN authorisation was for civilian protection, not regime change. NATO operations (led by the US) went far beyond the mandate, resulting in state collapse.

3. Ignoring or rejecting international courts and legal rulings

International Court of Justice (ICJ)

• Nicaragua vs United States (1986): ICJ ruled the US violated international law by supporting Contra rebels. The US rejected the ruling, withdrew from ICJ compulsory jurisdiction, and refused to pay reparations.

International Criminal Court (ICC)

• The US refuses to join the ICC and passed domestic laws authorising force to free US personnel if detained by the ICC.
• The US sanctioned ICC officials investigating US actions in Afghanistan

4. Torture, detention, and human rights violations

‘War on Terror’ practices

• Guantánamo Bay: Indefinite detention without trial, violating habeas corpus and Geneva Conventions.
• CIA black sites: Secret prisons involving torture (waterboarding, sleep deprivation).
• Extraordinary rendition: Transferring suspects to countries known to practise torture.

These actions directly contradict:

• The UN Convention Against Torture (which the US ratified).
• International humanitarian law.

5. Violations of international humanitarian law in warfare

Civilian casualties

• Repeated airstrikes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria caused high death tolls.

Use of controversial weapons

• Cluster munitions: Used despite long-recognised humanitarian concerns (the US is not a signatory to the ban).
• Depleted uranium munitions: Long-term health and environmental impacts.

6. Sanctions and economic coercion outside UN frameworks
The US increasingly uses unilateral sanctions, bypassing the UN.

Examples:

Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia.

Sanctions often:

• Lack UN approval and have severe humanitarian consequences.
• Use extraterritorial enforcement, pressuring third-party states.

7. Selective application of ‘rules’
A core criticism isn’t just violations — but selectivity.

• Condemning territorial conquest while supporting allies doing similar things.
• Defending human rights rhetorically while shielding allies from accountability.
• Promoting international law when convenient.

Israeli breaches of rules-based international order

1. Occupation and settlements in the West Bank

• Under international humanitarian law (Fourth Geneva Convention), an occupying power is prohibited from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory.
• Israel has built and expanded settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
• These settlements are considered illegal under international law by the UN, the (ICJ).

2. Annexation of East Jerusalem

• Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war.
• The UN Security Council has repeatedly declared this annexation null and void.
• Unilateral annexation violates the principle that borders cannot be changed by force.

3. Use of force and civilian harm in Gaza

• Israel’s military operations in Gaza have resulted in large civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction.
• Human rights groups and UN bodies have accused Israel of disproportionate force and potential war crimes, including collective punishment (such as blockades affecting civilians).

4. Blockade of Gaza

• Israel has maintained a land, sea, and air blockade on Gaza since 2007.
• The UN and many legal scholars argue the blockade constitutes collective punishment, which is prohibited under international law.

5. Disregard for UN resolutions and international rulings

• Israel has not complied with numerous UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, particularly on settlements and occupation.
• It has rejected the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged crimes in the occupied territories.

6. Unequal application of law (apartheid allegations)

• Major human rights organisations (e.g., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) have accused Israel of practising apartheid due to different legal systems for Israelis and Palestinians in the same territory.

The bigger picture: Israel benefits from political protection, especially from the US, which shields it from sanctions or enforcement — creating a perception that the rules-based order is selective rather than universal.

The RBIO was designed to help protect the weak but is selectively applied by the strong. The US and Israel regularly breach the RBIO.

John Menadue is the founder and editor-in-chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas. For this article he has been assisted by WeChat for breaches by the US and Israel of the RBIO. He edited to shorten. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Feckless European leaders like Starmer let Israel and the US tear up international law in Gaza. Now, faced with Greenland and Ukraine, they are suffering from a severe case of buyer’s regret.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

US President Donald Trump has declared the three-month “ceasefire” in Gaza a great success, and now wants to move on to phase two of his so-called “peace plan”.

What does success look like? Israeli soldiers have killed more than 460 Palestinians since October, including at least 100 children.

Israel has levelled another 2500 buildings, the last of the few that were still standing.

And amid a continuing humanitarian catastrophe engineered by Israel through its blockade of food, water, medicines and shelter, at least eight babies are known to have frozen to death as winter temperatures plummet.

Marking the transition to the new phase, Trump announced earlier this month a “Board of Peace” to determine the enclave’s future.

“Peace” here is being used in exactly the same Orwellian sense as “ceasefire”. This is not about ending Gaza’s suffering. It is about creating Big Brother-style narrative control, selling as “peace” the final eradication of Palestinian life in Gaza.

The narrative spin is that, once Hamas is disarmed, the board will take on the job of Gaza’s reconstruction.

Implicit assumption
The implicit assumption is that life will gradually return to normal for the survivors of the two-year genocide Israel has carried out — though no Western leader is acknowledging it as a genocide, or cares to find out how many Palestinians have actually been killed in the onslaught.

But, as we shall see, peace is definitely not what the board is aiming to achieve. This is a cynical exercise in smoke and mirrors.

The term “board” hints not only at Trump’s preference for the language of business over politics. It alludes too to the business opportunities he intends to make from Gaza’s “transformation”.

His plan is to strip the United Nations — and thereby the international community — of any oversight of Gaza’s fate.

We are back to the time of viceroys. Colonialism is again out and proud.

Trump’s “Board of Peace” has much grander ambitions than simply managing Gaza’s takeover. In fact, the enclave and its future is not even mentioned in the board’s so-called “charter” sent out to national capitals.

In a leaked invitation to the president of Argentina, Trump referred to the board as a “bold new approach to resolving global conflicts”.

‘Results-orientated’
The charter says it will be “results-orientated” and have the “the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed”.

Some of us have long warned that Israel and the US view the Palestinians as lab rats, both for testing weapons and surveillance technologies and for changing the norms developed after the Second World War to safeguard against the return of fascist, militaristic and expansionist ideologies.

The critical legal and humanitarian architecture put in place in the post-war era included the UN and its various institutions, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Israel and the US stress-tested this system to destruction from the very start of the two-year genocide in Gaza, as Israel carpet-bombed the enclave’s homes, schools, hospitals, government buildings and bakeries.

Trump’s second presidency has pushed this agenda into overdrive.

Only this month the White House announced that the US was pulling out of 66 global organisations and treaties — some half of them affiliated with the UN.

Meanwhile, the judges and prosecutors of the ICC have been under draconian US sanctions for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. The ICJ, which is investigating Israel for genocide, appears to have been cowed into silence.

Dysfunctional world order
Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his imminent seizure of Greenland are evidence enough that the already dysfunctional, international “rules-based order” is now in tatters. Both the UN and Nato, the West’s so-called “defence” alliance, are on the ropes.

The US president hopes his “Board of Peace” will deliver the knockout blow, supplanting the UN and the system of international law it is there to uphold.

The reconstruction of Gaza may be its first task, but Trump has much larger aspirations.

The board stands at the heart of a new world order being shaped in Trump’s image. Billionaires and their hangers-on will openly decide the fate of weak nations, based on the power elite’s naked, predatory instincts to make money.

In a petulant letter sent to Norway’s prime minister, Trump advised that, after being passed over for the Nobel peace prize: “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” What in that case, one might wonder, is the point of a “Board of Peace”?

The answer is that Orwell’s moment is truly upon us: “War is peace.”

Trump, of course, has sat himself atop this new imperial business venture, an updated East India Company — the gargantuan, militarised corporation licensed by England’s Queen Elizabeth I that went on to pillage much of the globe for more than two centuries, spreading death and misery in its wake.

Trump’s lone veto
As chairman, Trump hand-picks the other members — he is reported to have sent out invitations to some 60 national leaders. He can terminate their participation whenever he sees fit. He decides when the board sits and what it discusses. He alone has a veto.

His term as chair, it seems, may extend even beyond his time as US president.

Members are granted a three-year term. A permanent seat at Trump’s new alternative to the UN Security Council can be bought for $1 billion in “cash funds”.

Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban was among the first out of the blocks. He was joined by Netanyahu. Other early participants include the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Belarus and Argentina.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is reported to be considering a place at the top table.

The significance of this is not lost on the diplomatic community. One told Reuters: “It’s a ‘Trump United Nations’ that ignores the fundamentals of the UN charter.”

Similarly, in a desperate attempt to hold the line, the French Foreign Ministry issued a forlorn statement that “reiterates [France’s] attachment to the United Nations charter”.

White House shredder
But the founding UN document, with its formal commitments to non-aggression, self-determination, multilateral obligations and the protection of human rights, has been put through the White House shredder.

Gangsters have no time for rules.

For decades, Israel has been dreaming of this moment: of taking a wrecking ball to the UN and its legal and humanitarian institutions.

With a record number of UN resolutions against it, Israel believes the world body has too often limited its room for manoeuvre. Now it will hope Trump frees it to finish its long-cherished plan of eradicating the Palestinian people from their homeland.

As if in celebration, Israeli bulldozers swept into occupied East Jerusalem to demolish the buildings of Unrwa, the UN refugee agency that has served as the main aid lifeline for Gaza’s people.

Unrwa called Israel’s action an “unprecedented attack” and one that “constitutes a serious violation of international law and the privileges and immunities of the United Nations”.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the “Board of Peace” to raise any objections.

Sidelining of UN
Trump’s sidelining of the UN means its assessments of the realities facing Gaza, after Israel’s two-year campaign of genocidal destruction, can be quietly shunted into the shadows.

Trump has set a five-year timeline for Gaza’s transition. But the figures simply don’t add up.

The world body has warned that, even if Israel stops its blockade tomorrow, it will take decades to reconstruct Gaza, effectively from scratch, to house those of its 2.1 million inhabitants who survive.

According to estimates from the UN Development Programme, on the best-case scenario it could take seven years to clear some 60 million tonnes of rubble. Other surveys by the UN suggest a more realistic timetable of 20 years, with 10 years to clear unexploded ordnance.

The UN’s trade and development arm further warns that Israel has erased 70 years of human development in Gaza, and destroyed nearly 90 percent of cropland, leading to “the worst economic collapse ever recorded”.

Gaza’s schools, universities, hospitals, libraries and government offices are all gone. And Israel’s so-called “Yellow Line” that divides Gaza into two has annexed in all but name almost 60 percent of what was already a tiny territory, one of the most densely populated on the planet.

The fact is that these enormous hurdles to restoring life in Gaza to anything approximating “modernity” barely register in Trump’s peace plan. There is a good reason for that: strip away the fanfare and the plan has nothing substantive to say about the welfare of Gaza’s population.

Gaza’s population ignored
Or to put it more bluntly, Trump’s Gaza’s plan is not interested in Gaza’s population because it does not envision them being present in the enclave for much longer.

Israel’s barely veiled goal over the past two years has been the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The carpet bombing was intended to make the territory entirely uninhabitable.

Trump’s plan does not conflict with that ambition. It complements it. His “Board of Peace” is the means to arrive at the final destination willed by Israel.

The first practical function of the “Board of Peace” will be to entrench the complicity of Western and Arab states in Israel’s eradication of Gaza. None can wriggle out of their responsibility for what follows.

Real decision-making powers, however, will reside not in the Board but in an executive body comprising seven figures close to Trump. The “Board of Peace” will presumably be expected to sign off on — and fund — whatever they decide.

This “Founding Executive Board”, like the “Board of Peace”, will have no Palestinian representatives.

Instead, Palestinians will be present only on a technocratic, dogsbody committee, called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. It will oversee the administration of day-to-day affairs in the so-called Red Zone, where Gaza’s people are penned up, in place of Hamas.

Revamped UN peacekeeping force
Finally an “International Stabilisation Force”, a revamped UN peacekeeping force, will be led by a US major-general, and presumably partner closely with Israel’s genocidal army.

Even assuming that Trump has the Palestinians’ welfare at heart — he doesn’t — no progress can be made by any of these bodies until Israel gives its approval.

In the meantime, their role will be to provide a veneer of legitimacy for further inaction, while more of Gaza’s survivors die from the Stone Age conditions engineered for them by Israel.

Note well the three real power brokers appointed to the “Founding Executive Board”: Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Tony Blair. Gaza’s fate is effectively in their hands.

It was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and scion of a real estate business family, who way back in February 2024 — long before Trump took office — framed Israel’s genocide in Gaza as “a real-estate dispute”.

It was then that Kushner first publicly floated the idea of developing the enclave into a “very valuable” waterfront property, once it had been “cleaned up”.

Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate mogul and Trump’s special envoy, has spent long months with Kushner — as Israel has been busy clearing out Old Gaza — working on a 40-page prospectus for their proposed New Gaza.

Kushner’s panic
In October, on the US TV news show 60 Minutes, panic was etched on Kushner’s face as Witkoff observed that the pair had been working on a “masterplan” for Gaza’s reconstruction for two years — long before Gaza was levelled by the Israeli military.

He added: “Jared has been pushing this.”

Witkoff’s slip suggested Trump’s team had known from the outset of Israel’s bombing campaign that the intention was to eradicate the whole of Gaza rather than just Hamas. They therefore began working on a business plan to cash in on the carnage.

Through a so-called GREAT Trust — an oh-so-clever acronym for Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation — they have reimagined the enclave as a glitzy seaside resort and a tech hub generating billions of dollars in annual revenue.

A surreal video Trump posted on social media nearly a year ago gave an early idea of what the pair may have in mind. It showed the US president and Netanyahu sipping cocktails on sun loungers in their swimwear amid high rises on Gaza’s ethnically cleansed beachfront.

Gaza’s population — impoverished and malnourished by decades of isolation and blockade, even before the genocide — is viewed as an obstacle to the plan’s realisation.

The enclave’s Palestinians must first be resettled elsewhere, on terms that are as yet unclear, seemingly even to the plan’s formulators.

Misleading Tony Blair
Also popping up on the Executive Board, like a bad penny, is Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who misled Parliament and the public to make the case for joining President George W Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A subsequent, long, violent US-led occupation resulted in the collapse of Iraqi society, a vicious sectarian civil war, the development of an extensive US torture programme, and the deaths of more than a million Iraqis.

Those seem like exactly the kind of qualifications Trump needs from someone overseeing his Gaza plan.

His administration is therefore selling Blair as a safe pair of hands, a statesman apparently well-acquainted with navigating the yawning gap between the imperious demands of Israel and the forlorn hopes of the Palestinian leadership.

Blair’s skill set, we are assured, will be critically important as the board turns its attention to rebuilding Gaza.

In fact, the last person Gaza needs is Blair, as he proved during his disastrous eight-year stint as special envoy to the Middle East, shoe-horned in by the US in 2007 on behalf of a little-missed, defunct international body known as the Quartet.

At the time, most observers mistakenly assumed Blair’s mandate would be to revive a moribund “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians.

Diplomatic pressure avoided
But Blair avoided bringing any diplomatic pressure to bear on Israel and remained silent about what was then a newly instituted blockade of Gaza in 2007 that rapidly eviscerated its economy and left much of its population destitute and poorly fed.

One of his key battles as envoy was lobbying Israel — over the Palestinians’ heads — to let a British-led consortium drill for natural gas in Gaza’s territorial waters, where large reserves are known to exist.

According to reports, he sought to entice Israel into approving a $6 billion deal by promising that the pipeline would head directly to Israel’s port of Ashkelon. Israel would be the only customer permitted to buy the Palestinians’ gas and could therefore dictate the price.

Israel, preferring to maintain its chokehold on Gaza’s people, refused.

Blair claimed he promoted the Gaza gas project at the behest of the Palestinians. But even the supine Palestinian leadership of the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, had no love for him.

In 2011, Nabil Shaath, then one of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ most trusted advisers, observed of Blair: “Lately, he talks like an Israeli diplomat, selling their policies. Therefore he is useless to us.”

Another official called him “an obstacle to the realisation of Palestinian statehood”.

No interest in Palestinians
Like Blair, Trump has no interest in the Palestinians ever benefiting from their own resources. But doubtless he will be keen to leverage the former UK prime minister’s “experience” as envoy to assist in plundering its gas fields.

The centrality of Israel to Blair’s moral worldview was underscored in a comment by him in 2011 about the Arab Spring, in which peoples across the Middle East tried to liberate themselves from the toxic grip of tyrants. The former British prime minister chiefly saw these democratic uprisings as likely to “pose a problem for Israel”.

Blair has denied any personal dealings with Kushner and Witkoff’s Gaza Riviera plan — now sometimes referred to as the Sunshine Project — of luxury beachfront resorts and a “smart manufacturing zone” named for billionaire Elon Musk.

But a version leaked last July suggests his fingerprints are all over the plan, including a proposed “voluntary relocation” scheme to buy out Palestinian landowners with minor sums to leave Gaza.

It emerged that two key members of his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, had been liaising behind the scenes with Israeli businessmen and the Boston Consulting Group on the project.

A statement from the institute welcomed Blair’s role on Trump’s Executive Board, noting: “For Gaza and its people, we want a Gaza which does not reconstruct Gaza as it was but as it could and should be.”

It is hard to believe that Blair’s “should” connotes anything other than Israel’s dream of a Palestinian-free Gaza and Trump’s vision of Gaza as a playground for the rich.

Trumpian world template
The template for a new Trumpian world order is being crafted in Gaza. The US president’s road to the takeover of Venezuela and Greenland is being paved in this tiny Palestinian territory.

Feckless European leaders, like Britain’s Keir Starmer, who helped arm Israel and provided it with diplomatic cover as it levelled the enclave, were the ones who emboldened Trump.

Those now trying to assert the primacy of international law and the “rules-based world order” — whether in Greenland or Ukraine — were the ones who helped Washington destroy that order. They are now suffering from a severe case of buyer’s regret.

They could still stymie Trump’s latest, sinister vanity project by refusing to join the “Board of Peace” and instead defend the United Nations and its legal institutions like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Will they do so? Don’t bet on it.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the author’s blog with permission. This article was first published by Middle East Eye.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

As a journalist based in Tonga, I have chosen mostly to refrain from giving a view of US President Donald Trump, one way or another, as I thought that he would sooner or later get over his incredible childishness and tyrannical behavior, and start doing something credible for his country, and the world.

I was initially horrified in 2024 watching Trump in a White House televised meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he rudely bullied the Ukrainian leader; told lies and acted arrogantly, humiliating him.

Also, I watched him boast unceasingly about “Making America Great Again” (MAGA).

He created an ICE force, unleashing them in states like Minnesota against their will, killing people in Minneapolis and wrongly arresting citizens while looking for illegals to be deported.

Tonga was listed among nations which were banned from entry into the USA, affecting many students who were planning to take up further schooling for 2026. Tongan families who planned to visit the graduation of their children were no longer allowed into the USA.

He ordered America’s military to attack Venezuela and kidnapped the President, against international law; also controlled the sale of their oil.

When the Opposition leader of that country offered him her Noble Peace Prize Award, he accepted — something he has tried to get saying he has “settled peace in 8 wars”.

Bombing of Nigeria
He ordered the bombing of Nigeria as a reaction to the “killing of Christians”. Is this what Jesus would have done whenever there are Christians who are persecuted anywhere in the world? Or is this Trump’s way to help boost his image among American Christians?

And then came the Greenland issue, which he called Iceland in a speech in Switzerland. He has threatened to invade this country which is under Denmark and NATO; then offered to buy it, and then after threats, changed his mind and announced there has been “a deal involving NATO, a peace framework for the future.”

But Trump could not help himself by boasting that “if it was not for us, German would be your language today”. He did not realise that German is the main language spoken in Switzerland.

Much more can be said about what this Nazi-style dictator is doing in America and the world, but the one that eventually tipped me over, was his most recent public statement, during a boast-fest in the White House that “God must be proud of me!”

How can a human be more deceived?

The narcissism of this man exceeds anyone else in that he now boasts that “God must be proud” of him! If God is proud of him, then God must be behind every move he makes.

Trump is not just a product of his own making. He has the support of the extreme rightist Republican Party, and a huge number of American Evangelicals. This is a huge concern, because the views of these groups continue to fuel the ungodly narcissism that is so much a part of Trump’s personality and character.

‘He is always right’
Its not only a case of “might is right” but that “he is always right” and that is why God must be proud of him!

What is also most shocking is that Trump supporters not only worship him as “a god” but also give great sounding explanations to Trump’s actions. An example is like saying Trump is only bringing the Venezuelan President (and his wife) to America to stand trial for drug smuggling.

Never mind about his cruelty, his arrogance, his lies, his “Epstein-style” immorality, and abuse of power resulting in senseless deaths.

“He is a wonderful Christian,” I was told by a Christian leader in the USA, who happens to be a friend of mine. Another Christian leader in Tonga said, “I like Trump because he opposes abortion, the murder of unborn babies.” My response was that I am also apposed to the murder of unborn babies, but I am also opposed to the murder of those who are already born.

I do take some of this personally because as an American citizen, I am a registered Republican voter out of Hawai’i. I am also an evangelical Christian. And yet Donald Trump, President of the country of my citizenship is definitely the most tyrannical and unprincipled leader of the free world we’ve had for some time.

Resisting the Trump nonsense does not mean endorsement of Biden and Obama or the Democrats for that matter. The people of America put Trump where he is, and the people of America have allowed him to do what he has done — his illegal and cruel actions, his senseless threats, his bullying of other world leaders, and international organisations, and so much more.

Reflection of US society
It can be true that a people deserve the leader they get.

In a Republic like America, they voted him in. Trump has become a reflection of American society, a warlike people who seem to look down on everyone else, and whose history is filled with cruel takeovers like they did in Hawai’i and other Pacific Islands; wiped out hundreds of thousands in Japan with the world’s first nuclear weapons, and fought wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran supposedly “to save the world” while killing countless others.

I recently saw an anti-Trump poster that says: “There is nothing more dangerous than an idiot who thinks he is a genius!” I do not think the President of the United States is an idiot, neither do I think he is a genius. But he is dangerous because he is a so-called Christian who does un-Christian things, he is a god-worshipper whose god is himself!

I am publishing the following article by Michael Jochum which speaks for a lot of people including myself.

What we witnessed in Switzerland was not a policy address. It was an X-ray

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Donald Trump didn’t merely embarrass the United States in front of its allies; he revealed, with clinical clarity, the pathology that now defines his presidency — and the pathology his supporters actively crave. The bluster, the grievance, the thinly veiled threats, the adolescent swagger masquerading as strength: this is not drift or decline. It is the point.

Here’s the dangerous truth that finally snaps into focus after Davos: the unhinged Trump on that stage is exactly the president his followers want. They don’t tolerate the chaos; they require it. They don’t excuse the cruelty; they cheer it. They don’t misunderstand the geopolitical land-grabs and war-mongering postures; they see them as proof of dominance. The spectacle is the substance.

What makes this moment uniquely perilous isn’t just one man’s depravity. It’s the millions who looked at that performance and thought, Finally — someone who speaks for me. We are not up against a conventional politician or an opposing platform.

We are up against a movement animated by:

The racism embedded in “Make America Great Again,” which has always translated to Make America White Again.

The misogyny that waved off “Grab ’em by the pussy” as locker-room talk and called accountability hysteria.

The anti-intellectualism that confuses cruelty with strength and treats knowledge as weakness.

A provincial, grievance-soaked worldview that mistakes bluster for leadership and exclusion for sovereignty.

Trump is not a nightmare by accident. He is the most unprepared, unqualified, and disgraced president in American history by design. A bigot. A hater. A sexist. A xenophobe. A man with the intellectual and emotional maturity of a five-year-old child. He is mentally ill. He is a pathological liar who lies about his lies. He is obsessed with verbally attacking Hillary Clinton, and he reveals his deep racism through his constant, obsessive disparagement of Barack Obama. Donald Trump is a disgrace to humanity.

I have never heard — nor am I hearing — one single coherent, rational, intelligent, informed, educated, moral, fact-based, sane, mature, patriotic, or politically valid reason to support this illiterate, illegitimate, mentally ill, fish-mouthed “president”. What I do hear, loud and ugly, is resentment, self-hatred, impotent rage, and the glee of people who seem perversely proud that they have endangered everyone in this country.

This is no longer left versus right. The real question is whether we normalise this collective sickness — or excise it before it metastasizes further.

Every time someone says, “But the economy . . .  and those illegals . . . ” to justify their support, listen closely. They are telling you exactly which part of Trump’s reflection they see themselves in.

The good news? Mirrors can be shattered. But only if we stop looking away.

— Michael Jochum

Kalafi Moala’s column was first published by Talanoa ‘o Tonga and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The recent announcement by Fiji’s Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs that Fiji will consider contributing troops to a proposed international stabilisation force in Gaza imposes a responsibility on all of us to ask the hard questions before the decision is finalised by Cabinet.

At the outset, let’s all be clear on one thing — Gaza is not a routine peacekeeping environment. It is a highly contested battlespace where the legitimacy, consent, and enforceability of any international force remain uncertain.

Before Fiji government commits its soldiers to Gaza, the public deserves clear answers to a number of questions about the risks such a deployment would pose to those on the ground.

1: Is there genuine consent?
The most fundamental issue is the explicit rejection of the stabilisation force concept by Hamas, the dominant armed actor in Gaza.

Peacekeeping doctrine rests on consent, impartiality, and limited use of force. When one principal party openly rejects a mission, the cornerstone of consent collapses.

Without consent, Fijian soldiers in Gaza will not be seen as neutral interposers. They risk being perceived as a hostile occupying force, regardless of intent.

For troops on the ground, this dramatically elevates the risk.

Patrols, checkpoints, convoys, and static positions become potential targets — not because Fijian and other soldiers in the stabilisation force have failed, but because their presence itself is rejected.

Fiji’s peacekeepers have historically operated where communities accepted their role.

Gaza would represent a fundamentally different operational reality.

2: How clear and limited is the mandate?
Public reporting suggests the proposed force would support public order, protect humanitarian operations, assist in rebuilding Palestinian policing, and potentially contribute to the demilitarisation of armed groups.

Each of these tasks carries different — and escalating — levels of risk.

Protecting aid corridors is one thing. Being perceived as assisting disarmament or security restructuring against the wishes of the dominant armed faction in Gaza, is quite another.

Without a narrow, realistic mandate and clear rules of engagement, Fijian soldiers in Gaza risk mission creep — sliding from stabilisation into enforcement.

History shows that unclear mandates expose peacekeepers to rising hostility while leaving them politically constrained in how they respond.

The Fiji public deserves to know exactly what its soldiers would be authorised — and expected — to do if confronted by armed resistance.

3: Are troops being deployed into an urban conflict?
Gaza is one of the most complex operating environments in the world: dense urban terrain, extensive tunnel networks, armed groups embedded within civilian populations, and a society traumatised by prolonged conflict.

If Hamas and other factions do not accept the force, Fijian soldiers will find themselves operating in conditions closer to low-intensity urban warfare.

In such environments, visibility offers no protection. Uniforms do not deter improvised explosive devices, snipers, or politically motivated attacks.

The Fiji public are entitled to know whether its sons and daughters are being sent to stabilise a peace — or to operate amid an unresolved conflict where peace does not yet exist.

4: What does Fiji’s own experience tell us?
Fiji’s long service with UNIFIL in Lebanon offers an important point of comparison.

Fijian troops operated there with a clear UN mandate, within defined areas of responsibility, and — crucially — with working relationships with local communities that largely accepted their presence. Even then, the environment was never risk-free.

Gaza would be more volatile.

Unlike southern Lebanon, Gaza involves an armed group that openly rejects the very concept of an international force.

That distinction matters profoundly for force protection and operational viability.

5: What is the duty of care?
Ultimately, the central issue is the Fiji government’s duty of care to its soldiers and their families.

Courage is not the same as recklessness.

Pride in service must be matched by a rigorous assessment of the risks; whether the mission is lawful, achievable, adequately resourced and grounded in a good dose of political reality.

Before any deployment, the government owes the public clear answers:

• Is there genuine consent from all major parties on the ground?
• Is the mandate limited, realistic, and enforceable?
• Are the rules of engagement robust enough if consent collapses?
• And is Fiji being asked to stabilise a peace — or to substitute for one that does not yet exist?

Asking these questions is not an act of disloyalty. It is the standard that has protected Fijian soldiers and their reputation in past deployments.

Our peacekeeping legacy was built on disciplined judgment, not on repeating the narrative of The Charge of the Light Brigade — where unquestioned courage and noble intentions led to a fatal advance born of strategic ambiguity, and soldiers paid the price for a lack of clarity.

Fiji’s peacekeeping reputation was earned through disciplined judgment and respect for human life, not by placing soldiers in harm’s way where there is no peace to keep.

Jim Sanday was a commissioned military officer in the pre-coup Royal Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) and commanded Fijian peacekeeping battalions in Lebanon and Sinai. In 2025, he led the National Security and Defence Review (NSDR) and co-authored the National Security Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in June 2025. This article was first pubished by the Fiji Sun and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Jeremy Rose

At the beginning of last month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stood in front of an estimated 600,000 supporters in Zócalo Square and reflected on the achievements of her first year in office and the seven years since the Morena Party, which she heads, came to power.

It was quite a list: 13 million people lifted out of poverty; the minimum wage increased by 125 percent; Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities allocated budgets to run their own affairs; a locally produced people’s electric car about to roll off production lines; a new fast rail system crossing the country; a national park spanning 5.7 million hectares across Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala; a 37 percent drop in homicides — and on it went.

Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman president, its first Jewish president, and a climate scientist who was part of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team.

In short, she has a story to tell, but it’s not one our media pays enough attention to.

That speech — where she declared the end of neoliberalism in Mexico — barely rated a mention in the world’s English-language press.

The grope that trumped the anti-Trump
In fact, Sheinbaum’s extraordinarily popular first year in office — El País reports she has an approval rating of over 70% — has been largely ignored by the English-language media, with three notable exceptions: when she was groped by a man on the streets of Mexico City last November, it made front-page news around the globe; a much-hyped series of “Gen Z” protests; and her dignified, and at times witty, responses to bellicose threats to Mexico’s sovereignty from the US president — which have seen her labelled the anti-Trump.

So why the lack of interest? Some possibilities, none of them edifying, spring to mind: if it doesn’t involve violence, Latin America rarely rates a mention in the media; Sheinbaum is a woman; and she’s leftwing.

But for each of those, there’s at least one counter-example that suggests this isn’t always the case.

Argentina’s right-wing libertarian president, Javier Milei, is widely reported on despite coming from a country with little over a third of Mexico’s population and GDP. Milei is a poster boy for right-leaning pundits from Auckland to London.

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern — leader of a country of just five million people compared to Mexico’s 130 million — was widely reported on while in office, and with the recent publication of her memoir has been the subject of more feature articles in recent months than Sheinbaum has generated in a year in office.

And finally, and perhaps most interestingly, there was the saturation coverage of Zoran Mamdani’s run and eventual victory in the New York mayoral election.

Sheinbaum’s successful campaign to become the equivalent of mayor of Mexico City — with a population significantly larger than New York’s — in 2018 was barely reported, despite running on a similarly leftwing, if notably more ambitious, platform.

Mamdani’s campaign and victory were newsworthy but, on any metric, less significant than Sheinbaum’s time in office.

World’s most popular leader
She is arguably the world’s most popular leader, delivering on promises more far-reaching and consequential than anything on offer in the Big Apple.

A promise by Mamdani to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York — something he almost certainly cannot deliver on — was widely reported, while Sheinbaum’s support for resettling Palestinian children orphaned by Israel’s genocide in Gaza barely rated a mention. (Mexico has also joined South Africa’s International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel.)

The contrast between the saturation coverage of Mamdani and the paucity of coverage of Sheinbaum holds true for both conservative and liberal media.

The Wall Street Journal ran 50-plus editorials and op-eds criticising Mamdani in the run-up to his election but just three or four on Sheinbaum in her first year in office, all focusing on her alleged failure to tackle violence and the cartels. (In fact, homicides are down, though still extremely high.)

Even Jacobin magazine, one of the few US outlets to provide in-depth coverage of Mexico’s so-called “Fourth Transformation,” has given far more coverage to Mamdani, with a recent podcast declaring New York the epicentre of global socialism.

Whatever the explanation for the scant coverage of Sheinbaum, the achievements and popularity of the Morena movement are worth talking about.

The Donroe Doctrine’s threat to Mexico
There’s little doubt we’ll be hearing more about Mexico over the coming months, but the focus will almost certainly be on the threat from the north, not the achievements and promise of the Fourth Transformation.

After the illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, President Trump turned his sights on Mexico, declaring Sheinbaum to be a “tremendous woman, she’s a very brave woman, but Mexico is run by the cartels”.

Having designated the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels as terrorist organisations at the beginning of his second term in office, Trump had already signalled the possibility of military intervention in Mexico.

Sheinbaum’s response to both the Venezuelan intervention and the implied threat to Mexican sovereignty was resolute and principled:

“We categorically reject intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. The history of Latin America is clear and compelling: intervention has never brought democracy, never generated well-being, nor lasting stability.

“Only the people can build their own future, decide their path, exercise sovereignty over their natural resources, and freely define their form of government.”

Trump has other ideas, recently declaring that the US military could attack the cartels without congressional approval.

“I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”

Trump has dubbed the new era the Donroe Doctrine — a reference to his regime’s embrace of the Monroe Doctrine, named for President James Monroe, who declared the Western Hemisphere an area of US influence in the 1820s.

200 years of brutal interventions
It was the beginning of more than 200 years of brutal interventions by the US state, including a war on Mexico that resulted in the US taking over approximately 1.36 million sq km of Mexican territory — about 55 percent of the country.

Last year Trump hung a portrait of the country’s 11th president James Polk in the White House. Polk was responsible for the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848 which ended with the ceding of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming to the USA, in exchange for $15 million.

Trump has pointed to the portrait and told visitors: “He got a lot of land.”

His play on words with the Donroe Doctrine is characteristically narcissistic but also painfully accurate. It is the geopolitics of a gangster state.

In a world reeling from the criminal actions of that gangster state — from its continued bankrolling of genocide, to the extrajudicial killing of alleged drug smugglers, to SS-like round-ups of “foreigners” on its city streets, to threats to take over the sovereign territory of an ally — Mexico and its president, Claudia Sheinbaum, are a beacon of hope.

There is plenty I haven’t even touched on:

• The election of an Indigenous lawyer, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, as head of the Supreme Court;
• The construction of 1.1 million affordable homes over the next six years, generating hundreds of thousands of jobs;
• The launch of SaberesMX, a free national online platform designed to democratise access to knowledge and provide lifelong learning opportunities across Mexico; and
• Sheinbaum’s daily morning press conferences, where she speaks directly to the nation.

If past experience is anything to go by, the mainstream media’s ignoring of Morena’s successes is unlikely to end any time soon.

The good news is that there are alternatives. Mexico Solidarity Media is a great source of original articles, translations from local media, and podcasts, and Substack writer and former Boston Globe and LA Times journalist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez regularly writes about Mexico from a progressive perspective.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and broadcaster and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack. This article was first published at Towards Democracy and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Donald Trump is a classic example of why you don’t let bullies prosper. “Trump is cutting the last threads of the tattered cloth of ‘the rules-based international order’  — the self-serving system that touted international law as long as it didn’t apply to the US and its allies.

The Canadians, the Danes, the Panamanians and the rest of us should wake up to reality and see we are objects, we are mere “things” to the Americans, not allies with some deeply shared “values”. 

I wrote that in January 2025 in this article that I reproduce today. It provides a useful backgrounder, including historical precendents, to help us navigate through the times we are living through right now.

What do Panama, Canada and Greenland have in common? Could Trump be getting the US back to brass tacks, to a core strategy of dominating the Western hemisphere? Possibly, and he may be blowing away the fraudulent rhetoric about rules-based international order, territorial integrity, international law and the crusade to expand democracies.

Trump said this week that the US is prepared to use military force to assert control over Panama and Greenland.

“We need Greenland for national security purposes.  People don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it but even if they do they should give it up because I’m talking about protecting the free world,” Trump said.

The world’s largest island is bigger than France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, and Belgium combined. It’s literally bigger than Texas (300 percent bigger) — and the US wants it.

A greater risk
Think about that.  The US may pose a greater risk to the territorial integrity of the European Union than the Russians do. If they get antsy with the US, Trump will “tariff them”.

The Danes, like the rest of Europe, are frightened of the US. In response to Trump’s Greenland gambit, Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen timidly said this week that Denmark was “open to a dialogue with the Americans on how we can cooperate, possibly even more closely than we already do, to ensure that American ambitions are fulfilled”.

To ensure American ambitions are fulfilled. And this was the country that gave us the Vikings. If Ragnar Lodbrok, Eric Bloodaxe or Bjorn Ironside had been around when Donald Trump Junior swooped into Nuuk for his photo op, his skull would have been used as a drinking tankard for a blót sumbl feast that same evening.

Top independent strategists have for years despaired of the strategic brainlessness of US foreign policy — the Midas Touch in reverse, as Professor Mearsheimer calls it.  Wherever they went — from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Gaza — Americans embroiled themselves in conflicts of little strategic worth and left behind piles of bodies, millions of implacable enemies and a litany of failures.

Trump’s rough woo-ing of Canada to become the 51st state, and his threat to use military force to seize both Greenland and the Canal, speak to a back-to-basics focus for American imperialism — a shift in US policy that will bring it closer to its core strategic interests.

That’s quite appropriate for a man who counts President Teddy Roosevelt (1901-09) as a role model. There is a whiff of the Rough Rider (Roosevelt’s cavalry which kicked over the Spaniards in Cuba in 1898) about Trump’s recent utterances.

Outside the American Museum of Natural History in New York you could see a magnificent statue of Teddy Roosevelt, cowboy kerchief around his neck, six-shooter hanging off his hip, astride a proud steed with two bare-chested Noble Savages — an African and an American Indian — walking on either side of the Great White Man.

Punkish metal spikes
I particularly like the slightly punkish metal spikes sticking out of his hair to stop birds crapping on his head.  After 82 years, the City finally woke up to the fact that this was a racist, colonialist trope and took the statue down in 2021.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When it comes to press freedom, he has kept his word, extending the war on the press he launched while running for his first term with grave attacks on access to reliable information worldwide.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which monitors “press freedom predators” worldwide, has compiled a timeline of his administration’s assaults on the media in the past year and warns that he risks sinking to the levels of authoritarian regimes.

President Trump’s hostility towards the media predates his return to the White House in 2025. For the past 10 years, he has labelled journalists and media outlets he disagrees with as “the enemy of the people” and “fake news”.

His attacks coincide with a broader decline in the news media’s public esteem: according to Gallup, only 28 percent of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media.

In his second term in office, though, Trump has matched his history of violent rhetoric with a series of concrete actions that have severely damaged freedom of the press in the United States and around the world.

In the past 12 months, he has censored government data, dismantled America’s public broadcasters, weaponised independent government agencies to punish media that criticise his actions, halted aid funding for media freedom internationally, sued disfavored outlets, applied pressure to install cronies to lead others, and more

These actions echo the anti-press measures of the ruthless dictators in the “political” category of the 2025 Press Freedom Predators List, such as President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Similar alarming levels
RSF is concerned that Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tactics could eventually descend to similarly alarming levels.

The Press Freedom Predators List exposes systemic attempts to silence the free press by highlighting actors who wield an outsized, harmful influence on press freedom in five categories: political, security, legal, economic and social.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr has already made the 2025 list in the “legal” category, while Trump-aligned tech mogul Elon Musk was featured in the “economic” category.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz