Petraeus: The U.S. is in a strategic cul-de-sac with Iran. Any route out has downsides.
Iran has been badly weakened militarily, but it still has drones, missiles, fast boats and the ability to create serious problems in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. 1/
Petraeus: The challenge is restoring freedom of navigation through Hormuz without giving Iran authority to charge tolls or navigation fees.
While still dealing with enriched uranium, sanctions, proxies and the future of Iran’s nuclear program. 2/
Petraeus: Tehran appears to believe Trump has less staying power than Iran does.
Iran does not face midterms, an affordability agenda or fear of losing the House. Trump needs a deal, and the regime seems to understand that leverage. 3X
Putin faces a succession crisis in Chechnya that could erupt into a new war inside Russia, draining troops and money he needs for Ukraine — Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy.
The region's ruler Ramzan Kadyrov, 49, is probably terminally ill, and his heir is his 18-year-old son. 1/
Putin built his presidency by crushing Chechen rebels in the late 1990s, then made a deal with Akhmad Kadyrov. Kadyrov suppressed the insurgency and accepted Moscow's rule, and in return ran Chechnya as he pleased.
A bomb killed Akhmad in 2004. Power passed to his son Ramzan. 2/
That autonomy runs on Russian cash. Moscow transfers $3.8 billion to Chechnya every year, about 92 percent of the republic's entire budget.
Kadyrov treats the money as a personal slush fund and spends it on whim, paying for a lavish lifestyle and a private security force. 3/
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US, Stefanishyna: If Russia had any real desire to negotiate or compromise, there would be zero obstacles.
Ukraine has shown openness and flexibility in every format proposed, including by President Trump. The aggressor never had real intent. 1/
Stefanishyna: Ukraine’s capabilities are now seen and felt by Russia on its own territory.
They deprive Moscow of the ability to attack Ukrainian cities and kill more families. That pressure is one reason Putin is being forced back toward the option of dialogue. 2/
Stefanishyna: Ukraine is depriving Russia of the fuel of war, literally fuel, but also the resources Moscow gains from selling products abroad and using sanctions waivers to finance aggression.
Deep strikes cut the money and capabilities that keep Russia’s war going. 3/
Gen. Wesley Clark: Putin is trapped. He sees no way out that preserves his survival as Russia’s leader, so he keeps pushing and hopes Trump’s friendship, Chinese help, Iranian help and U.S. distraction will cut support to Ukraine until Ukraine somehow collapses. 1/
Clark: Putin really believed he could seize Kyiv, capture Zelenskyy, shoot him in the street and take over, despite 10 years of war already showing Ukraine’s resistance.
He did not understand the spirit of Ukraine and was blinded by his own desire. 2/
Clark: Putin is not a military leader. He is an intelligence man. Stalin knew armies, fear and losses from war.
Putin knows war from books, but he does not know it. That matters when fantasy meets a battlefield that refuses to obey. 3/
Even some of Russia’s most prominent hawks are starting to say publicly that Russia cannot win this war.
The debate inside Russia is no longer how to achieve victory in Ukraine. It is whether victory is still possible at all, WSJ. 1/
Oleg Tsaryov was supposed to become the Kremlin’s man in Kyiv after Russia captured the Ukrainian capital in 2022.
Now he says Russian propaganda created an illusion of inevitable victory that is colliding with reality “in the most painful form.” 2/
Aleksey Chadaev, a former Kremlin official who runs a drone warfare research center, warns the current course leads “not just to non-victory, but to full-scale defeat.”