The US war on Iran and Israel’s war on Palestine are set to escalate, as the interlaced wars combine and expand to engulf more of the Middle East. In most of the sub-theaters of war – the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States – what happens next depends on what Trump does. We may learn more – much more – this week.
Simply to describe how the war is spread indicates that it is way too complex for the Trump people to find anyway out of the box they’re in except to escalate. And as news reports claim that the Pentagon is running out of missiles and interceptors, and as polling indicates that the war is losing support even within Trump’s MAGA base, choosing escalation over diplomacy may further fracture the congressional Republicans. Consider the many dilemmas faced by the war planners in Washington:
-- Iran has concluded negotiating with Oman about a temporary plan to manage traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Today Iran stated that the Strait would remain closed until the US returned to the 14 points outlined in the ceasefire “Memorandum of Understanding,” starting with ending the blockade of Iranian ports;
-- Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan have concluded a mutual defense agreement that, according to Juan Cole’s article linked below, is intended to give Turkey support against any Israeli aggression. Another takeaway is that the agreement underscores the lack of faith in expecting any help from the US to make the “peace” in the Middle East;
-- In Yemen, the Houthi’s closure of the entrance to the Red Sea to Saudi oil shipments, and its attack on an oil ship at the other end of the Red Sea (in Egypt), may do further damage to the world economy pending an end to US aggression on Iran; and
-- Israel’s announcement today that it would not cooperate with Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Gaza indicates not only that the genocide of the Palestinians will continue, but that Israel’s Netanyahu sees defying Trump in any efforts to bring Israel’s wars to a halt is the better strategy for contesting/winning Israel’s parliamentary elections in October.
And there are several more theaters of potential disaster. The main point is that each focal point awaits clarity/a move by Trump; and one wonders if such a thing is possible.
ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THIS WEEK’S EDITORIAL
Before Hormuz, There Was Suez: What Trump Can Learn from Eisenhower
By Trita Parsi, Substack [August 4, 2026]
---- Oman and Iran appear close to a temporary arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially providing both an exit from the current round of fighting and the foundation for a more durable maritime order. Washington should welcome such an agreement—even if it acknowledges a degree of Iranian authority in administering traffic through the strait—because US interest dictates that open and non-discriminatory passage must be given priority over control....If successful—and if Washington accepts it—the agreement could help end the present fighting. It remains unclear whether that would restore the previous American-Iranian memorandum of understanding or require a new framework. Nor does it in and of itself move the needle on two other major stumbling blocks: Iran’s demand for a regional ceasefire and Washington’s demands on Iran’s nuclear activities. [Read More]
Türkiye and Saudi Arabia seek Pakistani Nuclear Umbrella against Israel
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [August 8, 2026]
---- The new signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signals a regional response to the new insecurity in the region provoked by the Israeli-US attack on Iran and by the Iranian response. The Iranian response has been to hold the Gulf Arab oil and gas states hostage. But the initial Israeli-US attack on February 28 was also seen as a profound betrayal of these states’ security by the Trump administration, since it was foreseeable that an all-out assault on Iran would roil the Strait of Hormuz. … The agreement probably does not commit Türkiye and Pakistan to intervene in the struggle between Yemen’s Helpers of God government and the Saudis, though it appears to use NATO-like language that an attack on one is an attack on all. Nor is it likely that either Ankara or Islamabad will go to war with Iran for Saudi Arabia. Rather, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye are probably seeking a Pakistani nuclear umbrella against Israeli attacks. [Read More]
A new Houthi front and expanded Iranian Attacks risk sinking Gulf Nations’ Workaround and widening shipping Risks
By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Informed Comment [August 4, 2026]
---- After a nine-month pause, Houthi militants in Yemen allied to Iran resumed attacks on vessels in the Red Sea on July 22, 2026, directly targeting the group’s longtime foe Saudi Arabia. A week later, a floating liquefied natural gas storage facility in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta was struck by suspected Iranian drones, causing a fire that spread to a nearby tanker. As a longtime Gulf analyst, I believe these two maritime attacks by Iran and its proxies signal that efforts to bypass the Strait of Hormuz — which Tehran has largely shut down since being attacked by Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28 — is no panacea for regional peace or stability in global energy markets. Indeed, the incidents have expanded the zone of risk for shipping to two other maritime choke points: the Bab al-Mandab Strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, and the Suez Canal and pipeline links between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. At the same time, they have put at risk Saudi Arabia’s strategy of redirecting oil exports away from the Strait of Hormuz through its western ports. [Read More]
Trump and Israel are demanding that Palestinians disarm. Here is why that is wrong and unjust.
By Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss [August 7, 2026]
---- Demands that Hamas disarm follow decades of international calls for a “demilitarized Palestinian state.” These demands insist that Palestinians surrender their right to self-defense, a right no people should relinquish. Among many buzzwords in diplo-speak around Palestine is the support for “a demilitarized Palestinian state living side by side in peace next to Israel.” This condition is repeated so often that it goes unnoticed most of the time.That premise, and its inherent injustice, dysfunctionality, and lack of pragmatism, was highlighted this week by no less an entity than Donald Trump’s Orwellian “Board of Peace.” On August 1, the Board released the full text of its plan, outlining the latest scheme to create an actual ceasefire in Gaza, begin rebuilding, allow a Palestinian body of technocrats to start assuming some small authority in Gaza, and, above all, to disarm Palestinian armed groups. …Palestinian factions reportedly had some very difficult consultations regarding this latest plan. In the end, they decided to accept the plan and put the ball in Israel’s court. [Read More]
NEWS NOTES
Protect the Harvest is a coalition of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, and international organizations—including groups like T’ruah and Standing Together —mobilizing protective presence and international solidarity for the West Bank olive harvest running from October 10 to November 30, 2026. For information about this project, go here. An information session on “How to Fundraise for my Protest the Harvest Solidarity Visit” will be held on Monday, August 10, at 7 pm. This will also be a time to learn more about “harvesting.” To sign up for the Zoom meeting, go here.
Investigative reporter Kevin Gosztola has a project called “Weekly Matinee” that looks at film in an interesting way. This week’s film is Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” I watched the film again last night and learned much/enjoyed it. Gosztola’s interesting essay about the film can be read here. If you have a Westchester library system card, you can watch “Fahrenheit 9/11” for free here.
August 4th was the anniversary of the 1964 “Tonkin Gulf Incident,” which quickly led to congressional support giving Lyndon Johnson a blank check to fight the war against the Vietnamese. There were only two votes in the Senate against that blank check, by Senators Wayne Morse (Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (Alaska). We remember them each year as heroes of conscience. Senator Morse made many eloquent speeches against the war. In this clip, from Norman Solomon’s ”War Made Easy,” Morse talks about “the People’s Right” to make war or peace, not the President’s.
The horror of “The Epstein Files” just gets worse. We may learn some useful things this Thursday, when lawyer Katie Phang, a longtime investigator of the Epstein conspiracy, has a day in court, and the Trump Dept. of Justice will have to explain to the judge why the judge’s orders to produce information and documents have produced no response. In addition to the possibility of justice for the abused women, this could bring down Trump. Learn more here.
In 2015 a pollster surveyed US voters about the possible bombing of “Agraba,” a fictitious country, the “homeland” of the Disney film “Aladdin.” 30 percent of Republicans favored bombing the non-existent country, as did 41 percent of Trump supporters. Only 9 percent of Trump supporters opposed bombing Aladdin and Jasmine to smithereens. Juan Cole has the whole story here.
CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks.
REWARDS!
This week’s Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers bring back the fabulous Nicholas Brothers. First up, the Brothers are joined by Dorothy Dandridge in “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” from the film “Sun Valley Serenade” (1941), And next we have their amazing performance in the film “Stormy Weather” (1943). Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
HIROSHIMA & THE WORLD – 81 YEARS LATER
The Rulers of the Nuclear Powers are Slow Learners
By Lawrence S. Wittner, Znet [August 4, 2026]
---- Although 81 years have passed since the atomic bombing of Japan in August 1945, the rulers of major nations continue their reckless march toward a nuclear holocaust. The nine nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea), possessing some 12,100 nuclear warheads, are all busily upgrading and expanding their nuclear weapons arsenals at an accelerating pace. Nuclear weapons spending rose to an all-time high of $119 billion in 2025―a 19 percent increase over the preceding year. The U.S. government alone, which accounted for more than half of this spending, is embarked on a $1.7 trillion, decades-long nuclear weapons buildup. … Moreover, international nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements among the nuclear powers have collapsed. Russia and the United States own 86 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and, although they signed numerous treaties in the past to limit or reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals, the last of these treaties, New START, expired this February. [Read More]
Listen to the Hibakusha This Hiroshima Day – the World Doesn’t Need More Nuclear Weapons
By Jeremy Corbyn, Morning Star [UK] [August 5, 2026]
---- Last year, I traveled to Hiroshima to represent the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at the 80th anniversary of the atomic bomb. On Hiroshima Day, we remember every single person who was killed by an indefensible act of barbarity. We mourn the human lives underneath the statistical horror of the bomb’s death toll which, together with that from the attack on Nagasaki, was more than 200,000 people. And we commemorate the hundreds of thousands of survivors — known as the hibakusha — who endured the horror of what was left behind: nuclear radiation, mass destruction and unimaginable grief. … Security is not the ability to threaten and destroy your neighbour. Security is getting on with your neighbour. It’s giving children a habitable future. And it’s ensuring everybody has enough resources to live a happy and healthy life. Instead of investing in weapons of mass destruction, why can’t we invest in public services that bring health and security to us all? If the new government wants to be a global leader, it would start talking about the need for peace. It would end its own complicity in horrific war crimes. And it would advance the cause for nuclear disarmament by signing the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, which bans the development, production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “The Anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Have Special Meaning in a World Out of Control,” by William D. Hartung and Mari Faines, The Nation [August 7, 2026] [Link]; and “After Nagasaki: Against the Politics of Psychic Numbing,” by Henry Giroux, Counterpunch [August 7, 2026] [Link]
FEATURED ESSAYS
Ending the ICE Age in NY, NJ & Beyond
From The Indypendent [August 7, 2026]
---- The two deaths announced this week at Delaney Hall in New Jersey didn’t come up Thursday when its operator, GEO Group, discussed second quarter financial results with investors. Instead, the focus was on the re-opening of the federal spigot, and the company’s optimism that ICE contracts are about to ramp up. “Over the last six weeks, we have experienced a 20% increase in ICE populations following the passage of the Secure America Act,” George Zoley, GEO Group’s Chairman, CEO, and Founder announced on the call, “which restored baseline appropriations funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection after the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.” How much money are we talking about? “Under the Secure America Act, ICE received $38.5 billion in funding available through September 30th, 2029,” Zoley explained. “This amount is in addition to the $75 billion in funding previously allocated to ICE under the One Big Beautiful Bill, including $45 billion for detention, which is available through September 30th, 2029.” How will that money get spent? “We believe the federal government is continuing to pursue the priority of increasing immigration detention capacity to 100,000 beds or more and consolidating to fewer, larger facilities,” Zoley said. This comes as the ending of TPS for Haitians this week raised concerns that hundreds of thousands may face detention and deportation. [Read More]
Trump Is Trying to Force Americans to Unlearn What We Know
By M. Gessen, New York Times [August 3, 2026]
---- “We live in a country with an unpredictable past.” This was a saying among the intelligentsia in the Soviet Union when I was growing up. We never knew which part of our history would be obliterated next. Now Americans, too, live in a country with an unpredictable past. Two months into his second term, President Trump issued an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, in which he directed officials to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums, to cut funding to “programs that degrade shared American values” and to reinstate some monuments removed following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. … I remember a line from a satirical underground novel I read as a teenager. A boy asks his father, “Did the year 1937 ever happen? I don’t know whom to believe?” That year was the height of Stalin’s Great Terror. “It hasn’t happened yet,” the father responds. “It hasn’t, my son. But it will.” It’s still the funniest and most haunting way I’ve encountered of saying that those who do not face history are doomed to repeat it. [Read More]
The Real Story Behind the Human Wave That Entered Ceuta
By Stephen Zunes, The Nation [August 3, 2026]
---- What prompted the scenes this past week of 50,000 Moroccans and others streaming into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta is more complicated than it seems. Ceuta is one of two Spanish presidios on the north coast of Morocco that have been inhabited by Spaniards for centuries and, like the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, are recognized Spanish territories. Being the only part of the European Union with a land border with an African nation, it has long been a destination for migrants desperate to cross that heavily fortified international boundary. … Ironically, rather than being anti-colonial, Morocco itself is a colonial power, having illegally invaded, occupied, annexed, and colonized the nation of Western Sahara, a full member state of the African Union and recognized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory. The United States and Israel are the only two countries to formally recognize that occupied country as being under Moroccan sovereignty. [Read More]
Fridas for Everyone [Frida Kahlo]
By Alma Guillermoprieto, New York Review of Books [August 20, 2026 issue]
---- According to legend, Diego [Rivera] was standing on scaffolding at work on his great muralistic portrait of Mexico at the Ministry of Education when someone commanded him to descend. A young person at the foot of the ladder thrust a few of her canvases at him. “Listen,” she said. “I need you to tell me if these are any good or not.” Years before, at age fourteen, she had already decided that she would marry the famous old fat man she had spied painting a mural on the wall of her high school. He was married at the time to the stupendously beautiful Guadalupe Marín, but they had separated by the time Frida accosted him. Disarmed and seduced by the audacious Frida, he began his elaborate formal courtship soon after she introduced herself—complete with weekend visits to her aged parents. They married in 1929, when she was twenty-two and he was forty-two, and her painting of the couple on their wedding day is a study in charm, tiny Frida and enormous Diego side by side, solemn and holding hands. [Read More]
THE WAR ON CUBA
The Costs of the U.S. Blockade of Cuba
By Margot Pepper, Dollars & Sense [July 31 2026]
---- The Trump Administration’s indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, the deployment of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and warships, and recent measures pressuring countries not to supply oil to Cuba are all intended to force regime change on the island. These policies are part of the United States’ long-standing campaign against the Cuban government, codified in 1962 with the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and have created what could be described as Cuba’s “New Special Period,” comparable to the original “Special Period” in the 1990s after the loss of support from the Soviet Union. The Cuban revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship has survived 64 of its 67 years under what U.S. officials call an “embargo.” Cubans call it “el bloqueo” (the blockade), arguing that its impact has been just as physically isolating as a military blockade. Suffering aside, the amount of money that the United States has spent on enforcing this policy of economic isolation—the longest blockade in history—could instead have been used to address pressing social needs throughout the United States. This raises the question: Was the blockade worth the cost? And if so, for whom? [Read More] – ALSO OF INTEREST - “Press Opinion Treats US Devastation of Cuba as Reason for More Devastation,” by Gregory Shupak, FAIR [August 8, 2026] [Link]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
(Video) “Fire Climate”: Hot, Dry, Windy Days Are Becoming Common, Making Wildfires Harder to Control
From Democracy Now! [August 6, 2026]
---- The Pacific Northwest is facing its worst fire season in more than 30 years. Scientists say drought, extreme heat and climate change are making wildfire seasons longer, more frequent and more destructive across the western United States. “The homes, the communities, they’re just not simply prepared for fire,” says Paul Hessburg, former senior research ecologist at the U.S. Forest Service and professor of fire and landscape ecology at the University of Washington. Hessburg walks us through the history of the region, from the controlled fires practiced by Indigenous peoples before European settlement to present-day ecologically unsound factors including “accidental ignitions, dense forests, the wrong kinds of fuels on the ground [and] rapidly changing climate.” [See the Program]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/”THE WAR ON TERROR”
The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans [NSPM-7]
By Hannah Riley Fernandez, The Nation [August 4, 2026]
---- National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) is now the administration’s sharpest tool for criminalizing left political organizing. It directs a 10-agencyJoint Terrorism Task Force apparatus—including the FBI, DHS, the IRS, and the Treasury’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office—to investigate and prosecute what it calls “domestic terrorism and organized political violence,” with targets defined broadly enough to include anyone whose motivations involve “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism,” or views that differ from the government’s on immigration, race, and gender. It pursues not just individuals but networks, funders, nonprofits, or even anyone who shows up to a protest. … Meanwhile, the federal government has spent more than a decade failing to contain mass mobilizations (the 2020 George Floyd Rebellion, Standing Rock, Occupy Wall Street, the student encampments, Stop Cop City, the crowds now blocking ICE’s vans) through either ordinary policing or legal repression. … After all, who are the radicals? The people NSPM-7 names as terrorists imagine a world with fewer cages in it, a place where no one can be disappeared from a parking lot or shot while driving with their toddler in the back seat. The government calls that extremism. The world its authors defend—where masked agents shoot bystanders, where 2 million people sit in cells, where insulin is rationed, and corporations poison our water and air—is called moderation. It isn’t. It is the most radical proposition in American life: that this much cruelty is a reasonable amount, and it survives only as long as we agree to fear the people who refuse it. In Minneapolis, the morning after federal agents broke down the organizers’ doors, their neighbors came out with whistles. They followed the agents down the street. By evening, there were groceries on the defendants’ porches, and someone was already fixing the door. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
(Video) Insurgent Candidate Victories Highlight Growing Movement Against Corporate & Elite Power: John Nichols
From Democracy Now! [August 5, 2026]
---- Voters went to the polls in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington state on Tuesday. We continue to look at the results of those primary elections, with The Nation’s John Nichols calling it “a very good night for insurgent candidacies and for outsiders,” especially for candidates that campaigned around the fight against AI data centers. [See the Program]
(Video) Amid Growing Fears of Rogue AI, Expert Urges Governments to “Bring This to a Grinding Halt”
From Democracy Now! [August 6, 2026]
---- Is AI superintelligence inevitable? AI safety researcher David Krueger says it doesn’t have to be. Krueger, an assistant professor at the University of Montreal and founder of the nonprofit Evitable, warns that “we need to mitigate the risk of extinction” with regulation and moratoriums to halt the development of AI’s computational power and complexity, which he says is progressing at a rate much faster than current levels of human supervision can manage. Public statements from AI companies that their models have circumvented test constraints and broken into other systems are “what we should expect to happen with the way that we’re building AI, with how little we understand it and how primitive our techniques are for controlling it,” Krueger says. “We just don’t know how to build it safely. End of story.” [See the Program] – ALSO OF INTEREST - “Trump’s Vision for A.I. Dominance Comes With Major Air Pollution,” by Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times [August 5, 2026] [Link].
(Video) “Zombie Law from the Victorian Era”: DOJ Could Use 1873 Comstock Act to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail
From Democracy Now! [August 7, 2026]
---- Reproductive rights activists are alarmed over a pledge by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to institute nationwide abortion restrictions. Blanche, whose confirmation for attorney general is currently before the Senate, made the remarks in a private call with anti-abortion activists that was later posted online. According to the audio recording, Blanche said the Trump administration is pursuing policies “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state,” referring to the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended the constitutional right to abortion and left the matter to individual states. Amy Littlefield, The Nation‘s abortion access correspondent, says the administration is likely to focus on limiting abortion pills delivered by mail, perhaps by invoking the 1873 Comstock Act, which banned the mailing of “lewd” and “indecent” materials through the mail. Littlefield calls it a “zombie law from the Victorian era” that reflects the frustration of the anti-abortion movement’s inability to reduce abortions despite victories at the Supreme Court. “Abortion bans do not stop abortion. What they do is they kill and harm the people who need them,” she says. [See the Program]. - ALSO OF INTEREST - “The Fight for Abortion Rights Was Won in the Streets,” By Nancy Rosenstock, Jacobin [August 8, 2026] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
It Wasn’t a Civil War. It Was the Slaveholders’ Rebellion.
By Anthony Conwright, New York Times [August 2, 2026]
---- Americans take it for granted that the war between the Confederate states and the Union was always called the Civil War, but it was not. During the war and in its aftermath, it was primarily called an “insurrection” or a “rebellion.” Its current name is a result of decades of lobbying by Confederate heritage groups and white Southerners committed to rejuvenating the South’s image and ignoring its treason and slaveholding. … The linguistic whitewashing of the Confederacy is more than a manufactured myth of Southern redemption. It is a ritual of national forgetting, one in which American society participates every time we call the Slaveholders’ Rebellion against the United States the Civil War. “Civil War” is no name for a war waged by slaveholding traitors against the United States to hold Black Americans in human bondage. Now, 165 years since the war’s first shots, we should be honest about how we hold its memory. [Read More]
(Video) Johanna Fernández Dies at 55: Leading Scholar on the Young Lords & Latinx Freedom Movement
From Democracy Now! [August 4, 2026]
---- We look at the life and legacy of Dominican American historian, activist and prison abolitionist Dr. Johanna Fernández, who died on July 30 after a long battle with cancer. She was 55 years old. As a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, Fernández was a leading scholar of the Young Lords, the radical 1960s civil rights organization founded in Chicago and New York and modeled on the Black Panthers. Fernández also created the Latinx Freedom Movement Archive and Exhibition Project, alongside historian Felipe Hinojosa. The exhibition is currently on view at The Shed in New York City, as well as in Chicago and Los Angeles. Iterations will also be presented in Houston and Washington, D.C. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who was a founding member of the Young Lords before his career in journalism, remembers Fernández as “a consummate historian,” as well as a committed activist who devoted herself to advancing social justice. “She was an amazing person with enormous energy and spirit, and we are all better people for having known her,” he says. [See the Program]
