Twelve dead at a Saudi airport. A ship on the floor of the Strait of Hormuz. An alliance that held on paper and failed in the air. A war being timed to an election, by both sides. Here is what I was thinking when I wrote each piece, this week at DiploPolis.
Five Ledger pieces. Two Analysis. The missiles got through.
The Ledger This Week
Twelve Dead at Riyadh Airport. Trump Is Weighing It.
A Houthi ballistic missile killed 12 people and wounded 309 at King Khalid International Airport on Saturday, October 10. It was, by Saudi coalition count, the twentieth Houthi strike on that airport since October 1. France has already deployed forces to protect Yanbu. Trump said he was weighing whether to join the war against the Houthis. He has been weighing it since February. Read it here
Netanyahu Is Gaining. Thirty Per Cent Haven’t Decided.
A Kantar poll for Kan 11 on October 11 puts Netanyahu’s coalition at 53 seats and Eisenkot’s bloc at 50. They are statistically tied. The direction is not: Eisenkot has slipped, Netanyahu has gained. Eisenkot leads every preferred prime minister poll. He cannot form a government. The coalition arithmetic does not add up on his side. Thirty per cent of Israeli voters have not yet decided. Sixteen days remain. The 30 per cent will decide this. Nobody knows which way they go. Read it here
We Are Having Productive Discussions.
On October 8, Trump posted to Truth Social that the US will not attack Iran before the midterms. He said talks with Tehran are productive. He named no one. He described no agenda. He gave no timeline. The framework Iran presented at the UN in September was rejected on September 26. Two weeks later the discussions are productive. A ship sank in the Strait of Hormuz the same week. The markets fell back. The blockade held. The elections are in 20 days. Read it here
They Are Building Earthworks Around Natanz.
Satellite images analysed by the Institute for Science and International Security and published on October 13 show Iran building defensive barriers around Natanz and Pickaxe Mountain since September. The IAEA has not accessed Natanz since the war began. Iran started fortifying before Trump announced the no-strike pledge. The earthworks were in place before anyone mentioned productive discussions. They are visible from space. Read it here
A Ship Is on the Floor of the Strait of Hormuz.
The GFS Pride, a Singapore-flagged container ship carrying 2,500 containers, sank in the Strait of Hormuz on October 13-14. The IRGC says mine. British maritime firm Vanguard says projectile. CENTCOM has not confirmed. At least ten ships were struck in and around Hormuz from October 11 to 15 — the highest number since the war began. The productive discussions continue. Read it here
Analysis This Week
What Deterrence Costs
The Mecca Alliance was invoked on October 5. Pakistan deployed forces to Saudi Arabia. Turkey committed. Four countries issued a joint condemnation. Six days later, Houthis killed 19 people at Saudi airports and left hundreds wounded. A joint statement and a right to respond are not deterrence. They are the infrastructure of future response. The alliance held on paper. The specific military problem the Houthis pose — precision missiles at long range, saturation sequencing — is not the problem the alliance’s combined capabilities are optimally suited to solve. Read it here
Sanctioning the Judges
On October 9, Secretary of State Rubio announced measures to cut the International Criminal Court off from the US financial system. The stated goal: to dismantle it piece by piece. The trajectory runs from EO 14203 in February 2025 — prosecutor Karim Khan designated — through ten judges, a UN Special Rapporteur, three Palestinian NGOs, and now the institution’s financial circulatory system. Nineteen months. Seventeen individuals. Then the institution itself. The mechanism for accountability is being dismantled by the state that required it to be built. Read it here
Twelve dead at an airport. A ship on the floor of the strait. An alliance that held on paper while the missiles got through. A court being defunded by the state that built it.
Read. Think. React. No neutrality. No noise. Just argument. Until next Saturday.
Sunny Peter
Editor, DiploPolis.com