A fortnight ago I wrote here that the odds of a new round of US military strikes against Iran appeared to have diminished, after President Donald Trump said Tehran had assured his team it would not execute protesters who'd been arrested during this month's demonstrations across Iran.
Two weeks later, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, war-war might be edging out jaw-jaw. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is parked in the waters off Iran and Mr Trump yesterday warned Tehran that "time is running out" and that it faced a "far worse" attack than last year's US strikes against its nuclear sites – unless it quickly begins talks.
The Iranian mission to the UN said that any US strike would see it "respond like never before". That came after US forces on Tuesday announced warplanes would conduct a large "readiness exercise" in the Middle East to demonstrate "the ability to deploy, disperse and sustain combat air power" in the region.
As my colleague Sara Ruthven reported, it seems like no one really knows what could happen if the US were to strike Iran. In testimony to senators yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted he has no idea who would replace Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei if the regime in Tehran was toppled. Not exactly reassuring for the region.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Minneapolis, where government agents have killed two US citizens who were observing ICE deportation operations, remains highly combustible.
Saturday's killing of an intensive-care nurse by a throng of ICE agents appears to have forced Mr Trump to adopt a slightly more conciliatory tone. But protests are continuing on Minneapolis's frozen streets and little has changed there as federal agents continue their crackdown.
The sight of masked and camouflaged "feds" patrolling America's cities, yanking people off the streets and banishing them into detention centres with no or little due process feels deeply dystopian.
I'm reminded of a military operation in 2015, when Barack Obama was in the White House. The US army ran a lengthy exercise in Texas and across other southern states to train special forces troops on how to fight in towns and civilian areas.
Operation Jade Helm quickly became a magnet for pearl-clutching conspiracy theorists, who claimed the manoeuvres were a dry run for the US imposing martial law, locking people up in federal detention centres, suspending their constitutional rights and taking away their guns.
Far-right pundits and blowhards such as Alex Jones incessantly amplified the paranoia. At one point, a poll found a third of Republicans believed the federal government would try to take over Texas.
Fast forward a decade, and one might wonder where those same worrywarts are now, even as some of their foreboding predictions have come to pass. A large number of them seem fine with the government's actions, or blame protesters for any violence.
Eye on the White House
New Gaza, new Rafah and a ‘free market economy’: Inside Kushner’s $30bn reconstruction plan
Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner last Thursday outlined plans for Gaza, saying parts of the ruined Palestinian enclave could be rebuilt within three years.
He encouraged the private sector to jump at the "amazing investment opportunities" in the massive redevelopment project.
Mr Kushner, a key Middle East adviser to Mr Trump, has been instrumental in pushing his vision of turning a ruined Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East", a term that drew widespread condemnation.
During a nine-minute presentation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Kushner described the redevelopment plan as "New Gaza".
Experts remain sceptical, however, especially as there has been almost no mention about where Gazans are supposed to go during construction.
What's Washington talking about?
Save the Kurds US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday that he will introduce legislation to impose sanctions on any group or government engaged in hostilities against the Kurds. His bill, called the Save the Kurds Act, seeks to punish Turkey and Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara, whose forces this month clashed with Kurdish fighters who were until recently backed by the US.
Free Fed Jerome Powell remained confident in the Federal Reserve's independence as it faces several legal battles against the Trump administration that includes an investigation into the Fed chairman. "I'm strongly committed to that, and so are my colleagues," he said yesterday after the Fed held interest rates steady.
Spotlight: Will Cuba be the next target in Donald Trump's revamp of the Western Hemisphere?
With the fall of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and plans for a possible US takeover of Greenland, Mr Trump appears to be trying to increase Washington's influence in the Western Hemisphere through direct intervention – and Cuba may be next.
US forces this month captured Mr Maduro and his wife at their presidential compound in Caracas, taking them to New York where they will stand trial for drug and weapons-related offences.
Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado said during a visit to the US Congress that now that her country is free, Cuba is next on the list. “For the first time in history, we [will] have the Americas free of communism, of dictatorship and narco-terrorism,” Ms Machado said.
Politico quoted sources as saying the Trump administration is considering a total blockade on oil imports to Cuba, as part of a wider plan to force regime change in the country. And The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington was seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year and that Mr Maduro's capture could serve as a blueprint for Havana.
Read more by Sara Ruthven
Only in America
UpScrolled social app hits No 1 in US App Store downloads
UpScrolled, a social media application created by Palestinian-Australian technology entrepreneur Issam Hijazi, has reached the number one spot on the US Apple App Store.
It has topped the charts for social media app downloads in several other countries and is second overall in the iOS Store, narrowly behind OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Controversy and technical glitches surrounding TikTok in the US under a newly announced joint venture are thought to be key factors in its success.
Read more by Cody Combs
Read more
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