Switzerland with Tom Switzer

The New York Times on Sunday, October 25, reports that Washington and Israel have drawn up plans for renewed strikes against Iran, potentially targeting its energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile capabilities. The prospect of further military action comes as the American naval blockade, sanctions and the damage from previous fighting intensify pressure on Iran’s economy, while Tehran warns that any new attack would provoke a wider retaliation. 

This raises a central strategic question: if the blockade is steadily weakening Iran by restricting its oil exports and draining its revenues, does Washington have an incentive to wait and...

She spent 804 days in an Iranian prison. Now Kylie Moore-Gilbert is receiving death threats again, this time from supporters of the man many hope will replace the regime. She tells Tom Switzer why the Shah’s son is no messiah, why Trump botched the chance for regime change, and who is most likely to rule Iran if the Islamic Republic falls.

After writing a column in The Age questioning Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last Shah, Kylie received death threats, rape threats and threats against her family. She argues that the movement around him has beco...

France is facing a deepening crisis of political legitimacy. The recent wave of rioting, looting and arson reflects not merely youthful discontent, but a wider challenge to the institutions of the Fifth Republic.

Simon Heffer, one of the English-speaking world’s leading experts on French politics, attributes significant blame to radical-left activists: protests initially focused on the education system have been transformed into a broader confrontation with the French state.

With Marine Le Pen’s National Rally seeking power and Jean-Luc Mélenchon offering a radical-left alternative, the traditional centrist parties face a formidable challenge. Dissa...

John Mearsheimer argues that Ukraine cannot win the war, and that Donald Trump’s pressure on Kyiv and his easing of sanctions on Russia are steps towards ending it. Tom Switzer also asks him whether Washington’s economic war on Iran is working, whether Tehran will spring an October surprise before the US midterms, and what Barack Obama’s Belfast remarks reveal about the debate over Israel.

Trump’s growing estrangement from Volodymyr Zelensky has raised fresh questions about the future of the war in Ukraine and the transatlantic alliance. His decisions have once again outraged the proponen...

The Houthi rebels of Yemen have become one of the most consequential and disruptive forces in the Middle East. Backed by Iran but pursuing their own political and military objectives, they have survived years of warfare, Saudi-led intervention and an intense American bombing campaign.

In this conversation, Elizabeth Kendall, one of the world’s leading experts on the Houthis and Director of Girton College, Cambridge, explains the movement’s origins, ideology and leadership, its relationship with Tehran and its growing role in the wider regional conflict.

We also examine the Houthis’ latest escalation, their capacity to thr...

President Donald Trump has turned up the pressure on Ukraine, calling for Volodymyr Zelensky to be replaced as president and urging Kyiv to halt its attacks on Russian oil refineries. The intervention raises fresh questions about Washington’s commitment to Ukraine and the direction of Trump’s strategy towards Moscow.

The timing is striking. The Trump administration has also reached an agreement allowing Russia to supply hundreds of thousands of tonnes of diesel fuel to the United States. The deal represents a significant shift in policy towards Moscow, potentially easing pressure on Russia over its war in Ukra...

Mary Dejevsky spent decades at the heart of British journalism, including many years as a columnist for The Independent. But in June she stepped down from her weekly column, in part because she had become increasingly frustrated by the shrinking space for dissenting views on Russia and Ukraine in Britain’s mainstream media.

On this episode of Switzerland, she tells Tom Switzer why she believes it has become extraordinarily difficult for British journalists to question the prevailing narrative about the war — and what happened when she suggested the conflict might be more complicated than the conventional wisdom allo...

On this episode of Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by Sir Max Hastings, one of the world's leading journalists and historians, to ask what a lifetime of studying war and history can tell us about the extraordinarily unsettled world of 2026.

They discuss Donald Trump and the future of the Western alliance, the war in Ukraine, Iran and the Middle East, China, and the significance of the recent US decision to abruptly withdraw B-1 bombers from Britain. What does history reveal about the ambitions of great powers, the dangers of miscalculation, and the way wars begin and end?<...

Iran’s economy is under extraordinary pressure. Oil exports are being squeezed, sanctions are expanding and Tehran says it is fighting an “economic war”. Is the regime beginning to crack? 

Or does Iran still hold considerable leverage because it can threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz? The latest evidence, documented in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, suggests the recovery in Gulf oil exports may be more fragile than some people have assumed. How significant is Iran’s ability to disrupt those flows?

Meanwhile, China may be the one country capable of breaking the deadlock...

Steve Hanke, the veteran and acclaimed free-market economist, discusses America’s cost-of-living crisis, persistent inflation, the $40 trillion national debt and the warning signs coming from the bond market.

Professor Hanke also explains why he thinks the AI boom may be a bubble, why Iran could inflict serious economic damage on the US, and why he has broken with Vice President JD Vance over the future of conservative economics.

Steve Hanke is professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a former member of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Jo...

President Trump has rejected Iran’s seven-day plan proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms. 

Tehran’s proposal would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz within a week and resumed nuclear talks in return for the US easing oil sanctions and lifting its blockade of Iranian ports, which is causing deep damage to the country’s economy. Trump says openly that Tehran is begging for a deal after the midterms that dismantles its nuclear program.

So is US economic pressure producing Iranian concessions?

P...

Right-wing populist parties are surging across Europe -- and Germany is at the centre of the upheaval. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has made major gains in recent state elections, challenging the dominance of Germany’s established political parties. What is driving this revolt against the political establishment -- and why is it happening now?

To make sense of the populist ascendancy, Tom Switzer speaks with Simon Heffer, aka Lord Blackwater, one of Britain’s leading political and cultural historians and columnist during the past four decades..

Why has support for the established parties collapsed? How...

The most revealing development in Donald Trump’s war with Iran may not be taking place in Tehran at all. It is happening hundreds of kilometres away, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. In the past week, the Iran-backed Houthis have seized strategically important territory across Yemen’s Red Sea coast. From there, they have greater capacity to threaten shipping through the Red Sea and, crucially, Saudi Arabia’s ability to export oil.

There are reports that the Trump administration is considering a large-scale operation against the Houthis. But how can the United States defeat the Houthis?

Pl...

Is Ukraine really turning the tide against Russia? Western media coverage has increasingly focused on Ukraine’s drone strikes, Russia’s economic difficulties and mounting battlefield losses, prompting claims that Vladimir Putin is under growing pressure. 

But what is actually happening on the battlefield? Who has the strategic advantage as the war enters its fifth year, and can Russia consolidate its hold over the Donbas?

Is there a growing risk of a wider confrontation between Russia and the West? Has the war in Iran diverted American attention and depleted key weapons stocks needed by Ukraine? Is Mo...

Iran is escalating its war with the United States — not only through direct attacks, but through its Shia allies and proxies across the Middle East.

The Iran-backed Houthis have seized key territory on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including the strategically important Perim Island at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, giving them a growing ability to threaten shipping and Saudi oil exports. At the same time, an attack launched from Iraqi territory has forced Saudi Arabia to shut down its crucial East-West oil pipeline, a key alternative route for exporting oil around the Strait of Hormuz.

What...

This week on Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University.

Subjects include the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks: what did America learn –- and what did it fail to learn? How much of the foreign-policy thinking that emerged from that moment still shapes the Trump administration? When will US leaders recognise limits to military and economic power in a messy world that won’t conform to America’s expectations? When will Washington, to use a neoconservative phrase, get mugged by reality?  

Plus, is the tide turning against Tehran? After all, Ir...

It’s been more than six months into the war with Iran, and the question that matters is becoming harder to avoid: who is actually losing this war?

  The conventional wisdom has been that Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran was a catastrophic strategic blunder — that Tehran could absorb the punishment, close the Strait of Hormuz and inflict enormous economic costs on America and its allies.

But the picture now looks rather more complicated. Iran has failed to shut Hormuz completely, the global economy has proved remarkably resilient, and the American naval blockade is severel...

The conventional wisdom holds that the US war on Iran has been a massive strategic blunder. As John Mearsheimer has repeatedly argued, Washington went to war with four principal objectives: regime change, ending Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, destroying its ballistic-missile capabilities, and dismantling its network of militia proxies. None has been achieved. Add to this the damage inflicted on America’s alliance structure and the risks to US military bases across the region, and it is easy to see why Mearsheimer’s assessment -- that President Trump has presided over a foreign-policy debacle -- has gained such a wide follow...

Six months after Donald Trump launched his war on Iran, the regime survives, the Strait of Hormuz remains contested, and Washington is struggling to turn military might into a political victory. 

Trump and his supporters can make a credible case that Iran has been severely damaged. Its air force and much of its navy have been destroyed; its nuclear program has been set back; senior leadership has been decapitated; its economy is in terrible shape. But none of that necessarily translates into political leverage.  

What happens next? Tehran remains defiant and Washington faces dangerous questions: ho...

President Donald Trump is seeking to revive his personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un while substantially reducing US military exercises with South Korea. What does this mean for the future of the US–South Korean alliance -- and for deterrence on the Korean Peninsula?

But the stakes extend far beyond the Korean Peninsula. The war with Iran has raised fresh questions about whether the US is becoming overstretched militarily, particularly as Washington shifts resources towards the Middle East while asking its Asian allies to shoulder more of the burden for their own defence.

...

Donald Trump has pledged to intensify the U.S. campaign of economic warfare on Tehran, but he faces serious challenges. Iran maintains its ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. And there are growing strains on US naval and munitions stockpiles. Time is not on Trump’s side -- and the war will continue to expose serious limits to America’s ability to sustain its traditional military posture in the region.

John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

Rosemary Kelanic is the director of the Middle East program at D...

The U.S. naval blockade is costing Iran’s regime dearly in terms of lost economic activity, sky-high inflation, unemployment and a collapsing Iranian currency. President Trump says that the regime “is in very bad shape” economically and unable to pay its troops. Could the Islamic Republic of Iran still collapse?

To what extent does the new Sunni-run, pro-US Syria complicate Tehran’s effort to assert a Pax Iranica in the region? Has Iran’s Shia crescent -- the vast region stretching from southern Lebanon to southern Iraq and the Houthi parts of Yemen -- come unstuck?

Bash...

For decades, the prevailing assumption was that nuclear weapons had made a Third World War almost unthinkable. Yet an increasing number of serious strategists, historians and commentators are now asking whether that confidence is still justified. 

While Donald Trump’s temperament has undoubtedly heightened concerns about miscalculation, it is too simplistic to blame one man for the world’s growing instability. 

The deeper story is the steady erosion of the post-Cold War international order, the return of great-power rivalry, and the convergence of multiple geopolitical flashpoints stretching from Ukraine and the Middle East to the Taiwan...

It’s become increasingly clear that the Iran war has been a spectacular failure. There is just no plausible military outcome that produces the political result Washington says it wants.

Which raises an important question: If the United States has overwhelming military superiority, why has it become so difficult for Washington to turn military power into political victory?

The sad reality is that time and again the U.S. chooses objectives that are either unattainable, poorly defined, or disconnected from the political realities of the country it is fighting. For Washington has a long record of...

Hardly a day goes by without another indication that the international order is in flux. But as the war in Iran enters a new phase, some questions are becoming increasingly urgent.

What do we know about the emerging Iranian-Omani discussions over the Strait of Hormuz? What might they mean for the future control and security of the strait? And what more can Donald Trump do to secure an outcome that could plausibly be called an American victory?

Then there is the internal struggle within Iran. How deep is the divide between hardliners, who oppose negotiations...

Over the past week, the world appeared to be edging towards another dangerous military escalation in the Persian Gulf, with both Washington and Tehran issuing fresh threats.

But this weekend Donald Trump abruptly called off the planned attack on Iran. The President says diplomacy has made further military action unnecessary. But are Washington and Tehran genuinely prepared to reach a meaningful peace agreement? Or is this merely a temporary pause before the next crisis?

And what has the conflict done to American credibility, prestige and influence around the world?

John Mearsheimer is Professor...

The war against Iran, launched by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu on February 28, was meant to last four to six weeks. It is now in its twenty-second week.

Peter Oborne has spent more than two decades arguing against Western military intervention in the Middle East -- he was one of the very few British conservative columnists to oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He argues that this war is illegal under international law, that it was launched without serious deliberation, and that it is accelerating a geopolitical shift already well underway: the rise of China and...

Last weekend, thousands of young Indians took to the streets in support of the Cockroach Junta Party, or CJP -- a satirical movement that became a serious vehicle for growing frustration with India’s education system. After weeks of demonstrations, the Modi government relented, culminating in the resignation of India’s Education Minister.

The political drama comes at a time when India’s democratic credentials are under increasing international scrutiny. Global democracy rankings have downgraded the world’s largest democracy, while critics accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government of eroding liberal institutions.

How sign...

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This week marks 150 days since US and Israeli air strikes hit Iran. Back then, President Donald Trump predicted the campaign would be over within four to six weeks. The Iranian regime would be humbled, perhaps even overthrown. Its missile and drone capabilities would be shattered. Its nuclear ambitions would be set back for at least a generation. And its regional proxy network -- from Hamas and Hezbollah to the Houthis -- would be gravely weakened.

Five months on, the picture...

Fighting between the United States and Iran has entered a dangerous new phase. Over the past week, the U.S. military has expanded its campaign, striking a broader range of targets deep inside Iran, including bridges and other critical infrastructure, in an apparent effort to increase pressure on Tehran and force an end to attacks on commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf. Iran has responded with fresh missile and drone attacks across the Gulf, killing and wounding U.S. service personnel and raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

Where does this leave the crisis? Are we...

The renewed cycle of U.S. and Iranian air strikes has replaced the earlier phases of the confrontation, which began with the U.S. bombing campaign from late February to early April and was followed by the U.S. naval blockade from mid-April to mid-June.

The central question now is whether the Trump administration can compel Tehran to allow commercial shipping to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without requiring the Iranian regime’s permission.

Iran has categorically rejected that proposition, insisting that all vessels transiting the Strait must do so with Tehran’s explicit appr...

The past week has shattered whatever faith remained in that Memorandum of Understanding. The United States and Iran have once again exchanged strikes, with the U.S. military saying it hit 90 military targets, though Tehran claims many of those sites were civilian. The Iranian military, meanwhile, says it has retaliated by targeting U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan. What’s now likely to happen? Has the renewed fighting vindicated Professor Robert Pape’s escalation trap? 

On Ukraine, Professor Pape contends that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign has become a strategic failure and that Ukraine...

No one expected diplomacy to proceed without setbacks. But there was hope that the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Iran in late June, vague though it was, would create enough political space to allow commercial shipping to resume through the Strait of Hormuz. The events of the past few days have been a reminder of just how fragile that ceasefire remains.

What kind of challenge does this pose to efforts to turn that initial memorandum into a more durable peace agreement? To what extent has the U.S. foreign policy establishment been, to...

Whether the memorandum of understanding ultimately survives political opposition in Tehran, Washington and Jerusalem remains to be seen. What is clear is that the latest tensions over the Strait of Hormuz is a reminder of how fragile the situation remains in the Persian Gulf and how uncertain the prospects are for a durable peace.

Will Donald Trump follow through on his threats that the United States could become the “guardian angel” of the Strait of Hormuz? Could recent White House criticism of the Jewish state mark the contours of an effort to de-specialise the US-Israel relationship? Such a st...

President Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran has been hailed by supporters as a diplomatic breakthrough and denounced by critics as a strategic retreat. But what does the agreement actually achieve, and who, if anyone, emerges stronger from months of conflict?

Tom Switzer speaks with two guests with profoundly different perspectives: former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, one of Washington’s most prominent foreign-policy thinkers, and Professor Foad Izadi, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Tehran and a leading Iranian commentator on U.S.-Iran relations. Together they offer sharply contrasting asse...

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to a peace deal on Sunday June 14. Washington will lift the naval blockade while Tehran opens the Strait of Hormuz. Will it hold? Will Israel and Washington hardliners try to sabotage the agreement? Will the Iranian hardliners try to scuttle the deal? Trita Parsi is executive director of the Quincy Institute. 

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Tom Switzer is a journalist and broadcaster w...

This week on Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago who takes questions from viewers during our live chat. Subjects include Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Ukraine as well as other topical current affairs. If Trump does not enter the war, will he be accused of abandoning Israel? But if Trump enters the war, will that mean Israel has an effective veto on the negotiations to end the Iran crisis? According to Professor Sachs, Trump should work to extricate the US from the Israeli-Iranian rivalry.

This week on Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University. Subjects include Iran’s military response to Israel’s consistent attacks in Lebanon and the tense relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. If Trump does not enter the war, will he be accused of abandoning Israel? But if Trump enters the war, will that mean Israel has an effective veto on the negotiations to end the Iran crisis? According to Professor Sachs, Trump should work to extricate the US from the Israeli-Iranian rivalry.

This week on Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago for a discussion on the US-Iran negotiations to reach peace. This week U.S. forces conducted new military strikes against Iran after Tehran launched drones at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz even as both sides are trying to reach a peace deal. What’s going on? Has the crisis exposed very serious limits on US power in an increasingly more multipolar world? And is America, at home, more polarised and divided than at any point since the Civil War of th...

This week on Switzerland, Tom Switzer is joined by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer for a a discussion on the US-Iran negotiations to reach peace. According to leaks, a peace deal could comprise of a 60-day ceasefire, opening the Strait of Hormuz, easing sanctions and dealing with the nuclear issue later. But is it a done deal?

John Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 

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