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1. Has the Iranian nuclear programme been destroyed?

President Trump announced that the Iranian nuclear programme had been "obliterated". Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that it had been "devastated". But the evidence suggests otherwise. Just two days after America's strikes, Israeli planes were pounding the Fordo nuclear site, buried under an Iranian mountain, suggesting that the devastation was not complete. The Iranians had several days of knowing that the US was considering using bunker busters, giving it time to move key personnel and possibly equipment.

2. Can Iran still make a bomb?

Iran has around 400 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), the fuel it needs to make a nuclear bomb - although it would need to enrich it further to get it to the required level. It seems clear that neither Israel nor the United States knows where this fuel is. It's worth noting that before the Israeli and US strikes the intelligence assessment coming out of Washington had Iran still needing a couple of years to make a bomb.

3. Is the objective regime change?

For Israel it seems clear that is now the objective: both Prime Minister Netanyahu and members of his cabinet have said that they want the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Donald Trump has toyed with this idea, posting "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" and "Make Iran Great Again". However, he is now rowing back from that, probably in the face of severe pushback from some of his MAGA allies who dislike Middle Eastern wars.

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4. Is there an 'existential threat' to Israel?

With the fall of the Assads in Syria, the Iranian regime may be the most barbaric in the region. Its repression of its own people and its baleful influence further afield (including supplying Russia with Shahed drones used to kill Ukrainians) means that it deserves none of our sympathy. But there is a logical flaw at the heart of Israeli rhetoric around Iran: Israel talks of an existential threat from an Iranian nuclear programme. That assumes two things: one, that Iran has nuclear weapons; two, that it would use them against another nuclear armed state (Israel has had them for over fifty years). If Israel had no nukes of its own, its actions against Iran would make sense from a self-defence perspective. Given that it has the capacity to destroy Iran, is it the Islamic Republic which is responding to an existential threat, not Israel?

5. Is there now a ceasefire in place?

On social media overnight on 23 June, Donald Trump announced a ceasefire. At the same time, Israeli missiles continued to pound targets in Iran, few if any of which could be said to be connected to its nuclear programme. Announcing a "ceasefire" is not the same as a ceasefire: until both sides agree to terms on which they will stop fighting, there is no ceasefire, whatever Trump says. Israel might welcome a short pause in hostilities as it plans its next move, but it's hard to imagine Netanyahu not wanting to press home his advantage at this stage.

6. What does this mean for Russia?

Russia's Middle Eastern allies have had a rough time: the Assads fled to Moscow, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are all degraded to a significant extent, and Iran is now on the ropes. The wider lesson might be that having an alliance with Moscow isn't the best bet. But with oil prices shooting up and attention diverted from Ukraine, this isn't all bad news for President Putin. He can offer to mediate, looking statesmanlike, whilst continuing, largely unmolested, war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.

7. What does this mean for China?

China is the main buyer of Iranian oil, so it...

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It was meant to write itself. The tanks. The planes. The marching soldiers. The Dear Leader on the podium, the roar of the cheering crowds.

President Donald Trump's military parade in Washington DC on June 14, which just happened to coincide with his 79th birthday - was expected to confirm people's worst fears; a North Korea-style display of military power, all to the greater glory of a would-be dictator. It was meant to show America and the world who's boss.

On the ground in Washington, I found a different story. First, the plans had to be moved up a half hour to avoid reports of thunderstorms. It almost literally rained on Trump's parade.

Meanwhile, the nationwide anti-Trump protests, organised under the slogan 'No Kings', made the DC weather look positively MAGA-friendly by comparison. They also dwarfed the modest turnout for the event on the Mall, where TV cameras caught the president looking bored as he watched the troops and tanks.

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All of this was happening at what felt like a hinge moment for the United States. Just days before, President Trump had sent the National Guard to California to put down protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles.

Then, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were assassinated in their Minnesota home. Vance Boelter, 57, has since been charged with murder.

The Fog of Boredom

This political weather was neatly mirrored by conditions in Washington. The nation's capital was overcast for most of the day. As the start time for the parade approached, a thick cloud of white-grey fog descended on the Mall.

Watching from a rooftop bar next to the US Treasury building, the steady creep of the fog had an eerie quality, moving over the memorial buildings of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and towards the great obelisk of the Washington Monument.

Country club types in the hotel bar, drink in hand, watched as the black cars of the presidential motorcade snaked their way from the White House to the specially-erected stage on the Ellipse, resembling a funeral procession. Cannon fire signalled the start of the festivities and sent a light thrill across the room.

But these weren't hardcore Trump supporters. True, there were a few loyalists around town, like the family I saw on the street with a toddler wearing a 'Trump 2024' t-shirt.

But much like the people queuing up on the Mall, (who will have applied for tickets on the US army's official website), the parade watchers resembled the type of people who would attend an RAF fly-by or a Royal Wedding in the UK. Many were military families, (I saw at least one amputee). Some were actually in town for Father's Day, and were hoping to catch a glimpse of the parade as a bonus.

The military parade was apparently inspired by Trump seeing a Bastille Day event in France. It also happened to coincide with King Charles III attending the 'Trooping of the Colour' outside Buckingham Palace.

These British events are the sort Wendy Cope poked fun at in 'All-Purpose Poem for State Occassions', where onlookers can "feel patriotic and proud". While conservative in nature, they survive as rituals of harmless kitsch precisely to the extent that they have been rescued from their links with absolutism and foreign conquest. Meanwhile, France's Bastille Day celebrations are explicitly republican, and mark the 1789 revolution which declared universal human rights.

This is some distance from the blood-and-soil nationalism Trump hopes to revive. After the display of soldiers, tanks, and aircr...

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The University of Cambridge has been accused of stifling protest in a game of "cat and mouse politics" by one of its own academics who is facing legal action from one of its colleges for participating in pro-Palestine protests.

Hank Gonzalez, an Associate Professor in Caribbean History, was served with an interim injunction by St John's College earlier this month, banning him from protesting on College grounds after participating in a two-day encampment on land in front of the college on June 2-3.

St John's is one of two Cambridge Colleges pursuing injunctions against Pro-Palestine protests following occupations. The other, Trinity College, saw a three day encampment on its grounds from May 30 to June 2, before evicting students in a move which Gonzalez said was carried out with "deftness and determination".

Both Colleges were targeted for their investments in arms companies protesters claim are "complicit in Israeli genocide," including Boeing, BAE systems, and Elbit Systems.

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Interim injunctions were issued by the High Court on May 31 and June 1. Rulings on both cases are expected in the coming weeks, but until then the temporary orders remain in place and further protests could result in activists being found in contempt of court.

At a hearing on 5 June, Kester Lees KC, for the colleges, asked for the injunctions to be made final and to last for 12 months, arguing that the protests are disruptive to students taking exams, ITV reported.

In written submissions, he said the university was "concerned about the environment of fear and intimidation created by masked protesters", adding that "some chanting was directly aimed at disrupting the examination season".

The court action followed a ruling in March where the university was granted a High Court order blocking Israel-Palestine protests on parts of its campus until the end of July. In February, a judge dismissed a request for a five-year injunction blocking direct action relating to the conflict on several sites without the university's consent.

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Gonzalez, who spent three nights sleeping at the Trinity encampment but only spent time at the St John's encampment during the day, told Byline Times: "I'd entered no mask, faculty face card, purposefully so, to basically push the argument that one of the things the students are troubled by is that there's a lot of activity to try and punish them."

He added that students are concerned by the possibility that the University might be able to "delay their degrees, or kick them out, or give them any kind of trouble".

On 3 June, court documents were served to "persons unknown" at the St John's encampment. Protesters were asked to identify themselves, which Gonzalez complied with.

"I gave them the face and name on purpose," he said, adding that he was filmed by an unknown individual who was "gleeful" about having identified him.

That afternoon, Gonzalez was served with court documents addressed to him.

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Gonzalez said he was driven to enter the encampments due to a "sense of horror over the war industry," and the "obvious complicity of the so-called higher-ed" in these wars.

The central University currently holds an injunction aga...

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A week is a long time in politics and never has that been more the case than with Reform UK.

In recent weeks we've been closely following the party's dozen councils they took control of back in May and detailing the many scandals, resignations, cancelled meetings and culture wars they have been getting themselves involved in.

After each piece we publish, we've been inundated with yet more examples of what's been happening as Nigel Farage's fledgling party meets the reality of actually managing local government, as well as holding ministers to account nationally.

Here's a roundup of just some of what we've seen over the past week.

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1. Reform's anti-home working policy 'will cost millions'

Reform's hardline anti-home working policy is already crashing into the reality of modern Britain.

At Durham County Council, where the party took control in May, it has emerged that they would need to find an additional 13,500 square meters of office space to accommodate all council staff working full-time in the office - as the party seems to be demanding - according to analysis of council data.

Durham would face between £3-5 million in extra annual costs, including £1.3 million in running costs and £2-4 million in financing costs for new accommodation, all on top of an existing £23 million budget deficit, digging by writer Paul Ilett has found.

When you factor in having to replace staff who would quit over the policy, Reform's anti-WFH policy looks very expensive indeed. One for their Department of Local Government Efficiency?

2. Flexible on flexible working?

Mind you, Reform councils may be starting to have doubts about scrapping flexible working policies, as they start to realise the reality of working life in 2025.

In Reform-run North Northamptonshire, which would require 9,700 square meters more office space to implement the policy, adding approximately £328,000 annually to their costs, the council's new Reform leader, Cllr Martin Griffiths, appears to already be backtracking, reversing previous pledges to insist all staff come into the office.

A mole working for the council tells Byline Times that Griffiths either realised the cost and impracticality of the policy or never intended to implement it and was simply "playing to the gallery."

The council staffer, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job, said: "The more rational approach [to Working from Home] has been fed back to staff from senior officers. My concern is that the damage is done anyway and people will be spooked and work elsewhere."

There are concerns that the damage has already been done and staff members may seek employment elsewhere due to the anti-working-from-home stance.

EXCLUSIVE

BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output

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3. Reform councillor in expenses probe

A Reform UK councillor in the Crediton area of Devon has been reported to police - by his own Reform colleagues - for potentially breaching election campaign spending limits.

The local Crediton Courier reports: "Neil Stevens, who won the Alphington and Cowick seat in May's Devon County Council elections by just 72 votes, has been reported by a fellow Reform UK councillor for the alleged overspend, and for a suspected false election expenses return submission.

Reform councillor Ed Hill told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he had told Mr Stevens the cost of podcast equipment had to be included in his expenses return, and warned this would take him over his spending limit. He claims this advice was ignored.

Neil Stevens' brother Tony Stevens was also reported to police as part of...

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Not so very long ago, our capital stood as a model for all that was great and good about Britain.

Sitting at the heart of an Empire upon which the sun never set, it moved at its own inimitable pace as men in bowler hats, pearly kings and queens, flying nannies and Antipodean chimney sweeps went about their business. Gaiety hung in the air, and despite the occasional outbreak of plague, the lovable London cockney could always be relied upon to drop everything in a trice and break out in song.

Crime, if it existed at all, was quickly solved by little old ladies in cardigans, or retired Belgian detectives, or men in deer stalker hats, on account of all the criminals being fairly obvious from the start.

Which is not to say that things were perfect. From my research on YouTube, I have discovered that for much of the early 20th century, people walked very quickly everywhere and could neither speak nor afford Technicolour. And while World War Two was largely a joyous enterprise, the Blitz was not all fun, fun, fun, as on one occasion Buckingham Palace got hit by a bomb.

But for the most part, people knew their place and were happy because London worked, largely because it still had coal-fired power stations. Indeed, before 'wokies' turned it into an art museum, Bankside provided people with all the jobs and cheap electricity they needed, and more to the point, ensured that London pea soupers were 'real fog' and not like the 'Gen Z' mists you get today.

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Despite what snobs might tell you, the food was splendid too. Most restaurants offered a choice of two types of bread - white or brown - and an array of well-cooked food that more exotic diners could spice up with condiments that might include 'salad cream', 'tomato ketchup' or a splash of malt vinegar.

How times have changed. I can't remember the last time I heard of an old spinster solving a major murder case in the capital, and despite having lived in London since the 1990s, I have not once seen a chimney sweep break out into an elaborate song and dance routine with a flying nanny in a proper pea souper.

Those on the woke left will claim that this is because 'I'm at best deluded and possibly a bit racist' but my research, funded by the "Institute of Tax-haters", proves, beyond all possible doubt, that every single ill in London is down to 'Sadiq Khan' and immigrants.

Data, rigorously assembled by myself and X user @WhiteFlite9628292, shows that London is in danger of becoming different to how it was in Oswald Mosley's day when race and immigration simply were not an issue for anyone.

The shocking figures speak for themselves. Since Sadiq Khan was first elected mayor in May 2016, not one statue has been erected to Winston Churchill. Wimpy restaurants, once so prevalent in the capital, have all but disappeared from our streets.

Whole swathes of the city have been pedestrianised and while laughing, happy young people drink mocha lattes in the sun, or enjoy a disturbing 'continental' al fresco evening dining experience in the no go areas of Camden, Soho and Islington, London's black cab drivers have to go 'the long way round' to the GB News studio in Paddington.

Meanwhile, many of the city's best carparks now double as farmers' markets, while the streets fill up with people protesting the mass slaughter of children in wars, making it almost impossible for Paul Marshall to park his Bentley in the capital at the weekends.

But it is the demographic shift that shocks most of all. As evidenced by the electoral rolls, once common British surnames like Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Brunel, Disraeli, and Harthacnut have all but disappeared from the...

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As the far right movement gathers pace in the UK, and violence and hostility towards women deepens, a new study has found that gender inequality is worsening financial hardship in economically deprived regions.

The findings, from Kings College London, come weeks after polling by IPSOS for JOE Media Group of Gen Z voters revealed over half of men believe they're expected to do too much to support gender equality and that it has gone "too far" and 54% of Reform voters - many of whom are young men - believe that males are being discriminated against, as do 44% of Brexit voters.

Some of the most gender unequal regions in Britain are "left behind" communities in the north and midlands, where Reform UK saw significant gains in the May local elections.

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Report author Dr Caitlin Schmid told Byline Times: "We're seeing a lot of narratives that try to take us back to more traditional gender norms, even though our research shows that is the exact opposite of what we need, and will not address the legitimate grievances that women and men have, across the country, which have come out of decades of austerity."

Yorkshire and the Humber, Wales and Northern Ireland have the lowest levels of gender equality, researchers found, while London and the north-west of England are the most gender equal. No local authority in the UK has achieved gender equality.

Women shouldering a larger burden of childcare and domestic work, and being under-represented in politics and leadership roles are key factors blocking regional progress towards gender equality.

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The report also found that gender inequality leads to poor outcomes for both women and men, such as lower wages for women, and poorer health outcomes for men.

Dr Schmid stresses that investment in childcare infrastructure is critical if we want to "unlock greater productivity" in these deprived regions, particularly in rural areas.

In regions where men are more actively involved in childcare and domestic work, they tend to experience positive health outcomes such as higher fertility and a lower risk of suicide.

The point I always want to come back to is that it's not a zero sum game: women's progress does not mean men's regress, our society and our economy depends on both doing well

Dr Caitlin Schmid, report author

Young men captured by the 'manosphere' often rely on this narrative to counter claims of misogyny, which was a central theme in Netflix's Adolescence series which ignited public debate after its release in March, made UK TV history, and led to its creators meeting with the Prime Minister about how best to "protect our children".

According to The Centre for Countering Digital Hate, the world's largest incel online forum received 2.7 million visits between January and March 2025 which illustrates the scope of the problem impacting young men, and the role of the internet in spreading the message.

Laura Bates, author of 'The New Age of Sexism', also found that it takes just 30 minutes for TikTok to show extreme misogynistic content to teenage boys when they set up a new account.

But while the media focuses on young men and their far-right leanings, and painstakingly tracks the rise of Reform and its leader, Nigel Farage, little attention is paid to young women and their move to the political...

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This article will not be about how closed borders don't work. The verdict for that was in long ago, and (while suicidal policymakers keep pinning their political fates on 'taking back control') the annual displacement report confirms it.

I will go into the data (briefly), but I will not waste time arguing a historical truth so incontestable it should be step 0 in our response to the 'refugee crisis'. Closed borders don't work, cool. This piece will be about what does.

To jump forward a few steps: the answer lies with us, the people, exacting the power that we are entitled to beyond marking x in a box every four years.

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It lies in the small day-to-day community-building that all of us do far more than we engage in party politics. And you could easily miss it, judging by stories in our media, which do more to divide society than reflect it.

First up, I want to flag some key points from the latest data on the global displacement crisis. I prefer 'displacement crisis' to 'refugee crisis' because displacement happens to refugees not because of them.

Displacement is a sad but constant reality of a planet, and species, that erupt and shake and get too hot and too cold. It affects over 120 million people and that number is growing. Governments have two choices: develop an infrastructure to deal with it, or stick their heads in the sand - and get their asses kicked.

The annual report, by UNHCR, makes one thing clear: governments are burying their heads in the sand. The first number I looked for when I opened the report was the number of people 'resettled'. This is the number of refugees who, rather than taking "illegal" and dangerous journeys to safe countries, are given lawful passage.

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In 2024, 188,800 people were resettled, meaning if you're in need of asylum, your odds of getting it legally are 0.1%.

Not every displaced person can be resettled, of course, and war-torn countries need repopulating. These are common rebuttals, but they go without saying because the vast majority of displaced people already stay in their home countries.

In 2024, 26 million people were forcibly displaced and 10 million others returned home, meaning some 16 million people became in need of international community protection (about half the population of Tokyo); 80% of them stayed in their home countries, while 3 million sought asylum abroad (about a third of the population of London).

This is not an overwhelming number. It is also unavoidable: some people must go abroad because they will die if they do not, and because if they don't go, others cannot stay and live.

While foreign governments stick their heads in the sand, most refugees work their asses off to send money home, so that relatives squandering in displacement camps can survive.

Evidently, we cannot leave this global problem up to our idiotic policymakers. Nor do we have to.

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This year's Refugee Week theme is 'Community as a Super...

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Even during the 2003 Iraq war, the people of the Middle East did not appear to feel as terrified and alarmed as they have been since Israel's aggression against Iran kicked off on 12 June.

What is extraordinary is that this is barely reflected in the western media obsessed with the threat to Israel or western interests.

Many American and European actors appear to have forgotten the horrors of war, and even the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. But the people of the Middle East who have endured so many forever wars, often promoted by western powers, have a very sharp understanding of the ugliness of conflict and how their consequences last decades.

It is the people of the region who are on the frontline with the most to lose. Iranian and Israeli civilians are scared, with no idea how this ends? Civilian infrastructure is being smashed. The death count mounts daily.

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But above all, Israel has not halted its atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, where more die every day than in Israel and Iran. They are still being bombed and starved as Israel's genocide continues. Palestinians, not their Israeli settler neighbours, are under lockdown in the West Bank, with its economy on the brink of collapse. How long will that lockdown last?

Israel, and in particular Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appears out of control, unwilling even to listen to its allies. Israel has been bombing Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen with no consequence, and now Iran.

US President Donald Trump has given him the green light.

The Iranian regime has its own awful record, backing the Assad regime for decades, and undermining the security of Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere. Neither Israeli nor Iranian governments have demonstrated respect for civilian life or human rights of others. International law is simply not at the races.

The fact that Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity is glossed over in the US and Europe, but in the Middle East everyone is aware of the double standard and the threat he poses.

Residents in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are scared that this war could spread. If the US does get involved, then Iran might target its neighbours across the Gulf in retaliation, or try to block the straights of Hormuz where 20% of the world's oil passes. Iran has an extensive network of sleeper agents across the region who could be activated.

The Nuclear Fear

Another major fear is nuclear fallout from attacks on Iranian nuclear infrastructure on air and water. Iran has a nuclear reactor on the Gulf at Bushehr. What happens if Israel decides to destroy it? The Israeli leadership has not categorically ruled out striking Bushehr. Fallout could hit GCC states, including contaminating sea water vital for their desalination plants.

The leadership in GCC states are acutely aware of this. Many of them are not historically friendly with Iran but have a working relationship. Some might like the Iranian regime to be weakened but not at the risk of wider conflagration, hence they condemned the Israeli strikes.

Oman, which hosted the US-Iran talks, was the first to do so referring to Israel's "barbaric military attack" on Iran. Nearly every government outside of Israel wanted the US-Iran talks to reach successful conclusion, so blame Netanyahu for having bombed the negotiations out of existence.

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The triumph of Paris-Saint Germain in the recent final of the UEFA Champions League marked the end of a long wait for continental supremacy for the dominant French club of the last fifteen years. It was also a triumph for one of their sponsors, online sports betting operator and casino 1XBet, which also saw their other main football partner, FC Barcelona, crowned Spanish champion a few weeks earlier.

But to others, starting with the regulatory bodies which seek to exert control over an online gambling industry whose growth has gone virtually unchecked in the last decade and a half, this triumph was hard to swallow.

Corentin Segalen, the president of the Copenhagen Group set up by the Macolin Convention to combat sports manipulation and illegal sports betting, describes 1XBet as "the Wagner Group of sports betting" and told Byline Times how the company is "unafraid to operate illegally, fuel corruption and aggressively target the African market".

The parallel with Vladimir Putin's mercenary army was not a throwaway line. What Segalen referred to as well, was the ambiguous relationship between the operator and the Russian regime which Byline Times can reveal in the first in-depth investigation into the 1XBet betting empire published in the United Kingdom, and explains why it was sanctioned and banned in Ukraine on President Zelenskyy's personal orders after his country's invasion in February 2022.

The size of 1XBet's operation defies belief, but is in keeping with the size of the illegal gambling industry as a whole. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated, in a December 2021 report, that it was worth 1.7 trillion USD - the combined GDP of all Scandinavian countries, or about three times the value of the world's narcotics trade.

But is 1XBet 'illegal'? Yes, according to the definition of the Council of Europe's Macolin Convention (*), which defines an illegal operator as one who offers odds, and takes bets, in jurisdictions where it is not licensed.

1XBet does this in countries such as Morocco, where the Budget Minister and president of the Moroccan football federation Faouzi Lekjaa castigated their "illegal activities" and in France, until the authorities forced their unlicensed French site to shut down. It also did it in Somalia, where it is now outlawed. The list goes on, and on.

Yet this has not stopped 1XBet from garnering more gambling industry awards and distinctions than any other operator over the past few years, from Africa to Europe and Latin America.

As one African regulating officer, who prefers to remain anonymous, told Byline Times, "this is the biggest problem for us. They're everywhere, they're advertising everywhere, they win all these awards - so people think they're legal when they are not."

Gambling industry experts Byline Times spoke to believe 1XBet may be the world's biggest visible illegal - under the Macolin Convention definition - sports betting operator in the world.

What is known is that they are now among the three most visited gambling websites on the planet - and that is just through their main incarnation, 1XBet.com, not taking into account the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands (**) of affiliated companies and mirror websites which they have set up to broaden their offer and avoid detection by regulators over the past decade.

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As they do not file corporate accounts in jurisdictions where those accounts are publicly accessible, their exact turnover is unknown, but, according to industry sources approached by Byline Times, it is likely to be in excess of 10 billion USD.

...

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Polling from the Economist/YouGov and the Washington Post shows that contrary to President Donald Trump's demand for Iranian unconditional surrender, most Americans oppose involvement in the conflict between Iran and Israel and do not see the Iranian nuclear program as an immediate threat to the United States. Even Republicans who normally fall in lockstep behind Trump break from him on the issue of war with Iran.

The Economist/YouGov polling finds that 60% of respondents believe that the "US military should not get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran". Democrats (65%) and Independent voters (61%) are especially disapproving of US involvement in the Israel/Iran conflict.

Most significantly for the Trump team, 53% of Republican voters don't not want to see the US get involved in the developing conflict.

Given the current polarised state of American politics, the fact that Democrats, Republicans, and Independent voters all oppose American involvement in the conflict is incredibly significant.

Americans aged 65-plus, who are most likely to turn out in next year's midterm election, are especially opposed to US involvement at 69%.

In Washington Post polling, a 45% plurality say they "oppose the US military launching airstrikes against Iran over its nuclear program," while one in four (25%) say they support military strikes.

Almost a third (30%) are unsure how the US should respond. Two-thirds (66%) of Democrats oppose military strikes on Iran as do 44% of Independents. A 47% plurality of GOP voters support military strikes.

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The bottom line in the Washington Post data is that military action against Iran is not even supported by a majority of GOP voters.

While Americans are opposed to US involvement in the Israel/Iran conflict, how do they feel about the Iranian nuclear program and is there a reservoir of fear and distrust that Trump could tap into to support American involvement in the conflict?

The short answer is, no.

Just under one in four (24%) of respondents in the Economist/YouGov polling see the Iranian nuclear program as an immediate and serious threat to the US. Republican voters are more likely (32% immediate and serious threat) to feel threatened by the Iranian nuclear program, though the number is far short of a majority.

The data from the Washington Post poll confirms what the Economist/YouGov polling finds: a majority of Americans do not see Iran's nuclear program as "an immediate and serious threat". Just over one in five (22%) do; 48% view it as a "somewhat serious threat".

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Complementing reluctance to get involved militarily in the Israel/Iran conflict, in the Economist/YouGov polling, 56% support the US engaging in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Significantly, 63% of those who said they voted for Trump in 2024 support negotiation with Iran.

When asked in the Economist/YouGov polling what options the US should pursue in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, 28% say that the United States should threaten Iran with harsher economic sanctions, 26% say incentivise Iran with resumption of diplomatic relations, and 24% support incentivising Iran by the easing of economic sanctions.

Less than one in five (18%) say that the US should threaten Iran with the use of military force. Incentivising Iran with a guarantee of no use of military force is the pr...