Western allies retreat from Middle East flashpoints

Suspicious vans parked outside an airbase in Gloucestershire triggered the evacuation of eighty-five nearby homes. Within days of five men and a dual British-Iranian national being arrested, American strategic bombers were quietly flown off British soil back to the United States.

I'm Daniel.

And I'm Shira. This is another episode of Crosswinds, a Daily Lion production, where we trace the relationships that decide what happens to Israel next.

We'll start with the withdrawal from RAF Fairford. Late last month, the United States Air Force withdrew its strategic bombers from a British military base back to America. The relocation followed a foiled terror plot targeting the installation at R A F Fairford. Three suspicious vans were spotted near the perimeter. So police established a four-hundred-meter security cordon and evacuated eighty-five homes in the neighboring village of Whelford. Five British men in their mid-twenties were arrested on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses, along with a twenty-five-year-old dual British-Iranian national. All six suspects were later released on bail, and at least three of the American bombers had landed in South Dakota by Sunday.

That withdrawal is being framed as standard procedure. A Pentagon official notes that American bombers routinely operate globally to support force readiness and operational requirements. The arrangement began in March. That's when the British government approved an American request to use the airfields for what they called the specific and limited defensive purpose of striking Iranian missile capabilities. A senior NATO official says the alliance's defensive agility remains unchanged by the relocation. It draws on the combined strength of thirty-two nations. And a Pentagon official adds that the bomber force remains ready to deliver precision global strikes anywhere and anytime from the continental United States. Britain's coordinator for counter-terrorism policing says the investigation's hugely complex. Specialist teams are interrogating multiple lines of inquiry. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham sees strong indications that Iran played a part in the Fairford incident. He says he wouldn't make that accusation lightly. This follows a fifty percent increase in British investigations tied to foreign states late last year. Defense Minister Wes Streeting describes a persistent reality where Iran and its proxies actively wish to do the country harm. That requires security services to regularly thwart attempts to threaten domestic interests. Leaders in counter-terrorism stress that rapid mobilization is necessary to respond to such incidents while assessing the threat. Armed police reached the scene roughly ten minutes after an emergency call. The head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, stresses that the men are subject to what he calls stringent conditions. He says they absolutely remain under investigation while detectives explore whether they acted as proxies for a foreign state. The government insists it won't be intimidated by aggressive posturing from Tehran. They're refusing to let foreign adversaries dictate their foreign policy.

The opposing side completely rejects that narrative. Iranian officials dismiss the accusations. They argue that British authorities are looking in the wrong direction. For them, the allegations connecting the Iranian government to the foiled base plot are malicious media speculations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi argues that the decision by British authorities to release the supposed terrorists on bail really speaks for itself. He says it proves London's chasing a false lead. The Iranian embassy in London completely rejects and strongly condemns what it describes as an unfounded campaign by British media to link Tehran to the arrests. Their case goes further. They're warning that by permitting American bombers to launch attacks from British airfields, the country's put its own territory and citizens in direct danger. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps explicitly named R A F Fairford in July. They declared that any base used to launch attacks against Iranian territory is what they consider a legitimate target for retaliation. Channels affiliated with the state have openly celebrated the security panic. One network praised the plot's timing just days after diplomatic meetings in New York. They called it a perfect example of how what they term the soldiers of Islam operate, negotiating and fighting at the same time.

That combination of negotiating and fighting is exactly what's driving the political backlash. A third perspective, voiced by Conservative politicians, argues that the Labour government's failing to represent the interests of the British people. U S President Donald Trump argues that authorities shouldn't have put the suspects out on bail. He insists the men were looking to cause massive destruction to the military installation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio adds that the incident clearly involves a foreign government. Conservative politicians argue that shaking hands with supporters of Iranian violence is a mistake. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that his country provided the intelligence uncovering the attack. But Britain imposed sanctions on Israeli settlements the very next day. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch accuses the administration of chasing radical left-wing votes at home. She says they're prioritizing raw political self-interest over national security. Those on the right note that the British foreign secretary met his Iranian counterpart at the United Nations. But he failed to meet a single Israeli official.

Those diplomatic tensions are still playing out. The immediate threat to the Gloucestershire base has passed. And the American bomber fleet is back on domestic soil. What remains is a complex police investigation into the six bailed suspects. And there's a broader diplomatic standoff over how European allies balance hosting American military operations with the domestic security risks that follow.

That departure from Europe mirrors another drawdown in the Middle East, where the United States military has completely withdrawn from Iraq. That ends a deployment lasting more than twelve years under Operation Inherent Resolve. A bilateral agreement reached in two thousand and twenty-four under President Joe Biden set the departure in motion. And on September thirtieth, the final American forces left the country. That closes a chapter of conflict spanning over two decades. It cost the lives of more than four thousand five hundred United States troops.

For Tehran and its allied Iraqi paramilitary factions, that departure is a historic triumph. They see it as a victory won by local armed resistance. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force calls the exit a humiliating expulsion. He demands that every remaining trace of the United States military be cleared from both Iraqi land and airspace. In that view, the withdrawal secures a crushing defeat for Washington. It finally ends the foreign military presence. And it guarantees that lasting security will settle over the region. But their case goes even further. They argue that true sovereignty requires dismantling the remaining economic and travel blockades imposed by Washington. Recent American sanctions suspended flights between Iraq and Iran. Because of that, demonstrators carrying militia flags marched across southern and central Iraq in late September to protest the interference. Militia leaders condemned the flight ban. They called it an unjust siege that deliberately harms the country's economy and cuts millions of citizens off from their holy sites. So they're demanding that Iraq stop complying with American financial measures.

That momentum is exactly what worries people looking at the security vacuum left behind. Iraqi security analyst Jassim al-Bahadli warns that the lesson from the past two decades is that these vacuums can be extremely dangerous. Baghdad-based political analyst Ahmed Younis says the absence of a Western military presence will empower Iranian proxy groups. They'll expand their role in shaping state policies and consolidate their presence within key institutions. The immediate fear is that these factions will use the American exit to dominate political decision-making in Baghdad. That same vacuum leaves domestic forces dangerously exposed to a militant revival. Sleeper cells of the Islamic State showed increased movement for over two weeks leading up to the end of September. They're seeking to prove they can still launch bloody attacks. Without coalition air defenses, intelligence sharing, and drone surveillance, the military is ill-equipped. They simply can't stop militants from deploying improvised explosive drones. The fear on the ground is that the state still lacks control over the militias. And the Islamic State hasn't disappeared. The local partners meant to hold the line are already compromised by internal divisions and Iranian influence. In the Kurdistan Region, political deadlock between the major parties has left the area without a newly formed government for two years. The recent unification of the Peshmerga forces is only the first phase of a long path. And the region's economy is heavily penetrated by Tehran. One Iranian-linked conglomerate monopolizes trade through thirty-eight separate companies spanning oil, construction, and telecommunications.

Iraqi state authorities reject both the idea of a proxy victory and a security collapse. For them, the departure is the necessary transition into full sovereign ownership of national defense. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi declared that the end of the international coalition marks a new phase. Baghdad now assumes complete responsibility for its own stability and the ongoing fight against terrorism. Residents echoing the government's stance say it's now up to the state alone. They have to protect the country on the ground, in the sky, and on the water, without relying on foreign powers. And even with foreign troops gone, the state retains powerful financial safeguards anchored abroad to protect its stability. Approximately ninety percent of Iraq's state budget comes from oil revenue. The government continues to route that income through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That insulates its economy from foreign lawsuits. It also maintains a structural barrier against unchecked dollar access by local militias. That ensures the state keeps control over its own resources.

That structural barrier is part of a regional security architecture that has fundamentally changed. The federal government must now fund and execute its own counter-terrorism operations. And it has to do that while managing an economy still tied to the American financial system. All while navigating a domestic landscape heavily influenced by its neighbor to the east.

As American combat power exits the area, Israel recognized Somaliland in December two thousand and twenty-five. Then on Thursday, Ethiopia expelled ten Eritrean diplomats and an Egyptian envoy, giving them forty-eight hours to leave. Cairo retaliated by ordering an Ethiopian counsellor out. The collapse follows May meetings. That's where seven armed factions allied against the Ethiopian government. Egypt's now preparing to deploy up to ten thousand troops into Somalia. That comes after a decade of failed negotiations over Ethiopia's Nile dam. And this unfolds as the war against the Houthis passes the ten-year mark. China's also upgrading its Djibouti naval base almost a decade after opening it.

That regional buildup is exactly why the argument in Jerusalem is that partnering with Somaliland and Ethiopia establishes indispensable maritime depth against Iranian proxies and secures Red Sea shipping lanes. In this view, transforming Ethiopia, a nation of approximately one hundred and thirty million people, into a Red Sea naval power serves as a stabilizing force. Operating out of Berbera International Airport in Somaliland provides critical operational reach. It shortens the Israeli Air Force's flight distance to Yemen from eighteen hundred kilometers down to just five hundred and fifty. The case rests on treating Somaliland as a reliable, democratic partner capable of anchoring a pro-Western coalition. The territory's functioned as a successful, independent state for thirty-five years. That stands in sharp contrast to the corruption and terrorism plaguing the rest of Somalia. Situated just thirty-seven miles from Djibouti, it offers a vital geographic counterweight to the growing footprint of Chinese and Iranian-aligned actors dominating the surrounding waterways. For this camp, the sudden explosion of violence inside Ethiopia is a deliberate campaign by hostile neighboring regimes to thwart that legitimate regional integration. The January two thousand and twenty-four memorandum of understanding granted landlocked Ethiopia long-term access to the sea through Somaliland. Ethiopia's foreign ministry says Eritrea's carrying out direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence against it. The federal government's fighting a multi-front war to survive. Pro-government militias thank the national defense force for providing magnificent air support to recapture lost towns.

Those lost towns are just one piece of the fallout. Because the opposing perspective sees Israeli and Emirati expansion into Somaliland as a dangerous foreign intervention that violates territorial sovereignty. Ethiopia already relies on Djibouti to process close to ninety percent of its foreign trade. Eritrean media commentator Awel Sied argues the Ethiopian prime minister's acting as a simple proxy. In his words, executing an agenda dictated by the United Arab Emirates and the Mossad. Following the expulsion of its staff, Eritrea's foreign ministry announced it had no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties with Addis Ababa. In February two thousand and twenty-four, Turkey and Somalia signed a ten-year defense framework authorizing the Turkish navy to defend Somali waters. The Turkish president's publicly declared that Somalia's territorial integrity must be preserved in all circumstances. On land, Ankara's constructing a strategic space and missile base in Warsheikh. That comes at an estimated cost of three hundred and fifty million dollars. The argument concludes that Addis Ababa's aggressive external posturing and centralizing domestic policies are driving a catastrophic military escalation. By alienating its former allies, the Ethiopian government's brought upon itself the nightmare of coalitions. It's uniting disparate peripheries against the center. The resulting violence is devastating the country. Fighting in the Afar region's already forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes. Edward Bach, a senior Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, calls the reported blasts in the capital a political game-changer.

That political game-changer means the diplomatic rupture formalizes a military encirclement that's already underway. Ethiopia's now fighting a multi-front insurgency at home while facing a coordinated buildup of hostile foreign forces on its borders. The immediate cost is borne by the tens of thousands fleeing the renewed violence. Because the Horn of Africa's fracturing into two heavily armed, opposing camps.

Across the waters, on October second, Houthi forces captured the Yemeni port of Mokha and severed Saudi bypass pipelines on the southern Red Sea coast. Edward Fishman is with the Council on Foreign Relations. He says the Houthis could theoretically shut off the Bab el-Mandeb and leave Saudi Arabia without any way to export oil. In Washington on September twenty-eighth, the Saudi foreign minister met with the American secretary of state. That same week, Saudi air defenses intercepted two drones and two ballistic missiles fired from Yemen. And while that was happening, six officials and diplomats briefed reporters on preparations for the planned Saudi ground campaign.

That ground campaign is the only option left for Saudi Arabian leadership and allied planners. Control over the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea coast must be recovered militarily. They need that before any peace negotiations or normal maritime commerce can resume. Michael Ratney's a former American ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He explains that Riyadh would ideally like to vanquish the Houthis completely. But the immediate imperative is a limited operation to retake coastal areas and restore normal shipping traffic. They want to return to the situation before the militants controlled the territory. So planners are weighing a synchronized, multi-front campaign. It would stretch across four Yemeni governorates, including Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al-Jawf. Estimates for the launch of the offensive range from within a week to after the American midterm elections in early November. The priority until now has been holding positions and stabilizing the front lines. But the strategy's now moving firmly onto the offensive. Success rests entirely on the performance of local Yemeni fighters. Depending on the final scale of the operation, more than one hundred thousand Yemeni troops could be mobilized. They'd push the militants away from the shipping lanes. A deep rupture over Yemen pushed tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates into the open in two thousand and twenty-five. Then on September twenty-ninth, the Saudi crown prince held bilateral talks in Riyadh with the vice president of the United Arab Emirates. They reviewed fraternal relations and regional developments. The goal is enhancing joint cooperation. Further support comes from outside the Gulf. Pakistan's deployed between thirty thousand and forty thousand soldiers to defend Saudi land borders. They've also dispatched four cargo planes loaded with air defense systems, light artillery, and drones to Aden.

But all those troops and planes don't convince the skeptics of independent Saudi military capability. They see an army that lacks the strength and ground cohesion to defeat the Houthis alone. The Saudis fought a fruitless six-year war against the Iranian-backed militants. Then they sued for a truce. That left the Yemeni capital of Sanaa under Houthi control just one hundred and twenty-five miles from the Saudi border. During that decade-long fight, the kingdom suffered more than a thousand drone and missile strikes. The anti-Houthi militias tasked with leading the new offensive remain fractured and unorganized. They're entirely unprepared to dislodge a disciplined Houthi military force that's currently applying pressure across multiple fronts. The Lebanese media outlet Al Mayadeen quoted Iranian source Mehdi Rahimi. He says Iran had been invited to join the Mecca agreement. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement was signed on August seventh with Turkey and Pakistan. But it's yielded no military action. And a September twenty-fourth meeting between the foreign ministers of all three nations produced nothing but talk. Recognizing these limitations, the Saudi crown prince appealed to the American president at least twice in recent days to act against the Houthis. But those requests for direct intervention went nowhere. Or Horvitz writes in the Jewish Journal about his nearly two decades in Israeli intelligence. He notes he came to understand how closely the strategic interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia align. Saudi crude oil exports fell in August to roughly three million barrels per day. That marks their lowest level since at least two thousand and seventeen. The maritime routes are choked off. His argument concludes that only two states in the free world are ready and able to offer the protection required to prevent Iran and its proxies from capturing Saudi oil wealth. Those are the United States and Israel.

So without that direct American or Israeli intervention, Saudi Arabia's now staking its economic lifelines and border security on a massive ground operation led by local proxy forces. The outcome of this multi-front offensive will determine whether Riyadh can break the maritime blockade. Or it'll show if it remains permanently encircled by Iranian-backed militias.

Farther north in Europe, late last month, the United Kingdom prepared import bans and Norway advanced legislation imposing prison terms for settlement trade. Then on September eighth, the British foreign secretary announced import bans on West Bank settlements. Those restrictions are scheduled to take effect within six to nine months. Meanwhile, the Netherlands enacted its own restrictions barring settlement goods from entering the country on September twenty-second. And in response, Israel gave Dutch diplomats operating in Ramallah seven days to surrender their Israeli-issued credentials.

That diplomatic retaliation hits European officials who say they're just upholding the rule of law. The Dutch foreign minister argues that the restrictions aren't directed against Israel itself. Instead, they fulfill an obligation under international law not to contribute to an unlawful situation by economically sustaining illegal settlements. The British government echoes this. Its Middle East minister reminds domestic audiences that their quarrel is strictly with the current Israeli cabinet, never with the Jewish people. And the case goes further. It frames these trade barriers as the necessary next step to preserve a two-state solution. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband argues that his government's moves have successfully mobilized the international community. The British prime minister agrees. He states that the country will be principled in securing a two-state solution. Palestinian diplomats say this marks a historic shift from statements to actual implementation. Because the British government insists that advocating for two states means taking meaningful action to ensure both a secure Israel and a secure Palestine. Now eleven other states have joined the United Kingdom in implementing similar trade bans. Crucially, this camp maintains that holding Israel accountable doesn't mean abandoning essential security ties. Miliband insists that Britain will always recognize the threats Israel faces. But he adds that this can't justify the suffering the Israeli government has inflicted in Gaza and the West Bank. To that end, the British government has suspended or refused more than eighty export licences for items that could be used by the military in Gaza. About thirty were suspended in September twenty twenty-four. That was followed by more than fifty subsequent refusals. Yet British officials defend keeping the broader F-thirty-five fighter jet program intact. They explain that pulling British-made spares from the global pool would jeopardize allied security.

Those targeted countries see it entirely differently. The Israeli government and its allies view these measures as hostile economic warfare. In this view, the bans act as punitive boycotts that reward regional adversaries. The Israeli prime minister calls the British sanctions absurd. He argues London imposed them almost immediately after receiving Israeli intelligence that foiled an Iranian-sponsored attack on British soil. American lawmakers agree. One Republican senator calls the European moves fundamentally anti-Israel. And a Republican congressman warns that American states will boycott foreign jurisdictions that boycott Israel. The penalties are severe. Violating the Dutch ban can result in prison sentences of up to six years and fines of up to one million one hundred thousand euros. So the Israeli response is forceful retaliation. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar warns that any country acting in a one-sided manner against Israel will lose its regional influence. He says Israel won't ignore measures intended to harm it. He insists that if the Netherlands wishes to represent its interests with the Palestinians, it must do so from Palestinian Authority territory. This doctrine is already in motion. Responding to the British measures, Israel banned twelve British public figures. It also terminated British participation in training Palestinian security forces in Ramallah.

Then you have the people pushing for much tougher action. For advocates of Palestine solidarity, narrow trade bans are symbolic half-measures that ignore deep corporate entanglement within the wider Israeli economy. A Democratic congressman argues that anyone taking Palestinian land must choose between pursuing settlements or doing business with the United States. A progressive policy officer adds that forcing financial institutions to wind down activities that support settlements would quickly create a de facto freeze on West Bank building. Meanwhile, the British Green Party leader points out that Ithaca Energy holds a twenty percent stake in the Rosebank oil project. And she notes the firm has paid over one billion dollars in dividends to its Israeli parent company since the year two thousand. Approving this project tests whether the sanctions regime is fit for purpose. A former American special representative notes that a half-century of asking nicely has failed to stop settlement expansion. That makes consequences long overdue. For these advocates, the issue is a broader system of state apartheid. They cite an Israeli human rights organization describing the situation as a system of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

This whole diplomatic rupture leaves Western capitals attempting to thread a needle. They're caught between domestic pressure for human rights accountability and maintaining strategic alliances in the Middle East. As European nations codify their trade restrictions into law, Israel has demonstrated its willingness to sever diplomatic access in response. And that leaves the immediate cost to fall on the diplomatic channels themselves.

While European governments debate sanctions, Qatari mediators are passing a de-escalation framework between Washington and Tehran. They're trying to pause an eight-month war. At the United Nations General Assembly last week, Iran submitted a proposal to halt regional hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days. That offer is contingent on the United States lifting its naval blockade on Iranian ports. The diplomatic push centers on an amended version of that trust-building plan. And mediators are now shuttling feedback between the two capitals.

That feedback lands on a divided Washington. The Trump administration and its supporters argue that maximum economic and naval pressure has neutralized Iranian leverage in the Gulf. Investment banks JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs calculate that regional energy exports have rebounded to over ninety-five percent of pre-war levels. Specifically through the Strait of Hormuz, an average of seventeen to nineteen tankers are securely transiting the waterway daily under American military protection. President Donald Trump boasts that the United States has, in his words, almost total control of the chokepoint. The Treasury Department's Operation Economic Outcast has halted eighty to ninety percent of Iran's international flights. They did that by threatening to cut foreign service providers out of the dollar system. Combined with a southern maritime blockade that shipping platforms assess as nearly one hundred percent effective, the financial strangulation is absolute. The Iranian rial collapsed to a record low of more than two and a half million to the dollar on the open market in late September. And daily oil exports have plummeted to roughly two hundred and sixty thousand barrels. In this view, Tehran is losing badly. They're offering ceasefire terms out of pure weakness. So Washington must not grant unearned concessions. American officials project that Iran's floating offshore oil reserves will be completely exhausted by mid-October. Trump has explicitly rejected reports that he's willing to offer sanctions relief. He stated on social media that the claim is untrue, and he offered them nothing. He insists that the Iranian leadership only wants an immediate deal to open the strait because they're losing so badly.

The Iranian leadership and state officials see that weakness entirely differently. For them, the Islamic Republic maintains absolute escalation dominance. And shipping will remain paralyzed until the United States halts its attacks. They argue that Iran retains the military capability to shut down regional energy infrastructure if its own economy is blockaded. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned lawmakers that, just as they've said before, in any region where they don't sell oil, no one will sell oil. And if their security isn't guaranteed, no infrastructure will be safe. This resolve is actively demonstrated in the water. Two merchant vessels were struck by projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz in late September. The government maintains that the crisis can only be settled through a diplomatic compromise. One that removes sanctions in exchange for reopening the waterway. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emphasizes that there's no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions. Iran has submitted seven specific demands to the United States for ending the standoff. Those include unfreezing billions of dollars in blocked Iranian assets. Araghchi insists that their conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on those conditions being met. In this camp, American aggression and regional interference are ultimately doomed to fail. They say that reality is proven by the retreat of American forces from Iraq. The United States completed the withdrawal of its last troops from Iraqi bases at the end of September. A commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq celebrated the exit. He called it a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project. Capitalizing on the moment, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps addressed a twenty-six-page open letter to American voters. They urged them to remove from power the evil, deceitful, and violent politicians who're responsible for America’s current state.

That strategy of waiting out the clock has a third camp looking at the price tag. They argue that revived oil movements rely on exorbitant rerouting and a naval shield that leaves global energy prices dangerously elevated. The American naval blockade of Iran is estimated to cost thirty-two and a half million dollars each day. Meanwhile, the cost of moving a tanker of oil from the Middle East to China has skyrocketed. It went from seven dollars a barrel before the war to thirty-five dollars. Maritime expert Sal Mercogliano notes the paradox here. Physical oil movements are recovering, but the maritime system is doing so through longer voyages, ship-to-ship transfers, rerouting, and extraordinary war risk costs, rather than a return to normal operations. Writer Sami Al-Arian points out that a single fifty-thousand-dollar attack drone forces the defender to launch a two-million-dollar interceptor missile. Direct American military expenditures reached approximately forty-four billion dollars by early September. Twenty-eight billion of that was dedicated to munitions and interceptors alone. Even with its leverage diminished, the Iranian regime has repeatedly withstood economic pressure. They do that by diverting money from their citizens to their military, ensuring they can continue funding calibrated attacks. Consequently, this camp concludes that true maritime stability and regional de-escalation are impossible without a formal diplomatic compromise between Washington and Tehran. Energy executives emphasize that genuine market relief will only arrive through a signed agreement with Iran. Those on the left suggest that a viable proposal should build on the July two thousand and twenty-six Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. Senator Richard Blumenthal warns that the conflict is a reckless, insidiously costly war.

The standoff leaves both capitals absorbing immense daily costs while waiting for the other to break. Washington must sustain an expensive naval deployment to keep the shipping lanes open. Tehran faces a collapsing currency and an increasingly desperate population. Any permanent relief now depends on whether the two sides can agree on the sequencing of a final compromise.

That's the view from here. Crosswinds is a Daily Lion production. Don't forget to tune in to the other Daily Lion shows: Sixty One, All Fronts, and Tribe & State. See you next Tuesday.