World Briefing Plus: Never Has the U.S. Looked Weaker. Rarely Has Iran Looked Stronger
Plus: Ukraine's war grinds on while Europe squabbles, the World Cup enters Week 2 - and Canada's shameful move to claw back citizenship from people it just welcomed in
Three days after the U.S. and Iran signed an MOU, Iran's military has already declared the Strait of Hormuz closed - and Washington and Tehran can't even agree publicly on whether that's true. In this week's deep dive, I break down why this agreement was never built to last, what it tells us about who actually has leverage in the Gulf right now, plus the latest from Ukraine - amid deteriorating Poland-Ukraine relations on the eve of a major reconstruction conference in Gdansk - the World Cup 2026, and a Canadian immigration scandal that should embarrass Ottawa. This one's for World Briefing Plus subscribers - the people who make it possible for me to keep doing this work from wherever the story actually is.
If you're reading this as a free subscriber: this is the kind of reporting - from the ground, connecting the dots in real time - that doesn't happen without people backing it directly. There's no newsroom behind World Briefing, no bureau, no expense account. Just subscribers who've decided independent coverage of moments like this one is worth paying for. Upgrade to World Briefing Plus and you get the full deep dive, every week, plus everything else behind the paywall.
