Yasmina@yasminalombaert
Listen, if you’re tired of the diplomatic fluff and want someone to actually call out the chaos, you need to hear this. Claude Malhuret just went absolutely scorched-earth in the French Senate, and frankly, it’s a masterclass in truth-telling.
He doesn't hold back on the "madmen" wrecking the global order—slamming putin for his relentless, bloody ego-trip in Ukraine and dragging Trump’s new "circus" of a cabinet for treating foreign policy like a private piggy bank.
Malhuret is basically the only adult left in the room, cutting through the MAGA noise and the Kremlin’s lies with the kind of sharp, witty clarity we desperately need right now. It’s brutal, it’s honest, and it’s a total must-watch.
Speech by Claude Malhuret regarding the situation in the Near and Middle East:
"Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen of the Cabinet, in February 2022, a dangerous madman drunk on grandeur lit a fuse in Ukraine that blew up a powder keg and disrupted the world order. The war was supposed to last a week. It is now entering its fifth year. In February 2026, another dangerous madman lit another fuse in the Near East that once again threatens international balance. Was that war also supposed to last a week? One month later, the whole world is asking: 'What is going to happen?' The simple, short, and precise answer is this: God only knows.
A year ago in this very place, I compared the Trump presidency to the court of Nero. I was wrong; it is a 'Court of Miracles.' An anti-vax former heroin addict as Secretary of Health; a climate skeptic as Secretary of Econology; an alcoholic TV host as Secretary of Defense; a former agent of Qatar as Attorney General; a putin groupie as National Security Advisor. A Turkish proverb says: 'When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king; the palace becomes a circus.'
This 'fine team' decided to create a competitor to the UN. Since his Peace Council has existed, Trump has launched more military strikes than Biden did during his entire term. Every time an internal scandal resurfaces, bombs explode somewhere in the world as a diversion. Bomb more to gain more. There isn't a country where Trump hasn't taken advantage of the situation to enrich himself, never forgetting his family: a private Boeing gifted by Qatar, investments in all Gulf projects or elsewhere, manipulation of stock market prices benefiting a few insiders. A single one of these conflicts of interest would have triggered an immediate impeachment procedure here, but we are not here—we are in MAGA America: the conduct of public affairs at the service of private interests.
After the customs duties, Greenland, the abandonment of Ukraine, the humiliation of allies, the ineffective back-and-forth in Venezuela and so many others, a new senseless adventure begins.
Let me be clearly understood: I am the last to complain about the decapitation of the Mullahs' regime and the first to demand freedom for the Iranian people. But what is the strategy to achieve it? And have the collateral damages, including for the Iranians, been measured? The answer is: there is no strategy, and collateral damages are written off as losses. Just as in January, when Trump called on Iranians to take to the streets, only to leave them to be massacred by the Basij.
After the pretext of an 'imminent' Iranian atomic bomb—contradicted by the Director of American Intelligence herself—and then the argument for regime change, it is Marco Rubio who finally let the cat out of the bag: we went in because we followed Netanyahu. In other words, we have no objective of our own. Trump ignored the warnings of the few who had the courage to tell him what would obviously happen: the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, the extension of the war to the entire Near East, and finally the global repercussions.
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