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Wednesday, June 17, 2026
[Salon] Why the US and Israel Diverged on Iran Peace -
https://search.app/68TEhggueQEJhkz67
Why the US and Israel Diverged on Iran Peace
June 16, 2026
By: Leon Hadar
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The end of the Iran War closely resembles that of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
History, as the great powers of the Middle East have never quite managed to learn, does not repeat itself exactly. Fifty-three years separate the October ceasefire that ended the Yom Kippur War and the rickety truce now descending on the Iran-Israel-America conflagration of 2025–2026. And yet, for anyone who has spent time studying the peculiar geometry of the US-Israel “special relationship,” the two endings feel eerily familiar, a reminder that Washington’s friendship, however genuine, has always come with asterisks written in very fine print.
Begin with the mechanics. In October 1973, with Israeli armor encircling Egypt’s Third Army on the western bank of the Suez Canal, and with Israeli Prime MinisterGolda Meir’s government poised to deliver a conclusive military blow, the Nixon administration did something that would become a recurring feature of American statecraft: it saved the enemy from total defeat and called the result a diplomatic triumph. Henry Kissinger, the supreme practitioner of what he might have called “constructive ambiguity” and what his critics called breathtaking cynicism, brokered a ceasefire that rescued Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s battered forces and handed Washington the enviable role of the region’s indispensable mediator.
Israel accepted, not because it wanted to, but because it had no real choice. The US airlift that had resupplied Israeli forces, Operation Nickel Grass, had also created a dependency. Those who supply the ammunition tend to acquire a veto over their beneficiary’s operations.
Jump forward five decades. In June 2025, after 12 days of Israeli and American airstrikes that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities and military infrastructure, President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, publicly, on social media, with characteristic flourish, before Jerusalem had fully signed on. Washington, having achieved its core objective of degrading Iran’s nuclear program, was satisfied. Israel, which had its own list of targets yet to be struck, was told, in effect, “enough”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government complied, albeit with visible reluctance, as it would again when the conflict reignited in February 2026 and another ceasefire was eventually imposed through Pakistani mediation in April.
The pattern is so consistent it might as well be doctrine. America intervenes, America decides when the fighting stops, and Israel, the nominal partner, discovers that the “special relationship” has a hierarchy that becomes most visible precisely at the moment of victory.
The differences between 1973 and 2025–2026 are real and should not be elided. In 1973, Israel was attacked; the United States rushed arms to prevent its defeat. In 2025–2026, it was Israel and the United States that struck first, a joint operation against Iranian nuclear sites that both governments had been contemplating, in various forms, for the better part of two decades. The adversaries also differ in kind: Sadat’s Egypt was a Soviet-aligned state with a conventional-warfare army; the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its weakened post-October 7 condition, was a regional hegemon whose proxies Israel had systematically dismantled in the preceding years.
Yet the underlying geometry of the US-Israel relationship remains stubbornly unchanged. In both cases, Washington found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to manage not only the enemy but also its ally. In both cases, the United States discovered that Israel’s strategic objectives and America’s, so neatly aligned in the heat of crisis, begin to diverge the moment the endgame comes into focus.
Kissinger, in his unsentimental way, understood this perfectly in 1973. He wanted to use Israel’s battlefield success as leverage, not as a conclusion. A destroyed Egyptian Third Army would have been a humiliation that hardened Arab opinion for a generation; a rescued Egypt, grateful for American intervention, might be peeled away from Moscow and brought into Washington’s orbit. Israel’s victory opened the Arab world to American diplomacy.
Trump’s calculus, characteristically less articulated but no less real, followed a similar logic. Having struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, he wanted an Iran chastened but not destroyed. Similarly, in 2026, after it became clear that the Islamic Republic would not collapse after the targeted killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Trump wanted an Iran that could eventually sign an agreement, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and allow the president to declare a historic deal. A maximalist Israeli campaign that continued to aim for toppling the Iranian regime risked generating exactly the kind of chaos, a power vacuum, regional escalation, a nuclear program dispersed into unknown hands, that Washington had gone to war to prevent.
Hence the pattern, repeated across both conflicts and over five decades: America provides the strategic umbrella, absorbs the costs of regional entanglement, and then insists on shaping the outcome in accordance with its own interests, which are not identical to Israel’s, however much the two governments prefer to pretend otherwise.
The aftermath of the Yom Kippur War is remembered, with the benefit of hindsight, as a qualified Israeli victory that paradoxically opened the door to peace. The 1979 Camp David Accords, arguably the most consequential diplomatic achievement in the region’s modern history, grew directly from the soil tilled by Kissinger’s post-1973 shuttle diplomacy. Egypt left the Soviet orbit, signed a separate peace with Israel, and the Arab coalition that had threatened Israel’s existence fractured irreparably.
But for Israel in late 1973, none of this was visible. What was visible was the shock of an intelligence failure that had nearly proved catastrophic, the death of nearly 2,700 soldiers, a society shaken to its core, and a sense, troubling and not entirely irrational, that even the United States, its patron and arms supplier, had kept it on a leash during the critical final hours.
The aftermath of the 2025–2026 conflict is likely to present its own ambiguous ledger. Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by months, according to some American intelligence assessments, potentially longer if the strikes proved as effective as claimed. The regime survived the decapitation strikes, appointing Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader and continuing to resist. The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz sent ripple effects through global energy markets. And Israel, having fought across multiple fronts, Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran, is exhausted.
What the 2026 ceasefire negotiations have revealed, in the fragile memorandum of understanding announced by mediators, is that the fundamental questions remain unresolved: Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and the reconstruction of its military capacity. After 1973, the guns have stopped, but the underlying conflict has not been concluded, merely deferred, at considerable human and economic cost, to the next administration or the next crisis.
Observers on both sides of the American debate will draw their preferred lessons. Those inclined to see the US-Israel relationship through a sentimental lens will emphasize the partnership—the airlift in 1973, the joint strikes in 2025, the diplomatic cover provided across both conflicts. Those inclined toward a more realist accounting will note what the historical record makes unmistakable: when American and Israeli objectives diverge, it is Israel that is asked to defer.
This is not necessarily a betrayal, nor is it inexplicable. A great power with global commitments to manage, energy markets to stabilize, alliance structures to maintain, and domestic politics to navigate cannot simply subcontract its foreign policy to a smaller ally with existential stakes and a different time horizon. Kissinger understood this, even if he said so more tactfully in public than he did in private. Trump, whose transactionalism cuts through the diplomatic underbrush with the subtlety of a Caterpillar D9, has made the same calculation in his own idiom.
The question for Israel, the question that Israeli strategists and politicians have been debating in earnest since 1973, is what to make of a patron whose support is indispensable and whose constraints are inescapable. The answer, available to Israeli leaders willing to look squarely at the record, is that the special relationship is real but bounded; that American power can save Israel from its worst dangers but cannot be counted on to let Israel finish every fight on its own terms; and that the morning after every American-brokered ceasefire will require Israel to rebuild its deterrence, reconstitute its alliances, and prepare for the next round that the ceasefire did not prevent, merely postpone.
The Middle East that greeted the Yom Kippur War ceasefire in October 1973 was reorganizing itself for a long transition, one that produced, eventually, a cold but durable peace between Israel and Egypt, the hollowing out of pan-Arabism as an ideological force, and the eventual emergence of Iran as the region’s principal disruptive power. It is not entirely fanciful to wonder whether the 2026 ceasefire might similarly set in motion a long, painful transition, one whose endpoint no one can yet discern, but which will likely look quite different from the maximalist visions advanced by either Netanyahu or Trump during the heat of the campaign.
In the meantime, Israel finds itself where it has so often found itself since 1948: militarily formidable, diplomatically dependent, and navigating the yawning gap between what it feels it needs to survive and what its indispensable ally is prepared to permit. The morning after the guns go quiet is always, for Jerusalem, a morning of reckoning—with what was achieved, what was left undone, and what price will be paid, years hence, for the terms that Washington imposed.
Fifty-three years on, the lesson of 1973 has not changed. It has merely been confirmed, again, at a higher cost and to a wider audience.
About the Author: Leon Hadar
Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor with The National Interest, is a former senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and a former research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He has taught international relations, Middle East politics, and communication at American University in Washington, DC, and the University of Maryland, College Park. A columnist and blogger with Haaretz (Israel) and Washington correspondent for The Business Times of Singapore, he is a former United Nations bureau chief for The Jerusalem Post.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
[Salon] Realpolitik Triumphs — For Now
https://leonhadar.substack.com/p/trumps-iran-deal?utm_source=
Trump’s Iran Deal
Realpolitik Triumphs — For Now
Leon Hadar 6/16/26
The Art of the Deal Meets the Art of the Possible in the Persian Gulf
Washington has a habit of dressing up its foreign policy in the language of moral purpose. Presidents invoke democracy, human rights, and the rules-based international order as if they were divine mandates rather than rhetorical conveniences. So there is something almost refreshing — and certainly clarifying — about watching the Trump administration conclude a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran that is unapologetically transactional, stripped of Wilsonian pretense, and justified almost entirely on the grounds of what it delivers for American interests.
The agreement announced on June 14 — confirmed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as mediator — commits both sides to an immediate and permanent end to military operations, with the Strait of Hormuz set to reopen upon the formal signing in Switzerland. The details remain to be filled in, with sixty days of follow-on negotiations expected to address sanctions relief and Iran’s nuclear program.
Critics on the left will complain that Trump bombed his way to a negotiating table he could have reached diplomatically. Critics on the neoconservative right will complain that he stopped short of regime change. Both critiques contain a grain of truth. Neither quite captures what actually happened.
What happened, stripped of the spin, is a classic exercise in coercive diplomacy — the application of military force not as an end in itself, but as a means of altering the strategic calculus of an adversary. U.S. and Israeli strikes in 2025 targeted Fordow and Isfahan, significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear program, while the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global trade and sent shockwaves through energy markets. Both sides absorbed costs they could not indefinitely sustain. A deal became rational.
This is realpolitik in its most classical form — not Kissingerian elegance, but the rougher American variant that Nixon might have recognized: leverage applied, concessions extracted, handshakes exchanged, ideology parked at the door. Whatever one thinks of the means, the logic is coherent in a way that the Bush-era “axis of evil” framework never was. That framework demanded transformation; this one demands compliance.
The analogy that comes to mind is not Munich — the inevitable rhetorical grenade that hawks will lob — but rather Nixon’s opening to China. That too was a deal with a regime that Washington had spent decades demonizing. That too was denounced by ideological purists. And that too reflected a hardheaded assessment that the alternatives were worse. One need not celebrate the Islamic Republic to acknowledge that a negotiated settlement of a conflict that was disrupting one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, killing thousands, and straining American alliances across the region is preferable to its continuation.
That said, the realist in me reaches for the appropriate caution. Neither side has shared the exact terms of the deal, and whether it resolves major differences over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s wars with Iranian proxies remains to be seen. The Iranian side has shown considerable skill over decades at signing agreements, banking the concessions, and revisiting compliance at moments of convenience. The Trump administration, for its part, has shown that it prizes announcements over implementation — the signing ceremony in Geneva will be theatrical, whatever the substance.
And then there is Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel is not a party to the negotiated deal, while stating that he and Trump are in “full agreement” that Iran must not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons — a formulation that manages simultaneously to endorse the goal and distance itself from the method. The Israelis, who wanted a more comprehensive dismantlement of Iranian power, are reported to view the deal in its current form as a deep disappointment. This matters. A deal that leaves Israel feeling strategically exposed creates its own set of pressures on the durability of any arrangement.
The broader regional architecture also remains unsettled. Iran’s network of proxies — battered by years of Israeli strikes, weakened by the fall of Assad in Damascus, and stressed by the events of the past months — has not been dissolved by this agreement. The realist knows that power vacuums invite filling.
None of this is reason to condemn the deal. It is reason to be clear-eyed about what it is and what it is not. It is a ceasefire, not a peace. It is a memorandum of understanding, not a strategic settlement. It is a beginning of a negotiation, not the end of one.
But sometimes a ceasefire is precisely what the moment requires. The alternative — continued fighting, a closed strait, spiraling energy prices, and the ever-present risk of escalation into something far larger — was not a serious strategic option for a United States that still has other theaters to manage, an economy to tend to, and a China challenge that dwarfs anything Tehran can muster.
Trump’s foreign policy critics have long accused him of having no strategy, only tactics. On Iran, there is something that at least rhymes with strategy: maximum pressure to compel maximum concessions, then a deal when one becomes available. Whether the follow-on negotiations produce durable arrangements on the nuclear question and sanctions relief will determine whether this goes down as a genuine strategic achievement or merely a very loud pause.
The Washington foreign policy establishment — wedded to its own form of ideological rigidity, whether neoconservative or liberal internationalist — will struggle to credit this administration with any genuine accomplishment. That is its own form of motivated reasoning. Realpolitik, practiced competently, does not require ideological consistency. It requires a clear view of interests, an accurate assessment of power, and the flexibility to take a deal when one is on the table.
Whether Trump has those qualities in adequate measure is, as always, a genuinely open question.
Monday, June 15, 2026
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Saturday, June 13, 2026
[Salon] Israel’s Counter-Hamas Proxies - ArabDigest.org
Israel’s Counter-Hamas Proxies
Summary: Israel has historically utilised a strategy of politicide in the Gaza Strip by backing proxy collaborator militias to fragment Palestinian society and attempt to establish a postwar governing alternative to Hamas. Despite receiving Israeli arms and salaries and international validation these criminal gangs while serving Israel have betrayed Gazans trapped in a shrinking enclave.
Recent intelligence developments have cast a spotlight on the behind-the-scenes engineering of postwar Palestinian governance in the Gaza Strip. Shin Bet chief David Zini recently met with exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan in the United Arab Emirates, highlighting secret discussions regarding the enclave’s future leadership. Dahlan, a former head of the PA’s Preventive Security Force and a fierce critic of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, lives in Abu Dhabi and is frequently floated by Israeli and international officials as a prime candidate to oversee a transitional technocratic government in postwar Gaza. He is described as a close confidante of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed.
The meeting aptly illustrates a structural paradigm of conflict management deeply embedded in Israeli handling of Palestine. Since its early political formation, Israel has consistently sought to deprive Palestinians of national legitimacy and erode their identity through a policy of politicide. In order to infiltrate Palestinian society and distort its collective will, a central Israeli strategy has been the recruitment of rogue groups operating outside the national consensus. These client actors are tasked with carrying out destabilising activities to undermine Palestinian liberation from within, a recurring pattern which reflects the long-standing Zionist doctrine of fragmenting the population, neutralising resistance capabilities and obstructing national unity.
The charge of collaboration has long functioned as a potent political weapon between rival Palestinian factions. The modern “collaborator” charge first emerged textually during the May 1983 campus clashes at the Islamic University of Gaza between the Islamist Islamic Block and pro-PLO Fatah students. Following a violent brawl, the PLO’s newspaper of record, Al-Fajr, explicitly accused the rising Islamic movement of acting as a “collaborating force” with occupation authorities.
This accusation transitioned into the popular sphere during university courtyard debates in 1985. Then, Yahya Sinwar representing the Islamic Block and Mohammed Dahlan representing Fatah routinely squared off. Dahlan famously popularised the collaborator accusation against the Islamists during these debates, cementing a bitter personal, political and ideological rivalry that would continuously shape Palestinian internal security discourse for the next four decades.
Yahya Sinwar who went on to become a senior Hamas leader and was killed by the IDF in 2024 had a deep preoccupation with informants which found expression in his 2004 semi-autobiographical novel, The Thorn and the Carnation, written while serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison. The text closely mirrors his real-life role co-founding Hamas' internal security wing, al-Majd, established explicitly to hunt down traitors. Through the character Ibrahim, a literary alter-ego for Sinwar himself, the novel outlines exactly how collaborators are perceived, entrapped and systematically punished.
In the novel, collaboration is portrayed as profound moral, religious, and social rot that destroys society from within. Sinwar stresses that Shin Bet relies heavily on internal treason to conduct successful Israeli assassinations, sudden raids and arrests. The narrative shows how occupation forces systematically exploit human vulnerabilities such as financial desperation, drug addiction, blackmail or the need for medical permits to coerce individuals into espionage.
The novel positions the tracking and liquidation of traitors as a sanctified duty required for collective survival. The narrative outlines a strict process: meticulous surveillance to gather undeniable proof, followed by abduction and intense interrogation to extract detailed confessions regarding handlers and compromised information.
Public execution of traitors by Hamas in the Gaza Strip
At the outset of the Gaza genocide in 2023, the old Israeli doctrine of recruiting surrogate internal actors re-emerged as a formal military strategy. The then defence minister Yoav Gallant proposed utilising local militias and clans as a governing alternative to Hamas. Following initial difficulties, the plan moved through the Knesset’s secret committees until Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar reformulated it into an operational plan. Approved by Netanyahu and top military officials, it launched as a pilot model with a small cell in Rafah designed for gradual expansion.
To foster these client groups, the colonising state engineered supportive conditions by launching incitement campaigns against the resistance and exploiting wartime starvation to encourage public unrest. This manifested in protests in Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis calling for an end to the war, the release of captives and the removal of Hamas. Zionist agents quickly mobilised these spontaneous actions into socio-economic protests under the banner “We want to live,” peaking in northern Gaza in March 2025 before spreading widely.
Out of this manufactured landscape, four primary collaborator militias emerged under direct Israeli patronage:
First, “The Popular Forces,” initially led by Yasir Abu Shabab and later by Ghassan al-Dahini. Abu Shabab, a Tarabin clan member previously jailed for theft and drug offences, was released following an Israeli attack on a Hamas prison at the outset of the conflict. Despite being illiterate, he “authored” an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that claimed his group had secured territory free from Hamas and called for international recognition. UN and Sky News reports exposed his group for coordinating with the Israeli military, extorting protection fees and systematically looting aid convoys along “Looters’ Alley”. Following an expanded circle of support, Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner even held direct discussions with Abu Shabab to evaluate using his forces to clear Hamas operatives out of the Rafah tunnels. Abu Shabab was killed on December 4, 2025, in a targeted Al-Qassam Brigades ambush, sparking public celebrations before al-Dahini assumed command under ongoing Israeli protection.
Second, the Counterterrorism Strike Force (CSF), led by 51-year-old Husam al-Astal, a former officer under Mohammed Dahlan. After assisting Mossad with a 2018 assassination in Malaysia, he was sentenced to death upon returning to Gaza but escaped prison during a 2024 airstrike. Operating 150 to 500 fighters just 700 metres from an Israeli outpost near Kizan al-Najjar, al-Astal coordinates directly with the occupation forces, pitches his “The New Gaza” project as a postwar alternative to Hamas, and coordinates with al-Dahini's Rafah militia.
Third, the Popular Defence Forces, formed in summer 2025 by Rami Hillis, a former Presidential Security Force employee. His 500-strong militia of Ramallah-paid PA employees operates in Shuja’iyyah and Tal al-Hawa under Israeli operational cover. Coordinating via the District Coordination Office and collaborating with Shin Bet, they conduct surveillance, target front-line resistance fighters, and abduct pro-resistance citizens to hand over to Israel.
Fourth, “The Popular Army,” launched in northern Gaza in September 2025 by Ashraf al-Mansi. Comprising several dozen armed individuals with criminal records, they claim control over Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. Al-Mansi faces active charges of running an espionage network for Israel and his militia has engaged in multiple post-ceasefire clashes with Hamas.
The operational tactics of these modern collaborator gangs rely heavily on exploitation and psychological leverage. A primary mechanism is the “luxury” marketing strategy, where gang leaders like Husam al-Astal explicitly flaunt prohibited foreign consumer goods such as chocolates, coffee and Seven-Up in propaganda videos to entice starving, desperate youth into joining their ranks, a tactic which earned al-Astal the popular public nickname “Abu Seven” or “Abu Sab'in”. Alongside this branding, these groups engage in massive aid theft to build localised power, drawing immense hatred from the general populace. Furthermore, security factions note that these gangs use civilians as human shields, distributing sweets and cigarettes east of the “yellow line” to scout Hamas positions, knowing the resistance will hesitate to shoot back into civilian crowds.
Official admissions confirm that Israel treats these criminal groups as a security asset. In May 2025, Netanyahu formally instructed the Civil Administration to distribute weapons to these gangs in southern Gaza, characterising the arming of the militias as a good step that saved soldiers’ lives. Haaretz documented that the military provides them with salaries and logistical support and integrates them into command-and-control software as if they were Israeli forces. This coordination expanded under a US-backed plan managed out of a Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat. Despite heavy institutional backing, numerous Israeli experts have criticised Israel’s reliance on client militias, calling it a doomed experiment that ignores bitter historical precedents such as the South Lebanon Army. Analysts like Michael Milshtein, Eitan Dangot, and various military officials argue these criminal gangs can never achieve ground superiority or substitute for a strategic, regionally coordinated governance framework. Haaretz commentator Jack Khoury underscored that leadership cannot be engineered from above, noting that Abu Shabab’s death exposed the vast gap between Zionist narratives and Gaza’s actual reality. Channel 14’s Omri Haim similarly stated that relying on local mercenaries is destined to fail against a deeply embedded resistance project.
Nevertheless, Israel continues this strategy with Kan reporting that the military is actively preparing further protection and withdrawal paths for these groups. The UN Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2803 on November 18, 2025, introduced a new dynamic, though it remains unclear if its mandate to dismantle armed groups will be applied to these collaborator militias, given that US and Israeli officials continue to engage them to secure localised reconstruction efforts. Ultimately, the failure to establish these militias as a legitimate governing alternative only serves to highlight the resistance’s popularity, steadfastness and ongoing capacity to systematically dismantle Israel’s surrogate networks.
[Salon] Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 -
ttps://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access
Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5
Jun 12, 2026
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected.
We received the directive from the government today at 5:21pm (ET). The letter did not provide specific details of its national security concern. Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking” Fable 5. We reviewed a demonstration of this specific technique being used to identify a small number of previously known, minor vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities all appear relatively simple, and we have found that other publicly-available models are able to discover them as well without requiring a bypass.
Anthropic’s posture with respect to Fable’s safeguards, as laid out in our launch blog post, is the following:
We have instituted strong safeguards that greatly reduce the likelihood that Fable is misused for tasks related to cybersecurity (among others). In fact, our safeguards are so strong that many users have complained that they are overly broad.
In the weeks leading up to the launch of Fable, Anthropic worked with the US government, the UK AISI, multiple private third-party organizations and internal teams to red-team Fable’s safeguards for thousands of hours in total.
These tests showed that Fable’s safeguards are substantially more effective than those of any previously deployed model.
No testers have yet been able to find a universal jailbreak—a jailbreak method that can very broadly bypass the model’s safeguards, unblocking a wide range of cyber capabilities.
We suspect that perfect jailbreak resistance is not currently possible for any model provider. Every safeguard used in the industry is vulnerable to non-universal jailbreaks (which can elicit some cyber information in specific circumstances), and it is likely that universal jailbreaks will eventually be found in the future. We stated this clearly when we released Fable 5.
Given that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth strategy with Fable 5. We aimed to make jailbreaks either narrow (in the case of non-universal jailbreaks) or very expensive to produce (in the case of universal jailbreaks), and to combine this with thorough monitoring to quickly detect and shut down any successful attacks. This is also why Anthropic has required 30-day retention of customer data with Fable—a policy change that carries real costs for us with customers, but that allows us to research and mitigate jailbreaks.
We stand by this defense in depth strategy. It reduces the risks posed by Fable, making them comparable to the risks of existing models already deployed across the industry.
We have not even received a disclosure of a concerning non-universal potential jailbreak that led to a harmful result. The potential jailbreaks that have been disclosed to us are either entirely benign responses or are minor findings that provide no Mythos-specific uplift.
To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws. Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government. We have reviewed a report that we believe is the basis of the government's directive and validated that the level of capability displayed there is widely available from other models (including OpenAI’s GPT-5.5), and is used every day by the defenders who keep systems safe. We will share more details over the next 24 hours.
We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users. However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.
As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles.
We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Health Care — US scales up screwworm - The Hill Guest Post
US scales up screwworm response
Federal authorities on Thursday launched a series of actions responding to the first New World screwworm cases detected in the U.S. in a decade.
© AP Photo/Eric Gay
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) activated a formal emergency response to the New World screwworm, with the agency investigating the outbreak and preparing for potential human exposure.
“The CDC is just one more step in the right direction that allows us to deploy more resources at the federal level,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters in Texas.
Concurrently, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to a generic over-the-counter tablet, nitenpyram, to treat New World screwworm in dogs and cats, marking the first generic animal drug authorized for use against the parasite.
At least seven cases have been confirmed in Texas and New Mexico so far among cattle, a goat and a dog.
New World screwworm is a fly whose larvae feed on living tissue of warm-blooded animals. It enters through open wounds and burrows into the flesh, causing severe wounds and animal suffering if not detected and treated quickly.
The screwworm was eradicated in the U.S. in the 1960s, but it has come back before. The most recent outbreak occurred between 2016 and 2017 in Florida.
The parasite is endemic across South America and the Caribbean. Human infections are rare and there haven’t been any U.S. cases reported so far in this outbreak.
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
POGO, Mark Thompson, The Bunker, "Never Enough" (6/10/26) Guest Post
https://www.pogo.org
June 10, 2026
Washington, DC
This week in The Bunker: When the fiscal floodgates open, lots of ways to spend defense dollars bloom — a new bunker buster; a warning that our stock of warplanes is waning; how about a new military service while we’re at it; and more.
NEVER ENOUGH
Better big bombs, more planes, new service
You know how when your boss schedules an hour-long meeting, even though it merits only 30 minutes? The Pentagon’s pretty much the same way. No matter how high you draw that budget top line, those wily, ever-efficient Defense Department bureaucrats (at least in this regard) will find a way to meet it.
This is less of a problem when the Pentagon is on a normal-dollar diet. But these days, fanned by waves of exaggerated existential threats to the American way of life, the U.S. government is intent on pumping $1.5 trillion next year into the American way of death. In recent days, the U.S. military has decided it needs a better bunker buster, Congress has warned the armed forces don’t have enough warplanes, and a pair of hawkish think tanks thinks the Pentagon needs a new service branch. Proposals like this predictably pop up, like mushrooms amid a lush lawn following a rain, whenever the money’s flowing.
In 2011, Admiral Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon had become lazy in the decade following 9/11 as its budget doubled. “It hasn’t forced us to make the hard trades. It hasn’t forced us to prioritize. It hasn’t forced us to do the analysis,” he said. “And it hasn’t forced us to limit ourselves, and get to a point in a very turbulent world, of what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.”
We didn’t take Mullen’s advice then. And now we’re doubling the defense budget again.
BETTER BIG BOMB
Because, why not?
President Donald Trump said he “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago when seven B-2 bombers attacked its underground bunkers with 14 GBU-57bunker busters. The monstrous bombs, each weighing 15 tons, were the key weapon in “Operation Midnight Hammer.” But apparently, it was “Operation 11:59 P.M. Hammer,” because he launched additional U.S. attacks in February to try to finish the job.
So the Air Force is seeking a replacement for that Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which it’s calling the Next-Generation Penetrator (GBU-76/B, in Defense Department nomenclature). It wants contractors (PDF)to help with “all aspects of research & development, production, testing, and delivery” of the new bomb. Details are sketchy, but they include complex calculations into when the bomb detonates — critical to it blowing up at a specific depth deep underground — as well as grappling with the challenges posed by “Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages/Obsolescence Prevention” (PDF). Hope springs eternal.
The existing Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to destroy nuclear facilities or enemy command posts buried deeply underground. Its steel casing reportedly drills though up to 200 feet of rock before exploding (think of it as the ultimate deafening rock concert, featuring the rolling stones).
You can’t say the Pentagon doesn’t have a sense of humor. “The Government encourages all responsible businesses, including small businesses, to respond to this Sources Sought,” the June 1 solicitation said, adding that they have until June 16 to seek work on various elements. (The first-gen bunker-buster [PDF] was built by Boeing.)
Don’t fret if this new-and-improved non-nuclear bunker buster doesn’t pound enough stone into sand. That’s because the Pentagon is working on a new atomic bunker-buster, too. “The Nuclear Deterrent System-Air-delivered will provide the President with additional nuclear options to defeat Hard and Deeply Buried Targets, ensuring that adversaries cannot place their most valued assets beyond the reach of America’s nuclear forces,” a government spokesperson recently told The War Zone. “The program is moving aggressively, and further information will become publicly available when it is strategically beneficial to the United States.”
Because bombing their nuclear-weapons bunkers with our nuclear bunker-busters is just Good Government 101.
READY FOR TAKEOFF
U.S. warplane count slips below legal limit
The Air Force’s fighter fleet has dropped below the minimum required by law, Representative August Pfluger (R-TX, as well as “a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, battle-tested fighter pilot, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, and Chairman of the U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors”) warned June 2.
Congress has required the Navy to have 11 aircraft carriers since 2006. But The Bunker didn’t know that since 2017, Congress has also required the Air Force to maintain a fleet of at least 1,145 war-ready fighters. (What’s next: The Army required to maintain an arsenal of 2 million bullets?) Pfluger, a one-time F-22 fighter pilot, says now is the time to invest in airpower. “In Congress, this is a moment in time where we have the ability to fund airpower … so that we keep our nation safe,” he said.
But the Air Force’s No. 2 general warns that the nation’s defense contractors can’t produce any more warplanes than they’re currently building. “Right now, I’d say our demand signal is outstripping their ability to produce quality airplanes on schedule, on time,” General John Lamontagne, the service’s vice chief of staff, said June 4. “Candidly, we probably had some more opportunities to buy, but industry can’t quite respond that quickly to what we’d like to do.”
However, it’s a safe bet that several years of trillion-dollar-plus defense budgets could help fix that problem. As Lamontagne added: “We’d love to buy more.”
CYBER SALUTE
Time for a new military service?
Cyber war is too important to be left to the admirals and generals of the other military services — it deserves its own, dedicated branch of the U.S. military. “Many observers contend that the challenge of generating military capability and capacity necessary to deter, compete, fight and win in the cyber domain can be directly attributed to the lack of a single organization responsible and accountable for force generation in cyberspace,” says (PDF) a new think-tank report.
The study, by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, estimates a U.S. Cyber Force would cost at least $10 billion to set up and need a workforce of about 30,000, mostly in uniform. That’s far smaller (PDF) than the Army (458,000 personnel), Navy (348,000), Air Force (320,000) or Marine Corps (170,000), but bigger than the Space Force (10,000).
The military services guide the Pentagon from their seats on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After fits and starts following their creation in 1942 (PDF), the Joint Chiefs as we know them today came into being in 1949 (PDF).They consisted of four officers — a chairman (rotated among the services), the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff, and the chief of naval operations. But since then, they’ve doubled in size, adding the Marine commandant (in 1952), a vice chairman (1987), the National Guard chief (2011), and the Space Force’s commander (2020).
Following their first victory — the “unconditional surrender” of both Germany and Japan in World War II, to use a phrase recently cited by the current commander-in-chief — the chiefs have a checkered record. Their influence isn’t directly responsible, of course, for wars’ outcomes. But they’d have a lot more clout if they were more willing to quit, instead of sticking around to do the logrolling required to make sure their services get what they see as their fair share of the Pentagon budget pie. Adding a ninth member to the JCS — enough for a baseball team! — isn’t likely to improve their battling average.
When it comes to chiefs — just like when it comes to cash — more isn’t always better.
Fr. Bob's Reflection for Corpus Christi Sunday - Guest Post
In 2019, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of Catholic adults in the United States. Sadly, it found that 69 percent of the people polled did not believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Even more concerning, 43 percent believed the bread and wine are only symbolic and mistakenly thought this reflected Church teaching. Another 22 percent knew the Church teaches transubstantiation, yet did not personally believe it.
My friends, today we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi – which is Latin for “Body of Christ.” It is a fitting time to reflect more deeply on the Eucharist. The word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” In many ways, Jesus’ entire life was a long act of thanksgiving: beginning in Bethlehem, revealed at the Last Supper and fulfilled on the cross.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus introduces the gift of the Eucharist when He says, “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” He reminds His followers that this bread is unlike the manna their ancestors ate in the desert. Those who eat the living bread are offered eternal life.
It is understandable that the mystery of the Eucharist can be difficult to fully grasp. Even the Apostles struggled to understand Jesus’ teaching about the Bread of Life. Yet their faith and trust in Him carried them forward until everything became clear at the Last Supper.
It was at the Last Supper where Jesus fulfilled His promise. He offered His true Body and true Blood under the appearances of bread and wine. Today, centuries later, we are still invited to receive that same gift – the greatest gift God could ever give: His very Self.
Each time we come to the altar, we stand in the presence of a God who loves us so deeply that He remains with us in the Eucharist. When we receive Holy Communion, we welcome the risen Christ into our very bodies. In that sacred moment, we become living tabernacles of His presence.
There is no closer union with Jesus than in Holy Communion. We receive Him into ourselves and become one with Him. With the Eucharist, we bear Heaven inside of us.
Mother Teresa put it beautifully when she said, “Once you understand the Eucharist, you can never leave the Church. Not because the Church won’t let you, but because your heart won’t let you.”
My friends, I pray that each of you comes to experience Christ’s presence in the Eucharist more deeply. Let Holy Communion become necessary; an essential part of your life. Remember what Eucharist means, “thanksgiving,” and thank God for His greatest gift: His divine Son. The Son we encounter each time we come forward at Mass. The Son who heals, forgives and remains with us, no matter who we are or what we have done.
If we truly desire a deeper relationship with Christ, there is no substitute for coming together to celebrate the Eucharist. From the earliest days of the Church, we gather as the Body of Christ to be fed by the Body of Christ.
The Eucharist is the ultimate expression of God’s love for us. As Jesus Himself declared, “This is My body. This is My blood, given up for you.”
And who among us would dare doubt the Lord?
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
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