This week, the war without a plan met a world without a floor, as the smoke cleared just enough to reveal that no-one at the top has a clue what comes next, and the old world began to learn what it costs to run on empty.

When six US soldiers killed in the opening days of the Iran war were brought home in dignified transfer this week, President Trump attended the solemn ceremony wearing a white USA baseball cap, available for purchase from his campaign merch store. Fox News, apparently recognising that this looked bad, quietly swapped in old hatless footage of Trump from a similar ceremony during his first term and aired that instead. When caught, they admitted the error, but still didn’t show the real footage. 

And that’s the vibe of this war - everything is smoke, mirrors, bluster and distraction, to cover the reality of the unplanned chaos. While the White House is posting hype videos of US military strike footage spliced with clips from Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, it’s apparent to anyone paying attention that the war in Iran is not going as planned. 

After a classified Senate Armed Services briefing this week, Democrats came out fuming, with Senator Blumenthal calling it the most unsatisfying briefing in fifteen years in the Senate, and Senator Rosen saying she does not know what the endgame is, that Trump has shown no plan for the day after, and that the Middle East cannot simply be unwound back to February 27 by wishing it so. Senator Elizabeth Warren confirmed that Republicans are privately expressing frustration with Trump, and even Vice President JD Vance is now distancing himself from the war. 

It seems Trump’s intention going into this war was to strike Iran hard, knock out the Supreme Leader, and install a puppet the US could work with - a repeat of the strike on Venezuela that enabled the capture of President Maduro, leaving behind a vice president willing to play ball and hand over oil access. But if that was the plan, it went to hell from the start. 

After the initial strikes killed Iran’sSupreme Leader, along with most of the people the administration had pencilled in as his replacement, Iran named the late Supreme Leader’s son Mojtaba as his successor. Trump called it “unacceptable” and labelled him a “lightweight,” but the so-called lightweight’s first act was to threaten every country hosting US military bases and vow to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, causing oil to surge past $100 a barrel and fuel prices and airfares to rise immediately. The Trump regime didn’t seem to see this coming, and have no plan to fix the mess they’ve made, beyond dropping more bombs. 

Trying to catch a sense of Trump’s war plan is maddening - this week he told reporters the war is “very complete” and “ahead of schedule,” then hours later he told House Republicans that “we have won in many ways, but not enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory.” When asked if the war would be over this week, he said, “no,” and that he’ll know the war is over “when I feel it in my bones,” before rambling about soldiers “walking around with no legs” as a result of the bombings. 

When asked about the school in Minab that was struck by a US Tomahawk missile in the first days of the war, killing approximately 160 children, Trump first tried to blame Iran, then he said it could have been other nations, but when confronted with reporting that confirmed US responsibility, he said he hadn’t seen the report and declined to accept fault. That’s the Commander-in-Chief, folks - riffing like a madman.

So far, the strikes on oil depots and refineries in Tehran have created conditions that residents are describing as apocalyptic. Oil-laden black rain has been falling across the city, storm drains have reportedly caught fire and thick black smoke has blanketed the capital. People are fleeing, while authorities are urging them to stay indoors. Desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain have also been struck, meaning the infrastructure that provides drinking water to millions of people in the Gulf is now a target.

With journalists across the spectrum holding the Trump regime’s feet to the fire over the chaotic war, FCC Chair Brendan Carr warned this week that broadcasters’ war coverage could affect their licence renewals, echoing Trump’s attacks on the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for reporting on Iranian strikes damaging US aircraft. 

At a Pentagon briefing this week, Defence SecretaryPete Hegseth said the sooner a right-wing Trump ally takes over CNN“the better,” and that a “patriotic press” would report that Iran is weakening, suggesting that headlines the war is widening and that the administration underestimated Iran’s ability to close the Strait were “patently ridiculous” because Iran“can barely communicate, let alone coordinate.” He called for “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” - though the refusal to take prisoners and execute everyone instead has been a war crime for over a century - and closed his briefing by invoking God’s providence over US military leaders and asking the nation to pray.

And prayer might well be in order, as Iranian national security official Ali Larijani has vowed Iran will not rest until it retaliates against Trump“in kind.” After US officials intercepted encrypted radio transmissions believed to be an operational trigger for Iranian sleeper cells abroad, this week the FBI warned California law enforcement that Iran may be planning drone attacks from a vessel off the US coast. Trump has reportedly discussed deploying special forces for a targeted mission to secure Iran’s supplies of 60%-enriched uranium which could be used for making multiple nuclear bombs. 

Though Russia has been providing Iran with intelligence to help it target US forces in the Middle East, the Trump administration this week lifted sanctions on Russian oil shipments, breaking with the G7’s unified sanctions framework, maintained since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he “would like to know what additional motives” drove the decision, while Senator Angus King put it plainly: “There is a clear winner in this war….Vladimir Putin. Russia has reaped $6 billion of benefit from this war since it began.”

Meanwhile, the first six days of the war cost US taxpayers more than $11.3 billion, with $5.6 billion worth of munitions expended in the first two days alone. Lawmakers are now worried about US military readiness for other conflicts and bracing for an upcoming White House request for more war funding. Though Senate Democrats have filed legislation to prevent Trump from launching another war without congressional approval, Trump is now threatening a military “takeover” of Cuba, confirmed by Senator Lindsey Graham on Fox News, when he declared to a laughing Maria Bartiromo that “Cuba is next!”

If it feels like the ground is shifting beneath our feet - like the world we woke up in at the start of this year is not quite the same world we’re living in now - that’s because it isn’t. Something has cracked open, not just in the headlines, but in the texture of ordinary life. In the unease at the petrol bowser. In the price tag at the checkout. In the look on people’s faces when someone brings up the news. 

There is a hollowing underway in the systems and structures we have spent our entire lives trusting to hold. The feeling that everything is happening at once - that too many things are breaking in too many places for any one person to hold - that feeling is accurate, and it deserves to be named rather than dismissed. It was always going to feel that way under a sky that looks like this. 

If you’re frightened by what’s happening right now - if you can’t sleep at night for fear of what might come next - you won’t find solace in the news or by doom scrolling social media. The comfort you’re looking for is written in the sky.

Let’s sift through the clatter of this current chaos, and look back to understand what we're looking at, and up to see what's coming. Take a deep breath and we’ll wade through the noise, and face what’s coming, together.