It's Official (July 9, 2026)

Welcome to Home & Away. I know I said I’d be taking some time off from writing this newsletter so I could focus on other projects, but then things started happening. I identify (up to a point) with Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” As is so often the case, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

The Sporting Life

I usually end with sports, but this week I will begin there. I could go on at length about the WNBA, which has a real problem with poor officiating. It’s one thing to play physically, something entirely different when basketball starts to resemble wrestling or football. The hostility shown by opposing players to Caitlin Clark and the seeming indifference of the league are mystifying, as she, more than anyone else, has popularized the women’s professional game. The commissioner needs to fix this before Clark suffers a career-ending injury and the league loses its biggest star.

But I really want to write about the World Cup and its officiating. Before I get there, though, I should mention the poor showing of the U.S. men’s team. They made it to the round of 16, where they were eliminated by Belgium 4-1. Let me just say the game wasn’t as close as the score. The Americans were a collective no-show.

Just why the U.S. showing was so disappointing is for the players and coaches to figure out, but part of the explanation may well be that they were distracted by the controversy over the suspension of Folarin Balogun for a play he was involved in during the match against Bosnia. Some (including yours truly) believed that Balogun did not deserve a red card, which meant he was ejected from the match (requiring the U.S. team to play the rest of the match down a man) and suspended from the next match, but that is the way it goes in the world of football.

President Trump then made a bad situation worse by reaching out to the head of FIFA (the man who bestowed on Trump a made-up peace prize), which led to Balogun’s suspension being suspended. The irony was inescapable: Trump intervened to get a player reinstated who only was eligible to play on the U.S. team because of birthright citizenship—something he is committed to ending.

The Belgian team did not appreciate the irony, and in any event their protest was swiftly denied. As already noted, Belgium won the game, and Balogun did not distinguish himself (on the contrary, he was invisible). Had it been otherwise—had the U.S. won and Balogun starred—I expect the victory would have been tainted. What is certain is that the whole drama reinforced the widely held view that FIFA (the governing body of football) is corrupt and the sport is rigged. It also did nothing for an already troubled U.S.-European relationship.

But let me move to a different point: The game has some structural challenges. One is that the officiating is too central to the outcome. Calling or not calling fouls that lead to penalty kicks or result in disallowed goals (as happened to poor Egypt against Argentina) all too easily determines outcomes, as some 80 percent of penalty kicks are successful. Issuing a red card that forces a team to play a man down (and without that player in the next match) can be every bit as capricious and consequential. Either the officiating needs to get better, the consequences of most alleged fouls reduced, or both.

Then there’s the ability to just play defense. The match between France and Paraguay was tedious. There are understandable limits to what a team can do on offense (the offside rule), but not on defense. I would argue that football, aka soccer, needs the equivalent of the defensive three-second rule in basketball, which would limit how many defensive players can remain in the box and for how long without suffering a penalty of some sort. The balance between offense and defense needs to be restored.

The Not-So-Innocent Abroad

President Trump took time off from weighing in on the World Cup to redirect U.S. policy in both the Middle East and Europe. He reversed his positive view of Iran’s leaders, whom he now sees as “scum,” declared the ceasefire over, authorized new attacks on Iranian military targets, reintroduced sanctions, and threatened to restore the blockade on Iran. Markets predictably swooned.

Markets may have it wrong. We have had, have, and will have on-again, off-again military exchanges—and these will co-exist (as they have) with on-again, off-again diplomacy. The Strait of Hormuz will sometimes be totally open, partially open, or mostly closed. Over time, the significance of the Strait will go down as major importers (above all, China) reduce their demand for oil, production in the U.S. and elsewhere is ramped up, and pipelines are built or expanded. But this will all take some time (and a good deal of money).

U.S. strategy is difficult to discern. New rounds of attacks on Iran will not change any of the fundamentals nor deter Iranian aggression but could lead to bolder Iranian attacks on the energy infrastructure of the Gulf states. There is an unavoidable dilemma here: the more U.S. military action promises to have an impact on Iran, the more it is likely to trigger Iranian attacks on the region’s water and energy infrastructure, something that would have a calamitous impact on our Arab partners and the world.

Meanwhile, the vague and overly-generous-to-Iran MOU still exists, as do the challenges posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support for proxies. So, yet again, the Trump administration finds itself with self-induced, unattractive options: unpromising and risky escalation or acceptance of a flawed MOU. What is certain is that the Trump administration will fail to achieve its war aims in a conflict it never should have initiated.

Let me also add one thought here about Iran and its new leadership, which attacked ships for using the channel off Oman’s coast rather than its own. Iran would have been much wiser to hold back and bide its time, waiting for American forces to have been drawn down, for more sanctions to have been eased, for the world to have grown accustomed to stability, for nuclear talks to have resumed, for its production of missiles and drones to have gained momentum…and then to have introduced tolls (by whatever name) and other requirements for use of the Strait. This could have been done in tandem with Oman and in a manner largely consistent with the MOU. It all suggests a combination of overconfidence and a lack of discipline on Iran’s part—along with the ascendancy of hard-liners or an inability to rein them in.

As for things across that other body of water, the Atlantic, the good news was the decision to allow Ukraine to produce much-needed Patriot air defense missiles. My guess is Trump is finally coming around to the view that a Russian victory is not inevitable…and that making this apparent to Putin by assisting Ukraine is the best way to end the war. It would help if the Trump administration would formally jettison the deeply flawed, pro-Russian peace proposal put forward several months back and push the two protagonists to accept a ceasefire in place.

Otherwise, though, it was pretty much business as usual in Europe: embracing Turkey’s illiberal president, repeating designs on Greenland, criticizing Spain for being “a wasted cause.” Overall, the president was a shade kinder in what he had to say about the allies and NATO. That said, much of the damage has been done, as few European leaders believe they can count on this president to honor America’s Article 5 commitment to come to their defense if push ever comes to shove.

Rahm’s Horn

Rahm Emanuel, the former White House chief of staff, congressman, mayor, ambassador to Japan, current senior counselor here at Centerview, and a likely future candidate for president, delivered an important speech in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

It was a good example of speaking truth to power. Hence the title of this section, a pun that plays off the ram’s horn, the shofar, which is blown on the High Holidays to gain the attention of one and all, calling on them to reflect and repent.

There were plenty of good lines in the speech, which took several direct shots at Bibi Netanyahu: “The alliance is at a crossroads. It cannot stand or survive as it has been…Strategic isolation is not a foundation for security. It’s a countdown clock.” And after noting that “support for Israel is plummeting around the world,” Emanuel said, “The pursuit of a so-called Greater Israel is as self-destructive and fanatical as the chant ‘from the river to the sea.’ Your government is complicit in the horrors now being inflicted on innocent families in the West Bank. That undermines your international legitimacy at a time when you can least afford it.”

Much of the speech was critical of successive U.S. administrations for their passivity. “For too long, American policy toward Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem was to blindly and silently stand behind your government, without conditions, without demands, and without consequences when we disagreed. That has been our mistake. Unconditional support has produced a Prime Minister who has presumed that his strategic interests would incur no cost if he ignored America’s concerns about settlements and sparked a regional war.”

I expect the part of Emanuel’s remarks that will generate the most controversy (even more than his call for an end to subsidized military aid) is this, though: “The hard truth is that America’s silence through the years has engendered the worst of your domestic politics. We’ve done you no favors by averting our eyes from your misjudgments. To that end, if I have anything to say about it, every Israeli found attacking Palestinian civilians or their property in the future will be sanctioned. Every Israeli official who supports such violence will be sanctioned. Every construction company or bank building or financing illegal settlements will be sanctioned.”

This is largely consistent with what I wrote here last week, namely, “The right policy for the U.S. government and Americans who care about Israel’s fate is not to insist that Israel accept a two-state solution now in the absence of a viable Palestinian partner, but to expect Israel to preserve the option and not take steps that make the emergence of a Palestinian partner even less likely or make the achievement of a peaceful outcome impossible if one were to emerge.”

Emanuel didn’t go so far as to suggest penalties for American individuals and organizations contributing funds to such activities (perhaps through the revocation of tax-related benefits?), but I would not be surprised if this were to become an issue here. More generally, it will be interesting to see how Rahm’s tough-love broadside is received both here and in Israel. Whatever happens, the speech is but another example of a larger trend: the special relationship between Israel and the United States is considerably less special than it once was. Criticism of Israel used to be something of a third rail in American politics; increasingly, it is unconditional support of Israel that carries political baggage.

July 4 in Retrospect

The extreme heat is mercifully gone, and the fireworks are over, but there are a few things associated with the 250^th that are well worth reading or viewing. Here goes:

David Rubenstein on the history behind the Declaration of Independence.

Simon Schama in the Financial Times, “The Founding Fathers and the Battle for America’s Future.”

Stephen Breyer: “Can We Keep this Great Experiment?”

From the Wall Street Journal, “Changing the Constitution: Five Proposals for a More Perfect Union”

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, “The Battle for the Future of Democratic Republics.”

That does it for this week. Enjoy the World Cup quarterfinal matches (I for one can’t wait to see Norway and England on Saturday), the final days of this year’s Wimbledon, and the Scottish Open.

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Wednesday, July 8: CNN News Central on Iran.

Wednesday, July 8: CNBC Squawk on the Street on Iran, Middle East.