Thursday

March 12th, 2026

Insight

Dead Man Warring

Mark Steyn

By Mark Steyn

Published March 9, 2026

Dead Man Warring

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Meanwhile, the war goes on:

~HEADLINES TO PONDER:

Greece to Exhume 150 COVID-19 Graves After Bodies Fail to Decompose

I think the plan is to raise an Army of the Undead to take Iran.

~WHAT'S DO-ABLE:

There is always a risk in venturing abroad to slay dragons. As one observer put it:

In devoting his energies to the war, the President let his domestic agenda die.

Actually, that was me. When? Last week? Er, no, just the usual sod-bollocking twenty-four years ago. The distinction has widened since then. As to whacking a head of state "despite all his security", the more obvious difference is that a Minnesota daycare owner enjoys the protection of the district-court judge in Dead Moose Junction, whereas a supreme ayatollah enjoys merely the protection of "international law", which half the countries on earth, starting with multiple Nato members, huff that Trump is in flagrant breach of. The Administration is prepared to spend a year in court litigating the potential deportation of some no-name Somali "educator", whereas Khamenei or Maduro or Starmer can just be terminated on Day One.

Bush's neglect of the home front, even if you don't factor in the eventual loss on all the foreign battlefields, was not helpful. Imagine if, in October 2001, the President had dropped a few daisycutters on Mullah Omar's compound in Kandahar and then flown home to announce an immediate Coolidge-like "pause" on all mass migration, followed by a Nato summit at which, in return for the continued protection of the US security umbrella, Europe and Canada agreed to do likewise - which, granted, might have required a bit of strongarming of the kind Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy, applied ro General Musharraf.

Would we be better off now than we are after a quarter-century of Three Cups of Tea and the Islamisation of London, Paris, Brussels, Vienna and Minneapolis? If it takes you more than seventeen seconds to answer the question, you're part of the problem.

UPDATE! America's new Homeland honcho:

During the "peaceful transition of power" a year ago, I got an email from a bigshot wanting to talk with me about a particular position with the incoming administration that I would quite have enjoyed. A time was agreed to talk more. But come the appointed hour I got a busy signal and then a message saying he was unexpectedly tied up but he'd reschedule.

He never did. I heard later that I was apparently a bit too controversial. But a guy who hugs the killer of Trump supporters isn't...

~DAMN THE TORPEDOES! On Wednesday, according to my friend Pete Hegseth, the US Navy torpedoed a ship for the first time since World War Two. Can that really be true?

Apparently so. The submarine in question was a nuclear one, so this is only the second time that a nuclear sub has torpedoed a ship. The first was when HMS Conqueror sank the Belgrano during the 1982 Falklands War, with the loss of 323 Argentine sailors and to the accompaninment of a full-throated front page in The Sun: "GOTCHA". Mr Murdoch's flagship would not run that headline today.

So that makes four ships torpedoed since VJ Day: one Indian, one Argie, one South Korean, and now one Iranian. Seems like old times.

~FIGHTING THE LAST WAR: Sorry to bring up such cobwebbed curiosities from Madam Tussaud's Waxworks Museum of Yesterday's Men as Richard Armitage, Colin Powell and George W Bush. I was accused of "fighting the last war". As it happens, the last war is still being fought, even though in a few weeks it will have lasted longer than the First World War. So herewith a couple of developments on the Ukrainian front. For example:

Those Russian sanctions that would bring Putin to his knees within weeks? That's so 2022.

Meanwhile, if you're wondering where your tax dollars have gone, they're in the trunk of a car in Budapest:

Hungary's tax authority has said it has arrested seven Ukrainians and two cash-transport vehicles on suspicion of money-laundering after Ukraine's foreign minister accused Budapest of taking them hostage.

"The reasons are still unknown, as well as their current well-being," Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. "We have already sent an official note demanding an immediate release of our citizens."

According to Ukraine's state savings bank, Oschadbank, the seven workers were in two vans carrying $80m (£60m) worth of cash and 9kg of gold in a regular transport between Austria and Ukraine. They were "unjustifiably detained" and GPS data showed their vehicles in Budapest, it said.

Hungary's tax authority said on Friday that it was conducting criminal proceedings and added that one of the group was a former general of Ukraine's intelligence service.

The good news is that Ukraine intelligence officers may no longer need forty mil in the back of the car:

The United States and Gulf Arab states are in discussions with Ukraine to buy Ukrainian-made interceptor drones, a source in Ukraine's Presidential Office confirmed to ABC News.

Ukraine's interceptor drones are cheap and effective at downing Iran's one-way Shahed attack drones, which Tehran has used extensively to target U.S. assets in the Middle East throughout the first six days of the war in the Middle East.

The six U.S. service personnel who died in the opening hours of the war were killed by an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait.

"We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against 'shaheds' in the Middle East region," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement Thursday. "I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security. Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people..."

All Gulf governments are already in touch with Ukraine, either directly or via the U.S., about the potential purchase of Ukrainian interceptor drones, the Ukrainian official told ABC News.

Sounds like good news for Lindsey Graham's retirement account - unless, of course, the rental car gets pulled over en route from Kiev to Zurich.

~WANKER OF THE WEEK (WE MAY HAVE TO RETIRE THE TROPHY): The British Prime Minister takes time out of his hectic schedule of undertipping his Ukrainian rent-boys to hold press conferences announcing ostentatiously that, whatever's going on in the news, he's got nothing to do with it, whether it's bombing Iran or shagging Bonnie Blue. However, his Deputy PM, one David Lammy, is fully geopolitically engaged. Here he is demonstrating how up to speed he is on, er, foreign affairs by pledging to defend a, er, British military base - RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, which has come under drone attack by Iran. Says the Deputy Prime Minister:

The safety of that base is also essential. It's not just a base that serves the United Kingdom, it serves the region, and of course we work very much with our allies because Cyprus is a Nato country.

Er, Cyprus is not in Nato. But maybe he'd been up late with Kamala Harris...

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Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, a Top 41 recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist. Among his books is "The Undocumented Mark Steyn: Don't Say You Weren't Warned". (Buy it at a 49% discount by clicking here or order in KINDLE edition at a 67% discount by clicking here. Sales help fund JWR)

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