Maxime Chaix

Essayiste. Auteur de « La guerre de l'ombre en Syrie » (mars 2019) et de « La guerre de l'ombre en Ukraine » (avril 2025 :

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

Merci au magazine Diplomatie pour cette belle recension de mon dernier livre, "La guerre de l'ombre en Ukraine" (@ErickBonnier Éditions, avril 2025, préfacé par Alain Juillet) https://t.co/3tGo0WSium

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

😂

[Le Gorafi @le_gorafi]

Trop fainéant pour se suicider lui-même, il dit qu’il sait des choses sur l’affaire Epstein

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

I thought this was a fake quote but, nope, he actually said it.

This is the most embarrassing person to ever lead any country anywhere in the world in our lifetimes.

[Brèves de presse @Brevesdepresse]

🔴🇫🇷RÉCAP - Fin 2025, le #PS avait refusé de censurer le gouvernement Lecornu, en échange notamment du non-doublement des franchises médicales. Aujourd’hui, le gouvernement #Lecornu annonce le doublement de leurs plafonds et un recul des remboursements, par décrets et sans débat.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Trump remains trapped because he still refuses to accept how much leverage Iran possesses.

He still thinks overwhelming American power will eventually force Tehran to give in, and political scientist Ian Bremmer says that's the mistake keeping this war alive.

Instead, Iran has shown it can keep raising the economic cost of the war without crossing Trump's red lines.

Ian doesn't think Iran believes it can defeat the U.S militarily; it believes it can make continuing the war more painful than ending it.

And so far, it's working.

Trump keeps threatening to destroy Iran's infrastructure, eliminate its leadership and dramatically escalate the conflict.

But Ian points to something more revealing than Trump's rhetoric: His actions.

Despite months of fighting, Trump has avoided the biggest escalations.

No ground invasion, no sustained campaign against Iran's energy sector, and no full-scale assault on the country's leadership.

Even after American casualties, his instinct has repeatedly been to play them down rather than use them to justify a much wider war.

And Tehran has noticed.

It increasingly sees a president who talks like he's preparing for total war but behaves like someone searching for an exit.

The bigger problem, Ian says, is inside the White House itself.

Trump's advisers know the military and economic costs are mounting, and many want the war to end, but very few are willing to tell Trump the uncomfortable truth:

Iran has far more leverage over how this ends than Washington expected.

Until Trump accepts that reality, Ian believes a genuine compromise remains unlikely.

@ianbremmer

[Brèves de presse @Brevesdepresse]

🔴🇫🇷INFO - Secret bien gardé : la #TVA ne finance plus l’État depuis l’arrivée d’Emmanuel #Macron ! Jusqu’en 2017, la TVA rapportait environ 200 milliards d’€, dont 91,5% étaient destinés aux services publics. En 2024, seuls 45,9% de ces fonds sont encore affectés à l’État. Le reste sert à compenser les exonérations de cotisations patronales. Chaque euro attribué aux aides aux entreprises est un euro de moins pour l’hôpital, l’école, les retraites, les services publics. Ou plus exactement : c’est un euro emprunté, qui accroît la #dette publique. Cette part de la dette, rarement explicitée et pourtant bien réelle, est creusée non par un modèle social qui serait toujours trop dépensier, mais par le soutien ininterrompu à un capitalisme devenu dépendant de l’argent public...

Dans les années 90, les aides aux entreprises se maintenaient à un niveau relativement modéré, autour de l’équivalent de 30 milliards d’€ courants par an. Aujourd’hui. nous sommes à 270 milliards d’€ d’argent public versés chaque année, sans contrôle, au privé… Tandis que l’argent public se fait la malle et que l’argent de la TVA est massivement détourné pour compenser les exonérations de cotisations patronales, le taux de #pauvreté a atteint en 2023 un niveau jamais atteint depuis 30 ans, selon les derniers chiffres de l’Insee. Près de 10 millions de personnes vivent désormais avec moins de 1288 € par mois en France métropolitaine, soit quasiment 1 personne sur 6. Un énorme #braquage, en plein jour, peu mis en avant par les grands médias pour expliquer la situation des finances publiques du pays depuis 2017…

[Karim Emile Bitar @karimbitar]

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 🇮🇱 Thomas Friedman: “Hello, Israel? Do you know anything about modern Iranian history? Have you ever heard of Mohammad Mossadegh? He was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 who was ousted by a coup engineered by the C.I.A. and Britain’s MI6 after Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Fury over that coup, which installed the West’s man in Tehran, still burns in the heart of many Iranians.”
👉https://t.co/wH3JtUJO8D by @tomfriedman via @nytimes

[Patricia Marins @pati_marins64]

As I warned a few days ago regarding the Red Sea Strait, the escalation is now unfolding.
Right now, Brent Oil has surged past $100 per barrel for the first time since late May (up 6% today and approximately 40% higher from the recent low of $71 per barrel on July 1st).

Short-term outlook: Continued sharp upside with a high risk of full closure. The expectation is that both straits (Red Sea and Hormuz) could remain blocked for a short period, forcing negotiations.

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

Indeed.

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

I think this tweet will not age well.

[Iuliia Mendel @IuliiaMendel]

Let us summarize here:
1. Ships have stopped entering Ukrainian Black Sea ports due to the threat of Russian attacks, the food prices are going to raise due to Iran war, Russia-Ukraine escalation war and fires in the EU.
2. The 21st EU sanctions package against Russia includes a renewable 12-month carve-out for Russian LNG transport to third countries, potentially undermining the sanctions' effectiveness.
3. Ukraine's victories are being counted in the number of videos and photos of burning Russia and complaining Russians, completely ignoring the absence of regained territories, increase of deaths and ruined economy and damaged democracy.
With these three facts I am wishing all of you a great summer vacation. September is going to be hard for everyone.

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

Parler du Safari Club dans une émission d'une chaîne d'information (et surtout de conditionnement) en continu, c'est un acte tout simplement héroïque. Comme je l'avais souligné à l'époque, @epelboin est le GOAT. Point barre. Fin du débat. Mic drop.

[GRM @grm_off]

La médiocrité des journalistes n'a d'égal que le courage de Frabrice.

[Joe Kent @joekent16jan19]

A year ago, we were unable to militarily defeat the Houthis. Two major factors came into play here. Issue #1 is finite, and is the reason no one has been able to beat the Houthis. Issue #2 has has now worsened and is the result of our lack of strategy in Iran.

Issue #1: Geography/Terrain

Northwestern Yemen is incredibly mountainous terrain, with peaks and valleys that run parallel to the Bab Al-Mandeb & Red Sea—a critical but very narrow passageway.

This combination gives the Houthis a tactical advantage—by positioning themselves on higher ground, they’re able to easily fire down into the Red Sea and monitor & defend their airspace. In the valleys, they’re able to disperse their missiles/drones & other critical military equipment, hiding it in caves and tunnel systems capable of withstanding our bombs.

Issue #2: The Houthis willingness to negotiate

Our military campaign in 2025 ended with the Houthis agreeing to reopen the BAM to U.S. shipping only once we stopped military action.

The Houthis proved to be durable under the weight of both U.S. & Israeli bombardment, at that was when they were the U.S.’s only target.

Now, the Houthis know we are spread thin and will use this as leverage—this time around, they’ve got the energy crisis working in their favor and they can use it to double the pressure on us via the BAM.

It should not be ignored that, like the Iranians & the rest of the “Axis of Resistance”, the Houthis have been galvanized by the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader due to his religious & cultural significance. This galvanization makes a pragmatic deal like the one we cut in 2025 far less likely now.

I will keep saying it: pull out our troops, walk away, & use economic diplomacy to reopen the SOH & BAM.

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

@pati_marins64 Not a word, indeed, but actions from China and Russia. The UE is a US colony, so not a word, not an action against Washinton. EU "leaders" have stupidly taken over the funding of the US proxy war in Ukraine, yet at least they did not overtly joined the US and Israel against Iran.

[Patricia Marins @pati_marins64]

Not a single word from the Russians, the Chinese, the European Union, or the entire global community about this scandalous episode.

My impression is that we are regressing by decades, perhaps even centuries, in just a few years.
No one knows where this money is going, while the White House has become a partner in Venezuela’s poverty.

And in the face of this, some real idiots in Israel and the Pentagon expected an uprising in Iran.

Who would be crazy enough to rebel against their own nation when a foreign power is brazenly threatening to loot their country’s coffers?

It is astonishing what we are witnessing in these times amid the global silence.

Trump has placed the US in such a position of low moral standing that there is no way the world can place any confidence in either the dollar or in American foreign policy.

Whoever comes to govern America after Trump, and this will only happen after a great deal of internal chaos, will have an immense task ahead that will take many, many years.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

This is the same desperate, frustrated tone we heard from Trump during the period in which he had understood that the war was a mistake, but he didn't know how to get Iran to the negotiating table...

[Murtaza Hussain @MazMHussain]

"The White House is “at a maximum level of frustration right now, and I was told by very senior people that the president is now fully aware that the only way to the victory that he wants is completely politically impossible. The American people just will not support the kind of escalation it would take at this point,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. “We’ve got more dead Americans and a politically impossible situation.”
https://t.co/Puwao9mTML

[Maxime Chaix @MaximeChaix]

Cette campagne va être compliquée, Gaby.

[Brèves de presse @Brevesdepresse]

⚡️🇫🇷INFO - Une vidéo montrant le communicant Louis #Jublin, qui a accompagné l’ascension de Gabriel Attal jusqu’à Matignon, en train de sniffer de la #cocaïne circule dans les rédactions parisiennes, rapporte Vanity Fair, qui cite l’intéressé tentant de désamorcer l’affaire. « On parle de mon cas, mais faire le procès de la cocaïne, c’est faire celui du Tout-Paris », ajoute-t-il…

[Patricia Marins @pati_marins64]

The scenario I am working with involves escalation through the resumption of attacks on Iran, focused on infrastructure and military targets.

During this phase, it will become irrelevant who controls the strait, precisely because it will be rendered impassable.

This escalation is likely to lead to the complete closure of Bab el-Mandeb and attacks on Yemen as well.

Yes, I am working with the scenario in which both straits are closed.
I also perceive that Iran is operating under this same assumption. It has already escalated by striking Kuwait’s water and electricity infrastructure and by orchestrating the embargo on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.

I will expand on this shortly.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

It is fair to say that the Trump Administration tried to change the landscape of diplomacy through the creation of a southern corridor in the Persian Gulf while the MOU was still in effect.

It is one thing to argue that the southern corridor lies in the US's interest.

It is a different matter altogether to argue that WHILE the final status of the Strait is being negotiated WITHIN the MOU, an effort should have been pursued OUTSIDE of the MOU to create that corridor.

And then, once this effort has contributed to the MOU collapsing, take military action to create new facts on the ground that renders such a corridor more likely within a final settlement.

In essence, that's a strategy centered on military action shaping the landscape of diplomacy, rather than a strategy in which the final outcome is determined through PEACEFUL diplomacy.

Either the commitment is to diplomacy within the MOU, or it is to actions (military and non-military) outside of the MOU.

It can't be both. I suspect we will not see any SERIOUS diplomacy unless this question has been settled.

Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

China has gained more from the Iran war than from any crisis in three decades.

Beijing has paid costs for this war. But measured against the damage to America’s goals, alliances and credibility, China has come out ahead.

My take: