Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The crumbling Kremlin?

Key Points:

• Former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul highlights growing cracks in Putin’s rule, citing failures in the Ukraine war and a stagnating Russian economy exacerbated by sanctions, demographic challenges, and resource-draining military expenditures.
• Dan Sabbagh reports that the U.S.-Iran standoff in the Strait of Hormuz is unsustainable, with Iran resisting U.S. nuclear demands amid economic pressures from U.S. blockades and limited support from allies like China and Russia.
• Historian Timothy Snyder criticizes the Trump administration’s weakening of U.S. state power, pointing to the degradation of elite leadership and diplomacy as signs of “superpower suicide.”
• The American Farm Bureau Federation warns that fertilizer shortages linked to the Iranian blockade are severely impacting U.S. farmers, especially in the Midwest, with rising prices threatening agricultural productivity and financial stability.
• Axios faces accusations of market manipulation due to suspiciously timed oil futures trades coinciding with its reports of diplomatic progress on the U.S./Iran conflict, raising concerns about conflicts of interest in national security journalism.
• Hungary’s new Prime Minister Peter Magyar pledges to reverse democratic backsliding and corruption after his Tisza party’s landslide victory, positioning him to challenge Viktor Orban’s “illiberal democracy” and revive the economy.