While most of the world has been on lockdown from the novel coronavirus, the wars and political machinations of the Middle East have continued. Amid this turmoil, Russia has been making steady progress in what State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus described as its “malign engagement” in the region.

Doctors are caught between the obligation to alert the public and the desire to avoid a panic. The World Health Organization warns of an “infodemic” in which bad information and rumors amplify the danger. Misinformation can spread faster than the disease.

We’re living in the information age. But when it comes to fundamental change in society, organized industrial workers remain a powerful, bedrock force. And that’s just as true in Iran as in other modern nations.

Pompeo doesn’t seem to realize it, but the United States is now implicitly endorsing a one-state solution — forcing Israel to make an agonizing decision about whether to deny full rights to the Arab residents of that state. Perhaps Israelis will rebel against making this choice and revive the possibility of a Palestinian state. Or perhaps Arabs, exhausted by this conflict, will induce Palestinians to accept defeat . . . and something less than statehood.

Trump's “maximum pressure” campaign seems to have collided head on with Khamenei’s maximum resistance, David Ignatius notes. But what exactly are the dynamics driving the two ever closer to confrontation?