This week’s cover | Oct 28th 2023 Edition

THIS WEEK’S cover package combines our latest reporting from the Middle East with reflections on American power. How America handles the conflict between Israel and Hamas will shape geopolitics for years to come. It has sent two aircraft carriers to the region: a 200,000-tonne declaration of support for Israel and a warning to Hizbullah and Iran not to escalate the conflict. No other country could do this.

Even as President Joe Biden hugs Israel close, however, he is urging restraint on its prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, partly to spare Palestinian lives, partly to limit the diplomatic fallout from a ground war in Gaza. Mr Biden rightly calls this an “inflection point”. It will test whether America can adapt to a more complex and threatening world.