It’s Thursday, March 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Why is Candace Owens speaking at a Catholic gala in the nation’s capital? Konstantin Kisin on what’s gone wrong in Europe. How the Canadian justice system is squashing political expression. And much more.

But first: Are we winning the war in Iran?

It’s been 20 days since the war in Iran began. Casualties are climbing. Oil prices are surging. And the question hanging over everything is getting harder to ignore: Is victory possible—and if so, what would it actually look like?

Today we bring you three voices grappling with that question.

First, Michael Doran examines the mounting pressure on President Trump to bring the war to an end. “Trump undoubtedly wants out,” he writes. “But he also knows that a premature exit leaves the core threat intact.” As a summit with Xi Jinping looms in May, read Michael’s full piece on why Trump can achieve “decisive victory” by dismantling Iran’s missile and drone network—and why anything less would project weakness, embolden China, and leave the global balance more fragile than before.

That “decisive victory” may depend, in part, on Mossad. As Eli Lake reports today, Israel’s national intelligence agency has spent years covertly aiding Iranian opposition groups, hacking infrastructure, and targeting pro-regime militias. While the Iranian people will ultimately determine the regime’s fate, Eli writes, “Israel is evening the odds for a revolution.” Read his full piece below. And don’t miss his latest episode of Breaking History, where he sits down with Andrew Sullivan to debate the political, strategic, and moral stakes of the war.

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Eli Lake and Andrew Sullivan Debate the Iran War

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Finally, Israeli journalist Amit Segal examines Israel’s campaign to systematically eliminate Iran’s top leadership—including the killing of Ali Larijani on Tuesday—and asks a deeper question: Does decapitating the regime bring it closer to collapse, or reveal its resilience? Is this a brittle system that could fall with one more push—or an ideological state built to absorb blow after blow?

—Jillian Lederman

Did You Hurt Someone’s Dignity? In Canada, It Can Cost You.

Rupa Subramanya

In Canada, saying on Facebook that a man is not a woman can cost you CAD$750,000. Why? Because of a little-known faction of the Canadian justice system called the human rights tribunal—an institution that has evolved to police public expression. Rupa Subramanya offers an inside look at how a new kind of kangaroo court has come to Canada. Read full story

Candace Owens and the Catholic ‘Monster Mash’

Mary Eberstadt

Tonight, Catholics will gather in Washington, D.C. for the Catholic Prayer for America Gala 2026. The event has grown in profile after news that Joe Kent, who resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center on Tuesday, will be speaking. But according to Mary Eberstadt, it’s all a cover for something darker: a “monster mash” of antisemitic speakers—led by none other than Candace Owens—that she argues is an affront to Catholicism. Read full story

Sweden Is Letting Gangs Get Away with Murder

Paulina Neuding

In 2024, one in four murder suspects in Sweden were minors. How did this come to be? The short answer is that Sweden’s gangs are exploiting the country’s children’s rights laws, which massively reduce sentences for convicted murderers under 18—and render suspects under 15 immune to prosecution. Swedish journalist Paulina Neuding reports on the legal loopholes fueling the wave of child violence in her home country—and how to close them before it’s too late. Read full story

Konstantin Kisin: The Iran War, Europe’s Decline, and the Future of the West

Rafaela Siewert

What went wrong in Europe? Throughout the 2010s, policies such as mass migration, net-zero carbon goals, expansive welfare states, identity politics, and limited defense spending became causes du jour across the continent. Yet, as it later became clear, all they yielded were lagging economies and a fractured body politic. Rafaela Siewert sat down with Konstantin Kisin, co-host of the TRIGGERnometry podcast and author of “An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West,” to find out why—and how the continent can change course.