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Thursday, March 26, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Fifth Sunday in Lent - Guest Post
Many people are familiar with the Chicago Cubs, the famous baseball team long known as the “lovable losers.” For decades, they were known for never winning the World Series.
Then, in 2016, something extraordinary happened. The lovable losers finally became champions, winning their first World Series in 108 years. As the final out was recorded, the Cubs’ first baseman, Anthony Rizzo, was overwhelmed with emotion. He became teary-eyed.
But his tears were not only tears of joy, from winning a championship. At just 18 years old, Anthony had been diagnosed with cancer. He underwent treatment, and by God’s grace, overcame the disease. Months later, he returned to baseball and eventually to a normal life. The World Series was the second-greatest battle he had won.
Anthony later established a foundation to help children with cancer and has credited his Christian faith with carrying him through his illness.
We encounter that same kind of deeply moving beauty in today’s Gospel. Jesus stands at the tomb of Lazarus and weeps. It is one of the most powerful and tender moments in all of Scripture, because in that moment, Jesus shares His humanity with us.
We sometimes forget that Jesus was fully human. It’s easy to overlook that He became hungry in the desert, thirsty on the cross, weary on the road to Samaria and fearful in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Why is it so important to remember the humanity of Jesus – to remember the tears He shed? The answer is simple: we can identify with Him. Every pain, every tragedy, every loss we endure, Jesus has endured first. He understands what it means to be human, and that understanding gives us hope.
Yet today’s Gospel reveals something even more magnificent. While Jesus weeps for Lazarus, He also raises him from the dead. In doing so, Jesus shows us that He is not merely human. He is the Son of God. He reveals both His humanity and His divinity. He can touch our lives in a way no other human ever could.
There was once a military chaplain named Robert McAfee Brown who was traveling by ship with soldiers returning home from World War II. Some Marines invited him to join their daily Bible study. One day, they were reading this very Gospel passage.
During the discussion, one Marine shared that God had spoken to him through the story of Lazarus. He admitted that during the war, while stationed in Japan, he had committed serious sins and had become overwhelmed with guilt. He felt trapped, ashamed and even considered taking his own life.
But as he reflected on the Gospel, the Marine realized that Jesus understood his suffering because Jesus was human. At the same time, he came to understand that Jesus was also God, able to do something no one else could. Just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, He could raise him to new life.
The Marine discovered that Jesus is the resurrection and the life – not only in the next life, but in this one as well.
These three stories – Anthony Rizzo’s, Lazarus’ and the Marine’s – teach us something essential about Jesus. They remind us that Jesus shares our humanity. He knows pain, sorrow and loss.
But they also reveal to us that He is the Son of God, whose divine power brings healing, hope and new life. Just as He raised Lazarus, He continues to raise us beyond what we could ever imagine.
This is the Good News of today’s Gospel: Jesus’ humanity comforts us, and His divinity empowers us.
My friends, this is the promise of Christ, who always calls us forth to new life.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
[Salon] As the wheels come off the Iran conflict, it compels the decision: ‘Where do we stand?’ - Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/03/24/as-wheels-come-off-iran-conflict-it-compels-decision-where-do-we-stand/
As the wheels come off the Iran conflict, it compels the decision: ‘Where do we stand?’
Alastair Crooke, March 24, 2026
Western propaganda machinery – the West’s most powerful strategic weapon – has repeatedly asserted that U.S. forces have been winning a swift and sweeping victory over Iran. In tandem, Israeli intelligence officials are briefing western media saying they see increasing signs of disarray and “chaos” within the regime in Tehran, adding that the Iranian chain-of-command has become marred by serious breakdowns.
And why not make such claims of sweeping victory? Trump presumably went into the war sublimely confident in America’s military prowess to obliterate the Iranian state structure, its command network and its military capacity. His generals seemingly endorsed the general proposition of destructive potential – adding however, several ‘buts’ that likely did not penetrate the Trumpian mental workings.
And that’s what Trump duly did – sweeping ‘obliteration’; continuous waves of stand-off bombing. To doubters of his success in collapsing Iran’s state structure, he retorts simply that we’ll obliterate all the more. ‘We’ll kill more of their leaders’.
Western (including Israeli) media, in wake of the 28 February strikes, in companion reports hailed too the devastating nature of the blow struck against Iran’s political and military leadership.
No attempt was made to critically think through the effect on a State that had been preparing an asymmetric response to this coming war for 20-40 years. No effort was made to think through the real impact of bombing a State that has taken all its military infrastructure (including its ‘air force’) off its land-surface, only to bury it in deep underground ‘cities’.
No effort was made to judge the impact of assassinations of Iran’s political and military leaders on the public mood. No understanding was made of how the Iranian de-centralised leadership ‘mosaic’ might provide a fast-reaction, pre-planned response to leadership decapitation. Nor was it considered that such a diffused leadership structure would allow Iran to pursue a long war of attrition against the U.S. and Israel – in contrast to the U.S.-Israeli insistence on short wars that do not strain popular resilience.
All mainstream reporting, by contrast, was focused on the scale of damage inflicted on Tehran and its people – carrying the implicit presumption that the civic demolition and high civilian deaths would, in itself, create the opposition that would ‘rise up’ and ‘seize’ the reins of national leadership.
That so little of this conflict was properly considered reflects the fact that the U.S. increasingly has modelled its war-fighting way-of-thinking on those long employed by Israel – with far-reaching consequences for the West’s future, perhaps.
Of course, there are professional U.S. military officers who repeatedly have warned of the short-comings of mass bombardment as a stand-alone strategic tool, arguing that it has never brought the expected results; but their cautionary messages have had little impact against the prevailing ‘obliteration’ zeitgeist.
The very language used by Trump and his team to describe Iranians as ‘evil’ and ‘murderous baby-killing’ sub-humans plainly is designed to polarise the clash to the point of excluding military strategies other than yet further ‘obliteration’.
Trump told New York Times journalists “that he did not feel constrained by any international laws, norms, checks or balances”, and the “only limits on his ability to use American military might” were “my [his] own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me”.
He reportedly expressed surprise that America’s sneak attack on the Iranian leadership had produced an immediate riposte of counter-strikes on American bases in the Gulf: ‘We hadn’t expected that’, Trump said; nor did he anticipate the subsequent selective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, although the Iranians explicitly warned that they would do exactly that. He knew the risk, yet still went ahead, saying he ‘did not think’ that the Iranians would assume control over the Hormuz choke point.
The consequence of Iranian control of the approximate 20% of global oil and a similar volume of gas that transits Hormuz gives Iran unique leverage over the whole dollar-based economic sphere. Yet it poses a special threat to Gulf States – for Hormuz also serves as the corridor for fertiliser, food supplies and much else too.
Hormuz’s selective closure therefore carries second and third-order global economic consequences for the world. As Lloyd’s Intelligence noted yesterday:
“Several governments — including India, Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia and China — are in direct talks with Tehran, coordinating vessel transits via an emerging IRGC-run registration and vetting system … Lloyds … understands [that] the IRGC is expected to establish a more formalised vessel approval process in the coming days”.
So, why did Israel escalate so strategically in attacking Iran’s terminals receiving gas from the South Pars gas field that it shares with Qatar? Israel insists that Trump gave them a green light for the attack. Trump replied that “Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field earlier today without informing the United States or Qatar”.
The attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure predictably enough triggered a reciprocal escalation with Iranian missile strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure – thus elevating the conflict to that of serious economic war.
Essentially what now is at issue are the terms on which the world will be able to buy oil and gas. Will purchasers be able to buy energy purchased in currencies other than the dollar? It seems so – Pakistan has been able to negotiate the passage of its cargo through Hormuz in just such a fashion – by proving that the cargo was purchased in Yuan.
At issue therefore is not just the U.S. military presence in the region – which Iran insists must be expelled – but rather, Iranian calls for the ending altogether of the Region’s dollar trading.
This – if Iran gets its way – could comprise the awkward gateway to continued economic survival for Gulf States.
Gulf States may soon have to decide where they stand on this war. On the one hand, they have embedded themselves wholeheartedly in the American mercantilist way of life. But Iran threatens to overturn that paradigm. On the other hand, future Gulf prospects – which they will need to ponder – may hang on Iranian acquiescence to allow them to traverse Hormuz.
If Iran’s ‘foot on the throat’ of the global economic system is pursued selectively – according to their specific criteria — it is possible that other states (including the Europeans) may be forced to the ‘negotiating table’ with Tehran to ensure their future economic well-being.
The U.S.’ unseen power structures
It is not however just the Gulf that will need to consider where they – the Gulf monarchs – stand in the wake of this ill-considered and potentially very damaging economic war. There are those in the U.S. insisting that Americans too need to discuss where they should stand as well.
U.S. commentator Bret Weinstein recently struck a chord with many Americans who, like him, had actively supported Trump, but were now confused and unsettled by Trump’s espousal of a war on Iran – especially as his Presidency hangs in the balance in consequence:
“Why would a man, [like] Trump, who understands politics make such an obvious mistake?”
In discussion with Tucker Carlson, Weinstein suggested that one answer is that Trump is not in fact in control:
“We Americans need to have a conversation with ourselves – not only about how broken the system is and what it results in us doing, but how does it actually work. [Who] is it that is driving us to do what we do”.
The question is deeper than the issue of Trump breaking his campaign promises of ‘no new foreign wars’. (Reuters today reports that “the Trump administration is considering deploying thousands of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East – as Trump weighs next steps regarding Iran which could include an attempt to secure the Strait”).
Weinstein pointed out in his conversation with Tucker Carlson that for some time (since 1961 or 1963), the U.S. system has seemed to be badly broken: It no longer had American interests at heart. In fact, American governance, he argued, visibly had become antithetical to Americans’ real interests – across many spheres, from finance to health. And the state had transformed into an “anti-Constitutional” structure since the events of November 1963 – the exact opposite to what the U.S. was intended to be.
Weinstein attributed this situation to ‘a something’ that is undeclared; something that cannot visibly be observed. It suggested a ‘hidden power structure’ whose control and interests are opaque: “What drives it? Who exactly holds the power in this system. We do not know”, he argued. What were the unseen interests that drove the U.S. to this succession of foreign wars in the Middle East?
This was why the Epstein episode was so crucial, Weinstein emphasised: The few details published have painted a power-structure involving intelligence services, money and corruption that spoke to an unspoken Constitutional and acute Security crisis within the U.S.
Americans urgently needed to be informed what this power structure is – and what its interests are. And to then discuss where Americans stand, and how to recover the elements that could lead to a recovery of a state governed by Americans’ own interests.
Tyler Norris on X: "Today @EPRINews released an open letter @CERAWeek signed by more than 30 members of the power and digital infrastructure industries -- including hyperscalers, utilities, ISO/RTOs, and others -- calling for industry-wide collaboration on a standardized approach for integrating https://t.co/G51E8HC2um" / X
Monday, March 23, 2026
[Salon] Huthis and the Iran war - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Huthis and the Iran war
Summary: the odds are long that the Huthis will join the current war in support of Tehran with reasons for that ranging from a pragmatic leadership to a Yemeni population under their control that has little love for the Iranian regime.
We thank Helen Lackner for today’s article. An expert on Yemen, Helen also works as a freelance rural development consultant with a particular interest in water, among other environmental issues. SAQI Books has published the paperback edition with new material of her Yemen In Crisis, now subtitled Devastating Conflict, Fragile Hope. It is a seminal study of the war, what lies behind it and what needs to happen for it to finally end. Her latest book Yemen: Poverty and Conflict was published by Routledge in 2022. You can find Helen’s most recent Arab Digest podcast A black eye in Yemen for the UAE here.
Since the US-Israeli air war against Iran started, observers have been speculating on the likelihood of Huthi military participation. Most assume that Huthi actions are decided in Tehran, following the patronising assumption that Ansar Allah is no more than an Iranian proxy and has no agency based on its own interests. Whether and how the Huthis get directly involved in the war remains unknown at the time of writing but the issues that will determine that decision deserve to be addressed.
There is no doubt that Ansar Allah supports Iran in its current predicament and all major Huthi leaders have made loud and clear statements to that effect some quoted more frequently than others in particular Abdul Malik al Huthi’s assertion that his movement has its ‘hands on the trigger.’ Given regional events in the past two years, Ansar Allah is the only member of the Axis of Resistance which remains largely unscathed by devastating Israeli and US attacks and could be said to be the last man standing. So, what are the main considerations likely to determine Huthi decision making? They are both domestic and international.
The Huthi leadership’s decision to join the US-Israeli-Iranian conflict will be driven by their own strategic interests—such as preserving a potential deal with Saudi Arabia and countering a strengthening domestic opposition—rather than by Iranian orders alone.
Relations with Saudi Arabia: the Huthis are still hoping to reach an agreement with the Saudis which would ensure their continued control over the two thirds of Yemenis surviving under their rule: the Saudis would finance public sector salaries, reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed in the past decade and provide development investments and the Huthis would refrain from any attacks on the Kingdom. While revival of the deal almost reached in late 2023 is unlikely, the risk of Huthi attacks on Red Sea and other Saudi major projects continues to be a good reason why the Saudis may want to proceed with an agreement. Huthi attacks on the kingdom’s oil, military or tourist sites would seriously jeopardise this option. By contrast, the possibility of the Huthis persuading Iran to minimise its attacks against the Kingdom would serve both Saudi and Huthi interests. To date it is worth noting that Iran’s attacks on the UAE have been far more numerous and damaging than those against Saudi Arabia, reflecting the degree of comparative closeness of these two regimes to Israel.
Recent developments in the internationally recognised government [IRG] are another source of concern for the Huthis, specifically the ousting of the UAE-supported Southern Transitional Council in January this year. As a result, the IRG is gradually becoming stronger and more united as it now includes many of the former UAE-supported units, particularly the Amaliqa brigades. A more effective IRG is keen to confront the Huthis hoping to defeat them and regain control over the whole country and re-establish its base in the capital Sana’a. The Saudis, now the sole significant external influence on the IRG, might well support such a move, an additional reason why the Huthi leadership would want to reach agreement with the Saudis and not alienate them further.
Ansar Allah’s military situation also plays a role: last year’s US and Israeli strikes have significantly weakened Huthi military capacity, destroying significant stocks. In addition, in recent months there have been a number of interceptions of incoming advanced components for drones and missiles so replenishment of materiel has slowed down. Local production has become a major element of Huthi weaponry, but its output is of less sophisticated items, lacking the range and technology needed to reach distant targets. In the current situation Iran is unlikely to have any spares to send to Yemen, let alone the logistics of such traffic while under constant US and Israeli bombardment. In addition to the destruction suffered in 2025 the emergence of Israeli intelligence penetration is a very worrying development for the Ansar Allah leadership which has become more cautious and fearful of consequences. It is also possible that it is heeding reported warnings from the US to hold their fire.
Two thirds of Yemenis live under Huthi rule, most of them reluctantly. They are experiencing a shockingly deteriorating humanitarian crisis with millions hungry due to the almost complete interruption of food and other humanitarian aid. The 2025 US declaration of the Huthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation now affects financial flows, most importantly impacting the banking sector and local businesses, many of which are relocating to the IRG area. This is also reducing remittances, worsening the already disastrous living conditions for the people. The local economy has shown no sign of revival.
Any Huthi military action today would explicitly be intended to help Iran against the US and Israel. This is different from earlier Huthi attacks which supported Palestinians in Gaza. While Yemenis are almost universally pro-Palestine, the same cannot be said about Iran as a nation or its Islamist revolutionary regime. Iran is widely disliked in Yemen for religious, cultural and political reasons, including by the majority of Yemenis living under Huthi rule. Only the core of the Huthi movement is close to the Iranian regime, so risking massive destructive US and Israeli retaliation would certainly damage already weak popular support for Ansar Allah within Yemen.
Finally, it is important to remember that within the leadership of Ansar Allah, there are divergent views and strategies, ranging from those who want to ensure their continued control over the parts of Yemen under their rule to those whose ambitions go as far as the three holy sites, including Jerusalem. Whether or not the Huthis eventually take military action will be based on their assessment of their own long-term interests and the balance of power within Ansar Allah’s leadership. The decision will not be taken in Tehran, regardless of the views of international experts on the region.
Truth Details | Truth Social
Truth Details | Truth Social
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Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Sunday, March 22, 2026
[Salon] Netanyahu: one red line too far? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Netanyahu: one red line too far?
Summary: the attack on the South Pars gas field and the heavy Iranian response reveals how a weak and foolish Donald Trump has allowed Israel to rampage through regional security and threaten a global economic meltdown.
Benjamin Netanyahu in his prosecution of the Gaza war has crossed one red line after another with little or no disapproval from Israel’s friends and allies. The results are all too clear: Gaza is largely destroyed, more than 75000 Palestinians have been killed of which more than half of that figure are women, children and the elderly and more than a million are internally displaced and living in appalling conditions.
Emboldened by Western silence and the staunch support of the US Netanyahu launched the war against Iran three weeks ago with the full backing of President Trump. Though it is abundantly clear almost since the conflict began that Trump has been unable to explain to the American people why he has joined Netanyahu’s war, the Israeli prime minister has always had a precise strategic objective. That is the destruction of the Iranian regime. He was able to convince Trump that now was the time to strike the lethal blow.
As Sanam Vakil noted in our 18 March podcast Trump bought that line from the Israeli prime minister apparently unaware that:
this war was organised and executed based on faulty assumptions. Rather than basing analysis on evidence, the Israeli system concluded, I don't know how, but perhaps influenced by activists, that the Islamic Republic was weak, and thereby this was an opportune time to get the job done and finish what was not completed after the 12-day war (in June 2025.)
That was a severe miscalculation by Netanyahu and one that Trump was foolish enough to believe. In three weeks of war, though Iran has been grievously wounded with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and much of the leadership of the military, security and government structure assassinated and its armed forces heavily degraded, it is using asymmetrical warfare to successfully defend against the massive fire power arraigned against it.
A key weapon of attack has been to target the economies of the Gulf states. While ostensibly claiming to be hitting US military bases in those states the regime in Tehran has stepped up its strikes hitting civilian targets while focussing on energy facilities. Throughout the war the GCC states have protested in strong language against these attacks but to little avail. That’s because as the Islamic Republic is pushed to the wall it has played its ace card. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz coupled with hits on energy infrastructure is moving close to crippling the global economy.
In a major escalation, Israel attacked South Pars in Iran, the world’s largest natural gas field.
Netanyahu sensing that Iran was winning this asymmetrical war and noting that Western allies have ignored Trump’s plaintive pleas for naval interventions into the Strait crossed one more red line with the attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field. That triggered a huge response from the Iranians. Qatar’s massive Ras Laffan LNG facility was severely damaged yesterday and Saudi Arabia and the UAE were targeted with missiles.
South Pars is part of the largest offshore gas field in the world divided roughly equally between Qatar and Iran with the Qatari portion known as North Dome. The Israeli strike infuriated the Qataris and angered other GCC members. These countries knew that Israel had put them at even greater risk of Iranian retaliation which was quick to come.
Donald Trump claimed on his Truth Social site that “the United States knew nothing about this particular attack.” It was an extraordinary admission from the Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful military. His ally had just plunged the region and the world into a new and even more dangerous crisis. Energy prices immediately spiked. Fear streaked through countries around the world that rising prices would hit everything from food to interest rates to mortgages. The dreaded phrase “a global depression” was mooted on Nicky Campbell’s popular BBC 5 Live phone in programme.
Israel immediately put out a claim supported by the media site Axios that Trump had “green-lit”the attack but on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (after 8 AM) the Israeli spokesman did not answer directly to the question had the President been advised while insisting “there is no daylight between Israel and the United States.”
Either way it is a bad look for Donald Trump. Either he knew and was incapable of understanding the consequences of the attack or Netanyahu simply chose to ignore the man who is providing him with the weaponry to conduct his wars in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Iran. Trump wrote in his inimitably bombastic but increasingly silly and juvenile style:
NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.
So the president has told Netanyahu he mustn’t do it again, he has told the Iranians they mustn’t do it again but beyond that it is anyone’s guess as to how he will secure those aims. Meanwhile his allies in the Gulf are continuing to bear the kinetic brunt of a war they never wanted. And the rest of the world is joining them in experiencing the economic misery it is now inflicting upon all of us.
So has Benjamin Netanyahu finally crossed one red line too far? The only way this war will end is through negotiations not firepower. Pressure therefore must be brought to bear on Donald Trump. He is already experiencing significant blowback from his MAGA base for breaking his promise to them not to bring America into another Middle East war. America’s allies in the West, much insulted and derided by Trump, and those in Asia need to join forces with the Gulf States and bring abundant pressure to bear on the president at the point where he is now increasingly vulnerable. The world needs to say to Donald Trump enough. Use the threat of halting the weapons flow to Israel as leverage on Netanyahu to bring this madness to an end.
Saturday, March 21, 2026
[Salon] A war that Trump is losing - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
A war that Trump is losing
Summary: nearly three weeks into the Iran conflict Donald Trump is learning that a war he believed would be a quick win is shaping up to become one of those forever wars he promised to keep America away from.
Today’s newsletter features excerpts from the transcript of our 18 March podcast with Sanam Vakil the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. You can find the podcast here.
Sanam, something I do to keep myself sane is to flip on its head pretty much everything Donald Trump says. So, for example, in a recent Truth Social screed he called Ukraine's President Zelensky “P.T. Barnum,” okay, I flip that and the true circus salesman is Donald Trump. The President says the US is winning the war hands down. I flip that. So should I be thinking it is Iran that is winning the war right now?
Well, I don't know if this makes me sane to think about things in converse ways but I think it's rather smart, Bill, for you to do so. Let me put it this way: I don't think that Iran is winning in a conventional sense. Iran's strategy is predicated on survival. It cannot win this war from a military perspective. It is taking blows, very heavy blows, day to day from the United States, the most formidable power militarily, as well as Israel, the region's military power. But for Iran, if it does survive, and if the Islamic Republic regenerates itself, that will be a win on its own. Oftentimes in the Middle East, and we've seen this in the history books, not losing to a superior, if not superpower, is a victory. So that's what they're trying to achieve. But what matters is not just survival but how Iran and how, specifically, the Islamic Republic survives. It needs a deal that guarantees its survival but prevents another war from resurfacing in six months or six years and ultimately it needs sanctions relief, and in this moment, it’s very hard to see how those objectives can be achieved especially from a US president who might be a circus salesman but he's definitely not a trustworthy one.
Much of the criticism being levelled at the Trump administration is that it went to war without a strategy. That's a fair criticism and I'm just looking at my phone, Sanam, and Joe Kent, who is the head of the National Counterterrorism Centre, has just quit. He was a big Trump fan. He's left because he says Israel called the shots on this war. Is that a fair comment, that it was Netanyahu who pulled Trump into this war?
I think it's easy to just lay blame for this war on the Israeli prime minister who certainly has had Iran in his sight since October 7. But I think we can't just assign full blame or responsibility to the Israeli prime minister. He certainly was influential enough to convince Donald Trump to go along with the war. And I think that the agency and the decision does lie with the US Commander in Chief. What's problematic, though, about this war that was clearly planned from many months ago, not just as a reaction to the protests and the brutal crackdown seen in Iran on January 8 and beyond, is that this war was organised and executed based on faulty assumptions. And what do I mean by that? I think this is where the Israelis are culpable, and of course, Donald Trump is guilty for falling for it. Rather than basing analysis on evidence, the Israeli system concluded, I don't know how but perhaps influenced by activists, that the Islamic Republic was weak and thereby this was an opportune time to get the job done and finish what was not completed after the 12 day war last year. And as this war began on February 28, President Trump intimated that it would be a four or five day war, and since then, has clearly expressed his surprise the war has lasted longer, that Iran's response has been much more fierce and we know that (the Americans) have not prepared for a longer term war or tried to plan or mitigate against the uncertainties of a war, the so-called known unknowns that Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, spoke about during the 2003 Iraq War. So, today, we've seen the cost of this war spread. Markets are reacting. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. And there are many more risks on the horizon and this looks like it will be a longer war and one that Donald Trump, on his own, won't be able to decide when it's over.
While the Iranian government is under immense pressure, the lack of a clear strategy or a unified opposition means the war may only result in a wounded but surviving Islamic Republic.
There is much debate about the extent of support the Iranian regime has inside Iran, and there is an assumption made by Trump and others that the Iranian people will rise up. But on your feed X you asked a very good question: “who is providing the analysis for this assumption?” So how do you read the situation in Iran and how likely is it that the regime will fall anytime soon?
Well, as I said earlier, I think this war has been prosecuted with faulty assumptions: that the regime was weak, that this would be a quick operation. And I think the third assumption is that the ground will be made fertile for a change in the regime or an Iranian revolution. And unfortunately I'm of the view that this war began without preparing the terrain or working with Iranians inside and outside to help nurture that outcome which is almost impossible to nurture anyway. It's still early days. And I do think that the Islamic Republic is very cognisant that it has a broad-based internal security threat. Iranians continue to protest. In January, we saw very serious protests across the country, thousands of people were killed and this war hasn't eradicated that threat to the regime. But to assume that this system would quickly collapse and Iranians would be able to work together and marshal an alternative is, I think, naive and not reflective of the reality on the ground. There is an opposition in Iran but it's been repressed; there is an external opposition but it's very divided. So we have to see what happens when the war comes to an end and how this war comes to an end. Because if the Islamic Republic gets what it wants out of this war, it will be its survival as well as a guarantee that somehow it won't be struck again. And that will, of course, leave the Iranian people - who have been hopeful for a change in governance and waiting for the death of Khamenei to perhaps see that through - it will leave them wholly disappointed and let down.
Is there a way out?
I have to say I'm personally struggling to think of what the way out is because obviously the off ramp, or the quick off ramp, is a deal but that deal will leave an empowered but wounded system in place and Donald Trump will have helped breathe life back into a weakening Islamic Republic. And you know for Iranians I think that is a devastating outcome. But ultimately I also think that prolonging the war is not going to deliver the positive outcomes for the region more broadly and also for the Iranian people. I'm caught between my hope and impulse to support change in Iran and hampered by the reality of the facts on the ground and so it is hard to see how this is going to end but I do think it does have to end.
[Salon] Fwd: "EMPIRE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" (GRAPHIC) - Guest Post by John Whitbeck
[Salon] Fwd: "EMPIRE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" (GRAPHIC) - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail
FM: John Whitbeck
With U.S. military bases abroad being prominently in the news these days, I am transmitting herewith a graphic which appears in my distinguished recipient David Vine's latest book, The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts (2020).
This graphic offers a country-by-country breakdown of the 738+ known U.S. military base sites outside the United States as of 2020, when they were then backed up by 4149 military base sites located within the United States.
For the GCC countries currently claiming neutrality in response to Iranian retaliation, the numbers are 12 base sites for Bahrain, 11 for Saudi Arabia, 10 for Kuwait, 6 for Oman and 3 each for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
It should by now be clear that permitting one's country to be militarily occupied by the United States, whether in the Persian Gulf, in Europe or elsewhere, makes one's country less, not more, secure by making it complicit and a potential target for retaliation in any of the seemingly endless succession of American wars of choice against other countries which pose no conceivable threat to a host country.
Germany and Japan have been militarily occupied by the United States continuously since their unconditional surrenders in 1945, with each of them now serving as "host" to 119 U.S. military base sites. Notwithstanding the acquiescence of German and Japanese governments, these perpetual occupations are not being perpetuated for the benefit of the people of Germany or Japan.
If any German or Japanese government dared to prioritize its own national interests and assert its sovereignty and independence by asking the United States to vacate its military bases on their country's territory, does anyone believe that the United States would do so?
NOTE: I take this opportunity to recommend again all three of David Vine's essential-reading books, including his two prior ones, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (2009) and Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (2015).
Friday, March 20, 2026
As Israel continues to wreck the world and expect American troops to fight and die for it, these are how many Israeli troops were deployed to fight alongside the US:
US Troops Fighting
Israeli Troops Assisting
Korean War (1950–1953):
0
Lebanon Crisis (1958):
0
Yemeni War (1962–1970):
0
Dhofar War Oman (1962–1976):
0
Gulf War (1991):
0
Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988):
0
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021):
0
War Against AQAP in Yemen (2002–2009:
0
Syrian War (2011–2024):
0
Libyan War (2011, 2014–2020:
0
Yemeni War (2014–Present):
0
War Against ISIS (2014–Present):
0
Israeli does not send any of their men and women to die for any nation.
Thursday, March 19, 2026
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