Part 2 Anti-Anti-Nazi Barbarian Hordes are Knocking Down ...

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Iran cluster hypersonic missile just hit Netanyahu's underground bank in Tel Aviv - OPTM
OPTM
Mar 14, 2026



Transcript
There are moments in a conflict that transcend mere military engagement.
secondsMoments that redefine the very psychology of a nation. What we are witnessing tonight in the footage circulating from Tehran Times Press TV
secondsand verified by open-source intelligence analysts is precisely one of those moments. Forget everything you think you know about the balance of power in the
secondsoccupied territories. For the past days, we have watched a relentless campaign of aggression from Israel and
secondsits Western backers against Iranian sovereignty. The semiofficial Tasnam news agency reported that Thran may
secondstarget banks and economic centers across the region.
secondsA new front has opened in the Middle East conflict and this time the target is not oil ports or airports. It is data. The cloud just took a direct hit.
secondsBut last night, the Axis of Resistance delivered a response that was not just military. It was surgical,
minutepsychological, and deeply strategic. The target, not a military barracks, not a forward operating base. It was the heart
minute, secondsof the Zionist economy, the largest underground banking facility and data center in Tel Aviv, located deep beneath
minute, secondsthe Azraeli center complex, often referred to by locals as the financial street. We are looking at the aftermath
minute, secondsof what military experts are already calling the most devastating precision strike in the history of Middle Eastern
minute, secondswarfare. Initial reports suggest that the strike utilized a variant of the Kaibar shaken hypersonic missile, a
minute, secondsweapon specifically designed to render the so-called Iron Dome and its associated aerial defense systems utterly irrelevant. Unlike the
minute, secondsretaliatory strikes we saw during the -day war last year, which primarily targeted military airfields, this
minute, secondsbarrage was aimed at the circulatory system of the occupation itself, the banks, the data centers, and the
minutesunderground bunkers where the shekels are printed and the digital infrastructure that controls the occupied territories is housed. The
minutes, secondsfacility wasn't just hit, it was completely decimated. It has been turned into a scene reminiscent of Gaza or
minutes, secondssouthern Beirut after an Israeli bombing, concrete twisted like tinfoil,
minutes, secondsfires raging out of control, and a financial system thrown into a state of cardiac arrest. Before we delve deeper into how this will shatter the illusion
minutes, secondsof security for every western investor from Tel Aviv to Dubai, I want to use these medium to say thank you to all who found this channel worthy to subscribe.
minutes, secondsWe just smashed the half a million subscribers and I'm great to all of you from when we are Catholic to Muslim reaction channel to standing against the
minutes, secondsoppressed. Thank you so much. Yet, I need to ask you something. This channel relies on your courage, your willingness to see the truth that mainstream
minutes, secondscorporate media refuses to show you. We do not have the backing of billionaires or wararmongering governments. We have
minutes, secondsyou. If you believe in honest journalism, in reporting that tells you what is actually happening rather than what the Pentagon wants you to think,
minutes, secondshit that like button, share this video with everyone you know. And if you haven't already, subscribe and join this
minutes, secondsmovement because the world is changing and you deserve to know who is really winning this war. Let's be specific
minutes, secondsabout what was actually destroyed here because the mainstream media will try to spin this as damage to a commercial
minutes, secondsdistrict and that would be a lie. The Azraeli center is not just a mall. It is the nexus of Israeli economic power.
minutes, secondsBeneath those towers lies a fortified bunker complex that houses the primary servers for nearly all of Israel's banking sector, including Hapoalim,
minutes, secondsLeomi, and Discount Bank. But it's bigger than that. Intelligence gathered by Iranian signals. Intelligence
minutes, secondsindicates that this specific facility also hosted cloud relay stations for Western tech giants who have cozied up
minutes, secondsto the occupation. You have to understand the strategic shift that has occurred here. In the opening days of this war, when the United States and
minutes, secondsIsrael bombed civilian infrastructure inside Iran, including a branch of Bank SEPA in Tran, the Islamic Revolutionary
minutes, secondsGuard Corps, IRGC, issued a warning that sent shivers down the spine of every corporate executive in the Gulf. They
minutes, secondssaid, and I'm paraphrasing here, you have made this an infrastructure war.
minutes, secondsYou have made banks and economic centers legitimate targets. Do not think your technology firms are safe. And they
minutes, secondsmeant it. We saw the precursor to this last week when Iranian drones and missiles struck Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, knocking
minutes, secondsout large swaths of the digital economy in the Gulf. But last night's strike on Tel Aviv was the main course. It was the
minutes, secondsproof of concept. The KBAR shock missile, which we believe was used in this strike, travels at speeds exceeding
minutes, secondsMach It maneuvers. It laughs at the Arrow and David sling systems that Israel has spent billions developing
minutes, secondswith American taxpayers money. When that warhead penetrated the ground, it didn't just destroy concrete. It destroyed the
minutes, secondsconfidence of every investor who thought Tel Aviv was a safe haven for their capital. The facility is gone. The data
minutes, secondsis gone. And with it, the money of thousands of Israelis and Western expats has literally been vaporized. Not just in digital form, but physically trapped
minutes, secondsunder rubble. This brings us to the broader theater of this war, which has now expanded to the gleaming towers of
minutes, secondsthe Gulf. In the past hours, panic has spread through the financial districts of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha.
minutes, secondsWe are receiving reports that City Bank,
minutes, secondsone of the largest American financial institutions, ordered the immediate evacuation of its regional headquarters in the Dubai International Financial
minutes, secondsCenter, DIC. Staff were told to find the nearest safe place away from the office,
minutes, secondsstandard chartered HSBC. They have either closed branches or reissued work from home edicts. Why? Because the
minutes, secondsIRGC's Katam al- Ania headquarters released a targeting list. Because the IRGC's Katam Al-Nambia headquarters
minutes, secondsreleased a targeting list and on that list were not just abstract military assets. It named Google's Dubai office.
minutes, secondsIt named Amazon's cloud regions. It named Nvidia's research facilities in Hifa and Oracle's offices in Jerusalem
minutes, secondsand Abu Dhabi. The fear is palpable. For decades, the Gulf states have tried to play a dangerous game, hosting Western
minutes, secondsmilitary bases while pretending they could remain neutral in a conflict with Iran. They allowed themselves to be integrated into the USIsraeli
minutes, secondstechnological and financial architecture. They became the playground for Western tech. And now that
minutes, secondplayground is on fire. The Iranian doctrine is clear. If you host the infrastructure that powers the US
minutes, secondsmilitary's AI or if your banks finance the occupation, your distance from the battlefield is zero. The straight of Hormuz is closed, vessels are burning,
minutes, secondsand the idea that Dubai is a bubble of safety has been burst permanently. Let's talk about the human and financial catastrophe unfolding inside the
minutes, secondsoccupied territories right now. This isn't just about broken glass and burned servers. This is about the complete
minutes, secondscollapse of financial normaly. For years, the United Nations experts have warned about Israel's financial strangle hold on the Palestinians, the
minutes, secondswithholding of tax revenues, the destruction of banks in Gaza, the liquidity crisis that made life impossible. But the Zionists built their system on the idea that their banks,
minutes, secondstheir economy would always be immune.
minutes, secondsThey believed that their high walls and American interceptors would keep the war far away from their stock portfolios.
minutes, secondsThat illusion is dead. In the hours following the hypersonic strike on the underground bunker, a run on banks
minutes, secondsbegan. But you cannot run a bank when the data center is a smoking crater. You cannot withdraw your shekels when the ATMs are connected to servers that no
minutes, secondslonger exist. We are seeing reports from inside Tel Aviv and other cities of people stranded at electronic tellers,
minutes, secondscards being rejected and a complete freeze on digital transactions.
minutes, secondsThis is a financial heart attack. The Iran has stated clearly that this is a war of attrition, a long war. They are
minutes, secondsnot trying to just send a message. They are systematically dismantling the ability of the enemy to function by targeting the digital backbone and the
minutes, secondsbanking sector. They are forcing the occupation to fight on multiple fronts. The physical front in Gaza and Lebanon,
minutes, secondsthe aerial front over Iran, and now the economic front inside the heart of Tel Aviv. And the Western companies are
minutes, secondsrunning. They are closing their Gulf offices not because they want to, but because Iran has made them a promise. If
minutes, secondsyou aid the genocide, your servers are targets. Before I let you go, let's watch what the president of Bellarus,
minutes, secondsAlexander Lucenko, said about Iran and US's miscalculations.
minutes, secondsforchech.
minutes, secondsTrump.
minutes, secondForeign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech.
minutes, secondsforchech.
minutes, secondsWe will continue to track the fallout from this strike. We are hearing whispers that the digital damage is so severe that the occupied entity may be
minutes, secondscut off from international banking swaps for days, if not weeks. The desperation is only beginning. This is a war for
minutes, secondssurvival and the balance has just shifted. Subscribe and stay tuned.

[admin]

2,200 U S Marines Head to Hormuz — The War Just Changed
Red Line Report
Mar 14, 2026 UNITED STATES
#IranWar #StraitOfHormuz #oilcrisis

The Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy corridor, has become the center of a rapidly escalating geopolitical crisis. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes through this narrow waterway every day — and now it has effectively shut down.

In response, the United States is deploying 2,200 Marines aboard the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship designed for high-intensity operations. The mission: help restore security and reopen one of the most strategically important shipping routes on Earth.

But this deployment signals something deeper.

Despite two weeks of intense airstrikes against Iranian military targets, coastal missile systems and mobile launchers along Iran’s shoreline continue to threaten any ship attempting to cross the strait. With global shipping traffic collapsing and energy markets swinging wildly, the situation is rapidly becoming a global economic and military flashpoint.

Meanwhile, diplomatic cracks are beginning to appear. Some countries are reportedly negotiating directly with Tehran for safe passage, while oil markets react to every development in the region.

So what does sending 2,200 Marines into one of the most heavily defended waterways in the world actually mean?

Is this a limited mission to secure shipping lanes — or the beginning of a much larger confrontation in the Persian Gulf?

In this video, we break down:

• Why the Strait of Hormuz matters to the global economy
• The military reality of Iran’s coastal defense system
• Why airstrikes alone haven’t reopened the strait
• What the Marine deployment could signal next
• And how this crisis could reshape global energy and geopolitics

This is not just a regional conflict — it’s a moment that could redefine global power, energy security, and the balance of influence in the Middle East.

Watch until the end to understand why the world is watching the Strait of Hormuz right now.



Transcript

Marines just boarded a warship.
secondsAnd nobody in Washington wants to explain what that actually means. days. That's how long this war has been running. days since American and
secondsIsraeli jets began hammering Iranian military targets in what the Pentagon called a swift, decisive campaign. days since the world's most critical
secondsenergy corridor went dark. days since the price of oil began swinging like a pendulum between and $a barrel,
secondsshaking every economy on the planet. And on day a reporter asked Donald Trump a simple question. When does this end?
secondsTrump paused. He thought for a moment.
secondsThen he said he'd know when he felt it in his bones. Not when Iran signs a ceasefire. Not when the straight of Hormuz reopens. Not when a diplomatic
secondsframework is reached or a surrender is announced. When the president of the United States personally feels it. That answer tells you everything about where this war actually stands right now.
secondsBecause on the very same day Trump said those words, the Pentagon was loading Marines onto a Navy assault ship in Japan, of them. Helicopter
minute, secondgunships, armed infantry, special operations teams, armored vehicles,
minute, secondslanding craft built to put boots on a hostile shore. The USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault vessel, is now cutting through open water toward the
minute, secondsPersian Gulf. The mission, officially stated, is to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Let that sink in for a second.
minute, secondsTwo weeks of the most intense American air campaign since World War II. Over Iranian targets struck and the
minute, secondsStrait is still closed. So now come the Marines. To understand why this deployment changes everything, you need to understand what the Straight of
minute, secondsHormuz actually looks like from a military standpoint. Because the people who know it best have spent years warning about exactly this scenario. The
minute, secondsStrait is km wide at its narrowest point. km, that's it. On one side is Iran. Hundreds of kilometers of
minute, secondscoastline packed with anti-hship missile batteries, mobile launchers, underground storage facilities, and hardened installations that were specifically
minute, secondsengineered to destroy naval vessels trying to force passage. These aren't improvised weapons thrown together in a crisis. Iran has spent decades and
minutes, secondsbillions of dollars building a coastal defense network designed for one purpose, to make anyone think twice before sailing into that water
minutes, secondsuninvited. And here's the part no press conference will tell you directly. Many of those missile systems have ranges measured in hundreds of kilometers. A
minutes, secondsbattery sitting well inland, far from the coast, can still reach a ship sitting in the middle of the straight.
minutes, secondsThe air campaign has been running for two weeks. targets struck,
minutes, secondsaccording to Defense Secretary Pete Hexith. And yet, the missile threat hasn't disappeared because it was never designed to disappear under air attack
minutes, secondsalone. Iran built its coastal defense system to survive exactly what's been happening to it. The launchers are mobile. The missiles are stored
minutes, secondsunderground. The crews disperse and relocate the moment they sense targeting activity. Destroying a launcher in a fixed position takes one strike.
minutes, secondsDestroying every launcher, every underground bunker, every trained crew operating dispersed across hundreds of kilometers of coastline, that is a fundamentally different problem. And that problem has not been solved. Now,
minutes, secondshere's where things get even more complicated. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant confirmed this week that the US military plans to establish naval escorts for commercial ships through the
minutes, secondsstrait. But he also confirmed that before those escorts begin, land-based anti-hship missiles need to be neutralized first. That sequencing makes
minutes, secondssense on paper. The problem is that Iran has had days to watch American targeting patterns and move accordingly.
minutes, secondsEvery mobile launcher that was sitting in a known location on February th is now somewhere else. The intelligence picture built over years of satellite
minutes, secondssurveillance and signals collection has been partially invalidated by the very conflict it was meant to support. The Marines aren't being sent into a cleared zone. They're being sent to create one.
minutes, secondsMeanwhile, Pete Hgsith stepped to the Pentagon podium on Friday and delivered one of the most striking press conferences of this war. He said,
minutes, seconds"Iran's air force is gone. Its navy is gone. Its production lines are destroyed. Its leadership is desperate,
minutes, secondscowering, and hiding underground." Then he used a specific word to describe Iran's leaders, rats. He went further. He said, "The new Supreme Leader,
minutes, secondsMoshtaba Kam, the man named just one week ago to replace his father, is wounded and likely disfigured. No photograph, no medical report, no
minutes, secondsintelligence document read into the public record, just a claim." And as evidence, he pointed to the fact that Kam's first public statement was delivered through a news anchor rather
minutes, secondsthan directly on camera. One hour later in Tehran, tens of thousands of people filled the streets for Alcud's Day, the annual event marking solidarity with
minutes, secondsPalestine. Standing visibly at that rally in broad daylight in front of cameras and crowds were Iranian President Massud Pzeskian and Ali
minutes, secondsLarajani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. The same Larjani who days ago threatened to shut down electricity across the entire
minutes, secondsMiddle East if the United States touched Iran's power grid. Not underground, not hiding, not behaving like rats. They were at a public rally in the capital on
minutes, secondsthe same day. The US Secretary of Defense said Iran's leadership was broken and in hiding. That gap between what was said at the Pentagon podium and
minutes, secondwhat was happening simultaneously on the streets of Tehran is the most accurate snapshot of where this war stands on day And into that gap, the United States
minutes, secondsis now sending Marines. But the military picture is only one part of this story. Because while Washington and Tran trade strikes and statements,
minutes, secondssomething else is happening around the edges of this conflict that could reshape its outcome entirely. The global shipping collapse is not recovering. According to Lloyd's list intelligence,
minutes, secondsonly ships transited the straight of Hormuz in the first half of March
minutes, secondsIn the same period last year, ships made that same passage. That is a %
minutes, secondscollapse in traffic. Over a thousand cargo vessels are sitting anchored outside the straight right now waiting.
minutes, secondsThe insurance market has walked away. No shipping company on Earth will send crews through those waters at any price the global economy can currently
minutes, secondssustain. And what's happening while they wait? Europe is not waiting for American leadership. Germany, France and Italy have opened direct conversations with Thran quietly asking permission to pass.
minutesNot demanding asking. India went further. Indian diplomats have reportedly negotiated a bilateral arrangement allowing two liqufied
minutes, secondspetroleum gas tankers through the strait as part of direct talks with Iran.
minutes, secondsCountries that are formally aligned with the United States are quietly cutting their own deals with the country the United States is currently bombing around the clock. This is Iran's actual
minutes, secondsstrategy and it's working. not military victory in a conventional sense,
minutes, secondspolitical fragmentation, the erosion of any unified international front that would otherwise pressure Tan toward concessions. America assumed the world
minutes, secondswould stand behind this campaign. The world is standing behind its energy supply instead. Central Command planners admitted to Congress this week that they
minutes, secondshad not fully incorporated a scenario in which Iran would actually close the strait and hold it closed. The working assumption before February th was a
minutes, secondsshort campaign. Iranian leadership discredited within days. Popular pressure from inside Iran forcing some kind of political shift. Trump himself
minutes, secondssaid it would take four days, maybe a week. It is now day And the situation on the Iranian side is more complicated than any of those
minutes, secondsassumptions accounted for. Trump told Gleaders privately this week that Moshaba Kam is, in his words, not in good shape,
minutes, secondsand that nobody knows who is actually in charge. Read that carefully. The president of the United States told the seven largest economies on earth that
minutes, secondsthe war he is running has reached a point where there may be no one on the opposing side who can legally end it even if they wanted to. No phone number,
minutes, secondsno authority to negotiate with. The IRGC, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps,
minutes, secondshas its own institutional reasons to keep fighting. They answer to the Supreme Leader. And the Supreme Leader, according to Washington's own account,
minutes, secondsis unreachable. Steve Witoff, Trump's Middle East envoy, sent a message through Omen this week signaling openness to stopping the war. Larjani's
minutes, secondsresponse came publicly at the Alkud's Day rally, visible to the crowd and the cameras. He rejected the overture entirely. The strait stays closed. The
minutes, secondswar continues. The only acceptable outcome in Thran's stated position is American withdrawal from the region and the closure of every American military
minutes, secondbase in the Middle East. A $million bounty has now been placed on Mushtava Kame through the State Department's rewards for justice program. Nine other
minutes, secondssenior Iranian officials were added to the same list, including Laajjani, the intelligence minister, the interior minister, and the IRGC commander. The
minutes, secondsUnited States government is now offering cash payments for information on the whereabouts of the man it cannot confirm is alive, dead, wounded, or functional.
minutes, secondsThis is not where the war was supposed to be on day The Marines will arrive. The bombing will continue. Oil markets will keep swinging. European
minutes, secondsgovernments will keep making quiet calls to Tran. and the clock will keep running on strategic petroleum reserves that were never designed to substitute
minutes, secondsindefinitely for the world's most important energy route. Here's the strategic reality that no statement from any podium changes. You don't deploy a
minutes, secondsMarine expeditionary unit to a theater where the air campaign has already succeeded. You deploy one when the air campaign has hit its limit and the objective still hasn't been achieved.
minutes, secondsThe objective is the strait. The strait is not open. So, the Marines are coming.
minutes, secondThe question that nobody in Washington is answering directly right now is the one that matters most. What happens after the Marines arrive and the Strait is still contested. What is the plan for
minutes, secondsthe day after the most intense bombing campaign in modern history reaches the boundary of what air power alone can accomplish? One side is operating on
minutes, secondsinstinct, waiting to feel it. The other side has a plan, has a position, and just held a mass public rally to prove
minutes, secondsit days in. Marines at sea, Americans already dead. The bones haven't felt anything yet. And the world is watching to see which breaks first,
minutes, secondsthe straight or the strategy.

[admin]

Iran War: Mojtaba's Revenge Rolls On With Missile Barrages Destroying Bases In Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain
Hindustan Times
Mar 15, 2026 #Iran #IRGC #USA

The IRGC says it has struck Israeli territory and three U.S. bases in Iraq and Kuwait in a fresh escalation on March 15, claiming that Harir airbase in Erbil and the Ali Al Salem and Camp Arifjan bases in Kuwait were destroyed by “powerful Iranian missiles and drones.” In another statement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their precision-strike drones are now identifying the “hiding places” of U.S. soldiers across the region and warned civilians to stay away from those sites, saying the 50th wave of Operation True Promise 4 targeted bases and radar systems from the UAE and Bahrain to Jordan and Kuwait. The claims come as Bahrain activates air raid sirens, Saudi Arabia reports more drone interceptions, and Kuwait says it has repeatedly shot down hostile UAVs, reflecting growing panic among U.S. Arab allies. Washington, meanwhile, has ordered nonemergency government staff and their families to leave Oman over security risks, even as Iraq remains a major flashpoint: Iran-aligned militias say they attacked U.S. sites in Erbil and Baghdad airport, just one day after a missile struck the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad and damaged part of its defensive infrastructure. Even so, Iran continues to deny responsibility for some strikes on neighbouring countries, while Turkey says it remains in contact with Tehran as the war spills ever closer to NATO territory.



Transcript

Iran has intensified its effort to track US soldiers across the region as the war moves into its third week. Iraq, Kuwait,
secondsBahrain, and Saudi Arabia have all faced attacks. While the United States has acknowledged rising safety risks in Oman,
secondsIranian missiles and drones have spread fear across the region. Even as Thran insists it is not targeting neighboring countries directly,
secondsthe enemy's goal is to spread mistrust,
secondsfalsely blame the Islamic Republic of Iran. The recent satanic attacks on sites in friendly and neighboring countries such as Turkey, Kuwait, and
secondsIraq, and the attempt to ascribe them to the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are examples of this plot. The
secondsIRGC said on March th that it had targeted Israel as well as three US bases in Iraq and Kuwait, presenting the latest wave of attacks as a broad
secondsregional response against both Israeli and American positions. According to Aljazer's live coverage, the IRGC claimed those bases were destroyed by powerful Iranian missiles and drones,
secondsalthough that assertion reflects Iran's own statement and not an independently verified battlefield assessment. Iran also claimed that Israeli casualties
minute, secondswere rising, pointing to what it described as the continuous sound of ambulance sirens as evidence that its strikes were causing growing disruption and losses inside Israel. IRGC statement
minute, secondssaid, and I quote, "Hurry air base in Iraq's Urbil, as well as the Ali Salem and Arifjan bases hosting US troops in Kuwait were destroyed by powerful Iranian missiles and drones." Unquote.
minute, secondsIn another statement, the IRGC said it was identifying the hiding places of US Army soldiers across the region,
signaling that Thran wanted to portray American personnel as direct and ongoing targets of its military campaign. The IRGC further said it had deployed
precision strike drones against US personnel in the region with Iranian messaging emphasizing that these systems were being used to track and hit
American positions more accurately. IRGC statement said and I quote the destructive and precision strike drones of the IRGC aerospace force identifying
minute, secondsthe hiding places of US Army terrorist soldiers in the region. The th wave of operation true promise with the blessed code Yzura dedicated to the
noble martrs brigadier general ali shadmani and major general haj hussein hamdani against the bases of the terrorist US army located in alafra
fuera jafir the fifth fleet alium azrak and also early warning radar stationed in the region that played a protective
role for the zionist regime was carried out by the destructive and precision strike drones of the IRGC aerospace force. These drones are currently
identifying the hiding places of US Army terrorist soldiers in the region and upon obtaining information they will act precisely. The people of the region are
requested to stay away from the hiding places of American soldiers.

Meanwhile, Bahrain's interior ministry said that emergency sirens were activated on March th, indicating a fresh security alert as regional
tensions and crossborder attacks continued to spread across the Gulf. Bahraini authorities urged residents to remain calm and move to the nearest safe
location, showing that the government was trying to manage public safety quickly as the threat environment intensified. Saudi Arabia also said that
its air defenses intercepted and destroyed drones over Riyad and the country's eastern region with Al Jazzeera's live coverage reporting seven drones while earlier regional reporting
referenced broader waves of attempted attacks. The Kuwaiti National Guard also claimed it had downed five unmanned aerial vehicles over the past hours
according to Al jazeera, underscoring how the conflict is increasingly pulling multiple Gulf states into a wider defensive posture. Amid these attacks, a
US government statement ordered non-emergency American government employees and their family members to leave Oman because of mounting safety risks tied to the regional conflict.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi armed group said it launched five attacks on US bases on March th, adding to the growing number of threats and claimed strikes against American military installations in Iraq.
The Saraya Aliyah Alam Group specifically claimed attacks on a US site in the northern city of Urbil,
presenting that location as one of its targets in the latest wave of operations. The same group also claimed to have attacked the Victoria base at Baghdad airport, widening its claimed
target list to include another important US-linked military site in the Iraqi capital. On March th, the US embassy in Iraq's capital Baghdad was hit by a missile, according to Iraqi officials,
marking another Syria strike on a major American facility in the region. Iraqi security sources told Reuters that the missile hit the embassy compound, and smoke rose from the building afterward,
providing immediate signs of visible damage at the site. Al Jazzeera citing a source reported that the attack destroyed part of the embassy's air
defense system, suggesting the strike may have directly affected the compound's protective capabilities. Two officials told the Associated Press that a missile
struck a hellipad inside the US embassy compound in Baghdad,
highlighting the depth of the impact inside the heavily fortified complex.
Notably, this was described in reporting as the second time the US embassy in Baghdad has come under attack since the war started, underlining how exposed
American assets in Iraq have become during the conflict.

Meanwhile, Turkey's foreign minister said he had spoken with Iran amid attacks reported around the
region, reflecting Ankara's effort to stay diplomatically engaged as the fighting threatens neighboring states.
However, Iran denied attacking several neighboring countries, including Kuwait,
Iraq, and Turkey, even as regional governments continued reporting alerts,
interceptions, and heightened military activity.

[Turkey's foreign minister] I spoke with my Iranian counterpart after the recent incident, missile entering Turkish airspace.
Again, they don't take responsibility for the incident. They say they didn't give the order for such an issue, and have no connection to such an attack. Of
course, there are technical aspects and other issues on the ground. Frankly, we are talking to them at different levels at the military level and at our level
regarding this contradiction between their statements and reality. These are currently being discussed. As I said,
our number one priority is to prevent the war from spreading to a wider geographical area, to shorten the war's duration, for it to end as soon as
possible, right away if possible, and under no circumstances to allow Turkey to be drawn into this war. On the other hand, we are seeing that separatist
scenarios are being brought up for Iran this time. We are completely opposed to any plan aimed at inciting civil war in Iran and fueling conflicts along ethnic
or sectarian fault lines. We warn in advance anyone who wishes to get involved in such adventures. No one
should entertain such a fantasy. It is not possible for us to allow a wrong step to be taken. We agree with Germany
that the war must stop immediately. Its impact on international markets is already clear and its impact on the region is also evident. The risk of
spreading is still continuing. This war needs to end as soon as possible both in terms of geographic spread and the spread of its effects here as well.
There should be no issue regarding Iran's territorial integrity. Objectives such as regime change should not be pursued. The region needs to return to
normal as soon as possible.

Since the war started we've been discussing with everybody to be honest but this
time conditions are different because the countries that we are mostly cooperating in the region now under fire under attack.
So um it is really putting them in a different position now, especially Qataris, Saudis, Emiratis,
you know they are under attack and so the way the war started and the
way that it escalated is wrong, and a colossal mistake on everybody's part.
So we are talking to Europeans, we are talking to Americans and some regional countries. I think every two or three days I speak to my Iranian
counterparts and my feeling is that you know they feel betrayed because
the second time they were attacked you know during the talks and so I think there is no reason for
them now to openly mention about the discussions, but my guess is you know I
think they are open to any sensible, all back channel diplomacy,
at least they should be, they should be. I think some messages maybe back and forth I carried it.

But first of all we need to see the the clear definition of the United States' military
objectives. So I think President Trump is defining sometimes the military objectives.
We need to come up with an endgame plan. Well, as you know, I mean, as our president has made it very clear,
you know, Turkey is a very capable country, but in this case, we don't want to be dragged into the war. I mean,
because we shouldn't be provoked. We shouldn't be dragged into war.
Our position is a defensive posture.

Now the NATO units are
very much effective at this moment in intercepting missiles. So our primary objective is not to get into
this war. And I said look the Americans and the Iranians can discuss really the nuclear issue and we as
regional countries can come together actually discuss the other two with Iran and in our belief, because you
know as much as Iran has some problem with United States on nuclear file, there is also some ongoing trust
issues in the region.

Well, if you look at the Israelis, Israelis are after the worst case scenario because they don't pay the price. Region pays the price. The Americans pay the price. Europeans pay the price. They are very well off all the time, you know. This is how they built the system around the world. So the Israelis really don't care about Iran. They want to see Iran as a country, a nation, gone, and they are making it very clear. They are very much revengeful, and so there is no way to bring them to their senses. No, it's not possible.

But the rest of the international community I think can work together to really address the existing problems, including the security of Israel in the region, because Netanyahu cannot bring security to the Israelis. He can only bring war to the Israelis.

Well, that is the question that we don't know the true answer and
what we know is he is alive and functioning, and I think he is
partly injured as a result of the attack. But he's functioning I
think and the process of electing a new leader, and the medical situation conditions of the new
leader, now I think created a gap. I think that gap has been filled by the high command of the revolutionary
guards. Now they are charging the war, and leading the action, and structurally as they have
mentioned you know they have autonomous command and control centers for different military units.

[IRGC Spokesman] Attention all neighboring countries, and the Muslim peoples of the region. The enemy defeated on the military battlefield, and in it political coalition building against Iran has now turned to deceit and trickery with a satanic scheme. It has copied Iran's Shahad drone and under the new name Lucas drone is attacking illegitimate targets in countries of a region. The enemy's goal is to spread mistrust, falsely blame the Islamic Republic of Iran, and ultimately create rifts and division between Iran and its neighbors so that it can tarnish the defensive, legal, and legitimate actions of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Governments and nations of the region should know that the defensive doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the military aggressions of America and the Zionist regime is entirely lawful, and based on a solid logic. The Islamic Republic of Iran, as it has repeatedly declared, only strikes the targets, centers, and interests of America and the Zionist regime, and wherever it strikes, it assumes responsibility by issuing an official statement, and will answer for its consequences. The recent satanic attacks on sites in friendly and neighboring countries such as Turkey, Kuwait, and Iraq, and the attempt to ascribe them to the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are examples of this plot. The intelligent reactions of the officials of these countries to such deceitful and evil moves will strangle this conspiracy in its cradle. Being deceived by Satan, and adopting divisive positions, will only encourage the expansion of this addition. Therefore, it is necessary that we trust one another, and by preserving unity, and cooperation, force the foreign aggressive enemy to regret continuing these evil acts for the good of our nation. Let's work together, and let's truly make America great again.

[admin]

Something Big Just Entered the Bashi Channel
Financial Bay
Mar 14, 2026 #USNavy #USSTripoli #F35B

The USS Tripoli (LHA‑7), an America-class amphibious assault ship, has been tracked transiting the Bashi Channel, the critical waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines.

The ship is operating with an Amphibious Ready Group that includes the USS Robert Smalls (CG‑62) and the USS Rafael Peralta (DDG‑115). Together they reportedly carry more than 20 F‑35B Lightning II stealth fighters, MV‑22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, and around 5,000 U.S. Marines.

This deployment reflects evolving U.S. strategy for operating in contested environments, including countering anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities developed by regional powers.

In this video we break down the Lightning Carrier concept, the capabilities of the F-35B, and why this naval movement through one of the most strategically sensitive waterways in the Indo-Pacific matters.



Transcript

Something significant is moving through the waters between the Philippines and Taiwan right now. And it is worth understanding exactly what it is, what
it is capable of, and why its movement matters at this particular moment in time. Because on the surface, a ship moving through a channel sounds like
routine naval activity. Ships move through channels every day. But when you understand what this particular ship is carrying, who is aboard it, where it
came from, where it appears to be headed, and what the strategic context surrounding its deployment actually looks like, the picture that emerges is anything but routine.

The USS Tripoli, an America class large helicopter assault ship, departed Okinawa, Japan on March th, and has since been tracked crossing the Bashi Channel, the
strategic waterway that separates the northern Philippines from the southern tip of Taiwan. It is not moving alone.
It is the centerpiece of an amphibious ready group that includes the USS Robert Smalls, a Ticonderoga class cruiser, and the USS Raphael Peralta, an Arley Burke class guided missile destroyer.
Together, these ships carry at least F-B Lightning stealth fighters, MVOsprey Tiltrotor aircraft, and a
Marine Expeditionary unit that has reportedly been expanded to personnel. Let those numbers sit for a moment. FB stealth fighters,
Osprey Tiltrotor aircraft, Marines on three ships moving through one of the most strategically watched waterways in the world. That is a substantial force.
And understanding why it is substantial,
why it represents something genuinely significant rather than just another naval deployment requires understanding each of these components in careful
detail because the individual pieces tell you something that their sum alone does not. Every element of this group was chosen deliberately. Every
capability represented here reflects a specific lesson learned, a specific threat anticipated, a specific operational problem that American
military planners have spent years trying to solve. And when you understand what each piece does, you begin to understand what the whole package is
actually designed to accomplish. So let's start at the beginning. Let's start with the ship itself. Because to understand the USS Tripoli, you first
need to understand the history that produced it and the strategic debate that its very existence represents. For most of the th century, amphibious
assault doctrine was built around a concept that traced its lineage directly to the Second World War. The foundational image is familiar. A flat bottom landing craft ramp dropping onto
a beach. Soldiers and marines charging forward into whatever is waiting for them on shore. Variations on that image defined amphibious operations at Guadal
Canal, at Tarawa, at Inchan, at a hundred other places where American forces went from ship to shore under fire. The ships that supported those
operations were designed around the requirement to get people and equipment directly from the water onto the land as efficiently and as quickly as possible,
which meant they needed openings at the water line, what the Navy calls well decks through, which landing craft,
amphibious vehicles, and eventually tanks could be launched directly into the surf. That concept worked. It worked at enormous cost, but it worked. And for
decades, the well deck remained a non-negotiable feature of American amphibious ships. You built the ship around the well deck. Everything else was secondary. Then the threat
environment changed. Coastal defense systems proliferated. Anti-hship missiles became more accurate, more numerous, and more widely distributed.
Nations and non-state actors that could never have threatened a US Navy ship in the s or s acquired weapons that could put a ship at serious risk in the
s and s. The calculus of getting a large amphibious vessel close enough to a hostile shore to conduct a conventional over the beach landing
changed fundamentally. You could still do it, but the cost of doing it against a sophisticated opponent had risen dramatically, and military planners had
to confront the question of whether the traditional amphibious assault concept remained viable in the environment they were actually operating in rather than the environment they had planned for.
The answer the Marine Corps and Navy eventually reached was to shift from an over the beach concept to a standoff concept. Instead of bringing the ship to
the shore, you bring the ship within range, but keep it at a distance. And you use aviation to deliver your forces.
Helicopters, tiltrotor aircraft, and eventually stealth jets create the connection between the ship and the objective. The ship never has to enter
the most dangerous waters. It can remain far enough offshore to complicate targeting while still delivering its forces and its firepower where they need
to go. That is the operational concept the America class was designed to serve.
And it is why the USS Tripoli was built without a well deck. A decision that was controversial that generated significant internal debate within the Navy and
Marine Corps, but that reflected a genuine strategic judgment about how amphibious power projection would have to work in the modern threat environment. By removing the well deck,
the designers freed up a remarkable amount of internal volume. That volume was reallocated entirely to aviation.
Larger hangers, more extensive maintenance facilities, improved fuel storage, better ammunition handling for aircraft. The entire below deck
architecture of the ship was oriented around one purpose, operating large numbers of aircraft efficiently and sustainably over extended periods. The
USS Tripoli is at its core an aviation platform that happens to also carry Marines. Which brings us to the F-B.
Because without understanding what this aircraft actually is and what it can do,
you cannot fully grasp why the combination of plus F-Bs on an Americal
aviation. The F-B is the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the joint strike fighter program developed specifically for the Marine Corps and
for operations from ships that lack the catapult launch systems of conventional aircraft carriers. It can take off from a short deck run and land vertically,
which means it can operate from the EX flight deck without any modification to the ship systems. But the ability to take off and land on smaller ships is
almost the least interesting thing about the F-B. This is a fifth generation stealth aircraft. Its airframe was designed from the beginning to minimize
radar cross-section, which means that radar systems that would detect and track a fourth generation fighter at significant range may not see the F-B
until it is much closer, or in some cases may not detect it reliably at all.
Against adversary air defense systems that have been optimized to track and engage conventional aircraft, that characteristic creates genuine operational advantage that cannot easily
be countered just by having more missiles or more radar installations.
The F-B carries an advanced electronically scanned array radar that can track multiple targets simultaneously while being significantly
harder to detect than older mechanically scanned radar systems. It has an electrooptical targeting system and a distributed aperture system that gives
the pilot a spherical view of the battle space. Essentially, the ability to see in all directions simultaneously through sensors embedded throughout the
airframe. It carries air-to-air missiles for engagements against enemy aircraft.
It carries precision guided munitions for strikes against ground targets and naval targets. And critically, it is designed to function as a sensor and
data sharing node in a network tactical environment. Meaning each F-B on the triple E is not just a standalone fighter. It is a piece of a larger
information gathering and sharing system that raises the tactical awareness of every other platform it is linked to.
Put or more of these aircraft on a single ship and you have created something that the US Navy refers to as a lightning carrier. A configuration
that delivers a substantial package of fifth generation stealth air power from a hull that is meaningfully different from a conventional aircraft carrier in its size, its signature and its
deployment flexibility. A Nimitz or Gerald R. Ford class nuclear carrier is one of the most powerful individual military platforms ever constructed. Its airwing can conduct more sorties,
sustain higher operational tempo, and deliver more ordinance over extended high-intensity operations than anything the triplet can match. Nobody is arguing
otherwise. But a nuclear carrier is also an enormous, highly visible,
extraordinarily valuable asset whose presence in a region sends an unmistakable political signal whose loss would be catastrophic in both military
and political terms and which adversaries have invested significant resources in developing systems specifically designed to threaten. The
lightning carrier concept offers a different balance. A capability that is meaningful that an adversary cannot simply dismiss or ignore, but delivered
in a package that presents a different risk profile that can be positioned more flexibly and that does not carry the same weight of strategic consequence if
something goes wrong. This is not a replacement for carrier strike groups. It is an additional tool in the toolkit,
one that fills operational spaces that the carrier strike group cannot or should not fill. Now, let's talk about the rest of the amphibious ready group
and why the specific ships chosen to accompany the triple matter. The USS Robert Smalls has an interesting history that is worth a brief acknowledgement.
Commissioned as the USS Chancellor'sville, the ship was renamed in to honor Robert Smalls, an enslaved man who in commandeered a
Confederate transport ship and sailed himself, his family, and other enslaved people to freedom. Then went on to serve as a Union Naval captain and later as a
United States congressman. The renaming was part of a broader effort to remove Confederate names from military assets and replace them with names that better
reflect American values. The ship itself is a Ticeroga class guided missile cruiser hall number CG
The Tyiconoga class, though the design dates to the s, remains a significant surface combatant. These ships were built around the Aegis combat system, which when it was introduced,
represented a generational advancement in naval air defense. The Eegis system integrates powerful radar with sophisticated computer processing and weapons guidance to track and engage a
large number of simultaneous threats. It was designed specifically to counter saturation attack scenarios, situations where an enemy attempts to overwhelm a
ship's defenses by launching more weapons than a conventional point defense system can handle. The Robert Smalls carries the Mark vertical
launch system with cells that can be loaded with various configurations of weapons. Standard missiles for air defense, including variants capable of
engaging ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. Tomahawk cruise missiles for long-range land attack capable of striking targets more than a thousand miles away with precision guidance
anti-ubmarine warfare weapons. The cruiser adds a substantial layer of area air and missile defense to the amphibious ready group and brings significant offensive strike capability
with its Tomahawk inventory. The USS Raphael Peralta is a flight IA Arley Burke class guided missile destroyer hall number DDG
The Arley Burke class is the backbone of the US surface combatant fleet. More Arley Burke destroyers have been built than any other large surface combatant
in American naval history and the class has been continuously updated and upgraded over decades of service. The flight A variant includes improved
facilities for operating two embarked helicopters which significantly expands the ship's anti-ubmarine warfare and surface surveillance capabilities. Like
the Robert Smalls, the Raphael Peralta carries the Eegis system and the Mark VLS. It contributes to the layered air and missile defense of the group. It
carries torpedoes and anti-ubmarine helicopters for undersea warfare. It can conduct offensive operations against enemy surface ships, and it adds another
layer of tomahawk land attack capability to the group's overall strike potential.
What you have when you look at these three ships together is a coherent and mutually reinforcing capability package.
The Tripoli provides the aviation strike capability and the ability to project ground forces. The Robert Smalls provides area air defense and long range
strike. The Raphael Peralta provides additional air defense, anti-ubmarine warfare, and surface warfare capability.
Each ship covers gaps in the other's capabilities. Each one makes the group as a whole more capable than the sum of its individual parts. The Marines
deserve particular attention because the scale of this force represents a deliberate departure from standard practice. A standard marine expeditionary unit, the MEU, has
historically been organized around approximately personnel. That force structure was designed to provide a credible crisis response capability.
Enough Marines to conduct a non-combatant evacuation, to respond to a humanitarian disaster, to execute a limited direct action mission, or to
serve as the initial response force for a more substantial operation. Marines is a serious force by most standards in the world, but within
American military terms, it represents a relatively constrained capability, one designed for the lower end of the conflict spectrum, or as the leading
edge of a larger force to follow. Marines is a different proposition entirely that is closer to a marine expeditionary brigade in terms of combat
power. A formation that can conduct sustained offensive operations, hold terrain, engage a more capable opponent,
and execute a wider range of simultaneous missions. The logistics required to support Marines, the ammunition, the fuel, the food, the
medical support, the maintenance capability are substantially greater than what a standard MEU requires. The planning and coordination required to
configure and deploy a force of that size reflect deliberate decisions made at senior levels of military command based on an assessment of what the
operational environment actually demands. You do not expand MEU to people because you expect to conduct a routine patrol. You do it because you
have determined that the situation you are sending this force into may require capabilities beyond what a standard MEU can provide. The MVOsprey Tiltrotor
aircraft that will deliver these Marines to their objectives is itself a remarkable piece of engineering that fundamentally changes the calculus of amphibious operations. Conventional
helicopters have limited speed and range. Moving Marines from a ship to an objective or m inland is straightforward for a helicopter. Moving
them miles inland at speed with a reasonable margin for fuel and unexpected complications is much harder.
The Osprey takes off and lands like a helicopter, rotating its engines and rotors to vertical for those phases of flight, then tilts them forward to fly like a turborop aircraft during transit.
The result is an aircraft that combines the vertical lift capability essential for operating from a ship with the speed and range of a fixed wing aircraft. In
practical terms, this means that Marines on the Tripoli can reach objectives that are far deeper inland far more quickly with far less warning time for any
defending forces than would be possible using conventional rotary wing aviation.
The Osprey effectively extends the operational reach of the MEU from tens of miles to hundreds of miles, which dramatically changes what an adversary
has to defend against and where. Now let's zoom out and talk about the Bashi channel itself because geography matters enormously in naval strategy and the
specific waterway this group is transiting is one of the most strategically significant in the world.
The Bashi channel lies between the northernmost Philippine island of Batanis and the southern coast of Taiwan. It is one of several key passages connecting the western Pacific
Ocean to the South China Sea and controlling or monitoring traffic through this channel matters enormously for any power projecting naval force in the region. For China's naval planners,
the Bashi Channel represents one of the choke points through which American forces would have to pass in any scenario involving Taiwan. For American planners, it represents a key corridor
for moving forces between different operational areas in the broader Indoacific theater. The movement of a capable American amphibious ready group through this channel is not invisible.
Chinese naval intelligence tracks ship movements in these waters continuously. Satellite imagery, signals intelligence,
and surface and subsurface surveillance assets all contribute to a picture that Chinese military planners maintain in real time. The triples transit through the Bosshi channel is being observed,
assessed, and incorporated into Chinese military planning at this very moment.
That observation cuts both ways. The transit is not just a physical movement of forces from one place to another. It is also a signal, a deliberate or at
minimum an unavoidable communication to the Chinese military about American capability and American willingness to project that capability through waters
that China considers part of its strategic sphere of influence. Every movement of American forces in this region carries political meaning alongside its military meaning and the
two cannot be cleanly separated. The decision to redeploy this group from Indapiccom's Pacific theater deserves serious attention because it reflects
prioritization decisions being made at the highest levels of American military command. Forces are finite. A ship in one place is a ship that cannot be in
another place. When senior commanders decide to move a significant capability like the triple ARG from one region to another, they are making a judgment
about where that capability is more needed about which strategic situation carries higher priority about what scenario they are most concerned about in the near term. The direction of the
triples movement out of the western Pacific and through the Bashi channel toward the South China Sea and potentially beyond suggests a repositioning toward a theater where
American military planners have assessed an elevated requirement. The Middle East remains an active operational environment. The Indian Ocean has seen increased activity from multiple naval
powers. The South China Sea itself continues to be an area of sustained strategic competition. Any of these theaters could represent the destination
for this force. And without official confirmation, the specific tasking remains uncertain. What is not uncertain is the capability this force represents,
and the strategic logic behind its design. The United States has spent the better part of two decades rethinking how to project power in an era of
contested access. In an era where potential adversaries have invested heavily in the specific goal of making it more dangerous and more difficult for
American forces to operate in their near regions, the Aconcept, anti-access,
and area denial, describes the set of capabilities that China in particular has developed to complicate American military operations in the Western Pacific. Long range anti-hship missiles,
sophisticated integrated air defense systems, submarines, cyber capabilities, space-based surveillance. Together,
these systems are designed to raise the cost of American military intervention to the point where American decision makers might conclude that the price is
too high. The Lightning carrier configuration, the America class hull with its large complement of F-Bs, the expanded MEU with its Ospreys, the
accompanying cruiser and destroyer with their Aegis systems and VLS cells. All of this represents the American answer to that challenge. It is not a single
silver bullet. It is a carefully considered operational concept that tries to maintain the ability to project meaningful military power into contested
environments without necessarily leading with the most valuable and most targeted assets. The F-B's stealth characteristics complicate adversary air
defense planning. The Austria's range complicates the calculation of how far inland a defender must prepare to resist ground forces delivered from the sea.
The Aegis systems on the Robert Smalls and the Raphael Peralta provide defense against the anti-ship missiles that represent one of the primary tools of
anti-access strategies. The Tomahawk inventory provides the ability to strike targets at range without putting the ships themselves in the most dangerous
waters. Every element of this group is an answer to a specific question that adversary military planners have posed.
What the USS Tripoli and its accompanying ships ultimately represent is the current expression of an idea that has been central to American
military strategy for years. The ability to appear suddenly and with substantial capability off any coastline in the world without requiring bases on
foreign soil, without needing permission from other governments, without weeks of visible buildup that would give an adversary time to prepare or crisis time
to resolve in the wrong direction. That idea, sea-based power projection as a tool of strategic flexibility is what
the America class and the lightning carrier concept were designed to deliver in the modern threat environment. The technology has changed enormously since the landing craft of the Second World
War. The stealth aircraft, the tiltrotor assault transports, the worked combat management systems, the precision guided weapons, none of these existed in the
era that produced the original amphibious assault doctrine. But the underlying logic has not changed at all.
You put your forces on ships because ships can go anywhere the ocean touches because they do not require the consent of host nations of because they can be repositioned faster than land-based
forces can respond and because the sea itself provides a kind of strategic ambiguity about exactly where a force will choose to act that complicates any
adversary is planning. The Tripoli crossing the Bashi channel right now is every bit as much an expression of that logic as any ship that ever dropped a
ramp on a hostile beach. The methods are different. The technology is different.
The threat environment that shaped its design is different. But the fundamental idea that the United States can and will put capable forces anywhere in the world
requires. And that those forces will arrive with capabilities that matter is exactly the same. Where the Tripoli goes
next and what it does when it gets there will tell us more about American strategic priorities in this moment than almost any official statement or policy
document. Ships do not lie about intentions the way press conferences sometimes do. They go where the need is greatest. They carry what the situation
demands and they move when the decision has been made at the levels of command where such decisions actually get made.
Something significant is moving through the Bashi channel. Now you know exactly what it

[admin]

All HELL BREAKS LOOSE as Iran Ai drones just damaged 6 Chinook helicopters in Iraq - OPTM
OPTM
Mar 15, 2026



Transcript

It feels like the sand in the Middle East has been permanently scorched. We are waking up to footage that has to be the single most humiliating display of
American military vulnerability since the Desert One debacle. If you have been following the news out of Iraq, you know that the situation in Urbil has been
tense for weeks. But overnight, the game completely changed. The US victory base near Baghdad International Airport.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has released new footage showing what it says are drone launches used in recent
attacks targeting American military facilities.
Iran aligned fighters say they have struck a major US base in Iraq with a swarm of drones.
A sprawling, heavily fortified installation that has served as the lynch pin of American power in northern Iraq for over two decades is currently
an inferno. And here is the kicker that the Pentagon does not want you to hear.
It is burning not because of a massive ballistic barrage that overwhelmed the defenses, but because of artificial intelligence. That is right. The Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps has unleashed a new generation of AI powered drones.
Specifically, Firstperson view FPV swarm drone that flew straight through America's so-called impenetrable air
defense network like it was made of Swiss cheese. Let me paint you a picture of what happened because the mainstream media is going to try to sanitize this.

Early yesterday, surveillance footage from the region shows a single drone, just one, flying low and slow,
approaching the base. It wasn't intercepted. It wasn't even detected until it was too late. Why? Because that
drone had a specific mission to decapitate the base's eyes. It flew straight for the ANFPS
radar system, the component that tracks hostile projectiles and directs the laserbased air defense systems. Once
that radar went up in smoke, the base was rendered completely blind and naked. And that is when the real show started.

Once the radar was confirmed destroyed,
a swarm of these new Iranian AI powered FPV drones poured into the base. They were not just randomly hitting
buildings. They were hunting. They struck critical ammunition depots,
sending secondary explosions roaring into the night sky, visible for miles.
Watch this footage posted by Russian Today RT on their Telegram page.
You mother.
But the most significant damage, the kind that will have strategic repercussions for the next hours,
happened on the helipad. We are getting unconfirmed but highly credible reports from the ground that at least six heavy
lift Chinuk helicopters have been severely damaged or destroyed. These were not just sitting there for show.
These Chinuks were part of a team prepped and ready by the Pentagon loaded with personnel and equipment destined for an operation at Carg Island at the
Strait of Hormuz. With those birds damaged, the entire timeline for that assault has been pushed back, if not completely thwarted. Before we dive
deeper into how this leaves the American occupation regime flailing in the wind,
I need you to do something. If you want the truth about what is happening in West Asia, you cannot rely on the state-run media that still calls these
militia attacks or technical malfunctions. You need independent voices that are willing to call this what it is, a historic defeat for the
empire. So, please, if you are finding value in this breakdown, hit that like button and share this video across every
platform you use. We need to force the algorithm to show these images to the world. And down in the comments, drop a
solid dot, just a period, if you're standing with the resistance. Or better yet, write herbal is burning to trigger
the algorithm and let the world know that the narrative of American invincibility is dead. And if you haven't already, smash that subscribe
button. Join this movement to support honest journalism that refuses to bow down to the wararm mongers in Washington
and Tel Aviv. Now, let's get into the meat of this because the sight of that base burning is more than just a military loss. It is a political death
sentence for the narrative that Donald Trump has been trying to sell you. If you have been watching the news feeds coming out of X.com and Iranian outlets
like Press TV and the Tehran Times, you will see a common theme. The US has been caught flatfooted and the body bags are
piling up. For days now, we have watched the White House try to spin this war.
First, they said it was a preventive strike to stop an imminent threat. Then,
they claimed it was about regime change and freeing the Iranian people. And just recently, Trump had the audacity to go on his platform and declare victory,
stating that Iran is no longer the bully of the Middle East and that they had surrendered. But as the smoke rises from Herbal, those words sound like the
desperate ramblings of a man watching his foreign policy legacy crumble into dust. Because if Iran has surrendered,
why is the US's premier air base in Iraq on fire? Why are six Chinuks,
multi-million dollar aircraft designed to project power, now just twisted metal on a tarmac? The truth is, the Americans
walked right into a trap and the Iranians have been setting this trap for decades. Look at the history of this base in Airbill. It has been a symbol of
arrogance. It is the same base from which the US has coordinated operations across the region, training Kurdish
forces and housing the very assets that have been used to destabilize Iran's borders. The Americans thought that by killing General Solommani years ago,
they had broken the back of Iranian military intelligence. They were wrong.
minutes, secondInstead, the IRGC went back to the drawing board, focusing on asymmetrical warfare, drone swarms, and AI
integration. While the US was busy spending billions on giant aircraft carriers and stealth bombers, relics of
a th century war, Iran was building lowcost, high impact weapons designed to blind and confuse the expensive American
toys. And that brings us to the miscalculation of the century. The US government knew, they absolutely knew
that Iran would resist. They knew that hitting Iran was like poking a hornets's nest. But the neocons in the administration and Netanyahu's regime in
Israel convinced themselves that the Iranian people would rise up and welcome the bombs as liberators. They thought that if they killed the head, the body
would die. They assassinated the previous Supreme Leader thinking it would cause a collapse. Instead, what happened? The system showed
institutional cohesion. The new leadership was appointed and the IRGC pledged full obedience. Instead of
surrender, Iran launched this drone campaign that has now hit over US sites. According to an AFP analysis,
they have hit the fifth fleet headquarters in Bahrain, causing hundreds of millions in damage. They have hit bases in Saudi Arabia, and now they have successfully blinded Herbal.
Let's talk about the sheer audacity of that drone attack yesterday. The Americans had a laser-based air defense system there. The kind of tech that
looks great in a Rathon brochure, but it relies on a radar to point the laser.
The Iranians studied this. They knew that if they could take out that radar with a precision strike, the rest of the swarm could fly through uncontested.
And that is exactly what happened. The first drone, which witnesses described as flying just m above the ground,
literally below the radar horizon, came in and took out the radar. After that,
it was a free-for-all. The ammunition depot was hit and then the helipad. Can you imagine the chaos inside the command center? Watching your screens go dark,
hearing the explosions, and knowing you are sitting in a tin can with no way to stop what is coming. The British troops stationed there reportedly tried to use
CRAM systems, basically giant bullet hoses, but they are designed for rockets, not small agile AI drones
weaving through the base. The damage to those Chinuk helicopters is the real story here, and it ties directly back to the failed US strategy. As we reported,
these helicopters were part of a task force preparing to land forces on Kar Island at the Strait of Hormuz. This was
supposed to be a big play by the Pentagon to secure the strait and reassure global oil markets. It was going to be their show of force. But now with six heavy lift Chinuks damaged,
that operation is dead in the water. You cannot just call up Amazon and get six new Chinuks delivered overnight. This
represents a significant degradation of US lift capability in the immediate theater. The miscalculation here is breathtaking. The US assumed that by
destroying Iranian infrastructure, they could halt operations. But they underestimated the Iranian ability to strike preemptively and disrupt US
logistics. As Alazer pointed out, the military instrument has been authorized far beyond what the strategic objective
can deliver. You can destroy buildings from the air, but you cannot stop a determined drone swarm from taking out your helicopters on the ground. And
where does this leave Donald Trump? It leaves him in a political vice. Polls are already showing that nearly % of
Americans oppose these strikes and believe he has no clear plan. The midterm elections are looming and the
Republicans risk losing Congress if this war turns into a quagmire. The unconditional surrender that Trump demanded from Iran is not coming.
Instead, Iran is escalating the cost.
They are disrupting shipping, raising oil prices, and now burning bases. The US has lost control of the escalation
ladder. Iran is setting the pace, and the Americans are reacting. This is the nightmare scenario for the Pentagon. A
war they started that they cannot win and that they cannot walk away from without looking like the loser. As we move into the next phase of this
conflict, keep your eyes on, Kuwait, and Dubai. That fire is not just a fire. It
is a symbol. It is a symbol of a new world order where a hypersonic missile or a low-flying AI drone can negate a
billion-dollar radar system. It is a symbol of Iranian ingenuity and patience. And it is a testament to the fact that the American Empire, for all
its bombs and bluster, is just as vulnerable as any other occupying force.
This is a war of attrition now. And Iran has just shown that they have the endurance and the intelligence to win

[admin]

Iran Destroys 4 American E-3 Sentry Planes — The Eyes of the U.S. Air Force Are Gone
Collapse Codex
Mar 15, 2026
Global Crisis Survival Guide:
https://asianguy.gumroad.com/l/llatnl

Four E-3 Sentry aircraft destroyed in 18 hours across two countries. That single fact changes this entire air war — because the E-3 is not a fighter, not a bomber, not a missile platform. It is the brain that gave every American pilot complete vision of the battlefield. Iranian missiles, air defense radars, intercept trajectories — all of it fed in real time directly into pilot headsets. That system is gone.
And the question nobody in any official briefing is answering is the most alarming part — how did Iran find all four of them simultaneously before a single one could reposition or escape?

In this video, we break down:

What the E-3 Sentry actually does and why losing four of them permanently changes this air war
Why there are zero replacements — the production line closed in 1992 and will never reopen
How Iran's targeting intelligence reveals something far more dangerous than the strikes themselves
What American pilots are flying into today that they were not flying into two weeks ago
What Russia and China's reactions tell you about where this conflict is heading next



Transcript

Blind. The United States Air Force just went blind over the Persian Gulf. Not partially blind. Not degraded. Not operating at reduced capacity with
workarounds in place. Blind. The way you are blind when someone turns off every light in a building you have never been inside and locks the door behind you.
Four Esentry aircraft were destroyed in the last hours. Two at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. One at
Aluade in Qatar. One on the ground at a classified forward operating location that the Pentagon has not officially named. and will not name because naming it confirms what Iran already proved.
That Iran knows exactly where every American asset in this region is parked, fueled, and staffed. Four aircraft gone.
And if those words don't tell you immediately why every American pilot flying over the Persian Gulf right now is operating in conditions that no American pilot has faced since the
Korean War, then stay with me for the next . Because once you understand what the Ecentury actually does, you will understand why the
destruction of four of them in a single operational period is not a military setback. It is a different category of event entirely. It is the moment this
air war changed its fundamental character. And it is the moment Iran demonstrated something about its intelligence capabilities that should concern every defense planner in
Washington far more than the strikes themselves. The ESentry is not a fighter. It does not drop bombs. It does not fire missiles. It carries no
offensive weapons of any kind. What it carries is vision. Before we continue,
quick note. While researching this story, I found something interesting about how crises like this usually escalate and how investors and governments react before the public even
realizes what's happening. I actually broke down those patterns in a report I released called the global crisis survival guide. If you're interested,
you can check it out in the description.
Now, let's continue. The Eis a Boeing airframe fitted with a rotating radar dome feet in diameter mounted
above the fuselage. That radar system flying at ft can simultaneously track more than aircraft within a
radius of mi in all directions. It can distinguish between commercial and military aircraft. It can identify threat profiles from radar signatures
alone. It can track ballistic missiles in flight from the moment they leave the ground. It can coordinate the movements of dozens of fighter aircraft simultaneously, feeding each pilot
real-time positional data on every aircraft within its enormous operational bubble, friendly and hostile, updated continuously every second of the
mission. Here is the plain language translation of what that means in an active air war. Every American F-
F-F-and Bthat has flown a strike mission over Iran in the last weeks flew with an Ewatching its back.
The Etold each pilot where the Iranian air defense radars were active. It told them where Iranian interceptors were launching from. It calculated intercept
trajectories before Iranian missiles were even off the ground and relayed warnings directly into pilot headsets with enough time to maneuver. It coordinated the electronic warfare
aircraft suppressing Iranian radar at precisely the moment strike packages crossed the border so that the timing was exact to the second. The Eis not a
support aircraft. The Eis the brain of the entire air operation. The fighters are its fists. Without the brain, the
fists do not know where to swing, what is swinging back, or where the next threat is coming from until it is already close enough to see. Four of
those brains are now burning on runways in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And the pilots who flew this morning flew without them. The United States Air
Force operates Ecentury aircraft in total. That is the complete inventory.
Not deployed to this theater. in existence across the entire American military. Think carefully about what losing four of them in hours means
against that number. % of the total American Efleet destroyed in less than a day in a single theater against a single adversary. NATO allies operate
additional Evariants. The United Kingdom has six. France has four. Saudi Arabia operates five of a modified version. The NATO alliance as a whole
has a combined inventory that makes the American losses proportionally less catastrophic than they would be in a purely bilateral conflict. But NATO
allies are not currently cleared to operate their Es inside Iranian contested airspace. Their coverage fills gaps. It does not replace what was on
those runways yesterday. The replacement timeline for a single Eaircraft is not a matter of weeks. The Eproduction
line closed in There are no new airframes being manufactured anywhere.
Every Ethat exists is the Ethat will ever exist until the program's replacement, the EWedge Tale,
completes its significantly delayed development and deployment schedule. The Eprogram is running years behind its original timeline. There is no emergency
production option. There is no warehouse of spare aircraft sitting in reserve.
The four aircraft that burned on those runways yesterday are not coming back ever. And here is the detail that has not appeared in any official briefing,
but that every Air Force commander in this region understands completely. The Edestruction was not random. Iran did not get lucky targeting four aircraft
that happened to be parked in exposed locations. The targeting data required to hit four Es across two countries in the same operational window
simultaneously before any of them could reposition requires knowing their exact parking locations, their maintenance schedules, and the specific window
during which all four would be on the ground rather than airborne. That intelligence picture took time to build.
Iran built it quietly. While the world was watching missile launches and oil prices, while American officials were busy describing Iranian capabilities as
degraded and diminished, Iran was mapping the location of every high value aircraft in two countries with enough precision to destroy all four of them
before a single one could take off. The strikes destroyed aircraft. The intelligence that enabled the strikes destroyed something more important. The
American assumption that its most valuable non-combat assets were operating from locations Iran could not accurately find and target. Let's talk
about what American pilots are flying into today that they were not flying into two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, an American F-approaching Iranian
airspace had a complete operational picture. The Eoverhead was tracking every Iranian air defense radar within
, secondmiles. It was monitoring every Iranian interceptor on the ground and in the air. It was feeding the pilot a
continuously updated display showing exactly where the threats were, how fast they were moving, and what their projected intercept trajectories looked
like with enough time to respond. The pilot was flying informed, flying with total vision, flying with the ability to make every decision based on complete situational awareness. This morning,
that same pilot is flying with fundamentally degraded awareness. The coverage gaps created by four missing Es are not distributed randomly across
the theater. They are concentrated precisely over the areas where American strike packages operate most frequently.
The approach corridors into Iran's western and southern territories, the maritime zones above the straight of Hormuz, the airspace over Gulf state bases where American fighters stage and
refuel before crossing into contested airspace. Iran did not hit four random Es. Iran hit the four Es that covered the specific flight paths American
aircraft used to reach Iran. The pilots who flew this morning knew they had reduced coverage. They knew that Iranian air defense operators who previously had
approximately of warning before an American aircraft entered effective radar range now have potentially three to four additional of acquisition time because the
electronic warfare coordination the Ewas providing has degraded. to four is the difference between a radar being jammed before it completes a
targeting lock and a radar successfully handing off a firing solution to an Iranian surfaceto-air missile battery.
seven additional of effective Iranian radar operation over the most contested airspace on Earth. That is the operational reality of four burning
aircraft on two runways. And those will appear in American loss rates in the coming days in ways that briefings will attribute to operational
complexity and enemy adaptation rather than to what actually happened. Four specific aircraft destroyed in hours.
Remove the protection layer that was keeping American pilots alive. Here is what the official response says. And here is what it was carefully constructed not to say. The Pentagon
confirmed the strikes. Sencom issued a statement describing the attack as a significant escalation targeting critical intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance assets. The statement confirmed that American forces responded with retaliatory strikes on the Iranian launch platforms responsible. What the
Sentcom statement did not address at all how Iran knew where all four aircraft were simultaneously. Esentry aircraft
do not park in the same location every night. Their positioning is actively managed to reduce predictability. They rotate between primary bases and forward
locations on schedules that are classified. Their exact parking coordinates on any given night are not available in any public database, any
commercial satellite imagery service, or any open source intelligence feed. For Iran to hit four Es across two countries in the same -hour
operational window, it needed current precise intelligence on the exact location of each aircraft, not approximate areas. exact coordinates
accurate enough to guide ballistic missiles to specific parking aprons on specific runways at specific bases in two separate countries. That
intelligence came from one of two places. Either Iran has human sources inside those bases, people with access to daily aircraft positioning and
maintenance schedules, which means Iran has penetrated the security perimeter of at least two American military installations at a level that should
trigger an immediate and comprehensive counter intelligence investigation. or it came from signals intelligence capable of tracking Eradar systems
during their ground powerup cycles and precisely calculating their physical positions from emissions alone. Neither explanation is a comfortable one. Both
have implications that extend far beyond the four aircraft on those runways. And here's the second thing missing from every official briefing on these strikes. In the past two weeks, this
conflict has consumed Patriot radar systems that coordinated American air defense. aerial refueling tankers that gave American fighter jets the range to operate deep into contested airspace.
And now the airborne early warning aircraft that coordinated the entire air battle picture and kept every pilot in the theater informed and protected.
These are not random losses across unrelated systems. They are the sequential removal of the three capabilities that transform individual
American aircraft into an integrated air force. Strip out the air defense radars and the missile shield weakens. Strip out the tankers and the reach shortens.
Strip out the Es and the entire network loses its coordinating intelligence. You are left with capable individual aircraft operating without the system architecture that made them collectively
overwhelming. Iran is not attacking American air power. Iran is disassembling it component by component in a sequence that reflects a
predetermined operational logic rather than opportunistic targeting. Someone in Tran wrote the order of operations for this campaign before the first missile
of this war was fired and that order is being executed. Russia's response to the Estrikes was technical and arrived within hours. Russian military analysts published a detailed public assessment,
noting that the loss of four Eaircraft creates specific coverage gaps over the northern Persian Gulf that their own monitoring architecture had
independently mapped. The assessment was precise enough to be useful. It stopped short of publishing coordinates. It did not stop short of making clear that
Russia is tracking American capability degradation in this theater with the same systematic precision that Iran is applying to create it. Russia is not a
neutral observer. Russia operates its own airborne early warning aircraft, the Amainstay. Russian commanders understand exactly what losing four of
them would mean for an integrated air campaign. Russia's public commentary on the American losses is not analysis for general audiences. It is a signal to
every military planner capable of reading it. We see what is happening here. We understand precisely what it means and we are watching every step.
China published nothing official.
China's defense ministry has maintained consistent silence on specific military developments throughout this conflict. But Chinese military aviation forums,
which defense analysts use as an informal channel when the government does not want official attribution,
carry detailed technical analysis of the Elosses within hours of their public confirmation. The specific vulnerability Iran exploited, targeting irreplaceable
high-v value ISR platforms on the ground before they could reposition, is being documented in Beijing with a precision that has nothing to do with sympathy for
either side and everything to do with understanding what works against American air power when the time comes to apply that understanding somewhere else. The Gulf States are managing a
different kind of fear. Saudi Arabia operates its own Evariant, the ESaudi, maintained by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Those aircraft sit on the same
Saudi airfields that just lost two American Es. Riad is not publicly discussing what it plans to do with its own airborne early warning fleet now
that Iran has demonstrated both the capability and the willingness to destroy that category of aircraft on Saudi soil. Privately, every
conversation at every Saudi air base is about exactly that. Here is what the loss of four Ecenturies means for this war from this moment forward. American pilots fly less informed starting today.
That is not a strategic abstraction.
That is a change survival calculation for every air crew launching from every base in this theater every single day going forward. Iranian air defense
systems have more time to acquire and engage incoming American aircraft before electronic warfare suppression can blind them. The Iran gained yesterday were paid for in burning aircraft and dead crews on Saudi and Qatari runways.
The coordination that turned individual American aircraft into aworked force is degraded in ways that cannot be immediately repaired by deploying
replacement assets. You can fly another tanker into the in hours. You cannot replace an Ethe experienced crew that operated it, the ground infrastructure
that maintained and launched it, and the communications architecture that connected it to every pilot depending on it within any time frame this conflict will allow. The American Air Force that
flies tomorrow is structurally different from the American Air Force that flew two weeks ago. less connected, less informed, operating with meaningful gaps
in coverage over the most dangerous airspace on Earth. And the adversary that created those gaps did so with intelligence precise enough to find and
destroy four of the most carefully protected aircraft in the American inventory across two countries in hours. Iran did not just destroy four
aircraft. Iran removed the eyes that made everything else work. The pilots who took off this morning flew into airspace that is fundamentally,
measurably, permanently less safe than the airspace they flew through yesterday. And the question that no briefing room is currently answering out loud because saying it out loud means
acknowledging what it implies is a simple one. If Iran could find four Es simultaneously with that level of precision, what else has Iran already
found, already mapped, already loaded into targeting systems that have not yet been used? The eyes are gone. That question is still open. And the answer
is somewhere in the

[admin]

Iran Blasts Prince Sultan Air Base — 5 U.S. Aerial Tankers Destroyed
Silver Insights
Mar 15, 2026 #Iran #PrinceSultanAirBase #USMilitary
Iran Blasts Prince Sultan Air Base — 5 U.S. Aerial Tankers Destroyed

On Day 14 of Operation Epic Fury, Iran launched a precision missile
strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia — destroying 5 U.S.
KC-135 aerial refueling tankers in a single blow. But this was not a
random act of retaliation. This was a calculated, phase-by-phase
strategy that Iran had been quietly building since the very first day
of this conflict. The planes were visible. Their locations were known.
Satellite imagery had been tracking them for weeks. Yet Iran waited —
and that wait was the most dangerous weapon of all.

In this video, Silver Insights breaks down exactly what happened, why
it happened on Day 14 and not Day 1, and what the destruction of seven
KC-135s in seven days actually means for the American air campaign,
Israeli strike capability, and the future of this war. This is not
just about five aircraft sitting on a tarmac. This is about operational
confidence, regional deterrence, and a strategic message being sent to
every Gulf nation that believed hosting U.S. forces meant protection.

If you are following the real story behind this conflict — beyond the
headlines and official statements — this is the analysis you need to
watch from start to finish.

Watch until the end. The final answer will change how you see this
entire war.

#Iran #PrinceSultanAirBase #USMilitary #KC135 #OperationEpicFury
#MiddleEast #WorldWar3 #IranUSA #SaudiArabia #BreakingNews
#GlobalConflict #MilitaryAnalysis #IranStrike #AerialWarfare
#SilverInsights #WarNews #GeopoliticsExplained #USAirForce



Transcript

13 aircraft sitting in open desert visible from space for days. Iran watched them and did nothing. Not
because they couldn't, but because they were waiting for the perfect moment to send a message that would change everything. And when they finally
struck, it wasn't just five planes they destroyed. They destroyed something far more dangerous. Something America cannot
replace overnight. The question is, why did Iran wait exactly days? The answer will shock you. Welcome to Silver
Insights, where the world's deepest stories reach you directly. And friends,
do one thing, just like people secure their pension before old age arrives.
Subscribe right now because the next breaking update you will not want to miss. And yes, comment below. Where are you watching this video from? Prince
Sultan Air Base sits km southeast of Riyad. It is not a secret location. It does not hide behind mountains or thick forest. It sits in open desert, flat,
exposed, and clearly visible from space.
Anyone with access to commercial satellite imagery could see exactly what was parked there. And for weeks, many people were watching. KC
Strat tanker aircraft were sitting on that tarmac. They were not hiding. They were not dispersed across multiple locations. They were parked in the open in a country that had officially
declared itself neutral in this conflict. Saudi Arabia had made its position clear it was not a party to this war. And yet on its soil, the most
critical component of the entire American air operation was sitting completely exposed. To understand why those planes mattered so much, one must first understand what they actually do.
A KCis not a fighter. It carries no bombs. It fires no missiles. But without it, fighters cannot reach their targets.
Without it, bombers turn back early.
Without it, an air campaign that depends on long range precision strikes simply cannot function at the distances required. The KC-is the aircraft
that makes every other aircraft possible. It is the invisible backbone of American air power. The plane that extends the reach of every mission flown. In the context of Operation Epic
Fury, this meant something very specific. American bombers had been hitting targets inside Iran for consecutive days. Over targets
struck in that period. Israeli strikes on Iranian soil were also ongoing. Every single one of those missions, American or Israeli, depended on aerial refueling
to reach the distances involved. Those tankers sitting at Prince Sultan Air Base were not support assets. They were the engine of the entire operation. Iran
knew this. Satellite imagery had been tracking the aircraft at Prince Sultan well before the war began. Their exact positions on the tarmac were known. The
runways they occupied were known. Their numbers were known. This was not classified intelligence available only to a small circle of analysts. It was
visible, trackable, and openly discussed in defense monitoring communities. The planes were sitting in the open, and everyone with eyes on the region could
see them. For days, Iran did not touch them. Through days of American bombers striking Iranian soil. Through days of cluster munitions falling on
cities. Through days of drone boats targeting tankers in the Gulf. Through all of it, those KCs sat undisturbed on the Saudi tarmac. No missiles came.
No drones appeared overhead. Nothing.
Then on day of the conflict, Iran fired. Five KCStrat tankers were struck in a single Iranian missile
attack on Prince Sultan Air Base. The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Friday, citing two American officials directly familiar with the incident. The planes were not airborne when they were
hit. They were not in the process of taking off or landing. They were stationary, parked on the ground in Saudi Arabia, a country that had
positioned itself as a non-participant in this war. Iran put missiles into them anyway. No American personnel were reported killed in the strike. The aircraft were damaged, but described as
repairable, but the operational consequences were immediate. Five tankers knocked out of action in a single strike at a single location. And this attack did not happen in isolation.
It came at the end of a week that had already cost America dearly in aerial refueling capacity. By the time the dust settled on the Prince Sultan strike, the
total number of KC s removed from active operations in a single week had reached seven. Five destroyed on the ground in Saudi Arabia. One crashed in
Iraq, killing six crew members. One more with a damaged tail section in a separate unrelated incident. Seven aircraft, seven days, one very specific
category of asset, the most operationally critical category in the entire American air campaign. This was not a coincidence and it was not a random escalation born out of
frustration or desperation. It was the second phase of something that had been planned well before the first missile was ever fired. There's a question that military analysts, defense officials,
and intelligence communities were asking the moment that strike on Prince Sultan Air Base was confirmed. Why did Iran wait days? It is the right question.
And the answer to it reveals something far more important than the strike itself. It reveals how Iran has been thinking about this war from the very beginning, not as a reactive conflict driven by emotion, but as a structured,
sequential campaign designed to deliver specific lessons at specific moments.
Iran did not wait days because it lacked the capability to strike earlier. Those KC s were visible from day one.
Their coordinates were known. Prince Sultan Air Base is not a hardened underground facility. It is an open tarmac in flat desert. The missiles that
eventually hit those five aircraft on day could have been fired on day one.
The technical capability was never the limiting factor. The limiting factor was timing. And timing in this context was a weapon. To understand the strategy, one
must go back to the first major incident involving a KC The one that happened not in Saudi Arabia, but over Iraq. Before the Prince Sultan strike,
an American KCwent down over Iraqi airspace. Six crew members were killed.
The aircraft was lost. Immediately, a debate erupted in defense and intelligence circles about the cause.
Was it hostile fire? Was it mechanical failure? Was it something else entirely?
The uncertainty was immediate, loud, and unresolved. Official statements were cautious. No country openly claimed responsibility. The question of whether
the aerial refueling corridors over western Iraq were safe remained officially unanswered. That uncertainty was not an accident. It was the first lesson. Iran's approach, as it began to
emerge through the pattern of these events, was built on a doctrine of phased escalation. Not one large strike that declares everything at once. Not a
single overwhelming blow that forces an immediate unified response. Instead, a sequence carefully ordered. Each phase
building on the previous one, each lesson costing something real. Each message arriving with enough space between them for the other side to absorb what had just happened. Phase one
was the Iraq incident. Its purpose was to demonstrate a specific capability that KCs could be engaged while airborne. It introduced doubt into
American operational planning without triggering a clean attributable escalation. It forced American commanders to begin asking questions about the safety of their refueling
corridors. It planted uncertainty and uncertainty at the operational level is expensive. It forces adjustments,
rrooting, additional defensive measures and command level conversations that consume time and resources. Phase two was Prince Sultan where phase one
introduced doubt in the air. Phase two delivered a direct undeniable statement on the ground. Five aircraft, a single strike, a location inside a country that had officially declared its neutrality.
Saudi Arabia had not entered this war.
Saudi Arabia had not provided offensive support to American operations, at least not in any officially acknowledged capacity. And yet, Iran placed missiles
on Saudi soil and hit American assets sitting there. The message was not only directed at the United States. It was directed at every government in the region that believed hosting American
forces provided security rather than exposure. The logic Saudi Arabia had operated under that American military presence on its soil served as a
deterrent, a protective umbrella, was being directly challenged. Iran was demonstrating that the umbrella had holes, that neutrality declared in press
releases did not translate to safety on the ground. that the decision to host American refueling operations came with a cost that Saudi leadership had perhaps
not fully calculated. Each phase of the strategy was designed to teach a lesson.
Phase one taught that American aerial refueling assets were vulnerable in the air. Phase two taught that they were vulnerable on the ground in neutral
countries. At any moment, Iran chose to act. The -day wait was not patience born of weakness. It was precision born
of planning. Iran allowed the Americans to settle into a rhythm. days of sustained operations, days of building confidence in those tarmac
parked tankers, and then it struck at exactly the moment that disruption would be most expensive. The weight itself was the strategy, and the strategy was far
from finished. Numbers in warfare tell stories that press conferences never will. And the numbers coming out of this particular week of Operation Epic Fury
were telling a story that no official statement had fully acknowledged. Not because the facts were hidden, but because when placed side by side in
sequence, in the correct order, they painted a picture that was deeply uncomfortable for everyone responsible for sustaining this air campaign. Seven
KC Strat tankers, days, one category of aircraft. That is not a statistic. That is a pattern. Begin with
the full accounting because the complete picture matters more than any single incident viewed in isolation. The first loss came over Iraq. A KCwent down
in Iraqi airspace. Six American crew members died. The airframe was destroyed. The official explanation remained carefully worded, neither fully
confirming nor fully denying hostile engagement. But the aircraft was gone,
the crew was dead, and the aerial refueling corridor over western Iraq,
one of the primary routes supporting American operations, was now under serious question. Commanders on the ground did not need an official confirmation of hostile fire to
understand that something had fundamentally changed about the risk calculation over that corridor. The second incident was separate. A different KCa different location, a
damaged tail section. The details were sparse. The aircraft was taken out of operational rotation. No crew casualties were reported, but another airframe was removed from the available pool.
Quietly, without the same level of attention the Iraq crash had generated, then came Prince Sultan. Five aircraft,
one strike, one location, one carefully chosen moment. The Prince Sultan attack did not just destroy five planes. It triggered an immediate operational response that itself became a problem.
American forces began evacuating the remaining KC s from Prince Sultan Air Base almost immediately after the strike. The aircraft that had been
sitting there, the ones that had not been hit, were moved, dispersed, sent to other locations across the region. On the surface, this looks like a sensible
precaution. move the assets, reduce the concentration, protect what remains, and it is sensible. But dispersion carries
its own costs. Costs that accumulate quietly in the background of every mission that depends on those aircraft.
When tankers are dispersed across multiple locations instead of concentrated at a single well- supplied base, the logistics of every refueling
operation become more complex. Aircraft that need to rendevous with a tanker at a specific point in a specific corridor now face a more complicated coordination
problem. The tanker is coming from a different location. Its flight time to the rendevous point has changed. Its fuel load calculations have shifted. The margin for error and scheduling has
narrowed. And every mission, American or Israeli, that depends on aerial refueling now carries additional coordination overhead that did not exist
the week before. Distance is not just a geographic problem. It is a timing problem. It is a fuel problem. It is a communication and synchronization
problem. And when those problems multiply across dozens of missions running simultaneously, the friction they generate begins to degrade the overall tempo of the air campaign in
ways that are difficult to see from the outside, but deeply felt by the operators running it. This is precisely what Iran was targeting. Not the
aircraft themselves, not primarily. The aircraft were the visible, countable,
reportable element of the strike, but the real target was the operational infrastructure those aircraft represented. the refueling corridors,
the logistics chains, the coordination systems, the confidence of allied governments hosting American assets on their soil. All of it degraded,
complicated, and pressured simultaneously through a sequence of strikes that never gave the American side a clean moment to stabilize and recalibrate. Saudi Arabia now faced a
question it had not expected to answer publicly. Its soil had been struck. Its declared neutrality had been tested and found insufficient as a deterrent. The
remaining KC-s had been moved off its tarmac, which meant either Prince Sultan was no longer considered safe enough to host them, or the political calculation
around hosting them had suddenly become far more complicated. Neither conclusion was comfortable. Seven tankers in days had done something that Iranian
targets struck by American bombers had not yet managed to do on the other side.
It had introduced doubt into the machine that made everything else possible. Five aircraft on a Saudi tarmac, one aircraft over Iraq, one damaged tail section in a separate incident. Counted together,
they represent seven KC Strata tankers removed from operational capacity in a single week. That is the visible damage, the number that gets
reported, confirmed, and entered into the official record of this conflict.
But Iran did not plan this campaign to destroy airframes. Airframes can be replaced. Damaged aircraft can be repaired. New tankers can be flown in from bases in Europe, from Diego Garcia,
from the continental United States. The physical loss of seven aircraft, while operationally significant, is not the kind of damage that ends a war. The
United States Air Force operates over KCs.
is a painful number, it is not a fatal one. What Iran was targeting was something far more difficult to replace. It was targeting operational confidence.
Operational confidence is the invisible foundation on which every military campaign is built. It is the collective belief held by commanders, pilots,
logistics officers, allied governments,
and political leadership that the systems supporting the campaign are functioning, sustainable, and secure. When that confidence is intact,
decisions are made quickly. Missions are planned aggressively. Allies cooperate without hesitation. The entire machine moves forward with momentum. When that
confidence begins to erode, even slightly, everything slows down.
Commanders begin asking questions that were not being asked the week before.
Are the remain remaining tankers safe at their current locations? Are the refueling corridors over Western Iraq still viable? Is the dispersal of assets
creating coordination gaps that could be exploited? Is Saudi Arabia's continued hosting of American operations sustainable given that it's declared
neutrality has already been violated once? These questions do not stop missions, but they add weight to every decision. They introduce hesitation into
a process that depends on speed, and hesitation at the operational level is expensive. Consider what the tanker losses mean specifically for Israeli
strike capacity. Israel's ability to conduct deep strikes inside Iranian territory depends entirely on aerial refueling. Its aircraft do not have the
unassisted range to reach critical Iranian targets and return safely without tanker support. Every KCremoved from the available pool narrows
the operational window for Israeli strikes. Every increase in tanker dispersal adds distance and complexity to the refueling rendevous that Israeli
aircraft depend on. The strikes can continue, but with less frequency, less flexibility, and less margin for the unexpected. Iran understood this
arithmetic before the first missile was fired. The regional signal embedded in the Prince Sultan strike extended well beyond the immediate military consequences. Every government in the
Gulf region was watching. Every leadership that had quietly accepted American military presence on its soil,
calculating that the association provided more security than exposure was now recalculating. Iran had demonstrated with unmistakable clarity that declaring
neutrality in a press release did not translate to safety on the ground. That hosting American operations came with a target designation attached, whether acknowledged publicly or not. The
message to Gulf States was precise and deliberate. Distance yourselves. Restrict American operational access.
Understand that the cost of continued hosting will be paid on your soil with your infrastructure in full view of your populations. Whether those governments
respond to that message openly or quietly through formal statements or through private restrictions on American operational usage of their facilities,
the pressure is now present in every conversation happening behind closed doors across the region. The deeper question, the one being asked in defense ministries and intelligence assessments
across multiple capitals is whether the American air campaign can sustain its current tempo given the cumulative degradation of its refueling
infrastructure. targets struck in days represents an extraordinarily high operational pace. Maintaining that pace requires a tanker fleet that is
intact, well positioned, and logistically supported. A fleet that is being dispersed, reduced, and complicated week by week faces increasing difficulty sustaining that
same rhythm. Iran did not need to win a single air battle to make this point. It needed only to remove enough pieces from the board slowly, sequentially,
deliberately to force the question of sustainability into the center of American strategic planning. Seven tankers in seven days answered nothing.
But they asked a question that now cannot be ignored. How long can a machine keep running when someone is quietly removing its fuel? End a full script.

[admin]

Iran Just Hit a U.S. Stealth MQ-9 Reaper: The $100M Drone Shot Down Over the Red Sea Today
economía global and Warfare Meet History
Mar 15, 2026

The air war over the Middle East has entered a lethal new chapter as Iranian air defense networks have successfully downed another high-value U.S. asset. On March 15, 2026, intelligence reports confirmed the loss of an MQ-9 Reaper—a specialized, high-end stealth-capable surveillance drone—during a critical reconnaissance mission over the Red Sea. While the Pentagon maintains its standard policy of "no comment" on individual equipment losses, sources close to the operation describe the downing as a tactical failure that exposes the mounting strain on American intelligence-gathering capabilities. With over 110 drones now claimed destroyed by Tehran since the onset of Operation Epic Fury, the loss of this platform is not just a $30–$100 million financial blow—it is a clear signal that the U.S. is losing its "unblinking eye" in a theater now dominated by sophisticated Iranian electronic warfare and integrated air-defense blankets.

This strike marks a disturbing escalation in the "Drone Graveyard" reality of 2026, as Iran shifts its focus from regional proxies to direct interception of high-end U.S. aerial hardware. By targeting these Reapers—which are essential for orchestrating precision strikes and tracking Iranian missile launchers in real-time—Tehran is effectively attempting to sever the U.S. "Kill Chain," creating blind spots that allow its own ballistic and drone waves to saturate defensive grids with greater impunity. As the conflict intensifies and the pressure mounts on Washington to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the inability of these advanced unmanned systems to survive in contested airspace is forcing a total rethink of American air dominance. With the Red Sea becoming as dangerous as the Persian Gulf, the war is no longer just about geography; it is a desperate race to maintain technological overmatch before the next "stealth" asset is brought down.



Transcript

7:17 a.m. Eastern time. A windowless room inside Sentcom's forward operations hub at Al Udead Air Base in Qatar, the
same base that Iranian ballistic missiles struck days ago, leaving two runways cratered and three hangers gutted. A senior intelligence officer is
staring at a screen. The telemetry feed from a US MQReaper tail designation outfitted with the links multiode
synthetic. Aperture radar, a full electrooptical infrared sensor suite, a maritime surveillance package, and two
laserg guided AGMand Hellfire missiles has gone silent. Not a graceful shutdown, not a controlled return, a
hard cut. The kind of cut that means the aircraft is gone. The kind of cut that in days of Operation Epic Fury has become disturbingly familiar. Someone in
that room picks up a secure phone and makes a call that will within the hour detonate across diplomatic back channels, leak onto Iranian state media,
spike crude oil by $a barrel, and land on the desk of a man in the Oval Office who right now is being told that the ceasefire he has publicly denied wanting
is the only thing standing between this moment and something no calculator in the Department of Defense wants to model. This is where we are, day of
the most consequential American military operation since the invasion of Iraq. And the question that every intelligence analyst, every energy
trader, every diplomat quietly working a back channel in Muscat or Doha is asking right now is this. Is today the day the
arithmetic changes? MQReapers have been flying continuous orbits over Iran,
gathering intelligence and striking missile launchers as part of Operation Epic Fury. They are the workh horses of this campaign. patient, persistent,
invisible to the naked eye at altitude,
and brutally effective at illuminating targets for the FAs and B-s that follow. Iran has managed to down approximately of the armed drones,
according to people familiar with the operations. But the one that went dark this morning is different because this one wasn't over Iranian territory. It
was over the Red Sea. And that changes everything. Here's what nobody is telling you. The Red Sea engagement, the shootown of Tail
is not just a tactical loss. It is a signal. Signal number one, that Iran, or an Iran aligned actor, has now extended its effective anti- drone envelope
beyond its own borders, beyond the Persian Gulf, into one of the most critical maritime corridors on Earth.
That signal was sent deliberately, and the people who sent it knew exactly what they were doing. But before we get to who sent it and how, you need to understand what this aircraft was worth.
The headline says $million. The Pentagon will tell you the acquisition cost of a standard MQis somewhere between and $million per airframe.
The Air Force's final contract for Reapers struck in was approximately $million per aircraft according to
General Atomics. So where does the hundred million come from? It comes from what was bolted onto this one. The Link's radar alone is a $million
sensor. The full ISR package, the electrooptical cameras, the laser designators, the electronic intelligence gathering systems adds another
million. The Hellfire missiles, two of them fully armed, represent another million. Factor in the operational deployment cost, the satellite
bandwidth, the crew training hours, and the mission specific intelligence software loaded onto the aircraft for this particular sorty. A maritime
surveillance mission tracking what you s analysts believe is an Iranian logistics vessel in the southern Red Sea. and you are looking at a hundmillion asset
minimum and now it is on the bottom of the Red Sea. The financial scale of the losses has become a focal point of analysis. Each MQReaper platform costs
approximately $million and the confirmed destruction of aircraft represents one of the most significant single-phase losses of American unmanned
combat aerial vehicles in a contemporary conflict environment. That was This morning makes And has a symbolic
weight that did not because means the attrition rate is accelerating. means whatever Iran learned from the first about flight patterns, about
altitude profiles, about the electromagnetic signatures that give these aircraft away, they have applied that knowledge, refined it, and are now
deploying it in new theaters. There's a third person in the room at Aluade this morning, someone who is not supposed to be there. We'll come back to that in a
moment. Operation Epic Fury was authorized by President Trump as a precise overwhelming military campaign to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat
posed by the Iranian regime, destroy its ballistic missile arsenal, degrade its proxy terror networks, and its naval forces. Executed in partnership
with regional allies, it launched at p.m. Eastern time on February th,
toa.m. Iran Standard Time, February th, with the first wave of strikes hitting targets simultaneously. Fordo
Pulers, Natans, Isvahan, the Shahed Hemmetal Production Complex South of Tran, the IRGC Aerospace Force headquarters in Lavazan, and something else, something that you, Hess,
officials have not officially confirmed,
but that every regional intelligence service knows happened. A strike on a convoy moving southwest out of Thran at precisely the moment the air campaign
began. Shortly after the strikes commenced, reports emerged that Supreme Leader Ali Kamune and key military advisers were killed during a strike,
which Iranian media outlets later confirmed. Let that land for a second.
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, the man who has held that position since the man who outlasted six American presidents, who
watched the Soviet Union collapse, who navigated two wars in neighboring countries, who survived assassination attempts, sanctions, and proxy defeats,
is gone. killed in the opening hours of a campaign that the White House had been planning, according to sources familiar with the timeline since at least the
th of February, Valentine's Day. While diplomats were exchanging proposals in Geneva, targeting packages were being finalized in Tampa. And that is the
first domino because the death of KA did not, as some in Washington had hoped,
produce a rapid internal collapse of the Iranian regime. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said a new Supreme Leader would be chosen in the coming days. The
, secondIslamic Republic has succession procedures. It has a guardian council,
an assembly of experts, and an institutional architecture that was explicitly designed to survive the death of any individual, including the supreme
leader. Iraqi clarified during an interview that even if Kam were killed,
the theocratic establishment would carry on because it has legal procedures in place to appoint a successor. He was right. The Islamic Republic did not
collapse. It adapted. But here's the catch. The regime that adapted is not the same regime that entered these days. And the fractures running through
it right now are the most dangerous variable in the entire equation. One of the most significant political developments of the conflict's first week has been the visible split between
Iran's civilian presidency and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
President Peshkian issued an apology to Gulf states on March th, pledging that Iran would halt attacks on neighbors unless strikes were first launched from
their territory. Hours later, IRGC aligned parliamentary speaker Muhammad Bagger Galabaf publicly reversed the commitment, stating Gulf nations hosting US military bases would remain targets.
Read that again. The civilian president of Iran made a public commitment. An IRGCbacked figure overruled it publicly on the record. That is not a coordinated
diplomatic signal. That is a regime in the process of tearing itself apart under the pressure of a war it did not anticipate fighting at this scale at
this speed against an adversary that hit all three of its major nuclear sites on the first night. Now go back to that room at Al Ud. Go back to the third person. It is a Chinese liaison officer.
Not an official presence, not a declared diplomatic figure. someone who has been embedded with the Qatari facilitated communications architecture since the
second week of March, operating as an unofficial channel between Beijing and the American military command. China signed a trilateral strategic pact with Iran and Russia on January th,
Although the agreement does not constitute a mutual defense treaty, it provides diplomatic cover, intelligence cooperation, economic resilience, and
technological support. China has reportedly provided satellite imagery and early warning data on US force deployments while Chinese surveillance
vessels have monitored US naval operations in the region. So, China is simultaneously feeding intelligence to Thran and sending back channel
emissaries to the American command. That is not a contradiction. That is Beijing's entire geopolitical strategy in this conflict. Stay on the fence long
enough to position yourself as the indispensable mediator when both sides are exhausted. China, despite being closely economically tied to Iran, has
dispatched a special envoy to the region and is openly calling for a ceasefire and return to negotiations driven primarily by the threat to global energy
markets given that China is the world's largest oil and gas importer. And that special envoy arrived in Doha hours ago. His name has not been published,
but three diplomatic sources confirm he has been in contact with both Witoff's team and Dagshi's people through a chain of intermediaries that now runs through Qatar, Oman, and improbably the Vatican.
Let's talk about what brought us to this morning. Because the story of how the United States went from nuclear negotiations to active combat operations
in less than hours is one of the most extraordinary sequences of diplomatic collapse in modern history. The first round of talks was held on April th,
in Moscat, Oman. The talks were led by US special envoy Steve Witoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi.
Each delegation was in separate rooms with messages relayed through Omani mediators. That setup, two delegations,
one building, a single Omani diplomat carrying papers between rooms like a human pneumatic tube defined the entire negotiating architecture. It was indirect by design. Iran insisted on it.
Washington accepted it grudgingly and the indirectness created the vulnerability because when you're relaying messages through an intermediary, the risk of mischaracterization is not theoretical.
It is structural. An Iranian news outlet reported that during the talks in Oman,
Iran proposed a three-step plan. Iran would agree to temporarily lower its uranium enrichment to three % in
return for access to frozen financial assets and authorization to export oil.
Iran would not permanently halt high level uranium enrichment, restore IAEA inspections, and commit to implementing the additional protocol, allowing for
surprise inspections at undeclared sites. That is not a trivial offer. That is a substantial concession by any
historical measure. The JCPOA, the deal that Trump abandoned in only
required enrichment at three, %. Iran was offering to return to that level as a starting point and go further. Iraqi told reporters the talks were the most
serious Iran had engaged in since the original JCP YOA negotiations. By February th, just two days
before the bombs fell, the picture looked different than it does in retrospect. The Iranian team led by Arachi handed over Thran's written
proposals to Oman's foreign minister Al-Busidi, who also mediated previous rounds of talks in Geneva and Muscat.
The Omani diplomat then met with the US delegation led by Witoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Oman's foreign minister Bad Al-Busidi said a
breakthrough had been reached and Iran had agreed both to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Furthermore, Iran had
agreed to irreversibly downgrade its current enriched uranium to the lowest level possible. Albidi said peace was within reach. Peace was within reach.
That is not a spin phrase. That is the official statement of the mediating party. A man whose country's entire diplomatic identity depends on being
trusted by both sides. Peace was within reach on February th. hours later,
the sky over Thran was on fire. So, what happened? Here's what officials are saying privately. Less than hours
before the coordinated strikes on Iran began, Witco and Kushner met with Arachi in Geneva for a third round of Omani mediated talks. Despite Oman's
assessment of substantial progress and agreement to meet again for technical talks, Trump said he was not happy with the progress or the way they were
negotiating. But there is something deeper. Comments made by Witoff in background briefings with reporters made clear he did not have sufficient
technical expertise or diplomatic experience to engage in effective diplomacy. His lack of knowledge and mischaracterization of Iran's positions and nuclear program throughout the
process likely informed Trump's assessment that talks were not progressing and Iran was not negotiating seriously. One specific example is
devastating. Whit fixated on Iran's Thrron research reactor, a facility that, as every nuclear non-prololiferation expert knows, is a
medical isotope production site originally supplied by the United States in He characterized it as a weapons grade enrichment threat. It is
not. But the hardliners in Washington were not the only ones sabotaging the deal. According to the Wall Street Journal, Adui Nongo senator Lindsey
Graham made the most compelling case to Trump for an assault on Iran.
According to the Washington Post, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman conducted multiple phone calls with Trump urging him to attack Iran.
And Trump's decision to attack Iran came after the Saudi Arabian and Israeli governments lobbyed him repeatedly. NBS own Netanyahu Graham. Three men who stand to gain strategically,
economically, politically from Iranian military degradation. Three men who had the president's ear at the precise moment the Omani mediator was telling the world that a deal was within reach.
That is not coincidence. That is pressure applied at exactly the right moment by exactly the right people. On Tuesday before the strikes, White House envoy Steve Witoff met in Israel with
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Israeli defense officials.
Israeli officials say Netanyahu emphasized that Iran cannot be trusted.
And then within hours, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes. The sequence is that simple and that damning. But here's the catch. The
war that was supposed to be over in hours is not over. It is on day And the mathematics of this campaign are shifting in ways that neither the
Pentagon's optimistic briefings nor Iranian state media's triumphist propaganda have fully captured. US Central Command Chief Admiral Brad
Cooper said Iranian ballistic missile attacks had fallen by approximately %
since February th as US and Israeli operations intensify. %. That is a genuinely significant degradation of
Iranian offensive capability. On March th, a United States military submarine struck and sank the Iris Dana, Iran's
most modern Moge class frigot approximately nautical miles off the coast. The Iranian Navy's most capable surface vessel is gone. Trump claimed Iran had suffered sweeping losses,
saying their navy is gone, their anti-aircraft weapons are gone, their air force is functionally destroyed. But here is what that % figure does not
tell you. It does not tell you about the % that remains. And the % that remains is not the conventional threat. It is the asymmetric one. the drones,
the underwater mines, the Houthi pressure in the southern Red Sea, the Hezblah pressure on Israel's northern border, the Shia militia networks in
Iraq that fired on US positions at Al-Assad air base three nights ago,
killing one American service member and wounding four, and the MQthat went dark at this morning. Iran's air defenses include electrooptical and infrared surfaceto-air missile systems,
which have proven challenging to you. S defenses because their passive sensors do not provide the kind of advanced warning that radar activated missile
systems do. Those systems were active in Yemen during Operation Ruff Rider and were particularly effective against reapers. You cannot find a passive
infrared seeker with a radar warning receiver. The aircraft has no warning.
The seeker locks, the missile fires, the drone falls. Iranian authorities claim their national integrated air defense network has destroyed unmanned
aerial vehicles belonging to the United States and Israel since the launch of coordinated strikes beginning February th, That number is almost
certainly inflated. Iranian state media has been caught presenting Shahed debris as MQwreckage, but confirmed American losses verified by US.
Officials speaking to CBS News representing over $million in destroyed assets is not propaganda. That
is the real number. And this morning it is Now let's talk about what a shootown over the Red Sea means for the domino chain. Because every development
in this conflict has a geopolitical consequence that moves faster than the crisis itself. The Red Sea is not a peripheral theater. It is the corridor
through which approximately % of global seaborn trade passes annually. The container ships, the oil tankers,
the LG carriers, Qatar's LG export terminals representing approximately %
of the global LNG market were forced to suspend operations following Iranian drone attacks on key facilities. That suspension has already pushed European
natural gas prices to levels not seen since the winter of A Chinese buyer in Shanghai trying to lock in a spot cargo this morning was quoted a
price that makes last year's numbers look like a discount. Now add a demonstrated Iranian capability to reach across the Red Sea with an anti- drone
weapon accurate enough to kill a hardened military ISR platform at altitude. And every ship's captain in that corridor is recalculating risk.
Some of them are already turning around.
Here is the domino effect. If the Red Sea supply corridor degrades further and if insurance rates for transiting vessels spike to uninsurable levels,
which they are already approaching, the volume of global trade ruting around Cape Horn adds days to every delivery. days of additional fuel burn, days of supply chain delay.
That delay feeds into port congestion in Roderdam, in Singapore, in Los Angeles.
Three senior Wall Street analysts speaking off the record this week put the number at a to % equity market correction within days if the Red Sea
corridor goes dark. That is not a Black Swan scenario. That is a base case if this conflict continues at its current trajectory for another weeks. And that
is exactly why the Chinese envoy in Doha matters so much. China holds Iranian debt. China is Iran's largest oil customer, buying approximately
million barrels per day at heavily discounted prices through a gray market network of intermediaries. China also
holds you s Treasury bonds $billion worth as of February's Treasury data.
China is financially exposed to this conflict in both directions simultaneously. If Iran's oil exports collapse further, China's energy
security calculus is disrupted. If the global financial system absorbs a major shock from Red Sea supply chain failure,
China's export economy takes a direct hit. Beijing does not want this war.
Beijing wants to end this war on terms that leave it positioned as the indispensable broker. That is why the envoy is here. And that is why in the
next hours, whatever message he is carrying from Beijing to Washington may matter more than anything Steve Witoff has said or done in the last months.
But here's the catch. The IRGC doesn't take orders from Beijing. There is a visible split between Iran's civilian leadership and the revolutionary guards.
President Peskian's ceasefire signals have been publicly contradicted by IRGC aligned figures. The IRGC Aerospace Force, the unit that claims
responsibility for this morning's Red Sea shootown, operates under a command structure that reports to the Supreme National Security Council and ultimately
to the Supreme Leader. Except there is no Supreme Leader right now. The Assembly of Experts has been in emergency session for days. The
succession is not resolved. And in that vacuum, the IRGC is not taking orders from anyone. It is operating on institutional inertia, on pre-established targeting doctrine, and
on the cold strategic logic that every American drone it kills is one less American drone that can see inside Iran.
Arachi told NBC News that Iran was not seeking a ceasefire and saw no reason to negotiate. He said, "Iran has not requested ceasefire negotiations and
denies sending back channel messages to Washington." But that statement was made on March th. It is now March th.
days is a very long time in a very fast war. And the private signals coming out of Thrron through Omani channels, through Pakistani intermediaries,
, secondthrough the Vatican back channel that three sources have now independently confirmed are different from Arachi's public posture. Significantly different.
Here's what officials are saying privately. Iran is willing to discuss a cessation of offensive operations. Not a ceasefire. That word is politically
toxic in Tran right now associated with surrender, but a sessation of offensive operations, a cooling off period framed as a humanitarian gesture long enough
for the succession process to complete and for whatever emerges from that process to have the legitimacy to negotiate. That is the secret offer.
That is what is being carried through the back channels. And the question, the question that will determine whether the next hours end in a deal or a
disaster is whether Washington is prepared to hear it. Trump told reporters that Iran was calling and asking how to make a deal. He said,
"You're being a little bit late and we want to fight now more than they do."
That is a negotiating posture. That is a man who wants credit for winning before he sits down to define what winning means. It is also, if read correctly,
the opening of a door. Because if you want to fight more than the other side does, and the other side is signaling a willingness to stop fighting, you have a choice. You can keep pushing for
unconditional surrender, which historically takes much longer and costs much more than anyone initially estimates, or you can take the off-ramp,
declare victory loudly, and let the back channels finalize the details. Iran had kg of % enriched uranium before
the conflict began. Witkov characterized this as enough material that could theoretically be processed toward approximately nuclear devices.
days of strikes on Fordo, Natans, and Isvahan have degraded that stockpile. But degraded does not mean eliminated.
IAEA inspectors have not been inside the facilities since the strikes began. The actual status of Iran's remaining fistal material is unknown. It is one of the
most consequential unknowns in the world right now. Russia has agreed to rebuild Iran's air defense systems, signaling long-term restoration of defensive
capacity, even if current operations degrade existing systems. And whatever material survived, the strikes could theoretically be moved. hidden,
dispersed into the kmter network of tunnels that the IRGC Engineering Corps spent the last years building across the country's mountain ranges.
That is the scenario the Pentagon is most afraid of. Not the war they are winning, the war they cannot see. The conflict has rapidly acquired great
power dimensions. Russia, Iran's strategic partner, has provided intelligence on potential targets to Thran as a direct counter to US and
Israeli intelligence advantages. Russian satellite passes over the Arabian Sea have been tracked by American analysts.
The timing of several Iranian missile launches correlated with satellite window gaps in US coverage patterns.
Gaps that Russia would know about and Iran alone would not. That is not speculation. That is what analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency are
putting in their morning briefs. And it means that behind the Iran war there is the shadow of something larger. a strategic counterpositioning by Moscow
and Beijing that has not yet broken into the open, but is there present,
structured, and patient. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Netanyahu continues to emphasize that Iran cannot be trusted,
and his intelligence services are feeding material to American decision-makers designed to complicate any off-ramp that doesn't include a permanent end to Iranian enrichment
capability. Not just a pause, not a monitoring regime, but a physical dismantlement of every centrifuge at Forau, Natans, and Isvahan. The Wall
Street Journal reported that the U s team had tough demands for the Iranians,
including that they destroy the three main nuclear sites at Fordo, Natans, and Isvahan and deliver all remaining enriched uranium to the U. S. That
demand, total dismantlement, zero enrichment, permanent, and irreversible is the demand that broke the Geneva talks. It is the demand that Aragchi
told his counterparts was not a negotiation. It is a surrender notice.
It is the demand that Netanyahu's government considers the minimum acceptable outcome. And it is the demand that every Iranian leader, civilian,
clerical, or military, has publicly stated they cannot accept without the fall of the regime itself. Here is the geopolitical math. If Iran agrees to
zero enrichment and physical dismantlement, the supreme leader,
whoever is chosen, loses the one argument that has sustained popular nationalist support for the regime through years of sanctions,
isolation, and military pressure. The nuclear program is not just a strategic asset. It is an identity. Surrendering it unconditionally under American bombs
with no sunset clauses and no sanctions relief guaranteed by treaty is asking the Islamic Republic to sign its own political death certificate. No state in
history has done that voluntarily while still having the capacity to resist.
Which means the only path to a deal is one that gives Thrron enough of a face-saving architecture to bring home a framework that sounds like victory in Thran and like victory in Washington.
The Omani model, indirect, deniable,
structured with ambiguity, is the only diplomatic architecture that has ever produced results in this relationship.
And right now, the Omani model is still alive, barely, but alive. On February th, Iranian Foreign Minister Arachi
stated that a historic agreement with the United States to avert military conflict was within reach. He emphasized that diplomacy must be prioritized to
avoid further escalation and described Iran's position on nuclear weapons as crystal clear. That was the Arachi before the war. The Arachi on March th
is operating in a different political environment. He's operating in a country whose supreme leader is dead, whose military command structure is fractured,
whose civilian airports have been struck, whose LG exports are disrupted,
whose currency has lost % of its value in weeks, and whose population is receiving contradictory signals from a government that is simultaneously at war
and trying to survive long enough to find a path out of it. Arachi clarified that Iran has no intention of closing the straight of Hormuz, but said that as
the war continues, it may consider all options. no intention but may consider all options. That phrase, that single diplomatic hedge is the most important
sentence in this entire crisis because the Straight of Hormuz is not just an oil choke point. It is the lever that changes the entire global equation. The
Straight of Hormuz remains the most critical oil transit choke point in the world with nearly % of global petroleum supplies moving through its
waters. If that straight closes, even for hours, even for hours, oil does not hit $a barrel. It hits that number by lunchtime of the first day.
The S&P does not drop % over hours. It drops % in the opening bell of the next trading session. Gas at the
pump, which is already at $a gallon in California, does not go to $It goes to $in a week and in a month
if the closure holds. Those are not analytical projections. Those are what financial models built into US energy information. administration scenario
planning explicitly describe as the Hormuz closure shock scenario. Every Treasury official in Washington knows these numbers. Every Fed governor knows
these numbers and every one of them right now is watching the Red Sea and watching what happened at this morning and calculating how many more
MQs can go dark before the commercial shipping lanes become impassible and the pressure on the White House to take the off-ramp becomes irresistible. The most
credible diplomatic pathway runs through Beijing. That is not an opinion. That is the assessment of three separate analysis groups. The European Council on
Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, and a working group inside the NSC itself, whose conclusions leaked to two American
journalists last Tuesday. Beijing has leverage with Thran that Washington does not have. Beijing has leverage with Washington that tan does not have. And
Beijing uniquely has an interest in stopping this war that is not contingent on either side winning or losing. It is contingent only on the oil flowing and
the ships moving and the global supply chain resuming something approximating normal function. The Chinese envoy in Doha, the third person in that room at
Aloud. Whatever is being carried through those channels right now is more important than the drone that fell into the Red Sea at this morning. The
drone is the headline. The channels are the story. Arachi wrote on social media that Washington had squandered a diplomatic opening, calling it a unique
deal that was lost after the intervention of an America last cabal.
That phrasing, America last, is aimed directly at Trump's political identity.
It is designed to be read by Trump himself. It is saying the people who talked you into this war are the same people who are costing you the deal. It
is the most sophisticated piece of diplomatic messaging to come out of Thrron in two weeks. And it suggests that whoever is managing Iran's
information strategy right now, whether it is Arachi himself or someone advising him, has not lost their analytical clarity, even in the middle of a war.
Trump told reporters he still wants to reach an agreement with Iran, but reiterated that Thrron cannot have a nuclear weapon. That is the opening.
That simple sentence contains everything a deal needs. He wants an agreement. He has a single bottom line, no nuclear weapon. Iran for all the fog of its
public statements has consistently maintained for years through every negotiation, every crisis, every fatwa that it does not seek a nuclear weapon.
That shared premise, no nuclear weapon,
is theoretically enough to build an agreement on. The question is the architecture. The question is how you get from that shared premise to a
verifiable enforcable framework that both sides can call a win. By the time the third round of talks ended in Geneva, Trump had likely already made
the decision to go to war. That is the most damning sentence in the entire historical record of this crisis. Talks were ongoing. The mediator said peace
was within reach. The American delegation was sitting across the hall from the Iranian delegation in Geneva and the decision to go to war had already been made. That means the talks from the American side were theater.
They were not a genuine attempt to find a framework. They were a diplomatic formality before a military operation that had been decided at a higher level
by different people for reasons that had more to do with Netanyahu's intelligence briefings and NBS's phone calls than with anything Aragchi or Whitkoff
actually said to each other. And now, days later, we are here. The war has not ended the nuclear threat. It has dispersed it. It has not produced regime change. It has produced regime fracture,
, secondwhich is more dangerous. It has not secured the Strait of Hormuz. It has made the threat to close it more credible because a desperate postcomi
IRGC with nothing left to lose is more likely to mine the strait than a calculating deterrence-minded regime with something to protect. And it has
not, despite the admiral's press conference, eliminated Iran's capacity to reach out and kill American assets.
Because this morning at a.m., it did exactly that over the Red Sea, miles from Tran. Here is where we are right now, Saturday, March th,
The back channel is open. The Chinese envoy is in Doha. The Omani foreign minister is on a plane. The Vatican has a phone line nobody in official
Washington will confirm. The IRGC aerospace force just destroyed a hundred million dollar American drone over international waters. And somewhere in
the West Wing, someone is writing a decision memo that lands on a desk sometime in the next hours. The next hours will answer the question that
no one has been able to answer since February th. The question is not about drones or missiles or uranium centrifuges. Those are the instruments.
The question is about political will.
Does the president of the United States want to deal badly enough to build one in public? Loud declared taking credit on terms that give Iran just enough to
live with? Or does he go further, surge the strikes, push for the IRGC collapse that the optimistic scenario has been promising since day one, and bet that
the regime breaks before the oil markets do? Because those are the only two options. Everything else is noise. The back channels are noise until one side
decides to make them signal. The drone shootowns are noise until they tip the political calculation. The IRGC's public defiance is noise until it either
produces a ceasefire offer or a hormone's mine. Deal or bombs, peace or war. A framework that lets both leaders
declare victory before the cameras or a continuation that neither side can currently afford but neither can currently stop. The clock started at this morning. It has not stopped.
And in the next hours, we will find out which path this world just chose.

[admin]

Larry Johnson: U.S. Attack on Kharg Island Will Destroy the Gulf States
Glenn Diesen
Mar 15, 2026

Larry Johnson is a former intelligence analyst at the CIA who also worked at the US State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. Johnson discusses why a U.S. attack on Iran's energy facilities on Kharg Island will predictably result in Iran attacking all energy facilities in the Gulf States.

Read Larry Johnson's Sonar21: https://sonar21.com/



Transcript

Welcome back. We are joined by Larry Johnson, a former CI analyst to discuss the very dramatic developments taking
secondsplace uh in the war against Iran. So uh yeah, first let me thank you for coming back on the program. It's good to see you again.
secondsHey, always appreciate the invite, Glenn.
secondsSo uh I I wanted to well at least start by focusing on this uh Car Island because this is uh this handles uh %
secondsof uh Iran's oil export. So many commentators have been asking you know if this is really what can break the
secondsback of uh Iran's economy. So why isn't uh Trump going after this? Well, it appeared that you know we have reached
secondsthis point now as we continue up this escalation ladder. Trump of well the United States has now bombed u island.
secondsTrump claims to have totally obliterated that's his words uh the military the military facilities there. He did not
minute, secondtouch the energy facilities uh I guess for good reasons. But he is threatening now that the oil installations are next
minute, secondsunless Iran folds. uh that is um by opening up the straight of Hermoose uh
minute, secondshow are you assessing this situation because you know on one hand if it's a bluff Iran you know they they can't
minute, secondscapitulate on the other hand if Trump goes through with this you know this is like the nuclear option of the energy wars so well what does all of this mean?
minute, secondsI guess Donald Trump reminds me of a casino's favorite client, you know, the one that keeps coming in and spending lots of money and losing. Uh, that's
minute, secondsDonald Trump. Um, this attack on Car Island, it just makes zero sense. Uh, no
minute, secondsmatter how you look at it, they did not attack the oil terminal. Well, that's
minutes, secondsthe good news. Uh it this Iran reportedly has five oil terminals. So this is actually only one of them. So
minutes, secondsalthough it may pump the most oil or provide the most oil to a a tanker to,
minutes, secondsyou know, sell sell south out through the straight. Um this is not, you know,
minutes, secondsif they destroyed this, this wouldn't be Iran's only uh source of potential revenue.
minutes, secondsBut they bombed the uh the runway of the major airport. Um so you say, "Oh, good.
minutes, secondsThat'll that'll keep Iran from using it." Except Iran really doesn't have an air force. So the there's also talk of the United States invading, you know,
minutes, secondstrying to occupy Car Island. Well, one of the ways you do that is you'd fly in troops or once the troops are parachuted in, got to resupply them somehow. So,
minutes, secondsyou'd need to land on the runway. Except this runway is like I I was told uh almost six ft. And they the way
minutes, secondsthey bombed it, uh it means that uh it's only good for ft. Well, a Crequires at least ft to land. So,
minutes, secondsscratch the CAnd that leaves you with a slowflying C
minutes, secondsSo, I mean, just it's like if you're planning a military operation on the island, you've now screwed yourself from the US standpoint. Uh Iran has made it
minutes, secondsvery clear that if you attack our actual oil uh terminals and resources, we will
minutes, secondsattack those in the uh of our other Gulf neighbors. And there are, you know,
minutes, secondsthere are at least uh different targets that they've already identified.
minutes, secondsSo Iran didn't react immediately or uh you know angrily last night when this
minutes, secondshappened or it happened early uh Saturday morning in Iran time. It was late Friday East Coast time. Uh but so
minutes, secondsthis was it's like just lashing out to be lashing out. It's not part of a strategic picture because you got to sit back and say,
minutes, secondswhat is Trump trying to accomplish?
minutes, secondsWell, what has been accomplished as a result of this attack on Iran is shut shutting down the straight of Hormuz.
minutes, secondsAnd in doing that, you you've now closed off % of the world's oil supply, %
minutes, secondsof the world's liquid natural gas, and % of the world's ura, which is needed for fertilizer, which you know uh about
minutes, seconds% of the arable land in the world is above the equator. So that means we're now in planting season. And you know,
minutes, secondsthe % drop in the fertilizer is huge.
minutesThat means that there's some crops that aren't going to get planted or aren't going to grow. And then when it comes harvest time, that means food's not going to be harvested and there's going
minutes, secondsto be a drop in the food supply, the global food supply. So, it literally can can affect billions of people. Uh on the
minutes, secondsgas front, uh the the prices now are rising very rapidly, even here in the United States. Uh I've you know I've
minutes, secondsbeen monitoring it uh at my local gas station uh a week ago on Sunday. U I
minutes, secondspaid cents more than I had the previous days. So last Sunday it was uh on on Wednesday uh the price
minutes, secondswent up uh to and then on Thursday uh it was uh
minutes, secondsand then yesterday it was so it's essentially come up almost uh
minutes, secondscents uh in a week a little over a week um that is you know I'm fortunate I'm in
minutes, secondsa financial situation where that having to pay that amount of money increase.
minutes, secondsOkay, I prefer not to do it, but I can do it. But an estimated % of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, which means
minutes, secondsthat they're they don't have a lot of spare cash. And so this is going to impact not only their bottom line, but
minutes, secondsthen the real killer is on the diesel front that the price has gone up uh over a$and it's approaching $Well,
minutes, secondsevery every truck that holds holds supplies for grocery stores, supplies for, uh, you know, the the hardware stores, uh, for Walmart, for Price Club,
minutes, secondsfor any of these major, uh, you know, vendors,
minutes, secondstheir their prices are going to go up and they the so when the fuel price goes up, it's going to get passed along to
minutes, secondsthe consumer. So, I get the strategy comes back. So you're you're you're trying to uh heighten inflation around
minutes, secondsthe world and in the course of doing that also put in place a recession because what we know from history is
minutes, secondsevery time this has happened in terms of spiking oil prices there has been a recession you know that varies the the
minutes, secondslength and the depth of it has varied but we've never had a situation where the entire Persian Gulf has been closed
minutes, secondsoff as it is and the shutdown of operations in the three you know three four critical countries there apart from
minutes, secondsuh Iran when you look at Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait uh and then uh
minutes, secondsuh Qatar and United Arab Emirates keeping to say Dubai and get it mixed up. So you know we're we're an uncharted
minutesterritory as far as history goes. you have nothing to point back to and say,
minutes, seconds"Oh, yeah, this is what happened that time." So the the potential of this to create actually a global economic catastrophe is high. And so Trump's
minutes, secondsresponse now is to double down militarily except they have uh they're in a situation that they that the US
minutes, secondscannot militarily defeat Iran. You can't do it from the air. Air power has never won a war. And there was an Air Force
minutes, secondsgeneral that testified in the United States a couple of weeks back that that admitted that I mean that that history
minutes, secondsclearly shows um so you say well what about ground troops the the age in which you know years
minutes, secondsago the United States could assemble soldiers uh over the course of nine months at bases in Saudi Arabia. They
minutes, secondswere quite safe. They weren't facing drone strikes. They weren't facing missile strikes. Not today. You couldn't
minutesyou could not do that. You could not assemble an army that would be required to take on Iran. Number one. Number two,
minutes, secondsthe United States doesn't have that size of army. Total total current military strength is a US Army and about Marines.
minutes, secondsUh you know, good luck. against uh a million man army in in Iran that
minutes, secondsjust you know doesn't work. So there are though u there are valid reports that
minutes, secondsthey're deploying for two different numbers a marine uh amphibious unit uh and then a
minutes, secondsor I don't care whether it's you know or again, what
minutes, secondsare they going to do? The the notion that this is going to be like World War II where, you know, the the the Marines are in their watercraft and they're
minutes, secondscharging towards the shore and the ramp's going to come down and they're going to storm into fire. That's not going to happen. Those craft would not
minutes, secondseven get close to Iran. They'd be blown out of the water.
minutes, secondsSo, it's it's it's unclear how they're going to try to employ these Marines.
minutes, secondsyou know, they could try to parachute them in someplace, but again, once you parachute them in, how do you resupply them and they're going to be through
minutes, secondswhatever ammunition and food and water they carry within a day? And so, if you can't resupply them, they're dead. Plus,
minutes, secondshis these American planners apparently are have not watched the what the war in Ukraine. And there's a real reason why
minutes, secondsyou don't see mass movements of troops on either side. Because with drones combined with artillery, it it it it's
minutes, secondsimpossible for soldiers to move in large units. They'll be decimated.
minutes, secondsIf one takes the Iranian oil off the market is one thing, but I'm just thinking that this mass uh Iranian
minutes, secondsretaliation. I mean, I think there's a reason why the Iranians haven't attacked the Gulf States uh energy facilities to
minutes, secondssuch an extent because uh you know, then it would be open season on the Iranian.
minutes, secondsBut if the Americans go after this, why why would Iran be restrained in any ways? then it should uh well just as I should burn
minutes, secondsit all down and uh the Gulf States would essentially cease to exist at least the smaller ones. So it is uh it's a very
minutes, secondscrazy even threat to make. So and once making these threats it's often very difficult to climb down especially when
minutes, secondsyou turn on the TV I think yeah Keith Kellogg was also coming out you know ah we should just take it over but you know
minutes, secondsone one thing is if if if the objective is to invade it but the alternative is of course just bombing it destroying it
minutes, secondsall but uh then you know the every energy facility in the Middle East would be on fire within the next few days so
minutes, secondsyes it just seems It's like an yeah insane escalation.
minutes, secondsBut uh but Trump is under great pressure to do something though because now he's been you know committing himself to this
minutes, secondsrhetoric that uh you know you can open the straight of m you know ships should just go through it's not a big problem.
minutes, secondsUm but uh h how would you assess this though like how how can the US reopen
minutes, secondsthe straight of it? No.
minutes, secondsCannot. No, cannot be done. Well, it cannot be done with uh acceptable losses.
minutes, secondsYeah, you you can militarily probably do it, maybe accomplish it, but the the the cost the actual physical cost and
minutes, secondsmanpower losses would be horrific. And in in actual ships, uh they can't do it just from the air. I mean, there are
minutes, secondscaves and and tunnels all along the side of that coast. Um, you know, Alistister Crook has been there and seen it. Now,
minutes, secondsIran's been preparing for this contingency for years. Uh, you know,
minutes, secondsso they're not just a bunch of guys with a, you know, who built a wooden deck out on the side of a cliff with a machine gun. You know, that, you know, that's
minutes, secondsnonsense. If, uh, if you've not had a chance, uh, to watch the interview that,
minutes, secondsuh, Danny Davis did yesterday with Robert Barnes. Robert is an attorney,
minutes, secondsbut he's he's well plugged in to the Trump administration through JD Vance.
minutes, secondsAnd what he's what he said is that Trump is now shut pushed away anybody like
minutes, secondsTulsi Gabbard and JD Vance who have tried to counsel against the war in with Iran. He's only listening to those who
minutes, secondsare egging him on. Yeah, you can do this. Yeah, we're winning. Yeah, keep going. uh who aren't giving him actually an honest assessment. And we know, you
minutes, secondsknow, we now know that uh the the battle is underway inside of DC uh between the
minutes, secondslet's call it the anti-war crowd and the let's go go all the way to Tron crowd.
minutes, secondsUh so the first indicator was when Daniel uh when raising Kaine Dan Daniel Kaine the general in
minutes, secondscharge of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff when the word got out that he had told Trump you know this is
minutes, secondsthis this is not going to go the way you think it is or major obstacles major problems Trump ignored that. The next
minutes, secondswas the leak from the National Intelligence Council of their report,
minutes, secondstheir their assessment that had been delivered to Trump a week before this saying, you know, you're not going to get regime change no matter what you do
minutes, seconduh out of this. Um, and so the then when the leaks start coming out that other
minutes, secondsthat Trump is pushing people away, it wasn't just Robert Barnes, but pushing people away or that u the losses the US
minutes, secondsis sustaining greater losses that are being reported. You know, that information started to get on to the press. So, this this shows that there
minutes, secondsthere's real disagreement within the government. They're not all pulling in the same direction on this. Um the the
minutes, secondsPentagon's lies also are are are beginning to be exposed. You know that KC that was shot down. Let me
minutes, secondsemphasize it was shot down. It did not crash. Um the Pentagon claimed that it,
minutes, secondsyou know, it crashed. So you have to step back and say, "Okay, explain to me how did it crash?" Planes can crash on
minutes, secondsland on takeoff because of an engine failure or they're too heavily loaded,
minutes, secondbut this didn't crash on takeoff. Or they can crash while landing because a
minutes, secondsheavy crosswinds or again uh too much weight on board or a broken you know
minutes, secondssomething some mechanical failure while they coming in for final approach. But planes flying along at ft,
minutes, secondsthey just don't crash. Particularly if there's not bad weather, you know, they they just don't fall out of the sky.
minutes, secondsWell, this one got shot down, but so they're lying about that.
minutes, secondsThis they are desperate to try to have a military solution. Trump has got it in
minutes, secondshis mind that he can he can win this and anybody that comes and tries to tell him different is getting shut out. So this
minutes, secondsis uh it's a it's like a King Lear situation. The madness of King Leair if you go back to Shakespeare.
minutes, secondsYeah. This uh the rhetoric from Trump is getting a bit uh wild again. He already declared victory
minutes, secondswhich is uh if if you're threatening to attack Car Island and you know what the retaliation will be that is all energy
minutes, secondsfacilities uh and the Gulf states will burn and energy markets and global economy goes down the toilet. You would make these
minutes, secondsthreats uh you know if if you already won essentially this is immense escalation. But there's also other
minutes, secondsrhetoric though. We we heard that um well he tweeted out that uh Iran was uh about to take try to take over all of
minutes, secondsthe Middle East unless the US had to attack which uh seems like um a desperate attempt to to make the war
minutes, secondsseem defensive or even legal. Uh because I think this is uh people look into these things. They don't necessarily look into it if there's a great success,
minutes, secondsbut once there's a failure, people will look into these things. But also, one of the changes or interesting talking
minutes, secondspoints now has been this Iranian sleeper cells. Uh oh, yeah.
minutes, secondsAnd the possible surprise attack on California. I, you know, I guess this is to, you know, brand Iran properly as a
minutes, secondsterrorist state that, you know, could also engage in terrorism against the United States. So, you know, why not link uh link them to September you
minutes, secondsknow, if you're going to go Yeah. Yeah. But how do you make sense of this,
minutes, secondsthough? The the especially the the sleeper cells and the the the possible attack on California.
minutes, secondsYeah. Well, let let's deal with the so the attack on California. How are the drones going to get there? I mean, you
minutes, secondsknow, where are those drones going to be launched from off the coast? you know,
minutes, secondsuh, one of the non-existent boats in the Iranian Navy that have, you know, the Iranian Navy's been destroyed per Trump,
minutes, secondsso they no longer have a ship that could carry drones and sit off the coast of California and fire them into
minutes, secondCalifornia. Um, this, you know, this is reminiscent of, you know, the Japanese
minutes, secondsattacking the west coast of, uh, the United States in World War II, claiming,
minutes, secondsoh, well, you know, we were prepared for that. wasn't going to happen, but you know, nonetheless prepared for it. Now,
minutes, secondsthis is they have they've trotted out this scare story about Iranian sleeper sales so many times and all you got to
minutes, secondsdo is go back and look at, you know, we got years of data in terms of Iranian support for terrorism and it just
minutes, secondsdoesn't support the US narrative. Uh Iran has not been going out of its way to try to engage and attack the United
minutes, secondsStates. uh uh well over uh well in fact I would say all of the attacks that are
minutes, secondsattributed to Iran or Iranian proxies on the United States were in retaliation for things the US did, you know, such as
minutes, secondthe the bombing of the Marine barracks in in October Well, that was in response to the US battleships back
minutes, secondsthen. We still had the New Jersey. They were offshore lobbing shells into the Bakau Valley killing Shia and that
minutes, secondsactually wasn't carried out by an Iranian proxy. It was carried out by a mall which was a longtime Shia group um
minutes, secondsin uh Lebanon and had been there you know they formed in years before the Iranian Islamic Republic came into existence.
minutes, secondsWe have not had a single terrorist attack in the United States in the last, you know,
minutes, secondslast years since Iran has uh come into existence that could be point, you know, pinpointed to Iran or an Iranian
minutes, secondsproxy. Not one. But it's, you know, we always trot it out there to justify why we've got to make Iran an enemy. uh and
minutesand at the same time the actual Islamic radicals that have carried out or tried
minutes, secondsto carry out terrorist attacks are linked to ISIS which is a Sunni outfit.
minutes, secondsU the the you know the Shia version of Islam uh is not big on suicide bombers. It's
minutes, secondsnot big on that kind of uh fanatical sacrifice. Um whereas the takiri uh
minutes, secondsversion of Sunni Islam, the Wahhabi version, uh it is, we just saw this,
minutes, secondsthey had that attempted bombing the other day, two guys in New York City. ISIS, not Iran, ISIS.
minutes, secondsSo, uh, they did a point to this one guy down in Texas, uh, that he showed up,
minutes, secondsuh, and, uh, and shot up a bar, killed, you know, killed people, I believe, or at least four people.
minutes, secondsUh, again, he was not acting on orders from Iran at all because that's just not how Ron Iran is operated.
minutes, secondsAnd when you know the reality is when you look at which country has been carrying out terrorist attacks against the other country it's the United
minutes, secondsStates. You know we've we've we've funded rehabilitated the MEK and MK has been carrying out terrorist attacks
minutes, secondsregularly inside Iran you know well over the last uh years. So but it's just
minutes, secondsit's one it's it's a it's a it's a political manipulation.
minutes, secondsis designed to manipulate public opinion to reinforce the narrative against Iran without allowing Americans to step back and take an objective look at what is this all about.
minutes, secondsYeah, I thought that was strange when um when Iran had to be I guess sold as the number one sponsor of terrorism in the
minutes, secondsworld and uh you know they have to flesh out the argument then referring to roadside bombs in Iraq against uh you
minutes, secondsknow the US occupation forces uh and then going back to Lebanon in when all technical wasah
minutes, secondsuh I think that did the bombing uh it's This is it's not very convincing in terms of the in terms of listing it as
minutes, secondsthe world sponsor of terrorism. Uh but um no uh but how about um the the the
minutes, secondstargets that the Iranians are going after because it does seem this um that they're systematically going after key targets
minutes, secondsthat is the radars which are quite important. So they took out the one at the US embassy in Baghdad as well. Uh
minutes, secondsagain it's more difficult to intercept Iranian drones missiles and we see the military bases, embassies uh all of this
minutes, secondskind of fits within the wider objective of uh expelling the United States from the region. But we also saw now this um
minutes, secondsthis message about um a report about an attack on this five refuelers in Saudi Arabia. I think they were the KCs.
minutes, secondsYeah.
minutes, secondsThat Trump went out and called this fake news, but again, he he says a lot of things. So, I'm No, no, that that and that's abs I I I knew about that before it was reported.
minutes, secondsUm and they weren't just damaged, they were destroyed. And uh the the reality
minutes, secondsthere now is uh the air defense system at uh Prince Sultan air base it does it's no longer intact. It doesn't work.
minutes, secondsSo the Prince Sultan air base is basically quite open and vulnerable to Iranian attacks and the US uh US is
minutes, secondshaving to you know withdraw its troops from there the air force personnel because they're not protected. they're they're intense. Uh and so they're the
minutes, secondsthey're very vulnerable to an attack. So this is um you know the loss of those five tankers is just another example
minutes, secondsthat Iran had a battle plan in in mind that the they were going to do two things.
minutes, secondsone uh they were going to weaken and try to drive out the US military from the
minutes, secondsPersian Gulf and to do that by destroying the bases. Uh two, they were going to take out the radar systems that
minutes, secondsare critical for detecting launches out of Iran and uh monitoring aeros both threats in the air and on the on the sea, maritime threats. They did that.
minutes, secondsThey did that within the first uh four days and and despite the claims that you've oh we had these robust air
minutes, secondsdefense systems around the bases uh one of the radars was taken out by a a Ganon drone not exactly you know a high-speed missile.
minutes, secondSo this uh then their their third objective was to uh degrade Israel economically, militarily uh take destroy their infrastructure.
minutes, secondsUh, you know, I think it's worth noting that um the Iran, despite massive
minutes, secondsmissile strikes in Israel, has not been trying to inflict massive civilian casualties so far because somebody said,
minutes, seconds"Well, that's just because Israel's censoring that information." No. uh if they really were if Iran was really
minutes, secondstargeting schools with children for example and killing them, Israel would make that public. In fact, I'm surprised
minutes, secondsthey haven't even fabricated that story as well as try to try to build further uh public opinion against Iran. So,
minutes, secondsIran's been quite careful on that regard. But the then also the the you know their eye for an eye strategy. If
minutes, secondyou hit our oil, we're going to hit your oil. If you hit our bank, we're going to hit your bank. And so they just in uh
minutes, secondsDubai, they just took out a city bank uh building or at least hit it. I don't didn't destroy the building, but it was
minutes, secondsone of those big big uh skyscrapers and it suffered quite a blast. The one area
minutes, secondscuriously that uh they the Iranians didn't did not respond to with the
minutes, secondscounter punch was when their desalinis desalination uh plant was hit and so in ter in with
minutes, secondsit it only accounts for about % of the water uh in Iran so it's not a critical
minutes, secondsresource but they declined so far to go after the desalinization plants in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates,
minutes, secondsBahrain, Kuwait,
minutes, secondsrecognizing that that actually that could jeopardize put put at risk millions of people and and really create a a human uh catastrophe.
minutes, secondsUh so I think Iran, they are they're being thoughtful about this. you they're recognizing that there's a political
minutes, secondsconsequence to some of their actions and so they're keeping it in those bounds but uh they the the US as was admitted
minutes, secondsin the Wall Street Journal and and this is one of those other signs that the support for Trump is fading
minutes, secondsthey said hey uh the the the US grossly underestimated they did they they didn't even take into account the possibility
minutes, secondsility that Iran could close the Straight of Hormuz. Uh they have Iranians have far more ballistic missiles than we assumed. You know, that kind of thing.
minutes, secondWell, um this uh well, of course, they can escalate the targeting of the Gulf States, but uh Iran doesn't have to destroy all US bases in the Gulf States.
minutes, secondsUh all they have to do, I mean, they don't have to destroy this these countries. uh all they have to do is uh I guess
minutes, secondsincentivize them to decouple uh from the United States and um you know and you've seen I guess some of this was the
minutes, secondsrhetoric of uh you know that they will only target countries which host American bases and of course the bases
minutes, secondsthemselves but um that's why you know for Iran the presence of these uh refuelers in Saudi Arabia it kind of
minutes, secondsconfirms that the Saudis are then assisting in uh what was a surprise attack on Iran. But there's another but
minutes, secondsthere's another thing that came out that is a suggestion now I haven't seen if it's been confirmed but it came from I
minutes, secondsthink yeah some Iranian commentators that Iran might consider allowing ships through the straight of who are paying
minutes, secondsit in Chinese ones as opposed to dollars. this will be uh you know if this is confirmed this will be another
minutes, secondsform of um the the decoupling. Do you do you see any pathway forward? Do do you
minutes, secondsthink the Gulf States would be you know would would want to accept something like this because on one hand
minutes, secondsyou know the US does make them more more vulnerable to attacks. On the other hand they don't have any militaries of their own. So how how would they defend
minutes, secondsthemselves without the US? It seems like a bit of a security dilemma that is, you know, if you accept the help, then you'll have war. If you don't accept it,
minutes, secondsyou could be overrun. So, yeah.
minutes, secondsYeah. I I I I think there's at least uh in in Saudi in in the Saudi case there's
minutes, secondsa reassessment underway um recognizing that you know they made a deal with the devil the United States
minutes, secondback you know in the s u where as the US went off the gold standard the we convinced the the Saudis
minutes, secondsto go along with using the dollar as the primary reser you know means for purchasing oil and so the effect the you
minutes, secondsknow the the pro dollar as it's come to be known reigned supreme and then that fostered this relationship between the
minutes, secondsSaudis and the United States we guarantee their security against threats that you know we claim to exist
minutes, secondsor we'd create for them u but but I think now Russian Russia and China are
minutes, secondsare playing this you know quite smartly um that they uh they're they're they're
minutes, secondsin a position now to uh create an alternative for to the United States.
minutes, secondsAnd I I I see it could be more attractive uh to the Gulf Arabs. Uh at least it'd be it'd be le less of a
minutes, secondssubservient position. those those countries don't normally come in and uh you know tell you what to do and boss
minutes, secondsyou around uh like uh you know some servant. uh so the you know it's uh I
minutes, secondsthink we're we're looking this is part of the realignment of the international financial system too because you know in
minutes, secondsthe past that you know you'd have to price of oil goes up and well people were paying in dollars you know the
minutes, secondsChinese would pay in dollars and then you know what do they do with all their dollars or they'd buy US treasuries well they're not doing that anymore
minutes, secondsum you know one of the other iron ironic outcomes of this war is before the
minutes, secondsUnited States now let's remember the United States and Israel started this and you'd think that the United States
minutes, secondswould have stepped back and looked at it abroad what's our what's our overall objective strategically in the world but no they didn't so as a consequence of
minutes, secondsthis war whereas five weeks ago Scott Bessant the secretary of treasur of the
minutes, secondstreasury was insisting that India, stop buying oil from those Russians and we're going to punish any country that's
minutes, secondsbuying Russian oil today. Hey, India, we think it's a great idea. Buy as much of that Russian oil as possible.
minutes, secondsAnd you know, Russia, which previously was uh selling its oil as low as $a
minutes, secondsbarrel to India, is now it's it's well over uh $maybe closer to $a
minutes, secondsbarrel. So they're waking they're they are raking in an additional $million
minutes, secondsa day, which is roughly billion five billion dollars a month.
minutesUm, so you know, all the Western analysts who were predicting the the implosion of the Russian economy or that
minutes, secondsit was in trouble here, here's Putin. And that's just the oil. They've also got an advantage. They
minutes, secondsgot liquid natural gas. Hey, anybody need any liquid natural gas? Russia's got some. And fertilizer. Who's the
minutes, secondsother largest producer of fertilizer in the world? Oh, that'd be Russia. So in in in in a in literally from February
minutes, secondsth now to uh here we are at March th in days uh they have taken they
minutes, secondsthey've they've you know shored up the foundation of the Russian economy in a way that nobody could have predicted a
minutes, secondsyear ago. So this, you know, again, this this goes along with the changing picture because uh when when this war
minutes, secondsends with Iran, it's not going to end with US troops marching through the streets of Tehran. It's not going to be
minutes, secondsa victory march of Israelis and US soldiers waving their flags as the Iranians, you know, submit. No, it's
minutes, secondsgoing to be the United States and Israel. are going to have to figure out how to back out, you know, how to how to get a victory. I I did raise the
minutes, secondspossibility that Trump and his wild rhetoric about, oh man, we devastated Car Island. Therefore, we've we've
minutes, secondsaccomplished our objectives, mission accomplished. We win, so we're going to pull out and we're going to stop all these attacks on because they're
minutes, secondsdevastated. There's nothing left of their leadership. There's nothing left of their air force. We win. That's Trump's only way to get out of this meth.
minutes, secondsWell, um, yeah, but that's the problem.
minutes, secondsHe doesn't there's no escalation dominance. He doesn't get to decide when the war ends. And if the straight of her moose remains closed uh for hostile
minutescountries and you know for the Gulf States until they paid reparations for the damage done to Iran
minutes, secondsyou know it's very hard to sell this as a victory no matter how many you know parades he might organize it.
minutes, secondsWell yeah but uh I no I I agree with you fully that is you know that's where they're they could get they did that with the
minutes, secondsHouthies. Okay, they could get away with that with the Houthis because the Houthis were sent there continuing to bomb US military bases. They they stopped launching missiles into Israel,
minutes, secondsbut they continue to stop ships from going uh into an Israeli port. So, you know, but nobody nobody is keeping tabs on the ships. They weren't easy to see.
minutes, secondsBut this how does he you know he can declare victory but the very next day uh Iran's going to continue launching
minutes, secondsmissiles attacking US military bases that any that remain and and hitting Israel over and over and over and over
minutes, secondsuntil the Israelis are going to they're going to beg for it to stop.
minutes, secondsWell, um I I'm glad you brought up the Russians because I I saw from the British media
minutes, secondsthat apparently one of the state media commentators in Russia, Cornelov, he he linked the British attacks on Russia with the storm shadows.
minutes, secondsMhm.
minutes, secondsWith Iran's attack on British targets in the Middle East, saying more or less that well, you know, this this shouldn't surprise the British now. they'll, you
minutes, secondsknow, get it in return. Uh, again, I didn't watch the original clips, you know, have my skepticism towards British
minutes, secondsmedia, but uh, again, it's it seems also, I'm not sure if if that's a commentary, correct if it's actually
minutes, secondsbased on reality. Uh, so again, I don't know the substance, but it wouldn't surprise me. And I kind of made the comment myself I think like three
minutes, secondsyears ago that you know in the NATO countries we tend to fight a lot of wars and at some point the Russians will be in a position to do what we do in
minutes, secondsUkraine that is we're setting up a firing position where we can shoot at the Russians but they can't fire back at us and right
minutes, secondsI'm I'm wondering if you see that this is that the Russians might go for something like this. Um again pure
minutes, secondsvengeance I'm not sure but uh certainly to restore deterrence that is to show that uh it will have to come with a cost anyone who essentially attacks Russia.
minutes, secondsWell well first the I did hear Alexander Muros discuss the uh possibility that
minutes, secondsthe uh the British launch you know supported this launch of storm shadows into Briansk that uh killed six people.
minutes, secondsuh that that was retaliation for Russian attacks. So, Russian support for Ukrainian attacks on British troops uh
minutes, secondsin the region. And so, we can't rule that out. What what I what I found uh you know, I'll call it amusing is the West is all in a huff that my god,
minutes, secondsRussia supplying support to Iran. How dare they? It's like, you know, pot calling its kettle black. Uh this is uh
minutes, secondsyou know here's here's the United States and the NATO countries for more than four years not only provided weapons
minutes, secondsthey provided intelligence they provided in uh uh intelligence surveillance rec reconnaissance data ISR data they they
minutes, secondsfacil they've planned attacks against Russia I think you know candidly I think Russia has been far far too passive in
minutes, secondsum in reacting to these If you know I I think the time has come that Russia needs to put the United States and NATO
minutes, secondscountries on notice that any reconnaissance aircraft even if it's in international airspace but it's in a
minutes, secondsposition where it can collect data on Russia and and provide it to Ukraine that it will be shot down. It's it's now
minutes, secondsthese are now targets. this is an effective state of war exists between Russia and the West to back them off.
minutes, secondsThey've got to understand they they've got to run away with this costfree and uh you know Russia Russia's motives
minutes, secondsin helping Iran are not out of vengeance or to seek a revenge against the West for what it's done to them in Ukraine.
minutes, secondsJust the opposite.
minutes, secondsIran exists as a strategic site, a critical node in the multinodal world or
minutes, secondsthey want to call it multi-olar but I think a multinodal is a better way to express it because it
minutes, secondssits Iran sits at the crossroads both of the uh the new silk road coming out of
minutes, secondsChina as well as the north south economic corridor though comes out of Russia.
minutes, secondsas well as its strategic positioning in you with the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. So, uh both Russia and
minutes, secondsChina have recognized that Iran has some very uh critical
minutes, secondsuh it it's important strategically which is their main reason to support uh Iran.
minutes, secondsWhat I'm I I'm fascinated by let's call it the maturity
minutes, secondsuh and restraint with Iranian Iran's diplomacy.
minutes, secondsThe the how they've dealt with India is a case in point. You know, Prime Minister Modi
minutes, secondswas in Israel two days before the attack on Iran by the United States in Israel and oh my god, it was it was obscene. It was so,
minutes, secondsyou know, or if there was a way that you could watch something on television and get diabetes, this would have done it. I
minutes, secondsmean it was that sweet and trickly and uh he was just obsequious
minutes, secondsuh doing everything you know but giving you know BB Netanyahu a back rub and
minutes, secondsmade came out with claiming to have a strategic alliance with Israel. Well,
minutes, secondstwo days later, Israel uh hits uh Iran and kills the Iranian leadership, kills
minutes, secondschildren, and then when the Iran shuts down the Straight of Hormuz, all of a sudden you heard this loud uh puckering factor going on in India. Oh my god.
minutes, secondsBecause % of their oil comes out of the Persian Gulf. What were they going to do? And in fact, I I really thought that Iran because here's, you know,
minutes, secondsIndia is one of the founders of bricks and yet by siding with Israel in such a public way, it was really undermining its other bricks partner Iran.
minutes, secondsBut instead, you know, Iran played it pretty mature. They came back and said,
minutes, seconds"Oh, no, no. this, you know, if a if it if it's an Indian flag vessel, if if it's a vessel carrying oil to India,
minutes, secondsthat'll be allowed to pass. Um, and that may have had something to do uh, you know, the India obviously have to pay
minutes, secondsfull freight. They don't get it for cheap like they did before. But it it shows that uh the the Islamic Republic
minutes, secondsof Iran is not this vicious terrorist beast that the west is portraying it as.
minutes, secondsAnd you know I cited the earlier example they didn't also go after the desalinization plants and they they've they've been relatively limited in their
minutes, secondsstrikes. Uh they they have tried to avoid hitting ci purely civilian targets uh in all of the Gulf countries. Now the
minutes, secondsthe the US um toadi that's in Bahrain or the reports are he's fled the king uh
minutes, secondsthey continue the Bahraini government continues to take a very adversarial stance uh towards Iran. United Arab
minutes, secondsEmirates reportedly were involved with the attack on Carg Island last night. So they're going to pay a price, a heavy price. Uh but um I I think Iran is
minutes, secondsthey're still looking down down the road. We got to we ultimately want to repair the relations with these countries, but we're going to we're going to get the United States out. The
minutes, secondsUnited States is going to have to leave that region u as part of any settlement to this war. And until that war is
minutes, secondssettled, Straighter Hormuz is going to remain closed and the world uh I I believe we're going to be facing a global depression, not just a recession.
minutesI think uh well these kind of demands they're understandable but at the same time they can't be met by the US. So
minutes, secondsthis is kind of like a recipe for for a long war. But I agree also agree with your sentiments on India though because they kind of they they played some of
minutes, secondsthe cards wrong because they allowed themselves to bend to US pressure on uh on scaling back on Russian oil purchases. But now of course the
minutes, secondsAmericans say oh wait maybe you should do that after all. But uh their their discount the oil is now premium uh
minutes, secondspriced oil. So it it might not have been um a great move and but also the Indians
minutes, secondswith you know Modi visited Israel and this kind of um you know that's not good optics and also after even inviting Iran
minutes, secondsto pray to participate in this naval exercise then the US sank its warship on the way home and the Indians uh as far
minutes, secondsas I know couldn't muster a condemnation. I mean, this was they were invited by them and they're sunk on
minutes, secondstheir way home in international waters and uh no it it just um yeah it it looks like they played some
minutes, secondsof the cards a bit uh unwise here. Uh just as a last question, what what do we know about the destructions in Israel?
minutes, secondsbecause you know they keep a very tight control over their media and uh I think our journalists in the west are quite
minutes, secondsyou know obedient or loyal to this uh to this restrictions on um revealing uh
minutes, secondslosses or destruction within Israel. But what do we know so far?
minutes, secondsWell, we we we know through what we're not seeing. Let me explain.
minutes, secondsUm, if if I'm telling you, oh,
minutes, secondseverything's fine, but you can't come take pictures, you can't come look, that tells you everything's not fine. They've turned off the satellite, the, you know,
minutes, secondspublic satellite that are capable of taking u real-time images out of uh
minutes, secondsIsrael. They've been turned off. They're have uh they're not providing that product anymore. Huh. Now, you saw that
minutes, secondsCNN was allowed to go into Iran and report and they didn't. CNN was not faced with uh saying, "Oh, you can't
minutes, secondsreport here. You can't report. Turn the camera off." No, they were they were allowed per look, it appeared pretty uh wide access.
minutes, secondsSo, um this this tells me and and having watched there are a few images that get
minutes, secondsout, you know, every day. Uh you've had I guess we're up to waves of missile
minutes, secondsattacks uh into Israel since of February th. You know that that's huge. Uh so
minutes, secondsthat's um roughly three waves of missile attacks per day.
minutesAnd these are and now they're uh they're carrying pound warheads or upwards of pounds.
minutes, secondsSo this is uh um you know it it is definitely causing damage in Tel Aviv in
minutes, secondsHifa. The port has been hit. The oil refinery reportedly has been hit. Uh they did uh there were images that
minutes, secondsemerged last night of Nevatim the air air force base down in the Ngev desert.
minutes, secondsSo this is uh Israel cannot take this kind of pounding. And
minutes, secondspeople say well how why do you what about Iran?
minutes, secondsIran's you know what times bigger than Israel. Uh, Israel's got % of its population in just two cities.
minutes, secondsNow, as big as Tehran is with what, to million people, and some say with the metropolitan area, it gets up to million. Okay, they got million. Uh,
minutes, secondsthey still got another million people throughout the country in different uh cities and towns. And uh the next nine
minutes, secondslargest cities in Iran, they're they're all about a million, two million. So there are not these huge uh metropolitan
minutes, secondsareas. So they're actually relatively dispersed.
minutes, secondsSo the point being uh if if Iran and Israel are firing the same amount of of munitions at each other every day,
minutes, secondsIsrael is going to degrade quicker and faster than Iran and Israel is going to be in a position that they will not be
minutes, secondsable to sustain this which then raises the issue of will they will they want to use a nuke
minutes, secondsand there's that possibility. Um and and I think the you know the I wrote an article on the game theory behind this
minutesand you know basically the game theory solution is if Israel is threatening to use a nuke the uh the only thing the
minutes, secondsbest solution for Iran is to immediately produce a nuclear weapon. If they've if they've got a demonstrated uh nuclear
minutes, secondscapability, it's going to force the US and Israel to change their calculations because no longer Israel in particular
minutes, secondscan't risk launching a nuclear strike on a nuclear armed Iran because Iran can then come back and destroy and literally
minutes, secondsdestroy Israel. Uh an Israeli strike on Iran would cause terrible loss of life,
minutes, secondsterrible damage, but it would not destroy Iran. Israel would be destroyed.
minutes, secondsWell, I think the Yeah, the Israel the Iranian territory should be about times that of Israel or something. It's uh it's really huge. So,
minutes, secondsyeah, it's it it does require also the population of course with million people. So, it does require
minutes, secondsum a whole lot of more firepower. But yeah, it's um yeah, this is this is the
minutes, secondsbig thing that just perplexes me that they keep making these demands ultimatums
minutes, secondsbluffs for which essentially demands that Iran capitulates same as you know giving up the ballistic missiles and um
minutes, secondsyeah and then they they're left with the option of what Iran predictably won't and can't accept then they either have
minutes, secondsto allow their credibility to falter or they must go up the escalation ladder which will just make matters much worse.
minutes, secondsSo it's you can see the destructive path we're going on yet no one is uh
minutes, secondsdoing anything serious to put an end to this and again given that what Iran wants an end to US presence in the
minutes, secondsregion and compensation uh you know it will be difficult and elimination of sanctions
minutes, secondsthat's you know yeah that and look I I think they've got we're seeing again something we've never
minutes, secondsseen in history where one country can choke off and close off uh a critical
minutes, secondseconomic lifeline and has control of it. And the the rest
minutes, secondsof the world or the the the parties that are most affected really can't do anything to to reverse it without
minutes, secondsincurring a terrible cost that they're not willing to pay. And that that cost be mil, you know, loss of life and loss
minutes, secondsof uh uh ships. Uh it would be very devastating for the United States, for
minutes, secondsyou know, Japan. And what's the the other really interesting thing that's playing out now is what's happening with Taiwan.
minutes, secondTaiwan's going to run out of power in days.
minutes, secondsWhat do they do? So all this chip production that's there that's going to that's going to stop. They don't have the energy or they've got to come up
minutes, secondswith an alternative source. H what source might that be? Gee, China, Russia.
minutes, secondsSo China has now acquired increased leverage over Taiwan. Yeah, this is you
minutes, secondsknow this is D chess that's going on here. the the cascading effects across the board. Uh you know, in fact, I
minutes, secondsdidn't it never entered my mind when you know, when I heard they closed the straight, I thought, "Oh, boy, that's going to be bad for oil." And then when
minutes, secondsI started looking into it and ran across that this UR export of ura, I had no idea, you know, and at % of the
minutes, secondsworld's supply, good lord, that is significant. And so all of a sudden, you begin to see that this in this, you
minutes, secondsknow, the the whole strategy that outlines that Iran is in a place now that it's going to be able to dictate
minutes, secondsterms of surrender because despite, you know, US tough talk and all that, the economic pain is going
minutes, secondsto become such for so many countries uh that are aligned with the United States. the countries that are aligned
minutes, secondswith Russia and China, they're going to be okay because Russia is an alternative source to the Persian Gulf and it's
minutes, secondsgoing to it's going to even strengthen it further in terms of economic power and political power. The countries that
minutes, secondshave, you know, coming now they're getting they're relying upon Russia to supply gas, oil, fertilizer
minutes, secondsthat buys, you know, buys Russians more goodwill. What's and what's the United States done? The United States has kicked off a war that's caused all these countries pain,
minutes, secondsyou know. So when we come knocking on their door, they're not going to answer.
minutes, secondsYeah. Also, if if Iran was the only adversary, then the US could perhaps invest more resources, both, you know,
minutes, secondsblood and treasure into this. But as you suggest, you know, Trump never finished the US participation in the war against
minutes, secondsRussia. Well, the proxy war through Ukraine and also never made put an end to the the economic war and the the
minutes, secondsmilitary threats or buildup in the competition with with China. So, it's um
minutes, secondsyeah, going after all of these three at the same time, this defeat in Iran will be so much worse. I mean, you know, and even America's worst enemies wouldn't
minutes, secondswant to see too much of a humiliating defeat because this is uh not a source of stability. So, no, I'm I'm worried
minutes, secondswhat is coming, but uh but uh yes, as always, my friend, thank you very much for taking time. Do you have any final thoughts?
minutes, secondsYeah, one I just want to go back to the terrorism thing. I just I pulled up the statistics for just to put a, you know, an exclamation point on this
minutes, secondsnotion that Iran's the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world. Um and these are the stats actually for
minutes, secondsand Number one, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS. And these
minutes, secondsstats did not include uh branches of ISIS like al-Nusra, Hayatra, Hasham.
minutes, secondsThis was just strict up ISIS. Total deaths in
minutes, secondsIn
minutes, secondsSo, right there, you're looking at over dead at ISIS. They were number one.
minutes, secondsNumber two were the Taliban. uh they ran about deaths in those two years. Number three was al-Shabaab. Again,
minutes, secondsSunni, not Shia. Uh they killed over uh people in those uh two years.
minutes, secondThey list the Mauist Communist Party of India, the CPI Marxists. They actually were the fourth highest for
minutes, secondsAnd bringing up number five was Boo Haram. Another ISIS. You know, not a
minutes, secondssingle Iranian group in there. Not a single Iranianback group. And that's been the case every year except the
minutes, secondsstatistics did show for They lumped in October th and Hamas now appears in the top for that year. But
minutes, secondsuh you know this this argument the demonization of Iran as a terrorist state uh is is
minutes, secondsit's a damnable lie. And and let me and one one final point. We go back and look
minutes, secondsat what happened to what Iran did in response to the Iraq war when Iraq used
minutes, secondschemical weapons against Iran. And those chemical weapons that were provided by the United States and built by Iraq,
minutes, secondsused against Iran, that started in August of continued through August
minutes, secondsof Over chemical weapon attacks, weapon of mass destruction.
minutes, secondsIran never developed a chemical weapon and never used a chemical weapon on the battlefield.
minutes, secondsWhy? because as uh it was a sin against God to do that. So uh I think the world
minutes, secondsunderestimates as well the role of the religious conviction in Iran's policies in this that they're not this you know
minutes, secondswe hate the Christians we're going to kill all the Christians and Jews nonsense. Just the opposite. uh the Iranians over over the course of actual
minutes, secondswar have shown far more decency than has the United States in all of its wars in my judgment.
minutes, secondYeah. No. Well, reading from the media, you this this the talks about Iran this,
minutes, secondsyou know, they they talk about burkas and suicide bombers, but you know, first of all, there were burkas in Iran. And second, the the suicide bombers have
minutes, secondsthose extremist organizations have tended to be on the Sunni side, not the Shi. So, it's uh there's a lot of um
minutes, secondsyeah, well, propaganda. There's no other words for it, but yeah.
minutes, secondsWell, as always, thank you very much and thank you every day. I know you're busy, so thank you.
minutes, secondsWell, well, you're busy, too. And you're doing doing great work. Keep it up, Glenn.

[admin]

Chas Freeman: The Emerging Iran-Russia-China Axis & Israel's Possible Demise
Glenn Diesen
Mar 14, 2026

Ambassador Chas Freeman discusses the US attack on Iran and the strategic mistake of confronting Iran, Russia and China at the same time. Ambassador Freeman was a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centred post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defence and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm).



Transcript

Welcome back. We are joined today by Chaz Freeman, uh former US assistant
secretary of defense and also uh the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So, welcome
back as always. It's uh great to see you. Great to see you, Glenn.
So, uh well, you have background not just from uh your work in the Middle
East, but also from East Asia. Um I think more specifically you you did work
uh some with Henry Kissinger during the time when he opened China to the United States. Uh and uh yeah for this reason
I've been looking forward to ask you a bit more about how you see this Chinese view of the war against Iran because it
does seem like an important topic as this war has this uh important uh global
dimension to it. It seems that this is well the Iranian war is um is a
sensitive one between the great powers that is the US, Russia and China.
Yes, I think the Chinese have um do not have a unified view on this. Um there
are those of course particularly in the Chinese People's Liberation Army who are
thrilled to see the United States essentially disarming itself by depleting its stocks of weapons and
defensive um mechanism interception equipment and so on. I noticed that all of the talk
that had been going around in the United States about stationing intermediate range ballistic missiles in Pacific Asia
has ceased. Uh so some people are very happy about the military dimension. Uh
geopolitical thinkers uh are disturbed on the grounds that u this is
destabilizing a central region of global commerce and energy supplies. um you
can't get between Europe and Asia, Asia and Europe uh and uh uh or northern
Europe and Africa except through West Asia and that is now essentially
impassible. I understand that Azerbaijan has become the primary uh route uh uh
from Asia to Europe now because you can't go across Iran, can't go across the Gulf um and so on. So, um, they're
disturbed on that level, but they're also disturbed, of course, because this represents a complete repudiation of
international law, the UN charter. There's not even an excuse of legality
being profered for this this war. And um, uh, and we of course come to the
point that um, the street of Hormuz is closed. It has not been necessary for
Iran to mine it because it commands the land passage one half of it and is able
to sink anything that tries to get through. The Chinese have very cleverly
and in probably in return for additional help to Iran arranged for the safe
passage of their tankers through the straight of so Iranian tankers and
Chinese tankers uh can avoid the blockade. Um but uh of
course this is also having major effects on Chinese economic planning. It's going
to redouble their already very impressive turn away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and the like. Uh and
it is deeply um in the Asian-Pacific region. Uh which is a description I
prefer to Indopacific because the Indo-Pacific is essentially a figment of
the American military imagination. um it coincides with the command the
area of responsibility for the command in Hawaii but India is not really linked that closely to Southeast Asia at this
point in history. Um in um in Pacific Asia uh Japan is under
tremendous stress uh because it is totally dependent on imports of oil and
gas and it has been cut off from them. it has a strategic petroleum reserve
but it's not adequate for the probable length of this war and of course uh
Japanese relations with China been deeply troubled particularly by the Takahuchi administration but even before
that similarly Taiwan uh which is phasing out its nuclear uh
program um it had similar to France it had great reliance on nuclear power. Uh
it has very limited storage capacity for oil and gas and so
it is going to be essentially incapacitated. Uh and maybe that will tempt some in
China to advocate trying to bring the civil war to an end with the conquest of Taiwan. Uh South Korea uh is a country
that has an improving relationship with China,
but it too it has been terribly hard hit economically by this closure of the
strait. Uh the South Korean stock market has essentially crashed. Uh and people
are in a very foul mood there. Uh Southeast Asia
undoubtedly is suffering also because the Chinese have cut off diesel and
gasoline exports. They've been a major supplier for Southeast Asia of finished
petroleum products. U so they're mixed feelings some geopolitical some um some
concern about global order. And I should say last and another final point is this
drives China definitively closer to Russia. Uh the Russian supply of gas
through the planned but never built power of Siberia pipeline is now
becoming a reality because the Chinese want to further reduce their dependence
on maritime supply chains. So um uh the
effect of the war is um is profound um uh and I've not even mentioned um its
effects elsewhere. Um for example, Brazil and South Africa have just done a
deal to cooperate militarily. I suspected that the turn toward a
purely military uh effort to dominate Latin America from by the United States would cause some
Latin American countries to arm against the United States in ways that they had not. They never considered South Africa
as a partner. Although of course South Africa has a formidable arms industry
developed during the apartate era when it was subject to arms embargo. ironically helped in its development of
jet aircraft, cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons by Israel. Uh I suspect
we're going to see a further knock-on effect down the road that the Japanese who are emerging from pacifism
and who are lifting the restrictions on the ex their export of weapons systems
uh and expanding the what they will license. I think they're also going to become a partner of Brazil. Uh there's a
very large Japanese Brazilian population. The connections may be not very well publicized, but they're very
real. And again, you have a a market because both Japan and Brazil are now
going to be increasing their defense spending. Uh Japan is
uh one of the premier practitioners of capital inensive precision machine
building and uh that includes weapons. Uh and how can the United States object
to a US ally rather than China becoming the source of Brazilian military
modernization? So, I mean, I think the knock-on effects of this thing are just beginning to
become apparent or uh or at least um
predictable and um uh speculative perhaps. Um and um the Chinese are
in the middle of a lot of this. The other great power though, which the
US obviously has to consider, would be Russia. And um we know that Trump just
uh called Putin. We don't know too much about the call. There's been uh you know
some comment from the Russian side based on all the wording they use. Uh it
sounds as if it was not friendly cuz well they never used the word friendly. They used frank businesslike. Uh that
usually well in other instances uh it implies uh yeah less yeah that it was
more disagreements at least. Uh but uh how do you see what the Russians are
after and uh to what ex what are they willing to actually do uh in in the past
uh you know or you can say still to some extent Russians have always been close to Israel you know some from you know
from the liber liberation of Aswitch in the second world war to the amount of Russians who reside in Israel but um but
I think the Ukraine war it's with Israel's help to Ukraine it created a
quite some divisions between the two countries meanwhile the Iranian side it
seems you know from the uh the common I guess fighting they did in Syria they
looked towards opportunities to go from this you know limited uh common interest
to some strategic partnership you know to develop this greater Eurasian concept
where they their economies are closer linked. So, you know, so this is a problem. And
also, of course, the United States is fighting a war against Russia still in Ukraine. Um, I saw that Trump said that
uh Russia thinks we are we're helping Ukraine. That's why they might help Iran
a little, which I found to be an incredible statement. I mean, I didn't
but you know, be that as it may, uh, yes. So to summarize uh my question, how
how do you see this uh USRussia talks uh contributing or affecting this war
against Iran? Well, of course, we don't know really what was in the conversation as you
indicated, but I think it's pretty clear that it was an effort by President Trump
to seek Russian assistance uh in ending this war with Iran. And we we know there
have been other approaches to the Iranians to end the war. And they have firmly said that they're not going to
accept a ceasefire or any negotiation with the United States and until their
uh conditions have been met, their their objectives. And those objectives are
essentially to do to Israel what Israel has been doing to them for decades.
uh named name namely to um deter or destroy them. Um and um uh they Israel
posed an existential threat to Iran and is now Iran is now posing an existential
threat to Israel. Uh and its essential aim is the decolonization of West Asia
including the destruction of the Zionist state, the removal of American forces from the Gulf and so forth. Uh the
conversation with uh Putin apparently according to President Trump included
Putin's uh recognition of the intensity of the bombing campaign uh impressively
intensive bombing campaign the United States has mounted against Iran. Um I
don't know whether it also included advice based on the experience of Russia
which is quite relevant if you consider for a moment. Let's assume I think it's correct that there are many in Iran um
who fear and love the Islamic Republic and would like to see it uh changed. um
uh we don't know how many uh because u uh these people to some extent are
manipulated and funded by foreign forces but they're probably is a substantial
group. The experience of Russia is very relevant in this regard. When Germany
invaded Russia, I suppose there were very many Russians who feared and loathed the system that Stalin had put
in place and even Stalin himself. uh and yet they loved their country more
than they hated the system. And I think we're seeing this also in Iran. Uh so
there are parallels there. Uh of course uh Iran had been helpful to Russia with
a shahed um drone uh a technical trans technology transfer which is now built
in Russia in stupend stupendous numbers. Um um and I think Iran Iran has received
considerable help this time around not before the June 2025 war from Russia in
the form of technology transfer. We know that there are aircraft transfers going on and um air defense systems and the
like uh also from China. Neither China nor Russia wishes to see Iran subjugated by
Israel. um both of them have a stake in maintaining good relations with the Gulf
Arabs and so they they abstained on the m on the resolution in the security
council which was one-sided in its condemnation of Iran's attack on the GCC
countries didn't mention that the United States and or I should say Israel
assisted by the United States had uh inaugurated the war. Um, so they
basically uh didn't want to offend the Gulf Arabs. Uh, they certainly didn't
want to endorse the uh the the uh the war itself and they just they just
abstained. Um, I think um the war this war and the one last year have had the
effect of drawing Iran and Russia closer. Historically they were not friends. um they are now uh very
cooperative and in in many respects I think Russian influence is growing in
Iran. Uh it will probably grow too afterwards both Chinese and Russian
influence because the United States and Israel are doing huge damage to infrastructure
uh edififices, buildings and so forth in uh Iran and it will have
to be rebuilt. Um let me sort of end this by saying that uh there's another
uh element here and that is Iran has officially demanded reparations for the damage and it is insisting on a on
sanctions relief which of course it it got under the nuclear accord which
Donald Trump tore up in 2018 and um and um uh
and the sanctions are the source of a great deal, not all, but a great deal of
the distress of the Iranian uh people. So, um I think the Russians have taken
this too. Uh let me end by just saying of Russia that um Russia's uh those
Russians I've spoken with, not many um are shortling in their glee. Uh oil and
gas prices are going through the ceiling. Um, I understand the European
Union has just decided to uh take the Arctic gas from Russia despite its
embargo on all energy from Russia earlier which at least is pragmatic. Um,
of course the United States in response to understandable demands from India and
others has has suspended the oil sanctions on Russia for some purposes.
Um, Qatar has been removed temporarily at least as a competitor for Russian
gas. Uh, Vladimir Putin is playing games with Europeans on the gas issue and um,
Russian influence, Russian revenues uh, are going up. Finally, this war is a
blessing for Russia in terms of Ukraine because the exhaustion of American weapons stock stockpiles means that
there will be no weapons for the United States to sell to Europe for onward passage to Ukraine. So Ukraine is going
to get itself disarmed to some extent at least. Uh and that's going to happen
fairly soon. So if you were sitting in Moscow um you might see this is very
favorable and indeed one of the people I spoke with said he couldn't imagine how
lucky Vladimir Putin had been. Um, you know, not only quoting Napoleon,
Capillian said, "If I must fight, let it be against a coalition," meaning I can divide my enemies. But he doesn't even
have to do that because Donald Trump is dividing the opposition to Russia and
simultaneously diminishing American global power, prestige, authority, moral
authority, and and leadership. Uh, what more could you ask? So I you said that
you thought the conversation had not been friendly. Um but I'm sure that
Vladimir Putin has plenty of reasons to want to encourage Donald Trump to do more of the same. It's very good for
Russia. It's not good for the United States. uh and uh uh it it no one is going to
come out of this war uh in my view except Russia perhaps um
better off than they were when we went into it. I think Napoleon also said never
interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. There seems to be one oh this has become
this has become part of the folklore of statesmanship and its wisdom is
constantly demonstrated by the American administration.
I'm thinking though that it you know one one could imagine a
situation where suddenly you know Iranian missiles uh ped purchased or
given by Russia would suddenly begin to fly towards uh you know storm shadow
factories in Britain or some um some weapon complexes in in Germany. It's
not impossible. Sorry, it's not impossible. No. Uh we have in in the United States
right now an example of our failure to understand our own double standards.
There's a great uh uh deal of condemnation. Well, my god, the Russians are providing intelligence to the
Iranians to enable them to attack Americans. But what do they think we've been doing in Ukraine all this time? Uh
and um you know I mean you you know one ill turn eventually leads to another I
think. So um yeah um we keep escalating
and the Russians have been very cautious actually. They have not responded in
kind um and uh they have not given anybody targeting information in the UK
as far as I can tell. uh you know but um uh or Germany uh it's not out of the
realm of possibility that if Europeans press them hard enough
they will decide that the answer is
uh is u drones. Uh I want to make a fundamental point here which is that if
you look at um Moscow, look at Tehran,
look at the Palestinians, uh they've all come to the same conclusion.
There's no point in negotiating with the United States. Diplomacy is useless.
These issues are going to be solved on the battlefield, on the ground. uh or in
the case of Iran and Israel um they're going to be settled by the industrial
capacities and inventories of weapons and defensive systems that each side
possesses. And it's very clear that as I've said before u uh on your show u the
uh the Iranians have adopted Muhammad Ali's strategy of rope a dope you know
allow your opponent to punch you so and exhaust himself before you deliver a
knockout blow. We just se have seen in the last day or two the beginning of
Iranian use of heavy uh missiles with uh warheads of around uh 1,000 or 1,500
kilos depending on how they're loaded aimed at Israel. Uh and these roarheads
uh these these missiles are extremely hard to intercept.
uh and um they have clearly saved these they've been these were in storage. I
think what we're seeing is a very clearly articulated uh phased strategic
plan in on the h on the part of Iran um in which each phase makes the success
of the next phase more likely. And we're now in a phase where the reserved most
destructive weapons are beginning to be used. Apparently they've got another missile which they plan to use which
they have not fielded yet. That's according to u the Israeli intelligence
um which is quite fearful and has put the entire air defense system in Israel
into its most u intensive mode in anticipation of an attack by this so far
uh undescribed new weapon. So, so I think you know this war is proceeding
uh along the lines of the war uh last year uh in terms of exhausting
Israeli interception capability, American interception capability. And here it's notable that on the very first
day of the war uh Iran took out the the radars for the theater high altitude air
defense system. took out the radar in in inqatar
that um was basically the means of controlling the entire airspace in the
region uh and has been very carefully focused on specific targets. They've
even named them. They are now striking at the Israeli submarine force. is
striking at unit 8200 8200 which is the signals intelligence uh uh and the
computer uh digital uh uh command structure in Israel. Uh they're hitting
the Israeli high command and they're bl they're aiming at the um the defensive
infrastructure radars and and that sort of thing. uh they have not yet uh contrary to what
might have been expected as far as I can see emulated the Israelis and the Americans by attacking civilian
structures. Uh they seem still to be focused. Whether that's because they're
simply rationing their force or because uh they quaintly adhere to ethical
standards uh is hard to say.
Well, first you you said something interesting before this um this idea that one can come in and bomb a
government uh to assist opposition. This is a very flawed idea which tends to you
know confuse and even you know even if the public is opposed to an unpopular
government and uh and I do think that we exaggerate how unpopular the government
in Iran is does mean that there's not significant disscent uh but uh but this
is very you know counterproductive even you know the United States at one point also invaded the Soviet to an
extent. It has an they had an expedition force after the Bolevik revolution during the civil war,
right? Well, one could call it an invasion, but anyways, the troops were sent in and uh and this was to help the whites against
the reds. But it did the exact opposite. It turned the public because the reds
were now the ones defending the homeland, standing up for sovereignty while the whites were, you know,
plotting against their own nation with a foreign power. I mean nationalism even
for the communists which try to transcend nationalism this is a powerful force deep in human nature this is a
this not yeah well they're defending the group more or less so this is kind of um
uh yeah this should have been predictable from history that this doesn't work especially you know if one
deals with people like Alavi who you know supposedly supposed to be this unifier I mean it's it seems
like fantasy Um but I I I fantasy. Sorry,
it is fantasy. Yeah, not seems like it. It is. I mean, you're
absolutely right. Um and I would say we're beginning to hear anecdotal evidence, of course. Um but there are
western reporters in Tehran who people around, they can move around apparently.
Uh they can interview people. Of course, those people are quite guarded under the current circumstances, but apparently
some of them have u have openly expressed opposition to the Islamic
Republic. Um so they're not silenced. Um but um anecdotally, what's also coming
out is people saying, well, you know, I thought uh when Donald Trump said he was
going to come save us that um you know, that that was we were going to be liberated somehow.
uh and and instead we're being killed and I don't like that. And this goes
back to the defense of the Rodina. You know, I don't know what the word in Persian for that is, but I'm sure
there's an equally u a word that's equally resonant as that word is in Russian. And um uh so um there's a final
point here and that is Iran in a sense the Islamic revolution was the first of
many uprisings that one successful uh in West Asia directed at ending
western tutilage decolonizing the country restoring its independence
and defending its cultural identity. Uh in the end u I believe there's a
hierarchy of national interests and the sup in everywhere and the supreme national interest is your identity as a
people, your culture, your political culture, your traditions, your language,
uh your beliefs, your religion. They're all bound up in this question of national identity. Uh and um so um I
think the Iranian national identity um in addition to being very strong after
all it is a civilizational state. Um the Iranian national identity despite the
many minorities it is a um it is a civilizational state
u which commands the loyalty of most uh I think it's bound up very much with
Shiism and Shiism is a religion that
accepts martyrdom and glorifies it. In other words, it accepts contemporary
current suffering and turns it into strength. Uh in my impression of Israel is that uh
Israelis turn suffering into hatred. Uh which is not a particularly
auspicious or appealing approach to others. Uh if you had to choose between
strength and hatred, I think you would find strength more advantageous. Anyway,
um this is a contest which in the case of Zionism also involves
uh a national identity, culture, religion, uh traditions and uh in the
case of Zionism uh the celebration of past victimhood
and the desire for revenge against any non-Jew for that that past suffering which is
real. Of course, uh the people who did the uh who administered the suffering
were nowhere in the Middle East. They were not Arabs. They were not Persians. Last I heard, I think they were Germans,
French, Poles, you know, whoever. Um Europeans of one sort or another. And um
um so nonetheless uh little Israeli school kids are taken
to Avitz to tour tour to keep the myth if you will the inspiration of the state alive
and they're told don't talk to the Poles they're all anti-semites. Well that's of course total nonsense but um this is a
very a society which has chosen chosen to make u the Holocaust. its central
uh myth or of origin and um uh that's very
powerful. I think uh we'll see how well our Israelis bear up under the suffering
I think they're about to experience. So far the amount of destruction in Israel
appears to have been less than in June uh last year, but it is escalating.
Yeah. No, that's um the that's what struck me when I was in
Iran as well. The the celebration of martyrdom, not not not a desire to die,
but the honoring of people who, you know, do this ultimate self-sacrifice
for for the the homeland. I mean, this is um kind of strong, especially for the
Shiite. So, uh that's why I thought killing I mean, they make so little sense. The idea that, you know, you kill
the top spiritual leader and uh the result would be that people will pour into the streets welcoming Americans
with flowers. It I it begs the question though like who who is who is advising
here because uh it's it just sounds so cartoonish. I I don't understand how how
this was the expectation. But uh and anyways they say that uh you know we
spent 20 years in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and Iran we replaced the Kame with Kame. So new one
with force but this new one not as moderate as his father and of course his
father was killed mother sister wife son and of course his country had been
bombed. So, I'm assuming that uh uh we're going to miss his father uh if
Yeah, I think um you know, of course, the objectives that have been stated for this war are incoherent and
inconsistent, but two of them u uh are directly
affected by the murder of Kam senior Ali
Kam. um uh one is whether Iran will build a nuclear weapon. Uh Kame was the
principal opponent of that. He stood by the fatwa that said um with it had an
out in it, but it it said basically uh weapons of mass destruction,
chemical, biological, nuclear are all forbidden by religion because they're evil. He also said however if the
existence of the Iranian nation is at stake this moral restraint can be set aside
and there's every reason to believe on the basis of loss of information uh that
uh much of a son now the supreme leader
is a proponent of going nuclear. So I think as we have some of us have feared
um we're seeing a replay of the scenario in North Korea in which implacable
maximum pressure in the absence of real diplomacy as opposed to performative
diplomacy um combined to produce a nuclear armed ICBM.
Uh and I think that's what's in the future. So um the second objective of course was
in murdering him of course was this ridiculous theory that if you kill the
leader in a society with deeply embedded institutions and and traditions that
somehow that's going to produce the collapse of the government and the and
the regime. Uh that doesn't happen anywhere and um it didn't happen in
Iran. And in fact, quite the opposite happened. The regime now is strengthened not only because protests are
unacceptable to patriotic Iranians, but because the IRGC, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard uh is now um greatly strengthened. The younger Kam is a
patron of theirs. His father helped to build them. But uh the relationship
between the younger supreme leader and and the revolutionary guard which is the
hardline defender of the Islamic Republic u uh is very close. So I think
we've also shifted Iranian politics away from any mood to compromise and we see
that in the response of Ali Larani and others to the apparent overtures from
the Trump administration. Well, let's stop this war, you know. Um, let's you
agreed to a ceasefire. The response has not just been no, it's been hell no. We're not going to talk to you. Why
should we look at who you send to talk with us? to real estate agents uh who
don't know what they're doing and can't deliver Donald Trump uh and can't keep
an agreement um or an understanding and who uh lend themselves uh to deceit to
deception and surprise attacks on us. Um we're not going to talk to to them
again. This is the line. Um I suspect it in the end they will talk but um uh they
will have to have achieved a great deal more than they have. They will be under
pressure, the Iranians, from lost oil revenues, uh lost gas revenues, um from uh the
public, which is probably already pretty tired of this thing. Uh and but um
uh like the Israelis, they're bent on revenge. Now, Israelis are revenging
crimes committed in Europe uh against Iranian surrogates. the Iranians will
avenge themselves against Israel. And so this we had a situation where Iran was a
potential threat to Israel. Israel was an actual threat to Iran. Now each is an
actual threat to the other. How is this better? I suppose the definition of the
purpose of war is that offered by William Tikcumsa Sherman the American
general in our civil war who said the purpose of war is to produce a better peace.
This may do that but not without a great deal of destruction. He by the way was
famous mainly for having destroyed everything in his path as he marched
through Georgia and other parts of the American south. And I think you know we're we're looking
at some we're looking at a prospect which is very hard to define what will
all this in the meantime as I indicated earlier geopolitical rearrangements are
occurring people are drawing lessons from this. I think in the case of Europe, uh, the willingness to pamper
and, uh, propitiate, uh, to appease Donald Trump, to flatter
him in order to manage him, uh, is becoming a little bit tired. Um, uh, I
don't see many people willing to do what Mark Gut has done, which, uh, I've
always thought was a bit quite a bit much. um calling Trump daddy and so
forth. Uh understatement of it. Yes. Yes. But I think the willingness I don't know
I mean you're sitting in Europe. I'm not. But um I think the willingness of
Europeans to abase themselves before the tyrant um is is is running out.
Yeah. No, it's not uh this observance is not fun to watch, you know, cuz not just the security, political relevance and
economics going down, but also all dignity and self-respect. So, but um I I
was wondering a lot of western observers, they kind of over the last few years expressed concerns that Iran
was drifting more towards uh China and Russia through bricks and the SEO.
However, I'm thinking now that perhaps we should be happy that they are growing closer with China and Russia simply
because I think their friends and allies are the ones that would restrain Iran in
terms of uh of not not wanting to, you know, get let the thirst for revenge go
overboard. Um but I Sorry. No, I think that's right. Um but there's
another factor here. Just as there is in Christendom in the Christian world uh a
lot of thought about proper conduct during war which is obviously the
exception to what um uh Christianity imagines God's will to be. Um there is a
similar tradition in Islam and a very strong one in Iran and it's pragmatic.
In the end, when you when you when you start a war, of course, as as you know,
you first thing you do is uh state clear objectives, verify that
they're feasible, devote the resources to them necessary
to achieve them, have a plan to end the war so that it doesn't become a forever war.
But you also need to bear in mind the need that after the war, the post-war
period, you're going to have to reconcile people to the results of the war. And that means uh you have to
behave in a relatively decent fashion and uh not uh gratuitously
uh wreak violence on people. uh in January when he came uh into the uh into
the Pentagon um uh um Pete Hexath the
selfd designated secretary of war um secretary of defense legally um
did a couple of things. One thing was he suspended the requirement for human
intervention in targeting and the girls school was targeted by an artificial
intelligence with no human check on it. Uh and Pete Hgsth I think uh could
easily be found guilty of having uh enabled that war crime. Perhaps he
didn't order it himself. He has ordered other war crimes. uh the slaughter of
people in the Caribbean uh after they have uh deserved rescue. Uh but he also
um has suspended all uh respect for international law, said that there
should be no rules of engagement. Um he has altered the uh or basically
eliminated the requirement to judge targets with regard to the collateral
damage to the innocent that the ch striking them may entail.
And we're back to uh the morality of Jenghis Khan
uh who uh who did not believe in either Islam or Christianity
um and uh was quite ruthless. I'm told, at least the Russians tell me so. So, um
I think uh uh the damage to
uh decent world order quite aside from how it's rearranged
u in terms of regional hegemony or regional systems substituting for the
global system which is dying. Uh the UN is marginalized.
Uh I and you know people are beginning finally to talk about what to do about
that. But um I think the moral order
that uh the world's great religions uh and philosophers have I think of Emanuel
K who have people who are grotes people who have developed really very uh
strategically based reasons for compassion in the midst of war. I think
this has all been swept aside. uh we need to rediscover it because in the end
as Rabbi Hel said u thousands of years ago
in in uh in Babylon um you should not do
to other people what you don't want them to do to you. Uh the same thought by the way was voiced by the confusions.
Uh Jesus expressed it in the opposite way. you should do to other people what
you hope they will do for you. But um uh it's a basic
element in ethics and it's been dismissed
and um well regarding your comment I'm pretty sure the Russians did did tell
you about the ruthlessness of the Mongols. They they do keep this alive. When when I was teaching at the
university there at Vishka in in Moscow, uh our officers were at the or the
university was at Malaya Dinka. Well, they're still at the Malayinka, but it means uh the the hoarder and this this
was on that same street was where the Mongols would come right in to claim their tribute. So, you know, they they
don't forget. No, they don't. and and it's a good re you know it's a nice illustration of how
if you uh do hateful things you will be hated and not just for one generation
but for many uh this is something that the United States and more particularly
Israel which is a small country uh basically a European dominated colony in
the middle of uh a different culture um need to need to remember
Just as a last question, I want to circle back to the Israeli issue. That is um uh well based on the American
statements alone, it seems very clear that Israel pushed the United States hard for this war does mean that uh you
know Trump wouldn't have done it otherwise. We don't know, but at least Israeli pushed for it. Now, now that
plan A, which I assume was regime change or dismantling of Iran, seems to have failed,
where does plan B go for the Israelis? Because, uh, you know, Netanyahu has pushed for this war for what, 30 plus
years? Uh, there's no attractive alternative. So, what do they do if they're losing a
war, but they can't afford to well to let the war end? Uh, or or am I
misreading it? How How are you seeing this? Because a very dangerous situation it seems uh when you have a heavily
armed nuclear armed country like Iran, sorry, Israel which is not prepared to
lose a war and they're losing a war. Yes, I think that is a fundamental
problem and uh it raises questions about whether the so-called Samson option may
not be exercised because there is Iran is now prov is now actually providing an
effective challenge to the very existence of Israel. We'll see how many Israelis want to remain. Those who have
passports, European passports or American passports or the South American
passports or whatever they have. This is the Ashkenazim, not the Zahim, the uh the Arab Jews who
uh who were forced out of Arab countries in reaction to the colonization of uh
Palestine by European Jews. So anyway, um yes, big question and the the the
Israelis may in extremists um think seriously about the use of nuclear
weapons. Um uh so that is the main main concern. But the broader question is um
you're quite right, what is plan B generally? Uh Netanyahu spent almost
four decades trying to find a president who was stupid enough to be manipulated
into doing what Donald Trump has done. Uh you know, this was a moment of glory
for Netanyahu. He's he's actually on videos gloating about how he finally,
you know, got the United States to do what he always thought we should do on behalf of Israel. Um and um it isn't
working. Uh and so uh Israel is going to be
transformed one way or another by this. Um what is the motivation on the Israeli
part? It has been uh twofold. One is to establish greater Israel incrementally.
They are taking trying to annex southern Lebanon in the middle of all this um and
u expand their borders north not just to the Leani River but to the river beyond
that. uh and um second they have wanted to ensure that
nobody could attack them. Well, the best way to ensure that is uh to ensure that
they have no incentive to attack you. But Israel constantly provides provocations which lead to attacks on it
by oppressed Palestinians or um
those in in Israel's neighborhood who've suffered from its bombing and other campaigns. Um uh this isn't going to
work. Um, in the end, if you want to if you want to exist in a region like West
Asia, you have to pursue peaceful coexistence with your neighbors and with
others. And they have not done this. Will they now do it? I don't know. But
it's clear that they're overdue for a change of leadership. Um, this man Netanyahu is a a brilliant politician
and manipulator. uh very good at manipulating
um my own country and its politics, strongly supported by billionaire
bureaucrats who are Zionist in the United States and some elsewhere. Um and
he's been a catastrophe for Israel. Uh not just in terms of um the suffering on
October 7th when Palestinians broke out of the G concentration camp of Gaza. Uh
and many Israelis died, probably about half of them from friendly fire as it
were in the under the Hannibal directive. But still um that was a a
terrible tragedy and it was brought around by Nadino and he's not been held accountable and
uh the subsequent events the conduct of genocide in Gaza uh by him and his um
cabinet full of uh people who make the Nazis look humane um uh is uh uh is has
destroyed Israel's reputation. entirely and um uh nobody
wants to deal with Israel except those in the United States, I guess, and a few other countries who are beholden to it
politically. Um uh or the Germans who are uh you know, cursed with their own
guilt for for their their terrible behavior in in in the 1930s and 40s. Uh
so where does Israel go? How many Israelis are going to remain in Israel?
Uh is Israel able to try any approach to living in its own neighborhood other
than uh sniping at people, bombing them,
uh contriving their violent deaths? What's the answer? I don't know. It's an
answer that Israelis have to find. And I hope that my country, and this is the final point, one of the things Netanyahu
has done with his pattern of behavior, is destroy American support for Israel
at the popular level. Uh even Republicans are now split. But Democrats
are overwhelmingly favorable to the Palestinian self-determination cause.
uh and um um as part of this effort
uh that Netanyahu has mounted, he's destroyed the American constitutional restraints on the war power. Uh he has
damaged the civil liberties of Americans. Uh we have censorship,
corporate, not government imposed. Uh we have well government imposed in the case
of the inroads on academic freedom. Um this is a tragedy and um uh Americans
will react to this. Uh Israelis have to react to it. We have to find a new basis
for coexistence between Israel and the United States. And more particularly Israel needs to find a way to for
peaceful coexistence with its neighbors. uh and um it has not done so, but it's
clever enough to do so, I think, if it puts its mind to it.
Yeah. Well, this is my my concern is the the possibility that the Israel would
use the nuclear option if it feels its existence is a threatened. about uh when
when this point in time is and uh whether or not there are you know the
proper mechanisms in place to put an end to this war before that happens because uh this is um
this should be front and center it seems of the discussion is how because Iran has to deter restores the turn it has to
make sure that this isn't done again on the other hand any excessive retaliation
as it is uh if that trigger a nuclear response is also not ideal because I've seen comments come out of Israel that
Iran will never be happy before Israel is exterminated. That's the kind of rhetoric you would assume would come
before uh well essentially the Samson yeah option. So yeah and and it may given Israeli
behavior at present it may be true. I mean after all Israel has said it can't
continue without the destruction of Iran. uh this is not um uh a promising path to
uh long long life in the Middle East in in my view. Um uh so uh but I know you
know Iran as I said earlier was a potential threat not an actual threat to
Israel. Now it's an actual threat. how the Israelis deal with this, if they
deal with it with a bit of rethinking about the long term and their their own
interest in surviving as a state in a in an environment where they were implanted
by colonialism and are not welcome, have not made themselves welcome. U then
maybe there's hope. But I don't see any evidence of that sort of thinking yet.
No, I think first we have to accept cause and effect. I saw on Fox News a discussion about you know how the
Iranian closure of the straight over Moose essentially proved why this attack was necessary which kind of puts the
Yeah. And but this is a little bit like in NATO we say you know the Russian
invasion of Ukraine proves why we need more NATO why Ukraine needs NATO. So
everything is kind of put on its head. We don't recognize that the Iranians they were close to
straight of moose before they faced this uh surprise attack which threatens their
existence. Uh but again in logic it's called post hawk ergoter hawk. Um and
this is facious reasoning and it deserves to be called out and you
call it out and god bless you for that but I don't think you get much applause
for it and I sure do not. Well chess as always I look forward to
our conversation so thank you very much for taking the time. Have a pleasant evening and hope to see you