[x] Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth poses next to Jeff Bezos
The Pentagon has quietly dictated to spy satellite companies what to say about the Iran war, exercising censorship over what the American public is allowed to know.
Military sources tell me that the level of secrecy surrounding the specifics of the Iran war is unprecedented, with barely any data being released about the level of bombing, the targets being attacked, or the assessed effects. Now the Trump administration is trying to further control what private companies say in a behind-the-scenes effort not been previously reported.
As the American and Israeli bombing of Iran commenced on February 28, the military promptly issued guidance to satellite operators of what “language and terms to avoid” when describing damage caused by Iran to American bases in the Middle East, according to a copy of the guidance leaked to me.
“Avoid language that implies battle damage assessment (BDA) or operational conclusions,” one slide produced by U.S. Space Force says. It goes on to warn against using phrases like “Target destroyed,” “Target eliminated,” and “Structure rendered inoperable.”
The guidance includes the following examples of what to say and what not to say.
Incorrect Example: “Strike successfully destroyed the facility.”
Correct Example: “Imagery shows the structure largely collapsed with debris covering the building footprint.”
[x] Leaked Space Force guidance
[x]
[x]
About 100 American companies are licensed by the U.S. government to operate their own reconnaissance satellites, a $6-7 billion a year industry that serves military and commercial customers with everything from methane detection to bomb damage assessments. Most of the revenue of these companies comes from the military services and the federal government. The “big four” — Maxar Intelligence, Planet Labs, BlackSky Technology, and Spire Global — operate some 350 imaging and interception satellites.
While the Pentagon “guidance” to the commercial companies is framed as an advisory, the companies comply because their contracting relationships with the government make them afraid to bite the hand that feeds them. As a result, private companies are increasingly becoming a controlled and auxiliary Little Brother to the U.S. intelligence machine, a trend I reported on last year.
Space Force has issued the guidance I obtained to virtually all commercial satellite companies in the form of written requests, sources say. This includes not just companies in the classified space but even those that work on the collection and dissemination of public or “open source” materials that inform the news media, academia, think tanks, and other groups.
“While there’s a case to be made that they [the companies] should fight it, almost everyone makes the vast majority of their revenue from government contracts in this industry and after Anthropic, nobody is interested in putting up a fight,” a source familiar with the guidance told me. “I think it’s also another layer of trying to make things [about the war] seem less bad than they are.”
Since February, Anthropic has refused to allow its AI model, Claude, to be used for certain missions involving mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Pentagon in response has threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company’s cooperation.
Pentagon pressure has already yielded results.
Planet Labs, one of the largest commercial satellite imaging companies in the world, has blocked public access to imagery of the entire Iran war theater by imposing a 96-hour delay on February 28, then extending it to a 14-day blackout on March 10. The company claims the decision was its own, made after consulting military and intelligence experts.
This kind of soft censorship is not unique to the Trump administration, nor is it a partisan phenomenon. When I first reported on the rise of Little Brother as articulated in a little-noticed intelligence community directive on coordinating with “Non-State Entities,” it was Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines who signed it.
The directive ordered spy agencies to “routinize” and “expand” their partnerships with private companies, and even authorized these relationships in cases of greater “risk” to the government due to security or legal concerns.
Whether it is in artificial intelligence, cyber security, unmanned vehicles, and now remote sensing by satellites, corporations have grown so powerful that they are starting to rival nation states in terms of resources. But Little Brother is happy to cooperate with Big Brother.
DIRECT HIT’: Arab Fighters Punch Hole in Israeli Missile Shield; Israel Admits Massive Loss | WATCH Times Of India Mar 24, 2026
Tensions in the Middle East have sharply escalated as cross-border attacks intensify between Israel, Hezbollah, and Iranian forces. A woman in her 30s was killed in northern Israel near Mahanayim Junction, marking the first Israeli casualty in this latest wave of rocket and drone strikes. Two others were lightly injured, while sirens sounded almost continuously warning of incoming attacks from Lebanon. Israeli authorities also report an Iranian ballistic missile impact in Safed, part of what officials describe as the 11th wave of strikes in a single day. In the south, fragments from an intercepted missile wounded a doctor near his home.
Transcript
A deadly new flash point in the Middle East Tonight, a woman in her s has been [music] killed in a rocket strike in northern Israel, marking the first Israeli [music] death in the latest escalation of crossber attacks involving [music] Hezbollah. According to man David Adam, the woman was found critically injured near Mahanim Junction and was declared dead at the scene. First responders say two others were also wounded by shrapma in the same attack as sirens rang out almost continuously across northern Israel for hours warning of incoming rockets and drones fired from across the border in Lebanon. The attack comes as Hezbollah, widely seen as backed by Iran, intensifies its operations in support of Thran, opening a northern front that is increasingly drawing Israel into a multidirectional conflict. And the escalation is not limited to crossber rocket fire. Israeli authorities are also responding [music] to reports of an Iranian ballistic missile impact in the northern city of Sephed, part of what officials describe as the th wave of attacks in a single day. So far, there are no immediate reports of casualties from the Safed strike, but the scale and frequency of these attacks are raising serious concerns about Israel's defensive capacity under sustained pressure. sIn the south, another close call. A doctor from Sarroka Medical Center was wounded after fragments from an intercepted Iranian missile fell near his home in a Bedawin village, highlighting how even successful interceptions [music] can still carry deadly risks. The numbers reflect the growing human cost on both sides. Iran says its death toll has now surpassed While in Israel, at least people have been killed in Iranian strikes [music] so far. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, authorities say Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed more than a thousand people and displaced over a million, turning large parts of the country into a humanitarian crisis zone. a new and dangerous escalation in the Middle East. Tonight, Iran has launched what it calls the th wave of missile [music] and drone strikes targeting key locations deep inside Tel Aviv. According to Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the strikes were aimed at what it described as seemingly secure military intelligence facilities in northern and central Tel Aviv. But the targets did not stop there. Iran claims it also struck strategic [music] sites in Ramat Ghan, the Negev, and the southern city of Beersa, including military logistics and command centers. [music] The operation codenamed True Promise marks one of the most intense waves of attacks since the conflict escalated. In an official statement, [music] the IRGC said the strikes were carried out using advanced missile systems, including Kar Shechen, IMAD, and Sajio missiles alongside waves of so-called suicide drones. Thrron claims the barrage successfully penetrated Israel's multi-layered air defense systems and hit [music] its intended targets with precision. Images described by Iranian sources speak of thick smoke, fire rising across [music] multiple locations, and widespread disruption inside Israel. Iran also alleges a coordinated effort by the Pentagon and Israeli authorities to censor the true scale of damage caused by these strikes. According to Thrron, this alleged information [music] blackout reflects growing concern among its adversaries over the effectiveness of Iran's missile capabilities. Iran says more than million people [music] were forced into shelters during the attacks, pointing to what it calls significant pressure on Israeli defense systems. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps or IRGC has launched a new wave of retaliatory strikes targeting US and Israeli military infrastructure in a bold escalation. According to the IRGC's public relations department, Monday's attacks marked the th wave in Operation True Promise part of Iran's ongoing retaliation against what it calls illegal aggression by the United States and Israel. During the operation, a combination of powerful drones, liquid fuel Kam missiles, and solid fuel Zulufacar missiles struck the US [music] fifth naval fleet and military bases across the region, including Aldafra, Victoria, and Prince Sultan. The IRGC also targeted Israeli military infrastructure in Tel Aviv, Ashkalan, Hifa, and Gushdan, employing [music] advanced missiles such as Kaibar, Shakan, and Kang. The elite Iranian force emphasized the effectiveness of the strikes, stating that the missiles and drones quote passed through the enemy's advanced air defense systems and successfully hit strategic targets. According to the IRGC, this demonstrates that American and Israeli claims about destroying Iran's missile and naval capabilities are delusional. Meanwhile, the th wave of Iranian strikes targeted new Israeli troop deployments and concealed military positions across the occupied Palestinian territories. Ballistic missiles also struck Prince Sultan air base in Alcage, Saudi Arabia, a key hub for US operations and anti-Iran aerial missions. Iran's parliament speaker [music] Muhammad Bagir Galibbah said, quote, "Our people demand complete humiliating punishment of the aggressors." At the same time, Thran officially rejected US claims of ongoing talks with Washington despite media reports suggesting Galibbah was a negotiator. The message from Thran is clear. There will be no negotiation on US terms. Iran intends to end the conflict on its own conditions, signaling a highstakes standoff that could reshape military and political dynamics across the Middle East. Analysts say the combination of precision strikes, drone warfare, and strategic messaging marks a new phase of Iran's military posture. Iran drops truth bomb, bashes fake peace talk claims. No contact, no conversation with US. Iran declares Trump backs down after Thran's Gulf Energy annihilation threat. In a significant development, Iran, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps affiliated Fars News reported that there had been no direct or indirect contact with US President Donald Trump amid the ongoing war started by America and its ally Israel. The report, which cited an unnamed Iranian source, came after Trump's March remarks about constructive talks with Iran. The source was further cited as saying that Trump quote backed down unquote after being warned Iran would target all power plants in the Middle East. Later, Iran's [music] semiofficial news agency, Mayor News, reported that Iran's foreign ministry had also rejected the remarks by Trump about possible discussions, stressing there are no talks between Thran and Washington. The ministry reportedly added that Trump's comments were part of an effort to lower energy prices and buy time for his military plans. It said there have been initiatives by regional countries to reduce tensions, [music] but added that Iran's response to all of them was clear. We are not the party that started this war and all these requests should be referred to Washington. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, and I quote, "I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had over the last days very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East." End quote. He further announced a temporary pause on any military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. While Trump's post signaled a possible window for deescalation after days of heightened confrontation between the two [music] rivals, Thrron was quick to decline the US president's claims. Meanwhile, the Iranian embassy in Afghanistan's capital Kabul said the US president [music] refrained from attacking after Iran's stern warning. separately. Iran's semi-official Tasmine news agency also commented, quote, "Trump backs down." Interestingly, Trump's post came a day after Iran's parliament speaker Muhammad Bager Galabath [music] warned the US against touching Iran's energy infrastructure. If you touch our power plants, we'll plunge Middle East into darkness. This chilling warning was issued by Iran soon after US President Donald Trump threatened Thyron that the US will hit and obliterate its power plants if the Strait of Hormuz does not fully open within hours. These warnings came a day after Iran unleashed hell on Israel's nuclear denima. Missiles rained on the Israeli city, housing the country's main nuclear facility and nearby Iraq in one of the most dramatic escalations since the USIsrael war on Iran began last month. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited Iraq following the strike, said Iran's intention is to murder civilians. Hey, hey, hey.
Iran Fired 6 Missile Waves at Israel — Cluster Bombs Are Now on Tel Aviv Streets War & Money Report Mar 24, 2026
Librarian's Notice: These videos are self-described as "AI-powered analysis hubs that use AI-driven visuals and narration for precision analysis. All content is derived from public reports and systems-based intelligence. No classified data. No political bias."
Don't trust the information in these videos, use them as a goad to your own research. I've verified some and disconfirmed other statements made in these videos. The vidoes do trend towards accuracy, but deviations from reality seem to occur.
Iran fired six separate waves of missiles at Israel in a single night. Not a sustained barrage. Six distinct sequenced waves — each one launched after the previous wave's air defense response was assessed, each one targeting the gaps the previous engagement revealed. And embedded in those six waves was something that crossed a line this conflict had not yet crossed over Israeli civilian territory. Cluster munitions over Tel Aviv. Submunitions scattered across streets where 4 million people live. An elderly man injured. A Thai agricultural worker killed in a field in central Israel. Palestinian civilian fatalities in the West Bank. And unexploded bomblets on Tel Aviv's streets this morning that bomb disposal teams are mapping before someone finds one the wrong way.
In this video, we break down: Why six sequenced waves is categorically more sophisticated than a sustained barrage — and what using each wave's air defense engagement as real-time intelligence for the next wave reveals about an Iranian command structure that lost three senior leaders in three days but is operating at higher sophistication than before those losses What cluster munitions actually are and what scattered unexploded submunitions across a city of 4 million people means for the civilians who need to go outside this morning
Why a Thai agricultural worker in a field in Sharon, an elderly man in Tel Aviv, and Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are the specific human geography of what six waves including cluster munitions produces — and what their nationalities and locations tell you about who this war is reaching What international humanitarian law says about cluster munitions over civilian-populated areas — and why Amnesty International's condemnation and Russia's emergency Security Council request are both using last night's attack as the specific legal evidence for their ceasefire argument Why the ceasefire argument and the escalation evidence are both at their strongest simultaneously this morning — and what will tip the balance between them in the next 24 hours
Transcript
In the span of hours, from p.m. to a.m., Israel was struck by six separate waves of Iranian missile attacks. Six waves, not six missiles, six coordinated, sequenced, deliberately timed barges, each designed to arrive just as the damage from the previous wave was being assessed, just as ambulances were reaching casualties, just as bomb disposal teams were beginning to sweep for unexloded ordinance. The timing was not random. It was engineered. Iran did not just attack Israel last night. Iran attacked Israel's ability to recover from being attacked. And embedded in three of those six waves was a payload that has transformed the streets of Tel Aviv from a city under bombardment into a city that is now, in the most literal sense of the word, a minefield. Cluster munitions. Hundreds of submunitions scattered across residential neighborhoods, commercial districts, parks, and schoolyards. Some detonated on impact. Many did not. and the ones that did not are still out there this morning sitting on sidewalks under parked cars and gardens where children played hours ago. Tel Aviv is not just damaged. Tel Aviv is contaminated. And cleaning a city of unexloded bomblets is not a task measured in hours or days. It is measured in months, sometimes years, sometimes decades. Let me walk you through each of the six waves because understanding the sequence is understanding the strategy. Iran was not firing randomly into the night. Every wave had a purpose. Every interval between waves was calculated. This was a military operation designed with the precision of a surgical procedure, except the patient was a city of million people. Wave launched at p.m. Five KBAR Shechon ballistic missiles fired from mobile launchers in western Iran. All five carried conventional high explosive warheads, no cluster munitions. This was the opening punch designed to activate Israeli air defenses, force Arrow and David's sling batteries to reveal their positions through their radar emissions, and deplete a portion of the interceptor stockpile. Israel engaged all five missiles. Three were intercepted successfully. Two penetrated defenses and struck the outskirts of Rshan Leian, south of Tel Aviv. One hit a commercial parking structure. The other struck a road intersection, cratering the pavement and shattering windows in a meter radius. Four civilians were injured. No fatalities in wave but wave was not meant to kill. It was meant to prepare the battlefield for what came next. Wave launched at p.m. s after wave Seven missiles this time. Four KBAR Shaon and three Immad variants. The warhead configuration was mixed. Three carried conventional explosives. Four carried cluster munitions. This was the first delivery of submunitions into the Tel Aviv metropolitan area during last night's attack. Israeli defenses engaged all seven. Five were intercepted. Two got through. One conventional warhead struck an empty lot near Batyam, causing structural damage to adjacent buildings, but no casualties. One cluster munition warhead was intercepted at low altitude, approximately m above central Tel Aviv. The interception destroyed the missile body, but the warhead had already begun dispersing its submunitions, approximately bomblets scattered across a meter area in the Florentine neighborhood of South Tel Aviv. Florentine is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Israel. narrow streets, low-rise apartment buildings, bars, restaurants, and shops that under normal circumstances would be filled with people on a Thursday evening. Last night, most residents were in shelters, but not all. Three people who were moving between buildings when the bomblets fell were injured. One, a year-old woman, suffered shrapnel wounds to her legs and abdomen. She is in serious condition at Ichilov Hospital. Wave launched at p.m. This wave was different. Instead of ballistic missiles, Iran launched Shahed one-way attack drones from positions in western Iraq. The drones flew a low altitude route across Jordanian airspace, maintaining an altitude of approximately m to avoid early detection. Their flight time to Israeli territory was approximately hours, meaning they had been launched before wave even hit. Iran had pre-planned the drone wave to arrive in the gap between missile barges, forcing Israeli air defenses to shift from ballistic missile interception to drone engagement. This is the definition of combined arms warfare. Different weapon systems, different flight profiles, different speeds, different altitudes, all converging on the same target within a compressed time frame. Israeli F-s and air defense batteries engaged the drone swarm over the Jordan Valley. of the drones were destroyed before reaching populated areas. Four got through. Two struck open areas causing minimal damage. One hit a water treatment facility near Natana, disrupting water service to approximately residents. One struck a power transmission substation east of Tel Aviv, causing blackouts across three neighborhoods that lasted more than hours. No casualties from wave three, but the infrastructure damage was precisely targeted. Water and electricity, the systems that civilians need to survive a sustained bombardment. Wave launched at a.m. Eight KBAR Shen missiles. All eight carried cluster munition warheads. This was the heaviest cluster munition delivery of the night. Iran was no longer mixing conventional and cluster payloads. Wave four was pure cluster, pure contamination. Israel intercepted five. Three got through. And those three missiles scattered their submunitions across an area that bomb disposal experts are now describing as the largest single contamination event in Israeli history. The first cluster warhead dispersed over the Cerrona Market District, a mixed commercial and residential area in central Tel Aviv. Approximately bomblets scattered across streets, rooftops, and the outdoor dining areas of restaurants that have been closed since the war began. The second dispersed over Jaffa, the ancient port district in southern Tel Aviv. Bomblets landed on the narrow stone streets of the old city, in the courtyards of residential buildings, and on the grounds of a mosque. The third dispersed over Hollon, a city of people immediately south of Tel Aviv. Bomb bliss fell in residential streets, in parking lots, and in the playground of a elementary school that has been closed, but whose grounds have not been secured. Israeli bomb disposal teams responded immediately. But responding to three simultaneous contamination zones in the dark under the threat of additional incoming missiles is not a task that can be completed in hours. By dawn, disposal teams had located and neutralized bomblets. Their estimate of total bomblets dispersed across the three zones is approximately to That means somewhere between and unexloded submunitions are still sitting in the streets of Tel Aviv this morning. Each one containing kg of high explosive, each one capable of killing anyone who touches it, steps on it, or drives over it. Wave five launched at a.m. This wave targeted Israel's response infrastructure. Six EAD missiles aimed not at population centers, but at military and emergency service facilities. Two targeted Hatsor Air Base in southern Israel. One was intercepted. One struck a maintenance hanger, damaging two F-fighter jets that were undergoing repair. Neither aircraft was operational, but the damage to the maintenance facility will delay repairs to other aircraft in the queue. Two missiles targeted the Kiraa, Israel's military headquarters compound in central Tel Aviv. Both were intercepted by David's sling batteries positioned specifically to protect the facility. The final two missiles targeted emergency service staging areas in the greater Tel Aviv area. One was intercepted. One struck a parking area where Magen David Autumn ambulances were staged for rapid deployment. Three ambulances were destroyed. One paramedic was killed. A -year-old emergency medical technician named Yael, who had been working our shifts since the war began, loading wounded civilians into ambulances and driving them to hospitals that are running out of beds. She survived days of war. She did not survive wave Wave launched at a.m. dawn. This was the crulest wave of all, not because of its size. It consisted of only four missiles. Not because of its warhead type, too conventional to cluster, but because of its timing. a.m. is the time when Israelis, who spent the night in shelters, begin to emerge. It is the time when people check on their homes, their cars, their neighborhoods. It is the time when bomb disposal teams are most active in the streets, searching for the unexloded submunitions from overnight attacks. Iran timed wave six to catch people in the open. The two conventional warheads struck areas already damaged by previous waves, compounding destruction in Rishon Lausion and Batyam. The two cluster warheads dispersed over new areas of Tel Aviv. One over the Rothschild Boulevard district, one of the most iconic streets in the city, and one over Ramat Gan, the business district home to Israel's Diamond Exchange and dozens of high-rise office buildings that stand empty because no one will work in a building that cannot be reached before a missile arrives. Let me give you the total numbers from last night because the cumulative toll of six waves tells a story that individual wave reports cannot capture. Total missiles launched across six waves, ballistic missiles plus drones, weapons total. Ballistic missiles intercepted out of a % interception rate. Drones intercepted, out of a % interception rate. Ballistic missiles that penetrated defenses, Cluster munition warheads that dispersed over populated areas at least seven. Estimated total submunitions scattered to submunitions located and neutralized by dawn. submunitions still unaccounted for estimated to civilians killed. Six civilians injured. emergency responders killed. One military personnel injured. Eight aircraft damaged. Two ambulances destroyed. Three power disrupted to three neighborhoods. water disrupted to residents. Now, let me explain why the six-wave strategy is fundamentally different from anything Israel has faced before because the sequencing itself is a weapon. In previous conflicts, Iran launched missiles in concentrated barges. All missiles fired within s of each other. This approach is easier to defend against because defense systems only need to be at peak readiness for a short window. Once the barrage ends, crews can rest, systems can recalibrate, and damaged equipment can be repaired. The six-wave approach eliminates all of that. hours of sustained attack means hours during which every air defense battery must remain fully operational. Every radar must stay active. Every crew must stay alert. Every interceptor must be ready to fire. Human beings cannot maintain peak cognitive performance for consecutive hours. Radar systems generate heat and require cooling cycles. Interceptor loading crews become fatigued. Decision-making degrades. Error rates increase. By wave six, the defenders are not the same people they were during wave They're exhausted, stressed, operating on adrenaline rather than training. And that is exactly when Iran sends cluster munitions into the dawn sky, timing them to exploit the moment when human performance is at its lowest. This is what military doctrine calls tempo warfare, controlling the rhythm of a conflict to exhaust the enemy's ability to respond. Iran is not trying to overwhelm Israeli defenses in a single moment. It is trying to grind them down over time, wave after wave, hour after hour, forcing the system to stay at maximum capacity until capacity itself becomes the casualty. Let me walk you through what Tel Aviv looks like this morning. Because the city that wakes up after six waves of attack is not the city that existed yesterday. Streets that were already scarred by previous nights of bombing are now littered with new craters, new debris, new shattered glass. But the craters and the glass are not what people are afraid of this morning. They are afraid of the things they cannot see. The bomblets, the submunitions from cluster warheads that landed somewhere in their neighborhood during the night and have not yet been found. The Israeli homeront command has issued emergency guidelines that raidlike instructions for navigating a minefield. Do not touch any unfamiliar objects. Do not pick up anything from the ground. Do not allow children outside. Do not walk on grass or unpaved surfaces. Report any suspicious objects immediately. Stay on paved roads and walkways. Avoid areas with visible blast damage. These are instructions for a population that is being asked to live in a city that has been seated with explosives. Not a battlefield, a city, a place with coffee shops and bus stops and kindergartens. And somewhere between those coffee shops and bus stops and kindergartens, there are between and explosive devices waiting to be disturbed. Let me connect this to money because the economic destruction of six waves extends far beyond the physical damage. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange did not open this morning. For the fourth time since this war began, trading was suspended due to security conditions. When it last traded, the benchmark TAindex had fallen % from its pre-war level. % of market value erased. International insurance companies have reclassified Tel Aviv as an active conflict zone. The same designation applied to cities in Syria and Yemen. That reclassification means commercial insurance premiums for businesses operating in Tel Aviv have increased by to %. Many insurers have simply withdrawn coverage entirely. A business that cannot ensure its inventory, its property, or its employees cannot operate. The cluster munition contamination adds a new dimension to the insurance crisis. Properties in contamination zones cannot be occupied until bomb disposal teams certify them as clear. That certification process could take weeks for individual buildings and months for entire neighborhoods. During that period, the properties generate no revenue. Mortgages still need to be paid. Employees still need to be compensated or terminated. The economic damages compounding daily and each new wave of cluster munitions adds another layer of contamination that extends the timeline for recovery. Bengurion International Airport remains open but operating at less than % capacity. Only three airlines continue to fly into Tel Aviv, down from before the war. Tourism revenue, which contributed approximately billion to Israel's economy annually, has dropped to effectively zero. The tech sector, Israel's economic crown jewel, is hemorrhaging talent as skilled workers relocate to offices in Europe and the United States. Every day this war continues, Israel's economic foundation erodess further, and the cluster munitions ensure that even when the war eventually ends, the economic recovery will be delayed by the months or years required to decontaminate the affected areas. Let me tell you what comes next. Because Iran has established a pattern, and that pattern tells you what tomorrow night will look like. The six-wave strategy was not improvised. It was refined over the course of this war. Early attacks used single waves, then double waves, now six waves spread across hours. The progression suggests that Iran is systematically testing and expanding its attack methodology, learning from each night's results, adjusting timing and warhead configurations based on observed Israeli defensive responses. Tomorrow night will likely bring seven waves or six waves with a higher proportion of cluster munitions or waves timed even more aggressively with shorter intervals designed to further compress Israel's response capability. The trajectory is clear. More waves, more cluster munitions, more contamination, more exhaustion for defenders, more danger for civilians. Here is what I need you to understand. Six waves of attack over hours. weapons launched. ballistic missiles penetrated defenses. Seven cluster warheads dispersed over populated areas. Between and submunitions scattered across Tel Aviv and surrounding cities. Only found and neutralized by dawn. Between and still sitting in streets, parks, rooftops, and schoolyards. Six civilians dead. injured. One paramedic killed while trying to save others. Two fighter jets damaged. Three ambulances destroyed. Power and water disrupted. The stock exchange closed. Insurance premiums up %. And somewhere in the Florentine neighborhood, in the old streets of Jaffa, in the playground of a school in Holland, there are small metal objects containing kg of explosive each, waiting for someone to find them, waiting for a child to pick one up, waiting for a car to drive over one, waiting. Mainstream media is reporting this as another night of missile attacks. They are showing you the same footage of interceptions lighting up the sky that they have shown every night for two weeks. They are not explaining what six waves over hours does to the human beings operating defense systems. They're not telling you that to unexloded bomblets are sitting in the streets of a city of million people this morning. They are not interviewing the bomb disposal technician who has been crawling through dark streets for hours searching for objects designed to kill him. They are not connecting cluster munitions on school playgrounds to the insurance premiums that will bankrupt small businesses. They are not showing you the -year-old paramedic who died in wave because they have already moved on to the next headline. The story they are telling is about a conflict. The story I just told you is about a city that is slowly being made uninhabitable. Not by a single catastrophic strike, but by the patient. Methodical wave bywave seeding of its streets with weapons that keep killing long after the siren stop. Both stories are true, but only one of them explains why the people of Tel Aviv are not just afraid of the next missile. They're afraid of the ground beneath their feet. Subscribe to War and Money Report. We deliver daily intelligence briefings that go beyond the explosions, connecting weaponby analysis to economic consequences, military tactics to civilian survival, and the bombs that fall from the sky to the bomblets that remain in the streets long after the cameras leave. Hit the notification bell because tonight there will be more waves. And tomorrow morning, there will be more bomblets that no one has found yet. This war is not just destroying buildings. It is contaminating a city. And contamination does not end when the ceasefire begins. It ends when the last bomblet is found.
Trump’s declaration of victory over Iran met by more Iranian strikes in Tel Aviv | Janta Ka Reporter Janta Ka Reporter Mar 24, 2026
US President Donald Trump has just announced that his country had won against the Islamic Republic thereby hinting at an early exit from Iran. However, Tehran fired more missiles striking targets across West Asia including Tel Aviv even as the US president spoke at the White House. Rifat Jawaid analyses Trump's claims.
Transcript
Donald Trump has just told Americans and the world that his military had won the war against Iran. But his victory has been so spectacular that the deranged occupant of the White House was desperately reaching out to his allies in the region to act as mediators so that he can make a quick but honorable exit. His speech at the White House tonight was fraught with contradictions and falsehood. And why are we surprised? This would be the broad focus of my video tonight. Also in my video, another Lego gem from Iran for Trump and his Israeli boss. So, please stay tuned. So, Trump has declared victory over Iran. He just bored his audience at the White House for with his annoying contradictions and blatant lies. Let's look at some of them. So he began by claiming that his military had wiped out the entire Iranian leadership and there was no one to speak to. But he added that America was still speaking to some of them. Right. The border is great. The military is great. We're having by the way a tremendous uh success as you know in Iran. We had one in Venezuela and now we're having one in Iran. They have no navy left. They have no air force left. They have no anti-aircraft equipment left. No radar left. No leaders left. The leaders are all gone. Nobody knows who to talk to. But we're actually talking to the right people. And they want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal. I want to know what he's been smoking these days. Where does he get so much of confidence to utter such brain rotting stuff with a straight face? He then called his uncouthed and uneducated racist cabinet colleague Pete Hexed to blabber about the fictional victory that the US military was achieving. Trust me, this Hex chap wouldn't have a chance securing a job to clean many people's cars, let alone being considered for the cabinet secretary's job in the US. But that's the world we live in. Never in history has a modern military, Iran had a modern military, a modern navy, a modern air force, modern air defenses, leadership, massive bunker. Never has a modern military been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated from day one with overwhelming firepower. The air campaign that we've conducted, that Israel's conducted alongside us, was one for the history books truly. And it's because we have a president of the United States that when he sends his war fighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one. And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. Uh we're we we negotiate uh with bombs. You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tyrron as the president talked about about your future. President has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees our job is to ensure that. And so we're keeping our our hand on that throttle uh as long as as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield. This is not Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not a president who's interested in in in vague end states. He's been very clear with us about what we need to accomplish, creating the conditions for them never to have a nuclear capability. And that's exactly what we're doing in historic fashion. Thank you, Mr. President. Then Trump announced victory. Well, I think we're going to end it. I can't tell you for sure. Um, you know, I don't like to say this. We've won this. This war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no navy and they have no air force and they have no nothing. And we literally have planes flying over Tan and other parts of their country. They can't do a thing about it. For instance, if I want to take down that power plant, that very big powerful power plant, they can't do a thing about it. It's like, take me. That's all they can do. And yet, if you read the New York Times or if you watch ABC fake news or NBC fake news, you'd say it's a close battle. It's not a close battle. They're totally defeated. You know, we killed the Navy and would you say three days, Pete? Gone. In fact, I was a little upset with Pete. I said, "Why didn't you save the ships? We could have used them, right?" He said, "It's more fun shooting them down." We often speak about the resilience of nations like Iran, standing firm against the bullying tactics of the mad dog in Washington. But while the mainstream media focuses on missiles, there is a quieter, more sophisticated battle happening. Iran is now leveraging AI to bypass sanctions, secure its systems, and survive an economic war. It's a tool for survival against those who want to crush independent voices. Now I know many of you have a bad taste in your mouth when it comes to AI. We see headlines from Open AI co-founder Andre Karpathi warning that AI could replace white collar jobs. If your work is on a computer, it's at risk. Whether we like it or not, AI is part of our world. Now it can be used for control, yes, but it can also be a shield. You cannot afford to ignore it while the world moves forward. The key is not to fear it, but to master it. As a Forbes report recently highlighted, the best way to protect your career is to become AI fluent. This is why I'm partnering with Outskll. They are the sponsors making this independent analysis possible. They're hosting a live two-day AI mastermind this weekend. intensive hours on Saturday and Sunday from a.m. to p.m. EST. This isn't just another course. It's insights from over practitioners who have worked at giants like Nvidia and Microsoft. They will show you how to dive deep into AI, teaching you to build powerful AI agents, automate complex workflows by connecting tools like sheets and notion, and ultimately save hours every week. It's about making you AI independent and helping you increase your earning potential so you aren't at the mercy of a shifting job market. You will also learn to understand the exhaustion gaps that AI can fill. If you act now, you get bonuses worth over $including their AI prompt bible, a personalized AI toolkit builder, a road map for building income opportunities, and their exclusive AI survival handbook to navigate these major shifts. Outskill is highly rated on Trust Pilot, and this event is completely free right now for the first people who sign up using my link in the description or by scanning the QR code on screen. You can also join their WhatsApp community to stay updated. Now the logical question would be this which no one asked this clown from the White House. Why is the US military still in the region if it had already won? How come Iran was still downing US planes if its air defense was decimated? By the way, Trump also told us tonight that his military was so powerful that it shot down its own planes with Patriot missiles. Oh yes, it's all fine because the pilots survived. Could these planes have been hit by the Iranians in state? Hash just asking down three planes with our missiles. Uh they happen to be our planes, but the pilots made it. Can you imagine the pilots making it? The pilots are always coming and they said, "Those are Patriots. We're not going to escape Patriots." And they got out of there pretty quick, Pete. Right. Pretty amazing that they got out. How come Iran is able to fire sophisticated missiles across West Asia if its missile arsenal had been destroyed by the mighty American military? One powerful strike tonight in Tel Aviv caused dozens of casualties. It is unusual for a president, a commander-in-chief to declare victory in a war that is still ongoing. But that is exactly what President Trump has just done. And as he was speaking, this is what we were filming here in Tel Aviv. That's an Iranian cluster bomb exploding over Tel Aviv. So this war not only is far from being won, it is not yet over. You can watch the incredible video of the devastation caused by the Iranian missile in Tel Aviv on our Telegram channel. Details are on the screen and also in the description of this video. And if Iran was dying to talk to the US, why was still continuing to target American interest in the region? One of the Iranian rockets or missiles, you can say, today destroyed a hotel in Iraq where American soldiers were suspected to be taking shelter. Trump can bluff as much as he wants, but he's completely exposed now. Even his European allies do not take him seriously anymore and they are calling out his thug. This is the German president declaring that the Americans and Israeli war on Iran has been illegal. Gaza Creek. of the OSR. for now. If the Germans call it illegal, then you have to listen because the Germans have historically sided with the butchers of humanity. So if the Germans are agast by Trump's depraved actions, then you can imagine their level of disgust. A former UK minister Alan Duncan too has come out in the open to say that Trump and his war criminal Israeli boss Benjamin Netanyahu chose to attack Iran despite Iran agreeing to make unprecedented concessions during the talks is not to forget how this started which is there was a a pretty clear agreement mediated by the Omanis uh for zero nuclear proliferation with full inspection including by the Americans and this was sabotaged and betrayed. by primarily the Israelis deciding they were going to attack uh Iran. They didn't believe it. They didn't want to believe it. This is the war that Israel has always wanted. This is primarily an Israeli driven war. If that's so, can America end it or is it up to Israel to decide to end it? Uh I think if America ends it and Israel is left on its own, then I think the world can then very clearly see what Israel is doing. But also I think Israel's also been uh exposed a a country whose strategy is not as clever as they think it is. I mean the Iranians are being the clever ones here. They're they're not stupid a stupid pushover, but but there's no easy regime change is my point. And it didn't just collapse the next day. Not at all. If anything, you've now got a a stronger grip uh in Iran despite the displacement of million people within Iran. And how can you negotiate them? And if you've destroyed things at the center, there's no sense of negotiating killing the person you're going to negotiate with doesn't really work. Trump also told us today that Iran has sent him an expensive gift as a goodwill gesture. And what is that gift? He can't talk about it in public. They did something yesterday that was amazing actually. They gave us a present and the president arrived today and it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money and I'm not going to tell you what that present is but it was a very significant uh uh prize and they gave it to us and they said they were going to give it. So that meant one thing to me. We're dealing with the right people. Is that nuclear related? No, it wasn't nuclear related. It was oil and gas related and it was a very nice thing they did. But what it showed me is that we're dealing with the right people. But Iranian professor say Muhammad Mandi has told us what that gift was. He said that the present was a fake Gucci bag which Trump is ashamed to admit publicly. I will leave you with another Lego animation video that Iran has just released. Watch and enjoy. Yeah. You cross the ocean just to find your credit. Sacrifice your own boys for a lie. Listen. Yeah. Yeah. Make America great again. Yeah. Make America great again. Now, we will see what happens. Yeah. Watch this. Sacred defense. We protecting the soil. Why you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil? You ran the blow. Sitting on your throne. Now we turning every base into a bed of stone. It's a slaughter house. A trap you couldn't see. Welcome to the graveyard of your vanity. The secrets are leaking. The pressure is rising. We locked on the target. And now you are hiding. Yeah, we spreading at your name. Send them cooking slaughter. You the only one to blame. Bleeding for a [ __ ] while you shaking in your sweet. L taste the ass of defeat. Ling your name. Send them to the you the only one to blame. Beat for a while. Why you shaking in your sweet lash fighting in your suit hiding ghost? You sent your boy to die on a bloody coven for the leader blood is purely mine. Every drop of his blood is a missile on the line. You thought you took him out. Thought the fire was dead, but another common is standing ahead. Yeah, you strike one down. We just shatter your brain. We put another in the list. Common again. The secrets are leaking. The pressure is rising. We locked on the target. And now you are high. L. Yeah, we spelling out your name. Selling took the slaughter. You the only one to blame. Bleeding for a cup. And while you shaking in your sweet L. Taste the ash. L. Yeah, we spelling out your name. Send them to the slaughter. You the only one to blame. Bleeding for a puppet while you shaking in your sweet. L. Taste the ash of defeat. Sacred defense in the homeland. Homeland. Sacred defense. Sacred defense in the homeland. Sacred sacred defense. The homeland the slaughter house is open. That's it for me. Thank you very much for your support of this platform and our journalism. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, please do so because that's one of the many ways you can support independent journalism. God bless you all.
‘Come Closer’: Iran To Kick Off ‘CRUSH AMERICA’ Mission As Trump Plans US Boots On Ground Times Of India Mar 24, 2026 #IranUSConflict #IranIsraelWar #AsymmetricalWarfare
Iran has revealed its long-prepared asymmetrical warfare strategy, warning US forces against any ground invasion. A senior defense official claims Tehran has trained for decades to counter American military power using unconventional tactics. As reports emerge of possible US “boots on the ground” plans targeting Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure, tensions are rapidly escalating. The IRGC has warned of a crushing response to any aggression. With both sides preparing for worst-case scenarios, fears of a broader and unpredictable conflict are growing across the Middle East.
Transcript
The secret behind Iran's defiance is no longer hidden. It is not just missiles, not just firepower, but a doctrine forged over decades of conflict and survival. A doctrine built for one purpose, to confront stronger enemies without fighting on their terms. For more than years, Iran claims it has trained for asymmetrical warfare, a strategy designed not to match power, but to outmaneuver it. Not tank for tank, not jet for jet, but through unconventional tactics, deception, endurance, and relentless pressure. This is warfare without clear front lines. A battlefield where smaller forces strike harder, faster, and from the shadows. A strategy that turns weakness into strength and transforms every conflict into a prolonged grinding war of attrition. This is not just military planning. It is a long game designed to exhaust, outlast, and ultimately challenge even the most powerful adversaries. A senior Iranian defense official has issued a chilling message. Ali Akbar Ahmed says Iran has been waiting for this moment. He claims Iranian forces have anticipated American troop deployments for years and have prepared battle plans for specific designated regions. His message to American soldiers is blunt and provocative. Come closer. This is not conventional warfare. This is a battlefield where surprise, speed, and strategy dominate. Asymmetrical warfare means using smaller, flexible forces against larger enemies. It involves ambush tactics, decentralized operations, and targeted strikes. Iran's military doctrine focuses on stretching enemy forces thin and exploiting vulnerabilities instead of direct confrontation. This warning comes amid rising tensions with the United States and growing speculation about possible American ground operations in Iran. Reports suggest US military planners are preparing multiple scenarios, including the possibility of boots on the ground if air strikes fail. According to reports, these plans could target Iran's nuclear infrastructure as well as key missile production and launch facilities. Pentagon officials have acknowledged contingency planning is underway, including special forces raids and Hleborn assault operations, but they insist such moves would only be a last resort given the high risks involved in entering Iranian territory. Iran, however, appears unfased by these developments. Its military leadership is doubling down on its preparedness. The commander of the IRGC ground forces has issued a stern warning. Any aggression will be met with a crushing and decisive response. Speaking to troops in Kuestan, he said forces are at peak readiness, prepared to respond instantly to any threat on the ground. This signals a dangerous escalation in rhetoric and readiness. Both sides are preparing for scenarios that could spiral quickly. If ground conflict begins, it will not be a conventional war. It will be unpredictable, prolonged, and deeply destabilizing. Iran's asymmetrical strategy could turn terrain into a battlefield advantage and make any foreign military presence costly and complex. The stakes are now higher than ever before and the line between deterrence and direct confrontation is thinning. The world is watching closely because the next move could change the course of this conflict forever. Wars are complicated and with layers. Unlike tariffs, they cannot be switched on and off at will. Once set in motion, they escape the control of the very leaders who initiate them. That is precisely the situation which US President Donald Trump has been facing. A conflict he escalated toward the brink, but one where the exit is no longer entirely his to choose. Because this is no longer just a military confrontation. It is a strategic trap and Iran has carefully set its contours. At the heart of that trap lies leverage, not dominance. Over the past few weeks, Trump pushed the confrontation to its limits. Tran responded with its own escalation ladder. Retaliation against Gulf infrastructure, disruption of shipping lanes, and the implicit threat of dragging the global economy into crisis. What emerged was not a decisive showdown, but a deadlock. One in which both sides understand the cost of escalation. Yet neither can easily step back. For Trump, the problem begins with credibility. After days of oscillating rhetoric, threats one day, hints of diplomacy the next. The US position has become difficult to read, not just for adversaries, but for allies as well. When Trump claimed progress in talks with Iran, even suggesting multiple points of agreement, Tran flatly denied that any negotiations had taken place. President, Iran's foreign ministry says, "You're not telling the truth when it comes to productive conversations to end the world." Well, they're going to have to get themselves better public relations people. Uh we have had very very strong talks. We'll see where they lead. We have points, major points of agreement. I would say almost all points of agreement. Uh perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication as you know has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other. But we've had very strong talks. Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had them. Uh they went, I would say perfectly. I would say that if they carry through with that, it'll end that that problem, that conflict. And I think it'll end it very very substantially. uh we have very much in mind our partners in the Middle East. We've had great relationships with a lot of them as you know a lot of them were surprisingly hit and uh I was surprised to see it and so was everyone else but we've have uh they're very much in mind in the discussions. So the discussions took place yesterday. They went into yesterday evening. Uh they want very much to make a deal. We'd like to make a deal too. We're going to get together today uh by probably phone because it's very hard to find a country. It's very hard for them to get out, I guess. But uh we'll at some point very very soon meet. We're doing a -day period. We'll see how that goes. The contradiction is more than diplomatic noise. It signals a deeper issue. The absence of a stable, coherent pathway out of the conflict. And that uncertainty is exactly where Iran finds its advantage. Because while the United States retains overwhelming military superiority, Iran has demonstrated that it does not need to win a conventional war to gain leverage. It simply needs to raise the cost of every American option. Nowhere is that clear than in the Strait of Hormuz. By effectively tightening its grip over this narrow maritime artery, Iran has shown its ability to disrupt global oil flows at will. The consequences are immediate and farreaching, rising energy prices, shaken markets, and mounting pressure on governments far beyond the region. In doing so, Thran has expanded the battlefield from the Persian Gulf to the global economy. This is the core of the trap. Every escalation by the US now carries not just military risk but economic fallout that reverberates worldwide and politically back home. There are already signs of this dynamic at play. Trump's sudden pause in strikes coincided with volatility in global markets, falling equities, and surging oil prices. The deescalation helped calm that turbulence with markets rebounding and crude prices easing. Whether intentional or not, the sequence reinforced a growing perception that military decisions are now entangled with economic pressures in ways that constrain Washington's freedom of action. Iran understands this interdependence and is exploiting it. At the same time, the military dimension offers no easy answers. The forces required for a deeper sustained campaign, whether targeting key Iranian assets like Car Island or securing maritime routes are still assembling. Even if deployed, there is no guarantee of a quick or decisive outcome. Iran's strategy is not to match American strength headon, but to stretch it across multiple fronts, forcing difficult choices and prolonging uncertainty. This creates a second layer of the trap, time. The longer the conflict drags on, the more variables begin to work against the US. Market instability, political pressure, alliance management, and the sheer unpredictability of escalation. For Iran, which has long operated under sanctions and isolation, endurance is not a weakness, but a familiar condition. For Washington, it is a growing liability. Yet the diplomatic route, the obvious exit, is itself fraught with complications. Even if talks were to begin, it is unclear who would negotiate on Iran's behalf. The regime has suffered significant losses among its leadership and authority appears increasingly fragmented. The potential rise of harder line elements, particularly within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, suggests that any negotiating position may be more rigid, not less. Moreover, Trump's own approach to the conflict complicates matters further. His pattern of escalation followed by partial retreats may be intended to create negotiating space, but it also risks being interpreted as inconsistency or weakness, encouraging Iran to hold its ground rather than compromise. From Tran's perspective, the signals are clear. Pressure is working. By demonstrating its ability to impose economic costs and sustained disruption, Iran may calculate that time is on its side. Trump's reversals, contradictory statements, and visible concern over market reactions could reinforce the belief that the US is more constrained than it appears. And that brings the situation to its most difficult point. Because Trump's options are narrowing and none of them offer a clean resolution. He could escalate further, intensifying strikes and attempting to degrade Iran's capabilities around the strait. But there is no guarantee this would restore stability or secure maritime routes. He could commit ground forces, crossing a political threshold that would echo the very forever wars he has long criticized. or he could step back, declare success, and disengage at the risk of leaving Iran emboldened and key strategic objectives unmet. Each path carries significant costs. None promise certainty. This is what it means to be trapped in a conflict. Not that defeat is inevitable, but that control is limited. That every move creates new risks. that the ability to dictate outcomes has been replaced by the need to manage consequences. Iran has not defeated the United States in any conventional sense. Its military losses have been severe, its infrastructure under pressure, and its leadership weakened. But it has achieved something strategically significant. It has turned its vulnerabilities into leverage. Iran has reshaped the conflict into one where the stronger power finds itself constrained, uncertain, and searching for an exit that may not yet exist. And that is the essence of the trap. Because in war, as history repeatedly shows, the hardest question is not how to begin, but how to end.
‘3 Israeli Cities POUNDED’: Iran's Cluster Munition Strike Near Tel Aviv, Injures Dozen | Detail Times Of India Mar 24, 2026 #israelunderattack #iranisraelwar #bneibrak
Iranian cluster munitions struck central Israel, hitting Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv and causing significant damage to residential areas. A building collapse left around a dozen people injured, including a young man seriously hurt and several children among the wounded. Emergency teams from Magen David Adom rushed victims to hospitals as multiple impact sites were reported across central Israel. Shrapnel damage was also reported in Petah Tikva, while vehicles were hit in Rosh HaAyin. The strikes are part of an escalating wave of attacks, raising fears over the growing intensity of the conflict and risks to civilians.
Transcript
Iranian cluster munitions have unleashed devastation across central Israel. In Vet Brock near Tel Aviv, the strike hit with brutal force, bringing down a building and leaving destruction in its wake. Israeli authorities report that at least a dozen people were injured in the blast. Emergency responders described scenes of chaos and urgency. According to Magen Davidid Adam, a -year-old man was moderately wounded while others, including six children, suffered lighter injuries. The wounded were swiftly evacuated to hospitals as sirens and panic filled the streets. The impact was felt beyond a single city. In Paktikva, buildings were scarred by flying shrapnel, their facads torn apart. Though no physical injuries were reported there, three people were left shaken, suffering from severe post-traumatic stress. In Rash Haine, vehicles lay mangled after the strike, a stark reminder of the missile's reach. Across central Israel, at least seven more locations reported damage. Each site telling the same story of sudden violent disruption. This was no isolated attack. The cluster munition strike formed part of Iran's th missile barrage against Israel on March th. A relentless escalation with no immediate end in sight. Let us understand what cluster munitions are and why they are so deadly and difficult to stop. Cluster munitions, also known as cluster bombs, are canisters that carry tens to hundreds of smaller bomblelets or submunitions. These can be dropped from aircraft, launched from missiles, or fired from artillery, naval guns, or rocket launchers. The canisters open at a predetermined height over the target area, dispersing the bomblelets across a wide radius. These submunitions are timed to explode, either midair or upon impact, releasing shrapnel designed to kill troops or destroy armored vehicles such as tanks. Cluster munitions can overwhelm air defense systems due to the sheer number of submunitions released. They also raise serious concerns over civilian safety, especially in densely populated areas. Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been striking Israel with cluster munitions in retaliation for attacks on Tehran and other regions. Iran is using these weapons to overwhelm Israeli air defense systems and maximize damage. Since early March, videos have shown cluster munitions descending as dozens of bright points of light slicing through the night sky over Tel Aviv and other areas before impact. Israeli officials say that even when a ballistic missile is intercepted before its warhead splits, it does not always guarantee that all submunitions are neutralized. This marks a chilling and dangerous escalation in the Middle East conflict. Iran has unleashed a missile armed with a cluster warhead, striking deep inside Israel. In the dead of night, sirens wailed across central Israel, shattering the silence. A blazing projectile tore through the skies over Ramala, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Seconds later, thunderous explosions rippled across multiple locations. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed missiles had been launched from Iran. At approximately a.m., the IDF detected incoming threats. Air defense systems sprang into action, racing to intercept the barrage. Residents were rushed into bomb shelters, no time to hesitate. For hours, fear gripped cities already on edge as the night filled with uncertainty and the threat of more to come. Then came the impact. In Ben Brock, east of Tel Aviv, an apartment building was struck. One floor was ripped apart by the force of the blast. Emergency responders rushed to the scene amid chaos and debris. A man was moderately injured in the strike. Six others were lightly wounded, including a -year-old child and an elderly woman. But this was not an isolated hit. At least seven additional impact sites were reported across central Israel. This marked the th Iranian missile barrage in a single day. A relentless pattern of attacks that is raising global alarm. And there's a disturbing twist. This missile reportedly carried a cluster warhead. Unlike conventional warheads, cluster munitions are designed for widespread destruction. They do not strike a single point. Instead, they release dozens of smaller bomblelets midair, each one capable of causing its own explosion on impact. Experts say these bomblelets can number anywhere between and They scatter over a wide area, increasing the scale of devastation. The mechanism is complex but deadly. As the missile approaches its target, it opens up mid-flight. Its outer shell peels away and begins to spin, releasing multiple explosive fragments across a large radius. These weapons are designed to saturate targets from infantry positions to vehicles and even civilian zones. The use of such munitions raises serious humanitarian concerns because unexloded bomblelets can remain deadly long after impact. Meanwhile, Israel claims it is pushing back hard. Military officials say Iranian launch capabilities are being degraded. According to Israeli military spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Dron, Iran initially planned to fire hundreds of missiles, but that plan has been disrupted. On day one, fewer than missiles were launched. By day two, the number dropped even further, now averaging roughly missiles per day. Israel says this is the result of targeted strikes against Iranian launch sites and production facilities. The IDF claims it has hit multiple military headquarters and continues to carry out waves of attacks inside Iran. The Iranians planned to plan to fire hundreds of missiles at Israel on the very first day of the operation. They fired less than on the first day and half that amount on the second. We thwarted these intentions and we continued to disrupt them. The number of launches decreased very quickly. The average is roughly about missiles per day. The regime tries to concentrate its efforts every few days and fire more broadly mainly towards population centers. Yet Iran appears to be adapting its strategy, concentrating missile launches every few days and targeting densely populated civilian areas. a tactic that is intensifying fears of a broader regional war. At the same time, rockets from Lebanon have added to the chaos. Air raid sirens have been sounding nonstop in northern Israel. At least one woman has been killed in those attacks, opening yet another front in this escalating conflict. This is no longer a limited exchange. It is a rapidly evolving multiffront confrontation. With each passing hour, the stakes are getting higher and the risks of a wider war are becoming more real. The question now is not just about retaliation, but how far this conflict will go before it spirals out of control
‘Israeli Military Hub STRUCK’: Iran’s IRGC Launched Ferocious New Wave Of Missile Attacks Times Of India Mar 25, 2026 #IranIsraelWar #IRGC #MissileStrike
Iran’s IRGC has launched the 80th wave of missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli cities and US military bases across the Middle East. Key locations including Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, and Safad were reportedly hit, along with American bases in Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain. Tehran has warned this is just the beginning of a sustained offensive campaign. With precision missiles and explosive drones deployed simultaneously, the risk of a wider regional war is rising fast as tensions spiral beyond control.
Transcript
A massive escalation is now underway in the Middle East. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched its th wave of attacks. This is not a routine strike. This is a sustained and expanding military campaign. The IRGC has announced the beginning of a new series of operations targeting both Israeli and American positions across the region. In a strongly worded statement, Iran called this a pre-announced offensive, a direct response against what it calls the Zionist regime. The operation carries a symbolic code name, Yash Shadid Alua. It has been dedicated to fallen individuals and allied resistance forces including Hezbollah fighters and supporters in southern Lebanon. According to Iranian claims, strategic military targets have been hit, particularly in northern parts of what it calls occupied Palestine. One key target stands out, a major Israeli military command center near the city of Safod. This facility is believed to coordinate operations along the northern front, including deployments and defensive strategies against incoming threats. Iran says this strike is just the beginning and that more waves are already planned and underway. The IRGC has warned of relentless attacks going forward with no limitations or considerations in target selection. Missiles and drones are now being used simultaneously, creating a multi-layered and continuous assault pattern. Strikes have reportedly reached deep into Israeli territory, including Tel Aviv, Benet Brock, and Kiryat Shmona. Each of these locations holds strategic or civilian significance, raising concerns about the widening scope of this conflict. But the escalation does not stop at Israel. American military bases have also been targeted. Facilities in Ali al-Smarif Jan, Al- Azra, and Shik Issa have come under fire. These bases are critical nodes for US operations in the region. Iran claims it used precisiong guided systems in the strikes, including both liquid and solid fuel missiles. Explosive drones were also deployed in coordinated waves, making interception efforts significantly more challenging. The message from Thran is clear and uncompromising. This campaign is not ending anytime soon. Iran's military leadership is framing this as a turning point, a shift towards sustained offensive operations rather than deterrence. Meanwhile, rhetoric is escalating alongside military action. A senior Iranian commander has issued a direct warning to the United States. Do not call your defeat in agreement. That is the message being delivered to Washington. The statement goes even further, warning of major consequences for US presence in the region. Iran claims America will not see its previous economic gains, particularly in energy markets and regional influence. In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, the strategic power that you are so proudly proclaiming has now become a strategic defeat. The one who claims to be the world's superpower, if it could escape from this predicament, it would have already done so by now. Allah, don't you dare call your defeat an agreement. The time for your empty promises is now completely over. In the world today, there are only two distinct fronts, truth and falsehood. And no free seeker of truth will ever be swayed or deceived by your media's influence. The level of your internal conflicts has now reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves. You will neither see any news of your investments in this region, nor will you ever again witness the former prices of energy and oil. boss. Not until you truly understand that stability throughout this entire region is firmly guaranteed by the powerful hand of our armed forces. Stability through strength. We explicitly declare that no situation will return to its former course until our will dictates otherwise. This will shall be established only when the thought of acting against the Iranian nation is completely purged from your filthy minds. Our very first and final word right from the beginning has been is and always will be this. No one like us will ever ever come to terms or compromise with someone like you. Not now and most certainly not at any other time in the future. And victory comes only from Allah. The one who is exalted in might the wise. A dramatic moment unfolds in the sky as an Iranian missile tears forward. captured on camera while Israeli interceptor rockets launch rapidly to stop it. Bright streaks of light shoot upward, one then another, each attempting to destroy the incoming threat midair. For a few , the sky turns into a battlefield of fire and flashes. But then the unthinkable appears to happen. The missile keeps going. It seemingly slips past not one but two interception attempts, continuing its deadly path. Moments later, a powerful explosion lights up the horizon as it reaches its target, sending shock waves through the area and panic among those watching. These visuals are a stark reminder that even one of the world's most advanced air defense systems, the Iron Dome, can be breached under intense barges. The strike comes as Iran launches a fresh wave of missiles toward Israel, setting off air raid sirens across the country, including in Tel Aviv. The city has seen significant damage with a multi-story residential building torn open, its walls blown apart and debris scattered across the streets. Emergency services say at least six people were lightly injured across multiple impact sites. Police and rescue teams rushed in, searching damaged buildings for anyone trapped inside as residents scrambled for safety. At the same time, Israel has intensified its response. Fighter jets have carried out a sweeping wave of strikes in central Tehran, targeting key command centers linked to Iran's military and intelligence network. Officials say more than sites, including missile storage and launch facilities, were hit overnight. As missiles continue to fly on both sides, these chilling visuals capture a dangerous reality. This conflict is escalating fast, and not every missile is being stopped. news never stops. The world keeps turning and every turn tells a story. Wars, elections, geopolitics, Davids versus Goliaths. While everyone is celebrating the US China trade tour, Trump has been quietly doing something else across Asia. were once home to the ancient silk road connecting east and west. But who's connecting the dots? Who's decoding the global storm? Welcome to Times of India videos. You're watching a special edition of Global Pulse with me, Niha Kana. We decode the shifting grains of geopolitics to you from Washington to Wuhan. 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America Is Trapped In This War — And There Is No Way Out (Professor Jiang Analysis) Professor Jiang Breakdowns 12 hours ago
Can America stop this war. Can it negotiate a ceasefire. Can it withdraw. Can it find a way out. The answer — when you look at it carefully — is deeply unsettling. America is trapped. It cannot go forward. It cannot go back. And today I want to explain exactly why. If America negotiates a ceasefire — Iran demands one trillion dollars in reparations and a permanent American withdrawal from the Middle East. That triggers a catastrophic chain reaction. The GCC becomes Iran's client states. The petrodollar collapses. Japan and South Korea remilitarize. Europe makes peace with Russia. And the US dollar — the foundation of an economy sitting on 39 trillion dollars of debt — loses its reserve currency status. The American economy collapses. If America sends ground troops — Kharg Island leads to the coast leads to the Zagros mountains leads to a full scale land war. Mission creep. Exactly like Vietnam. From 3000 Marines to half a million troops. And if America tries to win militarily — its own military has war gamed this conflict countless times. And every single time — America loses. America is trapped. And in this video I explain exactly how that trap works — step by step — in simple easy to understand English. Based on the ideas and analysis of Professor Jiang Xueqin.
In this video: Why this war will drag on for years just like Ukraine The five step chain reaction that makes a ceasefire impossible Why the petrodollar is the real reason America cannot leave the Middle East The Kharg Island ground invasion trap — and why it leads to mission creep Why the American military loses every single war game simulation against Iran Why America's aircraft carriers are sitting far from Iran's coast doing nothing The only real exit from this trap — and whether America has the wisdom to take it
Transcript
So today I want to talk about something that I think is the most important question of this entire war. Not who is winning, not how many strikes have been launched, not what Trump said yesterday or what Iran threatened today. The most important question is this. Can America actually stop this war? Can it negotiate a ceasefire? Can it withdraw? Can it find a way out? And the answer, when you look at it carefully, is deeply unsettling. America is trapped. It is stuck. It cannot go forward and it cannot go back. And today I want to explain exactly why step by step in simple easy to understand English. So let us begin part one. This war has its own momentum. The first thing you need to understand about this war is that once a war like this starts, it develops its own momentum, its own logic. It stops being something that politicians and generals control and it starts controlling them. Think about Ukraine. That war started in February and from the very first weeks both sides knew that a negotiated settlement was possible. Both sides knew that continuing the war was causing enormous damage, enormous suffering, enormous economic cost. And yet four years later that war is still going, still grinding, still destroying lives and economies on both sides. Why? Because once a war starts, stopping it requires one side to accept something deeply painful, to accept loss, to accept humiliation, to accept terms that feel unbearable. And that is something most governments, most leaders find almost impossible to do. This war in Iran is going to follow exactly the same pattern. Neither side will concede defeat even when it is clearly in their best interest to stop. And this war could drag on for years and years. That is not a prediction. That is a pattern, a historical pattern that repeats itself over and over again. But here's what makes this war even more complicated than Ukraine. Even if America wanted to stop, even if America decided today that it wanted a ceasefire, it cannot. Not because Iran will not negotiate, but because the terms Iran would demand would be so devastating for America that accepting them would be worse than continuing the war. Let me explain this trap very carefully. Part two, the ceasefire trap. So let us imagine America decides it wants to negotiate a ceasefire with Iran. It picks up the phone. It reaches out through back channels, maybe through Oman or Qatar, and it says, "Let us talk." What does Iran say back? Iran says, "Fine, we will stop fighting." But here are our terms. First, America pays Iran approximately $trillion in reparations. $trillion dollars for the destruction caused by this war, for the decades of sanctions, for the economic damage inflicted on the Iranian people. Second, and this is the critical one, America must leave the Middle East permanently, pack up its bases, withdraw its forces, remove its military presence from the entire region forever because Iran's position is very simple. The only way to guarantee Iran's long-term survival is to ensure that America can never come back and do this again. Now, on the surface, some people might say, well, maybe that is not so bad. Maybe America should leave the Middle East anyway. But here is why that thinking completely misunderstands the situation. The moment America leaves the Middle East, a chain reaction begins. A chain reaction that will be catastrophic for the American economy and for American power globally. Let me walk you through this chain reaction step by step. Step one, the GCC becomes Iran's client states. Right now, the GCC nations, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, they exist under American military protection. America guarantees their safety. America is the reason they can function as independent nations. The moment America withdraws, that protection disappears. And the only nation in the region with the military power to guarantee the safety of the GCC and to control access to the straight of Hormuz is Iran. So the GCC nations have no choice. They become client states of Iran. They fall under Iranian influence. They have to make their peace with Tan because without American protection, Iran is the only game in town. Step two, the petro dollar collapses. Now, here is where it gets really serious for America. Because the GCC is not just a collection of oil richch desert nations. The GCC is the foundation of something called the petro dollar. And the petro dollar is the single most important mechanism keeping the American economy alive. Let me explain this simply. The GCC sells its oil in US dollars. Every barrel of oil that Saudi Arabia sells, every cubic foot of gas that Qatar exports, it is all priced and sold in US dollars. That means every nation on Earth that needs Gulf energy, which is most nations, has to hold US dollars to buy it. That creates a permanent global demand for US dollars. And then the GCC takes those dollars it earns from selling oil and recycles them back into the American economy. It buys American Treasury bonds. It invests in American financial markets. It funds American debt. This is the mechanism, this petro dollar recycling that allows America to function with $trillion in debt. $trillion. The American economy is essentially a Ponzi scheme. It relies on foreign nations continuously buying US dollars and US debt to keep functioning. And the petro dollar is the engine that drives that entire system. Now, the moment the GCC falls under Iranian influence, what happens to the petro dollar? It disappears. The GCC no longer has any reason to sell its oil in US dollars. It no longer has any reason to recycle its earnings back into American markets. The entire foundation of American financial power collapses. And remember, America is sitting on $trillion in debt. Without the petro dollar, without foreign nations continuously buying US dollars, the American economy cannot service that debt. It cannot function. The consequences would be catastrophic. Step three, Japan and South Korea remilitarize. So now let us look at what happens in Asia when America withdraws from the Middle East. Japan and South Korea are watching everything that is happening right now very carefully. They're watching America struggle in Iran. They're watching the limitations of American military power being exposed in real time and they're asking themselves a very uncomfortable question. If America cannot win decisively against Iran, can America really protect us against China, against North Korea? Can we really trust our entire national security to a nation that is clearly overstretched and struggling? And if America then withdraws from the Middle East, that question becomes impossible to ignore. Because if America is willing to leave the Middle East when things get difficult, it might be willing to leave Asia, too. So, Japan and South Korea have no choice. They have to remilitarize. They have to build up their own military capabilities. They have to stop relying on American protection and start protecting themselves. Japan, which has been pacifist since World War II, is already talking about the most significant military expansion in it post-war history. That process accelerates dramatically if America withdraws from the Middle East. And here is the consequence for America. Japan and South Korea remilitarizing means they are spending their resources on their own defense instead of buying American weapons and supporting American military infrastructure. Another blow to American economic and strategic power. Step four, Europe makes peace with Russia. And now let us look at Europe. Right now, Europe is supporting America's confrontation with Russia in Ukraine. It is paying enormous economic costs, energy cost, military cost, refugee costs to maintain that position. But Europe is watching the Middle East very carefully, too. And if America withdraws from the Middle East, Europe draws one very logical conclusion. If America is withdrawing from the Middle East, America is retreating. America's pulling back. America is no longer the reliable guarantor of global security it once was. So why are we Europe continuing to fight America's war in Ukraine at enormous cost to ourselves? Would it not be in our best interest to negotiate a peace treaty with Russia as soon as possible? Before things get even worse and the moment Europe makes peace with Russia, the entire Western alliance system that America has built over years begins to fracture. NATO loses its coherence. American strategic dominance in Europe evaporates. Another devastating blow to American global power. Step five, the US dollar loses reserve currency status. So now let us add all this together. The petro dollar collapses. Japan and South Korea stop supporting American military infrastructure. Europe fractures from the Western Alliance. What does all of this mean for the US dollar? It means the US dollar loses its status as the global reserve currency. Nations stop holding dollars. Nations stop buying American debt. Nations stop recycling their earnings into American markets. And America sitting on $trillion in debt, has absolutely no way to service that debt without the global demand for dollars that reserve currency status provides. The American economy, which is essentially a Ponzi scheme dependent on foreign nations continuously buying US dollars, collapses. This is why America cannot withdraw from the Middle East. This is the trap. The cost of staying in this war is enormous. But the cost of leaving is even more enormous. America is stuck. It has no good options, only bad ones and worse ones. Part three, the ground invasion trap. So if America cannot negotiate a ceasefire and cannot withdraw, what does it do? The pressure builds to escalate, to do something dramatic, to show strength. And that is where the ground invasion trap begins. Right now there is talk of approximately Marines coming in from Okinawa heading to the Middle East. And the rumor, and I want to be clear, this is a rumor, is that the intention is for these Marines to take Car Island. Now, let me explain why Car Island matters. Car Island is where Iran exports approximately % of its oil. %. It is Iran's economic lifeline, its most critical strategic asset. And the logic of taking it seems very compelling on the surface. If America takes Car Island, it destroys Iran's ability to fund this war. It cuts off Iran's oil revenue. It brings Iran to its knees economically. And it would look fantastic on television. Trump would look strong. American morale would surge. But here is the problem. You can take Car Island, but you cannot hold it. Car Island sits very close to the Iranian coast. The moment American Marines land on that island, Iran starts hitting it with artillery with drones, with missiles. The island becomes a killing ground. So to protect the Marines on Car Island, America has to take control of the nearby coastline. But now American forces are on the Iranian coast. And the Iranian coast is overlooked by the Zagros Mountains. So Iran starts hitting American positions from the mountains. So now America has to take the mountains too. And once you are in the Zagros mountains, you are inside Iran. You are occupying Iranian territory. You are no longer conducting a limited military operation. You are in a land war inside one of the most geographically challenging countries on Earth. This is mission creep. And history tells us exactly where mission creep leads. In America sent Marines into Daang in Vietnam. Just Marines. A limited mission, a defined objective. Four years later, America had half a million troops in Vietnam. Half a million. From to He says once you commit, once you are inside, you cannot leave because leaving means admitting defeat. And the sunk cost, the lives already lost, the money already spent makes leaving psychologically and politically impossible. That is the sunk cost fallacy. And it is one of the most powerful and dangerous forces in all of human decision-making. Once you have invested enough, once you have lost enough, you keep going. Not because going forward makes sense, but because stopping feels like all those losses were for nothing. America went through this in Vietnam. It went through it in Iraq. It went through it in Afghanistan. and he is about to go through it again in Iran. Part four, why America is actually losing this war. And now I want to tell you something that most mainstream coverage is completely hiding from you. The American military does not want to fight this war. Not because American soldiers are not brave or capable. they are. But because the American military has war gamed this conflict, tested it in simulations, run the scenarios, modeled the outcomes countless times, and every single time they run the war game, America loses. Let me say that again. Every single time American military planners simulate a full-scale war against Iran, they lose. Why? Because the American military is built for a very specific kind of warfare. It is built for shock and awe. for overwhelming air power, for precision strikes that destroy an enemy's defenses in days. That is what happened in Iraq in America achieved air supremacy in days. Rolled into Baghdad in weeks, toppled the regime in under a month. Easy, clean, fast. But Iran is completely different. Iran has been studying America's military playbook for over years. It has watched every American war, analyzed every American tactic, identified every American weakness, and built its entire military strategy specifically to counter what America does. Iran does not try to fight America the way America wants to fight. It does not mass its forces for America to destroy with air power. It disperses. It hides. It uses asymmetric tactics, drones, hypersonic missiles, underground facilities, proxy forces across the region. All of it specifically designed to negate America's advantages and exploit America's vulnerabilities. And nowhere is this more visible than with America's aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald Ford. These are the most powerful naval vessels ever built. Each one carries enough firepower to devastate a small country. They are the ultimate symbol of American military power and they are sitting far away from Iran's coast. Threatening, posturing, but not actually doing very much because getting too close to Iran means entering the range of Iranian drones and hypersonic missiles. And a carrier for all its power is also an enormous target. Losing a carrier would be one of the most catastrophic military and psychological blows America has ever suffered. So the carriers stay back and Iran knows they will stay back. The Iranians have spent plus years preparing for exactly this war. They know the American playbook better than most American generals and they have the perfect counter to it. Part five, what should America actually do? So given all of this, given that America cannot stop, cannot withdraw, cannot win cleanly, and is sliding toward a ground invasion trap, what should America actually do? The honest answer requires stepping back and seeing the bigger picture. This war in Iran does not exist in isolation. It is connected to everything else happening in the world right now. The trade war with China, the war in Ukraine, the tensions in Asia, all of it. These are not separate conflicts. They are all symptoms of the same underlying problem. American empire is overstretched. It has its fingers in everything. Every conflict, every region, every dispute. And by having its fingers in everything, it allows its enemies to provoke it, to drag it into conflicts that drain its resources, damage its reputation, and weaken its position globally. That is exactly what is happening right now. The only real solution, the only path that preserves both American power and global stability is a fundamental change in approach. Instead of trying to dominate everything, America needs to sit down with everyone, Russia, China, Iran, all of them and acknowledge that the old world order where America was the unchallenged hegeimon is over and that a new order is needed. One where America is not the bully but a genuine partner. Where every major power has a stake in stability. Where the global economy can function in a way that benefits everyone, not just a privileged few. What does that actually look like in practice? It means America stops trying to maintain military bases in countries. It means America stops using the dollar as a weapon of economic warfare against nations it disagrees with. It means America sits at the same table as Russia and China and Iran and says we all have interests here. We all have things we need. We all have people who depend on us. Let us build a system where everyone gets enough of what they need that nobody feels the need to go to war to get it. That is not weakness. That is wisdom. And right now, wisdom is the only thing that can save us from the catastrophe that is coming if this war continues on its current path. Whether America has the humility and the vision to take that path, that is the most important question of our time. And honestly, I do not know the answer. But I do know this. The longer America waits to make that choice, the more expensive and the more painful that choice becomes for America, for Iran, for the entire world. So, let us just recap what we have covered today. This war has its own momentum just like Ukraine, and neither side can easily stop it. America cannot negotiate a ceasefire because Iran's demands would trigger a catastrophic five-step chain reaction. GCC becomes Iran's client states. Petro dollar collapses. Japan and South Korea remilitarize. Europe makes peace with Russia. US dollar loses reserve currency status. American economy built on $trillion of debt collapses. America cannot send ground troops because Carg Island leads to the coast leads to the Zagros Mountains leads to a full-scale land war. Mission creep exactly like Vietnam from Marines to half a million troops. Um, America cannot win militarily because the American military loses every single war game simulation against Iran. And Iran has spent years building the perfect counter to America's playbook. America is trapped. It cannot go forward. It cannot go back. It cannot stay where it is indefinitely. And the only real exit, the only path that does not lead to catastrophe is wisdom, a new partnership, a new world order where America leads not through domination but through cooperation. Whether that happens, only time will tell. Subscribe for more analysis of this conflict explained in simple English. And tell me in the comments, do you think America will find a way out of this trap? Or is this war going to drag on for years just like Ukraine? I will see you next
Iran REJECTS Ceasefire, HAMMERS Israel as Trump DEPLOYS 3,000 US Troops | Elijah Magnier Danny Haiphong Streamed live 2 hours ago #iran #trump #israel
Elijah Magnier joins for a full Iran war update including Iran’s new missile striking Israel for the first time as well as Trump ordering a massive US troop deployment amid ceasefire hysteria.
Transcript
Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the show. It's your host Danny Hiong. As you can see, I am joined by war correspondent, independent journalist Elijah Magnet. Everyone hit the like button as we get started. But Elijah, good to be back with you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you. Right. Well, let's get started with the latest developments. I just wanted your comments over the last period since this show uh was covering the latest updates. We had Iran fire different missiles according to reports from Times of Israel, blackouts in Tel Aviv. We also had strikes in the recent hours, I believe, on uh Ngev near the Deona research facility again. And we also have, of course, as Iran continues its operation true promise for all of this ceasefire talk. is uh Israeli media leaked out some kind of document -point plan uh that the Trump administ had concocted supposedly. Uh they said there's been reports that they sent it by text message. There's not no clarity as to Donald Trump's reports on who his administration is actually talking to in Iran and of course Iran has said that they're not talking to the United States at this point going so far to say that uh the US at this time is negotiating with itself. So, uh, all of this is happening as the US is preparing about troops from the nd Airborne Division to head to the Middle East. So, Elijah, given this context, maybe you can go over, uh, the latest developments in the war over the last, uh, uh, day or so and help us understand what this all means right now, where we're at. Okay. So, let's start with a negotiation perhaps, uh, first. Now, um, we know that Donald Trump on a Monday just before the opening of the stock market uh, dropped a bomb saying that I'm talking to the Iranians, the excellent, fantastic, uh, decision maker, negotiators, and, uh, that contradict everything he said the day before that we killed everybody. There's nobody to negotiate with. And by saying that he calmed down the market that was already prepared to uh uh crush. And then the price of oil was prepared to go even down from or and then to go up again. But that calmed everything and everything had stopped since. uh and also he said that this is going to uh take five days that he's giving uh the time for the Iranians to think about it and for the negotiations to advance and um by coincidence these five days coincide with the Friday when the market will close down. So he has managed basically to calm down the market but what he has also achieved to give time for his forces to reach the Middle East and I will talk about that but let us continue the um negotiation if I may. Um yes the Iranians said that Trump is negotiating with himself. This is not the first time that Trump say something that is untrue. when he negotiated with the Iranians, gave them an appointment on a Monday in June and the war started on a Friday. And then he did exactly the same the beginning of this war on in February when he said the negotiation will start on a Monday and then on a Saturday he was bombing Iran. Um that is someone who thinks that he can really uh deal with geopolitics like he's dealing with selling of uh real estate. This is how he understands it. But lies have a very short life um duration and then it is obvious that he did not talk to the Iranian. However, today Pakistan announced that they have received a letter from the Americans and they will convey this letter to the Iranians. So there is a letter that was sent by the Americans to the Iranians. after the announcement of Donald Trump saying that he is talking to uh someone in Iran that the Israelis leaked as an information to be the speaker of the parliament uh Galibbaf and then it turned out that Galibah said they're not talking to me and I'm not interested to talk to them and I'm not authorized to run this negotiation either. So today the Iranians have received the letter and the points mentioned by Donald Trump are correct. However, these points belong to the Americans that were forwarded by the negotiators uh Steve Witkov and Jared Koshner that Iran refuses to negotiate with because they believe they are the one who instigated this war by um misinforming Donald Trump of the content of the negotiation. This is where we are at in negotiating aspect. However, because everybody is achieving no objective so far apart from Iran is conducting a war of attrition and doesn't need to win because not going to win but is doesn't need to lose and that is a victory for Iran. This is where the American president is buying time and I can develop that if you want to. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely if you can because uh there's also this context as you mentioned that uh Trump is uh deploying uh troops to the Middle East from the nd Airborne Division. This is a huge contradiction. Uh many have noted that the ceasefire points looks like of course another attempt to get Iran to surrender. But there are also points in there that also uh show that the Trump administration is looking to or needing to feeling the need to give concessions as well. So there's a huge contradiction I feel like in terms when it comes to not only the ceasefire plan but also the US's actions. They're they are deploying uh troops as we speak and of course uh the mainstream media is talking over and over again about what they could be used for straight of Hormuz Car Island etc. So your thoughts? So in as militarily nobody negotiates from a weak position. Look what's happening between Ukraine and Russia. As things stand today, the war has not produced decision results. The war on Iran has reached a form of a kind of strategic stallmate. Neither side is winning but neither is losing decisively enough to impose an outcome. In these conditions, the logic of conflict shift. It is no longer about battlefield gain but about creating a leverage. So one side here the Americans need to generate a moment that alters the balance and forces a reaction reshape the political trajectory of the of the war. Yet even such a leverage is achieved it will be the beginning of the war but not the end it. And don't laugh because I have my reasons because the opposition side the Iran will respond will adapt push back and meaning the war remains far from conclusion. So Donald Trump is searching for a political and psychological gain create a sudden shift in the balance of the conflict and above all spectacular lowrisk high visibility operation. It is not a fullscale invasion, not an attempt to occupy all of Iran, but a very carefully chosen location, specific location that he can say, well, I am part of the uh of the controllers of the straight of because at the end of the day, uh Trump has given up on regime change, on destroying the nuclear program because he said they agreed to give us the kilogram of %. They agreed to stop producing more enrichment uranium to higher percentage which means they still have it and if they still have it he did not obliterated it as he claimed on the missile program. He said he destroyed it completely and we see missiles still falling on the Gulf countries and on Israel. Therefore, the logic is not to stop Iran because it's impossible to stop it, but to have some control over the straight of homes. But that risk an uncontrollable escalation and it will put the United States into an equation in a way that will alter the balance without triggering a total war. Therefore a very limited occupation uh of a strategic place island not necessarily the carage island there are so many other islands but he want to achieve a visible defensible temporary defensible and political usual gain and say okay I've controlled this island let us stop and here he makes another mistake because the Iranians will not stop on the contrary even if he occupies Ireland like Abu Musad, this lower and the larger Tom, the two other island that are contested by the Emirates. The Iranians still consider these as Iranian territory. Therefore, with a very primitive weapons, they can bomb these island daily and make sure that he will suffer a large casualties. But that means pushing Trump to become more dangerous. And hence my initial word saying this is the beginning and not the end of the war because Iran perspective it is that looks like kind of a diplomatic pressure and and a message but at the end of the day this is a war imposed on Iran and Iran will not allow Donald Trump to dictate it or to dictate the terms or decide when to stop it. Yeah, great points, Elijah. And now, if you could maybe speak about how Iran's especially in the last day uh since the last time the show aired uh about hours from today. uh it talk about how Iran's response to all of this on the battlefield uh its strikes, its recent strikes conform to its overall approach because I think um o overall what we hear from Donald Trump is that uh you know they they have nothing. Everything is slowing down. Uh Iran is begging to come to the table to reach an agreement. Um but it seems like the operations that Iran is running uh especially even in just the last day uh contradict this greatly. Well, we don't need to speculate much or analyze this because Trump is saying that he has degraded or destroyed the Iranian missiles and the Iranians are introducing every single day new missiles that are fired on Israel and they firing on areas like the Mona where the nuclear research center is. I mean it's uh kilometers away from the village but they saying well we can hit the nuclear site if you hit our nuclear site. Therefore um the Iranians are showing different capability with the cluster bomb warhead inflicting serious damage on uh the Israelis. They bombing Hifa. Uh they bombing all the military target at Israel. Uh doesn't allow any journalist or any information to come out uh about the damages. So everything that Donald Trump is saying, we observe the development on the ground and we see completely the opposite. We see how the Gulf countries are still bombed in the energy in the hotels where the Israelis where the Americans are. Uh we see Iraq is a new um element because Iraq is coming stronger in the battlefield. The Iraqi government summoned the US ambassador twice a because the Americans are attacking the Iraqi uh security forces and today they've attacked an Iraqi army hospital killing seven and wounding So we see the war is developing. we see different part of Iraq is under attack from the uh Americans and from the Iranians uh and also from the Iraqi resistance. So there are really different forces interacting in Iraq. We on the military uh uh aspect Iran is not stopping from launching between to missiles and drone every single day. And Iran is conducting a very long war thinking that this war is not going to stop from one day to another or from one week to another, which is rightly so because if the Americans are bringing troops, they talking about the Marines and amphibious troop, but then they're talking about the nd airborne uh coming into the Middle East. These are going to occupy a piece of land that is not very big. But also we see the A and the YARS helicopters active and these two are active to clean the area along the coast and make sure that the landing of the American forces is going to be smooth in their opinion and their calculation. However, when the um the first clash starts, all these calculation can go up in the air. So for Iran, we have seen the Iranians maintaining uh uh a battle on bombing Qatar, Bahrain, the Emirates, uh Jordan, um uh Kuwait, uh Iraq and uh Israel. So conducting war on several fronts, sending missiles on several fronts. The Arabs said that several thousand missiles and drone were launched, which means that Iran is really not short of missile and drone. But because the Israelis are not really thinking in terms of having a very long war, this is where Benjamin Netanyahu came out and blamed the chief of the Mossad, the intelligence services said, you said that in three or four days the Iranian people will rise against their rulers and this war will end. And on the other hand, we've seen Donald Trump saying to Jared Kushner and uh Steve Witkov that you told me that Iran wants to make a bomb and he said to the uh minister of war Hexit that you were the first who said let's go and bomb Iran. So immediately we see a shift of position where the two leaders who decided to go to war are attributing the reason why they went to others but not to themselves. Yeah. Well, uh, uh, then Elijah, you know, uh, talk about what the impact of Iran's strikes have been because some might say, well, so what, you know, so what that Iran is hitting these miss is hitting Israel in this way, it's hitting the Gulf in this way. And also uh just to remind the audience that this is all coming in the context of an ultimatum that Donald Trump gave that was supposed to uh be was supposed to it was characterized by the United States was going to strike Iran's uh electricity grid its electrical grid its energy facilities related to it and that's been postponed for five days which does coincide also with the expected arrival of some of these so-called ground forces. So maybe you can talk about what the impact has been uh of Iran strikes especially in recent in recent days uh as we see all this chaos that you just commented about with uh the Trump administration and the United States talking about ceasefire talks and Iran contradicting this. Well, we have seen the New York Times saying that all the US bases in the Middle East have been either completely destroyed or severely damaged. That is the impact of the Iranian missiles on the US bases. We have seen also attacks on hotels where the American officers are staying and which means that the Iranians have updated intelligence uh information about the location the new location of the US officers. We also know that the Israelis on daily basis they saying that the Iranian missiles are uh exploding into an open area uh not causing damage. But then on Instagram that is outside of the control of the Israelis. We see the real pictures and the real damage that the Iranian missiles are causing. and when it to serve the Israeli propaganda then they show some areas that have been deeply affected by the Iranian missiles and Iran said if you continue targeting our civilians then we have the location of the shelters and this is where we're going to start bombing as well. So the Iranian the impact of the Iranian missiles on every single day there are millions of Israelis that are forced into the shelter. Israel is completely paralyzed. Nobody's working in Israel. They all spended time in the shelter every hour. For example, this morning there were uh within there were four attacks, missile attacks. So people don't have really time to breathe and to go to shopping or to go to check their belonging. And the reason why is the America the Israelis uh supported this war by %. And the Iranians want to make sure that the Israelis who supported the war not only pay the price but turn against Netanyahan and say well what are we achieving from Donald Trump? Uh there is a saying in America that call him taco that he uh uh always chicken out and giving hours to the Iranians thinking that the terren narrative could work against Iran. He made a mistake because Iran kept his word and is not playing around and Iran said I am going to bomb every single energy grid in the Middle East in the Gulf countries. are going to bomb gas and oil which mean the whole world will suffer from the lack of oil and gas. Now some people would argue that the Americans are bringing out the oil reserves uh million barrels the European will do the same. Just let me remind the audience that the world needs million barrels daily. So if there are million barrel uh as a reserve in the market these can last four days no more after four days. So it is just postponing the problem. So what Iran is doing is making sure that everybody pay the price through missiles through hitting what the Americans and the Israelis are hitting in Iran reciprocating exactly the same. And this is what really scaring the Americans because from their point of view they crippled Iran Iranian missiles. And when they say now we are free to fly over Iran, they're right. They're not lying because Iran doesn't have an air force and Iran never had a a good air force because it did not invest in air force because the Americans and the Israelis were the Americans because Israel doesn't make uh jets. These are American jets are of a fifth generations. The Iranian cannot compete with that. So what Iran is doing is investing in its missile program to control the sky over Israel and the Gulf with its missile program to strike a balance. And the moment we don't see any missile coming out of Iran, it means that is the end of the war. Yeah. And Elijah, I'm curious on what you believe is uh uh motivating the United States right now to get into this and Israel too because both of them of course Israel is the one who leaked the United States and Donald Trump have been uh now talking about talks talks talks. I'm curious on what you believe is motivating uh the United States and Israel to talk in this way now given that we do see um you know Iranian air defense is doing some more work now than even earlier in the war. I believe there were some reports that a JASA missile was even uh shot down by Iranian air defenses uh in the last hours. And of course, uh, now there's more information about the F-that was downed that, uh, there's confirmation it was Iranian air defenses that did this. And, uh, the the pilot actually was injured, uh, quite significantly and and reports of F-Sentcom won't uh won't acknowledge this one, but in the last day or so, an F-was also down, I believe, over Kuwait again. So talk about um what might be motivating the United States and Israel to come to the or at least the United States I should say uh to talk in this way about peace. Is it simply manipulating the market or is there also maybe other factors at play here? Let me start with Israel. Nothing motivates Israel to stop the war particularly when it has the United States on its side. The US Congressman Van Holden said that the Israelis have been, and these are his words, the Israelis have been looking for a stupid American president to join the war on Iran and he found and Netanyahu found Donald Trump. This is the congressman who said these words. You can Google it. So for the for the Israelis, destroying the state is important. Impoverishing Iran for the next years at least is the objective. It the objective is not to destroy Iranian missile or nuclear program because the big really the big lie to the American people is the nuclear program. Donald Trump came out and he said Iran was prepared to make bombs within two weeks or let's say two months was ready and this is why he went and bombed Iran and that Steve Witkov told him that the Iranians said we have nuclear enrichment uranium. Oh, by the way, Steve Witkov understand nothing about the the technicality of the enrichment uranium. And this is why there was a British uh officer there who knew about it and was there as a supportive of the uh US delegation and he said there was a breakthrough and the Iranian offered concessions like never before. So, let me go back to the bombs to the new Iranian nuclear bombs. In June the Israelis and the Americans bombed Iran and bombed the nuclear facilities. Had the Iranian intention was to make a bomb, they would not wait months to start threatening again and need two weeks to make a bomb. They would have made bombs in these eight months. But because they have a very clear stand, they don't they don't want to make a bomb. This is why they did not go for a nuclear bomb. Right or wrong, that is their position. Therefore, the talk about Iran just weeks from away from making a nuclear bomb is a false narrative. Now for the um Americans, Iran doesn't represent a national danger on its or and a danger to the American national security because first it's far away. Iran decided it missiles will be limited to m kilometers and did not never attack the US bases in the Middle East at the exception of one in January when the US killed the general Casim Shlemani. So for the Americans, it's easy to stop the war and it's easy when we're talking about the motivation of the war. But because the motivation of the war is the survival of Benjamin Netanyahu's political career, then when Donald Trump is going to stop putting Netanyahu as his priority and the priority of the American citizens above everybody else. So he is putting Netanyahu first, not America first. And because he's putting Netanyahu first, Netanyahu doesn't want to stop the war. He's bombing the customs. He's bombing banks, bombing the hospitals, ambulances, schools, everything. He is not bombing the Iranian nuclear program. He is not bombing the Iranian missile program. He's bombing the state. He's he is impoverishing Iran when he want to bomb Iranian oil in Thran. That has nothing to do with the military. Iran is one of the largest oil producers. They can immediately recover the oil that they have lost. So it is just to sabotage and that can continue forever as long as Donald Trump wants. However, on Donald Trump's side, because he's narcissistic and the personality of the person, he's not going to accept to say, "I've lost." In fact, many countries are asking Iran to declare that to Donald Trump, you won because he needs only this word coming from Iran. However, if they say you won, the Iran the Iranian uh ruling system falls and this is why there is an impass. Iran is defending itself. This war is illegal and has no United Nation mandate for it and no danger was represented from the side of Iran against the US. Therefore, it is not up to Iran to stop the war. It's up to the Americans. But then if the Americans want to stop the war, there's no trust who's going to play a go between. Now we have Pakistan and Turkey who are coming forward and they say we can play this role and Oman also. However, they cannot guarantee that Donald Trump is not going to start another war in a year time because if he goes beyond the mid elections and he wins, he's going to start another war. But if he loses and the Democrat win then he will not be able to decide whatever he wants because he will not have the Congress on his side. Therefore the question is is Donald Trump going to stop now before it is too late because the war is escalating and has never been less intense than the week before and we are in the week number four. Therefore, it is update Trump to decide. But Iran has request. Iran wants compensation. Iran wants the end of the war in the entire Middle East, including in Lebanon. Iran wants the lifting of the sanction. Iran doesn't want to negotiate again about the sanction one more time. Iran wants to negotiate a nuclear deal where the world is happy with the controlling of the enrichment uranium uranium in Iran. Iran needs to be able to produce its own electricity and research with % to % uranium and these are impossible demand for Donald Trump. Yeah. and Elijah, maybe you know Iran did, or at least it's reported that Iran did release a full set of conditions, and they've been talking about a full set of conditions of what it would mean for this war uh to end. And I'm curious if you believe there are any conditions that would actually uh uh uh uh you know uh provide the the impetus for the Trump administration uh to actually accept any of these given that a lot of them uh what I mean all of them really if they're taken in full or even in part uh speak to Iran declaring victory itself uh because a lot of these would be not only concessions to Iran but would change the entire calculus in the region. Uh so maybe you could talk about if there are any scenarios or conditions that would even allow any of these uh uh terms to be met for Iran. Uh I'll give it to you. Iran can uh put the um percentage % of enriched uranium under the total control of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Organization. That's for sure. can give up on the control of uh this quantity only if the sanctions are lifted because Iran doesn't need this kind of enrichment uranium because it doesn't use it but it is a leverage if the sanctions are gone then there is no need for Iran to keep it if there is a guarantee that these these sanctions will not return and because the element of trust is lacking Therefore, it is a problem because a third party trusted by both sides need to come forward and say okay I keep them or I control them and for the Americans it is out of uh out of a question to keep them in Iran and that's another problem. Iran is saying I want to continue enriching uranium domestically and Trump said from day one zero enrichment which is again the international law because Iran has a right to enrich uranium for its uh electricity generate power and for its research for medical reasons. So these already are create a big conflict between the two side paying the damages. Now the Arabs are saying, "I want the damage to be paid by Iran." And Iran's saying, "Well, no. Article allow me to bomb you because you offered your land to Iran to the US. Therefore, you also need to compensate all the damages I have suffered from economically and the the damage destroyed by the United States." And again, this is another uh dilemma because the Americans will not accept to pay. Donald Trump goes around the Middle East to take their money, not to pay back the money. So these already two difficult points. And the third point are the Iranian missile program. Iran is not ready to give up on a missile program or even to negotiate it or put it on the table or anyone to uh speak about it because it is only it is the only defensive system that it has and we've seen that in this war that Iran only with its missile is managing to respond to the Iran to the Israelis and to the American aggression. Therefore, we are again back to the JCPOA of Barack Obama that Donald Trump cannot stick. And if we go back to the then why all these sanctions? Why breaking the contract of the JCPOA in ? Why starting the war? So, all that doesn't make sense. and for the American to accept it and to lift sanctions on Iran and to give back Iran the dozens of billions of dollars that are frozen in different banks will be the end of Donald Trump Korea and he doesn't want that. So that is the dilemma that Donald Trump put himself in and put also Iran in it. Uh these are those are sorry the the Israelis are happy because they're not concerned. They don't need to give money if the Americans will pay the money. They don't need to say well we stop because they will be requested by the American to stop. They are bombing the Iranian state and infrastructure every single day. They are delighted. But have they achieved their objectives? No. Everybody renounced on the regime change objective from the first week when they saw that their objective is impossible to meet. Yeah. And Elijah, I I see a scenario where even if the US wants to pause or maybe even end quote unquote. I don't think the overall objective against Iran from the United States uh will end. But I could even see a scenario where Israel continues and then therefore Iran continues because Iran Iran has said from the very beginning that they will be dictating this war. Um and if Israel of course won't abide by any kind of pause that the United States wants, then what what motivation does Iran even have to to stop itself? Um I don't know if you believe that could be a plausible scenario here too. Sorry. What's a possible scenario that uh the uh you know the entire narrative about ceasefire talks and coming to some kind of end to the war even on the US side just goes away because Israel will continue to do what it's doing as you just outlined there. And Iran of course will continue to strike back at Israel uh uh regardless of whatever the US says or even offers. Uh, I don't know if you see a scenario like that where Israel literally just tries to continue this war, keep the United States in it. Um, no matter how much the United States attempts to, uh, concede to Iran and and get Iran to take the bait of some kind of uh, ceasefire deal or or even a quote unquote peace deal. Well, for the Iranians, there is a there are points that are asking uh, potentially possible. So if we take for example the war in Afghanistan, the Americans invaded Afghanistan and uh they removed Taliban from the power after years they gave back the power to Taliban and they left Afghanistan. The Iranians are asking now from the Americans to leave the Middle East. Actually this is a fair demand for a simple reason. The Americans first started a war without consulting with the Middle Eastern countries and studied the consequences on them by starting a war only to please Benjamin Netanyahu. Secondly, the Americans fail to protect the Middle Eastern countries because most of the interception missile system are in Israel and Jordan to help the Israeli intercept the missile before they arrive above Israel. So they intercept them in Jordan. Therefore, they left the Middle Eastern country to defend themselves with their own missile that they have acquired and to buy more missile off the United States. So, there is no reason for them to stay. Donald Trump said, "We have oil. We don't need oil." And in fact, % of the oil that crosses from the Straight of Horus goes to America. Therefore, with Venezuela, even if the oil is heavy in Venezuela, they can say, "Okay, well, we don't need the oil coming from the Middle East." Whatever they can say, it it can be feasible. However, what they don't want is to uh dethrone the dollar because the petro dollar is the most important part. If the Americans leave the Middle East, then Middle Eastern country will deal the selling of oil with yuan. They would go to the Chinese. They will exchange with goods and services. They can do that with India. They can go to other countries and they do not need to use the dollar. That will be the end of the US finance because the entire war is based on petro dollar. As long as the Gulf countries are using the dollar to sell their oil, then the United States consider itself kind of a safer economically. But if the United States leave the Middle East, then that will be the beginning of the crumbling of this empire. This is where the Americans cannot fulfill the request of the Iranians. So a ceasefire based on concession that can be made on both sides is possible when the demands are within reason not the demands are impossible on both sides. Now, of course, each side starts with the maximum demand to go down, but how far down are each side ready to go to? The Iranians want to make sure that this war is not going to happen again and that the Israelis are not going to start continued killing and target assassinating as they are doing in Gaza and Lebanon. This guarantee can be offered by the Americans. However, it's not enough. They need to make sure that this war will not return and that the sanctions are lifting lifted on Iran so Iran can regain the construction with its own money because there are many resources and strong assets in Iran that Thran can benefit from. So all that needs a long time to unfold. This is why we don't have a visibility today. Yeah. No, those are great points, Elijah. And uh I wanted to ask you about the the military situation, especially when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, because that's where a lot of the US's impetus right now in terms of talking about a ground invasion. All of this, it all has to do with what's happening at the Straight of Hormuz seemingly. And I wanted to ask you then about about the exhaustion possibly of the US and Israel uh when it comes to continuing on uh this war and how how would a ground invasion uh uh perhaps exacerbate this given that um you know I think what we're uh what we're seeing now more and more so is we've we've seen the US now have to creep more closer and closer to Iranian air defenses uh you know uh every other day it seems like there's something being shot at or shot down and SentCom is doing its best to hide these kind of things. But uh what role do you believe uh an exhausted US military and of course Israeli defenses uh are going to play in the outcome of this war given that uh I as you just said this could go on for a very long time and the straight of Hormuz question is one that Iran does not seem to be budging from at all. Actually, it seems like they're enacting this kind of toll that has been reported in recent days u and asserting further the the concrete character I guess of of their control over it. Donald Trump said he wants to control the straight of homes with the yayatah. These are his words which mean that he wants to be part of the presence on the straight of homes. He can't control it from afar. This is where the arrival of the troop makes sense because he wants these troops to land somewhere so they can have a foothold on the straight of Horus. But it doesn't mean they can stay. So the whole battle now is no longer regime chain is a straight of Horus and the control of energy. This is where we are at today. Therefore, for the Americans, it's important to have this control and stop the war and then have a leverage on the Iranians. Without that, he cannot ask for the end of the war. But even if he ask, he's not going to be given because the Iranians want to make sure that they get back this land or at least they make sure the Americans cannot stay safe in their piece of land. So the straight of home was become important because of the price of oil because of the navigation and the insurance companies are raising the price not because the Iranians stopped the straight of navigation. They said we did not stop it. We've seen the Spaniards having their tankers uh delivering uh oil. uh we have seen uh India, China, we've seen so many countries uh capable of crossing with many tankers. The problem are the Israelis and the Americans and the British because the British according to article are helping the Americans. Therefore, they are partner of this war. They offer Diego Garcia and Cyprus to support the Americans. And this is where Iran considered them partner in this war. So the straight of home was is not going to be closed unless it turned to a battlefield and once it become a battlefield then it will automatically close. No tanker will cross it and no insurance company will uh accept any tanker or any ship to cross the straight of. So we are at a very decisive next week where we will have a more visibility on where the area is going toward which direction and how the presence of the Americans in the state of Hormos is going to affect this war. if the Americans are going to land there and where are they landing? Yeah. Right. And uh these these forces are are definitely not uh forces that uh are going to be sitting back. Uh it seems like there will be some kind of operation and that will change a lot definitely. Uh Elijah and lastly what I wanted to ask you about we can get a bit deeper into this is the regional situation because I don't think many people expected the Iraqi resistance to be I mean they're working almost overtime it seems like in they've pushed NATO out of Iraq. Uh they are const they're I believe in the last two days they released videos of them attacking the Victoria base the US base there. Um uh there's talks about how the US forces are now like stuck in Kurdish Iraq. Um so a huge uh withdrawal there and uh of course we have Hezbollah which we haven't gone into which is fighting uh very hard Israel not only on the border but also firing their own salvos their own uh missile strikes and rocket strikes at at Israel. So, uh, if you could talk about this and we and Yemen hasn't even really come into, uh, this war, uh, yet. So, uh, perhaps you could give an outline of, uh, how this is impacting the war, um, because it doesn't get so much attention in in mainstream media. That's a very good question and thank you for asking it. Many people consider that Iran, what they call is calling upon is proxies. They're wrong. Not because uh they call these proxies and they are organic allies but because uh Benjamin Netanyahu said at the very beginning the biggest danger now comes from the Shia and later from the new Sunni and the new Sunni he meant sorry Qatar and Turkey and the Shia are the Shia of Lebanon Hezbollah the Shia of Iraq and the Iranians, but also the Zi that a branch of Islam closer to Sunni than Shia. Nevertheless, they have the same principle and objective to support the resistance and of self-determination and they are anti-imperialist. Therefore, the one who made the war a religious war and Benjamin Netanyahu followed by the US secretary of war who said this is a religious ideological war between us and Iran and its allies or he called them proxies. So the message that both leaders the US and Israel convey to the Shia of Lebanon that your turn will come one after the other. For Hezbollah it was a brilliant strategy to start the war and launch these bombs on Israel because Israel is extremely busy with Iran. Therefore, the bulk of the Iran, the Israeli air force is going toward Iran, hitting Iran all the time. This will reduce the pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and change the equation because during Israel carried out in one week attacks on Hezbollah. So far they did not conduct more than attacks in weeks and a half. Therefore it was in the advantage of Hezbollah to start a war where there is a diversion of Israeli forces on various fronts instead of onlyah. The Iraqis are also the majority Shia. There were many voices before saying that the Iraqis need to give up their weapons. The Iraqi resistance should no longer exist. Only the government. And why the Americans want only the government? For a simple reason that Ira Iraq sell its oil and the party who receive the Iraqi revenue that consist of % of Iraq uh total budget are the Americans. The money goes to the federal bank in America because of the war and because this has been done and agreed upon this mechanism where all the money goes to America first and then comes back to Iraq. Therefore for the Americans to deal with the government only it can twist the arm of the government any time and make sure that the government is starving. Also, it's very easy to bomb the official institutions of a government. So, everybody knows where is the ministry of defense, where are the different divisions of a classical army are spread and in hours go with hundreds of jets, bomb everything and then you have no longer an army that can face you. However, with the resistance, they are called the resistance because they know how to resist. They are part of the people. So, they don't have a physical place, but they are kinetic and they uh harass the enemy where the enemy cannot see them. This is why for it is important for the American to see the Iraqi resistance giving up on its weapons and they have to deal only with the Iraqi government. This didn't happen because the Americans are still in the country. They haven't left. They don't want to leave. And this is why the Iraqi resistance decided that again this is the best time because they will be under attack if Iran is defeated and the war on Iran ends. So it was in the advantage of all these forces in Iraq and in Lebanon to be part of this war where the war effort of the Americans and the Israelis is divided among three main stages and uh it was a clever move which means that the Americans and the Israeli needs to defeat all three together or none. Yeah. And uh you know with the straight of Hormuz being uh controlled by Iran now the uh the question of when does the onsarala uh come into play which would be a huge card and Elijah I'm hearing now uh that in recent as we've been talking that there are reports that Iran has said that if the US does any kind of military operation on Iranian territory attempts to seize anything occupy uh conduct any operation in Iran that they are going to move on operations they've been training for to seize uh parts of the UAE and Bahraini coast which uh again as you said earlier Elijah we'll know in the coming uh weeks days and weeks uh how much the situation will change and and in which direction and that would be a massive shift in in a very uh I guess critical I wonder if you have any comments on this yes because Now, with any uh attempt of Donald Trump to gain time, allowing the men, men to reach the Middle East, because he said uh two uh the two uh batches of Marines and amphibious forces plus the nd Airborne Force with the thousand men are coming to the Middle East. He has already men in the Middle East. Therefore, he doesn't need this kind of troops. He needs the specialized troops. He needs specialized troops in airborne. He they need to land uh with the amphibious troop on a land that is a dry land coming from the sea. This is where his plans are. And that this is why the reaction that you just read which is the Iranian are going to react harshly on any occupi occupation because Iran will consider that any land that will be occupied is an Iranian land even if contested by the Emirates. uh if that if we're talking about the smaller and the larger Tum and Abu Musa land these three lands or other around um maybe not Kaj but other islands. So for that it will trigger a very harsh Iranian reaction and on contrary it will offer a possibility for Iran to use even primitive um rockets or any kind of missiles against the island and inflict serious damage on the Americans because the Americans will no longer be in the air. There will be infantry. There will be men on the ground not far from the Iran Iranian missiles and rifle and this is where the number of casualties will be much higher and the problem if Donald Trump doesn't stomach this number of casualties and then goes for another extreme reaction. So inevitably I have no doubt Iran will retaliate harshly. But again I have no doubt that Donald Trump will accept these consequences without bombing the Iran and trigger further retaliation. Yeah. I mean that's what you just outlined there is very serious and and so I hope the audience understands that uh as you said this is could be very much very well the beginning of this war rather than uh the winding down of it. So, uh, Elijah, in the final few , I don't know if there's anything that we haven't spoken about yet that you'd like to outline here, uh, given that these developments in this war are constantly shifting and changing. Iran said it will not stop until the war in the Middle East stops, and that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iraqi resistance. with Iraq is easier because the Americans are now in the Kurdish area in Harer and in Erbil airport. But with Lebanon is completely different because Netanyahu will be extremely disappointed if the Americans ask him to stop the war which mean that Hezbollah won. And the Israelis thought that Hezbollah in the last months without responding allowing the Lebanese government to reach a ceasefire that Hezbollah was weak and without missile to respond. It turned out that Hezbollah actually is much stronger. We have no longer heard Benjamin Netanyahu speaking about assassinating s Hassan Nallah and bragging about it because he saw the face of the new leadership and every time Netanyahu kills the leader there's a new one harder than the previous one with a very strong motivation to revenge. So that is going to be the biggest dilemma because Netanyahu would be crucified by the opposition saying you have not achieved any objective in Gaza, you have not achieved any objective in Lebanon and you certainly did not achieve the objective in Iran. So he will be the one to be blamed for crippling the uh economy and for failing to achieve any of the objectives. And that takes me back to the word of the director of the counterterrorism that resigned when he said Israel has a formidable army to defend itself but not to go out of the border. Israel cannot attack a non-state actor like Hezbollah and win or state actor like Iran. It has failed in both cases. It tried it has tried withah so many times but because the presence of the Americans Benjamin Netanyahu feels more protected and feels he can go beyond any limits. However, the day Donald Trump wants to stop. Netanyahu will contest that but will not continue the war. But by not continuing the war, he needs to prepare himself for jail for the three cases of corruption he's going to face because he failed to achieve the security that he promised the Israelis. Yeah. And um you know when uh Hezbollah did the ceasefire, Elijah, I've said on this program that uh that does not mean Hezbollah is gone. And then we've seen Hezbollah come out with a ferocity that from the very beginning of this uh war when uh Hezbollah entered uh just several days after February th, Israeli spokesperson said we were not expecting this uh to happen. We were not expecting to fight with such ferocity. And uh yeah, so this was a great show, Elijah. I wanted to make sure that everybody knows to hit the like button before uh we do head out of here. uh that helps keep the show going. Uh your website is in the video description, so people should definitely check out all of your work uh there. Is there anything you'd like to say before we head out of here? Well, thank you very much for having me. It's a real pleasure and I like the interaction where people listen and uh it's good if they put question forward so we can interact with them and respond to their question if they have any. But it's a great show. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks so much, Elijah. Uh, we will be back. I'll be definitely in touch with you. We'll head out together. Hit the like button, everyone. Uh, that helps, uh, boost the show so more people hear this conversation. And, uh, all the places to support Elijah and, uh, this hour, work are in the video description. Until next time, bye-bye.
Iran War Enters New Phase - Episode 51 Drop Site News Mar 24, 2026
00:00-00:50 — Opening: Ryan Grim 00:51-08:12 — Jeremy Scahill on U.S.-Iran Negotiations 08:13-12:02 — “We haven’t responded”: Iranian Officials 12:03-14:21 — “Language of force” 14:22-17:35 — Israel’s Strategy of Killing Leaders 17:36 — Alexis Daloumis joins from Iraq's Kurdistan region 21:04 — U.S.-Israeli Efforts for Kurdish-led Uprising 36:55 — Kurds Betrayed by U.S. 39:17 — ‘Institutional Decay’ in U.S. 47:40 — Trita Parsi Unpacks New Phase of Iran War 51:36 — ‘De facto Sanctions Relief’ for Iran 01:01:35 — Iran’s Relationship w/ Gulf Arab States 01:08:55 — Is Regime Change in Cuba Next? 01:13:24 — Blackouts in Cuba 01:17:05 — How Cuban Hospitals Cope 01:21:43 — What’s Next for Cuba? 01:27:45 — Remembering Hossam Shabbat w/ Sharif Abdel Kouddous 01:36:40 — Hossam’s Last Letter 01:38:20 — Palestinian War Correspondents 01:44:24 — Closing: Ryan
Hossam Shabat, 23, was assassinated by Israel a year ago today, as he reported for Drop Site and others on the genocide of his people in Gaza: https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/h...
In this video Timeline Chapters Transcript Chapter : Opening: Ryan Grim Good morning and welcome to the Tuesday morning drop site news live stream. I'm Ryan Grim. Uh later in the program, uh we'll be joined by journalist Alexis Dumis who is in the Kurdish region of Iraq and has been for the last several weeks uh working on a dispatch that will be published either later today or tomorrow um for drop site. We'll get his perspective on what he's seeing there. Before we do that, we'll be joined by Dr. Dr. Tita Parsy who's an Iran analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible uh Statecraft to talk about potential uh end end games for uh the con the for the ongoing USIsrael war uh on Iran. Um but first uh joined here uh by my colleagues uh Jeremy Scill and uh Ma Hussein. Jeremy has to go in about uh s to a thing he thing he's doing. Um, so Chapter : Jeremy Scahill on U.S.-Iran Negotiations Jeremy, I'll uh start with you. Uh, it it's just been confirmed um uh drop sites uh Wakas Akmed had had scooped that um Steve Witkoff um had tra has traveled to Islamabad um to we assume attempt to partake in talks um you know with Iranian officials. There had been some reporting that the Pakistanis had been trying to broker such talks. Uh maybe he's just got some other business um in Islamabad. I know his son uh Zach has actually been doing all sorts of uh shady crypto deals uh with with Pakistan. So maybe he's checking in on you know the the Bitcoin mining uh that Zach is up to. Uh but so far there's no no indication that the Iranians are willing to um actually sit down with him. Uh so I guess he's you know for now just twiddling his thumbs uh in Islamabad. Uh so what what what are your sources telling you um at at this moment with the caveat that of course things could change rapidly about what the Iranian position is on whether or not they're going to sit down again um with any Americans and if they are you know which Americans they might find acceptable and is Steve Whit among them? Well, you know, I guess I guess to start, um, you know, we reported last week that, uh, Steve Wickoff had been sending a series of messages to Iranian officials, including the foreign minister Abbas, trying to restart talks, and that the Iranians had, uh, essentially left his messages on, you know, on two checks without light and blue, uh, and didn't respond to him. And you know, when we when we then uh reported that and we went to the White House for comment, saying that the Iranians say that Wickoff's been reaching out and that they haven't responded, the White House went nuts and attacked Drop Site and called us abhorrent and said, "We're engaged in America last behavior." And then they tried to frontr run the story and they went to Axios and Barack Ravid and they spun an alternate reality where they said, "Actually, the Iranians have been begging Steve Wickoff and the US isn't ready to talk yet." And you know, Trump has been saying consistently, oh, the Iranians are begging us to talk. And every time I talk to Iranian officials, they say like this this is fantasy land. Um, you know, that that not only has Whit been texting us, but third party intermediaries keep getting in touch saying that the Americans want to talk about how to wind up the, you know, wind down the war. And then what we saw happen as as as Trump sort of, you know, was was embracing his identity as kind of the mad king, like a scene from King Lear or something where he he he sort of vacasillates between, you know, uh we're going to wrap this up soon to like we're going to bomb their entire electrical grid and and and power supply. And then he he you know, he's he's fretting over the straight of Hormuz. There's discussions of, you know, is the US going to try to seize Car Island? um are they going to try to do some kind of a land incursion? And then Trump over the weekend issues this threat saying that if they don't reopen the Straight of Hormuz within hours, um I'm going to bomb the electrical and and power grids and supplies all throughout Iran. The Iranians then respond to that and issue statements and in fact maps showing exactly which sites they're going to hit in the Persian Gulf and in Israel targeting energy infrastructure. and GCC states went absolutely nuts about this because um Iran has shown a remarkable ability to just continue bombing even though Pete Hegsth and Trump keep saying that their missile program is basically you know decimated and on life support and so the story that emerged yesterday from the White House just before markets open is Donald Trump coming out and saying you know oh there's been a breakthrough and we've had a series of really productive talks with the Iranians and I'm putting a -day you know moratorium on any strikes against their energy supply and we're going to see how these talks go. And and um we then spoke to the, you know, Iranians and they say there's been no negotiations whatsoever. And what the Iranians are saying is that we've been doing exactly what we've been doing throughout this entire war that started that was started on February th by the US and Israel just reiterating our position of our terms to end the war. And those terms are quite sweeping. Um they want a ceasefire to apply to Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. They want long-term guarantees that the US and Israel are not going to just use a ceasefire to prepare for another round of bombing. They want reparations uh for all the damage that's been uh done. They want a lifting of sanctions. And what they told me is that now given everything that's happened, any discussion about their ballistic missile program is completely off the table. and if there is a ceasefire that Iran is going to continue and in fact increase its production operations on ballistic missiles recognizing that it's it's been very clearly understood by the world now that that is Iran's uh deterrent. So, uh, then, you know, Trump is confronted with the fact that the Iranians are saying that they weren't engaged in any direct negotiations. Um, and and he says, "Oh, well, there's a secret, you know, Iranian official that we've been talking to, and I don't want to name him because I, you know, he might get killed." And it was unclear. Is he does he think the Israelis are going to kill this secret Iranian official that he has concocted, or is it going to be that the Iranians would kill him for the crime of having spoken to Trump? And then they the the Hebrew press starts to leak uh the idea that the person that Trump and the Americans have been talking to is the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Kalibah, and uh and and sort of implying that he's been engaged in these backdoor negotiations. And that he comes out with a tweet and says, "This is totally fake news. Trump is just trying to manipulate financial markets. There's been no negotiations whatsoever with the Americans." Now, having put all of that on the table, Ryan, I think a couple of things are going on. We do know that the Pakistanis, and this is from our sources as well, the Pakistanis, the Egyptians, and the Turks. And and I I think to an extent there's some other countries involved with this, but those are the three primary ones, have indeed been passing messages to the Iranians um asking or appealing to them to start talks with the United States. And what I'm told is that the Iranians have not responded to create a kind of back and forth informal negotiation. They very clearly do not want to do that. So, they keep reiterating their position. And one thing that I think may have happened is that the Iranians said, "We won't strike any energy infrastructure if America doesn't strike first." That then gets relayed to Trump, perhaps then interpreted by Trump as a way of kind of claiming a mini off-ramp from his threat to bomb the energy infrastructure in hours. And he says, "Okay, well, the Iranians have said they won't do it if we don't do it." And and I think that there's a degree to which they're just trying to will this thing into existence. So whether or not Steve Wickoff is in Pakistan right now, you know, I don't know. Um but I do think that part of what the US is doing is try to will a process um into existence. But as of last night, Iranian time, um my sources in Tehran were saying that the Iranians had not responded to the US appeals to start direct talks. And in fact, they said that the Pakistanis are indeed pushing uh for these talks to take place in Islamabad. But they pointed out that all of the mediator countries that have been communicating with Iran have been vying for those talks to take place in their countries as well. So I wouldn't rule out that we will see some type of uh of discussions take place or we could wake up, you know, tomorrow or we could hear later today. There has been some date set. But as of right now, the Iranians are saying we haven't responded. Um we don't feel Chapter : “We haven’t responded”: Iranian Officials the need to respond. We think Trump has painted himself into a corner. we are showing that we have an ability to keep uh hitting Israel and uh certain Gulf countries uh where they have US military bases with our ballistic missiles and they view Trump as being in a quagmire. And and I think that objectively speaking um where Trump is right now is caught between uh trying to fabricate some victory um and and say, "Oh yeah, see we got them to agree to this." and maybe that victory would look in their eyes like what the Iranians were offering before this war even started which gives lie to the whole pretext of it or let's just keep bombing and bombing and bombing and they think somehow it's going to cause the state to implode and there's going to be you know an uprising and then there's a s[clears throat] third thing I think we need to consider which is that this entire thing is in a way a setup uh and that the US has some US and Israel have some other plan that they want to unleash on Iran uh because the past two times when they said they were in negotiations. They used that as cover to then uh go scorched earth and start heavily bombing Iran. You know, Jeremy, we're almost at the one month mark of the war starting. And the war started initially with this idea and it was expressed by US officials that uh they would force the Iranians to capitulate very quickly. They would launch these very devastating attacks. But now what you're describing now and trying to force this process on the US side, it seems like the US is the side that's actually looking for talks much more forcefully than the Iranians. And for different reasons, the Iranians are reticent or or not even really eager to engage in talks. Can you explain a bit of the dynamic from the Iranian side, how they see, you know, these events having played out and why they're not really rushing these talks besides the fact that it could be another instance of perod on the US part. I think that there really is an institutional psyche that permeates all of the echelons of the power structure in Iran that this is a year war that they've been fighting and that they knew it was going to come. And I think that a real breaking point in this happened last June when the US and Israel uh engaged in the -day war that ended in a ceasefire requested by the United States and Israel. What I'm told is that, you know, during that bombing last June and in the aftermath of it, when the US and Israel came asking Tehran for a ceasefire, that all institutions of Iran's national security state decided that it was a mistake to have believed that there was any good faith negotiation with the United States and that the strategy of limited proportional response was a failed strategy. What do I mean? I mean that when the US and Israel during the course of the Gaza genocide have launched missiles or done bombings of Iran, the Iranians choreographed their response in an effort not to spark a wider regional war. They didn't want to hit US military bases and inflict large-scale casualties on American troops. So, they would send messages and coordinate where they were going to strike and when they were going to strike to ensure that Iran was able to uh to be seen as responding, but not to cross a line that would spark a wider regional war. Um what we were told leading up to this uh February th bombing was that um Iran was no longer going to play by those rules of engagement. And indeed within hours of the assassination strikes on the uh Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamei um the IRGC aerospace division began launching very rapidly ballistic missile strikes all across the Persian Gulf and at Israel. And I think that um what's happened is that some of the more as Iranians would describe them flexible political leaders like Dr. Ali Larajani who is a a highly educated PhD in Kant uh and and and some others who would have been flexible or people that you could have negotiated with. Um they've been killed and now I think the message has been interpreted in Iran that the only language that the United States and Israel understand is the language of force. And so where they are at right Chapter : “Language of force” now is absorbing uh the damage, the pain, the missiles that they anticipated and feeling like uh they understood what was coming and that their pain tolerance is much higher than the Gulf countries, than Israel or the United States, and then politically than Trump. And so I I don't get any sense that there's panic among the Iranian power structure right now. Um they view this as an existential war. They view it as a long war, but I don't think that they have any sense that they're like, you know, on their deathbed or pushed up against the ropes. I think that they they they see Trump as uh not having the appetite uh to continue this. And and Jeremy, I know you got to go in one . Um or two s. Um, just real quickly, I know that these like comparisons between US and Israel behavior and their adversaries are, you know, can can be trit, but it was just occurring to me that as as Witkoff is in Islamabad, you know, hoping that somebody will come and meet with him, if out of nowhere Witkoff was assassinated, let's say, by the Iranians in Islamabad, I think the world would almost collapse with rage. Like how could you possibly do something like that to a guy who's a negotiator? You know, this is not a combatant. It's somebody who's just going to these talks or hoping to have talks, not even having talks yet. Yet, the Trump administration has said publicly through this political article, um, and I want to get your reaction to this political article, that they're their game plan effectively for Iran is to assassinate as many political figures as they possibly can until one emerges that they like and don't feel like assassinating. like how does Iran even conceptualize engaging with a country that operates that way? I mean there the the that article indicates that you know some very important people in Washington are are drunk on the on the Kool-Aid that Israel has been uh pushing for decades. Um this very closely mirrors what the Israeli Chapter : Israel’s Strategy of Killing Leaders strategy has been regarding the Palestinians. you can go through decades and they're they are always, you know, one or two assassinations away from winning and and it and it never works. What whether it's Hamas or Islamic Jihad or it was the early stages of the PLO or it's, you know, Black September or it's any uh Palestinian groups, there's always another one that rises up. But in the case of Iran, there's a core difference. This is a modern nation state. The United States has not engaged in a war against a sophisticated modern nation state since World War II or, you know, to an extent the Korean War. And I sthink that that the the US is is is getting a real slap in the face here of reality. And so, you know, we we've said this many times and Iranian scholars talk about this. Even people that are incredibly critical opponents of the Iranian government recognize that they built over years horizontal institutions that they prepared for this day that they have chains of succession. I think there is truth to the idea that some of the people that are replacing the number one or number two that get assassinated are quote unquote hardline. But if you think of it from a common sense perspective, Ryan, if you're in that political national security bureaucracy in Iran and the people that have been killed were people that were preaching a gospel of sort of flexibility or let's not push across the line, it's not that you're a hardliner. It's that you've understood these tactics get us killed. And so if they're going to if they're going to continue to target us in this way, then the only option we have available is to try to inflict so much pain that they think twice about continuing down this line. So I don't I haven't seen a materialization in Iran in response to these assassinations that would indicate that that is anything other than a total pipe dream sold to by the Israelis to the White House. Um I mean it's you know it it's it's wild. Let's never though, the final thing I'll say is this, Ryan, let's never buy into the idea that there's actually some division between, you know, Netanyahu and Trump, Israel and the United States. They negotiate with each other and then they come out and they do what they're going to do. All of what we've seen the past hours reeks of some kind of plot. You know, not to sound like I have a tinfoil hat on, but we've seen this so many times because Netanyahu comes out and he goes, "Oh, well, Trump thinks he's going to be able to get through diplomacy, you know, a way to kind of lock in all of our gains of this military campaign." He verbatim has said that at multiple times about the Gaza genocide and then they turn around, they do some heinous, unspeakable series of escalations and war crimes. So, again, I wouldn't rule out that there will be talks. I haven't heard any indication that's going to happen from the Iranian side, but I also wouldn't rule out that this entire thing is being constructed because they have some alternative plan that we're not aware of yet, and it could come in the form of a massive escalation. Yeah, when Netanyahu is speaking openly about uh the virtues of negotiations, that usually is a blaring siren that something's about to go down. But uh Jeremy, you know, thanks so much for taking some time this morning. Really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thanks, Jeremy. All right. So, we're gonna we're going to bring in next um Alexis Dumis, who we're going to play our TRA parsy interview, but we'll we'll we'll hold Trita for for next because Chapter : Alexis Daloumis joins from Iraq's Kurdistan region Alexis is is here. He's got good he's got good internet. Uh want to take it take advantage of that. Alexis is um were you the director of Bill Case or the um this documentary that people may remember we played it here on um Dropside? I know you were heavily heavily involved with that back in which is about Kurdish fighters um in the Syrian civil war. Uh some wild uh coincidental um or sorry, foreign fighters uh working, you know, teaming up with the Kurds in the Syrian civil war. Wild kind of interesting coincidence. This weekend while I was doing uh reporting in Cuba, I saw uh Brace Beldin um who also uh fought there and he told me that you guys were actually in the same unit and you know became became for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So he um he sends along uh he sends along his his regards. Um Oh, same here. Same here. It's been a while, but yeah, same. Been a long time. Been a long time. You're you're no longer in that world. Now you're on the you know, you've uh swapped the the gun for the pen. Um you and the camera. And the camera. Yes. And so you're in Sulammania, Iraq, which is the, you know, northeastern kind of Kurdish region fairly close to the uh Iranian uh border. What you know, what have you seen over the past um what have you seen over the past couple of weeks? And you know that you you had helped us uh debunk some of the reporting that was coming from Western media by leak through leaks from Israeli and American sources saying that the Kurd Kurdish Iranian Kurdish forces from Iraq were invading back into Iran. That turned out not to be true. Uh what is the current status of US and Israeli efforts to spark a kind of Kurdish-led uprising in that region? Well, I I was actually thinking that it is worth to to go back to that um so starting that [clears throat] uh because it's quite telling what happened uh that night let's say or throughout the day really um but starting from right now like um I can say that first of all the general vibe here uh is not one that seems to um project a big appetite for war and especially particular upper appetite for invading Iran. I think it's probably worth to make like a very brief explainer here like the Kurstan region of Iraq is divided in two parts and the two parts uh are respectively controlled by two different parties that are also in turn uh controlled by two different clans um uh for lack of a better word. Um so the western part uh is which uh includes air bill the capital of the KRI um and um the base of the KRG the K's regional government is controlled by the KDP um so and the Barzani family uh while where I am here now uh in Sulmania uh is the capital of the eastern part which is controlled by the PUK and the Talibani family. Now this is um worth to remember uh because for example Bafel Talibani, Chapter : U.S.-Israeli Efforts for Kurdish-led Uprising the leader of the PUK gave a quite important interview at Fox News um a while ago um where he more or less um expressed u like a quite intense uh um uh u like not not a very big willingness let's say to partake in in such a Um there is information I can say like there is let me first say like this is an environment of intense hearsay uh and rumors uh going back and forth from here especially between journalists and I can say that there is I have come across information that suggests that there are preparations being made um with some amount of involvement of the American factor. Um, and that uh some kind of attack, some kind of ground operation is indeed being prepared. I want to emphasize that I think that anything is like I think that all scenarios are potentially on the table, but I am personally not convinced. I am not convinced at all um that this will be indeed the case. And this is where I wanna I wanted to like go back to what happened at the um uh fourth of March because what we've seen is that there is a lot of there's a lot of SCOP going on um uh uh like within all all this process and so what we saw then is that there was a kind of a domino of let's be generous and say like inaccurate reports that suggested that the invasion of Iraq like of Iran had already started. it and um I guess this is an instance where you all can kind of a little bit boast about because uh correct me if I'm wrong but I think Dropside was one of the first American media to um I think to refute this narrative. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right and we owe a debt to you for um for help with that. Jeremy was hearing from sources I was hearing from sources you ma I think you were too inaccurate. They were say they were saying the invasion was underway which is different than what often some of the fake reporting you get that says there will be an invasion tomorrow and then it doesn't happen and then you can say well the plans changed my reporting wasn't wrong but the plans change they were saying it's happening there are thousands of people up rising up right now and it just wasn't true and in fact the the original source of that reporting which was an an Israeli source and Israeli media was suggesting that this already happened two days ago and that thousands of people had crossed the border her and somehow nobody knew anything about like nobody like took you know in this day and age which is if you think about it it's like something remarkably implausible to suggest um right but yeah so so bas so so I guess what I'm saying is that that's why I think it's important to keep that in mind when assessing this kind of information because even if there are let's say leaks coming from direct sources coming even uh hypothetically coming from Kurdist Iranian parties. This could be part of a this could be part of a strategy like or this could or of a tactic if you like um where it is like about creating a a sense of pressure a sense of an imminent threat you know or whatever. Well, however, at the same time, other information suggests that even like but that by now there is indeed a reluctance from the American side to to endeavor to to embark in such an endeavor um uh like for a number of reasons because also because now they want to focus on the or whatever but like there is like so there is quite a lot of conflicting information and it's not um I would suggest a lot of caution Um uh in terms of um what we can what we can thoroughly believe of all that um uh yeah rumors that Oh, sorry. No, go ahead Ryan. Oh, no. Go ahead, Moss. Yeah. Yeah. You know, very quickly, can you give us some context about you the the state of play in Iraqi Kurdistan at the moment vis why why the US or Israel even saw this idea as plausible? Uh are are there groups in Iraqi Kurdistan who have irudentist territorial views towards Iran? Would they see this opportunity or was it completely a concoction that was some sort of uh that was sort of thought up as an idea of distracting the Iranians or just causing chaos in the region more broadly? What is actually the context wherein this idea was even brought up in your view? I mean here there is a deep historical context obviously which is probably worth to uh have a quick look at that uh the Kurdish people are the largest uh ethnic group without a state and and they're like their historical region is is uh divided in four parts and the thing is that in all of those four parts there has been like traditionally in every case there is a an antagonism there is a um some kind of struggle with whether it with Ankara or with Damascus or with Tehran or with Baghdad, uh there is always um like a a struggle for some kind of autonomy, for some kind of rights and and and a long long history of of oppression, but also which is very relevant here, a long history of utilization, weaponization and then betrayal. So uh the idea here was that and I can I can say uh that there is indeed information coming that from all sides of the Iranian there are several Iranian Kurdish parties uh that are definitely thoroughly against the regime. Um and there is information that says that all of them see this as a unique opportunity. But well let me tell you a Greek proverb. In Greek we we say um right now I would say the cords they can see the cheese but they can also see the mouse trap. So yes there is an opportunity but at the same time and as for example most of them but for example Bafel Talibani was saying in that interview in uh in Fox News we haven't seen any of the hypothetical components of the plan. Yeah. of the of the conceived plan about this like we haven't seen um any potential for a mass uprising or and most importantly we haven't seen like a um any kind of thorough weak weakening of the regime. Now my initial information already like from like at least a couple of weeks ago was saying that uh especially in regards to PAC that um they will not move they will not make a move unless they would be thoroughly convinced that the regime is totally weakened and is about to collapse which suggests that it's they they were not planning to be the catalyst of that but rather to move in in a situation um that would breed chaos to protect their own people and this is what I've had reiterated from that side let's say from the broader uh pesak side the ketch let's say um that like what what the pesak is projecting and it is important to look at to to focus at the pesak because the pesak is I would say by very far the one the Iranian police party with the most military capacity Um and what they are projecting is something like a strategy of non-alignment something that they call the third road and so on. So they they want to project like a neither with us and Israel nor with the uh with the regime. And um the way they're describing this is that we can see we can see what's happening. We can see the potential of enormous chaos and violence erupting. um and we we are mostly preparing we are taking a defensive position and preparing to protect our people and our communities. So this is uh you know which which is a different scenario than the one uh being floated uh uh so far. Uh so given that and I think and this kind of logic although there are differences within the parties and other part like for example I think anyone can see that parties like the pack um for example have consistently been more eager more openly eager to seek an alliance with Israel uh and yet this logic that we don't see the conditions for such a plan to go forward are really here seems to by now be reflected by all the parties. So there is this there is this contradiction like despite that despite the the distinct presence of information that suggests that no this is going to happen you know and uh I I'm not convict I don't believe it very much you know so e even the most militant and the and the most willing to side with Israel Kurdish factions are saying we'll get we'll get more of the mousetrap than we'll get the cheese if we go right It seems so. Yes. Yes. It seems so that no one It seems that no one really thinks and again there's contradictory statements being made here. But that's part of a general environment of ambiguity I would say. Uh but yes it seems that nobody really thinks that this is like that the the ground is ready for for this. And of course, this is part of a negotiation as well where people are, you know, saying that, well, we're going to need more uh guarantees from the United States and so on, which is also, I guess, what is also quite relevant here is the very recent history. Like I said, there's a long line of like uh betrayal of the Kuds if you like. Well, the most recent one is like only like a few months ago um in January in in uh uh in northeast Syria that we've also reported about. Yeah. Um [clears throat] and people can check that. But so this is very recent and people are referencing that. People even specifically from Pesak have been referencing that. But you know, well, we've seen we've seen this kind of thing playing out like we we don't necessarily trust the process. Say yeah. Uh how last question for me Sulammania was getting hit um pretty heavily a little while ago. What has that faded as as the kind of possibility of this incursion has seemed to politically recede even even as you know rumors circulate that it might still happen? Like what like how are you doing? What's the and what's the what's the situation been when it comes to bombing of the city that you're in? Here's another thing worth explaining a little bit in terms of the differences between those two parties I mentioned before, the KDP and the PUK. Now the PUK has a longstanding tradition of having um fairly good relations with Tehran and also [clears throat] and also fairly good uh like um like a focus on Baghdad politics um and um and also lately like Bafel Talibani to to a large extent like consolidated and expanded his power um by siding with the Shia political settlements um in uh um in Baghdad um and and so on. So, so basically, so the the PUK is in a is in a rather difficult position, you might say, being caught up between Washington and Theran in this kind of situation. And that's but and that also reflects the reluctance of both the both the official political leadership but also the people here like the people there's a different kind of you know relationship with Iran like the the um deputy chief of the police when that had discussion was even mentioning that uh in like when the um uh he was referring to the um Anfal campaign massacre in back then like when we were being massacred only Iran helped us you know so there is this there is a little bit of this vibe as well um uh going on so given all that but also perhaps more importantly given that in and around their bill is where most of the American presence here is right there is not as much um American assets around here hence uh this area has been targeted much less than air bill. Air Bill was heavily targeted by the way just now and there and six Peshmerga died just last night which is quite an escalation by the way. Six Peshmerga died and Peshmerga is the Kurdish military um and another were injured. Um uh so yeah so so here um there is less American presence but also there is less air defenses like there's not much there's no um apparently there's no serum although and I say this with some um um how can I I haven't been able to like independently verify this but um what I'm hearing is that uh in in uh in air bill uh as well as previously in Baghdad we're they're collapsing the bases, you know, and all that. Like uh uh it there is a rumor, let's say, that the Americans are running out of CRAM because the FPVs um are a bit of a game changer. The FPV the FPV drones that is. Got it. Got it. Um M if you don't have anything else, I think that does it does it for me for Alexis. This is this has been um really helpful. I know you're staying a lot longer than you had planned to as this war broke out. Um hopefully you're able. There's kind of no way out for me right now. Um yeah, G given my um well, let's say my past. Um right, the road to Turkey is a bit blocked for me. So I I and every every other and every other way is deemed too dangerous to to risk, right? I guess it's getting a bit increasingly frustrating, but um well, we'll we'll see. Well, glad we could keep you company while you're stuck there for a little while. Yes. Yes. Thanks. Great to be with you guys. Yeah. Join. Thank you very much. Don't don't don't close out when you log off so that we can um you know so that your file uploads. But thank you so much for uh for joining us. Um and Ma next will we can play the uh the pre-taped interview that we did um with Pria Parcy. But curious if you have anything kind of to add about the the the dynamics that we're seeing unfold here. the US. Um, it's it's kind of it kind of raises this question of how often the US can utterly betray its either allies or its adversaries. Adversaries when it invites them into negotiations and then kills them. Like, you know, at some point you do enough red weddings, people stop coming to your stop accepting your wedding invites. Um, and when it comes to the allies, as as he points out, the the Kurds were, everybody warned the Kurds, the US is going to betray you. Chapter : Kurds Betrayed by U.S. Um, and then they did it, you know, they did it, Trump has now done it tw done it twice or three times, depending on how uh you count it and counting both of his terms. uh the US it's it's a long US has a very long tradition of um as he said kind of instrumentalizing and weaponizing uh the Kurds and their separatist ambitions and then betraying them once the once the US you know useful once the usefulness either for the US or for Turkey or for anybody else um has has expired. Um yeah any any thoughts on these these dynamics? It it does suggest that the Kurds who as he said um many of them have absolutely no love for the Iranian government and would love to see it topple and and which would then allow them to develop more autonomy in the Kurdish region of Iran. They don't see it happening. They're on the ground uh and they they're like, "Well, it looks like US and Israel aren't pulling this off." Well, you know, Ryan, what you mentioned at the beginning, this policy of killing negotiators and uh you know, attacking negotiations in the midst of them, this is such an unprecedented behavior. This was not even done in World War II between belligerents. That was seen such extremely damaging thing to do because at some point, even with your worst enemy, uh you do want to find a way of ending it for your own interests if not for theirs. So for that reason they would never do that and the US is now doing it as a regular component of policy such that predictably uh forthcoming negotiations are viewed with suspicion and uh lack of credibility and so forth. And likewise visav this Kurdish situation the way that uh this attempted uprising or this attempt to instigate an uprising took place as Alexis discussed it was very haphazard. It was almost uh you it was really quite insulting and many Kurds were insulted actually by the way that it came about. There was a statement from the uh first lady of Iraq who's also a Kurdish uh longtime Kurdish political figure. She said that the we're not your hired guns. Uh literally they were trying to treat them as you know force them into a conflict that they had not prepared for that they would not deem as ripe and so forth. uh and and that again is very damaging to any sort of relationship with them in the future one way or another because nobody they're not stupid and they're not mercenaries. They don't want to be employed in this way. They have their own national aspirations. Uh so all these things suggest to me sort of an institutional decay in the United States which is Chapter : ‘Institutional Decay’ in U.S. manifesting this increasingly erratic uh and reckless foreign policy. you see a lack of uh commitment to norms which were beneficial to the US as well too and a lack of ideological cohesion because this is all happening in the context where the US government issued a national security strategy like a year ago saying that they're done with the Middle East and now we're fighting war with Iran. We're trying to instigate a Kurdish uprising. We're talking about ground invasions in Iran now less than a year. The inability to stick have ideological cohesion to your own ideology that you state you believe is also a sign of breakdown. So I think we're seeing a situation where there's no real plan. There's a lot of improvisation. Uh tremendous harm is being done to people in the region, to the global economy, to many Americans as well. Uh this is something which is I think is all manifesting in that context. A and I do think that you know if they were trying to have a Kurdish uprising in Iran, this would be planned for years. You get their buy in beforehand. You'd have all the steps in place to do that when the time came about. They're just trying to kind of like wing it and build a plane while it's flying. And I think at some point you have a limited traction to be able to do that. And you know, it's not surprising to me that they're reticent of getting involved in this because of course if the US doesn't have a plan to support you, there's no plan to support what happens the day after uh the war begins or the day after it ends. And there's a real collapse in credibility that you can see on display here. uh Trump according to the reporting uh called Barzani who's a you know the guy who runs the the western you know the western side of the Kurdish region which which by itself is you know curious from a strategic perspective what you need is the PUK like it's it's good to have you know the KDP and you know it's good to have the Barzani clan is very powerful supportive of whatever you're going to do in Iran but you can just look at a map like you'd have to go you have to go through through the PUK territory so anyway In any event, he's on the phone with Barzani and he this according to the reporting and Lindsey Graham also kind of said this out loud. He gave gave him a real like you're with us or against us speech like you either do this for us or we're going or we're going to destroy you or allow you to be destroyed. you know, this the very kind of mafiaesque kind of ultimatums that that Trump is is fond of delivering, but without but now without the mafia level followthrough like the mafia, you know, it's a deal you can't refuse from the mob because the because you know the mob is actually they're they're going to put a horse head next to you. You know, they're going to kill your family. They're going to firebomb your your grocery store. Um, Barzani and Talibani, as far as we can tell at this point, have said, you know, thanks, but no thanks. And so you have the Trump administration delivering these extraordinary existential level threats to relatively extremely minor, you know, powers and who are very dependent on the United States, particularly, you know, the the Kurds in in Herbiel as he as he said, like this entire economy is organized around a lot of, you know, foreign presence and US military presence and they told him no. And so far, at least he has not destroyed them. Like, so he keeps making these ma massive threats. We're we're going to bomb all of Iran's, you know, civilian infrastructure and plunge it into darkness. Um, and then he doesn't. Now, I'm not at all suggesting that the world would be a better place if he followed through with all of his insane threats. Um, but there there is a world in which the US's ability [clears throat] to kind of make threats is substantially diminished. um by by Trump just, you know, popping off constantly and then not with with no not not just not following through, but really no plan to even to even follow through. You know, that that level of improvisation does also give me the fear that they may end up doing it. Uh even though it's not in the US interest to bomb Iran's energy facilities and so forth because of what Iran will do when the global economy do you said you'd do it? Yeah, they may still do it just because uh there doesn't seem to be like a professional decision-making apparatus in place for these sort of very consequential decisions. So, you know, I think that we're also entering a period where the US and this stayed by US politicians. The messaging from the Trump administration is that they're in a position where they're freely admitting that the only thing that matters is strength and power and that's the idea of politics period is woke and it's not something that we do anymore. We just have lethality and so forth. But you know the US not omnipotent. It's not a limitlessly powerful country. It's extremely powerful. It can and has done tremendous amount of damage uh in Iran in in other parts of the Middle East and it can do so for many years. But you don't have the ability to coersse everyone to do everything you want in the short term without any consideration of their interest indefinitely. I don't think that they are that powerful and they not even able to really subdue the Iranians or compel them to a seed to American terms even after unleashing this tremendous destruction on them as well. So if you're in a position where you said that the only thing matters is might and then you discover that you're not actually as mighty as you thought you were uh then what you have to go back to the tools of persuasion and ideological attractiveness and uh you know incentivization of people's own interests to get them to work with you. Uh that said, I don't even know what the US really wants in the situation. What is the US goal in Iran? What was the goal of the war per se? Uh these questions need to be answered before you answer the question of what is the goal of the Kurdish insurgency? Is the goal of the Kurdish insurgency to topple the sgovernment in Thran? Kurds are a very small minority in Iran and geographically it doesn't really make a lot of sense either. Is it just to cause an independent Kurdistan to be created uh in Iran and to cause a breakup of these countries to create a new Kurdish state? Well, countries which are very close with the US like Turkey are very against that and many countries pretty much all US countries are status quo powers vis the borders of the Middle East. So what's the plan for getting around that? It seems like the Turks objected to this and that's kind of why they part of the reason they backed off on it as well too. So again there's not really you know it's hard to even answer the question because no one knows what the macro context this is taking place in is I think that for that reason it's even more dangerous because there could be the potential that yes the US will take very extreme steps they will forment civil war and chaos destruction of global economy destruction of regional countries uh simply because they don't really have a plan and they don't know what they're doing per se and they're responding to short-term events or even trying to manipulate the stock market and global oil prices in the short term to profit. it. That's the very dangerous situation we're in. And again, I do think it's reflective of a collapse of a very intricate and in many ways sophisticated uh imperial architecture that have been built uh globally by pre predecessors to Trump and which is now, you know, has no they show no signs of being able to maintain. Yeah. And so on that on that front, let's let's let's play a little bit of let's play the uh treat parsy interview that we pre-taped and when we come back from it um we could I can talk a little bit about um what I saw uh in Cuba uh and what the what the kind of US sanctions, terror designation, embargo, oil blockade um are are doing there and what the nature of the trip was because I've seen it it when I when I got back I saw it it made kind of major national tabloid news. Even the New York Times wrote a piece about how Hassan uh went to Cuba, like just an incredible kind of headline. I thought I thought it was a madeup screenshot at one point. sI'm like, it's not possible that we are blockading oil from million plus people for three straight months, driving them into, you know, hunger and misery. Uh, and the New York Times headline is about Hassan Hassan Biker. No offense to Hassan, but like come on. like that. I don't hard to see how that is how that is and and uh and the free press wrote about how like Hassan Jeremy Corbin, and and content creator Ryan Grimmer like over uh preaching revolution in Cuba. So, we can talk about some of that idiocy. But first, let's roll um our uh interview with Tita Parsey. Us now is Tria Parcy. is an analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and he's also the author of Chapter : Trita Parsi Unpacks New Phase of Iran War his new Substack which I suggest everybody sign up for. Uh just search Tria Parsy uh in Substack. Uh so you can get his analysis right in your uh inbox there. Um so let's let's welcome uh Treata Parcy also of course um here still with my colleague Martaza Hussein. Trita, thank you so much for uh joining us. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Uh so I wanted to talk about uh some some of the analysis that you were offering related to the uh energy industry and the way that uh Trump has almost de facto uh lifted sanctions temporarily on Iran. But before we get into that, I was uh in in Cuba doing some reporting over the last uh to days and so and the internet there is you know very difficult particularly for foreigners um to access your your VPN is in and out the diff, you know, the different cellular data uh is is tricky. So I was only able to follow things kind of intermittently. I got the sense that I could have missed the entire thing. Also, I I gather that there was uh a hour deadline that was uh that was announced by President Trump. Um and then that deadline went to nothing.
