OPCW Forced To Pay Damages To Whistleblower Who Found Evidence Of False Flag In Syria
The Dissident | April 30, 2026
After years of a continued cover-up, the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) has been forced by the International Labour Organization to pay damages to Dr. Brendan Whelan, an OPCW scientist who found evidence that the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, that took place in 2018, was a false flag.
Evidence Of A False Flag Uncovered
For context, in April of 2018, the U.S., UK, and France bombed the Syrian government in response to allegations that the former Assad regime used chemical weapons on civilians in the town of Douma.
The bombing took place before inspectors from the OPCW were able to visit the scene in Douma, and the evidence for the chemical attack was based on videos and photos put out by rebel groups, which showed dead civilians foaming at the mouth and two cylinders “found” on a roof of an apartment and on a bed.
However, once the OPCW team was able to inspect Douma, they found a significant body of evidence suggesting the attack was a false flag used to trigger Western intervention.
Ian Henderson, one of the inspectors at the scene, found that the two chlorine cylinders found at the scene were “manually placed rather than being delivered by aircraft”.
Going into further detail on this assessment, Henderson explained in his book released last year that , the damage of the cylinder found at location two did not match up with the damage to the roof at the location, signalling that the cylinder was placed in an already existing crater.
Above: What the cylinder looks like at the location (picture one) vs. what it should have looked like compared to the damage to the roof (picture 2)
“The smooth unsullied nose of the Location 2 cylinder remains the contrary smoking gun” Henderson notes in his book.
Similarly, Brendan Whelan found further evidence that the attack was a false flag.
No evidence of Sarin was found at the scene, but trace amounts of Chlorine were found, leading the official narrative to be that there was a chlorine gas attack at the scene.
However, Whelan spoke to NATO state based experts who ruled out the possibility that chlorine was used at the scene based on the videos and images put out.
The minutes from the meeting with toxicology experts reads that “the experts were conclusive in their statement that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure. In particular, they stated that the onset of excessive frothing, as a result of pulmonary edema, observed in the photos and reported by witnesses would not occur in the short time period between the reported occurrence of the alleged incident and the time the videos were recorded (approximately 3-4 hours)”.
“The key ‘take away message’ from the meeting was that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine”, the minutes from the meeting added.
Brendan Whelan wrote a final interim report on the Douma case, which incorporated these findings.
The report written by Whelan writes that “Some of the signs and symptoms described by witnesses and noted in photos and video recordings taken by witnesses, of the alleged chemical victims, are not consistent with exposure to choking agents such as chlorine or phosgene” and adds that, “The FFM team is unable to provide satisfactory explanations for the relatively moderate damage to the cylinders allegedly dropped from an unknown height, compared to the destruction caused to the rebar-reinforced concrete roofs”.
A Cover-Up Of The Evidence
The officially released OPCW interim report, however, made no mention of the above evidence and instead implied that a chlorine attack took place in Douma by the Assad regime.
Instead of addressing the concerns of Henderson and Whelan, or providing a scientific answer to the evidence they uncovered, the OPCW resorted to smears in an attempt to discredit them- a campaign that ramped up after the initial work of the OPCW investigation was leaked and released on WikiLeaks.
Ian Henderson has previously given his account of the cover-up in his aforementioned book, which I previously detailed in a summary .
But now, after a long legal battle, the OPCW has been forced to pay damages to Brendan Whelan and to reverse it decision to bar him from ever working at the OPCW again by the UN court, the International Labour Organisation.
The court ruled, in reference to disciplinary measures brought by the OPCW against Brendan Whelan, that, “There was a requirement to observe due process at the disciplinary state prior to the imposition of any sanction upon to the complainant. According to the OPCW staff regulations and interim staff rules, no disciplinary proceeding may be instituted against a staff members unless he or she had been notified of the allegations against him or her, as well as of the right to seek assistance in his or her defence and be given a responsible opportunity to respond to those allegations. These steps were not taken before the director general issues disciplinary measures against the complaint to the extent that the complainant was not provided with the charges. He was also not provided with a copy of the full investigation report. The complaint right to due process before those measures were imposed upon him was violated.”
The court ruled that “The OPCW should pay the complainant 20,000 euros in moral damages” and that “the OPCW shall also pay the complainant 2000 euros in other costs”.
Now- after this vindication- Whelan has written an article at the Substack of journalist Aaron Mate, detailing what he went through at the OPCW.
Whelan revealed that the OPCW accused him of being behind the leak of the above engineering assessment “despite having left the Organisation some eight months before the leak”.
He added that, “I asked, repeatedly, to be told the precise allegations against me; a right not only enshrined in law but in the Organisation’s protocols. They refused to elaborate or specify any charges. At that point, I ended any collaboration with an investigation that was contemptuous of the requirements for due process. The investigation proceeded regardless.”
Despite the fact that “The official investigation report, for lack of evidence, had formally exonerated Inspectors A and B [Whelan and Henderson] (as my colleague and I were referred to respectively) from leaking the sensitive document” the OPCW basely claimed the two had “deliberately and in premeditated’ fashion enabled the leak by failing to comply with the ‘specified procedures for the handling of confidential information so as to create a clear risk of unauthorised disclosure.’”
He noted that this attack was done by the OPCW in order to get out of responding to the above engineering and toxicology assessments, writing:
It was no coincidence that I and my colleague—the only individuals investigated for the leak—had protested against bias and malpractice in the conduct of the OPCW’s Douma investigation, and, in my case, had been sidelined from the investigation for doing so. The OPCW had refused to address our concerns, which had since become a public controversy. The aim of the leak inquiry, therefore, was to attack our credibility without having to refute our scientific arguments.
For this, Whelan was “issued with a letter of censure and a lifetime ban from future employment with the Organisation I had served diligently for seventeen years.”
He added that, “As the legacy media had been heavily invested in maintaining the Western line that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons in Douma, the OPCW’s ad hominem attacks on the two dissenting inspectors were treated as a vindication of the official narrative.”
This included articles in the Guardian, Reuters, and the Western government sponsored Bellingcat, which repeated the false line that Whelan and Henderson were somehow responsible for the leak.
Then, after Whelan took the issue to the International Labour Organisation, the OPCW changed it’s story, now claiming that Whelan made a “serious breach of confidentiality” because he sent a letter to the OPCW chief of cabinet expressing concern over “the suppression of the team’s Douma report and a secretive attempt to publish a doctored version”.
The new allegation from the OPCW against Whelan was now a claim that “The Appellant forwarded an email exchange between himself and the former Chief of Cabinet to Director-OSP which contained specific and detailed information about evidence gathered by the FFM [Fact-Finding mission] investigators in Douma”.
“The ‘specific and detailed information’ they were referring to was a statement in my email to the Chief of Cabinet protesting the fact that the doctored report made the unsupported claim that ‘the team had sufficient evidence to determine that chlorine was released from two cylinders.’ This statement, despite being without basis, was ‘highly protected’, they said, and shouldn’t have been shared with the senior director” Whelan added.
He added, “In other words, by informing the Director of the Office of Special Projects of a phoney claim that had been fraudulently inserted into the team’s Douma report, I was committing a ‘serious breach of confidentiality.’ It is worth noting that, because it was challenged, this unfounded assertion was omitted from the final Douma report.”
The OPCW, referring to a letter sent by Whelan to the director general of the OPCW, also claimed that it, “contained specific and detailed information gathered by FFM investigators from toxicology experts. In creating and disseminating this letter, he failed to comply with the specified procedures for the handling, protection, release, and dissemination of confidential information so as to create a clear risk of unauthorised disclosure”.
“What was also significant about this new allegation was that it was the first time management has officially acknowledged this meeting with the German toxicologists. Even mention of it was excluded from the inspection timelines in official reports. By extension, it was the first tacit admission that this crucial piece of evidence was censored from the Douma investigation,” Whelan added.
The OPCW also claimed that Whelan has “sowed discord within the Organisation”, “By sharing information ‘within the Secretariat [emphasis added] [I]caused a staff member to call into question the integrity of the Organisation’s findings in Douma.’”
In other words, the complaint from the OPCW against Whelan was that he raised his concerns that the OPCW investigation was compromised and by providing solid evidence that the toxicology report was censored, a senior OPCW director began to (correctly) believe that the investigation had been compromised.
Now that the International Labour Organization has ruled that the OPCW acted unlawfully against Whelan, it again shows that the OPCW refused to engage with Brendan Whelan and Ian Henderson’s scientific findings and instead engaged in a cover-up to forward the Western narrative about Syria.
Iran FM to hold no talks with Americans in Islamabad; US media lied again: Report
Press TV – April 24, 2026
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will not hold any talks with US officials during his underway visit to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, despite CNN’s claiming otherwise, a report says.
On Friday, Tasnim News Agency rebuffed a report published earlier by the network concerning the top diplomat’s visit to the city, which is to be followed by trips to the Omani capital Muscat and the Russian capital Moscow.
CNN claimed that Donald Trump intended to send regional envoy Steve Witkoff as well as the US president’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner to Pakistan for “negotiations with Araghchi.”
Commenting on the report, Tasnim wrote, “This is despite the fact that, at present, no negotiations with the Americans are on the agenda at all, and Mr. Araghchi’s trip to Islamabad is not for talks with the United States.”
Rather, the foreign minister will discuss with the Pakistani side Iran’s considerations regarding cessation of unprovoked aggression against the Islamic Republic, the agency added.
It noted how Araghchi, himself, has officially stated that the purpose of these visits was close coordination with partners on “bilateral” issues and consultation on regional developments.
However, “US officials and media outlets have, for more than 10 days, been fabricating narratives about a new round of negotiations, with several false reports being published almost daily regarding the start of talks,” Tasnim wrote.
“In one of the most unusual cases, US media and officials claimed for more than three days that JD Vance, Trump’s vice president, was on his way, yet he never arrived at the destination!”
Iran and the United States held a first round of talks in Islamabad earlier this month. However, the process stopped short of yielding an agreement amid Washington’s maximalist demands and its insistence on its unreasonable positions.
The Islamic Republic has categorically refused to rejoin the process unless the US lifted an illegal blockade it has imposed on Iranian vessels and ports. Tehran has also asserted that, as long as the blockade is still in place, it has no intention of reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz that it has shut down to all traffic in retaliation.
How A Fake Iranian Terror Group Was Invented To Proscribe IRGC in Europe
The story of Ashab al-Yamin
By David Miller | Tracking Power update | April 21, 2026
Now that several more “attacks” have been credited to this fake group, here is my investigation on the topic.
A series of arson attacks and alleged incidents targeting alleged Jewish-linked sites across Europe have been attributed to a little-known group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), or Ashab al-Yamin. The group has been widely described in media and security circles as an Iran-backed network, allegedly linked to the IRGC.
Since March 9, HAYI has been credited with what some analysts describe as “hybrid warfare” style operations spanning multiple countries from Greece and Belgium to France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Among the most high-profile incidents was the burning of four ambulances in Golders Green, North London, on March 22.
The emergence of this group coincides with the escalation of the US-Israeli war against Iran. In parallel, media outlets and pro-war commentators have warned that Tehran could expand the conflict by carrying out attacks across Europe.
But a closer examination raises serious questions about its actual existence and the pro-Israel groups pushing this narrative.
Several of the incidents attributed to HAYI do not appear to have directly targeted Jewish communities. Others remain murky, with limited verified information about the perpetrators. And beyond scattered claims and online statements, there is little concrete evidence that this group as described actually exists.
In the fog of war, narratives can move faster than facts.
At the same time, governments across Europe and the UK are moving to formally designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization — a policy long pushed by pro-war, pro-Israel lobbying networks. Many of the same actors amplifying the HAYI narrative are also leading that campaign within Western media to manufacture consent for war and accelerate this political objective of proscription. While raising the possibility that unverified claims of an Iran-linked threat are being leveraged to shape public fear and justify sweeping new security measures tied to the widening war.
This investigation examines each reported attack, the sources promoting the HAYI narrative, and how claims of a coordinated campaign may be shaping public perception — fueling fears of rising antisemitism, calls for expanded security measures and proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation amid an illegal war.
But what is Ashab al-Yamin? Where did it come from and does it exist at all?
This investigation reveals that there is no such group. It appears to be a fictional cut out. Half of its reported activities simply did not occur. The other half were so amateurish, and inconsequential – with not a single injury – One theory is that they may have been messily undertaken by hired gig criminals and/or incompetent Sayanim, the name given to Mossad’s network of little helpers in countries all over the world. This investigative analysis shows that even the Zionist regime and its assets in establishment think tanks acknowledge that so-called “gig criminals” have been involved in this series of events, in a striking parallel with similar events in Australia (fourteen of them between October 2024 and January 2025) which were similarly low impact with no casualties, declared to be “fake” by Australian police in March 2025. … continue
Iran’s judiciary rejects Trump’s claim on ‘planned execution’ of 8 women
Press TV – April 21, 2026
Iran’s Judiciary has dismissed claims by US President Donald Trump that eight women are facing imminent execution in Iran.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Judiciary clarified that some of these individuals have been released, while others are facing charges that, if upheld by the court, may lead to imprisonment.
“Trump was misled once again by fake news,” the statement said.
Trump requested clemency on their behalf in a post on social media earlier in the day.
The Judiciary also stated that following the foreign-backed riots in January, Trump made a baseless assertion, falsely thanking Iran for halting the execution of more than 800 prisoners—a completely baseless claim lacking any credible evidence.
“It’s not surprising, as this marks yet another instance of his misleading assertions,” the statement read.
In recent days, Trump has reiterated a similar unfounded claim, referencing anti-Iranian media reports.
In his latest social media post, Trump re-posted an American-Jewish activist’s claim that eight women are facing execution, urging the Iranian leadership to release the eight.
He also claimed that the women’s release could be a great start to US-Iran negotiations.
In recent months, numerous false claims regarding purported death sentences for various individuals have circulated in anti-Iranian media.
How I fell foul of the BBC thought police
By Charlie Spedding | TCW Defending Freedom | April 5, 2026
THE BBC recently featured a United Nations report which claimed the Earth’s ‘Energy Balance’ was dangerously disrupted by excess heat caused by rising carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. This is false for many reasons, but rather than explain why, I want to discuss the BBC.
This story was on the evening news and also on the website. I read many of the comments posted online. The majority were worried and adamant that we must ‘do something before it is too late’. I wanted to reassure people that there is nothing happening to the climate that could be described as a crisis and carbon dioxide is not the control knob of planetary weather patterns. I decided it was best to direct them towards some of the world’s leading physicists rather than attempt to explain it myself. This is what I tried to post on the BBC website:
‘May I respectfully suggest that everyone worried about a man-made climate crisis do some research. I recommend the work of Prof Richard Lindzen, Prof William Happer, Prof Willie Soon, Nobel Laureate John Clauser and the CO2 Coalition. Most people don’t realise how much we are all manipulated by vested interests including the mainstream media. Be smarter than most and learn from world experts.’
The website moderators informed me that my post had been deleted because it broke their house rules: ‘We reserve the right to fail comments which . . . are considered likely to disrupt, provoke, attack or offend others, are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable; contain swear words or other language likely to offend.’
I appealed against their decision, not because I expected them to change their minds, but because it gave me the opportunity to ask which part of my post they considered to be ‘sexist, racist, homophobic or abusive’. This was their response: ‘In this instance, we believe the moderator made the correct decision so we will be unable to uphold your appeal. Due to the volume of correspondence we receive, we are unable to discuss this matter further.’
They were confident the ‘rules’ had been broken but would not tell me which part of my message transgressed which part of their rules. I didn’t express an opinion about the climate but suggested that the opinion of world-renowned specialist scientists was worth reading. Did the BBC object to this, or was it my reference to manipulation by the mainstream media? I included that comment in reference to the BBC’s Environmental Correspondent, Justin Rowlatt, who was found to have lied about the climate in a 2022 BBC Panorama programme called Wild Weather. He said deaths worldwide were rising due to extreme weather caused by climate change – whereas the opposite is true.
The BBC’s Charter states that ‘The Mission of the BBC is to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.’
The Public Purposes of the BBC are ‘To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them.’
When it comes to coverage of the climate the BBC is not impartial, high-quality or informative. In this case, it has blocked an opportunity for people to discover high-quality scientific research from around the world. I am firmly of the opinion that I am not the one breaking rules; it is the BBC which is ignoring its own rules and charter.
Barak Ravid Launders Deception To Allow Trump To Back Off Of His Power Plant Threat – Again
The Dissident | April 6, 2026
The Trump administration is seemingly creating another deception, claiming that Iran wants to give concessions to the United States to yet again back off on its threat to target Iranian power plants and bridges if they do not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz.
For context, Trump took to Truth Social and in an unhinged message wrote , “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!” later adding that this planned war crime will take place, “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”.
Iran, remained defiant and did not give in to Trump’s threats, with the Iranian IRCG saying , “We have consistently declared that any aggression against civilian targets will be met with extensive responses against enemy interests anywhere in the region” adding that “any repeated attacks on civilian facilities will trigger a second stage of the operation, which will be far more forceful, doubling the losses for the aggressors” stating, “We reiterate: if you commit further acts of aggression against civilian facilities, our responses will be even more crushing”.
Just in time for Trump to back off from his threat against Iran, Axios journalist Barak Ravid-who was previously with Israel’s Unit 8200 and repeatedly launders U.S. and Israeli national security state propaganda and controlled leaks as news report- put out an article claiming that “The U.S., Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war, according to four U.S., Israeli and regional sources with knowledge of the talks.”
According to Ravid’s “report” “this last-ditch effort is the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war that will include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and a retaliation against energy and water facilities in the Gulf states” and that “the mediators are discussing with the parties the terms for [a] two-phased deal; the first phase would [be] a potential 45-day ceasefire during which a permanent end to the war would be negotiated.”
But this “report” seems to be yet another deception laundered to allow Trump to back off on his threats – knowing that they did not work in scaring Iran into opening the Strait of Hormuz, and fearing Iran’s retaliatory strikes if Trump follows through.
As even Barak Ravid’s report acknowledges, “the mediators are highly concerned that the Iranian retaliation for a U.S.-Israeli strike on the country’s energy infrastructure would be destructive for Gulf countries’ oil and water facilities.”
Not The First Time
The most conclusive evidence that Ravid’s report was a deception through a controlled leak is that he previously laundered a fake news report to allow Trump to get out of his initial threat against Iranian Nuclear power plants.
On March 21st, Trump first wrote on Truth Social, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”.
Iran did not give in to Trump’s threats, with Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari saying , “If Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by the enemy, all energy infrastructure, as well as information technology (IT) and water desalination facilities, belonging to the US and the regimes in the region will be targeted pursuant to previous warnings”.
“In case of the slightest attack on the electricity infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the entire region will go dark”, Mehr news, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s IRGC, warned, giving a list of targets which included:
Saudi Arabia
– The Village (near Al-Khobar): gas power plant (4,000+ MW)
– Ras Tanura (Sharqiya Province): major oil and gas facility / power infrastructureUnited Arab Emirates
– Barakah (Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi): nuclear power plant (~5,600 MW)
– Jebel Ali (South Dubai): gas power and desalination complex (multi-GW capacity)
-Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park (Dubai): large-scale solar power projectQatar
– Ras Laffan (north Qatar): gas power plant (one of the largest in Qatar)
– Umm Al Houl (south of Doha): gas power + desalination plant (multi-GW capacity)Kuwait
– Al-Zour South: oil and gas power plant
-Al-Zour North: combined-cycle power plant (multi-GW capacity)
– Shaqaya Energy Park (west Kuwait): solar and wind renewable energy complex
Realizing that Iran was not going to back down in the face of Trump’s threats and fearing Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and the Gulf States – and it’s effect on the global economy – Trump came up with an excuse to postpone the strikes, taking again to Truth Social to say :
I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
Iran, however denied that the talks were taking place at all, with Iran’s Press TV reporting that, “Iran has received messages through some friendly countries over the past few days regarding the US request for negotiations to end the ongoing war” but that “Iran has responded appropriately and based on the Islamic Republic’s principled positions” which includes demands for “a guarantee that war would never take place again, US military bases are closed in the region, and compensations are paid for damages inflicted on Iranian military and civilian structures.”
This was confirmed by journalists Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain, who reported that an Iranian official, off the record, confirmed that “there aren’t any negotiations taking place. The Iranian side has simply communicated its conditions to them, and even that has been done indirectly”.
Trump doubled down on this deception, claiming that he was negotiating with a “a top person” in Iran – who he would not name.
Aiding Trump in laundering this deception was none other than Barak Ravid.
In an article for Axios, Ravid claimed, “U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had been in touch with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf” and that, “the mediating countries were trying to convene a meeting in Islamabad — with Ghalibaf and other officials representing Tehran, and Witkoff, Kushner and possibly Vice President Vance representing the U.S. — possibly later this week.”
But Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – Iran’s hardline speaker of parliament publicly rebuked the report, stating, “Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Irainan officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved. No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”
Iranian media noted that this deception was deployed because “Trump backed down from his threats after realizing that the country would target all power plants in West Asia, warning that any threat to Tehran would be met with a proportional and firm response.”
The most likely explanation behind the Axios report is that an increasingly desperate and mentally declining Trump believed sending an unhinged message on Truth Social would this time make Iran back down and open the Strait of Hormuz.
With Iran yet again remaining defiant against U.S. threats, Trump yet again feared Iran’s retaliatory response to American strikes on power plants and tapped Barak Ravid to deploy another deception that would allow him to postpone the threats yet again.
Tehran: World grown thoroughly exhausted with US-Israeli ‘false flag storylines’
Press TV – March 23, 2026
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says the world has grown thoroughly exhausted with the US-Israeli “false flag storylines.”
In a post on his X account on Monday, Esmaeil Baghaei reacted to the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s stance, which rejected the recent claims by Israeli regime officials regarding Iran’s missile program posing a threat to Europe.
“That even the NATO Secretary General (who is infamously pressing Alliance members to appease the US and support their illegal war on Iran) declines to endorse Israel’s most recent disinformation, speaks volumes: the world has grown thoroughly exhausted with these tired and discredited “false flag” storylines,” he noted.
Israeli officials, over the past two days, claimed the interception of an Iranian missile targeting a British military base in Diego Garcia.
They presented Iran’s missile program as a threat to continental Europe.
The event reportedly happened between Thursday night and Friday morning, according to US media.
The Wall Street Journal and CNN reported that one of the missiles failed mid-flight while the other was hit by a US interceptor fired from a warship.
This comes amid heightened US and Israeli aggression against Iran, where the United States and the Israeli regime launched an unprovoked war of aggression on Iran on February 28, assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as well as several top military commanders.
Iran immediately began to retaliate against the aggression by launching barrages of missiles and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.
Iran has repeatedly warned against US-Israeli “false flag” operations.
The US fell for its own Iran propaganda
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | March 13, 2026
The US government’s mistake with Iran has been that it clearly fell into believing its own lies. Think tanks, donors, paid advisors, lobby groups, and establishment analysts are all responsible for the catastrophic mistakes that have been made in attacking the Islamic Republic.
What was supposed to be a war, destined to be all over in four days, quickly turned into weeks, months, and now, in US President Donald Trump’s own words, a “forever” war. In order to understand why, we have to assess the way the political system in Washington works.
As we now know, US politicians are oftentimes chosen by the donor class. Most of the US Congress and Senate take considerable sums from AIPAC and affiliated pro-Israeli, pro-war donors. The Israeli Lobby not only pays its chosen politicians, but also hands them materials to run through, so that they skip to the Zionist script and position themselves as attack dogs against anyone who stands up to the lobby.
Hiding underneath this, we have think tanks, which are the policy expert wing of the lobbyists. These think tank “experts” are brought in as the brains behind the operation. They shift around between holding positions within different administrations, sitting on boards, and writing briefs or analyses for think tanks.
Then you have the mainstream media, which is owned by many of the same people funding the think tanks and lobby groups, employing articulate individuals to parrot their propaganda. The media itself is a bubble, where the so-called “reputable” outlets rely on each other for validity and help to police the boundaries of the “acceptable” discourse, meaning the likes of the New York Times, BBC, and others.
When it comes to broadcast media in specific, the top suppliers of stories, soundbites, on-the-ground footage, and leads are Reuters, AFP, and the Associated Press. Oftentimes, broadcast media channels will simply copy and paste the leads or descriptions from what these suppliers provide, altering them ever so slightly to suit their channel’s bias. That is why they often use very similar language and report the same stories for their news bulletins. Anyone who has worked in a newsroom knows this to be the case.
This trio of information control, which often intersects and enjoys some crossover, is what pollutes the minds of the masses on a daily basis. This is important to understand in order for the rest of this article to make sense.
Falling for their own lies
In the lead-up to the illegal attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Western ruling class constantly repeated the idea that Iran and its allies were severely weakened. Revelling in what will likely prove to be a pyrrhic victory in Syria, with the installation of a pro-US Zionist collaborator regime in Damascus, the annihilation of Gaza’s infrastructure, along with the severe blows to Hezbollah’s leadership, all three elements of the Zionist information control system began to grow arrogant.
Think Tanks like the Zionist Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) held a series of conferences about the disarmament of Hezbollah and discussed how the so-called Gaza ceasefire was supposed to be weaponized in “Israel’s” favour, while discussing war on Iran as if it was like putting down a once dominant racehorse with a broken leg.
Still, today, if you look at WINEP’s homepage, there are analysis pieces, written by Zionists salivating over a victory over Iran and envisaging how the future will pan out in a West Asia dominated by the Israelis. “The Middle East’s 1919 Moment” and “A Levant Without Militias” discuss the downfall of Iran and Hezbollah, respectively. Even at a time of great crisis for the Zionist entity, they cannot help but fantasize about how they will dominate in the future.
The trio of information control has created a parallel universe for themselves, one which they continue to cling to, for fear of shattering their entire view of reality.
When Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have greatly degraded Iran, it wasn’t just them speaking; they were in lockstep with the think tanks, lobbyists, and donors. Just as was the case when former US envoy to Lebanon, Morgan Ortagus, confidently asserted that Hezbollah was defeated.
For them, assessing the realities on the ground was no longer a priority; what was important was bolstering a narrative that would lead to the war that the Zionist entity desired. In essence, what they had done was fall for their own nonsense.
All of this stems from the psychological blow the Zionist regime and its loyal supremacist backers suffered on October 7, 2023. When a few thousand Palestinian Resistance fighters, armed with light weapons, tore down the illusion of the Israeli surveillance regime and collapsed its southern command within hours, the Zionists went into a kind of mental hysteria.
Suddenly, on that day, it was proven that the theory of Hezbollah’s late Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was correct: “Israel” is indeed weaker than a spider’s web. This meant for them that two things had to be achieved: the first was that their so-called “deterrence capacity” had to be re-established, which they believed would be achieved through committing the world’s first live-streamed genocide.
The second imperative was that the Zionist project had to be rapidly accelerated. At first, this appeared unlikely, yet their perceived successes in Lebanon and Syria appeared to give them the impression that it was possible.
Along comes the second Trump Presidency, which was bought and paid for by the Zionist billionaire class.
Donald Trump, a man with a vocabulary no greater than that of a 10-year-old, is their perfect puppet. Not only this, his entire administration is staffed with ultra-Zionists or paid shills who lack basic intelligence. Therefore, the Zionists saw that this was the perfect time for them to hatch the last phase of their so-called master plan to expand their regime and rule the entire region.
In the process of doing this, the Zionists dismantled the United Nations and the notion of International Law, instead ushering in “the law of the jungle.” There are no longer international norms or red lines, just total chaos.
Meanwhile, as this was going on, the Zionists adopted the attitude toward the global population that they should be scared into submission; should they dare stand up to oppose the tyranny everyone has watched unfold before their very eyes. When they are surprised because things aren’t going their way, they cry victim and, in a fit of rage, attempt to punish you. This is a reflection of their unstable mental state.
All of this is relevant because it explains how we have gotten to this point and why this trio of information control has bought into their own nonsense. The war on Iran was evidently going to be a catastrophe, but they did it anyway. Those of us who have been monitoring the situation could also tell that Lebanese Hezbollah was far from militarily finished, which the Israeli media are now beginning to come to terms with.
What do they do now that the situation is getting out of hand? They censor and desperately lie to cover their tracks. They censor their deaths, lie about the destruction and missile hits, fake air defense victories, and claim tactical and operational military victories that don’t exist. One example of this is the US Trump administration, which claimed to have destroyed Iran’s navy during the first days of the war and still brags about sinking new ships.
The Israelis take things even further: with dozens of military vehicles hit and their soldiers falling into ambush after ambush in Lebanon, only two soldiers have died, according to them. They have even banned the filming of Iranian and Hezbollah missile strikes, threatening their own population with fines and jail time for doing so. Sometimes, they will claim to have intercepted all incoming projectiles or say they fell in open spaces, yet not too long after, published videos show direct hits. It’s getting so bad there, in terms of censorship, that their own people are getting agitated.
These people lived in a “reality” where Hezbollah was weak and Iran was weak, claiming that it had only a few thousand missiles and a handful of launchers; a “reality” in which killing Iran’s leader, Sayyed Ali Khamenei, would instantly lead to regime change, where the Iranian people would suddenly fight against their government because Netanyahu told them so. Perhaps the only thing they don’t believe is their laughable lies about Iranian protester deaths; that nonsense is reserved for the Pahlavist cult.
As the entire planet is witnessing, Iran and the Axis of Resistance that it backs are far from weak. Their determination is strong, and their capabilities are clearly greater than the Zionists expected. The longer this insane arrogance continues, the worse things are going to get, because just as we saw in the Gaza Strip, nobody is about to back down and become the slaves of the terrorist entity occupying Palestine.
Sorry, The New Republic, Climate Change Isn’t Causing Somali Migration. Blame Civil Strife and Poverty.
By Linnea Lueken | Climate Realism | March 10, 2026
The New Republic (TNR) posted an article titled “Somali Immigrants Fled Climate Change. Now They’re Facing ICE,” claiming that Somali migrants in the United States have been driven out of their country by climate-change caused drought. This is false, or at least incomplete. Drought is a natural part of the region, even multi-year drought, and the present one is no different than the region has experienced with some regularity historically. It is civil strife and government corruption, resulting in continued poverty, that is leading Somalis to flee their homeland. With present governing institutions and security, they have been unable to improve water handling practices. Climate change has nothing to do with Somali emigration elsewhere in the region or to the United States, as even those interviewed for the article acknowledge.
TNR undermines its titular claim that unprecedented man-made climate change has forced Somalians to migrate by admitting that Somalian culture has “deep-rooted traditions of movement and migration.” TNR goes on to say that “Somalis have been caught in civil war and unrest for decades, and many have migrated to Kenya, Ethiopia, Europe, and the United States.”
Somehow not noticing the actual central point of that statement, that Somalians often move and that political strife has kept them destabilized, TNR says that climate change plays a “pervasive role” in the migration.
TNR claims that a multi-year drought “made a hundred times more likely due to warming caused by fossil fuel emissions—is affecting Somali people’s decisions to either relocate internally or migrate across international borders.”
Incredibly, later in the article, TNR refutes its own suggestion that this drought is worse, and pushing unprecedented migration, by explaining that this is how farmers have long dealt with drought in Somalia:
Traditionally, Somali pastoralists had resilient ways to deal with changes in rainfall and drought patterns, where families migrated and moved on a regular basis, even crossing borders in the process. But the nature of climatic changes—and conflict—overwhelmed their traditional capacities, leading to more rural-urban migration within the country and in East Africa.
That’s right, severe drought is something Somalians have dealt with for ages, long enough to have known traditions regarding adaptation to the dry periods.
There is no evidence that this drought is worse than those that drove historic migration.
The cited claim that recent drought in Somalia was made “a hundred times more likely” by climate change is not based on sound science. It comes from an attribution study from World Weather Attribution that specifically seeks to tie various weather conditions to human-caused climate change, they do not come to any other conclusions. Climate Realism has gone into the specifics of how unscientific World Weather Attribution studies are here, here, and here.
The TNR piece says that “[f]rom 2020 to 2023, the East Africa region had five failed rainy seasons, an unprecedented drought and climatic episode not seen in 40 years, which led to 70 percent crop loss, three million livestock deaths, and the displacement of about 2.9 million people in Somalia, according to some estimates.”
Admitting that a weather event also happened 40 years ago should tell a writer that their argument about something being “unprecedented” – meaning, without precedent, or never happened before—is faulty.
In fact, studies and data show a long history of swings between severe drought and monsoon floods in the region, and they show that nothing about modern drought is unprecedented. Paleo studies, including one published in Science, show that “intervals of severe drought lasting for periods ranging from decades to centuries are characteristic of the monsoon and are linked to natural variations in Atlantic temperatures.”
Climate Realism has covered this very claim before: In Anthony Watts’ “No, CBS News, Drought in Somalia is Not Being Driven by Climate Change,” he compared natural weather-driving patterns like the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation (AMO) and recent drought in Somalia and found repeated patterns of drought that were similarly severe.
Somalia is part of the Sahel region, and Watts shared this graphic of the region’s rainfall index since 1900, which shows that the rainfall in the Sahel varies widely over time:
Figure 1: More than a century of rainfall data in the Sahel show an unusually wet period from 1950 until 1970 (positive index values), followed by extremely dry years from 1970 to 1991. (negative index values). From 1990 until present rainfall returned to levels slightly below the 1898–1993 average, but year-to-year variability was high. Source: Benedikt Seidl – based on JISAO data
Additionally, comparing crop production data between Somalia and neighboring countries like Ethiopia and Kenya reveals that even when drought impacts East Africa, Somalia is uniquely incapable of maintaining agricultural production. During the same period in which Ethiopia and Kenya saw increasing production in vital cereal crops, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data show Somalia declining. (See figure below)
Is climate change not hitting Kenya and Ethiopia? What is the difference?
While Somalia has a long history of severe, recurring droughts, the worst drought in the past 50 years was the “Long-tailed Drought” from 1973 to 1975. That drought, and a subsequent similarly deadly drought in the early 1980s, occurred when the Earth was in a cooling spell and atmospheric carbon dioxide was much lower than today.
Somalia’s civil war and resulting destruction and corruption is the prime force behind Somalia’s emigration. Ironically, one of the interviewees in the TNR piece says as much:
Drought does not necessarily lead to famine and does not always lead to migration,” said Abdi Samatar, a Somali scholar and geographer at the University of Minnesota […] Somalis were unable to “put Humpty Dumpty back together in their country,” and in the absence of government support, “people have to do what they can for themselves,” Samatar added.
We at Climate Realism could not have said it better ourselves, though we have explained as much in past articles where mainstream outlets tried to link climate change and Somalia’s migration issue.
The New Republic’s effort to tie Somalians fleeing their country for the United States to climate change was a flawed, agenda-driven effort from the start. Even when those interviewed by TNR link the mass exodus of residents from Somali to other factors, TNR persists in pushing the narrative that climate change is playing a “pervasive role.”
It is true that Somalia is suffering through a severe, life threatening drought. It is also true that such droughts are not unprecedented but have been common throughout the region’s history. The nation’s unstable government and the ongoing, long-standing, civil war bear far more of the blame than climate change, especially since there is little or no evidence that Somalia’s climate has changed much over the past century.
The current drought is hitting Somalia’s populace worse than those of nearby countries in the region because of the political instability there. The New Republic was told this by the experts they interviewed but chose to ignore it to advance a climate scare story. Evidently, it’s too much to hope for honest journalism at The New Republic.
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.
Iran War Supporters Invent a New and Absurd Justification: It Is All About China
By Cole Crystal – SYSTEM UPDATE – March 9, 2026
Before Operation Epic Fury began, the Trump administration spent very little energy trying to justify the looming war with Iran. The few defenses they did offer were banal platitudes, just echoes of the case for the Iraq War from more than twenty years ago: that Iran was weeks away from obtaining a nuclear device, that their ballistic missile program posed a significant threat to American assets and allies in the region, and that the Iranian people deserved liberation via regime change.
But not long after the bombing began, a new (admittedly more creative) justification emerged online and in the pro-Israel media that war supporters assume will be more persuasive to those doubting the wisdom of yet another Middle East conflict. The war with Iran, we are now told by many, is not really about Iran at all. It is, instead, all about China.
“Some argue Israel dragged the U.S. into war,” a post from The Free Press reads, “But this conflict is bigger than Israel and Iran — it’s about China.” Another article from The Spectator, a British conservative outlet, sang the same tune: “Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China.” Glenn Beck, on March 2, unveiled C.R.I.N.K., or “the new Axis Powers of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea,” as a way to “understand why Trump attacked Iran.” Fox News’ Jesse Watters told his audience last week that “we are killing two birds with one stone: we stop the number-one sponsor of terror, and we checkmate the Chinese.”
A viral graphic circulated by the Free Press about the motivations for the American-Israeli war against Iran.
At the very least, if China were really the motive, one would have expected the Trump administration to offer this theory — “this is the chance to counter America’s greatest geopolitical rival” — as a major justification to the American people. One would think they would be particularly motivated to do so, given the consensus of polling data showing that public support for this war is far weaker than for any American war in decades.
But Trump officials never mentioned China as a core motive. In fact, even now, the administration and its backers have hardly mentioned China. This is a theory invented out of whole cloth by Iran-war supporters and/or Trump supporters, grasping for some cogent reason why this new war is in Americans’ interests.
Late last week, Senator Lindsey Graham claimed that this conflict is “a religious war” waged by “radical Islamic terrorists.” On March 2, House Speaker Mike Johnson explained to a group of reporters that the United States “determined, because of the exquisite intelligence that [it] had, that if Israel fired on Iran,” then “[Iran] would have immediately retaliated against U.S. personnel and assets.” Therefore, the House Speaker insisted, because the U.S. would be attacked either way, it had to hit Iran with Israel. President Trump announced on Friday that the U.S. intends to select “GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s)” for the Iranian people, in order to make their country “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
These politicians, and many more inside and around the administration, are not talking about China. It has not been cited as a significant motivator for starting this war. Yet if China is really the reason, did the most prominent war supporters simply forget why they went to war, or did they decide it was best to present a false, pretextual case to the American people about why this war was necessary?
Admittedly, this new justification is, at least on the surface, cogent, even if pretextual. China is the most powerful geopolitical competitor to the U.S. No other country buys more sanctioned crude oil from the Iranians, and only Russia has worked more closely with Iran to beef up its military. In 2021, Iran signed a 25-year partnership with China that would reportedly bring $400 billion to Iran’s energy industry. Various weapons deals between the two countries have been reported in recent years, including one to purchase Chinese supersonic missiles that can sink American ships.
Still, none of these events really pertain to, let alone prove, this new claim — that this war with Iran is somehow really about China. At most, they suggest that China may be negatively affected, losing access to cheap oil and its investments. If simply being negatively impacted by this war is the standard for it being “about” another country, then this war is also about Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the rest of the Middle East.
Indeed, many countries could be harmed by the Trump-Netanyahu war in Iran. Japan’s economy could face severe consequences if oil is trapped in the Strait of Hormuz. The South Korean economy last week erased nearly half a trillion dollars, marking the largest drop in their stock market’s 46-year history. Is the war about both of these East Asian countries as well?
Further complicating this point is that China has not exclusively invested in or done business with Iran. Indeed, the People’s Republic has, at least publicly, invested more in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. (That aforementioned $400 billion agreement between Beijing and Tehran still has not materialized.)
Nor is China the largest buyer only of Iran’s oil. It is also often the leading export destination for Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Omani, Saudi, and Qatari crude. Chinese money, in all its forms, is present across the Middle East, from port construction to the telecommunications industry. What’s more, the Chinese are filling gaps that have opened as a result of American reluctance or negligence.
American foreign policy in the Middle East, including wars, has far more often boosted Chinese interests than undermined them. When the United States in the mid-2010s refused to sell MQ-9 Reaper drones to the Saudis and Emiratis, China filled the gap by selling its CH-4 Rainbow and GJ-1 Wing Loong II models. After the United States invaded Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of people, the Chinese were still the first to secure foreign contracts. (To this day, the Chinese are a dominant player in Iraq’s oil industry.) President Biden’s poor relations with the Saudis reportedly played a role in their consideration of settling contracts in Chinese yuan.
One would be forgiven for thinking that many of China’s relationships exist not because of an ideological competition with the U.S., but because capricious or draconian American policy often creates the conditions for Chinese success. This is no less true with Iran, as even the articles proffering this all-about-China theory acknowledge.
“Squeezed by decades of American sanctions and increasingly isolated,” the Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur writes in The Free Press, “Iran turned to China as its economic lifeline.” This lifeline, moreover, “[is] the main reason the Islamic Republic has not gone bankrupt,” according to the conservative Hudson Institute, which is also pushing this about-China theory for the Iran war (see, for instance, its article titled, “The Iran Strike Is All About China”). In other words, the U.S. — not the Chinese — created the conditions for a competitor’s presence in the Middle East.
Theories like this one raise another problem. All of these arguments struggle to provide a comprehensive explanation of how China will be “devastated” by regime change in Iran, but they paint a fairly clear picture of how Iran became dependent on the People’s Republic. Of course, the U.S. gaining total control of the Middle East has implications for Chinese commerce and strategy, as these articles acknowledge. But no serious journalists or scholars have argued that China can currently project military power across the globe, with or without Iran.
Is that not why many of these ideologically aligned institutions warn about China’s nascent, but developing, blue-water navy? If one believes China will one day ‘imperialize’ like the U.S., Americans can wrest the Panama Canal from Chinese companies, attack China’s allies, and encircle the Chinese mainland — for now. Those kinds of actions could very well devastate China. (It would not be the first time Western powers have done something like it.) But Iran is hardly a necessary component of said devastation. If the U.S. really wants to wreck China, it does not need to pulverize Persia.
On top of all this, many of the videos and articles that have virally promoted this claim — that this war is about China, not Iran — seem to ignore the very foreign policy establishment that gave them this war. Mainstream American scholarship on China has been fairly clear: from a strategic perspective, the Chinese are perfectly happy to allow the United States to remain entangled in the Middle East because, by definition, it delays an American “pivot to Asia.” Bizarrely, some of these articles acknowledge this, making the Orwellian argument that the U.S. has to go to war with Iran in order to stop going to war in the Middle East.
And, of course, it would be difficult to ignore the lowest-hanging fruit. Far and away the most common thread that exists between those promoting this all-about-China theory is a devotion to Israel: the Free Press, the Hudson Institute, the Spectator, Fox News, etc. All of these institutions constitute the pro-Israel establishment in the U.S. and U.K. So, when Haviv Rettig Gur writes that Marco Rubio “struggled to explain” why the U.S. was at war with Iran, it is not because Rubio denied that Israel forced America’s hand. He, in fact, confirmed that Israel had compelled an American strike.
Apart from various reports that confirm Rubio’s initial account, such as in the New York Times and the Financial Times, Antony Blinken (his predecessor) recently described an identical story: that the Israelis tried to pressure former President Obama into war with Iran by claiming that if he failed to act, they would strike Iran alone. But, according to Rettig Gur, “It’s hard to take [Rubio’s] explanation at face value,” so the Secretary of State’s candor can be disregarded for another, entirely dreamed up claim. Rettig Gur continues, “If the trigger was simply an Israeli strike, America could have told the Israelis to sit tight. … Goodness knows the U.S. has the leverage to do it again.” That statement seems highly accurate. Unfortunately, some unclear entity — most likely China — prevented the United States from doing that.
Altogether, the claim that Trump went to war with Iran to fight China is more sensational than substantive. It entertains theories of 4D Chess when Yahtzee is a more apt comparison. The Trump administration is rolling the dice for Israel: it has already financed their genocide in Gaza, vaporized prayer circles in Yemen, destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities, granted Benjamin Netanyahu’s wildest wishes, and is now officially at war with Iran. For any hawks eager to embroil the United States in a head-to-head clash with the People’s Republic, the question is not if this latest war was about China — it is whether any of them will be.
Cole Crystal (@colecrystal) was producer and editor for SYSTEM UPDATE with Glenn Greenwald and now has the same title for this Substack. Before joining, he worked for media outlets in the United States. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor’s degree in government and online social movements.
Iran’s latest move in the GCC countries was a stroke of genius
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 9, 2026
After just a week into Donald Trump’s war, there is very little to report which should or could please the U.S. president. Much of America’s infrastructure in the Middle East has been destroyed with U.S. soldiers now housed by hotels in GCC countries as there is nothing left of their bases. The stocks that these countries have as part of their air defence systems is almost depleted as military chiefs argue about how quickly they can be replaced (some THAAD and Patriot systems are being shipped from Japan and South Korea) and Iran is hitting Israel harder and harder each day.
Of course, due to the new draconian rules which Israel has imposed — that no military strikes that Iran succeeds in carrying out can be ‘reported’ on by journalists or even citizens who wish to post it on social media — as well as the comically corrupt, partisan way U.S. news outlets are covering the war, very little bad news gets seen by the public, if any.
Under this set up, it is hardly surprising that Trump went to war, given that he must have factored in a great deal of support from U.S. media, whom he claims to despise. In this regard, we can conclude that media itself is complicit in war crimes, given that it has played a huge role in the decision to go to war and also the day to day reporting of events on the ground.
A good example of the few points of the war which are reported, but done in such a distorted way, is the news that Iran has stopped its bombing of GCC Gulf states. This has been presented as a victory by the U.S. and a climb down by Iran. The truth though is that it is a considerable victory for Tehran as what is not being reported or even examined is the deal that Iran has struck with those countries. None of those countries will allow any kind of military activity now by U.S. forces there, which means the thousands of U.S. soldiers in hotels in these GCC countries might as well head back home as their role there is redundant. Of course it’s unlikely that Trump will move them out as such an event will be captured by many on social media and will look like a great defeat. But some analysts are going further and speculating that there is more bad news for Israel and the U.S. with this latest move. Not only has Iran insisted on no activity at all in these countries by U.S. forces but they have also said that when the war is over, all the bases must be completely shut down.
Sadly, the gesture didn’t hold for long as it is rumoured that Iran’s elite guard was angered by Trump’s response and so the missile attack on the GCC countries continued.
Against a backdrop of rumours spreading throughout the middle east that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar were considering jointly to completely pull out their investment in the U.S., this move, even as a gesture, couldn’t have come at a worse time for Trump.
His media machine is working overtime in spewing out so many fake news reports, like the recent one that the U.S. has total air superiority over Iran, that it will be interesting to see how this is spun in the coming days. But there is nothing but lies from the Trump camp and as a complicit western media scrum is happy to pump out these lies, people are obviously turning to social media or international news channels in the global south, like CGTN and Russia Today. For many Americans, they are simply too dumb to know how to even question the narrative. Where is the video footage to support these preposterous claims that American has air superiority over Iran? Within 24 hours of Trumps B2 bombers hitting nuclear sites in Iran last year in June, media were given video clips of the satellite imagery. So far, the claims by Trump’s people about air superiority, have not been matched with any evidence. None the less U.S. media reports it more or less like it is fact.
It’s a similar story with the claims about the U.S. navy sinking 20 Iranian vessels. Where’s the evidence? If we are to take into account completely defenceless ships like the unarmed frigate that was sunk in international waters after it returned from a joint exercise with India, it would seem that America is on the losing side. Not even Japanese naval strikes in the WWII would blow up enemies’ ships and not then pick up survivors. The Americans left 80 sailors to drown, the same seamen who posed with photos days earlier with Prime Minister Modi, who, it should be pointed out often claims that India is the “guardian of the Indian ocean”, a patently absurd claim. Many believe Modi sold the Iranians out and disclosed its position to the Americans, leaving many to question just how much he can be trusted with his present allies. Will Russia still sell its oil to India after such a betrayal?
It’s clear that the Iran war is already WWIII in many respects. Certainly each side has its partners and media have made much of Russia’s intelligence support to Iran pointing out American positions, while China has given Iran considerable military support both in state of the art radar systems and ground to air missile systems. The sinking of the Iranian ship shows us all the depth of the desperation of America, that it needs to go as far as hunting for Iranian ships thousands of miles away and sinking them, even if they are unarmed as this ship was. Does that look like the act of a confident aggressor on a victory role? Hardly.
It isn’t just that America can barely hold the high moral ground for even a brief, ephemeral media moment, but more that the number of shocking tactical errors by Trump are piling up and having an impact. The failure to see that killing the supreme leader, who has been replaced by a hard liner who has always wanted Iran to have a nuclear deterrent, was a major act of stupidity. Nearly all U.S. wars follow the same pattern of America underestimating its enemy and overestimating its own capabilities and this one is no exception. The move to bring GCC states closer to Iran and turn them against the U.S. is smart and what we could expect from Iran who has had years to prepare for this attack and has been given so many free lessons by America’s blunders — the best one being the June attack which resulted in Iran upping its game and identifying all the weak spots which needed work. The biggest miscalculation probably of all is going to war in the first place believing that regime change would be inevitable in days and therefore no longer-term plans, in terms of military stocks, need to be addressed. America is about to run out of ammo. For the GCC countries, it’s quite possible that the deal might be reinstated in the coming days as a new truth emerges from the war. While Donald Trump tells reporters on Air Force one that Iran was responsible for bombing its own school, GCC leaders will have to wake up to a new reality which is summed up by Henry Kissinger. “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
How An Atrocity Propaganda Campaign Led To The U.S. And Israel Committing Real Atrocities In Iran
The Dissident | March 8, 2026
In their war on Iran, the U.S. and Israel have already committed an endless slew of atrocities against Iranian civilians.
The Iranian Red Crescent has documented that the U.S. and Israel have targeted “9,669 civilian structures, including 7,943 residential homes and 1,617 commercial buildings” along with “several medical and educational facilities”.
Along with this, the U.S. and Israel have so far killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians.
The U.S. and Israel have not hidden the fact that they are slaughtering civilians in Iran.
Benjamin Netanyahu, at the site of an Iranian missile attack, said , “Remember what Amalek did to you. We remember, and we act” in reference to the Hebrew bible verse, “go and destroy Amalek. Destroy all they have, and do not let them live. Kill both man and woman, child and baby.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live” and boasted about unleashing “Death and destruction from the sky all day long”, on Iran.
This war of “Death and destruction” on Iranian civilians and civilian infrastructure, with the goal of destroying Iran as a nation, was only made possible thanks to an atrocity propaganda campaign, designed to portray this criminal war as an act of protecting Iranians from atrocities.
This first began with the U.S. and Israel engineering riots in the country in an attempt to instigate violence that could be used to justify the war.
When protests in Iran broke out before the war due to economic concerns, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was not shy about the fact that the protests were the intended result of U.S. sanctions on the country, saying:
What we can do at treasury, and what we have done, is created a dollar shortage in the country, at a speech at the Economic club in New York in March I outlined the strategy, it came to a swift -and I would say grand- culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under, there was a run in the bank, the central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.
If you look at a speech I gave at the economic club of New York last March, I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse, that if I were an Iranain citizen, I would take my money out.
President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel were pushing propaganda in Iran in an attempt to spur on protests.
The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab uncovered an Israeli bot network in Persian on social media which pushed “content related to the country’s ongoing water and energy crisis” and “energy shortage” in a “likely attempt to continue to escalate tensions between Iranian citizens and their government”.
Damon Wilson, the head of the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy, boasted that the U.S was doing a similar thing, saying:
the endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks, other means, file casting that allowed information to go both in and out of the country (Iran) at a time when the regime tried to hide its brutal crackdown
Part of what we see manifesting is a response that our partners have helped tell the Iranian people the story that the regime has squandered their own resources on supporting proxies throughout the Middle East to the point where they cannot manage their own water supplies for Tehran. And these stories have not just emerged, they are ones that have been covered, documented, and shared with the Iranian people consistently through our work.
We’ve been investing in communication tools over the years that allow for information to be sent into Iran even when internet connectivity is blocked. We specifically began supporting the deployment, the operation of about 200 Starlinks early on
After this, Israeli intelligence infiltrated the protests, which at the beginning were peaceful, in an attempt to turn them violent.
When the protests began, the Persian-language account of the Israeli Mossad wrote, “Let’s all come out to the streets. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are also with you in the field.”
Soon after, Israel’s Channel 14 reported that, “We reported tonight on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.”
After the U.S. and Israel (by their own admission) helped engineer protests and infiltrated them to instigate violence, the mainstream media ran an atrocity propaganda campaign, massively over-inflating the death toll and fabricating a narrative of the Iranian government killing tens of thousands of peaceful protesters.
The atrocity propaganda claims first came from the outlet “Iran International,” which the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said, “ the Mossad is using quite regularly for its information war”.
The atrocity propaganda was eventually amplified by Time Magazine, which wrote an article claiming that “As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone”.
As I previously uncovered, the only named source for the atrocity propaganda claim was Amir Parasta, a German-Iranian eye surgeon and lobbyist for the son of the former U.S. backed Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who was clamouring for a U.S. war on Iran to restore the monarchy.
The evidence-free claim was soon amplified by Deepa Parent, a writer at the Guardian, who boasted that the claims were influencing politicians towards war with Iran, saying, “We don’t need to convince anyone about the massacre the IR has carried out on innocent civilians in Iran. I have trolls in my DMs and replies. Ignore them and don’t give any attention. Decision makers don’t see trolls’ tweets, they see verified accounts and reports.”
Parent soon after published an article in the Guardian amplifying the claim that Iran killed 30,000 protestors in two days- this time citing entirely unnamed sources and not providing a shred of verifiable evidence.
Digging further into Parent, journalists Wyatt Reed and Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone uncovered that she was previously a fashion blogger with no experience on Iran who began to present herself as an expert on the country after getting funding from the CIA-connected, pro regime change billionaire Pierre Omidyar.
They documented:
Before adopting the surname Parent around 2019, The Guardian’s go-to Iran reporter wrote under the name Deepa Kalukuri. Her journalistic output was largely limited to fashion reviews in Indian media. A typical piece published in India’s Just For Women magazine in 2016 was headlined: “Samantha Is Setting Some Serious Fashion Goals! Check Them Out!”
“What’s better than a Little Black Dress for a weekend party? Samantha pairs her LBD with these killer stilettos! We are loving it!!! Have a fashionable weekend!!!!”
Elsewhere, in an article informing Indian housewives that “understanding stocks is not [as] difficult as the news shows” suggested, she explained that investing was actually quite simple: “like a playing a video game but only your favorite batman is replaced with that stock broker who gives you the right advice to invest at the end of the bell.
They added:
When the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests kicked off in September 2022 following the death of a young woman in Iranian custody, the improbable Parent suddenly materialized as The Guardian’s point woman on civic unrest in a nation with which she had no apparent professional or personal experience.
Much of Parent’s work at The Guardian’s so-called “Rights and Freedom” section has been funded by an NGO called Humanity United, which was founded by tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam.
As the Grayzone noted, “Omidyar has partnered with US intelligence cutouts like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy to promote regime change from Ukraine to the Philippines, while advancing various ‘counter-disinformation’ efforts aimed at suppressing anti-establishment viewpoints”.
This propaganda campaign – as should now be clear – was a coordinated effort to spread atrocity propaganda about the Iranian government, in order to give the impression that a war with Iran is “liberating” the people of Iran, paving the way to the mass bombing of Iranian civilians and civilian infrastructure currently unfolding.
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