Austria bars Iran nuclear chief from IAEA summit due to US pressure
The Cradle | September 14, 2026
Iran’s top nuclear official has been blocked from addressing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) general conference in Vienna after pressure from Washington, Bloomberg reported on 14 September, citing a US official.
Iran’s vice president for nuclear affairs, Mohammad Eslami, left Tehran on Saturday and was slated to address the UN nuclear watchdog as part of its 70th General Conference, which began on Monday.
However, Austria denied Eslami entry at the request of the Trump administration, an anonymous US official told Bloomberg.
A spokeswoman for the Austrian government referred questions over the issue to the Foreign Ministry, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“His attendance and early speaking slot could have been seen as lending credibility to Iran,” Bloomberg wrote.
Meanwhile, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright will be given a platform to speak at the conference. He plans to promote US claims that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
While the US has attacked Iranian nuclear facilities, it has never produced evidence that Tehran is developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran has long said its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes and has allowed the IAEA to monitor its activities.
Wright’s planned speech follows a claim from the IAEA that the agency observed nuclear related construction activity at Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain.
President Trump claimed last Wednesday that there was “a little activity at Pickaxe” and warned Iran “not to get cute, because we will have to hit them very hard.”
In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the IAEA and US claims of construction at the site are “part of Washington’s psychological warfare.”
They speak as if a secret and confidential case has been discovered while, in fact, “we are facing fuss for nothing,” Baghaei stated.
Iran submitted a formal request to the IAEA Secretariat to discuss at the conference the topic of “prohibiting all forms of attacks and threats of attack against nuclear sites and facilities that are under Agency safeguards and dedicated to peaceful purposes.”
US influence over the IAEA was apparent last week, when the UN agency referred Iran to the UN Security Council (UNSC) for “non-compliance” with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) treaty.
The board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog passed a resolution at a meeting in Vienna claiming a lack of information on Iran’s nuclear material and the lack of access to nuclear facilities for IAEA inspectors.
The IAEA resolution was tabled by the UK, France, Germany and the US and called for IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to report Iran to the Security Council.
Representatives of 23 countries on the IAEA board of governors voted to approve the measure, while eight abstained. China, Russia and Niger voted against it.
The US and its European allies will likely use the decision to impose new sanctions on Iran through the Security Council.
However, Russia and China could block such efforts with their vetoes.
Tehran condemned the IAEA decision, saying that US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities had disrupted nuclear inspections.
“They attack Iran’s safeguarded nuclear facilities, disrupt the normal process of verification, and then use that very disruption as a pretext to issue a resolution,” Iranian deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi wrote in a post on X.
The US and Israel targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities during their unprovoked 12-day war on the Islamic Republic in June 2025.
Washington and Tel Aviv renewed their aggression against Tehran during 40 days of intense strikes in February of this year.
Invoking 9/11 to justify war against Iran is ‘utterly absurd’: Tehran
Press TV – September 12, 2026
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has rejected US attempts to invoke the anniversary of the September 11 attacks to justify a “reckless and unlawful war” against Iran, saying Washington’s narrative on terrorism is riddled with fundamental contradictions.
In a post on X early Saturday, marking the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Esmaeil Baghaei criticized remarks by the US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on terrorism and Iran.
“The narrative advanced by the US Secretary of War on the anniversary of 9/11 is riddled with fundamental contradictions,” he said.
Baghaei said the US could not simultaneously wage aggression, carry out assassinations, and cause civilian casualties while claiming exclusive authority to define terrorism and determine whose violence was legitimate.
“The perpetrators of 9/11 were not Iranians; they were the very same people whom the US itself had armed, organized, or otherwise cultivated in the preceding decades,” he said.
He also criticized the US-led “war on terror,” saying the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had brought years of war, occupation, civilian deaths, and widespread devastation.
“Against this backdrop, invoking the anniversary of 9/11 to justify a reckless and unlawful war against Iran is utterly absurd,” Baghaei said.
He further rejected attempts to justify the US war against Iran through counterterrorism rhetoric, stressing that the war involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and attacks on civilians, including women and children.
“A criminal war that has involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and the targeting of civilians, including women and children, cannot be made morally coherent simply by wrapping it in the language of counterterrorism,” he said.
The American invasion of Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people in the United States. Washington presented the foolhardy military adventure as the opening battle in a so-called “war on terror.”
Yet after 20 years of brutal military occupation, trillions of dollars spent, and enormous human suffering resulting from the US-led coalition’s horrendous war crimes, the occupiers have not achieved a political settlement or eliminated the forces they had vowed to defeat.
Leaked chemical dossier reveals Israel’s role in Sudan’s civil war: Report
Press TV – September 11, 2026
A dossier of evidence alleging chemical weapons use by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) was compiled by Israeli intelligence and shared with Western media outlets in a coordinated operation to discredit the army and bolster its paramilitary rival, a report says.
The dossier, described by the New York Times and Washington Post over the weekend as “shared by a Middle Eastern intelligence agency,” contained nearly 150 documents, bomb blueprints, images, videos, voice notes and several thousand intercepted text messages allegedly detailing how a secretive SAF unit developed and produced chlorine bombs over six months in 2024.
Multiple Sudanese and US sources told Middle East Eye that the “Middle Eastern intelligence agency” is Israeli, and that the dossier was nearly identical to one Israel handed to the US government before Washington sanctioned Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the SAF, in January 2025.
A former US official described the interception of vast numbers of messages as “an advertisement for Pegasus,” the spyware developed by Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group to infiltrate mobile phones.
“The thing that is shocking is how much Mossad has been tracking this,” one Sudanese security analyst, who could not be named, told Middle East Eye.
“I knew Mossad had interests in Sudan… but the level and depth and length of surveillance suggests that Israel is more involved in Sudan than we think.”
The revelations raise serious questions about Israel’s role in Sudan’s civil war and appear to confirm that Israeli intelligence is actively siding with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — whose main patron is the United Arab Emirates — against the Sudanese army.
On 13 September 2024, the RSF released a statement accusing the army of firing “toxic” missiles on al-Jaili, a crucial oil refinery north of Khartoum controlled at the time by the paramilitary.
There were no confirmed deaths in the attack, and there are no other confirmed occasions in which the SAF used chlorine bombs. The dossier does not contain medical evidence or testimony from any victims.
In a statement shared with Middle East Eye, the Sudanese government clarified that Sudan is a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention and “has remained committed to its provisions and procedures, including the non-production, non-stockpiling and non-use of chemical weapons.”
It said that “all chlorine stocks in the country are designated exclusively for water purification, civilian industrial uses and energy, and it stands ready to demonstrate this before any competent international body.”
Israeli sources involved in the Zionist regime’s decision-making in the Horn of Africa have previously sought to develop and maintain relationships with a variety of different players, rather than backing one side or another.
“The Israeli love story with Hemedti intensified in 2021,” one North African analyst told Middle East Eye, referring to RSF head Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa. The RSF chief was believed at the time and afterwards to have developed ties with Mossad.
In the leadup to Sudan’s war, then-Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen met Burhan as part of what the Israelis called a “historic diplomatic visit” intended to pave the way for the finalization of a peace agreement. The war scuppered this.
But Hemedti maintained his ties with Israel, whose key ally the UAE continued to support the Sudanese paramilitary — charges Abu Dhabi still denies, despite mounting evidence, including from the United Nations.
“This feels like they are picking sides,” a former US official said of Israel, the dossier and the RSF. “The intelligence they shared with Washington succeeded in getting Burhan and the SAF sanctioned.”
“The Israel-UAE relationship has only grown deeper,” the source said.
Last month, Africa Intelligence reported that two of Hemedti’s brothers, Abdul Rahim and Algoney, had travelled secretly to Tel Aviv in May 2025 and again in February this year to meet with Israeli intelligence and foreign ministry officials.
The dossier’s Israeli origins fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence operations aimed at shaping narratives, influencing Western media and undermining governments that refuse to align with its regional agenda.
By feeding selectively leaked and unverified material to American newspapers, Israeli intelligence has succeeded in manufacturing a chemical weapons scandal that has been used to justify sanctions against Sudan’s army leadership while its rival — accused of genocide by the UN — receives continued support from Israel’s Persian Gulf allies.
Moldova debunks drone threat to Zelensky’s plane
RT | September 10, 2026
Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway’s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky’s plane was nearly struck by a UAV while leaving Chisinau, saying the aircraft was never in any direct danger.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that Zelensky’s plane “was almost hit by a drone” as the Ukrainian leader traveled from Moldova to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V.
Before any evidence was produced, Store’s claims were widely picked up by Western media outlets, who tried to frame the incident as evidence of a supposed Russian drone threat to Europe.
On Thursday, however, Moldova flatly rejected that account, with government spokesman Dumitru Ciorici saying Zelensky’s flight had been delayed because the country temporarily closed its airspace following a drone alert.
He stressed that there had been “no direct threat” to the aircraft, which remained on the ground throughout the airspace closure. The drone that had allegedly entered Moldova’s airspace ended up crashing and exploding near a village around 160km from Chisinau airport, causing no casualties, Moldovan authorities said.
Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has accused the authorities of concealing from the public a separate incident involving a Ukrainian national allegedly caught at the border with a drone and explosives.
“We see more and more attempts and provocations to involve the Republic of Moldova in everything that is happening in Ukraine,” Dodon said, urging Chisinau to stay away from Kiev’s “war strategy.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the alleged threat to Zelensky’s plane as “ephemeral,” saying it “did not exist” and noting that even Ukrainian sources have acknowledged there was no direct danger.
Moldova, whose pro-EU government under President Maia Sandu has moved closer to Brussels and NATO while severely downgrading relations with Moscow, has repeatedly joined other pro-Ukraine governments in blaming Russia for drone incidents before producing evidence.
Similar accusations across Europe have frequently collapsed under scrutiny, with investigators in several cases finding no proof that Russian drones were involved and some incidents later traced to Ukrainian UAVs or even misidentified aircraft.
Moscow has accused Kiev of repeatedly staging drone provocations in an effort to draw its Western backers deeper into the conflict.
Nearly half of US citizens say Washington’s post-9/11 wars ‘worth the cost’
The Cradle | September 3, 2026
Nearly half of US citizens believe the wars waged by Washington in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond after the 11 September 2001 attacks have been “worth it,” a YouGov poll published on 2 August shows.
The poll was commissioned ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks, which the US government used as a pretext to launch the so-called “War on Terror” that led to the deaths of nearly 5 million people.
Respondents were asked if fighting “against the threat of terrorism through military operations abroad” and introducing “increased security and surveillance inside of the United States … have been worth the cost.”
Forty-eight percent responded yes, while another 27 percent said they weren’t sure. The remaining 25 percent said no.
Support for this view was strongest among Republicans, with 71 percent responding yes.
When asked whether some people in the US government knew about the 11 September attacks beforehand but let the attacks happen anyway, 39 percent of respondents agreed, and the same number disagreed.
Immediately after the attacks, US officials blamed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda was founded in the 1980s in Afghanistan. At the time, the CIA was arming and funding Islamic extremists known as “mujahideen” to fight the occupying Soviet Army.
The CIA later supported Al-Qaeda militants fighting in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Iraq, and Syria, while claiming to be opposed to the group.
In 2024, the US helped install former Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Ahmad al-Sharaa as president of Syria following the CIA’s 14-year covert war to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad.
When YouGov asked if Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was involved in the 11 September attacks, 38 percent agreed, while 34 percent disagreed.
Pro-Israel officials in the administration of former US president George W. Bush began pushing for an invasion of Iraq immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC.
The US government and media launched a massive propaganda campaign to wrongly convince US citizens that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had collaborated with Al-Qaeda to carry out the attacks and that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the US homeland.
Sixty-seven percent of respondents to the poll said that the amount of surveillance by the US government had been affected “a lot” by the 9/11 attacks.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Bush signed the Patriot Act, which gave the US government sweeping powers to surveil US citizens, allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to track their phone calls and movements.
When YouGov asked if “Muslims in the United States have been treated better, about the same, or worse than people of other religions,” 52 percent of respondents said Muslims have been treated worse.
Among Democrats, 71 percent agreed with the statement, while 28 percent of Republicans agreed.
After 9/11, many US citizens became hostile to Muslims, viewing them as “terrorists.”
A 2023 report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University estimated that 4.5 million people have died as a consequence of the US wars since the 9/11 attacks.
The US military carried out attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
Of the 4.5 million deaths, roughly 900,000 were killed by direct violence. Roughly 3.6 million resulted from “indirect” deaths caused by the aftereffects of the wars.
US accuses China of hacking NASA, Fed and critical infrastructure
RT | August 27, 2026
The US has accused Chinese hackers it described as “state-backed” of breaking into NASA, the Federal Reserve and other sensitive government networks, just weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected in Washington for talks with President Donald Trump.
Beijing rejected the allegations, with the Chinese Embassy in Washington saying China “opposes and combats all forms of cyberattacks” and urging the US to “stop using cybersecurity issues to smear or discredit China.”
The Justice Department and FBI announced on Wednesday that they had seized three internet domains linked to two hacking platforms allegedly operated by a Chinese group known as QTFY. US authorities claimed the operation targeted NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Senate and several government departments, as well as hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies, financial institutions and defense contractors.
Washington described the campaign as Chinese state-sponsored activity and alleged that the company behind it provided hacking services to China’s Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army. However, officials did not disclose what sensitive information was allegedly stolen or what damage, if any, was caused.
The latest accusations come little more than a month after Trump similarly accused Beijing of meddling in US elections, claiming China had illicitly acquired some 220 million American voter files during the 2020 election cycle in what he called the “largest compromise” of election data in US history.
China dismissed that allegation as “groundless” and “entirely fabricated.” Trump’s assertions of election “hacking” were met with skepticism even among some of his supporters, as the documents released by the White House only showed Chinese interest in collecting publicly available or commercially obtainable American voter information.
Trump himself openly acknowledged after meeting Xi in Beijing in May that Washington conducts extensive espionage against China.
“We spy like hell on them too,” Trump told reporters. “We do a lot of stuff to you that you don’t know about,” Trump claimed he had told Xi, describing the two countries’ espionage activities as a “double-edged sword.”
Beijing has made similar accusations against Washington, claiming last October that the NSA had conducted a years-long cyberattack on China’s National Time Service Center, which supports critical sectors including finance, energy, transport and defense. The NSA did not confirm or deny the allegation.
The renewed cyber accusations come ahead of Xi’s expected visit to the US on September 24. Trump has said he plans to host the Chinese leader following their May talks in Beijing, as the two sides seek to manage disputes over trade, technology and cybersecurity, as well as Washington’s sanctions threats against nations that continue trading with Iran.
US statement lacks factual evidence and turns facts on their head: China rejects US allegations of cyberattack
Global Times – August 27, 2026
China strongly deplores and firmly opposes the US once again smearing it under the pretext of cybersecurity, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular press conference on Thursday.
Lin made the remarks when asked about the US Department of Justice’s announcement on Wednesday that it had carried out court-authorized seizures of domains used by two hacking platforms which Washington claimed were operated and used by “China state-sponsored hackers to target US critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks.”
“We have noted relevant reports. China firmly opposes and combats hacking activities in accordance with the law. At the same time, China firmly opposes the dissemination of disinformation for political purposes,” Lin said. “The so-called US statement lacks factual evidence and turns facts on their head. China strongly deplores and firmly opposes the US once again smearing China under the pretext of cybersecurity.”
“The US is widely recognized as the world’s biggest hacking and surveillance empire, with an appalling record backed by irrefutable evidence,” Lin said, noting that China has serious concerns about US cyber activities.
Previously disclosed cases, including the US National Security Agency’s cyberattacks and infiltration targeting China’s National Time Service Center, exposed the dangerous activities of the US government in attacking China’s critical infrastructure and conducting cyber pre-positioning for large-scale sabotage in the future. However, the US has not responded to any of these cases, Lin said.
As major cyber powers, China and the US should take the lead in upholding and observing international rules in cyberspace and jointly build a peaceful, stable and mutually respectful China-US relationship in cyberspace, Lin said.
“We urge the US to abandon double standards and political manipulation, and work with China in a responsible and constructive manner to properly address cybersecurity risks through dialogue and consultation on an equal footing,” he said.
What We Know About the Two “Measles Deaths” in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
What the headlines aren’t telling you about these two deaths
By Aaron Siri | Injecting Freedom | August 26, 2026
Here’s what we know so far about the two deaths in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that are widely being called “measles deaths:”
1. Governor Shapiro announced, “the first two measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years.”* This phrasing is important. He did not say “measles deaths” or “deaths from measles” which means the facts do not allow him to say that. And just as people can die “with Covid”, as opposed to “from Covid”, people can die with measles, as opposed to from measles.
2. While claiming that, “protecting the confidentiality of residents is a core responsibility of the Department of Health” and thus, “out of respect for their privacy, [the DOH] will not be releasing additional personal details,” as they’re “protecting people’s privacy and confidentiality,” they had no issue disclosing that the two individuals were supposedly unvaccinated which is, in fact, a medical and personal detail.
3. According to the County Commissioner, Joshua Parsons, as of August 25, 2026, “The Coroner’s office indicates that it currently has ZERO reported cases where measles is the immediate cause of death.”**
4. Most critically, if these two had died of measles, the Pennsylvania Governor and health department would no doubt have been blasting out that claim, instead of saying “measles-associated deaths” and “residents with measles have died.”
5. While jumping at any chance to hopefully pin a death on a disease for which there is a vaccine, these same officials don’t give a hoot about the children and adults across this country that are killed, injured, or left with a chronic disease from their worshipped vaccine products, no matter the number. The daily, unrelenting flow of those contacting our firm about deaths and devastating injuries from vaccines are irrelevant to them. A maybe case—that measles may have caused a death—that is all they care about, even when all the facts are not in yet.
6. Ironically, Governor Shapiro preached that: “There’s real life consequences to spreading misinformation. There’s real life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents…. Sharing… misinformation does not help the cause of public health.” Yet, I have not seen the Governor or the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) correcting any of the media that is spreading misinformation, scaring people, and not relying on unbiased information in their reporting of these deaths as being “measles deaths” or “from measles.” These outlets include The New York Times, Reuters, The Guardian, USA Today, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and many more.***
7. Governor Shapiro also identified another serious problem: “Measles has been so rare for so long that many doctors don’t know a lot about it” and explains that their DOH has had to “work[] to inform physicians of the symptoms so they can tell the difference… between the rash that appears from measles and perhaps some other rash.” When vaccination becomes the sole answer, the quality of healthcare declines.
8. Perhaps the most important thing that Governor Shapiro said is something that everyone needs to remember and respect: “Parents absolutely have the right to make their own decisions on how to best protect their kids.”
Sources:
*Gov. Josh Shapiro Press Briefing
**Statement from Commissioner Josh Parsons
***The New York Times: “Two Unvaccinated People Died From Measles in Pennsylvania, Officials Say” — uses “died from measles” and “measles deaths.”
Reuters: “Pennsylvania reports first U.S. measles deaths this year as outbreak grows” — uses “measles deaths” / “measles fatalities.”
The Guardian: “Two unvaccinated people die of measles in Pennsylvania” — uses “die of measles” / “died of measles” and “died from measles.”
USA Today: “Two dead of measles in Pennsylvania, the first in US this year” — uses “died of measles” / “dead of measles” and “measles deaths.” [Note USA Today has since changed their headline]
ABC News: “2 people die from measles in Pennsylvania, marking state’s first deaths in 35 years” — uses “die from measles” / “died … from measles.”
The Wall Street Journal (headline and body mix): “Pennsylvania Reports First Measles Deaths of 2026” — headline uses “Measles Deaths”; body includes “died after contracting measles” (borderline but often grouped with direct phrasing in coverage).
A response to The Guardian’s open letter: Opposing the war on Iran means rejecting war propaganda
By Carlos Martinez | Press TV | August 24, 2026
The Guardian has published an open letter to Iran’s “political prisoners,” signed by Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rashid Khalidi, Robin DG Kelley, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Judith Butler, and Walden Bello, among others (although Kelley has since withdrawn his signature, and there is considerable doubt that Mumia Abu-Jamal knowingly lent his name to the venture).
These are not people to be dismissed lightly. Many have made important contributions to the anti-imperialist and Black liberation movements, and one of them is currently writing from within a US prison. Nevertheless, the letter is wrong and serves an objectively harmful purpose.
The central metaphor employed is that of “the two blades of a scissors”: the Islamic Republic on one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, with the Iranian people being crushed between them. Such an image manufactures symmetry between the perpetrators of an ongoing criminal war of aggression and the victim of that war; between the warmongering Epstein coalition and an independent country with no record of invading anyone.
The signatories justify their position by “rejecting the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism”. But how hollow, exactly, is Tehran’s anti-imperialism?
Iran: An anti-imperialist state
For four decades, while almost every Arab government made its accommodation with Washington and Tel Aviv, Iran armed, funded and provided diplomatic support to the Palestinian resistance. When the Abraham Accords put enormous inducements on the table – security guarantees, investment, technology, the lifting of pressure – Iran refused normalisation. As a matter of principle, it has consistently declined to recognise the legitimacy of an entity built on apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Iran has paid a significant price for that principled stance: four decades of sanctions designed to strangle its development; the assassination of its scientists; the sabotage of its infrastructure; endless covert operations; and now a full-scale war in which an estimated 3,500 Iranian civilians have lost their lives, and schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, bridges, ports and oil depots have been bombed.
Tehran’s stance against the Empire has not been limited to Palestine. For example, under the West-backed Pahlavi dictatorship, Iran was a close ally of apartheid South Africa and a reliable supplier of its oil. After 1979, the Islamic Republic severed those relations and backed the liberation struggle, at a time when Washington and London still classified the African National Congress as a terrorist organisation.
In 1992, two years after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela travelled to Tehran to thank Iran for its support, referring to Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei as “my leader”. Apparently, Mandela did not find Iran’s anti-imperialism hollow.
Today Iran stands with Cuba as it faces a genocidal energy siege. It stands with Venezuela, which has suffered the kidnapping of its president and the theft of its oil resources. It stands with Yemen and with the resistance forces of Lebanon and Iraq – the only regional actors working systematically to block US hegemonism and Israeli expansionism.
Iran is a member of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and a crucial link in the Belt and Road Initiative – which is to say, Iran is part of the emerging multipolar trajectory that constitutes the actually existing opposition to the unipolar world order dominated by Washington and its allies.
“Hollow anti-imperialism” – as the open letter refers to – is a communiqué and a hashtag – or perhaps an open letter. Iran’s anti-imperialism has been measured in blood.
Propaganda war
The letter published by The Guardian sadly parrots tired tropes about an “evil regime” which “from its inception enforced absolute social and political control based on an exclusionary ideology”. No mention of the fact that this “exclusionary ideology” received the support of over 98 percent of the Iranian electorate in a referendum held in 1979, following a revolution against the absolute social and political control of the US-aligned Pahlavi regime.
No mention of the fact that many of the leaders of the revolution had themselves been imprisoned and tortured by the Shah’s machinery of repression. And no mention of the Iranian people’s impressive achievements since 1979.
Before 1979, roughly half of Iranians could not read or write; literacy now exceeds 90 percent and is near universal among the young. Women, once largely excluded from education, now make up the majority of students in Iranian higher education.
A country under one of the harshest sanctions regimes in history has built itself into a scientific, technological and military power capable of absorbing the combined weight of the United States and Israel and emerging with its sovereignty intact.
By painting the Islamic Republic as an “evil regime”, the letter erases the reality of the Iranian people’s achievements and the popular support for their government. Such a narrative undermines solidarity with a country under attack; it legitimises imperialism and delegitimises resistance. This is the real hollow anti-imperialism.
Where do we stand?
One can disagree with various aspects of Iran’s domestic politics. The question at hand is different: where do we stand in the global struggle against imperialism? Which side of the barricade are we on? Do we support a criminal war of aggression, or the resistance to it? Do we support the genocide in Gaza, or the country that has been the Palestinian resistance’s most consistent state ally for nearly half a century?
The letter dissolves the distinction. It asks us to refuse the choice. But in a war of aggression there is no third position available, because only one party benefits from your neutrality, and it is not the party being bombed.
The timing is also significant. The letter appears in a British newspaper, six months into a US-Israeli war, at the precise moment when Washington cannot win militarily and needs the political terrain softened.
It recycles a familiar vocabulary – sham trials, systematic torture, the targeting of minorities – largely without sourcing, in the genre that has preceded and accompanied every “regime-change” war of the past three decades, from Yugoslavia to Syria. Whatever the signatories intended, that is the function it will serve.
The lesson they taught us
Angela Davis was imprisoned by a state that told the world she was a terrorist. Mumia Abu-Jamal is imprisoned by that same state today – a state which, incidentally, holds more people in prison than any other country on earth.
These are people who know precisely what happens when an empire manufactures the moral case for crushing its enemies, because it manufactured the case against them.
They would not have signed, half a century ago, a letter denouncing both blades of a scissors – COINTELPRO on one side and the Black Panther Party on the other.
They would have recognised what such a letter was for.
The duty of progressive and anti-war forces is not complicated. It is to oppose the war, the sanctions, the assassinations and the “regime-change” operation, and to assert that a country defending its sovereignty against the most powerful military on earth deserves our solidarity.
Matters concerning Iran’s domestic politics can be settled afterwards, by Iranians themselves, in an Iran that has preserved its independence.
Carlos Martinez is a writer, analyst, activist, anti-imperialist and author of ‘The East is Still Red – Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century’.
Questions About The Shady Anti-Iran Letter Appearing In The Guardian
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | August 23, 2026
As the U.S. and Israel continue to wage war on Iran, the Guardian published an open letter signed by a number of academics- mostly U.S. and UK-based- condemning Iran’s internal policies.
The letter accused Iran of engaging in “deepening criminalization of the working class and unemployed, the targeting of Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch, and the scapegoating of Afghan migrants: all desperate attempts to kill the spirit of people they cannot contain” called to “reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism” and even called on anti-imperialists in the West to focus their energy on critiquing Iran’s internal issues as Western governments wage war on Iran, writing, “We invite global civil society and anti-imperialist activists and organizations to extend their unconditional support and solidarity to all incarcerated kin fighting for our collective liberation, to build relationships with Iranian political prisoners and uplift their voices, to put pressure on the Islamic Republic by challenging its narrative, and to call upon that government to immediately stop all the executions and free all political prisoners.”
Iran, like most countries, no doubt has internal issues that need to be solved, but asking Western academics to focus on those issues as the West wages a brutal war on Iranian civilization at the behest of Israel seems badly timed, to put it mildly.
Furthermore, the letter made no mention of the open meddling that Israel and the United States has done in Iran’s internal politics and disputes, including the U.S. sanctions on Iran designed to make Iran’s “economy collapse” which is why “the people took to the streets” in January, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent boasted.
The letter did not mention the fact that Israeli media has boasted that the Mosssad was “arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed” and that Israel “set up its own poison machine” in Iran to infiltrate the protests, nor did it mention the fact that Trump boasted that “The United States sent guns to the Iranian protestors … we sent them a lot of guns, we sent them through the Kurds and … the Kurds kept them, ‘we sent guns to the protests, a lot of them”.
The intentions behind the letter seem more suspicious given that it was published in the Guardian, a pro-war propaganda outlet which has manufactured consent for the war on Iran from day one.
The Guardian’s “rights and freedom” section, sponsored by the CIA-linked billionaire Pierre Omidyar, published endless atrocity propaganda claims in the lead-up to the Iran war, including the widely debunked claim that Iran killed tens of thousands of peaceful protestors in a matter of days in January.
More recently, the Guardian ran a smear piece on the journalist Bushra Shaikh for her reporting on the U.S. Israeli war on Iran on the ground, including by linking to a petition set up by pro-war Zionists calling for the British security state to investigate Shaikh for her reporting.
What makes the letter in the Guardian even more questionable is the fact that it appears that many of the signatories were tricked into signing it.
The historian Robin D. G. Kelley, whose name originally appeared on the letter, took his name off, saying that “the circumstances in which we were asked to sign the letter were a bit shady” and that “what appeared in print wasn’t exactly what I had initially seen”, implying that the letter was changed after getting signatures.
Even more shady is the fact that the authors of the letter appear to have fabricated the signature of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Journalist Vijay Prashad obtained a message written from prison on a paper plate where Mumia Abu-Jamal writes, “Iran is showing the world (especially the 3rd world) how to fight against the Empire. Their drones are rewriting the rules of war. And countries across the Global South are studying this phase of the war for that use! They remind me of Vietnam, a poor country that whipped the most powerful army on earth… That’s where we are today”.
Given that this is his actual view, it makes it highly unlikely that Abu-Jamal would sign a letter which accuses Iran of “hollow anti-imperialism”.
Who is behind this shady letter is yet to be seen, but it certainly has many hallmarks of a pro-war psy-op.
BBC cancelled interview on Israel’s killing of Hind Rajab
By Muhammad Shehada – August 19, 2026
Disappointed the BBC cancelled my interview on Israel’s killing of Hind Rajab.
2 producers eagerly reached out. They confirmed the time & one called to prepare a brief for the anchor.
She asked me whether Israel’s announcement is positive, I explained in detail it was a cover up.
The IDF is blaming the killing of Hind, her uncle, aunt & 4 cousins on the family itself for trying to flee by car & on the ambulance sent to rescue her for “failures in the co-ordination of the movement.”
None of this is remotely true! The Red Cross immediately informed the IDF about 5-year-old Hind who was hiding in that motionless car, & they requested permission from Israel to allow an ambulance to rescue them.
After multiple long hours, Israel granted greenlight to the ambulance & provided them with a designated route on a GPS to drive on.
As soon as the ambulance reached Hind’s car, the IDF ambushed & bombed them immediately with an American made anti-tank missile then opened fire on Hind’s car. The car was hit with 355 bullets.
Israel then kept that area under lockdown for 12 days, & prevented anyone from approaching.
Hind’s mom went daily to the Ahli baptist hospital hoping to find her daughter, until her lifeless body was brought in along with the charred remains of the ambulance men.
Israel then claimed after an “initial investigation” that its troops were NEVER in that area to begin with. They maintained that claim for 2 years despite ample recordings & satellite images debunking this lie.
The only reason Israel is now making this new announcement of a deeper investigation is to shield its soldiers & generals from the International Criminal Court by invoking the principle of “complementarity;” that the ICC cannot investigate a state that is already investigating itself in good faith.
I told the BBC producer Israel today also quietly shut down the investigation into the triple tap killing of American, Canadian, British, Australian & Polish citizens in the WCK massacre. Israel blamed the massacre on the aid workers themselves for “deviating from the predesignated route” & for hiring an armed security guard “without informing the IDF” (both claims where debunked by WCK themselves, who had coordinates their every step with the IDF).
I told the producer the Israeli commander responsible for this massacre, Nochi Mendel, is a fanatical settler who had signed a petition calling for starving Gaza & that he was celebrated by settler leaders & supported by Israeli government leaders after what he did.
Mendel even received a box of chocolate from the settler council’s leader & a letter of support for what he did.
Mendel was initially dismissed by the IDF & blamed for the massacre, but was quickly & quietly reinstated & promoted in the Defence Ministry as the head of the settlements and national infrastructure unit.
It’s abundantly clear Israel is NOT serious about prosecuting any of the atrocities committed in Gaza. Since the genocide began, only two soldiers were punished by the IDF; one for microwaving a living frog & another for cooking sausages in the army kitchen on Shabbat.
The producer asked me: What about the 150 cases the IDF said are pending review?
I answered: it’s just a number designed to give the appearance of seriousness, but it’s essentially meaningless.
If it took the IDF two whole years to admit the simplest of facts that the entire world had already known, which is that their troops were the ones who fired on Hind Rajab’s car, how do you expect them to do with the remaining cases that are not as high profile?
Five minutes after the call, the producer wrote me that they decided to cancel the interview & will not even host anyone else to comment on the issue, & instead they’ll play archival footage!
Muhammad Shehada is a Political Analyst, Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and is a contributing writer at Zeteo, 972mag, Haaretz, LRB, Al-Jazeera, Newsweek, and The New Arab.
David GIbbs: How Intelligence Services Captured Academia & Journalism
Glenn Diesen | August 17, 2026
David N. Gibbs is a professor of history at the University of Arizona.
Debate on the CIA and academia: David Gibbs and Robert Jervis
Article in the Los Angeles Times on the CIA-academic nexus: https://irp.fas.org/news/2001/01/lat012801.html
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From the Archives
Genetic baloney in thick slices
MAYBE COULD BE INC.
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | July 8, 2021
Gene research companies tend to come and go. They start out banging and popping like fireworks in the sky, and then they fade out—selling themselves to larger outfits who’ve hired better liars…
Once upon a time, it sounded easy. Start with a disease, find the gene responsible for the disease, and correct the problem.
Then, researchers wondered, was disease the result of one gene or a group of genes acting together?
Either way, the proof would be in devising cures for diseases using gene therapy. “Not yet, but soon…”
And regardless, the major need was: money. Lots and lots of money.
This need required good PR people. “We have to pump up the idea that we’re on the edge of tremendous breakthroughs. We’re always on that edge…”
This hype also needed to obscure the fact that there wasn’t (and isn’t) ANY gene cure for ANY disease. … continue
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- Iran’s NPT debate moves beyond parliament
- Houthis condemn Saudi claims of attack on Medina
- If Americans Knew
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- The Israeli Right Portrays Islam as Murderous. It Serves a Political Purpose
- Jordan Has Had Enough: King Abdullah’s Scathing Warning to Israel
- Israeli Colonizers (i.e. Settlers) Kill Palestinian Man Near Salfit
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- Jewish supremacy, anti-Palestinian bigotry on display in Israel – Daily Update
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- Eight Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks on Gaza
- Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’
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- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
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- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
