US CENTCOM’s Request for Dark Eagle Missiles Shows Shortage of Weapons and Limited Options
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 30.04.2026
The request for untested hypersonic missiles for the Middle East arena exposes the US’ failure to neutralize Iran’s launcher network, veteran war correspondent Elijah J. Magnier tells Sputnik.
“The Dark Eagle has reportedly not been declared fully operational in the past,” Magnier says. “So when the US decided to deploy it, it signaled urgency, escalation pressure. And above all, shortage of suitable conventional weapons.”
The request also shows that earlier Pentagon statements that Iran’s launchers were fully destroyed did not match reality, the pundit continues.
“If all key launchers were eliminated, CENTCOM would not need a new system.”
It was previously reported that the US Army intends to deploy Dark Eagle long-range hypersonic missiles against Iran.
Dark Eagle Won’t Change Balance of Power
“Militarily, the Dark Eagle hypersonic would not overturn the balance of power by itself, especially if the available inventory is very limited,” Magnier says. “The value is political and operational.”
- The US aims to keep deeper Iranian missile sites at risk as a tool of pressure
- The request is intended to strengthen coercion while talks remain stalled
- It combines coercive message with operational contingency planning
“By talking about the new type of missiles that obviously doesn’t scare Iran, it shows also that the Americans are lacking options,” he says.
The war correspondent doesn’t believe the US and Israel are in a position to achieve their declared objectives.
Iran consolidates Strait of Hormuz control in post-war power shift, leaving US in dark
Press TV | April 30, 2026
The geopolitical landscape of the Persian Gulf has undergone a seismic shift following the 40-day US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran emerged from the imposed war not merely intact but strategically ascendant, holding a decisive upper hand over the world’s most critical energy chokepoint.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of global oil trade passes, is no longer a waterway that Washington can threaten, monitor, or control.
It is now firmly under Iranian management, backed by legal codification, military capability, and an unshakable political resolve, as asserted by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei in his Persian Gulf Day statement on Thursday.
The Leader unveiled a comprehensive strategic vision, which seeks to transform Iran’s relationship with the world’s most critical energy chokepoint from defensive vigilance to active and legally codified management.
This is not a tactical victory or a fleeting advantage. It is a fundamental reordering of power in the region, one that leaves the United States guessing about Iran’s next move while every available path before it leads toward a deepening crisis.
The failed cycle: Trump’s return to discredited pressure tactics
The opening gambit of America’s renewed pressure campaign is itself an admission of strategic bankruptcy. Trump’s insistence on escalating economic pressure through the imposition of maritime piracy and naval blockade represents a return to a cycle that has been tested repeatedly – and has failed repeatedly.
The formula is familiar: apply economic strangulation, incite public discontent in Iran, force Tehran to the negotiating table, and extract strategic concessions in exchange for absolutely nothing from the American side.
This cycle has been attempted before. The critical difference this time is that in previous iterations, the military option still carried some credibility. Washington could imply, however vaguely, that if pressure failed, force remained on the table.
That credibility has now been expended. The 40-day war imposed on Iran consumed the military option, and the failure of that aggression has left it hollowed out. It may not have vanished entirely, but it no longer carries the weight or deterrent value it once did.
A second difference is the remarkable resilience of the Iranian people. America’s entire pressure strategy has been built on the assumption that economic hardship would eventually trigger widespread unrest – that the Iranian people would turn against their leadership, creating the conditions for “regime change” or capitulation.
Yet Iranians have demonstrated extraordinary patience, solidarity with the leadership, and unwavering support for the armed forces. This has made America’s investment in fomenting discontent far more difficult than in previous comparable cycles.
A third and perhaps most decisive difference is that America now faces an Iran with relatively full hands. The management and sovereignty imposed by Iran over the Strait of Hormuz have fundamentally altered the balance of leverage.
Iran is no longer merely a sanctioned nation absorbing blows. It has become a sanctioning country capable of imposing costs, controlling access, and reshaping the rules of engagement at the regional and global level.
America’s new priority: Breaking the strait, not Iran
For the United States, the strategic calculus has shifted in revealing ways. The primary objective is no longer dismantling Iran’s nuclear program or forcing a change in its foreign policy. It is far more urgent and immediate: reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The closure or effective Iranian management of this strategic waterway has dealt a fundamental blow to American prestige and credibility around the world, including among its allies, a wound that Washington cannot afford to leave untreated.
Indeed, breaking the deadlock in the strait may well have taken precedence over – and gained urgency compared to – the question of Iran’s nuclear rights. This inversion of priorities speaks volumes.
America would rather secure passage for its allies’ tankers than resolve the nuclear file. It would rather salvage its wounded so-called “superpower” image than extract concessions on uranium enrichment.
But Iran’s position is unwavering. The decisive, clear, and emphatic declaration of its irreversible decision regarding sovereignty and control over the Strait of Hormuz carries consequences that extend far beyond economics.
There is the economic dimension, certainly – the ability to toll vessels, generate revenue, and pressure adversaries. But there is also the humiliation of American superpower status and the toppling of its global dominance. Every day that Iran exercises effective control over the strait is a day that American credibility erodes further.
Furthermore, the consolidation of Iranian sovereignty over the strait dismantles America’s decades-old strategic roadmap concerning the deployment and geography of its forces in the region.
The United States had built its Persian Gulf presence around the assumption of freedom of navigation – that its navy could come and go as it pleased, that its bases were inviolable, that its dominance was uncontested. That assumption is now dead.
The veto stronger than the Security Council
The vital role of the Strait of Hormuz in the global economy and development cannot be overstated – and it extends far beyond the mere passage of oil through this waterway.
Global supply chains, energy security, and the economic stability of major powers all depend on uninterrupted transit through this narrow chokepoint.
By applying its own rules for the world’s use of the strait, Iran has placed in its hands an extraordinarily powerful tool – perhaps even stronger than the UN Security Council veto.
In practice, this serves as a preamble to the realization of Iran’s strategic objectives in the region and the world. As the Leader of the Islamic Revolution stated in his Persian Gulf Day message, this great achievement will change the order of the region and the world.
The gains from Iran’s implementation of management over the strait are not limited to collecting tolls from passing vessels. While tolls bring considerable material benefits to Iran – revenue that can be reinvested in development – these financial gains are negligible compared to the broader strategic achievements.
The true prize is structural power. The ability to say yes or no. The capacity to reward allies and punish adversaries. The authority to shape the rules by which the global economy accesses one of its most vital arteries.
A new image of Iran: A major power
The consolidation of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz – alongside the imposition of defeat upon the enemy in its objectives during the recent imposed wars – has led to the delineation and unveiling of a new image of Iran to the region and the world.
These days, much confirmation of this can be heard in the comments and analyses from the world’s leading think tanks, experts, politicians, and reputable media outlets worldwide.
For America’s former and current allies, following this great Iranian achievement, the US will no longer carry the halo of a “superpower” or the capacity for bullying and coercion as before. Many current equations and orders – including NATO – will now be subject to change and revision to America’s detriment.
The decisive and crushing defeat of American dominance in the region and the world is far more severe, costly, and far-reaching than a military or political defeat resulting from the third imposed war.
This is not hyperbole. It is a recognition of structural reality. When a superpower attempts to subdue a regional power and fails – when it expends its military option, exhausts its economic leverage, and still cannot achieve its objectives – the message to every other player is clear. The unipolar moment is over. A new order is emerging, and Iran is one of its main architects and protagonists.
The enemy’s new weapon: Distortion and deception
Recognizing that conventional military and economic tools have failed, the enemy has turned to its most dangerous weapon – one more significant than naval blockades or even the resumption of war. That weapon is distortion, deception, and trickery.
The enemy seeks to use its agents inside Iran and its media mouthpieces to influence Iranian minds, causing the value of the Strait of Hormuz to collapse in public opinion under the weight of economic and military pressure.
Signs of this dangerous and insidious influence can be observed these days in certain opinions and media outlets. This mysterious current – in what is certainly a coordinated movement – is pushing for concessions and the use of the Strait of Hormuz card to end American pressures, alongside nuclear capabilities.
These statements align precisely with the enemy’s desire to strip our country of these instruments of power. The logic is perverse but predictable: if the Iranian people can be convinced that the strait is not worth the cost, that the pressure is unbearable, that compromise is preferable to resistance – then the enemy will have achieved through psychological warfare what it could not achieve through military aggression.
This is why vigilance is essential. The battlefield has shifted from the waters of the Persian Gulf to the minds of the Iranian people. And on this battlefield, the stakes are just as high.
Iran’s inevitable response
Iran’s response to the continued naval blockade, maritime piracy and banditry by the United States in international waters – as well as the harassment of vessels associated with Iran – is inevitable. As has been emphasized twice so far in the statements of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the top military command center, Iran cannot remain indifferent or silent in the face of this lawlessness and maritime piracy.
The American campaign of maritime banditry – the interception of Iranian oil shipments, the seizure of vessels, the intimidation of crews – is itself an act of war. Iran has every right under international law to respond proportionally – and it will respond.
But the form of that response is what keeps Washington guessing. Will Iran escalate gradually or dramatically? Will it target American vessels directly or focus on allied shipping? Will it employ legal mechanisms, economic instruments, or military demonstrations?
The range of options available to Iran is vast, and the deliberate unpredictability of Iranian decision-making leaves the United States in a perpetual state of uncertainty.
This is the new strategic landscape, one in which Iran holds the upper hand, determines the management of the Strait of Hormuz, and keeps Washington guessing about every move.
A pause, not a ceasefire: Washington stalls, Tehran recalibrates
By Peiman Salehi | The Cradle | April 29, 2026
What is currently being described as a “ceasefire” between Iran and the US is, in reality, something far more fragile and far more strategic: a temporary pause in an ongoing war.
The distinction matters. Because while Washington seeks to frame this moment as a diplomatic opening, Tehran increasingly views it as a recalibration of tempo rather than a resolution of conflict.
This is precisely the point articulated by senior Iranian strategist Mohsen Rezaei, who recently argued that what we are witnessing is not a ceasefire, but a “military silence” within an active war.
Negotiations, in this view, are not an alternative to conflict but something that unfolds within it. The current moment aligns with that doctrine. There has been no political settlement, no structural shift in American objectives, and no evidence that the underlying confrontation has been resolved.
Washington’s failed wager
From the outset, the US objective ran deeper than military containment. At its core, the strategy was ideological. Washington calculated that by removing the leadership of the Islamic Republic, it could trigger a transformation within the Iranian political system itself, replacing it with a more compliant, more “rational” actor aligned with western expectations.
That wager has collapsed.
Rather than producing a liberalizing shift, the outcome has been the opposite. Iran’s internal trajectory has not moved toward de-escalation or ideological compromise. If anything, it has reinforced continuity.
The system has demonstrated that it is capable of reproducing itself under pressure, potentially with figures who are even more hardened, more personally affected by the conflict, and less inclined toward accommodation. The expectation that government pressure would translate into ideological change has proven to be a strategic misreading.
The cost equation shifts outward
Iran’s conduct during the war has introduced a new dimension into the equation: the externalization of costs. Tehran’s strategy has not been to avoid damage, but to redistribute it. By targeting regional dynamics and leveraging its geographical position, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has contributed to rising energy prices and broader economic pressures.
The effects have not been confined to the battlefield. They have extended into global markets, impacting fuel prices, transportation costs, and supply chains.
This matters politically in the US.
The timing is critical. US President Donald Trump is approaching the end of a 60-day window in which he can sustain military operations without requiring additional congressional authorization. Within days, that window will close, forcing the administration to seek approval from Congress and the Senate for any continued escalation.
Overlaying this is a convergence of economic and political pressures. Rising energy prices translate directly into domestic dissatisfaction. Higher fuel costs increase transportation expenses, which in turn affect food prices and overall inflation.
At a moment when the US is preparing for major international events, including co-hosting the World Cup, and moving toward midterm congressional elections, the political cost of prolonged instability becomes increasingly difficult to manage.
It is within this context that the current “pause” should be understood. Not as a resolution, but as a temporary adjustment driven by external constraints.
This does not mean that the US is stepping away from confrontation. On the contrary, the logic of pressure remains intact. What appears to be unfolding is a strategic pause designed to create space not necessarily for genuine diplomacy, but for recalibration.
There are clear indications that Washington is attempting to shape internal dynamics within Iran, encouraging segments of the political establishment to view negotiation as a viable path forward.
Araghchi’s calculated circuit
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s recent diplomatic tour spanning Pakistan, Oman, and Russia must be understood within this broader framework.
In Pakistan, the objective appears to have been to reinforce Iran’s negotiating boundaries, ensuring that any engagement remains anchored in core national positions.
In Oman, discussions were likely focused on the management and potential regulation of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical lever in the current confrontation.
And in Russia, the emphasis seems to have been on long-term coordination in the event of renewed escalation.
These visits are often interpreted narrowly as diplomatic outreach tied to negotiations with the US. That reading is incomplete. They also function as preparatory steps for a scenario in which the war resumes. The common thread is not negotiation itself, but readiness for multiple outcomes.
Debate without division
Inside Iran, debate is real. But fragmentation is not.
Differences exist over timing and tactics, not over the nature of the conflict. Decision-making remains centralized. The Supreme National Security Council sets the line.
Some argue that current military positioning opens space for negotiation. Others reject any pause that relieves pressure on Washington and Tel Aviv.
From that view, sustained pressure – especially through energy markets – is the only language the US understands.
Both sides agree on one point. The US will not shift without cost. The disagreement is how to impose it.
Araghchi’s continued references to diplomacy with Trump, even in recent statements, reflect this tension. For some observers, such messaging appears out of sync with the broader trajectory of the conflict. Given the historical record of US policy toward Iran, the expectation that diplomacy alone could produce a durable resolution is viewed with skepticism.
The concern is not that negotiation is inherently flawed, but that it risks being misinterpreted as an endpoint rather than a component of a broader strategy.
This is where the concept of “negotiations within war” becomes critical.
If negotiations are conducted in the absence of pressure, they risk reinforcing existing power imbalances. If they occur within an active confrontation, they can function as instruments of leverage. The current pause, therefore, is not neutral. It has distributional effects. It reduces immediate pressure on external actors while creating incentives for internal debate within Iran.
After the pause
The likelihood of renewed escalation remains high because nothing structural has been resolved and the core US objective – reshaping Iran’s ideological direction – remains firmly in place, alongside the same pressure mechanisms that have defined the conflict from the outset.
What has changed is timing, not intent. Washington is deferring decisions rather than abandoning them, managing the political calendar as much as the battlefield itself.
The period after the US midterm elections will be decisive, when domestic constraints begin to loosen and the incentive to reassert pressure returns with fewer immediate political costs.
The key variable, as it has been from the outset, is cost.
So long as the global economic impact of escalation remains manageable, the threshold for renewed confrontation stays relatively low. Only when the cost – particularly in energy markets and domestic political stability – rises to a level that becomes untenable does genuine deterrence begin to take shape.
This is the unresolved equation at the heart of the conflict.
The failure of the US to achieve its ideological objective extends the war and pushes it onto a different trajectory.
This pause reflects a shift in how the conflict is being managed, with pressure shifted rather than reduced.
And in that sense, the war has not ended. It has only entered a new phase.
Hidden costs of US Iran war push total far beyond $25bn Pentagon claim
Al Mayadeen | April 30, 2026
The Pentagon’s declared $25 billion cost of the war on Iran is likely a significant understatement of the war’s true financial burden, Bloomberg reported, citing analysts. Senior US defense officials disclosed the figure during testimony at a contentious congressional hearing on Wednesday, outlining the total cost incurred so far.
Calculations by Bloomberg, based on Pentagon data, suggest that the cost of certain munitions, destroyed equipment, and operational expenses alone amounts to around $14 billion. This includes $8 billion for munitions, $5 billion to replace lost aircraft and damaged equipment, and approximately $1 billion in operational costs for deploying two aircraft carriers and 16 destroyers over 39 days of near-continuous strikes.
The estimate does not account for the cost of repairing damaged facilities across the region, such as the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, which has been repeatedly targeted in Iranian attacks. It also excludes the operational costs of all ships and aircraft involved in the military buildup prior to February 28, as well as those currently engaged in the ongoing blockade.
Pentagon figure represents narrow estimate, omits lots of costs
“It is clear that the Pentagon’s $25 billion figure represents a narrow estimate of the cost of waging war,” said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “It doesn’t even include damage to bases, broader operational costs, or the Pentagon’s rising fuel bills.”
Earlier this month, Senator Richard Blumenthal told Bloomberg Television that even estimates presented to him of $2 billion per day were “a low number.” Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has estimated that the cost of munitions alone could reach approximately $25 billion.
During the hearing, Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst said the $25 billion figure includes both expended munitions and operational costs but declined to provide a detailed breakdown. His remarks prompted a heated exchange between War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Representative Maggie Goodlander, a Democrat from New Hampshire, who repeatedly pressed for greater transparency.
“It is gross negligence to sit here and be unable to justify spending billions of dollars,” Goodlander said.
US losses add billions to the bill
The United States has reportedly lost dozens of aircraft during combat operations, including MQ-9 Reaper drones, F-15E strike fighters, an E-3 airborne warning and control aircraft, KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, one A-10 attack aircraft, and two MC-130J multi-mission transport planes.
Replacing these systems is expected to cost billions of dollars, while damaged or destroyed radar systems, each worth hundreds of millions, will add further to the total.
Operating costs have also mounted significantly. Aircraft carriers cost around $4.9 million per day to run, while destroyers cost approximately $600,000 daily. A carrier air wing adds another $3.8 million per day.
According to analysis by Bloomberg Economics Defense Lead Becca Wasser, the 39 days of combat alone would run about $1 billion for just two carriers and their air wings, and 16 destroyers.
Iran has launched more than 1,850 ballistic missiles at targets across the region, requiring the use of roughly 4,000 interceptor missiles in response, according to the report. While the PAC-3 missile system remains the backbone of ballistic missile defense in the region, most interceptor launches were carried out by Gulf states. Standard missile defense doctrine typically requires firing at least two interceptors per incoming target, further driving up costs.
Iran Will Respond With Long-Term Strikes to US Attack, Even If It Is Short-Term – IRGC
Sputnik – 30.04.2026
TEHRAN – Iran will respond with long-term strikes to the US attack, even if it is short-term, Majid Mousavi, the commander of the aerospace forces of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said on Thursday.
“We will respond with long-term strikes to enemy operations, even if they are short-term,” the SNN broadcaster quoted Mousavi as saying.
On Wednesday, Axios reported, citing three sources privy to the matter, that the US Central Command (CENTCOM) prepared a plan to conduct a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran as negotiations for a peace settlement stall.
Israeli military ‘failed on all fronts’: Poll
The Cradle | April 28, 2026
A poll published by Israel’s Public Broadcaster (KAN) on 28 April found that a majority of Israelis believe the state has failed to secure victory in any war since October 2023.
According to the survey, 57 percent of respondents said no victory had been achieved, while 28 percent believed success had been reached in at least one arena, and a further 15 percent said they were unsure.
The findings come after more than two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – which Israel threatens to reignite – during which Tel Aviv waged multiple offensive military campaigns against Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, alongside attacks in Yemen and Syria and a campaign of destruction and displacement in the occupied West Bank.
Confidence levels across all the fronts remain low, with only 17 percent viewing operations in Syria as successful and 16 percent saying the same for Gaza and Iran.
Perceptions dropped further on the Lebanese front at 14 percent, followed by Yemen at 12 percent and the occupied West Bank at 11 percent.
The poll also points to persistent security concerns, with a total of 73 percent of respondents saying the continued armed presence of Hamas and Hezbollah poses a direct threat of a repeat of a 7 October-style event.
Only 10 percent dismissed that possibility, while 17 percent remained uncertain.
On the ground, Israel has reportedly begun withdrawing troops from southern Lebanon. Israeli outlet Maariv described the campaign as ending in “failure” and “bitterness,” as forces pull back under continued Hezbollah attacks, including drone strikes that exposed major gaps in Israeli preparedness.
The poll also showed divisions over Netanyahu’s legal status, with a majority – 56 percent – supporting a pardon for his corruption charges, while 26 percent opposed the move and 18 percent remained undecided.
Netanyahu had requested a presidential pardon on 30 November without admitting guilt or stepping down from office, despite Israeli law requiring an admission of guilt for such a measure.
He is currently facing trial in three separate corruption cases involving fraud, bribery, and abuse of power, with court proceedings ongoing since 2020 after charges were filed in 2019.
Netanyahu’s court testimony was delayed once again on 27 April over a “serious” security incident in southern Lebanon, as the prime minister seeks to prolong the wars to keep his corruption trial from moving forward.
At the same time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has listed Netanyahu as wanted since 2024, issuing arrest warrants for him and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their direct involvement and orchestration of the genocide in Gaza, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a weapon.
Monroe Doctrine 2.0: ‘Great Reset’ for US Imperialism?
Sputnik – 29.04.2026
“The United States is a declining power worldwide. It needs to reassert its powers,” Brazilian economics and international affairs scholar Vinicius Vieira told Sputnik, commenting on recently approved Monroe Doctrine 2.0 strategy and the Senate’s refusal to block the president’s power to invade Cuba.
For Washington, establishing greater control over Latin America, especially Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, may seem like an opportunity to start afresh in reasserting its great power status, Dr. Vieira says.
Regime change in Cuba, for example, would not mean independence or democratization for the island nation, “but a return to the status prior to the Cuban Revolution – a protectorate de facto, US territory de facto.”
The problem is, the neighborhood is not what it was 150-200 years ago. Washington’s neighbors “want a relationship based on equal respect and mutual recognition,” and controlling South America may prove “too ambitious” entirely, given linkages they’ve established with other members of the Global South.
What’s more, “the costs for the US to implement this type of policy are quite high…because it depends on coercion, on sticks, no carrots at all,” Vieira stressed. Speaking of carrots, the US has “lost leverage” in this domain vis-à-vis China and its development projects, according to the scholar.
Ultimately, Monroe 2.0 could prove “too costly,” and “rather than bringing the United States to its golden days of hegemony…may just accelerate its decline because of its very high costs in terms of money and reputation,” Vieira summed up.
“Trump’s presidency is at risk of being destroyed” Col Douglas Macgregor
ANI News | April 28, 2026
Iran has legal right to act in Hormuz, holds US responsible for disruptions: UN mission
Press TV – April 28, 2026
Iran, which is not a party to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, asserts its legal right to take “necessary and proportionate measures” in the Strait of Hormuz, and holds the United States responsible for any disruptions to maritime transport in the vital waterway, the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations said.
The mission said on Tuesday that US actions in the Strait of Hormuz have severely compromised international maritime safety. The mission made the remarks in two posts on X, a day after Iran addressed at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Maritime safety.
The mission pointed out that Iran is not a party to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and therefore does not regard its provisions as binding.
As the principal coastal state, Iran retains the legal authority to implement necessary measures within the Strait of Hormuz to address security threats and to prevent any military or hostile exploitation of this vital passage, it said.
Iran’s mission further noted that the Islamic Republic reserves the right to ensure safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz and to protect its national interests against hostile activities.
It further asserted that the US has engaged in unlawful actions that disrupt maritime transport, such as the imposition of a maritime blockade, the illegal seizure of Iranian vessels, and the detention of their crews.
Such actions not only violate international law and the UN Charter but also constitute acts of piracy.
As tensions escalate in the region, the Iranian government says that the US’s aggressive maritime policies pose a direct threat to international navigation and regional stability.
The Iranian mission further called for accountability regarding US transgressions.
Tensions have been running high over a so-called naval blockade the US has enforced on Iranian ports and ships, as well as American attempts to conduct mine-sweeping operations in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian officials have said the blockade is unlawful and a breach of a two-week ceasefire that took effect on April 8 and was again unilaterally extended by US President Donald Trump hours before it was set to expire on April 22.
How Cognitive Science Explains Our Looming Nuclear Crisis
By Thomas Karat | The Libertarian Institute | April 28, 2026
Bombs have been falling on Iran for fifty-nine days. As of now a ceasefire is holding, just barely, brokered under pressure from Pakistan. But before it came, a girls’ primary school in the southern city of Minab was hit on the first day of the war, at least 170 dead, most of them girls aged seven to twelve, killed by a U.S. Tomahawk missile that President Donald Trump initially denied firing. Thirty universities struck since February 28, including Iran’s equivalent of MIT. Over 2,000 Iranians killed by American-Israeli strikes. Thirteen U.S. service members confirmed dead. An American F-15E shot down over Iran. The Strait of Hormuz—20% of the world’s oil and gas—effectively closed, with China and Russia vetoing the United Nations resolution to reopen it. Gas prices heading for $4.30 a gallon and rising. Trump promising to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages.”
And underneath all of it, the detail that should be dominating every front page but isn’t: on March 21, Iranian ballistic missiles landed fourteen kilometres from Dimona— Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons facility, the one running for six decades on the fiction that it doesn’t exist, estimated to hold 800 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium. The reactor at Bushehr has been struck three times since the war began. The Arms Control Association has warned explicitly of radiological contamination risk across the region.
This is where we are. Now ask the question nobody in mainstream media is asking: how did we get here? Not the geopolitical answer—you can get that anywhere. The deeper answer. What made this war politically possible? What narrative ran so deep in enough Americans that a conflict of this scale, this risk, this cost, could be launched mid-negotiation—Pakistan’s foreign minister confirmed publicly that the United States and Iran were close to a diplomatic settlement when Israel launched its February 28 strikes—without triggering mass domestic revolt?
The answer is a single talking point. You have heard it thousands of times, probably without noticing its structure: forty-seven years of Iranian aggression, forty-seven years of American patience, forty-seven years of failure by every president in both parties to solve the Iran problem. It dates the conflict from the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed—Americans held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the nightly TV count, the humiliation. It frames the entire subsequent history as a story of American victimhood and Iranian intransigence. And it has been in my estimation the most effective piece of war propaganda in modern American history—not because it is true, but because of the specific cognitive architecture it exploits, which this article is going to name precisely, because naming it is the only thing that can stop it from working the next time.
The history starts not in 1979 but in 1953, when the CIA and British intelligence jointly overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s elected prime minister, because he had nationalized his country’s oil. The CIA’s own declassified documents confirm the coup was “carried out under CIA direction.” Britain has still not released its files. For twenty-six years after that, the Shah’s government—sustained by American weapons and CIA training of his secret police, SAVAK—ran one of the region’s most efficient torture and imprisonment systems. The 1979 revolution was not irrational. It was direct blowback from a quarter-century of CIA-managed client state. And the hostage crisis that anchors the “forty-seven years” narrative was itself, per Gary Sick—the Iran expert on Jimmy Carter’s own National Security Council—possibly extended deliberately by Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager William Casey, who multiple witnesses say negotiated with Tehran to hold the hostages past election day in exchange for a promise of arms. The foundational American wound of this conflict may have been kept open, on purpose, for electoral advantage, by the political faction most loudly demanding Iranian accountability four decades later.
Then in 1988 the USS Vincennes, operating inside Iranian territorial waters, shot down Iran Air Flight 655—a commercial Airbus on a Dubai run—killing all 290 people aboard including 66 children. The Pentagon issued false statements about the aircraft’s flight profile. The captain was decorated. Nobody was prosecuted. This event does not appear in the “forty-seven years of Iranian aggression” narrative. It belongs to a parallel account—forty-seven years of American aggression—that the talking point is specifically engineered to prevent you from thinking about.
Here is where the cognitive science becomes urgent, because it explains not just how the talking point spreads but why correcting it with facts—including everything in the preceding three paragraphs—fails so consistently, even with audiences that are already skeptical of government. The political psychologist Jonathan Haidt established in his moral foundations research that human moral reasoning runs on several distinct evolutionary systems and critically, that libertarians score measurably lower on the Sanctity foundation, the disgust-and-contamination system that codes out-groups as morally polluted. You are, if you read this publication, statistically more resistant than the average American to the “Iran is evil, the mullahs are fanatics” framing. That part of the propaganda largely didn’t work on you. But the “forty-seven years” talking point doesn’t primarily run on disgust. It runs on three other systems that are universal and for which the libertarian movement has built almost no intellectual defense.
The first is loss aversion: Kahneman and Tversky’s finding that humans feel losses roughly twice as intensely as equivalent gains. “Forty-seven years of failure” is a pure loss narrative—not a promise of future benefit, but an open wound, a thing taken and not returned. It activates the loss-detection system before rational evaluation can engage. The second is the sunk cost mechanism: the longer the conflict, the more the accumulated investment—of attention, of sanctions, of covert operations, of proxy wars—makes the brain read escalation as rational rather than reckless. Half a century of failure becomes, neurologically, an argument for drastic action rather than against it. The third is dominance signalling: primates, including humans, carry a hard-wired system that reads unanswered challenges from rivals as weakness inviting further challenge. Forty-seven years of Iranian defiance of American authority, narrated as a sequence of inadequate responses, activates this system viscerally. Crucially, the libertarian principle of non-aggression reads inside this frame not as principled restraint but as submission. Your correct position sounds, to your neighbour’s dominance-monitoring system, like fear.
George Lakoff showed in Don’t Think of an Elephant that political frames operate below the threshold of conscious reasoning and that facts introduced into the wrong frame bounce off rather than dislodging it. The “forty-seven years” frame installs a strict father moral logic: the nation as a family whose authority must not be defied without punishment. Once that frame is active, every historical correction—the 1953 coup, the Vincennes, the October Surprise—arrives as information the brain is not structured to receive. The frame stays. The facts leave.
This is the machine that produced the war you are watching right now. The school in Minab. The missiles over Dimona. The Bushehr reactor taking strikes. The Strait of Hormuz closed while the LSE warns that bombing a country out of its desire for a nuclear deterrent is not possible and that every strike makes eventual acquisition of a weapon not less likely but more. The former director of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned and told Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton that he had watched Israeli officials mislead Trump about the Iranian nuclear threat to manufacture the justification for this war. Pakistan’s foreign minister stated in parliament that diplomacy was actively progressing when Israel launched its surprise attack and derailed it. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only one in four Americans supports the strikes.
The talking point has done its work. It ran for forty-seven years, activating loss detectors and dominance monitors and sunk cost accumulators and strict father frames in enough of the population to make a war with genuine nuclear escalation risk feel not just permissible but long overdue. Now fourteen kilometres separates us from a direct strike on a reactor that has been producing weapons-grade plutonium for sixty years under a policy of official denial—and the IAEA, which Iran has now suspended from cooperation, has no inspectors inside to tell us what is actually there.
The ICAN nuclear abolition campaign noted that striking nuclear installations is explicitly banned under international law. Both sides are now doing it. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called for maximum military restraint near nuclear sites. Both sides are ignoring it. The ceasefire this morning is the third since the war began, and both sides have violated the previous two.
The talking point got us here. Understanding how, at the neurological level, through the specific cognitive systems it exploited, is not an academic exercise while bombs are falling. It is the precondition for building an antiwar argument that can actually break through the frame, rather than bouncing off it for the forty-eighth year running.
The state built a machine over forty-seven years. You are watching it run. The machine works in the dark. This is the light.
Have the US and Israel killed non-proliferation?
Ashes of Pompeii | April 28, 2026
The United Nations has elected Iran as one of the thirty-four vice presidents of the 2026 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, proceeding despite formal objections from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. Rather than a mere procedural footnote, this appointment signals a pronounced structural realignment and underscores the increasing diplomatic isolation of Western capitals within multilateral governance.
For decades, nuclear restraint was widely regarded as a stabilizing imperative, a framework endorsed by practically all nations, including Iran, who consistently endorsed this through state doctrine and a longstanding religious fatwa explicitly prohibiting the pursuit of atomic armaments. The Iranian prohibition was the foundation of the JCPOA agreement allowing internation inspection of Iranian nuclear sites. It is important to note that it was the USA who withdrew from the JCPOA agreement and not Iran, and Iran seems to have respected the terms even after this withdrawal.
This is the context for the current situation. Iran has been attacked by the USA and Israel because of the perceived threat that Iran might, despite the inspections and the conclusions of the American intelligence agencies, cross the nuclear threshold. Please note the contrast: Iran was attacked because it might develop nuclear weapons, whereas North Korea enjoys relative security precisely because it has nuclear weapons. That is to say, non-proliferation treaty compliance would seem to correlate with heightened vulnerability.
Whatever one might think of Kim Jong Un, the caricatures propagated regarding North Korea’s leadership as erratic, epitomized by the “Rocketman” epithet, are increasingly untenable when subjected to rigorous strategic analysis. Evaluating outcomes rather than rhetoric, it becomes evident that Pyongyang’s leadership was methodically positioned ahead of other global policymakers. While other regimes face coercive diplomacy or military intervention, North Korea’s deterrent has insulated it from external operations. We can assume other countries have noticed this, that non-proliferation or strategic ambiguity offer far less protection than verified atomic capability.
And this realization is coming at a time when America itself is coming to be seen as more erratic, and potentially a less reliable partner than it was perceived to be in the past. Can America’s allies still feel secure under America’s nuclear umbrella? Is an “America First” America going to risk nuclear conflageration to defend its allies? Many will have calculated that it might not.
Washington and Jerusalem have long justified their confrontational posture toward Tehran by citing the purported threat of an Iranian breakout, even as Israel maintains an arsenal that, though officially unacknowledged, is universally understood by all. If the recent campaigns against Iranian military and energy infrastructure were to be assessed through a deterrence lens, it can be argued that the absence of an atomic shield rendered Tehran strategically exposed. Had Iran possessed a credible second-strike capability, those operations would likely have been deemed too escalatory to execute.
Consequently, the international community can probably anticipate a quiet reassessment of nuclear thresholds. Governments are not yet explicitly announcing an intention to seek atomic weapons, but it does seem evident that more will be seriously considering it, whether because they no longer trust America as ally or because they see that nuclear deterrance has been successful for North Korea. For now, it seems likely that these nuclear intentions will remain under wraps, but who can doubt that, at the very least, multiple feasability studies will have been undertaken across the world.
The strategic calculus advanced by the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government has effectively engineered an environment where non-proliferation is, at best, a diminishing paradigm, and at worst, an existential error for a sovereign state. Therefore, the eventual deployment of tactical or strategic nuclear assets across multiple countries becomes increasingly probable.
The profound irony, of course, is that given the stated justifications for the launch of the US/Israeli war on Iran, that Israel will be a highly plausible future target within the very security vacuum it helped to normalize.
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Not Hamas-Israeli conflict: The Palestinian cause belongs to the world
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 15, 2023
This, in his thinking, could only mean one thing: “Never before has Israel stood more honored and revered by the nations of the world.”
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