The Folly of Establishing a U.S. Military Base in Damascus
By José Niño | The Libertarian Institute | December 16, 2025
Recent reports indicate the United States is preparing to establish a military presence at an airbase in Damascus, allegedly to facilitate a security agreement between Syria and Israel. This development represents yet another misguided expansion of American military overreach in a region where Washington has already caused tremendous damage through decades of failed interventionist policies.
The United States currently operates approximately 750 to 877 military installations across roughly eighty countries worldwide. This staggering number represents about 70 to 85% of all foreign military bases globally. To put this in perspective, the next eighteen countries with foreign bases combined maintain only 370 installations total. Russia has just twenty-nine foreign bases, and China operates merely six. The American empire of bases already dwarfs every other nation combined, and the financial burden is crushing. Washington spends approximately $65 billion annually just to build and maintain these overseas installations, with total spending on foreign bases and personnel reaching over $94 billion per year.
These figures are not abstract accounting entries. They translate directly into American lives placed in volatile environments, as demonstrated by the recent insider attack in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, where a purported ISIS infiltrator embedded in local security forces turned his weapon on a joint U.S. Syrian patrol, killing two U.S. soldiers and one U.S. civilian during what was described as a routine field tour. The incident underscores how the sprawling U.S. basing network increasingly exposes American personnel to unpredictable and lethal blowback in unstable theaters far from home.
Syria itself already hosts between 1,500 and 2,000 American troops, primarily concentrated in the northeastern Hasakah province and at the Al Tanf base in the Syrian Desert. The Pentagon recently announced plans to reduce this presence to fewer than 1,000 personnel and consolidated operations from eight installations to just three. Yet now, despite this supposed drawdown, Washington reportedly plans to establish a new presence in Damascus itself, either at Mezzeh Air Base or Al Seen Military Airport. This contradictory expansion reveals the hollow nature of promises to reduce American military commitments abroad.
Since the fall of Bashar al Assad in December 2024, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military and civilian infrastructure while occupying parts of southern Syria including Quneitra and Daraa. Israel has systematically violated the 1974 disengagement agreement and expanded control over buffer zones. These actions align disturbingly well with the Yinon Plan, a 1982 Israeli strategic document by Israeli foreign policy official Oded Yinon that envisions the dissolution of surrounding Arab states into smaller ethnic and religious entities. The plan explicitly calls for fragmenting Syria along its ethnic and religious lines to prevent a strong centralized government that could challenge Israeli interests.
A permanent American military presence in Damascus would effectively serve as a tripwire guaranteeing continued U.S. involvement in securing Israeli strategic objectives in the Levant. Rather than protecting American interests or enhancing national security, such a base would entrench Washington deeper into regional conflicts that have consistently proven disastrous for both American taxpayers and Middle Eastern populations.
The human cost of American intervention in Syria should give any policymaker pause. The Syrian Civil War has resulted in between 617,000 and 656,000 deaths, including civilians, rebels, and government forces. More than 7.4 million people remain internally displaced within Syria, while approximately 6.3 million Syrian refugees live abroad. This catastrophic toll stems partly from Operation Timber Sycamore, the CIA covert program that ran from 2012 to 2017 to train and equip Syrian rebel forces.
Timber Sycamore represented a joint effort involving American intelligence services along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The CIA ran secret training camps in Jordan and Turkey, providing rebels with small arms, ammunition, trucks, and eventually advanced weaponry like BGM 71 TOW anti-tank missiles. Saudi Arabia provided significant funding while the United States supplied training and logistical support.
The program proved to be counterproductive. Jordanian intelligence officers stole and sold millions of dollars worth of weapons intended for rebels on the black market. Even worse, U.S.-supplied weapons regularly fell into the hands of the al Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, and ISIS itself. The program inadvertently strengthened the very extremists Washington was ostensibly fighting.
The failure of Timber Sycamore illustrates a fundamental problem with American interventionism in Syria. Washington has pursued regime change in Damascus in various forms for decades, yet these efforts have consistently backfired, creating power vacuums filled by jihadist groups and prolonging devastating conflicts. The current enthusiasm for establishing a military presence in Damascus suggests American policymakers have learned absolutely nothing from these failures.
The figure now leading Syria exemplifies the moral bankruptcy of this entire enterprise. Ahmed al Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al Julani, currently serves as president of Syria’s interim government. This represents a stunning rehabilitation for a man who founded al Nusra Front in 2012 as an al-Qaeda affiliate and later formed Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) by merging various rebel factions. Under the name Abu Mohammad al Julani, he was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States on July 24, 2013, with a $10 million bounty maintained on his head.
Al Sharaa’s terrorist designation stemmed from his leadership of al Nusra Front, which perpetrated numerous war crimes including suicide bombings, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, and sectarian massacres against Christian, Alawite, Shia, and Druze minorities. He fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq, spent time imprisoned at Camp Bucca between 2006 and 2010, and was dispatched to Syria by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2011 with $50,000 to establish al Nusra. His close associates have faced accusations from the United States of overseeing torture, kidnappings, trafficking, ransom schemes, and displacing residents to seize property. The New York Times reported that his group was accused of initially operating under al-Qaeda’s umbrella.
Yet in November 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 2799, removing al Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab from the ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions list. The U.S. Treasury Department followed suit, delisting him from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist registry. This reversal came after the State Department revoked HTS’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation in July 2025. Washington essentially decided that a former al-Qaeda commander who oversaw sectarian massacres was now a legitimate partner worthy of American military support. This absurd rehabilitation demonstrates how completely untethered American foreign policy has become from any coherent moral framework or strategic logic.
Critics rightly question whether al Sharaa has truly broken from his extremist roots or merely engaged in calculated political rebranding. The speed with which Washington embraced him as a legitimate leader suggests American policymakers care far more about advancing Israeli interests and maintaining regional influence than about genuine counterterrorism or protecting religious minorities.
The United States needs to pursue a fundamentally different approach to foreign policy. Rather than establishing yet another military base to advance Israeli strategic objectives in Syria, Washington should implement a comprehensive drawdown of overseas military commitments. The hundreds of foreign bases it maintains abroad represent an unsustainable burden that diverts resources from genuine national security priorities like border security and stability in the Western Hemisphere. American taxpayers deserve better than footing the bill for an empire that consistently fails to advance their interests while enriching defense contractors and serving foreign powers.
Syria offers a perfect case study in the futility of American interventionism. Decades of attempts at regime change through covert programs like Timber Sycamore and direct military presence have produced nothing but chaos, empowered jihadist groups, created millions of refugees, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The rehabilitation of a former al-Qaeda commander into Syria’s president illustrates how divorced American policy has become from any coherent strategy or values.
Rather than doubling down on failed policies, the United States should pursue strategic restraint, scale back its sprawling network of foreign bases, and allow regional powers to sort out their own affairs without American military involvement. That represents the path toward a more sustainable, affordable, and morally defensible foreign policy. The Damascus base proposal deserves to be rejected outright as yet another wasteful expansion of an already overextended military empire.
For Israel, The Terrorist Attack At Bondi Is An Opportunity To Push For War With Iran
The Dissident | December 14, 2025
Today, a horrific terrorist attack was committed against Jewish Australians who were celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 16 people and sending 40 to the hospital.
But for Israel, the terrorist attack is an opportunity to manufacture consent for a war with Iran.
There is no evidence that Iran has anything to do with the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, and all evidence so far that has emerged shows that it almost certainly was not.
The Iranian foreign ministry condemned the attack, saying, “We condemn the violent attack in Sydney, Australia. Terror and killing of human beings, wherever committed, is rejected and condemned”, and evidence released so far suggests the attacker identified so far, Naveed Akram, was a follower of Wahhabi Salafist ideology, which is openly hostile to Shia Islam and Iran.
Despite the lack of evidence and evidence showing it was not Iran behind the attack, Israel is using the horrific terrorist attack to manufacture consent for war with Iran.
Israel Hayom, the mouthpiece of Israel lobbyist and pro-Iran war hawk Miriam Adelson, published an article quoting an anonymous “Israeli security official” who claimed -without evidence- that “there is no doubt that the direction and infrastructure for the attack originated in Tehran”.
The Israeli newspaper Times of Israel, reported that Australia is “investigating if Sydney attack was part of larger Iranian plot” at the behest of the Israeli Mossad.
Previously, Israel pressured Australia to repeat baseless claims from the Mossad that Iran was behind anti-Semitic attacks in Australia.
As veteran journalist Joe Lauria reported, in August “Australian intelligence said the Iranian government was behind the firebombing of a Jewish temple in Melbourne last year as well as other ‘anti-semitic’ attacks in the country”, “days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly humiliated Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X for being ‘a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’ after Albanese said Australia would follow several European nations and recognize the state of Palestine.”
As Lauria noted, “The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) did not provide any evidence to prove Iran’s involvement last December in the Adass synagogue attack, which caused millions of dollars of damage but injured no one. It simply said it was their assessment based on secret evidence that Iran was involved”.
Australia’s ABC News reported that, “The Israeli government is claiming credit for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and intelligence agencies publicising Iranian involvement in antisemitic attacks on Australian soil,” adding that “in a press briefing overnight, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer effectively accused Australia of being shamed into acting”.
Mencer boasted that “Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has made a very forthright intervention when it comes to Australia, a country in which we have a long history of friendly relations”, implying that Israel pressured the Australian government to repeat their baseless claim about Iran being behind the attacks.
ABC reported that the move came days after, “Netanyahu labelled Mr Albanese a ‘weak’ leader who had ‘betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’” and “Israel announced it would tear up the visas of Australian diplomats working in the West Bank in protest against the Albanese government’s moves to recognise a Palestinian state”.
Israel’s evidence-free claims are already being used by the Trump administration to manufacture consent for war with Iran.
The Jerusalem Post reported that, “A senior US official told Fox News that if the Islamic Republic ordered the attack, then the US would fully recognize Israel’s right to strike Iran in response.”
Israel’s weaponisation of the terrorist attack in Bondi is reminiscent of how Benjamin Netanyahu weaponised the 9/11 attacks to draw America into Middle Eastern wars for Israel.
After the 9/11 attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that they were “very good” for Israel, because they would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror”.
This, in effect, meant using 9/11 to draw the U.S. into endless regime change wars in the Middle East against countries that had no ties to Al Qaeda but were in the way of Israel’s geopolitical goals.
The top U.S. general, Wesley Clark, said that after 9/11, the U.S. came up with a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.
Years later, on Piers Morgan’s show, Wesley Clark said that the hit list of countries came from a study that was “paid for by the Israelis”, which “said that if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding” adding that, “this led to all that followed” (i.e. regime change wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.)
Yet again, Israel is weaponising a terrorist attack to manufacture consent for the final regime change war on their hit list.
The Deep State Targets Thomas Massie
By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | December 9, 2025
With the retirement next month of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the face of vociferous attacks from President Donald Trump, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is the only member of any of the three branches of our government who consistently and on principle opposes American empire—and who also opposes the taxes, debt, and interventions that come with it. In a little over a year, he may not be.
For the first time in his seven-term congressional career, Massie is being challenged by a formidable primary opponent. That opponent is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy Seal who during his thirty years of meritorious service earned four Bronze Stars and whose extended family of small business owners is a multi-generational staple of Kentucky’s 4th District. As the last line in Gallrein’s X bio has it, he is “Trump-endorsed to defeat Thomas Massie and Deliver America First for Kentucky”—and, given the popularity Trump still enjoys among Republican voters as well as Gallrein’s sterling military reputation, and despite Massie’s strong endurability, Gallrein may succeed in realizing his goal.
Whether Gallrein’s election would actually mean delivering America first is a very different question. Putting America first presumably means putting the soldiers sworn to protect Americans, those individuals with whom Gallrein so valorously served, first as well. But a closer examination of the agenda Gallrein is running on makes clear that, unlike Massie’s prudent America first constitutionalism, it does not accomplish that goal. Instead it is the latest iteration, this time under Donald Trump, of a long-running play where small networks of ideologues ensconced in Washington’s military-corporate complex use America’s armed forces to run imperial plays for profit and power. The people running this version—connected Zionists tied to Trump’s re-election bid and now to his White House—are using Gallrein’s military service, which one might think would end up aiding our men and women in uniform, as an excuse to do the opposite. They are funding a decorated veteran to act as a front for imperial plays that mis-serve our armed forces and the Americans they’re sworn to protect.
Understanding the conditions that allowed this operation to happen and their consequences means going back to the creation of the current armed forces at the hands of the military-corporate complex after 1945—and tracing its abuses and misuses at the hands of a small number of players whose inheritors are now backing Trump and targeting Massie.
Americans’ rightful and deep respect for the men and women of our armed forces obscures an essential fact about the organization they serve: in its current form, it was never intended to exist. From Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Dwight Eisenhower, people concerned for our liberties saw a large and expanding standing army and its support systems as inherent threats to our constitutional republic. These men were not unrealistic about the need for an armed forces—Jefferson founded West Point, and Eisenhower commanded D-Day—but they knew that an essentially defensive army equipped for a republic was very different than an aggressive army serving empire. In their view, this latter type of army would become a version of the British Army which Jefferson’s revolutionaries had fought against: an aggressive tool of imperial operators to use for power and profit.
With the start of the Cold War and the beginning of an arms race with the Soviet Union, Jefferson’s and Madison’s and Eisenhower’s fears came true, giving an enormous opportunity to a network that did not share them. Namely, old Northeastern WASPs and their allies who by 1945 had spent 150 years eschewing America’s constitutional politics in favor of building institutions and corporations in and around Washington DC. The Henry Cabot Lodges and the Brothers Harriman, the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and the Bushes, John Foster and Allen Dulles and John Jesus Angleton—these were the financial and corporate and military players who used the Cold War as an opportunity to make themselves into runners of American empire, for their own power and profit.
At their hands, the American Army became the British Army of a later age, with its own public-debt-fueled corporate outgrowths which purport to be serving our soldiers. In reality, as Dwight Eisenhower said publicly in his presidential farewell address of 1961, the new weapons-for-profit system made its minders into what Eisenhower called in his notes for the speech “merchants of death”: “flag and general officers retiring at an early age take positions in war based industrial complex shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust.” And these civilians running the weapons contractors were rotating not just through Pentagon and CIA consultancies and administrative agencies but through America’s new civilian intelligence service, the CIA. There, the profit motive—combined with a high level of ideological zeal—also distorted policy.
By 1961, Allen Dulles, John Jesus Angleton, and the lineup of other old-line WASPs running the CIA outside of meaningful oversight had put America into the Congo, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, and the beginnings of Vietnam. After these came interventions in El Salvador, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Palestine, and (again, this year) Iran. These were plays executed with input from McKinsey and Raytheon to Langley and the Pentagon via the Situation Room. They were increasingly run by new networks: once disproportionally WASP, these new networks were disproportionally made up of Jewish Zionists bent on using American empire to protect Israel. Among these were early operators like Henry Morgenthau and Theodore Kollek; and their later inheritors like Martin Peretz and William Kristol, Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen and Thomas Pritzker, people who in many ways shaped the policies of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations. At their hands, accelerated military corporate cronyism has been the order of the day starting in 1993, when the Clinton administration, which assumed power thanks in part to Zionist backing, pressured the fifty major weapons contractors active during the Cold War to consolidate in the nominal name of cutting costs. The ensuing distortion of our military has occurred via multiple forms, which I reported on for the Libertarian Institute in July.
One distortion has been cost overruns on weapons systems, which contractors feel free to allow or even encourage since no competition exists for their product. This has also allowed errors in construction which diminishes the equipment that’s supposed to serve our troops. Then, as I have reported elsewhere, in response to the overruns came budget cuts and the “fix” of “sequestration,” which reduced these cost overruns by cutting expenditures on the troops, further under-equipping and overstretching personnel. Exacerbating the problem, as I have also reported, were Pentagon-and-contractor funded think tanks, which covered the problem with “social initiatives” via mental health, climate, and DEI, further distracting the Pentagon from the imperatives of readiness and training. All the while, interventions urged by the same financial-military-intelligence networks attenuating the capacity of our armed forces also overstretched them: in Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and (in an “advisory” capacity) Syria and Israel and Ukraine.
The result has not just been surging deficit spending that mortgages the future of Americans; nor backlash from affected populations to our imperial arrangements abroad. It has also, even more dramatically, been a spate of military embarrassments since 2018, most notably crashes of planes at the hands of overcommitted and demoralized troops and their commanders. These have racked up losses to the tune of nearly $500 million per crash and cost the lives of servicepeople. As I reported in January of this year, in an investigation of these crashes and their causes:
“For the Army, [the shrinking of budgets and personnel since the 2010s] meant “cut[ting] 40,000 active-duty soldiers, shrinking [the Armed Forces] to 450,000 by 2017.” For the Air Force, this meant a reduction of active-duty airmen from 333,370 to 310,000.”
“An Air Force report to Congress in 2018 said that, thanks to sequestration, the Air Force was ‘the smallest… it has ever been.’ Active-duty aircrew flying hours had been slashed from 17.7 to 13.2 hours per month. 31 squadrons, including 13 coded for combat, had stood down because of funding pressures. Plans had been announced to eliminate 500 planes, and, according to a Military.com report cited by The American Legion, the Air Force was ‘making do with ‘half-size squadrons.’’ The common refrain today is that hours in the air are even shorter—4.1 hours a month, by one estimate—and that efforts to replace real flying with “on-the-ground simulators” are dismal failures.”
“These shortages of manpower and training had immediate effects that took time to tally… 2018, the year after the sequester was complete, saw a spate of plane crashes. In late 2020, Congress found that, in just six years since the sequester began, ‘‘mishaps’ in training flights or routine missions killed 198 service members and civilians, destroyed 157 aircraft, and cost taxpayers $9.41 billion.’ Two weeks alone in 2022 saw three crashes on routine training missions in Alabama and California, costing at least five lives and two injuries. The last few months of 2023 saw four crashes. On December 22, 2024, a navy jet was shot down by friendly fire, and another narrowly avoided being shot down by the same barrage, in the Mediterranean.”
A year ago, given the stakes Donald Trump himself articulated for his re-election (a run against the “deep state”), it seemed unthinkable that Trump would adopt military corporatist priorities wholesale almost immediately on assuming office. But, influenced in part by Zionist operators who swung to support his re-election campaign in the summer of 2024 after pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, he has done exactly that. As I reported for the Libertarian Institute in July, Trump has forgone actually reforming aspects of the military corporate complex to aid our soldiers. Instead he has committed to a “Big Beautiful Bill” that inflates ICE’s budget but does not direct military funding away from corporate cronyism; a surface-level crusade against “wokeness” and “DEI”; a military parade; superficial demonstrations of force in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela; the militarization of law enforcement via ICE recruiting; and the placement of American troops in American cities. He claims to be standing above all for our troops—but in reality he is standing for the military corporate complex that mis-serves them, to the demonstrable detriment of our men and women in uniform.
The most recent example of Trump’s demonstrably detrimental effect on our troops comes from The Washington Post, in a story published December 4, 2025. The subject was a deployment to the Middle East for the benefit of Israel and its Saudi and Emirati allies against Yemen; a campaign prosecuted in the Biden administration and before with the encouragement of Zionists but decisively and unprecedentedly accelerated by Trump in his second term:
“The U.S. Navy on Thursday released its findings from four investigations scrutinizing the significant challenges encountered by one of its aircraft carrier groups over nine months in the Middle East, where several major accidents occurred as the ships battled Yemeni militants.”
“The Truman carrier group departed its home port in Norfolk in September 2024 — and by the time it returned in May, the carrier itself had collided with a merchant vessel; its cruiser had shot down one of its fighter jets, another warplane was lost when it slid overboard as the carrier performed an evasive maneuver to dodge an incoming missile; and a third jet was lost when an arresting cable failed as the pilot attempted to land.”
“In three of the four incidents, investigators determined, either poor training, improper procedures or crew fatigue played significant roles. And while no service members died, those incidents could have led to multiple fatalities, the Navy found.”
All of which raises with some immediacy the question of Ed Gallrein, who was selected to run against Massie after the congressman repeatedly voted, along Jeffersonian constitutionalist lines, against using taxpayer money and deficit spending to benefit Israel. Gallrein’s selector was Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager in 2024 and Trump’s pick to spearhead the anti-Massie campaign, who is working with at least $2 million from an anti-Massie PAC funded by the Jewish Zionist billionaires Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Miriam Adelson. These three operators owe their easy entrée into Washington in part to the military-intelligence Zionist operators linked to the money and power at the origins of the CIA and of the host systems for the merchants of death 80 years ago—just as the decisive momentum was building for the creation of Israel.
And the $2 million they have committed so far on behalf of Israel’s interests has had its effect. At a recent gathering of campaign donors, Massie informed the group that before this primary campaign his approval/disapproval rating in polls was 62-12 (adding together very approved, somewhat approved, etc.) But, he went on to say, after $2 million in negative ads spent in his district, it’s now 51-37. He said hthat he personally expects $20 million to be spent against him, but will feel comfortable in his odds if he raises $5 million.
Gallrein was endorsed preemptively by Trump, which is to say before he entered the race, and he is by any measure a shrewd choice for Trump and Trump’s Zionist allies to back. He is not just a decorated veteran with thirty years of valorous service, he is also a fifth generation farmer and the scion of a Kentucky family with deep roots in the 4th District. The Gallrein Family Farm, founded in 1929, became the largest dairy producer in the state; expanded aggressively into tobacco and vegetables and grain along with a subset of trucking; and has now expanded into “agritourism” with weddings and a farmers market, along with a store and lunch counter which sells the farm’s “produce and product lines.” According to his LinkedIn CV, Gallrein worked at the farm from 1962, when he was four, to 1982, when he was 24, rising to vice president; then in 1984 he joined the U.S. Army, where “he served for 30 years and became a Navy SEAL officer… rose to the rank of captain and served in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq.” Since retiring in 2014, Gallrein has experimented with careers: opening a farm and stables as well as two “leadership” and “startup” consultancy businesses, and running in the Republican primary for the District 7 state senate seat, going on to lose the race by 118 votes. He speaks, repeatedly, of his intention to bring the skills he learned during his military service to serve the 4th District.
Gallrein, having never served in office, has no voting record, and his policy platform amounts to loyalty to President Trump’s agenda, which now includes supporting interventions or operations abroad in Yemen, Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Nigeria. In public statements this year, Gallrein has doubled down on interventionism, specifically defended our engagements in the Middle East, especially against Iran, as “leveraging” our “power” there and (echoing a favorite line from Trump-supporting media) “playing chess” against our enemies. He uses the authority of his service to help make the case—even to the extent of arguing that what may seem to be the Trump administration’s irresponsible ventures abroad and at home with authoritarian surveillance regimes like the Saudis and Emiratis via the ministrations of Israel are in fact necessary complements to our national security. (“Economic is the centerpiece of national power. [That concept is] called ‘Dime’ as we studied it in the War College.”)
What Gallrein doesn’t emphasize in his interviews is as telling as what he does. What he under-emphasizes is not just questions of taxes and debt and cost of living, which is not a surprise considering that he has said publicly that he “believes it’s his stance on foreign policy that put him on Trump’s radar.” What he under-emphasizes also relates to crucial questions when it comes to his nominal area of expertise, our military. He does not speak about meaningfully reforming our weapons contracting systems or their think tank outgrowths; or about the influence of money on the interventions we make in other sovereign nations. In other words, he does not speak about any actual structural problem in the military corporate complex that hurts the men and women with whom he once valorously served—or about any actual structural reform that would help them. And why would he? His financial and political backers are tied, directly, to those very structures—the military corporate systems and their financial supporters and their think tanks and advocacy groups and the state, Israel, that is their main priority and beneficiary and the beneficiary of our endless interventions.
Not just our sovereignty, but the safety of the people pledged to protect us, are under clear threat when they’re presided over by politicos like Gallrein run by networks, and operators, like these.
US rushes loitering drones built based on Iranian blueprint to West Asia
Press TV – December 3, 2025
The US has deployed “its first squadron” of one-way attack drones, developed following reverse-engineering of a much-sought-after and versatile Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle, to the West Asia region.
On Wednesday, US Central Command announced establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) that will oversee the first of its kind operational deployment by the US military, various American outlets reported.
The aircraft in question was identified as the Iranian Shahed-136 long-range UAV.
The reports also cited CENTCOM as noting that Washington had additionally set up Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) to oversee the drone’s so far unprecedented deployment.
Observers also pointed to the unique nature of the taskforce, saying its development signaled urgency in Washington’s approach towards the drones’ deployment.
“This new taskforce sets the conditions for using innovation as a deterrent,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander.
‘Cutting-edge drone capabilities’
“Equipping our skilled warfighters faster with cutting-edge drone capabilities showcases US military innovation and strength,” the official added.
According to one report, the system’s deployment was spurred in part by War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “drone dominance” initiative that was deployed to accelerate delivery of low-cost and effective drones to US forces.
The Islamic Republic deployed the aircraft during the Israeli regime’s and the US’s unprovoked and illegal war against its soil in June.
Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia’s uneasy détente
By Tamjid Kobaissy | The Cradle | December 2, 2025
In West Asia, where sectarian politics and external meddling collide with local power struggles, few rivalries have been as entrenched or as symbolically loaded as that between Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia.
For decades, it embodied the broader confrontation between Iran and the Persian Gulf kingdoms – a proxy war defined by ideology, oil, and shifting battlefronts. But today, under the weight of new regional calculations, rising Israeli belligerence, and the cracks in American hegemony, that once-intractable hostility is giving way to a more ambiguous and tactical coexistence.
What is developing is neither an alliance nor even reconciliation. But for the first time, Hezbollah and Riyadh are probing the edges of a relationship long defined by zero-sum enmity. A pragmatic detente is emerging, shaped less by goodwill than by the shared urgency to contain spiraling instability across the region.
Tehran, Riyadh, and the long shadow of history
The long arc of the Hezbollah–Saudi confrontation is impossible to separate from Iran’s post-revolutionary clash with Riyadh. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the Shah in 1979 and declared the House of Saud a reactionary tool of western imperialism, the rupture was both ideological and strategic.
The Saudis responded by bankrolling Saddam Hussein’s devastating war against Tehran, and in 1987, relations cratered after Saudi security forces massacred Iranian pilgrims in Mecca. Khomeini’s message was scathing:
“Let the Saudi government be certain that America has branded it with an eternal stain of shame that will not be erased or cleansed until the Day of Judgment, not even with the waters of Zamzam or the River of Paradise.”
Decades later, the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 reopened the wound. While Tehran stood by its state allies in Damascus and Baghdad, Riyadh threw its weight behind opposition movements and fanned the flames of sectarian conflict.
In Yemen, the kingdom launched a military campaign against the Ansarallah movement and allied forces, which Tehran backed politically and diplomatically. After Saudi Arabia executed outspoken Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in 2016, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, prompting Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties. The two regional powers would only resume relations as part of Chinese-backed mediation in 2023.
From Hariri’s abduction to assassination plots
Within this regional maelstrom, Hezbollah became a prime Saudi target. When the Lebanese resistance captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July 2006, to secure the release of prisoners, Riyadh dismissed it as “uncalculated adventures” and held Hezbollah responsible for the fallout.
In Syria, Hezbollah’s deployment alongside former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s army placed it in direct opposition to Saudi-backed militants. In Yemen, the movement’s vocal support for the Ansarallah–led government in Sanaa triggered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sanctions and terrorist designations.
Matters escalated in 2017 when Saudi Arabia detained then-Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri and coerced him into announcing his resignation on television from Riyadh. Late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah slammed the move as an act of war against Lebanon. The situation de-escalated only after French mediation.
In a 2022 TV interview, Nasrallah revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) was ready to authorize an Israeli plot to assassinate him, pending US approval.
Quiet channels, Iranian cover
The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh changed the regional tone but did not yield immediate dividends for Hezbollah. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia intensified its efforts to roll back Hezbollah’s influence in Beirut, especially following Israel’s October assault on Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Riyadh pressured Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to implement the so-called “Barrack Paper,” aimed at politically sidelining Hezbollah and stripping its arms. Speaking to The Cradle, a well-informed political source reveals that the kingdom informed the former Lebanese army commander – now the country’s president – Joseph Aoun, that it would proceed with its plans even if they triggered civil war or fractured the military. The source describes this as emblematic of Riyadh’s short-term crisis management, mirroring Washington’s reactive regional strategy.
Despite this, signs of a tactical shift began to emerge. In September, Nasrallah’s successor, Sheikh Naim Qassem, publicly called for opening a “new chapter” in ties with Riyadh – an unprecedented gesture from the movement’s leadership. According to the same source, this was not a spontaneous statement.
During a visit to Beirut, Iranian national security official Ali Larijani reportedly recieved a message from Hezbollah to Riyadh expressing its openness to reconciliation. In a subsequent trip to the kingdom, Larijani presented the message to MbS.
While initially dismissed, it was later revisited, leading to discreet backchannel coordination directly overseen by Larijani himself.
Tehran talks and guarded understandings
The Cradle’s source adds that since then, three indirect rounds of Hezbollah–Saudi talks have reportedly taken place in Tehran, each under Iranian facilitation. The first focused on political de-escalation, while the latter two addressed sensitive security files, signaling a mutual willingness to test limited cooperation.
One provisional understanding emerged: Saudi Arabia would ease pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and drop immediate demands to disarm the movement. In exchange, Riyadh asked Hezbollah to keep its weapons out of Syria – echoing a broader Gulf consensus – and assist Lebanese authorities in curbing drug smuggling networks.
In private, Riyadh reportedly acknowledges Hezbollah’s military resilience as a strategic buffer against Israel’s regional belligerence. The Persian Gulf states no longer trust Washington to shield them from Tel Aviv’s increasingly unilateral provocations – as was seen in the Israeli strikes on Doha in September. But Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon remains a challenge to Riyadh’s political influence.
Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian umbrella
The Hezbollah–Saudi contacts are just one strand in a broader strategic dance between Riyadh and Tehran. According to The Cradle’s source, Saudi Arabia has assured Iran it will not join any Israeli or US-led war, nor allow its airspace to be used in such a scenario. In return, Tehran pledged not to target Saudi territory. These commitments are fragile, but significant.
The source also reveals that US President Donald Trump had authorized MbS to explore a direct channel with Iran, tasking him with brokering understandings on Yemen and beyond. Larijani conveyed Iran’s openness to dialogue, though not to nuclear concessions. MbS reportedly stressed to Trump that a working accord with Tehran was essential to regional stability.
In parallel, Lebanese MP Ali Hassan Khalil, a close advisor to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is expected to visit Saudi Arabia soon following meetings in Tehran. This suggests continued shuttle diplomacy across resistance, Iranian, and Saudi nodes.
Strategic divergence, tactical convergence
Still, no one should confuse these developments with a realignment. Rather than a reset, this is merely a tactical repositioning. For Riyadh, the old boycott model – applied to Lebanon between 2019 and 2021 – failed to dislodge Hezbollah or bolster pro-Saudi factions. Now, the kingdom is shifting to flexible engagement, partly to enable economic investments in Lebanon that require minimal cooperation with the dominant political force.
The pivot also serves Saudi Arabia’s desire to project itself as a capable mediator rather than a crude enforcer. The 7 October 2023 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has tilted regional equations, while Israeli expansionism has become a destabilizing liability. A Hezbollah–Israel war would not stay confined to the Blue Line. Gulf cities, energy infrastructure, and fragile normalization deals would all be at risk.
From Hezbollah’s side, the outreach reflects both constraint and calculation. The resistance faces growing pressure: an intensified Israeli campaign, a stagnating Lebanese economy, and the need to preserve internal cohesion. A tactical truce with Riyadh offers breathing space, and possibly, a check against Gulf-backed meddling in Syria.
When Sheikh Naim Qassem declared that Hezbollah’s arms are pointed solely at Israel, it was also a signal to the Gulf: we are not your enemy.
The real enemy, for both sides, is the unpredictable nature of Israeli escalation. Riyadh fears being dragged into an Israeli-led regional war that it cannot control. Hezbollah fears encirclement through economic, political, and military pressure. Their interests may never align, but for now, they are no longer mutually exclusive.
US, Israel fear leak of tech secrets from unexploded bomb in Beirut
MEMO | December 1, 2025
US and Israeli officials have reportedly demanded the Lebanese government to urgently secure the transfer of an unexploded Israeli air bomb in the southern suburbs of Beirut to its possession, fearing it might fall into the hands of Russia or China and allow them access to its advanced military technology.
According to the Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv, unnamed sources say the bomb is a smart glide munition, model GBU-39B, manufactured by the US firm Boeing, and was used by the Israeli Air Force in a strike targeting Hitham Ali Tabtaba’i — described as the chief of staff of Hezbollah — within the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut.
Ma’ariv adds that although the bomb was used in the assassination attempt, it did not explode for reasons that remain unclear, and remained relatively intact at the scene of the attack. This has raised concern in Washington about the possibility that foreign powers — specifically Russia or China — could recover it and study its technology.
The report notes that the bomb carries a warhead “exceptionally powerful for its weight”, as well as guidance systems and technology not currently believed to be held by Moscow or Beijing — making its recovery a priority for the United States.
Gaza ‘stabilization force’ fails to launch as nations unwilling to commit troops: Report
The Cradle | November 29, 2025
The White House is having difficulty launching its so-called Gaza International Stabilization Force (ISF), as countries that previously expressed willingness to deploy troops to the project now seek to distance themselves from it, according to a 29 November report in the Washington Post.
The ISF “is struggling to get off the ground as countries considered likely to contribute soldiers have grown wary” over concerns their soldiers may be required to use force against Palestinians.
Indonesia had stated it would send 20,000 peacekeeping troops. However, officials in Jakarta speaking with the US news outlet said they now plan to provide a much smaller contingent of about 1,200.
Azerbaijan has also reneged on a previous commitment to provide troops. Baku will only send troops if there is a complete halt to fighting, Reuters reported earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza envisioned meaningful troop contributions from Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar. But after expressing early interest, none have committed to participating.
“A month ago, things were in a better place,” one regional official with knowledge of the issue stated.
Trump’s plan for post-war Gaza rests on the ability of an international force to occupy the strip and was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution on 17 November.
However, because the resolution gave the force the mandate to “demilitarize” the Gaza Strip, many countries are resisting participation.
They say their troops could be required to disarm Hamas on Israel’s behalf. This would require killing Palestinians and possibly cast their forces as co-perpetrators in Israel’s genocide in front of the world.
Some officers are “really hesitant” to participate, one Indonesian official said.
“They want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza and restore, quote unquote, law and order and disarm any resistance,” a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. “So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that.”
Participation would also put their soldiers in harm’s way, whether from Hamas or the ongoing Israeli airstrikes, which regularly kill Palestinians despite the alleged ceasefire that took effect in October.
Sources familiar with the plan told the Washington Post that the White House plans to man the force with between 15,000 and 20,000 foreign troops, divided into three brigades to be deployed in early 2026.
However, details have not been finalized, which has led to additional hesitancy among potential participating nations.
“Commitments are being considered. No one is going to send troops from their country without understanding the specifics of the mission,” the official said.
Efforts to establish the so-called “Board of Peace,” a committee of Palestinian technocrats taking orders directly from the White House to deal with the day-to-day administration of the enclave, have also stalled.
“We thought, with the Security Council resolution, within 48 to 72 hours, the Board of Peace would be announced,” another person familiar with the plan told The Post. “But nothing, not even informally.”
No other members of the Board of Peace have yet been named.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the Israeli army will disarm Hamas if foreign countries are unwilling to do so for them.
“All indicators show that indeed no countries are willing to take on this responsibility, and that understanding is sinking in both in Israel and in the US,” said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.
“Bottom line: It’s unlikely that the ISF, if it’s established at all, will lead to Gaza’s demilitarization,” he added.
Tamara Kharroub, Deputy Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the Arab Center in Washington, DC, described the Trump plan as “Permanent Palestinian subjugation and neocolonial rule dressed up as peace.”
“There are no guarantees or binding mechanisms or clarity around what constitutes reform or demilitarization and around who determines what they are. The plan ultimately gives Israel a blank check to prolong its presence in Gaza, fully reoccupy it, or resume its genocidal war,” Kharroub wrote.
Stealth Bombers and Bunker Busters
A retrospective analysis of the so-called 12-Day War, and the triumphantly celebrated Operation Midnight Thunder

B-2 “Stealth Bomber” Dropping a GBU-57 “Bunker Buster” Bomb
By William Schryver | imetatronink | November 28, 2025
The GBU-57 is a big fat gravity bomb with fins. To achieve effective precision, a B-2 bomber must drop it on its intended target from no further than about five nautical miles — essentially right on top of the target.
Its penetration depth is claimed to be 200 feet. But that capability has NEVER been tested against a seriously hardened deep-underground target encased in layers of high-performance concrete, and topped with a few dozen meters of solid rock. In that sort of real-world scenario, the GBU-57 would be lucky to drill down 50 feet, if that.
It was always ridiculous silly talk to suggest the GBU-57 was the wonder weapon it was made out to be. There is a good reason the US only produced a couple dozen of them and then stopped: they understood its acute limitations in a non-permissive combat environment.
And, notwithstanding the hyperbolic Israeli propaganda, there was never any credible evidence that Iranian medium- and long-range air defenses against fixed-wing aircraft were attrited to any significant degree. And Iranian short-range air defenses were increasingly effective against long-range Israeli drones with each passing day.
As for the B-2: it is a big fat subsonic aircraft. It flies at airliner speeds. A strike on Fordow would entail flying at least 500 miles in and out of Iran.
It is nonsense that the B-2 is effectively invisible. It can be tracked from long distances, and targeted sufficiently well that missiles with effective terminal guidance (thermal / optical) can kill it.
The Iranians established during the October 26, 2024 Israeli counterstrike that they could paint F-35s with their radars. That is why the Israelis launched nothing but long-range stand-off munitions: aero-ballistic and cruise missiles – of which they have a very limited stockpile.
The same conditions prevailed during the 12-Day War.
And just as the Israelis were unwilling to risk getting fighters shot down over Iran, neither was the USAF willing to risk getting a B-2 shot down over Iran.
Maybe a few B-2s launched some JASSMs from over Iraq or the Caspian Sea. Maybe nothing but sub-launched Tomahawks hit Iranian targets. But it certainly wasn’t GBU-57 “Bunker Buster” bombs dropped by a half-dozen B-2s casually flying in Iranian airspace for an hour.
And whatever was dropped inflicted no meaningful damage. Fordow was scratched at best. A bunch of surface structures at Natanz were blown up.
Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed is absurd nonsense. No one with even a modest understanding of these things believes that.
The Israelis certainly don’t believe it, and they have admitted as much.
It is true that, in retaliation, the Iranians precisely targeted and convincingly destroyed a significant communications complex at the American Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.
The fictionalized B-2 “Bunker Buster” strike on Fordow, and the token Iranian ballistic missile strike on Al Udeid were orchestrated events designed to grease the tracks of a ceasefire that was proposed by the Americans and agreed to by the Iranians.
The Americans and Israelis had expended almost their entire inventories of ballistic missile interceptors over the course of a week and a half, and Iranian missiles were raining down with effective impunity the last few days.
The Iranians knew damn well they had already achieved a strategic victory, despite their shaky start.
I’m also convinced the Russians and Chinese encouraged Iran to accept the ceasefire proposal.
It allowed both sides to claim a PR victory, lick their wounds, and prepare for the next round.
Meanwhile, the Iranians have more production capability than do their US/Israeli counterparts. And it also appears the Iranians are much more amenable to Russian and Chinese assistance now than they may have been previously.
When this war resumes, the Iranians will be comparatively stronger than they were before. And the risks for the US/Israel will be significantly heightened.
Israel’s threat of nukes shows us who is running U.S. foreign policy
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 27, 2025
It is a long-debated subject. Whether it is the U.S. which controls Israel or the other way around. In the 70s, under President Nixon, many analysts firmly believed, despite the JFK assassination, that it was still the U.S. who called the shots and used Israel as a useful tool in the Middle East to keep a rowdy group of Arab states in check and subservient to America’s interests. But it is in recent years where we have to see if Israel has done that effectively and meticulously in America’s interests, given that most analysts agree that Israel and the U.S. are both preparing for war with Iran.
Given that Israel’s main task was to keep the region in order to serve America’s hegemony and its energy needs, one has to ask isn’t it a failure of both U.S. foreign policy and of Israel that a war with Iran is seen as a solution to America’s failing hegemony? And doesn’t this tail wagging the dog scenario show itself in the clear light once and for all?
Recently two startling revelations about Israel’s attacks on Iran in June – otherwise known as the ‘twelve-day war’ have surfaced which should worry Americans as it shows just how far this abusive relationship has become, with Israel playing the role of the spoilt child waving daddy’s pistol as its master. Former CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou and the formidable U.S. academic John Mearsheimer have both confirmed that it was Israel who basically threatened Trump that if he didn’t send ‘bunker buster’ bombs to Iran in a bid to destroy the country’s underground nuclear facilities that they, Israel, would bomb Iran with nuclear weapons. Trump rolled over of course and complied.
But this extraordinary act by Israel illustrates just how far this Nabokov-esque relationship between Lolita and her foster dad has got. To the point that world wars involving nukes is now on the table for any U.S. president who thinks he can play hardball with Israel. The twist to this story is that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites was not at all a success as it has become evident that the Iranians knew it was coming and moved out a lot of the nukes days beforehand. And even the bombing itself didn’t have anywhere near the impact that was expected. It was symbolic more than anything in that it sent a message to the Iranians that such an act was possible under the Trump administration.
In many ways the attack was a gift to the Iranians as it focused their minds and made them aware where they needed to improve their defensive capabilities. It was a test run and they learnt from it.
But for the Americans it certainly couldn’t be called a success.
If it were a success, even the laziest two-bit hack in Washington could arrive at the obvious question, when hostilities kick off again, why are we at war with Iran if we’ve taken out their nuclear capability?
The U.S. has been busy in recent weeks sending naval ships and preparing for air-to-air refuelling of Israel’s jets – crucial in any conflict with Iran given the distance between the two countries – which merely confirms two poignant points. Firstly, that Iran’s response the first time round had significant impact on Israel’s military arsenal (many military sites in Israel were taken out completely, barely mentioned by U.S. media); and secondly that even the U.S. had had its own stocks depleted – which is why a pause quickly came about after the twelve-days. U.S. and Israel needed to rearm but also prepare themselves for the second phase, while Iran itself has improved its own air defences and reached out to Russia and China for rearming.
And so what Israel is successfully doing is drawing Trump into a war with Iran which will be on a scale which no military could even imagine was possible, given that this time around Iran is so much better prepared and that the surprise of using Azerbaijani airspace cannot be repeated. The Israelis don’t have any hit-n-run surprise tactics to rely on, which might lead some analysts to believe that a bigger, broader attack is in the making with the U.S. as a key partner rather than chief supplier. Worse, will be any scenario where the Israelis or the U.S. can justify using nuclear weapons if the conventional attack doesn’t quite go to plan. And all this under the watch of Donald Trump whose entire support base was about stopping ‘forever wars’ [for Israel] in the Middle East. How will he explain to his broader support base that he has nothing to do with U.S. troops being sent to their deaths in Iran, that it is Israel who controls such decisions?
Iran demands accountability after US admits role in June strikes
The Cradle | November 27, 2025
Iran’s UN ambassador on November 27 urged the Security Council to act after Washington publicly confirmed its direct role in June’s joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, calling the operation an unlawful act of aggression that demands full accountability and reparations.
In a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general and Security Council president, Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the latest US Air Force admission – acknowledging that US F-35s penetrated Iranian airspace and escorted B-2 bombers to strike Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan – confirms “once again” that the US directly participated with Israel in attacks on Iran’s safeguarded nuclear facilities.
He cited the 24 November US Air Force statement announcing that “In June, the 34th was called upon to escort a strike package, including B-2 Spirit bombers, to strike underground nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan during Operation Midnight Hammer,” and that “On 22 June, a formation of F-35s … was the first aircraft to penetrate Iranian airspace.”
Iravani noted that these disclosures align with US President Donald Trump’s earlier remarks openly asserting Washington’s leading role.
The ambassador described the 12-day campaign as an act that targeted Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, adding that the operation included deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian sites.
He wrote that the US is obligated under established international law to provide full reparation, including restitution and compensation for all material and moral damage.
According to Iravani, Washington’s admission also establishes the individual criminal responsibility of US officials involved in the operation.
He reiterated Tehran’s “full and unequivocal” right to pursue all legal avenues to secure accountability and recover losses resulting from what he called an internationally wrongful act.
Iravani urged the Security Council and the wider UN system not to remain silent, saying they must take measures consistent with their responsibilities to uphold international peace and security, ensure accountability of both the US and Israel, and bring those responsible to justice. He requested that the letter be circulated as an official UN Security Council document.
Betrayed by western snapback: Iran dumps IAEA deal
Tehran’s attempt at diplomatic detente was met with an escalation by the US and the E3
By Fereshteh Sadeghi | The Cradle | November 25, 2025
Just hours before his visit to France to discuss Iran’s nuclear file, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned:
“International relations face unprecedented crises due to militant unilateralism. Repeated violations of international law – including ongoing conflicts in West Asia – reflect the backing of the United States and the tolerance of certain European states.”
This underscores Tehran’s defiant stance as it moves in its nuclear diplomacy. Just three months after Israeli-US airstrikes targeted Iranian nuclear sites, Tehran signed a significant security agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It did not last long.
The so-called Cairo Agreement, signed in September and brokered by Egypt, was meant to defuse tensions. Yet that same month, the western-backed IAEA was warned against “any hostile action against Iran – including the reinstatement of cancelled UN Security Council resolutions” in which case the deal would become “null and void.”
Of note, Iran–IAEA relations had been deteriorating since June during the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran. The IAEA and its director general, Rafael Grossi, refused to condemn the attacks on Iranian civilians and nuclear facilities, and the targeted assassinations of nuclear scientists and senior military officers.
The IAEA’s refusal to condemn the US-Israeli violations made Iranians furious. They accused Grossi of paving the ground for the strikes and being Israel’s footman. The Islamic Republic formally lodged a protest with the UN Secretary General and the Security Council against Grossi, arguing he breached the IAEA’s neutrality.
Resistance to western coercion
The Iranian parliament – or Majlis – raised the bar by ratifying legislation that suspended cooperation between Tehran and the international nuclear watchdog. The law was passed immediately after the war ended on 25 June.
It declared Grossi and his inspectors “persona non grata” and forbade them from travelling to Iran or visiting Iranian nuclear facilities. The law stipulated that the suspension will continue so long as the security and safety of Iranian nuclear installations and scientists have not been guaranteed.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian-mediated Cairo Agreement appeared to thaw the standoff, if temporarily. It was signed in the presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi and Grossi, and ambiguously framed as a deal on “implementing the Safeguards Agreement.”
Few details were made public then; while the IAEA called it a deal on “practical modalities and implementation of the Safeguards Agreement”, the Iranian side insisted it was “a new regime of cooperation.”
State news agency, IRNA, elaborated, “the agency will not engage in monitoring activities provided Iran has not carried out environmental and nuclear safety measures at its bombed facilities.” IRNA referred to the Supreme National Security Council as the sole body that “could greenlight the IAEA monitoring missions inside Iran, case by case.”
Iran’s diplomatic maneuvering, including the deal with the IAEA, was obviously part of the broader strategy to prevent the UK, France, and Germany from activating the snapback mechanism, in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany.
The European Troika (E3), who were clearly dissatisfied with the Cairo Agreement, reiterated “Tehran needs to allow inspections of sensitive sites and address its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.”
Snapback triggers collapse
A threat to terminate the Cairo Agreement actually came three days after it was clinched, when Iran’s Foreign Ministry warned that “launching the snapback mechanism would put the ongoing cooperation between Iran and the IAEA at risk.” Nevertheless, the UK, France, and Germany moved ahead with the snapback activation.
Araghchi’s first reaction noted that “in regards to the E3’s move, the Cairo agreement has lost its functionality.” Iranians had also vowed to halt cooperation with the IAEA. However, they did not fulfill that threat and collaborated in silence.
The IAEA inspectors visited some Iranian nuclear sites in early November. However, they were not given access to the US-bombed Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan facilities.
Even this tactical compliance failed to shield Tehran from a new IAEA censure. On 20 November, the agency’s Board of Governors passed a US-E3-backed resolution ignoring Iran’s cooperation and demanding immediate access to all affected sites and data.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Iran condemned the move as “illegal, unjustifiable, irresponsible, and a stain on the image of its sponsors.”
Araghchi on his X account posted, “like the diplomacy which was assaulted by Israel and the US in June, the Cairo Agreement has been killed by the US and the E3.”
For the second time, Iran’s top diplomat announced the termination of the Cairo Agreement, “given that the E3 and the US seek escalation, they know full well that the official termination of the Cairo Agreement is the direct outcome of their provocations.”
Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Reza Nadjafi, told reporters that “If the US claims success in destroying Iran’s Natanz and Fordow facilities, then what is left for inspections?” and further warned, “any decision (by the IAEA) has its own consequences.”
Back to confrontation
By applying pressure through the IAEA, the E3 and the US seek to coerce Iran into opening the doors of its bombed nuclear sites to the IAEA inspectors, to hand over the 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which the US believes is still intact, and “to eliminate Iran’s ability to convert that fuel into a nuclear weapon.”
The collapse of the Cairo Agreement marks a return to the kind of standoff that defined US–Iran relations from 2005 to 2013, when Iran’s nuclear file was sent to the UN Security Council, and sanctions were imposed under Chapter VII.
Some skeptics believe US President Donald Trump’s administration would not only take Iran to the Security Council but would also cite the chapter in question, which sanctions the use of military force against any country deemed a threat to global peace.
While Iran signed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in hopes of avoiding that scenario, the US’s unilateral withdrawal under Donald Trump’s first term in 2018 and the E3’s failure to meet their obligations rendered the agreement toothless.
June’s US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iranian nuclear infrastructure confirmed for Tehran that western powers have no intention of engaging in diplomacy in good faith.
Toward a new strategy
According to IRNA, which echoes the official line of the Iranian government, “Iran feels that the goodwill gestures it has shown towards the IAEA and the United States, have drawn further hostility. Therefore, maybe now it is the time to change course and revise its strategy and the rule of engagement with international bodies, including the IAEA.”
Some observers believe Iran’s first step to map out a new strategy is pursuing the policy of “nuclear ambiguity, remaining silent regarding the whereabouts of the stockpile of the highly-enriched uranium and quietly halting the implementation of the [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, without officially admitting it.”
In the latest development, the chairman of the Parliament’s National Security Committee has vowed that “Iran will sturdily pursue its nuclear achievements.” Ibrahim Azizi has cautioned the US and Europe that “Iran has changed its behavior post June attacks and they’d better not try Iran’s patience.”
That posture is hardening. In September, over 70 Iranian lawmakers urged the Supreme National Security Council to reconsider Iran’s defense doctrine – including its long-standing religious prohibition on nuclear weapons.
They argue that the regional and international order has changed irreversibly since Israel and the US jointly bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities. While citing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s 2010 fatwa banning nuclear weapons, they assert that in Shia jurisprudence, such rulings may evolve when conditions change – especially when the survival of the Islamic Republic is at stake.
Iran is also working to immunize itself against any escalation at the UN Security Council. Here, it banks on the veto power of Russia and China to neutralize any western effort to reimpose sanctions.
The collapse of the Cairo Agreement marks a turning point in Tehran’s nuclear diplomacy. It is a conclusion drawn from years of unmet commitments and military escalation that western multilateralism has exhausted its credibility.





