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Trump press conference reveals a man who wants out of war

By Trita Parsi | Responsible Statecraft | March 9, 2026

Trump’s “all over the place” press conference at his Miami resort on Monday appears to have had two key objectives: a) Calm the markets by signalling the conflict may soon be over because it has been so “successful,” and b) Prepare the ground for Trump ending the war through a unilateral declaration of victory.

Though ending a war that never should have been started in the first place — rather than fighting it endlessly in the pursuit of an illusory victory as the U.S. did in Afghanistan — is the right move, it won’t be as easy as Trump appears to think.

Tehran also has a vote — and there is little to suggest that it will agree that the war is over.

Tehran objects to what it would consider a premature ceasefire out of fear that it would only give the U.S. and Israel time to regroup, rearm, and then re-attack Iran. For the conflict to be ripe for a ceasefire, Tehran believes that enough cost must have been inflicted on the U.S., regional states, Israel, and on the global economy that all states conclude that starting the war was a mistake — and as a result, no state will seek to restart it.

Moreover, if the war ends now, Iran will be in a worse situation than it was before the start of the war. Much of its infrastructure has been destroyed, its missile capabilities have taken hits, its ability to export oil has been damaged, and most crucially, its prospects for sanctions relief have been obliterated. Indeed, who will and can help rebuild Iran under these circumstances?

This would leave Iran not only in a weakened position but also in a continuously weakening state. Which, in turn, would make another war of aggression by the U.S. and Israel more, not less, likely, since it is Iran’s perceived weakness that prompted Trump and Israel to see an opportunity for war.

As such, it appears likely that Iran will continue to target Israel, even if the U.S. declares victory and withdraws its military. Even GCC states may continue to be targeted. And Tehran will very likely try to keep the Straits of Hormuz shut. (At least for now, there are no signs that Tehran has lost its ability to do these things).

This will create a dilemma for Trump. It will be difficult for him to stay out while Iran and Israel continue to go at each other. But if he reenters the war, the hollowness of his declared victory will have been revealed. Markets will react negatively, and all the costs Trump is currently trying to avoid will likely intensify dramatically.

Iran, of course, does not want, nor can it afford, an endless war. But it will likely demand some significant steps in order to accept a ceasefire. This may include a commitment from Trump not to restart the war (though I don’t understand the value of such a commitment). But more importantly, it will likely require sanctions relief and release of its frozen funds abroad.

Trump will, of course, bark, but if the outcome is continued war, that will put a lot of pressure on him. Here, the role of some GCC states may prove crucial due to their willingness and ability to find an arrangement that could leave both Trump and Iran feeling that they “won.”

Whether Israel will allow that to happen, of course, is a different matter.

Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Trump press conference reveals a man who wants out of war

When Tel Aviv decides, Washington fights

By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | March 9, 2026

American taxpayers are still hemorrhaging from the made-for-Israel war in Iraq, a war audaciously offered as one that would “pay for itself.” Instead, it was paid in Iraqi and American blood, ruins and financed by American debt. The promised democracy was a broken state, regional chaos, and the afterbirth of terror and resistance that continues to metastasize across the Arab world. Marketed as a short, decisive campaign, Iraq became a two-decade-long disaster with no exit in sight. Trillions were burned on lies manufactured by Israel-first Zionists in Washington, while generations of Americans—many not even born when the invasion began—were conscripted into inheriting the debt, the interest, and the moral stain.

The real balance sheet of that war is etched into nearly 5,000 American tombstones and the endless corridors of veterans’ hospitals. Before that blood-soaked bill is even paid, the very same architect, using the same lies, has succeeded again in dragging the U. S. into another made-for-Israel war, this time against Iran. Iraq was not an aberration; it was a rehearsal. Yet, Iran doesn’t appear to be the final act on the Israeli menu. In recent weeks, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett declared that Turkey is next. And it is the U.S., not Israel, that is expected to keep paying for wars, America neither needed nor chose.

The evidence of who set the clock of this war is unmistakable. The most revealing admission did not come from Tehran, Moscow, or Beijing, but from the U.S. State Department. In an unguarded moment, the U.S. Secretary of State admitted that the timing of this war was not an American choice. This became painfully clear when the State Department was caught unprepared to help evacuate tens of thousands of Americans from the war zone.

As U.S. ambassadors hurried to evacuate their staff and families, desperate citizens were told their government could not assist and were advised to arrange their own departures, after airports had already closed.

This is not a minor detail. It’s a government that is willing to sacrifice the well-being and security of its citizens by joining a war decided by someone else. It goes to the heart of sovereignty and democratic accountability. A nation that chooses to go to war prepares its people, its diplomacy, and its logistics. A nation that is dragged into war improvises and hopes for the best.

Iran, for its part, is not the caricature often presented by the American Secretary of War and Donald Trump. It is a country prepared for drawn-out conflict and strategic patience. During the nearly eight-year Iran-Iraq War, Tehran fought a grinding, no-win war against a better-armed adversary. Against the expectations of Western military analysts, Iran endured. In a grim irony, it even committed the greatest of all sins: purchasing weapons from Israel, falling into Tel Aviv’s cynical strategy to weaken both Baghdad and Tehran simultaneously. Israel was willing to arm its supposed arch-enemy as part of its broader calculus of exhaustion and division.

That history matters today. Iran has demonstrated, repeatedly, a willingness to absorb punishment, and extend conflicts over time. At the end of the day, and by all means necessary, Iran is unlikely to surrender. In a protracted war of attrition to bleed the world economy, Tehran could move to close the Strait of Hormuz, an oil blood line for world economies. Iran may be economically battered, and it has been for decades under severe sanctions, but that very weakness reduces its restraint. A country with little left to lose is more inclined to impose pain on others, including Western and neighboring welfare oil economies dependent on uninterrupted energy exports.

Meanwhile, regional instability in the Gulf and prolonged American entanglement create the perfect parasitic symbiosis for Israel: a state that flourishes in the shadows of regional chaos like a scavenger thriving on the scrap of a landfill.

President Trump has suggested escorting oil shipments in the Strait to keep the oil flowing. The macho bravado may play well on television or for the stock market, but history, old and recent, offers daunting realities. The same was attempted during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s but failed. More recently, the U.S., the EU, and Israel combined failed to force a much smaller and poorer country—Yemen—to open the Red Sea. After months of bombardment, siege and naval pressure, Washington was forced into negotiations, and even then, Yemeni forces continued to block vessels linked to Israel until Gaza ceasefire.

The comparison is useful. The shorelines area under the Houthi control of the Red Sea (green map in the link) in the north of Yemen, is a much wider maritime passage. The Strait of Hormuz, by contrast, is so narrow in a clear day each shore is visible from the other. To borrow a simple image, in the Houthi area the width of the Red Sea is an Amazon River and where Hormuz is a stream. The narrowness of the Hormuz Strait makes control easier for Iran and exposes the vulnerability of U.S. naval ships. Before promising to escort commercial shipping, a responsible administration should ask a basic question: if a small, impoverished Yemen could not be subdued by the world’s most powerful militaries, how exactly will American warships be safer under the reach of fire in the narrower Strait?

There is another question Washington refuses to entertain: How will Americans feel when they realize they are risking lives, ships, and economic stability largely to advance Israel’s sole strategic objectives?

This is not an abstract question. It is a political and economic reckoning, purposefully delayed. Especially since Americans are still reeling from the cost of previous Israeli wars, and now, they are asked to take on a new national debt—$200 billion—to bankroll yet another war, especially made for Israel.

The made-for-Israel wars may have begun in Iraq but will not end with Iran. Israeli false flags are poised to provoke further escalations designed to entrap even states traditionally friendly to Tehran, such as Oman. For Israel, victory remains incomplete unless it drags Gulf Arab states into open confrontation with Iran, hardening divisions that may last generations. Iranian mistrust of the Gulf Arabs would likely endure even in the event of regime change. In this calculus, Israel “wins” not only on the battlefield, but by entrenching lasting hostility between Iran and the Arab world, ensuring a permanently fragmented region.

More than two decades ago, the illegal war against Iraq was cooked in the dens of the Pentagon by Israel-first ideologues and sold to the American public through the managed media, ruse and weapons of mass deception. The current war is, in some ways, even more brazen. It was exclusively designed in the war ministry offices of Tel Aviv, and Trump obliged.

This is not America’s war. The decision was made elsewhere, and timed elsewhere, fought on behalf of someone else to serve the strategic objectives of a foreign country. Washington has subordinated the American national interest to the tribal agenda of Israeli-firsters inside the Beltway. Simply put: Tel Aviv chooses the war, and Washington pays the bill.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on When Tel Aviv decides, Washington fights

Top official: Iran ready for a long war with US, no more diplomacy

Press TV – March 9, 2026

The head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations says the United States has proved that it does not know the language of diplomacy, and that Tehran is ready for a long war.

“I no longer see any room for diplomacy. Because [US President] Donald Trump deceives others and does not keep his promises, and we experienced this in two rounds of negotiations. While we were negotiating, they attacked us,” Kamal Kharrazi said in an interview with CNN.

However, he noted that the economic pressure could increase to the extent that other countries take action to guarantee the end of the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

“The Persian Gulf Arab countries and other countries must put pressure on the United States to end the war,” Kharrazi stated.

Noting that this war has created a lot of economic pressure on others, in terms of inflation and energy shortages, he said: “If it continues, this pressure will increase, and thereby others will have no choice but to intervene.”

The US and Israel started a fresh round of aerial aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country.

The attacks led to the martyrdom of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

The aggression was launched as Tehran and Washington had held three rounds of indirect negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat and the Swiss city of Geneva and planned to open technical talks in Vienna, Austria.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the strikes by launching barrages of missiles and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Top official: Iran ready for a long war with US, no more diplomacy

How Iran’s Toxic Rain Reveals US-Israel Discord

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 09.03.2026

The main Israeli goal is to cause as much chaos as possible and draw the US even deeper into the war, security expert Dr Simon Tsipis tells Sputnik.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright accused Israel of bombing Iranian fuel depots, insisting the US targets no energy facilities.

Axios reports that the US was informed ahead of the Israeli attacks, but the huge scale of damage shocked Washington. The attack caused an environmental disaster with black acid rain in Tehran.

This situation reveals a divide between the allies, Tsipis said:

  • Israeli forces behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to trigger a full-scale war in the Persian Gulf
  • The US realizes it has been drawn into a project that has nothing to do with its own goals

“Israel has effectively set a trap for its long-time allies among American Christian evangelicals,” Tsipis says. “A strong opposition is growing within the US, openly declaring that the current course does not serve the nation’s interests.”

The US is taking most of the blame with Israel’s role forgotten, the pundit says.

“This creates enormous reputational risks for the US, turning it into a hostage of someone else’s strategy,” Tsipis says, “one that brings no benefit to the White House while forcing it to bear all the costs of supporting the conflict.”
Consequences:

  • A regional conflict escalates into a global threat
  • The US is caught in a strategic trap
  • US allies in Europe are caught in a deepening crisis
  • A rift is growing inside the US
  • The reputational damage will have long-term consequences for US influence in the world

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on How Iran’s Toxic Rain Reveals US-Israel Discord

Trump Admits He Is Destroying Iran For Israel

The Dissident | March 9, 2026

In an interview with the Times of Israel, Donald Trump – in his usual fashion- said the quiet part out loud, and admitted that his goal is to destroy Iran on behalf of Israel.

He said, “Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.”

Trump has admitted that his real goal is to “destroy Iran”, the real motive behind the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure.

As Mondoweiss noted , “ultimately, replacing the Islamic Republic is not the main objective, or even a desirable one. Rather, the goal in Iran is ethnic balkanization and a failed state. They don’t want to change the regime in Iran; they want to collapse the state itself. The purpose of military strikes is to disintegrate the state’s institutions, fueling ethnic tensions and secessionist movements, leaving Iran deeply divided and marred by civil war and sectarian violence — a parallel to 2015 Syria.”

However, despite admitting this, Trump is still lying.

Trump claimed that “Iran was going to destroy Israel”, but in reality, the only thing Iran was “destroying” was Israel’s bloodthirsty quest for Middle East dominance and the greater Israel project.

The bloodthirsty Neo-Con Senator Lindsay Graham, one of the lead architects of this war, who apparently coached Benjamin Netanyahu, “on how to lobby the president for action” admitted the real motive behind the war was to destroy all opposition to Israel, saying, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Mid East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.

As the former UK diplomat, Craig Murray put it , “Iran has provided, directly and through proxies, the only military opposition to the creation of Greater Israel. This war is for Greater Israel.”

In reality, Trump is attempting to destroy Iran and turn it into a failed state because it was the last thing standing in the way of Israeli dominance over the Middle East and the greater Israel project.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Trump Admits He Is Destroying Iran For Israel

Iran’s latest move in the GCC countries was a stroke of genius

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 9, 2026

After just a week into Donald Trump’s war, there is very little to report which should or could please the U.S. president. Much of America’s infrastructure in the Middle East has been destroyed with U.S. soldiers now housed by hotels in GCC countries as there is nothing left of their bases. The stocks that these countries have as part of their air defence systems is almost depleted as military chiefs argue about how quickly they can be replaced (some THAAD and Patriot systems are being shipped from Japan and South Korea) and Iran is hitting Israel harder and harder each day.

Of course, due to the new draconian rules which Israel has imposed — that no military strikes that Iran succeeds in carrying out can be ‘reported’ on by journalists or even citizens who wish to post it on social media — as well as the comically corrupt, partisan way U.S. news outlets are covering the war, very little bad news gets seen by the public, if any.

Under this set up, it is hardly surprising that Trump went to war, given that he must have factored in a great deal of support from U.S. media, whom he claims to despise. In this regard, we can conclude that media itself is complicit in war crimes, given that it has played a huge role in the decision to go to war and also the day to day reporting of events on the ground.

A good example of the few points of the war which are reported, but done in such a distorted way, is the news that Iran has stopped its bombing of GCC Gulf states. This has been presented as a victory by the U.S. and a climb down by Iran. The truth though is that it is a considerable victory for Tehran as what is not being reported or even examined is the deal that Iran has struck with those countries. None of those countries will allow any kind of military activity now by U.S. forces there, which means the thousands of U.S. soldiers in hotels in these GCC countries might as well head back home as their role there is redundant. Of course it’s unlikely that Trump will move them out as such an event will be captured by many on social media and will look like a great defeat. But some analysts are going further and speculating that there is more bad news for Israel and the U.S. with this latest move. Not only has Iran insisted on no activity at all in these countries by U.S. forces but they have also said that when the war is over, all the bases must be completely shut down.

Sadly, the gesture didn’t hold for long as it is rumoured that Iran’s elite guard was angered by Trump’s response and so the missile attack on the GCC countries continued.

Against a backdrop of rumours spreading throughout the middle east that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar were considering jointly to completely pull out their investment in the U.S., this move, even as a gesture, couldn’t have come at a worse time for Trump.

His media machine is working overtime in spewing out so many fake news reports, like the recent one that the U.S. has total air superiority over Iran, that it will be interesting to see how this is spun in the coming days. But there is nothing but lies from the Trump camp and as a complicit western media scrum is happy to pump out these lies, people are obviously turning to social media or international news channels in the global south, like CGTN and Russia Today. For many Americans, they are simply too dumb to know how to even question the narrative. Where is the video footage to support these preposterous claims that American has air superiority over Iran? Within 24 hours of Trumps B2 bombers hitting nuclear sites in Iran last year in June, media were given video clips of the satellite imagery. So far, the claims by Trump’s people about air superiority, have not been matched with any evidence. None the less U.S. media reports it more or less like it is fact.

It’s a similar story with the claims about the U.S. navy sinking 20 Iranian vessels. Where’s the evidence? If we are to take into account completely defenceless ships like the unarmed frigate that was sunk in international waters after it returned from a joint exercise with India, it would seem that America is on the losing side. Not even Japanese naval strikes in the WWII would blow up enemies’ ships and not then pick up survivors. The Americans left 80 sailors to drown, the same seamen who posed with photos days earlier with Prime Minister Modi, who, it should be pointed out often claims that India is the “guardian of the Indian ocean”, a patently absurd claim. Many believe Modi sold the Iranians out and disclosed its position to the Americans, leaving many to question just how much he can be trusted with his present allies. Will Russia still sell its oil to India after such a betrayal?

It’s clear that the Iran war is already WWIII in many respects. Certainly each side has its partners and media have made much of Russia’s intelligence support to Iran pointing out American positions, while China has given Iran considerable military support both in state of the art radar systems and ground to air missile systems. The sinking of the Iranian ship shows us all the depth of the desperation of America, that it needs to go as far as hunting for Iranian ships thousands of miles away and sinking them, even if they are unarmed as this ship was. Does that look like the act of a confident aggressor on a victory role? Hardly.

It isn’t just that America can barely hold the high moral ground for even a brief, ephemeral media moment, but more that the number of shocking tactical errors by Trump are piling up and having an impact. The failure to see that killing the supreme leader, who has been replaced by a hard liner who has always wanted Iran to have a nuclear deterrent, was a major act of stupidity. Nearly all U.S. wars follow the same pattern of America underestimating its enemy and overestimating its own capabilities and this one is no exception. The move to bring GCC states closer to Iran and turn them against the U.S. is smart and what we could expect from Iran who has had years to prepare for this attack and has been given so many free lessons by America’s blunders — the best one being the June attack which resulted in Iran upping its game and identifying all the weak spots which needed work. The biggest miscalculation probably of all is going to war in the first place believing that regime change would be inevitable in days and therefore no longer-term plans, in terms of military stocks, need to be addressed. America is about to run out of ammo. For the GCC countries, it’s quite possible that the deal might be reinstated in the coming days as a new truth emerges from the war. While Donald Trump tells reporters on Air Force one that Iran was responsible for bombing its own school, GCC leaders will have to wake up to a new reality which is summed up by Henry Kissinger. “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran’s latest move in the GCC countries was a stroke of genius

Israel threatens to kill Iran’s new leadership

RT | March 9, 2026

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has threatened to assassinate anyone who replaces the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader.

Khamenei and several other senior Iranian officials were killed in the first wave of US‑Israeli airstrikes launched on February 28. After a week of deliberations, the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics tasked with vetting and selecting the new supreme leader, announced on Monday that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, has been chosen to succeed him.

In a statement posted to the IDF’s Farsi account hours before the Assembly announced its decision, the Israeli army issued a warning to its members.

“The hand of the State of Israel will continue to pursue every successor and every person involved in his appointment,” the IDF said, adding that it “would not hesitate to target” the clerics attending the assembly’s meetings.

Last week, Israel struck the Assembly’s headquarters in Qom, but the attack failed to derail the selection of a new leader. Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, said Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment demonstrates that the US and Israel failed to use Ali Khamenei’s death to sow chaos in the country.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both cited regime change as one of their war goals.

Trump has demanded unconditional surrender and said the next supreme leader will not “last long” unless Iran bows to his demands. Iranian officials and the military have vowed to continue their resistance.

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Israel threatens to kill Iran’s new leadership

Possible Scenarios for the Middle East

By Yuriy Zinin – New Eastern Outlook – March 9, 2026

The US and Israeli aggression against Iran has pushed the Middle East to the verge of exploding. It has ignited regional media discourse, which presents various assessments of the situation and its consequences.

According to a major regional portal, Middle East Online, these assessments can be divided into two categories. One group tends to support the idea of Israel’s overwhelming superiority and its control over the region’s key institutions. They also believe the predictions of the Lebanese astrologer Layla Abdel Latif. The other group offers alternative scenarios, including those pointing to an Iranian victory and the collapse of the Trump-Netanyahu alliance.

Who is to blame for the war and how long it will last

Two main themes are of particular interest to commentators: who is responsible for this operation and how long will the confrontation between the two antagonistic sides last? One of the mediators, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi, speaking on CBS television, revealed that Iran had accepted the zero enrichment condition and was ready to move its stockpiles outside its territory. However, this effort was in vain; Washington did not hear it.

It is clear that the adversaries’ balance of potential and military arsenals are disproportionate and favor the aggressors. Nevertheless, according to many experts, technological superiority does not guarantee a swift victory for the US. Trump left Tehran no chance for retreat, and Iran is acting in accordance with the logic of attrition, not traditional doctrine. Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, as well as the use of allies on Arab bridgeheads, allows it to open several fronts and turn the war against it into a costly and prolonged endeavor. Therefore, Tehran is betting on dragging things out until the military pressure becomes a political burden for its opponents.

Western intelligence services were too slow

Analyzing the situation, an Arab newspaper claims that Western intelligence services failed to properly assess Iran. Their attack plans were based on the assumption that “decapitating” the leadership would deprive Tehran of the will to launch retaliatory strikes. But events have shown that these intelligence agencies overlooked the quiet restoration of Iran’s potential, which began in 2025.

In addition, Iran’s opponents did not take into account the fact that, in Islamic tradition, the killing of a spiritual leader is often perceived not as his end, but as a transition to martyrdom. Usually such losses do not disorganize society but, on the contrary, mobilize it and give it strength.

Many analysts believe that Iran has demonstrated its ability to overcome this shock and recover institutional cohesion, having formed a temporary tripartite leadership including reformers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and the bureaucratic religious elite. Despite limited capabilities compared to the US, Iran retains significant regional influence. At the same time, some fear that an Iran weakened by the US and Israel could strategically destabilize the countries that rely on Tehran for security purposes.

Countries in the region reject US military involvement

This war was unleashed by Washington for the sake of Israel and for goals that are not accepted by the countries of the region, concludes the Arab As-Sabil newspaper. Washington ignored all calls, efforts, and negotiations aimed at preventing it. According to analysts, this places Arab states at the epicenter of pressure, requiring high political acumen in matters of national security demands in order to avoid being drawn into axes that could lead to a larger confrontation. America’s investment in its military assets has actually damaged regional stability and the interests of the countries of the region. Military assets, including bases and partnerships, have become nothing less than a curse for the countries in the region and a cause of undermining its security.

“Trump’s noble mission for the future” – rhetoric repeated at the White House – is nothing more than a grand gamble based on the assumption that overseas power is capable of changing history. This may provoke unforeseen reactions from other international powers, which perceive such behavior as a dangerous American unilateral approach to the demands and fate of global energy and logistics.

Not just a war, but a deep transformation

Regional analysts find that part of society is shocked as the predictions they hear in the evening are irrelevant by the morning, with multiple new scenarios spawning. Today a massive new war looms in the region. This war is not a traditional conflict between two sides, but rather a brief moment that will determine the region’s landscape for decades to come. An Arab author fears that it is not just a clash; it is a deep strategic transformation that is turning the region into a quagmire where blood, chaos, and miscalculation are constant.

Yuri Zinin, PhD in History, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

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March 9, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Possible Scenarios for the Middle East

The Horizon of the War. “Italy is being Dragged Into the War against Iran”

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 9, 2026

Contrary to what the Italian Government says, the United States does not need authorisation from the Italian Government or Italian Parliament regarding the use of its bases in Italy.

In fact, it has complete freedom to use them as it wishes.

By using Sigonella as an intelligence centre for the war against Iran, the United States is protecting itself, but is also dragging Italy into the war and exposing it to the risk of being targeted.

We refer our readers to this episode of Grandangolo, focusing the following notes on the key issue we are facing in Italy. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto himself, in his reply to the House of Commons, described the war that has broken out in the Middle East as follows:

“Of course it was outside the rules of international law. It is a war that started without the world’s knowledge and that we now find ourselves having to deal with. Our problem is to manage the consequences of a crisis that has erupted and that we did not want.” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in a radio programme, admitted that the war entails a “risk of escalation that could have unpredictable consequences”.

Meloni’s stance on US bases in Italy

Regarding the use of these bases, Meloni assured that “we are complying with the 1954 bilateral agreements”. She then clarified: “In Italy, we have three military bases granted to the Americans under agreements dating back to 1954, which have always been updated.” We therefore request that the Prime Minister show Parliament and the media the texts of the 1954 bilateral agreements between Italy and the United States, as well as any subsequent updates. This will not be easy, as these agreements are covered by military secrecy in their entirety. Regarding Meloni’s statement that “in Italy, we have three military bases granted to the Americans”, she should explain the following facts to Parliament and the media.

According to the official Pentagon Base Structure Report, the US Armed Forces own more than 1,500 buildings in Italy, with a total surface area of over 1 million square metres, and lease or have concessions for another 800 buildings, with a surface area of approximately 900,000 square metres. That’s a total of over 2,300 buildings with a surface area of approximately 2 million square metres, spread across some fifty sites. But this is only part of the US military presence in Italy. In addition to US military bases, there are NATO bases under US command and Italian bases available to US/NATO forces. It is estimated that there are over a hundred in total. The entire network of military bases in Italy is, directly or indirectly, under the command of the Pentagon. It falls within the “area of responsibility” of the United States European Command, headed by a US general who also holds the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. In other words, the United States does not need any authorisation from the Italian government or Parliament to use this network of bases, but has complete freedom to use it whenever and however it wants.

With the US base in Sigonella, Italy is being dragged into the war against Iran

This is confirmed by the United States’ use of the Sigonella base in Sicily. The Naval Air Station (NAS) Sigonella, with a staff of about 7,000 military and civilian personnel, is the largest US and NATO naval and air base in the Mediterranean region. In addition to providing logistical support to the US Sixth Fleet, it is the launch base for covert military operations mainly, but not exclusively, in the Middle East and Africa. The NAS – according to the official presentation – “houses US and NATO aircraft of all types”. These include spy drones, capable of flying without refuelling for over 16,000 kilometres, which carry out missions from Sigonella to the Middle East, Africa, eastern Ukraine, the Black Sea and other areas. Drones armed with missiles and satellite-guided bombs also take off from Sigonella for targeted (always secret) attacks. The Naval Air Station Sigonella is complemented by the Italian base in Augusta, which supplies fuel and ammunition to US and NATO naval units, and by the port of Catania, which can accommodate up to nine warships. The Sigonella base is connected to the MUOS station in Niscemi (Caltanissetta): a very high frequency military satellite communications system consisting of four satellites and four ground stations: two in the United States, in Virginia and Hawaii, one in Australia and one in Sicily, each equipped with three large parabolic antennas 18 metres in diameter. This system allows the Pentagon to connect submarines and warships, fighter-bombers and drones, military vehicles and ground units to a single command and communications network while they are on the move anywhere in the world.

Italmilradar, a website specialised in tracking military flights, reports based on radar tracks: “In recent days, several US Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones have been spotted flying to and from the Sigonella military airbase, operating over the Eastern Mediterranean and heading towards areas closer to the Persian Gulf. Normally, when Tritons are engaged in monitoring the Gulf region, they are deployed on the front line at bases in the United Arab Emirates, particularly in Abu Dhabi.

From there, the drones can conduct ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) missions over the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman and the Northern Arabian Sea.

Using the Tritons from Sigonella increases the distance from operational areas, but provides a safer and more politically stable launch base. By keeping the drones in Sicily, the US Navy can reduce the risk to its ISR infrastructure. Sigonella has long been a central hub for US and NATO intelligence operations in the Mediterranean.

In the current crisis, Sigonella appears to be playing an even more important role, serving as a rear but highly capable ISR platform in support of operations extending from the eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf. The meaning is clear: by using Sigonella as an intelligence centre for the war against Iran, the United States is keeping itself safe, but in fact dragging Italy into the war and exposing it to the risk of being hit. 

This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award-winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

March 9, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on The Horizon of the War. “Italy is being Dragged Into the War against Iran”

Ted Postol: Fraud of Missile Defence Exposed in Iran War

Glenn Diesen | March 8, 2026

MIT Professor and Pentagon advisor Ted Postol explains why the missile defence systems are failing in the war against Iran, and why the US and Israel will not win this war.

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March 8, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Ted Postol: Fraud of Missile Defence Exposed in Iran War

How An Atrocity Propaganda Campaign Led To The U.S. And Israel Committing Real Atrocities In Iran

The Dissident | March 8, 2026

In their war on Iran, the U.S. and Israel have already committed an endless slew of atrocities against Iranian civilians.

The Iranian Red Crescent has documented that the U.S. and Israel have targeted “9,669 civilian structures, including 7,943 residential homes and 1,617 commercial buildings” along with “several medical and educational facilities”.

Along with this, the U.S. and Israel have so far killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians.

The U.S. and Israel have not hidden the fact that they are slaughtering civilians in Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu, at the site of an Iranian missile attack, said , “Remember what Amalek did to you. We remember, and we act” in reference to the Hebrew bible verse, “go and destroy Amalek. Destroy all they have, and do not let them live. Kill both man and woman, child and baby.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “the only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re gonna live” and boasted about unleashing “Death and destruction from the sky all day long”, on Iran.

This war of “Death and destruction” on Iranian civilians and civilian infrastructure, with the goal of destroying Iran as a nation, was only made possible thanks to an atrocity propaganda campaign, designed to portray this criminal war as an act of protecting Iranians from atrocities.

This first began with the U.S. and Israel engineering riots in the country in an attempt to instigate violence that could be used to justify the war.

When protests in Iran broke out before the war due to economic concerns, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was not shy about the fact that the protests were the intended result of U.S. sanctions on the country, saying:

What we can do at treasury, and what we have done, is created a dollar shortage in the country, at a speech at the Economic club in New York in March I outlined the strategy, it came to a swift -and I would say grand- culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under, there was a run in the bank, the central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.

And:

If you look at a speech I gave at the economic club of New York last March, I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse, that if I were an Iranain citizen, I would take my money out.

President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel were pushing propaganda in Iran in an attempt to spur on protests.

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab uncovered an Israeli bot network in Persian on social media which pushed “content related to the country’s ongoing water and energy crisis” and “energy shortage” in a “likely attempt to continue to escalate tensions between Iranian citizens and their government”.

Damon Wilson, the head of the U.S. government’s National Endowment for Democracy, boasted that the U.S was doing a similar thing, saying:

the endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks, other means, file casting that allowed information to go both in and out of the country (Iran) at a time when the regime tried to hide its brutal crackdown

Part of what we see manifesting is a response that our partners have helped tell the Iranian people the story that the regime has squandered their own resources on supporting proxies throughout the Middle East to the point where they cannot manage their own water supplies for Tehran. And these stories have not just emerged, they are ones that have been covered, documented, and shared with the Iranian people consistently through our work.

We’ve been investing in communication tools over the years that allow for information to be sent into Iran even when internet connectivity is blocked. We specifically began supporting the deployment, the operation of about 200 Starlinks early on

After this, Israeli intelligence infiltrated the protests, which at the beginning were peaceful, in an attempt to turn them violent.

When the protests began, the Persian-language account of the Israeli Mossad wrote, “Let’s all come out to the streets. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are also with you in the field.”

Soon after, Israel’s Channel 14 reported that, “We reported tonight on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.”

After the U.S. and Israel (by their own admission) helped engineer protests and infiltrated them to instigate violence, the mainstream media ran an atrocity propaganda campaign, massively over-inflating the death toll and fabricating a narrative of the Iranian government killing tens of thousands of peaceful protesters.

The atrocity propaganda claims first came from the outlet “Iran International,” which the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid said, “ the Mossad is using quite regularly for its information war”.

The atrocity propaganda was eventually amplified by Time Magazine, which wrote an article claiming that “As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone”.

As I previously uncovered, the only named source for the atrocity propaganda claim was Amir Parasta, a German-Iranian eye surgeon and lobbyist for the son of the former U.S. backed Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who was clamouring for a U.S. war on Iran to restore the monarchy.

The evidence-free claim was soon amplified by Deepa Parent, a writer at the Guardian, who boasted that the claims were influencing politicians towards war with Iran, saying, “We don’t need to convince anyone about the massacre the IR has carried out on innocent civilians in Iran. I have trolls in my DMs and replies. Ignore them and don’t give any attention. Decision makers don’t see trolls’ tweets, they see verified accounts and reports.”

Parent soon after published an article in the Guardian amplifying the claim that Iran killed 30,000 protestors in two days- this time citing entirely unnamed sources and not providing a shred of verifiable evidence.

Digging further into Parent, journalists Wyatt Reed and Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone uncovered that she was previously a fashion blogger with no experience on Iran who began to present herself as an expert on the country after getting funding from the CIA-connected, pro regime change billionaire Pierre Omidyar.

They documented:

Before adopting the surname Parent around 2019, The Guardian’s go-to Iran reporter wrote under the name Deepa Kalukuri. Her journalistic output was largely limited to fashion reviews in Indian media. A typical piece published in India’s Just For Women magazine in 2016 was headlined: “Samantha Is Setting Some Serious Fashion Goals! Check Them Out!”

“What’s better than a Little Black Dress for a weekend party? Samantha pairs her LBD with these killer stilettos! We are loving it!!! Have a fashionable weekend!!!!”

Elsewhere, in an article informing Indian housewives that “understanding stocks is not [as] difficult as the news shows” suggested, she explained that investing was actually quite simple: “like a playing a video game but only your favorite batman is replaced with that stock broker who gives you the right advice to invest at the end of the bell.

They added:

When the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests kicked off in September 2022 following the death of a young woman in Iranian custody, the improbable Parent suddenly materialized as The Guardian’s point woman on civic unrest in a nation with which she had no apparent professional or personal experience.

Much of Parent’s work at The Guardian’s so-called “Rights and Freedom” section has been funded by an NGO called Humanity United, which was founded by tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam.

As the Grayzone noted, “Omidyar has partnered with US intelligence cutouts like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy to promote regime change from Ukraine to the Philippines, while advancing various ‘counter-disinformation’ efforts aimed at suppressing anti-establishment viewpoints”.

This propaganda campaign – as should now be clear – was a coordinated effort to spread atrocity propaganda about the Iranian government, in order to give the impression that a war with Iran is “liberating” the people of Iran, paving the way to the mass bombing of Iranian civilians and civilian infrastructure currently unfolding.

March 8, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on How An Atrocity Propaganda Campaign Led To The U.S. And Israel Committing Real Atrocities In Iran

Calls for the reconfiguration of military arrangements in the Gulf region

By Thembisa Fakude | MEMO | March 8, 2026

The former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani called for the formation of a strategic defence alliance bringing together Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan. Al Thani has described it as an “urgent need” in light of developments and changing regional and international dynamics. He made this call weeks before the attack on Iran by Israel and the US on 28th February 2026. It is not the first time Israel attacked Iran whilst in negotiations.

In June 2025 Israel attacked Iran whilst it was it was negotiating its nuclear program with the US. Iran retaliated with hundreds of missiles and drones targeting Israeli cities and the US military base in Al Udeid in Doha, Qatar.  Al Udeid is the largest US military base in the Gulf region. In September 2025 Hamas leadership was attacked in Qatar by Israel whilst meeting to consider a ceasefire proposal from the US on the war on Gaza.

Qatar has spent billions of US dollars on US’s weapons and military hardware including a huge investment at the Al Udeid military base. It is estimated that Qatar has spent over 19 billion USD over time in Al Udeid. Notwithstanding, Qatar has remained vulnerable from external military attacks and its sovereignty has been compromised over the past months.

On 28 February 2026, the US and Israel started launching unprovoked attacks on Iran. They killed the Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei and over 180 school girls at the Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab in the early stages of the attack. Iran retaliated to the attacks by firing hundreds of drones to Israeli cities and US military installations in the Gulf.

The US and Israel have called for a regime change in Iran. Speaking to the media on 5th  March 2026, Donald Trump said “he wants to be involved in picking up the next leadership in Iran”. Iran has vowed not to allow foreign interference in their politics including how its leadership is elected. Such rhetoric from the president of the US presents a threat to the political process in Iran. Moreover, Trump’s hope and ambition that the US can come into Iran, impose its political will and preference and still have a stable Iran is farfetched and dangerous. It could lead to political instability in Iran and indeed the region. Iran has suffered tremendous infrastructural and leadership devastation already in this conflict. However, its government has vowed to continue fighting and judging by how it has resisted over the past couple of days since the start of this war, it is unlikely to collapse.

Secondly, the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he wants to eliminate all threats to Israel in the region including obliterating Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas and Hezbollah have refused to disarm and are both showing signs of recovering from the devastating war on Gaza. The recent attacks of Israel by Hezbollah in retaliation to the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, caught Israel and many in the world by surprise. After heavy bombardment and killing of its leadership by Israel over the past 24 months, they are still capable of sending missiles and drones hitting their targets in Israel. Likewise, Hamas – who got praised by Trump – for their great work in helping to allocate the dead bodies of the Israeli captives in Gaza – are still governing Gaza.

Notwithstanding the devastation of Iran and the killing of its leadership, its political infrastructure is likely to endure. However, as long as the government of Iran continues to function, with all its current political infrastructural framework, it will continue to be targeted by Israel. Moreover, Hamas, Hezbollah have not disarmed. The Houthis in Yemen continue to attack US and Israeli interests in the Red Sea. Basically, notwithstanding the military attacks on these organisations and Iran, they are still standing albeit weaker. This means the “threats” to Israel remain, it also means that future conflicts between Israel and the US on one hand and Iran will continue as long as both Israel and the US refuse to accept the status quo. This reality brings us back to what the former prime minister of Qatar raised i.e., the strategic defence alliance in the region. Second, a need for the reconfiguration of the military arrangement in the region. The recent unprovoked attacks on Iran and its subsequent retaliation have added a momentum to these discussions.  The attacks have also raised questions about the significance of the presence of US’s military bases in the region.  Particularly, whether countries in the region should continue having strategic military partnerships with the US? Iran has insisted that US military bases in the region are legitimate targets and it will continue targeting them in retaliation and in defense of their people and sovereignty.

The conclusion therefore is that unless there is a reconfiguration of the security arrangements in the region, the US and Israel are likely to attack Iran again. Iran is likely to retaliate in the manner it is currently doing, targeting both Israel and US’s bases and infrastructure in the region. Iran has repeatedly said “it is not targeting its friendly neighbors rather the interests and assets of the US and Israel in the region”. Consequently, Gulf countries hosting these bases will continue to be targeted by Iran.

March 8, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Calls for the reconfiguration of military arrangements in the Gulf region

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