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Marked for Death by a Reckless America?

By Ron Unz • Unz Review • August 4, 2025

A few weeks ago I published an article noting that the State of Israel and the Zionist movement that gave rise to it have probably employed assassination as a tool of statecraft more heavily than any other political entity in recorded history. Indeed, their deadly activities had easily eclipsed those of the notorious Muslim sect that had terrorized the Middle East a thousand years ago and gave rise to that term.

The piece had been prompted by Israel’s sudden strike against Iran, capping its reputation as the greatest band of assassins known to history. Even as the Iranian government was intensely focused on the negotiations with America over its nuclear program, a sudden Israeli surprise attack successfully assassinated most of Iran’s highest military commanders, some of its political leaders, and nearly all of its most prominent nuclear scientists. I cannot recall any previous case in which a major country had ever had so large a fraction of its top military, political, and scientific leadership eliminated in that sort of illegal sneak attack.

Less than one year earlier, a series of missile exchanges between Israel and Iran had soon been followed by the death of hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister in a highly-suspicious and never explained helicopter crash. Given subsequent events, I think we can safely assume that he, too, had died at the hands of the Israelis.

Earlier this year, the declassification of a large batch of JFK Assassination files had prompted me to recapitulate and summarize many of my articles of the last half-dozen years on that landmark twentieth century event. I gathered together some of the very considerable evidence that the Israeli Mossad played the central role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 as well as the death of his younger brother Robert a few years later, probably the highest-profile political assassinations of the last one hundred years or more.

The most weighty and authoritative work on the long history of Israeli assassinations is surely Ronen Bergman’s 2018 volume Rise and Kill First, running 750 pages and including a thousand-odd source references, with many of the latter citing official documents never previously made available to journalists. By some estimates, this book documented nearly 3,000 such foreign political killings, a remarkable total for a small country then less than three generations old.

Although the Bergman book was certainly very comprehensive, it was produced under strict Israeli censorship, so the text quite understandably omitted almost any coverage of some of the highest-profile Zionist attacks on Western targets. For example, there was no mention of the unsuccessful but well-documented attempts to kill President Harry Truman, nor the assassination efforts aimed at British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the top members of his Cabinet.

Some of this latter coverage may be found in Thomas Suarez’s 2016 book State of Terror which I would recommend as a very useful supplementary work, though its focus is almost entirely limited to the activities of Zionist groups just prior to the establishment of Israel.

For a broader discussion of the history of Israeli assassinations and closely-related terrorist attacks, especially those targeting Westerners, one of the most useful compilations might be my own very long January 2020 article, providing extensive references to the underlying primary and secondary sources.

That 2020 article had actually been prompted by America’s own sudden assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a shocking development that drew a great deal of media coverage at the time.

I had opened my long discussion by noting that over the last several centuries Western governments had almost totally abandoned the use of political assassinations against the leadership of major rival nations, regarding such actions as immoral and illegal.

For example, historian David Irving revealed that when one of Adolf Hitler’s aides suggested to him that an attempt be made to assassinate the Soviet military leadership during the bitter combat on the Eastern Front of World War II, the German Fuhrer immediately forbade any such practices as obvious violations of the laws of civilized warfare.

For most of American history, a similar attitude had prevailed, but I explained that this began to change over the last couple of decades, mostly in the wake of the 9/11 Attacks.

The 1914 terrorist assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was certainly organized by fanatical elements of Serbian Intelligence, but the Serbian government fiercely denied its own complicity, and no major European power was ever directly implicated in the plot. The aftermath of the killing soon led to the outbreak of World War I, and although many millions died in the trenches over the next few years, it would have been completely unthinkable for one of the major belligerents to consider assassinating the leadership of another.

A century earlier, the Napoleonic Wars had raged across the entire continent of Europe for most of a generation, but I don’t recall reading of any governmental assassination plots during that era, let alone in the quite gentlemanly wars of the preceding 18th century when Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa disputed ownership of the wealthy province of Silesia by military means. I am hardly a specialist in modern European history, but after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and regularized the rules of warfare, no assassination as high-profile as that of Gen. Soleimani comes to mind…

During our Revolutionary War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and our other Founding Fathers fully recognized that if their effort failed, they would all be hanged as rebels by the British. However, I have never heard that they feared falling to an assassin’s blade, nor that King George III ever considered using such an underhanded means of attack. During the first century and more of our nation’s history, nearly all our presidents and other top political leaders traced their ancestry back to the British Isles, and political assassinations were exceptionally rare, with Abraham Lincoln’s death being one of the very few that comes to mind.

At the height of the Cold War, our CIA did involve itself in various secret assassination plots against Cuba’s Communist dictator Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders considered hostile to US interests. But when these facts later came out in the 1970s, they evoked such enormous outrage from the public and the media, that three consecutive American presidents—Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan—all issued successive Executive Orders absolutely prohibiting assassinations by the CIA or any other agent of the US government.

Although some cynics might claim that these public declarations represented mere window-dressing, a March 2018 book review in the New York Times strongly suggests otherwise. Kenneth M. Pollack spent years as a CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer, then went on to publish a number of influential books on foreign policy and military strategy over the last two decades. He had originally joined the CIA in 1988, and opens his review by declaring:

One of the very first things I was taught when I joined the CIA was that we do not conduct assassinations. It was drilled into new recruits over and over again.

Yet Pollack notes with dismay that over the last quarter-century, these once solid prohibitions have been steadily eaten away, with the process rapidly accelerating after the 9/11 attacks of 2001. The laws on our books may not have changed, but

Today, it seems that all that is left of this policy is a euphemism.

We don’t call them assassinations anymore. Now, they are “targeted killings,” most often performed by drone strike, and they have become America’s go-to weapon in the war on terror.

The Bush Administration had conducted 47 of these assassinations-by-another-name, while his successor Barack Obama, a constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had raised his own total to 542. Not without justification, Pollack wonders whether assassination has become “a very effective drug, but [one that] treats only the symptom and so offers no cure.”

Thus over the last couple of decades the American government has followed a disturbing trajectory in its use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy, first restricting its application only to the most extreme circumstances, next targeting small numbers of high-profile “terrorists” hiding in rough terrain, then escalating those same killings to the many hundreds. And now under President Trump, the fateful step has been taken of America claiming the right to assassinate any world leader not to our liking whom we unilaterally declare worthy of death.

Pollack had made his career as a Clinton Democrat, and is best known for his 2002 book The Threatening Storm that strongly endorsed President Bush’s proposed invasion of Iraq and was enormously influential in producing bipartisan support for that ill-fated policy. I have no doubt that he is a committed supporter of Israel, and he probably falls into a category that I would loosely describe as “Left Neocon.”

But while reviewing a history of Israel’s own long use of assassination as a mainstay of its national security policy, he seems deeply disturbed that America might now be following along that same terrible path.

Pollock’s discussion of these facts came in his lengthy 2018 New York Times review of the Bergman book entitled “Learning From Israel’s Political Assassination Program,” and he greatly decried what many have called the “Israelization” of the American government and its military doctrine. President Donald Trump’s sudden public assassination of so high-profile a foreign leader as Gen. Soleimani came less than two years later and demonstrated that Pollock’s concerns were fully warranted and indeed even understated.

As my January 2020 article explained, nothing like this had ever previously happened in peacetime American history, and only very rarely even during wars.

The January 2nd American assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani of Iran was an event of enormous moment.

Gen. Soleimani had been the highest-ranking military figure in his nation of 80 million, and with a storied career of 30 years, one of the most universally popular and highly regarded. Most analysts ranked him second in influence only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s elderly Supreme Leader, and there were widespread reports that he was being urged to run for the presidency in the 2021 elections.

The circumstances of his peacetime death were also quite remarkable. His vehicle was incinerated by the missile of an American Reaper drone near Iraq’s Baghdad international airport just after he had arrived there on a regular commercial flight for peace negotiations originally suggested by the American government.

Our major media hardly ignored the gravity of this sudden, unexpected killing of so high-ranking a political and military figure, and gave it enormous attention. A day or so later, the front page of my morning New York Times was almost entirely filled with coverage of the event and its implications, along with several inside pages devoted to the same topic. Later that same week, America’s national newspaper of record allocated more than one-third of all the pages of its front section to the same shocking story.

But even such copious coverage by teams of veteran journalists failed to provide the incident with its proper context and implications. Last year, the Trump Administration had declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard “a terrorist organization,” drawing widespread criticism and even ridicule from national security experts appalled at the notion of classifying a major branch of Iran’s armed forces as “terrorists.” Gen. Soleimani was a top commander in that body, and this apparently provided the legal fig-leaf for his assassination in broad daylight while on a diplomatic peace mission.

Although Pollock provided some explanations for this shocking transformation in American doctrine, he failed to note what was arguably the most obvious factor. Over the last generation or two, the American government and American political life have been almost entirely captured by what scholars John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt called “The Israel Lobby” in their best-selling 2008 book of that title, and this political and ideological transformation has only further accelerated in the last couple of years, most recently reaching ridiculous, almost cartoonishly extreme levels.

For example, nearly every other country on earth regards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as one of the worst war criminals in modern history, now under indictment by the International Criminal Court for his ongoing genocidal massacre of Gaza’s helpless two million civilians, with an international warrant issued for his arrest. But the American political system is almost entirely under the control of pro-Israel partisans so he was invited in 2024 to give an unprecedented fourth public address to a joint session of Congress, receiving an endless series of standing ovations by the trained barking seals of our national legislative body.

Over the last couple of generations, successful American politicians have increasingly been selected for their unswerving loyalty to the State of Israel and their admiration for all things Israeli, often describing themselves as committed Zionists, followers of a foreign nationalist movement.

As a notable example of this strange pattern, a Republican Gentile such as Rep. Brian Mast had not only volunteered for service in the Israeli military, but then proudly wore his foreign uniform while serving as an elected member of Congress. Perhaps partly as a consequence of this demonstration of his overriding loyalty to a foreign nation, in January he was named chairman of our powerful House Foreign Relations Committee.

In another bizarre twist, foreign students attending American universities have never been punished for denouncing or condemning America or the behavior of the American government, but under the Trump Administration they have been rounded up and deported if they criticized the foreign government of Israel.

So if Israel and the Zionist movement have spent the last one hundred years heavily relying upon political assassinations as a primary geopolitical tool, it is hardly surprising if American political leaders have now increasingly adopted the practice of their Israeli mentors and exemplars and done the same.

This trend was further accelerated by the complete capture of the foreign policy establishment of both of our major political parties by the militantly pro-Israel Neocons. Indeed, as I have noted, the term “Neocon” has largely dropped from usage during the last decade or so because the views and beliefs of almost everyone in DC establishment circles would now fall into that category, a tendency that extends across our entire political ecosphere of elected officials, staffers, think-tanks, and media outlets.

I believe that this new American emphasis on political assassinations has extremely dangerous consequences for the world, consequences that perhaps most analysts have failed to properly appreciate. Israel’s tendency to assassinate the political leaders of those countries it views as rivals or threats has naturally focused upon its own region. But when American leaders have adopted that same mind-set, their targets have obviously been different ones.

Israel’s sudden and largely successful decapitation strike against Iran had heavily relied upon the innovative use of drones. But just a couple of weeks earlier, a somewhat different but equally bold use of drones had been used to hit all of Russia’s interior airbases housing its strategic bomber fleet, successfully destroying quite a number of those nuclear-capable aircraft, one of the important legs of the country’s nuclear deterrent triad. Just before that, there was an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin with a swarm of drones when he visited the Kursk area on a helicopter tour of that region.

Although the Ukrainian government took full credit for these latter two attacks against Russia, it seems extremely unlikely that they would have undertaken such action without the full support and approval of their American and NATO paymasters, and indeed the Russians claimed to have hard evidence of such involvement. As I noted in an article, the Ukrainian government explained that the planning for the project had begun roughly eighteen months earlier, and that had been exactly the time when New Jersey and parts of the East Coast had reported a mysterious wave of very heavy drone activity, which our government later admitted was testing for a highly classified military project. I think that the very close match of timing was hardly likely to have been coincidental.

The size of Russia’s nuclear arsenal surpasses our own and its large suite of unstoppable hypersonic delivery systems has given it a measure of strategic superiority over America and our NATO allies on both the nuclear and conventional escalation ladders. So the very strong likelihood that America was intimately involved in an attack on Russia’s nuclear triad and an attempt to assassinate Russia’s president seems exceptionally reckless and dangerous behavior. In a recent article, I suggested that Russia should take prompt and forceful action to deter any such future attacks, but this has not yet happened:

A couple of years earlier, I published an article focusing on indications of earlier American attempts to kill President Putin. This came after our bipartisan political and media elites had begun vilifying the Russian leader as “another Hitler,” with leading media figures and top U.S. Senators loudly calling for his assassination. I noted that the Russians seemed concerned that such assassination efforts might even employ novel, biological means:

We should also recognize the reality that during the last seventy years America has maintained the world’s largest and best-funded biological warfare program, with our government spending many tens of billions of dollars on biowarfare/biodefense across those decades. And as I’ve discussed in a long article, there is even considerable evidence that we actually used those illegal weapons during the very difficult first year of the Korean War…

Soon after their invasion, the Russians publicly claimed that the U.S. had established a series of biolabs in Ukraine, which were preparing biological warfare attacks against their country. Last year one of their top generals declared that the global Covid epidemic was probably the result of a deliberate American biowarfare attack against China and Iran, echoing the accusations previously made by those countries.

Russian security concerns over our advanced biowarfare capabilities and the extreme recklessness with which we might employ them may explain the rather strange behavior of President Putin when he met in Moscow for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz shortly before the outbreak of the Ukraine war.

At the time many observers were puzzled why in each case the two national leaders were seated at opposite ends of a very long table, with Putin blandly suggesting that the placement was meant to symbolize the vast distance separating Russia and NATO’s Western leaders. Perhaps that innocuous explanation was correct. But I think it far more likely that the Russians were actually concerned that the Western leaders meeting him might be the immunized carriers of a dangerous biological agent intended to infect their president.

On the face of it, American attempts to assassinate Russia’s president would make little logical sense and these would obviously be extremely reckless and dangerous. But much the same could be said of American-orchestrated efforts to destroy Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber fleet, yet there seems very strong evidence that both these actions occurred. So we should seek to understand the logical framework, however irrational and unrealistic, under which such American decisions would be made.

I think an important insight may have been recently provided by Alistair Crooke, a former senior MI6 officer and Middle East peace negotiator, with a great deal of expertise and excellent sources in that latter region.

In an interview a couple of weeks ago, he claimed that America had been directly involved in the wave of Israeli assassinations against Iran’s leaders, taking such action despite the fact that we were currently in the midst of crucial nuclear negotiations with that country. Launching a massive assassination attack against the entire leadership of a country with whom you are currently negotiating is obviously an extremely destabilizing action, one that will hardly inspire confidence among other prospective negotiating partners and will surely long be remembered.

Video Link

But according to Crooke, the logic behind such American action was the widespread belief that the hold of the Islamic Republic upon the 90 million people of that country was quite fragile, and that the successful assassination of most of the Iranian leaders would cause the collapse of the regime, much like the government of Syria had collapsed earlier this year after attacks by armed Islamicist forces based in Idlib. The American government was greatly disappointed when that wave of assassinations failed to trigger such a political collapse and instead redoubled popular support for the ruling regime.

Crooke suggested that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been targeted for death as well, but unlike so many other senior Iranian officials they had been fortunate enough to survive. Indeed, not long afterward, President Trump repeatedly threatened to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei unless he completely acceded to America’s demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Offhand, I can’t remember the last time a world leader has publicly threatened to assassinate one of his foreign counterparts in such fashion.

If Crooke’s analysis is correct, similarly mistaken reasoning might help to explain the likely American involvement in the attempt to assassinate Putin a few weeks earlier. Most of America’s political decisionmakers may have convinced themselves that the Russian regime was discredited, unpopular, and fragile, and that the sudden elimination of Russia’s president perhaps combined with a heavy blow to Russia’s nuclear retaliatory arsenal would cause its collapse.

Such an analysis might seem extremely implausible to most observers, but much of America’s leadership seems to exist in an unrealistic propaganda-bubble in which these notions have become widespread.

Consider, for example, estimates of Russian casualties in Ukraine. The Western-funded anti-Putin media outlet Mediazona has used its considerable resources to continually sweep the Russian Internet in order to compile a running total of verified Russian losses in the Ukraine war, and as of July 2025 had confirmed a total of over 120,000 Russian soldiers killed. This is likely somewhat of an underestimate given that at least some such deaths have escaped public notice, and such totals certainly represent heavy losses in a Russian population of around 140 million.

But our Neocon-dominated American government and its intelligence services have instead accepted without question totally outrageous figures apparently based upon the dishonest claims of Ukrainian propagandists. Back in February, Trump told reporters that Russia had already suffered 1.5 million casualties, an astonishing figure, and just a few days ago, he claimed that almost 20,000 additional Russians had been killed in the month of July alone.

As former CIA officer Larry Johnson noted, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that an intelligence official described for him a destroyed Russian military that had already suffered two million casualties:

“The total now is two million. Most importantly,” the official stressed, “was how this number was described. All the best trained regular Army troops, to be replaced by ignorant peasants. All the best mid-grade officers and NCOs dead. All modern armor and fighting vehicles. Junk. This is unsustainable.”

Two million Russian casualties would probably amount to more than 5% of that country’s entire population of military-age males, and such enormous losses could not possibly be kept concealed. Those figures are obviously delusional.

But if America’s political leaders and many of their military advisors accept such fantasies, they could easily convince themselves that a defeated Russia is now ripe for regime-change triggered by Putin’s assassination. They would obviously hope that the replacement might be a new government closely aligned with the West and subservient to its demands, much as had been the case during the 1990s.

Other Neocon analysts have proposed Russia’s dismemberment into several different much smaller states, none of which would be able to resist American pressure and domination, with various such proposed maps floating around.

Thus, America’s likely involvement in assassination efforts against the top leadership of both Iran and Russia was based upon our unrealistic assumptions regarding the weakness of the two regimes, and the belief that elimination of their top leaders would lead to a collapse. Moreover, in each case these attacks rather treacherously occurred in the midst of ongoing negotiations, over Iran’s nuclear program in one case and over Russian willingness to end the Ukraine war in the other. We should also remember that Trump’s earlier assassination of Gen. Soleimani occurred when that latter leader had been treacherously lured to Iraq for peace negotiations.

Unfortunately, countries that are totally delusional on some national security matters are much more likely to be equally delusional on others as well. I have recently discovered that important elements of the American foreign policy establishment have convinced themselves that the government of China is also fragile and weak, and possibly ripe for collapse if it were hit by one or more sharp shocks. A blogpost brought these strange and surprising notions to my attention a couple of weeks ago.

The blogger highlighted a major article in the New Yorker focusing on aspects of a likely future war between America and China, and suggesting that in some respects it might be analogous to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. Indeed, the subtitle even described Israel’s invasion of Gaza as “a dress rehearsal” for a future American war with China.

China has an enormous military, equipped with some of the world’s most highly-advanced weapons, and these include a full suite of the unstoppable hypersonic missiles that America has so far failed to successfully produce. So the belief that Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Gaza’s helpless, unarmed civilians holds any serious lessons for the course of a future American war with China seems rather strange reasoning indeed.

  • What’s Legally Allowed in War
    How U.S. military lawyers see Israel’s invasion of Gaza—and the public’s reaction to it—as a dress rehearsal for a potential conflict with a foreign power like China.
    Colin Jones • The New Yorker • April 25, 2025 • 3,300 Words

The rather peculiar tone of that article may have been influenced by a very lengthy report published several months earlier by the Rand Corporation, whose title appeared to raise strong doubts about the military effectiveness of China’s armed forces.

However, after carefully reading that Rand study, I concluded that the title was somewhat misleading. The researcher correctly noted that China gave no indications of preparing to wage war against Taiwan, America, or any other country, and much unlike the U.S. had avoided involvement any military conflicts for the last half-century. But lack of interest in starting wars is quite different than lack of military effectiveness if attacked or sufficiently provoked, and conflating the two probably reflected the ideological climate found at most American think-tanks based upon the influence of their funders.

Finally, the lengthiest and most astonishing think-tank report of all was published just a couple of weeks ago by the Hudson Institute, one of our most unswervingly Neocon research organizations. This book-length study argued that China’s Communist government might be ripe for collapse and casually suggested that American military forces should be prepared for deployment inside China in order to seize crucial military and technological facilities and then reconstruct the government of that enormous country after the downfall of its current regime.

  • China After Communism
    Preparing for a Post-CCP China
    Miles Yu et al. • The Hudson Institute • July 16, 2025 • 65,000 Words

The blogger quoted a couple of the paragraphs from the executive summary of this remarkable document:

While the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has weathered crises before, a sudden regime collapse in China is not entirely unthinkable. Policymakers need to consider what might happen and what steps they would have to take if the world’s longest-ruling Communist dictatorship and second-largest economy collapses due to its domestic and international troubles.

With chapters written by experts in military affairs, intelligence, economics, human rights, transitional justice, and constitutional governance, this report examines the initial steps that should be taken in the immediate aftermath of the CCP regime’s collapse and the long-term trajectory China might take after a stabilization period. Drawing on historical analysis, strategic foresight, and domain-specific expertise, this anthology describes these challenges as an exercise in possibilities. The different chapters explore how a single-party system collapses in key sectors of the country and how political institutions transform, as well as China’s unique political, economic, and social situation. Taken together, they assess the daunting tasks of stabilizing a long-repressed country after it has collapsed, in addition to the forces shaping China’s future. In so doing, the authors hope to offer policy recommendations for managing the risks and opportunities of a transition.

Having carefully read the entire report, I found it just as astonishing as was suggested by those paragraphs.

Over the last half-century, China has certainly been the world’s most successful major country, experiencing perhaps the highest sustained rate of economic growth in all of human history and now possessing a real economy far larger than that of the U.S.

Indeed, if we exclude the service sector, whose statistics are easily subject to manipulation, China’s real productive economy is now actually larger than the combined total for America, the EU, and Japan, while certainly growing much more rapidly. Meanwhile, America has experienced decades of stagnation, with heavy financialization replacing our once enormous real industrial strength. Moreover, in many technological sectors, China has now become the world leader, and it is near the very top in most of the others.

Earlier this year I published a lengthy comparative analysis of China and America, whose conclusions were hardly favorable to the latter:

  • American Pravda: China vs. America
    A Comprehensive Review of the Economic, Technological, and Military Factors
    Ron Unz • The Unz Review • January 13, 2025 • 14,100 Words

The following month I summarized much of this same material in a lengthy interview with Mike Whitney:

One of the main authors of that Hudson Institute report was lawyer and conservative columnist Gordon G. Chang, probably best known as the author of the 2001 book The Coming Collapse of China, and a quarter-century of absolutely contrary real-life trends seems to have hardly changed any of his views.

The Hudson Institute is a leading DC think-tank, quite influential in mainstream political circles, and a report with five co-authors that runs 128 pages must surely carry considerable weight in establishment circles. So when it suggests that the Chinese government is fragile and might soon collapse, those policy makers hostile to China are likely to take such views quite seriously.

Suppose that a leading Chinese think-tank with close ties to the PRC government published a weighty report predicting that America might soon collapse, then went on to argue that Chinese military forces would need to be deployed in our own country to seize our key military and technological assets and also establish a new government organized along Chinese lines. I doubt that most American political leaders or ordinary citizens would view such Chinese proposals with total equanimity, and indeed the blogger quoted a shocked Western pro-China business executive who succinctly summarized some of the striking elements in that Hudson Institute research study:

… which provides detailed operational plans for inducing Chinese regime collapse through systematic information operations, financial warfare, and covert influence campaigns, followed by detailed protocols for U.S. post-collapse management including military occupation, territorial reorganization, and the installation of a political and cultural system vassalized to the U.S.

Rand and Hudson are two of our leading mainstream think-tanks and the New Yorker is one of our most prestigious media outlets. Taken together those major articles and reports could easily convince the ignorant and suggestible ideologues in our government that the Chinese military was weak and the Chinese government fragile and ripe for collapse.

If delusional beliefs regarding the fragility of the Iranian and Russian governments had already led to American assassination attempts against their top leadership, similar reasoning might easily result in targeting those of China as well, especially President Xi Jinping, widely regarded as the strongest Chinese leader in decades. And given all of the recent American assassination projects, the Chinese government might certainly have itself reached such conclusions.

China and Russia are the two leading members of the BRICS movement, which held its 17th summit last month in Brazil. The media noted that neither Russian President Putin nor Chinese President Xi attended in person, with the latter missing his first BRICS summit since he came to power 13 years ago.

Xi’s surprising absence caused some discussion in the media. I initially paid little attention to this issue, but then some commenter suggested an obvious explanation: Both Xi and Putin were concerned about the possible risk of American assassination.

Brazil is located within the Western Hemisphere, a region under full American military domination. Given the extremely reckless and unpredictable behavior of the American government, with President Trump having publicly threatened to assassinate Iran’s top leader just a couple of weeks earlier, both China and Russia may have believed that some risks should best be avoided.

Suppose an errant missile struck down an incoming presidential plane, with no conclusive means of proving the source, or an aircraft were destroyed by some more sophisticated methods. Over the years, Xi and Putin had both met on numerous occasions with Iranian President Raisi, with whom they had developed an excellent working relationship, and surely his 2024 death in a mysterious helicopter crash while returning from a foreign trip would have concentrated their minds.

Any such “conspiratorial” explanation has naturally been entirely avoided by the media. For example, a lengthy article late last month in the Wall Street Journal described how Xi had drastically reduced his foreign travel over the last year or so, noting that a China-EU summit originally set for Brussels was moved to Beijing after the Chinese explained that Xi had no plans to visit Europe. Since the end of 2024, Xi’s only foreign travels have been to Russia and to several countries in South-East Asia. Unlike Europe or Latin America, none of these countries nor the travel routes to reach them would be likely venues for serious American attempts at assassination.

When major countries develop a well-deserved reputation for assassinating the leaders of other major countries, often even doing so in the midst of international negotiations, such behavior may obviously have serious consequences. Back in 2017, President Xi was quite willing to visit Mar-a-Lago for face-to-face negotiations with President Trump, but I very much doubt the Chinese leader will be taking any trips to our own country in the foreseeable future.

Related Reading:

August 4, 2025 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: West’s ‘ridiculous’ assassination claims cover for Israeli crimes

Press TV – August 1, 2025

Iran has dismissed “baseless and ridiculous” accusations from Western countries claiming that Tehran is collaborating with international criminal groups to carry out assassination plots abroad.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei condemned on Friday the anti-Iran claims made by the United States, Canada and a dozen European states in their joint statement released the previous day.

He said the “blatant blame game” is an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, which is the Israeli genocide in the occupied Palestine.

“The United States, France, and other signatories to the anti-Iran statement must themselves be held accountable for actions that violate international law, as they support and host terrorist and violent elements and groups,” he added.

Baghaei touched on the unprovoked US-Israeli aggression against Iran in June and Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip against the backdrop of active support or approving silence of the 14 Western countries that signed the statement against the Islamic Republic.

He further denounced the accusations as “blatant lies and an escape forward, designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation.”

The 14 states must be held accountable for their “disgraceful and irresponsible” behavior that violates the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, the spokesman noted.

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US alleged in their statement that Iranian intelligence agencies are engaged in attempts to “kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America.”

August 1, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Compensation for war and security guarantees’: Iran sets conditions for US nuclear talks

The Cradle | July 31, 2025

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview published on 31 July that Tehran is seeking financial compensation for Israel’s war, an explanation on why Iran was attacked during negotiations, and security guarantees for any resumption of nuclear talks with Washington.

Araghchi told the Financial Times that Iran will not accept going back to “business as usual” after Israel launched its unprovoked war on the country in mid-June.

“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks]. And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done,” Araghchi added.

He said he has exchanged messages with US envoy Steve Witkoff since the war ended, and that Witkoff has tried to convince him to return to negotiations.

“The road to negotiation is narrow but it’s not impossible. I need to convince my hierarchy that if we go for negotiation, the other side is coming with real determination for a win-win deal. We need real confidence-building measures from their side. My message [to Witkoff] is not that complicated. I said the recent aggression proved there is no military solution for Iran’s nuclear program, but a negotiated solution can be found,” the Iranian diplomat added.

Israel started its war on Iran on 13 June in the middle of nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington. Iran responded with successive barrages of ballistic missiles until the war came to an end on 24 June.

The US joined the war on 23 June with a bunker-buster attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, to which Tehran responded with a missile attack on its Al-Udeid base in Qatar.

Iranian nuclear facilities were heavily damaged, and western intelligence assessments have revealed that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has not been “obliterated” as Washington has claimed.

According to Araghchi, a new enrichment site that Tehran had revealed right before the war – in response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board vote against it – was also struck.

This is the first acknowledgment of an attack on this particular site.

“As far as I know, the preparations were made [for enrichment], but it was not active when it was attacked,” Araghchi said.

Araghchi’s comments come after recent threats by Israel to restart the war against Iran. Defense Minister Israel Katz said late last month that attempts by Tehran to move forward with its nuclear program will be met with force.

The Iranian foreign minister has said that a deal with Washington is not possible if the US returns to its previous “zero enrichment” demand, and that Iran will not back down from enrichment.

He has also reiterated Iranian warnings of a harsher retaliation to any renewed attack.

“If aggression is repeated, we will not hesitate to react in a more decisive manner and in a way that will be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up,” Araghchi said earlier this week, referring to Israeli censorship of coverage on sites targeted by Iran.

July 31, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

The AMIA case: The untold story

By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 27, 2025

On the morning of July 18, 1994, a bomb exploded at the headquarters of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in downtown Buenos Aires, leveling the building and killing 85 people, with over 300 injured.

The attack occurred two years after the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina, which left 22 dead and 242 wounded. Both attacks took place during the presidency of Carlos Menem, a government that was pivotal for Argentina as it marked a transition to neoliberalism, featuring mass privatizations and a partial dollarization of the economy.

But on the geopolitical front, the Menem administration is more remembered for the apparent “secret war” that unfolded within the country, involving intelligence agencies and subversive groups from various nations.

The most widely accepted version of the AMIA case goes as follows: To retaliate against the cancellation of a nuclear technology transfer agreement between Argentina and Iran, the Iranian government (then under President Akbar Rafsanjani) orchestrated an act of revenge, with operatives from the Lebanese Hezbollah carrying it out.

This narrative, elevated to “official truth,” was supported by intelligence reports from the U.S. and Israel. It led to Argentina designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and the rupture of previously friendly relations between Argentina and Iran.

But what if this popular version is wrong?

Recently, a former aide to Judge Juan José Galeano—who oversaw the investigation and trial from 1994 to 2005—revealed details that cast doubt on the established narrative. According to Claudio Lifschitz, Galeano’s former assistant and a former Argentine security official, no concrete evidence linking the Iranian government to the attack was ever found. On the contrary, Lifschitz claims that the evidence increasingly pointed toward elements within Argentina’s intelligence service, SIDE.

Lifschitz first entered the public eye in this case when he released a video recording of a meeting between Galeano and Carlos Telleldín, in which the judge allegedly offered money to the supposed supplier of the van used in the attack—in exchange for confessing that he had sold it to Mohsen Rabbani, the cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires. According to Lifschitz, one of the key pieces of evidence that could exonerate Iran is the fact that SIDE had illegally wiretapped—without a court order—the Iranian Embassy and the Iranian Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, amassing thousands of hours of recordings without a single indication that any Iranians frequenting these places had prior knowledge of the attack.

The real mastermind, Lifschitz alleges, was Jaime Stiuso, deputy chief of SIDE’s counterintelligence division (Section 85) and the officer in charge of intelligence investigations for the AMIA case. According to Lifschitz, Telleldín had actually sold the van used in the attack to a SIDE agent. Furthermore, Stiuso—who had close ties to Mossad and the CIA—was allegedly responsible for constructing the accusation made by prosecutor Alberto Nisman that then-President Cristina Kirchner had sought to cover up Iranian involvement in the case.

The former Argentine intelligence agent claims he heard directly from Stiuso that Mossad was the real force behind the attacks—though it remains difficult to verify whether this conversation actually took place.

The case remains relevant today because it is being leveraged by Javier Milei’s government to justify closer ties with Israel, to the point where the Argentine president has labeled Iran as an “enemy state of Argentina.”

July 27, 2025 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tehran’s new war plan: Build an anti-NATO

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov attends a meeting with foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Beijing, China. © Sputnik / Russian Foreign Ministry
By Farhad Ibragimov | RT | July 27, 2025

What if the next global security pact wasn’t forged in Brussels or Washington – but in Beijing, with Iran at the table?

This is no longer a theoretical question. At the mid-July meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers in China, Iran made it clear: Tehran now views the SCO not just as a regional forum, but as a potential counterweight to NATO. In doing so, it signaled a profound strategic pivot – away from an outdated Western-dominated system and toward an emerging Eurasian order.

The summit highlighted the increasing resilience of multilateral Eurasian cooperation in the face of growing global turbulence. Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping – an encounter that underscored the strength of the Moscow-Beijing axis. On the sidelines, Lavrov held bilateral meetings with the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, India, and notably, Iran. His talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi focused on diplomatic solutions to the nuclear issue and emphasized deepening strategic coordination.

The Iranian side used the platform with purpose. Araghchi expressed his appreciation for the SCO’s solidarity amid Israeli aggression and stressed that Iran views the organization not as symbolic, but as a practical mechanism for regional unity and global positioning.

A platform that works – despite the skeptics

India’s full participation also contradicted predictions in Western circles that geopolitical tensions would paralyze the SCO. Instead, New Delhi reaffirmed its commitment to the platform. The implication is clear: unlike NATO, where unity depends on compliance with a central authority, the SCO has proven flexible enough to accommodate diverse interests while building consensus.

For Russia, the SCO remains a cornerstone of its Eurasian strategy. Moscow serves as a balancing force – linking China with South and Central Asia, and now, with an assertive Iran. Russia’s approach is pragmatic, multi-vector, and geared toward creating a new geopolitical equilibrium.

Iran’s strategic breakout

The heart of the summit was Abbas Araghchi’s speech – an assertive and legally grounded critique of Israeli and American actions. He cited Article 2, Section 4 of the UN Charter, denounced attacks on Iran’s IAEA-monitored nuclear facilities, and invoked Resolution 487 of the UN Security Council. His message: Western aggression has no legal cover, and no amount of narrative control can change that.

But beyond condemnation, Araghchi delivered a concrete roadmap to strengthen the SCO as a vehicle for collective security and sovereignty:

  • A collective security body to respond to external aggression, sabotage, and terrorism

  • A permanent coordination mechanism for documenting and countering subversive acts

  • A Center for Sanctions Resistance, to shield member economies from unilateral Western measures

  • A Shanghai Security Forum for defense and intelligence coordination

  • Enhanced cultural and media cooperation to counter cognitive and information warfare

These are not rhetorical gestures – they are blueprints for institutional transformation. Iran is operationalizing a new security doctrine built on multipolarity, mutual defense, and resistance to hybrid threats.

SCO vs. NATO: Two models, two futures

While NATO is structured around a rigid hierarchy dominated by Washington, the SCO embodies a post-hegemonic vision: sovereignty, equality, and civilizational plurality. Its member states represent over 40% of the global population, possess vast industrial capacities, and share a collective desire to break the unipolar mold.

Tehran’s bet is clear: the SCO offers not just a geopolitical shelter, but a platform for advancing a new global logic – one rooted in strategic autonomy, not dependency.

The sophistication and clarity of Araghchi’s initiatives suggest that Tehran is preparing for the long game. Behind closed doors, the summit likely featured discussions – formal and informal – about deepening SCO institutionalism, perhaps even rethinking the organization’s mandate.

Araghchi made that vision explicit: “The SCO is gradually strengthening its position on the world stage… It must adopt a more active, independent, and structured role.” That’s diplomatic code for institutional realignment.

The West responds – predictably

The Western response was immediate. Within days of Iran’s proposals, the EU imposed new sanctions on eight individuals and one Iranian organization – citing vague claims of “serious human rights violations.” Israel, by contrast, faced no new penalties.

It is geopolitical signaling. Tehran’s push to turn the SCO into an action-oriented bloc is seen in Brussels and Washington as a direct threat to the current order. The more coherent and proactive the SCO becomes, the harsher the pressure will grow.

But that pressure proves Iran’s point. The rules-based order is no longer rules-based – it is power-based. For countries like Iran, the only path to sovereignty is through multilateral defiance and integration on their own terms.

The stakes ahead

Iran is not improvising. It is positioning itself as a co-architect of a post-Western security order. Its vision for the SCO goes beyond survival – it is about shaping an international system where no single bloc can dominate through sanctions, information warfare, or coercive diplomacy.

This strategy has implications far beyond Tehran. If the SCO embraces Iran’s proposals and begins to institutionalize them, we could be witnessing the early formation of the 21st-century’s first true alternative to NATO.

The West may dismiss this as fantasy – but in Eurasia, the future is already being drafted. And this time, it’s not happening in English.

Farhad Ibragimov – lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at RUDN University, visiting lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

July 27, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Europe’s addiction to sanctions is terminal

By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | July 26, 2025

It has been said there are two kinds of European countries: small countries and those that have not yet realized they are small. As of mid-2025, it appears most of the continent has yet to reach this realization.

More than three years into the grinding attritional war between Russia and Ukraine, the European Union, having finally secured President Trump’s support for its maximum pressure campaign against Moscow, announced its most severe round of sanctions to date. In this 18th round, the EU expanded its blacklist of Russia’s so-called ‘shadow-fleet,’ used to export energy, to 444 vessels, denying operators access to European ports as well as insurance services. EU-member states were also prohibited from any dealings with a further 22 Russian banks, bringing the total to 44, to strangle Moscow’s financial channels to the outside world.

Alongside expanded export bans on ‘dual-use’ technologies, Brussels sanctioned entities in China, Türkiye, and 11 other countries for assisting Russia to circumvent sanctions and further lowered the price-cap on Urals crude oil, aiming to choke off the entry of Russian energy, in any form, from entering the bloc.

Besides the impressive hubris involved in declaring that Europe, as an importing region, will dictate the price it and other customers will pay for Russian energy, last weeks’ measures serve only to make permanent the long-term damage to its own economic viability, while Russia simply pivots to other buyers.

Parallel to the drafting of the latest sanctions salvo, the EU’s two largest members, Germany and France, alongside the UK, also pursued a maximum hostility campaign against another crucial energy exporter. Rather than condemning the 12-day war launched against Iran by “Israel”, European leaders, German Chancellor Merz in particular, chose to give the game away entirely, announcing their support for Israeli aggression because it was doing their “dirty work” (undermining the Islamic Republic) for them.

Upon the beginning of a ceasefire, the French and British foreign ministers, as if taunting Tehran after its nuclear facilities and scientists had been attacked, threatened to initiate the “snapback” mechanism of the defunct nuclear agreement, the JCPOA, if Tehran retaliated. The “snapback” mechanism would enable any of the signatory countries in the JCPOA to unilaterally trigger the reimposition of UN sanctions against Iran, which had been lifted under its terms post-2015. As the JCPOA itself will expire by October, the window for European states to trigger the snapback is closing.

Talks between Iran and the E3 were announced this week to take place in Istanbul over exactly this issue. Given Europe’s enthusiasm for compensating for its shrinking global clout with economic warfare, as well as pursuing American [Israeli] geopolitical goals ahead of its own, the likelihood of all three states foregoing the chance to “punish” Tehran for adhering to the agreement they signed on to seems a fading possibility.

If Europe ultimately follows through on its snapback threat, it will in a matter of months have destroyed any possible rapprochement with two states who could realistically have helped it out of its self-inflicted economic blood-loss. While no doubt damaging to both Moscow and Tehran, it will have solidified in the minds of both the necessity of forming economic routes and institutions outside the control of Western states.

The International North-South Economic Corridor, connecting Russia to the Indian Ocean via Iran, is the most prominent example of such cooperation. Since its effective launch in 2022 at the onset of operations in Ukraine, cargo traffic in energy, food, and other raw materials along the route has risen year-on-year, nearly hitting 27 million tons in 2024. As well as bilateral trade, the route’s growth has been fueled by intensified exchange between Russia and India. The latter is largely ignoring economic sanctions on Moscow, with two-way trade expected to approach $100 billion by 2030. The INSTC also crucially grants land-locked Central Asian states much-needed maritime access, magnifying regional buy-in.

The reimposing of UN-sanctions, along with the threat of secondary measures against third-party states could ironically create the kind of space for Chinese involvement with the region, leveraging INSTC’s points of interoperability with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Whatever course it takes, the leaders of Europe still seem not to have realized either the declining impact of their actions, nor the long-term negative consequences they will have for the continent. The last five centuries of economic history undoubtedly belonged to Europe, but Brussels’ seemingly terminal lack of vision writes it out of the coming chapter being authored in Asia.

July 26, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Interview with Pezeshkian by Carlson: Breaking Through the Wall of Western Lies

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – July 25, 2025

In July 2025, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian gave a historic online interview to American journalist Tucker Carlson. This was not just a conversation—it was a powerful blow to the Western propaganda machine that has portrayed Iran as the world’s primary threat for decades. While the U.S. and Israel fuel the flames of war, bomb nuclear facilities, and sabotage diplomacy, Tehran advocates for dialogue while retaining its right to self-defense and sovereign development.

Amid rising tensions in West Asia, where the West habitually reduces Iranian politics to a caricature of menace, Pezeshkian’s appearance on one of the world’s most influential shows shatters stereotypes. This was not merely a statement—it was a challenge to entrenched narratives, a call for deeper and more critical engagement with Iran’s stance. The interview provides a detailed examination of Pezeshkian’s key arguments, their context, and the significance of this exchange as a reflection of the crisis in international relations. The world must understand the legitimacy of Iran’s concerns, allowing its voice to be heard—without undue demonization or idealization.

The conversation took place during a period of heightened tensions: the U.S. and Israel have attacked Iranian nuclear sites, and Tehran has responded with force. The region teeters on the brink of escalation, where diplomacy is giving way to military confrontation. In this climate, Pezeshkian emerges as a leader combining firmness with a willingness to engage. His assertion that Iran “has not started wars” and “has no interest in prolonging them” reflects both a principled position and an attempt to counter the perception of Iran as a source of instability. He presents himself as a pragmatic actor in international affairs—open to negotiations but deeply distrustful of the West.

Who Is Really Responsible for the Chaos? 

The Middle East stands once again on the edge of catastrophe, and the blame lies with the aggressive policies of Washington and Tel Aviv, who choose to bomb over dialogue and provocation over diplomacy. In his interview, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made it clear: Tehran did not initiate conflicts but will defend its people against external aggression. He stressed that Iran has always advocated peaceful coexistence yet faces relentless Western pressure—sanctions, threats, and interference in its internal affairs. Now, as Tehran demands compliance with international law and respect for its sovereignty, it is accused of “destabilizing the region,” while it is the actions of the U.S. and Israel—support for terrorist groups, assassinations of Iranian scientists, and provocative airstrikes—that drive escalation.

Pezeshkian particularly emphasized Iran’s nuclear program, noting that Tehran has always been open to IAEA inspections and operated within international agreements. Yet, Washington and Tel Aviv exploit intelligence—even inspectors’ data—not for oversight but for sabotage. The president recalled the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, cyberattacks on infrastructure, and the deliberate undermining of trust in negotiations. “They offer us surrender under the guise of dialogue,” he said. “Every time there’s a chance for peace, the U.S. and its allies sabotage it—imposing impossible demands or tearing up existing agreements.”

Pezeshkian also accused the West of hypocrisy: while Europe and America preach human rights and stability, they have for years funded terrorist groups in the region, armed radicals, and blocked Iran’s independent development. “They want us to submit to their rules, abandon our security and technological progress,” he declared. “But Iran will no longer play by their imposed schemes. If the West chooses force over diplomacy, it will face a proportionate response.”

Pezeshkian reiterated that Tehran remains open to dialogue—but only on terms of equality and mutual respect. “We do not seek confrontation, but we will not allow our country to become another victim of Western hegemony. The responsibility for chaos lies with those who have sown war for years and now shift blame onto their victims.”

 U.S. Double Standards: Peace for Themselves, War for Others

In the interview, Pezeshkian sharply criticized U.S. policy, exposing its hypocrisy and double standards. He argued that Washington has spent decades selling the false image of a “champion of democracy” while being the primary source of global instability. “Iran is always open to dialogue, but how can we trust a country that systematically violates its commitments?” he asked. He reminded viewers that the U.S. not only abandoned the nuclear deal (JCPOA) but continues to impose sanctions despite Tehran’s compliance. “You demand we follow rules you yourselves ignore. Where is the logic?”

The Iranian president listed examples of U.S. interference: the 1953 coup against democratically elected Mossadegh, support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, funding of militant groups in the Middle East, and endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. “You call us ‘sponsors of terror,’ but it is your allies—the Saudi regime and Israeli government—bombing hospitals and killing civilians. Who is the real aggressor?” He referenced the war in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes—often lacking credible intelligence—have for years targeted not military bases but civilian areas, inflicting suffering primarily on ordinary Yemenis.

Pezeshkian also noted that the U.S. touts a “rules-based order” but disregards it when convenient. “You ignore UN resolutions when they don’t suit you but demand others obey them. You condemn our defense programs while selling billions in arms to dictatorships. This isn’t order—it’s the tyranny of the strong.”

Despite Carlson’s criticism of U.S. interventionism, he remained captive to Western propaganda, framing questions around stereotypes: Iran as a “threat to peace,” the U.S. as a “victim of Iranian aggression.” Pezeshkian countered: “You speak of ‘freedom’ while enforcing sanctions that kill our children by denying them medicine. You talk of ‘human rights’ while enabling genocide in Gaza. Your rhetoric is a smokescreen for maintaining hegemony.”

In closing, the Iranian leader stated that Tehran does not seek conflict but will not accept ultimatums. “We propose dialogue on equal footing, but if Washington prefers the language of force—it will receive a fitting response. History shows empires built on violence inevitably collapse.”

This interview made one thing clear: while the U.S. speaks of “peace and stability,” its actions bring only war and chaos. Iran, despite pressure, remains steadfast in defending its sovereignty and just international principles.

Pezeshkian’s interview is more than words—it is a call for peace that the West ignores because its elites thrive on chaos. As the U.S. and Israel escalate aggression, Iran stands as the sole power offering diplomacy over war. But peace is possible only when the West stops seeing itself as the planet’s master and recognizes other nations’ right to sovereignty. Until then, the bloodshed in the Middle East will stain the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv.

Viktor Mikhin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Middle East Expert 

July 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Peacemaker’ Trump beats Biden’s bombing record since return to office: Report

The Cradle | July 23, 2025

US President Donald Trump has ordered hundreds of airstrikes across West Asia and Africa since his return to office, carrying out more attacks in the first five months of his second term than former president Joe Biden did during his entire presidency, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED).

“In just five months, Trump has overseen nearly as many US airstrikes (529) as were recorded across the entire four years of the previous administration (555),” said ACLED President Clionadh Raleigh.

Among the countries bombed by Trump are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. The majority of strikes were carried out against Yemen.

“The US military is moving faster, hitting harder, and doing so with fewer constraints. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran are all familiar terrain, but this isn’t about geography – it’s about frequency,” Raleigh added.

The surge in attacks contradicts Trump’s campaign promises, which framed him as “anti-war.”

In March this year, Trump renewed the Biden government’s campaign against Yemen with much greater intensity.

Months of brutal and deadly attacks struck the country in response to the Yemeni Armed Forces’ (YAF) naval operations against Israeli interests and its missile and drone strikes in support of Palestine.

Yemeni forces consistently responded to US attacks by targeting US warships in the Red Sea, during both Biden and Trump’s terms.

A ceasefire between Sanaa and Washington was reached in May, after the US campaign burned through munitions and failed to impact Yemeni military capabilities significantly.

However, the campaign took a heavy toll on civilians and compounded the humanitarian crisis the country has faced due to over a decade of war.

An investigation released by Airwars last month revealed that Trump’s war on Yemen killed almost as many civilians in less than two months as in the last 23 years of Washington’s military action in the country combined.

“In the period between the first recorded US strike in Yemen to the beginning of Trump’s campaign in March, at least 258 civilians were allegedly killed by US actions. In less than two months of Operation Rough Rider … at least 224 civilians in Yemen [were] killed by US airstrikes – nearly doubling the civilian casualty toll in Yemen by US actions since 2002,” it said.

In Iraq, Syria, and Somalia, Trump has also continued to strike what Washington says are ISIS and Al-Shabab targets.

Despite vowing to end “forever wars,” Trump has recently threatened to expand them.

On 22 July, the US president threatened to launch new attacks on Iran, after late June bunker-buster strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities which were carried out on behalf of Israel.

July 23, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian Navy helicopter intercepts US destroyer in Sea of Oman

Press TV – July 23, 2025

An Iranian Navy helicopter has intercepted the US destroyer USS Fitzgerald in the Sea of Oman, issuing warning signals and ultimately forcing the American vessel to alter its course southward.

According to a statement from Iran’s military, the US warship approached waters monitored by Iran, prompting a rapid-reaction helicopter from the Third Naval Region of the Iranian Army’s Navy (NEDAJA) to deploy.

The helicopter hovered over the destroyer and delivered a clear radio warning to steer clear of Iranian-monitored waters.

In the ensuing standoff, the crew of the USS Fitzgerald threatened to engage the helicopter if it remained in proximity.

Iran’s Army Air Defense Command then intervened, declaring the helicopter under full air defense protection and ordering the American destroyer to change its course.

According to the statement, the USS Fitzgerald complied, heading south away from the disputed area.

The US military has not issued a public statement on the incident, which unfolded amid elevated tensions in the Persian Gulf following the recent US-Israeli war on Iran.

Iranian and US naval forces have had a long history of encounters in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz since the 1980s.

In 2019, Iran shot down a US RQ-4A Global Hawk drone near the Strait of Hormuz due to airspace violation.

The Iranian Navy frequently conducts large-scale drills in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, showcasing its capabilities and signaling deterrence against foreign powers.

July 23, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Al-Tanf and the Yinon Plan for Syria: Israel’s Fortress of Fragmentation

21st Century Wire | July 21, 2025

Oded Yinon, author of the 1982 paper “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” is often cited regarding Israel’s aim to divide neighboring Arab and Muslim areas into ethnic mini-states. Yinon was a former advisor to Ariel Sharon, a former senior official with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and a journalist for The Jerusalem Post. Although Yinon downplays the paper’s direct relevance to current geopolitics, its ideas have arguably become foundational to Zionist policy; balkanization was crucial for Israel’s establishment and continues to be a strategy for its military dominance in the Middle East, especially in Syria. His paper is commonly known as the “Yinon Plan.” Within it, you can read:

“The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.”

The fragmentation of Syria was always an integral part of the Yinon plan, with its operational headquarters not in Tel Aviv but at the US Al-Tanf base, located at the tri-border area between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, and along one of the main highways between Baghdad and Damascus.

Syrian journalist and TV presenter, Haidar Mustafa, wrote for The Cradle on December 2, 2024, about the importance of the Al-Tanf base, one of the most strategic military garrisons for the US occupation in Syria, which acted as a launching platform for countless Israeli overt and covert operations:

“The US coalition’s mission against the Islamic State quickly evolved into a broader strategy of occupying parts of Syria, with the Al-Tanf base crucial to securing its influence and supporting Israeli interests amid growing local resistance.”

In a recent post on X, Lebanese analyst Ibrahim Majed articulated several points about the Al-Tanf base and the immense role the American base has played in advancing Israel’s Yinon Plan, describing it as a “Strategic Outpost for Greater Israel and Israel’s Fortress of Fragmentation.” His post inspired the title of our post today.

Recently, we covered the “David’s Corridor”, a land route in Israel that extends from the occupied Golan Heights through southern Syria to the Euphrates. This route represents Israel’s most crucial foothold in the centre of West Asia, which ultimately benefits from the protection provided by the Al-Tanf base. Should Israel manage to gain control over the southern provinces of Syria, it will be considerably closer to connecting with the territories held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the east, through the American Al-Tanf base located near the Iraqi border, achieving several goals including the non-negligible control of the corridor, the fragementation of Syria and in time the replacement of the “Shiite Crescent” by an “Israeli Crescent”.  Israel aims to establish a secure route that begins in the Golan Heights, traverses through the Suwayda province, continues across the eastern Syrian desert where the US base at Al-Tanf is situated, and extends to the Kurdish-controlled area of Hasakah, ultimately reaching Iraqi Kurdistan along the Iranian border. This explains the continued US military presence in north-east Syria and why last week, on two occasions, a large CIA delegation found itself at the Qasrak base in Al-Hasakah. This is how Israel intends to permanently cut off the Tehran-Beirut road.

Regarding the Druze community in Syria, Israel uses them primarily as a geographic instrument, a human “Maginot Line” of some sort, where the demographic acts as a human shield that, on one hand, hinders Sunnis’ expansion, while simultaneously stopping the Shiites from consolidating on the other. Local groups like Druze, Kurds and Bedouin tribes are all supported directly or indirectly with Western and Israeli logistics and intelligence, and it will remain so, as long as their presence helps Israel fill the vacuum.

The situation in Syria is no longer up for debate—it is laid bare, with each chapter shedding light on the Greater Israel Plan, or the so-called Yinon Plan. This plan provides neither peace nor solutions, nor does it reflect any sense of humanity; instead, it ensures chaos for geopolitical and financial profit, leading to the downfall of a nation we once recognised as Syria. Lebanon is undoubtedly next on Israel’s fragmentation map, and it is with great concern that one must anticipate Israel’s next move…

Darrin Waller writes Fountainbridge Substack…

Understanding the Yinon Plan: Syria is Gone — Is Lebanon Next?

The fall of Syria marks the beginning of a new era of Levantine chaos.

As I wrote when Assad fell, Syria ceased to exist. Fourteen years of sectarian carnage — unleashed by a Salafist proxy terrorist militia, trained by the US, UK, Israel, and Turkey in camps across Jordan and Turkey, and funded by Persian Gulf petrodollar monarchies to the tune of three trillion dollars — extinguished the last secular Levantine nation in December 2024.

As Hassan Nasrallah warned:

“If Syria were to fall into the hands of these groups, its present and future would spiral into chaos… a scene of endless infighting among factions devoid of reason or culture, drowning in extremism, bloodshed, sectarian rivalries…”

It is done. Sold to us as a revolution. A popular uprising.

Another regime change operation — brutally executed over 14 years — culminated in the installation of a mercenary leader: the Saudi-born takfiri Jolani, now styling himself as President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

What we are seeing is the prosecution of the Yinon Plan — a 1982 geopolitical blueprint calling for Israeli regional dominance through the fragmentation of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt along ethnic, sectarian, and tribal lines.

IMAGE: Project Balkanisation: Oded Yinon and an Enduring Plank of Israeli Foreign Policy (Source: Katehon)

It argues that Israel’s long-term survival hinges on one core premise: “The dissolution of all existing Arab states into small units.”

On the surface, the geopolitical win by the US-UK-Israel military-intelligence trifecta — backed by Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies — appears seismic. A Shīʿī-led country now falls under Sunni Salafism, severing the contiguous Shīʿī-controlled corridor linking Tehran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Another barrier to China’s Silk Road ambitions into the Mediterranean has been firmly set in place. Any revival of the ancient Via Maris — a trade corridor that once ran the Levantine coast, linking Asia to Europe and North Africa — remains a pipe dream.

Severed by the establishment of Israel and now buried beneath the rubble of Syria’s destruction, it ensures that any vision of unity from the Maghreb to the Arabian Peninsula remains just that — a vision.

But perhaps of greater immediate import — Israel’s ethno-supremacists and their vision of a ‘Greater Israel’ have just taken a giant leap forward. Southern Syria — and crucially, Mount Hermon, which overlooks Damascus and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, granting strategic military dominance over both — is now firmly under Israeli control. As is the tri-border area between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq — Al Tanf.

Yet there’s more. Israel now moves to establish its self-styled ‘David’s Corridor’ — a contiguous land route stretching from the occupied Golan Heights through southern Syria to the Euphrates. It cuts through the governorates of Deraa, Suwayda, Al-Tanf, and Deir Ezzor, reaching the Iraqi-Syrian border at Albu Kamal — granting Israel a strategic foothold deep in the heart of West Asia.

The corridor was already partially activated during the 12-day war with Iran, enabling standoff air strikes deep into Iranian territory.

With a direct land route to Iraq now viable, expect covert destabilisation efforts within the Shīʿī heartlands of Karbalāʾ and Najaf, alongside renewed backing for Kurdish separatists in both Iraq and Syria. Further vicious sectarian conflict across the region is now being baked in.

Whilst Israel’s bombing of the Defence Ministry and the Presidential Palace in Damascus was supposedly to protect the Druze community from Jolani’s Salafist mercenaries, no such protection was afforded to the Alawites, Armenians, Assyrians, or any of Syria’s other religious or ethnic minorities, who were left to be slaughtered.

The strikes on the Defence Ministry and Presidential Palace were telegraphed well in advance — and were thus performative. A warning to Jolani — Southern Syria is now firmly under Israel’s purview. No Syrian military forces will be allowed.

Meaning: Jolani and his hired guns are expendable, especially now that they’ve completed their task — extinguishing Syria’s sovereignty. As Hadi Nasrallah ruefully put it:

“You mean to tell me the very ones armed by Israel, treated in Israeli hospitals, coordinating with the IOF, shaking Netanyahu’s hand and thanking him for bombing Lebanon — are now being bombed by Israel after serving their purpose? Who would’ve thought?”

And yet, it remains far from clear if Jolani has outlived his usefulness, or if he still has his uses, at least from a US perspective.

Only days ago, whilst Jolani was in Baku, Syrian and Israeli officials were reportedly in talks. Rumours even swirled of a deal wherein Syria would launch attacks against Lebanon’s Shiʿī communities — either independently or in coordination with Israel.

Little wonder, then, that US envoy Tom Barrack warned Lebanon to ‘disarm Hezbollah or risk Syrian occupation’ — signalling that Lebanon, too, is likely slated for division and balkanisation.

The port of Tripoli and the Bekaʿa Valley, Lebanon’s agricultural heartland and a Shīʿī stronghold, are now in play. The only question is whether Ankara or West Jerusalem will seize them first, come to blows over Lebanon’s spoils, or quietly divide them, with Turkey taking the port and Israel the Bekaʿa.

But full control may yet require the chaos of full-on civil war. Syria and Lebanon edge closer — division and balkanisation becoming ever easier to enforce, until little remains but manageable fragments. The Yinon Plan made manifest.

“The attack on Lebanon is going to happen without a doubt… the question is when, and the other question is how. Is Israel going to do a ground invasion at the same time or just attack from the air?” (Ibrahim Majed)

Doubtless, the architects of today’s chaos are already patting themselves on the back, expecting handsome dividends to roll in. More division. More balkanisation. A weaker, fractured Arab world — and a stronger, more dominant Israel.

This is what Netanyahu means when he talks about “redrawing the Middle East”.

Yet the US and Israel are unravelling at an accelerating pace. Their seeming victory over the Levant is no triumph of providence — it courts the abyss and beckons the judgment to come.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is Azerbaijan Considering Hosting a Turkish Military Base?

By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – July 21, 2025

As Azerbaijan-Russia relations cool, discussions emerge in Baku about the potential deployment of a Turkish military base. Is this a random development — or is chance merely revealing an underlying pattern?

Between Iran and Russia, Azerbaijan chooses Turkey. At one point, when describing the political geography of modern Azerbaijan, Geidar Dzhemal — a Russian Islamic political and public figure, philosopher, and poet — characterized it as extremely vulnerable, considering its southern border with Iran and northern border with Russia. At the time, the Karabakh issue remained unresolved for Baku, and the goal of regaining full control over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory was still pending. In other words, despite being technically at war with Armenia, Baku did not perceive it as an existential threat.

Dzhemal’s assessment reflected Azerbaijan’s geopolitical choice to align with NATO-member Turkey, and to build partnerships with the UK, Israel, and the US. These allies, carefully selected by Baku, have political and economic agendas that are at odds with those of Russia and Iran.

Despite historical ties with Iran and its shared Shia Islamic heritage, Azerbaijan opted in the 1990s for an alliance with Sunni-majority Turkey. Turkey became a key facilitator in the implementation of the so-called “contracts of the century” in the oil and gas sector, with Britain playing a leading role.

Recognizing the deep-rooted tensions between Israel and Iran, Baku forged a pragmatic partnership with Tel Aviv. Azerbaijani oil — making up 60% of Israel’s overall oil imports — in exchange for Israeli weaponry and military technologies laid the foundation for robust bilateral relations. Israel, for its part, assisted Azerbaijan in strengthening ties with the US and Europe, both directly and through lobbying by the Jewish diaspora.

In return, Azerbaijan did not hinder the activities of Israeli intelligence services on its territory, particularly when directed at Iran. Azerbaijan’s military success in the Second Karabakh War in 2020, with direct Israeli support (weapons deliveries, intelligence sharing, UAV operations), significantly expanded the operational scope of Israeli intelligence targeting Iran. The results of the twelve-day Israel-Iran war in June 2025 have once again raised questions about Israeli security structures potentially using Azerbaijani territory.

Today, Tehran is unlikely to escalate tensions with Baku. On one hand, both sides have only recently emerged from a serious diplomatic crisis (following the terrorist attack at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran, the withdrawal of Baku’s ambassador, and the later restoration of ties). On the other hand, Iran’s conflict with Israel remains unresolved and without a peace agreement.

Azerbaijan’s relationship with Russia in the post-Soviet era has fluctuated — swinging between partnership and hostility. Moscow initially adopted a neutral stance in the Karabakh conflict, trying to retain both Armenia and Azerbaijan within its sphere of influence, and took the lead in conflict resolution efforts. Indeed, both Karabakh wars ended under Russian mediation, but with radically different outcomes. From the 2000s onwards, Russia began pursuing a more pragmatic approach in the South Caucasus, shifting toward a strategic partnership with Baku. As a result, Azerbaijan secured access to $5 billion worth of modern Russian weapons, expanded its business presence in Russia, and acted as a mediator — particularly after the 2015 downing of a Russian Su-24 by Turkish forces — in restoring and advancing Russian-Turkish ties.

Russia’s distant approach during the Second Karabakh War and the Azerbaijan-Armenia tensions of 2021–2023 allowed Baku to achieve military success and regain lost territories in Karabakh. Following its pragmatic logic, Azerbaijan did not join anti-Russian sanctions and, like Turkey, has maintained business ties with Russia, receiving considerable benefits from transit and re-export arrangements.

However, despite its strategic partnership with Russia, Turkey has not hastened to implement the Russian-proposed gas hub project in Eastern Thrace. Ankara continues to demand favorable financial terms (lower gas prices, deferred payments, joint trade) and also seeks Russian consent for its plans to access Central Asia via the Caspian Sea and tap into Turkmen gas.

Since autumn 2020, the “Turan Project” has begun to take more tangible shape. Ankara envisions the creation of an alternative alliance to the EAEU and the EU, involving Turkic states and Pakistan.

Iran opposes the Zangezur Corridor, Russia — due to Armenia’s position — cannot establish control over the project, and Azerbaijan may reconsider its support for the North–South International Transport Corridor, possibly obstructing Russia’s access through Iran to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. This scenario could trigger new diplomatic — or worse, military-political — crises in the South Caucasus.

Amid all this, Azerbaijan is placing its hopes on Turkish military bases. Following the latest escalation in Azerbaijan-Russia relations — sparked by Baku’s harsh reaction to the tragic downing of a civilian aircraft and the detention of Azerbaijani diaspora members in Yekaterinburg (with investigations still ongoing) — former presidential aide Eldar Namazov raised the prospect of hosting a major Turkish military base in Azerbaijan. He even suggested that part of the base could be leased to the Pakistani Air Force as a potential deterrent against alleged provocations from Russia and Iran.

Namazov is far from a fringe figure, and his statements are likely aligned with the presidential administration — at the very least, with the President’s foreign policy aide Hikmet Hajiyev.

In fact, Turkey has long been involved in Azerbaijan’s defense and security — from the two Karabakh wars to military reforms and personnel training. Joint military drills are held regularly. After the Second Karabakh War, a Turkish-staffed monitoring center operated in Aghdam from November 2020 (Russian peacekeepers have since left the region, but no official information suggests Turkish forces have followed suit). Turkish military advisers remain active in Baku. The 2021 Shusha Declaration explicitly provides for mutual military assistance upon request. Iran is acutely aware that any attack on Azerbaijan would trigger Turkish intervention.

Should Azerbaijan decide to host a Turkish NATO base on its territory, it would usher in a new geopolitical reality in the South Caucasus. This would compel Russia and Iran to take additional security measures, plunging the region into uncertainty. Baku, while not necessarily hoping for a repeat of its Karabakh victory, risks forfeiting significant advantages — namely, threats to transit routes vital to its economy, and potentially even the loss of its hard-won control over Karabakh.

In chess, logic demands the elimination of reckless moves that may lead to failure. In political chess, the stakes are even higher: a miscalculated diplomatic move can result not only in defeat, but in far more serious consequences  —  human, material, and strategic. Sadly, history has shown that wars often spell the downfall of some states, while paving the way for the birth of others. President Aliyev, a diplomat by training with years of presidential experience and a cool, calculated approach, is unlikely to let the Azerbaijan–Russia crisis escalate unchecked. Most likely, this period of tension will soon give way to renewed cooperation  —  perhaps even in the form of a formal declaration of alliance.

Alexander Svarants – Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Turkologist, expert on the Middle East

July 21, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia, China, and Iran to hold nuclear talks – Tehran

RT | July 21, 2025

Russia, China, and Iran will hold talks on Tuesday to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, has announced. He noted that a separate round of talks with European nations is scheduled for later this week.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Baghaei said that the trilateral talks would also focus on the threats by Britain, France, and Germany to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. In particular, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned of a potential sanctions snapback next month if no meaningful progress is made in limiting Iran’s nuclear activities.

Baghaei noted that Russia and China remain members of the 2015 nuclear deal and hold significant influence in the UN Security Council. He added that Iran had had “good consultations” with the two countries regarding the potential sanctions snapback. “Legally and logically, there is no reason for the return of sanctions lifted under the [nuclear deal],” he stressed.

The spokesman also confirmed that Iran would hold a separate meeting at the deputy foreign minister level with Britain, France, and Germany in Istanbul on Friday, adding that Tehran has “no plans to talk with the US” at this time.

One of the key stumbling blocks has been Iran’s decision to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was monitoring Tehran’s nuclear program. Tehran has accused the IAEA of releasing a biased report, which was allegedly used as a pretense by Israel to launch a 12-day war against Iran.

The Israeli attack came after Iran-US nuclear talks ended up at an impasse due to Washington’s demand that Tehran fully abandon uranium enrichment. While the US has argued that Iran could use the capacity to create a nuclear bomb, Iran has dismissed any plans of doing so, insisting that it needs enrichment to fuel its civilian energy industry.

Both Russia and China maintain that the Iranian nuclear crisis can only be resolved through political and diplomatic means.

July 21, 2025 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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