Eight Iraqi resistance attacks hit US Victoria base near Baghdad airport
The Cradle | March 22, 2026
Iraqi resistance factions targeted the US Victoria Base near Baghdad airport in at least eight separate rocket and drone strikes, just days after video footage showed the site engulfed in flames as a result of non-stop attacks.
“Eight separate attacks, carried out until dawn with rockets and drones, targeted the US center,” a senior Iraqi security source told AFP on 22 March.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition announced on Sunday morning that its fighters carried out 21 operations over the past 24 hours, “using dozens of drones and missiles to target US occupation bases in Iraq and across the region.”
The US Victoria base – located near Baghdad airport – has come under continuous attacks by the Iraqi resistance since the start of Washington and Tel Aviv’s brutal war against Iran. The site serves as a US military logistical center.
Footage from after an Iraqi resistance operation on Friday showed the US Victoria base engulfed in large flames.
Other targets which have come under heavy attack by the Iraqi resistance include Washington’s Harir base and the US embassy compound in Baghdad.
After several heavy strikes on the embassy building since the start of the month, leading Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah said on 19 March that it “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days,” warning that “the response will be immediate” if its terms are violated.
The terms demand that Israel “cease the destruction and bombardment of the southern suburbs in Beirut,” and include calls for “a commitment to not bomb residential areas in Baghdad and the provinces,” as well as “the withdrawal of CIA elements from their positions and keeping them inside the embassy.”
Two days earlier, a top Kataib Hezbollah official was assassinated in a US-Israeli airstrike.
Deadly air raids against Iraq have been ongoing since the Iraqi resistance intervened in the war and began striking US targets in response to the brutal US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
Iran’s Dimona Strike Shatters Myth of ‘Impenetrable’ THAAD, Patriot & Arrow Air Defenses – Analyst
Sputnik – 22.03.2026
Iran’s huge leap in missile capability allowed it to punch through Israel’s vaunted multi-layered air defense shield, says political science and international relations expert Dr. Simon Tsipis. That explains why several warheads in Iran’s retaliatory strike on Dimona, home to Israel’s nuclear research facility shielded by Israeli and US defenses, reached their target area, Dr. Simon Tsipis tells Sputnik.
According to the analyst:
- Attack exposed weaknesses of Israel’s Iron Dome, built to intercept short-range rockets and mortars – not Iran’s intermediate-range ballistic missiles
- Iran’s military capabilities now allow it to launch ballistic missiles at ranges exceeding 2,000 km — including Diego Garcia joint US-UK military base
- Iran employs saturation tactics, launching swarms of decoys like drones and low-caliber missiles to overwhelm defensive systems before the main missile strikes
“Until now, it had been assumed that Iranian missiles would lose momentum and speed at the limits of their range. It is now evident that they retain significant power and velocity during the terminal phase of flight,” says the pundit.
The geopolitics expert breaks down the brutal US/Israel reputational damage:
- While Iran has just burnished its credentials as a serious military power, arms buyers everywhere are taking note of Arrow, Patriot, and THAAD failures
- Iran’s claimed airspace dominance puts US bases on notice worldwide, while bringing much of Europe within Iran’s missile range
The sheer reach of Iran’s new arsenal deals a humiliating blow to Israeli intelligence, which had long insisted it knew every detail of Iran’s capabilities
“Clearly, hidden breakthroughs went undetected,” he says.
In Dr.Tsipis’ opinion, Iran likely chose not to score a direct hit on Dimona’s nuclear reactor to avoid escalation. But it has sent a clear message: “Israel’s most heavily guarded site lies within striking range of Iranian systems.”
Iran’s strike on Dimona – Israel’s nuclear weapons research center – shows Israeli air defences are weakened
The Dissident | March 21, 2026
The War In Iran has seriously escalated in recent days with Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities, and a retaliatory Iranian strike on Dimona, the Israeli city housing its secret Nuclear Weapons development centre .
Israel struck a nuclear enrichment site in Natanz, Iran, and in response, Iran struck, Dimona, in what was apparently a strike targeting the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center located just outside of the city.
For Iran, the fact that an Iranian missile was able to get through such an important strategic area means that Israel is effectively “defenseless”.
After the strike, one Iranian speaker of the parliament said:
If the Israeli regime fails to intercept the missiles in the highly protected Dimona area, it is operationally a sign of entering a new phase of the battle:
Israel’s skies are defenseless.
As a result, it seems the time has come to implement the next pre-designed plans.
Happy Nowruz to the Iranian nation.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald noted that , “Dimona is one of the most strategically important places in Israel” adding that, “If Israel can’t even intercept Iranian missiles aimed there, that is an obvious sign of the serious weakening of their air defenses”.
Indeed, Dimona is no doubt seen as a deeply strategically important place to Israel, given that it, as Middle East Eye noted , “sits near one of the most sensitive locations in Israel: the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, long linked to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons programme.”
Journalist Seymour Hersh in his 1991 book, “The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy”, detailed the history of Israel’s secret Nuclear program at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center and the efforts Israel went to in order to hide the facility from then U.S. president JFK, including by creating a “false control room … at Dimona, complete with false control panels and computer-driven measuring devices that seemed to be gauging the thermal output of a twenty-four-megawatt reactor (as Israel claimed Dimona to be) in full operation” in order to “convince the (American) inspectors that no chemical reprocessing plant existed or was possible.”
Hersh added that, “One former Israeli official recalled that his job was to interpret for the American team. ‘I was part of the cover-up team. One of the engineers would start talking too much’ in front of the Americans, the official said, and he would tell him, in seemingly conversational Hebrew, ‘Listen, you mother-fucker, don’t answer that question.’ The Americans would think I was translating.’”
Hersh went on to report that, “Sometime early in 1968, Dimona finally was ordered into full-scale production and began turning out four or five warheads a year — there were more than twenty-five bombs in the arsenal by the Yom Kippur War in September 1973”.
The Israeli nuclear program was used to advance the Israeli “Samson Option” doctrine, which as journalist Kit Klarenberg described, is “if the (Israeli) entity feels sufficiently threatened, it reserves the right to carry out preemptive nuclear strikes not merely on regional adversaries, but its Western sponsors into the bargain.”
Israeli military theorist Martin van Creveld, talking about the Samson option in 2003, said, “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force” adding, “We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”
Today, “the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute included Israel in its list of nuclear-armed states in June 2025 and assessed that Israel possesses more than 80 nuclear warheads.”
Given Dimona city’s proximity to the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Centre, and its importance to Israel’s Samson option doctrine, there is no doubt that it is viewed as a strategically important area for Israel, and the fact that an Iranian missile went through shows that Israel’s air defence has been severely weakened.
US Trying to Oust Russia From All Energy Markets – Lavrov
Sputnik – March 21, 2026
MOSCOW – Moscow does not currently see any US commitment to respecting Russia’s interests, with Washington attempting to push Moscow out of all energy markets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday.
“We are being pushed out of all global energy markets. Eventually, only our own territory will remain. The Americans will come to us and say they are for cooperation with us. But if we are willing to implement mutually beneficial projects on our territory and provide the Americans with what they are interested in, taking their interests into account, then they should also consider ours. We do not see this yet,” Lavrov told a Russian TV program.
He added that the US “has welcomed and welcomes Russia’s marginalization in European energy markets,” which, he said, was an open claim to energy dominance worldwide.
“This is an unusual situation – a return to a time when there were no frameworks for international relations. It was stated clearly that the interests of the US take precedence over any international agreements,” the minister said.’
The severe consequences of US and Israeli actions in the Middle East will be felt for a very long time to come, Lavrov also said.
“Despite all the outward signs of a farce, and I think many people understand that these are present, the consequences of what our American colleagues are doing, in this case together with the Israelis, are extremely severe. They will continue to have repercussions for a very long time,” Lavrov told the Russian TV program.
Western silence allows Israel to get away with killing journalists
By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 21, 2026
On March 19, RT war correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured by an Israeli strike meters from where they stood in southern Lebanon.
Sweeney was on camera reporting on recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese towns and infrastructure when he heard the sound of an incoming projectile. Ducking and running, he managed to escape the brunt of the impact.
According to the journalists, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near Al-Qasmiya Bridge, where Sweeney was reporting on, “the targeting of bridges and the forced displacement of one million people, an ethnic cleansing operation on a larger scale than the Nakba,” as he later stated, referencing the violent displacement of Palestinians which accompanied the creation of the Jewish State in the late 1940s.
The men were treated for shrapnel injuries. Sweeney said, adding “I’m amazed that we survived. We were incredibly lucky to come away with the injuries we did.”
Just a day prior, Sweeney had posted on X about the Israeli targeted airstrike on Lebanese journalist and Al-Manar TV presenter Mohammad Sherri and his wife. Both were killed. Sweeney reposted the news with the words, “Targeting journalists is a war crime.”
The next day, he himself was targeted.
This deliberate targeting of journalists wearing press vests is another Israeli war crime, in a long list of Israeli war crimes which include killing at least 261 Palestinian journalists in Gaza in the past two years alone, as well as previously killing Lebanese journalists and bombing Iranian media repeatedly.
Targeted assassinations of journalists by the Israeli army are not new. Back in 2008, Fadel Shana, a Reuters cameraman in Gaza, was killed by a flechette shell fired by an Israeli tank as he worked.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all press killings globally in both 2025 and 2024. CPJ notes that the Israeli army has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since the CPJ began documentation in 1992.
Russian condemnation, British silence
RT Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan posted on X about the targeted attack, clearly stating the journalists had been targeted by an Israeli strike and stating, “War journalists are not legitimate targets.”
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted that in no way could the strike be considered accidental, particularly given, “the rocket did not hit an ‘important strategic military target’, but the location of the report.”
While Western media is always quick to highlight claims of legacy media journalists in danger, no matter how staged it appears to be, when it comes to journalists actually under attack the outrage is selective.
Although the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity was filmed on camera in broad daylight, with Israel virtually the only possible culprit, British media in particular have been disinterested. The BBC’s report ran with the headline, “Missile lands next to presenter during live report from Lebanon.” Barely noticeable in small print many lines later, the BBC mentions the “ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon.”
The BBC listing an experienced war correspondent as a “presenter” was also not accidental. The overall flippant tone of their report was to insinuate a minor incident had occurred, the missile’s origin unknown.
Other media followed suit, including The Independent, which didn’t even mention, not even in small print, Israeli bombings of Lebanon.
As for the British government, the reaction thus far has been nothing. Declassified UK posted on X that the Foreign Office’s response to British journalist Steve Sweeney being targeted by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon was simply to reply to the government’s position made before Sweeney was targeted, a word salad blaming Iran and Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, and whitewashing the US-Israeli strikes which were the direct cause of Iranian retaliation.
It also claimed the government would, “continue our support for British nationals in the region.” Clearly, that support doesn’t extend to Sweeney.
Remarkably, later the same day that he was nearly killed, Sweeney was already back outside reporting, defiantly stating, “If Israel thinks today’s strike will silence us and keep us out of the field they are very, very mistaken.”
To the CPJ’s credit, despite its failing elsewhere (like failing to report on Russian journalists killed by the Ukrainian regime), it did issue a strong and clear condemnation of the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity, unequivocally naming Israel as the perpetrator.
It called for “an investigation into the apparent targeting” of the journalists, and emphasized they were injured, “when an Israeli air strike hit just feet away from where they were filming while wearing clearly marked press gear and with their equipment clearly visible in southern Lebanon.”
CPJ stated, “Striking reporters who are clearly marked as a press constitutes a violation of international law.” See, BBC and co? It’s not that hard.
Not only does Israel, empowered by Western silence and cooperation, bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure. It also targets journalists, whose job it is to document these atrocities. Refusal to call these attacks out for what they are is cowardly at best, complicit at worst.
Eva Bartlett, an award-winning Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine, as well as Venezuela and the Donbass.
The Israeli Media Is Laying The Groundwork For a Permanent Israeli Occupation Of Southern Lebanon
The Dissident | March 20, 2026
Israeli journalists with connections to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party are now openly calling for an Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon and the establishment of Jewish settlements, after the Israeli bombing campaign has displaced over one million people from Southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu-connected figures in the Israeli media are now using this mass displacement to push for a permanent Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.
Amit Segal, a Likud connected journalist, in the Miriam Adelson funded outlet Israel Hayom praised Trump for supporting the idea of an Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza and hoped that the Trump administration would approve an Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon, writing, “Trump, a man with no sentimentality for old borders, already shook the Middle East when he agreed in principle to recognize Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria in the framework of the Peace to Prosperity plan, and when he supported mass emigration from Gaza. The mass migration from southern Lebanon has already happened. The only question is whether he will give Israel merely de facto approval of its new northern border or de jure approval as well.”
Referring to IDF militants who expanded up to the Litani River in Southern Lebanon, Amit Segal hoped it would lead to permanent occupation, writing, “Is this a temporary, isolated event? Soldiers who went deeper into Lebanon this week should think again, and remember that IDF forces have now been on the summit of the Syrian Hermon since the end of 2024, with no expiration date.”
Taking it a step further, Michael Freund, a former deputy communications director of Benjamin Netanyahu, writing in The Jerusalem Post, explicitly advocated for a permanent Israeli occupation with Jewish settlements of Southern Lebanon calling for Israel to “incorporate southern Lebanon into sovereign Israel and settle it with Jews.”
He added that, “A growing movement in Israel has begun to argue that the only way to guarantee lasting security in the North is not merely military control of territory but the establishment of permanent Jewish communities there. One such initiative is Uri Tzafon (‘Awaken, O North’), an organization advocating the settlement of southern Lebanon as a long-term security solution.”
He advocated that Israel “maintains control of the territory south of” the Litani River and the “establishment of Jewish communities there”.
Michael Freund cited biblical Israel as a justification for stealing Lebanese land, writing, “Biblical sources describe the borders of Canaan as extending northward toward Sidon, and the territory of the tribes of Israel included it as well” along with arguing that Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon is needed for “security”, (i.e. destroying Hezbollah’s ability to defend against Israeli expansion).
The motive behind the war in Iran has always been the Greater Israel project. With Israel’s mass displacement of Southern Lebanon, the Likud-friendly media is already explicitly stating that this move was done to advance the project and expand Israeli territory into Southern Lebanon.
Iran signals upper hand as the US-Israeli war reaches third week
Al Mayadeen | March 21, 2026
Iran is signaling that it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that would cement Tehran’s influence over Middle East energy resources for decades, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ notes that Iranian officials appear to see time as working in their favor, suggesting they are not in a rush to end hostilities.
Despite repeated US and Israeli claims of successfully targeting missile launchers and stockpiles, the WSJ reported that Iran has retained the capacity to fire dozens of ballistic missiles and a large number of drones daily across the region.
In fact, the rate of attacks has increased in recent days compared with 10 days ago. Iranian strikes reportedly inflicted severe damage this week on US-linked energy infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, while Iran’s own oil exports continued to flourish.
The WSJ added that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains contingent on Iranian permission, and that rising oil and gas prices are exerting pressure on the US administration to end the war.
Low-cost, high-impact disruptions
The Wall Street Journal cited analyst Dina Esfandiary, who said that Iran has learned it can inflict large-scale disruption at relatively low cost.
“The Iranians aren’t ready to end the war because they have learned an important lesson: They can, comparatively easily and cheaply, cause a lot of damage and disruption. They now want the whole world to learn that lesson, too,” she told the newspaper.
Iranian leaders appear to be leveraging this capability to set conditions for a ceasefire. As cited by WSJ, Esmail Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, stated after a recent meeting with military commanders that any talks with the US are currently off the agenda, as Tehran “focuses on punishing the aggressors.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has described Iran’s position in the war as comparable to Vietnam for the US.
The Wall Street Journal notes that Iran’s demands for ending the war reportedly include massive reparations from the US and its allies and the removal of American military forces from the region.
Iranian officials have also suggested transforming the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic international waterway, into an Iranian-controlled passage where ships would pay fees to transit.
Expediency Council member Mohammad Mokhber, advisor to the supreme leader on economic affairs, told Mehr News Agency that Iran intends to “turn its position from a sanctioned country to an enhanced power in the region and the world.”
US officials, experts, express doubt despite the facts
US officials and military experts, the WSJ reports, have expressed skepticism about the feasibility of such an arrangement, highlighting the difficulty of US decision-makers coming to terms with the demands at this stage.
Former White House special envoy Jason Greenblatt commented, “President Trump will never let them win. They don’t understand how far he’s willing to go.”
The WSJ also cited retired US Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, who said that reopening the Strait of Hormuz would require careful intelligence and surveillance, but claimed that this could be achieved within weeks.
“It’s not something that is going to happen overnight, but over time the Strait of Hormuz will be open back to the levels of shipping that we saw before this conflict broke out. The Iranians are not going to end up with control over the strait, we are,” he claimed, according to the Wall Street Journal, revealing that a battle may be ahead for control of the strait.
Additional perspectives reported by the WSJ include Sanam Vakil of Chatham House, who described leaving Iran in control of the strait as “a categorical failure for the United States and President Trump,” and Robin Mills of Qamar Energy, who said that even if temporary control were granted to Iran, it would likely provoke renewed military or diplomatic action.
Airlines Suffer Losses Estimated at $53Bln Due to Middle East Conflict
Sputnik – 21.03.2026
On February 28, the United States and Israel began striking targets in Iran, including in Tehran, causing damage and civilian casualties. Iran has carried out retaliatory strikes on Israeli territory, as well as on US military targets in the Middle East.
The damage caused by US and Israeli aggression against Iran amounted to approximately $53 billion for the 20 largest publicly traded airlines, the Financial Times reported, based on its own calculations.
Airline executives are warning of the consequences caused by the sustained rise in oil prices, disruptions at Gulf airports, and a potential hit to global demand, the Financial Times added.
In the coming months, passengers planning trips on routes that are not related to the Middle East will face a sharp rise in ticket prices as airlines try to protect their revenues, the newspaper reported.
Have you heard the latest joke about Trump and Iran?
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 21, 2026
What’s the difference between Vietnam and the Iran War? Answer: Trump had an exit strategy for Vietnam.
How much collective responsibility can the West take for the shitstorm it is in now, otherwise known as ’The Iran War’? Many would like to blame most of it on Trump for being a manchild and just going ahead with the most madcap military venture NATO countries have ever known, against all the expert advice, and ending up with a regime which is even more hardcore for having a bomb, world energy prices soaring and causing chaos due to Iran choking the Straits of Hormuz, and the entire relationship between Washington and its allies in the region reduced to a handful of dust?
The reality is that Trump took the decision to go to war not based on one issue alone. Left-wing commentators in the U.S. would like us to think it was to distract the media away from the latest revelations of the DOJ and the Epstein files, which had a tome of evidence accusing him of having inappropriate relations with a 13-year-old girl. But there were other reasons which pushed him over the line. Top of that list is surely that Netanyahu was blackmailing him, threatening to release recordings of his phone calls with Epstein where they talk about young girls. Add to that, it was probably pointed out to him that he was not going to keep both houses when the midterms come unless a considerable amount of Jewish American money was pumped into his campaign.
But it isn’t just Trump that has got us all into this mess that we’re in. For decades, the EU allowed Israel to ratchet up their brutal occupation of Palestinians and in the process to dehumanize them, leading to the climax of the Gaza genocide. This gave an unrealistic sense of impunity, almost akin to a divine intervention to religious fanatics who already believed that they were the chosen people and that they had a right to murder those beneath them and steal their property. Look at the reaction of western governments and in particular the EU when the events of October 7th unfolded and how they supported any response at all from Israel. In fact, just look at how any UK government minister reacted to the start of the Iran War, which, if we didn’t know better, might have thought it was started by Iran.
Trump is isolated now not for his rank stupidity, or his delusional views about who he is and what America is. He is isolated by EU leaders as none of them want to be part of a new Vietnam War scenario which goes on for years and only produces body bags — only to keep a U.S. president from looking like a total fuckwit in front of his own people.
Yes, the reality is that the vast majority of Americans don’t really understand what Trump just did in Iran. Even today, something like 80 percent of Republicans polled agree with his decision to begin a conflict with Iran, while Democrats are in the other camp altogether, perhaps better informed of Trump’s rationale behind going ahead with the plan.
Most likely the plan had been on the table for months and each time a military expert pointed out the harsh realities of it bringing blowback on a global level, affecting not only pump prices rocketing but just about everything else over the longer term, they were ignored or swapped for a sycophant in a uniform who just nodded like a demented parcel shelf toy dog until he had a whole room full of them. Does the American public understand just how self-indulgent Trump has been and that he has now created for himself a new threat, like a magician pulling a pigeon out of his hat? While the so-called ’threat’ from Iran goes from being a vague, opaque notion which most people don’t even believe, to being something quite real and lucid to the point that, ironically, Trump can now present it to the gullible public and hope they don’t notice that he manufactured it all by himself.
Yet it is remarkable how detached Europeans are from Trump and his plans. What an extraordinary example of how diplomacy is entirely dead and not worth the paper it’s written on, when EU ambassadors had no clue about these meetings and what came out of them. Shouldn’t EU leaders have stepped in at some point and warned him he was playing with fire and that the only certainty was that the West was guaranteed to be the burn victim? What about our intelligence services? It is inconceivable they didn’t know what was coming? Did they not tip off their own governments? Likely they did and that London, Paris and Berlin simply did nothing, such is the non-existent special relationship between Old Europe and Washington. Even Britain.
Transatlantic relations between the U.S. and EU countries is never going to be the same again if something can’t be done to get a dialogue going. Sure, Trump may pull the U.S. out of NATO just out of spite, like a fuming four-year-old who’s just lost his ball to an angry neighbour, but other, bigger relations are probably burnt forever. Washington’s relations with Israel can never go back to the Master (Israel) Slave (U.S.) set-up. And America’s relations with Gulf Arab countries is going to be hard to put back on an even keel when Arab leaders can see how fake they were in the first place.
Trump’s childish revelation recently that he couldn’t have imagined Iran hitting the GCC countries feels like a seven-year-old boy trying to explain to a room full of adults that he didn’t realise that borrowing his friend’s go-kart would result in so much damage as no one told him the jalopy would go so fast down a hill. The EU has a similar idiot in power, though. Kaja Kallas, a name which conjures up a 1980s underarm deodorant or a Greek ferry company, is blessed by at least not looking as stupid as she really is. This daughter of an Estonian communist politician, who was happy to live the high life under the Soviets, seems to be almost entirely brain dead when she gets on the podium or in front of the six microphones (all of EU TV networks who are actually paid cash to broadcast her moronic ramblings) and harps on about Russia getting more money now from oil sales. It’s literally like watching someone in a mental institution who hasn’t taken their medication talking to the mirror with a toothbrush as a mic and trying to sound clever.
But it’s no joke how the West got to where it is with Iran, when these same buffoons for decades have been encouraging Israel to expand its ideas and, red in tooth and claw, reach a point today where they are either starving people so as to ethnically cleanse Gaza or simply bombing women and children in their tents — or taking over part of Lebanon, a decades-old fantasy which didn’t end well in 1982 when they tried it before.
So the Trump joke is less funny when you see it in the light of who led him to where he is and what his inconsistent messages are to EU leaders. He is stuck in the past and tends to be someone trying to correct or duplicate U.S. foreign policy. Of course, he lacks élan, though, which is also part of the problem with such leaders. In the early 70s, when Nixon wanted to devalue the dollar but retain its power around the world, EU leaders were horrified. Apparently, he simply said to them: “It’s our dollar, but it’s your problem.”
Trump signals possible wind-down of aggression against Iran despite unresolved Hormuz crisis
Press TV – March 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump has indicated he is considering scaling back the underway unprovoked aggression towards Iran, even as the crisis surrounding the Strait of Hormuz remains unresolved.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump claimed the United States was close to achieving the military goals sought by the aggression.
“We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”
He listed, what he called, degrading Iran’s missile capability and industrial base, and protecting US allies in the region.
The remarks flew in the face of the Islamic Republic’s robust underway retaliation, codenamed Operation True Promise 4, that keeps taking larger portions of hostile targets under the country’s firepower.
US military positions throughout the region, including in Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, have been subjected to sustained counterstrikes.
The retaliation has also struck sensitive and strategic locations across the occupied territories, including those lying in Tel Aviv, the holy occupied city of al-Quds, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, considered a technological hub, and the Negev Desert.
On the issue of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed to enemy vessels as well as ships belonging to those cooperating with the adversaries since the onset of the aggression, Trump suggested the US might step back from direct responsibility.
“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not.”
Commenting on the remarks, American outlet Axios acknowledged that efforts to reopen the strait have proven difficult.
It cited Trump’s advisors as pointing to his frustration due to limited allied support, despite his alleging military victory.
The US has sought to form a coalition to secure the strait, asking NATO allies and others to contribute naval and air assets. Most have declined to commit forces, and some have only backed a political statement supporting the effort.
Trump has retorted to allies over their reluctance, calling NATO countries “cowards” and saying that without US backing, NATO is “a paper tiger.”
Meanwhile, disruptions to global oil flows continue to drive up energy prices.
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Strike on Israel Shows US Bases Near Iran Are ‘Achilles Heel’
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 14.04.2024
Fears of a greater Middle East escalation were triggered after Iran launched a massive drone and missile attack against Israel, aided by Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis. Iran said the attack was in response to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, which killed seven members of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran’s massive retaliatory attack on Israel from its own territory is a sign that the conflict could “escalate out of control.”
Michael Maloof, a former senior security analyst in the office of the US secretary of defense, told Sputnik that the first ever direct Iranian attack on Israel set a dangerous precedent.
“My concern is that this could easily escalate into something not only between Iran and Israel, but beyond the Middle East region,” he said.
Iran’s assault, which it stated was an act of “self-defense” after the Israeli strike on its consulate in Damascus, was originally intended to be a “limited” one, said Maloof.
Iran first sent in “swarms of drones with lights on as a sign of psychological warfare,” but sending in cruise and ballistic missiles by Tehran was a “distinct escalation,” said Maloof.
The scale of Iran’s attack on Israel suggests that Tehran was sending a message, demonstrating that it possesses “extraordinary capabilities,” said Maloof. … continue
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- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
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