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Donald Trump Was Installed in Office to Do One Thing

José Niño Unfiltered | March 5, 2026

Long before Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, long before he learned to tell campaign crowds what they wanted to hear about ending endless wars and bringing the troops home, he told the world exactly what he intended to do about Iran. He wrote it down. He published it. And almost nobody bothered to read it.

In his 2011 book Time to Get Tough, Trump laid out his position on Iran’s nuclear program with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “America’s primary goal with Iran must be to destroy its nuclear ambitions,” Trump wrote. “Let me put them as plainly as I know how. Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped by any and all means necessary. Period. We cannot allow this radical regime to acquire a nuclear weapon that they will either use or hand off to terrorists.”

By any and all means necessary. Those six words should have settled every subsequent debate about Trump’s foreign policy instincts toward Iran. They were not the words of a non-interventionist. They were not the words of a man who believed in restraint, in diplomacy, or in the sovereign right of nations to manage their own affairs without American interference. They were the words of a man who had already decided, more than a decade before he ordered B-2 bombers over Fordow, that Iran’s nuclear program would be destroyed on his watch. Everything that followed was execution.

Tearing Up the Deal

Trump repeatedly condemned the Iran nuclear deal throughout his 2016 campaign, calling it “the worst deal ever” that would lead to “a nuclear holocaust.” Though he occasionally struck a peaceful tone with select audiences, his actual policy toward Iran was one of consistent escalation from the moment he took office. The International Atomic Energy Agency had certified Iran’s compliance with the agreement on at least ten occasions. Trump’s own administration certified Iranian compliance in April and July 2017. None of it mattered at the end of the day.

On May 8, 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and launched what his administration called the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign. A White House statement announced that the administration would “immediately begin the process of re-imposing sanctions” targeting “critical sectors of Iran’s economy, such as its energy, petrochemical, and financial sectors.” Trump also warned of “severe consequences” for any country that continued doing business with Tehran.

Maximum Pressure, Minimum Restraint

The sanctions that followed ranked among the most severe in modern American history. The White House stated explicitly that the campaign was “intended to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue.” The Trump administration steadily widened the scope of the economic siege, targeting Iran’s central bank, space agency, and shipping industry. In June 2019, Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally, his office, and those closely affiliated with his access to key financial resources. In July 2019, the Treasury sanctioned Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. By November 2019, the administration had targeted Khamenei’s inner circle of advisers, including his son Mojtaba and the head of Iran’s judiciary.

Between 2018 and 2021, the Trump administration imposed more than 1,500 sanctions designations on Iran and on foreign companies or individuals who did business with Tehran. According to the International Crisis Group, the campaign targeted more than 80 percent of Iran’s economy.

Branding Another Country’s Military a Terrorist Organization

In April 2019, Trump took a step that no previous American president had ever contemplated. He designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the first time in American history that any branch of a foreign government’s military had received that label.

At the time, Trump bragged about the move in a White House statement that read like a victory lap. “If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism,” Trump declared. “This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as an FTO.” He called it an “unprecedented step” and boasted that it would “significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime.”

The timing was notable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced national elections the following day. The Soufan Center assessed that the designation appeared designed in part to bolster Netanyahu’s electoral chances. Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif called it “another misguided election-eve gift to Netanyahu.” The move had little practical effect beyond the sanctions already in place, but it sent an unmistakable signal about whose interests Trump’s Iran policy was designed to serve—world Jewry.

Assassination in Baghdad

The most dramatic escalation of Trump’s first term came on January 3, 2020, when he authorized a drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, and several others.

Trump addressed the nation from Mar-a-Lago the following day. “Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,” Trump declared. The claim of an imminent threat became the administration’s central justification. However, reporting from Pepe Escobar found that Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission with Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

But the story began to unravel almost immediately. The Trump administration shifted its justifications repeatedly over the following weeks. First Trump said Soleimani was plotting to attack the Baghdad embassy. Then he told Fox News it “would have been four embassies.” Then he tweeted that it “doesn’t really matter” whether the threat was imminent. A UN human rights investigator later concluded that the killing was “unlawful” under international law.

Iran retaliated with missile strikes on American bases in Iraq, leaving more than 100 U.S. soldiers with traumatic brain injuries. The world braced for open war. The killing of Soleimani represented the first known instance of a nation invoking self-defense to justify an attack against a state actor on the territory of a third country. It was a line that no previous administration had dared to cross.

The Generals Who Tried to Stop Him

Even after the Soleimani episode, Trump continued to explore military options for striking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. According to The New Yorker, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley spent the final months of Trump’s first term in an alarmed effort to prevent the president from launching a strike on Iranian interests that could ignite a full-scale war.

Trump had a circle of Iran hawks around him and remained close with Netanyahu, who continued to push for military action against Iran even after it became clear that Trump had lost the election. “If you do this, you’re gonna have a f***ing war,” Milley would warn. He began holding daily morning briefings with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meetings he referred to as the “land the plane” calls. “Both engines are out, the landing gear are stuck, we’re in an emergency situation,” Milley told his staff. “Our job is to land this plane safely and to do a peaceful transfer of power the 20th of January.”

On January 3, 2021, Trump convened one final Oval Office meeting on Iran, asking his advisers about reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s nuclear activities. It was the last time Milley spoke with Trump as president. The generals had managed to prevent the strike, but only barely, and only because the clock ran out.

Finishing What He Started

When Trump returned to office, there were no generals left to stop him. In February 2025, he signed a presidential memorandum reimposing “maximum pressure” and directing his Treasury and State Departments to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran’s oil exports to zero.” He sat beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he signed it. He told reporters, “With me, it’s very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump informed senior aides that he had “approved of attack plans for Iran” but was “holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran will abandon its nuclear program.” The offer was never serious. American military assets, including carrier strike groups, bombers, and fighter jets, were moved into strategic positions across the region.

In June 2025, Trump ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, the first direct American military strike on Iranian soil. B-2 stealth bombers dropped bunker-buster bombs on the Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, while a submarine launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan. Trump declared on Truth Social that the strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites, including the deeply buried Fordow facility. “Nobody thought we’d go after that site, because everybody said, ‘that site is impenetrable,’” Trump boasted to Fox News.

But the intelligence agencies told a different story. A preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes inflicted only limited damage, potentially setting back Iran’s nuclear program by months rather than years. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told CBS News that Iran could resume uranium enrichment “in a matter of months.” “Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,” Grossi warned. Iran remained, in his assessment, “a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology.”

Then came February 28, 2026. Operation Epic Fury. The joint American and Israeli assault that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, decimated the IRGC, and spread the conflict across the entire Persian Gulf. The culmination of everything Trump had promised over the course of 15 years.

Trump’s relentless hostility toward Iran is the predictable culmination of a career built upon deep integration with the most influential elements of American Jewry. These associations provided the capital and connectivity required for his ascent, inevitably shaping his worldview to prioritize their geopolitical ambitions. Consequently, Trump has functioned as the ideal vessel for those who seek to turn Old Testament fantasies into reality through American military might.

This pattern reveals that contemporary populism—and its Zio-populist offshoots across the pond—acts merely as a Trojan horse for Zionist interests. By exploiting rhetoric concerning immigration, race relations, and economic nationalism, these movements successfully capture the loyalty of the disaffected, only to redirect their political energy toward the preservation of Jewish supremacy rather than the survival of the European peoples of the West.

Nationalists must recognize these figures as false prophets and instead prioritize the demographic and civilizational continuity of our own nations through a policy of strict realism abroad and nationalism at home.

March 6, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Was Installed in Office to Do One Thing

MIT Prof Ted Postol: U.S. Iran Missile War

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – March 5, 2026

March 5, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , | Comments Off on MIT Prof Ted Postol: U.S. Iran Missile War

Unpacking glaring contradictions in US-Zionist justifications for war against Iran

By David Miller | Press TV | March 5, 2026

While the likes of Trump, Netanyahu, and Rubio peddle inconsistent justifications for the illegal and unprovoked aggression on Iran, CIA intelligence shreds claims of imminent threats, revealing how the Zionist entity dictates US foreign policy.

US President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of contradictory explanations for the joint US-Zionist assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran, launched on 28 February 2026.

In his initial video statement, Trump asserted the strikes aimed to eliminate “imminent threats” from Iran, including its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles capable of reaching the American homeland.

He painted Iran as a “vicious group of very hard, terrible people” whose actions endangered US interests.

This narrative quickly evolved. By 3 March, Trump admitted the decision stemmed from his “opinion” that Iran would attack first if not struck preemptively.

“It was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he stated, abandoning earlier claims of concrete intelligence.

Such flip-flops, once again, expose exaggeration. Trump claimed Iran neared intercontinental ballistic missiles threatening the US, an assertion contradicted by US intelligence assessments.

The BBC highlighted how Trump’s “imminent threats” lacked support, noting Iran’s nuclear capabilities remained far from weaponisation despite rhetoric.

Trump’s pre-strike doubts further undermine his case. The Associated Press reported Trump’s dissatisfaction with ongoing nuclear talks, leading to the order despite diplomatic avenues. This pivot from diplomacy to aggression reeks of opportunism, not necessity.

Netanyahu’s decades-long push: ‘Regime change’ at any cost

Zionist entity premier Benjamin Netanyahu has long championed aggression against Iran, viewing it as an existential foe. In justifying the 2026 strikes, Netanyahu declared them pre-emptive to thwart Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, threatening overwhelming force.

He warned that allowing Iran nuclear weapons and ICBMs would endanger humanity.

Netanyahu’s rhetoric echoes his four-decade obsession. Even complicit journalists like Mehdi Hasan noted Netanyahu “has been yearning, dreaming of doing this for 40 years,” with Trump as the first US leader to oblige.

The Guardian labelled the assault an “illegal act of aggression” without a lawful basis, driven by Netanyahu’s preference for military solutions over diplomacy.

Post-strike, Netanyahu celebrated the operation’s goals and called (in Farsi) for Iranians to “come to the streets, come out in your millions, to finish the job, to overthrow the ‘regime’ of fear that has made your lives bitter”. Mondoweiss exposed how initial nuclear justifications morphed into overt regime change admissions, mirroring Iraq War tactics.

“When we are finished, take over your government,” President Trump said, addressing the Iranian public in his own video. “It will be yours to take.”

Yet The Nation revealed aims to turn Iran into a failed state, obliterating coherent governance. Netanyahu dusted off the genocidal language used against the Palestinians, saying on Sunday, 1 March, during a visit to a site struck by an Iranian missile.

“We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember—and we act,” he said.

The Amalekites are identified in the Hebrew Bible as a persistent adversary of the Israelites, linked to a Torah commandment to erase their memory. Specifically, 1 Samuel 15:3  mandates the killing of men, women, and infants. This was a clarion call to eliminate all Iranians, showing the utter hypocrisy of calling out on the streets those he wishes dead.

Rubio’s Freudian slip: Admitting Zionist sway over US decisions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments laid bare the Zionist entity’s influence on US policy. On 2 March, Rubio stated the US struck because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” prompting preemptive moves to avoid higher US casualties from Iranian retaliation.

Rubio elaborated that awareness of Zionist plans necessitated US involvement, framing it as defensive. Al Jazeera described this as a “looping justification,” highlighting how Zionist intentions drove US timing.

Facing backlash, Rubio walked back his words, insisting the strikes were inevitable regardless of Zionist actions. The New York Times reported his clarification: “The president determined we were not going to get hit first.”

Axios noted Rubio’s remarks ignited MAGA divisions, underscoring Zionist power. The Guardian highlighted Democratic fury over Rubio’s implication of a “war of choice” on behalf of Zionists. PBS detailed Rubio’s defence, warning Iran of further escalation. These revelations confirm that US policy follows Zionist whims.

CIA intelligence shreds the ‘imminent threat’ facade

CIA assessments dismantle claims of Iranian aggression. The Associated Press revealed that US intelligence showed no pre-emptive Iranian strike planned against the US.

Briefings to Congress confirmed no such indicators. Reuters echoed Pentagon admissions: no intelligence on Iran attacking first. The Hill reported similar findings, contradicting Trump’s “imminent threat.”

A House of Commons Library briefing noted in 2025 that US intelligence judged Iran not to be building nuclear weapons. CNN detailed CIA tracking of Iranian leaders, but no offensive plans. Al Jazeera reported CIA talks with Kurds for uprisings, indicating an offensive US posture. Even the Zionist funded propaganda network Iran International quoted ex-CIA Director Petraeus on Iran’s strategic errors, but no pre-strike aggression.

These reports expose fabricated threats to justify unprovoked war.

Pentagon’s panic: Depleted THAAD stocks and radar losses

Pentagon officials express intense paranoia over dwindling air defense stockpiles as a result of Iran’s legitimate self-defense. The Washington Post reported sources describing the mood as “intense and paranoid.”  The Daily Beast characterised these Pentagon officials as “secretly panicking” about THAAD interceptor shortages if fighting drags on.

This panic stems from high consumption rates. It takes two or three interceptors per incoming missile, straining limited THAAD stocks.

Some sources claim that for every $1 Iran spends on drones, countries like the UAE (and by implication the US and the Zionist entity) spend approximately $20 to $28. The Washington Post said officials are warning that resources are “stretched thin.”

Compounding this, the US Navy resists escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. USNI News reported Navy officials informing shipping leaders of no availability for escorts, despite Trump’s pledges.

Lloyd’s list detailed this U-turn, with the Navy ruling out protection.

These issues link directly to Iran’s destruction of the AN/FPS-132 radar at Al Udeid base. NDTV reported Iranian claims to have obliterated this $1.1 billion system, crucial for ballistic missile tracking. The radar’s loss weakens early warning, compressing reaction times for THAAD systems.

Army Recognition, a defence industry news site, explained that this reduces sensor depth, forcing more interceptor use and accelerating stock depletion. In fact, they describe it in full as this: “early-warning radar uses a fixed UHF phased-array to detect and continuously track ballistic missiles and space objects at very long range, generating early launch warning, trajectory and impact predictions, and cueing data for layered defenses such as THAAD, Patriot, and naval air-and-missile defense systems across the Gulf”.

So, it affects the whole range of layered air defences.

For Navy escorts, diminished radar coverage heightens risks in Hormuz. Radar losses are key to broader defense cracks, making naval operations precarious without full surveillance.

These problems have only been compounded by the latest strikes, which even the New York Times is admitting have damaged or destroyed Radar and other monitoring and targeting equipment in US bases across the region in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

This chain—radar destruction leading to inefficient defenses and stock drain—fuels Pentagon panic and Navy caution, exposing vulnerabilities in the aggression.

Zionist entity’s grip: How the US became a tool in Iranian aggression

The Zionist colony has long steered US policy toward confrontation with Iran. Al Jazeera probed how Zionist plans precipitated US strikes, with Rubio admitting awareness shaped decisions.

The establishment think tank CFR detailed US intervention following Zionist unilateralism, escalating to full aggression. Mondoweiss argued the war follows an Iraq playbook: false WMD claims shifting to regime change. The Guardian condemned it as illegal, driven by Netanyahu’s impatience with diplomacy.

Euronews quoted Iran’s UN ambassador decrying US betrayal during talks, highlighting Zionist sabotage. Al Mayadeen announced Netanyahu’s declaration of joint aggression. The Nation exposed aims to fragment Iran, with Zionist officials targeting all leadership. WBUR reported Trump’s regime change calls, echoing Zionist goals.

This puppetry endangers global peace, subordinating US interests to messianic Zionist ambitions.

Key contradictions in leadership statements

  • Trump’s threat claims vs. intel: Trump warned of missiles soon reaching the US, but even the NYT fact-checks show these are inaccurate.
  • Netanyahu’s pre-emption vs. evidence: Netanyahu framed strikes as a gateway to peace, yet Arab News notes endless war denial.
  • Rubio’s Zionist trigger vs. walkback: Rubio suggested Israeli plans forced the US hand, later denied.
  • Intel on no strike vs. official narratives: AP sources confirm no preemptive Iranian plans.

These inconsistencies fuel scepticism in the American security apparatus as well as – increasingly – with the US allied states in West Asia.

These deceptions are being unmasked in real time. The unthinkable is now dawning on the US and its allies; this may be the moment that the US is pushed out of West Asia once and for all.

Solidarity with Iran at this time demands truth over propaganda and the final push to remove US influence and finally collapse the Zionist colonisation project in Palestine.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy. 

March 5, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Unpacking glaring contradictions in US-Zionist justifications for war against Iran

US-Israeli Efforts to Degrade Iran’s Missile Might Failed – Military Researcher

Sputnik – 05.03.2026

The intensity of Iranian missile attacks against the US and Israeli assets in the Middle East does not seem to abate, despite the United States’ claims to the contrary, Konstantin Sivkov, a member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, tells Sputnik.

Despite losing a number of its missile launchers, as is expected during war, Iran has been successfully destroying US radar systems, satellite communication stations and data processing facilities in the region.

“Iran is striking at the target designation system – the brains, the decision making system, the early warning system,” Sivkov remarks.

Iranian missile launchers, he explains, are either deployed under extensive air defense protection or hidden in underground shelters, which they leave briefly to unleash their deadly payload upon the enemy.

The US military thus has a very brief window to track down and attack these launchers while they are in the open.

The active use of decoys by Iran also makes destroying these missile launchers problematic for the US.

Back during the Desert Storm op in 1991, some 70% of the initial US missile salvos launched at Iraq ended up striking decoys, and during the NATO air raids on former Yugoslavia, the number of munitions expended on decoys was even greater, Sivkov points out.

Meanwhile, Iran has the capability to produce new mobile missile launchers to replace the destroyed ones.

The United States’ reluctance to send more aircraft into Iranian airspace further suggests that the US’ claims that Iran’s air defense capabilities have been neutralized are also premature, he suggests, pointing out that the US seems to rely more on long-range missile strikes.

The US’ attempt to sic Kurdish factions on Iran is tantamount to admission that their airstrike campaign did not produce the desired result, Sivkov adds: the initial plan, to cause chaos by murdering the Iranian leadership and to install a puppet regime in the country, clearly failed.

March 5, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on US-Israeli Efforts to Degrade Iran’s Missile Might Failed – Military Researcher

IRGC strikes critical Israeli military sites with Khorramshahr-4 missiles in latest wave

Press TV – March 5, 2026

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced early Wednesday that its aerospace force targeted the critical Israeli military infrastructure with heavy Khorramshahr-4 ballistic missiles in the 19th wave of True Promise 4 Operation.

In a statement, the IRGC said the super-heavy missiles, each fitted with a one-ton class warhead, were launched in the pre-dawn hours.

The targets of the strike were central Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion Airport and Squadron 27 of the Israeli Air Force at the airport, according to the statement.

It said the strategic salvo was preceded by attack drones and that the strike package penetrated “seven layers” of regional and domestic air defenses to reach its objectives.

Khorramshahr-4 is one of Iran’s most advanced weapons, a roughly 13-metre missile with a boost weight of nearly 30 tonnes and a maneuverable re-entry warhead (MaRV) capable of carrying over 1,000 kilograms of explosive payload.

The IRGC statement also said that in the previous wave its forces had successfully struck some 20 US military targets across Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The statement described the strikes as part of coordinated, multi-axis action by Iran’s armed forces that exceeded US and Israeli expectations and had altered the operational calculus of the ongoing war imposed on the Islamic Republic.

In the statement, the IRGC further said American troops were fleeing regional bases and seeking shelter in hotels in host countries, while decrying the US military for using civilian facilities in Persian Gulf states as cover for military activity.

The statement also warned that such movements are under constant intelligence surveillance and that Iranian forces remain prepared to target aggressor troops.

The IRGC says at least 560 American troops have been killed in retaliatory operations and many more injured since Saturday.

March 5, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on IRGC strikes critical Israeli military sites with Khorramshahr-4 missiles in latest wave

US and Israeli Claims of Depleted Iranian Arsenals are Just Military Propaganda – Expert

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 05.03.2026

American officials claim Iran’s arsenal is dwindling and launchers are running low — but there’s no objective proof, veteran Russian military observer Yury Lyamin, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, tells Sputnik.

“Such statements should be treated with great skepticism and seen as standard military propaganda,” Yury Lyamin says. “I believe Iran’s total number of launchers is generally underestimated.”

Yes, the number of missile launches has dropped – but why?

  • the decline in launches is largely due to constant air pressure, forcing Iranian forces to take maximum precautions
  • US and Israeli strikes on tunnel entrances at missile bases require time to clear debris and carry out safety checks

“Iran’s main missile stockpiles and launcher reserves are stored deep within underground missile bases carved into mountains, making them extremely difficult to hit. Moreover, it’s unclear how they are moved inside,” the pundit explains.

Lyamin draws attention to the fact that Iran keeps its missile launchers as simple and inexpensive as possible – they’re typically mounted on standard trailers and trucks. That allows the Islamic Republic to maintain a substantial storage of those devices.

US vs. Israel: Conflicting Assessments Stir Controversy

The Israeli side claim that “more than half” of all Iranian missile launchers have been destroyed, whereas the US insists Iran is “running out” of them.

Israeli figures are also questionable, according to the expert:

  • Israel claimed 300 launchers destroyed two days ago, but videos from the US and Israel show roughly a tenth of that
  • While it’s true not everything is captured on video, the huge discrepancy warrants skepticism

Even within the video evidence provided by Israel and the US, there are questionable cases, according to the expert:

  • Some strikes appear to have hit ordinary trucks mistaken for launchers
  • One video even shows a strike on a broken truck with its hood open
  • In another, a launcher that had already been destroyed was hit repeatedly

March 5, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on US and Israeli Claims of Depleted Iranian Arsenals are Just Military Propaganda – Expert

Iran denies attacking Azerbaijan, suggests Mossad involvement

Al Mayadeen | March 5, 2026

Iran’s armed forces denied on Thursday that they launched drones toward Azerbaijan after Baku accused Tehran of carrying out UAV attacks in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

The statement was issued by the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces and carried by the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

Azerbaijan reports drone attack

Earlier in the day, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry claimed drones launched from Iranian territory struck targets in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, leaving two people injured.

Tehran rejected the claim and emphasized that Iran respects the sovereignty of neighboring countries, particularly regional Muslim states.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, respecting the sovereignty of all neighboring states, especially brotherly Muslim countries, denies the launch of UAVs by the Iranian Armed Forces toward Azerbaijan,” the General Staff said in the statement.

Tehran blames Israeli involvement

The Iranian military suggested that “Israel” may have launched a drone toward Azerbaijani territory in an attempt to blame Iran and escalate tensions between the neighboring countries.

The accusation comes as regional tensions have intensified following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory operations.

Claims of covert Israeli activity in the region

The allegations also emerge amid claims of covert Israeli operations in several Gulf countries.

Speaking on The Tucker Carlson Show, American journalist Tucker Carlson said authorities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia had arrested Mossad agents accused of planning bombings in those countries. Carlson described the development as unusual and questioned the logic behind such operations.

He suggested the alleged plots could be part of broader efforts to destabilize multiple countries in the region while escalating pressure on Iran.

March 5, 2026 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Comments Off on Iran denies attacking Azerbaijan, suggests Mossad involvement

The myth of military ‘decapitation’

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 5, 2026

The recent escalation in the Middle East has brought back to the center of strategic debate a recurring concept in Western military doctrine: the so-called “decapitation strike.” The idea is simple in appearance and politically seductive – eliminate the leadership of an adversary state in order to trigger institutional collapse, military disorganization, and ultimately regime change. However, historical reality shows that such an approach is far from the magic solution its proponents often imagine.

The bombings carried out by the United States and Israel against Iran, culminating in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were clearly conceived under this logic. The expectation seemed to be that by removing the main political and religious authority of the Islamic Republic, the system would either collapse outright or face sufficient internal unrest to enable a forced transition. At the same time, it was assumed that Iran’s response would remain limited, as in previous confrontations.

That calculation proved mistaken. Instead of disintegration, there was internal consolidation. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets across the country, even under bombardment, to support the Islamic Republic and chant “death to America.” Moreover, there was no strategic paralysis among Iranian decision-makers, who promptly responded by striking targets throughout the Middle East.

This gap between expectation and reality stems from a structural characteristic of contemporary Western military thinking. Washington, accustomed to rapid interventions against fragile states, has consolidated a culture of short-duration warfare, marked by overwhelming initial destructive power followed by swift disengagement. Tel Aviv, due to its territorial dimensions and demographic limitations, developed a doctrine based on preventive strikes and the rapid neutralization of enemy leadership. However, this model tends to fail when applied against states with national cohesion, solid institutional frameworks, and mobilization capacity.

Iran is not a collapsed state, nor a fragmented tribal structure. With more than 90 million inhabitants and a political order consolidated since 1979, the country built mechanisms of succession and redundancy within its command structure. Khamenei’s advanced age had already made the question of transition an internal matter. Thus, the “decapitation” attempt did not strike at the functional core of Iranian power. On the contrary, it strengthened patriotic sentiment and expanded popular support for the government.

The strategic lesson is clear: complex political systems do not depend exclusively on a single individual. When institutions are deeply rooted and chains of command are distributed, eliminating a symbolic figure may generate martyrdom and cohesion rather than collapse.

This understanding helps explain why Russia did not adopt, in its conflict with Ukraine, a systematic policy of targeted assassinations against the political leadership in Kiev. Since the beginning of the special military operation, Moscow has demonstrated technical capacity to strike command centers and critical infrastructure. Even so, it has not prioritized the physical elimination of President Vladimirr Zelensky or other central figures of the Ukrainian government.

This choice does not stem from incapacity, but from strategic calculation. First, Zelensky’s removal could have produced the opposite of the intended effect, transforming him into an international symbol and further consolidating Western support for Kyiv. Second, the Ukrainian state structure – sustained by intense NATO assistance – does not depend exclusively on one individual leader. A replacement could occur rapidly without fundamentally altering the conflict’s dynamics.

Furthermore, Russian strategy has been characterized by a prolonged war of attrition focused on the gradual degradation of the adversary’s military and logistical capacity. This model stands in direct contrast to the logic of decapitation. Moscow appears to understand that in conflicts between organized states, victory is rarely achieved through a single spectacular blow, but rather through the systematic erosion of the enemy’s material conditions.

The myth of decapitation persists because it offers a simplified and politically marketable narrative: remove the “head,” and the body will fall. Yet recent experience demonstrates that this assumption ignores the resilient nature of modern states. Leaders can be replaced; institutions, when consolidated, tend to endure.

Ultimately, the obsession with decapitation strikes reveals more about the strategic limitations of those who execute them than about the vulnerability of those who suffer them. Recent history suggests that wars between powers or structured states are not decided by dramatic gestures, but by prolonged processes in which internal cohesion and industrial capacity weigh more heavily than the elimination of individual figures.

March 5, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on The myth of military ‘decapitation’

Is the International Norm Against Assassination Dead?

By Sophie Duroy and Luca Trenta – Verfassungsblog – March 2, 2026

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel assassinated the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. The joint operation marked the first time either state has directly killed a sitting head of state. As with the US’s January 2026 operation against Nicolás Maduro, what stands out is not only the gravity of the act but the manner in which it was justified. Public statements emphasised Khamenei’s record and the sophistication of US-Israeli intelligence cooperation, but they did not articulate a credible legal basis for the strike.

Khamenei’s assassination represents a new stage in the erosion of the international norm against assassination. This norm has long been understood as part of a broader framework protecting sovereignty and prohibiting the use of force outside armed conflict. Under international law, the killing of a state official outside an armed conflict will almost invariably violate the prohibition on the use of force, state sovereignty, and/or international human rights law. In an influential piece written two decades ago, Ward Thomas observed that “the directly targeted killing of foreign adversaries, once rejected as beyond the pale, has become a prominent issue in debates over U.S. security policy”. For Thomas, the shortsighted policies driving the US’s so-called “global war on terror” were undermining the norm and risked spilling over to justify the killing of state officials. Yet, in 2005, he wrote with some relief that “the word ‘assassination’ itself still carries a considerable stigma”. In the wake of Khamenei’s assassination, this statement no longer seems to hold true.

Since the early 2000s, the gradual normalisation of state-sponsored assassination has lessened the stigma attached to the practice to the point that assassinating a sitting head of state without any legal justification has now become a reality. While the international norm against assassination may not yet be fully dead, its recent trajectory offers little hope for its restoration.

A gradual normalisation of assassination

The norm’s erosion was already visible in the January 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani. The Trump administration initially invoked self-defence and imminence, before shifting to claims that Soleimani had “American blood on his hands”. International reactions were limited: a joint statement by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom focused on regional stability without directly condemning (or indeed mentioning) the killing. Subsequent cases reinforced this pattern. The Biden administration justified the 2022 killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri with the assertion that “justice has been delivered”, without any articulation of its compatibility with international law.

This apparent normalisation of assassination as a tool of statecraft rests on two interrelated mechanisms: routinisation and legitimation. Prior to the attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States was a vocal critic of Israel’s practice of assassinating Palestinian activists. After 9/11, however, it quickly adopted the practice and slowly began to legitimate it. With the US adoption of the practice, now strategically renamed “targeted killings”, assassination became increasingly routinised as a tool of statecraft.

Today, both democratic and authoritarian states employ it, and targets have expanded beyond suspected terrorists to include scientists, political opponents, bloggers, journalists, state officials, and sitting heads of state during armed conflict. Alongside covert poisoning and car bombs, methods have evolved to include drone strikes and AI-assisted targeting. The practice now spans objectives of counterterrorism, deterrence, regime security, and strategic signalling. What was once treated as an exceptional and contested measure has been bureaucratised and normalised as a tool of policy within self-proclaimed liberal democracies such as the United States and Israel. The definitional move from “assassination” to “targeted killing” facilitated this process by situating such operations within the vocabulary of armed conflict after 9/11.

In parallel, legitimation has become possible through a reinterpretation of the applicable legal framework. Since the early 2000s, the United States and Israel have been more vocal in advancing expansive readings of self-defence, imminence, and the existence of non-international armed conflicts beyond traditional battlefields to justify targeting individuals that could not be regarded as lawful targets under stricter legal interpretations. The lack of strong condemnation by other states allowed the legal justifications, however implausible, to provide a precedent for further action.

As this effort at legal justification provided a veneer of legitimacy for the routinised assassination of suspected terrorists, it became increasingly easy to rely on the newfound legitimacy of the practice to assassinate other “enemies of the state”, such as nuclear scientists or state officials like Soleimani, as well as to abandon legal justification altogether, as for al-Zawahiri.

The assassination of Khamenei as a rupture

The assassination of Ali Khamenei differs from the killings of the past two decades insofar as sitting heads of state have historically occupied a distinct normative category. As explained by Thomas, as early as the seventeenth century, “a complex combination of material and ideational factors contributed to the rise of the norm against assassinating foreign leaders” in wartime and, a fortiori, in peacetime. Even when states plotted against foreign leaders during the Cold War (for instance, the US repeatedly attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro), they always did so covertly and rarely acknowledged responsibility when exposed. In later decades, when the US targeted foreign leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, it was careful to claim that their deaths would have been an inadvertent consequence of a strike undertaken in self-defence. Such was the stigma against targeting heads of state that, as late as 2022, some authors argued that the norm erosion triggered by targeted killings would remain “compartmentalised” to the targeting of non-state actors.

It must therefore be emphasised that the US-Israeli strike of 28 February 2026 deliberately targeted and killed the sitting head of state of a sovereign state. In addition, Khamenei’s killing was publicly embraced, and its justification was framed in moral rather than legal terms.

Despite repeated violations of the international norm against assassination, its resilience depended on states either concealing their involvement or defending their conduct through appeals to legal exemptions such as self-defence or combatant status. Both practices signalled that assassination remained normatively problematic in the international order.

When assassination is openly acknowledged and only minimally justified in legal terms, as was recently the case with Soleimani, al-Zawahiri, Haniyeh, or Nasrallah, that signal weakens. The threshold then shifts from whether the act can be legally justified to whether the target is sufficiently “bad” to warrant elimination. Whether the targets of recent assassinations “deserved” their fate is, however, less important than the implication of this shift from legality to morality for the international order. While legal arguments can be rebutted, moral claims about worthiness are less susceptible to meaningful contestation.

Alongside Jeremy Waldron, one may therefore begin to ask:“Do we want [assassination] to become a permanent capability available in principle to any of the 192 [now 195] sovereign states in the world that think of themselves as having particular persons as enemies?”

Is the international norm against assassination dead?

The systemic effects of recent assassinations, from drone strikes in Yemen to the assassinations of Soleimani and Nasrallah, are cumulative. Each muted reaction by states that style themselves as the guardians of the “international rule-based order” lowers the political cost of the next strike; each public acknowledgement unaccompanied by legal argument lowers the justificatory threshold for other states and future assassinations. Combined with the widespread availability of drone and long-range strike technologies, assassination becomes both politically easier to defend and materially easier to replicate. As a result, the practice of state-sponsored assassination, which once required covert modalities and plausible deniability, is increasingly conducted openly.

This does not mean that the norm is formally extinguished. Even under the most expansive readings of international law, as advocated by the US and Israel in recent decades, the “targeted killing” of a state official outside an armed conflict still violates the prohibition on the use of force, state sovereignty, and international human rights law. Many states continue to denounce assassination when they consider themselves as victims, and legal scholarship remains largely sceptical of expansive doctrines of imminence or “globalised armed conflict” that would render such killings lawful.

The more difficult question is whether the norm still meaningfully constrains powerful states. Norms do not disappear simply because they are violated. They erode when violations become routine, when justificatory standards decline, and when adverse reactions diminish. The 28 February 2026 assassination of Ali Khamenei features as the culmination of these three dynamics. It suggests that, at least for some states, assassination has moved from a covert and contested practice to an overt, politically defensible, and even desirable instrument of policy.

Should other states emulate this model, and should international responses remain muted, the norm will continue to hollow out. Conversely, sustained contestation, coordinated sanctions, and renewed insistence on legal justification could restore its constraining force. As such, whether the norm against assassination will effectively disappear depends less on the existence of prohibitive rules than on future practice.

Reactions by other states to Khamenei’s assassination will be decisive for the norm’s future trajectory. At present, however, that trajectory points much less toward a restoration of the stigma than toward a full normalisation of assassination as a tool of statecraft.

Dr. Sophie Duroy is a Lecturer at Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre, University of Essex.

Dr. Luca Trenta is Associate Professor of International Relations at Swansea University.

March 5, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Comments Off on Is the International Norm Against Assassination Dead?

Larry Johnson: AIR POWER CANNOT BEAT an ENTRENCHED ENEMY LIKE IRAN

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – March 4, 2026

Larry Johnson argues that Iran will not back down because it sees the conflict as existential, while the U.S. lacks the long-term resolve to sustain another major war—citing failures since the Vietnam War.

He claims Iran has effectively neutralized much of the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, rendering bases such as Al Udeid Air Base, Prince Sultan Air Base, and U.S. naval facilities in Bahrain combat-ineffective, and destroying key radar systems. He argues that airpower alone—referencing “shock and awe” from the Iraq War—cannot secure victory without ground forces.

The discussion questions statements by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, contrasting his current rhetoric with past criticism of U.S. interventionism. The speaker suggests current leadership is overstating progress and creating unrealistic expectations that Iran will soon collapse.

He further argues that despite heavy bombardment, Iran remains capable of striking Israel and that damage inside Israeli cities is being underreported due to social media censorship. He claims missile defenses such as Patriot, THAAD, and Iron Dome are being depleted or are ineffective.

Strategically, he contends the U.S. and Israel lack the capacity to conquer Iran, noting its vast size, mountainous terrain, and the logistical impossibility of a ground invasion—drawing comparisons to difficulties in Afghanistan. He also points to Israel’s ongoing struggle in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 as evidence that overwhelming airpower does not guarantee political or military victory.

Overall, the speaker concludes that U.S. leadership is misrepresenting the situation, underestimating Iran’s resilience, and setting itself up for strategic and political failure.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Larry Johnson: AIR POWER CANNOT BEAT an ENTRENCHED ENEMY LIKE IRAN

Report- U.S. and Israel Are Targeting ‘Hospitals, Residential Buildings And Schools Across Tehran’

The U.S. and Israel Are Repeating The Gaza Strategy In Iran

The Dissident | March 4, 2026

Failing to achieve regime change, the U.S. and Israel are bombing civilian areas in Tehran, in an attempt to destroy Iran as a nation.

A report in the Telegraph, a mainstream British newspaper, wrote , “Tehran an ‘apocalypse’ of hospitals in flames and children buried beneath rubble”.

The report noted, “American and Israeli aircraft bombed hospitals, residential buildings and schools across Tehran on Tuesday in what residents described as ‘an apocalypse’” adding, “Millions of civilians are trapped under relentless bombardment as food and medical supplies dwindle and the death toll mounts.”

One resident of Tehran told the paper, “They have been bombing us without pause today, and the sound of explosions never stops. They don’t care where they are hitting. I have felt the shockwaves several times already”.

He added, “They are striking buildings where families live. After each explosion, people rush to help – and then another bomb hits the same area.”

The report added:

Families ration meals to make supplies last. Children go to bed hungry. Elderly residents with medical conditions cannot find their medications.

Diabetics run out of insulin. Parents water down milk to make it stretch further. Some families have not eaten in two days. Bakeries that remain open face long lines.

It went on to write:

Areas around Revolution Square in central Tehran were struck on Tuesday, causing extensive damage to residential homes in one of the capital’s most densely populated districts.

The Haft-e-Tir neighbourhood, also in central Tehran, was hit. Video footage showed destroyed apartment buildings and rescue workers digging through rubble.

A hospital in southern Bushehr was destroyed, with emergency workers frantically evacuating newborn babies as the building was struck.

Kamran ( Tehran resident) said: “Many people are trapped under the rubble. Hospitals are filled with injured patients, and staff are overwhelmed. They are even striking hospitals where the wounded are being treated.”

The scene echoed strikes on Gandhi Hospital in Tehran and multiple other medical facilities across the country.

The destruction of hospitals means the wounded have nowhere to go. Nurses carry premature infants through smoke-filled corridors as bombs fall on maternity wards.

Burn victims lie on floors because all beds are full. Surgeons operate by torchlight when electricity fails.

Medical staff work until they collapse from exhaustion, then wake and work again. Some doctors have not left their hospitals in three days, sleeping in supply closets between emergency procedures.

Millions remain trapped in Tehran, a city under sustained aerial assault.

The report added, “‘An apocalypse is unfolding here,’ said Ashkan, another Tehran resident. ‘Today has been the worst day. Those who had cars fled. Those of us without cars are left here under the bombs.’”

It went on to note:

The strikes have created a humanitarian crisis that casualty figures do not fully convey.

Food supplies have become scarce in several parts of the city as distribution networks break down and stores close.

‘I don’t know if any of my relatives are dead or alive,’ Ashkan said. ‘One kilo of potatoes is now 200,000 tomans. That was 30,000 tomans last week.’

The report also documented the repeated use of “double tap” strikes on rescue workers, writing:

The Red Crescent said more than 100,000 rescue and relief workers across the country are on full alert, but residents said help often arrives too late or cannot reach victims at all.

“By the time rescuers arrive, another bomb falls on the same place,” Kamran said, describing what appeared to be “double-tap” strikes where initial attacks are followed by secondary strikes targeting first responders – a tactic that violates international humanitarian law.

Middle East Eye reported that the U.S./Israeli slaughter 165 children at the school for girls in Minab was also the result of a “double tap” strike, writing, “The girls’ school in Iran, where 165 people were killed by an apparent US-Israeli attack, was hit with two strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, two first responders and the parent of a slain child have told Middle East Eye.”

One Red Crescent member told the outlet, “When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them. The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”

The father of one victim told the outlet that, “his daughter survived the first strike and was moved to the prayer hall. The second strike hit before he could reach her.”

The outlet documented other instances of “double tap strikes” used in Iran wiring:

Since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on Saturday, some Iranians have reported attacks that resembled double-tap strikes.

A video circulating on social media shows one woman in central Tehran in distress saying: “They dropped one bomb, people went inside, then they bombed again. They killed people.”

Another shows two men on a motorcycle, with one of them describing a near-death experience.

“We went to drag out people from under the rubble, and then the jet returned twice and pounded the same location four more times. We would have been dead if we weren’t still under the rubble,” he says.

A resident of Tehran who left for Turkey told Reuters , “We saw a lot of buildings destroyed, especially on the way leaving the country. There were a bunch of buildings, a bunch of cars and streets ​were destroyed. People are panicking to leave the country. They don’t know what to do”.

According to the Western group “Human Rights Activists News Agency, “the total number of reported civilian deaths stands at 1,114, including 181 children”.

As academic Glenn Diesen noted, referring to this report , “The US and Israel are bombing hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and Mehrabad international airport in Tehran. Having failed to regime change Iran, the new objective appears to be terror-bombing Iran into submission”.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Report- U.S. and Israel Are Targeting ‘Hospitals, Residential Buildings And Schools Across Tehran’

Witkoff undermined Iran talks by peddling lies to build case for military aggression: Report

Press TV – March 4, 2026

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to West Asia, Steve Witkoff, undermined the negotiations with Iran by peddling lies to build a case for military aggression, according to a report citing regional diplomats.

“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly, […], that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%,” Witkoff said Monday in a Fox interview, referring to the uranium’s level of enrichment.

“And they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance,” he claimed.

“They were proud of it,” Witkoff further claimed. “They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.”

However, a Persian Gulf diplomat with direct knowledge of the talks told MS NOW that Witkoff’s description of the conversation was false.

The Iranians told Witkoff that Iran was willing to give up the enriched uranium as part of a new agreement with Trump, according to the unnamed Persian Gulf diplomat.

The Iranians also told Witkoff that Iran enriched the uranium after Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by the Obama administration.

“I can categorically state that this is inaccurate,” said the diplomat, referring to Witkoff’s account. “He was explaining that all of this material can all go away should we have a deal and Iran can be relieved from sanctions.”

A second person with knowledge of the talks confirmed that Iranian officials declined to discuss their country’s ballistic missiles and the resistance groups with Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and said those issues could be discussed in regional talks.

While Iran was engaged in the negotiations, on Saturday, the US and Israel, similar to previous times, started their unprovoked military assault, launching attacks on multiple cities across the country.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei Khamenei was assassinated in the terrorist US-Israeli attacks.

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

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Comments Off on Witkoff undermined Iran talks by peddling lies to build case for military aggression: Report

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