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Bring The Troops Back. End This War Now!

By Ron Paul | March 30, 2026

As we begin a new week, the media is filled with reports that President Trump is ready to approve a US ground operation against Iran, either to seize Iran’s uranium or to attack an island off the country’s coast. Thousands of US troops have sped to the conflict area to await President Trump’s decision.

The President is on the verge of making a serious mistake to add to a series of deadly mistakes that have characterized this terrible war of choice against Iran. A US ground operation against Iran would only achieve the death of thousands of US servicemembers.

Of course, if our Congress was doing its job, this debacle would never have started. Clear signals would have been sent to the President by Congressional leadership that in the absence of an imminent attack on the US, the US President must go to Congress to make the case for taking the country to war. Instead, what we got was a shrug of the shoulders from Capitol Hill that has already cost billions of dollars and too many lives.

As we stand on the verge of a major ground operation, the main stated goals of the war are that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and that the Strait of Hormuz is open for shipping. But both of these things were already true before the war started! Now we are expanding the war to try and reverse the negative consequences of starting the war in the first place!

What was supposed to be a quick “shock and awe” to frighten Iran into capitulation has expanded rapidly and is costing the US dearly. As the New York Times has reported, every US military base in the region has been either destroyed or is severely damaged. Billions of dollars in US military equipment has been destroyed in Iran’s response to the US attack. Just over the weekend, a half-billion dollar US radar aircraft was destroyed at a US base in Saudi Arabia, along with several air tankers.

Iran warned that if the US launched another surprise attack this is how they would respond. The arrogant US Administration was sure they were bluffing.

The American people may not be getting the full picture of this disaster because they are being lied to – again – by the pro-war mainstream media. The war is going wonderfully, they report. We are obliterating Iran, they say. But what is really being obliterated is a complex global supply chain not just in oil and gas, but in the multitude of products related to oil and gas. Products such as the fertilizer needed to feed the world.

Already we are seeing gas riots in some Asian countries. Fuel rationing and stay-at-home orders have been issued. Australia is set to completely run out of diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel in just weeks. That means no food gets delivered. Power generation plants are shut down. Life becomes unlivable for many.

This is like the foolish move to shut down the global economy during COVID. In fact it is worse. This disaster will not end when the bombs stop falling. It will only be getting started. A worldwide depression may be upon us all because of a war of choice that was illegally launched.

When you are in a hole, it’s best to stop digging. Expanding this war to include a ground operation would be a massive digging operation. It needs to stop. Now.

March 30, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Bring The Troops Back. End This War Now!

Can we please stop calling Israel the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ now?

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 30, 2026

The murder of three Lebanese journalists brings the U.S./Israel war with Iran to a new level of depravity and desperation. But journalists are to blame for this.

It’s hard to fathom what is more shocking about the news of three Lebanese journalists being targeted by Israel’s IDF and killed while working: the actual murder of the journalists or the lack of hue and cry by western media who are partisan to both the practice of murdering journalists and to how the stories of them being killed are framed.

Israel for a long time has had an extraordinary hold on western media which largely operates like a PR platform for its objectives. Journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza and so have to resort to the Stockholm Syndrome working relationship with the IDF’s press office which gives them distorted ’facts’ about what’s happening on the ground, omits critical information and in some cases actually feeds them fake news, lock, stock and barrel. We are told journalists cannot enter Gaza for their own safety, which is as preposterous as it is comical, as Israel has an impressive track record by now of targeting and assassinating journalists.

The murder of three Lebanese journalists though has raised the stakes of Israel’s war with Iran and shown us how desperate the government is, as it struggles to cope with the country being slowly reduced to rubble by Iran’s missiles pounding it every day. The war now seems to be less about the scoresheet of who hit what and more about forcing journalists at gunpoint to write up false ’news’ or, in the case of many major western outlets like the BBC, simply not report on Iran’s strikes on the ground. In this environment, of course, public opinion cannot be allowed to go rogue and hold both the U.S. and Israel to account, as what we are seeing on our TV screens is entirely distorted and bears little or no resemblance to reality.

The murder of the three Lebanese journalists will be seen as a great victory by the IDF as it will send a chilling reminder to all journalists in Lebanon that they have to follow the script, or they will be targeted. But it also marks itself as a milestone in war reporting in general, in that now there is no more ambiguity about journalists being seen as legitimate targets on the battlefield, and this will have a knock-on effect around the world as journalists fail to detach themselves sufficiently from armies, governments and regimes, and when they put on a flak jacket marked ’press’ they present themselves as partisan and therefore a regular target just like the soldiers they are with.

Corruption also is at the heart of this sad story. Both Netanyahu and Trump are either being investigated for corruption or will certainly be on a grand scale when they leave office. They simply cannot leave office, and their only way of staying in power is to create mayhem and chaos for media to feast on while the spotlight is turned off them temporarily. New footage has been recently released of Netanyahu being interviewed by police officers who are investigating him on graft allegations surrounding expensive gifts that are given to him by those who seek favours from his office. This is believed to be the tip of the iceberg, though, and when police officers dig deeper they will find larger, more significant examples of corruption. Bibi will certainly serve a prison term if investigators are allowed to work freely and the judiciary system is allowed time to process the case. But in this period of war, it is expected that his case will be stalled. The invasion of Lebanon, which has provoked Hezbollah to hit targets within Israel, served its purpose perfectly to take the state of emergency in Israel to a new level where such proceedings are expected to be left to settle as dust. Trump on the other hand seems to have distracted U.S. media away from reporting on the thousands of pages of details about him having relations with children which, one would have thought, would have affected his support from his own base.

Both men desperately need to control the media narrative, and so murdering journalists and telling other media that those who were killed were working for Hezbollah and using the press as a front is straight out of the Donald Trump Art of the Lie handbook. Trump is telling so many lies at the moment on an hourly basis about what is happening in Iran that journalists cannot complain about being targeted for reporting on facts if the vast majority of them simply replicate everything that comes out of his mouth as fact, more or less. This is where the war is. If we don’t ask difficult questions and report what Trump and Netanyahu are saying or claiming as false, it’s easy to understand just how much power they think they can wield over journalists who largely play along with the false reporting simply due to fear of being targeted. Literally.

The losses, just as one example, of U.S. military hardware is pure fiction. According to Trump, warships are out of action due to poor maintenance and fighter jets just keep falling out of the sky due to friendly fire. It’s a Hollywood movie script which a lot of journalists are helping him to develop each day. But the fact is that there are no U.S. journalists who are reporting the plain facts. The Straits of Hormuz has been taken over by Iran, the U.S. has almost no missiles left, its two aircraft carriers are limping home due to strikes, oil prices have risen which has given both Iran and Russia huge amounts of money to spend on their own wars, and Iran has emerged stronger, richer and a bolder new nuclear power which it wasn’t before. As a cherry on top of that spectacular failure by Trump and Israel, the U.S. has lost both its influence in the region and soon its petrodollars. I once wrote a week before the war that fake news will play a huge role in any war that Israel carries out with Iran and we should expect more journalists to be murdered, especially if the land invasion goes ahead and Trump will have to lie about the numbers of dead American soldiers. What I predict is that a second invasion somewhere will be staged just for the cameras which will be fed to journalists as ’handout’ video while the real battle surges forward with record casualties. Trump’s experience in reality TV and Israel’s already remarkable track record of video manipulation will play an empirical role, with the Lebanese journalists’ murder just encouraging them that anything is possible now with journalists.

March 30, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Can we please stop calling Israel the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ now?

Iran Red Crescent: 600 educational centers attacked in US-Israeli ‘war crimes’

Press TV – March 30, 2026

Iran’s Red Crescent Society says around 600 educational centers have been targeted during the United States’ and the Israeli regime’s unprovoked aggression against the Islamic Republic since late last month.

Razieh Alishvandi, the body’s deputy for international affairs and humanitarian law, made the remarks on Sunday, warning that such assaults violated the international humanitarian law and constituted war crimes.

The targeted sites included schools, universities, and other educational and academic institutions, she noted, adding that the attacks had endangered the lives of schoolchildren, university students, researchers, and professors, while leading to the martyrdom of many of them.

Alishvandi said the attacks took place despite the clear legal protections accorded to educational institutions under international law. “Any disregard for that protection constitutes a violation of international law and can be regarded as a war crime.”

The attacks also violate the fundamental rules governing armed conflicts, she added.

“Under international principles and rules, these centers must be protected under the Geneva Conventions, and the principles of proportionality, precaution, and distinction must be observed in this regard.”

The Red Crescent Society has so far sent more than 23 letters to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, documenting and reporting violations of humanitarian law throughout the unlawful aggression, including attacks on residential homes, media outlets, airports, passenger aircraft, and medical and educational centers, the official stated.

She added that a separate letter had also been sent to the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, notifying him of the criminal nature of such assaults.

March 30, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Iran Red Crescent: 600 educational centers attacked in US-Israeli ‘war crimes’

America Racing to Strategic Defeat in Iran: Lt Col Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive

March 30, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on America Racing to Strategic Defeat in Iran: Lt Col Daniel Davis

Marandi: Yemen joins the war – Red Sea could be blocked next – Saudi regime at risk

Glenn Diesen | March 29, 2026

Seyed Mohammad Marandi discusses the ongoing escalation in the Iran War—and why Yemen’s sudden entry could be a game-changer. Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Team. (Some of the video is lagging due to the ongoing bombing of Tehran). Recorded 29.03.2026.

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March 29, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marandi: Yemen joins the war – Red Sea could be blocked next – Saudi regime at risk

Pro-Palestinian French member of European Parliament denied entry to Canada

MEMO | March 29, 2026

Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament of Palestinian origin, said late Saturday she was denied entry to Canada hours before her scheduled flight, Anadolu reports.

“I was prevented from traveling to Canada: a troubling obstruction to parliamentary work and freedom of expression,” Hassan wrote on X.

Hassan is affiliated with France’s left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI).

The party said Hassan had been invited to speak at two conferences in Montreal and that her initial electronic travel authorization had been approved by Canadian authorities.

However, she was informed by email late Friday, on the eve of her departure, that her application was under review, the party said.

Hassan said Canadian authorities requested extensive personal records just hours before her flight to reassess her travel authorization, describing the move as a “disproportionate request” unrelated to the stated grounds.

According to LFI, the review cited an alleged failure to disclose a prior visa refusal or denial of entry to another country, as well as an alleged failure to report a criminal offense, arrest, formal investigation or conviction.

The party said these issues relate to matters “directly linked to her political engagement in support of the Palestinian people.”

It added that the concerns stem from a 2025 denial of entry to Israel involving an EU delegation that included Hassan, as well as complaints for “apology for terrorism” that did not result in charges.

LFI also claimed that pro-Israel lobbying organizations had been working in recent weeks to prevent Hassan’s visit to Canada.

“The revocation of her travel authorization is part of a concerning trend of restricting the freedom of expression and movement of political representatives, as well as part of a broader pattern of censorship targeting democratic debate,” the party said.

The statement added that representatives of LFI and Canada’s New Democratic Party strongly condemned the decision, calling it “a serious infringement on the exercise of a parliamentary mandate and on freedom of expression.”

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Comments Off on Pro-Palestinian French member of European Parliament denied entry to Canada

Iran Retaliation Strikes Chemical Plant Near Dimona

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | March 29, 2026

On March 28, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, condemned Israel’s attack on key Iranian infrastructure, including steel factories, a power plant, and civilian nuclear sites. He described the attacks as a serious escalation and vowed Iran would respond. “Iran will exact a heavy price for Israeli crimes,” he warned.

That heavy price arrived the following day. Israel’s Home Front Command said sirens were sounding in the Negev Desert, Dimona, Be’era, Arad, and Ashkelon. Ne’ot Hovav, formerly Ramat Hovav, an industrial zone (in occupied Al-Naqab) southeast of Be’er Sheva, and the site of Israel’s main hazardous waste disposal facility, was targeted. The Voice of Israel reported ten warheads falling in the Negev, while other sources indicate 27 targets were struck.

The zone is home to 19 chemical factories, including Makhteshim Agan, a pesticide plant, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (implicated in the opioid crisis), and Israel Chemicals, a bromine plant. It was reported that a disulfide factory was struck. Molybdenum disulfide is an anti-seize lubricant designed to meet the requirements of military specification. It is not known if the disulfide factory in the Negev produced this disulfide variant.

The Negev Phosphates Chemicals Company, part of the ICL Group, is also located in the Rotem Industrial Zone and situated near the Dimona reactor in Mishor Rotem. It is Israel’s sole recognized nuclear fuel cycle facility. Israel extracts uranium from Negev phosphate deposits. The Rotem complex is a critical node within a broader Israeli-US military-industrial network. In addition to phosphates, the facility produces fertilizers and high-purity phosphoric acid.

The phosphate extracted from the Rotem site is exported to several ICL facilities in the United States. ICL is the sole supplier of white phosphorus to the US military, a substance internationally banned for use in munitions. ICL white phosphorus is used by the occupation army in Gaza and Lebanon to burn people, homes, and agricultural lands.

It is important to note that Site 512, near Kmehin west of Dimona on the Har Qeren mountain, is a secretive US War Department ballistic missile early warning facility operated by the United States Army’s 1st Space Brigade.

The AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar, or Forward Based X-band Transportable, a long-range, high altitude digital antenna array surveillance radar, is located at the site. Iran targeted a similar radar facility at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, and another radar unit in Qatar. “There are strong indications that a number of other similar systems have been destroyed or damaged, as well,” reports the TWZ Newsletter, a website covering military technology.

Initial information provided by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection indicates there was a leak of dangerous ammonia gas at the Ne’ot Hovav site following the Iranian missile attack. “The situation is rapidly escalating and has reached a dangerous and potentially hazardous level,” reported the Israel Home Front Command, a civil defense operation.

Last week, a spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned “all energy, information technology, and desalination infrastructure belonging to the United States and the (Israeli) regime in the region will be targeted” in response to President Trump’s warning (since scaled back) the US would hit Iranian power plants, “starting with the biggest one first.”

On March 27, Araghchi posted to X saying Israel had violated Trump’s momentary pause and attacked two of Iran’s largest steel factories. “Attack contradicts POTUS extended deadline for diplomacy,” he said, and added that “Iran will exact HEAVY price for Israeli crimes.” In addition, Israel targeted a uranium processing facility in the central Iranian city of Yazd. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmed the strike, but said there were no casualties or radiation leaks, Aljazeera reported.

The March 29 attack is retaliation for the March 27 strike as Iran, Israel, and the United States continue to escalate a conflict that portends tectonic shocks for the global economy.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Iran Retaliation Strikes Chemical Plant Near Dimona

Israel’s Iran Strategy Uses US Military & Gulf States as Its Pawns

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | March 29, 2026

While most honest analysts will conclude that the decision made by the White House came as a result of pressure from the Israelis or that this is a war that is being fought for Tel Aviv’s interests, many fail to see any clear strategy at play.

In order to understand the strategy behind the US-Israeli assault on the Islamic Republic, you must first remove the notion that the United States is in the driving seat to any significant extent.

Almost immediately after the 12-Day War in June of 2025, the Israeli leadership was already preparing for the next round. On July 7, Axios News even reported that officials in Tel Aviv believed that US President Trump would give them another green light to attack.

Meanwhile, the most influential Zionist think tanks in Washington DC, the likes of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), were openly discussing the necessity of a new round of confrontations.

These think tanks facilitated discussions and published pieces in which they made it clear that while the next round was inevitable, it had to be the last round, and that the US’s involvement would be important in deciding outcomes.

Understanding the Israeli Strategy

It is no coincidence that senior Israeli officials, all the way from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to opposition leader Yair Lapid, have all recently publicly endorsed the “Greater Israel Project”.

This is not simply posturing, this is their goal. But how does this fit into the Iran war? Well, it will begin to make sense when the context is all provided.

Firstly, the Greater Israel Project’s strategy is grounded in an academic article published by a former Israeli intelligence officer and journalist, Oded Yinon. The plan did not advocate for the physical expansion of the Israeli State’s borders over every nation between the Euphrates River and the River Nile, but instead opted for an approach that would transform Israel into a regional empire.

In order to achieve this goal of a “Greater Israel”, it would first necessitate the collapse of all the region’s sovereign States, which would instead be broken up into warring sectarian and ethno-regimes.

The purpose of achieving the disintegration of the surrounding nations is a simple concept to understand. If they are all divided, economically weak, and lack the military capabilities to stand up to Israel, it makes it easy for the Israelis to control them.

Take, for example, the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq, or the semi-autonomous zone in southern Syria’s Sweida Province, now carved out by Israeli-backed separatists.

Syria and Iraq are perfect examples of what happens when a nation is torn apart and sectarianism, or ethno-supremacist ideologies, are spread through deliberate propaganda campaigns.

Although Secular Arab Nationalism failed in the region, the chief proponent of it, former Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, was indeed correct in his analysis as to why it was a net positive for the region.

A united Arab World would undoubtedly be far stronger than the simple modern nation-states of the region, whose borders were drawn up by European colonial powers.

For the Israelis, they had always sought to impose this long-term solution upon West Asia, of a “Greater Israel”, but were previously seeking to do it in a slow and methodical way, opposed to a ruthlessly violent one.

Part of this way of thinking was centered around the idea that Israel maintained a “deterrence capacity”, meaning that their military power was capable of deterring any significant strategic threat from rising against it.

On October 7, 2023, the Qassam Brigades of Hamas crippled this strategy and debunked the notion of their “deterrence capacity”. A few thousand Palestinian fighters managed to overcome the most militarily advanced army in the region, bursting through the gates of their concentration camp, despite the world’s most advanced surveillance systems being present in the area.

The Palestinian groups themselves appear to have been genuinely surprised by how easily they were capable of achieving their goals. Not only did they inflict a blow on the Israeli military and seize captives, but they also managed to collapse the entire Israeli southern command, all with light weapons.

To Israel, the message was clear: The Arab populations of Jordan and Egypt had taken to the streets, some even pouring across the Jordanian border. The weakest link in the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance had dealt the Israeli military its most embarrassing defeat. Deterrence was dead, and former Secretary General of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, was proven correct: “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web”.

The decision to commit genocide was therefore ordered. Israel believed it had to show the Arab World what it was truly capable of, as a means of asserting its control. In the cases of the Arab populations in Jordan, Egypt, and even the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, the fear tactics appeared to have worked. Then they made an irreversible mistake.

In September 2024, they assassinated Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, a move that completely changed the thinking of Iran and its allies. Now, the message had been received loud and clear; preparations for the last war had to be made. Up until then, the Axis of Resistance had been attempting to close the chapter of the Gaza genocide; now, they understood that destroying Gaza wasn’t the end goal of Israel.

Israel had decided it would accelerate its national project of gradual expansion, meaning that the Islamic Republic of Iran had to be deposed. A failure to overthrow the Iranian government would represent an existential threat to this project.

Israel’s Iran War Strategy

As I have been writing in the Palestine Chronicle for the past eight months, the only viable strategy that the Israelis could hope to use, in order to see any gains, is one where Iran’s civilian infrastructure is the primary target.

That means: taking out power stations, desalination plants along with other key water facilities – less than 3% of Iran’s water needs come from desalination – while blowing up oil and gas facilities, bombing factories, destroying agricultural lands, inflicting costly environmental catastrophes, and attempting to cripple the Iranian State’s ability to function. In other words, a policy that replicates the Gaza model on a much wider scale, impacting a nation of 92 million people.

Tel Aviv’s goal here is a long-term regime change operation, one that will happen gradually following the war itself. Israel knows that destroying Iran’s military capabilities was never going to be possible. Yes, they may have some successes, but totally crippling their missile and drone programs through strikes alone won’t work.

Therefore, they seek to try and force Tehran to expend a large portion of its missile arsenal, making it more difficult for them to start a new war in the near future following the conflict’s conclusion.

If you look at Syria, for example, the government of Bashar al-Assad did not collapse during the war. Instead, the Syrian State slowly eroded from the inside, due to its isolation and the US-EU’s maximum pressure sanctions.

In the end, the Syrian State was largely bought out and was so corrupt that there was little left. When Ahmed al-Shara’a marched into Aleppo and then Damascus, he did so without any fight, although there were some exceptions where a few units resisted.

Now, Damascus is open for Israeli citizens, the leadership in Syria meets with Israeli officials face-to-face, and has even set up a joint normalizing mechanism between both sides. Therefore, using the long game strategy against Iran makes the most sense in Israel’s strategic thinking.

Then there comes the convenient side effect of the strategy, which begins to explain how the US leadership is not in the driver’s seat at all. That being the weakening of the Persian Gulf Arab nations.

Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are experiencing untold economic devastation as a result of this war. The reason for this, evidently, is that they all host US bases and have permitted a large presence of American military and intelligence personnel inside their countries.

Oman, and to a lesser extent Qatar, have been the only Gulf nations that appear to be pushing back against the true culprits in this war, the Israelis and US. Muscat in particular has blasted the “security arrangements” in the region and condemned normalising efforts with Tel Aviv, pointing their fingers in the right direction.

Bahrain and especially the UAE have gone in the opposite direction. They are only increasing their pro-Israeli and anti-Iran rhetoric, which comes as little surprise given that both have normalized relations with the Zionists. Riyadh, on the other hand, appears to be on a separate trajectory, with its rhetoric being diplomatic, while its actions suggest it is hostile towards Iran.

The Israelis, despite their efforts to normalize ties with the Gulf States, do not want strong nations to exist anywhere in West Asia under their accelerationist approach to achieving an Israel Empire. This appears to be something that the leadership in Abu Dhabi and Manama have not proven intelligent enough to figure out.

That is why the Israeli leadership had started to announce their next targets, following Iran, were the leaderships in Turkiye and even Pakistan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not a threat in the way that Iran is, but he does command one of the most powerful military forces in the region and rules over a developing economy, working towards transforming itself into a key global trade hub.

Alone, the idea that Turkiye would begin to build an economic or defence alliance with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Egypt, poses a direct threat to the Greater Israel Project. In Syria, we see a similar thing; although Ankara does not present a clear and present military challenge to the Israelis as a result of its influence in Damascus, it acts as a potential competitor, a nation that may seek to curtail Israeli expansionist plots.

The GCC countries, which are in alliance with one another, maintain immense economic power. As we see today, if the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted, the entire world is impacted. Back in 1973, these Persian Gulf Arab States exercised that power temporarily. One thing to keep in mind with the Israelis is that they never forget history and are infamous for holding grudges.

So, the dismantlement of the Gulf Arab nations’ economies, or at the very least, the weakening of these countries, is viewed as a positive development in Tel Aviv. As for the US, this war is similarly disastrous, but Israel fails to care less.

This war has destroyed US power projection, making it open to its top chosen adversaries – Russia and China – in a number of other arenas. Donald Trump personally has business ties in the Gulf, which don’t benefit from this conflict, so even on a personal level, it isn’t exactly a victory. The entire Western World, allying itself with the US and Israel, is suffering economically, and as a result, this will mean social unrest is possible, even if it takes time to come to fruition.

An embarrassment has already been dealt to the US military, which is being made to look like a paper tiger, as Mao Zedong once called it. Its future in the Gulf region may have just been ruined, along with those billions, or trillions as Trump believes, of investments – from Gulf States – may no longer materialize. The entire White House Security Doctrine, published last year, has been torn up and set on fire.

In terms of soldier casualties, the Trump administration is evidently hiding the true figure, but it goes without saying that this isn’t good news. NATO has been forced to flee Iraq. The US has even lifted sanctions on Moscow and a limited number of sanctions on Iranian oil. There is simply nothing that the US stands to gain from this war, even if it were to somehow pull off a victory; at this point, it would prove pyrrhic.

With all of this being said, what the Israelis are doing is making a massive gamble. A series of risks that appear so far to be backfiring, as Tehran appears to have pre-empted the conspiracies set against it. The final results of the war are not yet in, but the odds appear to be on the side of Iran.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Israel’s Iran Strategy Uses US Military & Gulf States as Its Pawns

Iran: Trump wanted regime change, now just begging for Hormuz to open

Al Mayadeen | March 29, 2026

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday, marking the 30th day of Iranian national defense against the US-Israeli aggression, that the US president’s objectives have dramatically shifted since the start of the war on Iran.

“The enemy who claimed to have destroyed our air, naval, and missile forces, and had a plan for the collapse of the Islamic Republic, has now set his goal on reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” Ghalibaf said.

“Reopening a strait that was open before the war has become Trump’s operational dream,” he said mockingly.

Ghalibaf stated that the war on Iran, which has come to be known as the Ramadan War, is now at its most critical moment. He noted that Trump is unable to secure the support of European countries, that energy markets are out of control, and that food inflation is approaching.

The war bites the belligerent

The Parliament Speaker detailed the damage inflicted on US military assets throughout the conflict. “The manifestations of American arrogance, from the F-35 to the aircraft carrier and US regional bases, have suffered major blows,” he said. “Strikes on the Israeli regime have been effective, precise, and foundation-shaking.”

Ghalibaf also highlighted the growing strength of the Resistance Axis across the region.

“Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was constantly threatened with disarmament, is today an important and effective part of the Resistance and has trapped the malignant Israeli regime,” he said.

“The Resistance in Iraq is fighting heroically and has astonished the enemy. Ansarallah in Yemen has breathed new life into the Resistance front and is ready to achieve spectacular surprises.”

“This is the honor and greatness of the Resistance front against the world’s arrogant powers,” Ghalibaf stated. “Trump has been accused worldwide of waging a pointless war and has no answer for his public opinion. The evil of initiating the war has returned to its initiator.”

Here is a background section summarizing the current situation with the Strait of Hormuz, based on the Al Mayadeen article:

The battle for the Strait of Hormuz

Since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas shipments pass, has become a central front in the war on Iran. Iranian authorities have restricted the movement of vessels linked to the US and “Israel” or those supporting, requiring ships to obtain approval before transiting the strategic waterway.

Tehran has made clear that “nonhostile” ships may pass safely if authorized, while the strait remains “closed only to enemies carrying out cowardly aggression against Iran,” as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi put it. The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has turned back multiple container ships attempting to transit without authorization.

Iran’s Parliament is now advancing legislation to impose formal tolls on vessels passing through the strait, a move lawmakers say is designed to assert Tehran’s “sovereignty, control and oversight” over the passage, much like the model applied by Turkey in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. The toll system would build on temporary fees applied since late February.

US President Donald Trump has threatened an escalation in the aggression against Iran’s power infrastructure if the strait remains closed, while US attempts to organize international naval escorts to bypass Iran’s control over the strait have so far failed.

The new framework signals Tehran’s intent to use its control over its waterway to regulate access systematically, rather than relying on ad hoc measures, while simultaneously sending a message to the US and “Israel” about the country’s ability to control this key energy corridor.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran: Trump wanted regime change, now just begging for Hormuz to open

IRGC: Israeli, US universities in region legitimate targets after strikes on Iranian university

Al-mayadeen | March 29, 2026

The Iranian Revolution Guard condemned the bombing of the Tehran University of Science and Technology by American and Israeli forces, emphasizing that such attacks on universities and research centers will not go unanswered.

The IRGC warned that all universities in the Israeli entity, as well as American universities across West Asia, are now considered legitimate targets, following a principle of destroying two institutions for every Iranian university attacked.

“The misguided rulers of the White House should know that from now on, all universities of the occupying Israeli entity, as well as American universities in West Asia, are legitimate targets for us,” the statement said.

The statement issued a warning to all staff, professors, students, and nearby residents to maintain a safe distance of at least one kilometer from American universities in the region.

The Guard added that if the US government wants to ensure that its universities in the region are limited to only the two corresponding targets in this phase, it must issue an official statement by 12:00 PM on Monday, March 30 (Tehran time), condemning the bombing of the universities.

Failure to prevent future attacks by US forces or their allies will leave these institutions exposed to further military action, the statement added.

Baghaei condemns US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s universities

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei on Saturday denounced deliberate US-Israeli attacks targeting Iran’s scientific and cultural foundations, accusing the aggressors of waging a systematic assault on the country’s civilian infrastructure under fabricated pretexts.

In a statement posted on X, Baghaei said that “Isfahan University of Technology and the Iran University of Science and Technology are just two among many universities and research centers deliberately attacked by the aggressors during the past 30 days of their illegal war on the Iranian nation.

His remarks come amid a sustained US-Israeli unprovoked aggression that has inflicted heavy civilian losses and widespread destruction across Iran, including repeated strikes on educational and academic institutions. Earlier today, a strike hit a building on the campus of Isfahan University of Technology, causing material damage to university facilities, while in recent days, a satellite research center affiliated with the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran was also targeted, with the blast damaging surrounding structures.

The most devastating incident occurred on February 28, when missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, killing more than 170 people, the majority of them schoolchildren, in what has become one of the deadliest attacks of the war.

The strike, which hit the school during class hours, drew condemnation from international organizations, with UN agencies warning that attacks on educational facilities constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Beyond Minab, multiple reports confirm that schools in several cities, including Tehran and Parand, have been struck or damaged since the beginning of the war, pointing to a broader pattern of attacks affecting Iran’s educational sector.

March 29, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on IRGC: Israeli, US universities in region legitimate targets after strikes on Iranian university

Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War

By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | March 27, 2026

Openly declaring its intent to illegally occupy southern Lebanon, Israel finds itself in a costly ground battle with Hezbollah, from which there are indications Syria may soon be roped in. This is born from the understanding that in order to successfully weaken the Lebanese resistance, the Israeli military must penetrate the Bekaa Valley area.

Understanding the costly price of attempting to physically take all of south Lebanon militarily, both Washington and Tel Aviv have been attempting to devise strategies that would help achieve Israel’s war goals of weakening Hezbollah.

One possible option that has been placed on the table is the use of Syria’s military to invade Lebanon’s border and attack Hezbollah, aiming to go after what is labelled critical infrastructure belonging to the Lebanese group. According to reports, the US Trump administration has directly put pressure on Syrian leader Ahmed al-Shara’a to do just that.

In the event of such an assault, the Beka’a Valley would be the target territory. The Beka’a is what Israel’s Alma Research and Education think-tank calls “Hezbollah’s strategic depth”, which it argues is the group’s “operational and logistical center of gravity”. If Tel Aviv truly seeks to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities, a ground incursion into this region is the only way to truly achieve such a goal.

Another plausible option is that Israel itself will use Syrian territory in order to invade Lebanon’s eastern border. This would appear possible, as the current Hayat Tahrir al-Sham administration in Damascus has allowed Israel to use Lebanese territory on two occasions so far.

Although al-Shara’a doesn’t grant direct permission, he refuses to deploy his forces to prevent the Israelis from violating Syria’s sovereignty. Earlier this year, the leadership in Damascus agreed to setting up a soft normalisation understanding with the Israelis. According to US State Department press release, the following was agreed upon:

“Both Sides have decided to establish a joint fusion mechanism—a dedicated communication cell—to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.”

It suffices to say that Syria’s current leader, who once spoke of conquering occupied Jerusalem, has clearly aligned himself with the United States and now openly states he will pose no threat to Israel. Instead of fighting back against Israel’s ever growing occupation of more Syrian lands, or responding to civilian massacres inside his territory, he has instead sought to disarm those Syrians who are threatened by the belligerent occupying force in the south.

Despite this, Israel has continually attacked Syrian territory, including bombing the ministry of defence in Damascus. Recently, it also attacked Syrian military positions in the Damascus countryside, citing renewed sectarian clashes between Israeli-aligned Druze separatists and HTS allied forces.

In December of last year, parades were held in Damascus and other Syrian cities, where armed factions making up the country’s new armed forces held marches in the streets to mark the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Notably, these soldiers chanted in solidarity with Gaza and issued threats to Israel.

Some groups belonging to the new Syrian security forces, also burned Israeli flags and expressed solidarity with the village of Beit Jinn, where a group of locals had organised an ambush against Israeli invading forces. Israel then bombarded the village, which is home to both Palestinians and Syrians, murdering at least 13 civilians.

A series of Syrian Resistance groups have also popped up in the country’s south, occasionally carrying out rocket attacks or opening fire on Israeli soldiers with light weapons. The most prominent group has been ‘Jabhat al-Moqowameh al-Islammiya Fe Souriya’ [The Islamic Resistance Front In Syria].

The newest group to emerge is called ‘Kataeb Jund al-Karrar Fe Balad as-Sham’ [Soldiers of  the Karrar Brigades in the Levant] also emerged on March 8, publishing a video of themselves firing rockets at US military positions in Syria’s Palmyra. The group has additionally claimed attacks on Israel.

If Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’a orders an attack on Lebanon, this could immediately trigger an incursion into Syria by the powerful Iraqi groups aligned with Hezbollah. An official statement issued by The Islamic Resistance Coordination Committee in Iraq explicitly threatened that:

“We see the treachery of the new authority in Syria and are monitoring its coordination with the enemy. We say clearly: if you dare violate the sovereignty of Lebanon and its patient, resisting people, we will turn your land into an open arena of fire. He who warns has given fair notice.”

On the other hand, due to the fragile security situation inside Syria, if the Israeli military does attempt to launch an offensive from inside Syrian territory, there is always a chance that they will come under attack from a whole myriad of forces. It is possible that what currently constitutes the Syrian Army, may even break ranks and refuse to listen to the leadership in Damascus.

On March 6, a botched Israeli special forces raid targeted the Lebanese village of Nabi Cheet, located east of Beirut. In order to conduct this infiltration operation – which was successfully repelled due to a joint effort from Hezbollah, local militias and the Lebanese Army – it used Syrian territory. Notably, it launched its assault from an area located north-west of Damascus.

Israel has so far displaced over a million people in Lebanon, openly declaring its intent to expand what it calls a military “buffer zone”. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz doesn’t mince his words however, openly declaring that he is seeking to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River.

To this effect, the Israeli military has not only ordered the entire population of southern Lebanon to evacuate the territory, but also bombed five primary bridges connecting the south to the rest of the country. And yet, on the ground, the Israeli army is having a difficult time simply passing the border villages, where Hezbollah has damaged or destroyed around 70 Merkava tanks so far.

If the Israelis come under attack from forces inside Syria itself, they could be dragged into a painful quagmire there. This could also come about in the event that Syria’s al-Shara’a decides to seize the opportunity of Israel being distracted in Lebanon, to launch an offensive against the Druze separatist militias in Sweida. In order to save their Druze militia allies from suffering a major defeat, the Israeli army itself could get roped into direct clashes with Syrian forces.

Therefore, if the Israeli leadership makes the decision to escalate the Lebanon conflict by making a move towards the Bekaa Valley, they could very easily find themselves dealing with a totally new reality inside Syria too.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War

US-Israeli war on Iran drives global fertilizer prices up 40%

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

The ongoing war on Iran is driving a sharp rise in global fertilizer prices, exposing how Western-led escalation is reverberating across critical sectors such as agriculture and food production, the German-based Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported on Friday.

According to Philipp Spinne, managing director of the German Raiffeisen Association, mineral fertilizer prices have increased by 30% to 40% since the beginning of the year. He noted that current market conditions are approaching levels seen at the start of the war in Ukraine, indicating mounting pressure on global supply chains. “A situation similar to what happened in February 2022 is recurring,” Spinne said, pointing to the rapid climb in nitrogen fertilizer prices toward previous peaks.

Hormuz disruptions

The surge is closely tied to disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a significant share of global fertilizer trade passes, including roughly one-third of globally traded urea and about 20% of ammonia. Tehran’s response to the US-Israeli aggression has prompted restrictions on maritime flows, tightening supply and pushing energy prices higher, feeding directly into production costs.

Despite this, the immediate impact on European consumers remains limited. Many farmers had already secured their fertilizer supplies before the outbreak of the war. According to German industry estimates, around 80% of the required quantities for the entire spring season are already held in cooperative storage, while roughly 50% are already in the hands of farmers. However, industry representatives warn that a prolonged war will inevitably translate into higher production costs, which are expected to pass through to food prices over time.

A spokesperson for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association noted that while availability is currently manageable, farms that did not secure supplies early are now facing significant cost burdens. At the same time, relatively weak grain prices are compounding the pressure, squeezing margins and weighing on farm liquidity.

Rising fertilizer costs

Energy costs remain the central driver. Gas accounts for between 80% and 90% of the cost of producing ammonia and nitrogen fertilizers, meaning that fluctuations in energy markets, intensified by the war, directly affect agricultural inputs. Industry representatives added that the sharp rise in gas prices in Western Europe during the Ukraine war had already weakened the region’s chemical sector, a trend now deepening.

As prices rise, farmers may reduce fertilizer use, a shift that could lead to lower yields and tighter food supplies globally. The structural importance of fertilizers to global food systems reflects the scale of the risk: nearly half of the world’s population depends on crops grown using mineral fertilizers, while yields today are roughly double those of the early 20th century due to their use. Any sustained disruption, therefore, carries long-term implications for food security.

Although Europe produces a large share of its own fertilizers, covering roughly three-quarters of its nitrogen needs domestically and slightly more in the case of potash, it remains indirectly exposed through rising gas and LNG prices. While Europe has for years imported little fertilizer directly from conflict-affected regions, indirect pressures through energy markets continue to impact production costs.

Europe under pressure

At the policy level, European actors are increasingly turning to protectionist measures, including tariffs on Russian fertilizers, in an effort to shield domestic markets and reduce external dependency. Industry groups have also called for higher tariffs on Russian potash and for strengthening local production capacity. At the same time, Russia has introduced its own export restrictions to protect internal supply, further tightening global availability.

For now, German farmers remain partially insulated, but those forced to purchase at current prices are facing significantly higher costs, reinforcing concerns that the economic strain on agriculture will deepen if the war persists.

March 28, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on US-Israeli war on Iran drives global fertilizer prices up 40%

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