Is Israel Planning to Assassinate President Trump?
By W.M. Peterson |
“When you read Jewish law in many places, you might understand that gentiles can be killed freely without any problems.” — Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, Radio Kol Hai (July 2011)
In January 2012, Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of a small weekly newspaper called the Atlanta Jewish Times, sparked considerable controversy when he penned an article titled ‘What Would You Do?’ in which he put forth three possible responses Israel might pursue if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon. The first two — pre-emptive strikes on Hezbollah and Hamas and disobeying the US Secretary of Defense to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities — failed to raise any eyebrows. Adler’s third suggestion, however, would result in his immediate resignation as editor and the subsequent sale of his newspaper:
“Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies. Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?… You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.“
Almost immediately, the article became headline news around the country forcing major Jewish organizations like the ADL and AJC to feign indignation, and within a week the US Secret Service had launched an ‘investigation’ into the matter while a teary-eyed Adler appeared on the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting network’s cable TV show to disavow his column and explain that he actually held a favorable view of President Obama!
Adler’s straight-talk, shocking though it may seem to some, provides crucial insight into the mentality of God’s chosen people and the candor they often use when speaking amongst themselves. Killing a foreign or domestic head of state who presents a perceived obstacle to the preservation of fragile little Israel is not unknown to history, as any reader of Laurent Guyenot’s indispensable book The Unspoken Kennedy Truth or Ronen Bergman’s 2018 bestseller Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations can assure you.
A few months ago I met up for lunch with an old friend who, after years of intransigence, has finally reclaimed his mind from the Zionist propagandists and taken a deeper interest in topics like Israel/Palestine and Jewish influence in American affairs. During the course of our conversation, I casually mentioned the likelihood that Israeli leaders have considered assassinating Donald Trump for the purpose of expanding US involvement in the war with Iran. My friend, visibly stunned by the idea, asked why in the world Israel would do such a thing when Trump is by all appearances Israel’s Top Goy, performing nearly every trick demanded of him by Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby. I responded that it doesn’t matter what Trump does for Israel, the minute he’s deemed more valuable dead than alive the Zionists will begin workshopping a scenario in which the increasingly unpopular ‘leader of the free world’ can be eliminated in such a way that Iran can be blamed and the American military can be dragged deeper into the conflict upon the pretext of revenge. Indeed, Israeli intelligence has been priming the pump for an “Iranian” assassination of Trump since 2024, absurdly trying to link the events in Butler, PA and Ryan Routh’s golf course shenanigans to Tehran. I told my friend that while I believe the chances of an assassination actually happening are low, I do think it’s probable the Jews will develop a plan, if they haven’t already, to have in the back pocket as a last resort. Certainly, there’s no shortage of historical precedent supporting the notion.
My hypothetical took on new life this past week when it was reported in the mainstream media that Israeli intelligence had alerted the US that Iranian agents were planning to shoot down Trump’s plane with shoulder-fired missiles as he departed the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey on July 8. The warning was taken seriously enough that the Secret Service had Trump switch planes twice before finally leaving in the hopes of deceiving any would-be attackers. According to The Times of Israel :
“Israel told the United States about the Iranian assassination threat that prompted the US Secret Service to take President Donald Trump off Air Force One and transfer him in a catering truck to a military plane as he prepared to fly out of Turkey last month, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed US official.
Later Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he had indeed been smuggled off Air Force One in Ankara because the Secret Service and US military told him to switch planes. Israeli intelligence indicated that Iran was plotting to use shoulder-to-air missiles to take down Trump’s plane, according to the WSJ report. Senior Trump aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, remained on the plane despite the threat, the official said. The WSJ reported last month that Israeli intelligence had indicated a new plot was in development to assassinate the US president, but did not provide details. … Trump had flown to the NATO summit in Ankara aboard a newly-renovated Qatari-donated jet. The trip was the first international travel for the new plane, whose speedy upgrades triggered questions over its cost and security, and took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, which borders Turkey.
Before departing the Turkish capital, Trump said he would instead use an older baby blue Air Force One plane “for old time’s sake” to RAF Mildenhall in Britain, while the new Qatari-gifted plane stopped at the same base so US service members stationed there could tour the aircraft. But after Trump boarded the old Air Force One in front of cameras in Ankara, he was secretly shuttled by an airport catering truck to a smaller plane, an Air Force C-32A, the Washington Post revealed Monday.“
Probably not coincidentally, all of this transpired a mere day after Trump and Turkish President Recep Erdogan held a private bilateral meeting during which Trump discussed the possibility of Turkey’s reentry into the F-35 Lightning II program, while also announcing his commitment to lift the CAATSA sanctions placed on Turkey by the US government seven years ago. Originally a co-producer and buyer in the fighter jet program, Turkey was removed in 2020 following its acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. Trump remarked that his administration is “certainly” considering the sale of F-35s to Turkey and openly praised Erdogan as “a great friend,” telling reporters at the NATO summit: “Turkey has been much more loyal than other countries that we think would be loyal.”
Considering the fact that Turkey is rapidly emerging as one of Israel’s biggest strategic adversaries, these developments likely sent shockwaves through Tel Aviv. An August 10 article on the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft website points out that:
“Within 72 hours of the Ankara summit, Netanyahu took his objections to three American networks, arguing that Erdogan was ‘not a friend’ and could not be trusted… Israeli leaders, eager to drive a wedge into Ankara’s relationship with Washington, appear determined to cast Turkey as the next Iran.“
It’s possible that at least part of the reason for Trump’s flirtation with Erdogan is to antagonize Israel at a time when the Zionist state is doing almost everything it can to scupper US peace agreements with Iran. It’s just as possible that Israel, by way of retaliation, is seeding the narrative that Iran is striving to help the vainglorious 47th President off this mortal coil as a way of threatening Trump back into line. It should be pointed out that immediately following the great plane switcheroo in Ankara, the US military conducted a heavy wave of airstrikes, hitting 90 targets across Iran. Two days later, the US initiated a bombing campaign that lasted for 13 consecutive nights. If the intent of the “Iranian threat” was to bring Trump back under heel, it would seem he got the message.
While the CIA considers the Iranian threat to Air Force One dubious, the thought of shooting down an aircraft with innocent lives onboard to kill but one man is not a novel one in Israel. On pp. 272-273 of his aforementioned bestseller, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman describes how Israel’s Minister of Defense Ariel ‘Butcher of Beirut’ Sharon once hatched a plan to shoot down a commercial airliner carrying PLO leader Yasser Arafat:
“When the Mossad reported that Arafat was flying more commercial flights… Sharon decided that one of those would make a legitimate target. He ordered Eitan, the air force, and the operations branch to come up with a plan to shoot down a civilian jetliner.
Sharon sketched out the broad parameters. The flight would have to be shot down over the open sea, far from the coast, so that it would take investigators a long time to find the wreckage and establish whether it had been hit by a missile or had crashed due to engine failure. Deep water would be preferable, to make recovery even more difficult… The air force drew up a detailed plan to shoot down an airliner. Its representatives at the Goldfish forum explained that they had chosen a precise spot on the commercial air route across the Mediterranean, one where there was no continuous radar coverage by any nation and where the sea below was a daunting three miles deep. A salvage operation there would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, with the technology of the time. This complex plan set strict parameters for where the Israeli aircraft could shoot down Arafat’s plane undetected, which meant there would be a fairly narrow window of opportunity for executing the attack. … General Gilboa expressed his sharp opposition to these operations time and again. ‘It was clear to me that the air force would execute it as well as could be, and the plane would vanish forever. They do what they are told, and if you give them an order to build a pipeline to move blood from Haifa to the Negev, they’ll do it excellently and won’t for a moment ask whose blood it is…‘”
Whether he knows it or not, Trump, the one-time casino mogul, is dicing with death, playing into the hands of potential Israeli assassins by repeatedly claiming that the US would “completely decimate and destroy” Iran if it ever were to succeed in knocking him off. Quite foolishly, Trump has told journalists he’s “left instructions” to “literally bomb them at levels they’ve never seen before” if such an event were to occur. One can only imagine the frenzied Happy Merchant-style hand-rubbing taking place among members of Netanyahu’s cabinet when they hear remarks like these.
President Donald Trump’s jangled nerves put at ease by the armed and ready Avenger surface-to-air missile system, allowing for a smooth stroke of his 9-Iron.
I’m sure there are many Iranians who would like to see Trump bite the dust. After all, he is responsible for the murder of the country’s military hero General Qasem Soleimani and its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose family members were also killed and maimed in the joint US/Israeli airstrikes on his residential compound in February. Trump made these decisions entirely on behalf of Israel and we’re left to wonder whether or not he realizes with the benefit of hindsight that he’s bumbled his way into a carefully laid trap. With Iran’s victory in the war all but assured absent the use of nuclear weapons or a ground invasion by US forces, Israel is getting desperate to increase America’s military presence in the region. Would they go so far as to assassinate a sitting US president for at least the second time in history? I don’t know, but in the words of Andrew Adler: “Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?… You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.“
JPMorgan says Iran, Oman ‘legally justified’ to charge Hormuz navigation fees
The Cradle | August 14, 2026
US investment bank JPMorgan has suggested that Iran and Oman’s strategy of imposing mandatory “navigational safety” fees to transit the Strait of Hormuz may be legally justified, the Financial Times (FT) reported earlier this month.
JPMorgan explained in a memo that international law grants ships the right of “innocent passage” through territorial waters, making it illegal to charge fees simply for transit (tolls).
However, charging fees for specific navigational and security services may be permissible, the memo argued.
For example, Denmark and Sweden currently levy charges on vessels transiting the Danish Straits. Rather than charging a toll, which would be illegal, they charge for services.
Denmark’s Pilotage Act makes pilotage mandatory for vessels carrying hazardous cargo – such as oil, chemicals, or gases – or more than 5,000 metric tons of bunker oil.
Pilotage refers to the service of guiding a ship or aircraft through hazardous, confined, or coastal waters and local areas using visual landmarks, charts, and specialized local knowledge. The pilotage fees are paid to the Danish Ministry of Business and range from $10,000 to $25,000 per transit for a Balticmax tanker.
Another country operating “a de facto tollbooth” on oil tankers is Turkiye, a US ally and NATO member, JPMorgan wrote.
Turkish authorities have “broad regulatory powers in the Turkish Straits and can charge for services under the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits.”
Ankara charges a Suezmax oil tanker approximately $130,000 for a round-trip passage, roughly $0.13 per barrel of crude.
In exchange for the fee, Turkiye provides lighthouses, light, and channel buoys, as well as sanitary control and emergency rescue services.
According to JPMorgan, these precedents indicate that Iran and Oman’s plan to impose mandatory charges for “navigational safety” to transit Hormuz could be legally justified.
In a previous note published in May, the investment bank’s analysts wrote: “By structuring the measure as a service fee rather than a transit toll, and by coordinating with Oman as the other littoral state, Iran could attempt to create a legal framework that appears consistent with international maritime law.”
Amir Handjani of Responsible Statecraft (RS) argues that establishing an Iran–Oman transit authority would benefit commercial shippers.
“Ships get a predictable process instead of IRGC commanders deciding by whim who passes, who doesn’t, and an unpredictable pricing mechanism,” Handjani wrote.
At the same time, US sanctions and restrictive insurance clauses may pose severe compliance issues for international oil and shipping firms seeking to traverse the Strait of Hormuz under such a proposal.
Reuters reported on 6 August that if shipping firms pay service fees to Iran to pass Hormuz, this would trigger US sanctions imposed unilaterally on the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA).
“Any payment could lead to asset freezes,” Reuters quoted unnamed industry sources as saying.
Major shipping firms have also raised concerns over a clause introduced last month by Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) that terminates vessel insurance if it pays a toll or charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
US National Debt Grows By Over $500Bln Since Beginning of July
Sputnik -14.08.2026
WASHINGTON – The national debt of the United States has increased by more than $500 billion since July 1 and has come close to a record high of $40 trillion, RIA Novosti calculated based on data from the US Treasury Department.
In early July, that number was $39.389 trillion, by mid-August, the figure reached $39.913 trillion. Thus, the net increase in less than a month and a half amounted to $524.22 billion.
In the first 10 months of the 2026 fiscal year alone, the US government allocated a record $963 billion to service and pay interest on the national debt, RIA Novosti previously found out based on data from the Congressional Budget Office.
In the future, the debt burden will only increase. According to the congressional estimates, the US national debt will continue to grow continuously over the next decade. As early as fiscal year 2027, the figure is expected to exceed $41.3 trillion, the psychological mark of 50 trillion will be reached by 2033, and by fiscal year 2036 it will reach more than $56.2 trillion.
Options to Defeat Iran
Tales of the American Empire | August 13, 2026
American foreign policy has supported the Greater Israel project since the 9-11 terror attacks. This would greatly expand the size of Israel and kill or displace millions of Arabs. Iran is not a target for Israeli expansion, but is a powerful nation that supports resistance to the genocidal Greater Israel agenda. When the Trump administration entered office in early 2025, there was news they may fulfill the Zionist dream of attacking and destroying Iran.
Since President Trump ran as an anti-war candidate, war with Iran was irrational because it was risky and unlikely to succeed. A year ago, Tales of the American Empire produced “War with Iran is Foolish”, which is linked in the description. It explains that attacking Iran would fail and lead to an economic disaster. Unfortunately, greedy and insane people have taken control our nation, to include Donald Trump and most US Congressmen.
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Related Tales:
“War with Iran is Foolish”; 
• War with Iran is Foolish
“Why the Strait of Hormuz is Not Irrelevant”; What’s Going on With Shipping?; August 9, 2026; • Why the Strait of Hormuz is Not “Irrelevan…
“The MOST DANGEROUS WARHAWKS in MEDIA /Lt Col Daniel Davis”; Deep Dive; August 3, 2026; • The MOST DANGEROUS WARHAWKS in MEDIA /Lt C…
US military loses roughly 25% of Reaper drone fleet in Iran war: Report
MEMO | August 13, 2026
The US military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, or roughly 25% of its fleet, during its war with Iran, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing three officials.
The losses involve an aircraft used for surveillance and targeted strikes that can cost between $30 million and $50 million depending on its equipment, according to the report.
The newspaper said the potential cost of the lost Reapers exceeds $1.3 billion.
The drones have been heavily used around the Strait of Hormuz but are “relatively easy targets” for Iran and its proxies because they fly slowly and often at low altitudes, it said.
Not all of the aircraft were shot down, with one official saying an unspecified number crashed after operators lost communications links to the drones.
The Air Force fleet had about 165 Reapers, and the Marine Corps possessed 20 before the war began, public budget data and the services showed.
Air Force Lt. Gen. David Tabor told the Senate in May that the number had fallen to about 135.
Iran blocks US-backed plan for Syrian military intervention in Lebanon
Al Mayadeen | August 13, 2026
Iran has thwarted a planned Syrian military intervention in Lebanon that was being prepared at the request of the United States, delivering a direct warning to Damascus that any Syrian military entry into Lebanese territory would be met with a regional response, according to Iranian sources cited by U News.
The Iranian warning included threats to stir up the Syrian–Iraqi border, open a confrontation line in Homs, support Alawite movements in the Syrian coastal region, and encourage the Kurds to return militarily to the outskirts of Aleppo.
The warning was not directed solely at Damascus; it also reached Ankara, Baghdad, Doha, and Riyadh, carrying the message that any Syrian adventure against Hezbollah in Lebanon would not remain confined to the Bekaa Valley but could turn into a broad regional confrontation within Syrian territory.
Iran succeeded in transforming any potential Syrian intervention in Lebanon from a military option that could be marketed to the US into a high-cost regional adventure, sources said. The Iranian warning, which reached Damascus through Turkish channels, included a threat of Iranian ballistic missile strikes that would begin from Damascus and include, in the first wave, more than 100 strategic targets, foremost among them the Syrian presidential palace.
The US-backed scenario: a three-pronged offensive into Lebanon
The scenario promoted by figures linked to the US embassy in Lebanon involves sending Syrian armed units from the Masnaa crossing toward Chtoura in the Lebanese Bekaa and on to the city of Zahle, simultaneously with mobilization from the eastern highlands toward the city of Baalbek.
The proposed scenario also includes declaring the city of Tripoli a Syrian zone of influence, with advancing forces benefiting from local environments, particularly in some Sunni-majority areas.
The presumed goal of the operation is to strike Hezbollah’s rocket infrastructure in the Bekaa and to create military and political pressure that would force the party to withdraw or accept new security arrangements.
Hezbollah prepared, treats potential Syrian operation as US-Israeli pressure
Iran’s warning has prompted regional parties to reassess the cost of the scenario, especially since Syria, emerging from deep military and political transformations, does not appear capable of enduring a new internal war.
Hezbollah is treating the information about a potential Syrian intervention extremely seriously and has taken precautionary measures in the Bekaa in anticipation of any possible Syrian incursion.
Hezbollah does not view the scenario as a separate Syrian operation, but rather as part of US–Israeli–regional pressure aimed at dismantling the structure of resistance in Lebanon from the east, following Israel’s failure to achieve a decisive result in the south.
Iraq’s rejection, UAE’s enthusiasm, and Saudi caution
Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid al-Shatri visited Damascus and informed Syrian officials of Baghdad’s rejection of any Syrian military expansion into Lebanese territory. Al-Shatri warned that Iraqi forces, primarily factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces, might enter Syrian territory if an intervention against Hezbollah occurred.
The Iraqi position added a further layer of deterrence to the Iranian warning, signalling that Damascus could face military pressure not only from within Syria but also from its eastern border.
The UAE is enthusiastic about funding any Syrian military operation in Lebanon, with officials quoted as ready to pay troop salaries as well as finance combat operations. This financial backing suggests that the UAE views the intervention as an opportunity to curtail Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon, despite the broader regional risks that Iran has highlighted.
Qatar rejects Syrian intervention in Lebanon, while Saudi Arabia does not object to an intervention as long as it is within arrangements that weaken Hezbollah without igniting the region. The divergent positions among Gulf states underscore the complex calculations at play, with Riyadh appearing to balance its opposition to Hezbollah against the dangers of a wider conflict that Iran has explicitly threatened to unleash on Syrian soil.
Trump wants to talk to Hezbollah. Will they pick up the phone?
By Ali Rizk | Responsible Statecraft | August 13, 2026
For decades, U.S. policy in Lebanon has focused on the elimination of Hezbollah, or at least its military wing. But the Trump administration has taken this effort to new heights.
The State Department is sponsoring the first ever direct talks between Lebanon and Israel since the Madrid peace talks, with the disarmament of Hezbollah being a central objective of those talks.
Washington has also taken the unprecedented step of sanctioning individuals from outside the party whom it accuses of undermining the campaign against Hezbollah, including members of Lebanon’s state security apparatus. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel are engaged in an unprecedented financial crackdown on Hezbollah, as the New York Times reported this week.
Ironically, however, Donald Trump is also the first sitting American president to express a willingness to hold direct talks with the Lebanese Shiite movement.
“I would speak to Hezbollah. I speak to everybody. I’ll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t be speaking to, and things work out,” Trump told reporters during an oval office meeting with his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun last month.
While it would be easy to dismiss these remarks as typical Trumpian grandstanding, there appears to be more to the story.
Multiple reports have recently emerged indicating that serious attempts have been made to open direct channels between Washington and Hezbollah.
According to the Middle East Eye, Trump told Beirut’s ambassador to Washington last May that he wanted to talk to the group in a bid to salvage a shaky ceasefire with Israel. The Lebanese presidency reportedly turned down the request over concerns that holding such talks would undermine Aoun by bypassing the Lebanese government.
That same report quotes senior Lebanese officials saying that both the Trump administration and some of its predecessors have attempted to open direct channels with Hezbollah, but the group rejected these advances.
Another recent report by the Lebanese daily Aljoumhouria revealed that senior Iraqi officials told a visiting Hezbollah delegation that Iraq was ready to sponsor and host direct talks between Washington and the Lebanese Shiite movement. The offer, the report noted, was made shortly before Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s recent visit to Washington, only to be turned down by Hezbollah.
Sources from within the Lebanese Shiite movement confirm that there has been a recent push to establish direct channels between the two sides. “The Americans have made several attempts through a number of intermediaries to engage directly with Hezbollah,” a Hezbollah source explained to RS. “It’s true that al-Zaidi pursued such efforts, but certainly not at our request.”
Interestingly, however, senior Hezbollah officials refused to clarify the group’s stance on the issue despite media reports that it had flatly rejected such offers. “Hezbollah wants to keep its stance concerning this issue out of the media, without giving any indication as to how it will respond to such initiatives,” a political official in the Lebanese Shiite movement told RS. “Our policy is to not reveal how we intend to approach this issue”.
This suggests that Hezbollah is not necessarily rejecting dialogue with Washington out of hand. Talks “will happen if there is an opportunity that presents itself,” said Muhanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
“But there will be an ambiguity because the organization basically tries to avoid acknowledging that they’re discussing anything with the ‘Great Satan,’” Hage Ali said, referencing a term Iran and its allies use to label the United States.
According to Hage Ali, who has authored numerous publications about Hezbollah, the group stands to benefit from such dialogue in more ways than one. “Direct contact between the U.S. and Hezbollah would eventually undermine the Lebanese government track,” he explained, in reference to the direct talks Lebanon’s government is holding with Israel. “This is useful for Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah could also use talks with Washington to make a deal under which any measures related to its weapons and military activities would be conditioned on amending Lebanon’s constitutional system to “grant Lebanese Shiites a bigger share of power,” Hage Ali said.
Still, it is difficult to see Hezbollah negotiating away its weapons absent an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory and a genuine guarantee that Israel will permanently end military operations in Lebanon. This stems from the fact that the group was founded as a resistance movement against Israel back in the early 1980s, long before it became a political party in 1992.
Meanwhile there is little to suggest that Israel is willing to take any steps that would encourage Hezbollah to take a more flexible stance.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told a recent cabinet meeting that he will not succumb to American demands to withdraw troops from Lebanon. Israel’s Foreign Ministry even published a map where parts of southern Lebanon appeared incorporated into Israel. The map, which Israel posted on X, stirred an uproar in Lebanon before it was taken down. (Israeli officials described the controversial map as the result of “an artificial intelligence error.”)
There is also the issue of Iran which has only doubled down on its support for its Lebanese ally. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mujtaba Khamenei has framed support for Hezbollah as a “strategic mandate” for the Islamic Republic, while underscoring that any deal with the United States is contingent on respecting Lebanon’s territorial integrity and an end to Israeli military operations in the country.
That Khamenei cast his country’s support for Hezbollah in strategic terms — and not merely as an ideological obligation — supports the notion that the Iranian leadership believes supporting the group has become a greater necessity in the wake of the recent conflicts, not least given how Israel has directly attacked Iran in these wars. In other words, rather than weakening the bonds between Tehran and Hezbollah, Israeli attacks on Iran have apparently strengthened these bonds, giving them a stronger strategic rationale.
Against this backdrop, it is far more plausible that, at least for now, Hezbollah is pinning its hopes on what comes out of a potential agreement between Washington and Tehran, as opposed to riskier paths like direct talks with the Trump administration.
“The objective behind the American attempts to establish direct channels with us is to remove Lebanon and Hezbollah specifically from the Islamabad talks,” explained the first Hezbollah source, referencing U.S.-Iran negotiations in Pakistan.
Holding talks with the United States as a separate track from Islamabad would place Hezbollah in a weaker position, he argued, while being part of a framework with Iran which “hold strong cards” means that any agreement reached “will have guarantees.”
Ali Rizk is a security analyst with a Masters Degree in Counterterrorism from Australia’s Macquarie University. Rizk is a contributor to the American Conservative, and his work has appeared in the National Interest, Middle East Eye, and the Australian Institute for International Affairs.
The Mecca pact and the limits of a ‘Muslim NATO’
Divergent threats, US ties, and economic interests leave the collective-defense pact’s real purpose open to dispute.
By F.M. Shakil | The Cradle | August 13, 2026
The oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, nuclear-armed Pakistan, and Turkiye, which commands NATO’s second-largest army, signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement on Friday, 7 August. The accord arrived as fighting again intensified in Yemen. Days later, the Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni armed forces (YAF) launched ballistic missiles at Marib and the Red Sea port of Mokha, the latest escalation against Saudi-backed forces.
Iran noted the turn toward regional security arrangements, saying it showed a growing recognition that security cannot be guaranteed by foreign powers. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the accord reflected a rapidly changing understanding of security across the region.
Pakistan welcomed the accord and said the Mecca agreement stipulates that an attack on any member will be treated as an attack on all. Islamabad described it as a major step toward stronger strategic relations, regional security, and cooperation in mutual defense.
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar called the accord a defensive document that does not target any one country. Posting on X on 9 August, Dar said it remained open to any regional state willing to commit to its founding principles.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan went further, insisting that neither Iran nor any other country was the pact’s designated target. In an online discussion, he also expressed hope that Egypt would eventually join.
Veteran Pakistani diplomat Riffat Masood offered a narrower reading. In a discussion with Saudi-American researcher Dr Hamza al-Kanani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran and Norway said the phrase “an attack on one is an attack on all” applies specifically to external threats.
“It does not have any regional implications, which means that this clause would apply whenever any country signing this agreement came under attack from Israel, the US, or any external force,” she claimed.
Masood added that the article does not cover intra-regional rivalries involving Iran or the YAF.
Egypt was conspicuous by its absence from the Mecca signing ceremony, despite taking part in months of foreign minister-level consultations with the grouping.
Cairo’s apparent disenchantment rests on the belief that the military agreement is driven more by political alignment than deployable defense capability. Egypt retains positive bilateral relations with the three signatories, but is wary of joining a Saudi-led bloc that could narrow its room for maneuver across the region.
“I expect more countries will join this alliance in the future. The alliance may expand beyond the military sphere to encompass economic and strategic dimensions in the future,” Sajjad Azhar, an Islamabad-based analyst, tells The Cradle.
Riyadh looks beyond Washington
Saudi Arabia’s security partnership with Washington dates to the closing years of World War II, when oil and strategic access became bound up with US protection. But Washington’s shift toward competition with China, coupled with its uneven responses to attacks on Persian Gulf partners, has pushed Riyadh to look for additional options.
The September 2019 attack on Abqaiq and Khurais, claimed by the YAF, temporarily knocked out around half of Saudi oil production. Washington did not retaliate militarily, despite US and Saudi accusations that Iran was responsible. For Riyadh, the episode exposed the limits of the US security umbrella.
The Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, and the regional war that followed added to Saudi concerns. Those concerns deepened after Israel’s September 2025 attack on Doha, which targeted Hamas negotiators in the capital of a US-allied Gulf state. Eight days later, Riyadh signed a bilateral defense pact with Pakistan.
The US-Israeli war on Iran launched on 28 February 2026 further exposed Arab states to retaliation without providing them with any clear say over Washington’s war aims. According to Azhar, the conflict reinforced the sense that reliance on a single external guarantor had become increasingly dangerous:
“The attacks launched by Tehran and its allies, including the Houthis [YAF] and Iraqi Shia armed organizations [PMU], against Saudi Arabia changed the situation. In this perspective, an end to recurring Iranian threats seems to have been the main strategic purpose behind the new alliance.”
Collective defense, undefined obligations
At the signing ceremony, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Pakistan displayed copies of the Mecca agreement, but its full provisions have not been made public. Beyond the collective-defense formula contained in the joint statement, analysts still lack details on command structures, activation procedures, force commitments, and the geographical reach of the pact.
Dr Muqtedar Khan, a US-based analyst and professor at the University of Delaware, tells The Cradle that the pact rests on two pillars: a collective-defense commitment and joint deterrence and defense cooperation. The first treats an armed attack against one of the three states as an attack against all three.
“This sets up a mutual-defense duty that is similar to NATO’s Article 5, but the details about how quickly and strongly they will respond are mostly unclear,” he says. The second pillar, he adds, resembles the bilateral Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan last year.
Khan says the Mecca accord marks an important step in the region’s security evolution, showing how middle powers are seeking greater autonomy and a wider range of partnerships instead of relying almost entirely on the US:
“While it is premature to label it a fully fledged ‘Muslim NATO,’ the pact creates a new framework for collective deterrence and defense cooperation among three of the most consequential Sunni-majority states.”
Its durability and effectiveness, he says, will ultimately depend on how the parties define an “attack,” what each is prepared to do when the commitment is tested, and whether other countries join.
“For now, it functions as both a political signal of reduced dependence on external patrons and a practical platform for deeper military collaboration,” Khan says.
A pact made with Washington’s blessing?
Washington’s public response to the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement has been notably restrained.
For some observers, the pact signals that US partners want to diversify their security arrangements after a succession of regional crises exposed the limits of depending on one external guarantor.
Others argue that, if the agreement produces stronger missile defense, maritime patrols, and a wider sharing of regional security burdens, it could advance Washington’s stated goals rather than threaten them.
The pact may therefore loosen exclusive dependence on the US without displacing the vast American military architecture already embedded in the region.
Retired Pakistani diplomat Abdul Basit, who served as high commissioner to India and as Foreign Office spokesperson, argued in a television interview that the trilateral agreement had Washington’s backing.
“Without US consent, these three regional actors could not succeed in creating a trilateral defense mechanism that challenges the US’s hegemonic security apparatus in the region,” he argued.
Other analysts likewise see an implicit US role in the creation of a large regional force whose likely purpose is not confrontation with Israel but containment of Iranian influence.
Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), tells The Cradle that Washington’s lack of opposition suggests the coalition was formed with at least tacit US approval and a clear assurance that it would not be directed against Israel:
“This alliance doesn’t significantly deter Iran from attacking US bases in Saudi Arabia. Iran is not attacking these countries but only hitting the US bases wherever they exist. As long as these bases remain there, Iran will continue targeting them in one way or another.”
Three states, three threat maps
The pact is also burdened by conflicting threat perceptions. Pakistan and Turkiye are unlikely to enter a direct clash with Israel while maintaining close strategic ties with Washington. This has fed suspicions that the bloc was established with US backing precisely because it does not challenge the regional red lines enforced by Washington.
Gul says the alliance is no uncomplicated marriage. Its central ambiguity remains unresolved: is it primarily a political declaration, or does it impose binding military obligations on its members?
“The three countries have different threat assessments and priorities. Pakistan’s focus is mostly on India and Afghanistan, but Turkiye or Saudi Arabia will not build deterrence for Israel or India due to their strategic and commercial interests. For Saudi Arabia, the emphasis is on maintaining stability in the Gulf area and promoting economic diversification. Turkiye is seeking to sell its military hardware, even though it has obligations as a NATO member.”
Pakistan and Turkiye also stand to gain financially from the pact as both manage strained economies. Turkiye has found a lucrative regional market for drones and aircraft, while Pakistan secures badly needed Saudi financing.
In August 2023, Saudi Arabia signed a record $3 billion deal with the Turkish defense firm Baykar to procure Bayraktar Akinci unmanned combat aerial vehicles (drones).
Saudi Arabia also committed a fresh $3 billion support package to Pakistan. The funding came in addition to $5 billion in Saudi deposits previously placed with Pakistan and extended through 2028. The new support helped Islamabad repay roughly $3.5 billion owed to the UAE later that month.
“The public relations advantages for Pakistan are evident, but only time will reveal whether the alliance will yield any financial benefits that trickle down to the poor masses,” Gul remarks.
For now, the Mecca pact’s signatories have announced collective defense without revealing who would command it, which threats would activate it, or what each capital would actually risk for the others.
Until those questions are answered, the Mecca pact remains more a declaration of intent than a functioning military alliance.
The Caspian Sea: America’s New Eurasian Containment Arena
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – August 13, 2026
The Caspian Sea — for thirty years a backwater of great-power politics — has quietly become a battlespace, and most of the world is still treating it as a footnote.
In late July, Iranian officials confirmed that a US strike had damaged the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Seyyed al-Shuhada naval facility in Zibakenar, in Iran’s Caspian province of Gilan — the first time in the current war that Washington has reached into Iran’s Caspian coastline. Days earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Kyiv’s drones had struck several vessels in the Caspian more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory, including a ship reportedly ferrying military cargo from Iran toward Russia. Iran, however, said one of the vessels hit was carrying iron ore from Astrakhan to the Iranian port of Anzali and summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in protest.
Neither strike, on its own, would rewrite anyone’s map. Together, they are a signal. For the first time, the US and US-backed Ukraine have demonstrated that they have the will and the reach to hit targets on a sea that geography, more than strategy, had long kept insulated from direct confrontation. The Caspian’s basin states — Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan — built an entire diplomatic architecture, including a 2018 legal convention on the sea’s status, around the premise that outside militaries would stay out. That premise no longer holds.
What is emerging is not a contest for territory in the traditional sense. It is a contest over connectivity: over the ports, rail lines, pipelines, and shipping lanes that allow Russia, Iran, and, at one remove, China to function as an integrated economic and strategic space rather than three isolated, sanctioned, or otherwise constrained powers. Call it America’s New Eurasian Containment: a strategy that treats infrastructure, not territory, as the terrain worth contesting.
Severing the Connective Tissue
The clearest evidence of this shift sits not on the Caspian’s water but on its shores, in two projects Washington has spent the past year reshaping.
The first is the International North-South Transport Corridor, a roughly 7,200-kilometer multimodal freight route agreed upon by Russia, Iran, and India in 2000 that links the Indian Ocean, through Iran, across the Caspian, to Russian rail networks and on to Europe. Long stalled by under-investment, the corridor has become a priority for Moscow since 2022, precisely because it offers a way around Western sanctions. Its central artery is the Caspian crossing between the Iranian port of Bandar-e Anzali and the Russian port of Astrakhan. More importantly, it is the same stretch of water where Ukrainian drones struck in July and where Israeli forces had already hit Iranian naval and port assets at Anzali back in March, according to regional shipping trackers. A degraded, contested Caspian corridor is a direct blow to the one overland route that lets Moscow and Tehran trade around US and European sanctions. These attacks are, therefore, not about the US war on Iran; they are about reshaping the very geography of trade passing through the Eurasian landscape.
The second is the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP — the transit corridor Washington brokered in August 2025 between Armenia and Azerbaijan, granting a US-led consortium a 99-year lease to build and manage rail, energy, and fiber-optic links through Armenia’s Syunik province. The deal ended a decades-old territorial dispute, but its geopolitical function is narrower and sharper. It places Iran’s only land border with Armenia under American-supervised transit control, cutting off Tehran’s most direct overland access into the South Caucasus and, by extension, into a region Russia has treated as its own backyard since the Soviet collapse. Whatever the deal’s stated humanitarian purpose, it functions as a wedge driven into Eurasian connective tissue.
Neither project was designed with the other in mind. But together with the Caspian strikes, they describe a single logic: deny Russia and Iran the infrastructure that lets their January 2025 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — a 20-year treaty covering defense, energy, finance, and counterterrorism cooperation — translate into real economic integration rather than a document signed in Moscow. China, meanwhile, watches from the margins. Beijing has no naval presence on the Caspian and is not a party to any of these strikes or corridors, but its own westward trade ambitions run through the same chokepoints, i.e., the Middle Corridor via the South Caucasus, and Iranian ports as a Belt and Road terminus. A Washington-controlled TRIPP and a contested Caspian complicate China’s overland options as a side effect, even if Beijing was never the intended target.
A Frontier Without a Front Line
The danger in this strategy is precisely that it has no clean edges. Containment during the Cold War had defined lines — the Fulda Gap, the Elbe, the 38th parallel — and a doctrine that most parties understood. Infrastructure containment has none of that. A drone strike on a cargo ship, an airstrike on a naval depot, and a 99-year land lease branded with a president’s name: each is individually deniable, incremental, and justifiable in its own narrow terms, even as the cumulative effect reshapes the strategic map of an entire region. That ambiguity is a feature for Washington, which can advance the strategy without ever declaring it. But it is also a source of volatility because affected countries are left to infer intent from actions rather than respond to a stated policy. And, inferences, in a region this armed and this aggrieved, tend toward worst-case assumptions.
The more durable question is what happens once the corridors themselves become targets, not just prizes. Pipelines, rail lines, and undersea cables may now be legitimate objects of great-power coercion. If so, the Caspian will not be the last “peripheral” space pulled into contested geography. The Arctic shipping lanes, the Malacca chokepoint, and the fibre-optic seabed of the Indian Ocean are all candidates for the same treatment. In this environment, the states that thrive will not be the ones with the largest militaries. They will be the ones that make their infrastructure redundant, diversified, and defensible: multiple routes, multiple partners, no single artery whose loss is fatal. Iran and Russia have bet heavily on a small number of chokepoints. Their partnership may keep deepening going forward. But the deeper it goes, the more attacks it will face and endure.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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US Spent $533 Million on Shell Factory That Produced Zero Usable Shells — Reports
Sputnik – 13.08.2026
A US Army-funded artillery plant near Dallas, built to produce 155mm shells for Ukraine, never produced a single usable shell, ProPublica reported.
Workers described robots catching fire, machines smashing into equipment, steel cracking beyond repair and giant presses needing to be beaten with a sledgehammer just to function.
“It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night,” one former employee said.
The Army halted work on two of the plant’s three production lines in 2025 after General Dynamics missed multiple deadlines.
The company was still awarded billions in new contracts.
The US keeps pouring money into its proxy war machine — and sometimes the machine cannot even make the shells.
Russia has repeatedly warned that such weapons deliveries only prolong the conflict.
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From the Archive
Zionism’s Violent Legacy
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
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