Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

US May Require Digital Background Checks for Tourists and Their Families

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 10, 2025

Foreigners planning trips to the United States may soon face one of the most extensive digital disclosure requirements ever introduced at a national border.

Under a new directive from the Trump administration, travelers will have to submit five years of their social media history along with extensive personal data before being allowed entry.

The rule, described in new documents released by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), affects even citizens of visa waiver countries such as the UK, Germany, and France.

We obtained a copy of the new documents for you here.

What was once a short online form for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is set to become a far more intrusive process.

Applicants will be expected to upload a selfie, provide every phone number and email address used over the last five years, and list relatives’ names, addresses, and birth dates. Authorities have stated that compliance will be “mandatory.”

Currently, the ESTA system is relatively straightforward: travelers pay $40 to give basic contact and emergency information, and if approved, receive permission to visit.

The proposed expansion transforms this into a digital audit of a person’s communications.

The move follows an earlier decision by the State Department in June to make some visa holders’ social media profiles publicly viewable.

Officials have justified these changes as a national security measure, saying that online behavior could reveal “anti-American activity.”

The timing of the new requirement coincides with preparations for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games, both of which will take place on US soil.

The administration argues that large international events draw heightened security risks, though the new data collection policy would apply broadly to all visitors, not only those attending the games.

It marks a shift from traditional border checks to a continuous form of data surveillance, where online activity becomes part of a traveler’s permanent record; an new precedent for global movement and personal privacy alike.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Vacates NY Ruling That Amish Cannot Have an Exemption to Vaccination Requirements

By Aaron Siri | December 10, 2025

I’m pleased to announce that the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has vacated the Second Circuit’s decision that enabled New York State to persecute the Amish for refusing to inject pharma products in violation of their religious beliefs. SCOTUS remanded the case (Miller v. McDonald) to the Second Circuit to reconsider its illiberal and unconscionable decision. A huge step in the right direction—the day the Amish are compelled to pierce their bodies in violation of their religion is the day religious freedom dies in this country.

I discussed the Amish situation further in Chapter 11 of my book, Vaccines, Amen, including how their children are far healthier than the surrounding vaccinated population:

[T]he NYS DOH decided to wage war on the Amish community, seeking to levy financially ruinous fines on them unless they vaccinate their children. My firm has the privilege of representing the three Amish schools that received these violations. The sworn court papers in this case evidenced to the Court that the families with children in these three Amish schools have a total of 168 unvaccinated children (no vaccines) and that none of these children have any of the chronic health issues that plague children in the United States.

We also provided sworn expert evidence to the Court attesting that among a random sample of 168 U.S. children, one would expect to find (based on the background rate of chronic disease among U.S. children) 31 cases of environmental allergies, 15 cases of ADHD, 10 cases of asthma, 9 cases of food allergies, and 4 cases of ASD. Yet, the 168 unvaccinated Amish children whose families New York wants to persecute are free from the chronic health conditions—all related to some form of immune system dysregulation—that plague the vaccinated communities in New York.

Since vaccination is supposedly about improving health, and the Amish who do not vaccinate are clearly healthier, one would expect the NYS DOH to leave them alone. But that is not how this religion works. The vaccine zealots in the NYS DOH cannot stand that the Amish refuse to abandon their beliefs in favor of the religious beliefs held by the NYS DOH officials regarding vaccines. The “health” officials are willing to sacrifice the way of life and belief system of these Amish children and their community, that has kept them far healthier, if they refuse to bend the knee to adopt cult-like vaccine beliefs.

These “health” officials also apparently cannot stand that the Amish children are healthier and are even willing to wage war against them until they submit and receive every vaccine New York demands—so they can be just as “healthy” as all the children outside the Amish community.

The Amish earnestly seek to avoid conflict but because violating their sincerely held religious beliefs is not an option, they have been placed in the impossible position of being required to leave New York to simply send their healthy children to Amish schools on Amish land. As of this writing, my firm, along with co-counsel, continues to litigate on behalf of the Amish to defend their freedom to practice their religion in peace.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The Federal Law Allowing Hospitals to Target Good Physicians

By Jefferey Jaxen | December 10, 2025

By now, much of the public knows, or should know, not to step foot into a hospital without a trusted loved one or a patient advocate by their side. Many have heard the horror stories of hospitals holding people against their will, attempting to take children from parents for not consenting to treatments, or physicians simply acting counter to a patient’s consent.

Thanks in large part to the MAHA spirit, public efforts, and policy changes, a magnifying glass has begun to examine the inner workings of our American medical and public health systems. Key to this investigation is the need to heavily scrutinize corporate hospital entities and their secretive inner workings and that starts with HCQIA.

The Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) was implemented in 1986 under the need to improve key areas of healthcare. At that time, medical malpractice was on the rise. There also was a national need to provide an incentive for physicians to engage in effective peer review to address unprofessional behavior.

The idea was sound…nearly 40 years ago. Other medical professionals would serve as the watchdogs and police the behavior of their profession within hospitals. To do so, it was agreed upon and codified into HCQIA’s law that the physicians and hospitals needed protection from legal retribution while taking action to review those among them who were failing to uphold quality medical care and increase patient safety.

America wanted better and HCQIA was their vehicle to accomplish it…in 1986.

Unfortunately, the act lacked balance in key areas and began to be exploited by the changing business model of hospitals as they moved to for-profit corporate conglomerates.

As the guardians of healthcare in this country, physicians were replaced by hospital administrators. And community-based hospitals were turned into corporate entities with financial officers and responsibilities to their shareholders.

Since 1986, consolidations through mergers and acquisitions have lead to a market dominated by a few large corporate health players.

Becker’s Hospital Review ranks Kaiser Permanente’s health system at $115.8 billion in annual revenue in 2024 – number one on a list of 65 such American health system empires together accounting for nearly $800 billion in annual revenue.

A die was cast and a paradigm descended upon American healthcare which still exerts its suffocating power to this day. The legal cover that allows it is HCQIA.

Secret tribunals, lack of due process, civil rights violations, false accusations and ultimately lack of patient safety all freely live and breath thanks to the act’s loopholes exploited by corporation hospitals.

How do good physicians become targeted using an Act which was written to uphold medical care and patient safety?

HCQIA created a National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), wherein substandard physician practice or unprofessional conduct is reported. This database has been weaponized against good physicians.

Once a hospital opens a case on a physician, which can be without their knowledge, their name is added to this database which all but guarantees they will never be hired again. Besides malpractice, a separate category was added called a ‘disruptive physician,’ a purposely nebulous label which leaves medicine behind to land in quasi-human resources territory.

Would a hospital purposely investigate or punish a good physician?

An American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) publication noted:

“The recent standard promulgated by The Joint Commission regarding hospitals’ responsibility in addressing ‘Disruptive Behavior’ is purposely broadly drawn, general, vague and subjective which could allow hospital administrators to interpret it however they wish.

This standard has the potential to lead to the abuse of ‘Disruptive Physician’ charges. The concern in the physician community and registered by ACEP is that “disruptive physician” can be an [sic] easily manipulated to include a physician who properly defends patient care, exercises his/her right of free speech on political matters, seeks to improve various clinical practices, or who properly demands adherence to excellence.”

ACEP continues by saying:

“Some hospitals have learned that if they simply appear to follow the HCQIA ‘procedural cookbook,’ they can eliminate virtually any physician in the absence of any meaningful substantive due process.”

Steve Twedt, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, wrote a landmark series of articles titled The Cost of Courage: How the tables turn on doctors which outlined many cases of ‘sham peer review’ freely allowed by HCQIA.

An accompanying editorial wrote

“For many years, a fundamental principle for physicians has been popularly understood as: “First, do no harm.” These words are not in the ancient Hippocratic Oath, but they have been handed down as a rough but sensible synopsis. As it happens, fealty to the original wording is pointless, because across the nation some hospitals have reworked this noble idea. Too often for physicians who see harm being done, the operating principle is today: “First, make no waves.””

“The first order of business should be to revisit the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. Passed with the best intentions, it gave too much discretion and protection to hospital-based review panels which have too often demonstrated a tendency to shoot the physician messenger of bad tidings. Anyone who doubts this should reread the exhaustive documentation of cases cited in the “Cost of Courage.””

Hospitals caring about their bottom lines would presumably frown upon patients who’d rather not submit to rounds of chemotherapy, for parents who’d rather not have their children fully vaccinated or to hospital consumers/patients who reject taking psychiatric drugs.

For the physicians who are truly patient advocates, an ever-present shadow of faceless hospital reviewers is allowed to confidentially open a case on them with the threat of cancelling their career.

As HCQIA is written presently, those reviewers enjoy immunity from recourse, secrecy to operate, and privilege to the degree that hospitals can even withhold peer review documents from court subpoena.

Patricia Robitaille is an emergency medicine physician with extensive experience in credentialing and peer review. Currently, she is working with Dr. Coleen Rickabaugh, M.D. to advance draft legislation to significantly revise HCQIA. Below is Dr. Robitaille’s proposal to HHS and Washington lawmakers to revise HCQIA.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

US defence bill legally binds Washington to counter arms embargoes on Israel

MEMO | December 10, 2025

A newly passed United States defence bill contains extraordinary provisions that would commit Washington to systematically identify, assess and ultimately compensate for any Israeli weapons shortfalls caused by international embargoes. The legislation effectively shields Israel from global attempts to restrict arms transfers, even in the face of genocide.

Buried deep within the 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act is Section 1706, titled: “Continual Assessment of Impact of International State Arms Embargoes on Israel and Actions to Address Defense Capability Gaps.” It mandates a permanent US obligation to mitigate the effects of foreign arms restrictions imposed on Israel.

Under this provision, the Secretary of Defense is required to conduct a continual assessment of current and emerging embargoes, sanctions, or restrictions on arms transfers to Israel. This includes evaluating how such measures might create vulnerabilities in Israel’s security capabilities or undermine its so-called “qualitative military edge.”

In practical terms, if states or international bodies move to restrict Israel’s access to weapons due to its conduct in Gaza or the occupied West Bank, the US government is now legally bound to examine how these limitations weaken Israel militarily—and to act.

Section 1706 does not stop at analysis. It obligates Washington to identify specific weapons systems or technologies that Israel can no longer acquire, sustain or modernise due to such embargoes, and then to devise practical ways of filling the gap.

The legislation tasks the Pentagon and the State Department with leading this effort, which may include removing bureaucratic barriers to foreign military sales, expanding the US industrial base to supply alternative systems, increasing joint research and production of defence technologies, and enhancing military training and logistics cooperation.

In effect, if Israel is prohibited from acquiring a weapons system from another supplier, the United States will manufacture a replacement, expedite sales or adapt its military-industrial output to meet Israeli needs.

The section mandates that these assessments must be updated “not less than once every 180 days,” establishing a biannual review cycle that guarantees Israel uninterrupted military capacity regardless of international opposition.

At a moment when global scrutiny is intensifying over Israel’s military operations in Gaza—including allegations of mass civilian casualties, enforced starvation and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure—Section 1706 functions as a form of political and logistical insurance, effectively insulating Israel from global accountability.

Such embargoes are typically employed to pressure governments engaged in serious human rights violations. In Israel’s case, they would be rendered largely symbolic. Washington would be legally required to compensate for any capacity lost due to international censure.

This provision comes on top of billions of dollars in ongoing US funding for Israel’s missile defence systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow 3, all of which are supported by direct appropriations and technology-sharing agreements within the same legislation.

Critics argue that Section 1706 represents a structural guarantee of Israeli military dominance, regardless of Israel’s conduct or global condemnation. By obligating the US to counteract embargoes, the bill does more than offer aid—it effectively integrates Israel’s military needs into US strategic planning and shields it from international accountability mechanisms used against other states.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Future Investigations – Report

Sputnik – 10.12.2025

The Trump administration has threatened the International Criminal Court (ICC) with potential sanctions if it does not amend its founding documents to exclude President Donald Trump and his top officials from future investigations, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing an administration official.

In addition to its pledge not to target the US, the Trump administration also demands that the ICC halt existing investigations into Israel and American military actions in Afghanistan, the report said.

In return for these concessions, the Trump administration is prepared to forgo additional sanctions on court officials and refrain from sanctioning the court itself, according to the report.

Washington has conveyed its demands to ICC members and directly to the court, which has 125 members, the report added.

The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 2002 with powers to prosecute heads of state.

In recent years, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for several world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These decisions have been criticized. Some states, such as Hungary, decided to withdraw from the ICC.

On February 6, Trump signed the executive order on sanctions against the ICC for its actions against Washington and its allies, including Israel. The order states that the US will take significant measures against those “responsible for the ICC’s transgressions.” Some of the measures include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the US for ICC staff and their family members.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

European Leaders ‘Willing to Pay for Their Hubris With Ukrainian Lives’

Sputnik – 10.12.2025

Ukrainians “who are being used as cannon fodder for Europeans pushing a failing narrative” have become the “greatest victims of this conflict,” London-based foreign affairs analyst Adriel Kasonta tells Sputnik while commenting on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent statements to the Russian parliament.

“Thus far, these leaders are willing to pay for their hubris with Ukrainian lives,” Kasonta laments.

He also observes that, while European economies “are declining, and the cost-of-living crisis continues to worsen,” European elites refuse to acknowledge their mistakes – as it could discredit them politically – and instead opt to “double down on their hostile posture toward Moscow.”

In the meantime, Donald Trump essentially acknowledged the previous US administration’s “miscalculation” and had a change of heart on the Ukrainian conflict issue.

For his part, French geopolitical analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon adds that the EU policy of fighting for Ukraine is part of a strategy aimed at stripping Russia of much of its land and power, and that “and it is not likely to change unless it becomes totally impossible for the Europeans to continue.”

Even if the powers that be in Ukraine agree to a peace deal, the European leadership believes that there will be a confrontation with Russia in the future, he warns.

Globalization Shaped Entirely by West is No Longer Effective

Western-led globalization is a no-goer as it is increasingly “dominated by factors that are outside Europe and to an extent outside the West, because even the U·S now has to make major concessions to China,” French geopolitical analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon tells Sputnik.

He further speculated that there may be “some sort of reconnection between Russia, America, and Europe,” and that “an understanding or an agreement reached between the United States and Russia in the coming months or years would be the first step in bringing together the West again in a defense of its general interest.”

Global institutions like BRICS and their architects created “an alternative to the predatory institutions of the Bretton Woods system,” allowing nations to trade “on an equal footing” instead of suffering from exploitation, London-based foreign affairs analyst Adriel Kasonta adds.

“China has demonstrated that an alternative model of development is possible — one that is more beneficial for sustainable growth,” he notes.

This model, Kasonta explains, promotes a “win-win situation rather than the debt enslavement of weaker nations by Western powers,” whereas the dynamics imposed by the West “keep countries dependent and perpetually indebted, rendering the idea of genuine decolonization little more than a façade.”

The West Fears ‘Alternative Views That Challenge Their Narrative’

Europe is “becoming increasingly intolerant of and afraid of outside information channels that provide very distinct viewpoints and open minds to other perspectives,” Come Carpentier de Gourdon tells Sputnik.

The European leadership, he suggests, is especially fearful Russian media like RT and Sputnik, which “project a very different perspective and show facts that Europeans, are generally left to ignore.”

One such example of the information Europe was keen to suppress was the warnings about the risks of NATO’s expansion to the east and “the circumstances of the Ukraine conflict” that did not fit into the official Western narrative.

“The fact that Russian media are exposing a lot of these facts and also are exposing a lot of the things that are very wrong in the structure of the European Union and in American policy, in the American society and in the American political system, that is what generates a very hostile reaction with the attempt to ban any such information which is regarded as hostile propaganda,” De Gourdon says.

For his part, Adriel Kasonta adds that the West’s fear of alternative views “manifests as hostility toward free speech,” which drives Europeans “to engage” with outlets like RT and Sputnik.

“Western leaders adopt a paternalistic attitude toward their citizens, believing they cannot discern between truth and falsehood,” he remarks.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Do You Believe in Coincidence… Was the CIA Involved in Operation Spiderweb and Israel’s June 12 Attack on Iran?

By Larry C. Johnson | December 9, 2025 

With the benefit of hindsight, we’re all geniuses. The Wall Street Journal article, Inside Ukraine’s Daring Operation Spiderweb Attack on Russia (published December 8, 2025) details the operation’s planning as a 18-month effort starting in late 2023, with significant activities ramping up in 2024. While the piece emphasizes the full timeline’s secrecy and oversight by President Zelenskyy and SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk, it highlights 2024 as a pivotal year for infiltration, testing, and logistics preparation. I am more interested in what it does not state outright — i.e., that Ukraine relied heavily on Western intelligence, meaning the CIA and British MI-6, in planning this operation.

The attack took place on June 1st, 2025 and, despite a flood of Western propaganda touting it as a tremendous success, it was a tactical and strategic failure — i.e., it did not damage Russia’s ability to continue its offense in Ukraine. But here is the question of coincidence… Two weeks later, Israel launched the decapitation attack on Iran, which also failed to topple the Iranian government and cripple the Iranian military, who promptly retaliated. Do you think it is just a coincidence that Israel and Ukraine used similar tactics — i.e., launching drones from within Russia and Iran to attack strategic targets? I do not.

Let’s take a look at the timeline of Operation Spiderweb as laid out in the WSJ article.

December 2023: Planning begins under direct oversight of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Initial focus: Smuggling disassembled drones, batteries, and explosives into Russia via borders (e.g., Belarus, Black Sea routes) and commercial trucking networks. Goal: Target Russia’s strategic bomber fleet to disrupt missile launches on Ukrainian cities. Hmmm… If the SBU was involved then so was foreign intelligence.

Early 2024 (January–March): Initial scouting and prototype testing. Ukrainian operatives conducted reconnaissance of target airbases (e.g., Olenya, Dyagilevo) using commercial satellite imagery and smuggled spotters, according to the WSJ. In my opinion, an audacious operation like this would also require imagery from Western intelligence. The WSJ is mute on that point. The article notes that early experiments with “spider nest” launch mechanisms—disassembled FPV drones (Osa quadcopters) hidden in truck roofs— were tested in simulated Russian environments near the border. This phase reportedly involved ~20 commandos refining smuggling routes via Belarus and the Black Sea, with failures (e.g., a test drone malfunction) leading to redesigns. The WSJ article conveniently ignores the likely role that the territories other than Ukraine, such as Khazakstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan also were used as infiltration points for this operation.

Mid-2024 (April–July): Infiltration buildup. The WSJ describes “web-like” networks expanding, with agents embedding in Russian trucking firms to map logistics. Over 100 drones were smuggled in parts during this period, reassembled in hidden workshops (e.g., Bryansk region sheds). A key activity was recruiting unwitting Russian truckers (e.g., via bribes or coercion) for transport, with the article citing intercepted FSB chatter revealing early suspicions but no disruptions. Zelenskyy approved budget reallocations (~$50M) for Western tech integration (e.g., Starlink relays). What do you think are the chances that some of this money was siphoned off by Zelensky and his intel bubbas and sent to their overseas retirement accounts?

Late 2024 (August–December): Final rehearsals and positioning. Intensive dry runs simulated the June 1 strike, focusing on simultaneous launches across time zones. The piece highlights a December 2024 “dress rehearsal” near Ivanovo, where signal jamming countermeasures (AI autopilots) were validated. By year-end, all 117 drones were prepositioned, with operatives establishing safe houses. The article quotes an anonymous SBU officer: “2024 was the spider spinning its web—silent, patient, invisible.”

January–May 2025 Infiltration phase: Ukrainian agents (150+ operatives, including commandos and drone technicians) establish “spider nests” (hidden launch sites) across five Russian oblasts spanning three time zones. Drones (117 total, FPV models with Western tech like Starlink) are reassembled in disguised cargo (e.g., wooden sheds on trucks). Scouting identifies four primary airbases: Olenya (Murmansk), Dyagilevo (Ryazan), Ivanovo Severny (Ivanovo), and Belaya (Irkutsk/Siberia, 4,300 km from Ukraine). A fifth target (Ukrainka in Amur) is aborted due to a truck fire.

June 1, 2025 Execution: Coordinated strikes unfold over ~72 hours starting ~1 p.m. local time. Remotely activated truck roofs release drones, hitting ~40–50 aircraft (15–20 destroyed, including Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3 bombers, and A-50 radar planes; ~$2–7B in damage). Fires reported at all sites; Russia confirms attacks but claims minimal losses. Ukrainian operators control from Kyiv; no SBU fatalities, though two teams captured.

There is no denying that this was a sophisticated operation and, in my judgment, depended heavily on intelligence support from the US and the UK and, possibly, Israel. Why Israel? Because of the similarity of the tactics used in the attacks on Russia and Iran within a span of two weeks. Both were deep-penetration operations targeting high-value, hardened assets far from the front lines. Both required extensive intelligence support.

I also believe that the US played a significant role in coordinating the two attacks as part of a broader strategy to weaken both Russia and Iran. The planning for these operations were carried out in separate channels, but there was someone, or a group of someones, overseeing the broader strategic goals.

The publication of this article comes at a time when the Trump administration’s support for Ukraine is weakening. I don’t rule out the possibility that the CIA, who has an enormous investment in Ukraine, is working to undermine Trump’s efforts to secure a peace that will come at Ukraine’s expense. I do not believe that some intrepid reporter thought that this would be a swell story to tell and that it was published now just because the WSJ had nothing better to report. I believe this is part of a unending effort by the Deep State to try to pump life into Project Ukraine, which is now on life support and fading fast, by pushing a narrative that Ukraine is far from defeat.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Will Europe heed America’s warnings over ‘civilizational erasure’?

By George Samuelson | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 10, 2025

A new national security document released by the Trump administration last week warned that Europe is facing civilizational suicide and will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less” due to illegal immigration that has made European powers militarily vulnerable.

The 33-page document, titled National Security Strategy, lays out President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy agenda and argues the United States should focus its efforts on securing the Western Hemisphere.

The document’s section on Europe begins with a brief mention of some of the continent’s best-known perennial problems, including “insufficient military spending” and “economic stagnation” before saying that Europe’s real problems “are even deeper.”

Europe’s economic decline takes a backseat to the real prospect of what DC policymakers refer to as “civilizational erasure,” caused in part by “migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife,” it said.

The document also mentioned the censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence that are happening across the 27-member bloc.

Just last week, the European Commission slapped a massive fine against X (formerly known as Twitter) in a ham-fisted effort to censor Elon Musk’s social media platform, while exactly one year ago the eastern European nation of Romania was thrown into chaos after the far-right pro-Russian populist Călin Georgescu had his presidential victory annulled due to – yes, you guessed it – ‘Russian interference’ and other supposed electoral irregularities.

Just before the Romanian elections, Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov made a startling claim that the head of France’s foreign intelligence agency Nicolas Lerner asked him to ban far-right conservatives on his platform ahead of the country’s elections, a request he says he flatly refused.

The conclusion the document makes in light of these and other dangerous developments was straightforward: if present trends continue, “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

This is a serious concern for the United States, of course, plagued as it also is with rampant illegal migration. How can the United States and the European Union remain reliable allies when there could eventually be a yawning chasm separating the two powers? After all, in just a few decades the European Union may be comprised of majority non-European civilians who may be tempted to question whether they view their friendship with Washington in the same way as those who signed the NATO Charter.

Looked at from such a perspective, it is obvious why the Trump administration is adamant that ‘Europe remain European,’ despite the fact that the chances for that happening are about zero.

Critics responded to the document’s central thesis by saying it is espousing “anti-Semitic” conspiracy theories, such as the “Great Replacement Theory” that says White people are being deliberately replaced in the Western hemisphere by immigrants from majority non-White nations, particularly from Africa and the Middle East.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly slammed the comparison, calling it “total nonsense.”

The devastating impacts of unchecked migration, and those migrants’ inability to assimilate, are not just a concern for President Trump, but for Europeans themselves, who have increasingly noted immigration as one of their top concerns. These open border policies have led to widespread examples of violence, spikes in crime, and more, with detrimental impacts on the fiscal sustainability of social safety net programs.

Such a grim reality comes as no surprise to many people, least of all former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s primary architect of mass migration who admitted one decade ago that multiculturalism was a “sham” that does nothing to improve a society.

“Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a ‘life lie,’ or a sham,” she said, before making the empty promise that Germany “will reduce the number of refugees noticeably.”

Although those remarks may seem uncharacteristic of Merkel, she was only repeating a sentiment she first voiced five years earlier when she said multiculturalism in Germany had “utterly failed.”

“Of course the tendency had been to say, ‘Let’s adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other.’ But this concept has failed, and failed utterly,” she said in 2010. Why Merkel ever imagined that things would not turn out exactly as they did remains one of the great mysteries of modern European politics. Or perhaps she did know, but completely lacked the political will to resist the insurmountable pressure she was facing at the time. It is no surprise that the EU elite were very much in favor of open borders, as many remain so today.

Whatever the case may be, one other thing is worth noting about this document – Moscow has expressed favor with its provisions.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that the changes “correspond in many ways to our vision”.

He also welcomed language about ending “the perception and reality of the NATO military alliance as a perpetually expanding alliance”. Moscow has long voiced its opposition to NATO expansion, citing its national security concerns.

At the same time, Peskov cautioned that the position of what he called the U.S. “deep state” – a term Donald Trump has used to accuse officials who he believes are working to undermine his political agenda – may differ from Trump’s new security strategy. Time will tell.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Honduran president accuses Trump of ‘election manipulation’

Al Mayadeen | December 10, 2025

Honduran President Xiomara Castro accused US President Donald Trump of direct interference in her country’s presidential elections, condemning what she termed election manipulation in Honduras’s disputed presidential race.

The controversy centers on the November 30 presidential election, where vote counting has been plagued by repeated computer system failures that have delayed final results. Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura currently holds 40.53 percent of votes, followed closely by right-wing candidate Salvador Nasralla with 39.16 percent, according to the National Electoral Council. Both candidates significantly outpace Castro’s left-wing Libre party candidate, Rixi Moncada.

Nasralla has challenged the results as fraudulent, claiming he actually leads by 20 percent and demanding a comprehensive recount. Speaking at a rally, Castro praised voters’ determination but alleged the election was marred by threats, coercion, manipulation of the preliminary results system, and tampering with voter intentions.

Castro specifically accused Trump of interference, noting his threats of consequences if Hondurans voted for Moncada. Trump openly endorsed Asfura as a “friend of freedom” while dismissing Nasralla as merely “pretending to be an anti-communist.”

In a stunning move, Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year US prison sentence for facilitating the trafficking of hundreds of tons of cocaine.

More than a week after voting concluded, thousands of ballots with irregularities await review. The Libre party has called for total election annulment and urged protests, while election officials have until December 30 to declare a winner under Honduran law. The Trump administration maintains the election was fair and rejects calls for annulment.

Trump’s unprecedented election meddling

Trump’s involvement in Honduras represents an extraordinary breach of diplomatic norms. Days before the election, he issued explicit warnings that the United States would cut off financial support if Asfura lost, stating on Truth Social that the US would not throw “good money after bad” if a candidate he deemed “communist” took power.

The Trump administration employed Cold War rhetoric, labeling Moncada and Nasralla as “communists” or “borderline communists” allied with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Beyond aid threats, Trump leveraged the possibility of mass deportations and blocking remittances, which constitute approximately 25 percent of Honduras’ GDP.

Moncada noted that text messages were circulated warning voters that December remittances would not arrive if the wrong candidate won, creating panic in a population heavily dependent on these funds.

The impact proved measurable. Ricardo Romero Gonzales, who runs an independent polling company, reported that Nasralla held a nine-point lead before Trump’s endorsement. After Trump intervened, the candidates reached a virtual tie. Roughly one-third of Hondurans have family in the United States, making Trump’s threats particularly potent.

José Ignacio Cerrato López, a 62-year-old retiree, told the New York Times that he initially planned to vote for Nasralla but switched to Asfura after Trump’s statement. “Trump said he was going to make things worse,” Cerrato López explained, citing fears about deteriorating bilateral relations.

The Trump corollary: A new doctrine of hemispheric control

Trump’s Honduras intervention exemplifies what his 2025 National Security Strategy terms the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Unlike the original 1823 doctrine preventing European colonization, Trump’s version asserts US rights to intervene directly in Latin American domestic politics to prevent influence by “non-Hemispheric competitors,” specifically China, or ideologies deemed hostile to US interests.

Under Castro, Honduras severed ties with Taiwan and established relations with China in 2023, opening the door for Chinese infrastructure investment. By backing Asfura, Trump aims to install a government that will reverse or freeze these projects, viewing Asfura as the “checkmate” to Beijing’s regional influence.

A pattern of historical intervention

Trump’s interference continues a century-long pattern of US meddling in Honduras, often called the quintessential “Banana Republic” due to historical dominance by US fruit companies.

During the 1980s Reagan administration, Honduras became known as “USS Honduras,” serving as the staging ground for the proxy war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. The CIA trained Battalion 316, a death squad responsible for kidnapping, torturing, and disappearing nearly 200 activists.

More recently, the 2009 military coup against President Manuel Zelaya, who had moved closer to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, received tacit US support. While the Obama administration officially condemned the coup, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to designate it a “military coup,” allowing aid to continue.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

The National-Security Establishment’s Message to Americans

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 9, 2025

It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: “We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

There are lots of commentators in the mainstream press pointing out the manifest illegality of intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately killing people on the high seas who U.S. officials are saying have violated the U.S. government’s drug laws. They are pointing out that the killings amount to state-sponsored murder. Under U.S. law and under the U.S. Constitution, federal officials are not permitted to kill people who are suspected of violating drug laws. Law-enforcement personnel are required to instead take them into custody, secure a grand-jury indictment, and prosecute them in a court of law, where they have the right to a lawyer, a jury trial, and other procedural guarantees.

But remember: This isn’t the DEA we are talking about. This is the U.S. national-security establishment — that is, the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial empire, the CIA, and the NSA— we are talking about. Once they become a law-enforcement agency for the drug war, everything changes. That’s because they are not bound by the same rules as regular federal law-enforcement agencies. They are not bound by any rules whatsoever. That’s what the Pentagon is reminding every American with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean.

Once the U.S. government was converted into a national-security state after World War II, the new national-security establishment — specifically, the Pentagon and the CIA — automatically acquired the power of assassination. Recognizing this reality, the federal judiciary made it crystal clear that it would never enforce the Constitution against the Pentagon’s and CIA’s omnipotent power to assassinate people, including American citizens.

Thus, no one could do anything about the national-security establishment’s plots to assassinate people like Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Cuban president Fidel Castro, Dominican Republic leader Rafael Trujillo, Chilean general Rene Schneider, and, more recently, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

There was also nothing that anyone could do about the coups that would very possibly leave foreign leaders dead, such as Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, and Chilean president Salvador Allende.

There was also nothing anyone could do about the national-security’s establishment’s participation in international assassination rings, such as Operation Condor.

The message has always been clear: “We can kill anyone we want, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Our power over you is total and complete. Accept it and get used to it.”

The message became clearer when they took out President John F. Kennedy, who had taken them on, and then crammed down American throats the “lone-nut, magic-bullet” theory of the assassination, which was always about as lame, inane, and ridiculous as labeling drug-war suspects “terrorist enemy combatants” or, for that matter, the use of scary WMDs to justify a war of aggression against Iraq, or some “attack” on the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a deadly, destructive, and senseless war in Vietnam. But Americans have always been expected to buy it all, no matter how ludicrous, and many of them deferentially have.

More recently, we shouldn’t forget their assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. They were American citizens, not foreigners. It was another powerful message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Accept it, embrace it, and get used to it. And don’t forget to thank us for our service.”

It’s probably also worth mentioning the federal judiciary’s deference to the authority of the national-security establishment to take American citizens into custody simply by labeling them as “suspected terrorists,” torture them, incarcerate them for the rest of their lives without a trial, and, no doubt, even execute them. That’s what the Jose Padilla case was all about.

So what if those drug-war killings in the Caribbean are illegal, as those commentators in the mainstream press are saying? What difference does it make? Everyone, and especially the national-security establishment, knows that nobody can do anything about it. That’s the powerful message that the U.S national-security establishment is sending to the American people: “We can illegally kill anyone we want, including Americans, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. We are in charge. We have total and complete control over you because we can kill you whenever we want, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

After all, who is going to prosecute the Pentagon and CIA killers? The Justice Department? Don’t make me laugh. The Justice Department is subordinate to the Pentagon and the CIA. The Congress? Again, please don’t make me laugh harder. Congress has long deferred to the power and majesty of the national-security establishment, especially when we consider the large number of loyal and “patriotic” military veterans and CIA officers serving in Congress. The federal judiciary? When have they ever done anything about the national-security establishment’s assassinations or, for that matter, its torture and indefinite detention camp in Cuba?

Make no mistake about it: As comforting as it might be to Americans that those illegal drug-war killings are taking place “over there” against Latin American foreigners, the fact is that the national-security establishment’s omnipotent power to kill suspected “narco-terrorists” extends to everyone right here in the United States. When the right time comes to demonstrate this point to American citizens, my hunch is that we will see lots of shocked, frightened, deferential, silent, dependent, and even supportive American sheep.

December 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Epstein, Dershowitz, and the secret war to discredit Mearsheimer-Walt Israel lobby study

By David Miller | Press TV | December 9, 2025

In 2006, Jeffrey Epstein exchanged emails with his lawyer, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, in an attempt to support Dershowitz’s criticism of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who had just published a groundbreaking essay on the Israel lobby.

Some commentators argue that this incident ironically confirms the Israel lobby thesis by revealing the lobby’s backlash against the essay. But does it really?

Recently released emails reveal that convicted sex offender and Israeli intelligence agent Jeffrey Epstein collaborated with Dershowitz to discredit the landmark 2006 study by Mearsheimer and Walt titled ‘The Israel Lobby’, which was later published as a book the following year.

In early April 2006, Epstein received multiple early drafts of an article by Dershowitz titled “Debunking the Newest — and Oldest — Jewish Conspiracy.” In this piece, Dershowitz, who also served as Epstein’s lawyer, accused Mearsheimer and Walt of recycling “discredited trash” from neo-Nazi and so-called “Islamist” websites, alleging they authored a modern counterpart to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zionists’.

Epstein responded enthusiastically to Dershowitz’s email, writing, “terrific… congratulations.”

Part of the email exchange between Epstein and Dershowitz

Later, Epstein received another message from Dershowitz’s email address asking him to help circulate copies of the attack article. Epstein replied affirmatively: “Yes, I’ve started.”

While Mearsheimer has spent his entire career at the University of Chicago, his co-author Stephen Walt has been a professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School since 1999.

Epstein and Harvard

Epstein was a powerful figure at Harvard, having spent years cultivating relationships at the university and donating over $9 million between 1998 and 2008.

Despite being convicted on sex charges involving a minor in Florida, Epstein visited Harvard more than 40 times afterward. The New York Times reported in 2020 that, although Epstein had no official affiliation with the university, he maintained his own office, key card, and Harvard phone line.

Following an internal investigation, Harvard placed Professor Martin A. Nowak on paid administrative leave due to findings related to Epstein. Nowak had received significant donations from Epstein and had provided him with office space and access.

His suspension was lifted in March 2021, and he remains in his position today.

Epstein positioned himself as a fixer and patron for prominent academics, including Dershowitz and economist Larry Summers, who was then Harvard’s president.

Summers recently apologized for his connections to Epstein and announced he would “stop teaching and step back as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.”

At the time, Epstein also served as trustee and president of the family financial office of Jewish billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose foundation donated nearly $20 million to the Kennedy School between 2000 and 2006. The Wexner Foundation’s contributions supported core operating expenses and funded a visiting scholar program that allowed ten officials from the Zionist regime to attend the Kennedy School annually for a one-year master’s degree.

Leslie Wexner is one of the most influential supporters of the Zionist colony. In 1991, he co-founded the Mega Group, a philanthropic organization of Jewish billionaires that channels significant resources to support the colony’s agenda.

The group reportedly maintained contacts with the Israeli spy agency Mossad and was described by Israeli intelligence officials as a vehicle for influence operations in the United States.

Among its initiatives, the Mega Group supported the creation of the racist Birthright Israel program, a radicalization effort targeting Jewish schools, and the revitalization of Hillel International, a Zionist student organization that now operates over 1,000 branches worldwide, including 50 outside the US.

According to a 1998 Wall Street Journal report, when Hillel needed refinancing in 1994, a small group of members committed to a combined $1.3 million annual donation over five years. Later, six members contributed $1.5 million each to help launch the $18 million Partnership for Jewish Education, funding matching grants for Jewish day schools.

Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, a former hedge fund manager and Mega Group member, also worked on the Birthright Project, which aims to send any young Jew born worldwide to Israel if they wish.

In this context, Epstein’s collaboration with Dershowitz appears to link key figures in the ‘Israel lobby’ to efforts aimed at discrediting the very idea of a powerful Israel lobby. Stephen Walt, who remains at Harvard, declined to comment on it.

Mearsheimer remarked, “I’m not surprised to see these emails, because Dershowitz and Epstein were close and both have a passionate attachment to Israel.”

Many have noted the irony of these emails’ emergence, as they seem to confirm the central thesis of the 2006 Israel Lobby study. In their later book, the lobby was described as “a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape foreign policy.”

The landmark study by Mearsheimer and Walt published in 2007.

But does the book’s definition truly match the reality described above? The Mega Group, founded in 1991 by Les Wexner, former CEO of the lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret, and publicly revealed in 1998, reportedly includes around 50 billionaires and influential Zionist figures such as Les Wexner, Charles and Edgar Bronfman, Charles Schusterman, Ronald Lauder, and Laurence Tisch.

These oligarchs, along with Epstein’s involvement as part of the Mega Group, suggest layers of Zionist manipulation and intrigue.

However, these particular elements are not central to Mearsheimer and Walt’s book. Among the oligarchs mentioned, only the Bronfmans receive fleeting mention in the book’s index. The bulk of the book focuses on a narrowly defined Israel lobby that exerts political influence.

Notably, the top ten most cited organizations in the book, with one exception, are all Israel lobby groups rather than formal components of the broader Zionist movement.

This distinction highlights a more focused analysis in the book, which does not fully encompass the wider network of Zionist power and influence exemplified by groups like the Mega Group.

In order of citation (number of citations in brackets), they are:

  1.  AIPAC (47);
  2. ADL (30);
  3. Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (25);
  4. WINEP (19);
  5. Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) (15);
  6. Israel Policy Forum (13);
  7. JINSA (11);
  8. American Jewish Committee (10)
  9. Americans for Peace Now(7)
  10. Christians United for Israel (CUFI) (7)

AIPAC, the ADL, the Conference of Presidents, the AJC, Americans for Peace Now, and Christians United for Israel are traditional Israel lobby groups.

Others like WINEP, IPF, and JINSA also engage in lobbying but are more commonly considered think tanks. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the only group on the list formally affiliated with the American Zionist Movement, the US branch of the World Zionist Organization.

Notably, two of the four major pillars of the Zionist movement are entirely absent from the book’s index: the American Zionist Movement itself and the Jewish National Fund, the US affiliate of the agency responsible for Zionist land appropriation.

The other two pillars, the Jewish Agency for Israel, which organizes settlers to occupy stolen land, and the Jewish Federations of North America, which raises funds to support settlers and land acquisition, appear only three times and once, respectively.

It’s important to emphasize that, beyond the ZOA, the American Zionist Movement includes around 45 other member organizations, only a handful of which are mentioned in the book’s index.

This suggests a narrower focus in the book that does not fully address the broader institutional structure of the Zionist movement.

Grant Smith’s partial corrective – Big Israel, 2016.

In a partial corrective to the narrow focus of Mearsheimer and Walt, Grant F. Smith’s Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America, published in 2016, takes a much broader approach.

Smith argues, “Some identify only one organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as ‘the lobby’ citing its influence on Capitol Hill. This is wrong. Many interconnected organizations channel their power and influence through AIPAC in Congress.”

“Hundreds more ‘mini-AIPACs’ coordinate with AIPAC and their own national offices to lobby state legislatures to pass model legislation and spending authorizations benefiting Israel—without publicly disclosing most of their lobbying activities. Others operate quietly, policing what is allowed to appear in mainstream news media and channeling ‘hush money’ to civil rights organizations to keep them out of grassroots pro-Palestinian movements,” he adds.

This represents a significant advance over the more limited Mearsheimer and Walt thesis, as it casts a much wider net, encompassing a full range of Israel lobby groups.

Smith’s analysis extends beyond lobbying efforts to include organizations that police public discourse and manipulate civil society.

However, even Smith’s work shows some myopia. While he analyzes an impressive 674 separate organizations, far more than Mearsheimer and Walt, the scope still doesn’t fully capture the entire network.

Smith’s data reveal an eye-popping estimated budget of over $6.7 billion in 2020, supported by more than 14,000 staff and over 350,000 volunteers, underscoring the vast scale of these interconnected groups.

Data from Smith, 2016, reproduced on Powerbase.

The impressive number of groups documented in Big Israel still represents only a small fraction of the broader Zionist movement, which includes the Israel lobby and many additional organizations not captured in the data. Here’s a brief overview of some major omissions:

1. Many formal Zionist groups engaged in education, indoctrination, and radicalization are missing. For example, the American Zionist Movement (AZM), the official US affiliate of the World Zionist Organization, has 46 member organizations, only 13 of which appear in Big Israel’s data, leaving 33 unaccounted for.

2. None of the Israeli firms that disclose lobbying expenditures in the US are included. Between 2000 and 2023, 18 such firms reported spending over £30 million.

3. Eleven organizations—including the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization (WZO), and the NSO Group (makers of Pegasus spyware)—have registered as Foreign Agents between 2016 and 2023, disclosing spending over £161 million in that period.

4. Although two Chabad-Lubavitch foundations are included, official figures show around 1,274 Chabad-Lubavitch groups in the US (IRS data lists 1,313), many of which likely have ultra-Zionist agendas. Despite not being formally affiliated with the WZO, Chabad’s influence is significant and cannot be overlooked.

5. B’nai B’rith International, one of the oldest Zionist groups in the US and a former AZM member, is included in the data, but its youth wing, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO), is not. Together, the IRS data lists over 1,500 branches for these two groups across the US.

6. Hillel, the Zionist student organization, appears only once in Smith’s data and not at all in the index of The Israel Lobby, despite now having over a thousand branches.

7. Lastly, numerous Zionist family foundations that fund many groups in the wider movement,l likely numbering in the hundreds or thousands, are excluded. Some notable examples include Adelson Family Foundation, Allegheny Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund, Castle Rock Foundation, Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Klarman Family Foundation, Paul E. Singer Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and William Rosenwald Family Fund.

Given these seven brief examples, which are in no way exhaustive, it is likely that there are in excess of 10,000 Zionist organisations in the US in total. It would not be surprising to learn that this was a very conservative figure. Therefore, a full analysis of the US Zionist movement needs to do a lot more to explore even the formal and informal elements of the movement.

Missing oligarchs, family foundations, spooks and infiltrators

Taking both The Israel Lobby and Big Israel together, they largely overlook the critical role of oligarchs, foundations, and intelligence-linked operatives who use blackmail and threats to exert influence.

They omit the involvement of Zionist intelligence agencies themselves, including the extensive network of Sayanim (Mossad’s “little helpers”), and make no mention of Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency that has deeply penetrated the tech and media industries.

Ultimately, The Israel Lobby focuses almost exclusively on the most visible elements of Zionist infiltration, ignoring the movement’s powerful engines of radicalization—responsible for producing thousands of radicalized genocidaires each generation.

These engines include organizations like the Mega Group (through Jewish education initiatives shown to increase support for the Zionist colony), Hillel, and Birthright Israel.

The books also fail to address the massive infiltration of Zionists throughout the US government apparatus, a process ongoing since at least the Reagan administration in the 1980s.

The involvement of Laurence Tisch in the Mega Group further illustrates the close ties between Zionist oligarchs and infiltration efforts. His granddaughter, Jessica Tisch, is a noted Zionist extremist and the current Commissioner of the NYPD.

The NYPD notably opened an office in the Zionist colony in 2012 and collaborates with Zionist entities, as do many other US police departments, some of which receive training both in the US and in Israel.

Lessons from the Epstein/Dershowitz affair?

The affair reveals that Zionist radicalization and infiltration are far more serious and organized than the “informal” and “loose” coalition described by the Israel Lobby thesis.

Just because coordination is covert or hidden does not mean it doesn’t exist. This is evident in the evolving stories about coordination efforts led by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and its network of front groups and private companies, including the recent campaign coordinated by Voices of Israel through its proxy, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, funded partly by a US Zionist foundation.

We also see this in the revelations about the Sayanim, Mossad’s global network of helpers, and Unit 8200’s infiltration of technology firms. Above all, the infiltration of governmental institutions across the US, UK, and numerous other countries underscores the deep and systematic nature of this network.

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s ‘Waiver On, Waiver Off’ Game at Chabahar

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – December 9, 2025

In recent months, Washington has swung from revoking to restoring India’s sanctions waiver for operating Iran’s Chabahar port. The ‘waiver on, waiver off’ routine, however, comes with a clear strategic intent.

The move is not just leverage over New Delhi as trade talks loom; it’s also a signal to Central Asian states that their economic futures — including access to Chabahar — depend on aligning their foreign policies with US preferences.

In September 2025, the United States pulled the rug out from under one of India’s most carefully nurtured strategic ventures: the Chabahar Port in Iran. Long viewed by New Delhi as a critical gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Chabahar suddenly became a high-stakes chess piece in Washington’s policy game. On September 16, the US Department of State announced it would revoke the special exemption granted in 2018 under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA), with the revocation taking effect September 29. Overnight, Indian companies, shippers, insurers, and banks involved in the port’s operations were cast into uncertainty: their assets could be frozen, their access to the US financial system curtailed, and their commercial contracts imperilled.

This move did not occur in isolation. At the same time, New Delhi was itself involved in a high-stakes game with the US over bilateral trade. Specifically, it is resisting US pressure to halt oil imports from Russia. By targeting Chabahar, Washington signaled that it was willing to leverage unrelated strategic projects to enforce compliance elsewhere, effectively turning Indian economic and geopolitical interests into bargaining chips. Yet the situation shifted quickly: reports emerged on October 28 that Indian firms had halted Russian oil imports, and the very next day, the US issued a fresh six-month waiver, allowing Chabahar operations to continue without immediate penalty.

The rapid “waiver on, waiver off” cycle exposes the transactional and unpredictable logic of US sanction policy. A project that represents over $120 million in Indian investment, long-term regional connectivity, and painstaking diplomacy is reduced to a geopolitical pawn, its fate dictated less by commercial or developmental imperatives and more by Washington’s strategic calculus. This particular calculus, however, is not meant for India only. The politics of granting and restricting waivers is also tied very closely to Washington’s relationship with Central Asia.

The Central Asian gamble

Chabahar port is important not only for India but also for the landlocked states of Central Asia, offering a rare direct link to the Indian Ocean and a potential route to India that bypasses Pakistan. Several Central Asian states have expressed interest in using Chabahar Port for this purpose. Tajikistan has emerged as the most active player, signing a formal cooperation agreement with Iran in early 2025 and committing to developing a logistics hub with terminals and storage facilities. Uzbekistan has held discussions about utilising the port for trade and storage. While a lot of this is still far from being fully operational, there is little denying that a major roadblock has been the US sanctions.

In the same vein, the waiver also signals to Afghanistan, where India has recently become very active. The Taliban regime is currently involved in a border standoff with Pakistan. Kabul has suspended its trade with Pakistan, and the reopening of this route remains highly uncertain. At the same time, Washington has been pressuring the Taliban to come to terms with handing over the Bagram airbase to the US military for its potential operations against China. In this context, if Afghanistan wants to continue—and even expand—its trade with Central Asia and other countries beyond the region, i.e., with India itself, as an alternative to Pakistan, its best route goes through the Chabahar Port.

Beyond this, the US decision to grant the waiver—and unless it restricts it again in the future—also puts it in a position where it can influence several other regional trade and connectivity projects, including the Trans‑Caspian and broader International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) projects. By granting or revoking waivers, the US is signalling that it can create opportunities and or introduce uncertainty for companies and governments contemplating investment or trade through corridors that touch Iran.

For example, Central Asian states considering cargo flows via Chabahar—or via the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and beyond—must now weigh the risk that US sanctions could suddenly be applied, making insurance, financing, or banking services problematic and/or unavailable. Even if the Trans‑Caspian route itself does not pass through Iran, the interconnected nature of regional logistics networks means that a disruption at Chabahar could ripple across supply chains, raising costs or forcing alternative routing through Russia, Turkey, or China.

In essence, the waiver policy acts as a geopolitical lever. Its application is meant to put pressure on countries and companies so that they align their foreign and trade policies with US preferences, discouraging full exploitation of alternatives like the Trans‑Caspian corridor that could reduce American influence. The US has, for some time, been trying to expand its geopolitical footprint in Central Asia. Its ability to strangulate or allow Chabahar helps it signal its continued relevance. On the whole, the uncertainty imposed by such sanctions creates a risk premium, slows governmental and private investment, and subtly nudges regional actors toward pathways that the US finds strategically acceptable, even if they are less efficient or commercially less viable.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »