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Veteran War Correspondent Reveals How to Tell When Analysts Talking About Iranian Losses Are Lying

Sputnik – 04.03.2026

“In every war, destroying a launcher is a very popular claim because it implies that the Israelis have reduced future attacks. This is a domestic and international message that ‘we have achieved the main objectives of the military campaign’,” says Elijah Magnier, a prolific journalist and war reporter covering Middle East conflicts since the 80s.

“But the standard of evidence it’s another matter,” the veteran observer told Sputnik.

“What is credible is before and after imagery. So showing an identifiable launcher vehicle, and they have to be authentic, not a decoy. And then geolocated strike footage, with clear launcher signature, and [a] pattern of fire decline consistent with launcher attrition,” Magnier explained.

“The Americans and the Israelis can claim that they’ve hit a ‘suspected’ launch site and they’ve used this term a lot, which means there is no proof of a launcher present, or there are strikes on empty pads or decoy equipment,” Magnier stressed.

Pointing to the intensity of Iran’s counterstrikes in the first days of the conflict, and its adoption of the strategy learned during the June 2025 war that enemy defenses start running out of interceptors after a few days of intense fire, Magnier says the real measurable sign of whether enemy attacks are degrading Iran’s capabilities will be whether its missiles continue firing after ten days or more.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Veteran War Correspondent Reveals How to Tell When Analysts Talking About Iranian Losses Are Lying

Did Kuwait really shoot down three US F-15s?

There are some technical holes in the Pentagon’s official “friendly fire” story

RT | March 4, 2026

The US military wants you to believe that its worst day of air combat losses since the Vietnam War was the result of a “friendly fire” mishap. But do some digging and that story begins to look far-fetched.

Three US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait on Monday morning in what US Central Command (CENTCOM) called “an apparent friendly fire incident.” All six crew members – two per plane – ejected safely and suffered no serious injuries.

The incident made Monday the joint worst day of losses for the US Air Force since the Vietnam War. Only once in the five decades since Vietnam has the USAF lost three fighter jets in a single day: when two F-16s and an F-15 were shot down over Iraq on the second day of Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

CENTCOM claimed that the F-15s “were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses.” While this story may well be true, some inconvenient plot holes suggest that someone else may have been responsible.

The Patriot problem

Video footage suggests that the F-15s suffered hits to their engines, indicating that they were taken out by heat-seeking missiles.

However, none of Kuwait’s surface-to-air missiles operate this way. Kuwait has 35 M902 Patriot missile batteries, and a smaller number of HAWK, NASAMS, and Italian-made Spada 2000 systems. Those systems all fire radar-guided, not heat-seeking, missiles.

The Patriot’s PAC-3 missiles physically slam into the center mass of incoming jets or ballistic missiles, while the missiles fired by Kuwait’s other systems detonate a fragmentation warhead in close proximity to incoming threats. Used against jets, they typically detonate between the target’s fuel tanks and cockpit.

The trails typically left behind by PAC-3 and similar missiles were not visible in the sky at the time the F-15s were shot down.

Assuming Kuwait used its most numerous and modern Patriot systems against the F-15s, the fact that all six crew members survived is a statistical anomaly. No pilot, friend or foe, has ever survived a successful Patriot missile interception. Ukrainian fighter pilot Aleksey Mes was killed when his US-supplied F-16 was shot down by a US-supplied PAC-3 missile in 2024, while both the pilot and navigator of a British Tornado reconnaissance jet were killed instantly when a PAC-3 missile hit their aircraft over Iraq in 2003.

Friends and foes
Patriot and other US air defense systems are equipped with IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) technology. IFF transponders on US warplanes broadcast an encrypted signal that ground radars can read, indicating that the aircraft is friendly and preventing the release of weapons against it. It is extremely unlikely that American jets would have been operating over Kuwait without an IFF connection with Kuwaiti air defense, although such mistakes have happened before: the deaths of Aleksey Mes in 2024 and the British crew in 2003 were blamed on failure by air and ground crews to share IFF codes before missions.

Clues in the statements

CENTCOM’s statement includes one potentially telling line, stating that at the time of the shootdowns, “attacks from Iranian aircraft” were ongoing. The presence alone of Iranian jets does not mean that they were responsible for shooting down the F-15s, just that the possibility cannot be excluded at present.

CENTCOM said that “Kuwait has acknowledged this incident,” but a statement by the Kuwaiti Defense Ministry made no mention of any friendly fire. Instead, it said that “several” US aircraft crashed, and that there were “a number of hostile aerial targets” overhead at the time.

Who shot down the F-15s?

There are two competing theories. CENTCOM’s “friendly fire” explanation is not technically watertight and isn’t backed up by Kuwait, but remains possible. The Pentagon is currently investigating the incident, and has promised that “additional information will be released as it becomes available.”

On the other hand, the Iranian military has claimed responsibility for downing at least one of the jets. In a statement on Monday, the Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base said that “an F-15 fighter jet [belonging] to the intruding US army which intended to attack the country has been targeted by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Air Defense and brought down.”

Located in Tehran, Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base coordinates air defense activity between Iran’s army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

It is possible that Iranian interceptors could have reached the skies over Kuwait, but Iran’s medium-long range air defense systems also fire large radar-guided missiles that typically obliterate enemy aircraft. Therefore, it may seem an obvious conclusion that the planes were taken down by short-range heat seeking missiles like the R-73 or R-74 projectiles used by the Iranian Air Force. However, with only official statements from both sides to work with, RT cannot speculate as to whether this was the case.

Two wartime constants are that mistakes happen, and militaries lie about their wins and losses. For the US, neither explanation paints a positive picture: it either lost three jets in one day to incompetence and confusion between its personnel and their allies, or to an enemy deemed inferior and on the verge of defeat. For now, the truth remains shrouded in the fog of war.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Comments Off on Did Kuwait really shoot down three US F-15s?

Trump’s Iran war will put him in the history books, but…

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2026

Did Marco Rubio just admit that Israel dragged the U.S. into the war with the first strike? The whole world is just waking up and realizing that the war is based on no strategy whatsoever. How very Trump.

Churchill’s comment about history being kind to him, because it will be him (Churchill) who will write it, isn’t going to apply to Donald Trump, who is the first U.S. president to succumb to Israel goading America into a war with Iran.

Things aren’t going very well for Israel and the U.S. in the war with Iran. Even though Iran is pounded by missiles daily, it would seem that no real effect has been felt on its military infrastructure which, itself, continues to have significant success against its enemy. While the GCC countries quickly run out of U.S. air defence missiles, many of their citizens are waking up to a new reality: that many of the missiles and bombs exploding are, in fact, not even coming from Iran but have been placed by Mossad agents whose objective is to drag these countries into the war. Despite days passing now and rumours of this happening on social media, it is unlikely this will happen, though, as those leaders are afraid that Iran’s main ace – an obliteration of the oil infrastructure – has yet to be played, which would wipe out those countries’ economies within hours. And yet there is some cruel poetic justice being played out here, as those same GCC countries went to great lengths before the war kicked off to underline their lack of support, on a practical level, for Israel and the U.S. It has transpired that at least one leader, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, did at least goad the U.S. on to go ahead with the attack. The Iranians didn’t need to read this in the British broadsheet Daily Telegraph, as their own intelligence probably tipped them off about such a discussion, but it is hardly surprising now that they still consider the GCC countries as potential enemies and retain the threat of destroying their oil fields.

The problem for Trump is not Marco Rubio admitting that it was Israel that went ahead with the Iran strikes, therefore being the one who made the decision to start the war, which makes Trump look ineffective and a junior partner in the bigger plan; it’s not even that Rubio’s comments about needing to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability make Trump’s earlier bombing fiasco in June of last year look ridiculous and present the U.S. president as a liar and a fraud. The real problem for Trump is not even the constant, repetitive nature of a chaotic communications strategy where someone like Rubio seems to be working from a different set of messages.

Trump’s real problem is two-fold. One, he is not in command, but Bibi is. And two, even if he was in command or had some influence over the outcome or the methodology, he doesn’t have a strategy. For Israel, having no strategy is not a problem, as American lives are ten a dime for the Zionists. All Bibi wants to do is to go to war with Iran, with or without a strategy, and use American money and lives in the process. The foaming-at-the-mouth zeal of these Zionists overrides reason and rationale, and by the time everyone realizes this, it’s too late. Yes, Israel showed great capability on the battlefield twice in ’67 and ’73, but that was in a regional war with only Egypt and Syria to contend with. Iran is a different case altogether, and the plain truth is that Mossad’s impressive intelligence gathering, which tracks individuals and located Iran’s leader at his home compound, has not been put to good use to work out the realities of how long the country can sustain bombing. Israel and the U.S. have seriously underestimated Iran’s military capability and overestimated their own. The fact that the U.S. is already taking THAAD and Patriot missile systems from South Korea and shipping them to the region is an indication that despite Trump talking of weeks, in reality the truth is that he was probably told by Bibi that it would all be over in a couple of days. America’s own bases in the Middle East have also proved to be woefully under-protected, and the anger by local people in many of these GCC countries that they have been left so vulnerable and that they are often victims when those bases are struck is boiling over now and giving elites there a new problem to contend with, as a political uprising is now a reality.

It would seem almost all of the planning was ill-advised in the first place and based on wishful thinking and ignorance. The greatest example of this is the assassination of the Supreme Leader. The Israelis no doubt told Trump that this would be a critical factor in the regime collapsing, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. It has galvanized support even more behind the regime to fight this war once and for all and to reset history. Iranians are tired of being a convenient enemy for successive U.S. presidents and the Zionists who don’t even follow their own script on why they want to go to war with Tehran in the first place. Of all of Trump’s blunderings in his second term, this one will be remembered for generations to come. The worry, of course, is that the same miscalculation will be mulled over for the nuclear option, probably by the Israelis first, when they see that slowly but surely Israel is being erased from the map. The astonishing takeaway from the last few days, though, is not the buffoonery of Trump but the sombre strategizing by Iran and in how much it holds back.

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s Iran war will put him in the history books, but…

The murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 4, 2026

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed ‘Operation Epic Fury’, attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters’ murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children’s desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child’s shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media – only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting, “These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how “rescue” promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood.”

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

International reaction: Silence

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children’s lives don’t merit Western media outrage.  Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC’s report, which describes the massacre as a “reported” strike on a school, which “Iran has blamed the US and Israel” for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel’s crimes. The US is “looking into reports.” Israel is “not aware.” Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing, “Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.”

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: “the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control.” The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist “moderates” east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no “Israel says.”

CNN ran the headline “A girls’ elementary school was hit in Iran. Here’s what we know.” Its video report not only doesn’t mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel’s claiming  Gaza’s Shifa hospital was a “Hamas base”, and staging weapons as “proof”), CNN claims the children’s school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN’s report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as “proof” of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn’t a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was “looking into reports of the incident,” and the Israeli army as saying it was “not aware of any IDF operations in the area.” Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized – if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

Since the February 28 Minab school massacre, US-Israeli strikes have attacked still more civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring more Iranian civilians.

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran’s Enghelab Square he’d seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT’s Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

I was in Gaza at the time and saw the immediate aftermath of the initial bombings, the chaos and destruction in every direction. Shifa hospital, Gaza’s main hospital, was an endless circuit of cars and ambulances bringing the dead and injured.

That was 17 years ago, and Israel has repeated this brutal tactic over and over again in Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran. We’ve seen this US-Israeli strategy of terrorizing the people by widely attacking civilian infrastructure repeatedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, to list only some of the targeted regions – as well as being replicated by the Kiev regime in the Donbass. The intent is always destabilization and instigation of fear in hopes of causing the people to turn against their government. It never works, but it invariably kills countless innocent civilians and flattens infrastructure.

To add further insult, days after the girls’ school massacre, Melania Trump presided over a UN Security Council meeting on children in conflict. You can’t make this insanity up. The wife of a US president who is co-waging a war on children in Iran feigns concern over children in conflict.

The US and its bought media have so little regard for Iranian lives that they don’t even bother to try to explain, much less apologize for, the murders of the 168 schoolgirls. Outrageously, it is as if they simply never existed to Western media.

But it is true that every war crime, every murdered child, fuels support not only to their government but to resistance in general. And Iran is resisting and retaliating in ways that will make the US wish it hadn’t co-started this war on the people of Iran.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

March 4, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Comments Off on The murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

How Germany became Israel’s enabler-in-chief

By Tarik Cyril | RT | March 3, 2026

Say what you will about Germany’s current ‘elites’, but they are consistent: Once they don’t give a damn about international law, elementary fairness, rudimentary human decency, and, last but not least, basic logic, they really won’t quit before their country’s reputation is ruined as it has not been since 1945. Hyperbole, you think? Can it really be that bad, you wonder?

Leave it to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and company to achieve what seems almost impossible. For almost two-and-a-half years, not one but two German governments have been, in effect, complicit in Israel’s continuing Gaza genocide. Under former Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the centrist Social-Democrats – otherwise remembered for gutless evasion when US ex-president Joe Biden announced, in essence, that he was going to blow up Nord Stream – as well as under the unusually dishonest Merz from the centrist Christian-Democrats, Berlin has supplied Israel with arms (and probably misled the International Court of Justice about it), diplomatic cover, legal support, media propaganda, and the often brutal suppression of protests against Israel’s crimes.

Indeed, recently a UN special rapporteur has identified the “use of anti-terrorism laws to restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights” as “a primary concern” in a report warning that the “space for freedom of expression is shrinking” in Germany.

Against this awful and shameful background, the fresh war of aggression launched by Israel and its American auxiliaries – that’s the technically correct term for troops serving a foreign nation – could, conceivably, have been a very late wake-up call. Perhaps, an eternal optimist may have thought, the sheer brazenness of the attack will make even Berlin hesitate. Nope. Instead, Friedrich Merz and official Germany in general have radicalized their virtually nihilistic denial of law, ordinary ethics, and common sense.

One day after the beginning of the Israeli-American war of aggression, Merz took the lead and set the tone by going public with a perverse misreading of the situation. Starting by labeling the heinous assault – launched, according to US and Israeli custom, under the cover of ongoing negotiations – “massive military strikes,” Merz acknowledged that they had killed members of the Iranian government (which he, of course, caricatured as a “Mullah” and “terror regime”) including “the religious leader” Ayatollah Khamenei. If you expected the slightest sign of disapproval or even just discomfort at these cold-blooded murders of high government officials, you don’t know Friedrich Merz yet.

Instead the German chancellor – or in his terms, perhaps, ‘vassal regime’ leader? – highlighted the need to help German tourists stranded in the warzone and to protect public order in Germany by preventing “antisemitic and anti-American attacks.” Translation from Berlin officialese: by ramping up suppression of all and any criticism of Israel and America.

Then, after a catalogue of Israeli and American propaganda talking points against Iran – nuclear this, ballistic that… you know the drill – reproduced with the earnest assiduity of an eager pet pupil, Merz went on to assure “many Iranians” that his Berlin regime shared their relief at, in effect, being properly bombed, again.

In general, the chancellor’s speech was a textbook example of perpetrator-victim inversion. Clearly approving of the Israeli-American assault, Merz had the chutzpah to sternly demand that Tehran must “at once” stop its “indiscriminate attacks.” Those, of course, do not, actually, exist. Because Iran is acting in clear and obvious self-defense – the only legitimate reason, apart from a UN mandate, for resorting to military force – and, as before, its counter-strikes at those attacking it are still remarkably selective and restrained.

To be fair even to Merz, at least, he was a little less disingenuous than usual. He frankly, if in stilted language, admitted that he could not care less about international law. Friedrich, to be honest, we have always known that much about you – despite your hypocritical invocation of “rules” and “values” whenever you feel like going after Russia again – but it’s nice you’re coming out so openly now.

But Merz got back to his usual, absurdly devious self very quickly. Because, you see, it’s Iran that is to blame when Friedrich Merz treats international law as utterly dispensable. At least according to Friedrich Merz, who explained that all those beautifully law-based measures taken regarding and, really, against Iran before this fresh war, did not work. Oh, Tehran, really how uncouth of you! Neither devastating sanctions, nor the US cancelling the JCPOA agreement, nor ongoing assassination and subversion campaigns waged by Israel and its friends, nor last year’s ‘12-day’ war of aggression made you submit.

For, clearly, according to Berlin logic, these must be those international-law based operations Merz was referring to. Make it make sense. Now, in his defense, for a man who sees no problem with his US and Polish ‘allies’ and Ukrainian dependents blowing up Germany’s vital infrastructure, the Iranian insistence on not being bullied and defending national sovereignty must be truly incomprehensible. So maybe, Merz isn’t really morally and legally perverse but just a tad out of his very shallow depth.

By the way, Merz’s justifying a war of aggression by Iran not having bent the knee even after decades of “comprehensive sanctions packages” is likely to be noted with great interest in Moscow: If that’s how German elites see the world now – first we sanction you and then, if you still don’t knuckle under, we have a de facto right to attack you – the Russian leadership is certain to draw the obvious conclusions. Again, Merz probably didn’t even understand the insanely destabilizing implications of what he was saying. But they are there, nonetheless.

In short, Merz’s address was stunningly absurd and a horrific moral and intellectual failure, a disgrace for his country. It should be noted, however, that polls show that this atrocious line of unconditional compliance with both Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal apartheid Israel and Donald Trump’s Make-Israel-Greater US is not shared by all Germans. On the contrary, 57% of respondents of a poll are against the attack. Less than a third – 29% – approve of it. Likewise, even in Germany, a preponderant majority – 83% – has finally learned to consider Israel’s actions in Gaza unjustified: In the fall of 2023, when Israel started its genocide, 50% of respondents thought they were justified.

Such polls are nothing to be proud of: German society as a whole is still far too wrongheaded and submissive, when it comes to Israel’s crimes and those of the US, too. But if you know the level of crude media propaganda and relentlessly one-sided indoctrination that Germans are subject to, these numbers still show that for the nation – unlike for its “Atlanticist” elites – there may be some hope.

For now, however, the failure that Merz represents is still in control. He himself has gone to Washington to flatter Donald Trump by praising his latest crime to his face. Netanyahu, meanwhile, may well be in Berlin, in which case German politicians, judges, prosecutors, and police are criminally liable for failing to arrest the war criminal, as the warrant of the International Criminal Court unambiguously requires. Even if his plane parked in Germany is only part of a deception operation, Berlin’s taking part in such a ruse is also morally repulsive and possibly criminal, too.

Germany as a whole has failed the tests of both the Gaza genocide and the wars of aggression against Iran. Its “elites” are a disgrace represented all too well by its chancellor. That is a sad thing to have to state. Yet there is no chance of political and moral renewal without facing this fact. We are back to an old question: What would it take for Berlin to grow a conscience?

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on How Germany became Israel’s enabler-in-chief

US commanders tell troops Iran war ‘God’s divine plan,’ Trump anointed to ‘ignite Armageddon’: Report

The Cradle | March 3, 2026

Independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported on 2 March that numerous US service members have lodged dozens of complaints saying senior officers are calling the war on Iran part of “God’s divine plan,” with claims that US President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to spark Armageddon.

“President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” one combat-unit commander allegedly told troops during a readiness briefing, according to a complaint submitted to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaint is one of more than 110 logged within 48 hours, spanning over 40 units across at least 30 military installations, with soldiers telling the MRFF that commanders are describing the Iran campaign as divinely ordained and tied to the Book of Revelation.

The Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) stated they were writing on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew, and described the remarks as “so toxic and over the line” that they shocked those present.

The email sent to Larsen argued that such rhetoric “destroy[s] morale and unit cohesion and [is] in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.”

MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said the over 110 reports share “one damn thing in freaking common” – what he called “the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders” who view the war as “biblically-sanctioned” and a sign of the approaching “End Times.”

Weinstein warned that commanders celebrating how “bloody all of this must become” in order to align with “fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology” may be violating constitutional and military law.

He stated that any personnel advancing “blood-soaked, Christian nationalist wet dreams” in official capacities should be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The reports also coincide with a pattern of senior US figures framing geopolitical policy through explicitly biblical narratives.

In a February interview with Tucker Carlson, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee ignited diplomatic backlash after asserting that Israel holds a “biblical right” to territory stretching from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq – an expanse spanning much of West Asia often called ‘Greater Israel.’

Pressed on whether it would be acceptable for Israel to claim the land based on the “original deed” described in Genesis 15, Huckabee replied, “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has repeatedly invoked “crusade” language to frame what he describes as a civilizational struggle against Islam.

In his 2020 book ‘American Crusade,’ he wrote that “today’s American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against the Islamists” as those who “pushed back the Muslim hordes” in the 12th century.

Hegseth has also drawn scrutiny for several tattoos, including the Crusader rallying cry “Deus Vult” – meaning “God wills it” – and a more recent Arabic inscription reading “Kafir,” translated as “infidel,” inked on his bicep.

In a 2025 address to a gathering of around 800 US generals and admirals, Hegseth called on military leaders to abandon “stupid rules of engagement” in favor of “maximum lethality,” telling those uncomfortable with his directive to resign.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on US commanders tell troops Iran war ‘God’s divine plan,’ Trump anointed to ‘ignite Armageddon’: Report

Iran UN: Timing not suitable for any form of negotiation with US

Al Mayadeen | March 3, 2026

Iran’s UN envoy in Geneva dismissed the possibility of talks with the United States amid ongoing aggression, reaffirming Tehran’s defensive military focus and highlighting efforts by the US and “Israel” to provoke attacks in neighboring states

Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Reza Bahreini, stated on Tuesday that “the only language to deal with the United States now is the language of defense.”

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva in response to questions from Al Mayadeen, Bahreini emphasized that Iran is currently focused on defense, adding that the timing is not suitable for any form of negotiation.

No engagement with US officials

He denied any engagement with US officials, describing the actions of US President Donald Trump as “fabrication and lies,” and added, “We are accustomed to the lies he fabricates.”

Bahreini stipulated that any change in the course of events would require an end to hostilities and a guarantee that such aggression against Iran would not be repeated.

Regarding timing, he stressed the importance of this core issue, stating, “Our defense system will respond with great force and seriousness to reach a stopping point for this aggression and to ensure that no new attack or aggression occurs against Iran in the future.”

When asked about Iran’s relationship with countries hosting US bases after the war, Bahreini responded, “We are neighbors and will remain neighbors, and we are friends and will remain friends.”

War is between US, ‘Israel’, and Iran only

He added, “This is not an attack launched by those countries against Iran, and what we are doing is not attacks against those countries. As I told you, this is a war between Iran, the United States, and Israel.”

Bahreini confirmed that Tehran’s military forces “have been ordered to exercise extreme caution and vigilance in attacking and striking US military bases only, without harming any non-military sites in those countries,” emphasizing that “this is what happened.”

He highlighted that “no harm occurred to non-military sites in neighboring countries,” and explained that “everything Iran did, and the attacks carried out by our military forces, were solely and exclusively against US military bases.”

Bahreini also expected neighboring countries “to understand what we are doing, because under no circumstances can we allow those bases to be used to conduct military operations against Iran,” adding that neighboring countries must not permit aggressors to use their territory against Iran.

He concluded by underscoring the principles at stake. “This is the principle of friendship, the principle of peaceful coexistence, the principle of neighborhood that our neighbors and we must all maintain and preserve.”

‘Israel’, US planning to incite neighboring countries on Iran

Bahreini additionally warned that “Israel” and the United States are attempting to carry out operations “against civilians or terrorist acts in neighboring countries and then attribute them to Iran, to provoke these countries against us.”

Bahreini added that he is “confident they will not succeed if neighboring countries show sufficient vigilance and are aware and prepared for any scenario, for any bad scenario that the United States and Israel may execute.”

He also reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to international law, stating, “We reiterate that our military forces remain committed to the principles of international law and the principles of international humanitarian law.”

Corroborating Bahreini’s remarks on provocations, on The Tucker Carlson Show, journalist Tucker Carlson reported that authorities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia had arrested “Mossad agents who were planning on committing bombings in those countries,” calling the development “weird” and questioning the logic behind it.

“Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in two Gulf countries, which are also being attacked by Iran? Aren’t they on the same side?” Carlson asked, before answering himself: “Israel wants to hurt Iran and Qatar and UAE and Saudi and Bahrain and Oman and Kuwait.”

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran UN: Timing not suitable for any form of negotiation with US

Iran no longer has any reason for restraint

By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | March 3, 2026

Tehran may well refuse US-Israeli pleas for a ceasefire until the region is transformed.

Both Trump and Netanyahu find themselves in an extraordinarily vulnerable position. They have given their greatest ideological opponent the means and the justification to extract maximum damage from them, as well as ceasefire conditions that would truly make this conflict a turning point in modern history.

President Trump clearly believed, at Netanyahu’s encouragement, that assassinating Iran’s Leader would pressure it to soften its negotiating position on the nuclear file. What he did instead was to shatter nearly a decade of Iranian restraint in the face of relentless provocation.

Trump has rendered both Washington and Tel Aviv more desperate for an end to the war than Iran. In addition to retribution for the assassination of the Leader of the Revolution, Tehran is calling in the debts of Trump’s “maximum pressure strategy” in full.

Ever since Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, Tehran has attempted to limit the rate of escalation, especially following the assassination of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and others across various arenas since October 2023’s Al-Aqsa Flood.

Netanyahu’s domestic political interests have been the opposite, deliberately prolonging the genocidal onslaught in Gaza, expanding it to the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and from 2024, Iran, when it bombed the Damascus consulate. He followed up by assassinating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and much of Lebanese Hezbollah’s leadership.

By June last year, he had attained his life-long goal of drawing Washington directly into hostilities with Iran when it bombed the Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Now he has obliterated the ultimate red line with the airstrike that martyred Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei.

As US and Israeli military sources themselves acknowledged, even before the outbreak of war, stockpiles of missile defense munitions were critically low. The 12 days of direct war between Iran and “Israel” last year cut deeply into the regime’s Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling systems before Washington stepped in to impose a ceasefire.

Now that Iran and Hezbollah are unleashing their arsenal, the ability of Israel, US forces and GCC states to avoid catastrophic blows is being measured in days rather than weeks. The global supply of these munitions has been further strained by shipments sent to Ukraine and will be insufficient to resupply the West Asian theatre well before the end of this week. This will critically expose western assets not just in the region but globally, for years to come.

As of just the third day of the war, maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is effectively at a standstill. In Saudi Arabia, Ras Tanura, the most crucial oil refinery in the world, has sustained impact from drones and halted operations.

Even without direct hits on regional energy infrastructure, GCC oil producers will be forced to halt production within three weeks due to a lack of storage capacity. President Trump’s favorite metric of economic performance, the stock market, is staring down the barrel of an energy shock unseen since 1973, and which may well exceed that crisis. The frail state of the US economy, combined with the global blowback to its tariff policy, could easily tip into recession or even depression. This would be shattering to the petrodollar system as well as the very status of the US Dollar as the global reserve currency.

Once Iranian missiles are unimpededly striking vital military and economic targets in “Israel” daily and inflicting mass casualties on US forces from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea, the Islamic Republic will be able to impose extraordinary conditions merely in exchange for a halt to the war. It will plausibly be able to demand the unconditional lifting of all Western sanctions, not just against itself, but against Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza. It will also be able to dictate the end of Netanyahu’s regional escalation spree, forcing “Israel’s” withdrawal from Gaza, Lebanese and Syrian territories, and re-establishing a balance of terror that ensures an indefinite calm, even if a limited one.

Alternatively, it could, in emulation of Ansar Allah in early 2025, agree a separate ceasefire with Washington, leaving them a free hand to continue full-scale bombardment of “Israel”.

Assuming the intensity of hostilities doesn’t achieve this first, it could also demand the definitive withdrawal of US forces from the Persian Gulf, ending America’s hegemony over the region and the world by extension.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran no longer has any reason for restraint

US ‘stonewalls’ Gulf calls for more interceptors as supplies quickly run out: Report

The Cradle | March 3, 2026

Washington has been “stonewalling” its Gulf allies’ requests for a replenishment of air defense missiles, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported, coinciding with intensifying Iranian attacks on US bases and assets across the region.

“At least one Gulf state that has come under attack from Iran asked US officials about replenishing supplies that have been depleted since the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, but was brushed off,” a former US official familiar with the matter told MEE.

The former official said a separate Gulf state “responded to US requests to use air bases in their country with enquiries about the US’s commitment to their air defense systems,” and added that Washington’s Arab allies will “be left wanting if they expect new supplies of interceptors.”

“Whatever munitions were produced in the last couple of months, we have shot several years’ worth of production in the last few days,” the source went on to say.

The report also says pressure is growing on Arab states to join Israel and the US in their war against Iran.

Kelly Grieco at the Stimson Center think tank said, “The UAE has now burned through a significant chunk of an interceptor stockpile that took years to build.”

“US defenses focus on Israel … There is a sense of disappointment in the Gulf with our ally and partner, if we are describing that correctly, which focuses on Israel security and stability of Israel without attention to defending the Gulf states which are being subjected to Iranian attacks,” Saudi political analyst Suleiman al-Aqili told Al Jazeera.

Iranian missile and drone attacks against Israel, US military bases across the region, and major energy assets in the Gulf and Iraqi Kurdistan have not stopped since the start of the US-Israeli war. The Strait of Hormuz has also been closed.

The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet base, in particular, is among the targets being relentlessly pounded. Six US soldiers have been killed over the past few days [as per US sources].

Iraqi resistance factions allied to Tehran have also joined the fight, along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Despite the mass buildup of US defenses and Israel’s sophisticated network of interceptor systems, Iranian missiles continue to make direct hits on Israeli targets.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on US ‘stonewalls’ Gulf calls for more interceptors as supplies quickly run out: Report

US running out of stand-off munitions, copies Iranian drones to compensate

By Drago Bosnic | March 3, 2026

The American and Western style of warfare relies heavily on achieving complete air dominance, followed by devastating bombing attacks designed to cripple the military infrastructure of a targeted country. If that doesn’t work, the US/NATO then resorts to unadulterated terrorism, targeting noncombatants and civilian infrastructure. During the early stages of the (First) Cold War, this approach was used against Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and numerous other countries. However, it never resulted in a strategic victory. On the contrary, it only galvanized the resistance of the local populace, strengthening their resolve in the face of American/Western terror bombing strategy.

This military doctrine suffered a failure over Indochina, where the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese people resulted in a crushing and humiliating defeat for the invading Americans. With the help of Russia, which sent thousands of military advisors and the most advanced air defense systems of the time, the Vietnamese military managed to shoot down approximately 12,000 US aircraft, saving millions of lives in the process. Just like in Korea, Washington DC employed an indiscriminate terror bombing of Vietnamese cities. The estimates for the total number of casualties go upwards of 5 million for Indochina, as American occupation forces heavily bombed the entire region.

This is particularly true for Laos, which suffered devastation on 98% of its territory. From 1964 to 1973, the USAF launched nearly 600,000 sorties, dropping well over 2,000,000 tons of ordnance on the unfortunate country. This equates to one aircraft load every eight minutes, 24/7 for 9 years, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history. Laos formally wasn’t even a party to the US-orchestrated conflict, but the Pentagon still dropped more bombs on it than on Germany and Japan during WWII, combined! With a population of only 3 million at the time, this equated to roughly one ton of bombs per person. This terror campaign left more than 80 million unexploded cluster munitions and other ordnance.

Needless to say, these American weapons kill civilians to this very day, well over half a century later. In addition, much of the land remains unusable, contributing to poverty in affected regions. The only reason the situation wasn’t as bad for Vietnam is that it had Russian-made SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems and fought back with unrelenting resolve. The US aggression on Indochina resulted in a change of tactics and doctrine, with the Pentagon placing all of its bets on precision warfare in subsequent conflicts. By the end of the (First) Cold War and afterwards, the US launched dozens of truly unprovoked wars of aggression, using this to great strategic effect.

However, even after adopting the new strategy, civilian casualties kept piling up. Tens of thousands were killed in US aggression on Serbia/Yugoslavia in the 1990s, culminating with the 1999 bombing. One would expect fewer civilian casualties as military technologies became more advanced, but this actually got worse in the Middle East, where US wars of aggression killed at least five million people from 2001 to 2021. The latest American war is no less bloody, with the USAF killing up to 200 Iranian schoolgirls on the first day of aggression on Iran. However, this resulted in yet another “Vietnam effect”, with the Iranian people demonstrating resolve to fight back and defend their country.

The USAF lost at least three “invincible” F-15 jets, while the Iranian military continues pounding American bases all across the Middle East. The Pentagon is already worried that it will soon run out of costly stand-off munitions, which were designed for “shock & awe” wars that would knock out a country in days or weeks. However, it’s perfectly clear now that’s not going to happen, so Washington DC is looking for alternatives to maintain a prolonged war. This includes the shameless copying of Iranian “Shahed 131/136” drones, dubbed LUCAS (Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System) in American service. These will be used to replace the exorbitantly expensive “Tomahawk” cruise missiles and similar weapons.

Much unlike the US, Russia and Iran jointly upgraded the latter’s “Shahed” designs, with Moscow providing significantly enhanced guidance systems, electronic warfare (EW) countermeasures, larger warheads, etc. The Kremlin is now also using this experience to improve its own long-range precision-strike capabilities, including with new cruise missiles that are more affordable than current munitions. Iran is also likely to receive such technologies from Russia, aiding its resistance efforts against US aggression. The stakes are high, especially for Donald Trump, whose political “skin” is in the game, particularly in a midterm election year.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on US running out of stand-off munitions, copies Iranian drones to compensate

How Close Were Iran Negotiations Before Trump Flipped the Table?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | March 3, 2026

Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium for civilian use, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told the U.S. delegation with frustration in the final round of talks before the bombs started to fall on Iran.

And the United States has an “inalienable right” to stop you, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff answered with hubris.

Araghchi is right; Witkoff is wrong. Though the U.S. and its partners have presented the public with a war that was caused by Iran’s refusal to compromise on its civilian nuclear program, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has “the inalienable right to a civilian program that uses nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”

That Iran was enriching uranium for peaceful purposes has been verified by the multiple consecutive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that followed the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran and by the 2022 U.S. Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review and, most recently, by the 2025 U.S. Annual Threat Assessment.

Despite their “inalienable right,” Iran made the major concession of negotiating significant limitations on its nuclear program that could have met U.S. redlines. Instead, the negotiations were interrupted by bombs falling on Iran in an attack that was neither necessitated by the immediate need to defend against an attack nor sanctioned by the Security Council. Negotiations on Iran’s legal nuclear program were answered by an illegal war.

Though the United States seems to have been willing to negotiate if negotiation meant Iran capitulating to its demands, they seem to have been unwilling to negotiate, not only on guarantees against a nuclear weapons program, but on the demand that Iran give up its enrichment program entirely. It was the American demand that Iran could not enrich uranium to any level for the next ten years that finally triggered Araghchi’s frustrated cry that Iran has the “inalienable right” to enrich uranium for civilian use.

Iran offered the Americans a compromise that could have been received by the U.S. as, what former Iranian nuclear negotiator and Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian called in an email correspondence, “a historical JCPOA PLUS deal.” But Washington said no.

There is a long tradition of the U.S. passing up on peace plans and saying no, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

There were reportedly three areas in which Iran was unwilling to sufficiently capitulate to American demands. The first was zero enrichment. The U.S. demanded no enrichment for the next ten years. Axios reports that, in its place, the “U.S. offered Iran free nuclear fuel for a civilian nuclear program.” When Iran refused, the U.S. said it was “a big tell.”

Had the U.S. sent diplomats with a historical understanding of the issue they were negotiating, they would have known that there were other interpretations. Iran has always made clear that they would not accept a situation like the one offered because of bitter historical experience.

On more than one occasion in the past, when Iran relied on others to provide its enriched uranium, the U.S. exercised its power to block it and deprive Iran of enriched uranium. When Iran began its nuclear program, they were only enriching uranium to the 3.5% required by its power reactors to produce energy. For the 19.5% enriched uranium needed for medical isotopes for imaging and treating cancer and kidney disease, Iran relied on an agreement with Argentina to supply it. When the uranium was used up, Iran requested that the IAEA help it purchase more under that body’s supervision, which Iran has the right to do as a signatory to the NPT. But the United States and Europe put up roadblocks and prevented the purchase.

Two decades later, Iran again agreed in principle to a nuclear fuel swap that would send their low enriched uranium out of country to be returned as 19.5% enriched uranium for medical use. But it was a trick. The U.S. wanted all Iran’s uranium to be sent out at once before any uranium would be sent back much later. The U.S. was trying to empty Iran of its uranium. When Iran offered a counterproposal of sending out smaller batches of low enriched uranium while receiving simultaneous small batches of uranium for medicinal use, the U.S. ignored the offer and the deal died.

When, one more time, Brazil and Turkey tried to broker a deal with similar simultaneous swaps, Iran agreed, but the U.S. ignored it and reprimanded Brazil and Turkey. On another occasion, when Iran turned to France for enriched uranium, the U.S. pressured them not to provide it.

Iran has learned that relying on others to provide enriched uranium leaves them vulnerable to the United States cutting them off and leaving them with none. Hence the vow that Iran would never again yield their right to enrich their own uranium for civilian purposes.

But Iran was willing to negotiate a deal that would ensure that there could never be a path for that low enriched uranium to become the highly enriched 85% uranium needed for a nuclear weapon. They offered layered options. Mousavian catalogued them for me:

“Iran had accepted coercion verification by the IAEA, to resolve all technical ambiguities, zero stockpile, dilute high-level enrichment, reduce enrichment level to below 5%, suspend the enrichment for some years and even to go for a regional consortium.”

There were three options on the table. In the first, Iran was willing to put itself under maximum inspections, to convert its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, and cap its enrichment at the 3.67% needed for a civilian energy program.

In the second, Iran was willing to limit their role in the enrichment cycle by becoming a member of a nuclear enrichment consortium. The consortium could include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and perhaps others. Enrichment would be capped at the 3.67% required for civilian use and monitored by the IAEA. Most importantly, a consortium would allow Iran to enrich uranium but deny it access to the full enrichment process by distributing various roles in the process across different member states.

There are also reports that Iran proposed suspending enrichment for three to five years and then joining the regional consortium.

In the most recent, according to Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who was mediating the most recent talks between Iran and the United States, Iran “agreed not to stockpile excess nuclear material that could be used to build a bomb.” Since Iran would use all of its low enriched uranium for civilian purposes, leaving none to stockpile for any further use, that would ensure “that Iran will never ever have the nuclear material that will create a bomb.” Albusaidi clarified that that meant “there would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling and full verification… by the IAEA.”

The pathway to a bomb was closed and a deal was “within our reach” when the bombs fell on Iran.

The other two areas of Iranian intransigence were over their program of military national defense. The United States insisted that Iran negotiate on its short and intermediate range ballistic missile program, but Iran refused. “We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles but the ability to make 100 of them a month,” an American official told Axios. Iran’s missiles are crucial to its national defense and possessing them is entirely legal. Every nation has a defense program, and at least thirty-one, including some that are potentially hostile to Iran, include ballistic missiles in that program, including the U.S. and several of its allies and partners, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Israel, Poland, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine. There is no legal argument for compelling Iran to end its missile program and no legal reason to go to war to force them to do so.

The final reason was Iran’s refusal to address its network of proxies. Stripping Iran of its ballistic missiles and its partners is stripping Iran of any ability to defend itself. And, again, there is nothing illegal in Iran supporting regional partners. And they are not the only one, as the training and financing of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a dissident Iranian opposition group, shows, to support proxy forces.

“A peace deal is within our reach if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there,” the Omani foreign minister said. But the United States did not allow the diplomatic space and opted, instead, for a war that violates the United Nations charter and hastens the death of international law.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on How Close Were Iran Negotiations Before Trump Flipped the Table?

War on Iran shifts to attrition phase: Bloomberg

Al Mayadeen | March 3, 2026

An analysis published by Bloomberg on Tuesday suggests that only days after open hostilities began, the confrontation between the United States and Iran has shifted into a prolonged war on attrition.

According to the report, waves of Iranian drones, particularly the Shahed-136, have continued targeting US military installations and infrastructure across the Gulf following the initial strikes launched by Washington and Tel Aviv. While Gulf officials claim interception rates exceeding 90% through US-supplied Patriot missile batteries, the economic imbalance of the battlefield tells a different story. Each PAC-3 interceptor costs millions of dollars, dramatically outweighing the comparatively modest cost of the drones they attempt to neutralize.

The disparity recalls lessons from previous conflicts, including the 12-day aggression on Iran in June 2025, where sustained barrages exposed the limits of even advanced air defense architectures. High-end Western interceptor systems can be placed under strain when deployed continuously against lower-cost aerial platforms. Analysts say this dynamic creates mounting financial and logistical pressure on US regional partners, raising persistent questions about the long-term sustainability of such defensive operations.

A strategic response to escalation

Observers cited in the report argue that Iran’s approach reflects deliberate operational planning rather than improvised escalation. By relying heavily on drones and calibrated missile deployments, Tehran appears to be managing its resources while imposing steady costs on foreign forces operating near its borders.

Kelly Grieco of the Stimson Center noted that an attritional approach “makes operational sense from Iran’s perspective,” suggesting Tehran is calculating that defensive stocks among US allies could be depleted while political pressure mounts across Gulf capitals.

Iran is believed to retain substantial reserves of ballistic missiles and loitering munitions. Reports indicate more than 1,200 projectiles have been launched since hostilities began, though heavier systems may be preserved for prolonged engagement. Analysts view this as evidence that Tehran is pacing its response rather than exhausting its capabilities prematurely.

Logistical Questions on Both Sides

Bloomberg also noted that Patriot interceptor supplies in some Gulf states, including Qatar, could last only days at the current rate of usage, prompting behind-the-scenes diplomatic engagement to prevent further escalation. Production of PAC-3 interceptors remains limited, while the more advanced THAAD systems operated by Saudi Arabia and the UAE are generally reserved for high-speed ballistic threats and involve even greater financial cost.

These concerns echo remarks made separately to CNN by Shashank Joshi, defense editor at The Economist, who warned that high-intensity exchanges could quickly expose vulnerabilities in advanced interceptor stockpiles.

“But my supposition is that, after about sort of another week of this, we would begin to see very, very serious shortages, particularly of the most high-end interceptor munitions,” Joshi said.

Joshi further indicated that a sustained campaign would likely extend beyond intercepting incoming projectiles to targeting missile production networks and supply chains inside Iran, an approach designed to degrade long-term replenishment capacity rather than merely blunt immediate attacks.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sought to limit expectations about an extended campaign, stating: “This is not Iraq, this is not endless.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested that military units were operating under standing strategic directives. “Our military units are now in fact independent and somehow isolated and they are acting based on instructions, general instructions given to them in advance,” he told reporters.

If exchanges continue at the current intensity, both offensive and defensive arsenals could begin thinning within weeks.

March 3, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on War on Iran shifts to attrition phase: Bloomberg

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