Former Head Of MI6 Admits That The U.S. And Israel Are Losing The Iran War
The Dissident | March 25, 2026
In an interview with the Economist, Alex Younger, the head of Britain’s MI6 from 2014 to 2020, admitted that Iran has the upper hand against the U.S. and Israel.
When asked, “Who has the upper hand right now, who is in a stronger position?”, Younger replied, “Iran”.
He went on to say “The reality is that the US underestimated the task and I think, as of about two weeks ago, lost the initiative to Iran”.
He added, “The Iranian regime has been more resilient than I think anyone would have expected. They took some good decisions actually as early as last June about dispersing their military capability and delegating the authority for the use of those weapons which has given them significant extra resilience against this incredibly powerful air campaign.”
Younger went on to say, Iran has “embarked on what’s technically called horizontal escalation i.e., firing rockets at anybody within range,” adding that this has “been a very good way of putting indirect price on the US” and has “sort of worked”.
He also said that Iran, “understood the significance of the energy war and held the Strait (of Hormuz) at threat,” which he noted, “globalized the conflict in a way that gives them some weapons.”
He also added that Iran is fighting “a war of existence” while the U.S. is fighting “a war of choice,” noting that this “imbues them (Iran) with more staying power than their US counterparts and they know that now and I think that really is giving them the whip hand”.
Along with this he noted that, “Even with just 10% of its initial drone stocks”, Iran can, “hold the straits at threat because these are not military people, it’s not a military audience you have to satisfy, it is people who own oil tankers and captains of oil tankers and that really does give them the whip hand.”
He concluded that “the options for the US and Israel are pretty limited and not great”.
Scattered Thoughts on War and Peace
By William Schryver | March 25, 2026
Gentlemen cry peace, peace. But there is no peace. The war has barely begun.
Though its position is untenable, the empire cannot slink away now.
As things stand, Iran et al. have won an overwhelming strategic victory. One that cannot be undone.
And everyone that matters in the world knows this to be true.
That said, a great many people have persuaded themselves that it is the mighty United States military that has achieved an overwhelming victory, and that the Iranians are an utterly “obliterated” foe.
And yet the Iranian missiles and drones keep their schedule, with only a fraction of the opposition they encountered in early March.
Israel — that vulnerable speck of a country — is getting pounded. Hard.
US/Israel air defenses have been reduced to a skeleton shambles.
The impressive Iranian defeat of US/Israeli radar capabilities is arguably the single most notable development so far in this war.
Meanwhile, the count of American manned aircraft downed by “technical problems” continues to grow, and Iran is shooting down more cruise missiles than they did early on.
Speaking of skeleton shambles, all the US bases in the region have been systematically degraded — some more than most.
The US Fifth Fleet has been effectively evicted from the Persian Gulf, and they won’t be coming back.
The USS Poopy Gerry, flagship of the US Navy, has now managed to limp back to Souda Bay to tally the damages, and determine whether or not she can make it all the way back to Norfolk without some tug boats standing by.
Watch and see: they’ll boldly claim they will have her “ready for action” in 18 months or so. But they won’t. And sometime in about 2030, an obscure Pentagon press release will announce that the star-crossed USS Gerald R. Ford, CVN-78, will be decommissioned, purchased by Baron Trump, and turned into a dockside casino.
Anyway, the Americans are convinced the Iranians are an easy mark to fall yet again for the “negotiation sneak attack” gambit.
I think it’s more likely the Iranians are worried the Americans will “chicken out” of their proclaimed intention to use “boots on the ground” to subdue Iran and achieve full control over the Strait of Hormuz.
I think the Iranians would like nothing more than for the US military to attempt a 10k soldier amphibious / airborne attack somewhere along the Iranian coastline — probably in conjunction with a half-dozen special forces raids at various “high-value” targets.
In any case, as two amphibious ready groups (4400 Marines) and an 82nd Airborne brigade combat team (3000 light infantry) continue to advance on the theater of battle, Washington is apparently going to send the mythically competent erstwhile invisible Vice President, the redoubtable young Achilles, JD Vance.
My sense is that Vance’s mission is an inherently disingenuous token gesture.
Vance will state the inherently unacceptable American terms; the Iranians will state theirs. Both sides will glare menacingly at each other, and fly back home.
The Iranians will continue to control Hormuz and launch drones and missiles throughout the region.
US troops will arrive on the scene, and barring some unlikely epiphany of reason, the Pentagon will launch an amphibious / airborne attack that will end in blood and ashes.
At least this is the trajectory of events as I currently perceive them to be.
Things could still go from bad to worse.
Iran Threatens to Close Red Sea to Shipping in Response to Invasion
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | March 25, 2026
If the US invades Iran, Tehran will act through its allies in Yemen to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
“If the enemy wants to take action on land in the Iranian islands or anywhere else in our lands or to inflict costs on Iran with naval movements in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman,” an Iranian military official told the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. “We will open other fronts for them as a surprise so that their action will not only be of no benefit to them but will also double their costs.”
“The Bab al-Mandab Strait is considered one of the world’s strategic straits, and Iran has both the will and the ability to create a completely credible threat against it.” The official continued, “Therefore, if the Americans want to think of a solution for the Strait of Hormuz with stupid measures, they should be careful not to add another strait to their problems and predicaments.”
Northern Yemen is controlled by Ansar Allah, who are allied with Iran. So far, Sanaa has not intervened in the war that is raging across the Middle East.
Ansar Allah has proven the military capability to close the Red Sea to shipping and also to fight the American military. In response to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, Sanaa closed the Bab al-Mandab Strait to US and Israeli-linked shipping.
Both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump attempted to break the blockade with massive bombing campaigns in Yemen. However, Ansar Allad was able to maintain the blockade while attacking Israel and US warships in the region with missiles and drones.
If Ansar Allah elects to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, it will add to the global economic crisis that was caused by the US and Israeli war against Iran. Since the surprise attack by the US and Israel on February 28, Tehran has significantly limited shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian threat comes as the US is moving forces to the Middle East that could be involved in ground operations inside Iran.
Iran in excellent position to prevail in war with US, Israel: John Mearsheimer
Press TV – March 25,2026
Senior political scientist John Mearsheimer says Iran has a good chance of dominating the ongoing war with the United States and Israel given the way the Islamic Republic controls the economic repercussions of the conflict.
Speaking to Piers Morgan Uncensored, Mearsheimer said the US and Israel failed to achieve their objectives in the aggression on Iran, which was to decapitate the government and force Iranians to submit to their demands in the first two or three days of the war.
He said, however, that the war has continued for nearly a month and the Iranians are now in a better position to dictate their demands since they control the flow of oil and other energy products from the Persian Gulf to other parts of the world.
“What’s happened here is that we did not achieve a quick and decisive victory and we are now in a long war, a war of attrition, and that’s a war that the Iranians prepared for and that’s a war that the Iranians are in an excellent position to prevail in,” Mearsheimer said.
He said if the United States decides to further escalate the aggression, it could face devastating responses from Iran that affect not only regional countries and American bases they host but also the entire international economy.
“They have the ability to go up the escalation ladder and tank the international economy.”
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, said on March 24 that he was considering holding talks with Iran to end the ongoing confrontation which many believe has put him in a very precarious position.
That comes as he has repeatedly claimed victory since launching the joint aggression with Israel against Iran on February 28.
Iran has yet to accept the US request for negotiations as authorities have indicated that the country will continue its reprisal attacks on US and Israeli positions while controlling the flow of oil in the Persian Gulf to ultimately punish the aggressors.
Iran warns US: Do not call your retreat an agreement
Press TV – March 25, 2026
Spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaqari, says the strategic power that the enemy boasted about has “turned into a strategic defeat.”
“If the self-proclaimed superpower of the world could have escaped this predicament, it would have done so by now. Do not call your defeat an agreement,” he said on Wednesday.
This comes as US President Donald Trump backed away from his 48-hour ultimatum to strike Iran’s power plants after the Islamic Republic warned that all energy and power installations in the region would be targeted in retaliation.
Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social media platform that the US and Iran have had “very good and constructive conversations over the past two days regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in [West Asia].”
A source familiar with internal discussions in Tehran said Monday that there has been no official contact between Tehran and Washington.
“The era of your promises is over. Today, there are only two fronts in the world: truth and falsehood. And every freedom-seeking pursuer of truth will not be deceived by your media waves,” Zolfaqari said.
The spokesman further questioned the extent of internal divisions among enemies, asking sarcastically, “Has the level of your infighting reached the point of negotiating with yourselves?”
Zolfaqari also delivered a stark assessment of regional economic prospects, asserting that neither past levels of US investments in the region nor previous energy and oil prices would return.
“Stability in the region is ensured by the powerful hand of our armed forces,” the spokesman said. “Stability through [our] power.”
He also made clear that no previous state of affairs would return unless “the very thought of taking [military] action against the Iranian nation is completely erased from your vile minds.”
“Our first and last word from day one has been, is, and will be: someone like us will not come to terms with someone like you—not now, and not ever,” he further said.
The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag
By Craig Murray | March 24, 2026
The notion that the Iranian state would discredit itself by choosing to attack an ambulance service in London is crazy. Iran has not even attacked any hospitals or ambulances in Israel. Iran has absolutely zero record of attacks on healthcare facilities. That is of course in stark contrast to Israel which specifically targets them in Gaza and Lebanon. The obvious revulsion of a UK public, that has been opposed to the war on Iran, at the destruction of the ambulances would far outweigh any possible gain. What precisely is the gain that Iran is supposed to have sought?
The organisation that, conveniently for the Zionist narrative, immediately claimed responsibility for the attack is Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. This is a group which simply did not exist until the US and Israeli attack on Iran, when it suddenly appeared fully formed and started causing small incidents of property damage to Jewish communities in Belgium and the Netherlands. From day one of its appearance, Israeli-backed think tanks and security groups instantly claimed to have linked it to Iranian militias.
These Israeli claims were first surfaced by regular Israeli security service outlet Joe Truzman of the “Foundation for Defending Democracy”, who makes a living from fronting Israeli claims that all the deaths in Gaza were Hamas.
The first online “evidence” of the existence of the group was on 9 March. On 16 March the entire Israeli Hasbara machinery in coordination went into overdrive on Harakat Ashab al-Yamin. Israel’s Diaspora Ministry issued a statement. So did Israel’s MFA. So did the Institute of National Security Studies. So did BICOM – the Britain Israel Communications Centre.
All on the same morning. At a time when Harakat Ashab al-Yamin had done nothing except allegedly start a small fire in Rotterdam. This frenzied publicity activity about this, by that point practically non-existent, group was prioritised by the Israeli state on the morning of some of the most intense missile and bombing attacks by Israel, the USA, Iran and Hezbollah of the war.
There are some real red flags about its appearance. The first, as eloquently exposed by Lowkey, is that in its manifesto it uses the term “The Land of Israel” to refer to Palestine. No Islamic group, ever, referred to “The Land of Israel” and the phrase in Arabic is not even what complicit Gulf Arab elites use – they use just “Israel” or “The State of Israel”. “The Land of Israel” is unnatural in Arabic and evidently written by a Zionist and translated into Arabic.
The other strange thing is that this allegedly Iranian group doesn’t use Farsi. Iranians don’t speak Arabic. Nor would any Iranian government-aligned group ever talk of “The Land of Israel” in Farsi.
To add further to this, the group’s published logo appears to be AI-generated and the Arabic lettering on it is wrong. “Islamic” is rendered incorrectly and some of it doesn’t mean anything coherent at all – it is gibberish, presumably constructed by AI asked to produce a shield with Arabic lettering.
Unlike the Zionist propaganda-pumping UK media, Dutch media asked real experts and was openly sceptical of the claims about the group:
“Political anthropologist Younes Saramifar from Amsterdam’s VU university said the group was “completely unknown” until this month. “Based on what I have seen, this is absolutely not an organised and coherent group,” he told NOS before the Zuidas explosion.
Saramifar said language mistakes in statements accompanying the videos suggest the makers are not native Arabic speakers and may not be part of a trained militant network.”
It is another remarkably happy coincidence that the group chose to attack the London ambulances just hours before Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley was due to address a fundraising event for the Community Services Trust, the group which receives enormous payouts from the British Treasury for consistently exaggerating the scale of antisemitism in the UK.
Thankfully, nobody has ever been hurt in any of the “attacks” by “Harakat Ashab al-Yamin”. Isn’t that fact in itself a bit strange for a state-backed terror group? The ambulances in London were the worst damage ever done in the name of the alleged group.
To believe this is a false flag, it is not in any way necessary to believe that the ambulance organisation itself was complicit. Whether or not the ambulances were new, old or decommissioned is irrelevant to the bigger picture. It is certainly true that the ambulance service has for years done a good job, and does not only help Jewish people. There is nothing sinister or wrong about the existence of the ambulance service.
I am unhesitating in condemning all attacks on the Jewish community in the UK. Including those perpetrated by Mossad.
Strait Of Hormuz closure brings Empire to brink
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | March 24, 2026
Since the criminal Zionist-American war on Iran erupted, the Strait of Hormuz has remained stubbornly closed. Despite Donald Trump’s dire threats, Tehran has brought maritime traffic to a total standstill. The Empire has futilely scrambled to assemble an international coalition to reopen the economically vital waterway ever since, only to be rebuffed. NATO allies have been slammed for making a “foolish mistake”, by refusing to help militarily secure the Strait. In truth, there is no hope it can be forcibly reopened in the foreseeable future.
As Bloomberg reports, while discussions are ongoing among G7 members over potential methods of restarting trade in the Strait, the general consensus among US allies is this can’t happen until hostilities ease, or outright end. Bank of America’s head of research has ominously warned oil prices could rise above $200 per barrel “if disruptions persist for multiple months.” He forecast that if the Strait isn’t reopened within days, its closure could precipitate a global recession.
Tehran imposing a blockade on the Strait was absolutely inevitable, and widely predicted, in the event of war. Even if the conflict ends soon, lasting damage has already been inflicted in many economic spheres, and the effects will be increasingly felt by average citizens in the form of higher prices for essential goods. Global shipping has been thrown into disarray, with major logistics firms cancelling routes in West Asia, producing higher transport and insurance rates, and delays. Again, increased costs will be passed onto consumers.
In all, approximately 11% of global maritime trade passes through the Strait annually, accounting for 20% of the world’s total oil supply. Iran’s blockade, coupled with Resistance strikes on refineries throughout the region, will cause lasting chaos in energy markets and impact availability for years to come. Yet, despite a preponderant mainstream focus on the implications of the Strait’s closure for oil and gas, many vital commodities underpinning the operation of major industries worldwide also regularly transit through in substantial quantities.
Their availability and cost is in some cases likewise wildly fluctuating, impacting agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and in turn many fields of everyday life for countless people. And this is only the beginning. Approximately one third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer supply passes through the Strait every year. Before the war, Gulf states ranked highly among international fertilizer suppliers. Up to 43% of global trade in urea – a fundamental component of food production – flowed from the region.
The price of urea can affect production costs by as much as 90%. Now spring is upon us, and planting season has commenced across the West, urea has abruptly become a scarce commodity. Many farmers are already operating without profit, and grave concerns about how long this can be sustained widely proliferate. The prospect of Western sanctions on Russia – a major producer of fertilizer – being lifted to ameliorate the market bedlam grows ever-more likely as time goes on.
Sulfur is a core element of fertilizer production, and pre-war, the Strait provided up to 45% of the world’s supply. As an essay by elite US military academy West Point cautioned on March 13th, the price of sulfur has to date surged 25%, “squeezing one of the most consequential inputs to modern industrial power.” Sulfuric acid is not only vital for basic economic functions, “but also modern warfighting.” In a bitter irony, the Strait of Hormuz’s blockade will cripple Washington’s defence industry – and ability to maintain its conflict with Iran:
“[Sulfur] is needed for everything from the copper in the American electrical grid to the semiconductors in precision-guided munitions… For military planners and strategists, the looming loss of sulfur is a pre-logistical crisis…Chemicals like sulfuric acid sit upstream of copper extraction, battery-material processing, and semiconductor fabrication, meaning they can determine whether the US military can maintain industrial base production of electrical and digital systems needed to sustain the fight as munitions are expended and combat losses mount.”
Copper provides the “clearest example” of why the Strait’s blockade is “a warfighting problem” of historic proportions for the Empire. The widely-used metal is “embedded in the transformers, motors, and communications hardware” enabling US bases “to operate and defense factories to function.” This quickly translates into “a readiness and resilience problem” for the military. It will take over 30,000 kilograms of copper to replace US radar systems destroyed by the Resistance in Bahrain and Qatar alone.
Iran controls Strait of Hormuz, dictates terms of war and peace as US excursion backfires
By Pravin Sawhney | Press TV | March 24, 2026
While the US and Israel started the new war in West Asia, it is Israel and Iran who, with clarity on their war objectives, are now pitted against one another.
Given this, two things are likely. One, notwithstanding President Donald Trump’s latest claim of negotiations, the war will not end anytime soon. Instead, it will escalate.
And two, since the world is multipolar, the regional geopolitics will no longer be the same.
Two regional fundamentals would be impacted: the control over the Strait of Hormuz, and the security arrangement between the US and GCC (Persian Gulf Cooperation Council) countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman), which delivered the petro dollars critical for stabilisation of the US economy and its great power status in the world.
Unmindful of the reality that the world is in a once-in-a-century change and that Iran would not bend despite decades of US sanctions, President Trump started this war as ‘an excursion’ as he himself put it. Trump was made to believe by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, like Venezuela, Iran, with its senior leadership decapitated, would be an open and shut case.
Within, the wily Netanyahu knew that this would not happen, and that the decapitation would lead to a larger war, giving him greater control over the US military to achieve his war objectives, including the so-called “regime change”.
Fully aware that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz at the beginning of war, Netanyahu publicly gave out the alternative, which, by the land route through Saudi Arabia, would come to Israel and onto Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
With this approach, only the Asian countries would need to use the Hormuz.
To escalate the war, Israel hit Iran’s South Pars gas field, with the retaliation coming on the energy infrastructure of Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia and especially the Israeli Haifa oil refinery, whose incapacitation would lead to a shortage of fuel for Israel’s war machinery.
Moreover, once the US and Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran hit Israel’s Dimona town, which houses its nuclear plant, with the warning that if Iran’s nuclear facilities are hit again, then Iran’s strike would be on Dimona itself.
This was Israel’s red line, since in no war has the Dimona nuclear facility been touched.
Iran’s warning also serves the purpose of testing Israel’s nuclear deterrence. For instance, if Israel decides to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities again, with reprisal coming from Iran, then the region would be watching what Israel would do: would it use its nukes or keep quiet, in which case its nuclear bluff would be called off.
Meanwhile, Iran had been preparing for this war since 1988, when its eight-year war with Iraq ended. This includes building underground missile and drone cities, setting up production lines, and preparing regional allies like Houthis and Hezbollah. Enormous help came from Russia and China for its military preparations.
Moreover, Iran learnt the right lessons from the 12-day war of June 2025. Notable amongst them switching to the Chinese Baidu-3 satellite constellation by abandoning the US’s GPS. This explains why, unlike the 12-day war, this time the targeting of Iranian missiles and drones at long ranges has been accurate.
Special attention was given to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, including the Strait of Hormuz. This entire stretch is laced with formidable undersea capabilities comprising anti-ship cruise missiles, different types of naval mines, midget submarines that can fire both missiles and torpedoes, and fast crafts capable of hitting the hull of tankers.
Because of these, Iran now controls the passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has called upon the NATO nations to help the US Navy break Iran’s stranglehold on the oil and gas lifeline, which these nations, understanding the suicidal nature of the task, have refused.
This has created an unforeseen dilemma for Trump, where, on the one hand, it cannot declare victory and leave the region since Iran, controlling this waterway, is regulating the commercial traffic on its terms.
The latter involves countries that use this chokepoint to trade their cargo in Chinese Yuan instead of the US dollar. This would end the US Petro dollar arrangement with GCC, where they sell oil and gas only in US dollars and get the US security by having their bases on its soil.
On the other hand, with the end of petrodollars, the US will not be able to manage its huge national debt of USD 40 trillion, leading to economic instability in the US and curtailing its ability to sustain some 800 military bases across the globe.
This would be the end of the US as the world’s military hegemon.
To top it all, Iran has refused the American offer of a ceasefire. It instead wants permanent peace in West Asia with a list of demands, the most significant being that the US close down all its military bases in the region.
Moreover, the US is realising that all its threats to blow up Iran’s power grids and services, which impact civilian life, are not working.
Iran has warned that it would retaliate with similar actions against all GCC nations and Israel, where the interceptors to stop the Iranian wave of missiles are not working.
Israel, which instigated this war, is on the backfoot and the US’ excursion has backfired with grave consequences to its image as a great power.
As things stand, Iran is dictating the terms of both war and peace in West Asia.
Pravin Sawhney is a New Delhi-based journalist and commentator. He is the editor of FORCE, a magazine focused on national security and defence.
Outlasting the Superpower: The Reasons Why Iran is Beating uhe US and Israel
By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | March 24, 2026
As the US-Israeli war of aggression continues to escalate and President Trump makes new threats against Iran’s energy infrastructure, the Islamic Republic and its allies are edging closer towards inflicting a historic defeat on the world’s top superpower. This is not hyperbole; instead, it can be demonstrated through the facts on the ground.
From day one of the attack on Iran, the United States and Israel have proudly claimed to have achieved enormous victories. Initially telling the public that this conflict would only last four days, we are steadily heading towards the one-month mark with no end in sight. So far, there has been no clear war goal articulated, nor is there a real excuse presented as to why it had to happen as it did.
Beyond assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, a number of other high-ranking officials, as well as striking Iranian infrastructure, there has yet to be any major blow delivered to the Islamic Republic. There is certainly nothing that could be argued to represent a strategic victory for Washington and Tel Aviv either.
In fact, Israel’s assassinations during the 12-day war, in June of 2025, actually delivered a bigger blow to the Iranian military leadership, along with killing nuclear scientists. The Israeli Mossad even succeeded in effectively sabotaging Iranian air defenses at the beginning of the war and successfully utilized a large number of agents to carry out armed action inside the country. This time, the agents appear to have been a relative non-factor, and Iran retaliated much quicker than it did during the 12-day war.
Despite this, day in and day out, US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth continue to present to the public contradictory claims regarding how they are allegedly winning the war.
How Iran is Defeating the US Empire
The US government has repeatedly claimed that Iran’s navy is “at the bottom of the ocean,” that its air force and air defenses have been “destroyed,” while Trump himself claimed that “90% of Iran’s missiles” had been eliminated.
However, the US military itself continues to announce it is targeting more Iranian naval vessels, while the Islamic Republic itself has shown video footage of underground facilities where its naval assets are stored. The Iranian air defenses, which were allegedly destroyed according to the Trump administration, managed to intercept an F-35 fighter jet, forcing it to conduct an emergency landing, while they are shooting enemy drones out of the sky on a daily basis.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force continues to fire wave after wave of ballistic missiles, directly impacting US military facilities across the Persian Gulf and Israeli targets. It also launches its own drone swarms. In addition to the IRGC, the Iranian Armed Forces also have their own separate drone attack units that operate around the clock.
Iranian attacks, along with the support of their Iraqi allies, have now forced a full NATO withdrawal from Iraq, as US forces take round-the-clock missile and drone hits to their bases. Every US base in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Jordan has been damaged, in some cases entirely destroyed. Hezbollah also returned to the scene in Lebanon, stronger than ever, with its arms stockpiles replenished, managing to prevent the Israeli military from advancing in south Lebanon, all after both Tel Aviv and Washington claimed that the party had been defeated.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was fired upon and has been forced to retreat, out of active striking distance of Iran, as the USS Gerald R. Ford is in need of repairs. The IRGC even fired missiles at the British-US military base in Diego Garcia, revealing that they possess missiles that can strike targets at over 4,000 kilometers.
Every day or so, there is another surprise that Tehran appears to be able to pull off. What have the Israelis and Americans done in return? They bomb civilian areas, police stations, and oil storage facilities in order to create acid rain across Tehran. They also strike the openings and exits to missile bases, which are simply dug out and remain largely unaffected.
Iran has retaliated each time a new escalation is committed by either the US or Israel, whether that be against oil facilities, water desalination plants, or nuclear facilities. Tehran does not show any signs of weakness; large crowds show up in support of their government.
Because Iran is no longer exporting food during the war, the prices of goods on the shelves have actually decreased, as government subsidies are being offered, as well as free public transport.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has meant that the Persian Gulf Arab states have taken enormous economic hits, while the price of oil has skyrocketed and is having a major impact on the global economy. It is an oil crisis worse than that of 1973. Fertilizer costs, too, have increased; over 40% so far.
Things have gotten so bad that the US is now weighing lifting the sanctions on Iran in order to allow purchases of its oil, just to bring the costs down. A move that the Trump administration has tried to repackage as some kind of strategic move, but is evidently a sign of how terribly the war is going for them.
Iran’s oil production is also up to a high that hasn’t been seen in at least 46 years, meaning that since the revolution in 1979 against the US-backed Shah, birthing the Islamic Republic, the country’s production has never reached such levels. As of now, only nations that gain Iran’s permission are able to purchase or transit through the Gulf of Hormuz. In other words, they have total dominance.
Escalation Without a Plan
Donald Trump’s depictions of Iran as a nation that is defeated, without any military capabilities and with a scared remaining leadership, are the opposite of reality. If anything, it appears that the Islamic Republic is only becoming more entrenched and popular, as one would expect given that a foreign attack targeting the nation’s civilian population is ongoing.
Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the spokesman of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters (Iran’s Unified Military Command), openly mocks the US leadership, even recently stating, “Hey Trump, YOU’RE FIRED! You’re familiar with this sentence. Thank you for your attention to this matter. The Central Headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya.”
While it is undeniable that the US and Israelis may have the technological edge, they are simply out of their depth and have no viable military strategy. As a next step, it is likely that the US could try to deploy ground forces to take over islands in the Persian Gulf, but this will change nothing even if they succeed. In all likelihood, it will be a costly endeavor that will result in little more than a photo op and fail to actually open the Strait of Hormuz.
Capturing Kharg Island from Iran will not stop Iran from blocking ships from transiting the Persian Gulf; that’s simply not how things work. Tehran may even decide to just allow the US to take it over, then hit it relentlessly with missiles and drones. As for the Strait of Hormuz, as long as Iran has missiles capable of sinking ships and mines that can do the same, it remains closed.
Which brings us to the conclusion: Iran is defeating the United States. Yet, it is not Washington that is making its own decisions; it is clearly under the control of policymakers in Tel Aviv. This is not a war for the United States’ interests—it is a war for Israel’s interests.
The Israeli calculation, as I have been writing about here for Palestine Chronicle for months, is that if they manage to inflict enough damage to Iran’s civil infrastructure—targeting electricity, agriculture, its industrial capacity, oil and gas, water, etc.—then it believes it can weaken the government in the long term. It is a Syrian regime-change tactic, but it is ultimately a costly gamble that doesn’t appear to be working right now. In Syria, the regime change didn’t come during the war; it happened due to the sanctions and lasting devastation to the country.
Israel knows that it is only the United States military that can deliver blows harsh enough to have a chance at crippling Iran in the long run, so it has used its puppet—Donald Trump—to commit to a war that no past administration would dare attempt. The US president is compromised and is willing to drag his nation, as well as the entire West, down in order to please Israel.
This war destroys the US military’s power projection, cripples its role in West Asia, demonstrates it is a liability to allies, while representing a victory for its two top enemies, Russia and China. Washington is also now draining its military stockpiles, compromising its military readiness, should it seek to engage in hostilities with either Moscow or Beijing. Although predicting the future is impossible, as of right now, this is shaping up to be the most disastrous US war, perhaps in its history.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Top PMU commander, over a dozen fighters killed in new US strikes on Iraq
The Cradle | March 24, 2026
A top commander in the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and over a dozen others were killed in US airstrikes on Iraq overnight, marking yet another escalation by Washington and Tel Aviv against the country.
The US strikes hit a headquarters and killed at least 15 fighters as well as PMU operations commander in Anbar province, Saad al-Bayji.
“In a blatant and cowardly attack, the commander of the Anbar Operations in the Popular Mobilization Forces, Saad Dua al-Bayji, was martyred along with a group of his heroic comrades following a treacherous American airstrike that targeted the command headquarters while they were performing their national duty,” the PMU said in a statement on 24 March.
It added that “the martyrs’ blood will not be in vain,” while holding the Iraqi government “fully responsible for confronting these repeated American violations and taking clear and resolute positions to preserve the country’s sovereignty and put an end to these grave transgressions.”
A funeral was held for the commander and the 15 fighters in Baghdad on Tuesday, coinciding with more airstrikes on PMU offices in Mosul.
The deadly attacks come just two days after the Iraqi resistance targeted the US Victoria Base near Baghdad airport in at least eight separate rocket and drone strikes.
The US Victoria Base – located near Baghdad airport – has come under continuous attacks by the Iraqi resistance since the start of Washington and Tel Aviv’s brutal war against Iran. The site serves as a US military logistical center.
Footage from after an Iraqi resistance operation last week showed the US Victoria Base engulfed in large flames from an earlier attack.
Other targets which have come under heavy attack by the Iraqi resistance include Washington’s Harir Base and the US Embassy compound in Baghdad.
Deadly air raids against Iraq have been ongoing since the Iraqi resistance intervened in the war and began striking US targets in response to the brutal US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
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Not Hamas-Israeli conflict: The Palestinian cause belongs to the world
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