Palantir touts record expansion and ‘battlefield’ AI value
RT | May 4, 2026
Palantir Technologies reported a blowout first quarter, saying revenue rose 85% year on year to $1.63 billion as its US business more than doubled, driven by rapid growth across both commercial and government customers.
The company said in its Q1 report, published Monday, that US revenue jumped 104% to $1.28 billion, with commercial revenue up 133% to $595 million and government revenue up 84% to $687 million. The results beat Wall Street estimates, and the company also raised its full-year guidance, saying it now expects 2026 revenue of up to $7.66 billion, implying annual growth of about 71%.
CEO Alex Karp, who has increasingly framed Palantir’s AI tools as central to Western military and industrial power, said the “twin pistons of our US business are now firing in sync.”
“We believe it is not hyperbolic to say that nearly all AI workflows that actually create value – especially on the battlefield – are built on Palantir,” Karp wrote in an accompanying letter to shareholders, stating that the company “was founded to strengthen US national security, to protect Americans and their freedom.”
Palantir – named after the obsidian seeing-stones from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, through which the dark lord Sauron keeps watch on his underlings – is a software firm primarily serving the defense and intelligence sectors.
Palantir’s flagship product is a system called Gotham, which pulls together and analyzes satellite footage, human intelligence from the CIA, signals intelligence from the NSA, and other data that might otherwise take days to sift through. Gotham and MOSAIC – another Palantir target-identification program that pulls digital data, including surveillance footage and IP addresses, from a target area – use AI to label the most effective targets for military strikes.
The US has acknowledged using these programs to select targets during its ongoing war on Iran, but insists that humans make the final decision to fire. Abroad, Palantir’s technology is used by the British Ministry of Defence, the Israel Defense Forces, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The company’s earnings update came weeks after Palantir drew criticism for a 22-point manifesto summarizing themes from Karp’s book The Technological Republic. The manifesto argued that Silicon Valley has an “obligation” to participate in national defense, that “hard power” will be built on software, and that AI weapons are inevitable. Critics labeled it a blueprint for “technofascism.”
Israeli telecom networks used for mass surveillance across countries
Al Mayadeen | May 4, 2026
A probe by the digital research group Citizen Lab has uncovered that telecommunications infrastructure owned by Israeli companies has been weaponized to track citizens in more than 10 countries over the past three years, exploiting decades-old network protocols and modern 5G systems to transform them into sophisticated tracking devices.
According to a report published by the Israeli news outlet Haaretz, the investigation revealed that infrastructure ranging from legacy networks built in the 1970s to the latest 5G systems has been repurposed into surveillance tools using advanced spyware programs. Since November 2022, over 15,700 attempts to pinpoint phone locations have been detected across numerous countries, including Thailand, South Africa, Norway, Bangladesh and Malaysia, all routed through the networks of “Israel”-based telecommunications firms.
The findings raise serious questions about “Israel’s” role in the global surveillance industry, as the very infrastructure designed to connect people has been turned into a mechanism for tracking them without their knowledge or consent.
Internal documents cited by Haaretz revealed that Verint, the parent company of Cognyte, sold an SS7-based location tracking system called SkyLock to a government client in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The SS7 protocol, originally developed to route calls and texts, support international roaming, and enable interoperability between mobile operators, has been systematically exploited for surveillance purposes.
The investigation also found that Fink, a Swiss telecommunications company, enabled Israeli surveillance firms such as Rayzone to impersonate legitimate cellular carriers and connect to older mobile networks. This allowed the firms to track users worldwide by abusing the SS7 signaling protocol.
The exploitation was not limited to legacy systems. Next-generation Diameter protocols, which manage 4G and 5G networks, were also compromised, according to the findings. One particularly notable method identified was SIMjacking, where a hidden text message sent to a target device forces the SIM card to reveal its location without the user ever seeing the message.
The phone-tracking operations were carried out through the networks of Israeli telecom companies 019Mobile and Partner Communications. 019Mobile responded by stating that it is a virtual operator and that its identity may have been impersonated, denying any involvement in tracking activities.
No immediate responses were received from Fink, Partner Communications, Exelera Telecom, Cognyte, or Verint.
The investigation exposes a disturbing reality: Israeli telecommunications technology, sold and deployed around the world, is not merely passive infrastructure but has been deliberately weaponized for mass surveillance.
The involvement of major Israeli firms in selling tracking systems to authoritarian governments, and the exploitation of global telecom networks by Israeli surveillance companies, points to a systematic pattern rather than isolated incidents.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran continues to dominate headlines, the international community has once again turned a blind eye to “Israel’s” role as a global leader in surveillance and cyber-weapons. From Pegasus spyware to SS7 exploits, Israeli technology has been used to track journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens across multiple continents.
New KC-46 Supertankers Promise Israel Conventional Samson Option Strike Сapability
Sputnik – 04.05.2026
The first of six customized, Boeing KC-46 ‘Gideon’ tankers has completed its maiden flight in the US, and will be delivered to Israel in about a month’s time, the Israeli Defense Ministry has announced.
The twin-engined ‘next-gen stealth tanker’ aircraft feature:
- standard 767 airframe married to new tech
- remote vision
- fly-by-wire refueling boom
- anti-jamming and secure datalinks
- the ability to refuel multiple jets (including F-35Is) simultaneously
- one tanker can support up to a dozen combat aircraft.
KC-46s can also be customized for refueler, cargo or passenger roles, and have a standard range of 11.8 k km and a 29.5k kg cargo or 96.3k kg fuel payload. They can also tap into their own fuel cargo, effectively giving them a global range.
Jpost says the planes will be a “game-changer in providing Israel much greater independence” to target Iran, Yemen, “and any other potential distant adversaries in the future, even if some later US administration may oppose such a strike.”
The planes could also provide Israel with something equivalent to a conventional Samson Option – a non-nuclear variant of a scary scenario where the IDF lashes out at enemies and allies alike if its home defenses are overrun.
Separately this week, Israel approved the purchase of additional F-35s and F-15s to double existing stockpiles from 50-100 and 25-50, respectively.
How ‘Israel’s’ Iran regime change plot failed – again
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | May 4, 2026
An investigative report by Israeli outlet Ynet has laid bare the embarrassing cataclysm not only of the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the Zionist entity’s effort throughout to end the Islamic Republic via covert and overt military and intelligence operations. Violent Mossad-orchestrated protests, the murder of Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and a Kurdish invasion were intended to produce regime change and “total victory” over Tehran. Yet, as Ynet concludes: “what started as a far-reaching Israeli move, rich in imagination, final in its solution, ends in heartache.”
In granular detail, the investigation tracks how the Zionist entity’s deranged scheme germinated in the minds of Israeli intelligence, military, and political chiefs, before the Trump administration was comprehensively sold on the plot. Along the way, Ynet exposes extraordinary and dangerous levels of delusion and imperial hubris at the highest levels of Tel Aviv and Washington. For example, Benjamin Netanyahu sincerely – and entirely falsely – believed “Israel’s” criminal September 2024 assault of Lebanon, and the June 2025 12-Day War, had decimated Hezbollah and Iran.
This perspective was shared by Mossad, which had been building a vast, dedicated anti-government army in Tehran since 2022. The Zionist entity was delusionally convinced it had the power to collapse the entire Islamic Republic. “Fostering mass protest” and encouraging “armed resistance of minorities” – specifically, Kurds within and without Iran – in “parallel” with assassinating Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei was part of a three-pronged coup d’etat strategy. Netanyahu believed “total victory” over the Resistance was in grasp in every theatre. Ynet reports:
“Overthrowing the regime was the heart of Israel’s overall war plan.”
The operation was intended to be put into action this June. Yet, in January, with “tens of thousands” of Mossad-directed insurrectionists in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, the Zionist entity believed conditions had sufficiently “ripened” to make a decisive move. Mossad’s “influence organization” was birthed in 2022, reaching “operational maturity two and a half years ago.” Ynet bleakly boasts of the “effort and sophistication” of the Zionist entity’s armed clandestine army of anti-government rioters in Tehran:
“Israel has established its own poison machine. This is a serious weapon system that, if fully operational, can be fatal.”
Mossad pitched its braindead regime change plan directly to the CIA, Pentagon Central Command was informed of it by visiting Zionist Occupation Forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir, while Trump got personally lobbied by Netanyahu. The President – “convinced there were no limits to the capabilities of the military system at his command” after Nicolas Maduro’s January 3rd kidnap – and his administration were a highly receptive audience. Trump indicated his endorsement of the conspiracy on January 13th, publicly informing Iranians “help is on its way.”
A vast US military buildup in West Asia immediately began, while supposed peace talks with Tehran were ongoing. The negotiations were of course a con, intended to lull the Resistance into a false sense of security before the next phase of “Israel’s” intended palace coup commenced. On February 28th, Zionist-American airstrikes rained down on Tehran. “Israel” and the US firmly believed Iran’s leadership had been eliminated or scattered, and the Islamic Republic’s command and control system was “severely beaten.” But then, catastrophe started to erupt.
‘Popular Uprising’
While Sayyed Khamenei was killed – in an assassination demonically celebrated by Western media as “the assassination of the century” – sending Iran’s leadership temporarily underground, “an orderly change of government, in accordance with Khamenei’s will,” was successfully executed. Iran’s command and control system wasn’t significantly disrupted, returning to full capacity within hours. No defections were forthcoming. Still, “euphoria” abounded in Washington and Tel Aviv. Trump – who privately “welcomed the Israeli hit” – issued a video statement urging the Iranian people to take power by violence, warning:
“To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police. I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death.”
Netanyahu joined the insurrectionary call. Problematically though, “the crowd chose to stay home,” in no small part because of genocidal US-Israeli bombardment from the skies. A deliberate strike on a primary school killed 165 young girls, sparking fiery international condemnation, vengeful mourning throughout West Asia, and UN investigations. Iranians instead took to the streets in sizeable numbers to grieve Khamenei, while celebrating his son Mojtaba’s ascension to Leader. Immediately, the IRGC moved to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite the closure being an absolutely inevitable upshot of criminal Zionist-American aggression against Iran, which Western intelligence assessments universally long-forecast, Ynet reports the US was “not ready for this move and its devastating economic consequences.” Trump’s threats not to blockade the Strait were ignored. The riddle of why Washington was so caught off guard is perhaps best answered by Netanyahu’s assurances to Trump that the Islamic Republic would collapse in mere days. Astonishingly, there was no contingency plan beyond that.
In the meantime, another cog of the Zionist-American regime change operation in Tehran was also fatally faltering. “After 100 hours of air activity… a ground invasion from Kurdish militias based in Iraq” was supposed to commence. An invasion force had been training there over prior weeks, preparing “to reach the Kurdish region of Iran” and link up with fighters locally before a “mass march” to Tehran. For inspiration, Tel Aviv looked to Damascus being overwhelmed by MI6-supported HTS forces in mere days in December 2024.
However, Ynet reports Iranian intelligence quickly learned “in advance about the planned invasion,” and supposedly informed Turkey, prompting Recep Erdoğan to personally demand Trump call it off. The entire proposal was, in any event, manifest insanity. After reports emerged in early March of the CIA working with Kurdish militants “with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran,” even Zionist think tank pundits and diaspora activists warned such action was a recipe for disaster, which would unite Iranians of every extraction in opposition.
Still, Kurdish invasion remained a fundamental component of “Israel’s” regime change strategy in Tehran during the war. When a tentative ceasefire was struck on April 7th, after 40 days of devastating Iranian strikes, Ynet reports Israeli officials wondered why the invasion never came to pass. Did the US not believe in the operation in the first place? Perhaps Trump changed his mind after Erdoğan picked up the phone? Or was “the whole idea a fantasy, with no chance of being realised?”
‘Inadvertent Effects’
That the Zionist entity was so convinced its self-evidently misguided mission could possibly succeed is all the more damning, given the contents of a July 2025 report from the highly influential, Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. A withering appraisal of the 12-Day War, the think tank acknowledged Iranian regime change had been an avowed Zionist objective from the conflict’s inception, which failed spectacularly. Nonetheless, the report still advocated for the Zionist entity to pursue the Islamic Republic’s destruction, via a palace coup.
However, INSS explicitly warned against employing precisely the regime change tactics depended upon by the ZOF and Mossad during the latest Zionist-American war on Iran to achieve that end. For one, the think tank correctly predicted any Israeli military effort – including civilian bombing – intended to ignite mass anti-government protests had no chance of success. Such actions during the 12-Day War had in fact produced an intense “anti-Israel wave” among Iranians, who “exhibited a notable degree” of “rallying around the flag” in response.
Iranians’ determination “to defend their homeland at a critical moment against an external enemy” endured after the 12-Day War ended, to the extent all traces of public dissent in the Islamic Republic “almost completely disappeared” in the conflict’s wake. INSS likewise vehemently cautioned against encouraging “separatist tendencies” in Iran – such as Kurdish militancy. Due to “heightened public sensitivity to any perceived foreign attempts to promote ethnic fragmentation,” separatist insurrection, let alone invasion, would unite “large segments” of the Iranian public “against Israel.”
Moreover, an eerily prophetic portion of INSS’ report explicitly warned against assassinating Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, as doing so “would not necessarily result in regime change,” and inevitably backfire. The think tank precisely foretold Tehran “would likely have little difficulty selecting a successor, who could prove to be more extreme or more capable.” INSS likewise predicted the Iranian government instead being strengthened, and anti-Zionist sentiment skyrocketing in Iran and beyond, leaving any subsequent “efforts to destabilize the regime through popular protest” dead on arrival.
All these humiliating outcomes came to pass. As yet, INSS’ forecast that military-driven Israeli regime change efforts in Iran would compel the Islamic Republic to seek nuclear weapons capability “as an existential insurance policy” hasn’t materialised, although Western officials now widely fear it may. Meanwhile, ever since the ceasefire was implemented, talks between Washington and Tehran have been stuck in a seemingly implacable stalemate. While US officials remain committed to imposing sharp limits on Iran’s nuclear research, the Islamic Republic refuses to even negotiate the issue.
Furthermore, Tehran has made clear its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz will only be loosened when the Empire stops blockading the country, and ends the conflict. While Netanyahu still harbours reveries of shattering the Islamic Republic, the Empire lacks the requisite economic and military muscle. Meanwhile, overextended Tel Aviv has blundered into a colossal trap in Lebanon, and the Resistance is waiting and watching intently. In recklessly seeking self-evidently unattainable regime change in Iran, the Zionist entity has only hastened its own permanent destruction.
“STAGED”: Conspiracy Theories Are Everywhere!
We can’t imagine why…
By Kevin Barrett | May 3, 2026
On April 23, the 410th death anniversary of William “All the World’s a Stage” Shakespeare (and his trusty Hispanic sidekick Cervantes) CNN published a thought piece entitled “How Would an Assassination Attempt Be Staged?” Two days later, on April 25, somebody staged yet another Trump assassination attempt, this time at the White House Correspondents Dinner at the Washington, DC Hilton.
According to the official narrative, the Hilton shooting was staged by a lone producer, director, casting director, lead actor, and stuntman (it was a dangerous scene) named Cole Tomas Allen. We are told, and video seems to confirm, that Allen descended a back stairway from his hotel room, sprinted past a security checkpoint, fired a shot which struck a Secret Service officer’s bulletproof vest, evaded return fire, tripped on a magnetometer box and fell to the ground, and was jumped on by cops, never having gained access to the actual ballroom where the event was taking place. Allen left a brief manifesto calling himself a “friendly federal assassin” who was “no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
Surrounding the event were some odd coincidences. As I wrote the morning after the shooting:
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline “Machine Gun Lips” Leavitt, predicted last night’s shooting two hours before it happened: “There will be some shots fired tonight!”… Fox News reporter Aishah Hasine was in the midst of describing Leavitt’s husband Nicholas Riccio half-bragging half-warning her of what was about to go down, when suddenly and for no apparent reason (beyond the obvious one) Fox cut off the feed…
Weird Israeli connections also surfaced, as is par for the course with these kinds of events, including:
The patsy’s social media profile featuring a picture of him wearing an IDF sweatshirt; the patsy’s name being allegedly researched in Israel less than 24 hours before the attack; and the shooting erupting at the exact moment that an Israeli magician was terrifying Melania by exposing private information she had thought was secret.
If powerful insiders staged the event, perhaps using Allen as a mind-controlled patsy, what might have been their motive or motives? Social media users argued that the shooting greased the skids for Trump’s secure White House ballroom, which had been facing legal and political challenges. The Guardian noted: “Trump’s quick pivot to claiming that the shooting incident confirms the need for a more secure ballroom at the White House, and rightwing pundits’ near-uniformity in messaging along the same lines in the immediate response, heightened the conspiracy framing.”
The Israeli connections suggested another possible motive: reminding Trump just who were the “magicians” who could stage assassination events, and who held terrifying secrets that could ruin his and Melania’s lives. The Guardian reported what many believe: “Israel is blackmailing him for untold reasons, perhaps related to the Jeffrey Epstein files, and dragging the US into war in Iran.”
The Guardian’s phrasing subtly injects confusion where none is necessary. Blackmailing Trump for untold reasons? Back when it was Russia being accused of blackmailing and controlling Trump, everyone knew the reasons why a foreign state would want to blackmail and control a US president. Is the Guardian pretending that it can’t even imagine why Israel would want to blackmail Trump? Unless, of course, they were using untold in the sense of “a quantity so huge that it cannot be measured, counted, or fully described.” Could the author, Rachel Leingang, be hinting at the obvious fact that Israel would have countless reasons to want to control the US president? Did she sneak that one past her editors?
Perhaps those “untold’ reasons, Leingang tells us, might be “related to the Jeffrey Epstein files, and dragging the US into war in Iran.” Is Leingang pretending to be too stupid to understand what she is saying, in a clumsy effort to avoid responsibility for unambiguously and explicitly conveying what everyone knows or strongly suspects to be true? The moral: If you write for mainstream media, never offer a clear, straightforward summary of what “conspiracy theorists” believe, because it might sound reasonable and convincing. Instead, muck it up a bit, add some confusion, and give the reader the impression that it’s the “conspiracy theorists” who are confused.
CNN’s “How Would an Assassination Attempt Be Staged?”, published 48 hours before the latest shooting, exhibits a similar technique of seemingly deliberate obfuscation. Noting that the hashtag #staged has been picking up momentum, reflecting ever-growing skepticism about the July 13, 2024 “Trump shooting” in Butler, Pennsylvania, the author, Harmeet Kaur, offers an overly complicated mishmash of reasons why staging a political PR event would be…overly complicated. And that, of course, is why nobody would ever do such a thing.
Kaur begins by pretending that she doesn’t understand what the term staged could possibly mean in the context of a political PR stunt. After a detour through the etymology and philology of the term staged (“from the Old French ‘estage,’ meaning ‘dwelling,’ and its verb form ‘estager,’ meaning ‘to stay somewhere.’ ‘Estage’ is also related to the Latin ‘stagium’”) Kaur notes that by the 1930s staged was being used to describe faked crime scenes. Such doings, she suggests, are rare and exotic. The plain, obvious fact that almost any serious crime, committed by criminals with above-room-temperature IQs, will involve “staged” presentations of evidence and/or the lack thereof, including such simple “staging” as wiping away fingerprints or wearing ski masks, apparently doesn’t register with her.
Nor does Kaur note that a certain ethnoreligious group, whose genocidal crime headquarters, I mean “state,” is the number one suspect in the Butler and Charlie Kirk shootings as well as countless other state crimes against democracy, has a well-documented history of staging crimes for political gain. As you watch the following half-hour video compilation of mainstream media reports of Jews hoaxing “antisemitic” attacks on themselves, keep two things in mind: 1) This is just the tip of an enormous iceberg; and 2) That iceberg of thousands of similar cases represents just the dumb and/or unlucky ones who got caught.
The US clearance rate for ordinary crimes, mostly committed by impulsive, none-too-bright criminals, is less than 45% for violent crimes and less than 15% for property crimes. Miscreants who plot their crimes carefully—as high-level political criminals do—are obviously going to get away with the vast majority of their misdeeds, even before we factor in the likelihood that they have corrupted law enforcement and the media. What is surprising about the Butler, Pennsylvania “Trump shooting” is not that they managed to pull off such a complex and difficult operation, but that they did it so casually and clumsily, not even bothering to create even the slightest wound on Trump’s ear.
Roughly two and a half hours after he was taken off the rally stage, Trump says in a Truth Social statement, “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place…” Yet not one shred of convincing evidence, not least of all the extensive medical evidence that would exist had Trump actually taken a bullet to the ear, supports the claim that Trump’s ear was wounded in any way. Nor does he appear to have suffered the hearing damage that might have been expected.
Whoever was in charge of the Secret Service detail must have known that Trump was in no danger. Less than a minute after the volley of shots, Trump was allowed to stand up and shake his fist in front of the flag in an obviously pre-planned photo op. Apologists for the Secret Service conspirators claim that the determination “shooter is down” reassured them that it was perfectly okay to allow Trump to stand up and expose himself to more potential bullets. But had the event been authentic, how could they have possibly known that there was only one shooter?
Kaur’s CNN article avoids even entertaining such questions. Like Leingang’s Guardian article on the Hilton shooting, it offers an ad hominem argument against the “conspiracy theorist” by representing him as a deliberately discombobulated straw man, whose supposed incoherent, confusing arguments are actually CNN’s own deliberately distorted rendering.
Kaur hauls out Spencer Parsons, “an associate professor of media production at Northwestern University and an independent filmmaker who has staged shooting scenes,” to claim that staging the Butler “Trump shooting” scene would be so difficult as to be essentially impossible. Parsons claims that a “staged shooting scene” requires vast numbers of people: “the director, camera operators, camera technicians, lighting technicians, sound engineers, special effects coordinators, safety coordinators and so on.”
Talk about misdirection! Why would ANY such people be necessary for a high-level criminal operation involving a deceptive shooting?! Were camera, lighting, sound, special effects, and safety technicians necessary when hypnotized patsy Sirhan Sirhan fired a volley of random shots, distracting onlookers while the professional killer pressed a revolver to the back of Robert F. Kennedy’s head and pulled the trigger, leaving powder burns on his skull?
Kaur tells us that setting up a patsy to take the blame for a shooting is impossibly complicated:
Then there’s the issue of the fake assassin himself. The task would require an extraordinarily skilled marksman, someone who could aim close enough to the candidate’s head to make it look like he’d intended to hit him without actually hitting him. (Acquaintances of the gunman who tried to shoot Trump told reporters that he was rejected from his high school’s rifle club because he was such a bad shot.)
And to make the situation seem believable, the Secret Service would have to kill the designated shooter after he opened fire, an outcome the person in the gun-wielding role either wouldn’t anticipate or would have to be willing to accept.
Kaur again sets up a preposterous straw man: A conspiracy theorist stupid enough to think Thomas Crooks fired shots that came anywhere near Trump’s head, and that Crooks was a conscious, witting, fully-informed participant. But nobody thinks that! What skeptics actually think is that Crooks, like most other patsies going back to Sirhan, was probably mind-controlled. (For an introductory discussion including a demonstration of MK-Ultra style hypnotic mind-control, check out Jesse Ventura’s “Mind-Controlled Assassins and Programmed Killers.”) Crooks, like Oswald, was “just a patsy” who didn’t shoot anyone. The actual shooting, which did not and could not have caused a bullet to come anywhere near Trump’s head, but which likely did strike three onlookers, killing one of them, was fired from the building behind and to the left of the one that hypnotized patsy Crooks had climbed onto. For details, check out my interview with filmmaker John Hankey, and watch his film below.
Kaur then implies that it would have been too difficult or impossible for Trump to use a squib to create the fake blood he smeared on his face like warpaint for the photo op:
The blood would be another consideration, Parsons says. Film crews simulate gunshot wounds via squibs, small explosive devices that spout fake blood when detonated — some conspiracy theories surrounding Trump’s assassination attempt claimed that he used a squib because the blood on his face was supposedly only seen after he raised his hand to his cheek, though researcher Katherine FitzGerald noted at the time that the first appearance of blood was not clear from the videos.
Another technique for staging bloodshed might involve the candidate superficially wounding himself with a small razor blade, like professional wrestlers do, but that also presents challenges…
Wait a minute! What does Kaur mean, also presents challenges?! The first paragraph quoted above fails to present the slightest argument or evidence that Trump or a Secret Service confederate would have faced the slightest “challenge” in using a squib to produce the fake blood. The word also is a lie. Kaur hopes the careless reader will gloss over it.
Having refuted nothing while flailing about with straw men, Kaur concludes:
Given all of this, Parsons finds the idea that an assassination attempt of this scale could be “staged” to be “tremendously unlikely.” “This is just astronomically difficult to stage,” he adds. “The whole thing, from a filmmaking perspective, seems to be just immensely, immensely difficult and really based on a lot of chance.”
What would be so hard about putting an MK-Ultraed patsy on a rooftop, a professional sniper in a difficult-to-spot location where he could shoot a couple of bystanders, and giving Trump a blood squib after rehearsing “hit the deck, smear the blood, count to fifty, get up, shake your fist in front of the flag”? Sure, you and I couldn’t do it, but we don’t control the top of the federal command chain.
Setting up that scenario wouldn’t require precisely the same skill set that Parsons, the film-and-TV guy, enjoys. But if you think that people with “deceptive shooting” skill sets don’t exist, you must not know much about special forces, intelligence agencies, organized crime, and the rather large area where they overlap. That’s why someone like Joe Kent, the former Counterrorism chief who knows people with such skill sets, can easily see that incidents like the Butler and Charlie Kirk shootings are extremely suspicious, and point directly at the overlapping territory inhabited by Israel, Israeli-linked organized crime, and their assets in US military, intelligence, and police agencies… and, perhaps most importantly, the mainstream media that insists on obfuscating such matters.
Iran sets one-month deadline for end to US-Israeli war, blockade: Report
The Cradle | May 3, 2026
The Islamic Republic has set a one-month deadline for an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz and a full end to the wars on both Iran and Lebanon, sources told US media outlet Axios on 3 May.
Iran “set a one-month deadline for negotiations on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, end the US naval blockade and permanently end the war in Iran and in Lebanon,” the sources said.
“Per the Iranian proposal, only after such a deal is reached, another month of negotiations would be launched to try and reach a deal on the nuclear program,” they added.
On the same day, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization said in a social media post: “Iran sets Pentagon a blockade deadline. China, Russia, Europe shift tone against Washington. Trump’s passive letter to Congress. Acceptance of Iran’s negotiating terms. There is only one way to read this: Trump must choose between ‘an impossible military operation or a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.’ The room for US decision-making has narrowed.”
Iran had previously proposed setting nuclear issues aside and negotiating a ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said on Friday that he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s proposal before saying he would review it on a flight to Miami.
“I’m looking at it. I’ll let you know about it later… They told me about the concept of the deal. They’re going to give me the exact wording now.”
Shortly after the president said he “can’t imagine that it would be acceptable,” adding that Iran “has not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”
He also said he would resume bombing if Tehran “misbehaves.”
The US president is required to end his war within 60 days or request approval from the US Congress to continue it for another 30 days on grounds of “unavoidable military necessity” for the safety of the military. Trump formally notified Congress of the conflict 48 hours later, making Friday, 1 May, the deadline to request a 30-day extension from Congress or terminate the war.
Trump has claimed the ceasefire has terminated hostilities and that this has rendered the deadline irrelevant and inapplicable. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also claimed that the 60-day clock pauses or stops during a ceasefire.
The US has maintained an illegal blockade on Iranian ports throughout the ceasefire, while also imposing new sanctions. Tehran has repeatedly warned that it may take further military action, following its recent retaliation to the seizure of its vessels by Washington.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12, Tel Aviv is “bracing” itself for the collapse of negotiations between Washington and Tehran and the resumption of all-out war against the Islamic Republic.
Axios reported on 29 April that Trump was to be briefed on a series of options for renewed attacks against Iran.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) has readied a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on Iran, “likely including infrastructure targets – in hopes of breaking the negotiating deadlock,” the report claimed.
Tehran has vowed a “crushing response” to any renewed aggression.
House Resolution Calls for Tech Companies to Censor Speech
Legislation introduced by two AIPAC funded representatives
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | May 2, 2026
This one slipped under the wire. Tucker Carlson talked about it the other day, but beyond that, it is flying sans transponder. On February 29, New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer and New York Republican Mike Lawler introduced “a bipartisan resolution condemning the rise of antisemitic, hate-filled rhetoric disseminated by prominent online personalities, including Hasan Piker and Candace Owens, and calling on social media platforms and public leaders to take stronger action against hate,” according to Gottheimer’s taxpayer funded website.
Watch at Rumble
“The resolution highlights the growing influence of online personalities and the alarming surge in antisemitism driven, in part, by disinformation and extremist rhetoric… When influential voices spread conspiracy theories, promote terrorism, or dehumanize Jewish people, it fuels real-world violence and intimidation. We must stand up and speak out.”
Owens, Gottheimer’s post continues, “has trafficked in vile conspiracy theories, promoted blood libels, and platformed Holocaust deniers,” and Piker has “dehumanized Orthodox Jews” The post continues with debunked lies concerning the Hamas al-Aqsa Flood open-air prison breakout on October 7, 2023.
Lawler received $1,069,875 and Gottheimer $2,062,601 from the Israel lobby. Both are essentially paid operatives for the Likud government of Israel. Furthermore, both “representatives” are traitors to the the Bill of Rights and have violated their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The Democrat Gottheimer, sounding like a staunch MAGA Republican, declared the “relationship with Israel is key to our national security. Terrorists hate the United States more than they hate Israel.” Lawler voted for a budget “that cut Medicaid and raised the cost of healthcare for millions of Americans, while saying US taxpayer funding for Israel should be ‘unconditional’ and voted for over $18 billion in weapons to Israel in 2024,” thus revealing his priorities (and making sure AIPAC sweetens his pot for the next election).
Last August, Israeli PM Netanyahu directly inserted himself in domestic American politics by demanding “the algorithms and the social networks” be censored to eliminate criticism of Israel.
In April, Zionist podcaster and self-proclaimed constitutionalist Mark Levin denounced critics of Israeli apartheid and genocide as “Nazis” and “jihadis” and said they are “inciting” violence with their speech. He argued the freedom of speech, once considered god-given and natural in America, is “overprotected.” Carlson said “Mark Levin, the right wing MAGA guy, is saying those people [critics of Israel] should be silenced by the tech companies.”
Another podcaster, Ben Shapiro, told the Palm Beach Gardens Chabad synagogue that X is an “unusable” and “vile stream of trash.” He admitted reaching out “to Elon’s people about” the criticism of Zionism he considers contemptible. “The algorithms are destroying America,” he said.
“We will monitor social media, and check your bank accounts,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the leader of the ADL, threatened in January. He said the ADL “shares the information with the FBI” gathered on anti-Zionist “extremists.” In June, he demanded companies “knock the anti-Zionists off the platform once and for all.” Research from the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society posted to X “shows that five major platforms are still failing to enforce” the removal of content critical of Israel and Zionists.
Israel-born Chabadnik Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s czar of antisemitism, announced in December the State Department will establish a “whole division” to combat criticism of Israel and is working to develop social media algorithms that exclude “misinformation.”
“From YouTube to X, Wikipedia, and TikTok, Zionists are capturing all means of communication to erase the evidence of its genocide, reshape the historical record, and censor those critical of it,” writes Robert Inlakesh for the Palestine Chronicle. “Those who are critical of Israel are being censored or arrested.”
Tucker Carlson warns full-blown censorship will soon arrive in America through legislation forcing technology corporations to remove content deemed antisemitic by Israel and Zionists in America. “Criticizing the behavior of a foreign government is a hate crime and can get you censored in your own country,” he said.
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Well, the first takeaway is censorship is coming, and it will work unless people exercise their God-given and First Amendment-guaranteed right to push back against it with words and do so at high volume without any shame at all. It’s going to need a refusal to be intimidated by false claims of, quote, hate.
Ceasefire no longer viable after 200 days of Israeli violations: Hamas
Al Mayadeen | May 2, 2026
One Palestinian was killed in an Israeli drone strike targeting the vicinity of al-Qastal Towers, east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported on Saturday.
In a separate development, Israeli forces carried out a large-scale demolition operation east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to the same correspondent.
In light of the continued Israeli violations, Basem Naim, a member of the political bureau of Hamas, said that after 200 days, it is no longer possible to speak of a ceasefire in Gaza. He stated that the situation is a continuation of a “war of extermination,” despite the Resistance’s adherence to the agreement.
Speaking to Al Mayadeen on Saturday evening, Naim stressed that the future of the Gaza Strip and the broader Palestinian cause remains a solely internal Palestinian matter. He added that the Resistance has fulfilled all obligations requested of it, as confirmed by mediators, while Israeli attacks have continued.
Naim also stated that the Rafah crossing has not been opened in accordance with the agreement, noting that the number of people allowed to pass remains limited. He said mediators had been informed of the need to review the implementation of the first phase of the agreement before moving on to the second.
US providing cover for ‘Israel’ to violate ceasefire
The Hamas official further accused the United States of providing cover for Israeli violations, revealing that a technical committee comprising mediators and relevant parties is being supplied with daily documentation of the breaches.
According to Naim, the negotiating position is based on previous agreements and the rights of the Palestinian people, with insistence on the full implementation of the first phase, including the entry of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials. He added that the agreement includes a political track aimed at securing Palestinian rights, including the establishment of a state with its capital in al-Quds.
Naim emphasized that armed resistance is a legitimate right and that its weapons are an essential component of that right. He also highlighted unity among Palestinian factions and ongoing coordination between them, while warning that the occupied West Bank is facing a “silent and continuous war,” amid escalating attacks on religious sites.
‘Israel’ working to ‘annex’ West bank as a ‘fait accompli’
In this context, Naim said “Israel” is working to consolidate the “annexation” of the West Bank as a “fait accompli”, while restricting the work of international organizations in Gaza unless they operate under its conditions.
He added that the negotiating delegation remains in Cairo and is serious about continuing talks, while maintaining its demand for the full implementation of the first phase. He stressed that the Resistance is not seeking war and does not oppose political pathways if they lead to ending the occupation, but rejects discussing the issue of its weapons separately from a permanent ceasefire.
Naim also praised international activists expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemned attacks on ships attempting to break the blockade, stressing Gaza’s need for an international humanitarian corridor. He concluded by emphasizing the importance of Palestinian unity and rejecting internal divisions that could serve Israeli interests.
Left in Disbelief: Israel in Panic over Hezbollah FPV Drone Nightmare
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | May 1, 2026
Left in disbelief, an already drained Israeli military is left without any viable solutions to the ever-growing threat of first-person view (FPV) drones, now used by Hezbollah to overwhelm their newly assumed positions in southern Lebanon.
On April 16, Tel Aviv and Beirut agreed to a temporary ceasefire imposed by US President Donald Trump. Within the first hour of the ceasefire’s imposition, Israel had already violated the agreement 10 times, including an attack on an ambulance. What they sought to achieve was a return to the pre-war status quo, whereby the Israeli military attacked Lebanon at will, without any return fire.
It soon became clear that the 15-month ceasefire period, following November 27, 2024, during which the Israeli military violated the agreement 15,400 times according to UNIFIL, was not going to be replicated. The first wave of retaliation against Israeli violations began with Hezbollah detonating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and destroying convoys of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs), after carrying out reconnaissance and anticipating the movement of armed convoys.
Initially, the Israeli military passed three successive IED attacks off as incidents occurring due to explosives previously left behind by Hezbollah fighters. Later, the Lebanese Party officially announced it had taken out four Israeli Merkava tanks in a single IED attack, forcing the Israelis to issue a statement acknowledging it.
Before long, Hezbollah was issuing statements claiming responsibility for a number of retaliatory attacks each day, including rocket fire on Israeli army positions across the Lebanon Blue Line (Lebanese border).
Then came the prominence of Hezbollah’s usage of the cheap, but highly effective FPV drones, inflicting considerable numbers of casualties amongst Israeli soldiers in retaliation for ceasefire violations and the attempt to illegally occupy a strip of territory in southern Lebanon.
Contrary to Israel’s initial claims to have established a considerable “buffer zone” and that only a small number of Hezbollah fighters had remained in the area, it would become clear that nothing of the sort had truly taken place. There was never any “full operational control” of the “buffer zone”, instead, the Israelis were practicing the Gaza strategy of deploying forces in their heavily armoured vehicles to towns and villages, where they would then be tasked with blowing up civilian infrastructure.
Hezbollah fighters remain positioned throughout this newly declared zone, a terrain that favors a defending force using guerrilla warfare tactics. Perhaps the most menacing is the usage of the FPV drones for both reconnaissance and attacks alike.
In a new article, written for Yediot Aharanot in Hebrew, correspondent Elisha Ben Kimon wrote the following:
“For years, the IDF has invested billions in sophisticated interception systems, precision missiles, and the intelligence capabilities of superpowers. But when Hezbollah, with simple and deadly ingenuity, decided to lower its flight altitude and switch to drones, with fiber optics that make it difficult to detect and intercept, Israel found itself in a situation of dealing with a “low-tech” threat that disrupted all work plans.”
The FPV UAVs can be cheaply acquired for only hundreds of dollars per unit, yet when assembled domestically, they can be put together for as little as 50 dollars in some instances. Successful FPV drone deployment for war was pioneered by the Ukrainians and Russians during the Ukraine War. According to some sources, the majority of battlefield casualties in that war have been a result of this drone, which Kyiv can mass-produce at around 300 dollars per unit.
Equipped with a fiber-optic cable, the drones are completely immune to electronic warfare jamming, negating the high-tech advantages that the Israelis have previously enjoyed. Hezbollah does have access to a range of different attack drones, including various Iranian models, which have proven highly effective also. Yet, they are not available in as high quantities, and their most sophisticated technology is used to target high-value targets.
This development has meant that Hezbollah drone operator teams can safely fly these drones from up to and over 10 kilometers away, without being detected. The process of detecting these drones is the same as it is for Hezbollah’s arsenal of more sophisticated radio frequency (RF) drones, relying on acoustic sensors, radars and thermal imaging, yet FPV drones fly at such low altitudes and use the terrain of southern Lebanon to make them more difficult to detect until it is too late.
A recent article published by the Israeli daily Haaretz noted that back in 2024, the Israeli political and military leadership claimed to be on top of deploying solutions to the Hezbollah drone threat, stressing that a range of Israeli defense companies were engineering solutions.
However, an anonymous source “involved in the field” told Haaretz that “There is a need for a systemic response – not to acquire a little of this and a little of that, but a broad plan to address all unmanned threats along our borders. DDR&D (Directorate of Defense Research & Development) has known about this threat for many years but has not mobilized to address it.”
In a nightmare situation for the Israeli military, Hezbollah recently launched a retaliatory attack using FPV drones, inflicting 6 soldier casualties near the Lebanese town of Taybeh. Israel announced that one of its sergeants, Ithan Fukes, was killed in the attack. What happened next was perhaps even more damning.
Hezbollah followed up their attack with an FPV drone strike targeting the medivac helicopter. The incident caused such a stir because the Israeli military leaked videos of the incident. Despite the Israeli soldiers wearing body cams or GoPros on their helmets, this was the first time such footage has been released, due to Israel’s strict military censor laws.
The first video released was from a distance, showing the FPV drone impacting the site where the evacuation of soldiers was happening, causing them to fall back and the helicopter to abruptly take off. From the footage, it was unclear whether the drone hit any target or not, triggering criticism from the Israeli media over why it was released.
Then, a second video was released, from a soldier’s helmet camera, revealing that the drone fell just short, either due to the wind force of the helicopter or due to the soldier’s gunfire. Any release of footage of this kind is deliberate; in this case, it was to jolt the Israeli leadership into action.
An enormous amount of criticism has been leveled at the Israeli political leadership over its failure to achieve its announced goals in Lebanon, and the army itself is even joining that parade. What this demonstrates is that the psychological impact of the FPVs is greatly burdening soldiers on the ground, while the army is left to sit in southern Lebanon twiddling its thumbs.
Hezbollah’s asymmetric warfare is already causing enormous strain on the some 6 Israeli divisions deployed to fight against Lebanon. Just as they were in Gaza, the Israelis are not doing much beyond demolishing civilian infrastructure, proving so risk-averse as to fear entering a fight in which they actually seek to degrade Hezbollah in any significant way. They may have gotten away with this in Gaza, but in South Lebanon, they are dealing with a much more powerful opponent and a more difficult terrain.
Israeli Merkava tanks, worth between 3.5 to 6 million dollars each, are being taken out day after day by FPV drones, carrying explosive charges, worth a maximum of a few hundred dollars each. Hezbollah is taking out mobile telecommunications equipment, command and control vehicles, APCs, D-9 bulldozers, and excavation equipment, with cheap drones that they continue to mass produce with ease. They also do this while their fighters are kept out of harm’s way.
Israel has attempted to consult Ukrainian advisors in order to learn new tactics to deal with the threat and has purchased its own FPV drones, yet none of this has borne fruit. Instead, individual soldiers have tried experimenting with netting to place over vehicles and the use of shotguns, while relying on soldiers to watch the skies for incoming drones.
Despite some of this being effective, out of fear, the Israelis do not normally deploy infantry next to their tanks while on the move. In Gaza, this tactic of hiding inside heavily armored vehicles and tanks did manage to reduce soldier deaths and injuries, but in Lebanon, it could actually be causing the opposite effect, at least when it comes to FPV drone attacks.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Trump Taps Israel Lobbyist From Mossad Cutout FDD To Join Iran Negotiations
The Dissident | May 1, 2026
Journalist Alex Marquardt reported recently that , “Amid stalled talks with Iran, President Donald Trump’s negotiators are adding a new member to the team from an outside Washington lobbying group” adding, “Nick Stewart, the Managing Director of Advocacy at FDD Action, the lobbying side of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, has joined the office of Steve Witkoff, the Special Envoy for Peace Missions”.
This means- as I will demonstrate- that a literal Israel lobbyist is now joining the team negotiating with Iran on behalf of the Trump administration.
The think tank, initially founded by the journalist Clifford May, was initially called “EMET,” the Hebrew word for truth, and was established in order to “provide education to enhance Israel’s image in North America”.
John Judis at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace documented in 2015 that , “On April 24, 2001, three major pro-Israel donors incorporated an organization called EMET (Hebrew for “truth’). In an application to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status, (Clifford) May explained that the group ‘was to provide education to enhance Israel’s image in North America and the public’s understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations.’ But in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, May broadened the group’s mission and changed its name to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. As he explained in a supplement to the IRS, the group’s board of directors decided to focus on ‘develop[ing] educational materials on the eradication of terrorism everywhere in the world.’”
He added that the funding for FDD comes primarily from U.S.-based Zionist donors, writing, “FDD’s chief funders have been drawn almost entirely from American Jews who have a long history of funding pro-Israel organizations. They include Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, whiskey heirs Samuel and Edgar Bronfman, gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, heiress Lynn Schusterman, Wall Street speculators Michael Steinhardt and Paul Singer, and Leonard Abramson, founder of U.S. Healthcare.”
He also noted that, similar to AIPAC and other Israel lobby groups, the FDD runs propaganda tours of Israel for Americans, noting, “Since its founding, FDD has been running tours of Israel for American academics (with most of their expenses paid) similar to those run for journalists and politicians by AIPAC and other groups. University of Kentucky political scientist Robert Farley, who went on an FDD tour in 2008, says ‘the goal of the trip was to inculcate a particular view of the Israeli security situation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’ FDD’s view, Farley says, was ‘rght-wing Likudnik on the relations between Israel and its neighbors and with the Palestinians.’ The tour leaders took a ‘negative’ view of Palestinian statehood. ‘It was understood that the military occupation of the West Bank was necessary to prevent a terrorist campaign against Israel.’”
Al Jazeera’s 2018 documentary on the Israel lobby further exposed that FDD “is functioning as an agent of the Israeli government”.
Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli intelligence official and official in the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, admitted in the documentary that “We have FDD,” adding that “the foundation is ‘working on’ projects for Israel, including ‘data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best.’”
By putting a lobbyist for Israel from a “think tank” that is in reality a cover for an Israeli intelligence cutout, the Trump administration is guaranteeing that Israel will be driving the American side during negotiations with Iran.
Trump’s Blockade Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
By Trita Parsi | May 1, 2026
It appears Donald Trump once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by heeding the hawkish counsel of the warmongers at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
As I have argued before, the fragile ceasefire disproportionately favored the United States over Iran: Trump secured his central objective — a swift exit from a costly war — while Iran forfeited its primary source of leverage, namely the inflationary pressure of elevated oil prices. Tehran, by contrast, remained unable to achieve its core objective — meaningful sanctions relief — without entering a difficult diplomatic process with Washington.
The asymmetry was stark: Trump could afford strategic patience, whereas Iran risked squandering the most consequential gains the conflict could have yielded if negotiations faltered or collapsed.
In short, this emerging status quo could have constituted a quiet but decisive victory for Trump. Yes, Iran would retain control over the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz — but it does so today as well and would do so in almost any scenario. But the status quo would have seen oil prices drop as the Iranians would allow tankers to transit in order to collect fees. And as long as oil prices came down, Trump’s position at home and vis-à-vis Iran would have strengthened.
FDD argued that blockading the Persian Gulf would swiftly cripple the Iranian economy and coerce Tehran into capitulation, allowing Trump to achieve through economic strangulation what he had failed to secure through military force. In short, it was sold to him as a silver bullet. More on that later.
According to this logic, the blockade would “effectively zero out” Iran’s export revenues within days, inflicting losses of nearly $500 million per day. With oil exports halted, Iran’s limited storage capacity would be filled within weeks, forcing the costly and technically damaging shutdown of its oil wells. This, FDD claimed, would dramatically reverse the strategic balance — transforming the Strait of Hormuz from a perceived Iranian asset into a crippling Achilles’ heel, while handing Washington the invaluable advantage of time. Pressure on Iran would escalate sharply while pressure on the United States would rapidly dissipate.
Trump was fully on board. His long-sought subjugation of Iran suddenly appeared tantalizingly within reach. “The blockade is genius,” the president told reporters. “Now, they have to cry uncle; that’s all they have to do. Just say, ‘We give up.’” (Notably, an FDD staffer has reportedly since joined Steve Witkoff’s team.)
Predictably, the opposite occurred. FDD’s confident calculations and tidy logic were, as so often, rooted more in wishful thinking than in hard reality. By its own projections, Iran should have exhausted its storage capacity nearly a week ago. Yet satellite imagery shows Tehran still actively loading oil onto tankers at Kharg Island. While the blockade has undeniably increased economic pressure, there is no sign of the acute storage crisis — or the cascading collapse — FDD confidently promised Trump.
But by targeting Iran’s oil exports, Trump did more than complicate an already fragile diplomatic pathway — he tightened global supply and drove prices upward. In fact, thanks to the blockade, oil prices now exceed the levels seen during the war itself.
Exxon’s CEO told shareholders today that gasoline prices are poised to rise even further, noting that “the market hasn’t seen the full impact of [the Iran conflict] yet.” Meanwhile, Joe Kent, Trump’s former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, cautions that “the blockade is now triggering a global fertilizer shortage that will cause major food security crises and potential famines.”
In short: the desperately needed pressure release Trump secured through the ceasefire has been entirely undone by FDD’s vaunted silver-bullet blockade.
The lure of the silver bullet
There is a pathology in U.S. policy on Iran that transcends administrations and party affiliations: The incessant search for an escalatory silver bullet that brings Iran to its knees, forces it to capitulate, and enables the U.S. to assert its superpower dominance and avoid a compromise with the Islamic Republic.
Across 47 years, the hunt for this fabled silver bullet has echoed on — yet nothing answers back. Countless diplomatic opportunities have been sacrificed, and face-saving exit ramps have been burnt in the process. Yet, the quest continues.
The demand for Iranian capitulation and the enduring faith in elusive silver bullets are deeply intertwined. In January, Trump believed that the mere threat of military force would compel Tehran to surrender. After issuing a series of increasingly explicit warnings that Iran pointedly ignored, he proposed a calibrated strike — one to which Tehran should respond symbolically by targeting an empty American base. Iran refused outright, making clear that any attack would trigger a full-scale war.
Interpreting this defiance as a failure of credibility rather than a rejection of coercion, Trump escalated. He ordered a substantial buildup of military assets in the region, convinced that a critical mass of force would finally deliver the decisive breakthrough — the long-sought silver bullet. It didn’t.
Indeed, Witkoff revealed in an interview that Trump was frustrated that, despite his military threats, Iran had still not “capitulated.”
Clearly, more escalation was needed. The next imagined silver bullet was the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Midway through the war, a GCC official told me that Trump had assured regional leaders the conflict would last no more than 100 hours. Israeli media similarly reported that he told Britain’s Keir Starmer it would be over within three days. The logic was stark: the killing of Khamenei would trigger either the regime’s rapid implosion or its immediate capitulation. It proved to be yet another illusory silver bullet.
Nor did the sweeping bombardment of Iran’s civilian infrastructure deliver the long-sought breakthrough. A Bloomberg analysis found that only 32% of the damaged buildings were linked to military targets — the overwhelming majority were civilian. Even this devastating and indiscriminate campaign failed to produce the decisive outcome its architects had promised.
The blockade-on-the-blockade is merely the latest in a long line of delusional silver bullets that American presidents have chased instead of pursuing far less costly and far more effective diplomacy. I suspect that a stunning number of those silver bullets were cooked up by FDD.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
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Book Review
Book review: Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine
By Tim Kirby | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 14, 2026
Did Vladimir Putin just wake up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decide to invade Ukraine in February of 2022 or is there a lot more to this single decision that has been reshaping the 21st century geopolitical landscape?
Obviously, from the way that I just posed the question you can see that I am on the side that views the causes for the war in Ukraine to be very deep, long-term, historical and consciously nefarious, and most importantly, not from within the halls of the Kremlin. So it was a pleasure to take a look at the book “Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine” by author Stephen Kinzer, who like myself, also believes that the real reasons behind military conflicts around the world are not what CNN and the BBC have been telling you. The main thesis of this book was stated clearly by its creator; the war “may have been illegal, but it was definitely not unprovoked.” … continue
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