I N F R A K S H U N

Iran's President Massoud Pezeshkian's letter to the American people

2026-04-15T22:30:00.001+01:00

President Masoud Pezeshkian | Global Research

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

To the people of the United States of America, and to all those who, amid a flood of distortions and manufactured narratives, continue to seek the truth and aspire to a better life:

Iran — by this very name, character, and identity — is one of the oldest continuous civilisations in human history. Despite its historical and geographical advantages at various times, Iran has never, in its modern history, chosen the path of aggression, expansion, colonialism, or domination. Even after enduring occupation, invasion, and sustained pressure from global powers — and despite possessing military superiority over many of its neighbours — Iran has never initiated a war. Yet it has resolutely and bravely repelled those who have attacked it.

The Iranian people harbour no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighbouring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness — not a temporary political stance.

For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful — the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.

Within this same framework, the United States has concentrated the largest number of its forces, bases, and military capabilities around Iran — a country that, at least since the founding of the United States, has never initiated a war. Recent American aggressions launched from these very bases have demonstrated how threatening such a military presence truly is. Naturally, no country confronted with such conditions would forgo strengthening its defensive capabilities. What Iran has done — and continues to do — is a measured response grounded in legitimate self-defence, and by no means an initiation of war or aggression.

Relations between Iran and the United States were not originally hostile, and early interactions between the Iranian and American people were not marred with hostility or tension. The turning point, however, was the 1953 coup d'etat — an illegal American intervention aimed at preventing the nationalisation of Iran's own resources. That coup disrupted Iran's democratic process, reinstated dictatorship, and sowed deep distrust among Iranians toward US policies. This distrust deepened further with America's support for the Shah's regime, its backing of Saddam Hussein during the imposed war of the 1980s, the imposition of the longest and most comprehensive sanctions in modern history, and ultimately, unprovoked military aggression — twice, in the midst of negotiations — against Iran.

Yet all these pressures have failed to weaken Iran. On the contrary, the country has grown stronger in many areas: literacy rates have tripled — from roughly 30 per cent before the Islamic Revolution to over 90pc today; higher education has expanded dramatically; significant advances have been achieved in modern technology; healthcare services have improved; and infrastructure has developed at a pace and scale incomparable to the past. These are measurable, observable realities that stand independent of fabricated narratives.

At the same time, the destructive and inhumane impact of sanctions, war, and aggression on the lives of the resilient Iranian people must not be underestimated. The continuation of military aggression and recent bombings profoundly affect people's lives, attitudes, and perspectives. This reflects a fundamental human truth: when war inflicts irreparable harm on lives, homes, cities, and futures, people will not remain indifferent toward those responsible.

This raises a fundamental question: Exactly which of the American people's interests are truly being served by this war? Was there any objective threat from Iran to justify such behavior? Does the massacre of innocent children, the destruction of cancer-treatment pharmaceutical facilities, or boasting about bombing a country 'back to the stone ages' serve any purpose other than further damaging the United States' global standing?

Iran pursued negotiations, reached an agreement, and fulfilled all its commitments. The decision to withdraw from that agreement, escalate toward confrontation, and launch two acts of aggression in the midst of negotiations were destructive choices made by the US government — choices that served the delusions of a foreign aggressor.

Attacking Iran's vital infrastructure — including energy and industrial facilities — directly targets the Iranian people. Beyond constituting a war crime, such actions carry consequences that extend far beyond Iran's borders. They generate instability, increase human and economic costs, and perpetuate cycles of tension, planting seeds of resentment that will endure for years. This is not a demonstration of strength; it is a sign of strategic bewilderment and an inability to achieve a sustainable solution.

Is it not also the case that America has entered this aggression as a proxy for Israel, influenced and manipulated by that regime? Is it not true that Israel, by manufacturing an Iranian threat, seeks to divert global attention away from its crimes toward the Palestinians? Is it not evident that Israel now aims to fight Iran to the last American soldier and the last American taxpayer dollar — shifting the burden of its delusions onto Iran, the region, and the United States itself in pursuit of illegitimate interests?

Is 'America First' truly among the priorities of the US government today?

I invite you to look beyond the machinery of misinformation — an integral part of this aggression — and instead speak with those who have visited Iran. Observe the many accomplished Iranian immigrants — educated in Iran — who now teach and conduct research at the world's most prestigious universities, or contribute to the most advanced technology firms in the West. Do these realities align with the distortions you are being told about Iran and its people?

Today, the world stands at crossroads. Continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. The choice between confrontation and engagement is both real and consequential; its outcome will shape the future for generations to come. Throughout its millennia of proud history, Iran has outlasted many aggressors. All that remains of them are tarnished names in history, while Iran endures — resilient, dignified, and proud.

Supporting Israel is now 'mandatory' at The Telegraph

2026-04-15T22:26:00.008+01:00

Owen Jones

The new owners have made support for Israel a core principle

The Daily Telegraph is being acquired by a German-based media giant - and now its journalists are formally expected to support Israel.

The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has cleared the takeover by Axel Springer SE. Its CEO, Mathias Döpfner, has written to Telegraph staff "outlining his commitment" to the paper.

An employee at The Telegraph has sent me that letter. It is deeply revealing.

Döpfner insists that the values of The Telegraph and the publishing house founded by late tycoon Axel Springer - dubbed 'Germany's Rupert Murdoch' - are aligned. They are, he says, "Freedom, free markets, individual freedom and freedom of speech."

He goes further. Axel Springer, he explains, is "guided by a clear editorial compass." Its employees are rooted in its Essentials - "core values to which we are firmly committed."

There is, he adds, "no such thing as neutral journalism": only journalism that is "pluralistic and surprising, fair, and fact-based."

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Iran's Shahab-3 Just Obliterated Dimona — The World Will Never Be The Same

2026-04-11T11:53:00.004+01:00

Scott Ritter Updates

BREAKING: Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missile has struck the Dimona nuclear facility — and the world as we know it has changed FOREVER. Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, breaks down what this strike REALLY means for the Middle East, Israel, and global nuclear security.

💥 What happens when a nuclear site gets hit?

💥 Why is the mainstream media SILENT on this?

💥 Is this the beginning of World War 3?

💥 What does Scott Ritter say the West is hiding?

The Dimona nuclear reactor has been Israel's most guarded secret for decades. Now, Iran's most powerful ballistic missile — the Shahab-3 — has allegedly reached its target. The geopolitical shockwaves are being felt from Washington to Moscow.

Scott Ritter — the man who PREDICTED this escalation — gives his unfiltered, expert analysis that you will NOT hear on CNN, Fox News, or BBC.

Prominent New York synagogue hosts presentation on why U.S. Jews should support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza

2026-04-09T12:15:00.005+01:00

Mondoweiss | Philip Weiss

Benjamin Anthony’s speech at New York’s influential Park Avenue Synagogue, where he argued that U.S. Jews need to support ethnic cleansing in Gaza, illustrates how the American Jewish community has embraced Israeli racism and brutality.

The American press does its best not to cover savage Israeli views of Palestinians, but a leading New York synagogue gave an honored platform to those views ten days ago. It hosted an Israeli advocate with connections in its government who argued for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and said American Jews need to support that operation.

Benjamin Anthony said that all “Palestinian Arabs” in Gaza pose such a threat to Israel that the international community should use “muscular diplomacy” with Egypt so as force the population out of Gaza into an “enclave” in the Sinai peninsula.

“I believe the international community would very handily be able to create some sort of enclave for the…Gazans in the Sinai peninsula. And then we might have the breathing room to think about long-term solutions.”

Though those two million Gazans would likely be displaced again, into African countries, said Anthony, the leader of an Israeli think tank called the MirYam Institute.

“I think someone like [Egyptian president] Sisi would likely move the Gazans along from the Sinai peninsula in the event that he didn’t want to build a place for them there, and you would probably see them dispersed through the continent of Africa quite quickly.”

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BREAKING: Largest Real-World Analysis of Ivermectin + Mebendazole in Cancer Patients Shows 84.4% Clinical Benefit — Nearly HALF Report Cancer Disappearance or Regression

2026-04-09T12:09:00.003+01:00

Focal Points | Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

We have completed the largest real-world human analysis to date evaluating ivermectin and mebendazole in cancer patients—and the results represent one of the most compelling clinical signals ever documented for repurposed anti-parasitic therapies in oncology.

The manuscript is now available as a preprint on the Zenodo research repository, operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, while undergoing peer review at leading oncology journals: “Real-World Clinical Outcomes of Ivermectin and Mebendazole in Cancer Patients: Results from a Prospective Observational Cohort.”

In this real-world prospective clinical program evaluation, a diverse population of cancer patients (n=197) were prescribed compounded ivermectin–mebendazole, with each capsule containing 25 mg ivermectin and 250 mg mebendazole.

At approximately six months post-treatment initiation, we observed an 84.4% Clinical Benefit Ratio (CBR), with nearly half of cancer patients (48.4%) reporting either no evidence of disease (32.8%) or tumor regression (15.6%). An additional 36.1% reported disease stabilization. This means more than four out of five patients reported either improvement or stabilization of their cancer.

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Who's behind the mysterious 'Iran-backed terror cell' haunting Europe?

2026-04-09T12:00:00.004+01:00

Wyatt Reed | The Gray zone

Claims that an Iran-backed group is carrying out attacks in European cities raise questions about why they're not targeting countries directly involved in the US-Israeli war, and why they appear to communicate like Israelis. Strangely, suspects arrested in the attacks have been released on bail.

A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of Ashab al-Yamin. Officially known as "Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI)," or the "Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right," the group mysteriously appeared in early March, and, according to mainstream media, it's taking the continent by storm.

But a closer look at the supposedly Iran-backed terror organization suggests that it does not exist in any concrete form, and may be a confection of Israeli intelligence.

Though the nebulous HAYI claimed credit for torching ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization in London on March 23, two suspects in the attack have been released on bail, and are not charged with any terror-related crimes. What's more, London Metropolitan Police have so far refused to release the men's names, raising questions about their identities. Were they even Muslim?

HAYI's first public mention in the West came on March 9, when the previously non-existent organization released a video showing an explosive device detonating outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, alongside a statement taking credit for the attack. Within hours, the group had somehow been identified by the "SITE Intelligence Group," an Israeli-led private intelligence firm founded in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to cash in on the newly-minted Global War on Terror.

The materials HAYI published were promptly circulated on social media by Joe Truzman, a self-described "Senior Research analyst examining Palestinian armed groups and Iranian proxy organizations" at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neoconservative DC-based think tank founded in 2001 with the stated goal of working to "enhance Israel's image." As The Grayzone reported, the Trump White House plagiarized its public justification for attacking Iran word-for-word from an FDD paper.

Though Truzman declined to state where he'd found the materials, he wrote that "Telegram channels linked to the Axis of Resistance... widely disseminated the publications," using a reference to a variety of resistance factions sympathetic to Iran and Palestine throughout the greater Middle East. The group he linked to, a popular Telegram channel called Sabereen News, made it clear they were reposting the video, which they said was the work of a group calling themselves "the companions."

Almost immediately, Truzman began asserting that these "companions" were all but guaranteed to be a Tehran-linked cutout. For starters, he told British media, "their logo with the wording is a sign of a classic Iranian front organization." And Iran had already threatened to carry out just such a wave of attacks, Truzman claimed. After all, he wrote, "On March 8, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, Iran's deputy-foreign minister, warned that if a European country joined the US and Israel in the current war against the Islamic Republic, it would be a 'legitimate' target 'for Iranian retaliation.'"

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Barbaria strategically surrenders. Civilization wins. For now

2026-04-08T20:36:00.000+01:00

Pepe Escobar | Strategic Culture Foundation

This was always about Civilization.

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." History will register it with a gaze as pitiless as the Sun. An astonishing barbarian imprimatur, courtesy of the President of the United States, via a social media post.

In a nutshell, this was a trashy "civilization" that gave the world the Big Mac threatening to wipe out an ancient civilization that gave the world algebra; influenced art, science, governance in unparalleled ways; produced stars from Cyrus the Great to Avicenna, from Omar Khayyam to poet supreme Jalaladdin Rumi; developed serial, sublime gardens, carpets, architectural wonders and philosophical and ethical frameworks.

Crucially, there was not a single peep about this Barbaria outburst from the political leadership of the entire "civilized" collective West, not even feigning outrage, once again proving their absolute, irreversible moral and political bankruptcy.

Iranians answered Barbaria in kind. Over 14 million people registered to form human walls around their power stations all across the nation, simultaneously protecting their livelihood and confronting head on the firepower of the Epstein Syndicate.

As a hair-raising cliffhanger approached, the Baboon of Barbaria pivoted into - what else - TACO: the LEGO guys immortalized it.

There's absolutely no way that Pakistan could have offered "guarantees" to Iran that a ceasefire was the way for the war to eventually end. As confirmed by diplomatic sources, what really happened is that Beijing, at the 11th moment, placed itself as the guarantor, assuring Tehran that the US would accept at least some of Iran's demands included in its 10-point plan.

That was further confirmed by Iranian ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rhamani Fazili. The negotiations start this Friday in Islamabad.

POTUS, the Drooling Baboon of Barbaria, confronted with the inevitable, dire consequences of his own strategic blunder, used Pakistan for his off-ramp. That was confirmed by another epic blunder by the Pakistani Prime Minister himself: he forgot to remove the header of the tweet/X post drafted by the White House for him to publish.

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"Agents of Influence": How Netanyahu, through Trump's family circle, dragged America into war to save his own skin

2026-04-07T00:10:00.000+01:00

Viktor Mikhin | New Eastern Outlook

The Resignation That Exposed the Mechanism of Betrayal of U.S. National Interests.

On March 19, 2026, an event occurred that, in a normal political system, should have caused an earthquake. Joe Kent, Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, resigned. But not for family reasons or due to "differences over strategic issues" — the euphemisms Washington typically uses to cover up the departure of those who have fallen out of favor. Kent stepped down with a public statement that reads like an indictment: "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran."

This is not just a resignation. It's the removal of a seal behind which lay the ugly truth about how foreign policy decisions are actually made in the United States. Kent, a veteran of special forces and the CIA, a man whose wife died in Syria while on duty, stated what Washington usually prefers to keep quiet: the Trump administration launched a war with Iran under pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby.

Iran did not pose an "imminent threat" to the United States. This was acknowledged by a man who, by virtue of his position, had access to the most classified information on terrorist threats. Yet America found itself drawn into a full-scale military conflict that has already cost the lives of American service members — at least 13 killed and about 200 wounded (at the time of this writing).

How did this become possible? The answer to this question leads straight to Jerusalem, to the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, who found a way to use the U.S. president as a tool to achieve his own political and personal goals.

The Puppeteers from the Family Circle: Trump's Sons-in-Law and "Mossad Agents"

For those still doubting how deeply Israeli influence has penetrated the highest offices of the White House, one need only look at Donald Trump's inner circle. At the center of decision-making are two of the president's sons-in-law — Jared Kushner and, according to some reports, his other son-in-law as well — who hold Israeli passports and, according to informed sources, maintain direct contact with Israeli intelligence agencies.

It was Kushner who, according to reports, played a key role in orchestrating deals and military decisions in Israel's interest. And this is not speculation: Netanyahu himself, in his memoir "Bibi: My Story," described how his close adviser Ron Dermer used "golf terminology" to communicate with Trump, finding common ground with him that was beyond the reach of professional diplomats. Trump, as experts note, is "hungry for flattery," and this weakness was masterfully exploited.

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The Palantir Panopticon

2026-04-07T00:03:00.006+01:00

Michael Rectenwald | REKT

In my book Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (2019), I argued that the main danger with AI is not a rogue super-intelligence that might rebel against humanity; the far greater danger is perfect AI obedience. AI could function as the ultimate instrument of authoritarian "elites," faithfully executing total surveillance, behavioral scoring, and preemptive social control.

Further, AI reliance risks the wholesale abdication of human agency and the flattening of human intelligence and sociality. As decision-making authority is ceded to algorithms, people will become passive nodes in a system that replaces human thinking with AI information processing — "Bots R Us" — eroding autonomy, creativity, and genuine deliberation.

Geopolitically, AI threatens to produce unrivaled systems of ideological and political dominance and cohesion. The dominant worldview is the worldview that dominates AI. The AI race is not toward liberation but toward a hybrid post-human order in which freedom is rendered obsolete, and free will, as Yuval Noah Harari says, is "history."

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THE AVALANCHE HAS STARTED: Why $500 Oil Will CRUSH the West (And Nobody Sees It Coming)

2026-03-28T18:03:00.000+00:00

Alex Krainier

The avalanche has already started — and nobody is paying attention. After the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran (Operation Epic Fury / Operation Roaring Lion), the Strait of Hormuz has been shut down, removing 20% of global oil supply overnight. Alex Krainer explains why oil could surge to $200, $380, or even $500 per barrel — and why the West is sleepwalking into the worst economic crisis in a century.

⚠️ Why Is Nobody Panicking? Just like families enjoying lunch as an avalanche barrels toward them, markets and governments are frozen. The National Intelligence Council warned this attack wouldn't overthrow Iran — and they were right. Now the consequences are unfolding: oil shocks, fertilizer shortages, and the beginning of a bond market Armageddon that could mirror Weimar Germany's collapse. 💰 The Debt Time Bomb Nobody Talks About Our entire monetary system runs on debt that requires constant growth. Alex reveals how the loss of control over Middle Eastern resource wealth is pulling the collateral out from under Western financial institutions — triggering an unstoppable chain reaction of bad debts, central bank money printing, and hyperinflation. 🛢️ $500 Oil Is Not Science Fiction The UK Ministry of Defence predicted $500/barrel oil by 2040. JPMorgan forecasted $380 in 2022. Global conventional oil production peaked between 2005-2009, and fracking won't save us. The Hormuz closure just accelerated the timeline by decades. This is the commodity super-cycle the world isn't ready for. 🔥 What You Can Do RIGHT NOW Alex shares practical strategies for preserving wealth and preparing for the storm — from gold and silver to trend-following strategies that have captured every major market move for over 20 years. Subscribe for uncensored macroeconomics, history & geopolitics! 👉 / @kraineralex Substack by Alex Krainer: https://substack.com/@alexkrainer Substack - TrendCompass: https://trendcompass.substack.com X: https://x.com/NakedHedgie

JFK: The Memo That Might Have Stopped Israel’s War on Iran

2026-03-25T21:52:00.003+00:00

Freddie Ponton | Activist Post

On 21 November 1963, two days before John F Kennedy was shot in Dallas, one of his closest advisers sat through a tense lunch with an Israeli minister and quietly wrote down what Washington dared not say in public. That memorandum, drafted by National Security Council advisor Robert Komer (“Blowtorch Bob”), reads today like a warning note from a different era, a moment when a US president still tried to keep some distance from a small client state that demanded everything and offered secrecy in return.

Komer describes an Israel already furious that the United States would not simply sabotage a United Nations debate on Palestinian refugees to its liking. The Israeli side accuses American diplomats of “lying” and “active lobbying” against an Israeli resolution, as though Washington’s task at the UN were not to balance conflicting claims in a decolonising region but to function as Israel’s parliamentary whip. In response, Komer sketches a picture that has become brutally familiar in 2026. He sees a government whose “consistent policy” is to push the United States into an openly pro-Israeli position, regardless of the consequences with Arab societies, regardless of the opportunity it hands to rival powers, regardless of the long-term cost in blood and legitimacy. All of these phrases and characterisations such as “lying,” “active lobbying,” the description of Israel’s “consistent policy” since 1948 and US concern over its impact on Arab relations and Soviet influence, are drawn directly from and faithfully summarised in Komer’s November 21, 1963 memo. (full memo).[2001-2009.state]

In the memo, the United States is already Israel’s “guarantor, banker, and strongest friend,” expected to subsidise the state, shield it diplomatically, and fight its wars if necessary. Yet even at this early stage, Washington is kept in the dark about the most dangerous files.

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Polling Reveals A Profound Shift on Vaccines: We Can't Let Pharma Bury It

2026-03-25T21:43:00.004+00:00

The Forgotten Side of Medicine

Story at a Glance:

- Due to widespread media and scientific censorship, accurate information which challenges pharmaceutical interests is difficult to obtain. Polling offers a unique means to bypass this blockade.

- Extensive polling shows 9%-34% of COVID vaccine recipients developed side effects from the vaccine, 7-13% developed serious side effects, 7.5-22% know someone with a severe vaccine injury, 24-28% know someone who they believe died from the vaccine and 46-55% believe the COVID vaccines have killed a significant number of people.

- These results are profound and likely account for the unprecedented loss of trust in doctors and hospitals since COVID (from 71.5% to 40.1%) which is mirrored by a significant loss of trust in the pharmaceutical industry, government health authorities and support for childhood vaccinations (which, now, almost half of the population no longer fully trusts).

- MAHA's policies and accomplishments, including those towards vaccines, are now some of the most popular issues with the electorate — but unfortunately are not being effectively promoted to the public due to media censorship.

- To prepare for the midterms, the Trump administration has pivoted away from vaccines due to (likely biased) polling data suggesting that vaccines are a toxic issue that must be avoided to have a chance of winning the election.

- I believe this pivot is a mistake as the polls (detailed in this article) show immense support for RFK's actions on vaccines. Furthermore, this mistake is very similar to what happened in 2020 as the Trump administration struggled to address COVID and failed to secure the 2020 election.

Joe Rogan recently had RFK Jr. on his show, and there, RFK presented an excellent summary of the wide range of remarkable (and previously impossible) things he and his team have been able to pull off after a year due to them having the president's complete support to challenge the vested interests that profit off of keeping us sick. As such, for those of you who want to know what MAHA is actually doing, I would highly recommend watching it.

Unfortunately, this segment also confirmed something I was quite worried about: RFK, someone I know sincerely cares about vaccine safety, did not once discuss vaccines with Rogan, even in numerous instances where it would have been the most expected subject to insert after related points were raised. Based on this (and many other shifts I've noticed recently), I am relatively certain the Trump administration received polling data that made them decide the vaccine subject needed to be avoided until after the midterms and that instead "safer" topics with a more widespread appeal needed to be focused on now. In this article, I will provide the data that shows why this is a mistake and the key steps we can take to correct it.

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Made in Israel: Trump White House plagiarized Iran war manifesto from Israel-aligned think tank

2026-03-25T21:35:00.006+00:00

Wyatt Reed and Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone

The Trump White House plagiarized its justification for attacking Iran from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the main DC outfit promoting war with Tehran. The think tank was originally founded to "enhance Israel's image," and partners closely with the Israeli government.

The Trump Administration appeared to plagiarize its official justification for its war on Iran, copying almost word-for-word a document originally produced by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-war think tank with close ties to Israeli intelligence which was originally founded to "enhance Israel's image."

The FDD document was authored by Tzvi Kahn, the former assistant director for policy and government affairs at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

A March 2, 2026 statement issued by the White House accusing Tehran of 44 instances of terrorism against American citizens is "virtually identical" to the list published by FDD in June 2025, analyst Stephen McIntyre noted Thursday.

While the White House did make superficial alterations to the text, they largely consisted of appending the label "Iran-backed" to every mention of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. In the few instances where Trump administration officials bothered to make significant changes to the original FDD list, the edits were almost always made in service of "ratcheting up the underlying allegation," McIntyre concluded.

Among the most egregious examples was a 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which FDD originally said merely that Hezbollah al-Hejaz was "deemed responsible" for. In the White House version, however, the group's responsibility was "asserted as factual," explained McIntyre, noting that serious questions about the incident remain unanswered to this day. "Clinton's Defense Secretary William Perry subsequently wondered (along with many others) whether Khobar Towers should have been attributed to Al Qaeda," he wrote.

A 2009 investigation by journalist Gareth Porter based on interviews with over a dozen former CIA, FBI and Clinton administration officials demonstrated that the FBI's inquiry into the Khobar Towers attack was precooked to blame Iran, when Al Qaeda was mostly like the culprit. Porter found that Shia citizens of Saudi Arabia had been tortured into confessing to the crime by Saudi secret police.

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Join The US Military - Kill And Die For Israel

2026-03-24T19:06:00.006+00:00

Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities

President Trump's decision to join Israel in launching a regime-change war on Iran has so far cost the lives of at least 13 American service members. More than 200 have been wounded, dozens seriously enough to require evacuations to military hospitals in Europe and the United States. Among them are individuals who've suffered traumatic brain injuries, burns and shrapnel wounds. One was facing potential amputation of an arm or leg.

As much as these service members and their families are victims of Iran's justified retaliation for a surprise attack perpetrated amid ongoing negotiations, they're victims of a betrayal perpetrated by their president and the joint chiefs of staff, who cast them into an unconstitutional war of aggression, packaged in lies and initiated to advance the agenda of a foreign government, while undermining the security of their own country.

Of course, US casualties comprise a small subset of the total bloodshed. In executing this unjust war, Americans have collectively inflicted far more death and dismemberment than they've endured, teaming up with their Israeli counterparts to kill more than 3,000 Iranians, including some 150 schoolgirls — mostly between age 7 and 12 — whose school was destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles at the war's very start.

Though it should have already been apparent, Operation Epic Fury should make clear that — service members' good intentions aside — combat waged under the US flag rarely has anything to do with American security. Moreover — and I say this as former Army Reserve enlistee and Regular Army officer — anyone thinking of starting or extending a military career should understand that their government may send them to be killed, maimed or psychologically damaged, and to slaughter foreign innocents, so long as it helps those in power remain in the good graces of the extremists who rule Israel, and their powerful collaborators inside the United States.

A New Regime-Change War Built On False Premises

Under international law, a war of aggression is considered a supreme war crime unto itself, and Operation Epic Fury is precisely that. Like so many of America's wars before it, this one was launched on false premises. Contrary to the US-Israeli narrative...

Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. In 2007, the US intelligence community assessed that Iran halted any effort to develop a nuclear weapon in 2003. Since then, the intelligence community has periodically re-validated that conclusion, most recently in March 2025. Belying Trump's claim that the United States had only two weeks in which to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this week testified that Iran had made "no efforts" to rebuild its enrichment capacity after it was devastated by last summer's US bombing.

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Screw the Pooch, Betray the Base

2026-03-22T14:37:19.505+00:00

Comment: Excellent article and well worth reading in full.

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Harrison Koehli | Political Ponerology

According to Gallup polling from last year, up to 45% of adult Americans identify as political independents. That's a plurality, as the remainder is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with 27% each. Forty-five percent is around 120 million adults, and that number has been growing for the past 20 years, driven largely by the younger generations. It's easy to see why. Neither party represents them.

Every four years, independents are put in the position of either throwing their vote away for a third-party candidate who will get at most 3% of the popular vote, or choosing what they see as the lesser of two evils. (In the last 50 years, only Ross Perot came close, winning 19% in 1992.)

That's not to say independents are a homogeneous group. Slightly more independents lean Democrat than Republican (20% vs. 15%), with a core 10% who explicitly reject both parties. Given the choice (and an electoral system that would support it), their votes might be split among a handful of parties, as is the case in most democracies. The end result is that the largest segment of the American voting population does not have consistent political representation, at least on the federal level.

That's not always the case, however. Independents may genuinely favor a particular candidate, despite his alignment with one of the parties. This was arguably the case with Donald Trump. As Bret Weinstein — a liberal Democrat who voted for him — described it recently on Tucker, Trump did the impossible: "he beat the duopoly, both sides of it, took over the Republican party, defeated the Democratic party soundly." He did that by dipping into the pool of independents and disaffected liberals like Weinstein. And he did that by presenting a platform that voters largely agreed with, e.g., no new wars, MAHA, unrigging elections, mass deportations, DOGE.

In the first year of his second term, he seems to have at least tried to follow through on many of these promises, despite obstruction from judges and the immobility of Congress. And even when his decisions were controversial among some of his base, such as last year's Iran strikes and January's kidnapping of an El Presidente, those operations were successful one-and-dones, over as soon as the news reached the homeland, with any ex-post-facto criticism just coming across as lame.

All of that seems to have changed with Operation Epic Fury. (And the only reason I say "seems" is because of the meme.) Regime-change war is back on the menu (but it's not a regime change war, in fact, it's not a war, it's an excursion to prevent a war, which might still turn into one, but it's war for peace) and the price of gas is no longer important. Within days, the White House was already caving on another central policy, mass deportations: "Don't mention them anymore." Along with the handling of the Epstein files, voters who aren't Catturd are notably pissed. For many, not going to war with Iran was the main reason they voted for Trump. Here's how Weinstein put it:

Now, I will say I'm very upset with President Trump at the moment. I feel personally burned as somebody who worked to get him elected. I did it for a reason and frankly if given the same choice today I would have to make the same vote, because I think what the Democratic party offered was anti-constitutional. We had a demented president who they pretended wasn't, and then we had somebody who hadn't won a primary installed by the party. This is not the consent of the governed. So I would have to vote for Trump again just because he's at least a qualified person who was the nominee of his party through a lawful process. But I'm angry at him because I voted for no new wars. And when I voted for no new wars, Iran was top of mind for me because I knew that it was on the agenda of the neocons. So I expected somebody to try to force this to happen.

This was Vance in 2024: "America doesn't have to constantly police every region of the world. Our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country."

When Trump said "no new wars" on the campaign trail, and when voters gave their support to that policy with their votes, they had precisely Iran in mind. The neocons have been blue-balled for decades over Iran. They have gotten practically every other country on their list: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Iran was the last one, probably because it was the biggest challenge. (Unless they really want to try Turkey after this.) Now the Lindsay Grahams and Mark Levins have their war — a war that never would have happened if Trump were president, I'm sure.

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Israeli war chief offers ‘apology’ to Sde Teiman rapists, orders their reinstatement into army

2026-03-19T12:00:10.895+00:00

The Cradle

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz recently met with the soldiers responsible for raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman torture facility, ordering their reinstatement to the army and apologizing to them for the “injustice” they faced.

The meeting came days after the charges against them were officially dropped.

According to Hebrew media reports, including Channel 14, the soldiers from Force 100 attended the meeting with Katz wearing masks, in order to conceal their identities.

During the meeting, Katz told the soldiers, “I apologize for the injustice the system has done to you,” referring to the investigations opened against them and the “psychological harm” he said was caused by the military legal process.

Military sources told the Jerusalem Post they were “surprised” by Katz’s order to reinstate the soldiers, as the war chief “has the power to approve or hold up certain senior appointments, but not the power to order the army to return soldiers to service who have been caught up in legal proceedings.”

The sources added that they were “skeptical that any reinstatement would actually occur.”

The meeting came after the Israeli army’s top lawyer ordered the cancellation of the indictment against the five soldiers.

Among the reasons for the cancellation was “complexity regarding the existing evidence.”

It also cited the five soldiers’ claim of “abuse of process.” A video of the sexual assault had been leaked by Israel’s former military advocate general, resulting in two arrests and a major scandal late last year.

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The Strait of Hormuz crisis: Why the US may be heading toward a strategic disaster

2026-03-18T23:07:31.285+00:00

US forces could capture a key Iranian island, but this would lead to a whole host of new problems.

When the US and Israel choose the logic of coercive pressure on Iran, they inevitably step into more than just another Middle Eastern crisis. They enter one of the most dangerous knots in world politics.

Here, military geography is directly bound up with global energy flows, the internal resilience of states, and the limits of American power projection. The war that began in late February 2026 has already crossed the line beyond which it can no longer be described as a localized air campaign and has started to affect global markets, US alliances, and the very architecture of security in the Persian Gulf.

Under normal conditions, around a fifth of global liquid hydrocarbon consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, along with a fifth of global LNG trade. At the same time, Iran's island-based oil export infrastructure remains one of the key arteries of the country's economy. Judging by media reporting and official US notices, the dynamics of the first weeks of the conflict already show that actual developments have diverged significantly from what the initiators of the escalation likely expected. If the plan had been working in full, the US would not have had to scramble to assemble an international coalition to restore shipping, admit that military escorts remain too risky for now, or face refusals from allies to join an operation in the Strait of Hormuz. The mere fact that even after large-scale strikes, the question of safe passage for commercial vessels remains unresolved, and that allies are in no hurry to share the military burden, points to a fairly well-grounded conclusion: The situation has clearly not unfolded according to the desired script.

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In 2002, the U.S. Military Conducted an Iran War Simulation. Iran Won

2026-03-18T23:01:47.097+00:00

David Axe | The National Interest

As tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf region, it’s worth recalling a 2002 Pentagon war game in which a U.S. Marine Corps played the part of an enemy commander waging a bloody defensive campaign against a much more powerful U.S. force.

Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper’s own hodgepodge of troops, ships and planes was similar in organization and capability to Iran’s actual forces. Van Riper’s success in blunting a simulated American assault could reveal how Tehran might fight in the real world.

“The exercise was called Millennium Challenge 2002,” Blake Stilwell wrote for We Are the Mighty.

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The price of war on Iran: Washington’s mounting military and financial drain

2026-03-16T13:01:00.008+00:00

Abbas al-Zein | The Cradle

The US-Israeli war on Iran has triggered one of the most dangerous escalations witnessed in West Asia in recent years. US military bases spread across the Persian Gulf region have increasingly come under direct missile and drone attack, marking a significant shift in the nature of regional warfare.

While initial coverage concentrated on battlefield developments and the pace of aerial bombardment, the broader and more consequential cost of confrontation – both military and economic – has gradually begun to take shape.

Alongside reciprocal strikes, there are growing indications of rapid depletion in high‑value missile defense systems, extensive use of expensive strategic munitions, and rising operational strain across US forces.

At the same time, global markets and energy supply chains have begun to respond to the expanding confrontation. These overlapping dynamics raise fundamental questions about the distribution of losses during the early phase of the war and about the long‑term trajectory of escalation.

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Messianic Theology is now Israeli State Policy

2026-03-15T17:02:00.003+00:00

Phil Harper | The Digger

For decades, the Western gaze has mapped onto Israel the familiar contours of a modern liberal democracy — a tech-savvy, secular state navigating the rough neighborhood of the Middle East with a pragmatic eye on security and strategic depth. But to listen to the rhetoric echoing out of Jerusalem this spring is to realize that this secular model is obsolete. On March 12, 2026, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the nation and spoke not of buffer zones or GDP, but of a metaphysical "place of rest and heritage" and the arrival of the "Days of the Messiah."

The message was clear: the Israeli state is no longer merely a refuge for a people; it has become, in the eyes of its leaders, an instrument of divine prophecy. For the secular economies of the West, which rely on materialist explanations like oil, land, and power to understand the world, this theological pivot is almost impossible to parse. Yet, without integrating these messianic undercurrents into our model of the nation, we are effectively flying blind.

The roots of this shift go back further than many realize. Footage from 1990 captures a younger Netanyahu meeting Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who urged the politician to "do something to hasten" the arrival of the Messiah. Netanyahu's response? That he was already working on it. Thirty five years later, Netanyahu's recent actions in Iran may be judged against this very promise.

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See also: The Z Factor VIII: Chabad Lubavitch (1)

Israel's biggest US donor now owns CBS

2026-03-11T13:22:00.001+00:00

Alan Macleod | MintPress News

After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison — the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison — has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising "unbiased" news coverage and "varied ideological perspectives," which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network's new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her "pro-Israel stance."

MintPress News examines Ellison's close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss's extensive career as Israel's most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.

Israel's Man In Silicon Valley

Although Skydance, Ellison's media empire, is officially headed by David, it is well understood that father Larry holds both the purse strings and the reins of power. With a net worth of $301 billion, placing him second on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Rankings, Larry made his fortune by founding tech giant Oracle.

Oracle started as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, it is named after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation on which Ellison worked. For some time, the CIA was Oracle's only customer, until it began to win contracts with other agencies of the U.S. national security state. Today, although Oracle's customer base is much wider, it maintains its role as the privatized face of the CIA.

Yet if Oracle is close to Washington and Langley, it is perhaps even more intimately tied to the State of Israel. An avowed Zionist, Ellison has worked tirelessly to advance Israel's political project. Among his closest personal friends is Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he vacationed on his private island in Hawaii. Ellison was so impressed and confident in the Israeli prime minister that he offered him a seat on his company's board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

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Conscientious Objector Group: Phone 'Ringing Off Hook' As Huge Mobilization Underway

2026-03-09T22:19:00.002+00:00

ZeroHedge

An 80-year-old nonprofit that advises conscientious objectors says its phone is "ringing off the hook" as American service members who object to the US-and-Israel-initiated war on Iran are seeking guidance on how to avoid being a part of it. Ominously, the group's executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the run-up to the ground invasion of Iraq.

"Phone has been ringing off the hook," wrote Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner on X. "A LOT more units have just been activated for deployment than the public knows about." Founded in 1940, the Center on Conscience and War provides guidance to military service members pursuing a conscientious objector (CO) status or a discharge. The group also opposes military conscription.

In a post on the group's account, the Center said it received a call from someone who is on deployment orders and who:

"reports widespread opposition to Iran War within their unit...In particular, they conveyed disgust at the US massacre of the girls' school as well as the attack on the Iranian frigate in international waters."

The US military is reportedly responsible for killing some 150 schoolgirls in Minab, Iran during the opening of the war. In another incident, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian ship that was departing a largely ceremonial naval event in India that involved 18 countries. Compounding the controversy over sinking a lightly-armed vessel 2,000 miles from the war theater, the Americans apparently left surviving sailors to drown in a violation of the Geneva Convention -- that is, a war crime. At least 87 died.

Under US military policy, CO status is defined as "a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief." That would seemingly exclude service members who stand ready to defend America, but who view the war on Iran as an amoral enterprise being carried out solely to advance Israel's agenda in the region.

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Ex-Prince Andrew Accused of Watching Young Girl Being Tortured

2026-03-09T22:14:00.000+00:00

Dominique Thompson | Yahoo! News

Trigger Warning: This article contains descriptions of alleged child abuse and violence.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's fallout escalated again February 19 when authorities arrested him on suspicion of misconduct in public office. They released him the same day, but investigators are still reviewing material tied to the case.

Now, a disturbing allegation drawing attention claims Andrew was present while a young girl was subjected to electric shocks during an encounter involving Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

A tip cited in a July 2020 FBI report describes an alleged mid-1990s incident. The claim says Ghislaine strapped a girl to a table and "tortured [her] with electrical shocks." She was believed to be around six to eight years old. Andrew and several other men allegedly watched at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.

According to RadarOnline, sources say detectives plan to question Andrew about every allegation. One insider said "all accusations referenced in the Epstein files and reports about their contents could form part of the police interviews of Andrew." They added, "Detectives will be under pressure to examine every specific claim, however disturbing, and establish whether there is any evidential basis to them."

Legal experts say investigators must still review claims, even without clear proof. A legal source said, "When material of this nature enters the public domain, investigators have to consider it. That does not mean the allegations are proven, but they cannot simply be ignored."

A constitutional expert added, "The challenge for investigators is separating allegation from admissible evidence. The fact that something appears in a document does not make it fact, but equally it may be raised in a police interview."

Another source said, "Nothing will be off the table in terms of questioning. If it is in the documents, or there have been reports such allegations are in the documents, it is likely to be put to him."

Andrew has denied wrongdoing related to Epstein and Ghislaine.

The US-Israeli murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

2026-03-07T11:26:00.012+00:00

Eva Bartlett | RT

Graves being prepared for the victims, mostly children, of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on February 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, March 2, 2026. © Iranian Foreign Media Department via AP

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

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

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

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

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting:

"These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how "rescue" promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood."

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

International reaction: Silence

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

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

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

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing:

"Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tucker Carlson Responds to Israel’s War on Iran

2026-03-07T11:15:00.001+00:00

Tucker Carlson

The Tucker Carlson Show