[Just The News] Andrew Lilico of Europe Economics joins Liz Truss to break down why the UK economy remains stuck in stagnation despite promises of growth.
They discuss the role of the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), fiscal rules, and why all major parties—Labour, Conservative, and Reform—appear unwilling to challenge the current economic framework.
Is Britain trapped in a policy "doom loop"? Are politicians avoiding real change? And what would it take to reset the UK economy?
This interview explores the structural issues behind low growth, high spending, and political hesitation—and whether meaningful reform is still possible.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[TASS] Europe is banking on escalating drone warfare
On April 15, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that some NATO countries, in support of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, had decided to increase the production of drones and components for delivery to Ukraine. The decision was approved on March 26, 2026. Europe has made no secret of its hopes of scaling up production to increase the number of long-range drone launches over Russian territory, inflicting additional military and economic damage on our country.
Increased Drone Production for Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense's infographic indicates that joint ventures are already operating and preparing to operate for Ukraine in the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Turkey, and Israel.
Similar production facilities are also underway in Norway (for which, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, $500 million has been allocated) and other countries. In April, the French arms manufacturer MABDA reportedly signed an agreement with the Ukrainian company Fire Point to modernize and upgrade Flamingo missiles used against Russia.
Also, following a recent meeting of the Rammstein contact group, it was announced that EU countries will allocate $1.5 billion for drone production for Ukraine alone. Part of the funds will be spent within the European Union (EU) as part of the ongoing production.
For Ukraine, this represents a way to shift some of its necessary production to NATO countries, where they are not subject to strikes by the Russian Armed Forces. In Ukraine itself, UAV and component production facilities are periodically hit by Russian missiles of various types and drones. This also allows for closer integration of Ukraine's military-industrial complex with that of NATO countries, including through the exchange of expertise in drone production and modernization.
With the US significantly cutting funding for the conflict in Ukraine and continuing to shift the financial burden onto other NATO countries, the option of increasing drone production is seen by NATO leadership as a low-cost way to compensate for the reduction in arms supplies to Ukraine, which Washington now offers to buy at market price rather than simply transfer to Kyiv.
PROJECT GOALS
Ukraine and NATO's strategy is to further intensify long-range drone and missile strikes against military-industrial facilities deep within Russian territory, relying on US and NATO intelligence. Between 2024 and 2025, there was a systematic increase in the number of long-range drones of various types deployed, as well as an enhancement of their combat performance through improved communications systems, flight control, and changes in operational tactics.
A further increase in the number of drones launched is expected in 2026, a significant portion of which will be manufactured outside of Ukraine.
According to Western data, Ukraine was producing up to 2.4 million drones of various types annually by mid-2025. And it was expected to produce up to 4 million by early 2026. More ambitious plans to produce 8-12 million drones were also voiced, but were hampered by a lack of funding and production capacity. This problem is currently being partially addressed by using enterprises in third countries.
It's easy to see that this trend clearly indicates that both the European Union and NATO are pursuing a course toward further escalation of relations with Russia, increasing the risk of direct confrontation. The reasons are obvious. Europe believes that the implementation of the Anchorage deal between US and Russian Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will lead to an end to the conflict in which Ukraine and Europe will emerge as the main losers. At the same time, Europe is being kept out of the negotiating table between the US and Russia.
Given current trends on the front, the EU needs to escalate the conflict, as the inertial scenarios clearly point to the inevitable defeat of Ukraine and the Europe that backs it.
To avoid these inertial scenarios, Europe is attempting to replace the US as the main arms supplier, helping to relocate some weapons production to its territory, condoning the Kyiv regime's terrorist tactics, and supporting the forced mobilization of Ukrainians both in Ukraine and in Europe.
By acting in this way, Europe hopes to harm Russia and secure participation in negotiations on Ukraine's fate, appearing as an independent player.
RISKS OF DIRECT MILITARY CONFLICT.
Meanwhile, the risks of a direct conflict between Russia and NATO continue to increase, as the Russian Ministry of Defense has once again emphasized. However, in public rhetoric, the alliance pretends not to be alarmed by this, and is openly preparing for a direct war with Russia between 2027 and 2030. Such preparatory activities have already been repeatedly exposed by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev stated in this regard that the Russian Ministry of Defense's statements regarding joint Ukrainian-NATO enterprises in Europe should be taken literally. All of these are potential legitimate military targets for Russia. The transition from a potential threat to a practical implementation (i.e., missile strikes) will depend on how the current situation develops.
Thus, Russia is shifting the situation regarding strikes on Ukrainian and NATO enterprises from hypothetical to potential. It is worth noting that such warnings were previously voiced regarding NATO plans to deploy military contingents in Western Ukraine and Poland's plans to annex Western Ukraine.
It is worth noting that the Persian Gulf War clearly demonstrated that the presence of part of a party's military infrastructure on the territory of a third country does not protect against attacks. During the military operations of March 2026, Iran launched targeted strikes against US military infrastructure in the territories of countries it deemed necessary to target. And these countries ultimately did not dare escalate to open warfare against Tehran. And we're considering a situation where a non-nuclear power attacks the infrastructure of a nuclear power on the territory of third countries.
In the case of a potential conflict between Russia and NATO, we're talking about a probable clash between a nuclear power and a military bloc possessing nuclear weapons, making potential conflict scenarios close to terminal.
The line between war and "non-war" in Russia-NATO relations is becoming increasingly elusive.
NATO assumes that Russia will not be the first to escalate nuclear warfare, and that the Overton window can be gradually opened by transferring part of Ukraine's military-industrial complex to Europe, while attempting to maintain the conflict at a conventional level. NATO
COUNTERMEASURES
Countermeasures lead to a significant increase in the number of drones launched by the enemy, and in the event of a purely defensive response in the form of strengthening air defenses, increasing the number of mobile fire groups (MFGs), and ramping up the production of anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft drones, the cost of drone warfare will grow exponentially. Moreover, Russia is also ramping up drone production, forcing its adversary to do the same. Following the meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group, Germany alone will allocate up to $4 billion to counter Russian drones, as well as provide additional IRIS-T air defense systems and missiles.
Regardless of the strategic response to NATO's actions, we must now develop our air defense forces to account for the potential growth of the unmanned aerial threat. The number of aerial targets will increase, and the threat to our infrastructure will grow. In addition to the number of drones, we can expect their further improvement with the introduction of new communications systems, neural networks, swarm-based operating principles, and specific, specialized modifications.
We must significantly increase the number of mobile fire teams in border regions, and create regional counter-drone groups in European Russia. These groups should be integrated into a single network and equipped with effective small arms and short-range detection systems for low-flying targets, including interceptor drones. This will be significantly cheaper than repairing damaged industrial facilities and infrastructure. Bureaucratic obstacles hindering the deployment of such units must be removed.
We also need to develop systems for the comprehensive early detection of swarms of low-flying enemy drones and proactively deploy mobile groups to support air defense assets. It is necessary to increase the number of launchers with small anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft machine guns, and automatic rifles, as well as the widespread introduction of advanced combat lasers, which are no longer science fiction and are already being used on the front lines, such as in the Belgorod Region.
The success of the spring-summer and fall campaigns of 2026, where the country's military-political leadership has set very ambitious goals to achieve the overall objectives of the special military operation, depends on how effectively our army and military-industrial complex can respond to the unmanned aerial vehicle challenge from Ukraine and NATO. We must prepare for this challenge today.
[FreedomToOffendSubstack] How One Pro-Israel Comment Led to Suspension, Defamation, and Termination at the University of Guelph-Humber
The story being circulated was that Finlayson had been arrested on campus, handcuffed by police, and taken away to jail after assaulting a student. There was only one version - the student’s shirt had been torn, and the scene had ended with the professor dramatically led away in handcuffs. They also said that Finlayson has had many criminal encounters like this in the last five years.
The tale was remarkable for its sheer absurdity. Finlayson was known among students as one of the mildest-mannered professors on campus. He had never even raised his voice in class. There wasn’t even a seed of truth; it wasn’t gossip, it was manufactured and sharply focused, deliberate character assassination.
He had said he stood with Israel, and the weight of the small university collapsed on him; it was a sin they deemed unforgivable.
It was the biggest news to hit Guelph-Humber in years.
Except it was a deliberately invented lie. And a lie that could have only started in the executive suite.
Within a few weeks, Finlayson was told that the story had already hardened into campus folklore—the sort of tale that, repeated often enough, quietly promotes itself from gossip to "fact." They are all Hamas. They are all Amalek.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The botched operation in Iran not only dealt a massive blow to the Pentagon's reputation but also exacerbated the rift within the US military. Democrats in Congress, according to media reports, are introducing an impeachment resolution against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who is desperately looking for scapegoats. But he may end up being the one to blame. What an imagination Mr. Dudakov has.
A curious figure is at the forefront of the first, but likely far from last, impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump's current term. This is 34-year-old Congresswoman Yassameen Ansari, the only Iranian-born legislator in Washington. She comes from a family of émigrés who fled Iran after the overthrow of the Shah.
Ansari worked on the "green" agenda at the UN, and was elected to Congress in 2024 from Arizona, a former Republican state. Like many members of the Iranian diaspora abroad, she holds a negative view of the official government in Tehran. However, Ansari, along with her fellow Democratic Party members, has now spoken out strongly against the war.
So is she being blackmailed by the regime or is she their intentional tool?
Even supporters of the Iranian opposition are unhappy with what's happening.
It's no surprise that the Democrats chose Yassamine as the face of their anti-war campaign. During Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans similarly used the only congresswoman with Ukrainian roots, Victoria Spartz, who similarly criticized aid to Kyiv. Back then, the anti-war agenda greatly aided MAGA ideology in the elections; now, it has been seized by the Democratic Party.
Hegseth is charged with five counts. Specifically, he is accused of waging an illegal war in violation of the Constitution—without congressional approval—and of committing numerous war crimes, including the strike on an elementary school that killed more than two hundred Iranian children.
Posturing for the rubes. It’ll never get through the Republican-controlled House, and if it were to, it would not get through the Senate.
The impeachment procedure for a cabinet member is identical to that used against the president. A simple majority in the lower house is required, followed by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. This is a very high threshold, one that has never been surpassed in American history.
In February 2024, Republicans set a precedent by impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's Secretary of Homeland Security, in the House of Representatives. He was accused of negligence due to his failure to protect the southern US border from a wave of migrants. The Senate vote predictably failed. But this was the first impeachment vote against a sitting secretary in 150 years.
Democrats currently hold a minority in both houses of Congress—at least until the upcoming November elections, which they are expected to win.
Or they are expected to lose. It depends who you ask.
Therefore, impeachment is unlikely. However, the current government's opponents have a different goal: to continually increase pressure on the White House, exploiting the deepening rift within the Republican administration.
Centrifugal processes within the Pentagon began back in the spring of 2025, when the first major purges of civilian personnel took place. As it now turns out, those responsible for reducing civilian casualties during conflicts were also fired. Democrats are already blaming the deaths of Iranian girls on the Republican campaign to cut bureaucracy.
Initially, Trump's newly inaugurated team had conflicts with disloyal apparatchiks, often referred to as representatives of the "deep state."
Nowadays, conflicts are increasingly occurring within the context of intra-species struggle. They are largely ideological in nature—realists in the White House are betting on negotiations and gradual de-escalation in relations with Iran. Hawks like Hegseth demand that the situation be persevered until the bitter end, no matter what.
At the Pentagon, the realist group is led by current US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll (his department reports to the Department of War), a protégé of Vice President J.D. Vance and special envoy for Ukraine negotiations. Hegseth is actively digging into Driscoll's record—he recently fired the Army Secretary's closest associates and several army generals. The Pentagon chief appears confident that these dismissals will allow him to absolve himself of responsibility for the complete incompetence demonstrated during the operation.
However, it's unlikely such a desperate strategy will ultimately help the Secretary of War. Hegseth is closely associated with the Iranian operation, as he was the one who had to speak on the subject daily in an attempt to convince the American public that the United States had, in fact, won the war.
With the Pentagon unable to secure a change of government in Iran and unblock the Strait of Hormuz, the realists in Trump's entourage have seized the initiative. They are trying to engage Tehran and hope to reach some kind of agreement, although the positions of the US and Iran diverge greatly. The American negotiating team faces an extremely difficult mission: they need to achieve a breakthrough, make concessions, but present it as a victory. So far, they haven't succeeded.
But if the White House does manage to sign a long-term agreement with Iran and achieve de-escalation, the realists' political position will be significantly strengthened.
Then we'll almost certainly see Hegseth resign and be replaced by Driscoll. This will mark the beginning of the actual formation of Vance's future team for the 2028 elections—well before the campaign even begins. The vice president will increasingly take control of the decision-making levers.
But if hostilities with Iran resume, Hegseth will have a second chance to demonstrate some success in his unbridled militarism. It is precisely for this purpose that limited special forces forces, along with Marines, have been deployed to the Middle East. However, even in this scenario, his resignation is still almost inevitable—only closer to the midterm elections in November.
The Minister of War's fixation on pseudo-religious rhetoric within the framework of the Christian Zionism he promotes also works against him. Recently, during a speech at the Pentagon, his chief quoted a supposed passage from the Bible that was actually a quote from Pulp Fiction. Such is the religious knowledge of the organizer of the "crusade" against Iran. His statements also provoked a conflict between Washington and the Vatican—and this under the first American pope in history!
FBI Director Kash Patel, mired in corruption scandals, is also a near-term candidate for removal. Trump's cabinet continues to steadily disintegrate since the recent resignations of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem. Falling approval ratings and the unpopularity of both domestic and foreign policies are taking their toll.
Democrats have now blocked the Senate's work, introducing identical anti-war resolutions demanding an end to the campaign against Iran. Republicans are forced to hold endless hearings on Iran and continually reject these requests, leaving no time for legislative action.
Meanwhile, Trump has literally a couple of weeks to wage war with Iran. Then he'll have to go to Congress and plead for an extension of war powers. The Democratic Party intends to block any funding for the Pentagon to continue the conflict. And the Pentagon desperately needs it due to the depletion of its precision-guided munitions stockpiles. More than 2,000 JASSM missiles alone have been used up out of a total stockpile of 2,300. The situation with Tomahawk missiles and air defense munitions is no better.
America is at least as good at manufacturing as Russia, which also was slow off the mark for war matériel. The supply problem will be handled.
The White House hopes to approve a record-breaking $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget this fall, including provisions for rearmament. However, there's a problem here too: the proposed cuts to social spending will be met with extreme disfavor from voters, especially just before the congressional elections.
Here too, Democrats will be able to seize the opportunity to win over disgruntled Republicans and block military decisions. The president, meanwhile, has almost no political capital left to turn the situation in his favor, given the failed war with Iran.
[YouTube] Susan Kokinda argues that President Trump has "put the empire on notice" by exposing what she calls a decades-long British-run extortion system centered on the Strait of Hormuz. She says Trump moved to break the alleged protection racket by undermining Lloyd’s of London’s role in maritime insurance, pushing the U.S. to provide coverage, and enforcing an "all or none" approach to Iran’s oil sales. Kokinda highlights UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declining to join an American blockade and claims Britain has lost control of the choke point. She details financial actions targeting Iranian money flows, including UAE arrests of IRGC-linked money changers, Treasury Secretary Bessent using Patriot Act Section 311 against a Zurich bank, and scrutiny of London-based crypto exchanges and Santander UK. She cites a UK military chief admitting Britain’s war planning has lapsed since the Cold War and links fuel disruptions and protests to the conflict, concluding Trump has forced a hidden imperial system into the open.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
04/17/2026 15:00 ||
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the kind of apex predator who doesn’t just play the markets…he weaponizes them into precision-guided ordnance that leaves entire regimes bleeding out in the dirt.
If you still don’t get why this man spent years in the belly of the… https://t.co/e0Xid8dTot
[Promethean Action] Last night, President Trump posted:
"China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also - And the World. This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran."
That’s the President announcing the end of the Hormuz crisis on his terms — with China agreeing not to arm Iran and a meeting with Xi coming in weeks.
Meanwhile, he’s brokering the first call between Israeli and Lebanese leaders in 34 years.
And last night, DNI Gabbard referred the impeachment whistleblower to the DOJ for criminal investigation — the declassified documents from Sunday just became a criminal case.
The board is being cleared. Barbara and Susan will break it all down today.
Today we’ll cover:
Trump’s Hormuz endgame — The blockade worked. China cut off Iran’s arms pipeline. The Strait is being permanently reopened. Barbara will explain how this dismantles the Petrodollar energy racket and why Starmer’s Britain has been left with nothing.
The impeachment hoax goes criminal — Gabbard’s 400-page document dump just became a DOJ referral. The CIA whistleblower had no direct knowledge. The IG weaponized the process. Barbara asks the next question: are the 2020 elections next?
Cutting through the psywar — Pope Leo is being organized against Trump for the midterms. The media wants you demoralized. Susan will refocus you on the revolution — from the economic reset to Artemis II’s historic splashdown.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
04/17/2026 05:44 ||
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#1
News outlets around the world are posting this. (2 pages deep of a search
Nothing from CNN, Fox, MNSBC, CBS, ABC, NBC.
The WSJ & The Hill have posted something.
And another bargaining chip for the negotiations with Iran
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Andrey Bulkin
[REGNUM] In its confrontation with Iran, the United States faces a serious problem: both of Washington's key intervention strategies—first, organizing a coup from within, and then a military campaign aimed at a rapid change of power in the country—have failed. But large sections of the Mad Mullah government and military tables of organization now stand empty, which is a quantity that has a quality all its own…
Humanity is currently experiencing a global shift in eras,
…a truly profound statement. How meaningful it is remains to be seen, but it is definitely profound…
and the manifestations of this fundamental process can be seen particularly clearly in major conflicts. In particular, despite the pronouncements of the White House and the Pentagon, the entire world has witnessed a crisis in the American concept of intervention in the affairs of other countries, which has been in place for over a quarter of a century.
What's happening clearly demonstrates that the old models by which the Americans are accustomed to building their planetary hegemony no longer work.
Which is perhaps why President Trump seeks actively to be a disrupter, a very different model…
The "world policeman," having decided to reiterate its military might, unexpectedly revealed weakness to everyone, especially itself, thereby alienating even traditional allies and vassals—and now risks being left completely alone.
A common opinion, but is it true?
oTHE PERSIAN SPRING FAILED
Over the past decades, the United States has perfected the technique of replacing undesirable governments without direct military intervention.
The method of nonviolent resistance, better known as "velvet" or "color revolutions," has become a hallmark of American foreign policy. Its essence is simple: exploit existing economic and social problems in the country to, with the help of agents of influence, typically nonprofit organizations of various stripes, organize mass protests that, with external financial and media support, lead to a change of government.
Classic examples of this technology's application are well known. It was first tested at the end of the Cold War, when a wave of "velvet revolutions" swept across Eastern Europe in the 1980s. These events led to the region's transition into the US sphere of influence and their subsequent accession to NATO and the European Union.
In 2000, the Serbian Otpor movement, with the support of Western NGOs, overthrew Slobodan Milošević. In 2004, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine prevented Viktor Yanukovych from taking power despite his election victory, and a year earlier, a similar story occurred during the Rose Revolution in Georgia.
Finally, the "Arab Spring" of 2011–2012 led to a reshuffle of power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. Technology, of course, kept pace with the times. During the events in Arab countries, for example, protesters began to massively use social media and special apps that allowed them to communicate with each other and their coordinators, avoiding detention by law enforcement.
Apparently, Iran seemed like a suitable candidate for the US to use the same technology.
The spark ignited on December 28, 2025, after the collapse of the Iranian rial, which led to a rise in prices. As is typical in such situations, protests sparked by socioeconomic problems quickly escalated into political protests. By early January, they had spread throughout the country. This time, the rioters added Starlink terminals to their arsenal, allowing them to bypass internet and other communications blackouts and shutdowns used by the authorities to limit the spread of unrest.
These were the largest street protests since 1979, but the coup Washington had hoped for never materialized. There were several reasons why the technique, which had been successfully used in Belgrade, Tbilisi, Kyiv, Tunis, and Cairo, failed to work.
First of all, Iran turned out to be far from a dictatorship rooted in the cult of a single leader, as the White House attempted to portray. The Iranian political system is so complex that it is extremely difficult to disrupt by outside influence. Unlike Egypt under Mubarak or Libya under Gaddafi, where power was largely based on the personality of the head of state and his inner circle, the Islamic Republic is a diversified conglomerate of power and security institutions.
True.
Power here is distributed among the Supreme Leader, the President, the Majlis (the unicameral parliament), the Guardian Council, the Council of Experts, the Expediency Council, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which partially overlap and back each other up. This is not a political system where removing the top brass is enough to bring everything down—and, in general, removing anything in such conditions using so-called "non-violent methods" is very difficult.
The second reason is historical memory. In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence overthrew the legitimately elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iranian oil.
In the short term, these events benefited the United States, but, as often happens in American foreign policy, over time they began to work against them. The coup not only strengthened the Shah's authoritarian rule but also cemented in Iranian minds the image of the West as one that would stop at nothing for its own gain. This created fertile ground for the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and in 2026, it allowed the Iranian authorities to portray Western support for the protests as an attempt to repeat the 1953 coup.
Another reason is the lack of a clear alternative. For a "color revolution" to succeed, it requires not only hatred for the old regime but also a clear vision of what will replace it. In Iran, there is no such alternative. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah, is the only recognizable Iranian in the West, but within Iran, he is unpopular. He is associated with the corrupt monarchy, its repressive apparatus, and its humiliating dependence on the United States.
Thus, the "color revolution" strategy crashed against the ideological and institutional armor of the Islamic Republic. Convinced that the externally inspired protest had failed, Washington moved to Plan B—a lightning-fast military campaign, as the Pentagon hoped, designed to achieve what the protesters had failed to achieve.
IT DIDN'T WORK TO INTIMIDATE
The doctrine of "Shock and Awe" - or "Rapid Dominance" - was developed by Harlan Ullman and James Wade in 1996. Its essence is radically different from classical ideas about war.
The goal is not to destroy the enemy's army as such, but to weaken its will to resist through powerful strikes, widespread destruction, and psychological pressure in the first days. The goal is to induce in the enemy a state comparable to that experienced by the people of Japan after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but using conventional weapons to completely crush resistance at an early stage.
The paradigmatic application of the doctrine, although never officially adopted, was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the first days, approximately 1,700 airstrikes were carried out and over 500 cruise missiles were launched. Baghdad fell within three weeks.
However, even then, the flaw in the concept became apparent: despite its achievements, "Shock and Awe" still failed to completely break the Iraqis. Saddam Hussein was only toppled after a full-scale ground invasion, followed by a protracted guerrilla resistance that lasted for many years and claimed the lives of thousands of American soldiers.
Nevertheless, many of the techniques of this doctrine have become firmly entrenched in the Pentagon's arsenal, and in 2026 they decided to use it against Iran – but on a much larger scale.
The first day of the war, according to Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the Pentagon's Central Command, was "almost twice as large" in terms of munitions expended as the 2003 attack on Iraq. Over four days, the US hit nearly 2,000 targets.
Israel intensified its attacks, striking approximately 1,000 targets per day. They employed Tomahawk cruise missiles, B-52 bombers, F-35 and F-15 fighters, as well as advanced weapons such as the PrSM missiles, which emerged after the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and LUCAS attack drones.
A significant portion of Iran's political leadership was eliminated on the very first day—Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, along with several senior commanders of the IRGC and the Iranian Armed Forces. Many military installations were damaged or destroyed. However, the "shock" produced failed to induce awe in the Iranians.
The country's leadership quickly mobilized the Basij (a popular militia numbering hundreds of thousands of fighters) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which views this war as nothing less than an eschatological battle between good and evil. Khamenei's assassination merely activated the constitutional mechanism of succession. Neither the political system nor the military command collapsed, continuing to function normally, and a new rahbar (supreme leader) was soon elected—the son of the slain Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, an IRGC veteran and participant in the Iran-Iraq War.
He’s the wounded homosexual who hasn’t been seen in public since, so there is some question how much leading he is capable of doing.
Thus, instead of the previous, already quite elderly leader, who disliked the United States for ideological reasons, the country was led by a younger leader who now also has personal reasons to hate the Americans: since the start of the war, not only his father but also his wife and son have fallen victim to the bombings.
Iran's key command centers and military depots are located underground, out of reach of aircraft. Air defenses have adopted guerrilla tactics: large systems like the S-300 have been hidden, as their radars become highly visible targets when activated.
Instead, mobile teams with infrared guidance systems operate across the country, hunting from ambush in passive mode, remaining undetected by the enemy. It even got to the point where one of these teams shot down an F-35—the Iranians may not have known it was stealth, significantly tarnishing the reputation of the already less-than-successful fifth-generation fighter.
At sea, things are not looking good for the US either – despite the fact that most of the Iranian navy's ships were sunk, the threat from the "mosquito fleet," mines, and sea and air drones does not allow the attacking side to feel free in the Persian Gulf.
WAR BY ITS OWN RULES
Instead of obediently "trembling" before what it claims to be the most powerful army in the world, Iran, which retains an impressive arsenal of missiles and drones, opted for an asymmetrical response, which proved devastating for that part of the American military machine operating in the Middle East.
Uh huh. Devastating.
During the first month of the standoff, Iranian missiles and drones attacked American bases across the region. In Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, allied movements rallied to support the Iranians, also striking US and Israeli targets.
Meanwhile, the Gulf states, on whose active support the White House had counted, chose to distance themselves, unwilling to be drawn into a battle with an uncertain outcome that, by many indications, threatens to drag on for a long time. Even after Iranian strikes on bases located on their territory, the US military limited itself to expressions of concern.
The passive and highly ambiguous response of NATO's European partners to the Middle East operation came as an even more unpleasant surprise to Washington, with Donald Trump making no attempt to hide his disappointment. Even Israel, with which the United States shares equal responsibility, ultimately chose to focus on its more familiar Lebanon.
It's therefore unsurprising that the United States is currently facing a difficult time—Plan B hasn't worked either. According to official Pentagon data, 13 American service members were killed and over 300 wounded in the first month of the war. The IRGC cites very different figures—hundreds killed and over a thousand wounded. The gap in estimates is significant, but even official US data indicates that Iran has managed to inflict significant losses on US forces.
The material damage suffered by the US as a result of Iranian strikes and "friendly fire" during the month-long fighting was colossal. The loss of a dozen aircraft, several helicopters, and important radars, including the largest in the region, resulted in multibillion-dollar losses and created a gap in US air defenses not only in the Middle East but also potentially in other theaters of war—for example, in the event of a conflict with China.
What's worse for the Pentagon is that all the efforts and expenditures have failed to weaken Iranian resistance.
In addition to strikes on vulnerable military targets, Iran relied on economic countermeasures—and they worked brilliantly. Tehran understood the key: the US can win battles, but lose a war if it becomes too costly.
Therefore, strikes were carried out not only against military bases but also against the oil infrastructure of US allies in the Persian Gulf and against ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20 percent of the world's oil supplies and up to 30 percent of fertilizer shipments pass. The American Enterprise Institute estimates that the daily cost of the fighting for the US was approximately half a billion dollars, with total losses over five weeks ranging from $22 to $31 billion.
Iran has thus managed to make the war economically unprofitable for the Americans. Potential gains look increasingly illusory compared to the real losses the US and its allies are already suffering. As The Hill writes, "Even if Trump bombs Iran back to the Stone Age, as the US did to North Vietnam, who will win?"
This conflict has exposed a fundamental crisis in American strategic thinking. Iran has proven that it's possible to lose oil rigs, air power, naval assets, and military bases while still inflicting unacceptable damage on the enemy's economy and global interests. It appears the future lies in wars of attrition, where victory is measured by how quickly the enemy is exhausted, not simply beaten and terrified, as "Shock and Awe" envisioned.
Iran’s birth rate has been far below replacement for decades, and their equipment is ancient and crumbling, not to mention that many of their munitions their factories have been kaboomed. How much more attrition can they absorb before they’re down to old men and little boys wielding stones and sticks?
The rial is at its weakest ever: 1.6M to the dollar — on track for 2M, faster than expected.
Hyperinflation. Mass unemployment. War damage above 40% of GDP. $13B lost every month under blockade (see @FDD@miadmaleki@ElaineDezenski Dan Swift).
#1
Which is perhaps why President Trump seeks actively to be a disrupter, a very different model…
If you are paying attention, he is. He's taking a sword to the post WW2 Gordon Knot of international relations and economics. He recognizes it hasn't been working and seeks to position America in the best possible position for what's to come. Instead of being reactive, he seeks to be proactive.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
