Iran’s Parliament speaker has issued an unusually stark warning about the country’s deepening economic troubles, declaring that even a powerful military cannot protect the Islamic Republic if its people are hungry and the economy continues to deteriorate.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, one of the country’s most senior political figures, made the comments during a meeting with Iranian and Iraqi economists in Baghdad, according to Middle East news outlet Al Bawaba.

“No matter how strong our military power becomes, if we are hungry, we will not be able to endure,” Qalibaf warned, according to the report.

The comments represented a striking acknowledgment from inside Iran’s leadership that the country’s economic crisis could threaten its ability to maintain national security and political stability.

Qalibaf said military power cannot be separated from economic strength, describing security and the economy as “two wings” that depend upon one another.

Without security, he said, investors will not risk their capital. But without economic growth, domestic production, and sufficient income for ordinary citizens, the government cannot sustain security indefinitely.

His comments come as Iran continues to face severe economic pressures after years of international sanctions, regional conflict and enormous government expenditures on its military and regional allies.

Iran’s inflation has been reported at around 90%, while GDP has contracted sharply. More than 1 million jobs have been lost, and oil exports are now close to zero because of the U.S. naval blockade.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to invest heavily in ballistic missiles, drones, and other weapons while also supporting armed groups and allies across the Middle East.

But Qalibaf’s remarks suggest Iranian leaders are increasingly concerned that military capabilities offer little protection against growing economic hardship at home.

We are hungry, we cannot survive,” news outlet Al Bawaba summarized Qalibaf’s warning in its headline Saturday.

Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has long been considered a major figure in Iran’s conservative political establishment.

His willingness to publicly link hunger and economic weakness to Iran’s national security problems could therefore carry particular significance.

The Parliament speaker emphasized that Iran needs economic growth, investment, financial activity, and increased domestic production if it hopes to remain resilient.

His message was straightforward: missiles and military power alone cannot guarantee the survival of the Iranian state.

For Iran to remain strong, Qalibaf said, the government must also provide an economy capable of supporting its people.

Without both, he warned, Iran “will not be able to endure.”

© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Sarah Adams, Daily Wire

Mohamed Bailor Jalloh went to prison for working with ISIS. His college put him back on campus, without knowing why he’d been in federal prison.

Sarah Adams was a targeting officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s as cool as it sounds. She was in charge of disrupting terrorist attacks by identifying the people and organizations that pose a threat to the United States, a job that put her on the ground in the Middle East.

She helped lead the investigation into the deadly terror attack on our diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, and then wrote the book on it. Now, she’s warning the world that global terror threats are rising and we may not be prepared for it. The next 9/11 is being planned right now.

We asked Sarah to work with us to make sure our readers know what’s happening. Her first examination for The Daily Wire is on a loophole that allowed a terrorist to execute his deadly mission, even after we caught him. – Brent Scher, Editor-in-Chief

Four months after an ISIS supporter walked into a classroom and opened fire at Old Dominion University, an independent investigation revealed another disturbing part of the story: the university had no idea it had readmitted a convicted terrorist to its school.

Mohamed Bailor Jalloh’s terror ties were well known to the federal government. In 2016, the former Virginia Army National Guard soldier pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS. His case involved weapons he believed would be used in an attack against U.S. military personnel. He was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release. He was released early, in December 2024.

Before he was even out of prison, Jalloh had applied to return to Old Dominion University. He was readmitted in January 2025 and approved for on-campus status. Old Dominion was left in the dark about why he had spent the previous years in federal prison.

Just over a year later, on March 12, 2026, Jalloh entered a classroom for the ROTC program, which trains college students to become commissioned officers in the armed forces when they graduate. After confirming that it was, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” and opened fire.

Lt. Col. Brandon Shah was killed, and two cadets were wounded before students stopped the attack.

Last month, an independent review released by Old Dominion concluded that Jalloh had carried out a targeted terrorist attack against ROTC students and their instructor. It also documented the information gap that preceded it. No federal or state law-enforcement agency had notified Old Dominion about Jalloh’s terrorism conviction. His probation officer had not notified the university either.

That leaves a much larger question than what happened on one campus: who owned Jalloh’s risk?

Terrorists After Prison

For more than two decades, the United States built an enormous counterterrorism system around finding people before they could attack. Intelligence agencies mapped networks. Investigators tracked communications and money. Joint Terrorism Task Forces developed cases. Prosecutors charged hundreds of defendants with terrorism-related offenses, and courts sent them to federal prison.

Most of those sentences end. The ISIS cases of the last decade are now moving into that next phase. Defendants arrested during the height of the group’s western recruitment campaign have completed sentences and returned to American communities. More will follow.

Jalloh had not disappeared from government oversight. He was serving a five-year term of supervised release. His conditions allowed his probation officer, when appropriate, to require notification of third parties about risks associated with his criminal history or to make those notifications directly. Old Dominion was never notified.

This was not a simple case of a university failing to run a background check. Virginia law restricts public universities from asking applicants about criminal history on their admissions applications. Universities can only inquire after admission and before enrollment, allowing them to assess whether a student’s history presents a threat to the university community.

Old Dominion already had a process for doing that. Since 2022, the university has sent a voluntary criminal-history questionnaire to newly admitted freshmen, transfer students, and graduate students. The gap was readmitted students. Jalloh was a readmitted student, so he was never asked.

The federal government knew Jalloh had been convicted in an ISIS case involving a planned attack against American military personnel. It knew he had been released from prison, and he remained under federal supervision. Old Dominion knew none of that. That becomes harder to dismiss as an administrative oversight when considering where Jalloh eventually went. He did not randomly enter a classroom. He went to ROTC.

The independent investigators later concluded that if Old Dominion’s threat-assessment personnel had known about Jalloh’s terrorism conviction, it was highly likely the university would have tried to remove him from campus because of the potential threat he presented, particularly to military-affiliated members of the university community. The people responsible for protecting that community never received what they would have needed to make that assessment.

There is another unanswered part of the story. During its investigation, the law firm conducting Old Dominion’s independent review sought information from the FBI and the U.S. Probation Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Both declined to meet with the investigators. As a result, the review could not fully determine what happened during Jalloh’s federal supervision or why his terrorism history was never passed to the university.

We know where the system broke. We still do not fully know why.

This Was Already Coming

The larger problem did not begin at Old Dominion. Researchers had already warned that the United States was entering a new stage of the ISIS-era terrorism problem. A 2024 analysis by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, using data from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, found that 72 of 209 Americans arrested on ISIS-related charges had already been released. At least 73 more were expected to reach their scheduled release dates during the following decade.

The overwhelming majority had not been publicly linked to new terrorism activity. That matters. A terrorism conviction should not create a lifetime presumption that someone will attack again. People can disengage from extremist movements and rebuild their lives, and education and employment can be an important part of that process.

Researchers, however, also identified a smaller group who had been rearrested or reincarcerated after violating conditions of supervised release. Some returned to behavior remarkably similar to what brought them into the system in the first place.

One of those cases is particularly relevant because, by conventional measures, the individual appeared to be succeeding after prison. Ali Shukri Amin was 17 years old when he pleaded guilty in 2015 to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS. Amin had operated a prominent pro-ISIS social-media account and helped another young man travel to Syria. After cooperating with authorities and serving several years in federal prison, he was released in 2020.

His life afterward appeared to be a model of reintegration. He earned numerous technical certifications, graduated summa cum laude from Northern Virginia Community College, pursued graduate education in information technology management, and obtained professional employment.

At the same time, federal authorities determined that Amin had repeatedly violated the conditions of his supervised release. Court records examined by researchers showed that he had resumed prohibited contacts, including communication with convicted terrorist John Walker Lindh, and engaged in activity involving the dissemination of ISIS propaganda.

In 2023, Amin was returned to prison for violating supervised release. His case does not show that education failed. It shows that education, employment, and outward signs of stability do not necessarily tell us whether ideological disengagement has occurred. Those are different assessments, and confusing the two creates its own blind spot.

A Campus Is a Community

Universities make this problem particularly visible because they are designed to be open. Thousands of people move through campuses every day. Universities contain laboratories, research facilities, religious organizations, political groups, foreign students, major public events, and military programs. Many operate more like small cities than controlled facilities.

That does not mean that terrorism offenders should automatically be excluded from higher education. The problem at Old Dominion was not simply that Jalloh was allowed to pursue an education after prison. It was that nobody at the university knew enough to assess the risk.

There is a significant difference between giving someone a second chance and requiring the people responsible for security to operate blind. A terrorism conviction may involve extremist relationships, allegiance to a foreign terrorist organization, specialized knowledge, previous target selection, or a demonstrated interest in attacking a particular population. None of those factors prove someone will offend again, but they matter when assessing risk.

Old Dominion has already fixed one part of the problem. Following the attack, the university expanded its post-admission criminal-history questionnaire to include readmitted students. Someone returning through the same admissions pathway Jalloh used should now receive it.

The university has also increased resources for its Office of Threat Assessment, added staffing, and moved toward additional investigative and threat-management capabilities. Those are reasonable changes, but they still depend in part on someone disclosing their own history.

The independent review recognized that limitation. A voluntary questionnaire is only useful when the person filling it out decides to tell the truth. For someone who presents a serious threat, that is not much of a safeguard.

The review therefore pointed toward the issue at the center of the case: information sharing. Old Dominion already had a working relationship with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force before the attack. The university’s police chief regularly communicated with the task force, yet Jalloh’s terrorism history never reached the university. Investigators recommended that Old Dominion explore using that relationship to establish a notification process when terrorism defendants or people convicted of other particularly dangerous crimes seek to enroll or are already students.

That may be the most important recommendation in the report. The information existed. It never reached the people who needed it.

What Has Changed, and What Hasn’t

The Bureau of Prisons has addressed another part of Jalloh’s case. He received an early release, despite his terrorism conviction, because he completed the federal Residential Drug Abuse Program. The Bureau of Prisons has since closed that loophole for terrorism-related offenders.

That addresses how Jalloh got out early. It does not solve what happened after he got out. As of August 2026, there is no publicly announced national requirement directing federal probation offices, the FBI, or another federal agency to notify a university when a terrorism offender under federal supervision enrolls there. Virginia’s underlying admissions law also remains in place.

That does not mean that nothing has changed internally. Policies and practices can change without becoming public. But there is no publicly announced nationwide system that would guarantee a different outcome if the same circumstances occurred somewhere else tomorrow.

The concern is not that every terrorist offender leaving prison is waiting to attack again. The concern is that we already know some do not fully disengage. Some violate supervision. Some reconnect with extremist networks. Some return to the same behavior that put them in prison. A functioning system has to identify the individuals who continue to present a risk, and it cannot do that when the relevant pieces remain separated.

America spent the years after September 11, 2001, building one of the most sophisticated counterterrorism systems in the world. We became very good at finding terrorists. Now we have to get better at what happens after prison.

More terrorism offenders will complete their sentences in the coming years. They will go to work, attend universities, move into neighborhoods, and rebuild their lives. Successful reintegration should be the goal, but reintegration and threat management are not opposing ideas. Someone can deserve the opportunity to start again while their history still matters to those responsible for assessing a legitimate security risk.

Old Dominion has begun fixing what it can control. The larger gap remains. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh had been convicted of attempting to support ISIS. His case involved an intended attack against American military personnel. He remained under federal supervision and returned to a university with a significant military-affiliated population. The pieces were there, but no one connected them before he walked into an ROTC classroom.

The next terrorism offender leaving federal prison may go to work, return to school, or enroll at another American university. In most cases, that will simply be part of rebuilding a life. But when someone presents a genuine threat, the institution responsible for the people around them should not have to discover that history after an attack.

Someone needs to know, someone needs to make the assessment, and someone needs to own the risk.

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a controversial bill, officially titled “Privacy for immigration support services providers,” which expands the state’s current “Safe at Home” program. Critics have argued that the bill prevents journalists, such as the viral fraud reporting released by independent journalist Nick Shirley.

The legislation builds on the Safe at Home program, which has operated since 1999. That program allows eligible individuals — including survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, elder abuse and certain “health care workers” providing abortions or sex change procedures — to use a substitute mailing address administered by the California Secretary of State. Government agencies generally accept this address in place of a residential address in public records, which shields eligible individuals from threats, the state claims.

Under the new law, eligibility extends to designated immigration support services providers, their employees, and volunteers at nonprofit organizations, community legal clinics, law offices, and health facilities who face “threats, harassment, or violence” linked to their work. Applicants must register with the state and document a relevant threat or incident within the prior year.

The legislation also prohibits knowingly posting, selling, or sharing a participant’s personal information or image online with the specific intent to facilitate harassment, violence, credible threats, or to place the individual in reasonable fear for their safety.

When introducing the bill back in February, Assemblymember Mia Bonta made several references to viral reports on fraud without naming anyone directly. “Right now, our immigrant service providers are living in fear because of extremists looking to demonize the work that they do and the populations they serve. That is an intolerable consequence of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that exists right now,” she said.

Opponents, including DeMaio, argued during committee discussions and floor debates that the legislation could affect independent investigations of organizations receiving public funds. DeMaio coined the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” nickname in reference to independent journalist and YouTuber Nick Shirley, who has documented several instances of alleged fraud across a number of public services. Several of the entities documented in Shirley;s reports are run by immigrants from the third world.

Critics have contended the bill’s provisions on posting images or personal information might create barriers or legal risks for documentation of potential misconduct, raising First Amendment concerns.

Shirley’s December 2025 video focused on daycare centers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that received funding through the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). He visited multiple facilities, including the Quality Learning Center (whose exterior sign misspelled “Learning” as “Learing”), and found few or no children present during daytime hours despite licensing for significant capacity and substantial public payments.

Shirley and sources associated with the video cited figures indicating tens of millions of dollars in funding across several centers since around fiscal year 2020. One facility, Quality Learning Center, later closed its license in early January 2026 after requesting closure, while others have since been charged.

In California, Shirley released videos in early 2026 examining hospice and daycare providers, alleging substantial improper billing under Medi-Cal and related programs. He highlighted clusters of licensed hospice entities at single addresses or office complexes in the Los Angeles area, some appearing sparsely occupied, and referenced data suggesting high per-beneficiary charges or limited visible activity.

Both state and federal authorities have pursued cases involving fraud in California’s public services, including in the hospice sector.

Cullen McCue,Trending Politics

Barack Obama is not merely the worst president in American history; he is the deliberate architect of an invasion, a traitor who opened the gates of our civilization to an enemy army disguised as refugees while he stood by with a smirk and watched the demographic weapon detonate.

This is not incompetence; this is calculated sabotage by a man who viewed the United States as a colonial power deserving of punishment and who sought to fundamentally transform our nation by importing a population hostile to our values, our Constitution, and our very existence. He is a viper who wore the flag as a costume while plotting its destruction, a fraud who swore to defend America from all enemies foreign and domestic and then proceeded to roll out the red carpet for those very enemies…”

— Bill Brindley, on Facebook

Republicans are closer to the truth than Democrats. Democrats are willfully wrong, and in their new socialist-Communist form, ruthlessly evil. Yet in the long run (and often in the short-run, too) Democrats keep winning.

Case in point: The absurd contest to fill the late Lindsey Graham’s U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina.

Corey Allen reports on Facebook, “The YMCA in Berkeley [South Carolina] has cancelled an event being held for Ralph Norman [running against Lindsey Graham’s Democrat-favored sister, Darline Graham for the GOP nominaton) after a ton of phone calls, including violent threats were made against the venue. According to sources.”

We’re talking South Carolina, not New York or California or Seattle or Chicago. The malignancy that is leftism is violent, and it’s spreading everywhere.

Democrats rush to support Darline Graham for U.S. Senate in the GOP primary. They believe their child predator Communist pediatrician, Annie Andrews, can possibly beat her for filling Lindsey Graham’s seat for the next six years; and, if not, they believe Darline Graham is the next best thing. Ralph Norman has a nearly perfect conservative/pro-liberty voting record and in Congress has pushed for even more spending cuts than President Trump. Darline Graham has no record or stance on positions that I can discern. It’s a sad situation for a state like South Carolina which voted for Trump in a landslide three times.

You don’t find these lapses and inconsistencies on the Democratic side. Leftists are ruthlessly, shamelessly and unblinkingly totalitarian. The Democratic Party is a morbidly toxic hybrid of fascism, Communism, involuntary servitude for the capable and medieval savagery and barbarism. Defeating them should be the easiest thing in the world, even in today’s intellectually polluted era. Yet even in hard core red states like South Carolina the Republicans wobble, apologize and wallow in moral hollowness. Just pitiful.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

What do most schools really teach? Only conformity and indoctrination?

It depends on the school. However, most schools fit this description.

100 percent of government-run schools fit this description. American public schools and universities dug in hard with the leftist ideology starting in the 1980s and 1990s.

Now look at the results: A majority of 40 and under believe they want Communism. And that unlimited free rein for Islam is an example of “liberalism” and tolerance.

The more educated these pro-totalitarian voters are — the more they believe it.

Education in America may be responsible for the collapse of the greatest nation in human history, and the death of millions yet to come as unprecedented impoverishment sets in. Watch the big cities like New York: They are falling, right before your eyes.

Michael J. Hurd,  Daily Dose of Reason

Thornton McEnery

President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. will wave through 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef over the next three months with the out-of-quota tariff switched off, and that “this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.”

Sold by whom went unmentioned. Shipped from where, likewise. Which foreign exporters agreed to any of this is a question the announcement left for later, along with the executive order itself, which the White House says arrives within 2 weeks.

Ground beef hit $6.885 a pound in July, an all-time high and 83% above where it sat in 2017. Take a quarter off and you are at $5.16, which is a genuine improvement and also the going rate in 2023. Relief has become relative.

The cattlemen (who are ostensibly the point of all this) made it to lunchtime before turning on him. National Cattlemen’s Beef Association chief Colin Woodall pronounced himself “disappointed,” warned against “flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef,” and pointed out that cattle prices had already fallen sharply that morning. They had. The Great American Beef Herd, so capitalized by the president, took a loss before the announcement finished circulating.

Beef costs what it costs because there are very few cows. Drought, feed bills that would trouble a hedge fund, and a decade of ranchers cashing out breeding stock have left the American herd at its smallest since the Eisenhower administration. A waiver does not restock a pasture because cattle take years to reach a grill and ranchers expand only when they trust that prices will hold, so cheap imported trimmings arriving 10 weeks before an election is a strange way to build that trust. Groceries are on the ballot in November. The cows are incidental.

An arrest warrant has been issued for 22-year-old Zymire Hughes, police announced on Thursday.

A cross-country manhunt is underway for a man accused of terrorizing people in Center City Philadelphia.

“Who’s scared now? Who’s running now?” District Attorney Larry Krasner asked during a news conference on Thursday.

Investigators say 22-year-old Zymire Hughes is the man who was allegedly chasing people around City Hall in the early morning hours, while wearing a Chucky-style Halloween mask.

“He’s a punk. I mean, that’s the bottom line. He’s a punk who scared a lot of people for no good reason, and we’re not going to tolerate it,” Krasner said.

Now, police are working with the U.S. Marshals Service to track down and capture Hughes, officials said.

Officials said they’ve received information that Hughes packed his bags and “left approximately two nights ago,” leading them to believe Hughes may have fled Pennsylvania.

They pointed out that he has ties to California and Las Vegas, Nevada.

“He has a tendency to travel back and forth to the West Coast — California, the L.A. area — but also Las Vegas. And he would be for employment reasons,” said Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith.

He is also currently on probation for a crime he committed in Montgomery County, with that probation being supervised in Philadelphia, Kranser added, saying that these incidents are a potential violation of that probation.

“You think it’s funny to scare people? Well, get ready to get scared by us because we got the handcuffs, we got the jail cell, we got the Philly jury that’s going to tell you it’s not funny at all,” Krasner said. “You think it’s funny to make people run, get your sneaks, because that’s what Zamir Hughes is doing right now. Mr. Big and Bad is on the run.”

Officials say he was likely doing it for social media fame.

Kranser said investigators have identified three social media accounts associated with Hughes; two are TikTok accounts and the other is an Instagram account.

“So, think twice, young people who are on social media who want to get some kind of following, some kind of clout, whatever it may be,” Krasner said.

In one instance, police say he allegedly asked a woman, “Are you ready to die?”

That victim severely injured her leg during the ordeal as she ran away, screaming for help.

Surveillance cameras caught another encounter.

“It’s readily apparent that this individual is certainly in fear of their life,” Krasner said.

Kranser did emphasize that, at no point, did Hughes attempt to lay hands on anyone or furnish a weapon.

Police are also asking anyone else who may have been victimized by Hughes to come forward.

“We will catch you. The police will catch you. The federal marshal will catch you. Even if you run, we will hold you accountable,” Krasner warned Hughes.

Hughes could be facing charges including terroristic threats, harassment, simple assault and intimidation.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Philadelphia police by calling 215-686-TIPS (8477).

Because Donald Trump comes from the business world, unlike his predecessors in office, he has made it clear he prefers negotiating with adversaries to war, and economic strangulation when negotiating with them fails. 

Clarice Feldman | August 23, 2026

From Genesis on, the naming of things has been deemed significant. Leftist pols know this and are careful how they label what they are doing. The right, not so much. Earlier this month I wrote about the ridiculous D.C. federal courts’ efforts to halt construction of what has been called the “Trump Ballroom.” I think it’s time to call this what it really is: the renovation of the East Wing. The ballroom, the much-needed official reception space, is a significant shelter against attack and sits atop a critical national security complex.

CBS said plans include drone-proof ceilings, walls, windows, and roofs; a rooftop drone base designed for large numbers of drones (intended to help protect the broader Washington area); bullet-, ballistic-, and blast-proof glass (described as several inches thick and ‘highly transparent,’ transparency being important for windows); missile-resistant columns, roofs, and beams; hardened concrete/steel construction claimed capable of withstanding extreme threats like nuclear blasts; titanium fencing; sniper nests; biodefense elements; and secure comms. For ballroom dancing.

Underneath will be “up to six stories” of subterranean complex including bomb shelters, a high-tech hospital, research areas, enhanced ventilation filters, and ‘top-secret military features.’

Friday was the last day the stay of the district Court order halting construction (which was almost 65% completed) was in effect. That afternoon Chief Justice Roberts extended the stay “pending further order of the chief Justice or the Court.”

The moronic press suggested that the project could still be halted — that the stay was just for now.

 Jeff Childers poked fun at that reading:

This “for now” framing is a mendacious rhetorical device architected to minimize the legal loss. The resistance continues! He shall never have his ballroom! (Ballroom construction is ahead of schedule.) From the Declaration of Independence until Trump 2.0, no court has ever before tried to stop a White House renovation project. No court issued a “stop work” order when Teddy Roosevelt built the West Wing, Truman gutted the mansion down to the studs, or FDR put up the East Wing that everyone is suddenly so fond of.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ terse order, [snip] said nothing like “for now” or “temporary.” It said, until I say so.

Bill Shipley also posts that this media interpretation is nonsense.

The President is a builder, and the tidying up of a capital which had fallen into disrepair is a tribute to his construction experience and his understanding that appearance matters. If the fountains are covered in graffiti and choked with debris, the heroic statues covered in grime, national monuments crumbling, you send a message of neglect and disregard as dispiriting as widespread crime in the capital has been.

Apart from the fact that they generally are slobs with no respect for aesthetics, the left hates everything the president is doing in D.C. to build and to tidy up, for they despise the idea that he will leave behind a permanent physical legacy.

Because he comes from the business world, unlike his predecessors in office, he has made it clear he prefers negotiating with adversaries to war, and economic strangulation when negotiating with them fails. If you are a close observer of our actions in Iran, you will note that the military assets of that country were destroyed, and now, without having to put boots on the ground, he is laying siege to it.

WOW! 16 MILLION BARRELS of oil just moved out of the Strait of Hormuz overnight — Axios That is nearly MATCHING pre-war oil flows…🔥 Keep building the new pipelines and make the future even more grim for Iran! President Trump and SecWar Pete Hegseth have Iran in a state of shock. He’s gaining total control over the Strait and the oil problem is being resolved All while Iran can NEVER have a nuclear weapon, and devastation will be announced by Scott Bessent on Monday THIS IS HUGE! 

Rod D. Martin compares this low-risk siege of Iran with Abraham Lincoln’s Anaconda Plan, which starved the Confederacy of trade and resources.

Iran’s oil terminals are empty, and the daily revenue losses are in the millions, trade is halted, factories closing, inflation mounting. Martin sees the comparison:

Trump’s Iranian Anaconda

Trump already delivered the blows. The blockade is making them permanent.

American and Israeli forces have demolished Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, shredded most of its missile force and drone production, sunk its Navy, and decapitated its command structure. The U.S. Navy fully controls Iran’s access to the sea: today’s fleet is smaller than Lincoln’s, but radically more effective. Scott Bessent’s Treasury is dismantling the banks and front companies that turn smuggled oil into spendable money.

Oil can’t get out of Iran. Weapons and money can’t reliably get in.

The pressure is the strategy.

Iran’s Empire is gone and cannot return, making peace in the Mideast more likely than ever.

America’s enemies spent twenty years studying Iraq and Afghanistan, certain they could lure us into an occupation, survive until the next election, and bleed us for a generation. Whether they realize it yet or not, Trump is teaching them that America can destroy an enemy’s military, seal its ports, cut off its money, dismantle its proxies, and wreck its ability to rebuild, all without occupying its capital or fighting a war of attrition.

That’s a rude awakening for much of the world.

Indeed, history will confirm we have had the most consequential president of our lifetime, and soon we will see permanent structures in the capital memorializing his mark on the country and the world.

Clarice Feldman

AMERICAN THINKER

President Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he was launching an “Economic D-Day” on Iran has been met with a combination of bluster and panic in Tehran. 

Kenneth R. Timmerman | August 22, 2026 Scroll down

President Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he was launching an “Economic D-Day” on Iran has been met with a combination of bluster and panic in Tehran. 

The IRGC is huffing and puffing as usual, claiming they will cut undersea cables and isolate the Arab Gulf states from the Internet, shutting down the banking system in the region.

One wag even suggested that brave Revolutionary Guards soldiers, whose claim to battlefield glory is to slaughter innocent children in the streets of Iranian cities, would invade Kuwait to seize U.S. bases there.

I know a few former specops guys who are licking their chops. Count me in! 

On Friday, Iran’s lead negotiator, former IRGC Air Force Commander Mohammad Baqr Qalibaf, told an audience at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad that the regime would go down if it couldn’t get the economy back on its feet. “No matter how much military power we have, if people are hungry and we don’t have financial circulation, economic growth, and domestic production, we will not endure,” he said.

The economic desperation is hard to hide. Ordinary Iranians gave up meat months ago, and now they are also giving up poultry and eggs, which are up 130%. Inflation reached 66% for the month of July.

The semi-official Iran Labor News Agency (ILNA), calls it a “survival economy,” with people renting out their laptops and even selling their hair and personal belongings to make ends meet.

The U.S. naval blockade is working. No new Iranian oil is exiting the Strait of Hormuz to international markets, leading the regime to cut back production to just above domestic consumption.

As I have remarked before, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has turned out to be the Trump Administration’s secret weapon. He has unleashed Treasury’s vast but little-known intelligence networks to identify Iranian regime money-laundering networks and shut them down.

Already on March 6, the tenth day of the war, he got the UAE to shut down the Iranian offshore banking system in Dubai, freezing $350 billion in assets controlled by regime insiders and the IRGC.

Last week, someone drained the cryptocurrency wallets the regime had been using to collect billions of dollars in tolls from ships transiting the Iranian route through the Strait of Hormuz.

On Thursday, Bessent identified an Iranian money-laundering network in Turkey that was bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on international flights to Hezb’allah in Lebanon. He named the couriers and their controllers. I don’t think they will be flying internationally any time soon.

That’s how Scotty does it.

“We are going to squash the economy of this murderous regime,” he told CNBC on Thursday. Even when he talks tough, he talks softly, with his pinky in the air. Give that man a glass of rosé!

The IRGC loves to talk tough. And to brutalize unarmed Iranian civilians. But when you go after their money, they take notice.

So in late May, when the Steve Witkoff-Jared Kushner negotiations with the Iranians were going squirrely, Tulsi Gabbard — still Director of National Intelligence — called in a chit from Iraqi Kurdistan President Nichervan Barzani.

Hey Nichervan, she said. Can you get me Ahmad Vahidi on the line? Vahidi being, of course, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, who was telling everyone how the IRGC would never negotiate with the United States.

Nichervan makes a call. Vahidi sends a gopher with an encrypted phone, and the two talk. So Ahmad, my friend, are you really serious when you say you will sabotage these negotiations being led by Qalibaf? And Vahidi says — get this – No. We are fully behind the negotiations with the Americans. We just can’t say it.

Well, that story came out this week, and it only added to the turmoil in Tehran. The commander of the IRGC had secret back-channel talks with the Director of National Intelligence in Washington?

Soon, the spotlight will shift to China for Trump’s state visit at the end of September.

Just for the record, I don’t believe the Iranians are going to succeed in blowing up the world economy in time to sabotage the Republicans in the midterms. (The Republicans often seem capable of sabotaging themselves, so let’s hope that doesn’t happen!)

I have heard the panics and the lefties argue non-stop that we have no influence over the Chinese, and that there’s nothing Trump can do to get the Chinese to cut off their military assistance to Iran.

I beg to differ. Trump doesn’t need to do much publicly. It’s all happening behind the scenes.

The head of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce revealed recently that the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz will add $18 billion in shipping costs on containers coming from China to Iran, since they are now being brought overland by truck and rail.

And what about China’s tin pot refiners? They were the buyers of 80% of Iran’s sanctions-busting oil, at steep discounts. Now they are running on empty.

We don’t need China to cooperate with us on Iran. They just need to get out of the way so they don’t get hurt.

The UAE just announced a total trade embargo on Iran. This, too, will hurt China, since many of its exports to Iran were disguised as re-exports from Dubai.

Trump doesn’t need to wield the big stick with China. He’s already stuck them with a thousand toothpicks.