Who is winning the war between the US, Israel and Iran? The coverage in many Western media outlets clearly indicates that Iran is the major winner. The reality is that sections of the Western media have framed the conflict with two separate definitions of victory. For the US to be victorious, it must successfully install a new regime with a stable political system. For the Iranian regime to be the winner, it simply has to remain in power, no matter how much it is weakened.

What the media does not know is what the ultimate objectives of the US’ Operation Epic Fury and Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion are. What are they really looking to achieve and what would be considered a successful outcome? Faced with this uncertainty, the Western media has too often stuck to the narrative that, as long as the Iranian regime remains in place and continues firing missiles, it is the winner.

There is no doubt that Tehran is a master of asymmetric warfare. It is the regime’s signature. This is what terrorism and armed proxies have delivered for it over recent decades — at the cost of destroying the lives of millions of Lebanese, Syrians and Iraqis. This is what it is still pursuing during this war. Due to its importance to global oil flows, the entire focus is now on the Strait of Hormuz blockade. Some Western media outlets have translated this into proof that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a master of asymmetric warfare and the clear current victor.

Another important point is that, because Europeans were neither warned about nor prepared for this war, there is widespread resentment and spite toward the US and Israel. This is evident in the series of analysts and experts appearing on news channels. The war is depicted as lacking clear objectives and coverage focuses mainly on Iranian offensive strikes. Yet, if we look at the totality of this coverage — including experts close to decision-making centers in European capitals — a real fear emerges: the fear of having no control, not only over this war but over the global scene as a whole. This coverage is therefore attempting to shift that fear into the narrative of a major US military failure.

President Donald Trump’s declarations have created even more confusion among these journalists. They do not understand or know what is coming. One might ask: Is that not a net positive for the military operations? Would the US and Israel really want the IRGC to know exactly what was happening and what they were planning? This is also unfamiliar territory for the media. During the last Iraq war, President George W. Bush issued a clear ultimatum with a clear goal: the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime. With boots on the ground, this objective was achieved swiftly. But the day-after scenario was a failure due to the Iranian regime’s infiltration.

There is also strong anti-Trump sentiment in most Western legacy media, in the US as well as in Europe. Since the war in Gaza, and with few exceptions in France, Benjamin Netanyahu is similarly criticized. The left strongly influences the portrayal of the Iranian regime as the oppressed and the US as the oppressor.

Everything the regime has done — or is doing, including terrorism and killings — is framed as defensive, justified by the threat of the US military. Some media coverage has therefore given both the military advantage and the moral high ground to the regime, absolving it of decades of violent, terrorist and murderous activity. Decades of exporting terror are reframed as resistance. Unsurprisingly, this echoes in Lebanon, with Hezbollah even being depicted as heroic.

Similarly, attacks on the Gulf countries are emphasized, yet when condemnation is required — as it was for the US and Israeli strikes — the media largely looks the other way. They fail to mention that these countries have not participated in the attacks and remain defensive. The reality is that some in the media are pleased by these strikes. Spite and resentment guide this way of thinking.

The Gulf countries, which have become the center of global geopolitical negotiations and a destination for some of Europe’s brightest minds, have been seen as deserving these blows for surpassing European capitals in terms of relevance. While some European militaries have been supportive on the ground, analysts and former diplomats on television stations and social media — such as Gerard Araud, the former French ambassador to the US, Israel and the UN — have been reposting and promoting anti-Gulf ideas, aligning even with representatives of the Iranian regime.

Moreover, in the West, leftist movements are politically aligned with the Greens, who despise anything fossil-fuel related. They understand that the regime targets energy supplies to pressure the West and the US to halt the war — and this is music to their ears.

Yet, despite this noise, what does the situation on the ground tell us? The US-Israeli military campaign has delivered overwhelming strikes that have dismantled key pillars of Iran’s military power. These joint operations have left the regime with an estimated 1,000 or fewer operational missiles, zero meaningful production ability, a functionally annihilated navy and severely limited defensive or retaliatory options. This renders the regime’s offensive arsenal and nuclear ambitions effectively neutralized.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the number of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones launched by the Iranian regime has severely declined in the past month. US assessments report an 83 percent to 95 percent drop in drone volume. This indicates two things: first, the degradation of the regime’s capacity; and, second, a shift from heavy strikes to a lower frequency but consistent launches.

High interception rates and the use of less costly ways to intercept projectiles are also undermining the regime’s strategy. While severe damage can still occur, the Iranian regime’s objective has failed. To the ire of sections of the Western media, the Gulf countries remain strong and firm.

There is no doubt about the outcome of this war. Despite some media coverage and the Strait of Hormuz blockade, this regime has been defeated, along with its proxies. It was struck in the same way it has lived and, as the saying goes, he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. Those in the media who once stood silent in the face of the Iranian regime’s violations of international law are now vocal about US actions, with their hatred for Trump amplified in this coverage.

While we do not yet know who will succeed any surviving Khamenei in Iran, the regime is likely to face the same fate as that of Saddam Hussein and other rogue states in the region. The day after will bring the prosperity that the region has long been robbed of. Just don’t rely on the Western media to cover it.

Arab News

One of the clearest examples came on March 10, when Police Commander Ahmad-Reza Radan addressed the possibility of protests during the conflict.

Speaking on state television, he warned that anyone who took to the streets “at the will of the enemy” would no longer be treated as a protester but as an “enemy combatant.”

The wording marked a significant escalation. By invoking the language of combat, the state effectively framed domestic dissent as participation in the war itself.

Such framing has appeared repeatedly in recent broadcasts. Commentators and officials frequently describe protests not as political grievances but as extensions of foreign military pressure.

The same rhetorical shift is evident in the way foreign adversaries are described. Television hosts increasingly employ dehumanizing metaphors to portray Western and Israeli leaders.

Israeli officials have been repeatedly referred to as “rabid dogs” on talk shows, imagery that casts them as biological threats rather than political opponents.

Foreign-based Persian-language media outlets are portrayed in similarly extreme terms. Iran International TV, for example, has been described on state television as a “satanic network,” while presenters have warned that its regional offices could be considered legitimate targets.

The tone is often even more unrestrained online, where state television presenters engage in public taunts and insults with Israeli officials and journalists on social media.

The language echoes wartime propaganda seen in many conflicts, where demonization of the enemy is used to mobilize domestic support. But the Iranian broadcasts go further by combining this rhetoric with arguments that dismiss international norms governing warfare.

On several television panel discussions in March, state-aligned analysts suggested that international humanitarian law and institutions such as the United Nations serve merely as tools of Western power.

Some commentators declared bluntly that “the age of diplomacy is dead” and that the West understands only “the language of missiles.”

In this atmosphere, messaging increasingly serves not only to condemn foreign adversaries but also to warn domestic audiences about the consequences of dissent.

When protests are described as actions carried out “at the will of the enemy,” the implication is that political opposition itself becomes a form of collaboration with hostile powers.

Wars have always reshaped political language. Governments under military pressure tend to simplify narratives, divide the world into allies and enemies, and suppress ambiguity. Iran’s state television now appears to be moving decisively in that direction.

When state television begins speaking about its own citizens in the language of the battlefield, it signals that the war is no longer being presented as something happening only beyond the country’s borders.

Iran’s state broadcaster has adopted a noticeably harsher tone toward dissent, increasingly framing domestic protests as part of a war waged by “enemies.”

One of the clearest examples came on March 10, when Police Commander Ahmad-Reza Radan addressed the possibility of protests during the conflict.

Speaking on state television, he warned that anyone who took to the streets “at the will of the enemy” would no longer be treated as a protester but as an “enemy combatant.”

The wording marked a significant escalation. By invoking the language of combat, the state effectively framed domestic dissent as participation in the war itself.

Such framing has appeared repeatedly in recent broadcasts. Commentators and officials frequently describe protests not as political grievances but as extensions of foreign military pressure.

The same rhetorical shift is evident in the way foreign adversaries are described. Television hosts increasingly employ dehumanizing metaphors to portray Western and Israeli leaders.

Israeli officials have been repeatedly referred to as “rabid dogs” on talk shows, imagery that casts them as biological threats rather than political opponents.

Foreign-based Persian-language media outlets are portrayed in similarly extreme terms. Iran International TV, for example, has been described on state television as a “satanic network,” while presenters have warned that its regional offices could be considered legitimate targets.

The tone is often even more unrestrained online, where state television presenters engage in public taunts and insults with Israeli officials and journalists on social media.

The language echoes wartime propaganda seen in many conflicts, where demonization of the enemy is used to mobilize domestic support. But the Iranian broadcasts go further by combining this rhetoric with arguments that dismiss international norms governing warfare.

On several television panel discussions in March, state-aligned analysts suggested that international humanitarian law and institutions such as the United Nations serve merely as tools of Western power.

Some commentators declared bluntly that “the age of diplomacy is dead” and that the West understands only “the language of missiles.”

In this atmosphere, messaging increasingly serves not only to condemn foreign adversaries but also to warn domestic audiences about the consequences of dissent.

When protests are described as actions carried out “at the will of the enemy,” the implication is that political opposition itself becomes a form of collaboration with hostile powers.

Wars have always reshaped political language. Governments under military pressure tend to simplify narratives, divide the world into allies and enemies, and suppress ambiguity. Iran’s state television now appears to be moving decisively in that direction.

When state television begins speaking about its own citizens in the language of the battlefield, it signals that the war is no longer being presented as something happening only beyond the country’s borders.

The movement looks organic. Concerned citizens, local advocacy groups, earnest letters to Congress, worried neighbors at zoning board meetings, all raising reasonable-sounding alarms about electricity consumption, water use, and the pace of technological change. If you accept that framing, the anti-AI, anti-data-center movement is a spontaneous democratic response to corporate excess. Accepting that framing, however, requires ignoring a substantial and growing body of evidence pointing toward a very different conclusion.

The evidence suggests something more deliberate, more coordinated, and more consequential than neighbors worried about noise ordinances. A December 8, 2025 letter convened by Food and Water Watch, signed by dozens of national and local organizations, called on Congress to enact a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers. The coalition includes groups like GAIA, Oil Change International, Indivisible, the Sierra Club, Americans for Financial Reform, and the Athena Coalition, organizations presenting themselves as voices of the public interest. Eight days after that letter was delivered, Senator Bernie Sanders called for an AI moratorium to give “democracy the chance to catch up.” On March 25, 2026, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Sanders in formally proposing the AI Data Center Moratorium Act. The policy pipeline from signed letter to congressional legislation took roughly 107 days.

That is efficient. Perhaps too efficient to have emerged purely from the ground up.

A report from the American Energy Institute describes more than $39M in foreign, left-leaning billionaire funding flowing to organizations now leading the charge against data centers and the energy systems that support them. Recipients identified include 350.org, Indivisible, GAIA, Oil Change International, and the Sierra Club. Even setting aside the full aggregate figure for a moment, the publicly verifiable fragments of this funding picture are striking on their own terms. The Wyss Foundation, controlled by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, lists 2024 grants that include $150,000 to the Sierra Club Foundation and $1,255,000 to Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the latter of which appears as a national signatory on the moratorium letter. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, associated with British hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn, discloses a climate-change grant portfolio of more than $808M and is listed by 350.org‘s own annual report as among the foundations supporting its work. And the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) intermediary that functions as a conduit for advocacy dollars, reported 2024 revenue of more than $282M with contributions exceeding $275M. The donors behind that fund are not publicly disclosed.

This is the architecture of what analysts call “astroturf,” campaigns designed to mimic the appearance of grassroots energy while running on institutional money and coordinated strategy. A genuine grassroots movement does not typically come equipped with organizer toolkits, national letter campaigns, and same-cycle congressional legislation. MediaJustice, another member of this ecosystem, published a document titled “The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers Toolkit,” designed explicitly to enable local groups to replicate the campaign playbook in their own jurisdictions. Local siting disputes are being converted, systematically, into portable instruments of a national strategy.

One might ask: so what? Advocacy organizations coordinate. Wealthy donors fund causes they believe in. Is that not just how civil society works? It is, up to a point. But two features of this particular effort elevate it from ordinary advocacy to something worth scrutinizing much more carefully. The first is the foreign origin of significant portions of the funding. The second is the nature of what is actually being targeted.

Data centers are not a niche industry with marginal strategic significance. They are, as the White House’s own AI Action Plan states, the physical foundation of American technological leadership. The Electric Power Research Institute projects that US data centers will consume between 9% and 17% of all US electricity by 2030, up from roughly 4% to 5% today, representing a near-tripling of energy demand from a sector that underpins AI development, cloud computing, advanced manufacturing logistics, and modern defense systems. The Department of Energy has framed accelerated grid buildout for data centers as essential to “winning the AI race,” with reliability and national security named explicitly as the stakes. A national moratorium on new data center construction is not a local environmental regulation. It is a supply-side shock to the compute infrastructure of the United States at the precise moment that compute capacity is the contested terrain of great-power competition.

Consider what that means in practice. China is not pausing. Beijing’s National Development and Reform Commission has described a coordinated strategy involving eight national computing hubs and plans for ten national data center clusters, explicitly designed to expand China’s compute power and distribute it strategically across the country. Reuters has reported billions in investment and massive server rack deployments under the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” initiative. The Chinese government does not appear to be waiting for democracy to “catch up.” It is building, methodically and at scale, the infrastructure that AI supremacy requires. A US moratorium, in that environment, would not freeze global progress. It would simply redirect it. American firms would lose ground, and the compute capacity that does not get built here would either be built elsewhere or not built at all, while China’s installations continue to multiply.

The European experience is instructive, though not as a model to imitate. The EU has opted for a “measure and regulate” posture, requiring monitoring and reporting on data center energy performance rather than halting construction. That approach has its own limitations, but it at least acknowledges that data centers serve important functions and that the goal is to manage their externalities, not to eliminate the infrastructure. The EU has also seen its share of global economic output shrink over decades as regulatory friction slowed adoption of successive waves of technology. That is not a coincidence, and it is not a trajectory the US should be eager to replicate.

Acknowledging genuine local costs is not the same as endorsing a nationwide construction halt. The appropriate policy response to concentrated infrastructure impacts is targeted regulation: mandatory water-use disclosures, reclaimed-water incentives for cooling systems, permitting standards requiring energy-performance transparency, cost-allocation rules preventing residential ratepayers from subsidizing large industrial loads without proportionate local benefit. These tools exist. They can be refined and strengthened. None of them require shutting down the entire pipeline of new data center approvals while a handful of foreign-funded NGOs and two progressive senators define what “adequate regulations” means.

The moratorium letter anticipates an objection. It says the pause would last only “until adequate regulations can be enacted.” That qualifier does no real work. It defines no timeline. It specifies no regulatory threshold. It identifies no neutral arbiter of adequacy. What it does do is hand an open-ended veto to an organized coalition with documented connections to foreign donor networks, a coalition that has already demonstrated its capacity to move from letter-writing to congressional legislation in under four months. The ambiguity is not a bug. It is the point.

There is a structural question lurking beneath all of this, and it is worth naming directly. Why would foreign billionaires, particularly those based in countries with no democratic accountability to American voters, invest tens of millions of dollars to slow down the construction of American AI infrastructure? Charitable interpretations exist. Some of these donors are climate-focused philanthropists who genuinely believe data centers threaten environmental stability. That motive can be sincere and still produce outcomes that damage American competitiveness. Good intentions do not neutralize strategic consequences.

Less charitable interpretations also exist. Countries and interests that stand to benefit from American AI stagnation have obvious incentives to fund the organizations advocating for it. The moratorium coalition’s arguments, if accepted and enacted, would produce exactly the outcome that strategic competitors most desire: a self-imposed pause on US compute capacity at the moment when compute capacity is being converted, globally, into military and economic power. Whether that convergence of interests is coincidental or coordinated is a question that warrants serious investigation, not dismissal.

The rhetorical framing of the anti-AI movement as a democratic check on corporate power is, at minimum, incomplete. What the evidence actually shows is a network of foreign-funded organizations deploying a nationally coordinated strategy to halt infrastructure that the US government has explicitly identified as a national strategic priority. The “grassroots” label does not survive contact with the funding flows, the toolkit documents, or the 107-day legislative turnaround from coalition letter to congressional bill. It is a label designed to immunize the movement from scrutiny rather than describe its actual composition.

None of this means data center expansion should proceed without accountability. It means that accountability should take the form of enforceable standards, transparent disclosures, and clear cost-allocation rules rather than an indefinite moratorium with no defined endpoint and no neutral process for lifting it. The difference is not merely procedural. One path leads to smarter infrastructure development. The other leads to strategic retreat dressed up as civic virtue.

Leadership in transformative technology, once surrendered, is rarely recovered. The US has been through this pattern before with manufacturing, with semiconductor production, with solar panel supply chains. Each time, the initial decision to step back seemed locally rational and the full consequences became apparent only in retrospect. The anti-AI moratorium movement is asking the US to repeat that mistake at a scale and speed that would make previous surrenders look modest by comparison.

The money trail is not the whole story. But it is a necessary part of it. When foreign billionaires fund a coordinated national campaign to halt American infrastructure development, and that campaign produces congressional legislation within months, the right response is not to change the subject to water usage tables. The right response is to ask who benefits, follow the funding to its origins, and evaluate the policy being proposed against the interests of the people it claims to protect.

Americans deserve an honest answer to that question. So far, the movement demanding a moratorium has shown little interest in providing one.

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What’s more treacherous and treasonous than wishing your own country gets defeated in war, especially by a bunch of goat-molesting seventh-century pagan savages whose primitive mindset is matched only by their grotesque perversions? Well, the disgusting perversions part is merely a collateral reason why members of America’s donkey party seem to have such an affinity for Iran’s rulers – the mullahs, with their bizarre bestiality and grotesque handmaiden dogma, and the San Francisco Democrats, with their furry-friendly gender-spazz grossness, collectively share the worst figurative collective browser in the history of ever. Yet, it’s more than their joint commitment to degeneracy that binds them together in a desire for America to lose this campaign. The Democrats hate America, and they think it will help them politically if America can be humiliated. But more than that, seeing America lose also satisfies the evil lurking inside them.

It’s not just about Donald Trump. That’s where people get confused. Oh, they hate Donald Trump, to be sure. He is aesthetically displeasing to them, rejecting their carefully curated image of what it means to be in the American ruling class. It’s not just his style, but his attitude. They find him vulgar and crude because he ignores their complex and emasculating social conventions that enforce collectivist commie conformity. They also hate him because he has money, and much of our ruling class really doesn’t – for example, most regime media scribblers would double their income if only they knew how to do plumbing or drive a truck. There’s a gulf between their prestige and their pay, and Trump’s flagrant celebration of his own riches generates the greenest of envy.

But they also hate him because he’s a class traitor. He understands them because he was one of them until he got tired of them, and he has nothing but contempt for them. He knows they’re weak, stupid, and greedy, and he won’t honor their pretensions to intelligence and competence. Trump was a guy who had to build tall buildings. He either did it right, or the buildings fell. His opponents build nothing. They talk and write. They suffer no consequences for failure, and his critique of their fecklessness is the closest they’ll get to accountability. They hate him for that.

But that’s all personal. That’s why they hate Trump as an individual. But Donald Trump also operates as an avatar for the normal Americans he represents. What the ruling caste really hates is you. They hate normal people. They hate people who devote themselves to faith, family, and the Flag. They have to. They need to hate you because, through hating you, these unaccomplished hacks find a purpose and meaning. They don’t go out and slay dragons. They go out and nag people on Twitter. We, on the other hand, largely live real lives. Many of us are veterans – and we have seen it get real. Occasionally, someone in the ruling class does a tour in the Army and milks it forever – Happy March 29th, Vietnam Veterans Day, to the hero of the Tet Offensive, Senator Dick Blumenthal! – but being in the military is dirty and icky, and you’re stuck with people who are also dirty and icky. You know, Americans.

They do jobs where they talk and despise Americans who have jobs where they sweat. Remember, among our ruling class, the ultimate gig is to sit and run your mouth. Look, there’s nothing wrong with running your mouth for a job – I do it – but if that’s the only thing you’ve ever done, that breaks your mind. I’ve worked at McDonald’s, been fired from Denny’s for gross incompetence, been a private in the army, and jockeyed rental cars at San Francisco Airport, where everyone in the lot was either a college student on break or a convict on parole. Your past is probably similarly colorful. But the color of our ruling class’s past is flat white. They went to the University of College, then they started writing somewhere, and that’s it. They never sweat, never bled, and probably never drove a car with a stick shift or a V8.

We are not the same. They were the student government geeks and drama dorks in high school. As all adults know, adulthood is simply high school writ large. Much of our ruling class is collectively trying to get revenge on us for never getting invited to drink Coors behind the gym in high school.

Barack Obama gave the game away with his clinging to their guns and religion quote, as did Hillary Clinton with her basket of deplorables gaffe. Our ruling class, to which the Democrats are devoted – the party hasn’t been a workingman’s party since back when everybody agreed that a man can’t menstruate – distinguishes itself by its great self-regard rather than by its great achievements. It has no great achievements. What has our ruling class achieved in the last 60 years? Vietnam? The Iranian Revolution? The Iraq War? The Wall Street collapse? Obamacare? Grindr? Our ruling class has failed and everything. Is there anyone out there who thinks the world is better now than it was in the 80s? Certainly not anyone who lived in the 80s. Sure, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed, but that was despite our ruling class, thanks to the efforts of Ronald Reagan, who is a lot Trumpier than the Trump haters will ever give him credit for. Yet despite failure after failure after failure, our ruling class still believes they are geniuses.

We, normal people, know the truth, and our failure to genuflect to our alleged betters grates at them. How dare we! We, normal people, are the essence of America, and that makes our ruling class hate America. It seems strange that they would hate what they seek to rule over, but Satan does, so why not The Squad? Understand that they are powered by an all-encompassing contempt for people like you and me, and our patriotism and love of country require that these people despise their own country. America is bad, they believe, built on a foundation of racism, genocide, and transphobia, and all sorts of other badnesses. Since none of them has a religion, this ideology has to serve as a substitute. We are their heretics, their demons, their anti-wokes, and they want us to pay.

Which means they want our country to pay. They were positively giddy when a lucky drone shot killed a half-dozen Americans. They were delighted when a random missile hit took out one aircraft on the ground in Saudi Arabia. They are hoping against hope that they can somehow turn a military campaign of unprecedented skill and daring into a disaster. In the first few days of this war, we decapitated the entire Iranian government. We shattered their nuclear program. We destroyed their air force, sank their navy, and generally blew the snot out of anything worth blowing the snot out of. Our planes fly through their skies unmolested. The Democrats and their allies among the disaffected grifter class are reduced to claiming that Iran’s ability to fire the occasional missile indicates America has been completely defeated. They are aided in this propaganda initiative by the regime media, which got the memo. They must turn this victory into defeat, and they’re trying to do it. They’re not doing it very well, in the sense that anyone who is not a complete moron sees through it. But then again, nearly half of America voted for Kamala Harris, so America has a significant moron problem.

They want us to lose because they think America, and therefore Americans, deserve defeat. They also want Trump to lose because they think it’s going to help them politically. So, we now have our ruling class largely rooting for these retrograde barbarians to somehow pull victory from the jaws of defeat. And the regime media will help; no matter how this ends, all the networks and the newspapers are going to tell you that this war was a failure. But you know how you know it’s not a failure? Because there’s no head ayatollah running around. The former one got blasted to bits. His son probably did too; right now, his legendary impotence is the least of his medical concerns. Oh, and the fact that all of Iran’s ships are resting at the bottom of the ocean, there are no planes left, and they can only squeeze off a couple of shots from random drone and rocket launchers every day, is a pretty good indicator of victory. Never in history has there been such a comprehensive defeat of an entire modern nation in such a short time.

Still, people in our own country wish for our defeat, and if those wishes aren’t granted, they’ll try to manufacture a defeat. It’s bizarre to see so many Americans so eager for America to lose, but that’s where we are right now. We’ve got Americans who want Americans to lose a war to a generational enemy with American blood on its paws. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame. Shame goes hand in hand with accountability, and they can’t accept the idea that they are accountable to anyone other than their own class. But just remember what’s happening here. Remember how much they must hate you to want their own country to be defeated by a bunch of fanatical freaks. And govern yourself accordingly. 

Kurt Schlichter

Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all. 

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NATO endures on American backing while many allies demand U.S. action abroad but withhold it when asked, exposing a widening gap between rhetoric and responsibility.

NATO members are not legally required to join any member’s military operations that are not formally sanctioned by the alliance or not aimed at protecting the homelands of the membership.

But they often do just that.

Some NATO members joined the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq on the theory that, in the post-9/11 environment, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were dangers to all Western security.

They followed the precedent set by America’s 1999 intervention in the distant Balkans, leading a three-month NATO campaign to dismantle Slobodan Milošević’s often bloody ambitions of a Greater Serbia. The U.S. also joined the 2011 U.N.-approved, and French- and British-inspired, NATO “coalition of the willing” bombing campaign in Libya.

That effort proved a seven-month misadventure—especially since the targeted Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons program and was desperately trying to cut a deal with the West.

When NATO members in the past have operated unilaterally to defend their own national interests, they have often called on the U.S., as NATO’s strongest member, for overt help.

For nearly 40 years, the U.S. had offered logistical, intelligence, reconnaissance, refueling, and diplomatic support to the French in their unilateral and postcolonial efforts to protect Chad from Libya and, later, Islamists.

During the 1982 Falklands War, a solitary Britain faced enormous logistical challenges in steaming halfway around the world to eject Argentina from its windswept and sparse islands.

U.S. aid was critical to the effort.

So America stepped up to help with intelligence, reconnaissance, the supply of some two million gallons of much-needed gasoline, and crucial restocking of Britain’s depleted Tomahawk missiles.

The American tilt to Britain prompted anger from most Latin American nations of the shared Western hemisphere, as well as from many Hispanic American citizens at home.

No matter—Ronald Reagan rightly saw the importance of solidarity with a NATO member and a long-time American ally. So he gave Britain a veritable blank check for American aid.

Currently, America has not asked NATO members to help bomb Iran—even though Europe, not the U.S., was in range of Iranian ballistic missiles, and soon perhaps nuclear-tipped ones as well.

Europeans are far more vulnerable to Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorism. They are more reliant on foreign oil from the Middle East, some of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

All the U.S. had initially asked for was basing support in disarming a common Western enemy that, for nearly half a century, has slaughtered American diplomats and soldiers and tried to kill a U.S. president and secretary of state.

Follow the Money: Foreign Billionaires Are Bankrolling America’s AI Surrender

Oil surged 10% Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of further military aggression against Iran in the next two to three weeks, dampening hopes for an imminent de-escalation in the conflict.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for May were up 10% at $110.21 a barrel as of 8:13 a.m. ET. June futures for international benchmark Brent crude rose 8% to $109.25 per barrel.

Trump in his speech attributed the increase in oil prices to the “Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.”

He said the U.S. will “hit” Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks during a national address on Wednesday, while adding that the war won’t last long and discussions with Tehran “are ongoing,” leaving a diplomatic resolution on the table.

“We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast,” he said.

George Efstathopoulos, portfolio manager at Fidelity International, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that markets had braced for a “binary outcome,” expecting the president to either signal his plans for a war exit or further escalation and prolonged uncertainty — “clearly we seem to be on the latter path right now.”

Efstathopoulos expects the speech to further fuel the risk-off sentiment as investors wait for uncertainty to subside.

Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which used to see a fifth of the world’s oil and gas flows through, has effectively ground to a halt since the U.S.-Israel war against Iran began on Feb. 28, sending energy prices soaring in one of the world’s most devastating energy crises.

Oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was unlikely to resume anytime soon, said Giles Alston, political risk analyst at Oxford Analytica.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. position on what you do to get your oil out of and through the Straits of Hormuz is now something which Washington has largely washed its hands off. This is now something for those who take oil through the Strait to sort out for themselves,” he said on CNBC on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Iran had asked for a ceasefire, briefly raising hopes for more oil tanker movement through the waterway, sending oil prices lower.

Iran’s “New Regime President” has asked the U.S. for a ceasefire, a request that will only be considered if the Strait of Hormuz is “open, free, and clear,” Trump said. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

The Islamic Republic, however, has denied Trump’s claim, saying that the waterway won’t be reopened based on the U.S. leader’s “absurd displays” and that the key transit route remains “decisively and dominantly under the control of the IRGC Navy.”

The two sides have frequently contradicted each other’s claims about the existence and status of peace-deal talks since the war started. Trump has also sent conflicting signals, reportedly saying negotiations were close to producing a peace deal, but the U.S. was also prepared to escalate fighting by sending thousands of troops to the region.

Brent oil dipped below $100 per barrel for the first time in a week after Trump said Tuesday evening that he expected the U.S. military to wind down operations against Iran in “two or three weeks” and appeared to be declaring victory even without a negotiated deal with Iran. “We’ll be leaving very soon,” he said.

CNBC

Last year saw a record of 714 million barrels of offshore oil produced, according to a press release from the Interior Department. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum underscored that the United States is tapping into its true energy potential.

“President Trump has made it clear that America should fully develop its abundant energy resources in a way that strengthens our economy and benefits American families,” Burgum said in a statement.

“By providing regulatory certainty, streamlining processes and encouraging responsible development, this administration is unlocking the full potential of our domestic energy resources — supporting job creation, lowering energy prices, strengthening energy security and maintaining strong safety and environmental protections,” he added.

The release notes that the administration’s policies, which include regulatory efficiency and providing energy developers with more certainty, have led to a boom in offshore project investment. The increase in investment is especially abundant in the Gulf of America.

“American energy leadership is a cornerstone of our economic strength and national security,” Burgum noted.

“This record production reflects the hard work of American energy workers and the strength of our offshore resources, helping drive economic growth, support good-paying jobs and deliver affordable, reliable energy to families and businesses,” he continued.

The record energy production makes good on one of Trump’s core campaign promises in the 2024 cycle. In February 2023, when he was the lone candidate in the Republican field, he pledged to “bring back a pro-American energy policy at long last.”

“I will deploy a team of warrior lawyers to hunt down every unnecessary regulation in the federal registry that hampers domestic production and we will wipe them off the books,” he said in a campaign video at the time.

“Nobody has more liquid gold under their feet than the United States of America, and we will use it and profit by it and live with it, and we will be rich again, and we will be happy again and will be proud again,” he went on to add.

TEHRAN — March 29, 2026 : Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has cautioned senior leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that Iran’s economy could face total collapse within three to four weeks if a regional ceasefire is not achieved, according to informed sources cited by Iran International.

The warning reflects growing internal divisions between Iran’s civilian administration and military leadership as the ongoing conflict enters its fifth week, intensifying both economic strain and governance disputes.

Internal Tensions Over War Strategy

The reported disagreement centers on the direction and management of military operations. President Pezeshkian is said to have directly criticized IRGC Chief Commander Ahmad Vahidi over continued escalation, including cross-border strikes that have contributed to mounting regional tensions and domestic economic pressure.

The divide became publicly visible on March 7, when Pezeshkian issued a video message apologizing for what he described as “fire at will” attacks by Iranian forces on neighboring countries. He instructed that such operations cease unless directly provoked. However, military activity reportedly resumed shortly after the broadcast.

Sources indicate that Pezeshkian has since demanded that executive and operational control over conflict-related decisions be returned to the civilian government. This request has been rejected by Vahidi, who instead attributed the country’s economic vulnerability to the administration’s failure to implement structural reforms prior to the conflict.

Further complicating the power balance, the IRGC has reportedly expanded its influence within Iran’s security institutions. The Guards are said to have pressured the president into appointing Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, an IRGC-affiliated figure, as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council—effectively reducing civilian oversight in strategic decision-making.

Economic Indicators Show Widespread Strain

The political dispute is unfolding against a backdrop of severe and accelerating economic distress. Iran’s economy, already weakened by sanctions and structural inefficiencies, is showing signs of systemic disruption under wartime conditions.

Banking infrastructure across major cities has been significantly affected. Many ATMs are either out of cash, inaccessible, or non-functional, while digital banking platforms—including those of major institutions such as Bank Melli—are experiencing repeated outages.

Public sector finances are also under pressure. Reports indicate that government employees have not received regular salaries or benefits for up to three months, affecting a large segment of the workforce.

Inflation, which had already reached between 105% and 115% for basic goods in February, has continued to rise since the onset of the conflict. Shortages of raw materials have disrupted factory operations, further constraining supply and pushing up prices of essential commodities.

Poverty levels have increased sharply. Data cited by economists and state-affiliated institutions suggest that more than 40% of the population now lives below the absolute poverty line, with the figure exceeding 50% in Tehran.

Currency Devaluation and Shift Toward Dollarization

The Iranian rial has undergone a significant loss of value, accelerating a shift toward informal dollarization in domestic markets.

By late 2025, the exchange rate had weakened to approximately 1,430,000 rials per US dollar, compared to around 800,000 earlier in the year. The sharp depreciation has eroded purchasing power and undermined confidence in the national currency.

As a result, key sectors of the economy—including real estate, rental markets, and automotive transactions—are increasingly being conducted in US dollars rather than rials, reflecting a structural shift in pricing practices.

Fiscal Pressures and Budget Adjustments

To manage wartime financial demands, the government’s 2026–2027 budget relies heavily on inflationary financing and increased taxation.

Oil revenue, historically a central component of Iran’s fiscal framework, has declined sharply. Its share in the national budget has fallen to approximately 5%, down from 32% in the previous year. To compensate, authorities have raised taxes by more than 60%, placing additional strain on businesses and households.

The conflict has also disrupted energy infrastructure and oil and gas operations, further limiting revenue streams and affecting supply chains. In several regions, food prices have risen by at least 50% compared to pre-war levels.

Broader Economic Context and Outlook

Iran entered the current conflict period with pre-existing economic vulnerabilities, including high inflation, currency instability, and the ongoing impact of international sanctions. The continuation of hostilities is now compounding these challenges.

According to sources, President Pezeshkian has emphasized that a ceasefire is essential within weeks to prevent further deterioration and maintain basic economic functionality. The warning underscores concerns among policymakers about the limited timeframe available for stabilization under current conditions.

No official confirmation of the reported warning has been issued by Iranian state media or government spokespersons. However, analysts note that prolonged conflict could deepen budget deficits, banking system imbalances, and supply disruptions, reducing the government’s ability to respond effectively.

The situation reflects a convergence of economic stress, institutional friction, and strategic disagreement, with implications for both domestic stability and regional dynamics.

Today, the Supreme Court will decide on Trump v. Barbara, a new challenge to “birthright citizenship,” so in that spirit, here are some facts about birthright citizenship from a simple internet search:

The concept of birthright citizenship is based on an 1898 SCOTUS decision (United States v. Wong Kim Ark) when there were no planes allowing the entire third world to rush in, and birth tourism didn’t exist.

Very few countries in the world allow birthright citizenship. European countries don’t allow it, nor do Japan, China, Great Britain, or Australia.

Pew estimates around five million anchor babies are living with parents who are not citizens.

61% of these households are on one or more government welfare programs. Note: It is illegal for non-citizens to receive welfare benefits.

225,000 to 300,000 babies are born each year to mothers who are here illegally. Another 70,000 are born to mothers who are here on vacation. It is generally not recommended for mothers to travel close to their due date, so isn’t that odd? My intelligent guess is most of these mothers did not pay the hospitals for their healthcare.

Why are we promoting birth tourism?

Why are the illegals allowed to stay after the baby is born since they are here illegally?

Democrats want open borders and say we can’t send the parents back because that would separate families. The solution is easy. Get rid of birthright citizenship so this doesn’t happen, and send the babies back to their home country with their parents.

China is really pushing for new babies to be born in the U.S. so they can further influence their control:

Chinese national pleads guilty to running ‘birth tourism’ scheme that helped aliens give birth in US to secure birthright citizenship

A Chinese national pleaded guilty today to federal criminal charges for running an Orange County-based ‘birth tourism’ business that catered to wealthy pregnant clients and Chinese government officials, charging them tens of thousands of dollars to help them give birth in the United States so their children would get U.S. citizenship.

Why do we openly allow our enemies to infiltrate the U.S.? And, what about this story?

Chinese gaming billionaire reportedly sires more than 100 surrogate kids in US, hopes they’ll marry Elon Musk’s children

A Chinese billionaire who allegedly fathered more than 100 US-born children through surrogacy agencies reportedly hopes the kiddies will one day marry Elon Musk’s children and create a sprawling family dynasty. 

Xu Bo, a 48-year-old wealthy recluse who founded the online gaming company Duoyi, calls himself ‘China’s first father’ and has been hell-bent on siring at least ‘50 high-quality sons,’ according to social-media posts verified as his by the Wall Street Journal.

And here is how the compliant media is covering the issue as they campaign for continuing birthright citizenship in support of Democrats and getting more people to be dependent on the government. They call Trump’s desire to get rid of birthright citizenship controversial instead of calling the original decision controversial. Everything Trump does is called controversial to influence the public instead of informing them. This article by USA Today in my local paper was titled “History bolsters birthright citizenship.”

Bad laws or rulings, regardless of being part of America’s “history,” should be overturned—and birthright citizenship is nuts.

Jack Hellner, American Thinker

They are preparing for large-scale violent jihad in Europe against Jewish targets. And there are likely to be more attempts, as Stephan Weh, Berlin police union chief, suggested when he said: “As a Western metropolis, Berlin remains a focal point for radical Islamist networks, which today primarily recruit new members and supporters via social media.”

Nonetheless, Weh states that this Berlin court ruling was important, given the precedent it establishes, and especially since Hamas is not a designated terror group under German law. As Western authorities become more knowledgeable about organized jihad groups, they still lag too far behind. They are still reckless about immigration and Islam itself, while jihad terror is regularly committed in its name. It is important to remember in this connection that Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) means Islamic Resistance Movement.

“Berlin Court Jails 4 Men in Landmark Hamas Weapons Case, First German Ruling Treating Membership as Terror Offense,” by Ailin Vilches Arguello, Algemeiner, March 26, 2026:

Four men were sentenced to prison in Berlin on Wednesday for operating a covert Hamas weapons-stockpiling network across Europe in preparation for potential terrorist attacks — a landmark ruling marking the first time a German court convicted members of the Palestinian terrorist group under the country’s terrorism laws.

The Berlin State Protection Senate — a special national-security chamber within the Berlin Court of Appeal — convicted the defendants of stockpiling weapons for future attacks in Europe, including possible targets in Germany, sentencing them to four and a half to six years in prison for membership in a foreign terrorist organization and related charges.

The court determined the men, aged 36 to 58, had acted as foreign operatives for Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and had already helped establish several firearms caches across Europe.

According to official records, the defendants helped build weapons depots as part of “preparations to carry out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in European countries,” with possible targets including the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, the US Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany, and Berlin’s former Tempelhof airport.

German authorities also found the stockpiles were meant for attacks on Israeli, Jewish, or other targets across Europe over an extended period, with sites discovered in multiple countries including Poland, Bulgaria, and Denmark….

Hamas, long supported by the Iranian regime as well as Qatar and Turkey, is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and several other Western countries, including the United States.

However, the terrorist group has not been officially classified as such under German law, making Wednesday’s ruling especially important because it sets a legal precedent allowing membership in the group to be treated as a criminal offense.

“It’s a clear and important ruling by the Berlin Court of Appeal, even though we know that it does not in itself reduce the danger of terrorist attacks,” Stephan Weh, Berlin police union chief, said in a statement.

“As a Western metropolis, Berlin remains a focal point for radical Islamist networks, which today primarily recruit new members and supporters via social media,” he continued.

Christine Douglass-Williams, Jihad Watch