Donald Trump: A Threat to World Peace

by Michael C. Monson | Mar 31, 2026

https://original.antiwar.com/michael_monson/2026/03/30/donald-trump-a-threat-to-world-peace/

President Trump and his minions assured America that he was a man of peace who would abandon the “failed policy of regime change”. Yet, since taking office in 2025, he has bombed seven countries and threatened several more.

As a man without principles, Trump is an empty vessel into which zealots pour their venom. The xenophobe Stephen Miller dehumanizes immigrants, the mercantilist Peter Navarro extols tariffs, and the indicted war criminal Bibi Netanyahu excoriates Iran.

Netanyahu has met with Trump at least seven times since Trump regained the presidency in 2025. As pointed out by the Times of Israel: “Netanyahu’s last meeting with Trump was a hastily arranged visit on February 11, 2026, which included a three-hour meeting at the White House, uncharacteristically closed to the press. The day after that meeting, the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, the world’s largest warship, departed the Caribbean, where it was supporting US military action in Venezuela, for the Mediterranean.” Secretary of State Rubio first suggested that Israel was the driving force behind the war, and now Trump’s top counter-terrorism expert, Joe Kent, confirms that the war was started “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

Iran has not initiated an offensive war in 300 years, a fact which apparently failed to register in the mind of President Trump. Trump explicitly stated that “based on what Steve [Witkoff] and Jared [Kushner] and Pete [Hegseth] and others were telling me, Marco [Rubio] is so involved, I thought they were going to attack us”.

Trump and his minions will argue that Iran has attacked us numerous times at the hands of Iraqis, Hezbollah, and Hamas, organizations that Iran has supported. A little over 1,000 Americans have died at their hands, fewer than those who died at the hands of Saudi Arabians on 9/11. More than half a million Iranians died during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, a war initiated by Iraq but sustained by US support for Iraq, which included critical reconnaissance data, financial aid, and the export of biological and chemical agents usable for weapons of mass destruction.

One thousand dead Americans render Iran a rogue nation. Half a million dead Iranians leaves the US a beneficent one? Just how beneficent is the US?

Iran did not orchestrate a coup to overthrow the elected leader of the US. The US did orchestrate a coup to overthrow the elected leader of Iran in 1953.

Iran did not establish a secret police force used to violently suppress dissent and torture political prisoners in the US. In setting up SAVAK, the American CIA (along with Israel’s Mossad) did so for Iran in 1957.

Iran did not place sanctions or embargoes on the US or encourage other countries to do so. The US has done so to Iran for 47 years.

Iran did not sail warships into American territorial waters. The US has done so to Iran on numerous occasions, from the “Tanker War” of the 1980s through to the present day.

Iran did not shoot down an American civilian airliner flying in a commercial airline corridor. The USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in July 1988, killing 290 people, including 66 children. The US subsequently lied about the USS Vincennes being in Iran’s territorial waters and initially claimed that the Iranian airliner was not in the commercial airline corridor. The US never apologized, and two officers on the Vincennes were subsequently awarded medals.

Iran did not unilaterally withdraw from the nuclear deal with the US. It was President Trump who did so.

Iran did not conduct military exercises within sight of the US. The US has conducted military exercises in the Persian Gulf on multiple occasions.

Iran did not assassinate a major general of the US. President Trump ordered the assassination of the Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

Iran did not fly spy drones over US territory. The US has been conducting such flights over Iran for a long period.

Iran did not bomb US territory. The US has bombed Iranian territory in an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025 and again beginning on February 28, 2026.

Iran has not killed innocent American children. In the very first hours of the American preemptive war on Iran, one of the very first strikes was on a girls’ school in southern Iran, which killed an estimated 110 children. When President Trump was asked if the US had bombed the school, he said, “No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.” He continued: “We think it was done by Iran – because they are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”

Iran is constantly castigated for its support of proxies. Indeed, in 2020, the US State Department estimated that Iran spent more than $16 billion on support of its proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen between 2012 and 2020. But that support is dwarfed by American support for its proxies. In 2016, the US signed a law pledging $38 billion in military assistance to Israel from fiscal year 2019 to 2028, and Israel is by far the largest recipient of US aid, amounting to $330 billion (adjusted for inflation) from 1946 to 2024, nearly three-quarters of that being military assistance.

If Iran is complicit in the deaths attributed to its proxies, then America is complicit in the deaths attributed to Israel.

Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, in his book Rise and Kill First, documents Israel as having carried out more targeted assassinations than any other Western nation since WWII. Many of those assassinated have been Iranians. However, that record may soon be eclipsed by American targeted killings in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Nigeria, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The toll of death from American actions in the Mideast is truly staggering. According to the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, US military operations in the Mideast post 9/11 are estimated to have directly killed more than 940,000 and indirectly killed an additional 3.6 to 3.8 million.

Iran is not an imminent threat to the lives of millions; Donald Trump is.

Does the Tail Wag the Dog? How Both Sides Are Missing the Bigger Picture

Binary thinking in the argument over whether the US or Israel is driving the illegal war on Iran obscures far more than it illuminates. The truth is the dog and the tail are wagging each other

by Jonathan Cook | Mar 30, 2026 

https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2026/03/29/does-the-tail-wag-the-dog-how-both-sides-are-missing-the-bigger-picture/

The joint US-Israeli war on Iran has thrust back into the spotlight a divisive debate about whether the dog wags the tail, or the tail wags the dog. Who is in charge of this war: Israel or the United States?

One side believes Israel lured Trump into a trap from which he cannot extricate himself. The tail is wagging the dog.

The other believes that the US, as the world’s sole military super-power, is the one that writes the geo-strategic script. If Israel acts, it is only because it serves Washington’s interests as well. The dog is wagging the tail.

Certainly, the idea that the tail, the client state of Israel, could be wagging the dog, the military juggernaut that is the US, seems, at best, counter-intuitive.

But then again, there is plenty of evidence that suggests advocates for the tail wagging the dog scenario may have a case.

They can point to the fact that Trump launched this war of choice on Iran despite winning the presidency on an “America First” platform in which he promised: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, openly stated that the administration was rushed into war, finding itself apparently unable to restrain Israel from attacking Iran.

Jonathan Kent, Trump’s top counter-terrorism official, noted in his resignation letter that the administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

Addressing the Israeli parliament last October, Trump appeared to confess to being under the thumb of the Israel lobby. As he praised himself for moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the illegally occupied city of Jerusalem, he repeatedly pointed to his most influential donor, the Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson, before observing: “I actually asked her once, I said, ‘So, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means, that might mean, Israel, I must say.”

A video from 2001 shows Benjamin Netanyahu, now Israel’s prime minister, caught secretly on camera, telling a group of settlers: “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

Former US President Barack Obama, who ran up against Netanyahu repeatedly as Obama tried and failed to limit the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements, thought the same. In his 2020 autobiography, he wrote that the Israel lobby insisted that “there should be ‘no daylight’ between the US and Israeli governments, even when Israel took actions that were contrary to US policy.”

Any politician who disobeyed “risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election”.

Messy arrangement

But any rigid, binary way of framing the relationship between the US and Israel obscures more than it illuminates.

I addressed this issue in my 2008 book on Israeli foreign policy, titled Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iran, Iraq and the Plan to Remake the Middle East. My conclusion then, as now, was that the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv was better understood in different terms: as the dog and the tail wagging each other.

What does that mean?

Israel is Washington’s most favoured client state. It must, therefore, operate within the “security” parameters for the Middle East laid down by the US.

In fact, part of Israel’s job – the reason it is such an important client state – is because it has, until now, been able to enforce those parameters on others in the region.

But the story is more complicated than that.

At the same time, Israel seeks to maximize its ability to influence those parameters in its own interests, chiefly by shaping military, political and cultural discourse in the United States, through the many levers available to it.

Zionist lobbies, both Jewish and Christian, mobilize large numbers of ordinary people to support whatever Israel claims to be in both its and US interests.

Mega-donors like Adelson use their wealth to cajole and intimidate US politicians.

Think-tanks with murky funding write legislation on Israel’s behalf that US politicians wave through.

Legal organizations, again with opaque funding, weaponize the law to silence and bankrupt.

And media owners, all too often in Israel’s camp, mold the public mood to stigmatize as “antisemitism” anything that opposes Israeli excesses.

This makes for a very messy arrangement.

Disappearing Palestinians

The trouble with the idea that the US simply dictates to Israel – rather than that the two are constantly bargaining over what constitutes their shared interests – becomes apparent the moment we consider the two-and-a-half-year genocide in Gaza.

Israel has long had a fervent desire to disappear the Palestinians, whether through ethnic cleansing or genocide.

It wants the whole of historic Palestine, and the Palestinians are an obstacle to the realization of that goal. Should the opportunity arise, Israel is also keen to secure a Greater Israel that requires grabbing and annexing substantial territory from neighbors, particularly Lebanon and Syria – as it is doing again right now.

After the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israel seized on the chance to renew in earnest the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians it began in 1948, at the state’s founding.

It carpet-bombed Gaza, creating a “humanitarian crisis”, to force Egypt to open the floodgates into Sinai, where it hoped to drive the enclave’s population. Cairo refused. As a result, Israel tried to increase the pressure by slaughtering and starving the people of Gaza. In legal terms, that constituted genocide.

But the idea that the US was deeply invested in Israel carrying out a genocide in Gaza, or directed that genocide, or had any particular interest in the genocide taking place, is hard to sustain.

Washington – first under Biden, then under Trump – gave Israel cover to carry out the mass slaughter of the Palestinian population, and armed and financed the genocide. But that is very different from it having a geostrategic interest in the mass slaughter.

Rather, the US is and always has been largely indifferent as to the fate of the Palestinians, so long as they are contained. They can be locked up permanently in occupation prisons. Or ethnically cleansed to Sinai and Jordan. Or given a pretend statelet under a compliant dictator like Mahmoud Abbas. Or exterminated.

The US will bankroll whichever option Israel believes best serves its interests – so long as that “solution” can be sold by pro-Israel lobbies to western publics as a legitimate “response” to Palestinian “terrorism”.

What Israel could get away with changed on 7 October 2023. The US was prepared to approve Israel shifting from a policy of intermittently “mowing the lawn” in Gaza – short wrecking sprees – to the incremental leveling of the whole of Gaza.

In other words, Israel worked all its levers to persuade Washington that it was the right time for it to get away with genocide. It sold to the US the plan that Gaza could now be destroyed.

To present that as Washington’s plan is simply perverse. It was decisively Israel’s plan.

That doesn’t diminish in any way US responsibility for the genocide. It is fully complicit. It paid for the genocide. It armed the genocide. It must own it too.

Israeli attack dog

A similar analysis can be applied to the Iran war.

The US and Israel share the same larger policy towards Iran: they want it contained, weak, unable to exert influence. But they do so for slightly different reasons.

Israel demands to be regional hegemon in the Middle East, an invaluable client state with privileged access to Washington policymakers. Its supremacy and impunity, therefore, depend on Iran – its only plausible rival in the region – being as weak as possible and incapable of forging effective alliances with armed resistance groups such as Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Equally, Washington wants Israel unthreatened, leaving its ally free to project US imperial power into the Middle East.

But it has a more complex set of interests to consider. It needs to ensure that the Arab monarchies remain compliant, and it does so by both wielding a stick – threatening to unleash the attack dog of Israel on them should they disobey – and proffering a carrot – promising to shield them under its security umbrella against Iran so long as they stay loyal.

The ultimate goal is to guarantee unchallenged US control over the flow of oil and thereby the global economy.

In other words, the US has to weigh far more interests in how it deals with Iran than Israel does.

Unlike Israel, Washington has to consider the effects of an attack on Iran on the global economy, to assess any impact on the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and protect against rival powers like China and Russia exploiting strategic missteps.

For those reasons, Washington has traditionally preferred maintaining a degree of stability in the region. Instability is very bad for business, as is being demonstrated only too clearly right now.

Israel, by contrast, regards its struggle against Iran in existential terms. Many in the Israeli cabinet view it as a religious war. They are not interested in simply containing Iran – a decades-old policy they believe has failed. They want Iran and its allies on their knees, or at least in so much chaos that they cannot pose any kind of challenge to Israeli regional hegemony.

That point was highlighted by Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s former national security adviser, this week in an interview with Jon Stewart. He cited recent comments to him by Israel’s former military intelligence lead on Iran, Danny Cintrinowicz, that Netanyahu’s aim is to “just break Iran, cause chaos”. Why? “Because,” says Sullivan, “as far as they’re concerned, a broken Iran is less of a threat to Israel.”

In other words, Israel wants to engineer instability in Iran, which is sure to spread instability across the region.

Weaving mischief

Those two agendas, as should be clear by now, are not easily compatible. Which is why Netanyahu has spent decades working every lever at his disposal in Washington to create an appetite for war.

Had war been self-evidently in US interests, his efforts would have been superfluous.

Instead Israel has had to deploy its lobbies, marshal its donors and recruit sympathetic columnists to slowly shift the public mood to the point where a war was conceivable rather than patently dangerous.

And most importantly of all, Israel nurtured an intimate, ideological alliance with the neocons – hawkish, zealously pro-Israel US officials – who long ago gained a foothold in the inner sanctums of Washington.

Each recent administration has been a cat-fight over whether the neocons or more “moderate” voices would win out. Under George W Bush, the neocons dominated, leading to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Israel’s short war on Lebanon in 2006, and a failed plan to expand the war to Syria and then Iran. I documented all of this in Israel and the Clash of Civilisations.

Under Obama, the neocons were forced to take more of a back seat, which is why his administration was able to sign a nuclear deal with Iran that held until Trump ripped it up in 2018, during his first term as president. Biden, as with so much else, dithered.

In Trump’s second term, the neocons seem to be firmly back in charge, again weaving their mischief. The result – an illegal war on Iran – is likely to be a strategic catastrophe for the US, and a potential, if short-lived, victory for Israel.

Secret power

So isn’t this the same as saying the tail wags the dog?

No, not least because that assumes the visible realm of US politics – the President, the Congress, the two main political parties – are the sole repositories of power in the system.

Even in this visible sphere, support for Israel has dramatically waned since the Gaza genocide. As the illegal war on Iran grows ever more costly, both in treasure and lives, support for Israel among US voters is going to fall off a cliff.

Israel is for the first time a deeply partisan issue, dividing Democrats and Republicans, as well as a generational divide between the young and old. It is even splitting the MAGA base Trump depends on.

This political polarization will continue to get much worse, ultimately freeing braver figures in US politics to start speaking out in franker terms about Israel’s nefarious role.

But power in the US isn’t just wielded at the formal, visible level. There is a permanent bureaucracy, with an institutional memory, that operates out of sight. We have gained brief glimpses of its covert operations from the work of Wikileaks, Julian Assange’s publishing platform for whistleblowers, and from Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed illegal mass surveillance by the US state of its own citizens.

Both suffered serious consequences for their efforts to bring a little transparency to a profoundly corrupt system of secret power. Assange was locked away in a London high-security prison for many years as the US sought to extradite him on trumped-up “espionage” charges, while Snowden was forced into exile in Russia to evade arrest and long-term incarceration.

That bureaucracy – sometimes referred to as the Deep State, or the military-industrial complex – doesn’t play or fight fair. It doesn’t need to. It operates in the shadows.

Were it to so choose, it could undermine the Israel lobby, and thereby curtail Israel’s influence over the visible realm of US politics.

It could effectively do to the leaders of the lobby – AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Christians United for Israel, and others – what it did to Assange and Snowden.

It could, for example, influence public discourse to begin questioning whether these groups are really serving US interests or acting as foreign agents. That would, in turn, free up space for the media and legislators to call for tighter restrictions on these groups’ activities, requiring them to register as such.

The permanent bureaucracy is doubtless capable of doing much darker, underhand things too.

The fact that it hasn’t chosen to do any of this yet suggests Israel’s goals are not seen so far to be significantly in conflict with US goals.

But that could be about to change. In fact, the current, all-too-public debates about Israel driving the US into a war against Iran – an idea already seeping into popular consciousness – may be the first salvos in the battle to come.

If the war on Iran turns out to be a catastrophic misstep, as it gives every appearance of being, there will be a price to pay – and leading US politicians are likely to scramble to shift the blame on to Israel. It may be that they are already getting in their excuses.

The all-too-visible freedom Israel has enjoyed in Washington to buy, bully and silence could soon become a central liability. It will not be hard to argue that a system so clearly open to manipulation that the US could be bounced into a self-sabotaging war needs to be remade, to prevent any repeat of such a disaster.

This may be the biggest lesson Washington learns from the war on Iran. That it is time to stop the tail wagging so vigorously.

A month into the conflict, it’s time to press pause on this war: Global Times editorial

By Global Times

Published: Mar 30, 2026

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202603/1357826.shtml

It has now been a full month since the US and Israel launched military strikes against Iran on February 28. Far from achieving their so-called "intended objectives," this conflict, which was initiated by the US and Israel without justification amid negotiations, has instead edged steadily toward the brink of losing control. Although it is uncertain how this conflict will end, its shock to geopolitics and the global order is already profound. What is urgently needed now is to prevent this conflict - one that should never have happened - from sliding into the abyss of complete loss of control.

In just one month, the perilous escalation of the conflict has far exceeded initial expectations. The flames of war have spread from the Persian Gulf to the eastern Mediterranean, and from the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Beyond Iran and Israel, the territories of Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have also come under direct military strikes, leaving critical infrastructure and civilian safety severely impacted. The US government initially projected that the war against Iran would last "four to five weeks," and later repeatedly claimed it would "end soon." The facts have proven otherwise: Once modern warfare is initiated, it is difficult to stop it according to the "pre-set trajectory." The US and Israeli attempt at a "swift and decisive victory" have now collapsed, and the consequences of reckless military intervention in the Middle East are becoming increasingly evident.

This war was built from the outset on severe strategic miscalculations and a morality deficit. From the bloody tragedy in the school in Minab to the "black toxic rain" on the streets of Tehran, repeated strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have triggered global alarm and sharply heightened the risk of radioactive leaks. This conflict has also imposed an energy crisis, supply chain disruptions, and economic uncertainty on the entire world. With the Strait of Hormuz remaining under restricted navigation, international oil prices have surged past $112 per barrel. If the conflict continues to escalate, the risk of a global economic recession will rise significantly, undermining the shared interests of people across all nations.

What is most alarming now is the erosion of limits on targets and the sharp rise in the risk of spillover. The conflict is no longer confined to military objectives; both sides have begun striking key civilian infrastructure, including oil refineries, desalination plants, and power stations - facilities vital to national economies and everyday life. Once this "mutual destruction" mode becomes the norm, it will trigger even more severe humanitarian disasters. The Houthi movement's declaration of entry into the war not only opens a new front but also heightens risks along the Red Sea shipping lane, increasing global oil prices and logistics costs. Meanwhile, the deployment of 3,500 US sailors and marines to the Middle East has sharply increased the likelihood of a ground offensive and the danger of dragging the conflict into a protracted quagmire.

"Enough: end the eternal war" - such slogans appeared in a square in Tel Aviv on March 28, marking one month since the conflict began. On the same day, more than 3,100 related protests were held across the US, with "no more war" emerging as one of the protesters' core demands. Even Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, reportedly resigned because he could not "in good conscience" support the US war with Iran - a clear sign of the war's lack of public support. 

Following an airstrike on Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared that American and Israeli-affiliated universities in the Middle East would be considered "legitimate targets." This serves yet another warning: War is never a solution, and it only breeds more hatred and killing.

Although the current situation is filled with uncertainty, it also contains a potential window for de-escalation. The US, Israel, and Iran are all facing increasingly prominent pressures in their ongoing confrontation, which significantly constrain their strategic space and policy choices. Previously, both the US and Iran had signaled a willingness to negotiate; the key lies in whether all parties can maintain strategic restraint under pressure, gradually restore communication mechanisms through limited de-escalation measures, and create conditions for subsequent political solutions. The conflict is now on the brink of complete loss of control, where every misjudgment and each escalation could lead to irrevocable consequences. Therefore, all parties involved in the conflict should remain calm and rational, abandon confrontational thinking, and not easily let slip the fleeting glimmer of peace.

It has been over a month, and the 168 girls in Minab can no longer grow up. War has no winners, only irreparable harm. From the outset of the conflict, China has made it clear that the urgent priority is to achieve a ceasefire and stop the fighting as soon as possible. This is a war that should never have happened, and it brings no benefits to any party involved. The history of the Middle East repeatedly teaches us that force is not the solution to problems; armed confrontation only adds new hatred and breeds new crises. We once again call for an immediate halt to this conflict, to prevent the situation from escalating further and to avoid the spread of war.

Israel blocks top Catholic leaders from Palm Sunday Mass at Holy Sepulchre

Church bodies in Jerusalem say move sets grave precedent and is 'tainted by improper considerations'

By MEE staff

Published date: 29 March 2026 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-blocks-top-catholic-leaders-palm-sunday-mass-holy-sepulchre

Israeli forces blocked two senior Catholic leaders from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied East Jerusalem to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land said Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch, and Father Francesco Ielpo, custos of the Holy Land, were stopped en route to the church.

The leaders had attempted to enter privately without any ceremonial procession or public gathering but were refused access.

The church bodies said this was the first time in centuries that the heads of the Catholic Church had been prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at the Holy Sepulchre.

“This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem,” they said.

The move drew sharp criticism from several European countries.

Italy summoned Israel’s ambassador in Rome, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni calling the decision “an offence to the faithful”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said freedom of worship “for all religions” must be guaranteed in Jerusalem.

“I condemn this decision by the Israeli police,” he wrote on X, warning it adds to “a worrying series of violations” affecting holy sites.

Following the backlash, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said police would meet Cardinal Pizzaballa to “explore solutions that allow for as normal a routine as possible while ensuring public safety”.

Al-Aqsa and church closures 

Israeli authorities have closed Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian churches in the Old City of East Jerusalem since launching the assault against Iran last month.

Police cited safety concerns, a justification rejected by Palestinians, who say the closures are intended to tighten control over the occupied city.

The church bodies said they had acted responsibly, complying with all restrictions for over a month, including cancelling public gatherings and prohibiting attendance during Easter, when “hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide… turn their eyes to Jerusalem and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre”. 

“Preventing the entry of the Cardinal and the Custos, who bear the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church and the Holy Places, constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure,” they added.

They criticised the decision as “tainted by improper considerations” and “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the Status Quo”.

The Status Quo refers to a set of long-standing, internationally recognised arrangements that guarantee Christian authority over churches in Jerusalem and Muslim authority over Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israel has for decades violated the status quo in favour of increased Jewish presence in the city. 

Israel’s control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, is widely regarded as a violation of international law, which holds that an occupying power has no sovereignty over the territory it occupies and must not make permanent changes there.

Yemen enters war, launches ballistic missile at 'sensitive' sites in southern Israel

Sanaa reopened its war front against Israel a day after Washington and Tel Aviv significantly escalated attacks on Iran's nuclear and steel manufacturing facilities

News Desk

MAR 28, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/yemen-enters-war-launches-ballistic-missile-at-sensitive-sites-in-southern-israel

The Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced on 28 March the launch of a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting sensitive military sites in southern Israel.

Saturday's attack marked the first action by the YAF against Israel since Tel Aviv and Washington initiated a war on Iran on 28 February. Shortly afterward, the US and Israel also engaged in wars against the Resistance Axis in Lebanon and Iraq.

YAF spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree stated that the operation was carried out in response to Israel's crimes and massacres "against our brothers in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine."

Saree added that the operation successfully achieved its objectives and coincided with the "heroic operations" carried out by "our mujahideen brothers in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon."

He also confirmed that Yemeni military operations will continue until the declared objectives are achieved and the aggression against all resistance fronts ceases.

The attack came one day after Sanaa urged the US and Israel to participate in international diplomatic efforts to end the war against Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq.

“[Our] fingers are on the trigger for direct military intervention,” the YAF declared on Friday, warning other countries against joining the US and Israel in their war against the Axis of Resistance, including if the Red Sea is used to carry out "hostile operations against Iran or any Muslim country."

The Yemeni forces emphasized that Saturday's ballistic missile attack stems from a religious and moral responsibility to resist the US and Israel's effort to establish "Greater Israel."

The Israeli military announced on Saturday that it had identified a missile launched from Yemen.

"The IDF has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory; aerial defense systems are operating to intercept the threat," the Israeli military wrote via Telegram.

The YAF previously opened a war front against Israel in November 2023, launching drone and missile barrages for over a year in response to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Yemen also imposed a blockade on US and Israeli-linked vessels attempting to cross the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern outlet of the Red Sea.

The US and EU dispatched warships to respond, but they were forced to retreat by Yemeni missile and drone attacks.

Reuters observed earlier this week that if Yemen enters the conflict, one "obvious target" would be Bab al-Mandab, a key shipping chokepoint and narrow passageway that controls sea ​traffic towards the Suez Canal.

Targeting Bab al-Mandab could increase Iran's leverage after it has already effectively shut the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world's oil and natural gas typically passes.

WILL IRAN BE DECEIVED AGAIN?

Will what remain of the Iranian leadership be deceived once again by the rogue governments of the United States and Israel?

Everything seems to indicate that it will. Trump insists that what remains of the Iranian leadership is desperately pleading for a peace agreement. The Iranians deny it, but everything seems to indicate that, with the mediation of the Pakistanis and Egyptians, there is indeed some kind of communication between the United States and Iran.

Of course, the apartheid and genocidal state of Israel want no agreement and wishes to continue attacking and destroying Iran. But Trump no longer knows how to escape this trap into which he fell, led by Netanyahu, with oil prices above $110 per barrel, stock markets mostly in negative territory, and gasoline and numerous other product prices rising in the West and almost everywhere else in the world.

The Israelis will try, and will surely succeed, in sabotaging this new round of indirect “negotiations” between the United States and Iran, as it is not in their interest for the war to end. Netanyahu and the Zionists want to destroy and balkanize Iran so that it cannot again compete with Israel for hegemony in the Middle East.

So, it doesn't matter that the incompetent JD Vance is leading the supposed negotiations to achieve, at least, a ceasefire between the United States and Iran; Israel will not respect whatever is negotiated and will surely convince/force its minions in Washington to break any agreement and continue the destruction and killing in Iran.

What guarantee can the United States and Israel give Iran that they will not attack it again? Trump's “word”? A signature on a piece of paper? Please. They respect none of that in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Iran's only guarantee is to continue arming itself as best it can, maintain its position for as long as possible, and hope that the United States will withdraw from the fight on its own, forcing Israel to do the same, given that the Zionists in Tel Aviv cannot sustain this war effort alone.

But I think the Iranians will once again fall for the false promises of the United States and Israel; once again they will be treacherously attacked, and once again dozens of Iranian leaders will be assassinated. They simply don't understand.

Today’s Handmaidens of War

They come in many shapes and sizes and with myriad conflicts of interest, but they share one agenda: perpetual war.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Mar 25, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/todays-handmaidens-of-war/

This is not a partisan affair. Experts in military strategy, regional history, and current power dynamics in the Middle East—as well as American politics and geoeconomics—are struggling to make sense of the U.S.–Israel war launched on February 28 and warn that its escalatory spiral is spinning out of control.

But just like when the bloom was off the rose in late 2003, when the insurgencies and sectarian violence started emerging in Iraq and it was becoming clear that the Bush administration had no plan for “what’s next,” the cheerleaders and shills are rushing to battle stations today to do everything to maintain some sort of rationalization for the disaster unfolding right before our eyes.

This time, these messaging force-multipliers, tied directly or otherwise to the political and military machinery behind this war, shouldn’t get off so easily. Too many of them were around for the last big war when they lied and cajoled the American public into thinking we simply needed more “stomach” for the fight in Iraq. Many were called out. But apparently not enough.

Mixed in with the familiar figures are new voices lobbying for a big Mideast war. We have influencers paid in dark money from our “partners” in the Israeli government. They are mixed in with ideological diehards pervasive in conservative normie media and the fever swamps of X, Fox News, and talk radio. Then there are the national security “experts” who for professional reasons—establishment status or, more insidiously, ties to the defense industry or the think tanks funded by it—are rolled out onto major media to legitimize a cockeyed strategy pulling the country further into endless war.

Take note, because remembering what they say today will be important for the reckoning tomorrow.

Ideological Diehards

The loudest voices in this arena are also the most bloodthirsty and vicious when it comes to dissent. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Fox News host Mark Levin, podcaster Ben Shapiro, and social media influencer Laura Loomer are like the Red Guards trying to enforce order on the right, and they are becoming more shrill by the day as they see MAGA cohesion breaking down because of President Trump’s war.

“Just so you are aware, if you suspect someone you know in the US is working on behalf of Iran or any other adversary during a time of war, you can and should report them to the FBI and DOJ. It’s the America First thing to do,” said Loomer in a recent X post. “We need to bring back McCarthyism and start rooting out traitors.”

On March 15, Levin read out most of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1940 Fireside Chat, “Arsenal of Democracy”, which was an effort to conflate anti-war voices in America at the time with spies, enemy agents, and sympathizers. In FDR’s words, “these trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.”

Levin said Trump “is doing what all great presidents do: taking on a government, an illegitimate terrorist regime, whose roots are in seventh-century barbarism… just like Franklin D. Roosevelt had to take out a barbaric Third Reich.”

He said opponents of this war, like those of 1940, “are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Levin saves his real venom for dissidents on the right. “Shame on you… You will be remembered as anti-America, neo-fascist Jew haters.”

The political scientist Max Abrahms has long promoted war with Iran and often smears conservatives as antisemitic isolationists. Abrahms, who teaches counterterrorism at Northeastern University, last week joined Loomer in rage-posting against Tucker and Joe Kent, who resigned from his position as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the war with Iran. 

“My sense is Tucker served as a backchannel between Joe Kent and Iran. Joe leaked national security secrets to Tucker who was communicating with the Iranian regime,” Abrahms posted on X last week.

Abrahms chortled in July that “MAGA isolationists” were embarrassed because they had warned that the U.S.–Israel attacks on Iran in June would lead to a regional conflagration. Yet here we are. But he and others still cling to the notion that Trump is playing 4D chess and that America’s apparent strategic blunder is part of an elaborate plan that only really smart military experts can understand.

Other pro-war voices share that view. "You actually have to throw your enemies off their game," Ben Shapiro told Fox News last week, calling Trump’s war "the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime" and arguing that the Iranian regime is now in its "death throes."

Many think tankers seem to think the Iran war is going swimmingly for the U.S. “We are destroying Iran's ability to even produce more weapons after we've destroyed the missiles, the launchers, the drones, and so the Iranians at this point only have the ability to essentially terrorize, shooting a drone here, a drone there, at civilian targets against Gulf states,” said the Hudson Institute’s Rebeccah Heinrichs, a regular now on Fox News, last week. 

It was the same week in which “a drone here, a drone there,” plus Iran’s ballistic missiles, struck numerous oil and gas sites across the Gulf, emptied U.S. embassies, terrorized Israeli citizens, drove up gas prices, and raised the risks of a global recession. The neoconservative Hudson Institute has received $2.6 million from defense contractors in funding since 2019, according to the Think Tank Tracker.

The best sign that things are going sideways is when the cheerleaders just stop making sense, like when they say Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s announcement of lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil only hurts the Chinese, or that Iran’s launching Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, is an ex-post facto “imminent threat” to the United States. “Basically every major development in the Iran War has vindicated Trump’s decision to strike,” says Will Chamberlain. Nice try.

Abrahms unironically says “the discrepancy between the war commentary and what’s actually happening in the war is the greatest the world has ever seen.” He doesn't realize how right he is.

Then there is the stray neoconservative Never Trumper who, despite their previous revulsion at anything the current president says or does, has given their blessing to his war aims today.

Eliot Cohen, who not only led the cheer sections for Iraq and Afghanistan two decades ago but has been shaming Americans into supporting the Ukraine war, now says the media is being too “negative” with regards to Operation Epic Fury.

“The [Iranians’] desire to destroy [Israel]... the failure to talk about that is driving me crazy. The truth is on [Trump’s] side,” Cohen said, noting that previous presidents just didn’t act against Iran decisively but that Trump “is actually trying to resolve it in a very direct violent way.” 

Retired four stars giving one-star analysis

When you see a retired four-star on the media, it’s best to follow the money and/or the professional affiliation to understand where their analysis is coming from. The producers and editors won’t do it for you: That way, Admiral High Hat can say whatever he wants and be afforded all sorts of authority without the viewers knowing what his conflicts of interest are. 

Take General Jack Keane. He has been shilling for war on Fox since Iraq. He’s been out of service since 2003 and in that time has worked in private equity investing in military tech and has ties with several defense contractors, including serving on the board of General Dynamics. 

Keane is probably the most prolific war supporter on Fox and stands to benefit financially the longer the war goes on. Each of his appearances show his aptitude for saying things that defy reality. He told Fox News viewers that “we aren’t going to go toe-to-toe” with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz (which days later the Pentagon said we were doing) and that we would instead escort shipping with Navy ships (which we are not doing). 

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America has scores of former American military officers in its stable, including Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a former Centcom deputy commander, who just a week ago was lauding Israeli assassinations and regime change operations.

Calling Tehran “the center of gravity,” he told CNN that “if the IRGC can be decimated so the people have that advantage, maybe arm the people. That's how this thing flips.” Harward retired in 2013 went to work for Lockheed Martin, heading up its UAE business for eight years. He is now a top executive for Shield AI, which currently holds major contracts with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

In a later interview with NPR, he said the length of the war would be "irrelevant" if the end result was destroying the regime. “Only allow a regime that we support, and the people support, to come to power. Anyone else remains a target. So I think that's a very sound strategy.”

So does Ret. General H.R. McMaster, who works for the neoconservative  Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which we now know the White House cribbed from to make its case against Iran. He actually laughed when asked by CBS News last week about regional escalation. 

Ret. Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who also works for FDD (which does not disclose its donors), warns that “China is watching” and that we just need patience to see the genius of Trump’s vision.

“If the United States can hold firm for the next few weeks, it can fully degrade Iran’s war-making apparatus,” he wrote for the New York Times on March 19. “This would usher in a multiyear interval of calm of the kind that neither sanctions nor diplomacy has been able to produce in over four decades. In that window, a better regional order could emerge.”

These manufacturers of consent are no different from their Iraq war counterparts. Calling them out will mean absolutely nothing, however, if they are not held accountable by the court of public opinion and whatever foreign policy establishment survives the wreckage of this catastrophic war.