Trump’s Will Be Done
SCHEERPOST, April 14, 2026 Joshua Scheer Intro
At a moment when political power is increasingly wrapped in spectacle, symbolism, and something closer to religious devotion than democratic accountability, this piece from ScheerPost cuts straight through the illusion. In “Trump’s Will Be Done,” Kenneth A. Carlson examines the dangerous fusion of faith and politics that has helped elevate Donald Trump beyond the realm of politician and into something far more untouchable in the eyes of his followers.
Republishing this now feels especially urgent. As imagery, rhetoric, and power continue to blur into something resembling mythology, Carlson’s question lingers with uncomfortable clarity: not just what would Jesus do—but what happens when political loyalty begins to replace it.
As the war abroad spirals and the stakes grow more dangerous by the day, the spectacle at home has taken on an almost surreal edge. President Donald Trump briefly posted—and then deleted—an AI-generated image depicting himself in Christ-like form, hands glowing as he “healed” the sick, wrapped in flags, fighter jets, and divine symbolism. When pressed, Trump dismissed the backlash, claiming it was merely an image of him as a doctor, not a messianic figure.
But the moment lands differently in a political climate already saturated with religious imagery, blind allegiance, and the merging of power with mythology. It’s not just a post—it’s a signal—one that fits neatly into a broader pattern where politics becomes performance, leadership becomes spectacle, and belief begins to blur into something far more dangerous.
Which brings us to the reality this piece explores: what happens when illusion collides with consequence.
By Kenneth A. Carlson ScheerPost
Trump’s Will Be Done
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Today, Donald Trump, the former reality TV star, and those around him, understand how to do this all too well. They took their skillset to a new level as they somehow succeeded in fashioning him, and/or he fashioned himself, into a new role as a modern-day messiah — the Chosen One, the Second Coming, the Son of God. And I truly believe he sees himself this way. Remember, this is the same man who once bragged, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” The shocking thing about that statement? It’s likely to be 100% true.
And why? I believe it’s due to some extent to the unfortunate fact that critical thinking in our society is on life-support. People don’t question. They don’t dive deeply and independently into issues. They let others feed it to them in their own private echo chambers. The thirst for knowledge has been replaced by blind allegiance, paving the way for the rise of Donald “The Music Man” Trump — a master showman selling a reckless and dangerous illusion. ……………………………………………………………………
……………………………………. what Donald Trump has tapped into. He positions himself as a godlike figure, offering his followers a false sense of security — a “Daddy’s Home” mentality (yes, there are actual T-shirts for sale on Amazon).
Trump has lulled his base into a dangerous complacency, even as they watch stock markets tumble, inflation soar, entire agencies dismantled, jobs slashed, tariff wars escalated, and unemployment climb. Yet the news they consume assures them it’s all part of his grand plan, and so they wait — idly, expectantly — for a miracle. I never thought my livelihood would be at risk when I voted for him, they say, as if the consequences were unforeseeable.
But critical thinking has been shoved to the backseat, while blind faith handed Trump the wheel. Many have stopped questioning, stopped discerning, stopped seeking truth — because they believe the Almighty Donald Trump will ultimately take care of business.
Nothing could be further from the truth — and the sheer number of his businesses that have filed for bankruptcy should be proof enough. Six of his companies (that we know of) have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, allowing them to continue operating while erasing massive debts. But behind that legal maneuvering lies a harsh reality: hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers, vendors, and small businesses left unpaid for their goods and services, are bearing the cost of his failures.
But none of that seems to matter to his unwavering base — the citizens of this so-called God-fearing nation. As a collective, today’s Evangelical and Charismatic Christians appear all too willing to believe a man who promises to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East within hours, slash grocery prices, “end inflation,” and miraculously lower the cost of eggs. He also assures us the economy will be “the best ever” — thanks, in large part, to tariffs imposed on both allies and adversaries alike. Few reputable economists would dispute the fact that American consumers will ultimately bear the cost of these tariffs — better known as taxes.
And yet, just over two months into his second term, none of these campaign promises have materialized — not even close. In fact, some might argue the exact opposite has happened.
So why do people still believe him? Why do they worship him with such fervent devotion? Why do they trust him with blind, unquestioning enthusiasm? I believe it’s because he has transcended the role of a mere politician. He has fashioned himself into something greater — a deity of sorts — untouchable, unquestionable, and, to many, infallible.
Trump’s will be done.
So when I ask myself today, ”What would Jesus do?,” the answer seems clear: seek truth, think critically, care for “the other” and break free from the echo chambers that breed blind allegiance. Because if we don’t, our Constitution could erode, our democracy could falter, and Donald Trump could seize the power to declare himself president for an unconstitutional third term — or worse, for life.
Not a Ceasefire—A Reset: The Quiet Expansion of Palestinian Incarceration
April 14, 2026, ScheerPost Staff, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/14/not-a-ceasefire-a-reset-the-quiet-expansion-of-palestinian-incarceration/
While global attention drifts, the machinery of occupation does not slow—it tightens. Arrests replace releases. Silence replaces scrutiny. And behind it all, a system of incarceration continues to expand, largely out of view.
In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa sits down with scholar-activist Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi to expose what they describe as a revolving door of detention shaping daily life for Palestinians. What emerges is not simply a prison system—but an architecture of control that extends far beyond prison walls, touching every aspect of Palestinian existence.
More than 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli custody—a number that continues to climb even after high-profile prisoner releases.
Despite the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners during what was labeled a ceasefire in October 2025, a new wave of arrests has already erased that moment. Today, more than 9,000 Palestinians are again held in Israeli custody, according to Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, with the total constantly shifting as new detentions replace those released.
“It’s a revolving door,” she explains. “You release prisoners—and then you arrest more.”
At the center of that system is administrative detention—imprisonment without charge, without trial, and often without end. Detainees may never be told what they’re accused of, while access to lawyers, family, and even basic information is severely restricted.
Two legal systems operate side by side: one for Israeli settlers, another for Palestinians. Even children are caught in it—Palestinian minors can be prosecuted as adults under military law, stripped of protections others receive.
Inside prisons, conditions continue to deteriorate: reduced food, denied medical care, and near-total isolation since October 2023.
But the system doesn’t end at the prison gates.
Night raids, arbitrary arrests, and movement restrictions turn daily life into an extension of confinement—what Abdulhadi describes as a reality where prison becomes a condition, not just a place.
Children grow up inside it. Families are fractured by it. Entire communities are shaped around it.
And still, the cycle continues.
“The people will resist because they want to live,” Abdulhadi says. This is not a story of what has happened—but of what is still happening, in front of our very eyes.
About children who can identify military aircraft before they can read. Children who grow up navigating checkpoints, raids, and the constant threat of arrest.
“They should not be scared every night,” Abdulhadi says. “They should not have nightmares.”
CND opposes new contract to build nuclear reactors on Anglesey
COMMENT Just by the way, in this new Trumpian era, our nuclear sites become a useful weapon for an enemy – an appealing target to be attacked
Anti-nuclear campaigners have condemned plans to build small modular
reactors (SMRs) at Wylfa on Anglesey, dismissing claims that they will
bring energy independence as a “fantasy” today.
CND Cymru commented
after contracts to construct Britain’s first SMRs in north Wales were
signed. Anglesey was selected last year to become the site of the SMR
programme by the Labour government at Westminster.
CND Cymru national
secretary Dylan Lewis-Rowlands said: “Nuclear power does not deliver
energy independence. Wales doesn’t mine fissile material, lacks the
ability to enrich it and convert it into fuel, and has no storage capacity.
“We need to end the corporate nuclear fantasy and focus on the
deliverable solutions that can be done quicker, cheaper and placed in the
hands of communities — that is how we truly make Wales energy
independent.”
Morning Star 13th April 2026, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cnd-opposes-new-contract-build-nuclear-reactors-anglesey
US Aims at Heavy Staff & Budgetary Cuts for United Nations, Seeks to Launch Cost-Saving Artificial Intelligence at UN meetings
By Thalif Deen, UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2026 (IPS) –
The US has spelled out in detail its own concept of what a restructured United Nations should look like: after drastic reductions in staff, cutting down its budget, avoiding duplication in mandates, slashing peacekeeping operations worldwide and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) for translations and interpretations in six languages.
As the biggest single contributor to the UN budget—and despite nearly $4.0 billion in unpaid dues—it is using its perceived financial clout to help radically change the world body.
The US says it wants to “make UN great again (MUNGA)”—a variation of President Trump’s oft-repeated slogan “Make America Great Again (MAGA).” ”.
But will it work? And is it feasible?
Ambassador Mike Waltz, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, addressing a Congressional Field Hearing on UN Reform, said last week, “As I stated in my confirmation hearing, the UN truly does need to get what we’re calling back to basics and back to its original mission, from its founding, back to maintaining international peace and security.
“As I’ve mentioned in my hearing then, the UN’s budget in the last 25 years has quadrupled. We have not seen, arguably, a quadrupling of peace and security around the world commensurate with those hard-earned dollars, he said.
“So, we are pressing it. We’re pressing it to streamline its bureaucracy, to eliminate duplication. We’ve made it clear that we will cease participation in some UN agencies that undermine our sovereignty and cannot be reformed.”
Earlier this year, he pointed out, President Trump announced “our withdrawal from 66 international organizations. That review is ongoing. And from my perspective, let me be clear, the U.S. will not fund organizations that act contrary to our interests.”
“On UN compensation and personnel,” he said, “We’re leading reforms to what are often exorbitant compensation and benefit standards that the over 100,000 UN staff receive. The UN pays 17% more than US equivalent civil servants, even though many of them are right here in New York.
“They also have additional generous benefits packages far exceeding what our great civil servants, both here and abroad, receive. And staff costs alone are 70% of their regular budget for these things we’re trying to bring back in line.
“So, we need to, and we are working to bring those compensation and benefits packages back in line with common-sense standards. Part of that will be the pension. There’s over $100 billion in management in the UN pension with 16%—I don’t know of an employer or a government out there that contributes 16% to their pension.”
And there are other reforms, he said.
For example, the number of interpreters and translators—times six for the six UN languages here—technology can be used, AI can be used, and remote translation can be used that will save a lot of the travel and the conference costs, said Waltz.
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and director of Middle Eastern Studies, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations, told Inter Press Service (IPS) this is not about cost-cutting or fiscal responsibility.
“Like cutbacks to important U.S. government agencies and domestic programs, the Trump administration appears determined to dismantle the system itself.”
This should be understood in the context of pulling out of international organizations and treaties, the establishment of the so-called “Board of Peace,” the Iran War, and the recently announced dramatic increases in military spending—it is about undermining international legal institutions and replacing them with an imperial order backed by raw military force, said Zunes.
Richard Gowan, Program Director, Global Issues and Institutions, at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, told IPS in the first half of 2025, U.S. policy towards the UN was pretty chaotic, and diplomats from other countries really had no idea what Washington wanted from the world organization.
Like it or not, he said, Mike Waltz and his team have brought some message discipline and are clarifying their goals for the UN pretty sharply.
“Most diplomats say that Waltz can be reasonable in private and that ultimately, he and his team want to reshape the UN rather than just wreck it. There are times when Waltz goes out of his way to bash the UN and individual UN officials on social media, but I think that is partly him playing to the Republican base.”
Waltz is clear that he wants a slimmed-down UN, Gowan pointed out, and it is worth admitting that this is a popular message among many UN member states. The U.S. is not alone in thinking that the organization’s bureaucracy has grown too big and needs a tough financial diet.
“Trump, Rubio and Waltz are pretty consistent in arguing that the UN should focus on peace and security issues. But I think the administration has not really convinced most other UN members that it has a plan to make the UN deliver on conflict prevention and diplomacy again.”
Instead, he said, the U.S. appears to have a very selective and instrumentalist approach to when and how it uses the UN as a security partner. It wants the UN to help in Haiti but to get out of the way in Lebanon. I do not think there is really a coherent vision at work here. It is a very ad hoc, case-by-case approach.
“Trump’s boosting of the Board of Peace as a potential alternative to the UN has complicated Waltz’s position too. The fact that Trump is willing to flirt with the Board, even if it is not a very serious institution, makes it harder to believe that Washington really wants the UN to regain credibility on peace and security,” declared Gowan.
Meanwhile, excerpts from Ambassador Waltz’s testimony include the following:
- “On budget and staffing cuts, the UN should be doing less and doing it better. Let’s get it more focused and actually achieve more results. The 2026 UN regular budget was estimated at $3.45 billion. The U.S. funds roughly a fifth of that at $820 million in 2025 alone.
- Again, I think we need to reduce the UN’s size and assure every taxpayer dollar is spent responsibly, and thanks to the strong efforts by the United States, led by Ambassador Bartos here and his team in what we call the UN’s Fifth Committee, which approves its budget, we are working towards a leaner and better prioritized 2026 budget going forward.
- In December, we led Member States to adopt a historic 15% cut. $570 million out of the UN’s regular budget. That will eliminate nearly 3000 headquarters positions. And for our contribution, it will reduce our assessment by $126 million. So just in the six months that we’ve been here, we will see going forward, $126 million savings to the U.S. taxpayer.
- We’ve also pushed for a 25% reduction in peacekeeping troops, and I’ll talk a bit about other peacekeeping reforms in a moment that will also save us tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars while enabling what we call here the repatriation, the sending home of poorly performing peacekeeping troops.
- From an oversight perspective, beyond the salaries and benefits, oversight is essential. We’re leading efforts to empower oversight bodies to root out waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct.
- On peacekeeping reform, he said, the administration has been clear about focusing on the core mandate of peace and security, and we’re leading efforts to wind down some of these ineffective and costly peacekeeping missions.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. “We will have a new Secretary-General elected this year, and we’re having those conversations now with the candidates about what they seek to keep and continue or what new things they seek to put in place, but reform is at the top of our list as we meet with some of these candidates.
“So, this is a critical moment with senior leadership transitions approaching here over this next year. We need to have a clear message. We will prioritize qualified Americans. Representative DeLauro, along the lines of what you sought to do so many years ago, of having qualified Americans in UN leadership positions, not just here, but across the ecosystem in Geneva, in Vienna, and Nairobi and other places where you have UN agencies.
“And I’ll just conclude with echoing President Trump’s own words.
“As he said most recently at the General Assembly, the UN has tremendous potential. My charge from him is to help it realize that potential. We are dedicated to making the UN live up to that promise, to making the UN great again—if I can say so, our new acronym is MUNGA…………. https://www.ipsnews.net/2026/04/us-aims-at-heavy-staff-budgetary-cuts-seeks-to-launch-cost-saving-artificial-intelligence-at-un-meetings/?utm_source=email_marketing&utm_admin=146128&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=US_Pushes_Sweeping_UN_Cuts_Including_Staff_Reductions_and_Budget_Slashes_Inequalities_in_Human_Morta
Ceasefire Exemptions and Quarries of Death: Israel’s War on Lebanon
11 April 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/ceasefire-exemptions-and-quarries-of-death-israels-war-on-lebanon/
In the Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines peace as a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. The Israeli version of a ceasefire might be defined as a moment of war deceptively halted to enable conflict to continue. War as cosplay and camouflage. Under such fragile conditions, military objectives can still be pursued with a ruthlessness offensive to international law, custom and common sense.
Seeing as Israel was a central, if not the central power in pushing the crime of aggression on February 28 against Iran, wooing with seductive voice and lurid promise a deranged egoist in the White House (glory and oil awaits thee, Mr President), not to mention the dedicated thorn in any Middle East peace process that threatens sabotage to any enduring arrangements, the continued attacks on Lebanon seemed quotidian. With a war crimes habit well and truly formed, Israel had already issued displacement orders for some 14% of Lebanon, including areas south of the Zahrani River, a majority chunk of Beirut’s southern suburbs and cuts of the Beqaa region.
With their campaign hitting its strides, the Israeli Defense Forces showed no intention of ceasing operations, despite a Pakistan mediated ceasefire that had paused hostilities between Tehran and Washington. While the parties wrangled over what conditions the Strait of Hormuz would be opened under and what a more lasting peace agreement might look like, Israel exempted itself. While not striking Iran, it would continue its onslaught in Lebanon, despite statements from Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that the ceasefire would also apply to Lebanon. In the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Israel supports President Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks subject to Iran immediately opening the straits and stopping all attacks on the US, Israel and countries in the region.” However, the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon.”
Even homicidal routines can shock with spikes of freakish, callous intensity. These included the 100 strikes within 10 minutes on April 8 that resulted in the deaths of at least 303 people, with 1,150 injured. The Israeli authorities claimed that the majority of those killed were members of Hezbollah, though even a two-third fraction takes it into less than principled territory. The targets lay in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley. In justifying the slaughter, the IDF expressed the usual pride akin to tribes seeking scalps: the raids had “eliminated Ali Yusuf Harshi, the personal secretary and nephew of Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem.” Another official dead, only for another to take his place in due course.
The usual, casual destruction of infrastructure that would rankle most justice departments was also celebrated, with the IDF striking “two key crossings used by Hezbollah terrorists and commanders for movement from north to south of the Litani River in Lebanon to transfer thousands of weapons, rockets, and launchers.” Use of such crossings by civilians was of no interest, though the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) did state on March 23 that the destruction of crucial bridges had “significantly [disrupted] movement and humanitarian access,” with certain strikes severing the link between Tyre and Nabatieh, while also limiting “movement between south Lebanon and West Bekaa, including Marjayoun and Hasbaya.”
The previous night, Israeli forces struck a building in front of Hiram Hospital in Al-Aabbassiye, near Tyre. This damaged the hospital and cost the lives of four people. Another strike on the Islamic Health Authority in Qlaileh hit an ambulance, resulting in three deaths. When it comes to targeting and the IDF, categories are highly mutable.
The scale of such killings astonished the United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific,” stated the High Commissioner on April 8. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure one a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians.” In truth, they need far more than a fragile peace, and certainly not the targeting pedantry that appears in IDF briefings and justifications, the sort that see corpses as more useful and living civilians. Even in war, Türk states in firm reminder, “Each and every attack must comply with international humanitarian law fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions to protect civilians.”
The UN official must surely know by now that Israel operates in a vacuum all who have committed crimes in international law inhabit, the quarry of the necropolis, the architectural vision of the Grim Reaper. Even the names for Israel’s military operations are drawn increasingly from the dark – literally. “Operation Eternal Darkness was a very powerful blow to Hezbollah, leaving it stunned and confused by the depth of the penetration and the scale of the track,” glowed Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz in his video statement. “More than 200 terrorists were eliminated yesterday, bringing the number of those eliminated in this campaign to 1,400.” This was “more than double the number in the Second Lebanon War.” It’s all about thanatotic accounting.
This butchery has taken place in conjunction with the establishment of a four-line security zone in Lebanon. The first is the unimaginative and common destruction of Lebanese villages that might serve as launching posts for Hezbollah attacks and briefing notes for prosecutors of international criminal law; the second constitutes a “defensive line” in Lebanon, currently made up of five forward army posts, and set to bulk to 15. The third comprises the “anti-tank” line and the fourth the Litani River, a goal of security so cherished as to be fetishised in Israeli military objectives. There, according to Katz, the IDF will “prevent further infiltration of terrorists and the return of residents southbound.”
A stunning volte face in these arrangements would be the acceptance of a ceasefire and a genuine affirmation that peace is preferable to war. But the Israeli military-political complex seems to relish the view of US President Theodore Roosevelt, who proudly thundered that the benefits of a prosperous peace would never eclipse or exceed those of war, especially waged with a righteous temper. But budgets for killing and conquest thin over time, as do the support of powers who, for all their abundant hypocrisy, may finally relinquish their backing. The momentum is against Israel, however slow the turning.
A Case for War? Iran’s Non-Existent Nuclear Weapons Program
ByWilliam O. Beeman, Apr 14, 2026, https://americancommunitymedia.org/oped/a-case-for-war-irans-non-existent-nuclear-weapons-program/
The United States’ repeated attacks on Iran over more than 40 years are based on a lie: that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.
Vice-President J.D. Vance, who led the U.S. delegation in cease-fire talks with Iran on April 10-11, once again repeated this lie in his demand that Iran declare that it “will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.”
The current Iranian regime has done much that has disturbed the world community since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979. They have supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad Regime in Syria, and militant groups throughout the Middle East. They have repressed dissent in their own country, including incarceration and execution of many thousands of Iranian citizens, with little justification. For these actions the regime deserves severe condemnation.
However, what Iran has not done and has never done is to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran’s critics hide behind the phrase “Iran’s nuclear ambitions” as if that vague phrase constitutes proof that a nuclear weapons program exists. It does not exist and has never existed. So why does this unsubstantiated accusation remain a live issue?
The answer is surprisingly simple. When Iran was an ally of the United States during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was re-installed from exile in a CIA-led coup in 1953, the United States fervently encouraged Iran to develop nuclear technology. After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, when Iran was seen as opposed to the United States, its nuclear program was suddenly seen as suspect and dangerous.
Iranian nuclear development started during the Eisenhower administration as part of the “Atoms for Peace” program. In 1957, the United States signed a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with Iran stipulating that the United States would provide Iran with technical assistance, nuclear fuel, and a small research reactor. This resulted in the establishment of the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in 1959. In 1967, under the Johnson administration, the United States delivered a five-megawatt research reactor to Iran along with weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to fuel it.
In 1968, Iran and the United States were founding signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which was eventually signed by virtually every nation on earth except for Israel, India, and Pakistan. (North Korea initially signed and then withdrew. South Sudan, founded in 2011, never signed the treaty).
The NPT prohibits nations that did not have a nuclear weapons program at the time of signing from ever developing nuclear weapons. At the same time, the NPT guarantees the right of all countries to pursue non-nuclear-weapons programs to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The treaty also requires nations that already had nuclear weapons to protect the rights of other nations to develop their own nuclear technology, including the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. (Aside from Iran, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, and Argentina all have active nuclear enrichment programs today).
From this point on, until the 1978-79 Revolution, the United States encouraged nuclear development in Iran, urging companies like Westinghouse and General Electric to sell nuclear power reactors to the Shah’s government. At one point 23 nuclear power plants were envisioned.
But following the Iranian Revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis when U.S. officials were held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran became suspect in the eyes of the United States. The nuclear program that had once been so fervently encouraged became a point of attack against the Islamic Republic.
The idea that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon stems from a 1984 United Press International article entitled “Ayatollah’s Bomb in Production for Iran.” On April 26, 1984, the U.S State Department under the Reagan administration — with no evidence that Iran had the equipment or the capability to produce a bomb — nevertheless urged a world-wide ban on providing nuclear materials to the country.
The eight-year Iran-Iraq war was then underway, and the Reagan administration feared that Iran could develop a weapon to use against Iraq. Another press article from The Washington Post in 1987 entitled “Atomic Ayatollahs” continued the alarm.
Even though Western intelligence agencies repeatedly insisted that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials — buoyed by negative public opinion of the Iranian regime — continued the accusation. The first U.S. imposed economic sanctions levied on Iran in relation to its nuclear program were imposed by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
In 2003 the George W. Bush administration, under urging from neo-conservatives bent on effecting regime change throughout the Middle East, again accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program.
From this point on, the specter of Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” became a mantra in Washington, despite Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei having issued a religious edict prohibiting nuclear weapons development that same year. President Bush imposed further U.S. economic sanctions, increasing tensions between the two nations.
After more than 10 years, the Obama administration was able to create the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As part of the agreement, Iran agreed to curtail its uranium enrichment program as a “confidence building” measure to assure that it would not violate the provisions of the longstanding NPT.
After President Trump canceled the JCOPA during his first presidential term in 2017, the idea that Iran still had “nuclear ambitions” became the baseline excuse for continued U.S. sanctions. No matter Iran’s transgressions, this one accusation remains the principal reason for continued hostilities culminating in the current war between the two nations.
The base fact is that Iran has never been shown to have had a nuclear weapons program. All intelligence organizations involved with nuclear containment agree on this fact. Nevertheless, as was seen in the failure of the Islamabad talks, Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” continue to be the pretext for U.S. attacks.
Will Trump nuke Iran?
Never has humankind seen so much power concentrated in the hands of one so capricious. Whether the ceasefire will hold, for how long, and in what ways is for the days ahead to tell. No one—not even Donald Trump—knows the end game. But the constant is the man whose finger can push the nuclear button. A man used to quick, vacuous victories through bullying and unbridled force is rancorous, thwarted, and vengeful.
What once seemed preposterous is now a palpable possibility.
When Trump, echoing Gen. Curtis LeMay’s 1965 threat toward North Vietnam, threatened to “obliterate” Iran and bomb it “back into the Stone Age”—rhetoric repeated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—he wasn’t just posturing. In fact he was signaling that in an administration which respects no norms, mushroom clouds may be acceptable.
By Pervez Hoodbhoy | Opinion | April 10, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/04/will-trump-nuke-iran/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Will%20Trump%20nuke%20Iran%3F&utm_campaign=20260413%20Monday%20Newsletter
No one—not even Donald Trump—knows the end game as the six-week old US-Israeli war on Iran enters a temporary ceasefire. Just look at the head-spinning time-line:
Sunday, April 5 (infrastructure destruction-I): “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Monday, April 6: (infrastructure destruction-II): “Their infrastructure could be taken out in one night. I’m telling you, no bridges, no power plants. I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”
Tuesday, April 7 (morning) (threat to commit genocide): “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change… maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
Tuesday, April 7 (evening): Announcement of two-week Pakistan-mediated ceasefire.
Never has humankind seen so much power concentrated in the hands of one so capricious. Whether the ceasefire will hold, for how long, and in what ways is for the days ahead to tell. No one—not even Donald Trump—knows the end game. But the constant is the man whose finger can push the nuclear button. A man used to quick, vacuous victories through bullying and unbridled force is rancorous, thwarted, and vengeful. He has been stymied by a recalcitrant theocratic state that has taken blow after blow, withstood the killing of its venerated leader, the bombing of its cities, the destruction of vital infrastructure, and the systematic targeting of its schools and universities.
Weeks later, when it should rightly be on its knees, Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz and refuses to negotiate while it is being bombed. Instead, it continues to cause mayhem among America’s allies and take potshots at Israel. Imagine Trump’s frustration, especially after his bloodless victory in Venezuela.
But a so-far-unbroken taboo, inviolate since the nuclear ash settled over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, may crack. What once seemed preposterous is now a palpable possibility. When Trump, echoing Gen. Curtis LeMay’s 1965 threat toward North Vietnam, threatened to “obliterate” Iran and bomb it “back into the Stone Age”—rhetoric repeated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—he wasn’t just posturing. In fact he was signaling that in an administration which respects no norms, mushroom clouds may be acceptable.
The “how” and “when” remain open questions, but if the ceasefire ceases to hold the crosshairs are likely fixed on the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or, just as probably, Isfahan, where Iran’s fissile material was allegedly transferred before the June 2025 attack. Buried deep beneath a mountain of solid rock, Fordow is the nuclear facility that Trump had earlier claimed to have “obliterated.”
The math of escalation is inexorable: Iran reportedly holds roughly 450 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium. While a rudimentary gun-type nuclear weapon would be assembled using 80-100 kilograms of this material, a sophisticated implosion-type bomb needs 20-25 kilograms of uranium enriched to contain 90 percent of the uranium 235 isotope, a process requiring only some weeks. If Iran has mastered the complex engineering required for the latter, its current reserves represent a potential arsenal of eight to 10 nuclear warheads.
The game hinges on the upgrade. Iran can push its stockpile to weapons-grade in a matter of weeks. Conventional “bunker busters” like the GBU-57 have already failed; 14 were dropped on Fordow and Natanz in 2025, yet the heart of the program kept beating. To achieve absolute destruction, the hammer would have to be nuclear.
If the United States chooses to go nuclear in Iran, the Pentagon’s solution would likely be an earth-penetrating warhead like the B61-11 or the newly deployed B61-12. Washington would frame such a strike not as a Hiroshima-style apocalypse but as a “clinical necessity”—a tactical operation designed to kill hundreds rather than tens of thousands.
But Iran will not surrender quietly and would retaliate with everything it has. A lucky strike from a sophisticated missile could sink an American aircraft carrier; a coordinated swarm of drones and missiles could turn major Arab oil terminals into pillars of fire. At that point, the “clinical” experiment could end, and the apocalypse might begin as the United States reaches for its next nuclear target.
Even for a man who finds gratification in the suffering of others—who celebrated the recent destruction of Iran’s biggest bridge followed by cars plummeting down—Trump’s nuclear ambitions are constrained by American electoral politics and the upcoming November elections, a potentially hostile public reaction, and a somewhat reluctant military.
For now, America and Israel are operating in lockstep. They reportedly executed coordinated strikes on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant—which has nothing to do with bomb-making—on March 18 and April 4. These were presumably “signaling strikes” since they destroyed only an auxiliary building and killed a single guard. Their intent was clear—even if the endgame is not. The message has been received: In coordination with the Israeli Defence Forces, over 200 high-level Russian technicians have already evacuated Bushehr, leaving behind only a skeleton crew to manage a potential emergency shutdown.
But “signaling” near a live reactor is a high-stakes gamble with an unclear ultimate purpose. While the plant continues to feed the grid, a direct hit on its containment dome would trigger a radiological catastrophe far exceeding that of Chernobyl or Fukushima. With 70-80 tons of uranium dioxide in its core and a massive inventory of spent fuel lying in nearby cooling ponds, a breach would shroud the Persian Gulf with a lethal miasma of radioiodine and cesium-137. This wouldn’t just be a strike against a regime; it would be a death sentence for the region’s environment and its people.
Israel—which pulverized Gaza to rubble and seeks a similar outcome in South Lebanon—may have fewer inhibitions than the United States. Where Washington might hesitate, Israel may well aim for the dome. For America’s Gulf allies—the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Oman—the fallout would range from the devastating to the permanent, the outcome depending on wind direction and speed.
With an undeclared arsenal of over 150 warheads and reliable means to deliver them to any corner of Iran, Israeli nuclear strikes on Iranian population centers are no longer a fringe theory; they would become a live strategic option in Jerusalem if somehow Iran manages to breach the Israel’s Iron Dome missile defenses more regularly and with greater effectiveness.
Operation Epic Fury is now entering its sixth week. As yet there are no direct negotiations, just a temporary ceasefire. With optimism in short supply, the world is watching a grim lesson unfold. The takeaway for every middle power and so-called rogue state is becoming undeniable: If you have the bomb, you don’t get bombed. The race is on to get it while they still can.
Trump is trying to distract us from Pope Leo’s calls for peace. Don’t take the bait.
Not only does Pope Leo not think Iran should have nuclear weapons, he does not think any country should have them, including the United States.)
American Magazine, by Sam Sawyer, S.J.April 13, 2026
If you are outraged—which would be both understandable and justifiable—by President Donald Trump’s social media attack last night on Pope Leo, take a moment to step back and follow the pope’s example rather than taking the president’s bait.
You may remember that at the beginning of May, during the preparation for the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, the president posted an A.I.-generated image of himself as pope dressed in a white cassock and miter, his hand raised in blessing. The White House’s official X account later reposted the image, which remains up on the account.
As the America team in Rome and back at home discussed how much to cover that story, I reminded my colleagues that to the degree that the Trump-as-pope meme meant anything, it meant that Mr. Trump was unable to tolerate anyone other than himself commanding the world’s attention.
As the America team in Rome and back at home discussed how much to cover that story, I reminded my colleagues that to the degree that the Trump-as-pope meme meant anything, it meant that Mr. Trump was unable to tolerate anyone other than himself commanding the world’s attention.
Mr. Trump posted a screed against Pope Leo late on the evening of Sunday, April 12. It was, as my colleague James Martin, S.J., posted last night, “unhinged, uncharitable and un-Christian.” It was immeasurably beneath the dignity of the office of the president. (Not satisfied with merely attacking the Vicar of Christ, Mr. Trump posted another A.I.-generated image, this one seeming to depict himself as Jesus.)
Mr. Trump’s post also makes little sense. It achieves the almost impressive feat of becoming less coherent the longer you think about it.
It slams Pope Leo as “WEAK on crime,” probably Trumpian code for Leo’s opposition to the administration’s immigration policy. It then veers into a tirade about priests and ministers being arrested for holding services during the pandemic, followed by Mr. Trump’s praise for the pope’s brother Louis as “all MAGA.” Finally, turning to the foreign policy disagreements that probably triggered the post, it accuses Leo of thinking “it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” (Not only does Pope Leo not think Iran should have nuclear weapons, he does not think any country should have them, including the United States.)
In the most muddled part of the attack, Mr. Trump says he is the reason that Leo got elected as pope and that the cardinals in conclave thought that was “the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.” This manages to be wrong both coming and going. It is farcical as an account of the motives of the cardinals and, as I will explain below, it misunderstands the purpose of Leo’s own witness entirely.
Far more telling than anything in the president’s post was the timing of it. During a weekend full of bad news for Mr. Trump, his post followed a lack of progress in negotiations with Iran and the resounding electoral loss of his favorite European leader, Viktor Orban, in Hungary. Relative to the Catholic world, his post came the day after Pope Leo XIV led a prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s and was joined in prayer all around the world. It came within hours of a “60 Minutes” broadcast of an unprecedented joint interview by three U.S. cardinals, in which they clearly laid out the church’s moral objection to both the Iran war and the administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Mr. Trump, however, was not responding to any of those events in kind. Mr. Trump’s outburst is not trying to convince anyone of his claims but rather to make people angry. In that sense, its incoherence is more a feature than a bug.
The way his attack on the pope functions best for Mr. Trump, like so much of the ragebait with which he pollutes our collective consciousness, is by pulling attention back to him so that we talk about him within terms that he has set. If we are doing that, Mr. Trump does not much care, I suspect, whether we agree with him or oppose him, because at least we are back in orbit around him.
Perhaps the way in which Pope Leo presents the greatest challenge to President Trump is in his consistent demonstration of what it looks like to remain morally centered on the Gospel instead of acting for or against Mr. Trump’s interests. In general, even when offering critiques that respond to American foreign policy moves, as in his description of Mr. Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization as “truly unacceptable,” Pope Leo does not mention the president by name. In part, this follows well-established Vatican diplomatic practice, but it is also meant to remind us that the pope is speaking more from principle than he is in response to persons, even the most powerful person on earth. When Leo is speaking more explicitly about persons, it is to call our attention back to people who are suffering: the poor and the victims of war or violence.
Leo has also encouraged U.S. bishops to speak up more forcefully and more frequently. As can be seen in recent days, both from the “60 Minutes” interview by Cardinals Cupich, McElroy and Tobin and the swift response by Archbishop Paul Coakley, the president of the national bishops’ conference, to Mr. Trump’s threat against Iranian civilization, the pope has been strikingly successful in encouraging the bishops to exercise such leadership……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.americamagazine.org/many-things/2026/04/13/trump-pope-leo-truth-social/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Trump%20is%20trying%20to%20distract%20us%20from%20Pope%20Leo%20s%20calls%20for%20peace%20%20Don%20t%20take%20the%20bait&utm_campaign=Daily%204%2013%2026
Sea-level rise is a health crisis and we must hold polluters accountable
There are moments in history when a crisis long treated as distant reveals
itself to be intimate, immediate and profoundly human. Sea-level rise is
one of those moments.
For years it has been discussed in the abstract
language of centimetres, coastal infrastructure and future projections.
This can make it seem like a technical challenge – something for
engineers and planners to grapple with.
But rising seas are already
damaging bodies, minds, livelihoods and cultures. Sea-level rise is a
present-day health crisis. When saltwater intrudes into freshwater
supplies, health suffers. When floods overwhelm sanitation systems,
diseases spread. When farmland is inundated by king tides, nutrition
deteriorates. And when people are forced to contemplate leaving the land of
their ancestors, they face a painful mix of physical, financial, emotional,
cultural and spiritual harm. The effect of sea-level rise on property lines
and insurance procurement is clear.
But what is being lost goes far deeper
– it’s safety, dignity, continuity and belonging. Across low-lying
coastal regions and small island states, including throughout the Pacific,
communities are living with this reality today. For Indigenous peoples
especially, land is identity, memory, law, kinship, sustenance today and
connection to a shared future.
Guardian 7th April 2026,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/07/sea-level-rise-health-crisis-christiana-figueres
Trump’s Extreme Use of Military Is Stirring a Crisis of Conscience Among Troops
US soldiers have a rich history of questioning the wars they’re told to wage abroad.
By Sam Carliner , Truthout, April 13, 2026
s President Donald Trump increasingly uses the U.S. military to carry out his agenda through brute force, organizations that provide counseling services for U.S. servicemembers are reporting growing numbers of calls. These calls have further spiked in response to Trump’s war on Iran, one of the most unpopular in U.S. history.
The United States has carried out the war through intense attacks on densely populated civilian areas, the impact of which was clearly shown in the bombing of a girls’ school, killing well over 100 children. Not even concerned with selling the war to the public, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has leaned into treating the intervention as a “holy war” for Christianity.
Mike Prysner, an Iraq War veteran and executive director at the Center on Conscience & War (CCW), told Truthout that troops are telling his organization that they don’t want to be involved in the killing.
“That’s pretty much all of the cases that we have,” Prysner said. “It’s all people who don’t want to take part in killing in a war that they don’t believe in, and this war has made them realize that they can’t take part in any kind of U.S. military action ever again.”
The CCW, formerly the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, was founded in 1940 to assist religious communities whose beliefs prohibited them from participating in war. Over time, and as a result of broadening criteria for who can qualify as a conscientious objector (CO), the organization evolved to assist troops of all backgrounds whose values prevent them from being able to participate in war.
Prysner told Truthout that in recent weeks CCW has already been able to help several servicemembers become COs to avoid being deployed.
To reach more servicemembers experiencing crises of conscience, CCW and other organizations including the Quaker House founded the GI Rights Hotline in 1994. Steve Woolford, a resource counselor at the Quaker House, has taken calls for the hotline since 2001 and agreed that the war on Iran, and Trump’s broader use of the military, has caused a spike in calls.
“The biggest increase has come from people who are feeling a lot of opposition to the ways the military’s currently being used,” Woolford said. “That includes people who feel like they don’t want to be sent into cities and point a weapon at U.S. citizens, they don’t want to be part of what to many of them look like war crimes, shooting down speedboats in Venezuela that wouldn’t be able to make it to the United States, and I would say with the invasion, or whatever you want to call it, ‘Operation Epic Fury’ in Iran, there’s been significant opposition to that.”
Woolford clarified that not all troops who call the hotline are able to leave the military by filing as COs. While every member of the military has that right, the process requires applicants to prove that they have deeply held antiwar beliefs. This means that even if someone is opposed to certain orders or operations, they don’t qualify as CO if they aren’t opposed to participation in all wars.
Prysner said that the social pressure in the military can also make it difficult for troops to declare themselves COs.
“Especially for people who have deployments happening, you’re telling all of your brothers and sisters in uniform that you don’t believe in what you’re doing and you’re not gonna be able to do it with them,” Prysner said. “The thing is, the people that we’re dealing with, they simply don’t have any other choice … They cannot live with themselves participating.”
Echoes of Antiwar History
This is not the first time that members of the military have questioned their role in U.S. wars. In fact, there is a rich history of GI dissent throughout U.S. history.
The role of antiwar veterans was especially important in bringing about the end of the Vietnam War. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-extreme-use-of-military-is-stirring-a-crisis-of-conscience-among-troops/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=de92a70740-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_04_13_09_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-de92a70740-650192793
Israel is losing its grip on U.S. politics
By Dave Reed , Mondoweiss, April 12, 2026
We’ve been covering the shift in American politics on Israel for years. Donald Trump’s disastrously failed war on Iran has accelerated it.
For years, conventional wisdom held that support for Israel was a third rail in U.S. politics. Phil Weiss has written a library of analysis and coverage on that here at Mondoweiss over the past 20 years. Uncritical support for Israel was toxic for politicians to touch, impossible to oppose, and self-reinforcing across both parties through the combined pressure of donor money, media consensus, and institutional loyalty. That consensus is broken forever. It didn’t break because of a sudden moral awakening in Washington. That will never happen, on virtually any issue. If you need any more proof of that, just look at the way the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein are being treated, or refer to the fact that even massacres of schoolchildren haven’t moved Congress to do something about guns in the country. The consensus across the political elite on Israel broke because Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Lebanon, and now in its open effort to torpedo an end to the war with Iran, has become a liability that American politicians can no longer ignore.
Michael Arria, our U.S. correspondent, documented this week how military aid to Israel has finally become a true litmus test in Democratic Party primaries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she will vote against all military aid to Israel, including weapons classified as “defensive,” a position she had previously hedged. Even J Street, the organization meant to offer a counter to AIPAC’s extremism but locked in perpetual confusion about its identity, is even now opposing U.S. support for the Iron Dome missile defense system. AIPAC, once considered the most powerful of all the many lobby groups, is now a liability in Democratic races, losing key primaries and watching candidates run against it by name. A recent NBC News poll shows just 13 percent of Democrats view Israel positively. These numbers are not marginal; they represent a fundamental and permanent realignment of the Democratic base. Politicians, candidates, and political institutions are paying attention.
This fracturing is thankfully not limited to the left. The Iran war has cracked open the MAGA coalition in ways that the genocide in Gaza could not. Powerful conservative commentators commanding huge audiences and figures closely aligned with the MAGA movement have been openly and harshly critical of Trump over the war. The widespread, and correct, view is that Netanyahu manipulated Trump into a conflict that serves Israeli interests, not American ones. The critique of the tail wagging the dog is now being advanced loudly by people who would never have entertained it two years ago. The political ground is moving, dramatically, in the months before an all-important mid-term election. Republican figures with aspirations for more power, such as J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, are beginning to distance themselves from the Iran debacle………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/weekly-briefing-israel-is-losing-its-grip-on-u-s-politics/
Hormuz Dateline
What Iran Actually Understands
Iran does not need to win a naval war in the classical sense. It only needs to make transit uncertain, costly, and politically radioactive. Mines, drones, missiles, fast boats, electronic piracy, and the psychology of fear are enough to turn a chokepoint into a garotte. That is the essence of asymmetry: a state under pressure parlays geography into power. Tehran does not need to dominate the sea. It needs only to make everyone else remember that the sea is not theirs.
The US-Israeli axis has long acted as if the region were a board and its opponents pieces. Hormuz shreds that assumption with the patience of geography.
14 April 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/hormuz-dateline/
The war now has the smell of salt, oil, and old empires trying to defy the tide.
Thirty-three kilometres. That is the width of the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest navigable point: two shipping lanes, each two miles wide, one in, one out, with a median strip of Iranian territorial water between them. Through those lanes passes approximately 21 million barrels of oil every single day. That is one barrel in every five consumed anywhere on earth. Add the liquefied natural gas, and you have roughly 20 percent of all the LNG traded on global markets squeezing through a corridor you could drive across in less than half an hour. A fifth of the world’s energy supply running through a gap that geography, not American naval doctrine, placed there.This is not a side theatre. This is the throat of the world economy, and in this war it has become the place where the old American order goes from swagger to strain. What was once sold as a system of irresistible reach; US power, Gulf oil, the dollar, the naval umbrella, the client-state arrangement, now looks clapped-out, ruinously costly, and exposed as it is caught, hoist by its own petard, dependent on a choke point that cannot be bullied out of geography.
No aircraft carrier in the world can widen the Strait of Hormuz by a single metre.
The Arithmetic of Vulnerability
The numbers matter because official language exists precisely to hide that fact.
When the Iran-Iraq war threatened these waters in the 1980s, oil prices doubled within months. When Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping began in late 2023, global shipping insurance rates for Gulf-adjacent routes increased by up to 600 percent within weeks. Lloyd’s of London has now quietly tripled war risk premiums for vessels transiting the Gulf. That is not a diplomatic assessment or a Pentagon briefing. That is the financial system’s hard-nosed verdict on what is actually happening, stripped of all the official language about deterrence and security and the rules-based order.
While Trump posts to Truth Social about erasing civilisations and US admirals post to Facebook about historic firsts, the insurance market is pricing the reality that the propaganda is designed to conceal.
Australia has a particular stake in this arithmetic that the Albanese government would prefer its citizens not examine too carefully. Australia sends approximately 80 percent of its LNG exports through or near the Gulf corridor. When Hormuz is threatened, Woodside’s share price moves. The war that Albanese insists Australia is not involved in is directly affecting the income of Australian energy companies and, through them, the superannuation balances of ordinary Australians. Pine Gap processes targeting data for the strikes. Australian-made F-35 components are in the payload. And Hormuz is where the bill arrives.
What Iran Actually Understands
Iran does not need to win a naval war in the classical sense. It only needs to make transit uncertain, costly, and politically radioactive. Mines, drones, missiles, fast boats, electronic piracy, and the psychology of fear are enough to turn a chokepoint into a garotte. That is the essence of asymmetry: a state under pressure parlays geography into power. Tehran does not need to dominate the sea. It needs only to make everyone else remember that the sea is not theirs.
This is a strategic fact Washington cannot deny. Or lie about. The US-Israeli axis has long acted as if the region were a board and its opponents pieces. Hormuz shreds that assumption with the patience of geography. Israel can strike, assassinate, bomb, and escalate, but it cannot turn the Gulf into a risk-free zone. The US can threaten, sanction, and deploy, but it cannot guarantee the one thing the market demands most: confidence. That is the precise point at which imperial force runs into imperial limits. Empires can break things. Claim to rule the world. But it’s not so easy to rebuild trust once the world has called your bluff.
The ruling classes of all three powers; American, Israeli, Iranian are happy to gamble with systems they do not themselves live inside. They talk deterrence but they mean coercion. They may say security but they mean control. They may invoke peace but they build the conditions for the next war. It is the coastal fishermen, the dockworkers, “sea-gulls”, the tanker crews, and the families living with the knowledge that a misfire, a mine, or a drone can change the day in an instant who live inside the system these men are gambling with. That distinction matters. It is, in fact, the only distinction that matters.
The Petrodollar’s Exposed Seam
The petrodollar order was always more fragile than its keepers cared to admit. It rests on a Faustian bargain: Gulf oil will flow, the US will police the sea lanes, the dollar will stay as the world’s reserve currency, and regional rulers will play along so long as the deal suited them. Hormuz is where that bargain begins to fray.
The petrodollar system requires that oil be priced and settled in US dollars. That settlement runs through SWIFT, the global payments network, from which Iran has been excluded as an act of economic warfare. That exclusion has produced a direct, rational, and accelerating response: China, Russia, India, and an expanding coalition of the economically non-aligned are developing alternative settlement systems specifically designed to route around the dollar’s dominance.
This is not ideological posturing. It is financial self-defence against a system that has been openly weaponised. Hormuz is where that process becomes visible to everyone simultaneously.
The dollar’s centrality has depended on the belief that US power could secure the energy arteries while underwriting the financial order that prices global risk. But every threat to Hormuz chips at that belief. Every disruption reminds the world that this system is not floating on neutrality. It is anchored in force. And once force has to be constantly displayed, the myth of effortless supremacy begins to crack along every seam.
This is also why Hormuz looks, feels and even sounds like the end of an era. Not a stagey, Hollywood end of empire, but something slower and more repugnant: the fish rotting from the head, the end of imperial pretension publicly betrayed by the geography it claimed to master. The old style assumed that military reach could substitute for political legitimacy, that sanctions could replace diplomacy, that client regimes could be managed indefinitely, and that publics could be disciplined through spectacle and fear. Hormuz answers all of that with one simple fact: you can command the skies and the seas and still be strategically cornered. You can own the ocean narrative and still depend on a narrow strait you do not fully control.
The Scene Itself
Picture the actual scene, because power loves to use abstraction uses to hide from accountability.
Tankers move slow and dark under a white-hot sky. Naval escorts shadow them like anxious bodyguards. Insurance underwriters in distant offices recalculate exposure in real time. Traders watching screens flicker red. Refineries in South Korea, Japan, and India scramble to secure alternative supply. And in the waters themselves, and on the shores, and in the cities behind those shores, the people who have no choice but to live in the world that distant men are gambling with.That is Hormuz. Not a metaphor first, but a machine for making the abstract painfully concrete. It is thirty-three kilometres of water through which the pretensions of three nuclear-adjacent powers, and the complicities of a dozen client states including our own, are being tested against the oldest and most indifferent judge available: physical reality.
The old imperial language can still speak loudly, but it cannot hide the fact that the world runs through exposed conduits. It can still threaten, but it cannot guarantee outcome. It can still destroy, but it cannot stabilise what it has broken. That is the end-of-era feeling: not the end of power, but the end of the illusion that power can be made clean, automatic, and permanent.
The Narrowness of the Waterway, the Narrowness of Official Thinking
Hormuz is where the lie breaks down. It is where the empire finds the edge of its own reach. It is where the petrodollar shows its dependence, where military supremacy meets strategic vulnerability, and where thirty-three kilometres of salt water becomes a lesson in the catastrophic narrowness of the thinking that brought three powers to this point.
The old order still speaks in the voice of inevitability. Hormuz answers with a counter-argument that has been making the same point since the first trading dhow passed through it: no empire, no doctrine, no naval task force gets to abolish geography.
The market knows it. The insurance actuaries know it. The tanker captains threading those two-mile lanes know it. The fishermen on the Iranian shore know it.
The men ordering the strikes are the last to learn it. They always are.
This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES
Papal authority, now featuring Donald J. Trump
13 April 2026 Roswell AIM Extra, https://theaimn.net/papal-authority-now-featuring-donald-j-trump/
The Vatican has long maintained that the selection of a new Pope is guided by the Holy Spirit, a sacred process steeped in centuries of ritual, prayer, and secrecy.
This week, however, that understanding was dramatically revised.
According to Donald J. Trump, the election of Pope Leo had very little to do with God, and almost everything to do with himself.
In a characteristically humble statement, Trump revealed that the College of Cardinals – presumably after lighting incense and checking the latest polling – decided that the best way to navigate the modern world was not through theology, diplomacy, or moral leadership, but by selecting “an American” who could somehow manage the President of the United States.
“If I wasn’t in the White House,” Trump pontificated, with the quiet restraint we’ve come to expect, “Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
There it is – laid bare with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. Not just a claim of influence, but of gravitational dominance. Vatican City, reduced to a satellite orbiting the ego of a single man.
Historians are now scrambling to update their records. The Sistine Chapel ceiling, once admired for Michelangelo’s depiction of divine creation, may soon be reinterpreted as an early campaign mural.
The smoke that rises from the Vatican chimney – black for no decision, white for a new pope – has also taken on new meaning. Sources close to Trump suggest a third, previously undocumented colour was briefly considered: gold, to properly reflect the true architect of papal destiny.
Meanwhile, theologians are grappling with the implications. If the Holy Spirit has indeed been replaced by a former real estate developer with a social media account, centuries of doctrine may require revision. The concept of papal infallibility, for instance, could soon be expanded to include Truth Social posts.
At press time, Trump was reportedly preparing a follow-up statement clarifying that he would have made an excellent pope himself – “tremendous pope, maybe the best” – but declined out of respect for the separation of church and state, a principle he has always, of course, held very dearly.
Nuclear costs of the Iran War
To create a nuclear disaster, it’s not necessary to directly hit the containment building. Damaging on-site and off-site power necessary for cooling can also have severe repercussions.
even reactors in stand-by modes pose radioactive risks in a war zone.
In spite of all this, Director General of the IAEA Grossi promotes rules of the road to help nuclear energy continue operating in warzones. It is a stark reminder that the IAEA’s major mission is to promote nuclear energy, despite the emerging lessons from two “nuclearized” wars.
by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/04/11/nuclear-costs-of-the-iran-war/
Trump’s recent threats to end civilization in Iran gave many a nuclear weapons expert the jitters, writes Sharon Squassoni
President Donald J. Trump’s recent threats to end civilization in Iran gave many a nuclear weapons expert the jitters. For them, existential threats mean only one thing: use of nuclear weapons. Thankfully, Trump’s April 7, 2026 threats were empty and possibly just a ruse to create a dramatic background for the temporary ceasefire in Iran.
To be clear, the use of nuclear weapons in combat would serve no earthly strategic or tactical purpose, but threats to use them can be potent: even a latent capability in the hands of Iran was regarded as too threatening for the United States to tolerate any longer, which reportedly drove the U.S. and Israeli military actions.
It’s hard to tell who’s winning or losing in this conflict, but already it’s clear that disruption of energy sources (Iran’s blocking the Straits of Hormuz and the U.S. and Israel striking Iran’s oil infrastructure) focuses attention like no other infrastructure attack. A sudden cutoff that shrinks supplies and distorts prices echoes in economies across the globe.
This is one reason the world was hesitant to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil some twenty years ago when Iran’s clandestine nuclear program was first unveiled. Today, the Iran war has underscored just how dependent the world continues to be on foreign sources of oil.
Would nuclear energy be any different?
Since 2022, there has been a push in Europe and elsewhere to deploy nuclear reactors to reduce dependencies on Russian oil and gas, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But such a response is almost laughable to anyone paying attention to what has transpired in Ukraine in the last four years.
Russia hesitated not at all to hold the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants hostage, in addition to firing upon them. The only thing that has saved Ukraine from a major nuclear meltdown is the fact that Russia wants to save Ukraine for itself, rather than destroy it utterly.
For those who still believe in international laws, there are rules to prevent attacks on nuclear plants — specifically the Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions, a key document in international humanitarian law adopted in 1979 — that 175 countries follow.
Unfortunately, Russia withdrew in 2019 and the US has never ratified Protocol I (along with Israel, India, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran). The Protocol protects “works and installations containing dangerous forces,” prohibiting attacks on nuclear power plants that generate civilian electricity, among other things. It concedes that some nuclear power plants that regularly support military purposes may be attacked.
For those paying attention to nuclear development trends, this should be worrisome because both China and the United States have programs to develop nuclear reactors for specific military uses. Not content to learn from past experience, the United States plans to deploy a military microreactor by July 4th of this year. Leaving aside questions of cost, safety and peacetime security, such deployments will widen the base of deadly targets in war. Civilians won’t care whether international law deems these “legitimate” targets of attack.
Attacks on nuclear facilities themselves are not new. The United States, Russia, Israel, Iran and Iraq have all, at times, targeted nuclear research and power reactors under various stages of construction and operation in the past. Sometimes these attacks tried to slow nuclear weapons proliferation programs and sometimes, as in the Iran-Iraq war, they were targeted for less specific purposes.
After the June 2025 attacks on uranium enrichment-related facilities by the United States, touted as “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi warned that a strike on the Bushehr power plant could cause a regional catastrophe.
Recently, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has claimed that the Bushehr plant, which generates close to 1000 Megawatts of electricity, has been struck four times since February this year. The closest hit has been 75 meters from the plant on April 4, killing a security guard and damaging a building. Russia, which has 128 Rosatom personnel at the plant, is considering further evacuations, which sounds eerily similar to what happened to the Zaporizhzhia plant in March 2022.
To create a nuclear disaster, it’s not necessary to directly hit the containment building. Damaging on-site and off-site power necessary for cooling can also have severe repercussions. In the case of Zaporizhzhia, operators shut down reactors to minimize some of the risks. But even reactors in stand-by modes pose radioactive risks in a war zone.
The Bushehr power plant is still operating and has spent nuclear fuel on-site in spent fuel pools. Who can forget the video footage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 when crews attempted to spray seawater from helicopters on spent fuel pools damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan? More than a decade later, the site is still undergoing remediation.
In spite of all this, Director General of the IAEA Grossi promotes rules of the road to help nuclear energy continue operating in warzones. It is a stark reminder that the IAEA’s major mission is to promote nuclear energy, despite the emerging lessons from two “nuclearized” wars.
In fact, learning the wrong lessons from this conflict could carry the seeds of unimaginable future disruption. A world that fears reliance on foreign energy could rely even more on nuclear energy for not just electricity, but transportation and data processing, the new currency of power. The greater the reliance, the keener officials will be to keep it up and running. More and more widely distributed nuclear targets will not be protected by Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, or by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There is no International Nuclear Red Cross or Emergency Management Agency.
Many Americans find it hard to contemplate attacks on U.S. soil, with good reason. This is why the 9/11 attacks affected the population so deeply. Those attacks sparked significant improvements in security at nuclear power plants that are now being unraveled by a push to deploy nuclear reactors in the United States as quickly as possible.
In fact, learning the wrong lessons from this conflict could carry the seeds of unimaginable future disruption. A world that fears reliance on foreign energy could rely even more on nuclear energy for not just electricity, but transportation and data processing, the new currency of power. The greater the reliance, the keener officials will be to keep it up and running. More and more widely distributed nuclear targets will not be protected by Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, or by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There is no International Nuclear Red Cross or Emergency Management Agency.
Many Americans find it hard to contemplate attacks on U.S. soil, with good reason. This is why the 9/11 attacks affected the population so deeply. Those attacks sparked significant improvements in security at nuclear power plants that are now being unraveled by a push to deploy nuclear reactors in the United States as quickly as possible.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently voted to discontinue force-on-force commando drills designed to reveal weaknesses in site vulnerabilities. A victim of the DOGE process, the NRC has been stripped of its independence and will now overhaul the entire licensing process, even as the Trump administration seeks to end-run the NRC by deploying new reactors on government sites owned by the Departments of Energy and Defense.
If anything, the Iran war demonstrates Gulliver’s dilemma. Both Ukraine and Iran have used drones successfully to compensate for conventional force inferiority. Are we truly prepared to counter cheaper and more plentiful attacks that are more difficult to detect and defend against?
Iran’s nuclear program was feared for its potential to provide the basis for nuclear weapons. Now it is generating fear for its potential to provoke a more imminent regional catastrophe, whether intended or accidental. These security risks, perhaps not widely appreciated now, will only grow in a more nuclearized future.
Jeffrey Sachs: Ending Israel’s War on Peace
To make lasting peace in the Middle East, the US must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join with the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967.
Jeffrey D. SachsSybil Fares, Apr 09, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-war-on-peace
A two-week ceasefire has partially halted the Israel-US war on Iran. The war accomplished precisely nothing that a competent diplomat could not have achieved in an afternoon. The Strait of Hormuz was open before the war and it is open again now, but with more Iranian control.
Meanwhile, the chaos continues. Israel is intent on blowing up the ceasefire, as this was Israel’s war from the start. Israel dazzled Trump with the prospect of a one-day decapitation strike that would put Trump in charge of Iran’s oil. Israel, in turn, was out for bigger prey: to bring down the Iranian regime and thereby become the regional hegemon of Western Asia.
The foundation of the ceasefire is Iran’s 10-point plan, which Trump (perhaps unwittingly) called a “workable basis on which to negotiate.” The plan makes sense, but it is a major climbdown for the US, and probably a redline for Israel. Among other points, the plan calls for an end to the wars raging in the Middle East, almost all of which have Israel at their root cause. The plan would also resolve the nuclear issue, essentially by going back to the JCPOA that Trump ripped up in 2018.
The Iran War, and the other wars raging across the Middle East, trace back to one core Israeli idea, that Israel will permanently and steadfastly oppose a sovereign Palestinian state and will topple any government in the Middle East that supports armed struggle for national sovereignty. It is crucial to note that the UN General Assembly has passed multiple resolutions, such as Resolution 37/43 (1982), affirming that political self-determination is so vital, that armed struggle in the quest for self-determination is legitimate. The UN was born, in part, out of the determination to end the centuries of European imperial domination over Africa and Asia. Of course, there would be no cause for armed struggle if Israel would accept a political solution, notably the two-state solution that has overwhelming support throughout the world.
The peace is within reach, if the US grasps it.
Netanyahu’s core goal may be summarized as Greater Israel. This means no Palestinian sovereignty, and no clear boundaries for Israel even beyond the boundary of historical Palestine under British rule after WWI. Zionist extremists like Netanyahu’s political allies, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich favor Israeli control over parts of Lebanon and Syria, as well as permanent control over all of what was British Palestine. America’s Christian Zionists, exemplified by the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and a strong voter base of Trump, speak of God’s promise to Israel of the lands between the Nile and the Euphrates. Crazy stuff, but these are real beliefs, nonetheless, and they are conveyed in the White House.
Israel’s strategy is therefore regime change in every country that resists Greater Israel, a plan already foreshadowed in the famous political document “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” written by US Zionist neocons as a platform for Netanyahu’s new government in 1996. We’ve had constant wars in the Middle East since then to implement the Clean Break vision. This has included the war in Libya to overthrow Moammar Qaddafi, the wars in Lebanon, the war to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, the war to overthrow Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and now the war to topple the Iranian regime.
This is not to say that the US lacks its own grandiose ideas. Israel wants regional hegemony, this is not a secret. Netanyahu confirmed these ambitions in his recent remarks about Israel becoming “a regional power, and in certain fields a global power.” On the other hand, American officials dream of global hegemony. And Trump dreams of money. He craves the Iranian oil and repeatedly said so.
In any event, it’s clear that this war was Netanyahu’s creation. He and the Mossad chief came to Washington to sell Trump a bill of goods. It’s not hard. Trump was suckered, while everybody else had their doubts about Netanyahu’s claims of an easy one-day decapitation strike—essentially a replay of the US operation in Venezuela.
It’s pathetic to “listen in” on the White House discussion, as revealed by the New York Times. Netanyahu, a con man, presented rosy scenarios of regime change that US intelligence contradicted, yet Trump foolishly accepted. Trump and Netanyahu were cheered on by Christian Zionists (Hegseth), Jewish Zionists and real-estate developers (Kushner and Witkoff), a faith healer (Franklin Graham), and high-level sycophants (Rubio and Ratcliffe).
While Trump was telling the world that Iran was begging for a ceasefire, it was Trump himself who was begging for a ceasefire.
Until Tuesday evening, it looked like Trump might lead the world blindly to World War III. The vulgarity and brutality of his public rhetoric was unmatched in US presidential history. Now we know that he was desperately seeking an off-ramp and using Pakistan for that purpose. While Trump was telling the world that Iran was begging for a ceasefire, it was Trump himself who was begging for a ceasefire. The Pakistani leader delivered it.
The ceasefire is good, and the 10-point plan is good, even if perhaps Trump didn’t know what was in it when he said that it was a good basis for negotiation. Israel will, in any event, work overtime to break it, and has already started to do so, with carpet bombing of Beirut that is killing hundreds of civilians, and with other strikes. A permanent US-Iran agreement is the last thing that Netanyahu wants. That would end his dream of Greater Israel.
Yet there is a way to peace and that is for the US to face reality. Israel is the real “terror state,” waging perpetual war throughout the Middle East for a wholly indefensible reason—to have unchecked freedom to terrorize and rule over the Palestinian people and to expand its borders as Israel’s zealots see fit. To make lasting peace in the Middle East, the US must end its blank check to Israel’s perpetual wars and join with the rest of the world to force Israel to live within its internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967. Iran’s 10-point plan can be the basis of a comprehensive regional peace—if the US accepts the reality of a state of Palestine. In that case, Iran would likely agree to stop funding non-state belligerents, and Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the entire region could live in mutual security and peace. That outcome should be the basis of a negotiated agreement of the US and Iran in the next two weeks.
Israel is the real “terror state,” waging perpetual war throughout the Middle East for a wholly indefensible reason…
The American people have made their views clear. A 2025 Pew survey finds most Jewish Americans lack confidence in Netanyahu and back the two-state solution. Most Americans now view Israel unfavorably, the highest unfavourability in history. Sympathy for Israel has hit a 25-year low. Now the political class must catch up with the public.
The peace is within reach, if the US grasps it. Iran’s proposal is serious and the ceasefire is a fragile opening for a comprehensive settlement. The question is whether the US will, once again, allow Israel to destroy the peace, or rather this time stand up for America’s interests and the world’s interests in a lasting peace.
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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