2026 April 01 « nuclear-news

Doomsday Double Standard: U.S. Silent on Israel, Loud on Rivals

March 27, 2026 , https://scheerpost.com/2026/03/27/doomsday-double-standard-u-s-silent-on-israel-loud-on-rivals/

Silence in Congress: When Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Becomes an Unaskable Question

At a moment when nuclear facilities are being openly discussed as military targets in the escalating confrontation between Joaquin Castro and the Trump administration’s Middle East war posture, one exchange in Congress exposed just how rigid Washington’s political boundaries remain when the subject turns to Israel’s undeclared atomic arsenal.

During questioning before Congress, Castro asked Thomas DiNanno a direct question: does Israel possess nuclear capability?

The answer never came.

DiNanno, the senior U.S. official responsible for arms control and international security policy, declined to acknowledge publicly what has long been treated internationally as established fact: Israel is widely understood to possess a significant nuclear weapons stockpile, developed around the Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona.

Instead, DiNanno replied that he could not comment and suggested the question be directed to the Israeli government.

That answer was not merely evasive—it underscored one of the most enduring contradictions in U.S. foreign policy: Washington routinely frames nuclear proliferation in adversarial states as an existential threat while maintaining formal silence on Israel’s own strategic arsenal.

A Nuclear Question Washington Refuses to Touch

Castro’s line of questioning was not theoretical. It came amid growing alarm over attacks near nuclear-related infrastructure in both Israel and Iran, where military escalation has raised fears of accidental radioactive release, regional fallout, or broader strategic miscalculation.

His concern was simple: if military strikes approach nuclear sites, what are the risks to civilians, to the region, and potentially to Americans?

Yet even in that context, the administration’s top arms control official would not publicly acknowledge the existence of Israel’s deterrent capacity.

That silence reflects decades of diplomatic ambiguity. Israel has never formally admitted possessing nuclear weapons, despite extensive international assessments estimating an arsenal ranging from dozens to hundreds of warheads, supported by air, sea, and missile delivery systems.

The policy is often described as “nuclear opacity”—a deliberate refusal to confirm what nearly every major intelligence service already assumes.

Strategic Ambiguity, Political Obedience

The deeper issue exposed in the hearing is not whether Israel has nuclear weapons. Few serious analysts dispute that point.

The issue is why U.S. officials remain unwilling—even in congressional testimony—to speak plainly about it.

For critics of Washington’s Middle East policy, the answer lies in the political architecture surrounding the U.S.-Israel relationship: long-standing strategic alignment, domestic lobbying pressure, donor influence, and bipartisan reluctance to challenge core Israeli security narratives.

That has produced a diplomatic culture where nuclear transparency is demanded from adversaries but treated as politically untouchable when applied to allies.

The Contradiction at the Center of U.S. Policy

The United States has justified sanctions, covert operations, military threats, and diplomatic pressure for decades over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, even while its own officials avoid discussing the only actual nuclear weapons state in the region outside formal treaty structures.

For lawmakers like Castro, that contradiction becomes impossible to ignore during wartime.

As military escalation widens and nuclear-adjacent facilities enter targeting calculations, the refusal even to acknowledge known realities begins to look less like strategy and more like institutional denial.

The Meaning of the “Special Relationship”

The hearing ultimately captured something larger than one unanswered question.

It revealed how, even in matters involving potential nuclear risk, congressional oversight can hit an invisible boundary when Israel is involved.

As regional conflict carries consequences far beyond the Middle East, silence itself becomes policy—and policy becomes dangerous.

At the same time, earlier last month, this same official appeared perfectly willing to speak with certainty about other nations’ nuclear activity—declaring that “the U.S. government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons.” Yet when the subject turned to Israel’s nuclear program, he suddenly could not open his mouth.

That contradiction says everything.

Washington can publicly accuse rivals, speculate about adversaries, and issue warnings across the globe, but when it comes to Israel’s long-known nuclear arsenal, silence becomes policy.

Historically, however uncomfortable it may be to admit, countries that developed nuclear deterrence—such as North Korea and Pakistan—have in many cases insulated themselves from the kind of sustained military pressure, regime threats, and strategic harassment that non-nuclear states continue to face. That reality helps explain why nuclear capability remains so central to global power calculations, even as it pushes humanity closer to catastrophe.

And catastrophe no longer feels abstract.

As of January 2026, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight—the closest it has ever been to symbolic global disaster. The warning reflects converging threats: nuclear confrontation, climate breakdown, and rapidly destabilizing technologies including artificial intelligence.

Nuclear winter is no longer the language of distant Cold War nightmares. It is again being discussed in real strategic terms, while governments continue to speak selectively about who may possess the weapons capable of ending civilization.

Good luck, everyone.

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Operation Epic Flurry

“The problem,” the analysis concludes, “is that Trump doesn’t know what his objectives in this war are. Or, worse still, he has proclaimed many objectives, some of them contradictory, because he has no policies and no strategies.”

And this, delivered with the precision of a man who has spent years watching: “He’s a vacancy in the middle of his own world, and yet a vacancy that is fully in charge. The situation could not be more dire.”

28 March 2026 David Tyler, Australian Independent Media

The announcement comes, as always, with impeccable timing. Ten minutes after the S&P 500 closes on its worst single trading day since the war began, Donald Trump posts on Truth Social that he is extending his pause on “energy plant destruction” by ten more days, until Monday April 6 at 8pm Eastern Time. “As per Iranian Government request,” he writes.

Another outright lie. Talks were going “very well.” The markets sighed. Oil dipped. Then snapped back. Brent crude settled at $107 a barrel.

This is the operating system. Not diplomacy. Not strategy. Useful idiocy. A witless grifter watching the markets, the courts and the clock, adjusting deadlines, managing increasingly bizarre appearances, while the ships keep moving.

The boots are already in the water.

The Anatomy of a Fake Pause

This is the second extension Dong Wang, (King of Knowledge or know-all) as they call Trump in China, has announced since he issued his original 48-hour ultimatum demanding Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its power grid. No-one knows how to deliver an ultimatum like Trump.

The first pause came on Monday. The second came Thursday. Both arrived at market-sensitive moments, both were framed as responses to Iranian requests, and both were flatly denied by Iran. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi scathingly describes the exchange of messages through intermediaries as not constituting “negotiations.”

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf calls the whole show “fake news used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

He is not wrong. The backchannel activity is real enough: Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey have been relaying messages between Washington and Tehran, and there is genuine mediating pressure from Islamabad to convene a face-to-face meeting. But the gap between what is actually happening and what Trump is describing to the American public is the gap between a fax or Telegram arriving at a foreign ministry and a signed ceasefire.

Iran rejects Trump’s 15-point plan outright and tables its own five conditions, including war reparations and formal recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. That is not a negotiating position that converges with Washington’s in ten days. Not in twenty. In fact it’s a dark parody of Trump’s style of negotiation which is to issue an ultimatum. Iran is signalling its contempt.

So what is the April 6 deadline actually for? The mediators themselves have identified the core problem: the Iranians “suspect that the US is tricking them again.” True. The pause is not buying time for diplomacy. It is buying time for deployment.

What Is Actually Moving

Two Marine Expeditionary Units are converging on the Persian Gulf from opposite ends of the Pacific………………

Additionally, the Pentagon has ordered roughly two thousand soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to move from their base in North Carolina to the Middle East. ……………..

On Wednesday, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf posts a warning that deserves attention precisely because of what it does not say.

“Based on some intelligence reports,” he wrote, “Iran’s enemies are preparing to occupy one of the Iranian islands with support from one of the regional states. Our forces are monitoring all enemy movements, and if they take any step, all the vital infrastructure of that regional state will be targeted with relentless, unceasing attacks.”

He does not name the island. He does not name the regional collaborator. A warning that specific about an operation, that vague about the target, is not a general statement of defiance. It is the signature of intelligence tracking something imminent………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Ignoramus in Chief

Into this unfolding catastrophe, the elephant in the room is the question of who is actually making the decisions and on what basis.

………………………………………………………..Two minutes of edited highlights? Per day. This is the informational basis on which “Ole Bone-Spurs”, a former draft evader who shirked national service five times, but who is now the de-facto commander of the world’s largest military, is conducting a war.

Panic stations? Trump’s got his own allies, in a lather. The worry, as NBC delicately puts it, is that Trump “may not be receiving, or understanding, the complete picture of the war.” Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, is on record to the effect that Trump “hardly ever reads briefing notes” and when he does “cannot make sense of them,” and that he had “not thought through the implications or laid the groundwork” for a longer conflict with Iran.

Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff, who has known him as well as any journalist alive, goes further in a recent Daily Beast podcast.

“It’s not just unpresidential, it’s incoherent. It’s the language of an ignoramus.” He added: “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It just comes out of his mouth, out of self-justification, need, fear, aggression.”

…………………………………………….Slate’s military analyst identifies the strategic void at the centre of the operation with Clausewitzian clarity: Trump’s delusion stems from a fundamental misunderstanding that war is entirely about destroying targets. CENTCOM has struck more than five thousand targets.

But wars are fought for political objectives, and Trump has proclaimed so many contradictory objectives, shifting from regime change to nuclear disarmament to resource acquisition to Hormuz control with no discernible logic, that his own advisers do not know what they are working toward.

“The problem,” the analysis concludes, “is that Trump doesn’t know what his objectives in this war are. Or, worse still, he has proclaimed many objectives, some of them contradictory, because he has no policies and no strategies.”

A vacancy in the middle of his own world, fully in charge. Making it up as he goes. What could possibly go wrong?

Murdoch’s Man at the Pentagon

Nature abhors a vacuum. The vacancy does not stand alone. It is surrounded by people who have their own reasons for filling it.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is an ex-Fox News jock who got given the largest military budget in history. A former Guantanamo guard with no command experience beyond a National Guard deployment, Hegseth spent the years between his military service and his cabinet appointment performing patriotism on Murdoch’s flagship cable network, aka Faux News, where hawk-talk is part of the job profile and any hint of restraint is seen as weakness, wokeness or treachery.

Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon with dreams that his TV-show persona had done nothing to temper. At a press conference this month he declared that US forces would show “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

Ryan Goodman, professor of law and co-editor of national security journal Just Security, tells Axios this would constitute a war crime under the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual. Hegseth also used the occasion to attack the press for failing to be “an actual patriotic press,” citing the headline “Mideast war intensifies” as proof of disloyalty.

This is the man with the power to unleash Armageddon……………………………………………..

Behind Hegseth, behind Trump, the hand that has been pushing this from the beginning.

Bloomberg reported on March 21, citing “people familiar with private conversations”, that those pressing Trump to strike Iran included not only Netanyahu but Rupert Murdoch, the ninety-five-year-old chairman emeritus of News Corp and Fox Corp. Murdoch instructed Trump several times, personally urging the president, he once called a “fucking idiot” to take on Tehran. This was not casual chat. ………………………………………………..

When the bombs started falling on February 28, the New York Post’s front page read “DEATH TO THE DEVIL.” Subsequent editions ran “DON GETS LAST LAUGH” and “NO MERCY.” The Wall Street Journal has since called for ground troops. Fox News has been, in the words of Crikey’s media analyst, the loudest global advocate for the war, running the same cheerleading operation it ran for Iraq in 2003, right down to the retired generals on the panel and the American flag in the corner of the screen.

Even within Murdoch’s own empire, the revulsion has broken through. Former Fox host Megyn Kelly, no dove, is scathing:

“We now learn that Rupert Murdoch was one of the main people goading Trump into this war. Rupert Murdoch, who is ninety-five years old, he’ll be dead soon. And he too is acting as if our troops are expendable cattle.” Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna used the same phrase, “expendable cattle,” without any prompting from Kelly. Senator Lindsey Graham had just told Fox News Sunday, without embarrassment, that the Marines could take Kharg Island because “we did Iwo Jima.”………………………………………….

The Fracture Nobody Is Talking About

There is one more element that complicates the picture and which has been ignored in the mainstream coverage of the war. Washington and Tel Aviv are no longer fighting the same war.

Even The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is on to it. Trump appears to favour the Venezuela model: align with a pragmatic insider within the Iranian regime, access the oil and gas resources, declare victory and exit. Netanyahu prefers what Israeli strategists call “mowing the grass”: maximum target destruction, indefinite conflict management, no exit required and no exit planned. These two approaches are not reconcilable. They are direct opposites dressed in the same uniform.

……………………………………Former Israeli ambassador Alon Pinkas tells Al Jazeera that Trump’s pivot toward negotiations, apparently over Netanyahu’s objections, may signal that the US president has finally grasped that Netanyahu “may have duped him on how quick and resounding a victory would be, and how viable regime change is.” Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg delivers the verdict without the turd polish: “Is it a defeat for Netanyahu? Hell, yes. It’s Trump essentially ditching Israel.”

Netanyahu, facing ICC arrest warrants, corruption charges and a national inquiry into October 7 that he has spent two years postponing, has his own reasons to keep the war going. ……………………………..

The Boots Are Already in the Water

Let us be clear about what we are watching. A president who cannot distinguish between a war briefing and a movie trailer is extending fake diplomatic deadlines while an amphibious task force closes on the Persian Gulf. His Defence Secretary is a television performer who has never commanded anything larger than a National Guard unit and whose understanding of strategic warfare was formed on a Fox News set. Behind both of them, a ninety-five-year-old media magnate with no democratic mandate and a perfect record of warmongering for profit has been personally lobbying the President of the United States to go to war……………………………………………….. https://theaimn.net/operation-epic-flurry/

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But should it have nuclear weapons itself?

March 25, 2026, Marianne Hanson, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland, https://theconversation.com/israel-wants-to-destroy-irans-nuclear-program-but-should-it-have-nuclear-weapons-itself-278801?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekender%20-%2028%20March%202026&utm_content=The%20Weekender%20-%2028%20March%202026+CID_09f9907cac66b0e5c3e3ca794f0c8c0c&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Israel%20wants%20to%20destroy%20Irans%20nuclear%20program%20But%20should%20it%20have%20nuclear%20weapons%20itself

Israel’s avowed goal in the Middle East war is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, the double standard associated with this is hardly sustainable in the long run.

The worst-kept secret in the world of nuclear politics is that Israel possesses a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons. It began developing these in the 1950s and reached a fully operational capability by the late 1960s.

Although Israel refuses to confirm or deny this fact, arms control organisations have assessed that the country has some 80–90 nuclear weapons.

In recent days, Iran targeted Israel’s nuclear facility in the southern town of Dimona, injuring more than 100 people. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called for restraint to avoid a “nuclear accident”.

A program shrouded in secrecy

There is much evidence to support the existence of Israel’s arsenal.

In 1963, then-Deputy Defence Minister Shimon Peres famously stated Israel would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What this actually meant was spelled out a few years later by the Israeli ambassador to the US. For a weapon to be “introduced”, he said, it needed to be tested and publicly declared. Merely possessing them did not constitute introducing them.

Several whistleblower accounts, intelligence reports and satellite imagery confirm the extent of the Israeli program and its capabilities.

More recently, Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, alluded to using nuclear weapons in Gaza – a tacit acknowledgement of Israel’s capabilities. He was later reprimanded by Netanyahu.

And in 2024, Avigdor Lieberman, a former defence and foreign minister, threatened to “use all the means at our disposal” to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. He added: “It should be clear at this stage it is not possible to prevent nuclear weapons from Iran by conventional means.”

It is important to remember that Israel not only developed its nuclear weapons in secret – employing subterfuge, misleading claims, and even the suspected theft of bomb-grade nuclear material from the United States – it has also rejected international inspections of its facilities and refused to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty has been signed by almost every state in the world.

Concerns over Iran’s program

Iran, meanwhile, has never had a nuclear weapon, though its program has been the source of international concern for more than a decade.

In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as the Iran nuclear deal) with the US, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, which imposed restrictions on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. This included inspections by IAEA monitors.

However, Trump scuppered the plan in 2018. Since then, Iran has enriched uranium to levels well above those needed for its energy program. And last year, the IAEA said Iran was non-compliant with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations for failing to provide full answers about its program.

But since the current war began, US and international officials have confirmed that Iran was not close to developing a nuclear weapon and did not pose an imminent nuclear threat to the US or Israel.

In short, there is no truth to the claim, made for almost 40 years by Israel, that Iran is “weeks away” from acquiring the bomb. The IAEA made clear two years ago that a nuclear weapon requires “many other things independently from the production of the fissile material”.

Getting close to nuclear threshold status, but stopping short of developing an actual bomb, likely provides a fall-back position for Iran. If Iran were to feel pushed or threatened, it could, in time, accelerate its energy program towards a weapons program. Or it could use this enriched uranium as leverage in negotiations with the US.

Nuclear powers need to show restraint

This brings us back to a major question: can double standards about who can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon be sustained indefinitely?

Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been tacitly accepted by the West, implying there are “right hands” and “wrong hands” for nuclear weapons. But this is a risky and ultimately unsustainable position.

As Australia’s Canberra Commission noted in 1996, as long as any one state has nuclear weapons, other states will want them, too.

This is precisely why many states voted in 2017 to adopt the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty’s purpose is to make the possession, threat and use of nuclear weapons illegitimate for all states, not just for some, on the basis of international humanitarian law.

Signed by 99 states so far, the treaty recognises that nuclear weapons promise massive destruction to civilians and combatants alike, and that even a “small” nuclear war will cause catastrophic damage.

At the end of the day, a consistent approach to nuclear weapons is more likely to prevent nuclear proliferation (by Iran or other states) than the current mess, where some states are tacitly permitted to have these weapons (and wage war on others), while other countries are not.

It is possible we are at a tipping point when it comes to nuclear proliferation, with some countries suspected of wanting to develop nuclear weapon capabilities. This includes US allies South Korea and Japan.

Are the nuclear weapons states ultimately willing to accept the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and disarm in the interest of global peace and security? If they don’t, then the current trajectory of keeping one’s own nuclear weapons and waging war against states that don’t have them will only weaken an already crumbling rules-based international order.

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran says it never requested US energy strike pause: Escalation proceeding on all fronts.

Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, 27 Mar 2026, https://www.sott.net/article/505375-Iran-says-it-never-requested-US-energy-strike-pause-Escalation-proceeding-on-all-fronts

Israel goes after Iranian industrial targets

Vital Iranian Steel Plants, Industry Attacked

Israeli media citing military officials on Friday: “The IDF attacked Iran’s two largest steel plants, in Isfahan and Ahvaz. Both plants are vital to Iran’s military industry and are partially owned by the Revolutionary Guards. The strikes on the plants are expected to cause billions in damage to the Iranian economy.”

This could mark a new, expanded phase of the war as Israel goes after key defense industrial targets, which also serve central civilian infrastructure development. The US has still held off on pursuing more attacks on energy sites, but it seems Israel is maintaining a more gloves off approach – opting for total societal destruction, and going after industry. This seems to also be part of efforts to ensure ballistic missile production is degraded.

Reuters: US is certain about having destroyed third of Iran’s missiles, say sources. Another third is believed to be damaged, destroyed or buried.

“One of the sources said the intelligence was similar for Iran’s drone capability, saying there was some degree of certainty about a third having been destroyed,” Reuters writes, noting that all of this contradicts White House claims of Iran having “very few rockets left”

Iran Didn’t Request Trump’s 10-Day Pause: WSJ

Iran has not requested a 10-day pause on strikes on its energy plants, peace talk mediators have been cited in WSJ as saying, and has still not issued formal response to the 15-point US plan delivered via Pakistan. This as the Pentagon is moving thousands of Marines and Army Airborne soldiers into the region.

The Wall Street Journal points out that “The U.S. and Israel are pounding Iran’s missile-launching sites, hitting some over and over across almost a month of war. But Tehran’s missiles keep flying.”

One pundit questions, are we ‘winning’ yet?… writing the following brief assessment of where things stand: IRGC Joint Staff headquarters under US-Israeli strikes. Iran naming UAE targets as Abu Dhabi enters the war. IDF Chief of Staff warning publicly the Israeli military could “collapse” from manpower shortages. Iran claiming over one million fighters mobilised with IRGC lowering the age for support roles to 12. Pentagon considering 10,000 additional ground troops within striking distance of Kharg. Trump pausing energy-plant destruction for 10 days until April 6. Iran denying it requested the pause. Houthis warning they will enter the war. Lavrov saying the quiet part: “Iran did not violate any of its international obligations.” Russia’s oil revenue doubling to $24 billion this month.

Oil prices continued to spike this morning, with international Brent crude oil once again surpassing $110 per barrel. For the day so far that’s up another 3%.

“After several glimmers of hope, fueled by comments from President Trump, which were quickly dashed, the market is becoming more demanding in terms of rhetoric,” said Amélie Derambure, senior multi-asset portfolio manager at Amundi. “The TACO trade is more difficult to do because a return to square one is not possible from here.”

Gulf Flashpoint Widens: Iran Signals No Let Up

Multiple GCC countries issued incoming-attack alerts as drones and missiles light up the region Friday, with Kuwait taking at least two new hits: Shuwaikh Port was struck by “hostile drones” – per the Kuwait Ports Authority, with a second target, Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port, reportedly hit by drones and cruise missiles. Infrastructure damage has been reported in both cases, but no reported casualties.

Saudi Arabia maintains its air defense footing, with the Ministry of Defense saying drones were intercepted and destroyed over Riyadh and the Eastern Province, following a warning for Al-Kharj – home to Prince Sultan Air Base. Six ballistic missiles were detected: two intercepted, with four splashing into the Persian Gulf and empty areas.

Absolute chaos in Tel Aviv…

New explosions have been reported in Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Friday. It’s as if Iran and the IRGC are sending a clear “f-you” message to Trump in the wake of the series of ultimatums and deadlines Tehran never asked for. Trump earlier went from 48 hours to 5 days to now a 10-day window amid the threats to attack power and energy infrastructure.

Israel Escalates Too: Will ‘Intensify & Expand’ Strikes on Iran

The White House has been busy talking about its backchannel diplomacy and getting the beginnings of a peace deal off the ground via Pakistan, and at one point within the past week there was talk of Vice President J.D. Vance actually traveling to Islamabad – but the situation on the ground suggests the opposite, given also Israel has on Friday announced escalation of its posture. Israel has continued coming under consistent missile strikes.

Now, Defense Minister Israel Katz is vowing Israel’s attacks will “intensify and expand” – citing that Islamic Republic had not heeded warnings “to stop firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population.” Katz said: “The fire has continued – and therefore, IDF strikes in Iran will intensify and expand to additional targets and domains that assist the regime in developing and deploying weapons against Israeli civilians.”

There remains a huge risk for Israel amid the expectation that Iran has been saving its biggest and most advanced, longer range missiles – rationing its arsenal as it settles in for a long war.

Strait of Hormuz Status & Overnight News

Tehran could still be playing a double game of public rejection coupled with private behind-the-scenes signaling. According to Axios’ latest, Iranian officials are quietly showing interest in talks even as they reject Washington’s proposal, with mediators leaning hard to force or ‘will into existence’ a meeting in the coming days. “Things are progressing very slowly” in terms of negotiations between the US and Iran, and as of now, no meeting between senior officials is even on the calendar, per Isreal’s i24NEWS.

The IRGC Navy is still declaring the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut: traffic “to and from” ports tied to enemy allies is banned outright, with warnings any movement will be “severely dealt with.” In a rare twist, The Wall Street Journal and others report Iran has even blocked two Chinese vessels from transiting Hormuz – signaling enforcement isn’t just for Western targets. Washington seems to be trying to adapt in real time, as Reuters reports the US has deployed uncrewed drone boats into the theater, opening yet another front in an already widening conflict.

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s Mossad promised it could ignite regime change in Iran, says report

Mossad promises helped Netanyahu convince Trump Islamic Republic could be toppled, reports New York Times

By MEE staff, 23 March 2026 , https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israels-mossad-promised-it-could-ignite-regime-change-iran-says-report

Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad had a plan to ignite public protests that would lead to the collapse of Iran’s government, the New York Times has reported.

David Barnea, Mossad’s chief, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu days before the US and Israel began their war on Iran and told him that the agency would be able to galvanise Iranian opposition in order to bring about regime change.

Barnea, according to the report, which cites interviews with US and Israeli officials, also presented this proposal to senior US officials during a visit to Washington in mid-January.

The plan was then taken up by Netanyahu and Trump, despite doubts among some senior American officials and Israeli military intelligence. Mossad’s promises were, according to US and Israeli officials, used by Netanyahu to convince the US president that collapsing the Iranian government was possible.

In the plan’s conception, the war would begin with the killing of Iranian leaders, followed by a “series of intelligence operations intended to encourage regime change”. This could, Mossad believed, lead to a mass uprising that would bring about victory for Israel and the US.

As the war began, Trump’s public messaging reflected this. In an eight-minute video statement he said: “Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand…when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

But talk of regime change quickly evaporated. Less than two weeks in, US senators came out of a briefing on the war to say that overthrowing the Islamic Republic was not one of its goals, and that in fact there was “no plan” at all for the military operation.

Netanyahu frustrated with Mossad

The CIA’s own assessment of the situation is that the Iranian administration will not be overthrown. In fact, the US intelligence agency had said that if Iran’s leaders were killed, a “more radical” leadership would take power.

Israeli intelligence sees Iran’s government as weakened but intact.

“The belief that Israel and the United States could help instigate widespread revolt was a foundational flaw in the preparations for a war that has spread across the Middle East,” the NYT report said.

While Netanyahu has remained bullish about the prospect of putting troops on the ground in Iran, he is said to be frustrated that Mossad’s promises to bring about an uprising have not come to fruition.

According to the NYT, Netanyahu said in a security meeting days after the war began that Trump could end the war at any moment if Mossad’s operations did not bear fruit.

Mossad’s promises were, according to the report, disputed by many senior US officials and analysts at the Israeli army’s intelligence agency, Aman.

US military leaders told Trump that Iranians would not take to the streets while bombs were falling, while intelligence officials assessed that the chances of a mass uprising were low.

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

IDF threatens ‘elimination’ for Russian leaders who ‘wish Israel ill’

Wyatt Reed·March 18, 2026, https://thegrayzone.com/2026/03/18/idf-threatens-elimination-for-russian-leaders-who-wish-israel-ill/

Israel’s veiled threat to Moscow came just after Russian media warned traffic cameras in Moscow were vulnerable to the same exploits that Israel reportedly used to monitor Ayatollah Khamenei’s residence before assassinating him.

Israeli military spokeswoman Anna Ukolova has drawn outrage in Moscow after threatening that Russian authorities who “wish Israel ill” could be subject to “elimination,” while suggesting Israel could hack into Russian closed-circuit television cameras to identify and track targets.

Asked by a journalist with Russian radio broadcaster RBC whether Israel had access to Russian traffic cameras, Ukolova declined to answer directly but warned that “Khamenei’s elimination shows our capabilities are serious” and that “no one who wishes us harm will be left aside.”

She added, ominously, “I hope Moscow does not wish Israel ill right now – I’d like to believe that.”

In response to a post by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who wrote that the IDF spokeswoman threatened that “Russian authorities [will] be killed if they take [an] anti-Israel position,” Ukolova claimed Dugin was spreading “fake news.” But she declined to clarify how her remarks had been incorrectly interpreted.

Ukolova’s statements came just days after it was revealed that a large number of Russian CCTVs were potentially using BriefCam – an Israeli video analysis software that closely matches the description of a program the Netanyahu regime reportedly deployed to track Iranian movements outside the home of Iran’s Supreme Leader before they assassinated him during their February 28 sneak attack.

On March 12, Russian outlet Mash revealed that the Israeli software BriefCam “has been used in Russia by private providers since the 2010s.” Founded at Israel’s Hebrew University in 2007, BriefCam uses AI to let users “review hours of video in minutes” and “make [their] video searchable, actionable and quantifiable.” In 2024, BriefCam was absorbed by a Dutch subsidiary of the Canon Group named Milestone Systems, which publicly pledges to “amplify what organizations of any size can see, do and achieve with video.”

“Our patented VIDEO SYNOPSIS® technology condenses hours of surveillance into a short summary by overlaying multiple events—each tagged with its original timestamp—onto a single frame, letting you filter them by object type and attributes,” the company’s BriefCam page crows. An analysis by Al Jazeera revealed those attributes include “gender, age group, clothing, movement patterns and time spent in a given location.”

Originally deployed by Israel’s Ministry of Housing and Construction to safeguard illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, BriefCam has been used by governments all over the world, including those in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Pakistan, Israel, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, India, Spain, Taiwan. It’s also been deployed in the US, with police in Hartford, Connecticut adopting the software in 2022. In 2025, a French court found the government’s use of BriefCam was illegal, citing multiple violations of French and European privacy laws.

As of publication, BriefCam appears to be incorporated into dozens of so-called “video monitoring systems,” including Milestone’s own VMS XProtect surveillance system.

According to the Russian outlet Mash, a number of prominent Moscow businesses, institutions, and buildings use VMS XProtect surveillance system, including the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a 72-story skyscraper named “Eurasia,” and a huge exhibit space known as the Zotov Center. Though Milestone officially ended operations in Russia in 2022 amid the war in Ukraine, Mash reports that some software distributors in Russia “still offer to install the hacked software and hide this in the documents.”

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Operation Epic Fury and US Unreadiness for War

25 March 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/operation-epic-fury-and-us-unreadiness-for-war/

The bellicose may find wars attractive and cleansing, but those responsible for such dry matters as inventory, material and how prepared the armed forces of a country are will stalk them with unpleasant truths. The addiction of the US imperium to waging wars, one that President Donald Trump promised, and failed, to treat, has gotten the wags in the military worried. The depleting nature of Operation Epic Fury has been particularly telling in this regard, revealing the US war machine to be unprepared for conflict.

Rather than referring to preparedness, the preferred choice in US Army circles is “unreadiness” or a lack of readiness. Army Undersecretary Michael Obadal, in his address at the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference, was startlingly candid in this regard. “To say we’re satisfied with our readiness rates, I think, would be disingenuous. We have real problems with our major weapons systems, both aircraft and ground, and we have to address those things, and we’re doing so in a number of ways.” (The major weapons systems were left unnamed.)

One of his suggestions involves placing greater focus on “Public-private partnerships in an organic industrial base (OIB) [as] one of the most fundamentally different approaches that we can take.” The organic industrial base takes in some 23 depots, arsenals and ammunition plants responsible for manufacturing and resetting army equipment while fostering readiness and operational capability. “The OIB,” according to the US Army, “must be able to support current unit readiness, maintain the ability to surge, and modernize and retool to sustain the next generation of equipment.” Much has been made in the vanilla propaganda of the army of its “Modernization Implementation Plan” (MIP), which officially commenced in October 2024.

Establishing what readiness means in all of this is a thorny issue. Obadal lets the cat out of the bag in stating that “everyone will have different metrics”, a suitably unsatisfactory state of affairs. His own criteria are threefold: How the Army can respond tonight with what is available; what it can do in the next month to deal with the contingency; and what it can do to sustain the effort for the next year of combat.

Applying his own threefold metrics to the Army, Obadal identified problems with major weapons systems and, critically, problems with magazine depth. While not expressly referring to Operation Epic Fury and the war against Iran, the undersecretary did state that the “current situation” had “absolutely” aggravated matters. To address such problems, notably with weapons systems, manufacturers could work alongside soldiers and engineers in the theatre to fix vehicles and aircraft more expeditiously.

Legislation regarding “right to repair” provisions that would enable soldiers to tend to equipment problems without having to send them back to the manufacturer was also on the cards, though yet to pass. Obadal hoped that these would find their way into the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. “We have to be very narrow on what we’re asking for. So how many repetitions, how many units, how many years before we have IP [intellectual property], and there’s some IP that we don’t want commercial software and other things.” Companies could “keep that because we want them to be responsible for the updates, the security patches and all that, but we want to be able to change things out as the environment demands.”

The Army was also on the lookout for industry partners well advanced in their “TLR” [technology readiness level] when seeking contracts with the Pentagon. In addressing the problem of magazine depth, Obadal referenced the new modernising drive inviting private industry to co-invest in OIB installations. “If we ask industry to change, we have to address the long-term viability of our own organic industrial base. So a new environment requires new approaches.”

Other sources add more troubling details about the problems Obadal was good enough to underline. A Government Accountability Office report finalised just prior to the pre-emptive attack on Iran on February 28 and published on March 4 tut tutted the Pentagon for not fully implementing over 150 recommendations from earlier reviews with the express purpose of improving the availability of equipment, the bulking of personnel resources and supporting better decision-making on readiness. Shortages in trained maintenance personnel have caused problems across all branches of the armed services. This has hampered, for instance, “meeting mission capable rate goals for their aircraft that support combat-related missions.”

In a separate summary of issues afflicting US forces, the GAO notes with cold certainty that almost two decades of war “has degraded US military readiness. To adapt to growing threats posed by major powers (such as China and Russia) and other adversaries, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the individual military services must make some urgent changes.”

The GAO was also reproachful of the failure of both the Air Force and Navy for not completing “sustainment reviews” for their aircraft, an indispensable measure for maintaining readiness for the life cycle of relevant machinery. Both branches of the armed forces, despite the annual expenditure of billions of dollars annually, had “struggled for years to maintain their aircraft due to the age of their fleets, a lack of parts, maintenance delays, and other problems.”

On specific weapons platforms, the Pentagon faces challenges in, for instance, maintaining the staggeringly gluttonous F-35 fleet. These include “delays setting up military service depots – facilities to complete the most complex repairs – and inadequate equipment to keep aircraft operational.” While the department intended to move more maintenance responsibilities from external contractors to the government, no plan to do so had been made.

Repair depots are also taken to task for their shabbiness. “Depot infrastructure generally remains in fair to poor condition, and most depot equipment is past its service life.” The DOD persistently failed to report what was needed to arrest further deterioration.

With such a body of reservations, reproachful critique and recommendations unimplemented, the unreadiness of the US armed forces puts paid to the narrative, all too regularly touted by Trump and his unhinged Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, of boundless resources and peerless invincibility. The Iran War is all but confirming that; the unready have been found wanting.

April 1, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment