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The Art of the Deal Is War

April 11, 2026, ScheerPost Staff, https://scheerpost.com/2026/04/11/the-art-of-the-deal-is-war/

In a moment that was supposed to signal de-escalation, the United States and Iran announced a temporary two-week ceasefire—only for it to begin unraveling almost immediately. Within hours, accusations of violations surfaced, Israeli airstrikes hit Lebanon, and the fragile illusion of diplomacy gave way to a more familiar reality: war continuing under a different name. As makes clear, this is not an end to conflict—it is a transition into a more dangerous and uncertain phase.

Ben Norton’s latest analysis cuts through the fog with clarity and urgency. His reporting lays out a pattern that is as old as U.S. foreign policy itself: agreements made publicly, undermined privately, and ultimately discarded when they no longer serve imperial interests. Norton points to immediate violations following the ceasefire announcement, particularly Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon, which Tehran argues was explicitly included in the terms of the deal. Washington denies this. Both sides claim victory. Both cannot be telling the truth.

At the heart of Norton’s analysis is a deeper indictment—not just of this ceasefire, but of a broader strategy. The so-called diplomacy surrounding Iran, he argues, often functions less as a path to peace and more as a tactical pause: a chance to regroup, rearm, and reposition. This aligns with a long historical record in which negotiations are used as cover for escalation rather than resolution. From the collapse of the nuclear deal to repeated ceasefire breakdowns in Gaza, the pattern is consistent—and deadly.

But this moment is not just about broken promises. It is about shifting global power. Norton highlights how Iran has leveraged its strategic position—particularly control over the Strait of Hormuz—to exert real pressure on global energy markets. The consequences are already rippling outward: rising oil prices, supply chain disruptions, and the early tremors of what could become a global economic crisis. Even in the unlikely event that peace were to hold, the damage has already been set in motion.

Perhaps most striking is the contradiction at the center of this ceasefire. The U.S. reportedly issued sweeping demands—limiting Iran’s military capacity, restricting enrichment, and reshaping regional alliances—while Iran presented its own conditions, including the lifting of sanctions, withdrawal of U.S. forces, and a halt to all aggression, including in Lebanon. Each side claims the other agreed. The reality, as Norton bluntly frames it, is simple: someone is lying.

This is why Norton’s video is essential viewing. It doesn’t just recount events—it exposes the mechanics of power behind them. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions: What does a ceasefire mean when bombs continue to fall? What is diplomacy worth when it is used as a weapon? And how should the world respond when the architects of “peace” are the same actors perpetuating war?

For ScheerPost, reposting and amplifying this analysis is not just about sharing information—it is about challenging the narratives that normalize endless conflict. Because if this moment teaches us anything, it is that war no longer begins with declarations. It begins with agreements.

And sometimes, it never really stops.

From the very start of his video, Norton underscores a crucial reality often buried beneath headlines: this ceasefire is temporary, fragile, and possibly strategic rather than sincere. He warns that even in a “best-case scenario,” the war has already triggered a global energy shock—one that will take months, if not years, to fully unfold. Inflation, supply chain breakdowns, and rising food and fuel prices are not side effects—they are central consequences of this conflict. The war doesn’t pause when bombs stop falling; it continues through markets, shortages, and economic strain felt worldwide.

At the heart of Norton’s analysis is a deeper indictment—not just of this ceasefire, but of a broader strategy. The so-called diplomacy surrounding Iran, he argues, often functions less as a path to peace and more as a tactical pause: a chance to regroup, rearm, and reposition. He points specifically to how a two-week ceasefire could allow U.S. and allied forces to restock depleted weapons systems and prepare for the next phase of escalation. This aligns with a long historical record in which negotiations are used as cover for escalation rather than resolution.

Norton also highlights one of the most revealing contradictions: both Washington and Tehran claim the other agreed to their demands. The U.S. reportedly pushed a sweeping 15-point plan, while Iran published its own 10-point proposal, including sanctions relief, recognition of its regional position, and an end to attacks across all fronts—including Lebanon. These positions are fundamentally incompatible. As Norton bluntly frames it, one side is not telling the truth—and history suggests where skepticism should fall.

Perhaps most striking is his breakdown of what he calls Trump’s “art of the deal” in practice: agreements are made, selectively followed, and then reinterpreted to justify further escalation. It is not diplomacy—it is leverage through deception. And in this case, it may already be unfolding again.

But this moment is not just about broken promises. It is about shifting global power. Norton emphasizes that Iran has demonstrated significant leverage through its control of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. That leverage has already disrupted global markets and forced the U.S. to the negotiating table—whether in good faith or not.

This is why Norton’s video is essential viewing. It doesn’t just recount events—it exposes the mechanics of power behind them. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions: What does a ceasefire mean when bombs continue to fall? What is diplomacy worth when it is used as a weapon? And what happens when economic warfare becomes indistinguishable from military conflict?

April 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A conflict of attrition: Iran’s bet on asymmetric warfare

Destabilizing the global economy is perhaps Iran’s most visible and salient use of asymmetric warfare. Tehran has used artillery strikes, sea mines, and electronic warfare to impede transit through the Strait of Hormuz, dominating a vital maritime chokepoint through which a significant portion of the world’s fossil fuels and fertilizers transit.

By Spenser A. Warren | Analysis | April 7, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/04/a-conflict-of-attrition-irans-bet-on-asymmetric-warfare/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Iran%20s%20bet%20on%20asymmetric%20warfare&utm_campaign=20260409%20Thursday%20Newsletter

Around midnight on March 30, crewmembers on the bridge of the oil tanker Al Salmi were rocked by a large explosion. Hours later, fires still raged on the ship’s deck. The explosion was caused by an Iranian drone strike. The Al Salmi is not an adversary warship; its crew are not enemy combatants—it is a civilian vessel owned by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

Like others on civilian oil tankers, this attack was intended to disrupt energy supplies and threaten regional security. In short, it’s part of Iran’s asymmetric warfare effort—which includes the use of several types of disruptive technologies—over the course of its ongoing conflict with the United States and Israel.

For Iran—in overall military terms far weaker than the United States—an asymmetry strategy attempts to counter expensive, often exquisite US capabilities with cheaper, lower-tech weapons and tactics designed to target critical American vulnerabilities. Most visibly, this strategy has included the use of mines, drone boats, and anti-ship missiles to close the Strait of Hormuz. Additionally, Iran has used drone strikes against US assets and those of its regional partners, cyberwarfare, and missile strikes against economic and civilian targets in Israel and the Gulf States. These drone attacks deplete the stockpiles of interceptor missiles defending US and allied bases and infrastructure, degrading air-defense capabilities and increasing political and economic pressure against continued American engagement.

The Trump administration appears to have been taken off guard by at least some of Iran’s tactics, including attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz. A degree of uncertainty is unsurprising given the nature of both asymmetric warfare and disruptive technologies. However, such tactics have been at the center of Iranian strategy for decades, and analysts have explicitly predicted the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a US-Iran war.

Thus far, Iran’s warfare has to some degree degraded American and Israeli capabilities, increased pressure on Washington, and hampered the global economy. While Iran has employed emerging or evolving technologies as part of its efforts, it is also using older technologies to significant effect. But Tehran’s strategy has serious limits, and the United States and Israel have exacted a significant toll on Iran’s military capabilities over the course of the war, now in its sixth week. Overall, this war has shown both the ways that weaker opponents can leverage asymmetric advantages to significant effect and how stronger opponents may still be able to limit the ultimate impact of asymmetric tactics.

Use of asymmetric warfare and disruptive tech. Recognizing its marked conventional imbalance against countries such as the United States and Israel, Tehran has been preparing to fight such a war for years and thus developing a range of technologies and strategies. Iran’s war effort has one overarching goal: survival. To try to achieve it, Iran has pursued tactics that appear to be aimed at three instrumental sub-goals: it has sought to degrade American and Israeli offensive capabilities; attempted to increase political pressures to end the war quickly; and sought to disrupt the global economy to increase economic pressure on Washington.

To target American, Israeli, and partner assets, Iran has used both ballistic missiles and drones. Coming into the war, Iran had a large and diverse missile force that included short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Some estimates placed the number of the Iranian ballistic missile arsenal at around 3,000. Recently, Iran showcased a possibly extended range for some of its ballistic missiles, firing two at a joint US-UK base at Diego Garcia, well beyond the stated maximum range of their capabilities. At this range, Iranians could strike parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as naval targets in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, previously thought safe. To conduct the attempted strike, it’s possible that Iran modified space-launch assets. However, the reliability of such strikes is questionable: One of the two missiles broke up during flight, while the second proved vulnerable to air and missile defenses from Diego Garcia.

Iran’s drone arsenal, which dates to the 1980s, has yielded significant innovations despite producing mostly cheap and expendable, drones. The low cost of these systems, combined with their accuracy and reliability, has allowed Iran to deploy large numbers of them against specific targets, overwhelming defenses. This means Iran can launch enough drones to make a survival rate of only 10 to 20 percent acceptable.

Israel, the United States, and other American partners in the Persian Gulf have succeeded in intercepting many Iranian missiles and drones, limiting the effectiveness of Iran’s strikes. But the interceptions have taken a significant toll on American and partner forces. The United States reports a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) intercept success rate of 90 percent. But this level of effectiveness comes at a high burn rate, potentially using more than 30 percent of its total stockpile of THAAD interceptors in the first 96 hours of Operation Epic Fury alone.

The financial burden of interception alone is staggering. Iran’s Shahed-136 and several other of its variants are estimated to cost between $20,000 and $50,000 per unit. Interceptor costs vary significantly depending on which system a defender is using but can involve multimillion-dollar assets. Beyond the financial bottom line, the depletion of interceptor stockpiles will take many years to rectify, substantially weakening the United States regionally and globally. A reportspecifically on Terminal High Altitude Area Defense depletion suggests that just replacing these assets could take three to eight years.

Iran initially used its improving missile force and drone capabilities to strike American bases in the region but pivoted towards softer civilian targets. Among Iran’s nonmilitary targets is water infrastructure in the Gulf.  On March 8, it struck a critical desalination plant in Bahrain. This strike exhibited a level of symmetry instead of asymmetry, with the attack occurring after Iran accused the United States of striking an Iranian desalination plant. Iran’s other targets have included airports and hotels, disrupting travel, tourism, and the domestic economies of several Gulf Arab states, as well as global air travel and logistics networks.

Destabilizing the global economy is perhaps Iran’s most visible and salient use of asymmetric warfare. Tehran has used artillery strikes, sea mines, and electronic warfare to impede transit through the Strait of Hormuz, dominating a vital maritime chokepoint through which a significant portion of the world’s fossil fuels and fertilizers transit.

Civilian ships have reported strikes from unknown projectiles that are likely mobile or shore-based artillery. Iranian forces have also rammed vessels with explosive-laden uncrewed “kamikaze boats.”

As of March 24th, Iran has also laid approximately a dozen Maham 3 and Maham 7 limpet mines in the Strait. Further, Tehran has made extensive use of electronic warfare targeted at military and civilian assets in and around the Gulf. While the broader use of electronic warfare has had limited effects, it has proven significantly successful in targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Maritime data and intelligence company Lloyd’s List Intelligence has tracked Iranian’s global navigation satellite systems in and around the Strait, logging more than 1,700 jamming incidents affecting 655 vessels, usually lasting around three to four hours each.

The Strait of Hormuz is not completely shut. Iran is allowing shipping from some friendly or neutral states to transit the waterway, so long as vessels comply with IRGC requirements and acquiesce to their inspections. Previous Iranian strikes on neutral shipping, however, has limited the credibility of this claim. As such, the threat of Iranian strikes, concern for seafarer safety, and exorbitant insurance costs have resulted in transit grinding to a near halt.

New and old technologies. Much has been written about the impacts of emerging and novel technologies on strategic outcomes, escalation dynamics, stability, and warfighting. Some of the technologies that Iran has used, such as uncrewed speedboats, are emerging—or at least evolutionary. However, Tehran has proven that many of its old, dated technologies, such as artillery, can still be effective tools of asymmetric warfare.

Both drones and cyber capabilities figure heavily in past literature on emerging disruptive technologies. It may be difficult to describe either, as well as electronic warfare systems, as emerging or novel today. But Iran’s capabilities are evolutionary, with its drone, cyber, and electronic warfare systems becoming increasingly advanced and effective over the past several decades. This is particularly true for Iran’s drone forces, with the country being among the pioneers of drone warfare.

Ballistic missiles, which Iran has used for strikes against US bases and softer, nonmilitary targets, are fundamentally a mid-20^th century technology, even if Iran took longer to develop them. Short-range ballistic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, in particular, emerged more than 70 years ago. Similarly, sea mines are an old technology, not an emerging one, and their impact on the US-Iran war has been limited not by their technological characteristics, but by intentional American strikes against minelaying vessels.

Global impact and wider implications. Iran’s asymmetric warfare has implications beyond the ongoing war and the greater Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has led to an increase in global oil prices. And those prices are threatening to rise further if the war doesn’t end or the strait isn’t reopened. Additionally, food prices are likely to rise due to a shortage of fertilizer, as the region is one of the main producers of nitrates necessary for crops. Further, up to 20,000 seafarers and several ships are stranded in the Persian Gulf, complicating global shipping, while the inaccessibility of Middle Eastern airports has exacerbated supply chains around the world.

The conduct of the war also provides possible lessons for future conflicts. The use of cheap drones and relatively rudimentary ballistic missile capabilities to draw down interceptor stores is indicative of forthcoming issues that United States would have if fighting a larger conventional adversary unless the American defense industrial base can rapidly ramp up production. Even then, Iran’s successes with $35,000 Shahed drones against multimillion dollar interceptors indicates a balance that favors offensive capabilities in the missile-interceptor race. Conversely, the unwillingness of the United States Navy to traverse the Strait or attempt to clear it alone indicates a balance favoring defensive capabilities and Anti-Access/Area Denial (which restricts adversaries in an area by prohibiting or limiting their ability to operate at a level of acceptable risk) strategies in naval warfare. Iran has successfully limited the world’s most powerful navy’s freedom of navigation despite losing most of its own navy—as well as most of its air force—in the war’s opening days.

Iran’s asymmetric successes may provide lessons for a potential United States-China conflict, though experts should use caution when trying to understand the similarities between the current crisis and a hypothetical one in the Taiwan Strait. First, the United States is likely to bring more forces to bear on China than it has against Iran. Second, the Taiwan Strait is far wider than Hormuz, making certain capabilities that China may use less effective. Third, additional actors—including the Taiwanese and Japanese—would play a significant role, with Taiwan seeking to counter Chinese movements in the Strait and the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force potentially joining the fight, one much larger than partner navies are currently playing in the Persian Gulf. Finally, the Chinese military, especially the Chinese Navy, is far more capable than their Iranian counterparts. Despite these important differences, the United States should draw lessons about the missile-interceptor balance and the effectiveness of adversary Anti-Access/Area Denial capabilities.

Analyzing Iran’s many tactical and operational successes and their implications for future conflicts may be conducive to overstating their broader military successes. Despite blocking off the strait, depleting United States’ and partner interceptor stocks, and hitting military, political, and economic targets with kinetic and cyberattacks, Iran has had several military and political setbacks and has faced stark losses.

The United States has attacked Iranian minelaying ships attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz, potentially destroying several dozen of such vessels, if the Defense Department estimates are accurate. The destruction of so much of Iran’s minelaying force has likely contributed to its inability to deploy more than maybe a dozen mines in the Strait. While Iran has continued missile strikes against American, Gulf Arab, and Israeli targets, American and Israeli precision strikes and sabotage have degraded Iran’s missile capabilities, placing a ceiling on their ultimate effectiveness.

Militarily, Iran is likely to be defeated in this war, facing mounting losses with mounting time. But the war is also taking a major strategic toll on the United States. The cost of achieving America’s shifting war aims—including the decapitation of Iran’s pre-war leadership, degrading Iran’s missile forces, and potentially weakening its ability to restart a nuclear program—has been steep. The United States has burned through a large portion of its interceptor stockpile. The war has placed a high level of stress on the U.S.S. Gerald Ford aircraft carrier and its crew, hampering its future readiness. And Iran has struck and destroyed some critical assets, most important an E-3 Sentry aircraft that is part of the airborne warning and control system. Each of these losses reduces American readiness to respond to crises or counter great power adversaries in the short to mid-term future.

April 19, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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.

April 16, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump pivots from “destroying Iranian civilization” to complete surrender in one day

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL , Apr 8, 2026, https://theaimn.net/trump-pivots-from-destroying-iranian-civilization-to-complete-surrender-in-one-day/

Even a mentally degraded Donald Trump had to face reality. The US lost the war intended to destroy Iran as a hegemonic rival to Israel in the region.

He cancelled his announced war crimes to “destroy Iranian civilization” and agreed to a two week ceasefire as a prelude for negotiating permanent peace based on Iran’s 10 point peace plan. Note that is not Trump’s 15 point peace plan which would have given Trump complete victory.

Here’s some of what Trump’s ceasefire acknowledges.

A guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again.

A permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire.

An end to Israeli strikes in Lebanon and against Iranian allies.

The lifting of all US sanctions on Iran.

Iran agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

US to leave the Middle East

End to US sanctions on Iran and release of frozen Iranian assets

In his delusional state, Trump announced the cease fire due to his astonishing claim his “war has already met and all Military objectives, and we are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning long term PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East.”

Iran announced the ceasefire “does not signify the termination of the war. Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force,”

Major hurtles must be overcome before the ceasefire holds and genuine peace can be negotiated. Israel is horrified by this development upending their 4 decade lust to destroy its Iranian hegemonic rival. It’s reported they are still bombing Iran and Iran is retaliating. No keen observer is optimistic the ceasefire will hold.

But it is not likely the US, clearly defeated in every make up war aim they floated to justify criminal war that killed thousands, damaged every US base in the region, brought the worst damage to Israel in its 78 years, and is crushing the world economy, can ever restart this deranged madness.

But with Trump in charge…you can never say never.

April 13, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“Because They’re Animals”: Donald Trump, the War on Iran, and the Rules Nobody’s Enforcing

Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.

Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”

“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.

****************************************************

On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Big money will be made,” he adds.

Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.

9 April 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/because-theyre-animals-donald-trump-the-war-on-iran-and-the-rules-nobodys-enforcing/

“Operation Epic Fury” sounds like a fourteen-year-old boy who has been playing too much Call of Duty. It’s a perfect fit for the Peter Pan that Donald Trump has running the Pentagon; a former Fox & Friends weekend anchor whose less-than-stellar career so far provides a vital clue to the chaos, the incompetence, and the claque of yes-men that the forty-seventh president calls a cabinet.

Pete Hegseth is the most instructive appointment of the Trump era; an age defined by the Queen Bee principle, in which the president surrounds himself with a cast of flawed, diminished and pliable no-hopers, all chosen not for what they can do but for what they cannot: outshine Trump.

Outshine? It’s a recipe for disaster. As Michael Wolff notes on The Daily Beast, Trump’s minions have been stripped of all agency. They exist to reflect, to amplify, to affirm. The Queen Bee does not want talent in the hive. Talent is a threat. What the Queen Bee wants is an audience.

It is a principle that explains, not merely Hegseth, but the entire cabinet. The pliable Marco Rubio, who once pitched himself as a conviction politician, before a U-turn on immigration and now a dutiful echo; the parade of loyalists and flatterers installed wherever independent thought once lived. The forty-seventh president has not assembled a government so much as his own grotesque private freak show. He has set up a type of fairground mirror.

Hegseth is the mirror made flesh; a Fox News viewer’s fantasy of military authority, all jaw, scripture and manic bellicosity, set up to run the world’s largest military by a sloth who watches more television than any commander-in-chief in history and mistakes the performance of strength for the thing itself.

The Secretary of War wears his Christianity on his sleeve while ordering triple-tap strikes on schools. Who else could read the Sermon on the Mount and concluded that the relevant takeaway is fire for effect. Blessed are the meek, for they shall be massacred in the second and third pass?

The career officers who built their professional lives on the laws of armed conflict; on the painstaking, unglamorous discipline of distinguishing combatants from civilians, of proportionality, of the rules that separate a military from a mob, look at Hegseth and see not a commander but a mascot. His win-at-all-costs approach, his square-peg religiosity jammed into the very round hole of Pentagon culture, his enthusiasm for what the US military calls the double-tap, a cruel war crime; all of it has offended men and women who have spent careers trying to conduct war within its legal and moral constraints.

But Hegseth was not appointed to satisfy career officers. He was appointed to perform a feeling; the flag-waving, scripture-quoting, testosteronic bovver boy of the culture war translated directly into actual war, with actual children in actual schools. The career officers are not the audience. The Fox News viewer is the audience. And for that audience, Pete Hegseth is not a square peg at all.

He is, God help us, a perfect fit.

A Name for This War: The War of Donald’s Ear

Now let us give this war the name it deserves, because “Operation Epic Fury” is a preposterous pose, and history has always rewarded those who name things honestly.

History also has a fine tradition of naming wars after the absurdity of their origins. The War of Jenkins’ Ear, a preposterous 1739 conflict triggered when a British sea captain waved his own severed ear at Parliament, gave posterity one of its most deliciously deranged casus belli, (an act or situation that justifies a war). In that spirit, let’s go with the War of Donald’s Ear.

The ear in question is the pink shell-like ear Donald Trump lent, with almost indecent willingness, to two shady characters who had been whispering into it for years: Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, and Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Two men who would not rest, who would not sleep soundly in their palaces, until they saw Iran bombed back into one of the Stone Ages. Two men with everything to gain from American military power and nothing to lose; since it would be American soldiers, not Israeli or Saudi ones, doing most of the dying.

The difference between Jenkins and Trump is instructive. Jenkins lost his ear involuntarily at sea. Trump lent his eagerly, in the White House Situation Room, over a slide deck, over a phone call, over an intelligence tip whispered at exactly the right moment by exactly the right man. And ninety million Iranians are paying the price. As is Trump, although he’ll try to put it on the slate.

How the War Was Sold: Two Homicidal Maniacs and One Pliable Ear

The backstory of how this war began is as tawdry as it is consequential.

Netanyahu’s campaign to drag America into war with Iran can be traced, in its current iteration, to a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on February 4, the first visit of his second Trump era. He reminded Trump that Iran had plotted to assassinate him, then walked through a detailed slide deck arguing Iran was racing toward a nuclear threshold.

“Look, Donald,” Netanyahu told him, “You can’t have a nuclear Iran on your watch.” He paused for dramatic effect and looked the president directly in the eye.

That’s not diplomacy. That’s a sales pitch, with Trump’s vanity as the product being sold.

Netanyahu showed Trump a video featuring potential post-regime leaders, including Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah; Iran’s government-in-waiting, neatly packaged, ready for installation. Trump’s response: “Sounds good to me.”

Within hours, American intelligence officials were tasked with evaluating the Israeli proposal. The CIA Director used a single word to describe Netanyahu’s promised popular uprising: “farcical.” Trump dismissed the finding. Regime change was, he said, “their problem.” What mattered were the parts he believed could be executed: striking Iran’s leadership and dismantling its military.

Bibi lit the fuse. On February 23, Netanyahu rang Trump with a stunning intelligence tip: Iran’s supreme leader and his top advisers were all meeting at one location in Tehran that Saturday morning. They could all be obliterated in a single devastating airstrike. One phone call. A narrowing window. Two men who had found each other, and a war that had been looking for an excuse.

Not to be outdone was MBS, the other man at the ear, acting the reluctant ally while pulling every available string behind the velvet curtain. The Washington Post reports that the Saudi Crown Prince made many private calls to Trump urging military action, even while publicly signalling support for diplomacy.

MBS privately warned Trump that inaction would leave Tehran “stronger and more dangerous.” The Saudi Foreign Ministry, naturally, denied everything; the same government that is currently hosting the American troops, intercepting the Iranian missiles, and absorbing the strikes that make the war possible.

Netanyahu brought ideology, targeting data, and the moral authority of a country under direct Iranian missile fire. But he couldn’t write a cheque covering the near-billion-dollar daily operating cost of the war. MBS could. And that capacity, the ability to make the most expensive military operation since Iraq financially palatable to a president who measures every relationship in transactional terms, is why the Saudi model was winning the Oval Office even as Netanyahu’s rhetoric dominated the airwaves.

As one analyst put it with some precision: Netanyahu brought the ideology and MBS brought the chequebook, and to Trump, the chequebook is everything.

Two men, two agendas, one pliable ear.

“Because They’re Animals”: The Quote That Should Haunt the World

Now to the heart of it. A reporter asks Trump how bombing Iran’s power plants and bridges would not constitute a war crime.

Trump’s reply: “Because they’re animals.”

“Do you know what a war crime is? A war crime is letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

In two sentences, the logic of the school-yard bully becomes foreign policy.

 If they’re animals, the Geneva Conventions don’t apply. If they’re animals, the laws of war; built on the foundational premise that all human beings, even enemy civilians, retain their humanity, simply dissolve. If they’re animals, the hospitals, the schools, the power plants, the desalination systems that ninety million people depend on to survive are all legitimate targets. All just pest control. Or a lawn to mow, Netanyahu’s quip about killing Palestinians, a term popularised by Israeli strategists Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir.

This is not accidental rhetoric. This is not a man speaking loosely in the heat of a press conference. This is the oldest move in the genocidal play-book, deployed with the full authority of the presidency of the United States: strip the humanity first, then strip the rights.

History is not subtle on this point. The Holocaust required the prior dehumanisation of Jews as Untermenschen, subhuman, before the camps became possible. American slavery required the legal and cultural denial of Black humanity before it could be systematised across generations.

Rwanda required the Tutsi to be called inyenzi, cockroaches, on the radio before the machetes came out. Aboriginal peoples of this continent were excluded from the national census; not counted among the people of their own country, until the 1967 referendum, within the living memory of people who are still alive and still waiting for a treaty.

Every act of mass extermination, every system of organised dispossession in human history, has been preceded by exactly this move: the removal of the human designation from the people who are about to be killed, displaced or enslaved.

Trump knows this, or his minders do, and they are using it anyway. Calling ninety million Iranians “animals” is not bluster. It is preparation. It is the ideological infrastructure of atrocity, laid in public, on camera, before a press corps that largely moved on to the next story.

Congressman Ro Khanna calls Trump on it: “He is threatening the entire destruction of a civilisation. He is calling Iranians animals.” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls for Trump’s removal from office. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls him “an extremely sick person.”

And the global chorus of leaders that should have followed? The rebuke from allied capitals that the moment demanded? The chorus, in the main, did not come. What came instead was the dopamine hit; the next outrage, the next deadline, the next Truth Social post, and the world scrolled on.

Two-Week Trump: The Art of the Infinite Pause

Which brings us to a pattern which will be familiar to every Trump-watcher around the world.

On the evening of April 7, ninety minutes before his own deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of every power plant and bridge in the country, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. He called it “a big day for world peace.” He writes on Truth Social that the US would help ease the “traffic buildup” in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Big money will be made,” he adds.

Not peace. Not Iranian sovereignty. Not the rule of law. Big money.

The two-week ceasefire is not a ceasefire. It is not diplomacy. It is not a step toward peace. It is the rhetorical equivalent of what Trump has always done when he wants to defer something forever: he makes it sound imminent. Before he puts it off forever.

Two weeks. Always two weeks. Two weeks from now the healthcare plan will be unveiled. Two weeks and the infrastructure bill will be ready. Two weeks and there’ll be a deal with Iran. In Trump’s universe, a universe in which, as observers of his cognitive trajectory have noted with increasing alarm, two weeks may genuinely feel like forever, the two-week pause is the art of the infinite deferral dressed as decisive action.

The purpose is clear and consistent: exhaust the opposition, blunt the momentum of outrage, reset the news cycle, and leave the underlying situation precisely unchanged while claiming credit for statesmanship.

Iran, meanwhile, holds the one card of genuine leverage that no amount of bombing can remove: the Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of the world’s daily oil supply passes. For as long as that strait stays closed, Iran has a seat at the table. The two weeks will expire. Another deadline will be announced. The bombs, or the threat of bombs, will resume. And Trump, having declared victory, will declare it again.

The ceasefire is the intermission. The war is the show.

Part Two, tomorrow, A Whole Civilisation Will Die To

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES 

April 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment