By Tony Capaccio Oct 3, 2026 (Bloomberg) –The Pentagon is deploying an additional aircraft carrier and 10,000 sailors and Marines to the Persian Gulf, according to a US official, a move...
The departure of the final US military forces from Iraq marks a profound turning point in the modern history of West Asia.
For over two decades, the narrative of foreign intervention dictated that regional stability was impossible without Washington’s oversight. Today, that narrative lies broken.
The end of the US-led military mission is not the result of a benevolent diplomatic concession or a calculated policy shift by the Pentagon. It is, undeniably, a hard-fought victory achieved through the unyielding resolve of Iraq’s Islamic Resistance and the enduring steadfastness of its people.
Crucially, the withdrawal of American forces delivers a severe blow to the strategic calculations of the Zionist entity. For decades, Israel’s expansionist ambitions and its destabilising campaign of aggression across the region – from Palestine and Lebanon to Syria – have relied entirely on the foundational guarantee of US military backing.
Washington’s illegal military presence in Iraq served as a vital buffer and logistics corridor designed to fracture the Axis of Resistance and project power on Israel’s behalf. With the American shield removed from Iraq, the regional depth that Tel Aviv exploited to enforce its hegemony is rapidly collapsing.
The end of the US occupation severely limits the capability to isolate regional resistance factions, exposing the fundamental limits of Zionist expansionism when stripped of direct imperial protection.
The balance of power has fundamentally shifted, proving that the era of unpunished aggression across West Asia is coming to an end.
For 23 years, Iraq served as the central stage for a flawed experiment in imposed security. The 2003 invasion promised democracy and stability but instead delivered a legacy of institutional fragmentation, economic exploitation, and a vacuum that fueled regional terrorism.
In charting this path towards absolute liberation, none can deny the blueprint for true sovereignty remains Iran’s historic achievement of complete independence.
By expelling foreign military mandates and dismantling external control over its domestic wealth, Iran proved that a nation can cultivate formidable defensive and scientific capabilities entirely from within.
This self-reliant model stands as a direct contrast to the Arab Persian Gulf sheikdoms, which have long tethered their survival to American protection, effectively trading their strategic autonomy for a fragile security umbrella.
While these neighboring monarchies remain dependent on foreign bases and external guarantees, Iraq’s triumph demonstrates that genuine security cannot be imported or bought.
The reality of the past two decades, stretching from the sudden collapse in Kabul to the gradual eviction from Baghdad, proves that dependence on foreign superpowers is an inherently fragile strategy.
When foreign forces occupy bases under the guise of “protection,” they serve primary external geopolitical interests rather than the security of the host nation. The presence of these military installations frequently exacerbates regional polarization, turning host countries into potential flashpoints for broader wars they cannot control.
Iraq’s transition into a new era demonstrates a vital alternative: security is most durable when it is organically derived from national unity, localized defense capability, and regional cooperation. The resistance infrastructure that stood firm against occupation has demonstrated that an organized, highly motivated regional population can outlast the political will of an external superpower.
This moment serves as a stern warning to those Arab regimes tempted by the illusion of the Abraham Accords. Normalising ties with the Zionist entity under the pretext of economic benefit or strategic deterrence is a fatal miscalculation.
Entangling a nation’s destiny with a decaying occupation framework will neither guarantee security nor provide immunity from regional realities.
For the capitals still hosting US military bases or pursuing compromise with Tel Aviv, the message from Baghdad is clear: true stability is forged through regional integration, resistance to imperialism, and self-reliance—not through the permanent invitation of foreign militaries or treacherous pacts that betray the core causes of the Islamic world.
Most profoundly, this historic milestone radiates a powerful ray of hope to the people of Palestine, who have endured decades of devastating cruelty and brutal subjugation since the creation of Israel.
For a population resisting land theft, apartheid, and relentless military assault, the liberation of Iraq offers undeniable proof that even the most heavily funded occupation is not permanent. It demonstrates that when a people refuse to break, the architecture of oppression can be dismantled piece by piece.
The steadfastness of the Iraqi resistance serves as a direct message to the Palestinian struggle: the path of compromise is a dead end, but unyielding resistance eventually breaks the chains of tyranny.
Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.
The apparent attempted hijacking of a Flydubai flight carrying 170 mostly Israeli passengers was another reminder to Israelis of the constant threat of terror and war. Only the bravery of the chief pilot and passengers prevented a major disaster. A few hours earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video warning of attempts to harm […]
After two rounds of US–Israeli attacks in the space of a year, pressure is mounting on Iran’s leadership to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Advocates say the treaty has failed to protect Iran’s civilian nuclear program or its scientists. Their opponents warn that withdrawal could provide Washington and Tel Aviv with a pretext for another assault. The argument now reaches well beyond the Majlis.
“A big decision in the offing” is one way to describe a motion that has sat with the Iranian parliament’s presidium for months. A group of lawmakers has now issued an open statement demanding that the Supreme National Security Council and Foreign Ministry begin the formal process of withdrawal from the NPT. They also want Tehran to end voluntary nuclear commitments beyond its treaty obligations.
The lawmakers argue that the NPT and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have failed to safeguard Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology. They accuse the agency of allowing information obtained through inspections to reach Iran’s enemies, exposing nuclear facilities and scientists to attack.
Their statement follows years of dispute over the agency’s access to Iranian sites and the use of its findings by western governments. They invoke Article X of the treaty, which permits withdrawal when a state decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests. A withdrawal would require three months’ notice to other parties and the UN Security Council.
A motion awaiting debate
In the wake of that open statement, Isfahan lawmaker Hussein-Ali Haji-Deligani revealed he and his colleagues submitted legislation on Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT months ago, and it is up to parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to put it to debate on the parliament floor. Heji-Delogani reiterated:
“Considering enemies’ wars against Iran on two occasions, the continuation of Iran’s membership in the NPT has no use, especially after the IAEA’s Board of Governors sent Iran’s dossier to the UN Security Council. Therefore, Iran should exit from the treaty to prevent further damage.”
Other lawmakers have turned their criticism on the parliamentary leadership. Tehran representative Kamran Ghazanfari blamed the presidium for keeping the motion off the floor, an accusation aimed principally at Ghalibaf.
Ghalibaf has aligned himself with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on several questions of state policy, drawing fire from former allies among the Principlists. The NPT dispute has become another point of contention between them.
Another parliamentarian, Mohammad-Reza Sabaghian, stated:
“We must use the courage that was shown and the right strategy to close the Strait of Hormuz in the discussion of withdrawing from the NPT. This is the second step that will lead to the failure of America’s plans.”
Mohsen Sani, a member of parliament’s national security commission, went further:
“In our opinion, the NPT no longer has any meaning or significance, whether we want to stay in it or leave it. When one of the NPT member states attacks another member (Iran), it means withdrawing from all these commitments and treaties that have existed in this regard. Recent pressures suggest that we should reconsider enrichment.”
The case for staying
The call for withdrawal has met resistance within Iran’s political establishment. Tehran lawmaker Mohammad Seraj sees no benefit in leaving. Unless Iran intends to build a bomb, he argues, the step would only damage its relations with friendly states.
Khorasan, a newspaper close to Ghalibaf, has criticized lawmakers for “radicalizing the political ambiance of the country and forcing the Islamic Republic to make such a sensitive decision,” describing it as “a gift to Trump.”
The outlet maintains that “any moves towards leaving the NPT give enough justification to Trump and Netanyahu for their future strikes against Iran while it alienates friends such as China and Russia who have always supported Iran’s legitimate right to a non-military nuclear program.”
Rouydad24, a news site with strong ties with the Reformist camp, lambasted lawmakers as “radicals” who “have returned with a controversial and costly prescription.”
The Reformist news site charges that “Pezeshkian’s critics have turned withdrawing from the NPT into a political slogan without considering it is a complicated matter economically, militarily and internationally.”
Where the decision rests
The debate has become a challenge for Pezeshkian, whose government has defended Iran’s continued place in the treaty. But the president is not the only voice in the room. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has openly raised the possibility of withdrawal.
Rezaei said, “After the United States abandoned the post-war Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, we reached the conclusion that we must change course. We have yet to take a decision on withdrawing from the treaty, because our withdrawal totally depends on Washington’s behavior.”
The senior general admits that the Islamic Republic is still committed to the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s religious prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons and has not changed its nuclear doctrine; however, “nobody can guarantee the future,” he elaborates.
Is Iran seeking a nuclear weapon?
In an exclusive interview with the Republican Party’s mouthpiece, Fox News, Pezeshkian flatly denied Iran is seeking an atomic bomb, adding that his country is even willing to dilute the 440-kilogram uranium stockpile purified at 60 percent and allow the IAEA’s nuclear inspectors to supervise Iran’s nuclear program.
Pezeshkian made those claims while the Islamic Republic does not allow international inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities, which were destroyed by the US and Israel during two wars in June 2025 and February-March 2026.
Pezeshkian’s assurance contrasts with Rezaei’s warning that the country’s future course cannot be guaranteed. Reports in Tehran that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has ruled out nuclear talks with Washington remain unconfirmed; they offer no basis for treating such a ban as settled policy.
A decision above the Majlis
Iran’s NPT membership has moved from a technical and legal question into a wider argument over deterrence after the attacks on its nuclear facilities. The parliamentary bill gives that argument a public stage, but lawmakers alone will not settle it.
The final decision would be made at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic’s political and security establishment. A vote in the Majlis could put a formal stamp on a course set elsewhere, as earlier nuclear legislation did.
The 2020 Strategic Action Law to Lift Sanctions, for example, obliged the government to expand nuclear activity and restrict inspections if sanctions relief did not materialize. It sharply constrained the Rouhani administration’s room for maneuver over the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement. The precedent is relevant because a bill presented as a parliamentary initiative can become a lever for policy agreed across the state’s security institutions.
For now, proposals to leave the NPT and calls to build a bomb circulate side by side. That does not establish that either has been adopted. It does show how far positions once kept at the edges of public debate have entered the argument over Iran’s security.
Lawmaker Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani has advocated building a nuclear weapon first and withdrawing from the NPT afterward, “because only in that case, it can guarantee deterrence against a renewed US-Israeli aggression.”
Even Khorasan, which warns against leaving the NPT now, does not rule out an exit. Its argument is that Iran should first build and test a nuclear weapon. Until then, it says, Tehran would bear the costs of a nuclear-armed state without possessing a nuclear deterrent.
The disagreement in Iran is no longer confined to whether the country should leave the treaty. It is also about when.
The volume of munitions expended in the course of U.S. operations against Iran this year has been and continues to be a hot topic of discussion, and there has been relatively little official data provided on this front. However, now we know that the F/A-18F Super Hornets of the U.S. Navy’s Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41), the “Black Aces,” launched 421 missiles and bombs during their time supporting Operation Epic Fury.
This new insight into VFA-41’s role in the conflict with Iran comes from a photo of a large board listing the squadron’s weapons expenditures during Epic Fury, via Jeff Rojas, who goes by the handle @jro_photography on Instagram. Rojas also shared pictures recently taken of VFA-41’s Super Hornets. The Black Aces were one of the squadrons assigned to the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been on a marathon deploymentsince last year. The carrier only left the Middle East region last month and is now set to formally return home to San Diego, California, within days. Per the Pentagon’s official timeline, Operation Epic Fury began on February 28 and concluded on May 5, though U.S. forces have continued to conduct strikes on Iran, on and off, since then.
One of VFA-41’s F/A-18F Super Hornets spotted recently. Jeff Rojas Jeffrey Rojas
The complete tally of munitions employed as shown on the board, broken down by type, from greatest to fewest, is as follows:
1 GBU-12/B 500-pound-class Paveway II laser-guided precision-guided bomb
The total cost of all of these munitions, using available data from U.S. military budget documents, is very roughly $43,646,000, at least. Unit costs fluctuate regularly due to a variety of factors. Furthermore, the exact price tag for different JDAMs can be somewhat difficult to calculate given how the individual components are budgeted.
The JDAM is really a family of kits that turn standard unguided ‘iron bombs,’ which can vary significantly in the kinds of effects they are designed to produce, into warheads for precision-guided munitions. This is exemplified by the (V)2 and (V)4 subvariants of the GBU-31/B mentioned here, which are built using standard high-explosive and bunker-buster bombs, respectively. No specific subvariants of the GBU-32, GBU-38, or GBU-54 were mentioned in the information provided. Standard JDAMs can also only be employed against static target coordinates. The LJDAM kits add a laser guidance component (akin to what is found on Paveway-series bombs) that enables strikes against moving targets.
A JDAM, as well as a pair of AIM-9Xs, seen under the wing of a VFA-41 Super Hornet in August. NAVCENT
No specific version of AGM-154 is mentioned, either, but the C and C-1 types, which have multi-stage bunker-busting warheads, are the only ones understood to be in service today. Remaining A variants, which were loaded with 145 small bomblets, were removed from U.S. service in 2008 as a result of new guidelines on cluster munitions issued under President George W. Bush. A planned AGM-154B, which would have contained six “smart” Sensor Fuzed Munition bomblets, was never produced. You can read more about the full JSOW family here.
We do not know exactly what targets any of these munitions were employed against. However, a picture that Jeff Rojas grabbed of one of VFA-41’s Super Hornets, seen toward the top of this story and in part below, shows a very interesting broken submarine kill marking, with the added text “Sub Buster.” The jet also has a number of more typical bomb-shaped kill marks.
A close-up look at the broken submarine and other kill marks on one of VFA-41’s Super Hornets. Jeff Rojas Jeffrey Rojas
The video montage in the social media post below includes a clip, starting at 0:13 in the runtime, of a Hellfire missile hitting what looks to be a Ghadir class diesel-electric midget submarine in port.
U.S. forces are degrading the Iranian regime's ability to project power at sea and harass international shipping. For years, Iranian forces have threatened freedom of navigation in waters essential to American, regional and global security and prosperity. pic.twitter.com/gIBN02mowh
It is extremely likely that the AIM-9Xs and AIM-120s were fired at Iranian drones, though they could have been launched at incoming cruise missiles, as well. At the time of writing, there are no known or reported instances of U.S. military jets engaging crewed Iranian aircraft in the course of the conflict to date. In 2024, the Navy carried out a crash program that increased the total number of AIM-9Xs that F/A-18E/Fs could carry per sortie, specifically in response to Houthi drone threats. Super Hornets loaded with nine air-to-air missiles are now referred to as “Murder Hornets.”
It is also important to remember that this is a discussion of the munitions expended by just one Navy strike fighter squadron. Lincoln‘s air wing includes four strike squadrons, three with Super Hornets and one with F-35Cs, as well as units flying other types of aircraft and helicopters. The carrier was just one part of a much larger array of air, naval, and ground forces that participated in Operation Epic Fury and subsequent operations against Iran. For additional context, consider that the entire Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, including its entire air wing and escorting ships, fired off 770 munitions in total, by the official count, during very active combat operations in and around the Red Sea between November 2023 and June 2024.
VFA-41 Super Hornets seen flying together recently. Jeff Rojas
As such, the tally of munitions launched from VFA-41 Super Hornets offers a very interesting view into that squadron’s contributions to Operation Epic Fury, as well as the full scale and scope of the conflict with Iran.
Special thanks again to Jeff Rojas for sharing the details about VFA-41’s participation in Operation Epic Fury and his pictures with us.
The Pentagon is deploying an additional aircraft carrier and 10,000 sailors and Marines to the Persian Gulf, according to a US official, a move that gives American commanders more options if President Donald Trump chooses to escalate attacks on Iran.
Washington is sending more warships and troops to the Middle East as US President Donald Trump is considering the resumption of large-scale strikes against Iran after the midterms, AP has reported.
Trump told reporters on Thursday that he has “to make a decision: either Iran signs a very fair deal, or it won’t exist any longer.” In a Time magazine interview published the same day, he said that new attacks on the Islamic Republic were “possible” after the US election on November 3, but declined to reveal any further details.
In its article on Thursday, AP said that a third aircraft carrier and some 9,000 additional service members, including 7,000 sailors and 2,000 marines, are currently on their way to the area of the conflict with Iran.
It would increase the US military presence in the Middle East to more than 20,000, which is “an unusually high number,” it stressed.
The forces on the move include the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, with the cruiser USS Chosin and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships, an unnamed American official told the agency.
With the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington already being deployed, three US aircraft carriers could be in the Middle East simultaneously as early as the end of October, according to the source.
Washington last had as many carriers in the region in April at the height of the American-Israeli missile exchanges with Iran. Before that, it happened back in 2003.
Axios reported on Friday, citing a US official, that it wasn’t yet clear if the USS Theodore Roosevelt would join the two carriers or replace one of them.
Washington also sent two additional Patriot missile batteries to protect oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in recent weeks, according to Axios. It was done to make it easier to get permission from Riyadh to use Saudi airspace for possible strikes on Iran, the outlet explained.
When asked by Time if the conflict with Tehran would harm the Republican Party’s chances in the midterms, Trump first acknowledged that “it’s possible,” but then said that “it should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
A poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which was published on Thursday, suggested that some 70% of Americans disapprove of the war with Iran.
After the initial US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic in late February, Trump claimed that the conflict will be over in a few weeks, but it’s still ongoing, with the diplomatic process remaining in a stalemate.
Trump told Time that he rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal, made during the UN General Assembly last week, because “things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”
In September, Iranian Parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that further aggressive actions by the US will be met with “faster, heavier and more painful” retaliation by Tehran.
“The Americans have surely understood that the era of proportionate responses has come to an end and our recent strikes against aggressor bases were only a start,” Ghalibaf said.
The Flydubai plane incident appears to have been part of a scenario concocted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Its aim, observer say, is to divert attention from the growing scandal over Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7 Hamas operation, shore up his position ahead of Israel’s October 27 election and create a pretext for a new confrontation with Iran.
The scenario unfolded days after Netanyahu’s reported secret visit to Abu Dhabi, where he met bin Zayed amid mounting political pressure over allegations that the UAE leader had warned him in advance of an impending Hamas operation.
According to the account, the purpose of the arrangement was to manufacture a dramatic security incident involving an Israeli-heavy Flydubai flight, portray it as a terrorist attack, introduce an Iranian connection into the narrative and use the resulting alarm to reinforce Netanyahu’s security credentials and build support for renewed military action against Tehran.
The Flydubai Boeing 737, carrying 174 passengers, most of them Israeli settlers, made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday following what was described as a violent confrontation between the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit.
Netanyahu and his war minister, Israel Katz, immediately characterized the incident as a “terrorist” attack. Netanyahu subsequently compared it to the September 11 attacks, claimed the Omani co-pilot had undergone “radical indoctrination” and suggested that Iran could have been involved.
Yet no public evidence has established an ideologically-motivated attack or an Iranian connection.
Indeed, early Israeli media reports offered entirely different explanations, including a personal dispute or an attempted suicide by the co-pilot. Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday that the Saudi investigation had found no indication of terrorism at that stage.
The timing, however, gave the episode a clear political value for Netanyahu.
Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu is under pressure ahead of the October 27 election, while the controversy surrounding the October 7 Hamas operation continues to raise questions about his regime’s warnings and preparedness.
Haaretz reported on September 9 that bin Zayed had spoken to Netanyahu roughly 10 days before the October 7 operation and warned him of a threat from then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was reportedly preparing a “huge surprise.”
Bin Zayed had also previously alerted Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, according to the report.
Netanyahu’s reported secret visit to Abu Dhabi therefore assumed particular significance. Israeli media reports said the purpose of the visit was to ask bin Zayed to deny reports that he had warned Netanyahu about the looming Hamas threat.
Against this backdrop, the alleged Flydubai scenario provided Netanyahu with an opportunity to shift the political narrative from questions over the October 7 failures to a new story about “terrorism”, Iranian threats and the need for renewed confrontation.
Netanyahu repeatedly raised the possibility of an Iranian connection despite acknowledging that Israel had received no specific intelligence warning about the flight and that investigators had found no evidence linking Tehran to the incident.
He told CNN that he had spoken with US President Donald Trump about the incident and its wider implications for global aviation. Trump separately confirmed that the two had discussed the matter at length.
The objective, according to the account, was not simply to generate domestic political headlines. By bringing Iran into the story, Netanyahu could potentially create a new security crisis capable of drawing Washington into another confrontation with Tehran.
Analysts have nevertheless warned against making such a connection.
Dani Citrinowicz, an Iran affairs researcher at Israel’s so-called Institute for Security Studies, warned against linking the incident to Iran.
According to Maariv, he said there was a difference between preparing for possible scenarios and creating the impression that another war was imminent.
He warned that if Tehran concluded Israel was preparing an attack, it could take pre-emptive action, which Israel might then interpret as confirmation of its original assessment, producing a cycle of escalation.
Citrinowicz described the situation as “playing with fire” and warned that statements by Israeli officials could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Other analysts have reportedly described the attempt to connect the incident to Iran as sounding like “a Hollywood screenplay.”
Flydubai itself has urged against premature speculation until the investigation is completed and suspended flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv while the investigation continued.
The Netanyahu-bin Zayed arrangement therefore presents the incident not as an isolated aviation crisis, but as a politically constructed scenario with three interconnected objectives: diverting attention from the October 7 scandal, strengthening Netanyahu’s position ahead of the election and creating a new pretext for confrontation with Iran.
Netanyahu has said Israel will determine within days whether the co-pilot had links to Iran, adding, “We will get to the bottom of it.”
The central question surrounding the episode, therefore, is not what happened inside the cockpit, but the deliberate construction of a security narrative around the flight designed in advance to transform an unexplained aviation incident into a potential pretext for a new war with Iran.
The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict. […]
Since the start of the latest made-for-Israel war, Donald Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly promised Americans that it would be a few weeks and oil prices would soon crash below prewar levels. Instead, it was every promise that crashed. When those promises failed to materialize, the message shifted: the war is worth the price to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
But what if Iran did become a nuclear power? How would that pose a greater threat to the U.S. than North Korea or Russia already do? Or is the real concern not a risk to America, but a challenge to the regional hegemony of a foreign nuclear power, Israel?
For more than thirty years, according to Israel’s fiction, Iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear-armed state. That fictitious deadline has come and gone repeatedly, yet Benjamin Netanyahu has been recycling the same lie since 1992. The Israeli lies and deceit persisted even though, unlike Israel, Iran’s nuclear program was subject to strict international monitoring.
Still, Trump, at Netanyahu’s urging, walked away from an agreement that imposed some of the most stringent and verifiable restrictions ever placed on a country’s nuclear program. Now Americans are being asked to pay in blood and billions of dollars for abandoning a diplomatic agreement that had kept Iran’s nuclear program under unprecedented international scrutiny and helped contain the very threat now being used to justify the war.
The hypocrisy is impossible to overlook. Iran has been subjected to relentless demands for transparency and inspections, while Israel’s own nuclear arsenal, built in part with materials stolen from the U.S., remains shielded from any international inspection.
Yet somehow Iran’s ambitious know-how is the existential nuclear threat, not Israel’s nuclear bombs.
American consumers have long been the victims of a disinformation campaign, and now they are being forced to pay the price for a war sold to them on false pretenses. The most recent misinformation claiming the Strait of Hormuz is open and oil is flowing. The president said it on Fox, and the outgoing White House press secretary told Fox & Friends that the U.S. is essentially controlling the strait and that it remains open. These claims leave only two possibilities: either the statements are outright lies, or oil companies are gouging the consumer.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported that commercial traffic through the strait remains about 75 percent below pre-conflict levels. It also tallied dozens of projectile strikes on vessels in just the past two months.
Three quarters less traffic is not a sign of an open strait. Shipowners and insurers know this, so do traders and so the climbing numbers at the gas pump.
The market has already made its judgment, and every American who fills a tank can see it. It is past time for Washington to stop lying.
For the average consumer, the pump is where it felt. Regular gasoline was below $3 a gallon before the U.S. was dragged into another one of made-for-Israeli wars. Families are paying more to get to work, truckers are paying more to move goods, and those costs show up in the price of groceries.
Meanwhile, American oil companies are pumping at record levels. Exxon and Chevron are producing record volumes from oil fields on American soil, thousands of miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Their production costs have not changed. What has changed is Israel’s war surcharge consumers are being forced to pay.
Chevron reported the largest quarterly net profit in its history, $12.1 billion. Exxon made $14.5 billion in the same quarter, about $160 million a day. Refining has become more lucrative. Gross refining margins more than doubled, soaring from a typical $20 crack spread to as much as $60.
Meanwhile, Trump dangles a pie-in-the-sky deal with Venezuela as a distraction from consumers’ mounting anxiety, while his administration stands by as oil companies exploit overseas crises for record profits. These companies have no reason to lower prices when war has handed them a windfall. This is what a war of choice looks like on the ground: American consumers are forced to pay the price, while oil executives in Texas turn a crisis into a lucrative business opportunity.
American consumers deserve more than false promises. If the Strait is open, then oil prices should be coming down. If it is not, then stop treating consumers as an audience whose emotions must be managed rather than citizens entitled to hear the truth. Since the war started, every week, like millions of Americans, I fill my gas tank, and the Israeli war tax is higher than it was the week before.
No, Mr. President, that is not “worth the price” to pay for a war fabricated in Israel, a repeat of the made-for-Israel war in Iraq 23 years ago.
This is not a war to end Iran’s fictitious nuclear power. It is a war paid for by taxpayers’ money and American blood to ensure that Israel remains the only absolute nuclear power in the Middle East.
US President Donald Trump has officially announced a formal withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi territory, yet the economic, social and diplomatic hold on the nation remains. If US troops are going to be permanently booted out, it necessitates an Iraqi national resistance that is capable of operating as a guarantor.
On October 21, 2011, former US President Barack Obama announced that the United States had withdrawn its remaining occupying forces from Iraqi territory. Then, only two and a half years later, the US re-deployed its forces back into the country under the guise of fighting the Daesh insurgency.
Iraq, having experienced a regime change operation followed by a brutal occupation and nationbuilding project, was left incapable of defending itself from the ISIS takeover, let alone pushing back against the United States redeploying its forces. First, the Obama administration deployed forces that it said were there to protect its diplomatic staff, in addition to advisors to the Iraqi armed forces.
Later it would expand this presence, expanding its “Operation Inherent Resolve” into Syrian territory, providing it with supply routes and a platform from which to de facto occupy northeastern Syria. The US operation in Syria and Iraq helped them eventually achieve their longtime goal of regime change in Damascus by depriving the Syrians of their access to the nation’s oil resources and fertile agricultural lands.
In 2020, Donald Trump had agreed to remove his forces from Iraqi territory, re-iterating this pledge during a meeting with then Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The following year, former President Joe Biden then declared the official end of his nation’s combat mission inside the country. Only now, in 2026, and after extensive attacks on US military facilities by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, has the pledge to withdraw American forces been followed through on.
When the US and Saudi Arabia recently blamed Iraqi forces for carrying out an attack on Riyadh’s East-West Pipeline, launching a large-scale bombing campaign across the country, some Iraqi officials instead issued statements against Iraq’s armed factions that had vehemently denied involvement in the incident.
The Trump administration is openly pushing for the disarmament of all military factions within the country, a project Washington has also sought to impose on all Resistance groups across the region. The United States has not allowed for there to be a reasonable integration of Resistance forces like Hezbollah in Lebanon with the Lebanese Armed Forces, nor allowed time for formal agreements to be struck in Iraq of a similar nature. Their goal is simply to disband these groups and then exert control over the armed forces of Lebanon and Iraq, leaving them all but defenseless and without access to strategic weapons capable of deterring violations of national sovereignty.
In the case of Baghdad, the nation’s government was a construct of US occupation; Washington still holds the economic cards that are capable of pressuring any leadership, no matter how well-intended its goals are, while it maintains an enormous soft-power pull through its extensive NGOisation project inside the country. Iraq was not allowed to rebuild its nation’s military following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s rule in 2003, leaving it defenseless against ISIS terrorism a decade later.
On the ground, this is why there was a need for the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) to emerge. It was the Hashd that was chiefly responsible for defeating the terrorist invasion and purging its militants from Iraqi cities. Many of these groups that fought under the banner of the Hashd then went on to develop considerable military power and an extensive arsenal.
As revealed during the Ramadan War earlier this year, the Israeli Mossad was able to develop bases inside Iraqi territory, while numerous militant groups still exist across the country’s territory, including various armed factions that are backed by the CIA and the Mossad.
If the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is disbanded and disarmed, then Iraq will be in the exact same defenseless position that allowed for ISIS to sweep through the nation so rapidly and seize so much territory, leaving behind a trail of blood in their wake. This poses a threat to not only Iraq, but other neighbouring countries, including Iran. It threatens Syria’s fragile status quo too.
An Iraq without the Islamic Resistance would be like a Lebanon without Hezbollah, completely left at the mercy of the United States and their Israeli allies. Washington and Tel Aviv have a project that aims to totally dismantle regional sovereignty; this is why they have dedicated trillions of dollars and countless resources to destroying the armed forces of both Iraq and Syria over a period of nearly 30 years now. They are not about to simply sit by and allow Iraq and Syria to rebuild capable militaries, allowing them to follow the will of their people and to defend their own national interests.
The United States still maintains its air defence systems inside Iraqi territory, can use the country’s airspace at will and, as we saw only months ago, will launch airstrikes across the nation at the drop of a hat.
In order to deter a return of American occupation forces, under the guise of fighting whatever future threat they choose to use, there must be an Iraqi military force that is capable of acting in defense of the country, both on the ground and through the use of its long-range munitions if need be. A nation without a real military force cannot enjoy sovereignty. And a nation that is not able to go against the will of the United States, will serve as its proxy and will suffer the blowback that is inherent in complicity.
The US withdrawal from Iraq did not happen without a long history of resistance against its forces and public opinion that also opposes American interference. Protecting the achievement of ridding the country of the majority of US forces takes real military deterrence. Otherwise, the Israelis and the US will simply use the country’s territory for whatever projects they wish.
Israel’s pursuit of security increasingly rests on a destabilizing proposition: that its neighbours become less threatening when their capacity to exercise sovereignty is diminished. Since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, this approach has become particularly visible across several distinct arenas. Military operations, territorial incursions and restrictions on political and economic autonomy suggest a conception of security dependent on keeping others vulnerable. The consequences extend beyond individual confrontations. When states cannot control their territory, rebuild institutions or protect their populations, the regional conditions necessary for durable security begin to erode.
The argument is not that Israel created every conflict in the Middle East. Authoritarian rule, sectarian violence, armed groups and competing regional interventions have all contributed to the region’s instability.
The question is whether the means Israel uses to pursue its own security deepen that instability. Repeatedly weakening neighbouring states and political communities may bring short-term military gains, but it can also erode their ability to contain violence and maintain order, making the region more dangerous—including for Israel itself.
This pattern can be understood as the denial of sovereignty. Sovereignty involves more than diplomatic recognition: it requires institutions capable of governing, providing services and exercising legitimate authority over the use of force. When these capacities are persistently degraded, formal independence becomes increasingly hollow.
The cases differ in their circumstances and severity, but together they reveal a troubling hierarchy: Israeli freedom of military action repeatedly takes precedence over other societies’ ability to govern and secure themselves.
Syria offers a particularly revealing example. Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel launched extensive attacks against Syrian military infrastructure and moved into the separation zone established under the 1974 disengagement agreement. Israel justified the destruction of military assets as necessary to prevent advanced weapons from falling into extremist hands. Yet the targets included airfields, air-defence systems and naval facilities—capabilities relevant to the functioning of a state, whatever government eventually controls them.
The longer-term problem is that preventing a hypothetical future threat can obstruct the reconstruction of an already devastated country. Syria needs accountable security institutions capable of controlling territory, containing armed factions and protecting communities. Destroying military capabilities without a credible framework for rebuilding legitimate state authority risks leaving those functions unfulfilled. In July 2025, Israeli strikes on Damascus, including the defence ministry, further demonstrated Israel’s willingness to impose military limits on the new authorities.
Syria’s transitional authorities must themselves answer for abuses and protect minorities; state consolidation cannot justify repression. Nevertheless, externally imposed military vulnerability is no substitute for accountable governance.
A government expected to prevent threats from emerging within its territory must have the capacity to exercise authority there. Undermining that capacity can preserve the fragmentation through which armed groups survive.
Lebanon exposes a related contradiction. Hezbollah’s independent military power has long constrained the Lebanese state’s authority and its ability to determine questions of war and peace. Reducing that parallel authority could, under appropriate political arrangements, strengthen state sovereignty. But Israeli military action does not automatically transfer power from Hezbollah to the Lebanese government. Bombardment, displacement and violations of Lebanese territory can weaken the institutions expected to assume responsibility for national security.
The distinction is crucial: weakening an armed organization and strengthening a state are separate outcomes. In March 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called both for respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and for stronger support to its armed forces so that they could become the country’s sole military force. That combination identifies what repeated unilateral intervention overlooks: security requires an institutional successor capable of governing after military operations end.
Where that capacity remains inadequate, another cycle becomes possible. Armed groups invoke external attacks to justify retaining their weapons; the state struggles to establish authority; Israel cites the continuing armed presence to justify further intervention. Hezbollah bears responsibility for its own decisions, but Israeli policies can reinforce the conditions sustaining its claim that the Lebanese state cannot protect the population.
The attack on Doha on September 9, 2025 extended this logic into the diplomatic sphere. Qatar was mediating negotiations involving Israel and Hamas when Israel struck Hamas representatives on its territory. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the attack as a breach of international law and an assault on mediation. The significance exceeded the violation of Qatari sovereignty: even a state facilitating negotiations could find its territory treated as an extension of the battlefield.
Mediation depends on practical assurances that communication with an adversary will remain possible. Targeting interlocutors in a mediating country makes those assurances harder to provide. It raises the costs of hosting negotiations and can undermine channels needed for ceasefires, hostage releases and humanitarian arrangements. Military reach may expand while opportunities for a political settlement contract.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 raises a different sovereignty question along the region’s Red Sea periphery. Somaliland has maintained separate institutions for decades, and its claim to recognition has its own history. Nevertheless, Israel’s recognition challenged Somalia’s internationally recognized territorial framework. The African Union rejected the move and warned that such recognition could undermine peace and stability.
Recognition is not equivalent to bombardment, and the cases should not be collapsed into a single legal category. Their connection is political: the territorial arrangements on which other governments rely become subject to unilateral decisions shaped by Israeli interests. In an already contested regional environment, such decisions risk adding another dispute to fragile processes of state consolidation.
The confrontation with Iran illustrates the danger of extending preventive military logic to a powerful regional adversary. On February 28, 2026, Guterres condemned the use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation across the region. He warned that these actions undermined international peace and security. The escalation demonstrated how efforts to eliminate threats militarily can expose additional countries to attack.
Iran’s support for armed groups and its own military conduct cannot be excluded from this assessment. Nevertheless, degrading an adversary’s capabilities does not necessarily resolve the political incentives driving confrontation. It may instead encourage dispersal, rearmament or greater reliance on asymmetric methods. Tactical destruction can coexist with a more dangerous strategic environment.
The Palestinian case represents the most profound expression of this problem because it concerns both collective self-government and the conditions of human survival. In the West Bank, withholding revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority weakens the institutions expected to administer daily life.
The World Bank documented how the suspension of transfers in 2025 intensified fiscal distress, reduced salary payments and placed pressure on essential services. These measures undermine the practical foundations of Palestinian self-government.
A political authority cannot provide credible governance indefinitely while lacking reliable access to its own revenues. Weakening public administration also weakens its legitimacy, potentially benefiting actors who argue that institutional politics offers no meaningful route to Palestinian rights. The resulting dysfunction can then be invoked as evidence that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. Restrictions on capacity thus risk producing the very incapacity used to justify continued control.
In Gaza, the destruction has reached beyond institutional viability. The devastation of housing, healthcare, water systems and livelihoods, compounded by restrictions on humanitarian access, has endangered the material conditions necessary for life. In August 2025, a joint statement by UN agencies confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate and described a crisis involving starvation and preventable deaths. The issue was no longer merely whether Palestinians could build a state, but whether civilians could survive.
Hence, in Gaza, the denial of sovereignty has escalated into a denial of survival. In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier, on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, finding reasonable grounds to believe that he bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. These findings expose the devastating human consequences of denying a population access to the essentials of life. The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and deprivation of food, water and medical care undermine Palestinians’ ability to survive as a community in their homeland. Viewed through this analysis, the genocide identified by the UN commission represents the most extreme manifestation of denial: a progression from obstructing a people’s capacity to govern themselves to destroying the conditions necessary for their continued existence.
Taken together, these cases suggest a self-reinforcing cycle. Military intervention and institutional weakening can generate insecurity, displacement and political fragmentation. Those conditions create opportunities for armed actors, whose activities then provide further grounds for intervention. This is a causal risk, not an inevitable outcome of every operation. Its importance lies in the contradiction between immediate military advantage and the requirements of lasting security.
Breaking that cycle requires a different measure of success: whether policies leave behind institutions capable of governing, populations able to live securely and diplomatic arrangements that reduce incentives for violence. Protecting Israeli civilians and respecting neighbouring societies’ sovereignty are mutually reinforcing necessities.
A regional order built around one state’s freedom to intervene and everyone else’s enforced vulnerability cannot offer durable peace. By denying others the capacity to govern—and, in Gaza, devastating the conditions necessary to survive—Israel risks perpetuating the insecurity from which it seeks protection.
The end of the United States’ two-decade-long military presence in Iraq has raised fears of a security vacuum. Neighboring Iran and its allies in Iraq, experts say, could attempt to exploit the situation.
On September 30, the last American and coalition troops flew out of Erbil Air Base, and the Pentagon declared an “orderly departure.” The White House called it a victory. President Trump, never one for understatement, described the whole enterprise as “a very expensive excursion into Hell.” For once, the hyperbole is closer to the truth […]
Palestine This Week | Middle East Monitor | September 30, 2026
This week’s MEMO review examines claims about Netanyahu’s advance knowledge of 7 October, his provocative UN speech and Israel’s sweeping West Bank closure. We discuss calls to free Marwan Barghouti, moves to bar Arab-led parties from Israeli elections, Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal and allegations of election interference involving Israeli firms.
In 2023, the International Energy Agency predicted that by 2028 the world’s oil companies would produce more oil than people wanted to buy. Prices responded to that and similar projections of slowing oil demand, dropping too low to attract investment for new wells and refineries. No forecast anticipated that the Strait of Hormuz, the main […]
The Houthi takeover of parts of the Red Sea gives the armed group a new platform to challenge global shipping. The group has taken over the port of Mocha, the island of Mayyun, and the Zuqar and Hanish archipelago about 160km north of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. These areas were previously controlled by Yemeni government […]
Iraqi anti-terror resistance group Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada has rejected any surrender of its weapons, with its spokesman stressing that resistance would continue despite pressure and that Iraqi resistance fighters would sustain their support for their fellow fighters in Lebanon.
Sheikh Kazem al-Fartousi, spokesman for the group, which is a subdivision of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) coalition, made the remarks to the Lebanese news website UNews.
“We have not retreated from the resistance, and there will be no surrender of weapons,” he said, the website reported on Tuesday.
“The resistance’s weapons in Iraq are at its disposal and Iraqi resistance would continue supporting the Lebanese resistance,” the official added.
“The pressure has not deterred us from continuing along this path and will not lead us to retreat even a single step in confronting the enemy.”
The statement came as the Iraqi government, headed by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, has, as a result of US pressure, been seeking to advance a plan to establish a state monopoly over weapons.
A day earlier, Haj Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, the security official of Kata’ib Hezbollah, another member of the PMU, also pointed to the upcoming prospect of expulsion of US-led forces from the Arab country, saying that, upon the occasion, the Iraqi people would celebrate the expulsion, associating the pending development to the efforts made by Iraqi resistance groups.
Al-Assaf further warned that if the restrictions imposed by the United States on Iranian aviation continued after October 1, the Iraqi people would take a clear position, adding that the possibility existed of closing border crossings with countries participating in the Washington’s efforts at targeting the Islamic Republic.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 pushed US Middle East policy toward a familiar mixture of pressure, bargaining, and demands for measurable economic returns. His May 2025 tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates made that approach particularly visible: investment, artificial intelligence, defence, aviation, and energy agreements dominated […]
Login
