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On Monday, I wrote about Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to block the U.S. from using jointly operated military bases on its territory for strikes on Iran. President Donald Trump wasted no time responding forcefully, saying Tuesday that the U.S. is "going to cut off all trade with Spain." Trump made the comments from the White House during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He noted that some European nations have been helpful to the U.S. regarding Iran, saying Germany has been “great.” He also praised NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, calling him “fantastic.” Then he spoke...

In a recent piece for National Review, Philip Klein astutely points out a fundamental difference between a potential confrontation with Iran and the quagmire that became the Iraq War: There will be no full-scale U.S. ground invasion under President Trump. Klein argues that with Iran’s military already crippled by sanctions and precision strikes, and Trump unwilling to commit to a major land advance, this won’t devolve into another endless occupation. He’s right, but the analysis stops short of the full picture. A war with Iran, should it come to that amid escalating tensions, would be short, sharp, and transformative, not...

Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has reportedly been appointed Iran's new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba, 56, Ali Khamenei's second oldest son, has strong links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and was chosen by Iran's Assembly of Experts 'under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards', according to Iranian opposition outlet Iran International. Mojtaba is not a high-ranking cleric, has never held office and does not have an official role in the regime. But he served in the Iranian armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war and is believed to wield considerable influence behind the scenes. He has been touted...

***Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that he was misunderstood one day prior when he said the US attacked Iran on Saturday because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” that would “precipitate an attack against American forces.” Rubio walked back his prior statements after President Trump flatly denied that Israel chose the timing of the attack — maintaining in an Oval Office pool spray hours earlier, as he had in interviews, that he chose to attack after unsuccessful US-Iran talks Thursday in Geneva. “This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a...

Air strikes continue across the region on Tuesday as Iran shows no signs of backing down after the US and Israel launched an attack at the weekend that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Follow our live blog. The Iran war has entered its fourth day, a campaign that US President Donald Trump said Monday would take several weeks. Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.” Meanwhile, Tehran has continued its attacks across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf states, including the...

Estimates suggest that at least 370-400 people have safely sought refuge in Azerbaijan after crossing the Astara border checkpoint. Some 100 of those were Azerbaijani nationals with the rest being expats from 19 different countries. The Astara Border Crossing between Iran and Azerbaijan has seen increased traffic over the last few days by foreign nations, as many continue to seek an exit from Tehran amid continued US and Israeli attacks. The increased crossing traffic comes after the Azerbaijani government announced on Saturday that it would open the crossing to enable its nationals trapped in Iran to safely evacuate, as well...

Like Reagan, the president has found a way to change the world without putting boots on the ground. Critics say President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran is a violation of his promise not to engage in “forever wars.” In fact, the opposite is true. Trump is not starting a forever war in Iran; he’s ending one. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has been waging war against the United States. That war began in 1979, when Iran seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 50 Americans hostage for 444 days. The war continued as Iran orchestrated the...

esident Trump is pushing back on arguments from former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson the president's so-called MAGA base does not support his recent air strikes on Iran, saying "MAGA is Trump." “I have to do what’s right, number one – and you can’t have Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That’s predominant to me,” Trump told independent journalist Rachel Bade on Monday. “I think that MAGA is Trump – MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump said of Carlson and Kelly. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing —...

The US launched preemptive strikes against Iran after learning Israel was about to attack — and American troops in the region faced an imminent threat of retaliation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday. Rubio made the revelation on Capitol Hill, where he briefed a small group of congressional leaders on the joint US-Israel offensive.'There absolutely was an imminent threat,' Rubio stated. 'And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a...

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump denies that Israel dragged the US into war with Iran, insisting that if anything, the opposite could be true and that he felt Iran was going to attack first. Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office, “Did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?” “No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [the Iranians] were going to attack first,” Trump claims in response, during...

A Democrat running for office in California has reportedly called to defund the Pentagon, but her husband works for a company that built missiles the United States is believed to have used during the recent strikes on the Islamic regime in Iran. Fatima Iqbal-Zubair is a candidate for the state’s 65th Assembly District and her husband, Fazlul Zubair, is an engineer manager for Raytheon, the New York Post reported Monday. The United States and Israel launched a joint military operation targeting Iran on Saturday in part to ensure the regime will never have the capability to threaten the world with...

Britain, France and Germany have announced coordinated cooperation with the United States and its allies regarding the escalating confrontation with Iran, signalling a widening international involvement in the crisis. In a joint statement issued on Sunday evening, the three European powers said they had agreed to work alongside Washington and partner states and were examining defensive measures aimed at neutralising Iran’s missile capabilities.

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) cited U.S. air operations in Serbia and Kosovo in the 1990s to argue that changing the regime in Iran would be difficult to pull off just through air operations without putting American soldiers on the ground and said that he doesn’t support putting troops on the ground and stated that doing so would require authorization by Congress.Davidson said, “[Y]ou already see that vision for a democratic future for Iran. And Prime Minister Netanyahu somehow thinks that that can magically happen with some air power. We couldn’t even make regime...

If this is true.........

Israel is preparing to share its most treasured military secrets with India as part of a deepened strategic alliance, it has been reported. According to media reports, Israel might agree to share key technological components of Iron Dome (and related systems like Iron Beam) under a "Make in India" style arrangement to integrate them into India's planned multi-layer air defence network, including Mission Sudarshan Chakra. However, nothing is officially signed yet the deal is still speculative and in the negotiation phase, with technology transfer expected to be the focus rather than an off-the-shelf system delivery. If finalised, this could significantly...

Russia has warned that the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran could result in the very outcome they were seeking to prevent, by spurring both Iran and its Arab neighbours to seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the logical consequence would be that “forces will emerge in Iran … in favour of doing exactly what the Americans want to avoid acquiring a nuclear bomb. Because the US doesn’t attack those who have nuclear bombs”. Lavrov told a press conference that Arab countries could also join the race to build a bomb. The...

Love him or hate him, it should be inarguable that President Donald Trump is a quote machine. With the dust still settling from joint U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury (which saw the successful neutralization of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his leadership cabal), Trump has provided yet another all-time quote — and it’s one his more murderous enemies should heed well.

According to Iranian reports, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed together with his bodyguard during an Israeli airstrike on the country, while under house arrest. Serving as Iran's sixth president between 2005 and 2013, Ahmadinejad is remembered as one of the Islamic Republic's most extreme and antisemitic voices. He was open about his aspiration to destroy Israel. In 2009, his controversial reelection set off the largest protests in post-revolution Iran's history until that point. The regime under his lead responded with a bloodbath, killing dozens and sending hundreds to prison.

Two Iranian drones attacked the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on Monday night. Since the joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes wreaked havoc on Iran, killing many Islamic Republic military leaders including the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran has hit back with a series of counterattacks on U.S. personnel and allies in the region. Little information on the attack is available as of yet, though CNN’s Nic Robertson was live reporting on the incident Monday night from Riyadh. SEE NEWS REPORT IN THIS X POST https://x.com/WesternJournalX/status/2028653782918218125?

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend. Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead...