Thaad interceptor missiles have a production of about eight a month. Stockpiles are in the low hundreds. Ground based interceptors.
Patriot missiles had a production of 620 in 2025. Stockpile numbers are unclear, but low thousands is likely. They miss a lot, and usually two to four are shot per interception attempt.
Thirty-nine SM-3 missiles were produced in 2025. Stockpiles are at about 500. These are used by AEGIS naval defenses.
Note that none of these can be manufactured without supplies from China.
Estimates of Iranian missiles are around two to three thousand. Iranian drones? Tens of thousands. They used many up during the last war, but China has helped them rapidly manufacture more.
The math is simple. If Iran keeps firing, and the US/Israel does not take out the launchers and missile stockpiles in large numbers, Iran will run the US and Israel (it has its own variants, but the same supply issues) out of interceptors. At that point Iran hits everything it shoots at.
If Iran just keeps going long enough, it WILL win the war. The main danger is Iran’s leaders accepting a cease-fire too soon. If they are smart and have learned their lesson, they will keep going, and when they have supremacy, they will flatten Israel and all US bases, including taking out Israeli power and their desalanization plants.
If they don’t, the US and Israel will be back in a year to try again.
Iran is in this situation because they repeatedly stood down and did not establish deterrence. They had the theoretical capacity, but refused to use it, making America and Israel think they could just keep attacking Iran and there would be no significant retaliation.
And yes, the US or Israel could use nukes, but if they do, all bets are off, the repercussions would be seismic. (And Iran can make a dirty nuke any time they want, they already have that ability. One dirty nuke hits Israel, a postage stamp sized country, and it is uninhabitable.)
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Feral Finster
Iran won’t get a choice. Israel already has air supremacy, able to fly over Tehran and bomb at will.
Contrast American and Israeli aggression and purposefullness with the four-year parade of fuckups of the “SMO”.
Ian Welsh
I have seen no convincing evidence that the US and Israel have air supremacy. Strikes are stand off strikes from Iraq.
Feral Finster
I hope that you are right. I truly do.
Anyway, if China is going to restrict sales of rare earths, why are they stalling?
Feral Finster
Should’ve added that, just yesterday, we were discounting Israeli reports of the murder of Khamenei.
Turns out the reports were correct and the commentators were engaged in another round of wishful thinking.
Ian Welsh
Rare earth shipments from China to the US are still down significantly, because you need an export license for them.
Killing Khameini was stupid, and Khameini made zero effort to avoid it. He just kept going about his normal routine. He was killed at his home. He appears to have wanted to be martyred.
Iran is not Venezuela or Cuba.
Now whether they’ll tough it out? Who knows. But they have the ability to, and if they’re smart, they will.
Trump has already offered a cease fire. Iran refused.
Some commenters act like a beaten dog. “We haven’t won much, so we can’t win, and we should just surrender so they hit us less.”
Except that doesn’t work. If Iran gives in, they’ll eventually be reduced to Libya or Iraq. Might even get open air slave markets.
They fight, or their country is destroyed.
spud
Ian:
including taking out Israeli power and their desalanization plants.
If they don’t, the US and Israel will be back in a year to try again.
Iran is in this situation because they repeatedly stood down and did not establish deterrence. They had the theoretical capacity, but refused to use it, making America and Israel think they could just keep attacking Iran and there would be no significant retaliation.
And yes, the US or Israel could use nukes, but if they do, all bets are off, the repercussions would be seismic. (And Iran can make a dirty nuke any time they want, they already have that ability. One dirty nuke hits Israel, a postage stamp sized country, and it is uninhabitable.)
100%
its either now to stay free. otherwise the future is slavery.
add to it, water works, sewage plants, police stations, oil refineries, tank farms, food distribution centers, military bases.
make life almost impossible. anything else would be even more stupidity. layoff the government buildings, waste of missiles, those buildings are easy to rebuild. hit the stuff that supports a modern life.
send them back to the stone age.
Feral Finster
“Rare earth shipments from China to the US are still down significantly, because you need an export license for them.”
Apparently not enough to deter the Americans, unless you seriously believe that nobody in the Pentagon pays attention to any of this.
“Iran is not Venezuela or Cuba.”
We hear that at every turn as the empire smashes stuff up with complete impunity while we tell ourself that it’ll be different this time. Somehow.
Ian Welsh
https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2028109442466586799
“Summary of the Ynet report that’s going around
• The US planned for a 4-5 day operation that would weaken the Iranian negotiating position, allowing a deal more favorable to the US
• Yesterday, the US reached out to Tehran through Italian mediators requesting a ceasefire
• The Iranians rejected this”
Feral Finster
Sorry:
“Except that doesn’t work. If Iran gives in, they’ll eventually be reduced to Libya or Iraq. Might even get open air slave markets.
They fight, or their country is destroyed.”
Yup. But yankee dollars still find eager takers, and humans tell themselves that it will be different for them.
Anyway, theres also rumors about that Iran is the one asking for a ceasefire. Why Trump would ask remains to be seen. They’ve taken almost no damage, nor has Israel.
Ian Welsh
Yeah. It’s different this time because Iran has tens of thousands of drones and thousands of missiles and is willing to use them.
The inability to make distinctions is interesting.
Do some research. The US did war games of a US/Iran war. How did they go?
bruce wilder
Iran may appear to be a weak regime, because maybe it is a weak regime — weak as in not competently well-organized in an institutional sense or well-led politically and militarily. I don’t have any inside information, only inferences from recent history. They really don’t seem able to help themselves and they have had a long time to do it, to make effective commercial alliances in the region and to build up their economy or to secure effective military and naval power. Up against the family tyrannies of the GCC, they ought to be more respected and feared than they evidently are.
I am not saying that any regime anywhere ought to welcome war (though clearly some — including the U.S. and Israel — do and it’s a political pathology), but a regime which professed hostility to so many neighbors for so long, financing and arming foreign factions (like Hezbollah) ought to be better prepared than this. Where is its Russian alliance or its China alliance? (These barely exist in the weakest forms diplomacy allows.) Where is Iraq? Where is Iran’s diaspora?
Iran, like China, has a history of reconstituting its “empire” from age to age. Whatever the ultimate geopolitical underpinnings of the state, they are persistent, but modernity has not come easily and it shows.
Feral Finster
And yet the US went ahead in a pure war of choice.
Some dude on Twitter referencing a purported summary of an alleged peace feeler is hardly a reliable source.
Mary
I have seen a short video of murky brown water running through a street near a structure that is allegedly the Zionist’s desalination plant which provides 80 percent of the clean water to the Zionists who are occupying-genociding Palestine.
This same short video has been on multiple sites but obviously the plant is still operational otherwise the Zionists would be in a lot of trouble right now.
You can’t operate without clean water.
I bring this up as just one example of the many many short vids or pictures or even longer videos that purport to show something when in fact there is no way the viewer can really tell what is going on.
Almost all the missile videos are like this. They show a missile landing somewhere and exploding accompanied by a vocal celebration in a foreign tongue but you as a viewer have no way of knowing what was hit or what damage it did.
You just have to take their word for it.
On the other end, you will see videos like the one I described of the alleged hit on the desalination plant or videos that clearly show buidlings on fire and destruction.
But it is not at all extensive.
And, once again, the casualty numbers are much higher on the Iranian-‘resistance’ side and once again absolutely no Zionist or US or NATO leaders – political, military or ‘spiritual’ – have been killed.
A commenter at NakedCapitalism posted an article from YNet in which it is alleged that a ‘US official, via a mediator, proposed an immediate ceasefire; Iran rejected it outright, as Trump looks for a quick exit…’
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-quick-early-updates.html#comment-4384169
This is then used to show that the US is overconfident per usual and don’t really know what they are doing.
Susan Webber replied:
‘Ynet is MSM in Israel.
And this is an admission against interest. So I think this has to be seen as having decent odds of being accurate.’
This may or may not be true but what I want to illustrate here is that this same article – which is sourced from YNet, a mainstream publication in occupied Palestine as Susan Webber has correctly said – this same article goes on to state many other things (it’s well worth a read) including this at the end:
‘As of the first day of the war, the IDF managed to absorb the barrages of missiles and drones. The defensive success stemmed from significant improvements in air defense, but also from Iran’s weakness. Its dispersal across eight fronts reduced its ability to launch large simultaneous barrages at Israel. Civilians were disturbed by frequent sirens, but the damage was limited.
An Israeli businessman who employs people in Israel and in Gulf states told me he sensed the difference. His employees in Israel were not alarmed. They have been through this before and emerged from it. His employees in the Gulf reacted with hysteria.
War or no war, another Israeli told me, Wolt delivery couriers continued as usual. Perhaps more than usual. Young riders with blue backpacks took over the streets, turning the war with Iran into something almost routine, with lunch delivered to their safe room doorstep.’
https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hylyslbfzx
So, a mainstream publication inside ‘Israel’ can’t write this if it isn’t almost entirely true. They may go into military mode so that intel about strikes and damage can’t get out but they can’t lie internally to their own people about the lives they are living. They can lie about how well the naked aggression may or may not be going ‘over there’ but they cannot lie about this.
So, while Tehran and much of Iran are essentially shut down, evidently life inside ‘Israel’ goes on as always albeit with a few hiccups.
The article is very honest about the Zionist entity’s failures at ‘regime change’ and similar ops over the years and also about the fact that this aggression isn’t necessary for the US but it is for the Zionist entity.
And the article suggests that the only reality-based offramp is for Trump to shoot the US’ wad now on behalf of Zionism:
‘Trump can end this operation in three ways that can be marketed as success.
One, a severe military blow that weakens the regime internally and externally.
Two, a surrender agreement on the nuclear issue.
Three, the fall of the regime.
The first is realistic, the second less so. The third is Trump’s great hope and his major gamble, but he understands that this objective will not be achieved immediately.’
What if both Pezeshkian and Araghchi are stooges?
I believe this may be the case.
Ian Welsh
Sigh.
https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/hylyslbfzx
“On the eve of the strike on Iran, U.S. officials envisioned a four- to five-day operation that would return a weakened Tehran to the negotiating table. According to one source, an American official conveyed an even more immediate proposal. Through a mediator, apparently Italy, he suggested reaching a ceasefire agreement today or tomorrow. Iran rejected the idea outright.”
Feral Finster
@bruce wilder:.
“Where is its Russian alliance or its China alliance? (These barely exist in the weakest forms diplomacy allows.) Where is Iraq? Where is Iran’s diaspora?”
They crave American carrot and fear American stick. The diaspora are the equivalent of Miami Cubans
Anyway, Iran/Persia has been a weak state, going back to the 18th Century. But i don’t want to argue from essentialism, here.
cc
And each of the US-Israel’s interceptor missiles costs American taxpayers (the Zionist settler colony being funded by Americans) multiple millions of dollars.
Perhaps “Operation Epic Fury” will turn out to be “Operation Epic Fuckup”?
But from the perspective of the Rest of the World, exploited and abused by the West for hundreds of years, why interrupt the bully if they’re in the midst of an epic fuckup?
For those here upset about Russia’s / China’s apparent inaction, perhaps this is why they have not jumped in? Like the 4-5-year SMO in NATO-exploited Ukraine, let the US/NATO continue to foolishly self-attrit.
Granted there’s a horrible price in crimes against humanity in the meantime – ex. Israel’s ongoing starvation-siege and genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camp, the Anglo-Zionist ethnic cleansing of the West’s latest settler colony, rape and torture by sadistic Zionist prison guards, exploitation of Ukrainians as cannon fodder by the West, US-Israeli gangster-like assassinations/abductions/murders left and right – but perhaps the world will be better off in the longer term?
different clue
I remember offering a few days ago a comment about how Iranian hackers had explicit video of Trump and others on Epstein Island or similar sex-predation places. And said they would release it if Trump attacked Iran. I hoped it was true.
So, okay. Trump has attacked Iran. Those hackers should go ahead and release it now. Release it everywhere. Back it up thousands of times so it can never be erased.
Ahmed Fares
re: how to disable a water desalination plant
Link is below the quote from the article.
“One of our worst nightmares regarding an oil spill, especially one of liquified oil, is the impact on desalination plants. The membranes are very delicate and vulnerable to pollution and they would be shut down,” in the event of liquified oil intake, he said. “With the last pipeline spill, in 2017, 100 cubic meters of oil shut down three desalination plants for three days.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/2017-oil-spill-closed-three-desalination-plants-for-three-days-official-reveals/
spud
really if you listened to biden when he stood up on the world stage and said we have unlimited money, we can go out and buy what we need, no matter the price.
Keen explains it,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH-yTE26kOE
that’s why i think the BRICS is a paper machete organization, run by people who have no clue how dangerous a MMT run government with a reserve currency is.
when i hear all of the blubbering going on about iran just up and smoke a billion dollar radar, and russian analysts crowing about $20,000 drones vs. 3 million dollar missiles, they miss the point.
the empire could care less about the costs, what the empire wants is to be able to buy what they need, regardless of the costs.
so the BRICS have had years to study keynes and MMT, they should have had a dollar workaround years ago.
they are ignorant, they under estimate what they are up against, they still want to be part of the club, they still want their trade surplus, yet they think they can control the monster run by those sick with greed, power, and hatreds.
the learning curve time ran out last friday. its survival time now no matter who you are. because if you do not understand this, you are next.
mago
Neither Russia nor China made military agreements with Iran. Both do business with Israel and Putin is buds with Netyyahoo. It’s a liberal fallacy that Russia was going to support Syria or Venezuela or Iran. I hope they send aid to Cuba, but that’s another kettle of fish.
I’m somewhat dismayed by the comments here, but will just speak to one that suggests if an Israeli news source claims that life is normal in the streets then it must be so. First, what’s normal in that dystopian society? And secondly, they wouldn’t lie about that or anything else, would they?
Good god. Get a grip and let’s see what tomorrow brings and the day after that and the. . .
In the meantime don’t believe everything you think let alone what you read.
spud
mago:
“they are ignorant, they under estimate what they are up against, they still want to be part of the club, they still want their trade surplus, yet they think they can control the monster run by those sick with greed, power, and hatreds.
the learning curve time ran out last friday. its survival time now no matter who you are. because if you do not understand this, you are next.”
KT Chong
Do you people really want the Iranian regime to survive?
Or do you actually want to see the U.S. empire to finally get its comeuppance and collapse?
The Iranian regime would not survive a full American “Shock and Awe” campaign. Of course it would not. However, the real trouble for the U.S. starts after “Shock and Awe” ends — when insurgency and resistance begin.
There are the two realistic outcomes:
• The Iranian regime falls, but the U.S. empire survives and moves on to its next conquest and regime change.
• The Iranian regime falls, and the ensuing quagmire of insurgency and resistance brings down the U.S. empire.
Which one of the two outcomes do people actually want?
It seems to me that many are “supporting Iran” and hoping it will defeat the U.S., when in reality what you are rooting for is the collapse of the U.S. empire. Iran is not going to defeat the U.S. directly — but it does have a very good chance of inflicting enough damage to bring down the US empire after the Iranian regime falls.
KT Chong
China is not going to openly confront or fight the U.S., because doing so would either result in defeat or come at an unacceptably high cost.
China supported North Vietnam against the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and the U.S. supported the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan, which ultimately exhausted the Soviet Union. History shows that indirect support for guerrilla and insurgent fighters can be highly effective in bleeding a superpower without ever requiring direct confrontation.
What China can and should do for Iran is quietly arm, fund, and support an insurgency in mountainous Iran after the initial “Shock and Awe” — all while publicly denying involvement, much like the U.S. has been denying involvement in supporting Ukraine against Russia. This strategy could force the U.S. into mission creep, push it to deploy ground troops, and ultimately send American soldiers home in body bag after body bag.
The U.S. is already deep in debt and fiscal holes. Another prolonged quagmire — like Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan — would impose political and financial costs that could bring down the empire.
Iran could play a similar role for the U.S. as Afghanistan did for the USSR. Afghanistan has never recovered, but the Soviet Union collapsed — which could be considered a “happy ending” and a win. The Iranian regime will not survive, but perhaps this time we will get another “happy ending,” another win. It may seem to be an awful thing to say but it is the best we can realistically hope for.
The opportunity may soon arise for China to do something similar in Iran. Will China seize the moment — or will it hold back, only to face a U.S. that has sequenced its next moves against China?
KT Chong
This is the same argument I have made about Venezuela and Cuba. China should not confront America head‑on over either of those countries — direct military confrontation with the U.S. would be strategically disastrous for China. However, if an insurgency or resistance movement arises in Venezuela or Cuba against U.S. invasion, occupation and occupation, then China should quietly support those rebel fighters while publicly denying involvement.
Do unto America what America has done to so many others — but will China be willing to deliver that karmic justice to America?
By the way, I’ve used various AI tools to game out these scenarios: if American ground troops become bogged down in Iran by a sustained insurgency, then there would be roughly a 60–70% chance that an insurgency would also emerge in Venezuela, and that this cascading stress on the U.S. would give the empire a 70–80% chance of sustained civil unrest and potential collapse.
spud
its claimed here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpXs33Eohlg
“LEAVE ISRAEL NOW!” | USS Gerald R. Ford ARRIVES | Israeli EMERGENCY
the aircraft carriers have the ability to desalinate 100,000 gallons of water a day. or at least some can, some maybe more.
but that’s not enough for the country. bet its for the military and government, of course oligarchs also.
so its possible iran hit the desalination plant and took it out.
iran also hit the british air bases in Cyprus.
KT Chong
spud: “so the BRICS have had years to study keynes and MMT, they should have had a dollar workaround years ago.”
The problem is India. India has always been the spoiler in BRICS.
When BRICS evolved from Goldman Sachs’ BRIC economic concept in 2001 to a formal group in 2009, it was Russia that pushed for India’s inclusion as a counterweight to China. This traces back to the “Primakov Doctrine” from 1998 — named after former Russian PM Yevgeny Primakov — which advocated for a Russia-India-China (RIC) alliance to challenge Western hegemony while maintaining internal balance.
India is the member who has been resisting de-dollarization and obstructing a BRICS currency, fearing that it would elevate the Chinese Yuan. India has also been playing both sides by joining QUAD and other US-led and/or pro-Western organizations that undermine BRICS.
On February 25, 2025, India openly betrayed and sold out BRICS and the Global South when Modi and Netanyahu formalized their alliance in Jerusalem on February 25, while all other BRICS nations, led by South Africa and Brazil, were actively pursuing legal and diplomatic campaigns against the Israeli government.
IMO, India killed BRICS on that day.
It was a serious mistake for BRICS to include India.
j
> spud
> really if you listened to biden when he stood up on the world stage and said we have unlimited money, we can go out and buy what we need, no matter the price.
The Empire has unlimited money, but they have no one to buy from. They lack manufacturing capability, they lack the will to increase it, and the owners of their war machine see increased demand only as a way to rise prices, not as a way to sell more. And that’s before the lack of rare earths hits.
Examples are endless. The US couldn’t even make enough artillery shells for Ukraine. After four years, they still cannot. The floating stock of Javelins was spent in the first few months of the war and has not been replaced. Every tank the west has been able to muster has been sent over, and most of them are gone. The A-10, possibly the most important aircraft the US has, has been out of production for decades and nobody even knows how to make more anymore. The F-35 is a giant hole in the pocket the size of Manhattan, yet it barely functions as a plane, and the recent units are shipping without radars because they cannot get any gallium from China.
All of the production the US has is a trickle that can only sustain short bursts of bullying, or war against low-tech enemies who cannot incur materiel losses. And the last time the army was in a real war was Vietnam, so they don’t really know how to prosecute one, either.
capelin
I, personally, am glad that the powers opposing the elite-occult-child-sacrificing-lizard class have would rather negotiate, have patience, and are in it for the long game.
Think how much Western public opinion has shifted just between the last attack and now. Why not let Trump et all percolate and rot the West for awhile longer?
And we only know the half of it all. _They may know what weird weapon systems Satan has up it’s sleeve. Think Japan. Like what was up with those ufo’s over New Jersey? Confirmed mil/contractor test flight permits issued, etc. Also we have not seen lasers in play yet, though apparently the U.S. shot down one of it’s own border drones with a laser recently – sounds like a new product soft launch to me – and Iz and India just signed that full-tech transfer of Iron Dumb and Iron Beam.
The outcome of all this more impactful than WW1 or 2, no?
Go, Iran.
–
Re MOA commentary – there’s maybe 5 posters who I kinda wish posted here. Other than that, ya gotta wade through literally hundreds of chafe posts. Not to mention b’s recent “Epstein wasn’t so bad” stand.
ianwelsh.net for the win.
bruce wilder
In the meantime don’t believe everything you think . . .
words to live by.
truly.
Mark Level
The best take on the Shock & Awe Sideshow is as follows: This is the USA’s Suez Crisis moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
Empire’s ginning up a domestic Civil War, ICE fascism and sudden economic decline, crisis, it is badly overextended, nice coverage on the costs of US Missiles and Armaments, 5 day maximum effectiveness in theater, then turn tail and leave quietly.
Last gasps, unless Trump is insane enough to re-up a forced draft and grab young people off the street to quickly die like they do in Ukraine. He’s insane, but I don’t think he’s that insane. The Imperial Balloon is deflating rather quickly.
Mary
‘India is the member who has been resisting de-dollarization and obstructing a BRICS currency, fearing that it would elevate the Chinese Yuan. India has also been playing both sides by joining QUAD and other US-led and/or pro-Western organizations that undermine BRICS.’
India and Canada reset ties with ‘landmark’ nuclear energy deal
India and Canada have announced a host of agreements, including a 10-year nuclear energy deal, after their prime ministers met in Delhi to reset ties that plummeted due to diplomatic tensions.
Narendra Modi and Mark Carney also struck agreement in areas such as technology, critical minerals, space, defence and education.
Carney said they agreed to conclude a free trade deal, years in the making, by the end of 2026. Both countries want to reduce exposure to punitive US trade tariffs.
Under Carney, the two governments are trying to repair ties that were strained when his predecessor accused Delhi of a link to the 2023 assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
India vociferously rejected the allegation by Justin Trudeau.
Trade and diplomatic relations almost came to a standstill as both sides expelled each other’s diplomats and cancelled visa services. Canada hosts a huge expatriate Indian community.
But since Carney took office last year, the relationship has been cautiously rebuilt —helped by the fact that his government has said it believes India is not currently linked to violent crimes or threats on Canadian soil.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24gl7jrgno
Mary
‘ In the meantime don’t believe everything you think . . .
words to live by.
truly.’
Thank you mago and bruce wilder.
Believe it or not, I actually don’t believe everything I think!
And I don’t remember ever believing everything I think, even as a grade-schooler.
Did you guys at one time believe everything you think?
If so, I’m glad you’ve grown out of that tendency.
spud
KT Chong;
you cannot rely on a country run by imbeciles like india and turkey.
however, the debt problem you have said america is in, is not the correct debt. i think you mean the budget deficit correct? because if you do, then i can see why the brics are having so much trouble understanding.
as we watch hundreds of billions blown away on another war for the theft of resources and labor from people of color, they will print what ever it takes, and there is no debt being created.
Biden and Blinkin made that clear on the world stage.
the only thing all of that printing will do, is to fan the flames of inflation, and the real debt is the balance of payments, which free trade is a huge component. that’s real money that has to be paid to others.
the billionaire run empire has come down to this, they will not pay, they will just take.
i hope the Iranians survive. they really have no choice but to do what they are doing. the sooner russia and china figure this out, the sooner we can end this outrageous mess.
yes china would lose in a war against the empire, but not for the reason you think. the empire is incredibly weak and strung out all over the pacific.
to resupply means sailing to islands. big fat targets to the islands, the islands themselves fat targets, so by the time they get there, the island for all practical purposes, gone, then sailing back, more fat targets.
that’s why the empire needs vietnam and the stans so badly. india is a complete mess internally that’s getting worse. it might implode.
all would lose in a war against china and or russia because of the nukes. the only way china and russia could lose and the empire comes out on top, if china and russia keeps the appeasement up, and refuse to flex their muscles. that invites ever more belligerence.
if the empire topples iran, china and russia are next, china and russia are coming to the wrong conclusion, iran is the side show. the empire is in complete panic over the road and belt and artic route.
that artic route will hamper the empires ability to feed off of others.
china and russia have no alternative, but to make sure iran survives. otherwise the caspian basin will be the empires new palyground, and the empire could care less about guerilla warfare, they will pour ever more assets into the basin as the bullets keep flying. and the secure borders of russia and china will be gone. the empire is in that much trouble, they will go for it.
spud
j:
and your statements are correct. the empire is incredibly weak, the imbeciles did it to themselves, just as Lenin predicted. and its why at all costs. russia and china, let alone the rest of the world, must not let iran fall.
Churchill fought, FDR/Truman fought, Stalin fought, because they understood the stakes, and were willing to take the punches.
me thinks china and russia, are more worried about their wealth, then their sovereignty.
Carborundum
Someone is definitely operating over Iran. The size of the ordnance I’m seeing hit is too big for long-distance standoff. Multiple Mk84 class hits, including imagery of the weapons coming in. They weren’t ERs, so the max range should top out at something like 30 klicks standoff – even if they were HERs, they’d still have to be over Iran at release.
FWIW, the IAF is explicitly saying they are operating in direct delivery mode and they’ve been broadcasting footage of them uploading plain old GBUs.
cc
In terms of not believing everything you read or hear, especially from our establishment news media (ex. BBC link above, CBC, CTV, etc.) which continue to drop reminder references to alleged “foreign interference” by India, consider that those “foreign interference” allegations are, more often than not, projections of what we, the West, habitually do to others.
The accusations Canada made via Trudeau against India, most probably fed to us by the US, were likely designed to pressure India to fall in line with the West – in other words, the actual foreign interference was on our part to push India to move away from Russia-China-BRICS and do what the West wants.
As KT Chong just wrote above, “On February 25, 2025, India openly betrayed and sold out BRICS and the Global South …”
Now that Modi has bent the knee to the West, apparently agreeing to not buy any or as much Russian oil and military equipment, and also signing agreements with Netanyahu and Israel, guess what: suddenly Ottawa is now saying there’s no longer a problem coming from India. So were there ever any problems in the first place, or were they just made up to threaten India and give them a small taste of what the West could do to them?
Likewise, did Iran ever want nuclear weapons (no, as even confirmed by US intelligence assessments,) or was that just an excuse for the West to grossly foreign interfere in Iran by overthrowing their government and imposing one (the son of the brutal CIA-backed Shah dictator) that will serve US/Western interests?
Was Nicolas Maduro really a “narco-terrorist” or “dictator”, or was that just an accusation fabricated out of thin air for the US to grossly foreign interfere in Venezuela by abducting a state leader and his wife in the middle of the night, killing about 80 people in the process, including civilians, and apparently spending some $3 billion for the world’s most expensive kidnapping?
Those are just the latest examples out of so many others. We, the West, are not the good guys, though our media would have us believe so. The West can be seen as an organized crime syndicate engaged in knee-capping (“containment”), government overthrowing (“regime” change), extortion, thuggery, hospital-bombing, genocide, ethnic cleansing, sanctions, blockades, starvation-sieges, etc.
Mary
‘The accusations Canada made via Trudeau against India, most probably fed to us by the US, were likely designed to pressure India to fall in line with the West – in other words, the actual foreign interference was on our part to push India to move away from Russia-China-BRICS and do what the West wants.’
And it ‘worked’ – for now.
I wonder why an ostensibly ‘anti-western’ bloc would ever have formed with India to begin with?
South Africa?!
You can’t get more Zionist and ‘western’ than motherfucking South Africa.
India said that ‘BRICS’ was always a Chinese endeavor.
The idea of a ‘BRIC’ consortium was first proposed by ‘Baron’ Jim O’Neill of Gatley, a British Goldman Sachs banker.
The name may have been co-opted by the players involved for their own purposes but this leads one to wonder why they would then immediately expand it to include the aforementioned thoroughly Zionized and ‘westernized’ South Africa?
Kirill Dmitriev – CEO of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund and a special envoy for economic cooperation – and Russian Central Banker Elvira Nabiullina are themselves thoroughly ‘westernized’ (Zionized?) and they are both appointed by Vlad Putin and both serve very powerful roles in the Russian administration-regime.
Let’s not ever forget the power of Chabad inside Russia.
So, there is a lot more going on than the simple good-evil binary we are so often presented with.
KT Chong
Correction of my previous comment: “On February 25, 2025, India openly betrayed and sold out BRICS and the Global South when Modi and Netanyahu formalized their alliance in Jerusalem….”
This happened on February 25, 2026, (NOT in 2025.)
i.e., it happened just LAST WEEK.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwWJBsk3n_k
Mary
When are China and Russia – the two great powers of the consortium – when are they going to cut ties with India?
Is the idea that India WAS pretty trustwothy but just got caught up in ‘western’ propaganda because ‘the west’ is pure evil and now they cannot be saved from themselves and the monsters they are aligning themselves with?
If so, then get rid of India.
And South Africa.
And tell Chomsky’s friend Lula that he should have allowed Venezuela into their consortium.
And if Russia is going to send a sub and naval assets to Cuba but Cuba is still overcome and blockaded and starved…
If all these things be true – and they are – then tell me what are we fighting for?
‘I don’t give a damn…next stop is you pick-em anywhere on the globe.
***
I Just Visited Lula, the World’s Most Prominent Political Prisoner.
A “Soft Coup” in Brazil’s Election Will Have Global Consequences
Noam Chomsky, October 2, 2018
https://chomsky.info/20181002/
Brazil: Lula visits ailing linguist Noam Chomsky and other “Over 90s”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid a visit Monday to renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky who is recovering from heart surgery at his home in Sao Paulo. The 95-year-old US thinker has resided in South America’s largest city since marrying Brazilian national and fellow linguist Valeria Wasserman.
Chomsky, who visited Lula da Silva in 2018 while he was incarcerated amid the Lava Jato scandal, was discharged from the local Hospital Beneficencia Portuguesa last week.
While in Sao Paulo, Lula also met with former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso now aged 93 (1995-2002), to mark the 30th anniversary of the Real Plan through which the country’s currency was changed as part of an inflation-curbing strategy implemented during Itamar Franco’s government (1992-1995).
The president also met with two intellectual friends on Monday in Sao Paulo, the writer Raduan Nassar and the Italian-Brazilian journalist Mino Carta. Last Thursday, Lula had been in the northeastern State of Maranhao with former President José Sarney (1985-1990), aged 94.
“Today I visited in Sao Paulo four people for whom I have great affection: former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, linguist Noam Chomsky, journalist Mino Carta, and writer Raduan Nassar. Last Friday, I had already visited, in Maranhão, former president José Sarney”, Lula wrote on X.
According to Folha de Sao Paulo, Lula spent 40 minutes with Chomsky with whom he discussed plans for a meeting of democratic heads of state to discuss ways to stop the advance of the ultra-right in the world.’
https://en.mercopress.com/2024/06/25/brazil-lula-visits-ailing-linguist-noam-chomsky-and-other-over-90s
‘Chomsky, who visited Lula da Silva in 2018 while he was incarcerated amid the Lava Jato scandal’
Ah yes, the ‘Lava Jato’ op. Remember that one? It got a fair bit of play here at Ian’s site. Glenn Greenwald was very active in it.
Greenwald and Lula and Chomsky are all much richer now.
And the masses are poorer.
Why Brazil Opposes Venezuela’s Entry Into BRICS
In Latin America, in addition to Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Venezuela had submitted a formal request to join the alliance of emerging economies.
Among all the applicants, Venezuela is the country that has gathered the greatest support for its entry after strengthening its cooperative relations with the most important members of the bloc—Russia and China.
Amorim argued that this was not a question of moral or political judgement:
“The BRICS have countries that practice certain types of regimes, and other types of regimes; the question is whether they have the capacity, due to their political weight and capacity for relations, to contribute to a more peaceful world.”
The advisor’s statement was marked by ambiguity.
On the one hand, he pointed out that the Kazan Summit should not have a rigid rule for integrating future partners, since, in his opinion, it should be open to states that promote development and changes in global governance.
At the same time, he publicly announced that he does not support Venezuela’s entry.
However, this stance is in line with the increasingly hostile attitude that Lula’s government has shown towards Venezuela in recent months, after it questioned the results of the June 28 elections, in which President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected.
Although Brazil initially tried to maintain a relative neutrality, seeking to establish itself as a mediator in the post-electoral conflict, it has gradually become more aligned with the position of Washington and Brussels, which openly recognize Edmundo González as the supposed winner of the day.
https://popularresistance.org/why-brazil-opposes-venezuelas-entry-into-brics/