Tag: iran

The Explosion Inside Trump’s War Machine: Joe Kent Resigns

Joe Kent’s resignation is not an anomaly but an alarm: elite dissent is surfacing early because this war is built on deception.

Joe Kent’s resignation is shocking, but not for the obvious reason.

It is not shocking simply because it comes from within the Trump administration. Any administration of that size, stretching across thousands of officials, operatives and career personnel, will contain people who, despite the surrounding culture, still draw moral lines of their own.

Even an administration defined by blunt militarism, racialized rhetoric and an unapologetic embrace of force is not morally monolithic. There is always room, however narrow, for someone to say: enough.

What makes Kent’s resignation important is something else entirely: the language, the timing, and the political location from which it emerged.

When other officials resigned over Gaza, they established a standard of ethical clarity that still matters. Former UN human rights official Craig Mokhiber resigned on October 28, 2023, warning that “we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes” and describing Gaza as “a textbook case of genocide.”

Former State Department official Stacy Gilbert, who resigned in May 2024 over a government report on Israeli obstruction of aid, put it just as bluntly: “There is so clearly a right and wrong, and what is in that report is wrong.”

These were not carefully lawyered exits. They were moral positions.

Kent belongs in a different political universe than Mokhiber or Gilbert. That is precisely why his resignation carries such force.

He was not some liberal holdout inside a hawkish administration. He was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, confirmed in July 2025, a former Green Beret, a former CIA paramilitary officer, and by every normal measure a deeply embedded figure within the national security state.

He was also a Trump-aligned Republican whose confirmation battle was shaped by ties to far-right figures and conspiracy politics, according to AP. In other words, this was not an outsider recoiling from empire. This was a man from within that machinery saying he could no longer justify this war.

And he did not mince words.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

That sentence alone is politically explosive. It does not merely criticize tactics. It indicts the rationale of the war itself.

Then Kent went further.

“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” he wrote.

And then the bluntest line of all:

“This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war.”

This is not bureaucratic dissent. This is a direct accusation of manipulation, deception, and foreign-policy capture.

That is what makes this resignation different.

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How War in Iran Affects Grocery Prices for Everyday Americans

Walmart has essentially eradicated all of the mom & pop grocery stores where I live in western Kentucky. Which, for better or worse, forces virtually the entire city’s population to descend on the store for grocery shopping. As you walk into the store, you will inevitably be bombarded with messages from the intercom to get a flu shot or some other seasonal vaccine. This will be followed by a reminder that soda and potato chips are on sale.

Shopping in the local Walmart presents a fair picture of middle America. The county’s poverty rate is above 17%, homes are unaffordable, drug addiction is rampant, and wages remain stagnant. Among all of these issues, the rising cost of grocery prices make it challenging for many people in the community to afford real, whole foods. The unfortunate alternative is to purchase cheap junk food, go to a local food pantry, or simply go without. The simple reality is that many Americans can no longer keep up with rising costs in the grocery store.

But what does this have to do with war in Iran?

We often hear that Congress has passed a new defense budget, ever again surpassing its previous allocations. The most recent appropriations allocated $838 billion to military services in FY26 and now both President Trump and his domestic allies are calling for an increase to $1.5 trillion. For everyday Americans, that number is frankly unfathomable. But have you ever questioned, how does America pay for war?

Income tax has not always been permanent in America. But to give you the short version of the story, it was created to fund war and then later adopted as a permanent fixture. During times of war, Congress has periodically increased taxes to fund operations. However, politicians can only raise taxes so much before citizens begin caring about where their dollars are going. As a result, we no longer increase taxes for the sole purpose of funding wars.

Instead, we use debt. Because the public would be unwilling to fund wars through taxes, the American government defers to borrowing money. But where does that money come from? There is never enough capital in circulation to fulfill the American bloodlust, so it must be printed.

The American government’s incessant use of debt as a means to pay for wars of choice directly devalues the dollar’s purchasing power by forcing banks to digitally print money. Every dollar borrowed inflates our currency which, in turn, increases prices for everyday goods while working class compensation remains stagnant. It has held true for decades that wages do not and will not keep up with inflation.

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Oil & Religion

QUESTION: Marty, looking at Socrates, it does not show that this release of 400 million barrels of oil will do much. Am I reading this correctly?

ANSWER: The International Energy Agency released 400 million barrels of oil into the global market, the largest release of emergency oil stocks in history. This is just for show. However, it actually makes things far more vulnerable. This is all predicated on a quick victory with the conquest of Iran. If that assumption is wrong, this will not help.

1. MATHEMATICALLY INSUFFICIENT (won’t even cover 2-3 months of lost supply)
2. STRATEGICALLY STUPID (leaves U.S. vulnerable to future crises)
3. POLITICALLY DESPERATE (election-year panic move)
4. ECONOMICALLY FUTILE (treats symptom, not disease)

Let’s get real. Global oil consumption is about 100 million barrels/day (mb/d). U.S. consumption is about 20 million barrels/day. The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz supply affects about 21 million barrels/day (21% of global supply).  Releasing 400 million barrels at the global consumption rate would last 19 days (400M ÷ 21M/day). There is no way this will calm markets in the long term.

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Trump Threatens Oil Facilities After US Strikes Iran’s Kharg Island

Following a US strike on the military infrastructure of Kharg Island, Trump warned that Iran’s

oil facilities would be targeted if ships aren’t permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The bombing of Kharg Island’s military infrastructure follows reports that the US has sent a roughly 5000-strong amphibious ready group and marine expeditionary group to the Middle East.

Commenting on the US strike from Truth Social, President Trump said:

“Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.

“Our Weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the World has ever known but, for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.”

“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.”

According to Fars News Agency, an Iranian outlet with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), targets hit included the island’s air-defense systems, a naval base, a helicopter hangar, and the airport control tower. Over 15 explosions were reported.

Kharg Island is Iran’s main export hub for petroleum products with 90 percent of Iranian crude oil being distributed through its facilities.

Iran exported between 1.1 million and 1.5 million barrels per day from the start of the war to Wednesday last week.

As such, the island was frequently targeted during the Iran-Iraq War due to its strategic importance, serving as an economic lifeline of the IRGC.

Iran has already threatened retaliation against the Gulf states should any of them attack the country’s energy infrastructure.

Trump’s threat comes the day after Mojtaba Khameini, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, declared in his first public statement that Iran would continue its blockade of the Strait throughout the war.

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Just Get Out! Now!

As is becoming clearer from President Trump’s own statements and those of his staff, along with press reporting, the US has launched a major war without the input of the experts we pay to advise the President on such matters. The State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council Staff, Defense Intelligence Agency, and NSA were simply bypassed because, as White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, President Trump “had a feeling” Iran would attack.

The President’s real estate developer son-in-law and friend reinforced that “feeling” when they returned from the second round of talks with the Iranian foreign minister and his team. However, as the news outlet Responsible Statecraft (RS) reported over the weekend, both son-in-law Jared Kushner and friend Steve Witkoff appear to have mis-represented those talks in a way that helped push President Trump toward war. No State Department officials were on hand to ensure the reporting was accurate.

Also, arms control experts at home, according to the RS report, believe that “the duo appeared to have fatally misunderstood a series of basic technical and historical matters” regarding Iran’s nuclear program leading to inaccurate information conveyed to the President.

Congress was completely out of the picture – seemingly uninterested in performing its Constitutional duty – and no case was made to the American people that they must sacrifice and die once again for a war in the Middle East.

Trump’s repeated promises to not start new wars, especially in the Middle East, have turned out to be empty, and Republicans are set for a crippling defeat in the upcoming midterm elections.

Iran had been warning for months – since the last US/Israeli surprise attack in June – that if they were attacked again they would not hold back on US bases in the region and that they would close the Straits of Hormuz. Trump and Netanyahu attacked anyway, and Iran has done what it said it would do.

Now the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil is about to go out of control, and the global economy – along with the US dollar – seems about to implode.

On March 6th, President Trump refused a UK offer of help, saying we don’t need help when we’ve already won the war. Five days later, at a rally in Kentucky, President Trump repeated that “We’ve won the Iran war!”

It was his “Mission Accomplished” moment, because this weekend, just days after declaring victory against an “obliterated” Iran, Trump began begging other countries to send ships to help the US open the Strait of Hormuz.

Thus far every country has declined, understanding that such a mission has little chance of success.

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How the Past Whispers to the Present in Iran

In the first chapter of his 1874 novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain offered a telling observation about the connection between past and present: “History never repeats itself, but the… present often seems to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.”Among the “antique legends” most helpful in understanding the likely outcome of the current U.S. intervention in Iran is the Suez Crisis of 1956, which I describe in my new book Cold War on Five Continents. After Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, a joint British-French armada of six aircraft carriers destroyed Egypt’s air force, while Israeli troops smashed Egyptian tanks in the sands of the Sinai Peninsula. Within less than a week of war, Nasser had lost his strategic forces and Egypt seemed helpless before the overwhelming might of that massive imperial juggernaut.

But by the time Anglo-French forces came storming ashore at the north end of the Suez Canal, Nasser had executed a geopolitical masterstroke by sinking dozens of rusting ships filled with rocks at the canal’s northern entrance. In doing so, he automatically cut off Europe’s lifeline to its oil fields in the Persian Gulf. By the time British forces retreated in defeat from Suez, Britain had been sanctioned at the U.N., its currency was at the brink of collapse, its aura of imperial power had evaporated, and its global empire was heading for extinction.

Historians now refer to the phenomenon of a dying empire launching a desperate military intervention to recover its fading imperial glory as “micro-militarism.” And coming in the wake of imperial Washington’s receding influence over the broad Eurasian land mass, the recent U.S. military assault on Iran is starting to look like an American version of just such micro-militarism.

Even if history never truly repeats itself, right now it seems all too appropriate to wonder whether the current U.S. intervention in Iran might indeed be America’s version of the Suez Crisis. And should Washington’s attempt at regime change in Tehran somehow “succeed,” don’t for a second think that the result will be a successfully stable new government that will be able to serve its people well.

70 Years of Regime Change

Let’s return to the historical record to uncover the likely consequences of regime change in Iran. Over the past 70 years, Washington has made repeated attempts at regime change across the span of five continents — initially via CIA covert action during the 44 years of the Cold War and, in the decades since the end of that global conflict, through conventional military operations. Although the methods have changed, the results — plunging the affected societies into decades of searing social conflict and incessant political instability — have been sadly similar. This pattern can be seen in a few of the CIA’s most famous covert interventions during the Cold War.

In 1953, Iran’s new parliament decided to nationalize the British imperial oil concession there to fund social services for its emerging democracy. In response, a joint CIA-MI6 coup ousted the reformist prime minister and installed the son of the long-deposed former Shah in power. Unfortunately for the Iranian people, he proved to be a strikingly inept leader who transformed his country’s oil wealth into mass poverty — thereby precipitating Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

By 1954, Guatemala was implementing an historic land reform program that was investing its mostly Mayan indigenous population with the requisites for full citizenship. Unfortunately, a CIA-sponsored invasion installed a brutal military dictatorship, plunging the country into 30 years of civil war that left 200,000 people dead in a population of only five million.

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Israel Claims Killing Of Iran’s Top Security Official Ali Larijani In Overnight Strike

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Tuesday that the Israeli military successfully eliminated Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and one of Tehran’s most senior security figures, during airstrikes overnight.

In a statement, Katz confirmed that Larijani was killed alongside Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij militia, a paramilitary force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The strikes represent a major escalation in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, which has intensified since late February following U.S.-Israeli actions that reportedly killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials.

“The prime minister and I have instructed the IDF to continue hunting down the leadership of the regime of terror and oppression in Iran,” Katz said, adding that Larijani and Soleimani had now “joined Khamenei… in the depths of hell.” He described the operation as part of an accelerating effort to dismantle Iran’s remaining top leadership, wrote Clash Report.

Larijani, appointed SNSC secretary in August 2025 by President Masoud Pezeshkian, also served as the representative of the late Supreme Leader Khamenei on the council. A veteran politician, he previously held the position of speaker of Iran’s parliament (Majles) from 2008 to 2020 and was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2005 to 2007. Often described as a “moderate conservative,” Larijani came from a prominent political family; his brother Sadegh Larijani chairs the Expediency Council, a key body arbitrating disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council.

The killing of such a central figure in Iran’s strategic decision-making could significantly impact Tehran’s regional policies, military operations, and any potential nuclear negotiations amid the broader war.

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Trump Administration Goes After the Media for Negative Coverage of the Iran War

In recent days, senior Trump administration officials have increased their criticism and complaints about negative coverage of the US-Israeli war against Iran, with President Trump even suggesting certain media outlets could face “charges for treason.”

Trump made the comments in a long post on Truth Social put out on Sunday night, where he claimed that Iran has been feeding “false information” to the “Fake News media” and said fake AI videos were being circulated.

The president said there was a fake video that showed the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on fire. “The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!” Trump wrote.

While a fake video of Abraham Lincoln was circulated on social media, there’s no indication that it was picked up by any major media outlets. The only media outlet President Trump named in his post was The Wall Street Journal, which he accused of “false reporting” over a report on five US Air Force refueling tankers being damaged by an Iranian missile strike in Saudi Arabia.

However, Trump also acknowledged that one tanker was damaged and that the other four were back in service, which doesn’t refute the Journal report since it said the aircraft were not fully destroyed and were being repaired.

“The five US Refueling Planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to The Wall Street Journal’s false reporting, and others, are all in service, with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies,” Trump said.

The president also pointed to comments from Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, who is threatening to revoke the licenses of news broadcasters for their coverage of the war in Iran. “I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr … looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations,” he added.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has also complained that media outlets haven’t been “patriotic” enough in their coverage. “We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” Hegseth said at a press conference on Friday. “Yet some in this crew, in the press, just can’t stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look up at the TV, and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally.”

The US war chief continued, “For example, a banner or a headline: ‘Mideast war intensifies,’ splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit, because that’s what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about, ‘Iran increasingly desperate,’ because they are. They know it and so do you, if it can be admitted.”

Hegseth described a headline that said the “war is widening” as fake despite the conflict spreading across the region. He suggested a “real headline” for an “actually patriotic press” could say “Iran shrinking, going underground,” though senior Iranian officials attended a public Quds Day march in Tehran that same day.

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Trump threatens media with treason charges over Iran war coverage

US President Donald Trump has threatened media organizations with treason charges, accusing them of knowingly colluding with Iran to cast doubt on Washington’s decisive “victory.”

In a lengthy Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump alleged that “fake news” outlets had been spreading false information supposedly fabricated by Iran using artificial intelligence.

“The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they ‘win’ are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets,” Trump wrote.

Trump claimed that Tehran has circulated fabricated footage showing attacks on US military assets, including alleged strikes on refueling aircraft and naval vessels.

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Hegseth’s call for ‘no mercy’ to Iranians deemed war crime

US War Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing accusations of violating domestic and international laws prohibiting war crimes by declaring that “no quarter” or mercy would be given to Iranian forces.

The legal definition of the term means surrendering Iranian soldiers would be executed by American troops rather than taken prisoner. US officials and legal experts have responded by accusing Hegseth of encouraging war crimes.

”We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” Hegseth said at a press briefing on Iran on Friday.

Some US officials and legal scholars have argued that the remarks went beyond tough rhetoric and strayed into criminality.

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona blasted Hegseth, saying his comment “isn’t some wannabe tough guy line” but rather an illegal order that jeopardizes US military service members. It also shows “there was never a clear strategy for this war,” the lawmaker added.

Dan Maurer, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and judge advocate, published a hypothetical memo Hegseth should receive from the Pentagon legal counsel, informing him of criminal liability for himself and any subordinate who followed his directive to deny quarter.

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