Tag: iran

Who’s Your Daddy Now? Failing War Empowering Euros To Break With Trump

Nearly a year ago, NATO Chief Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was excoriated for calling Donald Trump “daddy” in reference to the American president’s “tough talk” on Europe, whether it be on member states’ per capita contributions to the defense pot, or Washington’s demands to “take” Greenland.

This was at a time of course when European leaders believed that appeasing Trump in such ingratiating terms, and in dulcet tones pitched to soothe rather than challenge, was the way to the man’s heart, if not soul. It certainly did not work.

So after Trump’s second attack on Iran in Feb. 28 and the resulting Iranian closure of the Hormuz Strait happened, some Europeans decided to change their tune. In addition to Rutte never again uttering the word “daddy,” the Spanish president Pedro Sanchez closed off the country’s bases to U.S. military access and condemned Trump’s war as a violation of international law. Germany’s Frederich Merz called the Iran War “humiliating” for the U.S. Italy has closed its bases, and UK and French leaders said the U.S. could only use their bases to defend UK and French assets, not to launch operations against Iran.

Meanwhile, Trump looked around and demanded NATO member states help him wrench control of the strait from Iran. Aside from pledging to meet and come up with ideas to secure the strait after the war, no one has complied. To say Trump is agitated and lashing out as a result is an understatement.

The situation has called into question the future of NATO, as the administration has suggested that the alliance is falling down on its Article 5 obligations, which is not true — a member was not attacked and NATO is not an offensive alliance designed to enter wars at members’ behest. Regardless, if the cohesion of NATO was shaky before, some are saying it’s on life support now.

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US war in Iran has cost $36.9 billion so far: Pentagon

The US’ war in Iran has cost US$29 billion (S$36.9 billion) so far, a senior Pentagon official said on May 12, an increase of US$4 billion from an estimate provided in late April.

With just six months before the mid-term elections, in which US President Donald Trump’s Republicans may face an uphill battle to keep their House majority, Democrats are riding high in public opinion polls as they attempt to link the war to cost-of-living issues.

On April 29, the Pentagon said the war at that point had cost US$25 billion.

Mr Jules Hurst, who is performing the duties of the comptroller, told lawmakers on May 12 that the new cost included updated repair and replacement of equipment and operational costs.

“The joint staff team and the comptroller team are constantly looking at that estimate,” he said.

He was speaking alongside Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine.

It is unclear how the Pentagon arrived at the US$29 billion figure. A source told Reuters in March that the Trump administration estimated that the first six days of the war had cost at least US$11.3 billion. REUTERS

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Israel has tried to drag US into war on Iran for decades, says former Qatari PM

A former Qatari prime minister has said that the war on Iran is part of decades-long Israeli efforts to violently reshape the region, and that a unified “Gulf Nato” must be urgently established. 

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, who is also the former Qatari foreign minister, made the comments in a wide-ranging interview on Al Jazeera’s Al Muqabala programme. 

“We are witnessing a major restructuring of the region,” Sheikh Hamad said.

He said that hardline Israelis, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had been trying to get the US to go to war with Iran over its nuclear programme since the 1990s under President Bill Clinton’s administration. 

The veteran diplomat said that previous US governments had been hesitant for a full scale war, including Donald Trump’s first administration. 

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As Hegseth Spars With Congress Over Iran War, Trump Decries Criticism As ‘Virtual Treason’

There was a bit of a narrative shift on display in Congress as back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill with top defense and Trump admin officials played out Tuesday, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth repeatedly on the defensive as he and the administration face intensified scrutiny over the Iran war.

And the growing frustration vented in Congress is not just being sounded by Democrats. As Washington Post’s Tuesday headline aptly described: Hegseth, Caine encounter intense bipartisan frustration with Iran war. It seems President Trump has been made keenly aware of potential growing rebellion among GOP ranks, and biting criticisms over how the conflict and Strait of Hormuz standoff is going, given he decided to level the word “treason” in an afternoon Truth Social Post. It seemed also aimed at a series of apparent recent sensitive or classified info leaks within the administration and Pentagon to the media, related to the conflict…

Trump stated while en route to China: “When the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Militarily, against us, it’s virtual TREASON” – and he went on to charge that “they are aiding and abetting the enemy!”

“Only Losers, Ingrates, and Fools are able to make a case against America!” he also wrote.

This moment might remind the American public of another key turning point in US history when past president cast all criticisms of wars of choice in the Middle East: When President George W. Bush was gearing up to launch new forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he declared, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

This week also saw arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan break from Trump’s Iran War in the the pages of the generally pro-war Atlantic:

It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored.

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.

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18 U.S. Intel Agencies Said Iran Wasn’t Building a Nuke; CIA Concluded Iran Could Hold Out for Months

All 18 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and would retaliate against U.S. bases across the Middle East if the U.S. attacked the country, former U.S. counterterrorism chief Joe Kent reported today.

The agencies also knew that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, Kent reported on X. 

The report from Kent — who quit his post due to the war on behalf of Israel — included a story from The Washington Post about a CIA analysis explaining that Iran could withstand American-Israeli attacks for months without suffering severe economic hardship.

Kent also challenged Post columnist Marc Thiessen, who thinks Trump should continue the war.

A former Green Beret and combat veteran, Kent has opposed the war from the beginning. He has said the U.S. must end aid to Israel and stop fighting its wars. One reason: The stated purpose of the war, that Iran would soon build a nuclear weapon, was bogus.

“One of the many tragedies of this war is that before the war began the U.S. Intel Community [IC], including CIA, was in agreement that Iran wasn’t developing a nuclear weapon & that Iran would target U.S. bases in the region & shut down the Strait of Hormuz if they were attacked by Israel & the U.S.,” Kent wrote:

The IC also properly assessed that targeting the Iranian leadership would strengthen the regime and embolden the hardliners. 

Despite the professionalism & accuracy of the IC, the narrative & agenda spun by a foreign government — Israel, won the argument & forced us into this war. 

We need to understand exactly how this happened to ensure we are never put in this position again.

Kent’s post affirms the report in The New York Times that Trump unwisely listened to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims that defeating Iran would be a cinch. Indeed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Netanyahu’s presentation to Trump in the White House Situation Room in February “bullsh*t” after CIA chief John Ratcliffe — citing an intelligence analysis of Netanyahu’s claims — called them “farcical” and “detached from reality.” 

Nonetheless, Trump went ahead.

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UAE Becomes Active Combatant in Iran War, Secretly Launching Strikes Against Islamic Regime

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been secretly carrying out attacks against Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The attacks included a strike on an oil refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in early April, triggering a major fire and knocking much of the facility offline for months.

Iran acknowledged at the time that the refinery had been struck in what it described as an enemy attack.

Tehran later responded with missile and drone strikes against the UAE and Kuwait.

While Gulf states publicly insisted before the war that they would not allow their territory or airspace to be used for attacks on Iran, the UAE became an active participant in the conflict after coming under sustained Iranian attack.

Iran launched more than 2,800 missiles and drones at the UAE during the war, more than against any other country besides Israel.

The attacks disrupted tourism, aviation, and property markets across the Emirates and reportedly triggered a major shift in Abu Dhabi’s strategic outlook toward Tehran.

U.S. officials are said to have quietly welcomed the UAE’s participation in the war effort, according to the report.

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Could Trump’s Iran Fiasco Be America’s Suez Crisis?

Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but similarities in the larger context suggest that the United States is facing the same kind of “end of empire” moment that the British Empire faced in that historic crisis.

In 1956, the British Empire was still resisting independence movements in many of its colonies. The horrors of British Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya and Britain’s brutal guerrilla war in Malaya continued throughout the 1950s, and, like the United States today, Britain still had military bases all over the world.

Britain’s imperial domination of Egypt began with its purchase of Egypt’s 44% share in the French-built Suez Canal in 1875. Seven years later, the British invaded Egypt, took over the management of the Canal and controlled access to it for 70 years.

After the Egyptian Revolution overthrew the British-controlled monarchy in 1952, the British agreed to withdraw and close their bases in Egypt by 1956, and to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt by 1968.

But Egypt was increasingly threatened by Britain, France and Israel. Through the 1955 Baghdad Pact, the British recruited Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan to form the Central Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet, anti-Egyptian alliance modeled on NATO in Europe. At the same time, Israel was attacking Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip, and France was threatening Egypt for supporting Algeria’s war of independence.

Egypt’s President Nasser responded by forging new alliances with Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries in the region, and, after failing to secure weapons from the US or USSR, Egypt bought large shipments of Soviet weapons from Czechoslovakia.

Upset with Egypt’s new alliances, the United States, Great Britain and the World Bank withdrew their financing from Egypt’s Aswan Dam project on the Nile. In response, Nasser stunned the world by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company and pledging to compensate its British and French shareholders.

British leaders saw the loss of the Suez Canal as unacceptable. Chancellor Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary, “If Nasser ‘gets away with it’, we are done for. The whole Arab world will despise us… and our friends will fall. It may well be the end of British influence and strength forever. So, in the last resort, we must use force and defy opinion, here and overseas”.

British Prime Minister Anthony Eden hatched a secret plan with France and Israel to invade Egypt, seize the Canal and try to overthrow Nasser. The US rejected military action against Egypt, and President Eisenhower told a press conference, on September 5, 1956, “We are committed to a peaceful settlement of this dispute, nothing else.” But the British assumed that the US would ultimately support them once combat began.

Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and then Britain and France landed forces in Port Said at the north end of the Suez Canal, under the pretense of protecting the Canal from both Israel and Egypt.

But before Britain and France could fully seize control of the Canal, the US government intervened to stop them. The US began selling off its British currency reserves and blocked an emergency IMF loan to Britain, triggering a financial crisis. At the same time, the USSR threatened to send forces to defend Egypt and even hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons against Britain, France and Israel.

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Iranian Agent in the U.S. Coordinates Arms Pipeline Fueling the Sudan War

On the night of April 18, federal agents intercepted Shamim Mafi at Los Angeles International Airport as she attempted to board a flight to Istanbul. The 44-year-old Iranian national and U.S. permanent resident was arrested on charges of trafficking arms on behalf of the Iranian government. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli stated that she is charged with “brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan.” She has pleaded not guilty. Her trial is scheduled for June 23.

In addition to alleged arms trafficking, the case has uncovered a logistics network that has been moving Iranian weapons through Sudan for more than a decade. The pipeline has survived Israeli airstrikes and the Abraham Accords and is now operating at a scale that dwarfs anything previously prosecuted in a U.S. courtroom.

Court records show Mafi brokered a contract worth more than $72.5 million for Mohajer-6 armed drones from Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, destined for Sudan’s Ministry of Defense. Beyond the drones and 55,000 bomb fuses, the complaint alleges she arranged the sale of 500 non-guided aerial bombs, 70,000 AK-47s, 250 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 1,000 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and 500,000 rockets.

Mafi allegedly operated through an Oman-registered front company, Atlas International Business LLC, which received more than $7 million in payments in 2025 alone. The payments were structured to evade detection. Some funds were transferred through informal hawala money-exchange systems operating across the Middle East and Africa, while other amounts moved through banks in Dubai and Turkey. Additional payments were reportedly delivered in crates of $100 bills.

Search-warrant records show nearly 62 bidirectional contacts between Mafi and an officer from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) between December 2022 and June 2025. During interviews with FBI agents, Mafi acknowledged the contact.

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Iran Has Nuclear Energy, Not Nuclear Weapons

Last week, on May 5, 2026, President Trump told a group of young children in the Oval Office that “we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks.”

Trump also told the children, “Iran with a nuclear weapon…maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now… I can tell you, the Middle East would have been gone. Israel would have been gone. And they would have trained their sights on Europe, first, and then us.”

According to the White House website, Trump warned Iran against having nuclear weapons on 74 occasions prior to the war.  Since the war began on February 28, 2026, Trump has discussed Iranian nuclear issues in at least 20 documented public appearances, based on the Senate Democrats’ Trump transcript archive and Roll Call’s Factbase transcript database.

Some of Trump’s more pointed claims:

About six weeks into the current war, on April 16, 2026, Trump said Iran “would have had a nuclear weapon within one month” if the U.S. had not used B-2 bombers to strike Iranian civilian nuclear energy facilities during the June 2025 war on Iran.

About one month after the war began, Trump said on March 27, 2026, “the Iranian lunatics refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons” after the June 2025 war.

And on February 24, 2026, just four days before starting the current war in Iran, Trump said that Iran was “warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over…”.

Trump’s statements go beyond saying ‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.’ He has repeatedly claimed that Iran was weeks away from having one, that U.S. strikes stopped Iran from obtaining one, and that Iran was trying to rebuild or continue a nuclear weapons program.

But Trump’s claims are not supported by the record. In fact, official statements from U.S. intelligence, the State Department, the IAEA, and others state that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, is not currently building one, and does not seek to build one.

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Bahrain Intensifies Crackdown On Shia Communities, Arrests Dozens Over Alleged IRGC Links

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry announced on Saturday the arrest of 41 citizens, including multiple Shia religious leaders, over alleged ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The ministry said security services uncovered the alleged network through “investigations, security reports, and previous Public Prosecution cases related to espionage involving foreign entities.” The detainees are accused of “espionage involving foreign entities and sympathy with blatant Iranian aggression.”

Around 30 Shia Muslim clerics were among the 41 arrested, as the Gulf monarchy intensifies a campaign of raids and arrests predominantly targeting Shia religious figures and seminary teachers in Bahrain.

The arrests mark a new security escalation by Manama and form part of a continued policy of restrictions against clerics in the country. The Bahrain News Agency reported that legal proceedings are now underway against the 41 detainees.

Earlier this week, Bahrain stripped three lawmakers of their seats in parliament after they publicly criticized the monarchy’s crackdown on dissent over its support for the US–Israeli war on Iran:

In a vote in Manama on Thursday, the Bahraini House of Representatives revoked the memberships of Abdulnabi Salman, Mahdi al-Shuwaikh, and Mamdouh al-Saleh. The three lawmakers publicly opposed the monarchy’s move last week to revoke the citizenship of 69 Bahrainis and their families, accusing them of “sympathizing with Iran.”

Bahrain has a majority Shia population but is ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa royal family. The kingdom hosts the largest US naval base in the region, home to the US Fifth Fleet.

That decision came less than two weeks after Bahrain revoked the citizenship of 69 people over alleged support for Iranian retaliatory attacks on the country.

The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy described the move as “dangerous” and a “blatant abuse of power,” saying the individuals had not been publicly named and that their legal status remained unclear.

Since the launch of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, Bahrain has escalated a sweeping domestic crackdown tied to alleged support for Tehran and opposition to the country’s western alignments.

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