White House Warns Staff Against Insider Trading Using Iran War Information

As recent geopolitical events shake financial markets, some traders are making risky bets to profit from the volatility.

In an email on March 24, the White House warned staff not to trade or place bets related to the U.S. war in Iran, including on prediction markets.

The warning aimed to prevent any misuse of confidential information, the White House told The Epoch Times.

“President [Donald] Trump has been crystal clear: while he seeks a strong and profitable stock market for everyone, members of Congress and other government officials should be prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit,” Davis Ingle, White House spokesman, said in an email.

The warning was in line with government ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of nonpublic information for trading activity, he said.

Ingles added that “any implication that administration officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting.”

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Iran must not repeat Libyan mistake of trusting US – ex-Gaddafi minister

Iran should not repeat the mistakes of Libya, which paid a heavy price for trusting the West, the North African country’s former information minister, Moussa Ibrahim, has warned ahead of the talks between delegations from Washington and Tehran.

The first direct meeting between the sides since the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28 is expected to take place in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, according to the White House.

The American team will be headed by Vice President J.D. Vance, and will also include special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Tehran hasn’t announced the lineup of its delegation yet, but reports claim that it could be led by parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

In an interview with RT on Friday, Ibrahim – a former cabinet member under longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was deposed and murdered in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 – said that “both parties come to these negotiations with different ideas about peace and conflict.”

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The US took out Iranian leaders and facilities with surgical precision – but the Islamic Republic is winning the propaganda war… with comedy Lego videos

Long before the first blast ripped through the night, the target was mapped out.

The Americans and Israelis knew that this building near the city of Isfahan was a key node of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force. Inside, men planned and coordinated Iran‘s ballistic missile and drone attacks.

The mid-March operation was layered and surgical. First came observation. RQ-170 Sentinels – a highly classified, low-observable ‘stealth’ unmanned aerial system – had tracked a surge in activity at the facility. Vehicles roared in and out; crews scrambled from hangars; communications spiked. An Iranian attack was imminent.

Then came the invisible assault: EA-18G Growler jets choked Iranian radar with jamming, while AGM-88 HARM missiles hunted down any communications systems still emitting signals, destroying some and forcing others to go dark. With the site effectively blinded, F-35I Adir stealth fighters slipped into position, backed by heavier firepower: B-2 Spirit bombers carrying the massive GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

When the kinetic strike came, it was swift, decisive and awesome.

The GBU-57 does not explode on impact; instead, it punches deep into its target before detonating. That night, buildings pancaked inward, their roofs buckling as reinforced steel layers imploded, crushing underground command centres. By dawn, all that remained was a charred ruin, its most senior personnel little more than a smear of blood amid shattered concrete.

In the days that followed, Iran’s missile activity in the region slowed. Follow-up surveillance confirmed a ‘functional kill’ – a critical gap in Iran’s ability to plan and execute missile operations.

In so many ways, the Iran War is 21st-century conflict epitomised.

Never has warfare been so forensically and professionally conducted; never so surgical. Swathes of the enemy leadership taken out in minutes; cyber-war neutering Iranian facilities in seconds. Never has a regime of terror been so utterly, and precisely, shattered from the air.

On the ground, Israel’s infiltration of Iran’s security forces is equally extraordinary. I am told by sources it is so pervasive that when confusing or seemingly counterproductive orders are issued, the default assumption is that they’ve come from commanders who are Mossad agents. The systematic degradation of Iran’s security apparatus is unprecedented.

And yet the Iranian regime believe they have won. The Supreme National Security Council of Iran called the war an ‘undeniable, historic and crushing defeat’ for the enemy. It’s what you’d expect them to say. But many in the West are taking them at their word.

We must ask why.

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As Trump-Iran Truce Frays, Dem Leaders Pursue Yet Another Round of War Powers Votes

After accusations of cowardly delays, Democratic leaders in the US Congress moved Wednesday toward a vote on yet another war powers resolution aimed at stopping President Donald Trump from waging more unauthorized war on Iran as the tenuous day-old Mideast ceasefire unravels.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced Wednesday that Democrats will force a vote on a war powers resolution when upper chamber lawmakers reconvene next week.

“Congress must reassert its authority, especially at this dangerous moment,” Schumer said during a press conference at his New York office. “No president, Democrat or Republican, should take this country to war alone. Not now. Not ever.”

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) reiterated remarks made during a Tuesday evening interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, in which he said he’s demanding House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “immediately reconvene the House back into session” so lawmakers can vote on the war powers resolution.

“A two-week ceasefire is insufficient,” Jeffries said. “We need a permanent end to Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice.”

“Assuming it doesn’t happen this week, we’ll go back into session next week and we will present a war powers resolution as soon as it becomes available to us to do so as a matter of privilege on the House floor,” he continued. “All we need are a handful of Republicans to join us.”

“The American people strongly oppose this reckless war of choice and know that we should not be spending billions of dollars to drop bombs in Iran while Republicans and Donald Trump are unwilling to spend a dime to actually make life more affordable for the American people,” Jeffries added.

The GOP-controlled House and Senate have rejected attempts to pass war powers resolutions, with Johnson denying that the US is even at war – a dubious argument used in as far back as the Korean War in order to skirt the constitutional requirement for congressional assent.

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White House ‘signed off’ on Pakistan’s declaration that Iran ceasefire included Lebanon: Report

The White House was directly involved in “shaping” the ceasefire announcement by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, having reviewed and approved it before publication, according to a New York Times (NYT) report on 8 April.

The report says Washington saw and signed off on the statement in advance, indicating that the announcement was not an independent diplomatic move but part of coordinated communication. 

US President Donald Trump had issued an 8:00 pm deadline on Tuesday for Iran to surrender, saying that he would erase an entire civilization if Tehran did not agree to his terms for a deal.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” the president wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The NYT report notes that, behind the scenes, US officials were actively seeking a way out as the deadline approached, even as US President Donald Trump was threatening Iran with annihilation if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz.

It asserts that diplomatic channels were far more active than the public messaging indicated, with the ceasefire appeal reflecting a managed effort rather than a spontaneous initiative.

Sharif’s post itself had appeared earlier with the header “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X,” fueling speculation that the text had been provided externally before publication. It called for extending the deadline by two weeks, reopening the Strait of Hormuz as a “goodwill gesture,” and implementing a temporary ceasefire across all fronts. 

Iran’s 10-point plan includes US non-aggression, sanctions removal, compensation, troop withdrawal, uranium enrichment, and Iranian control of Hormuz, alongside a halt to fighting across all fronts, directly naming Lebanon. 

The Pakistani premier’s statement on X explicitly stated that “the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”

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Designer Wars to depopulate and to destroy

The War against Iran may be temporarily suspended (perhaps only while ammunition stockpiles are renewed) but it is about more than stealing land and oil and destroying an entire civilisation – it’s also about killing hundreds of millions, particularly in Asia and Africa, and destroying the global economy. This is a half-hearted peace, a peace full of tension and uncertainty and guaranteed betrayal; a peace as fragile as an old man’s bones. In that it now controls the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is stronger. The blustering, bombastic Trump now has a reputation in the gutter and his skills as a negotiator have been exposed as worthless. The dollar‘s days as the reserve currency are numbered. China and the yuan are winners.

The obvious, overt aim of the unprovoked attack on Iran was, as with all recent wars, to grab land and commodities (especially oil). All recent wars have been at least partly about commodities (especially oil). Even Gaza has oil. And it seems clear that the designer war between Russia and Ukraine was devised to destroy productive land and oil. It is, in short, part of the depopulation plan.

Similarly, there are covert, unspoken purposes for the attack on Iran – which is another “designer” war.

The first aim is to kill a lot of people, as part of the depopulation plan, which is an essential part of the Great Reset and which is, indeed, the reason behind the absurd pseudoscientific manufactured nonsense known as global warming, about which I’ve been warning for many years.

Worldwide, 40% of crops are grown on land which requires irrigation powered by diesel. Without diesel, farmers cannot grow or harvest crops. Fishing boats are stuck in their harbours because they have no fuel. No fishing boats means no fish. Wheat is the biggest food crop in the world but grain drying requires energy, which isn’t available. There is, it seems, plenty of fuel for transporting troops and bombs, but little for producing food. There is energy galore for the servers required for AI, but none for farming and fishing.

Did the poikilothermic, psychopathic warmongers know all this before they started their criminal activities?

Of course they did! They are taking over the world and plan to run it and destroy it. The wars aren’t going to stop – they are part of the plan to take us into the Great Reset.

Energy shortages are being used as a weapon and the thousands dying in the Middle East are clearly just beginning of a major land and oil grab.

You almost certainly did NOT read in the mainstream coporate press that the shortage of oil and fertiliser, and the higher prices of energy and food, will mean that hunger in Asia and Africa will increase. The deaths there could quickly reach hundreds of millions. Around 700 million people were hungry and close to starving to death before the United States and Israel started their current unprovoked war in the Middle East. And countries struggling to catch up with the 21st century will be held back – as planned. (Where are the Black Lives Matter campaigners when they’re needed?)

All this was predictable.

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From Iraq to Iran: What the latest war revealed about US airpower

During nearly six weeks of the war on Iran, the US has suffered heavy military aircraft losses, now exceeding those recorded during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran’s recent downing of an American F-35 jet marks the first time in 23 years that a US fighter jet has been shot down in combat; the previous instance was in Iraq in 2003, when an A‑10 was lost. 

Over the seven years of the Iraq campaign from 2003 to 2009, total US aviation losses amounted to 129 helicopters and 24 fixed‑wing aircraft, with only 46 attributed to hostile fire. The remaining cases were due to malfunctions, fuel exhaustion, and pilot error.

Since the start of the Iran war, the US has lost at least 44 aircraft, including the first incident of the US fifth-generation stealth F-35 Lightning II being hit. The list includes four F-15E Strike Eagle (the Wall Street Journal cited a fact sheet stating that the original model costs at least $31 million, while the cost of newer models is close to $100 million), two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, two Lockheed C-130 Hercules, two Boeing E-3 Sentries, eight Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, one Boeing CH-47 Chinook, one Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk (damaged), two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks (damaged), four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, and 17 General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers (at about $30 million each, totalling close to $500 million).

High-value AWACS and multiple KC-135 tankers were damaged by Iranian strikes on regional airbases.  In the first four days of the war, Iran hit almost all US military bases (or locations hosting US aircraft) in the Gulf. It struck key US ground radars linked to the THAAD air‑defense system, other early‑warning radars, and multiple radar and communication nodes.

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This is how the age of American dominance comes to an end

Regardless of how the conflict between the United States and Iran formally concludes, its symbolism is already unmistakable. An ancient civilization, one of the oldest continuous states in human history, has emerged as the final obstacle to the project of American global dominance. That alone tells us something about the direction in which the world is moving.

For historians, the deeper meaning of the current Middle Eastern crisis lies in the confrontation between two powers at opposite ends of the historical spectrum. Iran is arguably the world’s oldest centralized state, with roots stretching back to around 530 BC. Since then, it has never ceased to exist as a unified political entity. That continuity is remarkable. Even Russia, the major Western European powers, India and China have all experienced fragmentation at various points in their histories.

The United States, by contrast, is among the youngest major nations – barely 250 years old. Its history is ten times shorter than that of Persia. In that sense, the present conflict pits antiquity against modernity, a civilization forged over millennia against a state that rose rapidly in a uniquely favorable historical moment.

In purely military terms, such comparisons mean little. The United States retains overwhelming destructive capacity. If it chose to do so, it could devastate Iran. This is, after all, the only country in history to have used nuclear weapons against civilian populations. That fact alone should temper any illusions about the limits of American power.

Yet the long-term significance of this confrontation lies elsewhere. It isn’t about whether Iran can defeat the United States in a conventional sense. It’s about whether the current international order, one shaped by American dominance, can continue to function as it has.

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Iran has prevailed, and the Middle East has changed

US President Donald Trump has, in the end, found a way out of the situation he created by embarking on a reckless war against Iran. The threat of destroying an entire civilization provided him with the pretext to step back.

Indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington, conducted through intermediaries, primarily Pakistan and, behind it, China, have produced a ceasefire. Trump may claim that Iran was cowed by his threats, but the reality is different.

A ceasefire under conditions where the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control suggests that Tehran has not backed down. Washington, in effect, has.

It is too early to speak of any “golden age” emerging from these talks. But the outlines of the conflict’s outcome are already visible.

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The War in Iran as International Terrorism

As someone born in 1944, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, who lived through 12 other presidencies before Donald Trump took — and that word has a different meaning with him — office in 2016, the truth is that I’ve simply never experienced anything quite like this (and I know that I’m in good company). Yes, I’ve certainly lived through other wars, from the Korean War of my childhood to the nightmarish war in Vietnam of my collegiate years (though it began well before and went on long after that) to the invasion of Afghanistan (that led me to launch TomDispatch) to George W. Bush’s nightmarish war in Iraq that was a critical part of my reportorial (or at least TomDispatchian) life. And now, in my old age, yet another war! (Why is it that my country, with or without Donald Trump, just can’t seem to stop going to war?)

Iran is, of course, being trumped (or rather Trumped!). The “president of peace” was only the president of peace until he wasn’t. Ask Nicolás Maduro and his wife if you doubt that for a second. And give Donald Trump credit for his unpredictability. One moment he is indeed the president of peace and the next moment — no question about it — he’s making war like a maniac or blowing staggering numbers of boats (almost 50 as I was writing this) out of the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

You might wonder, under the circumstances, if it’s even possible to cover his presidency as a reporter the way any journalist might once have covered a presidency. The very name for his latest assault (on Iran), Operation Epic Fury, is distinctly all Trump all the time. As he told a crowd at a rally in Kentucky recently, “They gave me a list of names to choose. ‘Sir, you could pick the name you’d like, sir.’ I said, ‘The name of what?’ ‘The name of the attack on Iran, sir.’ And they gave me, like, 20 names, and I’m, like, falling asleep. I didn’t like any of them. Then I see ‘Epic Fury.’ I said, ‘I like that name! I like that name!’”

In short, the president of peace has distinctly made peace with war and, when it comes to Latin America, his version of war may just be beginning. (Watch out, Cuba!) With all of that and, sadly, more in mind, let TomDispatch regular Nan Levinson take you into a world in which reporters do indeed have to cover (whatever that may mean these days) Donald Trump making war on this world of ours.

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