Tag: iran

Iranians flood streets in mourning as Tehran confirms assassination of supreme leader

Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country on 1 March, hours after state television confirmed the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic. 

Video footage showed millions of people on the streets of the capital and other cities, waving Iranian flags and mourning the leader’s death.

Protests against the US and Israel have also erupted in Pakistan and Iraq. 

Angry protesters in Pakistan’s Karachi attempted to storm the US consulate on Sunday morning. At least ten have been shot dead by Pakistani security forces and US consulate personnel. Thousands protested in Kashmir as well.

Iraqis also stormed the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the US embassy is located. The popular movements coincided with continued US-Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory drone and missile operations targeting Israel and Washington’s assets across the region. Iraqi resistance groups have also begun drone operations against US bases. 

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Trump Starts a Major Regime-Change War with Iran, Serving Neoconservatism and Israel

For decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American neoconservatives have dreamed of only one foreign policy goal: having the United States fight a regime-change war against Iran. With the Oval Office occupied by Donald Trump — who campaigned for a full decade on a vow to end regime-change wars and vanquish neoconservatism — their goal has finally been realized.

Early Saturday morning, the United States and Israel began a massive bombing campaign of Tehran and other Iranian cities. President Trump posted an eight-minute speech to social media purporting to justify his new war, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” Trump’ war cry was filled with the same slogans and clichés about Iran that Americans have heard from the carousel of bipartisan neocons dominating U.S. foreign policy for decades: Iran is a state sponsor of “terror”; it is pursuing nuclear weapons; it took American hostages forty-seven years ago (in 1979); it repressed and kills its dissidents, etc.

As if to underscore how fully he was embracing the very foreign policy dogma he vowed to reject, Trump invoked the Marvel-like “Axis of Evil” formulation that White House speechwriter David Frum wrote for George W. Bush at the start of the War on Terror. Iran’s government, President Trump proclaimed, is one determined to “practice evil.” This is how Bush — speaking of Iraq, Iran and North Korea — put it in his 2002 State of the Union address: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil.”

Trump left no doubt about the scope and ambition of his new war. This will not be a quick or targeted bombing run against a few nuclear sites, as Trump ordered last June as part of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran. There is nothing remotely constrained or targeted about any of this. Instead, this new war is what Trump called a “massive and ongoing” mission of destruction and regime-change, launched in the heart of the Middle East, against a country of 93 million people: almost four times the size of Iraq’s population when the U.S. launched that regime change war back in 2003.

That Trump claimed to have “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program last June — just eight months ago — was not something he meaningfully acknowledged in his new war announcement, other than to vaguely assert that Iran somehow resumed their nuclear program. In fact, Trump seemed to delight in repeating the same triumphalist rhetoric that he used last year when he assured Americans that Iran’s nuclear program could no longer pose a threat as a result of Trump’s triumphant Operation Midnight Hammer.

In lieu of outlining any clear mission statement for this new war, let alone a cogent exit strategy, Trump offered a laundry list of flamboyantly violent vows. The U.S. will “totally obliterate” Iran’s ballistic missile program (which Iran could not use to reach the American homeland but which Trump admitted last June caused Israel “to get hit very hard” in retaliation). Trump also promised that the U.S. would “annihilate” Iran’s navy. And he told Iranians: “the hour of your freedom is at hand….bombs will be dropping everywhere.”

Trump also attempted to prepare the nation for caskets and body bags of American soldiers returning to the U.S. “The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost; we may have casualties,” the President said. But, said the man who did everything to avoid military service including during the Vietnam War, mass death of American soldiers “often happens in war.”

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US and Israel Launch Illegal War on Iran, Call for Regime Change

he U.S. and Israel carried out a series of unprovoked and devastating strikes on Iran on Saturday, sparking retaliation from the country as U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Iranians to overthrow their government.

Iranian media reported strikes across the country, including in the capital of Tehran and around the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, The Associated Press reported. It’s unclear if Khamenei and other top leaders survived.

One of the strikes, reportedly launched by Israel, destroyed an elementary school for girls in the southern city of Minab, killing at least 85 people, Iranian semi-official outlet Tasnim News Agency reported — seemingly the first reported casualties of the conflict.

Iran retaliated with strikes targeting Israel and U.S. bases in numerous Gulf Coast countries, including in a strike on the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. Many U.S. bases in the region were partially evacuated prior to the first U.S.-Israeli strikes.

In a video address posted as the first strikes were launched, Trump described the attack as “a massive and ongoing operation.”

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Reportedly Flees Tehran, Moved to “Secure Location” After U.S.-Israel Strikes Target Regime’s Past, Present, and Future Leadership

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reportedly no longer in Tehran and has been transferred to a secure location amid escalating military strikes targeting the Iranian regime’s infrastructure, The Jerusalem Post reported.

According to multiple breaking international reports, Khamenei was moved out of the Iranian capital after explosions rocked Tehran early Saturday morning, following what Israel described as a “pre-emptive strike” against regime targets tied to Iran’s military and intelligence apparatus.

Authorities reportedly shut down roads around the Supreme Leader’s compound as strikes were carried out near key government facilities, including locations in proximity to Khamenei’s own offices in downtown Tehran.

Founder Iran Israel Alliance, Emily Schrader, wrote on X, “In addition to the supreme leader’s office, air strikes are also targeting Imam Ali Missile Base and Qom nuclear facilities in the past few minutes. One of the targeted assassinations was Amir Hatami, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.”

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President Trump Releases Fiery Late-Night Statement on Iran as U.S. Begins “Major Combat Operations”

President Donald J. Trump released a statement early Saturday morning following reports that the United States has begun what he described as “major combat operations in Iran” after Israeli forces launched pre-emptive strikes on Iranian targets overnight.

The Commander-in-Chief confirmed that American forces are now engaged in what he described as a “massive and ongoing operation” aimed at neutralizing the Iranian regime’s ability to threaten U.S. troops, American allies, and the homeland itself.

President Trump outlined a decades-long pattern of Iranian aggression, reminding Americans that the regime has openly chanted “Death to America” since its inception in 1979 while backing terrorist attacks that have killed U.S. service members across the Middle East.

He specifically cited:

  • The 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, where dozens of Americans were held captive for 444 days
  • The 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. military personnel
  • Iranian-backed militias responsible for killing and maiming hundreds of American troops in Iraq
  • Continued proxy attacks against U.S. forces and commercial vessels in Middle Eastern shipping lanes

From Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen, the President warned that Tehran has spent decades funding and training terrorist militias responsible for destabilizing the region and spilling innocent blood.

Trump also pointed to Iran’s role in backing Hamas, which carried out the brutal October 7 attacks on Israel that killed more than 1,000 civilians, including dozens of Americans, and resulted in U.S. citizens being taken hostage.

Trump issued a direct appeal to the Iranian people, urging them to reclaim control of their nation from the country’s ruling Islamic regime.

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Trump Admin To Launch New Free-Speech Site To Combat Censorship Abroad

In response to what the Trump administration says is a rising tide of censorship in Europe, the State Department is launching a new app that will give users worldwide access to content that has been censored in other countries.

This includes not only Europe but also China and Iran. The platform, called Freedom.gov, will go live over the next several weeks, according to the State Department, and will be operable on iOS and Android devices.

“Freedom.gov is the latest in a long line of efforts by the State Department to protect and promote fundamental freedoms, both online and offline,” the State Department stated in an email to The Epoch Times. “The project will be global in its scope, but distinctly American in its mission: commemorating our commitment to free expression as we approach our 250th birthday.”

Lauding the move, Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a civil rights legal group that has been critical of recent EU speech laws, stated on X that “for 250 years, this is what America does,” citing examples such as Radio Free Europe, which broadcast into communist countries during the Cold War.

“If Europe’s bureaucrats don’t want you to see it, that tells you everything,” Tedesco stated. “Because even if your government fears freedom—ours doesn’t.”

The First Amendment, which prohibits the U.S. government from “abridging the freedom of speech,” has provided a legal restraint against government censorship that most other countries lack. 

Recent European speech laws, most notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), were ostensibly written to combat what lawmakers deemed “hate speech,” “harmful speech,” and “misinformation,” as well as pornography and abusive AI deep fakes. But critics of European speech codes say they are becoming increasingly draconian.  

In 2025, Virginie Joron, a French member of the European Parliament, called the DSA a “Trojan horse for surveillance and control.”

In Finland, Paivi Rasanen, a member of parliament, was charged for quoting Bible verses online in 2019, criticizing her church’s participation in a gay pride event. 

“I never imagined that quoting the Bible in a Twitter post would lead to years of criminal charges, yet this is now the reality in Europe,” she told The Epoch Times.

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NED leader cut off in Congress after boasting of ‘deploying’ 200 Starlinks to Iran amid violence

The National Endowment for Democracy’s president, Damon Wilson, bragged to a House committee of his group’s aggressive efforts to spark unrest in Iran, including by smuggling Starlink terminals and fashioning anti-Iran narratives for the media.

Damon Wilson, the head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), was interrupted by a member of Congress during a House oversight hearing on February 24 after revealing that his agency “began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on” amid the violence which swept through Iran last month.

Before he could finish the sentence, he was cut off by the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Rep. Lois Frankel, who told Wilson: “You know what, I’m going to interrupt you – we’d better not talk about it.”

Wilson’s comments had been prompted by a question from Frankel, who requested details of what appears to be a new and apparently secret initiative by the State Department to provide Starlink terminals to Iranians.

Wilson appeared to take credit for both the recent unrest and Iran and subsequent media framing of the chaos. “What we’re seeing today, the Endowment has been making investments over years that have ensured that there have been secure communications, including Starlinks… that allowed information to go both in and out of the country,” he stated.

According to the New York Times, the Elon Musk-produced internet systems had been smuggled into the country by a “ragtag network of activists, developers and engineers [who] pierced Iran’s digital barricades.” It is clear now that the NED was at least partly responsible for funding and coordinating that network.

With Starlink emerging as a key weapon in the information war waged against Iran, it’s unclear how anti-government actors have managed to smuggle the devices into the country. But a recent incident in which a senior Dutch diplomat was caught trying to sneak multiple Starlink units and satellite phones through security at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Airport gives a hint.

The National Endowment for Democracy was founded in 1982 under the auspices of then-CIA Director William Casey to topple socialist and independent governments through the direct sponsorship of NGO’s, media organizations and political parties. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” NED co-founder Allen Weinstein said of the Endowment’s work in 1991. 

Despite its mission of promoting transparency and “fundamental freedoms” abroad, the NED is now a dark money group which conceals the names of its local partners under a “duty of care” policy announced in 2025. During his congressional testimony this February, Wilson insisted the policy was necessary for the security of grantees on the ground.

The NED’s work to smuggle Starlink terminals into Iran is therefore a covert operation aimed at promoting unrest. And according to Wilson, it is now a key part of the Endowment’s most aggressive initiative.

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Trump Claims Iran Developing Missiles To Hit US, Contradicting Intel Reports

With nuclear talks hanging in the balance, and the potential for yet another US war of choice in the Middle East, President Donald Trump escalated the rhetoric Tuesday night, warning that Iran is moving beyond just regional missile capabilities and setting its sights farther west by developing missiles capable of hitting the United States.

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump claimed, “They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”

It seemed a transparent attempt to make the American people believe they are under direct threat from Tehran, in order to justify potential near-future strikes, however flimsy the case might be. So far Washington’s main talking point has been that Iran simply can never have a nuclear weapon and so something has to be done – and this actually does resonate with some sectors of the American public.

But Tehran setting its sites on directly attacking the US homeland is a huge stretch, with no serious analyst so much as suggesting the Islamic Republic has the capability or is even close.

US intelligence assessments have been very conservative on this. For example, in 2025, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) stated that Iran could potentially field a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”

Given US intelligence also has not concluded that such a decision had been made, this means Iran is likely at least a decade away from even being close to possessing such an ultra long range missile.

The US mainland is some 6000 miles away from western Iran, and currently Iran’s longest range missile is said to reach just under 1900 miles – a huge gap.

Iran’s ballistic missile focus has always been developing with an eye on the country’s number one nemesis in the region: Israel. 

There’s a broad understanding even among the Western public that in reality Washington’s anti-Iran stance has much more to do with defending Israel than the US homeland, which is clearly not under immediate threat from Tehran. There’s not so much as been a terror attack carried out by a single Iranian Shia operative on American soil in all of history.

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Another Undeclared Unconstitutional War?

From the New York Times this morning:

In Israel, the two defense officials said that significant preparations were underway for the possibility of a joint strike with the United States, even though no decision has been made about whether to carry out such an attack. They said the planning envisions delivering a severe blow over a number of days with the goal of forcing Iran into concessions at the negotiating table that it has so far been unwilling to make.

The U.S. buildup suggests an array of possible Iranian targets, including short and medium range missiles, missile storage depots, nuclear sites and other military targets, such as headquarters of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The ultimate decision on scope of targets is largely up to Mr. Trump, U.S. officials said.

Strangely, nowhere in this article is it mentioned that U.S. military attacks on Iran legally require a Congressional declaration of war. Apparently, it’s all up to Mr. Trump and Israel whether Iran gets hammered soon.

We the people have absolutely no say. The U.S. Constitution simply doesn’t matter.

Iran poses no direct threat to U.S. national security. There is no clear and present danger; no defensible reason to launch yet another attack on Iran. Yet it seems those attacks will soon be coming, as long as Israel has something to say about this (and that country most certainly does).

Why war with Iran? Apparently for “regime change,” apparently for the oil, and apparently for Israel.

A diplomatic settlement appears to be a long shot here. Perhaps more like a “Hail Mary” pass.

No matter how unconstitutional, no matter how unnecessary to national defense, war always seems to find a way. I sure hope I’m wrong here.

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War Propaganda and Iran: The Exact Script Used for Every Failed US War Is Hauled Out Again

When President Lyndon B. Johnson decided in 1965 to significantly increase the number of American troops to fight the growing war in Vietnam, he felt obligated to justify this major escalation to the American people (this was from a quaint, obsolete era when Washington believed public support was mildly important for starting or escalating American wars). On April 7 of that year, Johnson went to Johns Hopkins University to present his definitive case for why the U.S. must fight a war on the other side of the world, against a country that had not attacked and could not meaningfully threaten the U.S.

Johnson presented the American war as one of benevolence, selflessness, and a noble desire to liberate the world’s oppressed peoples from a uniquely murderous, tyrannical regime. “Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change,” Johnson proclaimed. He compared American motives in Vietnam to those of the freedom-craving American Founders who waged the Revolutionary War to liberate themselves from the British Crown: ”This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet-Nam.”

While Johnson invoked some geo-political justifications, he emphasized that the U.S. was deploying and putting at risk tens of thousands of young American soldiers in Vietnam simply because we wanted to help the Vietnamese people be free. “We want nothing for ourselves — only that the people of South Viet-Nam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way,” Johnson said.

Central to this propagandistic narrative was the repeated parading around by the American media of a handful of South Vietnamese activists with deep connections to the West. These camera-ready “natives” assured Americans that the Vietnamese people — on whose behalf they claimed to speak — desperately craved American invasion and bombing of their country in order to liberate them. Individuals like Phan Quang Da, a Harvard-educated physician, and CIA-fronted groups, like The American Friends of Vietnam, were used as battering rams against American opponents of the war to accuse them of being indifferent, even contemptuous, of the desire of the Vietnamese people to have the U.S. military free the population. “The Vietnamese people are asking for this, but you do not care about them,” was the refrain war opponents invariably confronted.

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