Tag: perpetual war

After talks fail, IDF planning for return to war, Trump mulls strikes on Iran — reports

All three major Hebrew TV networks reported that the IDF is gearing up for renewed conflict with Iran after the ceasefire talks between the United States and the Islamic Republic collapsed, in what appeared to be a coordinated leak by defense officials on Sunday.

The reported preparations came less than a week after a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan went into effect, and a day after negotiations in Islamabad between the US and Iran failed to produce a deal to permanently end the war in the Middle East.

Earlier on Sunday, the Ynet news site reported that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir instructed the military to move to a “heightened state of readiness” and to prepare for a resumption of hostilities with Iran.

Then Channel 12 news reported in the evening, without citing any sources, that the IDF was not only gearing up for renewed conflict with Iran, but also preparing for a potential Iranian surprise attack on Israel.

The Kan public broadcaster, meanwhile, cited a “senior defense official” as saying that “Israel is interested in renewing the war against Iran,” after the war ended “too early, without sufficient pressure being applied on Iran regarding the nuclear issue and ballistic missiles.”

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Strikes on alleged drug boats kill 5 in eastern Pacific, U.S. military says

The U.S. military said Sunday that it blew up two boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor, as the Trump administration pursues its campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while preparing a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The attacks on Saturday bring the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 168 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. Videos posted on X showed small boats moving across the water before they each were engulfed in a bright explosion.

U.S. Southern Command stated on X that it notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the search-and-rescue system for the survivor. The Coast Guard confirmed it was coordinating the search and said updates would be provided when available.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

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Trump Declares US Blockade on Strait of Hormuz After No Deal Reached With Iran

President Trump declared on Sunday that he was ordering the US Navy to impose a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, and the US military announced it would begin blocking all ships leaving or traveling to Iranian ports starting at 10:00 am Eastern Time on Monday morning.

Trump’s declaration came after US and Iranian officials held about 20 hours of talks in Pakistan that didn’t result in a deal. He said that the US and Iran were at an impasse on the nuclear issue, as Washington is still demanding that Tehran commit to zero nuclear enrichment. Another major sticking point is the fact that Israel has refused to enact a ceasefire in Lebanon and has continued major airstrikes on the country that have massacred hundreds of civilians since the US-Iran truce started.

“So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them. THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted,” he added.

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On Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and Iran

The question on everyone’s mind is if Iran will agree to give up its 440 kilograms of enriched uranium. President Trump recently proclaimed on his Truth Social account that this material lies underneath the rubble of last June Operation Midnight Hammer attack, though no one else seems to believe this assertion.

Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in February that the Iranian’s not only still had their hands on the material, but would soon enrich it to weapons grade and use it to attack the US and Israel.

Several of my friends—including a couple of Israeli friends—have written to assure me that the US and Israel must obtain this material at all costs, as they believe the Iranians will certainly fashion it into a nuclear weapon and go on the offensive with it.

A few months ago, one of my favorite pen pals assured me that the Iranian regime is an irrational actor and will not recognize or be constrained by the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

It’s a fascinating twist of history that the current negotiations are taking place in Islamabad, Pakistan, because the same proclamations were made about Pakistan when it was working to acquire an atomic bomb. A Grok query about this episode yielded the following.

Pakistani rhetoric supporting Palestinian causes and its self-image as a defender of the Islamic world led Israeli officials to view a nuclear Pakistan as a potential supplier to Arab states or terrorists hostile to the Jewish state. As early as 1979, Prime Minister Menachem Begin warned allies of the “threat posed by Pakistan’s nuclear program.” Israeli intelligence, Mossad, responded with covert operations. Between 1979 and 1981, suspected Mossad-orchestrated sabotage targeted European suppliers of centrifuge technology and dual-use equipment to Pakistan, including parcel bombs and assassinations of key intermediaries. Israeli planners even considered direct military action: in the mid-1980s, the Israeli Air Force reportedly rehearsed strikes on Pakistan’s Kahuta enrichment facility using F-15s and F-16s, possibly with Indian assistance or basing. U.S. intelligence reportedly tipped off Pakistan about these plans, averting escalation, as Washington balanced its alliances. Assassination plots against A.Q. Khan himself were allegedly prepared but never executed.

Despite these multifaceted efforts—diplomatic pressure, sanctions, intelligence sharing, and covert sabotage—Pakistan achieved nuclear capability by the mid-1980s and conducted overt tests in May 1998. The program succeeded through clandestine procurement, Chinese assistance, and domestic resilience. U.S. and Israeli actions delayed progress but were undermined by competing strategic interests: America’s Afghan priorities and Israel’s logistical limits against a distant target. Today, Pakistan maintains an estimated 170 warheads.

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NATO and the Bar Fight: A Bar Tab Europe Expects America To Pay Forever

I’ve been in bar fights. Real ones. The kind where you find out very quickly who your friends actually are.

Here’s the code every veteran, every operator, every person who has ever had to make a split-second decision about loyalty understands at a bone-deep level: you show up. Whether your buddy started it or not. Whether he’s right or wrong. Whether the odds are good or bad. You get off your barstool, you stand beside him, and you sort out the details after the fists stop flying. That’s not bravado. That’s the foundational contract of any alliance worth the name.

For seventy-five years, America has honored that contract with NATO. Every time. Without conditions. We showed up in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Libya, and most recently Ukraine, where I personally and so many other Americans helped integrate supply chains, equipment, and logistics after Russia came across the border. Not as a government official. As an American who understood what the moment required and had the relationships to act.

Europe, now, has largely watched from the barstool.

The frustration is not new. And it is not partisan. I remember standing aboard Air Force One, waiting for President Trump to board, with Secretary James Mattis shortly after he returned from a NATO meeting where he had delivered the Trump administration’s blunt message: pay your fair share. I asked him, “What did you say to them?” He looked at me and said simply: “I asked them, who is going to care more about your kids than you?”

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Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja and 87-year-old among more than 500 Palestine Action supporters arrested at mass demo in London

Massive Attack musician Robert Del Naja has been arrested with over 500 supporters of banned group Palestine Action during a major protest in central London Today. 

The singer-songwriter from Bristol was seen being spoken to by officers as he took part in the march against the group’s ban in Trafalgar Square. 

Del Naja was among hundreds of demonstrators who sat with sings reading ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. 

He was later carried away by three officers and arrested on suspicion of showing support for a proscribed organisation.

The Metropolitan Police said 523 people aged between 18 and 87 had been arrested at the mass event. 

Protesters gathered in the central London landmark from 1pm and held up their placards, despite police warning any individuals engaging in such criminal activity would be arrested. 

The group, which organisers Defend Our Juries said consisted of some 500 people, initially sat silently as around 100 police officers moved in to make arrests.

But some later started chanting ‘shame on you’ at officers as they carried protesters who refused to walk to police vans away. 

Proscription makes it a criminal offence to belong to or support Palestine Action, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. 

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‘Bibi Sold It As Easy’: How A Vance-Netanyahu Call Exposed Chinks In US-Israel Alliance Over Iran War

As the Iran war grinds on with no clear endgame, a private phone call between US Vice-President JD Vance and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blown the lid off quiet but consequential differences between the two allies.

Far from routine diplomacy, the exchange reflects growing unease in Washington over how the conflict was initially framed and how realistic the expectations were. It also highlights a deeper question now shaping the war effort: whether early assumptions about Iran’s internal fragility and the prospects of regime change were misjudged.

According to sources cited by Axios, Vance directly challenged Netanyahu’s pre-war projections, particularly around the likelihood of internal upheaval in Iran.

“Before the war, Bibi really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was,” a US source told Axios. “And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements.”

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UK announces major WW3 preparation as Brits warned ‘get ready to fight’

The head of Britain’s armed forces has revealed plans to prepare the UK for war amid a dire warning that the country is “really quite close to the threat of an armed conflict”. Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton told Sky News an updated version of the Government War Book is being prepared.

The broadcaster reported on Friday that the plan would draw on lessons from the Cold War, but “in a modern context, with a modern society, with modern infrastructure”. Meanwhile, Dr Rob Johnson, Director of the Changing Character of Conflict Centre at Oxford University, raised the spectre of an approaching armed conflict.

A majority of indicators of conflict preparation and armed attack on the expert’s dashboard are now flashing, according to the broadcaster.

Dr Johnson said: “We’re about 94%, 95% complete. In other words, we’re really quite close to the threat of an armed conflict.”

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton said he thought it was right when asked if the Government War Book was being revised.

The top-secret war book was first developed during World War I. It was maintained throughout the Cold War and detailed how the UK would mobilise society in a crisis, from deploying armed forces to the rationing of supplies.

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Benjamin Netanyahu declares campaign against Iran is ‘not over’ and there is ‘more to do’ – while US-Tehran peace talks take place in Pakistan

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel‘s campaign against the Islamic Regime is ‘not over’ as US-Iran peace talks are underway in Pakistan. 

Speaking in a televised address on Saturday, the Israeli Prime Minister also said ‘we still have more to do’ to ensure Iran doesn’t achieve a nuclear weapon. 

‘But we can already say clearly – we have historic achievements,’ he affirmed. 

‘They wanted to strangle us, and (now) we are strangling them. They threatened us with annihilation, and now they are fighting for survival,’ Netanyahu added, as he noted that the war against Tehran had also weakened Iran’s leadership and its regional allies. 

Netanyahu’s remarks came as US and Iranian negotiators held talks in Pakistan on Saturday to try to end their six-week war. 

The talks in Islamabad were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Strait of Hormuz, a major transit point for global energy supplies that Iran has effectively blocked but Trump has vowed to reopen, is crucial to negotiations between the sides during a two-week ceasefire agreed last week.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said the waterway remains among the main points of ‘serious disagreement’ in talks between Iranian and US delegations in Islamabad.

The American military said two of its warships had passed through the strait, and conditions were being set to clear mines, while Iran’s state media denied any US ships had transited the waterway.

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