Tag: perpetual war

Houthis Confirm Coordination With Iran, Hezbollah In Several Attack Waves On Israel

Amid several waves of missile strikes out of Yemen onto Israel from Tuesday into Wednesday, the Iran-aligned Houthis have made it clear they are coordinating with both Tehran and Hezbollah.

Yemeni Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the Houthis have carried out several missile launch operations on “sensitive targets” in “southern occupied Palestine”. The statement underscored this was conducted “in continuation of supporting and backing the fronts of Resistance” and as part of a “religious, moral, and humanitarian duty” toward allied forces in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine – specifically saying there was coordination with Iran.

The Houthis first announced last week they would be joining the war, but it has been the last 24 to 48 hours that Israel has really been subject of some of the biggest inbound rocket attacks in weeks.

This is because not only have Houthi forces stepped up attacks alongside Iran, but Hezbollah is increasing them too:

Four people were lightly injured as Hezbollah fired around 130 rockets at northern Israel on Wednesday and Thursday, the start of the Passover holiday, as the military struck dozens of sites in Lebanon belonging to the Iran-backed terror group.

The bombardment as Israelis celebrated the first two days of the Passover festival sent hundreds of thousands of people into shelters, as Iran continued to also launch missiles at the country, including the north.

The Houthis have very powerful, and longer-range rockets (compared to Hezbollah, apparently) – which were supplied (or assisted in terms of development) by Iran.

The Houthis are warning of more missile waves to come so long as Iran is attacked, saying the US-Israeli strikes “will only push free Yemen toward further escalation.“

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Christian Nationalists in US Government Push Attacks on Iran as Holy War

How Christian clergy talk about Jesus this Easter Sunday will tell you a lot about their politics. While parishioners in the U.S. are likely to be greeted by the traditional refrain, “He is risen,” at their April 5 Easter service, they’re just as likely to be met with the phrase, “Christ is King.” This rhetoric replaces the traditional understanding of Easter as a celebration of Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection with a more aggressive vision of a warrior Jesus that resonates strongly with Donald Trump-aligned white Christian nationalists.

The phrase “Christ is King” isn’t new — it’s sometimes used by Christians to refer to the belief that Jesus’s divine rule goes beyond that of earthly leaders. But the phrase has recently become “a kind of rallying cry for Christian supremacy,” historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, told Truthout.

Over the last few years, the slogan has spread from far right provocateurs like Nick Fuentes to Trump’s cabinet and the military. In February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth used the phrase at a convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, galvanizing Christian nationalists’ thirst for authoritarian rulers whose Jesus is defined by militant masculinity — more like a crusader or cowboy than the peace-loving, “sacrificial lamb” celebrated on Easter, who was executed for challenging the hierarchies of empire.

Along the way, the phrase has become a dog whistle for antisemitism, and it’s often combined with other Christian nationalist “holy war” rhetoric that has been spiking since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

Popular Christian Zionist preachers like John Hagee came out of the gate praising Operation Epic Fury in a sermon from March 10. On March 23, Rep. Andy Ogles posted an AI-generated video of himself, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio dressed as crusaders with the caption: “This is a battle of good vs evil. We must reaffirm that our nation was built on Christian principles.” Their language and iconography distract from the fact that the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran were launched without congressional approval, are unpopular, and have killed more than 1,500 people.

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Trapped by His Own Image: Trump’s Iran War and the Politics of Ego

The judgment on the Trump administration’s war on Iran is already largely settled across mainstream media, public opinion, and much of the analytical sphere.

What remains supportive of the war is limited to two predictable camps: official government discourse and the president’s most loyal supporters, along with entrenched pro-Israel constituencies.

Beyond these circles, the war is widely understood as reckless, unjustified, and strategically incoherent.

Among the wider American public, this conclusion is not abstract. It is shaped by growing unease, economic anxiety, and a mounting sense that the war lacks both purpose and direction.

Since the outbreak of the war on February 28, 2026, polling has consistently pointed in one direction. A Pew Research poll in late March found that 61 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict.

Another AP-NORC survey showed that six in ten Americans believe US military action against Iran has already “gone too far,” while even Fox News polling found 58 percent opposition.

These numbers confirm a broader trend that began early in the war and has only intensified. Reuters reported on March 19 that just 7 percent of Americans support a full-scale ground invasion.

In that same reporting, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe Trump is likely to pursue one anyway, highlighting a growing disconnect between policy and public will.

Days later, Reuters noted that Trump’s approval rating had dropped to 36 percent, with rising fuel prices and economic instability cited as key drivers.

The longer the war continues, the more its consequences are internalized by ordinary Americans, turning distant conflict into immediate economic pressure.

Among the American intelligentsia, opposition is no longer confined to traditional anti-war circles. It now spans ideological boundaries, including segments of Trump’s own political base.

Reporting from the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference, The Guardian observed that many MAGA supporters warned the war risks becoming another “forever war.”

This convergence is significant, reflecting not a passing disagreement but a deeper structural shift in public perception.

Yet mainstream media – from CNN to Fox News – has largely avoided confronting what many Americans already recognize: that the war aligns closely with the agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Within Washington itself, unease is also becoming more explicit. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that lawmakers from both parties are increasingly skeptical of the administration’s approach.

At the strategic level, the war’s foundational assumptions have already begun to unravel. Israel’s early calculations that escalation might trigger internal collapse in Iran have failed to materialize.

Iran’s political system remains intact, its leadership stable, and its military cohesion unbroken under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

At the same time, Tehran has demonstrated its ability to retaliate across multiple fronts, targeting Israeli territory and US military assets in the region.

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Trump Says He ‘Strongly’ Considering Withdrawing From NATO

President Donald Trump said that NATO is a “paper tiger” and he was considering pulling the US out of the Cold War-era alliance. This week, multiple NATO states declared that the US could not use their airspace for attacks on Iran. 

“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way,” the President said in an interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday. He added that he was seriously considering leaving NATO. 

NATO was created after WWII to prevent the USSR from further expanding into Europe. After the fall of the USSR, NATO expanded eastward into several former members of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. After the bloc attempted to add Ukraine as a member, Russia invaded and demanded that Kiev agree to neutrality. 

The bloc has used Ukraine as a proxy force to weaken Russia. 

While Trump has floated the idea of exiting NATO throughout his political career, he has been irked by the bloc’s response to the war against Iran. Several NATO countries have refused to assist the US and Israel in the conflict, and others have barred US warplanes from their airspace. 

“Beyond not being there, it was actually hard to believe. And I didn’t do a big sale. I just said, ‘Hey’, you know, I didn’t insist too much. I just think it should be automatic.” The President continued in his remarks to The Telegraph. “We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t our problem. It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us.”

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Israel Halts All Arms Purchases From France, Citing Anti-Semitism

A dramatic rupture between Israel and France is sending shockwaves through Europe’s political and defense establishment, exposing what critics describe as the consequences of globalist leadership detached from strategic reality. The decision by Israel to halt all defense procurement from Paris marks not just a diplomatic dispute, but a deeper fracture in the Western alliance.

According to a report from POLITICO EUROPE, at the center of the move is Amir Baram, who ordered an immediate end to government-to-government defense purchases from France. The directive reflects what Israeli officials describe as a long-building loss of trust in French leadership.

“Israel will reduce all defense procurement from France to zero,” the Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed, signaling a decisive pivot away from Paris. Instead, Israel will prioritize domestic production and cooperation with “friendly” nations.

The message is clear: reliability now matters more than tradition. For Jerusalem, France no longer qualifies as a dependable partner. The breakdown did not happen overnight. Israeli officials point to a pattern of increasingly hostile actions by the government of Emmanuel Macron over the past two years. Among the most controversial incidents was France’s decision to block Israeli participation at major defense exhibitions. At the 2025 Paris Air Show, French authorities physically partitioned Israeli booths, restricting access to key systems.

Baram described the move in blunt terms, calling it “absolutely, bluntly anti-Semitic.” He accused Paris of using political justifications to shield its own industries from Israeli competition.
This was not an isolated case. Earlier attempts were made to exclude Israeli companies from events like Eurosatory, one of Europe’s largest defense exhibitions.

Although a French court overturned one such ban in 2024, the pattern of obstruction continued. Israeli officials saw it as evidence of deliberate economic and political discrimination.
The situation escalated further during the ongoing conflict with Iran. France blocked the transfer of military supplies to Israel by refusing to allow aircraft carrying munitions to cross its airspace.

For Israeli leadership, this crossed a red line. One official described it as “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

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FBI Issues Public Alert on Americans Using Foreign Apps

The FBI identified data security risks from foreign-developed mobile apps used in the United States, the agency warned in a March 31 public service announcement.

“As of early 2026, many of the most downloaded and top-grossing apps in the United States are developed and maintained by foreign companies, particularly those based in China,” the FBI said, without naming any apps.

“The apps that maintain digital infrastructure in China are subject to China’s extensive national security laws, enabling the Chinese government to potentially access mobile app users’ data.”

In the Google Play store, the most popular apps include short-form video platform TikTok, video editor CapCut, artificial intelligence video generator PixVerse, and communication app Telegram X. China-based ByteDance maintains ownership of TikTok and CapCut. PixVerse is owned by a Singaporean company, and the developer of Telegram X is based in the United Arab Emirates.

On Apple’s App Store, the top free apps include CapCut, TikTok, and Chinese shopping apps Temu and Shein.

In its alert, the FBI warned users to be aware of the types of data the foreign apps request access to when they are downloaded.

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Former CentCom Chief McKenzie: U.S. Has Planned for Kharg Island Attack for Years

Retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, the former chief of the U.S. Central Command, which is managing the war against Iran, told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday that the U.S. has planned for a ground invasion of Kharg Island and other points in Iran for years.

McKenzie also said the war will be considered a success when the United States reopens the Strait of Hormuz.

Last week, Trump gave Iran until April 6 to reopen the vital energy waterway, which carries 20 millions barrels of oil per day.

Yet the plan for U.S. forces to reopen the strait is also years old, McKenzie said. McKenzie’s commentary strongly suggested U.S. ground forces will attack Kharg island to seize its oil facilities.

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Israel Is Making Sure Trump Can’t Find an Off-Ramp in Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must have persuaded Donald Trump that a war on Iran would unfold much like the pager attack in Lebanon 18 months ago.

The two militaries would jointly decapitate the leadership in Tehran, and it would crumble just as Hezbollah had collapsed – or so it then seemed – after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese group’s spiritual leader and military strategist.

If so, Trump bought deeply into this ruse. He assumed that he would be the US president to “remake the Middle East” – a mission his predecessors had baulked at since George W Bush’s dismal failure to achieve the same goal, alongside Israel, more than 20 years earlier.

Netanyahu directed Trump’s gaze to Israel’s supposed “audacious feat” in Lebanon. The US president should have been looking elsewhere: to Israel’s colossal moral and strategic failure in Gaza.

There, Israel spent two years pummeling the tiny coastal enclave into dust, starving the population, and destroying all civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.

Netanyahu publicly declared that Israel was “eradicating Hamas”, Gaza’s civilian government and its armed resistance movement that had refused for two decades to submit to Israel’s illegal occupation and blockade of the territory.

In truth, as pretty much every legal and human rights expert long ago concluded, what Israel was actually doing was committing genocide – and, in the process, tearing up the rules of war that had governed the period following the Second World War.

But two and a half years into Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Hamas is not only still standing, it is in charge of the ruins.

Israel may have shrunk by some 60 per cent the size of the concentration camp the people of Gaza are locked into, but Hamas is far from vanquished.

Rather, Israel is the one that has retreated to a safe zone, from which it is resuming a war of attrition on Gaza’s survivors.

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Iran’s friends are about to make life much more difficult for Israel and the US

The war’s second ‘ring of fire’ is no longer forming around Iran. It is already there. What we are witnessing is not a limited clash between a state under pressure and its immediate enemies, but the gradual emergence of a wider regional confrontation in which Tehran’s allied forces are moving from symbolic solidarity to practical engagement.

In Lebanon, Iraq, and now once again in Yemen, groups aligned with Iran are opening new fronts and making any American or Israeli campaign far more difficult to execute. If Iran cannot stop pressure by matching superior military power plane for plane or missile for missile, it can still answer by stretching the battlefield across time and space.

That is the real significance of the current escalation. Wars are easiest to sell and easiest to sustain when they look concentrated, technically manageable, and politically clean. They become much harder to continue when every strike produces another zone of instability, when every advance prompts retaliation, and when every promise of decisive success runs into a new and costly complication.

Iran and the forces loyal to it understand this perfectly well. Their goal is not necessarily to win a spectacular conventional victory over Israel or the US. They are trying to deprive their adversaries of a quick result, to turn military superiority into strategic over-extension, and to make the price of escalation rise with every passing week.

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Iran fires back with flat denial after Trump claims Tehran requested ceasefire: ‘False and baseless’

Iran is pushing back on President Donald Trump’s claim that it requested a ceasefire, with an official calling the statement “false and baseless in a blunt public denial.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, made the remarks rejecting Trump’s claim on Wednesday, according to a report on Iranian state television.

Trump made the claim about Iran requesting a ceasefire in a Truth Social post Wednesday morning. But the president indicated that the U.S. will only entertain the prospect once the Strait of Hormuz is open for ships.

“Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” Trump asserted in the post.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, however, issued its own statement saying the Strait of Hormuz “is firmly and decisively under the control” of its forces.

“This strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” it said.

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