Tag: perpetual war

New Government of the Netherlands Is a Poster Boy for Europe’s Thirst for War

Warfare seems to be top of mind not only for the Trump administration, but also for the new government of the Netherlands. The coalition agreement of the Jetten I cabinet, installed in late February, presents an unprecedented push towards militarism that includes a doubling of the defense budget, a tax on freedom, royals in fullcamo gear and clear steps towards the reintroduction of forced conscription.

Cabinet Jetten I
“Aan de slag,” which roughly translates to “Let’s get to work,” is the title of the coalition agreement of the new Jetten I government, comprised of the progressive liberals of D66, led by Prime Minister Rob Jetten, the conservative liberals of VVD and the Christian Democrats, CDA. As a rare minority government – the second in the country’s history – it has only 66 out of 150 mandates in Parliament and a mere 22 out of 75 in the Senate and will therefore be completely reliant on opposition support for its various proposals. Nonetheless, it did not shy away from presenting far-reaching objectives in nearly all policy areas, first and foremost defense.

Never mind that “getting to work” might be a bit late for a cabinet comprised of three parties of which at least one or more were part of every single cabinet since 1971 (not counting various predecessors of current parties, which would bring the count back to 1918). Indeed, although D66 is currently the largest party in Parliament with 26 mandates, it was the VVD under current NATO Secretary General, then Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, that led the Netherlands from 2010 until 2024, when he left to take on his current role at NATO.

Hawks lead the way
The echo of Mark Rutte is clearly heard through the new cabinet’s choice of Minister of Defense: none other than his own successor, VVD party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz, now holds the post. Other remarkable choices include the new Minister for Foreign Affairs, CDA-member Tom Berendsen, who was previously an MP in the European Parliament and, with a background in industrial policy, ran his own election campaign (in the 2024 European elections) mainly on stressing the importance of the European defense industry in relation to the war in Ukraine. Moreover, he is known for his hawkish stance on China. This pair is completed by the new Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, D66-member Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, who will have to navigate promoting Dutch trade whilst being on both Russian and Chinese sanctions lists simultaneously. Notably, in 2022, Sjoerdsma was also the initiator of an adopted parliamentary motion to increase the Netherlands’ defense spending to NATO’s then 2% of GDP standard (a goal that the country had thus far failed to meet), underlining his forward leaning position in terms of defense.

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Western Leaders Pivot To Blaming “Putin’s Hidden Hand” As Iran War Not Going To Plan

Western intelligence officials believe Russia’s role in supporting Iran amid the US-Israeli military campaign is deepening, alongside potential expanding involvement by China.

Bloomberg, citing officials, writes in a fresh Thursday report: “Moscow is currently providing Iran with various forms of intelligence, including satellite imagery and drone targeting tactics, in an effort to help Iran hit back at US forces in the region, according to people familiar with US and Western intelligence.”

Within the first week of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury it was widely alleged that Russia was giving Iran targeting information concerning US bases and assets in the region. 

While there’s nothing in the way of smoking gun proof, all are in agreement that American bases have been hit hard, with US installations as far away as Jordan having suffered severe missile impact damage.

Western political leaders are now seizing on these allegations, to do more ‘Putin is a global menace’ hype. As a case in point:

“No one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” UK Defence Secretary John Healey said at a military briefing in London on Thursday.

“Patterns of Iranian attack have the hallmarks of the way Russia is attacking Ukraine,” he said, adding that was to be expected “knowing how closely that alliance of aggression has been growing over the last few years.”

And they are also quickly saying the same of the ‘China menace’ – according to more from Bloomberg:

Following an intelligence briefing on Iran earlier this week, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said Russia seems to be aiding Tehran “actively and intensively, with intelligence and perhaps with other means” and added that “China may also be assisting Iran.”

Trump’s Iran gambit is certainly not going to plan, and may drag Washington into another (predictable) Middle East quagmire. 

These flurry of recent reports accusing Russia and China of rushing to to aid the Islamic Republic’s military machine seem motivated at least in part by a Washington political class who is completely unwilling to admit their own mistakes and stupidity. 

So now, each misstep and disastrous US action in the Persian Gulf region can be chalked up to “but Putin did this” or “Xi did that…” 

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‘Of Course’: IDF Drops Case Against Soldiers Accused of Raping Palestinian Prisoner

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday dismissed the indictments of five soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in July 2024 – an attack that sparked worldwide outrage.

The IDF spokesperson’s office said the decision to drop the indictments of five reserve members of Force 100 – a special unit of the military police responsible for guarding and controlling high-risk detainees – “was made following an examination of all the considerations, evidence, and relevant circumstances.”

“Among the factors taken into account were the complexity of the evidentiary basis in the case and the implications of the release of the security detainee to the Gaza Strip, which created significant consequences for the evidentiary aspect of the case,” the office added. “These developments created exceptional circumstances that affect the ability to continue the criminal proceedings while preserving the right of the defendants to a fair trial.”

The dismissal of the indictments, according to The Jerusalem Post, does not mean the soldiers have been exonerated.

The five soldiers were caught on video assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024. Although they used riot shields in a bid to conceal the nearly 15-minute attack, medical reports cited in the case show the victim suffered serious rectal injuries requiring surgery, a ruptured bowel, punctured lung, and fractured ribs. An Israeli medical staffer said that the victim arrived at the hospital in critical condition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – welcomed the dismissal of the indictments, which he said had “damaged Israel’s reputation in the world in an unprecedented manner.”

Israeli President Israel Katz raised eyebrows by asserting that “the role of the IDF’s legal system is to protect and safeguard IDF soldiers who engage heroically in war against cruel monsters, and not the rights of the terrorists of Hamas.”

Netanyahu and Katz both called the prosecution of the Sde Teiman reservists a “blood libel.”

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Breaking the Nuclear Taboo

President Trump has been on quite a roll. Since just the beginning of the year, he has kidnapped the Venezuela president, threatened to invade Greenland and Colombia, and has in just the last week dragged the U.S. – and seemingly much of the Middle East – into a new war by joining with Israel to attack Iran, something that even the biggest hawks among recent U.S. presidents have managed to avoid. That’s on top of bombing seven countries in 2025.

The 2024 campaign promises of a peace president who will end the forever wars have evaporated, only to be replaced by unrestrained use of military force and a seeming disdain for diplomacy. As the U.S. comedy show Saturday Night Live put it, Trump, along with his UN-replacing Board of Peace, got “bored of peace.”

Breaking international law seems to be a feature, and not a bug, of Trump’s actions, consistent with his admission that he is expressly not guided by international law, norms, traditions, or common decency, but by “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Trump’s power-drunk top advisors are just as out of control. Secretary of War Pete “kill them all” Hegseth stated that his goal is to “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy” and to “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.” At the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State “little Marco” Rubio bemoaned the end of the era of colonialism and called for returning to “the West’s age of dominance.” Deputy chief of staff Stephen “Genghis” Miller declared, “We live in a world… that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

In addition to hegemonic actions in the conventional military realm, Trump has been escalating when it comes to nuclear weapons. He rejected President Putin’s invitation to extend the New START treaty for another year, making possible an unconstrained nuclear arms race alongside an ongoing modernization race. He has also announced that the U.S. will resume nuclear testing. Even without the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and tensions with China, these actions and threats would be destabilizing and dangerous.

Trump is the mean and out-of-control bully on the global playground. Except that this bully has the sole authority to launch thousands of nuclear warheads.

It would be the ultimate expression of Trump’s unbounded power for him to break the one remaining international taboo – which, despite far too many close calls, has persisted for more than 80 years – detonating a nuclear weapon. There are many indications that, despite the U.S. and Israel’s ability to bomb Iran at will, this war may not be going well for them. But that need not be the pretext for using a nuclear weapon. In Trump’s mind, the more unprovoked, outrageous, and unnecessary something is, the better. Given his fragile ego and rapidly deteriorating mental powers – going off on bizarre rants about poisonous snakes in Peru or the White House drapes – the more unhinged he is, the more he thinks it demonstrates his dominance.

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British tourist, 60, ‘who filmed Iranian missiles’ in Dubai is facing two years in prison after being charged with cybercrime offence

A British tourist arrested after allegedly filming missiles hitting Dubai is facing two years in prison after being charged with a cybercrime. 

The 60-year-old Londoner, who was detained on Monday night, is said to have deleted the video immediately when asked. He insists he did not mean to break the law.

However, he has been charged alongside 20 others over videos and social media posts relating to recent Iranian missile strikes on the UAE, according to campaign group Detained in Dubai. 

The official allegation relates to ‘broadcasting, publishing, republishing or circulating rumours or provocative propaganda that could disturb public security’. The offence carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. 

Dubai’s government heavily polices social media and responded to the outbreak of war by threatening jail against anyone sharing information that ‘results in inciting panic among people’.

Videos of drone and missile strikes were regularly shared on social media in the early days of the conflict, but these have largely disappeared and been replaced by a deluge of posts praising Dubai’s government. 

Once a tax-free haven attracting influencers from across the globe and thousands of Brits seeking warm weather and crime free streets, Dubai’s carefully crafted image has been shattered and some residents believe it is ‘finished’. 

The emirate, home to around 240,000 British expats including Rio and Kate Ferdinand, Luisa Zissman and Petra Ecclestone, has been targeted by constant Iranian missile and drone attacks as the regime strikes US allies in the Middle East. 

Dubai was hit by a fresh wave of drone attacks today, with a fire breaking out at a hotel in Creek Harbour in the early hours of the morning. Around noon, a building on the Sheikh Zayed Road was hit followed by a further incident in the Al Bada district. 

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Harris for Peace? Neocons Exist on BOTH Sides

The Democrats are taking to the media to declare that war could have been prevented has Kamala Harris won the election. That narrative is convenient politically, but it ignores what the politicians themselves actually said. The desire for confrontation with Iran has existed on both sides of the political spectrum for decades. The problem is not simply one president or one party. The problem is the bipartisan foreign policy establishment that has long treated Iran as the central strategic enemy in the Middle East. The neocons exist on both sides.

During the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris herself made the position very clear. When asked which country she considered the United States’ greatest adversary, she replied that the answer was “Iran.” That statement alone shows how deeply the Iran war narrative had already taken hold in Washington. Once a country is publicly framed as the primary adversary, the policy direction becomes predictable. Sanctions escalate, proxy conflicts expand, and eventually military confrontation becomes increasingly likely.

Yet now many of the same politicians who previously described Iran as America’s top enemy are suddenly condemning the war. Harris has recently criticized the Trump administration’s actions toward Iran, arguing against the escalation of the conflict. The shift in tone is typical Washington politics. When out of power, politicians oppose the war. When in power, the same establishment often supports it. “Let me be clear,” Harris wrote in a statement shared on the social platform X. “I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice.”

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The War on Iran Is Dumb. Here’s Why.

War with Iran is being sold as “strategy,” but it looks a lot like habit. A familiar pattern repeats: vague objectives, elastic legal theories, and a confident promise that the costs will be contained. Then the bill arrives anyway, in blood, money, and credibility.

In this round, the costs are already visible in the most predictable place: energy. Fighting that threatens traffic through the Strait of Hormuz does not just “hurt the other side.” It shakes a chokepoint that, in 2024, carried about 20 million barrels per day of oil, roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption. Markets do not care about speeches. They price risk, and they pass it along to households and firms.

Calling this “a small price” is not analysis. It is marketing. Economies, including America’s, still operate inside a global price system for energy and shipping, and officials themselves acknowledge the conflict has pushed energy markets and prices higher.

The China excuse is bad strategy and worse economics

One of the more fashionable rationales for attacking Iran is the “China angle”: Iran trades with China, so breaking Iran breaks China. This is the kind of logic that sounds plausible until you compare it to reality.

Start with the basic arithmetic. U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled about $658.9 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. That is not a footnote. It is a structural feature of the world economy. When two economies are connected at that scale, “hurting” one is not a neat chess move. It is self-inflicted collateral damage.

The International Monetary Fund has spent years warning about what happens when states turn economic integration into a weapon. In its words, greater trade restrictions “could reduce global economic output by as much as 7 percent” over the long run. That is not a slogan. It is a forecast about costs that do not vanish because a strategist wants them to.

Now add the Iran-specific detail that is supposed to make the “China angle” sound clever. China does buy large volumes of Iranian crude; much of it routed through sanctions-evasion channels. The Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy estimates that China imported about 1.38 million barrels per day of crude from Iran in 2025, around 12% of China’s total crude imports, and that China purchases about 90% of Iran’s oil exports.

But if your plan is to use war to interrupt an adversary’s energy supply, you have chosen the most globally contagious lever imaginable. The same chokepoint logic that supposedly pinches Beijing also squeezes everyone else. When shipping slows, insurance premiums jump, freight rates rise, and oil prices move. That is not a “China problem.” It is a world problem.

There is another flaw, even more basic. Treating China as the villain for “hedging” against U.S. power is rich coming from a government that has used economic sanctions and financial restrictions as routine tools of statecraft for decades. Great powers teach others how to behave. If the lesson is that supply chains are weapons, do not be surprised when other countries build armor, stockpiles, and alternative routes.

The nuclear lesson: if you want fewer bombs, stop rewarding them

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First Iran, Then Cuba: Trump Has Dropped the Peace-President Mask

Donald Trump did not merely let slip a reckless aside when he said he wanted to “finish this one first” – meaning Iran – before turning to Cuba. He revealed a governing mindset. Countries become items in a queue. War becomes a scheduling matter. One theater before the next, one pressure campaign before the next, one performance of toughness before the cameras move on. That is not strategic restraint. It is imperial casualness masquerading as command. Reuters reported on March 5 that Trump said he wanted to finish the war in Iran first and that it would then be only “a question of time” before attention shifted to Cuba; two days later, Reuters reported him saying Cuba was already negotiating with him and Marco Rubio.

What makes the remark more damning is the promise it betrays. Trump sold himself to voters as the man who would stop wars, not start them. In his inauguration address, he said his “proudest legacy” would be that of a “peacemaker and unifier,” and that America’s success should be measured not only by the battles it wins but by the wars it ends and the wars it never gets into. Even in late February, the White House was still branding him the “President of Peace.” Yet the administration is now openly talking about winning the war with Iran, rejecting negotiations, and even asserting a right to shape Iran’s political future.

You do not have to praise the Iranian state to recognize the danger in that. The issue is not whether one approves of Tehran. The issue is whether an American president who campaigned against endless war is now normalizing the oldest and most discredited habits of Washington foreign policy: regime-change rhetoric, contempt for diplomacy, and the fantasy that bombing can substitute for strategy. When Trump says he is not interested in negotiating and muses that there may be nobody left to say “we surrender,” he is not sounding like a dealmaker. He is sounding like every hawk who has ever confused devastation with victory.

The Cuba remark matters for another reason as well. It suggests that Iran is not being treated as a singular emergency but as one stop in a broader politics of coercion. That is how permanent interventionism works. Every crisis is packaged as exceptional, urgent, and morally self-evident – until the language starts to slide. First this country, then that one. First “finish” Iran, then move on. First present force as a necessity, then sell the next confrontation as inevitable. Trump’s words make that rhythm impossible to miss. The vocabulary may shift from threat to negotiation to triumphalism, but the premise remains the same: Washington decides, others adjust.

Congress, meanwhile, is doing what Congress so often does when presidents discover a taste for undeclared war: almost nothing. On March 4, a Senate majority voted to block a bipartisan war-powers resolution that would have required congressional authorization for hostilities against Iran. That abdication is not a procedural footnote. It is one of the great mechanisms by which American wars become easier to start, harder to stop, and almost impossible to own. Presidents escalate. Legislators grumble. Then the war machine keeps moving.

And it is moving fast. Reuters reported this weekend that the administration used emergency authority to bypass Congress and expedite the sale of more than 20,000 bombs to Israel, just as the joint U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran entered its second week. This is what “peace through strength” usually means in practice: fewer restraints, more munitions, and a shorter distance between rhetoric and rubble. The slogan is designed to comfort Americans into believing that force is a form of stability. More often, it is simply the marketing language of escalation.

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Drone Wave Hits Iran Streets, Hundreds Kill Regime Members Individually In Dystopian New Form Of Warfare

Reports from Iran say Israeli drones are now hunting Basij and Revolutionary Guard Corps checkpoints in the streets across Iran, in what appears to be a wave involving hundreds of drones.

The apparent goal is to clear the streets of the regime’s repression forces and allow opponents of the regime to come out, reports Israeli Live News.

Reports from Iran say drones and UAVs are exploding on motorcycles and vehicles, with dozens of Basij forces reportedly killed at checkpoints, bases, police stations and regime gathering points.

This is being described as Iran’s version of the pager attacks.

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Hegseth vows US will ‘go as far as we need’ to topple Iranian regime as conflict escalates — including possible ‘boots on ground’

War Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed he and President Trump will do whatever it takes to topple the Iranian regime — and didn’t rule out sending US ground troops into Tehran as Operation Epic Fury rages on.

“We’re willing to go as far as we need in order to be successful,” Hegseth told CBS News’ Major Garrett during a “60 Minutes” sit-down interview that aired Sunday night.

“We reserve the right. We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or not boots on the ground.”

Trump told The Post last week that US forces could be sent into Iran if that is deemed necessary.

Hegseth told Garrett that if a decision is made to deploy American troops — whether overtly or covertly — to the Middle East, it wouldn’t be shared publicly with the press.

“People ask, ‘Boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks? Go in, go in,’” he added.

“President Trump knows — I know — you don’t tell the enemy, you don’t tell the press, you don’t tell anybody what your limits would be on an operation.”

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