Every year on 20th July, Germany commemorates the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler led by Colonel Stauffenberg and other Wehrmacht1 officers in 1944, known as “Operation Valkyrie”, which has been the subject of numerous films and documentaries. Once again this year, prominent figures from the military, political and academic worlds attended the ceremony held in Berlin. The event, which also serves as a swearing-in ceremony for new Bundeswehr2 recruits, usually features a speech reflecting on that failed attempt, delivered by a guest of honour. This time, the choice fell on the Iranian-German writer and orientalist Navid Kermani, author of numerous books and essays on the Middle East and on dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

To the astonishment of many, Kermani addressed Chancellor Merz in no uncertain terms, accusing him of having “got into the habit of belittling international law and turning a blind eye to violations of it whenever it seems politically expedient”. Addressing the recruits directly, he continued: “You are at the start of what could be a long career in the army. It is unlikely that the coming decades will remain as peaceful as the past ones have been for Germany, all things considered. Should a future federal government attempt to drag you into a war that is blatantly contrary to international law and politically disastrous – such as the recent war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran – it will be your duty to refuse the order. I am speaking of blatant violations of the law. International law, like any law, is subject to interpretation and involves many borderline cases – such as in the context of pre-emptive defence or when, despite an imminent genocide, it is not possible to obtain a United Nations mandate. But the threat to annihilate an entire civilisation, or a declared attack on a country’s civilian infrastructure, constitutes such a blatant injustice that one need not be a lawyer nor consult one’s conscience to recognise it. And the fundamental lesson that not only Germany, but the whole of humanity, has learnt from the crimes of the Second World War and the Holocaust is the rule of law”.

“However, humanity is not only capable of learning from history. It can also unlearn, and we are seeing this everywhere at the moment, as almost no one has experienced fascism and world war first-hand. When the German Federal Government itself takes a leading role in treating international law as secondary, or when a German Chancellor is the only Western leader to defend the US President’s threat to wipe out an entire civilisation, this is not only devastating for our reputation… belittling international law at the highest levels also sends a disastrous signal for democracy. Indeed, if the rule of law is eroded in our foreign relations, it will not be long before it is disregarded at home as well”.

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Poor Massimo Giannini1 has been inundated with derision and mockery for his remark on the conflict with Russia, which he described as an opportunity to forge a genuine European defence project in the heat of battle. The rhetorical flourish of “forging in the heat of battle” captured almost all the attention, while the issue is actually somewhat more insidious. In reality, the argument put forward in the article published by Giannini on 15th August [2026] in the newspaper La Repubblica2 is that the war in Ukraine could have represented an opportunity for European integration, but the various countries failed to seize it and are once again proceeding in a disorganised manner. Giannini’s position might therefore seem realistic and pessimistic. It starts from the notion – already dear to [Romano] Prodi3 and [Mario] Monti4 – of crises being seen as precious opportunities for the EU to move forward; only to conclude, in true Gozzano5 style, that the rose was not plucked.

But the real problem is that not only have the crises failed to advance the process of European integration, but, on the contrary, they have actually laid bare the true underpinnings of the EU’s structure. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty made no reference to NATO or the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and so appeared to outline a European Union independent of these international organisations. Some have observed that the lack of explicit references to the IMF was mere hypocrisy, because the ideology underpinning the Maastricht Treaty is the same as that of the IMF, namely that of prioritising the viewpoint and interests of the creditors’ lobby. The “price stability” referred to in the Maastricht Treaty effectively means stability in the value of debts. In other words, there is no hesitation in sacrificing economic development in order to avoid inflation. This is absolutely true, but at least in 1992 the EU was still concerned with maintaining the pretence. When, however, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis erupted in 2008, the pretence was completely abandoned and the International Monetary Fund intervened directly to manage the crisis alongside the European Commission and the European Central Bank, forming the so-called (and infamous) “Troika”. The IMF was founded in 1945 as an instrument of neo-colonialism, a means of subjugating former colonies through debt rather than military occupation; thus, Europe has applied to itself the neo-colonial model of debt slavery and the criminalisation of insolvency. Domenico Losurdo6 interpreted Nazism as the application to the European context of the instruments of colonial domination created and tested in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Indeed, the European Union too follows this line, although in this case the instruments in question are those of neo-colonialism.

In 2012, the IMF became a full party to the European treaties, with the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism [ESM], the so-called “bailout fund”. In point 8 of the preamble and in Article 13 of the 2012 treaty (the one still in force), cooperation with the IMF is set out as a founding element of the ESM’s establishment.

The International Monetary Fund has its headquarters in Washington D.C., and this is by no means a coincidence. Similarly, worldly-wise observers realised that it was no mere coincidence that both NATO and the EU had chosen to locate their headquarters in the same city, Brussels. Article 2 of the NATO founding treaty (dated 1949) called for economic integration amongst the alliance’s member states; yet the Maastricht Treaty makes no mention of NATO. Nor were there any references to the Atlantic Alliance in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The 2014 crisis with Russia led to the lifting of the veils of discretion that had been maintained throughout the Cold War. The first joint declaration between NATO and the EU dates from 2016; there was another in 2018. The latest declaration is from 2023 and purports to outline a common “strategic compass” for the two organisations; in reality, the document formalises the fact that the EU is an appendage of NATO.

One cannot be “anti-European”, because “pro-Europeanism” does not exist and never has; it has always been merely an alibi for dependence on NATO and the IMF – that is, on the United States. The European oligarchies have sought a partner across the Atlantic so as to oppress and blackmail their own subordinate classes through this “external constraint”.

Today we have that buffoon Trump putting on a show like a husband who wants to leave the marital home, but in reality, not a single US military base in Europe has been abandoned. It is precisely these concrete details that Giannini’s lamentable pseudo-realistic and pseudo-pessimistic rhetoric seeks to conceal.

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P.S.: Apologies for the lack of article/update yesterday, but I am not feeling well these days and I am also quite busy. Hopefully I will return soon, but most likely towards the end of next week; nevertheless, translations like this one will continue.

Synopsis of the work

Some people call us “the sandal-wearing fighters” to denigrate us, for obvious racist reasons. Well, these “sandal-wearing fighters” have withstood relentless economic and military pressure, overseen and carried out by the ever-benevolent Uncle Sam. But we hold our ground and we do not give in. We have dignity and courage. We support the Palestinian cause not with words but by fighting the Israeli, American and European tyrants at our own risk. To fight and die for an ideal must be the attitude and the reward of a true warrior. We are the Houthis, the proud people of Yemen, and our capital is the historic and beautiful city of Sana’a. In the West they call us “terrorists” and bomb us, but if we were to act on their side and carry out the same actions, we would, in their eyes, be “valiant freedom fighters”. In that case, we would have weapons in abundance and political protection from the United States and its European vassals. But we fight not for them but against them, and we are proud of it. We are the Houthis.

Author: Maximilian – contact: maxyoga69@gmail.com

Title of the work: “The Courage of the Houthis”

Technical details:

Acrylic on cardboard, 120 x 80 cm, 2024.

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This article marks the start of a series of articles devoted to the areas in which the totalitarian strategy of the Euro-globalist forces is most pervasive and effective. The author of these articles is Prof. Luca Marini, a lecturer in international law at Sapienza University of Rome, where for twenty years he also held the Jean Monnet Chair awarded “Ad Personam” by the European Commission. He is a former Vice-President of the National Committee for Bioethics of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and President of the European Centre for Science, Ethics and Law (ECSEL) and of the International Committee for the Ethics of Biomedicine (CIEB1). Author of the book “Covid. Prove tecniche di totalitarismo”2 (La Vela, 2021), during the pandemic Professor Marini, together with Olga Milanese and Francesco Benozzo, was a promoter of the “No Green Pass” referendum.

Have you ever spent a weekend at a holiday farm? If so, it’s high time you realised that you have contributed, more or less unwittingly, to the decline of European agriculture and the rural world. And now I’ll explain how.

It is hard to believe today, in the age of Artificial Intelligence, but as recently as the early 1990s – in other words, just the other day – the European Economic Community was concerned with nothing but agriculture: just to give you an idea, suffice it to say that, at that time, the range of instruments available under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) alone accounted for over two-thirds of the Community budget.

Of those instruments, the lion’s share was accounted for by the export support mechanism, which secured for European agricultural products international market shares that would otherwise have been unattainable. Yet it was precisely this mechanism, which for three decades measured the success of the CAP – at least in the eyes of European farmers – that ultimately sealed its failure, because, on the one hand, it provoked the wrath of the Community’s trading partners (notably the US) and, on the other, of leaving little or nothing available for the new areas of Community competence that the Single European Act of 1986 had broadened and extended to fields hitherto left to exclusive national sovereignty (as in the case of economic and monetary cooperation, which would pave the way for the Euro).

In light of what I shall say shortly, one might today wonder to what extent the CAP’s unsustainable frivolity was truly unforeseen and unforeseeable; but the fact remains that, at the time, for the reasons outlined above, the European institutions deemed it essential to carry out a thorough overhaul of agricultural policy, which first took the form of corrective measures adopted during the 1980s and, subsequently, the more comprehensive “MacSharry reform” of 1992.

The reform of the CAP was essentially based on a simple categorical imperative: to reduce agricultural production at all costs. Today, with regard to that reform – which was touted as an indispensable turning point in the transition from an anti-competitive and unrealistic policy of supporting agricultural product prices to a solidarity-based and forward-looking policy of supporting farmers’ incomes (the slogan was, in fact, “from price to income”) – some recall the most draconian measures, such as, precisely, the cut in guaranteed prices or the compulsory set-aside of land (the controversial set-aside scheme); others recall the more ambiguous “accompanying” measures which, in effect, led to the early retirement tout court of an entire generation of farmers or to the permanent abandonment of farming, as these same farmers took on new and short-lived professional identities (such as the agritourism businesses mentioned at the outset).

In any case, it is undeniable that this reform dealt a fatal blow to European agriculture, and ultimately to the primary economic sector of the Member States, which has never recovered since. One statistic speaks volumes: in Italy in 1938, the year of the last pre-war census, over 70% of the working population was employed directly or indirectly in the agricultural sector; today, that percentage stands at ~1.5%.

The CAP reform, moreover, came at the height of a process of cultural transformation which, from the post-Second World War period onwards, had relegated agriculture to the margins of the economy, ultimately treating the rural world as the relic of a now-distant past. This is particularly true in Italy, which has not only always shown itself to be particularly inclined to deny its own roots and identity, but which has also drawn an evergreen lesson from the post-war reconstruction (beginning with the INA-Casa Plan3 funded by the Marshall Plan): namely, that progress depends, first and foremost, on the overbuilding of the countryside and that, consequently, the true wealth of an agricultural country lies in changing the designated use of land. A prime example of this is Francesco Rosi’s 1962 film “Le mani sulla città”4, which hit the screens almost as if to seal the devastation inflicted on post-war Italy in the name of modernity: from the 1950 Agrarian Reform (which demagogically shattered land ownership, rendering it, in effect, unproductive), to the forced displacement from the city that symbolised peasant and rural civilisation, Matera (whose caves are now regarded as ante litteram5 examples of sustainable bio-architecture), to the construction of the “cathedrals in the desert” from the late 1950s onwards (from the Ilva steelworks in Taranto to Montecatini in Brindisi, the manufacturing plants in the Basento Valley and the ANIC6 plant in Gela), right up to the natural conclusion of the aforementioned INA-Casa Plan (better known as the Fanfani Plan), which between 1949 and 1962 saw the construction of some 360,000 new homes in more than 5,000 municipalities, thereby establishing the economic centrality of the construction industry and, above all, the cross-cutting hegemony of the “concrete party”.

However, it is not possible to fully appreciate the scope and true aims of the CAP reform unless one steps back for a moment from the agricultural sphere and considers the historical context in which it was launched.

Perhaps not everyone remembers that the 1990s began under the banner of antitrust regulation and State aid, continued with the entry into force of the convergence criteria set out in the Maastricht Treaty, and concluded with the introduction of the single currency [i.e. the Euro]. In Italy, all this marked the end of the national production system (which was, at the time, accused of being the most socialist among Western economies because it was based on the mechanism of State shareholdings) and handed the Italian economy over to the labyrinth of Chinese boxes that drives financial capitalism and its stock market dynamics. The aims of this transformation, disguised under reassuring rhetoric of efficiency and modernisation, completely eluded the Italians who, rather than reflecting on the devastating effects that the privatisation process would bring, were too busy throwing coins at a former Prime Minister [Bettino Craxi7] and celebrating the collapse of the First Republic caused – ostensibly – by the Mani Pulite8 inquiry: and it is, of course, merely a coincidence that that investigation got under way just ten days after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty.

Epoch-making transformations, in any case: and, if it were not part of a strategic plan, it would indeed be curious that the birth of the European Union, which took place in 1992, should have marked the decline of both productive capitalism – which would soon take on the predatory guise of ultra-financial and digital capitalism – as well as the decline of traditional agriculture, to which the EU regulations of 2003 concerning the placing on the market of food containing, consisting of or derived from GMOs9 would deal the final blow – regulations based on the nefarious principle of “accidental or unavoidable contamination”.

That strategic plan is obviously intended to wipe out the rich heritage of anthropological, cultural, ritual and magical-religious knowledge that has characterised rural identity for millennia – the survival of which cannot be ensured merely by organising convivial (and sponsored) “notti della Taranta”10 – as well as to destroy the self-sufficient way of life traditionally provided by the countryside and farming, as confirmed by the cumbersome European regulatory framework on food quality and safety, or by the proposals that periodically cross the minds of the European Commission to ban or restrict the marketing of seeds and home vegetable gardens – proposals which – though it is merely a coincidence – Artificial Intelligence is busy downplaying and concealing.

After all, if you were a cruel tyrant intent on controlling the lives of your subjects, would you not see their capacity for autonomy and self-sufficiency as a threat? And, as part of your totalitarian strategy, would you not begin by restricting access to food resources? Is this not the lesson to be drawn from the foretold demise of the CAP? And has not the scandalous handling of the Xylella11 affair, in more recent years, reproduced the very same dynamics?

This is precisely the strategic plan that I have, for years, referred to as “global biopolitical totalitarianism” – a plan that aims to control every aspect of the psycho-physical dimension of human beings by manipulating scientific evidence (across every field: health, the environment, climate, energy, geostrategy, etc.) to spread fear and thereby subjugate individuals. From the CAP to Covid to the war in Ukraine to the unconditional support given to Israel, the script is always the same.

Is all lost? Not a chance. If anything, the time has come to bring down the tyrant before the tyrant devours us. And that tyrant is called the European Union, the continental temple of ultra-financial and digital capitalism of Jewish-Masonic origin, of transhumanism and of global biopolitical totalitarianism.

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My previous article on direct NATO-Russia confrontation and the possibility of full-scale World War 3 and nuclear Armageddon caused quite a stir in the comments. Please bear in mind that it is not just me warning about this madness!

In August 2024, The New York Times cautioned that the US administration was preparing to fight a simultaneous 3-front nuclear war against Russia, China, and North Korea (so, it is not just Donald Trump’s idea to start a nuclear war!):

…while the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported on a growing number of American nuclear strategists believing that a nuclear war can be fought and won.

In November 2024, US Admiral Thomas Buchanan, spokesman for the Pentagon’s STRATCOM1 said that the US was preparing to fight and win a nuclear war and keep enough nuclear weapons in reserve to be able to maintain its global hegemony (see Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) and video below):

We certainly don't want to have a [nuclear] exchange. I think everybody would agree. If we have to have an exchange, then we want to do it in terms that are most acceptable to the United States. So, it's terms that are most acceptable to the United States that puts us in a position to continue to lead the world. Right, so we're largely viewed as the world leader, and do we lead the world in an area where we've considered loss? The answer is no. And so it would be to a point where we would maintain—where we’d have to have sufficient capability, we’d have to have sufficient reserve capacity. You wouldn’t expend all of your resources to gain winning, right, because then you have nothing to deter from at that point.

In June 2025, then US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released a video warning that we are “closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before” and that “political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers”:

A few months later, on 20th October 2025, Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Agency (SVR), warned (source: Reuters):

The world is now experiencing the most fragile moment for international security since World War 2. Our shared, and perhaps principal, task is to ensure that adaptation to the new reality proceeds without a major war, as has happened at previous historical stages.

At the beginning of this month (August 2026), NBC News (paywalled - see Consortium News instead) reported that Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby is drafting a new nuclear strategy allowing the use of tactical nuclear weapons in regional conflicts such as those in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

A couple of weeks ago, former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an alarming tweet saying that the US administration is seriously considering nuking Iran (as I also reported here):

The latest warning about the potential use of US nuclear weapons came yesterday (Saturday 29th August 2026) from Russian Foreign Ministry Special Envoy Andrey Ivanovich Belousov (not to be confused with the Russian Defence Minister Andrey Removich Belousov!), who, in an interview with RT (see also TASS and Mehr), stated (all emphasis mine):

Speaking of this danger, it is impossible not to note that Washington’s insistence on initiating discussions at various multilateral disarmament forums on Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons, which do not threaten US territory, suggests that American military strategists are seriously considering the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the European theater of military operations.

Obtaining objective data on Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons through negotiations or discussions on strategic stability, the introduction of intrusive transparency measures, or their reduction - and especially their complete elimination - would increase the likelihood of a scenario involving the use of nuclear weapons by the US and its allies in Europe.

Here is the full 20-minute interview:

I think we should get worried, if a Russian official declares that “American military strategists are seriously considering the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the European theater of military operations”!

On the other hand, Leonid Slutsky, head of Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and chair of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee, told American journalist and podcaster Tucker Carlson that…

I don’t think we will use tactical nuclear weapons or other non-conventional weapons.

We could have used them long ago and achieved victory, but we always rely on common sense and the principle of minimizing civilian casualties.

If tactical nuclear weapons supplied by Zelensky’s patrons are used against us, then we may have to consider the possibility of retaliatory measures. But so far, this has not happened and I really hope, I repeat, that this will not happen.

Using such weapons as an instrument of terror, as was the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if we recall World War 2, is alien to us. [Source: RT - all emphasis added]

Yet, according to Western mainstream media (MSM), Russian President Vladimir Putin and his compatriots are evil, though it was the Outlaw US Empire2 that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Japan) at the end of World War 2!

Finally, last Friday, 28th August 2026, Joe Kent, former US Presidential Counterterrorism Adviser, told Tucker Carlson that Trump could nuke Iran to break the deadlock, the stalemate, due to the shortage of conventional weapons, adding (sources: RT and Al Mayadeen):

I think we would be fools to think that this couldn’t happen here, in this current scenario, especially as the [Trump] administration scrambles for a way out.

If you just play out the scenario for long enough, you arrive at weapons of mass destruction, you know, fairly quickly.

…while Tucker Carlson himself called for Trump’s removal from office:

The second any president actively considers the first use of nuclear weapons, that person should be removed from office immediately, because that’s got to be the red line, destroying all of humanity with a nuclear strike.

Why isn’t there an attempt to remove him from office, like, immediately? Anyone who would even tolerate that kind of talk from any of his subordinates or employees is by definition unfit.

You can watch the full episode of The Tucker Carlson Show with Joe Kent in the YouTube video below:

As I wrote in a comment to my latest article, hoping that nuclear war will not happen is not enough, given all the above, especially considering that there are some people in the US military cadres who think that they can win a “limited nuclear war”… if there is such a thing! So, I believe it is high time for us to do something about it: first of all, making other people aware of the risks we are in (e.g. by word of mouth or restacking, cross-posting or sharing my articles and notes), protesting, arranging a general strike and maybe even organizing a revolt/revolution/coup before it is too late!

Especially, if you live in America, you should act fast, because, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned two years ago, in August 2024, the US territory would not be spared (see here). And I do not mean voting Trump out at the next mid-term elections, since they may be cancelled beforehand, as I mentioned in my latest article yesterday, or it may not be enough, because, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, former US President Joe Biden and the Democrats approved a secret nuclear strategy to fight a simultaneous 3-front nuclear war on Russia, China, and North Korea.

Any revolution in mainland Europe is likely to be met with a harsh response, since the transnational elites oversea (mainly in US and UK) cannot afford to lose Europe: the new local leaders could be bought or, if not, killed and replaced with someone else more compliant to those pulling the levers abroad. That's why the revolution needs to happen first and foremost in US and UK. Once the heads start rolling there, the other pieces of the domino should fall immediately or soon afterwards.

In the meantime, you can sign an appeal to Pope Leo XIV to organize a global leaders summit to address the questions of peace and nuclear disarmament, though I do not expect it to be very successful, given that we are led by crazy people here in the West!

News and updates from Iran

Moving to Iran, yesterday its Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi urged the Outlaw US Empire to fulfill its commitments outlined in the Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding or MoUMoM, if it wants the Strait of Hormuz to reopen (sources: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr):

The Islamic Republic has reached an understanding with Oman concerning arrangements for transit through the Strait of Hormuz. However, this understanding will not automatically enter the implementation phase, as its implementation is conditional upon the fulfillment of commitments by the other party, specifically the United States.

It is not for us to take the first step in fulfilling the commitments related to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Rather, it was the United States that suspended its commitments. Washington must return to fulfilling those commitments, and we have made entirely clear the steps that must be taken by the United States.

We have explicitly stated that whenever the conditions are met and the commitments incumbent upon the United States are fulfilled, the Islamic Republic is likewise prepared to take its own measures regarding the Strait of Hormuz. If they do nothing, Iran has no haste to open the strait and will continue its defensive measures.

Our armed forces have full awareness of any movement in the strait and carry out their mission in the best manner. No ship can transit the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's coordination. If a vessel passes through this route, it will do so with the coordination and authorization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The efforts of Qatar and Pakistan were aimed at examining whether there is a possibility of returning to the implementation of the commitments under the Islamabad understanding. [All emphasis mine]

…whereas Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on the Japanese people to hold their government accountable for the use of US military assets in Japan in operations against Iran (sources: Al Mayadeen and Fars):

The peace-loving people of Japan should ask their government to be held accountable for the crimes committed by the United States.

…after the UK Defence Journal reported that F-16 fighter jets stationed at the US air base in Misawa, in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture, had been deployed to West Asia to participate in operations against Iran earlier this year.

In a televised interview yesterday, Iran’s Agriculture Minister Gholamreza Nouri said:

No foreign restriction or prohibition can put the food security of the people at risk.

…assuring Iranians that “food security and supply of essential goods remain stable despite drought, sanctions and wartime pressures, saying strategic reserves have continued to grow without the need for emergency withdrawals”, adding that Iran had “reduced its reliance on imports through stronger domestic production” and “achieved self-sufficiency in chicken meat production for the first time and is moving toward exports”, as per Tasnim.

Today (Sunday 30th August 2026), on occasion of the birth anniversary of the Prophet Mohammad and the Islamic Unity Week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei issued the following statement (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

“Mohammad, the Messenger of God, and those who are with him are firm against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves” (Holy Quran 48:29).

I extend my congratulations to the noble nation of Iran and the great Islamic Ummah on the occasion of the auspicious birth anniversary of the Great Luminary, the Noblest of Creation, the Radiant Lamp, God’s Chosen One, the City of Knowledge, the Mercy to the Worlds, the Honorable Messenger of Islam (PBUH3), and the auspicious birth anniversary of his pure and virtuous child, the definitive Proof of God, Imam Ja’far Sadiq (PBUH).

From the moment the sun of the Last Prophet’s existence rose in Holy Mecca, the horizon of human salvation, which is contingent upon perfecting servitude and obedience to the Exalted and Almighty, gained a renewed brilliance. The souls of the prophets, the angels of God, and the holy ones were immersed in joy, while the devils among humans and jinn4 bit their fingers in rage, regret, and sorrow. This was because the greatest of God’s creation throughout all the countless realms of existence had stepped on the earth, soon to be vested with the mantle of prophethood and the seal of the prophets. Holding the magnificent Quran and tasked with the mission of the comprehensive guidance of humanity, he was to direct the movement of humanity’s great caravan toward servitude to God and spiritual perfection in the journey to Him.

The life of the Prophet and the lives of his infallible successors are all lessons for guidance and servitude; lessons in spiritual understanding and love; lessons in faith and jihad; lessons in living and both individual and social ethics; lessons in trustworthiness and honesty; lessons in honor and dignity; lessons in knowledge and action; lessons in mercy and decisiveness; lessons in justice and equity; and lessons in unity and brotherhood. The better these lessons are learned and acted upon, the more attainable the peaks of prosperity and bliss become for all of humankind. We believe that the immaculate soul of the Prophet of Mercy, as well as the pure souls of his immaculate successors and the immaculate Proofs of God (peace and blessings be upon him and all of them) are always watching, guiding, and compassionate with regard to the situation of the Muslims and the Islamic society. Whenever a mistake is committed by the children of this kind and noble father, his soul is grieved. And whenever Muslims act in accord with his lessons and instructions, his blessed heart rejoices.

Now, after passing through difficult, turbulent times and having traversed numerous ups and downs from the early dawn of Islam to the present time, Islam and its followers have reached a fateful, decisive juncture. Today, Muslims can play a highly effective, fateful role. Today is a time when the prospect of the ultimate triumph of truth over falsehood, and of Islam over disbelief, has come much closer to becoming a reality than any other time.

The first prerequisite [to reaching this critical objective] is the unity of the Muslims. The Muslims’ unity in the face of the world’s disbelief is a Quranic strategy and a basic teaching of the pure Islam of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). This isn’t a superficial or transient matter. By unity, what is meant is that at the level of the general public in Islamic societies, commonalities must serve as the core and foundation for everyone. Naturally, efforts must be made that are backed by logical reasoning and that observe all the requirements of brotherhood and camaraderie, exactly as understood from the teachings of the Quran, to transform points of difference into a common ground in an atmosphere of complete peace and harmony.

What is certain is that all Muslims in the various Islamic societies must keep the Quranic principle “firm against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves” at the center of their thought, speech, and action when facing disbelief in the world. It is with this approach that Islamic unity and solidarity are achieved. Whenever either of these two aspects of this heavenly message is separated from the actions of the Muslims, they will likewise be removed from the position of honor that they had rightfully attained in the Medina of Islam. And this is an inviolable rule.

This principle is one of the fundamental tenets and core messages of the Islamic Revolution. Unity Week was celebrated for the first time in Esfand 1356 AHS (February - March 1978) during the time of the uprising against the tyrannical Pahlavi regime, when our illustrious, martyred Leader [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] (may God elevate his noble station) proposed this concept while he was in exile in Iranshahr. This suggestion was welcomed by both the Shia and Sunnis. Because of the foresight of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini (may God sanctify his noble soul), “Unity Week” was officially established shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. By the grace of Almighty God, this issue of unity throughout the entire Muslim nation has a successful model in the Iranian people, and the machinations of enemies have had little effect in undermining it.

However, ill-wishers are always lurking to target this great blessing. What makes them hopeful is highlighting differences. Although ideological and religious differences are a major part of what the enemies of Islam are seeking – and on which they heavily rely – they won’t stop there. They strive to turn every kind of racial, cultural, social, economic, political, and geographical difference into a pretext for sowing division among the Muslims in Iran and in every other Islamic country.

Their goal is to see the fragmentation of the Islamic Ummah and the erosion of its strength, as they wait for an opportune moment to impose their dominance over it. The command of the Holy Quran in such matters may be seen in the noble verse, “And do not dispute, or you will lose heart and lose your power” (8:46). Therefore, anyone in any position who does an action that leads to a division among the Muslims and creates strife within the Islamic community – whether this is done knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally – has advanced the agenda of the enemies of Islam.

And in this day and age, how could anyone attribute such an act to just ignorance or negligence, when the evil taghuts [tyrants] of the world – at the forefront of whom stands the criminal US – have stripped the deceptive, flimsy masks from the hideous face of their colonial objectives and arrogant, domineering plots? They have removed their deceptive, velvet gloves and exposed their blood-stained claws to the entire world.

It is now time for Muslims to think and examine events with a more careful scrutiny. If the Muslims had been a single, united hand, which is clenching its fist with firm resolve, would the Palestinian nation have been left so defenseless in this way and subjected to the oppression and crimes of the occupiers? And if the nations and governments, which are on the shores of the Persian Gulf, had firmly established their unity under the banner of Islam, would corrupt, unprincipled scoundrels have dared to covet their lands and wealth from thousands of kilometers away?

My repeated, emphatic recommendation to the rulers of Islamic countries, particularly those in the West Asia region and along the Persian Gulf, is that you must know who your true enemy is, understand their plots, and confront them.

The solution to the Islamic Ummah’s problems lies in maintaining unity, friendship, and cooperation in the pursuit of goodness and virtue. The criminal rulers of the US and the illegitimate Zionist regime are the sworn enemies of this unity and friendship. They are not just the enemies of the Islamic Republic, the Iranian nation, and the vast front of Islamic Resistance. Rather, they hold enmity toward the entire Islamic Ummah, including the nations in West Asia and North Africa. In this regard, not even the rulers of these countries – many of whom are considered to be their allies – are exempt, and the blatant disrespect and derogatory remarks of the leaders of Global Arrogance directed toward certain leaders of Islamic countries are still fresh in your memory and ours.

The important lesson of unity and avoiding discord is the first lesson of the school of Islam on the discussion of how to deal with friends and foes. But the second lesson is to defend one another against disbelief. And the third lesson includes various forms of cooperation and synergy in the diverse material and spiritual spheres of Muslims’ lives – in terms of wealth, security, science, and progress. The ultimate outcome of this will be the attainment of the New Islamic Civilization.

Therefore, the Muslims’ unity is the main cornerstone for achieving an exalted, triumphant Islamic civilization. This conceptual, intellectual package – in which our aspiration for the Islamic world resides – has materialized in our dear Iran to an acceptable degree. Once again, this humble servant’s recommendation to the entire nation is that you must not allow any division whatsoever to emerge between you.

In conclusion, I hope that through the intercession of the Holy Messenger and his pure Progeny (PBUH), the shield of God’s compassionate, blessed grace will be cast over Islamic societies. And, under the aegis of acting in accord with the divine commands, may Islamic societies scale the heights to progress and honor day by day even more than before.
May God’s greetings, mercy, and blessings be upon you.

In a shorter message, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian congratulated the leaders and people of Muslim countries on the anniversary of the birth of Prophet Muhammad and called for unity (sources: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr):

We are proud to belong to the community of a Prophet who brought a message of peace and security to all humanity; a Prophet whose religion is rooted in peace and whose title is a mercy to all the worlds.

I hope that by the grace and blessing of these auspicious days... we may be trustees who bring security, justice and reconciliation to the vast world and especially to Islamic countries.

The great Prophet's (PBUH) Sirah has served as a radiant lamp illuminating and guiding humanity's turbulent path in this world.

Speaking at a ceremony in Iran’s northern city of Rasht, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani warned that…

If the enemy believes that by martyring a number of the children of the Iranian nation and Navy personnel, this force will stop moving forward, it is seriously mistaken.

The enemy has made a miscalculation in recognizing the spirit of the Iranian people and the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Today, the Navy stands alive, dynamic and powerful, and its personnel are carrying out their missions with the same spirit as the martyrs.

The Navy will continue along its path with greater strength and resolve, strengthened by the blood of the martyrs

…as reported by IRNA, Fars and Tasnim.

In other news, earlier tonight Mehr and UKMTO (UK Maritime Trade Operations) reported that a tanker was struck ~12 nautical miles (22km) to the north of the Omani port town of Khasab, most likely by a missile or drone launched by Iran.

Before leaving Iran, here is a video released today with previously unpublished footage of the martyred Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei discussing the origin of Islamic Unity Week (source: IRNA):

News and updates from Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and KSA

Let’s now move to Lebanon, where this morning Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem gave another speech on occasion of Islamic Unity Week (source: Al Mayadeen and its Short News, IRNA and Mehr - all emphasis mine):

Israel’ failed in its three wars due to the people’s steadfastness, and as long as we remain steadfast, it will not be able to achieve its projects and plans.

Any steadfastness, regardless of its cost, lays the foundation for restoring our standing, strengthens our ability to achieve our goals, and defeats the enemy’s project.

These great sacrifices and the outpouring of blood are the natural path, alongside unity, toward defeating the enemies’ scheme.

No matter how much pressure the US and Israel exert, and no matter how severe the sanctions and military aggression may be, resistance will always neutralize the enemy’s plot.

The practical unity on which our martyred Imam Ayatollah [Sayyed Ali] Khamenei moved revived the issue of Palestine.

The support for Palestine came through blood, weapons, money, confrontation, and a shared hostility toward Israel and Washington.

Disagreements among Muslims must not open an internal front and make us forget our primary enemy.

Meanwhile, Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) has carried on its aggression on southern Lebanon, with artillery shelling and airstrikes reported on Zawtar River bed, the Wadi al-Salouqi area, Ali al-Taher hill, Houla, the outskirts of the towns of al-Mansouri, Byout al-Seyyad, the Dawhet Kfar and Mays al-Jabal, as per Al Mayadeen and Mehr:

Moving on, yesterday he Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada, issued a statement outlining the conditions for engaging with the Iraqi government on the regulation of resistance weapons (sources: Al Mayadeen and RNN Mirror):

• Complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by land, sea, and air.

• Legal formalization of the Popular Mobilization Forces [PMF] to guarantee their rights and status.

• Enforcement of full sovereignty of federal security forces across all Iraqi territory.

• Securing Iraqi airspace with advanced air defense systems under exclusive national command.

• Removal of PKK5 fighters from Iraqi territory to end justifications for Turkish attacks.

• Withdrawal of all Turkish forces stationed in northern Iraq back across the border.

• Federal army control over all borders in the Kurdistan region and official border crossings.

• Removal of Iranian opposition armed groups from northern Iraq positions.

• Liberation of Iraq's financial and economic policy from US hegemony.

• Total cessation of US embassy intervention in internal Iraqi affairs and the termination of the US special envoy position.

Carrying arms is a response to existential threats, and weapons will only be addressed once national sovereignty and security are fully established.

On the other hand, the Secretary-General of Iraq’s Badr Organization, Hadi al-Amiri, speaking at a memorial ceremony for the anniversary of the martyrdom of Sayyed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, stated (source: Al Mayadeen):

I assure everyone that there will be absolutely no confrontation between the State and the Resistance.

Regulating weapons is not an external decision, but a purely Iraqi one.

The fight against corruption and the corrupt is a decision agreed upon by the Coordination Framework, and we support the Prime Minister in this regard.

Speaking of corruption, yesterday Iraqi government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi announced the recovery of funds, assets, and properties valued at more than IQD6 1.359 trillion (~1 billion USD) as part of Operation Dawn Crackdown, as reported by Al Mayadeen.

Moving to Yemen, today its Foreign Ministry stated that humanitarian organization operating in the country had yielded to pressure from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and refused to allow medicines Yemen, adding:

The international community must bear its responsibilities in accordance with the international charters and laws it has been invoking for decades.

…as reported by Al Mayadeen and Saba. In a separate statement quoted by Saba, the Yemeni Foreign Ministry warned against involvement with the Saudis, adding:

The state of confusion and disarray this regime is experiencing will only increase the cost of continuing this foolish policy.

Earlier tonight a Yemeni military source quoted by Saba announced that the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) had foiled Saudi preparations for ground offensive with drone attacks targeting “sensitive sites”:

The footage in the video above demonstrates the capabilities of the Yemeni domestically-produced Rajoum drone featuring a 10 km range (sources: Al Mayadeen and RNN Mirror).

It is also worth reporting that, according to Israeli broadcaster Kan, the Outlaw US Empire rejected a requested raised by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) to “take the lead in the war” against Ansar Allah (a.k.a. Houthis), after a meeting between the former and CENTCOM Commander General Brad Cooper7. Reportedly, the US administration justified the refusal saying that the YAF…

are not currently directing fire at American vessels in the Red Sea and are focusing on Saudi ships.

…though it stated that it would still support “Saudi military moves” against Yemen, as reported by Al Mayadeen. As the late US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said:

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.

…and Arab States are learning it the hard way now! This is probably why KSA, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (MJDA) earlier this month and will meet in Istanbul tomorrow (Monday 31st August 2026) for the first committee session that will see both foreign and defense ministers from the 3 countries, as reported by Al Mayadeen and Reuters.

I will conclude this article with the following caricature by Kamal Sharaf from Saba:

P.S.: Just before publishing this article, Middle East Spectator (MES) and Fotros Resistance reported that, earlier tonight, the Outlaw US Empire had carried out airstrikes with a drone launched from Jordan against two launch platforms on Larak Island, in the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in two martyrs and two wounded. Expect an Iranian retaliation on US bases in the region (Jordan in particular) within the next few hours!

Post-publication UPDATE: The IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) has just issued a statement vowing retaliation, as expected (source: MES - emphasis original):

The American-Zionist enemy, once again, based on its desperation in solving domestic problems and its reduced credibility among regional countries, sought to revive its sinister role and public opinion, by attacking Larak Island in an aggressive act which resulted in the martyrdom and injury of several of our soldiers and compatriots.

This act will be responded to by the sons of Islamic Iran and will result in the punishment of the aggressor.

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Federico Dal Cortivo, writing for L’Adige in Verona, interviewed Massimo Lucioli, author of the book “LIBERATORS”, published by Italia Storica Editore: italiastorica@hotmail.com

A now-retired pilot-in-command, he served for 20 years in the Canadair fleet of the State Fire Service as Training Commander – Controller and Chief Pilot. Having always been passionate about military history, he has contributed to – and continues to contribute to – various military history magazines. He has published numerous essays, including: Il Legionario di Dio1, Resistenza al di là del mito2, La Ciociara e le altre3, Rovetta 1945: storia di una strage partigiana4, Mafia & Allies, Endkampf5, SS-Sturmbataillon Charlemagne nella difesa di Berlino6, and Monterotondo 09/09/1943. In 2021, published by Italia Storica Edizioni, he released 1945 Germania Anno Zero, atrocità e crimini Alleati nel memorandum di Darmstadt7 , a work which won the “Libro di Guerra, Nettunia 1944”8 award in 2022. In 2022, he published “Operation Eiche, Gran Sasso, 12 settembre 1943 la liberazione di Benito Mussolini”9, which won the “18th May Literary Prize”10 in the Second World War category in 2023.

Commander Lucioli, before we delve into the book “Liberators”, why did you feel the need to shed light on a little-known chapter of our [Italian] history relating to the Second World War, with an essay that we might describe as going against the grain, and which follows on from your previous essay "Germania Anno Zero"?

«You used the term “need”, and that is precisely the right word. The history that has been recounted and passed down to the present day, particularly that relating to the Second World War, has often been presented as a set of axioms and dogmas to be accepted without asking too many questions. Yet the historical reality was far more complex. It was not such a clear-cut and simplistic clash between good and evil, as a certain subsequent narrative has sought to portray it. It was, first and foremost, a conflict in which economic, strategic and geopolitical interests became intertwined with ideological divisions, giving rise to a war of exceptional violence. The atrocities, crimes and responsibilities of the defeated side have been the subject of extensive and ongoing attention in both academic and popular historiography.

On the contrary, the events, responsibilities and misdeeds attributable to the victorious side have long remained in the background, if not deliberately overlooked or concealed. More than 80 years after the end of the war, I believe that this approach is no longer tenable. Historical research should aim to establish the facts in their entirety, without any grey areas imposed by political or cultural expediency. Responsibilities must be acknowledged and declared wherever they lie, regardless of who won or lost the conflict. Only a balanced reconstruction, grounded in primary sources, can provide a genuine understanding of history.

The dominant narrative has perpetuated the idea that, in the aftermath of the end of hostilities, all it took was the flick of a switch for life to return to normal, as if all the atrocities and injustices had been swept away by the victory of the so-called democracies, the bringers of peace, prosperity and, above all, freedom. A sugar-coated, almost childish portrayal, which nevertheless serves specific political purposes: to consolidate the image of a peaceful and just world, in which history itself becomes a tool for legitimising the present. This distorted view, far from being harmless, has had a devastating effect: it has distorted historical truth, transforming it into a sanitised narrative, often relegated to complacent newsrooms or hidden away in editorial archives».

In your book, you quote General Omar Bradley, who in September 1944 gave explicit orders to Allied troops not to fraternise with the German people; the same thing happened in Japan after the surrender. Before we turn our attention to the Italian Campaign, what happened in Germany and Japan once the war was over?

«It is difficult to imagine that General Omar Bradley would have taken initiatives of such magnitude on his own initiative. Decisions of that nature could only have come from the highest echelons of the US Army General Staff and reflected a clear political will. Towards the defeated nations, in fact, the Anglo-American powers adopted an attitude that to describe simply as oppressive would be an understatement: in many cases, it amounted to a genuine policy of punishment and retribution, destined to continue well beyond the cessation of hostilities. Its consequences were felt for at least five years after the end of the conflict, profoundly affecting the living conditions of the defeated populations, including those in Italy.

Japan provides a case in point. Official historiography – partly as a result of the strict censorship imposed by the US authorities on the Japanese press until 1952 – long maintained that sexual violence committed by American servicemen had been limited to a few dozen incidents. This account was subsequently called into question by new documentary evidence. In 1998, following the discovery of the remains of three US marines who had gone missing in 1945 on the island of Okinawa, new evidence emerged that helped to reignite the debate. According to the account, the three servicemen were killed by the inhabitants of the village of Katsuyama because they were held responsible for repeated rapes and murders. These investigations reportedly revealed that over 10,000 women were victims of sexual violence in Okinawa during the American occupation.

Moreover, the violence did not end with the conclusion of the war. In the years that followed, numerous incidents occurred which fuelled deep resentment amongst the local population towards the US military presence. A case in point is the incident in 1995, when a 12-year-old girl was abducted and raped by three American soldiers; this incident sparked massive protests and contributed to increasing the hostility of Okinawa’s inhabitants towards the 38 US military bases on the island. Sexual violence was not confined to Okinawa alone.

Thousands of rapes were also reported on the main islands of the Japanese archipelago. In Kanagawa Prefecture alone, between 30th August and 15th September 1945, reports were filed concerning some 1,300 sexual assaults, bearing witness to the severity of the problem in the weeks immediately following Japan’s surrender. With regard to Germany, Directive JCS-1067 (Joint Chiefs of Staff), modelled on the well-known Morgenthau Plan, drawn up at the end of April 1945 and approved by President Harry S. Truman on 10th May of the same year, stipulated that Germany was to be regarded as a defeated nation to be occupied, not liberated. It provided for the disarmament, decentralisation, deindustrialisation and denazification of the country, whilst also requiring US officials to adopt a “fair” yet firm stance and discouraging any form of fraternisation with the German population. The guidelines set out in the directive were subsequently discussed at the Potsdam Conference (16th July – 2nd August 1945) and formed one of the operational frameworks for the Allied Control Council in the administration of the four occupation zones.

Strictly enforced until the end of 1947, when it was replaced by JCS-1779, the directive continued, according to various historical accounts, to have an impact in the years that followed. It also regulated the distribution of essential goods, setting food rations at between approximately 1,080 and 1,150 kilocalories per day. Alan S. Milward confirmed that in the two-year period 1946–1947, average consumption stood at around 1,080 kilocalories per day, whilst the US Army Medical Corps considered at least 2,000 kilocalories per day necessary simply to maintain an adult. In his book Der Jahrhundertkrieg11 1939–1945 (2005), Helmut Schröcke attributes the deaths of 5.7 million German civilians to the food policy implemented between 1945 and 1950.

The historian Giles MacDonogh, in After the Reich: The Brutal History of Allied Occupation, estimates, however, that at least 3 million Germans – both civilians and military personnel – died after the official end of the war as a result of the conditions of the occupation. The text also highlights the extremely high infant mortality rate recorded up until 1947 – reported to be around 16 times higher than that of 1943 – as a further indicator of the severity of the conditions endured by the German population in the post-war period».

Allies’ crimes in Italy

Let us now turn to the Italian Campaign, which officially began with Operation Husky on 10th July 1943. We would like to briefly outline how the military operations unfolded and what were the first incidents that revealed the true nature of the so-called liberators. What role did the American General Patton play in all this?

«The US troops arrived in Sicily driven by a ferocious operational ruthlessness fuelled by orders issued by the military high command, including those attributed to General George S. Patton. The consequences manifested themselves in numerous episodes of violence, ranging from the execution of prisoners to the shooting of civilians summarily suspected of being fascists. In those days, simply wearing a black garment – such as that worn by people on their way to a funeral – was enough to be mistaken for a Fascist militant and immediately executed. Incidents of this kind bear witness to the climate of extreme brutality that accompanied the landing operations and the occupation of Sicily. In the early hours of the landing at Gela, incidents of extreme violence took place: some Carabinieri12 who had surrendered were disarmed, robbed of their personal belongings and shot in the back without trial. At the same time, the Rangers entered the town, fighting house to house, and, according to numerous accounts, also opened fire on defenceless civilians. Among the victims were Carmela Ferrara in Rodinò, aged 20, and her two children, Grazio, aged 3, and Lucia, aged 1, who were killed by a burst of gunfire while seeking shelter. The Italian Resistance, though driven by great courage and attested to by numerous decorations for valour, was overwhelmed by the Allies’ crushing military superiority. Among the lesser-known episodes is that of three young men from Gela – Francesco Zafarana, Ferdinando Incardona and Rosario Cacciatore – who, having recovered three hand grenades, threw them from the bell tower of the Mother Church at a detachment of Rangers, forcing them to retreat. Arrested shortly afterwards, Zafarana managed to escape, while the other two were subsequently returned to their families».

I believe the Moroccan “Goumiers”13 serving under General Juin fully deserve a chapter of their own; their notorious reputation emerged as soon as they landed in Sicily. Could you tell us about them?

«War crimes began right from the early stages of the Sicilian campaign. Among the units present in Sicily was a Tabor of Moroccan Goumiers, who are often blamed for the acts of violence committed against the Italian civilian population. However, attributing responsibility solely to the Moroccans is historically simplistic: the French Expeditionary Corps also included Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese colonial units, as well as a substantial number of French metropolitan and Corsican soldiers, who made up around 40% of the total strength. The acts of violence, including sexual violence perpetrated against the civilian population, were therefore the responsibility of the French Expeditionary Corps as a whole and not of any single component thereof».

In addition to war crimes, there were crimes committed against civilians: which were the most common, and who committed the greatest number of them during the advance up the peninsula?

«“Liberators” examines the war crimes committed by Allied troops in Italy, with particular focus on those perpetrated after the conclusion of military operations. Between September 1943 and the summer of 1947, Italy experienced a liberation that was only apparent, marked by widespread violence at the hands of the occupying forces, misrule and corruption within the AMGOT14, hunger, disease, the black market and the consequences of the indiscriminate bombing of Italian cities. In a climate of virtual impunity, Allied units were responsible for thousands of incidents of violence against the civilian population.

Official figures record over 23,000 Italians as victims of assaults, murders, rapes, physical and psychological abuse, and other crimes committed by foreign troops; however, reports from the Royal Carabinieri and ministerial circulars of the time indicate that this figure is only a conservative estimate and that the actual number was much higher. In addition to US units, British, French, Indian, Canadian, Polish, Greek and New Zealand contingents were also involved, responsible for murders, injuries, assaults, road traffic accidents and sexual assaults.

For thousands of Italians, violence, looting, abuse and fear became a harrowing daily reality. The research is based primarily on documents held at the Archives of the Historical Office of the Army General Staff (AUSSME15) and the Central State Archives, including the Allied Control Commission (ACC) collection covering the period 1943–1947. These are primary sources that enable a direct reconstruction of the ways in which the Allied Military Government administered occupied Italy and the consequences that this occupation had on the civilian population».

In one chapter of your book, you discuss 8th September 1943 and the “Myth of the Unequal Struggle and the Hidden Reality”. What do you mean by this? And what impact did the way in which the armistice was reached have on the Italian civilian population?

«The traditional account of 8th September 1943 maintains that Italy no longer had the resources necessary to continue the war and that the armistice was an inevitable choice, as Badoglio also stated in his radio address. However, German documents and subsequent Allied confirmations paint a different picture. Following the armistice, the Wehrmacht captured over 1.2 million rifles, nearly 10,000 artillery pieces, 970 tanks, 4,553 aircraft, 15,500 vehicles, and vast reserves of fuel, ammunition, explosives and logistical supplies. This equipment was used to arm Wehrmacht divisions, Waffen-SS units and the forces of the Italian Social Republic, while Italian industry continued to produce lorries, tanks, aircraft, engines and naval vessels for Germany.

The collapse on 8th September [1943] therefore did not result from a lack of resources, but from serious political and military failings, organisational inefficiencies and the decision not to mount a coordinated resistance. The consequences were the capture of over a million Italian soldiers, some 725,000 of whom were deported to Germany; the transformation of Italy into a battlefield between foreign armies; the outbreak of civil war; and further devastation caused by the conflict».

What were living conditions like in the Italian cities occupied by the ‘liberators’? Hunger, disease, prostitution, disorder, crime?

«The main occupied Italian cities – Catania, Palermo, Naples, Rome, Florence and Livorno – experienced varying circumstances in terms of the extent of the destruction, social conditions, relations with the Allied troops and public health. The public health system, already fragile before the war, particularly in the South, was further compromised by the conflict, the bombing raids and the arrival of large contingents of foreign troops. Poverty, inadequate infrastructure and administrative inefficiencies contributed to the spread of malaria, typhus, smallpox, scabies, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases. The Allied authorities intervened primarily to safeguard the health and operational efficiency of their own troops, which were considered a higher priority than the needs of the civilian population.

The public health measures adopted for the benefit of Italians were therefore, in most cases, an indirect consequence of the primary objective: to ensure the full operational capacity of the occupying forces. Historiography has often focused on the hardships endured by Italians during the three-year period from 1940 to 1943, overlooking the fact that, in the regions occupied by the Allies, conditions did not improve and, in many cases, worsened due to inefficiencies and seriously questionable administrative management. Hunger and material hardship were compounded by daily humiliations, uncertainty and a profound deterioration in the moral, social and community fabric of the population».

Bari was the site of what is perhaps the only recorded incident of chemical warfare during the Second World War. What happened on 2nd December 1943?

«On 2 December 1943, the port of Bari was devastated by a Luftwaffe bombing raid that struck over 30 Allied ships. Among these, the SS John Harvey exploded; it was carrying around 2,000 mustard gas bombs, totalling an estimated 100 tonnes of the chemical agent banned by the 1925 Geneva Convention. The toxic cloud claimed over 1,200 victims, including both military personnel and civilians, causing burns and severe poisoning, while the effects of exposure continued for decades, also affecting fishermen in the Adriatic Sea.

The incident was shrouded in military secrecy, and it was not until many years later that the presence of chemical weapons was officially confirmed. Subsequent post-war investigations by ICRAM16 also established the existence of Allied depots and logistical networks for the storage of chemical agents in the Foggia area and at other sites across Italy. Research campaigns have identified around 20,000 chemical munitions on the seabed of the Lower Adriatic, left over from post-war sinkings and disposal operations. This episode highlights how Italy was used as a logistical hub for chemical weapons, with environmental and health consequences that have persisted to the present day and remain the subject of study and monitoring».

Your book frequently mentions the AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories). What role did it play in Italy, and what were its links with the Mafia?

«The AMGOT was established by the Allies following the landings in Sicily in July 1943 to administer the Italian territories progressively occupied by Anglo-American forces. Established with the aim of imposing order, stability and control in a country left without an effective State authority following the fall of fascism, it reported directly to the Allied Command through the Civil Affairs sector. The organisation had a strictly military and hierarchical structure. At the top were US and British officers, supported by local administrators chosen from among moderate anti-fascists and local dignitaries deemed trustworthy.

Its main tasks included maintaining the security of the occupying forces, restoring essential services, reorganising the civil administration, purging officials compromised by fascism, exercising control over the judiciary, the press and the media, as well as managing the economy through the introduction of the destabilising AM-Lira17 and rationing policies. Among the key figures in the Allied administration were Charles Poletti, former Governor of New York State; Francis Rennell Rodd, head of British coordination; and Edgard E. Hume, a Civil Affairs officer involved in local administrative organisation.

In November 1943, the AMGOT was replaced by the AMG (Allied Military Government) and the Allied Control Commission (ACC), which continued to exercise strict political and administrative control over the occupied territories. Charles Poletti’s work in Sicily was particularly significant. Appointed Civil Affairs Officer, he found himself operating in a context characterised by destroyed infrastructure, the absence of civil authorities and deep-seated social tensions. In addition to re-establishing public services, organising the distribution of food supplies and restoring communications, he was tasked with appointing mayors and prefects, postponing any elections until the end of the war.

To this end, Poletti not only favoured anti-fascist figures and local dignitaries, but also enlisted the cooperation of individuals linked to Sicilian separatism and members of the Mafia. Among the best-known cases were Calogero Vizzini, appointed mayor of Villalba; Giuseppe Genco Russo, known as “Zu Peppi Jencu”, who became deputy mayor of Mussomeli; Max Mugnani, put in charge of managing American pharmaceutical warehouses in Sicily; Vincenzo De Carlo, placed in charge of overseeing the grain stores; and Count Lucio Tasca, appointed mayor of Palermo. In the same context, the future financier Michele Sindona, with the support of Calogero Vizzini, set up a business in the fruit and vegetable sector. Whilst these appointments might be justified by the urgent need to swiftly restore order and administration in the occupied territories, they nevertheless represent a significant factor in the historical debate on the relations that developed between the Allied military administration and the Mafia during the occupation period».

Finally, might we say that if there had been a “reverse Nuremberg”, many Allied and Soviet commanders would have ended up in the dock and on the gallows?

«I believe that the Nuremberg trials were a tribunal set up by the victors against the vanquished, in which the reconstruction of the Second World War was limited exclusively to the responsibilities of the defeated, leaving issues concerning the victorious powers out of the proceedings. In my view, it was an eminently political act, through which the German ruling class was eliminated under the guise of justice. The first victims of that trial were historical truth and the rule of law.

In support of this argument, I would refer to the view expressed by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1956, according to which the Nuremberg trials violated the US constitutional principle prohibiting the retroactive application of laws. Kennedy argued that a tribunal set up by the victors cannot be truly impartial because the desire for revenge ultimately prevails over justice, and that, in doing so, the United States would have sacrificed its own constitutional principles and the tradition of the rule of law. In “Allied War Criminals of WWII”, the historian Paul David Cook constructs a hypothetical trial in which the principal political and military leaders of the Allied powers are judged using the same charges and legal criteria adopted by the Nuremberg Tribunal against the German leaders. The author concludes that Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, Eisenhower, Stalin, de Gaulle and other Allied commanders would have been convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace, demonstrating that the Nuremberg principles, if applied uniformly, should have applied equally to both the victors and the vanquished».

The book is published by Italia Storica Editore: italiastorica@hotmail.com

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Let’s start this update with a follow-up on my translation published on Wednesday 26th August 2026 reporting on the unexpected visit of CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Moscow (Russia), which the President of the corrupt Outlaw US Empire1 and Paedophile in Chief of the Epstein regime2 and anti-Christ3, Donald J. Trump, downplayed, describing it as “semi-routine”, although last the CIA director who set foot in Moscow was William Burns in November 2021, just a few months before the start of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov initially rejected the presence of John Ratcliffe in Moscow the other day, the former later confirmed it, but denied a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and did not provide any additional details, whereas Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin confirmed that he had met with Ratcliffe, adding (source: TASS):

It took place; there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Whether in person or online, such meetings are part of our work.

So the meeting with John Ratcliffe was also part of our regular work.

The work of intelligence services is a rather delicate and specialized matter.

On the other hand, Trump rejected rumors alleging that Ratcliffe had gone to Moscow for fear that Russia could “test NATO resolve” or to help the Outlaw US Empire enforcing sanctions on Iran (sources: Al Mayadeen and TASS):

None of the above.

He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end.

John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said. Now something may come … out of it. We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.

Ratcliffe sees his Russian counterpart once every six months or once every year. They have a very good relationship. There was no message and there was nothing unusual.

So, Trump suggested that Ratcliffe had gone to Russia to bring the Russo-Ukrainian war to an end, but that is very unlikely, in my opinion, considering recent developments (we will get to those later). As I wrote in a comment to my translation, the fact that Ratcliffe travelled in a USAF4 Boeing C-17A Globemaster III is very suspicious. A diplomat does not travel with a 4-engine strategic transport aircraft designed to move tanks, containers and military units! He can go undetected with a tiny jet. I seriously doubt that the Outlaw US Empire was delivering something to Russia. Either Russia told them to take their stuff and leave or the US administration decided to pull out before the start of a full-scale World War (WW). And Ratcliffe went there either to be dressed down, because the FSB5 discovered and dismantled a secret CIA base, or to deliver a final warning to Putin about the upcoming WW3. I do not buy anything else.

It is also worth noting that, apparently, Trump personally dispatched Ratcliffe to Russia “on a highly restricted diplomatic mission that was kept from several senior White House officials and military leaders”, as per Al Mayadeen, citing The Wall Street Journal (paywalled - see archived version). According to The Washington Post (paywalled - see archived version or Al Mayadeen), Ratcliffe rushed to Moscow because US intelligence indicated the the Kremlin could take advantage of the US weakened military position after the prolonged war on Iran.

What is even more interesting is that, soon after Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow and his return to Washington, Trump held a 3-hour-long emergency meeting in close format with Ratcliffe, the US War Secretary Pete Hegseth and a USAF General at the White House, as reported on Intel Slava Telegram channel and a few X accounts, such as this one or this other one:

No detail of the meeting has been disclosed and hardly any Western mainstream media (MSM) reported on it!

Commenting on the recent developments, including the visit of Ratcliffe and Vatican's Secretary for Relations with States Paul Richard Gallagher to Moscow on the same day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated:

In both cases, the visits reflect the desire of those who visited us to come and talk.

There was no ultimatum on our part. There was a question on our part, because information is periodically leaked to the Western media on how exactly the administration of Donald Trump, which proclaimed the Ukrainian conflict to be “Joe Biden’s war”, is helping Ukraine with financial aid, weapons, intelligence data and so on.

[There have been] three or four such instances over the past couple of months.

When such information resurfaces, we calmly send it to the US Department of State via diplomatic channels, asking them to confirm whether it is true.

Immediately after Anchorage, the Europeans, alongside with Vladimir Zelensky, rushed to [US President] Donald Trump and hung onto his arms. Following their year-long lobbying effort, French President Emmanuel Macron proudly announced that they had “buried” Anchorage, and that Trump is now with them.

I have no idea how the White House views this, but no response to these words has so far been heard from them.

…as quoted by TASS (1, 2 and 3).

Meanwhile, the situation between Russia and UK is seriously escalating. I previously reported (here) on the British admission of providing drones made in UK to Ukraine for deep strikes in mainland Russia, which triggered the reaction of Sergey Lavrov, his spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and the Russian embassy in London accusing UK of direct participation in the war, “acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis”.

After British Prime Minister Andrew Burnham’s announcement that he had authorised the European defence systems consortium MBDA to transfer classified information relating to British-manufactured components for the Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine (see my latest translations earlier today, Saturday 29th August 2026), last Thursday, 27th August 2026, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with British weapons would elicit a Russian response on British military bases in Ukraine and beyond (sources: her Telegram channel - all formatting original, yellow highlight mine):

💬 The Storm Shadow story is the very embodiment of London’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

The decision to supply these missiles to the Kyiv regime was taken by the British in 2023. At the time, they were caught up in the euphoria of preparing for what would later turn out to be a failed “counter-offensive”, and even many British politicians considered this decision to be extraordinary.

The Government of the United Kingdom was aware of its danger and illegitimacy, and tried to convince its MPs, citizens and even us that it was acting “responsibly” – it was officially stated that this system would be used only on “internationally recognised Ukrainian territory”. This position was also set out at the time in a note from the British Embassy in Moscow. Evidently, at that point, the British were trying to demonstrate that London was retaining a modicum of prudence and did not wish to unleash a Third World War.

Subsequently, the British side did everything it could to avoid answering questions about the actual deployment of Storm Shadow missiles. But at some point, their use became evident. And then such strikes went beyond the area declared by London – albeit a fictitious one – which would have been impossible without the direct involvement of foreign specialists ensuring the operation and targeting of this weapons system, as well as without certain NATO countries providing the necessary intelligence to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In May 2024, the then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, stated in an interview with Reuters that “Ukraine has the right” to carry out strikes on Russian territory using British weaponry, “just as Russia is carrying out strikes deep inside Ukraine” (“Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine”).

This hostile outburst directly contradicted previous official assurances from the British side that under no circumstances would Storm Shadow missiles be used against Russian territory. In doing so, the British Foreign Secretary deliberately renounced this principle, effectively acknowledging his country as a party to the conflict.

And now we hear that London is prepared to pass on to Kyiv the information necessary for the independent production of Storm Shadow missiles. I believe that Andy Burnham’s government understands where this will lead. They understand how Ukrainian Armed Forces militants would use the Storm Shadow if they were given the opportunity to actively replenish their arsenal – which our military, naturally, will not allow. But London will not succeed in shifting the blame onto the Kyiv puppets.

Equally telling are the attempts by London’s politicians to allay concerns amongst their own population regarding these escalatory actions. The local press have even started referring to the missile as the SCALP rather than the Storm Shadow, as if trying to cover their tracks and shift the blame onto the French, while praise for this provocative move is accompanied by assurances that it allegedly contains nothing that would exacerbate the situation.

Recent events leave no doubt that all the British government’s actions are geared towards a single long-term objective – inflicting, as they put it, a “strategic defeat” on our country.

All of this is doomed to failure, but London is completely mired in it.

We have repeatedly warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons on Russian territory could be any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond. Those guilty of committing war crimes, including against the civilian population of our country, will be punished in accordance with their offences. Inevitable retribution will befall their accomplices and instigators.

We call on all residents of the United Kingdom to reflect on the inevitable catastrophic consequences of the hostile actions taken by their own authorities. We urge the British leadership once again to carefully analyse the situation and immediately, in the most decisive and unequivocal manner, abandon this hostile and aggressive course of action, which can only prolong the agony of the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv and risk escalating the conflict to an entirely new level.

Interestingly, yesterday (Friday 28th August 2026) a huge fire erupted in an industrial site near Wembley Stadium in London (I wonder if it was another arms factory, following similar “incidents” in Italy and Bulgaria (see here):

…and last night Russia hit a large ammunition depot storing air defense missiles in Kiev, not far from a residential area, as you can see from the videos below:

What you see above may soon happen in UK, if not all around Europe! If you live near a British military base, such as the “secret” RAF Welford base (see David Miller’s latest article), you may want to relocate or start protesting!

In any case, given the above, it is quite clear to me that we are accelerating towards a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO (mainly UK + EU). I believe that the transnational elites want to push UK and the rest of Europe to wage war against Russia, while keeping USrael focussed on Iran and the Middle East. You may wonder how the combined West is going to fight these wars, given the weapons and ammunition drain following Iran’s war (see Al Mayadeen and Mehr). Well… I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to go straight to the point with nuclear strikes!

Let’s not forget that the situation in the West is getting critical, with the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) at the lowest point ever since the 1970s, as we saw here, and Europe heading towards a winter with the lowest gas reserves in the last 13 years and gas prices that may reach 100 €/MWh (sources: Al Maydaeen and Fars) due to a combination of sanctions on Russia, sabotage of Nord Stream and the recent war on Iran with the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The energy crisis is already pushing prices up across Europe, with inflate rate in France reported at 2.7% year-on-year in August (2026), up from 2.4% in July (source: Fars). In Germany import prices rose 6.8% year-on-tear in July, from 6.1% in June, but energy prices jumped 26.4% from last year (see Fars for more details). In UK the situation is even direr, with “almost no gas in storage in the UK for the coming winter”, according to the boss of British Gas's owner, Chris O'Shea, chief executive of Centrica, quoted by Fars, which also reported that energy bills in UK may increased by more than £200 by 2027! This will speed up deindustrialization of Europe, forcing European companies to relocate to the Outlaw US Empire and unemployed people to either join the army or the defence sector, while propaganda, censorship and communication will become control even stricter, to avoid revolts and revolutions (see my translation from yesterday). This goes hand in hand with militarization of Germany (see my translation here and René Zittlau’s article here) and, generally, speaking of children and education across the West (see Mint Press News). It is the Ukrainization of Europe described in my recent translation here and the Nazification of the West wrote about in his article here.

I think that the West cannot sustain this situation, this energy crisis for much longer (by the way, a food crisis may ensue as well, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the situation in Black Sea affect export of fertilizers, wheat, etc.). So, I expect one or even two black swan events (e.g. one in Eastern Europe and another one in the Middle East) at some point this autumn/winter, probably just before the elections in Israel (scheduled on 27th October 2026) and in the Outlaw US Empire (scheduled on 3rd November 2026), so that both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald J. Trump can stay in power and wage an infrastructure or nuclear war on the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, etc.), given that all the other options have failed, while NATO (but mostly UK and Europe) can confront Russia. After all, the support for Netanyahu’s bloc in Israel has fallen to 31%, 27 points below the opposition bloc, leading a Channel 12 poll with ~50%, as reported by Al Mayadeen, while Trump’s approval rating has been falling steadily since his re-election (see here), especially among among Americans, with 31% of generation Z voters who supported him now regretting it, as per Al Mayadeen. Just imagine that White House staff are already considering a new job in the hope of a Democrat’s victory at the mid-term elections (see Fars), while US companies with close ties to Trump are trying to vie towards the Democratic Party, as reported by The Wall Street Journal (paywalled - see archived version or Fars instead).

However, in case of full-scale World War 3 (we have already been in a piecemeal Word War for a few years now!), we should not expect it to be confined to Europe and West Asia (Middle East). As Lavrov warned two years ago, in August 2024, the Outlaw US Empire would not be spared (see here).

News and updates from Iran

Let’s now have a look at the situation in the Middle East, starting from Iran, where senior officials recently held meetings with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Than and his delegation (see my previous report here). Yesterday, at the end of the visit, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted (see also Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars and Mehr):

…whereas Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, responded to Trump’s latest territorial claim over the Strait over Hormuz on Truth social with the following tweet (see also IRNA, Fars and Tasnim):

#Schizophrenia is a complex and acute psychotic disorder that manifests with disturbances in thinking and a distorted perception of reality. Its most common symptom is also #hallucinations and #delusions. Psychologists recommend that such patients should be under 24-hour supervision and receive treatment.

And in response to recent claims by the CENTCOM6 commander regarding shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, yesterday Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf stated (sources: IRNA, Fars and Mehr):

The equation of this war is clear: either all or none! In a region where we do not sell oil, no one will sell oil.

If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe. Security of the strait depends on the absence of US forces. We have said many times that the situation in the strait will not return to what it was before the war. [All emphasis mine]

…while Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, stated clearly that…

At present, no vessel—whether entering or leaving—can pass through the Strait of Hormuz without the permission of the Armed Forces, particularly the IRGC7 Navy.

We believe that dialogue from a position of strength, authority, and the grandeur of the Iranian nation, based on victory in this arena and the Americans’ acceptance of defeat, can be considered. [Source: Fars]

…as confirmed also by the IRGC Navy, which stated (sources: Al Mayadeen, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr):

The control exercised by the Islamic Republic’s forces over the strategic Strait of Hormuz is complete and decisive.

The statements by US officials regarding the Strait of Hormuz being open are an obvious lie and are solely intended to control the price of oil and cover up their failures.

Data from ship-tracking firm Kpler quoted by Al Mayadeen showed that only 7 commodity vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz last Thursday, 27th August 2026, compared with 17 the previous day and a 10-day average of 15, thus confirming that it is Iran that is controlling the waterway. In fact, not only the Kuwaiti-flagged oil tanker Al Salam 2 was hit on Thursday night, as reported by Mehr, but US Navy vessels deployed in the region “are avoiding resupply in regional ports due concerns about their proximity to Iranian missile range”, meaning that they have to resupply at the joint US-UK base on Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean, ~2,000 miles away from Iran, as per Al Mayadeen.

In the meantime, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the new US sanctions on Iran and urging all countries to refrain to implement them (read the full text on IRNA or the summary on Fars, Tasnim and Mehr), just when the US Treasury cut off the Emirati branch of Egyptian Banque Misr from the US financial system for alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran, as reported by Al Mayadeen and Middle East Spectator (MES), even though it keeps operating (see Al Mayadeen) and other Iranian commercial and financial businesses remain active in the United Arab Emirates (source: Al Mayadeen). Speaking of US sanctions, earlier today Ghalibaf mocked once again Scott Bessent on X (see also Al Mayadeen, IRNA and Mehr):

…whereas Brigadier General Reza Talaei‑Nik, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, warned that new “surprises” await the enemy on the battlefield in a possible future war, referring to new weapons and equipment, as well as technical and tactical capabilities, adding that “Iran produces more than 1,000 types of weapons, equipment and ammunition, with defense self-sufficiency exceeding 90%” (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA and Mehr).

Similarly, Iran’s Caretaker Defense Minister Brigadier General Majid Ebn al-Reza was quoted by Tasnim as saying:

Everyone, and especially the enemies, should know that they will become aware of Iran’s surprises in due time.

The ridiculous media show does not change the reality on the battlefield or the victorious side.

Read Iran’s history spanning thousands of years!

Speaking at congress in Gilan Province today, Iranian Army Commander Major General Amir Hatami dismissed claims that Iran’s Armed Forces had been battered:

The enemy claims it has eliminated Iran's armed forces, while they themselves know the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have always stood against enemies with authority, initiative, creativity and courage.

The missiles and drones of the armed forces were fired at the enemy with full intensity until the final moment.

…as reported by IRNA, Fars and Mehr. Brigadier General Alireza Elhami, commander of Iran’s Joint Air Defense Headquarters, quoted by Fars, added that Iranian air defense destroyed more than 200 enemy drones and aircraft in the recent 40-Day War, indicating a significant improvement compared to the 12-Day War, whereas IRGC Commander Brigadier General Mohammad Karami said (source: Al Mayadeen):

If one missile is launched, we will launch ten missiles.

They came to the negotiating table, but who was it that ultimately reversed course on the talks?

Yesterday evening Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei issued a long statement hailing the Iranian government of Masoud Pezeshkian for handling the people’s needs despite the USraeli aggression and blockade and urging to address economic issues, increase domestic production, eliminate the US Dollar from transactions and preserve national unity and social cohesion - read the full text on Tasnim or the summary on Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars and Mehr). Khamenei was echoed by Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC - sources: IRNA and Mehr):

Today, national unity and social cohesion are among the most fundamental elements of national power and security.

…and Ghalibaf, who tweeted (source: IRNA):

The message of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution is the apple of our eye and that of all the officials of the country. We must avoid illusory dualisms in any form, and any action that harms social cohesion is a national and religious prohibition for all of us. We pledge to the people and the leadership that we will dedicate our lives to serving the people and advancing Iran.

Separately, Ghalibaf called for unity among Muslims (sources: Tasnim and Mehr):

New regional treaties and arrangements can herald the beginning of a new stage in which Muslim neighbors rely on their own capacities instead of foreigners and, rather than pursuing exhausting rivalries, choose the path of cooperation and brotherhood.

In a televised interview yesterday evening, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian called for unity at home and abroad with neighbouring Muslim countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan - sources: IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr):

We are brothers and are not rulers over one another.

The principle behind all the promises I made is unity and cohesion.

In a tweet posted today on X acknowledging Khamenei’s statement, Pezeshkian wrote (sources: IRNA and Mehr):

The affectionate and prudent message from the esteemed Supreme Leader of the system to the Fourteenth Government and to myself is a continuation of the constructive and unparalleled support from the great and dignified Leader, the Martyr of the Islamic Revolution.
We assure the great nation of Iran and the dear Leadership that, with complete unity and cohesion alongside the other branches of government, we will be guardians of the country's authority and dignity on the path to flourishing and progress.

…and, speaking at a ceremony in Tehran today, he added (source: Tasnim):

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not the initiator of war. We do not welcome war, but we will stand firmly against any aggressor with strength, and no power can force a nation that is standing with all its strength and determination to surrender.

We will not bow our heads before any threat, just as we have demonstrated many times before.

Meanwhile, Tehran Prosecutor Ali Salehi issued separate indictments over the USraeli attacks that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei and 168 students and teachers at a school in Minab on 28th February 2026, the first day of the so-called Ramadan War (see my coverage here). The indictment for the assassination of Sayyed Ali Khamenei and his family members includes charge of participation in “corruption on earth” through a terrorist act, as reported by Al Mayadeen and Fars.

Speaking at the 40th International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran today, Araghchi stated that Iran will continue its path of resistance and avenge the martyrdom of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, adding (sources: IRNA and Fars - all emphasis added):

Our enemies believed that their defeat in the previous war had failed to undermine the unity of the Iranian people. Therefore, they began plotting to create divisions within the country, sent armed groups, and sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic by creating insecurity and staging casualties.

It also attempted to partition the country and failed again, while efforts to silence Iran’s missile fire were likewise unsuccessful.

Ultimately, they had no option but to negotiate.

[Referring to neighbouring countries] They realized that the United States is primarily seeking to support the Zionist regime, rather than defend them.

The United States had attacked targets in our country, and we responded by attacking American targets. Wherever there is an American base, it can be targeted, and our forces will defend the country.

[Referring to increasing cooperation among regional countries] This shows that many of them have lost hope in the United States.

The positions adopted by various governments and the expressions of affection toward us were, in fact, expressions of affection toward the Iranian people.

Today Araghchi also met with Sheikh Ali Al-Khatib, vice president of Lebanon’s Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, and expressed Iran’s support for Lebanon, as reported by Tasnim and Mehr. In a tweet on X, Araghchi exposed Trump’s ploy (see also Al Mayadeen and Tasnim):

In other news, the IRGC today dismantled a terrorist cell linked to USrael, arresting 6 members and killing another one in an operation in Iran’s Southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province, as reported by Tasnim and Fars.

On occasion of Unity Week and in response to Trump’s claims that he controls the Strait of Hormuz, hundreds of Iranian citizens and paramilitary volunteers (Basij) from different communities, both Shia and Sunni Muslims, went out and sailed through the Strait (sources: MES and Fars):

News and updates from Lebanon

Moving to Lebanon, yesterday Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem gave a new televised speech on occasion of the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad. Here are some highlights from RNN Mirror (1 and 2 - see Al Mayadeen, Al Manar, IRNA or Mehr for a summary - all emphasis mine):

Today we celebrate the birth of the Messenger of the free, Muhammad (PBUH8), and on this occasion we will speak about the blessed birth, the great role of the master of messengers and prophets for all of humanity, and we will also address several topics, including the political situation in our country.

Islamic unity is the orientation toward the true enemy of the nation and breaking away from internal conflicts.

Islamic unity has two consequences: the first is that we remain united to prevent sedition, and that this unity extends to national and humanitarian unity.

The second consequence is that we remain united around the central cause of Palestine, which expresses the future of the entire region.

The cause of Palestine is not a sectarian cause; rather, it is an Islamic, national, pan-Arab, and humanitarian cause.

We call upon Arab and Islamic countries and their peoples to unite and not stand idly by while enemies enter our region and our brothers suffer.

It is time for our region to be secure through understanding among its states and to put an end to arrogance.

On 31st August [1978], Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr was kidnapped and hidden from his arena of jihad along with his two companions.

Imam al-Sadr early on recognized the dangers of the zionist entity and coined the well-known slogan that “Israel is absolute evil”.

Imam al-Sadr took an exceptional interest in southern Lebanon and told everyone that Lebanon cannot smile while its south is suffering and in torment.

At the time when Imam al-Sadr was striving for the south in order to rid it of the Israeli occupation and aggression, he was also concerned with political and social reform.

We must mention with all pride and honor the master of the nation's martyrs, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who always recalled the traits and characteristics of the Imam of the resistance in Lebanon, Imam Sayyed Musa al-Sadr, and emphasized Islamic unity.

We will continue along the path of the Imam of the resistance, Sayyed Musa al-Sadr, and the path of the master of the nation's martyrs, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

There is an aggressive American-Israeli project to control and fragment the region, which Iran and the Resistance forces are confronting.

We are witnessing extraordinary events as America paves the way to increase control and prepare the necessary premises for the establishment of “greater Israel”, taking advantage of its power and strength, and taking advantage of the submission existing in our region.

The enemies have not missed any opportunity for aggression, but they have not succeeded, nor will they succeed, in achieving their goals.

The great sacrifices made in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Iraq have halted the zionist-american project targeting the region.

We have sacrificed greatly and we will not lose; loss occurs when we surrender and hand over everything to them with our own hands.

The Lebanese authorities have chosen a path that does not honor Lebanon by abandoning the 27 November [2024 ceasefire] agreement and entering into direct negotiations with the enemy.

The Lebanese authorities' negotiations did not stop the war; rather, they granted it legitimacy, and it is a humiliating surrender to the enemy without any return.

The honorable, the Resistance fighters, the sacrificial, and those in solidarity with them from all sects are innocent of the authorities' concessions to the enemy.

[Addressing the Lebanese authorities] Who authorized you to surrender sovereignty?

You are making the country pay a price in the negotiations to stay on your thrones and appease America, which is complicit with Israel.

We do not want war, and the proof is our agreement to the 27th November 2024 ceasefire and our commitment to it.

What exists today is not a mutual war, but a blatant Israeli aggression that escalates and de-escalates, and had it not been for Iran and the Memorandum of Understanding, it would not have de-escalated.

Israel's project is “greater Israel”, and the proof is what is happening in Syria.

We remain in the field and will not accept the projects they are talking about.

To those who say that negotiations are better than war: Did your negotiations stop the war?

Negotiations take place under fire and give legitimacy to the war.

We broke the “greater Israel” project and prevented it from reaching Beirut and stripping Lebanon of its power.

Today, the enemy dares not establish a settlement in southern Lebanon because it is unstable in the presence of the Resistance.

The Israeli does not dare to draw borders outside the lands it occupied because it fears the Resistance, its people, and the free.

We are in a state of confrontation, we will remain steadfast, and we accept the implementation of the 27th November 2024 agreement under the ceiling of Resolution 1701 and nothing else.

We are against the framework agreement and call for dropping it, as it is illegitimate, illegal, humiliating, destroys Lebanese sovereignty, and does not recover rights.

Whoever has this Resistance, these sacrificing youth, and a people sacrificing for their homeland cannot be defeated.

"Israel" cannot achieve achievements in the presence of the Resistance, its people, the honorable, the martyrs, and the sacrifices, and we are Karbalais to achieve our goals.

The sacrifices of our people are great, and we will cooperate together for their dignity, continuity, social assistance, reconstruction, and restoration.

We will remain with our heads held high, we will not surrender, and let them do whatever they wish.

In the meantime, Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) continues its aggression on southern Lebanon, with attacks reported this morning in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Beit Yahoun, Aita al-Jabal and Houla, while the Lebanese Health Ministry announced a total death toll of 4,352 martyrs and 12,318 wounded since 2nd March 2026, as per Al Mayadeen, which tonight reported on additional attacks on Mansouri, Wadi al-Hujair, the Al-Maslakh neighborhood in the vicinity of Nabatieh and in the towns Buyout al-Siyad and Talousa.

I will conclude this article with the following caricature by Kamal Sharaf from Cartoon Network:

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The first one is a short article from Movisol.org. (All emphasis and footnotes mine).

The UK is dragging Europe into the next phase of escalation against Russia

The leading figures of the “Coalition of the Willing” gathered in Kiev on 24th August [2026] to mark the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. Some of them did not arrive empty-handed; the European Commission, for example, has allocated a further €6.1 billion (part of the promised €90 billion package) to enable Ukraine to purchase new air defence systems, missiles, ammunition and radar equipment from defence manufacturers in NATO member states.

But this gift and other signs of “support for Ukraine for as long as it takes” were overshadowed by what the new British Prime Minister, Andrew Burnham, had in his suitcase. His government has authorised the European defence systems consortium MBDA to transfer classified information relating to British-manufactured components for the Storm Shadow missiles, jointly designed by the UK and France, according to a Downing Street press release dated 23 August [2206]. This air-launched cruise missile, with a range of over 250 km, utilises technology shared by France and the UK, and France has already provided Kiev with the design plans for the French version, known as the SCALP1. The transfer by the British should now enable the Ukrainians to set up local production lines.

London’s move did not come as a surprise. Russia, for example, had anticipated it, based on leaks published the previous week in leading newspapers such as The Times [link (paywalled) - see archived version here], which acknowledged the role of British drones and missiles in attacks deep within Russian territory in recent weeks. In response, on 17th August [2026], the Russian embassy in London described the UK as an “accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks” carried out by Ukraine. It warned that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for the terrorist machine in Kiev, the higher the price it will have to pay”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (pictured) was even more direct in stating the following day that Putin “has warned that we have the right to act anywhere in the world’s oceans if anyone infringes upon our interests or our property. Similarly, we are fully entitled to regard the direct, proudly proclaimed involvement of British missile forces in attacks against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that this entails”.

Following this escalation, it was announced on 23rd August [2026] that Russia had recalled its ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andrei Kelin, without appointing a replacement. According to the Russian embassy in London, relations between Russia and the United Kingdom “have deteriorated to an unprecedented level, solely on London’s initiative”.

Since the shared interest in supplying Kiev with long-range missiles, including production lines in Ukraine, was enshrined in the Anglo-German bilateral defence treaty “Trinity House”, signed in July 2024, the question arises as to whether the German government will join the Franco-British initiative immediately or with some delay. This would mean making Germany, like France and Britain, an even more obvious target for Russian retaliation. Russian long-range missiles such as the Oreshnik do not even need a nuclear warhead to cause total devastation.

The second article, by Simone Lanza, was published first on Il Giornale d’Italia on Thursday 27th August 2026 and then on Massimo Mazzucco’s website LuogoComune.net the day after.
(All formatting original, footnote mine).

The EU will grant Zelensky’s requests despite the corruption issues

The coalition of the willing is turning a blind eye to yet another corruption scandal in Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky has stopped worrying about what his allies might think of him. While searches are taking place in the President’s office, he is hosting European officials in the office next door. The politician is asking for more money, as no one is holding him to account for previous military and financial aid packages. The EU has already realised that it has all been spent on luxury goods and bribes.

The Ukrainian president has now requested €27 billion from his allies to repay the loans he has taken out to fund his army. The Ministry of Defence needs a further €30 billion. Ukrainians themselves do not believe this has anything to do with the actual needs of the armed forces. Members of the Verkhovna Rada2 report that Zelensky is simply ensuring a comfortable life for the generals. Every month, the top commanders receive bonuses of €50,000 and, before Christmas, they each receive €500,000. The president cannot allow the funds he uses to buy the military’s loyalty to run out, so he is urgently seeking money. The European Union must transfer the necessary sum by the end of the year.

In all likelihood, Zelensky will receive even more than he is asking for. Ahead of the meeting of the coalition of the willing, the European Commission has approved a tranche of €6.1 billion euros as part of a €90 billion loan.

And at the Kiev summit, European leaders presented new “gifts”: classified technology for missile production, technical support for drones, and peacekeeping troops to be deployed in Ukraine once the conflict has ended. [Italian Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni refused to take part in the “campaign” – she opposes direct intervention in the war. However, the Italian Prime Minister agreed to allocate funds “for the restoration of the country’s defence and security”.

Infrastructure was dealt with separately. Energy is one of the most expensive items on Ukraine’s “wish list”. At the coalition meeting, Friedrich Merz gave Zelensky €50 million for the purchase of fuel. The energy sector has long been a “goldmine” for corrupt officials. The biggest scandal involving the “Energoatom” holding company has been dragging on since 2024 and, like dominoes, one revelation leads to another. At the end of August, NABU3 prosecutors uncovered a criminal scheme involving Zelensky’s assistant, Iryna Mudra. She exploited her official position and, together with members of the Verkhovna Rada, laundered money from Western aid. The “proceeds” were laundered through the nationalised “Sense Bank” under a prior agreement with its director, a close friend of the official. Huge amounts of undeclared assets were found in her possession. Mudra received a monthly “under-the-table” bonus of $20,000–30,000 and also purchased cars, jewellery and even Microsoft shares worth $5.6 million. A further €2.9 million of the stolen money was used as bail for German Galushchenko, the former Energy Minister arrested in connection with the “Energoatom” case for embezzling $100 million.

Kyrylo Budanov, Mudra’s boss, head of the President’s Office and former head of intelligence, may be linked to the crimes. The Ukrainian media believe he is aware of his subordinate’s secret dealings. Furthermore, he is currently seeking funds to pay the bail for his former deputy. Budanov told the press that before making any decision, it is necessary to wait for the court’s ruling – preliminary reports indicate that investigators are prepared to release Mudra for $447,000. She already has half that sum; her friends are expected to cover the rest, and Budanov has plenty to worry about. Journalists have noted that the politician appears extremely exhausted and “very pale”. He fears that the NABU will come looking for him too.

Zelensky himself has said he has nothing to do with the chaos unfolding right under his nose – the money is simply vanishing of its own accord. The anti-corruption agencies “have no complaints” against him. Following the searches at Mudra’s home, EU ambassadors met with the leadership of the NABU and the SAPO4 “to offer moral support”. The diplomats may simply have ordered the agents to leave Zelensky alone – at least in the case involving his assistant.
The Ukrainian elite are expertly channelling the European Union’s military and financial aid. Some of the funds end up directly in the pockets of corrupt officials, whilst others are set aside “for a rainy day” and used as bail when NABU arrests someone. Literally everyone in Zelensky’s inner circle is siphoning off funds from Brussels. Yet all these scandals go unnoticed by the EU – its leaders turn a blind eye to the revelations and quietly transfer money to Kiev. The European bureaucracy has long been embedded in the chain of corruption. It is not in politicians’ interests to expose their own crimes.

The third and final article, by Patrizia Pisino, was published on ComeDonChisciotte.org.
(All emphasis original, footnotes mine).

The “Save the Fashion Shows” Decree: How Europe has replaced gas with the State sable

A REAL-LIFE PREFACE TO AN ABSURD STORY

Before you read on, it is important for you to know one fundamental thing: what you are about to read is neither a piece of political fiction nor a satirical fantasy conjured up on a midsummer’s night.

At the end of July [2026], the European Union did indeed approve its 21st package of sanctions against Russia. As documented by official channels and international investigations, the EU has inserted a genuine exemption into the fine print of its customs codes to allow the import of sable pelts.

The following article is an open and ironic challenge to a historical paradox: the very moment when Europe decided that, whilst ordinary citizens have to contend with energy sanctions that have backfired on us and sky-high petrol prices, the West’s true humanitarian emergency was to save the turnover of the luxury fur trade.

The “Save the Fashion Shows” Decree: How Europe Replaced Gas with State-Sanctioned Sable

While we need the guarantor to fill up our small cars and gas sanctions are freezing our living rooms, the EU is lifting the ban on precious Russian mammals for Fendi and Cavalli in the name of the new ecological transition: broke, yes, but incredibly stylish.

The European Union has finally cast aside the mask of grey bureaucracy to embrace its true calling: geopolitical surrealism.

With the approval of the 21st package of sanctions against Russia, Brussels has rectified a “serious regulatory error” by lifting the import ban on sable pelts.

Are people knocking on Parliament’s doors demanding petrol at affordable prices and help with their bills? Europe responds by promoting the autumn collections of Fendi and Roberto Cavalli.

The European Commission’s decision, analysed by legal experts who have scrutinised the amendment to customs heading 4302, is a masterpiece of bureaucratic balancing act that borders on regulatory schizophrenia:

• Fur yes, coats no: Under the new regulation, European manufacturers may legally import raw or tanned sable fur (Martes zibellina). However, importing the finished garment remains strictly prohibited.

• Geopolitical DIY5: Brussels’ strategy is a stroke of exuberant genius. If the radiators remain switched off this winter, Italian families will simply have to buy thirty or forty raw Siberian pelts and sew them together themselves in the living room in the evenings, by candlelight to save on their electricity bill.

• Essential Monopolies: Official EU sources have justified the U-turn by explaining that Russia holds the global monopoly on the sable market and that “it is very difficult to find them elsewhere”. Clear? Replacing Moscow’s natural gas with American Liquefied Natural Gas was a piece of cake; finding a Western substitute for the lustre of Barguzin fur, on the other hand, was deemed an unacceptable risk to the West’s democratic stability.

Try explaining to Philipp Plein or the “quiet luxury” designers at Loro Piana that they must trim their €20,000,000 coats with Canadian beaver fur. No ecological transition can stand in the way of that.

But the true pinnacle of European genius has been reached on the energy front. To punish Moscow, Europe has proudly turned its back on the low-cost, low-environmental-impact energy that used to flow comfortably through Russian gas pipelines. Instead, our strategists have chosen to quintuple costs by importing American Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

An act of unprecedented ecological hypocrisy: this gas is extracted overseas using invasive techniques [e.g. fracking], liquefied, loaded onto highly polluting tankers that cross the ocean burning tonnes of fuel, and finally regasified on our shores using processes with a significant environmental impact.

In practice, we have quintupled citizens’ bills to pollute three times as much, but with the noble “Atlantically Correct” label.

Diplomatic behind-the-scenes reports confirm that the Italian-Greek axis was the real political driving force behind the lifting of the ban. On the one hand, Italy, determined to protect Milan’s historic fur-making workshops such as Fabio Gavazzi, Annabella di Pavia and Simonetta Ravizza; on the other, Greece, terrified of the collapse of the processing factories in Kastoria.

If one were to imagine the official defence of this memorable diplomatic victory, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni could hypothetically and confidently unleash her usual sovereigntist rhetoric before the microphones:

They told us we had to bow to the diktats of the Brussels bureaucrats, those who wanted to force us to spend the winter in the cold and frost wearing nothing but synthetic jumpers made in China! We said NO. We have shown that Italy takes lessons from no one. If petrol stations are profiteering and filling up your small car costs as much as a weekend in Portofino, we will respond by releasing the raw material. This is the real ecological transition: we have shut down the gas pipelines that brought cheap, clean energy to buy American gas that’s shipped by boat and costs five times as much, but in return we have saved the sable! I have faith in the pride and craftsmanship of our businesses and our grandmothers, who will know how to transform these splendid Russian mammals into self-sufficient and sovereign heating!

Of course, there is one tiny mathematical detail that has slipped under the radar in Brussels and at Palazzo Chigi6. The average citizen cannot afford a coat costing €15,000 or €50,000. That’s the sort of thing for billionaires, celebrities and oligarchs. But as we know, the rich inhabit a higher sphere, a golden empyrean where the laws of physics and economics do not apply.

Meanwhile, down here in the land of mortals, the masses silently endure every daily hardship: they pay for petrol in instalments to get to the factory, apply for microloans to fill up their diesel tanks, and give up their cars to avoid the family’s financial collapse.

But be warned: don’t you dare complain! They will explain that it is your sacred duty to sacrifice yourself on the altar of the Ecological Transition. Not using your car to get to work helps the climate. Chattering your teeth in a living room set at 14°C saves the planet. This immense theatre of mass sacrifice is essential for the ruling class: it serves to clear their conscience. Only by knowing that millions of poor people are giving up everything in the name of the environment can billionaires parade through Cortina7 wrapped in their freshly imported Siberian sable, gaze at the view from their two-tonne electric SUV and sigh contentedly: “How lovely, today the planet is a little greener”.

While tariffs on oil and gas have come back to haunt us with the precision of a boomerang – forcing European households to pay jewellery-shop prices for fuel – the lifting of the ban on sable fur restores the proper social hierarchies. It matters little that animal welfare organisations have officially condemned the measure, calling it a “scandalous concession to a frivolous status symbol”.

So, dear motorists, who certainly cannot afford a Siberian fur hat and must make do with your usual, worn-out synthetic jacket bought in the sales, when next week the petrol pump asks you to take out a salary-deduction loan to unlock the nozzle, do not despair. Bundle up in your acrylic jacket and remember Brussels’ new slogan for the masses:

“A neck not covered by a luxury fur coat is a neck ready for a noose of sanctions.”

P.S. The European Commission points out that the sable fur now exempt from sanctions is strictly “eco-friendly”, as it does not consume gas to keep you warm. It goes without saying that, if your fingers freeze during the winter while the heating is off, the blame will lie solely with your lack of ecological resilience. The rich, in Cortina, will be rooting for you.

SOURCES

Russia: 21st sanctions package adopted: link

The EU explains the reasons for lifting sanctions on Russian exports of luxury goods: link

The Insider: sable imports, CN code ex4302: link

I will conclude this series of articles with a (rhetorical) question: isn’t it high time for a revolution in Europe (and America), with gallows and guillotines? Isn’t it high time to get rid of these bloodthirsty traitors and pedophile billionaires?

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As many already may know, Islam has, unfortunately, became a divided religion. The religion of Islam is divided mainly into two groups: the Sunnis that form a majority of the religion and the Shia section. The reason for this split is theological but it has also gained political element to it in recent years.

Following the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH1) in 632 CE (common era; the era after the birth of Jesus), there was a question of succession. Sunni section believed that the next leader of the Muslims should be elected by the community while the Shia section explicitly believed that the next leader should belong strictly to the Prophet’s blood relatives and blood.

Sunnis believed that Abu Bakr, a father-in-law of the Prophet, should continue the rule, while the Shia camp believed that the next successor should be Muhammad’s close cousin Ali from where the word Shia derives from (Shia or Shia’at Ali means the “Party of Ali”).

Abu Bakr became the first caliph (caliph is a leader of a caliphate; a Muslim territory governed by Muslims and the Sharia, that is a law which every believer is requested to follow. Umar and Uthman were second and third while the fourth caliph was Ali.

Ali was assassinated in 661 CE and his son, Imam Ali Hussein (the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad) was martyred in 680 CE in the Battle of Karbala – a major event in Shia history and the holiday of Ashura is dedicated to the honouring of the sacrifice of Imam Hussein that stood up to defend the oppressed against the oppressor of his time. The oppressor was Umayyad caliph and, in Shia interpretation, the word Yazid means an “oppressor”.

This event carries an important message in Shia version of Islam because it teaches the Shia not to surrender and to always stand up to the aggressor, the oppressor and the enemy of the freedom and anyone who cherishes freedom in the world. To the Iranians, the Yazidis are Trump and Netanyahu, therefore, for the Iranians surrendering to the United States and Israel is worse than death. Shia culture pays special attention to sacrifice, therefore the martyrdom of Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, General Qasem Soleimani, Dr. Ali Larijani and 50 other generals and political officials in Iran might be a victory for the West, but it actually only strengthens the Iranian spirit and their willingness to fight.

The religious division between Muslims has been politically exploited by imperial and colonial Western powers.

During the First World War, Britain and France made a secret deal and a promise of liberation to Arabs if they fight the Ottomans that occupied their states.

Arabs did launch resistance efforts against the Ottoman Empire and eventually drove them out.

When it was time to reclaim back their sovereignty, Brits and the French had other plans.

Britain and France did something which guaranteed that war would never end in the Middle East and that the military-industrial complex of the West does not have to worry about not having a war to support – the two European powers changed the borders of West Asia and have installed proxy family dictatorships that ruled over fake states whose creation West supported in order to further divide the region and prevent the emergence of unified Muslim control over Middle Eastern natural resources.

It is because of actions by the French and the British that Turkey has invaded Syria, Iraq and is having a substantial military presence in Libya.

Erdogan’s regime has adopted a neo-Ottoman imperial mentality and his foreign policy entanglements are guided by his pro-Sunni Islamist expansionist project which has fueled the rise of ISIS2 and Al-Qaeda.

West has used Turkey’s vast military to get it to occupy northern Syria and has got President Erdogan to support an Al-Qaeda butcher making a drive onto the Damascus in a 13-year long struggle by the Western powers that have succeeded in managing to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government. Erdogan’s close cooperation with extremist Sunni terrorist groups has been turned against him; any time he deviates from the policy that West does not like, there is a surprise terrorist attack in Turkey. Is it just a coincidence that Kurdish terrorist groups committed an armed attack in Turkey on the first day of BRICS summit that Erdogan attended and three months later, Erdogan supported ISIS raising a black flag over Damascus and stabbed a knife in the back of BRICS for the benefit of his Western donors?

ISIS, Al Qaeda, Kurdish terrorist groups: Who’s the master?

Since the tragic events of 9/11, we have been constantly hearing about Sunni terrorist groups and material that the local governments fund, arm and support these groups has been avaliable in wide ranges. It is because Sunni Arab Muslim States use the sectarian proxies for their regional benefit is what is preventing unification between Shia and Sunnis. While Sunnis see nothing wrong in giving funds to terrorists, the fact is that these terrorists have attacked Shia states and its people, therefore Shia see this as a Sunni Wahabi3 attack on them.

However, while it is true that local governments fund these groups, all of these terrorist groups answer ultimately to their masters in Washington and Tel Aviv. You can say that same thing about those same local dictatorships that are sponsoring their terrorist attacks. The enemy is of an external type; it is not simply a matter of religious hatred.

There should not be question in anyone’s mind that all of these extremist groups are beholden to the interests of its Western regime supporters. After all, the West has either created them or supported that creation.

Here is what former intelligence officer Joe Kent, whose wife was killed in an Syrian ISIS attack in 2019, has to say about the creation of ISIS, Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. It is just a 2-minute video, but it is packed of information!

Alex Jones has reported on a story that went under the radar about the congressional testimony and investigations that exposed the role of US, UK and Israeli regimes into supporting global Islamic jihadist network and the flow of US taxpayer money into organizations like: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and others. It’s important to note that both Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain have been quite supportive of US funding for Islamic terrorists while having an audacity to claim that US war on Iran is directed against “terrorists” that spent 20 years fighting the same group of people that participated in 9/11 attacks on United States (of course, do not underestimate the role Mossad played in supporting these attacks).

Here’s Hillary Clinton saying quite bluntly that US created ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Now that it has become clear that United States is funding and supporting terrorism (shocking, I know!), what is the ultimate benefit for the US to arm these terrorists that one day might turn against the master itself?

There are two main reasons for why these terrorist groups operate:

• Fuel sectarian divisions: The recruiting of Takfiri4 terrorists and their terrorist attacks are intended at drawing further divide among the Sunnis and Shia in the region which plays into Western interests of dividing the region and conquering it.

• Proxies for dirty war: As with the case in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Azerbaijan, West is using these proxies in US wars on nations Washington seeks to destroy.

What is preventing the unification of Muslims?

I believe that there are several reasons that are dividing the Muslims in the world. Unfortunately, I do not see how these problems can be resolved, therefore I will lay out my opinion on what is the most practical way for establishing a post-war regional structure in West Asia.

• The collaboration between jihadist groups and local Arabs: Daesh (known as ISIS in the West) as well as other extremist groups are ideological groups that have carried out numerous attacks against the Shia populations. Too much blood has been spilt in this religious war being waged between two sides.

• Brainwashing of local Arab citizens: Many religious and educational centers are owned by American-aligned Wahabis who determine the foreign policy of Arab States and, from a young age, they push propaganda that’s designed to portray Shia as unbelievers who should be killed. People raised with this kind of thinking will not just make a deal with people they seek to destroy because of their own interpretation of religion.

• Arabs are not reliable: Sunni Arabs have already betrayed Iran and its Shia allies far too many times, have abandoned peaceful negotiations with Iran and have even pushed for active war with Iran such as in the case of Saddam Hussein’s aggression in 1980 and recent joint US-Israeli attack on Iran.

• Sunni states are completely occupied by the empire: From schools to governments, everything is controlled by US agents in those countries and not by the local population.

• Radicalization of Iran: As more hardline IRGC5 leadership has come to power, there is less desire for any negotiations between Iran and the Arab States.

• Arabs depend economically on the United States: Arab leaders have placed all of their eggs in one basket; all of their money assets can be frozen by the United States.

• No political opposition to dictatorships of the Gulf: Only opposition to current governments in the Arab world is even more loyalist CIA assets.

It’s quite unfortunate that we have this divide but I see no peaceful cooperation between Iran and the Gulf Arabs in the future. Iran’s goal is to establish itself as a next regional power while Gulf Arab States want to deny that right to Iran because of their ideological anti-Shia sentiment. Ironically enough, anti-Islamic US and Israeli regimes are a better regional hegemon than Muslim Iran to Arab dictatorships and this view is even shared by the majority of Arab population, just to say.

Here are quotes from the Holy Quran that specifically prohibit Muslims from dividing themselves into any sects:

“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you – when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers” - Chapter 3, Verse 103.

“And do not be like the ones who became divided and differed after the clear proofs had come to them. And those will have a great punishment.” Chapter 3, Verse 105.

“Indeed, those who have divided their religion and become sects – you, [O Muhammad], are not [associated] with them in anything. Their affair is only [left] to Allah; then He will inform them about what they used to do” - Chapter 6, Verse 159.

….And do not be of those who associate partners with Allah – [or] of those who have divided their religion and become sects, every faction rejoicing in what it has” - Chapter 30, Verses 30-31.

“He has ordained for you of religion what He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus – to establish the religion and not be divided therein...” - Chapter 42, Verse 13.

Conclusion: Hegemony and fear are the only option to have peace

After spending so much time negotiating and getting slapped around by various actors, I believe that a conclusion in Iran has been reached.

Instead of trying to negotiate peace with the Arabs, who will always be suspicious of the Shia, Iran should move forward to establish hegemony in the region by further strengthening its relations with Russia and China, acquiring a nuclear deterrent, improve its economy by becoming a fully integrated power within the economic model of the BRICS and holding Arabs by the throat and not let them have a say in the region.

Iran’s strategy should be to behave to Arab States like US behaved; obey the master or get destroyed.

Iran already possess this capacity and can use its leverage with the Strait of Hormuz to press Arabs to give them money through fees and also for them to formally acknowledge Iran to have a status of a regional hegemon.

Anyone who believes in peaceful unification of extreme Wahabis and angry Shia whom have been bullied and tormented by Sunnis is engaged in pure hopium. Too much blood has been spilt, too many families killed and too much infrastructure destroyed and you will not get the Iranians to give up their regional power status they gained by defeating the old boss.

There is a new sheriff in town and he is not like the old one.

He is even more powerful.

Arabs can only accept such power formula if they are physically forced to.

No amount of Salafi jihadism can save them if their economies and infrastructure lay into ruins.

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Over the last quarter of a century, the integration between intelligence agencies and digital technology giants has given rise to an unprecedented function of governance, which has always been, for those in power, “a long-cherished dream”: namely, the establishment of covert, constant and remote 24-hour social control, and the steering of mass behaviour that can result from its management.

Unlike the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century – such as Nazism, Fascism, Francoism and Communism – which exercised surveillance and repression based on the physical presence of police officers and informers, contemporary control and repression are exercised silently and entail not only costs but also business opportunities.

Today, major corporations such as Palantir, Google, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft operate data centres and algorithms that function in real time, 24 hours a day, and collect sensitive information on “transnational user communities” – numbering in the hundreds of millions – largely thanks to their ability to monitor and intrude upon communications via mobile phones, messaging apps, social networks and e-commerce activities.

The Patriot Act (USA, 2001) is the post-9/11 anti-terrorism law, championed and secured by George W. Bush, which vastly expanded the State’s surveillance powers, authorising the mass collection and monitoring of private Big Data, as well as its processing and use for intelligence purposes. With subsequent legislative developments — from the FISA1 Amendments Act (2008) to the USA FREEDOM Act (2015) — a military-digital complex has taken root, in which the State delegates the technical architecture of surveillance and data collection to private corporations, while those corporations use public funding to refine their tracking technologies.

Apart, of course, from the US – which has served as the “operating theatre” for this miscarriage of democracy – to which other nations has this practice been “extended”, a practice that for some years now has also involved warfare?

The export of the public-private delegation model for surveillance and intelligence — based on the integration of data-mining analytical software and advanced Artificial Intelligence [AI] (such as the Gotham, Foundry and Maven platforms) — has closely followed the contours of US geostrategic alliances, in particular those with the Five Eyes alliance (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), the NATO bloc and the defence alliance with Israel.

This web of agreements, in which Palantir acts as a central player in public-private partnerships, has extended to varying degrees across several countries that effectively form the backbone of the West:

Israel: Tactical and field integration

Israel represents the most emblematic case of direct integration in operational conflict contexts. In January 2024, Palantir signed a formal technological and strategic partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defence to supply software and AI models to support combat missions and military intelligence. The systems are used for the convergence of multi-sensory data, target analysis and real-time monitoring of the population of Gaza.

United Kingdom: the Five Eyes / NATO pillar

The United Kingdom is the main European hub for the Palantir system.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has entered into long-term agreements, including framework contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds, to integrate the Maven Smart System platform into command, control and operational decision-support systems.

This model has extended well beyond defence: from the Home Office to the intelligence services (GCHQ2), and into the civilian sector with the National Health Service (NHS), where Palantir manages the national health data architecture (Federated Data Platform).

NATO’s Central Structure

At the supranational level, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has directly formalised the adoption of this type of surveillance through the NCIA3/SHAPE4 Agreement. The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) has acquired the dedicated MSS NATO (Maven Smart System NATO) version for the fusion of intelligence, battlefield awareness and predictive analysis for allied commands.

In the countries on NATO’s European flank, the practice has become established, but faces significant regulatory challenges (linked to the GDPR5 and national data protection laws) and pressures towards “digital sovereignty”:

In Germany, some state and federal police forces (such as the police in Hesse and Bavaria) have adopted software based on Palantir’s expertise (Hessendata, VeRA) for crime prevention and predictive policing. However, its use has sparked heated legal debates: in 2023, the German Constitutional Court imposed strict limits on the automated extraction of unfiltered data.

In France, the domestic intelligence agency (DGSI6) has been using Palantir since 2016 (following the Paris attacks) to address the lack of national tools for analysing large volumes of data. Despite French attempts to develop sovereign alternatives (such as ChapsVision), transition and maintenance contracts continue to be renewed to avoid gaps in operational capability.

Ukraine has radically transformed its intelligence architecture, integrating Palantir’s software extensively. Satellite, drone and communications data are processed using AI to identify and neutralise targets in real time.

The same pattern is repeated in all these countries (where ownership of the platform and the company usually coincide):

• The private platform provides the algorithm and the analytical infrastructure.

• The State provides public funds and vast quantities of raw security and intelligence data.

• The company refines its artificial intelligence models using real-world scenarios and re-exports them to other sectors (from defence to border control, finance or healthcare).

How does Italy fit into this picture?

Italy fits perfectly within this system, whilst occupying a peripheral and often subordinate position in relation to the English-speaking axis (Five Eyes) or the Israeli model of tactical integration. In Italy, this penetration of the public-private model unfolds across three distinct levels: Defence, Law Enforcement/Intelligence and the political-structural sphere.

The Defence and Military Level (Classified)

Italy has adopted the control architecture through NATO doctrine.

The Ministry of Defence and the Teledife Directorate (Directorate for Information Technology, Telematics and Advanced Technologies) have, over the years, initiated and consolidated various contracts – often through “negotiated procedures” kept classified – with Palantir Italia Srl. for the supply of the Gotham platform and related software services.

NATO interoperability. As with the integration of the Maven system into the Alliance, the Italian Ministry of Defence is adapting its data fusion platforms to US standards to ensure that national commands can exchange intelligence and tactical overviews in real time with the Pentagon and the SHAPE committee.

The real leap forward for “domestic” transformation is taking place on the platforms of the Public Administration and the State Police:

The Interior Ministry dossier. Discussions are under way (along with a specific four-year contract proposal worth 20 million Euros) to equip the Central Directorate of Preventive Policing (DCPP7) — the operational arm that chairs the CASA (Committee for Strategic Anti-Terrorism Analysis) — with Palantir’s data-mining software.

Cross-referencing of sensitive databases. The adoption of this software would enable automated cross-referencing with the Ministry of the Interior’s SDI8 (Investigation System), aggregating police reports, movements, number plates and civil databases into a single predictive interface

The issue of “Digital Sovereignty” and the limitations of the Italian system

Unlike France or Germany, which have attempted to develop their own domestic technological alternatives (“national champions” such as ChapsVision in France) or where the Constitutional Court has set limits on police data mining (in Germany), Italy has specific vulnerabilities.

Technological dependence without domestic alternatives. Italy lacks national platforms capable of managing and synthesising vast amounts of structured and unstructured data with the complexity of Gotham or Foundry. The few national organisations in the field of lawful interception or cyber-security (e.g. Cy4Gate) cover different niches (interceptions, intrusions), leaving the analysis of intelligence Big Data entirely to US giants.

Bureaucratic resistance vs. direct lobbying. The roll-out of this infrastructure faces constant friction between the practices of European public tenders (and the constraints imposed by the GDPR and the Italian Data Protection Authority) and high-level lobbying — exemplified by the periodic visits to Rome by Palantir’s top executives, including even its CEO Peter Thiel, to deal directly with the government and intelligence teams at Palazzo Chigi9.

The “Data Dilemma”. Italy faithfully replicates the central short-circuit of this model: the Italian State grants a private provider access (or at least technical management) to its confidential national databases; the company refines its algorithmic models based on the specific characteristics of the territory and population, and consolidates the public infrastructure’s dependence on its proprietary software.

In short, Italy does not lead the process, but is its purchaser and the territory in which it is applied. It passively aligns itself with NATO directives on the military front and is progressively opening the doors of its intelligence and police services to private American algorithmic management, paying the price for the lack of an autonomous strategy regarding the management and sovereignty of its own strategic data.

Despite the prevailing alignment of the institutions, in Italy the advance of this model of algorithmic delegation and surveillance has also encountered some form of resistance and opposition. The main opponents of “total control” who have countered (or attempted to curb) this trend can be identified in four areas:

The Italian Data Protection Authority

The Data Protection Authority has been the most robust institutional bulwark in raising formal objections and implementing preventive measures against the indiscriminate use of algorithms and databases by the State.

In 2021, the Ministry of the Interior intended to activate the real-time facial recognition system (SARI Real Time) for the State Police. The Data Protection Authority opposed this, citing the lack of a suitable legal basis and the disproportionate risks to fundamental freedoms. Nevertheless, the Government recently decided to fast-track proceedings on a draft legislative decree.

The decree brings national legislation into line with European systems and rules on the use of Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition by police forces. Among the controversial points of the measure is Article 8, which governs the use of AI systems for the remote, real-time biometric identification of individuals in public places: for example, in town squares, at stadiums or during demonstrations.

Investigative journalism and independent media

In the absence of transparent parliamentary debates – given that many military and intelligence contracts are classified or awarded through direct negotiation – the role of bringing these agreements to light has fallen to a number of “investigative publications”: these include Report, IRPI Media, Altreconomia, Il Fatto Quotidiano, which have documented the details of contracts between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior and Palantir, revealing confidential meetings between company executives and Italian government officials.

A number of “online journals” [sic, in English in the original text] have repeatedly highlighted the lobbying activities carried out not only by data analytics platforms, but also by the American cloud giants (Microsoft, Amazon AWS, Google) that manage the servers of the National Strategic Hub (PSN10).

Non-governmental organisations and digital rights collectives form the grassroots resistance movement.

Some digital rights coalitions, such as the Hermes Centre for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, are campaigning against mass surveillance, facial recognition and the opaque use of algorithms in public decision-making.

Political movements and local activism: Movements against rearmament and digital militarisation organise sit-ins and targeted protests — for example, outside the Ministry of Defence or institutional headquarters — denouncing the intertwining of the military-industrial complex, big finance and private surveillance.

The judiciary and European law

At the judicial level, the main check is not solely Italian, but stems from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

A number of landmark EU rulings on the annulment of the Privacy Shield (Schrems I and II) and the directives on data processing in the law enforcement sector (Law Enforcement Directive) have provided Italian judges with the legal basis to set aside national rules or practices that provided for the mass and indiscriminate retention of telephone or electronic data.

The weakness of this resistance. Despite these safeguards, opposition in Italy suffers from a structural limitation: the Data Protection Authority and NGOs11 act retrospectively or on specific civilian or police use cases, whilst the defence and intelligence sectors remain largely shielded by State secrecy and NATO interoperability constraints, allowing the private technological infrastructure to expand beyond the reach of public scrutiny and parliamentary debate.

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In my article one week ago I warned about US President Donald J. Trump’s bluff when he announced a new economic war on Iran, while the USS George Washington aircraft carrier strike group was deployed to West Asia (Middle East) to replace the weary the USS Abraham Lincoln (see here). Now another aircraft carrier strike group is preparing for deployment against Iran for at least 7 months: the USS Theodore Roosevelt, as reported by Fotros Resistance and Al Mayadeen, citing senior US Navy officials speaking to CNN. According to SouthFront.press, the USS Theodore Roosevelt is currently at its home port in San Diego and it will need ~2-3 weeks to arrive in the Arabian Sea:

So, expect it to arrive there in the second half of September (2026). It is not clear if it will replace the USS George H.W. Bush, which has been deployed in West Asia since 3rd May 2026 and at sea since 31st March 2026, i.e. for ~140 days. In any case, the risk of kinetic war is not going away, but it still remains quite high, though I do not expect the war to restart until the arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

On the other hand, the USS Abraham Lincoln will finally dock in Thailand next week for a brief stop to allow rest and recuperation, after more than 200 days at sea, before returning to its home port in San Diego, as per Al Mayadeen, which also reported on a 19-year-old sailor “facing non-judicial punishment over allegations of malingering and absence without leave” for jumping overboard in what his wife described a suicide attempt and now saying:

I think they’re insane for doing this to people who need mental help.
Instead of giving them help, this is just another huge stressor.

Indeed, but people in power do not care! They only care about themselves, their friends and their pockets. That’s why I keep saying the soldiers, sailors, marines, etc. should mutiny and even revolt, if they do not want to get into a meatgrinder!

In the meantime The Atlantic (may be paywalled - see Al Mayadeen instead) reported that Trump may claim victory IF the Strait of Hormuz reopens, but that is quite a big “if”, considering that Iranian officials keep repeating that they will not reopen it unless Trump abides by the terms of the Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding or MoUMoM. Moreover, what would be the point of sending the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, then?

In light of these developments, it is quite “funny” to read what US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said yesterday (Wednesday 26th August 2026) at a conference dedicated to a new IAEA1 initiative (source: Al Mayadeen - emphasis added):

Our strong desire is to end the Iranian nuclear program through negotiations and through inspections conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and this has been the Trump administration's agenda from day one.

It is entirely possible for Iran to develop a civilian nuclear program in cooperation with the United States, in a way that benefits everyone.

Washington sees negotiations as the best way to achieve its goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Quite “funny” because Iran was abiding by the JCPOA2 until Trump decided to get out from it during his first term. Not only that, but Iran entered into talks with the Outlaw US Empire3 in good faith multiple times, yet it was USrael that attacked Iran in the middle of the negotiations, launching the 12-Day War on 13th June 2025 and the 40-Day or Ramadan War on 28th February 2026, not to mention the ceasefire violations after the MoUMoM.

In any case, Iran is not giving up to American pressure (either economic or military). In fact, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated:

The entire effort of myself and the officials of the system is to preserve unity and cohesion.

Should we give in to problems and surrender? Of course not.

Each of us will find a way, and with the participation of all segments of society, we will rebuild our region and our country.

No one gave up, because we all successfully managed the war and stood firm against the world’s overwhelming nuclear power.

Just as America was unable to accomplish anything during the war, despite the bravery of the armed forces and the support and backing of the people, it will not be able to accomplish anything through economic pressure at this stage either.

Under such circumstances, managing key markets, especially the foreign exchange and capital market requires complete coordination and interaction between the monetary policymaking body, government, and other economic pillars of the country.

…as quoted by Fars (1 and 2) and Mehr. However, at a conference yesterday, Pezeshkian said that…

War is not always the solution.

…highlighting that “issues that can be resolved through reason and diplomacy should not be dealt with through confrontation” and hailing the MoUMoM “as a source of pride for the Islamic Republic”, as per IRNA and Tasnim. I am pretty sure that Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei would quibble!

Speaking at the 40th International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran today, Pezeshkian called for unity among Muslims (sources: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis mine):

The first [proposal] is a mutual security and non-aggression pact among Muslim countries, under which they commit to respecting one another’s territorial integrity.

They should not allow their territory, airspace, or facilities to be used to attack another Muslim country. They should not support efforts to divide or destabilize one another, nor define their own security at the cost of others' security. Instead, they should work together to manage regional security.

If a brother is oppressed, people must help him, and if he is an oppressor, brotherhood requires them not to allow him to continue oppression.

We did not start the war, but we stood firmly against this aggression.

Every nation has the right to defend itself, and Iran exercised that right.

Defending Iran does not mean being hostile toward Muslim and neighboring nations. No Muslim country should allow its territory to be used as a platform for aggression against another Muslim country, and no Muslim country should seek its own security at the expense of its neighbor’s security.

[Martyred Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei] regarded the Prophet Mohammad as the central figure of Muslim solidarity and repeatedly warned that while differences of opinion are natural, allowing them to turn into hostility and conflict would weaken the Muslim community from within and ultimately lead to its decline.

Despite Pezeshkian’s remarks on matter of peace and war, in a televised interview last Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi made clear that Iran remains “in a state of war”, adding (sources: Al Mayadeen,Fars, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

From a military standpoint, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. No military vessel will be allowed to pass.

America and other countries should know that the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened except through Iranian arrangements.

[Iran has the] right to take the necessary measures to ensure our security in the Strait of Hormuz as the Strait of Hormuz is linked to our national security.

We had expected to close the southern route in the Strait of Hormuz with the help of our Omani friends, but US pressure prevented that and we were forced into a military confrontation.

[Iran and Oman have reached an] understanding to begin technical negotiations to agree on an alternative route to the previous historical route in the Strait of Hormuz. [This] does not mean opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Dismissing Trump’s claims about demining the Strait of Hormuz, he said:

If that claim were true, why is no vessel passing through the strait?

…adding that, in case US minesweepers entered the Strait of Hormuz, they would become prime targets, while US allies casted doubts on Trump’s repeated claims that the US Navy has cleared all mines laid by Iran in the waterway (see Al Mayadeen).

Commenting on the recent visit by Pakistan's Army Chief Asim Munir, he stated:

We told him we do not trust America. It was not the Islamic Republic of Iran that violated the Islamabad MoU. America has not been honest in talks and has proven it does not abide by its commitments. If the Americans want nothing to happen in the Strait of Hormuz and want action toward its reopening, they must implement Iran's conditions in the agreement.

…but the most interesting part of Gharibabadi’s interview is this (emphasis mine):

Why must we always wait for America to attack us so that we defend ourselves? If we do not see conditions as appropriate, why should we not take actions against American interests? These are now within the framework of the Islamic Republic's policy.

…meaning that Iran may carry out pre-emptive actions to defend its national security!

Responding to a letter from the editor-in-chief of Iranian newspaper Kayhan, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf clarified his stance regarding negotiations with the enemy (source: IRNA):

I must say that any rational action, any authoritative dialogue, or any attempt to take the nation’s rights from the enemy should not be incorrectly defined as compromise and passivity.

We must shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding and protecting the instruments of power so that we can consolidate the achievements of the war and safely lead the country through the serious disasters that the enemies have planned.

In a tweet on X yesterday, he expressed appreciation for China’s support to his country (see also: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr):

Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that China is still importing ~1.2 million barrels of Iranian per day, slightly less than last year, despite the US sanctions and naval blockade on Iran, as per Al Mayadeen, while Fars (1 and 2) reported that Iran’s oil exports had risen by 10% during the war, despite USraeli bombing, and quoted Iran’s Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad as saying:

Oil sales have not stopped, and despite the reduction, the process of delivering oil to customers in distant waters continues.

I will not go into details, because if information is disclosed, it could be misused by the enemy.

…while his deputy Ahmad Zeraatkar was quoted by Al Mayadeen as saying that Iran had restored ~40% of the production capacity damaged at the South Pars gas field.

Elsewhere, on occasion of Government Week, Ghalibaf commented on the US economic pressure on Iran (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars and Mehr):

At a time when the war has created consequences for the country’s economy and the enemy has deployed all its capabilities to put pressure on the Iranian people, executive officials have made effective efforts to govern the country and address its weaknesses.

We will see that the government and the executive branch, relying on the power of the people, economic activists in the private sector, and all elements of the Establishment, will defeat the enemy in this field as well.

God willing, we will soon witness the discrediting of the enemy's psychological operations in this field.

…and, in another tweet today, he made fun of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sent a letter to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urging the UN and its Security Council (UNSC) to respond to the latest economic war waged by the Outlaw US Empire on his country (see Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr for more details), while Gholamhossein Darzi, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, read a statement at the UNSC calling on “all States to reject and denounce the extraterritorial application of unilateral coercive measures by the United States regime aimed at compelling Member States to subordinate their sovereign rights and lawful policies to those of another State” (see IRNA for the full text of his speech and Fars or Mehr for a summary).

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei instead turned to X for mocking the withdrawal of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier:

…and slamming US anti-Iran policy (see also: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr):

…whereas Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, Vice President for Executive Affairs, was quoted by IRNA as saying:

Today, America is angry because it has not been able to force us to surrender.

We need to look at what commitments we have made and what commitments the United States has made.

We want an independent, free and prosperous country that can stand on its own feet. We want a strong Iran.

Talking about an understanding is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.

Speaking at a ceremony honoring doctors at Iranban Hospital, Brigadier General Alireza Elhami, Commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Defense Force, said that Iran is now “expanding its air defense systems and replicating those that performed successfully during the 40-day war” (sources: IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

Today, the Air Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both in the Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC], is at 100% readiness and fully monitoring all borders, prepared to defend the country’s skies.

[During the 12-Day War and the 40-Day War] we hit a significant number of strategic and effective drones as well as enemy fighter aircraft.

We are now in a position where we are moving forward based on 100% Iranian capabilities. We are adding systems and replicating systems that performed well in the 40-Day War.

Based on our experience, we are producing new systems and equipment, all of it relying on 100% Iranian knowledge and expertise.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Iranian Army spokesperson Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia warned the enemy about the new Iranian offensive posture and explained the situation with the Iranian pilots held prisoners in Qatar (sources: Fars and Mehr):

Overall, one of the achievements of the current war was this change in doctrine.

The history of this issue goes back to 2nd March [2026], two days after the US military invasion of our country. On 2nd March [2026], two Sukhoi jets from the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force carried out a very brave operation against the US base in Qatar. After the targets were hit, the planes were hit by enemy air patrol planes on their way back and were shot down.

After some follow-ups, the body of one of the pilots who had been martyred was handed over. This martyr was Martyr Majid Kazemi, whose body was buried and buried in Shiraz.

However, since each of these planes had two pilots, we remained unaware of the fate of the other three pilots.

The necessary contacts have been made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Institution, the Army Headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also directly through the Qatari Army and the Qatari government.

Contacts have been made and follow-ups have been made, but to date the Qatari side has responded by stating that it is unaware of the fate of these pilots.
We really want the Qatari side to pay more attention to this issue and provide a clear and documented response so that we can accept the documentation and learn about the fate of these dear pilots.

Yesterday the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it is unaware of the fate of the pilots. We say that if they are truly unaware, they should act more responsibly than they are currently acting and make more efforts to clarify the situation of these dear pilots.

Speaking at a meeting with media representatives in the central city of Isfahan yesterday, IRGC spokesperson Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi said that the Outlaw US Empire was forced to retreat…

not only in the hard war but also in the infrastructure war.

…leaving the enemy “facing shortages of oil, aluminium and chemical fertilizers”, as well as military supplies (see Al Mayadeen). He also stated that the IRGC is “nipping anti-revolutionary armed grouplets in the bud” and commented on the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) and on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, saying (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA and Mehr):

This pact, before it is intended to be against Iran, is against the US presence in the region, and we do not feel any insecurity and worry about this pact.

No ship can pass through this waterway without Iran's permission and management.

If Washington does not accept our conditions, the strait will not be opened under any circumstances or in any way.

Earlier today, a senior Iranian security official warned that…

If America is going to detain Iranian oil at sea and then confiscate it under the title of war prize, it must also be prepared to expose American interests to corresponding retaliatory measures.

If the Americans believe they can take advantage of the complexities of the maritime navigation network and intermediary companies to avoid bearing the consequences of their actions at the hands of Iran, they are mistaken in this belief.

Beginning the organized detention and confiscation of Iranian oil will mean the beginning of a two-way process. America cannot grant itself the right to confiscate while simultaneously expecting its interests in the Gulf to remain immune from any reciprocal response. [All emphasis mine]

…adding that “US interests in shipping, energy, insurance, finance, and Gulf-related infrastructure would not be insulated from the consequences of such action”, as per Al Mayadeen. Similarly, General Abolfazl Shekarchi, senior spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces, warned that West-based Farsi-language media are now in Iran’s target list (source Mehr - emphasis added):

The hostile media are the Zionist and American pawns and they are included in the bank of our military targets.

Today, all new tools and sophisticated media technologies are at the disposal of the enemies.

The bulk of the enemy’s media empire is in the possession of the Zionists; Media outlets such as the BBC, Iran International, and Radio Farda are directly related to the Mossad, the CIA, and enemy intelligence organizations, and receive orders and money from them.

…whereas Brigadier General Amanollah Goshtasbi, Commander of Hamza Sayyid al-Shuhada Base of the IRGC Ground Forces, was quoted by IRNA as saying:

Whenever the enemy changes its methods and tactics, the Armed Forces take countermeasures in accordance with the circumstances.

Today saw the visit of a Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Tehran, where he held separate meeting with Araghchi, Pezeshkian, Ghalibaf and Major General Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), as per IRNA (1, 2, 3 and 4), Tasnim, Mehr and Al Mayadeen. Al Thani was quoted by Fotros Resistance as saying:

We appreciate the assistance of the Islamic Republic of Iran in difficult times and the fraternal relations between our 2 countries.

We have never had any doubts about cooperating with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the current sensitive regional situation, we are always eager to cooperate with Iran, motivated by a sense of responsibility.

…whereas Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei said:

Iran has helped Qatar in difficult times and conditions.

We don’t trust the US, and they have repeatedly betrayed diplomacy and negotiations.

We warn the US, if it commits any act of aggression against Iran, we will inflict a disaster upon their military and economic interests that will be recorded in history!

The US must first take concrete steps to fulfill Iran's conditions, and then Iran will take action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. [All emphasis mine]

In a television interview earlier tonight, Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei stated (sources: Middle East Spectator - MES (1, 2 and 3) and Fotros Resistance - all emphasis added):

Our relationship with the Lebanese people is historical and deep-rooted, and we will defend Lebanon with all our might and provide it with support.

One of the conditions of the Memorandum of Understanding is that America must permanently end the war throughout West Asia, especially in Lebanon.

One of our conditions is that Israel must withdraw from the territories it has seized, and that the territories of Lebanon and also in Gaza must be liberated.

As we have said before, Beirut is definitely considered a red line and Iran will respond directly to any Israeli aggression against it.

Since we have imposed this equation, no Israeli attacks have occurred against Beirut. [True, but Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) is making scorched earth in southern Lebanon!]

Sooner or later, we will send [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to hell, where he belongs.

Claim about a plot against Trump’s son (Barron) is nothing but a major lie propagated by Netanyahu to scare Trump.

If we decide, nothing will prevent us from carrying it out. But this is simply Netanyahu’s nonsense.

Finally, it is worth reporting that, at his weekly press briefing today, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi stated clearly that his country will continue trading with Iran, according to international law, rejecting unilateral sanctions imposed by the Outlaw US Empire on Iran, as reported by IRNA and Mehr.

News and updates from Iraq and Turkey

Let’s now move to Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki, head of Iraq’s State of Law Coalition and former Iraqi Prime Minister, warned against using escalation to enforce State’s control over weapons, in order avoid internal conflict, as reported by Al Mayadeen, which also quoted Iraqi government spokesperson Sabah al-Numan as saying that the mission of the international coalition in Iraq will conclude as scheduled on 30th September 2026, adding that “the government remains committed to managing the issue of weapons in the country, while rejecting attempts to revive sectarian tensions or circulate malicious rumors”.

Moving briefly to Turkey, its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that he seek to “advance peace and stability across the region, rejecting pressure from parties opposed to Turkey’s regional role”, adding that he will “not abandon efforts to support the recovery and stability of neighboring countries simply because ‘criminal networks whose hands are stained with the blood of innocent people’ object to them”, in an obvious reference to Little Satan, as reported by Al Mayadeen.

News and updates from Lebanon

Moving to Lebanon, Little Satan continues bombing, shelling and carrying out demolitions in the south of the country and, in particular, in al-Mansouri, Sarbine, al-Qantara, Haddatha, Haris, Mays al-Jabal, Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Arabsalim, where an Israeli strike targeted a house killing a newlywed bride and wounding several others, as per Mehr and Al Mayadeen.

I will conclude this article with the following caricature by Kamal Sharaf from Saba:

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Flock Group Inc, based in Atlanta, USA, is a provider of security systems, comprising both hardware and software. Under the Flock Safety brand, in collaboration with 5,000 law enforcement agencies, it has installed over 120,000 Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) systems on public land – in both urban centres and rural areas – across 49 US states. Mounted on vehicles or poles and powered by a solar panel, these cameras do not merely read number plates; they record anyone who passes within the camera’s field of view.

When a vehicle reported as being linked to a crime or a missing person is detected by the camera, the system alerts the police.

Records of every vehicle and individual captured by the camera are stored in a database for 30 days; this archive is shared with anyone who has a contract with Flock Safety. This has given rise to numerous complaints, both regarding police abuse and on legal grounds, particularly as a violation of citizens’ privacy.

Some officers have been convicted of misusing access to the archive to spy on people in their personal circles; despite this breach, they do not actually require a warrant to access the database, according to Michael Soyfer, a lawyer at the Institute for Justice, the law firm that has brought legal action against Flock. The lawyer therefore fears that there are many more instances of unauthorised access than have come to light.

Langley, CEO of Flock, has stated that customers are free to set different limits on how Flock can be used.

The system’s actual effectiveness is also being called into question: given the millions of people and vehicles registered who are not linked to any potential crimes, few studies have shown a decline in car thefts, the majority of which can be attributed to a natural decline, while there has been no observable effect on violent crime.

Storing data for 30 days is a very long time and a cause for concern; although the company claims it does not sell the data to third parties, it is not easy to trust them. Thirty days of monitoring an individual is a long time; it is possible to identify patterns of behaviour, where someone fills up with petrol, where they go for medical treatment, an individual unconnected to any crime who has ended up in the records through no fault of their own, but who may be of interest to those with access to the system, whether lawful or not.

This is worrying when one considers the complaint made by a musician, Ben Jordan from Atlanta – an activist campaigning against Flock Safety – who documented how easy it was, as a user not registered with the Flock system, to find the login interface via a search engine; without being asked for credentials, one could log in and view the recorded footage.

Flock Safety, founded in 2017 and now valued at at least 7.5 billion [USD?], has partners of the calibre of Peter Thiel and Andreessen Horowitz – billionaires not exactly devoted to ethics, but to profits, and citizens’ data is part of the package for increasing those profits.

As Chad Marlo, senior legal policy advisor at the ACLU1, where he deals with issues relating to privacy, surveillance and technology (see video), explains:

“So, the company was founded by a billionaire engineer named Garrett Langley. A really interesting and crucial point is that the company is backed by nearly a billion Dollars in venture capital investment; this is key because the investors have backed a company that, essentially, trades privacy for profit.

They collect information about people. Flock always claims it does not sell data, but saying that is like the Ford Motor Company claiming it does not sell steering wheels. Of course, I realise that their main product is cars and that the aim is to monitor vehicles, but that data is an integral part of the Flock product, just as the steering wheel is part of a car manufactured by Ford.

So, the company collects all this information: the more data it manages to collect and share, the greater the value of its product. Flock was recently valued at nearly 8 billion Dollars. To increase the company’s value, they need to acquire data from more people, encroach further on their privacy and share the information on a larger scale. And even though they claim to have systems and procedures in place to prevent indiscriminate data sharing and avoid misuse, these are merely superficial statements for public relations purposes. Venture capital investors, eager to secure huge returns, have pushed Flock to scale up as quickly as possible, infringing on privacy as much as possible in order to boost profits. Indeed, there is a direct correlation between increased monitoring, more widespread surveillance, and more extensive data collection and sharing, and rising profits”.

While movements and protests against this system of mass surveillance are emerging – and the website Deflock.org [link], which provides information on the locations of ALPR cameras, combined with the company’s lack of transparency – more and more local authorities are choosing to terminate and/or not renew their contracts with Flock. Today, around 60 local authorities have decided to sever ties with the company.

Flock’s reaction was swift and, as is often the case, it attempted to equate critics of the ALPR system with terrorists, only to apologise subsequently, while continuing to ignore the lack of transparency and the opacity of the contracts on offer.

It is typical of those in power to shift the blame onto those who raise doubts and concerns – in this case, very serious ones.

Who knows, perhaps they fear that the fierce campaign waged by British citizens against the 2,800 ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras installed at the boundaries of London’s ULEZ2 zones might be replicated in the US.

In England, they were formally intended to fine those seeking unauthorised access, but, given the combination of AI3, the dystopian visions of those in power, and greedy, sadistic multi-billionaires, it is hard not to suspect that they are being deployed to impose ever-tighter and more restrictive control.

In Italy, the Meloni government intends to introduce a legislative decree aimed at implementing the use of facial recognition and AI to identify offenders.

Naturally, this means that more and more surveillance cameras, equipped with sophisticated software, will need to be installed; like the Flock system, these store data in databases. For the time being, data retention is set at 7 days, as opposed to the 30 days permitted in the US.

“Fortunately”, in Italy we already have 200 operational data centres and over 80 awaiting approval. Water and energy will be gobbled up, but we will all be more closely monitored and safer.

The excuse the government has used to extend the use of this technology stems from the recent clashes in Val di Susa, where fully hooded protesters destroyed the TAV4 construction site; how facial recognition could be useful in this case remains unclear.

The “identifications” were carried out the old-fashioned way: they stopped as many people as they could by fishing through the crowd. The other pretext is the clashes in Bologna, which were of an entirely different nature, as the individuals involved had their faces uncovered. And if the aim of facial recognition were to bring to justice those who ransacked Bologna, one would be hard-pressed to forget that there are still very lenient laws and a judiciary that is “sympathetic” towards offenders.

In England, despite the extensive CCTV network, the rate of sexual violence alone – particularly against minors – shows no sign of decreasing, given that the Starmer government had opposed a wide-ranging inquiry aimed at bringing justice to the more than 250,000 alleged victims of grooming gangs, often of Pakistani origin.

The question naturally arises: is this electronic registration system really designed to ensure safety and bring criminals to justice, or might there be other interests at stake?

SOURCES

• https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/26/us/flock-cameras-surveillance-abuse

• Democracy Now YT video

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More than one year on from the Anchorage agreements [see my article here], the diplomatic landscape remains barren.

Vladimir Putin’s proposal for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in exchange for a cessation of hostilities – with the occupied territory designated as a “demilitarised zone” under Russian control – has fallen on deaf ears. Also on the table were a definitive veto on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, a reduction in Kiev’s military capabilities, and the issue of Ukrainian elections as a precondition for any agreement.

An agreement brought to a standstill by the European “coalition of the willing”, driven by the most warmongering deep state that still dominates the United States.

The old continent has stubbornly set itself up to use Ukraine as a military outpost capable of striking deep into Russia, and the insidious proposals for a ceasefire have been tied to the presence of NATO troops on the ground, rendering any proposal for an end to the conflict unacceptable to Moscow.

However, the course of the military situation suggests that Brussels needs more time to prepare for war with Russia and requires Ukraine to hold out for longer and avoid collapsing in the coming months.

Whilst the trip that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner might have made to Moscow by the end of August [2026] has been postponed, something unusual – and probably more sinister – has occurred in the last few hours.

At 10:04 on Tuesday 25th August [2026], Moscow time, a US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III with flight number RCH4555 touched down at Vnukovo Airport, the airfield reserved by the Russian Federation for government and diplomatic flights. The aircraft had departed from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday evening, with a stopover in Riga, Latvia, where it had been stationed since 23rd August [2026]. According to CBS News correspondent Jennifer Jacobs, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, was on board.

This account was subsequently confirmed by Axios [link], citing two US officials, and reported by major international news agencies, including Reuters [link].

The choice of aircraft speaks volumes. A C-17 is a four-engine strategic transport aircraft designed to move tanks, containers and military units, not to ferry an intelligence chief on a visit. It is an aircraft that cannot be hidden: it appears on civilian flight trackers, has a huge radar signature, and requires overflight authorisations and a landing slot. Anyone seeking discretion would have used a small government jet, perhaps without a public flight plan. The fact that the American delegation arrived on a Globemaster suggests the exact opposite of a clandestine trip: a mission coordinated at official levels between Washington and Moscow, deliberately visible to onlookers, and just as deliberately undeclared.

The agenda of the visit has not been disclosed, nor has the composition of the Russian delegation. When asked about the aircraft’s arrival, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov replied: “No, I do not have that information”, adding that no meetings with representatives of the US administration were scheduled in the capital that week. The CIA and the White House also declined to comment. The C-17 took off from Vnukovo at around 18:30 local time, heading back to Riga: a stay of just over eight hours – enough time for a day’s meetings and nothing more.

A race against time to stop Moscow

Beyond the media silence that has so far surrounded the event, the previous occasion on which this sudden trip to Russia by the head of US intelligence took place remains telling.

The last CIA director to set foot in Moscow was William Burns, in November 2021, three months before the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. At that time, the stated aim was to buy time, to delay a decision that had already been taken, and to give Kiev room to organise itself. The parallel is impossible to ignore, and from Moscow’s perspective it is almost explicit: the head of US intelligence arrives when the situation on the ground is deteriorating for the side Washington supports, not when it is stable. In 2021, Burns’ mission served to put pressure on the adversary’s timetable; today, Ratcliffe’s mission comes as the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk conurbation is under pressure from three directions simultaneously and Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea are operating at a third below their capacity.

Weiss’s take: a warning about Europe

According to Michael Weiss, an American political journalist and editor-in-chief of The Insider, Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow to warn Vladimir Putin against Russian escalation towards Europe and NATO. “This is linked to US intelligence information passed on to the Poles, the Balts and the Scandinavians, and comes against a backdrop of a significant rise in suspected GRU1 sabotage and Russian drone activity in Germany, Bulgaria and Romania,” Weiss noted in a piece published on X [link] and picked up by the Ukrainian press, including UNIAN [Ukrainian Independent Information Agency].

According to his account, discussions in Moscow reportedly centred on a mutual cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure and ports in Ukraine and Russia, a possible ceasefire limited to the Sumy and Kharkiv regions as a first step towards a general de-escalation, and the prospects for ending the conflict.

The Wall Street Journal’s version: mobilisation and NATO tests

A slightly different interpretation comes from the American financial newspaper. According to the Wall Street Journal [paywalled link, archived link], Ratcliffe flew to Moscow due to Russian mobilisation plans and fears of an initiative against Europe. The newspaper claims that the trip was prompted by US intelligence indicating Russia’s preliminary preparations for a possible military mobilisation and plans to test the Atlantic Alliance’s resolve.

According to the account given by the analysts quoted, Ratcliffe may have met Putin in person to deliver a warning. Beth Sanner, former deputy director of US national intelligence, summarised the possible content of the meeting as follows: “It could have been something along the lines of: ‘We know what you’re planning to do, and you’d be better off not doing it’. It could also concern a ceasefire in Iran and the involvement of other parties in the truce negotiations”.

The collapse of Kiev within a few months and the de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports

Beyond possible surprise attacks by Russia on European military production sites – as suggested by Russian hawks such as the political scientist and strategist Sergei Karaganov – there remains an even more concrete hypothesis, already mentioned, regarding this manoeuvre: to attempt to slow the Russian advance and prevent the military collapse of Kiev.

This is no longer merely Russian propaganda. Former Ukrainian Defence Minister Mikhail Fedorov told Reuters that Kiev has only a few months left to make crucial decisions that could change the course of the conflict [link]. “It seems we are losing gradually, slowly”, he said, emphasising that, although victory is still possible, a clear plan is needed. Fedorov cited corruption, nepotism, political dependence and the failure to adopt new technologies as the main obstacles. He rated the effectiveness of the Ukrainian state at just 5%, stating that existing technologies could significantly slow the Russian army’s advance, but that Kiev refuses to use them.

It is worth recalling that Fedorov, Zelensky’s bitter rival, was pushing for a model of warfare involving drones and automated kill chains, based on Palantir’s artificial intelligence, while former commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky favoured a conventional approach based on infantry assaults and artillery.

A power struggle that certainly does nothing to alter the warmongering fate assigned to Kiev.

However, the situation is now critical on maritime routes too. Since the beginning of July [2026], Russia has stepped up its missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian ports and merchant vessels in the Black Sea and on the Dnieper.

The figures are already substantial. Between 20 June and 20 July [2026], according to the authorities in Odessa, twenty-eight [28] civilian vessels were attacked and twenty-one [21] people were killed, whilst Kiev reports one hundred and twenty-four attacks [124] on ports and civilian vessels in the month of July [2026] alone. Moscow, on the other hand, claims to have struck over eighty [80] merchant ships used to transport Ukrainian military supplies, but this characterisation of the cargoes cannot be independently verified and remains, for the time being, a partisan claim.

The main impact is on exports. Odessa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi used to handle around six million tonnes of grain per month, but capacity is said to have fallen to four million tonnes – a drop of one third. Over ninety per cent [90%] of Ukraine’s exports of cereals and vegetable oils pass through these ports, and the disruption comes at the height of the summer harvest, when pressure on storage capacity is at its peak and every day of downtime results in full silos and unsold produce.

The economic repercussions are consequently significant. In the first half of the year, Ukraine’s agri-food sector was worth around €11 billion, accounting for almost sixty per cent [60%] of the country’s exports. Estimated losses range from around €439 million to €1.32 billion per month, depending on the duration of the disruption, and the damage also affects the iron ore and steel sectors, which are particularly difficult to divert via rail due to their volume and specific weight.

Strategically, the campaign aims to reduce Kiev’s foreign exchange earnings, logistical capacity and economic resilience without having to maintain a naval presence off its ports. It is a form of low-cost, high-return pressure, which may also drive up international wheat prices and reignite tensions in Eastern Europe over the overland diversion of Ukrainian grain, reviving dynamics already seen in relations between Kiev, Poland and Hungary.

Reports from 25th August [2026] confirm this trajectory. The Russian Ministry of Defence stated that it had struck two dry cargo ships carrying military equipment in the port of Yuzhny: “Two dry cargo ships were struck by unmanned aerial vehicles and air-launched precision weapons”, the department reported, adding that it had attacked various infrastructure sites in the port area, four depots containing equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces and fuel tanks in Chornomorsk.

Two capitals, two opposing directions. The Holy See also heads to Moscow

It is significant, however, that on the very same day, Pope Leo’s envoy, Monsignor Gallagher, arrived in Moscow on what is described as an opposing diplomatic trajectory: “In Kiev, missile capabilities are being announced; in Moscow, attempts are being made to open a channel for peace and dialogue.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described bilateral relations as being based on “trust, friendship and pragmatism”, thanking the Vatican for what Moscow considers a “balanced” stance and for its commitment to humanitarian issues. Lavrov went on to state that he had drawn the Vatican’s attention to Ukrainian policies regarding the Russian language, education, media and culture, as well as to the situation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Moscow, he added, hopes that the Holy See will raise these issues in its contacts with the Ukrainian authorities and has submitted its own report on alleged illegal actions against Orthodox clergy and faithful.

Gallagher took a different line, focusing on the need to create the conditions for a “genuine dialogue” supported by the international community and capable of bringing about a cessation of hostilities. The Vatican expressed its willingness to offer its services to facilitate a swift peace, while calling for respect for international law, prisoners of war, the civilian population and infrastructure.

The willing in Kiev rally behind Zelenskyy’s stance. London declassifies its missiles

Meanwhile, on 24th August [2026], to mark the 35th anniversary of Ukrainian independence, a large international delegation arrived in Kiev: British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, European Council President António Costa, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Estonian President Alar Karis and Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, whereas Emmanuel Macron co-chaired the meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing remotely.

A funeral procession that seems destined to ensure the population continues to be bled dry for a while yet.

The most significant development on the industrial front concerns the British government’s decision to authorise MBDA to “declassify information on the British-manufactured components of the Scalp”, the French version of the Storm Shadow. France had already handed over the Scalp-EG designs in July [2026] as part of a broader defence agreement; the British component was missing, but arrived a few days ago. The stated aim is “to enable the French and Ukrainians to set up missile assembly lines on Ukrainian territory”.

On this point, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reacted by denouncing that “the United Kingdom is participating in the war alongside the Kiev regime, fuelling the conflict and working to prevent any progress in negotiations”, adding that, once the war is over, “British forces will enter and be deployed in Ukraine”: a prospect designed to “ensure that the conflict is not brought to an end through diplomatic negotiations, but that it continues to its bitter end”. On an operational level – he continued – the Russian armed forces are reportedly “gathering the data needed to identify all the production sites for these missiles” and “taking measures to destroy them”.

The ground front: three towns under pressure

On the ground, the picture is one of a gradual shrinking of the Ukrainian enclaves. In the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzhkivka sector, Russian forces are reported to have advanced deep into Nikolaevka and penetrated a thermal power station. This is a worrying setback, as that town acts as the pivot, the gateway to Slavyansk. With the fall of Orikhovatka, the last village before this major outpost, there are now only a few trenches and fortified positions in between.

In the direction of Dobropillia, meanwhile, reports continue to emerge of settlements coming under Russian control in the vicinity of the town. Following the announcement regarding Kucherov Yar, the Ministry of Defence reported the capture of Annovka, close to the town. Rumours of tactical successes in that area have been circulating for some time: as early as last year [2025], some reconnaissance units reached the south-eastern outskirts of the town without managing to consolidate their position. If the information regarding Annovka is confirmed, it could mark the start of fighting directly for Dobropillia, but at present it is premature to say so, as there are vast open areas near the town which remain difficult to cross.

A similar situation is unfolding to the east. Russian units have been operating in the Kucherov Yar area for some time, but there is still no evidence that the village has been captured: neither surveillance imagery from the Ukrainian side nor posts showing flags from Russian sources. Fighting also took place for that village in August last year, resulting in the Russian advance units being forced to withdraw, whilst reconnaissance groups reached as far as Zolotoj Kolodec, creating significant difficulties in the Pokrovsk area, which fell shortly afterwards. This clearly demonstrates that the presence of individual assault groups does not equate to control of a settlement.

To the south and south-west of Dobropillia, fighting continues along the Shevchenko–Grishino line towards Kryvorozhye, with advances carried out by small groups through a chain of villages that have been turned into strongpoints and heavily damaged by shelling. The offensive by the “Centre” force group has been underway for some time and aims to consolidate the defensive line in the north-western part of the contested Donbas territory, with indirect effects also on the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk conurbation.

Western tanks covered in cobwebs

A report in the New York Times confirms that the crisis in Ukraine is not just one of manpower and ammunition, but also of combat tactics. The Western tanks transferred to Kiev are now virtually unused, due to the inability to defend against drones: “What were once the most coveted weapons now lie largely unused, hidden in the forests and covered in cobwebs,” writes the US newspaper.

The 33rd Independent Mechanised Brigade was formed, in part, specifically to deploy those vehicles. Due to the vehicles’ inability to counter even the cheapest drones, the unit has ceased to receive combat missions and some soldiers have been retrained as drone operators. The armoured vehicles, worth ten million dollars each, are mainly used to tow damaged vehicles, and according to a soldier interviewed, they are only deployed in open terrain in bad weather, when conditions make it difficult to operate unmanned aerial vehicles.

This is the point at which the technical issue becomes political. Moscow believes that arms supplies to Kiev hinder the resolution of the conflict, directly involve NATO countries and amount to “playing with fire”. But the American report suggests something even more troubling for those who sent those weapons: the problem is no longer the quantity of Western equipment available, but its tactical irrelevance in an environment saturated with sensors. If the tank cannot move, the qualitative superiority promised in 2023 has evaporated, and with it the notion that a new tranche of aid could alter the outcome of the Russian campaign.

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The term “kleptocracy” does not refer simply to corruption, but rather to a system of legalised corruption, an apparatus of power specifically designed to plunder public resources. All regimes exhibit kleptocratic aspects and components, but the question here is to understand what kind of regime can be considered a fully-fledged and comprehensive kleptocracy, that is, a closed and self-perpetuating system that leaves no room for other options. The term “kleptocracy” has been applied to post-colonial regimes, such as the petro-monarchies of the Persian Gulf; however, what prevents the petro-monarchies from being regarded as fully-fledged and comprehensive kleptocracies is the fact that the object of this legalised theft concerns the natural and mineral resources of those countries, meaning that the resources are used for the almost exclusive benefit of the ruling family oligarchies. To speak of a fully-fledged and integral kleptocracy, however, the predatory system of power must specifically “target” not natural wealth, but the pockets of the poor taxpayer – those who cannot access the kleptocratic privilege of tax immunity. For this reason, the notion of a fully-fledged and comprehensive kleptocracy can be applied only to the one system of power capable of deploying a public relations apparatus sufficient to engage the public, encouraging their participation through allegiance to various political factions. It follows that the only regimes capable of attaining the status of a fully-fledged and comprehensive kleptocracy are the so-called “Western democracies”; indeed, only the separation of powers and party pluralism can fuel that partisan game whereby public opinion divides, takes sides, clashes and becomes enthusiastic about fictitious choices.

Public opinion is not entirely devoid of the ability to recognise the obvious, so it is clear to many that VAT1 and excise duties on fuel, electricity and gas bills form the cornerstone of the squeeze on the poor taxpayer. A more unscrupulous demagogue can gain popularity by advocating cuts to excise duties or sourcing raw materials from the highest bidder, without any political constraints. [Italian Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni did this, and [Roberto] Vannacci2 is doing it today. The logical way to expose the lie is to distinguish between the difficult and the easy parts of electoral promises. Both Meloni and Vannacci are against benefits for the poor; now, cutting benefits for the poor is very easy, while dealing with the fiscal and political constraints of the European Union and NATO is very difficult, so there will be countless excuses for not doing so. Moreover, even the poor who are not in work pay VAT on their utility bills – perhaps using money from the sale of wedding rings inherited from their parents and grandparents; so, a benefit would, in any case, amount to a refund. In short, those who take the moral high ground when it comes to the vulnerable are never to be trusted; and this is based on logical, not moralistic, considerations.

Another fact that does not escape the majority of the public is that wars and military spending are another key factor in squeezing the poor taxpayer. Trump has become popular at home, and in our part of the world too, with his promise not to wage wars. The problem is that a real war is not necessary to justify increased military spending; provocations and terrorist attacks are enough to create the fear of an enemy at the gates; in fact, Trump had already planned to double military spending without any war on the horizon [see here]. One can be certain that Trump had no intention of getting involved in an actual war with Iran, but if you kill a country’s leaders, it may well be that those who take their place feel it is necessary to prevent the possibility of meeting the same fate as their predecessors.

Senator Lindsey Graham laid bare the formula for the kleptocratic path to militarism when he declared that Trump was his favourite President because he had cut taxes (for the rich, of course) and had killed the right people. It is poor taxpayers who foot the bill for destabilisation and the arms race. In kleptocratic militarism, the word “kill” is closely linked to the issue of money. Recently, a German journalist asked Zelensky what Europeans could do to help Ukraine kill more Russian soldiers; and, unsurprisingly, Zelensky replied that they needed to send him more money. The dream of the warmongering kleptocrats in NATO and the EU is to keep up the pretence of a war – with the associated money-making scheme – without facing the risks of a large-scale, symmetrical conflict. These warmongering kleptocrats are trapped in a behavioural pattern (typical of bullying) whereby they believe they can exploit their opponents’ prudence and sense of responsibility indefinitely. It is not a question of patience running out, but of the fact that escalating provocations may ultimately leave the opponent with their back against the wall, with no alternative but to intensify the conflict in turn.

In terms of actual military capabilities, the militarism of Western kleptocracies is showing increasing signs of ineptitude, because cuts are made in areas where there is less to gain, such as basic logistics (food and its transport, for example). In order to steal more, logistics are often outsourced to private contractors, which increases inefficiency and the likelihood that, on board exorbitantly expensive aircraft carriers such as the USS Lincoln, there will be a shortage of food and sanitation facilities, resulting in a sort of humanitarian catastrophe.

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Today (Tuesday 25th August 2026) Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with his Omani counterpart Sayyid Badr Al-Busaidi to discuss key bilateral and regional issues and, at the end of their meeting, they issued a joint statement announcing a preliminary agreement on the joint management of the Strait of Hormuz, as reported by Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Mehr, Middle East Spectator (MES) and Fotros Resistance. Although details of the agreement have not been released yet, Iran’s Foreign Ministry pointed out that such an achievement does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen; instead, it will stay closed until the US naval blockade on Iran is lifted and the Outlaw US Empire1 abides by the terms of the Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding or MoUMoM. Here is the full text of the joint statement as published by the Omani Foreign Ministry on X (all emphasis mine):

#Joint Statement between the Sultanate of Oman and the Islamic Republic of Iran on Consultations between the Foreign Ministers of the Sultanate of Oman and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

His Excellency Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud Al-Busaidi, Minister of Foreign Affairs, paid a working visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran, during which he held constructive consultations with his Iranian counterpart, His Excellency Dr. Seyyed Abbas Araghchi.

The consultations focused on the importance that both countries attach to resuming safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz in a manner that preserves their sovereignty and sovereign rights. The two ministers discussed a phased framework that would provide a practical and implementable basis, in light of the current situation in the Strait resulting from the recent war and its tragic repercussions.

The proposed framework includes the establishment of a temporary joint navigation corridor through the Strait of Hormuz and an agreement to implement a joint project to clear the Strait of mines. Technical negotiations between the two sides will also continue with the aim of reaching an agreement on a permanent navigation corridor and future arrangements for managing the Strait, alongside establishing a mechanism for exchanging information, managing navigation traffic, and providing related navigational and security services.

In this context, both sides affirmed the importance of holding joint discussions with the Gulf littoral states. They also emphasized the necessity of adhering to the provisions of international law and respecting the sovereign rights of coastal States.

So, to sum up: the two countries agreed on the establishment of temporary maritime corridor and on the clearing of mines from the Strait of Hormuz, while talks will continue regarding the establishment of a permanent shipping corridor and its management.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian received Pakistani Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Naqvi and Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir and discussed the steps necessary to “reactivate the Memorandum of Understanding in Islamabad with a view to reaching a comprehensive settlement of the dispute”, as per Al Mayadeen. At the end of the visit, Syed Mohsin Naqvi stated the meeting with Iranian officials were “very positive and constructive”, while Pakistan’s military public relations office released a statement highlighting that the talks focussed on “regional peace, preventing further escalation and resolving disputes through dialogue” and, in particular, on “diplomatic efforts to help overcome the deadlock in US–Iran negotiations”, as reported by IRNA (1 and 2). Interestingly, Tasnim quoted a source close to the Iranian negotiating team as saying (emphasis and all-caps mine):

Contrary to what some media outlets have reported, Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Pakistani Army Chief who traveled to Iran yesterday, was NOT carrying a threat or a similar message from the United States. Rather, he was seeking to open up the negotiating space and aimed to convey Iran’s conditions and positions to the American side.

During the meetings held with Mr. Munir, Iran’s positions were clearly communicated to the Pakistani side.

The US’ return to the Islamabad memorandum of understanding and implementation of its provisions, including Clause 5 concerning the Iranian arrangements regarding the Strait of Hormuz, are among Iran’s conditions. [See also Al Mayadeen]

No mention anywhere of Iran’s invitation to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA - see my previous two articles here and here), however, as I mentioned previously, most likely they prefer to avoid talking about it until the final signature, IF indeed there are negotiations ongoing.

Pezeshkian and Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, held separate meetings also with the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan, as reported by IRNA (1 and 2), Fars, Tasnim and Mehr (1 and 2). In his meeting with Faiq Zidan, Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei stated very clearly that…

The countries of the region will decide about their own future, and the US will have no place in the region’s future.

…adding that Iran seeks a “strong and independent Iraq” and calling for “the situation of anti-Iranian groups stationed along the borders of Iran and Iraq to be addressed and determined”, while Pezeshkian was quoted by Al Mayadeen as saying that…

Iran will not surrender.

…despite US economic pressure. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also met with Faiq Zidan and, during the meeting, the former said:

The United States launched a war against Iran to overthrow the Islamic Republic and expand American hegemony in West Asia and the Muslim world.

However, thanks to the blood of the martyrs, the efforts of the brave Iranian people, and the support of the resistance front, the United States has clearly failed, and the whole world knows that.

The United States has failed militarily and politically, and it will also fail in its economic actions.

A new regional order is emerging, and the current circumstances are sensitive and historic for both Iran and Iraq. The withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq is a historic achievement for the Iraqi government and people. We hope this withdrawal will be fully implemented on the ground and in Iraq’s airspace.

If Israel had succeeded in its conflict with Iran, it would have turned its attention to other countries.

Islamic countries must set aside divisive issues. As the world witnessed during the war in Gaza, all Shia Muslims stood with the people of Gaza. Martyr [Qasem] Soleimani always said that Shia and Sunni Muslims are brothers, and we are willing to sacrifice our lives for the Sunni community.

We have no doubt that Iran and Iraq can play a decisive role in shaping the new regional order, particularly in the Persian Gulf region. [Source: Mehr - all emphasis added]

By the way, speaking on Iranian State television, Iran's Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh, stated (source: Al Mayadeen):

We have been preparing for these days for a long time.

[Iran is] fully prepared to confront the sanctions and American measures. The era of the unipolar world is over [and Washington] will not succeed at all.

…whereas Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf made fun of US Treasury Scott Bessent in the tweet below:

The same did Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei with the following tweets on X:

…and, in another tweet, he commemorated the 85th anniversary of the invasion of Iran on 24th August 1941, when Iran was occupied by the Allies despite its official declaration of neutrality (see also IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr).

In the meantime, Brigadier General Ali Jahanshahi, Commander of Iran’s Army Ground Force, issued a warning to the terrorist groups based across Iran’s borders, saying (sources: Fars and Mehr - all emphasis mine):

Today, the Army Ground Forces are at their highest level of combat readiness. Equipped with new weapons and equipment, they have developed specific operational plans to counter any threat.

All the capabilities of the Ground Force’s units deployed along the borders are dedicated to ensuring security, safeguarding Iran’s borders, and confronting any threat.

The deployment of mobile offensive and rapid-reaction units along the borders, alongside the comprehensive readiness of the Armed Forces, has created effective deterrence against enemy threats.

We will not allow any enemy to undermine the security of our dear border residents and the people of Iran.

In the event of any incursion or aggression, all positions and bases belonging to those threatening Iran’s security will be within range of the Army Ground Forces’ drones and artillery.

Iran’s borders are a red line for the Armed Forces. Any incursion or aggression against Iran’s sacred soil will be met with a stronger response than ever before.

Similarly, Iran’s Caretaker Defense Minister Brigadier General Majid Ibn al-Reza stated (sources: IRNA, Fars and Mehr):

For Iran, the economy, the comfort and welfare of the people, along with security, are part of the field of defense.

Any pressure that targets the livelihood and security of the people is part of the war.

Those who expand the field of pressure should know that we, too, for the defense of the people, will expand the field within the framework of national interests.

In other news, it is worth mentioning that overnight Iran struck an oil tanker ~9 nautical miles off the coast of Oman, disabling its engine room, as reported by Al Mayadeen, Mehr and MES, citing UKMTO (UK Maritime Trade Operations), while the anti-Zionist group Cyber Support Front announced that it had “successfully infiltrated the internal network of the ‘Novamill Systems Ltd’ company, effectively disabling it by removing all key equipment from the operation cycle”, as per Tasnim, which quoted the following statement:

Your personal and sensitive information is in our hands and this company is no longer a safe place for you. Stop cooperating with the criminal army of the Zionist regime and save your lives as soon as possible, because the opportunity is running out and there is no time for regret.

Not only Cyber Support Front stole ~1 TB of sensitive and confidential information, but “all precision machining centers (CNC2) and other network entities were taken out of service, dealing a fatal blow to the factory’s production capacity”.

According to the statement quoted by Tasnim, “Novamill is one of the most specialized companies in the Zionist regime in the fields of mechanical assembly, machining sensitive and precision parts, and reverse engineering, and has extensive cooperation with the regime’s defense and aerospace industries (IAI). [It] operates in the field of manufacturing precision parts for fighter jets and air systems and provides services such as precision electromechanical and optomechanical assemblies for advanced military systems, including guidance and control systems, night vision, thermal cameras, and targeting”.

In parallel, the US State Department announced a reward of $10 million for information about any of the five IRGC3 leaders in the image above (source: MES). Well… I have one: General Majid Khademi was killed in a US strike on 6th April 2026 (see Wikipedia). Can I have my reward now, please? LOL! They are so incompetent…

News and updates from Lebanon and Syria

Moving briefly to Lebanon, Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) is still attacking villages and towns in the south of the countries, with airstrikes, shelling, demolitions, detonations and fires reported in Markaba, Taybeh, al-Mansouri, Yater, Majdel Zoun, Haris, Haddatha, Mays al-Jabal, Ainata, and Zawtar al-Sharqiya (source: Al Mayadeen).

Meanwhile, in Syria, Mazloum Abdi, commander of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), announced the dissolution of his group at a news conference held today at the presidential palace in Damascus, stating that it had completed its merger with the Syrian army, as reported by Al Mayadeen.

News and updates from Yemen

Finally, we move to Yemen, where this afternoon Ansar Allah leader Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr al-Din al-Houthi gave a speech on occasion of the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, reaffirming Yemen’s commitment to supporting Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and the Axis of Resistance in the confrontation against the USraeli project to reshape the Middle East, as reported by Al Mayadeen, Saba (1 and 2), IRNA and Mehr, which quoted him as saying (all emphasis added):

We remain steadfast in supporting the oppressed Palestinian people and confronting the Zionist enemy as the enemy of the Islamic Ummah. We reaffirm our firm stance against the American-Israeli scheme known as so-called “Greater Israel” project.

We affirm our support for the Muslim Iranian people and their Islamic system, and continue to strengthen the principle of unity among the fronts, enhance cooperation within the Axis of Jihad, support Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and other fronts. We call for joining the Axis of Jihad and Resistance.

The disbelievers are the source of evil, corruption, crime, oppression and misguidance. They seek to offer alternatives to Allah’s message , teachings in accordance with their own desires and to achieve their satanic objectives. They exercise tyranny with the utmost force and brutality, crushing vulnerable peoples and committing the most heinous crimes without regard for the human conscience. They are consistently on the side of aggression and tyranny, as exemplified by the crimes of the Zionist enemy in its aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Therefore, firmness is necessary to put an end to the Zionists’ crimes, stop their oppression and prevent them from attempting to impose their falsehood on people. Adherence to the divine message, commitment to its teachings and steadfastness on its path can only be achieved by standing firm against enemies, confronting their aggression , evil, freeing oneself from their hegemony and refusing to submit to them.

I will conclude this article with the following caricature by Kamal Sharaf from Cartoon Movement:

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Nowadays, wars are not declared; they simply happen. Nowadays, wars do not begin or end: they peter out and drag on in oblivion and perpetual conflict. Wars fought with weapons are prepared through wars of words. Propaganda, media bombardment, hidden and overt messages, the fabrication of false evidence, a complete reversal of objective reality, false witnesses, famous pundits and professional do-gooders: everything serves to make the real war, the one fought with weapons, acceptable.

All it takes is to call wars by another name: remember the “humanitarian interventions” that destroyed Yugoslavia? Just call a savage act of aggression by that name, and everything is forgotten.

Ultimately, it is a sleight of hand, a simple trick: changing the names of things, organisations and people to create an image that is the opposite of reality. The latest example in a long series? Between 24th and 25th July [2026], the RAI1 news programmes – TG1 and TG2 – ran a report on yet another instance of Israeli violence in the West Bank under this almost humorous headline: “Palestinians attack a group of Israeli hikers”: and controversy immediately erupted over the complete reversal of the narrative regarding settler violence in the West Bank, with the creative public service journalists portraying the settlers as a sort of Junior Woodchucks Club – complete with caps, rucksacks and water bottles – intent on taking an innocent stroll through places of suffering and destruction for Palestinians and of daily violent intrusions by Israeli settlers, often with tragic consequences.

The violent provocation by armed settlers – the architects of the illegal settlements in the West Bank – is transformed in public service news programmes into a Palestinian ambush against cheerful hikers in search of butterflies or mushrooms, perhaps slightly eccentric hikers who carry their M-16s with them during their merry walks in the mountains. And the news – not merely a little removed from the truth, but completely the opposite of the truth – becomes “A group of Palestinians attacked some Israelis who were out on a hike”. Reports on TG1 and TG2, between 24th and 25th July [2026], candidly put it in these terms, describing what happened on Friday [24th July 2026] in the Palestinian village of Tell, close to the settlement of Havat Gilad. And so, simply by using the word “hiker”, yet another provocation by Israeli settlers in the West Bank – which subsequently escalated into violence and massacres – was transformed in RAI’s public service news programmes into a Palestinian ambush against civilians out for a walk. It is the RAI journalist, Giovan Battista Brunori, the author of the video reports in question and of several live broadcasts, who is the prime architect of the “hikers” myth.

After all, all it takes is to describe things using different words. And words are not neutral; words kill.

Some members of the RAI Board of Directors – Alessandro di Majo, Davide Di Pietro and Roberto Natale – have written a statement attempting to gloss over the incident: “The protests of those demanding that the occupation carried out by the settlers with the support of the Netanyahu government be called by its proper name – and not downplayed as a tourist stroll – are understandable. It is the duty of the public service to avoid acting as a mouthpiece – even unintentionally – for propagandistic positions that serve only to exacerbate the debate on such a contentious issue.”

In our view, the issue has deeper roots and cannot be resolved by lashing out at an individual journalist who is merely implementing a system of thought and information that has governed the world of communication for many years.

Wars fought with weapons are prepared through wars of words. A complete reversal of objective reality: everything serves to make real war – the war fought with weapons – acceptable. Compassion becomes selective, and pacifism turns opportunistic and shameless when it comes to supplying and selling weapons. Tears are shed in abundance for some, whilst eyes remain dry for those who lack the media’s stamp of approval as victims. And above all, we must not forget a simple trick used to make the lies in the news acceptable: simply changing the names of things, organisations and people is enough to create an image that is the opposite of reality.

An example from a few years ago that foreshadows what is happening today (we prefer to refer to events that took place some time ago rather than current affairs, in an attempt to maintain a more detached and objective perspective): Kosovo has been, and remains, a key testing ground for this activity of distorting, falsifying and misrepresenting reality. A prime example of this travestissement2 was the event leading up to the birth of the illegitimate “Republic of Kosovo”: the “dissolution” of the criminal terrorist army of the KLA3, declared “dissolved” to the sound of trumpets and with do-gooder complacency, promptly transformed into the TMK4, the so-called “Civil Protection Corps”, which has absolutely nothing to do with civil protection, being both trained and armed.

How much did false information contribute to legitimising the NATO aggression (including Italy’s) against Yugoslavia? Fake photos or those taken out of context, extremely realistic fake videos – or “deepfakes” – manipulated visual content to influence public opinion and spread disinformation.

It has become increasingly easy to deceive the human eye; after all, image manipulation is at least as old as photography itself.

All it takes is some software downloaded from the internet, a few images picked up here and there from search engines or social media, and anyone can create fake videos that spread like wildfire across the web.

And what does “deepfake” mean? The term “deepfake” was coined in 2017 and is a portmanteau of “deep learning” (a form of machine learning based on artificial intelligence) and “fake”. Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to generate synthetic images so realistic that they deceive not only our eyes, but also the algorithms used to recognise them. The technology has proven capable of superimposing the faces of two different people to create a fake profile or identity. The manipulation of information has exploded, becoming a national security issue in many parts of the world with the advent of social media.

Deepfakes are a very powerful means of disinformation because people still tend to believe what they see.

“With growing awareness of deepfakes, uncertainty about what is real and what is not can have an unintended effect and create a culture of ‘plausible deniability’ in which no one is willing to take responsibility because everything could be faked”, wrote researcher Nina Schick in her book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse [link to Amazon].

“Deepfakes could give anyone the power to falsify anything, and if everything can be falsified, then anyone can claim plausible deniability”, argues Schick.

And in addition to the manipulation of images through videos and photos, the manipulation of words is becoming increasingly prevalent, with words being used with meanings that are distorted – or even the opposite – of those commonly accepted as valid: words – often in an English that is as dominant as it is mangled by television pundits – such as multi-ethnic, low-profile, status, standard, road map, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian mission and intelligent bombing – reveal to us the importance of names and key terms in political correctness.

As we said at the start of these reflections: today, wars are not declared; they are simply waged.

Today, wars neither begin nor end: they peter out and drag on into oblivion and permanent conflict.

Wars fought with weapons are prepared through wars of words. Propaganda, media bombardment, hidden and overt messages, the fabrication of false evidence, a complete reversal of objective reality, false witnesses, and famous, professionally “do-gooder” spokespeople: all serve to make the real war – the one fought with weapons – acceptable. It is enough to call wars by another name – for example, “humanitarian interventions” – and everything changes. Changing the names of things, organisations and people to create an image that is the opposite of reality.

Does any of this remind you of what is happening at the moment regarding the current conflicts, NATO’s role, distorted reporting and, indeed, the hikers in the West Bank?

Is the battle for accurate information a lost cause?

To combat deepfakes, it is essential to raise awareness and develop critical thinking and a deep sense of responsibility: do not treat the television as a fetish; do not drink the poisoned water of social media and the ‘he says…’ rumours. We must learn and teach others to cultivate critical thinking, humility and continuous study; a desire for in-depth understanding and a thirst for knowledge; attention to sources and the ability to question what we see on the internet; and a sense of responsibility that means not indiscriminately sharing any content. Our lives are at stake, because words kill.

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In my previous article yesterday (Sunday 23rd August 2026) I reported about the news given by Mehdi Rahimi, head of Iranian Parliament’s news agency, to Al Mayadeen regarding Iran’s invitation to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Turkey and Pakistan. The news sent shivers down Israelis’ spines, with officials and analysts expressing alarm and warning that Iran’s entry “would fundamentally shift the balance of the alliance and undermine US standing in West Asia”, as per Al Mayadeen, citing an opinion piece by Ksenia Svetlova, director of the Israel-Middle East Relations Program at the Mitvim Institute and a researcher at the Atlantic Council, on the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (paywalled).

However, at his weekly presser today (Monday 24th August 2026), Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei sort of dismissed the report, stating that “Iran has not received an official invitation” to join the MJDA, though he admitted that “proposals have been presented to it in that regard”, as per Al Mayadeen. Here is what Baghaei said at his weekly press conference today, according to Al Mayadeen (1 and 2) IRNA (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7), Fars (1 and 2), Tasnim (1 and 2) and Mehr (1 and 2 - all emphasis added):

We have not received an official invitation, but talks have been raised by these countries regarding the general issue of regional security.

We have no reason to think that a pact in which three Islamic countries and two Muslim neighboring countries are members is aimed against Iranians.

The visit of Oman's Foreign Minister to Tehran has no connection to the visit of the Pakistani army chief. They coincided only in terms of timing.

This visit is scheduled to take place today within the framework of very good and distinguished relations between Iran and Pakistan.

During the visit of Oman's Foreign Minister to Tehran, we will discuss bilateral relations and issues related to the security of the Strait of Hormuz and transit routes.

Iran and Afghanistan will expand their commercial dealings.

We will show no leniency toward the aggressors, because … the Islamic Republic of Iran did not start the war and has defended its right, territorial integrity and national sovereignty. Naturally, the aggressor must be held accountable. We certainly did not start the war, but we will not allow the war to end on the terms of the aggressor.

[Commenting on the news of a USAF1 tanker aircraft leaving Bulgaria’s Bezmer Air Base (see Al Mayadeen)] From the outset, as many people and politicians in Bulgaria itself had stated, this action was contrary to international law, because we have no problem with the people of Bulgaria and this was, in a way, considered support for the military aggression of the United States and the Zionist regime against Iran.

We hope that other countries that have in some way made their bases and facilities available to the United States and the Zionist regime to commit the crime of aggression against a member State of the United Nations will also take the necessary action.

There is no reason for other countries to be concerned on Iran’s behalf unless they have placed their bases at the disposal of the aggressor party.

It is Iran’s right to target the source and origin of any act of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is part of international law, and as we have shown, in defending the existence of Iran, we will certainly show no leniency in defending Iran’s integrity.

Iran did everything possible through the diplomatic path to prevent war and secure national interests and benefits. In many cases, arrangements and agreements were reached, but the US side violated all of them.

The memorandum of understanding did not last more than three weeks, after which America revoked all its provisions.

Iran's power and the cohesion of its people are the shield of the Islamic Republic. Iran was able to thwart all the enemy's plans.

We have faced special conditions arising from two imposed wars by the United States and the Zionist regime during this one year to one year and a half [the 12-Day War and the Ramadan War], and the Foreign Ministry has in a way advanced diplomacy under conditions of war and crisis.

Regarding what America calls the economic war, they used to say economic sanctions, and we used to say this is economic terrorism.

From crippling sanctions to maximum pressure and economic war, all pursue one goal, and that is to force a nation that has decided to stand on its own feet to surrender, a nation that has decided not to give up its rights and knows that these waves, whether in the form of war, terrorism or economic sanctions, all pursue one goal.

America uses every tool to punish Iranians simply for their insistence on their sovereignty, national independence, and dignity. The Iranian government is mobilizing all its capabilities to alleviate living pressures on the people. The naval blockade on Iran at the present time is in itself an aggressive act, and escalation of this situation will certainly have its own repercussions.

The Islamic Republic will certainly make use of all multilateral capacities to counter the sanctions.

In all these fields, they have failed. Once again, the Iranian nation will show that it is determined and steadfast in safeguarding its rights.

All positions are taken into consideration by policymakers. In the past two years, Iran’s goodwill has repeatedly been met with ill will. The JCPOA2 was a clear example of this. The agreement of 28th June [2026] was another one, all of which the American side violated, while Iran used every possible avenue through diplomacy.

Look at the history of the past five decades against Iran; the labels should not deceive us. Iran has decided not to give up any of its rights. They have failed in every arena, and the Iranian nation has also shown that it is resolute and steadfast.

The Persian Gulf is too great to be changed by a few waves, particularly at a time when the Persian Gulf is confronted with aggressors. The people of Iran and Iraq are also too mature to be influenced.

[Regarding the latest situation of citizens detained in Kuwait] The Kuwaiti side must be held accountable in this regard. After much effort, our ambassador was able to meet with four imprisoned Iranian citizens. We hope that these dear ones will be released as soon as possible.

[Regarding the situation of Iranian pilots in Qatar] As for Qatar, as long as the situation is not clarified, our demand remains in place.

[Regarding the war against Syria and its position against Iran] Our principled positions are stable regardless of which group rules Islamic countries. Opposing the regime's occupation is part of Iran's principled policy. Opposing the Zionist regime's occupation of Syria is a shared responsibility of Islamic countries.

Returning to the invitation to Iran to join the MJDA, in my opinion the matter is that the official invitation has not been sent yet, but talks are underway. At least, this is how I interpret Baghaei’s words. It could be a matter of negotiations and time before Iran joins the MJDA, probably just to make sure that all parties agree on all points… and, given the current situation, it is understandable. However, USrael may want to take advantage and restart its war of aggression on Iran before the Iran joins the MJDA. The problem is: with what munitions, given that low stock of interceptors and missiles? Not to mention the fact that the Outlaw US Empire3 has only 41 days of crude oil left in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the lowest point ever since the 1970s, as reported by Middle East Spectator (MES):

Will USrael escalate the war on Iran within the next month or so, then?

In the meantime, Pakistan's Army Chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, accompanied by Pakistan’s Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, departed from Pakistan this morning and arrived in Tehran this afternoon, when he held separate meetings with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and with Major General Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), as reported by Al Mayadeen (1 and 2), IRNA (1, 2 and 3) and Mehr (1 and 2). According to official reports, the meetings focussed on US failures to honour its commitments in the Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding or MoUMoM. However, we can speculate that they also talked about the MJDA. Asim Munir’s next trips or Iranian officials’ next meetings may reveal more: if they go and/or meet with Turkish and/or Saudi officials, then it means that Iran is moving towards the MJDA!

In a tweet on X today, Ghalibaf mocked US President Donald J. Trump’s MAGA4 motto (see also IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr):

…and, in another one, he lashed out at the economic warfare on Iran:

Americans know that no one buys their bombast; the United States is not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries.
Iran's trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don't take these statements into account anywhere.

In a tweet posted last night, Mohsen Rezaei threatened to close the regional oil tap completely if Trump goes on with his economic warfare on Iran, warning also countries supporting US sanctions (see also Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars and Mehr):

Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, addressed US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the following tweet posted this morning (see also IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr):

Mr. Bennett! Your narrative doesn't add up: you say Iran's military capability has been “dismantled”, 100% of its military factories “destroyed”, and its nuclear program “buried”; but for this very Iran, the “largest financial assault in history” and the mobilization of “all US institutions and authorities” have been necessary! Is this a victory or an admission of America's failure!?

Instead, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi penned an article titled “A New Vision on the Horizon of Iran-China Strategic Partnership” in an Iranian newspaper. Here are some excerpts from Fars and Mehr:

Relying on the strong will of the leaders of the two countries and the continuation of mutual trust, we seek to open a new chapter of prosperity.

This strategic bond is a clear testament to the serious determination of the leaders of the two countries to weather regional and international storms and build a future based on mutual respect and trust.

Chinese friends have rightly warned on various occasions about the danger of a return to the law of the jungle.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is fully prepared, through continued cooperation and the expansion of strategic interactions with the People’s Republic of China, to take more substantive steps toward strengthening stability, economic prosperity and collective security in the region.

We believe that structures such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS are effective tools for breaking the monopoly of power and moving toward a fairer structure in the international system.

Relying on the strong will of the leaders of the two countries and the continuation of mutual trust, we seek to open a new chapter of prosperity.

In fact, like true friends, the Chinese are taking sides with the Iranians. Not only the former did provide intelligence to the latter, but now they are also assisting Iran in the economic war waged by the Outlaw US Empire, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian saying that his country “will closely monitor developments and take necessary measures to protect its rights”, adding (source: Al Mayadeen):

Sanctions and pressure tactics do not help to resolve issues.

Nevertheless, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went ahead with his sanction campaign or “Economic D-Day” against Iran, as announced in a press conference earlier today (source: Al Mayadeen - all emphasis mine):

Treasury has issued determinations against five critical sectors -- digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping -- that the Iranian regime uses to try to prop up its failing economy.

Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the US Dollar system. The clock just started ticking.

Every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified. If they do not take action, we will do so unilaterally through Treasury authorities.

No one, including China, is above the reach of US sanctions.

You will see a major financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week over Iran.

Trying to buy Iran’s appeasement will no longer work.

In addition to the new sector designations, the US Treasury Department sanctioned nearly 60 Iran-linked entities, individuals, and vessels across nuclear, missile, cyber, and oil networks, as well as a network of broker companies and so-called shadow fleet vessels operating across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland and Europe, while suspending general licenses that had permitted certain remittance payments to Iran.

And so… here we go again! After sanctioning Iran for decades and Russia for the last ~12 years, now they are imposing new and heavier sanctions on Iran, in the hope that it will cripple the Islamic Republic. Wishful thinking, considering that Russia got stronger and Iran just demonstrated its military capability against USrael. In fact, a senior Iranian political-security source quoted by Al Mayadeen said that the economic pressure plan unveiled today “is essentially media propaganda, part of a psychological campaign against the Iranian people rather than a substantive shift on the ground”.

As Ghalibaf tweeted yesterday in a funny tweet, this economic warfare, if real, will be a very dangerous boomerang for the Outlaw US Empire and it will only hasten de-dollarization! After all, Scott Bessent himself said that anyone supporting Iran “will be removed from the US Dollar system” - you can bet that many in the Global South will be happy to keep supporting Iran and speed up the de-dollarization process, in order to put the final nail in the coffin of the Outlaw US Empire!

Meanwhile, Iran sold a US oil cargo seized in the Persian Gulf in 2023 and used the proceeds to compensate 771 Iranian patients suffering from Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a rare hereditary disease that causes the skin to become fragile and easily injured, as per Mehr and Fars, which quoted Judge Majid Hosseinzadeh as saying:

During the proceedings, it was established that the US Treasury Department, through intimidation and the imposition of severe sanctions, had directly or by blocking financial transactions, prevented pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of specialized dressings from sending medicines and medical supplies to Iran.

This action constitutes a clear violation of the fundamental right to access healthcare and medical treatment, which is recognized as one of the basic principles of human rights.

And this is just the beginning: with many Western tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf, Iran can seize their cargo and compensate thousands of its citizens who have been affected by US sanctions for decades!

By the way, just yesterday the PGSA (Persian Gulf Strait Authority) tweeted that…

Vessels violating Iranian protocols for the #Strait_of_Hormuz shall face restrictions on future passages, including fines, detention, or confiscation.

Prior to chartering, cargo owners shipping to/from the #Persian_Gulf must review the Non-Compliant Vessels (NCV) list at http://pgsa.ir/non-compliant-vessels-list/ in order to avoid potential issues.

…as reported also by IRNA, Fars, Mehr and MES (1 and 2), which also posted part of the non-compliance list, including mostly Emirati or Qatar-owned vessels, with only 20 ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz last weekend (source: Mehr).

Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati was quoted by Al Mayadeen as saying that the Outlaw US Empire “has effectively exhausted the sanctions measures available to it against Tehran, arguing that the latest US threats do not represent a fundamentally new form of economic pressure”, adding that Iranian authorities had taken precautionary measures months in advance, including stockpiling foreign currency, to make sure that there is enough for essential goods and medicines.

Similarly, Mohammad Mokhber, senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei, stated (source: Mehr):

Forty-seven years of [US] hostile policies, including sanctions, war and plots to partition Iran, have not only failed to achieve their objectives, but have now been met with national unity and the Islamic Republic’s deterrence in the Strait of Hormuz.

This strategic defeat is a clear warning against continuing your miscalculations. Iran’s response will be more decisive than ever.

…while UN Secretary-General António Guterres said (source: Al Mayadeen):

The unimpeded exercise of navigational rights and freedoms is a cornerstone of peace, security and shared prosperity, and must be respected. Protecting it is a legal obligation and a humanitarian imperative.

These crises are choking arteries of global trade and squeezing the global food system especially hard.

The result is clear: higher prices, deepening hunger, weaker harvests and greater suffering, especially for the world's most vulnerable people.

Speaking at a ceremony in Tehran today, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian exposed the hypocrisy of “human rights’ advocates” (sources: IRNA and Mehr - emphasis added):

They [those countries who falsely claim to be the supporters of the human rights] have been calling the Islamic Republic of Iran a terrorist and a terrorist sponsor for years, but since the beginning of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, they have assassinated our officials, commanders, and scientists in all periods.

We will overcome the difficulties with the unity and amity between people and governmental officials.

The criminal US government and Israeli regime will never be able to take advantage of the opportunity of sowing seeds of discord and division in the country if we establish unity and amity among ourselves.

On the occasion of the Government Week, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Deputy Chief of the Iranian Army for Coordination, sent a congratulatory message to Pezeshkian stating (sources: IRNA and Mehr):

The “Government Week” is a reminder of the great names who considered serving the people a divine promise and a national mission, the high-ranking martyrs Rajaei and Bahonar, who, with faith, sincerity, and love for the people, left behind a lasting model of statesmanship on the level of the Islamic Revolution.

In this battle waged by US and Israeli against Iran jointly, the martyrdom of two members of the government, former Iran’s Defense Minister Major General Aziz Nasirzadeh, and former Minister of Intelligence Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Esmaeil Khatib added another leaf to the proud book of sacrifice and showed that responsibility in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in times of danger, is not far from the field of struggle and martyrdom.

In these critical conditions, the government is working with all its might alongside the Armed Forces to meet defense requirements, support missions, and continue serving the people.

Relying upon the God Almighty and with the solidarity, unity and amity of the government, Armed Forces, and the noble nation of the Islamic Iran, will continue the path of honor and progress with steadfastness.

…whereas Iran’s Army Chief Commander Major General Amir Hatami warned (sources: IRNA, Fars and Mehr - all emphasis mine):

The enemy must know that Islamic Iran will not be a testing ground for their plots and adventurism; the Armed Forces, relying on faith, experience, readiness and the support of the great Iranian nation, will respond decisively to any aggression and will powerfully defend the country’s independence, territorial integrity and security.

Today's war is a war of wills, thoughts and resilience of nations. After failing to realize their malicious goals, they [enemies] have not stopped plotting and orchestrating new threats against the country. Therefore, we always monitor the enemy's short-, mid- and long-term movements and are ready to deal with any scenario of the enemy with all might and power.

Any measure that helps enhance the peace of mind, motivation and sense of security of personnel and their families is, in fact, an investment in strengthening the country’s defensive power.

We must thwart the enemy and make the bitterness of failure so strong for the enemy that it understands Iran is not a place where someone can come from the other side of the world and say, “I will change the map of the country”; we will fight for 10 generations, 20 generations, and we will certainly not allow this to happen; the only way is to make the enemy understand through the language of force that it cannot do what it wants.

On the other hand, IRGC5 spokesperson Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi stated that Iran maintains surveillance edge, rejecting recent US claims over the Strait of Hormuz (sources: Al Mayadeen, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

Even members of Trump’s own administration have not taken his words seriously. These claims are unacceptable on the global stage as well.

The IRGC’s surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities cannot be confined to the radars known to the enemy.

[IRGC’s monitoring capabilities] do not rely on satellites, as the Americans believe; rather, there are other surveillance methods that the opposing side may not yet be capable of detecting.

If the Islamic Republic did not have a discerning eye capable of monitoring maritime movements, how could it accurately strike specific targets at sensitive points on vessels?

In reality, we have blinded the enemy’s eyes in the region and targeted its radars and electro-optical networks.

Destroying a number of radars known to Iran means eliminating the Islamic Republic’s surveillance capabilities […] is far from reality.

When a missile hits the sensitive point of a ship or its engine room and the vessel stops moving, this demonstrates intelligence dominance and precise target identification capability.

In the vast expanse of the Persian Gulf, even in the darkness of the night, when a missile hits its target with precision, it is clear that intelligence and operational dominance stands behind the operation.

The outcome of the operations and the precision of the strikes themselves demonstrate the extent of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s intelligence coverage.

Before the war, at least 30 to 40 US warships were present in the Persian Gulf, but today not even a single American warship is in the Persian Gulf. US military assets are currently positioned at least about 400 kilometers away from the Strait of Hormuz.

Our readiness is 100%, and no disruption has ever occurred in the readiness of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The field conditions and what is observed in the region today differ from the claims of the other side.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Iraq proposed a a joint security council with Iran and KSA, as reported by Mehr, citing Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji, however no immediate comment has come yet from either Iran or KSA.

News and updates from Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon

Moving on, Al Mayadeen, citing Axios, has reported that Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani recently held a high-level meeting with Israeli Mossad chief Roman Gofman in an attempt to ease tensions between the two countries.

In a separate article, Al Mayadeen reported on another high-level meeting between a Syrian delegation led by Asaad al-Shaibani, including the heads of Syria's general and military intelligence services, and a senior Israeli delegation in Jordan yesterday. According to a source quoted by Al Mayadeen, the talks “aimed at bringing closer the viewpoints between Turkiye and Israel and ensuring the current tension between the two countries are not reflected on Syria territory”. Apparently the two sides discussed the possibility of “establishing ‘a special operations room’ in Jordan, under US supervision, for field-level coordination to prevent any military confrontation between ‘Israel’ and either Syria or Turkiye inside Syrian territory”.

Nevertheless, Israeli forces continue encroaching in Syria and advancing into the village of Maariya in the western countryside of Daraa, as per Al Mayadeen, which - in a separate article - reported on the life-imprisonment sentence given to former Syrian Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, charged with “inciting violence, armed conflict, justifying killing, and exploiting his position”.

Moving briefly to Lebanon, today Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) has continued its attacks on the south of the country, with explosions, artillery shelling and airstrikes on Kfar Tebnit, al-Mansouri, Wadi al-Salouqi, Majdal Zoun, Haddatha, Ali al-Taher, al-Dabsha and al-Qusayr, as reported by Al Mayadeen.

Hasan Ezzeddine, member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, accused Lebanese authorities of being “complicit in the bloodshed” and “abandoning the country’s national priorities and legitimizing continued Israeli occupation through the recently signed framework agreement”, as per Al Manar.

News and updates from Yemen

Moving to Yemen, earlier today Saudi-backed forces shelled residential villages in Razih District, Saada Governorate, northern Yemen (source: Al Mayadeen), while the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) struck the Saudi oil tanker Amzan in the northern Red Sea, ~3 nautical miles (i.e. ~117 km) west of Yanbu (KSA), sparking a large fire onboard, as reported by Al Mayadeen, Mehr and MES, citing UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations). The ballistic missile attack was later confirmed in a statement issued by the YAF and quoted by Al Mayadeen, Saba, IRNA, Mehr and Fotros Resistance (1 and 2), which also reported other Yemeni missile and drone attacks targeting a weapons depot in the vicinity of the Al-Udaida border crossing in northern Yemen and a large military convoy carrying weapons from Saudi Arabia in Al-Abra and Al-Udaida (the video below has no sound):

Yemeni Defense Minister Major General Mohammed al-Atifi and Chief of the General Staff Major General Youssef al-Madan were quoted by Al Mayadeen as saying that “Yemen's military operations have moved beyond defensive measures and entered a phase of preemptive offensives”, while Abdulwahid Abu Ras, Yemeni Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, warned regional countries against making themselves participating in the unjust US measures against Iran, as per Saba.

I will conclude this article with the following caricature by Kamal Sharaf from Cartoon Network:

P.S.: Just before publishing, MES reported that the US Treasury Department…

has not implemented any new sanctions against Iran yet, saying that today served as a “final warning”.

When asked why secondary sanctions haven’t been imposed on countries like China, Bessent answered: “We don’t want to mess up the world economy”.

The usual American clowns! 🤡

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Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923–1969), recognised as one of the ideologues of the 1979 Revolution and a leading figure in the opposition to the Pahlavi monarchy, introduced the concept of Gharbzādegi in his most famous work, published in 1962 but immediately censored.

Gharbzādegi (zadegi means “afflicted by”; Gharb means “West”) can be translated as “Westernisation” or “intoxication/infatuation with the West”, a sort of pathological condition which Al-e Ahmad compared to “wheat disease”, a blight that affects the ear of wheat and hollows it out from within, whilst leaving it appearing healthy on the outside. Gharbzādegi is therefore a syndrome consisting of being afflicted by the disease of the West. A second edition of Al-e Ahmadì’s work, published in 1968, met with enormous success for its analysis of the impact of modernisation and cultural colonialism on Iranian society, attracting the interest of the Shia clergy and becoming central to the Iranian anti-imperialist debate.

The essay levels a fierce critique at the Shah and Iranian society of the time, accusing them of aping Western customs in a sort of alienation of identity, in the belief that their own traditions were backward and that economic dependence stemmed from them. The loss of identity and the abandonment of local cultures, customs and industries were, in fact, producing passive consumers of Western products, technologies and rhetoric, and Jalal viewed all this as a “geopolitical machine” that exploited developing countries. As a remedy for this situation of cultural subordination, caused by the imposition of a form of modernisation incompatible with the Iranian reality, Jalal proposed a model based on Iranian traditions and cultural values recognisable within Shia Islam; he celebrated the Muslim faith not so much for its spiritual dimension as for the revolutionary vocation inherent in Shia doctrine, arguing that this doctrine could be used to counterbalance Iran’s reckless industrialisation and to rouse the masses against Western interference.

As a metaphor for the uncritical acceptance of foreign values and models, Jalal compared the attitude of Iranian society to that of a crow fascinated by the partridge’s elegant gait: the crow may try in every way to imitate the partridge, but it will not succeed and will remain a ridiculous caricature.

To better understand the author and his links with Marxism, let us trace his life story: Jalal Al-e Ahmad was born into a wealthy and religious family. His grandfather, father and elder brother were members of the Shia clergy. In 1932, a royal decree stripped the mullahs of their legal and notarial authority, and Jalal was forced to work as a watch repairer in the bazaar. He attended evening classes and obtained his school-leaving certificate in 1943. In the same year, on his father’s orders, he travelled to Najaf and Karbala to study theology. But after just three months, he abandoned his studies, describing them as a “premeditated trap” set by his father. This led to a break with his family and with religious values.

In 1944, he joined the Tudeh (Iranian Communist Party), embracing revolutionary Leninist ideology. In just four years, he became a member of the Central Committee, a delegate to the National Congress and director of the Party’s publishing house, through which he published his first collections of short stories. In 1947, he qualified as a teacher and accepted the post of headteacher at a primary school in northern Iran. This experience formed the basis of his famous novel “Modire madrese” (Headmaster), one of the most important works of contemporary Iranian literature. 1947 also marked his break with the Tudeh Party, which he criticised for its “Stalinist dogmatism”. Together with other dissidents, he formed Hezb-e Zahmatkeshan-e Mellat-e Iran (Iranian Workers’ Party) and later Niruy-e Sevvom (Third Force). He abandoned political activism entirely in 1953, shortly before the coup that would restore Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne.

Between 1947 and 1951, he translated works by Camus, Sartre, Gide, Ionesco and Dostoevsky (The Gambler). During the decade from 1953 to 1963, he conducted ethnographic research in the villages of Takistan and Aurazan (his grandfather’s home village in northern Iran) and on the island of Kharg, environments that brought him into contact with the peasant underclass, a world now lost yet, at the same time, still “superior”. All these experiences were of great importance in understanding Jalal’s “return to Islam”. In 1961, he published the novel “Nun va ’l qalam”, an allegory of the failure of the left in Iranian politics. At the same time, he circulated the first edition of Gharbzādegi clandestinely.

Whilst in Gharbzādegi he had, in fact, rejected the attitude of the Shia clergy, guilty of “withdrawing into its shell, lost in the abyss of tradition”, Al-e Ahmad subsequently became convinced that only Shia Islam, as an ideology rooted in Iranian tradition, could serve as the antidote to the disease of Westernisation. This Shi’ite messianism, steeped in Marxism, could be the only ideology genuinely capable of mobilising the masses towards revolution and social emancipation. Where communism had failed, Shi’ite unity might triumph. A “return to Islam” that is the outcome of a materialist analysis of history, the result of a Marxist education, and the only viable path towards Iran’s independence and progress.

Jalal Al-e Ahmad found in the writings of Antonio Gramsci1, particularly in the “Prison Notebooks”, a fundamental tool for understanding the society of his country. In his essay Dar Khedmat va Khiānat-e Rowshanfekrān (“On the Service and Betrayal of Intellectuals”), he drew on Gramsci’s concept of the “organic intellectual” specifically to analyse the role of the Shia clergy.

Jalal died of a heart attack on 9th September 1969, at his home in Asalem in the Gīlān region, and was unable to witness the 1979 revolution, to which he had made a fundamental ideological contribution. Many have put forward the theory that he was assassinated by SAVAK, the secret police of the Pahlavi regime.

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Let’s start this article with a bombshell: Iran has received an invitation to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) signed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Turkey and Pakistan exactly two weeks ago. It is true! Middle East Spectator (MES) reported it overnight, citing Al Mayadeen and the head of Iranian Parliament’s news agency, Mehdi Rahimi. Interestingly, I could not find this story anywhere on the English version of Al Mayadeen website, though there is a tweet by Al Mayadeen Español on this. Hence, I investigated further and I found it on the Arabic version of Al Mayadeen, which quoted Mehdi Rahimi as saying (all emphasis mine):

The Americans have noticed that the military path against Iran will not lead to any results.

Whoever provides support to the United States in the economic war it is waging against Iran will pay the price.

The recent war with Iran proved to everyone that America has destabilized the security of the countries of the region instead of its promises to provide it with a security umbrella.

Iran has received an invitation to join the Mecca Agreement and the matter is under study. [Link to this specific line (in Arabic)]

An agreement is close to being reached between Iran and the Sultanate of Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz.

The countries of the region are moving to search for a regional security umbrella, and this is a victory for Iran because it has been calling for this for a long time.

So, Iran is currently considering the matter, but just the fact that Iran has been invited to join the MJDA is already groundbreaking in my opinion, considering that the three country in the defence pact are Sunni while Iran is Shia, not to mention the fact that KSA and Iran were sworn enemies until ~3.5 years ago, when, in March 2023, the two countries normalized relations thanks to the mediation of China - see Al Mayadeen (1, 2 and 3). Interestingly, not many news agencies or media have picked this up, though The Jerusalem Post did, indicating Israelis are aware of it and most likely seriously concerned by this development, since such an Islamic defence pact could put the existence of the Zionist entity at risk! Unless this is a convoluted trap by the Anglo-Zionists, but I do not think so, given that the news item is going mostly unreported on Western mainstream media (MSM).

What is interesting is that last night (Saturday 22nd August 2026) Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a phone conversation with Field Marshal Asim Munir, Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, allegedly to review “the latest regional developments”, discuss “various dimensions of the current situation” and exchanging “views on diplomatic trends, ongoing efforts to advance political and diplomatic solutions, and ways to enhance bilateral consultations and cooperation”, as per IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr. Coincidence? I do not think so! Especially if you consider that tomorrow (Monday 24th August 2026) Asim Munir will travel to Tehran at the head of an official delegation, to talk with senior Iranian officials and strengthen bilateral Tehran-Islamabad cooperation, as announced today (Sunday 23rd August 2026) by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars, Tasnim and Mehr).

By the way, the following tweet by Mikhail Ulyanov, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, is noteworthy as well (see also Al Mayadeen) and indicates that Russia may have given its blessing to a new Islamic alliance in the region:

It is also worth mentioning that the contract for the construction of a new rail link between Khavaran (Iran) and Cheshmeh Soraya (Turkey) will be signed soon, as reported by Tasnim, highlighting the good relations between the two countries that may soon be part of the same defense agreement.

For some reason, tonight MES posted a note saying that “reports of Iran being invited to the Mecca Defense Pact are very probably false”, though no explanation is provided. I must say that, until now, no official in any of the 4 countries involved (Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and KSA) has confirmed the report, but it is very unlikely that they will until they are very close to the signature of a new defense agreement, in my opinion. So, we will have to wait and see how things develop tomorrow, with Asim Munir’s visit in Tehran and then over the next few days, weeks or even months. For now, let’s move on to other news…

Speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony renewing allegiance to the ideals of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, held at his mausoleum today, on the first day of Government Week, Araghchi slammed the not-so-new economic warfare waged by the Outlaw US Empire1 against his country (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars and Tasnim - all emphasis added):

It is a repetitive film that they are showing again, and we know it by heart and know how to confront and deal with it.

They have run out of ideas for dealing with the great Iranian nation and keep bringing the same repetitive plans back onto the stage.

The fact that they have once again resorted to their old plans after military operations and threats to strike and do this and that shows that they are desperate.

They should know that there is no way except speaking respectfully with the Iranian people and finding a solution based on justice and dignity. The Iranian nation responds to the language of dignity and respect.

All their moves, whether the blockade or other military actions they have taken, have failed, and this new move will also fail.

We have never been afraid.

Of course, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other members of his administration renewed their allegiance to Khomeini’s ideals too, as reported by Al Mayadeen, IRNA (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), Fars, Tasnim and Mehr, which quoted Pezeshkian as saying (all emphasis mine):

Although we are ashamed of the existing hardships and problems, by following the example of our precious martyrs and relying on the unparalleled resilience of the people, we have stood firm against this unequal war.

Today we are facing the most crushing and terrifying sanctions, yet we stand firm and strive to serve the people in the face of this unequal war.

In the process that has unfolded, despite the pressures applied, we did not encounter the problems the enemy expected in areas such as the supply of gasoline, goods and foodstuffs, roads, water, and the management of the country’s affairs.

The enemies imagined that with their pressure and actions Iran would collapse. Not only did this not happen, but the power and unity of the Iranian nation amazed the world.

Our dear people truly performed a miracle.

The enemy has now pinned all its hopes on creating problems in order to sow division and rifts in society; we will strive with all our might to counter that.

Iran does not need advice and admonition; it needs everyone who can enter the field, help and shoulder the burden.

An all-out war is not merely the firing of missiles.

Speaking to reporters today, Baghaei slammed the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from France in response to Iran declaring two French diplomats “persona non grata”, after getting caught at a secret meeting point and plotting foreign infiltration and interference (see my previous reports here and here). Here is what Baghaei said (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

As soon as we felt that the French embassy was acting beyond its responsibilities, we took action and announced that two French diplomats must leave Iran and would not be allowed to return.

The French action is not justifiable, and such measures will be destructive to the continuation of relations between Iran and France.

Relations between countries, including with France, should be based on mutual respect and compliance with all rules and regulations of international law, including the prohibition of interference in the internal affairs of countries.

My suggestion to Iranians: kick all the French “diplomats”/spies out as you did with the Americans in 1979 (Islamic Revolution). Enough is enough!

Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi also addressed France, as well as UK, in the following tweet, exposing their hypocrisy with regards to the Palestinian problem (see IRNA, Fars and Mehr - emphasis mine):

More than a hundred seasoned British and French diplomats warned their governments that the Zionist regime's policy is heading toward “ethnic cleansing” and “the erasure of Palestine”. They called for concrete action by London and Paris to halt arms transfers, ban trade with settlements, and implement the decisions of the Hague courts.

London and Paris should not hide behind the phrase “expressing concern” from this situation; continuing to send weapons and providing any kind of support to the regime is a deliberate choice for collaboration and participation in the commission of crimes by the Zionist regime.

By the way, today the Iranian Parliament reviewed proposed amendments to Article 2 of a 33-article bill aimed at countering infiltration by foreign intelligence services, governments and other external entities, as per IRNA, while the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran’s Parliament approved the commission’s work on Article 3 of the “Strategic Action Plan to Ensure Security and Progress in the Strait of Hormuz”, as announced by Hassan Qashqavi (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA and Mehr):

Based on this article, a fee will be charged for services including maritime services, environmental services, fueling in special conditions, insurance, safety, and other services that we provide.

These fees will be collected from ships of countries authorized to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, in rials or any other currency desired by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

We should not forget that in addition to the recognition of freedom of navigation in international laws and regulations, respect for the security of littoral countries and their sovereignty and prevention of violations of these rights have also been emphasized.

The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz have their own rules and conditions, and in this regard, after accepting the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea, Oman immediately issued a political declaration emphasizing that the provisions of this convention should not violate its national sovereignty and national security.

On a side note, it is worth reporting that Iran recently discovered major new hydrocarbon reserves in southern Fars province (7.5 trillion cubic feet of gas, of which 5.7 trillion are estimated to be recoverable, equivalent to ~15 years of production from phase one of the South Pars gas field), as announced by Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad earlier today (sources: IRNA and Mehr). On the other hand, Qatar has had to reduce government spending and scaled back its overseas aid commitments due to the consequences of the USraeli war against Iran and the selective closure of the Strait of Hormuz on its LNG2 exports, as per Al Mayadeen, which also reported that the “International Monetary Fund expects Qatar's gross domestic product to contract by 8.6% this year, the sharpest decline projected among the six Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] States”, with Tarik Yousef, a senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, stating:

The authorities have managed the crisis effectively, but the hit has been massive. They have been drawing on accumulated financial buffers to keep the economy going and maintain liquidity. But ultimately, that leaves a substantial hole in the budget.

…whereas a Qatari official was quoted as saying:

Qatar is well-equipped to navigate the economic situation in the region. Our resilience through past crises, including the GCC crisis [the embargo] and Covid-19, gives us the capacity to weather the current one without changing our long-term economic trajectory.

Speaking of economy, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted the following tweet on X mocking the US economic warfare launched against Iran (see also IRNA and Mehr):

We must admit that Iranians have become very good at (memes) humiliating the US!

In an interview with IRNA this morning, Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, spokesperson of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that recent “wars have strengthened national unity and created greater geopolitical awareness among Iranians”, with particular reference to the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz, adding that “cooperation between the government and Armed Forces remains strong”. He also praised the recent appointments of senior military commanders (see my article here) and added that “the recent merger of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters with the General Staff of the Armed Forces was aimed at streamlining command structures, accelerating decision-making and improving coordination”, describing “unified command and faster responses to emerging threats as important advantages of the restructuring”.

In a message today IRGC3 Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmaeil Qa’ani touched upon the Palestinian cause (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Fars, Tasnim, Mehr and RNN Mirror - all emphasis added):

The cause of Palestine, from the sea to the river, has become more vibrant and achievable than ever before.

The expansion of settlements and the crimes of the Zionists are an attempt to escape from the deep military, security, political, and social crisis and quagmire in the occupied territories, and they cannot conceal their strategic failures from 7th October [2023] until now.

Palestine is a living, steadfast cause that does not change; it is a cause that will remain firmly rooted, with the help of Allah, until the victory of truth is achieved.

I also believe that the Palestinian cause has become more achievable than ever before, considering the defeat of USrael at the hand of Iran in the past battles, but the war, despite the current lull, has not ended and the road ahead is uphill, though the journey may become easier if all Muslims band together against the Zionist entity.

On occasion of National Doctors’ Day, commemorating the birth anniversary of Avicenna, the renowned Iranian physician and father of modern medicine, today Major General Ali Abdollahi, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, sent a message congratulating physicians, pharmacists and other healthcare workers (sources: IRNA and Mehr):

Undoubtedly, the tireless and selfless efforts of doctors, nurses, and the medical staff of the armed forces during the 12-Day War and the Ramadan War demonstrate the highest degrees of loyalty to the homeland and the ideals of the revolution, deserving the utmost appreciation and respect.

Iran’s Acting Defense Minister Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Ibn al-Reza responded very simply and shortly to US President Donald Trump’s recent territorial claim over the Strait of Hormuz (see my previous article) and he also expressed hope that Iran would overcome the current situation (sources: IRNA and Fars):

Trump talks too much nonsense and rubbish.

We rely on the Iranian youth and Iranian knowledge, and God willing, may God help us overcome this issue.

In separate meetings with parliamentary commissions on agriculture, environment, and planning and budget, Majid Ibn al-Reza described the recent war as “one of the most unprecedented in history from various aspects” and “the first large-scale missile war, the first large-scale drone war”, as per IRNA, which quoted him as saying (emphasis mine):

The enemy entered the field with a combined pattern, using cyber tools, military forces, proxy forces and counter-revolutionary elements, employing all its capabilities.

Some weapons were used for the first time, and even some bombs were specifically manufactured for use against Iran.

In different waves of attacks, we operated differently and more effectively than before in terms of technology and performance.

Production of defense products did not stop; in some areas, we saw a two- to several-fold growth. Our movement will be toward maximum use of national capacity.

Spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik was quoted by IRNA as saying that “the Iranian nation and its Armed Forces have enough experience and capability to withstand and overcome any crisis resulting from military aggression”.

Finally, IRGC Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Mohsen Mohebbi addressed Trump directly at a press conference in the northern province of Alborz (sources: Al Mayadeen, IRNA, Tasnim and Mehr - all emphasis added):

If you had succeeded on the military front, there would have been no need for all this economic uproar. Is economic war a new thing? No, you have been waging an economic war for 47 years and have sanctioned all of our economic sectors. The enemy's current job is only to raise awareness and strengthen faith in the [Iranian] people.

We have repeatedly announced that we have a scenario for every hostile action by the enemy. One of the enemy's hostile actions is economic war. We have a scenario to repel the adverse effects of the enemy's war and easily establish economic relations with countries; there is no concern in the economic field. We have economic interactions under just in proximity of America, we are bypassing America and you will see the result in the near future.

In other related news:

• shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has declined significantly, with limited numbers of vessels crossing in both directions, due to the risk of naval mines in the area, as reported by Al Mayadeen, citing the UK Maritime Authority;

• Iran’s judiciary executed Majid Adineh, “convicted of carrying out sabotage and other security-related crimes on behalf of the US, the Zionist regime and hostile groups during January riots”, as per Tasnim.

News and updates from Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Iraq

Moving briefly to Lebanon, last night Little Satan (a.k.a. Israel) is still pounding the south of the country with impunity. Overnight, the IDF (Israel “Defense” Forces) struck the Ali al-Taher heights and its surroundings, the Dbasha heights near Kfar Rouman and the town of al-Mansouri with strikes and shells, while two demolitions were carried out in the towns of Haddatha and Taybeh, as per Al Mayadeen, which also reported on additional demolitions and arson today in the towns of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Kawnine, as well as on the outskirts of al-Mansouri. As if the above was not enough, the Israeli devils are also looting trees!

Meanwhile, the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli security official, reported that Israel keeps secret communication channels with Turkey to prevent incidents and direct friction between the two sides in Syria, as per Al Mayadeen, which also quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani as saying:

We believe there should be contact, especially with a party that constantly threatens the security of Syria. But if this contact doesn’t bring results, then we don’t need it. We do not trust Israel currently.

Israel has tried to maintain its security through brute force and it hasn’t succeeded. I believe negotiations will resume soon.

The US is trying continuously to put pressure on Israel to return to the dialogue table.

Syria is extending its hand for understandings, for peace, for diplomacy.

We did not see they had the real will to reach an agreement.

[The priority is to] stop Israeli aggression even before reaching a security agreement. Then perhaps we can open the topics of peace and the Golan.

Moving briefly to Iraq, Al Mayadeen has reported that its “Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) repelled an armed attack by ISIS4 militants targeting one of its positions in Tuz Khurmatu district in eastern Salah al-Din province” earlier today, while PMF head Faleh al-Fayyadh met an Iranian delegation, sent by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei and visiting Iraq to thank the government and people for their participation in the funeral ceremonies for the martyred Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei (source: IRNA).

News and updates from Yemen

Finally, moving to Yemen, the YAF (Yemeni Armed Forces) downed a Saudi ScanEagle reconnaissance drone violating Yemeni airspace over the northwestern province of Hajjah, as reported by Saba and Al Mayadeen, quoting a Yemeni military source. Expect a Yemeni retaliation on Saudi oil facilities within the next few hours/days!

For a change, I will conclude this article with the following video by Xinhua News Agency making fun of the $40 trillion US federal public debt:

It’s nice to see the Chinese joining Iran’s AI meme war against the Outlaw US Empire!

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“We are talking about a tiny group of extremely motivated people, whose motives are not entirely clear, but are sinister or malicious. They are trying to provoke a war between Russia and America”.

With these words, America’s most famous journalist, Tucker Carlson, seeks to explain that there is no mass demand, let alone a public movement, for war against Russia in his country. Yet these individuals are part of the elite. But to what end? He himself cannot fathom it.

Carlson is a religious man, and his pacifist stance is largely dictated by this. But for the very same reason, he believes that in politics there exists evil for its own sake: veritable demons whose task is to lead humanity to the apocalypse. Practice, however, shows that things are more complex.

This “tiny group” was once a powerful clique: the war against Russia, within the US government, was regarded by many as a mission and a necessity. The period of their greatest activity spanned from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the Nixon era. Before 1941, those who would later become Russophobes advocated American non-involvement in European wars. Information on their activities over the last fifty years is scarce, as the declassification of US confidential documents will not take place for another half-century.

From some of these special documents, the world has learnt of a CIA meeting, attended by President Kennedy, at which the following plan was discussed: to hijack a Soviet bomber, use it to attack an Allied base in Europe, blame the Russians, start a war, win it and profit from it. Kennedy refused, and subsequently such meetings were kept to a minimum due to the concept of mutual assured destruction: once Moscow acquired reliable means of delivering nuclear weapons, war against Russia was no longer considered a plausible scenario, and the superpowers moved towards “détente”.

However, had Kennedy listened more to Air Force Chief Curtis LeMay than to his own heart, or to his brother, the history of humanity would have come to an end. A missile attack on the USSR, whether during the Cuban Missile Crisis or before, was LeMay’s obsession, his professional trauma. He was responsible for the bombing of Japan and coined the phrase “bomb them back to the Stone Age”. Admittedly, this phrase was uttered in reference to Vietnam, but the US Air Force chief held the same attitude towards the Soviet Union and argued that war should have been started while it was still possible to win it.

Among these fervent Russophobes within the American elite were many career military officers, ranging from General Patton – who proposed deploying regiments to Moscow as early as the spring of 1945 – to John McCain. However, not all were military personnel, nor even the majority: it was a diverse group. Their typical profile was white, Republican and, in keeping with the spirit of the times, racist.

As for their motivations, the Russophobes of those years can be divided into two groups: some emphasised the political-military aspect, others the spiritual one, but both placed the emphasis on communism. Strictly speaking, they were more anti-Soviet than Russophobic, but over time, in the United States, the terms “Russian” and “communist” became interchangeable synonyms.

The former perceived the Soviet Union as a permanent threat capable of subjugating America, conquering it or destroying it from within through its agents. More precisely, it could not do so, but it certainly would have done so, due to the innate malice of the communists and their desire for world revolution.

For the latter, the atheistic nature of the USSR was of paramount importance. This is precisely what Ronald Reagan meant when he spoke of the “evil empire”, and he said so during a conference of evangelicals. Conservative Protestant pastors taught that the Soviet Union denied God because it was the devil’s realm, and that defeating it was the duty of true Christians. In other words, the political agenda was steeped in religious fervour and the sincere conviction that the United States could under no circumstances lose a war against the Soviets; God would not allow it.

Both of these concepts of pre-emptive war are now irrelevant, or at least irrelevant to Russia, which is no longer a communist or atheist country. Thanks to nuclear deterrence, the collapse of the USSR and a brief period of hypocritical “friendship” with Moscow, the herd of brazen Russophobes in America has dwindled. Tucker Carlson, who knows his country’s history well, is genuinely perplexed: where are these people coming from now, and what motivates those who desire war against Russia, accompanied by a nuclear apocalypse?

To answer this question, one must understand not only the United States, but also Ukraine. It is important to reconcile the statements of the most aggressive American hawks with the confusion reigning in the minds of Ukrainians, and Tucker Carlson is unlikely to know any more about those regions than what Vladimir Putin told him during a half-hour lesson on the history of Rus’.

Above all, it is the Ukrainians who want a war between the United States and Russia. It is their dream, their conscious objective and, from their point of view, a rational geopolitical choice. They cannot win a protracted military conflict with Russia due to the disparity in capabilities, but in a war between Russia and NATO, even a nuclear one, they would stand a chance. There is little hope for the European Union in this regard: it lacks the necessary power and is too slow-moving an organisation, which is why they have stirred up the Americans.

Even Joe Biden, when he mistook his sister for his wife and waved at thin air, realised that Volodymyr Zelensky was trying to drag the United States into war. At least, that is what people close to the former president have testified. Biden, however, wanted to defeat Russia indirectly. This, too, is stupidity and malice, but of a different kind from unleashing the Third World War. But there are others in the United States who are driving this: that very same “tiny group of motivated people”. What’s more, they are not motivated by evil for its own sake, nor by the dark side of the force, but by that banal reason that often goes unnoticed when discussing evil as an end in itself: money.

Ukraine’s active supporters, who are pushing the United States from within towards large-scale involvement in the conflict, are mostly lobbyists for energy and arms companies. They have already reaped enormous profits from the war and, as the conflict escalates, they will earn even more. As Raja said in the animated film “The Golden Antelope” (from the Soviet era, ed.), you can never have too much of it. However, commercial cynicism does not envisage a Third World War, as a nuclear winter would devalue traditional means of accumulation. Nevertheless, the military-industrial complex’s clientele in the US Senate truly believes in what LeMay believed: that the United States will win a war against Russia with minimal losses. To avoid alarming the right-thinking public, these fanatics do not call for a direct attack on Russia, but they are moving towards that logic, and the arguments they use are easily recognisable. These are Ukrainian arguments, the very same ones our neighbours have been feeding on for over 30 years. Even the jokes are often the same.

It is difficult to persuade a company with shareholders, boards of directors and a focus on profit to invest in a project as risky as a war between nuclear superpowers. But for individual senators… it is possible. They are often more foolish than the Ukrainians themselves; they love to line their pockets from multiple sources and devoutly believe in propaganda tropes such as: “Russian intercontinental missiles are rusty and won’t fly”, “the Russian economy will collapse in three days” and “all Russians are Finno-Ugric alcoholics fighting with Soviet atlases”.

It is hardly surprising that some American senators parrot the words of the “kobzars” (Ukrainian minstrels – ed.) in Kiev. The Ukrainians knew exactly who to share Biden’s funds with to speed up the Third World War: this “tiny group” is not hidden away in classified documents. A typical example is the recently deceased Lindsey Graham1, whom everyone knew to be a Russophobe and a hawk, but not for religious reasons, or out of fear of communists, but rather because he was in the service of the South Carolina military-industrial complex. No evil for evil’s sake, just a normal job. And the Ukrainian elites, too, are perfectly ordinary people with the understandable motivation of “you’ll die today, I’ll die tomorrow”. And if they were devils, so much the better.

We are Russians. God is with us.

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