'USA badly stuck, Iran playing cards well': Major Gen G.D. Bakshi on West Asia conflict (IANS Interview) #USA #Iran #MajorGenGDBakshi #WestAsia #IANSInterview #socialnewsxyz

https://www.socialnews.xyz/2026/03/26/usa-badly-stuck-iran-playing-cards-well-major-gen-g-d-bakshi-on-west-asia-conflict-ians-interview/

PM Modi to interact with Chief Ministers on West Asia crisis tomorrow #PMModi #ChiefMinisters #WestAsia #socialnewsxyz

https://www.socialnews.xyz/2026/03/26/pm-modi-to-interact-with-chief-ministers-on-west-asia-crisis-tomorrow/

Some relevant #news #headlines 👇🏽

📢 Egyptian delegation in #beirut consults H3zb0llah on de-escalation proposals

📢 #egypt FM heads to Beirut with #aid reaffirms support for #lebanon amid crisis

📢 Iranian strikes force #US troops out of bases across #westasia

📢 #gulf states have distanced themselves from alleged US- #iran mediation efforts - #qatar

📢 #uganda military chief says country would join #war if Israel faces defeat

📢 #italy turns to #algeria to boost gas supplies #africa

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Israel used white phosphorus to scorch earth in south Lebanon, researcher says
Human Rights Watch and others say they have documented use of weapon in civilian areas during war on Gaza
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/25/israel-white-phosphorus-south-lebanon-researchers

from #TheGuardian

March 25, 2026

When the M825-series 155mm artillery projectile bursts, expelling its felt wedges containing #WhitePhosphorus, it leaves a distinctive knuckle-shaped plume. That is how #HumanRightsWatch (HRW) researchers said they were able to verify that #Israel was again using the notorious weapon over south #Lebanon, reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war.

The New York-based rights group said it had verified and geolocated eight images showing airburst white phosphorus munitions exploding over residential areas in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor in the opening days of Israel’s assault during the #war on Gaza.

#news #politics #MiddleEast #WestAsia

Structures of the Imperialist Assault on Iran

After the martyrdom of Hajj Qassem Soleimani in 2020, an Iranian cleric made a tongue in cheek remark that Iranians would need to kill Spongebob in order to achieve an equal revenge for the brutal murder of one of the main architects of the entire Axis of Resistance’s military capabilities. The comment, now in the light of the assassination of Seyyed Ali Khamenei, rings true beyond its memetic qualities. The leaders in Iran are statesmen, religious leaders, and scholars, the stature of which do not exist in the United States; Ali Larijani, for example, had written four books on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. All of these leaders, who have refused the safety of bunkers and special treatment, suffer the same fate as their people.

The skies over Tehran were black with poisonous fumes from the joint American-Zionist attacks on Iran’s oil facilities, signaling that the imperialists have entered a qualitatively new stage in their brutality. If the bombing murder of more than 150 little girls in Minab was not enough to whet their appetite for destruction, the gassing of an entire city certainly makes sense by their logic. No longer are we hearing refrains of ‘save Iranian women’ or ‘regime change’; the only refrain that remains is ‘exterminate the brutes’. Yet, for anyone with clear vision and a mind which is not colonized and owned by Zionist television media, it is clear that Iran–despite the catastrophic loss of civilian life–have military capabilities which were vastly underestimated by the imperialists, and has carefully selected their targets in order to inflict the most damage to imperialist interests in West Asia. Americans don’t have heroes, all that’s left are brands, the image of toughness and worse yet they wear their strategic interests on their sleeve. Because the Iranians understand this, they know exactly which brands to tarnish and which strategic interests to hit with their advanced missile arsenal. This essay does not seek to be the most updated or real-time analysis, because in such a fast-paced war that would be a Herculean task, but rather this essay seeks to understand how Iran has been able to build deterrence, maintain its structure of alliances, and to provide an antidote for any defeatist thought which lingers.

While the American, Zionist-owned news media tries to tell us that Iran is sending missiles willy-nilly into the Gulf states and Occupied Palestine, the reality is much more clear for those with eyes to see it. Even supposedly left-of-center outlets like Mehdi Hassan’s “Zeteo” news agency entertain analysis which uncritically talks of Iran sending missiles to the Gulf states, without mentioning that they are US military installations which are hit. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, among others in the West, has expressed ‘solidarity’ with the Gulf monarchies. In a joint European Union – Gulf Cooperation Council (EU-GCC) statement, Iran’s attacks are seen as ‘unjustifiable’:

“The Ministers strongly condemned the unjustifiable Iranian attacks against the GCC countries which threaten regional and global security and called on Iran to cease immediately its attacks…”

As early as 400 BCE, Sun Tzu put what the Iranians are currently doing into words: “…what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy”. The GCC countries are the backbone of petrodollar recycling schemes where US dollars used to buy oil are recycled back into the US economy in the form of government bonds and investment in military and tech companies which then allows the Federal Reserve to continue printing away our purchasing power at home. What’s more, these sclerotic monarchies are also the rear guard for the Zionist colony; in the politico-military realm, they host American military bases and economically the Abraham accords have facilitated large volumes of trade between the GCC and the Zionist colony. Socioculturally, cities like Dubai serve as an ideological mirage which allows the average stone-faced blue light victim in America to view it as a haven of hotels, casinos, complete with lurid orientalist fantasies about the women ‘available’ there. This aura of safety, insulation from the supposed ‘savagery’ of the rest of West Asia, and bubble of Western consumption habits is all but gone due to the Iranian precision missile strikes. Of vital importance to the entire imperialist strategy, as I have mentioned in previous articles, is the tech economy, particularly data centers. So when we see the Iranians hit two Amazon Web Services data centers in the Gulf, it is not an attack on civilian infrastructure, rather it is an attack on a nerve center of the entire imperialist economy and network infrastructure. As for the Iranian missiles hitting the Zionist colony, these too have destroyed the facade of “Israeli” invincibility and the entire Zionist security doctrine. Military bases, radar stations, air and naval bases, command and control centers, as well as economic interests such as the Tel Aviv diamond district have been hit with Qadr, Khoramshahr, and Khaibar Shekan missiles. So when Kallas and other American lackeys declare their ‘solidarity’ with the GCC countries and “Israel”, it is because they know that the Iranian strategy is effective, and is actually hitting targets which form an integral part of the imperialist architecture of control in West Asia.

What of the response in the American government? Contradictions continue to become antagonistic in the MAGA camp, with former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizing the war as ‘Israel’s war’ and even citing the bombing of the Minab school girls. The ‘Israel’s war’ narrative has rhetorical benefits but it totally misses the woods for the trees in the sense that the genocide in Gaza has exposed to the whole world that “Israel” and the USA are one large settler colonial homunculus where the US is clearly the senior partner. In the case of MTG and other conservatives, blaming “Israel” fits into the great replacement and other conspiratorial lines of thought. Per usual, the Democrats are totally flaccid, and represent one wing of a bipartisan policy which calls for more wars, and more de-development of the global south. Their latest protest is that Trump ‘does not have a plan’ for the war. While this is certainly something to consider, the hyperfixation on the subjective character of Donald Trump without a structural critique of how he came to power has achieved nothing for the Democratic Party. The refrain of “orange man bad” is the extent of their politics, and for all their whining, they are leading the global working class like lambs to the slaughter.

By way of a conclusion, the importance of naming the structures which shape this war cannot be overstated. Iran has been under siege for 47 years for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 did not shy away from allying itself with the revolutionaries of the global south, such as those in the DPRK, Burkina Faso, Nicaragua, Cuba, Grenada, and most importantly, Palestine. Relatedly, Iran’s pledge to support Palestinian resistance until liberation has been and continues to be a thorn in the side of imperialist designs for West Asia. To this end, after the western backed Iraqi invasion, Iran has forged a path of self-sufficiency. This self-sufficiency has led them to become a major industrial power and a center of accumulation capable of challenging Zionism and imperialism.

Through this independent path, the entire Axis of Resistance has been forged as a force which is capable of liberating the region, as we see through more than 60 waves of attacks on the imperialist infrastructure in 23 days at the time of writing. While “Israel” is pushed further into a corner, and the U.S. is desperate for any shred of legitimacy or signal of success, the Arab-Iranian region is once again plunged into a war where the outcomes are limited. Victory for the U.S. and the Zionists means a totally de-developed Iran, split into rump states incapable of resistance. Victory for Iran is deterrence, and the ability to return to the negotiation table with bigger demands such as the reduction of western military installations in the region. Until then, the fronts in Lebanon, Iran, and Palestine are opened, and working people suffer the greatest costs.

Hanna Eid is a Palestinian American writer, researcher, and a Union electrical worker. His writing concerns mainly imperialism and anti-imperialism in West Asia and West Africa.

source: Black Agenda Report

Negotiation Under Fire Is Surrender, National Unity Vital to Defend Lebanon: Hezbollah SG

Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem warned that a dangerous US-zionist scheme to establish the so-called “Greater Israel” is already underway, based on occupation and expansion “from the Euphrates to the Nile, including Lebanon,” and emphasized that attacks on Lebanon have continued unabated for fifteen months.

In a statement on Wednesday, Sheikh Qassem called for national unity in the face of this aggression, stressing that all sectors of society must stand together to defend Lebanon’s land, sovereignty, and people.

A Defining Choice: Surrender or Resistance

Sheikh Qassem said Lebanon faces two stark options: surrender—relinquishing land, dignity, sovereignty, and the future of its generations—or inevitable confrontation through resistance to prevent the occupation from achieving its goals.

His Eminence emphasized that the timing chosen by the resistance to respond to the aggression and defend Lebanon denied Israel the element of surprise, prevented it from isolating Lebanon, and invalidated all pretexts for escalation.

“A rocket salvo does not justify war, and such claims carry no weight after fifteen months of continuous aggression.”

Hezbollah at Full-scale Readiness

Sheikh Qassem affirmed that Hezbollah has made the necessary preparations and demonstrated its effectiveness and capability. His Eminence praised the extraordinary sacrifices of its fighters, who, he said, have delivered “the finest epics of heroism, honor, patriotism, and dignity.”

His Eminence added that those valiant fighters remain determined to continue without limits, ready for boundless sacrifice, describing them as “a shining symbol of patriotism and the light of coming liberation.”

Additionally, Sheikh Qassem lauded the resistance’s civilian base, describing them as “the most honorable and noble,” noting that they have endured displacement as part of the struggle, borne immense hardship, and sacrificed their children with pride and resolve to secure a free and dignified future for their country.

Aggression Fails, Resistance Endures

Sheikh Qassem stressed that “aggression is the problem and the danger, while resistance is the hope and the path to liberation,” asserting that confronting the assault is a national responsibility shared by the government, the people, the army, and all political and social forces.

“The ‘Israeli’-US campaign seeks to strip Lebanon of its strength, control its policies, and determine the future of its people by inciting internal strife, legitimizing zionist occupation, and preventing the Lebanese army from arming and defending the country,” Sheikh Qassem asserted.

No Disarmament or Negotiation Under Fire

Sheikh Qassem warned that any calls to limit weapons solely to the state—if driven by zionist demands amid ongoing occupation and aggression—would push Lebanon toward collapse and advance the vision of “Greater Israel.”

His Eminence rejected negotiations with the zionist occupation under fire, describing them as enforced surrender that would strip Lebanon of its capabilities, emphasizing that talks are fundamentally unacceptable with an enemy that occupies the land and attacks daily.

Sheikh Qassem also underscored that the conflict is not a proxy war fought on Lebanese soil but rather “a war by Israel and the United States against Lebanon,” in contrast to a defensive effort by the resistance, the people, the army, and national forces committed to Lebanon’s independence and liberation.

“We are engaged in a defensive struggle for Lebanon and its people. The martyrs are among our finest men, women, and children, and every territory reclaimed belongs solely to Lebanon.”

Call for National Unity

Sheikh Qassem called for national unity against the zionist-US enemy under a single immediate priority: halting the aggression to liberate the land and the people, affirming that all other issues can be discussed afterward.

His Eminence stressed that unity would deny the enemy any chance of occupying Lebanon, help the country endure the current phase through solidarity, and enable reconstruction.

“The government must avoid decisions that serve zionist objectives, even unintentionally, and should reverse any measures that criminalize resistance or its supporters. United, we are stronger, and together we can shorten the span of this aggression,” Sheikh Qassem added.

Unwavering Confidence in Victory

Hezbollah’s Sheikh Qassem affirmed that the zionist enemy is targeting civilians, destroying infrastructure, depopulating towns and villages, and devastating livelihoods, while avoiding direct confrontation with resistance fighters.

His Eminence expressed confidence that the resistance “will not be defeated,” backed by its people and national supporters, regardless of the sacrifices. Quoting the Quran, he reaffirmed faith in eventual victory for the oppressed.

“But it was Our Will to favour those who were oppressed in the land, making them models ˹of faith˺ as well as successors.” {Quran 28:5}

Iran’s Exceptional Example

Concluding, Sheikh Qassem pointed to Iran as an example, asserting its confrontation with what he described as global US-zionist aggression offers an important lesson.

“Iran has stood firm against the most powerful and brutal forces and, God willing, will prevail. Every victory against the United States and ‘Israel’ brings good for all,” Shekh Qassem said, closing with a Quranic verse affirming that triumph is bestowed only from God.

“And victory comes only from Allah—the Almighty, All-Wise.” {Quran 3:126}

Source: Al-Manar English Website

Strait Of Hormuz Closure Brings Empire to Brink

Since the criminal Zionist-American war on Iran erupted, the Strait of Hormuz has remained stubbornly closed. Despite Donald Trump’s dire threats, Tehran has brought maritime traffic to a total standstill. The Empire has futilely scrambled to assemble an international coalition to reopen the economically vital waterway ever since, only to be rebuffed. NATO allies have been slammed for making a “foolish mistake”, by refusing to help militarily secure the Strait. In truth, there is no hope it can be forcibly reopened in the foreseeable future.

As Bloomberg reports, while discussions are ongoing among G7 members over potential methods of restarting trade in the Strait, the general consensus among US allies is this can’t happen until hostilities ease, or outright end. Bank of America’s head of research has ominously warned oil prices could rise above $200 per barrel “if disruptions persist for multiple months.” He forecast that if the Strait isn’t reopened within days, its closure could precipitate a global recession.

Tehran imposing a blockade on the Strait was absolutely inevitable, and widely predicted, in the event of war. Even if the conflict ends soon, lasting damage has already been inflicted in many economic spheres, and the effects will be increasingly felt by average citizens in the form of higher prices for essential goods. Global shipping has been thrown into disarray, with major logistics firms cancelling routes in West Asia, producing higher transport and insurance rates, and delays. Again, increased costs will be passed onto consumers.

In all, approximately 11% of global maritime trade passes through the Strait annually, accounting for 20% of the world’s total oil supply. Iran’s blockade, coupled with Resistance strikes on refineries throughout the region, will cause lasting chaos in energy markets and impact availability for years to come. Yet, despite a preponderant mainstream focus on the implications of the Strait’s closure for oil and gas, many vital commodities underpinning the operation of major industries worldwide also regularly transit through in substantial quantities.

Their availability and cost is in some cases likewise wildly fluctuating, impacting agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and in turn many fields of everyday life for countless people. And this is only the beginning. Approximately one third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer supply passes through the Strait every year. Before the war, Gulf states ranked highly among international fertilizer suppliers. Up to 43% of global trade in urea – a fundamental component of food production – flowed from the region.

The price of urea can affect production costs by as much as 90%. Now spring is upon us, and planting season has commenced across the West, urea has abruptly become a scarce commodity. Many farmers are already operating without profit, and grave concerns about how long this can be sustained widely proliferate. The prospect of Western sanctions on Russia – a major producer of fertilizer – being lifted to ameliorate the market bedlam grows ever-more likely as time goes on.

Sulfur is a core element of fertilizer production, and pre-war, the Strait provided up to 45% of the world’s supply. As an essay by elite US military academy West Point cautioned on March 13th, the price of sulfur has to date surged 25%, “squeezing one of the most consequential inputs to modern industrial power.” Sulfuric acid is not only vital for basic economic functions, “but also modern warfighting.” In a bitter irony, the Strait of Hormuz’s blockade will cripple Washington’s defence industry – and ability to maintain its conflict with Iran:

“[Sulfur] is needed for everything from the copper in the American electrical grid to the semiconductors in precision-guided munitions… For military planners and strategists, the looming loss of sulfur is a pre-logistical crisis…Chemicals like sulfuric acid sit upstream of copper extraction, battery-material processing, and semiconductor fabrication, meaning they can determine whether the US military can maintain industrial base production of electrical and digital systems needed to sustain the fight as munitions are expended and combat losses mount.”

Copper provides the “clearest example” of why the Strait’s blockade is “a warfighting problem” of historic proportions for the Empire. The widely-used metal is “embedded in the transformers, motors, and communications hardware” enabling US bases “to operate and defense factories to function.” This quickly translates into “a readiness and resilience problem” for the military. It will take over 30,000 kilograms of copper to replace US radar systems destroyed by the Resistance in Bahrain and Qatar alone.

Thousands of kilograms of copper will also be required to fix or replace other damaged US communication equipment, sensors, and radars in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. “Active constraints on American combat power” posed by Iran’s Strait of Hormuz embargo are not restricted to copper supply, however. Similar issues are posed by restricted access to cobalt and nickel, “critical for the high-temperature alloys in jet engines” and crucial lithium-ion batteries powering drones and tactical-level electronics.

Semiconductor shortages will compromise an array of US military utilities, spanning F-35 fighter jet avionics to interceptor and missile guidance systems. Moreover, Washington’s defence industry “cannot surge”, despite Donald Trump’s demands contractors “quadruple” munitions production. US orders for vital war-fighting commodities cannot be “scaled independently in a defense emergency.” America’s supply chains are “fundamentally broken from a defense perspective,” and “utterly ineffective” when global markets tighten. In brief, the Empire’s defence industrial base is “tethered to conditions” Washington itself cannot control – but Tehran now can.

Per West Point, “this has become a paralyzing, real-time problem for the defense industrial base.” The collective “combat endurance” of US-Israeli forces attacking Iran is strictly limited by the “invisible industrial foundations” required to replenish their capabilities, which are now subject to an insurmountable Resistance chokehold. When it is loosened, and on what terms, is entirely for the Islamic Republic to decide. This devastating blow to US military capabilities and procurement capacity comes at a time when the Empire’s bloated warfighting machine is already collapsing.

According to an official US Government Accountability Office factsheet, almost two decades of perpetual, costly conflict has degraded Washington’s military readiness to the extent it cannot “adapt to growing threats posed by major powers” such as China or Russia, or “other adversaries”. Iran, and the Resistance, slot into the latter category. Of particular concern are the US Air Force and Navy – the very military assets now deployed to West Asia, which reap the majority of US war spending.

The GAO reports how US fleets of air and sea craft are ageing and failing, with “a lack of parts, maintenance delays, and other problems” hindering or outright preventing their maintenance and repair. Washington’s facilities for restoring weapons systems and equipment, and naval shipyards, are in “poor condition”. In human terms, the US Navy is chronically understaffed, its massively overworked sailors suffering dangerous levels of fatigue, their “heavy workloads” leading to “fatal ship collisions.”

Elsewhere, a review of whether 15 separate US fighter and ground airplanes met their annual mission capable goals in 2023 found none had done so. The GAO found the Army has “put new equipment into the field before plans for the facilities, personnel, and training” are ready. This is also true of the Navy, which has long-banked on a three-dozen-strong fleet of littoral combat ships, “designed to operate in shallow waters close to shore” to restore its defensive and offensive capabilities, including minesweeping.

However, the Navy “hasn’t demonstrated that this type of ship can perform its intended missions.” A palpable real-life demonstration of the total unsuitability of Washington’s littoral combat ships for “intended missions” is provided by the war on Iran. Three littoral vessels were dispatched to West Asia in 2025, to fill capability and capacity gaps produced by the decommissioning of four Avenger class minehunters deployed in the region for decades beforehand. Since the conflict began, they have vanished from the theatre.

Two have been sighted in Singapore, not merely out of the line of fire, but literally across the globe, right when concerns abound widely Tehran may mine the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump has promised to reverse any attempt to do so with brute force. A Navy spokesperson claims the pair are receiving “maintenance and logistics” support at Changi Naval Base. It remains to be seen whether, and when, they will return to West Asia.

Meanwhile, the Empire is rapidly running out of aircraft carriers, with the USS Gerald Ford having withdrawn from the Red Sea, where it led the Zionist-American war on Iran, following over 300 days of non-stop service. After reports emerged about its onboard toilets hazardously clogging, a fire on the ship raged for 30 hours, injuring sailors and incinerating a significant portion of the crew’s bedding quarters, forcing many to sleep on tables and floors. It is now in Crete, under repair.

For years, it has been ever-increasingly clear the US military is outgunned, outnumbered, and outproduced by an ever-growing number of adversaries, and wouldn’t survive first contact with an actual war. Now the Empire has blundered into a historic, potentially lethal crisis entirely of its own making, and this impotence couldn’t be writ larger. The US and “Israel’s” kinetic strikes on Iran are faltering, and the economic conflict has been decisively lost. The longer this grinds on, the more they will lose.

Kit Klarenberg
Source: Al Mayadeen

Iraqi Resistance Announces the Complete Evacuation of US and NATO forces from Victoria Base

Spokesman for Awliyaa al-Damm Brigades)

Positive step, peace likely soon: BJP on PM Modi–Prez Trump call on West Asia crisis #Positive #BJP #PMModiPrezTrump #WestAsia #socialnewsxyz

https://www.socialnews.xyz/2026/03/25/positive-step-peace-likely-soon-bjp-on-pm-modi-prez-trump-call-on-west-asia-crisis/