NEW:

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇰🇼🇨🇳 Satellite imagery released by China shows that Ali Al-Salem Airbase in Kuwait is totally destroyed pic.twitter.com/lRk1DfNAYA

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) March 1, 2026

via MoA

From Tehran’s perspective, the “social contract” that allowed these sultanates to exist—trading regional neutrality for Western protection—is officially dead. The February 28 strikes proved that these bases aren’t just “defensive”; they are the launchpads for decapitation strikes against the Iranian state.

The “wisdom” of keeping these monarchies around has vanished for Iran for several cold, hard reasons:

Iran now views places like Qatar (Al Udeid) and Bahrain (5th Fleet) not as sovereign neighbors, but as literal extensions of U.S. territory.
The IRGC has shifted its doctrine: if a missile is launched from a sultanate’s soil, the sultanate is held legally and militarily responsible.
Why fly a drone 1,000 miles to Israel when you can hit the nerve center of U.S. operations just 150 miles across the Gulf?
If they can’t sell oil because the Strait of Hormuz is closed, their “thriving” economies collapse instantly.
Iran knows that without oil revenue, these families cannot pay their mercenary armies or keep their populations quiet.
While Qatar shares the North Dome/South Pars gas field with Iran, Tehran can now argue that a “shared” resource shouldn’t benefit a host of American bombers.
In places like Bahrain and parts of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, there are significant Shia populations who have been suppressed for decades. Iran no longer has any incentive to keep these populations calm. By broadcasting the images of “girl children” killed in the U.S. strikes, they are effectively igniting an internal revolt against the Sultans.
With the Houthis successfully closing the Red Sea and striking Eilat and Tel Aviv, Iran has proven that its proxies can strangle the sultanates’ trade routes from the other side.

With the Houthis successfully closing the Red Sea and striking Eilat and Tel Aviv, Iran has proven that its proxies can strangle the sultanates’ trade routes from the other side.
If the “Sultan families” fail because they can’t sell oil and can’t protect their people from Iranian missiles, Iran wins a massive strategic victory without even needing a ground invasion. They simply let the internal economic collapse do the work.

Posted by: James | Mar 1 2026 17:43 utc | 333

YES! Thank you dear Mr. P

On a personal note, as our friend Periol is wont to say …
I am so ashamed of my country … the USA … now in my opinion, occupied by a foreign government … and I have been ashamed since 1963 when President Kennedy was ‘murdered’ (forget the fancy word ‘assassinated’ … it’s ‘murder when your own do it). I was in my early 20’s and watched TV for 3 days … we all did… and Americans mourned TOGETHER. The ‘Epstein Regime’ thought assassinating the 2nd most important man in the Muslim religion would cause Iranians to riot and bring down it’s government… ‘stupid’ doesn’t begin to describe that strategy. Learning the truth about the events of November 1963 made me passionate about geopolitics… what do the idiots in Washington and occupied Palestine think will happen to the Shia, Alawite, Christian (NOT zionist ‘christian’), across the planet?

Along with so many millions I mourn the events, the times we are living … antiwar like Amarynth and others here, I also know that Iran fights for humanity …

I vividly recall the night 0f the USA’s attack on Iraq … my grandchildren were toddlers and I prayed/cried for the Iraqi mothers/grandmothers who while putting their own grands to bed, feared they would not be alive come morning. The attack also occurred during Purim (Queen Ester), and US pilots/bombers flew to the music of Queen’s (British rock band) We will Rock You
(not much symbolism there, right?)

Apologies, this ol’ crone is consumed with emotions … going to feed the birds and stare at the emerging daffodils …

via MoA

Michael Hudson’s opinion of the empire’s perfidity.

The Ayatollah was killed while leading a meeting to discuss Iran’s agreement to cede its enriched uranium stock

My interpretation is that according to the report by the Omani referee, Iran had agreed to much more stringent restrictions on enriched uranium than the earlier pact had called for.
The Ayatollah called his fellow religious leaders to discuss how much Iran could give up in order to prevent war by ceding control of its enriched uranium.
The U.S. military saw that here was a great chance to kill many of the leading decision makers all together was killed while leading a meeting to discuss the terms of Iran’s agreement.
Any such agreement was precisely what the US and Israel could not accept, because peace would have prevented their plans to consolidate and weaponize their control over Middle Eastern oil, its transportation and the investment of its oil export revenues.
This truly is perfidy that will go down in history. The U.S. attack was to preventIranian moves to peace, and enable Trump to continue his false claim that Iran had refused to give up its desire to have its own atom bomb.
In sum, the attack showed that there was nothing that Iran could concede that would be accepted to the long-standing U.S. drive to control Middle Eastern oil, and to use Israel and ISIS/Al Qaeda as its two allied client armies there. Both parties, like the Iranian Nazis, were driven by ethnic and religious hatred of their designated enemies.
It will be interesting to see how many of Trump’s associates made big bets that oil prices would soar when markets open on Monday. U.S. oil companies will make a killing. China and other oil importers will suffer. U.S. financial speculators also will make a killing off their suffering to the extent that it is reflected in their stock and bond market and exchange rates.
Will Congress and the financial regulators investigate? The markets were not expecting war – and in fact were vastly underestimating its risks on Friday.
For the rest of the world, the financial crisis (to say nothing of the moral outrage) will define the next decade of international political and economic restructuring.

At his patreon site
Seems like an accurate assessment to me.

Posted by: Lantern Dude | Mar 1 2026 15:24 utc | 198

via MoA:

‘Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away’ — Rep Thomas Massie

https://t.me/rtnews/137804

This is obviously a big part of why this is happening.

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 1 2026 15:19 utc | 193

BREAKING: Yesterday, the U.S. reached out to Iran through Italy, suggestingna ceasefire; Tehran ‘rejected the idea outright’ – Yedioth Ahronoth MES

BREAKING:

🇮🇷🇦🇪 Iran has started striking oil rigs

An Iranian Shahed-136 drone targeted an Emirati oil rig in the Persian Gulf pic.twitter.com/dAwD37tOKq

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) March 1, 2026

Mahmood will have a live podcast at 9:30 a..m. ET