News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Iran …

Trump has chickened out from his threat of committing a genocide in Iran by agreeing to a ceasefire based on Iran’s 10 point declaration.

The war isn’t over.

Israel will do its best to sabotage the ceasefire by all means.

If Trump really wants to stop losing the war he had started on advice of Netanyahoo (archived) he will have to throw him under a bus.

The Secretary for War Crimes Pete Hegseth and others who had urged for the war will be made scapegoats for this defeat.

An attempt to tick-tock what happened:

Cont. reading: War On Iran: – April Ceasefire – A Tick Tock Of Statements And Comments

As the world was waiting for President Donald Trump to TACO from his threat to destroy Iran he upped his madman strategy by threatening to genocide its people:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!
(TS: 07 Apr 08:06 ET)​​​‍​​‌‍​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍

I find it no longer useful to attempt any interpretation of such threats. They are likely a reaction to the failed Isfahan operation.

After that above threat was posted Iran froze all diplomatic and indirect communication channels with the U.S.

Meanwhile the war continues at heightened intensity.

Yesterday Israel again attacked Iran’s largest industrial oil and gas installation in the South Pars field.

Retribution came fast. Israeli installations at Neot Hovav in the Negev desert were attacked. Saudi Arabia’s Al Jubail industrial area is on fire as are at least three major oil/gas sites in the Emirates.

This morning the U.S. (again) struck some 50 targets on Kharg Island in what I consider a preparation for an imminent invasion likely to follow this night.

Israel hit ten Iranian railway stations around Tehran to isolate the city.

The “Jewish State” also struck the Rafie Nia synagogue in Tehran. It seems to have been an intentional target.

Iran has published a quite sensible 10-point plan to end the war:

Iran’s 10-point plan includes:
1. Guarantee that Iran will not be attacked again
2. Permanent end to the war, not just a ceasefire
3. End to Israeli strikes in Lebanon
4. Lifting of all US sanctions on Iran
5. End to all regional fighting against Iranian allies
6. In return, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz
7. Iran would impose a Hormuz fee of $2 million per ship
8. Iran would split these fees with Oman
9. Iran to provide rules for safe passage through Hormuz
10. Iran to use Hormuz fees for reconstruction instead of reparations

Iran had previously asked for full U.S. reparation payments for the damage the war has caused. To instead insist on using Hormuz passage funds is a sensible retreat from a hardline position.

With Iranian consent more ships are quietly passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Whatever might happen Iran wont give up on not closing but controlling Hormuz for very good reasons.

The U.S. deploys additional HIMARS artillery to the Middle East.

The U.S. government claims that it had launched a large rescue mission near Isfahan, Iran, to retrieve the weapon officer of an F-15 airplane which was downed while it was bombing that country.

When I read the first version of that story I replied:

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA – 14:28 UTC · Apr 5, 2026

Bridges on sale …

Jennifer Griffin @JenGriffinFNC · Apr 5
According to a senior administration official:
Prior to locating the WSO (Weapons System Officer) and the US military’s daring rescue, the CIA first launched a deception campaign spreading word inside Iran that U.S. forces had already found him and were moving him on the ground …

The U.S. may have found and retrieved the F-15 officer. But that will have been tens of miles from the place near Isfahan where it lost two HC-130 transport planes and four MH-6 special force helicopters. That special force operation was most likely an attempt to steal enriched Uranian known to be hidden under a mountain somewhere around Isfahan. Such an  operation was pre-viewed on April 1 by the Washington Post:

Risky commando plan to seize Iran’s uranium came at Trump’s request (archived)

It seems that the attempt ran into an ambush like situation and had to evacuate.

For details see how Will Schryver and Armchair Warlord are connecting the dots. Iranian analysts agree with their take.

In other news Trump is using foul language to threaten Iran with further war crimes. Iran promises adequate retaliation. The markets react to discipline U.S. action. Another TACO is likely to happen.

Added for later reference: Trump’s “victory” claims:Cont. reading: War On Iran: – Failed Special Operation – Threat Escalation – Trump’s Victory Timeline

News & views related to the war in Iran …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Mar 30 – War On Iran: “And then? What?”
• Mar 31 – War On Iran: It Is Cheaper To Pay For Hormuz Passage Than To Wage War
• Apr 1 – War On Iran: The Best Choice Is To Retreat – More Likely Though Is Escalation
• Apr 2 – War On Iran: – Not ‘Getting’ Iran – War Delusions – Losing The Status Of Superpower
  Related:
  – ‘Mission failed’: Iran destroys several US aircraft in botched ‘rescue’ bid in Isfahan – PressTV
  – Videos show US missiles being launched from Kuwait into Iran – France24
  – Military briefing: How Iran keeps firing missiles under bombardment (archived) – FT
  – This is the plan to bring down the Iranian regime – Israel Hayom
  – Western media accuses Iran of ‘escalation,’ taking ‘hostages’ for potentially capturing POW bombing their country – The Real News
  Watch as the routine defense of territory is turned into something sinister and aggressive.

• Apr 3 – Meta: On MoA Moderation

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-068

It’s spring, the darkness has vanished and this is my favored holiday.

Happy Easter

biggerEach Easter Sunday my dad recited this poem for us. It is from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust.
In this scene Dr. Faust and his student Wagner take an Easter Walk (Charles T. Brooks’ translation, original version):

Cont. reading: Happy Easter (Walk)

MoA commentator Karlof seems to be pi**ed because some comment he tried to post here did not appear. As he writes at his own blog:

I provided what follows in a comment made to the current Iran thread at Moon of Alabama, but the site owner trashed it for some unknown, unexplained reason despite its obvious vital importance to understanding the events surrounding this war. What follows are a portion of Lavrov’s opening remarks that relate to the topic followed by an excerpt from the first Q&A that’s then followed by the most important question posed:

[1684 words long quote from Lavrov’s press conference]

The blog software Moon of Alabama is running on has, like others, functionalities which somewhat protect against being overwhelmed by spam comments. The system will filter comments following certain criteria into three buckets.

Most of the comments entered at MoA will be published without further review.

– Spam:

Comments which come from known spam addresses or include advertisement for certain products will be deleted automatically. Each day there are some 50 to 100 “Buy Viagra” or similar comments that fall under this criteria. This part of the system is astonishing reliable. That’s why I rarely review the comments which are being filtered at this stage. They simply vanish.

– Moderation:

Comments which:

• exceed a certain length
• include more than 5 links
• include certain swearwords
• come from certain IP addresses

will be withheld from immediate publishing for review by the moderator. Karlof’s comment, which included a lengthy Lavrov quote, was caught by this filter.

– Manual review:

Cont. reading: Meta: On MoA Moderation

Trump’s speech on Wednesday night did not offer anything new. But taken together with his threats to bomb Iran back to stone age, points to the further escalation of the war.

Trump and some around him still do not ‘get’ Iran. They never in their own life held any principle they would not deviated from if money was to be made. Iran, in contrast, does have principles that are not up for sale. It is beyond Trump’s comprehension that such exit:

In a phone interview the next morning [Apr 2], Trump told TIME that Iran was eager to make a deal to end the fighting. ‘Why wouldn’t they call? We just blew up their three big bridges last night,” the President says. “They’re getting decimated. They say Trump is not negotiating with Iran. I mean, it’s sort of an easy negotiation.”

Iran does not work like that. It is not ruled by sell-outs.

Trump and those who support him are still deeply delusional about their real power. Consider the Washington Post‘s opinion writer Marc Thiessen who insists (archived) that the U.S. has the military means to win the war within a few weeks:

Rather than waiting for Iran to agree to the conditions he has put on the table, [Trump] can simply impose the peace terms he has set unilaterally.

Here’s how to do so in five steps:

1. Complete all remaining military tasks. Trump said the war will “continue until our objectives are fully achieved.” So which tasks remain? Seize or destroy Iran’s fissile material so the regime cannot easily restart its nuclear program (or give what Trump calls its “nuclear dust” to terrorists for a dirty bomb). Take out all the remaining targets on the military’s list. Implement the innovative plan that sources tell me Centcom Commander Adm. Brad Cooper has prepared to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, and then hand the mission over to a multinational armada made up of countries who receive oil from the strait, which must take responsibility for keeping it open. Or, alternatively, the United States can charge a substantial “escort fee” for each ship passing through the strait, which would be waived for countries participating in the mission. And then, finally, either take control of Kharg Island, by seizing or blockading this linchpin of Iran’s energy export sector, or destroy it to cripple Iran’s ability to fund terrorist proxies and a military rebuild.

If the U.S. completes these tasks, it will have a stranglehold over Iran, and the regime will never again be able to hold the world’s economy hostage. U.S. military commanders believe that these objectives can be achieved in the next two to three weeks, …

Trump, probably after reading Thiessen’s pamphlet, seems to agree with this:

Cont. reading: War On Iran: – Not ‘Getting’ Iran – War Delusions – Losing The Status Of Superpower

News & views related to the war in Iran …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Iran …

U.S. President Donald Trump will give a live speech tonight at 9:00pm ET.

He might announce that:

1. the U.S. will retreat from the War on Iran he had launched or
2. that U.S. troops have started to invade Iranian territory.

No. 1 seems unlikely as AIPAC, hawkish Republicans and Zionist Democrats are all against a U.S. retreat.
No. 2 seems irrational as any invasion of Iranian territory is destined to end in defeat.

The U.S. has deployed additional A-10 ground fighter airplanes to the Gulf. Deploying these points to a ground operation, probably to seize some islands.

Meanwhile the severity of the global energy crisis the war has caused is starting to get recognize.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telgraph is warning (archived) of the even bigger oil shock we need to expect if things escalate from here:

The world has lost over a tenth of its daily oil supply, along with critical volumes of jet fuel, diesel and refined petroleum products. Now prepare for loss of the next tenth, hitting just as all the short-term fixes are exhausted.
…
The pro-Iranian Houthis in Yemen have finally joined the Gulf war, opening a second front in the Red Sea and endangering a further 6pc of global oil supply.
…
David Fyfe, the chief economist at Argus Media, says prices will reach traumatic levels if the Red Sea now comes under fire and remains closed for weeks.

“You can pick any arbitrary number – $200[/bbl], or anything you want – the risk is that we’ll see huge demand destruction, inflation going through the roof and global growth shuddering to a halt. It is a horrible thought,” says Fyfe, who used to run the oil division at the International Energy Agency.
…
Every corner of the globe will be hit by Apr 20 or thereabouts. Regional prices will converge via arbitrage and there will then be a planetary oil crisis with very few places left to hide.

The horror this means for us average people – including mass starvation in the global South – seems hard to imagine but will soon become real.

There is pressure on Trump to “do something” about this. The best he could do to lower the consequences of an energy crisis is to retreat from the Middle East.

But to give up control over a major sea lane, one through which much of the blood of the global economy is flowing,  means to give up on the U.S. status as a super power and global hegemon. It would be a huge step, a necessary one in the long term, but one that is likely to only be taken after years of war and, like in Vietnam, a deeply punishing defeat.

U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly ready to give up on the Persian Gulf passage:

Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz (archived) – WSJ

In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said.

There are also military options the president could decide on, but they are not his immediate priority, they said.

Trump is considering to give up because he has no ability to reopen the Gulf by military or other means. The U.S. Navy is lacking the basic equipment to reopen sea passages – de-mining vessels – and it is lacking the arsenal depth needed to defend against the onslaught of missile, drones and torpedoes that would slaughter its ships should they try to pass through the Strait.

Iran controls 270 degrees of the bent of the passage.  Its coast is mountainous with many hide outs from where weapons can be released. To reopen the passage by force, a 100,000+ strong army would need to invade, take and hold the Iranian coastline. There is no such forces as no country is willing to commit its soldiers to such a suicide mission.

Trump is now searching for other he can push into opening the closure he himself with war on Iran has caused:

All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil! President DJT

(TS: 31 Mar 07:11 ET)​​​‍​​‌‍​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​​​​​​‌‍​​​​‌‍​​​​​​‌‍

After 32 days of Trump’s “My war, your Hormuz problem …” has gone through many phases:

Cont. reading: War On Iran: It Is Cheaper To Pay For Hormuz Passage Than To Wage War

Trump’s latest outburst, intended to cool the market, issued about an hour ago:

The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter.

President DONALD J. TRUMP

Fitting:

bigger
Cartoon via Rob CampbellA relevant and revealing response to any of Trump’s proposed actions is: “And then? What?”

From the latest War Update by Hamidreza Azizi:

Iranian planning is no longer centered on absorbing strikes but on shaping the battlefield in advance. A concept described as “preemptive destruction” is emerging, involving continuous targeting of U.S. bases, logistics hubs, and staging areas in countries such as Kuwait and Bahrain to disrupt any potential ground or heliborne operation before it can be executed.

News & views related to the war in Iran …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Mar 23 – War On Iran: Trump Chickens Out – Who Lobbied For War – The Energy Dominance Aim
• Mar 24 – War On Iran: – Trump Cashes Out – Social Unrest – Arabs Joining The War – Iran Invasion
• Mar 25 – War On Iran: – U.S.-Iranian None-Talks – The Battle Continues – Bad U.S. Options – Proxy War Escalation
• Mar 26 – War on Iran: – Just A Few Links …
• Mar 27 – War On Iran: Exorbitant Munition Spending + Lack Of Success = Iran Is Winning
• Mar 28 – On The Failure Of Shock And Awe In Iran
  Related:
  – Israeli Sources Confirm Iranian Missile Strikes Have 80 Percent Success Rates – Military Watch Mag
  – A Toothless Iran? Missile and Drone Strikes Show It Can Still Inflict Pain. (archived) – NY Times
  – Iran activates its ‘resistance economy’ to survive the war (archived) – FT
  – Pentagon prepares for weeks of ground operations in Iran (archived) – WaPo
  – To End the Iran War, Trump Must Divorce Israel – American Conservative

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2026-062

One Sergey Poletaev (quoted here) writes in RT about the Shock and Awe doctrine:

Russia also succumbed to the idea of the shock and awe doctrine.

After the war with Georgia in 2008, the Russian military was restructured to carry out rapid and destructive military interventions. However, Russia was the first to stumble on this doctrine. In spring 2022, it faced a critical choice: Either fight a serious, bloody war of attrition or settle for a disgraceful peace. Moscow chose war, and the Ukraine conflict has now entered its fifth year.

Trump now finds himself at a similar crossroads: Fight or to concede defeat. The problem is that the entire Western military-industrial complex has spent decades adapting to the shock and awe doctrine; NATO and the US possess unparalleled and exorbitantly expensive airstrike capabilities, but don’t have many other resources. If a targeted nation can withstand the initial air assaults, time will be on its side – unlike Russia, the West lacks the resources for a prolonged military campaign.

This explains the ‘gestures of goodwill’ Trump is currently making toward Iran. Just like Putin in spring 2022, he needs to buy time and figure out his next move: Continue fighting, launch a highly risky landing operation, or settle for a humiliating peace. The first option could spell disaster for Trump in the upcoming midterm elections, while the second could bring the US the most significant strategic defeat since Vietnam.

MoA commentator  English Outsider  replies to it: (Please read his use of “we” in scare quotes. It obviously does not include MoA readers 😉

Cont. reading: On The Failure Of Shock And Awe In Iran