Iran Now Has a Reason To Go Nuclear

With Iran, the US seems to have taken on a task that is too big even for the superpower. The question is what Trump will choose to do when the prestige and deterrence of the entire empire is at risk of collapsing. However, when the old order collapses, new opportunities open up.

So they finally went on the attack, Israel and the US. Iran is the only country left on the list presented by retired US four-star general Wesley Clark in 2007. The general said that after September 11, 2001, he was shown a memo to “take out seven countries in five years”. Clark described it as a “policy coup” by an unnamed sender. These countries were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. Although it took longer than planned, today only Iran has not been completely destroyed.

Here, however, the US may have made a miscalculation. In 2023, the Chinese-Canadian teacher Jiang Xueqin, who is popular on YouTube, made three predictions using game theory: Trump would win the presidential election, under Trump the US would attack Iran, and the US would lose that war. Two have so far come true.

What Does Winning Look Like?

The question is actually what it even means to win a war against Iran. Recently, Trump announced various versions of how the US had already won or was very close to doing so. “All objectives have been achieved!” But Iran was somehow not on board, they continued to send missiles and drones, despite Trump threatening them by hitting them “twenty times harder” if they did not stop. But why would they?

Iran is portrayed as a rogue state and sponsor of international terrorism. This is another American so-called psyop. Psyops have since become considerably more sophisticated with the development of new technologies such as AI and increased knowledge of the human psyche in combination with social media that takes up more and more of our waking time. However, the basic principles remain the same. Iran has in reality shown great restraint when it has been attacked time and again, to the point that “Iranian retaliation” has become a joke.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a supporter of religious rule, but the US explicitly wants to impose a new US-friendly regime on Iran and steal its oil. It’s the opposite of democracy. And when it comes to human rights, Saudi Arabia and other allies they have in the region are much worse. In Iran, at least, it’s the people who chose this system, and most people apparently still support it.

Tricked and Deceived Every Time

The US’s initial attack targeted, among other things, a girls’ school, killing over 170 children and teachers. When parents arrived to pick up their children, the US sent a second cruise missile at the school. The US admits that it fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at the school but says it was a mistake that resulted from letting an AI select the target for the attack, which based its decision on outdated data. Since many officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had their children at the school, which was subjected to two attacks 40 minutes apart, many doubt this explanation. Still image: IRIB TV

Iran has no reason to play along in Trump’s scenario where the goals have been achieved and the war is over. They have been tricked and deceived time and time again. Shortly after the US and Israel launched a surprise attack on the country, the US announced that it had killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. It was said that the intelligence service had been following the leader’s movements and knew that he would be in a meeting that very morning. What is being kept quiet about is that the reason for the meeting was most likely the peace offer that the US negotiating team had delivered shortly before, and which Iran would now have to take a position on. In reality, all that remained was technicalities. Iran had already agreed to get rid of its enriched uranium and let the IAEA check this. Oman’s foreign minister called it a breakthrough. But the timetable for the attack had apparently already been set.

Ali Khamenei refused to leave his residence in Tehran, despite the existence of secret places where the leadership could take refuge. He insisted on leaving only when Iran’s 90 million people were given the same opportunity.

The fact that Iran’s top leadership was wiped out, as well as many family members, as in the US missile attack on a girls’ school with the young daughters of naval officers, did not mean that Iran stopped defending itself. Khamenei had given specific orders for this long before.

Mosaic Defense

The strategy is called Mosaic Defense and was developed by Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari after he witnessed in 2003 how the US managed to completely paralyze Iraq by knocking out its leadership. When Jafari became head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 2007, he divided Iran into 31 autonomous military districts, each of which is completely self-governing, with its own ammunition depots, independent leadership and predetermined targets. Their orders are to initiate retaliation to the best of their ability without waiting for confirmation from above. In this way, Iran’s defense could go on “autopilot” with each district acting independently but in a coordinated manner.

Since Iran’s supreme leader is the commander of the entire country’s defense forces, after his death there is no one responsible who, according to the constitution, has the right to change or revoke these orders.

It is clear that after the initial attacks, the US/Israel have run out of military targets to attack. They have moved on to bombing local police stations, bank branches, parliament, hospitals, universities, water supplies, civilian meeting places, the former president’s home, and so on.

In the meantime, Iran has chosen a successor: Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei. Professor Glenn Diesen of the Southeastern University of Norway notes that the US killed not only his father, but also his mother, his wife, his sister and at least one of his sons. “The US was not allowed to choose Khamenei’s successor, as Trump demanded, and I doubt that this successor will be better for the US or more moderate,” he noted dryly.

Has the US “achieved its goals,” as Trump claims? One comment on social media, which is telling, goes something like this: “I was against going to war with Iran, but once we are at war, I want the US to win. The problem is that no one has been able to explain what would constitute an American victory here.”

There was no uprising against Islamic rule. On the contrary, the assassination of the country’s supreme leader served to unite the country’s various minorities. Ali Khamenei himself belonged to an ethnic minority as his father was an Azerbaijani Turk.

It is also becoming clear that not only do an overwhelming majority of the Iranian people support the country’s regime, but that the protests that the Western media so eagerly reported on were largely violent attacks carried out by the same type of Islamists that the US used in Syria. The US has therefore switched to talking about arming the country’s Kurds and forcing them to fight against the Iranian army, but few believe that the Kurds would allow themselves to be lured into such an obvious suicide operation on behalf of the US.

There may be a revolt coming in Bahrain. In general, the Gulf states have very fragile state structures, where only a small Arab elite has citizenship, while the majority or at least a large part of the country’s population are labor migrants without any rights whatsoever. They will probably go home quite soon if the situation does not improve, at the latest when Iran bombs the desalination plants and there is a shortage of drinking water in these countries.

Iran’s response has been to target hostile military bases, ports, oil facilities, gas plants and ships throughout the Persian Gulf. The effect has been devastating. Still image: IRIB TV

In Bahrain, the US hypocrisy about spreading democracy is particularly telling, as the country is a full-fledged dictatorship with a clan in total control. The clan are Sunni Muslims, like the royal family in Saudi Arabia, while the oppressed majority in the country are Shia Muslims, like in Iran. However, Western media is silent about human rights abuses committed by these regimes, as they are important vassal states of the US.

All for Greater Israel

Qatari politician Hamad bin Jassim sums up well how many leaders in the region today feel about the United States as an ally:

“As soon as we declare war on Iran, America will withdraw from the conflict, sell weapons to both sides, and utilize our resources to defeat both sides in order to implement the Greater Israel project.”

What about Iran’s nuclear weapons program? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying for decades that Iran is “months away from a nuclear weapon” or “has the atomic bomb 90 percent complete”. And the truth may not be far off. Iran has had a civilian nuclear energy program that could easily be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. The only thing that has prevented this from happening is an explicit ban from Ali Khamenei. Back in 2003, he issued a fatwa that banned the development, acquisition and use of nuclear weapons, as he believes it is contrary to Islam. This has met with strong opposition in the country’s parliament, which demands an atomic bomb to deter attacks on the country, but Khamenei was unmoved. But now his son has come to power.

Online analysts have made the following observation: Khamenei banned nuclear weapons in 2003 through a fatwa. That same year, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began enriching uranium. Is there a lesson to be learned here?

This is probably how the Iranians are thinking right now.

In fact, an Iranian nuclear bomb is no more than two flights away: from North Korea with a stopover in China. You don’t have to build your own bomb, North Korea has offered to share its technology.

At present, however, Iran only needs to hold out to claim victory. The US’s reputation and position as the world’s superpower will collapse. The Gulf states’ crown as a haven for business and capital has already been eroded when the US failed to defend them. This is also why Trump is now keen to involve Britain, France and Germany in the war. However, the risk is that such an escalation would provoke a response from China and Russia, who could decide to side with Iran, igniting a third world war.

Fortunately, there are states that refuse to have anything to do with this. And unfortunately, it is not Sweden, which is on the contrary discussing placing French nuclear weapons on Swedish soil. It is Spain that has ended up on a collision course with Trump after refusing to let the US use its air bases to attack Iran. Trump has since threatened both, including that “we can use their bases if we want to anyway /…/ no one can tell us we can’t” and to completely stop trade between Spain and the US. Spain has also taken the next step and recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and downgraded its relations with Israel. Israel has not had an ambassador in Spain since Spain recognized the state of Palestine in 2024. Spain is now the only European country to have been promised free passage through the Strait of Hormuz by Iran.

Why Attack Iran Now?

So what really made Trump attack Iran? Israel’s strong influence on American politics is of course a close-at-hand explanation. After Palestine, Lebanon and Syria have been cleared out of the way, all that remains is Iran to threaten Israel’s position in the Middle East. But teacher Jiang has another – highly interesting – explanation.

According to him, it is about, among other things, Trump’s hubris after the quick victory over Venezuela, and Israel being able to buy and blackmail leading American decision-makers. Then comes a somewhat unexpected reason. He points out that the Epstein files show that behind the scenes there are people with great power who see the world in a completely different way. In their world, Old Testament prophecies, magical rituals and serving mystical beings are paramount. Geopolitical logic thus becomes irrelevant. And they have absolute power to create war.

Religious Fanatics

These claims could be dismissed were it not for reports that the US Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) had received over 110 complaints as of March 3 from service members at more than 30 military installations regarding religious content in operational briefings. One specific complaint described by the MRFF concerns a combat readiness briefing in which a commander allegedly told noncommissioned officers: “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth.”

We should therefore take a closer look at the world of ideas of these hidden powers, astrology, what they believe Armageddon is about, how “magic” controls our world and how this affects their decisions.

If Britain, France and Germany get into the game, Russia and China might do the same. Then we are on the brink of a world war

The Iranian Spirit

One should be aware that the Iranians are used to enduring. When the US appointed Saddam Hussein to rule Iraq with the aim of starting a war against Iran, they fought for seven years and managed to defend themselves, despite Iraq receiving poison gas from the US, among other things.

Iran has responded to the Israeli and US terror bombings of its country by attacking the infrastructure of Israel and the Gulf states. It has caused serious damage by bombing Amazon’s servers in the region, and it has also knocked out large parts of the infrastructure needed for the industry.

Analysts note that China’s recently launched five-year plan places a strong focus on resilience, including by advocating extensive fuel and food stocks, while striving to produce everything it needs domestically. Add to this an ambition to be able to move all important industry inland, and we have a complete recipe for how a country prepares for a coming major war.

I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the message we have had occasion to return to in leadership positions: prepare yourself, put away stocks and learn to produce your own food, build networks with neighbors and reliable people in your environment.

If the US loses its power status, Trump may be tempted – or forced – to do more ill-considered things. But there is also an opening here, where the US abdication on the world stage could open the door to a multipolar world where psyops and regime change are replaced by popular rule and cooperation. Utopian, yes, but one can always hope.

I’ll end with a bit of humor from Italian journalist Michele Serra:

“Americans are so incredibly lucky, because wherever they go to spread freedom … they find oil.”