Thursday, March 19, 2026

CounterPunch: Iran War: We Have Met The Enemy, and He is U.S.

March 19, 2026 Iran War: We Have Met the Enemy, and He is U.S. Thomas KnappFacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail 3 March: Enghelab Square, Tehran. Photograph Source: Tasnim News Agency – CC BY 4.0 Let me bury the lede just a bit: In December of 1862, Union troops under the command of Ambrose Burnside crossed the Rappahannock river by pontoon bridge and occupied the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in an attempt to come to grips with Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee. That first skirmish of the battle named for the town went rather easily for the Union Forces … who couldn’t help but wonder why. “Some guessed it was because they had no ammunition to spare,” Shelby Foote relates in his excellent three-volume history of the war, “others that they were afraid of retaliation by ‘our siege guns.'” “Still another,” Foote continues, “a veteran private, had a different idea. ‘Sh*t,’ he said. ‘They WANT us to get in. Getting out won’t be quite so smart and easy. You’ll see.” And see they did: Four days later, the Union troops finally skedaddled back to the other side of the river, minus nearly 1,300 killed in action, nearly 10,000 wounded, and nearly 2,000 captured or missing. Lee’s army suffered about half as many casualties and remained in control of the field. OK, lede buried. Now let’s talk about the wholly optional, clearly idiotic, and unquestionably illegal (at least per US law on the subject) war on Iran, now well into its third week. I doubt the Iranian regime WANTED the US and Israeli regimes to escalate the region’s long-standing tension, constant low-intensity fighting, and occasional flare-ups to full-on war for the second time in less than a year … … but now that it’s happened, the Iranians seem intent on extracting a real price for the blunder instead of negotiating another lull or, as some keep putting it, giving Donald Trump an excuse to “declare victory” and take an “off-ramp” back to the status quo ante. Can you blame them? The US and Israel have effectively been at war with Iran since 1979, when the Iranian people gave US puppet dictator “Shah” Mohammad Reza Pahlavi the boot (after which hard-line Islamists, like the Bolsheviks in Russia before them, took advantage of the chaos to seize power). Adding insult to injury, Trump and Company are promoting Pahlavi’s son as the face of their “regime change” aspirations. Getting out won’t be quite so smart and easy. We’re seeing. Oil prices are up by 25-35% (depending on type of the crude). Ditto gasoline prices. And fertilizer prices. And, soon, the price of everything that has to be delivered using gasoline, grown using fertilizer, etc. Which is pretty much, well, everything. Even when — if — tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can get back to normal, we’ll be feeling the economic after-effects for a long time. The effects of the war stretch beyond that transport choke point. The Iranians are also striking production facilities, and just this morning hit a major natural gas field in the United Arab Emirates. The damaged and destroyed infrastructure across the region isn’t going to rebuild itself. The longer this war continues, the worse off Americans will be, above and beyond having to foot the bill — in both blood and treasure — for a war the US regime has yet to present anything resembling a rational explanation for. Even if the Iranian people rise up and overthrow the current regime, as American pro-war flacks keep predicting, the likelihood that its replacement will be any more friendly to the US and Israel falls somewhere between “infinitesimal” and “non-existent.” Can the Iranian regime lose this war? Yes. Can the American people win it? No. And we never could. It was always going to make us worse off. Our enemies aren’t in Tehran, they’re in Washington, DC. Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

CounterPunch: The Idiocy of Trump's War on Iran: Thursday 19-03-2026: ****************

March 19, 2026 The Idiocy of Trump’s War on Iran Kim ScipesFacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail Image by Markus Spiske. Donald Trump, in all his hubris and idiocy, and in response to Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu, launched an illegal and unconstitutional war on Iran beginning on February 28, 2026. It was not provoked by Iran, and it clearly was not well planned for by the United States or Israel. Trump, who has suffered from delusions of adequacy throughout his political career, had certainly gotten full of himself. Thinking he had been elected “God,” not to the presidency, he has been asserting US power around the world blatantly; he’s not even lying about it. His attack on Venezuela went extremely well for him, capturing the president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife and political leader on her own account, Celia Flores, without any US casualties. (And obviously not worried about the Cuban and Venezuelans his invading force killed.) Hey, isn’t this fun! Obviously watching the world’s reaction to his kidnapping of Maduro and Flores, and seeing nothing being done to counter such, and under pressure from Netanyahu, Trump decided to attack Iran, thinking they’d give in as apparently Venezuela’s leadership quickly did. [What’s not recognized by many is that the US has basically been at war with Venezuela since 1999; their economic sanctions have caused much death, sickness, and emigration, among everything else; according to the British medical journal Lancet (November 2025), US sanctions over all (not just Venezuela) have caused 564,258 deaths annually between 1971-2021, as compared to 106,000 battle deaths during the same period; by my math, that’s over 28 million killed by US sanctions in the 50 year period.] But Iran is not Venezuela: knowing the threat of nuclear-armed Israel to Iran, the Iranian leaders have been preparing for foreign attack for many years, including by working on nuclear arms themselves; the 2016 agreement with the Obama Administration limited Iranian efforts for 15 years; thinking he could arrange a better deal, Trump had withdrawn from that in his first term. After Trump’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities last June, Iran apparently restarted its efforts. (For a good explanation, see “Trump’s Claim About Obama Nuclear Deal and Iran’s Nuclear Development” by Saranac Hale Spencer, March 12, 2026, at .) However, Iran’s missiles to date cannot reach the United States; they can, however, reach Israel. And Netanyahu apparently was worried since his on-going genocidal war against the Palestinians is continuing…. And so, Bibi basically played Trump into the war. And while some Americans compare this current attack on Iran with W’s on Iraq in 2003, or any one of a number of “events” initiated by the United States, such as the invasion of Grenada in 1983 or Panama in 1989, many around the world think the proper comparison is with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 or Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. But Trump apparently thought that the Iranians would bow down once attacked and beg for relief. Oops! The problem—among many others—is that Trump and his sycophants currently at the top of the US government know nothing of history. Let me explain. We can divide all the countries of the world into two categories. The first are imperial countries (commonly referred to as the “developed,” “first world,” countries or, “the West”). (If one wants to get more precise, there are the “traditional” imperialist countries of Western Europe and Japan, and then there are the “settler white colonies” of the US, Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa.) In general, the traditional imperialist countries invaded these countries, stole the raw materials, natural resources, land, and sometimes people from the countries they colonized, and without any consideration of what effects they had on their victims, brought these resources back to the respective home country to develop it, while maintaining continued control of each victimized country and its resources for as long as possible. The settler white colonies permanently stole the land from the indigenous peoples who populated them, often providing work and/or land for other white immigrants, and then afterwards engaged in imperialist theft to develop these former colonies; the US being the most “successful” of all of the white settler countries. This is why the US and Canada, the countries of Western Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia live at a qualitatively higher standard of living than the other countries of the world: being more militarily vicious over the last 500 years, they stole these resources, supplementing the value created by and stolen from workers in capitalist countries. The other countries of the world have each been colonized by the imperial countries in the past or even remain colonies today; see Puerto Rico and Palestine as examples of continuing colonies today! This means each has been victimized; their people killed, and harmed in multiple ways, their raw materials and natural resources stolen, etc. Every country in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East—formerly called the “third world”—had been colonized by at least one of the imperial countries by 1940, except for two: (1) Thailand (formerly Siam) which served as a buffer state between the French and English empires in Southeast Asia, and (2) Iran (Persia). So, Trump is trying to intimidate a country of 90 million people that has never been conquered in something like 5,500 years and, for some strange reason, they aren’t giving in to the global punk and bully. (And, unfortunately, US service people with others in the Gulf States and Israel are the ones going to be hurt, not our global fascists, Trump, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, or Bibi Netanyahu.) The US didn’t do well in Iraq, with its approximately 24 million people, so I’m wondering how they expect to subjugate 90 million in Iran with this understanding…? And there has been all-but-no planning on what to do after the initial air attacks in a war that has already cost the US over $11 billion in the first week alone…. How are they going to conquer the Iranians? And I’ll give everyone a clue: it will not be done by air power alone, no matter how sophisticated or technologically advanced our’s might be: no war in human history has ever been won by air power alone. Plus, the Iranian military technology seems pretty sophisticated from what I’ve seen to date, and the US might not get its way as it expected. They have done a significant amount of damage to a number of targeted countries, including Israel, which has seen successful in their attacks on Tel Aviv and Haifa. They also have done a lot of damage to US facilities and bases in the Gulf States. And Trump, in his imperial arrogance, didn’t even bother to present his case to the American people. He had the State of Union, where he had a significant audience, and he failed to make his case, to rally Americans behind his imperialist war. Talk about chickenshit. But what can we expect from one who hid behind his daddy’s money and connections to avoid even being eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War? Many veterans—I enlisted in the USMC in 1969 for four years, not an astute career move at the time, and eventually attained the rank of Sergeant, although fortunately was never deployed overseas, and “turning around” while on active duty—call him “Commander Bonespurs,” with extreme contempt. And most Americans don’t support this war. And that’s before we see serious price rises, inflation increases, and body bags come home. And these things will increasingly impinge upon the national consciousness. The reality is that the US Empire is dying. The economic foundation of the empire—which is absolutely crucial to its existence—is fast falling. As of March 13, 2026, the National Debt is at $38.8 trillion, and increasing fast: it was less than one trillion dollars (actually $908 billion or $ .9 trillion) when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981: it has grown approximately $37 trillion in the 45 years since then. (The $ .9 trillion debt took 192 years to accumulate.) This debt is approximately 120% of Gross National Product, which means even if every American didn’t get paid or investments realized, we could not eradicate it in a year! This also means that any economic growth we’ve had since 1981 has been based on writing “hot checks,” not substantive economic production: it’s bullshit. The reality is that we cannot take care of Americans, or good people in the world, no matter what we’re told. Capitalism has failed, and it’s not coming back. We have to reject imperialism in all of its manifestations and create a new economic system that takes care of all of us around the globe while rejecting domination in all forms. But while the situation has been presented, we need to also consider how the press has covered the war. To that, I now turn. Press Coverage of the War Understanding how the press covers the war is important. Most Americans have not traveled outside the country, and especially not into any of the colonized or formerly colonized countries of the world. Therefore, we are dependent on the press to accurately present what is going on. But the media is not this neutral institution that “objectively” covers the news, as it likes to project. The problem—which is almost never acknowledged—is that each media outlet has its own interests when presenting the news: while they might be accurate in some situations, the decision as to how to cover an issue such as the war is shaped by how that particular news outlet perceives its own interests. Each media outlet—whether the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, or even Democracy Now!, as well as each other outlet—perceives developments from recognizing its own interests. Period. And that is why we get extremely contradictory views of the news; and why people understand the world according to the media they watch. It’s not magic; each media outlet presents its view of the world according to its own interests, and this shapes how their news consumers see the world differently than some other outlets’ audiences. Now, while I haven’t done a formal study, it has been very surprising to me how much the US media has challenged the Trump administration’s projection of the need for war and the war itself. Other than Fox—whose views are ideologically right-wing, as opposed to conservative, and impossible for this analyst to watch—almost every other media outlet has rejected or at least challenged the Trump perspective. They might not understand a lot, but they get the smell of bullshit and don’t like it. They are certainly not convinced of the necessity or the righteousness of Trump’s attack on Iran. And they have been reporting on the economic consequences of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the impact on ordinary Americans, especially at the gas pump; this is an attack on Trump’s followers, who have probably been hurt economically more than anyone else. This will soon be augmented by cutting off fertilizer—something like one-third of all which comes through the Strait—which will increase the price of food as time goes on. This certainly distinguishes the media coverage from the fawning lies and support for George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq; of which, Democracy Now! was a notable exception. But the mainstream media’s understanding is, nonetheless, extremely limited. First of all, they insist on bringing former US military commanders on air to comment on the military developments. Since the US record on wars in Asia since World War II has been pathetic—I score them at 0-3-1 (with the “tie” being in Korea in the early 1950s)—I don’t see why these generals have such legitimacy. But the bigger problem is that while they may understand the military aspect of the war, they don’t know much, if anything, about the politics of the war, and the politics are always much more inclusive and broader than any military aspects. It is said the US never lost a major conflict with the Vietnamese liberation forces during the US invasion of their country; I don’t know if this is true or not, but when I visit or work in Vietnam, it’s the (North) Vietnamese flag I see waving over the country, not that of the South or the US! The other problem that I recognize is that the history of Iran is incomplete, if not completely missing. At best, I see them referring (incompletely) to developments in 1979, when the Mullahs and the students rallied the people in what has been called the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the Shah of Iran. That, supposedly, is when the wheels feel off the train in Iran. (The part that is missing on that angle is that after the Revolution, the Mullahs turned on the students and executed something like 10,000-13,000 if my memory is correct; that gave the religious leaders almost total control over the country.) But what is almost never recognized is who put the Shah into power: where did he come from? In 1953, the CIA, operating under Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson, and the British MI-6, led an operation that overthrew the democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mossedegh, replacing him with the Shah, Rezi Pavlevi. He was a bastard, and his SAVAK—internal security agency—was recognized as truly vicious; and they had been trained by CIA operatives. (For a recent account, see Alfred W. McCoy’s Cold War on Five Continents, published earlier this year by Haymarket Books, pp. 149-162). In other words, the problems with Iran have overwhelmingly developed from the actions by the United States! The US government said they knew how to run the country—or so they thought—but it appears they didn’t know as much as suggested! But my main argument is this: if the media only goes back to 1979, it is lying. It’s giving the American people a false story; it is propaganda and must be challenged. We cannot allow Americans to continue to not think about the impact of the operations of “our” CIA. One other thing to think about when considering press coverage of this war: why are there almost no pictures of damage from Iranian attacks from Israel? We know, from alternative sources such as Al-Jazeera and independent political analysts, that Iranian missiles and drones have hit targets in Israel; in fact, an oil refinery in Haifa was severely damaged. Yet no pictures: how come? According to former US Army colonel, Larry Wilkerson—one of the few former military officers who has some idea of what’s really going on—speaking on Democracy Now!, Israel has officially banned photographs from being taken of the damage! This suggests that their missile defenses have been considerably less successful in protecting Isreal and its population than claimed. And this gets to a larger issue: in wartime, especially, every US government lies. (I won’t comment on foreign governments, as they almost certainly do as well, but that is outside of this focus on US-based media.) We can document this back to World War II (at least) and it involves every subsequent administration since, both Democrat and Republican. The press has ignored this reality, and thus present comments by Trump and his cronies as if they can be trusted; they cannot. In short, this war is a disaster: my bet is that Trump will be thumped by the Iranians. The economic impact of the war is broad and getting more so. The people most hurt by these economic consequences are those of Trump’s base. And Trump is not in control, no matter what Pete Hegseth, etc., says. We on the left need to recognize the global nature of the war specifically, but also US imperialism: we cannot confine our analysis to just the US or even North America but must take a global perspective. The overwhelming threat to the well-being of people around the world is the US Empire. We need to use this situation to confront not only Trump and the Empire, but the Democrats acquiescence and projection of this. We can either stand with the people of the world, or the Empire: there is no alternative. Kim Scipes, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest in Westville, IN. His latest book, Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy: Building a Progressive Labor Movement, will be published in August 2026 by Cornell University Press. For a list of his over 300 publications, most linked to the original article, see his website.

Truth about United States war on Venezuela and Iran

The Anglo-Saxon United States has always looked at other countries rapid progress and development

economically and militarily with jaundiced eyes. United States has stated very clearly and unabashly in its national policy that it will never allow any other country to rise up to become as rich and powerful as the United States and the moment it sees such signs of a country growing fast to overtake the US either economically or militarily it will smash down and destroy that country. This really unbridled arrogance and highly extreme vicious bellicose behaviour.

It is no surprise that China's rapid progress in economy and military as well as in science, technology and high tech has incur the wrath of American politicians in both the Republican and Democrat parties. India which is following China's footsteps in rapid development is also a target of American wrath.

It is the clear intention of the United States to do whatever it takes to stop China and India's development and prevent them from overtaking America and the Western countries in the field of economy, military, science and technology as well as in high tech and cyber. To carry out this dirty and vicious job of underminining China and India's development the God forsaken United States has enlisted the help and cooperation of the despicable Zionist Jewish state of Israel to ensure the success of its plot.

Below is a self explanatory article permissible by New Eastern Outlook ( NEO )

Israel and Its Staunch Allies: Turning Friends into Bitter Enemies

Seth Ferris, March 19, 2026

The global crisis around Israel and Iran reveals deeper processes that are changing the balance of power in the world and calling into question previous ideas about international politics.

The Bible says the entire world will turn against Israel at the end of times. It implies that Israel is on God’s side, and anyone opposing Israel is anti-God, so when you are fighting Israel, you are fighting God. What it doesn’t say is, what does Israel do to force everyone to hate it? Unfortunately, we are finding out, in real time, and it is only too obvious, why so many are turning against the modern State of Israel; even Jews are questioning what was never questioned before.

Future generations will look back and wonder why we didn’t stop Trump and Netanyahu before they started WWIII.

There is something else happening in the background, something even greater at work. There are many factors to consider in both the starting and stopping of these stupid attacks, as both attacking sides are greedy and want to cling to power. They are definitely not thinking of the people. It is becoming all the more obvious that the Iranian state is not the root cause of the war, but China and India are. A concerted effort is being made to slow down and stifle those economies; however, it is not going to plan.

Even longtime allies in Europe and the Caucasus are being asked to cut off their noses to spite their faces, propping up losing bets in Ukraine and the Levant for the sake of political survival

Proxy Wars of Choice

Just stop and reflect. For instance, the damage that other proxy wars of choice, such as the US starting a war in Ukraine back in 2014, inflicted on the European Union is already evident. The sad part is that most European Union countries still want to support the losing side, not out of a principled position but for self-interest and political survival. This can be summed up as clearly a case of cutting off one’s nose to spite your face.

It is ironic, with the age of AI and easy access to historic information, that few want to look back to reflect on when Iran held its first democratic elections and elected its first democratic government, which was led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh back in the early 50s. This was not in the interests of Britain and the US, as within the span of two years they conspired to implement “Operation Ajax,” which overthrew this democratically elected government. The reason was that the Iranians had nationalized the drilling and export of Iranian oil. How dare the Iranians take control of their own resources!

Targeting China, India, even the EU!

Less obvious is that the collective West wants to hurt China and India by disrupting the continuity of supply of oil products and thereby put the brakes on their economic growth, which rate currently far exceeds that of the West. Nobody should be so naïve as to accept the current justifications, lame at best, for an illegal war, as neither the US nor Israel has ever been interested in the democratic freedoms of Iranians. They want Iranians to live under the dictatorship of a US-backed leadership — just as the people of Arab countries across the Middle East suffer today.

It seems like nobody wants to remember history, as it is too inconvenient and will show who is the most right and who is dead wrong!

Even lesser friends are being turned into foes!

Even now, in small countries like Georgia, the Embassy of Israel is upset and has started a social media campaign to highlight that Georgia has to garner support for its aggressive and illegal policies against Iran and other neighbors in the Middle East, especially Lebanon.

The Israeli Embassy in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, expresses concern about Georgian society. According to the embassy, friendship is not measured only by words; it is highlighted in difficult situations — who are on the side of life and who are on the side of violence and terror.

They are trying to use the 2600-year historical connection between Georgian and Jewish people for political leverage and describe how it is based on respect and common values. It is these values that define the essence of true friendship: support, solidarity, and moral strength in difficult times, says the statement of the Israeli Embassy in Georgia.

True friendship between peoples is measured by the ability to distinguish between those who choose the path of life, stability, and cooperation, and those who continue to cultivate terror, extremism, and violence.

Such statements, and others, have been repeated on Georgian Public TV and various news sites, as this confirms the need to access Georgia as a staging area for actions from Azerbaijan and perhaps Armenia, two countries already taken under the control of Israel and the United States.

It was also pointed out, in response, by Georgian politicians and commentators alike, that during the 2008 war, the Jewish state allegedly provided kill codes to the Russian government that enabled the shutting down of drones the Georgian military had purchased from Israel.

So much for friendship, which the Israelis forget is a two-way street!

Everything that is going on in the world, particularly the Middle East, was planned long before all the recent issues people talk about now. Everything recent is tactical; the strategic goes back much further. It is difficult to understand what is going on even if you have an understanding of where history, religion, markets, and geopolitics intersect.

It comes down to the future of American and Western financial dominance and keeping the dollar as the global reserve currency. We can’t have Iran selling oil in other currencies, and the same is true for Venezuela or anyone else. When the game ends, many countries, starting with the US, will collapse from their debt and economic decline. It is anybody’s best guess as to what will happen to a lot of the rest of the world as well!

I was just looking at the futures markets; they had dropped a lot by closing each Friday, now opening lower and dropping more. I think the financial implications are here. We will have to see how Trump and his team react to that.

And there is the issue of possible attacks on desalination plants. Iran was in a serious drought already, and Tehran was running out of water, not sure the Gulf countries are ever out of drought. Things could empty out in a hurry without a safe and constant water supply.

It is really akin to the beginning of the end of times, as I see no light at the end of the tunnel. The architects of war and destruction in Tel Aviv and Washington appear blind to the blowback. Even longtime allies in Europe and the Caucasus are being asked to cut off their noses to spite their faces, propping up losing bets in Ukraine and the Levant for the sake of political survival.

Future historians will not ask why the world turned against Israel at the supposed “end of times.” They will ask why Israel — and its enablers —worked so relentlessly to make that prophecy self-fulfilling. The age of unchallenged Western dominance is ending not with a divine trumpet but with the grinding mechanics of greed, hubris, and overreach.

And when the dust finally settles, it may not be God’s judgment the world remembers, but humanity’s long-overdue reckoning with how it could allow all this to happen.

Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs

Sunday, March 15, 2026

CounterPunch: The Long War: Iran's Oldest Strategy: 13-03-2026 FRI

March 13, 2026

The Long War: Iran’s Oldest Strategy

Peter Bach

Photograph Source: Cattette – CC BY 4.0

Most discussions of Iran revolve around oil, escalation, and regime change. Yet Iran today feels easier to understand as part of a much older pattern. For more than 2,500 years, states on the Iranian plateau have favoured patience, distance, and endurance over any kind of immediate full-on confrontation with stronger enemies.

To understand Iran today, it therefore helps to trawl through Persian military history.

Iran has been described, unfairly, as two deserts—one with salt and one without, though it is also forested and full of mountains. From all this has emerged one of the world’s most durable martial traditions.

From the chariot nobles and “Immortals” of the Achaemenid Empire to the armoured cavalry of later dynasties—and ultimately to the modern Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—Iranian military institutions have repeatedly adapted.

During the Iran–Iraq War, Iraqi forces saturated the battlefield with chemical weapons while much of the world looked away. Yet Iranian forces endured. That experience still shapes the country’s strategic thinking.

Today, Iran famously emphasises asymmetric warfare—indirect and comparatively inexpensive methods designed to offset the technological advantages of powers such as the United States and Israel. But across the centuries, Persian warfare has often favoured similar patience, mobility, and indirect pressure.

Long before the Persian Empire came about, Indo-Iranian tribes spread like seeds across the Eurasian steppe. The ancestors of Persians, Medes, and Scythians were nomadic pastoralists whose warrior culture centred on horse archery and mobile raiding.

I will always remember the late Iran expert Michael Axworthy telling me at the French House in central London how Persian culture liked to preserve the memory of its warrior elites in the Shahnameh, where heroes famously fought knowing that “a man’s renown is what remains of him.”

Over time groups such as the Medes and Persians formed states. Emerging from these tribal warrior societies, they became more than capable administrators and empire-builders, though their romantic steppe heritage—particularly elite cavalry—continued to shape Iranian warfare.

The first great Persian imperial conqueror was Cyrus the Great. His empire, founded around 550 BC, became one of the largest the ancient world had ever seen. Achaemenid armies fielded archers and spearmen supported by cavalry and elite guards such as the Immortals—a 10,000-man corps whose ranks were continually replenished to that exact number. [It was pointed out to me that part of the weird Christian Zionist hagiography of Trump hailed him as a modern-day Cyrus the Great.]

During the Greco-Persian Wars, these armies brought together Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Central Asians under one single imperial command. One encounter remains especially famous: the Battle of Thermopylae, where Leonidas I’s Greek force resisted Xerxes I’s invading army. The episode has been retold so many times in Western culture, most recently in the film 300, where Persians appear less as soldiers than as grotesques—an example of how easily enemies become caricatures.

“From childhood we are taught to ride and to shoot,” declares the hero in Gore Vidal’s novel Creation. Vidal uses this idea repeatedly to show that Persians were raised as horsemen and warriors from youth, not trained later as professional soldiers. The Greeks admired individual glory in battle, Vidal is saying, while Persians value order, discipline, and organisation.

When the Achaemenid Empire collapsed under Alexander the Great, however, Persian political power fragmented with it. Yet they say the military traditions of the Iranian plateau did not disappear. If anything, they evolved.

The Parthian Empire developed one of the ancient world’s most distinctive fighting styles. Its armies relied on highly mobile horse archers this time supported by heavily armoured cataphracts. Like the great horse warriors of the Native American Plains, the Parthians were legendary riders, able to twist in the saddle and fire arrows backwards in the famous ‘Parthian shot.’

These tactics proved devastating at the Battle of Carrhae, where Parthian forces destroyed a Roman army commanded by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Later writers claimed molten gold was poured into Crassus’s mouth—perhaps apocryphal, but too memorable to be lost.

The broader lesson was familiar on the Iranian plateau. Stronger enemies could often be worn down through distance, manoeuvre, and patience.

The Sasanian Empire refined this. Its elite warriors, the Savaran, were heavily armoured noble cavalrymen armed with long lances and swords, forming the backbone of a state that for centuries rivalled Rome and Byzantium.

Exhausted by long wars with Rome, however, the Sasanian state did eventually collapse under the Arab conquest in AD 651. The empire fell, but Persian administrative and military traditions continued. Early Islamic rulers adopted many of these, just as later conquerors—from the Seljuks to the Mongols—also found that governing Iran meant working within Persian traditions of statecraft and war.

A distant echo of this pattern perhaps appears today in the IRGC’s increasingly challenged support for regional militias from Hezbollah and Hamas to the Houthis in Yemen and the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan.

Under the Qajar dynasty, attempts to modernise the army included the creation of the Persian Cossack Brigade, a Russian-trained unit that became Iran’s most effective military force. After the Russian Revolution the brigade passed into Iranian hands, and its commander, Reza Khan, used it to launch the 1921 coup that brought the Pahlavi monarchy to power—an event quietly tolerated by Britain.

Today, long after the overthrow of the Shah, Iran fields two main military institutions: the national army and the earlier mentioned, still powerful IRGC created after the 1979 revolution.

The Islamic Republic was immediately tested by war. Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1980 forced Iran into an eight-year struggle fought under isolation and repeated Iraqi chemical attacks. Iran’s conventional forces struggled against Iraq’s better-equipped army.

Yet the war delivered a crucial lesson: survival itself could count as success.

Basically, endurance and mobilisation allowed the Islamic Republic to outlast what many expected would be swift collapse. The conflict left a deep imprint on Iranian military thinking, reinforcing a threatening preference for attrition and indirect pressure rather than conventional confrontation with technologically superior enemies. The pattern will be familiar.

The Iranian warrior is no longer a horseman but a modern soldier equipped with missiles, drones, and cyber capabilities. Yet the imagery of the past remains relevant. Heroes like Rostam from the Shahnameh appear alongside Sasanian cavalry and the martyr traditions of the Iran–Iraq War in Iran’s modern military imagination.

Their current strategy is therefore less an anomaly than the latest expression of a long tradition. The steppe archers who once hassled and harried their enemies, the Parthians who exhausted Roman legions through manoeuvre and distance, and later Persian states that absorbed new technologies while preserving older traditions all find an echo in Iran’s reliance today on missiles, drones, proxy militias, and dispersed forces.

Rather than seeking immediate battlefield triumph, Iran appears today to be preparing for something else. This is a long contest of attrition.

The “distance” once commanded by the Parthian horse archer has not disappeared—it has simply changed form. Where a nomad once used the range of a bow, the modern state uses missiles or the geopolitical buffer of proxy militias.

The principle remains the same: this is to keep the enemy at arm’s length and wear down their resolve.

Geography reinforces this strategy. Don’t forget Iran sits astride the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, surrounded by mountains and deserts that favour defence and attrition.

If history tells us anything, Iran will not try to win quickly. Instead it will aim to ensure that any enemy drawn into conflict finds itself fighting a long war.

Foreign powers have underestimated Iran for more than twenty-five centuries—and repeatedly discovered that Iranian states possess a stubborn capacity to endure, adapt, and outlast stronger enemies. What we are witnessing today may therefore be the opening phase of a highly regrettable conflict shaped not by decisive battles, but by endurance.

Peter Bach lives in London.

NEO: Shield of the Americas: The Geopolitics behind US-Led Counter-Cartel Coalition: Sunday, 15-03-2026

Security

Shield of the Americas: The Geopolitics Behind US-Led Counter-Cartel Coalition

Taut Bataut, March 15, 2026

Under Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the US has advanced a new coalition, “Shield of the Americas,” in the Western Hemisphere. While framed as a counter-cartel initiative, the effort also seeks to curb China’s expanding influence in Latin America. Beijing is closely monitoring the development and adjusting its regional strategy to preserve its long-term foothold.

Shield of the Americas: The Geopolitics Behind US-Led Counter-Cartel Coalition

The assumption of the Oval Office by President Trump has once again revived the idea of ‘spheres of influence,’ although this concept contends that each regional power would restrict its hegemonic objectives to its neighborhood or the near abroad. But under the Trump 2.0 administration, this seems quite debatable, as the US is directly or indirectly infusing tensions and chaos at its counterpart’s borders. The ongoing war in Iran is its best manifestation. However, in the case of the Western Hemisphere, the US is not bearing any kind of foreign footprints, considering it a national security concern for the country. The Trump administration is determined to securitize the Western Hemisphere, in particular Central and Latin America, ultimately creating a regional order that provides no room for any external power to even engage diplomatically. Thus, on March 7, 2026, the US launched a security alliance in the region, which the Trump administration is entitling the ‘Shield of the Americas.’

The Trump administration has accepted the fact that the PRC is now a peer competitor of the US, which has all the capabilities and intent to surpass US global power

What is the Shield of Americas (SoAs)?

The Shield of Americas (SoAs) is a newly launched multilateral military alliance between the US and Latin American states. The “Shield of the Americas” conference, which the White House described as such, was held by US President Donald Trump on Saturday in Miami at his golf club with Latin American leaders. As per the US officials, this multilateral grouping is aimed at dismantling drug cartels and criminal networks operating in the region through a combined security web. It is also meant to contain external powers’ influence in the region, which threatens American security.

“The alliance is our commitment to use lethal military force to destroy the sinister cartels and terrorist networks” (President Donald J. Trump – SoAs Summit)

The alliance is comprised of approximately seventeen member countries, with the exclusion of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Another major interesting fact about the grouping is that it is mainly comprised of Trump’s like-minded partner nations – far-right conservative Latin American governments. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads the alliance, while Kristi Noem acts as the special envoy for the Shield of Americas, appointed by President Trump.

Rationale Behind the Alliance

The National Security Strategy of the US, launched in December 2025, clearly mentioned the implementation of the ‘Enlist and Expand’ strategy in the Western Hemisphere. It simply refers to the picking and choosing of like-minded governments, in particular the far-right conservatives, and creating a multilateral coalition to impose the Monroe Doctrine on the region.

The NSS stated, “We will enlist established friends in the hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea. By fostering and reinforcing new relationships, we will expand while simultaneously promoting our own country’s attractiveness as the region’s preferred economic and security partner.” The establishment of “Shield of Americas” is its actual implementation.

One of the major objectives of the coalition is the economic encirclement of the region, which includes a U.S.-backed alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative’s (BRI) advances in Latin America. To prevent Chinese transshipment, the United States is attempting to establish supply chain corridors through tax breaks, tariff reductions, and a shared set of rules of origin. Similarly, the “Americas Energy Compact” will require Latin American countries to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.

In terms of defense and security, the US wants to create a hemispheric security network with the overt objective of curbing transnational terrorism and drug cartels while covertly using such means to ensure maximum containment of the PRC in the region. As China has provided port-building facilities to Latin American states to boost its economic ties with the region, the US, through heightened security initiatives, wants to construct a ‘western port culture’ where the US-made rules would be implemented for trade and commerce. Through such measures, the US is trying to re-engage and mold the region into a strict Western governance order.

Chinese Countermeasures

Anticipating the upcoming threats, on December 10, 2025, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) issued its third policy paper, entitled “China Latin America and the Caribbean Policy Paper.” Preserving its foothold in the region, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China has put together a task force whose mandate is to maintain its gains in the region and take further countermeasures against any future American moves. Under this policy, China has launched five programs for building a China-LAC community, which include the Solidarity Program, Development Program, Civilization Program, Peace Program, and People-to-People Connectivity Program.

The policy paper came as a response to the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which contradicts China’s policies in the region. In spite of pressure from Washington, the PRC is maintaining its relations with the Latin American states, providing an alternative order surpassing the Western scrutiny and pressure points. Thus, China’s strategy in the region is centered around political and economic engagement rather than what the US tries to frame it as: ‘offensive intervention’ in its neighborhood.

Future Trajectory

No doubt, the launch of ‘Shield of Americas’ is a significant development, but it faces serious complications. The Western Hemisphere is already crowded with more than 40 organizations. The addition of a new one would only add to the mess and disrupt the status quo of the region. Moreover, the coalition is more symbolic in nature. Just like the Board of Peace, this grouping could face regional backlash and global condemnation. The results of such a coalition would be tactical, as seen.

This alliance consists predominantly of conservative governments, which is consistent with the Trump administration’s ideology. With geopolitical changes being very imminent, what if in the near future the region reneges on a left-wing wave again? Would the alliance remain intact? Likewise, if Democrats came into power in the US, the alliance could face serious setbacks. Therefore, the establishment of this regional coalition could be considered an accelerating change but not necessarily an inflection point.

Conclusion

The Shield of the Americas is basically another Chinese containment initiative taken by the Trump administration under the guise of counter-drug-cartel operations. From the inaugural address to the NDS, the Trump administration has accepted the fact that the PRC is now a peer competitor of the US, which has all the capabilities and intent to surpass US global power. Therefore, such so-called coalitions are being formed to either reduce or evade this reality. On the other hand, China has already started taking countermeasures and is determined to implement its strategies based on long-term strategic thinking, as compared to short-sighted, symbolic steps taken by the US.

Taut Bataut is a researcher and writer that publishes on South Asian geopolitics

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