Fighting intensified across Yemen over the past week, as the Houthis (Ansar Allah) escalated their missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia.

On October 16, two missiles hit Aden International Airport’s perimeter. The Houthis said they targeted a nearby military facility housing a Saudi-led coalition command center and weapons depot. No casualties were reported.

Two days later, October 18, the Houthis shot down a Saudi AH-6i light attack helicopter near Najran. Footage released by the group’s military media showed a missile striking the helicopter before it fell. The crash killed both crew members. The Houthis also downed a Turkish-made Karayel combat drone in Yemen.

On October 19, a ballistic missile hit the Al-Alam training camp in Shabwa province as recruits assembled. The strike killed 73 people and wounded more than 200. The dead were all new recruits. The Houthis claimed the attack. A missile strike also targeted Marib.

The next day, October 20, Houthi military media released footage of an operation on Jabal Han, a mountain overlooking Taiz’s western approaches, and said the group’s forces had stormed the summit and ridgeline, driving out Saudi-backed forces. Fighting also continued around Al-Dhabab, the Old Airport and Madarat, while clashes south of the city extended into Al-Misrakh and Sabr al-Madawim. The mountain overlooks the Al-Dhabab road, a key supply route into Taiz.

On October 21, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at the Saudi-led coalition’s operations room at Badr Camp in Aden. An explosion was heard and smoke reported near the airport. Three drones also targeted Al-Rayyan Airport in Mukalla.

In addition, the group’s military media released footage from operations east of Raghwan in Marib showing wreckage of Turkish-made STM Kargu loitering munitions. The footage showed at least two of the systems. This was evidence of growing involvement by Ankara in the war.

The same day, Saudi authorities said debris from a drone intercepted over the Shaybah oilfield killed two foreign workers, one Filipino and one Nepali, and injured two others, a Pakistani and an Indian. A separate attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed two people and injured eight; the second death was announced the following day. The airport sustained material damage, prompting flight diversions.

All in all, the Houthis maintain the upper hand on the battlefield, in Taiz, near Bab al-Mandab and on other fronts. The group’s air defenses also remain a credible threat. Meanwhile, strikes on Saudi-backed forces and the kingdom itself are becoming more lethal. Despite all of these factors, Riyadh appears to be determined to go on with the war, with reports indicating it is close to securing more support not just from Turkey, but also from Egypt and Syria.

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The post Houthi Strikes Kill Dozens In Yemen And Saudi Arabia appeared first on South Front.

Iran and Russia, both sanctioned to oblivion, are indeed in synch like never before, coordinating everything on a shared front.

Join us on Telegram, X, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Washington, on the Ukraine front, may be switching to total Saving Face mode. After all, the scale of the strategic defeat for the Empire plus the discombobulated West in country 404 is staggering. Add to it the strategic defeat in Iran plus Yemen relentlessly hammering the House of Saud. Grandmaster Lavrov coined it: “The West will never again be the main player, dictating terms.”

The temptation may be great to identify a more straightforward path towards a multi-nodal, polycentric world order – in the wake of all those wild, unprecedented Trump concessions to Moscow. But then the real dark clouds keep coming down.

The death cult in West Asia and the Epstein Syndicate as a whole have managed to overpower the whole mass of neo-con Russophobes spread across the MICIMATT (military/industrial/congressional/intelligence/media/academia/think tank complex, in the memorable definition by Ray McGovern) and reconstitute Iran as the undisputable, one and only national security emergency.

The 7-point way or the highway

Field Marshal Asim Munir’s hasty, last minute-arranged trip from Islamabad to Tehran earlier this week in the end could not possibly mediate anything.

Munir met everyone who matters. He asked Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf point blank: what does it take to find a solution for the Iran-U.S. impasse? Ghalibaf was blunt – and repeated it at last 8 times during their meeting: Washington must implement Iran’s 7-point conditions, essentially a summary of the serially dead cat memorandum of understanding (MoU), which Trump signed and then destroyed.

The 7 points were first proposed to Tweedledum and Twedledee – Witkoff and Kushner – via the Qataris in a previous round of Iran-U.S. indirect negotiations.

President Pezeshkian and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Mohsen Rezaee, in their meetings, stressed the exact same thing. That’s the message Munir should relay to the Sociopath-in-Chief.

Official Iranian sources will not confirm it; only the heavily-spun American version. But Munir may have carried a final U.S. ultimatum to Rezaee, Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf: ditch your nuclear program, or face massive strikes, mostly targeting Pickaxe Mountain.

Adding on the 7 points, Mohsen Rezaee actually informed Munir – and thus the White House – again, that not a single speck of nuclear dust will leave Iran. Back to the only possibility of a return to negotiations: Washington must accept the 7 points.

Foreign Minister Araghchi keeps coming back to the essentials: “The U.S. has failed to achieve any of its war objectives.” So the connectivity chain is inescapable: no military victory (and no regime change); unbearable economic costs; untainable political situation; thus only off-ramp is the 7 points.

And on top of it Tehran runs the clock.

In parallel, across the Yemeni Storm, Sana’a also runs the clock.

With Aramco, the lifeblood of U.S., Israel and Salafi-jihadi goons of the ISIS mould, and a privileged source of funding for the Forever Wars, now in Ansarallah’s direct line of fire, the Yemeni drive is to work “to dry up the sources of terrorism.”

Riyadh though is doubling down, threatening to bomb every gathering of Yemeni tribes. If that happens, more than a million more Yemenis will join the Yemeni Armed Forces and march to the Yemeni-Saudi border.

After all the tribes, well-trained and ultra-weaponized, are just waiting for a directive from Ansarallah’s leader, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, to pour into southern “Saudi” Arabia and recover the three provinces, Najran, Jizan and Asir, that are ancestral Yemeni lands stolen by the Brits in 1934.

A price you can’t afford to pay

All hell may break loose: now; soon; or until the end of November at the latest. Were it to happen sooner, before the Israeli elections, it’s a done deal the driver is the death cult. The Sociopath-in-Chief privileges a post-mid-terms attack.

The death cult is preparing a massive attack on Iranian power plants, oil infrastructure, military targets and nuclear installations. Tehran has repeatedly warned that any attack, joint or separate, from the U.S. and Israel, will be treated as Totalen Krieg, all-out war, and the response will break any limits or restraint.

Iran’s internal intel is fully concentrated on a large-scale bombing scenario happening before next Tuesday, Election Day in the death cult.

Whatever happens, Tehran’s response will make sure the price to pay is beyond prohibitive. On Israel, Iran will counterpunch on both of Israel’s refineries; the ports at Haifa and Ashdod; all airbases; and Dimona added only if Iran’s own nuclear sites are hit.

When it comes to a U.S. attack, any Gulf petro-monarchy that hosts any launch instantly becomes a legitimate target, including power grids; desalination plants; refineries; ports; data centers; HQs and installations of American companies.

The Strait of Hormuz would be completely closed. The price of a barrel of oil will skyrocket. The global economy will hit Big Depression. From an imperial point of view, that will be as gloomy as Washington letting Iran manage the Strait of Hormuz and charge fees for transit: actually the humiliating end of unilateral thalassocracy – complete with the U.S. Fifth Fleet needing to ask permission to enter or leave its own dilapidated base in Bahrain.

Mohammad Mokhber, a top adviser to Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, stressed that “if the U.S.-Israel strike our petrochemical infrastructure or power plants, Iran will strike nine countries.”

Moreover, the Fars news agency, very close to the IRGC, learned about an array of new directives: if the attacks involve the assassination of Iranian officials and the killing of civilians, the Iranian response will include political targets associated with the U.S. and all nations participating in the war, in addition to their infrastructure.

Lavrov and Araghchi revive RIC

Amidst so much horror, let’s try to stress at least one auspicious trend. During Lavrov’s recent visit to Tehran, Iranian FM Araghchi cut to the chase:

“Never in our History have Russia & Iran worked as closely as now.”

The key operative concept is “Never in our History”. Lavrov and Araghchi talked about “everything from Europe to West Asia”. But specially these four: Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine & Yemen. Not to mention everything about expanded economic and “nuclear cooperation”.

Economic cooperation means specially the INSTC – the International North South Transportation Corridor linking 3 BRICS/SCO partners: Russia, Iran and India.

See my INSTC documentary shot in Iran last year.

The Empire of Chaos relies on sanctions, threats and bombing. Eurasia integration relies on building infrastructure, increasing trade, and sovereign cooperation. So Lavrov and Araghchi once again had to revive RIC: the original Russia/India/China connection first conceptualized as the Primakov Triangle but now with Iran in place of India.

Lavrov proposed that the new RIC establish a “common security structure” in the Persian Gulf via a trilateral summit. That amounts to RIC defining a unified framework for the Strait of Hormuz.

The Empire’s response will be increased discombobulation. Because once again this is about “indivisibility of security” – as in Russia proposing it to the U.S. and NATO in December 2021. Then that was met with a non-response response.

On Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine and Yemen, Lavrov and Araghchi were on top of the top frontlines. Where we have the Empire of Chaos and its allies/vassals on one side, and Russia and Iran’s allies on the other side.

It’s all interconnected, of course. An imperial arc of military pressure stretches from Ukraine to Yemen. The counterpunch revolves around how to coordinate the resistance (italics mine) to such pressure.

On economic cooperation, both Iran and Russia are under a tsunami of sanctions. Their banks are expelled from SWIFT, and oil exports are severely restricted. So trade between them must bypass the U.S. dollar; the whole Western financial system; and the thalassocracy enforced by the U.S. Navy.

Know how in bypassing sanctions is something Iran-Russia may share with the whole Global South, via settlements in local currencies; barter trade; overland corridors; the INSTC; and trade across the Caspian Sea.

And that brings us once again to the Strait of Hormuz – which Iran controls. The Gulf petro-monarchies are completely freaking out. Russia maintains solid channels with both Iran and the Gulf. Lavrov is in total synch with all of them. He brought the Gulf’s concerns to Tehran, and in turn, conveyed Tehran’s conditions back to the Gulf.

Lavrov stressed that the serially dead cat Islamabad MoU is the only way to go. Exactly what Xi told Trump at the Oval Office. Exactly what the Iranian leadership told Asim Munir in Tehran.

He also stressed that the Persian Gulf petro-monarchies must get their act together and start a serious security dialogue with Iran and Arab nations, including neighbors such as Iraq and Jordan, and involve the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Once again: indivisibility of security.

Iran and Russia, both sanctioned to oblivion, are indeed in synch like never before, coordinating everything on a shared front – while the desperate Epstein Syndicate remains stuck in its self-concocted Forever War nightmare.

A reported strike plan, paused only until after the midterms, exposes the limits of American strategic independence.

By Dr. Sara Neumann | MEMO | October 22, 2026

On October 21, the Financial Times reported that Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed his military to prepare a multi-day bombing campaign against Iran for the weekend of October 10—only for Donald Trump to block it until after the November 3 midterms . The operation would have targeted electricity plants, nuclear facilities, and regime sites, surpassing the intensity of the joint offensive launched in February. Trump’s opposition did not end the war. It rescheduled it.

That distinction is the entire story. The veto is being presented as proof that Washington can restrain Jerusalem. In reality, it is a demonstration of an alliance leash—a tether that permits tactical friction while leaving the strategic architecture of the war untouched. Trump can pull the leash to protect Republican seats. Netanyahu can pull it to protect Likud seats. Neither pull ends the war. Both manage the calendar.

The FT report is clear that the operation was not cancelled, only deferred. “There will either be a deal or an attack,” one person familiar with the matter said. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Israel on Monday to meet Netanyahu, and Israeli officials presented an updated target bank that included civilian infrastructure not struck earlier in the year. The machinery of escalation remains fully assembled. The only variable that changed was the date.

The strongest defense of the White House is that Trump’s veto proves American primacy. If Washington can tell Jerusalem no, the argument goes, the leash is in American hands. But this confuses a pause with a strategy. The veto covered only the period before November 3. It did not define war aims, set an end date, or require congressional authorization. It was a tactical deferral, not a strategic reversal.

The midterms themselves are a powerless-ballot exercise in war governance. Voters are being told the election is about affordability. They are not wrong. Gasoline has reached $4.28 a gallon, $1.20 higher than a year ago, and half of registered voters name the cost of living as their top concern . Trump’s approval sits at a record-low 31%. But neither party is offering a vote on whether the war should continue, expand, or end. The ballot ratifies a choice between managers of a war that was never put to a vote.

Congress has tried to assert itself. The House has passed war powers resolutions three times, and the Senate approved one on its tenth attempt—only for Republican senators to reverse course the next day after Trump berated them.

The cost of the conflict has reached at least $38 billion, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating an additional $3 billion for every month it continues. The stockpile of interceptor missiles is so depleted that rebuilding it could take five years. None of this has produced a binding vote to end the war. The legislature has rendered itself a spectator.

Netanyahu’s own calendar is just as cynical. Israel votes on October 27. Netanyahu has said a preemptive strike before the election would be “inconvenient”. Israeli commentators have reported that he fears a military campaign in the final stretch could cost Likud power. The alliance leash runs in both directions. Washington pulls it to protect Republican seats. Jerusalem pulls it to protect Likud seats. The war is paused not because either capital has decided it should end, but because both leaders have decided the timing is wrong for their own electoral survival.

For American voters, the question is not whether Trump can overrule Netanyahu on a given weekend. The question is who decides when the war ends, on what terms, and at what cost.

On the current trajectory, those decisions are being made in confidential channels between two executive offices, insulated from legislative oversight and electoral accountability. The ballot is powerless to alter the war’s direction because the war’s direction was never on the ballot.

The real test comes after both elections. If the deferral becomes a pathway to diplomacy, Trump’s veto will have meant something. If it becomes a pause before a new round of strikes—as the updated target bank suggests—then the only thing that changed was the calendar. Independence is not the ability to delay a war. It is the ability to end one on terms you can defend.

RT | October 22, 2026

The US-Israeli war on Iran has caused an “unprecedented” shock to global energy markets, removing some 3 billion barrels of oil supply, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser has warned.

The war launched in February effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil and LNG artery, sending crude prices up roughly 50%. Despite Gulf exports recovering to a reported 80% of pre-war levels, renewed attacks on vessels have kept markets on edge, with Brent hitting a five-month high above $112 this week. Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure and shipping have compounded the crisis, threatening another vital trade chokepoint, the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

In an interview with Al Arabiya Business aired on Thursday, Nasser said the nearly eight-month crisis had deprived global markets of an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil.

“The impact of this crisis on energy markets is unprecedented,” he said. “We have lost around 3 billion barrels since it began. And bear in mind that the Gulf accounts for roughly 20% of global oil demand.”

The figure is equivalent to nearly a month of global oil consumption and reflects cumulative supply losses caused by disrupted shipping, reduced production and logistical bottlenecks.

With global oil inventories already below their five-year average when the war erupted, prices could have soared past $200 a barrel, Nasser warned. He credited emergency reserve releases, China’s sharp cut in seaborne oil imports and Saudi Aramco’s East-West pipeline, which bypasses Hormuz, with averting an even more severe price shock.

Nasser warned, however, that even an end to the crisis could bring fresh pressure on oil markets, as recovering consumption and a rush to replenish depleted reserves will likely fuel another demand surge.

“Once things return to normal, we expect additional demand of around 3 million barrels per day – about 2 million from consumption growth and another 1 million just to replenish the reserves countries have drawn down during the crisis,” he said, noting that the added demand could keep markets under strain long after shipping routes reopen.
Fresh escalation fears

Meanwhile, fears of another escalation are growing as US-Iran talks remain deadlocked. Reports on Wednesday claimed Washington was quietly pulling troops from bases in Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait, evacuating some diplomats and their families from Saudi Arabia and preparing similar withdrawals elsewhere. Similar precautions were taken ahead of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28.

The moves follow US President Donald Trump’s rejection last month of Tehran’s proposal to reopen Hormuz in exchange for lifting the US blockade of Iranian ports, easing oil export restrictions, unfreezing Iranian assets and ending regional hostilities, including Israeli operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

Washington and Israel have since reportedly discussed another major offensive, potentially soon after the November 3 US midterms. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also openly threatened fresh strikes on Iran, even without US backing.

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | October 22, 2026 

Earlier this month, Aramco’s chief executive, Amin Nasser, assured the markets that “our system is intact” and that Saudi Arabia could restore its full 12 million barrels a day of capacity within days. It is a comforting message, and Washington, European capitals and oil traders have every reason to want to believe it. It is not true.

Karl Miller has just completed a 37-slide operating assessment of Saudi Arabia’s energy system, covering everything from the oil fields to the fuel depots, as of October 20. I have read it closely. It is the most careful accounting of this damage I have seen, and it is careful in a way that should worry anyone counting on Saudi oil this winter. Miller does not count Houthi boasts, social-media videos or plumes of smoke as damage. He separates confirmed hits from claims, and he refuses to add up the design capacity of every facility that was struck as if it were all offline at once. Even with all of that discipline, the picture is grim.

A quarter of Saudi production is gone

Start with the headline number. In February, before the war, Saudi Arabia produced about 10.88 million barrels of crude a day. In September it was still producing 2.51 million barrels a day less, a drop of 23 percent. In August the shortfall was 4.64 million barrels a day, when output sank to about 6.24 million. From March through September, the Kingdom produced more than 800 million fewer barrels than it would have at its February rate. That is roughly eight days of total world oil consumption that never came out of the ground.

Aramco’s own books say the same thing. In the company’s reported figures, its liquids production fell from 10.56 million barrels a day in the first quarter to 7.57 million in the second, a 28 percent collapse in a single quarter. Natural gas and ethane fell nearly 6 percent. A company whose system was intact does not report numbers like that.

Exports followed production down. In one consistent tracking series, Saudi crude exports fell from 7.27 million barrels a day in February to 3.70 million in August, a 49 percent drop. They recovered to 5.62 million in September, but that is still 23 percent below the pre-war level.

The damage runs through the whole chain

The reason the recovery keeps stalling is that the damage is not in one place. It runs from the wellhead to the gas station.

At the front end, the Abqaiq complex, the plant that conditions most of Saudi Arabia’s light crude before it can be shipped or refined, sustained physical damage in July. In March, some 2 to 2.5 million barrels a day were curtailed across the offshore Safaniya, Marjan, Zuluf and Abu Safa fields. In April, Khurais and Manifa each lost 300,000 barrels a day.

In the middle, five of the Kingdom’s major refineries have been damaged or shut down. Ras Tanura, at 550,000 barrels a day the largest domestic refinery, burned and was shut in March. SATORP in Jubail lost three units in April, restarted at half capacity and was still running at only about 70 percent in May. SAMREF in Yanbu was hit in March. The Riyadh refinery caught fire on October 3. Jazan, a 400,000-barrel-a-day plant designed to turn out 250,000 barrels a day of ultra-low-sulfur diesel, shut down on July 27 after its power plant and tank farm were hit, and Ansar Allah attacks in August and September disrupted every attempt to restart it. Satellite imagery now shows tank damage at Petro Rabigh as well. The Juaymah gas-liquids plant, which feeds Saudi Arabia’s LPG exports, has suffered fires.

At the back end, the system for storing and moving fuel is being picked apart. Imagery of the Abha bulk plant from September 13 shows six tanks apparently destroyed and eight more damaged. A depot near Riyadh’s airport burned on September 19. Jazan’s tank clusters have been hit repeatedly.

And the East-West Pipeline, Saudi Arabia’s only way to move crude to the Red Sea and around a closed Strait of Hormuz, has been hit again and again. In April, 700,000 barrels a day of pumping capacity was knocked out. In September, repeated attacks took out three pumping stations and halted the line until a low-rate restart on September 22. On October 4 and 5, another pumping station near Khurais was reported badly damaged. The energy minister now says the line is running at 5.8 million barrels a day, against a rated 7 million. Even Miller notes that no one outside Aramco is metering the actual flow.

Why repairs don’t stick

Miller’s most important insight is that this is a system, and systems fail at their weakest link. Jazan is the clearest example. Fixing the crude units does no good if the gasification and power plant that run the refinery is still damaged, and fixing the power plant does no good if there are no tanks to put the diesel in. A refinery can be “restarted” on paper and still produce nothing useful. The same logic runs upstream. An oil field with every well intact still has to shut in if the processing plant or pumping station downstream of it is broken.

Every time Aramco gets one link repaired, another one gets hit. That is why restart announcements keep failing to show up in the production numbers.

Saudi Arabia is running out of fuel to sell

The most alarming numbers in Miller’s report are about refined products. By July, the latest month with complete data, Saudi refinery output was down 534,000 barrels a day from February, nearly 18 percent. Diesel output fell 21 percent. Diesel exports fell 47 percent, from 848,000 barrels a day to 446,000. Gasoline exports fell 40 percent.

The Saudis have been covering the gap by draining their tanks. Diesel stocks fell from 25.6 million barrels in February to 16.6 million in July, down 35 percent. Gasoline stocks fell by the same proportion. The world’s largest oil exporter more than doubled its imports of fuel oil, and it is burning more than twice as much crude directly in its power plants as it did in February. Some of that is the summer air-conditioning load, but it is not the behavior of a country with fuel to spare.

Lower stocks mean less cushion for the next attack. And there will be a next attack.

The trap Riyadh is in

Miller’s report spells out one more danger that I have not seen discussed anywhere else. If Saudi Arabia’s export outlets close, its oil has nowhere to go but its own refineries, its own power plants and its storage tanks. In July, domestic refineries and direct burning absorbed about 3.04 million barrels a day. Once the storage is full, that is roughly the ceiling on what Saudi Arabia could keep producing. Close Ras Tanura and Yanbu at the same time, and the Kingdom would have to shut in most of its oil fields. That is exactly the scenario Ansar Allah’s campaign against the pipeline, the Red Sea and the Gulf terminals is built to produce.

Why this matters to everyone else

The rest of the world is already living with the consequences. Saudi diesel exports are down by about 400,000 barrels a day, at the same moment Hormuz is restricted and Russian refineries are under drone attack. The International Energy Agency says the global diesel shortage will last well into 2027. Brent is above $100. Europe, which depends on imported diesel, is already rioting over the cost of living, and winter has not started.

Miller makes no claim that every barrel of lost output was blown up by a Houthi missile, and he is careful to say so. Some of the decline reflects shipping, security and commercial decisions. But the point is that it doesn’t matter to a trucker in Lyon or a farmer in Lombardy whether a barrel was lost to a missile, a closed sea lane or a refinery that has no power. It is gone either way.

So when Aramco says its system is intact, ask what the production figures, the export figures and the fuel stocks say. They say Saudi Arabia is producing a quarter less oil than it did in February, exporting half as much diesel, and drawing down its reserves to keep the lights on. Any new American or Israeli campaign against Iran will land on a Saudi energy system that has no slack left to absorb it.

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TEHRAN, Oct. 22 (MNA) – The Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 74,498 people and injured 175,616 since October 2023.

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 21, 2026

If one were seeking to create something like a modern-day folk tale based on current realities and having the theme of “good versus evil” there are any number of real-life narratives available that could be exploited to invite speculation on actual environments that might have served as models for the fiction. I have found much of the bizarre and blood-soaked evil relationship between the United States and Israel, which serves no US interest at all, to be one such arrangement in which two countries have through their own behavior become the most hated in the world. They have successfully established an odd partnership based largely on a common view of which other nations they hate and would like to destroy.

One must consider the monstrous joined-at-the-hip relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv, which is likely soon to become a true military and policy partnership by act of Congress. It will leverage the already existing ability of tiny Israel to manipulate and dominate the large and powerful United States. And there is also something else that should be reckoned with in the arrangement, and that is melding of the desire of the two countries to dominate not only their neighbors but also far beyond that. One can cite the aberrations in behavior that reveal how neither government wants to get along with other nations except in those rare cases where America and the Jewish state are accepted and even honored in spite of not being bound by any rules, decency or even democratic norms.

A prime example of how the completely murderous pathology that guides both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has come to dominate the relationship surfaced last week when Trump endorsed Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli election. It was a case of two completely evil men finding common ground to congratulate themselves and advance their respective careers, which nearly all of the rest of the world would like to terminate!

Both men are in trouble with their respective electorates in large part because their obsession with endlessly killing anyone annoying be it in the Caribbean or Gaza, has become suspect, largely because the killing is without any actual objective and no real good comes out of the process. This is particularly true for voters in the US who have suffered the bullying by Israel and its domestic Lobby and also bear the tax burden and shortages that are the only fruit that falls from the trees of the conflicts. In Israel the equation is somewhat different as 90% of the Jewish voters want to eradicate even more Muslims and Christians and fully support a new Prime Minister who will kill even more of the vermin.

Observe what a brain dead Trump has to say about his good buddy Netanyahu in a shared phone call in which they first exchanged pledges that they would soon “finish the job,” the “job” in question being the “extermination” of Iran and most particularly its government. Bibi told Trump “Donald, we have a job to finish. You said it, and we’ll finish it together. We’ll finish it, and no one else will do it.” Bibi explained later how “I have spoken about this with President Trump more than once, including the day before yesterday… Finishing the job means bringing down the terrorist regime in Iran. It is the head of this poisonous octopus. You cut it off, and it will fall. We will also have peace with Lebanon. We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime — that is the primary objective.”

Trump then responded in kind, telling Netanyahu that “You’re a warrior, and you’ve been treated unfairly by your country and from some others … but you’re a great warrior, and we will prove that. We will prove that very soon. I think you’re terrific, Bibi … You’re the man I want by my side, Bibi.” On Truth Social Trump later elaborated how “Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He is “Strong, Brave, and Brilliant, the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel, a Country for which it has done so much.”

Clearly Netanyahu wants to get reelected to stay out of jail for corruption, apart from anything else, and he knows that unconditional support from the United States is essential to achieve that end and keep the wars in Lebanon, Syria and Iran going. What the two monsters were pledging was the total destruction of a nation of 90 million people that prior to the war initiated by Israel and the US had not threatened in any way either nation. That means it was per the Geneva Convention a war crime and besides which it is a violation of the War Powers Act and the US Constitution that Trump had sworn to support. Israel was admittedly the driving force behind the war against Iran, which has done huge damage to the world economy, because it saw the country as a political-military competitor in the Middle East region and Netanyahu was able to convince a stupid and willfully ignorant Trump that the war would be over in a week or two, a walk-over.

In a move that is being interpreted as an additional American support for Netanyahu in the upcoming election, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday and met with the Prime Minister. The talks reportedly took place at the Ovda Air Base in southern Israel, where US refueling planes and fighter jets are deployed. Hegseth also met with some US troops. As Netanyahu and President Trump have discussed the possibility of restarting the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran the appearance and timing of the Hegseth visit, as he is the strongest supporter of resuming strikes on Iran within the administration, suggests that the war will soon be resuming.

Beyond the depressing likelihood that the war against Iran will soon start up again, there is the language employed by Trump, which as usual is inane. So Bibi is a “great warrior”? That comes from a draft dodger who avoided US military service in 1968 not for any moral reason but because it was inconvenient for him so his father arranged for a Jewish doctor to fake the records for a medical deferment. Trump had “bone spurs,” a condition largely unheard of in the real world before Trump came up with it on paper. And now the draft dodger is praising a “great warrior” who sends his men and women out to shoot three year olds as part of a regime that has been killing children systematically and without any consequences since the conflict with Gaza began.

And, unfortunately, the bad news is still coming. There is no doubt Trump has been the most servile president in US history when it comes to his constant supporting Israel even when it carries out genocide and kills American citizens. Trump has never failed to obey Netanyahu, but, it must be observed, he has only done slightly more so than Biden and the Democrats did when they preceded him in office. So one should have doubts that a possible change-over in the US Congress and Senate, where Israeli flags can be seen flying in some of the offices, is going to make much difference when it comes to the United States “standing with our best friend and closest ally Israel.”

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

Riflessioni sui confini tra laicità, sovranità e stabilità sociale

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La controversia relativa all’uso dell’hijab nelle scuole azere ha assunto nuove dimensioni nel mese di ottobre, in seguito all’attuazione di norme sul codice di abbigliamento che hanno comportato il divieto di accesso alle istituzioni pubbliche per studentesse e insegnanti. L’episodio ha scatenato manifestazioni, arresti e critiche da parte delle organizzazioni internazionali, suscitando al contempo reazioni anche da parte della Turchia. Il dibattito si estende ben oltre l’ambito scolastico, coinvolgendo questioni di sovranità, identità religiosa e stabilità regionale.

L’Azerbaigian ha ragioni storiche per mantenere un modello di Stato laico. L’esperienza sovietica, la formazione delle sue istituzioni dopo l’indipendenza e la necessità di governare una società religiosamente diversificata in un contesto regionale teso hanno contribuito al consolidamento di un sistema in cui lo Stato mantiene un controllo rigoroso sul funzionamento delle istituzioni pubbliche. Le autorità azere hanno la prerogativa di determinare le proprie politiche educative, stabilire standard per le scuole e decidere in che modo debbano essere attuati i principi costituzionali.

Tuttavia, il modo in cui tali politiche vengono attuate può produrre conseguenze che vanno oltre i loro obiettivi originari. Nel caso dell’hijab, l’applicazione dei regolamenti scolastici ha suscitato resistenze tra le famiglie e le comunità religiose, mentre gli arresti legati alle proteste hanno amplificato la controversia. La sfida principale del governo sarà quella di gestire questa reazione senza permettere che una disputa sulle uniformi scolastiche si trasformi in un conflitto più ampio tra le autorità statali e le comunità religiose.

La situazione presenta inoltre importanti implicazioni internazionali. Ankara, principale partner strategico di Baku, ha espresso preoccupazione per le restrizioni relative al velo islamico. La vicinanza politica, culturale e linguistica tra i due Paesi rende la questione particolarmente delicata. Sebbene questo disaccordo non equivalga necessariamente a una crisi bilaterale, dimostra come le decisioni interne possano creare attriti anche tra governi che intrattengono relazioni strette. Ankara deve tenere conto delle proprie considerazioni sociali e politiche, mentre Baku cerca di preservare la propria autonomia nella gestione degli affari interni.

Merita attenzione anche la dimensione iraniana. L’Azerbaigian intrattiene un rapporto complesso con l’Iran, caratterizzato da legami storici e religiosi, nonché da divergenze strategiche. Come l’Iran, l’Azerbaigian ha una popolazione prevalentemente sciita, mentre la Repubblica Islamica ospita una consistente minoranza azera. Sia la Guida Suprema, l’Ayatollah Khamenei, sia il presidente Masoud Pezeshkian hanno origini etniche azere. In questo contesto, le politiche di secolarizzazione potrebbero essere interpretate da attori esterni come parte di una più ampia lotta per l’influenza religiosa e politica all’interno dell’Azerbaigian. Tale interpretazione, tuttavia, non dimostra che i regolamenti scolastici siano stati adottati esclusivamente per contrastare l’influenza iraniana.

Esiste inoltre un rischio interno che merita di essere preso in considerazione. Le restrizioni religiose applicate in modo troppo rigido possono produrre effetti contrari a quelli desiderati. Quando alcuni segmenti della popolazione percepiscono determinate misure come imposizioni alle proprie pratiche religiose, i gruppi radicali potrebbero sfruttare il malcontento che ne deriva, dipingere lo Stato come un avversario della religione ed espandere la propria capacità di mobilitazione. Per comprendere questa questione è necessario prendere in considerazione altre esperienze, come quella della Siria sotto il governo di Assad, dove la laicità coesisteva con la proliferazione dell’estremismo. Questo esito non è inevitabile e l’opposizione alle norme non dovrebbe essere automaticamente equiparata all’estremismo. Tuttavia, l’esperienza internazionale suggerisce che tale possibilità debba essere esaminata con attenzione.

Per l’Azerbaigian, la questione va quindi oltre la semplice definizione di un’uniforme scolastica. Il Paese ha il diritto di organizzare le proprie istituzioni secondo le proprie priorità, senza che governi stranieri ne dettino le scelte. Allo stesso tempo, il mantenimento della stabilità richiede che si eviti che le decisioni amministrative alimentino una polarizzazione duratura o creino nuove opportunità per gli attori che cercano di intensificare le tensioni religiose.

L’evoluzione di questo caso avrà implicazioni per le relazioni di Baku con Ankara e Teheran, nonché per le dinamiche politiche interne del Paese. L’esito dipenderà non solo dalle norme stesse, ma anche dalla loro attuazione pratica e dalla risposta delle autorità alle preoccupazioni sollevate da studenti, famiglie ed educatori. Nel Caucaso meridionale, dove identità, sovranità e sicurezza rimangono strettamente intrecciate, anche una controversia apparentemente circoscritta può avere gravi ripercussioni a livello regionale.

The fact that Trump made a comment that Israel has been “very helpful” to Saudi Arabia reveals a strategic dilemma facing Mohammed bin Salman: either to align himself with Israel and thereby offend the Arab and Muslim worlds, or to embrace regional collective security and accept the prospect of a Middle East in which Washington […]

TEHRAN, Oct. 22 (MNA) – Four people from a family have been wounded after Israeli shelling struck a shelter in western Khan Younis in Gaza.

Next week, Israelis vote for the first time since the 7 October 2023 attacks and, in many ways, it is being treated as a referendum on one man: Benjamin Netanyahu.

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 21, 2026

Al Mayadeen | October 22, 2026

A senior security official in Tehran said Iran would consider US political targets, along with the infrastructure of countries participating in a new war, legitimate targets if another round of broad war includes assassinations of officials and the massacring of civilians, Fars News Agency reported late on Wednesday.

The official said Iran has communicated this to its operational ranks.

The official explained that Iran takes a US and Israeli attack as a given and regards American diplomatic gestures as lacking credibility, a view that intensified after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s October 7 speech in Athens, which Tehran sees as giving the war a historical and civilizational cover.

The official said Iranian leaders and elites have reached the unprecedented conclusion that US Middle East policy is directed from Tel Aviv and that “Israel” will not allow a diplomatic solution, because for Trump, “Israel” comes first.

Iran says it is already at war

The official said Iran already considers itself at war with the United States, and sees the US economic and naval blockade and the restrictions on air traffic as a continuation of the military aggression that began on February 28. There is strong pressure across Iranian society for decisive action to break the blockade on the basis of legitimate defense, the official emphasized.

Washington reinstated its naval blockade of Iranian ports on July 14, after collapsing an interim truce and attacking areas across southwestern Iran.

Iran asked the UN Security Council on Wednesday to condemn the blockade and demand it be lifted. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz remains on the table. Iran hinges the reopening of the Strait on a ceasefire across all fronts, a US sanctions waiver on oil sales, and a release of $12 billion in frozen assets.

Trump want to ‘finish the job’

The warning followed US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday in which he said Iran has been “systematically destroyed” and that unless it changes course the United States will “soon finish the job.”

The same post gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his “Complete and Total Endorsement” for “Israel’s” October 27 election. Trump called Netanyahu a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” in the war on Iran and wrote that if “Israel” chooses any other leader, America would have to do the work itself, which he is not inclined to do.

Netanyahu answered with a video and a post thanking “my friend Donald.” He directed part of his message to American voters, saying gas prices would fall once Iran’s government “disappears,” but only under Trump. US midterm elections are on November 3. Trump had declined for months to endorse Netanyahu, and US Vice President JD Vance declined to join him, saying he is focused on American races.

Araghchi replied on X that “last time you wanted to ‘finish the job,’ Iran emerged even stronger,” adding that Tehran has “unfinished jobs too.”

Israeli jets fly to the Iranian border

On Wednesday, Axios reported that dozens of Israeli Air Force jets, with refueling aircraft, flew more than 800 miles on Monday, violating Syrian and Iraqi airspace, as far as the Iranian border before turning back. “Israel” told Washington it was a “power projection” training exercise, which is said was meant to deter Iran ahead of the elections

US officials said “Israel” knew Iranian air defenses would detect the jets, and some said they had the impression “Israel” hoped Iran would fire on them, providing a justification for strikes. Other US and Israeli officials called the sortie unusual only in scale.

The stunt took place on the day US War Secretary Pete Hegseth met Netanyahu at Ovda Airbase. Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Security Minister Israel Katz made new threats, with Katz saying “If Iran attacks Israel, Iran will burn!”

Axios reported last week that Trump and Netanyahu discussed in early October a major new aggression against Iran before the Israeli and US elections. A US official said Trump told Netanyahu to “go ahead and get ready,” though he made no commitment.

Additionally, the US State Department has prepared to order some personnel and family members to leave US embassies across the Gulf, Reuters reported, which would include all personnel at the mission in Saudi Arabia.

More ships targeted in Hormuz

On the other hand, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy has stepped up its operations on ships in and around the strait, which have violated its navigation rules.

On October 9, it said any vessel using an unauthorized route would be pursued and “punished” anywhere in the region. On Sunday, six commercial vessels were struck in and around the strait, the most in a single day since the war began.

On October 12, the IRGC said it had hit a third tanker in two days for navigating without its tracking system and ignoring warnings. Tankers have since caught fire after hitting mines on unauthorized routes. Ships on a non-compliance list kept by Iran’s Gulf Strait Authority now number about 100.

Renewed hostilities might not be any more successful than the war’s first phase, and President Trump has repeatedly canceled plans for a return to major combat.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times