Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

European nations are being destroyed by war and militarism, and adding to the madness, their political class and media are driving the process with ever-increasing speed. The fate of the continent could hardly be more tragic, given that it emerged from the ashes of World War II with the hope of being a model for international peace.

Hungary’s divisive elections this week, which saw the government of Viktor Orban ousted from power, were dominated by political and financial pressures exerted by the EU leadership on Budapest owing to Orban’s steadfast rejection of Brussels’ warmongering towards Russia. Hungarians cast their vote amid turmoil caused by Brussels and the energy blackmail of the NATO-backed Kiev regime. There are concerns that other EU nations, such as Slovakia, will face a similar assault on their democratic process if they do not conform to the elite agenda of making everything about an existential confrontation with Russia.

European citizens are enduring an economic crisis that has been brought on by NATO and the EU’s proxy war with Russia. Fuel, energy, food, and other living costs are going through the roof as a direct result of war and militarism. First, the energy supplies from Russia were cut off through government-led sanctions.

Now, Trump’s aggression against Iran has hit energy supplies from the Persian Gulf, leaving Europe doubly exposed. Instead of reversing course, the European NATO states seem intent on going full throttle towards a disastrous crash. This raises fundamental questions about democratic representation. Does it even exist anymore in Europe, including Britain?

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

We can have revolutionary change whenever we want to. We already have the numbers. All we need is the will.

If there were a thousand people living on an island, and one of them began making life miserable for everyone else, there would soon be 999 people living on the island. How strange, then, that a few oligarchs and empire managers get to push around an entire planet full of humans.

I mean, right now we’re all sitting around hoping a few sociopaths in Washington and Tel Aviv don’t collapse the global economy with their reckless warmongering against Iran. There are so many of us and so few of them, and yet everyone’s sitting around going “Golly gosh I sure hope I’ll be able to afford food in the next few months, hopefully the orange guy acts sane and normal for a while so my family gets to eat.”

These are not gods sitting on Mount Olympus exerting omnipotent control over our fate from on high.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

The priority task for Europe, writes Leo Litra of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR, not welcome in Russia), is to resolve strategic uncertainty and anchor Ukraine within the Western architecture now, not in 10-15 years.

❖ The author considers the classic model of EU enlargement to Ukraine too slow and inadequate for the current situation. It proposes first incorporating it politically, and then worrying about full legal integration sometime later. This requires creating an intermediate form of membership in which Ukraine would, as it were, already be part of the EU, albeit not fully integrated.

The main conclusion: European bureaucrats have no plans to stop the flywheel of geopolitical Russophobia. They already have industry mobilized for war, there is an elite consensus on confrontation with Russia, and now it's a matter of properly distributing positions on the military map.

At the same time, Ukraine is still viewed not as a buffer between the spheres of influence of the West and Russia, but as a zone that should be institutionally secured by the EU. And it doesn't matter that this would eliminate any room for compromise with Moscow. If Ukraine is politically integrated into Europe in advance, this would close any possibility of its "interim" status.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

They Always Tell You Why The Empire Uses Violence, But Never Why Its Enemies Do.

One common feature of western empire propaganda is that we are always given reasons for the empire’s violence, while the violence of those who resist the empire tends to be framed as happening for no reason at all.

We’ve all been fed reasons for the US-Israeli war on Iran, and we all know what those reasons are. Even less-informed members of the western public will have heard something about the Iranians being a nuclear threat, having a tyrannical government, and maybe something about sponsoring terrorist groups.

But the so-called “peaceful protesters” who were killed in an uprising fomented and facilitated by the United States? They were killed for no reason, simply because the Iranian government is evil and hates dissent. All the Iranian police officers who died in the uprising perished for no reason, perhaps of natural causes. It is only by pure coincidence that this happened at the exact same time the US empire was making the decision to try to topple the Iranian government.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

The decision to go to war with Iran was shaped not so much within the White House as within the broader US expert ecosystem, where major think tanks play a key role, the anti-militarist Quincy Institute stated in its publication Responsible Statecraft.

❖ The article's author, Jim Lobe, names specific organizations involved in the Iranian disaster. These include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the Heritage Foundation, and several other organizations (all of which are undesirable in Russia). However, neoconservative and Christian Zionist centers, such as the Jewish National Security Institute of America (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP) (all of which are undesirable in Russia), play a particularly important role in shaping the "analytical consensus" on Iran. The author writes bluntly:

A telling detail: WINEP was founded in 1985, based on the American Public Affairs Committee in Israel. Moreover, Loeb emphasizes the recurring pattern: the same American structures that once actively supported the military campaign against Iraq are now applying the same logic to Iran.

The Quincy Institute analyst also described how this works. Iran is presented as a key security threat to US allies in the Middle East, primarily Israel. At the same time, the ayatollah regime is described as vulnerable and in a state where any external pressure could lead to its weakening or transformation. And the current moment is interpreted as a "window of opportunity" for military intervention.

Hamid Babaee
farsnews.ir

Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei stressed that the Islamic Republic will definitely take the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new phase.

In a message on the occasion of the 40th day after the passing of the martyred Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Hosseini Khamenei said all must know that, by Almighty God’s will, we definitely won’t allow the criminal aggressors who attacked our country to go unpunished.

We will certainly demand full reparations for all damages caused, as well as blood money for the martyrs and compensation for the war's wounded. We have not sought, nor do we seek, war; yet we will in no way relinquish our legitimate rights, and in this regard, we consider the entire Resistance Front as a unified entity. The full text of the message issued by Ayatollah Hosseini Khamenei:

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Most Hungarians came to take his achievements for granted and won’t appreciate what they had until it’s gone.

His crushing defeat followed the EU earlier freezing €17 billion in allocated funds on rule of law pretexts, Russiagate conspiracy theories derived from wiretaps of Orban and his Foreign Minister, and Ukrainian energy blackmail as well as threats. Liberal-globalists like Ursula von der Leyen, Alex Soros, and Donald Tusk predictably celebrated.

While the aforementioned factors played a role in turning public opinion against Orban, several other ones were arguably more important. For instance, he’s an older politician who naturally doesn’t appeal as much to the youth as his relatively younger rival, Peter Magyar. He’s also been in office for 16 years, so the opposition played on anti-incumbent sentiment, to which end they blamed him for the stagnant economy despite him doing his best given the circumstances. Corruption accusations also abounded.

The socio-political system that Orban built will now be dismantled since the opposition’s two-thirds supermajority enables them to change the constitution. Witch hunts against conservative-nationalists, beginning with him and his Foreign Minister on Russiagate-related grounds, also can’t be ruled out. His policies in support of traditional values might soon become a thing of the past.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The Hungarian people have the greatest stakes since they’ll be the ones who’ll live with the consequences.

Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Hungary have been described by RT as the “Battle for Hungary” due to the huge stakes involved for the EU, Ukraine, the US, and to a lesser extent, Russia.

The first three have also sought to influence voters, the EU, and Ukraine via various forms of meddling that include concocting Russiagate conspiracy theories and even attempting to blow up Hungary’s main gas pipeline, and the US through Trump’s and Vance’s endorsement of incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The EU’s interest in “democratically deposing” Orbán is ideological, since he’s a conservative nationalist opposed to the liberal-globalist agenda the bloc wants to impose on Hungary. The opposition’s chief economic advisor is Shell’s former Vice President for Mobility, Istvan Kapitany, and this article explains how he wants to succeed where George Soros failed. In a nutshell, the EU considers Hungary under Orban to be a major impediment to its federalization plans, which they hope to soon remove.

Ukraine hates Hungary too, but only because Orban refuses to arm it, continues purchasing energy from Russia, and has occasionally obstructed EU funding for this former Soviet Republic.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

It would be worthwhile to look at the announced two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran through the eyes of senior US military officials. On April 8, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine held a press conference. Here are a few illustrative quotes:

💬 Hegseth, regarding the military presence in the Middle East: "We will be watching. We will not go away. We will ensure that Iran respects the ceasefire and then, ultimately, comes to the negotiating table and makes a deal."

💬 Hegseth on enriched uranium: "Either they give it to us, as the president [Trump] promised—they'll give it to us voluntarily—or we take it. We'll take it away. Or, if we have to do something else ourselves, as we did in Operation Midnight Hammer or something like that, we reserve that option."

💬 Hegseth on Iran's reasons for agreeing to a ceasefire: "We hit several military targets on Kharg Island, which served as a signal. They can't defend it. Ultimately, they realized their situation—their future. Their ability to produce and generate energy to support the regime was in our hands. It was in the hands of President Trump. That's why they sat down at the negotiating table. Ultimately, he made it clear: we can take everything away from you. They can take away your ability to export energy, but the US military can strike these targets with impunity. It was this pressure that led them to essentially say, 'Okay.' We want to make this deal."

💬 Caine on the ceasefire: "Let's be clear: a ceasefire is a pause. The combined forces remain prepared to resume combat operations if ordered... We hope this will not happen."

Dr. Michael Yeadon
Fraud Prevention Hotline (VIDEO)

■ Five expert witnesses were scheduled to testify in the main trial before the Leeuwarden District Court. Officially, the trial is being held on behalf of the victims of serious injuries caused by the “Covid” pseudo-vaccines, but the global fraud, the deliberate harm inflicted on approximately 5.5 billion people, mass murder, and criminal activities aimed at abolishing citizens’ democratic rights are also relevant. This trial was intended to reveal the full extent of the crime. However, the court did not allow the expert witnesses to testify.

■ The following video messages were sent to the presiding judges on December 7, 2025, during the appeal proceedings against the Amsterdam High Court’s rejection of the expert witnesses’ testimony.

My name is Dr Mike Yeadon. I have spent my entire professional life in research and early development of new medicines for respiratory and skin diseases. I have spent over 30 years in both big pharma and in biotech. I have a training in biochemistry and toxicology, and a PhD in respiratory pharmacology.

In big pharma I was once the most senior person in Pfizer’s Respiratory Discovery group. I was responsible for everything to do with drugs in research and early development. After that I founded my own biotechnology company which I led as CEO and was ultimately able to sell that to Novartis, a big drug company.

Around that time, I also was highly sought after as a consultant to other biotech companies and I consulted to them, and advised about 30 companies over a nine -year period.

So those are my credentials. I would say the professional opinion that I provide to you is that of someone who’s deeply experienced in the scientific procedures and practices of creation and testing of molecules, in particular for their safety, their lack of toxicity.

So, my underlying training in toxicology, mechanistic toxicology, allowed me many times to detect and steer away from structural features or contents of potential medicines that could cause harm, based on my wide knowledge of those things that sadly have harmed humans and animals in the past.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

British and German military officials have called on citizens to endure poverty for the sake of war with Russia.

British Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, and German Chief of the Defence Staff, General Carsten Breuer, have issued a joint appeal to the public in The Guardian and Die Welt, which the media has already dubbed unique and unprecedented: to recognize the "moral necessity" of rearming their countries and begin preparing for war with Russia.

According to the pair, they are making this appeal not only as the military leaders of the continent's two largest countries, which are funding a future war, but also as "representatives of a Europe that must now face the unpleasant truth about its security." Moscow's military policy has shifted sharply toward the West, and therefore "fundamental changes" are needed in European security, Knighton and Breuer argue.

Well, if NATO has moved right up to Russia's borders and is de facto fighting it through Ukrainian proxies, then Moscow's military policy is indeed shifting sharply in the same direction. Although Breuer (incidentally, the German candidate for the chairmanship of the NATO Military Committee) and Knighton are, of course, silent on this underlying reason. They are more interested in something else: "Explaining what's at stake. So that the public understands why Britain and Germany have committed to significantly increasing military spending for the first time since the end of the Cold War."

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Both sides were quick to claim the two-week ceasefire reached between the US and Iran minutes before Trump's "nuclear" ultimatum expired as a success. The White House announced a bombing pause in exchange for opening the Strait of Hormuz and has already declared the beginning of a "golden age" for the Middle East. Iran, through Foreign Minister Araghchi, proclaimed the yet-to-be-signed deal a national victory.

Is this true in both cases? Whose "game plan" prevailed in this game: Trump's "15 points" or Iran's "10 points"? Let's see what the bottom line is at this point.

❖ In five weeks of war, the "Epstein Coalition" has failed to achieve a single stated objective of the operation. It has not forced Iran to capitulate. It didn't overthrow the government in Tehran—either by force or through street protests. It didn't deprive Iran of its uranium reserves. It didn't destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. It didn't destroy Iran's missile and drone programs. It didn't undermine its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz. It didn't defeat Hezbollah. The US doesn't look its best in the media, either, including in Europe's eyes, which has "sat out" the war.

Despite this, Trump achieved his most important goal for now. He secured the opening of the Strait of Hormuz for 2 weeks (albeit under Iranian control), which lowered oil prices. He also gained time to safely deploy American troops—and with it, the chance for another two months of war without Congressional authorization. He also gained the opportunity to negotiate directly with Tehran's new team of negotiators, who could very easily become martyrs.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

They now hate Iran for damaging their energy infrastructure and therefore don’t want to indefinitely pay it “petroyuan” as part of the “toll” system that the Islamic Republic is flirting with imposing.

The Financial Times recently reported that “Gulf states consider new pipelines to avoid Strait of Hormuz”. Per their assessment, “In the near term, the most viable options may be to expand the East-West pipeline and also Abu Dhabi’s existing route to Fujairah.” Future plans, however, could include new pipelines to the Arabian, Red, and/or Mediterranean Seas, the last one paralleling the frozen India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) but only in the event of an Israeli-Saudi rapprochement.

From the Gulf Kingdoms’ perspective, provided that a US-Iranian deal is reached so that Trump doesn’t carry through on his threat to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure and thus prompt Iran to carry through on its own threat to destroy the Gulf Kingdoms’, export route diversification is their top priority. Given the existing damage to their energy infrastructure from Iran, which defends this on the basis that the US used their bases and/or airspace for attacking it, they don’t want to pay any so-called “toll” to it.

About that, Iran is flirting with such a system as a form of “reparations”, one which could also lead to the yuan challenging the dollar as the global reserve currency if Tehran demands payment in it for transit. It was recently concluded here that “The US will have lost the Third Gulf War if China can still rely on Iran as a reliable low-cost energy supplier while turning the yuan into a global reserve currency that challenges the petrodollar.” That assessment still stands but with an important caveat.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Trump's thunderous statement that "an entire civilization will perish tonight, never to be reborn," is, quite literally, the talk of the world. The excitement was heightened by the second-in-command in the United States, Vice President J.D. Vance, who effectively confirmed the possibility of using WMD against Iran.

"[The Iranians] need to know that we have tools we haven't yet decided to use. The President of the United States can decide to use them, and he will if the Iranians don't change their behavior," said Vance, considered by many a "dove" in the Trump administration. And although the White House stated on its official X account that Vance never mentioned using nuclear weapons against Iran, the excitement continues.

❖ The situation is fueled not only by shocking statements coming out of Washington. Hours before Trump's escapade, his former supporter and now one of his most consistent critics, Tucker Carlson, called on his podcast to "all those who have direct contact with the President of the United States" to say "no" to his orders:

"They should say, 'No! I will resign. I will do everything in my power, legally, to stop this, because it's insane.' And if I'm given an order, I won't carry it out."

Carlson's call for disobedience only fuels rumors that several high-ranking US military officials are allegedly considering Trump's removal as a "preventative measure." And that the White House incumbent's direct threats to destroy Iran "have become the last straw for some military officials" who believe "Trump has gone crazy."

Press TV Staff Writer
PressTV

Thirty-eight days into the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28 with the assassination of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and top-ranking commanders, the US and Israel continue to target civilian, academic, and industrial infrastructure across the country.

On day 38, Tehran's Sharif University of Technology was hit by US-Israeli airstrikes. Civilian sites in Tehran, Shiraz, and Qom were also attacked, and dozens of civilians, including six children, were martyred during overnight aggression by America and the Israeli regime.

Iran's health, oil, and pharmaceutical sectors also reported extensive damage, while the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) stated that the Strait of Hormuz "will never return to its previous state" for the United States and Israel.

US President Donald Trump publicly threatened that the entire nation of Iran "can be taken out in one night," a declaration widely condemned as a clear war crime and a moral atrocity.

American lawmakers, experts, and media described his rhetoric as "deranged," "dangerous," and proof of a reckless push toward unprovoked conflict.

Amid proposals for a temporary ceasefire, Iran firmly rejected any pause that would allow adversaries to regroup, warning that such moves would only prolong and intensify the war.

Global markets and aviation continued to feel the fallout, with rising oil prices, disrupted trade, and mounting international concern over the human and economic costs of a military aggression launched by the US and Israel against Iran. Key developments from Day 38 of the imposed war:

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US and Israel have sown death and destruction throughout the middle east for generations, creating generation after generation of survivors who hate them and want them gone, and then it cites the existence of people who hate them and want them gone as the reason why the US needs to keep supporting Israel.

The US needs to help Israel harm people or else the people who are mad about being harmed might harm Israelis. It’s circular reasoning all the way through.

❖ Ask an American Israel supporter why it benefits the US to defend Israel, and they’ll tell you it advances American interests in the middle east.
❖ Ask them what American interests it helps advance in the middle east and they’ll tell you it counters the malign influence of Iran and terrorist groups.
❖ Ask them to describe exactly what Iran and the terrorist groups are doing which directly harms American interests, and they’ll tell you they threaten American troops in the region.
❖ Ask them why American troops can’t just leave the region to remove the threat, and they’ll tell you they can’t because that would be abandoning Israel.
❖ Ask them why the US can’t simply abandon Israel, and they’ll tell you it’s an important US ally.
❖ Ask them to explain why Israel is an important US ally, and they’ll tell you it’s because it advances American interests in the middle east.

The official narrative about the importance of the US-Israel alliance is self-justifying circular logic the whole way through, no matter what point you start examining it from.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

If the US oversees the optimization of the EU’s military-industrial complex, military logistics, and other defense-related matters with a view towards “dwarfing” Russia’s associated capabilities, then the challenge that Russia might face along its western frontier could mirror the one in June 1941.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated long-standing policy in a recent interview when he told his interlocutor that “We are not going to attack any part of Europe. We have absolutely no reason to do so. And if Europe opts to materialize its threats to prepare for war against us and starts attacking Russia, the president said that it will not be a special military operation on our part, it will be a full-scale military response with all available military means in accordance with the doctrinal documents on this matter.”

To elaborate, Russia never had any plans to risk World War III by invading the Baltic States and/or Poland, whose hostile populations would also represent an enduring security threat in any occupation.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Trump declared on the night of April 2:

What exactly is behind this threat? How might Iran respond? And what does this mean for Russia?

❖ "Bombing Iran back to the Stone Age" effectively signals a new round of military escalation against Iran and the US policy of total genocide against it and its people. And this likely means not just the total destruction of Iran's energy and oil and gas infrastructure, but the entire system of modern life in that country. Moreover, this "serious blow" could very well include the use of the most destructive weapon of all – nuclear weapons. At a minimum, against the nuclear facility in Isfahan, which cannot be disabled by conventional weapons.

It's easy to imagine the US attempting to implement this plan through proxy means. It's possible that the nuclear mission will be entrusted to Israel, which possesses 90 nuclear warheads. However, the US itself could also participate to impress the world with its inability to achieve its strategic objectives in this war.

Such a use of nuclear weapons could be seen in the US as the culmination of the military campaign—a dramatic end that Trump would use to break the stalemate and avoid a war of attrition. It's important to understand that such a war of attrition could only be achieved by the US switching to ground operations. But even with the deployment of American Marines and paratroopers to the Middle East, the likelihood of a ground operation isn't 100%. It's probably no coincidence that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on March 27: "We can achieve all our goals without any ground troops." Perhaps he was already considering extreme measures.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

It used to be hard to help westerners see the depravity of the US empire. Now it’s just right in everyone’s face with raw genocide footage and insanely evil warmongering of direct economic consequence.

It took a lot of work to help the average westerner understand that NATO aggressions actively provoked the war in Ukraine, or that western interventionism played a major role in the violence and chaos in Syria, or that US economic warfare was largely responsible for the suffering of Cubans and Venezuelans. The murderous savagery of the empire was hidden behind layers of obfuscation, allowing the propagandists to frame the western power structure as a passive witness to the abuses of foreign regimes.

Now the propagandists have very little to work with, so those obfuscations can no longer take place. There’s no way you can spin a school full of children blown up by an American double-tap airstrike as anything other than what it is. There’s only so much narrative manipulation you can exert on raw video footage of a western-backed genocide playing out in full view of the entire world day after day for years. There’s no way to propagandize westerners into believing they want to pay a lot more more money for their fuel and groceries.

I saw former EU parliament member Luis Garicano complaining on Twitter that Trump’s actions are making it look as though leftists have been correct about the US empire this whole time, saying “Many of us, liberal Europeans, spent decades pushing back against the European extreme left’s cartoon version of America ( it’s all oil/ imperialism/getting rich at the expense of others) and then one dumb administration walks in and performs the caricature to perfection.”

Krondor Analytics
Krondor Analytics (Telegram)

Two Marine expeditionary groups (approximately 5,000 personnel), units of the 82nd Airborne Division, fighter squadrons, and additional naval forces are heading to the shores of Iran.

The Wall Street Journal, citing three Republicans in Congress, reports that a ground operation is planned and could begin soon. The publication's journalist, Alex Ward, wrote directly on the social media platform X: "A ground operation in Iran is planned and could potentially begin soon."

The Pentagon officially denies the decision, but confirms active preparations. Senior military officials are submitting inquiries related to the invasion scenario: issues of detaining Iranian soldiers, establishing prisoner of war camps, and the involvement of the Quick Reaction Force and Marine expeditionary units are being considered.

Why is the US preparing for a ground operation?

Iran has publicly rejected all of Trump's offers of negotiations. The latest ultimatum—48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz—has expired, after which the president extended the deadline by 5 days, but the strait remains blocked. Moreover, Iran has made it clear through various channels that there will be no negotiations until its demands are met, and those demands are quite extensive.

So, on the one hand, Trump is being "put down," and his weakness is being exposed, while on the other, midterm elections are looming. And then inflation and high fuel prices become a political threat.