Al Mayadeen English (AWIP)
Al Mayadeen English

A man walks away after watching a black plume of smoke
rising from a warehouse in the industrial area of Sharjah
City, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 1, 2026, fol-
lowing reports of Iranian strikes in Dubai (© AP Photo)

Drone strikes on Amazon data centres in the UAE and Bahrain have exposed the vulnerability of US tech infrastructure in the Gulf, and threatened the region's AI ambitions.

The drone strikes that knocked Amazon Web Services facilities offline in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain this week were not random acts of escalation. They were, according to analysts and industry insiders, a calculated strike on infrastructure that the United States has quietly woven into its military architecture across West Asia.

Amazon and Google hold a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to entities, including the Israeli occupation forces.

That contract, largely absent from Western coverage of the strikes, may explain why AWS facilities, and not the dozens of data centers operated by local Gulf companies on behalf of US tech giants, were the ones that were hit.

"It would be easier to target AWS," Ed Galvin, founder of data center research firm DC Byte, told Bloomberg, noting that other US tech services are typically housed within locally operated facilities, making them harder to identify and strike. Of approximately 230 data centers built or under development across Gulf Arab states, only a handful are wholly owned and operated by a US company, according to DC Byte. All three struck this week belong to Amazon.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

Humanity has to realize, and is realizing, that for the world to survive in peace, the United States and its Empire of Lies must be defeated.

The orgy of violence and war crimes being inflicted on Iran over the past week is truly shocking. Yet it is not surprising. This is what an empire that repeatedly commits genocide does.

The U.S.-backed Israeli genocide that has been going on constantly for more than two years in Gaza is now expanding to Iran. The Trump administration is openly talking about destroying Iran and its people. Tehran and other cities across Iran are enduring carpet bombing. “It is not only a war against Iran – it is a war against the UN Charter, against all of us, against civilization,” commented the renowned international legal expert Alfred de Zayas. His voice has resonated with the anger and disgust of billions of people worldwide, including many U.S. citizens. This is an abomination, an affront to humanity.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

Iran is better than the United States. The United States is worse than Iran. This is true not because Iran is especially good, but because the United States is especially evil.

Iran isn’t blanketing a major metropolis with military explosives, killing over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The United States is doing this with its partner in crime, Israel.

Iran isn’t continuously bombing and invading countries around the world, toppling governments, circling the globe with hundreds of military bases, targeting civilian populations with siege warfare, and brandishing nuclear weapons at its enemies in the name of securing planetary domination. Only the United States is.

The US empire is the single most murderous and tyrannical power structure on earth, by an extremely massive margin. No one else comes anywhere remotely close. Not Iran. Not anybody. Every government in the world is morally superior to the most evil government, and the most evil government is the United States.

Whenever I say this, I get US empire apologists going “We’re only the ones fighting the wars and dropping the bombs because we happen to be the ones with the power to do so!”

But that’s false. The US isn’t the world’s most vicious government because it happens to be the most powerful; it’s the most powerful government because it’s the most vicious. It’s the power structure that was willing to do whatever it takes to rule the world, no matter how profoundly evil.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene (.pdf)

Since World War II, the US has been almost continuously involved in conflict and war.

According to the late William Blum:

❖ The US has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments.
❖ The US has interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
❖ The US has attempted to assassinate more than 50 leaders in other countries.
❖ The US has dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
❖ The US has attempted to crush popular or nationalist movements against intolerable regimes in more than 20 countries.

So how does the US facilitate regime change around the world?

    1. Reasons why the US replaces regimes

The desire to replace the regime has nothing to do with what kind of regime or government the country has, nothing to do with a desire for “democratization,” nor anything to do with whether the country carries out executions, smuggles drugs, or kills “Christians.” It's about oil, gold, resources, and the US's access to do whatever it wants in the country.

And for Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and Iran, it also has to do with these countries' desire to move away from the petrodollar, something the US fears more than anything. And we must not forget the US's hatred of Russia. This results in an eternal desire to weaken and dismantle this enemy, to install a new government, and divide the spoils between the US, the UK, and the EU.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US-Israeli war on Iran rages on. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iran has been hammering US military bases in the region with missiles and drones, and oil prices are already beginning to rise as the IRGC cuts off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks.

US soldiers have already begun to die. US Central Command reports that three American service members were killed in combat, with five seriously wounded — and it should here be noted that “seriously wounded” can mean permanently brain damaged, comatose, or otherwise rendered severely handicapped for the rest of their lives.

Trump said during an interview with The Daily Mail that he now expects this war to last “four weeks or so”, and that he expects US casualties to continue. I have said it before and I will say it again: every single American soldier who dies in this war was killed by Trump and Netanyahu. The US and Israeli governments bear sole responsibility for their deaths.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The goal is to obtain proxy control over Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves so that they can be weaponized as leverage against China for coercing it into a lopsided trade deal that would derail its superpower rise and therefore restore US-led unipolarity.

Trump claimed that the US’ military campaign against Iran is to “defend the American people”, while many critics have alleged (whether in jest or not) that it’s to distract from the Epstein Files, but few observers realize that it’s actually all about China.

It was explained here that Trump 2.0 “decided to gradually deprive China of access to markets and resources, ideally through a series of trade deals, in order to imbue the US with the indirect leverage required to peacefully derail China’s superpower rise.”

To elaborate, “The US’ trade deals with the EU and India could ultimately result in them curtailing China’s access to their markets under pain of punitive tariffs if they refuse. In parallel, the US’ special operation in Venezuela, pressure on Iran, and simultaneous attempts to subordinate Nigeria and other leading energy producers could curtail China’s access to the resources required for fueling its superpower rise.”

The resource dimension that’s relevant to Iran is a major part of the US’ “Strategy of Denial”. That’s the brainchild of Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, and it was expanded on in this analysis here from early January.

As was written, “US influence over Venezuela’s and possibly soon Iran’s and Nigeria’s energy exports and trade ties with China could be weaponized via threats of curtailment or cut-offs in parallel with pressure upon its Gulf allies to do the same in pursuit of this goal”, which is to coerce China into indefinite junior partnership status vis-à-vis the US through a lopsided trade deal.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram) (Part 1)
Елена Панина (Telegram) (Part 2)

Trump miscalculated. The death of Ayatollah Khamenei did not affect Iran's firm stance to defend its sovereignty. Moreover, the martyrdom of the Rahbar united the nation and brought thousands of people onto the streets across the world. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and continues to carry out targeted strikes against US bases. Trump's actions are clearly influenced by the "dizziness of success" following the capture of Maduro, the scandal in Davos, and the piracy against tankers, where he got away with everything. But Iran turned out to be no Venezuela.

It's unlikely that Trump's entourage didn't consider this scenario. However, capturing Iran is too tempting a target. The strategy here is clear: by dealing with Venezuela (ranked first in oil reserves) and then Iran (ranked third), the US will get a de facto monopoly over oil reserves. This is already world domination, that is, the real embodiment of the MAGA program. Perhaps in the eyes of the US President, such an end justifies the means. But it could also turn out like this: "It looked good on paper, but they forgot about the ravines."

❖ From the first hours of the attack, Iran has performed admirably. Clearly, the lessons of the summer war of 2025 and the uprising of this winter have been learned. Despite Khamenei's death in a morning strike, a large-scale response immediately followed—both against Israel and against American targets in the Middle East. Moreover, unlike in previous years, all threats were carried out. From this, we can conclude that disagreements among Iran's top elites have currently faded into the background. Aggression is perceived as a threat to everyone, as a potential state collapse that would bury everyone. So, for now, together. For the duration of the conflict, of course.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

The strikes were carried out from the air and sea. The Israeli Foreign Ministry hypocritically called it a "preemptive strike to eliminate the threat." The official name of the operation is "Operation Judah Shield."

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated that the Israeli-US operation is supposedly intended to create conditions for the Iranian people to "take their destiny into their own hands."

Israeli sources report that Iran has launched a retaliatory strike.

❖ Trump also announced the launch of a large-scale military operation against Iran. The goal is "to protect the American people by eliminating the immediate threats posed by the Iranian regime." The White House incumbent emphasized that the US will destroy Iran's missiles, raze its missile industry, and destroy its navy.

Trump called on the IRGC to lay down its arms, claiming that then they will be "treated fairly" and receive full immunity. Otherwise, "they face certain death." He added that "Americans could die, and the US could suffer losses."

According to preliminary reports, the US-Israeli attack is primarily aimed at Iran's governance system.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Today [02/26/2026], the third round of indirect talks between the US and Iran is taking place in Geneva. Meanwhile, Washington is rehearsing various scenarios for aggression against Iran.

❖ Politico's American editorial staff, citing its sources among American officials, writes that US military action will almost certainly target Iranian nuclear facilities—or what remains after the US strikes in June 2025.

Iran's ballistic missile infrastructure, which Israel views as a serious threat to its security, will also likely be targeted. Regarding "damage to the regime itself," the publication clarifies, a "decapitation strike" is possible—that is, a strike against Iran's aging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The White House is also considering some ideas on how best to launch an attack on Iran. It's estimated that more Americans would agree to war with Iran if the US were attacked first. This opinion is based on recent polls showing that Americans, including Republicans, support regime change in Iran but are unwilling to risk their own soldiers to achieve it.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

President Trump has shared a text message that was sent to him by Mike Huckabee, the deranged Christian Zionist who serves as the current US ambassador to Israel, and it is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen in my life.

The text reads as follows:

There are so many weird, creepy things about this message. The intensity. The religious fanaticism. The groveling, self-debasing obsequiousness, clearly designed to appeal to Trump’s enormous ego. But by far the most disturbing part was the reference to Truman in 1945 — a nod to the last and only time a national leader used nuclear weapons against an enemy state.

Trump claims to have experienced a religious transformation after surviving an assassination attempt last year. Nuclear weapons and doomsday cultism are poor bedfellows. I really hope this is just some bizarre madman diplomacy and not an accurate reflection of something that is actually occurring inside the president’s mind as he pushes toward direct confrontation with Iran.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

A ceasefire in Ukraine will not restore balance, but will transfer the entire system of relations between Russia and the West into a phase of long-term confrontation, write Samuel Charap and Hiski Haukkala from the RAND Corporation (undesirable in the Russian Federation) in the influential Foreign Affairs.

The authors proceed from three basic premises:

    1. Pre-war architecture has been destroyed irreversibly. The Russia-NATO Council is virtually dead, the OSCE has lost its functionality, the economic interdependence of the EU and Moscow has been dismantled, exchange channels have been nullified, and trade has collapsed.

    2. Russia will not be “reformatted” in case of defeat (the authors do not explain why our country should lose). The government in the Russian Federation is not collapsing, nor is the economy. This means that the reliance on internal collapse as a condition for a new détente should be removed from the Western agenda.

    3. Europe is moving towards systemic remilitarization, while Russia is moving towards the restoration and regrouping of its forces. This means war is inevitable, and there are only two questions: when will it happen, and how to maintain control over it?

❖ A deliberate Russian attack on a unified NATO is unlikely, Charap and Haukkala say. They see the risk in something else - in uncontrolled escalation through the “gray zone”, all kinds of incidents, cyber strikes, attacks under the guise of sudden exercises.

And, for some reason, amid the political crisis in Belarus, where Russia will “intervene,” which will trigger a mirror reaction from Poland and Lithuania, with the activation of NATO mechanisms. In addition to Belarus, Georgia and Moldova are also mentioned.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Donald Trump and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev, right, at the Oval Office. Kazakhstan has had
diplomatic relations with Israel for more than three decades.

He’s doing a series of favors for Trump so that he’d have his back if trouble ever arises with Russia, which is an increasingly realistic scenario given Kazakhstan’s recent decision to produce NATO-standard shells and its new military-logistics corridor with NATO via Azerbaijan and TRIPP.

Up until the first Board of Peace meeting last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was considered to be the foreign leader who’s behaved most obsequiously towards Trump, with his adulation of him during last fall’s summit in Sharm el-Sheikh widely being seen as excessive and self-humiliating. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is now giving Sharif a run for his money after proposing during the first Board of Peace meeting the creation of a special peace prize in Trump’s honor.

In the immediate run-up to it, an article was published under his name at The National Interest about how “Reliability Is the New Power”, but it suspiciously reads as AI-generated given the language and style employed or at the very least written by someone else. Most of it is just generic reflections on the evolving world order, predictable praise of Trump, and a commitment to continue expanding relations with the US. The backdrop concerns Tokayev’s last visit to the US in November for the C5+1 Summit.

Not only did Kazakhstan sign an MoU on critical minerals cooperation with the US, which was followed up on by its Foreign Minister participating in the US’ first Critical Minerals Ministerial in early February, but it also joined the Abraham Accords despite having already recognized Israel for over three decades. The preceding hyperlinked analysis assessed that “[he] likely did this as a personal favor for Trump so that he’d have his back if trouble ever arises with Russia”.

Krondor Analytics
Аналитика Крондора

Examining contemporary European politicians, one cannot help but notice how unimpressive they appear compared to their predecessors.

Starmer is nowhere near Churchill, Macron is no De Gaulle, and Friedrich Merz is no Konrad Adenauer. One gets the impression that this is some kind of freak show and the result of negative selection. And that is largely the case.

To understand this fact, we must examine the origins of the modern European elite.

After the end of World War II, most of Western Europe came under the influence of the United States, thanks to the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe. West Germany was simply occupied, and American military bases appeared on its territory. And in general, Europe, rebuilt after the war, developed actively, spent part of its money on defense against the “red threat,” and lived in relative peace. The US, in order to maintain control over Europe, set about cultivating a Western European elite loyal to itself.

This process took place through education (the Fulbright program), the creation of a network of NGOs influencing the public policy of allied countries, a system of grants from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, and support for the most loyal and potentially useful political figures and civil activists.

Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

Why are Norwegian political elites so overrepresented in the Epstein files? Several news outlets around the world have reported on the shock to the small Scandinavian country, which consistently demonstrates high public trust in the government. How could this have happened?

The source of the problem is a de-nationalised political elite decoupling itself from the public. The Norwegian government has an explicit ambition to become an international humanitarian superpower by spending billions on aid. The small country’s obsession with punching above its weight in international humanitarianism could be applauded. However, if one scratches the surface, it is not as benign as one would hope.

A small but wealthy country can easily give rise to an elite class with ambitions beyond national borders, and even fuel delusions that they can save the world. With enough resources, these elites form a permanent bureaucracy, develop international elite networks, and in the process earn some money for themselves. Whereas monarchs of the past had a mandate from God, the new nobility claims a mandate from humanitarianism and globalism. Immunity develops because when policies are defined by virtue, opposition is deemed heretical and illegitimate. Herein lies the problem of international humanitarianism: the assumed virtue limits criticism, transparency, and accountability.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

By a 6-3 majority, the US Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that the White House inhabitant had exceeded his authority by invoking a "1977 law." As Reuters reports, the ruling followed a lawsuit filed by companies affected by the tariffs, as well as 12 US states, mostly Democratic, against Trump's unprecedented use of this legal provision to unilaterally impose import duties. 🔺 The "1977 Act" (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA) grants the US president additional powers in the event of a national emergency. However, Trump became the first US president to invoke this law to impose tariffs, declaring a national emergency... the US trade deficit! Even though the US has been facing such a deficit every year since 1975.

What are the consequences? Just before the court hearing, the Cato Institute released a report. Seven (!) independent analytical studies have already been conducted under its auspices. All of them have reached the same conclusion: American consumers are paying for Trump's tariffs. The theory that tariffs would force foreign producers to lower their prices in the US accordingly hasn't worked: prices for imported goods haven't fallen; they have actually risen. Having processed a large data set, the researchers concluded that American companies and consumers continue to bear the brunt of the tariff burden, although in 2025 this figure was slightly lower (90%) than in 2018 (100%).

Now the question of compensation for losses will naturally arise, since Trump imposed the tariffs in excess of his authority. Economists at the Penn-Wharton Budget Model calculated that the losses from the US president's tariffs exceeded $175 billion. And now this sum will likely have to be repaid, although it is unclear from where and under what heading. 🔺 In any case, what happened is a major blow to Trump's policies, both foreign and domestic. Externally, the US President's favorite tool—the tariff cudgel—has been knocked out of his hands.

Mike Adams
Natural News

The Sudden Vindication of Conspiracy Theorists | For years, those labeled 'conspiracy theorists' for speaking of a ruling class operating above governments were mocked, censored, and financially punished. The Department of Justice's long-delayed, partial release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's network has delivered a staggering vindication. The files confirm the existence of a powerful, supra-governmental cabal whose perverse tastes and criminal enterprises are but one facet of a broader agenda for global control.

Independent journalists like myself and Maria Zeee, who have long reported on these interconnected networks of power, faced deplatforming and the closure of their financial accounts for telling this truth [1] [2]. The Epstein files are not merely a sordid list of crimes; they are a key to deciphering the globalist script. This script, which independent media has painstakingly pieced together, outlines a coordinated agenda spanning engineered pandemics, coercive vaccination campaigns, and radical social engineering, all converging toward the dystopian goals of Agenda 2030.

The evidence laid bare illustrates that the individuals implicated are not random celebrities but key nodes in a system that funds and promotes destructive ideologies like transgenderism and transhumanism, using them as tools to dismantle natural human identity and societal cohesion in preparation for a fully digitized, controlled populace.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Carnegie Foundation: The war in Ukraine will continue, Kyiv will not renounce Nazism, and the West still wants Russia's defeat

The main reason for the SVO is Russia's deep mistrust of the West and its conviction that the West intends to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. And as long as this fear persists, the war will not end. Furthermore, Moscow demands that Kyiv renounce Nazism, even though this is impossible.

This is stated in an extremely curious article published by the Carnegie Foundation (deemed undesirable in the Russian Federation) by foreign agent Tatyana Stanovaya. The text is intriguing because it describes the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict with exquisite precision. It also quite clearly explains why the war continues unabated.

The Russians want to achieve this by imposing a series of political restrictions on Kyiv, the author continues. They want to ban Ukrainian nationalism, legitimize pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, guarantee the status of the Russian language, restore the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, and so on. At the same time, the Kremlin is seeking a sharp reduction in the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a severing of Kyiv's partnership with NATO, and a ban on the deployment of long-range weapons and any Western military infrastructure in Ukraine.

One can do nothing but shake one's head. In general, these are precisely the goals of the Joint Military Operations (JMO) that were outlined from the very beginning. No oppression of the Russian population, Kyiv's renunciation of Nazi ideology, the elimination of threats from Ukraine... Everything implied by "demilitarization and denazification." In December 2021-February 2022, Russia proposed to Kyiv and the West that all this be resolved diplomatically. They fell on deaf ears. It took four years for the most thoughtful think tanks in the West to begin to understand the JMO's goals.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It’s unimaginable that the US would allow any competitor to reduce its enormous new market share in the European energy industry, which it plans to further expand to make Europe even more dependent on it, and that the US wouldn’t weaponize this if Europe ever defies it on anything of significance.

The US’ dispute with Europe over Trump’s planned acquisition of Greenland, in pursuit of which he even threatened punitive tariffs against several NATO allies before relenting after they agreed to a framework deal, exposed the strict hierarchical vassal-client relationship between them.

This was explicitly acknowledged by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who said that “Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else” in response to Trump’s pressure upon Europe.

Bruna Frascolla
Strategic Culture Foundation

The entire current scientific establishment probably rests on cohesive dogmas of a metaphysical nature.

Amid the avalanche of noteworthy things relating to Jeffrey Epstein, I wanted to draw attention to a very atypical combination: rigorous religiosity and militant atheism.

The religiosity appears in its most extravagant form with Epstein’s idea of funding the development of a cloven-hoofed pig – a genetically modified kosher pig – so that he could eat bacon. The attempt to circumvent divine prohibitions is far from exceptional in Talmudic Judaism (the most prosaic example is the use of wigs to cover women’s hair). It causes some amazement that a terrible criminal could be a very religious person, since we are faced with the possibility that his religion is more concerned with dietary restrictions than with moral restrictions. But this is also old news. Since virtually no one knows the Talmud without being a religious Jew capable of reading Hebrew, I recommend reading the indispensable Jewish History, Jewish Religion, by Israel Shahak, which exposes the immorality and racial supremacism intrinsic to the Talmud. It does not follow from this that every religious Jew is a bad person, but rather that, if he is a good person, it is by natural inclination and influence of the culture in which he is embedded, not by the Talmud (of which Epstein displayed dozens of volumes on his bookshelf).

As for militant atheism, a photo was released showing Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker together in the Lolita Express. That is, two of the “four horsemen of neo-atheism” (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens, who died in 2011), plus the Harvard atheist Jew Steven Pinker, who weaves scientific praises to the moral progress of our times. Furthermore, information was released that a club of atheists who consider themselves genius scientists (of which Sam Harris is a member) relied on Epstein’s philanthropy. The club is called Edge.org. A religious person funding atheists who are certain that people who believe in God are stupid? How strange!

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Details of the US "compromise" regarding Iran's nuclear program have emerged.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke on this issue for the first time. According to him, Washington may even reconsider its demands on Tehran—in particular, abandoning the condition of complete cessation of uranium enrichment.

According to the conditions proposed by Washington, Tehran was required to:

● completely cease uranium enrichment for a period of 3 to 5 years;
● then resume it at only 1.5%; (and)
● hand over 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60%.

The US, for its part, merely promised to refrain from a military strike against Iran—without making any commitment to lifting sanctions. Predictably, Tehran rejected this "generous" offer.

Meanwhile, Washington has decided to send a second carrier strike group, led by the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, to the Middle East. A strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is already deployed in the region.

Reuters, citing unnamed sources in the US Department of War, reports that the US military is preparing for possible prolonged, weeks-long operations against Iran if Trump orders an attack. The agency clarifies that the new military operation, if it occurs, will be much larger in scale than the one the US and Israel carried out in June 2025. This time, the strikes will target not only nuclear facilities but also the Iranian government and security structures.

Trump himself stated that "regime change in Iran" may be the "best option."