Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of his efforts to convince the US to launch a war against Iran, crediting his frequent appearances on US television networks and his “intimate knowledge” of US leaders.
Netanyahu made the comments Sunday night on Israel’s Channel 14, and a clip of his appearance was posted on X by the account Clash Report, which Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later shared.
The Israeli leader said that he had been against Iran for “nearly 40 years” and that it took him a long time to get the Israeli security establishment and the US on board.
“It took a long time to bring the US in,” he said, according to Channel 14. “I was able to do this because I had close to a thousand hours on American television, influence in the United States, and intimate knowledge of all its leaders – both those who support us and those who do not.”
The New York Timesreported in April that 17 days before the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, Netanyahu presented President Trump with an intelligence briefing at the White House and made a “hard sell” for the war. The report said that Netanyahu had been “pressing for months” for the US to agree to a major attack on the Islamic Republic.
Sources told the Times that during the briefing, Netanyahu made a series of predictions about the potential war that proved to be wrong, including the idea that Iran was ripe for regime change, that its ballistic missile program could be destroyed within weeks, that it would be too weak to close the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran’s missile strikes on US interests in regional countries would be minimal.
Responding to Netanyahu’s comments about his influence on the US, Aragchi said that the Israeli leader was openly bragging about how he “suckered” the US into the war.
“In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the US Administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel. Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he ‘influenced’ America through 1,000 hours of airtime on US networks,” the Iranian diplomat wrote on X. “In English, he praises POTUS’ leadership. Serpent.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to members of the media outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]
The Trump administration on Monday launched what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called an “economic D-Day” against Iran—a campaign of secondary sanctions aimed at every country, bank and company that trades with Tehran, above all China, which took roughly nine-tenths of Iran’s oil exports before the US blockade choked them off.
Six months of US and Israeli bombardment, which killed at least 3,468 people in Iran by June 10, has not brought down the government in Tehran, and most shipping still avoids the Strait of Hormuz. The administration is now carrying the war into the world economy, on a course that leads to confrontation with China.
The campaign Bessent announced at a Washington press conference Monday adds shipping, gold, digital assets, aviation and technology to the sectors covered by US secondary sanctions, which already reach Iran’s oil and banks.
Among the nearly 60 companies, people and ships sanctioned Monday are trading and logistics firms in China and Hong Kong and entities in Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Switzerland, Britain, France, Greece, Syria, Ukraine and the Marshall Islands, according to Al Jazeera’s tally of the Treasury list.
“Every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified,” Bessent said, without naming them. China, India, Turkey, Iraq and the UAE are the most exposed, experts told CNN.
Asked by reporters whether Chinese banks would be hit, Bessent replied that “no one is above the reach of US sanctions” and said to expect “a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week.”
Bessent followed on CNBC on Thursday, calling the campaign “a one-two punch” of blockade and sanctions and saying that Washington was telling other governments, “You’re either with us or against us.” He added, “Keep in mind that the Chinese get 50 percent… of their energy from inside the Gulf.”
Three days before the announcement, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, in a lead editorial printed Saturday, made clear that the central target is China. “After six months of war with Iran, President Trump has a credibility problem,” it wrote. “No President has yet climbed the Iran sanctions ladder with China, moving from the isolated ‘teapot’ refineries that buy Iran’s oil to the Chinese state-owned enterprises that support them. Nor has any President given Dubai an ultimatum to shut down Iran’s illicit financial network and meant it.”
The editorial’s final paragraph warned that “Iran may lash out militarily in response, targeting Gulf energy again, and the US will have to be ready with a firm response.”
The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote Monday evening that delivering Bessent’s “zero-leakage approach… will require picking a big fight with China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil.” The editorial noted that US sanctions so far have fallen on “independent refiners and intermediaries rather than major Chinese banks or state-owned companies.”
The Post continued: “The Trump team cannot help but describe its recalibrated approach in martial terms… But D-Day evokes a military campaign with a clear objective: the enemy’s unconditional surrender. Economic pressure rarely works that way… That’s why containment is not really about regime change. Its immediate goal is to make an already battered Iran weaker so that it’s less capable of threatening its neighbors and developing nuclear weapons.”
This is a testament to the deepening political crisis triggered by the failure of US imperialism to achieve its strategic objectives in its war against Iran.
The war was conceived as a means of seizing the chokepoint of the world’s oil supply and gaining a decisive advantage over China. Instead, the United States confronts a political debacle, and it is China’s position that has been strengthened.
The sanctions campaign is an attempt to recoup by economic force what could not be won by bombing, and it aims that force at Beijing. Washington has paused the bombing since late July but has not renounced it; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that “by no means are we foreclosing using kinetic strikes anywhere in the Strait of Hormuz or around Iran.”
The war the sanctions are meant to salvage began on February 28, when Washington and Tel Aviv started the bombing. A cease-fire in April and a June 17 memorandum with Tehran lifted the blockade and let Iran export oil until Washington broke the arrangement in early July by sending ships through a route in the strait to which Iran had not agreed. When Iran fired on the ships the US struck back, and on July 8 Trump declared the cease-fire over. The blockade was reimposed. On August 17, the day the memorandum expired, Trump said of Oman, with which Iran is negotiating a shipping corridor, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
To “sever every economic lifeline” of Iran, as Bessent put it, means to sanction the Chinese refineries, shipping companies and banks that buy and move its oil, and behind them the Chinese state. Behind the refineries stands the largest manufacturing economy in the world, whose trade in raw materials and finished goods a “zero-leakage” sanctions regime would have to police.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a briefing Tuesday that “China will do everything necessary to firmly safeguard its rights and interests.” Asked by Bloomberg whether China would change course, he said its cooperation with Iran “should not be disrupted.” Beijing, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, has told Washington that any broad extension of the sanctions to Chinese companies will bring retaliation.
Asked on Monday why the sanctions were not being imposed at once, Bessent replied: “Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”
Bessent’s statements are an admission of the provocative character of US actions. Desperate to shore up its geopolitical position, it is taking a series of increasingly reckless and desperate steps, whose impact is to widen the global scope of the war.
The Financial Times wrote in an editorial Tuesday that the operation “seemed more like a series of warning shots fired from far offshore,” and concluded that it “amounts to another risky gamble on a road that, for both sides, ultimately has to lead back to the negotiating table.”
However, the sequence Washington has followed does not lead to a negotiating table. It leads to a widening global conflagration, centrally targeting Russia and China.
(Photo credit: X) Large fires continued to burn and spread in south Lebanon on 13 August due to continuous strikes, artillery shelling, and deliberate arson operations carried out by Israeli occupation forces illegally positioned inside the country.
The Israeli arson operations in particular are targeting forests and greenery.
Israel has been damaging the environment in Lebanon for years, increasingly so over the past several months and specifically since the latest round of fighting began – including through the spraying of toxic chemicals.
Firefighters said, as they put out the blazes caused by Israel’s attacks and arson, that the fires were sparked “deliberately” by occupation forces.
The fires escalated overnight as Israel intensified attacks, but have been raging for weeks, environmental groups have said.
Israeli occupation troops used flares in a wooded area near the southern city of Khiam, sparking large blazes.
Hussein Fakih, head of the Lebanese Civil Defense in Nabatieh, said firefighters were targeted by an Israeli drone as they were heading to put out the flames.
“Most of our missions are now related to fires. There are enormous areas of woodland that have burned, I don’t have the exact figures, but in the areas close to the [frontline], around 30–40 percent of the land has been affected by fires,” he added.
Much of the agriculture in south Lebanon, including olive groves, has been affected by the fires, sparked by Israeli occupation troops and worsened by the hot summer weather.
The fires were seen in numerous videos posted across social media.
Meanwhile, Israeli infantry forces advanced into the area between the towns of Aita al-Jabal and Beit Yahoun in the Bint Jbeil district, as Tel Aviv carried out attacks in other areas on Thursday.
Occupation troops continued to detonate civilian infrastructure in multiple southern towns and villages, including Majdal Zoun, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).
On 12 August, Israeli War Minister Israel Katz renewed his repeated vows that occupation forces “will not withdraw” from south Lebanon.
Israel’s escalation and expansion in Lebanon have escalated since Beirut violated its own laws and agreed to an unconstitutional framework deal with Israel in June, during direct talks with Tel Aviv.
The deal demands Hezbollah disarmament before any withdrawal and allows Israel to maintain its occupation.
Tel Aviv says it has established a “security zone” in the dozens of villages it has occupied since March, but Hezbollah resistance fighters remain entrenched across this area.
A banner depicting US President Donald Trump and bearing messages was displayed in front of the Zolfaghar and Zolghadr ballistic missiles exhibited at Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran’s capital, on August 2, 2026.
(Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
As it becomes clear that there is “no escalatory military path out of this war,” Iran is demanding an even steeper toll for Trump to pull out.
President Donald Trump is now quietly conceding that he’s willing to walk away from his Iran war without meeting all of his demands if they agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran won’t let him back out of the quagmire without a steep price.
Iran is in the process of negotiating a limited reopening of the critical waterway with Oman. But Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Saturday that “until America corrects its behavior, the Strait of Hormuz will not open.”
He outlined a list of demands on Saturday, even harsher than those Trump walked away from when he abandoned the “memorandum of understanding” negotiated in June.
Zolghadr said the US must permanently end its war and naval blockade against Iran, and withdraw military forces from the region. He also said the US must fully compensate Iran for damages from the war, lift sanctions, and unfreeze assets abroad.
This demand for an end to US “aggression” applies not just to Iran, but to its allies in the region: Zolghadr also demanded an end to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, as well as an end to US and Israeli attacks against the Houthis in Yemen.
The Trump administration, which is not known to be in direct talks with Iran, has not yet responded to the demands. Trump told Axios on Sunday that “We are low-keying it” and “only semi-negotiating with Iran,” claiming that it was “in very bad shape” economically.
It’s clear, however, that the Iranians believe they have enough of an upper hand to make Trump grovel, especially as news emerges that the US has burned through nearly all its available stocks of long-range precision weapons, making the war increasingly costly, though the administration has denied this.
Domestic concerns are also weighing on Trump. Over the past month, as the war heated up again, average gas prices in the US have shot back up above $4 a gallon, a major liability for Republicans heading into a midterm election cycle in which many voters say the cost of living is a top concern.
Approval of Trump among Americans has fallen to a new all-time low of 34% according to a YouGov poll late last month. And just 28% of Americans say they approve of his handling of the war, according to an Associated Press/NORC poll.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump has privately signaled a willingness to declare victory if Iran opens the strait, even without getting any sort of nuclear agreement, which was purportedly the reason he launched the war in the first place.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Trump was “showing his desperation for a deal before it is completed, so Iran predictably demand[ed] major new concessions,” adding that it was a “masterclass in how not to negotiate.”
“As time passes, Tehran appears increasingly confident that the pressure is shifting onto Washington,” said the Israeli national security analyst Danny Citrinowicz. “Iranian leaders seem to believe that the United States is now more eager than Iran to bring the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz to an end, and, crucially, that Washington has few attractive military options for changing that equation.”
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told CNN, “At this point, it is absolutely clear that there is no escalatory military path out of this war.”
“It’s been tried in several different variations, and it has not ended up particularly well,” Parsi said. “In fact, the US’s position has been weakened, in my view, by additional military action. And as a result, I think there needs to be a full dedication to the diplomatic pathway.”
He added that for the Iranians, “the promise and the credibility of sanctions relief will carry far more weight than threats of further bombings.”
Donald Trump, far right, and Pete Hegseth, second from right, attend the dignified transfer of four U.S. service members recently killed in the Middle East, on July 22, 2026, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
The Pentagon is using a new method of tallying the number of U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in the Iran war that a U.S. government official said was “designed to obscure the count.”
Since the start of the conflict, the Department of War has posted the official count of casualties on the website of the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, which tracks “deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president. This official total of dead and wounded personnel, as documented over months of reporting by The Intercept, has been a gross undercount, stemming from what that same official previously called a “casualty cover-up.”
But after a series of Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in the Middle East in July, the Pentagon last week rolled out a new approach. Casualties since July 7 are now counted separately on a new webpage with a generic designation: “Overseas Operations.”
Two hundred and seventy-three U.S. troops were killed or wounded since July 7, according to the Monday total on the new Overseas Operations page.
When combined with the existing DCAS page for the Iran war, the official count stands at 704, an 83 percent increase in casualties since April 8, the day the first ceasefire deal was struck between the Trump administration and Iran. When counting known casualties overlooked by the DCAS page, the total exceeds 900 personnel.
For months, the Pentagon has failed to comment on DCAS anomalies reported by The Intercept nor the reason for the change in the way it now counts casualties, which was first reported by the New York Times. Last week, the Pentagon told the newspaper that “since Operation Epic Fury has concluded, the department classifies casualties as overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.” Central Command oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
“This is certainly designed to conceal the count of the wounded,” the official said, while noting that “incompetence” has also caused confusion in the casualty count.
The change comes after a July 20 rant by Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell who claimed reports of a Pentagon effort to withhold news of dozens of U.S. casualties were “baseless and malicious” and a U.S. official’s disclosure to The Intercept that same day that recent attacks on U.S. bases by Iran had wounded “far more” personnel than the Pentagon had acknowledged.
The casualty spike resulted from Iranian attacks on at least nine U.S. outposts across the Middle East since July 9, according to a second U.S. official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.
Iran’s military managed to overwhelm U.S. air defense systems using a mix of attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles, despite months of claims by President Donald Trump and self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth that Iran’s military was annihilated.
Last month, the tally of wounded personnel fluctuated by the day in the wake of increased Iranian attacks. On July 21, the casualty count on DCAS for Operation Epic Fury, the military’s official designation for the Iran war, stood at 500. Now, it has shrunk to 431.
For months, The Intercept found anomalies with the counts offered on the DCAS website. On April 21, for example, the number of wounded-in-action troops declined by 15 without public acknowledgment by the War Department. Despite repeated questions for months, the Pentagon has not commented on the disparities in its casualty count.
Prior reporting by The Intercept also found DCAS is missing hundreds of dead and wounded personnel from Epic Fury. The Pentagon list of the names of the dead is still missing Maj. Sorffly Davius, a signals and communication officer with the New York Army National Guard who was assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division and reportedly died of sudden illness while on duty in Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on March 6. Davius’s death was widely acknowledged even as it was excluded from the the official count: Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., spoke about him during a memorial service that month, and Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognized Davius while “honoring our fallen.”
While DCAS provides a running tally of “non-hostile” deaths — meaning those who died from accidents or by illness — it doesn’t include “non-hostile” injuries. The DCAS figures for Epic Fury show that 65 Navy personnel were wounded in action. Missing, however, are the more than 200 sailors treated for smoke inhalation or lacerations due to a March 12 fire that raged aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. The aircraft carrier had been conducting round-the-clock flight operations to, Caine said, “project combat power” in the Middle East.
Recent reporting by the War Horse, using Pentagon records obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, found more than 400 casualties were recorded between February 28 and April 8. Seventy occurred on March 18 alone, but this huge single-day toll was never reported by the Pentagon.
The records provide more granular detail than DCAS, revealing that at least 17 troops sustained life-threatening injuries. They show that U.S. troops suffered shrapnel wounds, broken bones, smoke inhalation, and other injuries. The most common injury recorded, however, was head trauma — which affected at least 170 troops, according to the data.
President Donald Trump has long dismissed brain injuries as “headaches” and “not serious.”
A bridge that was hit and heavily damaged by a US strike is pictured along the road connecting Roudan and Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on July 18, 2026.
(Photo by Amir Hossein KHORGOOEI/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s a narrative designed to give the impression that Trump is in the driving seat in this conflict. It’s been clear for some time now: He isn’t.”
Trita Parsi, an expert on US-Iranian relations, cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s Saturday claims that he halted planned strikes on Iran due to progress in negotiations to end the illegal conflict, launched by the Republican and Israel in February.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at 10:05 pm Eastern time.
“This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” Trump declared—despite repeated conclusions from US intelligence agencies that the Iranian government was not aiming to build a nuclear weapon when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran five months ago.
“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” Trump added. “The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment. Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE.”
Sharing the post on the platform X, Parsi said, “Trump ‘cancels’ ‘planned’ ‘attack’ on Iran…” The expert struck a similarly skeptical tone during a Saturday on-air interview with CNN about the president’s announcement.
Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that “I don’t believe there was an imminent attack. We’ve gone through this several times, in which Trump issues these threats, and then he backs off because the other side calls his bluff.”
“Trump does not have an escalatory way out of this conflict, but what he is trying to do is to give the impression that he is in control—that he is in the driving seat,” Parsi suggested. “And I think it’s been quite clear for quite some time now he is not.”
During Trump’s first term, he tore up the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, and so far, he has been unable to negotiate a replacement. Since launching this war, without authorization from Congress and in violation of the United Nations Charter, the ceasefire agreement reached in April and a June memorandum of understanding ultimately have not stopped the bloodshed.
Earlier this week, most US SenateRepublicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) blocked yet another war powers resolution intended to prevent the Trump administration from launching further attacks on Iran without congressional approval—a vote that came as polling showed 64% of Americans disapprove of continuing the war, including 37% of Republicans.
The Iran War has killed thousands of Iranians and Lebanese civilians—the latter mostly from Israeli attacks purportedly targeting Hezbollah—as well as hundreds of people in other nations across the Middle East and at least 18 US service members.
In the hours before Trump’s Saturday Truth Social post, Axios revealed that “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Trump spoke on Saturday, with MBS expressing concern over the strike plans,” and “other regional powers, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Pakistan, have also pressed the US and Iran to de-escalate.”
CBS chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan reported on social media about Saturday’s “flurry of phone calls by Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi to regional leaders, which suggests an effort underway to avoid military strikes.”
“Earlier today, the State Department advised Americans throughout the Mideast to leave the region,” Brennan noted.
Araghchi said Saturday that “any hostile action by the US or Israel—or participation or cooperation by regional countries in such actions—would be met with a decisive and proportionate response from Iran’s powerful armed forces.”
The Iranian army said nearly all US infrastructure in Erbil was destroyed and anti-Iran groups there have lost operational capability.
Key DevelopmentsThe Iranian army announced on Saturday that nearly all US military infrastructure in the Iraqi city of Erbil has been destroyed, saying anti-Iran groups operating there no longer possess the capability to carry out operations against the Islamic Republic.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Akraminia, spokesman for the Iranian army, said the damage inflicted during the recent fighting had effectively neutralized US infrastructure in Erbil and significantly reduced the operational capabilities of hostile groups based in the city.
‘No Longer Operational’
Speaking to Iranian state television, Akraminia said “almost all” US infrastructure in Erbil had been destroyed.
He added that anti-Iran groups previously operating from the Iraqi Kurdistan Region had been stripped of their ability to conduct operations against Iran.
According to Akraminia, the United States maintains extensive military capabilities throughout the region, southern Europe, and the Mediterranean, and is now attempting to replace equipment and assets lost during the recent conflict.
He stressed that Iran remains prepared to resume military operations should hostilities restart, saying the country’s armed forces would continue fighting until Washington realizes it cannot impose its will on Iran through military aggression.
America is destroying our moral credibility with threatening war crimes in Iran and having provided aid for war crimes in Gaza.
IRGC Details US Losses
Earlier on Saturday, IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi provided additional details regarding US military losses during the recent 15-day confrontation.
He said Iranian forces destroyed 11 US aircraft and helicopters while they were on the ground inside American military bases.
Mohebi also said Iranian forces destroyed 17 reconnaissance and operational drones, including eight newly introduced unmanned aircraft that had not previously been used.
According to the IRGC, destroyed US aircraft included an F-15 fighter jet, a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, a C-17 military transport aircraft, and eight aerial refueling aircraft.
The figures form part of a series of updates released by Iranian military officials detailing the results of Iran’s operations against US military installations across the region.
Akraminia also said Iran has begun deploying attack drones more advanced than the Arash-2.
He explained that while the Arash-2 drone was used during the recent 40-day war, the Iranian armed forces are now operating a newer generation of drones with greater destructive power, longer range, improved accuracy, and enhanced operational capabilities.
He added that technical details about the new drones have not yet been made public.
The latest statements come amid continued tensions following the recent US military campaign against Iran, which centered largely on the country’s southern regions.
Iran responded with a series of military operations targeting US bases across the Gulf region, as well as installations in Syria and Jordan, while Iranian military officials continue to release assessments of the damage inflicted during the confrontation.
An Air Force B-1B Lancer aircraft moves out of position after receiving fuel from a KC-135R Stratotanker during a mission over Afghanistan. [Photo: Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway by U.S. Air Force]
The Trump administration is concentrating US military forces in the Middle East and Europe for a vast expansion of US imperialism’s war against Iran.
According to an article published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, “In the past week, special-operations forces have deployed to the region from their U.S. bases, according to flight-tracking data and U.S. officials. Squadrons of jet fighters have been staged across the Middle East, and bomber aircraft at bases in the U.S. and U.K. are on high alert to ramp up operations, according to one of the officials.”
According to the article, more than 150 medics have arrived in recent days at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest American military hospital abroad and the first stop for troops wounded in the Middle East. This is a clear indication that the Trump administration is preparing for a major increase in American casualties.
Long-range bombers, including B-1s staged in Britain, are preparing for “major combat operations,” the Journal wrote. A B-1 flew its first strike mission of the renewed bombing, Axios reported on Thursday.
“I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before,” US President Donald Trump told Axios. “I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”
The purpose of the surge, the Journal wrote, is to give Trump “more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict against Iran.” Some sort of ground invasion is clearly among the options that are being considered.
On July 15, the Journal revealed that a White House Situation Room meeting discussed seizing “Kharg Island and other territory along the Strait of Hormuz using U.S. troops.” There are other potential targets, including nuclear energy facilities on Pickaxe Mountain and the seizure of other islands in the Strait of Hormuz.
Keith Kellogg, the retired lieutenant general who served as Trump’s envoy for Ukraine until last year, called Monday on Fox News for a ground invasion: “You’re going to need ground troops to do something.”
A US effort to reopen the strait by force would be a massive undertaking. Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, told the Financial Times in an article published Thursday that degrading Iran’s ability to launch drones and missiles could take weeks of as many as 150 to 200 American strikes a night. The FT also quoted a maritime adviser: “Iran only needs to hit one tanker to put everyone off.”
Trump is also returning to his threats of genocidal violence. On Wednesday, he posted on Truth Social that any Iranian attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz will be answered by the destruction of “ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.” This is a public declaration of intent to commit war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, which state that “Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals.”
On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared a policy of disproportionate retaliation to any resistance by Iran: “a head for an eye.” Reprisal at a fixed ratio was one of the notorious practices of the Hitler dictatorship.
The Trump administration is driven to escalation by the logic of the war, which is now in its fifth month. American imperialism has failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, including the overthrow of the Iranian government and the seizure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large percentage of the world’s oil and natural gas passes.
Every failure by the Trump administration has led to an even greater and more reckless escalation. In January, the administration encouraged and tried to arm protests inside Iran that it had hoped would overthrow the government. That operation’s failure led Trump to seek regime change by killing Iran’s leaders on February 28. These murders, too, failed to break the resistance of the Iranian population, and the administration escalated to a months-long bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,600 people and to the ongoing blockade.
Now the administration sees a massive and desperate escalation as the only way to rescue the prestige of US imperialism. In March 1965, as the Johnson administration prepared its escalation in Vietnam, Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton wrote in a memorandum later published in the Pentagon Papers that 70 percent of the American purpose was “to avoid a humiliating US defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).” That same month, the first 3,500 Marines landed at Da Nang; by the end of 1968, 536,000 American troops were in Vietnam.
A similar logic is involved in the war against Iran, under even more dangerous conditions. Washington calculates that a withdrawal after nearly five months of losses would shatter the world position of American imperialism in the eyes of its rivals, above all, China, and would represent a devastating blow to US domination.
American imperialism, staggering under massive debts, also confronts a deepening crisis of the dollar’s dominance in the world financial system. Federal debt held by the public has passed 100 percent of gross domestic product, the dollar’s share of world reserve assets has sunk to its lowest levels in three decades, and a survey of central banks published at the end of June found, for the first time, more of them planning to cut their dollar holdings over the coming decade than to increase them.
The war has the support of the entire political establishment. On Wednesday, the House passed a $1.15 trillion military authorization bill, 216-212, with six Democrats supplying the margin. After the Democrats ensured sufficient votes to pass the bill, the remainder were allowed to vote against. In January, 149 House Democrats approved the $839 billion military appropriations bill that paid for the assault on Iran launched five weeks later.
The Democrats’ criticisms have centered on Trump’s failure to secure victory, stated most bluntly at a Senate hearing on Tuesday by Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. Peters called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a “failure” and demanded: “You don’t have a strategy. You don’t have a long-term plan to actually win this war. Win the war!”
The Democrats also speak for sections of the ruling class that are concerned that the conduct of the war against Iran has undermined the US focus on the war with Russia, which is in their view the more important theater of the global US war.
Beyond conflicts over geopolitical strategy, the main concern of the Democratic Party is to prevent the emergence of popular opposition from below. The escalation of the war is being made without any explanation or warning, from any section of the political establishment, to the American people, who have opposed the war in every major poll since it began. No section of the ruling class is telling the population of the massive escalation of the war being prepared.
The escalation now underway will have catastrophic consequences for the population of Iran, the region and the entire world. Imperialism is in the initial stages of a global war that is continually expanding in scope. With each new stage, the danger of nuclear war grows.
The war has created the framework for a massive assault on the social position of the working class. Everything is to be subordinated to the unprecedented expenditures for war. Trump has declared the intention of the oligarchy to attack Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Food aid has already been cut off for 1.5 million children, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The renewed bombing is having a devastating effect on US households. Gasoline passed $4 a gallon this week, up from $3.14 a month ago, and the war has cost the average household some $450 in higher energy bills, by CNBC’s estimate—more than wiping out the tax rebate Trump promised. For the first time in three years, inflation is erasing all wage gains.
The war is necessarily fueling the growth of the class struggle, in the United States and throughout the world. Already, in the first half of 2026, this movement has begun to emerge explosively. The international working class, armed with a socialist program, is the social force upon which the struggle against imperialist war must be based.
As the US ramps up its assault against Iran with daily bombings and threatens a full ground invasion, hundreds of public figures from across Iranian civil society issued an urgent call for peace on Sunday.
Two hundred sixty-eight prominent Iranians—including political activists, academics, former members of Parliament, religious figures, labor leaders, and others—signed a joint declaration calling for a “complete and unconditional end of war, and the cessation of all threats, incitement to hatred, and warmongering.”
“We believe that the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people desire peace and the right to live a dignified life,” the statement says. “Therefore, since no decision should be imposed upon the country against the will of its people… we firmly remind all governments, military forces involved in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, and all members of the international community that violating this fundamental right of the Iranian people is a grave injustice against a nation that does not want war and stands for peace.”
“Despite all our differences, we raise our collective voice to say ‘No to War,’” the letter continued. “We sincerely call upon all our fellow Iranians—regardless of gender, political or ideological beliefs, religion, ethnicity, or any other distinction—to join this call and strengthen its echo by adding their voices.”
The declaration ends with a quote from the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi Shirazi: “Even if you possess the strength of an elephant or the claws of a lion, to me, peace is still better than war.”
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) emphasized the “breadth of the signatories,” which span large swaths of political opinion and reflect “a rare convergence across Iran’s deeply fragmented political landscape.”
Among the signatories are Kak Hassan Amini, a Sunni activist; Faezeh Hashemi, a former member of Iran’s Parliament and the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; teachers’ labor rights activist Maryam Kabiri; former Parliament members Elaheh Koulaei and Parvaneh Salahshouri; and former Central Bank Gov. Valiollah Seif.
The letter comes as the US has conducted nine consecutive nights of bombings following a short-lived truce in June. Earlier strikes targeted areas around the Strait of Hormuz—which Iran again sealed off as June’s memorandum of understanding collapsed.
In recent days, US strikes have begun to creep inland. In addition to military infrastructure, the US has attacked facilities relied upon by civilians, including bridges, roads, a train station, an airport, and energy infrastructure.
In retaliation for strikes that killed two US service members in Jordan over the weekend, the US launched another round of strikes on Monday that struck the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant, according to Iran’s atomic energy agency.
Iranian authorities have said that at least 50 people have been killed and at least 517 wounded in the latest round of US strikes. At least 3,500 Iranians have been killed since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February, including more than 1,700 confirmed civilians, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
At least 17 US troops have been killed since the war began, with Iran’s strikes in Jordan killing 25-year-old 1st Lt. James Feehan and 19-year-old Pvt. Isabella Gonzales over the weekend. Another soldier has also gone missing and has not yet been publicly identified.
President Donald Trumpvowed in a social media post on Monday that “every time Iran kills an American Soldier” going forward “they will pay for that killing many times over.”
With Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz once again causing global oil prices to soar, the Trump administration is reportedly mulling a full-scale ground invasion of Kharg Island and areas of coastline near the strait, which experts have warned would require hundreds of thousands of American troops and likely lead to many more casualties.
Democrats in Congress responded to the deaths of two more US soldiers by renewing calls to end the conflict.
“These brave troops gave their lives in service to our nation,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). “How many more must die for Trump’s war of choice?”
Trump’s escalations come despite the US House of Representatives and Senate passing a war powers resolution last month that directed him to withdraw troops from hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorizes them.
The New York Timesreported on Monday that the Pentagon didn’t disclose that US troops had been injured by Iranian attacks on Jordan in the week leading up to the missile strikes that killed at least two US soldiers and left one missing.
US officials told the Times that in the days before the deadly January 17 attack, Iranian strikes on US facilities in Jordan injured dozens of US service members and damaged multiple US military helicopters.
Throughout that same week, US Central Command released multiple statements on the US airstrikes against Iran and other military operations but made no mention of the injuries, following a pattern of the US hiding casualties throughout the war.
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, was killed by an Iranian attack on Jordan on July 17, 2026
A day after the deadly attack in Jordan, another US soldier was killed in Iraq during what CENTCOM called “a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone,” bringing the total number of US troops killed in the war in recent days to at least four, a number that includes the soldier missing in Jordan as CENTCOM said it found remains it was working to identify.
The US military identified the other two US Army soldiers killed in Jordan, which included a 19-year-old woman, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, who died on Friday. The other soldier, 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died of his wounds on Saturday.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell initially rejected the Times’ report as “baseless and malicious” but then acknowledged that nearly 100 US troops have been injured in the war since July 7, though he downplayed the injuries.
“While nearly 100 service members were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7, 2026, 96% have returned duty. They are determined to get back in the fight,” Parnell wrote on X. “The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions. Further updates will be posted on the Defense Casualty Analysis System.”
According to the Pentagon’s numbers, at least 18 US service members have been killed, and more than 500 have been wounded in the Iran war since President Trump launched it on February 28.
US and Israeli attacks on Iran in that time have killed around 3,500 Iranians, including more than 50 since the US renewed strikes several weeks ago. In April, Iranian officials said nearly half of those killed were civilians, including the 120 school children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran.
(Photo credit: X) Large fires continued to burn and spread in south Lebanon on 13 August due to continuous strikes, artillery shelling, and deliberate arson operations carried out by Israeli occupation forces illegally positioned inside the country. 
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