Peace and Justice Post

It is too early to assume a US defeat in Iran — we must prepare for a long anti-war struggle, argues JOHN ROSS

A woman carries an Iranian flag during a pro-government gathering at Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, square in Tehran, Iran, May 4, 2026

John Ross, Morning Star, 8 May 2026

THE entire peace movement opposed the US/Israeli war against Iran. Opposition went well beyond those normally opposing US actions. It is widely understood that resistance by the peoples of Iran, Lebanon and Yemen, together with the war’s unpopularity in the US, led to Trump losing the first rounds of the conflict.

Even the Wall Street Journal, a fervent supporter of the war, admitted this: “Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis… had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said.  ‘If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,’ Trump had said in March. ‘What a mess.’”

But it is a misjudgement to believe that because the US and Israel lost the first battle, therefore they have lost the war and are resigned to this. Instead, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle to defeat US and Israeli attacks on Iran.  

Some genuinely taking the right side in this war have written that the US has already suffered its biggest defeat since Vietnam, or even that this is a bigger defeat.

Unfortunately, this is a misanalysis. To prepare for the prolonged anti-war tasks to come, the situation must be seen accurately.

Precisely because if the US loses the war against Iran it would be its biggest defeat since Vietnam, it has no intention of giving up because it lost the first battle.

US ruling circles understand perfectly that US loss of the war would mean significant erosion of the credibility of its international threats, significantly weakening its global position.

They therefore simply conclude that the wrong tactic was chosen, and the US must change this to win the struggle. Even some forces in the US who believe launching the war was a tactical mistake believe that now it has started it must be won.

The Institute for the Study of War put it specifically: “Any US settlement or resolution of the conflict that enables Iran to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would represent a major US defeat.” As the Wall Street Journal summarised: “As the president said in his first term, the US shouldn’t start a war it doesn’t intend to win. His challenge now is to prove to Iran’s regime he meant what he said.”

The new US tactics to attempt to win the war can be clearly grasped if it is understood why it lost the first battle. Prior to the first military attack on Iran in June 2025, and the widespread assault launched in February, US policy under Trump had been to force Iran to capitulate to US demands by prolonged economic sanctions.

The US has now intensified this attack, after its defeat in the first round of the war, via its blockade of Iranian ships, with Trump claiming: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately… Starving for cash!”

Such sanctions genuinely damaged Iran’s economy, creating a priority for Iran to attempt to break out of them, while the US can return to bombing anytime it chooses.

Israel, and some in the US, considered sanctions strategically inadequate. Iran is a huge country, 80 times Israel’s size geographically, larger than the EU’s four largest countries put together. Iran’s population is 90 million, compared to Israel’s 10 million. In real economic terms, parity purchasing powers (PPPs), Iran’s GDP is three times Israel’s.

Faced with larger states, Israel’s policy has been, where it is unable to help create governments favourable to itself, to attempt to disintegrate and weaken them — as shown in Iraq and Syria.   
Israel, judging it unlikely there will be a compliant Iranian government, has long sought to disintegrate that country. Therefore, Iran faces an existential threat from Israel.

The US itself turned to a military assault on Iran, as opposed to sanctions, because of its and Israel’s victories in its genocidal attack on Gaza and also in Syria — where reactionary forces, which Israel and the US supported, came to power.  

Israel and the US miscalculated that they could now achieve the same in Iran. The US supplied thousands of Starlink systems and, as Trump publicly admitted, guns to demonstrators in Iran in December and January.

But not only did this fail to overthrow Iran’s government but when the US and Israel launched their full-scale military attack on Iran in February, as even Western media admitted, there was a “rallying around the flag” in Iran — in political terms, the great majority of Iran’s population, whatever their differences on other issues, or their attitude to Iran’s government, united in opposition to the US attack. This was the basis of the US defeat in the first round of the war.

But the US cannot retreat from this conflict due to the role west Asia plays in its strategy. A mistaken analysis was put forward a few years ago that because, due to fracking, the US has become self-sufficient in oil, it would be less interested in controlling west Asia.

The facts show the opposite. The US has waged more wars in the region — against Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran.

The US is no longer being itself dependent on West Asia, but constantly waging wars there, has led some to claim that this is because Israel controls US foreign policy — that the tail wags the dog. Any analysis of the relation of forces between the two makes clear this is untrue. Israel cannot produce the weapons it relies on to carry out military terror; the US merely has to threaten to cut off arms and Israel would immediately be brought to heel.

This reality was made clear for all to see when Trump, for short-term tactical reasons, openly  enforced an end to Israel’s bombing of Beirut, declaring: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the US.” The US does not support Israel because it is controlled by it but because the US finds Israel useful for its own strategy.

Although the US does not need west Asia’s oil for itself, its strategy is to be able to deny it to others, particularly China.

Because this is key for the US, it will not give up its attack on Iran, only the forms will change. Therefore, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle against US aggression against Iran.

John Ross is senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and a member of No Cold War Britain.

Sheer Post, April 25, 2026

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Joshua Scheer

Jeffrey Sachs doesn’t raise his voice — he doesn’t have to. In this wide‑ranging conversation with Tucker Carlson, Sachs lays out a devastating, historically grounded indictment of U.S. foreign policy, the manufactured “Iran threat,” and the decades‑long fusion of American empire with Israel’s regional ambitions. What emerges is not a hot take but a cold, clinical autopsy of a war machine that has slipped beyond democratic control.

From the 1953 coup to the present blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Sachs traces how Washington’s obsession with dominance — and Israel’s pursuit of permanent military supremacy — has pushed the world to the brink of a conflict that could collapse the global economy in weeks. He dismantles the nuclear‑weapons narrative, exposes the bipartisan addiction to sanctions and covert warfare, and warns that the U.S. is now trapped in a crisis of its own making.

This is one of Sachs’ clearest, most unflinching interviews to date — a map of how we got here, and a warning about what comes next if the “grown‑ups” don’t seize the wheel.

Jeffrey Sachs Warns: The U.S.–Israel War Path Toward Iran Is Leading the World Into Economic and Political Collapse

Jeffrey Sachs has spent decades advising governments, studying development, and watching empires rise and fall. In his latest interview, he delivers a stark message: the United States and Israel are steering the world toward a catastrophic confrontation with Iran — and the window for avoiding disaster is closing fast.

A Global Crisis Triggered by a Manufactured One

Sachs argues that the current crisis is not an accident but the predictable outcome of decades of U.S. interference in Iran, beginning with the 1953 CIA‑MI6 coup that toppled Iran’s elected prime minister. That single act — the theft of Iran’s sovereignty and its oil — set the stage for 70 years of hostility, sanctions, proxy wars, and regime‑change fantasies.

According to Sachs, the present escalation is driven less by Iranian behavior than by Washington’s refusal to accept that Iran slipped out of U.S. control in 1979. The “Iran menace,” he says, is a propaganda construct — a way to justify endless pressure on a country that has not invaded another nation in more than a century.

The Strait of Hormuz: A Choke Point for the World Economy

Sachs warns that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a direct consequence of the spiraling conflict — has already triggered a global economic emergency. Oil, gas, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and metals flow through this narrow waterway. With it blocked, the world economy is “reeling,” and the clock is ticking.

The off‑ramp exists, Sachs insists: de‑escalation, diplomacy, and reopening the strait. But it requires political maturity — something he argues is in short supply in both Washington and Jerusalem.

Israel’s Parallel Agenda: Regional Dominance at Any Cost

Sachs draws a sharp distinction between U.S. and Israeli motives. For Washington, Iran represents a rebellion against American empire. For Israel, Iran is the last major obstacle to full military dominance across the Middle East and North Africa.

He argues that Israel’s political leadership — backed by a powerful U.S. lobby — has long sought to neutralize Iran not because of nuclear fears, but because Iran resists Israeli hegemony. This, Sachs says, is the real engine behind the push for confrontation.

The Nuclear Lie

One of Sachs’ most forceful points is his dismantling of the nuclear narrative. U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly stated that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Iran has sought international monitoring and compliance frameworks — including the JCPOA — only to see the U.S. sabotage its own agreements under pressure from domestic political forces aligned with Israel.

Calling the nuclear rhetoric “Orwellian,” Sachs argues that the real goal is regime change, not nonproliferation.

A War That Would Reshape the World in Weeks

Sachs warns that a U.S.–Israel attack on Iran would not be a limited strike. It would trigger a regional war, destroy infrastructure across the Gulf, and plunge the global economy into chaos. Within weeks, he says, the world would look “profoundly damaged,” with the risk of escalation into a global conflict.

This is not hyperbole, Sachs insists — it is the logical outcome of the current trajectory.

The Real Question: Who Is Steering U.S. Policy?

Throughout the interview, Sachs returns to a central theme: the absence of democratic control over U.S. foreign policy. Decisions of war and peace are being shaped by lobbies, political vanity, and imperial reflexes — not by the interests of the American public.

The result is a government that no longer serves its citizens, a political class insulated from consequences, and a foreign policy apparatus that treats global stability as collateral damage.

A Final Warning

Sachs’ message is clear: the U.S. and Israel are playing with forces they cannot control. The world is at a fork in the road — diplomacy or disaster — and the people making the decisions are the least equipped to choose wisely.

For Americans, the stakes are not abstract. Sachs argues that the economic, political, and moral costs of this conflict will fall squarely on the public, not on the leaders who helped create it.

US officials told NBC that a US base in Kuwait was bombed by an Iranian fighter jet

by Dave DeCamp | April 26, 2026 at 1:25 pm ET

Iranian attacks on US bases across the Middle East have caused far more damage than the Trump administration has publicly acknowledged, and an Iranian fighter jet was able to bomb at least one US base, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.

The administration has attempted to cover up the damage to US bases in the war, and has gone as far as requesting that Planet Labs and other satellite imagery companies black out war images, making it difficult to ascertain the damage.

The NBC report said that the Pentagon has also kept the information on the damage from Congress. “No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” a Republican congressional aide told the outlet. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”

Iranian missile and drone attacks have targeted US bases in seven Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, and Qatar. US officials said that an Iranian F-5 fighter jet was able to bomb the US base at Camp Buehring in Kuwait despite it having air defenses, marking the first time in many years that an enemy fixed-wing aircraft struck a US military installation.

The US armed Iran with Northrop Grumman-made F-5 fighter jets before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Iran has developed its own version of the aircraft, known as the HESA Kowsar.

Kuwait was also the site of a March 1 Iranian drone attack that killed six US Army Reserve soldiers and injured more than 20. The drone targeted a makeshift operations center in Port Shuaiba, and according to survivors of the attack who spoke to CBS News, the facility was unprotected despite claims from US War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the drone was able to “squirt” through air defenses.

The Pentagon has confirmed the deaths of at least 13 US soldiers and the injuries of more than 400 in the war. The bases across the region were mostly evacuated since they were so vulnerable to attack, something The New York Times previously reported. “Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable, with the ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage,” the Times reported on March 25.

The NBC report said that the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain “sustained serious damage” and that other US bases in the country also suffered serious damage that is likely repairable. The report also cited the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think tank, which said it assessed Iran hit more than 100 targets across 11 bases, and that the repairs would cost at least $5 billion, though the number doesn’t account for some of the radars, weapons systems, and other equipment that was destroyed.