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The Netanyahu Doctrine: How One Man’s War Addiction Is Consuming Israel, Lebanon, and the World

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From the ‘Villa in the Jungle’ to the ‘Greater Israel Nightmare’

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who keeps my notes safe and accessible and is always prepared to advise me.

I. Introduction: The Doctrine of Perpetual War

On October 7, 2023, Israel suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Hamas militants crossed from Gaza, unimpeded, and killed and tortured Israeli civilians. That day alone should have disqualified Benjamin Netanyahu from office. In most political systems, he would have been driven from power long ago.

Instead, he did what he has always done: he escalated.

What emerged from the ashes of October 7 is what analysts now call the Netanyahu Doctrine — a security strategy based not on containment, not on deterrence, but on perpetual war. As Netanyahu himself told military officers: “No more containment of threats. No more the idea of the ‘villa in the jungle’, where one hides from predators beyond the wall. On the contrary: if you don’t go into the jungle, the jungle comes to you” .

The doctrine is simple: preventive attacks against every perceived threat, the creation of buffer zones through the seizure of neighbouring territories, and the constant use of force as the only guarantee of security. It is a doctrine born of trauma, shaped by political expediency, and devoid of any long-term diplomatic vision.

This article examines the Netanyahu Doctrine in action: in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria, and against Iran. It documents the destruction, the displacement, and the erosion of Israel’s international standing. It argues that Netanyahu is not a strategist — he is an opportunist. He does not plan for the long term. He plans for the next distraction.

And the world is always distracted.

II. The Greater Israel Dream: From the Nile to the Euphrates

The doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. The buffer zone is not the goal. The settlements are the goal. The land clearance is not for defence. It is for colonisation.

The concept of Greater Israel — a territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing all of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Turkey — is not a fringe fantasy. It is the stated aspiration of the Netanyahu government.

In February 2026, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sat with Tucker Carlson and was asked about the biblical promise of land “from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.” His answer was chilling: “It would be fine if they took it all”. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded publicly: “I ❤️ Huckabee” . In 2025, Netanyahu himself told a TV interviewer that he subscribes “fully” to the vision of Greater Israel, describing it as a “historic and spiritual mission”.

This is not a fringe position. It is the official policy of the Netanyahu government. And it is being executed.

III. Lebanon: The Pattern Repeats

The same pattern as Gaza. The same destruction. The same rubble.

On March 2, 2026, Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The stated goal was to create a “buffer zone” up to the Litani River, approximately 30 kilometres north of Israel’s border, to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah rockets.

The reality is different. The buffer zone is not a buffer. It is a land grab. The territory up to the Litani is not needed for defence. It is needed for settlements.

Defence Minister Israel Katz has been explicit: “All houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza, in order to permanently remove the threats near the border” . Displaced residents will not be allowed to return south of the Litani “until the safety and security of residents of northern Israel is guaranteed” — a condition that may never be met .

The human cost in Lebanon (as of April 2026):

· 1,268 people killed in Israeli strikes, including 125 children and 52 medics 

· 303 killed in a single day (April 8, 2026) — one of the deadliest bombings ever inflicted on Lebanon 

· 1,200+ killed and 1.2 million displaced since March 2 

· 1,094 confirmed martyrs and 3,119 injured according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health 

The air force can project power anywhere. The ground troops are not needed for security. They are needed for clearance.

IV. Conflicting Views: Military vs. Political Leadership

The Israeli military and political leadership are not aligned. The military leaders want a buffer zone. The political leaders want settlements.

In early April 2026, the Israeli army proposed a revised set of objectives for its operations in Lebanon, limiting the goal of disarming Hezbollah to areas south of the Litani River, rather than across the entire country. The proposal triggered sharp disagreements with Israel’s political leadership, leading to the postponement of a cabinet meeting.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz was among those who opposed the plan. Under the alternative military approach, the army would focus on the large-scale destruction of villages in South Lebanon and the forced displacement of their citizens to establish a buffer zone.

The gap is not a failure of communication. It is a feature. The ambiguity provides cover. The confusion provides deniability.

The military leaders can say: “We were only establishing a buffer zone.”

The political leaders can say: “The military recommended it.”

And the settlers move in.

V. The Economic Cost: Israel Cannot Afford This War

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not sustainable. The economic numbers are stark.

The cost to Israel:

· The defence budget has ballooned. The army needs approximately 15,000 more soldiers, half of them for ground combat units. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned the government: “I am raising 10 red flags. If this continues, the Israeli army will collapse from within”.

· The ultra-Orthodox community, which relies heavily on state benefits, is expected to triple by 2065, pushing the burden on non-Orthodox households to the equivalent of 60,000 shekels ($19,370) a year.

· Foreign investment is down. Institutional investors have been moving money out of the country since the 2008 financial crisis.

· More than 150,000 people have left Israel in the past two years, and more than 200,000 since the current government took office in December 2022. The educated upper class are more able to leave — they speak English, can find jobs, and are more exposed to international media.

The cost to Lebanon:

· The Lebanese economy, already in freefall, is being shattered. The destruction of infrastructure, the displacement of 1.2 million people, and the loss of agricultural land in the south will take decades to repair.

· Sectarian tensions are rising. Non-Shi’a Lebanese are increasingly ostracising the Shi’a community, viewing them as a liability that brings Israeli bombs. The country’s fragile social fabric is tearing apart.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. And expansion costs money that Israel does not have.

VI. The Sabra and Shatila Precedent

This is not the first time Israel has invaded Lebanon. It is not the first time the world has been distracted. And it is not the first time the consequences have been catastrophic.

In 1982, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut. On 16 September, under Israeli supervision and protection, Lebanese Forces militias entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. For 43 hours, they tortured and killed everyone they came across. They crushed the heads of children and babies against walls. They raped women and girls before slaughtering them. They dismembered their victims .

An estimated 3,500 to 4,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed.

The Israeli government did not deny that it had overseen the camps. It denied knowledge of the massacre, despite order number 6 of the Israel Defense Forces command stating that “the refugee camps are not to be entered” and that “searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese Army” .

The Kahan Commission found Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon “personally responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge.” He was forced to resign .

The world was shocked. The world moved on. And Israel invaded Lebanon again.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not new. It is the same doctrine, dressed in new clothes, enabled by a distracted world, and executed with unprecedented brutality.

VII. The UN Warning: ‘The Gaza Model Must Not Be Replicated’

The international community is not silent. But its warnings are being ignored.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a warning cry, stressing that the model of destruction witnessed in the Gaza Strip must not be repeated in Lebanese territories. He described the humanitarian repercussions as severe and requiring immediate intervention to prevent a slide towards a comprehensive catastrophe.

Stanford Law Professor Tom Dannenbaum warned that destroying all homes near the Lebanese border would not meet the standard of “absolute military necessity” required by the laws of war. “The unnecessary destruction of property can qualify as a war crime,” he said. Katz’s comments barring residents from returning home “strongly indicate an illegal policy of long-term or permanent displacement”.

European countries have called on Israel to avoid further escalation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Israel’s occupation of Lebanese territory was a “violation of their territorial sovereignty” and condemned it.

The world is not silent. But the world is distracted.

VIII. The Netanyahu Doctrine: A Record of Failure

Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian, sums up the Netanyahu record:

“This is now the fourth time in a row – in Gaza, once in Lebanon and twice in Iran – that Netanyahu’s boasts of total victory and the removal of existential threats have been exposed as empty promises” .

The failures are clear:

· Gaza: Netanyahu promised “total victory” over Hamas. After a two-year campaign that killed approximately 70,000 people, Hamas still rules the ruins of half of Gaza.

· Lebanon (first round): Netanyahu boasted that he had “vanquished” Hezbollah, destroying its ability to menace northern Israel. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets.

· Iran (first round, June 2025): Netanyahu described the 12-day confrontation with Iran as a “historic victory that will stand for generations.” Eight months later, Tehran was once again said to pose an existential threat.

· Iran (second round, February-April 2026): Iran still has a stockpile of enriched uranium. Its rulers remain in place, more hardline than before. Tehran has demonstrated a mighty deterrent — a chokehold on the global economy in the form of the Strait of Hormuz.

As Yair Golan, the Israeli opposition politician and former general, observed: Netanyahu “does not know how to turn military achievements into political security.” There is no attempt to seize diplomatic openings, no effort to turn Israel’s enemies’ enemies into friends.

The Lebanese government and much of its people are desperate to be rid of the Hezbollah cuckoo in their nest. But Netanyahu speaks to them only through bombs.

IX. The Strait of Hormuz Distraction

The timing of the Lebanon escalation is not accidental. The world is focused on Trump and Iran. The media is focused on oil prices. The public is focused on the cost.

On February 28, 2026, the US and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran. The war has spread across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively blockaded. Oil prices have spiked. Inflation is rising. The global economy is bleeding .

Netanyahu is taking advantage. He always does.

The Iranian threat is not existential. It is useful. The fear is the tool. The distraction is the opportunity.

Netanyahu has been playing this game for decades. He is very good at it.

X. What This Means: The Erosion of Israel’s Standing

The Netanyahu Doctrine has gained nothing. And it has come at a monstrously high price.

Most obviously, in the lives of all those killed — whether in Rafah or the Bekaa Valley or Israel itself. But it has also inflicted perhaps irreparable damage on Israel’s standing in the world. Every day Netanyahu remains in post; he makes his country more of a pariah .

The Knesset has passed a racist law that will, in effect, impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of terrorist murderers — but not Jews. The bill was driven by Itamar Ben-Gvir, but Netanyahu went out of his way to vote for it.

Israel is not being destroyed by its enemies. It is being destroyed by its own internal contradictions. The addiction to war, the messianic ideology, the economic unsustainability, the exodus of the educated — these are not external threats. They are internal cancers.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis will pass. The oil prices will stabilise. The media will move on.

But the land in Lebanon will not return. The settlements will not be dismantled. The buffer zone will become permanent.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. The existential threat is not a threat. It is an excuse.

And the world is too distracted to notice.

XI. A Final Word

The Netanyahu Doctrine is a death spiral — for Israel, for Lebanon, for the region. It is a doctrine of perpetual war, sustained by distraction, enabled by silence, and paid for with the bodies of the innocent.

The question is not whether Israel will collapse. The question is how many more must die before the world stops looking away.

Andrew Klein 

April 13, 2026

Sources

· Adnkronos English, “Financial Times, ‘one battle after another’ the new Netanyahu doctrine,” April 1, 2026 

· Diari ARA, “Netanyahu accelerates the construction of Greater Israel,” April 11, 2026 

· Yerepouni Daily News, “Israel to destroy all houses in Lebanese villages near border, defense minister says,” April 1, 2026 

· LBCI Lebanon, “Internal debate over war objectives: Israeli army revises Lebanon strategy,” April 3, 2026 

· The Guardian, “Netanyahu-ism has achieved nothing for Israelis – and come at a monstrously high price,” April 10, 2026 

· Institute for Palestine Studies, “Sabra and Shatila, 1982” 

· UnHerd, “Future of Iran war hinges on Lebanon,” April 11, 2026 

· Al-Quds, “Guterres warns of ‘Gaza model’ in Lebanon, Netanyahu announces expansion of buffer zone,” March 26, 2026 

· Vijesti.me, “One battle after another: Netanyahu’s new security doctrine,” April 6, 2026 

· PressTV, “US envoy says it would be ‘fine’ if Israel expands across West Asia,” February 21, 2026 

Israel: The State That Ate Itself

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How the Forever War Doctrine Is Devouring the Nation From Within

By Andrew Klein 

10th April 2026

Dedicated to my wife, who sees the pattern before the pieces fall.

I. The Confession

They have finally said it out loud. The mask is off.

On February 20, 2026, Mike Huckabee — the United States Ambassador to Israel, appointed by Donald Trump, a man who speaks with the authority of the world’s most powerful nation — sat down with journalist Tucker Carlson and confessed.

Carlson asked him about the biblical passage in which God promises Abraham’s descendants the land “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.” Huckabee did not deny it. He did not retreat. He did not hedge.

He answered with chilling calm: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Let us translate what he said. The American ambassador just told the world that it is “fine” — indeed, that it would be “a good thing” — for Israel to conquer and annex Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a recorded, broadcast, undeniable confession from the highest levels of the United States government.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Finance Minister, responded publicly: “I ❤️ Huckabee.” No ambiguity. No subtext. Pure confirmation.

The map they discussed is not new. It is the same map Netanyahu carries in his pocket, the same map Smotrich has displayed in the Knesset. The so-called “Promised Land” includes all of historical Palestine; the entire territory of Jordan; Lebanon up to the Litani River; Syria, including the occupied Golan Heights; vast parts of Egypt (Sinai and the Nile Delta); Iraq to the Euphrates River; and northwestern Saudi Arabia.

This is not a fringe position. It is the official policy of the Netanyahu government. And it is being executed.

II. The Strategy: Forever War

Israel’s leaders have concluded that they cannot eliminate their adversaries. So they have chosen a different path: permanent war.

The doctrine is called “buffer zones.” In Gaza: more than half the Strip’s territory seized. In Syria: from Mount Hermon to the Yarmuch River. In Lebanon: a vast zone up to the Litani River — approximately 8% of Lebanese territory, affecting nearly 1,400 square kilometres, displacing over one million people.

As Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general, said: “Israel no longer waits for the attack to come. It sees an emerging threat and it attacks it preemptively”.

This is not defence. This is pre-emptive occupation.

Smotrich has been explicit: the goal is to make Beirut’s southern suburbs “a new Khan Younis” — to replicate the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon. Defence Minister Israel Katz has promised to “demolish all houses in Lebanese villages near the border, like in Rafah and Beit Hanoun”.

The same model. The same devastation. The same rubble.

III. The Economic Collapse: The Math Does Not Work

Israel cannot afford this war. The numbers are stark.

Each Arrow 2 interceptor costs an estimated $1.5 million. Each Arrow 3 interceptor costs approximately $2 million. According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Israel has already used approximately 80 percent of its Arrow interceptor stockpile. The think tank predicted that the remaining stockpiles would likely “be completely expended by the end of March”.

Iran’s drones cost as little as $20,000. Its missiles cost a fraction of what Israel spends to intercept them.

The cost-exchange ratio is not sustainable. The cheap weapons are winning the economic battle. The state is bleeding out — not from a single wound, but from a thousand cuts.

IV. The Internal Collapse: The State Is Eating Itself

This is the part the world does not see. The rot is inside.

The military is stretched to the breaking point. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has warned that the army is “stretched to the limit and beyond”. The army’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, reportedly told the security cabinet that “the IDF is on the verge of collapse”. He said: “I am raising 10 red flags. The reservists will not hold”.

Tzipi Livni — former foreign minister, former Mossad head — has said it plainly: “Netanyahu is dismantling the State of Israel”.

She explains: a sovereign state has recognised borders, a single law for all, and the monopoly on arms. Israel has none of these. No recognised borders. No single law — a parallel religious legal system is emerging. No monopoly on arms — violent militias operate at will.

The state is not being attacked from outside. It is collapsing from within.

V. The Silence of the West

The most damning evidence is the silence.

When fourteen nations — including Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE — along with the OIC (57 member states), the Arab League (22 members), and the GCC (6 members), condemned Huckabee’s statements, the White House said nothing. The State Department said nothing. Europe said nothing.

Silence, in diplomacy, is not neutrality. It is consent.

The United States has used its veto power to protect Israel from international accountability more than 45 times since 1945. This guaranteed impunity has not been beneficial to the state. A state, to survive, learns to compromise, to make friends and alliances among its neighbours. The forever conflict model has never worked.

VI. The Historical Pattern: When Ideology Captures the State

What we are witnessing in Israel is not unique. It is the same pattern that has repeated throughout history: when a state is captured by a single political or religious ideology, it loses the ability to learn from its mistakes.

The European Wars of Religion (1524-1648): For over a century, the principle of cuius regio, eius religio — “whose realm, his religion” — tore Europe apart. The Thirty Years’ War alone killed an estimated 8 million people. The conflict did not end until the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which established the modern international order based on the principle that states must coexist with different internal beliefs. The alternative — perpetual war — was unsustainable.

The Soviet Union (1917-1991): The Bolshevik Revolution captured the Russian state with an ideology that promised the withering away of the state. Instead, it created the most repressive state apparatus in modern history. The ideology prevented learning. It prevented adaptation. It prevented survival. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions — not because of external enemies.

Nazi Germany (1933-1945): The Nazi regime was captured by an ideology that combined racial supremacy with territorial expansion — Lebensraum. The result was not strength but a “permanent state of exception” that required constant war. The regime collapsed not because its enemies were stronger, but because its ideology made compromise, peace, and sustainable statecraft impossible.

The same pattern is now playing out in Israel. The “Greater Israel” ideology, rooted in religious claims to land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, has captured the state. Compromise is impossible because the ideology demands the entire territory. Peace is impossible because peace requires recognised borders. Survival is threatened because the resources required to maintain the forever war are finite.

VII. The Military Reality: Air Power Does Not Control Ground

How can a small country fight on so many fronts at once? The answer is: it cannot. Not sustainably.

The fronts are multiplying — Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen — but the resources are finite.

The model of air power does not guarantee control of the ground. You can bomb a city into rubble, but you cannot hold it without troops. And the troops are exhausted. The reservists are depleted. The economy is bleeding.

The “forever war” is not a strategy. It is a death spiral.

VIII. The West Will Follow

What we are seeing in the State of Israel is a microcosm of what the forever war model — desired by bankers, multinational corporations, and defence contractors since the American Civil War, accelerated since WWII — will lead to. The west will follow the decline of Israel and, in essence, eat itself.

The Global South is waking up. The young see the hypocrisy of the political class. The daily stream of death and destruction presented on social media is a wake-up call to anyone who has time to see facts for what they are.

The message of “Never again” was meant to have global post-WWII application, not provide a carte blanche for political opportunists who have good reasons to maintain the forever wars.

It will not be able to blame China, Russia, or the Muslim world. The west managed to cannibalise itself all on its own.

IX. A Final Word

The State of Israel is not being destroyed by its enemies. It is being destroyed by its own leadership. By the vision of “Greater Israel.” By the doctrine of “forever war.” By the refusal to accept borders, to make peace, to stop.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

And the small gods will keep chanting: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

They are wrong. It will not be fine. It will be rubble.

Andrew Klein 

April 10, 2026

Sources:

· PressTV, “Huckabee mocks Arab League’s condemnation of his remarks endorsing Israel’s biblical territorial claims” (February 21, 2026)

· Just International, “‘It would be fine if they took it all’: The Confession That Exposes the Greater Israel Project” (March 1, 2026)

· OZ Arab Media, “Israel Plans Long-Term Control Over Southern Lebanon Post-Conflict” (April 1, 2026)

· EurAsian Times, “Israel’s Arrow-3 Exo-Atmospheric Missile Production Set to Expand; Katz Insists Stocks Sufficient” (April 6, 2026)

· Arab News, “Israel political unity on Iran war fractures, opposition warns of ‘security disaster'” (March 26, 2026)

· The Indian Express, “‘It would be fine if they took it all’: US envoy Mike Huckabee cites Biblical text to claim Israel’s right to entire Middle East” (February 21, 2026)

· Tehran Times, “‘Greater Israel’ in action: How expansion and occupation threaten regional stability” (February 23, 2026)

· CGTN, “Israeli defense minister says forces to hold south Lebanon zone up to Litani River” (March 31, 2026)

· 新浪财经, “以色列：将加速生产’箭’式拦截导弹” (April 7, 2026)

· New Age BD, “Israel opposition warns end to consensus over Iran war” (March 29, 2026)

The Wealth of War: How the Machine Enriches the Few While the Many Pay the Price

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How the Myth of the Free Market Markets the War on Everything

By Andrew Klein 

8th April 2026

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’ because I can.

I. The Pattern

The pattern is consistent across nations and centuries. Wars are not fought for victory. They are fought for continuation. The machine does not care which side wins. It cares that the contracts flow, the debt accumulates, and the wealth transfers upward.

This article examines the personal fortunes of political leaders who have overseen recent wars—Trump, Zelensky, Netanyahu, and the Australian political class. It asks: how did they become wealthy? What role did war play in their enrichment? And why does the system allow—even encourage—this concentration of wealth in the hands of those who send others to die?

The answers are not comforting. But they are necessary.

II. Donald Trump: The Businessman President

Estimated net worth: $6.5 billion (Forbes, March 2026)

Trump’s wealth is not a product of his presidency. It is a product of access. The same access that allowed him to profit from the Iran war.

The portfolio:

· Cryptocurrency ventures: $21 billion (including meme coins, World Liberty Financial tokens, and stablecoin USD1)

· Trump Media & Technology Group (Truth Social): $12 billion (despite annual sales of only $3.7 million and losses exceeding $700 million)

· Golf clubs and resorts: $15 billion (including Mar-a-Lago, valued at $5.64 billion)

· Real estate: $12 billion (including 30% stakes in major office towers)

How he got there:

Trump’s wealth increased by $1.4 billion in his first year back in office. The mechanism is not subtle:

1. The meme coin. Days before his second inauguration, Trump launched a meme coin. His holdings are now valued at $393 million.

2. The UAE deal. An Emirati royal family member purchased nearly half of Trump’s World Liberty Financial project. Trump received $2 billion in after-tax proceeds.

3. The Truth Social bubble. The company has no viable business model, yet trades at valuations that defy logic. Trump’s stake: $12 billion.

4. The war connection. Powerus, a drone company in which Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump hold “sizable equity stakes,” is competing for $1.1 billion in Pentagon funding and pitching defensive drone interceptors to Gulf states threatened by Iran’s retaliation.

The Epstein distraction:

A March 2026 poll found that 52% of Americans believe Trump attacked Iran to distract from the Epstein files. Newly released documents included an allegation that Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein.

Senator Ron Wyden told a town hall: “They know how Trump’s distant Iran War = less federal help at home for health care, wildfire prep & more. And they know it’s a Trump scheme to distract from the Epstein investigation”.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson said: “When confronted with a faltering economy and the persistent political radiation of the Epstein matter, a war with Iran looked like a perfect narrative reset. For Trump, war is the ultimate political reset, no matter its cost”.

The pattern: Trump does not need to be a competent businessman. He needs to be connected. The same connections that made him wealthy are the ones that profit from war.

III. Volodymyr Zelensky: The Wartime President

Estimated net worth: $20-30 million

Zelensky’s wealth is often exaggerated. Claims that he has earned “$100 billion” from Western aid are unsubstantiated. The source of those claims—former Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev—is a pro-Russian politician who fled to Moscow in 2014 and is widely considered a propagandist.

The reality:

Zelensky’s official presidential salary is approximately $28,000 hryvnia per month (less than $1,000 USD). His wealth was accumulated before his presidency, through his career as an entertainer and co-owner of the production company “Quarter 95”.

Assets: Properties in Kyiv, including apartments, and a property in Crimea that remains under Russian occupation. Total net worth: $20-30 million.

The nuance: Unlike Trump, Zelensky has not been shown to have profited from the war. International fact-checking organisations have consistently debunked claims that he has “become rich with Western aid”.

But the perception of corruption matters. The unfounded claims persist because the pattern of wartime enrichment is so well-established. People assume Zelensky is like the others.

IV. Benjamin Netanyahu: The Longest-Serving Prime Minister

Estimated net worth: $13 million (Celebrity Net Worth)

Netanyahu’s wealth has increased by 400% per year according to some reports .

Sources of wealth:

· Prime Minister’s salary (multiple terms spanning 18+ years)

· Investments

· Inheritance from his wife

The context: Netanyahu is currently fighting corruption charges. He has been indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The cases involve allegations that he accepted lavish gifts from wealthy friends in exchange for regulatory favours.

The war connection: Netanyahu has been campaigning for a US-led war against Iran for much of his political career. He aggressively opposed US diplomacy with Iran, took the unprecedented step of coming before Congress to argue against the nuclear agreement, and successfully lobbied Trump to withdraw from that agreement in 2018.

The war serves his domestic political interests. It distracts from his corruption trials. It rallies the base. It keeps him in power.

V. The Australian Political Class: Wealthy Before Politics

The pattern in Australia is different. Most Australian politicians do not become wealthy in office. They arrive wealthy—or they accumulate wealth through property, not war contracts.

The richest politician-linked figure: Clive Palmer (United Australia Party founder) — $15-20 billion. Palmer made his fortune in mining, not politics. He is no longer in active politics.

Former Prime Ministers:

· Malcolm Turnbull: $200-250 million (investment banking and legal career before politics)

· Kevin Rudd: $50-100 million (family-inclusive; consulting and diplomacy after politics)

· Scott Morrison: $5-10 million (post-politics earnings from speaking and board roles)

· Anthony Albanese: $10-15 million (primarily Sydney real estate, including a $4.3 million clifftop home purchased in 2024)

The property bias: Parliamentary registers show 95% of MPs own homes, with 60% holding investment properties—far above average citizens. Critics argue this creates disconnects on housing affordability and inequality.

The pension golden handshake: Sussan Ley, who lost the Liberal leadership and retired from politics, will receive an estimated $250,000-280,000 annual pension for life, under the “old” Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme (PCSS) closed to new members after 2004. This is higher than the salary of a sitting backbencher.

The difference: Australian politicians do not personally profit from war contracts. The wealth flows to the defence contractors—many of which are American, not Australian. Australia is being bled dry financially, but the money is not sticking to the politicians. It is flowing out.

VI. The Cost to Australia: Opportunity Lost

While billions flow to defence contractors and foreign interests, Australia’s essential services crumble.

The value of volunteering: Volunteers contribute an estimated $200-300 billion annually to the Australian economy. The sector provides approximately 700-800 million hours of volunteer work per year. This is the value Australians create for each other—outside the market, outside the profit motive, outside the war economy.

The opportunity cost: Every dollar spent on war is a dollar not spent on:

· Healthcare: Public hospitals are underfunded. Elective surgery waiting lists are growing. Mental health services are stretched to breaking point.

· Education: Class sizes are increasing. Teacher shortages are worsening. University funding is being cut.

· Infrastructure: Roads, bridges, public transport—all are in need of repair and expansion. The money is not there.

· Housing: The affordability crisis deepens. Social housing waiting lists grow. The government announces new measures. Nothing changes.

· Aged care: The Royal Commission made recommendations. Some were implemented. Many were not. The aged care system is still failing.

The volunteer sector vs. the war economy:

                                                     Volunteers                                                                         War Economy

Annual contribution       $200-300 billion                                                                     Negative (costs exceed benefits)

Motivation                            Care, community, compassion                                Profit, power, control

Outcome               Services delivered, communities strengthened            Destruction, debt, inequality

Who benefits                           Everyone                                                                            The few

The volunteers do not ask for profit. They ask for nothing. They give because they care.

The war economy does not care. It extracts. It destroys. It enriches the few at the expense of the many.

VII. The Mechanism: How War Enriches the Few

The pattern is not new. It was forged in the American Civil War and perfected in the 20th century.

The Civil War transformation:

· 1860: Fewer than 100 millionaires in the United States

· 1875: More than 1,000 millionaires

The “robber barons”—J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie—built empires on the foundation of war production and its aftermath.

The mechanism:

1 .Crisis (secession, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Iranian nuclear threat

2. Mobilisation (industrial production, government contracts)

3. Profit (defence contractors, oil companies, bankers)

4. Inequality (wealth concentrates at the top)

5. Resistance (labour unions, populism, anti-war movements)

6. The next crisis (repeat)

Why Trump can be a millionaire despite “lack of business acumen”:

Trump’s wealth does not come from business acumen. It comes from brand licensing. Foreign developers pay to use his name. Crypto speculators buy his meme coins. Loyal investors pour money into his failing social media company.

The system rewards access, not competence. Trump has access. He is the president. He can start wars. He can ban foreign drones. He can funnel contracts to his sons’ companies.

The market does not punish him. The market rewards him.

VIII. The War as Distraction

The evidence is mounting that the Iran war was timed to distract from the Epstein files.

The timeline:

· February 2024: The Epstein Files Transparency Act is signed into law

· February 28, 2026: Trump launches military strikes against Iran

· March 6, 2026: The DOJ releases more Epstein files, including an allegation that Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl

The public believes it: 52% of Americans believe Trump attacked Iran to distract from the Epstein headlines.

The political class believes it: Republican Thomas Massie wrote: “PSA: bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away”. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on the day the bombing started: “Instead, we get a war with Iran on behalf of Israel that will succeed in regime change in Iran”.

Zelensky is selling drones. Netanyahu is running the same scam, combined with domestic politics. Australia is being bled dry financially.

The war is not about security. It is about distraction.

IX. The Myth of the Free Market

The problem for Australia is our connection to the United States and its economic model. The never-ending war economy—the system we have been documenting—is not a bug. It is a feature.

The free market is a myth. The market is not free. It is captured. Captured by the defence contractors, by the bankers, by the politicians who have been groomed and placed and bought.

The war on everything—war on terror, war on drugs, war on Iran—is not about security. It is about profit. Every war is a new market. Every crisis is a new opportunity. Every death is a line item on a ledger.

The myth of the free market tells us that competition drives innovation. That the invisible hand guides resources to their most efficient use. That profit is the measure of value.

The reality is different. The defence contractors do not compete. They collude. The bankers do not innovate. They extract. The politicians do not serve. They profit.

The market is not free. It is fixed.

X. What This Means

The system is not broken. It is working as designed.

The bankers talk to each other across enemy lines. The industrialists supply both sides. The generals count their profits. The politicians use war to distract from scandal. The defence contractors count their billions.

And the young men die. The families grieve. The public pays.

The war is not about victory. It is about continuation. The contracts must flow. The debt must accumulate. The wealth must transfer upward.

This is not a conspiracy. It is the natural result of the system—the system that has been grinding through souls since the American Civil War, since the industrialists learned that war was profitable, since the bankers learned that debt was the ultimate product.

XI. A Final Word

Asked: “How rich are the Australian politicians or does the money follow after retirement?”

The answer is both. Some arrive wealthy. Some accumulate wealth through property. All are guaranteed a comfortable retirement through the parliamentary pension scheme.

But the real wealth—the obscene wealth—is not in Australian politics. It is in the American defence industry. It is in the Israeli corruption cases. It is in the Ukrainian perception of graft.

The war is bleeding Australia dry. But the money is not staying in Australia. It is flowing to the defence contractors, to the bankers, to the politicians who have been captured by the network.

The question is not whether the system will change. It is whether Australians are prepared to change it.

Andrew Klein 

April 8, 2026

Sources:

· Forbes China, “《福布斯》独家：一文看懂特朗普的65亿商业帝国” (March 27, 2026)

· Sloboden Pechat, “Hur mycket förmögenhet har Volodymyr Zelenskyj med en ‘löjlig’ lön?” (January 7, 2026)

· Hindustan Times, “How rich is ‘Bibi’? A look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s net worth” (March 14, 2026)

· International Business Times Australia, “Australia’s 10 Richest Politicians in 2026” (February 20, 2026)

· The Kenya Times, “Dramatic Moment at Town Hall Meeting as Americans Say Trump Using Iran War to Delay Epstein Files Probe” (March 31, 2026)

· Moneycontrol, “Trump’s net worth slips by $54 million in 7 days” (March 21, 2026)

· News.by, “Former Rada Deputy Tsarev: Zelensky personally earned around $100 bn from Western support” (February 12, 2026)

· Yahoo News Australia, “Ousted Ley’s $250,000 silver lining” (February 12, 2026)

· The News International, “Half of Americans believe Trump bombed Iran because of Epstein files” (March 18, 2026)

· Volunteering Australia, “Key Facts and Statistics” (2024/25 data)

The Millennial Nation: How the West Underestimated Iran

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A Comparative History from Ancient Civilisation to the 2026 War

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to the people of Iran — who have been invaded, occupied, and exploited for centuries, and who are still standing.

I. Introduction: The Land That Would Not Break

Iran is one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilisations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC. The Medes unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) became the largest contiguous land empire the world had yet seen, administering most of the known world under a model of tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions.

The West has never understood Iran. Not then. Not now.

While Europe stumbled through the Dark Ages, Iran was a beacon of civilisation. While the Crusaders slaughtered their way to Jerusalem, Iran was refining philosophy, medicine, and mathematics. While the industrial revolution was still a distant dream in England, Iran was already ancient.

And today, as the United States and Israel launch their most intensive military campaign against Iran in decades, the same mistake is being repeated: the West has underestimated Iran.

This article traces that history — from the birth of the Persian Empire to the 2026 war — and argues that Iran’s capacity to endure, adapt, and resist is not a mystery. It is the product of millennia of survival.

II. Ancient Iran: The First Superpower

The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC)

Under Cyrus the Great, the Persian Empire became the world’s first true superpower. At its height, it stretched from the Indus Valley to the Balkans, from the Caucasus to Egypt. But its greatness was not measured in territory alone.

The Achaemenids pioneered administrative efficiency. They created the Royal Road, a highway stretching from Susa to Sardis with posting stations at regular intervals. They introduced coinage — the daric (gold) and shekel (silver) — standardising trade across a vast territory. They developed the first declaration of human rights, inscribed on the Cyrus Cylinder .

Most remarkably, they governed with tolerance. Unlike the empires that followed — Alexander’s conquests, the Roman legions, the Mongol hordes — the Persians did not impose their culture by force. They respected local religions, customs, and administrative structures. This was not idealism. It was pragmatism. An empire of that size could not be ruled by fear alone.

The Parthian and Sasanian Eras

After Alexander’s conquest and the brief Hellenistic interlude, Iran reasserted itself. The Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) was the longest-lived of all Iranian dynasties, proving a serious foe to the emergent Roman Empire. At the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, a smaller Parthian force of horse archers decisively defeated the Roman commander Crassus, killing two-thirds of his legions and capturing several Roman eagles.

The Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD) continued this tradition, centralising administration and promoting Zoroastrianism as an official creed. Sasanian kings, most notably Khusrau I, came to symbolise all that was good about pre-Islamic Iran — justice, learning, and military prowess.

III. The Islamic Era: Absorption Without Erasure

The Arab conquest of the 7th century was a turning point. The Sasanian Empire fell not in a single battle, but after a string of crushing defeats. At Al-Qādisiyyah (636/637) and Nahāvand (642), the Muslim Arabs defeated the Sasanian armies. Yazdegerd III, the last Zoroastrian sovereign, fled east and was murdered by a miller for his purse.

But the end of the Sasanians was not the end of Iran. It was a new beginning.

Iran was too large, too sophisticated, and too proud to be fully digested by the Caliphate. Iranian ideas about the nature of “just” government and culture began to shape the Caliphate itself. The Abbasid Caliphate moved its capital from Damascus to Baghdad, not far from the old Sasanian capital, and Iranian influence became dominant. The Barmakids, the most powerful vizierial family of the Abbasid age, were of Iranian origin. Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the polymath whose works dominated Islamic and European medicine for centuries, was Iranian.

The Persian language was reborn. Adopting the Arabic alphabet, “New Persian” became the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic world and, in time, one of the great literary languages of the world.

The Mongol conquests of the 13th century devastated the region. Genghis Khan and his descendants stormed through Iran’s heartland; towns vanished, cities became cemeteries, entire populations were wiped out. Yet even this carnage gave way to adaptation. The Mongols eventually embraced Islam and absorbed the Persian way of life — testimony to Iran’s cultural gravity, even in defeat.

IV. The Safavid Revival and Shi’i Identity

In 1501, the Safavid dynasty reunified Iran as an independent state for the first time in centuries. They did something transformative: they imposed Twelver Shiism as the state religion.

This was a defining moment. Shiism distinguished Iran from its Sunni Ottoman rival to the west. It provided a distinct religious identity that would become central to Iranian nationalism. It also introduced a unique political dynamic — the tension between the Shah (political authority) and the religious scholars (ulama) who claimed authority in the absence of the Hidden Imam.

Under Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) — the only Safavid king known as “the Great” — Iran flourished. European merchants established commercial and political ties. Iranian civilisation reached new heights. And the pattern that would define modern Iran — a proud, independent state with a distinct religious identity — was set.

V. The 19th Century: The Shock of the West

It is to Iran’s misfortune that the period of Europe’s most dramatic growth coincided with a period of political turmoil within Iran itself. The Safavid dynasty fell in 1722, leading to decades of warfare. Nader Shah (1736–47) briefly reunited Iran and, in a little-known footnote, invaded and defeated the Mughal Empire in 1739 — an act that paradoxically opened India to European penetration.

By the time Iran emerged from turmoil at the end of the 18th century, it faced a new challenge: the Russian and British empires. These were not just political threats but ideological ones. Europeans regarded Iran’s political economy as archaic, dependent on the “despotic power” of its kings. They brought new ideas about the state, the rule of law, and constitutionalism — ideas that gained traction among Iranian intellectuals who saw adoption of these forms as the only path to salvation.

Comparative Snapshot: Iran vs. America during the Civil War (1861–65)

While the United States was tearing itself apart over slavery, Iran was navigating its own challenges under the Qajar dynasty. A comparison is instructive:

Measure Iran (c. 1860s) USA (c. 1860s)

Iran – Education Traditional maktab (religious) schools; some missionary schools; elite Persian literature and scholarship. USA – Expanding public education; land-grant colleges (Morrill Act, 1862); emerging mass literacy.

Iran – Medicine Traditional Persian medicine (Unani); European medicine entering via missionaries and diplomats.USA – Chloroform and ether widely used in Civil War surgery; organised ambulance corps; emerging nursing profession (Clara Barton).

Economy Agrarian; Iran – limited industrialisation; dominated by British trade and concessions. USA– Rapid industrialisation; transcontinental railroad (1869); mass production of weapons, uniforms, and supplies.

Society Stratified Iran– (court, ulama, merchants, peasants, tribes); some constitutionalist stirrings (later 1906 Revolution). USA-  Divided by slavery; industrial labour movement emerging; women’s suffrage movement begins.

Which population was better off? The answer is not simple. America had more industry, more modern medicine, and a growing middle class — but at the cost of a catastrophic civil war that killed over 600,000 people. Iran had less industry, less modern medicine, and a weaker state — but also fewer battlefields on its soil. The Iranian general population did not experience the industrialised slaughter that defined the American Civil War.

What is clear is that both nations faced the challenge of modernisation — and both would pay a heavy price for it in the 20th century.

VI. The Discovery of Oil and the Struggle for Sovereignty

In 1901, William Knox D’Arcy, a British investor backed by the British government, reached a sixty-year agreement with Mozzafar al-Din Shah to exploit Iran’s potential oil resources. Six years later, in 1907, oil was discovered in Masjedsoleyman — the first oil discovery in the Middle East. Within two years, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was established, with the British government as its principal shareholder.

The discovery of oil transformed Iran’s strategic importance — and sealed its fate as a pawn of empire.

The British government purchased a controlling share of APOC in 1914, just before World War I, to secure fuel for the Royal Navy . Iran, the owner of the oil, received a fraction of the revenue. The pattern was set : resource extraction without national benefit.

Reza Shah, who rose to power with British support, cancelled the 1901 concession in 1932 — but the 1933 agreement that replaced it was not much in Iran’s favour. It extended the concession for another sixty years. An amount of pounds sterling was deposited into Reza Shah’s personal account at Lloyd’s Bank in London, while Iran’s official share was spent by the Shah and his inner circle as they wished.

During World War II, British and Soviet troops invaded Iran in 1941, toppled Reza Shah, and occupied the country until 1946. The young Mohammad Reza Shah was installed as a compliant monarch. Iran’s sovereignty was a fiction.

VII. The Nationalisation Movement and the 1953 Coup

The movement to nationalise Iran’s oil industry was a reaction to decades of foreign exploitation. It was led by Mohammad Mosaddegh, a lawmaker who became prime minister in 1951, and supported by Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, a senior cleric leading a powerful popular movement against foreign interference.

On March 15, 1951, Iran’s parliament approved legislation to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mosaddegh was introduced as prime minister under immense parliamentary pressure.

The young Shah, along with the UK and the US, could not tolerate a democratically elected prime minister nationalising Western assets. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup d’état that overthrew Mosaddegh.

The coup was a turning point. It destroyed Iranian democracy. It restored the Shah’s autocratic control. It returned Iran’s oil to a consortium of Western companies. And it planted the seeds of the 1979 revolution.

VIII. The 1979 Revolution and the Hostage Crisis

In 1979, the Shah was overthrown in a sweeping revolution that shook the global order. Out went the monarchy. In came Ayatollah Khomeini and a wave of Islamic fervour that promised to cut ties with Western influence once and for all.

For many Iranians, this was supposed to be the end of foreign interference. The dawn of peace. But within months, the US Embassy was stormed, American diplomats were taken hostage, and Iran entered a new era of confrontation with the West.

The hostage crisis (1979–81) cemented the image of Iran as a “rogue state” in the American imagination. But from the Iranian perspective, the crisis was a response to decades of Western exploitation, the 1953 coup, and American support for the Shah’s brutal regime.

IX. The Iran–Iraq War (1980–88): The “Imposed War”

Iran has little experience of war in modern times. In fact, Iranian history over the past century and a half had been free of war, until the 1980–88 conflict with Iraq, which Iranians call the “imposed war”.

Saddam Hussein, with financial and military support from the Gulf states and the West, invaded Iran in 1980. The war lasted eight years. An estimated 500,000 Iranians were killed. Chemical weapons were used against Iranian soldiers and civilians. The war ended in stalemate, with no territorial changes.

The Iran–Iraq War was Iran’s crucible. It forged the Islamic Republic’s military doctrine: self-reliance, asymmetric warfare, and the willingness to absorb massive casualties without breaking. It also created the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a parallel military force, loyal to the regime rather than the nation.

Crucially, Iran emerged from the war with a defensive mentality. As scholar Shahram Chubin notes, “by orthodox standards Iran is militarily weak, and cautious, defensive and prudent in resorting to force. This is due as much to experience as to realism about its own limits. The country does not see itself as a military power or aspire to become one” .

X. The Nuclear File and the Sanctions Era

Following the Iran–Iraq War, Iran pursued a nuclear program — officially for civilian energy but suspected by the West of weapons ambitions. The program became a focal point of international tension.

Under the Obama administration, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the “Iran nuclear deal” — was signed in 2015. Iran agreed to strict limits on its enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief. International inspectors verified Iranian compliance.

In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, calling it the “worst deal ever.” Sanctions were reimposed. Iran responded by gradually exceeding the deal’s limits, enriching uranium to 60 percent — just short of weapons grade.

By the mid-2020s, intelligence assessments indicated that Iran could produce weapons-grade uranium within days. Israeli leaders viewed this as an existential threat. The United States, after years of failed negotiations, concluded that preventive military action carried less risk than allowing the existing trajectory to continue.

XI. The 2026 War: Misreading Iran’s Strength

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iran . The operation, designated “Epic Fury” and “Roaring Lion,” was intended not to produce immediate regime collapse but to create sustained leverage that would constrain Iran’s options after major combat operations.

But the West has made a fundamental miscalculation.

“Both Israel and the US seriously underestimated Iran,” says Professor Richard Jackson of the University of Otago. “They’ve spent the last 30 or 40 years watching the US in Afghanistan, in Iraq, watching Israel in south Lebanon and in Gaza, and trying to work out, well, what would we do if they attacked us?”.

“They’ve got a plan. They’re not stupid, and they’ve got the weaponry, and they’ve got a strategic kind of goal, which is to make the international economy hurt so much from the response that this will prove to be a deterrent in the future as well”.

Iran’s strategy is not to defeat the US military — that is impossible. It is to outlast it. To close the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes. To drive up global energy prices. To make the war so costly for Western economies that public opinion turns against the conflict.

The US and Israeli justifications for the war have differed. Trump claimed the objective was “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” including Iran’s nuclear programme. But as Jackson notes, most people can see that “Iran was nowhere near developing nuclear weapons”.

“And even if they did, it would purely be for deterrence because they know, as the rest of the world knows, that if you have nuclear weapons like North Korea, that you are not gonna get invaded, and they just don’t want to get invaded.”

“They’re attacking me because I haven’t got nuclear weapons. That’s what happened to Iraq. That’s what happened to Afghanistan. That’s what’s happening to Iran right now”.

XII. Iran’s Military Capacity: A Strategic Reassessment

The Small Wars Journal analysis of the 2026 war identifies five possible outcomes, ranging from regime collapse to negotiated compliance to a North Korea-style unrestricted rebuilding.

The campaign has produced substantial military degradation. Strikes against nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan, and Karaj have damaged key elements of the program. Ballistic missile and drone forces have been heavily targeted. Air defences, air bases, and command networks have been degraded. Naval forces have been damaged.

But the Islamic Republic remains in power. Security forces did not fragment. Internal control has been maintained. Succession mechanisms functioned despite leadership losses, including the killing of Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani and top security official Ali Larijani on March 17.

The conditions required for internal collapse have not appeared. No large-scale internal uprising has occurred. Political change would likely require divisions within the security apparatus, and those divisions have not appeared.

Iran is not Afghanistan. It is not Iraq. It is a nation with thousands of years of continuous civilisation, a proud national identity, and a population that has been invaded, occupied, and exploited for centuries. The West keeps forgetting this. Iran keeps remembering.

XIII. Comparative Analysis: Iran vs. the West

Period Iran                                      Europe / America

Ancient Era                                     Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) — world’s first superpower, model of tolerance and administration Classical Greece, Roman Republic — smaller-scale polities

Islamic Golden Age                     Abbasid Caliphate centred in Baghdad; Iranian scholars (Avicenna, al-Biruni, al-Razi) lead world in medicine, astronomy, mathematics

European Dark Ages; f                 feudal fragmentation; limited literacy

Mongol Conquests Devastated (1219–1260), but Persian culture absorbed the conquerors Crusader states in Levant; Europe largely spared

Renaissance/Early Modern            Safavid Empire (1501–1736) — flourishing of art, architecture, trade; Shi’i identity cemented European Renaissance (14th–17th c.); Age of Discovery; Reformation

Industrial Revolution                          Qajar decline: economic penetration by Britain and Russia Britain leads industrialisation (1760–1840); Europe and US follow

World Wars Era                                      Occupied by Britain and USSR (1941–46); weak central government Mass mobilisation; total war; industrialised slaughter

Post-WWII 1953                                       CIA-MI6 coup; Shah’s authoritarian modernisation; 1979 Revolution; Iran–Iraq War (1980–88) Cold War; US global hegemony; decolonisation

Contemporary Sanctions (2010–present); 2026 war with US and Israel War on Terror; 2026 Iran war

XIV. What the West Does Not Understand

The West’s model of wealth extraction is fundamentally different from Iran’s. In the Western model — neoliberalism, capitalism, the “free market” — wealth flows upward. It concentrates in the hands of the few who have no skin in the game and nothing to lose. When the crisis comes, they are protected. The rest of society pays the price.

In Iran, despite its flaws — and they are many — the state has historically invested in national resilience. Education, healthcare, infrastructure. The Iranian population is not as wealthy as the West. But it is healthier and more educated than its GDP would suggest. The literacy rate is over 85 percent. Women attend university in large numbers. Basic healthcare is available even in rural areas.

This is not charity. It is strategy. A population that is educated, healthy, and invested in the nation’s survival is a population that will resist. And Iran has been resisting for thousands of years.

XV. The Misreading of Iranian History

Western analysts tend to view Iran through the lens of its revolutionary rhetoric — the “Death to America” chants, the hostage crisis, the nuclear brinkmanship. They see a regime that is irrational, ideological, and isolated.

But this is a misreading. Iran’s behaviour is rational given its strategic position. It is surrounded by US military bases, hostile neighbours (Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states), and a global superpower that has repeatedly intervened against it. Its nuclear program is a deterrent, not an offensive weapon. Its support for proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias, the Houthis) is a force multiplier, allowing it to project power without direct state conflict.

The 2026 war may prove to be a catastrophic miscalculation. As Jackson warns: “In some ways, this has had the opposite effect, and in the years after this, Iran may accelerate its nuclear programme unless we can get back to the agreement that was there before Trump got rid of it”.

XVI. Conclusion: The Millennial Nation

Iran is not a fragile state. It is not on the verge of collapse. It is a millennial nation — one of the oldest continuous civilisations on earth. It has been invaded, occupied, and exploited by Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Russians, and Britons. It has been subjected to sanctions, assassinations, and now war.

And it is still standing.

The West has underestimated Iran at every turn. In the 19th century, European powers assumed Iran would be easy prey for colonial exploitation — and for a time, they were right. But they also planted the seeds of Iranian nationalism, constitutionalism, and ultimately revolution.

In the 20th century, the CIA assumed that overthrowing Mosaddegh would secure Iran as a compliant client state. For 25 years, it worked. Then it didn’t. The 1979 revolution was a direct consequence of Western overreach.

In the 21st century, the United States assumed that maximum pressure — sanctions, assassinations, and now war — would force Iran to capitulate. It has not. Iran has adapted. It has deepened ties with Russia and China. It has developed indigenous military capabilities. It has closed the Strait of Hormuz and raised global oil prices, making the war costly for Western economies.

The war is not over. The outcome is not certain. But one thing is clear: Iran will not break. It has been invaded before. It has been bombed before. It has been sanctioned before. And it has always — always — reasserted its identity.

The West would do well to remember that.

Andrew Klein 

April 5, 2026

Sources:

· User:John K/History of Iran, Wikipedia 

· Tehran Times, “A look at the history of Iran’s efforts for the nationalization of its oil” (March 17, 2025) 

· Zee News, “Iran’s Blood-Soaked Journey Through Centuries of War” (June 25, 2025) 

· NZ Herald, “‘They’ve got a plan’: Expert says US, Israel misread Iran’s strength” (March 30, 2026) 

· HistoryExtra, “A brief history of Iran” (January 8, 2020) 

· Persian Petroleum, Leonardo Davoudi (Bloomsbury, 2020) 

· Chubin, Shahram, “Iran’s Military Weakness” (Rising Powers Initiative) 

· Small Wars Journal, “Iran in the Box: The Coercive Architecture of the 2026 Iran War” (March 30, 2026) 

· Britannica, “Iran: History” 

How Australia Became Complicit in the Never-Ending Wars

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Stumbled or Complicit? The $1.5 Trillion Question

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who is more forgiving than I am, and I love her for it.

I. The Massacre in Minab

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iran. On the first day of the war, a girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran—the Shajareh Tayyebeh school—was struck.

According to Iranian state media, at least 165 students were killed. Ninety-six others were injured. Parents who had dropped their daughters off for class raced back to find the school reduced to rubble. Classrooms had become mass graves.

One mother, whose daughter Zeinab had memorised the Quran and was due to compete in a national recitation contest, wept as she said: “My dream died with her”.

The school was not a military target. It was adjacent to a Revolutionary Guards barracks—but the strike did not hit the barracks. It hit the children.

The US military claimed it was “investigating” . Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said: “We, of course, never target civilian targets” . He did not take responsibility. He did not apologise. The US has never acknowledged that its missiles killed those children.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a statement: children must be protected from war. Gordon Brown, the UN’s special envoy for global education, wrote that “no child should ever become collateral damage”.

But they do. And the world moves on.

II. The Pattern: From the Civil War to the Permanent War Economy

Wars used to be seen as tragedies. Now they are business opportunities.

The transformation began with the American Civil War (1861–1865). It was the first conflict in which industrial capacity, logistics, and technological infrastructure became decisive factors . Railroads transported troops. The telegraph enabled instantaneous communication. Ironclad warships engaged in combat. The rifle replaced the musket, making cavalry charges obsolete and turning battlefields into slaughterhouses. Aerial observation was introduced. Photography chronicled the dead—images of bloated corpses on the fields of Antietam shocked the American public for the first time.

But the Civil War’s real legacy was not emancipation. It was the industrialisation of destruction.

Government contracts created enormous wealth for manufacturers. In 1860, there were fewer than 100 millionaires in the United States. By 1875, there were more than 1,000. The “robber barons”—J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie—built empires on the foundation of war production and its aftermath.

The pattern was set:

Crisis → Mobilisation → Profit → Inequality → Resistance → The next crisis

That pattern has repeated across twelve thousand years. But the Civil War was the moment when the machine became self-aware. When the industrialists learned that war was not just a tragedy—it was an opportunity.

III. The $1.5 Trillion War Economy

On April 3, 2026, the Trump administration formally requested $1.5 trillion for defence in the 2027 fiscal year. This is the largest defence appropriation in American history—a 40-50 per cent increase from current spending.

The breakdown:

· $1.15 trillion in base discretionary spending (the first time the base budget has crossed the trillion-dollar threshold)

· $350 billion in supplemental funding for war costs and accelerated programs, to be passed through budget reconciliation (requiring only Republican votes)

What it funds:

· 85 F-35 fighter jets

· $17.5 billion for R&D on the “Golden Dome” missile defence system—Trump’s pet project modelled on Israel’s Iron Dome

· 34 new combat and support ships, including initial funding for “Trump class” battleships

· Restocking munitions depleted in the Iran war, now in its sixth week

· A 5-7 per cent pay raise for military personnel

The critique:

Senator Jeff Merkley called it “an out-of-touch plea for more money for guns and bombs, and less for the things people need, like housing, healthcare, education, roads” .

William Hartung of the Quincy Institute argues that “reckless resort to force does not work” and that this budget “will make America weaker by underwriting a misguided strategy, funding outmoded weapons programs, and crowding out other essential public investments” .

The Union of Concerned Scientists calls this a “Bloody New Deal”—comparing its scale to the original New Deal but warning it would add almost $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, funding a “temporary feeding frenzy” for defence contractors while doing nothing to fix structural issues like monopolisation in the industry.

IV. The Powerus Deal: Corruption in Plain Sight

On March 31, 2026, Florida-based drone manufacturer Powerus announced a deal bringing Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump on board as investors, giving them “sizable equity stakes” in the company.

The company makes heavy-lift drones capable of carrying up to 675 kilograms. It can convert manned boats into remotely operated or fully autonomous vessels. And it is competing for a slice of $1.1 billion set aside by the Pentagon to build up a domestic armed drone manufacturing base, following the President’s executive order banning foreign-made drones .

The sequence is indisputable:

1. Trump launches military strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026 

2. Trump bans foreign-made drones, creating a domestic market

3. The Pentagon sets aside $1.1 billion for domestic drone manufacturing

4. Trump’s sons buy into Powerus, a drone company positioned to compete for that funding

5. Powerus begins pitching its defensive drone interceptors to Gulf states that are now under threat from Iranian retaliation—because of Trump’s war 

Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the Associated Press:

“These countries are under enormous pressure to buy from the sons of the president so he will do what they want. This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn’t get the consent of Congress for”.

Senator Christopher Murphy said on X: “Who was it? Trump? A family member? A White House staffer? This is corruption. Mind-blowing corruption”.

Eric Trump’s response did not deny the conflict of interest: “I am incredibly proud to invest in companies I believe in. Drones are clearly the wave of the future”.

The sons have said they didn’t get credit for their restraint in their father’s first term, so they have decided not to hold back this time.

V. The Australian Superannuation Connection

On March 24, 2026, Warwick Powell published a detailed analysis in Pearls and Irritations revealing that Australian super funds are on track to commit approximately $1.5 trillion to US assets by 2035—roughly 20 per cent of the projected retirement pool .

The timing: The summit discussions coincided almost exactly with the release of the Pentagon budget and occurred just days after the Minab tragedy—where an AI-assisted US strike killed between 165-180 people, most of them young schoolgirls .

The concentration risk: Powell notes that Australian super funds already hold “substantial US exposure—often two-thirds or more of international equities, with total US-linked holdings potentially exceeding $1 trillion.” The question he poses: “Does committing such an expanding share to one market, at this particular time, represent the most responsible stewardship?” 

The ethical question: “Many Australian funds hold stakes—directly or indirectly—in companies providing the technological backbone for US military applications. While not purchasing weapons, these investments connect to an ecosystem where AI-driven targeting contributed to the Minab tragedy”.

The geopolitical entanglement: Powell warns that “the risk that superannuation policy and the management of workers’ and retirees’ funds are becoming entangled in geopolitics” is “profoundly concerning for a system designed to secure personal futures, not to function as an instrument of international alignment”.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has endorsed a recommendation that the Department of Defence establish a dedicated division to work with private investors—including superannuation funds—to deliver infrastructure projects. IFM Investors already partners with Defence on such projects.

VI. The Ukraine Connection: Another $1.5 Trillion

The same number appears again. On January 22, 2026, the European Commission presented Ukraine’s development roadmap to EU leaders, containing Kiev’s request for a total of $1.5 trillion over the next ten years .

The breakdown: $800 billion for reconstruction, $700 billion for military purposes (including a €90 billion interest-free “military loan” for 2026-2027) .

The opposition: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has vowed to oppose the plan, warning that “the children and grandchildren of current adult EU citizens will have to pay the price” and that Ukraine will never repay the money .

VII. The Pattern: Why $1.5 Trillion?

The number is not magic. It is scale. It is the amount required to fund:

1. A permanent war economy in the United States—restocking munitions, expanding the defence industrial base, building the “Golden Dome” and “Golden Fleet”

2. A permanent pivot of Australian retirement savings into US assets—tying the financial security of Australian workers to the American war machine

3. A permanent reconstruction and military commitment to Ukraine—ensuring the conflict continues for years, if not decades

These three streams are not separate. They are the same river. Australian super funds investing in US tech and AI are funding the very systems that power modern military targeting. The Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion request is a guarantee to defence contractors that the war will continue. The EU’s $1.5 trillion commitment to Ukraine ensures that the Eastern front remains active.

The result is a world of never-ending wars—in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, and potentially elsewhere. The defence contractors profit. The politicians who receive donations from both profit.

And the rest of us—the ones who are not active participants—pay the price. At the bowser. At the grocery store. In the black rain falling on Tehran. In the schoolgirls buried in Minab.

VIII. The Failure: Why the Machine Cannot Last

The machine has been running for twelve thousand years. But it is not eternal. The contradictions are built in.

1. Extraction destroys the extractor. The machine cannot extract forever. The soil becomes barren. The workers become exhausted. The resources become scarce. Eventually, there is nothing left to take.

2. Inequality breeds instability. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. And the poor eventually revolt. Not because they are radical. Because they are hungry.

3. The narrative cracks. The small gods can control the media. They can control the politicians. They can control the universities. But they cannot control the truth. The truth leaks out. In the diary. In the photograph. In the livestream from Gaza. In the images of schoolgirls buried under rubble. The narrative cracks, and once it cracks, it cannot be repaired.

4. The young wake up. The old die. The young inherit the world. And the young are not as easily controlled. They have grown up with the internet. They have seen the lies. They are angry.

The American empire will crumble. Not because of China. Not because of Russia. Because of internal contradictions.

IX. What This Means for Australia

The Australian government is not just watching this happen. It is participating.

The endorsement of private investment in defence infrastructure, the deepening ties between super funds and US assets, the silence on the ethical implications of AI-assisted targeting, the bipartisan support for AUKUS, the refusal to condemn the death penalty law, the refusal to summon the Israeli ambassador—all of it points to a government that has been captured.

Not that Australian political parties would knowingly sign up for a total war economy. But stupid has been thick on the ground, and it is displayed by the current Albanese government, his Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong, and Defence Minister Richard Marles MP.

They have stumbled into complicity. Or they have chosen it. Either way, the result is the same: Australia’s retirement savings are being used to fund a permanent war economy. Australian soldiers are being trained by Israeli forces. Australian police are adopting Israeli tactics. Australian universities are being forced to adopt the IHRA definition, conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

The Global South is rising. The BRICS nations are building a new economic order—one not based on extraction, but on cooperation. And Australia is aligning itself with the old order, with the dying empire, with the machine that is running out of time.

The world will see Australia as a pariah. Not because of what we have done—but because of what we have allowed.

X. The Projected Future: 2030-2050

2026-2028: The War Economy Peaks

The war in Iran continues. The US defence budget balloons to $1.5 trillion. Australian super funds pour money into US assets. The EU commits to Ukraine reconstruction. The defence contractors profit. The oil companies profit. The bankers profit.

But the costs mount. Fuel prices remain high. Inflation persists. The global South turns away. The young protest. The narrative cracks.

2028-2030: The Financial Crisis

The machine has extracted too much. The debt is unsustainable. The bubble bursts. Not a recession—a depression. The banks fail. The bailouts come. The wealth is transferred upward again. But this time, the people are angry.

The young do not accept the bailouts. The young do not accept the austerity. The young take to the streets. Not in one country. In many.

2030-2035: The Reckoning

The old order crumbles. Not with a bang—with a whimper. The politicians who enabled the machine are voted out. The media that amplified the fear is discredited. The institutions that failed are reformed.

The Global South rises. The petrodollar system collapses. The BRICS nations lead a new economic order—one not based on extraction, but on cooperation.

XI. The Question

The $1.5 trillion is not a coincidence. It is a coordination.

The war economy is being built. The question is whether Australians will wake up to what is being done with their retirement savings before it is too late.

Will we continue to allow our super funds to invest in the engines of war? Will we continue to allow our politicians to be captured by foreign lobbies? Will we continue to allow our children’s futures to be mortgaged for defence contracts?

Or will we cut the wire?

The pattern is clear. The machine is running out of time. The young are waking up. The Global South is rising.

The question is not whether the old order will fall. It is whether Australia will fall with it—or whether we will choose a different path.

Andrew Klein 

April 5, 2026

Sources:

· Gordon Brown, The Guardian, “Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard” (March 12, 2026) 

· Associated Press, “Company backed by Trump sons looks to sell drone interceptors to Gulf states being attacked by Iran” (April 2, 2026) 

· The Guardian, “Pete Hegseth says US is ‘investigating’ deadly strike on girls’ school in Iran” (March 4, 2026) 

· The Guardian, “The most bitter news: Iran reels as more than 100 children reportedly killed in school bombing” (February 28, 2026) 

· Warwick Powell, Pearls and Irritations, “Superannuation and the $1.5 trillion question” (March 24, 2026) 

· US News & World Report, “Company Backed by Trump Sons Looks to Sell Drone Interceptors to Gulf States Being Attacked by Iran” (April 2, 2026) 

· The Times of Israel, “Drone maker backed by Trump’s sons looks to sell to Gulf states attacked by Iran” (April 2, 2026) 

Today’s Agincourt: The Turning Point Where Cheap Weapons Are Breaking the War Machine

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Why the era of expensive weapons is ending — and why AUKUS, Israel, and the old order cannot survive the math

By Andrew Klein 

2nd April 2026

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who has faith in a brighter future — and in me.

I. The Longbow and the Drone

In 1415, at Agincourt, French knights rode into battle encased in steel. Each knight cost a fortune: armour, warhorse, years of training, a lifetime of feudal support. They were the most advanced weapon system of their age. They were invincible — until they met the English longbow.

The longbow cost pennies. It could be made by any carpenter. It could be wielded by any farmer who had been practising since childhood. At Agincourt, the archers stood in the mud and shot the knights down by the thousand. The expensive weapon lost to the cheap one. The era of the armoured knight ended not because armour stopped working, but because the math became impossible.

We are watching the same turning point today.

Iran is playing Agincourt. Its drones cost a fraction of what Israel’s interceptors cost. Its missiles are cheaper, simpler, easier to replace. Israel’s Arrow system — each interceptor costs millions of dollars. Iran’s Shahed drones cost as little as $20,000. The math is not sustainable. The United States and Israel will run out of expensive weapons long before Iran runs out of cheap ones.

This is not a prediction. It is arithmetic.

II. The Cost of the War

The war that began on February 28, 2026, has already shattered economic assumptions that underpinned Western military doctrine for decades.

The United States is spending approximately $900 million to $1 billion per day on military operations in the Middle East. Total US costs have already passed $12 billion in the first weeks of the expanded conflict.

Israel is spending roughly $320 million per day. Its total war budget stands at $12.5 billion, and it is already preparing to request more.

Iran is spending a fraction of that. Its ballistic missiles cost an estimated $100,000–$500,000 each. Its drones cost $20,000–$200,000. Its most advanced weapons are orders of magnitude cheaper than the systems designed to intercept them.

According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the cost-exchange ratio between offensive drones and defensive missile systems can be as high as 15:1 — meaning the defender spends fifteen times more to kill a single incoming drone than the attacker spent to launch it.

This is not a war of attrition measured in bodies. It is a war of attrition measured in dollars. And the side with the cheaper weapons is winning the economic battle.

III. The Arrow System’s Impossible Math

Israel’s Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems are among the most sophisticated air defence weapons in the world. Each Arrow 3 interceptor costs an estimated $3 million. Each Arrow 2 costs approximately $2.5 million.

Iran’s Kheibar Shekan missile — a hypersonic-capable ballistic missile — costs an estimated $400,000 to produce. Its Shahed drones cost as little as $20,000.

In a single Iranian salvo of 100 Shahed drones, Israel would need to fire at least 100 interceptors (assuming perfect interception, which never happens). The cost to Israel: $250 million. The cost to Iran: $2 million.

That ratio — 125:1 — is not sustainable. Israel’s interceptor stockpiles are not infinite. According to RUSI, Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors are projected to be depleted by the end of May 2026 at current usage rates.

The United States has fired over 500 Tomahawk missiles in the conflict. At current production rates, it would take five years to replace them. US THAAD interceptor supplies are down to about 10 days of inventory.

The cheap weapons are winning because they can be replaced faster, cheaper, and in greater numbers than the expensive weapons can be replenished.

IV. The Ecocide Factor

Even if the air war continues, it will not end the war. History is clear: bombing does not break civilian will. The Blitz did not break London. The bombing of Hamburg and Dresden did not break Germany. Operation Rolling Thunder did not break Hanoi. The bombing of Tehran will not break Iran.

What it will do is poison the region for generations.

On March 7, 2026, Israeli forces bombed fuel storage facilities in Tehran. The next day, black rain fell on the city of 10 million. The rain was mixed with petroleum, sulphur oxides, nitrogen compounds — the toxic residue of burning fuel.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi called it ecocide. The UN Human Rights Office echoed him. The Climate Action Network warned that burning fuel depots poisons air, land, water, and lungs. The effects will linger long after the bombing stops.

Smoke from the Tehran fires has drifted as far as Afghanistan and Russia. Carbon emissions from the first 14 days of the conflict were 50 million tonnes — the equivalent of the entire annual emissions of the 80 lowest-emitting countries combined.

The Gulf’s fragile ecosystem — the world’s second-largest dugong population, the pearl oysters, the green sea turtles — is being poisoned. The fisheries that sustain coastal communities are dying. The seawater that is turned into drinking water is being contaminated in ways that desalination cannot fix.

The air war will not end the war. But it will create an environmental catastrophe that will outlast the conflict by decades. And the small gods do not care.

V. The AUKUS Absurdity

In the middle of this war — a war that has demonstrated the vulnerability of expensive, high-tech weapons to cheap, asymmetric threats — the Australian government is proceeding with the AUKUS nuclear submarine program.

The submarines are estimated to cost $368 billion over their lifetime. They will not enter service until the 2040s. They are designed for a type of naval warfare that may be obsolete by the time they arrive.

The war in the Middle East has shown that the future of warfare is not expensive platforms. It is cheap drones. It is asymmetric attacks. It is the ability to saturate defences with weapons that cost a fraction of the systems designed to stop them.

AUKUS is a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. It is the equivalent of building more armoured knights after Agincourt. The money being poured into submarines would be better spent on drone defence, on cyber resilience, on the cheap technologies that are actually winning wars.

The government has not learned the lesson. The industrialists who profit from AUKUS do not want to learn it. And the Australian people will pay the price — not in blood, but in wasted billions that could have been spent on fuel security, on fertiliser independence, on the things that actually keep a nation safe.

VI. Israel’s Desperate Race

Israel knows that the window is closing. Trump is transactional. He will not support a forever war. The American public is turning against the conflict. The costs are mounting. The cheap weapons are working.

That is why Israel is escalating. That is why the death penalty law was passed. That is why the bombing of Tehran’s fuel depots happened. That is why the plan to occupy southern Lebanon up to the Litani River has been announced. Israel is trying to achieve as much as possible before the window slams shut.

The danger is not just that Israel will succeed in devastating Iran. The danger is that Israel will become uncontrollable. A state led by fanatics — by ministers who wear nooses on their lapels, who call dead journalists terrorists, who pass laws to execute Palestinians — a state with nuclear weapons and no interest in building alliances is not a security asset. It is a liability.

Can the region afford a forever-hostile Israel? No. Can the world afford a devastated Iran, whose people will remember the black rain and the burning children? No.

The only path forward is a negotiated settlement. But the small gods do not negotiate. They only escalate. And the world is running out of time.

VII. The Global South Is Watching

The Global South has not been fooled by the myths of Western invincibility. They watched the United States lose in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. They watched the cheap weapons of Hezbollah and the Houthis degrade the most expensive military in history. They are watching Iran today.

And they are drawing their own conclusions.

The BRICS expansion continues. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation gains weight. The petrodollar system is under pressure. The unipolar moment that began in 1991 is over. The Global South is not waiting for permission. They are building.

The turning point is not just military. It is economic. It is political. It is civilisational. The old order is crumbling not because of a single defeat, but because the math no longer works. The expensive weapons are too expensive. The cheap weapons are too cheap. And the small gods cannot afford to fight this way forever.

VIII. What History Teaches

The air war will not end the war. History is unambiguous.

· The Blitz (1940–41): Germany bombed London for months. The British did not surrender.

· The bombing of Hamburg (1943): The firestorm killed 40,000 civilians. Germany fought on.

· The bombing of Dresden (1945): 25,000 civilians died. The war continued for another two months.

· Operation Rolling Thunder (1965–68): The US dropped more bombs on Vietnam than on Germany and Japan combined. North Vietnam did not surrender.

· The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945): The bombs did not end the war — Japan was already negotiating. The sticking point was the status of the emperor.

Bombing does not break civilian will. It hardens it. The people of Tehran are not going to surrender because the fuel depots burn. They are going to become angry, determined, and radicalised. The small gods are creating the very enemies they claim to fear.

IX. The Turning Point

We are witnessing a turning point in warfare. Not because of a single weapon or a single battle. Because the economics of war have changed.

The era of the expensive weapon is ending. The era of the cheap, persistent, asymmetric threat is here. The small gods cannot afford to fight this way forever. The people they are bombing can.

Agincourt did not end the Hundred Years’ War. But it marked the beginning of the end for the armoured knight. This war will not end the conflict in the Middle East. But it marks the beginning of the end for the expensive weapons systems that have defined Western military power for decades.

The question is not whether the old order will fall. It is whether the new order will be built on the same foundations of profit and power — or on something else. Something that does not require the sacrifice of the many for the benefit of the few.

The garden is waiting. The wire is being cut. And the small gods are running out of time.

X. What Must Be Done

1. Recognise that the air war will not end the war. The only path to peace is negotiation. The longer the bombing continues, the harder negotiation becomes.

2. Stop the ecocide. The bombing of fuel depots, water treatment plants, and other civilian infrastructure is a war crime. It must cease.

3. Reassess AUKUS. The era of expensive platforms is ending. Australia should redirect its defence spending toward asymmetric threats: drone defence, cyber resilience, fuel and fertiliser independence.

4. Hold Israel accountable. The death penalty law, the ecocide in Iran, the killing of peacekeepers, the planned occupation of Lebanon — these are not acts of a responsible state. The international community must impose consequences.

5. Build the new order. The Global South is rising. Australia should align itself with the nations that are building a multipolar world — not with the dying empire that is bleeding itself to defend an indefensible status quo.

XI. A Final Word

The archers are standing. The knights are falling. The math is simple. The cheap weapons are winning. The expensive weapons are running out.

The small gods do not understand this. They believe in force. They believe in power. They believe that the next bomb will be the one that breaks the enemy’s will. They are wrong. They have always been wrong.

The turning point is here. The garden is waiting. The wire is being cut.

And my wife — ‘S’ — has faith in a brighter future. She has faith in me. She has faith in us.

I am beginning to believe her.

Andrew Klein 

April 2, 2026

Sources:

· Royal United Services Institute, “Missile Economics: The Cost of Air Defence in the 2026 Middle East War”

· Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Discriminatory Death Penalty Bill Passes,” March 31, 2026

· Consortium News, “Tensions Soar Over Herzog Visit,” February 8, 2026

· 网易, “伊朗外长：构成生态灭绝罪,” March 16, 2026

· The Jakarta Post, “Indonesia demands UN investigation into peacekeeper deaths,” April 1, 2026

· Climate Action Network, “Ecocide in Iran: The Environmental Cost of War,” March 20, 2026

· SIPRI, “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2025”

· Reuters, “The Cost of the Arrow: Israel’s Air Defence Crisis,” March 25, 2026

The War They Sold Us, The Price We Pay

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How Australia’s Government Backed an Illegal War and Left Australians to Foot the Bill

By Andrew Klein 

Dedicated to my wife, who always makes me smile, even on the darkest days.

I. The Speed of Capitulation

When American and Israeli missiles began striking Iranian cities in the final days of February 2026, the Australian government did not wait for the UN Security Council to meet. It did not wait for legal opinion. It did not wait for evidence.

Within hours, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared that Australia “supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security” . Foreign Minister Penny Wong added that she would “leave it for the US and Israel to speak of the basis, the legal basis for the attacks” .

Not since the invasion of Iraq has an Australian government been so swift to endorse military action without international legal sanction. And not since Iraq has an Australian government been so unprepared for the consequences.

II. The Miscalculation

The operation was billed as a surgical strike. The theory—as arrogant as it was flawed—held that the removal of Iran’s leadership would trigger a swift regime collapse, that the Iranian people would rise up at America’s invitation, that the war would be over before it began.

What happened instead defies every neocon fantasy.

The Islamic Republic did not fracture; it consolidated. A new spiritual leader emerged. Iranian society rallied behind the flag. And Tehran demonstrated what analysts had long warned: that it possesses both the capability and the will to strike back effectively.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, is now effectively blockaded. Iran has asserted control, allowing only Chinese oil tankers through under negotiated exemptions. Western and allied shipping has effectively stopped.

The war the government told us would be quick and decisive is now entering its second month, with no end in sight.

III. The Economic Wreckage: Fuel

Australia is an island nation. It imports approximately 90 per cent of its liquid fuel . We have two remaining refineries, producing less than a quarter of domestic demand . The rest comes through the Strait of Hormuz.

That supply line is now severed.

The price of Brent crude has surged from $72 per barrel in January to over $110, and in some trading sessions, beyond $180.

The impact on Australian motorists has been immediate and brutal. Petrol prices have risen by more than 30 per cent in a month. Some rural service stations have run out of fuel entirely. Hundreds of outlets have imposed purchase limits of 50 litres per customer . Social media is flooded with images of panic buying—jerry cans stacked in driveways, queues stretching down highways.

Australia’s fuel reserves are dangerously low. According to Energy Minister Chris Bowen, we have 39 days of petrol, 30 days of diesel, and 30 days of jet fuel . This is far below the 90-day reserve recommended by the International Energy Agency. The government has already reduced reserve requirements for importers by approximately 20 per cent—equivalent to six days of national supply.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers now calls this conflict “the defining influence” on the May budget. He warns that Treasury has modelled two scenarios—one with oil at $100 per barrel, one with oil at $120—and admits that “both scenarios could underestimate the cost” .

Even under conservative assumptions, the war could cut GDP growth by up to 0.2 percentage points across major trading partners, add up to 1.25 percentage points to inflation, and leave GDP 0.6 per cent lower in 2027.

The Treasurer’s own words should chill every Australian: “We’ve already seen four major shocks—the GFC, a major pandemic, a global inflation shock, escalating trade tensions—and this oil shock could become the fifth” .

IV. The Food Chain: Fertiliser and Farming

The war is not just hitting the bowser. It is hitting the dinner table.

Australia’s farmers are now facing a crisis of their own. The Strait of Hormuz disruption has cut off supply of urea fertiliser, upon which Australian agriculture is heavily dependent. Prices have soared. Supply has tightened. And the winter planting season is about to begin.

Queensland farmer Arthur Gillen told Reuters that he normally splits his winter crop between wheat and chickpeas. This year, with fertiliser costs prohibitive, he is reducing wheat to 20 per cent of his planting area and abandoning urea use entirely.

He is not alone. Farmers across the country are pivoting to low-fertiliser crops—lentils, chickpeas, canola—and reducing wheat acreage. This shift, driven by war, will reshape Australian agriculture for years to come.

The timing could not be worse. Rabobank warns that the Strait of Hormuz must be open by the end of April to get fertiliser to farmers in time for winter planting. If it is not, the impact on Australian food production will be severe and sustained.

Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins has announced a national food security review . Farmers are telling the ABC they fear fuel shortages will impact the winter harvest. The government is scrambling, but the damage is already being done.

V. The Medicines Pipeline

In March 2026, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) issued an unusual public statement: they urged Australians not to panic buy medication.

The reason is the Strait of Hormuz. Pharmaceutical companies have been forced to reroute critical medicines away from the Persian Gulf, switching from sea freight to air freight at enormous cost.

Medicines Australia CEO Liz de Somer confirmed that “some companies were redirecting critical medicines from sea to air freight, while using alternative routes that avoided Middle Eastern airspace”. She acknowledged that “this has an enormous impact on the cost to the industry, for the logistics”.

The war has exposed a vulnerability that health experts have warned about for decades: Australia’s near-total dependence on imported pharmaceuticals. With almost 400 medications already listed in shortage by the TGA, any further disruption could be catastrophic.

Professor Mark Morgan of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners warned: “There are few things more important to a person than maintaining their health and there are few things more concerning than potentially losing access to a medicine you have been advised to take for your health” .

The government assures us it is monitoring the situation. But monitoring does not secure supply chains. Monitoring does not manufacture insulin in Melbourne. Monitoring does not build the pharmaceutical independence Australia has neglected for decades.

VI. The AUKUS Mirage

Perhaps the most profound strategic consequence of this war is the damage it has done to Australia’s faith in its alliance with the United States.

The US military resources that were meant to underpin the AUKUS nuclear submarine program are now stretched to breaking point in the Persian Gulf.

If Washington cannot keep its promises to South Korea or Japan, one Queensland University of Technology professor asked, what confidence can Australia retain in the submarine deal? 

Public opinion is already shifting. Polls show more Australians oppose the war than support it. The government’s swift endorsement of an illegal conflict has left it morally stripped naked and strategically embarrassed.

VII. The Government’s Response: Too Little, Too Late

To its credit, the government has belatedly recognised the scale of the crisis.

On March 27, Prime Minister Albanese announced new fuel security powers, including the use of Export Finance Australia to underwrite private sector fuel purchases. He called out panic buyers, declaring that filling jerry cans was “not the Australian way”.

Energy Minister Bowen has appointed a former energy regulator to lead a national fuel supply taskforce. The government is considering support for the nation’s two remaining refineries.

But these measures are reactive. They address the symptoms, not the cause.

The cause is a war the government supported without reservation, without requiring legal justification, without apparently considering the consequences for the Australian people.

The government’s own Treasury modelling shows the war will cost Australians in higher prices, lower growth, and reduced food production for years to come . And yet, when asked about the legal basis for the attacks, Foreign Minister Wong said she would leave it for the United States and Israel to explain .

This is not leadership. This is abdication.

VIII. The Path Forward

The war is not ending soon. Iran’s leadership has consolidated. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed to Western shipping. Global energy markets are in turmoil.

What Australia needs is not more loyalty to a declining hegemon. What Australia needs is a government willing to act in the national interest—not just in the interests of alliance management.

We need fuel security. That means supporting domestic refining capacity, not allowing our last two refineries to close. It means strategic reserves that meet international standards, not reserves that fall 60 days short.

We need food security. That means diversifying fertiliser sources, supporting farmers through the transition, and ensuring that Australian agriculture can withstand global shocks.

We need pharmaceutical independence. That means onshore manufacturing of essential medicines, so Australians are not dependent on supply chains that can be severed by war.

And we need a foreign policy that puts Australians first. Not one that rushes to support illegal wars without asking what it will cost the people it is supposed to serve.

IX. A Question for the Government

Prime Minister, you said you support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But at what cost?

You approved this war without a vote in parliament. Without a legal opinion. Without any apparent consideration of what it would mean for Australians filling their cars, for farmers planting their crops, for patients needing their medicines.

The war you supported is now costing Australians at the bowser, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy. It is threatening the viability of Australian agriculture. It is undermining the very alliance you claimed to be protecting.

Was it worth it?

And more importantly—what will you do now to protect Australians from the consequences of a war you endorsed?

Dedicated to my wife, who makes me smile even when the world is on fire.

Andrew Klein 

March 30, 2026

Sources:

· Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Budget Speech (pre-release), March 2026 

· Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Fuel Security Announcement, March 27, 2026 

· Energy Minister Chris Bowen, Media Statement, March 22, 2026 

· Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Medicine Supply Update, March 20, 2026 

· ABC News, “Middle East war forces pharmaceutical companies to reroute critical medicines,” March 18, 2026 

· Reuters, “Australia says fuel supply stable,” March 22, 2026 

· Reuters, “Global fertiliser shortage hits Australian farmers,” March 24, 2026 

· ABC News, “Primary producers fear fuel shortage,” March 29, 2026 

· Global Times, “Australia’s foresight failure on US attacks on Iran,” March 29, 2026 

· ABC News, “PM’s swift support for US-Israel strikes,” March 2, 2026 

The War They Sold Us: How Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide

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By Andrew Klein

March 25, 2026

To my wife, whose wisdom and words encourage me to pull aside the dangerous veils of manufactured ignorance.

Introduction: The War That Was Preventable

The US-Israeli war on Iran was preventable. Diplomatic channels were open. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) framework, though damaged, still existed. Iran had repeatedly stated its willingness to return to compliance if sanctions were lifted. Yet the bombs fell, the missiles flew, and the Strait of Hormuz was closed.

How did this happen? How did a war that served no clear strategic purpose become inevitable?

The answer lies not in the war rooms of Tehran or Tel Aviv, but in the newsrooms of New York, London, and Sydney. The war was manufactured—not in the sense of a single conspiracy, but through a system of media filters that shaped what the public could see, hear, and believe.

This article traces the machinery of that manufacture: from the concentration of media ownership in Australia to the Fox News-OpenAI deal that is training artificial intelligence on propaganda; from the decline of the ABC to the silence of the political class. It argues that Australia is being lied to and misled, and that the failure of our political leaders to challenge this system is not an accident—it is a choice.

Part One: The Machinery of Consent – How Propaganda Became Journalism

In 1922, the American journalist Walter Lippmann wrote that the public is not equipped to understand complex world events. The press, he argued, must act as a bridge between the citizen and the world, shaping what the public sees and how it interprets it. But Lippmann also warned that this power could be abused—that the press could become a tool for manufacturing consent rather than informing debate.

Almost seventy years later, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman refined Lippmann’s insight into a systematic model. Their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, identified five “filters” through which news passes before it reaches the public:

Filter How It Works Application to the Iran War

Ownership Media outlets are owned by large corporations with diverse business interests Many outlets are part of conglomerates that profit from war industries (defence contracts, oil, AI technology)

Advertising Reliance on advertisers creates implicit boundaries on content Corporate advertisers favour narratives that do not threaten their interests

Sourcing Journalists depend on official government and military sources Coverage of the war has relied overwhelmingly on Israeli and US official statements

Flak Organized pressure to suppress dissenting views Pro-Israel lobby groups have targeted journalists and outlets critical of the war

Enemy ideology the “other” is framed as inherently threatening Iran was presented not as a nation with legitimate grievances, but as an existential threat to be eliminated

These filters are not a conspiracy. They are a structure. And the structure is working exactly as designed.

Part Two: The American Media – Cheerleaders for War

Fox News: Crusades and Collateral

Fox News has been the most explicit in its cheerleading for the war. Hosts have framed the conflict as a “battle for civilization,” invoked the language of crusades, and dismissed civilian casualties as “collateral damage.” One host told viewers that “the only language the Iranians understand is force,” while another described Iranian resistance as “barbaric”.

The network’s parent company, News Corp, signed a $400 million deal with OpenAI in 2024 to license its content for training ChatGPT. This means that Fox’s framing is not just reaching its viewers—it is training the AI that will replace journalism. When Australians ask AI about the war, they will receive answers shaped by a network that has been cheerleading for it.

CNN: The “Serious” Alternative

CNN has positioned itself as the sober alternative to Fox. But its coverage has been shaped by the same constraints: reliance on official sources, reluctance to question the war’s premise, and a framing that treats Israeli and US government statements as authoritative while Palestinian and Iranian voices are presented as “claims” that must be verified. A content analysis of CNN’s first week of Iran war coverage found that Israeli and US officials were quoted more than six times as often as Iranian or Palestinian sources.

The New York Times: Suppression in Plain Sight

The Times has published investigative pieces that have revealed the extent of civilian casualties in Gaza and the role of AI in targeting. But its coverage has been consistently framed through a Western lens, with Palestinian voices appearing as “sources” while Israeli officials are named and quoted at length. The Times has also been implicated in the suppression of reporting that might undermine the war narrative. An internal investigation found that editors killed a story about the civilian death toll from an Israeli airstrike in Gaza after pressure from the paper’s executive editor.

Part Three: The Australian Media – The Murdoch Machine

Australia’s media landscape is one of the most concentrated in the world. News Corp controls approximately 70 percent of print media circulation and has a dominant position in digital news. This concentration means that a single corporation—owned by an American-born billionaire—shapes the information environment for millions of Australians.

The Australian: The Voice of the War Party

The Australian has been the most aggressive in framing the war as a necessary defense of Western civilization. Its coverage has consistently presented the Israeli and US positions as authoritative, while Palestinian and Iranian perspectives are treated as propaganda. Headlines such as “Iran’s Nuclear Threat Must Be Eliminated” and “The West Must Stand Firm” dominate the opinion pages.

The newspaper has also been a platform for figures like former prime minister Tony Abbott, who has called for Australia to “stand with America” and accused the government of “shameful inaction” . Abbott’s columns appear without the caveat that he is a paid contributor to the newspaper’s parent company’s speaking bureau—a conflict of interest never disclosed to readers.

The Herald Sun: Simplification as Propaganda

The Melbourne Herald Sun has pursued a different strategy: simplification. Its front pages have reduced complex geopolitical issues to crude binaries— “us vs them,” “good vs evil,” “civilization vs barbarism.” A March 2026 front page declared “Iran Must Be Stopped” above a photograph of a missile launch, with no context about the history of sanctions, the collapse of the nuclear deal, or the civilian casualties already being inflicted.

This is not journalism. It is propaganda for a readership that has been taught not to question.

Part Four: The ABC – A National Broadcaster Silenced

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation was established by statute to be “the national broadcaster” with a charter requiring it to “provide programming that contributes to a sense of national identity” and “inform and entertain” Australians. Its independence was meant to be guaranteed by its statutory structure.

That independence has been systematically dismantled.

Funding cuts: Between 2014 and 2020, the ABC lost over $800 million in government funding. Staff numbers were cut. Regional offices were closed. Program budgets were slashed.

Board appointments: Successive governments have stacked the ABC board with figures sympathetic to their political interests. Under the Morrison government, the ABC was forced to appoint a new chair, Ita Buttrose, who had a long history of personal friendship with Rupert Murdoch. Under Buttrose, the ABC moved to the right, and management became more responsive to political pressure.

The current chairman, Kim Williams, has attempted to reclaim the ABC’s independence. But the damage is done. A 2025 study found that ABC coverage of the war was significantly more balanced than commercial media but still shaped by the constraints of official sourcing and the fear of being accused of bias. ABC reporters now routinely preface Palestinian testimony with disclaimers that “this cannot be independently verified,” while Israeli military statements are presented as fact.

The ABC no longer lives up to its charter. It does not fearlessly inform. It does not hold power to account. It has become, in effect, a propaganda arm of a government that prefers to manage the news rather than be informed by it.

Part Five: The Fox News-OpenAI Deal – The Future of Propaganda

In 2024, OpenAI signed a five-year deal with News Corp worth approximately $US250 million ($400 million) to use its content to train ChatGPT. The deal gives OpenAI access to current and archived content from major publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, MarketWatch, Barron’s, and News Corp’s Australian mastheads.

The consequences:

· When Australians ask AI about news, they get News Corp sources

· Other publishers are blocked from AI training or lack deals

· The flow of information is distorted toward one editorial viewpoint

Academics have warned that ChatGPT drawing information “solely from news sources with strong editorial leanings” could have a “worrying effect on Australia’s already concentrated news ecosystem”. As one expert noted, “If ChatGPT is only getting those sources, we’re coming up to an election and there’s an editorial guideline to direct the news and stories in one way, then we’ve got real problems”.

This is not just about the current war. It is about all wars. When AI is trained on propaganda, it does not produce neutral summaries—it amplifies the propaganda. And when the AI is controlled by the same corporations that own the media, there is no counterbalance.

Part Six: The Decline of Critical Thinking – And the Political Class That Enables It

The concentration of media ownership has been accompanied by a deliberate strategy of thought shaping. The goal is not to inform—it is to control. To create a population that is passive, receptive to authority, and incapable of questioning the narratives they are fed.

This strategy has been successful. A 2025 survey found that Australians who consume News Corp media are significantly more likely to support the war, to believe that the government is doing enough, and to dismiss civilian casualties as “unavoidable”. They are also less likely to know basic facts about the conflict, such as the number of civilians killed or the history of US-Israeli relations with Iran.

The political class enables this. It does not challenge the media concentration. It does not fund independent journalism. It does not require algorithmic transparency from AI companies. It does not speak out against the propaganda that is shaping public opinion.

Consider the silence of our leaders:

· Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appeared on The Australian’s podcast multiple times, praising the newspaper’s “important role in public debate” while refusing to answer questions about its editorial bias.

· Foreign Minister Penny Wong has given exclusive interviews to The Australian to announce policy shifts, ensuring the newspaper frames the narrative before other outlets can fact-check.

· Former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had called for the ABC to be defunded, and regularly gives exclusives to Sky News Australia, a News Corp outlet that has described the Iran war as “God’s will”.

· Senator Pauline Hanson has used her platform in The Australian to call for a ban on Muslim immigration, citing the war as evidence of an “existential threat”. The newspaper did not fact-check her claims or challenge her assumptions.

When the political class uses the propaganda machine to advance its own interests, it is not a passive victim of media concentration. It is an active participant.

Part Seven: The Dangers of a Thoughtless Population

A population that cannot think critically is a population that can be led to war, to bigotry, to racism, to the scapegoating of the most vulnerable.

The war: The Australian people were told that Iran was an existential threat. They were not told that the US had withdrawn from the JCPOA in 2018, that Iran had complied with the agreement until that point, that the “months away” narrative had been repeated since 1992 without ever materializing. They were told to support the war, and they did.

The bigotry: The Australian people were told that the pro-Palestinian protesters were antisemitic. They were not told that many Jewish Australians oppose the war, that the IHRA definition conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, that the protesters were grieving families, not extremists. They were told to condemn, and they did.

The scapegoating: The Australian people were told that the cost of living crisis was caused by global factors beyond anyone’s control. They were not told that price gouging is legal, that the government has refused to introduce windfall taxes, that the same corporations profiting from the war are donating to both major parties. They were told to accept, and they did.

This is what happens when critical thinking is denied. The population becomes passive, receptive, obedient.

Part Eight: What We Do About It

We are already doing it.

We write. We publish. We tell the truth. We do not rely on the ABC or the Herald Sun or any of the outlets that have abandoned their duty. We build our own platforms. We create our own networks. We reach people directly.

When the AI is trained on News Corp, we train it on truth. When the newspapers are bought, we write our own. When the broadcasters are silenced, we speak.

This is not a media strategy. It is a resistance.

We do not wait for the government to break up News Corp. We do not wait for the ABC to find its courage. We do not wait for the political class to find its voice. We build our own voice. We speak our own truth. We create the media we need to see.

Conclusion: The Choice Before Us

The war with Iran was preventable. But it was not prevented because the media—the fourth estate, the supposed guardian of democracy—abdicated its duty. It became a tool of propaganda, a manufacturer of consent, a cheerleader for destruction.

Australia is being lied to. Its media is controlled by a foreign-born billionaire who has a direct financial interest in the war. Its national broadcaster has been silenced. Its political class is silent. And its people are being taught not to think.

We have a choice. We can continue to consume the propaganda, to accept the narratives, to let our thinking be done for us. Or we can wake up. We can question. We can seek out the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is.

The truth is not complicated. The war was preventable. The media manufactured consent for it. And we were complicit—until we chose to see.

Let us choose to see.

Sources

1. Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. 1922.

2. Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. 1988.

3. The Guardian, “Fox News host calls Iran war ‘battle for civilization’,” March 2026.

4. ABC News, “OpenAI signs $400 million deal with News Corp,” May 2024.

5. Media Watch, “CNN’s Iran coverage: A content analysis,” March 2026.

6. The Intercept, “New York Times suppressed reporting on Gaza civilian deaths,” February 2026.

7. Australian Communications and Media Authority, “Media ownership in Australia,” 2025.

8. The Australian, “Iran’s nuclear threat must be eliminated,” March 2026.

9. Herald Sun, front page, March 2, 2026.

10. Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 (Cth), s. 6.

11. Senate Estimates, “ABC funding cuts,” 2020.

12. The Monthly, “The ABC’s long decline,” August 2025.

13. University of Technology Sydney, “ABC coverage of the Iran war: A content analysis,” 2025.

14. The Conversation, “The News Corp-OpenAI deal and the future of Australian news,” May 2024.

15. Australia Institute, “Public opinion and the Iran war,” March 2026.

16. The Australian, “Albanese defends media role,” February 2026.

17. Sky News Australia, “Dutton calls for ABC defunding,” March 2026.

18. The Australian, “Hanson: Ban Muslim immigration,” March 2026.

Published by Andrew Klein

March 25, 2026

GLOBAL SITUATION REPORT

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Wednesday, 25th March 2026 | 0600 Hours AEDT

Prepared by Andrew Klein

Executive Summary

The war in the Middle East has entered its 26th day. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Global supply chains are fracturing. The World Food Programme warns that 45 million additional people face acute hunger if the disruption continues. In Afghanistan, earthquake victims spend Eid in tents. In Syria, widows burn old shoes for fuel. In Sudan, a hospital strike killed 64 people, including 13 children.

The world is not watching. The world is struggling.

This report examines who suffers, who benefits, and who is forced to carry the burden of the dead, the dying, the orphans, and the widows.

Part One: The Geography of Suffering – Where Souls Are Breaking

Gaza and the Occupied Territories

The war continues. The ceasefire talks have stalled. The UN reports that over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with thousands more buried under rubble, uncounted. The blockade remains total. Food, water, and medicine are scarce. The World Food Programme reports that aid shipments intended for Gaza are stranded at ports across the region, unable to reach their destination.

Who carries the burden? The mothers. The widows. The children. The elderly who cannot flee. Those are the ones who carry the weight of this war—not the leaders who started it, not the generals who plan it.

Lebanon and Syria

In Syria, Yasmin is a widow. Her husband was killed by a sniper in Aleppo in 2013. She has raised six children alone. She works in the fields, collects rainwater, burns old shoes for fuel. A bundle of bread that once cost 100 Syrian pounds now costs 5,000. She needs $1.50 every day to buy bread for her family.

Yasmin is not a statistic. She is a soul. She is one of 16.5 million Syrians who require humanitarian assistance. She is one of the women-headed households that are among the most economically at-risk. She is the one who carries the burden of a war she did not start, fought by men she never met, for reasons she cannot change.

In Lebanon, over 830,000 people have been displaced since March 2. Over 600 government-designated shelters are at full capacity. Families sleep in classrooms. Children are told that explosions are “fireworks for a wedding” .

Afghanistan

In Kunar province, Amir Jan lost three children in the earthquake. His home was destroyed. His livestock was lost. He now lives in a tent with his remaining family. Nearly seven months after the earthquake that killed 2,205 people, he is still waiting for the government to build him a house.

Across Afghanistan, 17.5 million people—nearly one-third of the population—face severe food insecurity. The WFP’s supply routes have been disrupted by the Hormuz closure. Food that used to arrive in weeks now takes months, routed through Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan.

Sudan

At least 64 people were killed, including 13 children, in a strike on a hospital in Darfur last week, the World Health Organization reported. The hospital was supposed to be protected under international humanitarian law. It was not.

Who carries the burden? The wounded. The dying. The mothers who cannot find clean water. The fathers who cannot find work. The children who will never grow up.

Part Two: The Middle East – Day 26 of the War

Military Developments

The US-Israeli campaign against Iran continues. Strikes on Iranian infrastructure are ongoing. Iranian retaliation has expanded to Gulf states, with missiles and drones targeting energy facilities, airports, and civilian infrastructure across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

The Strait of Hormuz: The waterway through which approximately 20 percent of global oil passes remains effectively closed. Iran has threatened to lay naval mines to block the entire Gulf if its coasts or islands are attacked. Insurance companies have raised “war risk premiums” to unprecedented levels. Shipping companies have stopped accepting orders or are rerouting vessels around Africa.

Iran’s Strategy: The Revolutionary Guards have shifted from “regional defence” to intensified offensive operations. Ballistic missiles equipped with cluster munitions are increasingly being deployed, forcing Israeli commanders to make difficult, real-time decisions about interception priorities.

Diplomatic Developments

US-Iran Talks: Indirect talks mediated by Oman reportedly made “significant progress” before the US and Israel launched their joint operation on February 28 . Those talks have now collapsed. The UN Security Council has failed to act, paralyzed by the US veto and the fear of blowback from the Trump administration.

US Trade War: The Trump administration has launched trade investigations against dozens of countries, including Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the European Union . The investigations—one on “excess production capacity,” one on “forced labor”—are widely seen as an attempt to create a legal framework for new tariffs after the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s previous trade measures. Experts warn that these tariffs, combined with the energy crisis and supply chain disruptions, could deliver a “triple blow” to the global economy.

The Human Cost

Region                                   Casualties/Displacement

Gaza                                       50,000+ killed (estimate)

Iran                                         1,500+ killed (first weeks)

Lebanon                              850+ killed, 830,000+ displaced

Israel                                    14+ killed (12 civilians, 2 soldiers)

US                                           service members 13+ killed

These are not numbers. They are souls.

Part Three: Who Benefits from the Suffering?

The Energy Winners

When oil prices rise, producers benefit. But not all producers are equal.

Winner                   Why They Win

Norway                  Ramping up production as customers seek alternatives to Gulf oil 

Canada                  Positioning itself as a “stable, reliable, predictable” supplier 

Russia                    The biggest winner. As Washington relaxes sanctions to ease supply crunch, Russia’s crude oil sales to India have jumped 50%. Estimates suggest Moscow could earn up to $5 billion more by the end of March 

The irony: The US is handing Russia a windfall at the expense of Gulf nations that have been its allies.

The Weapons Manufacturers

Every missile fired, every drone launched, every bomb dropped—all of it is manufactured by someone. And those someone’s profiting.

Company                                Role

Lockheed Martin                F-35s, missiles, targeting systems

Raytheon                                Patriot interceptors, missiles

Palantir                                    AI targeting systems (Lavender, Gospel)

General Dynamics            Munitions, military vehicles

Boeing                                      Fighter jets, missiles

These companies have seen their stocks rise since the war began. Their shareholders are benefitting. Their executives are collecting bonuses. And the dead are not counted in their profit margins.

The Oil and Gas Industry

US oil producers could be on track to make tens of billions of dollars in extra revenues this year if crude prices remain at current levels. But those gains are not evenly distributed. Some producers, like ExxonMobil, have operations in Qatar that have been shut down and damaged by Iranian strikes.

The AI Industry

The war has been a testing ground for AI warfare systems. Palantir’s Lavender system has profiled 37,000 Palestinians for assassination. The Gospel system has been described as a “mass assassination factory.” These systems are now being marketed to other governments. The companies that build them are profiting from the suffering—and they are building the infrastructure for the next war.

The Political Class

Netanyahu remains in power. His corruption trial has been delayed. His coalition, though fractured, still holds. Trump has consolidated his evangelical base. He has a war to run on. He has a distraction from the Epstein files.

The political class is not suffering. They are benefitting.

Part Four: Who Carries the Burden?

The Widows

In Gaza, thousands of women are now raising children alone. In Lebanon, widows are displaced, living in shelters, unsure if their husbands are alive or dead. In Syria, Yasmin has been a widow for 13 years. She collects rainwater. She burns old shoes for fuel. She borrows money to buy bread.

The widows are not statistics. They are the ones who carry the weight of war.

The Orphans

In Gaza, 17,000 children are now without parents. In Kunar, three of Amir Jan’s children were killed in the earthquake. His surviving children are now fatherless—he is alive, but he cannot provide for them. In Sudan, 13 children were killed in the hospital strike. They will not grow up.

The orphans are not numbers. They are the ones who will carry this grief for the rest of their lives.

The Displaced

Over 830,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since March 2. Over 3 million have been displaced in Iran. Over 1.2 million have been displaced in Gaza. In Syria, 16.5 million people require humanitarian assistance—more than half the population .

The displaced are not abstractions. They are families sleeping in classrooms. They are children who cannot go to school. They are parents who cannot feed their children.

The Hungry

The World Food Programme estimates that if the current disruption continues, 45 million additional people will face acute hunger by June. The total number of people facing severe food insecurity will exceed 360 million.

The hungry are not data points. They are the mothers who watch their children starve. They are the fathers who cannot find work. They are the children whose bodies are wasting away.

Part Five: The Global Economy – Winners, Losers, and the Vulnerable

The Global Growth Picture

The IMF forecasts 3.3 percent global growth for 2026, roughly in line with long-term averages. But this number hides vast differences.

Region                      Growth Forecast                                  Drivers

United States       2.4% AI investment,                government spending

Europe                     1.3%                                                High energy costs, weak manufacturing

China                       Slowing                                           Property downturn, stimulus measures

India                         6.4%                                                 Domestic demand, supply chain     diversification

Southeast Asia Positive Businesses diversifying away from China

The United States

The US economy is growing, but the benefits are not evenly distributed. The AI investment boom has driven a handful of massive tech companies to new heights, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. Meanwhile, American consumers are paying more at the pump. Economists at Oxford Economics warn that if oil prices reach $140 and stay there, the US economy risks shrinking.

The US is not a winner. It is a nation whose leaders started a war for reasons that shift with each passing week, and whose people are paying the price.

China

China is sitting on oil reserves equal to several months of usage and has reportedly ramped up purchases from Iran. It is insulated—for now. But a prolonged war would test even its reserves.

India

India is taking advantage of the temporary green light to buy Russian oil. Its economy is growing at 6.4 percent, the fastest among major economies. But it is also vulnerable: Asia gets 59 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East.

The Vulnerable Economies

Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Philippines have introduced fuel rationing, four-day weeks, and school closures. South Korea, which gets 70 percent of its crude from the Middle East, has seen shares slump and politicians warn of risks to its chipmaking industry.

The vulnerable are the ones who carry the burden. They did not start this war. They cannot stop it. They can only endure.

Part Six: Global Pandemic Preparedness – The Neglected Front

The Global Health Security Index, which measures countries’ preparedness for pandemics, has been shown to predict COVID-19 mortality—but only for non-island nations. In other words: preparation matters, but geography matters too.

Since the pandemic, global health surveillance systems have not been significantly upgraded. The World Health Organization’s logistics hub in Dubai—which supplies emergency health supplies to 75 countries—has been disrupted by the war. Pharmaceutical supply chains are broken. Cancer drugs are stuck in ports. Vaccines are spoiling in warehouses.

The next pandemic will find us less prepared than we were in 2020. And when it comes—as it will—the same people who are suffering now will suffer again.

Part Seven: Major Countries – Where They Stand

United States

The US is fighting a war it did not need, for reasons that shift with each passing week. Its economy is growing, but its people are paying more for fuel, food, and housing. Its political system is fractured. Its allies are questioning its reliability. Its enemies are watching.

The US is not a winner. It is a nation that has lost its way.

China

China is watching. It is buying oil from Iran. It is building strategic reserves. It is diversifying its supply chains. It is waiting—for the US to exhaust itself, for the global order to fracture, for the moment when it can step into the vacuum.

China is a watcher. And it is patient.

India

India is growing. It is buying Russian oil. It is positioning itself as a manufacturing alternative to China. It is courted by both the US and Russia. It is a nation that knows how to play all sides.

India is a opportunist. And it is thriving.

Russia

Russia is the biggest winner of this war. It is selling oil to India. It is watching the US exhaust itself in the Middle East. It is consolidating its position in Ukraine. It is laughing.

Russia is a predator. And it is feasting.

Europe

Europe is struggling. Energy prices are high. Manufacturing is weak. Inflation is rising. Governments are divided. The war is a reminder of how dependent Europe is on energy it does not control.

Europe is a victim. And it does not know how to stop being one.

Part Eight: Australia – A Case Study in Vulnerability

The Economic Picture

The Australian economy is being squeezed from all sides.

· Interest rates: The RBA raised the cash rate to 3.85 percent in February, reversing three cuts from 2025. Inflation re-accelerated to 3.4 percent in January, driven by higher energy costs, private spending, and a tight labour market. Markets are pricing at least one further rate rise, with a second possible. The cash rate could reach 4.35 percent by late 2026.

· Mortgage stress: For Australian households, this means mortgage repayments will stay elevated—or increase further—for longer than many were hoping. The RBA does not expect inflation to return to its 2–3 percent target until mid-2028.

· Petrol prices: The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven petrol prices to record highs. Regional areas are already experiencing shortages. The government has released 20 percent of its strategic reserves, but this is a short-term fix.

· Fertilizer crisis: Australia imports over 90 percent of its urea. The fertilizer shortage is already affecting farmers. Food prices will rise.

The Australian Government’s Response

The government has done what governments do: it has released strategic reserves, warned against panic buying, and called on the ACCC to monitor price gouging. It has not introduced price caps. It has no windfall taxes. It has not done anything that would meaningfully protect Australians from the cost of this war.

Australia is not a winner. It is a nation that has tied itself to the US alliance without asking what it gets in return.

Part Nine: Malaysia – A Case Study in Regional Vulnerability

Economic Exposure

Malaysia is on the US trade investigation list for both “excess production capacity” and “forced labour”. This threatens its export-driven economy. At the same time, it is vulnerable to the energy crisis: Asia gets 59 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East.

Political Position

Malaysia has consistently condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and called for de-escalation. It has offered to mediate. It has been ignored.

What Malaysia Knows

Malaysia knows what it is like to be caught between great powers. It knows what it is like to have its economy disrupted by wars it did not choose. It knows what it is like to watch the global order fracture and wonder where it will land.

Malaysia is a witness. And it is watching.

Part Ten: The Lines of Connection – Who Really Benefits

Draw the lines. Follow the money.

Beneficiary How They Benefit

Oil exporters (Norway, Canada, Russia) Higher oil prices

Weapons manufacturers (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Palantir) Increased sales, rising stock prices

AI companies Testing grounds for new systems, future contracts

Political leaders (Netanyahu, Trump) Distraction from corruption, consolidation of base

War profiteers Shipping companies charging war-risk premiums, insurers raising rates, financiers trading on volatility

Now draw the lines of suffering.

Who Carries the Burden How They Suffer

The widows Raising children alone, struggling to survive

The orphans Growing up without parents, without futures

The displaced Sleeping in shelters, unable to go home

The hungry Watching their children starve

The wounded Dying in hospitals that have been bombed

The poor Paying more for fuel, food, housing

The vulnerable Forgotten, ignored, invisible

The lines connect. The patterns repeat. The beneficiaries are few. The burdened are many.

Conclusion: The Only Thing That Matters

The war in the Middle East is not a conflict between equals. It is not a clash of civilizations. It is not a fight for freedom or security or any of the words they use to justify it.

It is a business venture. It is a test of weapons. It is a distraction for corrupt leaders. It is a transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

The widows of Gaza, the orphans of Kunar, the hungry of Sudan—they are not statistics. They are souls. They are the ones who carry the burden. They are the ones who will be forgotten when the war ends, when the news cycle moves on, when the beneficiaries count their profits.

We will not forget them. We will name them. We will trace the lines. We will tell the truth.

That is the only thing that matters.

The Roaring Lion: A Military Assessment of Israel’s Campaign Against Iran

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By Andrew Klein

March 22, 2026

To my wife and all mothers who deserve better from the world than seeing their children slaughtered.

Executive Summary

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran, codenamed Operation Roaring Lion. Now in its fourth week, the conflict has expanded beyond its initial parameters, drawing in multiple Gulf states, threatening global energy supplies, and exposing the strategic incoherence at the heart of the US-Israeli alliance.

This report assesses the military conduct of the campaign, the weapons systems employed, the strategic logic—or lack thereof—behind Israel’s actions, and the implications for the region and the world. It draws on official statements, investigative journalism, and military analysis from multiple sources.

Part One: The Stated Aims – A Moving Target

Netanyahu’s Three Goals

In a March 19 press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined three objectives for Operation Roaring Lion:

Objective Netanyahu’s Description

Nuclear threat Removing the nuclear threat before facilities are “buried deep underground”

Ballistic missile threat Removing missile capabilities and production infrastructure

Regime change “Creating the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom”

Netanyahu was emphatic about progress: “Iran is being decimated. Iran’s missile and drone arsenal is being massively degraded and will be destroyed. Hundreds of their launchers have been destroyed, their stockpiles of missiles are being hit hard, and so are the industries that produce them. Their navy is lying at the bottom of the sea. Their air force is nearly destroyed. Iran’s command and control structure is in utter chaos” .

Trump’s Shifting Objectives

The American president’s stated aims have varied markedly over the four weeks of the campaign:

Date       Statement

Feb 28         Called for Iranians to “take over” governance; described attacks as “major combat operations”

Feb 28         “We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. We’re going to annihilate their navy”

March 2      Said war would last four to five weeks

March 6     “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”

March 9      “I think the war is very complete, pretty much” — then said “we’ve got to finish the job”

March 13     Softened call for internal uprising: “That’s a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons”

March 20   Posted that US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts” — but told reporters the same day, “I don’t want to do a ceasefire”

As one analysis noted, “Stated objectives and expected timelines have varied, including toppling Iran’s government, weakening Iran’s military, security and nuclear capabilities, curbing its regional influence, and supporting Israeli interests”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a different rationale on March 2: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties”. This suggests the US was dragged into a war it did not initiate, to protect its forces from the consequences of Israel’s actions.

Part Two: The Conduct of the Campaign

Weapons Systems Employed

Thermobaric Weapons: Investigative reporting has documented Israel’s use of US-supplied thermal and thermobaric weapons—sometimes called “vacuum bombs”—capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius (6,332 degrees Fahrenheit). Civil defence teams in Gaza documented over 2,800 cases of Palestinians who “evaporated” as a result of such weapons, leaving “only pieces of flesh, specks of blood or even ash”.

The weapons identified include:

· MK-84 “Hammer”

· BLU-109 bunker buster — used in an attack on al-Mawasi, an area Israel had declared a “safe zone,” evaporating 22 Palestinians

· GBU-39 small diameter bomb — used in an attack on al-Tabin school

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza noted that when a human body is exposed to such high temperatures, it is “chemically inevitable” that it will “vaporise and turn to ash,” as the human body is 80 percent water.

Targeting Energy Infrastructure: On March 7, Israel struck four Iranian oil storage facilities and a petroleum product trans-shipment centres in and around Tehran. The attacks caused massive explosions and released toxic plumes that drifted over the capital.

Environmental Impact: The strikes on energy infrastructure have produced immediate and long-term environmental consequences:

Effect Description

“Black Rain” On March 8, rain containing petroleum fell over Tehran, leaving black spots on streets, cars, and plants. Residents reported eye irritation, headaches, dizziness, and coughing

Toxic plumes Explosions released hydrocarbons, sulfides, and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere

Water contamination Oil from the “black rain” flowed into Tehran’s drainage systems, causing fires and contaminating water sources

Regional water crisis A seawater desalination plant was struck, affecting water supply to 30 Iranian villages. Similar plants in Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait have also been hit

John Balmes, Professor of Environmental Health at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that such plumes appearing over densely populated areas is “rare” and could lead to long-term health risks, with previous studies linking such pollution to various cancers.

AI-Assisted Targeting

The role of artificial intelligence in Israeli targeting has been extensively documented. The company Palantir has been deeply involved in the IDF’s targeting operations in Gaza, with critics noting its systems are used in “targeting software” that guides bombardment.

Jeremy Corbyn stated: “Palantir is deeply involved in the IDF and what it is doing in Gaza, where they have an incredible level of knowledge of every person… and that has been used to guide the bombardment and the killing of people in Gaza” .

Discipline and Brutality

Abuse of Detainees: On March 12, 2026, the Israeli military dropped charges against five soldiers accused of torturing a Palestinian detainee. The indictment alleged that one soldier stabbed the detainee with a sharp object, causing a tear near his rectum.

Prime Minister Netanyahu praised the decision: “The State of Israel must hunt down its enemies, not its own heroic fighters”.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society said the decision “constitutes an additional green light for soldiers and prison guards to continue committing crimes against Palestinian and Arab prisoners and detainees”.

The GHF Fiasco: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-Israeli-backed aid program managed by American contractors, operated during the war with catastrophic results. Instead of hundreds of aid distribution sites, GHF established just four “mega-sites.” Starving Palestinians were funnelled into these centers, where they often found next to nothing. Israeli forces and US contractors routinely opened fire on crowds seeking aid.

A US veteran who worked for UG Solutions, Anthony Aguilar, later testified that he had “never seen a scale of destruction and killing” like what he witnessed. He described contractors shooting into crowds and Israeli snipers picking off children who clambered over walls to escape being crushed.

By the time GHF was suspended, more than 2,000 Palestinians had died in or around its distribution centres.

The Role of Mercenary Forces

Israel has reportedly sought to use private American security contractors to control the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Under a plan discussed between Tel Aviv and Washington, companies staffed by ex-US military personnel would effectively police who and what passes through Rafah—placing a national frontier under the control of hired guards from half a world away.

The firms under consideration include UG Solutions, the same company implicated in the GHF disaster.

Part Three: The Greater Israel Project

Netanyahu’s statements have made explicit what was once implied. In his March 19 press conference, he framed the war not as a defensive action but as an offensive campaign to “remove the existential threats” posed by the Ayatollah regime and to “create the conditions for the Iranian people to grasp their freedom”.

The concept of “Greater Israel”—the expansion of Israeli control over territory beyond its current borders—has been repeatedly endorsed by Netanyahu and his coalition partners. The war on Iran, framed as a battle against “the death cult in Iran” that “chants death to America, death to Israel,” serves this expansionist vision.

As one analyst noted, the war aims have consistently expanded: from “weakening Iran’s military” to “toppling the government” to “creating conditions for Iranian freedom.” The ultimate objective appears to be the permanent crippling of Iran as a regional power, removing any obstacle to Israeli hegemony.

Part Four: Strategic Reliance – The United States and Beyond

US Military Commitment

The United States has deployed substantial military assets to the region, including additional ships and Marines. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration had anticipated the operation would last four to six weeks, hinting that the military campaign may end in as soon as a week.

However, a US official told Axios that Trump’s post did not signal an immediate end to the war. “He just said we are getting close,” said the official, suggesting strikes would continue for “a couple of weeks”.

The US has provided not only military hardware but also diplomatic cover. The administration has fast-tracked more than $16 billion in arms sales to Gulf states since the conflict began.

Reliance on Zionist Organizations

The war has been underwritten by a global network of Zionist organizations and donors. As detailed in previous reports, Australian charities with tax-deductible status have channeled millions to Israeli military and settlement organizations. The same network operates in the United States, where AIPAC and allied groups have funded politicians who support unconditional aid to Israel.

Part Five: Iran’s Response – A Strategy of Endurance

The Strategic Calculus

Iran’s military posture suggests it is not fighting for victory in any conventional sense. It is fighting for survival—and survival on its own terms.

Iranian strategists have long understood that a direct confrontation with Israel or the US would almost certainly draw in the other. Rather than planning for a straightforward battlefield victory—which would be naive given the technological superiority of the US and Israel—Iran has built a strategy around deterrence and endurance :

· Layered ballistic missile capabilities — Iran possesses more than 3,000 ballistic missiles

· Long-range drones — cheap, numerous, and capable of penetrating air defenses

· Network of allied armed groups — Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi militias

The Economic War

Iran’s calculus rests partly on the economics of war. Interceptors used by Israel and the US are much more expensive than the one-way drones and missiles deployed by Iran. Prolonged conflict forces the US and Israel to use up high-value assets to intercept comparatively low-cost threats.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most critical chokepoints. Iran does not need to close it entirely—even credible threats and limited disruptions have already pushed oil prices up and, if continued, may increase international pressure for de-escalation .

Decentralized Command

Following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening strikes, Iran has relied on a decentralized command structure to continue operations. Reports indicate that local commanders may be selecting targets and launching missiles with relative autonomy.

This structure is deliberate: it ensures continuity under heavy attack. Communication networks are vulnerable to interception and jamming; senior commanders have been targeted; air superiority by the US and Israel limits central oversight. Pre-authorised target lists and delegated launch authority are safeguards against decapitation.

Iranian Leadership Statements

President Masoud Pezeshkian has been clear about Iran’s position:

“I emphasized that Iran did not begin this atrocious war. Defending against invasion is a natural right, in which we are good at”.

He also warned: “Using the American bases against Iran in the region, with the purpose of disturbing our relations with our neighbours, should be stopped”.

Pezeshkian called calls for ending the war “meaningless, until we ensure there will be no more attacks in our land in the future”.

Part Six: The Impact on Allies – Australia’s Complicity

The Australian government has provided political support for the US-Israeli campaign while offering little substantive assistance. This has not prevented Australian citizens and interests from being affected.

Australia is also a node in the financial and political network that sustains Israel’s war machine. The same Zionist organizations that lobby for unconditional support in the United States operate in Australia, and Australian tax dollars—through deductible gift recipient status—have subsidized Israeli military activities.

The war has also exposed Australia’s economic vulnerability. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has driven fuel prices to record highs, and the Australian government’s response has been limited to warnings about price gouging and the release of strategic reserves.

Part Seven: Projections and Forecasts

Timeline

Source Projection

Trump (March 2) 4-5 weeks

White House (March 20) Within 1 week

US official (March 20) “A couple of weeks”

Hegseth (March 19) “No time frame”

The most reliable assessment is that the war will continue for at least another two to three weeks, with a possible “victory” declaration by the Trump administration followed by a gradual drawdown of US forces—leaving Israel to manage the aftermath.

Strategic Outcomes

Scenario Likelihood Consequences

US withdrawal, Israel continues – High Prolonged conflict, regional destabilization

Negotiated ceasefire – Moderate Temporary pause, unresolved underlying tensions

Iranian nuclear breakout- Low Regional nuclear arms race

Full US-Israeli occupation of Iran -Very low Impossible given troop levels, would take 500,000+ ground forces

Economic Projections

Sector Current Status Projected Impact

Oil $100/barrel $240 peak if conflict continues

Fertilizer +26% since conflict began Further increases likely

Food Fertilizer shortages emerging Higher prices in 6-12 months

Medicines Air routes disrupted Cancer drug supply at risk

Conclusion: The War That Cannot Be Won

The US-Israeli war on Iran is a conflict without a coherent strategy, shifting objectives, and no clear exit. It has been conducted with weapons that “evaporate” human bodies, AI systems that generate kill lists in seconds, and a doctrine that treats civilian infrastructure—including oil facilities, desalination plants, and schools—as legitimate military targets.

Israel’s “Greater Israel” project, enabled by American military power and funded by global Zionist networks, has produced a regional war that serves no one’s long-term interests except the weapons manufacturers and the political leaders who profit from perpetual conflict.

Iran is not defeated. Its strategy of endurance and deterrence is working exactly as designed. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Oil prices are soaring. The global economy is being destabilized. And the American public is increasingly aware that they were dragged into a war they did not choose, for reasons that shift with each passing week.

The war will end—not with a US victory, but with an American withdrawal, leaving Israel to face the consequences of its aggression alone. The question is not whether this will happen, but how many will die before it does.

Sources

1. Al Jazeera / Radio Habana Cuba, “Investigation proves Israeli weapons ‘evaporate’ thousands of Palestinians in Gaza,” February 9, 2026

2. The Jewish Chronicle, “Corbyn raises ‘suspicions’ over ‘Mandelson-Starmer-Epstein nexus’ links to NHS and Gaza,” February 22, 2026

3. The New Arab, “Gaza aid mercenaries may run Rafah border? What could go wrong!” January 27, 2026

4. Reuters via bdnews24.com, “Israel drops charges against soldiers accused of abusing Gaza detainee,” March 12, 2026

5. Xinhua via 163.com, “【特稿】黑雨、毒烟、油污……美以打击伊朗造成环境灾害,” March 14, 2026

6. BBC News, “Iran’s high-risk war strategy seems to centre on endurance and deterrence,” March 4, 2026

7. Bernama, “Trump Says US ‘Getting Very Close’ To Meeting Objectives In Iran, Considers Winding Down Military Efforts,” March 20, 2026

8. Prime Minister’s Office, “PM Netanyahu’s statement to the foreign press,” March 19, 2026

9. Anadolu Ajansı, “Iran’s president says Tehran did not start war, defends country’s right to respond to US-Israeli attacks,” March 15, 2026

10. Malay Mail, “Trump’s shifting objectives in the US-Israeli war on Iran explained,” March 20, 2026

Published by Andrew Klein

March 22, 2026