Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| USA Has Lost Its War With Iran, What Should It Do Next? |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2026-03-04
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SUMMARY
Based on what I read, see below, I assume that the USA-near-Iran and Israel and Iran itself are now or will soon be out of anti-missile-missiles. That means that each is, or soon will be, an undefended target for the other’s missile attacks. But Iran is very large and Israel is very small and USA-near-Iran is a collection of tiny military bases and warships. Iran can absorb everything the USA and Israel can throw at it, but not vice-versa. Therefore, and soon, the USA will understand that it has lost this war and will have lost or begun to lose all its military bases and warships near Iran. Israel cannot run and will be slowly and systematically pulverized. Slowly, because morality demands leaving an enemy an escape, and, of course, to avoid a nuclear response. The USA and Israel may each contemplate using nuclear weapons to “undo” this loss. I recommend that Iran offer to end its attacks after the USA and Israel persuasively announce and demonstrate an end to and reversal of the USA’s project of large military presence in Western Asia and, of course, also demand an end and reversal of Israel’s projects of “Greater Israel” and “Erasure of Palestine”, enforcing these demands by continual occasional bombing of Israel—death (or enforcement) by 1000 cuts or, as I sometimes suggest, by slow boiling of the frog. I also identify what I am calling “America’s Internal Great Satan”. ESSAY I began to write this essay on March 4, 2026. Last edit: March 8, 2026. I write of war, and particularly of the current USA-Israeli-begun war against Iran. Some Of My Previous Writing On This Topic This essay continues a series of mine that began with: • A Modest Proposal To End The War On Iran. • How USA Can Be Freed From Trump And Israel. See Video Bibliography At End Of This Essay Who Starts Wars? Until recently, Iran never attacked any country, When it did so it was in response and retaliation after the present attack by the USA-Israeli alliance. Most of these attacks have been against USA and Israel but some, also, I believe, against Arab Gulf countries which “host” USA military and are thus and to that extent “enemies” of Iran. By contrast, the USA has been fighting aggressive (and thus illegal) wars in the Middle East (Western Asia) for many years, always at Israel’s request. Iran’s “Great Satan”, “Little Satan”, and “America’s Internal Great Satan” Iran calls the USA the “Great Satan” and calls Israel the “Little Satan”. It is easy to see why! The USA and/or Israel has destroyed Syria, Iraq, and Libya and has hurt Lebanon and Yemen, all against Iran’s desires, all by Israel’s hand or by the USA’s hand at Israel’s request. The USA has supplied Israel with money and weapons and has provided Israel with immunity and impunity by using its veto in the UN Security Council. Below, I invent the term “America’s Internal Great Satan” to refer to America’s ruling oligarchs, not because they are rich, but because they control the government and use that control for world-destructive, earth-and environment-destructive, and America-destructive purposes. USA’s Israel-Demanded Wars And The USA’s National Interest I am not alone in opining that the present joint USA-Israeli attack on Iran (as did the earlier joint USA-Israeli wars against Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.) serves no national interest of the USA but is being fought at Israel’s request or command. So far from serving any USA national interest, these wars have contributed significantly to the USA’s national debt (we never tax to pay for wars; instead we borrow) leading to a sort of national bankruptcy which I fear will soon come home to roost. USA and Israel Are Losing This War! The USA and Israel are losing the current war with Iran, and are at best weeks away from total helplessness before Iran’s extensive and many-splendored missile arsenal. To be sure, the USA and Israel have destroyed Iran’s air force and navy and internal military communications (command and control). But they have not destroyed Iran’s drones, drone production, missiles, or missile production. Iran’s missiles have done great damage to the USA’s Western Asia military bases and radars and to Israel generally. And Iran’s drones have closed the Straight of Hormuz to shipping, cutting off 20% of the world’s oil and LNG supply. Insurance has become unavailable and shipping has stopped—with scarcely a shot fired! But closing the Straight of Hormuz is not the end of the energy story. With the March 7, 2026, firing of its new long-distance hypersonic missiles, Iran has closed also the export of oil and natural gas (LNG) from the entire Gulf region, with incalculable economic fallout for the entire world. This means that, in effect, the USA’s ill-considered attack against Iran has become an attack against the entire world and if the USA can possibly be tamed by the entire outside world, this is the moment when it will happen! This war is like no other! Increasingly, neither Israel nor the USA has any defense against incoming Iranian missiles, and likely vice-versa. The USA and Israel are close to having used up their entire supply of anti-missile missiles! And these are very expensive (compared to the relatively cheap missiles they are employed to shoot down) and are produced at a very slow rate, so that they cannot realistically be resupplied when exhausted. If all parties are defenseless against incoming missiles, why do I say that Iran is winning? I say this because there is an important difference. Iran is an enormous country whereas the USA’s military bases in Western Asia and the entire state of Israel are both quite small. So although Iran is undoubtedly hurting as USA and Israel continue to pound it, Iran is inflicting much more focused and therefore much more severe pain on the USA and on Israel. The explanation for this—for the USA’s and Israel’s inability to fend off Iran’s attacking missiles—is that the (joint) USA-Israel arsenal of anti-missile-missiles is being rapidly depleted and is not being significantly resupplied. When that arsenal is empty, the USA-in-Western-Asia and Israel will be helpless before Iran’s extensive arsenal of offensive missiles. Furthermore, Iran has developed and acquired a stock-pile of hypersonic missiles, missiles that can be redirected in flight, and a new form of cluster-bomb delivering missiles, which are hard or impossible for the USA or for Israel to shoot down. When the USA and Israel are fully undefended against incoming missiles, Iran could, if it so desired, continue to attack undefended Israel and the USA’s bases and any remaining warships—perhaps slowly—inexorably and indefinitely. Death by 1000 cuts! Or, as I suggested in another essay, like boiling the frog. When the USA’s entire arsenal of anti-missile-missiles is significantly depleted—after delivery to Ukraine and Israel and after use in he present war— the USA will also be more-or-less naked defensively in all the world, a matter that I have not seen discussed and that no-one in the USA seems to have considered. China and Russia will have considered this, however. After The USA Admits That It Lost The War, Then What? Iran is now in the “driver’s seat” and it is not clear what—if anything—would persuade it to end its retaliations. When the USA finally admits that it has lost this war, what should it do next? Option [1] is for the USA to nuke Iran or to allow Israel to nuke Iran. This option of course raises the question of Russia’s and China’s response to this. I think that any nuking of Iran would bring this war home very unpleasantly onto the USA’s homeland—something no other war has done since, I suppose, the Mexican-American war (1846) or the American Civil War (1861-65). Or the destruction we call “9-11” (2001). Option [2], which I much prefer, is for the USA to identify its loss to Iran with its feckless support over the years for Israel and to end it’s support for Israel decisively and permanently. This permits the possibility that Iran will, in effect, put Israel out of business permanently. “Destroy” is not too strong a word. That terminating Israel is a goal of Iran is discussed here at 3:40. The problem of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is of course another matter. In the Bibliography at the end of this essay, please find URLs to the Iranian Foreign Minister’s statement in Doha on February 7, 2026. My recommendation, just below, is in line with his. At a minimum, I should think, the USA would demand that Israel withdraw behind its pre-1967 borders, end all its military operations and settler-colonial occupations anywhere in Western Asia, and ultimately make the two-state peace-treaty with the Palestinians that most of the world has been hoping for since 1967. The USA would hope that Iran would be satisfied to suspend (not end) its retaliatory attacks against Israel after Israel ended its belligerency against any part of the Arab and Muslim world. Option [3] would be for the USA to retreat from Western Asia, leaving its many military outposts there to be destroyed, and leaving Israel to continue its exchange of missiles with Iran. I would expect Iran to offer to end the war on the same terms I outlined in Option [2]. A Possible Benefit For The USA Interestingly, this war and its loss, might have a beneficial result for the USA internally. I see the USA polity as composed (politically) of two parts. Part [1] is composed of people who love democracy, rule-of-law, decency, and peace. I hope it is a majority. Part [2], which disdains democracy and rule-of-law and decency and peace, includes the ruling oligarchs (billionaires and CEOs of great corporations), the CIA, the neocons and Zionists in and around the government (call it the “deep state”) and which currently includes most politicians who are “bought-and-paid-for” by the oligarchs and especially by the Zionists among them. Part [2] got the USA into its ultimately suicidal support for Israel since 1967, into endless war, and into the present war (and impending calamitous defeat) with Iran. I assign to Part [2] the label “America’s Internal Great Satan” and hope that the USA’s defeat by Iran will somehow lead to political defeat at home of Part [2], our internal “Great Satan” component. America’s oligarchs (and not just the Zionists: AIPAC, Adelson, et al.) are by all appearances so protected by personal wealth that they are unaware of, unconcerned with, and basically ignorant of any realities outside those of their own businesses and political intrigues. This means that the oligarchs should never, never, never have been allowed to assume direct control of the USA’s government, because they are unconcerned with, often ignorant of—or in many cases opposed to— all the components of the American National Interest except their own narrow desires for profits and political power. I say, emphatically, that “What’s good for business is not necessarily good for America”, and letting these ignoramuses run our governments makes as much sense as letting three-year-olds drive cars. And since the oligarchs achieved their take-over of government by “capture”, we may thank the obviously captured Supreme Court which for decades has empowered the take-over of government by businesses by its money-is-speech and corporate-money-as-speech-is-protected-by-the-First-Amendment just like the speech of human persons. The oligarchs have allowed—and many have promoted—the USA’s support for Israel and all the USA’s ridiculously expensive wars and are directly responsible for all the consequences of that support including the loss of the present war. Defeating America’s Internal Great Satan Getting “Big Money Out Of Politics” is the only way to wrest political control from the oligarchs. If anger about the loss of this war can lead to a popular revolt against Big Money In Politics, there is some hope for the future of America. Defeating “Big Money” would, among other benefits, defeat the stranglehold that AIPAC and the reset of the Israel Lobby have on Congress and the president. It would end America’s long series of useless and enormously expensive wars fought at Israel’s request. Defeating “Big Money” would also allow the USA to begin to treat the climate catastrophe (global warming and its consequences) as the great threat that it is, a threat that the brain-dead (or merely corrupt) politicians and attention-depleted oligarchs have done nothing about except to denounce it as a hoax and defeat any effort to deal with it. Video Bibliography: Some Information About The War Not Following American Government/Israeli Party-Lines Information (which is not USA propaganda) about the war with Iran can be found easily on YouTube and I recommend: • Statement by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Feb 7, 2026. This statement states that the international community must affirm: • the end of occupation • the right of return • compensation in accordance with international law • the establishment of a unified and independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Old Jerusalem] as its capital •Alastair Crooke and any other interview with this well-informed gentleman. • George Galloway interviewingGlenn Diesen. Another estimable pair. • Larry C. Johnson & Col. Larry Wilkerson (see @ 8:50). Still another estimable pair. • Richard D Wolff talks history and economic consequences of the Iran war (@14:00) Wolff mostly writes about economics. • Mohammad Marandi. Marandi is an Iranian professor who comments on the war. • Chas Freeman. Chas Freeman is a former USA diplomat that progressive Democrats once proposed as Secretary of State as I recall. Fabulous, be sure to watch his videos. |
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