I remember how upset I was with Obama’s Iran deal; I wrote quite a bit about it at the time. But one thing I didn’t notice back then was Marco Rubio’s speech on the occasion. It’s worth looking at now – short but impressively prescient:
Rubio said he was speaking for history. Well, it’s over ten years later, and now he’s in a position to do something about it.
Spain, an ally? Well, it is in NATO, and it does let us have some bases within its borders. But in terms of history – during WWI it was neutral and during WWII it became a “non-belligerent” Axis affiliate while providing the Axis powers with important material such as tungsten. Spain also was under Muslim domination from 711 to 1492, and in recent years, the Muslim population of Spain has been growing:
According to an unofficial estimation of 2020 by the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain (UCIDE) the Muslim population in Spain represents 4.45% of the total Spanish population as of 2019, of whom 42% were Spanish citizens (most of them with foreign family origins), 38% Moroccans, and 20% of other nationalities.
So Spain has no particular inclination to be helpful to us in our attack on Iran, and has refused to do so:
Spain has denied the US permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran as Madrid stepped up its criticism of the “unjustified and dangerous military intervention”.
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s “unilateral military action” against Iran, warning that it is contributing to “a more hostile and uncertain international order”. The rebukes have been reinforced by his government’s refusal to allow the US to use bases in Rota and Morón for the continuing strikes against Iran.
José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said on Monday that while the government wanted “democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people”, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action.
No doubt the Iranian people are hugely grateful for his good wishes for their freedom without any desire to give them the bare minimum of actual help.
Spain says the reason for its refusal is that the operation against Iran doesn’t have the blessing of the international community. I say it’s because Spain is run by leftists who hate Israel and don’t want their own Muslim population to give them any trouble.
Trump issued the following threat to Spain, and wasn’t too happy with Starmer either (another leftist head of state worried about the substantial Muslim population in his country):
President Trump railed Tuesday against NATO allies that refused to allow the US to use their bases to attack Iran, declaring he was going to “cut off all trade with Spain” and denouncing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “no Winston Churchill.”
Trump became visibly angry during his sitdown with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, spending several minutes blasting America’s European allies and arguing that they don’t spend enough on defense.
He also had harsh words for Starmer, showing a strain in his relationship with the United Kingdom.
“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said of the Labour prime minister.
The two leaders have been exchanging harsh words since Starmer denied Trump permission to use UK military bases in the first wave of attacks on Iran Saturday. …
“This government does not believe in regime change from the skies,” Starmer declared. “It is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest. That is what I have done. And I stand by it.”
Starmer doesn’t believe in “regime change from the skies”? I guess the RAF in WWII wouldn’t have flown to Germany if Starmer had been in charge; Trump is certainly right about the “no Churchill” remark. Would Starmer prefer to wait until the mullahs in Iran decide to lob a long-range ballistic missile Britain’s way?
Then again, there’s this:
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, did not initially allow US forces to use Diego Garcia or any UK airbases because of doubts about the legality of the strikes. But he changed his position on Sunday after Iran launched a wave of retaliatory missile and drone attacks on targets across the Middle East – one of which hit a UK airbase in Cyprus.
Oopsies. Trump responded by saying that Starmer had taken “far too long” to make the concession.
Germany has been somewhat less critical about the US on Iran, with Merz saying: “we’re not going to be lecturing our partners on their military strikes against Iran … Despite all the doubts, we share many of their aims.” Nevertheless, no action is forthcoming from Germany:
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Berlin is closely coordinating its position with European partners, the UK and France, though each country will decide independently what military defensive measures to take.
“The UK has concluded that it will make military bases available to the Americans. We don’t have any bases there, we also don’t have the corresponding military resources,” he told public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “And the German government definitely has no intention of participating in any way,” he said.
And what of France?
French President Emmanuel Macron said the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began Saturday and killed the country’s supreme leader were conducted “outside of international law” and that Paris “cannot approve of them.”
What a guy. Then again, it was General Norman Schwarzkopf who said: “Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion.”
And yet Macron has offered a modest accordion:
To protect French interests in the Middle East, Macron said that the Charles de Gaulle, the country’s only aircraft carrier, was being deployed to the Mediterranean alongside fighter jets and air defense systems.
“We will continue this effort as long as it is needed,” he said.
Macron also confirmed that France had sent anti-missile systems to Cyprus …
Iran’s strikes on Cyprus seem to have engendered a certain amount of fear in Europe, it seems. That’s slightly similar to the Gulf States’ angry response to Iran’s attack on them. Seems those attacks were unforced errors by Iran, somewhat like Hitler’s decision – often considered “puzzling” – to declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor, which resulted in the US declaring war on Germany:
The only person who did not vote for war was pacifist Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin who had also voted against war with Japan.
In the Senate the vote was unanimous.
Both Democrats and Republicans have agreed to “adjourn politics” for the duration of the war and focus on national defence.
Greatest Generation.
Truth is unimportant to the left or the MSM because the leftist MSM serves a higher truth. This is the general approach, but it’s especially evident in coverage about Israel, which is presented in a way that is usually negative for that country.
I discovered the pattern long ago; it was part of my change story. I later discovered that lying for a “higher truth” was the template of the al Durah story, in which the French media which initially reported that Israelis had killed a young Palestinian boy had the raw footage that proved the killing was staged by Palestinians and the boy was almost certainly alive, but ignored that fact because they were so convinced that Israel was evil and Palestinians good. So a little detail like the truth or falsehood of that particular story didn’t matter.
Here’s an excellent discussion of how it played out in the Gaza war and how it’s playing out already in Iran and our press. Hint: it’s the same playbook as before.
Iran knows a report like this will fire up the Tucker Carlson woke right, and the left. They know that the MSM will report it uncritically, and that the little disclaimer won’t matter. They know that if Iran’s own ordinance fell short and hit a school full of children (or if they did it purposely; they certainly could not care less about killing their own people), it may never be known by the wider world:
On February 28th, 2026, Iranian state media reported that American strikes had hit an elementary school in Minab, a port city in Hormozgan Province. The school was named: Shajareh Tayyebeh. The casualties were implied: children. Within hours, Reuters had the story. So did the AP. So did the BBC. The phrase “could not independently verify” appeared in every version, tucked into the middle of the paragraph like a disclaimer on a cigarette packet. Present. Acknowledged. Functionally irrelevant.
The story ran anyway.
Here is what was publicly available before a single editor hit publish. The Shajareh Tayyebeh school sits adjacent to, or within the perimeter of, an IRGC Asef Brigade naval installation. This is not classified intelligence. Pre-conflict reports from open-source defense analysts had mapped the facility. It had been identified in war-gaming scenarios published by Middle Eastern security forums. A reporter with a laptop and fifteen minutes could have found it.
Nobody looked. Just like nobody looked at the at the blast crater in the Al-Ahli parking lot before running Hamas’s version.
The same local governor whose statement provided Western outlets with their casualty framing also referenced, in that very statement, American strikes on IRGC medical facilities in the area. That context did not make the international version of the story. The dead IRGC personnel mentioned in Farsi-language social media posts from apparent Minab residents did not make it either. What made the story was the word “school” and the implication of dead children, sourced entirely to the public relations apparatus of a regime that has spent four decades perfecting the art of strategic mourning.
We don’t know the facts for sure yet, but there’s every reason to doubt the Iranian report:
And yet this story has spread around the world.
(1) From yesterday’s primaries: Crenhaw is out, Jasmine Crockett (whom the GOP wanted because she would probably be easiest to beat) is out and declaring her opponent cheated, and Cornyn and Paxton will have a runoff.
(2) The US has torpedoed an Iranian warship:
An American submarine sank an Iranian warship named the Soleimani in the Indian Ocean overnight — the first such US attack on a member of an enemy fleet since World War II, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday.
The “quiet death” strike on Iran’s prized vessel, the IRIS Shahid Soleimani, unfolded late Tuesday off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Hegseth said, telling reporters during a Pentagon briefing that the ship “thought it was safe in international waters.”
“Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II,” Hegseth added. “Like in that war, back when we were still the War Department, we are fighting to win.”
I watched a great many WWII movies on TV as a child, and torpedoes were heavily featured – and frightening.
(3) In that friendly fire incident in Kuwait in which three US planes were shot down – with all six crew members safe – the fire came from Kuwaiti forces.
(4) Those three policemen who shot the killer in Austin will not be referred to a grand jury. That’s certainly the right call.
(5) Steve Witcoff talks about the negotiations with Iran. The gist of it is that Iran never was willing to make concessions and was openly and unashamedly determined to enrich uranium to weapons-grade:
When I first saw this story two days ago, I thought it was old. It’s not:
The fiend behind Sunday’s bloodbath at a packed Austin bar was an ex-New York City resident wearing a “Property of Allah’’ hoodie — and possibly out for vengeance over the US attack on Iran, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
Crazed Texas shooter Ndiaga Diagne, 53, of Senegal arrived in the US on March 13, 2000 on a B-2 tourist visa during the Democratic Clinton administration and became a lawful permanent resident (IR-6) when he married a US citizen in June 2006, a source familiar with his immigration history told The Post.
Same for this:
A North Carolina man accused of stabbing another individual in broad daylight has faced more than 18 criminal charges over the past decade, including assault-related cases and a domestic-violence conviction, before the latest violent incident, court records show.
Micah Emmanuel Ragin, 31, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury after a Feb. 28 altercation in east Charlotte.
Not to mention this terrible one:
A Virginia murder suspect accused of fatally stabbing a woman at a bus stop earlier this week has a lengthy criminal history filled with multiple arrests, but was let back onto the streets nearly every time.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, is charged with the Monday night killing of Stephanie Minter, 41, of Fredericksburg, at a bus stop shelter, the Fairfax County Police Department said. …
He was arrested at a liquor store after an employee called 911. At the time, officers arrested him for allegedly shoplifting. Investigators linked him to the murder a day later.
Authorities were still trying to determine a motive for the killing and what led to the deadly stabbing.
A search of online court records revealed Jalloh has more than a dozen arrests in northern Virginia, including on charges of petty larceny and malicious wounding.
In most of the cases, prosecutors dropped the charges, FOX D.C. reported.
The prosecutors say they dropped charges because the victims often had no fixed address and couldn’t be located. Seems that, in addition to robbing liquor stores, this guy may have usually preyed on the homeless, but until now he never killed anyone. And Sephanie Minter was not homeless.
Oh, and by the way, Jalloh is an illegal alien. Surprise, surprise. He entered the US in 2012, during the Obama years:
His criminal history includes more than 30 arrests for charges of rape, malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity theft, trespassing, larceny, firing a weapon, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and pick pocketing.
ICE previously lodged a detainer against Jalloh in 2020, and he was granted a final order of removal by a judge who found he could be removed to any country other than Sierra Leone. This case illustrated the importance of third country removals to get criminal illegal aliens out of the U.S.
And yet he was still here. Plus, guess what? Governor Spanberger of Virginia is still refusing to turn him over to ICE without the feds getting a warrant, which is not legally necessary (see this).
Oh, but there’s more. In connection with the Austin shooting, the officers involved will probably go before a grand jury:
Three hero Austin cops who put their lives on the line to stop a maniac’s deadly shooting rampage are expected to face a grand-jury investigation thanks to a George Floyd-era policy.
Texas lawyer Doug O’Connell, whose firm O’Connell West has been tapped to represent the officers at the behest of the Austin Police Association, told The Post on Tuesday that such mandatory reviews are the brainchild of Austin District Attorney José Garza.
“The district attorney, at the direction of the Wren Collective, insists on presenting every officer involved shooting to a grand jury,’’ O’Connell said, referencing a shadowy and influential left-wing Austin-based criminal-justice reform group.
“We believe that our clients will face this same process,” the lawyer said.
What is the Wren Collective? Here’s their website:
Reimagining the Way Our Country Approaches the Criminal Legal System
Ever notice how often the word “reimagine” is connected with these leftist pipedreams? “Imagine,” indeed – a la the John Lennon song.
The Wren Collective works to transform America’s approach to public safety, expose the weaponization of the legal system, and ensure every person has the chance to participate in civic society. For too long, those with power have exploited the criminal legal system to take away the rights of marginalized communities, people of color, immigrants, and increasingly, their political opponents.
Wren pushes for a world where everyone—not just those with money and power—can live healthy, safe, and dignified lives.
Or where only the powerful can. The rest of you must be sacrificed on the altar of virtue-signaling “reimagination.”
Who funds the Wren Collective? The answer is about what you’d expect:
A consulting firm funded by left-wing billionaires has embedded itself in the offices of 40 progressive prosecutors, where it has quietly helped to craft soft-on-crime policies that now affect 48 million Americans across 22 states. Known as the Wren Collective, the firm provides its services to the prosecutors for free and with no expectation of publicity, according to a new report by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF). …
The Wren Collective is bankrolled by several left-wing billionaires. It received over $500,000 from the Texas billionaire John Arnold, who has invested more than $46 million into progressive criminal justice reform efforts since 2019. The firm also received $295,000 from a group run by disgraced Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King, the Real Justice PAC, and $250,000 from Open Philanthropy, a group run by Cari Tuna, the wife of Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz.
The group worked with some of the most left-wing prosecutors in the country, including former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, Burlington, Vt., state’s attorney Sarah George, and Monique Worrell, the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida. Boudin held weekly “comms huddle up calls with the group”; George worked with Wren Collective to decriminalize prostitution; and George shared confidential case files on a murder case with the Wren Collective before she decided to decline charges in the matter. …
… [Former Portland, Oregon, DA Mike Schmidt’s] office dismissed hundreds of criminal charges against violent protesters involved in the George Floyd riots in Portland shortly after the policy went into effect.
Schmidt, who left office in January, is just one of 40 progressive prosecutors who have worked with the Wren Collective since its creation in early 2020 …
“This is a much deeper problem than people understand,” said LELDF policy director Sean Kennedy, who led the group’s research into the Wren Collective. “Progressive prosecutors are not part of some organic movement. They are simply the face of a carefully designed and highly coordinated campaign to undermine the American criminal justice system from within. Our research shows that donors fund the production, activists write the script, the Wren Collective directs the scene, and their client prosecutors dutifully act out their parts.”
We already knew that Soros was involved with funding the campaigns of so many of these DAs. But I don’t recall reading about the Wren Collective before, although it seems to coordinate the whole thing.
In the 60s, leftists used to have to rob banks or people to get money. No more! And you can bet that their wealthy funders have plenty of security; they’re not riding light rail or waiting at bus stops.
(1) Today is Purim, the Jewish festival that celebrates the obliteration of Haman, head of a movement in ancient Persia to eliminate the Jews, and his followers. Interesting, no? Most people think it’s just a story and has no historical reality, but one wonders. And note this: something like the name “Haman” is embedded in the name “Khameini.
(2) Another snowstorm where I am. Fortunately, I don’t have to go out. And so far I haven’t lost power.
(3) Qatar warns Iran to stop attacking it or they will retaliate.
As you might imagine, Tucker Carlson is experiencing stress, with two of his favorite places – Qatar and Iran – squabbling. But he is flexible enough to resolve his dilemma by claiming that the attacks on Qatar may seem to come from Iran, but they’re actually orchestrated by Israel, of course:
Tucker is an absolute lunatic.
1) He blames the damage against the Gulf States on Israel, even when those themselves are blaming The Islamic Republic.
2) He claims that the Saudis & Qatar arrested Mossad agents that planned to bomb those countries. This is completely made up pic.twitter.com/eNrmNUu95H
— AG (@AGHamilton29) March 2, 2026
But from Al Jazeera, no special friend of Israel:
Qatar’s FM spokesperson adds that there is no information on Mossad cells operating in the country.
This comes after US broadcaster Tucker Carlson claimed that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have arrested individuals linked to Mossad.
What Qatar has done is to arrest two Iranian sleeper cells (from Al Jazeera as well):
Qatar has announced the arrest of what it called two cells operating for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ten suspects were arrested in the cells, the Qatar News Agency (QNA) announced on Tuesday. Seven had been assigned to spy on “vital and military facilities” in Qatar, while three were tasked with carrying out sabotage operations.
Hey Tucker, maybe the Jews have hacked Al Jazeera too, right?
(4) Megyn Kelly isn’t far behind Tucker in saying the war is being fought for Israel rather than for the US, and Trump has criticized both of them.
(5) NeverTrumpers Bill Kristol, et al, say Trump shouldn’t have attacked Iran. And yet for quite some time they’ve been angrily asking Trump to do something to help the Iranian protesters. But hey, consistency isn’t their strong suit, except in one regard: whatever Trump does, they’re against it.
Those of us of a certain age remember the 1979 Iranian Revolution and of course the taking of the US hostages, which was an outrage and a humiliation. Young people don’t remember it and most probably know little to nothing about it (and perhaps couldn’t care less), but the rest of us remember. It’s not necessarily been in the forefront of our minds, but it’s been there, multiplied by other incidents in which the theocrats of Iran presided over the killings of Americans and others all over the world.
And what did the US do about it? Pretty much nothing.
If you take a look at the sidebar on my blog, you’ll see that I’ve written 387 posts under the category “Iran” (this one will make 388). That’s a lot of verbiage, and many of these posts involve the history of the 70s and 80s there. Another large number involve Obama’s infuriating Iran policy.
It seemed as though something should be done to stop them, but it never was. It’s not that we lacked the firepower, either. But we never wanted to inflame the region, nor did we want to harm the people of Iran, who periodically rose up against their leaders, only to be slaughtered. So our rage was mostly impotent. Meanwhile, our weapons became more and more sophisticated. Even the “smart” bombs of the Gulf War were surpassed over and over, as pinpoint accuracy became the norm. Some of the advances were secret, but we knew they were happening although we didn’t know the details – only rumors.
The policy on the part of Democrat presidents over the forty-seven years since 1979 has been weak, and with Obama (and Biden) it even turned against Israel, at least somewhat, and towards Iran. Both Bush II and Trump in his first administration had a “let Israel take care of it” mindset. With Trump’s second administration, that has ended.
Trump is basically Jacksonian in foreign policy:
Although Jacksonians share a domestic focus, they have been behind some of the most assertive American foreign policies in history. They are populists who believe in democracy emerging from the people and display a belligerent nationalism, quick to defend American honour and interests. Jacksonians support strong defence spending and are focused on American victory rather than global salvation.
Jacksonians don’t like to intervene militarily in foreign countries. But not only will they do it when sorely pressed, but when they decide on a military attack they don’t do it halfheartedly. They unleash a “terrible swift sword” and also try to spare American lives. But they have no trouble moving boldly and decisively.
And at this point, Trump doesn’t mind a little “global salvation” either.
It took Trump to move this way against Iran, and it helped very much that Netanyahu is the head of Israel at present. There has never been such a coordinated US/Israel military action, and that started last summer with the first wave of bombings of nuclear facilities. Trump is unafraid of doing things that previous presidents thought either impossible or unwise or both, such as moving the embassy to Jerusalem or killing Soleimani. The repercussions from Iran were thought to be too high, but it turned out they weren’t high at all.
This military assault on Iran has been planned, in one way or another, for a long time. And by “a long time” I mean more than fifteen years. I saw a recent interview with Petraeus in which he said there was a similar plan already developed back when he was in charge in the Middle East in 2009. Although the weaponry was of course not as sophisticated as it is now, the general plan was there. But it was never used.
Until now.
Whatever ends up happening in Iran and whether the people of Iran can manage the difficult task of forming a viable state that no longer threatens its neighbors, it took Trump (in tandem with Netanyahu) to lance this long-festering boil. The Iranian refugees around the world are thanking them, especially Trump:
[NOTE: In other news, there was a report that the mullahs got bombed while trying to elect a new leader. However, I think it was probably just the building:
Following the attack, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency claimed that the building was an old structure that was no longer used by the assembly for its meetings.
It remains unclear how many members of the assembly, if any, were inside the building and casting a ballot when the building was hit.
And now it’s been announced that a new leader has in fact been selected: Khameini’s son.]
[ADDENDUM: Why is Europe so afraid to stand up to Iran? Short answer: they’re afraid of their own large Muslim populations causing internal trouble. I also think they don’t want to stand up to anyone except Israel and the US.]
RIP:
So much to read, so much to hear, so much to think about. I can’t cover it all, so I pick and choose, day by day. But some general thoughts …
For those of us who are older – and I know many of you are – we remember back to the 1979 Iranian revolution. Until the last few days, I didn’t really think I’d see the regime fall. And of course it still might not fall; nothing is certain. But the stunning scope of the attack on Iran by the US and Israel is really astounding.
I’m planning to write a post about that tomorrow – the coordination of intelligence and the weaponry that’s being revealed. It’s like something out of science fiction. And there’s probably plenty we still don’t know.
What will happen in Iran if the regime is destroyed? Could things get worse than they already were? I don’t know; it’s certainly possible, although Iran has been so bad for so long that I think it’s worth the risk. The rewards could be extremely great if things do work out.
Trump and Netanyahu were well aware of that:
Ahead of Saturday’s US-Israel attack on Iran, US President Donald Trump received briefings both warning of the potential major US casualties and touting the prospect of a significant shift in the Middle East in favor of US interests, a US official told Reuters Saturday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the briefers described the operation to the president as a high-risk, high-reward scenario.
I think that’s obvious. It’s probably the main reason why no president has ever tried it before, despite the many provocations. I think we can safely say that Trump is different.
Taking a leaf out of Hamas’ book?:
The two most powerful officials in Iran have sought refuge in a hospital.
Ali Larijani and Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, who are both high-priority targets, have reportedly taken refuge inside a hospital for cover out of fear of being located and targeted.
Both widely seen as wielding the most power in Iran’s leadership after Khamenei’s death.
The Islamic Republic is widely reported to use hospitals and schools as human shields.
Makes sense.
As far as we know, there are no US boots on the ground in Iran and no plan for any. However, it’s Israel that’s been offing the Iranian leaders. There may be Mossad boots on the ground.