I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
John Mearsheimer: President Trump’s
decision to attack Iran on 28 February 2026 was irrational because it
was based on a noncredible or flawed theory of victory. He assumed that
independent air power alone could cause regime change in Iran, which
would lead to a new regime that would surrender to US and Israeli
demands.
Highly recommended video on President Trump’s war on Iran and its consequences for the region, America and the world.
Israel denies withholding supplies for Gaza’s more than 2 million residents
MADRID, April 12 (Reuters) – A second
flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to
set sail on Sunday from the Spanish port of Barcelona to try to break
the Israeli blockade.
About 30 boats planned to leave the
Mediterranean port city laden with medical aid and other supplies on
the Global Sumud Flotilla, and more vessels are expected to join along
the route towards Palestine.
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The Israeli military halted the roughly 40
boats assembled by the same organisation last October as they
attempted to reach blockaded Gaza, arresting Swedish activist Greta
Thunberg and more than 450 other participants.
MISSION TO ‘OPEN HUMANITARIAN CORRIDOR’
Israel, which controls all access to the
Gaza Strip, denies withholding supplies for its more than 2 million
residents. Yet Palestinians and international aid bodies say supplies
reaching the territory are still insufficient, despite a ceasefire
reached in October which included guarantees of increased aid.
Liam Cunningham, an actor who starred in
the Game of Thrones television series who is supporting the flotilla but
not taking part, told Reuters: “Every kilogram of aid that is on
these ships is a failure because all these people on these ships giving
up their time to help their fellow human beings are doing what their
governments are legally obliged to do.”
The World Health Organization has said
that even during armed conflicts, states are obligated under
international humanitarian law to ensure that people are able to reach
medical care in safety.
“This is a mission that aims to open a
humanitarian corridor so the aid delivery organisations can arrive,”
Saif Abukeshak, a Palestinian activist and member of the flotilla’s
organising committee, told Reuters.
Swiss and Spanish activists on last year’s
flotilla said they were subjected to inhumane conditions during their
detention by Israeli forces – an allegation that was rejected by an
Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson.
Reporting by Graham Keeley; Additional
reporting by Silvio Castellanos, Horaci Garcia, Nacho Doce, Albert Gea,
Michele Spatari and Amy McConaghy; Editing by David Holmes
Residents
gather near charred cars and buildings, at the site of Wednesday’s
Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 10, 2026. [AP
Photo/Emilio Morenatti]
On Friday, during a phone interview with the New York Post,
President Trump said US warships were being reloaded with weapons to be
used against Iran in anticipation of a failure of the ceasefire talks
taking place in Pakistan.
When asked if he thought the negotiations
would be successful, he said, “We’re going to find out in about 24
hours. We’re going to know soon.” Trump’s remarks are an unmistakable
indication that the two-week pause in the US air assault on Iran he
announced on Tuesday has resolved nothing and is being used to prepare
the next stage of the war.
Trump made clear that the Pentagon is
replenishing its weaponry during the pause in the air assault. He said,
“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best
ammunition, the best weapons ever made—even better than what we did
previously, and we blew them apart.”
Emphasizing that a return to warfare was
on the agenda, Trump repeated himself, “But we’re loading up the ships.
We’re loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a
higher level than we used to do a complete decimation. And if we don’t
have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very
effectively.”
Reports from multiple outlets since
Tuesday show that Iran retains control over the passage through the
Strait of Hormuz, with shipping still restricted and, in some accounts,
subject to Iranian oversight or tolling arrangements. Disturbed by
Iran’s control of the strait and the fact that this is being reported
widely by the corporate media, Trump posted on Truth Social at 12:30
p.m. on Friday, “The Iranians are better at handling the Fake News
Media, and ‘Public Relations,’ than they are at fighting!”
A report by CBS News said data compiled by
MarineTraffic shows that only 22 ships have passed through the strait
since Tuesday. Estimates of shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf
indicate a significant bottleneck of over 600 total commercial vessels
at a standstill, approximately 400 of which are oil tankers, and not
moving through the strait.
A few minutes later, Trump escalated his
threats against Iran, writing, “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they
have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using
International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to
negotiate!”
There are major conflicts within the US
ruling establishment over whether the talks will produce any results
because of Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon. Iranian officials have
warned that time is running out, while US officials are trying to
preserve the ceasefire before it expires on April 22.
However, based on Trump’s comments to the New York Post,
it is likely the Israeli attacks on Lebanon are being used to
deliberately sabotage talks that function as a cover for preparations to
restart the war on a far higher level.
The truce discussions are taking place in
Islamabad, with Pakistan mediating and a large US delegation involved,
including Vice President JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marco
Rubio and Adm. Brad Cooper, alongside officials from the National
Security Council, State Department and Pentagon.
On the Iranian side, reports say the
delegation arrived in Islamabad and is headed by Parliament Speaker
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other
senior officials also included. Reuters described the meeting as
“make-or-break,” and other reports say the two sides remain far apart on
core issues.
The official line is that the talks are
meant to translate the ceasefire into a longer standing arrangement, but
there is no agreement over whether Lebanon is covered. Pakistan and
Iran have said that the ceasefire framework includes Lebanon, while the
White House and Israel have denied it.
Iran’s position is tied to Israel’s
continued expansion of the war in Lebanon. Iranian state-linked comments
reported in the press have framed the Lebanese front as inseparable
from Iran’s own security, with Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Seyed
Majid Mousavi warning that “Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression
towards Iran,” and promising a “heavy response.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who previously said there is “no cease-fire in Lebanon,” agreed on
Thursday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon after Trump urged
restraint by Israel, and the European imperialist leaders warned that
the attacks on Lebanon threatened to collapse the ceasefire with Iran.
Recent reporting says that more than 1.2
million people have been displaced since the beginning of the conflict,
with the UN citing evacuation orders covering 14 percent of the country.
On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least 303 people and injured
more than 1,000, the deadliest day so far in the war that began on March
2.
The scale of destruction is also being
measured in infrastructure collapse. Reports cite strikes on roads,
bridges, hospitals and commercial districts, with aid delivery badly
disrupted and parts of the south rendered non-functional. Like the Gaza
genocide, this is not a limited border operation; It is a systematic
campaign to make areas of Lebanon uninhabitable.Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
The correspondence of interests between
Washington and Tel Aviv were expressed when Trump said on Wednesday that
he had spoken with Netanyahu and that Israel would “tone it down” in
Lebanon. Knowing full well the Iranian position on the Lebanon, Trump
added, “I just think we need to be a bit more low-key,” and claimed
Netanyahu would “ease up” and be “totally fine” on the Lebanon issue.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s latest statements
make clear that Israel’s objective is not a pause but a
political-military restructuring of Lebanon. He has said the talks with
Lebanon will focus on “disarming Hezbollah” and establishing “peaceful
relations” on Israeli terms, while also insisting that Israel will keep
striking until its security conditions are met.
These remarks should be understood
alongside the fact that the bombing of Lebanon continues. Israel is
using negotiations as a cover to press its military campaign, not as a
genuine path to de-escalation. Israeli strikes continued Thursday
killing dozens more, with between 17 and 24 killed in specific strikes
by Israel.
This is in fact the same modus operandi of
the Trump administration itself. The “talks” in Islamabad are but a
respite as the White House considers its next move to militarily impose
the requirements of US imperialism onto the Iranian people.
The WSWS has consistently maintained that
this war is part of the imperialist effort by Washington to subordinate
the region to American interests. The US is pursuing “the obliteration
of Iran as a state and a campaign of terror against the population,” and
that the assault on Iran is tied to control over energy resources and
preparation for wider a conflict, including against China and Russia.
As an anonymous senior defense official
told Politico in March, “Iran is not the end. It’s the first test of a
broader geopolitical reorientation. We’re rebuilding the capacity to
project power simultaneously in multiple theaters—Eurasia, the Pacific,
and the Middle East.”
This analysis identifies the present war
as a warning of what is coming next. The aim of US imperialism is the
domination of Iran as a major opening act in a broader global
escalation. The Middle East war is the sharpest expression of the world
crisis of capitalism.
The ceasefire talks in Islamabad cannot
resolve a conflict rooted in imperialist strategy, Israeli expansionism
and the drive of the US ruling class to redivide the region by force.
With these objectives intact, the present truce will be unstable, and
the threat of a far broader war will continue to hang over the region
and the world.
We know that the Iranian delegation is
going there to stop the war and that the war is putting a huge amount of
pressure on civilians living inside the country.
For 40 days, they were experiencing
attacks after attacks targeting civilians and infrastructure, and the
naming of the delegation as Minab 168 symbolises one of the first
attacks on the very first day, when an elementary school was targeted in
the city of Minab, where over 168 student girls and teachers were
killed.
We know that the Iranian delegation is
going there to stop the war and that the war is putting a huge amount of
pressure on civilians living inside the country.
For 40 days, they were experiencing
attacks after attacks targeting civilians and infrastructure, and the
naming of the delegation as Minab 168 symbolises one of the first
attacks on the very first day, when an elementary school was targeted in
the city of Minab, where over 168 student girls and teachers were
killed.
We know that more than 800 schools, more
than 30 universities, healthcare facilities, and a long list of other
infrastructural facilities were targeted as a result of this campaign of
strikes.
So, the message or the interpretation is
that first, Iran is trying to put an end to this suffering and pain that
civilians have been witnessing over the past weeks as a result of war,
but it also symbolises a diplomatic opportunity that Iran is trying to
settle down the issue.
That is more than crystal clear when it
comes to the delegation that you see in Islamabad, showing how serious
Iran tries to be when it comes to the potential for diplomatic
settlement.
ls, more
than 30 universities, healthcare facilities, and a long list of other
infrastructural facilities were targeted as a result of this campaign of
strikes.
So, the message or the interpretation is
that first, Iran is trying to put an end to this suffering and pain that
civilians have been witnessing over the past weeks as a result of war,
but it also symbolises a diplomatic opportunity that Iran is trying to
settle down the issue.
That is more than crystal clear when it
comes to the delegation that you see in Islamabad, showing how serious
Iran tries to be when it comes to the potential for diplomatic
settlement.
Published date: 10 April 2026 13:35 BST | Last update:39 mins 32 secs ago
Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, called Israel “evil” and a “curse for humanity” in an X post on Thursday, just hours before US and Iranian delegations were due to arrive in Islamabad for peace talks mediated by Pakistan.
In the post, which has since been deleted,
Asif wrote: “While peace talks are underway in Islamabad, genocide is
being committed in Lebanon. Innocent citizens are being killed by
Israel, first Gaza, then Iran and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated. I hope and pray people who created this cancerous state on Palestinians land to get rid of European jews burn in hell.”
The statement followed a wave of Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday that killed over 200 people and wounded over 1,000 in the heaviest day of bombing on the Lebanese capital in decades.
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The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office called Asif’s comments “outrageous” in a post on X.
“This is not a statement that can be
tolerated from any government, especially not from one that claims to be
a neutral arbiter for peace,” it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said
in a post on X that Israel “views very gravely these blatant
antisemitic blood libels from a government claiming to mediate peace”.
“Calling the Jewish state ‘cancerous’ is effectively calling for its annihilation,” he added.
A
screenshot of the deleted tweet on 9 April by Pakistani Defence
Minister Khawaja Asif describing Israel as ‘cancerous’ and ‘evil’
Islamabad is set to host delegations from
the US and Iran from Friday, with talks scheduled to begin on Saturday.
They are aimed at ending the US-Israeli war on Iran, which reached a tentative ceasefire agreement on Wednesday.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Friday that Iranian delegates would not attend peace talks unless the ceasefire agreement is extended to Lebanon.
One Pakistani official involved in the mediation talks told The Guardian on Friday: “Our priority is that the talks go smoothly.”
“We don’t want to be seen as a spoiler.
Our role is as a facilitator and mediator. We will leave it to both
parties, Iran and the US, to share any developments with the media if
they want.”
Pakistan, which has positioned itself at
the centre of global conflict mediation during the war, has also been
mired in its own conflict with Afghanistan since declaring “open war” on 27 February.
Hundreds have been killed and nearly 100,000 displaced by cross-border shelling and air strikes during the conflict, which China is simultaneously mediating.
Asif, a veteran member of the conservative
Pakistan Muslim League party that has governed Pakistan since 2024 and
during several previous administrations, has long been vocal in his
criticism of Israel.
On 3 March, he described Zionism as “a threat to humanity” in a post on X.
“From the establishment of Israel on the
land of Palestine until today, every catastrophe that has befallen the
Islamic world, every war imposed upon it, will show the direct or
indirect hand of Zionist ideology and the state,” he wrote.
US officials were aware that a statement
from Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the US-Iran ceasefire
that was issued on Tuesday included a truce in Lebanon as part of the
deal, according to media reports.
The New York Times reported that the US
had already seen and signed off on Sharif’s statement before he posted
it. The initial post included a header that said “Draft – Pakistan’s PM
Message on X,” causing speculation that the statement was actually
written by the US, though a White House official denied that President
Trump drafted it.
A diplomatic source familiar with the
negotiations leading up to the ceasefire announcement told ITV News that
Iranian and Pakistani officials ended the talks with the understanding
that the US was aware that the truce also applied to Lebanon,
contradicting claims from Trump and Vice President JD Vance that it did
not.
Vance claimed it was a “misunderstanding”
on the part of the Iranians that the ceasefire included Lebanon and said
it would be “dumb” for Tehran to allow the negotiations to collapse
over the issue, though he also insisted the deal includes a halt to
Iranian attacks on Israel and the US’s Gulf allies in the region.
Israel not only continued its attacks on
Lebanon, but it also dramatically escalated the bombardment, launching a
new military operation dubbed “Operation Eternal Darkness” and killing
hundreds of people across the country. According to NBC News, Trump
asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale down the
attack, but heavy Israeli strikes continued on Thursday.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on
Thursday that he instructed his government to open negotiations with the
Lebanese government, though there’s no sign he plans to halt the
bombing campaign.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi
affirmed in a statement on Wednesday that the ceasefire must include
Lebanon or the deal will be off. “The Iran-US Ceasefire terms are clear
and explicit: the US must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel.
It cannot have both,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The world sees the massacres
in Lebanon. The ball is in the US court, and the world is watching
whether it will act on its commitments.”
US threats against Iran and ongoing Israeli attacks in Lebanon cast doubt on fragile ceasefire efforts.
By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and AP
Published On 9 Apr 2026
United States President Donald Trump has warned that US forces will remain deployed around Iran and threatened overwhelming military action if Tehran fails to meet Washington’s demands, casting doubt over a fragile ceasefire.
Writing on social media late on Wednesday, Trump said US troops, aircraft and naval forces would stay in position until what he described as the “REAL AGREEMENT” is fully implemented.
“All US ships, aircraft, and military personnel … will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“If for any reason it is not … the ‘Shootin’ Starts,′ bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before.”
The remarks came just a day after a two-week ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, brokered by Pakistan, paused six weeks of fighting and briefly calmed global markets worried about disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Yet Trump’s language underscored how quickly the truce could unravel. He reiterated US demands that Iran abandon any nuclear weapons ambitions and ensure safe passage through the vital shipping lane, while boasting that US forces were “Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest”.
Meanwhile, in Iran on Thursday, the semiofficial ISNA and Tasnim news agencies published a chart suggesting the country’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz during the war.
The chart showed a large circle marked “danger zone” in Farsi over the Traffic Separation Scheme, which was the route ships take through the strait. The chart suggested ships travel further north through waters closer to Iran’s mainland near Larak Island, a route that some ships were observed taking during the war. It was dated from February 28 until April 9, and it was unclear if the IRGC had cleared any mining on the route since then. Share this:
