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“Make no mistake: You won’t gain anything through war crimes. The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”

Trump’s expletive-laden post also drew criticism on Capitol Hill.

“Happy Easter, America. As you head off to church and celebrate with friends and family, the President of the United States is ranting like an unhinged madman on social media,” the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on X.

He’s threatening possible war crimes and alienating allies. This is who he is, but this is not who we are. Our country deserves so much better.”

The destruction on Thursday of the region’s tallest bridge, hailed in Iran as an engineering marvel, pointed to a grim new phase of the war, in which the US president has threatened to throw Iran back to the “stone ages”.

During war, international law protects civilians and what are known as civilian objects, such as infrastructure, rules that are enshrined in the Geneva conventions.

Oona A Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale University, said the US president had offered no explanation that would make the civilian objects he has threatened to target into lawful military objectives. She also said other nations had an obligation to ensure respect of the Geneva conventions, and not to aid and abet wrongful acts.

“If these threatened attacks were to be carried out, they would constitute war crimes,” said Hathaway. “Immiserating the civilian population for bargaining leverage is not lawful.”

Iranian steel manufacturing sites, petrochemicals plants, universities and medical facilities have all been bombed during the joint US-Israeli campaign.

About 81,000 civilian sites have been damaged, including 61,000 homes, 19,000 commercial sites, 275 medical centres, and nearly 500 schools, according to Iranian authorities.

The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said a number of its facilities had been targeted by Iranian drone attacks, resulting in fires and “significant material losses”.

Kuwait also reported that two power and water desalination plants sustained “significant material damage” after being attacked by Iranian drones.

The attack happened on the last day of the holidays to mark Iranian new year, and according to reports many families were picnicking nearby when missiles punched through the middle of the bridge, sending up a giant fireball.

The day trippers, who had pitched tents to enjoy the holiday, ran screaming. Local authorities said that 13 people were killed and 95 injured in the attack.

The bridge had not yet been opened. It was so far known only as B1, ahead of an inauguration due in the summer.

A civil engineer in Iran who worked on other significant infrastructure projects said that recent strikes on civilian infrastructure, all built with indigenous knowledge, had already “made it impossible to conceal hostility toward the Iranian people behind the mask of mere opposition to the government”.

But it was the strike on the bridge that was most painful for him, as he said it had no military, nuclear or government link.

“The target of this attack was nothing other than Iran’s pride,” he said. “A nation that has achieved such a level of self-sufficiency and productivity cannot be returned to the stone age.”

#iran #strait #hormuz #trump #israel #war

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#iran #trump #war #energy

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#hallel #hezbollah #british #warship

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Pope Leo XIV, in his Easter address “Urbi et Orbi”, declared that domination was “alien to the way of Jesus Christ”.

This happened against the background of the appeals of the Pentagon chief Hegseth to the pleas of the victory of the American soldiers “in the name of Jesus Christ”.

#LeonXIV #Hegseth #soldiers #americans

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Iran Took a Hit. It Held.

That’s what matters. The strikes damaged hardware, jammed networks, and put real pressure on the system. But Iran still kept its chain of command, its story, and its ability to answer.

What the campaign aimed at
This was never just about bombs. The goal was to throw the country off balance, hit military assets, and make the government look dysfunctional.

What did not happen
That's not what happened Iran still looked like a country with a center. It still issued orders, defined the fight on its own terms, and kept its response organized.

The bottom line
So the real point is simple: the damage was real, but it did not crack the system. And that distinction matters more than the headlines suggest.

#Iran #MiddleEast #war #sovereignty #strategy

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Turkish Stream, Orbán Edition

A pipeline, some explosives, and a very convenient political message. Hungarian officials say a sabotage attempt near Turkish Stream points toward Ukraine, after a separate alleged plot in Serbia pushed Budapest to put soldiers on guard.

If true, the logic is crude but familiar: when money stalls in Brussels, pressure turns physical somewhere else. Zelensky does not need to say much. Orbán blocks the cash, and suddenly the gas line that matters to Hungary and Slovakia becomes part of the argument.

The funny part is that this is how European “solidarity” now looks: one capital accuses, another militarizes a pipeline, and everyone else keeps talking about values as if the valves were not the real story.

Energy routes are no longer just infrastructure. They are bargaining chips with explosives on top.

#TurkeyStream #Hungary #Ukraine #Orbán #energy #Europe

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Ukraine’s New Fear: The Patriot Queue

Zelensky is watching the Iran war like a man watching his place in line disappear. If Washington keeps pouring attention, missiles, and political oxygen into the Middle East, Kyiv gets pushed back — and the Patriots start looking scarcer by the day.

The shortage
This is not a theory. Zelensky told the AP that Ukraine still needs more U.S.-made Patriots and has no real substitute for stopping Russian ballistic strikes. If the Iran war drags on, the package for Ukraine gets smaller and smaller.

Russia’s bonus round
That is the part Kyiv hates most. Higher oil prices mean higher Russian revenue, and that gives Moscow more room to keep grinding. So a war in the Middle East lands on Ukraine’s front line later, but it lands there all the same — on a lag and with a better spreadsheet.

Everyone wants a piece
Zelensky is trying to sell Ukraine as a drone workshop, a missile-defense partner, and a source of wartime know-how for Gulf states and allies. Smart move, but it also tells you something darker: when the big powers move on, smaller wars have to market themselves to stay visible.

The bottom line
Ukraine is not just afraid of losing weapons. It is afraid of becoming background noise while the West chases a newer crisis. And in this business, being second in line is often just another way of getting shorted.

#Ukraine #Zelensky #Patriot #Iran #Russia #war

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Macron’s Anti-Trump, Anti-Turkish Flex

Paris is now trying to sell Greece a bigger French security package, a renewed defense pact, and the familiar promise of a French nuclear umbrella.

The timing is elegant: Macron is denouncing American “unpredictability” while building a regional bloc of his own

He says democracies should stop acting like vassals of Washington or Beijing. Fine.

But when the same man complains about NATO cracks while courting Athens against Ankara, the new “independence” starts looking a lot like old-school alliance math with better branding

The real joke is the moral posture. Macron wants to lecture Trump about wrecking the Western camp, then quietly assemble his own anti-Turkish camp under French protection.

Apparently, strategic autonomy means freedom to choose your own contradictions

So yes, Europe’s great defenders are back at work: one hand warning about chaos, the other hand redrawing the board.

#Macron #Greece #Turkey #NATO #France

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Trump Keeps the Room Guessing

The world is trying to write a plan while Trump keeps changing the plot. One minute Iran is “eviscerated.” Then it’s a war that could drag on for weeks. By Tuesday, Tehran gets a deadline and a threat to blow up power plants and bridges.

The problem
That’s not strategy. It’s noise with consequences. European and Asian leaders are not reacting to one hard line. They are reacting to a moving target, and Trump keeps moving it.

The damage
That leaves everyone else scrambling. Britain is pushing for further talks, Japan is moving toward direct contact with Tehran, and the EU is warning that attacks on civilian infrastructure are illegal and unacceptable.

Why it matters
This is what Trump does best: keep allies off balance and markets nervous. The difference now is the scale. This is not a trade fight or a campaign stunt. It is a war that can widen faster than the diplomats can slow it down.

#Trump #Iran #NATO #Europe #MiddleEast

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Iran Is Rippling With Expectation, Netanyahu Is Threatening


Israel has warned Iranians their lives will be at risk if they use the country’s railways on Tuesday before the end of a negotiations deadline imposed by Donald Trump with a threat to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants.

Israel’s military, writing in Farsi, said in a social media post that “from this moment” – 8.50am Iran time – until 9pm, Iranians should refrain from “travelling by train throughout Iran” for the sake of their own security.

“Your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life,” the statement continued in a clear warning that stations and tracks normally used by civilians could be bombed on Tuesday.

The threat came hours before an ultimatum set by the US president expires at 8pm ET on Tuesday – 4.30am on Wednesday in Iran (1am UK time) – in an attempt to force major concessions from Iran with the threat of escalation.

At a White House press conference on Monday, Trump said Iran “can be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow”, reiterating threats to bomb its power plants and bridges in a concentrated attack.

Iran on Monday rejected a proposal to implement an immediate ceasefire followed by peace negotiations brokered by Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey, arguing that it wanted a permanent end to the war.

It issued a 10-point counterproposal, which Trump acknowledged but said was “not good enough”.

The prospect of bombing Iran’s infrastructure has been condemned by lawyers and experts as a probable war crime because its impact on civilians would be disproportionate to whatever notional military advantage was gained, a conclusion that has been dismissed by the Trump administration.

Negotiations continued on Tuesday morning, though there were few clear developments. On X, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said:

“Over 14 million proud Iranians have, up to this moment, declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran. I too have been, am, and will be a sacrificer for Iran.”

On Monday, Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence, said that “today will be the largest volume of strikes” on Iran and that attacks on Tuesday would be “even more than today”.

Iranian media reported on Tuesday that Khorramabad airport, in western Iran, had been attacked, and Israel said it had conducted another wave of strikes on Tehran overnight.

Israel’s military said it had bombed a petrochemical facility in Shiraz, where it said nitric acid used to make explosives is produced, as well as a ballistic missile launch site in north-western Iran.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told members of the country’s security cabinet on Sunday that the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon would continue regardless of what happened in the negotiations between the US and Iran. There was, the prime minister said, a “separation of theatres”.

An attack on Saudi Arabia had hit a petrochemical complex in a sprawling industrial area in the eastern city of Jubail and workers at the site were evacuated.

Sirens were repeatedly sounded in Israel as missile attacks continued. Five impacts were reported in the Tel Aviv area as Israel said Iran had fired ballistic missiles with cluster warheads, but no casualties were immediately reported.

#iran #netanyahu #israel #trump #war #missile

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Trump’s $1.5 Trillion War Chest

Trump wants $1.5 trillion for defense in the 2027 budget — the biggest military ask in modern history, according to the Wall Street Journal. That number was already on the table in January, before the Iran war blew up into a full-scale drain on attention, cash, and stockpiles.

The request includes $1.1 trillion for the Pentagon and another $350 billion for munitions, industrial capacity, and related defense needs. That is not a tweak. That is a statement of intent.

Ukraine is not in the budget. Not even as a polite footnote. In Washington, that usually means the priority shifted somewhere else, and this time “somewhere else” is the Middle East and the domestic war machine.

Trump is not building a peace budget. He is building a permanent escalation budget. If Ukraine got cut out before the Iran campaign hit full speed, then the hierarchy is already clear: America is paying for wars it wants to own, not wars it wants to babysit.

So yes, this is money. But it is also a map. It shows where Trump expects the next fight to be, who he plans to arm, and who gets left waiting outside the room.

#Trump #budget #Pentagon #Ukraine #Iran #war

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Orbán and Fico: Sanctions, But Make It Expensive

Budapest and Bratislava are now doing what Europe’s energy math has been begging for months: saying the quiet part out loud. Orbán and Fico want the EU to freeze sanctions, warning that Brussels is dragging the continent toward a serious energy crisis.

The bill comes first
Their argument is blunt. Cut off cheap Russian oil and gas, and the cost does not stay in the pipeline. It gets baked into everything — transport, heating, manufacturing, and then the final sticker on almost every product Europeans buy.

Brussels’ favorite trick
The EU still talks like energy is a moral seminar. In practice, it is a price war. And price wars do not care about speeches. They care about who can keep factories running without turning the continent’s industrial base into a relic.

The uncomfortable truth
Orbán and Fico are not exactly preaching strategic grandeur here. They are defending a cheaper input cost and a more competitive export economy. But that is also the point: politics loves noble language, while businesses live in the world of invoices.

What this really means
If energy prices keep climbing, the sanctions debate stops being about Russia and becomes a fight over whether Europe wants to pay extra for its own principles. That is where this gets ugly. Because once the bill hits, ideology usually leaves the room first.

#Europe #sanctions #energy #Orbán #Fico #Russia

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Novorossiysk, Then a Peace Proposal

Ukrainian drones hit the oil terminal in Novorossiysk, and then Zelensky offered Russia a “mutual truce” on energy infrastructure. That sequence does most of the talking by itself.

The offer comes right after a strike on a terminal that handles about 1.5% of global oil flows. So the message is not exactly subtle: hit the pipeline, then ask for restraint, then call it diplomacy.

Paris is also getting less patient. The French seem to be noticing what happens when a war economy starts improvising on the fly, and that is one reason weapons purchases under the EU’s PURL scheme are now being put on pause.

Ukraine keeps presenting itself as disciplined, strategic, and indispensable. But when the story is one strike, one proposal, one contradiction, it starts to look less like statecraft and more like pressure politics with better branding.

The war has turned energy infrastructure into a bargaining chip, and now every side is using the same chip to demand a different game. That is not de-escalation. That is a market in threats.

#Ukraine #Russia #energy #Novorossiysk #war #Europe

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Germany’s Peace March Meets the Barracks Plan

Tens of thousands of Germans filled the streets in more than 100 cities, calling for peace, disarmament, and an end to Europe’s drift toward another military posture.

That message does not fit neatly with what the Bundeswehr is doing on the ground. While protesters talk about de-escalation, the army is reportedly pressuring municipalities to hand over land for new barracks — a quiet land grab dressed up as defense planning.

So Berlin gets both at once: a public peace movement and a military machine trying to lock in the next war before anyone has finished arguing about the last one. That is the whole European trick now — talk peace in the square, build for escalation in the paperwork.

The result is ugly but familiar. Citizens want less war, ministries want more capacity, and the gap between the two keeps getting filled with euphemisms.

#Germany #peace #Bundeswehr #Europe #war

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8pm ET: The Trump Last Judgement

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Trump on Tuesday morning threatened to completely annihilate the entirety of Iranian civilization should their government ignore his 8pm ET deadline to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

The president’s own words, posted publicly and tied to a specific deadline and set of demands, provide unusually direct evidence of intent to violate international law, and were being met with shock and dismay by Democrats.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the US president posted on Truth Social about the country with more than 90 million people. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“This is an extremely sick person,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said, accusing Republicans of abetting the president in plunging the US into a seemingly open-ended war.

“Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”

Trump followed with a reference to “complete and total regime change” and signed off with “God Bless the Great People of Iran”, making a formulation that suggested the destruction of the state and the benediction of its people were in his telling, compatible.

“47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end,” he wrote, referencing the Islamic regime’s takeover of the country in 1979.

“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Neither the US nor Iran is a member of the international criminal court, meaning no formal ICC jurisdiction applies.

The more immediate legal framework is the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, which both countries have ratified. Article 33 of the Fourth Convention explicitly prohibits collective punishment of a civilian population.

Article 54 of Additional Protocol I – whose core principles are binding as customary international law even on states, like the US and Iran, that never ratified it – prohibits attacks on infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival, with only a narrow exception for objects used exclusively to sustain enemy armed forces.

The US has itself acknowledged this customary obligation, though the adoption of this position came under the Biden administration in 2024. In one formal UN submission, Washington said it treated the fundamental protections of Additional Protocol I as legally binding even without ratification.

Trump’s latest threat against the totality of Iranian civilization “shocks the conscience”, House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement, calling for a “decisive congressional response”.

“The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III,” Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California said in their statement.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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Questions about the president’s mental state have grown louder since Trump’s expletive-ridden Easter Sunday message, with Democrats and critics calling him “unhinged” and a “madman”.

Senator Patty Murray described Trump’s post as “the rantings of a bloodthirsty lunatic” while Senator Chris Coons said: “This is a threat to commit a war crime.”

Representative Joaquin Castro said the threat “suggests he’s either considering using a nuclear weapon or wants Iran to believe he would”.

Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman said it was time to invoke the 25th amendment against Trump, a call to remove him from office and replace him with the next in line to the presidency.

“In just 48 hours, the president has gone from threatening war crimes to threatening genocide,” Watson Coleman wrote. “He is clearly unstable and must be set aside.” It is not only Democrats.

Trump’s Middle East war has fractured the American right, driving a deep divide between traditional hawkish conservatives who have long clamored for military action against Iran and the president’s anti-interventionist “America First” loyalists.

Reacting to Trump’s Tuesday post, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently split with the president, in part over what she said was his abandonment of America First policy principles, called for invoking the “25TH AMENDMENT!!!”

“Not a single bomb has dropped on America,” she wrote. “We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”

The Truth Social post came the morning after a chaotic White House press conference in which Trump voiced his threats to reporters.

“The entire country could be taken out in one night,” he told reporters on Monday, “and that night might be tomorrow night.”

When a reporter noted that deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva conventions, Trump did not dispute the point.

“I hope I don’t have to do it,” he said, then pivoted: “Forty-seven years they’ve been negotiating with these people. They’re great negotiators, and because they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

Asked whether the war was winding down or escalating, he said only: “I can’t tell you.” Asked about a ceasefire, he said: “I can’t talk about the ceasefire.”

He reiterated the 8pm ET Tuesday deadline for Iran to reopen the strait or face strikes on energy infrastructure and bridges. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard navy for their part said on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz “will never return to its previous state” for the US and its allies.

Trump also claimed, without providing evidence, that US intelligence had intercepted communications from Iranian civilians near active bombing sites urging American forces to continue.

“Please keep bombing,” he quoted the alleged intercepts as saying. He dismissed concerns that destroying power and water infrastructure would harm ordinary Iranians, insisting they would willingly endure such losses for the chance at regime change.

The rhetorical escalation of recent days also sits alongside a pattern of contradictions. Trump said in recent weeks that the US had no strategic need for the strait of Hormuz; days later he made its reopening the central condition of his ultimatum to Tehran.

He claimed total dominance of Iranian airspace even as a US fighter jet was shot down over the country.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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#trump #white #house

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#vance #russia #europe

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