This article examines a plausible scenario for the near future: a large-scale war by the United States and Israel against Iran. Western propaganda would claim a swift victory, but given Iran’s military doctrine, regional alliances, and control over the Strait of Hormuz, the actual outcome could look very different. What follows is a critical analysis of how Western media, politicians, and generals could mislead the public, and why European complicity would backfire.
The West’s most powerful strategic weapon has repeatedly claimed that the American armed forces achieved a rapid and overwhelming victory over Iran. At the same time, Israeli intelligence services report to Western media that they are seeing increasing signs of disorder and “chaos” within the regime in Tehran, and that the Iranian command structure has been severely disrupted.
Trump, who sees himself as God, went to war full of confidence, convinced that America would be able to completely destroy the Iranian state structure, command network, and military capacity. When faced with doubts about his success in dismantling Iran’s state structure, he simply replies that they will destroy much more of it. We will kill even more of their leaders.
In their reporting after the attacks of 28 February, Western media praised the devastating nature of the blow allegedly dealt to Iran’s political and military leadership. No attempt was made to think critically about the effect on a state that had been preparing for this war for 20 to 40 years. No attempt was made to reflect on the real impact of bombing a state that had hidden all its military infrastructure, including its air force, deep underground.
No effort was made to assess the impact of the assassinations of Iranian political and military leaders on public opinion. No account was taken of how Iran’s decentralized mosaic of leadership could provide a rapid, pre-planned response to the decapitation of its leadership. Nor was there any consideration of the possibility that such a diffuse leadership structure could enable Iran to wage a long war of attrition against the United States and Israel. Instead, all mainstream reporting focused on the extent of the damage inflicted on Tehran and its population, with the implicit assumption that the urban destruction and high civilian death toll would create an opposition that would rise up and seize power.
The language Trump and his team use to describe Iranians as “evil” and “murderous, baby-killing” subhumans is clearly intended to polarize the conflict in such a way that military strategies other than further “destruction” are ruled out.
Trump told New York Times journalists that he did not consider himself bound by international laws, norms, or checks and balances, and that the only limits on his ability to use American military power were his own morality. His own judgment. That is the only thing that can stop him.
He is said to have expressed surprise that America’s surprise attack on the Iranian leadership immediately led to retaliatory attacks on American bases in the Gulf: “We didn’t expect that,” Trump reportedly said. He also had not anticipated that the Strait of Hormuz would be selectively closed, even though the Iranians had explicitly warned that they would indeed do so.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe at NATO, did not mince his words when speaking about the desperate situation in which Trump — an unpredictable president driven by ego and revenge — now finds himself.
He literally said: this deranged president was persuaded to start a huge war because his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his real-estate partner Witkoff, both with strong financial and ideological ties to Israel, pushed him into it against the advice of everyone who possessed even a shred of common sense. Add to that an unstable, unrestrained, and bloodthirsty war partner like Israel, and you have the potential for a historic disaster of catastrophic proportions.
Iran’s control over around 20% of global oil production and a comparable volume of gas transported through the Hormuz transit passage gives Iran a unique position of power within the entire dollar-based economy. This poses a particular threat to the Gulf states, since the Hormuz transit route also serves as a corridor for fertilizer, food supplies, and much more, including helium needed for the production of computer chips.
The war has successfully disrupted the supply of seven global commodities now that traffic through Hormuz has collapsed by 97%. Russia has halted exports of ammonium nitrate. China has banned phosphate exports through August. All of these essential nutrients were simultaneously removed from global supply chains, and this during planting season. The nitrogen shortage has automatically ensured that one in four American farmers is not taking part in spring production. India, producer of 40% of generic medicines used in the United States, receives 87.7% of its methanol through the Strait of Hormuz, which means paracetamol, ibuprofen, and metformin will become scarce for 537 million diabetics.
The Gulf states will soon have to reconsider their position in this war. On the one hand, they have become fully immersed in the American mercantilist way of life. But Iran threatens to overturn that paradigm. On the other hand, the future prospects of the Gulf states, which they will have to weigh carefully, may depend on Iranian permission to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran exercises its “foot on the throat” of the global economic system selectively, it is possible that other states, including European countries, will be forced to sit down at the “negotiating table” with Tehran in order to secure their future economic prosperity.
The invisible power structures of the United States
It is not only the Gulf states, however, that will have to reflect on their position in this reckless and potentially highly destructive economic war. There are also people in the United States who insist that Americans must reflect on their own position. The question runs deeper than the simple fact that Trump has broken his campaign promise of “no new foreign wars.”
Reuters reports that the Trump administration is considering sending thousands of additional American troops to the Middle East. It is bitterly ironic to watch Washington, after the dead have piled up in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran and the treasury has been looted dry, rediscover that the war it itself began cannot be won on the battlefield. The conflict between the United States and Iran, like so many of its predecessors in the region, began with the inflamed rhetoric of decisive force and regime change, and has since sunk into the familiar swamp of escalating costs, strategic shifts, and an enemy that refuses to follow the Pentagon’s script.
The European vassals have no backbone or principles.
European leaders have, with a few honorable exceptions, shown appalling cowardice in failing to condemn Trump’s illegal aggression against Iran. Pathetically, the Europeans have criticized Iran for its legally justified response of self-defense and retaliatory strikes on American and Israeli bases. They are not opposed to Trump’s illegal war against Iran or the mass killing of civilians, including many children in schools and hospitals. They call it “strategic ambiguity.” Which in plain language amounts to “speaking ambiguously.”
Trump called the NATO allies cowardly for not taking part in the aggression. The American president is partly right. They are indeed cowardly because they do not stand up for international law and do not condemn the United States. In many respects, the European NATO allies are complicit in the aggression against Iran because of their 47-year-long criminal and strangling sanctions against Iran. Now all of those sanctions are returning like a boomerang. Great Britain and Germany, for example, are offering air bases to American warplanes to bomb the country, killing thousands of civilians.
Bart De Wever stated on 5 March to VRT: “Together with you, I must observe that far too little account is now being taken of the rules of international law which we as Europeans quite rightly continue to hold in very high regard,” said the prime minister. But he immediately added an “on the other hand”: “For a theocratic dictatorship (Iran, ed.) that has itself trampled international law underfoot for 47 years, you should expect no sympathy from me whatsoever.”
Bart De Wever during question time in the Chamber on 5 March 2026 - Photo Belga
Iranian Revolutionary Guard designated as a terrorist organization thanks to an N-VA resolution
Under the impetus of Members of Parliament Darya Safai and Kathleen Depoorter, the Chamber Committee on Foreign Relations today unanimously approved a striking resolution designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. Belgium thus joins the first countries in Europe to take this step explicitly.
Will those tough N-VA ladies soon provide the oil and gas supply? Otherwise VOKA will not be pleased.
The blindness of the West
The blindness of the West and its chronic underestimation of the capabilities of Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, China, and Russia is grotesque. Its persistent strategic arrogance and stubborn refusal to recognize the new multipolar world are astonishing. Iran, 67 times larger than Israel, launched a series of attacks that exposed the limitations of the Iron Dome and the vulnerability of American bases in the region. The well-planned Iranian retaliatory strikes and their considerable technological superiority in the production of missiles, drones, and air defense also forced the vulnerable American aircraft carriers to withdraw.
All American wars over the decades have been fought under the guise of lies. Millions of people from countless countries on every continent have died on the battlefield of imperial violence, their blood sacrificed to capitalist greed. European politicians such as Britain’s Starmer, France’s Macron, Germany’s Merz, and Belgium’s Bart De Wever behave like lieutenants in America’s imperial war. Their complicity is reprehensible. The arrogance of these leaders is staggering.
Trump and the deranged Israeli Netanyahu have opened the gates of hell, but they cannot control what comes next. The debt-ridden American and European economies are facing total implosion. All the evil that has accumulated through wars and genocides committed with impunity by the Western system for decades is now coming to light. The world must once and for all decide to abolish and destroy the Western imperial system. The Strait of Hormuz is now closed. Once the brave Houthis in Yemen are attacked again, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal will follow. That could mark the definitive end of the arrogant West.