Charles McPhedran

Could he name *any* Iranian leaders at all? Any?!

Israel's Barrage Of Iran Is Furious. Azerbaijan, To Iran's North, Is Treading Lightly. Israel’s furious -- and unprecedented -- barrage of Iranian nuclear and missile sites threatens to destabilize the Tehran government, and possibly spark a wider war in the Middle East. Iran’s neighbor...

Why did Iran fire 4 drones at the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan yesterday? There's been well-grounded speculation for years that Baku has allowed Israel to fly surveillance drones into Iran from Azerbaijani territory.
This 👇 from last year:
www.rferl.org/a/azerbaijan...

💥SCOOP: Putin tasked Sergei Kiriyenko to run a Moldova-style election meddling operation in Hungary for Orbán, sending three GRU-linked political technologists with diplomatic or service passports to operate from the Russian Embassy in Budapest. More in my newsletter: vsquare.org/goulash-krem...

Both Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly are available!

Iran fired 4 drones in total at Azerbaijan, per Azeri Defense Ministry: 1 was downed by air defense, 1 fell short of its target, 1 hit the Nakhchivan airport, 1 hit a school building.
mod.gov.az/az/news/azer...

I suspect a lot of the White House disinformation efforts right now are about attempting to draw regional forces into its war. Two days ago, we heard from anonymous sources that Qatar was directly involved in the attacks; that was denied. And now this.

Iran draws in yet another country

Could this be yet more White House bullshit?

Never seen anything like the “Kurdish offensive” into Iran: it is throughout all the US and Israeli media, all at once. Can a covert offensive credibly begin like this? The element of surprise is certainly gone.

One of my favourite aspects of US war plans stories is when officials with no knowledge of regional geography talk to reporters who are equally ignorant:

Don’t get you.

Right. That’s certainly one thing these language games always aim at creating.

I’m not an expert but do follow; they might be worried about losing a ‘war powers’ vote in the House of Reps, which is tight right now.
What was the legalese behind the “SMO” designation?

It might be because the admin is trying to avoid a vote in Congress?

I think it’s just Republicans in Congress/the Administration trying this one out. (Don’t know if even the MAGA cult is going along with it.)

The undeclared war part, or the Orwellian terminology?

What a turn for the South Caucasus!

*”Major combat operations” not special. Excuse me, I was getting my euphemisms mixed up!

America’s Special Combat Operation in Iran is the new SMO—over in three days, until it wouldn’t be.

Second point:

It’s likely Trump felt the “imminent danger” was to him personally. The IRGC had tried to kill him several times:

This analyst makes a very good point. Israel/US must win as any curbs on the Iranian nuclear program likely died with Khamenei.

Alice in adult-land: Nomma Zarubina admits to collaborating with the FSB and involvement in prostitution On Feb. 19, Nomma Zarubina agreed to a plea bargain. The Russian national, who was arrested in the United States in late 2024, pleaded guilty to giving false testimony about her cooperation with Russi...

As part of the plea deal, details of the human trafficking operation FSB agent Zarubina ran won’t be disclosed:
theins.ru/en/inv/289728

How did that fit together with the human-trafficking/prostitution business that Zarubina also admitted to running?

I’m sure he won’t be out for revenge against the people who killed his father…

Video said to show the moment when a drone hit the US consulate in Dubai. Authorities claim the blaze has since been put out.

Ukrainian ombudsman: 337 Ukrainian POWs are known to have been executed in Russian captivity, as of late 2025.

95% of Ukrainian POWs are subjected to systematic torture.

Trump: "Most of the people we had in mind are dead. We had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also. Pretty soon we're not gonna know anybody. I mean, Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept govt totally in tact."

An Israeli defense source told The Times of Israel that it’s unclear how many council members were in the building at the time it was struck.

🇨🇾 There is info about repeated explosions in Cyprus.

Very significant: "France said in-depth talks had already been conducted with Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and Sweden, and they were willing to move ahead with deeper co-operation."