Together for Iran

MARCH 14, 2O26

Over 200 pro-democracy, pro-justice and anti-war British-Iranians have signed a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling on him not to support the Israeli-US war on Iran, but to adopt a consciously pro-democracy policy instead. A video of activist Nasrin Parvaz reading the letter has been beamed onto the Houses of Parliament. Other former detainees from the notorious Evin prison Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Aras Amiri are among the signatories of the letter, reproduced below.

Dear Prime Minister,

We are British-Iranians and at this moment we are overcome with grief.

For decades we have been hoping for the day when Iranian democracy can finally flourish. Many of us have not been able to visit Iran for years for fear of imprisonment or worse. Nobody can claim to want the end of the Islamic Republic more than we do.

But attacking the country in this way will have the opposite effect. It will entrench the authoritarians and give life to the fiction that has sustained them internally for decades: that they are fighting western imperialism.

When Netanyahu – a man charged with international war crimes after killing countless civilians in Gaza – assassinates Iran’s dictator that kills the man but immortalises the myth. Iranians wanted him tried and punished for his crimes, not given the martyr ending he craved.

When Netanyahu says to Iranians “do not sit with your arms crossed” but instead to rise up and “finish the job” he reveals the racism that underpins his policy, as if 90 million people had been idly waiting several decades for his bombs.

This is of course not just Netanyahu’s war, Trump and the US are a significant part of it. But as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “The president made the very wise decision — we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties”. So the US followed Netanyahu into this war.

Britain however doesn’t have to follow Netanyahu down the path of bombing schools, hospitals, sports grounds and pharmaceuticals manufacturers. Britain doesn’t have to follow Netanyahu in smuggling weapons into the country and arming groups in the hope of sowing anarchy.

A pro-democracy policy would protect political prisoners and ensure that Israel and the US do not bomb prisons like Evin. It is in those cells where the future democratic leaders of Iran reside. A pro-democracy policy would smuggle internet devices – not weapons – across the border, and break the blackout that is blanketing the country. A pro-democracy policy would call out Israel’s assassination policy even when it targets leaders we despise.

There is so much that can be done in solidarity with Iranians. But joining in with Netanyahu’s forever wars is not it.

A full list of signatories is at togetherforiran.org where the letter can be signed.

Image: British Houses of Parliament. Source: The British Parliament and Big Ben. Author: Maurice from Zoetermeer, Netherlands,  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Green MP Siân Berry applauded for critique of ‘illegal war’ in Iran on Question Time

Chris Jarvis 

13 March, 2026 
 Left Foot Forward

'This war has been no help at all to the people of Iran'

Green Party MP Siân Berry was applauded on BBC Question Time yesterday (March 12) for her comments on the US and Israel’s war in Iran.

Responding to a question from the audience as to whether Donald Trump is ‘winning’ the war in Iran, Berry said: “Let’s be clear, this war from Donald Trump is an illegal war and both Reform and the Conservatives were completely wrong to be so gung ho in supporting it.”

Her initial remark was met with applause from the audience. She then went on to say following the applause: “Listen to that: the polling shows about 60 per cent of the British people are opposed to this because we learned the lessons from Iraq that getting involved in American aggression – which is what this is – doesn’t end well, particularly when it is without a plan.

Berry continued by adding: “And the Iranian regime is horrific, it’s despotic, it’s murderous, it needs to end. But so far, this war has been no help at all to the people of Iran. They must be wondering what they’re supposed to do.”

This comment was again met with applause from the audience. Berry concluded her contribution by saying: “They will be stuck in a destabilised country with a regime that is worse than ever before. It is incredibly worrying what is going on. And I think it is right that our country was cautious at first. I’m worried that we are getting dragged into this now. I don’t think that’s what people want.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Opinion

Relentless scapegoating has created a hostile environment for British Muslims

Imran Hussain 

13 March, 2026 

'When a man walks into a mosque in Ramadan armed with an axe, we cannot simply shrug and move on.'

I recently stood at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons and said something that should never need saying in modern Britain: the toxic culture of Islamophobic rhetoric is putting Muslim lives at risk.

It came after a man entered Manchester Central Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan carrying weapons, including an axe. Worshippers were praying.

Thanks to the swift action of volunteers, we are talking about what might have happened. But that “might have been” should chill every one of us.

Just days later, another incident took place at a Muslim community centre in Worcester. Another place of gathering. Another community targeted.

These incidents cannot be dismissed as isolated. They sit within a climate that has been growing steadily more toxic.
The climate we are creating

At Prime Minister’s Questions, I warned that every single politician and every single journalist has a clear responsibility to stop fanning the flames of hatred.

We cannot pretend language does not matter. It does. It shapes public mood. It legitimises prejudice.

In recent years we have seen a sharp rise in inflammatory and Islamophobic rhetoric from political and media figures. These public figures are pouring fuel on the fire.

Their vile rhetoric is helping to normalise Islamophobia in a way we have never seen before in this country.
This is not the Britain I know

Yet the reality of Britain is very different from the toxic picture painted by those national figures peddle division.

Across our country, Muslims are teachers, nurses, shopkeepers, charity volunteers, parents and neighbours. They work in our NHS, run small businesses on our high streets and contribute every day to the life in communities across the country.

In my own city of Bradford, a proud city of sanctuary, with divergent nationalities from across the world, where over 100 languages are spoken across the community, those from different backgrounds have lived and worked alongside one another for generations. My own family were part of that story. My Grandfather and other family members worked in Bradford’s foundries and factories, helping build the industrial city we know today.

Growing up in Bradford, I went to school with people from all backgrounds and faiths. I started boxing at 11. I spent countless hours boxing alongside people from every background, one of the few places I’ve never experienced racism. It taught me something simple but important: most people get along perfectly well.

Some of the most admired figures in modern Britain are Muslim. Mo Farah is one of our greatest ever Olympic athletes. Nadiya Hussain became a national favourite after winning The Great British Bake Off.

And Britain’s favourite food is curry – something so woven into our national life that it is hard to imagine the country without it. Much of the restaurant industry that made it popular was built by Bangladeshi Muslim migrants who arrived in Britain after the war.

Modern Britain has been shaped by communities working together – not by the division some try to promote.
The reality Muslims face

Yet despite this reality, it is Muslim communities who are paying the price for the toxic rhetoric we now see in public debate.

We saw it in the recent attacks targeting mosques and community centres. I see it myself every day. The barrage of Islamophobic comments on my social media is staggering.

Scroll through the comments under almost any post I make about anything, but in particular confronting Islamophobia, and you will find thousands of racist responses. On my recent PMQs post alone there were more than ten thousand comments.

“No Muslim should be in any place of power”

“You’re a terrorist in our country you shouldn’t be in government”

“You’re not even British”

“Imran, in reality you should not be an MP, this is Great Britain, not Pakistan or Bangladesh.”

And these aren’t the worst comments. I do not delete them or hide them. I want people to see them. Because the only way to defeat racism is to expose it and confront it.

But the sheer volume of hatred is shocking. I honestly do not think I have ever seen so much open and unapologetic bigotry in this country.

We must ask ourselves: where does this language lead?
A hostile environment

There is now a clear hostile environment facing British Muslims.

It has long existed in discrimination around employment and housing, but in recent years it has intensified dramatically, fuelled by inflammatory rhetoric from national figures.

British Muslims are increasingly scapegoated and blamed for everything from immigration to wider social problems.

Relentless scapegoating has created an open season on British Muslims.

Let me be absolutely clear: Muslim communities deserve safety, dignity and the freedom to live their lives without fear.

Full stop.

Twenty months ago, people voted for change. They voted to turn the page on the politics of scapegoating and division.

Sadly, things are getting worse, not better.
A line must be drawn

It is unacceptable that, in 2026, I have to stand up in Parliament and spell out that Islamophobic hatred fuelled by national figures is putting Muslim lives at risk.

Because Muslim communities are telling me they are frightened.

When a man walks into a mosque in Ramadan armed with an axe, we cannot simply shrug and move on.

As a country, we must act.

Britain is better than this.

Imran Hussain is the Labour MP for Bradford East

Europe’s Criminalization of Palestine Solidarity

by Visualizing Palestine / March 14th, 2026

When Israeli forces bombed Iran in June 2025, German Chancellor Merz praised them for doing “the dirty work for all of us.” His statement exposes the roots of Europe’s military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israeli genocide and regional aggression. To sustain their “business as usual” policy toward Israel, European governments are criminalizing Palestine solidarity. Our latest visual with The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) depicts this architecture of repression, which we must understand as we build the architecture of solidarity.

This visual builds on analysis in ELSC’s report “Europe’s Proscription of Palestine Solidarity,” which documents how European governments––including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and other countries––are using counterterrorism frameworks to criminalize Palestine solidarity and demobilize opposition to genocide. They employ measures reminiscent of colonial emergency laws, suspending basic rights in order to maintain imperial dominance.

ELSC, in collaboration with Forensic Architecture, just launched Britain’s Index of Repression, which provides deeper insight into the multi-sited, institutionalised, and systematic nature of this repression. The public database records 964 verified incidents of legal, institutional, and political repression targeting students, academics, workers, journalists, artists, and organisers standing in solidarity with Palestine in the UK between 2019 and 2025. The database, accompanied by a report, builds on their previous work on Germany’s Index of Repression.

This is an ongoing monitoring project. Report an incident to ELSC here.

Power escalates its violence only when forced to respond to movements it cannot contain.
– Europe’s Proscription of Palestine Solidarity (report), ELSC, August, 2025

While these measures aim to quell support for Palestinian liberation, historical precedent suggests such repressive tactics often fail against determined collective movements for justice.In one important recent victory against the criminalization of Palestine solidarity in Europe, the UK High Court ruled that the government’s ban on Palestine Action was “disproportionate and unlawful.” In a related case, six Palestine Action activists were acquitted of the most serious charges against them. These developments followed a sustained hunger strike by Palestine Action activists held in prolonged pre-trial detention, which we marked in an updated version of our Hunger Strikes visual.

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Visualizing Palestine is the intersection of communication, social sciences, technology, design and urban studies for social justice. Visualizing Palestine uses creative visuals to describe a factual rights-based narrative of Palestine/Israel. Read other articles by Visualizing Palestine, or visit Visualizing Palestine's website.

Calls for British Museum to stop ‘erasing Palestine and supporting genocide’

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Yesterday

“The British Museum (must) avoid complicity in genocide, either through its representation of Palestinians and their history or by providing direct support to those that perpetrate or profit from that genocide.”

An open letter circulated this week urges the trustees of the British Museum to show support for Palestinians and to address allegations that the institution is contributing to the erasure of Palestinian history.

The letter has been signed by a number of prominent cultural figures, including actors Siobhan McSweeney, Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson. Several organisations also endorsed the appeal, coordinated by the campaign group Culture Unstained, including Jewish Artists for Palestine, Archaeologists Against Apartheid and Artists & Culture Workers London.

The campaign follows reports last month that the British Museum had removed references to the word “Palestine” from some of its exhibit labels after receiving a letter from UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).

The museum rejected those claims, stating that the term “Palestine” continues to appear across a number of its galleries. However, UKLFI has said that the museum subsequently altered panels in its Egypt galleries, replacing the phrase “Palestinian descent” with “Canaanite descent”.

The open letter argues that such changes contribute to a broader attempt to erase Palestine “as a term, a place, a people and a historical reality.” It also criticises the museum’s wider institutional relationships, citing its decision to host a private event for the Israeli Embassy last year, and its continued partnership with the oil company BP.

According to the letter’s authors, these actions amount to complicity in the ongoing violence against Palestinians in Gaza. It calls on the museum to condemn the actions of UKLFI and to publicly recognise the findings of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded that Israel has committed war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

“The British Museum (must) avoid complicity in genocide,” it read, “either through its representation of Palestinians and their history or by providing direct support to those that perpetrate or profit from that genocide.”

The letter also criticises the museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, writing that although he is reportedly “disgusted” by media reports about the labelling controversy, many are more disturbed by the museum’s decision to host a private event for the Israeli Embassy last year.

It points to the museum’s ongoing partnership with BP, which in 2023 renewed a ten-year, £50 million sponsorship deal to support the museum’s redevelopment. Campaigners say the museum has ignored repeated calls to remove BP’s name from its lecture theatre.

Cullinan, a British art historian who became director of the British Museum in 2024, has previously stated that he would not introduce what he described as “politically correct” labels in response to a particular political agenda.

At the time of his appointment, he said he was reconsidering how the museum’s collections are displayed, saying that any changes would be aimed at ensuring that the scholarship behind them is up to date rather than politically driven.

The Growing Problems of Operation Epic Fury

Costly and Depleting

by Binoy Kampmark / March 14th, 2026

The big drain on military resources has begun. A war apparently already won (and not), against an adversary supposedly without means to fight back, its air force and navy destroyed, its missile capabilities blunted, is now drawing the clumsy colossus of American power into the Middle East with embarrassing effect. The Middle East, where US President Donald Trump promised the “forever wars” would end, promises an end to his beginning.

The ledger of losses keeps rising with giddying pace. The US casualty list, for now, remains manageably low, but the military purse is being raided with manic relish. Operation Epic Fury cost US taxpayers $11.3 billion in munitions over the first six days, an estimate that excludes operating and maintenance costs of the engaged military force or the damage inflicted by Iran. The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) claims that the first 100 hours of the war cost $3.7 billion, approximating to $891.4 million each day.

Strain is also being placed on inventories. The US prides itself on deluxe, high brand killing and extermination of targets, using chic weaponry and dull doctrine. Expensive homicidal measures do have to be eventually accounted for. According to reporting from Bloomberg, “as the conflict extends toward a third week, the US war effort is showing unexpected signs of strain against an adversary whose military budget is smaller than the GDP of Vermont – but which has an arsenal of missiles and drones unlike anything the US has ever faced.”

Critical munitions are being depleted. With the campaign barely 100 hours old, 168 Tomahawk cruise missiles had been fired. (Each unit costs a mighty $3.6 million.) This is a staggering figure when compared to the rate of procurement: the previous five years had seen the production of 322 Tomahawks. According to a source quoted in the Financial Times, “The navy will be feeling this expenditure for several years.”

While the Pentagon gloats at reducing Iranian strikes by 80% or more, Tehran has gotten more economical with its targeting, successfully striking military and energy infrastructure across the Middle East with telling effect. Ballistic missiles have hit the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, destroying two AN/GSC-52B SATCOM terminals. A costly AN/FPS-132 early warning radar in Qatar – a facility estimated to cost some $1.1 billion – was successfully struck by a ballistic missile.

The AN/TPY-2 radar facilities used by the lauded yet hideously expensive Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system have also been struck in Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, Al Ruwais in the UAE, Al Dhafra Air Base in proximity to Abu Dhabi and Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base. A sense of how important that facility is to the operation of the battery is provided by N.R. Jenzen, a munitions specialist of Armament Research: “The AN/TPY-2 radar is essentially the heart of the THAAD battery, enabling the launch of interceptor missiles and contributing to a networked air defence picture.” Knocking out the radar blinds the system.

The outstanding feature of many of the strikes is their relative cheapness to the interceptor missiles used to destroy them. “The round’s we’re firing – Patriot rounds, THAAD rounds … these weapon systems, each around is millions of dollars,” laments Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. “The math on this doesn’t work.” Shahed-136 one-way drones, each one costing $35,000, have played a starring role in upsetting “the math”. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper has also noted that the majority of wounded US personnel – some 140 troops – have been injured in “one-way strikes.”

This has compelled the Pentagon to pay greater attention to its own Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), which is now seeing service in some instances against Iranian attacks. But the department is also set to seek more cash, expecting to ask $50 billion in additional funding from Congress. Given the sheer unpopularity of the war, some lawmakers have reservations. “You’ve got to be able to provide us with more information as […] justification,” insists Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Don’t just take it for granted that the Congress’s role is basically to write the cheque.”

US military power is now being drawn from other theatres of interest to feed the Moloch of war. In a recent cabinet meeting, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung confirmed that Washington might relocate air defence material to the Middle East. Multiple launchers of the THAAD system have been or are in the process of being moved to Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, roughly 70km south of Seoul, with the interceptor missiles destined for the Middle East.

This shifting of pieces has not been without consequence. The THAAD batteries had been sent to South Korea in 2017 to assure it against threats from its nuclear-armed neighbour to the north. Depriving them of projectiles has gotten tongues wagging about increasing vulnerability. Besides, the ostensible security provided by US power for its allies and partners has been shown to be something of a dud, as Iran’s attacks on the Gulf states has so convincingly demonstrated.

Concern from Taiwan about such moves was registered in an interview by Chen Kuan-ting, a legislator and member of the country’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. As US military assets and resources could not “be deployed in two places at the same time”, it was a case of priorities. And those priorities, it was implied, should lie in Asia. “Deploying the main military assets in Asia and confronting the US’s primary competitor here is more in line with US interests.” That may well be what he hopes for, but it is clear that Washington is battling through the another malady Trump had once campaigned against: the debilitating entanglement of a foreign war with ill-defined objectives involving a resourceful, obstinate foe.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 The US and Israel Have No Plan: Because Collapse Is the Plan

by Lee Camp / March 14th, 2026

I don’t think it’s controversial any longer to proclaim that the ruling class of the US and Israel (USrael™) are idiot psychopaths (idiopaths™). Some around the globe have noticed the two administrations sinking all of us into a possible global economic meltdown / possible nuclear war / probable really shitty 2026 don’t seem to have a “plan” or “strategy” or “inkling” for what happens next. Even the lawmakers who attended a closed-door briefing about the administration’s Persian Incursion exited the room completely baffled as to A) the reasons for this war, B) the plan for this war, and C) the plan for what comes after said war.

The reason these witless millionaire lawmakers don’t understand the true causes of this horrific invasion of Iran is because they either don’t understand or choose to ignore the petrodollar and it’s role in dollar hegemony and then dollar hegemony’s role in making sure the US oligarchs can print enough money to own whole islands where they can sexually abuse minors with abandon. (I discussed the real reasons for the attack on Iran in a recent column here.)

However, the reason our 72% male 78% white Congress can’t get a clear answer from the Trump administration as to what comes next if the USrael™ idiopaths “succeed” in Iran is quite simply because it doesn’t matter to those making the decisions. The idiopaths don’t care. Collapsing the state apparatus is the goal. Asking them what comes next is like asking an arsonist what he’s going to build after he burns down the house. Chances are his response would be nothing more than a bewildered look akin to when you ask your dog for advice on a variable-rate mortgage.

Some normal people — who don’t understand the sinister, soulless aims of the US imperial rulers — like to mention that the US hasn’t won a war since WWII. They like to say, “Every war the US has entered into over the past 50 years has been a disaster for us.” Unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not true because “normal” people with feelings and souls and payment plans and moral cores can’t comprehend what counts as “winning” for the piping hot bags of douche who run the USraeli™ empire.

The clearest examples are Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Despite the breathless protestations of our various administrations at the time, the goals with the invasion of Iraq, invasion of Libya, and invasion of Syria were never to help the poor, suffering people in those countries. (Shock.) Our ruling psychopaths didn’t ever care about the women or the children or the innocents or the elderly or the pets. They didn’t give a shit. In fact, psychopaths are incapable of giving a shit about others.

The actual goal was to turn those nations into unstable, feeble, incapacitated, failed states. Once in that condition, they A) don’t pose a risk to Israel and B) don’t have the strength or ability to pump oil outside the petrodollar and align with other countries outside USrael’s™ sphere of influence.

• Libya ended up with a lawless state featuring such exciting tourist attractions as open-air slave markets and violent warlords.
• In the years following the 2003 Iraq invasion, Iraqis celebrated with extreme instability, sectarian fighting, and efforts to establish a government amidst violent insurgency.
• Following the fall of the Assad government in Syria, the country has been led by a US-installed rebranded Al Qaeda asshole. The national sport is extreme poverty, and the national flower is ethnic cleansing.

For the people of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, it’s an absolute horror movie. And yet, Americans no longer hear our politicians or our mainstream media announcing that the people of [fill in the blank] need our help. Not any longer. They apparently only needed USraeli™ “help” when there was a risk to the petrodollar. With the safety of the petrodollar secure, USraeli™ freedom bombs are no longer necessary.

USrael™ has no plan for an imaginary post-war Iran because the arsonist does not seek to rebuild the house. Cancer does not ask how to bring the host back to life. The US imperial aim is merely… hell. Hell on earth. No more stability. No more society. No more infrastructure. Essentially no more state. And for the US and Israel, this means no more resistance, no more threat, no more competition to the petrodollar. No more Iranian alliance with China.

Collapse is the plan.

But it increasingly seems that it won’t work. Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Syria.

Iran is a powerful and ancient society of 90 million people. Those who understand Iran far better than I do say Iranians will fight to the end. The US will not fight to the end because the majority of Americans don’t even know why we’re fighting at all. In fact, polling shows most Americans think Trump went to war with Iran to distract from the Epstein files.

Lee Camp is an American comedian, writer, podcaster, news journalist and news commentator. Read other articles by Lee, or visit Lee's website.

 Operation Epic Folly

by Michael K. Smith / March 14th, 2026

If America attacks … Iranians will unite, forgetting their differences with their government, and they will fiercely and tenaciously defend their country.

— Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate¹

The only thing truly epic about the current U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is the chasm between the facts on the ground and the media spectacle put forth by President Trump and his fawning aides.

Folly is the best term to capture the reality of a president who until very recently presented himself as uniquely qualified to bring peace to the world via his “Art of the Deal” genius, then turned on a dime to endlessly repeat that the U.S. would inflict maximum damage and suffering on Iran, a country he had said would be a particularly bad place to try and carry out regime change, not to mention a policy he claimed to have rejected no matter where it might be recommended, wisdom he allegedly learned from the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

After steady coaching from Benjamin Netanyahu, however, he changed his mind, becoming convinced that a quick decapitation of Iran’s leadership would lead Iran’s suffering masses to topple the mullahs and install an American-friendly government. He claimed that Iran’s clerical regime would fall in 48 hours.

That prediction failed so fast it didn’t even allow time for a G.W. Bush style “Mission Accomplished” declaration to whet the appetite for the inevitable anti-climax of disintegration and civil war a few months later. In this as in so many other areas Trump is a prodigy, failing almost as fast as he can dream up fresh lunacies to aggravate the world with. As the Ugly American, he’s way overqualified.

Since February 28 we have been treated to desperate, ever-changing, and contradictory attempts to justify the unjustifiable initiation of war, and an equally desperate, ever-changing, and contradictory attempt to define its objectives and limits, something that has proven impossible for an administration that was counting on ending the war with a single massive blow. Hence the ever-lengthening list of childish inventions: “bring the Iranians back to the negotiating table,” “obliterate the Iran nuclear program,” “liberate the people,” “strike a deal Venezuelan style,” “complete regime change,” etc. etc. None of it has anything to do with reality.

For Trump and his henchmen, where reality is not merely tinged with fantasy but subsumed by it, “nothing is impossible” is a necessary watchword. For them, thoughtlessness is a virtue, as shown by Trump’s nonchalance in admitting that they hadn’t found a replacement yet for the murdered Iranian head of state because the U.S.-Israeli attacks were so successful that all the potential replacements had also been killed. No need for woke nonsense like knowing what you’re doing.

With gas prices soaring and Americans already coming home in body bags, an obviously desperate Trump yearns to declare victory and withdraw, but he cannot do so, because the Iranian government is still very much in place. Lacking an exit strategy, his war doctrine is “flexible,” by necessity, since he has no idea how he fell into the current trap, let alone how to get out of it. Ever the narcissist, however, he gives himself an “A” for effort, assessing the initial phase of the U.S. war as a 15 on a scale of 10.

In other words, we’re watching another reality TV episode, full of kitsch and cliches, with Pete Hegseth comparing the mass killing to a football game. Iranian leaders knew the first few “plays,” said the war secretary, because they had been scripted before the war started, but once the “game” was underway they didn’t “know what plays to call, let alone how to get in the huddle.” Filled with adolescent pride at unleashing massive waves of lethality, he claimed the U.S. was “fighting to win,” even as Trump showed eagerness to negotiate a way out, an option that Tehran flatly rejected.

Badly conceived, sloppily improvised, and based on the repetition of past errors and disasters, the Trump and Bibi war moves from tragedy to farce and back again, only this time on a vaster scale and with potentially far graver consequences.²

It’s difficult to recall a greater folly.

ENDNOTES:

• 1
  Quoted from David Barsamian (with Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, Nahid Mozaffari), Targeting Iran, (City Lights, 2007).
• 2
  See Maciek Wisniewski, “Operation Epic Farce,” La Jornada (Spanish), March 7, 2026.

Michael K. Smith is the author of Portraits of Empire. He co-blogs with Frank Scott at www.legalienate.blogspot.com. Read other articles by Michael.

Right-Wing Watch

Far-right assault on public broadcasting backfires in Switzerland – lessons for the BBC-haters, perhaps?

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Yesterday


Just imagine if Nigel Farage or his allies held meaningful influence over the BBC. A broadcaster historically associated with rigorous editorial standards could be transformed into something closer to a partisan outlet, something resembling GB News, but with vastly greater reach and influence.

Some rare good news emerged this week. Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party to reduce the licence fee that funds the country’s public broadcaster, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC).

The result represents a clear public endorsement of public service broadcasting. It also acts as a message for far-right movements across Europe, which are increasingly targeting national broadcasters.

In many countries these institutions are accused of political bias or of operating with outdated funding models. Yet the real political objective behind many of these campaigns is less about reform and more about weakening independent media institutions.

BBC in the firing line

Nowhere is this debate more intense than in the UK. For years, right-wing politicians, commentators and think tanks have argued that the BBC’s mandatory licence-fee funding model is outdated and unfair. Their criticism frequently centres on alleged political bias, despite the BBC’s longstanding global reputation as one of the most respected public broadcasters in the world.

The BBC is not immune from criticism, of course. No large media institution is. It has long been accused of both left and right-wing bias. Critics on the right point to what they see as liberal, metropolitan values, while critics on the left argue it too often privileges government narratives and establishment voices. Reuters Institute research shows that, overall, the BBC is less trusted by the political right than people on the left.

But the current wave of attacks is part of a broader political strategy aimed at delegitimising public-service media altogether.

Even figures outside the UK have joined the anti-BBC chorus. In November, Donald Trump claimed he had an “obligation” to sue the BBC over the editing of a section of his speech in an episode of Panorama.

The deeper danger is not criticism itself, but what comes next. Across Europe, far-right parties seek not merely to weaken public broadcasters financially but to reshape them politically, either by forcing them into commercial dependence or by bringing them under direct political influence if they gain power.

A playbook spreading across Europe

If such forces were ever able to exert real control over the BBC, the consequences would be profound. The occasional grumble about paying the licence fee would quickly seem trivial compared with the prospect of political interference in one of the world’s most prestigious media institutions.

Just imagine if Nigel Farage or his allies held meaningful influence over the BBC. A broadcaster historically associated with rigorous editorial standards could be transformed into something closer to a partisan outlet, something resembling GB News, but with vastly greater reach and influence.

And Farage’s ideological allies across Europe are pursuing similar strategies, seeking to undermine the independence of public broadcasters in their own countries.

In France, the far-right National Rally has threatened to privatise the country’s public television and radio networks. Ahead of the snap general election in 2024, the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, said his ambition was to privatise public broadcasters “in order to make savings,” adding that they would operate under a set of specifications.

The party’s vice president Sebastien Chénu said that public television and radio needed “a bit of liberty, some oxygen,” while criticising radio programmes he claimed, “lean to the left or far left.”

Similar pressures are emerging elsewhere in Europe. Speaking to the Spanish newspaper El Pais earlier this year, Luis Menéndez, head of the development committee of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), warned that threats to public service media are gaining ground in Poland, Slovakia, Malta and Hungary.

“It’s a wind that brings not only cold, but also waves of disinformation, sinister gusts of espionage, bursts of hybrid-digital warfare, and gales against free journalism and democracy,” Menéndez said, warning that such conditions create fertile ground for far-right political conspiracy theories that target public media.

Hungary’s warning

Hungary offers perhaps has the most depressing and worrying example of how political power can reshape a country’s media landscape. For more than a decade, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has presided over the expansion of a vast pro-government media ecosystem that dominates much of the national conversation.

Péter Magyar, leader of Respect and Freedom (TISZA) party, has described what he sees as the corrosive effects of what he calls Orbán’s “propaganda factory.”

“It might be very difficult to imagine from America or Western Europe what the propaganda and the state machinery is like here,” Magyar said in an interview with the Associated Press. “This parallel reality is like the Truman Show. People believe that it’s reality.”

America’s parallel crisis

Yet such pressures facing independent media are not confined to Central and Eastern Europe, or indeed the wider continent.

The dynamics echo developments in the United States. Budget cuts under Donald Trump have already led to the closure of the US Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the body created in 1967 to support the country’s public radio and television system. After nearly six decades in operation, the non-profit announced earlier this year that it would dissolve following severe federal funding reductions.

Trump and his MAGA allies have long targeted NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), the two main networks supported by the CPB. Plans to eliminate their funding were outlined in the right-wing blueprint for a second Trump administration, Project 2025.

The policy memo said: “For years taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidising [NPR and PBS], which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’.”

Last July, Trump wrote on social media that any Republican who voted against funding cuts “to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or endorsement.”

Announcing the organisation’s dissolution, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said its “final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organisation to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attack.”

The growing power of media billionaires

The drawing of public broadcasters into wider political battles over information, influence and democratic accountability, comes at a time when ownership of the US media landscape is already highly concentrated in the hands of a small number of billionaires.

The world’s richest man owns X, the family of the second-richest controls Paramount, which owns CBS, the third richest owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the fourth richest owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios, and another billionaire controls Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Many of these powerful media barons have, to varying degrees, accommodated the demands of a combative president who has simultaneously stripped public broadcasting of federal support.

As the magazine Prospect observed in a recent paper on the state of US media: “Increasingly, Americans say they no longer know who or what to believe.”

Why the Swiss vote matters

The picture is uncomfortably familiar in the UK. Here, too, a small group of wealthy owners dominates much of the national newspaper industry. The BBC remains a frequent target of political attack from the right, even as openly partisan broadcasters and new populist news websites enter the market.

Meanwhile Nigel Farage, whose far-right party is gaining ground electorally, has repeatedly pledged to abolish the licence fee and replace it with a subscription model, arguing that the broadcaster is “institutionally biased.”

It’s not difficult to see how fragile and susceptible to manipulation the information environment can become, even in countries that still like to think of themselves as stable western democracies.

Viewers may often be frustrated with aspects of the BBC’s coverage, such as disproportionate attention given to figures like Farage. But abolishing the licence fee could concentrate even greater power in the hands of wealthy private media owners, many of them based outside the UK.

Weakening public broadcasting would also accelerate a shift toward subscription-based media, forcing households to rely on multiple private platforms simply to access news and live television. By contrast, the current licence fee, around £180 a year, funds a wide range of news, cultural programming and entertainment that remains universally available.

Against that backdrop, the Swiss vote takes on wider significance. By rejecting an attempt to weaken the country’s public broadcaster, voters signalled that, when given the choice, citizens may still recognise the value of independent public-service media, and may be willing to defend it.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch