In the Stone Ages, as President Donald Trump (lead image) calls ancient history, it was expected that if a man wanted somebody enough, he would grab them by the short hairs to make them scream their compliance.
The Stone Age painters’ records on cave walls, which have been discovered to date, disclose more of the anatomical details of the animals and women the men hunted, and of their weapons, than they do of the hunters.
After several million years of that history had improved fighting and killing technology with metal and horses, Homer came along to polish the character of the hunters and put a shine on the original idea that brute force almost always succeeds unless it is met with matching brute force. He also introduced the idea that the gods are always on the side of the war winners, and that the theological reward they offer is sexual satisfaction following on slaughter (and vice versa). If Trump and his speech and tweet writers had read enough, they would be citing Homer for their model.
But it won’t help them. In fighting a war as hackneyed Homeric as Trump’s against Iran (China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba), the predictability of his every move exposes him to defeat by an adversary who can predict, and is unpredictable himself. That adversary understands that Trump has Achilles’ heels all over his body.
In this new podcast with Nima Alkhorshid, we go through the details of the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz, explaining why this is the lynchpin of all the Iranian end-of-war conditions – Iranian control is the only effective guarantee that the US (and Israel) will be deterred from resuming the war; the toll is the only method of securing multi-billion dollar reparations for the war damage; by strangling the economies of the West it is more effective for revenge and regime decapitation than those the CIA and Mossad have been able to use.
Breaking news was added as we spoke of Trump’s closeting in lengthy White House “executive time” and “policy meetings” on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; then the new US Navy interception and boarding of the oil tanker Tifani in the Indian Ocean, between Sri Lanka and Singapore. A day later, on Thursday afternoon, the abrupt sacking by Trump and his War Secretary, Peter Hegseth, of Navy Secretary John Phelan reveals that the US military resistance to Trump is beginning to spill outside the White House with grave political risk for Trump and the Republicans as the election campaign enters the final stage. .
Testimony from the survivors of the Iranian frigate, IRIS Dena, attacked and sunk in a US Navy operation, led by the submarine USS Charlotte on March 4, has just been released in Iran, broadcast by an Iranian television outlet (lead images, top and bottom, are screenshots, bottom image is a file photo).
The two survivors who appear in the six-minute videoclip are the captain of the Dena, Commander Abuzar Zarri (top left), and accompanying him is the first officer of the Dena, who is not identified by name (top, second image, centre). Zarri has been wounded; at the end of the video he appears to be standing with the support of a crutch. Zarri had previously been reported as having been killed in the attack.
Photographed in India when the Dena was participating in the Indian Navy-hosted MILAN 2026 review and exercise, Zarri was the second senior Iranian officer in India. The ranking officer was Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, Commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, who flew back to Teheran when the Dena, and its two escorts, IRIS Lavan and IRIS Bushehr, departed Visakhapatnam port on February 25. Their visit had lasted for ten days, February 15-25. Photographs of Zarri at Visakhapatnam match his appearance in the new video, which was released on April 21.
The evidence provided by the two officers indicates the Mouj-class warship did not have its regular armament of anti-ship and anti-air missiles, and torpedoes for anti-submarine combat. This was a condition of the Indian invitation for the exercise. The US Navy, which also participated in MILAN 2026, not only knew this but US air-patrol electronic surveillance of the Dena in the days before it reached Visakhapatnam on February 15 confirmed this disarmament.
“One of the exercise’s conditions,” Zarri said, “was weapons like missiles and torpedoes, which are strategic weapons, shouldn’t be carried by the participating vessels”. The Indian Navy set the condition and the verification procedure when the Dena entered Visakhapatnam. Asked if “the destroyer [sic] was not armed at all”, Zarri replied: “No, we didn’t have torpedoes.” He was not excluding the Dena’s six deck guns.
During the approach to the Dena, on its attack run, the USS Charlotte command knew the Dena was disarmed.
Zarri also reveals that two US torpedoes were fired. The first has been reported in the US media as having missed the Dena. In fact, according to Zarri, the first torpedo struck the ship, “and we lost our mobility. The ship’s shaft and propeller were destroyed so we had no mobility at all…we suffered no fatalities.”
Zarri said the local time was 3:35 am. At 5:06 am, US and other reports indicate the Dena was hit in the aft section with a large explosion breaking the keel. This evidence of a 90-minute interval between the torpedo firings is new and has not been explained. If confirmed, it indicates that after its first strike, the Charlotte asked for orders from its base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, the US Pacific Fleet, and the Pentagon. The time in Washington, DC, was between 4 and 5 in the afternoon of March 3.
In that interval, the testimony of the Dena’s first officer indicates that Zarri ordered the crew to assemble on the aft deck and prepare for evacuation, surrender, scuttling, or other options which have not been revealed by Zarri; return of fire was impossible without sub-surface torpedoes. “The second torpedo killed 104 of our friends, our comrades, our dear brothers,” Zarri added, confirming he knew “that was their intention.”
“After the first shot,” the second officer said, “I sent the crew to the flight deck [lead image, bottom] and went back inside to check that everyone was out…I went back in, started checking from the stern to midship to make sure that no one was left inside. I came back up toward the stern. I was in the corridor when the second torpedo was fired.”
Dawn in the waters off Galle, western Sri Lanka, the location of the Dena on the morning of the attack, did not occur until 5:59 am. Although it was still dark, however, the Charlotte captain, Commander Thomas Futch, and his weapons officer, were able to verify that the Dena crew had assembled on the rear deck. In the customary laws of naval warfare, if the attacking captain can verify that the target crew is readying to abandon ship, and is not preparing counter-fire, it is unlawful for him to fire to kill. Futch also knew the Indian Navy had guaranteed that the Dena was not carrying anti-submarine torpedoes.
The second torpedo fired by the Charlotte, according to Zarri, “was meant to cause heavy loss of life”. The second US torpedo was aimed at the aft section of the Dena’s keel underneath the assembled crew.
The newly disclosed survivor evidence does not reveal the Dena’s course south and then westward after leaving Visakhapatnam on February 25 with orders to seek sanctuary from the expected US attack at a Sri Lankan port or an Indian port. Zarri said that “on the way home we received a message that the US had attacked our country and that we’re at war.”
While that message was dated February 28, Indian and Sri Lankan sources indicate that in anticipation of the attack, the Iranians had been requesting safe haven for the Dena and its escorts from Sri Lanka from before February 25, and then from India on or before February 28. From the departure from Visakhapatnam, more than four days elapsed before the Indian agreement was issued to open Kochi port to the three-ship squadron on March 1.
A report from an Indian source reveals that the Iranian ships had “called at Hambantota in Sri Lanka, and then spent over eight days [February 25-March 4] in international waters.” This has not been acknowledged by Sri Lankan or Indian officials.
However, it was their delay – under intense pressure from US officials to disallow safe haven or to stall it – which exposed the Dena to the ambush the US was preparing. Knowing that the Dena was disarmed on the Indian Navy’s request and that the US Navy was in hot, armed pursuit, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jayshankar, together with the Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake, were responsible for the delay which was fatal.
Their subsequent statements disclaiming culpable knowledge and concealing the Dena’s course at sea between February 25 and March 4 add to the evidence of their complicity in the American war crime.
When journalism reports decision-making and action-taking in Teheran, Beijing, Moscow, and Washington — one after another in time sequence — the differences, the corrections, the contradictions, and the ambiguities of meaning between them are bound to be confusing to observers reading the record of outcomes without inside knowledge.
Confusion, however, isn’t what is happening in each of those capitals. It’s politics, faction-fighting in the middle of war in which deception and propaganda are also weapons of war.
Investigative journalism ought to be making this clear – in each of the warfighting capitals, as well as between them on the battlefields.
Podcasting, however, is viewed by many to be a spectator sport in which the only worthwhile conclusion after time, overtime and penalty shoot-out, is the score on the board for balls kicked into the net – without the line umpire blowing his offside whistle. There’s no cheering for defence played so well that the score is a nil-nil draw.
One of the differences between match scores and the politics of the wars the Trump Administration is fighting against Iran, Russia, and China is the harmlessness of the first and the lethal destruction of the second. One of the features they have in common is that you can wager money on the outcomes. Big money, if you have inside influence on the decision-making and knowledge of what will be decided – as Trump himself, his friends, and his officials have. Unless you have placed a Draw-No-Bet wager and get your money back, a nil-nil result usually means you’ve lost. Trump only bets on winning, never on a draw.
In the new podcast with Dimitri Lascaris, aired at 12 noon Moscow and Athens time, we look carefully at the evidence on the battlefield at the Strait of Hormuz and look at Trump’s form for bluff and deception. The latest statements of China’s Foreign Ministry – live at 3 pm Beijing time – are analyzed for what is said, and not said. The same method is then applied to the performance in Moscow. The conclusions aren’t recommended for team fans, bettors or bookmakers. But click if you are an intelligence agent.
This is not a question. Asking it is the answer.This is because the Security Council, the politburo of Russian war and security policymaking which President Vladimir Putin leads but does not fully control, rarely issues public statements; it never issues one like the announcement of April 14.
For our audience, which is exposed every few minutes of the day to the knowns, speculation about the known facts, speculation about the knowns, and the hopefulness, wishfulness, and theories of what’s about to happen, that’s an impossible amount of data and information to make sense of things.
Let’s try an unusual method of figuring out the big ones and the little ones — whether the American empire is falling down, or not falling down; whether the tankers coming from or bound for Iranian ports are getting through the Strait of Hormuz, or not – that is different from what we are exposed to when we watch all those other podcasts.
We know the unknowns we want to know more about: what will happen next in Trump’s war plan against Iran; what Iran, Russia and China are discussing now for their options in the fight back; what might be the unknowns we don’t know about (yet); what we suspect that the Americans, Iranians, Russians, and Chinese aren’t telling; and if we add up all the answers, where we are.
In successive tweets on Wednesday afternoon (April 15), President Donald Trump posted a new picture himself as the embodiment of God the Son on earth (lead image, left). Forty-four minutes earlier, he had announced that “President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there [China] in a few weeks.”
The first tweet was Trump’s method for fighting Pope Leo XIV and the US bishops and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni by demonstrating that the Irish Catholics of the US are on Trump’s side, not the Pope’s. There are roughly 20 million American Catholics of Irish origin; they are the largest ethnic community after the Catholics of Hispanic origin.
The second tweet was Trump’s method for sandbagging the Chinese into acceptance of the summit meeting proposed for four weeks’ away, but not quite finalized; and for a Chinese undertaking not to intervene, openly or secretly, financially or militarily, on Iran’s side in the blockade of the Hormuz Strait and Iran’s resistance to the Trump articles of capitulation. Presented in Islamabad last weekend, Vice President JD Vance called them “our final and best offer.”
According to Trump, “China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also – And the World. This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran. President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are working together smartly, and very well! Doesn’t that beat fighting??? BUT REMEMBER, we are very good at fighting, if we have to – far better than anyone else!!!”
This is not what Xi himself has announced at a meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister on April 14. Nor is it what Wang Yi, Politburo member and Foreign Minister, and Defense Minister Dong Jun announced ahead of Xi. However, between what all three have said, what they meant, and what they plan to do next, there is a large credibility gap; click for details.
This is the result of Chinese ambiguity and faction-fighting, and a western intelligence campaign to reveal covert Chinese military assistance to Teheran. “Iran used Chinese spy satellite to target US bases”, ran the April 15 headline in the Financial Times, the Japanese-owned and British-managed media platform in London. “Iran secretly acquired a Chinese spy satellite that gave the Islamic republic a powerful new capability to target US military bases across the Middle East during the recent war, according to a Financial Times investigation. Leaked Iranian military documents show the satellite, known as TEE-01B, was acquired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Aerospace Force in late 2024 after it was launched into space from China.”
The Trump pictures of Christ’s embrace and Xi’s hug are fakes.
So are the western media claims of Chinese weapons, missile parts and fuel, and military intelligence for Iran, according to Vzglyad, the Kremlin-backed security analysis platform in Moscow, in a publication of April 15 by Yevgeny Krutikov, a former Russian military intelligence officer. “So far, all the accusations against China have not gone beyond rhetoric,” Kruitikov has written. “There is no evidence, especially if it is confirmed by something tangible, in the accusations against China.”
Listen or view the discussion of the open and secret roles which China and Russia are playing in the Iran war in today’s podcast from the Red Pill Diaries with Rasheed Muhammad.
Between saying something if you are a Chinese admiral and Defense Minister and meaning something if you are a Politburo member and Foreign Minister, there is a pussyfooting difference.
If you are the US Treasury Secretary and you tell the Chinese what you mean, that’s different.
And then if you are the President of China, these differences of meaning might be interpreted as “the law of the jungle”.
Might be is a conditional verb. Sometimes in grammar it connects the subject of sentences with the object. Sometimes in politics it doesn’t.
And so, on or about Monday, April 13, Dong Jun (lead image, 2nd left), China’s Minister of Defense, said: “We are committed for peace & stability in the world. We are monitoring the situation in the Middle East. Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of Strait of Hormuz. We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honour them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and it is open for us.”
Where Dong said this, when, and in front of whom, were unclear in the press reports which, unusually, were not official state Chinese media or commercial media like the South China Morning Post. China experts noticed that the style of the remarks in Chinese was “very different from the official Chinese language style.” This isn’t necessarily a disqualifier. In Russian practice, sensitive official thinking can often be leaked through unofficial, even obscure sources, in part to test what happens in response.
Dong’s first two sentences were official boilerplate and obvious. The third sentence refers to the fact that in the first month of the US-Israeli war against Iran, an estimated 18 Chinese vessels transited the Strait – with Iranian permission and following a territorial route dictated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). On Monday, if and when Dong was speaking, a Chinese-owned tanker moved through the Strait. This was the Rich Starry which had loaded 250,000 barrels of methanol at the Emirati port of Hamriyah. The tanker is owned by Shanghai Xuanrun Shipping Co Ltd. but sanctioned by the US because it has been used to transport Iranian crude.
Dong’s fourth sentence is also boilerplate. There are many trade and energy agreements between China and Iran; the most important of them is the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2021–2046), signed in March 2021.
It is the Defense Minister’s fifth and sixth sentences which have drawn immediate and serious attention, especially in Teheran and Moscow, where they are interpreted as the first explicit Chinese declaration of support for Iran’s military control of the Strait and the first explicit Chinese warning to reject President Donald Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait which had begun on Monday.
Combined with the exit of the Rich Starry and another tanker, the US-sanctioned Elpis, which had loaded a cargo of Iranian methanol at Bushehr, Dong’s sentences appeared to signal that Beijing had decided to run Trump’s gauntlet and challenge the US Navy blockade.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent replied that “the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would ensure that no Chinese ships or others would be allowed to pass. ‘So they’re not going to be able to get their oil. They can get oil. Not Iranian oil,’ Bessent said, adding that China had been buying more than 90% of Iranian oil and it constituted about 8% of their annual purchases.”
As Bessent spoke, several hours after Dong’s speech and the tanker movements, both the speech and the ship courses were reversed. The Chinese Defense Ministry tweeted an official claim that the reports were “fake news” and “entirely fabricated.” The maritime tracking media reported the Rich Starry had stopped in the Gulf of Oman and then made a U-turn towards the Strait. The Elpis was reported to have stopped off the Iranian oil terminal port of Kooh Mobarak, which is located outside and east of the Strait, in the Gulf of Oman.
So now, all things said, what have the Chinese done?
In the world in which President Donald Trump plans his future (lead image), and the presidential dynasty of his sons to succeed him, the gunman believes he can take away both lives and bribes. Unless the victim catches him by surprise, outgunning him and those of his allies who have paid the price of his protection. It’s blood for money.
This is the new stage of Iran’s war. It is the stage which the Iranian and pro-Iranian post-mortem analyses of the Islamabad negotiations have not disclosed; the stage which the US and Israeli propaganda organs cannot comprehend; the stage which the Trump dynasty’s rivals are afraid of, Vice President JD Vance in front.
This stage of Iran’s war is also an example to President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping of the futility of paying bribes, as their advisors tell them; and the vulnerability of Trump and his sons to political defeat at home.For discussion of the tactics now, the operations for the next six months to US Election Day, and the strategy for winning the war to come, view or listen to the discussion with Nima Alkhorshid today.
Inside the Kremlin Wall there is only one man sitting or standing whose closeness to President Vladimir Putin has so excited his ambition to be rich (billion-dollar rich), and to be powerful (the next head of government), that he dares to shout from the ramparts that peace on the Ukrainian battlefield, relief of global economic sanctions, and prosperity with US investments will materialize very soon on condition that Russia puts its unquestioning trust in President Donald Trump.
Unquestioning means, for this man, never criticizing Trump for anything he says or does — no war he wages, no ceasefire or peace agreement he breaks. It also means never questioning Putin’s trust in him.
This man is Kirill Dmitriev, the President’s “Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries” — that’s to say, special negotiator with the Trump family’s money-making regime, including the US Treasury.“I believe he acts with 100% approval of Putin and does indeed speak for him,” says a source in a position to know. “He is Putin’s Whisperer.”
As the frontrunner in the race to succeed President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance had more to lose in the negotiations with Iran in Islamabad than his principal rivals – they are Trump the father and his sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump; or Mario Rubio, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.
At risk for Vance was the interpretation of Trump’s Jewish advisors, on the one hand, that he had been too soft on the barbarians and had conceded that Israel would remain too vulnerable to Iranian attack for the future. Equally at risk for him was the interpretation, on the other hand, that when the US and Israel resume their attacks and escalate to Trump’s Stone Age options, he, Vance, would be to blame for the economic dislocation impacts, loss of stock market value, and inflation which are the principal drivers of American voter swing against the Republican Party.
Not to mention the risk of another military mission failure like the Isfahan nuclear material and pilot rescue operation of April 4-5. Click for details.
Trump had said as much himself on April 2. “If it [deal with Iran] doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”
As the negotiations continued in Islamabad, Trump, Rubio, and Donald Jr. remained in Miami to watch professional fighters in a multi-million dollar betting ring. Trump’s ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, was also at ringside.
Vance ended in Islambad with a 210-second statement and stepped out of the ring. The credit Vance claimed for himself was “we have had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians”. The blame was on the Iranians that “we have not reached an agreement. I think that’s bad news for Iran more than it’s bad news for the United States of America.” He meant for the Vice President of the United States of America. “They have chosen not to accept our terms.”
The Iranians, he added, had refused to give “an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that will enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States”.
Vance emphasized this had been a collective “team” negotiation. He had talked with Trump “half a dozen times, a dozen times”, together with military operations chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, War Secretary Peter Hegseth, Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (in that order). Vance was spreading the blame.
He left with almost no offer to continue negotiations “We leave here with a very simple proposal… that is our final and best offer.” This sounded like a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum. But Vance left himself a 9-word escape. “We haven’t seen that [commitment] yet. We hope we will.”
Trump has followed with three lengthy tweets which he has repeated over two hours. “So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” Trump said his blockade would apply to “to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”
Five hours later, the blockade terms were clarified by Cooper’s Central Commnand to apply to “vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian [sic] Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”
This wasn’t the escalation option Trump’s Jewish advisors and the Israeli prime minister want. They say – editorializing through the Washington Post – an attack on Kharg Island to destroy Iran’s oil production, port storage, and oil shipping infrastructure; destruction of Iran’s missile and drone production capacities and stocks; removal of the enriched uranium stockpile; and a US military “perimeter” around all Iran’s nuclear installations.
They are still saying these are the escalation options in reserve. “An attack on Kharg Island is still possible.”
When Vance turned his back on reporters in Islamabad and headed for his flight to Washington, he too was reserving his options. They are the options to preserve the Trump succession for himself.
Trump, by contrast, is not only escalating against Iran. He has started to attack the Roman Catholic Church, the anti-war movement among American Catholics, and Pope Leo XIV himself. “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela… and I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do… If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican. Unfortunately, Leo’s Weak on Crime, Weak on Nuclear Weapons, does not sit well with me…Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!” Forty-six minutes after Trump published that, he added a portrait of himself as Jesus Christ curing the sick (lead image).
