Trita Parsi discusses the likely consequences of Trump's seemingly inevitable escalation in Iran — and the powerful forces that appear to be pushing him in that direction.
Israel and U.S. persist in telling me that by destroying Iran, I will no longer have a reason to fear this “terrorist state”. It’s probably me, but I haven’t spent one second of my 83 years in fear of Iran. OTOH, I’ve watched Israel and the U.S. commit genocide, level Gaza, take control of the West Bank, invade Syria, Lebanon (which is becoming the new Gaza), and now Iran. Israel and the U.S. have committed too many war crimes to count without consequences. But with all the new laws, I criticize Israel at my peril.
I have become what they would call an anti-semite because I see a nation of pathetic whiney sociopathic baby killers. And the Israeli Mossad is a terrorist in America carrying out CIA torture programs while living as regular Jews in Brooklyn
Iran has been on Israel's hit list for decades!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, not a government that played fair, but why not more emphasis on Iran being identified as a terrorist state by Israel, and look whose calling who a terrorist state, and more about using America to carry out it's agenda, and not because it cares about it's people, no, for Israel and it's need to clear it's playing field.
The great Persian people threw out the CIA and they have been telling us that they are our enemy ever since. I really hope world history will be taught to the world.
It's damn difficult being an atheist. A belief in everlasting hell fire for the likes of Trump, his cohorts and the Israelis would offer a great deal of comfort at this moment!
Prof Seyed M. Marandi on April 6, 2026 in Daniel Davis Deep Dive >>>
“I think we’re going to see the complete destruction of all oil and gas installations and electricity and water desalination plants in the Persian Gulf region. And that will be the end of oil and gas from this region permanently.”
“Basically, that’s what Trump is pushing for. And I think we’re on the verge of a global economic depression that will be far more devastating than 1929.”
“The Iranians are not going to back down under any circumstances. There’s not a chance because the Iranians are saying a ceasefire is just an opportunity for Trump and Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby to rearm and to regroup and then to attack and slaughter Iranians again.”
America, it’s beyond time to make your constitution do what it says on the tin. Your soon-to-be-former friends cannot see an ancient civilisation destroyed as a mere distraction from the depraved sexual history of your President, if notionally the atrocity is to enforce an agreement from which your idiot President himself resiled purely to humiliate a black man he hates. Or in order to pre-empt a threat of assassination to his own sorry ass, waved in front of him by an intelligence operation by your “ally” Israel, which is the supervising terrorist state fitting the description attributed to Iran. Trump will destroy fourteen years of my father’s work helping build Iran, for which they paid him good money, and all it will prove is that the President is mentally incapable of co-existence with a country which is in no way obliged to offer him any fealty, let alone accept regime change from such a malicious and corrupt source, and which by taking US orders would invite continued endless bullying violence, now known as “lawn mowing”. And sanctions. Get rid of the megalomaniac now! He has threatened another genocide. He is carrying out his insane threats. You have to stop selling your country to this puppet of the weapons industries. You’re full time professional contract killers now, one country after another, including Gaza and Ukraine, which now join the long list. It’s not an “Iran home game”, you are killing and destroying the lives of a nation which wants no “game”, wants nothing to do with you after you starved them since 1979. Change your own regime, that fascist-pornified farce that legislates to kills its own school children and those of other nations, for once. That’s the way to serve your country. Do that service to us all and I would thank you for it, even if you don’t pull on a uniform in the hope that someone still feels you to be a respectable citizen by so doing.
Show me someone who’s not in uniform, and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him.
More than a year ago, I began reading “All the Shah’s Men; an American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” by former NYT Istanbul bureau chief, Stephen Kinzer, about the U.S. and U.K.-instigated coup that replaced democratically elected and secular Mohammad Mossadegh with the Shah. The book was originally written in 2003 and was updated in 2008 with a preface in the latter entitled, “The Folly of Attacking Iran.”
In the 2003 preface, Kinzer quoted from an interview he had with an Iranian woman who was giving a book talk about her memoirs, in which she responded to a question about the 1953 coup:
“‘Why did Americans do that terrible thing? . . . . We always loved America. To us, America was the great country that helped us while other countries were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again. I can tell you for sure that if you had not done that thing, you would never have had that problem of hostages being taken in your embassy in Tehran. All your trouble started in 1953. Why did you do it?”
Well, it was all about the oil, of course. As Chris mentioned, Mossadegh wanted to keep a larger percentage of profits from Iranian oil for Iranians.
The quoted excerpt from the book resonated with me in part because as a college student, I took a course on the Middle East in which we were assigned countries and groups. This was when the U.S. had friendly relations with Iran, before 1979. My group consisted of me, an Iranian student, an Iraqi student and a basketball player. (After the first class, we never saw the basketball player again). Ahmed, the Iraqi student, didn’t speak English, so Mohammed, the Iranian student, who spoke several languages in addition to Persian/Farsi
translated Ahmed’s contributions to the group from Arabic into English. Mohammed was not only erudite, he was generous, funny and enthusiastic. He had an apartment full of books in different languages which he happily shared with Ahmed and me. I didn’t intend to bring up this personal experience, but Chris’ mention of how well educated Iranians are made me think fondly of Mohammed.
I haven’t finished the book yet, which has more to do with my erratic reading habits than the contents. I picked it up again and it is hard to put down. I recommend it.
There is an antiwar protest tomorrow where I live. The sponsoring group is also showing a film this week called Coup 53, about the overthrow of Mossadegh. I hope that there will be antiwar marches across the country, as the No Kings march fell well below hopes and expectations in that respect. (Very few antiwar signs). The march tomorrow does not have ties to the Democratic Party. I also hope other readers can find the film. It apparently contains authentic clips from days of the coup.
Sanctions has long been the U.S. playbook, from the Middle East to Latin America. Weaken the economy of a government that is not in thrall to U.S. corporations, thereby immiserating the population, send in the CIA to foment dissent, and arm insurgents.
If evangelical soldiers truly believe that this is Armageddon, they are now shifting from a spiritual mode of expectation to one of preparation. They are duty bound to honor ancient commands to forswear all forms of misconduct. They must be truthful, ethical, moral, and blameless in all aspects of their lives, as befitting the anticipated return of Messiah. That includes not obeying illegal orders. Sounds like it’s time for evangelicals to pick a lane.
More often than not, we speak of a cold blooded murderer as the ones responsible for some act of homicidal conclusion.
Only cold blooded animals kill without regard. But we're special, because we're warm blooded, kind, delicate humans under the umbrella of some eternal creation where the road of progress is a one way street. Ultimately we'll just continue on our destined path of progress.
We are animals by definition. Warm blooded mammals to be specific and very capable of killing for sport. The ones with cold blood are the slain.
Amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates are not evil because their metabolism is ambient temperature dependant.
We may want to consider that the pedestal we put ourselves on is imaginary. We're over rated.
Human exceptionalism, American exceptionalism and finally white supremacy are the governing traits we have adopted.
"Humans", are not so special, not immune from the laws of nature and not insulated from the tug of our dark impulses. That place where we taste the blood of our enemies.
It's in all of us. We retain the hunter instincts of our predatory ancestors. Animals kill to exist. All living things require nutrional intake and we are omnivores who eat plants and animals.
Just stating the obvious here.
It may be an uncomfortable thought but that's the reality of us as individuals, who are off a particular species of primates that hunted game, in coordinated groups, for eons.
Fine....
A truly intelligent species would address at least two things on a global scale that we fail to acknowledge much less address
One: We have the capacity to kill. It has been intrinsically woven into us over millions of years. We are warm blooded killers.
This makes us a potential hazard in any environment we stumble across. A proceed with caution approach is in order....yes?
It's a razor sharp line between the life and death instincts. And if had any collective sense about ourselves then we would insert
ethics front and center as a narrative obsession on a global scale.
Two;
Our so-called intelligence has allowed us to interrogate the machery of nature from the subatomic to the far reaches of the cosmos. We know generally how the universe is stitched together.
From this we have built civilization. The planet is of finite dimension. It is not infinite as economists claim. We have exited the tracks of reality in the very foundation of the primary operating system..ie the nation state and the economies swirling around them.
Wage wars over securing access to natural resources and employ ideological justifications to buttress any doubts.
We harvest the crust of the planet to supply the energy and material flows we have become dependent upon. We disregard the fact that the elements of matter exist in limited quantities.
The Andean Mountains are loaded with copper but mining it becomes more difficult, more expensive over time as the accessible copper is depleted. Eventually the chase isn't worth the effort. Yet we retain the fallacy that infinite economic growth is the solution.
Everything we manufacture is within a matter of decades, disposable. Walk into a a big box store and you can purchase the refuse of the future. Recycling is of minimal concern.
Civilization has inputs of energy and material flows and yet we are ignorant of the output. The accumulation of disgarded consumer goods forms mountains of waste, leaching into the soil, polluting ground water, estuaries and coastal waters. Commercial fishing is depleting fish stocks at an alarming rate. Insect populations and the diversity of species that pollinate the flora are disappearing within a single human generation.
It's planetary overshoot. One dominant species has convinced themselves that it's all for their taking. Demand is outstripping supply. The chemistry of the planet is being altered in the blink of an eye.
All of this requires some form of organization which leads to hierarchies and that in turn delivers us into the lap of authorities who as may have guessed, work in their own self-interest.
It is a colossal predicament. If humans were really special, actually awake to the mess of our own making....well we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with now would we?
This assumption, pretext whatever....that humans can overcome anything is a lethal ideological fantasy.
Take a look at where we're at. Donald Trump is the vile excretion of a dying system. Just to exist demands that we participate in the very system that devours us.
He's our creation.
We need a new approach. It's all inverted. Upside in and downside out..
One actor in this play has been ignored, the American tax payer. Joe Avg has to take the rains and stop the war; NO ONE else will. Joe, now has everything out in the open, clear to see; the damn dots practically form a line that even a dimwit can connect, if he wants, dares..
'No action' will stain Joe's hand with the kind of taint of which the most rabid Nazis could be rightly proud. Nothing washes that shit clean.
very good interview and analysis. the genocidal and war criminal regimes of Israel and the US are seeing the meaning of resistance of a tired country. i could not imagine what a powerful and energetic country like China or others could do to the hegemony of the US.
"... if there is an escalation, then Iran will destroy oil infrastructure throughout the region and this will take years to rebuild, resulting in a prolongation of the growing oil crisis."
I'm writing to you from Mauritania. I’ve been a long-time reader of your reports, and I just wanted to reach out personally after subscribing to support your vital work. In a world that seems to be losing its soul, your voice remains one of the few that still speaks of true morality and justice.
Given your deep background in theology, I felt compelled to share a very simple, personal thought with you. Sometimes, when the weight of the world's injustice feels too heavy, I find that the only real clarity comes from a direct, sincere appeal to the Creator.
My humble suggestion, from one human soul to another: in your quiet moments, perhaps try asking the Source of all Truth to show you the 'Straight Path' (the Truth that is beyond all our flawed human systems). I truly believe that a heart as brave as yours is destined for that kind of ultimate light.
Even if advisors can convince T to declare victory somehow and extricate the U.S., I do fear that Israel/Netanyahu’s agenda may require Iran’s full demise or at least more war/victories. Israeli reps keep declaring it will not use nuclear options. I am becoming more fearful bc its promises to not commit crimes almost always portend its actions.
Yes - it is prophesized. I am a TI and hope for anything that takes out and destroys Americas Torture satellites. Read my article on how mind control weapons work. They destroy your feelings. The end of free will. Nothing compares to that.
1. There is no deal that will satisfy Israel. Trump dances like a puppet in Netanyahu's hand.
2. Neither Israel nor the United States will hesitate to go nuclear.
Israel and U.S. persist in telling me that by destroying Iran, I will no longer have a reason to fear this “terrorist state”. It’s probably me, but I haven’t spent one second of my 83 years in fear of Iran. OTOH, I’ve watched Israel and the U.S. commit genocide, level Gaza, take control of the West Bank, invade Syria, Lebanon (which is becoming the new Gaza), and now Iran. Israel and the U.S. have committed too many war crimes to count without consequences. But with all the new laws, I criticize Israel at my peril.
I’m glad I’m old.
I have become what they would call an anti-semite because I see a nation of pathetic whiney sociopathic baby killers. And the Israeli Mossad is a terrorist in America carrying out CIA torture programs while living as regular Jews in Brooklyn
Iran has been on Israel's hit list for decades!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, not a government that played fair, but why not more emphasis on Iran being identified as a terrorist state by Israel, and look whose calling who a terrorist state, and more about using America to carry out it's agenda, and not because it cares about it's people, no, for Israel and it's need to clear it's playing field.
The great Persian people threw out the CIA and they have been telling us that they are our enemy ever since. I really hope world history will be taught to the world.
Read another crazy rant by Trump.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-target-irans-critical-infrastructure-because-theyre-animals
MEE is an excellent alternative to MSM. Thanks.
The Russia will share nukes with their Iranian allies.
It's damn difficult being an atheist. A belief in everlasting hell fire for the likes of Trump, his cohorts and the Israelis would offer a great deal of comfort at this moment!
Prof Seyed M. Marandi on April 6, 2026 in Daniel Davis Deep Dive >>>
“I think we’re going to see the complete destruction of all oil and gas installations and electricity and water desalination plants in the Persian Gulf region. And that will be the end of oil and gas from this region permanently.”
“Basically, that’s what Trump is pushing for. And I think we’re on the verge of a global economic depression that will be far more devastating than 1929.”
“The Iranians are not going to back down under any circumstances. There’s not a chance because the Iranians are saying a ceasefire is just an opportunity for Trump and Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby to rearm and to regroup and then to attack and slaughter Iranians again.”
Link to clip >>> https://danieldavisdeepdive.substack.com/p/urgent-iran-war-pushes-persian-gulf?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1982996&post_id=193401353&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=3emmgf&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
America, it’s beyond time to make your constitution do what it says on the tin. Your soon-to-be-former friends cannot see an ancient civilisation destroyed as a mere distraction from the depraved sexual history of your President, if notionally the atrocity is to enforce an agreement from which your idiot President himself resiled purely to humiliate a black man he hates. Or in order to pre-empt a threat of assassination to his own sorry ass, waved in front of him by an intelligence operation by your “ally” Israel, which is the supervising terrorist state fitting the description attributed to Iran. Trump will destroy fourteen years of my father’s work helping build Iran, for which they paid him good money, and all it will prove is that the President is mentally incapable of co-existence with a country which is in no way obliged to offer him any fealty, let alone accept regime change from such a malicious and corrupt source, and which by taking US orders would invite continued endless bullying violence, now known as “lawn mowing”. And sanctions. Get rid of the megalomaniac now! He has threatened another genocide. He is carrying out his insane threats. You have to stop selling your country to this puppet of the weapons industries. You’re full time professional contract killers now, one country after another, including Gaza and Ukraine, which now join the long list. It’s not an “Iran home game”, you are killing and destroying the lives of a nation which wants no “game”, wants nothing to do with you after you starved them since 1979. Change your own regime, that fascist-pornified farce that legislates to kills its own school children and those of other nations, for once. That’s the way to serve your country. Do that service to us all and I would thank you for it, even if you don’t pull on a uniform in the hope that someone still feels you to be a respectable citizen by so doing.
Show me someone who’s not in uniform, and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him.
More than a year ago, I began reading “All the Shah’s Men; an American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” by former NYT Istanbul bureau chief, Stephen Kinzer, about the U.S. and U.K.-instigated coup that replaced democratically elected and secular Mohammad Mossadegh with the Shah. The book was originally written in 2003 and was updated in 2008 with a preface in the latter entitled, “The Folly of Attacking Iran.”
In the 2003 preface, Kinzer quoted from an interview he had with an Iranian woman who was giving a book talk about her memoirs, in which she responded to a question about the 1953 coup:
“‘Why did Americans do that terrible thing? . . . . We always loved America. To us, America was the great country that helped us while other countries were exploiting us. But after that moment, no one in Iran ever trusted the United States again. I can tell you for sure that if you had not done that thing, you would never have had that problem of hostages being taken in your embassy in Tehran. All your trouble started in 1953. Why did you do it?”
Well, it was all about the oil, of course. As Chris mentioned, Mossadegh wanted to keep a larger percentage of profits from Iranian oil for Iranians.
The quoted excerpt from the book resonated with me in part because as a college student, I took a course on the Middle East in which we were assigned countries and groups. This was when the U.S. had friendly relations with Iran, before 1979. My group consisted of me, an Iranian student, an Iraqi student and a basketball player. (After the first class, we never saw the basketball player again). Ahmed, the Iraqi student, didn’t speak English, so Mohammed, the Iranian student, who spoke several languages in addition to Persian/Farsi
translated Ahmed’s contributions to the group from Arabic into English. Mohammed was not only erudite, he was generous, funny and enthusiastic. He had an apartment full of books in different languages which he happily shared with Ahmed and me. I didn’t intend to bring up this personal experience, but Chris’ mention of how well educated Iranians are made me think fondly of Mohammed.
I haven’t finished the book yet, which has more to do with my erratic reading habits than the contents. I picked it up again and it is hard to put down. I recommend it.
There is an antiwar protest tomorrow where I live. The sponsoring group is also showing a film this week called Coup 53, about the overthrow of Mossadegh. I hope that there will be antiwar marches across the country, as the No Kings march fell well below hopes and expectations in that respect. (Very few antiwar signs). The march tomorrow does not have ties to the Democratic Party. I also hope other readers can find the film. It apparently contains authentic clips from days of the coup.
Sanctions has long been the U.S. playbook, from the Middle East to Latin America. Weaken the economy of a government that is not in thrall to U.S. corporations, thereby immiserating the population, send in the CIA to foment dissent, and arm insurgents.
If evangelical soldiers truly believe that this is Armageddon, they are now shifting from a spiritual mode of expectation to one of preparation. They are duty bound to honor ancient commands to forswear all forms of misconduct. They must be truthful, ethical, moral, and blameless in all aspects of their lives, as befitting the anticipated return of Messiah. That includes not obeying illegal orders. Sounds like it’s time for evangelicals to pick a lane.
Their lane is insane.
Lindsay Graham has recommended using nuclear weapons.
He always does!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's a nut job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
More often than not, we speak of a cold blooded murderer as the ones responsible for some act of homicidal conclusion.
Only cold blooded animals kill without regard. But we're special, because we're warm blooded, kind, delicate humans under the umbrella of some eternal creation where the road of progress is a one way street. Ultimately we'll just continue on our destined path of progress.
We are animals by definition. Warm blooded mammals to be specific and very capable of killing for sport. The ones with cold blood are the slain.
Amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates are not evil because their metabolism is ambient temperature dependant.
We may want to consider that the pedestal we put ourselves on is imaginary. We're over rated.
Human exceptionalism, American exceptionalism and finally white supremacy are the governing traits we have adopted.
"Humans", are not so special, not immune from the laws of nature and not insulated from the tug of our dark impulses. That place where we taste the blood of our enemies.
It's in all of us. We retain the hunter instincts of our predatory ancestors. Animals kill to exist. All living things require nutrional intake and we are omnivores who eat plants and animals.
Just stating the obvious here.
It may be an uncomfortable thought but that's the reality of us as individuals, who are off a particular species of primates that hunted game, in coordinated groups, for eons.
Fine....
A truly intelligent species would address at least two things on a global scale that we fail to acknowledge much less address
One: We have the capacity to kill. It has been intrinsically woven into us over millions of years. We are warm blooded killers.
This makes us a potential hazard in any environment we stumble across. A proceed with caution approach is in order....yes?
It's a razor sharp line between the life and death instincts. And if had any collective sense about ourselves then we would insert
ethics front and center as a narrative obsession on a global scale.
Two;
Our so-called intelligence has allowed us to interrogate the machery of nature from the subatomic to the far reaches of the cosmos. We know generally how the universe is stitched together.
From this we have built civilization. The planet is of finite dimension. It is not infinite as economists claim. We have exited the tracks of reality in the very foundation of the primary operating system..ie the nation state and the economies swirling around them.
Wage wars over securing access to natural resources and employ ideological justifications to buttress any doubts.
We harvest the crust of the planet to supply the energy and material flows we have become dependent upon. We disregard the fact that the elements of matter exist in limited quantities.
The Andean Mountains are loaded with copper but mining it becomes more difficult, more expensive over time as the accessible copper is depleted. Eventually the chase isn't worth the effort. Yet we retain the fallacy that infinite economic growth is the solution.
Everything we manufacture is within a matter of decades, disposable. Walk into a a big box store and you can purchase the refuse of the future. Recycling is of minimal concern.
Civilization has inputs of energy and material flows and yet we are ignorant of the output. The accumulation of disgarded consumer goods forms mountains of waste, leaching into the soil, polluting ground water, estuaries and coastal waters. Commercial fishing is depleting fish stocks at an alarming rate. Insect populations and the diversity of species that pollinate the flora are disappearing within a single human generation.
It's planetary overshoot. One dominant species has convinced themselves that it's all for their taking. Demand is outstripping supply. The chemistry of the planet is being altered in the blink of an eye.
All of this requires some form of organization which leads to hierarchies and that in turn delivers us into the lap of authorities who as may have guessed, work in their own self-interest.
It is a colossal predicament. If humans were really special, actually awake to the mess of our own making....well we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with now would we?
This assumption, pretext whatever....that humans can overcome anything is a lethal ideological fantasy.
Take a look at where we're at. Donald Trump is the vile excretion of a dying system. Just to exist demands that we participate in the very system that devours us.
He's our creation.
We need a new approach. It's all inverted. Upside in and downside out..
One actor in this play has been ignored, the American tax payer. Joe Avg has to take the rains and stop the war; NO ONE else will. Joe, now has everything out in the open, clear to see; the damn dots practically form a line that even a dimwit can connect, if he wants, dares..
'No action' will stain Joe's hand with the kind of taint of which the most rabid Nazis could be rightly proud. Nothing washes that shit clean.
very good interview and analysis. the genocidal and war criminal regimes of Israel and the US are seeing the meaning of resistance of a tired country. i could not imagine what a powerful and energetic country like China or others could do to the hegemony of the US.
"... if there is an escalation, then Iran will destroy oil infrastructure throughout the region and this will take years to rebuild, resulting in a prolongation of the growing oil crisis."
.
and a De-escalation
in the Planet's Lust for
a biosphere-destroying
liquid gold in favor of Re-
Newable Energy Sources?
.
tipping points come in all shapes and
sizes - now, If only humanity can
Survive the bibi/Bonespurtz
Apocalypse
Hi Chris,
I'm writing to you from Mauritania. I’ve been a long-time reader of your reports, and I just wanted to reach out personally after subscribing to support your vital work. In a world that seems to be losing its soul, your voice remains one of the few that still speaks of true morality and justice.
Given your deep background in theology, I felt compelled to share a very simple, personal thought with you. Sometimes, when the weight of the world's injustice feels too heavy, I find that the only real clarity comes from a direct, sincere appeal to the Creator.
My humble suggestion, from one human soul to another: in your quiet moments, perhaps try asking the Source of all Truth to show you the 'Straight Path' (the Truth that is beyond all our flawed human systems). I truly believe that a heart as brave as yours is destined for that kind of ultimate light.
Thank you for everything you do. Stay strong.
With deep respect
Even if advisors can convince T to declare victory somehow and extricate the U.S., I do fear that Israel/Netanyahu’s agenda may require Iran’s full demise or at least more war/victories. Israeli reps keep declaring it will not use nuclear options. I am becoming more fearful bc its promises to not commit crimes almost always portend its actions.
Yes - it is prophesized. I am a TI and hope for anything that takes out and destroys Americas Torture satellites. Read my article on how mind control weapons work. They destroy your feelings. The end of free will. Nothing compares to that.