Trump has a choice: him or the world; wants way out of war; Security Council blames Iran; Iranian ‘sleeper cells;’ the Pope’s deep sorrow; U.S. bases damaged as reckoning begins; and ‘Nothing Will Remain of Tehran.’
Smoke rises above Tehran in the war against the U.S. and Israel. (Avash/Wikimedia Commons)
WEDNESDAY
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Trump’s Choice
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, told CN Live! that he believes Benjamin Netanyahu hinted to Donald Trump that certain Epstein files nailing Trump as a pedofile could wind up on the front page of The New York Times if he didn’t launch and continue the war against Iran.
But now, after seeing how badly the war is going, Trump wants out — even possibly at his own potential expense since he realizes what a disaster he has created. The moral choice is Trump’s: imperil the world or go down personally.
The ex-officer thinks Iran and the U.S. could make a deal at Israel’s expense, though he didn’t put it past Netanyahu to use a nuclear weapon against Iran rather than lose the war and wind up in jail. Ben-Menashe says nuclear-armed Pakistan could be brought into play, warning Israel not to nuke Iran. Nuclear-armed India, whose prime minister visited Netanyahu two days before the war on Iran began, could have been enlisted by nuclear-armed Israel to threaten Pakistan to lay off Israel. [WATCH: CN Live! — ‘The Toll on Israel’]
Looking for a Way Out – Trump Says Nothing Left to Bomb
Trump is clearly looking for a way out of the historic meses he has created. He told Axios “in a brief phone interview Wednesday that the war with Iran will end ‘soon’ because there is ‘practically nothing left to target,'” Axios reported. “‘Little this and that… Any time I want it to end, it will end,’ Trump said during the five-minute call.”
Meanwhile, the masters of the war say the war must go on. “Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday the war will continue ‘without any time limit, for as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and decisively win the campaign,'” Axios said.
This conforms with what Ben-Menashe said, namely, that Netanyahu needs the war to go on. With Israeli and American frustration growing that their war aim of regime change is not happening, the aggressors have unleashed their fury on civilians in Tehran and other Iranian cities.
As early as Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump advisors were looking for a way out. The paper said that “some of his advisers privately urged him to look for an exit plan amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a lengthy conflict could spark political backlash.” But “some Trump administration officials said as long as Tehran continued to attack regional countries and Israel still wanted to strike Iranian targets, it was unlikely the U.S. could easily withdraw from the war.”
Israel decides.
Unless Trump is willing to have his Epstein-related crimes revealed.
Meanwhile, Iran Threatens to Hit Western Banks in Gulf
Citi Bank and HSBC bank have temporarily shut their offices in the Gulf after Iran threatened to strike Israeli and Western banks in the region in the wake of an Israeli or U.S. missile attack against a Tehran building housing offices of Bank Sepah, Iran’s first modern bank, founded in 1922. Wall Street and the City of London probably weren’t banking on that.
UN Security Council
Russia and China did not veto a scurrilous resolution in the U.N. Security Council that blames Iran as the “unprovoked” aggressor in the war. The most startling word in the resolution is “unprovoked,” which any clear-eyed observer would see as an out-and-out lie. It was sheer audacity to include that word when the whole world can see that the United States and Israel carried out an unprovoked attack and that Iran is defending itself according to the U.N. Charter. This resolution brings further shame on the Security Council after its endorsement last November of the genocidal Trump/Kushner takeover of Gaza.
[See CN‘s full report: WATCH: UN Security Council Blames Iran]
Trump Says ‘Full Steam Ahead’ and Ship Gets Bombed
Trump on Wednesday urged nervous captains to go “full steam ahead” through the Strait of Hormuz. “I think they should use the strait. We took out just about all of their mine ships in one night. Just about all of their navy is at the bottom of the sea,” said Trump despite an Iranian threat to blow them out of the water. So a Thai ship tried to pass later Wednesday and it was blown out of the water.
Trump on Iranian ‘Sleeper Cells’
Trump talked to reporters about “Iranian sleeper cells” inside the U.S., saying authorities are “watching every single one of them.” He said: “We’ve been very much on top of it. We’ve got very, very good intelligence into that.” Trump even claimed: “We know where Iranian sleeper cells are… We have eyes on all of them, I think.” He thinks?
Meanwhile, “The FBI warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for American attacks by launching drones at the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by ABC News.”
How would the U.S. react if there were to be such an attack on U.S. soil?
NYT Shows Damage to US Bases
The so-called Paper of Record was late to put it on the record. But on Wednesday the Times analyzed satellite photos that showed the extent of the damage done to U.S. bases in the Gulf by Iran’s retaliation for being attacked. “At Least 17 U.S. Sites Damaged in War With Iran, Analysis Shows,” was the headline. Except the Times was two later than independent journalist Richard Medhurst who brilliantly exposes the U.S. losses in the region.
Israelis no longer receiving proper warnings of Iranian strikes.
Iran has wiped out the entire US THAAD and Patriot radar system in the Gulf using $50k drones. It will cost billions and take a decade to replace.
I pieced together all the satellite photos of the strikes & bases. pic.twitter.com/uOBES78JdJ
— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) March 10, 2026
TUESDAY
US Admission of Mistakes Begins
The NYT headline begins the reckoning: “How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War.”
The Times says the U.S. dismissing the possibility of a long oil shock is
“emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat. Iran has responded far more aggressively than it did during last June’s 12-day war, firing barrages of missiles and drones at U.S. military bases, cities in Arab nations across the Middle East, and on Israeli population centers. […]
Inside the administration, some officials are growing pessimistic about the lack of a clear strategy to finish the war. But they have been careful not to express that directly to the president, who has repeatedly declared that the military operation is a complete success. [..] [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth acknowledged on Tuesday that Iran’s ferocious response against its neighbors caught the Pentagon somewhat off guard. […]
Some military advisers did warn before the war that Iran could launch an aggressive campaign in response, and would view the U.S.-Israeli attack as a threat to its existence. But other advisers remained confident that killing Iran’s senior leadership would lead to more pragmatic leaders taking over who might bring an end to the war.”
Pentagon Admits 140 Wounded
After Reuters reported 150 U.S. military personnel had been wounded so far the Pentagon owned up and said 14o were injured with eight seriously wounded. The Defense Department had previously only admitted to the eight. It is still sticking to only seven killed though independent analysts say that number must be much higher given the damage done to U.S. military installations in the Gulf.
‘Nothing Will Remain of Tehran’
The New York Times has a report remarkably from the point of view of an ordinary Iranian living under the hell being rained down on Tehran by the Israelis and Americans. The Times reported:
“’It seems they are striking everywhere: homes, schools, mosques, hospitals,’ said Javad, who like most people who spoke from inside Iran, asked that his full name be withheld for fear of retaliation. From 10 p.m. to past midnight, people in Tehran, the Iranian capital, could hear the sound of bombing ‘north, south, east and west,’ he said.
‘The air is not breathable,’ said Javad. ‘Last night they hit the high-voltage electricity lines. They will also strike gas and water. Acid rain fell and the air is polluted. They will hit all the infrastructure, and they have no hesitation about killing.’
‘If they keep hitting Tehran like this for another 10 days,’ he added, nothing will remain of Tehran.’”
In the frustration of not being able to overthrow the government or end the ballistic missile and drone barrages it appears the U.S. and Israel might be turning to a scorched earth policy, to turn Iranian cities into Gaza.
Iranian FM Blasts Israeli Censorship
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi blasted Israel for censoring the results of Iran’s attacks on the Zionist state. “Netanyahu doesn’t want you to see how Iran’s powerful Armed Forces are punishing Israel for its aggression,” he said on X. “Here’s what our men & women on the ground report: utter destruction caused by our missiles, panicked leader and their air defenses in disarray,” he wrote, adding “we’re just getting started.”
NATO Poking Its Nose Into the Fight
NATO ambassadors are to meet Gulf representatives next week to talk about the war, according to a Reuters report, citing three European diplomats.
Pope Feels ‘Profound Sorrow’ For Victims in Middle East
The American Pope has expressed “profound sorrow for all the victims of the bombings” in the region, according to Vatican News. Pope Leo spoke of “many innocents, including many children,” and “those who were helping them, such as Father Pierre El-Rahi,” a Maronite priest killed by Israel in Qlayaa, Lebanon. El-Rahi had told the town to defy the Israeli order to evacuate. When an Israeli bomb struck the home of an elderly resident the priest rushed to assist and was killed by the second Israeli airstrike. The pope “prays that every hostility may cease as soon as possible.”
Iraqi Militia Say 31 Attacks Have Killed ‘Several’ US Troops
The Islamic Resistance of Iraq claims 31 attacks against U.S. military in Iraq in the past day. The Shia militia allied to Iran says it has killed and injured several U.S. troops in 291 attacks over 12 days. The Pentagon is admitting to only seven G.I.s killed so far.
I have a Palestinian friend in the West Bank who reports that 2.3 people were evacuated from Tehran. I can’t imagine that the Iranian government didn’t plan for the genocidal state of Israel bombing and killing civilians, so I hope this is true–that they got the people out of the city. But where did they put everyone? How are they getting food and services to everyone?
Just as an aside, my neighbor asked me what the stolen Mara-La-Go files had to do with the E. Files. I hadn’t thought about it.
The “Epstein Class” is into Intelligence as much as blackmail and hookups, and these Presidential files would come in handy for
that. Donald is in up to his treasonist dyed eyebrows, IMO.
Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t: If he does Hormuz stays closed, tanking the economy and his prospects for the midterms; if he doesn’t the Epstein compromat comes out and the Christian Zionists flay him alive. Netanyahu probably planned it this way, since it means the only way Trump can save himself is to declare martial law and invoke the insurrection act, probably with the help of an Israeli false flag attack on US soil. And then they can launch a prolonged ground war on Iran with military conscripts grabbed off our streets, US citizenship optional.
The great philosopher Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Trumpty Dumpty thought he had a plan but is now getting repeatedly punched in the face. The good news is that brain trauma can only increase his IQ.
This ex-military Indian analyst is systematic and logical in his commentary, with good outline of the technical capabilities of each party and good understanding of tactics and strategies (hint: the USA and Israel have neither).
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3qsj54dGqo
Also be aware Prof Radhika Desai has a new geopolitical economy channel with brilliant analyses. MUST FOLLOW.
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hwtm0V1kZc
To paraphrase:
Prof Desai:
WW1 & 2 were INTER-Imperialist wars in which the Empires dragged their colonies into conflict. Today we see an ANTI-Imperialist war that will result in the USA being evicted from the Middle East.
Prof Hudson:
I think the phrase you are looking for is “Paper Tiger”.
LOL!!!
U.S.-U.K.-NATO-EU-Israel operatives are very good at creating narratives, which Epstein class media pound into uniformed individuals’ heads. But wars are won by facts on the ground, and Iran is creating facts on the ground.
It is interesting to see Ari Ben-Menashe positing a scenario that dovetails with my own previous commentary on Consortium News’ July 2, 2025 update of Scott Ritter’s previous article “If It Wants, Iran Is Days From the Bomb” (originally published on Oct. 20, 2024):
“As early as the 1960s and into the twenty-first century, nuclear components from US-based facilities such as the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Oklahoma, the NUMEC site in Apollo, PA, and Giza Technologies in Secaucus, NJ were acquired by Israeli-affiliated actors for their nuclear weapons program with the complicity of various US officials and authorities, some of which ended up being proliferated onward to states such as apartheid South Africa, Pakistan, and both pre- and post-revolutionary Iran, according to investigators such as [Peter Stockton, an investigator for Rep. John Dingell’s committee] and Daniel Sheehan (accompanying more wide-ranging US and Israeli protection and participation in the A.Q. Khan network, detailed in sources such as David Armstrong and Joseph Trento’s ‘America and the Islamic Bomb,’ which simultaneously increases the probability of Iran being placed under Pakistan’s own nuclear umbrella should their interests sufficiently align).”
Of course, for all of the Indo-Abrahamic alliance ties that have been cultivated between India and Israel, India should also have incentive to avoid an Israeli nuclear strike on Iranian territory just as Pakistan does, since any nuclear fallout will quite probably also land on their territory as well as that of Pakistan (alongside Afghanistan and, of course, Iran), a scenario that the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has been drawing attention to since at least 2007 with their presentation on the repeatedly-averted US deployment of Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) bombs, otherwise known as “nuclear bunker busters,” against Iranian underground nuclear facilities.
CORRECTION: The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has been warning against the threat of RNEP ordinance being used against Iran since 2005:
“[T]he new nuclear earth penetrator that the United States plans to research would use a 1.2-megaton weapon. According to a simulation using software developed for the Pentagon, if one of these weapons were used against the underground nuclear facility in Esfahan, Iran, 3 million people would be killed by radiation within 2 weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation.”
Source:
“Earth-Penetrating Weapons,” Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), June 6, 2005
I don’t know the geography of the area in detail but would it be possible to drop one or more nuclear weapons on Iran in positions and with the right wind direction to have any fallout blown out to sea?
I wonder what Trump must be thinking now. His cowboy crap just doesn’t work in the modern world. But we all know he will continue to lie, lie, lie.
When an Israeli bomb struck the home of an elderly resident the priest rushed to assist and was killed by the second Israeli airstrike. The pope “prays that every hostility may cease as soon as possible.”
Zionist Death Squads are targeting all living beings. Macho man in his terminal stage: atheist, nihilist, sadist… utterly indifferent to all human values, indifferent to value itself… blindly, arrogantly, stupidly clinging to sheer meaninglessness… living in a void sealed off by violence and hate.
Sigh. These are the men who control the fate of humanity.
Iran’s defense is a corporate news blackout that might’ve surprised even the late John Pilger… might’ve.
“In the frustration of not being able to overthrow the government or end the ballistic missile and drone barrages it appears the U.S. and Israel are turning to a scorched earth policy”
This is not new in American history …. see Bill Clinton and the illegal bombing of Serbia. The Bill, like The Don, thought that a quick and brutal demonstration of Mighty American Air Power would bring his enemy to submission and make them come crawling and groveling to kiss the ring. Post-war reports revealed that America was blowing up a lot of decoys, but the Americans still ran out of targets. So, The Bill expanded the target list to include openly civilian targets such as TV stations and civilian passenger trains. Other examples could include the example of American Christianity conducting Christmas Bombings in Vietnam, and as the TV announcers say, “and much, much more.” Americans learned this while massacring squaws and children in Indian villages.
The Don’s target list has included civilian targets in an attempt to force submission from Day One. Such as the bombing of girl’s schools, ancient cultural sites and killing of the leadership of the nation. I’m not quite sure how The Don is going to expand his list much further. He’s already causing acid rain to fall on the capital.
Of course, ever since the Battle of Britain, the world has known how human beings under such bombardment respond. They do not surrender to distant cowards who inflict pain while hiding in the clouds. They shake their fists and vow revenge. That’s human nature. Human beings will stand in the rubble and vow revenge on those who caused all the sorrow. Even the English did that, and they are the people that had long experience of surrendering to any French or Vikings or Romans who came along.
Zionist Israel needs to be defanged
It is fascinating to read both foreign press and the Americans. Yesterday, I saw a Russian article mention the following. “Israel attacked the oil warehouse near the city of Qom, which the United States probably did not like it – they were asked not to touch the Iranian infrastructure.”
Today, I get up and read the American financial press that says the stock market is falling and oil is rising because today “Iran is escalating” and “attacking energy infrastructure”.
In fact, “escalating” appears to be the propaganda word of the day in the American media as applied to Iran. Today, the news is that “Iran” is escalating.
That an enemy is blamed for our escalations is of course nothing new in the MGM …. “Minister Goebbels Media”
It is exactly the same, possibly worse in Australia where the media landscape is dominated by the Murdochs, and no journalist has asked and insisted on an answer from the prime minister or foreign and defence ministers about the role of the CIA complexes at Pine Gap and Exmouth in the sinking of the unarmed Iranian frigate in international waters. No questions asked either as to why Australia has received no footage showing the damage to Tel Aviv or Haifa while instead being fed a ghoulish diet of bomb-damaged Iranian cities.