LH—Former UN Weapons Inspector and US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter takes down US-NATO neocon propaganda as Iran hits back at Trump dragging on deal commitments and Putin issues a major response to US-NATO backed Ukrainian drone strikes into Russia. This plus much more in this geopolitical round up.

DW—Militarily, experts like Professor Ted Postol argue that Israel and the U.S. are depleted of critical air defense capabilities, making a new war in the region unrealistic, though irrational actions cannot be ruled out due to the unpredictable nature of current leadership. Israel’s dual perception of regional enemies—as Sunni and Shia forces opposing it—fuels an endless cycle of conflict primarily driven by preemptive Israeli military strikes even in areas with unclear threats.

DW—Professor Postel delivers a technical and historical critique of the Patriot missile defense system’s effectiveness against Iranian ballistic missiles. He challenges widely accepted claims, supported by contractors and the US military, that Patriot interceptors achieve a success rate of over 90%. Instead, Postel presents evidence from video and scientific studies suggesting the actual intercept rate is closer to 2–3%, which is nearly negligible compared to the official figures. He draws parallels with the Gulf War of 1991, when similar exaggerated claims were made, and emphasizes that contractors such as Raytheon (now integrated into Lockheed Martin) have a long-standing record of overstating performance.

RB—As the Ukrainian army suffered horrendous losses in its ill-fated 2023 campaign, and later in its ill-thought out 2024 Kursk campaign, the equipment and munition reserves of Europe were used up to replace the Ukrainian losses. The Russians mobilized to vastly increase their presence in Ukraine and pushed the Ukrainians back while causing vast Ukrainian casualties that have withered the pool of available fighting age men. Europe kept up with its sanction packages, desperately trying to crush a Russian economy that continued to grow, with the latest EU sanctions package being its fifteenth. All the while, Russia looks stronger than ever in Ukraine and the Ukrainian army weaker than ever.

IGL—The US-Iran war may mark one of the biggest turning points in modern geopolitics. In this in-depth conversation, Professor Radhika Desai argues that Iran’s resistance has accelerated the decline of Western imperialism and exposed the limits of American military, financial and political power.

GN/JB—Palestinian solidarity activists like those in Palestine Action have confronted the war machine directly by protesting and disrupting arms manufacturing. The British state’s over-the-top legal response—treating protests as terrorism, holding activists under harsh pre-trial conditions, and banning media coverage—demonstrates how anti-imperialist dissent is criminalized. This repressive approach aims to intimidate broader dissent, shift public discourse by manufacturing “terror” narratives, and suppress effective mass action against militarism and genocide.