A homemade bomb has gone off in the Iranian city of Zahedan, in the southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, but a second explosive device apparently intended to cause massive casualties has been diffused by security forces.

The explosive device, revealed to be a homemade sound bomb, went off at around 2:30 am local time and prompted authorities to evacuate the area, according to a statement issued by Iranian police on Saturday.

Bomb disposal units present at the site identified a second bomb shortly after the initial explosion, diffusing the device after cutting a remote control link meant to activate the explosion.

The terrorist attack, yet to be claimed by any terror group, left no casualties but shattered windows of several shops in the vicinity.

White House national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday welcomed Britain’s seizure of an oil tanker loaded with Iranian oil bound for Syria, saying the United States and its allies will continue to prevent Syrian and Iranian governments “from profiting off this illicit trade.”

British Royal Marines seized a giant Iranian oil tanker in Gibraltar on Thursday for trying to take oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, a dramatic step that drew Tehran’s fury and could escalate its confrontation with the West.

Iranian officials have warned Saudi Arabia against holding an oil tanker "hostage," describing it as an "illegal seizure" and a case of "ransom-seeking" aimed at gaining concessions from Iran.

On May 2, Saudi Arabia announced its coast guard had rescued a distressed Iranian oil tanker, named Happiness I, with 26 on board off the Red Sea port of Jeddah, after it faced "engine failure and the loss of control."

Two months on, despite being fixed, Saudis are refusing to let the vessel leave, and at the same time charge Iran $200,000 a day for maintaining the vessel in Jeddah.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to form a fact-finding committee to probe the issue of four diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982, Iranian news agencies reported.

“As has been announced several times over the past years, evidence shows that the kidnapped diplomats in Lebanon were delivered to the Israeli Zionist forces and then they were transferred to the occupied lands and they are now held in prison by this illegitimate regime,” a statement said.

It added: “Given the fact that Lebanon was under the US-backed Israeli occupation at that time, the Islamic Republic of Iran holds the Zionist regime and its supporters legally and politically responsible for the abduction and the terrorist action.”

Friday marked the 37th anniversary of the disappearance of diplomats identified as Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevasselian, Kazem Akhavan and Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam.

Iran averted all-out war in the Middle East at the last moment when the Central command and control operational room of its Army and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ordered not to shoot down a US Navy anti-submarine warfare, Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance Poseidon P-8 .

The exiled Iranian MEK regime change cult rallied in front of the US State Department on June 22, just a day after Trump rejected pressure to start a war on Iran. Current and former American officials joined the bizarre organization, hailing it as the legitimate resistance to Tehran. Shadowed by a team of Mojahedin-e Khalq minders, Max Blumenthal and Thomas Hedges reported from the scene.

It what appears to be the first known violation of the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), Iran’s stockpiles of enriched low-grade uranium have surpassed the limit of 300 kg, Iran’s semi-official Fars News is reporting.

Fars noted further that the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed the stockpile measurement on Monday, after in May it had already quadrupled its production of the material, the key component to make nuclear reactor fuel – and potentially nuclear weapons. Following the Fars report which had been based on an unnamed "informed source," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was the first government official to confirm the country has exceeded the ceiling of 300kg, according to Iran's ISNA.

Iran has exceeded the limits for its enriched uranium stockpile set in a 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers, the country’s state media reported on Monday.

?A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization announced earlier this month that Tehran would surpass the nuclear deal’s 300-kilogram limit ?if the countries still participating in the nuclear accord did not negotiate new terms.

According to the newspaper, while advisers to Trump were calling for a military strike against Iran in response to the downing of an American drone that Tehran claimed violated its airspace, Carlson told the POTUS that the use of force would be "crazy".

The anchor of Trump's beloved TV channel reportedly convinced him that the “hawks” in the US administration did not have the president's best interests at heart, and that if Trump unleashed a war on Tehran, he could kiss his chances of 2020 re-election goodbye.

Iran has delivered the first crude oil to a Chinese refinery complex since the United States removed as of May all sanction waivers for Iranian oil customers, including its biggest buyer China.

According to TankerTrackers, a medium-sized Suezmax vessel, named SALINA and owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), loaded around 1 million barrels of crude oil from Iran and departed on May 28. The tanker arrived on June 20 at Jinxi Refining and Chemical Complex in China in a first independent tanker-tracking confirmation that China is defying the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Iran’s downing of a US military surveillance drone last week predictably led to another flare-up in tense relations between Tehran and Washington. What could be the implications of a potential conflict between the two nations?

Right after the Global Hawk UAV was shot down, the New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran, but then changed his mind.

Let’s start by saying that the decision to launch a military operation against Iran (which is what this is really about), including the specific time and place, would have to be taken by a very small group of top US political and military officials. At such meetings, no leaks could possibly occur by definition.

The Trump administration is supplying another version: diplomacy, not as subtle art but as childish outrage and pressings, brinkmanship teasingly encouraging of war. The result of the latest round of bile-filled spats between Iran and the United States is that diplomacy has ceased to exist, becoming a theatrical show demanding the lowest admission fees.

On Monday, Washington announced that another round (how many will they be?) of sanctions would be imposed. They are of a very specific, personal nature, though their effect is one of insult rather than tangible effect. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, deemed by Trump “ultimately responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime”, is the crowning glory of the list, as are his appointments and those in his office. An important aspect of the sanctioning lies in the allegation that the Ayatollah has access to a vast fund that showers largesse upon the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps.

“I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. … We had entire training courses.” That’s what Trump regime Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told students at Texas A&M University on April 15.

On June 14, Pompeo told reporters that “Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.” On June 16 he told Fox News,“There’s no doubt. The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence.” He didn’t give any.

The Trump regime is desperately escalating confrontation with Iran in coordination with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Why? The answer can be found in the headlines.

Not the headlines parroting Washington’s claim that Iran attacked tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The answer is in the headlines that bankers and CEOs worry about.

Bullying and crude threats will achieve little beyond entangling the United States and the region in another senseless war while deepening the two countries’ 40-year estrangement. The United States should strive for an Iran that is stable with a strong middle class and highly educated youths connected to the moderating influence of the outside world [bold mine-DL]. The Iranian people want to restore the friendship between Iran and the United States, two countries that enjoyed 123 years of cordial ties before 1979. But the path to their hearts and minds is not through sanctions and military intervention.

It is not too late for this administration to cease demonizing and threatening Iran, and step aside from its maximalist demands. One of Iran’s most renowned poets, Rumi, offers a better way forward: “Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

The Russian General Staff has reinforced the air defences for Russians at the Iranian nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, according to sources in Moscow.

At the same time, Iran has allowed filming of the movement of several of its mobile S-300 air-defence missile batteries to the south, covering the Iranian coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

More secretly, elements of Russian military intelligence, electronic warfare, and command and control advisers for Iran’s air defence systems have been mobilized to support Iran against US and allied attacks.

In an interview Monday, President Trump told Hill.TV that if he was going to start a war against Iran, he doesn’t need Congressional approval, nor does he even have to inform Congress about the attack.

“I do like keeping them abreast, but I don’t have to do it legally,” Trump insisted. Trump says Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told him he needed Congressional approval, and “I disagree.”

The US Constitution empowers only Congress to declare war, and the War Powers Act also mandates that Congress offer an authorization for the use of military force. No such authorization exists for Iran, something Congressional officials have repeatedly pointed out.

Despite the fact that Washington had already sanctioned more than 80% of Iran's economy, so the notion that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials still have any exposure to the Western financial system is a little ridiculous, President Trump delivered on his promise to impose new sanctions on the Supreme leader and other senior Iranian officials on Monday, with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin adding that more sanctions against Foreign Minister Javad Zarif would be handed down later this week.

Upon departure from Washington Pompeo said: 'The goal of his talks with the Saudi kingdom and the UAE is to deny Iran the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to build out their missile program'

US President Donald Trump has been roundly mocked for announcing sanctions on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini… who died 30 years ago.

An Iranian fisherman from the country's southern Island of Qeshm has found more parts of an American spy drone, which was shot down over the Sea of Oman after intruding into Iranian airspace.

A report by Mehr News Agency on Monday showed photos from Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz on the neck of the Persian Gulf, showing the local fisherman, Youssef Saffari, with parts of the US spy drone's debris.

No official source has so far confirmed the report and Press TV cannot independently confirm it either.

President Donald Trump said that Iran’s leaders only understand “Strength and Power” and warned “No more John Kerry [and] Obama!” Tuesday on Twitter.

“Iran leadership doesn’t understand the words ‘nice’ or ‘compassion,’ they never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone,” Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he intends to build a global coalition against Iran, starting Sunday with his visit to Saudi Arabia. This appears to be the latest push since the collapse of an attempt to build an “Arab NATO,” though Pompeo intends to recruit nations from Europe and Asia as well.

While Pompeo emphasized the new coalition being anti-Iran, other State Department officials described it as primarily about maritime security. They said it would be intended to patrol and protect shipping lanes.

This reflects the conflicting interests of Pompeo and President Trump. Pompeo is very keen to get something started against Iran, and remains among the main advocates for that. Trump, on the other hand, says he wants other nations to protect their own ships instead of expecting the US to do it, this isn’t necessarily an Iran-centric issue.

After a week of high drama in which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo indicated the Trump administration was preparing for war with Iran, President Trump sought to end the war crisis, at least for now, by declining to retaliate against Iran over what he called “very minor” attacks.

Trump canceled a retaliatory strike on Iran in the early hours on Friday, at least in part because he was not certain that the drone or a Navy spy plane following it had not strayed into Iran’s airspace in Strait of Hormuz, according to the New York Times.

But the evident determination of Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton to get Trump to carry out a military strike against Iran – combined with Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy, which has already prompted Iranian pushback – mean that such crises are bound to continue until either war comes or U.S. policy fundamentally changes.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his country will do "everything" to prevent arch-rival Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, during a visit by a senior Russian security official.

"Israel will not allow Iran, which calls for our destruction, to entrench on our border; we will do everything to prevent it from attaining nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said.

He was speaking alongside Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Moscow's powerful security council, whose visit followed weeks of simmering tensions between Tehran and Washington in the Gulf.

After Iran unceremoniously slammed the door on diplomacy, President Trump has decided to tweet his perspective on what happens next.

Trump began by going after the statement from Iranian leadership, blasting that they don't "understand the words “nice” or “compassion,” they never have," adding some threats: "Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone..."

Iraq’s government have asked for enhanced cooperation with neighboring Iran regarding air defense after the Persian nation showed its “defensive capabilities” when downing a United States (U.S.) military drone, Iran’s state news agency reported Sunday.

Oman on Monday denied reports that it had conveyed a message from the United States to the Iranian government over the downing last week of an American unmanned drone.

“The Sultanate is watching current regional developments with concern and hopes that the Iranian and American sides show restraint and address unresolved issues through dialogue,” the foreign ministry also said in a post on Twitter.

Two Iranian sources told Reuters on Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump had warned Tehran via Oman of an imminent U.S. attack, which he later called off, after Iran downed the drone. Trump has denied sending such a message.

Over the last year, the relationship between the United States and Iran has suffered numerous blows. It started when US authorities withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal and imposed tough sanctions against key sectors of the Iranian economy in order to "change the behaviour" of the Islamic republic.

The UN Security Council is holding a closed-door meeting at its headquarters in New York City to discuss the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and Iran’s downing of a US Navy surveillance drone, following the request made by the US mission.

The meeting comes after the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said that they shot down a US surveillance drone because it violated Iran’s airspace, an assertion that was categorically denied by Washington. The US President responded to the incident, slapping new US sanctions on Iran to hold Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates responsible for the country's "hostile conduct".

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused Iran of “violence and disinformation” after Iran shoots down an American state-of-the-art spy drone over its territorial waters, repeating claims without evidence that the aircraft was targeted over international waters.

In a statement released Saturday evening, Pompeo accused Iranian authorities of lying about Washington’s efforts to bring Tehran to the negotiating table using the government of Oman as an intermediary, claiming that the US would only engage with Iran “when the time is right.”

“President Trump did not pass a message through Oman calling for talks with Iran,” the top US diplomat claimed in the statement, adding: “We have made our position abundantly clear. We are willing to engage when the time is right."

Retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor appealed to history to argue against a “stupid, pointless, unnecessary war with Iran” during a Thursday night appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Already heightened tensions with Iran were exacerbated when a surface-to-air missile hit a high-altitude U.S. Navy drone Thursday over the Straight of Hormuz.

Even after facing toughest US sanctions in history and severe economic conditions for many months now, Iran continues to stand tall in front of US economic and military aggression. Certainly, the US based “Iran experts” advising the Trump administration never expected such level of resilience and resistance. On the contrary, what they expected was an Iranian capitulation under “maximum pressure” and a victory for the US For Iran, imposition of sanctions is, as its leaders have expressed many times, an act of war and the Iranian act of downing a US spy drone speaks volumes about Iranian preparation to face a US military aggression. Most certainly, the US policy makers were not expecting such action from the Iranian side; hence, the shocking surprise at the Iranian “counter pressure” tactics. The downing of a spy drone is no small act. Consider this:

To be sure, Thursday was meant to be the start of the US-Iran War which hawks have been trying to piece together for generations. Trump ordered the attack, but ultimately, called it off a mere 10 minutes from a strike.

What had been a subject of debate was now USA Today accusing Trump of “not following through.” As concerning as blundering into a huge war in the Middle East had been, the new talking point was Trump showing weakness, and per Kori Schake of the Atlantic, damaging “America’s credibility.”

America can, after all, usually be counted on to react hastily, and stumble into what are in retrospect unfortunate wars. That Trump managed to just barely avoid the siren’s song of war was outside the expectation of American allies, and now they don’t know what to think. NBC News was quick to accuse Trump of “indecision” and declared it would “embolden Iran.”

While Tucker Carlson was working overtime encouraging President Trump not to go to war with Iran, antifa was busy putting up posters smearing him as an "alt-right racist" and sharing his family's home address throughout Washington, DC.

As I reported over the past week, Tucker Carlson not only spoke out against the prospect of a war with Iran on his show but also allegedly spoke privately with President Trump and told him not to go to war with Iran.

While standing behind a podium of the Israeli Prime Minister's Office during a trip to Israel on Sunday, National Security Adviser John Bolton threatened Iran not to "mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness" and said the US military "is rebuilt, new and ready to go."

"Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East," Bolton said while standing besides Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Our military is rebuilt, new and ready to go," Bolton said.

President Trump’s last-minute change of mind over launching US airstrikes against Iran shows that a military conflict of some description in the Gulf is becoming highly probable. His hesitation was most likely less connected with an Iranian surface-to-air missile shooting down a US surveillance drone than with his instinct that militarising the crisis is not in America’s best interests.

If Trump had not pulled back and the strikes against Iranian radars and missile batteries had gone ahead, where exactly would that have got him? This sort of limited military operation is usually more effective as a threat than in actuality. The US is not going to launch an all-out war against Iran in pursuit of a decisive victory and anything less creates more problems than it resolves.

Israeli agent John Bolton is already in Israel conferring with Netanyahu. It is a safe bet that a more serious false flag attack is being planned that will force Trump to save face by attacking Iran.

Iran is pushing US President Donald Trump to the edge of the abyss, raising the level of tensions to new heights in the Middle East. After the sabotage of four tankers at al-Fujairah and the attack on the Aramco pipeline a month ago, and last week’s attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC – now categorized by the USA as a terrorist body) yesterday shot down a US Navy drone, sending two clear messages. The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign.

Quick question: Does the US ever break, breach or violate its international agreements?

Apparently not, according to US coverage of Iran’s recent announcement that it intended to go beyond the limits of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in enriching uranium for its civilian nuclear program (frequently mischaracterized as a nuclear weapons program in media coverage). Reading corporate media’s inversion of reality, it’s hard to escape the impression that while Iran betrays its international agreements, the US just leaves them behind.

Someone attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. The Trump administration wants the world to believe that Iran is the culprit. Yet there is no serious evidence that Tehran was behind the attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese ships. Not only is there no proof of Iranian involvement, such an attack by Iran makes no sense at all. Japan and Iran are friends. Just last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – who was visiting Tehran during the tanker incident – affirmed this friendship in the presence of Donald Trump during the US president’s recent state visit to Japan. Most importantly of all, the crew and owner of the Japanese tanker attacked in the gulf vehemently reject the US claim that the vessel was damaged by a mine, asserting instead that a “flying object” struck the ship.

It is no mystery that the Trump Administration has some major hawks, and that the likes of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton are just itching for an opportunity to start a US war against Iran.

Weeks of mounting tensions with Iran saw Pompeo taking point on talking up the escalation. President Trump would occasionally chime in on its opposition to having a war, but Pompeo is still seen trying to coax Trump into some sort of military action.

He’s not alone after Thursday’s attack was called off, either. Media outlets are pushing Trump broadly about not following through, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is predicting that Iran will attack a US ship if a war isn’t started.

The escalation of US tensions with Iran has centered greatly, at least within the narrative, on Iraq. The idea is that US troops are endangered in Iraq, and that Iranian proxies, who are actually part of the Iraqi government, are plotting against them.

And just because nothing ever happens doesn’t mean that isn’t going to continue to be a talking point, as US officials talk about “indirect fire” attacks in Iraq, with indirect in this case meaning they don’t appear to be firing directly at the US forces.

Officials say they are perceiving an increase in the amount of mortar and rocket fire in Iraq. Which would be dangerous to US troops, except US targets aren’t actually being hit. It’s just that the US has so many targets in Iraq that something they have “come close.” The military confirmed there were no casualties, but declined to report on the number of these not-really-attacks that took place.

Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East.

Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?

An Iranian military commander warned on Sunday that any conflict with Iran would have uncontrollable consequences across the region and endanger the lives of US forces, as tensions between Washington and Tehran have flared after the downing of an American surveillance drone. Maj. Gen. Gholamali Rashid made the remarks while addressing Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps during a field visit to a command center for Iranian radars and missile systems. The general oversees and coordinates joint military operations in the Iranian Armed Forces. “The US administration should behave in a responsible way to protect the lives of American forces,” he was quoted as saying in comments published by the semi-official Fars news agency.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, said that recent actions from Iran deserved a proper response, and warned that if the Islamic Republic does not go unchecked, it will only increase the country's hostilities toward the U.S.

This comes after President Trump decided against a possible American strike after Iran shot down an unmanned U.S. drone, believing that the 150 expected casualties from a countermeasure were not "proportionate" to the loss of an unmanned aircraft.

After President Trump pulled the plug on the Iran counterstrike, you’d think that the move dovish Democrats would all be breathing a sigh of relief. (At least for a little while.) But Waters decided that she would lay into the President, claiming that the confrontational situation was our fault in the first place.

The moronic warmongers in high office—Bolton, Pompeo, and Pence—and their Israel Lobby masters are determined, and they have not abandoned their campaign for war with Iran. Of course, the liars say that Iran will just accept its punishment for defending its territory and there will be no war. But this is not what Iran says. I believe Iran.

Some of the tiny percentage of people in the Western World who are still capable of thought regret that Trump called off the insane plan. They think the consequences would have been the destruction of the Saudi and Israeli governments—two of the most evil in history—and the cut-off of oil to the US and Europe, with the resulting depression causing the overthrow of the Western warmonger governments. They believe that catastrophic American defeat is the only way peace can be restored to the world.

Much analysis of Trump’s slide toward war with Iran has focused on his hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, who, reportedly requested options from the Pentagon to deploy as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East and hit Iran with 500 missiles per day. Bolton is the loudest voice inside the White House pushing for a military escalation to the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for his part, is staking out the position that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force allows the administration to take military action against Iran without congressional approval, an unusual and broadly criticized interpretation of congressional oversight.

Yet, there’s another omnipresent influence on Trump: $259 million given by some of the GOP’s top supporters to boost his campaign in 2016 and support Republican congressional and senate campaigns in 2016 and 2018.

BRITAIN will consider joining its “strongest ally” the United States in attacking Iran, Jeremy Hunt said.

The Foreign Secretary, who is battling to be the UK’s next Prime Minister, said the country would consider requests for military support “on a case-by-case basis.”

US President Donald Trump said in an interview that he is interested in direct talks with Iran without preconditions. At the same time, he dismissed the European point of view that Tehran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, arguing that it is EU business interests talking.

Trump commented on Washington’s point of view on the 2015 Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal with Iran in a Sunday interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, saying he would accept any kind of deal with Iran, as long as it prevents Tehran from getting nuclear weapons. Trump suggested that he has no issue with the deal being bilateral or multilateral.

“I don't care which, what kind of a deal. It can be separate or it could be total,” he said.

Sooner or later the US “maximum pressure” on Iran would inevitably be met by “maximum counter-pressure”. Sparks are ominously bound to fly.

For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military capacity to keep the Strait open.

As I previously reported, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world’s $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed Washington’s intentions to impose additional sanctions on Iran.

"Thanks to crippling American sanctions, Iran is facing unprecedented economic pressure as a result of its aggression. So I was pleased to hear President Trump make clear yesterday that pressure will continue and that pressure will increase", Netanyahu said during a joint press conference with US National Security Adviser John Bolton ahead of the security summit between the United States, Israel and Russia.

The statement comes after US President Donald Trump said on 22 June that new "major" sanctions would be imposed on Iran on 24 June.

The US should think about the lives of its military forces before considering further military action in the Middle East, an Iranian general has warned, predicting that a US-Iran conflict would devastate the entire region.

“The US administration should behave in a responsible way to protect the lives of American forces,” Maj. Gen. Gholamali Rashid said on Sunday, while addressing Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Rashid stressed that if war does come, it would be the fault of “US interventionist policy,” and would have disastrous consequences for the entire region.

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Tensions in the Persian Gulf are reaching a point of no return. In recent weeks, six oil tankers have been subjected to Israeli sabotage disguised to look like Iranian attacks to induce the United States to take military action against the Islamic Republic. Some days ago Iran rightfully shot out of the sky a US Drone. In Yemen, the Houthis have finally started responding with cruise and ballistic missiles to the Saudis’ indiscriminate attacks, causing damage to the Saudi international airport of Abha, as well as blocking, through explosive drones, Saudi oil transportation from east to west through one of the largest pipelines in the world.

Many Trump Administration officials have been, by way of reconciling President Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t want war with Iran and their desire for something very much resembling a war, been presenting US military action, and the US backing of such action, as necessarily stabilizing to the region.

So with Special Envoy Brian Hook on Friday. Hook, who made headlines Wednesday by claiming not to be a “scholar” when asked if Iran was behind 9/11, is now pushing for Iran to be “countered” in Yemen. He says the alternative risks regional conflict and destabilizing the area.

To be clear, Iran isn’t actually in Yemen in the first place. Rather, there is the Shi’ite Houthi movement, whom the Saudis have attempted to brand as Iranian proxies, as it facilitates an ongoing Saudi war in Yemen, which the US is supporting.

The world was very close to witnessing yet another US preemptive strike war in the Middle East this week, and though a last minute White House decision to stand down caused a collective sigh of relief, even a minor incident could yet trigger a major conflagration.

Early Saturday a top Iranian general warned Iran is ready to initiate a full retaliation if even "one bullet" is fired at the Islamic Republic. “Firing one bullet towards Iran will set fire to the interests of America and its allies” in the Middle East, armed forces general staff spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Tasnim News Agency.

As a nation, you’re certifiedly (is that a word?!) in deep trouble if and when Donald Trump is your most peaceloving man. But nevertheless, that is America today. It all harks back to the days when Trump was first -grudgingly and painstakingly- recognized as an actual presidential candidate.

He campaigned as a man who would end the costly and neverending decades-old and counting US wars far away from American shores and territory. He hasn’t lived up to those campaign goals at all, far from it, and he hired doofuses like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to show everyone that he didn’t, but in the early hours of June 21 2019 he apparently decided at the last minute that it just didn’t add up.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump called off a strike against targets in Iran minutes prior to launch, as he discovered some 150 Iranians would be killed. The strikes were set to be launched in retaliation to Iran's downing of a UAV, which, according to Tehran, breached its airspace, though Washington denies it did so.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has stated that the country's stance on the defence of its borders won't change "regardless of any decision" that Washington may take in regards to Iran, Tasnim News Agency reported.

"We are ready to counter any threats against the (territorial) integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our decisions do not hinge on their decisions and we will counter any aggression whether it mingles with threats or not", he said.

George Galloway has warned the US and its allies in the Gulf that if they were to start “World War III” with an attack on Iran they will live to regret it because, unlike Iraq in 2003, they are capable of fighting back.

The Scottish firebrand, who famously took US lawmakers to task over the Iraq war when he testified in front of the senate in 2005, has given his take on the recent ratcheting-up of tension in the Gulf region after Iran shot down a US drone, which, it says, had entered its airspace.

Washington maintains its UAV was shot down while patrolling over international waters in an “unprovoked attack.” On Friday President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim the US were 10 minutes away from bombing three Iranian sites, before calling off the strikes.

With sanctions re-imposed on Iran’s oil exports last year and recently applied in part to its petrochemicals exports as well, the U.S. is now looking to roll out the next phase of its sanctions plan against the Islamic Republic. This is to gradually employ increasingly tight sanctions on Iran’s gas sector, whilst ensuring that Europe’s mechanism for enabling ongoing business with Iran does not succeed. These policies taken together are aimed at limiting Iran’s energy export revenues to no more than US$14 billion per year, a senior energy source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry told OilPrice.com last week. “This is the level of revenue targeted by the U.S. as being required to catalyse a popular uprising to remove the current regime in Tehran but not to cause an outright humanitarian disaster,” he added.

Whistleblower David Goldberg, a resident of New York City, has reportedly died of unknown causes.

Yesterday, the governmentslaves.news site reported that the White House insider who was quoted — David Goldberg (59 years old) — has since been found dead in his New York apartment on June 8th. His death is being investigated and no cause of death has yet been disclosed.

Goldberg also said that a false flag attack would be used to escalate the situation, which appears to be what we’ve seen take place in the Gulf of Oman with the two attack of two oil tankers.
(Source: False Flags, Cooked Intelligence and the ‘War on Terror’ Con)

In April of 2019, Goldberg warned the world of a false flag attack planned by the U.S. Military and Intelligence Community working in concert with Israel’s Mossad.

Since Donald Trump decided not to attack Iran Thursday, it has been stated again and again that the American people don’t want another war in the Middle East. NPR says so, PBS says so, the Washington Post says the Congress is “war-weary,” the Times notes the considerable support Trump has gotten from Republicans; and even Lindsey Graham has backed Trump’s decision. So do Democratic liberals and centrists and Nancy Pelosi.

Trump himself said a war with Iran is unpopular when he told his Orlando rally Thursday that great nations don’t fight “endless wars,” and he was removing troops and putting “America first.”

The reasonable question here is, Who wants a war with Iran, and why do they want it? The answer is, far-right Republicans like Adam Kinzinger, Tom Cotton, and Liz Cheney who say it’s a sign of weakness not to attack Iran. And the Israel lobby, which wants the U.S. to take on Israel’s regional rival.

Bolton arrived in Israel after US President Donald Trump claimed he had "stopped" an airstrike against the Islamic Republic on Thursday night just ten minutes before it was slated to occur.

"Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness", US National Security Adviser John Bolton said ahead of a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, adding that the American military "is rebuilt new and ready to go".

He also confirmed that Washingtom would continue imposing sanctions on Tehran, stressing that the US reserves the right to attack it at a later point, because the US president had only "stopped the strike from going forward at this time".

It's been revealed that President Trump did order an attack on Iran - but not a military assault - instead, the US initiated a major cyber attack against an Iranian intelligence outfit the Pentagon believes was part of last week's limpet mine incident involving two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

According to Yahoo News, which first broke the story - which was later confirmed Saturday evening by CNN and The Washington Post - the "retaliatory digital strike" was launched on Thursday evening just as the world was bracing itself for possible US airstrikes on Iran:

On Thursday evening, U.S. Cyber Command launched a retaliatory digital strike against an Iranian spy group that supported last week’s limpet mine attacks on commercial ships, according to two former intelligence officials.

After meetings with advisers focused on Iran at Camp David on Saturday, President Trump said "major additional sanctions" will be imposed on Iran, to be unveiled Monday.

"Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable," he said, explaining his rationale for keeping up the "maximum pressure" campaign through more sanctions.

“We want to be proportionate,” Trump told reporters previously on Saturday, while saying he'll never fully rule out using military force on Iran. “It’s always on the table until we get this solved,” he said of future potential US military attack. “We have a tremendously powerful military force in that area.”

President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that there was an American Boeing P-8 airplane with 38 people on board that had entered Iranian airspace when they targeted the drone — and he appreciates that they did not target it.

According to a statement from Aerospace Force head Amir Ali Hajzadeh, the Iranians could have shot down the manned Navy plane, but decided not to.

“There is definitely some kind of divide in the White House. I think we have to take everything we are hearing in the media about the ‘10 minutes till an attack’ with a grain of salt. We have to question almost everything in the media,” Zeese John Kiriakou and Brian Becker, the hosts of Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear, on Friday.

US President Donald Trump has called off military strikes against Iran according to The New York Times, in response to Iran’s shooting of a US drone inside the country's airspace over the coastal province of Hormozgan on Thursday. The decision to avoid escalating the standoff with Iran in the Persian Gulf suggests that Washington is well aware that “Iran has many options available to raise the cost for the US and its friends in the region,” in the event of a military confrontation.

The following is an opinion piece -- written by Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky -- published by National Public Radio (NPR) on the recent developments:

Surfing the cable channels the evening before my Friday a.m. blog duties, I came upon Sean Hannity at Fox News completely losing his shit in a colloquy with Geraldo Rivera about the Iran drone incident. “Bomb the crap out of them!” Mr. Hannity ranted, several times, the veins in his neck throbbing visibly on the high-def screen. I thought I was having an acid flashback to Doctor Strangelove. Geraldo himself seemed a bit nonplussed and embarrassed by Mr. Hannity’s tantrum, but his attempts to calm down the raving anchorman only ramped up the hysteria. One wondered: are there any adult producers off-screen on that network?

Israeli military analysts are afraid that a weak US attack on Iran could provoke an Iranian attack on Israeli interests.

Currently, Israel is worried about ongoing US-Iranian tensions and is preparing for any possible escalation which could affect its own interests.

Israeli daily Ynet yesterday reported Israeli security officials as warning that US President Donald Trump might order a limited “surgical assault” to quell Iran’s provocations. However, these officials worry that, in return, Iran might attack Israeli interests via one of its proxies in the region.

Sooner or later the US “maximum pressure” on Iran would inevitably be met by “maximum counter-pressure”. Sparks are ominously bound to fly.

For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military capacity to keep the Strait open.

As I previously reported, shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market; and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world’s $80 trillion GDP and causing an unprecedented depression.

Russia has signaled its willingness to secure Iran's interests in the oil and banking sectors if Europe's non-dollar mechanism aimed at facilitating trade with the Islamic Republic is not launched.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that Moscow is ready to help Iran export its crude and ease restrictions on its banking system if Europe fails to launch its mechanism, officially called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), with Tehran.

The three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unveiled late in January the long-awaited direct non-dollar payment mechanism meant to safeguard their trade ties with Tehran following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and in the face of the "toughest ever" sanctions imposed by the United States against the Islamic Republic.

Iran has released the first photos of the wreckage of a US spy drone which was shot down early Thursday after intruding into the Iranian airspace.

The IRGC Aerospace Force displayed parts of the doomed drone on Friday noon, refuting earlier claims by the US that the UAE was flying over international waters, and had not violated the Iranian airspace.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (!) is making noises about ties between al Qaeda and Iran. The intent is clear.