Not since the days of Trajan have we seen an emperor so intent on the constant plundering of surrounding countries, friendly or otherwise. The Orange villain spares nothing, from vassals to Venezuela and now Iran . However, we must not be confused by the increasingly hyperbolic language of the White Dome, which in effect conceals the panic of having screwed up everything. A clear winner doesn't need to shout it from the rooftops: it shows in the facts. If you declare, like Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth, that the Iranian leadership has been decapitated and is living underground, and then it is discovered that the President of the Islamic Republic, Pezeshkian, and the Secretary of the Security Council, Larijani, are walking in the center of Tehran, there is something wrong with the narrative. It matters little if Larijani is later assassinated: the Iranian attitude is not one of surrender. Even more significant is the grotesque statement by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing his intention to temporarily lift sanctions on Iranian oil, to control oil prices. There is no better proof of America's lack of strategy.
It seems they have once again underestimated their adversaries, as they did with Russia in Ukraine. Iran has been preparing for this war for over twenty years and even took advantage of the 12-Day War to update its strategies. Saddam's fall taught Iran that a centralized structure is more vulnerable to external attacks, especially when the adversaries' strategy is to assassinate their leaders. Indeed, beyond the fact that Iran has a supreme leader, the role and image of Khamenei are different from those of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. Iran has created a mosaic structure, composed of modules capable of operating independently in the event of the assassination of a senior official or a disruption of communications. This independence extends not only to decision-making, but also to the logistical capacity to operate.Iran has also understood that the only way to resist American firepower is to fight an asymmetric war, similar in some ways to the US's war in Afghanistan and, going back in time, in Vietnam, where the adversaries' goal was to make the war too expensive to continue even for a rich country like the US (one of the key factors in the American defeat in Afghanistan was the cost per liter of fuel to the places where it needed to be transported for use). In this sense, the duration of the war becomes a relevant factor, especially as the midterm elections approach, with a president who had vowed to never again wage endless wars .
In this context, the Orange thug's claims about the obliteration of the Iranian navy and air force are nonsense. Iran didn't have a significant navy or a large air force: they knew they would be destroyed anyway. Instead, Iran equipped itself with fast speedboats, drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles.
Intercepting missiles is a very expensive and inefficient operation. American researcher Ted Postol, who has long studied the effectiveness of anti-missile missiles, has repeatedly debunked the touted efficiency of various Patriot, Thaad, and other missiles. In reality, this has never been true since the first Iraq war, when the Americans boasted of intercepting SCUD missiles with the first Patriots. A rigorous analysis of the footage, done retrospectively, has shown that the Patriots were NOT able to intercept a single SCUD. Many years have passed and technology has improved, but on both sides, and it seems that the interception capability is only 5%, despite what the little green ogre in Kiev has consistently asserted and which is uncritically supported by the Western media. All this without taking into account that interceptor missiles are expensive and take a long time to assemble. Indeed, contrary to what the Americans claim about the obliteration of Iranian missiles, it is the Americans who are starting to run into trouble. How else can we explain the fact that they have forced South Korea to divest itself of its THAAD systems, the installation of which caused a crisis with China years ago, which, in retaliation, reduced trade?
Added to all this, the Iranian missiles are underground, most of them located in eastern Iran, which has not been affected by the bombing. Some missiles are in hidden silos that don't open like in James Bond films, but are covered by a light layer of earth that the missile itself breaks during launch: all of this is undetectable before launch. The other missiles are loaded onto special trucks at the last minute to be launched at ever-changing locations, making them difficult to identify.
Finally, many say that so far the Iranians have launched missiles that are 10-20 years old: it doesn't matter if they are less sophisticated: the Israelis and Americans are still forced to empty their arsenals. On the other hand, some of the new hypersonic missiles (especially undetectable) have warheads that are divided into 80 warheads, each containing 20 kg of explosives. 20 kg isn't enough to cause significant damage, but 80 of them, covering an area of 10-15 km2, are still capable of alarming a population that lived under the illusion of total protection thanks to the Iron Dome.
As for drones, however, as is well known from the war in Ukraine, the Iranians had already developed this technology some time ago: in the early days of the Ukrainian war, it was the Iranians who supplied the first drones to Russia (which then learned to develop them independently, contrary to the belief of the EU's senior leadership, who welcomed the start of the war in Iran because they believed the Russians were losing Iranian support). The fact is that Iran has mastered the technology to produce drones.
There are many types of drones: a little-publicized type uses the Iridium satellite network, consisting of around seventy satellites positioned at a medium altitude in the atmosphere (higher than Starlink satellites), used primarily by satellite phones. Their bandwidth is not wide enough to allow for the real-time transfer of high-resolution images, but a drone that needs to reach a target doesn't require high definition. In practice, once launched, the drone is able to send visual information on its position and receive input on its movement. Essentially, they are long-range FPV drones.
In relation to naval operations, the Iranians have equipped themselves with underwater drones, and here we are faced with an irony of fate. The Ukrainians, with the help of the UK and the Americans, have developed effective underwater drones. The Russians, having captured some intact, were able to reconstruct their functioning and appear to have transferred this know-how to the Iranians.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this war is that Iran is pursuing a strategy. As publicly stated, their initial focus was not so much on damaging Israel as on striking American bases in the Gulf, to undermine America's defensive and offensive capabilities. Indeed, Iran has blinded at least five sophisticated radars used for early missile detection; these systems cost between $500 million and $1 billion each and are time-consuming to rebuild. This blinding has reduced the time available in Israel to escape to shelters from 15 to 2 minutes.
Added to this is the destruction of the Fifth Fleet naval base in Bahrain. In practice, many American bases in the Gulf are not operational: their personnel are often forced to hide in shelters.
Another strategic aspect concerns aviation. Iran recognized this sector as inevitably weak on their part, but here we also discover a potential American weakness: the F-35s launch from distant bases and require in-flight refueling. Upon departure, the fuel is insufficient to complete the required operation and return to base. To accomplish this task, tanker aircraft are needed. Recent news reports indicate that one or two tanker aircraft have been shot down by the Iranians, and another five have been hit while stationed at bases (mainly in Saudi Arabia).
It's unclear how much this has weakened the Americans, but it's clear that the Iranians aren't acting haphazardly.
The central element of the Iranian strategy, however, is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which would jeopardize the global economic system. Not only 20% of the world's oil passes through that strait, but also 30% of its fertilizers: global agriculture will be severely impacted, even though the problem will only be apparent in months (the fertilizers must be used and the crops must ripen).
American statements make it clear they weren't expecting this move. The orange thug's proposal to escort the tankers is grotesque: the ships would be easily attacked from land with short-range missiles, and it remains to be seen which insurance companies would accept the associated risks. And the request for help from its vassal allies is even more paradoxical: the tiger is asking the cat for help.
Furthermore, Iran had announced it would adopt an eye-for-eye strategy, that is, attacking the same types of civilian facilities and structures that the aggressors had decided to target in Iran. So it's no surprise that after Israel's bombing of the South Pars gas field, the Iranians struck the corresponding Qatari infrastructure. It's worth noting that any further destruction of infrastructure means it would take years for oil and gas production to return to previous levels after the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. However, the attackers love playing with fire: the Americans have bombed Kharg Island (Iran's main oil terminal). For now, they've limited themselves to hitting military targets, but the Orange villain has the nerve to declare (referring to Kharg Island): " We may hit it a few more times just for fun ." We want Caligula back.
Other highly vulnerable and possibly even more critical facilities are the desalination plants: the attackers were foolish enough to bomb an Iranian plant without realizing that life in all Gulf countries (Israel included) depends enormously on access to clean water.
While Iran is pursuing a precise plan, the US is clearly in trouble if it is forced to lift (even temporarily) sanctions on Russia. This is partly due to theater, given that China and even India had continued to buy Russian oil, but it speaks volumes about the state of affairs, especially the need for the orange criminal to avoid inflation that would undermine its domestic support.
Add to this the fact that the US is offering $10 million to anyone who can provide information on the whereabouts of Iranian leaders. Incidentally, the Iranians have discovered a mole who was providing timely information to the criminals. This is none other than the head of counter-espionage, General Esmail Qaani, successor to General Soleimani, assassinated by the Israelis in 2020, and a trusted advisor to Khamenei. The subsequent assassination of Larijani clearly shows that there are other flaws in the internal IT system, but it should also be remembered that the Iranian organizational chart is such that for every position, the names of replacements and replacements for replacements are ready.
Meanwhile, the attackers are forced to invent moves to achieve a victory that is increasingly in their minds and increasingly less in reality.
Boots on the ground: the invasion of Iraq was preceded by six months of troop recruitment and training; Iran is almost four times larger and has a much more complicated topography, with mountains and forests.
Special forces to seize enriched uranium? American special forces are certainly the best trained in the world, but they would have to quickly reach the depot(s), located deep underground, and then return safely, and it's not even certain that blackmailing ally Netanyahu would be willing to acknowledge a possible positive outcome as conclusive.
Recruiting Kurdish troops? They've tried and are trying, but the Iranian Kurds are relatively well integrated into Iran (unlike the Syrian, Iraqi, and especially the Turkish Kurds). Furthermore, at least as far as the Syrian Kurds are concerned, they are well aware of the US betrayal. After using them to fight Bashar al-Assad, they threw them under the bus, to be attacked by Israel and the Turks. At the end of the day, it seems they can recruit a couple of thousand soldiers at most: nothing compared to an Iranian army with a million soldiers.
Al Qaeda and its entourageA few months before Operation Epstein Fury, strange movements occurred in Syrian Kurdistan, where the Americans freed several thousand prisoners (ISIS militants) to take them to a supposedly decommissioned American base in northern Iraq and train them for destabilization operations in Central Asia (including Xinjiang, China). It's not hard to imagine an Iranian reconfiguration of this workforce .
Making the scenario even darker for the orange villain are Iran's allies. First and foremost, Hezbollah, which had been considered definitively defeated, actually possesses short-range missiles that are heavily hitting northern Israel. They won't defeat the Zionist terrorists, but they will reduce the quality of life in Israel and reignite the flow of people leaving (fleeing) the country. A sign of this is the Israeli government's restrictions on the number of passengers allowed on each plane departing from Ben Gurion Airport, which can reach approximately 50% of the plane's capacity. Officially, the measure is justified on security grounds; however, it appears to be a way to reduce the flow of passengers out of the country.
There is also a variable that hasn't yet come into play, but which proved highly effective a year ago: the Houthis, who were able to block maritime traffic in the Red Sea and, if necessary, could very effectively blockade Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports and further exacerbate the oil crisis. We don't know if and when the Houthis will take action, but they can certainly play a significant role.
Meanwhile, an interesting article appeared in the South China Morning Post (published in Hong Kong) stating that the current American reserves of rare earth elements available to the military department only last two months. It's unclear how the Chinese have precise information on US stockpiles, though they likely can track rare earth sales. The key message is that China may be restricting its rare earth sales (as it temporarily did in 2025) and may be starting to do so again.
It's therefore logical to ask: why did the Americans embark on this venture? Iran has been a potential target for more than twenty years, when it was included on a long list of Middle Eastern countries to be subjugated.
We can even go back to 1996, when Richard Perle, US assistant secretary of defense and architect of the Iraq operation, informed a young Netanyahu, newly appointed prime minister of Israel, that the two-state perspective had to be abandoned and replaced by Israel's transformation into a regional power. Over the years, the perspective hasn't changed, but the window of opportunity is closing: Iran's substantial alliance with Russia and China is making the country increasingly less vulnerable to attack, making it now or never. Added to this, the true
global enemy, China, is surpassing the US in every conceivable metric, and even then, any attempts at containment are becoming increasingly less feasible (if they aren't already): hence the attack on Venezuela and Iran, two countries that supply China with oil.
The move remains a last resort, and not all members of the US administration agree. Vice President J.D. Vance has been silenced, as has National Security Advisor Elbridge Colby, who wants to disengage the US from both Europe and the Middle East (which would be better called Western Asia)
to focus exclusively on China. This war, which instead forces Asian vassals to expropriate their defense systems, as well as emptying American arsenals, ends up being a help to China.
The most worrying aspect is the short- to medium-term outlook. In the very likely event that Iran refuses to accept temporary solutions (given the near certainty that the criminals will attack the country again), what exit strategy can be envisioned? How can the US and Israel save face after what they've started? I hope I'm wrong when I write that I see no viable option left, with only the nuclear option, especially for a nation that possesses more than a hundred weapons without any recognition or acceptance of international rules.
And then we must also remember Iran's geographic location, at the latitude of the jet stream, which is optimal for the circulation of radioactive particles across the globe. But perhaps the miraculous discombobulator used by Trump to capture Maduro will be put back into operation and everything will return to normal.
Antonio Politi
https://www.ucadi.org/2026/03/28/il-malvivente-arancione/
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(en) Italy, UCADI, #206 - The Orange Thug (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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