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ZeroHedge: Iran Scrambling To Restore Bombed Missile Bunkers Within Hours After Being Struck
Iran Scrambling To Restore Bombed Missile Bunkers Within Hours After Being Struck
And now US intelligence has freshly assessed that Iranian personnel are busy excavating bombed underground missile bunkers and silos and restoring them to operation within a mere hours of US and Israeli strikes.
The New York Times on Friday featured American intelligence analysis saying that Tehran has retained a substantial number of missiles and mobile launchers, raising serious doubts on how close Washington actually is to eliminating the Islamic Republic’s missile capability.
The report states that Washington cannot determine how many launchers have been destroyed because Iran has deployed decoys. Underground bunkers and silos may appear damaged, but launchers are rapidly recovered from rubble and returned to use through the quick work of excavators and heavy equipment.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, has painted a rosy picture from the Pentagon’s point of view: “Here are the facts: Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks are down 90 percent, their navy is wiped out, two-thirds of their production facilities are damaged or destroyed, and the United States and Israel have overwhelming air dominance over Iran,” she said.
A senior Western official in the NY Times stated that Iran is firing approximately 15-30 ballistic missiles and 50-100 suicide drones per day across the region.
US officials additionally told the Times that Iran aims to preserve as much of its missile-launch capability as possible to sustain its threat posture throughout the conflict and after it ends.
Some of the remaining launchers are currently inaccessible, buried under rubble from repeated airstrikes, but there’s the expectation that Iran will race to dig them out. NYT further cites the following:
Haaretz, the Israeli publication, reported earlier that Iran had used bulldozers to dig out missile launchers that had been buried, or “corked,” in underground bunkers.
President Trump and US planners around him probably didn’t expect the Islamic Republic to put up as much of a fight as it’s still able to do this many weeks into Operation Epic Fury.
Iranian missiles have continued to wreak havoc across Israel especially, with citizens spending many hours each day huddled in shelters, especially in central Israel and Tel Aviv.
Financial effects of Trump’s disastrous war
From Mark Wauck: China’s best friend
G7 Banking Giant Joins China’s Financial System While World Just Sold $82B In US Bonds
The Iran war is triggering a global shift of capital out of the United States and, if you ask many fund managers, central bankers, and investors, this shouldn’t be the case. Even in the Iraq war, the 08 crisis, and the 2020 lockdowns, the US was always considered a safe haven destination. Well, we just aren’t seeing that happen. US assets are no longer trusted. The war is triggering a global recalibration. Now, Trump’s war update speech just spooked the markets even more. Instead of looking for a genuine off-ramp, the US still wants to continue the war and has warned of further escalation. As the result, the Treasury market collapsed and US stocks continued to fall. Inflation is a real concern and the future of the dollar is now suspect. It’s no longer the safe haven it once was.
This is why global investors are making a grand pivot to China. Chinese assets are now seen as a beacon of stability. Even during the Iran war, Chinese assets dropped by only 3%. That’s the Hang Seng index, where foreigners put their money. Conversely, the S&P was down by almost 6%. Investors in China lost less money. It’s important to understand why that’s the case. The world today is facing an historic energy crisis. Given enough time, oil prices could hit $120, $150, or even $200 a barrel. Economies that weren’t ready for the shock saw their markets crash. That’s why stock prices in Japan and Korea collapsed–because they were too dependent on imported energy. 90% of Japan’s oil and 70% of Korea’s crude came from the Middle East. Their industries are taking significant collateral damage. However, investors are now piling into Chinese assets because Beijing was very well prepped. China has so much oil reserves as stockpiles that they’re actually providing supplies to Southeast Asia. Their energy mix also includes renewables and nuclear power. So, Chinese factories will hum along, production won’t fall, and domestic growth will be rather stable. Because of that, the Chinese currency is actually rising against the dollar. It’s up by 1.8% even during the Iran war. This makes imports cheaper and reduces the impact of higher fuel prices. Inflation is not a concern in China.
As a result, money is flowing into the yuan to buy Chinese stocks and bonds. The shift is happening and every new investment in Chinese assets is dollars denied to US markets. During Trump’s Easter address, he further emphasized the fact that the US economy is broken. There isn’t $18 trillion worth of investments coming in to the US–in fact, the war is bankrupting the economy. It’s forcing the US to borrow more money and is putting tremendous pressure on the bond market. Meanwhile, critical obligations in the country can’t be paid and an eventual default might really happen.
Trump: … to make up. But we, it’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: Military protection.
As an investor, that is the last thing you really want to hear. Would you want to buy US treasuries when the dollar could get debased from a default? And when we say default, we mean: printing money to pay for all these obligations. That’s why investors are seeking alternative assets, especially in China, to hedge themselves. And now a G7 banking giant is [making a shift?] for their clients. Deutsche Bank has successfully issued a record-breaking 5.5 billion RMB Panda Bond, which is almost a billion dollars worth. What’s important is the demand for said bonds in the Chinese currency. Demand hit 8.6 billion R&B or 1.6 times over subscription. Investors wanted the bonds because, despite the low yields compared to treasuries, the Chinese currency is still stable.
Deutsche Bank is the first EU bank in 2026 to issue a Panda Bond, and it’s not going to be the last. Banks move to where the demand is, to get to where the money will flow. And it’s obvious Chinese bonds are rising in prominence. The longer the war drags on, the more Panda Bonds will be issued and the more Panda Bonds are going to be bought. US debt is going to get hammered, especially as inflation in the US continues to climb. And as inflation rises, the odds of rate cuts are going to disappear rather fast. US crude oil has risen to an incredible $112 a barrel. That’s a 70% increase in price from just before the war. Gasoline has risen only by 40% at most, which means there’s still more room for prices to catch up. There’s always a lag effect for energy inflation to hit the real economy. In February, US CPI inflation was 2.4% which is very low. We haven’t factored in the energy shock from the Iran war just yet. The US stock market is beginning to factor that in. The currency and bond market are starting to price in this shock. Just wait till March and April CPI comes in. We could see bond yields spike while the dollar crashes. If inflation rises by a full percentage point, it would completely halt rate cuts. In fact, that could trigger the Fed to hike rates by 25 basis points at the very least.
In the West, many were laughing about China’s deflation. Instead of rising prices, China had stable or falling prices. And now, everyone is praying for deflation because a nasty price shock is coming for all of us. Chinese bond yields have been staying rather steady for a few years, and they are in fact dropping. For bond holders, that is a gain. Meanwhile, the currency is gaining strength against the dollar, which is yet another net gain. For big investors like institutions, banks, and wealth funds, they need this stability. And with Trump in office, US markets are anything but stable. It’s trading like an emerging market on the brink of collapse. US yields are bouncing around like junk bonds while the stock market is not anchored in reality. And we have the US president trying to jawbone the markets on a daily basis. He is spinning a narrative of never ending US dominance.
When investors put money into a country, the underlying driver is the economy. Are they making money? The longer this conflict drags on, the higher inflation will get and wreck the US economy more. The problem with Trump is his lack of understanding of the Middle East. He really believes Iran will just let go of Hormuz and the energy crisis will be over just like that. It’s really bizarre just hearing him speak about it.
Trump: In any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally. They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have, to try and rebuild. That will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down.
When you hear things like this, it’s really terrifying for the world. Personally, they’re already suffering from higher energy prices. To joke about Hormuz suddenly reopening without a hitch is quite dangerous. If countries get pushed to the brink they will have to start finding money to save their economies. And what is the number one reserve asset they all hold? It’s dollar assets. And there’s a ton of dollar assets sitting on global balance sheets. Global investors hold a ton of US stocks and bonds. Foreigners own at least 20% of the entire US stock market. That’s nearly $19 trillion worth. They also hold a ton of US debt, both sovereign and corporate. That’s 30% of total treasuries and 30% of all corporate debt totaling $12 trillion. Now, just sit back and think a little about what happens during a liquidity crisis. If countries are pushed to the brink, they will need to liquidate their dollar assets, especially treasury bonds. Even if the world enters a recession, US yields might not drop. It could increase instead. It’s really critical to observe the Iran war.
Trump has trapped the US, has sandwiched the entire country into a really dangerous situation. And this is what happens when you lose your grip on reality and you become lost in your own personal maze of fantasies. Should the war end in a US loss, this is going to be disastrous for the dollar. And should the war drag on, it will result in a loss of confidence in the US fiscal situation. And here’s how delicate the situation is today. If the US loses the war, even if it’s a strategic loss, it will destroy US hegemony–starting with American influence in the Middle East. The Gulf countries won’t trust the US security umbrella anymore, and that will lead to less economic benefits and even the petrodollar breaking. There will be less demand for US bonds and this will break the exceptionalism narrative. But if Trump continues waging the war and turns this into a forever conflict the result will be just as bad. It will trigger even more endless borrowing. It’ll keep yields high and push the national debt to catastrophic levels. We will be heading closer to default. This is going to break the safe haven status of the dollar. Currency debasement is just a breath away.
So either way, the situation is horrific for USD holders. It is game over if Trump can’t find a suitable enough off-ramp for the war. He will need to find the delicate balance to spin another tall tail to trick the war once again. But it’s going to be harder to trick the world. There are just so many assets like gold and Chinese bonds on offer. If you’re a central bank, the smart move now is to diversify away [from the dollar]. And if you’re going to do it, you’d better do it quickly. If this evolves into a forever war, the final bill could morph into a trillion dollar disaster. It won’t stop at Congress giving the Pentagon $200 billion–it would probably be much, much, much more. Central banks are already dumping their holdings of treasuries. Since February, treasuries held at the New York Fed have dropped by $82 billion to just $2.7 trillion. It won’t be a surprise if it’s the Gulf countries selling to raise money to bolster their economies. Most definitely, they have to brace for impact from the economic costs due to the war. Their oil revenue has collapsed while their oil assets are literally being blown up by missiles. This will require them to raise a ton of money. And what do you think they have on hand? A lot of oil money sitting in US dollar reserves, US Treasury bonds.
The dump we see really makes sense. Better to get our money out now just in case yields spike higher for inflation. That’s what all central banks are thinking to themselves. Better to cash out now before the dollar crashes even further and then we all look like clowns. And it’s not just the Gulf States that could dump. The energy crisis is cornering many other countries, including US allies like Korea and, especially, Japan. Japan’s energy crisis is so colossal that it’s threatening every single industry they have–from making cars to making chips. Japan has to bring energy prices down. But they can’t raise rates or their debt implodes. They are running out of options here. Now, the yen recently cracked 160 to the dollar, and that means we have crossed a level where the Japanese government has to intervene or risk losing control. And the last time they launched a rescue, they sold nearly $100 billion worth. Japan is sitting on over $1.2 trillion in US bonds. What happens if Hormuz gets closed for another two or three months? What if it extends to half a year? It’s not impossible–and that will be horrific for Japan. The finance minister has vowed that decisive action is coming. They can’t let the yen spiral to oblivion or energy imports will become even more expensive. They might really pull the trigger this time on US bonds.
It’s really crazy, but Trump has managed to crater what’s left of the dollar’s prestige. All his policies are backfiring in real time. The trade war, for example, isn’t helping the US–it’s actually benefiting China’s export economies and their industries. The Iran war won’t cement USA hegemony–it’s breaking it down instead. And the big winner here, ironically, is China’s bond market.
Nick Griffin: It’s the maps, Stupid!
It’s the Maps, Stupid!
Trump’s War Will End Up Destroying the Whole Gulf — As It’s Meant To
Trump is an insane megalomaniac, surrounded by crooks getting rich through insider trading. Trump has been fooled, bribed or blackmailed by Netanyahu into going to war for Greater Israel. Trump is just a patsy for the World Economic Forum, which sees the Gulf energy crisis as the perfect way to shrink our carbon footprint and advance their depopulation agenda.
Broadly speaking, those are the three main explanations for the war on Iran and the energy crisis it has all too predictably unleashed. They are not mutually exclusive, of course, and the most realistic view is that each of these things is a factor, with different ‘elite’ factions favouring war and energy chaos for their own specific reasons.
As I wrote the other day at the end of ‘Say Goodbye to Normal’ however, it is also possible to see it as the purely materialistic, coldly calculated response of the American financial/military/industrial elite to challenges which they found themselves unable to stop, but whose results they still hope to turn to their advantage.
Say Goodbye to ‘Normal’
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If you ever wondered what it was like to be a young man in the early autumn 1914, you know now. Regardless of your age, the war on Iran has already ended that last carefree summer. It is now only a matter of days, and one more escalation in the clashes already occurring, before the comfort and ease you grew up regarding as ‘normal’ have gone forever.
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To understand this, we have to start with the petrodollar. As I explained, this has been the way the global oil market has worked since 1974. In very simple terms, America agreed to provide the military support to keep the corrupt, Islamist-fanatic House of Saud in power. In return, the Saudis agreed to price their oil – and every barrel of oil sold on the planet – in dollars. Everyone wanting to buy oil had to buy dollars, which the Federal Reserve simply printed. Anyone who tried to sell their oil in anything but dollars ended up like Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein or Maduro.
The vast sums of money and bargain-basement priced raw materials and finished goods which have poured into America as a result have been the foundation of US prosperity at home and military power abroad. Washington’s global imperium of the last fifty years has only been possible because of the petrodollar and the petrodollar recycling system.
The grip of the U.S. dollar over global oil purchases was already weakening in the early 2020s. Several countries—especially China and Russia—began increasing the use of their own currencies for energy trade. This didn’t immediately break the system, but it signalled that the dollar monopoly was no longer unquestioned.
The petrodollar faced being ground down by the increasing independence and clout of the expanding BRICS alliance but, in the end, the lethal blow was delivered by America’s old partner – Saudi Arabia. When the fifty-year-old agreement came to an end in June 2024, the ruling clique of the House of Saud declined to renew it.
Much of the Saudi oil trade has continued to be in U.S. dollars, but payments are now also accepted in yuan, euros, yen, and rupees.
This event fits squarely into the broader trend of de-dollarisation, where central banks globally have been diversifying their foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar. Its share in global reserves has declined from 73% in 2001 to 58.4% in 2023. Ironically, the weaponisation” of the US dollar through sanctions, particularly against Russia, has provided a strong impetus for many countries, especially the BRICS nations, to seek alternatives and enhance their economic sovereignty.
Historically, shifts in global reserve currencies, such as the Spanish Silver Dollar, the Dutch Guilder, and the British Pound Sterling, have always coincided with the collapse and replacement of successive hegemons. The current shift is a powerful indicator of a move towards a more multipolar financial system – and the end of the short ‘American Century’.
The end of the petrodollar left the Beltway/Wall Street elite with the Mother of All Problems: How to preserve US hegemony and their own bottom lines when they have lost the financial mechanism which made their global hegemony possible? They certainly had to do something, America’s debt mountain is so enormous that the cutting off of the imperial tribute system would not just end their power abroad, but quite likely create so much stress at home as to plunge the whole place into civil war.
Something had to be done. For a few years they seem to have hoped that they could continue business as usual. They strove to break the BRICS challenge by ousting Putin and turning Russia back into their Yeltsin-era quarry, then confronting an isolated China.
Orange Puppet
When this feat turned out to be impossible, a new ‘solution’ emerged, and Donald Trump was lined up for a second term in order to provide the larger-than-life mannikin for the puppet show.
With no possibility of keeping the petrodollar and global hegemony, what is now going on is an effort to concentrate on saving the finance capitalist system in North America, and to preserve US power, not by competing with everyone else, but by reducing them to ruin.
Obviously, the war in Iran is a large part a consequence of the enormous power of the Israel lobby over US politicians, and the madness of the Christian-Zionists and the Rapture heretics. Trump’s family connections to the equally barking mad Chabad Lubavitch are also clearly a factor.
But Trump can be manipulated in other ways too. Imagine his reaction when briefed on the fact that the Saudi refusal to renew the petrodollar had put America on the road to financial Armageddon:
“Those camel-f*cking ingrates. We protected them for fifty years and they turn round and stab us in the back. Well, if they won’t pay for protection, they won’t get it. And, boy, do they need it! In fact, we’ll make sure they need it. Then they’ll come crawling back for a deal, which we could give them, but probably won’t, because we don’t use their oil, but China does. So, if their oil industry goes up in flames, the gooks get burnt too.”
Jesus Dressed as a Monkey, Crucified, Hammered on Israeli TV: An Intolerable Insult to Christianity
The scandal surrounding the Israeli show “Toffee y el Gorila” is beyond comprehension. This television series, created by Erez Hyman and Shaul Betzer, violently attacks one of the most sacred figures for billions of Christians: Jesus Christ. He is depicted as a monkey, crucified, and beaten with a hammer amidst mocking laughter.
A frontal attack against Christianity
The offending episode features Toffee, played by Dawn Rosenzweig, accompanied by Shuki, a gorilla. In a chilling exchange, Toffee calls Jesus a “Nazi,“ claiming he was an ”enemy of the Jewish people” who wanted to convert Jews to Christianity. The remarks are of unprecedented violence, but this is only the beginning of this blasphemous parody.
When the gorilla character mentions his desire for “assimilation,” a term used here to signify a union with a non-Jewish person, Toffee reacts indignantly, declaring, “Assimilation means sleeping with a Goya (non-Jew). That’s something neither you nor I obviously want.” Under the guise of humor, these dialogues stigmatize not only Christ, but also Christians and any idea of interfaith reconciliation.
How can such a lapse be tolerated? In France, a simple caricature of the Jewish community leads to legal action and unanimous condemnation. Yet, when it comes to attacking Jesus Christ, a central figure for more than two billion Christians, the reactions are far less vehement. This double standard is unacceptable and fuels a growing sense of injustice among believers.
A grotesque crucifixion
The scene reaches its climax when Toffee forces the gorilla to play the role of Jesus Christ. The latter, disguised as a monkey, is then subjected to a grotesque reenactment of the crucifixion. Amidst laughter, insults fly: “You’re a Nazi, Jesus, a coward!” Even worse, he is struck repeatedly in the face and body with a hammer.
An attack on fundamental values
The scene, presented under the guise of humor, goes far beyond satire. The treatment of Jesus Christ in “Toffee y el Gorila” is a slap in the face to Christians worldwide. Disguised as a monkey, crucified, and humiliated amidst widespread mockery, this caricatured Christ symbolizes a contempt that must no longer be tolerated.
Spain Gave the Death Penalty to the Victim, Not the Rapists
Spain Gave the Death Penalty to the Victim, Not the Rapists
Noelia Castillo and the Demonic Rot Devouring the West
This is how broken the West has become. On Thursday, March 26, 2026, in a clinically sterile room within an assisted living facility in Barcelona, Spain, the government executed a twenty five year old paralysed rape victim. Her name was Noelia Castillo Ramos.1 Noelia did not die of a terminal illness, nor did she pass away from natural causes. Rather, she was administered a lethal injection by the Spanish state that had dismantled her family, forced her into a hostile and horribly dangerous environment, ignored her horrific violation, and ultimately deemed her broken existence too inconvenient to maintain.2
While Noelia Castillo’s heart was stopped by a cocktail of state-sponsored chemicals, the unvetted migrant men who gang-raped her, shattered her mind, and drove her to fling herself from a fifth-floor window continue to walk the streets of Europe, entirely shielded from justice. They faced zero consequences. She faced the death penalty.
These were the last words that her grandmother said to Noelia: “I love you, my girl; someday we will be together again.”
The fate of Noelia Castillo stands as a single almost perfect, undeniable illustration of everything that is broken, evil, and actively suicidal about modern Western society under progressive, woke, open-border, and secular-left governance. Progressive Europe has functionally and legally decided that native European women and girls are a disposable commodity, just collateral damage in the grand suicidal project of multiculturalism.
Noelia Castillo’s story began when the Spanish government decided that a struggling Christian family was an entity to be dismantled rather than supported when they needed it the most.
As a vulnerable teenager, Noelia lived in Barcelona with her parents and her grandmother. Akin to countless working-class families across a rapidly economically unstable Europe, her family experienced severe financial hardship. In a traditional European society, financial struggles are met with community support, charity, the intervention of the Church, and social policies designed to keep the family unit, the fundamental building block of any surviving civilisation, intact.
However, under secular-left governance, the state views the traditional family with inherent hostility. Financial hardship was immediately weaponised by the authorities as a convenient pretext to intervene and claim ownership of the child.3
The terrifying brutality of the state’s intervention cannot be overstated. To remove this vulnerable teenager from her home, the Spanish police deployed twelve armed officers. Twelve officers were dispatched to physically tear a crying, terrified teenage girl away from the desperate, weeping arms of her mother and grandmother.
The progressive state possesses the infinite capacity, funding, and willingness to deploy overwhelming force against impoverished native citizens who pose absolutely no physical threat. The state will send a heavily armed dozen to destroy a family over financial struggles. Yet, as the subsequent chapters of Noelia’s life cruelly elucidate, that exact same state apparatus will suddenly become entirely paralysed, blind, and pacified when tasked with protecting that same girl from actual, violent, predatory criminals. The twelve officers who ripped Noelia from her grandmother were nowhere to be found when she was screaming for help in the dark.
The Slaughterhouse of Multiculturalism
Having violently separated Noelia from the protective, loving environment of her family, the Spanish government assumed total legal and moral responsibility for her safety. The state placed her in a government-supervised “teen shelter” for unaccompanied minors.4 However, under the suicidal dictates of modern open-border policies, these facilities have ceased to be safe havens for local orphans or troubled domestic youth.
The shelter Noelia was forced into was overwhelmingly populated by unvetted Muslim migrants.5 The elites of Western Europe have spent over two decades facilitating the mass importation of military-age males from the Third World, flooding local communities and state institutions with populations that hold deeply ingrained demographic, cultural, and religious hostility toward the host nation.
It was within the walls of this taxpayer-funded, state-supervised facility that Noelia Castillo experienced the ultimate horror. She was brutally gang-raped. The violence was absolutely horrific, she was first assaulted by three men, and then subsequently violated by even more.6 The disgusting savagery of a pack of men hunting and violating a vulnerable girl inside a government institution is an atrocity that should have brought the entire country to a standstill. It should have resulted in immediate arrests, severe criminal sentences, and a total overhaul of the immigration and shelter system.
Also available at Barnes & Noble
Also available at Barnes & Noble
