How & when does it all end in West Asia?

• Congratulations to the Palestinian photographer Saher Alghorra who won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for his compelling photos from Gaza. This photo, taken on March 4, 2025, just before Israel violently broke a six-week ceasefire deal, is described as follows: “Tamer Hassan al-Shafei’s family sat down to break their daily Ramadan fast in the charred remains of their home, overlooking the ruins of Beit Lahia, in Gaza. The Islamic holy month, during which observant Muslims fast until sunset, fell during a fragile ceasefire in the war. It was a humble meal, not the usual Ramadan spread. Meat and other luxuries were out of reach because of the shortage of food entering Gaza. He, his wife and his children ate cheap basics — hummus and falafel — instead.”  
• An Iranian military source told Fars News Agency: The U.S. military’s claim that it targeted six Iranian fast boats is not true, and no IRGC combat vessels were hit. Hostile U.S. forces reportedly attacked two small boats carrying civilian cargo traveling from Khasab on the Omani coast toward the Iranian coast, firing on them, destroying the boats, and killing five civilian passengers.

• Quote from George Galloway: American Imperialism has to be decisively defeated, by somebody. Or there will NEVER be peace in the world….
• Kit Klarenberg writes: A stunning investigative report by Hebrew-language outlet Ynet has laid bare the embarrassing cataclysm not only of the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the Zionist entity’s effort throughout to end the Islamic Republic via covert and overt military and intelligence operations. Violent Mossad-orchestrated protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s murder, and an [ill-fated] Kurdish invasion were intended to produce regime change and “total victory” over Tehran. Yet, as Ynet concludes: “what started as a far-reaching Israeli move, rich in imagination, final in its solution, ends in heartache.”

• Yesterday's drone attack is, in fact, a small test for a potential full-scale war in the future. The Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, with a capacity of 1.5 million barrels /day, expandable to 1.8 million, is UAE’s last hope for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and exporting oil and petroleum products. If the situation escalates into a full-scale infrastructure war, this pipeline, with Saudi Arabia’s Jubail–Yanbu pipeline, will likely be among Iran’s first & heavy attacks, which will likely put it out of operation. With Hormuz closed and Fujairah out of operation, the UAE will have no option to export its oil & other products. 

• Berlin authorities have announced that law enforcement will impose restrictions on Soviet and Russian symbols during the celebrations of WW2 Victory Day. They can’t accept the fact that it was the Soviet Union that predominately liberated Europe from fascism and inflicted a crushing defeat on Nazi Germany’s war machine. It makes sense given the fact that today the Germans are arming Nazis in Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia and assisting Israel in waging a modern Holocaust in Gaza. As the great Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov once said: “We liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it.”
• Lebanese Ministry of Health: 2,702 martyrs and 8,311 wounded in the Israeli aggression against Lebanon since March 2nd.
• In a dangerous new development, the Zionist occupation forces stormed the walls of Al-Aqsa Mosque while waving flags.  

• A group of House Democrats is urging the Trump administration to publicly acknowledge Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program, a move that would abandon decades of U.S. policy but confirm what has been an open secret among intelligence officials since the late 1960s. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio obtained by The Washington Post, 30 lawmakers, led by Rep. Joaquin Castro (Texas), say Washington’s silence on the program is indefensible amid the war in Iran and the acute threat of military escalation. Avner Cohen, a leading historian on Israel’s nuclear program, said the letter breaks a taboo that has endured for more than half a century. “This is something that people did not dare do before,” said Cohen, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and author of the book “Israel and the Bomb.”  

• Trump has begged South Korea to join the war against Iran and asked China and ‘its allies’ to help.  Trump says he’s asked roughly a half-dozen other countries to send warships to reopen the  Strait of Hormuz. So far none has committed. Trump even indicated he would use his long-planned trip to China to pressure Beijing to help with a new coalition meant to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait — a notion that his treasury secretary later downplayed.

• A senior Israeli military commander has admitted that the army is killing Palestinians at a rate “not seen since 1967” in the West Bank, as regime forces continue their aggressive campaign of raids, arrests, killings, and destruction across the occupied territory.

• Esmail Baqaei, spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, noted that over these 47 years, deep distrust and suspicion have accumulated with the U.S.: “You should not expect that within a short period of time, after an extraordinarily bloody war, in which....Iran, having fought two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, two exceptionally ruthless regimes, whose brutality we witnessed over the past two and a half years in the crimes of Gaza and Lebanon, would quickly reach a settlement [with us]”.

• Alastair Crooke: Trump today seems torn between the prospect of ‘heavy’ military escalation (advocated by the Israeli-First faction) in the hope of securing an Iranian capitulation, and an extended Hormuz blockade (albeit porous), advocated by Secretary Bessent, speaks to the notion of yet another ‘forever war’. Neither option is without profound consequences.