The most unlikely source reports that the US-Israeli Strategy against Iran is working, while overnight, we learned that more top Iranian leaders are no longer a threat.
Yesterday, Middle East media outlet Al-Jezeera, not a fan of the US or Israel, shared that the US-Israeli strategy against Iran was working.
President Trump noted this last night at Truth Social.
A pundit on Twitter shared his thoughts on the report:
Al Jazeera is now running the headline “The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working.”
Prof. @MuhanadSeloom argues that despite what the skeptics are understandably worried about, “When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.”
He adds, perhaps to head off the naysayers who’ll write him off as a “Zionist,” “I have worked for the US Department of State and advised defence and intelligence agencies in multiple countries. I have no interest in cheerleading for war.
“But I have spent my academic career studying how states authorise the use of force through intelligence institutions, and what I see in the current campaign is a recognisable military operation proceeding through identifiable phases against an adversary whose capacity to project power is collapsing in real time.”
Prof. Seloom is right. This is a well-planned war with clear objectives. And most of the people saying otherwise are confusing what’s happening in 2026 with their desire to relitigate Iraq in 2003.
But more interesting than the professor’s arguments is the simple fact that Al Jazeera now feels free to publish this sort of thing, that Qatar is tentatively dipping a toe into this new narrative.
In other words, that Qatar now calculates that the war might just succeed.
This is certainly a big deal. If Al-Jazeera feels safe reporting the situation in Iran honestly, the threats from the regime must be severely damaged.
Another report of the situation in Iran shares that overnight, top regional commanders of the Basij were wiped out in a strike by Israel.
BREAKING: Israel just wiped out the Basij high command at a secret meeting in the desert.
The IDF confirmed overnight that a precision strike hit a makeshift tent complex where Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani and dozens of regional commanders had gathered, believing they were safe by hiding outside fixed infrastructure. Israeli intelligence knew the location, the timing, and the attendee list. Soleimani is dead. His deputy is dead. The regional commanders who ran Iran’s internal repression apparatus are dead.
Separately, Defense Minister Katz confirmed that Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was targeted in an overnight airstrike on Tehran. Katz stated this morning that Larijani and the Basij commander “were eliminated overnight and joined Khamenei and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil, in the depths of hell.” Iran published a handwritten note claiming Larijani survived. The IDF says it is still assessing.
The intelligence architecture reveals decades of Mossad investment paying compound returns. Long-term human networks inside Iran provided the foundational layer. The accelerant was Iranian citizens themselves. Social media tip-offs identifying Basij checkpoint locations, commander movements, and gathering schedules created a real-time targeting overlay that no counterintelligence apparatus could suppress. The regime’s own population became its exposure surface.
F-35 stealth aircraft delivered stand-off precision munitions on Tehran command nodes linked to the Intelligence Ministry and Basij, internal security forces in Shiraz, and air defense systems in Tabriz. Zero oil infrastructure was touched. Netanyahu released a photo showing the moment he authorized the strikes, a deliberate signal to every surviving commander that their movements are watched and the order to kill them carries a face and a timestamp. Hours later, he addressed the Iranian people for Nowruz, wishing them “a year of freedom.” Kill the commanders at dawn. Address their victims by evening.
But here is the paradox that every allocator must internalize.
The Basij high command is destroyed. Larijani is reportedly dead. The IRGC’s intelligence architecture has been degraded to a degree unprecedented since the revolution. And the Strait of Hormuz toll booth continues operating as if nothing happened.
MarineTraffic data from the hours following these strikes shows zero disruption to the permissioned passage regime. Hormozgan provincial IRGC naval units continue executing the same VHF hail, AIS verification, and diplomatic clearance protocol they have maintained for seventeen consecutive days. The sealed contingency packets do not care who is alive in Tehran. They were designed for exactly this scenario.
Every decapitation headline triggers a “regime collapse” reflex that pulls crude lower on normalization hopes. The market sees dead commanders and infers a weakening adversary approaching capitulation. The evidence says the opposite. Decapitation degrades the center. It cannot break the periphery. The 31 provincial commands do not need Soleimani or Larijani or Mojtaba to keep the Hormuz gate operational. They need their packets, their theater lead authority, their radios, and their standing orders. All of which survived the night.
Twenty-one ships carrying nearly one million metric tons of fertilizer remain stranded in the Gulf. Urea at New Orleans hit $683 per metric ton. The Gulf produces 49 percent of global urea exports. The Corn Belt planting window opens in weeks. No urea vessel has received passage through the toll booth because no nation has prioritized fertilizer over crude.
Israel killed the men who ran the repression. The packets that run the blockade do not have names. They cannot be assassinated.
What breaks this: documented Hormuz passage disruption from IRGC command confusion within 72 hours of these strikes.
Full analysis – open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans
The US-Israeli war with Iran is moving as well as expected. The real threat to America is not overseas. The sleeper cells the Biden regime allowed to waltz into the country are the real threat. This is why it was and is so important for ICE to remove these monsters from within our borders sooner rather than later.
