.png "Watch Big Thief Debut Three Songs in an Irish Field")
Our president believes we’ve won the Iran war. He might be surprised to discover that Iran believes he’s lost. Yes, Iran thinks it has won.
Here’s what one of Iran’s mouthpieces, PressTV, said on Monday:
the American side now confronts an inescapable choice: either cease hostilities and accept Iran’s terms, or brace for the complete collapse of negotiations that would plunge the region into an even more catastrophic conflagration. But
PressTV cautions,
make no mistake: this is no negotiation between equals seeking middle ground. It is a confrontation between a victorious power that has shattered the will of a materially superior enemy and a defeated “superpower” desperately scrambling for an exit.
Yes, a major Iranian international news outlet says the Iran war is “a confrontation between a victorious power that has shattered the will of a materially superior enemy and a defeated ‘superpower.’”
Who is the so-called defeated superpower? The USA. And who is “the victorious power”? Iran.
Says an Iranian military high official Ali Naderi, Iran has accomplished something monumental. In Naderi’s words on Iranian television May 27th, Iran “has forced a global superpower to retreat.” What’s more, says Naderi, if America starts the war up again, it will be met by a response “unlike anything seen before.”
Iran has set out red lines. Four of them. Absolute lines the USA must not cross. Those red lines, says the Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Foreign Policy Committee, are Iran’s
- “right to enrich uranium,
- “retaining the enriched materials,
- “exercising control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, and
- “demanding removal of the United States’ illegal sanctions.”
For the USA, agreeing to these terms would be total surrender.
The Iranians warn that if the war resumes, it will “be extended beyond the region, and that devastating blows” will “be delivered from places the enemy cannot imagine.” In other words, we may see events like 9/11 in our very own backyards.
“We are men of war,” explains Iran’s military, the IRGC, “and you will see our power on the battlefield, not in hollow statements or social media pages.”
What’s more, adds the Iranian military’s Ali Naderi, Iran’s “missile and drone production lines are now operating at higher capacity than before.”
The Iranian public backs up these government statements. One viewer of Iran’s Press TV begs in a comments section to, “Please turn” all the western “economic centers,” “data centers, ports, airport[s], military bases, [and] manufacturing” facilities in the middle east “into a black dust.” The comment-writer calls, quote, “Trump & his… regime” genocidal terrorists. This commenter also predicts that Trump “will be blamed for the start of WWIII & [the] end of civilization!”
Another commenter calls for “One last war against those subhumans.” The subhumans he’s railing against are Westerners, like you and me. He adds that “permanent peace must be established.” Alas, in militant Islam the only real peace will come when Islamic government is in power from one end of the earth to the other.
Meanwhile, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has called for all Iran’s neighbors to get rid of American military bases or to be attacked as accomplices of the enemy, accomplices of the Great Satan, America.
Most important, Iran is shooting for great power status like the magnificent stature it achieved 2,500 years ago in its heyday, when it was called the Persian Empire. That’s why Iranian Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei in a post on X three days ago “shared a historical image of a Sassanian (ancient Iranian) relief showing a Roman emperor submitting to a Persian king. He commented that Rome once saw itself as the undisputed center of the world, but ‘the Iranians shattered that illusion.’” That is the sort of humbling of a global superpower that Iran believes it is achieving today.
______
About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. Bloom has also appeared in Iranian and Saudi TV over forty times. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
References:
Howard Bloom, The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Brought You ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 2016)
Araghchi, Seyed Abbas (@araghchi). “Touted US security umbrella has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble.” X, March 14, 2026. https://x.com/araghchi/status/17684325.
IranWire. “IRGC Threatens U.S. and Israel with Expanding War beyond the Region.” IranWire, May 20, 2026.https://iranwire.com/en/news/152654-irgc-threatens-us-and-israel-with-expanding-war-beyond-the-region/.
Press TV. “‘War Beyond the Region’: IRGC Vows to ‘Bring Enemies to Absolute Ruin’ If Iran Faces New Aggression.” Press TV, May 20, 2026. Last modified May 20, 2026. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/05/20/768963/IRGC-warns-aggression-repeated,-extra-regional-war-will-turn-enemy-black-dust.
Al Habtoor Research Centre. Arab Airspace Blockade After Doha Attack. Research Report, September 2025.https://www.habtoorresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Arab-Airspace-Blockade-After-Doha-Attack-v3.pdf.
Axios. “Trump and Netanyahu Discuss Strategic Coordination on Emerging Iran Peace Plan.” Axios, May 20, 2026.https://www.axios.com/2026/05/20/trump-netanyahu-call-iran-peace-plan.
BBC News. “Mojtaba Khamenei Succeeds Father as Iran’s New Supreme Leader.” March 8, 2026. YouTube video, 10:14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uToahGtP9o.
Cui, Haipei, and Jan Yumul. “Region Urged to Expel Aggressors.” China Daily Hong Kong, March 16, 2026.https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/630599.
Futu News. “Iran’s New Supreme Leader Delivered His First Speech: The Strait of Hormuz Will Remain Closed, and U.S. Military Bases Will Be Targeted If Not Withdrawn.” Futu News, March 12, 2026.https://news.futunn.com/en/post/69995596/.
The Jerusalem Post. “Qatari Expert: Israel Failed to Hit Hamas Leaders in Doha.” The Jerusalem Post, September 11, 2025. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-867074.
Kurdistan24. “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Threatens to Expand War Beyond the Region if Attacked Again.” Kurdistan24, May 20, 2026. https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/915195/irans-revolutionary-guard-threatens-to-expand-war-beyond-the-region-if-attacked-again.
Time. “U.S. and Iran Offer Mixed Messages on Deal to End War.” Time, May 7, 2026.https://time.com/article/2026/05/07/us-iran-war-deal-mou-axios-report-negotiations-strait-nuclear/.
United with Israel. “Trump: Iran War Will End ‘Very Quickly.'” United with Israel, May 20, 2026.https://unitedwithisrael.org/trump-iran-war-will-end-very-quickly/.
Xinhua News Agency. “Iran Warns War to Extend Beyond Region if U.S., Israel Repeat ‘Aggression’.” Xinhua News Agency, May 20, 2026. https://english.news.cn/20260520/61186cb8a854419f8b068314cadfead7/c.html.
Yeni Şafak English. “Iran Urges Regional Nations to Expel US Forces Amid Hormuz Crisis.” Yeni Şafak, March 15, 2026.https://en.yenisafak.com/world/iran-urges-regional-nations-to-expel-us-forces-amid-hormuz-crisis-3715856.
