NATALIE WINTERS

MAR 03, 2026

The Iran Escalation vs. Trump’s National Security Strategy

“Iran’s regime is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades.”1/4

IT’S TOO SOON TO KNOW WHETHER THIS WEEK WILL BE REMEMBERED AS DECISIVE AND CONTAINED OR AS THE OPENING CHAPTER OF SOMETHING FAR LONGER.

There’s a real strategic question at stake here, and it’s a fair one for any serious MAGA voter to ask:Why now?

It’s worth diving into two major documents — President Trump’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — to clarify how the administration views threats, priorities, and America’s role in the world.

Asking for clarity isn’t disloyalty — it’s serious citizenship. With that in mind,here are the key passages the government wrote verbatim.

From the National Security Strategy:“Conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic,but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe. Iran—the region’s chief destabilizing force—has been greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, and President Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer, which significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.”

That’s the baseline. The NSS entire Middle East section is even titled “Build Peace. Shift Burdens.”

Iran is weakened. Its nuclear program degraded. The problem smaller than headlines suggest.

So here’s the question:if Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades, why are we escalating now?

If the chief destabilizer has already been knocked back, why does this moment require widening the conflict instead of consolidating deterrence

Now read the next section of the NSS: “As this administration rescinds or eases restrictive energy policies and American energy production ramps up, America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede. Instead, the region will increasingly become a source and destination of international investment, and in industries well beyond oil and gas—including nuclear energy, AI, and defense technologies.

That’s not subtle.

America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.

Energy dominance at home was supposed to break the 50-year cycle where every tremor in the Gulf drags U.S. carrier groups into motion.America First meant we weren’t chained to Hormuz anymore.

Yet here we are — assets repositioned, force protection escalated, retaliation cycles unfolding, American personnel exposed.

If the Middle East was supposed to recede, why does it feel central again?

https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/the-iran-escalation-vs-trumps-national

>>24354655

2/4

Iranian retaliation has not been theoretical.

=Missiles and drones have reportedly struck or targeted multiple countries across the Gulf— including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Oman - either directly or through proxy-linked infrastructure threats.

That kind of multi-country spillover destabilizes precisely the region the strategy said would recede in priority. When strikes ripple across half a dozen Gulf states, the United States inevitably becomes responsible for maritime security, base defense, and escalation management. That is the same security cycle energy independence was supposed to loosen - not reinforce.

There’s also the industrial reality. The U.S. has already struggled to replenish precision munitions stockpiles, and defense primes have faced well-documented production delays and supply chain constraints. Expending high volumes of long-range missiles in a new theater while replenishment timelines stretch into months — sometimes years — is not just a tactical question. It’s a readiness question.

Then there’s this:

“But doing so will require dropping America’s misguided experiment with hectoring these nations—especially the Gulf monarchies—into abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government. We should encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it from without.The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they arewhile working together on areas of common interest.”

That is a direct rebuke of regime-change thinking.

Accept the region as it is. Encourage reform organically. Don’t impose political outcomes from outside.

Now contrast that with what we’re hearing: talk of supporting opposition elements inside Iran. Refusal to rule out boots on the ground if escalation widens. Open-ended contingency language.

You don’t have to formally declare regime change to drift toward it. You just start shaping political outcomes “from without.” That’s exactly what the strategy says we are not supposed to do.

And then comes the line that voters actually cared about:

“We can and must address this threat ideologically and militarilywithout decades of fruitless ‘nation-building’ wars.”

https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/the-iran-escalation-vs-trumps-national

>>24354659

3/4

That was the promise.

Not another Iraq. Not another Afghanistan. Not another open-ended spiral where “just one more strike” turns into 15 years of stabilization.

MAGA’s anti-forever war stance isn’t because of the “forever” qualifier — it’s mainly because of the war.Short term, medium term, America is fatigued by these conflicts. The country has been very clear about that.

The document concludes its Middle East section — titled “Build Peace. Share Burdens” — with the following:

But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over—not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was. It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment—a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged.

Now look at the National Defense Strategy’s Iran section:

“This creates even more opportunities for us to enable individual partners to do more for their defense.It will also enable us to foster integration between regional partners, so that they can do even more together.”

That’s burden sharing.

Enable partners. Let them carry more of the load.

Recent reporting makes clear that Israel saw Iran’s vulnerability as a strategic opportunity and pressed to act decisively. From Israel’s perspective, that makes sense. They live in that neighborhood.

But the NDS doesn’t say America absorbs the escalation cycle when an ally pushes the tempo. It says we enable partners to do more for their own defense.

Secretary of State Marco Rubioacknowledged that the U.S. moved in part because an Israeli strike was anticipated and escalation risk was rising. That framing suggests Washington was reacting to an ally’s operational timeline. But the NDS emphasizes enabling partners to shoulder more responsibility —not restructuring American posture around their urgency.

What is good for Israel is not inherently synonymous with what is good for the United States. Allies can share interests, but they do not share identical risk thresholds, timelines, or strategic burdens — and those differences matter.

If we’re the ones repositioning assets, absorbing retaliation risk, and widening exposure,that’s not empowerment. That’s reassumption.

The NDS also says:

“Now, Iran’s regime is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades.”

If Iran is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades, escalation should be the exception — not the default.

https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/the-iran-escalation-vs-trumps-national

>>24354663

4/4

And let’s be honest about the rhetoric.

We’re hearing that Iran has been waging a 47-year “forever war” against America. If that’s the case, why didn’t Iran escalate into sustained direct war during Trump 1.0 — when maximum pressure was in full effect? Hostility, yes. Proxy activity, yes.But not direct, sustained kinetic war.

That history matters.

And the Venezuela analogy doesn’t work either. Venezuela did not control maritime chokepoints. It did not have layered missile and proxy architecture. It did not sit at the center of regional escalation risk.Iran is a different scale of problem. It’s also a radical religious state fueled by an ideology steeped in martyrdom and bringing “death to the west.”

So here’s the real issue.

The NSS and NDS together say:

• Iran is weakened.

• The Middle East should recede in priority.

• Energy independence reduces compulsion.

• Reform should be organic, not imposed.

•Nation-building should be avoided.

• Partners should shoulder more responsibility.

• America First is supposed to mean hierarchy.

American lives first.

American readiness first.

American industrial depth first.

American long-term competition — especially with China — first.

The question isn’t whether any single strike was justified.

The question is whether the cumulative posture — escalation cycles, renewed centrality of the region, rhetorical openness to deeper involvement — actually reflects the strategy we wrote.

• If doctrine says the Middle East is receding but policy makes it central again…

• If doctrine says partners should do more but we absorb escalation risk…

• If doctrine says no regime engineering but rhetoric drifts in that direction…

Then this isn’t aboutbeing hawkish or dovish.

It’s about whether America First still governs American strategy.

And Iran is where that gets tested.

https://nataliegwinters.substack.com/p/the-iran-escalation-vs-trumps-national

Man accused of plot to assassinate Trump testifies Iran pressured him, says Biden and Haley were other possible targets. 1/2

Updated on: March 5, 2026 / 7:24 AM EST / CBS/AP

The allegation sounded like the stuff of spy movies: A Pakistani businessman trying to hire hit men, even handing them $5,000 in cash, to kill a U.S. politician on behalf of Iran 's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

It was true, and potential targets of the 2024 scheme included now-President Donald Trump, then-President Joe Bidenand former presidential candidate andex-U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the man told jurors at his attempted terrorism trial in New York on Wednesday.But he insisted his actions were driven by fear for loved ones in Iran, and he figured he'd be apprehended before anything came of the scheme.

"My family was under threat, and I had to do this," the defendant, Asif Merchant, testified through an Urdu interpreter."I was not wanting to do this so willingly."

Merchant said he had anticipated getting arrested before anyone was killed,intended to cooperate with the U.S. government and had hoped that would help him get a green card.

U.S. authorities were, indeed, on to him —the supposed hit men he paid were actually undercover FBI agents — and he was arrested on July 12, 2024, a day before an unrelated attempt on Trump's life in Butler, Pennsylvania. During a search, investigators saidthey found a handwritten note that contained the codewordsfor the various aspects of the plot, CBS News previously reported.

Merchant did sit for voluntary FBI interviews, but he ultimately ended up with a trial,not a cooperation deal.

"You traveled to the United States for the purpose of hiring Mafia members to kill a politician, correct?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Gupta asked during her turn questioning Merchant Wednesday in a Brooklyn federal court.

"That's right,"Merchant replied, his demeanor as matter-of-fact as his testimony was unusual.

The trial is unfolding amid the Iran war, which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike that Trump summed up as "I got him before he got me." Jurors were instructed to ignore news pertaining to the case.

The Iranian government has denied plotting to kill Trump or other U.S. officials.

Merchant, 47, had a roughly 20-year banking career in Pakistan before getting involved in an array of businesses: clothing, car sales, banana exports, insulation imports. He openly has two families, one in Pakistan and the other in Iran - where, he said, he was introduced around the end of 2022 to a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative. They initially spoke about getting involved in a hawala, an informal money transfer system, Merchant said.

Merchant testified that his periodic visits to the U.S. for his garment business piqued the interest of his Revolutionary Guard contact, who trained him on countersurveillance techniques.

The U.S. deems the Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organization." Formally called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the force has been prominent in Iran under Khamenei.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-accused-plot-assassinate-trump-testifies-iran-pressured-him/

Weird excuse, may be true!

>>24354922

2/2

Merchant said the handler told him to seek U.S. residents interested in working for Iran. Then came another assignment: Look for a criminal to arrange protests, steal things, do some money laundering, "and maybe have somebody murdered," Merchant recalled.

="He did not tell me exactly who it is, but he told me — he named three people: Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Nikki Haley," he added.

In 2024, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CBS NewsMerchant planned to assassinate current and former government officials across the political spectrum.

Merchant allegedly sketched out the plot on a napkin inside his New York hotel room, prosecutors said, and told the individual "that there would be 'security all around' the person" they were planning to kill.

"No other option"

After U.S. immigration agents pulled Merchant aside at the Houston airport in April 2024, searched his possessions and asked about his travels to Iran, he concluded that he was under surveillance. But still he researched Trump rally locations, sketched out a plot for a shooting at a political rally, lined up the supposed hit men and scrambled together $5,000 from a cousin to pay them a "token of appreciation."

He even reported back to his Revolutionary Guard contact, sending observations — fake, Merchant said — tucked into a book that he shipped to Iran through a series of intermediaries.

Merchant said he "had no other option" than to play along because the handler had indicated that he knew who Merchant's Iranian relatives were and where they lived.

In a court filing this week, prosecutors noted that Merchant didn't seek out law enforcement to help with his purported predicament before he was arrested. He testified that he couldn't turn to authorities because his handler had people watching him.

Prosecutors also said that in his FBI interviews, Merchant "neglected to mention any facts that could have supported" an argument that he acted under duress.

Merchant told jurors Wednesday that he didn't think agents would believe his story, because their questions suggested "they think that I'm some type of super-spy."

"And are you a super-spy?" defense lawyer Avraham Moskowitz asked.

No," Merchant said. "Absolutely not."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-accused-plot-assassinate-trump-testifies-iran-pressured-him/

Libs of TikTok

@libsoftiktok

Vigil for Khamenei crashed by patriotic Iranians in Manchester

From

Neb

5:58 PM · Mar 4, 2026

·

265.9K

Views

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2029330741415309459?s=20

Study Finds Deepest Point of Mediterranean in Greece’s Ionian Sea Is Full of Litter

Filio KontrafouriMarch 5, 20261/2

The first ever assessment of litter in the deepest place of the Mediterranean, located in the Hellenic Trench in Greece’s eastern Ionian Sea, has found one of the highest concentrations of deep-sea litter ever detected, raising grave concerns about ocean pollution and the conservation of marine habitats due to human activity.

The floor of the deepest site in the Mediterranean Sea known as Calypso Deep or as Oinousses Deep, has a depth of 5,122 meters and is 60 kilometers west from the closest shoreline in Greece’s Peloponnese near Pylos. At its bottom, researchers discovered plastic, glass, metal and paper waste -with plastic accounting for almost 90 percent of the litter material.

“The litter abundance in the Calypso Deep, with 26,715 items per square kilometer is one among the highest ever recorded in a deep-sea environment,” the study, which was recently published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, notes. According to the study, the calculated litter concentration is the second highest known to date in the deep ocean (deeper than 2,000 meters).

Scientists estimate that seas and oceans produce over 70 percent of the oxygen needed on Earth. Today, the survival of the oceans and their delicate ecosystems hangs in the balance because of climate change, pollution (especially from plastics and chemicals) and other human activities that also directly threaten human life.

Researchers analyzed data collected by an advanced crewed submarine called the Limiting Factor and concluded that“the deep sea is often a final sink for pollution” and that it is dominated by plastic items because they “are lightweight and very easy to transport by marine currents.” Most litter arrives to the Calypso Deep as sea surface floating debris.

“Some light waste, such as plastics, comes from the coast, from where it escapes to the Calypso Deep. Some plastics, such as bags, drift just above the bottom until they are partially or completely buried or disintegrate into smaller fragments,” Dr. Miquel Canals, one of the authors of the study explains.“We have also found evidence of boats dumping bags full of rubbish.”

In some places of the trench, the researchers even found different types of interaction between the debris and marine organisms. For example, they found instances of animals ingesting the debris and using it as a substrate to grow, hide or lay their eggs.

The Mediterranean is an enclosed sea and since the trench is a “closed depression” with weak currents, it favors the accumulation of debris. “Unfortunately, as far as the Mediterranean is concerned, it would not be wrong to say that ‘not a single inch of it is clean,'” Dr. Canals says.

He further adds that the Mediterranean is “surrounded by humanity, with intense maritime traffic and widespread fishing activity. The evidence provided by our research should shake up global efforts, and in particular in the Mediterranean, to mitigate waste dumping, especially plastics.”

Beaches across Greece and the Mediterranean drowning in plastic, report finds

Greece’s imposing, clear-blue beaches that are enjoyed by millions of visitors every summer are drowning in trash and plastic with the situation across the Mediterranean being no better, a new report has found.

https://greekreporter.com/2026/03/05/deepest-point-mediterranean-greece-ionian-sea-litter/

>>24355016

2/2

The report, published recently by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), paints a bleak picture on the pollution that’s taking a hold of Greece’s beaches. From data collected across 192 beaches in the country between 2021 and 2024, none fulfills the minimum threshold of 20 pieces of trash for every 100 meters of coast to be considered clean, according to the relevant European directive. Instead, WWF’s study detected an average of 464 pieces of trash for every 100 meters of coast, a number that’s multiple times above the minimum requirements. In total, 298,000 pieces of trash were collected for every 100 meters of coast in the 192 beaches studied between 2021 and 2024.

What makes the report’s findings even more worrisome is that the vast majority of trash found (83 percent) is plastic, with cigarette butts holding the top spot, followed by plastic caps, plastic bottles, plastic bags, pieces of styrofoam and others.

WWF further notes that half of all trash objects collected from Greece’s beaches between 2021 and 2024 comprise of only five objects: cigarette butts (25 percent), small pieces of plastic (between 2.5 and 50 centimeters), plastic caps, straws and pieces of styrofoam.

Plastic pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems of the modern world, with serious consequences for biodiversity, human health and the economy. Plastic waste breaks down into microplastics, which pose an unseen risk as microscopic plastic particles enter the food chain through marine life, resulting in impacts on human health.

WWF’s report is part of a “citizen science” program, which in Greece began in 2021 and is called “Adopt a Beach.” The program has so far mobilized 173 teams of volunteers across the country, who are trained by WWF staff in the detection and registration of trash in the 192 beaches they have so far “adopted.”

The program has been expanded to Turkey, Tunisia and Italy and offers a clearer picture on the scale of the problem across the Mediterranean, where 338 beaches were studied between 2023 and 2024 and the findings are just as discouraging. Data showed that 83 percent of the pollution is due to the presence of plastics, with glass, metal and paper following in much smaller concentrations.

https://greekreporter.com/2026/03/05/deepest-point-mediterranean-greece-ionian-sea-litter/

Michelle Obama Finds NEW Way to Complain About Race and Trump While Talking About Troops with Conan

Both her and Barry cannot stop complaining that not every word in America is that black people are disadvantaged and not treated like Trump family now!

Honestly what a bunch of faggots that believe the Bs. They are tiresome. The 100s of millions of dollars or anything else is not appreciated

10:52

https://youtu.be/3GKfs2bqYRI

Megyn Kelly is joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of “System Update” on Substack, to discuss Michelle Obama’s new interview with Conan O'Brien, her latest complaints about race and Donald Trump, and more.

Megyn Kelly Opens Up About Being Labeled an "Antisemite" Despite Long History of Being Pro-Jewish

Megyn Kelly is joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of “System Update” on Substack, to discuss the bizarre social media effort to falsely label Megyn an “antisemite,” her long support of Israel and pro-Jewish history, and more.

10:09

https://youtu.be/3EwrOU4jdTE

Team USA Hockey Star Matthew Tkachuk Reveals Inspirational Message From Coach Before Winning Gold

Megyn Kelly is joined by Matthew Tkachuk, Team USA and Florida Panthers hockey star, totalk about what it felt like to win the gold for America for the first time since 1980, what his coach said to the team before that historic overtime, the incredible performance of his teammates, and more.

12:02

https://youtu.be/IPJx4SlS72w