The utter collapse of the world economy and the depopulation of vast parts of the Middle East. That is what is at stake and it’s in the hands of a madman, writes Joe Lauria.
Part of a U.S. aircraft destroyed by Iran on April 6, 2026. (Morteza Salehi/Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons)
Friday, April 3 to Sunday, April 5
Despite the ongoing American celebrations, there remain huge questions about exactly what happened in the Iranian desert in the aftermath of the U.S. rescue of one of its downed F-15 pilots on Sunday.
Washington and its allied media are celebrating it as an heroic operation. Typical of this rhetoric, Donald Trump wrote on social media:
“WE GOT HIM! My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History. … The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies.”
He wrote it on Truth Social, but is it true?
Iran’s Press TV reports:
“As the C-130s approached their landing zone, Iranian police commando units opened heavy fire from multiple directions, immobilizing the first transport aircraft before it could unload its personnel.
Minutes later, IRGC air defence systems locked onto the second C-130 and the two Black Hawks. One by one, the American aircraft were struck … At least five American personnel were killed in the operation, according to Iranian military sources. Some unofficial reports have put the death toll even higher.
The IRGC’s Public Relations Department issued a terse but devastating statement.“The invading enemy aircraft in southern Isfahan, including two Black Hawk helicopters and two C-130 military transport aircraft, were hit and are now burning in the flames of the wrath of the heroic fighters of Islam,” it stated.
For the first time since the aggression began on 28 February, Washington had lost not just strike aircraft but the very platforms designed to retrieve downed pilots, a catastrophic failure of combat search-and-rescue doctrine.”
Iran release footage of the destroyed U.S. aircraft.
The astute blogger who goes by the name Simplicius says that the location of the destroyed U.S. aircraft was 200 kilometers away from the site of the missing pilot. He believes the rescue story is covering up a failed U.S. attempt to seize the 440.9 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium that is believed to be stored underground in Isfahan. He writes:
“The morning broke with news of a large-scale US operation to supposedly extract the second downed pilot from Iran, who had ejected from his shot-down F-15E on Thursday. The scale of losses for this operation alone turned out to be massive, as the US lost hundreds of millions worth of planes allegedly getting the pilot back to safety.
The operation involved all kinds of Special Forces unit which amounted to “boots on ground” inside Iran for the first time—at least officially. […]
To the best of my ability I’ve traced the original geolocation to this post which shows US Pave Hawk Combat Search and Rescue choppers flying over the area presumed to be the original F-15E crash site.
But here’s the plot twist: the new footage of destroyed American C-130 transport craft and helicopters has been geolocated to over 200km away at this geolocation: 32.258394, 51.901927. […] The geolocated wreckage of the C-130s which were apparently using a local “agricultural airstrip” (32.223369, 51.897678) just happens to be right over a mountain, about 35km away, from Isfahan’s nuclear facility, where Iran’s ‘near-weapons grade’ enriched uranium is alleged to be stored. […]
This puts the failed US clandestine operation 35km southeast of one of Iran’s main uranium sites. It is therefore only logical to speculate that the F-15E “rescue” operation was a fake meant to smokescreen and conceal something more nefarious. Recall that Trump had been talking about exfiltrating Iran’s uranium … “
The Pentagon says the cargo planes “got stuck in the mud” and they had to destroy them.
Even if the U.S. is able to bury the truth of what happened in the desert, it can’t bury the truth that the U.S. is losing the war and badly. Someone on X quipped:
It is going so badly that Trump is no longer able to conceal his madness. This was made clear by his vulgar Easter morning social media post in which he threatens war crimes against Iran.
The post has unleashed serious calls from members of Congress for the 25th Amendment to be invoked to remove Trump from office. s against Iran.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on X: “If I were in Trump’s Cabinet, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers about the 25th Amendment.” Democratic House member Yassamin Ansari posted: “The 25th Amendment exists for a reason.”
The 25th Amendment of the U.S. constitution says:
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. […]
If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”
Former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch Trump ally, said in a tweet:
“On Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.
I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. I’m not defending Iran but let’s be honest about all of this. The Strait is closed because the US and Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they’ve been telling for decades, that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon.
You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel. They are more than capable of defending themselves without the US having to fight their wars, kill innocent people and children, and pay for it. Trump threatening to bomb power plants and bridges hurts the Iranian people, the very people Trump claimed he was freeing.
On Easter, of all days, we as Christians should be reminded that the son of God died and rose from the grave so that we can be forgiven once and for all of our sins. Jesus commanded us to love one another and forgive one another. Even our enemies. Our President is not a Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians.
Christians in the administration should be pursuing peace. Urging the President to make peace. Not escalating war that is hurting people. This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most. This is not making America great again, this is evil.”
Total War
Trump is threatening total war against the infrastructure that support civilian life in Iran, clearly a war crime. He has given Iran yet again a new deadline — 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday — to open the Strait of Hormuz or “you’ll be living in hell.”
If he follows through on his threats this time, Iran has vowed to retaliate in kind, destroying on the other side whatever Trumps destroys in Iran. That means the power plants, oil and gas installations, bridges, desalination plants and anything else he hits won’t be safe in the Gulf Arab states or Israel.
That could mean the utter collapse of the world economy and the depopulation of vast parts of the Middle East. That is what is at stake here and it’s in the hands of a madman.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
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