By Walt Zlotow
My local paper, The Chicago Tribune’s editorial ‘There has been no victory yet for the Iranian people’ represents an astonishing betrayal of the urgent need to condemn the president’s criminal war on Iran. The Trib’s focus is not on the 42,000 Iranian buildings damaged or destroyed, of which 40,000 were residential homes. The No mention of the school bombed killing over 150 little girls, among over 3,000 dead Iranians Trump murdered in his senseless war. Absent was any mention the US began the war with a heinous war crime, greenlighting Israel’s assassinating Iranian ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Stating the Trib was “relieved” Trump didn’t kill off Iranian civilization as threatened, a genocidal war crime, without the most urgent of condemnations is deplorable.
The Trib states both the US and Iran declaring victory is “hardly surprising.” That certainly applies to Trump’s America which can never admit defeat, but not Iran. They punched back with astonishing effectiveness. Their tens of thousands of well-hidden missiles shot down US planes, sent aircraft carriers scurrying beyond their range, badly damaged US Gulf States bases requiring thousands of US personnel to be relocated to hotels.
Result? Trump cried uncle and entered into a tenuous ceasefire without achieving a single of the shifting war objectives.
Worse yet? The US war failure shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a fifth of the worldwide oil supply. This has sent the world economy teetering toward recession, if not depression.
Trump’s acceptance of Iran’ s 10 point ceasefire plan as a basis for upcoming negotiations verifies Trump’s catastrophic loss. It requires end to US criminal war with no further attacks on Iran, Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and defensive missile arsenal. US to leave the Middle East. US to end all sanctions on Iran. US to pay reparations for war damage.
Most disappointing in the Trib’s Iran war editorial is regurgitating Trump’s “three justifiable reasons… for this war.” All three are nonsense. Did it occur to the Trib Editorial Board that if those reasons were truly justifiable, the Trib should be encouraging Trump to press on to total victory?
The editorial concludes:
“… that inevitably leads us to an accounting that little has been achieved. A hollow victory at a heavy price.”
Indeed, nothing was achieved but senseless death and destruction, the US possibly on the way out of the region, and the world economy in jeopardy from the US handing over the Strait of Hormuz to an emboldened and soon to be prosperous Iran.
Sure sounds like a resounding Iranian victory and US loss to this observer.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
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An interesting comment and from the Israeli ambassador here in Aus.
Yet another indication that the war was a stuff up from the get-go.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-11/israel-ambassador-says-strait-of-hormuz-closure-was-not-expected/106551156
And there is this one about how the war is reshaping US politics.
Not going quite how you planned, trumper and nottayahoo?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-11/iran-war-reshaping-us-politics-trump-netanyahu/106552156
@ uncletimrob:
1) Your first link wrongly attempts to blacken the reputation of the Iranians by asserting that the Iranians had failed the Isrevil planning by closing the Hormuz Straits and bombarding certain Gulf countries,. especially those countries with military base ties to the USA (Undemocratic Sewer of Apartheid).
Well, that happens when your 40 years of planning proves to be essential for the survival of your nation. Score one for the ”Good Guys”.
2) There is little doubt that the erratic, demented. ageing TACO Trumpery has been suckered by Bibi the Butcher, the leader of the Hannibal Directive authorised by the Isrevil Knesset & enforced by the amoral IDF and citizen armed posses to start the push for a Greater Israel between the Nile & the Euphrates Rivers, based on pipedreams from the historical time when Judaism followers were dragged in chains to Babylon, and have never forgotten that experience.
The failure of Isrevil ”intelligence” ranks next to the WMD ”Words of Mass deception” that the US CXIA fed to Shrubya Bush to kick-start the Iraq invasion, occupation and importantly the take-over Iraqi known and potential fossil reserves.
DO NOT FORGET the prize for the USA (Undemocratic Sewer of Apartheid) is the largest fossil fuel reserves in the world. The prize for Isrevil is Greater Isrevil and any fossil fuel reserves within the jurisdiction.
TAKE NOTE that the ”Iranian nuclear threat” is just a red herring because no media outlet has mentioned that Isrevil has long held a nuclear capacity that is always denied.
Given that Isrevil has engineered this Middle east situation for its own imperialistic reasons, mush more emphasis should correctly be placed on the ”Isrevil nuclear threat”.
About Lebanon, Iran or Gaza this morning-zip. All taken up with the Artemis landing thingie. You could almost cry, “diversion”.
A diversion would be unethical when so much life is being lost or ruined.
The Americans and Netanyahu would NEVER sink to such a trick.
NEC, that post of your is excellent; well spotted.
That ABC article is a prime example of our (or is it now Murdoch’s) ABC’s decline.
As you point out it paints Iran as the villain and, I’d go further, Israel as some champion that underestimated how devious the villain would be.
The ABC article starts by shifting blame for the consequences Australians are experiencing to Iran. There is not a single mention of the USA and Israel starting this war by attacking Iran, just weasel words about ‘going to war’. Not a single mention of Iran retaliating in self-defense; certainly not in possibly the only way that would counter the asymmetrical nature of the military power imbalance at play. It gaslights Australians in the same disgraceful way that Wong does by taking Iran’s actions out of context. It even goes as far as paints in large bold text Iran as a rogue state – not the truth, that Israel and the USA are the rogue states.
The article paints Iran’s retaliatory neutering of the radar systems and US bases on Gulf states as some demented attacks on friends, attacks that were doing harm to Iranians; the article pretends that it is not Israel and the USA that are attacking Iran, in particular the civilian population. It ignores that the radar and bases were being used to facilitate bombing of Iranian targets in Iran, including hospitals, schools, universities, police stations and civil infrastructure. It ignores that the Gulf States are not acting as Iran’s friends by facilitating bombing of Iran and hampering Iran’s ability to retaliate.
The article goes on to promulgate the aggressor’s (Israel and the USA) nonsensical supposed justification for an unprovoked attack on Iran. No mention of the also earlier unprovoked Israel and US attack on Iran in June that supposedly obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. As you point out no mention of Israel’s nuclear stockpile and its Samson Option policy let alone Israel’s forever attacks on neighbouring countries. Instead, it gives Israel a platform to spread hate towards and fear of Iran without any substantiation, and without any questioning.
It then goes on to describe Israel’s massive attack on the civilian population in Lebanon, as merely “a wave of strikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah”. It repeats Israel’s description of a war crime without question, yet then deliberately used the language ” officials in Lebanon say” to cast doubt on and minimalize the cost in lives of Israel’s war crime; no mention of injuries, of houses destroyed, of people left homeless and displaced, none.
The article then goes on to cast Israel as peacemakers in this conflict, no mention, of course for the ABC, of the genocide in Gaza, no mention of Israel’s stated intention to occupy Southern Lebanon, no mention of Israel using the same Gaza template to flatten Southern Lebanon, no mention of Israel destroying the bridges that would have allowed the Lebanese to return to what is left of their houses after Israel have destroyed them, no mention of Greater Israel, no mention of USA breaking the 2015 nuclear program agreement, no mention of US sanctions, no mention of Mossad and CIA involvement in placing insurgent agents within Iran to topple the government, no mention of evidence over the past decades of both the USA and Israel intentions to attack Iran, just platforming Israel’s propaganda that Hezbollah is the problem.
The article then goes on to paint the Israeli government as the victims and Iran as the extremists.
The ABC article is a shameful and egregious example of the ABC platforming US and Israel propaganda – just as it did during the first attack on Iran in June, as it did during the protests in January, and as it did with the USA’s attack on Venezuela.
NEC, your post then goes on to capture the true essence, imo, of this Israeli and US set of war crimes, with “that happens when your 40 years of planning proves to be essential for the survival of your nation”.
Time and time again the rest of the world has watched as the USA and Israel have bullied, extorted, sought regime change for its vested interests, and outright launched attacks on others with impunity, indeed, with little pushback at all from Western countries. This has been highlighted with the Israel-USA genocide against the Palestinians.
Iran’s responses to Israeli and US aggression by widening the war and taking control of the Hormuz Strait is the only way it would bring pressure on Israel and the USA to stop attacking Iran. It is the only way it was going to get peace and prosperity for its people.
It’s wonderful to see the unanimity of opinions expressed here in articles and comments about the imperialistic violence being perpetrated in West Asia.
There are two imperial projects at work — a minor one carried out by Israel in its quest for Greater Israel, and a major one carried out by the US as it attempts to control global trade in valuable resources.
Both projects have been supported by the Western media, as described above, but despite that, nobody has been fooled.
This is a great sign, because this awareness would not be confined to these pages.
The awareness is becoming global.
Good things are happening, despite the horror and the heartbreak.
@ paul walter: You are an optimist!! The whole Iran war is to create for the American public ”OEF”, Operation Epstein Forget, Somehow NY late night compere Stephen Colbert just cannot forget the lies, redactions to protect the guilty and overt cover-ups resulting from the ”release” of the Epstein files; 3 million of about 6 million items, with the latter half being withheld despite Court Orders to the contrary.
Now 100426 there is the feeble excuse from the ”First Lady” asserting that she had not been introduced to TACO Trumpery by Epstein &/or Maxwell. Funny how the following pic showed all four persons together …..
@ Thommo: Thank you for your kind words.
@ Steve: Continue to support independent media sources because the Mainstream Media Manipulation Monopoly is ruled by a major supporter of these on-going conflicts.
NEC, live in hope,
die in despair..