By Sara Flounders
April 10, 2026

On April 8, the people of Iran celebrated. And as Iran’s government announced, their military will keep its finger on the trigger. This implies not a moment of trust of U.S. imperialism, which violates every agreement it makes.

A ceasefire based on Iran’s 10 points and a refusal to concede to  even one of the U.S.’s 15 points is an enormous victory. Iran is steadfast, bold and incredibly well prepared. The Iranian people stayed united. That unity is what the U.S. regime tried to break. It tried to break the united resistance in Cuba for the last 67 years, and in China for the last 77 years. U.S. imperialism will continue to attempt to break this unity. We all join Iran tonight in celebration. Imperialism failed! The struggle continues.–SF.

This is a moment in history when everything is changing, abruptly, violently.

The whole colonial structure of West Asia is unraveling. Israel, the U.S.-British-created proxy in the region, their unsinkable aircraft carrier, has been under relentless attack.

The artificially created Gulf monarchies and Emirates are facing collapse. The war is exposing all the subterranean cracks and fault lines.

The U.S.-initiated war to totally destroy Iran has instead improved Iran’s strength and dramatically shifted the balance away from U.S. domination of the entire region.

In response to this U.S.-Israeli war of aggression, launched Feb. 28, Iran announced the closure March 2 of the Strait of Hormuz. This is the single most important oil transit choke point on Earth. Every day, about 20% of the globally traded oil passes through this narrow strait.

On March 4, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began charging tolls on an ad-hoc basis for tankers controlled by countries Iran considers not hostile that were traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. The rates started at $1 per barrel of oil on the ship, to be paid in Chinese yuan or stablecoins — a form of cryptocurrency.

Similar tolls already exist for travel through the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal.

By March 26 control was formalized by Iranian legislation. The U.S. and its allies are banned. Control of the Strait of Hormuz is part of a broader effort by Iran to bypass decades of sanctions by the U.S. and its allies and reduce reliance of the world on the U.S. dollar.

Oil, gas, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals and synthetics were all facing life-threatening shortages in Africa and Asia. Now Iran is in a position to decide which oil and gas carriers will have “safe passage,” which will also depend on the countries expected to receive the shipments.

After all of President Donald Trump’s threats and deadlines, when he looked at the reality of Iran’s defenses, he declared it is up to other countries to deal with Iran regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Then he again threatened Iran.

Regarding control of the strait, it concerns not only access to oil. Another resource, natural gas, is an essential ingredient of commercial fertilizer. As the planting season begins throughout the Northern Hemisphere, U.S. allies, especially throughout Europe, Japan, Korea and the Philippines, are in crisis. Each country suddenly has to scramble to make its own deal with Iran. U.S. imperialism is no longer “the Enforcer.”

Iran appears to have turned the tables on the whole U.S. attempt to use oil and gas as a means of control.

Dedollarization

Prior to this war the U.S. started, the U.S. had enormous leverage over every other country. The dollar was an instrument to enhance U.S. power and hegemony. Recognized as the one global currency, the dollar became an instrument the U.S. government could use to impose unilateral economic restrictions (sanctions) on a third of the world’s population.

For 50 years, oil revenues were traded only in dollars, ensuring a global demand for dollars. Prior to the U.S.-initiated war on Iran, dollar dominance was steadily eroding, based on deteriorating U.S. productive capacity. But the war has accelerated the process.

Now, this criminal ability of U.S. imperialism to strangle whole economies of developing countries and create hyperinflation and economic ruin through sanctions is being challenged.

As the immediate need for supplies of oil and gas has grown, the most extensive sanctions ever imposed by the U.S. and the European Union on Russia have been suddenly cast aside. Russia has used the opening created by Iran’s resistance as an opportunity to break the U.S. blockade of Cuba and send tankers carrying oil. Mexico’s government said it will do likewise.

A new type of defense

U.S. administrations have been planning for an all-out war on Iran for decades. Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, U.S. imperialism has used every form of sanctions, sabotage, assassination and encirclement.

The Tehran government has spent years preparing to defend Iran, studying every angle and quietly developing asymmetric and guerrilla warfare on every front. A military force is not only hardware. It is the skilled military cadre in an organized command structure. As a result of Iranian preparations, U.S. leverage is crumbling on another front.

The IRGC has specialized in asymmetric warfare. It has also shared this approach, tactics and the technology that flows from this approach with other resistance forces in West Asia. The drones and missiles fired from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq confirm this determined spirit of resistance.

The U.S. arsenal includes incredibly destructive but fabulously expensive high-tech weapons, including Tomahawk missiles. Iran has been able to counter them with relatively inexpensive missiles and drones that are highly sophisticated and accurate, yet small and able to be transported, hidden in tree lines and caves.

Iran has spent decades developing weapons that are possible to manufacture by the thousands and yet able to be accurately calibrated and altered in mid-flight with multiple warheads.

Iran’s entire defense strategy is not based on a conventional and completely vulnerable air force or on a visible navy.

Iran’s navy is based on a “guerrilla army at sea” concept utilizing thousands of fast, small and agile attack boats designed to hide and to swarm, ambush and overwhelm larger warships in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. The IRGC operates from 1,000 to over 3,000 speedboats. Iran has also developed a class of midget submarines, the Ghadir, specifically for cruising within the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf.

Suddenly, the U.S.’s multi-trillion dollar military — which covers the world with 800 military bases, naval armadas of aircraft carriers, destroyers, nuclear subs and the world’s largest air force — is being challenged.

World media captured photos of the Boeing E-3 Sentry, which costs over $500 million, a flying radar that tracks drones, missiles and aircraft from hundreds of miles away, lying in pieces at Prince Sultan Air Base. The U.S. F-35 stealth supersonic jet fighter costing about $100 million was also hit. This fighter jet is designed to avoid detection.

Iran’s destruction of U.S. radar systems and multiple KC-135 tankers, which refuel U.S. aircraft in flight, is sending shockwaves. CBS reports that the U.S. has lost 16 of the MQ-9 Reaper drones, each costing $30 million. Iran’s attacks on U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait and continuously on Israel fill the headlines.

Cracks in the shield

U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf region were considered invulnerable underneath a layered network of anti-missile air defense interceptors, including Patriot and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) systems. In Israel, the Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-missile missiles supposedly provided layers of protection. These much publicized missile shields are being pierced every night by thousands of simultaneous drones.

Many of the Iranian drones and missiles can get through the finite number of multimillion dollar interceptors. U.S. bases and numerous facilities within the Gulf monarchies and even Israel have become vulnerable. Suddenly missile shields appear outdated, outmoded.

Hulking behemoths are vulnerable sitting on airfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. They are even vulnerable in the skies. Their vulnerability is being exposed in front of the world.

The U.S. leads global arms exports with 42% of all weapons sold, more than France, Russia, Germany, China and others combined. Weapons are the most profitable U.S. industry. Suddenly the whole world knows that U.S. weapons are unable to offer protection.

Targeting civilians or targeting tech

U.S. strategy in every war is to seek to totally demoralize its opponent by bombing civilian populations. A girl’s school in the city of Minab was bombed on day one.

U.S. military equipment is able to carry out massive destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is always their favorite target. The World Health Organization (WHO) has verified over 20 attacks on health care facilities in Iran since March 1. Iran has documented the U.S.-Israeli bombing of over 500 schools and universities, along with hospitals, marketplaces, pharmaceutical plants and bridges.

Targeting civilians is the way the U.S. fought its wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan. Meanwhile their propaganda arms claim that the governments and the people they are targeting are inhuman monsters.

Iran’s strategy is to target what will demoralize the U.S. war machine. Iran announced that they will target the offices of major U.S. corporations, including financial institutions and Big Tech companies, which have been building mammoth artificial intelligence data centers in the UAE, Bahrain and Dubai.

The list of companies includes Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Tesla, Oracle and Boeing, which the IRGC accused of enabling United States military targeting operations. Unlike U.S. surprise attacks on schools, Iran announced these targets in advance and urged evacuations.

The U.S. strategy remains massive, demoralizing and destructive. Iran remains confident that they have a highly educated, resourceful and skilled population. If they can remain in control of their resources and sovereignty, they can rebuild. They have many allies.

U.S. imperialism is confronting an unsolvable problem. Its vulnerabilities have been exposed. Its weapons are not all powerful. Its dollars are no longer the only global currency option. U.S. imperialists are losing the ability to enforce their horrific economic sanctions.

The U.S. attack on Iran was another desperate attempt to reverse U.S. decline and reassert U.S. dominance. Iran flipped the script and is proving to be more resilient.

By developing their own low-tech weapons, sharing their skills and technology and asserting their control of the region in ways that benefit the developing world, Iran’s resistance is birthing a new world order that is painfully emerging out of imperialist domination and chaos.