Iranian Students Return to Protests Despite the Regime’s Bullets, Hope for Israeli Attack

Iranian Students Return to Protests Despite the Regime’s Bullets, Hope for Israeli Attack

Hugh Fitzgerald

After a one-month closure, Iran’s universities have opened again, and the students, unbowed and uncowed, have returned to protesting against the supreme leader (“Death to Khamenei”) and his regime. They also have let it be known that they would prefer that Israel, not America, bomb targets in Iran because of the Israeli Air Force’s “greater precision” and ability to minimize civilian casualties. Would Antonio Guterres care to comment?

More on the latest from Iran can be found here: “Iranians prefer ‘precise’ Israeli strike over US attack as protests resume at universities,” by James Genn, Jerusalem Post, February 22, 2026:

Iranians, while “waiting every minute and second” for a US strike against the Islamic Regime, would prefer an Israeli strike due to the precise nature of the Air Force’s strikes in June, while there is a perception that US strikes would “bring terrible destruction, like in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a local, identified as Ali told KAN Reshet Bet on Sunday.

Ali added that the Israeli strikes in June focused on targeted hits against “the mercenaries of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” and the Iranian regime’s leadership, and did not cause harm to “ordinary citizens” or any economic infrastructure.

Additionally, he told KAN that the regime has “brutally murdered and dismembered” over 40,000 people, and injured hundreds of thousands more during the anti-regime protests over the past two months.

Ali, discussing the resumed university student protests, said that the regime has used brutal and savage force, murdering and kidnapping students to “choke the protests in their infancy.”

Israel’s public broadcaster also asked Ali if he was afraid to be interviewed by Israeli radio. In response, he quoted a Persian proverb, including that if the regime kidnaps and kills him, then “at least I will rest, at least I won’t feel hungry.”

The Iranian students have returned to their just reopened campuses, and to the battles with the Basij and with the man who sent them, the one they curse with “Death to Khamenei.” They hope, along with 85% of their countrymen, for an attack that will bring down the regime. And some hope that the attack will come from the Israelis, because of the greater “precision” of the IDF attacks as compared to those of the Americans during the 12-Day War last June. Zohran Mamdani wants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York. The Iranian protesters want to give him — “Bibi Gol” — a hug.

Iran dismisses Trump’s nuclear claims as ‘big lies’

Iran dismisses Trump’s nuclear claims as ‘big lies’

RT

Iran has rejected accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons, denouncing US President Donald Trump’s latest remarks as false and misleading.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that Tehran dismantle its nuclear program and curb its ballistic missile capabilities. In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he claimed Iran was again pursuing “sinister ambitions” and warned that he would “never allow” it to obtain an atomic weapon.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei responded on Wednesday in a post on X, accusing the US administration and the “war profiteers encircling it, particularly the genocidal Israeli regime,” of using propaganda tactics against Iran.

“Professional liars are good at creating the ‘illusion of truth’,” Baqaei wrote, quoting Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’ maxim that “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”

He added that claims made about Iran’s ballistic missiles are “simply the repetition of ‘big lies’.”

In his address, Trump said Iran “has already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas” and is “working” to build missiles that will soon reach the US.

Both sides are preparing for a third round of indirect, Oman-mediated talks in Geneva on Thursday, where Tehran is reportedly expected to present a draft agreement.

Last week, Trump set a 15-day deadline for Iran to agree to a deal, warning failure could trigger military action. Washington has also dispatched two carrier strike groups and additional bombers to the Middle East in recent weeks. The US struck Iran’s nuclear sites during the 12-day Israel-Iran air war in June 2025.

According to multiple media reports, the US military has also moved more than 150 aircraft to bases in Europe and the Middle East since the second round of talks ended without a breakthrough.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that Tehran’s nuclear program is peaceful and that zero enrichment is unacceptable, stating Iran is ready for military confrontation if diplomacy fails and would target US bases if attacked.

Moscow has warned that the standoff is “potentially explosive” and that strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites could cause a nuclear disaster, urging all sides to seek a peaceful settlement.

Russia Calls on France, UK, EU, UN to Prevent Transfer of Nuclear Weapons to Ukraine - Appeal

Russia Calls on France, UK, EU, UN to Prevent Transfer of Nuclear Weapons to Ukraine - Appeal

Sputnik

Russian State Duma lawmakers are calling on the parliaments of France, the United Kingdom, the European Parliament, and the UN to take emergency measures to prevent the transfer of nuclear weapons to Ukraine, Sputnik discovered on Wednesday after reviewing a draft appeal.

Earlier in the day, the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky, said that a draft appeal to the parliaments of France, the UK, the EU Parliament, and the UN had been submitted to the Russian State Duma in response to information about Paris and London's planned nuclear weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

"Considering the critical danger of transferring nuclear weapons, their individual components, and delivery systems to the imminently defeated, anti-people, and criminal Kiev regime, State Duma lawmakers call on the parliaments of France and the UK, the European Parliament, as well as relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, to take extraordinary measures to prevent such a scenario," the document read.

The Russian State Duma considers plans to supply Kiev with nuclear weapons a flagrant violation of international law, the document said, adding that these possible actions could put the world on the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

Vance says US has seen evidence that Iran is trying to rebuild its nuclear weapons program

Vance says US has seen evidence that Iran is trying to rebuild its nuclear weapons program

Reuters

The United States sees evidence that Iran is trying to rebuild its nuclear program after US-led strikes against Iranian nuclear sites in June, US Vice President JD Vance says.

“The principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Vance tells reporters, a day ahead of talks in Geneva between US and Iranian delegations. “If they try to rebuild a nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us. In fact, we’ve seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that.”

Vance notes that US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are due to attend the negotiations with Iran on Thursday, adding that Trump wants to address the Iranian nuclear program “diplomatically, but of course the president has other options as well.”

NEW: Vice President JD Vance on Iran: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon; if they try to rebuild the nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us. In fact, we've seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that

United Nations Moves to Censor the Internet

United Nations Moves to Censor the Internet

 Martin Armstrong

The United Nations is now openly discussing “coordinated global action” to combat what it defines as disinformation and hate speech online, and this should not be dismissed as some abstract policy debate. This is a structural shift toward the internationalization of speech regulation, and that carries profound political and economic implications.

The UN’s recent digital governance initiatives, including its policy briefs tied to the Global Digital Compact, explicitly call for stronger international cooperation to address online misinformation, platform accountability, and content governance across borders. The stated objective is to create safer digital spaces and reduce harmful content, yet the mechanism being proposed is coordinated oversight at a global level.

An unelected international institution proposing frameworks that influence what information is acceptable raises concerns. The UN has no direct democratic mandate over the citizens of individual nations, yet its policy direction increasingly encourages governments and platforms to align with shared global standards for speech moderation and information control. This is being framed as a necessary response to misinformation, extremism, and social instability in the digital age. The globalists want to control our ability to access and process information.

The core issue is not whether misinformation exists. It always has. Every era has dealt with propaganda, rumors, and competing narratives. What is different now is the scale and the proposed solution of centralized digital oversight coordinated at the international level. Why should a select few determine fact from fiction? The power is unimaginable.

What one administration labels misinformation may later prove accurate, and what is defined as harmful speech can shift with political priorities. History is filled with examples where dissenting views were initially censored only to later become accepted truths in matters of war policy, economic forecasting, and public health.

The future regulatory battleground will not be limited to finance, taxation, or energy, but increasingly to information itself. 

In a digital economy, whoever influences the flow of information indirectly influences public confidence, political legitimacy, and even economic behavior. The real question is no longer whether misinformation exists. The structural question is who defines truth, who enforces that definition, and how far institutions are willing to go to maintain narrative authority in an era of declining global trust.