Arrest of Mossad agents and Israel’s stratagem of engineered Muslim discord

American right-wing “rent-a-quote” Tucker Carlson claims that Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, is behind explosions in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Mr Carlson said that Mossad agents were apprehended in the two Gulf Arab countries. Carlson was once a fervent Trump mouthpiece, but in recent months, he has started to denounce what he describes as overweening Zionist influence in US politics.

Tucker Carlson said that the United States should not be fighting Israel’s battles. Notably, he says that the US invasion of Iraq was cataclysmic, despite having previously laughed while calling Iraqis ‘monkeys’ and dismissing the torture of Iraqis by American troops.

Iran has stated that it has hit over 500 sites in the Arabian Gulf and Israel. On 2 March, a drone struck the Saudi Aramco refinery at Ras Tanura, one of the world’s largest. This led to oil prices shooting up and gas prices jumping by almost 50%. Saudi Arabia has shut some refineries. It is uncertain whether the drone that hit Ras Tanura was fired by Iran or by another country.

The theory is that it was a false flag operation. This would be ideal from an Israeli perspective, since it would set Muslim nations in deadly conflict against each other. Gulf Arab countries would fight against Iran, and both would be enfeebled. Israel has carried out many false flag operations before.

A Mossad agent is usually neither Israeli nor Jewish. He or she may work for Mossad for money, out of ideological commitment, due to blackmail, or because Mossad has stroked his or her ego. It is possible that a Mossad agent does not even realise that he or she is working for Mossad. The person might believe he is working for Iran, another country, or even a criminal syndicate.

Mossad means ‘the Institute’, because the full name of Israeli external intelligence is ‘The Institute for Special Tasks’. Iran regularly claims to have arrested Iranians working for Mossad, and they are invariably hanged. It is dubious whether these people are all Mossad agents. As alleged by many, this might be a knowingly false accusation that the Iranian Government uses to blackguard oppositionists.

Qatar has stopped producing liquefied natural gas (LNG). It is the world’s largest producer of LNG. Qatar’s capital, Doha, is the closest Gulf Arab capital to Iran. Qatar Airways has been a major financial success for the Qataris since its inception in 1993. But now Qatar’s airspace is closed. Passengers may not feel safe flying to and from Doha for a long time, even if the war ends today.

An explosion at an oil or gas refinery could cause an enormous blast and kill many oil workers. Some of them are experienced petrochemical engineers who are very difficult to replace. Such people will not choose to work in Gulf Arab countries once they find the place unsafe or under threat; they can easily find lucrative employment in safer zones.

The Strait of Hormuz, between the UAE and Iran, is a chokepoint, being only about 30 km wide at its narrowest navigable point for oil tankers. Twenty per cent of the world’s oil flows through it. Iran has made this insecure, knowing that reliance on oil and gas imports is an Achilles heel for the USA and Israel.

In the 1980s, during the Iran–Iraq War, the Iranians attacked oil tankers in the Arabian Gulf. They knew that this was an easy means of exerting pressure on the United States and other Western nations that were selling arms to the Iraqis.

Insurers are refusing to sell insurance for ships passing through the Persian Gulf. Insurance does not normally cover war or terrorism.

Emirates, Etihad, and Air Arabia have begun operating a tiny number of flights out of the UAE. So far, they do not seem to be flying into the UAE. Only about 1% of scheduled flights have taken off since 2 March. But for an airline timetable to function, a plane flying from Dubai to London must be able to fly back from London to Dubai too. It is unclear how long the conflict will last.

In February 2026, Israel arrested Tucker Carlson when he was in the country interviewing the US Ambassador. Carlson denounced Israel’s immoral mistreatment of Christians. He did not, however, express similar concern regarding the treatment of Muslims. He stated what he described as the incontestable fact that Israel murders children. Zionist groups smeared him as an anti-Semite.

Since the US and Israel began their latest war against Iran on 28 February, at least 500 civilians have been killed in Iran. Most horrifyingly, over 160 children were killed at a girls’ school in Iran. Western countries have not denounced this atrocity. The United States has not disputed that its forces perpetrated this massacre of innocents. The US often boasts of its surgical strikes; therefore, the killing of the little girls was no mistake. It was terrorism against defenceless children.

Western media outlets have mostly reported the attack on the Iranian girls’ school as ‘Iran claims…’, which casts doubt upon it. No such doubt is expressed about statements made by the Israeli Government, despite its constant falsehoods. Western media organisations often report incidents in Israel in emotive language but do not do so when Iran is the victim.

Iran seems to have decided that Israel’s Iron Dome is all but impenetrable. Firing missiles and drones at Israel is a waste of ammunition. Therefore, it has saved its fire for American bases in Gulf Arab countries. But Iranian missiles and drones seldom hit US bases and usually strike civilian targets. These drones or missiles either miss most of the time, or, when shot down, their debris falls on civilian infrastructure — that is the Iranian explanation. Iran’s military technology is two generations behind that of the USA and Israel, and therefore is not likely to be so accurate. Another interpretation is that Iran is deliberately targeting economic sites to oblige the Gulf Arabs to persuade Trump to end the war.

Oman has shown the advantage of neutrality. It is the only Gulf Arab nation that does not host US military bases. Some people are travelling overland from the UAE to fly out of Muscat.

Israel has invaded Lebanon. It occupied South Lebanon during 1982–2000 and had Lebanese Phalangist allies. Israel states that it is not seeking to occupy the whole country but only to control certain strategic points in order to secure itself. Hezbollah is the Shia militia there that, in sympathy with Iran, has fired at Israel since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran on 28 February.

Trump keeps changing his tune regarding the reasons for the war. He once said the goal was regime change, and then he said it was not. Regime change is not a lawful reason for war.

The claim that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms is a war goal is specious. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015, Iran committed to extensive UN weapons inspections to verify that it was not attempting to develop nuclear arms. For 40 years, Israel has constantly claimed that Iran is striving to build nuclear warheads. We know that as recently as 2017, Iran was not trying to develop nuclear arms; even Trump said so.

President Trump himself twice extended the JCPOA (‘Iran Deal’), acknowledging that Iran was keeping its terms. The US Congress voted for it. Israel and some US politicians in its pay opposed the JCPOA.

After a year in his first term, Trump ended the JCPOA, but even he did not say that Iran had breached it. He gave as his reason that Iran was fomenting terrorism. The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran. The Iranians said that, as the US had unilaterally ended the JCPOA, Iran was absolved of its terms. Therefore, they enriched more uranium. Thus, Trump brought Iran closer to a nuclear bomb than ever.

Why would anyone be foolish enough to believe a word Trump says? The Washington Post recorded over 20,000 false or misleading statements he made during his first presidential term. Trump, the fraudster who ran Trump University, which was not even a university, is not to be trusted. Donald J Trump, who was found guilty of multiple counts of fraud in a New York court, is not someone who can be relied upon to tell the truth about Iran. He was also found liable in court for sexual abuse, and yet he has the temerity to say he is trying to help women in Iran.

Why is the USA allowed to have nuclear weapons while Iran is not? The United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons against people. The US has invaded and bombed scores of countries in the last 100 years alone. Iran has not done this for centuries.

Israel still does not tell the truth about its nuclear weapons status. It also refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Iran has signed it. In the 1980s, Israel was still denying that it possessed nuclear arms. Now it has a policy of ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying its nuclear weapons status.

The Iranians are threatened by Israeli nuclear arms. Some Israeli politicians openly call for nuking Iran. Iran does not have good relations with its neighbour, Pakistan, which also possesses nuclear weapons. Therefore, one can perceive why some Iranians may think that obtaining nuclear arms is vital.

If Tehran truly wanted nuclear arms, it could have bought some of the technology from North Korea or Pakistan. North Korea has cordial relations with Iran and is desperate for money. A Q Khan in Pakistan demonstrated that Pakistani nuclear scientists were corruptible. The Iranians may have concluded that the US would not dare attack a nuclear-armed state. Gaddafi ended his nuclear weapons programme in 2003. In 2011, he was ousted and killed by US-backed insurgents.

The US and Israel now demand that the Iranians rid themselves of conventional weapons such as ballistic missiles. But Iran is entitled to weaponry to defend itself. When are the US and Israel going to lead by example and divest themselves of their ballistic missiles?

Delegations from Iran and the United States were negotiating in Switzerland before the Americans and the Israelis began their war against Iran. Trump blames the Iranians for not parleying, but they were doing so until he ended it.

After Israel killed 72,000 civilians in Gaza, took thousands of people hostage, and regularly tortured and malnourished detainees in prison, it then claimed to be the moral arbiter of the Middle East. Tucker Carlson noted that an American child was among those hostages. The USA would never tolerate this from Iran. He also observed that an American minor was among those killed by Israel. This is not widely reported in the mainstream US media.

President Trump says the war will be over by Easter, which is in five weeks. The First World War was supposed to end by Christmas. Trump will not necessarily decide when it ends. The Iranians may decide that the US needs to be taught a painful lesson that it shall never forget.

Pressure points for the US include the price of oil and gas. Another is casualties; the US is highly sensitive to the deaths of its own people. In the 1980s, President Reagan sent troops into Lebanon, but a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 US Marines. Reagan soon withdrew his troops. In 1993, the US sent troops to Somalia. After the Black Hawk Down incident, President Clinton pulled American troops out of the country.

If a US plane is shot down over Iran and the pilot is taken prisoner, this will present a dilemma for the US Government. How do they secure his or her return? Such a person could be kept for years, and the Iranians could extract major concessions in return for the pilot’s release. In a sense, it is easier for the US if a pilot is killed when shot down. But so far, Iranian air defence seems ineffectual.

There are elements within the Iranian Government who recognise that it has few drones and missiles left. It cannot afford to manufacture or purchase many more. The economy was close to collapse even before the war. No country is likely to fight alongside Iran. Therefore, Iran may seek to mollify the United States by reopening negotiations and making concessions upon a cessation of hostilities.

In the US, only about 28% of people are in favour of the war, with 48% expressly against it and the rest neutral. Those who are pro-war are mostly Republican voters. As Ramsay MacDonald said, no war is at first unpopular. Support for the war will only diminish.