Iran Ups the Ante

An Iranian spokesman said Tehran has the right to target US bases in any countries that are used to attack Iran.

“There is no justification for any country to fear Iran unless that country opens its territory to the United States for aggression against Iran,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday. “It is Iran’s right to target the source and origin of any aggressive action against the Islamic Republic.”

Well what would be NATO’s response? Those nations are already involved in resupplying Ukraine. Do they have additional weaponry to respond to Iranian attacks upon an NATO ally’s bases in their country?
Has Iran made the calculation that NATO will not respond? Or has Iran calculated that any NATO response would be negligible?

How would Israel’s & the US’s standing in the world of nations be affected? In effect the US-Israeli war upon Iran will have brought economic consequences upon its allies. Is that a straw to break the NATO alliance? Will the US rather than Iran be considered the pariah?

A bold move by Iran! What is the US response? More attacks from a limited missile supply? Or is this the straw to institute a boots on the ground attack upon Iran? I would think such an attack would be politically unviable. But the president has surprised me in the past. Maybe he will again.

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This will include the UK whose defences have been ignored at the expense of a rapidly expanding welfare state:

I don’t want anyone injured or killed but a few will aimed missiles might knock some sense into our government.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/world/middleeast/iran-us-economy-sanctions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8FA.uJNr.iUjOBz2dXgUZ&smid=url-share

Iran May Have Little to Lose as U.S. Tries to Squeeze Its Economy

Experts warn that a campaign aimed at avoiding military escalation could instead provoke it, as Iranian leaders vow retaliation across the oil-rich Gulf.

As Iran’s ever more devastating economic crisis deepens, experts warn, Iranian leaders may feel they have little to lose by responding to U.S. pressure with the kind of military escalation President Trump now seems keen to avoid.

The severity of the Iranian warnings also highlights just how bad Iran’s current economic crisis is — and it is worsening by the day.

But Iranian officials are projecting confidence that their leadership can survive because this new wave of U.S. measures looks similar to old ones. For decades, American leaders have vowed to devastate the Iranian economy through ever harsher sanctions that the Islamic Republic’s leaders have learned to withstand.

US government belief:“pragmatic logic indicates Iran must yield”
Is Iranian leadership logical & pragmatic? Or is it driven by ideology? Or perhaps suicidal defiance?

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NATO is not likely to respond unless Iran attacks a NATO country. So far, they have yet to do so - and it would not be very wise for Iran to escalate such when there are non-NATO targets that are softer and nearer.

The US has already told NATO “we won’t protect you”. Maybe not explicitly but that’s the message. Iran isn’t seriously threatening NATO, at least not yet. What they are doing is making Europe question if the US is an ally or a threat to them now. Is it worth staying cozy with the US anymore? Should they start cancelling base leases?

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US bases in the Middle East have proven to be vulnerable.

Time to close those bases. And move them to the foreign power that controls US Middle East policy:Israel.

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Imagine if, as a country, we stopped pretending climate change was a Chinese hoax or that a renewable energy transition was just a leftist attack on America where we could be right now? If it weren’t for oil none of this would be happening. Sigh.

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Could the costs of war be considered a subsidy for oil? Just throwing that out there for those who complain about wind and solar subsidies.

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*making weapons for Ukraine. *

“Something might happen with enterprises, with factories, which are producing drones for Ukraine,” Fedorov told the BBC on Monday. “They could be attacked — not by Russia, but from unknown sources.” He explained that an attack may be “semi-military,” potentially a cyber-attack that does not have “official” approval from Moscow.

Future denial or psychological warfare?

Russia will probably use foreign nationals to attack the UK mainland. They have been suspected of facilitating the arrival of illegal migrants across the Channel. Both Russia and Iran have issues with the UK and the rest of Europe, so an attack won’t come too unexpected

Iran has been caught sending suspected covert operatives across the English Channel into the UK, The Telegraph can reveal.

Individuals with links to Tehran’s intelligence agencies are understood to have been intercepted by UK authorities.

People smugglers working on the Continent told The Telegraph that the Iranian regime facilitated the passage to Britain of migrants living at Calais in exchange for a “favour” for Iran after they settled in England.

https://archive.is/MGI3m

I suspect that they will hit the country’s infrastructure and selected defence contractors.