<![CDATA[Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]]><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]><![CDATA[Iran]]><![CDATA[Israel]]>Featured

Sweep The Leg, Mr. President. – HotAir

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March 30, 2026
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Iran Doubling Down On a Pair of Deuces On Talks – HotAir

I’ve been writing over the last few weeks about the relentless annihilation of both personnel and infrastructure of the two primary military forces inside the Islamic Republic of Iran – The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij. This weekend’s target list by American and Israeli forces, and the successful results of which are being verified by the hour, are momentous. 

President Donald Trump, who represents the head White Walker in my previous Game of Thrones analogy, who until a little over a month ago was still on the other side of Iran’s wall, addressed the press corps on the back of Air Force One Sunday night on his way back from Mar-A-Lago to Washington. Negotiations with his as-of-yet undisclosed Iranian interlocutor continue, and according to the President, are proceeding quite nicely. 

A little over a week ago in a column titled, Drink Iran’s Milkshake, Mr. President, and in another from Friday, Donald Trump Previews Week Five On The Five, I introduced some plausible scenarios that could develop based upon the success of the combined air strikes by the Americans and Israelis, and what signs you might look for in the days and weeks ahead to discern whether those events might come to pass. Repeating for full disclosure, this is all analysis on my part from open source reporting and other verified events. I have no inside information or connection with those who are planning, directing, or carrying out ongoing military operations. From the look of things, they don’t need my help anyway. I’m in awe of what our two nations have been able to achieve thus far. 

Last Thursday, President Trump took to social media and announced he was giving whoever was his negotiating partner in Iran ten days to negotiate a deal giving Trump what he wants in order to prevent the U.S. from taking down every power plant in Iran, plunging the country into darkness. What this set up was a 10-day Game of Thrones mini-series where, instead of the Iron Throne being located in Westeros, it is in Tehran. The factions of the former regime, set up to fracture by design as a doomsday plan by the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would now have a week-and-a-half to decide supremacy internally of who’s going to run the country in the near term. 

If the wing of the former regime that Trump feels he can deal with, possibly speaker of Iran’s “parliament”, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, is to prevail over IRGC hard-liners, especially ones from wars long ago that until recently were enjoying retirement, you would expect to see a lot of ex-IRGC commanders go ‘tango uniform’, as if often used as miltiary jargon for being removed from the battlefield…forever. If Ghalibaf, or perhaps Iran’s paper president, Masoud Pezeshkian, were to begin their proverbial dirt nap, then you might expect the lights to go out in Iran sooner rather than later. As it turns out, this weekend alone, there were many different targets hit that turned up some very interesting names, and very definitely in some interesting places. 

As for the suggestion that U.S. forces should just go ahead and drink Iran’s milkshake, seizing the gas station in the Gulf, Kharg Island, and perhaps negotiating with the Khuzestani tribes in the southwestern provinces of Iran that sit on the massive oil fields feeding the pipelines to Kharg, there’s been a lot of movement there, too. Enough so that it’s worth an update. 

Remember what Trump’s red lines are for not destroying the electrical grid across the entire country. Leave the Strait alone, give up all enriched uranium, abandon any plans to rebuild, cut off ties to all proxies, including funding, and destroy all nuclear, missile, and drone facilities, except for defensive purposes only. Then, and only then might we think about lifting sanctions and allowing you to live through this. If not, we know where you are, we’ll kill you, then turn off the lights, and let the masses do what they will. 

The first signal that the President had someone to negotiate with, one wielding power in the regime, was when first eight, then ten oil tankers that were Pakistani-flagged were released through the Strait and gifted to the Americans to control their destiny. Trump got to dictate what to do with the $3.2 billion dollars’ worth of oil, not the Chinese. Over the past 48 hours, two American Marine Expeditionary Units, the Night Stalkers of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Delta and SEAL teams, along with the 82nd Airborne, have had time to set up in the region. And very quietly, it appears that there’s traffic moving through the Strait again. Here’s the Sunday night update on Air Force One by Trump.





Twenty oil tankers now have passage through Hormuz. Is it true? Seems to be. 

Up to 300 tankers that were sitting there with radar jamming all through the Strait to confuse Iranian drones and missiles are now all visible and verifiable. Why? The most likely reasons are that Ukrainian anti-drone technology, proven to be quite effective against Iranian-built drones sent by Russia, is now being used in the Strait, and they need the jamming turned off in order to see and knock down anything the Iranians offer. Second, the Iranians are very quietly acceding to one of Trump’s absolutes – passage through the Strait. In either case, if a bunch of ships start moving again, that’s going to ease the oil markets fairly quickly, and it’s another telling sign that Trump’s hand in negotiations is only getting stronger by the day. Just as another indication, two ships of liquified natural gas bound for India just cleared the Strait. 

And our Middle East Arab allies are getting active in the Strait. 

Another sign to look for during this ten-day period is if high-value IRGC and Basij targets, current commanders or old guard, hard-liners brought in off the bench to keep the military junta in power, begin disappearing from the battlefield with increasing frequency, either due to internal bloodletting like a Game of Thrones red wedding scene, or by the faction talking to Trump giving location details of specific points of interest. Regardless, it was a bad, bad weekend if you were anyone of importance in the former Khamenei regime.

On Truth Social and X, the President announced Sunday night that the weekend had been especially productive in the killing bad guy department. 





So who got taken out? Here’s what has been verified in the last day or so.

A bunch of IRGC commanders, a Basij senior leader, a nuclear scientist, and the director of the nuclear research program all got their ticket punched in the same weekend after Trump essentially put a bounty on them with his ten-day grace period. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the person Trump is dealing with is Ghalibaf. If you’re worried about getting killed by junta remnants just as much as you are by the Americans and/or Israelis if you don’t play ball, you’re breathing a little easier today.

In addition to these former terrorists, anti-regime forces online are convinced that in Qom, a little south of Tehran in the center of the country, this guy got whacked. 

Still unconfirmed as of Sunday night when I wrote this, but if verified after another vicious set of strikes all over the country, taking out one of Former Supreme Leader Khamenei’s most-trusted advisers and friends, and grand ayatollah of their equivalent of a supreme court, would be huge. Jannati’s death is another face card to add to the growing deck of desired dead regime loyalists. 

Another indicator I said to watch for on Friday was public activities and statements of Tehran Tim – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Since the U.S. and Israel opened up a can of Find Out after 47 years of Iran’s F’ing Around, Aragchi’s media presence has been ubiquitous. He’s been on American television almost daily, mostly on outlets that hate Trump, including CNN. But he’s also been on social media and in print both here in the States and in the Middle East. On Friday, Aragchi gave an address to the United Nations Human Rights Council and followed it up with several media hits. He has not missed a day in the public sphere since the end of February. 

In my column from that same day, I said if there is a deal with an unnamed Iranian left in power who wants to live through this, and he’s now got ten days to get himself into position to deliver on the deal with Trump, one of those signs and signals of good faith would be the sudden stage fright or disappearance of Araghchi. Now granted, it’s only been a weekend, far too soon to put his face on the back of Iranian milk cartons, but Araghchi hasn’t missed a day until Saturday and Sunday when Trump’s potential negotiating partner was on the clock. Sure, there can be coincidences in war. It just seems very curious to me that the cat suddenly has Araghchi’s tongue. We’ll see if he reappears. If so, never mind. But if he just fades into the cornfield like Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, you’ll have another indication that Trump’s getting closer and closer to a deal. 

As for the actual war being waged, how’s it going for IRGC strongholds just in the last 48 hours or so? Not great. 

On land, or in this case, underground:





On sea:

Daytime: 

Or at night: 

The regime is utterly defenseless, and site after site very dear to the remnants of the junta are turned into an inferno. 

The President on Air Force One signaled that they might only have 3,000 or so targets left on their list. To date, over 12,000 have been neutralized. One strike on Saturday took out another IRGC base that happened to be right next to an electrical grid substation. 

Districts 4, 7, 11, 13, and 14 in Tehran were in the dark as a result. Call it a preview of coming attractions if a deal, or let’s call it what Trump is really looking for – a surrender, isn’t made by the end of the week. How did Iranians handle it? 

Looked like Angel Stadium Saturday night when the Savannah Bananas and the Indianapolis Clowns came to town. In the middle of the 8th inning, the lights went out. Everyone turned on the flashlights on their cellphones and started singing. Only in our case, we were singing Coldplay’s hit, Yellow.

Now, to quickly address the update to my column encouraging Donald Trump and the American military to take Kharg Island and drink Iran’s milkshake, according to reports over the weekend, it looks like I didn’t have to lobby Donald Trump very hard. 





In that column, I mentioned this is not a new idea to Trump. He’s thought about this scenario for almost 40 years. Here’s Donald Trump, real estate mogul and budding TV entity talking to Barbara Walters on 20/20 in 1987. 

Reporting is that the IRGC went back to Kharg after American bombers destroyed all defenses and military assets two weeks ago, and they have put in new toys for defense and mined the beaches in case of an amphibious invasion. I’m sorry, but this is not Iwo Jima, and it’s not 1945. For all the vaunted capabilities of the IRGC, their navy is now reef lattice, their naval commander is dead along with his intelligence advisor, and there’s been nothing but death and carnage througout their ranks. So much so, in fact, that they’re now drafting, at gunpoint, 12-year-olds to become sentries. 

I’m not worried about mines on the beach. Once our bombers have taken care of any new anti-aircraft problems, do you think for a second a couple of A-10 Warthogs couldn’t strafe a fairly wide path for the good guys, if they even feel the need to take the island that way in the first place? There are lots of ways to take an island, and that’s even without mentioning the Discombobulator. 

The real concern is the other end of the pipeline. You’ve got to have some concern about the Khuzestan oil fields and the mouth of the pipelines that feed Kharg. Are we addressing that? You betcha. A lot, in fact, over the last 48 hours. 

We already blew up the IRGC Khuzestani stronghold in Ahvaz, which was the ground force headquarters for the three largest oil fields in Iran. Now, we’ve destroyed a bunch of places that are “civilian infrastructure” sites in Khuzestan. But no one is fooled. These facilities were dual-use factories that also assisted in fabricating IRGC military equipment. Stealing the oil – drinking Iran’s milkshake – is actually doable now, should the President want to exercise that option. 

Critics of Trump and the war, along with some oil speculators, are worried that the potential escalation could shoot the price of oil beyond $200 a barrel. It could. It’s always difficult to get in front of people in a herd making predictions. That said, I just don’t see it. If Kharg is under U.S. control, and the Strait continues to show signs of easing the blockade, the spike in oil will be a bug, not a feature. It’ll come down. It’ll have to if it’s flowing freely again. 

Taking control of the oil isn’t the only thing on Trump’s mind, either. He’s being given a military option to take the enriched uranium. 





Lots still to do, to be sure. But all the signs point to much of it being mop-up and transition work more than entrenched warfare. Trust me, I’m not getting cocky. The remnants of the regime are still ruthless and formidable, and they’ve been backed into a corner. They’re still dangerous, and they could get off a lucky shot or two. But there is just no denying the absolutely relentless toll on regime forces and assets the Americans and Israelis are extracting. And it’s very obvious that at least one person, or one group of people in Tehran, recognizes it and is trying to find a way to wave the white flag without someone taking a pot shot at them for giving up. 

The politics of it all? I wish I could forecast how it will all turn out in November. It’s still too soon and too fluid to predict where voters will be on this in the fall. What I do know with absolute certainty is that Americans love a winner. And a campaign like this that is so one-sided that it results in total victory in a relatively short period of time, with relatively few casualties, that’s the kind of campaign that can surge support for the party that prosecuted it. 

Second, two different polls in the last three weeks have shown the generic Congressional map down to only a 2-3 point advantage for Democrats in the upcoming midterms. The war may not be popular, but Democrats are not benefiting from that at all because of how poorly received they are for being responsible for the government shutdown and TSA lines at the airports.

Maybe Donald Trump’s hunch is right, and there will be a deal that satisfies the goals of the United States and Israel. I sincerely pray so. Short of that, however, there is only one way forward. Iran’s military and naval power is on the ropes. They’re running out of functional missiles and launchers. The allies and proxies they thought would rush to their side have abandoned them. Their supposed new supreme leader, if he actually isn’t a picture on a cardboard cut-out, is missing a limb and apparently loves show tunes. 

Finish the job. End the regime. Destroy this source of evil in the world once and for all. 

At the risk of introducing yet another movie reference in the last line of a column, sweep the leg, Mr. President. Sweep. The. Leg.







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