➡ Edmund Demarche, the executive editor of the Trends Journal, had a discussion with Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, about the escalating war in Iran. They discussed the increasing number of casualties, the potential deployment of U.S. forces, and the destruction of U.S. radar systems. They also touched on the economic consequences of the war, including rising gas prices and potential food shortages. The conversation ended with the speculation that if the U.S. had to choose between Ukraine and Iran, they would likely prioritize Iran.
➡ The text discusses a video of an Iranian frigate sinking off the coast of Sri Lanka and the U.S.’s alleged failure to rescue surviving sailors. The speaker criticizes this as a violation of international law and predicts potential retaliation from Iran. The conversation also covers the potential impact of escalating conflict on the U.S.’s relationship with Israel and other Gulf states, and criticizes President Trump’s handling of the situation. The speaker also mentions the economic impact of the conflict and speculates on the potential for increased military production and possible actions from China.
➡ The article discusses concerns about the US’s involvement in foreign wars and the potential risks it poses to American lives, economy, and future. It also mentions the failed expectations of a government overthrow in Iran after the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei. The article criticizes the belief that air control guarantees victory, citing failed examples in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Lastly, it suggests that Iran will continue to fight until sanctions are lifted, US military forces leave the region, and Palestinians are free.

Hello, I’m Ed demarche. I’m the editor of the Trends Journal. Let me start over. Gerald doesn’t like my editor. Hi, I’m Edmund Demarche. Hi, I’m Edmund DemarChe. I’m the executive editor of the Trends Journal. I’m happy to be joined today with Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst and writer@sonar21.com Larry, thank you for joining the Trends Journal as always. Hey, Ed, it’s always a pleasure to chat with you. We learn something new every time, don’t we? That is true. And I’m thrilled to be talking to you because there’s developing news right before we got on air. And you know what, Larry, I’m sorry.

Let me start over because I should be doing the dates, too. I’m so sorry. Okay. No, that’s not a problem. I’m the executive editor, Trench journal. It’s Friday, March 6, 2026. I’m happy to be joined right now with Larry Johnson. He’s a former CIA analyst and writer at sonar21.com you can find that link below. Larry, thanks for joining the Trends Journal. Yeah, I’m always happy to be with you, Ed. Top story is happening right now, Larry, regarding the the war in Iran. We have reports from NBC News that Trump is seriously considering providing or. Yeah, provide, sending U.S.

forces into the country. And then the Washington Post also reported just now or a few hours ago that Russia may be providing the Iranians with targeting information on US Assets in the region. Is the war escalating? Is this something that Trump’s not going to be able to control? Yeah, yeah, it’s, it is beyond the US Control now. And Trump and his team, they’re lying about a lot of things. Number one, there have been a significant number of casualties. How do we know this? In Germany, the primary hospital used to take care of wounded soldiers who have been wounded in places like Afghanistan or now the whole Middle east is called the Landstuhl Regional Medical center.

Lrmc. They announced the day before. Let’s see, today’s Friday. They announced on Wednesday that they were suspending labor and delivery services in order to prioritize their primary mission. Okay, well, what’s, what’s that primary mission? That primary mission is dealing with combat casualties. So they’ve had a significant surge of combat casualties out of the Persian Gulf then today. And so if you go about four miles to the east of Lunsruhe Medical center, there is a US army base called Carl’s, Carl’s Lauter. And there they put out A request for blood donors. They need blood, need people to come in and contribute.

So that right there tells you that we’ve got far more casualties. When you’re, when you’re having to get, get soldiers on base to start donating blood, they’re not doing that. And as a just in case it is because there is that need for it. On top of that, there is a article today. Let me see if I can pull this up. Yeah. So the U.S. army abruptly canceled a major training exercise that was to be carried out for the headquarters element of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. So whenever you cancel an exercise of that scale, that means you’re getting ready to deploy.

You may or may not recall. On 18 February, I received information that an exercise that is carried out in conjunction with Central Command and jsoc, the Joint Special Operations Command, that they were supposed to start scripting that, writing the script that would be carried out later on that was supposed to take place on the 22nd of February. On the 18th of February, they canceled it four days in advance. And then we know the rest of the story. Six days later, the war started in Iran. So I think this, the rumors about Trump wanting to deploy forces to the region is true.

It’s going to be a disaster. He’s going to end up getting a lot of good young men killed, and it’s all on him. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of Pete Hegseth’s press conferences. And the way that he’s been conducting them has been mocked on social media as almost, almost like a frat house style way to conduct press conferences. A, almost like bullying Iran is. When you watch something like that, when you watch the way Hegseth has been conducting himself during these press conferences, how, how unusual is that to see? And, and what’s your feeling when you watch him? It’s sickening, unprofessional.

It’s a clown show. And you know what you really need right now? If there was a secretary of defense of, or secretary of War that had some gravitas about them, would be warning Donald Trump about the dangers. The Iranians have inflicted incredible damage on US Capabilities in the region. Over the course of the last five days, Iran has destroyed five radar systems that are, they cost anywhere between $500 million each, one or $1.2 billion. There are at least two of the 1.2 billion destroyed, and it actually may be as high as three. Now. What these, these are early warning radars that were integrated into air defense systems specifically the terrain High altitude Area Defense missile, the thaad.

The THAD comes in each missile, the, the low, low price of $12 million or have I also heard 13 million. But the THAD would be plugged into this radar because the radar was an early warning detection that, oh, we’ve had a missile liftoff from X location. We got the trajectory, we know exactly where we need to go to intercept. Now that those radars have been destroyed, the US is effectively blind. We can’t say we don’t have that capability anymore. So the, the ability to detect and defeat inbound missiles is limited. And the destruction of those radars in and of itself tells a story because we’re hearing all this nonsense about oh yeah, we’re destroying 90%.

Well, that 10% that got through certainly kicked your ass. And that’s why, what, what’s going on right now in Israel? They’re taking a real beating in Tel Aviv and in Haifa and at other, other locations around the country. But the Israeli censors, man, they are sitting on that information, not letting it out. And I maintain, hey, if they’re really intercepting 90 of the missiles, you want to show that boy, say, look how magnificent our air defense is performing. But if anybody has taken time to watch Danny Davis’s latest chat with Ted Postal, he shows a couple of different videos where the, you know, there, there are literally dozens of air defense missiles shot up and out of one, or in one case there is one intercept.

But by, by and large the Iranian missiles just penetrate, sell through and strike the targets on the ground. I saw one video of a cluster missile that was fired, broke into like 80 different, smaller missiles. Correct. Over Tel Aviv or over Israel somewhere? Yeah, it was over Tel Aviv, you’re right. Oh, I’m sorry, no, I said, yeah. And then it hits the ground and there’s massive explosions. So what do you think’s going on in these, these briefings with Donald Trump right now? I mean Trump seems like the President who isn’t afraid to completely escalate this and start dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Tehran.

Do you see this like headed in that direction where it’s just going to be mass casualty events, or do you see this being contained still? No, no, it’s, well it’s, it’s, it’s going to continue to escalate, but the problem they’ve got is the economic consequences of this stupid, stupid war are escalating rapidly. The food supply in Dubai, it’s either Dubai or Doha is put at 10 to 12 days. Okay, 10 to 12 days, they could run out of food because of the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. The. These cargo ships that come in with, you know, fruits, vegetables, meat, they’re not getting in.

So you’ve got that going on just in the last four days. In the United States, even though we only get maybe 8% of our oil that we consume comes out of the Persian Gulf, gas prices have gone up an average of 34%, 34 cents per gallon. So that’s starting to have an impact. In fact, it’s having such an impact that Scott Bessant announced that, hey, you remember those sanctions we put on Russian oil? You remember all the threats that we made to India not to buy that damn oil? Never mind. You know, he’s doing his Rosanna, Rosanna Dana imitation.

And so, you know, what a joke. Either you’re serious about you gonna impose the sanctions. Meanwhile Russia, you know, I think they’re gonna. They’re popping a couple of bottles of vodka to celebrate with because they’re. They had pegged their budget to assumption that they’re gonna sell their oil at 59 a barrel. Well, it’s now going over for $90 a barrel. And by, I think by end of next week, it will be double. It’ll be up around $120 a barrel, if not higher. So if the US needs to choose between Ukraine and Iran, if the US needs to choose what country needs to succeed, it would go with Iraq or it would need to go.

It would go with the war in Iran, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, Ukraine’s toast. There they go. Ukraine, Ukraine. Ukraine who? Yeah, that’s what. That’s like where we’re headed right now. So tell me, you know, Larry, did you. Did you see the video clip of the frigate sink, the Iranian frigate sink off the coast of Sri Lanka? Yeah. When you see something like that, what was your initial reaction to that? And then reports that the US didn’t try to save any of the sailors that were surviving and just left adrift in the ocean? Yeah. It’s war crime.

And, you know, karma comes back on you. You know, this is shameful of the United States. It’s a violation of international law. It’s a violation of the Geneva Convention. That ship posed no threat to the United States. The ship wasn’t armed and trying to attack us and doing anything aggressive. So, you know, one of these days, Iran’s going to sink one of ours in a similar circumstance, and we’ll bitch, moan and complain about it. But too damn bad. We set the precedent. If You’re Iran. We know that Iran has high tech missiles and hypersonic missiles and they have the capacity at least to sink a carrier.

Why haven’t they taken such drastic steps yet? Are they, are they trying not to escalate that level or are they just, is that just not a pragmatic move for them to make? No, I don’t think, I think that, I don’t think they’ve had the opportunity yet. Now, if the, if the reports are true that the Gerald Ford is traversing the Red Sea, it’s going to come to another choke point. I, if I was, if I was Iran, I’d be out there. I’d take the carrier out, sink it, send a message to the United States. Because once you’ve got 5,000 sailors dead, Donald Trump is, he’s not going to be able to stand that political heat.

The, the American public will be outraged. Trump also said today that he’s nothing less of unconditional surrender. And we remember that from World War II, before the bombings of Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What, what significance is that, Trump? Not that you really could even rely on anything Trump says, because it seems like it changes by the day, but for him to come out and say unconditional surrender, what do you read in that kind of a comment? It’s just, it’s just him boasting, just him being the fool that he is. You know, really, I, God, I, I voted for the man.

I am so regretful, so sorry, you know, and we can’t say, well, I’ll never make that mistake again because he’s not going to get the run again. But I hope he’s impeached, I hope he’s put into jail because what he’s doing is criminal. How do you think this impacts the US Relationship with Israel going forward? If this war is a long war, if more Americans die, if more, if the war escalates. Well, you know, I actually, I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be a long war because Israel is not going to be able to endure the pain that Iran’s going to keep delivering day after day after day, these missile strikes with the advanced missiles.

You know, the United States keeps talking a good game that we’re going to destroy their missile production factories. They’re underground and, and I’m not even sure we know where they are. So, you know, they’re going to be able to continue to produce missiles and launch them on mobile launchers. You know, when you hear this, oh, we’ve described, we’ve destroyed 80% of their mobile launchers. How many, how did you know how many launchers they had in the first place? Because it’s not like they were parked above ground. So they’re just, they’re pulling numbers out of their ass is what’s happening.

And I’ve read that also Iran has been using decoys with some of their launchers and planes. So unless you have people on the ground, I don’t know how you would make the determination. Well, yeah, I mean this is, this went on with World War II. We did it with George S. Patton commanding a phantom army with blow up tanks and everything and they’re full of Germans. The Serbs did it to us back in 1999 when, you know, Clinton, to draw attention away from his Monica Lewinsky scandal was attacking. They were blowing up what they thought were artillery pieces.

It turned out they were just carts with logs on them made to look like an artillery piece. So I’m sure we’re getting some of that right now with respect to Iran. But the, the destruction of launchers, you know, how many of those are decoys? We don’t know. But what we do know is despite, quote, destroying all these launchers that they’re still hitting, you know, every U. S. Base in the area and Israel. So that hasn’t stopped. They said that all. Well, the volume of fire has stopped. Yeah, that’s probably true because as has happened last June, the initial large amount of fire was designed to identify and deplete air defense systems.

Now that those systems are being depleted, they don’t have to fire as many and they’re actually bringing out more sophisticated weaponry. You know, Larry, when I was watching this, one of my first, first, first part of this question is Trump had leaders from Lockheed and Raytheon at the White House today to talk about ramping up production. So obviously there are some concerns about the amount of munitions we have and anti, anti missile systems. Is that a problem? Is that, is that an immediate crisis? And then part two of that question is if you’re China watching this, if you’re ever going to attack Taiwan, wouldn’t this be the time to do it? Well, yes, on the latter, but that hasn’t been China.

You know, China is not looking to do a United States break international law routine on Taiwan because they don’t need to attack Taiwan now because Taiwan is part of China. Remember China said they’re not looking at Taiwan as something else that has to be brought back into Taiwan is part of China. That was the agreement the United States made with Rich under Richard Nixon’s leadership and Henry Kissinger sitting in the negotiations back 54 years ago. So China, they don’t need to attack Taiwan because Taiwan is already part of China. It’s just a matter of figuring out the politics, how to reincorporate it into the broader government control of mainland China.

Now the, the unraveling of the international economic order that we’re seeing now because you don’t get these kinds of wild fluctuations that we’ve had in gold and silver, the 1500 point drop in the Dow Jones in two days, the rise in unemployment that’s going on, the rise of inflation in the United States, you know, these aren’t the signals of a healthy economy at all. It’s the signs that we’re now back into that thing, you know, happened before you were born called stagflation in the 70s where prices were going up. You know, I remember we had for even home loans back then.

You’re looking at double digit interest rates on homes like 12%. It was crazy. So we’re headed now in that direction. And there’s no sign whatsoever that the US Is going to be able to dislodge the Iranians from blockading the Strait of Hormuz. And with each passing day the, the shortages around the world grow and the, the economic situation, particularly for Qatar and United Arab Emirates gets more and more desperate. If you’re the Gulf states that rely on the US for security and you’re watching all this and you’re watching the holes and Iran successfully striking your country, what are you thinking right now? Because I saw Dmitry Mievadev from Russia, he posted an X post today and he said look at you countries in the Gulf that relied on the U.S.

i bet you he was being sarcastic like I bet you’re glad you did. Are these that, will this change the US relationship with the uae, with all those countries that Qatar, what’s that relationship you think going to look like going forward? Well, let me, have you seen the letter from this billionaire, the, the head of the Al Habtur Group Did I did. I saw that on X. He posted on X, right? Yeah. And let me, let me just read a portion of it. He’s writing to Trump. You have placed the Gulf Cooperation Council in Arab countries at the heart of a danger they did not choose.

Thank God we are strong and capable of defending ourselves. We have armies and defenses that protect our homeland. But the question remains, who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield? He goes on. They are today finding themselves in a war funded by their referring to American people, they’re today finding themselves in a war funded by their money and taxes, with costs ranging, according to the Institute for policy studies, between 40 and 65 billion dollars for direct military operations and 210 billion of economic impacts and indirect losses of the war, if the war lasts four to five weeks.

He goes on. You ordered foreign military interventions during your second term in seven countries, and he lists the countries. You’ve directed more than 658 foreign airstrikes in your first year in office, which equals the total strikes in the entirety of Joe Biden’s second first term, for which you directed your arrows of criticism for involving the United States in foreign wars. These numbers say something clear. Even within the US There is growing concern about being dragged into a new war and about exposing the lives of Americans, their economy and their future to unnecessary risks. If these initiatives were launched in the name of peace, then we have the right today to demand full transparency and clear accountability.

So, in short, they’re pissed off. You know, it is. It is. You know, in fact, a lot of these countries and, you know, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, they kicked in a bunch of money for the, quote, Board of Peace. Well, that Board of Peace is dead. It’s dead. And they’re going to probably try to get their money back. And I know Gaza’s back to having a blockade as well. Yeah. So that’s back to where that started. So. And that’s, that’s one of the. That’s one of the areas where I expect to see the Iranians exercise some leverage.

You know, if I’m, if I’m Iran, I’m not releasing the blockade on the Strait of, on the Strait of Hormuz until you lift all the sanctions you put on me and until you open the border between Egypt and Gaza so those Palestinians can get properly fed and get proper medical attention. After Trump killed Ayatollah Khamenei, do you think that he thought that the war would end and we wouldn’t be at this point dealing with these Gulf states being attacked? He thought that the overthrow would potentially happen. Yeah, no, absolutely. What the intel community was telling them is that, oh, yeah, 80% of the Iranians can’t wait to get rid of the Khamenei.

So you get rid of him, they’re going to rise up and overthrow the government. That’s what they. They genuinely believe that both the Israelis and the, and the Trump people. So, you know, we mentioned this before we went on air, how you really don’t get the true gist. Of things, if you just watch the mainstream media, Right. It’s important to watch interviews like this one to get a sense of what’s really happening. Is there anything, Larry, that you could tell people out there who don’t know much about the military that they could see that that could be reported, that is a major escalation, that, that something like an alarm bell should ring to them if X happens in Iran, if X happens in the Gulf, sure.

What’s, what’s some of the key components that you would see really changing the facts and escalating matters? Well, if once you get the announcement that what, that the 82nd Airborne is going to deploy, then you know, we’re headed for a major escalatory step and the Iranians are saying, okay, fine, bring it on, bring it on. Because the Iranians, when they’re fighting in a defensive position, they have an advantage. And you know, the, I, I, I tell people to be cautious about all of the wild statements coming out of the Pentagon with his Admiral Brad Cooper and, and with Pete Hegseth, because when you hear Hegsett said, oh, we got air.

We control the air. Nobody though the rodents can’t do a damn thing about it. We control it. They look at us, we’re control the skies. Oh, okay. Did we control the skies over Vietnam? Largely we did. How’d that turn out? Well, we lost that war. Huh. Did we control the skies over Iraq in 2003? Yes, we had complete dominance, complete supremacy. How’d that go? Well, despite the initial claim of mission accomplished on May 1st by George W. Bush on board the Abraham Lincoln, the carrier, I might add back, you know, 23 years ago, God, I didn’t realize how old that a carrier is.

Anyway, after that we had an eight year insurgency that despite all of our control of the air, didn’t mean a damn thing on the ground. How about Afghanistan? Did we have control of the air there? Yeah, we did. Absolute control. What happened? We retreated. We lost the country. The Taliban beat us. And then last March we had full control over the air in Yemen to stop the Yemenis from firing missiles and to open up the Red Sea. What happened then? Trump declared victory and we left. So give me one example where we’ve controlled the air and man, that’s made, we made stuff happen on the ground according to our will.

Hasn’t happened. But how much do you think Venezuela, if anything, does Venezuela have anything to do with what’s going on in Iran right now? Do you think, you don’t think there’s anything to do like taking over their oil? No, well, that, that was, let’s call that a serendipitous benefit. I, you know, the information I’m now going to give you, I know for a fact because talking to one of the people involved directly in this, this, that entire so called war was an attempt to collect on the $50 million reward for Maduro. There were at least three members of his security team that had become cooperating witnesses, sources for a particular, not the CIA, but another organization within the US Government.

And there were a couple of outside people involved that were working with this US Government agency and coordinating with the US Military Special Operations Command, specifically the Delta, Delta Force at Fort Bragg. And you know, it was supposed to collect on that 50 million. That’s how they got in there and out the US service, US helicopters and such without, you know, facing a big firefight. The, the irony of the story is Trump has stiffed the people that provided the information and the access. He’s not paying out the 50 million dollar reward, he’s blocking it. That’s incredible.

That is so that’s such a Trump move. Yeah, you know. Oh yeah, yeah. Are you surprised? I mean it’s like so, so Larry. But my, my last question, Larry, and thank you for joining me on a Friday night. My last question is no one can predict the future. If you were in Trump’s Situation Room, what would you be telling President Trump right now to do that? That’s a pragmatic next step to, as an off ramp or something. Or, or is Iran going to fight us until we say uncle? How do you see this going on? They’ll fight us until we say uncle.

They’re not going to stop now. They’re going to fight until the sanctions are lifted and US Military forces in the region that threaten them are out of the area. And I think they’ll also add in there until the Palestinians are free and that Israel has withdrawn from the borders of Palestine. I, I think it’s now going to go that far and they’re going to try, you know, Israel’s going to try to ramp up, they’re going to try to get Azerbaijan involved. Okay. If Azerbaijan gets involved, that you know, may bring the Russians in. The Russians have, are they’re fed up with Aliyev, the, the thug president of Azerbaijan and let’s face it, Azerbaijan’s a piss at little country.

Anyway, Larry Johnson, on that note, thank you for joining the Trends Journal. Everyone. Please check out Sonar21 and follow updates. It’s, it’s a, it’s a website that gets updated very consistently. So. Sonar 21. We’ll have a link down below. Larry Johnson, thank you for joining the Trends Journal. Hey, Ed, it’s always a pleasure. Have a great weekend. You, too. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, man. Enjoy Florida. Yeah, thanks. See ya. Bye.
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