Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-03-04 Wednesday

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Democracy Now! Wednesday, March 4, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. The mission is very simple. It's twofold. We take out their ability to launch ballistic missiles and to produce ballistic missiles, and we downgrade their Navy. That's it. That's what we're doing. It's short in scope. It does not violate the law in any way. Operation Epic Furies enters its fifth day. The U.S. and Israel have struck more than 1,000 targets across Iran. so far. The death toll in Iran has climbed to over a thousand. The six U.S. service members also killed. The single largest casualty event in Iran was a strike on a girls elementary school Saturday morning that killed up to 168 people, at least, mostly children.

This is her math book, Mohanah Sari, first grade. This is her folder with her schoolwork, her homework here. What wrong has she done? Her color pencil box is still in her bag. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has taken responsibility for the strike. We'll speak with investigative reporter Nilo-Tubrizi. And as the U.S. and Israel claim the war can be contained Iran's striking targets across the Gulf and has closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting energy markets worldwide.

We'll speak with Johns Hopkins Professor Nargis Bajogli and Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bashara. Finally, a conversation with the acclaimed Brazilian director of The Secret Agent, noir thriller set in Brazil in the 70s a look at life under dictatorship. I kill him with a hammer. Do you carry a gun? No, but I know how to use a hammer. Welcome to Democracy Now. Now.org, the war and peace report by Mimi Goodman. The U.S. Israeli war on Iran has entered its fifth

day with the U.S. and Israel new waves of intense bombing, targeting Tehran and other areas. The reported death toll in Iran has risen to 1,045. U.S. forces say they've struck more than 2,000 targets since Saturday. Israel's also escalating its attack on Lebanon, where it's ordered mass evacuations. Iran's continuing to retaliate by attack. attacking Israeli and U.S. allies across the Gulf. Targets reportedly struck by Iran include the U.S. embassy and CIA station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. consulate grounds in Dubai and a major U.S. airbase in Qatar. Earlier today, Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened the, quote,

complete destruction of the region's military and economic infrastructure, unquote. Meanwhile, an Iranian naval ship has sunk in the Indian Ocean off the southern coast of Sri Lanka after a possible submarine attack. 30 people have survived. 140 others are still missing. Reuters report sources in Sri Lanka's Navy and Defense Ministry said the vessel had been attacked by a submarine. This comes days after President Trump vowed to annihilate Iran's Navy. Iranian officials are expected to soon pick a new Supreme Leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Hamani, who was assassinated Saturday at the start of the U.S. Israeli attack. Israel has already announced Hamini's successor will become a, quote, unequivocal target for

elimination, unquote. Israel has already bombed the Assembly of Experts Building in Komp, where the decision was expected to be made. On Tuesday, President Trump said U.S. and Israeli strikes have already killed off many possible future leaders in Iran. Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. So, you know, we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group.

They may be dead also based on reports. So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody. This comes, as CNN is reporting, the CIA is now working to funnel arms to Iranian Kurdish militias in an attempt to spark an upright. in Iran. On Tuesday, Trump reportedly spoke to the president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, which is considered a terrorist organization in Iran. Iranian forces have been launching drone strikes on Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Democratic senators are expressing

alarm after receiving a classified briefing ahead of today's war powers resolution vote. This is Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal. I just want to say I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground. Senator Elizabeth Warren posted this message online after the briefing. I just left a classified briefing on Iran, and here's what I can say. It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried. Trump administration has no plan.

in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn't given a single clear reason for this war and he seems to have no plan for how to end it either. President Trump's threatening to cut off trade with Spain after the Spanish government refused to allow the U.S. to use naval and air bases in southern Spain to strike Iran. Earlier today, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the U.S. Israeli war, a disaster. We must learn from history and cannot play Russian roulette with the fate of millions of people.

The powers involved in this conflict must immediately cease hostilities and commit to dialogue and diplomacy. In Pakistan, the U.S. has ordered some consular staff in Karachi and Lahore to leave Pakistan due to safety risks. Large anti-U.S. protests have erupted in recent. days. Reuters is reporting U.S. Marines open fire on Pakistani demonstrators who tried to storm the Karachi consulate. Ten people were killed during that attack on Sunday. Anti-U.S. protests are continuing in Pakistan, which is home to the world's second largest Shia community after Iran.

We're here today to protest the American-Israeli strike on Iran. In an act of sheer hypocrisy, they bombed a girl's school, killing over 150 innocent. and children while claiming to advocate for women's liberation. We are here to condemn this atrocity. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation says it's been inundated with over 200 calls from members of the U.S. military regarding religious comments made by U.S. commanders about the war in Iran. One combat unit commander reportedly said the war is, quote, part of God's divine plan

and that, quote, President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to, to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth, unquote. Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited the controversial Christian nationalist pastor, Doug Wilson, to lead the Pentagon's prayer service. Wilson has opposed Muslims holding public office and does not believe women should be allowed to vote. The Pentagon has announced U.S. Special Forces are now in Ecuador to conduct joint military. military operations with Ecuador and commandos to reportedly target suspected drug traffickers. The head of U.S. Southern Command and the top commander of U.S. Special Forces in Latin America

met with Ecuador's right-wing president, Danielle Naboa, in Kito on Monday. Last year, Navajo proposed a constitutional change to allow the U.S. to operate a military base in Ecuador, but voters rejected the proposal. The deployment of U.S. troops to Ecuador marks a new front in the Trump administration's so-called operation. Southern Spear. Since September, the U.S. has blown up at least 44 boats in the region, killing at least 150 people. Without offering proof, the Trump administrations claimed all the targets were drug traffickers. The 26th midterm campaign kicked off Tuesday with primaries in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas, and Texas Democratic State Legislator and former

seminarian James Telerico is projected to have defeated Congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett and the closely watched Democratic Senate primary, Tullerico, spoke to supporters in Austin. This is a people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political system. This is truly a campaign of, by, and for the people. Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett decried voting disruptions in Dallas County, where hundreds of voters are reportedly turned away from polls. I can tell you now that people have been disenfranchised.

The reason that we knew that there were problems is because we were receiving the phone calls and the emails. The polls were supposed to stay open until nine, according to a court order. The Supreme Court, just a few minutes ago, just said, shut it down. In the Republican Texas Senate primary, Senator John Cornyn and state attorney, Ken Paxton are heading for a runoff on May 26. Their race is already the most expensive Senate primary in history. Meanwhile, Republican incumbent Congressmember Dan Crenshaw lost his primary to Texas State Representative Steve Toth. Another Republican incumbent Congressman, Tony Gonzalez, has been forced into a runoff. Reports recently emerged that he had an affair

with a staffer who later took her own life. In North Carolina, the matchup to replace retiring Republican Senator Tom Tillis is now set. Former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper will face off against Michael Watley, a former Trump Republican National Committee chairman. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoem testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday, grilled by about the killings by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Prete in Minneapolis, but she refused to apologize for linking them to domestic terrorism. She was questioned by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Can you explain why you decided to brand these victims that we all saw on video who were out protesting the activities of your agency and were killed as a result of it? How did you think that calling them domestic terrorists at that scene was somehow going to calm the situation? You know, Senator, we are working in those situations where there's a tragic loss of life and that there is something that our agents are involved in that we continue to deliver. information. Senator Amy Klobuchar questioned Nome about armed masked agents in St. Paul, Minnesota, battering down the door of a home of a U.S. citizen from Laos, even though the agents did not have a warrant. Do you agree that it is unacceptable for your agents to ram into someone's door and drag someone out in their underwear and below zero temperatures when they have the wrong guy? Our officers conduct targeted operations and utilize the law processes and are given to them and the tools.

You are not the answer that you think that's wrong. They needed to identify that individual and that individual. They couldn't identify him by looking at his identification. Instead, they had to drag him out, throw him in a car and drive him around for an hour. In Arizona, a Haitian asylum seeker has died in ICE custody after being held for four months at the Florence, sectional center. One local official said the man, Emmanuel Damas, had died after not getting timely medical care for an infected tooth. He's at least the 10th prisoner to die in ICE custody so far this year. And in Georgia, the father of an accused school shooter has been convicted of

secondary murder for giving his teenage son an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas gift. Colin Gray's son, who was 14 at the time, is accused of using the gun. He was a gun. He was a to kill two students and two teachers at a high school in winter Georgia in 2024. Prosecutors accused the father of ignoring his son's emotional problems, including his obsession with school shooters. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. It happened early Saturday morning. One of the first strikes of the U.S. Israeli attack on Iran hit a great school in Menab in southern Iran. The death toll is now at least 175, most of them primary school

girls. On Tuesday, thousands of people filled the streets of Manab for a mass funeral. The girls' ages range from 7 to 12. Iran's school week runs from Saturday to Thursday. When the missile hit the school on Saturday morning, the girls were in their morning session. After the school, strike, parents search for their children among the dead. This is her math book, Mohana Sari, first grade. This is her folder with her schoolwork, her homework here. What wrong has she done? Her color pencil box is still in her bag.

While Iran blamed Israel for the attack, neither Israel nor the United States has taken responsibility for the bomb. On Tuesday, the United Nations Human Rights Office urged the forces behind the attack on the girls' school to investigate. In Iran, the Iran Red Crescent Society reports put the death toll at 787. In the single deadliest and devastating incident, dozens of girls were reportedly killed and injured when their primary school in Minab in the south of the country was struck during the school day. The High Commissioner calls for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack. The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it. We call on them to make public the findings and to ensure accountability and redress for the victims.

For more, we're joined by investigative reporter Nilo Tabrizi. She's worked extensively with open source material to report on Iran for the Washington Post in the New York Times. She's been tracking what she calls the information wars online over the school bombing. Her recent piece for New Lines Magazine is headlined investigation debunks claims IRGC bombed Iranian school. She joins us now in studio. Welcome back to Democracy Now, Nailu. Explain exactly what you understand took place. And it's really hard right now with the Internet almost totally turned off in Iran. Yeah, absolutely. So right now we're not necessarily. able to get in touch with eyewitnesses or, you know, friends and families of the young girls who were

killed. But we were able to verify the video. So there was one video that I saw probably around 6.30 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday. And I was able to verify that and know that the video that we saw that showed at least, you know, half of the structure was hit. You know, two stories were torn down. The scene was really graphic. I saw things like a small child's hand in the rubble, bloodstained backpacks, homework, scattered everywhere. And so those, when I see scenes like that, it's important to verify and know that it's from the current moment. So I was able to do that. And then once I found the locations of the school itself, just being able to map, you know, some of the features we saw in the video with satellite imagery, I wanted to understand what was around there. You know,

Minab is a small town in the southern Hormos-Gone province. I was trying to understand why the school was struck. What I saw and what many others online saw as well is that it was close to an RGC Navy barracks. And explain what the IRGC is. The IRGC is a revolutionary guard. So there was an IRGC, you know, Navy barracks around there. And I wanted to, you know, understand, you know, is this an issue of wrong targeting? Once I looked at satellite imagery, it was clear that for years ago it used to be part of, you know,

it looked like it was very close to the base, part of the base. As far back as 2016, it was completely walled off. There was a separation between that school and the IRC Navy barracks. And as well, the walls of the school were painted with these bright murals. So obviously, if I can see as an open source investigator that as far back as, you know, eight years ago, these brightly colored walls are visible, I know that this is not part of an IRGC base. And so should anybody that's adding this to a target list. You've reported that the pro-Palevi monarchy accounts have been spreading a narrative that this was a failed IRGC rocket. and explain what these forces are.

Yes, so right now there's, I think there's a, people are trying to co-opt a narrative or, you know, put forth what's happening that feels convenient to the story that they want to push and the goals that they have. And right now, it seems that any reporting on civilian casualties becomes a flashpoint. And there was one quite prominent user on X that tweeted out and said that this, actually, the Iranian state already took responsibility for the story. strike. So we started to look at that claim. The channel that they put forward was not an Iranian state official channel. It was a telegram channel that's a pro-monarchy channel. So you can

understand, okay, where this type of misinformation is starting to spread. Talk about the response on the ground, this mass funeral that took place in Minab and how the media is covering this around the world. Yeah, I mean, many members, many journalists were quite horrified to see an attack like this, right? The death tolls up to 175 people, many of them young school girls. And right now, I think people are trying to verify imagery of this. So there were some claims saying, oh, this aerial imagery showing, you know, the small graves that were dug, comes from, you know, a different image in Pakistan. Well, there's been a lot of great reporting, some by BBC, some by the New York Times, that have verified this aerial imagery and said that, no, indeed, this is of the

current moment. This is for these funerals as well. So this is a incident that many of us are looking at, it absolutely demands accountability. And what has the U.S. and Iran said? The U.S. said that it was looking into this incident, and Iran has said this was on the fault of Israel. This is what happens in an air campaign. And we're still trying to figure that out. So as it stands, we need more information.

Either we need remnants of the weapons that was used from the scene. We haven't been able to obtain that. Or another visual clue that would be helpful is to see the moment of impact. So if we saw the missile hit, we could maybe look at the angle work. comes from and get more information. So we still don't know exactly who did what. Some of the claims coming out as well, just about the general operation, have said that Israel is mostly responsible for Tehran, you know, Western Iran strikes and that the southern Iran strikes are being done by the U.S., which is why some reporters have gone to the U.S. and asked for answers.

UNESCO says the killing of pupils in a place dedicated to learning constitutes a grave violation of the protection afforded to schools under international humanitarian law? Neelah? Absolutely. I mean, this is not, you know, a school for young girls is absolutely not a viable, nor is it a legal target, especially as we're trying to still understand the aims of this type of operation. It doesn't seem a legitimate target based on the information that we know at all.

And it really calls in, you know, it highlights that no matter if there's an air campaign, whether the objectives are understood or not, that civilians will always pay the price. in these types of conflicts. And right now, it's the young girls in Minab. I want to thank you, Nilo, for being with us and ask you a final question. What most surprised you about this horrific attack? I was surprised to see that people were trying to doubt it immediately or saying that just because there's civilian casualties, that's an Islamic Republic talking point. No, these deaths happened. They're important for us to investigate, and all of us should be interrogating what happened. And can I ask you, you were with the Washington Post. We all know that the Washington Post has

gutted its staff, laid off a third of the staff, almost the entire Middle East Division. You should be doing this for the Washington Post. So what's happening without coverage? Yeah, I mean, I would love to continue reporting this for the Post. That's not what's happening right now. I'm seeing my colleagues that I deeply respect that are still there, scrambling and trying to cover this important moment, but they're not getting voices from inside Iran and understandably, connectivity is really difficult right now. That's why you need reporters like myself, like my colleague Giannay, who is the Bureau Chief for Iran based in Turkey. That's why this reporting is deeply important in this moment. Well, thank you for doing it. Nilo Tabrizi, author, investigative

journalists who's worked extensively with open source material to report on Iran for the Washington Post in the York Times. Her recent piece for New Lines Magazine, and we will link to it, is titled Investigation Debunks Claims IRGC bombed Iranian School. We'll link to it at DemocracyNow.org. Back in a minute. It's wartime. We lost the chance to stop the flow. So many millions of lives ago.

And now we'll reap what we don't know. War time, Beth Ferrell Foster, performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's launched another wave of air strikes against Iran with loud, blast reported in Tehran this morning. As the U.S. Israeli war on Iran enters a fifth day, the reported death toll in Iran has surpassed 1,000 with victims, including many children. This is a resident of Tehran who was forced to flee to Armenia.

I am from Tehran. There were constant bombings. There are 50 to 60 bombings daily. Very scary. It is unimaginable for the people with children. Food stores are working. The hospitals are working, too. So do the fueling stations. Nothing else is working. There's practically nobody in the city of Tehran. Everybody moves in the countryside, those who have cottages over there.

Others stay indoors. The city is deserted. This comes, as President Trump said Tuesday, the U.S. Navy could soon begin escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. after a commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to set ablaze any ship that passes through there. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S.-Israeli joint attacks, disrupting global energy markets as the strait is a key waterway for oil and gas. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hedgeseth said the Trump administration had sunk in Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean,

leaving over 100 people missing. Iranian media reported today's funeral ceremony for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hamani, who was assassinated Saturday, has been postponed. His son, Moshdaba Khamani, has reportedly emerged as a frontrunner to replace his father as Iran's supreme leader, according to the New York Times. Israel has said whoever is chosen as new supreme leader will become, quote, an unequivocal target for, elimination, unquote. Israel's already bombed the Assembly of Experts Building in Komp, where the decision was expected to be made. For more, we're joined here in New York by Nargis, Bajogli. She's an associate professor of anthropology and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, or SACE. Professor, welcome back to Democracy Now.

Talk about the latest, the significance of what's happening right now and about the killing the assassination of the Supreme Leader, Hamani. So it seems like one of the first strikes that happened on Tehran as soon as this war began was a decapacitation strike on the Supreme Leader as well as other military and political leaders in the country. It's important to note that the Supreme Leader did not go into hiding this time like he did in June. He didn't go into bunkers.

And so in many ways, and because he was killed in his compound, he wanted to be martyred this time around. He was dying of cancer already. He was 86 years old. He was already a very elderly gentleman and sick. But he now has become a symbol of martyrdom and resistance against Israeli and American war. And that has significant meaning within Shia culture. And this is why we're seeing, as you showed earlier on this show, protests happening in Pakistan,

as well as in Bahrain, as well as India, and across the Muslim world, because he was not just a leader of a country, but for many Shia Muslims, they also saw him as a spiritual leader. And can you talk about Mujshaba Khomeini? Meshava Khomeini is his son, and he's long been rumored to be next in line. It is still unclear whether that's actually the case. I know the New York Times is reporting that, but we have to wait and see. what we do know is that because the Iranians have been obviously looking at and studying the way that the Israelis and Americans do war across the region, they know that their MO is decapacitation strike. So in the lead-up to this war, the leader in Iran had already ordered across the government to create three and four lines of succession for every major post. So they know that whoever is announced next might be next in line for assassination.

I mean, Israel announced that. And Israel knows that as well. They said that the next person would be the target of elimination. Yeah, and this is what they've done across the region. Talk about the doctrine that Israel is citing, what they're going to do next. So yesterday there were reports on Israeli media that Bibi Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that he wants to start enacting the Dahlia doctrine in Tehran. The Dahlia doctrine is a doctrine that the Israeli military created for striking the southern

suburbs of Beirut in the many wars that Israel has waged on Lebanon. And what the Daha doctrine is, is carpet bombing residential infrastructure and critical infrastructure of densely populated cities in order to eventually turn the population against their ruling establishments. That's sort of the idea of it. But what it means is that they want to carpet bomb really densely populated areas in Tehran. Let's talk about Iran's strategy. Netanyahu has been saying that Iran is weak. And now the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is trying to walk back comments that Israel was going to attack. Iran, no matter what, and the U.S. had to engage in this attack on Iran because otherwise the U.S. would be attacked. So for over a year now in Washington, you would hear over and over again this Israeli talking point, that Iran is very weak, that it's the weakest it's ever been, and that this is the right time to now strike it.

And so eventually we got to a point as in this weekend in which those strikes happened. And we're only in day five of the war now. And I think part of what we're seeing is that the Israelis and the Americans have underestimated, Iran's capabilities to strike back hard against the region. Iran is up against the biggest military superpower in world history and the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East. So in military terms, yes, it is not as powerful as those countries. However, it has sort of defined and declared and developed its defense doctrine over all of these decades to be asymmetrical warfare against these kinds of forces in the region. And so what we're going to see play out, Iran is not going to

surrender. Iran is going to continue to fight this and to inflict as much damage, not just on Israel, but importantly on the American security architecture in the Gulf region. At the White House Tuesday, a reporter asked President Trump about the worst case scenario in Iran. This is what he said. Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have very much beaten militarily from the military standpoint. They're still lobbying some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that

because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock. You know, they built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them. They've shot a lot of them, and we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this,

and then somebody takes over who's as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to have. happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this. And then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better. So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people. And we'll see what happens with the people. You know, they have their chance. And we've said, don't do it yet. If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it

yet. It's very dangerous out there. A lot of bombs are being dropped. But I always say that would be about the worst. Professor Bajogli, your response. The way that Iran is responding to all of these strikes right now is by it knows that the U.S. has critical low amounts of interceptors in the region, and it's playing the long game. The Americans do not want a long-term war and a war of attrition, and Iran is absorbing the hits and is going for a long-term war of attrition. And this is something that both the Americans, the Israelis, and those in the region have to sort of consider. And the CIA arming Kurds? Yeah, the CIA There's reporting. Where do the Kurds live? Right through to Iraq. Right through to Iraq and also on the border with Turkey.

If the CIA does this and the Kurds come in and sort of foment an internal uprising, we're going to see this really continue. And then Turkey will probably be giving a lot of intel to the Iranians on this because this is not in Turkish national interest either. This is the danger of this moment. This is already turned into a regional conflagration, and this could turn into a regional war of a scale that will make the past 25 years of forever wars in the Middle East seem like a walk in the park. Nargis Bajogli. I want to thank you for being with us.

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, co-author of how sanctions work Iran and the impact of economic warfare. also author of Iran reframed anxieties of power in the Islamic Republic. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel is also escalating its bombardment of Lebanon, where officials said today, at least another 11 people were killed in Israeli strike on a hotel in a Burrit suburb and a residential complex in eastern Lebanon.

Israel also announced a wave of attacks across southern Lebanon. Lebanese authorities told Al Jazeera an estimated 65,000 people, have been displaced in Lebanon due to Israel's attacks. This comes as Iran continues to launch retaliatory strikes at U.S. and Israeli targets across the region, including the U.S. Embassy and CIA station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. consulate grounds in Dubai and Dubai and Qatar, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. Turkey said today, a ballistic missile fired from Iran had entered its airspace but was destroyed by NATO defense systems. it's unclear whether the missile was targeting Turkey.

And the UAE debris from a drone intercepted by defense forces sparked a fire at an oil terminal. Meanwhile, Qatari authorities reportedly arrested 10 suspected members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, including several accused of being assigned to spy on vital and military facilities in Qatar. That's according to Al Jazeera. For more, we go to Doha, where we're joined by Marwan Bashara. Al Jazeera's senior political analyst. As we talk about this widening escalation, can you respond, Marwan Basharra, to what has taken place over this last five days? Well, clearly, since the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khaminai, it seems that Iran plans for the war were put on an autopilot of sort.

This is not a justification. This is simply a potential explanation as to why Tehran is lashing out the way it is, with many of its leaders and commentators that I've heard the past five days, are incapable of explaining what exactly is Iran doing, because the claim is that they are attacking American bases and American installations. But in fact, Iranian rockets and missiles and drones have hit various economic and residential installations in various parts of the Gulf. Of course, there's also been attacks on Arbid, northern Iraq, on Jordan, and other places.

So the only plausible explanation for now is either there's been a decision been made that if Iran is going to fall, everyone else is going to fall. Or there's a predetermined decision that says there has to be a cost to be paid for American interests, for the West and the various stakeholders in energy, and economy, and so on and so forth, so that the higher the price, the quicker, there will be pressure on the United States to end the war. Talk about this latest news in Turkey. Talk about how an attack on a NATO member could pull more countries into the fighting and Turkey's position on the U.S. Israeli strike on Iran. You know, for the time being, what is quite astounding is the decision by at least here the Gulf countries not to respond, not to join the American-Israeli,

onslaught against Iran. They've been taking, of course, a lot of defensive measures, and I would expect Turkey to do the same. None of them want to join an Israeli war of choice, a hegemonic war on the part of the United States Israel against Iran, not only because most of them don't think it was right and they stood against it, they condemned it, but also because this will even widen further. the regionalization of the war, as we've seen in the past five days, but basically put in steroid. So the fact that this could actually go out of control and the fact that there are those who are

interested in this regionalization, notably the Israeli government, Netanyahu and others, who actually foresaw this happening and wanted this to happen, they wanted the chaos within Iran, they wanted the chaos within the region, because they're the only ones capable of affecting, influencing American decision-making for the time being. And they think the worse it gets out there for Turkey, for the Gulf region, for Iran, and so on and so forth, the better it is for Israel. I want to go to the Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. They were just briefed yesterday in the Senate.

I just want to say I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground. Boots on the ground, Marwan Basharra. If you can comment on this and NBC reporting the U.S. torpedoing of an Iranian naval ship in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka, it's the first time a submarine has sunk a ship since World War II. Yeah, you know, it's interesting to read various assessments of this sort of thing happening in the likes of the economist, right, the British economist or the Wall Street Journal, where the stupidity, the fallacy, the failure of the America, of this administration in copying not one page, not two pages, not a chapter. but the entire playbook of the Bush administration. I mean, they've repeated every single false pretext that the Bush administration carried or diffused

in order to justify the war against Iraq in 2003. We've known what a disaster that war was, not only for Iraq, not only for the hundreds of thousands who died in that war, but for the thousands of Americans who died and for the trillions of dollars that were spent in the first 10 years, of the war. So we see the Trump administration that called that the stupid war and called that the

forever war now repeating exactly the same, walking in the footsteps of the Bush administration, except this country Iran is four, five times the size of Iran. The Iranian regime is far more coalesced and far more united than the Iraqi regime was. And clearly this threatens to be a far worse in a war in its implication for American long-term security and for the stability in the region than the Iraq war. And yet, here we have this, you know, American president, Israeli prime minister who promised to become historical figures, tragic historical figures of sort, who have learned nothing from the lessons of history. And this is just fresh in the mind, right? Only 20 plus years ago when the United States got stuck. But it wasn't just Iraq.

I mean, after launching a 20-year war in Afghanistan for regime change, after launching a war for regime change in Libya, what happened in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan the past 20 years? They all turned into costly fiascos. And yet here we have another administration. It's like the American government is if Washington is addicted to, you know, international violence, to wars, to assassinations, to launch. those hegemonic wars that they could not end, that they always tend to end in fiasis. And you know what, I mean, not just the past 20 years. I mean, the Korean War, for God's sake, haven't even ended. What?

70 years later, the Vietnam War, what happened with that, right? So America gets involved in all these wars and the Gulf in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. None of them are successful. They all tend and failed since Second World War. And yet, the capacity of American governments to be repeating the same mission. takes again and again launching hegemonic wars, forever wars, that fail, that are costly, that that cost America, its reputation, that it's credibility, its soldiers, and its tax dollars. And here we are again.

Marwan, I wanted to ask you about the role of Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post reporting Trump launched Saturday's attack on Iran, quote, after a week's long lobbying effort by an unusual pair of U.S. allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman has publicly supported a diplomatic solution. Also said Saudi airspace and territory can't be used for an attack on Iran. However, according to the Post, made multiple private phone calls to Trump over the past month advocating a U.S. attack on Iran. What does Saudi Arabia have to gain from this? Well, the thing is, right, is that we've heard exactly the opposite scenario being expressed

by Saudi commentators on Al Jazeera, amongst others, saying that the prince, the crown prince, sent his defense minister, his brother, to Iran, who met personally with the Supreme Leader, the late Supreme Leader, to tell them that Saudi Arabia has zero interest in a confrontation with Iran, and it agrees with Iran on the question of Israel. So, go figure. But there's one thing for sure, back to your question, is that Saudi Arabia. Arabia has no interest in such a confrontation, such an Israeli-American war against Iran. There's one thing we've learned in this region is that when the type of Iran and the United States

or the Soviet Union and the United States or whoever, it's along that Swahili proverb, right? When the elephants fight, the grass gets crushed. When elephants play, the grass gets crushed. So whether there is a rapprochement between Iran and the United States or whether there's a war between Iran and the United States, the neighbors didn't pay the price. And clearly there is no interest for any of the neighbors for this kind of war to be launched this way on false pretext on a total hegemony, not planned well, clearly with no end in sight and with no real objectives, right? The way this is happening and the way this is being rolled out, this promises to be an utter disaster for all involved, including Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and many of the neighboring Arab states. Marwan Bashar, I want to thank you for being with us, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, speaking to us from Doha, Qatar. When we come back, the acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mandonsa Fijio on the Oscar-Nazer Nogesio on the Oscar-N-N-O-Haw-Whor. nominated film, the Oscar nominated film, The Secret Agents.

Stay with us. War time by Farrell Foster. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. As we turn now to look one of the most celebrated international films of the year, the secret agent, directed by the Brazilian filmmaker Clevember Bermandonsa Fijio. The film has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. The film is set in 1977 Brazil during the final years of the military dictatorship

and stars Wagner Mura, as Marcello, a technology expert who's on the run hoping to reunite with his son in Hesife during Carnival. But the city is not the nonviolent haven he seeks. NPR film critic John Powers says of the film, quote, this small, brutal, often funny thriller, uses the travails one of ordinary men to capture a reactionary era in its daily realities and surreal absurdities, its public cruelty and private decency. Director Claver Mandonza Fijer wrote the screenplay during the presidency of the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. This is the film's trailer. You really think you should be here?

I'm taking my son. It's foul play at the highest level. You have to be there very early on Friday morning. Is that Armando? No, his name is Marcelo. Armando. Armando. If I was you, I'd get the hell out of here.

We need to protect what we still have. You and my grandson. You have no idea who you're messing with, boy. to a better Brazil with less mischief. This man, I'd kill him with a hammer. Do you carry a gun? No, but I know how to use a hammer. That's the trailer for the Secret Agent,

at one best director and best actor, Wagner Morda, at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. I interviewed the film's acclaimed writer and director, Claibret de Mandants' Aphijo, this week, and started by asking him how he came up with the idea for this film. Well, the idea came together, as it often does, from different angles. First of all, I wanted to do a film with Wagner. So to make a film with an actor, you better sit down and write a script. The second thing, I was coming from pictures of ghosts, my previous film, which is an essay film.

And that film gave me a lot of information on Hesif in my city, on film going in the 20th century. And it just put me in the mood to write a story which would take me back to the past. On top of that, I wanted to write a thriller set in the 70s. And as I was writing, I began to realize that. that a lot of what was happening in Brazil during the Bolsonaro years was in fact creeping in and being part of the logic of what I was writing. Because what those people did, Bolsonaro in his inner circle, it really felt like they were trying to bring back the good old days of the military regime

in the 60s and 70s. And once I understood that, I think the film strengthened its own inner logic. But it's only something that I realized much later in the process. And today I can talk to you very openly about this, but it's something that I came to understand quite slowly. So when you write, when you make a film, when you think about what you're doing, sometimes you capture a certain frequency, which is in the air, And I think the secret agent is very much about the past,

but it's very much about the past repeating itself through amnesia. For people who aren't familiar with Brazil's history, with this reprise, perhaps, echoes of the past with Bolsonaro's presidency, go back to the 1960s. Talk about what happened for 20 years up until the mid-80s. Well, in 1964, there was a military coup, March 1964, and that military regime went on to rule Brazil in the 60s, in the 70s, in the late 70s and early 80s, it began to crumble,

and it just crumbled out of being completely rotten. 1985 is when we began to think about general elections, democratic elections. And it was a violent period. It had support by the U.S. at the time, because of course it was a division between East and West. I think the U.S. and many in Brazil fear that Brazil would fall into the hands of communism. So that's one of the reasons that the coup d'etat took place in 1964. And anyone who questioned or just disagreed with what was going on was either persecuted or tortured or went into exile. And the film takes place in 77, which is towards the end of the decadence of that military regime.

but where the democratic forces, they were still very much intimidated. And that's exactly what they tried to bring back in 2017 with the democratic election of Jaeo Bolsonaro. Introduce us to the hairy leg. The hairy leg is a wonderful urban legend. And the urban legend of the Harry Leg was developed by two journalists. One of them called Haimundo Carrero. He worked in a newspaper in his city, Diadi to Bernambuco, which is featured in the film. And he came up with the hairy leg as a way a deterrent to deal with censorship.

He could not write about what actually happened involving the security forces, the police, the military police. because they were very violent against the people. So instead of having his articles censored and slashed, he came up with the hairy leg and he began to print straight stories where the incidents would be described in a journalistic fashion, but instead of saying that the military forces did it, he said that the hairy leg did it. And they would come with cartoons and drawings of this zombie disembodied leg attacking people.

And it became a cultural and popular phenomenon because, of course, the radio picked it up and did radio plays with the hairy leg. And little kids... I remember as a little kid in the 70s being terrified of the hairy leg. And I think it's a fascinating development of a dictatorship. It reminded me a little bit of how the Czech press had to deal with the Soviet invasion using the media, but not really being open about what they were, just using suggestion. And for many years I wanted to use it in a film, and it finally happened. And I think it's a great scene in the film which gets quite a lot of reactions.

Let's go to the hairy leg in The Secret Agent. A local man named Pedro George Do Nacemiento. 27, a student living in the Mustardinia district, was out on an evening walk, in 13 DiMaio Park, with a friend by the name Alexandrino Borges, 32, a dental prosthetist living at Bombo do Emeterio, when they were caught by surprise by a shadow that came happening out of nowhere and started kicking them.

But this is so odd. Odd, but we all know what that is, don't we? It's treated as news in the paper. Teresa, read the bit about the attack. It's great. Read it. But you've read it. But it sounds so much better in your Angolan accent.

Thank you. Another clip from the Secret Agent, the four-times Oscar-nominated film. This is also focusing on a newspaper that they're reading. Yeah, there is this idea in the film. It's not something that I plan that I just realized once I was rereading the script, and then I embraced that idea. Everything you see in the newspapers in this film is either imprecise,

wrong, or just fantasy or lies. And it doesn't only come from the fact that we are dealing with the dictatorship when the newspapers were used to make the dictatorship work morally, let's say. but it also comes from my own experience working in the newsroom in the 90s. I was a journalist and professional journalist, and I saw many decisions going on in the newsroom, which had to deal with someone's maybe losing money if something is going to come out, or maybe we should not name that person,

or maybe we should give it another word to make it sound less harsh. and this is something that coming out of journalism school, it was quite a learning experience because, of course, in journalism school, you learn what the world should be, and in the newsroom you understand what it has to be. As we're talking now, the U.S. and Israel have just bombed Iran.

Iran is retaliated, attacking other Gulf countries. You wake up on Saturday morning. This is the time leading up to the Oscars. But it's more than that. It's a time when a film like this about a dictatorship is getting global attention. And what were your thoughts? I can't help thinking that history is a cycle of repetitions.

I'm 57 years old now. And over the years, I have seen so many. hyper-violent, brutal developments that have to do with aggression, just violence and land grabs. Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonza Fijo, the director and screenwriter of The Secret Agent, the films have nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, the film stars Wagner Mora. To see the full interview, go to Democracy Now.org. That does it for today's show. On Saturday, March 7th, I'll be in Savannah, Georgia at the Hindsight Film Festival.

For a screening of the award-winning documentary, steal this story, please, about the 30 years of Democracy Now. It begins at 7. Check our website at DemocracyNow.org. I'll be speaking of the Q&A after with the film's director, Tia Lesson. That does it again for the show, Democracy Now produced with Mike Burke, Dina Guster, Messiah Rhodes, Maria Territ. Sena, Nicole Salazar. I'm Amy Goodman. Thank you so much for joining us.