How Washington Averted an Iran Hostage Crisis

This weekend, the world witnessed one of the more daring wartime rescue missions in recent memory after an American war plane was brought down deep inside Iranian territory as combat rescue teams and special operators swept the Iranian landscape.

The clock ticked down toward a much larger attack that could start a new phase of the conflict with a barrage of US and Israeli strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure that could come as soon as tonight.

At the same time, Iran’s allies are trying to push the country to accept a new ceasefire proposal from Pakistan, one that would end this conflict in the coming days.

One way or another, this conflict could change dramatically within the next 48 hours.

So, let’s get into it.

At the start of today’s episode, it’s especially important that we include a caveat.

This episode is up to date to the best of our knowledge and ability at the start of the day on Tuesday, the 7th of April, local time in Iran.

We mentioned that timing for two reasons, which we’ll be coming back to as the episode continues.

First, the United States and Iran have each been handed a ceasefire proposal from Pakistan, reportedly with the support of both of Iran’s most important backers, Russia and China.

Second, today is also the day that US President Donald Trump promised a major escalation against Iran in a social media message that we simply must read to you directly.

Quoting here, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one.

In Iran, there will be nothing like it.

Three exclamation points.

Open the [ __ ] straight you crazyards or you’ll be living in hell.

Just watch.

All caps.

Praise be to Allah.

President Donald J.Trump.

As such, suffice it to say that we expect today to be a busy news day, either because of the ceasefire deal or Trump’s promise of an escalated bombing campaign or in this extraordinary timeline that we’re living in, possibly both at once.

Rest assured that we will be back here to discuss any major developments once they’ve happened.

Today, however, we’d like to begin with the story that captured global headlines all weekend.

The American operation to rescue the two crew members of an F-15E Strike Eagle after it was shot down over enemy territory in southwest Iran last Friday.

While many details of the rescue operation are still confidential, and some details will probably never see the light of day, there are now enough snippets of information and insider testimony to stitch together a clear picture of what happened.

According to a statement directly from Trump on Monday, the F-15 was hit by a shoulder fired missile.

The two crew members, a pilot and a weapon system officer, both ejected as the aircraft was going down.

Floating on parachutes at the mercy of the wind, the two were separated and both were reported wounded.

The pilot was recovered quickly by US forces before the day’s end on Friday.

But the weapon system officer, or WSO, was not.

Despite sustaining serious injuries, the American WSO was reportedly able to flee the site where his ejection seat landed before Iranian search parties arrived to capture him.

Stranded in a rugged, remote part of the country, the WSO was nonetheless the subject of an intense search by both Washington and Tran.

The Iranian government offered a substantial bounty for any person who found the M alive, roughly 66,000 US.

Armed with a hands and equipped with a signal beacon to broadcast brief reports on his status, the WSO worked to rapidly create distance between himself and the crash site, eventually scaling a high ridge line.

According to US media reports, the WSO eventually located a well-hidden mountain crevice and wedged himself in, broadcasting as infrequently as possible to prevent Iran from triangulating its position.

The United States eventually received that signal, but could only intervene with man forces after many hours of lowaltitude searches by combat search and rescue teams and aircraft.

Remarkable video footage taken from within Iran showed US combat aircraft refueling tankers and even helicopters flying low across the landscape, well within range of anti-aircraft fire and even small arms fire from Iranian ground forces.

Because of the search, the US suffered damage to several other aircraft, including an A-10 attack jet that had to be abandoned over friendly territory after it was hit over Iran and managed to limp back across the Persian Gulf.

To prevent Iran from reaching the strand of WSO first, America’s Central Intelligence Agency reportedly ran multiple simultaneous deception campaigns, both claiming that the airmen had already been located and rescued and creating perceptions of US search operations happening in other areas.

While commander units prepared for an extraction, American strike drones loited overhead and carried out multiple air strikes on Iranians near the stranded airman’s position.

Eventually, the United States staged a rescue attempt using up to 150 fixedwing aircraft and helicopters.

To accomplish that, US forces first set up a staging area on the ground within Iranian territory where an airfield was captured and used to sustain operations deeper into the country.

That site has been geoloccated near Ishvahan, a sensitive area where the Iranian military is known to have built up a substantial presence before the war began.

Inbounds with hundreds of special operations personnel, US forces reportedly concealed their advance with air strikes.

Called in with the help of the stranded officer from his vantage point on a ridge of roughly 2,100 m elevation or 7,000 ft.

Navy Seals were tasked with extracting the WSO from the hiding spot with the initial intent to take the rescue team out on a combination of Blackhawk helicopters and short takeoff and landing C130 airlifters.

Those aircraft, however, had to be left behind after the landing gear of the C130s got stuck in the mud.

Instead, US forces were exfiltrated with the help of a backup team, coming in on secretive, highly modified C295 aircraft that are only rarely acknowledged in their operational role.

The United States destroyed the stranded aircraft on the runway in a fairly standard move to prevent their sophisticated onboard technology from falling into Iranian hands.

Although Tran claims that its own forces destroyed the aircraft and foiled Washington’s attempts to escape from an abandoned airfield.

According to US officials speaking anonymously to American media, the extraction was easily among the most complex in the history of American special operations.

With both US airmen rescued, Washington narrowly managed to avert a hostage crisis in which a surviving American captive could have been leveraged by Iran to secure favorable peace terms or used as a messaging prop for the Iranian regime.

At a moment when public opinion polling suggests that the Iran war is already quite unpopular in the US, an American prisoner of war in Iran’s custody could conceivably have strengthened American support to bring him home, but was more likely to inflame anger over the risks that the war poses for American troops.

Instead, Washington has touted the successful extraction as a sign of US air power.

Quoting Donald Trump on social media again, “The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations without a single American killed or even wounded just proves once again that we have achieved overwhelming air dominance and superiority over the Iranian skies.

Now, in practical terms, the extraction cost the US several hundred million at a minimum, given that the two modified C130 aircraft destroyed in Iran were valued at over $100 million per airframe.

Those costs, however, may be acceptable for Washington under the circumstances.

No US personnel were reported injured or killed during the recovery effort.

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And now, back to Iran.

While the American rescue operation in Iran dominated headlines over the weekend, it was far from the only notable developments across the conflict.

In light of what we can only describe as a fire hose of depressing news since the war started, or really since this year started, we’ll start with a bit of optimism.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Pakistan presented a ceasefire framework to both Iran and the US after what was apparently a very intense few hours of back channeling.

That framework would institute a temporary ceasefire immediately if it could be agreed by both Iran and the United States, clearing the way for a more comprehensive peace deal to take effect after 15 to 20 days.

The proposal was developed by Pakistan alongside US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragashi.

This is according to an anonymous source speaking to Reuters.

Unfortunately, Iran rejected the ceasefire proposal within just hours, conveying a response that basically calls for negotiators to either end the war permanently or butt out.

Iranian state media described a series of core demands for a more permanent peace, including an end to conflicts across the Middle East, sanctions relief for Iran, and direct assistance in Iranian reconstruction with no mention of Iranian regime change.

Those conditions are known to be a non-starter for the United States, meaning that although Pakistan’s proposal seems to have some momentum, it’s probably going to need a lot more work before the two sides can reach an agreement.

Trump confirmed as much on Monday, telling reporters, quote, “They made a proposal, and it’s a significant proposal.

It’s a significant step.

It’s not good enough.

” Now, according to some sources, both Russia and China are interested in seeing Iran accept a temporary ceasefire, raising the possibility that there could be a breakthrough in the coming days.

Iran, however, is publicly skeptical of any negotiations with the US that don’t involve firm guarantees to prevent future attacks.

Iran has already been attacked twice by the United States during peace negotiations.

during the past year.

Quoting an Axio report on the negotiations, Iranian officials made clear to the mediators that they don’t want to be caught in a Gaza or Lebanon situation where there is a ceasefire on paper, but the US and Israel can attack again whenever they want to.

As ceasefire negotiations played out in the background, Donald Trump threatened fire and brimstone, including with that social media post we mentioned at the top of the episode.

According to Trump, Iran now faces a deadline to reopen the Straight of Hormuz by tonight at 8:00 in the evening, East Coast time on the day that this episode is released.

Essentially, Trump is threatening to carry out a barrage of strikes against bridges, power plants, and other dual-use targets that can help sustain the Iran wars effort, but are ultimately civilian in nature.

That threat has brought Trump under fire both in Washington and across the globe with claims that any such bombing campaign would constitute a war crime.

Trump however appears committed to the strikes or at least the threat of strikes claiming on Monday that quote the entire country can be taken out in one night and that might be tomorrow night.

According to Trump the attack will take 4 hours in total quoting again we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 tomorrow night where every power plant in Iran will be out of business burning exploding and never to be used again.

End quote.

On Monday, Israel seemed to underscore Trump’s threat with action.

That day, Israeli warplanes launched an attack on a petrochemical facility serving Iran’s South Pars natural gas field, which supplies a majority of Iran’s energy for domestic purposes.

The last time South P was attacked, Iran responded by severely damaging a key Qatari liqufied natural gas facility and hitting other key targets in a major escalation of the war by both sides.

This time, Israel struck the facility that processes the natural gas from South Pars, not for Iran’s own use, but for a variety of export purposes.

The installation is responsible for roughly 85% of all Iranian petrochemical exports and about half of its prochemical production.

The Israeli military also hit a second processing plant serving a similar purpose in the southwestern province of Kujan.

Israel’s defense minister described the two strikes as a quote severe economic blow for Iran.

Overnight into Tuesday, Iran retaliated with a large drone and missile attack against US troops at the Ali al-S Salam air base in Kuwait where 15 US troops were reported injured.

Iran also struck an industrial complex in Saudi Arabia, scoring at least one direct hit.

Elsewhere across Iran, Israel killed the head of intelligence for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an airirst strike confirmed by Iranian state media.

A separate strike eliminated the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s covert operations unit within its expeditionary cuds force.

the branch charged with asymmetric and unconventional Iranian operations abroad.

Fox News reported on Monday that the United States launched its own strikes against a deep underground Iranian command facility in Tran using its massive ordinance penetrator bombs while Iran was distracted during a weekend search for the stranded US airmen.

Israel reported strikes against a trio of important airfields around the capital city of Tran as well as an air strike on the grounds of one of Iran’s most esteemed universities, the Shariff University of Technology.

A major oil installation near the city of Shiraz also came under bombardment.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims further damage to the Iranian economy, stating that Israeli strikes have destroyed roughly 70% of Iran’s steel production capacity after several rounds of joint strikes with the US across last week.

Iran’s two largest steel plants have each stated that they will need months to rebuild and restart production.

As usual, the US and Israeli campaign against Iran has been far from one-sided with Iranian missiles and drone attacks continuing to damage targets across the region.

In Israel, an Iranian missile strike killed four people in the city of Hifer, while the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organization released footage showing the use of firstperson drones against Israeli forces.

This weekend, the Israel Defense Forces estimated that Hezbollah can maintain a fire rate of 200 rockets and drones per day against Israel for the next 5 months.

Israel has continued to expand its ground invasion of Lebanon in response.

Across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates each reported the interceptions of waves of Iranian drones and missiles.

Overnight on Sunday, Kuwait withtood serious damage to two dissalination plants, while several oil refineries were hit across Kuwait and Bahrain.

New satellite imagery captured on Sunday revealed major fires still burning at three key Emirati oil and gas fields, including one that has now burned continuously for more than a week.

On Friday, Reuters reported that according to anonymous sources, the US intelligence community does not expect Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz anytime soon.

Instead, Iran intends to strengthen its hold over the strait, both to drive up energy prices and pressure Washington in the short term and to increase its geopolitical power in the long term.

Even despite the continued US and Israeli campaign, Tran’s continued success in its long-range strikes suggest that the regime is far from collapse.

On Friday, the New York Times reported that Iran had been able to consistently dig out its underground missile silos and bunkers after they’ve been struck by US or Israeli bombs, often becoming operational again within just hours.

Underscoring the resilience of Iran’s missile launch infrastructure, Tran is now launching more missiles and drones each day than it was 2 weeks ago.

On Monday, Australia’s ABC News reported that Iran is using detailed satellite imagery published by the Chinese geospatial analytics company Mysar Vision to target US and allied forces across the Middle East.

sometimes within just hours after Bizarre Vision publishes new images on its Waybo account.

On a much darker note, a late March report by Human Rights Watch revealed that Iran is also engaged in a campaign to recruit child soldiers, including children as young as 12, who Iran implores to volunteer in defense of their homeland.

Separately, in a surprise report from a source not typically involved in conflict journalism, the Wall Street firm Catrini Research alleged that despite public reporting and trackable transponder data, roughly 15 ships per day have been secretly transiting the straight of Formuz.

According to that report, which relied on an analyst flown into a man to watch the straight firsthand, global shipping firms are spoofing ship locations or shutting down transponders to hide straight crossings, which are almost certainly carried out with the selective approval of the Iranian government after paying fees.

While the report is far from conclusive, it suggests a very different state of affairs in the Persian Gulf than what’s currently understood.

And finally, we’d be remiss not to mention a report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAA on Monday confirming recent munitions impacts near Iran’s Busher nuclear power plant.

There, IEA representatives confirmed one strike within 75 m of the facility’s perimeter, although the site has not been damaged.

Confirming the perceived threat to Basher, Russia’s state nuclear company, Rosatom, ordered the evacuation of 198 of its staff at the plant, where Russian personnel manage a high share of the plant’s operations.

Fallout modeling suggests that if Basher were to be struck directly, nuclear radiation could spread southward across the region, irradiating a fair portion of southern Iraq, as oh well as eastern Oman and a large part of the UAE.

Any such strike would also irradiate the waters of the Persian Gulf, which the region relies on as a vital source of drinking water through dalination plants.

Neither the United States nor Israel have committed to avoid attacks on Bashier, a site that supplies roughly 2% of Iran’s total energy.

on the eve of Trump’s promised attacks against all Iranian energy infrastructure.