Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 26.03.2026
Protests and public demonstrations have swelled around the world following the largest U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran in decades, data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows.
ACLED’s data covers demonstrations between February 28 and March 6 and records more than 990 worldwide, some for and most against the war and against the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign against Tehran.
In the US from the first day of the war there were demonstrations against the war. As news circulated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been murdered by US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square to voice opposition to US military involvement in the region.
The largest number of demonstrations were recorded in the Middle East, where of 325 total protests, 35 were classified as violent demonstrations.
At least 23 protesters were killed in clashes in Pakistan on March 1, including 10 in the port of Karachi where security guards at the U.S. consulate fired on demonstrators who breached the outer wall, 11 in the northern city of Skardu where the crowd torched a U.N. office, and two in Islamabad.
In Iraq, police fired tear gas and stun grenades to scatter hundreds of pro-Iranian protesters who had gathered outside the Green Zone diplomatic compound in the capital Baghdad, where the U.S. embassy is located.
The airports in NYC reflect the decline of American imperialism. There was a crash at LaGuardia Airport that killed two pilots on Sunday. There are long lines. There are armed immigration agents roaming the terminals.
Long lines are seen in many American airports because of a shortage of Transportation Security Administration screeners. They have been working without pay for more than a month during a partial government shutdown, add to it the Trump administration’s immigration (ICE) crackdown in Minneapolis and other cities. And travel season is a period many families head off for spring break.
More than 400 security officers have quit since the shutdown, according to Homeland Security. It can now take hours to get through security at large airports in Atlanta and New York, resulting in many missed flights.
Some tired security airport agents are saying that they wouldn’t come to work the next day. Passengers arguing about the line-cutters and officers intervene to stop a fight.
Long lines and hours of waiting aren’t the only irregularity for travelers. Trump deployed immigration agents to airports this week, claiming they would help manage the lines. Democratic lawmakers and the union representing the security officers called the deployment disruptive.
And then there are the ramifications of the war against Iran. Ticket prices are climbing as the Iran conflict brings shortages of jet fuel across Asia. Airlines have canceled tens of thousands of flights in the Middle East as governments have closed airports and restricted flight paths.
Iran publicly dismissed Trump’s proposal for a cease-fire. But Iran was considering meeting with U.S. negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan, over the next week
Diplomats in the Persian Gulf and South Asia said they expected Iran to bounce between defiance and some opening to eventual talks with the U.S
For Trump, negotiations help placate contradictions of American society as most Americans oppose this war and are affected by the rising price of oil. Trump’s statement that the end of the war is near reduced the price of oil. For Iran, that doesn’t trust Trump who changes his aims every day, officially denying discussions serves its agenda of pressuring Trump to end the war. While the US is negotiating an agreement to end the war, it has sent soldiers ready to occupy Kharg, an Island that transfers Iranian oil. Iran is building up defenses of Kharg Island to protect against potential US ground attack.
Meantime, the Zionist monster is striking as many key Iranian targets as it can, concerned the war could soon be brought to a halt. At the same time the Zionist terrorist pogroms of the Palestinians in the West Bank continue. Europe’s ruling classes risk angering voters if they join America’s war but they also could face domestic upheaval if they take no action to reopen shipping routes that Iran has blocked.
Yesterday the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia asked Trump to keep the war in Iran going. Thus, it is difficult to know whether this dirty imperialist’s war of rubbers and mass killer’s war is going to end in a few days, even though it seems so.