Iran Status Updates

I simply haven't been able to find any good single source on what's happening in the Iran war. unlike the first year or so of the Ukraine-Russia war, when Oryx provided confirmed equipment losses, and the Institute for the Study of War provided overall updates. Now, legacy media is remarkably incurious, probably due to the refusal of most outlets to sign rhe October 2025 Pentagon media agreement. On the other hand, nobody in alt media seems up to the job of adding two plus two in any insightfiul way.

Instead, we get stories like US Intel: Iran Govt Not at Risk of Collapse:

U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon after nearly two weeks of relentless U.S. and Israeli bombardment, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

A "multitude" of intelligence reports provide "consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger" of collapse and "retains control of the Iranian public," said one of the sources, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence findings.

But how do we reconcile that report with this?

Trump appeared in an interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade on Friday [today], where he appeared to confirm that Khamenei is still alive but injured.

"I think he's damaged, but I think he's probably alive in some form," Trump said.

Other sources provide possible details:

Opposition groups in the diaspora have claimed that Khamenei is in a coma and is being treated in great secrecy in hospital, ignorant of both his elevation to the post of supreme leader and the devastating damage suffered by his family.

The failure of the government communications machine to publish a single photograph, video or even text from Mojtaba three days after his elevation led to the inevitable speculation that the assembly of experts, wittingly or unwittingly, had elected a corpse or cardboard cut-out to run the country.

How can this not suggest some level of potential instability in the country? And what about this?

WILD: The predicted “future” came within 24 hours. This is Israeli Air Force footage of drones and jets blowing up Basij checkpoints all around Tehran today, based on tips called in by Iranian citizens. A revolution with air support against a regime with no air defence. https://t.co/SZNn3mseMU pic.twitter.com/JRvRNUWZQP

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) March 13, 2026

Or this?

The regime's top brass seems to have decamped to the distant city of Mashhad, as far away from the US bases and carriers—and from Israel—as you can get without actually fleeing to Afghanistan. They have abandoned the capital. https://t.co/xkXk2KHe23 pic.twitter.com/tcIExBPCGs

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) March 11, 2026

And another development mirrors what I learned during my tech career: a functioning society depends on bank data centers. Cash is available only as long as the ATMs work. If you can't process credit cards, you don't do business, and society collapses. So what did the Americans and Israelis do?

An Iranian bank data center in Tehran has reportedly been struck by a missile by US-Israeli forces.

The Jerusalem Post and London-based outlet Iran International report that a Sepah Bank facility was struck by a missile early Wednesday (March 11).

The facility, on Haghani Street, was reportedly a digital security center for the bank that housed its data infrastructure.

. . . The strike was confirmed by the Iranian armed forces, though not whether it was a data center. Bank Melli and Bank Sepah are both reportedly suffering outages, but claimed this was preventative.

A spokesperson from the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters told state media that an administrative building linked to ⁠Bank Sepah on Haghani Street was struck, calling the attack “illegitimate and unconventional.”

Owned by the Iranian government, Bank Sepah is reportedly the organization responsible for processing salary payments for Iran's military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

US banks are required to maintain backup facilities for their data centers; otherwise, recovering account and transaction records would be nearly impossible if data storage devices at a site are destroyed. In fact, this is a modern doomsday scenario that nobody mentions, but US and Israeli planners appear to be keenly aware of it:

This morning, hundreds of thousands of Iranians woke up to frozen bank accounts. Customers of Bank Sepah and Bank Melli got an SMS saying their accounts were locked, @NarimanGharib posted on X. The banks' websites and service channels are blocked, and it's not possible to log… pic.twitter.com/6d4TB3cUIu

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) March 10, 2026

Social media speculation, as we see here, is that the regime has "frozen" funds, but a much simpler explanation is that the networks are down because the bank's computers are under rubble. But let's check in with the conventional wisdom. On Monday, I mentioned Prof Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, and his essay in Foreign Affairs. Yesterday, he provided an update via Substack:

The war began with a coordinated U.S.–Israeli strike on Iranian leadership and military targets. The opening campaign destroyed facilities and killed senior officials. In purely military terms, the operation appeared successful.

But the political objective—rapid regime collapse or capitulation—did not occur. The Iranian state remained intact, and the government quickly reasserted control.

I think this misstates the situation on the ground, which has been obscured by the fog of war. Yes, the opening campaign destroyed facilities and killed senior officials, but we still don't fully know the extent of the damage. The mullahs were eager to establish the impression of quickly reasserting control, but as best we can tell now, this involved replacing the Supreme Leader with a comatose, or at least severely disabled, successor.

The prewar contingency plan was to devolve decisionmaking to 31 separate Revolutionary Guard districts, who would continue to fight under independent commands. It appears that with a seriously compromised Supreme Leader, this will have to continue, meaning there is no longer a coherent national strategy. The prewar political structure of the state by definition no longer exists. Pape contines,

When early success fails to produce the expected political result, leaders often double down. Because the stronger side possesses overwhelming military power, decision-makers assume they hold escalation dominance -— the ability to climb the escalation ladder faster and higher than the opponent.

I asked my AI oracle to provide a definition of "escalation" in a military context. It replied,

In military and strategic contexts, escalation is defined as an increase in the intensity or scope of a conflict. It involves a shift from a lower level of violence or limited geographic area to a more severe or expansive state of war.

As far as I can see, the US and Israel haven't escalated the scope or violence level of the conflict, still not quite two weeks old. It began with all-out aerial bombing, missile, and drone attacks using conventional explosives against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It continues with all-out aerial bombing, missile, and drone attacks using conventional explosives against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The attacks continue to be carefully targeted to minimize civilian casualties. No nukes, no carpet bombing, no additional countries, no escalation.

The Mullahs had an intial strategy of "horizontal escalation" by the decentralized Revolutionary Guard districts, who would indiscriminately attack other Gulf states, including civilian populations. This stragegy has been not just ineffective, but counterproductive, driving those states into the US-Israel camp. But this wasn't really "escalation", it was a planned de novo first-stage retaliation, which hasn't worked.

Prof Pape's assumption in modeling the war begins with a historical error:

The fourth pattern concerns a central belief behind the strategy itself: the expectation that airpower alone can collapse regimes.

This idea has been tested repeatedly in modern war. In more than a century of airpower, it has never succeeded by itself.

I asked my AI oracle, "To what extent has collapsing the enemy economy been important in winning 20th century wars?" Citing World War II, it answered,

In the 20th century, economic collapse wasn't just a side effect of war—it was often the decisive factor that ended the fighting. While battles won territory, economic strangulation broke the enemy's ability to produce weapons, feed soldiers, and maintain domestic morale.

[World War II} was the century’s clearest example of "Industrial War." The Allies explicitly targeted the enemy’s economic vitals.

Strategic Bombing: The U.S. and UK focused on oil refineries, ball-bearing factories, and rail networks. By 1945, the Luftwaffe was grounded not for a lack of planes, but for a lack of fuel.

Submarine Warfare: In the Pacific, U.S. submarines sank the Japanese merchant fleet, starving the island nation of iron, rubber, and oil.

The Result: Japan’s economy had functionally collapsed months before the atomic bombs were dropped; they had the will to fight but no longer had the physical means to sustain a modern military.

What the US and Israel are waging is an updated version of World War II-style "Industrial War". Using the European version in particular, defeating Germany required Allied air superiority, which took several years to accomplish, because the two sides were technologically about equal. But by the end of the war, the German joke was, "If you see a silver plane, it's American. If you see a black plane, it's British. If you can't see the plane at all, it's German."

On the other hand, Germany wasn't able to prevail in its aerial war against the UK or the Soviet Union because, unlike the US in particular, it hadn't developed heavy bombers that could effectively carry out a full-scale aerial campaign.

In the case of Iran, air superiority was accomplished within hours, allowing the process of economic strangulation via aerial bombing to take place over succeeding weeks. This was a plan that was intended to be full-scale from the start, not an "escalation", and it was intended from the start to take several weeks. Every indication is that it's having the planned effect of strangling the Iranian economy, and strangling it good.

I think Prof Pate is simply unaware of what destroying a bank data center will do to disrupt an economy, especially if the bank either has no effective disaster recovery plan or can't activate it. If the soldiers or the Revolutionary Guard can't get paid, this thing is over. Closing the Strait of Hormuz will simply magnify the same effect. Prof Pate is reading the wrong history, as far as I can see.

Epstein Updates, US And UK

In the US, the most recent Epstein fallout is David Copperfield announces last Vegas show, weeks after Epstein ties revealed

David Copperfield has announced that he is performing his last show at MGM Grand in Las Vegas next month, an announcement that comes weeks after documents released in the Epstein files revealed new details about how the FBI viewed the illusionist’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.

The announcement that the 69-year-old illusionist’s last show would be held on 30 April appears to have been made suddenly. In a statement praising and thanking Copperfield for his 25-year stint at MGM, the company said in a statement that it would automatically refund tickets for shows that were booked after that date.

while this dog still isn't barking:

House Oversight Chairman James Comer said Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein's long-time accountant Richard Kahn testified to his panel that he never saw a transaction between Epstein and President Donald Trump.

. . . “Mr. Kahn testified under oath that — because the Democrats asked this question — that he had never seen any type of transaction to Trump or anyone in his family,” Comer told reporters. “That makes the fifth witness now that’s testified under oath that they’ve never seen any involvement by Donald Trump or the family.”

So in the US, the revelations from the Epstein files are tapering off to hit only a few fading C-list celebrities, with confirmation after confirmation that Trump not only wasn't involved, but he reported Epstein to law enforcement.

In the UK, it's a very different matter: The Mandelson files lay bare the depths of Starmer’s poor judgment.

No one forced Keir Starmer to appoint Peter (formerly Lord) Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the United States. Indeed, to many, it was a very odd choice indeed, while some of us welcomed it. There were other names in the frame, there were arguments put forward in favour of a “service” appointment (a career diplomat) as opposed to a political appointment.

Starmer could have gone with the former; he went with the latter. His choice. There was apparently another political appointee who was appointable, according to government papers just released. Starmer went with Mandelson; his choice.

Officials warned him about the potential of reputational damage to the Government (and, of course, the Prime Minister himself). Mandelson was already known as a resigner, as we saw in 1998 and 2001 when he left Blair’s cabinet.

. . . And all of this was on top of the extremely worrying association that Mandelson had with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as with the dead financier’s close friend, Ghislaine Maxwell (currently serving 20 years on child trafficking offences). Starmer had also been told about both of these relationships. But he decided that none of the above was reason enough to reject Mandelson for the top diplomatic job Britain has to offer. His choice. No one else’s.

Speculation over Starmer's ability to continue as Prime Minister began a full month ago, and the newest revelations don't seem to have changed the odds in any significant way. As of February 10,

The release of further Epstein files last week triggered a series of events that left U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer fighting for his political life, despite the fact that he never knew the late financier and sex offender.

Starmer is under pressure over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador, despite knowledge of Mandelson’s connections to Epstein. The latest document release by the U.S. Department of Justice revealed more messages between Mandelson and Epstein, including after Epstein had pleaded guilty in Florida to a state charge of felony solicitation of prostitution, a case that involved an underage girl.

Starmer, who is facing calls to step down, has apologized to the victims of Epstein for believing Mandelson’s “lies.”

UK commentators have been circumspect about how the latest revelations will affect Starmer going forward:

We will have to wait for further releases to get a better understanding of what the PM was told and why he took the decisions he did.

Only a small proportion of the documents - expected to run into the tens of thousands - was published on Wednesday, but Darren Jones said the government hope to publish the remainder "soon".

It will give more momentum to a scandal that is hurting Sir Keir with ministers and MPs braced for the dropping of thousands more documents that - if they pass national security clearance - will detail messages between Lord Mandelson and senior government figures for six months before his appointment, and during his time as ambassador.

. . . Two key figures who supported the appointment of Lord Mandelson - Mr McSweeney and the PM's former director of communications, Matthew Doyle - have left government.

But their former boss, who has been battling to survive, is now having to deal with the ongoing consequences of an appointment he clearly deeply regrets.

All of it, as one senior MP told me on Wednesday night, adds to the "general despondency" around this administration.

The contrast between Epstein's potential impact on the UK government and Trump's administration is stark. Starmer has already lost two key people, while speculation continues that between the Epstein-Mandelson revelations and his humiliation at Trump's hands over Iran, his time remaining may be short. Meanwhile, Kristi Noem's departure as Homeland Security secretary had nothing to do with Epstein, and so far, no member of Trump's administration has been directly affected by any Epstein ties.

Dan Bongino left as FBI Deputy Director, but this appears to have been because he was a general hothead and loose cannon, only in part because he was critical of Attorney General Bondi's handling of the Epstein files. Bondi herself may everntually be forced out, but this will be over general questions of competence, including poor communications over the slow release of the Epstein files, but not any direct Epstein connection. And the bottom line is that the Epstein files are fully out, while the Mandelson files in the UK are not.

The Times, though, thinks Starmer will last at least until May:

Conventional Wisdom: The Strait of Hormuz

In Monday's post, I noted that I wasn't going to cover the conventional wisdom on the Strait of Hormuz, because it was too big a subject, and the situation was fluid. But yesterday, I ran across a Substack essay that I think provides a pretty good snapshot of the thinking over the past weekend:

At midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 5 March 2026, seven of the twelve International Group Protection and Indemnity clubs that collectively insure roughly 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage executed identical cancellation notices for war-risk coverage across the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and Iranian territorial waters.

. . . In that instant, seven letters accomplished what the entire Iranian navy could not.

. . . By every traditional metric of military dominance, the campaign is succeeding.

Yet the Strait remains commercially paralysed.

. . . [T]he 31 autonomous IRGC provincial commands that replaced centralised authority after the decapitation strikes create a counterparty problem that insurers cannot price and diplomats cannot negotiate.

. . . Global seaborne trade does not run on naval protection. It runs on a layered stack of private financial guarantees. . . . This stack possesses a critical structural vulnerability: the retrocession and ILS market systematically excludes war risk. The war-risk market therefore operates under a hard capital ceiling of approximately $1 billion in annual premiums and a handful of treaty reinsurers whose aggregate capacity cannot absorb a single major total-loss event.

. . . The problem was not merely that the probability of loss was elevated. The problem was that the tail was unlimited. A single [large tanker] total loss could easily exceed $150 million for the hull, $100 million for the cargo, and virtually infinite liability for environmental pollution. Against a premium pool that writes $1 billion annually, a single major claim would consume the entire global war-risk market’s revenue.

. . . Each additional day of closure feeds new data into insurer models, raising the actuarial cost of reopening and extending the closure in a reflexive, self-reinforcing loop. The down-barrier to closure was crossed in hours. The up-barrier to reopening, measured in the time required for sustained safe conditions, actuarial recalibration, and reinsurance capital replenishment, operates on a timescale of months to years.

. . . The market is not pricing a war. It is not pricing a chokepoint closure. It is not pricing a nuclear crisis. It is pricing a legacy framework in which these events are temporary, resolvable, and mean-reverting. The mechanism analysis establishes they are structural, self-reinforcing, and regime-changing.

This analysis is thought-provoking, if not entirely coherent. What he seems to be saying is that if the Hormuz blockade persists for any reason -- he's most intrigued by the refusal of insurers to contemplate the risk of losing even a single tanker, which is complicated by the inability of all parties to negotiate reliably with 31 separate Revolutionary Guard district entities to guarantee safe passage -- there's the potential for a hyperinflationary doomsday spiral.

So far, it appears that facts on the ground, or on the water, are suggesting this analysis is unnecessarily hysterical (I think the level of jargon conceals its basic huysteria, too). First, shipping is moving through the strait, at however reduced a level. Second, ships are currently being attacked, but the damage isn't catastrophic:

Three vessels have been hit by unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security agencies and sources said Wednesday, as one of the strikes led to a fire onboard a ship and forced most of its crew to evacuate it.

The Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree was targeted and damaged approximately 11 nautical miles north of Oman, two maritime security sources said.

. . . Earlier, the Japan-flagged container ship One Majesty had sustained minor damage from an unknown projectile 25 nautical miles northwest of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, two maritime security sources said.

Its crew members are safe and the vessel is sailing towards a safe anchorage, the sources added.

A third vessel, a bulk carrier, was also hit by an unknown projectile approximately 50 miles northwest of Dubai, maritime security firms said.

The projectile had damaged the hull of the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth, maritime risk management company Vanguard said, adding that the vessel's crew were safe.

In other words, the reality of Iran's retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz will be equivalent to its retaliation against Israel and the Gulf states, a diminishing level of missile and drone strikes, most of which are inaccurate or intercepted. On one hnad, too many players rely on the oil that comes through the strait, especially China. On the other, the market appears to be pricing in Trump's assurances. At about 1:15 in the video embe3dded at the top of this post, Mark Halperin says,

The president did a quick interview with a correspondent from CBS News, and what happened? Before that, everybody was all up in arms about the price of gas going up and the markets going down. And the president just said a few things to CBS News, and what happened after the president spoke? . . . The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 900 points before the president said what he said, which was basically this is going to be a quick war, everything's gone so well. After he spoke, [the Dow] went from 900 down to net up 240 points for the day.

The same applies to oil prices:

US West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Futures with April 2026 Expiry, traded at $89.89 per barrel, down by 5.2%. This oil benchmark touched an intraday low of 84.45 and recorded an overall decline of 29.3% from $119.43 per barrel level that was touched on March 9th. Yesterday, US WTI plunged nearly 18%.

Brent Crude Oil Price: Brent crude has nosedived by nearly 26.2% and touched an intraday low of $88.10 per barrel. This is compared to $119.50 per barrel mark it hit on March 9. Yesterday, the price dropped nearly 9%.

The first link above is worried that the market "is pricing a legacy framework in which these events are temporary, resolvable, and mean-reverting." Indeed, that's what it seems to be doing, and it's trusting Trump on top of it. My guess is that it's probably right.

By the way, I hope things turn out OK for Mark Halperin. He works for Megyn Kelly in his 2WAY podcasts, and he's becoming increasingly pro-Trump, as the video embedded above suggests. Meanwhile, Megyn "Me Again" Kelly is reverting to her never-Trump roots.

Flashback to big shot "conservative" Megyn Kelly celebrating "trans kids."@megynkelly is for sale to the highest bidder. She has ZERO integrity. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/pwgqUEtXy2

— Right Wing Cigar King (@AlanCigarKing) March 3, 2026

I sure hope Mark Halperin comes through this in good shape, he's worked extremely hard to restore his career.

Trying In Vain To Save The "Special Relationship"

Via the UK Express:

A verbally bruised and battered Sir Keir Starmer is reported to have tried to cool tensions with President Donald Trump who is furious over Britain's reaction to the Iran war by trying to discuss the upcoming US visit of King Charles. The US leader has been outspoken in his criticism of the PM after Downing Street initially refused to allow American bombers to use RAF bases for the attacks on Iran which began on February 28.

. . . The Sun reports the phone call was "not a rosy affair" but that Sir Keir tried to use the Royal Family as a way of placating his outspoken American counterpart.

According to The Sun, the exchange between the two men was "testy" but Sir Keir mentioned King Charles and Queen Camillia visiting the United States at the end of April as a way of lightening the mood.

It sounds as if Starmer, like a good many others, still thinks Trump is basically a four-year-old, and he can be distracted by offering a lollipop -- or maybe by threatening to take the lollipop away:

Downing Street today [March 9] failed to confirm the King's state visit to America will go ahead next month following calls for it to be cancelled amid the Iran crisis.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are expected to fly to Washington DC at the end of April for a three-day visit to coincide with America's 250th anniversary celebrations.

But there is said to have been a last-minute 'wobble' about signing off the plans in the wake of Donald Trump's recent repeated attacks on Sir Keir Starmer and Britain.

. . . Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is among those demanding that Sir Keir advise the King that his proposed state visit be called off.

He said a 'huge diplomatic coup' should not be given to someone 'who repeatedly insults and damages our country'.

This came following Trump's weekend swipe at Starmer and the UK generally:

President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying he was joining the war in Iran after the U.S. has "already won."

"The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!"

It's significabt that Shlomo Zwickler in The Times of Israel says, "That boy who dared say ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes?’ – His Name is Donald Trump":

Apparently, it takes the unconventional persona of a Donald Trump to be able to state the obvious, the logical and the historical truth. That the intelligentsia is bellyaching about his mislabeled audacity is amazing nonsense and utter hypocrisy.

A key reality that Trump has been pointing out for the past several weeks is that Israel has replaced the UK as the US's key strategic partner.

It wasn’t long ago that Sir Keir Starmer was being hailed on the international stage for his skill as a “Trump whisperer”.

The prime minister was the envy of his international allies for his ability to, against the odds, develop a strong relationship with the famously volatile US president.

But the interviews that the US president has given in the last 48 hours to the Daily Telegraph and The Sun, in which he criticised Sir Keir’s refusal to allow attacks on Iran to be launched from RAF bases, and the UK’s decision not to join the raids, surely mark the end of the relationship.

The Times suggests that if King Charles and Queen Camilla can't get the job done -- that is, distracting Trump with a lollipop -- maybe the Prince and Princess of Wales can pull it off:

When President Trump sat down to his unprecedented second state banquet in St George’s Hall, Windsor, it was a made-for-TV moment that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

The US president leant towards the Princess of Wales and beamed at her, as if looking at a favourite child on their graduation day.

Kate, dressed in a custom couture Phillipa Lepley gown and a gold lace coat, Trump’s most-loved colour, beamed back.

She was, Trump said in his speech, “so radiant and so healthy and so beautiful”.

Trump said that the bond between the US and UK “inspired Sir Winston Churchill … to coin the phrase special relationship”.

The problem is that Trump is the most powerful man in the world. If the US armed forces chose to attack Britain, they'd likely have results not much different from Venezuela. He'd keep the Royals in place like Delcy Rodriguez becaise it suited his purpose, not because he was in awe of them or even liked them. But the reality is he doesn't need them, and he doesn't need the UK.

For years, warnings about the declining strength of the Royal Navy have been largely ignored. The crisis in the Middle East has placed the size and readiness of the RN in the spotlight, with various politicians and sections of the mainstream media describing Britain’s naval position as “weak”, “embarrassing” and “a disgrace”.

. . . The Navy is not just hollowed out, but is now actually incapable of performing many of the routine tasks it was managing until quite recently. This breakdown is not the result of losses in combat or even the pressure of high-tempo operations, but has been caused by long-term under-resourcing and mismanagement.

. . . It is also worth recognising that the current Middle East crisis, serious as it is, does not represent an existential threat to the UK. It may be of little comfort to service personnel or British citizens currently exposed to danger in the Eastern Mediterranean or the Middle East, but this conflict offers a warning to address weaknesses before it’s too late. This is infinitely preferable to discovering how vulnerable we have become during a confrontation with Russia that could endanger the whole nation far more directly.

But the writer here is maintaining another polite fiction, that this is all something new that might be reversed over the next decade or so. I asked the oracle, "Was Winston Churchill forced after 1943 to recognize that the Americans were in complete control?" It answered,

Yes, after 1943, Winston Churchill was effectively forced to acknowledge that the United States had become the dominant partner in the Allied alliance. While he had spent years "wooing, cajoling, and flattering" American leadership to secure their resources, the shift in power became undeniable during the major conferences of that year.

. . . By the Quebec Conference in August 1943, it was clear that the upcoming invasion of France would be predominantly American in terms of troops and material. Consequently, Churchill was forced to concede that the Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord should be an American -- a role he had previously hoped would go to a British officer.

. . . During the Tehran Conference (November–December 1943), President Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin often aligned against Churchill’s preferred "Mediterranean strategy". Churchill realized that the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both possessing significantly more troops, would now dictate the course of the war.

. . . By late 1943, Churchill's vision for a postwar "Supreme World Council" already explicitly recognized the necessity of U.S. leadership and the importance of maintaining a "special relationship" to ensure future security.

But all Trump is really doing is forcing the UK to recognize that the "special relationship" has been a dead letter for decades. The last UK Prime Minister who could woo, cajole, and flatter the US into maintaining it was Margaret Thatcher. But compare the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s to Israel now.

Conventional Wisdom

I referred to the conventional wisdom on the Iran war in yesterday's post. Later in the day, Iran announced that after several days' delay, Mojtaba Khamenei had been designated Supreme Leader, succeeding his father, something that had been generally expected. In yesterday's post, I quoted AI:

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

We'll have to see how this shakes out, but the news of a new Supreme Leader isn't entirely good for the other side:

Mojtaba Khamenei has risen to the appointment of Iran Supreme Leader, as the country’s national television news service confirmed Monday, however it has since emerged the man following his father into the post has been wounded in an unspecified incident at a time and place unknown.

AP reports television news anchors referred to the mid-level Shiite cleric as “janbaz,” or wounded by the enemy, in the “Ramadan war,” which is how media in Iranian regime refers to the current conflict.

. . . The younger Khamenei has yet to be seen since the conflict began. Indeed he has barely been seen in his entire life.

Mojtaba Khamenei has never held government office, nor given public speeches or interviews, and only a limited number of photos and videos of him have ever been published.

It sounds like if he's stayed in the background all his life, and if he now has medical difficulties, he'll continue out of the public eye, especially given the Israeli promise to take him out. In any case, he appears to be the puppet of the Revolutionary Guards, who applied heavy pressure for his designation.

I quoted another piece of conventional wisdom below that one:

Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

But I asked the oracle, "Was aerial bombing a major factor in the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945?" It answered,

Yes, aerial bombing was a major factor in the defeat of both Germany and Japan, though its impact varied by theater and remains a subject of historical debate regarding its decisiveness compared to ground and naval forces.

. . . While German industrial production actually increased through 1944, the bombing eventually paralyzed the economy by targeting critical "bottlenecks" like oil refineries and transportation networks.

. . . The air campaign against Japan was more concentrated and, for many historians, more directly linked to the final surrender.

. . . Low-altitude firebombing, such as the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo, destroyed roughly 40% of Japan's urban areas and cut industrial output in half.

. . . The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that Japan would likely have surrendered by the end of 1945 even without the atomic bombs or a Soviet declaration of war.

On the other hand, the bombing of North Viet Nam was subject to intermittent pauses, which gave them opportunities to regroup and rebuild, severely limiting its effectiveness. But as long as we're talking about Robert Pape, he has a new piece in Foreign Affairs, Why Escalation Favors Iran:

[W]ithin hours, any hope that the precise decapitation strikes would limit the scope of the war was dashed. Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones not only at Israel but also across the Gulf. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Missiles slammed into interceptors over Doha and Abu Dhabi. At Al Udeid Air Base, in Qatar—the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command—personnel took shelter as interceptors streaked overhead.

. . . Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration. Such a strategy allows a weaker combatant to alter the calculus of a more powerful foe.

But other analysts like Tom Nash, whom I cited Saturday, claim the indiscriminate retaliation against non-combatant states across the region had the effect of driving those states toward Israel and the US, especially as some players were looking for an excuse to justify just this move. Here's a remarkable op-ed in Al-Jazeera:

The Gulf states have spent years trying to broker peace between Iran and the West: Qatar brokered nuclear talks, Oman provided back-channel diplomacy, and Saudi Arabia maintained direct dialogue with Iran through 2024 and into 2025. Iran attacked them anyway. The idea that the Gulf states have a responsibility, a moral one, to protect Iran from the consequences of its actions because of good neighbourliness is now grotesque in context. Iran did not return good neighbourliness. Iran returned ballistic missiles.

. . . Targeting the territory of other sovereign Arab states in response to the policy decisions of the United States is neither necessary, since diplomatic and United Nations avenues are still available, nor proportional, since it imposes military consequences on states that are not a party to any conflict with Iran.

. . . The record of Iran’s compliance with IAEA regulations, including the enrichment of uranium to a purity level of 60 percent or more in 2023–2024, interference with inspections, the removal of monitoring cameras, and the overall violation of the non-proliferation regime, has undermined the credibility of the state significantly. A state that is itself a violator of the legal regime cannot claim the role of a law-abiding state seeking protection under the norms of the legal regime.

As I noted yesterday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian "issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication". However, the foreign ministry continues to insist that the attacks against non-combatant countries are legitimate acts of self-defense:

But this goes against the supposed advantages of Iran's "mosaic defense", another part of the conventional wisdom:

In anticipation of exactly the sort of missile attack that targets senior members of the Islamic Republic, plans had been put in place that creates a decentralized control of the military, according to military analysts.

If the leadership is killed, then cells of soldiers take direct control of the military materiel under their control and continue fighting without the need for orders coming down from a central command that no longer exists, Gulf News reported on March 2.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that Tehran can withstand sustained US-Israeli military pressure, able to defend the regime despite a successful “decapitation” hit. . . . He added that the bombings have "no impact" on Iran's ability to conduct war as its capacity to fight does not hinge on a single command centre, city, or leader. Decapitation doesn’t work if there is no one to decapitate.

But whether or not President Pezeshkian wants Iranian forces to stop attacking non-combatant Gulf states, the "mosaic strategy" puts the matter outside his control. This can hardly be to the country's overall advantage; it has no way to manage policy as conditions change; it's suicide or nothing.

But this question is increasingly moot: in another independent analysis of the war's progress, datareublican says,

As of Day 6, Adm. Brad Cooper (CENTCOM) confirmed Iranian missile attacks declined roughly 90 percent since strikes began [ISW, March 5, 2026]. Per joint intelligence assessment (IDF/CENTCOM briefing), approximately 75% of all launchers destroyed; 100–200 remain. The IRGC Aerospace Force — Iran’s primary instrument of long-range conventional power projection — has been catastrophically degraded in nine days. “Hundreds” of warheads destroyed (conventional missile warheads — Iran has no deployed nuclear warheads). Defense industrial base under systematic attack. This is not a setback. This is the functional end of Iran’s power projection capability.

There are other aspects of conventional wisdom that I won't cover here for the time being, such as the effect of closing the Strait of Hormuz on energy prices and the US economy. And I'm not yet claiming the conventional wisdom is wrong, just that there are reasons for skepticism that it's automatically right. But mainly, I just want to get it spelled out so we can check it later on.

Is Iran In A Constitutional Crisis?

One of the points Tom Nash made in the presentation I embedded in yesterday's post was that the Supreme Leader is essential to maintaining a cohesive regime. Israel took him out on February 28, and so far, he hasn't been replaced.

Iran is reportedly delaying naming a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader killed over the weekend in U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, for security concerns as Israel has asserted that it will target whoever is instated, while President Donald Trump has doubled down on wanting to influence the selection.

The New York Times reported, citing two unnamed Iranian officials, that while Khamenei’s second-eldest son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as the strongest contender to take Tehran’s top job, no one has been named out of fear that they will be targeted.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on social media on Wednesday that any leader appointed by Iran to succeed Ali Khamenei would be “an unequivocal target for elimination,” adding that “it does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides.”

This story suggests that another reason Mojtaba Khamenei hasn't been designated is that he's somehow indisposed or unavailable:

Mojtaba Khamenei — the expected next supreme leader — was reportedly wounded in an Israeli air strike.

. . . It’s not clear if Mojtaba, 56, was with his father in the Ayatollah’s compound that was decimated by airstrikes, or if he was targeted in a separate attack on the regime.

The details and extent of his injuries are also not clear.

He has likely gone into hiding as both the US and Israel continue to rain missiles on the Islamic Republic.

The practical result is that the Iranian regime is no longer speaking with one voice:

ran’s Assembly of Experts is set to hold an emergency session on Thursday to formally announce Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the late Supreme Leader, as the next leader, despite opposition from some members who warn against “hereditary leadership,” Iran International has learned.

But this is the meeting that has apparently been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The link continues,

Two sources from the offices of Assembly of Experts representatives told Iran International that at least eight members will not attend the emergency session on Thursday in protest at what they described as “heavy pressure” from the Revolutionary Guards to impose Mojtaba Khamenei.

. . . Sources told Iran International that a group of opponents contacted the Assembly’s chairman and members of its leadership board on Wednesday, warning that declaring Mojtaba Khamenei leader could raise public concerns about the leadership becoming hereditary and the Islamic Republic resembling a monarchy.

. . . Another member argued that Mojtaba Khamenei “does not have an established, public clerical and jurisprudential standing,” and for that reason his selection as the state's Supreme Jurist (Vali-ye Faqih) would lack religious legitimacy, the sources added.

. . . Sources said the Guards argue that given the country’s “special conditions” and ongoing security situation, the new leader must be announced as quickly as possible and that any delay could worsen instability and deepen a decision-making vacuum at the top of the system.

The leadership rift deepened within the next few days:

Overnight last night [March 6], Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a statement apologizing for attacks against neighboring countries and claiming that some attacks were carried out independently by regional commanders without directive due to loss of communication.

President Pezeshkian further stating the Temporary Leadership Council in Iran had ordered a halt to attacks on other countries unless their territory is used to attack Iran.

Within hours the remaining elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) rebuked the statement by President Pezeshkian saying the IRGC would continue attacking any/all gulf states as needed. This was followed by the Iranian clergy saying their president was “weak, unprofessional and totally unacceptable.”

Obviously the political, military and religious elements within Iran are not on the same page.

So notwitwtanding the state of Mojtaba Khamenei's health, another issue appears to be that he's the candidate of the Revolutionary Guards, who nevertheless appear not to be in a position to name him formally as Supreme Leader. But even if he were to be named -- which so far seems under serious question -- he would be eliminated within a short time after his naming.

We can safely surmise that Iranian communications and codes have been thoroughly compromisesd, and any communications between any Supreme Leader and any other government functions would simply serve to pinpoint his location. From the links above, assuming Mojtaba is in good health, he nbevertheless can't commuicate for fear of prompting an Israeli bunkerbuster attack. The practical result is that, despite efforts to reconstitute a government, the Iranian command structure continues to be paralyzed.

This all flies in the face of conventional wisdom. I asked the oracle, "Have there been predictions that Iran's political alignment would remain cohesive despite US and Israeli attacks?" It answered,

Experts and intelligence assessments as of March 2026 indicate that Iran’s political alignment and regime structure are likely to endure despite significant U.S. and Israeli military strikes. While these attacks have decapitated top leadership—including the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on March 2—the state's foundational institutions were specifically designed to survive such losses.

. . . Analysts from the Brookings Institution suggest that deeply embedded networks like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Assembly of Experts provide a power structure that remains advantaged over any internal challengers.

. . . Academic experts, such as Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, warn that air campaigns historically fail to unseat regimes or change their fundamental political alignment, often leading instead to prolonged escalation.

. . . According to a U.S. National Intelligence Council report, the regime is expected to follow established constitutional protocols to name a successor, with veteran politician Ali Larijani already taking a leading role in a functional interim government.

So there we are. All the right people are telling us that the Iranian regime will just keep on keepin' on. You know what? My money is still on Trump.

Unconditional Surrender

Yesterday, Trump iisued a demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" in the current conflict. He later clarified it to mean "Unconditional surrender could be that [the Iranians] announce it. But it could also be when they can't fight any longer because they don't have anyone or anything to fight with."

How realistic is this goal? There's been very little overall analysis of the war's progress, either in legacy or alt media. The YouTube video embedded above has what I think is the most complete view both of the military action itself and the changing world environment that it's bringing about. Tom Nash of the Tom Nash report, as best I've been able to track down, is originally from Russia but on his YouTube channel comments primarily on Iran. He appears to be unapologetically pro-Israel.

The major points in his discussion:

• The war will likely last only a few more weeks
• Iran committed a major error by attacking the Gulf states indiscriminately once the war began
• This gave Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to appear more neutral, an excuse to come closer to Israel
• The prior US strategy to avoid direct confrontation with Iran has been proven wrong
• Inaction is no longer the safer option
• The war has alrady repositioned the global chess board, and regime change in Iran is irrelevant
• Partnership with Israel is a force multiplier in the region
• Partnership with Iran is a dead letter
• A direct US military alliance with Israel, including close tactical coordination, was previously unforeseeable
• Israel has completely replaced the UK as the main US strategic partner
• The elimination of Khamenei has undermined the "supreme leader" paradigm
• Iran is delaying his replacement from fear that anyone who is named will also be eliminated
• As a result, the regime is de facto already no longer viable
• Israel's value as a military, intelligence, and geopolitical partner has significantly increased at relatively low immediate cost.

I think the sudden rise in Israel's strategic standing, especially vis-a-vis the UK, has taken many US conservatives by surprise and is an explanation for the increased anti-Semitism in the US right. But I've been coming to the view that the UK was overrated as a world power throughout the 20th century, and 25 years into the 21st, it's a joke.

The Royal Navy has a long and colorful history, and it has saved Britain against its enemies more than once. Sadly, however, Britain’s navy continues to shrink. At the end of 2024, the force was down to roughly 32,000 personnel and 62 commissioned ships.

Except that by the 1916 Battle of Jutland, the upstart German High Seas Fleet fought it to a draw, prompting Admiral Beatty's famous quote, “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”. The Grand Fleet remained in port for the rest of the war for fear another admiral could, as Winston Churchill put it, "lose the war in an afternoon". By 1941, with the loss of Force Z to the Japanese near Malaya, this was precisely what happened. The link continues,

By the time of the Falkland Islands War, it was clear the Royal Navy’s focus on becoming an anti-submarine force had left it without the capacity to engage in expeditionary warfare.

The number of major ships in the force declined again, by 74%, after the Falkland Islands campaign.

. . . What is clearly needed is a plus-up in UK defense spending to supply the Royal Navy with what it needs to be a credible force. But that is a conversation no recent government has been willing to have with the electorate.

Trump's function as truthteller, perhaps reinforced by the passing of Queen Elizabeth, has exposed that the UK has long been little more than a polite fiction. On the other hand, the basic community of interest between the US and Israel has gone largely unrecognized, a point David Gelernter was making a generation ago:

Americanism, or the religious idea called “America,” seems like a secular idea. It can and has been professed by devout atheists. Its creed, a central element of Americanism, is completely secular in tone–of course there’s no canonical version, but most people would agree that it calls for liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind–or something on those lines.

I’ll argue that despite all this, Americanism is profoundly Christian in its inspiration and worldview.

It is in fact profoundly Puritan.

It is in fact profoundly Biblical.

It in fact emerged not just from the Bible, but especially from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

It’s no accident that a seventeenth century American Puritan should have written, regarding his fellow-Puritans: “We are the children of Abraham; and therefore we are under Abraham’s covenant.”

. . . The American religion has two parts–not only the Creed, but a doctrine about America’s duty and her special standing and responsibilities in the world–a doctrine I’ll call American Zionism.

. . . American Zionism is based on another widely recognized aspect of Americanism. In earlier centuries, the analogy between America and Ancient Israel, or the European settlements in colonial America and Ancient Israel, was heard constantly. It was derived from the corresponding analogy between England or Britain and Ancient Israel. There’s nothing new in this observation.

. . . In short, I’ll argue that the analogy between America and ancient Israel was no mere figure of speech. It implied a doctrine that made assertions and imposed duties. That doctrine was Zionism. Zionism, suitably adjusted, is a fundamental part of Americanism, which is another reason why the idea of Americanism as a merely secular or civil religion doesn’t hold up.

These remarks predate MAGA, but MAGA is very similar, and Trump has declared that he's the authoritative interpreter of MAGA.

President Trump cast Tucker Carlson out of his Make America Great Again movement following the conservative talking head’s loud criticism of the US and Israeli assault on Iran.

“Tucker has lost his way,” the commander-in-chief told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Thursday. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”

Come to think of it, "unconditional surrender" is a uniquely American idea. Lincoln adopted the phrase, initally used by Grant, to apply to the Confederacy. Roosevelt announced the terms in 1943 following the Casablanca Conforence; Truman repeated them in regard to Japan at Potsdam. With Trump using it yet again, it strikes me as a major reassertion of confidence. But now there's no Winston Churchill to reinforce it, as he did at Casablanca.