Tuesday, March 03, 2026

03/03 Links Pt1: Iran’s Irrational Self-Destruction; Spencer: Ending A Campaign Of Violence Is Not Starting A War; Britain Walks a Mile in Israel’s Shoes

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Iran’s Irrational Self-Destruction
Vladimir Jabotinsky once said of the role of anti-Semitism in World War II: “The Jewish tragedy is, of course, not the microbe which has caused this war. It is only the culture-medium in which the microbe has grown to maturity.”

The same might be said of Iran’s quest to destroy the Jews at the expense of its own sustainability.

Jabotinsky wouldn’t live to see how right he was—in this, as was usually the case, the Zionist intellectual was a prophet. As the Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer noted about the Nazis: “The killing was totally anti-pragmatic, anti-modern, anti-capitalistic, anti-cost-effective. They murdered the inhabitants of the Lodz ghetto although they were producing essential goods for the German Army; they did the same in Bialystok and elsewhere.” In 1942, the Germans “took some 40,000 or so Jews from the ghettoes near [a] planned road and established slave labor camps for them to build it. And as they were building the road, these Jews were killed.”

Yaron Pasher tried to quantify it: “had the Germans taken the 3,000 trains that were used during the war for the Final Solution plus 2,000 trains of booty to move troops to the front (whether the Eastern Front or the Western Atlantic Wall), the Wehrmacht could have in general transferred approximately seventy-one divisions — namely, about five armies totaling just about half a million troops with full gear, including the horses and other pack animals on which German logistics were based.”

I know people are tired of Nazi analogies, but it is hard to escape the conclusion that the ayatollahs in Iran were similarly beset with, and blinded by, a self-defeating obsession with the Jews.

To Iran, nuclear capability would give the regime two different ways to threaten a new Holocaust: a bomb itself, obviously, but also a nuclear umbrella that would give it immunity from outside attack and enable it to encircle the Jewish state in a “ring of fire” in perpetuity, making life in Israel increasingly difficult, squeezing Israel’s economy, and eroding its territory by making its existing borders indefensible.

The rallying of Western allies committed to nonproliferation used several means to derail Iran’s pursuit of a bomb. One of those means was economic: the policy of “maximum pressure.” President Trump made such pressure a priority, bleeding the Iranian economy with sanctions. The administration itself estimated that by mid-2019, the pressure campaign had cost Iran $10 billion in lost oil exports alone.
The President Fixes a Historical Mistake
President Trump is making a long-overdue correction to decades of a flawed U.S. Iran policy. Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been, both in ideology and in action, an enemy of the U.S. Washington tolerated its provocations, fearing regional instability or a military quagmire; or they convinced themselves that the Iranians, despite their fanatical rhetoric, were rational actors who could be bargained with.

Especially after the failure of U.S. nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which inadvertently strengthened Tehran's hand in the region, Iran came to be seen as a problem the U.S. would have to live with, for good and for ill.

The basic logic of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was that Washington should recognize Iran's aspirations as legitimate, so that the mullahs would come to feel they had a stake in maintaining the regional order. American allies, in turn, would have to learn to "share the neighborhood" with Iran. This meant restraining U.S. allies from taking their own steps to check Iran's growing regional power.

The fatal flaw in the scheme was in misunderstanding Iran's motivations. The mullah's terror regime wanted what it had always wanted and said it wanted over and over, which was to destroy the U.S.-led order in the region, wipe Israel off the map, and overthrow the Gulf Arab states in a global Islamic revolution to be headquartered in Tehran. The U.S.'s accommodating policy allowed Iran to build a fearsome regional empire. This made the Oct. 7 attacks possible. President Trump is making a long-overdue correction to decades of a flawed U.S. Iran policy. Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been, both in ideology and in action, an enemy of the U.S. Washington tolerated its provocations, fearing regional instability or a military quagmire; or they convinced themselves that the Iranians, despite their fanatical rhetoric, were rational actors who could be bargained with.

Especially after the failure of U.S. nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which inadvertently strengthened Tehran's hand in the region, Iran came to be seen as a problem the U.S. would have to live with, for good and for ill.

The basic logic of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was that Washington should recognize Iran's aspirations as legitimate, so that the mullahs would come to feel they had a stake in maintaining the regional order. American allies, in turn, would have to learn to "share the neighborhood" with Iran. This meant restraining U.S. allies from taking their own steps to check Iran's growing regional power.

The fatal flaw in the scheme was in misunderstanding Iran's motivations. The mullah's terror regime wanted what it had always wanted and said it wanted over and over, which was to destroy the U.S.-led order in the region, wipe Israel off the map, and overthrow the Gulf Arab states in a global Islamic revolution to be headquartered in Tehran. The U.S.'s accommodating policy allowed Iran to build a fearsome regional empire. This made the Oct. 7 attacks possible.
The Iran Endgame
On Sunday, Trump disclosed that he had agreed to talk with the regime and that they may now be more amenable to a deal—whatever that means at this point. Aside from optics, it is unclear what benefits such a “deal” would have for the United States or its allies. Furthermore, we have no idea who the president has agreed to talk to, since, as he put it, “most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone.” Trump did not mention whether his “three very good candidates” for leadership in Iran are among the living. In fact, he later indicated that they were all dead: “The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump told ABC News. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

A few hours before his Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump offered yet another set of options. He told a media outlet that he had several “off ramps”: “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding.’”

Neither of those options is particularly promising, either, as they both could result in the same undesirable outcome: the survival of the IRGC. On the other hand, what Trump means by “take over the whole thing” is unclear. But, given that the president is not interested in an Iraq-style takeover, it seems likely that such a scenario would morph into some version of the “Venezuela option.”

A third, hybrid option would offer the worst of both worlds: a quick end to the campaign followed by a Venezuela scenario. Yet any scenario that involves rehabilitating figures such as Larijani, assuming he’s still alive, or other IRGC veterans, such as Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (who is also being promoted as a “Delcy” candidate), and lending renewed legitimacy to IRGC structures is clearly a terrible idea, for all the aforementioned reasons: It will lead to renewed IRGC control of the country, this time backed by the United States. A future Democratic administration would likely build on any such arrangement, including the removal of sanctions, to further strengthen an IRGC-led government, leading to a resurgence of the current regime under an American protective umbrella.

Given these options, and their negative likely outcomes, the preferable course of action is to continue to, first of all, destroy all critical nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure in Iran while continuing to decimate the IRGC’s command structure as far down as possible—not just on the military side, but also the “political” (including Larijani and Ghalibaf and others). This could be done over a reasonable amount of time. Then, as the president said in his speech, let the Iranians seize their moment and figure it out. No “taking it over” and no “Venezuela.” Kill our enemies, obliterate their command structures, annihilate their offensive capabilities, and go home.

Whether the president will decide on this course of action or choose one of the many available off-ramps or “deals” will become clear soon enough. To date, the U.S.-Israeli joint campaign has been a model of operational integration and division of labor. But given the existing uncertainty, it behooves Israel—which, as of Sunday, has claimed to have eliminated some 40 senior figures on the clerical, military, and IRGC sides—to intensify the pace of targeting the command structure even beyond the first tier and to include “political” figures like Larijani (who reportedly has been targeted), Ghalibaf, and the rest of the country’s leadership cohort. The fewer such figures the Iranian opposition, however fractured, has to contend with, and the fewer experienced cadres it has to draw on for support, the more successful attempts to build something new in Iran are likely to be. If the opposition fails, a weakened IRGC is better than a stronger IRGC, especially one backed by the United States.

That the Iran regime, whose hands are soaked in American blood, has lived this long is a long-standing affront to the United States. Since 1981, the survival of the regime has emboldened American foes throughout the world while threatening the security interests of the United States and its regional allies. It allowed the regime to kill hundreds of Americans as well as hundreds of thousands of people throughout the region, and to murder its opponents on the soil of free countries around the world. Instead of putting an end to these malign activities, successive American administrations have kept Iran’s terrorist regime on life support, with Barack Obama even briefly elevating it to allied status. Its destruction would be a sizable contribution to world peace—while serving the American national interest. That alone should be enough.


Mark Goldfeder and John Spencer: Ending A Campaign Of Violence Is Not Starting A War
The present debate has also mischaracterized the stated objectives of the mission. The president did not frame this as a project of political transformation. In fact, he articulated defined security objectives: ending Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, halting expansion of its ballistic missile arsenal, preventing development of longer-range missile systems capable of reaching the United States, neutralizing threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, and degrading networks responsible for killing Americans. The purpose of limited, calibrated strikes is not regime change for its own sake. It is to degrade capability, restore deterrence, and reduce the probability of future attacks. Regime change, if it occurs, is a byproduct. The strategic objective is threat elimination tied directly to the national security interests of the United States.

Those interests are concrete. Iran’s nuclear trajectory threatens to convert a chronic threat into an acute one. A nuclear-armed Tehran would constrain America’s freedom of action, embolden proxy networks under a nuclear umbrella, and accelerate proliferation across the Middle East. It would place U.S. military forces in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, and elsewhere under greater strategic risk. It would increase the chance that a miscalculation becomes a catastrophe.

Iran’s ballistic missile expansion compounds that risk. Its medium-range missile arsenal already threatens regional allies and American forces. Its pursuit of longer-range systems raises the specter of expanded reach into Europe and beyond. Combined with repeated threats to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz — a globally vital economic chokepoint — these capabilities directly implicate American economic and security interests.

Deterrence is not about punishment. It is about prevention. It seeks to convince an adversary that aggression will not pay. Against a regime that finances terrorism, threatens leaders, probes infrastructure, and openly declares hostility, restraint without consequence invites repetition.

Iran’s proxy model deliberately manufactures legal and ethical confusion. Attacks are launched from dense civilian environments. Responsibility is diffused. Blame is inverted. International humanitarian law does not excuse that tactic; it condemns it. The legal standard under Article 51 is necessity and proportionality, not passivity. International law was never intended to require a state to absorb attacks while debating terminology.

Peace is not sustained by wishful thinking. It is sustained by credible lines and credible consequences. “Peace through strength” is not rhetorical flourish. It reflects a long-standing deterrence principle: aggression declines when it becomes predictably costly.

In the end, the choice is not between war and peace in the abstract. It is between allowing a sustained campaign of violence to continue or lawfully acting to prevent its next phase. When a regime finances terrorism, launches missiles, supports attacks on American troops, attempts assassinations, and advances capabilities that magnify those threats, the right of self-defense is not theoretical.

Article 51 is not a suicide pact. It exists for precisely these circumstances.


Eugene Kontorovich: The U.S. Is Finally Responding Decisively to Decades of Aggression
President Trump campaigned on ending "forever wars." The current operation fulfills that promise by finally responding decisively to decades of aggression against America and its allies. The Constitution doesn't forbid launching a surprise attack on a rare meeting of the enemy high command.

The U.S. attacks have a clear legal and practical justification. Iran has sponsored numerous lethal attacks on U.S. troops throughout the Middle East. Its proxies have attacked international shipping and funneled drugs to America. In recent years, Tehran tried to assassinate former President Trump and former senior officials from his first administration.

This isn't a war to protect Israel, which has done an excellent job of protecting itself. For the first time, the U.S. and Israel are fighting side by side. While America's other major allies decided to sit this one out - and even deny the use of air bases on their soil - Israel has proved itself a peer partner that makes it possible for America to achieve its strategic goals at far less risk to its own forces.
Merz: Iran should not be protected by international law
Friedrich Merz has appeared to suggest that Iran should not be protected by international law.

In a major intervention, the German chancellor expressed fears that such rules were becoming redundant in a world where rogue states broke them with impunity and allies did not enforce them.

He went on to say that “now is not the time” for Europeans to “lecture” the United States and Israel about legality, as he turned a blind eye to accusations that their attacks on Iran broke international law.

The two countries launched a wave of strikes against Iran on Saturday, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, along with several other officials. Tehran retaliated, with strikes from both sides continuing on Monday.

Mr Merz’s comments, made in a speech on Sunday, positioned him as Donald Trump’s closest ally in Europe and departed from his post-war predecessors in Germany, who viewed international law as sacrosanct.

“Appeals from Europe, including from Germany, and condemnations of Iranian violations of international law, and even extensive sanctions, have achieved little over the years and decades,” the chancellor said, as he blamed European weakness in part for failing to confront Tehran.

He said the German government had concluded that, when it came to Iran, “international legal assessments will have relatively little effect. This is all the more true if they remain largely without consequence ... therefore, now is not the time to lecture our partners and allies”.


NATO backs US-Israel war effort but won’t join, secretary general vows
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday praised the joint U.S.-Israeli war effort against the Islamic Republic, but added that NATO itself will not get involved.

“It’s really important what the U.S. is doing here, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ⁠ballistic missile capability,” Rutte was cited by Reuters as telling Germany’s ARD television in Brussels.

“There are absolutely no plans whatever for NATO to ⁠get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are ⁠doing together with Israel,” he added.

A British Royal Air Force facility in Cyprus was hit by an Iranian suicide drone overnight Sunday, causing limited damage but no casualties, according to Cypriot authorities and London’s Defense Ministry. The United Kingdom is a member of NATO.

In the wake of the attack, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in parliament that his country will not join the attacks against Iran, stressing that his nation will focus on defensive actions, according to The Guardian.


Seth Mandel: Britain Walks a Mile in Israel’s Shoes
It shouldn’t need to be said but it apparently does: The fact that Iran ignored repeated warnings isn’t America’s fault. The fact that Iran rejected an off-ramp offered by the country it has been trying to destroy for decades isn’t Israel’s fault.

Yet years and years of the international community’s warping beyond repair terms like “proportionality” have gotten bad actors used to the idea that they can choose not only to start a war but also to determine how far its victim can go in response—especially when the victim of the attack is Israel.

This dynamic has launched a thousand and one “I abhor the attacks on Israel, but…” declarations. Now that Israel isn’t fighting this conflict alone, those statements fall by the wayside because nobody wants to apply such equivocations to their own population. Thus we have Keir Starmer’s initial reluctance to help the war effort and then suddenly discovering his moral compass when British targets came under Iranian missile attack.

Starmer announced yesterday that he will now allow the U.S. to use British bases to launch counterattacks against Iran for a very simple reason: “The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles.”

Suddenly even those who don’t want to get involved in this conflict abstain from making self-degrading, pusillanimous statements about proportionality, or “just taking the win,” or other such euphemisms for permitting one’s attacker to remain on his feet. Now that Britons are being threatened, Europeans find clarity: You must neutralize the threat, not because you like war but because you have an obligation to neutralize the threat.

Suddenly even Keir Starmer knows he cannot settle for some point-making retaliatory strikes and call it a day.

Welcome to the real world, everyone. You’re late.
Jake Wallis Simons: Israel is doing Britain’s dirty work in Lebanon
Clearly, Starmer never imagined the day would come when he would actually need to use our military. Given this toxic combination of complacency, political short-sightedness, indulgence and weakness, reasonable strategic concerns don’t get a look in.

Those reasonable concerns must be acknowledged. Never before has there been a successful regime change from the air; we have more than enough on our plate with Ukraine; and America has become a capricious and hostile ally. But there is a difference between making considered decisions from a position of strength and painting yourself into a corner with your own lamentable weakness.

As things stand, when it comes to Hezbollah and the broader Iranian threat, much dirty work is to be done before Britain and the world is secure. Yet we have so depleted ourselves that we are forced to watch from the sidelines.

How sad that the nation that produced Lord Nelson, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher finds itself stuck with Keir Starmer! The man has spent the last three years berating Israel for its war of self-defence, even recognising a state of Palestine without preconditions, only to discover that in Britain’s time of need, it is Israel that we need to protect us.


The Tears of The Tucker Wing By Abe Greenwald
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Now that Trump has allied with Israel in a war for Iranian regime change, there’s no made-up story wild enough for the anti-neocon gang to pretend that either Trump is “with them” or neocons are in despair. They feel boxed out, and they’re enraged.

Tucker Carlson has called Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil.” Marjorie Taylor Greene responded by saying that the Trump administration was packed with a “bunch of sick f--king liars.” Nick Fuentes instructed his simian audience to vote for Democrats in the midterms. Blackwater founder Erik Prince said, “I don’t see how this is in keeping with the president’s MAGA commitment.” And on and on it goes.

As if we neocons weren’t happy enough.

There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about where the war leads and what it ultimately yields. But few of these critics cite them. Instead, they’re lost in their own fantasy roleplay game where motives are disguised or inverted, double agents are showing their faces, and state-backed cabals wield wizardly powers of influence—you know, it’s the Jews’ fault. Megyn Kelly simply confessed, “This feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”

On X, Fuentes, Greene, and other unsavory figures I don’t wish to name are giving it to JD Vance with a vengeance. They feel betrayed by the vice president who made such a show of being on their side. Vance, after all, once assured a groyper at a live event that “Israel doesn’t control this president.” And in downplaying the rise of the right-wing Jew-haters he was courting, he claimed that the whole issue of anti-Semitism on the right was made up by pro-Israel conservatives to distract Americans from discussing the supposedly problematic U.S.-Israel relationship.

Three days ago, that relationship showed the world the most successful single day of warfighting in history. As ever, pro-Israel Americans are happy to talk about it. The real question is how Vance tries to explain to the hate-peddling right his own involvement in the most ambitious U.S.-Israel military effort we’ve ever seen. Another is how he tries to justify his association with the hate-peddlers to the rest of us. This is a dilemma of his own making. Vance thought he could court the right’s Tucker wing without losing conservatives. And he thought he could distance himself sufficiently from Trump’s pro-Israel stance to keep the Tucker wing happy.

The war in Iran could turn in any number of directions. At the moment, it looks far more promising than Vance’s battle for the future of the right.


Trump denies that Israel forced him into Iran strikes
U.S. President Donald Trump denied claims on Tuesday that Israel forced him into taking preemptive action against Iran.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump said that he believed that Iran was going to launch a first strike during talks between Tehran and Washington.

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” Trump said. “They were going to attack if we didn’t do it. They were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand, but Israel was ready, and we were ready,” he added.

Trump and officials in the administration have offered different accounts about the timing of the strikes on Iran and the nature of the “imminent threat” that Trump referenced when he announced major combat operations on Saturday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters at separate briefings on Monday that the strikes against Iran were necessary because Iran was rebuilding its conventional deterrent force of drones and missiles to protect its nuclear program.

“This operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year-and-a-half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short-range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage,” Rubio said.

Rubio also suggested that the U.S. joined airstrikes first launched by Israel because Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces and interests, regardless of whether or not the United States participated in the strikes.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Rubio said. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

That portion of Rubio’s remarks has prompted a furious response from Democrats, who have accused Israel of dragging America into war.


Pentagon IDs 4 American troops killed in Kuwait
he Pentagon on Tuesday identified four of the six American troops killed in the opening hours of the war with Iran.

Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa, died Saturday in Kuwait from an Iranian drone attack.

All soldiers were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, an Army Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa.

All six died in the same attack at Shuaiba port in Kuwait, a commercial harbor that doubles as a logistics hub through which the U.S. military ships tactical vehicles and supplies into the region.

The other two names are being withheld until a day after the next of kin have been notified. An additional 18 service members were wounded in the strike.

The six represent the first Americans killed in action in the joint U.S.-Israel war against Iran.

The joint U.S.-Israel campaign entered its fourth day Tuesday, with American forces having struck more than 1,700 targets inside Iran as fighting spread across at least a dozen countries.

Trump and top Pentagon officials warned the toll is expected to rise.

"We expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses," Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.


IDF’s opening shot against Iran killed ’40 of the most important people’ in 40 seconds
The Israeli Air Force’s opening airstrike against the Islamic Republic on Saturday killed “more than 40 of the most important people in Iran” in only 40 seconds, Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate, revealed on Monday night.

“We are not finished,” Binder told commanders and soldiers during a situational assessment at the Intelligence Directorate’s headquarters.

“We could tactically surprise them, beginning at an unexpected hour and catching our enemies mid-gatherings,” he stated. “In 40 seconds, we eliminated more than 40 of the most important people in Iran.”

“You must continue to set these targets and mark them,” Binder told the directorate. “Just last night we achieved another such accomplishment, and we intend to add to the list every day.”

The Military Intelligence Directorate head said that “looking at the past two years of war,” the Jewish state has sent “a very clear message” to its enemies that “there is no place where we will not find them.”

“Anyone who chooses to engage in such actions against the State of Israel, against the residents of the State of Israel, against our future here, we will find them, and we will eliminate them,” Binder vowed.
Stop the Count: Israel Levels Building Where Clerics Gathered To Select Iran's New Supreme Leader
Israeli forces "flattened" a building where Iran's 88-member Assembly of Experts had gathered to select the regime's next supreme leader, according to Israeli officials and regional reports.

"We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader," an Israeli defense official told Axios shortly after pinpoint strikes leveled the building. Video posted on X showed rubble where the building once stood.

The attack came as the powerful regime body was counting votes, hoping to select a supreme leader to replace Ali Khamenei after his death during the opening salvo of the U.S.-Israeli operation against the Iranian regime. The assembly claimed just hours earlier that it "won't take long" to select a successor, though that process is likely at a standstill in the wake of Israel's operation. While it remains unclear how many Iranian leaders were in the building and how many regime officials the strike killed, Fox News reported that "multiple Iranian officials responsible for counting the votes of the Supreme Council were killed," while Israeli journalist Amit Segal said "the council secretary was killed and the ballot box was burned" in the strike.

The Assembly of Experts is elected by the Iranian people every eight years and consists of a leadership board and six committees. It has presided over just one leadership transition since 1989, when Khamenei was elevated to the position of supreme leader. Its current chair is the 94-year-old Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Movahedi Kermani. Alongside him serve two deputy chairmen, Ayatollahs Hashem Hosseini Bushehri and Alireza Arafi, the latter of whom also sits on the interim leadership council formed in the wake of Khamenei's death. Arafi is seen as a hardliner who used his position on the country's Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution to crack down on reformists, a potential successor to Khamenei, and a powerful figure in the late supreme leader's absence.

Israel's interest in the Assembly of Experts suggests that it remains focused on eradicating Tehran's senior leadership, preventing them from coalescing around a new ayatollah who could bring some level of stability amid ongoing war operations. Khamenei's death created a significant power vacuum at the top of Tehran's leadership, leaving local security forces to operate without clear directions.

"They can find a substitute for most officials, but not for Khamenei," Elliott Abrams, who served as the U.S. Iran envoy during Trump's first term, told the Washington Free Beacon earlier on Tuesday. "Whoever succeeds him will not truly be supreme leader, able to give unquestioned instructions to the Army and IRGC. He will be a far smaller figure, politically and spiritually. There may not be 'regime change' this week, but the regime has been changed, and very deeply."


IDF says it destroyed secret underground site where Iran moved nuclear project after June war
Israeli Air Force jets on Tuesday destroyed a secret underground site on the outskirts of Tehran where Iran transferred much of its nuclear program after the war with Israel in June, the IDF said.

In a press conference, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin also said the military has dropped more munitions on Iran in the current, four-day-old US-Israeli bombing campaign than in the entire 12 days of June’s Operation Rising Lion.

Following that war, in which Israel and the US targeted Iranian nuclear sites, Iran “did not halt its military nuclear activity, and continued to develop the capabilities required for nuclear weapons, while transferring infrastructure to an underground site protected from aerial attack,” said Defrin.

At “Minzadehei,” the facility that housed the underground site, a group of nuclear scientists “worked secretly to develop capabilities required for nuclear weapons,” Defrin said. The IDF monitored the Iranian nuclear scientists’ activities and “located their new place of operation at this site, enabling a precise strike on the secret compound,” he added.

While Iran, whose leaders are sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies seeking nuclear arms, it has enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities.

The US and Israel on Saturday launched a surprise attack on Iran after a massive US military buildup in the region and repeated threats by US President Donald Trump to strike Iran, first over its bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters last month and more recently over its nuclear program.

Iran has retaliated with deadly missile and drone strikes on Israel and US-allied Arab countries.

Since Saturday, the Israeli Air Force has dropped over 4,000 bombs on Iran, and fighter jets have carried out 1,600 sorties, Defrin said Tuesday.


IDF ground troops authorized to advance into Lebanon
Israel Defense Forces troops have been authorized to advance and take control of additional commanding areas in Lebanon to prevent fire against Israeli border communities, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday morning.

“We promised security for the Galilee communities, and that is what we will deliver,” Katz said.

The IDF’s Arabic channel later on Tuesday published evacuation warnings for villages and towns in Southern Lebanon ahead of Israeli military activity.

Jerusalem is bolstering ground forces operating at strategic points inside Southern Lebanon near the border and striking Hezbollah targets as part of an expanded defensive posture after the Iranian terror proxy attacked Israeli territory, marking a sharp escalation in hostilities amid the broader war with Tehran.

The IDF said on Tuesday morning that Division 91 forces were operating in Southern Lebanon and were holding several positions in the border area “as part of an enhanced forward defense posture,” conducted in parallel with “Operation Roaring Lion,” the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on the Iranian regime that began on Saturday.

“The IDF is working to create an additional layer of security for residents of northern Israel. The IDF is conducting targeted strikes against Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in order to remove threats and prevent infiltration attempts into Israeli territory,” the military said.


Beit Shemesh mourns its dead as funerals hit by renewed sirens
Nine people killed by an Iranian missile strike in Beit Shemesh have been laid to rest.

Hundreds gathered on Monday at the city cemetery for the funeral of Oren Katz, a local resident killed in the strike after reportedly returning to a public shelter to close its door. Family members described him as devoted to protecting others and caring deeply for his family.

Eulogising her husband, Katz’s wife Smadar, told mourners: “Your generosity cost you your life yesterday. You went upstairs to close the shelter. You will always remain with us, we will never forget you.”

Their son Yosef recalled that his father had come home early from work so the family could eat together before the attack. “You were always a special person who cared for everyone, just not for yourself,” he said. “Yesterday, you came home in the middle of your workday so we would have something to eat for lunch.”

“I’m glad I had the privilege to eat your food one last time,” he added.

The missile strike caused the collapse of a building in Beit Shemesh and marked the deadliest attack inside Israel during the current conflict with Iran. Dozens more were wounded, including children.
Eight wounded in Iranian and Hezbollah attacks Tuesday
Seven people were wounded at three locations in central Israel following the latest Iranian ballistic missile attack late Tuesday afternoon, according to Magen David Adom.

Casualties include a woman of about 40 with moderate blast injuries and six others lightly hurt from glass shrapnel and the explosion.

MDA medics earlier in the day treated a 64-year-old man lightly injured by glass shards and a 24-year-old woman suffering from anxiety from a rocket impact after sirens sounded in northern Israel’s Galilee Panhandle.

Both were evacuated to Ziv Hospital in Safed. Two other people were treated for anxiety at the scene and did not require hospitalization, the emergency service said.

The rocket hit a house, according to Israeli media reports.

Northern District police officers and Border Police troops work at the scene of a strike on a building in the Galilee Panhandle on March 3, 2026, where they are securing the area, searching for evidence and removing any further danger to the public. Credit: Israel Police.

MDA initially said its teams were dispatched to check reports following sirens in northern Israel and that initial calls to its 101 emergency center had not indicated casualties earlier in the morning. United Hatzalah said its medical teams were scanning several sites where reports were received of rocket impacts or interception debris.

“Forces from the Northern District and Border Police officers are operating at the scene of an impact on a building in the Galilee Panhandle, working to secure the area, locate items, and remove any further risk to the public,” Israel Police said.
Israeli Health Ministry: 1,050 people evacuated to hospitals since war began
The number of people evacuated to hospitals across the country since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” on Feb. 28 is 1,050, the Israeli Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

Of these, 102 are currently hospitalized or in emergency departments. Four are in serious condition, two of whom were not directly injured by missile impacts; 21 are in moderate condition; and two are undergoing medical evaluation, according to the ministry.

The past 24 hours have seen an additional 289 injured individuals taken to hospital, with 19 in moderate condition, 258 in mild condition, eight that have suffered from anxiety and four who underwent medical evaluation, the ministry added.

The ministry in a statement called on seniors to walk slowly and carefully to protected spaces when air-raid sirens sound.

The ministry asks those living near senior citizens to assist them as much as possible in identifying the nearest and safest protected space, practicing how to reach it, and, when feasible, arriving there early—before a siren sounds—to prevent accidents caused by falls on the way to protected areas.

Public service hotline *5400 operated by the Health Ministry has been reinforced due to the war, expanding its hours from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays.

The hotline includes emergency extension (Extension 3) providing information about “Operation Roaring Lion” and serving as an initial point of contact for those in need of assistance and guidance at this time.


MirYam Institute: US & Israel’s Iran war - 5 experts on achievements so far & next moves
Iran was aiming to have a stockpile of 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027 to overwhelm Israel's defenses.

That's one of the key takeaways from this high-level MirYam Institute situational briefing.

CEO and IDF combat veteran Benjamin Anthony convenes a panel of military and geopolitical experts to analyze the rapidly evolving joint US–Israel campaign against the Iranian regime.

This discussion moves beyond the headlines and into the operational reality of Roaring Lion and Epic Fury.

Panelists include:
• John Spencer – world leading modern warfare expert and MirYam Institute analyst
• Yaakov Lappin – military affairs analyst
• Micah Jones – US Army veteran and congressional candidate
• Ruth Wasserman-Lande – former Deputy Ambassador to Egypt & former Member of Knesset

Chapters:
00:00 - US casualty update
02:37 - Iran’s miscalculation & failed negotiations
04:41 - Israel’s operational role & historic coordination
09:25 - Why this matters for American national security
12:43 - Strategy, War Powers & public messaging
16:20 - Regional dynamics: Gulf states, sleeper cells, coalitions
22:12 - Can air power create regime change?
28:34 - Skepticism about regime change outcomes
34:30 - Iran’s missile threat & civilian targeting
39:37 - Essential American objectives
43:45 - Division of labor: US vs Israel target banks
47:47 - Quickfire: Will the Iranian people rise up?
52:07 - Benjamin Anthony’s closing analysis


spiked: Iran: can the Islamic Republic be toppled?, with Andrew Fox | The Brendan O’Neill Show
Andrew Fox – former British Army officer and an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society – returns to The Brendan O’Neill Show. Andrew and Brendan discuss the American and Israeli strikes on Iran, the risks of a ‘regime change’ war, and the Western left’s apologism for Iran’s brutal theocracy.


UKLFI: Natasha Hausdorff on international law and military action against Iran with Alex Phillips on TalkTV
Natasha discusses the application of international law to the military action against Iran, the comments of Lord Wolfson KC (Shadow Attorney-General), the role of the UN, the UK government's position, Iran's conduct and the cab rank rule of the English Bar.

Concluding the interview, Alex Phillips says: "I think many people listening to this will be thinking to themselves, why can't she be our Attorney-General?"


Commentary Podcast: Purim Pugilism
Our ongoing coverage of the Iran war continues with comments made by Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson on the justification for war, the historical comparisons to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, and the Trump administration's deficiencies in maintaining coherent messaging.


Haviv and Hugh discuss the China view of the Iran war, Trump/Netanyahu, Turkey, and Gaza



Iranian-American Democrat shares disgust at own party's condemnation of Trump over Ayatollah killing
An Iranian-American Democrat has condemned the party for their hand-wringing following Donald Trump's attack on Iran.

Moj Mahdara, who uses they/them pronouns, called on their fellow liberals to 'wake up' while appearing on CNN over the weekend after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mahdara, who co-founded The Iranian Diaspora Collective, said: 'It is imperative the Democratic Party wake up and get past their dislike of President Trump, and their feelings of international conflicts going on.

'This is about national security. This is about what is possible in the Middle East. This is about being a good neighbor, good partner to the Gulf States and what their aspirations are.'

Mahdara went on to link the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as being as important as the toppling of the Berlin Wall which signified the end of the Soviet Union.

They said: 'This is a transformational moment for humankind, for security, and, as an American, this is in our interest to complete it.'

In a subsequent post to Instagram, Mahdara added: 'I feel like the Democratic party has failed me. Wake up ? It’s not too late.'

Mahdara made the comments while speaking with Dana Bash, who also spoke to Iranian-American journalist Masiah Alinejad who directly called out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.


Under fire for Iran remarks, Zohran Mamdani acknowledges Tehran’s atrocities
After issuing a statement solely attacking the U.S. and Israel over Saturday’s strikes on Iran provoked backlash from members of the Iranian dissident and diaspora communities, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani acknowledged the “systematic repression” of the Iranian people by the regime — even as he declined to criticize the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The mayor’s remarks followed an unrelated press conference on Tuesday, following criticism from Iranian-Americans and regime refugees who accused him of ignoring the Islamic Republic’s abuses of its own citizens and its neighbors. But even as he acknowledged Tehran’s bloody suppression of protesters, Mamdani did not directly answer a reporter’s question about whether the Middle Eastern nation was better off without the radical cleric who ruled for nearly 37 years.

“The Iranian government has engaged in systematic repression of its own people, even killing thousands of Iranians who were seeking to express the most basic forms of dissent earlier this year,” Mamdani said. “It is a brutal government.”

This marks the second time the new mayor has only belatedly condemned the regime’s brutality. His slow response to the authoritarian government’s efforts to crush protests in January contrasted both with other New York officials and with his own rapid declarations of solidarity with demonstrators elsewhere, or his ever-swift condemnation of Israel.

Nonetheless, in his comments Tuesday, Mamdani sought to assure Jewish and Iranian New Yorkers, who he acknowledged might be celebrating Purim or the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, that he was looking out for their security. He reupped pledges from the NYPD to “increase agency coordination” and patrols at religious and consular facilities.


UN official appears to claim photo of Iranian regime’s victims shows kids whom US, Israel killed
Vanessa Frazier, special representative for children in armed conflict to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, appeared to double down on Monday after she posted a photograph of victims of the Iranian regime that she cited as evidence that U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in the country killed children.

Frazier’s since-deleted post on Sunday apparently included a photo of men standing among dozens of black body bags.

“I am deeply alarmed by reports of attacks on Iranian schools leaving a large number of casualties, mostly children,” she wrote. “The United Nations Security Council has designated attacks on schools and hospitals as a grave violation against children. Schools must remain safe places for learning. Ceasefire now.”

The former Maltese envoy to the United Nations apparently deleted the social media post after critics noted that the victims in the photograph had been killed by the Iranian regime weeks prior, during the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on protesters.

On Sunday, Frazier shared almost the same text—minus “ceasefire now”—this time with a new photo, which came from a BBC article.

A social-media user with no bio and 18 followers wrote, “Well said, Vanessa. Genocide of innocent children. No ifs and buts by Zionists.”

Frazier appeared to double down on her original post in her response to the user. “If they are attacking the photo and not the message, then it is clear that my message was strong,” the U.N. official wrote. “Plus the photo was still representative of the result of the attack—bodies in bags—whether it was from that attack or not.”


NSW Premier Chris Minns condemns Sydney mosques for mourning dead Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamanei as a martyr
NSW Premier Chris Minns has condemned Muslim mosques in Sydney for conducting services mourning Ayatollah Ali Khamanei as a martyr amid speculation Iranian diplomatic staff in Australia had pressured the Shia community to do so.

The Labor leader led the condemnation as mosques in Melbourne and Brisbane also planned vigils, sparking a call from a Jewish group for Australia to deport those commemorating the late leader of Iran, given the country’s ties to listed terrorist organisations in Australia including Hamas and Hezbollah.

A leading expert in global Islamic politics has suggested Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, via embassy staff in Australia, had pressured Shia mosques to honour the Supreme Leader.

The Arrahman Islamic Centre at Kingsgrove, in south-west Sydney, published a Facebook post on Sunday honouring the 86-year-old spiritual and military head of the Muslim theocracy.

The mosque, run by Sheik Youssef Nabha, also invited the Muslim community to honour the dead Ayatollah’s “pure soul and for the souls of the martyrs who rose during the American-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

“On the occasion of the martyrdom of the righteous scholar,” it said, announcing three days of mourning from Sunday to Tuesday, before declining to comment to The Nightly. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth speaking to the media.US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth speaking to the media.

Sydney’s Al Zahra Mosque in Arncliffe, the Iman Husain Islamic Centre in Earlwood, the Imam Ali Centre in Guildford and the Husaineyat Sayeda Zainab centre in Banksia had also planned memorial services for the Ayatollah.

“We invite all brothers and sisters to attend the Majlis in honour of the martyrdom of his Eminence, the Guardian Jurist and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei,” the Al Zahra Mosque said.

The El Zahra Centre at Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne’s west and the Zainabia Islamic Centre at Slacks Creeks in Logan south of Brisbane also mourned the dead leader of the Iranian theocracy.

“Congrats on your martyrdom dear leader,” the Zainabia Islamic Centre said.


Andrew Lawrence: Rot in hell, Khamenei...

WaPo Presents 'Socialist and Trans Liberation Organizer' Who Founded 'Armed Queers' Group as Concerned Student Protesting Trump's Strikes on Iranian Regime
To Washington Post readers, Ermiya Fanaeian is a Howard University student who took to the streets to protest President Donald Trump's military campaign against the Iranian regime out of fear for her relatives in Iran. The Post did not mention that Fanaeian is a self-described "socialist and trans liberation organizer" who founded a group of "Armed Queers" in Utah and has protested the United States and Israel long before Trump launched Operation Epic Fury.

The Post's Feb. 28 piece, headlined, "Outside White House, hundreds protest attack on Iran, urge end to conflict," highlighted a protest that broke out near the White House hours after the strikes began. Its lede focused on Fanaeian, who "has lived in the United States since she was 1, but still has family in her home country of Iran." As "word spread of attacks there by Israel and the U.S.," Post reporters Jasmine Golden and Liam Scott wrote, Fanaeian "grew concerned about her relatives and other Iranians" and thus "decided to protest the military action."

"It hits close to home," Fanaeian told the Post, which identified Fanaeian as "a 25-year-old PhD candidate in political science at Howard University." "I also know that the people in Iran are the ones who are going to experience the most, the biggest consequences from these attacks."

Six paragraphs later, the Post included a piece of information that undermined its portrayal of Fanaeian as a spontaneous student protester: that Fanaeian is "an organizer with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization" (FRSO), a Marxist group that "helped coordinate the protest … with leaders from other groups," including the Chinese Communist Party-tied activist group Code Pink. But Fanaeian's far-left activism goes well beyond the FRSO—and went unmentioned in the Post's reporting.

Before enrolling at Howard, Fanaeian was a well-known far-left activist in Utah, where she founded Armed Queers Salt Lake City, an "explicitly socialist and radical queer organization" that calls for the "armed and militant protection of queer and trans communities." Though the group says its mission is rooted in self-defense, Fanaeian has endorsed political violence.

"Sometimes violence, protest, and really riots and those kinds of loud rebellions must take place for tangible change," Fanaeian said in an interview she gave as a student at the University of Utah, according to the New York Post.

Both Fanaeian and Armed Queers Salt Lake City, meanwhile, have a long history of protesting both Israel and the United States.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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