@glyko
A political diary: For a democratic secular masterless and borderless world; for individual and social autonomy*; for lifelong democratic civic education with democratic aim, the creation of participatory democratic citizenry. (Castoriadis*) #glykoreads
From Wagner to GRU, Russian Military Men Are Manning Moscow’s Shadow Fleet:
Cargo ships transporting sanctioned Russian oil through the Baltic Sea are routinely setting sail with two extra crew on board: a pair of Russian men with backgrounds in security organizations. www.occrp.org/en/investiga...
The fall of Khamenei did not merely change the Middle East. It snapped the entire supply chain…Polisario leaders sense the end. Their Tindouf camps are restless. Their propaganda has turned shrill. Their sponsors are broke — financially, militarily, and ideologically. www.meforum.org/mef-online/p...
Iran must lose its imperial holdings. There ought to be no consolation prizes for an evil regime that loses a war it has been waging for four decades. And the rest of the Mideast deserves to sleep well at night. www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/... #Islamism #IranWar #IranProxies
The 15th Five Year Plan may trumpet China’s progress in science and technology. But that isn’t the yardstick against which either China’s ability to cope with such a challenging external environment, or its capacity for change, should be judged. www.thewirechina.com/2026/03/09/c... #communism
Mojtaba Khamenei past tells us he enjoys micromanaging every aspect of authority to satisfy his thirst for power; he is a deeply antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-Western ideologue; he has personally been involved in repression in Iran and terror plots abroad. www.foxnews.com/world/irans-...
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday accused #Hezbollah of working toward the “collapse” of the state for the sake of Iran’s interests, a week after the Tehran-backed militia launched an attack on Israel english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-... #Lebanon #Islamism
The hunt for Iran’s ballistic missile crews: Tehran’s missiles are key to its retaliation against Israel and the US. But launching them brings an immediate risk of death archive.ph/nb0hi #Islamism #IranWar
As Ukraine cooperates with the United States in the Middle East, Kyiv hopes to draw a contrast with Moscow. U.S. officials say that Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during the war, including satellite imagery showing the locations of American warships and military personnel.
![Opposition users see him as a symbol of the crisis.
Former Sharif University professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi wrote: "The survivors of the regime like Larijani, Pezeshkian, Qalibaf, and Ejei are even more criminal [than Khamenei]... by not surrendering power to the people, they have made Iran a target for attacks." Some believe that "unlike Khamenei, he is not ideological; his priority is the survival of the government and himself."
While many dissidents wish for his death, often using the term "cutlet-ed" (a reference to being blown up, originally used for Qasem Soleimani), pro-regime supporters describe him as "the powerful voice of the system in these difficult days."
"Cutlet" has become a dark meme in Iranian protest culture, referring to someone being shredded in an explosion. It is a direct jab at the IRC's cult of martyrdom.
Regardless of these differing views, Larijani has positioned himself as a key figure in shaping the country's broader strategic direction. His most immediate objective has been to influence the selection of the new Leader. Although reports suggest he initially opposed Mojtaba Khamenei's ascent, he was the first senior official to address the news network after the appointment was finalized. In that interview, he voiced hope that the decision would resolve internal rifts and open the path toward victory, "economic improvement," and "tranquility and welfare for the people."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vn3uvfefltdnpomgnpsjmigw/bafkreigv2wwz3tqdcktxr5t64cbse2cmjwmghrdjjt7akc5s366jm3wxci)
Opposition users see him as a symbol of the crisis. Former Sharif University professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi wrote: "The survivors of the regime like Larijani, Pezeshkian, Qalibaf, and Ejei are even more criminal [than Khamenei]... by not surrendering power to the people, they have made Iran a target for attacks." Some believe that "unlike Khamenei, he is not ideological; his priority is the survival of the government and himself." While many dissidents wish for his death, often using the term "cutlet-ed" (a reference to being blown up, originally used for Qasem Soleimani), pro-regime supporters describe him as "the powerful voice of the system in these difficult days." "Cutlet" has become a dark meme in Iranian protest culture, referring to someone being shredded in an explosion. It is a direct jab at the IRC's cult of martyrdom. Regardless of these differing views, Larijani has positioned himself as a key figure in shaping the country's broader strategic direction. His most immediate objective has been to influence the selection of the new Leader. Although reports suggest he initially opposed Mojtaba Khamenei's ascent, he was the first senior official to address the news network after the appointment was finalized. In that interview, he voiced hope that the decision would resolve internal rifts and open the path toward victory, "economic improvement," and "tranquility and welfare for the people."
#Larijani: The Kingmaker who now holds Iran’s real power.
Larijani has positioned himself as a key figure in shaping the country’s broader strategic direction. His most immediate objective has been to influence the selection of the new Leader. iranwire.com/en/features/... #Iran #Islamism
Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani has described Iran's strikes on Gulf countries as a "dangerous miscalculation" - warning the escalation risks destabilising the region and sending shockwaves through the global economy. news.sky.com/story/iran-h... #Qatar #Iran
As black toxic rain pours over Tehran and flames devour the Shahran oil depots, the predictable chorus has already begun: "Israel pushed America into another endless Middle East war." Social media, certain Arab capitals and parts of the Western left are repeating the tired libel that Washington is acting as Jerusalem's puppet, sacrificing American blood and treasure for the Jewish state. They are not just wrong. They are rewriting history in real time. The United States did not "attack Iran because of Israel." America has been at war with the Islamic Republic for 47 years, long before most Israelis even dreamed of strategic cooperation with Washington. This is America's own fight, rooted in American blood, American hostages and American strategic interests. Operation Epic Fury, launched on February 28, 2026, is not a favor to Benjamin Netanyahu. It is the overdue climax of a half-century blood feud that began the moment Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Let us remember the timeline the critics conveniently erase. November 4, 1979: Iranian revolutionaries seize the American embassy and hold 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days. Jimmy Carter - no friend of Israel - watches America humiliated in front of the world. That was not about Israel. That was Iran declaring war on the "Great Satan." October 23, 1983: A Hezbollah suicide truck bomb, built and directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, demolishes the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. 241 American servicemen die in a single morning — the deadliest day for the U.S. military since Iwo Jima. U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who had his own differences with Israeli policy, calls it an Iranian act of war. Again, not about Israel. About Americans. June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are blown apart. Nineteen U.S. airmen murdered. The FBI and CIA trace it directly to the IRGC. President Bill Clinton's administration - hardly a Netanyahu ally — knows exactly who did it. Then come the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Between 2003 and 2011, Iranian-supplied explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and rockets kill or wound more than 600 American soldiers. Tehran arms, trains and pays Shiite militias to bleed the U.S. military dry. Not a single Israeli soldier is involved. This is Iran's private war against America.
Fast-forward to January 3, 2020. President Donald Trump orders the drone strike that eliminates Qassem Soleimani on Iraqi soil. The world holds its breath. Iran vows revenge. America answers with precision. Still no "Israeli pressure" required. Soleimani's hands were drenched in American blood, not just Israeli. And now, in 2026, the pattern repeats with chilling clarity. After Israel begins dismantling Iran's nuclear and missile infrastructure, Tehran lashes out - not only at Israel, but directly at American interests. Iranian proxies and drones strike U.S. positions. American soldiers have already fallen in the retaliation phase of Operation Epic Fury. Iranian attacks on Gulf desalination plants threaten the energy lifeline that powers the global economy - an economy America has sworn to protect since World War II. President Trump's demand for unconditional surrender is not a sudden conversion to the Israeli cause. It is the same Trump who eliminated Soleimani, who walked away from the catastrophic JCPOA, and who understands that the Islamic Republic has never stopped viewing the United States as Enemy Number One. "Great Satan" is not a nickname for Tel Aviv. It is the title Tehran has reserved for Washington since day one. The "Little Satan" — Israel — simply happens to be fighting the same enemy at the same time. That is called convergence of interests, not causation. Jerusalem did not drag Washington into this fight. Washington has been in this fight since before most Israelis were born.
Critics who scream "Israel first" ignore a simple truth: Iran has spent billions building an empire of proxies precisely to hurt America — from Latin America to the Red Sea, from the Persian Gulf to the streets of Baghdad. The mullahs ideology has always placed the United States at the top of the target list. Israel is the bonus kill. The fact that Israeli and American forces are now operating in parallel — with U.S. strikes on regime oil infrastructure and leadership targets — only proves the enemy was mutual all along. This is why the alliance works. Not because one side controls the other, but because two sovereign democracies recognize the same existential threat. America is not sacrificing for Israel. America is defending itself, its soldiers, its economy and its global credibility — exactly as it has done since 1979.
America was never dragged into this war — it has been fighting the mullahs for half a century: Critics say Israel dragged Washington into war, but the US-Iran conflict has simmered for nearly five decades under a regime that calls America the 'Great Satan' www.ynetnews.com/opinions-ana... #IranWar
Whatever the Palestinians might consider their "cause," the pro-Palestine movement in the West lustily describes it as a nightmarish, phantasmagoric horror show. And they absolutely cannot get enough of it. They might be wrong about the Palestinians-that is, Palestinians themselves may still believe in a cause with more noble ambitions. But we are not wrong about these Western activists: They have traded human decency for a life of fetishized and demented violence, especially against Jews. They have become something truly monstrous, and they want us all to know it.
Is Oct. 7 the exemplar of the ‘Palestinian cause?’ The Western Left says yes.
Rarely is the phrase “the bigotry of low expectations”more aptly applied than to the Palestinians, whose Western “supporters” treat them as incapable of rational thought and possessing no agency whatsoever…
Like their foot soldiers, most militia leaders are not ideologically motivated, either, according to several of my interviewees who know these men personally. When these groups were formed, some leaders were driven by desire to gain power or influence, or to kill with impunity. One Iraqi politician recounted that Khazali said he had taken up weapons because he did not want Shites to be upstaged by Sunnis in the fight against occupation. Another former high-ranking Iraqi politician said that another militia commander had first sought U.S. backing to lead a faction against Iranian-aligned groups but, when that effort failed, moved on to lead an Iranian-backed militia. Having access to vast riches has changed the commanders' motivations. Nearly all of them had come from poverty. Tamimi explained that although "at first, making money wasn't the goal," the commanders "got used to the money" over time. Abdul Razzaq al-Hayyali, who joined the Badr Corps in 1982 after being captured during the Iran-Iraq War as a young officer, told me that after the group returned to Iraq in 2003 and proceeded to take over several state institutions-which meant access to the oil revenues-its leaders "started competing with each other over who gets more billions, they all have palaces, they have banks filled up with money in Iraq, Iran, the Gulf, abroad. They're stealing as if possessed."
In addition to enriching the Iranian regime, the Iraqi militias advance both parties' interests by securing their own political dominance, which in turn provides Tehran authority over Baghdad. The militias have maintained their position through repression, such as when they violently crushed anti-regime protests in Iraq in 2019. They have carried out acts of political violence, too: in 2021, when a Shiite-Kurdish-Sunni coalition sought to form a government excluding some of the militias' parties, the militias targeted its Kurdish and Sunni members with drones until they gave up on the plan. The militias have also taken steps to capture the state by appointing loyalists or pliable figures to key judicial and executive positions and through mass vote buying in the November 2025 parliamentary elections, as documented in videos and testimonies of people who were hired by political parties as election observers in exchange for their votes and the votes of their relatives.
Iran recognizes that if the Iraqi militias were to take significant military action against the United States and Israel, the devastating response that action would trigger would undermine the militias' grip on power and their ability to siphon off Iraq's resources. According to the commander of Israel's Northern Command, General Ori Gordin, Tehran pressured Lebanon's Hezbollah to intervene when Israel and the United States attacked Iran in the 12-day war; in contrast, according to Iraqi sources speaking to the pan-Arab newspaper Asharg Al-Awsat and the British think tank RUSI, Tehran discouraged the Iraqi militias from entering the fray. The purposes of the two proxies are different. Hezbollah receives massive financial assistance from Iran and from the Iraqi militias, and its function is to fight on Iran's orders. The Iraqi militias' job in recent years has been to preserve Iran's influence over Iraqi politics and to continue the plunder of Iraq's resources. STAYING OUT OF TROUBLE Today, with a war underway between Iran, Israel, and the United States, the interests of the Iraqi militias and Iranian regime may be diverging for the first time. U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated that he hopes the war will bring down the regime itself, but most militia leaders and rank and file do not want to go down in flames alongside it. Wealthy militia commanders are wary about fighting Iran's wars. According to an attendee at a tribal iftar gathering on February 24, Khazali, whose militia is nominally loyal to Iran, cursed fellow commanders who are eager to fight the Americans, saying at the dinner, "We don't want to enter a war with the U.S., we want a stable Iraq. A war is not in the interest of Iraq." According to acquaintances who knew Khazali in the 1990s, he used to suffer from hunger and wear cheap nylon pants and plastic shoes. Now, according to an Iraqi politician, Khazali "is the strongest economic actor in Iraq." The militia commander is "afraid of being killed …
The Iraqi militias are not likely to make a difference militarily as the fight continues. If the war ends with some version of the current Iranian regime still in charge, however, the militias will continue to serve as Tehran's economic life support. Whatever comes next, the militias' focus on self-enrichment would be a vulnerability their adversaries can exploit. Unlike the suicidal jihadists they claim to be, militia members do not want to die and will comply when credibly threatened. This is why I was released after 903 days in Kataib Hezbollah captivity. Mark Savaya, Trump's Iraqi-American campaign backer and friend, met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in early September and, as he recounted to me later, told Sudani to convey a message to the militia's leadership: "Trump is pissed, and if Elizabeth is not released within a week, the U.S. will kill you." I was free a week later. Although the use of force and credible threats have proved effective at compelling the militias to change their conduct, there are plenty of other ways to reduce their power. The large numbers of personnel who are interested in their salaries alone can be easily bought off by foreign intelligence services. Sanctions on the militias' leaders, their businesses and financial networks, and the Iraqi officials who funnel funds to the militias can restrict the groups' profits if sanctions are applied consistently and updated to include new shell companies. The militias' dependence on state resources also makes them vulnerable to sanctions on Iraqi oil, for example, which provides 92 percent of the government's revenues. The government's own vulnerability means, too, that pressure from high-level U.S. officials can force Iraq's political leadership to shut down the countless schemes the militias use to siphon off state resources. This armed network has largely captured the Iraqi state, but dismantling it would not be as difficult a task as it seems. That task will become an urg…
Iran’s fair-weather friends:
Why Shiite militias in Iraq are mostly staying on the sidelines. The focus in amassing wealth has diluted their ideological commitment therefore made them lesss willing to fight Iran’s wars with US & Israel, argues Elizabeth Tsurkov archive.ph/saFBc #Islamism #IranWar
Western security officials say the overt and deliberate language represents a step-change in Tehran's approach to recruitment, highlighting the increasing tensions between the UK and Iran as conflict in the Middle East intensifies. According to a UK intelligence source, the recruitment model frequently involves individuals being hired for simple assignments, such as taking a photograph of a sensitive site or building. In some cases, the intermediary who accepts the job may then recruit others, often local low-level criminals, to help complete the task for cash. "It's not all willing accomplices," the UK intelligence source added. "It can also be naive individuals or pure criminality... unemployed and vulnerable people but also random criminals identified through illegal online marketplaces." In response to The i Paper's findings, former home secretary Dame Priti Patel urged the Government to put considerable resources into tackling the growing threat from Tehran. "Britain has world-class intelligence and security services who conduct offensive operations in order to protect our homeland security," she said. "Now is the time for the Government to ensure they are putting in the essential leadership and resources to take down every Iranian threat to British citizens and to the security of our country"
Iran is recruiting a network of "gig-economy" spies across Europe through Telegram channels offering cash payments for surveillance and other tasks, UK security sources warn. Using encrypted messaging apps and cash incentives, Iranian intelligence is seeking to enlist people from across the continent to carry out surveillance operations and potentially violent attacks, including assassinations, The i Paper can reveal. Channels on the messaging platform Telegram openly advertise "jobs" with Iran's intelligence agency in a recruitment drive mirroring techniques used by Russian intelligence. The methods have raised concerns among counterterrorism officials that Tehran is increasingly outsourcing espionage and hostile operations to loosely connected proxies and criminals. "They will literally hire anyone to commit arson, criminal damage, assault," a Whitehall counter-terror source said, noting a "trend" whereby "professional criminals are recruited for the more sophisticated operations". One channel on the platform, which security officials believe is linked to Iranian intelligence, uses an automated Telegram bot to invite users to "work with Iranian intelligence in a tested, safe environment"
Iran hires European criminals to work as spies via Telegram bots: Tehran-linked channels advertise paid assignments for surveillance & other tasks, raising concerns about a growing 'gig-economy' espionage model across Europe archive.ph/PvZTs By Richard Holmes #espionage #Iran
The Party's interests come first: The life of Xi Zhongxun, father of Xi Jinping.
By @josephtorigian.bsky.social #glykoreads
!['Islamism vs Muslims'
Refusing to call out Islamist extremism allows the conversation to be monopolised by others, he warns. "If Labour don't call this issue out, challenge it, mark out Islamism vs Muslims - which are distinctly different - then it creates a cementing factor for the far-Right, because the far-Right strategy is to label all Muslims as the problem."
Meanwhile, he fears spaces for moderates like himself are being closed down. "Twenty years of work with Muslim communities," he says, "and I'm on my own today."
It feels like a sad coda to his years of work to try and bring people together. But Mughal isn't done with his mission yet.
In the past few years, he has devoted time to "personal healing". He's become a trained therapist and still lives in north London. His ex-partner, Iman Atta, is now the director of Tell Mama, which no longer receives government funding.
A Government spokesman says: "We do not engage with extremists and will never be afraid to oppose Islamist actors.
"Muslim communities have always had our full support and we're investing record levels of security funding for faith communities, including £40m this year to protect mosques and Muslim community centres."
As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Mughal has also watched the emergence of pro-Iran rallies and vigils for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Britain with concern.
He says: "For 40 years, the murder, the brutality, the vindictiveness and the terrorism and the intelligence gathering that Iran has undertaken in our country is extensive. How can people eulogise him? They may think, OK, he's a spiritual leader, we need to pray for him.
But there is a context which is glaringly obvious over 40 years... [he] was contemptible."
But his struggle against extremism goes on. In fact, his energy to fight it has been renewed.
After the Hamas terror attack on Oct 7 2023, Mughal travelled to Israel and spoke to Israelis about the trauma they had suffered, urging British Muslims to stand with …](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vn3uvfefltdnpomgnpsjmigw/bafkreidpfs4rmzislmv3c4oezcw62dsccefm3b5csosmt646ggcppojrom)
'Islamism vs Muslims' Refusing to call out Islamist extremism allows the conversation to be monopolised by others, he warns. "If Labour don't call this issue out, challenge it, mark out Islamism vs Muslims - which are distinctly different - then it creates a cementing factor for the far-Right, because the far-Right strategy is to label all Muslims as the problem." Meanwhile, he fears spaces for moderates like himself are being closed down. "Twenty years of work with Muslim communities," he says, "and I'm on my own today." It feels like a sad coda to his years of work to try and bring people together. But Mughal isn't done with his mission yet. In the past few years, he has devoted time to "personal healing". He's become a trained therapist and still lives in north London. His ex-partner, Iman Atta, is now the director of Tell Mama, which no longer receives government funding. A Government spokesman says: "We do not engage with extremists and will never be afraid to oppose Islamist actors. "Muslim communities have always had our full support and we're investing record levels of security funding for faith communities, including £40m this year to protect mosques and Muslim community centres." As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Mughal has also watched the emergence of pro-Iran rallies and vigils for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Britain with concern. He says: "For 40 years, the murder, the brutality, the vindictiveness and the terrorism and the intelligence gathering that Iran has undertaken in our country is extensive. How can people eulogise him? They may think, OK, he's a spiritual leader, we need to pray for him. But there is a context which is glaringly obvious over 40 years... [he] was contemptible." But his struggle against extremism goes on. In fact, his energy to fight it has been renewed. After the Hamas terror attack on Oct 7 2023, Mughal travelled to Israel and spoke to Israelis about the trauma they had suffered, urging British Muslims to stand with …
‘Moderate Muslims like me have been cut off by Labour in favour of extremists’.
The Tell Mama founder on confronting extremism, receiving threats from all sides and the isolation of not being the ‘right type of Muslim’ archive.ph/ZwSPq #Islamism #nationalism
The IDF on Sunday attacked Iran’s Aerospace Headquarters, used for launching satellites, which could potentially be incorporated in future attempts to develop nuclear weapons that could be fired into space and hit the US. www.jpost.com/defense-and-...
On Saturday, the US president said that the current attacks on the Iranian regime would need to go on for much longer before even considering sending in special forces because "if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn't be able to fight at the ground level." Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's top policy official, was asked earlier this week how much government analysts were focused on the highly enriched uranium. He told a Council on Foreign Relations audience that, "without getting into any specifics, obviously we're always highly focused on that," the NYT reported. The Institute for Science and International Security has published reports of Iranians adding dirt and rubble to the area or removing it, presumably related either to accessing the uranium or protecting the facility from anticipated new strikes from the US and Israel, after the new campaign began on February 28. At present, Iran appears more focused on firing ballistic missiles than on nuclear activities, and Israel and the US are focused on the aerial campaign against the regime. Nevertheless, all sides are likely to have contingency plans for the 60% enriched uranium, still assumed to be held underground.
The regime's fingerprints are on the missile arsenals targeting Israeli cities, on proxy terror militias embedded across Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, and on terror plots stretching from Buenos Aires to Burgas. When an adversary arms, funds, and directs forces committed to the destruction of a neighbouring state - and increasingly to the intimidation of the West - this is not peace. It is war by other means. The moral and legal question is therefore not whether force is undesirable. It is whether, in the real world, states have the right - indeed the obligation - to defend their citizens against a fanatical regime built on hate that clearly proclaims its intentions to wipe out its opponents and builds rockets and centrifuges for making nuclear weapons for doing this. Start with the missiles. Iran's own forces and proxies have launched or facilitated hundreds of lethal strikes against Israeli civilians in recent years. These are not battlefield exchanges along a contested frontier; they are deliberate efforts to terrorise a distant civilian population. No international law or principle of justice requires a nation to absorb such heinous attacks while waiting for some pseudo-court or UN body to authorise defensive action. Article 51 of the UN Charter affirms the inherent right of self-defence. That right is not erased because the aggressor pretends to aim its attacks at military targets or operates through intermediaries. Then there is the nuclear question. Iran's nuclear weapons programme has long violated both the spirit and letter of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The combination of advanced enrichment capacity, ballistic missile development, and explicit threats against Israel creates a uniquely destabilising mix. A regime that calls for the elimination of another UN member state cannot reasonably expect that state (i.e. Israel) to treat its march toward nuclear capability as a routine matter of sovereign discretion, regardless of actual in…
International law is becoming a suicide pact for Western democracies: Critics of the US-Israeli attack on Iran are erasing the history of the regime’s terror – the antithesis of justice and morality archive.ph/u3uw4
By Gerald M. Steinberg #IranWar #Islamism #terrorism #InternationalLaw
![Officials familiar with the intelligence noted that the Islamic Republic can now reach the uranium through a very narrow access point. It is unclear how quickly Iran could move the uranium, which is in gas form and stored in canisters.
US officials have said that American spy agencies have constant surveillance on the Isfahan site and a
high degree of confidence that they would be able to detect and react to any attempt by the Iranian government or other groups to move it.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump was asked on Air Force One if he would consider sending in ground forces to seize the uranium.
He responded, "Right now we're just decimating them, but we haven't gone after it. But [it is] something we could do later on. We wouldn't do it now."
The report said that Washington had decided not to try to retrieve the uranium last year because doing so would have been too dangerous.
US officials said in the report that the air campaign against Iran would need to continue for days to further weaken Iranian defenses before making any final decision on the viability of that type of raid.
The option to conduct a raid on nuclear sites was reported earlier by Semafor. The NYT reported in January that Trump was considering sending special forces teams into Iran.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vn3uvfefltdnpomgnpsjmigw/bafkreigd6bjzbbjkbslpdpfeetkitcgn4nzbo7jphvujot4odcqysnp3li)
Officials familiar with the intelligence noted that the Islamic Republic can now reach the uranium through a very narrow access point. It is unclear how quickly Iran could move the uranium, which is in gas form and stored in canisters. US officials have said that American spy agencies have constant surveillance on the Isfahan site and a high degree of confidence that they would be able to detect and react to any attempt by the Iranian government or other groups to move it. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump was asked on Air Force One if he would consider sending in ground forces to seize the uranium. He responded, "Right now we're just decimating them, but we haven't gone after it. But [it is] something we could do later on. We wouldn't do it now." The report said that Washington had decided not to try to retrieve the uranium last year because doing so would have been too dangerous. US officials said in the report that the air campaign against Iran would need to continue for days to further weaken Iranian defenses before making any final decision on the viability of that type of raid. The option to conduct a raid on nuclear sites was reported earlier by Semafor. The NYT reported in January that Trump was considering sending special forces teams into Iran.
On Saturday, the US president said that the current attacks on the Iranian regime would need to go on for much longer before even considering sending in special forces because "if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn't be able to fight at the ground level." Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's top policy official, was asked earlier this week how much government analysts were focused on the highly enriched uranium. He told a Council on Foreign Relations audience that, "without getting into any specifics, obviously we're always highly focused on that," the NYT reported. The Institute for Science and International Security has published reports of Iranians adding dirt and rubble to the area or removing it, presumably related either to accessing the uranium or protecting the facility from anticipated new strikes from the US and Israel, after the new campaign began on February 28. At present, Iran appears more focused on firing ballistic missiles than on nuclear activities, and Israel and the US are focused on the aerial campaign against the regime. Nevertheless, all sides are likely to have contingency plans for the 60% enriched uranium, still assumed to be held underground.
Mossad can detect, catch if Iranian nuclear officials move enriched uranium, US intel suggests.
US President Donald Trump might consider a covert mission to seize it once the Islamic regime is more decimated. www.jpost.com/israel-news/... #nuclearweapons #IranWar #Islamism
A U.S. official said that Ukraine is likely to provide trainers. Ukraine didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the U.S. and its regional allies have sought Kyiv's help against Iranian strikes. The U.S. isn't the only country interested in Ukraine's battlefield experience. Representatives of Qatar and other Gulf states targeted by Iranian drones and missiles have traveled to meet with Ukrainian arms manufacturers and learn from their experience in building supply chains. U.S. use of Ukraine-tested innovations marks a turnabout. For several years, U.S. military officers have sent equipment to Ukraine and studied the war there to learn how to defend against Russia's large fleet of one-way attack drones. Now, the hope is that defensive systems developed for Ukraine will pay dividends in President Trump's new war against Iran-specifically in fending off Iran's Shahed drones. Shaheds, which Russia uses extensively, are an Iranian-developed weapon, so the U.S. faces a threat that is familiar from Ukraine. Moscow manufactures its own Shaheds and has developed versions that are even more advanced than those Iran is now launching. The U.S. and its allies deployed some Merops systems in Poland and Romania last year following incursions by Russian drones. It has proved to be a popular system with Ukraine forces.
The U.S. Army is rushing to the Middle East counterdrone systems that have been battle-tested in Ukraine, in an effort to thwart Tehran’s destructive attacks across the region: A small number of the defensive systems, dubbed Merops, are being sent from U.S. Army stocks in Europe… archive.ph/NMVuL
The question is never really whether Israel has a right to exist but whether the Jews do. That’s all anybody’s debating here. Britain just arrested four Iranians for allegedly casing Jewish institutions for attack on orders from Tehran. Do the Jews of London have a right to exist? #antisemitism
Officially, China buys no oil from Iran. In reality, ninety percent of Iranian crude is taken by the tankers of Iran's fabled shadow fleets, under cover of darkness with disabled transponders, or masked by GPS spoofing tech. The cargo is transshipped in waters east of the Malay Peninsula, rebranded as Emirati or Malaysian, and moved north to the Shandong headland, jutting out from China's east coast. Iranian dark oil accounts for 13.5 percent of all Chinese crude imports, while the purchases add up to some 45 percent of Tehran's total government budget. Beijing has been keeping the Islamic Republic afloat. At the same time, it has saved billions by spiriting cheap oil into China via ghost fleets. The dependency works both ways. China is, in fact, uniquely dependent; it is the world's largest energy importer. That could become a serious headache in the event of the Taiwan takeover Xi has planned for 2027, considering the flood of sanctions and cascading disruptions likely to follow. So the CCP has rapidly diversified both the sources and the routes of its vast intake. Gulf crude now makes up a third of China's supply. And in 2021, the Party agreed to invest US$400 billion in Iranian energy, infrastructure, transport, and seaports over the next 25 years-all in return for oil at a sharp discount.
A strike against Beijing:
#OperationEpicFury is not just about Iran. Much like the recent American operation in Venezuela, this was primarily about China. Tehran is a node in a network; a proxy for the CCP in a new Cold War. quillette.com/2026/03/06/a... By Aaron Sarin #China #Iran
The country has dramatically changed its legislation in recent years to attract new residents and business. It passed labor laws that aim to eradicate abuses, and liberalized the visa rules that shackled most foreign residents to their employers. It also allowed professionals-or anyone buying an apartment-to obtain so-called golden visas, the renewable 10-year residence permits that are not linked to a particular job. The country has no personal income tax—a reason why people moving here are often resented in their home nations. But the U.A.E. also has no social safety net for foreigners. If you don't work, you're on your own-and, unless on a golden visa, can't stay. Foreigners can also set up companies with 100% ownership in an increasing number of industries and areas, creating a new class of entrepreneurs in anything from artificial intelligence to financial consulting to interior design. "The U.A.E. was very smart in making sure that these people establish roots and have a stake in the success of the country. Had this been in 2010, or 2015, there would have been a very different reaction, by some people, who don't own their businesses, who don't own their houses, don't own their apartments," said Emirati writer and intellectual Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi. "Now, almost nobody that I know is planning on leaving. They feel that this is their home for the long term. And for us, the best expression of love is—if possible-for these people to remain here."
The U.A.E., of course, is not a liberal democracy: It is a federation of seven emirates, with the hereditary ruler of the most powerful of them, oil-rich Abu Dhabi, serving as president, while the ruler of Dubai, the most populous, serves as a prime minister. Citizenship is only rarely granted to newcomers, and there are no elections. Some of the country's foreign entanglements, particularly in the Sudan civil war, have earned widespread condemnation abroad. But it's also a place where things work: quickly, efficiently, and, unusually for many parts of the Middle East, without the need to pay bribes. Dubai, in particular, has already shown its resilience during the Covid pandemic, ensuring that it never had shortages of food and essentials, that the lockdown was brief, and that its inhabitants were among the first in the world to access vaccines. Its economy-and property prices-quickly bounced back afterward. If the threat of attacks from Iran doesn't become permanent, many expect it to recover this time, too. "It's normal and quite understandable to feel nervous and anxious anytime the umbrella of safety feels compromised. But just as during Covid, people in the U.A.E. know very well the government will do everything it can to ensure their safety and security," said Yousef Al Otaiba, the country's minister of state and ambassador to Washington who returned to the U.A.E. shortly after the war began. "And, just like Covid, we will come out of this stronger."
Everybody loves to hate Dubai. Here’s why they’re wrong.
The city, under fire from Iran and assailed by critics, is a beacon of opportunity for people around the world. archive.ph/jY2f6 By
@yarotrof.bsky.social #Dubai #IranWar #Islamism
Today's war is another example. "We are here in many ways because the Iranians have been chanting 'Death to America' for 47 years. I used to say, 'I don't think this is helpful.' " Western interlocutors and intermediaries would respond that the regime didn't really mean it. "Well, if they don't mean it, then don't say it. Stop. But they never would," he says. "To be honest, I think they got away with things for so long that they got used to it."
They didn't count on a president who would break from standard operating procedure, whom they couldn't stall until the next U.S. election. Mr. Ansari says Iran had every chance to avert war. But it lost Europe by siding with Russia in Ukraine, and it refused to make a plausible offer when Mr. Trump returned to office. "The longer they waited, the worse it got. They could've gotten a deal six months ago. But when ships are waiting outside, the asking price goes up." The regime insisted throughout on a "right to enrich uranium"-which "would have more credibility if they respected any other rights as well," Mr. Ansari cracks. "We often think of the Iranians as very strategic thinkers, playing the long game. No, no. It's different. They're ditherers," he says. "We ascribe to them too much competence. I do not consider what's happening now to be the result of great strategic thinking." He points to a "dogmatic ideology and a grievance culture, whereby they've taken a hit for their nuclear program and can't back down." In his assessment, by sheer stubbornness, the regime "basically decided to declare war on the U.S." l The failure to see that, and so much else, can be attributed to the prevailing "Washington-centered analysis," Mr. Ansari says. "We always see Iran as almost marginal to the problem, which is Washington." If only Mr. Trump hadn't done this or that, the commentators rage. But if there is now an opening for regime change, it is because U.S. policymakers for once were able to turn from the mirror and see what the Iranian people know well: The problem is in Iran.
Is Iran on the brink of another revolution?
The regime faces a crisis like never before, historian Ali M. Ansari explains, and the nation has an 120-year tradition of fighting to establish the rule of law. archive.ph/pDQfL By Elliot Kaufman #HistoricalPoliticalMemory #Islamism #IranWar
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Friday's attack. Nigeria is battling a complex security crisis from different armed groups. The United States has sent troops to the West African nation to help advise its military on the fight against insecurity. Separate attacks this week also took place in the communities of Konduga, Marte, Jakana, and Mainok between Wednesday and early Friday, according to a military spokesperson. The spokesperson, Uba Sani, said the troops were able to repel the attacks on the communities of Konduga, Marte, Jakana and Mainok, but "a number of brave soldiers paid the supreme price in the line of duty," along with a senior officer. He did not elaborate on military casualties. Sani described the assaults as "failed attacks" and said they showed "increasing desperation of terrorist elements under sustained operational pressure" from the military. Ulf Laessing, with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said Friday's attack on Ngoshe took advantage of the Nigerian army's difficulties in controlling large swaths of the country where jihadi groups operate. Militants are also benefiting from increased cross-border cooperation between their groups and the use of drones to scout out their targets before attacking.
"The army is fighting a ghost - fighters descending with motorbikes on villages and disappearing into the bush before the army can respond in time," said Laessing. Among the most prominent Islamic militant groups are Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group and known as Islamic State West Africa Province. There is also the IS-linked Lakurawa, as well as other "bandit" groups that specialize in kidnapping for ransom and illegal mining. Recently, the crisis has worsened to include other militants from the neighboring Sahel region, including the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, which claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil last year. Several thousand people in Nigeria have been killed, according to data from the United Nations. Analysts say not enough is being done by the government to protect its citizens.
Islamic militants attacked a town in northeastern #Nigeria on Friday, abducting more than 300 people, including women and children…The attack happened in the town of Ngoshe in Borno state, according to Bulama Sawa, an official from the Gwoza area. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0... #Islamism
Qatar remains home to key Hamas political figures, including senior officials who have operated from luxury Doha compounds for over a decade. Despite an Israeli strike in September 2025 that targeted Hamas negotiators in Doha - killing at least six people (including aides and a Qatari officer) but sparing top leaders like Khalil al-Hayya - the group's core political bureau has not fully relocated. Hamas leadership survived that attempt and continues to use Qatar as a base for diplomacy, fundraising, and coordination. Qatar's hosting arrangement, backed by billions in aid funneled to Gaza (often criticized as indirect support for Hamas military wings), has drawn repeated Israeli condemnation.
An Iranian missile strike on the US radar at Al Udeid base highlights #Qatar ’s strategic contradiction; a Gulf ally hosting American forces while protecting #Hamas leadership and financing networks tied to the war against Israel. www.ynetnews.com/opinions-ana... #Iran #Islamism #terrorism
Few people lobbied Trump to undertake the riskiest gambit of his presidency as effectively as the hawkish and persistent Graham, who over a decade has held a sometimes close, sometimes tumultuous relationship with Trump. Some Democrats and even Republicans point the finger at Graham, who they think goaded Trump into a Middle East conflict with little plan for how the situation will play out long term. "Lindsey hasn't seen a fist fight he hasn't wanted to turn into a bombing raid," said Rep. Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.). Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said there should be a law passed on how often Graham goes to the White House or golfs with Trump. Graham's effort to pull MAGA toward regime change was "the quintessential political maneuvering beyond all political maneuvering," Paul said. Sitting in his Senate office this week with canisters of Planters peanuts and hundreds of scattered papers on his desk and signed MAGA hats on his shelves, Graham was almost giddy about persuading Trump to bomb Iran. One of the newer hats reads "Make Iran Great Again." "What are they going to do to me?" he said of critics who opposed his efforts. The senator said he was already talking with Trump about further military interventions in Lebanon and potentially Cuba, which he said would happen soon. He wasn't particularly concerned about what was next in Iran, he said.
Senator Lindsey Graham said he was already talking with Trump about further military interventions in Lebanon and potentially Cuba, which he said would happen soon. He wasn’t particularly concerned about what was next in Iran, he said. archive.ph/G1Dt0 #trumpism
Israel’s cyber chief Yossi Karadi warns AI is supercharging hackers, deepfakes, and mass attacks. In an exclusive interview, he outlines new defenses, counterstrikes, and a push for a cyber law. www.jpost.com/israel-news/... #CyberAttack #CyberSecurity
China hasn’t dispatched a single warplane near Taiwan for the past seven days, a mysterious shift that amounts to Beijing’s longest absence since Taipei started regularly disclosing the activity. archive.ph/nWMYz #CCP #communism #Taiwan
