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What you need to know

Iran war overview

The U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran entered roughly its first week, with operations on both sides continuing at high tempo. 

U.S. commanders say Iran’s ability to fire ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones has dropped sharply since the opening strikes, with Washington claiming steep percentage declines in launches and localized air superiority along parts of Iran’s southern coast.

The operational picture is being shaped by two dynamics that can both be true at once: Iran’s air defenses and exposed infrastructure appear badly mauled, but its most protected asymmetrical assets are designed to survive exactly this sort of war. 

Commercial satellite imagery shows heavy damage at missile-related sites, including structures near tunnel entrances at facilities in northwestern Iran. That suggests the campaign is targeting the support system around underground storage and command nodes as much as what sits inside them. The same logic appears to be informing strikes in Tehran, where imagery indicates damage to security- and intelligence-linked buildings.

Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has not been immune. The International Atomic Energy Agency has indicated damage to buildings at Natanz, with multiple outlets reporting satellite imagery showing fresh destruction at, or near, entrance-area structures at the enrichment complex. IAEA has said that no radiological consequences were expected from the specific damage described.

Iranian retaliation, though diminished somewhat, has been loud enough to keep the region on edge. There has been at least two new waves of Iranian missiles at Israel that drove millions to shelters today, but at least 90% were intercepted. Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft again reached into Tehran, with massive strikes against regime-affiliated sites. 

There is also a broader maritime escalation: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed control over the Strait of Hormuz, and reporting an attack on a U.S. tanker, amid disruption already visible in shipping patterns and energy pricing. 

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has dropped by about 92%, marking one of the largest drops in modern history.

Danish shipping company Maersk said on Wednesday it is temporarily suspending most cargo bookings in and out of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia until further notice.

Having sunk most Iranian naval vessels at sea since Saturday (including using a submarine for the first time since WWII to sink a frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka yesterday causing over 150 casualties), the U.S. military is today heavily striking the port of Bandar Abbas, the headquarters of Iran’s navy.

An Iranian drone has hit the international airport in the Azerbaijani city of Nakhchivan this morning. Azerbaijan hosts a large U.S. military contingent.

In addition to France sending naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean yesterday, Italy has also declared it will send air defense system to the Gulf states.

The strategic effect is clear: insurers are repricing risk, shippers hesitating, and governments preparing for the worst-case scenario in the world’s most important oil chokepoint.

Inside Washington, the fighting is political. The Senate defeated a war-powers push that sought to constrain President Donald Trump’s authority to continue strikes, leaving the White House with substantial political room to sustain operations, at least for now. 

Tehran, meanwhile, is being forced to manage war and succession politics at the same time. Funeral arrangements for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were disrupted by strikes, while his son, Mojtaba, has emerged in public chatter as a leading contender to succeed him (although this would seem contrary to the provisions of the Iranian constitution and there is considerable internal opposition to Mojtaba). 

In practical terms, decapitation pressure can fracture decision-making, but it can also stiffen it, especially if rival power centers fear they will be next.

In the coming week it will be important to watch whether the campaign shifts from degrading capability to compelling political outcomes. 

The first phase is measurable: fewer launches, destroyed surface infrastructure, cratered facilities, and visible damage in imagery.

The second phase is political: can Tehran be pushed into terms while it believes it can absorb airstrikes, hide assets, and impose costs through shipping disruption and long-range fire, even at reduced volumes?

Markets will keep serving as a real-time referendum on that question, with the Strait of Hormuz the most sensitive pressure gauge.

Move fast and break things

Republicans block bid to limit Trump’s war powers

In Washington, Senate Republicans blocked an effort to impose limits on President Donald Trump’s authority to continue the U.S. air campaign against Iran without explicit congressional approval.

A procedural vote failed 53–47, preventing a bipartisan war-powers measure from advancing and highlighting how difficult it may be for Congress to constrain the operation while Republicans control the chamber.

Supporters argued that the Constitution assigns war-making authority to Congress. Opponents said the campaign is lawful and necessary, and warned that restricting the White House’s freedom of action mid-conflict would be reckless.

Birthplace of civilization

Protests and airstrikes inside Iran

A large crowd in Khuzestan, the oil-rich province in southern Iran on the border with Iraq, was filmed chanting “death to Pahlavi” last night, showing that Iran’s regime can still bring supporters onto the streets.

Meanwhile, a video appeared online of an anti-government Sunni insurgent group announcing the beginning of operations against Tehran’s forces; also in Khuzestan.

In Kurdish-majority areas, fresh heavy strikes on Thursday morning hit Iranian security-force installations in Sanandaj. Some media reports, citing anonymous Israeli and American officials, claimed Kurdish militias were crossing from Iraq into Iran to fight Iranian forces. Iraqi Kurdish authorities and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups have denied this.

Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, is described by some Iranian political figures as taking a more direct role in wartime decision-making.

Iran’s military chain of command also appears disrupted. Some missile and drone-launch units reportedly have lost contact with central command and are operating autonomously.

Israeli authorities have estimated that roughly 3,000 Iranian soldiers have been killed so far in the conflict.

Iraq’s grid collapse deepens wartime economic strains

On Wednesday 4 March, Iraq’s national power grid failed after a drone strike hit generating equipment in Baiji, triggering a cascade of outages across the country. The strike was widely attributed, though not confirmed, to an Iran-backed armed group.

The blackout forced the major refinery in Basra offline, adding to pressure on Iraq’s oil system. Operators have already shut in roughly 1.5m barrels a day because exports through the Persian Gulf have been disrupted and storage capacity is limited.

Separately, social-media accounts and some official sources reported at least three special-forces insertions into Muthanna province in southern Iraq. It remains unclear whether the operators were Israeli or American. At least one team reportedly exchanged fire with Iraqi army units sent to investigate, with casualties reported on the Iraqi side.

Israel widens evacuation orders in southern Lebanon

On Wednesday 4 March, the Israel Defense Forces ordered more than 600,000 people to leave southern Lebanon. The order covered towns and villages south of the Litani River, as well as the entire city of Tyre, which has around 200,000 residents.

Israel’s army has also begun reinforcing its posture in the south, with two divisions, the 91st (Galilee), tasked with guarding the border with Lebanon, and the 146th (Ha-Mapatz reserve formation), moving into new positions in southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces now appear to hold a continuous border zone extending at least 1 km (0.6 miles) into southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah published a video on Wednesday showing what it described as a guided-missile strike on an Israeli Merkava tank in southern Lebanon. The claim has not been independently verified, and the footage could be intended for information warfare rather than as evidence of a confirmed hit.

The ultimate complex system

Fertilizer trade braces for war risk at the start of spring planting

As the northern hemisphere enters spring application in early March, the war’s biggest impact on fertilizer trade is likely to come through three channels: physical supply risk, higher shipping and insurance costs, and volatility in energy prices that feeds directly into nitrogen production costs.

The most exposed products are nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and ammonia and, to a slightly lesser extent, phosphates (DAP/MAP), because both are vulnerable to disruptions in Middle East export flows and to any tightening in key inputs such as natural gas and sulfur.

Even if plants keep running, trade can still snarl if vessel availability drops, routes are rerouted, or war-risk premiums rise, delaying deliveries in a time window when timing matters almost as much as price.

Potash is generally less directly exposed to the main Middle East chokepoints, but it can still be pushed higher by second-order effects such as higher freight costs, precautionary buying, and substitution as farmers and distributors try to secure supply.

Over the next few weeks, the base case is higher prices and earlier tendering as importers pull demand forward; the adverse case is a sharper squeeze in prompt availability if severe disruption persists, potentially amplifying food-price pressure later in 2026 if farmers respond by cutting application rates.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone needs to pick a side

Taiwan Strait quiets as Trump trip to China heightens summit speculation

Chinese military flights around Taiwan have fallen sharply in recent days, an unusual lull that Taiwanese officials and analysts say may reflect Beijing’s desire to cool tensions ahead of an expected meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

Taiwan has logged no Chinese military aircraft entering its air defense identification zone since 27 February, a six-day pause after what had become near-daily activity. It appears Beijing is adjusting its posture as leader-level diplomacy draws nearer.

The White House has confirmed Trump will travel to China from 31 March to 2 April. Beijing has not publicly confirmed dates, which keeps uncertainty over whether a summit is fully set, or still dependent on preparatory negotiations.

Officials in Taipei cautioned against treating the drop in air activity as a genuine easing. Chinese naval and coast guard pressure around Taiwan has remained steady, implying a change in method rather than a change in purpose.

If a Trump–Xi meeting does indeed take place, Taiwan is expected to be central to the agenda alongside tariffs, technology controls, fentanyl-related cooperation, and critical minerals. For now, the quiet in the skies is a reminder of how quickly the Taiwan Strait can become a gauge of great-power diplomacy.

The new Monroe Doctrine & the Trump Corollary

U.S. blocks Cuba fuel payments via Cuban banks, Ecuador expels Cuban diplomats

U.S. officials are tightening the financial channels around attempts to sell fuel to Cuba’s emerging private sector.

On 4 March, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said it was suspending the use of a key authorization, License Exception “Support for the Cuban People”, for any export, reexport, or in-country transfer that involves depositing foreign funds into a Cuban-owned bank. The bureau argued that Cuban banks sit at the center of the regime’s financial system, that diversion and fee problems are long-standing and well documented, and that many banks are linked to Cuba’s military, intelligence, or security services through designations on the Cuba Restricted List. In its assessment, routing payments through state banks creates an unacceptable risk that transactions will primarily benefit the Cuban government, rather than the private activity the license exception is meant to support.

In practical terms, the change is about the payment route. The bureau said the suspension does not apply if a transaction avoids Cuban banks, for example by using third-country banks or other payment systems that do not deposit foreign funds into Cuba’s banking sector. It also allowed a short wind-down: shipments already en route on 4 March can still be completed, provided the export is finished by 3 April.

The decision lands as Washington has been presenting a more “people-first” approach to Cuba’s fuel crunch, allowing or encouraging sales aimed at households and private firms while trying to insulate the state. The new restriction suggests the U.S. will tolerate fuel reaching the island, but not hard currency flowing through institutions it regards as extensions of the security apparatus.

Ecuador, meanwhile, has ordered Cuban Ambassador Basilio Antonio Gutierrez and the rest of Cuba’s diplomatic mission to leave within 48 hours, a move Quito framed as a routine exercise of its rights under diplomatic law but which Havana condemned as a hostile political act.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry said it had declared Gutierrez and his staff persona non grata, citing Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which allows a host government to expel diplomats without publicly stating its reasons. Neither the ministry nor President Daniel Noboa’s office offered a specific justification, leaving observers to interpret the decision through the lens of Ecuador’s hardening security posture and a broader tilt toward Washington.

The step went beyond symbolism. Ecuador also moved to end the posting of its own ambassador in Havana, a decision that typically marks a meaningful downgrading of relations even if formal ties are not explicitly severed.

Cuba rejected the expulsions as arbitrary and unjustified, warning they would damage a relationship it described as long-standing. Cuban officials implied the timing reflected external pressure and regional politics, rather than a bilateral dispute that Ecuador had made public.

The timing is notable. Noboa has built his presidency around an all-out campaign against organized crime and prison gangs, and in recent days his government has emphasized closer cooperation with the U.S. on security and counternarcotics. Against that backdrop, the expulsion is likely to be read as part of a wider ideological sorting, with Quito distancing itself from leftist governments and from states under heavy U.S. sanctions.

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