What you need to know

A wider phase of the war

Since Saturday morning, the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran appears to have entered a more widely coercive phase, marked by heavier strikes on Tehran, the first reported attacks on Iranian oil-storage facilities, and continued pressure on Iran’s command structure as the war moved into its second week.

Early on Saturday, explosions were reported over western Tehran as Israel launched a broad new wave of attacks. Over the weekend, U.S. officials told American media outlets that the heaviest bombing of the conflict still lay ahead, suggesting that Washington expected the campaign to intensify rather than diminish.

The clearest new development since then has been the move against energy infrastructure in and around the Iranian capital. Online pictures and other reporting showed large fires at the Shahran fuel tanks in Tehran on 8 March, while additional reports described strikes on oil depots and a transfer facility in Tehran and Alborz. That points to a significant widening of the campaign. What began as an effort focused on military assets and senior leaders now appears to include infrastructure with broader economic and political importance.

On Monday, the strikes are continuing. Reports of fresh explosions in Tehran and Qom on Monday suggest that the tempo of strikes is continuing at a high level.

The Iranian leadership has appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Supreme Leader. Israel has threatened to kill any successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The implication is that Israeli pressure is aimed not only at degrading Iran’s military capabilities, but also at prevent the regime’s attempt to manage political succession under fire.

There are also growing indications that Washington and Jerusalem see this not as a short punitive episode, but as a sustained joint campaign. President Donald Trump said on Monday that ending the war would be a “mutual” decision with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That remark reinforced the impression of close U.S.-Israeli political coordination, even if the exact division of labor in each strike package remains unclear in public reporting.

Trump has also adopted increasingly maximalist language about the war’s results. Speaking at the White House on Friday, he said: “Their army is gone. Their navy is gone. Their communications are gone. Their leaders are gone. Two sets of their leaders are gone. They’re down to their third set. Their Air Force is wiped out entirely. Think of it.” He added, “They have 32 ships. All 32 are at the bottom of the ocean!”  

America’s military posture in the region has also continued to expand. The USS Gerald R. Ford, a 100,000-ton (about 220 million-pound) nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with more than 75 aircraft, transited the Suez Canal on 5 March and is now operating in the Red Sea. Its arrival adds substantial striking power to an already large U.S. force presence and points to preparations for a longer and more demanding campaign.

The market consequences have been immediate. The weekend strikes on Iran’s oil facilities have become a major driver of oil-market panic, with Brent crude surging and governments considering emergency responses, including a coordinated G7 release of strategic oil reserves (the rumors of which caused the oil price to drop again below $100 this morning). That reflects rising concern that attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure could trigger wider retaliation across the region, threatening oil flows, shipping, and other critical assets well beyond Iran itself.

Taken together, the events over the past 72 hours suggest that the war has entered a broader and more dangerous stage. The first major reported hits on oil-storage infrastructure near the capital, continued attacks on regime targets into Monday, mounting pressure on Iran’s leadership transition, and a visible expansion of U.S. force posture around the theater. What remains uncertain is the precise military effect of the latest strikes. But the direction of travel is becoming clearer: this is no longer a narrowly defined campaign of decapitation and deterrence, but a widening war with growing political and economic consequences.

Birthplace of civilization

Oil shock spreads across the Gulf

Iraq’s oil industry has suffered a dramatic collapse. Production has fallen by roughly 3 million barrels a day, from about 4.3 million barrels per day before the latest phase of the regional war to around 1.3 million barrels per day. The decline does not stem from damage at the wellhead but rather from the broader paralysis of Gulf energy logistics, especially the disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting storage bottlenecks inside Iraq.

In Baghdad, the scale of the decline reveals how vulnerable Iraq remains to maritime chokepoints (since it has inadequate storage facilities), even though most of its crude is produced onshore. Iraqi officials and industry sources described the situation as the country’s most severe oil-operational crisis in more than two decades. With exports constrained and storage nearing capacity, producers have reportedly been forced to cut output sharply and divert what remains toward domestic refineries.

The disruption is especially serious because oil remains the backbone of the Iraqi state. Iraq depends on crude revenues for more than 90% of government income, meaning any prolonged production shock will quickly become a fiscal and political problem, not merely an industrial one. A sustained loss of 3 million barrels per day would deprive the government of tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue at current elevated oil prices, while also constraining Baghdad’s ability to finance salaries, subsidies, and imports.

At the same time, Bahrain has been hit by a more direct blow. Bapco Energies, the kingdom’s state oil company, announced force majeure on operations after an attack on its refinery complex set the facility ablaze. Bahraini authorities said domestic market needs would still be met, but the declaration suggests that normal contractual performance and external shipments have been disrupted by the strike and its aftermath.

That matters because while Bahrain’s refining system is far smaller than Iraq’s upstream sector, the attack illustrates the same broader reality: the war is no longer threatening energy markets only through the possibility of a Hormuz closure. It is now striking energy infrastructure across the Gulf directly. Prices now are around just below $100 a barrel, after intraday spikes briefly pushed benchmarks much higher, as traders began pricing in both lost production and the risk of further strikes on refineries, shipping, and export terminals.

Together, the Iraqi production collapse and the Bahraini refinery fire mark a dangerous new phase in the regional energy crisis. Iraq shows how export disruption can cripple even a major producer without widespread destruction of oilfields. Bahrain shows how a single successful strike on processing infrastructure can trigger contractual force majeure and shake confidence across the market. If similar disruptions spread to other Gulf producers, the result would not simply be higher prices, but a broader breakdown in the region’s ability to move, refine, insure, and deliver oil normally.

Radar war in the Gulf: what has actually been hit

A clearer picture is emerging of Iran’s recent attacks on the sensor layer of America’s air-defense network in the Gulf. Verifiable reporting supports the conclusion that at least some high-end radar infrastructure has been damaged or knocked out. But the much broader Iranian claim that 16 named radar and communications systems were destroyed across six countries remains unsubstantiated.

The strongest confirmed case is in Jordan. Bloomberg, citing a U.S. official, reported that an RTX AN/TPY-2 radar and related support equipment at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base were destroyed in the opening days of the war. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Washington is moving quickly to replace a THAAD radar in Jordan, suggesting that this was not minor damage but a genuine operational loss at a key missile-defense node.

Qatar appears to be the next most credible case, though the exact degree of damage remains less clear. The Wall Street Journal reported damage to the AN/FPS-132 early-warning radar complex in Qatar, a crucial system for long-range missile warning. Parts of the online information environment surrounding the strike have been clouded by fake imagery, including a fabricated image claiming to show the destroyed radar. The safest conclusion is that the site was hit and damaged, not that the full Iranian account of total destruction has been independently verified.

Beyond those two cases, the evidence grows murkier. The Wall Street Journal reported that radar and communications sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia were also struck, and satellite imagery cited in broader coverage appears to show damage at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and at the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Reuters imagery and ABC reporting also indicate visible damage at the Fifth Fleet site. But none of that, on the public record so far, confirms the precise Iranian breakdown of six unidentified radomes at Camp Arifjan, one radome at Fifth Fleet headquarters, two satellite terminals in Bahrain, or a Patriot radar and engagement-control station at Ali Al Salem.

That distinction matters. There is now enough evidence to say that Iran has, at a minimum, succeeded in degrading parts of the U.S.-led regional early-warning and air-defense architecture. But it is still too early to accept the full Iranian claims as fact. Some sites have clearly been hit. Some systems were probably taken offline temporarily. Only a smaller subset can be described, on the current evidence, as firmly confirmed high-end losses.

For now, the ground truth appears to be this: one AN/TPY-2 in Jordan is the closest thing to a confirmed destruction; the AN/FPS-132 site in Qatar appears credibly damaged; additional radar or communications facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait were probably hit. 

Separately, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun confirmed during a National Assembly session on Monday that consultations with Washington over U.S. Forces Korea operations are under way. He was responding to lawmakers who cited reports that some U.S. assets could be redeployed from the Korean peninsula to the Middle East. South Korea is also sending up to 30 interceptors to the UAE, to help defend it against the ongoing Iranian drone and missile attacks.

A larger pipeline of bombs

Washington’s latest emergency arms approval for Israel, which includes 12,000 1,000-pound bomb bodies, has attracted scrutiny. But the figures are less remarkable than they may first seem. The shipment is small beside a much larger U.S. package approved a year earlier, which included 35,529 2,000-pound bomb bodies, among the heaviest conventional munitions in Israel’s arsenal.

The difference matters politically. Much of the public debate has centered on the symbolism of the new approval, particularly because it was pushed through under emergency authority during the current war with Iran. 

In practical terms, however, the more consequential story may be the cumulative flow of American ordnance over the past year. The earlier package of 2,000-pound bombs carried far greater destructive force and are probably now be contributing directly to Israel’s ongoing campaign against Iranian and proxy targets throughout the region.

Iraq’s widening drone war

Since Saturday morning, Iraq has been hit by a rolling series of mostly small-scale drone and rocket attacks. The pattern suggests an expanding spillover from the U.S.-Israel-Iran war: facilities linked to the U.S., coalition sites, airports, and oil infrastructure have all come under pressure. Responsibility remains unclear in most cases, but suspicion has largely fallen on Iran-aligned armed groups inside Iraq, especially Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Al Nujaba. Some Kurdish officials have also said that certain attacks may have come directly from Iran.

On Saturday, 7 March, Katyusha rockets targeted the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Sirens sounded, the C-RAM system intercepted at least one rocket, none landed inside the compound, and no American casualties were reported. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani condemned the attack and blamed “rogue groups operating outside the law”. Another rocket or mortar later landed right next to a building where Sudani was meeting with the Iraqi Chief Justice, Faeq Zidan.

By Sunday, 8 March, the attacks were continuing. Local and regional reporting said Iraqi air defenses shot down drones targeting the military area at Baghdad airport, where U.S.-linked facilities are located.

Then, today Monday, 9 March, there were further attempted drone attacks near both Baghdad International Airport and Erbil International Airport. Social media and local outlets reported interceptions around Baghdad Airport and near Erbil airport. U.S-led coalition forces are present at both locations.

The broader point is that this has become a multi-target pressure campaign inside Iraq. Over the past few days, drones have also struck or threatened energy infrastructure. Two drones landed inside BP’s Rumaila field on 5 March, prompting the evacuation of foreign staff, and a drone hit HKN Energy’s Sarsang field in Iraqi Kurdistan, causing a fire and halting production. There were also strikes on oil fields and on the cargo section of Basra International Airport.

What is going on, then, is that Iraq appears to be serving as a secondary theater in the regional war. The attacks are calibrated: usually limited in scale, often intercepted, and apparently intended to harass, demonstrate resolve, impose costs, and test defenses without necessarily causing an immediate, all-out breakdown inside Iraq. The mix of targets suggests three overlapping aims: to pressure U.S. personnel and diplomatic facilities, to disrupt Iraq’s oil economy and foreign commercial presence, and to create political strain for Sudani by showing that the Iraqi state cannot fully control armed factions or protect strategic sites.

But many Iran-backed Iraqi factions have so far been more cautious and divided than some expected. That suggests the current wave may be a mixture of deniable militia action, fragmented local decision-making, and opportunistic escalation, rather than a single centrally directed Iraqi front.  

The bottom line is that Iraq is now seeing continuing drone and missile activity centered on Baghdad, Erbil, and strategic energy sites. This looks less like random violence and more like sustained, low-to-medium-intensity coercion linked to the wider regional war. The immediate risk is of further attacks on coalition-linked facilities and oil infrastructure, especially around Baghdad airport, Erbil, Basra, and the major southern fields.

Lebanon under pressure on all fronts

Lebanon is coming under pressure on several fronts at once: humanitarian, military, financial, and political. As Israeli operations widen and displacement mounts, a deeper debate is emerging in Beirut over how to contain the crisis, how far to confront Hezbollah, and whether some form of diplomacy with Israel may become unavoidable. Reports over the past day point to a country being pushed toward decisions that, until recently, much of its political class had preferred to defer.

One of the most striking developments has come from the justice ministry. L’Orient-Le Jour reported that Justice Minister Adel Nassar is considering legal action against Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem after the Lebanese government banned all “military and security actions” by Hezbollah last week. Public reporting suggests that this remains at the stage of a contemplated move rather than a completed judicial step. Even so, the discussion is politically significant in a system where the state has long struggled to impose legal consequences on Hezbollah’s senior leadership.

At the same time, Lebanese politics may be edging, however cautiously, toward the idea of diplomacy with Israel. A report carried by LBCI and echoed elsewhere said informed sources had described President Joseph Aoun as having raised negotiations with Israel as a possible way out of the present crisis. That does not amount to a formal policy announcement, and Beirut has not publicly declared a negotiating track. But the circulation of the idea reflects the severity of the pressure as Israeli strikes intensify and the domestic costs rise.

Those costs are mounting quickly. Lebanon’s social affairs minister, Haneen Sayed, said more than 112,000 people had reached official shelters, while the broader number of displaced people had climbed into the hundreds of thousands. LBCI put the online-registered displaced population at around 454,000, while other current reporting places the total figure at roughly 517,000, suggesting a humanitarian emergency that extends far beyond those in formal shelter systems.  

On the military side, the Bekaa town of Nabi Sheet has become one of the conflict’s most symbolically charged flashpoints. Current reporting indicates that Israeli forces carried out two separate incursions there, the first from Friday night into Saturday and a second operation on Sunday night. Multiple reports say the raids were linked to an effort to find the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman missing since 1986. The first operation ended in failure and triggered heavy Israeli strikes in the area, causing substantial casualties and damage. The second appears to have been another attempt to search the same general area, illustrating a possible mix of motivations, such as historical grievance, intelligence-driven raiding, and probing of defenses, in which the Israeli military is now engaged.

Israel has also widened its pressure on Hezbollah’s civilian financial ecosystem. The Israeli military has warned of extensive bombing today against outlets associated with Al Qard Al Hassan, a Lebanese-registered charity that functions in practice as Hezbollah’s unofficial financial arm and also provides services to large parts of the Lebanese Shia community. Any sustained campaign against those outlets would carry consequences well beyond Hezbollah’s core military infrastructure, hitting a social and financial network used by many civilians in the party’s broader constituency. Several strikes have already occurred against Al Qard Al Hassan branches in south Beirut and south Lebanon so far today.

Taken together, these developments suggest that the crisis in Lebanon is entering a more dangerous and politically consequential phase. The state is publicly considering action against Hezbollah’s top leader. The presidency is, at least according to informed-source reporting, allowing discussion of negotiations with Israel. Displacement is surging. Israeli forces have mounted repeated raids deep into the Bekaa. And the financial architecture around Hezbollah is coming under great threat. None of that means Beirut has chosen a clear path. But it does suggest that the old formulas for managing Hezbollah, Israel, and the Lebanese state are coming under greater strain than at any point in recent years.

The ultimate complex system

Hormuz disruption threatens more than oil, but the risks are still uneven

The market’s immediate fixation is on the possibility of oil reaching around $120 a barrel. That is understandable. The Strait of Hormuz handled an average of 20 million barrels a day of crude oil and oil products in 2025, or about a quarter of global seaborne oil trade, and the International Energy Agency warns that an extended interruption would hit both oil and LNG markets hard.

But the larger economic story is that any prolonged disruption would spread well beyond fuel prices, into chemicals, metals, fertilizer, electricity, and semiconductors.

That does not mean the world is facing industrial catastrophe. Even in a severe crisis, not every Gulf barrel would simply vanish. Some volumes could be rerouted through Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline and the UAE’s Fujairah link, and global stockpiles offer some cushion. The IEA estimates alternative export capacity at roughly 3.5 million to 5.5 million barrels a day, far too little to replace normal Hormuz flows, but enough to suggest a painful squeeze rather than a complete stoppage.

Fertilizer supply for agriculture is also threatened. Hormuz is exposed to roughly 35% of global urea trade and 45% of global sulfur exports, both crucial to fertilizer markets. That makes the strait important not only for energy security but also for food costs. Farmers may not feel the full effect immediately if they already hold stocks, but a drawn-out disruption would push up fertilizer prices and, with a lag, increase pressure on agricultural production and consumer food bills.

There is a less noticed vulnerability relating to sulfur. Disruption in the Gulf is already constraining sulfur shipments used to make sulfuric acid, a basic industrial chemical essential to parts of copper, nickel, and cobalt processing. Indonesia’s nickel sector, which accounts for more than half of global output, is under pressure because around three-quarters of its sulfur imports come from the region. Copper producers in parts of Africa are vulnerable too. A longer interruption would therefore threaten supply chains for batteries, grid equipment, and electronics, not by shutting them down overnight, but by raising costs and creating shortages in key intermediate inputs.

Gas is another pressure point. Qatar is one of the world’s biggest LNG exporters, and the war has halted tanker traffic through Hormuz and disrupted Qatari supplies, forcing Asian buyers to search for replacement cargoes. That matters especially for Taiwan, Japan, and other import-dependent economies. Taiwan is particularly sensitive because it relies heavily on imported LNG, and recent reporting suggests it is trying to secure alternatives as regional buyers compete for cargoes. That does not mean Taiwan is about to go dark, but it does mean a prolonged Gulf disruption would raise the risk of tighter power supplies and higher energy costs for an economy at the center of the semiconductor industry.

The semiconductor angle is real, though it is easy to overstate. Taiwan dominates advanced chip manufacturing, and any strain on its power system would be watched nervously by global electronics firms. But the more plausible near-term risk is disruption and higher costs, not an immediate end to chip production. Industry and governments will first try to replace fuel, ration demand, and draw on reserves, before considering other options.

The realistic conclusion is sobering. A serious and prolonged interruption in Hormuz would not switch off modern civilization in a single stroke. It would, however, hit three linked systems at once: energy, industrial inputs, and food production. Oil prices are merely the first and most visible sign. The deeper danger is that a maritime chokepoint can send disruptions through factories, power grids, and farms long before the world runs short of crude.

Food markets feel the strain

Commodity markets are registering sharp gains well beyond crude. Since the start of the year, urea has risen by 59%, soybean oil by 36%, wheat by 20.5%, canola by 20%, soybeans by 15%, cheese by 14.5%, oats by 13%, rice by 11% and corn by 2%. Most of the increase began in January and then quickened in late February and the first week of March as the war began.

The fertilizer rally began first. Market reporting in mid-February indicated that global urea prices had already climbed by 18% since the start of January, with Middle Eastern spot prices above $480 a ton. The market had been tight even before the latest war shock because of Chinese export restrictions and lower European production. The conflict then produced a second jump by disrupting Gulf supply and shipping.

Vegetable oils and oilseeds had also begun rising before the latest military escalation, but the advance gathered momentum as energy markets tightened. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said its vegetable-oil price index rose again in February to its highest level since June 2022, driven by palm, soy and rapeseed oils. Soybean oil moved higher still as oil prices climbed and expectations of biofuel-linked demand strengthened.  

Grain markets followed a similar pattern. Wheat had been firming during February because of tight Black Sea supply and weather concerns, according to market reporting, before the Middle East conflict drove it higher. Corn and rice rose more modestly at first, then strengthened in late February and early March.

The result is a broad inflationary push spreading across farm inputs, edible oils, grains and parts of the food chain. What began as a January rise in fertilizers and vegetable oils has become a wider commodity rally in the opening months of 2026, reinforced by the disruption of energy and shipping routes across the Gulf.

The new Monroe Doctrine & the Trump Corollary 

Blackouts and protests deepen Cuba’s crisis

Cuba’s worsening energy emergency has spilled into the streets, as fresh protests follow one of the island’s most serious recent electricity failures. A nationwide blackout on 5 March lasted about 16 hours before the grid was reconnected, but the disruption did not end there. A separate major outage in western Cuba, caused by problems at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, left millions without power and is expected to take three to four days to resolve fully. In practice, that meant some areas were left without electricity for far longer than the duration of the wider nationwide collapse.

The result has been a fresh display of public anger. There have been large protests, a sign that the island’s long-running economic hardship is increasingly colliding with the daily frustrations of life without reliable power.

The blackouts have revealed the depth of Cuba’s broader crisis. The island’s aging electricity infrastructure, chronic fuel shortages, and lack of maintenance have pushed available power generation well below demand. Even before this latest breakdown, prolonged outages had become common across much of the country. The latest failures have brought those strains more clearly into public view, disrupting transport, threatening food storage, and adding to the burden on households already facing inflation and shortages.

Cuba’s authorities have blamed U.S. pressure and restricted fuel supplies for worsening the crisis, particularly after disruptions to oil shipments from Venezuela. Whatever the political argument, the practical effect is clear: the island is caught in a cycle in which weak fuel supply, deteriorating infrastructure, and repeated plant failures are driving economic decline and social strain.

Cuba’s political leadership remains in control, but the pressure is mounting. The more immediate danger is not imminent regime collapse. It is the continued deterioration of electricity supply, public services, and living conditions, with each new outage making civil unrest more likely.

Center of Gravity sign up link: https://www.namea-group.com/the-daily-brief