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"There is anxiety among senior leaders that fighting will extend for weeks, stressing limited U.S. air defense stockpiles. 'There is concern about this lasting more than a few days. I don’t think people have fully absorbed what that has done with stockpiles.'" www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Authoritarian politics 101. It is great to hope that the Iranian people "rise up." But keep in mind that they don't have guns, and authoritarian political systems are dominated by those who do. In Iran, that remains the IRGC and Basij.

"It is possible that Trump’s military campaign doesn’t overthrow the regime & that his attempts at a deal similarly fail. In such a scenario, 'Trump could find himself with no regime change, no deal and no capacity to honor the promises he’s made to the Iranian people.'" www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Keep hearing commentators/Hegseth saying a version of "this is not Iraq, we are not doing nation-building, it's a decapitation, the people will handle it." That's what Iraq 2003 was supposed to be! Nation-building, de-Baathification, disbanding of Iraqi army, it all came *after* things went wrong.

Hegseth's "no stupid rules of engagement" (real quote) pairs well with Trump saying the US had some Khamenei successors in mind to back but the initial wave of American-Israeli strikes killed them.

The lack of press scrutiny on this war because of Hegseth's changes to the Pentagon press corps is really going to hurt what little accountability remains for decisions like this. That said, those were not softball questions even from his hand-picked crowd.

In this Pentagon briefing, Hegseth, the civilian at the key node of the chain of command between the president and the combatant commanders, is mocking the press and Joe Biden in this press conference about the largest war the United States has launched in decades.

That's one way to find out that the US and Israel might have had slightly different war aims post-Khamenei, I guess.

This.

And listening to the Caine/Hegseth briefing, it's really striking that Trump has not spoken live since he started this war.

Thread about the sheer insanity and massive short-sightedness of this strike

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Kicking out all of the Pentagon press corps and replacing it with lackey partisan hacks seems like a prescient move if you are gonna launch an illegal war

Trump admin briefing that Iran planned missile attacks on US positions in region which this attack preempted is the most insulting, laughable lie I’ve heard in my career, and I’ve heard a lot of them. It isn’t remotely credible and frankly reeks of desperation reaching for any justification.

It’s extremely obvious that there was no particular imminent threat and the negotiations were a smokescreen to buy time until military assets got to the Gulf (the US conditions made that clear). US and Israel wanted to attack now so they did, that’s really all there is.

Understatement alert

The more I think about this, the more I think it is a huge underappreciated risk (on top of the other big risks). There's the day after problem for Iran itself, but also for the region. American diplomacy, influence, soft power, in tatters. Saudis condemned this. Huge diplomatic vacuum.

On top of all the reporting that this war of aggression was planned well in advance, it seems that the reporting also indicates that the US political leadership are quite literally too stupid to understand basic diplomacy. I mean literally not smart enough.

meanwhile, war rages on at home.

Reminder that Trump gutted VOA Farsi.

Underrated just how much the US and Israel have been desecrating the very idea of diplomatic engagement by doing these obvious bait and switches. This is the third time now that negotiations were used as cover to prepare for a war already decided. The lesson is to never speak to the US.

I've made a new starter pack of people to follow for news and commentary on Iran. Got the idea from a request by @kakape.bsky.social

So, do we get a briefing sometime?

Both threads here.

I was right Omani FM:

> @covie93.bsky.social

Another important thread

Thread. NB: “The Iraq War unleashed unintended consequences. Every war does. This one will. This is not the A-Team or even the B-Team.”

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I’m not watching that video st 3am but I don’t need to see it know this is a grave violation of US and international law. From my area of study I can tell you that it’s easy to think the UN Charter doesn’t mean much, but we want to live in a world that values its prohibition on aggressive warfare

Yes. Trump's use of Witkoff and Kushner for ALL diplomacy is a farce. But they're all he wants to use.

Read this whole thread

The more I think about this, the more I think it is a huge underappreciated risk (on top of the other big risks). There's the day after problem for Iran itself, but also for the region. American diplomacy, influence, soft power, in tatters. Saudis condemned this. Huge diplomatic vacuum.

As always, good thread from @profsaunders.bsky.social. @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social talk about how Trump admin hollowed out these processes, why it did so, and what some of the costs are in our recent @foreignaffairs.com article. Spoiler: a combo of far-right ideology and self-dealing.

Good thread on how no one could stop Trump’s illegal, baseless war on Iran. A NATO ally might complicate things though. Turkey denies reports of providing airspace for strikes. Turkey’s diplomatic efforts at avoiding conflict failed, but it may still try to insert itself to mediate an outcome.

A few more thoughts. USFP/natsec usually works from bottom up, even for prez-directed policies. Bureaucrats, mid-levels, political appointees work the problem, then top people bless it. Diplomacy (JCPOA) works like this. Military planning can move faster w/ prior plans, but similar. 1/

kind of odd to think that Pakistan and Afghanistan still have their own conflict going on while Iran and Israel have their war

Thread from the great @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social

Excellent thread. The key point IMO: “What is the off-ramp from the escalation ladder here?” Also NB the point about munition stocks and implications for UKR.

Not the worst part of this, but using fake negotiations as cover for a surprise attack - twice! - is also going to hurt in the long run.

Read this whole thread

Thread.

Agreed

Great thread worth reading in full.

The notion that this is a war to "defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats" from Iran is simply fantastical. This is a straight-up preventive war a la Iraq 2003. www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/u...

OEF.

Twenty-plus years ago, did big, long Atlantic story based on formal "war game" involving "preemptive" attack on Iran. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc... Lots of details have changed since then. But not the fundamental conclusion of the war-game: ARE YOU CRAZY?? DO NOT EVEN THINK OF DOING THIS.

It is clear now that the Omani foreign minister's sudden media blitz last night was an attempt to shame the United States by putting into the public record how readily Iran was prepared to reach a deal.