Attention to the Unseen

  Iran’s strategy isn’t to defeat the US militarily. Trita Parsi argues that it’s to make the cost high enough, fast enough, to collapse domestic support before Iran loses. With MAGA turning against the war, oil markets destabilizing, and both parties alarmed by talk of ground troops, Trump urgently needs a face-saving exit. Plus, Parsi believes that Iran’s revolutionary system was built to withstand exactly this kind of pressure.

The Washington Post reports: Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating — even indirectly — in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence. The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities. Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the…

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Marc Lynch writes: Iran’s bombardment of its Gulf neighbors has inexorably dragged them into a war that they had desperately hoped to avoid. The potential entry of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia into direct war alongside Israel and the United States represents the first full-scale manifestation of America’s ambitions for the Middle Eastern order it has overseen for decades. Washington has always dreamed of Arab-Israeli cooperation against Iran without resolving the Palestinian issue. Here it is. It…

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Ellie Geranmayeh and Julien Barnes-Dacey write: Europeans had weeks of notice that US president Donald Trump was about to trigger a war in the Middle East. The conflict is now wreaking carnage in the world’s most energy-rich region on an hourly basis, increasing the direct costs to Europeans and boosting Russia’s war coffers. But Europe’s collective response has been, at best, a fiasco—and at worst, strategic lunacy. Europe on the sidelines Instead of looking for ways to press Trump to…

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The New Republic reports: The U.S. Navy’s attack on an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, on Wednesday was the first time an American submarine has sunk an enemy ship since World War II. But the Dena may not have been armed because it was returning from an international exercise in the Indian Ocean, and the U.S. Navy likely knew it because it was taking part in the same exercise. Both the United States and Iran were taking part in the…

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Andreas Kluth writes: It was bad enough that Donald Trump hasn’t been able to explain clearly why he yet again felt he had to attack Iran, and why now. His national security advisor and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, then inadvertently made everything worse by implying that the president wasn’t so much leading — in the spirit of America First and Peace through Strength — as following. Worse yet, Trump seemed to be following a foreign power, Israel. Accidentally, Rubio…

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The New York Times reports: The Feb. 28 strike that hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the United States and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility. But a body of evidence assembled by The New York Times — including newly released satellite imagery, social media posts and verified videos — indicates the school building was severely damaged by a precision strike…

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The Guardian reports: Gavin Newsom, the Democratic California governor, likened Israel to “an apartheid state” on Tuesday in comments sharply critical of the country’s joint war with the US against Iran. Newsom, seen as a frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028, made the comment during an appearance in Los Angeles to promote his book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. He was asked if the US should rethink its military partnership with Israel. “It breaks…

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The Guardian reports: The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has responded to Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to cut off all trade with Spain over his government’s refusal to facilitate the US’s attacks against Iran, comparing the growing conflict in the Middle East to playing “Russian roulette with the destiny of millions”. Sánchez, who has been one of the most vociferous European critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, said his government’s position on the widening instability could be summed up in…

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Axios reports: MAGA’s ascendant “America First” wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran. Why it matters: Rubio’s remarks were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans’ public support for Israel has hit historic lows. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” against Iran, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday….

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Güney Yıldız writes: The CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces inside Iran. President Trump called Kurdish leaders personally over the weekend — and on Tuesday spoke directly with Mustafa Hijri, president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, whose camps the IRGC had just struck with drones. Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House with Kurdish uprising numbers already mapped. Weapons have reportedly been smuggled into western Iran since last year’s twelve-day war. Israeli strikes are targeting Iranian military…

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