Music: Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade — ‘Windows’
Trump foolishly miscalculated the risk of Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz
The Wall Street Journal reports: Before the U.S. went to war, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told President Trump that an American attack could prompt Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. Caine said in several briefings that U.S. officials had long believed Iran would deploy mines, drones and missiles to close the world’s most vital shipping lane, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Trump acknowledged the risk, these people said, but…
The Gulf states’ security turned out to be a mirage
Jadaliyya reports: On Sunday night, the sky above Sitra turned orange. A suspected Iranian drone had struck BAPCO, Bahrain’s main oil processing facility, on an island southeast of Manama. The projectile set the refinery ablaze and sent fires into residential neighborhoods near the plant. Thirty-two Bahrainis were wounded, some critically. By morning, BAPCO had declared force majeure, forcing Bahrain to join Qatar and Kuwait in suspending oil shipments, and further pushing the price of crude oil toward record highs. At…
War has already displaced nearly a million Lebanese, and aid groups warn of a humanitarian crisis
The Associated Press reports: Fatima Nazha slept on the street for two days after she and her family fled their home in Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli mass evacuation order. All of the schools the government turned into shelters were full, and the family couldn’t afford a hotel or an apartment, so she and her husband eventually moved into a tent in the country’s biggest stadium while their kids and grandchildren found shelter near the southern coastal city of…
‘Our coverage is not truthful’: How Israel is censoring reporting on the war
+972 Magazine reports: Since the start of the war with Iran, the Israeli military has imposed strict censorship regulations on local and international media outlets operating inside the country, severely impeding journalists’ ability to cover the situation on the ground. Reporters and networks are prohibited from publishing the precise location of Iranian missile impacts, or even filming or photographing the extent of the damage in a way that could give away the location — restrictions designed, in the words of…
This DHS official oversees the security of federal elections. He wants to ban voting machines
By Doug Bock Clark This story was originally published by ProPublica In his top post at the Department of Homeland Security, David Harvilicz sets policy on protecting the nation’s elections infrastructure, including voting machines. He’s also the co-founder of a company with James Penrose, who helped hatch debunked conspiracy theories blaming hacked voting machines for Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election. Penrose assisted in a push to seize voting machines to overturn Trump’s defeat. On social media, Harvilicz…
Putin’s GRU-linked election fixers are already in Budapest to help Orbán
VSquare reports: Moscow has dispatched a team to Budapest to interfere in Hungary’s April 2026 parliamentary elections, VSquare has learned from multiple European national security sources. The operation, overseen by Putin confidant Sergei Kiriyenko, is designed to keep Viktor Orbán in power — and follows the same blueprint Russia used in Moldova. The Kremlin has tasked a team of political technologists with interfering in Hungary’s April 2026 parliamentary elections, VSquare has learned from multiple European national security sources . The…
China’s clean energy push has made it less vulnerable to energy shocks, including the Iran war
Inside Climate News reports: When Gary Dirks arrived in China in 1995, the country’s government was looking to source more of its energy at home. Dirks was the incoming country head for BP, but efforts to find more oil and gas in the country had largely fizzled. So government leaders pivoted, Dirks said. China invested heavily in its domestic coal and, later, in building wind and solar energy. Now, those investments and other steps are shielding China from more severe…
Music: Chick Corea, Christian McBride & Brian Blade — ‘Tempus Fugit’
Nothing to lose: Iran’s bankruptcy is its best weapon against the wealthy Gulf states
A commentator at bne IntelliNews writes: There is an old saying, attributed to the British Foreign Office in colonial days: “Keep the Persians hungry, and the Arabs fat.” Washington appears to have taken that advice to heart. The trouble is, when the hungry finally have nothing left to lose, it is the fat who pay the price. There is something darkly rational about Iran’s approach to this war. The Islamic Republic entered the conflict already ruined. Inflation was running above…
Iran’s conventional navy is largely gone. The threat to the Strait of Hormuz is not
RFE/RL reports: The United States and Israel have largely destroyed Iran’s conventional naval fleet in a massive bombing campaign since February 28. But Tehran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping routes, has not diminished. Iran has effectively closed the narrow waterway, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies flow, by using asymmetric warfare tactics. Besides Iran’s conventional navy, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country’s…
Hegseth: Strait of Hormuz ‘open for transit’ (by dolphins) but not by shipping
Hegseth: They are exercising sheer desperation in the straits of hormuz, something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it and don't need to worry about it. pic.twitter.com/xJS8gIMRWZ — Acyn (@Acyn) March 13, 2026 The Guardian reports: Pete Hegseth on Friday again claimed the US military campaign against Iran has been an unprecedented success, using a Pentagon press conference to accuse journalists of downplaying Washington’s supposed gains on the battlefield. Speaking alongside the chair of the joint chiefs of…
Attacks on ME desalination plants highlight risks of near-total dependence on ‘fossil fuel water’
Inside Climate News reports: Recent attacks in the Middle East on desalination plants, facilities that remove salt from seawater, raise the potential for a humanitarian crisis if the region’s freshwater production facilities are subjected to more widespread destruction. The attacks also underscore the region’s heavy reliance on an energy-intensive method of producing drinking water that is powered almost entirely by fossil fuels. On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of striking a desalination plant in southern…
Trump’s secret police
Christian Gläßel and Adam Scharpf write: Since the Pendleton Act of 1883, the U.S. federal government has rested on a simple promise: professionalism, merit-based recruitment, independent oversight. Over time, U.S. federal law enforcement became a global reference point—effective, technically sophisticated, built to serve the law rather than a leader. And it traveled. For decades, officers from across the world sought training through U.S. programs such as the FBI’s National Academy and the Justice Department’s ICITAP. Now that model is collapsing…
Trump’s concentration camps
Tim Dickinson writes: Donald Trump’s brutal ICE detention facilities have been blasted as “concentration camps.” This is a freighted term — summoning more than a century of deplorable history. But experts in the field have no hesitation in using these words to describe the network of facilities that the federal government is using to literally warehouse tens of thousands of immigrants — men, women, and even children — snatched out of their communities by masked federal agents. The activist group…
Dark money group offers influencers $1,500 for posts attacking Dem primary candidate, Kat Abughazaleh
MS Now reports: A week out from a crowded and contentious Democratic primary in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District, Amanda Informed, an online influencer in Florida received an email with an offer: one negative post about candidate Kat Abughazaleh on Instagram and TikTok, for $1,500. The request, which came from a secretive political organization called Democracy Unmuted, was forwarded to her by Matt Anthes, founder of Advocators, a digital marketing agency focused on politics and advocacy through micro-influencers. The job offer,…