Iran signals a ‘fight to the end’ with choice of new ayatollah
Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, Mon, 09 Mar 2026
Meanwhile, the US struggles to define Israeli-coordinated endgame
Summary:
- Lebanon wants direct peace talks with Israel to end fighting but Israeli rejects it, also amid US skepticism: Axios.
- Trump says too soon to talk about seizing Iran’s oil but does not rule it out, tells NBC.
- Analyst consensus on question of potentially protracted conflict: Iran Signals a Fight to the End With Appointment of Khamenei’s Son
- Senator Graham: “The American Embassy is being evacuated in Riyadh because of sustained attacks by Iran against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
- Timeline to end Iran war? Trump signals decision will be only after ‘mutual’ decision with Netanyahu.
- Trump Truth Social post calls for Australia to give Iran National Woman’s Soccer team Asylum, but it remains unclear if the whole team is actually requesting it, or if individuals are.
- Iranian official to Al Jazeera: “we are able to continue the war for a long time and there is no room for diplomacy now.”
- G7 ‘closely monitoring’ energy markets, ‘ready’ to take necessary measures, including possible oil stockpile release.
- Younger, reportedly more ‘hardline’ Ayatollah takes command as regime stability continues: Military and political elites have pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaces his slain father as supreme leader and is viewed as a figure favored by the IRGC.
- Offramp, or more global shock & pain ahead? Trump after seeing oil prices: Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!
- Threat of whole regional war ongoing: Turkey says second Iranian ballistic missile shot down by NATO defenses in airspace, but then NATO quickly contradicts – saying no 2nd missile was intercepted.
- Nation-building, nation-smashing, divergent US-Israeli aims? More from Trump”…will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.” But US officials distance themselves from big weekend attacks on Iranian oil.
Iran shuts door on ceasefire talk possibility, accuses US of seeking ‘partition’: as several countries have begun mediation efforts; however Foreign Ministry says: “While military aggression continues, there is little room to talk about anything other than a decisive response.”- CENTCOM confirms 8th US troop death; More Iranian missile/drone hits on Gulf sites, IDF ground operations expand inside Lebanon
Update(1240ET): Iran on Monday is seeking to showcase its continuity and ‘stability’ of government after a week of heavy US-Israeli bombardment failed to produce regime change. Instead, Tehran is vowing to fight back, saying it can keep the war going for as long as needed. Analysts have pointed out Iran needs to inflict a cost on the US and Israel, fearing it will just be attacked again somewhere down the line, even if years from now.
And yet, Trump admin officials have been signaling the American public there won’t be a protracted war. But on this big looming question, The Wall Street Journal is out Monday with the following ominous headline suggesting a lengthy conflict ahead:
Iran Signals a Fight to the End With Appointment of Khamenei’s Son…
The elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei, a conservative long close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shows that Trump’s efforts so far to cow the regime into surrender have failed. It also appears to have put hard-liners in firm control of the country, with moderate and reformist factions long marginalized. The 56-year old Khamenei is expected to take a confrontational stance toward the West.
His appointment also shows that Iran won’t acquiesce to Trump’s demand that he approve the country’s new top cleric. Trump told Axios last week that “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me.”
The younger Khamenei’s ascendance “suggests the continuation of the same old strategy: repression at home and resistance internationally,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
There remains the question of if US and Israeli goals and objectives are truly aligned on the Iran war. Some of Trump’s latest remarks are cause for concern, and highlight the aforementioned question: “Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it. We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel,” Trump asserted.
The President indicated that he would keep the ultimate prerogative but while consulting directly with Netanyahu.
“I think it’s mutual, a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.”
Some admin officials are likely looking for a quick exit ramp, which would probably involve a politically expedient moment to declare ‘victory’ and get out. But will the Israelis cooperate when/if that moment comes?……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
As for ‘what’s next’ – escalation or offramp… the following from Bloomberg suggests there could be a gateway to ground troops if things take an escalatory war path: “Trump is weighing the option of deploying special forces on the ground to seize Iran’s near bomb-grade uranium, according to diplomats. He told the Times of Israel that a decision on when to end the war will also involve Benjamin Netanyahu,” Bloomberg reviews of prior weekend reporting.
This as there are claims that Washington and Tel Aviv don’t see eye to eye on ultimate war aims and strategy: “Israel’s strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.” But all of this fresh reporting of ‘distance’ between the close allies who are executing Trump’s Operation Epic Fury could by design be meant to create artificial distance between the president and what might prove to be an unpopular war. https://www.sott.net/article/505074-Iran-signals-a-fight-to-the-end-with-choice-of-new-ayatolla
Bill Gates’ TerraPower Finally Has a Permit for a Nuclear Reactor, but No Reliable Way to Fuel It.
“HALEU is not currently available from domestic suppliers, and gaps in supply could delay the deployment of advanced reactors,” the HALEU Availability Program website says. Filling the gap will involve “downblending”—or converting highly concentrated weapons-grade uranium into relatively low-concentration HALEU. This literally means dismantling warheads, melting the uranium, and rejiggering the concentration of the crucial fissile isotope.
Gizmodo, By Mike Pearl, 5th March 2026
By unanimous vote, TerraPower, a Nuclear Power company founded and chaired by Bill Gates, just reached a major milestone by receiving the most important federal permit: clearance to build a commercial nuclear reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, scheduled to start operating in 2031. This places TerraPower at the front of the pack when it comes to small, cutting-edge nuclear reactors for generating power in the U.S.
Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to fuel this reactor.
The plant has already been under-construction since 2024, and a spokesman for TerraPower named Andy Hallmark confirmed to me that only the “nonnuclear sections of the plant” were being built at the time.
But while TerraPower’s Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor can now at least be constructed, it won’t put power into the Wyoming energy grid without high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is only made in commercial quantities by a company called Techsnabexport, which is a subsidiary of another company called Rosatom, which is owned by the Russian state.
This has been presenting a problem ever since 2022 when Russia invaded mainland Ukraine. At that point, “it became very clear, for a whole set of reasons — moral reasons as well as commercial reasons — that using Russian fuel is no longer an option for us,” TerraPower spokesman Jeff Navin told WyoFile.
But Hallmark told me in 2024 that alternative suppliers “are expected to develop similar capacity as demand grows,” and that Terrapower believes a solution will materialize in time for the project to stay on track.
The US government has been prioritizing and cheerleading this project (along with similar projects), and has an alternative plan, which the Department of Energy calls the HALEU Availability Program.
“HALEU is not currently available from domestic suppliers, and gaps in supply could delay the deployment of advanced reactors,” the HALEU Availability Program website says. Filling the gap will involve “downblending”—or converting highly concentrated weapons-grade uranium into relatively low-concentration HALEU. This literally means dismantling warheads, melting the uranium, and rejiggering the concentration of the crucial fissile isotope.
It is, of course, unsustainable for commercial power plants to be fueled by the guts of the aging U.S. nuclear stockpile, and a real supply chain for HALEU has to exist if TerraPower’s plant is actually going to operate.
In the short term, TerraPower needs enough fuel from early sources like downblending to load its reactor for the first time, and then it can focus on staying online. One report says it needs about 150 metric tons of the fuel to run from 2028 through 2037—roughly 15 metric tons per year on average.
But according to Reuters, there’s only one U.S. company actually attempting to make HALEU by enriching uranium rather than downblending: Ohio’s Centrus Energy. But Centrus was projecting 900 kilograms per year in 2024—by my rough math that’s about 6% of what Terrapower’s Kemmerer plant will need per year. To stay Centrus needs to ramp-up quickly is an understatement.
Needless to say, Terrapower is racing to find alternatives, which include companies like South Africa’s ASP Isotopes, Inc. with whom it launched a “strategic agreement” in 2024. As of last month, ASP was hoping to build a HALEU plant soon.
At any rate, TerraPower’s Kemmerer plant can be built now, and that construction can now include its reactor. There’s not enough fuel for that reactor—unless of course the war in Ukraine ends, and Russia-U.S. relations get patched up in a hurry—but there are still five years between now and then, and a whole lot is riding on this. Generating nuclear fuel has always forced people to move mountains. Why should this plant be any different?
Gizmodo reached out to TerraPower for a statement, or additional information about any as-yet unreported sources of HALEU. We will update if we hear back.
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While Hinkley Nuclear Was Being Built, The UK Grid Decarbonized
Clean Technica, Michael Barnard, 6th March 2026
The latest announcement about Hinkley Point C was predictable. The first reactor at the plant in Somerset is now expected to begin generating electricity in 2030. The cost estimate has climbed again, now reaching roughly £35B in 2015 pounds or about £49B in current money according to Electricité de France. When the project received final approval in 2016, the expected construction cost was £18B and the first reactor was expected to begin operating in 2025. In the span of a decade, the expected capital cost nearly doubled while the schedule slipped by five years. The project illustrates the pattern described by Oxford megaproject scholar Bent Flyvbjerg. Large infrastructure projects tend to run over budget, over schedule, and deliver fewer benefits than originally promised. Hinkley Point C appears to be achieving the full trifecta.
To understand how the project arrived at this point it is necessary to revisit the electricity system that existed when Hinkley was first proposed……………………………Policymakers faced a looming capacity gap as aging coal plants approached retirement under European pollution rules and older nuclear reactors approached the end of their operating lives. Large baseload nuclear plants seemed like a logical replacement for retiring coal and nuclear capacity while maintaining system reliability and reducing emissions.
EDF entered the picture in 2008 when it acquired British Energy for about £12.4B. This acquisition gave the French utility access to several UK nuclear sites including Hinkley Point in Somerset……………………… T.he UK government supported the project through a Contract for Difference that guaranteed a strike price of £92.50 per MWh in 2012 pounds for 35 years. Adjusted for inflation that price is now roughly £120 to £130 per MWh in current money.
The timeline of the project reflects the slow progress typical of large nuclear builds……………………………………………………….. The most recent revision places the cost at about £35B in 2015 pounds with startup expected in 2030. If the schedule slips to 2031, EDF estimates another £1B in additional cost..
Hinkley is not an isolated example. The reactor design used at the site is the European Pressurized Reactor. Other projects using this design have experienced similar difficulties. Olkiluoto 3 in Finland began construction in 2005 and entered commercial operation in 2023. The project took roughly 18 years from start to finish and cost about €11B compared with an original estimate of about €3B. Flamanville 3 in France began construction in 2007 and only began producing electricity in 2024 after more than a decade of delays and cost escalation. These projects demonstrate that modern nuclear construction faces structural challenges including complex regulatory oversight, large supply chains, and one-off engineering work.
While Hinkley Point C progressed slowly, the electricity system around it began to change rapidly. UK grid carbon intensity fell from about 520 gCO2 per kWh in 2006 to roughly 120 gCO2 per kWh in 2025 according to National Grid data. That represents a reduction of about 77%. Coal generation collapsed during the same period. In 2012 coal still produced about 40% of UK electricity. By 2024 the last coal plant closed and coal generation fell to zero. Gas generation initially increased as coal declined, providing a bridge fuel that cut emissions roughly in half per kWh compared with coal. At the same time renewable energy expanded quickly.
Wind power became the largest contributor to this change. ……………………………………………………………………………..
The grid also evolved to accommodate the growing share of renewable energy. Market reforms played a significant role. The Contract for Difference program created long term price stability for renewable developers………………High voltage direct current interconnectors connected the UK to electricity markets in France, Norway, Belgium, and Denmark. These interconnectors allow power to flow between regions and help balance variable generation.
Grid operations also changed to manage a system with lower inertia and higher renewable penetration. Batteries began appearing in grid services markets around 2017. These batteries provide fast frequency response and reserve capacity.
The economic dynamics of electricity generation shifted during the same period. Nuclear plants represent a form of megaproject economics. Each plant is a large custom built facility that takes many years to construct. Learning effects are limited because each plant is unique. Wind turbines and solar panels follow a different model. These technologies are manufactured in large volumes. Production learning and scale economies reduce costs over time. ………………………………………………………………..
The rising cost of Hinkley also raises questions about opportunity cost. The current estimated cost of about £49B in today’s money represents a very large capital investment. Offshore wind projects in Europe commonly cost between £2M and £3M per MW of installed capacity depending on location and turbine size. At £2.5M per MW, £49B could finance roughly 20 GW of offshore wind capacity. With a typical offshore wind capacity factor of about 45%, that capacity would produce around 79 TWh of electricity annually. Hinkley Point C is expected to produce about 25 TWh annually. The comparison is not exact because nuclear provides firm generation while wind is variable. The scale difference is significant.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The next UK nuclear project, Sizewell C in Suffolk, raises obvious questions about what lessons policymakers are drawing from the experience at Hinkley Point C. Sizewell C is planned as a near replica of Hinkley using the same European Pressurized Reactor design and similar capacity of about 3.2 GW. The estimated construction cost is currently around £20B to £30B depending on assumptions about financing and schedule. Unlike Hinkley, the project will be financed through a regulated asset base model that allows developers to collect revenue from electricity consumers during construction. This structure reduces financing risk for investors but shifts more cost exposure onto the public.
The core question is whether the UK energy system in the 2030s and 2040s still requires additional nuclear megaprojects built on decade long timelines when wind, solar, and storage technologies continue expanding on much shorter deployment cycles. A second question concerns opportunity cost. If Sizewell C ultimately approaches the capital intensity seen at Hinkley, the same level of investment could finance tens of gigawatts of renewable capacity or large expansions of grid infrastructure. Policymakers therefore face a strategic choice between continuing the megaproject model for firm low carbon generation or allocating capital toward technologies that can scale incrementally and rapidly across the electricity system.
The broader lesson from the Hinkley experience concerns the pace of technological change in energy systems. Large infrastructure projects require long planning and construction timelines. Energy technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries follow faster innovation cycles driven by manufacturing scale and global deployment. Between the time Hinkley Point C was conceived and the time it will enter operation, the UK electricity system transformed itself. Coal disappeared. Wind capacity expanded more than tenfold. Carbon intensity fell by more than three quarters. The project will arrive into a grid that has already undergone much of the transition it was designed to support.
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/03/06/while-hinkley-nuclear-was-being-built-the-uk-grid-decarbonized/
US Argues ‘Emergency’ of Iran War Means Israel Needs 20,000+ More Bombs Without Congressional Approval
This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency
‘Who cares about Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and aggression?” asked one human rights expert.
Jon Queally, Mar 07, 2026, https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-bombs-for-israel-iran-lebanon
The US State Department is hiding behind the war against Iran that was started by US President Donald Trump last week to justify an emergency order to ship more than 20,000 bombs—estimated at a value of $660 million—to Israel, skirting a pending approval process for the sale by Congress.
In a statement issued quietly on Friday night, the State Department said 12,000 BLU-110A/B general purpose, 1,000-pound bombs had been determined for approval, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has “provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services is in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act.”
Not included in the statement, according to the New York Times, were additional parts of the sale that “include 10,000 bombs of 500 pounds each and 5,000 small-diameter bombs.”
“This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.” —Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)
According to the Times:
The State Department did not mention these details in the announcement, but two current US officials and a former, Josh Paul, who worked on weapons transfers at the State Department, said they were part of the emergency sale. The current officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.
This is the first time that the second Trump administration has formally declared an emergency, allowed under the Arms Export Control Act, to bypass Congress to sell arms to Israel. The administration has bypassed the informal approval process in Congress three times to sell arms or send weapons aid to Israel, but previously has not declared an emergency.
The push for the “emergency” arms sale comes as Israel pummels Lebanon with airstrikes, forcing an estimate 500,000 people or more in southern regions outside of Beirut to flee their homes. It also coincides with Israeli forces hitting targets in Iran alongside the US in what experts say is a wholly illegal attack on that country.
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denounced the move by the Rubio in a Friday statement.
“Today’s invocation of the Arms Export Control Act’s emergency authority to bypass congressional review for two munitions cases to Israel exposes a stark contradiction at the heart of this administration’s case for war,” said Meeks. “The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted it was fully prepared for this war. Rushing to invoke emergency authority to circumvent Congress tells a different story. This is an emergency of the Trump administration’s own creation.”
Others also questioned the emergency sale, especially given Israel’s record of genocide in Gaza over the last two years and its pivotal role in pushing the Trump administration toward a war of choice with Iran.
Meeks, in his statement, argued that key questions about Trump’s war in Iran remain unanswered.
“What is the endgame? What preparations have been made to protect American citizens in the region? And how much will this war cost the American people?” asked Meeks. “The administration has provided no credible answers. The American people deserve answers, and Congress must demand them.”
A chilling reminder of the deceit & violence of Iraq war
March 09, 2026, by Bruce K. Gagnon
This film ‘Official Secrets’ is a true story. It’s now airing on Netflix and I urge folks to watch it.
‘Official Secrets,’ which opened in 2019, is the best movie ever made about how the Iraq War happened. It’s startlingly accurate, and because of that, it’s equally inspiring, demoralizing, hopeful, and enraging.
It’s been mostly forgotten now, but the Iraq War and its abominable consequences — the hundreds of thousands of deaths, the rise of ISIS terrorism, the nightmare oozing into Syria, arguably the presidency of Donald Trump — almost didn’t happen.
In 2003, as politicians in Britain and the US scheme to invade Iraq, GCHQ translator Katharine Gun leaks a classified e-mail that urges spying on members of the UN Security Council to force through the resolution to go to war.
Charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act, and facing imprisonment, Katharine and her lawyers set out to defend her actions. With her life, liberty and marriage threatened, she must stand up for what she believes in…
During this present Iran war – packed with lies, distortions and evil boasts of killing by the US and Israel – this 2019 film reveals the kind of ugly twists and turns that are regularly used to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.
Now and then a principled person stands against the dark wall of endless war.
Marco spills the beans…’Bibi made us do it’
Walt Zlotow, Mar 04, 2026, Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://substack.com/home/post/p-189862460
In 4 days of immoral, criminal war on Iran, the Trump administration changes the rationale every day, indeed almost every hour.
The most preposterous comes from supreme American warmonger Marco Rubio who masquerades as Secretary of State while every fiber of his damaged soul plots endless war.
“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States, Israel, or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit them, we would have suffered much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces,”
Rubio could not have been more disingenuous. He’s pretending we’re a neutral observer that will be involved if Israel attacks and must attack first to avoid US casualties. . He knows full well the US and Israel have been plotting together to destroy Iran for decades. He’s spent the last year as Secretary of State involved in that war plotting. The US wants to extend its dominance over the entire Middle East while Israel wants to eliminate its only hegemonic rival in the region. Together the US, Israeli tag team seeks to accomplish both imperialistic goals.
The combined attack February 28 was a replay on steroids of the smaller combined preemptive attack last June. Since it didn’t accomplish regime change and Iran’s destruction, Netanyahu and Trump decided to launch an all out war to the death. This time Americans are dying along with Israelis, and the shutdown of oil production and transit may send America spiraling into a major recession.
Since few Americans are buying into this madness, rejecting one Trump justification after another, Rubio came to the rescue. ‘I’ve got it’ he proclaimed. ‘We’ll tell the public that we had to attack because it was the only way to save American lives after Israel attacks Iran. We’re simply playing defense.’
Rubio’s logic would be hilarious if not for the fact that it guarantees US body bags coming home as a result of Rubio’s self-licking ice cream cone.
Cardinals McElroy and Cupich denounce Iran war: ‘War now has become a spectator sport.’
“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment,”
by Edward DesciakMarch 9, 2026, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/dispatches/2026/03/09/cardinal-mcelroy-cupich-iran-war/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Cardinals%20McElroy%20and%20Cupich%20denounce%20Iran%20war%3A%20%20War%20now%20has%20become%20a%20spectator%20sport&utm_campaign=Daily%203%209%2026
Following the United States and Israel’s overnight missile barrage of Iran on Feb. 28 and the widening war across the Middle East, a number of U.S. bishops have spoken out in opposition to the war.
They underscored an urgent need for peace and a return to diplomacy, denounced as unjust American and Israeli military aggression and expressed deep concern for the millions in the region affected by the armed conflict.
“At this present moment, the U.S. decision to go to war against Iran fails to meet the just war threshold for a morally legitimate war,” Cardinal Robert McElroy of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said.
In an interview with the Catholic Standard on March 9, he explained that the U.S. offensive operations failed to meet at least three criteria of just war theory—the Catholic framework for evaluating the morality of military action—including the requirements for just cause, right intention and clarity that “the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done,” made impossible by the unpredictability of the region
Cardinal McElroy said: “Almost everyone rightly believes that the Khamenei regime has been for decades a brutal and repressive government that has spread terrorism throughout the world and should be replaced. But there is immense concern that this war will spiral out of control and embroil the United States in ever greater depth.”
The cardinal, who has also voiced opposition to the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy, mentioned particular concern for the military families he has spoken with who are worried about their loved ones’ safety.
“We must all work together to forbid this expansionism to lead us into an ongoing morass in Iran,” he said, expressing his “deepest concern” for the “deterioration of moral norms” in the United States and the world, signified by the growing willingness to turn to preventative war over diplomacy as a legitimate means of foreign policy.
Cardinal McElroy’s responses echoed comments from Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago, who criticized the war and the Trump administration’s mix of militarism and entertainment in a statement on March 7.
Cardinal Cupich cited a post from the official White House X account captioned “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY” that spliced clips from popular action movies, cartoons and TV shows “with actual strike footage from their war on Iran.”
It was one of many edits the White House has posted over the last few days in which the account has similarly spliced together video footage of the war with NFL and MLB highlights and video game references.
“A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game—it’s sickening,” Cardinal Cupich said. “This horrifying portrayal demonstrates that we now live in an era when the distance between the battlefield and the living room has been drastically reduced.”
He noted that the social media post dishonored the six U.S. soldiers who had been killed at that point during the war (the death of another service member was confirmed on March 8) as well as the hundreds of others who have died across the Middle East, “including the scores of children who made the fatal mistake of going to school” the day a U.S. missile struck a naval base next to an elementary school in Iran, killing 175 people.
“The moral crisis we are facing is not just a matter of the war itself, but also how we the observers, view violence, for war now has become a spectator sport or strategy game,” Cardinal Cupich wrote, referencing a particularly macabre scandal involving the popular prediction market site Kalshi, where Americans can now gamble on matters of life and death. The company is the respondent in a $54 million class action lawsuit after it declined to pay out wagers on whether Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be ousted by March 1, citing a “death carveout.”
Cardinal Cupich also urged the American people not to “become addicted to the ‘spectacle’ of explosions.”
“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment,” he wrote, “as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”
“I know that the American people are better than this. We have the good sense to know that what is happening is not entertainment but war, and that Iran is a nation of people, not a video game others play to entertain us,” he concluded.
The cardinals joined the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, who followed Pope Leo XIV’s lead and released a statement on March 1 condemning the hostilities: “We ask for a halt to the spiral of violence, and a return to multilateral diplomatic engagement that seeks to uphold the ‘well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice.’”
Archbishop Coakley added: “I invite Catholics and all people of goodwill to continue our ardent prayers for peace in the Middle East, for the safety of our troops and the innocent, that leaders may seek dialogue over destruction, and pursue the common good over the tragedy of war.”
The Archdiocese of New York’s new archbishop, Ronald Hicks, also commented on the Iran crisis in a brief interview for 1010 WINS on March 5, calling for prayers and diplomacy. “We have to give some special prayers for our men and women in uniform and pray for their protection, too, and everyone involved,” he said. “It is absolutely heartbreaking.”
As proposals for nuclear stations proliferate across Canada, ‘fleet-based’ reactor deployment remains elusive.
The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.
among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain
Matthew McClearn, 9 March 26, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-nuclear-stations-canada-fleet-based-reactor-deployment-remains-elusive/
In the nuclear industry it is practically gospel: Canada isn’t populous or wealthy enough to purchase a smorgasbord of different nuclear reactors. Yet after years of lukewarm efforts by Canadian utilities and governments to reach a consensus on which ones to buy, there are few indications that one is emerging.
In January, Saskatchewan’s government announced it had begun evaluating large nuclear reactors for potential deployment. Jeremy Harrison, a minister whose responsibilities include the Crown-owned SaskPower, said the utility will study the readiness of reactors to be built, vendors’ ability to support licensing and construction, and their track record of executing previous projects.
Ontario’s utilities have been asking similar questions for several years. In 2023 Bruce Power began hunting for a reactor for Bruce C, a proposed four-unit station at its facility near Tiverton, Ont. Ontario Power Generation recently began its own search for a huge plant dubbed Wesleyville, planned in Port Hope, Ont.
Observers have long warned that given Canada’s population and economy, utilities, private developers and provinces must co-ordinate procurement of reactors – an approach sometimes dubbed “fleet-based deployment.” But it hasn’t arrived yet.
Indeed, among those few proponents that have publicly committed to specific models, at least three have already wavered on their decisions. The situation underlines how tentative plans for nuclear expansion in Canada remain, even as governments forecast spiking demand for electricity in the immediate future and consider their options for generating that power.
All 25 reactors built in Canada during the 1960s through the 1990s featured Canada deuterium uranium (Candu) technology developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., a Crown corporation. One benefit was that later Candus, such as those at the Bruce B and Darlington stations, proved significantly more reliable than earlier ones in that they suffered fewer outages. Similar dynamics applied when those stations required midlife overhauls. Another advantage was that utilities could share operational experience through the Candu Owners Group (now known as Conexus Nuclear).
By the time the federal government began promoting small modular reactors (SMRs), though, the Candu’s monopoly seemed precarious, and international vendors arrived promoting early-stage designs. In 2018 the government published a “roadmap” for SMRs, recommending stakeholders settle on a small number of finalized designs.
Jeremy Whitlock, a nuclear consultant and adjunct professor at McMaster University, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions that fleet-based deployment is vital for nuclear. “There is simply not enough infrastructure, resources, and (currently at least) work force to support multiple lines of technology,” he wrote.
A report released in February by Clean Prosperity, a Toronto-based energy and climate policy think tank, asserted that one necessary precondition for nuclear expansion is that all proponents converge on three designs at most: one “large” design with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more (enough to power a large city), one “small” reactor with an output around 300 megawatts, and one “micro” reactor putting out less than 20 megawatts.
Brendan Frank, Clean Prosperity’s head of policy development, said a first-of-a-kind reactor is far too expensive; the industry needs to learn how to build subsequent units more cheaply to compete with other generation options. “Your chances of doing that are significantly higher if you build the same reactor design over and over and over again,” he said.
The BWRX-300 from U.S.-based GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy has seemingly emerged as the lone contender among the larger SMRs. Yet only OPG has committed to build one.
As for large and micro-reactors, no firm orders have been placed in Canada. However attractive fleet-based deployment might seem, it might be difficult to achieve. Selecting a model has numerous implications, from securing a fuel supply to managing the resulting waste; what’s best for Ontario mightn’t seem so for Saskatchewan or New Brunswick.
Nuclear power is among the few generation options that has grown more expensive, and eliminating pricing competition by sourcing from a single reactor vendor won’t help
Options are limited. AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.
ATRL-T -1.07%decrease, the company which purchased Atomic Energy of Canada’s reactor business more than a decade ago, is developing an updated 1,000-megawatt Candu dubbed the Monark. Its most significant home-court advantage is that utilities and their workers are already familiar with operating and maintaining Candus. Moreover, its supply chain is on Canadian soil, an appealing feature amid surging economic nationalism. Its greatest vulnerability might be its readiness: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says it has not yet begun a preliminary assessment of the Monark, known as a vendor design review.
The CNSC reviewed the Monark’s most obvious competitor more than a decade ago. It concluded there were “no fundamental barriers” to licensing Westinghouse Electric Co.’s AP1000. Although AP1000s have been built in China and the U.S., the American projects suffered disastrous setbacks during construction. Souring Canada-U.S. relations further diminish the AP1000’s appeal.
GE Vernova Hitachi, which designed the BWRX-300, faces similar obstacles in marketing its larger Advanced Boiling Water Reactor. Dark horses include the European Pressurized Reactor, a French design, and the South Korean APR-1400.
If fleet-based deployment is to succeed in Canada, Ontario appears to be the most credible co-ordinator. Between Bruce C and Wesleyville, it might purchase up to 14 large reactors.
Neither OPG nor Bruce Power specified reactors in their regulatory applications, which are intended to encompass a variety of options. Bruce Power’s chief operating officer, James Scongack, said since late 2023 his company has sought information from reactor vendors, a process intended to ascertain which reactors are ready to be constructed and at what cost. The process “was really designed to look at what are all the technologies available for new nuclear, assess them, review them, narrow them down,” he said.
Citing confidentiality agreements, Mr. Scongack declined to discuss which ones had emerged as front-runners. But “we’re now very focused on options that would not be a surprise to you.”
The Ontario government announced last summer a body called the New Nuclear Technology Panel, composed of senior executives from OPG, Bruce Power and the government, and instructed it to co-ordinate a technology selection decision. But the panel has not been established, and there is no timeline for doing so.
Lately, Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has spoken emphatically about the importance of promoting Canadian technology and supply chains – comments suggesting strong support for Candus.
“My first preoccupation is: What is going to advance the national interest of Canada in a post-Trump world,” he told The Globe in late January.
“We need to be fiercely protective of our intellectual property, of Canadian technology for Candu, a large-scale [reactor] that is made in Canada, stored in this country, a supply chain that is Canadian, a work force that is mature and Canadian.”
But a different champion could emerge in Saskatchewan. As far back as 2022, SaskPower selected the BWRX-300. Yet just two years later, SaskPower announced it had signed an agreement with Westinghouse to evaluate other models including its AP300, a direct competitor.
That sudden interest in Westinghouse didn’t come out of nowhere. The uranium giant Cameco Corp. CCO-T +5.86%increase, based in Saskatoon, is one of the province’s most influential companies. In 2023 it purchased a 49-per-cent stake in Westinghouse.
Mr. Harrison said the AP300 is no longer under consideration, and SaskPower confirms it’s planning to announce a proposed site for building BWRX-300s later this year. But SaskPower won’t make a final investment decision until at least 2029, leaving plenty of time to pivot again.
And that’s one reason Saskatchewan’s decision to explore large reactors could be highly significant. Mr. Harrison said the province is prepared to go its own way. And while SaskPower will consider candidate reactors on their merits, he added that local companies’ interests are an important consideration.
“We are really very, very proud of Cameco, a great Saskatchewan company,” Mr. Harrison said. “To be a 49-per-cent owner of this iconic American company, Westinghouse Electric, is really a quite an amazing story for a company that began life as a Crown corporation.”
He added: “Without question, benefits to the supply chain in Saskatchewan is a part of the consideration. We’ve been very upfront about that.”
Energy Alberta, a nascent developer with a long-standing proposal to build a four-reactor plant in Peace River, Alta., offers perhaps the most striking example of indecision. It had selected the Monark, but late last year announced it was considering Westinghouse’s AP1000s instead.
New Brunswick selected two reactors for construction at its Point Lepreau station nearly a decade ago. But neither the ARC-100 nor the SSR-W appear to be nearing a completed design; their vendors (ARC Clean Technology and Moltex Energy Canada, respectively) have few employees and have struggled to raise capital.
NB Power’s chief executive officer, Lori Clark, said her utility remains committed to building reactors. But it has come around to fleet-based thinking: it no longer wants to build a first-of-a-kind, or one-of-a-kind, reactor, because they are inevitably costlier. Provincial officials have expressed interest in a variety of different reactors over the past year, including the BWRX-300, AP1000 and Candu.
“We want to watch what’s happening in Ontario, because they are much bigger player in the nuclear field than we are.”
Hungary detains Ukrainians transporting tens of millions in cash and gold
Hungarian authorities have launched an investigation into potential money laundering, but Ukraine insists those facilitating the transfer were state-owned bank employees carrying out their job
Thomas Brooke, ReMix News, 2026-03-06, https://rmx.news/article/hungary-detains-ukrainians-transporting-tens-of-millions-in-cash-and-gold/
Hungarian authorities have detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized tens of millions of dollars, euros, and gold that were being transported through the country in armored vehicles, triggering the latest diplomatic dispute between Budapest and Kyiv.
Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV) confirmed on Friday that criminal proceedings had been launched on suspicion of money laundering following an operation carried out on March 5. Authorities intercepted two armored cash-transport vehicles traveling through Hungary from Austria toward Ukraine.
According to the Hungarian authorities, the vehicles were carrying approximately $40 million, €35 million in cash, and 9 kilograms of gold.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the case raised serious questions about the movement of large quantities of physical cash through the country.
“Since January, a total of $900 million and €420 million in cash has been transported through Hungary, and 146 kilograms of gold bars have also been transported through the country,” he said, as cited by Magyar Hírlap.
“We have a number of serious questions about this. First of all, this is a huge amount of cash, and we wonder why Ukrainians need to transport such a large amount of cash. If it is true that this is a transaction between banks, then the question rightly arises as to why the banks do not settle this between themselves by bank transfer, why it is necessary to transport such a large amount of cash, and why it has to be transported through Hungary,” Szijjártó added.
“These questions arise mainly because these cash shipments are accompanied by people who have clear ties to Ukrainian secret services.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán, also commented on the case, raising concerns about the purpose of the funds.
“Hundreds of millions in cash and gold moving through Hungary toward Ukraine — escorted by people linked to Ukrainian intelligence. Armored vehicles, suitcases full of money, staggering sums,” he wrote on X……………………………………………………………………………………….. https://rmx.news/article/hungary-detains-ukrainians-transporting-tens-of-millions-in-cash-and-gold/
Long-term safety forecasting for nuclear waste repositories needed
Simon Schmitt Kommunikation und Medien
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf 24/2 /2026
The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) supports applied basic research that is helpful for the site selection of a deep geological repository for high-level radioactive waste. Approximately 1.7 million euros have been allocated to the MALEK project. MALEK aims to develop a portfolio of methods to support the safety assessment of a nuclear waste repository. This includes developing methods that make it possible to model transport and reaction processes in crystalline host rock over a period of one million years. The project is coordinated by the Institute of Resource Ecology at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).
The disposal of high-level radioactive waste presents a major technical and societal challenge. Safety is a key factor in evaluating potential sites for deep geological repositories. With this funding initiative, the Ministry seeks to address existing knowledge gaps: new research and development projects are intended to establish and further advance the scientific foundations needed to assess the safe disposal of radioactive waste.
Designed to run for 36 months, the MALEK project (Machine Learning for Complex Hydrological-Geochemical Processes in Crystalline Rock Repositories) is investigating how models should be designed to be able to predict worst case scenarios for radionuclide retention within a repository. Predictions are needed that span spatial scales from millimeters to kilometers and timescales of up to one million years. In this context, conventional numerical models and simulation methods reach their computational limits.
MALEK therefore pursues an approach that systematically augments physics-based models of radionuclide transport with machine learning methods. The key advantage is a substantial acceleration of complex simulations without disregarding the underlying physical and chemical processes. A central tool in this context is the use of so-called surrogate models: machine-learning models trained on data generated by computationally intensive simulations. Once trained, these models can replace the original simulations. Although the results are approximations, the fact that they are available much faster than those of detailed simulations is crucial.
“Surrogate models will be deployed at multiple stages throughout the overall project,” explains project coordinator Prof. Vinzenz Brendler, head of the “Thermodynamics of Actinides” department at HZDR’s Institute of Resource Ecology. “One example is sorption—how strongly radionuclides attach to rocks or minerals. This depends heavily on the surrounding chemical conditions. The stronger the binding, the more slowly radionuclides can migrate through the subsurface. Another planned surrogate model addresses reactive transport through the rock matrix. This process depends not only on sorption, but also on diffusion processes, rock properties, and chemical reactions.”
Focus on accurate, robust, and transparent methods
“MALEK will lead to understandable, verifiable, and reproducible modeling approaches, thereby making an important contribution to more robust safety assessments,” says Dr. Attila Cangi, head of the “Machine Learning for Materials Design” department at CASUS. “Our goal is to transfer the expertise we have developed in machine-learning models for the microscopic description of materials to this application, since the underlying methodological challenges are closely related.” Prof. Michael Hecht, head of the CASUS Young Investigator Group “Mathematical Foundations of Complex Systems Science”, emphasizes the planned systematic evaluation of the developed modules: “From individual surrogate models to their combinations and ultimately to different versions of an integrated assessment model, the central question is which solutions are best suited in terms of accuracy, robustness, and transparency.” To this end, extensive benchmarking and uncertainty analyses will be conducted, incorporating experience from underground research laboratories such as Äspö in Sweden and Grimsel in Switzerland.
MALEK focuses on crystalline host rock, one of the host rock types under consideration in Germany for a deep geological repository. Because the rock itself is usually very dense, fractures and fault zones play a decisive role: they control groundwater flow and thus the transport of dissolved substances such as radionuclides. These complex structural features make crystalline rock particularly challenging from a scientific perspective, and the project is therefore expected to deliver especially valuable insights.
The project, which started in early 2026, will benefit from the partners’ complementary expertise. Prof. Brendler and his team contribute experience in geochemistry, reactive transport modeling, and the development of data-driven methods. Dr. Cangi and Prof. Hecht provide expertise in machine learning and mathematical surrogate modeling. Prof. Thomas Nagel from TU Bergakademie Freiberg is an expert in issues related to fractured porous geomaterials as well as geotechnical simulations and verifications. Prof. Denise Degen from TU Darmstadt contributes expertise in uncertainty analysis in the geosciences, which helps simplify complex computational models based on physical laws.
Additional information:
Prof. Vinzenz Brendler | Head of Thermodynamics of Actinides
Institute of Resource Ecology at HZDR
phone: +49 351 260 2430 | email: v.brendler@hzdr.de
Media contact:
Dr. Martin Laqua | Officer Communications, Press and Public Relations
Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at HZDR
cell phone: +49 1512 807 6932 | email: m.laqua@hzdr.de
‘Punching them while they’re down’: US & Israel bomb Iran’s schools & hospitals, with ‘no stupid rules of engagement’
Hegseth bragged that the US is fighting with “no stupid rules of engagement”. By his admission, the Pentagon is purposefully targeting civilian areas, and does not care about the rules of war.
The US & Israel bombed 20 schools & 13 hospitals in Iran in 1 week. War Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted of unleashing “death and destruction” to provoke collapse, with “no stupid rules of engagement”.
Ben Norton, Mar 09, 2026 https://www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/us-israel-bomb-iran-schools-hospitals-collapse
The United States and Israel are intentionally devastating civilian areas in Iran, brutally bombing schools, hospitals, and residential neighborhoods, in an attempt not only to destroy the state but also to collapse Iranian society itself.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described the scorched-earth strategy in a Pentagon press briefing on March 4.
“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be”, Hegseth boasted.
He added with pride that the US and Israel are raining upon Iran “death and destruction from the sky, all day long”.
Hegseth noted that, in the first four days of the war on Iran (named Operation Epic Fury), the US military employed “twice the air power” that it had used in the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In another press briefing on March 2, the US secretary of war condemned international organizations like the United Nations and proclaimed, “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history”.
Hegseth bragged that the US is fighting with “no stupid rules of engagement”. By his admission, the Pentagon is purposefully targeting civilian areas, and does not care about the rules of war.
US and Israel bomb 20 schools and 13 hospitals in Iran in one week
According to the World Health Organization, the US and Israel bombed at least 13 hospitals and health facilities in Iran in the first five days of the war, which Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched on February 28.
Washington and Tel Aviv bombed at least 20 Iranian schools in the first week of the war, according to UNICEF.
They also destroyed a desalination plant, depriving dozens of Iranian villages of water.
The US and Israel killed more than 1,300 Iranians in the first week. Children made up 30% of the victims.
CNN and the New York Times both independently confirmed that the US military bombed an elementary school in the city of Minab in southern Iran on the first day of the war.
The US bombed the school twice, 40 minutes apart, to make sure there were no survivors.
The US military killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers.
War Secretary Hegseth published a map of the areas in Iran that were bombed by the US, and the Minab primary school was clearly in the strike zone.
This is what Hegseth meant when he bragged that the US empire is “punching them while they’re down”, with “no stupid rules of engagement”.
The US-Israeli slaughter is so extreme that even some right-wing media outlets in the West, like the UK’s conservative newspaper The Telegraph, were forced to admit that “Tehran [is] an ‘apocalypse’ of hospitals in flames and children buried beneath rubble”, as the US and Israel intentionally bomb civilian areas.
US and Israel want a failed state and societal collapse in Iran
What Washington and Tel Aviv want to unleash in Iran is not just regime change; it is the destruction of the state and the collapse of Iranian society.
This was openly admitted by some Israeli officials, in a report in the Financial Times.
The FT cited Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who declared that “every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime . . . will be an unequivocal target for elimination”.
Tel Aviv’s plan is to kill all Iranian leaders, so the country cannot be governed and simply falls into chaos.
This was further confirmed by a former top Israeli intelligence official.
The Financial Times interviewed Danny Citrinowicz, who worked for 25 years in Israel Defense Intelligence (IDI) and was the chief of the Research and Analysis Division’s Iran branch.
Citrinowicz told the FT that what Israel wants is the “total destruction of this regime, of the pillars of this regime, of everything that holds it together”.
The former head of Israeli military intelligence’s Iran analysis said this is how Tel Aviv sees the war (emphasis added):
If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future . . . [or] the stability of Iran.
In other words, the US and Israel want to repeat in Iran the same kind of war of extermination that they carried out in Gaza, which a UN commission determined to be a campaign of genocide.
US-Israeli war on Iran blatantly violates international law
It goes without saying that the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran flagrantly violates international law.
The United Nations education agency, UNESCO, emphasized that the bombing of Iranian schools by the US and Israel “constitutes a grave violation of the protection afforded to schools under international humanitarian law”.
Legal experts have clearly stated that the US-Israeli war violates international law. They also noted that Washington was engaged in supposed “negotiations” with Tehran, and Iran was willing to make significant concessions for a deal, when Trump launched this surprise war of aggression, sabotaging the talks.
Stanford University’s elite law school published an interview with an expert on international law, Professor Allen Weiner, who stated, “From an international law perspective, my judgment is that the attack was quite clearly illegal”.
States do have a right to self-defense under international law, Weiner noted. Iran has exercised this right.
The US and Israeli regimes claimed they launched “preemptive” attacks on Iran, but Weiner stressed that this is not valid under international law.
In order to claim self-defense, states may only strike when they have evidence that “they face an imminent threat of attack”, he argued.
This does not apply in this situation, Weiner emphasized. The Stanford law professor explained:
The notion that Iran presents a general security threat to U.S. interests does not constitute a threat of imminent attack. Nor does the possibility that Iran might at some point in the future acquire either nuclear weapons or intercontinental missiles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland amount to a threat of an imminent attack.
US-Israeli war on Iran is based on lies
All of the talking points that the Trump administration has used to try to justify this illegal war have fallen apart.
The Pentagon admitted in a closed-door briefing to Congress that Iran was not going to attack the US and Israel first, and that it only had plans to retaliate in self-defense.
Similarly, the Trump administration claimed that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons. This was false as well.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said clearly in an interview on CNN that Iran was not on the verge of having nuclear weapons.
This was another lie promoted by the US government to justify an illegal war.
In US/Israeli war on Iran, all roads point to rise in global nuclear weapons.
Trump and Netanyahu are already boasting of success. But the war is not going to plan for any of the parties involved
Paul Rogers, 6 March 2026, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/us-iran-israel-war-lead-to-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-netanyahu/
One week in, there is little prospect of an early end to the Israeli war with Iran and even less of preventing a regional escalation. Given Binyamin Netanyahu’s success in bringing Donald Trump’s United States on board as Israel’s partner in a widening war, he may feel satisfied with progress so far. In reality, though, the conflict is not going according to plan for any of the three states involved.
Netanyahu’s intended outcome was straightforward regime termination in Tehran, with the assassination of the supreme leader and most of Iran’s senior war leaders. A public uprising would then have followed, ending the power of the theocrats.
Israel and the US could then have brought sufficient force to terminate Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program and cut back its conventional forces, starting with the abolition of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Finally, the removal of the US’s punishing economic sanctions on Iran would have been agreed, allowing some civil recovery for the country – although this would, of course, have been contingent on the new leaders agreeing to oil and gas deals that would prove punitive for Iran and lucrative for the US, likely ensuring Trump’s continued support for Israel.
The Israeli war aims may have been clear, but it is impossible to say for sure what the White House wanted.
A muddle of reasons and statements of intent for bombing Iran have been given by Trump, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio and self-styled secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, who last year sought to rebrand from the ‘secretary of defense’ title that has been used by successive post-holders since the end of the Second World War. While Washington initially embraced Israel’s desire for total regime termination through an uprising, that aim has disappeared from its recent statements. Now it seems that crushing Iran’s military capabilities, starting with its nuclear ambitions, is the US order of the day.
For Iran’s theocratic leadership, the primary war aim was survival in the face of the massive power of the Israeli/US war machine, which would itself have been quite an achievement. Indeed, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, barely survived the first hour or so of the war before being killed in a missile strike.
The unexpected has since become clear: Khamenei is gone, but Iran’s leadership system is likely to survive for now. His successor will probably be his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who will quite possibly be as hard-line as his father. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has declared that whoever is chosen as Iran’s next supreme leader will be “a target for elimination” – a clear indication that for Netanyahu and the Israeli Defence Forces, there is no turning back.
If regime survival is one of the surprises of the conflict, the other is Iran’s continuing ability to fire barrages of armed drones and ballistic missiles, which has been the least expected element of the war so far.
By last July, the IDF and the US believed they had massively damaged Iran’s air defences, with Trump boasting of “spectacular military success” in a press conference. On top of this, the past week has seen the determined and intensive targeting of Iran’s missile systems by the combined power of the IDF and US armed forces. Yet to the genuine surprise of many Western political and military analysts, Iran can still launch its missiles.
Three elements of this survival offer a clue as to what comes next.
One is that the regime in Tehran is likely to continue to survive. Look to Gaza, where Hamas is still active despite the massive destruction that Israel has inflicted over the past two and a half years. This, as I noted in last week’s column, is largely down to its quite extraordinary network of tunnels dug mostly by hand and reinforced with concrete walls. The network, which extends to around the distance from London to Edinburgh, has around 5,700 shafts, as well as electricity, ventilation and communication facilities.
In Iran, the IRGC now looks to have been similarly active in extensively preparing for war. It has built numerous and widely dispersed underground ‘missile cities’ – deep tunnel complexes built into mountains for making and storing armed drones and other weapons – as well as producing undersea armed drones for use against the US Navy, especially if it tries to guide tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
The second element follows on. There are indications that the IRGC appears to be using its older and least advanced missiles and drones first, aiming to deplete Israeli and US stocks of their anti-missile defences. Quite apart from anything else, this means Israel and the US are depleting their high-cost weaponry to “catch” incoming missiles, while Iran saves its most recently developed drones and ballistic missiles – with greater reach and more power for destruction, as well as improved accuracy and reliability – for later in the war.
Finally, there is the decision to opt for economic warfare against Western interests in many Gulf states. This involves the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, alongside attacks on oil and gas processing plants and distribution systems, as well as tourist infrastructure across the Gulf, with a luxury hotel in Dubai reportedly hit by a retaliatory strike.
This puts states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in a difficult position as to how to respond. To react forcefully by joining the war against Iran may be the natural response, but this has consequences. It means allying with an Israel that has killed at least 80,000 Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and enacted violence in the occupied West Bank to make life fraught with difficulty and increasingly dangerous.
This war is barely a week old but is having a worldwide impact and, despite Trump’s bluster, is already problematic for the US. The killing of at least 165 people, many of them children, at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls School in Minab is just one example of this, while another may be significant in a different way.
On Wednesday, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, killing at least 87 crew members. The Dena had recently left a series of exercises organised by the Indian Navy in the Bay of Bengal, and its sinking was reported with great glee by Hegseth, who told reporters: “Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean, an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”
Earlier in the press conference, Hesgeth had used the same celebratory and boastful tone to discuss what he framed as early US success. “We are only four days into this, and the results have been incredible. Historic, really,” he said. “Only the United States of America could lead this – only us. But when you add the Israeli Defence Forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical Islamist Iranian adversaries. They are toast, and they know it. Or at least, soon enough, they will know it. America is winning – decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy.”
The US war secretary’s speech betrayed the sense of impunity in Trump’s White House, confirming that members of his administration are certain in their own minds that in this war, Israel and the US can do what they like.
The consequences of this war are impossible to say for sure, but all roads appear to lead to increased uptake of nuclear weaponry, leaving the world an even less safe and stable place. If Israel and the US fail to terminate the Iranian regime and if any significant part of the IRGC survives, the very first thing it will do is to go to the ends of the earth to put together a crude nuclear device. Across the wider region, any state that sees two nuclear-armed regimes seeking to destroy a non-nuclear regime will see a need to go nuclear itself.
Senator Joins Police to Eject Antiwar Marine From Hearing, Breaking His Arm
“America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel,” McGinnis said as he protested the hearing. “This is wrong.”
Police and Sheehy tried to force the protester out of the room as he yelled, “no one wants to fight for Israel.”
By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, March 5, 2026, https://truthout.org/articles/senator-joins-police-to-eject-anti-war-marine-from-hearing-breaking-his-arm/
Republican senator joined Capitol Police as they violently ejected an anti-war protester and U.S. Marine veteran from an Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, appearing to break his arm as the group tried to wrestle him out of the chamber.
Video of the incident shows Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican from Montana, rushing over to help police as they try to tug and push the protester out of the chamber, as the protester yells, “no one wants to fight for Israel.” The protester appears to be wearing a U.S. Marine Corps dress uniform.
The protester, Green Party candidate Brian McGinnis, has his hand stuck in the door frame, with his arm hooked around the adjacent open door panel as several police try to force him out of the room. Sheehy lifts up McGinnis’s leg as police officers grab his torso and tug.
As Sheehy is moving over to dislodge the protester’s hand and tug on his arm, McGinnis’s forearm can be seen appearing to snap in half. There is a loud cracking sound, and bystanders begin to yell at the police to stop. Shortly after, officers let up on their tugging, and begin to work to dislodge McGinnis’s hand, as Sheehy returns to the front of the room.
“The senator broke his hand. A sitting U.S. senator just broke the hand of a Marine,” one person yells. One bystander asks McGinnis, “is your hand ok?”
“No, it’s not,” McGinnis responds. McGinnis is running for Senate in North Carolina, and is a Marine who fought in Iraq, according to his campaign website.
Police arrested McGinnis and have charged him with three counts of assault on a police officer, and three counts of resisting arrest and crowding, obstructing, and incommoding for his demonstration.
In a statement posted on McGinnis’s X account, his family expressed gratitude for the well wishes. “We are taking a necessary step back from the public eye to allow him to focus fully on his recovery in private,” the statement said.
The protest occurred during a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, held to hear testimony from military officials on the readiness of various military branches for combat. The hearing was scheduled before the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28.
“America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel,” McGinnis said as he protested the hearing. “This is wrong.”
Sheehy called McGinnis an “unhinged protester,” and claimed on social media that he was trying to “help out and deescalate the situation,” ignoring that he helped lift McGinnis off the ground, potentially helping to break his arm.
“This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one,” Sheehy said, though McGinnis was merely protesting the hearing.
In a video posted to social media ahead of his protest, McGinnis said that he was in D.C. to “speak out against the Senate and ask them why they’re going to send our men and women to harm’s way.”
“Anyone who feels disillusioned and betrayed, you’re not alone. Join us in demanding accountability for this betrayal,” he said. “Free Palestine, free America.”
For Denmark, Large uncertainties on the expected costs of SMRs in the 2040s and 2050s
The expected costs of SMRs in the 2040s and 2050s are extremely difficult
to project, because Western manufacturers are still proceeding towards
their first units. There are very large differences on the estimated
construction cost levels of the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) units ranging from 6
M€/MWe to 16 M€/MWe and uncertainty on what manufacturers include in
construction cost estimates.
Due to long lead times and high capital costs,
it is critical for the manufacturers to reach successful FOAK projects that
would take their SMR technologies on more favourable cost trajectories. The
first actual realized cost data can be expected when the first experiences
from actual serial production in Canada, UK and maybe Sweden could be
expected between 2035 and 2040.
Therefore, a main conclusion from this work
is, that it is probably 10 – 15 years too early to make trustworthy cost
projections. With that said, it is our central estimate that the overnight
construction costs in a Danish context could decrease to 8 M€/MWe in 2040
and approach 7 M€/MWe in 2050 with large uncertainties towards both
optimistic and pessimistic trajectories.
Danish Energy Agency 5th March 2026, https://ens.dk/media/8419/download
Is a Mass Revolt Against Technocracy Starting to Happen?
The Technocratic Takeover: Alive and Well
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: robots and AI are taking over our culture, our politics, our way of life, and our relationships to each other as social beings.
They’re becoming the advance guard for a new and unprecedented technocratic form of governance—the apotheosis of Western scientific materialism. Further, these new forms of governance are being carried out by unelected Big Tech overlords operating behind the scenes and in the backrooms of a mediated society well out of public view
Will there be a popular uprising against AI and the vast AI-based robotic machinery that’s taking over both the means of production and the means of information?
Tom Valovic, Feb 14, 2026, Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/revolt-against-big-tech
Ted Gioia has a popular Substack called “The Honest Broker.” Although, as an author, his books tend to focus on music and popular culture, he writes eloquently about a wide range of topics and offers insightful commentary about the global forced march toward technocratic lifestyle and governance that we’re now immersed in. In one posting, “25 Propositions about the New Romanticism,” Gioia posits that there is a new movement afoot mimicking (or, better, reflecting) the Romantic Period of the 18th century. This movement coincided with the first industrial revolution and, as a counterweight to that trend, saw a great shift toward impulses to re-enchant the world via poetry, art, and music, and reconnecting to nature. Gioia writes:
More than two years ago, I predicted the rise of a New Romanticism—a movement to counter the intense rationalization and expanding technological control of society. Rationalist and algorithmic models were dominating every sphere of life at that midpoint in the Industrial Revolution—and people started resisting the forces of progress. Companies grew more powerful, promising productivity and prosperity. But Blake called them “dark Satanic mills” and Luddites started burning down factories—a drastic and futile step, almost the equivalent of throwing away your smartphone.
Even as science and technology produced amazing results, dysfunctional behaviors sprang up everywhere. The pathbreaking literary works from the late 1700s reveal the dark side of the pervasive techno-optimism—Goethe’s novel about Werther’s suicide, the Marquis de Sade’s nasty stories, and all those gloomy Gothic novels. What happened to the Enlightenment?
As the new century dawned, the creative class (as we would call it today) increasingly attacked rationalist currents that had somehow morphed into violent, intrusive forces in their lives—an 180° shift in the culture. For Blake and others, the name Newton became a term of abuse. Artists, especially poets and musicians, took the lead in this revolt. They celebrated human feeling and emotional attachments—embracing them as more trustworthy, more flexible, more desirable than technology, profits, and cold calculation.
He goes on to posit that we’re poised for a return to that modality and points out that the notion of a New Romanticism has spread “like a wildfire,” citing influencers such as Ross Barkan, Santiago Ramos, and Kate Alexandra. Gioia sees what he describes as cultural trends at the leading edge of this transformation citing popular TV series such as Pluribus and Yellowstone. But is this really happening or has Gioia just stumbled on a pocket of cultural resistance and pushback against technocracy that’s primarily a pocket of unified self-expression rather than something representing deep and substantive cultural and societal change?
The Technocratic Takeover: Alive and Well
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here: robots and AI are taking over our culture, our politics, our way of life, and our relationships to each other as social beings. They’re becoming the advance guard for a new and unprecedented technocratic form of governance—the apotheosis of Western scientific materialism. Further, these new forms of governance are being carried out by unelected Big Tech overlords operating behind the scenes and in the backrooms of a mediated society well out of public view.
The tech takeover is such a massive appropriation of our social, political, and cultural life—and indeed our own biological substrate—that stoic acceptance might not be the way to go this time around.
I certainly hope that Gioia is right about a major cultural rejection of technocracy. There are indeed hopeful signs. The fundamental human values that make societies work and cohere have gotten steadily shunted aside by the technocracy takeover of culture and education—essentially becoming a new value system. This behind-the-scenes power shift has been amplified and compounded by an over-emphasis in education on STEM, corporate modalities, neo-Darwinian utilitarianism, and the continuing erosion of the humanities that began decades ago. So yes, without a doubt, we need to get “back to the garden” and return to a wider and deeper set of the kind of core values that ultimately hold societies together. Without positive shared values, societies become rudderless and fall into a kind of benighted chaos. All we need to do is look around.
All of that said, in his Substack post, Gioia missed an important component of this transition—if indeed it is coming to pass (and we can only hope). Throwing off technocracy and emerging from our involuntary digital cages also means reconnecting with the natural world, a fundamental human relationship that’s now increasingly mediated by digital devices. The need for this reconnection, this existential about-face, was a key aspect of the romanticism of the 18th century. In literature, for example, the Romantic poets were rather obsessed with it as poet Robert Bly points out in his stellar book News of the Universe (I highly recommend it.) In allowing our daily life to be shifted into an increasingly claustrophobic and self-reinforcing digital cage, we have abandoned not only our connection to the natural world but also to each other. Connecting to nature also lets us tap into the mystery of the universe, which despite human folly remains nonetheless fully intact even if absurdly rationalized by scientific reductionism. Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein were both scientists who could appreciate this. We need more like them.
The Robot Wars: No Longer Sci-Fi
In the 80s and 90s, science fiction movies and literature commonly offered themes of “robot wars” where humans were pitted against the dominance of an ugly dystopian society. Will this be our future courtesy of Elon Musk and his cohorts? Or, alternatively, will there be a mass uprising against AI and the vast AI-based robotic machinery that’s taking over both the means of production and the means of information? We humans are known for our adaptability and stoicism in difficult situations such as world wars and major disasters. That stoicism and sense of “accepting what can’t be changed” seems to be part of our psychological and perhaps even biological makeup. But the tech takeover is such a massive appropriation of our social, political, and cultural life—and indeed our own biological substrate—that stoic acceptance might not be the way to go this time around.
In the next few years, it most certainly will have finally dawned on the mass of humanity, especially in advanced Western nations, that something is badly amiss. Many will realize at a visceral level that their everyday lives are trapped in a claustrophobia-inducing closed-circuit technocratic system and control grid that robs them of autonomy and freedom while purporting to do the opposite.
I totally agree that a new romanticism is a very necessary sea change at this strange time in human history but am perhaps a bit less optimistic that it will happen—at least over the next few years. The forces of technocracy seem too powerful at the moment to be countered because so many of the necessities of everyday life depend on our attachment to this digital realm. This includes paying bills, financial maintenance, government-related necessities such as getting a license renewed, and so much more. Further, technological dependency keeps getting ratcheted up by the self-appointed masters of the universe represented by Big Tech’s unchallenged and ever-growing power. That said, I sincerely hope I’m wrong about this and Gioia is right. Time will tell.
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