Days 4&5: Trump moots Hormuz escort but oil hits $84, US embassies and radars targeted, Khamenei’s son likely to succeed

GULF COUNTRIES - In Brief 04 Mar 2026 by Justin Alexander
This update is going out as Wednesday comes to a close in the US and the GCC and Iran begin Thursday morning. Iran The intense US and Israeli bombing has continued. The US has struck over 2,000 targets and is using 200 planes in the region, along with long-range bombers. The body count in Iran has surpassed 1,000. Yet US officials have threatened that the hardest hits are yet to come, possibly because the operation had launched opportunistically on Saturday, before all the military assets were in the theatre.The Iranian navy has been destroyed, including a warship sunk by a US submarine near Sri Lanka. Most of the air force and air defenses are also in tatters, given the US and Israeli bombers even more of a free hand.Israel bombed the head office of the Assembly of Experts in Qom, the clerical body assigned to select a new supreme leader. The assembly was meeting elsewhere, and although no decision has been announced, Khamenei’s hardline son, Mojtaba, is now seen as the strong favorite (PM, NYT). He has been in the mix for years, but dynastic succession doesn’t sit well, and if Khamenei had died naturally during peacetime, then perhaps a more moderate figure would have come to the fore. Even if he is selected, he might not survive, because Israel’s defense minister has threatened to kill the succession.Alongside the three-person council that has temporarily filled the role of supreme leader, central leadership roles in the war are being played by the hardline speaker of parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf, and Ali Larijani, the head of the Supreme National Security Council.There are signs of Israel and the US fomenting ethnic rebellions, including by Kurds in the northwest,...

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