The Briefing

The largest single-day escalation of Operation Epic Fury hit the terminal through which 90 percent of Iran's oil exports flow — destroying military assets while deliberately preserving the refineries. The restraint is strategic: Kharg's export capacity is already worthless with the Strait of Hormuz closed, making intact oil infrastructure a cost-free bargaining chip rather than an act of decency.

• CENTCOM struck more than 90 targets on Kharg Island including missile bunkers, mine storage, air defences, and a naval base
• Trump warned oil infrastructure would be next if Iran continues to obstruct Strait of Hormuz shipping
• Iran responded by threatening to destroy all oil and gas infrastructure in the region with American connections
• Iraq bombed Kharg repeatedly through the 1980s and Iran rebuilt — the difference now is the simultaneous closure of the strait and attacks on allied terminals across the Gulf

The comprehensive toll of the U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran now exceeds 3,000 dead across the region, with 13 American service members killed, 3.2 million Iranians displaced, and an estimated $16.5 billion spent in twelve days. Congress voted down war powers challenges along party lines while 56 percent of Americans oppose the campaign.

• Over 1,444 Iranians killed (government figure), 773 dead in Lebanon, 14 Israelis killed, and 13 U.S. service members dead
• More than 15,000 targets struck across Iran; 3.2 million Iranians and 830,000 Lebanese displaced
• Senate rejected war powers challenge 47-53; House blocked it 219-212, both on party lines
• The war has cost more in twelve days than the annual budget of most federal agencies, authorised by neither chamber of Congress

The UAE intercepted nine ballistic missiles and 33 drones on Friday while Qatar received evacuation orders for parts of Doha for the first time. Over 3,100 Iranian missiles and drones have been intercepted across six countries since February 28 — an unprecedented regional bombardment that continues despite Iran's own president apologising for the strikes.

• Gulf air defences have intercepted more than 3,100 Iranian missiles and drones across six countries in two weeks
• President Pezeshkian apologised to Gulf neighbours; the IRGC immediately contradicted him and continued strikes
• The IRGC designated UAE ports Jebel Ali and Khalifa as 'legitimate targets'
• The first war in which a belligerent's president apologised for his own military's strikes and the military did not notice

A strike on the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad's Green Zone knocked out its last-resort C-RAM air defence system and helipad, prompting orders for all Americans to leave Iraq overland. The targeting of radar infrastructure rather than perimeter structures suggested detailed pre-strike reconnaissance of the embassy's defensive layout.

• The embassy's C-RAM system — a 20mm Gatling gun designed to intercept rockets — was completely destroyed along with satellite communications
• Kataib Hezbollah claimed responsibility; the Islamic Resistance in Iraq offered $100,000 for the location of U.S. diplomatic personnel
• Commercial flights are not operating; departure routes are overland only through Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey
• The $750 million compound, built as a statement of permanent American presence, cannot defend itself against the response the war provoked

Diesel surged 96 cents in a single week — the largest increase since federal tracking began in 1994 — while gasoline climbed to $3.68 per gallon. The diesel number matters more than the gas price: every good that moves by truck, rail, or ship moves on diesel, and that cost reaches consumers on a four-to-six-week delay.

• Diesel hit $4.86/gallon nationally, with California at $6.10; gasoline averaged $3.68, up 23% since the war began
• The pre-war forecast for 2026 gasoline was $2.97/gallon — what would have been the lowest since 2020
• The administration authorised 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over 120 days as part of a 400-million-barrel international release
• Every downstream cost calculation made in January — freight contracts, food pricing, consumer spending projections — is now wrong

The index fell to 6,632 — roughly 5.3 percent below its late-January record — as the Hormuz closure, oil up 65 percent year-to-date, and Q4 GDP revised to 0.7 percent revived stagflation fears. Not one of 21 Wall Street strategists surveyed at the start of the year predicted a decline.

• The S&P 500 posted its first three-week losing streak in roughly a year; the VIX hit 27.29, its highest since 2022
• Q4 2025 GDP was revised to 0.7% annualised; February payrolls showed 92,000 job losses; core PCE stuck at 2.8%
• Defence contractors hit 52-week highs; Microsoft fell 20% from highs; Apple lost $250 billion in market cap in one week
• Twenty-one strategists, zero predictions of decline, and an index now trading 7 to 18 percent below every year-end target

A Lebanese immigrant whose relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 5 drove an explosives-laden truck into the largest Reform synagogue in the U.S. while 140 children were inside. No congregants died — a result of $750 million in annual Jewish community security spending, nine armed guards, and drills rehearsed weeks before. The DHS shutdown since February has halted review of the grant programme funding that security.

• Ayman Ghazali, 41, had no criminal record and no registered weapons; intelligence databases flagged family connections to Hezbollah but did not flag his purchasing behaviour or isolation
• The Secure Community Network tracked over 8,000 online calls for violence against Jewish communities in the six days before the attack
• Jewish Federations of North America spends more than $750 million annually on security; 605 law enforcement professionals from 42 agencies responded
• A strike in the Beqaa Valley produced a truck in a Michigan hallway — the system caught the genealogy and missed the trajectory

Internal discussions target up to 20 percent of Meta's workforce to offset AI capital expenditures projected at $135 billion in 2026 — nearly double last year. The company posted record revenue and $22.8 billion in quarterly profit; the cuts are not driven by financial distress but by a resource allocation decision that treats headcount as a variable to be optimised against a capability the models have not yet delivered.

• AI capex has risen from $39 billion (2024) to $72 billion (2025) to a projected $115–135 billion (2026)
• Meta's flagship Behemoth model was cancelled; its successor Avocado was delayed after trailing Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic
• The company is reportedly considering licensing Google's Gemini to power some products while Avocado catches up
• Block, Amazon, and Meta are all cutting headcount while increasing AI spend — replacing humans with systems that, by their own benchmarks, cannot yet match the competition

Utrecht University researchers found that an abrupt 219-kilometre northward jump in the Gulf Stream precedes AMOC collapse by roughly 25 years in high-resolution simulations. Satellite data since 1993 show the Gulf Stream is already drifting north at a statistically significant rate — though whether this reflects AMOC weakening or natural variability remains contested.

• The early warning signal appeared 25 years before full AMOC collapse in a simulation ten times finer than standard climate models
• Satellite altimetry from 1993–2024 shows the Gulf Stream detachment point shifting north at 0.16 degrees latitude per decade
• If the AMOC collapsed, modelling projects winter extremes of minus 19°C in London and minus 48°C in Oslo — even in a 2°C warmer world
• The primary monitoring tool for a system whose collapse would restructure North Atlantic habitability has been running for twenty-one years — too short to separate signal from noise

Brazil's imprisoned former president was hospitalised with bronchopneumonia and worsening kidney function, adding a medical crisis to a political calendar already shaped by his son Flavio's presidential campaign. Flavio is now tied with Lula at 41 percent in runoff polling — a gap that closed from twelve points since December.

• Bolsonaro, 70, was transferred to ICU with bronchopneumonia likely caused by aspiration; kidney function worsened and inflammatory markers rose
• He is serving a 27-year sentence after conviction for plotting to overturn the 2022 election, including alleged plans to assassinate President Lula
• His son Flavio is polling neck-and-neck with Lula seven months before Brazil's October presidential election
• Every day the elder Bolsonaro spends in intensive care is a day the persecution narrative writes itself — regardless of whether the medical care is adequate