The ayatollah sends his regrets
Recently: Why is there so much copper—and yet not enough to go around? Adam Simon on the “huge stakes” of global competition for the metal.
Today: Iranian authorities named a new supreme leader whose own predecessor and father opposed his succession—and who may now be too wounded to assume the role. … Nepal’s Gen Z opposition has just won in a landslide. … &c.
From the weekend despatch: What is the United States trying to accomplish in Iran?
For members: The hottest stretch of the year comes for tens of millions across West Africa this week.
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Heir apparent
On Sunday, Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei—the 56-year-old son of the supreme leader killed on the war’s first day—as the Islamic Republic’s third supreme leader. On Monday, in Revolution Square in Tehran, commanders and loyalists pledged bay’ah, allegiance—to a large image of Mojtaba, apparently mounted on cardboard. He wasn’t, himself, there. Iranian state television described him as janbaz—wounded by the enemy—and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since February 28.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary force that answers directly to the supreme leader, seems to have pushed Mojtaba’s selection through. Starting on March 3, Guard commanders pressured Assembly members through what Iran International describes as “repeated contacts and psychological pressure.” The online vote took place under what participants called an “unnatural” atmosphere—opponents given limited time to speak, debate cut off. U.S. and Israeli bombs struck the Assembly’s office in Qom after members voted but before counting finished. U.S. President Donald Trump had called Mojtaba “unacceptable,” insisting he, Trump, “must be involved in the appointment.” Israel’s military warned it would target any successor.
The elder Khamenei apparently didn’t want this either. According to sources within the Assembly cited by the London-based Persian-language news outlet Iran International, he “was not pleased with the idea of his son’s leadership and never allowed this issue to be raised during his lifetime.” (Note: Iran International is Saudi-funded.) The Washington Post reports Khamenei said as much in his will. Iran’s founding ideology rejects hereditary succession—the 1979 revolution toppled a dynasty. And yet the Guards installed the dead leader’s son, a mid-ranking cleric most Iranians have never heard speak, who lost his father, mother, wife, and a child in the same strike. One analyst told Time: “He is filled with an undying desire for revenge, and the Guards know this.”
Meanwhile
- The biggest disruption. Oil prices swung wildly on Tuesday after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted—then deleted—a claim that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. The White House denied it. Crude plunged 17 percent on the post, then climbed back above $87. Gas is up nearly 50 cents a gallon since the war began. G7 energy ministers met on Tuesday to discuss releasing emergency stockpiles; Saudi Aramco’s CEO is warning of “catastrophic consequences” for the global market.
- The ballot and the bell. Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old rapper turned mayor of Kathmandu, is set to become Nepal’s youngest prime minister after his Rastriya Swatantra Party won 125 of 165 directly elected seats—the first single-party majority in decades. Last year’s Gen Z–led protests toppled the government. Shah defeated four-time Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli in his own constituency. No elected government in Nepal’s history has served a full term.
- All lawful uses. Five Iranian women’s football players are granted asylum in Australia after refusing to sing their national anthem at the Asian Cup; state television branded them “traitors.” … The Dutch open-source investigations outlet Bellingcat and the BBC have confirmed a Tomahawk cruise missile struck near the Minab girls’ school on the war’s first day—contradicting Trump’s claim that Iran bombed it. … An incendiary device explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo; Norwegian police say they still don’t know who’s responsible. … Indonesia bans social media for kids under 16. … & The American AI company Anthropic is suing the Pentagon after it designated them a supply-chain risk for refusing to allow their technology in autonomous weapons.
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Theaters of war
Locked in
What is the United States trying to accomplish in Iran?
On Friday, the White House posted a video on its official account splicing real footage of airstrikes in Iran with clips from the video game Grand Theft Auto. The word “WASTED”—the message players see when their character dies—flashed across the screen after each explosion. Earlier in the week, another video mashed up Call of Duty kill scores with missile strikes. Another cut between the Hollywood movies Iron Man, Gladiator, Top Gun, and John Wick before transitioning to military footage, captioned “Justice the American way.” The actor and director Ben Stiller asked the White House to remove a clip from Tropic Thunder—writing, “War is not a movie.”
Meanwhile, six American service members are dead. Iran’s Red Crescent puts the civilian toll above 1,300—and while it’s not a number we can confirm, it’s currently among the more conservative estimates—including more than 160 people killed in a strike on a girls’ school that U.S. military investigators now believe was an American missile. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” He added that afterward, “GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s)” must be selected. He signed off: “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!)”
Conspicuously, the administration has yet to articulate a coherent purpose for this war. Its stated objectives have multiplied by the day, its messaging oscillates between the language of total war and the aesthetics of entertainment, and the closest model it has offered—the U.S. military’s recent intervention in Venezuela—bears almost no resemblance to what’s unfolding. Eight days in, the most important question seems the simplest:
Weather report
A sizzler in the Sahel
13.5116° N, 2.1254° E
From the despatch: The hottest stretch of the year comes for tens of millions across West Africa this week …
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New music
‘I Wanna Be Adored’
Baltimore’s Turnstile has been sounding less and less like a hardcore-punk band over the past year. On tour in Australia, they stopped by triple j’s Sydney studios—where the tradition is to play one of your own and cover someone else’s. Their choice: the opening track on the 1989 debut album from The Stone Roses.
