🇮🇷🏆🇺🇸 They Saw It Coming

How American military planners anticipated failure in Iran

In mid-February 2026, before the US military initiated the airstrikes that began Operation “Epic Fury,” the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an agency of the executive branch created to synthesize the analysis of the US’s 18 intelligence agencies, submitted to the president a classified report detailing the prospects of an attack on Iran. This assessment, first reported on in the Washington Post and subsequently confirmed by the Associated Press, painted a grim picture.

It concluded that an offensive operation launched by the US military would be unlikely to dismantle the central pillars of the Iranian government. Assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could backfire, resulting in the consolidation of Iranian military and political structures and the activation of emergency protocols the Iranians had been preparing for years. Iran’s domestic opposition was unlikely to be able to seize power in such a scenario. A limited air campaign or even a protracted war stood a serious chance of failing to achieve regime change.

The NIC report was the final warning in a decades-long, documented history of US military and intelligence planners predicting grim strategic outcomes in a war with Iran. Official analysis anticipated every major failure of a potential conflict, from the brutal arithmetic of interceptor production to the possibility that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz.

Given the clear historical record of American anticipation of these failures, it should now be asked why these warnings went largely ignored. If the Pentagon and intelligence community understood the bleak prospect for success in Iran, if their assessments anticipated debasification, munition shortages, the closure of Hormuz, the superiority of diplomacy, the difficulties with achieving air supremacy, and the unlikely prospect of regime change, how did they find themselves embarking on what was, by all available evidence, an unwinnable war? The answer to this question can be found in a series of leaks made shortly after the war began to The New York Times.

In the lead-up to the war, every assessment made by the Pentagon and US intelligence apparatus was directly contradicted by competing assessments made by Israeli planners and presented directly to the Trump administration. Mossad chief David Barnea traveled to Washington in mid-January and delivered a comprehensive plan to assassinate the Iranian leadership and stir mass protests to accomplish regime change.

The Israelis also presented a supporting plan to invade Iran with Kurdish proxy forces, but American strategists had already identified that the Kurds were too dispersed and disorganized to be used for this purpose, and doing so would strain relations with Turkey. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heavily lobbied the Trump administration to convince them the plan was achievable. Throughout this process, US military and intelligence officials fought fiercely to convince the administration that the plan would fail, but were overruled.

Continued ⬇️

🔗 https://open.substack.com/pub/amerikanets/p/they-saw-it-coming

🇺🇸❌⚽️ President Trump warns FIFA against replacing its president, Gianni Infantino, claiming that without Infantino at the helm, FIFA would "never be profitable again".

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🇮🇷 Iranian authorities arrest five suspects in brutal killing of religious singer by anti-government monarchists

Iranian police have arrested five suspects, including a female social media influencer, in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Basij member and religious singer Hamidreza Rajabzadeh.

According to Iranian authorities, the perpetrators confessed to the crime, during which Rajabzadeh had his heart cut out while still alive before his body was dismembered and pieces were delivered to both his family and workplace. Law enforcement officials noted that one of the suspects, a woman, attempted to flee north before being captured.

Footage documenting the graphic murder was initially released on a Telegram channel before spreading widely across anti-government online platforms. Iranian police confirmed they are actively probing whether the attack was driven by personal grievances or organized terrorist motives.

🔗 The Cradle

🇪🇬🇹🇷🇸🇦🇵🇰⚡️ — Egypt declined to join the new Mecca defense pact between Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan despite sustained efforts by Ankara to bring Cairo into the arrangement, according to Middle East Eye.

Turkish officials had initially viewed Egypt as a natural fourth member because of growing coordination on Gaza and regional security, but Cairo ultimately chose to stay out as it balances sensitive ties with Israel and the UAE.

Egypt is a U.S. ally with full diplomatic relations with Israel and reportedly feared additional pressure from Tel Aviv if it joined a pact containing a collective-defense clause. Cairo is also reluctant to take sides amid growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, on which Egypt remains financially and militarily dependent.

Egypt also wants to avoid being drawn into an emerging alignment of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan against a competing bloc centered on Israel, the UAE, and India.

Türkiye still hope Cairo will eventually join the alliance as it develops and demonstrates its ability to serve as a credible deterrent against regional threats.

🇨🇴🛢🇺🇸 Colombia Revives Oil And Gas After Four-Year Renewable Energy Push

New President Abelardo de la Espriella plans to revive oil and gas exploration, allow tightly regulated fracking, and strengthen state oil company Ecopetrol while maintaining investment in renewables.

Oil output fell 4%, foreign investment in mining and oil dropped 34%, gas imports surged to 31% of consumption, and Ecopetrol’s 2025 profits fell nearly 40%.

Its 2026 investment plan targets up to $7 billion, with roughly 70% directed toward upstream oil and gas and as many as 430 development wells.

Over the past couple of years, Colombia’s clean energy transition has shifted into overdrive under President Gustavo Petro’s "Just Energy Transition" agenda, with the country pivoting away from fossil fuels towards wind and solar energy. Petro, Colombia’s first ever left-wing president, instituted a strict ban on signing new oil, gas and coal exploration contracts while securing multi-billion-dollar international funding partnerships for clean energy projects. This strategy helped Colombia’s renewable energy capacity to explode from 200 megawatts (MW) in 2022 to over 4,300 MW by 2026. The solar sector, in particular, enjoyed a major boom under Pedro, with solar energy generation in Colombia officially surpassing coal-fired electricity generation for the first time in history in 2025. Colombia is South America's largest coal producer and its second-largest petroleum and liquid fuels producer, trailing only Brazil. However, Colombia’s fossil fuel sector is about to regain its dominance under the country’s newly elected, right-wing leader.

Ecopetrol, Colombia’s national oil company (NOC), faced falling profits and growing government interference during Petro’s presidency. Petro repeatedly clashed with management over investment and strategy, disrupting the company’s long-term oil and gas expansion plans.

Last year, Petro ordered the termination of a potentially lucrative U.S. Permian Basin joint venture with Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), claiming fracking represented a huge environmental hazard. Petro previously blocked a $3.6 billion deal to buy a 30% stake in shale producer CrownRock. High-profile board members quit in protest, citing mixed messaging and government resistance to investing capital abroad. Petro’s government also replaced hundreds of technical staff with political appointees, while higher income-tax surcharges on hydrocarbons and new corporate wealth levies increased Ecopetrol’s tax burden.

Ecopetrol’s total transfers to the government, consisting of taxes, royalties, and dividends spiked under Petro to 35 trillion Colombian Pesos (~$11.1 billion) annually, far outpacing the comparative historical windows of prior administrations like Iván Duque and Juan Manuel Santos. Ecopetrol accounts for nearly two-thirds of Colombia’s fossil fuel production.

🔗 https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Colombia-Revives-Oil-And-Gas-After-Four-Year-Renewable-Energy-Push.html

🛢 15 Saudi oil tankers are returning to the Persian Gulf to pick up more oil after completing their voyages to East Asia.

Iranian-KSA relations are about to be tested as they will likely attempt to enter the Persian Gulf with American help using the southern/Omani lane.

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🇺🇸❌⚖️ The ICC ordered a new standalone investigation be opened into the alleged gender based persecution inside Taliban Afghanistan, separating it from the wide Afghanistan inquiry which looked into, besides alleged war crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS-K), the alleged war crimes committed by the US-backed Afghan Security Force, the CIA and the U.S. military.

The move is likely to raise questions about whether the court is seeking to ease tensions with Washington by signalling that it will no longer pursue allegations against US forces and their allies.

The chamber's communication came days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened to "dismantle the ICC, brick by brick", in remarks referencing the court's 2020 decision authorising an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan.

Since February 2025, the US has imposed retaliatory financial and visa sanctions on court officials in connection with the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations, citing efforts to prosecute nationals or allies of the US. 

​​The first target was Karim Khan, the former prosecutor of the ICC, who was controversially removed by member states last month after an 18-month long misconduct probe. 

Also targeted were eight judges, three of whom - Kimberly Prost, Solomy Bossa and Luz Ibanez - were members of the 2020 Appeals Chamber that authorised the Afghanistan investigation.

The sanctions came despite the decision by Khan in 2021 to deprioritise the strand of the Afghanistan probe concerning US military and CIA personnel, as well as former Afghan government forces, in order to focus the investigation on the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province. 

The ICC already issued arrest warrants a year ago for Supreme Leader of the Taliban Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group's Chief Justice, for the crime against humanity of gender persecution.

MEE reported in December that diplomats at the ICC's annual Assembly of States Parties meeting in The Hague said the Trump administration had pressed the court to drop its investigations into Afghanistan and Palestine as a condition for lifting sanctions. 

It also demanded states to amend the ICC’s founding treaty - The Rome Statute - to prevent the prosecution of nationals from countries that aren’t members of the court, such as the US and Israel. 

At the end of its meeting, however, the assembly issued a declaration resisting those demands and rejecting calls to amend the Rome Statute, without naming the US directly.

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/icc-judges-order-taliban-case-split-from-afghanistan-probe-that-covers-us-nationals