Iran launched a new wave of attacks on Thursday, with explosions reported in the region and Tehran threatening that the U.S. would ‘bitterly regret’ sinking an Iranian warship.

Iran’s strikes on Thursday targeted Israel, American bases and countries in the region. Israel announced multiple incoming missile attacks as air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense on Thursday said Iran used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an attack on Nakhchivan International Airport and other civilian infrastructure. The ministry said the details of the attack and the capabilities of the UAVs were being investigated.

‘The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan strongly condemns the attacks carried out by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran against civilian infrastructure on the territory of Azerbaijan in the absence of any military necessity. The Islamic Republic of Iran bears the entire responsibility for the incident,’ the ministry’s statement read.

Iran has not acknowledged targeting Azerbaijan, despite the country’s ministry of defense pointing the finger at Tehran.

Qatar evacuated residents near the U.S. Embassy in Doha on Thursday, with its Ministry of Defense confirming that the country was ‘subjected to a missile attack’ and that its air defense systems were able to intercept it. The ministry urged the public to remain calm and avoid unofficial information.

Abu Dhabi announced that its authorities were responding to an incident involving falling debris in ICAD 2, which is part of the Industrial City of Abu Dhabi. Six people, identified by Abu Dhabi as Pakistani and Nepali nationals, suffered minor to moderate injuries.

Iran has carried out retaliatory strikes since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, with the latest wave coming one day after the U.S. sunk an Iranian warship, killing at least 87 Iranian sailors. Sri Lankan navy spokesman Cmdr. Buddhika Sampath said 32 people were rescued from the wreck and were admitted to a hospital.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth defended the move during a news briefing at the Pentagon.

‘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. Like in that war, back when we were still the War Department, we are fighting to win,’ Hegseth said.

Iranian leaders condemned the attack, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accusing the U.S. Navy of committing ‘an atrocity at sea.’ Meanwhile, Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli appeared on state television and called for the shedding of Israeli and ‘Trump’s blood.’

‘Fight the oppressive America, his blood is on my shoulders,’ he said in a rare call for violence from an ayatollah, one of the highest ranks within the clergy of Shiite Islam.

The U.S. and Israel launched the war on Saturday with strikes targeting Iran’s leadership, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed. Iran’s missile arsenal and nuclear facilities were also hit.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

I spent decades inside the Pentagon watching technology reshape warfare. I saw precision munitions change the battlefield. I watched satellites compress decision cycles. But nothing compares to what is happening now.

Artificial intelligence has moved the lab to the kill chain.

And the showdown between Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and AI firm Anthropic is not a contract dispute. It is the opening battle over who controls the most powerful military technology of the 21st century.

AI is already transforming war

Look at Ukraine.

Western officials report that drones now account for roughly 70-80% of battlefield casualties in that war. But the real revolution occurs when AI is added. Reports indicate AI-guided navigation can increase drone strike accuracy from 10–20% to as high as 70–80%.

That is not incremental change. That is a transformation in battlefield lethality.

The same dynamic is emerging in U.S. operations involving Iran and other theaters. AI tools are being used for intelligence analysis, targeting refinement, pattern recognition, and operational simulations. These systems compress time, reduce uncertainty and accelerate decisions.

AI is not theoretical. It is operational.

Which brings us to Washington.

What the Hegseth–Anthropic standoff is really about

On Feb. 27, Hegseth designated Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk to national security.’ President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to cease using its Claude AI model after Anthropic refused to remove two guardrails:

A prohibition on fully autonomous weapons.

A prohibition on mass domestic surveillance.

Artificial intelligence has moved the lab to the kill chain.

The Pentagon argues that military commanders must be able to use AI tools for all lawful defense purposes without seeking permission from a private company in real time.

Anthropic argues that removing safeguards could enable autonomous killing systems or unconstitutional domestic spying.

Both concerns are legitimate.

But here is the deeper problem: America has outsourced strategic control of its most sensitive military algorithms to private contractors.

That is unsustainable.

Draw the right line

Let me be clear about what must not happen.

We must not expand domestic surveillance of American citizens under the banner of AI efficiency. The Fourth Amendment does not disappear in the age of algorithms.

Second, we must keep a human being in the kill chain. I served under lawful command authority. Life-and-death decisions carry moral accountability. They cannot be delegated entirely to autonomous systems.

Those are firm boundaries.

But here is the other boundary: no private corporation should hold an effective veto over how America defends itself.

Washington’s contractor addiction

For decades, the federal government has grown dependent on contractors for critical defense functions — logistics, cyber infrastructure, analytics and intelligence support. AI is simply the next frontier in that pattern.

But frontier AI models are not spare parts or uniforms. They are strategic infrastructure. They influence targeting, operational tempo and potentially deterrence modeling.

That level of sensitivity cannot remain under corporate ownership.

During World War II, the United States built the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project under centralized national authority. It was not governed by venture-backed boards setting independent usage policies. It was directed by the U.S. government with a clear strategic mandate.

We need a similar mindset for our most sensitive AI systems.

Government must own core military algorithms. Not lease them. Not subscribe to them. Own them.

AI tools are being used for intelligence analysis, targeting refinement, pattern recognition, and operational simulations. These systems compress time, reduce uncertainty and accelerate decisions.

If AI is the new strategic high ground, America cannot subcontract the high ground.

China isn’t hesitating

As I argue in ‘The New AI Cold War,’ Beijing does not struggle with these dilemmas.

China fuses AI development directly to the state. There are no Silicon Valley executives in Beijing refusing military access. AI is treated as national infrastructure.

Russia and other nations are moving in similar directions. They are not debating internal guardrails while field-testing AI-enabled systems.

Strategic competition does not pause while we litigate contract language.

What must happen next

First, Congress must draw bright lines: no AI-enabled mass domestic surveillance of Americans without strict constitutional safeguards.

Second, codify meaningful human control over lethal force decisions.

Third — and most critically — build sovereign AI capacity inside government.

That means:

• Government-controlled AI research for classified applications
• Government ownership of core defense algorithms
• Reduced reliance on private frontier labs for sensitive military systems
• Long-term pipelines of cleared AI engineers

Anthropic argues that removing safeguards could enable autonomous killing systems or unconstitutional domestic spying.

Private industry will continue to innovate. But America’s most sensitive warfighting tools cannot remain dependent on companies whose corporate policies can override national defense requirements.

The real issue is sovereignty

The Pentagon–Anthropic feud is not about personalities. It is about sovereignty.

Who controls the algorithms that guide American force?

Who owns the code?

Who decides how it is used?

In the new AI Cold War, power will belong to those who control the models — not merely those who rent access to them.

America must protect liberty. We must reject AI-driven domestic surveillance. We must preserve human moral accountability in the use of force.

First, Congress must draw bright lines: no AI-enabled mass domestic surveillance of Americans without strict constitutional safeguards.

But we must also end the illusion that venture-backed firms can function as ultimate gatekeepers of national defense.

The AI Cold War is not hypothetical. It is unfolding on battlefields abroad and in policy fights at home.

This moment is not about one company. It is about whether the United States will treat artificial intelligence as strategic national infrastructure — or as a contractor service.

The answer will shape the next generation of warfare.

And history will not wait for us to decide.

The highest-ranking Minnesotan in Congress is calling for a deeper investigation into allegations that leaders in his state government knowingly ignored evidence of welfare fraud, and he called for those leaders to even face incarceration if proven true.

‘People are sick and tired of elected officials having a double standard, being treated differently than they are. They’re held accountable for things that they should be held accountable for, when their elected officials are not,’ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital. 

‘If these two guys are dirty, they should be held accountable, and they should serve jail time.’

He was referring to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, two of several witnesses at a high-profile hearing on fraud conducted by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Both Walz and Ellison insisted that they were serious about prosecuting fraud in the state’s social programs and that they took action to stop it once it was brought to their attention.

But Emmer cited a report by the House Oversight Committee that accused them both of knowing about the fraud earlier than previously thought and delaying public accountability for fear of political retribution from progressives in the state — particularly the Somali community in Minneapolis, who Republicans have accused of taking advantage of the state’s welfare system.

‘They might have been able to qualify it enough that it wasn’t black and white, but if they lied to the committee this morning about knowing about the fraud and when they knew about the fraud and the FBI investigation, that is a criminal act of its own,’ Emmer told Fox News Digital.

‘So I do believe, depending on this report and what else the majority staff is doing, they very well may want to call them back in and depose them under oath.’

He added at another point, ‘You have maybe 80 to 100,000 Somalis in Minnesota. Tim Walz won with 52%. They made a difference. Keith Ellison won by less than 1%. I think it was 20,000 votes. Makes a difference. So if those are connected, yeah, I mean, this is campaign fraud.’

‘I’ve taken accountability for this. I’m not going to run again. I need to spend the time fixing this,’ Walz said during the hearing. ‘This does undermine trust in government. Do I wish there were things that could have happened earlier? Yes. But in this job, ‘wish’ didn’t do it. I’m looking into where I see it.’

At another point, Walz attributed the rise in fraud statistics to an increase in prosecutions, telling Republicans, ‘When you catch people and prosecute them, it shows up as a fraud increase.’

He also dismissed accusations that he kept whistle-blowers quiet over fear of being seen as Islamophobic, ‘I can’t speak to it because it’s not anything I would say.’

Ellison, meanwhile, said he was happy to work across bipartisan lines to prosecute fraud.

‘I am here to work to improve this system, and there are improvements that can be made,’ he said. ‘If we can get out of fixing the blame and get to fixing the problem, that would be an enormous thing for me.’

But Emmer, who maintained that further investigation was needed, suggested he doubted their intentions.

‘It’s power. They want power. In order for them to get power, they need to be elected. In order for them to get elected, they have to cheat in different ways. And that is exactly what they did,’ Emmer said. ‘If the Somali community is being used by these public officials to get themselves into office…it sure does look suspect, it needs to be investigated.’

Iran’s tyrannical and ruthless regime is disintegrating. After yet again massacring thousands of its own citizens for voicing their dreams for liberty and better governance, the Iranian regime meantime resumed pursuing nuclear capability and its aggressive ICBM program. The regime’s overconfidence in U.S. inaction cost it its leader and its core military capabilities are going up in smoke. Against this backdrop, the conflict has spread to the Gulf, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum, and forcing the rest of the world to rethink how it prices energy risk and political alignment.

This is not another regional flare-up. This is a rupture of an old equilibrium in which sanctioned oil, shadow fleets and calibrated escalation kept markets stable enough to function. That equilibrium is now breaking. A rapid political-military shift in the Middle East is unfolding alongside a restructuring of the global energy order.

When I was in Afghanistan during the surge, Tehran’s active support for the insurgency fighting the United States and Afghan forces fomented instability and amplified violence for which civilians paid the biggest price, a dynamic that so many across several nations have tragically encountered for decades. But Iran was never a contained regional problem.

While its terrorism was widely perceived as a Middle East issue, its cyber and intelligence operations spanned continents, with assassination plots that included the American president. As to global effects, Iran’s energy has always made its regime globally significant.

At this stage of the conflict, the most economically significant and immediate geography is the Strait of Hormuz which Iran is working to choke off. Roughly one-fifth of global petroleum and a substantial portion of liquefied natural gas move through that narrow corridor. As strikes intensified, vessels paused transit, insurers reassessed exposure and operators rerouted cargoes. Markets adjusted immediately. Energy security and geopolitical stability are now inseparable; maritime risk has become the pressure valve through which regional conflict spills into global consequence. 

This realignment did not begin in the Gulf this weekend. It started with U.S. actions in Venezuela. Caracas holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves — about 303 billion barrels — and even marginal normalization under a more U.S.-cooperative government alters the supply calculus for Washington and its allies.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. Stack that with a post-crisis Iran re-entering markets on different terms, and the shadow ecosystem of discounted, sanctioned crude — Russia, Iran, Venezuela — begins to fracture and reprice simultaneously.

But the most consequential energy recalibration runs through Beijing. China is essentially Iran’s oil export market. In 2025, China bought more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, averaging ~1.38 million barrels per day, about 13.4% of China’s seaborne crude imports—meaning Beijing is simultaneously Tehran’s economic lifeline and its strategic choke chain.

By turning a sanctioned producer into a quasi-captive supply relationship — sustained through gray-market routing, reflagging and intermediary hubs — Beijing secured discounted barrels in normal times and leverage in crisis. Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security; Iran exports about 1.6 million bpd mainly to China and such disruptions pushes Beijing to pivot to alternatives.

The relationship is therefore best understood as a dependency loop: Iran needs China for revenue and sanctions relief-by-proxy; China uses Iran as a discount supplier and as a pressure valve in the sanctioned crude system — one that can be tightened or loosened depending on Beijing’s broader negotiation posture with Washington and its appetite for risk in the Gulf. That Iran-China dependency is no longer stable.  With Iranian oil flows disrupted, China faces a choice between turning to alternative suppliers at higher cost or even tapping strategic reserves. Tightening global crude markets resulting from U.S. actions in Venezuela and now Iran give Washington leverage in energy pricing.

Beyond the tanker decks, this shift underscores the larger theme of reconfiguration: resources once bundled to manage sanctions are now subject to heightened geopolitical risk, forcing China to rethink dependencies while the U.S. and its partners are positioning to shape the post-conflict energy order. Energy supply patterns will restructure global power relations. And where China is recalibrating exposure, Russia is recalculating opportunity.

The same forces reshaping China’s calculations are altering Moscow’s. As India trims Russian purchases, Moscow has been pushing more barrels into China, and Reuters reports China’s Russian crude imports hitting new records in February while Russian sellers widened discounts to keep demand — Urals trading roughly $9–$11 below Brent for China deliveries, and other Russian grades also cutting hard as sellers chase Chinese refiners.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. 

This matters because China is also the anchor buyer for sanctioned Iranian crude; the ‘discount market’ is not infinite, so Russia and Iran are now competing for the same limited pool of Chinese buyers, driving deeper concessions and leaving cargoes idling — exactly the kind of sanctions-economy dynamic.

Add the West’s tightening focus on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ and the risk of seizures or insurance denial, and you get an energy chessboard where coercion moves from rhetoric to logistics: who can ship, insure and clear payments reliably becomes as strategic as who can produce.

In that context, Russia’s loud warnings about Hormuz disruption are not just diplomacy, they are a reminder that Moscow profits from volatility, but also needs a functioning gray-market channel to China, and Iran’s crisis threatens to scramble the very discount ecosystem Russia has used to finance its war in Ukraine. Structural realignment threatens the very gray-market architecture on which Moscow has relied.

Energy is only one layer of a global shift. Strategic minerals remain critical. The Trump administration has increased economic and maritime pressure on Cuba, tightening an effective oil blockade that choked off fuel imports. President Donald Trump has authorized tariffs targeting countries supplying oil to Havana.

This is not simply punitive policy. It reflects a broader strategic doctrine: deny adversarial regimes energy lifelines while repositioning the Western Hemisphere’s resource base toward U.S. leverage. Oil is only one domain. Rare earth elements are a strategic asset. Cuba’s nickel and cobalt output, combined with China’s tightening grip through rare-earth export controls indicates that leverage is not just oil fields but also supply chains. America achieving rare earth elements sovereignty will remain a strategic goal and such a global realignment on this front is much needed.

By the close of the first weekend, Iran appeared intent on accelerating its own collapse by compounding strategic error with strategic error. Iran felt it wise to respond to U.S. and Israeli strikes by pushing a half dozen other nations against it. On Saturday afternoon, Feb. 28, Iran launched attacks on seven sovereign nations – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Israel. It added Oman shortly after.

These nations now have a legal and political basis to deepen security ties with the U.S. and Israel that they could never have justified domestically before today. Iran has arguably done more to consolidate the anti-Iran regional architecture in one afternoon than a decade of American diplomacy. Watch for accelerated Abraham Accords-adjacent normalization with Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security…

After massacring thousands of its own citizens for demanding better governance, the regime’s long-standing presumption of U.S. inaction cost the 1979 Revolution its dream of ruling over Iranians perpetually. After 47 years, its leader is gone, and its core military capabilities are being dismantled.

The lesson is not simply that the Iranian regime is falling. It is that when it falls amid energy chokepoints and great-power competition, supply chains, alliances and leverage structures shift simultaneously. Iran’s collapse is not the end of the story; it is the catalyst for a broader redistribution of power across energy, alliances, and great-power leverage. America should exploit these shifting dynamics fully. 

The views expressed here are his and do not reflect the policy or positions of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Advisory Council, U.S. Army or Department of Defense.