🇺🇸🤝🇮🇶 US president, Donald Trump, held several phone calls with Kurdish leaders begging them to launch incursions into Iran

The phone calls happened after Israeli intelligence claimed that the Kurds of Iran are ready to rise up against Tehran, something which hasn’t happened.

Israeli and leaders are still hopeful that they can incite a popular uprising against the Iranian government as they continue to bomb police stations across Iran.

US assessments are a lot more pessimistic about the desire of Iranian Kurds to begin a guerilla campaign against the IRGC and Iranian military.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸✝️🇮🇱 US troops report commanders framing Iran war as ‘God’s plan’
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As first reported by independent journalist Jonathan Larsen, a US combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers that the war on Iran is part of “God’s divine plan,” allegedly claiming President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to ignite Armageddon. The complaint, filed with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, is one of more than 110 logged within 48 hours from over 40 units across at least 30 installations. Complainants, including Christians, a Muslim, and a Jew, have requested anonymity to avoid retaliation. The Pentagon has yet to respond.

According to MRFF President Mikey Weinstein, service members report “unrestricted euphoria” among segments of the chain of command portraying the assault on Iran as biblically sanctioned and tied to end-times prophecy in the Book of Revelation. One NCO wrote that such rhetoric is eroding morale and violating constitutional oaths, particularly for troops in Ready-Support status who could be deployed at any moment.

The controversy unfolds as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth expands overt evangelical programming within the Pentagon, including prayer sessions and Bible studies aligned with staunch pro-Israel theology. Weinstein reports that many US commanders appear particularly enthused by the prospect of an intensely violent confrontation, emphasizing how much bloodshed they believe is necessary to align events with a fundamentalist Christian end-times narrative.

🔗 The Cradle

🇫🇷🤝🇨🇾 France will send air defense systems to Cyprus to protect Cypriot airspace.

📝: Another loss for Vladimir Zelensky.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/france-sends-anti-missile-anti-drone-systems-and-a-frigate-to-cyprus/

—❗️🇮🇷 🇮🇷 IRGC General Jabbari: 'Not a single drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf'

@Middle_East_Spectator

🛢The price of Brent oil has exceeded $84 per barrel for the first time since June 2024 due to the war in the Middle East.

🇮🇶🇹🇷⚡️ — Iraq has stopped oil exports from its semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, according to Bloomberg.

➡️ Roughly 200,000 barrels per day of exports have been halted after producers cut output as a precaution amid the expanding tensions in the region.

➡️ Production has been reduced to about 50,000 barrels per day for domestic use.

🇮🇱🇸🇦🇮🇷 — Israel estimates that Saudi Arabia will soon attack Iran after being attacked yesterday.

— Israeli Broadcasting Authority | @thewarreporterr

🇶🇦🇮🇷 — Western sources told Israeli Channel 12:

"Qatar carried out strikes inside Iran in the past 24 hours".

@thewarreporterr

🇪🇺🇷🇺🇺🇦 EU urges Ukraine to allow access to pipeline carrying Russian oil

Ukraine is under pressure to let the EU inspect a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, as the two pro-Kremlin countries accuse Kyiv of overstating the impact of an attack by Moscow — despite what Ukrainian officials say is evidence of extensive destruction.

Ukraine says it needs time to repair the Druzhba pipeline and has provided evidence of harm from a Russian air strike in January, but Hungary and Slovakia claim that Kyiv intentionally shut it off.

Hungary has delayed the approval of an EU loan for Ukraine until it is reopened, and proposed to send a fact-finding mission to Ukraine, together with Slovakia.

Now some pro-Ukraine EU governments and the European Commission are also asking Kyiv to allow a visit to prove that it is trying to restore oil flows, according to five EU diplomats and officials.

Two of them said that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, president of the European Council, had specifically asked Ukraine’s leadership during their visit to Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion for access to the Druzhba pipeline in order to assess the damage independently, but were denied. The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The dispute has become more urgent as energy prices soared after US and Israeli military action against Iran disrupted global oil and gas supplies. And it has intensified as Kyiv continues to refuse access to European inspectors.

One senior EU diplomat said Kyiv had scored an “own goal” by giving Hungary an excuse to block the loan.

“We cannot say if there is damage or not. There are very easy ways to document it and show they are working hard to repair it. They haven’t done it,” they said.

A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed back against suggestions that Kyiv was dragging its feet, saying technicians from Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz had given European counterparts evidence that Druzhba had been badly damaged.

🔗 https://www.ft.com/content/8f5f18fb-311d-4df0-805c-063b292506b3

🇮🇷🇴🇲 The General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces denied responsibility for the drone attacks on the Omani port of Salalah, referring to Oman as a "friendly country" in the statement made to the press.

Yesterday, American journalist, Tucker Carlson, claimed that Israeli Mossad agents attacked targets in Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to draw in more countries in the war against Iran.

🔗 https://news.1rj.ru/str/farsna/414817

🇺🇸❌🇮🇷🎯🇨🇳 — 📰 ZeroHedge | The Iran Question Is All About China | March 1, 2026:

"Iran is most often discussed as a nonproliferation problem, a sponsor of terrorism, a regional spoiler. Each of these framings captures a real problem, but none captures what matters most. The nuclear file, the militia archipelago stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, the question of Gulf security architecture: these only acquire their full meaning when read against the backdrop of Chinese grand strategy.

Beijing has spent years and billions of dollars building Iran into a structural asset. Everything that follows in the Middle East flows from this fact. Which is why Operation Epic Fury is the first American military campaign that threatens to sever that asset. By striking Iran directly, the Trump administration is dismantling, whether by design or by consequence, a pillar of China’s regional architecture.

(...)

China buys around 90% of Iran’s crude exports at steep discounts. The shipments travel on a ghost fleet of tankers that switch off their transponders and relabel their cargo as Malaysian or Indonesian crude to circumvent American sanctions. Since 2021, the cumulative value of these purchases has exceeded $140 billion. This makes China the main reason the Islamic Republic has not gone bankrupt."

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🇺🇸❌🇮🇷🎯🇨🇳 — 📰 ZeroHedge | Is The US Military Campaign Against Iran Part Of Trump's Grand Strategy Against China? | March 2, 2026:

"The goal is to obtain proxy control over Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves so that they can be weaponized as leverage against China for coercing it into a lopsided trade deal that would derail its superpower rise and therefore restore US-led unipolarity.

Trump claimed that the US’ military campaign against Iran is to “defend the American people”, while many critics have alleged (whether in jest or not) that it’s to distract from the Epstein Files, but few observers realize that it’s actually all about China. It was explained here that Trump 2.0 “decided to gradually deprive China of access to markets and resources, ideally through a series of trade deals, in order to imbue the US with the indirect leverage required to peacefully derail China’s superpower rise.”

To elaborate, “The US’ trade deals with the EU and India could ultimately result in them curtailing China’s access to their markets under pain of punitive tariffs if they refuse. In parallel, the US’ special operation in Venezuela, pressure on Iran, and simultaneous attempts to subordinate Nigeria and other leading energy producers could curtail China’s access to the resources required for fueling its superpower rise.”

#Geoeconomics

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