Xi Jinping Signaled More Military Purges at the 2026 Two Sessions Vision Times
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03 World
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised Tuesday that the Iran war “is not 2003” and will not look like another nation-building, regime-change war like in Iraq.
Giving an update ten days into the war, Hegseth was joined by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine at the Pentagon.
“This is not 2003. This is not endless nation-building under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama. It’s not even close,” Hegseth said. “Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again, and nor will this president, who very clearly ran against those kinds of never-ending, nebulously scoped missions — those days are dead.”
Gold Coast, Australia — The Iranian women’s soccer team left Australia minus seven of its members who were granted asylum, after tearful protests of their departure at Sydney Airport and frantic final efforts inside the terminal by Australian officials who sought to ensure the women understood they were being offered asylum.
As the team’s flight time drew nearer and they passed through security late Tuesday, each woman was taken aside to meet alone with officials who explained through interpreters that they could choose not to return to Iran.
Iran signals possible strike on Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline supplying Israel Georgia Today
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DUBAI: Drones fell near Dubai airport, injuring four people, while ships were hit in or near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday (Mar 11) as Iran kept up its campaign disrupting oil markets and air and maritime traffic.
The oil-rich Gulf has borne the brunt of Iran’s attacks in response to US-Israeli strikes that sparked the Middle East war, with Tehran targeting US assets but also civilian infrastructure.
Iran has also targeted Gulf energy infrastructure and choked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries nearly 20 per cent of global oil production, prompting wild swings in prices.
Taiwan detects 6 Chinese naval vessels around itself lokmattimes.com
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Iran’s attacks on oil infrastructure and pledges to choke off a vital waterway left markets on edge Tuesday as the United States promised blistering new strikes. The war entered its 11th day with no end in sight as its effects rippled across the Middle East and beyond.
For the first time since the war began, the Pentagon released details on the number of American troops who have been injured, saying eight of the roughly 140 service members wounded are in serious condition.
Both sides sharpened their rhetoric as they dug in, with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth again promising the most intense strikes yet, while Iran’s leaders ruled out talks and threatened U.S. President Donald Trump.
The United States has proposed another round of Russia-Ukraine talks next week, mediated by Washington, on ending four years of war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday.
Two rounds of trilateral talks failed to reach a breakthrough to end Europe’s worst conflict since World War II, launched by Moscow in 2022.
Zelensky said in an audio message sent to reporters, including AFP, that talks — initially planned for last week in the United Arab Emirates — had been postponed until next week by the U.S.
Democratic report says Trump’s policies boosted China The Statesman
from news.google.com
Over the weekend, the U.S. lost a seventh service member to injuries sustained in Operation Epic Fury. That service member has been identified as Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington of Glendale, Kentucky. Pennington was wounded in Iranian strikes in Saudi Arabia.
Vice President Vance boarded Air Force Two to attend the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force base.
HONORING A HERO: Vice President JD Vance boards Air Force Two en route to Dover for the dignified transfer of Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, who died after being wounded in an Iranian retaliatory strike in Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/8ZQcuXwV7D
— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 9, 2026
He was joined by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
NOW – Vance and Hegseth attend dignified transfer for Army Sergeant Benjamin Pennington, killed in the Iran War. pic.twitter.com/6QBQED4U1G
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 10, 2026
TRUMP: WAR TO CONTINUE ‘UNTIL THEY CRY UNCLE’: As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran enters its tenth day, President Donald Trump is vowing to do “whatever it takes” to compel complete capitulation from whatever is left of Iran’s leadership.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” Trump posted on Truth Social, Friday. “After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
By Sunday, Iran had announced that 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — whom Trump had previously declared unacceptable — was named Iran’s next leader.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Saturday before the new ruler was announced, Trump said the war was going so well, “at some point I don’t think there will be anybody left, maybe to say ‘we surrender.’ They’re being decimated.”
Asked what an “unconditional surrender” would look like, Trump said, “It is where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any longer.” If there is “nobody around to cry uncle, because we have wiped out their leadership,” Trump said, it means, “they are rendered useless in terms of military.”
To the despair of the European establishment, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most hated political force in Germany, keeps showing robust signs of life, whether in its impressive showing in a state election on Sunday or in a recent courtroom victory. On Sunday, the AfD more than doubled its previous vote share for the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, a key industrial state in western Germany. On February 26, a German court enjoined the country’s domestic spy agency from classifying Germany’s second most popular political party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization. The “confirmed right-wing extremist” designation has been a key tool in the campaign among establishment and left-wing politicians to ban the AfD entirely.
The AfD’s fate should not be a matter of indifference to American conservatives. The globalist elites must be broken everywhere if they are to be permanently broken at all.
Growing numbers of the German public defy their overseers and welcome the AfD as an antidote to the EU-Davos philosophy of open borders and the deindustrialization and immiseration that go under the banner of climate-friendly energy policy. The AfD polls second nationally to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU was once the cornerstone of postwar conservatism, but its leaders have pulled it to the left in order to marginalize the AfD. In February 2025, Chancellor (and CDU party head) Friedrich Merz cobbled together an ideologically incoherent governing coalition whose sole purpose is to shut the AfD out of power, despite the AfD’s receiving the second largest share of the German vote. The establishment proudly refers to this exclusionary strategy as the “firewall,” which allegedly protects German democracy from falling into the hands of purported neo-Nazis.
Tokyo stocks plunged Monday, with the Nikkei index losing over 2,800 points and marking the third-largest point drop in history, as crude oil futures surged amid growing prospects of a prolonged Middle East conflict.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 2,892.12 points, or 5.20 percent, from Friday at 52,728.72. The broader Topix index finished 141.09 points, or 3.80 percent, lower at 3,575.84.
On the top-tier Prime Market, the main decliners were nonferrous metal, glass and ceramics product and machinery issues.
The U.S. dollar mostly stayed in the upper 158 yen range in Tokyo amid concerns about the impact of surging crude prices.
At 5 p.m., the dollar fetched 158.45-47 yen compared with 157.79-89 yen in New York and 157.52-55 yen in Tokyo at 5 p.m. Friday.
Betrayal Scars, Syrian Kurds Warn Iranian Kurds Not to Ally with US VOI.id
from news.google.com
Advanced violence is democratizing. AI, in conjunction with dramatic improvements in robotics, energy production, and sensors, will increasingly enable ever-smaller groups of people to use targeted violence more effectively, and from a distance. Over time, this shift will dramatically impact all varieties of force projection: state-on-state war, various forms of low-intensity conflict, and how states enforce internal order.
Perhaps understandably, however, national security discourse about the AI revolution has generally focused on more earth-shattering scenarios: superintelligence, state-to-state conflict, and the prospect of unleashing new biological weapons. These are all critical questions that deserve extensive scrutiny. But super-empowering small groups of people will shift security dynamics in crucial, if less dramatic, ways as well. Non-state actors will use AI-backed tools to conduct relatively simple attacks using increasingly autonomous weapons. In this scenario, it will be the ability of AI-empowered weapons to deliver destruction discriminately, rather than at a catastrophic scale, that will be critical.
IRAN’S state media has published a warped propaganda video using Lego figures showing targets across the Middle East being blasted.
The unrealistic two-minute clip includes a Lego model of Donald Trump and barrages of missiles blitzing Britain’s RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
Shared by Tasnim News Agency, which is controlled by the IRGC, it depicts the US president and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu standing with the Devil before a red button is pressed – triggering strikes on Iran.
The far-fetched propaganda then shows Tehran furiously responding with blitzes across the Middle East – with Lego figures running for their lives.
Australia was sending those brave girls to a certain death. Until Trump stepped in.
“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed. Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t…” – @POTUS pic.twitter.com/OTIsmVavJR
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 9, 2026
During Iran’s national anthem at the Asia Cup in Australia, several members of Iran’s women’s soccer team stood silently with hands at their sides—refusing to sing. Subsequently, the women signed “SOS” signals as the team boarded a tour bus. They knew a target was on their back. Trump immediately responded: “I call on Australia to grant asylum to these brave women. If Australia won’t do it, the United States will” (Washington Examiner).
Iranian women soccer players remove their hijabs as soon as they are granted asylum in Australia.
It was never a choice. 99% of women in Iran will also take off their hijabs once the Islamic regime falls. pic.twitter.com/hZ6zVDOYeO
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) March 9, 2026
Australia responded: The federal government has confirmed five Iranian football players will remain in Australia after seeking asylum. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says he met with the women last night and told them they were “welcome to stay in Australia” (ABC.AU).
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2031037703521759371?s=20
Seven American service members are dead, dozens of Iranian children were murdered by a U.S. missile strike, oil is raining from the skies to poison the air for thousands of people living in Iran following an Israeli missile strike, and oil and gas prices worldwide are surging as the war has led to the blockade of a critical waterway used to transport oil.
But hey, at least we have a new Iranian leader who is in some ways worse than the murderous oppressor whom the United States killed a little over a week ago!
Indeed, Iran announced on Sunday that it replaced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with his son Mojtaba Khamenei. The 56-year-old religious cleric lost his mother, wife, and a son, as well as his father, to U.S. strikes.
Given his relative youth, Iran’s new supreme leader could have many years left to rein over the nation with an iron fist. That means we spent billions, lost American lives, and potentially decimated the global economy only to put in someone who may in fact be more extreme than the previous guy who brutally oppressed both dissenters and women.
Zhang Guoqing to represent President Xi at 2nd Nuclear Energy Summit news.cgtn.com
from news.google.com
My colleague Mary Chastain noted in her recent report that President Donald Trump’s team was weighing a takeover of the critical shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a vast amount of global oil supply flows.
This development follows on the heels of continuing military targeting covered by our talented Vijeta Uniyal.
I would like to focus on the Strait for a moment, as I noted in an earlier report that Trump ordered a US agency to provide insurance for companies willing to sail through the region. That plan is moving forward.
The U.S. will provide reinsurance for losses up to $20 billion in the Gulf region, to help provide confidence for oil and gas shippers during the war on Iran, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said on Friday.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the DFC to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade in the Gulf after oil and liquefied natural gas tanker transit had ground to a halt in the Strait of Hormuz waterway off Iran, where ordinarily 20% of global oil moves daily.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke Sunday afternoon in response to escalating global tensions as the Iran war continues to escalate and spread across the region.
The two discussed “the economy, developments in the Middle East, and trade relations between the two countries,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The two also agreed to “remain in close contact.”
Also on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said Carney gathered the Incident Response Group with ministers and senior officials to discuss the ongoing war in Iran and the Middle East.
The author of that post on X was referring to an online intelligence dashboard following the US-Israel strikes against Iran in real time. Built by two people from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, it combines open-source data like satellite imagery and ship tracking with a chat function, news feeds, and links to prediction markets, where people can bet on things like who Iran’s next “supreme leader” will be (the recent selection of Mojtaba Khamenei left some bettors with a payout).
I’ve reviewed over a dozen other dashboards like this in the last week. Many were apparently “vibe-coded” in a couple of days with the help of AI tools, including one that got the attention of a founder of the intelligence giant Palantir, the platform through which the US military is accessing AI models like Claude during the war. Some were built before the conflict in Iran, but nearly all of them are being advertised by their creators as a way to beat the slow and ineffective media by getting straight to the truth of what’s happening on the ground. “Just learned more in 30 seconds watching this map than reading or watching any major news network,” one commenter wrote on LinkedIn, responding to a visualization of Iran’s airspace being shut down before the strikes.
Xi urges Chinese military to reinforce political loyalty amid leadership shake-up The Morning Voice
from news.google.com
President Donald Trump says a sharp increase in high oil prices is a “small price to pay” in the fight against Iran.
“Short-term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, are a very small price to pay for the U.S. and world safety and peace,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding, “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
Oil prices have risen to more than $100 a barrel since the United States launched its attack on Iran in conjunction with Israel, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and striking hundreds of Iran’s military targets.
Crude oil futures in London and New York soared almost 30% to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday, one of the biggest one-day jumps on record in early trading, threatening to raise costs of products from gasoline to jet fuel.
“They’ve been held hostage by the Iranian team management in their hotel and they’ve been denied the opportunity to speak to external community members, friends, family or any support networks, be that lawyers or anyone else,” said Foster, who played a key part in helping the Afghanistan women’s team flee the Taliban in 2021.
The Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party has dropped his support of the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, vowing that he will now vote against it as “the risks are too great”.
Russell Findlay MSP previously supported the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which, as written, would legalise assisted suicide for adults resident in Scotland with no prognosis requirement specified; however, he now opposes the Bill due to numerous concerns with it.
This now means that the leaders of the three largest parties in Holyrood are opposed to the assisted suicide Bill.
Findlay is the third MSP who supported the Bill last year to now oppose it, meaning that if only four more MSPs change their minds and commit to voting against the Bill, it will fail.
“On day 10 of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said that the most intense day of strikes in Iran will be coming on Tuesday. This comes as the war in Iran has entered its tenth day after the US and Israel conducted strikes in Iran on February 28. “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran, the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligent, more refined and better than ever,” Hegseth said in a press briefing Tuesday morning.
“On day 10 of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury. They’re straightforward, and we are executing with ruthless precision. One, destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers and their defense industrial base, missiles and their ability to make them. Two, destroy their navy. And three, permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons, forever,” Hegseth added.
The film was captivating, but the reviews were negative.
Israel launched a devastating attack Saturday night on oil storage facilities in Tehran, with results that residents told the U.K.’s Guardian were “apocalyptic.”
“Thick black smoke was still rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk, and the toxic air had filled the lungs,” the Guardian said in describing the aftermath of the attack.
Multiple social media posts showed the extent of the damage.
#Rivers of fire in #Tehran after #oil burning as a result of airstrikes begins to drain into urban storm drains.#Iran pic.twitter.com/6oJGH6wzhw
— Tesla Dogs (@TeslaDogs) March 8, 2026
Tehran is covered in thick black clouds of smoke this morning after a series of Israeli airstrikes struck multiple oil depots and a refinery.
Locals report that the morning rain was black and oily. pic.twitter.com/4lb7Ld62So
In Tehran’s latest signal that it will not blink, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the country is not looking to negotiate with the United States and Israel.
As the war enters its 11th day, Iran has struggled to mount an effective response to the blistering U.S.-Israeli air and missile strikes that have devastated its military. Despite this, Ghalibaf said the government was not seeking negotiations and hinted that Tehran would somehow hit its enemies with heavy military force.
“Absolutely, we are not seeking a ceasefire; we believe we must strike the aggressor in the mouth so that it learns a lesson and never again even thinks of aggressing against our dear Iran,” Ghalibaf said on X. “The Zionist regime sees its ignoble existence in perpetuating the cycle of ‘war-negotiation-ceasefire and then war again’ in order to consolidate its domination. We will break this cycle.”
Ghalibaf, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, is a longtime leader of Iran’s conservative faction, known as the “principlists.” He has consistently advocated for hardline policies against the U.S. and Israel, and played a central role in ordering the massacre of tens of thousands of protesters in January.
The Iran war is still in its early days. Our operations against the Iranian regime have so far been swift and apparently devastating.
But those who remember Iraq know that Saddam Hussein’s conventional forces were destroyed in very quick order by U.S. troops in 2003. The trouble came afterward. Our attempts to stabilize the country, root out terrorists, and prop up an American-friendly regime bogged down into one of the “forever wars” Donald Trump campaigned against during the 2016 election cycle.
Our wars (sorry, “authorized armed conflicts”) in the Middle East didn’t bring us victory, but they did bring us a stream of “refugees” from the same Third World cesspits we were trying (and failing) to reform into proper nations.
We don’t know how the Iran War will end. It could be over in a few weeks, or it could be over by September. Or by September 2036. Regardless of how long it lasts or how devastating it is for Iran, we absolutely cannot take a single “refugee” from this conflict.