Trump says Iran wants a deal, Iran says it never asked for
one, and a drone just set Dubai International Airport on fire.
It is Monday, March 16th, 2026, day 17 of Operation Epic Fury,
and the gap between what Washington is saying and what
Tehran is doing has never been wider.
This is Epic Fury, the US Iran war podcast.
There is a great deal to cover. Let's get into it.
Start with the central contradiction of the last 24
hours, because it defines everything.
On Saturday, Trump told NBC News that Iran wants to make a deal.
His exact framing? Iran is ready to negotiate, but
the terms are not good enough yet.
He said he is talking to Iran. He said allies have responded to
his call for help on the Strait of Hormuz.
He projected an air of a man managing a conflict toward a
conclusion on his terms. It was a confident performance,
controlled presidential and register.
Then Arachi went on CBS News Face the Nation on Sunday and
what he said landed like a grenade in the middle of Trump's
narrative. No, we never asked for a
ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiation.
We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes, not hedged,
not diplomatic, flat denial. On live American television, he
went further. In a separate interview with Al
Arabi Al Jadid, an Arabic language outlet, Arachi
explained Iran's conditions for ending the war in terms that go
well beyond a ceasefire. He said the war will end when
Iran has certainty it will not be restarted and that
reparations must be paid. He cited direct experience.
Indirect nuclear talks were underway last June when the
United States attacked Iran. Negotiations had resumed in
February of this year when the United States attacked again.
He said there is no good experience talking with
Americans. That is not the posture of a
government preparing to negotiate.
That is the posture of a government that has concluded
the other side will not honor any agreement it makes.
You do not demand reparations as an opening position if you are
trying to lower the temperature. You demand reparations when you
want to show your own population that you are not capitulating.
The White House has not explained the discrepancy
between Trump's claims and Arachi's denial.
No administration official has named the channel through which
Iran allegedly expressed interest in a deal.
No Iranian official has confirmed any back channel is
active, and when a reporter asked Trump directly whether
there were specific Iranian figures he wanted to see lead
the country going forward, he said only that there are people
living who would be great leaders for the future and that
he did not want to name them for fear of putting them in
jeopardy. That is a remarkable thing for a
sitting president. To say publicly is an admission
that the United States has conversations it cannot disclose
with Iranian figures who cannot be named.
What we are watching is a war of competing narratives running
parallel to the actual shooting war.
Trump needs to project forward momentum toward an exit.
Iran needs to project defiance and endurance and the truth of
what is actually being communicated privately, if
anything is known to neither public.
Now let's talk. About the Hormuz coalition
because Trump escalated his push for one and ran into a wall of
polite rejections from every direction.
Trump took to Truth Social and to the Financial Times to make
his most forceful public case yet.
He called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and the
United Kingdom to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz.
He warned that NATO faces a very bad future if allies fail to
assist. He said the Strait cannot be
held hostage by a nation that has been totally decapitated.
And in a move that introduced a new pressure point into the most
consequential bilateral relationship in the world, he
told the Financial Times that his planned summit with Chinese
President Xi Jinping in Beijing later this month could be
delayed if Beijing does not play a constructive role in reopening
the waterway. The responses were,
diplomatically speaking, a series of different formulations
for the same answer. Japan's Prime Minister Sanaya
Takaichi told parliament that Tokyo has made no decisions
whatsoever about dispatching escort ships.
She said Japan is continuing to examine what it can do
independently and what can be done within the legal framework.
Senior Japanese officials said the bar for such action would be
too high. Australia ruled out deploying
warships entirely. No European government stepped
forward with a formal commitment. the United Kingdom's
Ministry of Defense said it was exploring its options.
That is the diplomatic language of a government that wants to
appear engaged without committing to anything that
might put British ships in front of Iranian missiles.
China's non response deserves special attention.
Trump has argued Beijing should intervene because it gets 90% of
its oil from the region. Energy analysts say that figure
is significantly overstated. Less than half of China's
seaborne oil imports actually pass through the Strait of
Hormuz. The Strait accounts for roughly
6.6% of China's total energy consumption when you include all
sources. And critically, Iran has not
targeted Chinese shipping. Beijing has continued receiving
Iranian oil largely uninterrupted throughout this
conflict. From China's perspective, the
Strait is not equally closed to all parties.
Tehran has made clear that neutral and friendly countries
can transit. Iran has been explicit that it
is specifically blocking American and Israeli linked
shipping, not Chinese or Indian or Turkish vessels.
So Beijing has almost no material incentive to send
warships that would put it on the opposite side of a conflict.
It is publicly condemned as a grave violation of international
law. The broader problem for Trump is
that the Hormuz coalition push is now the most visible
diplomatic initiative of the entire war, and it is failing in
public. No country has committed.
The straight remains effectively closed to Western and American
Link commercial shipping. Oil closed above $106.00 per
barrel on Sunday. Nearly 1000 tankers are reported
to be anchored outside the Strait, unable to transit.
The daily economic damage being absorbed by the global economy
is measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars every single
day. The situation persists.
The chief executives of ExxonMobil, Chevron and Conoco
Phillips separately warned the Trump administration on Sunday
that the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz is likely to
worsen the global energy crisis. These are not critics of the
administration. These are the leaders of the
companies whose products Trump is trying to protect the flow
of. When America's own oil industry
leaders are warning the administration that the crisis
is getting worse, not better, that is a signal worth paying
attention to. Now let's talk about.
Dubai International Airport Because what happened there on
Monday morning crystallized the cost of this conflict for the
civilian world. A drone hit a fuel storage tank
near Dubai International Airport in the early hours of Monday
morning local time. A fire broke out.
Smoke rose near the runways. The Civil Aviation Authority
immediately suspended all flights as a precautionary
measure. The airport, one of the busiest
aviation hubs on the planet, was evacuated.
Passengers were removed from gates.
People who have been waiting to board international connections
found themselves stranded on one of the most significant travel
days of the week. Dubai International Airport
handles more than 90 million passengers per year in normal
times, is the connective tissue of the Middle East's role in
global commerce, tourism and transit.
Emirates Airlines, 1 of the largest carriers on earth,
operates from it. The fire was contained,
operations were eventually restored.
But the image of smoke rising near those runways and the sight
of thousands of passengers being let out of terminals is not
easily forgotten. This was not the first time
Dubai's aviation infrastructure was targeted.
Drone incidents near the airport were reported earlier in the
conflict, but Monday's fuel tank fire was the most direct
successful strike on the infrastructure that underpins
the UA ES function as a global commercial hub.
The UAE has been at war with no one.
It is a partner of the United States, its territory is hosting
American military assets and it has been absorbing Iranian
strikes in exchange for that association.
Abu Dhabi had already accused Iran of moral bankruptcy after
Tehran claimed the Karg Island strikes will launch from UAE
territory near Dubai. Monday's airport fire will have
sharpened that grievance considerably.
Now let's talk. About the broader military
picture overnight because strikes continued on multiple
fronts. United States and Israeli forces
struck targets across Tehran, Hamadan, and Isfahan on Sunday
night and into Monday morning. Eyewitness accounts transmitted
to Iran International reported five loud explosions in the
Galshar and Mercer districts of Carriage near Tehran.
At around 2:50 in the morning local time.
The Agai complex was struck. Surrounding streets were sealed
off by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces.
Fighter jets operated multiple times over the city.
Before dawn, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
announced its 50th wave of operations against American
bases in the region. Those operations targeted United
States military infrastructure in United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, and Kuwait. Iran said it launched 10
missiles and several drones at Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE.
Qatar intercepted all drones and missiles launched at its
territory. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of
Defense reported 4 drones intercepted over the Riyadh
metropolitan area and six ballistic missiles destroyed
near the AL Qarge Governorate. The UK's Royal Air Force
continued air defense patrols over Qatar, Cyprus, the UAE and
Bahrain. A British counter drone unit
shot down multiple Iranian drones during Sunday's attacks
on coalition bases. Israel's military announced a
wave of extensive strikes on Iranian military infrastructure
in western Iran, with targets in Hamadan and Isfan.
In Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes struck
Hezbollah positions in the South of the country, including Qayam,
Lebanese health authorities reported.
The total death toll in Lebanon has now reached 850 people since
the start of the conflict, with over 2000 wounded.
That number has been climbing consistently since Hezbollah
reopened its front on March 2nd. And in a development with
significant implications for the Lebanon front, Israeli officials
confirmed that Israel and Lebanon are in preliminary
discussions aimed at a durable ceasefire, one that would
include the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Ron Dermer, Netanyahu's close confidant and former ambassador
to Washington, is leading the Israeli delegation.
France is involved in the diplomatic effort.
Beirut is assembling A negotiating team, but Lebanese
officials said they first needed clarity on whether Israel
intended a full ceasefire before formal talks could begin.
The fact that Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sayar, denied
any planned talks existed earlier the same day that
Israeli officials were confirming they were underway
tells you how contested and fragile this process is.
Still, the mere existence of a Lebanon track, even an embryonic
1, is the first credible diplomatic thread this conflict
is produced. Now let's talk about.
Mojtaba Khamenei Because the question of the supreme leader's
condition has become one of the defining uncertainties of the
entire war. Trump told NBC News on Saturday
that he was not sure whether the new supreme leader was still
alive. He said, And these are his
words. So far, no one's been able to
show him. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
had said on Friday that Khamenei had been wounded and was likely
disfigured. Iran's foreign Minister Arachi
pushed back on Sunday, saying there is no problem with a new
supreme leader. But he produced no video, no
audio recording, no photograph, no public evidence of any kind
of common A's current condition beyond an assertion.
A supreme leader who cannot be seen, who has delivered no live
address in the week since his appointment was announced, who
remains invisible to his own people and to the outside world,
is a supreme leader who holds authority in theory more than in
practice. The question of who is actually
directing Iran's military and political decision making right
now, when a man nominally at the top is reportedly wounded and in
hiding, has no clean answer. This matters enormously for the
diplomatic picture. Iran's constitution requires the
supreme leader to sanction major policy decisions.
Arachi himself admitted earlier in the conflict that Iranian
armed forces were operating on general instructions without
specific target approval from Central Command.
If Common A is incapacitated, the chain of authority between
the man with constitutional power and the weapons being
fired is broken. And that raises a question that
nobody in Washington or Tehran appears ready to answer
publicly. If the conditions for a
ceasefire were agreed, who on the Iranian side has the
authority to sign it and make a hold?
Now let's talk. About the humanitarian numbers
because they crossed another significant threshold.
On Sunday, Iran's Health Ministry confirmed that United
States and Israeli strikes to killed 223 women and 202
children since February 28th. The Iranian Red Crescent
reported total deaths at more than 1300.
Tehran's governor said at least 10,000 residential homes have
been damaged or completely destroyed by American and
Israeli attacks. More than 3.2 million Iranians
remain displaced. The United Nations Human Rights
Council is holding a session this week.
UN special rapper Termi Sato condemned the strikes ahead of
that session and said unlawful force must not be seen as a
solution to Iran's internal crisis.
Iran's foreign minister called the bombing of fuel depots in
Tehran echo side, warning that soil and groundwater
contamination could cause generational health damage to
the city's population. CN NS analysis of satellite
imagery and air quality data confirmed that Israel has struck
multiple fuel storage facilities in Tehran and that pollution
levels across the city have risen sharply as a result.
Pope Leo the 14th spoke again on Sunday.
His language was more urgent than anything he had said
previously. In the name of the Christians of
the Middle East and of all women and men of goodwill, cease the
fire. It was a direct, unmediated
plea. Not a call for dialogue, not a
call for restraint, a call for the bombs to stop. 3
institutions, the United Nations, a Catholic Pope and
Iran's own foreign minister. I'll describe what is happening
inside Iran in terms of international law and
humanitarian catastrophe. None of it has changed the
operational tempo on the ground by a single sortie.
Now let's talk about. China and the Trump XI Summit
Because this may become the most consequential diplomatic
development of the next two weeks, Trump's threat to delay
the summit over Hormuz is being parsed very carefully in Beijing
and in every capital that monitors the United States.
China relationship The summit is planned for late March.
It would be the first visit by a sitting American president to
China since 2017. Senior American and Chinese
trade officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Besson
and Chinese Vice Premier Halafing, have been meeting in
Paris to prepare the ground. The entire architecture of the
meeting is built around stabilizing a relationship that
has accumulated enormous strain across trade, technology, Taiwan
and now Iran. Trump has now inserted Hormuz
into that relationship by threatening to cancel a summit
China has diplomatic and economic reasons to want.
He's trying to extract Chinese naval cooperation on a waterway
where Beijing has no military interest in intervening.
The pressure is real, but so is the risk.
If Trump cancels or significantly delays the summit
over a Hormuz cooperation demand that China cannot politically
meet, he forfeits one of the most significant diplomatic
assets he holds from managing the broader global picture.
If he holds the summit without extracting Chinese cooperation,
he demonstrates that the leverage threat was hollow.
There is 1/3 possibility China uses the summit as cover to
offer something on the margins, some quiet pressure on Tehran
through back channels that allows both sides to claim a
partial win without Beijing sending a single warship
anywhere near the Persian Gulf. That is the kind of outcome that
real diplomacy quietly produces. Whether the current situation
with bombs still falling and a supreme leader in hiding leaves
room for that kind of subtlety is a question no one can yet
answer. Before we step back, one more
story that cuts across the military and political
dimensions simultaneously. Reza Pallavi, the exiled son of
Iran's last Shah, issued a public call on Monday for
Iranians around the world to gather at Iranian embassy
buildings on Wednesday for Church and Bassuri, an ancient
Persian fire festival that falls on the eve of the spring
equinox, he wrote on social media.
I call on all Iranians abroad to gather on Church and Bassuri in
front of the regime's embassies around the world and shout with
one voice. The Iranian nation will not rest
until Iran is liberated and the Islamic Republic is consigned to
history. It is a striking moment.
An ancient Zoroastrian fire ritual is being called into
service as a political demonstration against the regime
fighting for its survival. Pallavi has been the public face
of the Iranian opposition in exile throughout this conflict.
He previously announced A transitional system framework
for what he envisions as a post Islamic Republic Iran.
The Trump administration has given him varying degrees of
implicit encouragement. But inside Iran itself, where
over 3 million people are displaced and Internet access
remains severely restricted after more than 240 hours of
continuous blackout, his call will reach few Iranian citizens
directly. Trump, asked about the absence
of uprisings inside Iran, told reporters aboard Air Force One.
You are dealing with thugs. He said the Iranian leadership
has notified everybody that if you protest you will be shot and
killed, and said he understood why Iranians were not taking to
the streets. Now let's look.
At what day 17 actually means. Trump says Iran wants to talk.
Iran says it does not. Oil is at $106.00 a barrel.
Dubai's airport burned this morning.
Nearly 1000 tankers sit anchored outside the Strait.
The 50th Iranian wave of strikes has been launched.
Strikes on Tehran and Isfahan will continue tonight. 223 women
and 202 children are confirmed dead in Iran, 850 people have
been killed in Lebanon, and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic
Republic has not been seen alive in public since his appointment
was announced. And yet there are threats.
The Lebanon ceasefire track exists, even if fragile.
The Trumpchi summit threatened with delay, remains a potential
lever. Arachi's conditions for ending
the war, reparations and guarantees of non repetition are
implicit terms, even if not an offer.
In Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is privately
urging Trump to keep hitting Iran hard, according to the New
York Times, echoing the late King Abdullah's famous
instruction to Washington to cut off the head of the snake.
That last detail is worth sitting with the most important
Arab state in the region. The custodian of the world's
largest oil reserves is privately urging America to
intensify the very campaign that has closed the Strait of Hormuz
and pushed oil above $100 a barrel.
Riyadh's calculation is that a weakened or collapsed Iranian
regime is worth more than cheap oil in the short term.
That calculation is not shared by every government watching
this conflict and is certainly not shared by the passengers who
found themselves standing outside Dubai International
Airport at 3:00 in the morning while the fuel tanks burned.
Day 17. The bombing continues.
The talks do not, and somewhere the shape of an exit is
beginning to form in the shadows, even if no one is ready
to step into the light. This has been epic Fury. the US
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We will be back tomorrow.