Oil is above $100 a barrel for the first time since July 2022.
United States crude futures rose more than 25% in a single
morning session, hitting nearly $115 per barrel.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, jumped more than 20%
to $110. The Dow Jones futures plummeted
more than 1000 points. The S&P 500 futures fell 2.3%.
The NASDAQ fell 2.7%. American retail petrol prices
soared to a national average of more than $3.45 per gallon.
Asian stock markets went into a nosedive.
South Korea announced it would cap fuel prices for the first
time in nearly 30 years. And the International Monetary
Fund, which is calculated that global economic growth is
reduced by 0.15% for every 10% rise in oil prices, was watching
a world in which oil had risen 57% in 10 days.
And the reason for all of it came just after midnight Tehran
time, when Iran's Assembly of Experts released a three
sentence statement that changed everything.
By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts appointed Ayatollah
side Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third leader of the
sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
He is the son of the man America killed 10 days ago.
The revolution that overthrew A monarchy has become one.
And the markets reacted instantly.
Because what the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei signals to the
world is not compromise. It is not the opening of a
diplomatic door, it is a declaration by the hardline core
of the Islamic Republic that it intends to fight on under the
son of the man who led it for 37 years until it can fight no
more. It is Monday, March 9th, 2026,
day 10 of Operation Epic Fury. This is episode 10 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran war podcast. There is an enormous amount of
cover. Let us get into it.
The announcement came just after midnight Tehran time on Monday.
The Assembly of Experts confirmed in a formal statement
that Mojtaba Khamenei had been appointed by decisive vote as
the Islamic Republic's third supreme leader since its
founding in 1979. The statement called on the
Iranian public, political figures, intellectuals and
senior clergy to pledge their allegiance to the newly
appointed leader. The allegiance pledges came
immediately and from every significant institution in the
Islamic Republic. Iran's defense counsel issued a
statement that read We will obey the commander in chief until the
last drop of our blood. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps stated it was ready to follow the new supreme leader.
Iran's Foreign Ministry issued a statement of allegiance.
Iran's parliament expressed its allegiance.
Iran's armed forces leadership pledged allegiance.
President Massoud Posseski and pledged allegiance.
Parliament speaker Mohamed Bagar Galabaf pledged allegiance.
Ali Larijani appeared on state television to say that Mojtaba
Khamenei could lead the country under the current sensitive
conditions. 1 by 1. Every major institution and
figure of the Islamic Republic fell into line behind the sun.
The speed and uniformity of those allegiance pledges is
itself significant. When a government is genuinely
fractured, you see hesitation, you see notable absences, you
see figures who delay or qualify their endorsements.
In the hours following Mojtaba's appointment, there was none of
that. The pledges were immediate,
comprehensive and publicly performed at the highest level
of every Iranian state institution.
Whether that uniformity reflects genuine institutional loyalty or
the coercive pressure of a wartime security apparatus that
cannot tolerate visible descent is a question only those inside
Iran can fully answer. But the performance of unity was
total, and in politics, the performance of unity has its own
power, regardless of what lies beneath it.
Now consider who Mojtaba Khamenei actually is, because
this is a name that will dominate the geopolitics of the
Middle East for years to come. He was born in September 1969.
He is 56 years old. He holds the religious rank of
Hojitoslam, one level below Ayatollah, which means he does
not strictly meet the constitutional qualification for
the role of Supreme Leader. His father faced the same
problem in 1989 and the Constitution was amended to
accommodate him. A similar accommodation appears
to have been made for the son. He is never held formal elected
office of any kind. He is never given a public press
conference. For decades, he operated almost
entirely in the shadows of his father's administration, serving
as the de facto gatekeeper and fixer of the Office of the
Supreme Leader, holding the formal title of deputy chief of
staff for Political and Security affairs since 1997.
His ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are
long standing and deep. He was believed to have played a
direct role in orchestrating the brutal crackdown on protesters
during the Green Movement. In 2009.
He was believed to have overseen the Basich paramilitary force
responsible for multiple violent suppressions of Iranian civil
society. He was placed under United
States Treasury sanctions in 2019 for acting in the capacity
of Supreme Leader without holding any official position,
and for working closely with the Kurds force on lethal aid,
intelligence, financing and training for the Taliban,
Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraq's Popular
Mobilization Forces. A Bloomberg investigation
published in January 2026 reported that he is linked to an
offshore financial network holding high value real estate
in London and Dubai, with interests connected to shipping,
banking and hospitality assets across Europe structured through
intermediaries and layered corporate entities.
He is not a moderate. He is not a reformer.
He has never shown any inclination toward accommodation
with the West. He is the product of the most
hardline dimension of the Islamic Republic, closely tied
to its most powerful military institution, and he now has the
final say in all matters of state in a country of 90 million
people. The Islamic Republic was founded
in explicit ideological repudiation of hereditary
monarchy. The first principle of the 1979
revolution was that hereditary rule was illegitimate, corrupt
and UN Islamic. The Shahs family had ruled Iran
for decades. They were swept away, and 47
years later, the Islamic Republic has handed power to the
son of the supreme leader. The son of the man at the top
has become the man at the top. By any objective measure, this
is dynastic succession. The revolution that overthrew A
monarchy has produced one. Trump's reaction was carefully
watched. He told ABC News that if Mojtaba
does not get approval from the United States, he's not going to
last long. He said ending the war would be
a mutual decision between himself and Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu. When asked directly about the
appointment in a separate interview with The Times of
Israel, Trump declined to respond substantively, saying
only we will see what happens. He did not repeat his earlier
language of unacceptable, but neither did he signal
acceptance. The ambiguity is deliberate.
The stakes of what it conceals are enormous.
Netanyahu said in a press conference that he seeks to
destabilize the regime and enable change.
Israel's military had stated before the appointment that it
would pursue any successor to Common A and target those
participating in the selection process.
A Balka Semba Ban, the man appointed as the new head of the
military office of the Supreme Leader in the days before
Mojtaba's selection, was killed by Israel in a strike on
Saturday. Israel killed the man appointed
to serve the incoming supreme leader before the supreme leader
was even formally announced. Whether Israel follows through
on its threat to pursue the newly appointed Supreme Leader
himself is one of the most consequential and dangerous
questions of this entire conflict.
The seventh American service member to die in this conflict
was confirmed on Sunday. Seven Americans have now died.
In Operation Epic Fury. Trump presided over the
dignified transfer of the first six at Dover Air Force Base on
Saturday the 7th. Death was announced the
following day. The whole market reaction on
Monday morning was unlike anything seen since the COVID-19
pandemic in March 2020. United States crude futures rose
more than 25% to nearly $115 per barrel in early Asian trading.
Brent crude jumped more than 20% to $110 per barrel.
In 10 days, oil has gone from approximately $70 a barrel to
$110 a barrel. That is a 57% increase in 10
days. The last time oil was at these
levels was July 2022, at the height of the post Ukraine
invasion energy crisis. The confluence of factors
driving Monday's price spike is what analysts are describing as
a perfect storm. Iran's appointment of a hard
line supreme leader signals the war will continue indefinitely.
Israel struck Iranian oil storage and refinery facilities
over the weekend, fueling fears of retaliatory Iranian strikes
on Saudi and Gulf energy infrastructure.
Kuwait and Iraq cut oil output over the weekend because the
Strait of Hormuz closure has left them without the ability to
export crude they can no longer store.
Qatar Energy's liquefied natural gas shipments remain halted.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is down approximately 90%
from normal levels, and at least nine commercial vessels have
been targeted in attacks in or near the Strait since the start
of the conflict, prompting multiple insurance firms to
cancel coverage for vessels in the Gulf entirely.
The economic chain of causation that flows from all of this is
not abstract. Higher energy prices increase
the cost of manufacturing, transportation and food
production. Simultaneously, they forced
central banks that were expected to cut interest rates this year
to keep rates higher for longer to prevent inflation from re
accelerating. The country's most exposed are
not the United States and Europe, which have diversified
energy supplies. The countries most exposed are
India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and the nations of
Africa and the developing world, which have no domestic energy
reserves and no strategic stockpiles capable of absorbing
A prolonged disruption to Gulf supplies.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi warned that his
country's economy was in a state of near emergency.
Djibouti's finance minister warned that the conflict would
bring severe economic consequences for developing
countries. 7 Gulf oil producing nations are likely to run out of
crude oil storage capacity in less than a month if the Strait
of Hormuz remains effectively closed.
At that point, they will have no choice but to shut in their oil
fields entirely. Production will stop not because
of strikes or damage, but because there is nowhere left to
put the oil they are producing. South Korea announced it would
cap fuel prices for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Japan held emergency government meetings about energy security.
In Britain, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government was
monitoring the situation closely.
The European Union convened energy ministers for
extraordinary session. The International Energy Agency
said it is prepared to coordinate the release of
strategic oil reserves from its 31 member countries if market
conditions require it. The last time the IEA activated
this mechanism in a significant way was in response to Russia's
invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Trump said the oil price spike
will be short term and described it as a very small price to pay.
The American families filling up their tanks at $3.45 a gallon
may assess that trade off differently.
The military campaign showed no signs of deceleration.
Israel struck Iranian oil storage facilities in Tehran
over the weekend, sending thick black smoke visible across the
entire Iranian capital. The Sharan fuel storage facility
in northeast Tehran was confirmed burning.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the United States was
targeting 0 energy infrastructure.
Israel's strikes on oil storage appear to represent a unilateral
Israeli escalation of the targeting of Iran's energy
infrastructure. The knock on effect on global
oil markets of targeting the oil infrastructure of one of the
world's major producers while the Strait of Hormuz is already
functionally closed has been immediate and severe.
Iran and Iraq militia backed groups intensified their attacks
on American positions in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
A missile strike on the American base at Erbil International
Airport killed a Kurdish security member.
Rockets hit the American embassy compound in Baghdad, Iran, and
the militias at back struck a hotel used by United Nations
personnel in Salim and NIA, as well as a brigade of Kurdish
fighters in an Iranian opposition base near the
Kurdistan Region second city. Iran struck targets in Saudi
Arabia, with Riyadh reporting 2 civilian deaths from Iranian
counterattacks on Sunday. The United States State
Department ordered the departure of all non-emergency American
government employees and their family members from Saudi Arabia
on Sunday, citing safety risks. American diplomatic
infrastructure across the entire Middle East is shutting down
country by country. Lebanon's suffering continue to
deepen. Nearly 400 people have been
killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including
83 children. More than 517,000 people have
been displaced inside Lebanon. That is approximately 1 in 10 of
the entire Lebanese population. One Lebanese person in every 10
has been forced from their home. In 10 days, Israel killed 5 IRGC
commanders based in Lebanon and strikes on Sunday, Israeli
strikes expanded geographically across Beirut, with a hotel in
the Route Sea Front district struck in an area that had
previously remained untouched throughout the conflict.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council accused the United
States of wanting to partition the country and seize its oil.
This framing echoes the foundational grievance of the
1953 CIA coup, in which Iranian oil was taken from Iranian
control by Western corporate and government interests.
The generational memory of Mosaddek, of the CIA coup, of
Western oil companies taking Iran's resources, runs deep in
Iranian society across all political lines.
Framing this war as a repeat of 1953 is the single most powerful
piece of domestic political messaging available to the
Islamic Republic, and it is now being deployed at full volume.
Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi appeared on NBC News Meet the
Press on Sunday and rejected any ceasefire.
He said Iran must continue fighting for the sake of our
people. He declined to confirm or deny
whether Russia has been providing Iran with targeting
intelligence on the locations of American warships.
His silence on that specific question was itself a form of
answer. He said the war would end when
the United States and Israel stopped the aggression.
He specified no conditions, no timelines and no framework for
negotiations. There are no talks underway.
There is no mediator with a concrete proposal on the table.
Pope Leo the 14th, speaking from the Vatican on Sunday, warned of
a tragedy of enormous proportions due to what he
described as a widespread climate of hatred and fear
across the region. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi
said armed conflict in the Middle East will only breed
hatred and declare that might does not make right, and the law
of the jungle must not return to rule the world. the United
Nations declared on March 6th that the Iran war had evolved
into a major humanitarian emergency, noting the affected
regions currently host nearly 25 million people as refugees or
displaced persons. Neither religious authority,
diplomatic condemnation, nor a formal United Nations
humanitarian emergency declaration has altered the
trajectory of this conflict by a single degree.
Qatar arrested 10 individuals over the weekend for operating
as a cell of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard core inside
Qatari territory. The cell had been collecting
data on military infrastructure, with some members trained to use
drones. Qatar is home to Al Udiyid Air
Base, the largest American military installation in the
Middle East, housing approximately 10,000 American
military personnel. The discovery of an active IRGC
intelligence cell collecting targeting data on Qatari
military infrastructure on Qatari soil is a reminder that
the threat Iran poses is not limited to the missiles and
drones fired from Iranian territory.
It is also embedded in the human intelligence networks Iran has
built inside neighboring countries over decades.
The Iran women's football team competing in the AFC Women's
Asian Cup in Australia. It became one of the most
quietly extraordinary subplots of this entire conflict.
Over the weekend, the players arrived before the war began,
with commercial flights to and from Iran impossible and Iranian
airspace closed. They remained stranded in
Australia with no path home before their first game.
On the day the conflict began, the players stood in complete
silence during the Iranian national anthem.
That silence was interpreted by some as resistance against the
regime, by others is mourning for those being killed.
In their subsequent 2 matches they sang the anthem and played
on. They lost all three games and
have been eliminated. They are Iranian women stranded
in Australia, having represented a government that has spent
decades restricting their freedoms, while that same
government is being bombed into rubble 10,000 kilometers away.
Their situation resists any simple political framing. the
United States simultaneously launched large scale joint
military exercises with South Korea on Sunday.
The joint exercises, known as Freedom Shield, are the annual
combined military drill the United States and South Korea
conduct to demonstrate readiness against North Korea.
Their timing this year, in the middle of Operation Epic Fury,
carries a specific message. the United States military is
signaling to Pyongyang, to Beijing, and to the world that
it considers itself capable of managing two major simultaneous
military commitments. The decision to proceed with
Freedom Shield on schedule is a deliberate demonstration of
American military capacity that extends well beyond the Iran
conflict itself. Day 10.
The new Supreme Leader of Iran is the son of the man America
killed. Every major Iranian institution
has pledged allegiance to him in language of absolute loyalty.
He is sanctioned by the United States Treasury.
He has spent his career overseeing Iran's proxy forces
against Israel and America. Oil is at $110 a barrel.
The Strait of Hormuz sits at 90% below normal traffic levels.
Gulf oil states are running out of storage.
LNG shipments from Qatar remain halted.
European natural gas prices have nearly doubled.
Seven Americans are dead. Nearly 400 Lebanese are dead,
including 83 children. 517,000 people are displaced in Lebanon
alone. Trump says it is a very small
price to pay and it will be short term.
The son of the supreme leader is the supreme leader.
The war has no end. Insight.
And the global economy is beginning to feel the weight of
it in ways that no government in the world can fully protect its
citizens from. That is episode 10 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran war podcast. The story is moving fast.
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