By Gustavo de Arístegui,
March 19, 2026
I. INTRODUCTION
March 19, 2026, marks the twenty-first consecutive day of Operation Epic Fury/Operation Roaring Lion—the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. The day unfolds against the backdrop of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard’s appearance before the Senate, a hearing that has sparked a debate requiring rigorous framing: Iran is an imminent threat—it has been for forty-seven years—and to claim otherwise, as Kent and Gabbard herself have implicitly done, is absurd and serves the most destabilizing regime on the planet. What does deserve uncompromising criticism is the politicization of the IC (Intelligence Community) through the appointment of eccentric and conspiracy-minded figures, the mistake of choosing Ramadan as the campaign’s launch date, and the absence of a coherent exit strategy.
Meanwhile, Brent crude surpasses $110 a barrel following Iranian attacks on Qatari energy facilities; a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propagandist confirms on Al Jazeera the strategic coordination agreement between Beijing and the Iranian jihadist oligarchy through the “selective blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz; and Trump’s nominee for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Senator Markwayne Mullin, faces a tense confirmation hearing. The architecture of the crisis is solidifying: energy, institutional, geopolitical, and domestic all at once.
II. MAIN NEWS AND ANALYSIS
1. Oil surpasses $110: Iranian attacks on Qatari energy infrastructure
FACTS
Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, reached a 52-week high, surpassing $110 a barrel, driven by Iranian attacks on a key fuel distribution facility in Qatar. The immediate trigger was the earlier Israeli attack on a large gas field shared by Iran and Qatar, an action to which Tehran responded by threatening to strike energy infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Energy sector executives confirmed the partial evacuation of facilities in the region. Faced with the risk of runaway domestic inflation, the Trump administration opted to temporarily exempt operators from the Jones Act—a century-old law that restricts cabotage to US-flagged vessels—in order to lower the cost of transporting crude oil and gas within the United States.
IMPLICATIONS
The price of oil exceeding $110 per barrel is not just another technical threshold: it is the level at which historical analyses of energy shocks began to decisively influence global economic slowdowns in previous episodes—the crises of 1973, 1979, and 2008. Iran’s explicit threat against the infrastructure of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE introduces a new qualitative element: the war is no longer merely a campaign of military degradation against Iran, but also a war of energy infrastructure across the entire Persian Gulf. The evacuations of facilities by energy executives confirm that the risk has moved beyond the theoretical realm. Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act is a tactical measure to mitigate domestic inflation, not a strategic solution.
PERSPECTIVES AND SCENARIOS
Baseline scenario (high probability): Pressure on oil prices will persist as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian “selective blockade.” Without a diplomatic or military solution to restore the free flow of energy traffic, Brent crude could remain between $105 and $120 in the short term.
Alternative scenario (medium probability): A direct Iranian attack of some magnitude on Saudi or Emirati infrastructure —in line with the threats made— could push Brent beyond $130, with an immediate global recessionary impact.
Optimistic scenario (low probability): A sign of negotiated de-escalation or an informal agreement to protect civilian infrastructure could reduce the geopolitical risk premium and allow a correction towards $95-100.
2. Gabbard, Kent and the politicization of the IC: the problem is not the war against Iran, but who manages intelligence
FACTS
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, March 18, at the annual Global Threat Assessment hearing. She was joined by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other senior officials from the intelligence community (IC). This was the first public appearance by the IC leadership since the start of military operations on February 28. The hearing took place against a particularly tense backdrop: the day before, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), had resigned, arguing that the war with Iran was unjustified because, in his view, Iran did not pose an “imminent threat” to the United States.
In the substance of her statement, Gabbard indicated that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been “destroyed” by Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, that the regime was “intact but very degraded,” and that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had long assessed that “Iran would likely use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage” in a conflict. When questioned by Democratic senators about whether Iran posed an “imminent threat,” Gabbard avoided giving a precise answer, triggering a predictable exchange of questions. She also had to answer for her presence at the FBI raid on the Fulton County (Georgia) election center in January 2026, an incident that has prompted a separate investigation by the Commission itself.
IMPLICATIONS
The first thing to say—and it must be said bluntly and without concessions to the dominant narrative in certain Western media—is that Iran IS an imminent threat. It is today, it was yesterday, it was a decade ago, and it has been for forty-seven years: ever since the jihadist oligarchy seized power in Tehran in 1979. It is a threat to the United States, whose soldiers have fallen and continue to fall victim to its proxies in Iraq, Syria, the Gulf, and Yemen. It is a threat to Europe, the systematic target of its espionage networks, the financing of terrorist organizations on European soil, the transfer of ballistic missile technology to Russia—which Moscow uses in Ukraine—and direct and documented threats against citizens, journalists, and officials within the European Union. It is a threat to Israel, existentially. And it is a threat to its own Arab neighbors, as every missile that strikes Riyadh, Doha, or Abu Dhabi clearly demonstrates. To claim—as Kent did when he resigned, and as Gabbard implicitly suggested by avoiding the label of “imminent threat”—that Iran did not justify military action is, quite simply, nonsense. Nonsense that, moreover, objectively serves the interests of the most destabilizing regime on the planet.
Having said that, with all the clarity that rigorous analysis demands: we are not going to criticize the attacks against Iran. The military campaign against the jihadist oligarchy in Tehran has a fundamental strategic justification that forty-seven years of continuous aggression make difficult to refute. What we will criticize—with equal clarity and without patronizing remarks—are two implementation decisions that deserve severe scrutiny.
The first legitimate criticism points to the politicization of the Intelligence Community (IC) through the appointment of individuals who, regardless of their political allegiance, lack the necessary qualifications, analytical impartiality, and intellectual rigor that the position demands. Tulsi Gabbard is a controversial figure whose public career has been marked by the most unorthodox conspiracy narratives, by openly pro-Moscow stances during her time as a member of the House of Representatives, and by a conversion to Trumpism that does not appear to have been accompanied by a critical review of her arsenal of conspiracy theories. Joe Kent is even worse: an eccentric, almost delusional individual whose political worldview revolves around the “deep state,” stolen elections, and a visceral distrust of the very American institutions he is supposed to protect. That two individuals with these profiles have occupied the most sensitive US intelligence positions at the height of operational demands in the last two decades is not a mere anecdote: it is an institutional decision with consequences whose full extent has yet to be assessed. Intelligence needs rigorous professionals with their own analytical judgment, not ideologically loyal converts lacking professional or academic qualifications, nor hysterical conspiracy theorists.
The second legitimate criticism points to two operational design flaws. The first is the timing: launching a campaign of this magnitude during Ramadan—Islam’s holy month of fasting, prayer, and spiritual reflection—was a major strategic error. Ramadan is the period when the Iranian people—who hate their criminal regime with an intensity any knowledgeable observer can gauge—will not be taking to the streets. The major waves of Iranian protest in the 21st century—2009, 2019, 2022—have a triggering and timing logic that Ramadan structurally inhibits. If the strategy envisioned popular pressure as a contributing factor to the regime’s downfall, it has clumsily chosen the month when that factor is, by definition, inactive. The second flaw is the absence—or at least the lack of public articulation—of an exit strategy. Three weeks after the start of Operation Epic Fury, neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has precisely defined the criteria for victory, the minimum conditions for negotiations, or the scenario for Iranian governance that would follow the eventual fall of the regime. A war without an exit strategy is not a national security operation: it is a gamble. And geopolitical gambles in the Middle East have a history of disappointments that needs no reminder.
PERSPECTIVES AND SCENARIOS
Gabbard’s position as DNI is institutionally fragile. Not because she has denied the Iranian threat—she hasn’t explicitly done so—but because her profile and performance during her Senate hearing highlight the serious consequences of placing someone at the head of the IC whose incompetence for the position is evident and whose technical credibility is questionable before she even begins to speak. The two unanswered questions this hearing leaves open—is there an exit strategy? Was Ramadan the right time?—will continue to loom over the strategic debate in Washington as long as the war continues, and no amount of dogmatic juggling will make them disappear.
3. The Chinese-Iranian “selective blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz: a confession on Al Jazeera
FACTS
On Thursday, March 19, at 8:30 GMT, Professor John Gong of Beijing University of International Business and Economics appeared on Al Jazeera as an analyst. His intervention was, in effect, that of a spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). His three most notable statements were:
First , he acknowledged that Iran was implementing a “selective blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz, thus confirming what was previously an implicit agreement—and has now become explicit—between Beijing and the Iranian jihadist oligarchy on the tactical management of the global energy choke point .
Second, he stated that China has strategic oil reserves for more than a month — a fact whose veracity is unverifiable, since Chinese strategic reserves are a state secret, as in most powers.
Third, he indicated that the countries most affected by the closure of the Strait are South Korea and Japan, implicitly acknowledging that the war is causing serious disruptions to Chinese exports.
IMPLICATIONS
Professor Gong’s intervention—whose appointment as an independent analyst by Al Jazeera is, at the very least, questionable—has documentary value that transcends its obvious propagandistic bias. By confirming the “selective” nature of the Iranian blockade, Gong is admitting that the closure of the Strait is not a unilateral decision by Tehran’s jihadist oligarchy but rather the result of strategic coordination with Beijing. This coordination had already been suggested by Western intelligence sources, but it had not been so openly confirmed by an interlocutor with clear institutional ties to the Chinese regime.
The “selective blockade”—that is, the selection of which traffic passes through and which does not, presumably favoring traffic destined for China and penalizing that destined for US-allied economies—constitutes an act of covert economic warfare of the first magnitude. The admission that Japan and South Korea are the most affected is not accidental: both are formal US allies and anchors of regional security in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing is, in short, using the Strait of Hormuz as an instrument of geopolitical pressure and redistribution of comparative energy advantages, without assuming the diplomatic cost of a direct confrontation.
PERSPECTIVES AND SCENARIOS
Sino-Iranian coordination through “selective blockade” is the second most important strategic dimension of this war—after the military campaign against Iran itself—and the one most underestimated by Western media. Washington should consider formally classifying this conduct as an act of economic coercion under international law. The response from Japan and South Korea, whose energy dependence on the Persian Gulf is structural, may include pressure to accelerate a diplomatic solution that the US and Israel themselves do not necessarily desire. Public acknowledgment of Beijing-Tehran coordination adds a new layer of complexity to the White House’s strategic calculations.
4. Mullin before the Senate: the confirmation of the new Secretary of Homeland Security
FACTS
Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee for a confirmation hearing that lasted more than three hours. Mullin faced pointed questions about his past statements—including one in which he called Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis man who died after an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raid in January, a “deranged individual”—which he retracted during the hearing. He promised to eliminate the controversial policy implemented by his predecessor, Kristi Noem, that required her personal signature for any FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) expenditure exceeding $100,000. Regarding ICE, he pledged to maintain the long-standing policy requiring a court order signed by a judge before agents can enter private residences—a policy Noem had undermined through a secret directive authorizing forced entry without a warrant if the wanted immigrant had a current deportation order. Senator Rand Paul announced he would vote against his confirmation, citing “temperament issues.”
IMPLICATIONS
Mullin’s confirmation—if it occurs—will signal a shift in the profile of the DHS leadership: from Kristi Noem’s media-driven polarization to a more discreet and operational style. His explicit commitment to requiring warrants for ICE entries is significant: it implies an acknowledgment that Noem’s policy was legally questionable and politically toxic. Rand Paul’s opposition illustrates the internal rift within the Republican bloc, already evident in the context of the Iran-Contra affair: the Trump coalition contains factions with profoundly incompatible national security philosophies.
PERSPECTIVES AND SCENARIOS
Mullin’s confirmation seems likely, given Republican control of the Senate, but it is not guaranteed if more Republican votes join Paul’s opposition. Under Mullin, the DHS will face the dual challenge in the coming months of managing immigration policy amid increasing judicial scrutiny and coordinating with the national security apparatus in the context of the Iran-Contra affair, which generates intelligence flows and domestic counterterrorism risks that are difficult to manage.
5. Faisal bin Farhan before the Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh: the Gulf’s “patience” is “not unlimited”
FACTS
On March 19, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, chaired an emergency meeting in Riyadh of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries—including, among others, the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates—convened specifically to address Iran’s escalating attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure. The meeting took place amid heightened tensions: while the foreign ministers were deliberating in Riyadh, Saudi air defenses intercepted four Iranian ballistic missiles aimed at the capital. Prince Faisal himself made no secret of his view that this was a deliberate provocation: “It cannot be a coincidence,” he told the media.
In a press conference following the meeting—the most forceful since the start of the war—Faisal bin Farhan issued a series of extremely serious warnings. His statements can be summarized around five key points: first, Saudi Arabia “reserves the right to take military action if it deems it necessary”; second, “the patience we have shown is not unlimited”; third, trust in Iran “has been completely destroyed”; fourth, the Iranian attacks are “premeditated, planned in advance, and well thought out,” not an improvised reaction—evidence of this is “the level of precision in some of the targets”; and fifth, Iranian pressure on the Gulf States “will have a political and moral boomerang effect.” Also meeting bilaterally with his counterparts from Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, Faisal reiterated that the Kingdom “will use all the instruments at its disposal—political, economic, diplomatic, and otherwise—to stop these attacks.” He also stressed that neither Saudi Arabia nor any other Gulf state has allowed the use of its territory, waters or airspace to launch attacks against Iran —thus discrediting Iran’s justification for its retaliation— and called Tehran’s arguments “unconvincing.”
Tehran’s response was revealing in its disdain: Iranian sources and media outlets close to the regime dismissed Faisal’s statements as “bravado” and empty rhetoric, insisting that the GCC attacks were limited to US bases and facilities, not Saudi or Qatari targets per se—a claim directly contradicted by the facts on the ground: two refineries in Riyadh attacked that same day, facilities in Ras Laffan (Qatar), Habshan and Bab (UAE), and the SAMREF refinery in Yanbu (Saudi Arabia). Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had repeatedly denied that Iran was attacking civilian infrastructure in neighboring countries, maintained this same stance even as flames were visible at Ras Laffan. The Iranian militias in Iraq —Kata’ib Hezbollah— were more direct, warning Saudi Arabia and the UAE to “adjust their statements to their true size, as they are merely the logistical rearguard of the Zionist-American project.”
IMPLICATIONS
Faisal bin Farhan’s statements represent the highest political threshold Saudi Arabia has publicly set since the start of the war, and their significance transcends the bilateral Saudi-Iranian context. They must be interpreted in four simultaneous dimensions.
First dimension — The irreversible fracture of the 2023 normalization architecture: The 2023 Saudi-Iranian normalization, mediated by China, was the great diplomatic asset that Tehran brandished as proof of its willingness for regional coexistence. Faisal bin Farhan has buried it with five words: “trust has been completely destroyed.” This is not a pause in the relationship, but a structural breakdown of trust that—as the Saudi foreign minister explicitly warned—”will take a long time to rebuild, if it can be rebuilt at all.” Ironically, the architect of that normalization—China—is the same actor that, according to Professor Gong’s own admission on Al Jazeera, coordinates with Iran the “selective blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Second dimension — The specter of direct Saudi involvement: Faisal bin Farhan has confirmed what sources cited by Reuters reported days ago: that Riyadh has informed Tehran that, if the attacks on Saudi Arabia persist, the Kingdom would be forced to authorize the use of its bases by US forces for military operations. This threat is of extraordinary strategic magnitude. Saudi Arabia hosts US military installations—including Sultan-Prince Air Force Base—whose full operational integration into the campaign against Iran would represent a qualitative transformation of the theater of war.
Third dimension — The premeditated nature of the Iranian strategy, now documented: Faisal’s insistence that the attacks are “premeditated and planned years in advance” is not empty rhetoric. It is an accusation with documentary basis. The Iranian jihadist oligarchy has been incorporating the option of striking Gulf energy infrastructure into its war planning for more than a decade as a tool of expanded deterrence and blackmail against the global energy system. The fact that the attacks have continued even after Tehran repeatedly promised to suspend them—and that they have done so with a precision that precludes error—confirms that this is a deliberate strategy, not an improvised reaction to Israeli escalation.
Fourth dimension — Iran’s regional isolation: The composition of the Riyadh meeting—GCC plus Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, and Syria—is a map of Iran’s strategic isolation in the region. That Turkey, a NATO member that has condemned both the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the Iranian attacks on the Gulf, is participating in a meeting chaired by Saudi Arabia that explicitly condemns the Iranian escalation is telling. Tehran’s isolation is not only military: it is political, regional, and moral.
PERSPECTIVES AND SCENARIOS
The most likely scenario in the short term is that Iran will continue its attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure—part of a deliberate strategy to pressure the global economy and punish US allies—placing Saudi Arabia with an extraordinarily difficult decision: take military action and expand the theater of war, or absorb the attacks while awaiting a diplomatic solution that neither Washington nor Tel Aviv is facilitating. The threshold declared by Faisal bin Farhan—”patience is not unlimited”—is the final warning before Riyadh is forced to make choices that no regional actor desires. Tehran’s response—disdain and denial—suggests that the jihadist oligarchy has calculated that Saudi Arabia will not cross that threshold. If that calculation is wrong, the consequences will be of a magnitude that no international actor has yet anticipated.
III. MEDIA RACK
Wall Street Journal / Bloomberg / Reuters: Dominant coverage focuses on the energy and financial impact: oil prices surpassing $110 per barrel, attacks on Ras Laffan (Qatar), Habshan (UAE), SAMREF-Yanbu, and Riyadh refineries. Emphasis is placed on Faisal bin Farhan’s statements regarding the “right to military action” and on calculating scenarios for direct Saudi escalation.
ABC News / NBC News / CNN / CBS News: Extensive coverage of Gabbard’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, with particular attention to the omission of the assessment of the Iranian nuclear program and the exchanges with Senator Warner. Critical analysis of the implicit distancing between the Intelligence Committee and the presidential narrative.
Financial Times/The Times of Israel: Analytical coverage of Gabbard’s audience and the dynamics of the Saudi press conference. The FT highlights Gabbard’s difficulty in avoiding contradicting Trump; The Times of Israel provides confidential sources on the direct Riyadh-Tehran channels and the conditions set by Faisal to Araghchi.
Al Jazeera / Arab News / Gulf News: Extensive coverage of the meeting of foreign ministers in Riyadh and Faisal bin Farhan’s press conference. Al Jazeera was also—not without irony—the platform chosen by the CCP’s covert spokesman, Professor John Gong, to confirm the Iranian-Chinese “selective blockade” of the Strait of Hormuz.
CNN/Time/Euronews: Analysis of why a weakened and “degraded” Iran persists in prolonging the war. CNN’s article on Iran’s strategy of “exporting the cost of war” and buying time is the day’s key analytical text for understanding Tehran’s logic. Euronews covers in detail Trump’s threats to destroy the South Pars gas field if Qatar is attacked again.
IV. RISK TRAFFIC LIGHT
| RISK | LEVEL | TREND |
| Iran/US-Israel military escalation | 🔴 CRITICAL | ↑ Increasing |
| Hormuz Strait Crisis | 🔴 CRITICAL | → Stable-high |
| Global energy prices | 🔴 VERY HIGH | ↑ Increasing |
| Attacks on infrastructure Gulf energy (Qatar, UAE, KSA) | 🔴 CRITICAL | ↑ In climbing |
| Saudi Arabia’s direct entry into the conflict | 🟠 STOP | ↑ Increasing risk |
| Risk of Chinese involvement | 🟠 STOP | ↑ Increasing |
| Internal instability in Iran | 🟡 MEDIUM-HIGH | → Monitoring |
| IC Credibility in Washington | 🟠 STOP | ↑ Deteriorating |
| US Border Security (DHS/ICE) | 🟡 MEDIUM | → Under review |
V. EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
Some wars have solid and undeniable underlying reasons. And there are aspects of the conduct of every war—even those whose justification is unassailable—that deserve rigorous criticism. To confuse the two, or to refuse to address the latter for fear of contradicting the former, is not coherence: it is intellectual dishonesty.
Iran is an imminent threat. It has been for 47 years. Since 1979, Tehran’s jihadist oligarchy has funded international terrorism, armed murderous proxies from the Mediterranean to the Indo-Pacific, systematically attacked its neighbors, patiently pursued nuclear weapons, transferred ballistic missile technology to Putin’s Russia for use against Ukraine and Europe, and ordered attacks and direct threats against citizens and officials on Western soil. To claim otherwise—as Joe Kent did when he resigned, and as Tulsi Gabbard implicitly suggested when she avoided the “imminent threat” label in the Senate—is not independent intelligence analysis. It is historically documented nonsense that objectively serves the interests of the most destabilizing regime on the planet. And it is especially egregious nonsense when it comes from those with the institutional responsibility to protect their fellow citizens.
Having said that, with all the clarity that the analysis demands: we are not going to criticize the attacks against Iran. The campaign has a fundamental strategic justification that four and a half decades of continuous aggression make difficult to refute. But we will formulate the criticisms that two specific aspects of its design deserve—precisely because the seriousness of the objective demands the most rigorous execution.
The first criticism points to the irresponsibility of entrusting the world’s most sophisticated intelligence instruments to individuals like Gabbard and Kent. Gabbard is a controversial figure with a zigzagging career, pro-Russian sympathies, and a worldview permeated by the most unorthodox conspiracy narratives produced by recent American politics. Kent is something qualitatively different: an eccentric, almost delusional individual whose worldview revolves around the “deep state,” stolen elections, and a visceral distrust of the very institutions he once led. That these two figures occupied the most sensitive US intelligence positions at the worst moment of regional crisis since the invasion of Iraq is an institutional decision—not an anecdote—whose consequences for the wartime intelligence cycle have yet to be fully assessed.
The second criticism focuses on the operational design. Ramadan—the holy month of fasting, prayer, and spiritual reflection in Islam—is the worst possible time to launch a campaign that relies, among other things, on Iranian popular pressure on the regime. The people of Iran hate their rulers. They demonstrated this in 2009, 2019, and 2022. But during Ramadan, those people will not take to the streets. They won’t now either. Revolutions in the Islamic world don’t happen during the month of fasting. And alongside the timing, there’s the question that Washington and Tel Aviv still haven’t publicly answered after three weeks of operations: what is the exit strategy? What constitutes victory? What are the minimum conditions for negotiations? What kind of governance is envisioned for the Iran of the day after? A war without such a roadmap is not a national security operation: it’s a gamble. And the Middle East has been demonstrating for decades that gambles without an exit strategy create vacuums that are always filled by someone other than the one who formulated them.
Meanwhile, Prince Faisal bin Farhan said today from Riyadh what no Gulf foreign minister had dared to say since February 28: that the Gulf’s patience “is not unlimited.” He said this while Iranian missiles flew over the city where he was speaking and while Tehran responded with the disdain of someone who believes they can afford to underestimate the holder of the world’s largest oil reserves. Such miscalculations have a name in diplomatic history. And they are usually very costly.
The war against Iran has fundamental reasons. Its execution has blind spots that no serious person can ignore. Holding both truths at once is not a contradiction: it is the minimum condition for honest analysis .