Afghanistan
(Jennifer Hansler – CNN) The Trump administration on Monday designated Afghanistan as a state sponsor of wrongful detention – a move meant to deter the Taliban from abducting Americans. It is the second country to be designated as such, and the announcement comes on Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day. The administration designated Iran as a state sponsor of wrongful detention the day before it launched military operations against the country. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Monday. – Trump administration designates Afghanistan as state sponsor of wrongful detention | CNN Politics
China
(Stephen McDonell – BBC) For decades the Chinese government has been accused of implementing repressive policies designed to subjugate ethnic minorities, forcing them to assimilate into the dominant Han culture. Now a new law set to be rubber-stamped through the country’s annual parliamentary session later this week will solidify, expand and even speed up this process, further threatening the rights of minority groups and their way of life, academics and human rights activists say. The Chinese government, however, defends it as crucial for promoting “modernisation through greater unity” and calls it the law for “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”. – Why is China set to approve a new law promoting ‘ethnic unity’?
India – Russia – US
(Rhea Mogul – CNN) For much of last year, Washington sought to starve Moscow’s war machine of cash, in part by removing one of its most loyal customers: India. Under President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign, the White House slapped high tariffs on many of New Delhi’s exports and sanctioned two of the Kremlin’s largest oil firms. The strategy appeared to be working. While India didn’t quit its Russian oil habit entirely, it sharply reduced its purchases in favor of supplies from the Middle East. But last week’s joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost all Middle Eastern oil flows. Iran has also threatened to attack energy infrastructure in neighboring countries in retaliation for airstrikes that hit major energy storage sites in Tehran. On Sunday, oil prices surpassed $100-a-barrel for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, boosted by fears of further production disruptions and restrictions. Left with few other options, India is now turning back to Russian oil. In an acknowledgement of New Delhi’s predicament, the US last week granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil currently stranded at sea. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the move was “to enable oil to keep flowing into the global market.”. After months of White House pressure to stop buying Russian oil, it is now being given a pass to do exactly that, the proceeds continuing to bolster the very war chest Washington spent a year trying to deplete. – Trump wanted India off Russian oil. His war with Iran is now undermining that goal | CNN
Iran and beyond
(RFE/RL) US President Donald Trump said the military operation launched against Iran last month will end “very soon” and vowed to hit the country “much, much harder” if it blocks oil supplies in the Middle East. Trump spoke on March 9 after Tehran launched multiple missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states following the announcement that Mojtaba Khamenei would succeed his late father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader. “We’re winning very decisively. We’re way ahead of schedule,” Trump told a news conference in Florida. – Trump Says Iran Campaign To End ‘Very Soon,’ Disappointed In Choice Of Khamenei’s Son
(Kian Sharifi – RFE/RL) Iran’s choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader sends an explicit message to the United States and Israel: External pressure, including decapitation, will harden rather than reshape the Islamic republic’s leadership, experts say. Mojtaba Khamenei is the second-oldest son of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in an air strike on February 28 as the United States and Israel launched an aerial bombardment of Iran. The younger Khamenei is known as a hard-line cleric and his selection by the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body, on March 8 represents continuity. “The message from Tehran is one of defiance: you kill one Khamenei, we give you another,” Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told RFE/RL. At the same time, the choice also revealed a system under acute internal strain, one in which the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of Iran’s armed forces and the backbone of the country’s theocracy, has displaced the clerically dominated political establishment as kingmakers in the country of some 90 million people, experts say. – Iran Sends Message Of ‘Defiance’ By Picking Mojtaba Khamenei As New Supreme Leader
(CNN) In this exclusive interview in Tehran, Kamal Kharazi, Foreign Policy Advisor to the office of the Supreme Leader, tells CNN’s Fred Pleitgen Iran can continue with the war for a long time and he doesn’t see room for diplomacy anymore. – ‘No room for diplomacy,’ Iranian senior official tells CNN | CNN
(Anthony Zurcher – BBC) President Donald Trump and his administration have so far offered mixed messages and contradictory explanations on the joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. And Monday – the 10th day of an operation that has rattled allies and shaken markets – typified this confusion around the war’s timeline and ultimate goals. After a tumultuous morning during which US stock market indexes dropped and oil prices surged, the American president began speed-dialing reporters in an apparent effort to soothe nerves. His comments, however, were lacking in clarity even when he was pushed for more detail. “I have a plan for everything, okay?” he told a reporter from the New York Post when asked about spiking oil prices. “I have a plan for everything. You’ll be very happy.”. To CBS News, he said the war “is very complete, pretty much”. “We’re very far ahead of schedule,” he added. When asked whether the operation could therefore end soon, Trump said: “I don’t know, it depends. Wrapping up is all in my mind, nobody else’s.”. His telephone spree, at least in an economic sense, had the desired effect. Stock markets rallied, and the price of a barrel of oil – which had reached $120 earlier in the day – dropped below $90. Just days ago, Trump said that he would not stop the war until Iran’s “unconditional surrender”. But after his comments on Monday, it appeared as though an end to a military operation that has roiled the Middle East and led to the near complete shutdown of shipping traffic through the Straits of Hormuz could be in sight. – Rising prices, mixed messages: Iran war is fraught with political risk for Trump
(Stephen Collinson – CNN) President Donald Trump has spent a lifetime talking himself out of tough spots. But in the war with Iran, his trusty technique of sowing confusion to postpone reckonings is beginning to fail. Ten days in, Trump still hasn’t settled on a consistent rationale for why he went to war. Now, he’s hinting that peace might soon be at hand — even while he and top aides simultaneously warn the fighting might get more intense and last longer. The messaging disconnect goes beyond Trump’s flood-the-zone rhetoric and odd tendency to commentate on his own actions. It reflects fast-escalating political and military pressures bearing down on a president who gambled his legacy on a war that has spawned a global energy and geopolitical crisis. – Analysis: Why Trump can’t explain the start — or the endgame — of the war in Iran | CNN Politics
(Julianna Bragg – Axios) While President Trump has offered political risk insurance and Navy escorts for tankers navigating the Strait of Hormuz, it still remains one of the most difficult waterways in the world to defend. The Strait, which carries roughly 25% of the world’s seaborne oil supply, is approximately 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, but the designated shipping lanes are far smaller — concentrating traffic into predictable corridors for Iran to monitor and target adversaries. Trump said American forces sank nine Iranian warships and are working to neutralize the rest of its navy, but Iran doesn’t need a conventional fleet to make passage through the Strait dangerous. – Why it’s hard for the US to defend Strait of Hormuz
(Nick Edserand, Peter Hoskins – BBC) G7 nations have said they are ready to take “necessary measures” to support the global supply of energy after the US-Israel war with Iran sent oil prices surging. However, a meeting of G7 finance ministers and the International Energy Agency (IEA) ended without an agreement to release strategic crude reserves. The oil price reached nearly $120 a barrel on Monday, over fears of a lengthy disruption to supplies, before falling back sharply after President Trump raised hopes the war would soon end. At the virtual meeting, the option of releasing oil from stockpiles was one of several discussed as Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, said global oil markets “have deteriorated in recent days”. – G7 to take ‘necessary measures’ to support energy supplies
