A House Democrat with a background in physics is sounding the alarm over what he views as a lack of a plan to deal with Iran’s nuclear sites during the U.S. offensive campaign.

After a classified briefing Tuesday with top administration officials, Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., said lawmakers were not presented with a clear plan to secure or neutralize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

‘We have heard that they never had a plan for that nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium — to destroy that, to seize it or to put it under international inspection,’ he said.

The U.S. intervention was publicly justifiedby the Trump administration as a necessary step to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. 

U.S. forces have struck more than 1,700 targets across Iran, including ballistic missile launch sites, air defenses, naval assets and command centers. Core nuclear facilities, however, have not been among the primary targets.

‘Until that happens, Iran will be very, very close to making — as many observers have pointed out in a nonclassified situation — Iran can use that material to make a handful of Hiroshima-style nuclear devices,’ Foster told Fox News Digital. ‘Not the sort you can put on a missile, but the sort you can deliver by a number of other ways and are very hard to stop.’ 

Foster was referring to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, material that, if weaponized, could be used to build a nuclear explosive device.

Experts note that building a compact warhead that fits on a ballistic missile is technically complex and requires advanced engineering. But a simpler, larger nuclear device — similar in basic concept to the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 — would not need to be miniaturized to fit on a missile. Such a device could not be delivered by long-range rocket but could theoretically be transported by other means.

Foster argued that containing Iran’s nuclear materials, most of which are buried deep underground, would likely require U.S. forces to enter Iran.

Recent satellite imagery shows damage to support buildings and access points at Iran’s Natanz enrichment site, though the deepest underground infrastructure at key nuclear facilities has not been confirmed as a primary target in the current campaign.

U.S. and international officials previously have acknowledged that while strikes can damage enrichment infrastructure, stockpiled enriched uranium stored underground may remain intact and potentially retrievable unless physically secured or removed.

‘You have to go in there with boots on the ground and grab a bunch of equipment,’ Foster said. ‘You have to go underground into those facilities and lose a lot of soldiers’ lives doing that.

‘They’re unwilling to do that, or they’ve decided not to or they’ve decided it’s impossible. In any case, they did not present to us any plan that would actually get the material under control.’

Without securing the nuclear material, he argued, military operations may push Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than diplomatic negotiations would have.

‘The only positive thing about the ayatollah is that he had a fatwa against building nuclear weapons,’ Foster said. ‘Who knows what the next generation of ayatollahs are going to feel? They’re going to be under a lot of pressure from the IRGC, which was not so much against having a nuclear weapon.’

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli operations, had previously issued a fatwa, a religious edict, opposing the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Analysts have long debated how binding or durable that ruling was.

At a White House briefing Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration believes Iran ‘wanted to build nuclear weapons to use against Americans and our allies,’ framing the strikes as necessary to prevent Tehran from advancing its nuclear ambitions.

‘The US military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump — and beyond. Nevertheless, President Trump has always been intensely focused on strengthen our Armed Forces and he will continue to call on defense contractors to more speedily build American-made weapons, which are the best in the world,’ she said in a follow up statement to Fox News Digital. 

Missile suppression strategy faces ‘math problem’

Senior administration officials have emphasized that the current phase of the campaign is aimed at dismantling Iran’s ability to project force with missiles, drones and naval assets. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has highlighted strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile systems, air defenses and naval capabilities, describing the effort as a push to degrade the conventional tools Tehran uses to threaten U.S. forces and regional allies. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly has said the United States is working to ‘systematically take apart’ Iran’s missile program, so it could not ‘hide behind’ it to develop a nuclear weapon. 

While the broader justification for intervention centered on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, the most immediate threat facing U.S. troops and partners has been Iran’s ongoing missile and drone launches. Administration officials contend Iran’s missile buildup was meant to create a deterrent buffer, shielding its broader strategic ambitions, including its nuclear program, from outside attack.

Lawmakers emerging from classified briefings said the campaign has become, in part, a question of sustainability.

‘We do not have an unlimited supply,’ Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said of U.S. and allied interceptor inventories. He warned the conflict could become a ‘math problem,’ balancing launch volumes against finite air defense munitions and the ability to replenish them without weakening readiness in other theaters.

‘At some point — and we’re probably already in this — this becomes a math problem,’ Kelly added.

He said he pressed defense officials on how interceptor stocks are being replenished and whether diverting munitions to the Middle East could strain U.S. readiness elsewhere.

‘How can we resupply air defense munitions? Where are they going to come from? How does that affect other theaters?’ he said. ‘The math on this currently seems to be an issue.’

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said he also sought clarity on interceptor inventories but did not receive detailed answers.

‘I am very concerned about that,’ Kim said. ‘I did not get any specificity today. … Something akin to ‘trust us’ is not good enough for me.’

Republicans, however, pushed back on the notion that interceptor supplies are strained. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said officials told lawmakers U.S. forces are ‘in great shape,’ dismissing concerns about shortages.

Ehud Eilam, a former Israeli defense official and national security analyst, said that while a nuclear weapon remains the most serious long-term threat, missile and drone systems pose the most immediate danger if intelligence assessments conclude Iran is not on the verge of assembling a device.

‘As long as it is estimated Iran cannot produce a nuclear weapon soon, then the focus moves to missiles and drones,’ Eilam said, noting that ballistic missiles would ultimately be required to deliver any future nuclear warhead. Suppressing mobile launchers, crews and command networks can reduce Iran’s firing tempo, conserving interceptor supplies while degrading Tehran’s broader military capacity, he said.

The concern is not theoretical. 

During the intense June 2025 Iran–Israel conflict, U.S. forces reportedly fired more than 150 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors, roughly a quarter of the global inventory, along with large numbers of ship-based Standard Missile interceptors to shield allies. 

Analysts note that replenishing high-end air defense systems such as Patriot, THAAD and SM-3 interceptors could take more than a year under current production rates.

The Pentagon also is balancing competing demands. The same missile defense systems used to protect U.S. bases and Gulf partners are being supplied to Ukraine to defend against Russian cruise missile attacks, creating what some analysts describe as a ‘zero-sum’ competition for inventory between Europe and the Middle East.

‘There is a limit to how many THAAD missiles can be used,’ Eilam said. ‘These are not systems you can reproduce overnight.’

An Iranian refugee held at gunpoint at school before fleeing Iran during the 1979 revolution is calling for hope, democracy and prayers for his homeland as the U.S. joins Israel in targeting Iran’s ruling clerical regime.

David Nasser, now an American pastor, spoke to Fox News Digital six days after Operation Epic Fury was launched in Iran — an event that reignited haunting memories for him and of the time when he was 9 years old.

‘As a child, my family and I were forced to escape Iran and run for our lives,’ Nasser, President and CEO of David Nasser Outreach recalled.

‘We found safe harbor as refugees granted political asylum here in the United States,’ Nasser said, before describing how his father had been a high-ranking officer in Iran’s military, meaning ‘his family became targets as the government collapsed.’

‘One of my most vivid memories of realizing that nothing was ever going to be the same again was at a school assembly on a military base – a soldier called out three names and mine was called first,’ he said.

‘When I got to the front, the soldier dropped a piece of paper, took a gun out of his holster and put it to my head and quoted the Quran. He told me that he was sent to make an example out of me,’ Nasser added.

The principal intervened, but the message he relayed was unmistakable. Nasser recalled.

‘They’re killing everybody who’s anybody. They’re trying to make an example out of people like our family, and they’re using fear,’ he remembered hearing at the time.

‘That’s one of my first memories of the revolution, but really just being completely scared for my life.’

Soon after, Nasser’s family devised an escape plan. They would pretend Nasser’s mother needed emergency heart surgery in Switzerland and buy round-trip tickets to avoid raising suspicion.

‘We bought round-trip airline tickets, like we were going and coming back, but we weren’t coming back. We were running for our lives,’ he said.

At the airport, Nasser remembers gripping his father’s hand tightly and hearing words he will never forget.

”If they find out we’re escaping, they’re going to kill us right here on the spot,” my father said as his hands shook, holding mine, he said. ‘The last time I was in Iran, I was a 9-year-old little boy running for my life,’ he said.

Now, watching events unfold in Iran from the safety of the U.S., Nasser said his heart remains with millions of desperate Iranians facing uncertainty.

‘We see them — I see them, I hear them. My heart is beating really fast for them right now, with hope and with prayers for their protection and their provision,’ Nasser said.

‘Protection. I’m praying for protection for them. I want to be a part of the provision for them. If Iran transitions from a theocracy to a democracy,’ he said, ‘I want to help rebuild.’

‘If this moment actually comes, and they go from a theocracy to a democracy, I want to be a part of the solution — for that 9-year-old little boy that I once was. I want to do this for him.’

Beyond political change, Nasser, who is also Teaching Pastor at New Vision Baptist Church, said he takes solace in what he describes as spiritual transformation already underway, calling it ‘the fastest-growing church in the world right now, or the underground church in Iran.’

‘We know there’s at minimum 4 million, at maximum 8 million Christians right now in Iran,’ he said.

‘In Iran, if you convert from Islam to Christianity, that can be a death sentence. If they come into your home and you’re gathering for Christian worship, they will take your home title, you will lose your home.’

‘They’re in prison. They’re being tortured. They’re being ridiculed. They’re being mocked,’ he added.

‘Above all, I came to America, and it was a land of opportunity, and I was given the gift of democracy, so I would love to see democracy in Iran, where all the boys and girls are afforded what I was afforded when I managed to escape.’

The partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could impact how the federal government is able to address potential terror threats in the U.S., a public safety expert said, warning that the escalating conflict with Iran could encourage those wishing to harm Americans.

Jeffrey Halstead, a retired police chief in Fort Worth, Texas, and a former commander for Homeland Security for Phoenix police, told Fox News Digital that U.S. military actions could ‘escalate the mindset of some of these outlying or outlier terrorist entities’ wanting to take action. 

‘We’ve seen historically that any time there is a conflict, especially in the Middle East with escalating tensions, military action and now a declaration of war, there is a significant impact on the ability for us to work collectively to share intelligence and gather information in a timely manner from our federal partners,’ Halstead said. ‘With the current Department of Homeland Security shutdown, if something were to occur here in the United States, there could be some significant delays because FEMA and other very, very critical divisions of the federal government are basically shut down.’

He specifically pointed out the terrorist attack in Austin, Texas, over the weekend, which left 2 people dead and 14 injured. The suspect, Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized citizen born in Senegal, was also killed.

Authorities said they are investigating the shooting, which took place at a bar at about 2 a.m. on Sunday, as a ‘potential nexus to terrorism’ as Diagne appeared to wear a ‘Property of Allah’ sweatshirt and an undershirt depicting the Iranian flag. A Quran was also later recovered from his vehicle, and an Iranian flag and images of regime leaders were found at his home.

That attack comes after U.S.-Israeli joint military strikes, which began against Iran on Saturday morning, killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other leaders, triggering a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Halstead, who is also the director of strategic accounts at Genasys, a communications hardware and software provider that helps communities during emergencies, warned that events in the U.S. later this year, such as World Cup soccer matches and America’s 250th anniversary, could make the U.S. an ‘escalated target’ if the conflict in the Middle East remains active.

He also said anytime there is a government shutdown, there seems to be a ‘pretty significant distraction, both politically and administratively, in every facet of our federal government and the manner in which the government operates.’

‘Sometimes there is reduced staffing in some of these critical agencies, and some of the agencies aren’t being funded at all,’ he said. ‘This will delay and possibly impede some of that critical intelligence, which could be terroristic threat level intelligence, that needs to be in the hands of local police, so that the beat officers, the patrol officers, as well as all the supervisors, understand the latest and greatest threats, including high-profile targets that could be on the radar of some of these active cells in the United States.’

He added that the government shutdown has an impact on the ability to ‘get that intelligence as fast as possible into the hands of those that need it’ and that delays could be ‘very, very catastrophic’ if the information is ignored or not sent.

Halstead noted that he has not seen any evidence that the shooting in Austin is directly tied to the government shutdown.

‘However, when there are military actions overseas, especially in a lot of these high-profile terrorist organizations or terrorist hosting countries, it elevates the mindset for other people to take actions against American citizens and institutions in America,’ he explained. ‘That could be schools and religious sites, and it could be the way that we live our lives with freedom.’

‘When these incidents overseas happen that are terror-related, it does instill in the mindset of some of these lone wolf-style actors to take action,’ he continued. ‘And if you look at [the case in Austin], that is exactly what the FBI has profiled to date, that this was a lone wolf probably acting upon the military action that was taken against Iran, and then wearing a shirt, ‘Property of Allah,’ that speaks to his either religious belief and/or possibility of some terroristic ties.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: ‘I am in direct coordination with our federal intelligence and law enforcement partners as we continue to closely monitor and thwart any potential threats to the homeland.’

DHS, President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to place blame on Democrats for the shutdown. After the conflict with Iran began over the weekend, Democratic lawmakers remain unmoved, including those who voted to end the government shutdown in November.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., argued that DHS still has plenty of money left from Trump’s spending bill signed last year and that Democrats are not going to suddenly abandon their demands for reform. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told The Hill that he sees no correlation between the funding negotiations and the ongoing war in Iran.

‘I don’t think there’s any relationship between FEMA and Iran — or the Coast Guard, for that matter,’ King said.

Republicans contend that the conflict makes DHS funding even more necessary, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., writing on X: ‘Following the successful strikes on Iran and the FBI’s warning of elevated threats here at home, it is dangerous for Democrats in Washington to keep the Department of Homeland Security shut down.’

Halstead said the funding fight ‘looks like all the other shutdowns that we’ve seen,’ adding that it ‘becomes one side against the other, and then they will make some strong allegations and statements and then publicly the other side will make retaliation.’

‘This is probably some of the worst infighting I think I’ve seen in almost 40 years,’ he said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison faced a barrage of tough questions from Republicans during a Wednesday House hearing on the massive fraud scandal in the state, with most of the questions focused on one key theme: What did they know, and when did they know it?

Walz and Ellison were asked multiple times for specifics regarding when they were first made aware of the fraud problems and faced sharp rebukes from Republican members, including Rep. Virginia Foxx.

‘You did not do your job, you did not do your job,’ Foxx told Walz. ‘You did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota. It is unfortunate, as somebody said, that you can’t be held personally responsible at this stage in the game.’

An exchange between GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and Walz sparked immediate pushback from conservatives on social media. 

‘Why didn’t you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?’ Jordan asked during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Minnesota fraud on Wednesday.

The exchange centered on Walz’s past public statements that a judge ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue reimbursements in April 2021 after the agency had halted payments over fraud concerns.

Jordan pointed to a 2022 court-authorized news release from then-Ramsey County District Court Judge John H. Guthmann that disputed the governor’s characterization of the events.

‘So either you’re lying or the court’s lying. And I’m just asking you which one is it?’ Jordan said.

One of the most contentious exchanges came during questioning from GOP Rep. Nancy Mace when she pressed Walz for specific numbers on how many children are in his state, the massive increase in autism care spending and why that occurred without getting specific numbers back from Walz.

‘Ok, so your excuse before — that you didn’t know what the 2017 autism numbers were — because you were not governor, and today you can’t answer the numbers about 2024 as governor, and you still said you prepared for this hearing today. It’s unbelievable.’

Walz shot back that he wouldn’t be a ‘prop’ for Mace, and she eventually said, ‘I expect you to know this information. Thank God you’re not vice president of the United States.’

GOP Rep. Clay Higgins confronted Ellison in another heated moment asking him to say he was ‘leading’ the fight against rooting out corruption without getting the specific answer he was looking for, prompting him to call for Ellison’s resignation. 

‘I’m not talking about Medicaid fraud, don’t hide behind that,’ Higgins said, interrupting Ellison. ‘You have the authority to prosecute anything criminally that the governor asks you to, and this thing is big. I’m giving you an opportunity sir, are you leading the criminal investigative effort into this massive fraud across the board…or not?’ Higgins pressed.

‘We are following the law,’ Ellison said before Higgins cut him off again.

‘You are not leading, I’m going to say, Mr. Chairman, that the attorney general of the state of Minnesota should resign,’ Higgins said.

At the close of the hearing, things became tense again when GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy suggested that Walz, who is still serving as governor despite dropping out of his re-election bid due to the fraud scandal, should be impeached for ‘malfeasance,’ citing Minnesota’s own state Constitution. 

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

Iran’s tyrannical and ruthless regime is disintegrating. After yet again massacring thousands of its own citizens for voicing their dreams for liberty and better governance, the Iranian regime meantime resumed pursuing nuclear capability and its aggressive ICBM program. The regime’s overconfidence in U.S. inaction cost it its leader and its core military capabilities are going up in smoke. Against this backdrop, the conflict has spread to the Gulf, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum, and forcing the rest of the world to rethink how it prices energy risk and political alignment.

This is not another regional flare-up. This is a rupture of an old equilibrium in which sanctioned oil, shadow fleets and calibrated escalation kept markets stable enough to function. That equilibrium is now breaking. A rapid political-military shift in the Middle East is unfolding alongside a restructuring of the global energy order.

When I was in Afghanistan during the surge, Tehran’s active support for the insurgency fighting the United States and Afghan forces fomented instability and amplified violence for which civilians paid the biggest price, a dynamic that so many across several nations have tragically encountered for decades. But Iran was never a contained regional problem.

While its terrorism was widely perceived as a Middle East issue, its cyber and intelligence operations spanned continents, with assassination plots that included the American president. As to global effects, Iran’s energy has always made its regime globally significant.

At this stage of the conflict, the most economically significant and immediate geography is the Strait of Hormuz which Iran is working to choke off. Roughly one-fifth of global petroleum and a substantial portion of liquefied natural gas move through that narrow corridor. As strikes intensified, vessels paused transit, insurers reassessed exposure and operators rerouted cargoes. Markets adjusted immediately. Energy security and geopolitical stability are now inseparable; maritime risk has become the pressure valve through which regional conflict spills into global consequence. 

This realignment did not begin in the Gulf this weekend. It started with U.S. actions in Venezuela. Caracas holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves — about 303 billion barrels — and even marginal normalization under a more U.S.-cooperative government alters the supply calculus for Washington and its allies.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. Stack that with a post-crisis Iran re-entering markets on different terms, and the shadow ecosystem of discounted, sanctioned crude — Russia, Iran, Venezuela — begins to fracture and reprice simultaneously.

But the most consequential energy recalibration runs through Beijing. China is essentially Iran’s oil export market. In 2025, China bought more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, averaging ~1.38 million barrels per day, about 13.4% of China’s seaborne crude imports—meaning Beijing is simultaneously Tehran’s economic lifeline and its strategic choke chain.

By turning a sanctioned producer into a quasi-captive supply relationship — sustained through gray-market routing, reflagging and intermediary hubs — Beijing secured discounted barrels in normal times and leverage in crisis. Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security; Iran exports about 1.6 million bpd mainly to China and such disruptions pushes Beijing to pivot to alternatives.

The relationship is therefore best understood as a dependency loop: Iran needs China for revenue and sanctions relief-by-proxy; China uses Iran as a discount supplier and as a pressure valve in the sanctioned crude system — one that can be tightened or loosened depending on Beijing’s broader negotiation posture with Washington and its appetite for risk in the Gulf. That Iran-China dependency is no longer stable.  With Iranian oil flows disrupted, China faces a choice between turning to alternative suppliers at higher cost or even tapping strategic reserves. Tightening global crude markets resulting from U.S. actions in Venezuela and now Iran give Washington leverage in energy pricing.

Beyond the tanker decks, this shift underscores the larger theme of reconfiguration: resources once bundled to manage sanctions are now subject to heightened geopolitical risk, forcing China to rethink dependencies while the U.S. and its partners are positioning to shape the post-conflict energy order. Energy supply patterns will restructure global power relations. And where China is recalibrating exposure, Russia is recalculating opportunity.

The same forces reshaping China’s calculations are altering Moscow’s. As India trims Russian purchases, Moscow has been pushing more barrels into China, and Reuters reports China’s Russian crude imports hitting new records in February while Russian sellers widened discounts to keep demand — Urals trading roughly $9–$11 below Brent for China deliveries, and other Russian grades also cutting hard as sellers chase Chinese refiners.

The new U.S.–Venezuela arrangement has already generated roughly $2 billion in transactions in just weeks, pulling Venezuelan barrels back into wider circulation and altering the discount ecosystem Moscow had grown accustomed to. 

This matters because China is also the anchor buyer for sanctioned Iranian crude; the ‘discount market’ is not infinite, so Russia and Iran are now competing for the same limited pool of Chinese buyers, driving deeper concessions and leaving cargoes idling — exactly the kind of sanctions-economy dynamic.

Add the West’s tightening focus on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ and the risk of seizures or insurance denial, and you get an energy chessboard where coercion moves from rhetoric to logistics: who can ship, insure and clear payments reliably becomes as strategic as who can produce.

In that context, Russia’s loud warnings about Hormuz disruption are not just diplomacy, they are a reminder that Moscow profits from volatility, but also needs a functioning gray-market channel to China, and Iran’s crisis threatens to scramble the very discount ecosystem Russia has used to finance its war in Ukraine. Structural realignment threatens the very gray-market architecture on which Moscow has relied.

Energy is only one layer of a global shift. Strategic minerals remain critical. The Trump administration has increased economic and maritime pressure on Cuba, tightening an effective oil blockade that choked off fuel imports. President Donald Trump has authorized tariffs targeting countries supplying oil to Havana.

This is not simply punitive policy. It reflects a broader strategic doctrine: deny adversarial regimes energy lifelines while repositioning the Western Hemisphere’s resource base toward U.S. leverage. Oil is only one domain. Rare earth elements are a strategic asset. Cuba’s nickel and cobalt output, combined with China’s tightening grip through rare-earth export controls indicates that leverage is not just oil fields but also supply chains. America achieving rare earth elements sovereignty will remain a strategic goal and such a global realignment on this front is much needed.

By the close of the first weekend, Iran appeared intent on accelerating its own collapse by compounding strategic error with strategic error. Iran felt it wise to respond to U.S. and Israeli strikes by pushing a half dozen other nations against it. On Saturday afternoon, Feb. 28, Iran launched attacks on seven sovereign nations – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Israel. It added Oman shortly after.

These nations now have a legal and political basis to deepen security ties with the U.S. and Israel that they could never have justified domestically before today. Iran has arguably done more to consolidate the anti-Iran regional architecture in one afternoon than a decade of American diplomacy. Watch for accelerated Abraham Accords-adjacent normalization with Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks.

Any sustained disruption of Iranian flows forces China into replacement buying that tightens global markets and exposes China’s own energy security…

After massacring thousands of its own citizens for demanding better governance, the regime’s long-standing presumption of U.S. inaction cost the 1979 Revolution its dream of ruling over Iranians perpetually. After 47 years, its leader is gone, and its core military capabilities are being dismantled.

The lesson is not simply that the Iranian regime is falling. It is that when it falls amid energy chokepoints and great-power competition, supply chains, alliances and leverage structures shift simultaneously. Iran’s collapse is not the end of the story; it is the catalyst for a broader redistribution of power across energy, alliances, and great-power leverage. America should exploit these shifting dynamics fully. 

The views expressed here are his and do not reflect the policy or positions of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Advisory Council, U.S. Army or Department of Defense. 

President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted Israel did not pressure him to conduct joint military strikes on Iran, claiming that he believed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ‘was going to attack first.’

Days after the regime leaders were killed and war erupted in Iran, Trump addressed the decision to conduct a joint U.S.-Israel attack on the country, explaining he ‘might have forced Israel’s hand.’

‘I might have forced their hand,’ Trump said from the White House Oval Office on Tuesday. ‘You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. … If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. … So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.’

Although sources previously told Fox News the timeline of the attack was moved up to seize an opportunity to strike regime leaders in downtown Tehran, Trump said both the U.S. and Israel were ready.

‘We’ve had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out,’ the president said. ‘Now, their missile count is going way down. Amazingly, they’re hitting countries that were, let’s call them neutral … I think they were surprised. I was surprised, I think. Now those countries are all fighting against them and fighting strongly against them.’

Trump’s comments came after Democrats criticized his decision to launch strikes with Israel in Iran without congressional approval.

Administration officials said they provided congressional notification to the ‘Gang of Eight,’ a bipartisan group of top congressional intelligence leaders, ahead of the strikes, but Congress did not hold a vote to approve them.

The Trump administration has argued the U.S. was facing an ‘imminent threat,’ prompting military action.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was not going to ‘sit there and absorb a blow’ from Iran, while War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation was not a ‘so-called regime change war’ or an open-ended conflict like that in Iraq.

Trump said he believes regardless of whether the U.S. took part in the strikes on Iran, Democrats would have been unhappy with his decision.

‘If I didn’t do this, guys like [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer who — losers, the Democrats [are] losers — … would say, ‘well, you should have done this.’ In other words, if I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, ‘that you should have done this.’’

He added he has ‘never had more compliments’ on presidential action he has taken, noting ‘people felt that something had to be done.’

‘We [might] have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe lower than even before,’ Trump said.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Senior Iranian clerics would have been left ‘exposed’ after an Israeli airstrike hit a meeting place where they were supposed to be convening Tuesday — days after a strike leveled the Tehran compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a defense analyst has claimed.

The clerics, members of the Assembly of Experts, had reportedly planned to meet at the location in Qom to deliberate succession plans for Khamenei, who was killed in the strikes, according to The Times of Israel.

‘This second strike would be another embarrassment to what has been left of the regime,’ Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, told Fox News Digital.

‘It indicates intelligence dominance and superiority because any movement is detected, meaning they would feel exposed,’ Michael added.

‘As of now, the leadership would feel insecure and hunted, with all of their plans collapsing one after another.’

‘They would feel totally isolated and understand that the biggest risk might come from home — from a potential uprising next,’ he added.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin confirmed that the Israeli Air Force struck the building where senior clerics had planned to assemble, The Times of Israel reported.

It remains unclear how many of the 88 members were present at the time of the strike, according to an Israeli defense source cited by the outlet. The second strike on Iran’s leadership comes amid a broader military campaign.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, U.S. forces have struck more than 1,700 targets across Iran in the first 72 hours of Operation Epic Fury, according to a U.S. Central Command fact sheet.

The campaign is aimed at dismantling Iran’s security apparatus and neutralizing what officials describe as imminent threats.

According to U.S. Central Command, targets have included command-and-control centers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Joint Headquarters, the IRGC Aerospace Forces headquarters, integrated air defense systems and ballistic missile sites.

‘We need strategic patience and determination, and in several weeks most of the job will be accomplished,’ Michael added. ‘Even if the regime does not collapse, Iran will not be like we used to know.

‘I assume that the U.S. and Israel will establish a very robust monitoring mechanism that will enable them to react whenever the regime tries to reconstitute its military capacities again.’

Iran is waging a mass drone campaign across the Middle East, unleashing waves of low-cost, one-way attack drones also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), against Western-linked targets to impose ‘exponential cost on the U.S.,’ a defense expert has warned.

As Tehran reportedly launched thousands of Shahed drones across the region and Iranian state media shared footage of underground stockpiles, Cameron Chell, CEO of drone maker and tech company Draganfly, said Iran’s strategy is designed to force high-end defenses to counter cheap aerial threats.

‘Even a hundred of these drones in the hands of a decentralized unit can cause terror in a neighboring state like never before imagined,’ Chell told Fox News Digital. ‘The Iranians cannot win the war with these drones, but like the [communist] Viet Cong [during the Vietnam War], they have an asymmetric capability that can prolong this war and create political pressure.’

‘Iran can drive terror in unimaginable ways and drive exponential costs on the U.S. side, having to target these small, very hard-to-detect drone units,’ he added.

Chell’s warning comes as tensions spiraled following Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran targeting nuclear sites, missile facilities and leadership that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several commanders.

The Iranian drones have proved deadly, having killed six U.S. service members in an attack on a tactical center in Kuwait earlier this week.

A CIA station in the U.S. Embassy in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was struck in an Iranian drone attack Tuesday, causing a limited fire but no reported injuries.

In Bahrain, drones reportedly identified as Iranian Shahed models smashed into the upper floors of the Era View Tower in Manama, about one mile from a U.S. Navy base.

An Iranian drone also struck a parking lot outside the U.S. Consulate in Dubai, while the United Arab Emirates said it intercepted Iranian missiles and drone attacks targeting the country.

‘Based on the engine sound, the apparent attack angle and the implied speed, to the best of my knowledge, this was a Shahed-class one-way attack drone,’ Chell said of the Dubai consulate attack video before suggesting the drone footage showed ‘a Shahed 191.’

Fars News Agency also released footage purporting to show scores of attack drones stockpiled in vast underground tunnels in Iran.

The video appeared to show rows of triangular-shaped drones on rocket launchers, missiles lined up, four to a launcher vehicle and walls adorned with Iranian flags and photographs of Khamenei. Outlets noted that the video’s timing and location remain unverified.

‘It is hard to confirm that Iran has the capability now to produce these drones in these volumes during wartime,’ Chell said of the stockpiling footage.

‘To the extent they were producing these in those numbers, a more-than-significant portion would have been for delivery to Russia — which does not seem impossible. That said, the drones in the underground propaganda video are Shahed 191 drones.’

A new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also underscored Chell’s comments on expense and range.

‘Right now, Iran is using a mixture of ballistic missiles and attack drones,’ said senior fellow Dara Massicot. ‘The methods are effective, but targeting drones in this way is resource-intensive and expensive, and it will drain certain types of interceptors quickly.’

‘Ground-based air defense interceptor missiles are not infinite, and the United States and its partners and allies have had stockpile challenges in this area for years,’ she added.

Another senior fellow, Steve Feldstein, added, ‘An important point is that the world is entering a new age of drone war as unmanned aircraft are proliferating on the battlefield in major conflicts and smaller ones.’

– James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker from Texas with a surging national profile, defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a nationally known politician, progressive firebrand, and vocal critic and foil of President Donald Trump, to win the Democratic Senate primary in Texas, according to the Associated Press.

Talarico, 36, will now try to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in Texas, as he faces off against the winner of a bruising Republican primary runoff between longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

This year’s Senate showdown in Texas is one of a handful across the country that could determine if Republicans hold their majority in the chamber in the midterm elections. The GOP currently controls the chamber 53-47.

In the final weeks leading up to Tuesday’s Democratic primary, race became a key factor in the showdown between Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian who is considered a rising star among Democrats, and Crockett, a civil rights attorney first elected to Congress in 2022.

Talarico, who is White, was accused a month ago by an influencer of calling former Rep. Colin Allred, a former rival for the 2026 Senate nomination, a ‘mediocre Black man.’ 

Allred, the 2024 Democratic Senate nominee, was making a second straight run after losing two years ago to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by eight points.

He ended his Senate campaign late last year, just before Crockett announced her candidacy. Allred, a former college football star who played professionally in the NFL and later became a civil rights attorney, is now running for his old House seat.

Morgan Thompson, the influencer who goes by the username @morga_tt on TikTok, in a social media post claimed Talarico told her in a private conversation that he had ‘signed up to run against a mediocre Black man, not a formidable, intelligent, Black woman.’

Pushing back against Thompson’s characterization of their conversation, Talarico said in a statement, ‘In my praise of Congresswoman Crockett, I described Congressman Allred’s method of campaigning as mediocre — but his life and service are not. I would never attack him on the basis of race.’

Allred, responding in a social media video on Monday, said: ‘James, if you want to compliment Black women, just do it. Just do it. Don’t do it while also tearing down a Black man.’

The 44-year-old Crockett, who is Black, said in a statement that Allred ‘drew a line in the sand.’

‘He made it clear that he did not take allegations of an attack on him as simply another day in the neighborhood, but more importantly, his post wasn’t about himself,’ Crockett, who was endorsed by Allred, said. ‘It was a moment that he decided to stand for all people who have been targeted and talked about in a demeaning way as our country continues to be divided.’

A couple of weeks later, Crockett claimed that a Talarico-aligned super PAC had darkened her skin tone in an ad and said it was ‘straight up racist.’

She also argued late last month that talk that she wasn’t electable statewide was a ‘dog whistle’ that was ‘tearing down a Black woman,’ and that she was the ‘most qualified’ candidate.

Talarico, who was first elected to the Texas House in 2018 by flipping a red district in northeast Austin and surrounding suburbs, highlighted his ability to win over Republican voters. And he questioned whether Crockett could run a competitive general election campaign.

While dramatically outraising and outspending Crockett the past two months, Talarico cast himself as the underdog in the primary battle against the better-known congresswoman.

Talarico, who speaks openly about his faith and how it shapes his progressive policy agenda, last year started garnering national attention through a slew of social media appearances that went viral. Also boosting his profile were his TikTok videos, which have grabbed millions of views, and his appearance last July on Joe Rogan’s top-rated podcast.

Rogan suggested during the interview that Talarico should run for president.

A month later, Talarico was a regular on the cable news networks, conducting dozens of national media interviews, as he and dozens of his fellow Democrats in the Texas House fled the state for weeks, to delay the eventual Trump-led redistricting push in Texas to create up to five more right-leaning congressional seats

Talarico launched his Senate campaign a month later, in September.

Last month, Talarcio grabbed even more national attention when his appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ was bumped off broadcast TV and instead appeared on YouTube. Colbert accused his network, CBS, of blocking the interview by citing guidelines from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The controversy appeared to boost Talarico, with his campaign saying they hauled in $2.5 million in fundraising in the 24 hours ‘following his censored’ interview.