Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at military developments in the Iran war, joint U.S.-Ecuador operations against alleged narcoterrorists, and Turkey’s offer to broker a cease-fire between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
‘We Have Only Just Begun to Fight’
The Trump administration is not easing up its military pressure on Iran as both U.S. and Israeli forces continue to bombard the country. “Four days in, we have only just begun to fight,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday while adding that the conflict could last up to eight weeks.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at military developments in the Iran war, joint U.S.-Ecuador operations against alleged narcoterrorists, and Turkey’s offer to broker a cease-fire between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
‘We Have Only Just Begun to Fight’
The Trump administration is not easing up its military pressure on Iran as both U.S. and Israeli forces continue to bombard the country. “Four days in, we have only just begun to fight,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday while adding that the conflict could last up to eight weeks.
“The mission is laser-focused,” Hegseth added. “Obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones and facilities that produce them, annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure, and sever their pathway to nuclear weapons.” The White House is also reportedly considering arming Kurdish groups in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran that are opposed to the regime in Tehran. And U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to rule out deploying U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Since the U.S.-Israel war against Iran began on Saturday, Tehran’s ballistic missile fire has gone down by 86 percent, said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a Wednesday briefing. The Defense Department also confirmed that a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka’s southern coast, killing at least 87 people, with roughly 60 others still unaccounted for.
Israel is similarly carrying out an aggressive military strategy. Israeli forces launched a wave of airstrikes on Tehran and Beirut on Wednesday, with the latter targeting sites that Israel said were linked to the Iranian-backed proxy group Hezbollah. For the first time in around 40 years, Israel also engaged in air-to-air combat with a manned aircraft. On Wednesday, an Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jet shot down a Russian-made Iranian Yak-130 jet over Tehran.
Meanwhile, the war continued to reverberate across the region. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani condemned Tehran’s continued strikes on Gulf states during a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday. Tehran is seeking to “harm its neighbors and drag them into a war that is not theirs,” Sheikh Mohammed said. This was Qatar’s first high-level contact with Iran since the war began.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry also accused Iran on Wednesday of firing a ballistic missile toward its airspace, adding that Ankara used NATO air and missile defenses to thwart the threat. As a member of NATO that shares a 300-mile border with Iran, an attack on Turkey could activate the alliance’s mutual defense clause. “NATO stands firmly with all allies, including Turkey, as Iran continues its indiscriminate attacks across the region,” NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said.
Just days earlier, NATO chief Mark Rutte maintained that “there are absolutely no plans whatever for NATO to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel.”
French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier on Tuesday to move from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea to help protect allied assets, citing a drone strike on Monday on a British military base in Cyprus as evidence of the threat to Paris’s partners. The deployment was also intended to help defend the roughly 400,000 French citizens in the Middle Easta French official speaking on condition of anonymity due to his position told FP’s World Brief.
But some U.S. allies appear more ambivalent. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for all sides on Wednesday to de-escalate while criticizing Washington and Israel for having “acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada.” He said that Ottawa’s support for military action comes “with regret.”
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Tackling narcotrafficking. The United States and Ecuador launched joint military operations on Tuesday targeting what the U.S. military said were “narco-terrorists” in the South American country. The announcement signals an expansion of the Trump administration’s efforts to combat drug trafficking in Latin America, and it comes a day after U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Francis Donovan met with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and other senior officials in Quito.
U.S. special forces are assisting Ecuadorian troops in raids on suspected drug-shipment facilities and other drug-related sites, though a U.S. official told the New York Times that U.S. forces are not directly involved in these operations. Washington is also providing intelligence and logistics support.
Ecuador is a crucial transit point for the movement of illicit drugs from neighboring Colombia into the United States. Such a role has fueled gang violence in the country; Ecuador has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. To combat this, Noboa—a Trump loyalist—has sought to position Quito as Washington’s ally in the region at a time when many Latin American nations are increasingly concerned by growing U.S. military intervention in the Western Hemisphere.
Mediation offer. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered on Wednesday to mediate cease-fire talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan as cross-border clashes stretched into their sixth day. According to a statement by Ankara’s presidential office, Erdogan “condemned the terrorist attacks in Pakistan” during a phone call with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and offered to contribute to the reestablishment of peace. Sharif’s office did not confirm Erdogan’s offer but did say they “exchanged views on recent developments” and vowed to remain in close contact.
Although Erdogan did not personally reach out to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan reportedly called Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi last week to discuss the situation. Kabul has not yet commented on Erdogan’s offer.
Turkey (alongside Qatar) brokered a truce last October that suspended bouts of heavy fighting between the two adversaries until further negotiations could take place. However, several rounds of talks in November failed to produce a long-term solution, and peace efforts stalled. Both countries have occasionally traded fire since then before erupting into “open war” last Thursday.
Moscow’s economic woes. German intelligence accused Russia on Wednesday of concealing the true cost of its war against Ukraine. According to Moscow, Russia’s budget deficit is 5.65 trillion rubles (nearly $73 billion), accounting for 2.6 percent of the country’s GDP. However, Berlin estimates that Russia’s budget deficit is actually more than 2.36 trillion rubles (around $30 billion) higher than officially stated—totaling a whopping 8.01 trillion rubles (almost $103 billion).
President Vladimir Putin is “sacrificing Russia’s economic future for his imperial goals,” Germany’s foreign intelligence agency wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday. Although the agency did not specify how it calculated these figures, it claimed that Western sanctions—notably, those on Russia’s oil industry—are a main cause of the Kremlin’s financial woes.
Moscow did not comment on Berlin’s allegations. However, a source close to the Kremlin told Reuters last month that Moscow’s public deficit could almost triple by the end of this year due to a decline in Indian purchases of Russian crude. Russian oil and gas revenue fell by almost a quarter last year, according to Moscow’s Finance Ministry. And in February, New Delhi agreed to stop buying Russian oil (and instead buy American) as part of a trade agreement with the United States.
Odds and Ends
A long-lost Rembrandt painting is back on display for the first time in decades. Art historians removed “Vision of Zacharias in the Temple” from the Dutch artist’s oeuvre in 1960, believing it was created by someone in his workshop rather than Rembrandt himself. The piece was then sold to a private collector and disappeared from public view. That was, until Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum acquired the painting and began a two-year investigation to redetermine its authenticity. Specialists have pointed to the artist’s use of thick paint layers (known as impasto) as evidence of Rembrandt’s style. But if you’re still not convinced, you can see it for yourself; the Rijksmuseum unveiled “Vision of Zacharias in the Temple” on Wednesday for all art aficionados to enjoy.
Great Job Alexandra Sharp & the Team @ World Brief – Foreign Policy for sharing this story.
