@zachsdorfman
National Security Reporter. Features in Politico, Rolling Stone, Wired, Foreign Policy. Working on a book on the history of deep cover for Penguin-Random House. It’s always Berlin 1989 somewhere. Email: thebrushpass1@protonmail.com
The U.S. military torpedoed an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/u...
The potential for the Iran War to lead to the extreme destabilization of Iraq, up to and including something like civil war or even Iranian incursions over the border, has been an under-discussed element of the current crisis.
the bsky experience-
guy: *news story about munitions that is pretty sensationalist*
me: hey I don't think that's really accurate
guy: source????
me: well I don't have one right now but yknow I do have just a bit of professional experience with US air delivered munitions
guy: *instant block*
Nuclear weapons are stored at Incirlik.
In a world where insiders place corrupt bets on still-secret US military actions before they are initiated; & the FBI fires Iran counterintelligence specialists days before the domestic terrorism threat rises to its highest levels in years, the old notion of “insider threat” is well and truly dead.
NEW: The CIA has been working to arm Kurdish forces with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran, multiple people familiar with the plan told CNN.
www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/p...
muting all BREAKING and CONFIRMED from people who have never reported out a story in their lives.
New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary apps—video games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...
Gen. Nakasone, former head of the NSA & an OpenAI board member, called out the Pentagon's move to designate Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" at a conference in Sausalito last night.
"This is not a good space for our nation."
more @axios.com:
www.axios.com/2026/03/03/n...
There are at least 10,000 Amcits in Qatar alone, and the US government is saying we are on our own
"After just a few minutes, Trump has moved on from his war in Iran to the curtains he’s picked out for the White House and his new ballroom" www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...
Striking Hegseth press conference. In his effort to insist war is limited and bounded, he frames war aims almost entirely around Iranian missiles, essentially ignoring everything Trump has said about regime change. Naturally, he insults and belittles journalists who quote Trump's 4-5 weeks comment.
"consider" and "care" are two very different things
What happened
Tehran may be “known for its retaliatory cyberattacks” but that record has to be contextualized against the level of leadership decapitation (SL, MOIS, IRGC) going on. The human operators in the relevant offensive cyber units are going to have more…pressing concerns in a potentially collapsing state
This is all directly relevant to my Politico story that got pushed because of the war btw
I’m not minimizing the pain. But this is not the first anyone’s first rodeo. And last time I checked, Argentina never bombed Lebanon or Iran.
Your daughter loves her preschool and Lake Michigan sparkles the most incredible shade of blue in the summer.
Why die for a regime thats already dead? Unless martyrdom is the goal.
The question might come down to how many true believers are actually left. And how many of those overseeing arms caches, target packages, just want to continue living their lives in Brooklyn, LA, Chicago etc
Maybe. That’s the cheery scenario, and shouldn’t be discounted. But there are others. The same person told me that, historically, there were known IJO cells w/i US as well as ones the IC knew it hadn’t nailed down.
I spoke w/ former senior CIA official w/ extensive Iran/Hezbollah experience about this. He argued that, once sleeper QF or Hez (IJO) operatives in US saw the writing on the wall, they’d opt to lay low instead of committing terror attacks. Likened it to Soviet deep-cover spies at end of Cold War.
There’s a lot of stories that are going to be able to be told now. I’ve got a few.
Whatever comes next, what‘s incontrovertible is that Iran will now define the rest of the second Trump presidency. You break it, you own it.
Looks like the US/Israel killed the MOIS head of counterintelligence, chief of staff, and the head of its CT programs.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
Exclusive: Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei would be replaced by hardline IRGC elements if killed, sources say reut.rs/4l9SCAs
I really hope FBI counterterrorism officials were substantively briefed on all this and had a plan in place for possible contingencies.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are also at war right now.
