Episode Details

Ali Larijani is dead. The head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council — the most visible surviving official of the Islamic Republic since the Supreme Leader went into hiding — was killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike. His son, his chief of staff, and his security detail died with him. So did Gholamreza Soleimani, the Basij commander. Iran fired over one hundred missiles at Israel in retaliation. Two people are dead near Tel Aviv.

In Washington, Trump's own counterterrorism director resigned in protest. Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, posted his resignation letter publicly. He wrote that Iran posed no imminent threat, that the war was started due to pressure from Israel and its lobby, and that it is not too late to reverse course. Trump said it was a good thing Kent was out. Senator Mark Warner said Kent was right about the threat assessment.

The United States dropped five-thousand-pound bunker-busting bombs on hardened Iranian missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude hit one hundred and fourteen dollars a barrel — the highest price since the COVID pandemic. Iraq's oil production has collapsed from four point three million barrels per day to one point two million. The Fertilizer Institute warned that fifty percent of global urea exports transit the Hormuz — this is now threatening global food security.

Saudi Arabia hosted the first formal Arab foreign ministers' summit on the war. The Lebanese Army's first fatalities of the conflict were confirmed — soldiers killed by an Israeli airstrike in the south. And in Iran, Nowruz — the Persian New Year — falls on Friday. Families are gathering for funerals instead of festivities. The old year's troubles will not be left behind by a bonfire this time.

Day nineteen. The men who might have ended this war are dead. The war continues.