INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT

02.26.2026

February 26^th, 2026

Greetings! Clearly, Iran got the memo from Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev. You can catch more American flies with honey than with vinegar. In the case of Steve Witkoff & Jared Kushner—Team Trump’s chief negotiators—the Iranian honey is coming in the form of fool’s gold-like economic incentives.

Photo credit: Foreign Ministry of Oman. Kushner (left), Witkoff (center) & Oman’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi.

Greed—one of the seven deadly sins—is a classic maneuver. Tragically—actually, outrageously—Witkoff & Kushner appear to fall for it every time.

First with Russia. Now with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei & his evil regime of thugs.

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Tehran hopes to entice Team Trump with financial incentives to avoid a war & convince the U.S. to agree on a limited nuclear deal—sunset clauses included.

Sound familiar?

It’s straight out of Dmitriev’s playbook. It is also just a rehash of the failed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Unlike 2016—however—Iran is taking a cue from Dmitriev is dangling deals in front of Team Trump. Plus, we know what they are.

Earlier this month, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Ghanbari told Iranian businessmen that “common interests in the fields of oil and gas, including joint fields [with neighboring countries], as well as investments in mining and even the purchase of civilian aircraft, have been included in the talks with the U.S.”

According to one source, the Iranian ‘deal’ was described as a “commercial bonanza to appeal to Trump’s penchant for deals promising a financial dividend for the U.S.” The “major economic bonanza” supposedly includes investment opportunities in its vast oil and gas reserves, and critical minerals.

If only it were that simple. It is not. Team Trump is fundamentally miscalculating when it comes to negotiating with Iran.

Team Trump—in their view—see business deals as a way of achieving bilateral or regional peace. Khamenei—like Russian President Vladimir Putin—views business deals as a means to an end to achieve his military & regional goals.

Plus, Tehran wants to keep negotiations narrowly focused on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Doing so would be dangerous. Iran’s uranium enrichment program is only one of at least four contentious national security issues on the table.

The other three main matters include ending Tehran’s ballistic missile program, stopping Khamenei’s support for armed militias across the Middle East—including Hamas, Hezbollah & the Houthis, and putting a halt to Iran’s ongoing brutal suppression & execution of Iranian protesters.

Significantly, Iran is trying to adopt the Russian tactic of negotiating directly with the U.S.—utilizing financial incentives—then having the White House dictate the conditions of any bilateral deal to Israel. They are trying to drive a wedge between the U.S. & its strategic partner in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not likely to play along with that game & Israel will not be coerced into a bad deal that lines the pockets of the U.S. Nor are—in our opinion—Trump’s top generals.

Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, & Adm. Brad Cooper, the Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) are more likely than not pushing back on Witkoff & Kushner’s naïve approach to Iran.

Khamenei—as a regional & potentially global threat—is not going to go away. Neither will his regime if he dies.

Trump’s generals & admirals likely get it that attacking Iran will be the equivalent of opening a Pandora’s Box. It is not going to be a simple one & done operation.

It will require a sustained series of sorties. It also will require the active participation of the Israeli Defense Forces—and even then, the outcome will not be certain.

Iran—however—is not developing in a vacuum. There is more to cover around the globe today, including the outcome of today’s peace talks with the Iranians in Geneva, Switzerland.

Let’s get started!

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NORTH AMERICA

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is on a collision course with Anthropic—a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) company—over its refusal to allow the firm’s applications to be used by the War Department for either “domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.” The company’s AI program—Claude—is widely used at the Pentagon.

Purportedly, Claude was used to help capture Nicolás Maduro—the former Venezuelan president—in early January. According to the Wall Street Journal, AI “tools can be used for everything from summarizing documents to controlling autonomous drones.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is holding firm. Ditto the Pentagon. Emil Michael—the chief Pentagon AI negotiator—called Amodei a “liar,” said that he has a “God complex” & claimed he is “putting our nation’s safety at risk.”

Photo credit: Chance Yeh / Getty. Amodei.

Hegseth has given Anthropic a 5:01 PM ET Friday deadline to comply or face cancellation of its contract. The Pentagon has also threatened that it might invoke the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to agree.

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EUROPE

Trident—the United Kingdom’s submarine-based nuclear ballistic missile—may not be able to penetrate Russian air defenses in the near future according to a new study. The U.K. relies on the Trident to provide nuclear deterrence.

Sidharth Kaushal—the author of the study—based his findings on Israel’s 90% interception rate of Iran’s ballistic missile strikes last year. He also warned that France’s nuclear deterrent is also threatened.

Photo credit: Lockheed Martin. Trident II D5 ballistic missile.

Unlike the U.K., in addition to submarine-based nuclear ballistic missiles, France also maintains air-launch capabilities. Neither country has land-based nuclear launch capabilities. France eliminated theirs in 1996.

This is significant. Europe—increasingly wary of the U.S. commitment to European security—may find itself without an effective nuclear shield.

Below, we criticize the U.S. for a lack of urgency. Europe needs to do the same. Talk is cheap. Action this day—Winston Churchill’s famous phrase—is what’s needed.

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MIDDLE EAST

We may be fast approaching the zero hour in Iran. Notably, the next full moon in Iran is on March 3^rd.

If the U.S. is going to strike, it likely will be before that (key word “if”). That doesn’t mean that Trump will hit Iran.

Nonetheless, the military buildup continues. Plus, the net result of talks today, despite positive statements from Oman—the official state mediator—and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, by most U.S.-based accounts, is that the two sides remain far apart.

Iran is still insisting on sanctions relief. Ditto a sunset clause versus a permanent ban to enrich uranium. Tehran also remains unwilling to give up its ballistic missiles program—a red line for Israel—and its support of IRGC-backed militias.

War—at this point—absent an unforeseen breakthrough, seems unavoidable. Likewise, so too what the day after looks like.

As we noted in The Hill, regime change—while needed in Iran—is never easy. Time will tell if that’s the case or not in Iran.

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AFRICA

Peace between Rwanda & the Democratic Republic of Congo remains as elusive as ever despite last June’s U.S.-sponsored peace deal known as the Washington Accords. The decades-old war continues to flare up.

The M23 rebel group—backed by Rwanda—conducted a major military operation in the eastern part of Congo in early December. Rwanda denies its involvement, however, M23 has admitted it is conducting “defensive movements” in Congo.

The U.S. was preparing sanctions against Rwanda for violating the Washington Accords but is holding off for now.

The White House is insisting that M23 completely withdraw from the Congo & is pressuring Rwandan President Paul Kagame to force the rebel group to comply.

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INDO-PACIFIC

Caine—rightly, in our view—is purportedly at odds with the new 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) largely penned by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby & his office at the Pentagon.

Photo credit: Jonathan Ernst/ Reuters. Trump (left), Hegseth (center) & Caine.

According to CNN, Caine was concerned last September that the NDS draft “underplayed the threat posed by China and the US military’s need to prepare for a potential future conflict in the Indo-Pacific.”

We share that concern.

We also are deeply alarmed at the continued lack of urgency in Washington—not just at the White House, but on Capitol Hill & at the Pentagon too—that the U.S. continues to lag in producing critical weapon systems & munitions—including Patriot interceptors, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Systems (THAAD), & Tomahawks.

If munitions are scarce to confront Iran & its growing nuclear & ballistic missile threats, then that necessarily means they are also scarce to deter Chinese President Xi Jinping from blockading or invading Taiwan.

It also begs the question who is leaking this & why? If they are scarce, why telegraph that to Beijing? Indeed, why telegraph that to Tehran if you are trying to reach a diplomatic settlement in Geneva?

Something doesn’t add up here. It could be competing factions—China versus Iran hawks. It could be disinformation. Or a bit of both.

Regardless—on a surface level—it is clear that we do not appear to be doing enough when it comes to manufacturing arms & munitions.

That has to change. Especially since the Center for Strategic Studies—a Washington, D.C.-based think tank—“estimated the U.S. fired up to 20 percent of the Standard Missile-3 interceptors it was expected to have on hand in 2025, and between 20 to 50 percent of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles.”

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ICYMI!

Today, in our weekly Thursday 7 AM ET national security column at The Hill in Washington, D.C., we called out Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán & Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico for who they are: Putin’s NATO pawns.

Photo credit: Omar Havana / AP. Fico (left) and Orbán.

You can read it here.

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Jon & Mark

Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.