Ides of Hormuz
A war without leaders
The Ides of March. March 15. Despite numerous warnings, Caesar walked into a room full of friends and received twenty-three knives in return. No debate. No negotiation. No appeal. Just the sound of metal and surprise.
Since that day, this date has carried one meaning: what happens when you ignore every sign that the people around you have already decided.
The United States asked every ally it has to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz. China declined. France declined. Japan: “We make our own decisions and will not send ships to the Strait of Hormuz just because Trump asks us to”. Germany, Norway, Italy, Hungary — all declined. Switzerland refused two overflight requests. Iran received calls from thirty countries asking for bilateral passage agreements.
The knives were diplomatic this time. But Caesar is just as alone.
Semafor broke the news Saturday evening. US officials confirming what the interceptor maths have been screaming since day one: Israel is critically low on ballistic missile interceptors. They entered the war already depleted from last year’s conflict. Not my math anymore. Officials this time, on the record, for publication. The cupboard isn’t running bare. It’s bare.
And Iran knows it.
Wave 54 of True Promise brought the Sejjil-2 into combat for the first time. The solid-fuel ballistic missile I wrote about a few days ago. Mach 17 at its terminal phase. Solid-fuel means it rolls out of the underground city and fires. The interceptor meant to stop them are gone. The radar meant to track it was killed in week one.
Iran spent two weeks stripping the armour. The Sejjil is what you needed the armour for.
At 02:24 on Sunday morning, a ballistic missile launched toward central Israel. Sirens sounded at 02:27. Three minutes. Whatever is left of the sensor network — and there isn’t much — bought three minutes. Standard warning time is fifteen.
A later strike hit Tel Aviv with no warning at all.
Cluster munitions scattered across Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, Petah Tikva.
Channel 12 reported significant destruction and fires at three locations. Dead and wounded pulled from a building in Bnei Brak.
A hundred and ninety-eight alerts in one salvo. A hundred and forty-three more an hour later.
Protests in Tel Aviv – fires set in the streets, crowds heading toward government buildings.
ILRedAlert@ILRedAlert
Since the start of the war, Israel’s Compensation Fund has received 10,946 claims. Of these, 7,648 are for building damage, 1,179 for contents and equipment, 1,945 for vehicle damage, and 174 for other types of losses.
Israel’s compensation fund has received 10,946 claims since the war began. Seven thousand six hundred of those for building damage. The paperwork is outpacing the Pentagon’s casualty count by roughly a thousand to one. Someone’s numbers are wrong.
Netanyahu released a video. Drinking coffee. Showing five fingers, because the AI version from yesterday gave him six.
The internet went forensic immediately. Coffee doesn’t spill. Level doesn’t change after he drinks. Some say AI. Some say actor. A Kuwaiti daily says he’s being treated in Moscow. Turkish TV says dead. A French colonel says the announcement comes “tomorrow”. Still no live appearance. No press conference. Absent from the military council for the first time in Israeli history. Yair – relentless tweeter – has been silent now for six days. The Air Force Chief, the Mossad Director, Ben Gvir… The list is getting longer. All missing from the public eye.
On Friday, CENTCOM’s line was careful: 90 military targets destroyed on Kharg island while “preserving the oil infrastructure”. Day 14 opened with the proof — two Iranian tankers loading. The oil wasn’t touched.
By Saturday night, the story had changed. Trump on NBC: the strikes “totally demolished” most of the island. Then, almost as an afterthought: “we may hit it a few more times just for fun”.
Schrödinger’s island. Both demolished and intact…
Hours later, Iran’s Foreign Minister went on CBS Face the Nation. “There are people being killed only because President Trump wants to have fun”.
Same word. Same day. One man using it about his bombing campaign. The other about his country’s dead.
Araghchi in the same interview: “We never asked for a ceasefire or negotiations. We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes until Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war”.
But he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed something subtler the same day: “We welcome any regional initiative that leads to a fair end to the war”. First time Iran has used language that isn’t pure refusal. Not a ceasefire offer. But a door cracked open for regional mediation. The hardliners say fight forever. The diplomats leave a narrow lane. Maybe they’re reading from the same script. Probably.
US intelligence shared with Trump apparently shows the late Ayatollah had documented reservations about Mojtaba’s suitability. The IRGC installed him anyway. Al Jarida claims Mojtaba is in Moscow for medical treatment – flown out on a military plane. If true, Russia is physically hosting Iran’s Supreme Leader during an active war. That stops being an alliance signal and starts being the alliance itself.
Neither leader – Israeli or Iranian – confirmed alive in person. Both countries are running this war on autopilot. No sign-off required.
Three million Iranians forcibly displaced. The IDF has shifted from chasing missile launchers to targeting Basij militia checkpoints – the neighbourhood-level enforcers. The stated goal: clear the streets so civilians can protest against their own government. Quds Day marches happened under active bombing two days ago. Millions turned out. But remove a few checkpoints and the revolution starts. Any minute now. Just like the missiles that are running out any day now…
Goldman put the Hormuz numbers on paper. Flows collapsed from 19.5 million barrels per day to 0.5 million. Nearly all of that trickle is Chinese tankers, which have been sailing through since day one. Everyone else is at anchor.
Jeff Currie – two decades on Goldman’s commodity desk, now at Carlyle – put the recovery timeline at 200 days. From a ceasefire that doesn’t exist.
Energy Secretary Wright told Americans to wait “a few more weeks” for gas prices to come down. Currie counts in months. Wright counts in whatever unit makes the next press conference survivable.
If China and India formalise their passage arrangements, roughly 7 million barrels per day could be restored – about 39% of what’s offline. The Strait isn’t closed. It’s a yuan-denominated toll booth, and Iran is building the replacement maritime order one bilateral deal at a time.
Hegseth’s contribution: “The Strait of Hormuz is open for business… it’s just Iran is shooting drones”. Just drones. Like Vesuvius was just a mountain.
Those things are just sinking tankers, just destroying billions in radar infrastructure, and just taking tours of American bases (more on that later).
⭕️ Hezbollah announces to have targeted Palmachim Air Base this morning (06h00) with a Ballistic Missile. Sirens sounded around 05h40 in the area.
8:49 AM · Mar 15, 2026 · 43.8K Views
Hezbollah hit Palmachim Air Base with a ballistic missile at six in the morning. Palmachim is where Israel tests Jericho nuclear-capable missiles. Where the Arrow interceptor batteries live. Hezbollah reached both, from Lebanon. The range of what’s coming out of the north stretches further every day, and the targets keep getting more sensitive.
Forty-two operations on Saturday alone. A Merkava burning in Taybeh. Bar Lev Industrial Area hit with Grad and Arash rockets. Hezbollah claims it killed General Omer Tischler at Shtula on the border – single source, unverified, but they also claim to be entering the town. Third position Israel would be losing on the northern line.
Twelve paramedics killed in a single IDF strike in the south. The people running toward the wounded became the dead.
Then Baghdad. Iraqi Resistance released FPV drone footage from inside the US Victoria Base. The base was handed back to Iraq in 2011 – so not really an achievement, but I want to point out that the FPV revolution just arrived in Mesopotamia after it was perfected in Ukraine.
Missiles were also fired from Iraq at Tel Aviv for the first time. New launch axis. The country America spent twenty years and two trillion dollars rebuilding is now sending ordnance toward the country America is spending twelve billion defending.
Five European countries physically leaving Harir Airbase in Erbil.
Syria’s army took the Rumeilan base north of Hasakah after the coalition withdrew. The vacuum is being filled, just not by anyone Washington invited.
Araghchi confirmed on camera that HIMARS were fired from UAE soil — Ras Al Khaimah — at Kharg and Abu Musa Islands. This one is different from the Bahrain HIMARS a week ago. The UAE is now named by Iran’s own foreign minister. On the record.
The US issued a $10 million bounty on Mojtaba Khamenei and Ali Larijani. Ten million for the Supreme Leader of a country whose military is currently winning a war of attrition against the combined air forces of America and Israel. Iran can’t find Mojtaba, Israel can’t find Netanyahu. Most expensive game of hide-and-seek. Ever.
SPR dump: 86 million barrels next week, via exchange programme. Against a 17.2 million barrel per day disruption, that covers five days. Five.
Formula 1 cancelled the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix. $189 million in revenue, gone. Plenty of things still going fast in the Gulf. Just not on a track.
Hassett confirmed $12 billion spent on the war. The FT reported US oil companies earning an extra $63 billion this year from it. Five billion dollars this month alone. Twelve billion to fight it. Sixty-three billion to profit from it. Someone in that equation is having fun.
The US’ biggest export has been gold for three of the last four months. Only time that’s happened in at least twenty years. Probably ever. The reserve currency country settling its trade deficit in metal. I covered the structural shift in my previous “The Bretton Whoops” article. If this continues, we know it’s happening.
Silver at $80-81. James Turk notes the $5,000/$80 floors are being tested with a liquidity crunch building that looks like 2008.
The lease rate hasn’t hit zero on a single day in the past year. The physical market was seizing before the first bomb fell.
COT data: crude net longs at 466,000 contracts, fifteen-month high. SPR covers five days. Gas at $3.70, up 28%.
Dubai’s real estate index dropped 30% in fourteen days. Emaar and Aldar both down 18%.
S&P 500 financials having their worst year since 2020. Ares and Blackstone each down 30% or more. The private credit cascade keeps going. Hartnett at BofA: “trading the 2008 analog”. Nasdaq breadth worst since April.
The Fed meets Wednesday. Futures open tonight. The market hasn’t priced in any of this yet.
Tucker Carlson claims the CIA is preparing criminal charges linked to his pre-war communications with Iran. ABC and Reuters confirmed three Oval Office meetings in February, roughly ninety minutes each. A former CIA analyst said he’s “genuinely worried for Tucker’s safety”.
Two senior Iranian officials – Larijani and Marandi – issued separate warnings about a planned false flag attack. 9/11-style. Blame Iran. I’ve been tracking this pattern since day two. Loads of incidents by now. And now public warnings from the top of the security establishment. Either they have intelligence, or they’re building the counter-narrative in advance. Either way, it lands heavier than the missiles.
Caesar was warned. He walked in anyway. And the senate – every last one of them – already had their answer ready.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/03/16/march-15-ides-of-hormuz