Live Updates: Fears that US-Israel war with Iran will drag on causes stocks to plummet and oil price to soar

President Trump will hold a press conference in Miami around 5:30 pm ET today.

In a social media post, Trump did not say whether the press conference would be on a particular topic; However, he is expected to speak about the conflict in Iran, a White House official told News themezone.

The press conference comes amid growing concerns about high oil and gasoline prices due to the ongoing war.

The president spent most of the weekend at his Miami-area golf club and has had “many important meetings and phone calls,” according to the publication. Earlier on Monday, Trump said he spoke with Australia’s prime minister.

Trump is expected to return to Washington, DC this evening.

Watch a live stream of President Trump’s press conference on News themezone 24/7 and News.

The Isfahan nuclear site in Iran was stalled amid the US-Israel conflict with Tehran; However, any damage appears to be minor, said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

He did not say when the place was attacked or by what forces from which countries.

Satellite images taken on Sunday show destroyed tunnel entrances at the Isfahan missile complex.

Meanwhile, satellite images of Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility have also shown damage to buildings and additional damage throughout the facility complex.

“Since the beginning of this campaign, we have seen some impacts in Natanz, a couple, and one in Isfahan. I must say that they are not very important,” Grossi said, speaking to reporters in Paris.

“What we saw was an impact near an axis, in one of the tunnels there and this is all we saw,” he said.

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The US military lost two more MQ-9 Reaper drones during “Operation Epic Fury” in Iran, according to two US officials. This brings the total to 11 drones lost so far.

MQ-9 Reaper drones are unmanned aerial vehicles used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions or to conduct precision strikes. Drones are easier to shoot down because they were designed for counterterrorism environments with little air defense, not for countries with modern missile systems.

Its top speed is about 300 mph, which is slow compared to a fighter jet with a speed of about 1,200 to 1,900 mph.

The total cost of 11 reapers is more than $330 million.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “it is solely up to this regime and the so-called Revolutionary Guard to stop the fighting.”

He added that “as long as this is not the case, I assume that Israel and the United States will continue their defense against this regime.”

Merz said the threat posed by the Iranian government goes far beyond the region, pointing to its support for Russia in the war in Ukraine. He said that “Iran is the center of international terrorism, and this center must be closed. And the Americans and the Israelis are doing it their way.”

He also said he is “concerned” about rising energy costs as oil prices soared and stocks plummeted.

“We know this could have an impact on the German economy,” he said.

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Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian praised the election of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as his country’s new supreme leader.

In a social media post, Pezeshkian said the decision to name the former supreme leader’s son as his successor is a “manifestation of the will of the people in government.”

“Resolving the country’s problems can be achieved through your wise leadership and creating an environment based on trust and public participation,” he wrote. “I pray to God for your success in safeguarding sacred unity and building an advanced and independent Iran.”

The supreme leader, chosen by a clerical body, has the final say on all major policies, including war, peace and the country’s controversial nuclear program.

President Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday that he spoke with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about concerns around offering asylum to the Iranian women’s soccer team.

“It’s on! Five have already been treated and the rest are on the way,” he wrote. “Some, however, feel they must return because they are concerned about the safety of their families, including threats to those members if they do not return.”

He said Albanese is doing “a very good job in this rather delicate situation.”

Earlier on Monday, Trump weighed in on the situation, saying that if Australia did not offer the soccer team asylum, the United States would.

The Australian government has not responded to a request from News themezone to confirm that any of the women had requested asylum.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is “on track” to destroy Iran’s ability to threaten its neighbors and the world with missiles.

Speaking at a State Department ceremony honoring Americans wrongfully detained abroad, Rubio said the United States’ goal in the conflict is to eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, its ability to produce them and its ability to launch them.

“We are on track to achieve that goal every day with overwhelming force, with overwhelming precision,” he said. “The military, the United States military, the men and women in uniform are carrying out an extraordinary operation.”

He added: “Every day, this regime in Iran has fewer missiles, fewer launchers, its factories work less and its navy is being gutted, and the world will be a better and safer place when this mission is accomplished.”

HMS Prince of Wales, one of the United Kingdom’s two aircraft carriers, will likely not be sent to the Middle East, despite being placed in an advanced state of readiness over the weekend, News themezone partner BBC reported.

Sources told the BBC that the aircraft carrier was likely to head to the Arctic to take part in NATO exercises there.

British officials said the aircraft carrier, which is currently stationed in Portsmouth, was not being prepared for Iran-related activities and that the prime minister’s office said there was “no decision to deploy it,” the Financial Times reported.

The decision to scrap any plans to send HMS Prince of Wales to the Middle East comes after President Trump indicated in a social media post on Saturday that no UK aircraft carrier was needed in the war effort.

The United Kingdom was “finally seriously thinking about sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” Trump wrote. “Okay, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them anymore, but we’ll remember. We don’t need people joining wars after we’ve already won!”

Earlier this month, Starmer announced that he had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for what he said was the “specific and limited defensive purpose” of destroying Iranian missiles, but said the UK would not join the war.

Trump and Starmer spoke by phone on Sunday, Downing Street said in a statement.

Iran’s top diplomat on Monday reveled in the surge in energy prices caused by the US-Israel war with his country, teasing in a social media post that what he sardonically referred to as “Operation Epic Fail” had caused prices of all commodities to “skyrocket.”

“We know that the United States is plotting against our oil and nuclear sites in the hope of containing a huge inflationary shock,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a social media post. “Iran is fully prepared. And we also have many surprises in store.”

A White House spokesperson told News themezone earlier Monday that “President Trump and his entire energy team have had a solid plan to keep energy markets stable long before Operation Epic Fury began, and will continue to review all credible options.”

U.S. stocks fell in early trading Monday after oil prices surpassed $100 a barrel over the weekend and the war in Iran showed no signs of abating.

The S&P 500 fell 88 points, or 1.3%, to 6,652 in early trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 632 points, or 1.3%, to 46,870. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.3%.

Financial markets have been extremely volatile since the war in the Middle East began last week. The turbulence continued into Monday, after oil surpassed $100 for the first time since 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent global energy prices soaring.

Brent crude oil, the standard international ar, reached $102 on Monday, while the West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, reached $99.49 per barrel, according to FactSet. Higher energy prices are leading Americans to pay more at the pump and renew fears of inflation.

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Speaking to the International Association of Firefighters in Washington, D.C., Vice President JD Vance said the seventh U.S. service member killed in the ongoing war with Iran “will return home tonight.”

“I just want to say that if you’re the praying type, and I certainly am, I hope you’ll say a prayer for the six souls we lost, for the seventh soul coming home tonight, and for all their families,” Vance said.

Vance attended the dignified transfer of the first six soldiers killed in the conflict.

The Pentagon identified the seventh American killed during the conflict early Monday as Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Kentucky, who “died of his injuries on March 8, 2026, from injuries sustained during an enemy attack on March 1, 2026 at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.”

President Trump weighed in Monday on the plight of Iran’s women’s soccer team, which became caught up in the geopolitical ramifications of the US-Israel war in their home country while participating in the women’s Asian Cup in Australia, offering them asylum in the United States.

There were calls for Australia to offer refuge to the women after Iranian television branded them “traitors” over the weekend, following their decision not to sing or salute during the Iranian national anthem before their first match at the tournament. They sang and waved before subsequent games, leading to speculation that their team leaders were coercing them.

“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iranian women’s national soccer team to be forced to return to Iran where they will likely be killed. Don’t do it Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM,” President Trump said in a social media post, adding, “America will take them if you don’t.”

He posted his message as a leading Iranian opposition figure in exile and an Australian newspaper said five of the team’s players had fled their Gold Coast hotel and were being assisted by Australian police, and were expected to apply for asylum.

“Most of them have families at home, some have children at home, and even if they were offered the right to remain in Australia, if they feel unsafe, many of them may not take that opportunity,” Craig Foster, former captain of the Australian men’s soccer team and human rights advocate, previously told News themezone sister network BBC News. “The most important thing is that that offer be made.”

Australia’s government did not immediately respond to a request from News themezone to confirm that any of the women had sought asylum.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday that Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Kentucky, was the soldier killed in the early hours of the war with Iran in an airstrike on a major U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. He is the seventh U.S. service member confirmed to have died in Iran’s barrage of retaliatory missile and drone strikes across the Persian Gulf and beyond.

Pennington “died from his injuries on March 8, 2026, from injuries sustained during an enemy attack on March 1, 2026, at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia,” the Pentagon said Monday, adding that the deadly incident remained under investigation.

The other six American troops killed in the war. until now he died from injuries sustained in a Iranian attack on a US military facility in Kuwaitalso in the first hours of the conflict.

The White House said Monday that President Trump had a plan to keep energy markets stable before the United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran, triggering a regional war that has sent oil prices soaring and stock prices plummeting, and that the administration continues to “review all credible options” to control rising costs for consumers.

“The White House is in constant coordination with relevant agencies on this important issue as it is a top priority for the president. President Trump and his entire energy team have had a solid plan to keep energy markets stable long before Operation Epic Fury began, and they will continue to review all credible options,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said Monday. “As the president said last night, this is a short-term change in oil prices, which will fall dramatically once the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are achieved.”

President Trump said Sunday on his Truth social media platform that oil prices “will fall rapidly when the destruction of Iran’s nuclear threat ends,” calling the current increase “a very small price to pay for America and the world, security and peace,” adding, “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENT!”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that the “period of high energy prices” would be temporary, “but it won’t be long.”

He added that oil and gas prices “should not rise much higher than here because the world is very well supplied with oil.”

“What we want are emotional reactions and fear that this is a long-term war,” Wright told Brennan. “This is not a long-term war; it is a temporary move.”

The national average price of gasoline in the US rose to $3.48 on Monday, up from $3 a week ago and $2.90 a month ago, according to AAA.

Gas prices are rising as the war with Iran limits global oil supplies, with Iran’s retaliatory attacks across the Middle East severely hampering oil production in the Persian Gulf and shipments virtually paralyzed across the Strait of Hormuza key sea route through which a fifth of all global crude oil supplies normally flow.

Five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team left the hotel where they were staying in Australia and requested asylum in the country, according to Iranian opposition figure and exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, as well as the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sources in the Iranian-Australian community told the Morning Herald the women were “receiving support” after taking a break from the rest of their team and handlers in the Gold Coast area on Monday night.

“The police have taken them to a safe place,” Brisbane-based human rights activist Hadi Karimi told the newspaper. “It’s great, it’s amazing.”

The office of Pahlavi, who fled Iran after his father, the Western-backed Shah, was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, said on social media that his opposition group had learned of the five players seeking asylum and named them in the post.

“These five brave athletes, currently in a safe place, have announced that they have joined the National Revolution of the Lion and the Sun of Iran,” the post from Pahlavi’s office added, referring to Iran’s flag before the Islamic Revolution.

The women’s team was branded “traitors” by Iranian state television after they refused to salute and sing the country’s national anthem during their first match at the ongoing Asian Cup, prompting calls to be offered refuge in tournament host Australia.

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs did not immediately respond to a request from News themezone to confirm that the five women had applied for asylum.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Monday she did not want to “enter into comment” on the fate of the women.

French President Emmanuel Macron said an attack on Cyprus was an attack on all of Europe while speaking during a visit to the island nation after it was attacked by Iranian-made drones. At least one drone, fired by Iran or its allied groups, damaged the runway of the British military base at Akrotiri, on the southern coast of Cyprus, last week.

“When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked,” Macron said in Paphos alongside the leaders of Cyprus and Greece.

“The defense of Cyprus is obviously a key issue for its country, for its neighbor, partner and friend, Greece, but also for France and, with it, the European Union,” he added.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crusto told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that his country, along with Spain, France and the Netherlands, would deploy naval assets to Cyprus to reinforce defenses following drone attacks.

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The Turkish president’s office said Monday that NATO air defenses had been deployed to intercept a ballistic missile fired by Iran “heading toward our country.”

The Iranian missile “was engaged and neutralized by NATO air and missile defense elements in a timely manner in the skies of Gaziantep’s Şahinbey district,” presidential spokesman Burhanettin Duran said in the statement, adding that there were no casualties from the incident.

“It is crucial that tensions in the region do not increase further and that conflicts do not spread to a broader area. We strongly reiterate our warning to all parties, especially Iran, to stay away from actions that jeopardize regional security and could endanger civilians,” Durán said.

Turkey, the only NATO member whose main territory has been targeted by Iran’s retaliatory fire so far during the war, also said NATO defenses intercepted an Iranian missile on March 4. NATO said the next day that, in response, it had “increased its Alliance-wide ballistic missile defense posture.”

Ukraine has sent drone interceptors and experts to help defend US military bases in Jordan, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with The New York Times published Monday.

The US military had requested Ukrainian air defense support last week, as the Iranian Shahed drones targeting US bases across the Middle East are similar to those Russia has relentlessly launched against Ukraine, and Zelenskyy He said his country would provide assistance.

So far, US allies in the Persian Gulf have managed to intercept most of Iran’s airstrikes; The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain reported interception rates above 90% last week. But there have been notable exceptions, including an Iranian airstrike that killed six American service members in Kuwait on the first day of the war.

Ukraine’s interceptor drones are widely considered the most effective counter-drone technology available, but experts told News themezone last week that integrating the technology into Middle East air defenses would take time.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that, in addition to drone experienceUkraine can also provide military and humanitarian support to its partners in the Middle East.

“We have received some messages about how to help civilians in the Middle East and how to help American soldiers deployed in certain countries,” he wrote in a post on X. “We responded: we will send experts and provide them with everything they need to protect them.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to Ayatollah Mokhtaba Khamenei to congratulate him on becoming Iran’s new supreme leader.

“I am sure that he will honorably continue his father’s work and unite the Iranian people in the face of grave challenges,” Putin said in a statement posted on the Kremlin website on Monday.

According to the Kremlin, the Russian president also declared his unwavering support for Tehran and that “Russia has been and will remain a reliable partner of the Islamic Republic.”

Khamenei, who had never held public office, was elected Iran’s new supreme leader, Iranian state media reported Sunday. He is the second son of former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike last week.

The US State Department on Monday ordered non-emergency staff and their families to leave the US consulate in Adana, southern Turkey, citing unspecified “security risks.”

All consular services at the facilities were suspended and Americans were urged to contact the U.S. Embassy in Ankara or the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul for assistance.

All Americans in southeastern Turkey, which shares borders with Iran, Syria and Iraq, are “strongly advised to depart now,” the US embassy said.

The decision to order non-emergency staff to leave the Adana consulate marked the 10th such order for a U.S. diplomatic mission since the start of the war with Iran, and the first such move involving a NATO ally.

Australian authorities are being urged to help the Iranian women’s football team following their elimination from the Asian Cup, fearing what could happen to them if they return home as planned.

Before their first match of the tournament in Australia, against South Korea, the players refused to sing or salute their country’s national anthem, prompting calls for harsh punishment from conservatives within Iran. The Islamic Republic’s state television network called them “traitors” and accused them of “the pinnacle of dishonor.”

“We all have very reasonable and serious concerns for their safety,” Craig Foster, former captain of the Australian men’s soccer team and human rights advocate, told News themezone partner BBC News.

In their next two games, the team sang and saluted their anthem, raising concerns that they may have been forced to do so.

“Some may have concerns, some may not, but what we know is that most of them have families at home, some have children at home, and even if they are offered the right to remain in Australia, if they feel unsafe, many of them may not accept that opportunity,” Foster, who helped the Afghan women’s team flee the Taliban in 2021, told the BBC. “The most important thing is that that offer is made.”

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Thousands of people marched through the streets of Tehran overnight, celebrating the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader. The son of former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israel attacks, is known as a hardliner with close ties to Iran’s security services.

American-born Israeli businessman Michael Eisenberg, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told News themezone that the younger Khamenei’s new job carried an enormous amount of personal risk.

“The highest risk job right now is being the new ayatollah,” Eisenberg told News themezone. “That’s a high-risk job.”

He said Israeli officials had made clear that all high-level positions in Iran were subject to attack and had urged people: “Don’t take those jobs.”

Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency warned in a social media post last week that no matter who Iran elects, “their fate has been decreed,” with a graphic showing top Iranian clerics toppled like dominoes.

Saudi Arabia lashed out at Iran after what the kingdom said was a botched drone attack on its massive Shaybah oil field, saying Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues attacking Arab states.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry said that “further escalation… will have a serious impact on relations, currently and in the future.”

Additionally, a fire broke out on Monday at an oil facility that was attacked in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain’s only oil refinery was apparently also affected.

Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air, and an online video allegedly shows the blaze. Bahrain’s government did not immediately identify that the refinery had been attacked, although it has been the target of repeated Iranian attacks since the war began.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates said one person suffered minor and another moderate injuries after debris fell at two locations in the emirate on Monday, as air defenses raced to shoot down incoming Iranian weapons.

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Israel’s Magen David Adom national emergency medical service said Monday that at least one person was killed and another seriously injured after another Iranian missile attack on central Israel.

Israeli media reports suggested that the attack could have included missiles carrying cluster munitions. It came after another warning from the Israeli military about a salvo of Iranian missiles.

Among the locations hit was a construction site in the city of Holon, where the MDA said at least one man was fatally struck by shrapnel.

“It was a difficult scene,” MDA said, quoting paramedic Liz Goral, who was among those who responded to the explosion at the construction site. “The two victims were lying unconscious and suffering from severe shrapnel wounds to their bodies. After carrying out resuscitation efforts, we had to declare the death of a man, approximately 40 years old, and we evacuated the second victim in serious condition through the Mobile Intensive Care Unit to the hospital.”

There were unconfirmed reports that the second victim later died from his injuries.

As of Monday, Israel’s independent Institute for National Security Studies said at least 15 people in the country had been killed since the war began, including two soldiers. That figure does not include the victims of the attack at the Holon construction site.

The skies over northern Israel lit up with a barrage of Hezbollah rockets and missiles over the weekend, and Israel launched waves of airstrikes in retaliation.

Hezbollah is still believed to have thousands of missiles and, along with its supporters in Iran, poses the threat of overwhelming Israeli defenses, according to a local Israel Defense Forces colonel who spoke to News themezone on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Most of the attacks by Iran and Hezbollah are coordinated or simultaneous. Once they fire missiles from Iran, missiles fired from Lebanon, Iran’s are more towards the mainland of Israel, and Hezbollah’s missiles are here to the north,” the colonel said.

Hezbollah’s diminished, but still significant, capabilities have implications for the US.

Iran knows that neither the United States nor Israel has an unlimited supply of missile interceptors or air defenses. Hezbollah can, if it chooses, unleash a wave of rocket fire against northern Israel to unleash Iran’s firepower and focus on US targets and allies in the region.

Fresh airstrikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, on Monday after Israel warned residents of some neighborhoods to flee for their safety as it continued its attacks on Hezbollah.

Lebanese Public Health Minister Dr. Rakan Nasr al-Din said on Sunday that the death toll since the start of the latest Israeli operations in the country, which began alongside the US-Israeli attack on Iran, had reached at least 394, including 83 children and 42 women. He said more than 1,130 people had been injured, including 254 children and 274 women.

Israeli authorities have ordered tens of thousands of people across southern Lebanon to evacuate their cities and villages, fueling a humanitarian crisis in the country.

The authorities Qataris arrested more than 300 people for sharing images and “misleading information” during the days of Iran attacks, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

The arrested people “filmed and disseminated videos and published misleading information and rumors that could move public opinion,” according to a statement.

Stock markets plunged on Monday as oil and gas prices soared on fears about supplies from the Middle East, as the US-Israel war against Iran continues into its second week with no signs of letting up. Investors ran for the hills as crude oil soared to its highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

President Trump has said that only Iran’s “unconditional surrender” will end the war, and over the weekend he added that rising energy prices were a “small price to pay” to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat, reiterating the White House’s insistence that the increase is temporary.

London’s FTSE 100 stock index fell 1.4% in the first minutes of trading on Monday as investors reacted to rising oil prices. Earlier, Asian stock markets fell sharply, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closing down more than 5%.

In South Korea, the Kospi index sank more than 8% at one point, causing a 20-minute trading halt before eventually closing down 6%.

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude oil contracts rose about 30% to reach highs near $120 a barrel. European gas prices also soared 30% on Monday.

Since the start of the war, WTI has risen more than 75% and Brent more than 60%, although both fell on the news that finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized countries will discuss drawing on emergency reserves to ease supply stress.

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Global oil prices soared near $120 a barrel before falling on Monday as the war with Iran escalated, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and hitting financial markets. The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose to $119.50 per barrel early in the day but was later trading at $107.80 per barrel.

West Texas Intermediate, the light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States, soared to $119.48 per barrel, but fell back to $103 per barrel.

The first time Brent and US crude oil futures traded near the current level was in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Prices moderated on Monday after the Financial Times reported that some members of the Group of Seven industrial countries were considering releasing strategic oil reserves to ease pressure on markets. The report was later confirmed by other media sources.

According to independent research firm Rystad Energy, approximately 15 million barrels of crude oil (about 20% of the world’s oil) are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz each day. The threat of Iranian missile and drone attacks has virtually prevented oil tankers from traveling through the strait, which borders Iran to the north, and transporting oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iran.

Iran, Israel and the United States have also attacked oil and gas facilities since the war began, exacerbating concerns about supply.

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Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Sunday that the country was prepared and equipped to continue fighting an intense war against the United States and Israel for at least six months.

“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran are capable of continuing at least an intense six-month war at the current pace of operations,” the country’s official Fars news agency quoted IRGC spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini as saying.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that the “period of high energy prices” will be temporary, “but not long,” as the Iran war continues into its second week.

Oil and gas prices “shouldn’t go much higher than here because the world is very well supplied with oil,” Wright said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” He insisted there is “no energy shortage at all,” saying the United States is a major exporter of natural gas and that although refineries in Europe and Asia are experiencing “disruptions to their crude flows,” there are “huge energy reserves around the world.”

“What you want is emotional reactions and fear that this is a long-term war,” Wright said. “This is not a long-term war; it is a temporary move.”

Wright said the United States still has 400 million gallons of oil in its strategic reserve and “we are more than happy to use it if necessary.” But he added that this is a “logistical issue” because refineries in Europe and Asia need oil.

“We are simply doing pragmatic things to get through a short period that will bring an era of even lower energy prices because a major energy-producing region of the world, the Middle East, will no longer have a strong, powerful Iran that can threaten its neighbors, that can threaten the United States of America and that is not far from a nuclear bomb,” Wright said.

President Trump echoed the sentiment in a post on his Truth social media platform on Sunday, saying, “Near-term oil prices, which will fall rapidly when the destruction of Iran’s nuclear threat ends, is a very small price to pay for America and the world’s security and peace,” adding, “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENT!”

A U.S. service member died from wounds received during Iran’s initial retaliatory strikes, U.S. Central Command said Sunday.

The service member was seriously injured during an attack in Saudi Arabia on March 1, CENTCOM said. The identity of the service member will be released following notification of next of kin.

This is the seventh american service member murdered in the Middle East since war in iran It started on February 28.

Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, the second son of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran’s new supreme leader, Iranian state media confirmed on Sunday.

Mojtaba Khamenei has never held elected office. But for years he has operated quietly behind the scenes from his father’s office, cultivating influence throughout the security system, particularly within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

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