The Free Press

With war raging in the Middle East, we want to bring you as many trusted voices on the news as we can. One such voice is the Israeli journalist Amit Segal. Here’s Amit’s daily newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel, which we’re pleased to publish in The Free Press.

Deep beneath the ground near the Iranian city of Isfahan lies the ayatollahs’ lead-lined treasure chest. It contains the country’s most valuable asset: nearly 900 pounds of 60 percent enriched uranium.

The world’s most radioactive buried treasure was entombed by the U.S. and Israel during the June war and is thought to be inaccessible without a large excavation effort. But according to a recent American intelligence report, there remains a “very narrow access point” through which the Iranians—or the U.S.—could potentially retrieve the prize.

It’s Monday, March 9. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Terror on the Upper East Side—and an unbothered mayor. The cities vying to become the next Dubai. Lessons from a musician living under a dictatorship. And much more.

But first: The latest on the war in Iran.

The conflict in the Middle East has entered its second week. On Saturday, a week since the U.S. and Israel struck Iran and killed its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israel targeted regime-controlled oil refineries near Tehran and black smoke filled the city’s skyline. The next day, the regime announced its new leader: Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the slain Supreme Leader Khamenei. Here’s what else is new:

• The Pentagon announced the seventh U.S. casualty of the war. The service member was seriously injured in a strike on a Saudi military base on March 1 and died of those injuries.

• Oil prices have surged to more than $100 per barrel.

• Israel did not rule out targeting Iran’s new leader.

• Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian announced Saturday that the Islamic Republic would no longer attack neighboring countries, but the strikes resumed soon after.

• An Iranian drone struck a water desalination plant in Bahrain, marking the first time the war has impacted the most essential resource in the Gulf.

As Iranian oil burns and Mojtaba takes the reins of a teetering regime, the question of what will come next for Iran remains as uncertain as it was a week ago. One crucial factor will be the Kurds. But what sort of role will they play in the fight for Iran’s future? After reports that the CIA were arming Kurdish forces, Trump said on Saturday, “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran.”

Trump’s words echo in Eli Lake’s latest reporting. He talks to a senior Kurdish leader about the likelihood that Kurdish fighters will enter the war. Read his report on why Iran’s Kurds won’t march on Iran.

The Kurds may not be about to take up arms and fight, but Roya Hakakian argues that they remain central to this crucial chapter in Iranian history. Why? Because they are the Islamic Republic’s most defiant opponents. And no one serious about change in Iran can do it without them. Read Roya on the ayatollahs’ oldest opponents.

From Kurdistan to the Strait of Hormuz, which is ground zero for an emerging energy crisis. The shipping lane off the coast of Iran ordinarily transits 20 million barrels of oil a day, but is now effectively empty after Iran has threatened to target any tankers that use it. Ellen R. Wald breaks down the global impact of the blockage of the strait, and explains why we are approaching the “worst-case scenario” in the world’s most important maritime choke point.

Farther up the Persian Gulf sits another strategically vital site for the Iranian regime: Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iranian oil exports are processed. Jay Solomon talks to officials in the Trump administration and Arab governments who say that the U.S. and Israel have the island in their sights. “It’s amazing they’d place so many of their oil eggs in one basket,” says one. Read Jay’s full report on the tiny island at the center of the conflict.

For more on the conflict in the Middle East, listen to the latest episode of our new podcast, School of War. Today, host Aaron MacLean talks to Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Aaron and Mark go deep on everything from the situation in the Strait of Hormuz to the growing parts Ukraine and Russia are playing in the war.

Glamorous Gulf cities like Dubai and Doha have long been sold as the go-to for the world’s richest, promising the fruits of Middle Eastern oil money without the sectarian violence of the northern countries like Iraq and Syria. Those illusions were shattered after these cities came under attack from Iran in retaliation to Operation Epic Fury. Now Singapore is preparing to take their place as an offshore financial hub. Jeevan Vasagar thinks the Southeast Asian island nation could be the war’s biggest winner. Read his piece for us to find out why:

Free Press columnist Tyler Cowen has a less likely candidate to fill the gap. Writing from South Africa, he makes the case for Cape Town. Yes, it has a serious crime problem, but the sights, weather, food, and culture are world-class and crucially, no belligerent militarized neighbors threaten its millions of residents. Read Tyler’s latest:

• At least six are dead and a dozen are injured after a trio of tornadoes ripped through southern Michigan and Oklahoma on Saturday. The tornadoes claimed the lives of a mother and daughter in Oklahoma, and a 12-year-old boy in Michigan.

• The United States government issued a license on Friday that authorizes dealings with a Venezuelan state-owned gold mining company—the latest sign of the Trump administration’s deepening economic ties with the Venezuelan government under Delcy Rodríguez. In January, Rodríguez signed a law that opened Venezuela’s oil sector to privatization.

• Norwegian police are investigating an explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Oslo early Sunday morning. Police received reports of a “loud bang” around 1 a.m., Oslo police said in a news release. No injuries were reported.

• A federal judge ruled Saturday that Kari Lake, President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not possess legal authority to dismantle the Voice of America, a long-lauded form of American soft power that broadcasts news in regions with regime-controlled media. The ruling voided all action taken by Lake since she assumed the CEO role in July 2025.

• Team USA baseball defeated Great Britain by a score of 9–1 on Saturday, securing its second blowout win in Pool B of the World Baseball Classic. Kyle Schwarber blasted a two-run go-ahead homer in the second inning, after Great Britain jumped out to a one-run lead early. Team USA faces Mexico tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET in Houston, Texas.

A Renaissance historian, James Hankins left his longtime post at Harvard University in December to join the little-known Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. As he wrote in an essay that sent shock waves through higher education, he says he did so because the Hamilton School is committed to teaching the history…

On this episode of School of War, Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, joins Aaron to give his thoughts on naval operations in the Strait of Hormuz, including their strategic implications for the progress of the war. They also di…

Two men tried to detonate homemade bombs on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Saturday. They had, according to reports, been inspired by ISIS videos. In a video from the scene, you can hear someone scream, “Allahu akbar.”

But you would never know any of that from the mayor’s statement—or from much of the mainstream media’s coverage. If you were reading that, or listening to the words of the city’s top elected official, you would assume the bombs were placed by white supremacists.

Iran threatened last week to set ablaze tankers that tried to transit the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy choke point. On Sunday, it started to follow through on the threat, with an oil tanker struck by a drone burning in the water. Meanwhile, Israel has begun attacks on Iran’s oil storage facilities, leaving Tehran covered in a toxic haze and raising the prospect of Iran retaliating against the Gulf States’ infrastructure.

The worst possible scenario for a military conflict in the Middle East is one that encompasses all the oil and natural producers in the Persian Gulf, halts all tanker traffic into and out of the Strait of Hormuz, and includes significant damage to oil and natural gas infrastructure in these countries.

The two earliest signs of the tragic future awaiting Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution were a poem and a photograph. Iranians were still euphoric from that year’s upheaval when, in July 1979, Ahmad Shamlou—one of the nation’s most important poets—published a poem titled “Strange Times, My Dear.” Its opening lines captured the unease already creeping into daily life, as revolutionary police, the Basij, set up check points to enforce the alcohol ban:

They sniff your mouth
Lest you have uttered the words I love you
They sniff your heart.
These are strange times, my dear.

In the northern Persian Gulf, just 16 miles off Iran’s coast, sits Kharg Island, and its fate in the coming weeks could play a crucial role in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

Middle East states and colonial powers have battled over this strategic strip of land for millennia. The Dutch, British, Arabs, and Persians coveted Kharg Island, which is about half the size of Manhattan, because of its importance as a choke point in one of the world’s most important waterways. Since seizing power in 1979, Tehran’s theocracy has made Kharg the centerpiece of its energy industry, and export terminals there ship 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s total crude-oil sales.

If you are unhappy with your home country, maybe because of taxes or because you don’t like its leadership, its weather, or its crime rates, you have options. You might, for instance, move to a tax haven, following the example of the many people from around the world who have escaped to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That has been the preferre…