March 13, 2026 – The USA Potato

Despite reports that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence that permits it to target U.S. forces in the Middle East, late last night the Trump administration lifted sanctions on shipments of Russian oil until April 11, permitting it to be sold to buyers around the world for the next month. The U.S., along with the rest of the Group of Seven (G7) nations with advanced economies, has maintained sanctions against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been eager to get those sanctions dropped because oil sales will help the flailing Russian economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the move is necessary to help ease oil prices, which are skyrocketing because Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attack by the U.S. and Israel. But German chancellor Friedrich Merz said the heads of the G7 had urged Trump not to ease the sanctions, saying “[t]here is currently a price problem, but not a supply problem.” He added that he “would like to know what additional motives led the US government to make this decision.”

After Trump lifted sanctions on Russian oil that was already in ships, Democrats cried foul. At a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting yesterday, Senator Angus King (I-ME) said: “There is a clear winner in this war. The clear winner is Vladimir Putin and Russia. Estimates released a few hours ago are that Russia has reaped $6 billion of benefit from this war since it began just two weeks ago. That’s about $400 million a day from the increase in oil prices and the easing of sanctions, which is somewhat puzzling to me…. I just think the record should show that the real winner so far is Vladimir Putin to the tune of $6 billion in two weeks.”

Meanwhile, Kim Barker of the New York Times reports that, at the request of the United States, Ukraine has sent interceptor drones and a team of drone experts to Jordan to protect U.S. military bases there. “We reacted immediately,” Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky told Barker. “I said, yes, of course, we will send our experts.” In a phone call to the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox Radio this morning, President Donald J. Trump denied that Ukraine was helping the U.S. with drone defense, saying “we don’t need their help…. We know more about drones than anybody. We have the best drones in the world, actually.”

Six American servicemembers are dead after a military refueling plane crashed in Iraq. U.S. Central Command has not specified the circumstances of the crash beyond saying it was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”

Lara Seligman of the Wall Street Journal reported today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sending an amphibious ready group of vessels led by the U.S.S. Tripoli and carrying about 5,000 Marines and sailors, to the Middle East.

This morning, Trump, who famously got five deferments to avoid the military draft, posted a picture of himself standing by his parents in his schoolboy military uniform. He captioned the photo: “At Military Academy with my parents, Fred and Mary!”

Last night, Trump posted on social media: “We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning. Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth. We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time—Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

On Wednesday, Kelsey Davenport of the Arms Control Association assessed that Trump’s frustration with the talks between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva was fueled by Witkoff’s reports about those talks. But, Davenport noted, “Comments made by Witkoff in two background briefings with reporters on Feb. 28 and March 3, as well as media appearances since the strikes began, made clear that Witkoff did not have sufficient technical expertise or diplomatic experience to engage in effective diplomacy. His lack of knowledge and mischaracterization of Iran’s positions and nuclear program throughout the process likely informed Trump’s assessment that talks were not progressing and Iran was not negotiating seriously.”

Having reviewed recordings and transcripts from those meetings, the Arms Control Association believes that the Iranian offer showed flexibility and was “an opening offer and unlikely Iran’s bottom line.” Future negotiations might have revealed irreconcilable positions, Davenport wrote, but “Witkoff’s failure to comprehend key technical realities suggests he misunderstood the Iranian nuclear proposal and was ill-prepared to negotiate an effective nuclear agreement.”

This morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent significant time at a press briefing at the Defense Department complaining about headlines that say the war is widening and that the administration did not take seriously enough that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz. A “patriotic press,” he said, would say that Iran is weakening.

Despite widespread reporting, sourced from within the White House, that the administration did not, in fact, accurately gauge the chances of Iran’s closing the strait, Hegseth said it was “patently ridiculous” to think the administration didn’t prepare for the strait to be closed. He said about CNN, which reported that story, “The sooner [right-wing Trump ally] David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

Hegseth said the Strait of Hormuz is open. “The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping,” he said. “It is open for transit should Iran not do that.” Of the issue that the Iranians are shooting at the shipping, Hegseth said: “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it.”

He claimed that the Iranians “can barely communicate, let alone coordinate. They’re confused and we know it. Our response? We will keep pressing, we will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

As reporter Matt Novak notes, “No quarter is the refusal to take prisoners and instead just execute everyone. It’s been considered a war crime for over a century.” Former government war crimes lawyer Brian Finucane agreed, noting that “[d]enial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime. And recognized as such by the U.S. government.”

Jack Detsch and Paul McLeary of Politico reported today that last year Hegseth slashed the oversight offices designed to limit civilian casualties in war and to investigate responsibility for them. Over the warnings of top military officials, he cut the number of employees working in that field from 200 to fewer than 40. Hegseth has vowed not to be hampered by “stupid rules of engagement,” but as Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments, told the journalists, ““As it turns out, when you kill less civilians, you tend to be putting your resources toward killing the enemy.”

Democrats in both the House and the Senate are demanding an investigation into the strikes on a girls’ school that killed at least 165 civilians, most of them children.

Hegseth insisted today that the U.S. never targets civilians, and noted that Iran does. Observers note that the U.S. military has targeted at least 40 small boats in the Caribbean, killing at least 157 people it insists—without evidence—are “narcoterrorists.”

“[W]ar, in this context and in pursuit of peace, is necessary,” Hegseth said, “which is why each day, on bended knee, we continue to appeal to heaven. To Almighty God’s providence, to watch over and give special skill and confidence to our leaders and to our warriors. To those warriors, who this nation prays for every single day, I hear from all of you out there, who pray for them every day, stay on bended knee, and pray for them. I continue to say to them, Godspeed, may the Lord bless you and keep you, and keep going.”

In today’s phone call to the Brian Kilmeade Show, Trump suggested the war will not continue for long and said he will know it’s over “[w]hen I feel it, OK, feel it in my bones.”

Tonight, Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, Alex Leary, and Vera Bergengruen of the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s advisors, including Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, warned Trump that if the U.S. struck Iran, its leaders could well respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz, but Trump said that Iran’s leaders would capitulate and that even if they tried to close the strait, the U.S. military could handle it. The authors report that, while Trump has told audiences that “we’ve won” the war in Iran, in fact he has no immediate plans to end the war.

Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution, who was formerly a national security adviser to Kamala Harris and the White House coordinator for the Middle East under President Barack Obama, told Andrew Roth of The Guardian that previous administrations had spent much time gaming out war with Iran and foresaw exactly what is happening: Iran would attack its neighbors to try to spark a regional war and would close the Strait of Hormuz to hurt global trade and drive up oil prices. “One of the reasons we did the nuclear deal and didn’t try to change the regime is exactly what’s happening,” he said of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Trump took the U.S. out of that treaty in 2018, undercutting it.

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, told Roth that while the military planning had been stellar, “politically, this is increasingly looking like a cluster f*ck. And the reason is that step one of any plan is to establish a goal—the targeting should be in pursuit of that goal. The United States has this backwards. We have the targeting, but we don’t have a clear goal, and that lies not on the Pentagon planners, but on Donald Trump.”

White House officials are concerned enough about the unpopularity of the war that they are trying to change their messaging to convince the American people that the military is so powerful that it will eventually overcome Iran’s ability to retaliate.

Perhaps the clearest sign the administration is concerned about the Iran war is that Vance is distancing himself from it. A story by Diana Nerozzi and Eli Stokols of Politico today claims that “Vice President JD Vance was skeptical of the U.S. striking Iran in the leadup to President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the war.” Sources told the journalists that Vance is “skeptical,” “worried about success,” and “just opposes” the war.

And yet Trump has also been threatening a “takeover” of Cuba, prompting Senate Democrats yesterday to file legislation to stop him from going to war against Cuba without congressional approval. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said in a statement: “Only Congress has the power to declare war under the Constitution, but [Trump] operates with the belief that the U.S. military is a palace guard, ordering military action in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and Iran without Congress’ authorization or any explanation for his actions to the American people. We shouldn’t risk our sons and daughters’ lives at the whims of any one person.”

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Notes:

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/iran-war-us-israel-trump-03-13-26?post-id=cmmp0nju500003b67yy4me76k

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/politics/trump-russia-oil-sanctions.html

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-merz-says-easing-of-russia-sanctions-is-wrong/a-76349163

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/world/middleeast/ukraine-shahed-drone-middle-east.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/06/russia-iran-intelligence-us-targets/

https://kyivindependent.com/trump-ukraine-drone-defenses/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-dead-after-u-s-military-refueling-plane-crashed-in-iraq-heres-what-to-know

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/us-israel-iran-war-news-2026/card/pentagon-sends-marine-expeditionary-unit-to-middle-east-WeoODg0XIIe31W3np2aI

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-military-draft-avoidance-iran-war-11653751

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/us-israel-iran-war-news-2026/card/hegseth-strait-of-hormuz-is-open-D0PtdDU05fHFLLUDpuJ8