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2 direct mentions across 2 briefings, with 1 linked development.
Latest linked intelligence
Iran's hardline leadership did not intend to pursue peace when it signed the June truce memorandum and instead secretly planned to widen the war and increase U.S. costs.
Unverified development · updated through
Iran's hardline leadership did not intend to pursue peace when it signed the June truce memorandum and instead secretly planned to widen the war and increase U.S. costs.
Open source reportGeography
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Iranian leadership dossier
1 mapped developments across 1 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Iran
Iran's hardline leadership did not intend to pursue peace when it signed the June truce memorandum and instead secretly planned to widen the war and increase U.S. costs.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 17 August 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •The U.S. and South Korea kick off 11 days of annual military drills today. Pres. Trump ordered this year's edition to be scaled back (see SOUTH KOREA section below). •Today was the deadline for the U.S. and Iran to finalize a broader deal to end their war, according to the temporary truce they signed in June. That agreement broke down less than three weeks later, and negotiations towards a full ceasefire deal never seriously kicked off. •China hosts the World Robot Conference Wednesday through Sunday. •Many Canadian exporters will be "liberated" from the U.S. market on Wednesday, when new, 50% tariffs on a wide range of goods go into effect. Pres. Trump announced the new levies last month, citing examples of unfair trade barriers Canada and its provinces have introduced against U.S.-made alcohol, automobiles, and cheese. Some have suggested the new tariffs are a bargaining chip to entice Canada to lift its restrictions, and negotiations are ongoing. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,252/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $34,7/ton •Bitcoin: $63,541 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $14,160/ton •Ethereum: $1,904 •Gold: $4,399/toz •Lead: $1,895/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.65/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $81.83/barrel •Zinc: $3,757/ton GAZA •Pres. Trump's envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met Hamas leaders in Egypt and will next visit Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. •Kushner probably hopes his talks with both sides will help revive the disarmament deal that Pres. Trump announced last month, which both Hamas and Israel quickly rejected. However, it's highly unlikely that Netanyahu will soften his position as his uphill bid for reelection in October draws closer. LEBANON •Netanyahu said that Hezbollah militants attacked Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon on Saturday, seriously injuring three of them. (Hezbollah denied targeting Israeli soldiers and accused Netanyahu of instigating the skirmish "in order to strengthen his domestic political position" ahead of the October election.) •Israel's military then returned fire, targeting Hezbollah compounds that were only later discovered to be harboring civilians alongside militants. Netanyahu's office accused Hezbollah of "deliberately put[ting] civilians in that military compound." •Lebanon's Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, said at least 11 people - including three children - were killed in Israel's strikes, and criticized Israel's "extremely dangerous" escalation. •The row could complicate plans for an eighth round of talks between Israel and Lebanon next month - despite Netanyahu's office's paradoxical hope that Israel's strikes would "jump-start" talks and "not do the opposite." IRAN •The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran's hardline leadership never really intended to pursue peace with the U.S. when it signed an MOU agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in June, and instead secretly embarked on a plan to expand the war and make it more expensive for the U.S. to fight it. •Whether planned or not, the hawks can now claim success on both objectives. Iran's proxies in Yemen and Iraq have joined the fight, and Americans are increasingly questioning whether the war is worth the rising costs of fighting it - both in terms of record defense spending and higher gas prices at the pump. •Pres. Trump is convinced his war is worth its costs. He told a weekend rally: "For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a nuclear weapon." SOUTH KOREA •Angered by South Korea's reluctance to join his war in Iran, Pres. Trump ordered this year's edition of annual U.S.-South Korea military exercises to scale back. •Trump also cited his "very good relationship" with Pyongyang's nemesis, North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Trump and Kim have met three times and exchanged at least 27 letters as they "fell in love" (in Trump's words). Trump posted a photo of himself with Kim as he announced the reduction of military exercises with the South. CEUTA •Another surge of migrants attempted to cross from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on Saturday, but this time Moroccan border police did their job and repelled them. •Morocco faced flak - or at least some tough questions - after its guards did little to repel the much larger wave of over 72,000 migrants who overwhelmed the same crossing on July 30. •Both Spain and Morocco appear eager to move on and avoid a repeat of that debacle - hence Morocco's proactive border policing and Spain's indefinite deployment of an additional 500 mainland police to Ceuta. •Spain also reinforced the crossing area with a new maritime barrier, which may have helped deter more migrants from joining this wave of attempted crossings. U.S. •The U.S. FBI reported the largest year-to-year drop in violent crime on record for 2025. Reported murders and robberies both dropped by 18% compared to 2024, and overall violent crime fell by 9%. •U.S. violent crime rates have been consistently declining since 2020, but the trend accelerated noticeably in 2025.
Open source reportOff Leash update 6 April COMING UP THIS WEEK •Tomorrow at 8 pm ET is Pres. Trump's extended deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants and bridges. Iran's leaders have publicly dismissed the ultimatum, but Trump told Fox he thinks there's a "good chance" that private talks will reach a deal today to avoid escalation. •The first round of the golf Masters Tournament opens Thursday at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. FOUR ELECTIONS NEXT WEEKEND •Djibouti votes for president on Friday. Longtime incumbent Ismail Omar Guelleh is sure to win, thanks to a late parliamentary decision scrapping an age limit of 75 that would've rendered him ineligible. Incidentally, that age limit was only imposed as part of a 2010 electoral "reform" that did away with term limits so he could run for a third term. This will be his sixth. •Hungary will hold a parliamentary election on Sunday. The Fidesz party's populist incumbent, Viktor Orban, is trailing in (independent) polls by 11 points to the center-right Tisza party's Peter Magyar, but government polls tell a different story, and analysts think Orban will pull out all the stops to extend his 16-year premiership. •Benin will vote for president on Sunday. The ruling party's candidate - current finance minister Romuald Wadagni - is heavily favored and the opposition's main candidate was barred from running. •Peru votes for president and parliament on Sunday. Two right-leaning candidates are leading the presidential polls, but - with a record 35 candidates contesting the race - it's likely to go to a runoff. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,470/ton •Antimony (global avg. from Antimony Global): $34,352/ton [Note: I'm switching to a new antimony benchmark that should be a better indicator of global average prices than the unconvincingly flat benchmark I was using for trioxide min. 99.65% fob China. Unlike exchange-traded commodities, antimony is usually traded through private over-the-counter contracts, which means prices are highly volatile and variable. This Antimony Global world average seems like the best big-picture benchmark out there.] •Bitcoin: $68,928 •Cobalt: $56,290/ton •Copper: $12,360/ton •Ethereum: $2,126 •Gold: $4,665/toz •Lead: $1,933/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.80/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $111.71/barrel •Zinc: $3,265/ton IRAN •Oil markets are volatile while waiting to see whether the U.S. and Iran will make a deal or - in the absence of a deal - if Pres. Trump will make good on his increasingly brash threats against Iran if it doesn't "open the fuckin' strait" by his deadline of 8 pm ET tomorrow. •Trump seemed emboldened to escalate his rhetoric by the success of a high-risk rescue mission to locate and extract a U.S. Air Force colonel whose F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down in southern Iran on Friday. •Iranian forces were desperately searching for the downed airman, too, and would've used him as negotiating leverage if they'd found him first. A CIA deception campaign helped ensure that didn't happen. •Separately, Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey proposed a 45-day ceasefire plan to both Iran and the U.S. that includes a proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Neither has responded yet, and it's unclear whether this is the deal that Trump gave a "good chance" of closing today. •Meanwhile, a likely Israeli strike killed Majid Khademi - the head of intelligence for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - earlier today. Khademi had only been in his post since last June, when his predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike. TRADE •Bloomberg reported that 13 ships have transited the Strait of Hormuz in the past week: 10 exiting the Persian Gulf and three entering. •That's the highest seven-day rolling total since the war began, and it included a French container ship and a Japanese-owned LNG tanker - both with no clear links to Iran. However, it's still just a trickle compared to the historical average of 138 transits per day. •Iran has reportedly set up a tolling system - which witty commentators dubbed an "ayatollah booth" - to charge some ships a rumored $2 million (in yuan) for safe passage. It has also restricted transits to a narrow northern passage, creating a natural limit on traffic too. •Meanwhile, European leaders are exploring options for safeguarding trade in the Strait. They're reportedly considering naval escorts (French Pres. Macron's preferred option), minesweeping, aerial interceptors, and - the bureaucrats' favorite - negotiations and economic measures. All have drawbacks, and none are sure to work. CHINA •Cheng Li-wun, who leads Taiwan's largest opposition party - the Kuomintang (KMT) - won her party's leadership in October after campaigning on closer ties with mainland China. That platform also won her an invitation from Xi Jinping to visit the mainland, which she's doing this week with a delegation that will stop in Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Beijing. •Xi's courtship of the KMT under Cheng is likely part of his push to reunify Taiwan. It would be easier if a pliant future KMT government simply agreed to reunification than if Beijing had to take the island by force. •To that end, Beijing also reached out to the current (more defiant) Taiwanese government in early March to offer energy guarantees if it agreed to reunify. Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party leaders quickly rejected the proposal, which was probably more of an optics play (to show Taiwan that its leaders refuse dialogue even at the expense of energy security) than a real offer. HUNGARY •Serbian officials discovered two backpacks containing explosives near a pipeline carrying Russian gas to Hungary. That appears to corroborate Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's claim that "Ukraine has been for years trying to cut off Europe from Russian energy." •However, Hungary's opposition leader, Peter Magyar - who's leading Orban in independent polls ahead of Sunday's election - was skeptical. Magyar accused Orban of staging a "false flag" operation to scare voters into rallying behind their strongman leader on Sunday.
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