Posted originally on CTH on February 28, 2026 | Sundance
According to multiple confirmations following visible evidence of his body, news is now widely spreading throughout the middle east that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is DEAD.
This could rapidly escalate an end to the U.S. military operation, through regime change. We await confirmation of this news from President Donald Trump.
The very first strikes in Tehran by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were targeted to the power circle in control of government in Iran.
In a nationally televised address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just said the strikes had targeted the compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“There are growing signs that the tyrant is no longer alive,” Netanyahu said. However, earlier today, Iran’s foreign minister told NBC News that the country’s supreme leader and president were alive “as far as I know.”
Several of Iran’s top military leaders and family members of Khamenei are confirmed to have been killed, which seems to explain the unfocused attacks by Iran toward a host of middle east nations including Israel, Bahrain, Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli airstrike this morning on Iran, with his body being found recently among the rubble, Israeli officials tell The Times of Israel. {Source}
Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, an Israeli military spokesperson, says the strikes also killed other senior Iranian officials. Defrin says they included the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the defense minister, the head of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s military bureau and the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. {Source}
U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, after the strikes on Iran, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
BREAKING:
In Tehran, people are cheering and celebrating amid reports of Khamenei's death. pic.twitter.com/KfauCNdON8
Following the launch of U.S. combat operations in Iran, Americans worldwide and especially in the Middle East should follow the guidance in the latest security alerts issued by the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. They may experience travel disruptions due to periodic airspace… pic.twitter.com/eBf6u6nUvz
Posted originally on CTH on February 26, 2026 | Sundance
According to the Cuban government: “It has been established that the neutralized speedboat, registered in Florida FL7726SH, was carrying 10 armed people, who, according to preliminary statements by the detainees, intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
The Cuban military opened fire on a speedboat with 10 passengers. According to established reports, 4 passengers were killed and six were wounded and captured by the Cuban coast guard forces. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the story as it surfaced yesterday (Associated Press). WATCH:
The Cuban government has released the names of those captured: “1-Amijail Sánchez González, 2-Leordan Enrique Cruz, Gómez, 3-Conrado Galindo Sariol, 4-José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, 5-Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara, 6-Roberto Azcorra Consuegra. Among the deceased was Michel Ortega Casanova. Work is being done on the identification of the other 3.”
Cuba claims the boat, registered out of Florida, was carrying ten people intended to conduct terrorism in Cuba. Secretary Marco Rubio says the U.S. is conducting our own investigation to determine what took place.
In the press remarks above, Secretary Rubio also discussed the current status of U.S.-Iran negotiations.
Posted originally on CTH on February 26, 2026 | Sundance
The summary of the story basically circles back to that NSA/CIA whistleblower intercept they previously were using to attack DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Now that the whistleblower’s lawyer (same lawyer as last CIA whistleblower, Ciaramella) has leaked the subject of the conversation was Jared Kushner the democrats really want to know the details.
Two foreign nationals (unknown countries) were discussing the U.S. position toward Iran. In their conversation they talked about Jared Kushner. Their conversation was intercepted by NSA/CIA using an “exceptionally sensitive surveillance method.” The intercept was written, evaluated and determined to be “gossip” but given to the ODNI, Gabbard.
The whistleblower was upset the intercept was not shared with the larger intelligence apparatus. Thus, they were angry at Gabbard. The ODNI followed the distribution for the whistleblower complaint, but not the underlying intercepted details of the conversation.
The White House has now asserted “executive privilege” over the content of the intercept, thereby bolstering the position of not sharing what was previously determined to be gossip. The DNI was asked for the details, and Gabbard has told the Democrats the White House has asserted privilege. The House and Senate Intelligence committee democrats are now big mad they don’t get to read the gossip.
(VIA WSJ) – WASHINGTON—The Trump administration told Congress it won’t share with lawmakers the classified intelligence that led to a whistleblower complaint against U.S. spy chief Tulsi Gabbard, citing presidential claims of executive privilege.
In an email to Democratic congressional staffers sent on Feb. 13 and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Gabbard’s office said it was unable to provide the unredacted intelligence that underpinned the complaint “due to the assertion of executive privilege to portions” of the intelligence itself.
In a Tuesday letter to Gabbard, Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees, asked who asserted privilege over the intelligence report and on what basis.
[…] A spokeswoman for Director of National Intelligence Gabbard declined to directly address the decision to not share the underlying intelligence with Congress. She instead referred to a previous letter to lawmakers from the office’s general counsel that said Gabbard had met her requirements concerning notification to Congress about the complaint.
[…] The intelligence, which is at least in part about Iran, is said to derive from an exceptionally sensitive surveillance method. Officials have said any disclosure of the collection method could damage U.S. national security. Gabbard’s office ultimately shared the complaint with select lawmakers earlier this month, but redacted significant portions of it, also chiefly on grounds of executive privilege.
In the new letter, Warner and Himes said they weren’t able to confirm whether the discussion at issue was about Kushner because the version of the complaint they received was so heavily redacted. (more)
If I had to hazard a guess as to what is going on, based entirely on the current state of politics and what we know about how the IC and Democrats operate, overlaid against the domestic IC influence provocations currently underway, here’s my suspicion:
Bad actors within the CIA organized two friendly foreign intel officials to have a conversation. The script is about U.S. policy toward Iran, and the ‘gossip’ is that Jared Kushner is an Israeli intelligence asset, a blue sparrow, previously inserted into the Trump family. That ‘intercept’ would send everyone in the USA bananas regardless of truth or merit.
It sounds crazy, but that’s the level of conspiratorial nuttery, the sort of thing the IC would feed, to bolster the currently swirling year of crazy and further divide Trump’s base of support.
Whatever the underlying intercept consists of, it’s coming out of a highly political U.S. intelligence system; therefore, I would not give it any merit – unless, of course, you choose to cling to their prior construct of Trump colluding with Russia.
You know the IC narrative is falling apart quickly when even the New York Times paints the background as gossip.
Within the New York Times reporting we discover more of the underlying context for the NSA intercept.
According to the Times, the NSA intercept was of “two foreign nationals” discussing an American person with some relationship to President Trump. The underlying concern was about the conversation they intercepted.
Just pulling out the pertinent:
“a whistle-blower report about an intelligence intercept of a call between two foreign nationals discussing a person close to President Trump” … “It is not clear what country the two foreign nationals were from, but the discussion involved Iran.” … “The identity of the person close to Mr. Trump could not be immediately determined.”
[…] “One official said there was no other intelligence that led officials to think the two officials had been speaking truthfully. Some intelligence analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were either gossiping or deliberately spreading misinformation. As a result of those doubts, Ms. Gabbard moved to restrict the report’s visibility. She also provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.
The acting intelligence community’s inspector general [a Biden appointee] cleared Ms. Gabbard of wrongdoing after she responded to questions about her actions.” {source}
Summary: The NSA intercepted two foreign nationals talking about Iran and gossiping about someone close to Trump. The NSA snooper documented the conversation. Intel analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were just gossiping. DNI Gabbard did not put credibility on the issue, but to be safe informed Susie Wiles of the intercept. That’s it.
The NSA snooper then got big mad about the intelligence analysis of the conversation labeling it as gossip and took out their frustration by blaming Tulsi Gabbard for dismissing it.
originally on Posted Feb 1, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
COMMENT:
Hyperinflation and sanctions on cue in Iran, 103.2 years before Weimar.
Iran headed to 47.3 year peak in early 2027 on ECM from hostage taking, after which people will no longer have confidence in revolutionaries (on public/private ECM alternation).
Why not just recommend that US just let Iran fall on its own, to avoid potentially entangling China and Russia if US strikes first?
Thank you always!
JH
REPLY: I fully agree that Iran will fall all by itself just like Communism. You cannot have any religion dictate to the economy. Communism was in effect a religion that was atheism and sought to also control human nature suppressing it into one version fits all. The risk of Iran is that they may lash out of desperation and use war to try to cling to power. The problem I see is that February is showing up around many markets. Volatility will rise from February. Blackrock is writing down its private debt portfolio by 19% due to losses. Wait until they have to write down Ukraine. There are a lot of financial minefields out there in addition to the Sovereign Debt Crisis in Japan and EU.
Posted originally on Jan 26, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, you warned that Iran would face a crisis in February 2026. You also said Iran would enter a period of extreme conflict with the turning point in 2024. Now we have ships moving to Iran. Socrates has been showing a sharp rise in volatility beginning in February into September. I understand you are a trader and not a theoretical academic. Did you have any idea in creating Socrates that you not just disproved Random Walk Theory, but you created a system that does more than just forecast markets?
Robert S.
ANSWER: The September 2022 protests in Iran began this last wave which does not end until early 2027. This is the culmination of the Islamic Revolution that began in 1979. If you look at a chart of a market, what you will typically see is that a bull market is a longer drawn out period of time than a bear market. There are basic cyclical actions generated by human emotions insofar as we tend to take a longer period of time to gain confidence in something but we tend to lose that confidence in the blink of an eye.
Socrates proves every single day that the BS of Randam Walk and Efficient MarketTheories are absurd for unless you are a trader and look into the eyes of your opponent, you will never comprehend the world economy. It is like playing poker. People do not always bet on fact. Sometimes its a gut feeling – a hunch. Everyone acts out of their own self-interest and that combination is so fundamental to everything, those who seek to control society and rule over us from above have no respect for we, the Great Unwashed. It is always about them – not us.
When I created Socrates, it was because I was a trader. I was interested in hedging from the 1970s because I was a market maker in gold. Because I was probably the first to venture into the field of forecasting foreign exchange, I ended up with clients around the world. Our reports use to go out by telex and in the ’80s the cost could be up to $75 per market per day. So we had only the biggest clients back then because the average person could never afford the communication costs. That was the reason I began to open offices around the world to bring down the communication costs.
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As one of the first International Hedge Fund Managers from 1985, Socrates was an amazing assistant. It was teaching me things by forcing me to look at things that were not always obvious at first glance.
I was doing a TV spot I think in 1982. It was FNN that became CNBC. I was doing an interview with Walter Bressert. I gave our forecast that the British pound would fall to par by 1985. The pound was near the $2 level at the time so it was about a 50% drop. The host was shocked. He turned to Walt and asked – “What do you think about that forecast?” Walt and I were good friends. He replied, “I would not bet against his computer.”
Socrates has made so many amazing forecasts far beyond what any human could possibly do because there is an array of variables globally that it just takes a computer to track. It is not a neural net. Those have never succeeded. Even IBM sold off its WATSON when it failed to meet expectations. Why everyone has tried to mimic Socrates have missed the point. What I did was completely different. I coded myself into the system. I taught Socrates HOW TO ANALYZE. I did not throw all the data into a neural net and hope it would figure it out all on its own. AI that is out there may be impressing people, but they are language models. They can search the existing data and retrive the answer.
However, these AI Language Models will never be able to learn how to trade or discover the cure for cancer as IBM thought with WATSON. They are NOT capable of discovery because to discover anything, it takes curiosity and that cannot be coded.
It was the central bank of Lebanon that found data in their basement and asked if we could do a model on their their country. I have told this story often how we entered the data and out came a forecast that their country was going to fall apart in 8 days. I thought there was something wrong with the data. The computer projected a parabolic move I tend to call a Phase Transition. They calmly asked which currency would be better. I said the Swiss franc. The computer was correct and 8 days later the civil war began. That is what opened my eyes to the ability of Socrates to forecast geopolitical events. They saw the capital moving and came to us for the timing. We included their currency in our 1985 World Economic Conference.
I had a client who was one of the biggest shippers in the Middle East. He called one day and asked what gold would tomorrow because Iraq was going to start attacking ships in the Gulf to put economic pressure on Iran. I came to realize that someone ALWAYS knows the inside story ahead of war and begins to move their capital accordingly. The computer tracks the capital flows globally and in forecasting markets, it was also inevitably forecasting war and geopolitical events.
As I have explained many times, gold rallied into 1980 not because of inflation and the dollar, it rose from $480 to $875 on geopolitical events when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support a fellow Communist government against the rise of insurgents on December 24th, 1979. Gold peaked January 21st, 1980 at $875 cash.
I have paid the price for inventing something that had national security implications. I offered to run any study the CIA wanted. They bluntly told me that they had to own it. I said Socrates was not for sale. To even film the Forecaster, everything had to be proven in order to get insurance to make that movie. It was insured by Lloyds of London against slander and libel. The piece of evidence was an email to a lawyer demanding I turn over the source code in order to allow the company to continue forecasting. They fired 240 employees and stole their pension funds. That is how honorable the government is when they want something.
The SEC even used our research during 911. Just a month after the attacks the SEC sent out a list of stocks to various securities firms around the world looking for information. The list includes stocks of American, United, Continental, Northwest, Southwest and US Airways airlines, as well as Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., AIG, American Express Corp, American International Group, AMR Corporation, Axa SA, Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Corp, Bank One Corp, Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp, Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc, L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc., LTV Corporation, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp., General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Citigroup Inc. ,Royal & Sun Alliance, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Vornado Reality Trust, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., XL Capital Ltd., and Bear Stearns.
My track record over decades proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Random Walk Theory and Efficient Market Hypothesis are complete bullshit. If they were true, then they would have left me alone and our employees. They did their best to stop the forecasting and to steal my life’s work. I never intended to create something that would be of National Security. Why do you think the House Judiciary Committee would NEVER dare investigate my case with judges committing felonies that would force them to actually take action in the name of justice and the constitution?
Posted originally on Jan 16, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |
Nothing causes capital to flee offshore faster than an incoming war. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Iranian officials are rapidly moving capital out of Iran ahead of US intervention.
“As Treasury who carries out the sanctions we can see is we are now seeing the rats fleeing the ship because we can see millions, tens of millions of dollars being wired out of the country, snuck out of the country by the Iranian leadership,” Bessent said in an interview with Newsmax. “So they are abandoning ship, and we are seeing it come into banks and financial institutions all over the world,” the Treasury Secretary added.
Bessent said that the US is closely following the money trail. Over $1.5 billion was transferred to Dubai within 48 hours, with the majority of transfers happening through cryptocurrency. Potential successor Mojtaba Khamenei and the current Supreme Leader’s own son are believed to be involved in these money transfers.
It becomes harder to freeze and sanction funds once offshore, but governments will find a way. The UAE has applied UN Security Council resolutions against Iran, allowing it to freeze bank accounts of targeted individuals and groups. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) require governments to share banking information and permit one another to freeze or transfer assets by leveraging tax treaties (TIEAs).
Cryptocurrency is not off the grid. Using crypto may make the task a bit more difficult for intelligence agencies, but there is a reason that the US immediately knew where the funds were sent. The US tracked the money from Iran to Dubai and will continue to trace the blockchain until they can safely confiscate the funds. Tools like Chainalysis Reactor, TRM Labs, and Elliptic allow track crypto transactions across various blockchains and provide information on transaction dates, price amounts, and wallet addresses. That information is then integrated into systems that cross-check the accounts with sanctions lists to map illegal capital flows.
Back in September 2025, two Iranians were sanctioned by the US for transferring $100 million in crypto through oil sales. Separately, the Revolutionary Guard was caught moving $1 billion through a UK-based crypto exchange. US Treasury Official Miad Maleki commented that “the $1 billion figure over two years demonstrates that digital currencies are becoming a financial channel for Iran’s shadow banking apparatus.”
The largest crypto freeze in history also involved Iranian funds. In July 2025, 42 addresses with exposure to Iranian exchanges were traced and frozen with the help of virtual asset service providers (VASPs).
Governments tolerate cryptocurrencies because they still retain control over them. Neither crypto nor Iranian officials will be able to flee US intelligence authorities. Iranian state TV broadcast an image of Trump’s assassination attempt at his campaign rally in July 2024. “This time it will not miss the target,” the media outlet ominously warned. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has lost control. The entire nation turned its back on the regime. It reached the full extent of authoritarianism and then murdered over 12,000 citizens in cold blood; there is absolutely nothing that Khamenei can do to restore the confidence of his people or allies. A US strike is imminent.
Posted originally on CTH on January 14, 2026 | Sundance
President Trump gives impromptu remarks to the media upon return to Joint Base Andrews. Within the remarks President Trump notes his administration is reviewing details from ground reports in Iran that will help determine the next steps.
Posted originally on CTH on January 14, 2026 | Sundance
President Trump gives impromptu remarks to the media upon return to Joint Base Andrews. Within the remarks President Trump notes his administration is reviewing details from ground reports in Iran that will help determine the next steps.
Posted originally on CTH on January 4, 2026 | Sundance
Many on the political left, and even a few on the political right, are having fits about President Trump authorizing the operation to capture Venezuela president and narcotrafficker Nicolas Maduro without any congressional notification.
Several House members attempted to frame the issue as Trump acting as a dictator. A few called attention to the lack of the Gang of Eight being notified, and even some Republican senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee were concerned with the military deployment without advance notice.
If a covert intelligence operation was deployed, the President would sign a “finding memo” generally notifying the Gang of Eight, but that doesn’t apply in this instance.
President Trump remarked a concern with leaks was an element, saying that Congress has “a tendency to leak,” which he said could have produced “a very different result.” However, Secretary Marco Rubio was purposefully clear in his statement about the operation.
“This is not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on. It was a trigger-based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night,” Rubio said later at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. “Remember, at the end of day, at its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice, and the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job. Now there are broader policy implications here, but it’s just not the kind of mission that you can pre-notify because it endangers the mission,” he said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton affirmed after discussion with Rubio, “congress doesn’t need to be notified ever time the executive branch is making an arrest. And that’s exactly what happened this morning in Venezuela, and now Maduro is going to come to the United States, and he’s going to face justice.”
This is an important distinction. The DEA and DOJ carried out an arrest of an indicted drug trafficker.
This was, as Rubio noted, a law enforcement operation to capture fugitives. The military component was in support of that operation, nothing more. The DOJ had the lead; the DEA was the enforcement mechanism, and the military were in tactical support.
Pertaining to the “broader policy implications” noted by Rubio, there are many facets. As accurately noted by Cynical Publius:
“Under Maduro, Venezuela had become the Latin American crossroads for all of the USA’s principal enemies. Maduro was nurturing relationships with Russia, Hezbollah and Iran. Worst of all, Venezuela was eagerly becoming a part of Red China’s Belt & Road initiative.
As America’s enemies were lining up Venezuela as their base of operations in the Western Hemisphere to cause mischief and destruction for the USA, Maduro was at the same time making Venezuela a crossroads, safe haven and enabler for all manner of narcoterrorist operations, ranging from Colombia’s FARC to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
On top of all that, Venezuela had become a key player in the illegal alien invasion of the USA, shipping its very worst to the USA in a deliberate and comprehensive destabilizing operation that might have worked had Donald Trump not won in 2024.
[…] So was Maduro seized because of some five-year-old drug charges? Yes. Legally–yes. However, like so many strategic issues in the world today, an action needed to be backed by the fine points of law, and it was. But the reality is that the Maduro takedown was a Monroe Doctrine-driven necessity that has greatly enhanced the power and national security of the USA. (read more)
However, beyond the geopolitical issue that relates to all the above, there is another consideration that might help explain the immediate and alarmed reaction of Mexico.
With President Trump now forcefully executing exfiltration of narcotic drug traffickers, the ramifications for Mexico and the Cartels who own/operate the Mexican government take on a new context.
If the U.S. will raid Venezuela, will the U.S. now conduct a similar approach closer to home?
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: Mexico condemns military intervention in Venezuela – The Government of Mexico strongly condemns and rejects the military actions carried out unilaterally in recent hours by armed forces of the United States of America against targets in the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in clear violation of Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations (UN).
Based on its foreign policy principles and its pacifist vocation, Mexico makes an urgent call to respect international law, as well as the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, and to cease any act of aggression against the Venezuelan government and people.
Latin America and the Caribbean is a zone of peace, built on the basis of mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes and the prohibition of the use and threat of force, so that any military action puts regional stability at serious risk.
Mexico emphatically reiterates that dialogue and negotiation are the only legitimate and effective ways to resolve existing differences and therefore reaffirms its readiness to support any effort to facilitate dialogue, mediation or accompaniment that would help to preserve regional peace and avoid confrontation.
It also urges the United Nations to act immediately to contribute to the de-escalation of tensions, facilitate dialogue and create conditions that allow for a peaceful, sustainable solution in accordance with international law. (link)
Reconsider these words from Rubio, against the backdrop of what Mexico is known for. WATCH:
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