The 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei had long been considered a front-runner to eventually replace his father as the head of Iran’s theocratic regime. But in recent years, Iran experts and foreign policy insiders questioned whether the elder Khamenei would actually choose one of his sons, perhaps fearing that the selection could fuel resentment at the highest levels of the Iranian government. Former President Ebrahim Raisi was widely viewed as another likely pick, but that ended with Raisi’s death in a 2024 helicopter crash.

The younger Mr. Khamenei, a veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, is a somewhat mysterious figure. He’s given few public speeches or lectures. 

Mr. Khamenei has never run for office in Iran. But he is viewed as a hardliner and has the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership. His appointment suggests that Iran, at least in the short term, is not seriously considering ceasefire negotiations with the U.S.

In the span of 48 hours, Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth each hosted major gatherings of Latin American leaders in South Florida. Their message was simple: Help fight drug cartels or the U.S. will do it alone.

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn traveled with Mr. Hegseth to Miami late last week for the Americas Counter Cartel Conference, which included military leaders from more than a dozen Latin American countries. Mr. Hegseth urged them to get on board with the U.S. military-led effort to dismantle powerful drug cartels. His comments come against the backdrop of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, a recent joint U.S.-Ecuador counterdrug operation and the January U.S. raid that captured then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York to face federal narco-terrorism-related charges.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump drove that message home at his Shield of the Americas Summit in South Florida. But officials from Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil — whose left-wing administrations have frequently clashed with the White House — were absent from both events. 

Drones have helped Ukraine avoid losing its grueling war with Russia, now in its fifth year. But they also haven’t helped Kyiv actually prevail in the conflict. 

It may seem like a subtle distinction, but it’s strategically crucial. On the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Amos Fox, a retired Army officer and Arizona State University professor who studies military technology extensively, explains the dangers of overestimating what small attack drones can actually accomplish in a major war.

Certainly, the unmanned aircraft are tactically important, as they’ve proven their value in targeting enemy positions with deadly precision. But they haven’t helped with large-scale territorial gains. More importantly, they cannot be counted on to replace other, more traditional capabilities of the U.S. military, such as ground forces, Mr. Fox argues.

“You can’t make a one-for-one comparison with Ukraine and the United States, that we should copy Ukraine,” says Mr. Fox, the managing editor of Small Wars Journal.

The war in Iran is the latest in a string of military actions Mr. Trump has ordered around the world, from Nigeria to Venezuela. Has the commander in chief changed his tune on whether America should act as the world’s policeman?

There’s a convincing case that he has. Mr. Trump has offered two distinct rationales when using the U.S. armed forces abroad: a moral responsibility to uphold freedom and democracy around the world, or to lock up bad guys such as Mr. Maduro.

Foreign policy analysts have mixed views on whether the president has entirely reversed course on his pledge to focus on domestic matters and keep the U.S. out of major foreign entanglements. But there’s no doubt that Mr. Trump believes he can — and perhaps must — use the full might of the American military to accomplish his goals, such as permanently ending Iran’s nuclear program or stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S. 

Behind the scenes, some key Venezuelan political figures and pro-regime sympathizers are organizing and funding campaigns to undermine the potential transition to a democratic government in Caracas. 

That’s according to Emmanuel Rincon, a Venezuelan lawyer, political consultant and writer, who argues in a new op-ed for The Washington Times that influential actors are pushing for the Venezuelan dictatorship to survive, in one form or another. The country is in a state of transition. Current President Delcy Rodriguez took over in January after a U.S. military raid that captured Mr. Maduro.

Since then, Mr. Rincon says, “lobbying networks, media operations, public relations firms and ‘policy influencers’” have worked “to sanitize the regime’s image abroad and fracture the opposition from within.

“The money behind these efforts is murky. Not every initiative aimed at weakening Venezuela’s democratic transition is openly coordinated, but the outcome is the same: Divide the opposition, fracture its leadership and weaken the possibility of a real break from socialism,” he writes. 

• March 10 — The Pentagon and Silicon Valley: The Future of Artificial Intelligence in National Defense, Center for a New American Security 

• March 10 — European Strategic Readiness in Turbulent Times, Royal United Services Institute 

• March 11 —  The Remaking of International Security: Arms Transfer Trends in a Changing Global Order, Stimson Center

• March 11 —  Taiwanese Views of the United States and China: Evidence from the 2026 American Portrait Survey, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• March 11 —  Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III, Hudson Institute 

• March 13 —  Ukraine’s Human Capital and the Foundations of Recovery and Long-term Security, Atlantic Council

• March 17 —  Boosting U.S. Quantum Supply Chains for Enduring Advantage, Center for a New American Security 

• March 19 —  Ukraine on the Mental Map of Europe, Brookings Institution 

• March 19 —  Poland, Northeastern Europe and the Future of the Transatlantic Partnership, American Enterprise Institute

• March 24-26 — Global Force Symposium & Exposition, Association of the U.S. Army