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It's Sunday, the 1st of March. Look at that, a brand new month. Welcome to this Sunday evening special edition of the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Operation Epic Fury, as it's being called in the US Or Operation Roaring lion, as it's called in Israel, has now entered its second day. US And Israeli strikes are continuing across Iran, targeting ballistic missile arrays, air defense systems, and what remains of the regime's senior leadership structure. Now I want to start by taking a look at a statement from Iranian leadership that hasn't gotten as much attention as I believe it should because it may be providing some unintentional insight into the current state of Iran's military. First, a little background. For the first time in this conflict, Iranian drones struck Oman. Now that's a country that had largely been spared, likely because of its long standing role as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran. So targeting facilities in Oman by the Iranian regime, well, that's interesting enough, but what really stands out is how the regime explained those strikes. When asked about it, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragi had this to say. Quote, what happened in Oman was not our choice. We have already told our armed forces to be careful about the targets they choose. Our military units are now in fact, independent and somewhat isolated, and they are acting based on general instructions given to them in advance, end quote. Now, if accurate, that means the Iranian military is now executing pre authorized guidance rather than taking instruction from real time commands. Iraqi is effectively admitting that centralized command and control has collapsed or mostly collapsed, and the military is essentially operating on autopilot. And when units begin acting on standing orders without real time direction and guidance from superiors, well, the risk of miscalculation can rise dramatically. According to reports, the US carried out more than 900 strikes in the first 12 hours of this conflict, while Israel reportedly carried out 1200 strikes in the first 24 hours. For some context, that's more than were carried out in the entire 12 day war just past year. Of course, the other big news at this hour, Iranian state media has now acknowledged that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. The 86 year old cleric, who has ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades was reportedly killed early Saturday morning when his compound and offices in downtown Tehran were reduced to rubble in a targeted strike. Iranian sources speaking to Reuters say at least seven missiles were launched against the fortified compound. Khamenei had ruled since 1989, succeeding Ayatollah Khomeini over more than 30 years. He consolidated near absolute authority over Iran's military, judiciary, intelligence services and state media. He shaped Tehran's confrontational foreign policy on oversaw its proxy network across the Middle east and maintained tight control over the regime's religious and political institutions. For an entire generation of Iranians. Well, he was the regime. President Trump commented on Khamenei's death, saying this is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all great Americans and those people from many countries throughout the world that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs. The President added that heavy and pinpoint bombing will continue uninterrupted throughout the week until American objectives are achieved. Khamenei was not the only senior figure reportedly eliminated. Israeli officials are claiming that more than 40 top security and regime officials were killed in the initial wave of strikes. The Israeli military has published a list of those it believes it has taken out. That list includes Iran's Defense Minister, the head of the Iranian Security Council, the command. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be Mohammed Pakbor and dozens of other senior leaders across Iran's intelligence, military and political apparatus. Arguably, the most significant name on that list is Pakbar. He'd been commander of the IRGC since last year when his predecessor was killed in a targeted attack by the Israelis. In that role, he commanded Iran's main military force, oversaw activation of strategic missile arrays against Israel, and coordinated with Iranian proxies across the region. He also allegedly led the violent suppression of Iranian protesters over the past month that resulted in thousands of citizens killed by the regime and tens of thousands more detained. Despite the apparent removal of so many regime senior leaders, there's no guarantee that the government will collapse. As we've been reporting here on the pdb, Iranian officials have long anticipated what they refer to as the assassination scenario. The regime has contingency plans in place. Just last week, we noted that Khamenei had quietly shifted significant authority to Ali Larajani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. As of now, there are no indications that Larajani was killed in the initial strikes. In other words, while the top layer of leadership may have been removed, Tehran has likely been preparing for rapid succession. That means this may not create the immediate power vacuum that summoned Jerusalem or Washington or or frankly, much of the Iranian population might be hoping for. Meanwhile, the regional fallout continues to expand.