WSJ What’s News - Israel Hopes to Trigger a Revolt in Iran

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

A.M. Edition for Mar. 4. Israel’s military is targeting sites in Iran connected to the country's police state, in what WSJ correspondent Margherita Stancati says is a strategy aimed at helping enable a popular uprising against Iran’s leaders. Plus, South Korean stocks see a record drop as fighting in the Mideast ripples across Asian economies. And James Talarico wins Texas’s Senate Democratic primary on a message of electability. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Israel attacks Iran's police state, hoping to kick off a popular revolt against the country's leaders. Plus, a record drop for South Korean stocks as conflict in the Middle East drags Asia's economies. And James Talariko wins Texas's Senate Democratic primary on a message of electability. The number of independents and Republicans who voted in this Democratic primary is unprecedented. This is proof that there is something happening in Texas. It's Wednesday, March 4th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of Watts News,

the top headlines and business stories, moving your world today. Israel says it shot down an Iranian jet fighter over Tehran this morning, and what it claims is the first ever air-to-air shoot-down of a manned fighter by an F-35. The journal's Margarita Stankati says that, comes as Israel is also continuing attacks against Iran's police state, hoping that airstrikes can clear the way for a revolt against the country's rulers. In the first few days of war, we have seen Israeli forces strike the headquarters, bases,

and local command centers belonging to special police units and the ideologically driven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as the Basij Militia, which are the street level and forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. And collectively, this sends a message that Israeli forces want to degrade Iran's ability to suppress internal dissent in the hopes that this could pave the way to another domestic uprising, another popular revolt that could ultimately lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic. And Margarita said that Israel's attacks aren't just centered on Tehran, but on Kurdish areas in Western Iran, a key part of its strategy. Kurdish and other ethnic minorities represent a particular kind of threat to the regime. Kurds in particular have a strong sense of community. They are in border areas and they're often armed.

And there are also Iranian Kurdish fighters on the other side of the border in Iraq, which could cross into Iran should border security weaken and should there be a push to have a ground war as well. We know that Trump has spoken to Kurdish leaders in the region. We're not sure what they said, but there is a clear acknowledgement also from the Iranian side that this could be problematic for them. Iranian forces have struck Kurdish targets in Iraq, including Iranian Kurdish officers. So there's a sense that this could become a next big potential front line in the war.

Well, another thing to watch is how long each combatant in the conflict can keep up the fight. While we're just five days into the conflict, we're already hearing questions about when Iran will, exhaust its missiles, whether the Gulf states could run out of air defenses, and that despite mobilizing a formidable force in the Middle East, could American ammunition stockpiles run thin if fighting continues for weeks? Journal Defense Industry reporter Alistair MacDonald has been looking into the military hardware that has shaped the conflict to date. Alistar, are things as dire as the above warnings might suggest? Yeah, I would say potentially. Things are potentially as dire as people say. It of course depends on how long the war goes on for. And there's no way that

either side can sustain a conflict based on just air munitions, missiles, drones, etc. for months and months. And it also depends on whether the U.S. and Israel can destroy Iranian stockpiles and its ability to produce drones. Obviously, the ballistic missiles Iran has are the most deadly and harder to take down, but you can knock out a Shahid in less than a month. Shahid, these are these Iranian drones they've been using to good effect. That's right. One-way attack drones that have proved spectacularly successful in both the Ukraine war and here. I mean, the Shahid, as you can see, is causing chaos amongst the Gulf states and have also been responsible for U.S. deaths already.

So they are very deadly, but also cheap and relatively easy to make weapon. What about re-arming? We've heard some of the Gulf states say, we're fine here. We can get more weapons, air defenses if we need to. Is that the case? It's depending on the weapon. So if you're talking about sort of a patriot intercept that, no, not really. Stockpiles were always pretty low. And they've been under huge demand. So obviously, the American needs its own magazine of these interceptors. And then some have been bought for Ukraine. And Europeans themselves have them and the Gulf states have them. These things tend to take upwards of over a year to make and cost a million. They're very complex weapons. So the US will have its own stocks. And it would probably be able to last for a long time during this war. But what it doesn't want to do is finish this. this war and then have no magazine left for any future conflict. Alistair, this kind of ties in with what the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had warned

about the U.S. potentially running out of munitions and our own analysis, suggesting it could have just enough for a few weeks. Do we have a sense yet of which weapons are having the most impact on this conflict? They've shown us, repeated one of the lessons of the Ukraine conflict, that air defense is absolutely essential. But also what they've also shown us is that for all the excitement about drones, they're US still wants to fight its adversaries with old school assets, man-fighter jets and naval ships. And what a US analyst would say is that the problem with Ukraine is Russia was never able to achieve

air dominance. So it became this long, drawn-out land war, which is where drones then predominate. But what the US wants to do is it wants to come in and dominate the air and hit its enemy very hard from the start. And so the US has brought in a vast fleet of these sort of old-school assets. It's two aircraft carriers, 13 destroyers, fleets of F-35s, F-15s, F-16s, the support aircraft, and the B-2 bomb has also been used from US bases. And the air defence from naval vessels has been very important as destroyers knock out Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and also the Navy's being used to launch Tomahawks.

So these old-school assets still pack up bigger punch than near-average drone. They typically have a larger reach. But then on the other side, of course, drones have proven very, very potent from Iran, and then obviously ballistic missiles. Alistair MacDonald covers the defense industry for us. Alistair, appreciate you. As always, thanks for the update. Thanks, Luke.

Meanwhile, concerns about the length and impact of the conflict prompted a deep market sell-off in Asia this morning, with South Korea's Kaspi Index plummeting more than 12% and leading to two pauses in trading. Journal reporter Hannah Miao said that Asian economy, are particularly dependent on oil imports from the Middle East. South Korea's stock market in particular is quite sensitive to swings in oil prices. Its economy often relies on very heavy industry, which is reliant on oil. So the longer this conflict goes on, the greater the risk of disruption to their economies.

And the other thing is that these stock markets have been really on a tear because of the AI trade. A lot of optimism that these companies are benefiting. from the AI boom. And so now it's a bit of a reality check. Today's sell-off follows volatile trading in the U.S. and Europe yesterday, with U.S. stock futures pointing to a lower open this morning. Coming up, OpenAIs, Sam Aldman, defends the company's work with the Pentagon. That and the rest of the day's news after the break. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours.

We are here to support your business through every stage of growth. From your first pitch to your first acquisition. Whether it's improving cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions, with Desjardin business, it's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. Let's turn to Texas now, where the AP is projecting Democrat James Tala Rico

as the winner of a closely watched Senate primary beating out progressive Jackson. Jasmine Crockett. The 36-year-old state rep and Bible scholars' victory is an early indication of Democratic voters' preferences ahead of the midterms, where Tala Rico will face the winner of the Republican runoff set for May between incumbent Senator John Corny and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after neither secured a majority of votes last night. Journal National Politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez has this report from Tala Rico's election night party. For Republicans, this has been a look at whether voters want to stick with some type of traditional conservatism or keep moving with a more MAGA-focused message.

Paxton is beloved by the MAGA base and decided to challenge incumbent Senator Cornyn, who has been in Texas politics for roughly 40 years. On the Democratic side, Crockett is firebrand with a national brand for confrontations and for willingness to have confrontation with President Trump and Republicans. And Talariko has been selling a message much more focused on his faith. He talks a lot about the politics of love. And for that, we see sort of a test of whether Democrats want a candidate who's trying to court the middle, who's trying to court moderates, conservatives, people who may be voted for President Trump in 2024, versus a candidate like Crockett who has really pushed her focus on trying to fire up the base. The House probe into Jeffrey Epstein's network is intensifying with Bill Gates, billionaire Leon Black, and Goldman Sachs' departing General Counsel Catherine Rumler, all being at.

asked to testify about their ties to the deceased sex offender. For other individuals in Epstein's orbit have also been called upon. Gates and Rumler both welcomed the opportunity to speak and have said they were unaware of Epstein's crimes. That sentiment has previously been echoed by Black, whose spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. At the same time, the Justice Department has said there are over 47,000 Epstein files that remain offline for further review and should be ready for release by the end of the week. That comes after a journal report found that the DOJ withheld thousands of documents,

including a woman's unverified allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump. Trump has denied wrongdoing and said the Epstein files totally exonerated him. The Trump administration is expanding its campaign against drug traffickers in Latin America, launching a new joint operation with Ecuador. The U.S. Southern Command says the mission specifically targets groups recently designated as terrorist organizations. And speaking of military operations, OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman has come under fire for a decision to allow the Pentagon to use its tools for classified work. That's after Rival Anthropic pulled out of a similar government contract,

taking issue with the use of its technology for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. We exclusively report that Aldman told staff that he didn't regret signing the contract, but that the timing looked opportunistic, coming just hours after defense's Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply chain risk. Journal tech reporter Sam Shetner says the blowback comes amid a simmering debate among AI researchers on whether they can trust business leaders to responsibly deploy their technology. After OpenAI made this deal with the Pentagon, there was a groundswell of AI researchers at the company and then in broader Silicon Valley who spent the weekend criticizing him and

the company. They saw it as a capitulation to the Pentagon after essentially a ground. agreeing to a deal that allowed AI to be used in all lawful cases. And internally, OpenAI employees were calling for the company to sign a different deal. And over the weekend, they actually worked on revising the deal. And Sam Altman in an all-hands meeting described himself as trying so hard to do the right thing and to get absolutely, like, personally crushed for it. And then he said that he thought it was the right decision, but that it had, quote, difficult brand consequences and very negative PR for us. According to journal reporting, this weekend's strikes on Iran were planned with the involvement of Anthropics-Claude models. And that's it for what's news for this

Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. You know,