Eleven days into Operation Epic Fury — Trump says it ends "soon" while threatening worse, doomsday planes are being tracked over the Atlantic, Dubai shelves are thinning, and Afghanistan just got blacklisted. Here is everything that actually matters, verified.
Trump Says "Very Soon" — But What Does That Actually Mean?
Day 11 of Operation Epic Fury, and President Trump held a press conference at Trump National Doral in Miami on Monday, March 9 — his first since the war began on February 28. The message was confident but contradictory in the same breath.
Trump called the war a "short-term excursion" and said the US was "getting very close to finishing." When asked if it could end in days or weeks, he replied: "I think soon. Very soon. Everything they have is gone, including their leadership." He claimed US and Israeli forces had struck over 5,000 targets since the operation began. He also said Iran's missile capability was "down to about 10 percent" of its pre-war capacity — though that is Trump's assertion, not an independently verified military assessment.
In the same press conference, however, Trump warned that Iran would be hit "twenty times harder" if it interfered with the Strait of Hormuz, and revealed that the US was holding back some of Iran's most critical infrastructure targets — including its electrical grid — as leverage. He also privately told House Republicans that "we haven't won enough yet," according to CNN's reporting from the same event.
So which is it — winding down or not done? When pressed on this contradiction — specifically on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's earlier comment that the war was "just beginning" — Trump said both could be true. "It's the beginning of building a new country," he said, signalling that military objectives may be close to completion, but the political endgame for Iran's future is far from settled.
Iran is not reading from Washington's script. Tehran's newly elected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — son of the killed Ali Khamenei, confirmed in the role on March 8 — has been met with shows of public loyalty, including large processions in Tehran's Pounak neighbourhood. Iran's foreign ministry has stated it, not the US, will decide when this war ends. Iranian retaliatory strikes on US bases and Gulf Arab infrastructure continued through the weekend, though the rate of ballistic missile launches has dropped significantly from peak levels — analysts at multiple outlets point to depleted stockpiles and a strategy of rationing for a longer campaign.
Doomsday Planes in the Air — How Serious Is This?
Flight-tracking data, first reported by OSINT analysts on March 4 and subsequently covered by The Daily Mail, Pakistan Tribune, and multiple defence publications, has captured a meaningful uptick in US Navy E-6B Mercury aircraft activity since February 28 — the day the war began. Two E-6B flights were observed over the continental US on March 2: one departing the Gulf Coast and landing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, another flying out of and returning to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Since then, additional flights have reportedly been tracked crossing the Atlantic toward the Persian Gulf region. The Pentagon, as is standard practice, declined to comment on specific flight activity, citing operational security.
These aircraft are commonly called "Doomsday planes." The E-6B Mercury is a flying nuclear command-and-control platform — built on modified Boeing 707 airframes, designed to survive electromagnetic pulses, and capable of trailing a very-low-frequency antenna to reach submerged nuclear submarines. Its primary mission — TACAMO, or "Take Charge And Move Out" — is to keep America's nuclear chain of command alive even if ground-based communication systems are knocked out. It can also relay launch orders for land-based ICBMs from the air. Each aircraft carries a crew of 22 and can remain airborne for nearly three days with in-flight refuelling.
Their activation does not mean nuclear war is imminent — the US deploys E-6Bs during serious crises as a precautionary deterrence posture, and such deployments have occurred in past conflicts. What their appearance signals is that US planners are taking worst-case escalation scenarios seriously, particularly given credible reports of Russia sharing targeting intelligence with Iran, and China's repeated warnings against further escalation.
Dubai's Food Clock Is Ticking
This is the story most audiences are underreporting. Stefan Paul, CEO of global logistics company Kuehne + Nagel, warned publicly that Dubai's fresh food stocks — fruits, vegetables, dairy — could last only around ten days under the supply disruption conditions created by the war. That warning was issued around March 5. Today is March 10. The window has narrowed considerably.
A note on sourcing: Kuehne + Nagel's communications team later issued a statement saying the company had not formally assessed UAE food availability as an institution, and that the CEO's remarks were made in a personal capacity. That said, the underlying logistics disruption data is confirmed by multiple independent analysts and shipping industry trackers — the company walkback does not change the supply chain reality on the ground.
The math behind the concern is straightforward. The UAE imports roughly 80–90% of its food. A significant share of Gulf food shipments normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz corridor — which has seen drastically reduced commercial shipping since Iran's IRGC threatened vessels in the waterway after February 28. Air cargo capacity across Middle East routes dropped sharply in the first week of war. Around 100 container ships remain stuck in the Persian Gulf. Freight rates surged on opening day of the conflict. Indian factories have already reported cutting urea output due to gas supply disruptions — an early signal of ripple effects on global fertilizer chains.
The UAE is not facing starvation — strategic grain reserves and frozen food stocks provide a buffer. But empty fresh produce sections in Dubai supermarkets are a concrete, visible consequence for millions of civilians who had no say in starting this war.
Afghanistan Blacklisted — The Taliban Gets a Warning
On March 9 — which the US marks as National Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day — Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally designated Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention. The ceremony at the State Department included families of detained Americans.
Afghanistan becomes only the second country to receive this designation. Iran was the first, blacklisted on February 27 — one day before Operation Epic Fury launched. The designation, established by a Trump executive order in September 2025, allows Washington to impose sanctions, export controls, and travel restrictions on governments that detain foreign nationals as diplomatic leverage.
Rubio specifically named two Americans: Dennis Coyle, a 64-year-old academic from Colorado detained by the Taliban since January 2025 without any charges, and Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman who disappeared in Kabul in 2022. The Taliban has denied holding Habibi; US authorities and his family disagree.
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz took the message further at the Security Council — questioning why the international community should support $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan while its government holds innocent Americans in isolation. He also expressed explicit doubt about the durability of the Doha Agreement under current Taliban behaviour. The message from Washington was direct: the old diplomatic tolerance for hostage-taking is over.
Editorial View · Santhosh Vishwamitra
A War With No Defined Finish Line
Trump calling this a "short-term excursion" while simultaneously threatening Iran's electrical grid and telling Republicans "we haven't won enough" is not a contradiction — it is a negotiating posture being broadcast publicly. The message to Mojtaba Khamenei is: accept the new reality now, or face worse. The problem is that Iran has a new supreme leader with apparent public support and a stated refusal to yield on Washington's terms. Military degradation is real — but you cannot bomb a country into choosing the government you want for it. The US has tested that theory before, in Iraq. The results were not inspiring.
The E-6B deployments reflect something important: US military planners are actively war-gaming worst-case scenarios where Russian intelligence-sharing with Iran or a miscalculation by any party triggers something neither Washington nor Moscow actually wants. The planes are a deterrence signal, not a countdown. But that they are flying tells you something about how seriously the Pentagon is reading the risk environment right now.
The Dubai food story is the civilian cost of this war made visible — and it deserves far more attention than it is getting. Millions of people in the Gulf, who had no vote and no say in this conflict, are now watching their supermarket shelves thin. The school in Minab where over 160 people — mostly children — were killed in the opening strikes on February 28 is the starkest version of that cost. Iran started nothing that particular morning. Whatever the military outcome, the civilian reckoning is already here, and no amount of "we're almost done" from a press conference changes that reality.
The Bottom Line
Day 11, and the war has no clean exit in sight. Trump wants it over fast; Iran's new leadership is not signalling surrender; Dubai is running short on fresh food; and Washington is blacklisting everyone who has held an American hostage. "Very soon" is not a plan. It is a hope — and hope has never been a reliable military strategy.
About the Author
Santhosh Vishwamitra is a writer, blogger, and founder of SVM Labs who writes about geopolitics, global affairs, and the forces shaping the world. For content on web development and writing, visit santhoshvishwamitrablog.wordpress.com.
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