Summary:

• Younger, reportedly more 'hardline' Ayatollah takes command as regime stability continues: Military and political elites have pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaces his slain father as supreme leader and is viewed as a figure favored by the IRGC.

• Offramp, or more global shock & pain ahead? Trump after seeing oil prices: Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!

• Nation-building, nation-smashing, divergent US-Israeli aims? More from Trump "...will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before." But US officials distance themselves from big weekend attacks on Iranian oil.

• Iran shuts door on ceasefire talk possibility, accuses US of seeking 'partition': as several countries have begun mediation efforts; however Foreign Ministry says: "While military aggression continues, there is little room to talk about anything other than a decisive response."

• More Iranian missile/drone hits on Gulf sites, IDF ground operations expand inside Lebanon

* * *

Iran's military and political leadership has reportedly pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, who as we reported was named Sunday to replace his slain father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader. The relatively young 56-year old is not some Delcy Rodriguez character, as he's a military veteran of the eight year Iran-Iraq war and saw his wife Zahra killed in an Israeli airstrike. He's said to be the favored IRGC choice and more hardline than his father Ali Khamenei.

The United States and Israel continue to unleash their mass bombing campaign across Iran, with explosions reported in Qom and Tehran hours after weekend Israeli strikes on oil facilities sent toxic smoke and even oil-infused rain across the Iranian capital. There's been emerging reports suggesting there's been some divergence or even distance on war aims and strategy between the US and Israel; however, this could also simply be war propaganda put out by officials - and yet probably President Trump doesn't like to see oil go up in flames.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei of course has a different theory. He said in a fresh statement that the attacks aim "at partitioning our country to take illegal possession of our oil riches." He likely has Syria in mind, which Iran propped up on support of Assad for over a decade, but which has been permanently fractured, weakened, and a once significant Russian-supplied anti-air defense and missile arsenal utterly destroyed. The Syria model is something Israeli policy makers have talked about for decades, and Israel appears to be willing to smash an entire Iranian nation of 90+ million.

With this in mind, Baghaei emphasized there's no halting the fight at this stage: "While military aggression continues, there is little room to talk about anything other than a decisive response," he said Monday. Trump recently said operations won't cease until there's "unconditional surrender" by Iran.

Despite the massive scale of Israeli and American firepower, the strikes clearly have not dismantled the regime's core structures, arranged precisely to endure such external shocks and maintain power. There's also not yet been any clear examples of elite fractures. 

"We’re not seeing it, and we’re unlikely to see it," Alan Eyre, a Farsi-speaking former diplomat who served on the U.S. nuclear negotiating team with Iran, told The Wall Street Journal. "The IRGC and other elites benefit the most from the status quo and would rather fight than switch."

The same publication reviews that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, created in 1979 to safeguard the Islamic revolutionary system, includes about 190,000 active-duty troops. It is the most elite core defense perimeter running the war and reports directly to the Supreme Leader, even bypassing Iran's conventional armed forces. In addition to this, there's a sort of domestic IRGC internal security force over the country - roughly 600,000 irregular Basij militia members which can mobilize.

At a moment oil prices have surged more than 25% to kick off the week, their highest levels since mid-2022 as some major producers cut supplies and fears of prolonged shipping disruptions spread through global markets due to the expanding war - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran would only contemplate a ceasefire for a permanent end to the war on its terms.

He reminded the West that Iran did accept a ceasefire which ended the 12-war in June. Of course, Iran is currently trying to inflict as much pain as possible on the US and Israel before such a potential end - also as Israel continues to experience rare severe damage to its cities, bases and infrastructure from ongoing ballistic missile attacks. On the question of an offramp, below are a couple of unconfirmed developments and headlines:

—Iran are seeking peace talks with the US with Qatar, Oman & Italy involved in mediation: CNN/News18

—Israeli Defense Officials Start to Ask How the Iran War Ends: WAPO ("A few senior officials in Israel are starting to voice concern about the escalating, open-ended attack on Iran – and suggesting possible exit ramps that might halt the war before it further damages the region and the global economy.")

The Foreign Ministry's Baghaei has further addressed President Trump's ultra-provocative suggestion that Iran's borders could change. Asked last week whether Iran's map would look the same after the war, Trump said, "That I can’t tell you. Probably not."

Baghaei blasted Trump for treating the world like a real estate deal: "The US president and others have made statements about many parts of the world – from Canada to other countries – as if the entire planet were prime real estate and governments were merely real estate agencies," the FM spokesman said. "For the people of Iran, the map of the country represents everything that every Iranian is proud of and is willing to sacrifice their life to protect."

As for 'sacrifice' - but on the US side of things, an eighth American soldier has now been confirmed killed, one day after Trump oversaw a dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base. Interestingly Fox News has come under fire for its mishandling of the coverage.

Current mass WH messaging...

In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of continuing attacks against the kingdom due to "baseless claims" - including allegations that fighter jets and refueling aircraft stationed in Saudi Arabia were preparing to join the war. This after on Saturday Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized to Arab Gulf states and said Tehran would stop striking neighboring countries unless attacks on Iran originated from their territory; however, those attacks have not actually appeared to stop - as the consensus is that the elite IRGC is in charge, and there's likely even autonomy of command decisions with units under emergency war orders.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry said Monday of Pezeshkian's 'apology' that Iran "has not reflected that statement in practice." It laid out that Iran has "continued its attacks based on baseless claims that are not grounded in fact, including allegations that the Kingdom had previously clarified were false, namely the claim that fighter jets and refueling aircraft had departed from the Kingdom to participate in the war."

Saudi officials have said its aircraft patrols were purely defensive. "The continued Iranian attacks represent further escalation, with significant implications for bilateral relations both now and in the future," the ministry said.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, thick smoke has been seen rising from the direction of the Bapco oil refinery in Bahrain, according to a witness cited in Al Jazeera and other reports. Bahrain reported that an Iranian drone strike on the island of Sitra, whihc injured 32 people overnight. Gulf states continue generally reporting new strikes as Iran carries out retaliatory attacks across the region - after Tehran's own oil and fuel storage sites have been blown up in major weekend attacks.

Israel's 'second front' in Lebanon also continues to escalate, as multiple Israeli airstrikes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, including at least one targeting Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which is a financial institution linked to Hezbollah, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.

Hezbollah said Monday that it is busy fighting Israeli forces that landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter across the Syrian border, the second such operation since the start of the latest conflict with Israel. There's already a ground war ongoing in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah described said it detected "the infiltration of approximately 15 Israeli enemy helicopters" from the Syrian side of the border in eastern Lebanon, an area long under Hezbollah influence.

Meanwhile, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly plan to travel to Israel on Tuesday to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, who is seen as close to the Israeli government. The trip hasn't been officially confirmed, however.

Footage from northeast Tehran, oil and energy sites continue to burn:

As for 'what's next' - escalation or offramp... the following from Bloomberg suggests there could be a gateway to ground troops if things take an escalatory war path: "Trump is weighing the option of deploying special forces on the ground to seize Iran’s near bomb-grade uranium, according to diplomats. He told the Times of Israel that a decision on when to end the war will also involve Benjamin Netanyahu," Bloomberg reviews of prior weekend reporting.

This as there are claims that Washington and Tel Aviv don't see eye to eye on ultimate war aims and strategy: "Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge." But all of this fresh reporting of 'distance' between the close allies who are executing Trump's Operation Epic Fury could by design be meant to create artificial distance between the president and what might prove to be an unpopular war.