Donald Trump “lashed out” at Benjamin Netanyahu last night in an “expletive-laden call” with the Israeli PM about the country’s actions in Lebanon, according to US officials speaking to news site Axios. The official paraphrased Trump’s remarks as: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

Trump himself described the call as “very productive”, saying he had demanded Israel abandon plans for a “major raid” and that Netanyahu had “turned his troops around” as a result.

The Israeli prime minister is caught between Donald Trump’s demands to end the bombardment of Lebanon, which threatens peace talks with Iran, and domestic pressure to escalate the campaign against Hezbollah, which has seen the Israeli army moving deeper into Lebanon and escalating air strikes.

What did the commentators say?

Since the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu has “struggled to assure Israelis he will keep them safe” against Iran and its proxies, said The Times. There was already “mounting frustration in Israel at the failure to defang Hezbollah”, said the Financial Times’ Jerusalem correspondent, James Shotter. Most polls suggest Israelis “favour more aggressive action” against the group, and Netanyahu’s “climbdown” to Trump provoked criticism from “across the political spectrum”.

National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of his own coalition, urged him to ignore Trump’s demands and ratchet up the campaign against Hezbollah. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump – ‘no’,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X. Naftali Bennett, the right-wing former prime minister “widely regarded as one of Netanyahu’s main rivals” in the crucial upcoming election, accused him of “losing control over Israeli sovereignty”.

Netanyahu is also worried that any US-Iran deal will “leave Israel’s core concerns – Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, its ballistic missile program and regional proxy network – largely unaddressed”, said Tal Shalev of CNN’s Jerusalem bureau.

For more than three decades, Netanyahu has “defined himself as the leader who would confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. But a recent poll from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 45% of Israelis believe the situation with Iran has worsened compared to before 7 October; only 31% believe it has improved. Nearly half believe Israel will probably not win, or has already lost, the war against Iran.

“It’s hard to overstate how deeply Netanyahu views this moment as a possible personal and political defeat,” Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the institute, wrote on X. “Mr. Iran” may be forced to accept an agreement that “not only legitimises the very regime he sought to weaken but also exposes the collapse of his long-standing Iran doctrine”.

Ultimately, Netanyahu has to defend his own citizens, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Northern Israel is “under constant rocket and drone fire”. Hezbollah had used the ceasefire as a “tactical opportunity” to regroup and rearm. It has “no intention of genuinely ending hostilities”; its purpose remains the destruction of Israel. The ceasefire “prioritised a quick diplomatic achievement for Washington” over the security needs of Israel; extending it further would mean “trading Israeli lives for a few more days of quiet”. The US negotiations with Iran over Lebanon “are certainly not worth the lives of Israeli citizens”.

What next?

Just hours after Trump announced the ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon resumed. At least eight people have been killed today, according to Lebanese state media.

In a statement, Netanyahu said that he had told Trump that Israel would continue its operations. “Our position remains the same,” Netanyahu wrote. The Lebanese government, which wants Hezbollah to disarm, has begun direct negotiations with Israel today.

Iran continues to insist that any ceasefire between the US and Iran hinges on peace in Lebanon, with a senior military officer saying today that resumption of war with the US is “inevitable”.

What happened

U.S. and Iranian negotiators on Thursday reached a tentative agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire for another 60 days while thornier issues like Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. sanctions are hashed out, U.S. officials said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re very close,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters, adding that it’s “still TBD” if and when President Donald Trump “can endorse the agreement.” Tehran did not comment.

Who said what

The “emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire” appeared to be “wavering,” The Associated Press said. Several “brief exchanges of fire” this week have added “pressure on negotiators,” The New York Times said. Meanwhile, Trump’s “seemingly haphazard approach to the conflict is bewildering allies” as he “veers between diplomatic dealing, military strikes and increasingly far-fetched ideas” to clinch some sort of victory.

Trump “finds himself in a bind,” Reuters said, as he “seeks to end the war” and secure a “quick solution to high gas prices” while avoiding a “potential backlash from Iran hawks” over “any concessions to Tehran.” Those “competing demands” leave him “little room to maneuver.”

What next?

Trump was “leaning toward signing off on the deal” as of Thursday afternoon, Axios said, citing senior U.S. officials. But he “wants to wait another few days” to “make sure Iranian officials would sign” and to “see how the domestic political debate around the deal plays out.” In Iran, officials “said Tehran is concerned Trump will scuttle the deal under Israeli influence,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Any path President Donald Trump takes to end the war with Iran is bound to generate a lot of dissatisfaction among his GOP supporters and advisers. Hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) continue to “press for more aggressive U.S. military action,” Daniel R. DePetris said at the Los Angeles Times, and Republicans “consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.” But Trump’s in-house political strategists want a quick end to the unpopular war to “minimize political repercussions against the Republican Party” in November’s midterm elections. Trump clearly wants the deal that he keeps promising to the U.S. public, yet accomplishing that may put him at odds with Republicans who “would consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.”

‘A bad option and a worse one’

The president “seems conflicted,” said DePetris. He’s “fed up with the current situation” but also “afraid of escalation,” said Danny Citrinowicz, of The Atlantic Council, to The New Yorker. The president is “fed up with the current situation,” but he is also “afraid of escalation,” the Atlantic Council’s Danny Citrinowicz said in an interview with The New Yorker. Escalation probably will not work “because the Iranians are not going to capitulate.” The other option to end the war, then, is a deal that provides both money and sanctions relief to the Islamic regime in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s choices are “between a bad option and a worse one.”

“Will Trump bail out Iran’s regime?” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Inflation pressures at home are likely behind the president’s desire to “reopen the Strait even on Iran’s terms.” But a “bad deal would leave him worse off politically” even if domestic prices recede. Iran’s regime was beset by domestic crises that the war has exacerbated. A “half victory” by Iran now “would hurt America’s standing — and Mr. Trump’s.”

The issue is not Trump “terminating the conflict too soon,” Jacob Heilbrunn said at The Spectator. It is “that he began it in the first place.” The war is undermining both his presidency and U.S. military power, and the idea that escalation would result in Iran’s surrender “defies credulity.” The ugly truth illustrated by the Hormuz closure is that Trump “does not hold the cards.”

‘Leaving core issues unsolved’

Trump is looking to get a ceasefire deal now and “deal with the toughest problems later,” said The New York Times. He took the same approach in Gaza, where he brokered a truce last year. That effort ended the fighting but left issues of Hamas’ future and the rebuilding of Gaza to be figured out at a later date. So far that has not happened. Such an approach can be a way for Trump to “claim victory while leaving the core issues unsolved.”

“Doubling down” on the war remains a possibility, Ravi Agrawal said at Foreign Policy. But that would come with “uncertain benefits” and “much more potential pain.” We may soon find out one way or another, as the U.S. on Monday conducted strikes on Iranian positions, a sign the temporary truce is faltering.

Iran has signalled that any peace deal must include an end to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it’s unclear if the US could get Israel to agree to that, even if it wanted to.

Despite last month’s ceasefire, Israel has continued to pound Lebanon with airstrikes, killing at least 608 people, according to the World Health Organization. Yesterday, in response to a Hezbollah attack on its military posts, Israel launched one of its most intense waves of bombings, saying it had hit more than 100 Hezbollah targets. “I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them.”

What did the commentators say?

“Lebanon is in danger of becoming an overlooked but increasingly deadly sideshow”, as both Israel and Hezbollah violate the ceasefire, said Tom Kington in The Times. Israeli troops are occupying swathes of southern Lebanon, and won’t withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms. But the Iran-backed group says it won’t stop attacking Israeli positions until Israel withdraws. “The result has been a stand-off.”

Hezbollah is “waiting for a cue from Iran, which in turn depends on how Iran’s talks with the US go”, Michael Young, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, told The Times. “If Iran emerges stronger from its clash with the US, Hezbollah will feel reinvigorated.” They will “be able to say they resisted and claim victory”. Meanwhile, Israel will be trying “to torpedo any deal”.

Washington is “pressuring” Lebanon’s leaders to disarm Hezbollah or else “face more Gaza-style destruction”, said Rami G. Khouri, a policy analyst at the American University of Beirut, in Al Jazeera. It has also “tied financial support” for the country’s reconstruction to “Beirut’s compliance with US-Israeli terms”. The Lebanese government faces “a disgruntled, deeply impoverished population, exasperated by relentless Israeli attacks”.

April’s ceasefire agreement heralded “weakened US-Israeli positions in the region”, as well as dealing “deep political blows” to Netanyahu and gifting “new diplomatic leverage” to Iran and Hezbollah. Having survived their “existential” battles and now pressing for permanent ceasefires, they could “weaken Israeli postures and help reshape Lebanon’s internal dynamics”.

“But far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition are pushing him to challenge” Donald Trump on the “ceasefire with Hezbollah”, said The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison. “It is time for the prime minister to bang on Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, on social media. “There is an urgent need to put an end to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s explosive drones,” the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted on Telegram. Hezbollah has “ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel”, a US official told Reuters. Israel will never “​passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians”.

But Tehran won’t accept such attacks on its proxy, either, Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Lebanon is of “real strategic importance” to Iran; Hezbollah is “a vital element” of its “so-called Axis of Resistance”. So Trump “has a mountain to climb”. If he wants an agreement with Iran, he will have to “force Netanyahu’s hand on Lebanon”.

What next?

On Friday, delegations from Israel and Lebanon will meet for direct talks in the US, in preparation for further negotiations on 2 and 3 June.

The shaky US-Iran ceasefire, meanwhile, is under increasing strain: Iran has said US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday were a “gross violation”, and validated its “deep suspicion”. The US said its attacks were “defensive”.

But “even if Lebanon is part of a US-Iran peace deal, the Lebanese people will be wary”, said Kington in The Times. After all, April’s Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran, supposedly included Lebanon – but Israel “denied this was the case and launched 100 attacks in a few minutes”.

What happened

The U.S. military on Monday night said it had “conducted self-defense strikes” on Iranian missile sites and “boats attempting to emplace mines,” interrupting a weekslong ceasefire after a weekend of positive signals about an imminent peace deal. Earlier, President Donald Trump said talks on ending the war were “proceeding nicely.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said a “large portion of the issues” had been resolved but no “agreement is on the verge of being signed.”

Who said what

The emerging framework indicates that Trump’s “mixture of threats and limited military operations” in Iran hasn’t “decisively shifted” Tehran’s negotiating stance, The New York Times said. After Republican hawks “slammed the contours of the deal,” The Wall Street Journal said, Trump “expanded the scope of his diplomatic ambition,” saying Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Muslim countries must normalize relations with Israel as part of any agreement. Trump posted Monday that it “should be mandatory” for all of them to “simultaneously” sign the Abraham Accords.

What next?

Trump’s Israel normalization push could give him a way to cast any peace deal “as a larger regional success story instead of a climbdown,” the Journal said. But it’s “highly unlikely to be heeded” by the Saudis or Qataris, given Israel’s intransigence on Palestinian rights.

Donald Trump’s claim that the US and Iran are closing in on a peace deal has already been met with widespread criticism within his own Republican party.

The details haven’t been made public but Iran is said to have agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, without charging tolls, and dispose of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. In return, the US would cease hostilities, unfreeze billions of dollars of assets, and gradually remove economic sanctions.

But Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would be a “disastrous mistake” to leave Iran “able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”. And Senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.

What did the commentators say?

The “grim reality” is that, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has “leverage” over peace talks, said the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman. And now the US seems poised to agree to a deal that “threatens to leave Iran in a stronger position than before the war began”. Trump likes to “deride” the nuclear non-proliferation agreement that Barack Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015, but this looks in many ways “worse”. Perhaps the US president “should have reread” his book, “The Art of the Deal”.

Eli Groner, a former director-general of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Iran’s knowledge that it can now close the Strait of Hormuz at any point “is a victory far deeper and more strategic than any point-scoring military achievement”. His summary? “Disaster.”

The framework of the deal described by US officials would be “a series of compromises, well short of the capitulation that Trump sought”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Iran hasn’t accepted his demand that its highly enriched uranium be delivered to the West, nor has it agreed to give up its “right to enrich” in the future. But Trump “doesn’t appear to have any better options” to escape what has become “a military morass and a strategic dead end”. Tehran “can claim victory simply by having survived” the US assault.

Some Republicans are arguing that “peace could bring a pay-off for voters” by lowering petrol prices and easing inflation as oil tankers start to move through the Strait of Hormuz again, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. But recovery from the strait’s closure will take time and won’t “immediately improve global economic prospects or affordability in the US”. Trump “can’t win politically”: given that a majority of Americans oppose the war, he would face a huge “backlash if he ordered new strikes”.

There’s no way to spin this humiliating “catastrophe”, Middle East expert Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Rather than toppling the Iranian regime, the US and Israel have “ended up strengthening” it. It’s hard to imagine Tehran will just “give up its nuclear material” – to Trump or anyone else – because “they’re so much in the driver’s seat” here. Iran is already rebuilding its missile capacity and still has most of its launchers. Now we have “a more radicalised regime that can rush into a nuclear bomb and still have a conventional missile capacity. It’s a shit show.”

What next?

We have “reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion”, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai told a news conference in Tehran yesterday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent – no one can make such a claim.” The two sides were not discussing Iran’s nuclear programme “at this stage”, he added.

This is “not a final settlement”, said the BBC; this “memorandum of understanding” seems simply to involve a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a plan for further negotiations on “some of the thorniest issues”, including the nuclear one. That timeline seems “rather compressed, given the complexity of the issues”, said CNN’s Collinson. “History shows Iran would love to drag the United States into a prolonged period of inconclusive diplomacy that lasts months or years.”

A rare event occurred last week, said Fred Kaplan on Slate: President Trump posted a completely accurate observation on social media. Commenting on Iran’s response to a US ceasefire proposal, he declared it “totally unacceptable”.

He’s right about that. Iran’s statement – which included no concessions and a long list of demands, including war reparations, the lifting of all sanctions and Iran’s continued control over the Strait of Hormuz – read like something “the winner of a war would issue”. The question is, what can Trump do about it?

He has repeatedly threatened to resume bombing Iran if the regime rejects his peace proposals, but it’s hard to see what that would achieve. If the 38 days of devastating air strikes that began on 28 February failed to bring Tehran to heel, what difference would obliterating a few more targets make?

‘Wiggle out of this conflict’

“If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close,” said Robert Kagan in The Atlantic. Trump halted the bombing campaign on Iran “not because he was bored, but because Iran was striking the region’s vital oil and gas facilities”. If he’s not willing to accept the risk of more such retaliation, or to mount a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the Iranian regime, “walking away now could seem like the least bad option”.

Trump, to his credit, shows no sign of wanting to “wiggle out of this conflict” or sign some meaningless deal, said Noah Rothman in National Review. He’s rightly determined to stop Tehran getting a nuclear weapon. But to succeed, he’ll need to solicit the public’s support for this project, which requires showing a bit more patience and “humility”. He’s not going to win people over by branding all critics “stupid”, or dismissing the inflationary effects of the war. He recently claimed that he was motivated only by the nuclear issue, saying “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all”. That quote is going to be used against him in countless Democratic campaign adverts.

‘We will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger’

Trump’s rudeness and arrogance has also made Nato allies very disinclined to come to America’s aid, said Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times. Which is too bad, as the administration could really do with their help. The reality is that it’s in all of our interests to fix the Iran situation. It will be terrible for Europe if Tehran is allowed to decide who can and who can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

And it will be worse still for the Arab Gulf states that rely on the channel, endangering their modernising, pluralistic reforms. “The Dubai model is precisely the one Tehran wants to destroy.” It’s understandable that Nato allies are loath to help Trump, but make no mistake: “we will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger”.

What happened

The Senate on Tuesday voted 50-47 to advance legislation that would halt the Iran war unless President Donald Trump obtained authorization from Congress. A trickle of Republicans began supporting the war powers resolutions over seven previous votes, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) joined them Tuesday, providing the crucial 50th vote.

Who said what

The vote “showed how Republicans are increasingly uneasy with a conflict” that’s “stuck in a fragile ceasefire” while “causing rising gas prices in the U.S.,” The Associated Press said. The “sliver of GOP skepticism” about Trump’s handling of the war “widened last week,” The New York Times said, a shift “fueled in part” by his “ignoring” of a 60-day legal deadline to seek congressional authorization.

Even Trump supporters are “concerned about this war,” and Congress is “in the dark,” Cassidy, who lost his primary campaign after Trump endorsed his opponent, said on social media. “Until the administration provides clarity, no congressional authorization or extension can be justified.”

What next?

This was “only the first step” toward passing the bill, and GOP leaders believe it would have failed if three Republican Senators hadn’t been absent, Politico said. The House is “expected to vote on a similar war powers resolution” Wednesday, the AP said, and “Democrats are bullish” on passing it.

As the Iran war continues, food and vital medicines in the country are becoming increasingly scarce, said The Australian. The costs of some medicines “have risen by 400%”, and antidepressants and sleeping pills are reportedly being “dispensed without prescriptions”.

This is not unique to the Middle East, as other countries around the world face the threat of conflict, or suffer under pressures of economic and political repression. As mental health crises and resources continue to stretch, many fear the consequences could echo the fallout from the Covid pandemic.

A ‘kind of coma’

Some pharmacists in Iran have called the boom in antidepressants a form of “mass sedation”, said The Australian. These healthcare professionals believe that relaxing the strictness of distribution policy keeps the public in a “state of artificial calm” designed to “delay any popular uprising while the war continues”.

Access to the country’s black market has also been damaged since the start of the war. Built on sanctions, import shortages and “hoarding” by middlemen, the black market is “not new”. But with the joint threat of war and internet shutdown, the “shadow supply chain” has been significantly “disrupted”. As the war continues, Iran is stuck in a “kind of coma, caught between economic collapse and the dream of a better future”.

The rise in antidepressant use is part of a broader system to “doctrinise control of Iranians’ minds and bodies”, said Atlantic Council. Observers from abroad have “overlooked the concerted regime strategy to deliberately engineer this state of depression as a suppression mechanism”. By outlawing cultural events such as Valentine’s Day, “Chaharshanbe Suri (the festival of fire)” and “Shabeh Yalda (winter solstice)”, the regime has arguably “promoted gloom and hopelessness to the extent that citizens become paralysed and incapable of challenging the political status quo”.

Like Iran, Lebanon has been struck by the ongoing conflict, and has appeared to follow a similar pattern of “pushing anxious residents toward sedatives and sleeping pills”, said Y Net News. Though no official data has been released, news outlet Al-Akhbar, which has ties to Hezbollah, claimed that the “demand for sedatives had jumped by 300% since the fighting began”, said Y Net. This figure, though unverified, “points to a population under mounting psychological strain”.

Global impact

And in Cuba, economic and political crises present an “outlook that feels bleaker than the collapse of the Soviet Union”, said The Guardian. As a growing mental health crisis “envelops the island”, many citizens are “turning to prescription drugs” to cope with the US-imposed oil blockade, and still reeling from years of economic decline.

Cuba is stuck in a vicious cycle, as the economy shrinks – GDP has “contracted by 17% since 2019” – it means state pharmacies lie “empty”, while demand for their services increases. People are “leaving in large numbers”, which exacerbates the cycle further. In the last five years, “up to 20% of the population” has emigrated, which has in turn added to the “psychological load on those who chose (or were forced) to remain”.

In its ongoing campaign against Ukraine, Russia is experiencing a “spiral” of antidepressant use, said El País. The country has registered “record sales” of the medications every year since 2020. Last year’s total “nearly tripled pharmaceutical consumption” from 2019. In the same year, figures from Russian consultancy DSM show that after peace negotiations were “unsuccessfully reinitiated” in 2024, sales of antidepressants grew 36%. It appears the war, with its subsequent health crises, has had a “larger emotional impact on its population” than the Covid pandemic.

The UAE has denied Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that he made a secret trip to the Gulf state during the Iran war to meet the president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

With The Wall Street Journal reporting that the UAE has carried out its own strikes on Iran, there is a renewed focus on the Abraham Accords – the peace and cooperation agreements between Israel and several of its Arab neighbours.

What are the Accords?

The Abraham Accords are a series of agreements between Israel, UAE and Bahrain, normalising Israel’s relations with several Arab nations. The initial accords, which were mediated by the US, were signed on 15 September 2020. Three months later, Sudan and Morocco joined the pact.

States such as the UAE and Bahrain saw the Accords as strategically useful but large parts of Arab public opinion remain strongly pro-Palestinian and opposed to closer relations with Israel. The Gaza war widened this divide and then the Iran war created a sense that the region was being dragged into instability through Israeli-Iranian confrontation.

So Arab governments face a growing dilemma because maintaining ties with Israel and the US risks a domestic backlash but breaking ties could damage security and economic interests.

Tehran’s “narrative” became that it could target “at will” the countries that had signed the Abraham Accords with Israel, said The Jerusalem Post. This reinforced fears in Saudi Arabia in particular that overt alignment with Israel could make the kingdom a direct target.

How might they be updated?

The original vision of the Accords – of a rapidly expanding regional bloc openly aligned with Israel and integrated economically across the Middle East – has become a significantly weaker prospect. So future agreements could involve cooler normalisation, selective security cooperation, quieter diplomacy and a slower expansion.

The power of China has also encouraged the players to think about an update. Beijing has “spent the better part of two decades cultivating Middle Eastern influence”, with infrastructure finance, arms sales and “diplomatic mediation”, said US conservative think tank the Hudson Institute. But an “expanded and strengthened” Accords would create a “competing network rooted in shared security interests and American sponsorship”.

What would it look like?

The Accords have “demonstrated resilience” despite the “turbulence” of the past two and a half years, including “growing criticism of Israel in parts of the Arab world”, said Roy Binyamini, a former National Security Council official, on Ynet.

But the US and its Accords partners could outline a “vision for regional stability, economic growth, interfaith tolerance and the containment of extremist influences”.

Meanwhile, Israel could “leverage its experience” to help regional partners in “strengthening civilian defence systems, including air defence capabilities and protection of critical infrastructure”.

As the Trump administration scrambles to control its war with Iran, both countries have turned to an unexpected moderator: Pakistan, which has led multiple rounds of ceasefire negotiations between the two nations. Now, Pakistan is quietly growing its influence in the region while Washington and Tehran circle one another for another round of talks.

From ‘kind of a sideshow’ to being in Trump’s ‘favor’

Islamabad’s role as a major player in this conflict, for many observers, has “come as a surprise,” given Pakistan’s “global position, domestic challenges” and “volatile relationship” with the first Trump administration, said the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA). But “perhaps it shouldn’t,” the BBC said.

Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir “is in U.S. President Donald Trump’s favor,” with the president asserting that the Pakistani leader knows Iran “better than most.” Pakistan, in its own messaging, has hailed a “brotherly” relationship with neighboring Iran, with the two nations sharing “deep cultural and religious ties,” said the BBC.

Although Pakistan was “kind of a sideshow” during the first Trump administration, it has “really reached out” to both the White House and “Donald Trump personally, as well as his family members, to try to build influence in Washington,” CCGA said. Pakistan’s connections to Saudi Arabia and China have also allowed it to “place itself in a mediator role” with a “greater level of geopolitical clout and influence than we might have expected a couple of years ago.”

Given Pakistan’s reputation for corruption and military authoritarianism, it “would not be an exaggeration” to describe it as a “failed state,” said The Spectator. But simply “being a nuclear power” affords Pakistan a “head start in terms of credibility” by gracing Islamabad with the “nuclear aura that Iran would love to possess.” China, which has played a “background but crucial role” in the peace negotiations, has also had a “longstanding close relationship” with Islamabad, as both nations “enjoy common cause against India.”

Pakistan as a ‘responsible middle power’

“Playing the role of mediator” between the United States and Iran — or “at least message-bearer” — has “been a boon for Islamabad,” Le Monde said. The country has undergone “its authoritarian drift,” in which it “silenced its large Shiite minority during the war and solidarity movements with Iran.”

After having sheltered Osama bin Laden, Pakistan “wants to convince international opinion that it is no longer a breeding ground for terrorism,” said Gilles Boquérat, an associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, to Le Monde. Instead, it is portraying itself as a “responsible middle power, capable of ensuring regional security from the Arabian Peninsula to the Indian border.”

But Pakistan’s ties with Iran have earned Islamabad its share of critics during the current war, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.). “I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them,” Graham said during a Senate hearing this week regarding reports that the Pakistani government has aided Iranian forces. “If they actually do have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me we should be looking maybe for somebody else to mediate.”

GPS jamming across the Middle East has exploded since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February, “plunging both sides into an ‘electronic warfare arms race’”, said The Independent.

“Underlying the dramatic clashes across the region”, forces on all sides are “quietly fighting an invisible war by land, air and sea, distorting tracking information to sow chaos or hide in plain sight”.

‘Electronic warfare arms race’

Jamming of the Global Positioning System (GPS) works by disrupting signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with electromagnetic noise. “Spoofing” is more sophisticated and involves transmitting fake signals to provide a false location. Both are used to distort drone and missile guidance systems.

Interference “isn’t a new phenomenon”, said CNN. It has been used in modern warfare since the Second World War but has become “a major issue” for shipping and aircraft since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The problem is now “endemic” in regions such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and parts of the Middle East, said Michelle Wiese Bockmann, from shipping intelligence firm Windward.

While all sides engage in it, Iran is particularly “prolific” in spoofing. Tehran uses it to “add confusion and disrupt any of the allied intelligence gathering”, said Philip Ingram, an intelligence expert and former British Army colonel.

The tools used by Iran are likely to be domestically produced or made with equipment sourced from Russia or China, Thomas Withington, from the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the BBC.

Tracking ‘has stopped telling the truth’

The problem with GPS jamming is that it cannot be contained within precise geographic boundaries and does not discriminate between military and commercial systems.

On the first day of the war alone, electronic interference disrupted the navigation systems of more than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE, Qatari, Omani and Iranian waters, according to a Windward report cited by Inside GNSS.

“The missiles and drones make for good headlines, but they’re a distraction,” said Erik Bethel, from investment firm Mare Liberum, and Windward CEO Ami Daniel in Fortune. The “real story” is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, has “gone dark. Not in some poetic sense, but literally.”

In effect, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) – the network that’s supposed to be the “gold standard” for commercial tracking and is used by ships to avoid one another – “has stopped telling the truth”.

The same thing happened in the region last year during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran and has also troubled vessel navigators in the Baltic Sea. But “this is next-level”, said Bockmann. “We can’t over-estimate the huge danger this places to maritime navigation and safety.”

“Without reliable and accurate” navigation systems, ships are “effectively sailing blind”, said The Wall Street Journal.

‘Anti-jam antenna system’

There are various technologies that offer protection against GPS jamming. These can include “automatically detecting jamming or interference and switching to unaffected frequencies”, said the BBC.

UK defence giant Raytheon produces an “anti-jam antenna system” device the size of an ice hockey puck that can be installed on different kinds of vehicles and uses multiple channels to overcome jamming. Other companies have “developed navigation tools that work around GPS’s flaws”.

Alternative navigational tools that do not rely on GPS at all but instead harness quantum technology are also in development “but remain a long way off operational use”, said CNN.

“GNSS is a wonder of the modern world,” said Ramsey Faragher, chief executive of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. “You can switch it on and within a few seconds, it works out where you are to within a metre and what time it is to within a nanosecond. Unfortunately, the luxurious era of those signals not being messed about with intentionally is over. We need to rapidly catch up.”

What happened

U.S. policy on Iran whipsawed last week, with President Trump telling Tehran to accept a peace deal or face a new wave of bombing, soon after he’d hailed “great progress” in talks and halted a military operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump had announced that, in a “humanitarian gesture,” the U.S. would guide merchant ships through the strait, a key oil export route that has been effectively shuttered by Iran since the start of the nine-week-old war. Any interference with “Project Freedom” would be met “forcefully,” Trump said. But as U.S. warships escorted two commercial vessels through the strait, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones. None of the ships were damaged, and U.S. attack helicopters sank six Iranian military speedboats; Iranian strikes hit a major oil hub in the United Arab Emirates and at least two commercial ships in the Persian Gulf. Trump declined to say Iran had violated a four-week ceasefire, calling the clash a “mini war.” A day later he paused Project Freedom, citing movement toward a “complete and final” agreement with Tehran.

Trump’s U-turn came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that “Operation Epic Fury is concluded” and that the war’s objectives had been achieved, despite Iran’s continuing choke hold on the strait and the lack of any deal over its nuclear program. Axios reported that U.S. officials believe they are nearing an agreement with Tehran on a one-page “memorandum of understanding” to end the war and set the stage for detailed negotiations. The war will end “assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to,” Trump posted online, “which is, perhaps, a big assumption.” If they don’t, he said, bombing will resume, “at a much higher level and intensity.”

What the columnists said

Both sides are working with mediators to craft a 14-point “framework,” said Benoit Faucon in The Wall Street Journal. The working version calls for Iran to begin opening the strait and the U.S. to wind down its blockade of Iranian ports during 30 days of talks. Iran is said to be willing to discuss a possible halt to uranium enrichment and the removal of some of its stockpile of near-weapons grade uranium to a third country—but not the U.S. Divisions within Iran’s leadership could prove a roadblock, said Barak Ravid in Axios. Given the challenge of uniting disparate factions, some U.S. officials are “skeptical that even an initial deal will be reached.”

Project Freedom had two objectives, said Chas Danner in New York. One was to pressure Iran to fully open the strait and free 1,600 commercial ships stuck in the Persian Gulf, which failed miserably. The other was “a cynical attempt to rebrand the war,” which became illegal once it hit 60 days without congressional authorization. The administration wants the public to believe the offensive has ended and that the U.S. is now engaged in an entirely different “defensive” operation to open the strait.

The administration can say whatever it wants, but that “does not make it true,” said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. The war is not over. And its objectives have not been met. Trump cited five at the outset, including regime change and ensuring Iran can “never have a nuclear weapon.” Only one goal, disabling Iran’s navy, has been achieved. But the war has become a “political crisis,” and the White House is anxious to put it “in the rearview mirror.”

Americans can see the cost of this war everywhere, said Scott Waldman and Ben Lefebvre in Politico. Gas hit an average of $4.54 a gallon this week, up $1.56 since fighting began in February, and diesel hit $5.67, up $1.91. The spike in diesel, which powers trucks and trains, “in turn is expected to drive up prices for everything from groceries to postage.” Trump’s disapproval rating is climbing as well, hitting a record 62% in a new poll, said Scott Clement and Dan Balz in The Washington Post. Americans disapprove of his handling of the war by 66% to 33%, and his approval rating on the economy has dropped to 34%.

“There are now only two outcomes to the conflict,” said Scott Anderson in The New York Times. With Iran not about to cave, Trump can resume hostilities. But that seems unlikely, and “no amount of bombing” will change the fact that Iran has gained control of the strait and the ability to “paralyze the global economy.” The alternative is a settlement that will leave the “empowered” Iranian regime intact and “a blustering American president humiliated.” Operation Epic Fury is now looking more like “Operation Colossal Blunder.”

What happened

Tehran is considering a U.S. proposal to formally end the Iran war and start a 30-day clock to negotiate a full agreement, Axios and other news organizations reported Wednesday. Iranian and Trump administration officials “offered contradictory and rapidly changing assessments of the state of the war and peace talks,” The New York Times said, all “while providing few details about those negotiations.”

Who said what

If Iran doesn’t agree to “give what has been agreed to,” President Donald Trump said on social media Wednesday morning, the “bombing starts,” and “at a much higher level and intensity.” Hours later, he told reporters the two sides “had very good talks over the last 24 hours” and a deal was “very possible.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tehran would relay its response through Pakistan, while another Iranian official dismissed the proposal as an “American wish-list.”

The one-page U.S. memorandum of understanding involved “Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the U.S. agreeing to lift its sanctions and release billions in frozen Iranian funds, and both sides lifting restrictions around transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Axios. But the proposal would “not initially require concessions from either ​side,” sources told Reuters, and it leaves “unresolved key U.S. demands” on Iran’s nuclear program and reopening the strait.

What next?

The “biggest obstacle to an Iran deal may be Trump’s ego,” Politico said, citing U.S. and Arab officials. Trump’s “history of nursing grudges, ridiculing opponents and insisting he wins everything doesn’t bode well” for striking a deal with Iran’s respect-conscious leaders.

‘Asian budget carriers need help to avoid Spirit’s fate’

Juliana Liu at Bloomberg

The “jet fuel crunch is hitting Asia’s low-cost airlines much harder than their full-service counterparts,” says Juliana Liu. Asian governments “should be preparing financial or operational support to avoid further flight cancellations during the busy summer travel season — as well as outright shutdowns like the collapse of America’s Spirit Airlines.” Policymakers “must consider targeted measures in the form of loans, grants or fuel price relief,” and they “should differ by country and reflect conditions on the ground.”

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‘The rush to point fingers at the Secret Service’

Mitch Price at The Wall Street Journal

After an “incident involving presidential security, a predictable cycle begins,” says Mitch Price. Media outlets “elevate instant analysis from so-called ‘experts’ eager to diagnose Secret Service failures.” In the “immediate aftermath, there’s rarely enough verified information to support meaningful conclusions,” but “confident claims emerge anyway, often from people with little experience in presidential protection.” Risk “can’t be eliminated, only managed.” Safety plans “must balance threats, resources, public access and the president’s need to remain visible.”

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‘Iran’s survival is not victory’

Menahem Merhavy at Foreign Policy

Iran previously “defined victory in expansive terms: exporting revolution, rolling back U.S. power and ultimately eliminating Israel,” says Menahem Merhavy. But “today, under sustained military pressure, its leaders are advancing a far narrower claim,” as “survival itself — withstanding strikes, avoiding surrender, remaining intact — is increasingly presented as victory.” This is “more than mere wartime rhetoric. It marks a shift in how the regime understands power, success and its own purpose.” The “language of Iran’s leadership reflects this shift.”

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‘Miami’s drought wake-up call: Everglades restoration is our water insurance’

Michael Berkowitz and Meenakshi Chabba at the Miami Herald

For a “region that receives nearly 60 inches of rain annually, scarcity” in Miami “felt like someone else’s problem,” say Michael Berkowitz and Meenakshi Chabba. But a “drought has shattered that sense of abundance and revealed the vulnerability of South Florida’s water supply.” Most Miami residents “think of resilience mainly as flood adaptation, leaving water security as an under-acknowledged pillar.” Florida “cannot build a truly resilient Miami without bringing its most consequential resilience plan to the finish line.”

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What happened

The four-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran faltered Monday as President Donald Trump’s attempts to reopen traffic through the Strait of Hormuz prompted Iranian attacks on U.S. warships and commercial ships. The United Arab Emirates and Oman also reported the first strikes on their territories since the ceasefire began, and the UAE blamed Iran. U.S. Central Command said that two U.S.-flagged merchant ships passed through the strait and that U.S. military helicopters sank six Iranian military speedboats; Iran said none of its boats were destroyed.

Who said what

Tehran “did not outright confirm or deny” its attacks, The Associated Press said. CENTCOM said it had shot down all Iranian missiles and drones fired at U.S. Navy ships and the commercial vessels they were guiding through a passage it had “successfully opened” through the strait. Trump appeared “willing to look past” Iran’s attacks, The Wall Street Journal said. But Monday’s violence put his “desire to end the Iran war” to the test.

What next?

Shipping companies said that Trump’s “offer to provide them safe passage” through the strait “fell short of the sort of arrangements that would persuade them to make the trip,” The New York Times said.

The war with Iran has hit a “toxic stalemate,” said Janna Brancolini in the Daily Beast. American officials poured cold water on a proposal from Tehran to end the two-month conflict, under which the U.S. would end its naval blockade of Iranian ports and Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil-shipping route whose closure is choking the global economy. The regime’s nuclear program, meanwhile, would be discussed at a later date. A U.S. official said the nuclear punt was a nonstarter because it “would deny Trump a victory,” and in a 4 a.m. social media post—accompanied by an image of Trump as a gun-toting action hero and the caption “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY”—the president made his feelings clear on Tehran’s offer. “They better get smart soon!” he wrote, saying the regime’s only hope is to go “nonnuclear.” For now, Trump is set on “an extended blockade of Iran,” said Alexander Ward in The Wall Street Journal. He’s decided his other options, walking away or resuming bombing, carry more risk than targeting “the regime’s coffers in a high-risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation Tehran has long refused.”

“Time is on America’s side,” said Mark Dubowitz and Miad Maleki in the New York Post. While U.S. motorists grumble about gas topping $4.20 a gallon, the remnants of Iran’s regime are battling triple-digit inflation, mass unemployment, a currency in “free fall,” and a U.S. blockade that has them “bleeding cash.” Worse, said Amit Segal in The Free Press, Iran is now “drowning in its own oil.” Within a few weeks, Iran will run out of storage for the crude it pumps out of the ground, leaving the regime no option but to halt production and see extraction systems clog up, a “death sentence” for its oil industry.

Don’t underestimate “Iran’s pain threshold,” said Ben Geman in Axios. The country has alternate storage facilities, including a fleet of floating crude carriers, and continues to sneak tankers past the U.S. Navy. And experts say the regime has other revenue sources, including oil exported overland, “to keep its troops paid and its position in Iran secure.” Iran believes it can hold out for at least another two or three months, said Ali Vaez in The New Yorker, and that “the American timeline” is more like two to three weeks. With Trump’s approval rating hitting a record low of 34% in a new Reuters poll, the regime thinks cost-of-living pressures will force him to back down and save Republicans from a wipeout in the midterms. Trump also doesn’t want the war to dominate his mid-May visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, let alone for jet-fuel shortages to ruin this summer’s World Cup, which the U.S. is co-hosting with Mexico and Canada.

Trump might still be able to reach a deal with Iran, said Katrin Bennhold in The New York Times, but it won’t be as good as the Obama-era pact he ripped up in 2018. That deal barred Iran from enriching uranium above 3.67% purity; its current stockpile is at 60% and with further processing could be used to build 100 nuclear bombs. And Tehran now has better cards to play than during the negotiations for the 2015 deal, including control of the Strait of Hormuz. For future talks to have any chance, Trump will “have to abandon his ‘I win, you lose’ approach to diplomacy,” said Trudy Rubin in The Philadelphia Inquirer. As gas prices climb higher, perhaps he’ll accept a compromise that lets both Iran and the U.S. save face. But based on everything we’ve learned about our president, “this hope requires a suspension of disbelief.”

What happened

President Donald Trump said the U.S. was launching a new effort Monday to “guide” blockaded commercial ships “safely” through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed to maritime traffic since Trump and Israel launched the Iran war Feb. 28. Trump offered few details in his social media announcement, but described “Project Freedom” as a “humanitarian gesture” on behalf of the U.S., Middle Eastern countries and “in particular” Iran. Iranian state-run media said the announcement was part of “Trump’s delirium.”

Who said what

U.S. Central Command said guided-missile destroyers, drones and more than 100 aircraft would support Trump’s new initiative. But the plan “doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing senior U.S. officials. Traders and shipowners “expressed skepticism” that the “arm’s-length effort to unblock the vital supply route” would be effective.

Trump’s announcement was “essentially a challenge to Iran, and a bet that it would not want to take the risk of firing the first shots — or laying mines” — to challenge the U.S., The New York Times said. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, said on X that “any U.S. interference” in the strait “will be considered a violation of the ceasefire.”

What next?

Two months into the war, Trump’s “predictions of a relatively short-term conflict with minimal economic consequences appear to be crumbling around him,” the Times said. “Voter backlash is building” as average U.S. gas prices hit a “wartime high of $4.39,” The Washington Post said, and “inside the White House, the options to lower prices at the pump are dwindling.”

What happened

The White House is arguing that the War Powers Act deadline to either wind down the Iran war or get congressional authorization is not Friday, as Congress assumed, because the 60-day clock stopped when President Donald Trump ordered a ceasefire on April 7. “For War Powers Resolution purposes,” an official told reporters, the hostilities “have terminated.”

Who said what

“We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Senate hearing Thursday. His assertion was “met with outrage from Democrats and skepticism from Republicans,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. military “continues to enforce a military blockade,” which is “considered an act of war under international law.”

“Nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated,” Katherine Yon Ebright, a war powers expert at the Brennan Center, told The Associated Press, and Congress needs to push back against this “sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship” over the law.

What next?

In the hearing, ostensibly about the Pentagon’s $1.45 trillion budget request, Hegseth “did not say how long the war with Iran could continue,” The New York Times said.

The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has had a tangible effect on the economy in the Middle East, and the conflict is also making things more expensive for Americans at home. Increasing oil prices resulting from the war have cascading consequences, and while things like gasoline are most obviously affected, other products are also getting pricier.

Clothes

Supply chain issues with crude oil are raising the cost of the oil’s building blocks, called petrochemicals. Six of these petrochemicals are the “major foundations of plastics and synthetic materials like nylon and polyesters,” said The Associated Press. When petrochemicals become more expensive, it is often accompanied by a spike in clothing prices.

To make a button-down shirt, for example, the “materials account for 27%-30% of the cost a manufacturer incurs,” Andrew Walberer, a partner at the global strategy and management consultancy Kearney, told the AP. Experts are “warning consumers to budget for price increases of 10 to 15%” in clothing if the petrochemicals’ costs continue to rise, said the South China Morning Post.

Condoms

People may not assume safe sex would be impacted by the war, but the world’s largest condom manufacturer, Karex, is planning to “raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war,” said The Guardian. Karex, a Malaysian company, supplies more than 5 billion condoms annually to global manufacturers, including major brands sold in the U.S. like Trojan and Durex.

Karex is being forced to raise its prices because the company “has seen a cost increase for synthetic rubber, nitrile, ‌aluminum foil and silicone oil,” said Inc. magazine. While still seeing high demand, the company is “currently faced with rising freight costs and shipping delays, leading to its customers carrying lower stockpiles” of Karex’s products.

Cosmetics

The war in Iran is even “seeping into the cosmetics supply chain, pushing up the cost of everything from plastic jars and ​lipstick tubes to transport, and reminding the beauty industry that even a tub of face cream depends on fragile ‌global trade routes,” said Reuters. The most notable sector being affected is the Korean beauty industry, which has a large following in the United States.

Due to the unstable cost and raw material prices of petrochemicals, the “unit prices of most products will inevitably be increased,” cosmetics company Luxepack Korea said in a press release, per The Washington Post. Many similar cosmetic brands “aren’t sure how much longer they can absorb rising production costs.”

Gasoline

This one is probably the most obvious: spiking oil prices are causing costs at the pump to skyrocket. On April 29, gas prices “hit a fresh record since the start of the war with Iran, rising to an average nationwide of $4.23 per gallon,” said NBC News, citing data from AAA. The price of Brent crude, the benchmark for international petroleum, also “stands at $114.60, up nearly 25% from the recent low seen April 17.”

It may be unlikely that gas prices will come down anytime soon. President Donald Trump has “told aides to prepare for a long blockade to throttle Iran’s economy by blocking Iranian oil shipments,” said The Guardian. The number of ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz is “now at its lowest level since the start of the war.”

Toys

Like clothes, many stuffed plush toys are “made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum,” said the AP, so rising prices could similarly impact the toy industry. Suppliers in China have notified Aleni Brands, the company behind popular plush lines like Bizzikins, that “getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more.”

Notable production hurdles are also being experienced by a “cluster of manufacturers in Shantou, a city located 190 miles northeast of Hong Kong, which produces a third of the world’s toys,” said The New York Times. Other child-adjacent products, including crayons, are additionally facing shortages due to petrochemical supply chain issues.

‘Turn on, tune in, cash out … the US right used to fear psychedelics. Now it wants to sell them.’

Kojo Koram at The Guardian

Trump “signed a new presidential executive order to accelerate mainstream access to medical treatment based on psychedelic drugs,” but “this executive order has not come out of the blue,” says Kojo Koram. Long “caricatured as a marker of countercultural decadence, psychedelics have been rebranded by recent clinical research as potentially transformative mental-health treatments.” It’s a “worldview that has found a comfortable new home” in an “administration that is, against all odds, transforming America’s relationship with drugs.”

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‘How Putin and Zelenskyy view the war in Iran’

Sudarsan Raghavan at The New Yorker

Nearly “two months into Iran’s war, its ripple effects are being felt around the world,” says Sudarsan Raghavan. The “war is also having a less visible, yet potentially more consequential, impact on some of the world’s other conflicts and crises.” The war in Ukraine is “increasingly connected to the Middle East conflict.” It is “in Russia’s favor to prolong the war in Iran” because the “longer it lasts, the longer Washington’s attention is not on Ukraine.”

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‘Could Ozempic save families from addiction and foster care?’

Naomi Schaefer Riley at The Boston Globe

GLP-1 drugs “like Ozempic and Wegovy are often called miraculous for their ability to promote weight loss, reduce the risk of diabetes and even lower the likelihood of dementia,” says Naomi Schaefer Riley. But “what if they can help combat drug and alcohol addiction by tempering cravings and ultimately prevent parents from losing their children to foster care?” This “class of drugs has wide-ranging health benefits and few side effects compared to other medically assisted treatments.”

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‘Religions all over the world are being blasphemed and perverted’

Janice Kennedy at the Toronto Star

Religion is “having a moment. And not in a good way,” says Janice Kennedy. No “matter its name, religion usually embraces three elements: faith in a divinity, rites and rituals honoring that faith and an inviolable moral code.” But this is “abased and abused by con artists twisting religion to fit insufferable egos and despicable political ends.” Committing “terrible deeds in the name of an almighty god is abhorrent to all people of good will.”

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A mysterious new pro-Iran terror group has been linked to a series of recent attacks on Jewish communities and US financial institutions in the UK and Europe.

The only “catch”, said CNN, is that it “may be a mirage”.

Who are they and what have they claimed?

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), the Arabic name meaning “The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right(eous)”, first appeared online shortly after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran at the end of February.

On 9 March, HAYI posted on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that “military operations” against US and Israeli interests around the world had begun. Two weeks later, a Telegram channel claiming to represent the group made an unsubstantiated claim of responsibility for an arson attack on four Jewish ambulances in Golders Green, north London.

It then posted videos of four other arson attacks in Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, as well as threatening a further attack against the Bank of America building in Paris, before the channel was deleted.

Who is behind the group?

Examining the group’s digital footprint, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism found “no known references, neither online nor offline, to HAYI prior to 9 March”.

The Netherlands-based think tank highlighted “suspicious dissemination patterns” that were seemingly coordinated with the pro-Iranian online ecosystem. This raises the question “whether HAYI is a genuine terrorist group or merely serves as a façade for Iranian hybrid operations that enable plausible deniability”.

“This group is an Iranian creation,” Phillip Smyth, an analyst on the counterterrorism advisory board for Homeland Security Today, told The i Paper. “The scope of their actions, branding, and Iran’s own messages all demonstrate a clear link.”

For Western security experts, HAYI is “either a construct aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or an opportunistic network operating within the broader pro-Iranian online ecosystem”, said Radio Free Europe.

Do the attacks follow a pattern?

UK security officials have previously warned of a “rise in ‘gig-economy’ Iranian spies offered cash for operations across Europe”, and have been “actively investigating Iran’s use of social media platforms” to create “sleeper cells with the potential to carry out violent attacks”, said The i Paper.

The spate of arson attacks since the start of the war in Iran are “similar in nature to Russia’s so-called hybrid operations in Europe”, in which people have been recruited online “to carry out sabotage attacks”, said CNN. These are often perpetrated “by non-Russian nationals for small amounts of money and without full knowledge of who the operations serve”.

The series of “low-intensity” incidents involving Jewish and US targets have so far carried “limited material damage but strong symbolic impact, disseminated and amplified through channels linked to the pro-Iranian ecosystem”, said Decode 39.

These “operational and propaganda dynamics point to a possible hybrid model of terrorism in Europe: simple actions, local perpetrators and maximum ambiguity”.

What happened

Iran has proposed a deal to open the State of Hormuz provided the U.S. and Israel cease their attacks and the U.S. ends its naval blockade of Iranian ships and ports. Tehran’s nuclear program and enriched uranium would be discussed at a later date. The proposal, passed to the U.S. through Pakistan on Sunday, followed an Iranian offer to suspend its uranium enrichment that President Donald Trump rejected.

Who said what

Trump is “unhappy with Iran's proposal as he wants nuclear issues dealt with from the outset,” Reuters said, citing a U.S. official. The proposal was “subject to a vigorous debate inside the administration” over which side “has more leverage,” The New York Times said, “and which country is better positioned to endure the economic hardship” from the strait’s closure.

Iranian officials are “serious about getting themselves out of the mess that they’re in,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News. The Americans “have achieved none of their goals, and this is why they are asking for negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Russia. “We are now considering it.” Leaders of European nations also weighed in: the U.S. “quite obviously went into this war without any strategy” and has “no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday. “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

What next?

The “tense stalemate” has “entered a Cold War-like phase of financial sanctions, gunboat interdictions and talks about having talks,” with “no immediate end in sight,” Axios said. With the midterms six months away, a “frozen conflict is the worst thing for Trump politically and economically,” said a source close to the president.

The Trump administration’s threat to review its position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands could have a significant impact on the future of the South Atlantic British Overseas Territory, analysts have said.

A leaked internal Pentagon memo published last week by Reuters revealed that, as punishment for not supporting Donald Trump’s war against Iran, the US could reassess diplomatic support for longstanding European “imperial possessions”, such as the ⁠Falkland Islands, which have been administered by Britain since 1833 but are still claimed by Argentina.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei is “upbeat about the prospects”, said Reuters, after the Trump ally told a radio show that “we are doing everything humanly possible to bring the Falkland Islands back into Argentine hands”.

On Monday, his vice president, Victoria Villarruel, ramped up rhetoric further by calling for Falkland Islanders to go back to England.

What did the commentators say?

Donald Trump “has repeatedly demonstrated his desire to use transactional diplomacy to pressure both allies and adversaries”, said the BBC. The Falklands are a “pressure point for the UK but irrelevant to the US”, making them a perfect target for this kind of “leverage”.

Given the current state of Britain’s armed forces, the UK would “struggle to defend the Falkland Islands if Donald Trump followed through on threats to withdraw American support for British sovereignty”, said The i Paper.

But while the loss of American backing for UK control of the islands would “make it easier for Argentina to press its claim more assertively”, said Dr Johanna Amaya-Panche, senior lecturer in international relations and politics at Liverpool John Moores University, an invasion remains unlikely.

“Argentina is not capable of retaking the islands militarily, and there is no credible indication that it intends to try,” but the Milei government “may adopt a more assertive diplomatic or legal strategy, seeking to internationalise the dispute and mobilise external support”.

Downing Street has insisted that the Falkland Islands’ status will remain unchanged, with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying “sovereignty rests with the UK and the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount”.

“Such robustness is a welcome surprise,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. The government will be hoping the state visit by King Charles will help defuse tensions with the White House. The reality is that “casting doubt over the ownership of the Falklands would hardly be in Washington’s interests”. Even in 1982, the Royal Navy “had to leave other missions unresourced in order to retake the islands” and today its numbers are “so shrunken that it could never act meaningfully in the South Atlantic and in support of the US simultaneously”.

What next?

If the US did change its position to one in which it supported Argentinian claims over the islands, that would be “pretty significant”, Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, told the BBC, as “it might cause other countries to move that way as well”.

“You could potentially see a situation where Argentina pushes for some intervention at the UN and the US may support or just not actively block.”

“A change of US policy towards the sovereignty of the Falklands will not mean we will face a repeat” of the 1982 war with Argentina, said former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt in The Express. “But it should be a reminder that the world can change fast” and that “we owe it to all Brits, whether they reside in the UK or in her territories, that we are capable of defending them and their interests.”

What happened

With peace talks between the U.S. and Iran at an impasse, the clash for control of the crucial Strait of Hormuz intensified last week as Iran seized at least two cargo ships in the trade corridor in retaliation for a U.S. naval blockade of its ports. The Navy has turned back some 30 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since the blockade was imposed earlier this month, and in a bid to ramp up the economic pressure on Tehran, the U.S. last week boarded a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean and seized an Iranian-flagged container ship that tried to run the blockade. The Iranian regime accused the U.S. of “piracy” and soon after seized two cargo ships—one flying a Panamanian flag, the other a Liberian flag—claiming the vessels had tried to navigate the contested strait without its approval. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Iran’s attacks on “international vessels” didn’t constitute a violation of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

A U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance was set to travel to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks, but the trip was delayed after Iran refused to take part. A foreign ministry spokesman cited “contradictory messages” and “inconsistent behavior” from the Americans; other Iranian officials cited the blockade, which the regime called “an act of war.” Trump, who had warned that the “military is raring to go” for strikes on Iran if a deal wasn’t reached before the temporary ceasefire ended last week, extended the truce indefinitely, saying Iran’s leadership was “fractured” and needed time to “come up with a unified proposal.” Iranian officials accused Trump of trying to “buy time for a surprise strike.”

With traffic at a standstill in the strait, which carried some 20% of the world’s oil before the start of the war, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged that gas prices—now averaging about $4 a gallon—might not drop below $3 until next year. Trump said that’s “totally wrong” and that prices will plummet “as soon as this ends,” a claim experts called unrealistic. “Oil and gasoline rise very quickly, and they come down very slowly,” said economist Peter Earle. A new Quinnipiac poll found 65% of Americans blame Trump for the spike in gas prices, and more than half blame him “a lot.”

What the columnists said

As Trump’s approval numbers plunge to the mid-30s, associates say he “wants out of the increasingly unpopular war,” said Barak Ravid in Axios. His negotiators suspect a peace deal is within reach, but that “they may not have anyone in Tehran empowered to say yes.” Hard-line generals from the elite Revolutionary Guard now run the country, and they’re “openly at odds over strategy” with Iran’s civilian negotiators. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, could break the impasse. But he is rumored to have been badly wounded in the air strike that killed his father, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and is “barely communicating.”

There’s another major obstacle, said Alayna Treene and Kevin Liptak in CNN.com: The Iranians don’t trust Trump. The two sides seemed two weeks ago to be nearing an agreement. Then Trump went on a tear on social media and in interviews, falsely claiming Iran had agreed to “a host of provisions that hadn’t been finalized” and had accepted the most contentious U.S. demands, such as handing over its stockpile of enriched uranium. That tanked “the rising optimism for a deal,” and “it’s unclear where peace talks go from here.”

“Even Trump’s most basic claims about the Iran war can’t be trusted,” said Daniel Dale, also in CNN.com. He said last week that Vance was en route to Islamabad; in fact, the veep had never left the U.S. And he falsely claimed two weeks ago that Iran had agreed to never again close the Strait of Hormuz. Virtually nothing the president says can be taken at face value, a situation the world “has never had to contend with.” He’s confounded not just negotiators but ordinary Americans, said Peter Hamby in Puck. A new poll shows they “have no idea why this war is happening,” with answers ranging from keeping Iran from getting nukes (22%) to “taking oil” (20%) to “a show of power” (13%).

Control of the strait has become “the strategic fulcrum of the war,” said National Review in an editorial. Iran seems to think if it keeps the strait closed it will “exact so much economic pain” that Trump will end his blockade, or accept a deal that relents on his “red lines.” He needs to convince Tehran he’s “perfectly willing to start shooting again” and “take the strait back by force.”

Iran thinks it has the upper hand, said Erika Solomon in The New York Times. After a “high-stakes game of chicken,” it believes “Trump blinked first” when he extended the ceasefire with no concessions. That validates its view that Iran’s readiness to absorb the economic pain wrought by the war exceeds Trump’s. The regime sees this as an “existential battle,” and no matter how much suffering the blockade inflicts, experts say “it’s not going to blink.”

Both sides have powerful incentives to end this, so “in a world of logic” a settlement would be “a safe bet,” said Marc Champion in Bloomberg. But we’re in a realm where logic doesn’t seem to apply, stuck with leaders who lack “the personal and political courage needed for compromise.” In Tehran, fanatical hard-liners call the shots. In Washington, we have a president who “seems to live in his own movie, reinventing reality to follow a script in which he plays the triumphant hero.” It’s “an inherently unstable situation” with no obvious way out, and “a return to war looks all too possible.”

What happened

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Russia on Monday morning after a weekend of diplomatic trips to Pakistan and Oman, but no direct talks with the United States. President Donald Trump on Saturday called off an announced trip to Islamabad by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, saying it would be a waste of time given Iran’s lack of commitment to meet with them.

Who said what

“If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. With U.S.-Iran talks “derailed, at least for now,” The New York Times said, “Tehran and Washington are sinking into an awkward limbo of neither peace, nor war,” with each projecting confidence they can “outlast the other in a standoff with drastic stakes for the global economy.” Pakistani officials said “indirect talks” were ongoing even as they “scrambled to reignite” direct negotiations, The Associated Press said.

What next?

Trump was “expected to hold a Situation Room meeting” on Monday after receiving an Iranian proposal to “reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war,” Axios said, “with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage.”

For weeks, the Trump administration has waged a brutal war on Iran. But now that Iran has successfully shifted the conflict’s nexus to the oil-shipping bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz, the White House has a new plan to inflict maximum pressure: economic warfare, the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign, said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a White House briefing last week.

What did the commentators say?

Blocking Iranian ports and shipping lanes and pivoting from “kinetic to economic warfare” is an attempt to “end the conflict without a new U.S.-Israeli onslaught,” said CNN. Per the White House’s “rationale,” the “ruinous financial and humanitarian consequences” of being unable to ship and sell oil leave Tehran with “no choice but to accept U.S. terms” to end the conflict.

Although focused on Iran specifically, the administration’s threats stretch beyond the Islamic Republic to those who would do business with it. Countries that are “buying Iranian oil” or hold Iranian funds in their banks now risk “secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure,” Bessent said on PBS News. Iranians themselves will feel the “financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

Bessent’s threat came one day after his Treasury Department notified “financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman” that they are at risk of secondary sanctions for “allowing Iranian illicit activities to flow through their financial institutions,” said The Associated Press. The “argument being made to Trump” is that no matter if the Iranians think they can “weather the storm,” any inability to pay their “loyalists” could “pressure Iran to the table.”

Approximately one-third of the oil Iran exports through the Strait of Hormuz “directly funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Miad Maleki on Fox News. Bessent’s threats will “shut down a lifeline that the regime desperately needs right now to keep its economy on some life support.”

Trump himself has been a “heavy user of financial sanctions” targeting “countries, individuals and companies,” The Washington Post said. At the same time, his administration seems to have been “caught unawares” when rivals like China and Iran “weaponized their economic advantages.”

While sanctions have long been the “instrument of choice for applying pressure on Iran,” the White House’s pivot toward “more kinetic forms of economic coercion” blurs the line between “financial restriction and military intervention,” said Harsh Pant, an international relations professor with King’s India Institute at King’s College London, at The Economic Times. “By physically interdicting maritime traffic” with its naval blockade, Trump is showing a willingness to enforce America’s “economic objectives through direct control of global commons.”

What next?

In many ways, the “damage” caused by economic weapons is already “sparking a response,” with nations that depend on the Strait of Hormuz “making plans to reduce their vulnerability to a future closure,” the Post said. But critics warn that attempts to impose other financial consequences on Iran could ultimately backfire on the United States and its allies. Much of the previous phase of war has “helped Iran’s economy,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), per the AP. Imposing further economic conditions is simply an attempt by Bessent to “mop up the mess that Donald Trump has created by initiating this war.”

The administration could still be making a “sound bet,” said CNN. Iran’s economy has been “shattered by sanctions” and could “quickly suffer critical food shortages, hyperinflation and a banking crisis” that would push Tehran to settle with the Trump administration. But this hope shared by “U.S. officials, conservative editorial pages and analysts” may ultimately “rest on an assumption” that has “led the U.S. astray in the Middle East” many times in the past.

What happened

U.S. Marines boarded and took control of an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it breached President Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said. An Iranian military spokesperson warned that Iran “will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy.”

The seizure followed a weekend of mixed signals on the status of the strait and mutual accusations of violating the fragile ceasefire set to expire Wednesday. Trump said that his envoys would meet with Iranian negotiators in Pakistan on Tuesday, but Iran’s Foreign Ministry later said that Tehran had “no plans for the next round of negotiations” and has made “no decision” on further talks.

Who said what

Trump on Sunday said the U.S. was “offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL” to Iran, but if it did not accept, he would “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” Iran’s state media said Tehran saw “no clear prospect for productive talks” given the Trump administration’s “excessive demands” and shifting, “unrealistic requests.”

Both sides have “triggered a swirl of confusion over the status of peace talks,” The Wall Street Journal said, though Iran “made similar threats ahead of participating in the previous round of negotiations.” Pakistan “appeared to be preparing for the talks,” Reuters said, and U.S. “security equipment and vehicles” landed at an airbase in Islamabad over the weekend.

What next?

All the uncertainty “sent oil prices rising again,” The Associated Press said, and Iran this morning “warned it could keep up the global economic pain” and keep “inflicting political pain on Trump.”

It has been a busy spring for JD Vance. The diplomatically untested vice president was tapped for wartime negotiations with Iran, became the administration’s mouthpiece in a doctrinal feud with Pope Leo and led the White House in a last-ditch effort to salvage now-ousted Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán. It has hardly been an auspicious season for someone positioning themselves to carry the MAGA torch post-Trump.

Can he come back from a string of public flops?

Despite entering office as a “man full of ideas” just over a year ago, Vance and his opinions “matter less and less” within the Trump administration, said Idrees Kahloon at The Atlantic. While his diminished clout may be the “typical fate” of the vice president who is “forever on display but seldom listened to,” Vance’s shrinking footprint is a “major comedown from the role he once seemed likely to fill,” that of “Trumpism after Trump.”

Admittedly, the job of being veep was not “designed to be fun,” Edward Luce at the Financial Times said. But being Trump’s number two “brings unique discomfort.” Vance is “flailing” at backing policies that “often turn 180 degrees overnight,” rendering him “no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even if he should “regain his place in the Trumpian firmament,” there is “no such thing as a Vance base” within the modern GOP.

The past few weeks saw Vance bring his “noncharisma to bear” on Orbán’s behalf, prompting voters to “commit themselves to a serious program of Orbán Renewal” before he jetted off to “screw up the Iran peace talks,” Charles Pierce said at Esquire. Vance is playing “both sides against the middle” on Trump’s war in Tehran so as to maintain his “alleged viability in 2028,” while wings of the “elite political media” ready themselves to position him as the “next tinhorn Reasonable Republican.”

The future remains unwritten, but it’s “hard to imagine things going worse” for the veep, largely because Trump “forced Vance into this position,” Asawin Suebsaeng said at Zeteo. Vance may believe in Orbán’s ultra-nationalism as an “ideological pursuit, not a practical one” but it’s hard to “identify any political advantages” to his recent “crusade” on Orbán’s behalf, said Noah Rothman at the National Review. “Conversely, the downsides are becoming increasingly hard to ignore.”

Every time Vance debases himself on Trump’s behalf, “he gets less and less in return,” said Dana Milbank at The New York Times. Not only have his “political fortunes” begun to “dim,” his “soul has become a depreciating asset.” In many ways, Vance has “cast himself as the chief ideologist” of a MAGA movement with “no ideology” beyond the “instincts, impulses and glory of one man,” The Economist said.

Vance’s attempts to “take on” Pope Leo by attacking his “area of expertise” highlight the “deadly sin of pride,” Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic. Describing the “willingness” of someone like Vance to challenge the Vatican “requires a word from Yiddish rather than Latin: chutzpah.” That he would encourage Leo to “stay in his lane” while at the same time spreading “his version of the gospel from his powerful political perch” could prove “one contradiction too many, even for this skilled political chameleon,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg.

The well-positioned ‘heir apparent’

Still, Vance may remain well-positioned ahead of 2028. His “unusual second job” serving as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair is “exactly” what an “ambitious presidential aspirant might dream up,” said Theodore Schleifer and Shane Goldmacher at The New York Times said. While he’s done “some good for the party,” Vance has also done “some good for himself” by “wooing” the GOP’s “richest and most influential patrons,” even as his camp is “leery of being seen as plotting about anything beyond the 2026 midterms.”

In March, Vance was the main attraction at the closed-door spring summit of the Rockbridge Network, a “secretive donor group” that he cofounded in 2019 during his “stint as a private investor,” said Gabe Kaminsky at CBS News. Although his remarks were focused on 2026, the larger question “looming” over the confab was whether he had 2028 plans in place. Given Rockbridge’s reach within the MAGA coalition, Vance seems “poised to stand at the crossroads” of varying GOP interests that, one attendee told the outlet, “want JD to be the heir apparent.”

What happened

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a fourth attempt by Democrats to limit President Donald Trump’s authority to wage war on Iran, in a mostly party-line 52-47 vote. The “repeated defeats underscore the durability of Republican backing” for Trump, The New York Times said. But “some GOP lawmakers suggested that their patience was wearing thin as the conflict drags on, its economic fallout reverberates among their constituents and the president’s bellicose statements intensify.”

Who said what

Republicans “say they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now,” The Associated Press said. But they “are anxious for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes,” notably a statutory deadline at the end of the month. Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, if Congress doesn’t declare war or authorize the use of force within 60 days, or grant a 30-day extension, U.S. forces must be withdrawn.

Trump originally predicted the Iran war would be over within four or five weeks, but with the 60-day deadline “rapidly approaching,” he’s sending “mixed signals,” The Washington Post said. Trump keeps insisting the war is almost over, but he just “imposed a naval blockade on Iran and sent thousands more troops to the Middle East.”

What next?

The House is expected to vote Wednesday “on its own resolution to block Trump from ordering more strikes on Iran,” the Post said. The outcome of the vote “is uncertain,” said the AP.

People across the United States are making their opinions known as the war in Iran enters its seventh week, and perhaps none more so than military members. Active-duty soldiers and veterans are experiencing an array of emotions connected to the conflict, with some in support and others vehemently against it. The differing feelings come as tensions in the Defense Department grow.

‘Powerful motivator’

Some soldiers are angry that the Iran conflict has been run with “strategic incoherence” because the “president hasn’t really been able to say with clarity to the American people what exactly this war is about,” Marine veteran Elliot Ackerman said to WBUR News. The war “leaves this question, okay, ‘So is this tool we have, the U.S. military, is that a tool that we can use to create that better future for our country and for Iran?’” It is important to “articulate a very clear plan if we’re going to put American service members’ lives in jeopardy.”

The number of people looking to leave the military had already been increasing, and the “war against Iran has been a powerful motivator,” Kat Lonsdorf and Tom Bowman said at NPR. Many soldiers are “airing their concerns and frustrations,” Bill Galvin, who helps run the GI Rights Hotline for military discharge, said to NPR. Most of the callers are “asking how to apply to become a conscientious objector,” and nearly all of them “mention the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran on the first day of the war.”

Many veterans also remember the effects of years-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When it comes to the war in Iran, the “U.S. is creating a new generation of anti-American sentiment in Iran and across the region,” Chris Sarson, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, said to WBUR News. Soldiers who served during these conflicts became “acutely aware of the heavy costs that civilians pay for war.”

‘Many acknowledge the role Iran played’

Though many in the Armed Forces feel the conflict might become another “forever war,” others have more complex feelings. Some soldiers are largely against war but “also acknowledge the role Iran played behind the scenes” assisting other regional nations in Middle East wars, Jeff Schogol and Patty Nieberg said at Task & Purpose. Wars in the Middle East have “caused a lot of moral injury and PTSD amongst the veterans’ community,” but “at the same time, Iran again has been a party to this conflict over the last 25 years,” Alex Plitsas, a former Army staff sergeant and Iraq veteran, said to Task & Purpose.

Some veterans feel that the war means Iran is “finally being held accountable,” said Schogol and Nieberg at Task & Purpose. “I’ve flown combat missions against the very terrorists funded and directed by the Iranian regime, and I’ve seen firsthand the threat Iran poses,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an Air Force veteran, said in a press release when the war began. The conflict has been “coming for the ayatollahs, who have no regard for human life or peace.”

Many younger soldiers are also “excited to deploy” to Iran because the war is “what needs to be done,” Army veteran Juan Munoz said to The Associated Press. Other soldiers support the war thanks to their positive feelings about President Donald Trump. There “had to have been some reason” for Trump “to bomb them,” Army veteran Edward Bauman told the AP. “I don’t think he would have just went out of his way to just, ‘I’m going to bomb these people.’”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday sharply criticized Pope Leo XIV, an increasingly vocal opponent of his Iran war. The first U.S.-born Catholic pontiff is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump said on social media. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he told reporters. “He’s a very liberal person.” Shortly afterward, Trump posted an AI-generated image “depicting himself as a Christ-like figure healing a sick person with American flags and eagles in the background,” CNN said.

Who said what

Trump’s “angry counterpunch to the soft-spoken Leo” starkly “illustrated how differently two of the world’s most powerful Americans handle conflict,” The New York Times said. Trump’s broadside came after the pope held a vigil for peace at the Vatican on Saturday and suggested that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fueling the war. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of war!”

It’s “not unusual for popes and presidents to be at cross purposes,” The Associated Press said, but it’s “exceedingly rare” for them to openly criticize each other. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement he was “disheartened” at Trump’s “disparaging words about the Holy Father.”

What next?

Trump’s “extraordinary public criticism” of the pope could put him “at odds with some Catholics, tens of millions of whom live in the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal said. Pope Leo leaves Monday for a four-country tour of Africa, Catholicism’s fastest-growing region.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran in Pakistan failed to produce a breakthrough. The U.S. Navy will blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait,” he said on social media. But U.S. Central Command had a different interpretation of Trump’s order, saying it would block only vessels entering or departing “Iranian ports and coastal areas,” starting this week.

Who said what

A U.S. naval blockade would cut off a “key source of financing for Iran’s government and military operations,” CNN said. But a blockade could be a “blow to the rest of the world as well,” exacerbating the “war-driven global energy crisis” and raising U.S. gas prices, The Washington Post said.

The problem for Trump is that “Americans have a much lower threshold of pain than the Iranians,” Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said to The Associated Press. The Iranians “can sustain this for far longer than the world economy” and “the Americans,” and Trump doesn’t have “any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever” he can use “to get his way.”

What next?

The face-to-face peace talks, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance, “were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals” since 1979, the AP said. Iran said it was open to continuing the talks, and “neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.”

The price of crude oil could rise to $150 a barrel under a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Jorge Montepeque, managing director of oil traders Onyx Capital Group, said prices “should be $140, $150” if the naval blockade goes ahead, said The Telegraph.

The US blockade was due to begin at 3pm today UK time. Writing on social media, Donald Trump said that the US was going to start “BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” and will “interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran”.

How will it work?

Under Trump’s plan, instead of having navy ships escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, US forces will board and potentially seize any vessels that pay Iran’s toll, a move that would effectively close the strait off entirely.

The US Central Command said that its forces would not impede the freedom of vessels travelling to and from non-Iranian ports. It also pledged that it would release additional information to commercial mariners.

The president warned that “any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL”, but “at some point” an agreement on free passage would be reached. He said that other countries would be involved in blockading the strait, but did not specify which. Keir Starmer said the UK would not join the blockade.

What will the effect be?

The consequences for the global economy could be serious. There’s “little clarity” about how the US navy will take control of the strait without “reigniting” the conflict with Iran and “causing another shockwave” in the money markets, said Michael Evans in The Times.

The blockade “might risk worsening a war-driven global energy crisis”, said The Washington Post. Although Iran would “potentially suffer the most economically”, it may also “come as a blow to the rest of the world”, particularly nations in Asia, which “rely heavily” on oil and gas from the Gulf.

So the president is “once again playing loose with the fortunes of financial markets and the global economy as he struggles to find a way out of the war”, said Australia’s ABC News.

As for Trump, the plan “reflects his hope” that he can repeat the “model of his intervention” in Venezuela, said the Financial Times. There, the US “seized” the then president Nicolás Maduro in a military operation after a naval blockade of the Latin American nation.

“You saw what we did with Venezuela,” Trump told Fox News. “It’ll be something very similar to that, but at a higher level.”

What did experts say?

Initially, Trump’s plan will only affect the small number of vessels that are still navigating the waterway, shipping expert Lars Jensen told the BBC. If the US does blockade the strait, it will “halt a very tiny trickle” of vessels and “in the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t really change anything”.

But three legal experts in the US said the blockade could violate maritime law. One of them suggested the blockade, which will be enforced militarily, would violate the current ceasefire agreement.

The blockade is a good “counterpoint” to Iran’s closure of the strait, Dennis Ross, the former senior US diplomat and Middle East negotiator, said on X. It puts “greater pressure on Iran” and “great pressure on China to pressure Iran”.

But Vali Nasr, a former US official and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Financial Times that the plan will be “fine by the Iranians” because it “prolongs the chokehold on the global economy”.

Tehran might respond by shutting down the Bab el-Mandeb, a chokepoint off the coast of Yemen, said Nasr, and “then the US will have to deal with that”.

“WE GOT HIM!” Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that the second of two US airmen had been rescued from “deep inside” Iran struck a “triumphant” tone, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator – and no wonder.

The rescue brought to an end an episode that had begun on Friday, when a US air force F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over southwestern Iran – the first time a US fighter jet had been downed by hostile fire since the 2003 Gulf War. Both crew members had “ejected safely”. But while one was quickly recovered by US forces, the second, a weapons systems officer, was stranded for 36 hours, as the two sides raced to find him.

Iran, eyeing a propaganda victory, offered a £50,000 reward for his capture, said Paul Nuki in The Telegraph. Washington, in turn, was desperate to avoid a humiliation evoking memories of the botched US attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held hostage by Iran in 1980. In the end, Trump was able to celebrate what he called “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history”.

“Deep behind enemy lines”, seriously hurt, and armed only with a pistol, the officer had been in a terrifying position, said Guy Adams in the Daily Mail. But his “survival, evasion, resistance and escape” (SERE) training kicked in, and he scaled a 7,000ft ridge in the Zagros Mountains, before hiding in a crevice and using a satellite device to report his location.

The CIA, meanwhile, hatched a “deception plan”, spreading word in Iran that it was moving the airman out of the country on the ground, said Greg Jaffe in The New York Times. Then, on Saturday night, the US launched a “vast and complex” rescue mission. Two MC-130 troop planes carrying more than 100 special forces commandos landed on a disused airfield near Isfahan, which they used as a forward operating base. Drones and jets provided air cover, striking Iranian forces that came near. Then commandos used mini-helicopters to reach the mountains, extract the weapons officer, and fly him back to the airfield.

It was here that a major hiccup occurred, said Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian. The troop carrier planes became bogged down in the soil and had to be destroyed by the US to avoid them falling into enemy hands, while new planes were flown in. Although the US did get all its troops out, suffering no casualties, it lost hardware worth about $250 million (£185 million). The episode as a whole was a reminder that, for all America’s military superiority, Iran “can fight back” – and it would only need to “get lucky once” in this asymmetric conflict to secure a major propaganda victory.

A chorus of high-profile right-wing figureheads including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Alex Jones recently criticized President Donald Trump’s ongoing Iran war. The president responded by denouncing them as “NUT JOBS” and “TROUBLEMAKERS” in a lengthy social media statement, essentially making them persona non-MAGA. But as the president struggles to contain blowback from his Middle Eastern adventurism, the MAGA fault lines are only growing.

The ‘biggest break thus far’

After several MAGA figures denounced the president’s actions in the Middle East and, in some cases, his presidency overall, Trump responded with a “blistering” 482-word Truth Social post that insulted them in “starkly personal terms,” The New York Times said. Trump’s missive came after “weeks of criticism” from the consortium of conservative figureheads, which he had “largely ignored” before this latest outburst. Jones, Kelly, Carlson and former Charlie Kirk collaborator Candace Owens are the “opposite of MAGA,” Trump said, before he began “insulting the pundits personally,” said The Hill.

Trump has “repeatedly dismissed suggestions” of an alleged “fissure in his MAGA coalition,” Forbes said. But criticism from MAGA notables “intensified” after Trump “threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization,” NBC News said. There is now a “growing schism within Trump’s base” over the Iran war, “particularly” given his campaign pledge of “no new wars.”

While Carlson in particular has been “highly critical” of the Iran conflict and “somewhat more gently critical of Trump the man, at least publicly,” the “gloves were off” this week “like never before,” said CNN. The result is “perhaps the biggest break thus far” between Trump and a “leading conservative influencer,” even as the GOP has “done its best to forestall these kinds of splits.” Carlson’s critiques won’t “suddenly equally divide Trump’s base,” but they are an “inauspicious sign” and “not helpful” for the party.

‘Deep anger’ and ‘quick rebukes’

Trump’s attacks on this batch of newly minted detractors reflect what seems to be a “deep anger” at once-loyal supporters, said Politico. The opprobrium runs both ways, as the targets of his ire offered “quick rebukes” to Trump’s attacks. “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home,” Owens said in a “one-line quip” on X, said Forbes. “I’m just so sad that whatever’s happened to him has totally changed the man he once was,” said Jones in a video response on the same platform.

Iran has clearly “emerged as a growing weakness” for Trump, said CNN. While some MAGA supporters are “overwhelmingly on board,” the president’s wider base is “increasingly on a different page.” For Trump, the danger in rebukes by Carlson and other media figures is that it gives Republicans “skeptical of the war license to tilt into outright opposition to him.”

Several thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war broke out, and the conflict has created an additional humanitarian crisis: delays and shortages of medical supplies. Hospitals and health care clinics throughout the Middle East are reporting critical lapses in supplies, which experts fear could lead to a surge in deaths even as the U.S. agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

What did the commentators say?

With the war in a state of flux, humanitarian centers “across the Middle East, Asia and Africa are facing the risk of running out of basic medication and food” due to the “restriction of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz,” said NPR. Some of this food, especially dry and canned goods, can “be stored for a long time,” Bob Kitchen, the vice president of emergencies and humanitarian action with the International Rescue Committee, said to NPR. But health care supplies are a different story, as most of the “medicines or treatments for malnutrition will expire.”

Many of these countries rely almost entirely on foreign aid for medical supplies. Sudan, for example, has “no manufacturing capacity and is entirely dependent on imported medication,” Omer Sharfy of Save the Children in Sudan said to NPR. This means health care workers “won’t be able to find alternatives in the local market.” The war has also “disrupted the movement of medical supplies from WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai,” said the World Health Organization. By March 11, just 12 days into the war, over “50 emergency supply requests, intended to benefit over 1.5 million people across 25 countries,” were “affected, resulting in significant backlogs.”

Even countries far away from the conflict are bearing the brunt of these scarcities. Fears of syringe and IV shortages in South Korea are “spreading through Korea’s health care sector, prompting authorities to urge medical providers to refrain from stockpiling,” said The Korea Times. The problem is not that the Persian Gulf countries are “major drug producers. They’re not,” said health care news nonprofit Healthbeat. But these nations do “form ‘a critical pharmaceutical transit hub,’ where drugs and their basic ingredients from India, Europe and China routinely pass before heading to Africa, Asia and the United States.”

What next?

Some are hopeful that the two-week ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump and initially agreed to by Iran, will allow the flow of medicine to restart. But while the U.S. has backed a ceasefire, Israel has continued its assault on the region, carrying out a series of strikes in Lebanon. Iran reclosed the strait in “response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group,” said The Associated Press. Iran later accused the U.S. of also violating the deal and claimed that a long-term ceasefire was “unreasonable.”

Even before the strait was closed again, experts say it is unlikely its opening would have made a huge difference in moving global medical supplies. The ceasefire deal would not lead to a “‘mass exodus’ of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” said The Guardian. The deal also allows Iran and Oman to “charge a fee of up to $2 million a ship on vessels transiting through the strait,” which could further limit the amount of supplies that are able to pass.

With no end to the larger skirmish in sight, fears persist that the shipment of medical supplies could remain at risk. All of these events are happening in an industry that was “decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year,” said The Washington Post, and is “now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.”

What happened

The two-week ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump and Iranian officials earlier this week faltered Wednesday as the U.S., Iran and Israel argued over whether it covered the Israel-Hezbollah fight in Lebanon. Iran also accused the U.S. of violating several tenets of the agreement, and closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon that killed at least 254 people and wounded 1,100 more.

Who said what

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator of the ceasefire, said it applied to “everywhere, including Lebanon.” Israel said Lebanon was not included, and President Donald Trump agreed Wednesday. U.S. allies, including the leaders of France, Australia and Spain, said Lebanon needed to be covered by the ceasefire.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Lebanon was included, and the “ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose — ceasefire or continued war via Israel.” Vice President JD Vance called the dispute a “legitimate misunderstanding.” Iran likely “thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” he told reporters, adding that Israel nonetheless “actually offered to be — frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “faced swift criticism from political opponents on the left and right” over the U.S.-Iran deal, Politico said. “The ceasefire stopped the Israeli military campaign much sooner than Israel wanted,” and while Netanyahu had “no choice but to go along,” he can claim ongoing Lebanon strikes “as a victory with the Israeli public.”

What next?

Despite Wednesday’s “dueling threats to resume attacks if the ceasefire fell apart,” The New York Times said, Trump “seemed determined to plow ahead” with diplomacy, saying Vance would lead a delegation to Islamabad for peace talks starting Saturday.

After five weeks of war, Donald Trump has claimed “total and complete victory” over Iran. Tehran begs to differ. Agreeing to the conditional two-week ceasefire, Iranian officials said their country had dealt a “crushing historic defeat” to the US and Israel.

Meanwhile, commentators are pointing to real, quiet wins for both China and Pakistan, whose behind-the-scenes roles in pushing for the ceasefire have increased their global standing.

What did the commentators say?

Benjamin Netanyahu “looks set to be the biggest loser” of the conflict, said The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Peter Beaumont. Pressuring Trump to agree to his decades-long goal of neutralising Iran has “turned out to be a bust”. The “political consensus” between Israel and the US is “visibly crumbling”, and there’s “domestic fallout” for Netanyahu in the run-up to an election.

Trump has also emerged as a “strategic loser”, said the South China Morning Post. Washington failed to achieve regime change in Tehran, and Iran retained control of the Strait of Hormuz, the conflict’s “most strategic asset”. Meanwhile, the US has used up “sophisticated air-defence missiles” intercepting “far cheaper Iranian drones and projectiles”. Iran’s nuclear programme has survived, along with the “stockpile of enriched uranium” from which it could “potentially produce a viable weapon”, said The Times’ Middle East correspondent, Samer Al-Atrush. That “will not be given up easily”.

Tehran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz was a “high-risk” strategy that “paid off”, said DW. It “secured a ceasefire without conceding defeat”, which it “can present as proof that it withstood the US and all its military might”. The Iranian regime “survived, and bought time to try to shape” the phase of negotiations “on more favourable terms”.

In the longer term, it is actually Beijing that most “stands to gain”. America has “moved many military assets to the Middle East to protect shipping”, which “leaves fewer resources for the Indo‑Pacific, where Washington and Beijing compete for influence”. China has also had the chance to present itself “as a responsible global actor”, with its power brokers widely credited with pushing Iran to agree to the ceasefire.

China is “shaping up to be the big winner”, said Roger Boyes, The Times’ diplomatic editor. Unlike the US, it expected Iran to seize the strait and “amassed large oil reserves”, making itself “more resilient” to an energy crisis. “As a significant exporter” of other goods, it was still initially “hit hard” by the strait’s closure but then the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered that China-bound vessels could pass through “toll-free”.

Pakistan’s credentials have been burnished, too. Its role in brokering the ceasefire was “unexpected” but the Islamabad Accord is the country’s “most consequential diplomatic moment in a decade”, said former UN peacekeeper Anil Raman on NDTV. Capitalising on its good relations with both the US and Iran, Islamabad will “press hard to consolidate” this “return to global relevance”.

What next?

J.D. Vance is due to lead a US delegation in negotiations with Tehran in Pakistan this weekend. The White House said the ceasefire between the US and Iran has created an “opening for a diplomatic solution and long-term peace”.

But the specifics of the terms to be discussed “remain murky”, said the BBC, “as is the current state of shipping traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces have warned that ships would be “destroyed” if they tried to sail through without permission.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, subject to a “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” The announcement defused his threat from earlier in the day that “a whole civilization will die tonight” absent a deal.

Iran said it would abide by the ceasefire, proposed by Pakistan, but maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel also agreed to stop attacking Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday morning the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” contradicting an earlier statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Who said what

Iranian state TV said Trump had accepted Iran’s terms in a “humiliating retreat.” Trump told APF that the ceasefire was “100%” a “total and complete victory” for the U.S. His “apocalyptic threat” of civilizational erasure “certainly helped him find” the “offramp he had been seeking for weeks,” said The New York Times. But his “down-to-the-wire tactical victory” resolved “none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.”

The ceasefire’s terms were “clouded in uncertainty,” The Associated Press said. Trump said on social media that Iran’s 10-point plan was “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” But that plan appears to cross several of Trump’s red lines. Notably, Iran and Oman “plan to charge transit fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz,” CNN said, something that wasn’t in place before the war. Iran’s caveat that “safe passage” through the strait was contingent on “coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces” and “technical limitations” means Iran will keep the “power to speed up passage, or slow it down,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. will be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted. “Big money will be made,” and “Iran can start the reconstruction process.”

What next?

The “ceasefire appeared shaky in its early hours,” Politico said, with Iran firing missiles at Gulf Arab countries and Israel continuing to strike Iran. The U.S. and Iran “are expected to hold peace talks on Friday in Islamabad,” Axios said.

“In the end, cooler heads prevailed – at least for now,” said North America Correspondent Anthony Zurcher on BBC News. After Donald Trump’s threats to launch attacks on Iran that would wipe out the “whole civilisation” in the country, both countries agreed a two-week ceasefire.

The President has since claimed that this could lead to a “Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”, while Vice-President J. D. Vance called the ceasefire a “fragile truce”.

As peace talks are expected to take place in Pakistan, both sides have claimed the ascendancy, though uncertainty surrounding key elements of the agreement, such as the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian nuclear capabilities, have left many sceptical of continued peace.

What did the commentators say?

This ceasefire move is “check, not checkmate”, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. In fact, we shouldn’t even consider this a proper ceasefire; it is merely a “fragile” and “conditional” “pause” in the conflict, which is “already under strain”.

“Beneath the surface, fundamental disagreements persist” in a logistical sense. There has been “no clearly defined start time” and “key uncertainties” remain. The proposed 10-point plan issued by Iran contains “discrepancies” between its Farsi and English versions, “most notably” over the state of uranium enrichment, as well as ambiguity surrounding movement through the Strait of Hormuz. “If this is the Third World War, it is not over.”

“It’s TACO Tuesday!”, said David Charter in The Times, using the Trump Always Chickens Out acronym coined last year during Trump’s “on-off tariff threats”. Even if the ceasefire holds, the US has “left in place a cadre of battle-scarred leaders, no doubt harbouring thoughts of revenge”.

As “king of the ultimatum”, Trump has “played fast and loose in pursuit of his goals”, isolating himself from “shocked” allies, who are now “on their guard” more than ever before. The “reckless” flip-flopping could have “far-reaching consequences for America’s standing in the world”. On the world stage, countries may come to fear America’s “increasingly unpredictable behaviour” more than its “terrifying” military might.

“Both sides have good reason to hope the talks succeed, despite the obstacles,” said The Economist. For the US, the war is “deeply unpopular at home”, and Trump is “keen to have it finished” before his mid-May summit with Xi Jinping in China. “For Iran, renewed fighting would be catastrophic,” with America and Israel expected to continue striking key economic assets. The only outlier may be Israel, which maintained that the ceasefire does not include Lebanon.

“Diplomatic jujitsu” will be required to bridge the gap between the views of a final peace agreement held by Iran and the US, said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. It is hard to imagine that a settlement between the nations could be reached in “two years, much less two weeks”. Neither Trump’s “tactic of escalating his rhetoric to astronomical levels” or the “down-to-the-wire” negotiations have resolved the “fundamental issues that led to the war”. It took the Obama administration two-and-a-half years to negotiate the 2015 nuclear accord – which Trump tore up in 2018 – “and that was in peacetime”. Notwithstanding, “this negotiation will be held under the sword of a possible resumption of hostilities.”

The last-minute ceasefire is “in theory, a victory for real-estate geopolitics”, said Senior Foreign Correspondent Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. However, “as any real estate agent knows”, the devil is in the detail, and “closer inspection suggests Mr Trump’s triumph may not be quite as unalloyed as he claims”. Iran’s position is stronger than before the war, and has now “agreed to allow shipping through the chokepoint”, but “on its own terms and has not relinquished its claim to control it”. The country may have agreed to a ceasefire, but its negotiating position, “rhetorically at least, is now more hardline than before the war began”.

What next?

“What is certain is that the clock has been reset yet again,” said Sacerdoti in The Spectator. Providing the ceasefire holds, the “decisive moment” will come in two weeks’ time, when the “temporary pause” ends and the “question of whether it can be extended, or gives way to renewed fighting, will be answered”.

“The talks in Islamabad will be complicated, to say the least,” said The Economist. Significant work needs to be done, as the positions of both sides “could not be further apart”. “If both sides stick to their current positions, the talks could end up at the same impasse they reached just before the war in February.”

If talks were to fail, we would likely see an “uneasy return to the status quo”. Iran would face American sanctions and the continued “threat of further American strikes”, as well as remaining a “menace” in the Gulf region, and have “strong motivation to build a bomb”. “That would be a bad outcome for everyone: a weakened, hostile regime; an impoverished Iran; and a lingering threat to the global economy.”

Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out a civilisation and Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus in Lebanon have once again shone a spotlight on the rules of war.

“Collective punishment on a population and the targeting of protected civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law,” legal experts told ABC News of Trump’s threats, while his promises to take the country’s oil, “which could amount to pillaging” is also “barred under the law”.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said it was able to verify that Israel was again using the “notorious weapon”, “reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war”, said The Guardian.

When asked whether his threats constituted a war crime, Donald Trump answered, “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

So what constitutes a ‘war crime’?

War crimes are “violations of international humanitarian law” that, unlike genocide and crimes against humanity, “always take place in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or not”, said the United Nations.

These include cases of murder, torture, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and non-combatants such as humanitarian aid workers, as well as the deliberate targeting of religious and educational buildings, hospitals and, in some cases, vital infrastructure such as power stations and key transport links.

The use of weapons banned by international conventions, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions, can also be considered a war crime.

What are the major conventions and treaties?

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols introduced in subsequent decades are international treaties that serve as the “most important rules limiting the barbarity of war”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ratified by all 196 UN member states, in times of war they protect non-combatants, such as civilians, medics, aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded, sick or prisoners of war.

There are also additional conventions banning the use of biological weapons (1972), certain conventional weapons (1980), chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel mines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008).

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression”.

“Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities,” said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Yet it has, since inception, also “faced criticism from many parties” and has been fundamentally weakened by the refusal of several major powers to join.

As well as the US, Russia and China, non-signatories include India, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Recent arrest warrants for national leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “generated mixed reactions from Washington and raised questions over the future of the court”, said the CFR.

As “no formal ICC jurisdiction applies” to countries that have not signed up to the ICC, the “more immediate legal framework” remains the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, said The Guardian.

The Conventions and their Protocols contain stringent rules to deal with those who commit what are known as “grave breaches”, who must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality.

The key point here, said Professor Andrew Clapham in OpionioJuris, is that the rules for offences deemed war crimes under the Geneva code apply to “everyone irrespective of whether their state has ratified the ICC Statute, and they can be tried in multiple states around the world, irrespective of whether those states are parties to the ICC Statute”.

“The idea that anyone can avoid accountability for grave breaches by sticking to non-ICC states for one’s trips is fallacious when that person is alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”

Donald Trump has repeated his threat to pull the US out of Nato, after Britain and other allies refused to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Dismissing the alliance as a “paper tiger”, he told The Telegraph’s Washington correspondent that the idea of removing America from the defence treaty had now gone “beyond reconsideration”.

“We’ve been there automatically, including Ukraine,” Trump said. “And we would always have been there for them”. But, in an apparent misunderstanding of the limits of the alliance, the US president believes that, in the Iran conflict, “they weren’t there for us”.

What would it mean for Nato?

Nato, formed by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 by 12 founding countries, does not have its own army. Instead, member states pledged to provide collective defence and security. The US is Nato’s largest single military power, as well as funding 62% of its spending, so American withdrawal would dramatically weaken the alliance. Without Washington’s military might behind it, Article 5 – the treaty clause that states that an armed attack against one or more members will be considered an attack against all – would lose credibility .

Trump’s recent threats will further encourage Canada and the European member states in their efforts to rely less on the US for security – a shift that is a boon to their own domestic defence industries.

What would leaving Nato mean for the US?

The US would save money, both by ending its contribution to Nato spending and by no longer maintaining a presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But it would also lose access to many military bases around the world, meaning the US Navy would have to “operate closer to America’s shores”, and US bombers would no longer be able to “reach targets halfway around the world”, said Modern Diplomacy. More broadly, the shift away from US global leadership would accelerate, with America increasingly divorced from an international framework.

Buyers for US arms could also dry up, as America’s former allies seek to re-arm elsewhere. The US spends more on its own military than any other country but that wouldn’t be enough to keep all its arms manufacturers afloat. Without crucial foreign sales, hundreds of thousands of US jobs would be at risk.

What would the process actually look like?

Leaving Nato wouldn’t be easy for the US because a 2024 law prohibits the president from doing so without the approval of a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress. Even if all Republicans in the Senate voted for it, Trump would still need at least 14 Democrats to join them, and it’s unlikely he would even get unanimity from Republicans: Thom Tillis, Republican co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, has already warned that leaving Nato would be an “enormous, enormous risk”.

Given the political obstacles, most Nato observers don’t think Trump will try to withdraw, “despite his obvious displeasure at alliance leaders”, said The Times. But he could use an executive order to suspend US participation, and eke that suspension out while legal challenges are mounted.

But, even without leaving, Trump could still “cause irreparable damage” to the alliance, said UnHerd. He could ignore an Article 5 request, withhold intelligence from Nato partners, cancel weapons deliveries, and limit the export of security-related technologies.

What is the IRGC? 

Officially, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the military force sworn to protect Iran’s ruling clerics. Yet its enormous reach, into all aspects of political and economic life, makes it a state within a state. Far better resourced than Iran’s regular armed forces, the IRGC controls roughly half of the country’s $376 billion economy and directs Iran’s nuclear program. It has responded to international sanctions with a “resistance economy” of illicit activities, including smuggling arms, narcotics, and alcohol. Abroad, its network of violent proxy groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza has destabilized the Middle East for decades. And the current war has only further tightened its stranglehold on Iranian society. When President Trump early on threatened the IRGC with “certain death” if it did not immediately surrender, it responded by mining the Strait of Hormuz and greenlighting attacks on Gulf Arab states. “The survival of the Islamic Republic is dependent on the IRGC,” said Georgetown University political scientist Nader Hashemi. “They were created for a moment like this.”

How was the IRGC created?

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini didn’t trust Iran’s conventional army, saying it had “the Shah in its blood.” He set up the IRGC as his own parallel force, and during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s it absorbed the myriad local armed groups that had sprung up around mosques. When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei became Supreme Leader in 1989, he allowed the IRGC to take over the economy, controlling weapons procurement, construction, and government contracts. Now it has some 200,000 active members and holds monopolies over critical infrastructure and major industries. “It’s like a huge investment company with a complex of business empires and trading companies, while also being a de facto foreign ministry,” said Mohsen Sazegara, who helped found the IRGC and is now an exiled Iranian dissident. “I know of no other institution like the Revolutionary Guards.” An attractive employer for men in need of steady income, it has an intense indoctrination program stressing the imperative of jihad against Jews and other infidels. It exports these ideals through its elite branch, the Quds Force.

What is the Quds Force? 

It’s the armed IRGC wing charged with spreading “revolutionary values” abroad and training proxy militias. In the early 1980s, a Quds group in Lebanon helped create Hezbollah and masterminded the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S.-French barracks in Beirut, which together killed 370 people, 258 of them Americans. And it trained Shiite militias in Iraq to plant roadside bombs that killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers. But its primary archenemy is Israel and Jews, who are frequently targeted by its proxies. In 1994, a bomb killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, an attack said to have been planned by the IRGC’s current commander, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. The force trained Hamas in Gaza ahead of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. And IRGC-plotted arson attacks hit Jewish institutions in Australia in 2024.

Are there other wings?

The Basij, a paramilitary security force, has around 600,000 reservists at its disposal to quash dissent. Black-clad brigades typically disperse protests with batons, tear gas, and guns; their crackdown on last winter’s protests killed up to 40,000 civilians. “The population of Iran may wish what it will,” said former U.S. army adviser Brad Patty, “but they are meant to live in terror of the IRGC.” The Revolutionary Guards also have an intelligence service as well as their own versions of traditional military service branches. That includes ground troops, a 15,000-member air force that runs Iran’s missile program, and a navy of some 20,000 that patrols the Strait of Hormuz. All these branches, plus the IRGC’s drone center and cybercommand, are directing Iran’s response to the U.S.-Israeli attacks.

How are they doing? 

Better than anticipated. U.S. and Israeli air strikes have hit well over 15,000 Iranian targets, destroying ballistic missile sites as well as killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour, security chief Ali Larijani, and several other senior officials. But Iran, which watched the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein next door, has been hardening its regime ever since. The IRGC has built layers into its dispersed chains of command and trained its troops in asymmetric warfare. Though Trump boasted that U.S. strikes have “demolished” Iran’s regular navy and air force, the IRGC versions of those forces have struck more than 20 commercial vessels, sometimes swarming them with lightly armed speedboats. These strategies, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi recently claimed, mean that “bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war.”

What might weaken the IRGC’s grip? 

Decapitation strikes won’t do it—the Guards have a bench of replacements handy for each senior post, and their forces are fighting to protect the system, not any individual. Still, some IRGC units are reporting shortages of food, ammunition, and basic supplies, and the decentralization of their control raises the risk that one or more might eventually defect. Defeating the IRGC would “require not a swift campaign but, at best, a prolonged and costly war of attrition,” said Oxford political scientist Ashkan Hashemipour, but “this may prove difficult for the American president to sustain politically.”

‘Second chances cannot be reserved for the privileged few’

Ken Oliver at Newsweek

Americans “see themselves as believers in second chances,” but for “millions of ordinary people with arrest or conviction records, there is no comparable second chance,” says Ken Oliver. Every “April, Second Chance Month asks Americans to consider a simple question: What should happen after justice has been served?” In “theory, the answer is straightforward: a person is held accountable, pays their debt to society and then has the opportunity to move forward.” In “practice, that’s rarely how it works.”

Read more

‘The embarrassing lesson of Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing’

Mary McCord at MS NOW

Maybe “now that Pam Bondi is gone, she will reflect on where and why she went astray,” says Mary McCord. Having “seen Bondi promote Donald Trump’s fraudulent election claims on Fox TV and elsewhere,” many were “dubious about her ability to uphold the ideals of the Department of Justice.” Some have “wondered whether Bondi’s supporters at that hearing have had regrets as they’ve watched her actions over the past 14 months stray far from their predictions.”

Read more

‘Why the next era of growth must be built around humans’

Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee at Time

While “seeds might be healthy and sunlight is abundant, without the conditions for roots to take hold, growth can never happen,” and the “same goes for today’s economy,” says Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee. Capitalism’s “initial objective was productivity expansion,” but “today growth, modeled by GDP, often driven by manufacturing output, does not automatically translate into better living conditions, well-being or happiness.” Too “often, it has, in fact, widened inequality and accelerated environmental degradation.”

Read more

‘How the German right sees Iran’

Filip Gaspar at The American Conservative

The Iran war “has become a test for Germany’s strategic independence and economic resilience,” and “Germany, so far, appears to be failing the test,” says Filip Gaspar. As Germans “debate the issue and reconsider past policy choices, no party has seized the moment more deliberately than the Alternative for Germany, now one of the strongest political forces and the clearest nationalist challenge to Berlin’s governing consensus.” This is “yet another sign of deeper disorder within the Western alliance.”

Read more

What happened

The U.S. military over the weekend rescued two airmen whose F-15E was shot down over Iran last week. U.S. forces quickly rescued the pilot deep in hostile territory, but the second crew member was not exfiltrated until early Sunday following a “sprawling, high-risk rescue mission” involving about 100 Special Operations commandoes, the CIA and dozens of military aircraft, The Wall Street Journal said, citing President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.

Who said what

The F-15E crew member, a weapons system officer, was injured when he ejected from the jet, but was able to climb about 7,000 feet and wedge himself into a crevice to evade the Iranian forces searching for him, officials said. The “almost cinematic mission” also “faced major obstacles,” The Associated Press said. Iran said it shot down at least two MH-6 helicopters during the rescue, and the U.S. bombed two of its own MC-130Js to protect sensitive technology after the $100 million stealth transport planes got stuck on a makeshift runway in remote Iran.

What next?

The rescue mission gave both Iran and the U.S. “a new narrative as the war enters its sixth week,” the Journal said. Tehran “portrayed the downing of the jet as proof that the U.S. could be bloodied” and did not have full “air superiority,” while Trump called the operation an “Easter miracle” in “triumphant interviews and posts” as he “seeks to mobilize flagging public support for the war.”

What happened

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday celebrated his first Easter as pontiff by urging leaders “who have the power to unleash wars” to instead “choose peace!” President Donald Trump invoked God in obscenity-laced social media posts threatening to bomb all of Iran’s power plants and bridges unless it agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday evening. Indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets constitutes a war crime.

Who said what

“Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!” Trump posted over the weekend. “Open the F--kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” the president wrote, adding: “Praise be to Allah.” Trump’s post was “notable” for both its “vulgar language” and “somewhat desperate-sounding tone,” said The New York Times. It “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”

The Vatican has become “alarmed” at the Trump administration’s “invocations of God” to “defend” the Iran war, The Washington Post said. Pope Leo has generally been “careful in his language,” leaving “more overt criticism” to U.S. bishops and “other senior proxies,” but he has “grown blunter in pushing back against suggestions that divine providence supports the use of force or violence.” In his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing, Leo prayed that “those who have weapons lay them down” and choose a peace not “imposed by force” or the “desire to dominate others,” but through “dialogue.”

Some critics were more direct. Trump “is not a Christian,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump ally, said on social media over a screenshot of his Easter post. “Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.”

What next?

Before Trump, no “other recent American president has talked so openly about committing potential war crimes,” the Times said, and his “language and actions could have far-reaching consequences” for the U.S., Iran and the world. A “defiant Iran” responded to Trump’s threats by striking “infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries” and threatening to “restrict another heavily used waterway,” The Associated Press said.

Oil prices jumped last night after Donald Trump said the Iran conflict was “nearing completion”. Despite the US president saying the attacks on Tehran would end in “two to three weeks” and America doesn’t “need their oil”, the markets were not soothed.

“A word – or social media post” – from Trump “used to spark big moves in prices”, said the BBC. Investors would leap on “signs” that things “could escalate or come to an end”. But now traders seem “to be growing more sceptical about the value of his comments”.

What did the commentators say?

At the outset of the conflict, oil prices were “sensitive to Trump’s comments” but his view of the war “seems to change hour by hour”, said Tom Saunders and Eir Nolsoe in The Telegraph. “His stream of often contradictory statements” have made many wonder “whether they can trust the messaging” coming from the US administration, and some traders have drawn back from the market, “leaving prices increasingly untethered from reality”.

However many solutions to the current global oil crisis Donald Trump comes up with, the oil market isn’t listening anymore – “and the price of oil keeps rising”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. There’s simply no point in Trump “trying to talk the price of oil back down again. It just won’t work.”

His “Persian Taco” tactic “may have run its course”, said Eduardo Porter in The Guardian. “Making extreme threats” and then walking them back may “provide Trump with the illusion of agency” but he “no longer has control of events in Iran”. The markets are “figuring out” that it will probably be Tehran, not the US, that gets to decide when the conflict ends.

What’s next?

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is today chairing a virtual summit with almost three dozen nations, to explore measures to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government is determined to find a solution to the energy challenges, although “it will not be easy”.

And yet, “after nearly three weeks of this conflict”, the global financial system is “functioning without panic or alarming signs of stress”, said Zachary Karabell in the The Washington Post. “It’s important to distinguish between price movements” and stability. “The smooth functioning” of the financial system, “in the face” of crises like the oil shock, “gets little attention, probably because stability is not news”. But central banks, financial institutions and governments have “improved at monitoring” risks, and that should “at least provide some relief in a world full enough of fears”.

The U.S. may soon put proverbial “boots on the ground” in Iran. President Donald Trump is considering an operation to seize Kharg Island, a key oil hub for the Islamic regime, as he tries to bring about the end of the war on terms favorable to the United States.

Kharg could prove an attractive target as Trump seeks to “hobble Iran’s oil industry for leverage in negotiations,” said The Associated Press. But experts say a U.S. attack “would risk American lives” and possibly “still fail to end the war.” Kharg is not far from Iran’s mainland, so the regime “can potentially rain a lot of destruction on the island, if they’re willing to inflict damage on their own infrastructure,” said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. American forces will find the island “hard to take,” said Danny Citrinowicz of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It will be hard to hold.”

Iran will probably respond to a Kharg invasion with “escalating strikes on energy infrastructure across the Middle East,” said Bloomberg. That would create additional turmoil for global oil markets, “where prices have already topped $100 a barrel” because of the war.

What did the commentators say?

Seizing Kharg “could be militarily feasible,” former Gen. Mark Hertling said at The Bulwark. But to what end? The U.S. can “seize terrain, conduct raids” and conduct other military operations with “unmatched precision.” But military campaigns require “alignment between ends, ways and means,” and right now “that alignment is not evident.” If the United States attempts to seize Kharg without a clear understanding of the end goal — regime change, the end of Tehran’s nuclear program or something else — “success will be temporary.” U.S. leaders owe troops a “strategy worthy of the risk we ask of them.”

“There are grounds” to believe that taking Kharg could force Iran’s regime to “capitulate before it implodes,” Marcus Solarz Hendriks said at The Spectator. The country’s economy “cannot limp on without crude oil exports.” A political system should not deflect such economic pain on its people, but the “Islamic Republic is capable.” The regime does not appear amenable to compromise or surrender. Tehran will back down only if “America projects unwavering resolve.” Trump’s path to victory, then, is “through escalation, even if the stakes are immense.”

What next?

Kharg is not the only potential target for U.S. troops. They could also try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or seize Iran’s nuclear material, said The New York Times. The risks of any of those options “are enormous.” If troops do take the island, they could “be there for a while,” Trump said to the Financial Times.

The Pentagon is preparing for “weeks of ground operations” in Iran, said The Washington Post. That does not mean a final decision has been made. The Defense Department is working to “give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

As AI adoption across personal and professional vectors increases so do the risks the industry takes on in the name of commercial growth and financial dominance. Mere weeks into the Iran war, the conflict has laid bare many of the fault lines upon which the AI industry has built its foundations. The result is a potentially perfect storm of intersecting factors that could pop the artificial intelligence industry bubble.

What did the commentators say?

The sprawling artificial intelligence industry has “propped up global trade and investment” and “pushed stock markets from the U.S. to Asia to record highs” for the past three years, said the Financial Times. But as one of the most “power-hungry inventions ever,” with a “slick chip production line that can cross more than 70 borders before reaching the final consumer,” the “fragilities in the AI supply chain” are now at particular risk from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “Hidden behind the fury” of the war have been new insights into AI and its mass adoption that will be “felt by all of humanity,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Foreign Policy.

Admitting he’s been an “AI enthusiast since 1991,” Chakravoriti said that while research suggests AI “can be transformational in a breadth of areas,” he is now “placing a high probability on an AI doomsday.” Multiple distinct “horsemen” of possible disaster range from an “epistemic crisis” to “wars, hot and cold.” Industry observers have “fretted publicly about an AI bubble” for the “better part of the past year,” said The Atlantic. But where fears of an AI crash leading to a “chain reaction across the financial system” once “felt hypothetical,” they now seem “plausible and, to some, almost inevitable.”

The Iran war has particularly unveiled a “paradox” for AI, said Bloomberg. The war could “destabilize” significant monetary investment in AI from Gulf State allies, while “surging energy costs threaten to make data centers far more expensive to run.” The resulting “aftershocks of the conflict” seem “less likely to kill the AI boom entirely” than to “cleave the market in two,” leaving juggernauts like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon the “most exposed to the shifting financial landscape.” High-profile startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, conversely, are poised to be “more insulated” from the fallout.

If the Iran war is what truly “brought conflict to Silicon Valley,” said Fox News, then the industry “was not ready” for what this conflict would expose. “Consider the threat receiving almost no attention,” which also carries perhaps the “greatest economic consequence for Americans at home”: helium production, a third of which takes place in Qatar. “No helium. No chips. No AI.” Without these elements, the “military edge carrying this war degrades.” The Middle East conflict “is proving, in real time” that the large-scale data centers used to power AI platforms can themselves be “wartime targets.”

What next?

The present day AI industry is “not made for the turbulence its leaders have helped usher in,” said The Atlantic. Even if AI manufacturers are “merely forced to slow down,” the “viability” of the enormous amounts of money leveraged to support the industry will “likely be called into question” in ways that could be “devastating for many.”

Although the war, as it currently stands, won’t see hyperscalers “walking away” from their existing infrastructure in the Middle East, it may “impact future investment in the case of drawn-out hostilities,” said CNBC. The war could “reduce the region’s appeal” as an AI data center hub, said the Financial Times, while national sovereign wealth funds might move to “redirect planned AI investments to local security needs.”