The link above is a straight transcript of the MoU. Below are my thoughts based on my understanding of what I just read. While there is heavy sarcasm below, please do correct me if I'm misunderstanding anything. I am very interested in understanding how this war is settled.
1. Termination of hostilities... which includes Lebanon... but Israel isn't signing the MoU? This seems... flawed, especially since Israel is saying they are fighting Hamas.
4. Part of the agreement is to remove US forces "from the proximity of Iran". We have 16 military bases/locations along the border of Iran and on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
5. I don't see the same type of strict deadlines for resuming of commercial traffic past Hormuz as there is in paragraph 4. Also, passage of commercial traffic at no charge is only for 60, which I assume overlaps with a ramping up period as the strait still has to be demined. This paragraph also leaves open the possibility of fees being instated after the initial 60-day period. This has been left open enough to really turn around and bite us hard.
6. I can't wait to see how Trump is going to spin giving Iran $300B (on top of paragraphs 7, 10, and 11) for reconstruction. Maybe this is a standard arrangement that's given to the country that got bombed by the aggressors, but paying the regime you said you'd dismantle $300B to rebuild their infrastructure is gonna sting DJT's ego. Bet he's not gonna sign that check with his comically large signature and one of those stupid sharpies. Also... "regional partners"? So who else is getting in on paying this bill? Israel? The Saudis?
7. Termination of all sanctions. This seems reasonable and is WAY more valuable chip to them than it is to us.
8. "... Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons". BAHAHAHAHA! So after all that, all we got on the main issue (Iran's nuclear program) was to get back to what Obama negotiated back in 2016. I realize this issue is the main point of the ongoing negotiations, but the fact we huffed and puffed and this is all we have to show for it does not bode well. Honestly, I can see this being the symbolic turning point of America losing it's top spot among the world powers.
11. So the thing that Obama got all that flack for (paying Iran in the form of unfreezing financial assets), we are going to do again. That's a tough look for this admin... and that's on top of signing a big fat check to repay for all the stuff we blew up. Is this the reason we laid off all those federal workers and slashed the federal budget for public education? So we could drop a gajillion dollars worth of bombs that now we have to replenish and then pay Iran for the inconvenience. Wow...
Are we trying to make Russia feel better about how they're doing in Ukraine? "Don't worry, Putin... it happens to the best of us".
As deal takes force, Trump says ‘it’s okay’ for Iran to have some ballistic missiles
“If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said in France, where he held a press conference on the sidelines of a G7 summit. “If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say that in relative proportion, I think it’s okay” for Iran to have ballistic missiles as well.
“Missiles aren’t the problem… They hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet (like nuclear weapons do),” Trump said.
Senate Republicans raise alarm over Trump’s deal with Iran
President Trump’s deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting sanctions on Iran is getting strong pushback from Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill who warn that giving Iran’s theocratic regime access to billions of dollars in economic relief would be a major “blunder.”
Some Republicans are warning that the likely outcome of the more than 100-day conflict is not worth the cost to the nation: the lives of 13 American service members and more than $100 billion spent.
“Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” fumed Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in a social media post, calling the war and its outcome the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal,” he wrote on the social platform X.
“Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped,” he continued.
Most concerning to some Senate GOP critics is that the deal will immediately lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports and may lead to the unfreezing of Iranian assets around the world.
“History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea. I think the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
The deal leaves open the future of Iran’s nuclear program and does not clearly prohibit Iran from levying tolls on the Strait of Hormuz at some point in the future, according to senators who reviewed the deal.
It also leaves open the future of Iran’s missile program, which remains robust even after weeks of American and Israeli bombardment, according to intelligence estimates.
A classified CIA assessment estimated that Iran still had 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and 75 percent of its mobile missile launchers, according to a report by The Washington Post.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the lack of significant Iranian concessions on its nuclear program, its weapons arsenal and its long-standing practice of funding militant proxies throughout the Middle East raises serious concerns. He pointed out the deal doesn’t prevent Iran from continuing to enrich uranium or toll the strait, and “it gives them a lot of money they can use to fund their proxies.”
The agreement would only guarantee that Iran does not impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz for a period of 60 days. After that time, Iran will negotiate with Oman to define the future administration of, and maritime services through, the strait.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said it’s hard to argue that Trump’s decision to order joint missile strikes with Israel against Iran in late February produced an outcome to justify the cost in lives and munitions.
Tillis said the deal appears weak “on its face.”
“You got to do the balance of accounts: a hundred billion roughly, maybe more, spent today; 13 dead, 365 wounded, injured; our partners in the Middle East bombed, they’ve had casualties. There’s got to be a lot of return on that,” Tillis said, summing up the cost of the conflict.
He said Trump appears to have fallen well short of his objectives at the start of the war.
“We set out by saying we were going to drive down to zero their nuclear capability. Now we’re equivocating on that. We said that we were not going to make the mistake that Obama did by sending them a plane full of cash. I got to reconcile the numbers there,” he said.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to convince me that we’re on the right path,” Tillis added.
The Trump administration has conducted briefings with Senate allies such as Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) to highlight the benefits of the deal, such as the reopening of the critical Strait of Hormuz.
Moreno says that while Iran will benefit from the easing of sanctions on its oil exports, U.S. consumers will also benefit from lower fuel and fertilizer prices, which factor heavily into the cost of food and other goods and services.
“That helps us. Yes, of course it helps the Iranians also. It helps us lower energy prices,” he said.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday evening, Moreno expressed his hope that the memorandum of understanding (MOU) would lead to a lasting agreement to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“We’re on the verge of a historic possibility in a world that is not under threat by Iran, where we don’t live in fear of an Iranian regime with a nuclear weapon,” he said.
But Republican critics of the deal aren’t taking much comfort in the prospect of lower oil and gas prices when Trump’s decision to start the conflict caused prices to spike upward in the first place.
West Texas Intermediate crude was priced at $67 a barrel before the conflict and surged up to $120 a barrel. It dropped to $76 a barrel on Wednesday.
“It’s an awful deal. It’s kind of JCPOA-plus,” Cassidy told The Hill, comparing the MOU to the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which former President Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015.
Trump withdrew from Obama’s Iran deal in May of 2018. At the time, the Trump administration said the Obama deal “enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior.” The administration at the time also said it had delayed Iran’s “ability to pursue nuclear weapons” while “allowing it to preserve nuclear research and development.”
Cassidy said Trump’s new MOU with Iran “is going to leave Iran stronger, and it’s going to leave our allies weaker, and it may commit U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
The memorandum states the U.S. will work with “regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Cassidy said Iran now has leverage over the rest of the world through its demonstrated ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
“Now, Iran recognizes they can use their leverage over the Strait of Hormuz to extract from the other countries of the world whatever they want. And whereas before there was a credible threat that something would happen if they attempted to do so, I think that threat under this president seems to be exhausted,” he said.
Many Republican senators are skeptical that Iran will negotiate an end to its nuclear enrichment in good faith.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) warned last month that agreeing to a 60-day ceasefire to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran would be a “disaster.”
“The rumored 60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster. Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!” he warned in a post on X.
Wicker on Wednesday declined to comment on the deal.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, acknowledged Iran probably won’t agree to a deal to give up its nuclear enrichment program but argued it would be worth a try to reach a lasting deal to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“It opens up the strait, it continues the suspension of hostilities, it creates space to see if you can get a deal — I doubt if they can — on the nuclear program, but why not try?” Graham said.
“If you can find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear ambitions, go for it. The MOU puts that in place,” he added.
GOP senators say there will now be a lot of pressure on the Trump administration to come up with a strong agreement to end Iran’s nuclear program in the next 60 days.
“When you say this is on the ledger for Iran, certainly helping them, what we need to look at then is what is the corresponding win for the United States?” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “I think we actually need to look at the agreement itself. I think we need to have it presented to us with an opportunity for us to ask those questions.”
Republican senators and a senior Senate GOP aide said they were not aware of any plan to brief the broader Senate on the details of the agreement and what to expect from the negotiations over the next 60 days.
From what I've managed to gather the total of the money will come from sanction relief. Iranian funds were frozen all around the globe. This would release those funds. It's the same exact thing Obama did only Obama did in on a much smaller scale with a lot less cash.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
As it pertains to the Strait of Hormuz it was open before the war and now it's going to be back to normal. So on the surface it appears that all he did there was help temporarily fix a situation he created in the first place. At least for 60 days supposedly.
Trump is agreeing for Iran to keep their missiles.
No agreement yet on recovering the enriched uranium.
And this is nothing more than a 60 day extension of the cease fire. Not a peace deal as Trump would like to make it sound.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Vice President Vance on Thursday issued a blunt warning to members of the Israeli government who have been attacking the deal with Iran: President Trump is the only friend you have left, and it would be unwise to cross him.
Why it matters: Vance gave public voice to the consternation many on Trump's team have felt with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the past three months. He also issued a veiled threat that if Israel undermines the deal, U.S. military support could be impacted.
What he's saying: Asked about an Axios report that Netanyahu and his political allies were "fuming" over the deal, Vance said he'd read the story but hadn't experienced any fuming from Netanyahu — though he had been "bothered" by members of the Israeli cabinet attacking Trump over the deal.
"Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world's superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world," Vance said.
Vance added that Israel should consider that "two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars."
"The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the U.S. needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in," Vance said.
The other side: Netanyahu has kept his frustrations with the deal private, but has been venting in private conversations, sources say.
Some senior members of Netanyahu's cabinet — including ultranationalist ministers Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, but also ministers from Netanyahu's Likud party — have attacked Trump over the deal. Pro-Netanyahu voices in the Israeli media have made personal attacks against Vance as well as Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said the current situation requires the Israeli government to "remain calm, stand firmly on our security interests and at the same time preserve the important relationship with our American friends, who fought shoulder to shoulder alongside us, and for that we are deeply grateful."
At the same time Netanyahu said Israel will not withdraw from the territories it has occupied in southern Lebanon "as long as Israel's security needs demand it."
Friction point: The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding says the ceasefire includes the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and Israel would have to withdraw from Lebanon under any final deal.
Vance said in a press conference on Thursday that the U.S. expects Hezbollah not to launch attacks against Israel, but also expects the Israelis "not to be going wild" in Lebanon.
"The Israelis have to respect this peace process...the president's expectation is that all of our friends, the Israelis, the Arabs in the region are gonna work together and actually see this deal to completion," he said.
A day earlier, Trump reiterated his criticism of Israel for knocking down "an apartment house every time you're looking for someone" in Lebanon.
The latest: After Vance's press conference, Trump posted on Truth Social encouraging "everyone in the Middle East Region" to allow the deal to unfold successfully. "We expect a complete Ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel," he added.
ADVERTISEMENT Bloomberg Read the 14-Point Draft Memorandum Between the US and Iran
Tue, June 16, 2026 at 6:09 PM EDT 4 min read
11.1k (Bloomberg) -- The US and Iran are expected to formally sign a memorandum of understanding on June 19 in Switzerland, paving the way for 60 days of talks aimed at ending their war for good and putting strict new limits on Iran's nuclear program.
Below is the text of the 14-point draft memorandum, as seen by Bloomberg News.
1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.
2. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs.
3. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.
4. Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.
5. Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.
6. The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.
7. The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.
8. The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran's nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.
9. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.
10. The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.
11. The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.
12. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.
13. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.
14. The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.
Trump jokes he’ll blame Vance if Iran deal doesn’t work out
Comments:19 by Julia Manchester - 06/17/26 1:19 PM ET
Link copied Play VideoSen. Bill Cassidy slams US-Iran deal, two days before the two sides are set to sign it
President Trump joked Wednesday that he will blame Vice President Vance if the preliminary deal with Iran falls through.
“I like that idea, sure,” Trump said when asked by Fox News’s Peter Doocy if his vice president would take the fall if the deal fails.
“If it works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD. You better be careful, JD. He’s going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here,” he joked.
Asked why he wasn’t planning to attend the signing of the memorandum of understanding Friday, Trump said he might — but added he wasn’t sure it was “the kind of document I should be signing.”
Throughout the press conference, Trump sought to lower expectations over the durability of the preliminary agreement with Iran on Wednesday and left the door open to striking Iran if the country’s leadership does not honor the agreement.
“If they don’t honor the agreement, or some things aren’t even mentioned in the agreement, it’s a memorandum of understanding, but we have an understanding of certain things without writing it,” Trump told reporters at the Group of Seven press conference in Évian-les-Bains, France.
“If they don’t honor that, we’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it,” he continued, adding “it’s amazing what bombs can do.”
The remarks echoed comments from Trump earlier on Wednesday in which he threatened to bomb Iran “if they don’t behave.”
U.S. officials said details of the agreement would be publicly released this week, but according to copies of the 14-point agreement obtained by CNN and Bloomberg, the deal says Iran may get access to a $300 billion development fund if it meets commitments to scale back its nuclear program.
Iran says in the deal that it won’t pursue a nuclear weapon, as it has for years, but does not make specific commitments to stop nuclear enrichment or hand over weapons-grade uranium stockpiles.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the $300 billion fund after supporters of the war came out against the reported provision, saying the U.S. does not have plans to invest in Iran. However, Trump has not ruled out the idea of other entities investing in Iran.
I'm trying to figure out what was gained compared to before we started this war.
I think it will be in the verification process.
I also see this falling apart. I doubt that Iran will comply with the terms. We will see. I don't have a problem with redevelopment funds except what redevelopment? We largely didn't touch non military targets.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
I'm trying to figure out what was gained compared to before we started this war.
I think it will be in the verification process.
I also see this falling apart. I doubt that Iran will comply with the terms. We will see. I don't have a problem with redevelopment funds except what redevelopment? We largely didn't touch non military targets.
I'm trying to hold my outrage until the Iranian nuclear program negotiations are spelled out. We were told that was really the main issue why this war was kicked off so if there are significant wins there, then one could argue this could've been worth it.
If redevelopment funds for the bombed nation are standard practice, then I guess that's how it goes. I just find it curious that Obama got dragged for paying Iran via unfreezing their financial assets, and now here we are doing the same AND paying them to rebuild AND facilitating their oil exports AND allowing for them to start collecting tolls for Hormuz (see post below this one).
If it actually works that way, that is why I said I doubt the deal holds.
If it was up to me I would have never entered a cease fire in the first place. Every war we have been in since WWII has been this half way crap. I would have bombed bridges to start. Then to power plants.
You do your best to spare civilians from the bombing, but hey, crap happens. Iran has been jerking us around for decades.
Just finish them.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
It seems as though breaking the MOU deal is a two way street. IMO you have two allies that have no interest in achieving the same goal here. I don't believe that Israel has any intention of going along with or keeping the MOU that trump made unilaterally.......................................
Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 18 as Israel says four soldiers killed by Hezbollah
Both Israel and Hezbollah have carried out strikes against each other since the agreement was announced, raising questions about the future of the truce between the US and Iran.
The US-Iran deal calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts, and for Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty to be respected.
However, Israel has said it has no intention of withdrawing its forces from Lebanon and has insisted that its conflict with Hezbollah is separate from the war on Iran.
I'll wait for the dust to settle. But it appears to be heading to a place where this whole thing was a giant waste of time, money and lives. And where the agreement will be worse than the one in place that trump nixed.
Oh and we tanked the economy too. Not just in the USA. Oh and we pushed Western allies even further away.
Winning.
And people will stump for this and claim it was somehow a success.
Last edited by mgh888; 06/19/2601:27 PM.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
US push to get Iran talks started hits an early bump. Vance stays at home, for now
ZURICH (AP) — The American push to quickly begin high-stakes talks with Iran hit a snag Friday, just days after the signing of an agreement that opens a two-month window for negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program and returning oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to prewar levels.
Iranian officials did not travel as planned to Switzerland, insisting that Israeli strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon must stop before the talks can take place, according to three regional officials and a person familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing mediation to try to get the talks rescheduled and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The situation was fluid as Israel and Hezbollah agreed on Friday to renew their ceasefire, according to a U.S. official and regional officials. It remains to be seen whether that could help put the U.S.-Iran talks back on track.
In Washington, President Donald Trump lashed out once again in the midst of the intensified fighting in Lebanon and the stalled nuclear talks.
“We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did,” Trump wrote in a social media post Friday. “They are FINISHED! We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not ten cents!”
Vance was ready for Swiss talks
Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, had been prepared to make an overnight flight to meet with his Iranian counterparts at a mountainside resort in the tiny Swiss village of Obbürgen and begin the technical talks.
Vance’s staff and a small group of journalists had gathered at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington in anticipation of the trip. Dozens of White House officials, advance staffers and more media were already in Switzerland.
Then the trip was called off — abruptly and for the time being.
A White House statement said Vance, tapped by Trump to lead the negotiations, decided to postpone his travel. It made no mention of the escalating violence in Lebanon.
“The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement said.
But, according to officials, the Iranians made clear to the White House that they had balked at starting the talks with Vance because of the Israeli action in Lebanon.
While Iranian officials and Vance did not make it to Switzerland Friday, a mediator from the Gulf country of Qatar found his way to the resort near Lucerne, Switzerland, where the U.S.-Iran talks are to be held. Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met with the Swiss foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis.
Fighting in southern Lebanon intensifies
The fighting had intensified with at least 18 killed by Israeli airstrikes, while four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s military would stay in a “security zone” of southern Lebanon as long as “Israel’s security needs require it.”
Israel and Hezbollah are not parties to the U.S.-Iran agreement.
Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large swath of southern Lebanon it is occupying, but the wording of the interim deal does not explicitly require that and only ensures Lebanon’s “territorial integrity.”
Hours before postponing his trip, Vance gave some indication of the state of flux when he told reporters at a White House briefing that he was uncertain if the talks were going to happen this weekend.
“We think these technical negotiations start sometime this weekend,” Vance said. “That’s still the plan. But that could change.”
Soon after Vance spoke to reporters, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, endorsed direct negotiations with the United States. His terse statement, read by state media, appeared to signal to the Islamic Republic’s leadership that it could move forward with a first round of talks.
“It is obvious that the face-to-face negotiations that will be held in the future will not mean accepting the enemy’s opinion,” Khamenei said.
The messaging seemed to give Khamenei, who was badly wounded in the U.S. strike on Feb. 28 that killed his father, some maneuverability. Hard-liners in the Iranian government, including Khamenei’s father, long opposed direct talks with the White House, especially after Trump, during his first term, pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration.
The meeting was initially supposed to be a signing ceremony
Vance was initially expected to go to Switzerland to sign the agreement at a formal ceremony. Instead, Trump signed the document Wednesday during a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles with French President Emmanuel Macron. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, separately signed the agreement.
It says Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble left by U.S. military strikes last year targeting Tehran’s key nuclear sites, must at minimum be diluted under international supervision.
It also says Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons — a commitment Tehran has made previously. Other commitments remain to be worked out.
Iran believes it’s in a strong negotiating position
Iranians would be going into the talks with a measure of confidence after effectively shutting down the strait, causing global economic reverberations, said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities in Washington.
She said the U.S. is now “essentially trying to negotiate our way back to the prewar status quo.”
Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House think tank, said the “buoyant” Iranian leadership feels it has the upper hand. The endorsement of the talks by the Iranian supreme leader “sends a very strong signal domestically: ’We’re now on an equal footing with the U.S.’”
”‘Trump has gone from calling for regime change on Feb. 28 to this: Now they’re going to sit down with us directly and talk about these big issues,’” Quilliam said of the Iranians’ thinking. “So it’s intended more for the domestic audience, and telling them: ‘We are firmly in control of this. There can be no protests, no revolution: We are a new regime and we’re staying put.’”
Vance has to negotiate through political division
For Vance, a likely 2028 presidential contender, how the negotiations play out could have enormous ramifications for his political fortunes.
Vance’s skepticism of foreign wars was a core part of his political identity during his political rise, which included election as a U.S. senator. Now he finds himself the chief defender of negotiating an endgame to Trump’s conflict that Democrats have largely derided as a foolish gambit. Some hawkish Republicans are aghast that Trump is getting behind a settlement that could put billions of dollars into Iran’s coffers.
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said aspects of the deal are “completely out of step” with Trump’s goals.
Trump fiercely criticized Obama for the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Trump argued failed to stop Tehran from advancing toward a weapon and funneled billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic. The Republican president exited the U.S. from the deal in 2018.
Trump has pushed back against comparisons to that earlier agreement, saying he had “negotiated from strength” after a major military campaign while asserting that Obama was paying the Iranians off and not receiving acquiescence.
Wicker, R-Miss., was particularly concerned about the $300 billion fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran mentioned in the 14-point agreement. Trump and Vance have said no U.S. taxpayer money would go to such a fund and it would not come without concessions and reforms by Tehran.
Israel and Hezbollah agree to a ceasefire after intensified fighting threatens Iran talks
President Donald Trump told NBC News that he asked Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, after deadly Israeli attacks in Lebanon rattled planned Iran peace talks.
Israel and militant group Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire Friday, after a deadly escalation between the two in Lebanon looked set to derail Washington-Tehran peace talks in Switzerland.
President Donald Trump told NBC News in a phone call Friday afternoon that he spoke with Israel and asked them to agree to a ceasefire.
“It’s a positive,” he said, adding: “It’s a little icing on the cake.” He declined to specify whether he had talked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly.
An official Hezbollah source tells NBC News that the group will abide by the ceasefire but that the Israelis are still firing and trying to move deeper into Lebanese territory. Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said Israel was “firmly committed to an immediate ceasefire” and has halted offensive operations.
The intensified strikes came days after an interim U.S.-Iran agreement was signed, stipulating that all fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon, must end immediately.
U.S. spy agencies believe Israel will likely continue to launch attacks on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, potentially jeopardizing a tentative peace deal between the United States and Iran, according to a source with knowledge of the intelligence assessments.
The intelligence reporting comes amid a growing public rift between Netanyahu’s government and the Trump administration over the memorandum of understanding announced this week aimed at ending the war between the U.S. and Iran.
Netanyahu and officials in his government have criticized the deal and said that Israel is not bound by the MOU.
The new intelligence assessment finds that Netanyahu’s calculations are based on his view of the threat posed by Hezbollah and the need to counter that threat, even if it risks derailing the memorandum, the source said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the need to disarm Hezbollah in a phone call with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Friday, according to State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott. The two also discussed planned talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington from Tuesday through Thursday next week, Pigott said.
On Friday, Tehran and Washington were set to sit down for their first negotiations on a lasting conclusion to the war started by the U.S. and Israel in late February. But the new Israeli strikes in Lebanon cast doubts on the deal to end the war, and Vice President JD Vance canceled his planned travel to Switzerland for the talks.
Set to take place in the Bürgenstock mountain resort in the Swiss Alps, the negotiations were temporarily postponed following the deadly Israeli attacks, a regional diplomat with knowledge of the situation told NBC News.
Tehran asked for guarantees that hostilities in Lebanon would end, as outlined in the deal signed with Washington, and mediators were working to resolve the issue, the diplomat said.
The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed early Friday that the planned talks would not take place. The meeting was supposed to have included Qatar and Pakistan.
“Switzerland remains ready to facilitate these talks,” it said in a statement, adding that “relevant preparatory work” in Bürgenstock is continuing.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said the Friday meeting in Switzerland was no longer urgent because the agreement has already been signed, adding that another meeting was planned in the coming days.
Trump told NBC News that he expects Vice President Vance to end up going to Switzerland for peace talks at some point.
“I think he’s going to end up going back,” he said. “Steve Witkoff is going separately. I think JD’s going a little bit later.”
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Vance defended the deal with Iran and stressed that Israel had to “respect this peace process that is fundamentally good for them and good for the entire region.”
He also hit out at Israeli critics of the agreement.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said. “If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
Vance had said that the U.S. expected Israel not to “be going wild in Lebanon,” but said any continued “flare-ups” with Hezbollah would have to be managed through the diplomatic process.
In Lebanon, Israel said it targeted Hezbollah across the south of the country overnight and early Friday. Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 47 people in Lebanon since midnight, the country’s health ministry reported.
The Israeli military said that four of its soldiers were killed, including a senior commander, and another five injured. Hezbollah also reported fighting in the area.
Earlier, Netanyahu said he instructed the military to strike Hezbollah “with force” following the deaths of the soldiers, which he called “a blatant violation of the ceasefire.”
Israel will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary to protect its northern communities, he added. The Israeli military said later Friday that it had conducted more than 150 strikes in Lebanon since midnight, and its spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli forces on the ground have “full operational freedom.”
Hezbollah accused Israel of never adhering to a ceasefire or the deal that Trump signed, which called for the immediate end of all fighting, including in Lebanon, where a number of agreements between Israel and Lebanon’s government have failed to halt strikes.
Iran has warned that it would not abide by the agreement with the United States if Israel, which has not been part of talks and did not sign the deal, continues its campaign in Lebanon.
Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s national security commission, said Friday that Iran must not allow “the resistant people of southern Lebanon to be massacred.” Meanwhile, Iran’s army warned that it had its hand “on the trigger” and was ready “in the event of any enemy breach of commitments.”
On Thursday, Israel published a map with an expanded military control zone in southern Lebanon and said it would not rule out more attacks beyond it.
The 14-point memorandum of understanding agreed to by the U.S. and Iran calls for an immediate end to “military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” as well as “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.”
The pact also stipulates that the key Strait of Hormuz trading route will be reopened after months of disruption for the global economy, but particularly oil and gas markets.
Brent crude steadied Friday but remained set for a more than 8% weekly decline given news of the deal.
An NBC News analysis of marine traffic through the crucial waterway revealed a trickle of ships traveling through the strait Thursday and into Friday, as two Chinese and two Hong Kong-owned ships, and a Japanese crude oil tanker, left the Persian Gulf, where they had been stuck since February.
The authority Iran has established to manage the strait issued new guidelines for vessels Friday, saying it won’t be charging any fees during the 60-day negotiation process, but a transit request must be submitted 48 hours before arrival. Iran would waive “tariffs for security, safety and environmental services” during the period, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority said in an advisory.
Trump Says U.S. Has To Keep Netanyahu ‘A Little Bit Sane’
President Donald Trump told Axios that Israel respects him and “they do as I say,” but that the U.S. has to keep Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a little bit sane.”
“If it weren’t for Donald Trump, Israel would have been eviscerated,” he said in an interview released Friday.
“It’s good,” he said when asked about their relationship amid the war with Iran, “but we have to keep him a little bit, uh, sane.”
He added that he believes he’ll be able to keep Israel from attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon as part of a preliminary peace agreement with Iran, saying: “They have a lot of respect for me, and they do as I say.”
The interview was released hours after Israel launched fresh attacks overnight in Lebanon, straining certainty on whether a lasting peace deal could be achieved. A ceasefire was later announced.
Trump on Wednesday said he thinks Netanyahu "gets a little excited sometimes" and “could do better with respect to Hezbollah.”
Trump didn't want 'Herbert Hoover' presidency with Iran; said it has to have 'some' missiles Trump said he'd start bombing again if Iran violates the agreement.
ByIsabella Murray June 17, 2026, 9:26 PM
Trump addresses US deal with Iran at G7 summitABC News' Mary Bruce, Britt Clennett and Jon Karl report on President Donald Trump's comments made during the G7 summit in France. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was motivated to finalize the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to prevent "economic catastrophe" if the war was not resolved soon.
"So rather than possibly going into a depression, rather than having your favorite president be Herbert Hoover, he was always the one I didn't want to be," Trump said of the 31st president whose policies are often blamed for starting the Great Depression.
"I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is, every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship," Trump said during a press conference Wednesday on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Évian, France.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference, during the G7 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 17, 2026. President Donald Trump, flanked by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, speaks during a press conference, during the G7 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 17, 2026. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters Trump's comments about the economic impact of making a deal came as he focused the majority of the press conference on the somewhat vague details and timing related to the agreement between the United States and Iran that the U.S. says was signed Wednesday night in France.
The president's lengthy press conference happened at the same time that senior U.S. officials read the agreement aloud to reporters, though the president did not relay specifics of the deal in his remarks. The White House has not published the text of the agreement.
Throughout the press conference, the president toggled between characterizing the deal as "historic" and "strong" but also leaving the door open to future bombing of Iran if the regime didn't properly adhere to the agreement.
"If it doesn't get done in 60 days, it's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good. But, we might have to because we're never going to let them have a nuclear weapon, but they've agreed not to. And you'll see that very clearly in the agreement," Trump said.
Related Iran live updates Trump also said he was open to allowing Iran to maintain its stockpile of ballistic missiles, claiming it was "unfair" for Iran to not be able to have the weapons if their neighbors do.
Trump suggested that he has a hard time articulating to the Iranians that they cannot have ballistic missiles -- because their Gulf neighbors like Saudi Arabia have them.
"We'll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non-nuclear issues, such as the conventional ballistic missiles," Trump said.
"I mean, they have to have some because other people have some. You've got to have some," Trump went on: "'Sir, you shouldn't let them have any missiles.' I said, 'Well, what am I going to do? I'm going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them?' 'Yes, sir.' It can't -- doesn't work that way," Trump said.
President Donald Trump addresses the media during a closing press conference at the G7 summit, in Evian, France, June 17, 2026. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo Later on Wednesday, Trump doubled down on his suggestion that Iran could have its ballistic missiles, saying: "If other countries have them, it's a little bit unfair for [Iran] not to have some."
"A ballistic missile is not the same thing as what we're talking about when we talk nuclear, but if Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think it's OK. That's what I mean," Trump said.
The president also argued on Wednesday that the memorandum "doesn't have to" have specific terms detailing punishments for Iran if they were to get a nuclear weapon -- that the U.S. would just continue bombing the country if they develop or obtain one.
"Does it have to be?" Trump said, when asked whether there was anything enforceable in the agreement surrounding the nuclear agreements.
"I let him know. I said, 'Look, if you don't adhere to the agreement, I don't want to do that, but we're going to bomb the hell out of you,' and I don't think that they're going to veer from the agreement," Trump went on.
"What else am I going to do? Am I going to say, 'I'm going to take you to court? Let me take you to court. Let me, just let me sue you.' No, we're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement. I don't want them to. I want them to honor the agreement again. The streets close up, bad things can happen. You're in war, terrible things happen," he said.
And despite his insistence that the memorandum states that Iran cannot develop or obtain a nuclear weapon -- one of his chief concerns during negotiations, Trump also appeared softer during the press conference on Wednesday in his position on whether Iran could develop a nuclear program for civilian purposes in the future.
"I've said to them always, I say, 'Look, you have probably the third-largest oil reserves in the world. What the hell do you need nuclear for?' You need nuclear for some electricity, some. So I've always felt that way. So, we've been pretty tough on that," Trump began, when asked if Iran comes back to the U.S. after the signing of the deal and asks to continue their civilian nuclear program.
He again claimed that Iran could develop the program because neighboring states were also doing so.
"You know, it's also, it is a little hard though when you say that somebody wants---other people have it, other adjoining states have it and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense," Trump added.
Intelligence Agencies Warn Trump Israel ‘Likely’ to Undermine Iran Deal: Report Zachary Leeman Jun 19th, 2026, 2:25 pm Share 127 comments
(Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP)
U.S. intelligence agencies have warned President Donald Trump’s administration that the potential peace deal with Iran could be compromised by Israel, according to a new report.
Current and former U.S. officials told The Washington Post that intelligence agencies have made it known to the administration that they believe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “likely” to take actions that undermine any deal in place.
Trump formally signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) earlier this week. Vice President JD Vance was set to fly to Switzerland to also sign, but that trip was postponed amid Israeli strikes in Lebanon against the Iran-backed terrorist proxy Hezbollah. A ceasefire in Lebanon has since been announced.
Trump’s deal would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened, sanctions lifted, and even a $300 billion reconstruction investment fund for Iran. The deal has received bipartisan backlash, including from some vocal supporters of the president who feel the terms benefit Iran and its current regime too much.
According to intelligence reports, there is fear about Israel’s future actions in Lebanon, as any military conflict there would compromise the deal, which includes a ceasefire that Lebanon would be part of.
The Post reported:
The new U.S. intelligence report concludes that in the face of national elections this fall, Netanyahu’s political survival is linked to showing his domestic audience that he will not withdraw troops from Lebanon and that he is intent on escalating the fighting with Hezbollah, said one U.S. official familiar with the report. The official, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The U.S. intelligence report also describes Israel’s frustration with the terms of the Trump peace memorandum, which undermine its broader objective of maintaining maximum pressure on Tehran, according to a current and former official.
The report conveys Israel’s perception that the agreement could constrain its ability to defend itself against Hezbollah, one former official said.
A senior government official insisted Israel’s actions in Lebanon are only in self-defense.
“Israeli military activity in Lebanon is for the sole purpose of defending Israeli citizens from continuous attacks by Hezbollah,” the official said.
There is growing tension between the United States and Israel over current peace talks and that tension has bled out into public spaces multiple times.
Vance warned Israel at a Wednesday press conference that they need to “wake up and smell the reality,” calling the United States their only major ally at the moment. Vance was responding to reports Israeli officials are not happy with the current deal and are intent on keeping military operations in Lebanon going.
Trump has also given warnings to Netanyahu about strikes in the region, saying at the G7 summit that Netanyahu “gets a little excited sometimes.”
“We have a little dispute over Lebanon,” the president said. “I say, ‘You can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.”
Israel struck southern Lebanon this morning killing 32 and Iran has again closed the strait.
Quote
He added that he believes he’ll be able to keep Israel from attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon as part of a preliminary peace agreement with Iran, saying: “They have a lot of respect for me, and they do as I say.”
That went to hell in a hand basket quickly............
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Intelligence Agencies Warn Trump Israel ‘Likely’ to Undermine Iran Deal: Report
Netanyahu has zero interest in peace. Once military conflict has gone, he is losing power and being prosecuted.
On the MoU ... there is not one single thing I have read so far that indicates we will be in a better position than when Trump tore up the previous agreement that was in place during Term 1.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Israel denies US claim IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon buffer zone, sources tell 'Post'
A US State Department official claimed that Israel has withdrawn from southern Lebanon buffer zones, but two IDF sources denied this, and a Lebanese official said they were unaware of it.
Two IDF sources on Thursday denied reports that Israel has withdrawn from some of the buffer zones in southern Lebanon created during its war with Hezbollah.
Earlier, a US State Department official claimed that the IDF had withdrawn from the buffer zones, adding that Lebanon’s armed forces should now step in. A senior Lebanese security official also said they were unaware of any withdrawal of Israeli troops.
“Israel has already taken a concrete step by pulling back from a part of its buffer zone. This is a significant demonstration of good faith toward Lebanon’s legitimate government,” the official said.
“The [Lebanese Armed Forces] should now move in and verifiably clear out terrorist weapons and infrastructure. This model will be repeated across South Lebanon, enabling the safe return of displaced families, reconstruction of the south, and the restoration of full Lebanese sovereignty,” the official added.
During the recent negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem, Israel and the IDF offered a very modest withdrawal, possibly from places like Tibnin and the Ali al-Taher Ridge, which the IDF only took over last week.
According to the IDF concept, it would withdraw from some of the newest areas it has taken over to see if the Lebanese army will properly clean out Hezbollah from those areas.
Some Israeli officials are trying to draw a distinction between withdrawing from areas where Hezbollah would have a direct line of sight to fire on Israeli northern villages and areas where it wouldn’t.
However, the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, while disagreeing on many issues, are both pushing for a faster and wider withdrawal.
There are multiple withdrawal line options. Until May 26, Israel had not crossed over the Litani River or the Wadi Saluki area; the IDF could withdraw initially to that prior line.
Next, there are at least three lines of Lebanese villages in southern Lebanon that the IDF has overrun, and it could withdraw to any of those lines.
For example, most forces in fall 2024 had only advanced to the first line of villages.
This could involve pulling back from 10 km. or more inside southern Lebanon to just three to five kilometers into the country.
Eventually, the IDF might even withdraw to its five outposts, which were only several hundred meters into southern Lebanon, to where it withdrew in February 2025.
Yet, given that the military took four months to withdraw in that round of fighting, it is expected that any withdrawals will first test Hezbollah’s continued ceasefire compliance as well as the Lebanese army’s willingness to confront and remove terrorists and infrastructure from the south of the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have given the impression that the IDF will remain in parts of southern Lebanon for many months or even years in order to press Hezbollah to disarm.
1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, and their allies in the current war, by signing this MoU, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final Deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Iran imports between 15 million and 16 million tons of grain and oilseeds annually, valued at roughly $17 billion.
For Iran to spend 300 billion dollars on nothing but grain from American farmers it would mean they would have to buy all of their grain from the U.S for over 17 and a half years.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
With events and circumstances changing and unfolding so rapidly in both Iran and Lebanon over the past couple of days this is a very basic description in the timeline of events that have happened since yesterday................
12:45 PM / June 26, 2026 115 vessels, 2,500 sailors evacuated from Strait of Hormuz since Tuesday, says U.N. maritime agency
About 115 vessels and 2,500 sailors have been evacuated from the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz since Tuesday, the head of the United Nations' International Maritime Organization said Friday.
Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez gave the update after the agency on Thursday suspended its efforts to evacuate some 600 ships and 11,000 sailors, following an attack on a vessel in the Gulf of Oman that U.S. Central Command said was carried out by Iran.
Dominguez said during an online news conference that "115 [vessels] have evacuated in the last three and a half days, representing around 2,500 seafarers that have now safely left the Strait of Hormuz."
It was unclear whether the operation had resumed.
1:44 PM / June 26, 2026 Iran issues harsh condemnation of Gulf countries following Rubio meeting
Iran issued a strong condemnation of this week's Gulf Cooperation Council meeting on Friday, singling out the Gulf countries for agreeing with the U.S. position on the war with Iran.
The meeting, which involves the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, was attended this week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A lengthy statement issued after the meeting condemned Iran's attacks on neighboring countries and affirmed the need for free transit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Though the United States wasn't mentioned by name, the implication was clear.
"There is no doubt that Iran is more committed to the collective security of the region than any other party," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X. "And if the Gulf Cooperation Council believes that resolving this concern lies in seeking protection from the greatest violator of security, then that in itself constitutes a deviation from the intended goal, a bitter paradox, and a disappointing indicator of failing to learn from the recent bitter experiences."
Iran has regularly fired missiles and drones at several of the members of the GCC during the war.
Like the U.S. and Israel, Iran repeatedly invoked the need for self-defense in its statement.
"Iran's national security and dignity are matters that brook no compromise or condition; just as the inherent right to legitimate self-defense is not open to discussion, the means of this defense cannot be subject to bargaining or concession with any party," Baqaei wrote.
2:19 PM / June 26, 2026 Israel, Lebanon agree to framework of deal for "lasting peace and security"
Israel and the government of Lebanon have agreed to the framework of a deal to bring "lasting peace and security" between the neighboring countries, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday.
"Today is a good day in that we are happy to announce the framework agreement between the sovereign government of Lebanon and, of course, the government of Israel, with the mediation and support of the United States of America, that begins to put in place a framework for lasting peace and security," Rubio told reporters at the State Department after several days of negotiations between the two sides.
However, the negotiations did not include Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia that has been involved in the fighting against Israel in southern Lebanon. A previous deal between Israel and Lebanon was quickly rejected by Hezbollah.
Rubio referred to the deal as "the first step" in the pursuit of a lasting peace.
"The people of Israel deserve to live in peace and security. The people of northern Israel in particular, who have been targeted repeatedly by terrorist attacks launched from the territory of Lebanon, but not by the Lebanese people, not by the Lebanese government, but by an outside actor who has sought to use that territory to target innocent civilians who have been unable to live in these places for a long time," he said, referring to Hezbollah.
It was not immediately clear how the trilateral framework agreement was any different than the ceasefire agreement already in place between Lebanon and Israel, which has been repeatedly defied by Hezbollah with daily attacks against an Israeli military it says is occupying sovereign territory.
Israel's prime minister's office released a statement saying it will "maintain its security zone along the Yellow Line in Lebanon until the day when Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in Lebanon are disarmed and no longer pose a threat to the territory of the State of Israel from Lebanon."
That would seem to directly contradict Hezbollah and Iran's assertion that Israel withdraw from Lebanese territory in order to further negotiate a lasting peace deal with the U.S.
3:40 PM / June 26, 2026 Trump says "nobody saw" drone that hit cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz
Describing the U.S. response to a drone strike that President Trump blamed on Iran, the president said one got through unnoticed and struck a ship on Thursday.
"We knocked down three of them. One of them, I guess - we didn't miss it. Nobody saw it coming," Mr. Trump said on Friday.
He made the comment while addressing the Faith and Freedom Coalition policy conference in Washington after remarking that Iran still has "some capability, not much."
"You can't do that stuff," he added. Earlier on Friday he called the strike a violation of the ceasefire agreement between Iran and the United States.
4:15 PM / June 26, 2026 Will Iran face consequences for strike on ship? "You'll find out," Trump says.
President Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office whether Iran would face any consequences for carrying out a drone strike on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
"You'll find out," Mr. Trump said.
Asked if the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was still in place, the president said, "I don't like the fact that they took a shot yesterday – actually four, we knocked down three – at a ship, not an allied ship, but a ship, a very expensive ship."
"They shouldn't be doing that," Mr. Trump said.
4:58 PM / June 26, 2026 U.S. strikes targets in Iran after drone attack on cargo ship
The U.S. military says it hit Iranian targets on Friday over Iran's drone attack on a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, marking the first American strikes on Iran since the two countries agreed to extend an already rickety ceasefire last week.
The strikes targeted Iranian missile and drone storage facilities and radar sites, U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted to social media, calling it a "powerful response" to Iran's "dangerous behavior."
5:06 PM / June 26, 2026 Retaliatory strikes against Iran are ongoing, U.S. official says
A U.S. official told CBS News the retaliatory strikes against Iran are ongoing.
5:39 PM / June 26, 2026 House Dem says war isn't "anywhere near over" as U.S. conducts retaliatory strikes
A House Democrat said Friday's retaliatory strikes by the U.S. against Iran showed that the war isn't ending anytime soon.
"I don't think this war is anywhere near over," Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat from Virginia, said on CBS News' "The Takeout" Friday.
He also doubted the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran would hold up.
"Iran is difficult to deal with in the first place, and then you have an administration that has showed itself to be incompetent when it comes to foreign affairs and diplomacy, and so that's why you have the breakdown of all these frameworks," Subramanyam said.
5:52 PM / June 26, 2026 U.S. hits multiple targets in retaliatory strikes against Iran, official says
U.S. aircraft hit multiple targets along the Strait of Hormuz and on Iran's Qeshm Island during Friday's retaliatory strikes against Iran, a U.S. official told CBS News after the strikes concluded.
6:33 PM / June 26, 2026 "Violence will be met with violence," Vance says after U.S. retaliatory strikes
Vice President JD Vance said "violence will be met with violence" after the U.S. carried out retaliatory strikes against Iran on Friday.
"Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone," Vance said on social media, referring to the memorandum of understanding between the two countries. "But violence will be met with violence."
8:57 PM U.S. hit 4 targets in strikes against Iran, U.S. official says
The U.S. strikes on Iran hit four targets and were carried out by six land-based U.S. aircraft, a U.S. official told CBS News after the strikes concluded.
The strikes targeted Iranian missile and drone storage facilities and radar sites, U.S. Central Command had said in a statement posted to social media, calling it a "powerful response" to Iran's "dangerous behavior."
6:01 AM Tanker reports strike by "unidentified projectile" in Strait of Hormuz
The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, which receives reports of suspicious activity from all vessels in the Gulf region, said a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz reported being struck by an "unidentified projectile."
The ship sustained damage to its bridge, the UKMTO said, but no injuries were reported.
No details about the tanker or the projectile were immediately available. The incident was reported at around 11:30 a.m. local time.
6:07 AM Iran targets Bahrain with drone attack: "A flagrant threat"
Iran launched a drone assault targeting Bahrain after overnight airstrikes by the United States.
The attacks across the Persian Gulf show the danger of the Iran war again spinning out of control, even after Iran and the U.S. reached an interim deal to try and agree on a final accord to end the conflict.
The U.S. had launched its airstrikes in response to an Iranian drone attack on a ship trying to get out of the strait on Thursday, continuing a string of attacks that have shaken the uneasy ceasefire in the war.
That Iran targeted Bahrain likely was not coincidental. The kingdom has been one of the strongest critics of Iran and is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. It just hosted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council's foreign ministers, which ended with a call for an end to Iran's attacks and the strait to be completely open.
A statement from Bahrain's Foreign Ministry said a "number of Iranian drones" targeted the country. It called the attack "a flagrant threat to the security of citizens and residents."
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard earlier on Saturday issued a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency saying it had targeted several locations "of the U.S. terrorist army in the region." It did not name what areas were targeted.
6:19 AM U.S. Navy says sea route near Oman is expanding to allow more Strait of Hormuz traffic
A maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that a route through the Strait of Hormuz near Oman's shores is expanding to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic.
The announcement by the Joint Maritime Information Center serves as another warning to Iran that the U.S. is pushing to reopen the strait.
Iran has insisted ships must obey its orders and is warning it will start charging fees for transit through the strait, through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas once passed.
The U.S. and Gulf Arab states have rejected Iran's demands. The strait is considered around the world as an international waterway, despite being the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.
7:46 AM Gulf allies condemn Iranian strikes on Bahrain
Several countries in the Gulf — all allies of the United States or members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which condemned Iran's actions earlier this week — have voiced support for Bahrain following Iranian drone strikes.
The United Arab Emirates said it "condemned in the strongest terms the hostile drone attacks by Iran that targeted the Kingdom of Bahrain."
Kuwait's foreign ministry said in a statement: "The Ministry affirms that the continuation of these attacks, at a time when regional and international efforts are aimed at de-escalation and reducing tensions, constitutes a serious undermining of peace and stability efforts and a threat to the security and stability of the region."
Egypt wrote that it "stands alongside the Kingdom of Bahrain in confronting anything that threatens its security and territorial integrity."
9:22 AM Hezbollah rejects latest Lebanon-Israel agreement, calls it "a disgrace"
Hezbollah has rejected the trilateral agreement between the U.S., Israel and Lebanon, calling it a "humiliation" and a "disgrace."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the deal on Friday after several days of negotiations, though there were no substantial differences from the ceasefire that Israel and Lebanon were already operating under, which also did not involve negotiations with the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group.
"The Framework Agreement in Washington is a humiliation, a disgrace, and a surrender of sovereignty," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem said in a lengthy statement picking apart the deal. "This agreement is null and void, and the provisions of the Iranian-American Memorandum of Understanding must be implemented.
"We will continue, through all necessary means and international and Arab pressure, to ensure that the Israeli enemy complies with the first article of the Memorandum of Understanding and withdraws from Lebanon."
The first part of the 14-point memorandum of understanding signed between the U.S. and Israel 10 days ago calls for the "immediate and permanent end to military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon" and, according to a senior U.S. official, ensures "the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon."
Israel has indicated it has no plans to withdraw from southern Lebanon and the trilateral agreement signed Friday seems to contradict the MOU. The trilateral agreement states Israel will exit Lebanese territory only "pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure," a reference to Hezbollah.
Qassem stated in their rejection of Friday's deal: "We will continue as a Resistance in the field until the occupation is defeated. We did not abandon the battlefield in its most difficult moments, and we will not abandon it now, for this is the path to goodness and salvation."
For future reference I just wanted to inform you that the WSJ has a pay wall. Unless you post the article itself nobody can read it without paying a subscription the the WSJ.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
More updates since yesterday.......................
7:44 PM / June 27, 2026 Trump threatens U.S. military will "complete the job" if Iran doesn't comply with ceasefire
President Trump confirmed the U.S. airstrikes on Iran Saturday and said that the strikes were carried out for "violating" the ceasefire agreement.
"United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!" Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post.
The president issued an aggressive threat in the post, saying it was possible Iran "may never learn."
"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started," the president said. "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"
10:13 PM Iran says it carried out strikes against U.S. military sites in Kuwait, Bahrain in retaliation for U.S. attack
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday local time that it carried out strikes against Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for U.S. attacks on Iranian territory, warning any further aggression would be met with a "crushing response."
The Guards "destroyed eight important US military facilities at the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait and at the Fifth Fleet naval base in Port Salman in Bahrain," they said in a statement.
"Any enemy aggression, whatever the pretext, even against insignificant targets... will have a crushing response," the Guards added.
There are no reported U.S. casualties, major impacts or damage to U.S. locations at this time.
6:35 AM Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatens "complete halt" to talks if ceasefire is violated
Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait, saying it targeted Al Asad Air Base in Kuwait.
"Let the enemy know that violating the ceasefire ... will lead to a complete halt of ongoing processes," the Guard added.
The Guard, which controls Iran's ballistic missile arsenal, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and is thought to be wielding even greater influence now in the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. military said that "Iran had a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement" but "elected not to" when its forces attacked the Kiku.
According to ship-tracking websites, the Kiku appeared to be attempting to use a route established near the coast of Oman, serving as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran that runs through its own waters, when it was attacked.
8:10 AM Iran warns challenge to Hormuz routes will spike Middle East tensions
Iran's top diplomat warned Sunday that any attempt to bypass the Strait of Hormuz routes agreed with the United States would "increase tensions" in the Middle East, as the countries traded attacks and accusations of violating a fragile truce.
"Any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements compared to what is underway by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will only lead to more complicated situations and delays in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and will increase the tensions," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.
"I urge all parties... to adhere to the memorandum of understanding and not to allow this MoU to deviate from its course."
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Sunday they were taking measures to control traffic in the strait – through which in peacetime around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas exports travel – and that violating vessels would be dealt with more firmly than before.
10:30 AM Israel strikes south Lebanon despite framework agreement to end hostilities
Israel renewed its strikes on Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported, two days after an agreement was signed by the two countries, which a Hezbollah lawmaker warned would lead to "internal conflict".
The strikes come a day after one person was killed in an Israeli strike on the south, according to Lebanon's health ministry, with the Israeli military saying it targeted Hezbollah members near its self-proclaimed "security zone", which reaches 10 kilometres (6 miles) into Lebanon.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported several strikes on Sunday.
The Israeli army said a soldier "fell in combat" in southern Lebanon.
In a later statement, Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir approved plans for "continued operations in the security zone, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement".
36m ago No Iranian missiles hit U.S. assets in Bahrain and Kuwait, official says
A U.S. official told CBS News on Sunday morning that no drones or missiles launched by Iran at U.S. assets in Bahrain and Kuwait last night reached their targets, with some shot down or intercepted.
The official said there were no U.S. injuries or impacts on U.S. assets.
Thank you for posting the timelines. Following what's going on can be tricky if your eyes aren't glued to a news site.
Honestly, I hope the MoU falls apart. Definitely sucks for everyone in the short term (not least of which the Iranian people and other civilians in neighboring countries), but getting a redo on the terms that we negotiated HAS to be seen as a positive.
I would tend to agree with you but my concern is the lack of experience by Vance, who seems to be leading the negotiations in such matters for the U.S. will hinder the results of a better deal. But at the same time I certainly hope for the best.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
U.S.-Iran Latest: Peace deal efforts inch along, mired by Israel's fight with Hezbollah
6:53 AM Iran says delegation heading to Qatar won't meet with U.S.
Iran on Monday said a delegation of experts would travel to Qatar's capital of Doha this week for discussions on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding with the U.S., but no meetings would be happening between the two countries.
"An expert delegation from the Islamic Republic of Iran will travel to Doha later this week" to discuss the implementation of clauses of the memorandum, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.
"We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement," he said, noting that "over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the U.S. side at any level."
6:53 AM Trump says U.S. efforts in Qatar will be "perhaps important, perhaps not"
President Trump said U.S. officials' planned efforts in Qatar this week would be "perhaps important, perhaps not" after Iran denied that its negotiators would be meeting with Americans in the Middle East.
"The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not," Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to Qatar's capital. "We're going to find out."
6:53 AM Iran war has cost Americans $1,000 per household, economist estimates
The Iran war has cost Americans roughly $1,000 per household in higher fuel, food and other expenses since the start of the conflict in February, according to an estimate shared last week by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.
Zandi's analysis comes as government data shows inflation in May hit its highest level in three years, and with the U.S. and Iran yet to broker a lasting peace deal.
6:53 AM Expert doubts Strait of Hormuz will return to how it was before war
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expressed doubt on CBS News' "The Takeout" that ships would return to moving through the Strait of Hormuz as freely as they were before the war.
"Whether it's the horse has left the barn or the genie's out of the bottle or I don't know what other cliche you could use, we are not going back to Feb. 27, where the straits were free and unfettered," Miller said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another key waterway.
"Iran has their hands all over them," Miller said, "and they're going to seek remuneration to use those straits, weaponizing geography, basically as leverage."
6:53 AM "Terrorists" shoot dead two Guards members in Iran, says state media
Attackers shot dead two members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards at their home in the western city of Paveh, near the border with Iraq's Kurdistan region, state media reported Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the shooting but Tehran has frequently blamed Kurdish separatist groups in the area for previous violence, accusing them of links to the United States and Israel.
The two IRGC members were killed in "a terrorist and cowardly act," state television said, while two other Guards members were wounded.
State television said "exact details of this incident and the measures being taken to identify those responsible are under review."
Separately, "a family's vehicle was sprayed with bullets" on Monday in the southeastern town of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchistan province, killing the father and wounding the mother, state television reported.
The woman later died of her wounds.
Authorities did not immediately identify those responsible or provide further details about the victims.
But state television said the attack "was carried out by Zionist-American mercenaries," a term Iranian officials commonly use for separatist and militant groups.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has long seen clashes between security forces, insurgents and drug smugglers.
One of Iran's poorest provinces, it is home to a sizable ethnic Baloch population, most of whom are Sunni Muslims in a Shiite-majority nation.
6:53 AM Analysts say Lebanon ceasefire could complicate things, as "Israel won't withdraw" and "Hezbollah won't disarm"
An agreement signed four days ago between the Israeli and Lebanese governments, which links Israel pulling its forces out of southern Lebanon with Hezbollah being disarmed, could effectively keep Israeli troops in the neighboring nation indefinitely, analysts say, and that could make a final peace deal between the U.S. and Iran harder to achieve.
Hezbollah has thus far refused to lay down its weapons, and the Lebanese government has proven unable to make the well-armed Iranian-backed group do so.
"This is not an agreement, it is an imposed settlement," a senior Lebanese politician, who declined to be named, told the Reuters news agency. The lawmaker was quoted as saying Lebanon's army is simply incapable of forcing Hezbollah to disarm.
"This agreement has put all the burden on Lebanon," Michael Young, a Beirut-based analyst, told Reuters. It "creates a structure that allows the Israelis to remain [in southern Lebanon] indefinitely."
Fawaz Gerges, a Lebanese scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the deal was "born dead."
Gerges told Reuters the agreement was a "gift" to Israel as it could effectively give Israeli officials a pretext to further consolidate and even extend the occupied "security zone" that extends six miles into southern Lebanon.
The deal "won't lead us anywhere except to civil conflict, and maybe an insurrection by the Shiite [Muslim] community," said Young.
Regional analyst and former Israeli military intelligence officer Danny Citrinowicz told Reuters the dismantling of Hezbollah is "something that would never happen," and the deal ultimately legitimizes an indefinite Israeli military presence in Lebanon.
He said any Israeli prime minister is unlikely to halt the fight against Hezbollah while the group still poses a threat, so "nothing will happen. Israel won't withdraw, and Hezbollah won't dismantle."
Iran and Hezbollah have both insisted repeatedly that Israel must withdraw its forces from Lebanon as part of any full peace deal between Washington and Tehran.
7:42 AM Witkoff and Kushner meet mediators in Qatar, but no "direct meetings scheduled" with Iran
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – the president's son-in-law – met Tuesday with Qatari mediators trying to broker a permanent peace deal with Iran, the Gulf state's foreign ministry spokesman said.
"Mr. Steve Witkoff and Mr. Jared Kushner are here in Doha to meet with mediators, with Qatari officials, and the talks will be around all regional issues," foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said.
The talks were expected to include discussions on Iran and Lebanon, the spokesman said, adding: "They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians."
Both the U.S. and Iran had said they would send officials for meetings in Qatar to discuss the memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and his Iranian counterpart. Mr. Trump first announced the meeting, claiming Iran had requested it in a social media post on Monday.
"To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days," Al Ansari said Tuesday.
He added that an Iranian "technical delegation travels to and from Doha based on the progress of negotiations," and "there is currently no high-level delegation present."
Qatar initially refused to mediate after Tehran launched unprecedented aerial attacks on Gulf states in retaliation for the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes launched on Feb. 28, but the Gulf emirate has played an active role in negotiations in recent weeks after an initial April ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan.
8:14 AM Ambassador Mike Huckabee says Israel and U.S. "will continue to be partners as long as we exist"
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee again compared the relationship between the two countries to a marriage, saying "we will continue to be partners as long as we exist," in remarks reported by Israeli news site Ynet.
Speaking at an Israeli-American Council (IAC) event commemorating 250 years of American independence, Huckabee said: "When people ask: 'Is it possible that the U.S. and Israel will split and no longer enjoy this extraordinary partnership?', I say: 'No. I hope we will never be that foolish. We will continue to be partners as long as we exist.'"
"It's like a marriage," he added. "If we separate, neither country will be able to afford the alimony."
Huckabee said in February that Israel had a right to much of the Middle East, telling Tucker Carlson "It would be fine if they took it all."
His comments prompted condemnation from the governments of numerous Arab and Muslim majority states.
8:48 AM No frozen assets have been transferred to Iran, says Qatar
No frozen assets have been transferred to Iran, Qatar said Tuesday, after Iran's president said $6 billion would be released under the memorandum of understanding signed by Iran and the U.S. about two weeks ago .
"So far, no funds have been transferred," foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said Tuesday.
"Qatar is not the owner of these funds," Al Ansari added. "It only plays the role of a financial mediator managing these accounts within the framework of this agreement between the parties."
"The matter of transferring funds or not is carried out according to mutual agreement between the two parties and according to the progress of negotiations, which has not yet taken place," he said.
On Monday, Iranian state media quoted President Masoud Pezeshkian as saying the country was set to receive $6 billion in frozen assets currently held in Qatar. The unfreezing of Iran's financial assets is one of the conditions in the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding.
Vice President JD Vance said last week that Washington would ensure any Iranian funds released as a result of the ongoing negotiations would not finance terrorism.
"If we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that ... Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism," he told reporters a day after the first, and so far only, round of direct talks with Iran were held as a result of the MoU.
9:38 AM Iran to hold talks with Qatar on frozen assets Wednesday, says foreign ministry
Iran will hold talks with mediator Qatar on Wednesday regarding its frozen assets, the Iranian foreign ministry said, denying that any meeting with the U.S. was planned in the Gulf state, where delegations from both sides were expected.
"What is expected to take place in Doha, probably tomorrow, will be discussions regarding the implementation of provisions of the memorandum of understanding, including the provision concerning the release of Iran's restricted assets, and these discussions will be held with the Qatari side," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters at a weekly press conference.
10:15 AM UNESCO shared coordinates of heritage sites in Iran with "all parties to the conflict"
Eleven historical buildings in Iran have been damaged in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, according to the Reuters news agency, despite UNESCO sharing coordinates of heritage sites in the country with "all parties to the conflict."
The world body told Reuters it had not been consulted about which cultural sites to avoid during the war, adding "UNESCO calls all parties to conflicts to respect international law, including the protection of cultural property, and to take all necessary measures to prevent damage to cultural heritage."
President Trump has pulled the U.S. out of UNESCO twice, in 2017 and – after President Biden reversed the decision – again in 2025, decrying what he described as "woke, divisive cultural and social causes."
49m ago U.S. stocks open mixed in last session of winning quarter
Wall Street stocks were mixed early Tuesday in a cautious open to the concluding session of a buoyant semester for U.S. equities.
The broad-based S&P 500 has gained nearly 9% in the first half of 2026, reflecting confidence in the AI boom that has offset concerns about the U.S.-Iran war and the surge in oil prices.
About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2% at 52,075.80.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.1% at 7,449.12, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.3% to 25,890.09.
"For the most part the equity market shrugged off the war and focused primarily on earnings, and estimates continued to rise through the quarter," said Jack Ablin of Cresset Capital.
Oil prices edged higher early Tuesday after strikes over the weekend between the U.S. and Iran added to questions about the durability of their memorandum of understanding.
6m ago U.S.-Iran communication line "not a military-to-military hotline," says Iran
The line of communication between the U.S. and Iran is "not a military-to-military hotline," an Iranian official said Tuesday.
"Rather, it is a communication channel between the political authorities of the two countries," foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said in a press briefing.
Pakistani and Qatari mediators said Monday that Iran and the U.S. had agreed to establish the line of communication following their first round of direct talks, held Sunday in Switzerland.
In a joint statement, the mediators said the line would be established "to avoid incidents and miscommunication with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz."
U.S.-Iran Latest: Trump hails "very good meetings" in Qatar as indirect negotiations resume
7:04 AM Iran has exported over 40 million barrels of oil since end of U.S. blockade, negotiator says
Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday said Iran was unable to export any oil during the U.S. blockade on its ports, noting that exports have since surged.
"From the day the blockade was lifted until today, we have exported more than 40 million barrels of oil," he said in an interview on state television. "By contrast, during the previous 50 to nearly 60 days, we were genuinely unable to export even a single barrel of oil."
7:04 AM Trump's envoys meet with Qatari prime minister
Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Tuesday, Qatar's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.
The officials discussed the ongoing peace talks between the U.S. and Iran and the ceasefire in Lebanon, according to the statement.
A senior Trump administration official told CBS News that Witkoff and Kushner had very positive conversations with regional leaders and that good progress continues to be made as technical talks continue.
7:04 AM U.S. and Iran resume indirect talks through Qatari, Pakistani mediators in Doha
Iran and the United States resumed indirect technical talks in Doha on Wednesday, with the Qataris and Pakistanis acting as mediators, the AP, AFP and Reuters news agencies said, citing diplomats familiar with the negotiations.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, met with Qatar's prime minister on Tuesday but are not attending Wednesday's technical talks, according to the source.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the talks began Tuesday night and were focused on the release of Tehran's frozen assets and the Strait of Hormuz.
The officials will discuss "the memorandum of understanding building on the progress made at the Lake Lucerne Summit," a diplomat told the AFP news agency, referring to the first round of direct talks between the two countries last Sunday in Switzerland.
Both countries had said they would send officials to Qatar for the meetings, though Tehran denied a claim by Mr. Trump that direct talks would take place.
According to Qatari state media Al Jazeera, Tehran is demanding the release of the funds in two phases over a 60-day period, beginning with the unfreezing of $6 billion currently held in Qatari banks.
The report said a key point of disagreement remains Washington's reported proposal to establish an exclusive credit line allowing the funds to be used only to purchase U.S. agricultural products, including wheat, soybeans, and corn. Iran has reportedly rejected the proposal, insisting that its central bank retain full authority to determine how the released funds are spent, including on essential goods and medicines, without external restrictions.
7:04 AM Container ship runs around in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian state broadcaster
A foreign-flagged container ship ran aground in the Strait of Hormuz after deviating from the designated shipping route, according to Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
7:04 AM Even if negotiations aren't successful the U.S. has "accomplished the core mission," says JD Vance
The U.S. has "accomplished the core mission" of making sure Iran never has a nuclear weapon, Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday, even if ongoing negotiations fail.
In an interview with Fox News, he said that the U.S. has "all the cards" in the negotiations.
"I actually think the United States is in a great position however the negotiation ultimately shakes out," he said. "If the negotiation is successful, which obviously we want it to be successful, you have an Iran that is permanently transformed, that's not funding regional terrorism and instability, that has permanently given up on any nuclear weapons ambition, and that as a result is welcomed back into the world economy."
"If on the other hand the Iranians don't behave, if they don't make the concessions in the negotiations that we need to see, their nuclear program is still destroyed, their conventional military is still destroyed, and the United States is still in a much stronger position relative to the Iranians," he added.
"We have all the cards in the negotiation," said Vance. "We obviously want it to be successful, but even if it's not successful we've accomplished the core mission, which is to ensure that the Iranians never have a nuclear weapon."
7:30 AM Iran shares details for funeral of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Iranian state media outlets have published the schedule for the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's former supreme leader who was killed on Feb. 28, the first day of the war, in a U.S.-Israeli strike.
Ceremonies will take place across three major Iranian cities, Tehran, Qom and Mashhad, as well as two important Shiite Muslim cities in Iraq, Karbala and Najaf.
Iranian officials say they expect some 15-20 million mourners to join the events, which would make it the biggest state funeral in Iran's history.
Commemorations are expected to last for six days, beginning on July 4 with three days of events in Tehran culminating with the main funeral procession on July 6. The airspace above the city will be completely closed during the period, state media said.
On July 7, Khamenei's body will be transferred to the holy city of Qom, then onto Najaf and Karbala in Iraq before the final day of commemorations on July 9 in Mashhad, where he will be buried.
8:05 AM Israel defense minister says troops to stay "indefinitely" in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza
Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that forces would remain "indefinitely" in so-called security zones established in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.
"The IDF will not withdraw and will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza – indefinitely – to protect our residents and communities from jihadist elements," Israel Katz said.
"We are fighting to change reality and bring security to the residents of the north," he added, referring to communities along Israel's border with Lebanon from which thousands of people have been evacuated due to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
Israel has said it won't withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed, but the group has refused to accept disarmament.
Analysts say the standoff over Hezbollah's weapons could jeopardize the peace deal between the U.S. and Iran.
8:36 AM EU reiterates warning to airlines to avoid Mideast airspace, citing uncertainty over U.S.-Iran ceasefire
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has warned airlines to continue avoiding the airspace over Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, and to "exercise caution" when flying over the rest of the Middle East.
EASA warned that "the sustainability of the [U.S.-Iran] ceasefire remains uncertain in the longer term, with a possibility of rapid escalation."
In its bulletin, EASA said it was extending its recommendation to July 8, having previously extended it to July 1.
9:02 AM Trump says U.S. and Iran have had "very good meetings" in Doha
President Trump suggested there was progress Wednesday in indirect talks between Iranian and U.S. officials held in Doha, Qatar - via Pakistani and Qatari mediators - calling it a day of "very good meetings."
"As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well," Mr. Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. "They've had very good meetings, and we'll see."
"We hit them very hard ... but we're getting along very well," he said.
The technical talks will not see U.S. and Iranian officials meet directly to negotiate, as called for under the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries. Instead, the mediators will convey points from either side to the other, with the goal being to ease tension following another exchange of fire that erupted at the end of last week.
Before boarding his new Qatar-gifted Air Force One plane for a trip to North Dakota, the president said Iran had "come a long way."
"I think they're fine," he said.
9:40 AM U.S. has "no business hosting an international tournament," Iran says after DHS secretary's World Cup jibe
The United States has shown it has "no business hosting an international tournament," Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday, after the head of the Homeland Security agency said he was "so happy" the Iranian soccer team had exited the FIFA World Cup.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said during a security briefing for the tournament that he was "glad they're done, and they're not coming back," after Iran's national team was knocked out of the tournament.
"I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave the U.S. soil, and I might've sung a song or two or maybe even danced a happy dance," he said.
Responding to the comments on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X: "'Mission Accomplished,' Mr. Mullin. You also accomplished something else: proving to the world that you have no business hosting an international tournament."
"Your conduct has been a masterclass for how to squander the dignity that comes with being a host," he added.
The Iran team moved its training base to Tijuana, Mexico, in May, despite playing all their World Cup games on the U.S. West Coast. The team had been due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, but leaders complained that U.S. authorities had insisted they leave the country after every game.
Head coach Amir Ghalenoei said the team was the "most oppressed" at the tournament.
10:11 AM Iranian state TV cuts short interview with Iran's top negotiator, drawing ire from his team
Iranian state television on Tuesday cut short the broadcast of an interview with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's top negotiator in talks with the United States, drawing criticism from his team.
"This discussion was delivered to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) more than 2 hours before the broadcast time; but unfortunately, the broadcast of this discussion was stopped in the middle of it," the Iranian parliament's media center said in a statement Wednesday. Ghalibaf is also the speaker of the Iranian parliament.
"This is despite the fact that this discussion was recorded and the least duty of the IRIB officials was to coordinate it with the parliament's media center if they decided not to broadcast part of the discussion contrary to procedures," the statement chided.
The state broadcaster said the interview was cut into two parts and the second section would air Wednesday night.
The parliamentary media center noted that the parts cut out of the Tuesday night broadcast included discussion of United Nations nuclear inspections, the country's frozen financial assets, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund.
Many Iranian hardliners, including conservative lawmakers and media personalities, have criticized the memorandum of understanding signed between Tehran and Washington. Last month, one state TV presenter called for the closure of Tehran's Mehrabad Airport to prevent Iranian negotiators traveling to Switzerland for talks with the U.S. delegation.
Iranian critics of the MoU claim Tehran was too hasty in agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without gaining any tangible benefits from the agreement.
During the state TV interview, Ghalibaf said the MoU had enabled Iran to sell its oil as the U.S. removed its own blockade of the strait and waived long-standing sanctions, calling it a "document of America's defeat."
10:43 AM Netanyahu calls Lebanon "beautiful and miserable country" that is "being captured by a fanatical sect"
Lebanon is a "beautiful and miserable country" that is "being captured by a fanatical sect," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.
Speaking at a memorial ceremony to mark 20 years since the 2006 Lebanon war, he said Lebanon "has beautiful people, but it is a disaster that it is being captured by a fanatical sect and they want to destroy us by invading its territory," referring to Hezbollah.
"We will remain in the protective strip in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary," he added, referring to the so-called buffer zone beyond the Israeli border that Netanyahu has said troops will not leave until Hezbollah is no longer a threat. The Iranian-backed group has flatly refused to disarm though.
"I'm not saying that we don't expect conflicts, challenges, and bumps, but thanks to the chain of heroism, the door has opened to a different reality in Israeli-Lebanese relations," Netanyahu said. "We will do everything to eventually reach a peace agreement between the two countries."
11:17 AM Ship Iran claimed was stranded in strait has been moored in Iranian waters since March
A container ship that Iran claimed was stranded when it attempted to transit the Strait of Hormuz outside the Iran-approved route is actually a U.S.-sanctioned vessel that has been moored off the island of Hormuz in Iranian territorial waters since March.
Iranian state media claimed on Wednesday that a "foreign container ship" ran around in "regional waters" after attempting to sail through the narrow waterway outside of the shipping lane designed by Iran.
The vessel in the video shared by state news networks is the Arista, a Comoros-flagged container ship that has been in Iranian waters since arriving from Egypt on March 14, according to tracking data from MarineTraffic.com. The ship was seen in footage from an Armenian news network on June 23, and its name appears to have been digitally removed in photos published by Iranian state media on Tuesday.
Last month, social media users claimed the same ship was an American vessel captured by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Arista has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2025 in connection with its owner, Reel Shipping L.L.C, a UAE-based network with links to Iran's former supreme leader.
11:44 AM Iranian soccer team "defended the name of Iran" at the World Cup, says chief negotiator
Iran's chief negotiator has praised the national soccer team, saying it "defended the name of Iran" during the FIFA World Cup.
"In the great arena of the World Cup, you defended the name of Iran, sang our national anthem in the ears of the world, and displayed the proud flag of Iran," said Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf in a message to the team, who he called "the proud sons of Iran."
"In conditions where all-out pressure was on your shoulders, you fought with all your strength," he added. "Return home with pride."
Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday that the U.S. has shown it has "no business hosting an international tournament," after the head of the Homeland Security agency said he was "so happy" the Iranian soccer team had exited the World Cup.
The Iran team moved its training base to Tijuana, Mexico, in May, despite playing all their World Cup games on the U.S. West Coast. The team had been due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, but leaders complained that U.S. authorities had insisted they leave the country after every game.
Head coach Amir Ghalenoei said the team was the "most oppressed" at the tournament.
12:07 PM U.S. signs agreement to build permanent embassy in Jerusalem
The U.S. on Wednesday signed an agreement to build a new embassy compound in Jerusalem, a move that Israel said reflected the "unbreakable alliance" between the countries.
President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017, during his first term, and ordered the relocation of Washington's diplomatic mission from Tel Aviv.
But the services were spread across several locations in Jerusalem until a single permanent site could be found.
"The United States not only recognizes Jerusalem as the eternal, indigenous, and forever capital of the Jewish people, but also that the United States says that we're going to do something about it," U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said during a signing ceremony at Israel's foreign ministry Wednesday.
"I would say God made that decision 3,800 years ago, and we finally got around to acknowledging what had been determined long before the United States of America came along," he added.
Huckabee said in February that Israel had a right to much of the Middle East, telling Tucker Carlson, "it would be fine if they took it all," prompting condemnation from the governments of numerous Arab and Muslim majority states.
The embassy will be built at the Allenby compound in southern Jerusalem.
Trump's 2017 decision broke with decades of U.S. policy, under which Jerusalem's final status was expected to be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jerusalem has long been one of the most contested cities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
After Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, it declared the city its undivided capital, a claim that has not been widely recognized internationally.
Palestinians seek East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Because of these competing claims, most countries established their embassies in Tel Aviv.
12:33 PM Shipping employers and unions still consider Strait of Hormuz a war zone
Unions and shipping employers said in a statement Wednesday they will continue to designate the Strait of Hormuz as a war zone until at least July 9, maintaining double pay for seafarers in the area despite a fragile truce between the U.S. and Iran.
The status only covers ships whose companies are signatories of the International Bargaining Forum's labor agreements — around 15,000 vessels worldwide, according to the IBF.
Seafarers covered by the agreement working on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters get paid double, and have the right to refuse to sail into the area and request repatriation at the company's expense, increasing costs for shipping companies.
"This decision recognises the continuing and significant risk to life and the rapidly evolving situation in the area," said the joint statement from the International Transport Workers' Federation and the Joint Negotiating Group, which represents maritime industry employers.
The Strait of Hormuz was first designated a "warlike operations area" by the IBF on March 5, four days after the first attack on vessels attempting to cross the strait.
At least 14 seafarers have been killed and more than 40 ships attacked during the conflict.
44m ago U.S. airman missing, 3 stable after helicopter goes down in Arabian Sea, Navy says
Three members of a four-person MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter crew were rescued at sea after an "emergency water landing" in the Arabian Sea early Wednesday morning, according to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
A search continues for the fourth and final crew member.
There is "no indication" the helicopter, which is assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush, was shot down by hostile action, the military said.
"Three of the helicopter's four crew members have been recovered and are in stable condition aboard George H. W. Bush," U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said. "U.S. Navy assets in the region are currently searching for [the] other aircrewman still missing."
Not a big fan of Hunter Biden but he is a bit clever at least.
He nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the Iran War 38 times,,,
That's not a number he pulled out of the air. CNN reported that Trump himself has said that the war was over or an agreement was signed or a deal was eminent 38 times...
Clever
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Trump says MOU is 'over', calls Iranian leaders 'scum' following latest strikes
CENTCOM said it struck more than 80 Iranian targets on Tuesday.
ANKARA and LONDON -- President Donald Trump said on Wednesday morning that he believes that the interim agreement reached with Iran last month is "over," following an intense exchange of fire between the two sides on Tuesday into Wednesday morning.
Trump huddled with top advisers on Tuesday while attending the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, to discuss the U.S. response to several fresh attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz early this week, multiple people familiar with the discussions told ABC News.
The U.S., Qatar and Saudi Arabia attributed the attacks to Iranian forces, allegations denied by Tehran.
Speaking with reporters in Ankara on Wednesday during a press conference alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump said that negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will continue, but said of the agreement, "For me, I think it's over."
"I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people," Trump said of Iran's leadership in response to a question from ABC News.
"And they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over," the president continued. "There's something wrong with them, they're cuckoo," Trump added.
The president did, however, suggest that U.S.-Iranian negotiations over a final peace deal could continue.
The 14-point MOU committed the signatories to the reopening Strait of Hormuz for commercial traffic, with the U.S. lifting its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran also committed not to pursue nuclear weapons -- a commitment Tehran has previously made -- while the U.S. agreed to allow Iranian oil sales and to begin work on a $300 million reconstruction fund for the country.
Under the MOU, fighting -- including between Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon -- would stop for 60 days while the U.S. and Iran negotiate the terms of a final deal, which would cover issues including Iran's nuclear material.
"I'll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them," Trump said on Wednesday.
"I'll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don't see it," Trump said later in the press conference, adding that he did not care whether talks continued after funeral proceedings for slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei concluded.
When the MOU was signed last month, Trump said the deal "achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything and much more." But key issues, including the status of Iran's nuclear program, remained unaddressed.
The White House has demanded an end to all Iranian enrichment of uranium, a proposal repeatedly rebuffed by Tehran, which says it needs to enrich uranium to power its civil nuclear power network.
On Wednesday, the president again said his administration would accomplish the "denuclearization of Iran."
"We're going to de-nuke it. We're not going to let them, because they're crazy, and they can't have a nuclear weapon," Trump said.
Intermittent exchanges of fire have continued between the U.S. and Iran despite the signing of the MOU in June.
Since Monday, U.S. Central Command said Iran had attacked three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
CENTCOM said it then launched retaliatory strikes on more than 80 Iranian targets, including air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities and small boats.
The U.S. also revoked a license that authorized the sale of Iran oil under the MOU in response to the tanker attacks, with one U.S. official telling ABC News that the incidents were "wholly unacceptable."
Iran's military said on Wednesday that it responded to the renewed American strikes by attacking 85 U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Trump on Wednesday lauded what he called the "powerful" U.S. strikes, adding, "We hit them very hard."
"I told them every time you hit, we hit, and of course they're dirty players, so they go after everyone, probably including me," the president continued, referring to alleged Iranian assassination plots in which Trump said he remains a target.
"They want to take out the U.S. leader -- me. I'm on every list. I saw things this morning, I'm on every single one of their lists, and so far I guess I've been a little bit lucky, but that maybe doesn't last very long, because that's the way it goes," Trump said.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament who has been serving as Tehran's chief peace negotiator, said in a post to X early on Wednesday that the U.S. had violated the MOU with its latest strikes.
"The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don't fold," Ghalibaf wrote.
Oil prices spiked on Wednesday after Trump's comments, with U.S. oil trading at $74.62, up around 6%, and global oil at $78.70, up more than 6%. The price of global oil is still significantly down on a high of nearly $120 last month before the MOU was announced.
Traffic has been moving through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, including through Tuesday despite the latest attacks on ships. Data from Kpler, a global energy analytics firm, showed more than 100 transits of ships through the Strait between July 5 and July 7, including 41 crossings on July 7.
While I chuckle at the thought that anyone is surprised this happened, I do honestly think this is the preferable outcome vs where the direction our negotiations were heading.
I think most people knew from the very beginning that Netanyahu would never allow the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon to happen. That's from article 1 of the agreement.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
U.S. will resume naval blockade against Iran Tuesday, at Trump's direction
The U.S. will continue blocking maritime traffic from entering and exiting Iranian ports at the direction of President Trump, U.S. Central Command announced Monday.
The naval blockade will resume Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.
The U.S. military will continue to support traffic flow through the area for other permissible vessels, U.S. Central Command said.
The formal announcement comes after Mr. Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. would resume the blockade, the latest effort to manage an uncompliant Iran.
"We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving," the president posted on Truth Social Monday morning. "All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait."
In the same post, the president said the U.S. would "probably run" the Strait of Hormuz and impose a 20% fee on cargo shipments.
I was hopeful this would work out but had serious doubts. Iran can't be trusted and they never had any intention to move forward with peace. Nobody can say we didn't try.
As far as I am concerned we should just pound them in to dust. Not all at once, just day by day. See how far we have to twist their arm. One of the positives in all of this is it looks like the rest of the Arab world is sick and tired of Iran and are joining the fight. They want to sell their oil as well.
Sometimes with a cancer you just need to cut it out before you start therapeutic measures.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Marco Rubio’s Warning ‘No Country’ Can Charge ‘Tolls’ in Hormuz Goes Viral After Trump’s New ‘20%’ Fee Announcement
Secretary of State Marco Rubio's warning in late June that "no country" can charge tolls through the Strait of Hormuz went viral on Monday, hours after President Donald Trump announced the United States would begin collecting a 20% fee on cargo passing through the strategic waterway.
The apparent contradiction emerged after Trump abruptly declared in a Truth Social post that the U.S. would reimpose its naval blockade of Iran and assume what he described as a permanent security role over one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, following another round of military exchanges between Washington and Tehran.
"We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering or leaving," Trump wrote.
He added: "The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as 'THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,' but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World."
"The process and formation will begin immediately," Trump said.
But Trump's new policy drew attention to remarks Rubio made just weeks earlier, on June 23, during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he slammed the prospect of transit fees in the waterway in a caution to Iran.
"That's the law. It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway," Rubio said. "That's existing international law. That's the way it is in international waterways all over the world and that's the way we'll expect it'll be here."
"I think all the countries in this region would agree," he added.
Now that it's Rubio's boss who is implementing the fees, the CBS News clip of the secretary of state's comment was resurfaced and was circulated online, including by the network's own senior White House correspondent Ed O'Keefe, garnering thousands of views.
Dozens of users began to post the video in reply to anyone sharing Trump's new announcement.
The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas exports, making it one of the globe's most strategically important maritime routes.
The post Marco Rubio's Warning 'No Country' Can Charge 'Tolls' in Hormuz Goes Viral After Trump's New '20%' Fee Announcement first appeared on Mediaite.
And just as quickly as the wind can change directions...................
Trump drops plan to toll ships in Strait of Hormuz ahead of deadline for US blockade
The U.S. military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate it. The president, however, reversed his plan to charge a 20% toll on cargo traveling through the strait. Instead, Middle Eastern countries will make investment and trade deals with the U.S., Trump said on social media.
I was hopeful this would work out but had serious doubts. Iran can't be trusted and they never had any intention to move forward with peace. Nobody can say we didn't try.
As far as I am concerned we should just pound them in to dust. Not all at once, just day by day. See how far we have to twist their arm. One of the positives in all of this is it looks like the rest of the Arab world is sick and tired of Iran and are joining the fight. They want to sell their oil as well.
Sometimes with a cancer you just need to cut it out before you start therapeutic measures.
The fact that you and I (and pretty much anyone else with a shred of common sense) could've predicted this outcome should speak to the performance of the folks on our end that negotiated and agreed to the MoU. It speaks to a lack of clear goals as to what we are working towards.
For me, I think we know what the likelihood of success is in terms of prolonged military conflict in the Middle East. The only thing that has me remotely optimistic is the work going into bypassing Hormuz. There are mentions of pipelines and other oil transport methods so that Hormuz isn't as critical as it is today. This whole debacle has also spurred renewed interest in EVs and other alternative energy sources. I don't want to tangent to beating THAT dead horse, but I do think the country moving in a direction that has us less dependent on oil is a positive that few would argue (definitely arguments to be made regarding the how, though).
Thank goodness we've been instructed to ignore what he says by the MAGA faithful. It's not like he ever follows thru with his crazy talk ... oh hang on that was only in the first term.
Snippet from the article.
-- UN human rights chief Volker Türk responded at the time by saying: "Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime."
The 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian conduct in war prohibit attacks on sites considered essential for civilians.
"I'll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we'll hit energy targets," Trump said in an interview on Special Report with Bret Baier that aired on Tuesday night.
He said US negotiators had conveyed to their Iranian counterparts on Tuesday evening that they "'better make a deal, or you're not going to have anything left'". --
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
I was hopeful this would work out but had serious doubts. Iran can't be trusted and they never had any intention to move forward with peace. Nobody can say we didn't try.
As far as I am concerned we should just pound them into dust. Not all at once, just day by day. See how far we have to twist their arm. One of the positives in all of this is it looks like the rest of the Arab world is sick and tired of Iran and are joining the fight. They want to sell their oil as well.
Sometimes with a cancer you just need to cut it out before you start therapeutic measures.
The fact that you and I (and pretty much anyone else with a shred of common sense) could've predicted this outcome should speak to the performance of the folks on our end that negotiated and agreed to the MoU. It speaks to a lack of clear goals as to what we are working towards.
For me, I think we know what the likelihood of success is in terms of prolonged military conflict in the Middle East. The only thing that has me remotely optimistic is the work going into bypassing Hormuz. There are mentions of pipelines and other oil transport methods so that Hormuz isn't as critical as it is today. This whole debacle has also spurred renewed interest in EVs and other alternative energy sources. I don't want to tangent to beating THAT dead horse, but I do think the country moving in a direction that has us less dependent on oil is a positive that few would argue (definitely arguments to be made regarding the how, though).
I think our goals would have been met. Iran agreed because one of two things happened. Either it was signed knowing full well it wouldn't be followed, or the people who signed it don't have as full a grasp of power as they thought. I think most of the hardliners are the military and not the folks with some degree of sensibility. The military and the political component to the nation may not be working together at best and at odds at worst.
People ask where is McConnell. I ask where is Khamenei? Is that guy even alive? Has that guy even been seen since his reported injury? I think we are negotiating with a phantom regime when the militay has taken control. A coup if you will.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
US military says 2 troops are dead and 1 is missing after Iran attacks a base in Jordan
By JON GAMBRELL, TOQA EZZIDIN and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN Updated 2:06 PM EDT, July 18, 2026 Leer en español Comments 491 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military on Saturday announced its first troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, saying two were killed and another was missing in an attack on a base in Jordan.
They were killed Friday as the U.S. and partner forces defended against ballistic missile and drone attacks, a statement said. Four other service members were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and later discharged. The dead were not identified.
Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Minutes earlier, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic. The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.”
The comments came hours after a negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Tehran’s declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but its armed proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance.”
The battle over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The strikes threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.
The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal that was signed about a month ago and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.
There was no new word on mediation efforts.
Kuwait sees the most striking damage The most significant damage from Iranian strikes on Saturday occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.
The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline. It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water.
Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.
The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.
US strikes hit infrastructure in Iran The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”
U.S. airstrikes hit an electricity and desalination plant in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state TV reported. IRNA said the Bonji desalination plant was destroyed, cutting off water supplies to about 10,000 people, and that a desalination plant on strategic Qeshm Island inside the strait was damaged.
Overnight strikes damaged two tunnels and a bridge, disrupting one of the main highways toward Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port that sits near the narrowest part of the strait, according to Iran’s state-run news agency. IRNA said three bridges were hit Saturday, including one on a route to Bandar Abbas.
Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the U.S. airstrikes for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces “experiencing extreme heat.” It did not specify what was hit.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and has given Tehran significant leverage in negotiations.
Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should pay fees to Tehran, even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. It fired on ships on recent days. Crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.
Trump has resumed threats to target power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold. The U.S. in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.
A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping.
Before the war began, the U.S. had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump now faces political pressure to end the war and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.
“You, sir, are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line, not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction,” Peters told Hegseth. link
Senator Peters was 100% correct...it was the civilian leadership that failed to design and execute a winning strategy to win the Iranian War.
The military executed the plan that civilian leadership gave them.
This isn't directly about the Iran war but is about nuclear weapons in the region so rather than start a new thread I thought I would just add this here........
Trump places new condition on signed Saudi nuclear deal, says country must join Abraham Accords
President Donald Trump has placed a new condition on a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia a day after formally approving it, saying the country now must join the Abraham Accords.
Trump wrote in a post on social media Thursday that the deal, which has already been signed, “will be approved,” but added, that it “is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”
The president also emphasized in the post that there would be “no enrichment” even though the agreement could lead to the country enriching its own fuel for civilian reactors.
On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart signed the agreement, which provides Saudi Arabia with a civilian nuclear program.
The deal has already sparked criticism from Israeli officials and is expected to draw scrutiny on Capitol Hill.
CNN previously reported that before uranium enrichment could begin, a joint US-Saudi team would explore whether it is warranted and commercially viable, and Americans would build the facility without transferring the sensitive technology to Saudi Arabia.
The agreement also includes limits on what inspections might be carried out on the Saudi program, according to US officials and sources.
The kingdom is notably not required to sign a standard agreement called the Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency, like the United Arab Emirates did in 2009 when it signed a “gold standard” nuclear cooperation deal with the US, an official said.
Saudi Arabia has previously been resistant to efforts to join the Abraham Accords, an effort started during Trump’s first term and expanded during his second to establish diplomatic ties between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East.
Diplomatic normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel has historically been a condition of Washington agreeing to nuclear cooperation with Riyadh, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The condition stood as recently as the Biden administration, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic discussions.
But that changed when Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack made normalization “untenable” for the Saudis, the source said. That led Biden-era negotiators to seek “less-for-less” from the prospective nuclear deal.
It is unclear what impact Trump’s social media missive will have on the signed agreement.
CNN has reached out to the Saudi embassy for comment and to the White House about whether the deal is paused until Saudi Arabia signs on to the Abraham Accords.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office applauded Trump’s latest post. “As President Trump has said, Saudi Arabia’s joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”
If trump has proven anything, it's that any deal made with the U.S. isn't worth the paper it's written on. And here he has proven it yet again. This is why the world can no longer trust the U.S. Anything our government has agreed to can be done away with by a single election. In this case an agreement can be broken and changed overnight. What makes him think anyone would treat him any differently than he treats others? And why should they?
Paris Climate Agreement: The U.S. formally exited this UN framework for combating global warming.
Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA): Trump abandoned this international agreement, which was designed to limit Iran's nuclear program, and re-imposed heavy sanctions.
NAFTA: Trump replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), fulfilling his pledge to renegotiate what he considered a "bad deal".
INF Treaty: The U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, a foundational Cold War-era arms control agreement.
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Shortly after taking office, Trump withdrew the U.S. from this sweeping proposed trade deal with 11 Asia-Pacific nations.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Oil surges to $100 per barrel after Red Sea attacks
U.S. crude oil also jumped for a second straight day, rising to more than $92 per barrel.
Oil prices rose Thursday to their highest levels in nearly two months after the latest Iran war escalation threatened severe new disruptions to global energy supplies.
Brent crude oil, one of two key global benchmarks, rose more than 7.5% to more than $101 per barrel in mid-morning trading. That is its highest level in eight weeks, since the end of May.
U.S. crude oil also jumped for a second straight day, rising more than 6.5% to almost $93 per barrel — its highest level since June 11.
The new surge in prices comes after Tehran-backed Houthi rebels claimed attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, following their announcement of a naval blockade on the kingdom.
It appeared to mark the first time since the Iran war began that ship attacks had spread beyond the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, opening up a new front in the volatile conflict.
The Houthi threat is so unsettling to oil markets because millions of barrels per day pass through the Bab el-Mandeb strait in order to reach global markets.
About 12% to 15% of global maritime trade worth more than $1 trillion transits the waterway every year.
It has also served as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic remains largely at a standstill with ship crossings there falling to single digits Tuesday.
Since the start of the month, oil prices have now risen about 35%. Those prices are now higher by more than 60% since the start of the year.
Along with oil prices, gas prices have risen too.
The national average price Thursday rose to $4.09 per gallon, up from $4.06 Wednesday, according to motor club AAA data tracked by NBC News.
This has erased much of the progress toward lower prices that came after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in mid-June.
That deal has now collapsed, with President Donald Trump threatening Wednesday to blow up an Iranian bridge or power plant for every vessel attacked by Tehran.
Then, hours later, came the Houthi claim to have hit two tankers in the Red Sea.
The United Kingdom’s Maritime Trade Office reported a tanker “struck by an unknown projectile” north of the critical Bab el-Mandeb strait in the area. And the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported the Encelia was set ablaze by an attack while sailing overnight in the Red Sea, citing an unidentified source from the General Authority of Transport. It did not mention the Layla.
“Inflation has remained top of the agenda for markets this morning,” said Deutsche Bank’s global head of macro research, Jim Reid, citing the jump higher in Brent oil. “Indeed, the strikes between the US and Iran show no sign of easing, and the Houthis said they targeted two oil tankers in the Red Sea yesterday, raising fears that the conflict is widening.”
That worry about inflation as a result of higher oil and gas prices has driven bond yields higher this week as a result. Early Thursday, the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond was trading at 4.7%, its highest level since January 2025.
That 10-year bond has a heavy hand in steering consumer borrowing rates. On Wednesday, the average 30-year U.S. mortgage rate rose to 6.77%, its highest level since July 2025.
Inflation worries and higher oil prices also hit stocks. The S&P 500 fell more than 1.3%, while the Nasdaq slid 2.5%. However, most of the selling came in tech stocks, after Alphabet and Tesla earnings failed to impress investors despite posting generally positive results.
“You, sir, are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line, not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction,” Peters told Hegseth. link
Senator Peters was 100% correct...it was the civilian leadership that failed to design and execute a winning strategy to win the Iranian War.
The military executed the plan that civilian leadership gave them.
I think the blame lies at Trump’s feet. Trump keeps stopping the war to negotiate with Iran, the world leader in exporting terrorism. I believe it is Trump, who won’t shut up, is emboldened the IRGC into continuing to attack in the strait, as well as our allies. The US has been destroying at will everything we have attacked. They know the war is not popular and by extending it Iran will hurt Trump in multiple ways.
Trump wants to leave the infrastructure in place. I disagree with him. We should be destroying all of the IRGC, including their ability to resupply and power their drone program. Iran is responsible for the deaths and injuries to hundreds of American servicemen before this action took place. I’m all for taking away Iran’s ability to wage war. I don’t see this as a war of choice. Unless we as a nation decides to remove all troops from the middle east this was necessary. I just wish someone else was in charge.
Pentagon lowers official Iran war death toll, omitting four killed this month
Published Fri, Jul 24 20262:09 AM EDT-Updated 5 Min Ago link Anniek Bao @in/anniek-bao-460a48107/ @anniekbyx
The Pentagon lowered its official death toll for the Iran war to 14 from 18 in the space of a day, after the Trump administration removed four service members killed this month from the count, according to the Defense Casualty Analysis System.
The Pentagon’s casualty database showed seven of the 14 total deaths were classified as “hostile.” The New York Times reported the change in count earlier.
Three military officials told the Times that the four service members killed this past weekend — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — were struck from the list because their deaths came after President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire in April. All of the deaths listed on Thursday U.S. time on the website, which said it was updated as of Wednesday, occurred in March.
The Pentagon and the State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Oil tanker explodes after hitting naval mine in Strait of Hormuz, IRGC-linked media claims - report There was no immediate official statement from Iranian authorities regarding the incident.
Follow us on Google Vessels transiting through the Gulf of Oman are pictured off the coast of Muscat on July 25, 2026; Illustrative. Vessels transiting through the Gulf of Oman are pictured off the coast of Muscat on July 25, 2026; Illustrative. (photo credit: AFP via Getty Images) ByREUTERS, AMICHAI STEIN JULY 26, 2026 15:27 Updated: JULY 26, 2026 16:50 An oil tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after colliding with a naval mine, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.
Tasnim said the tanker struck the mine after leaving the route designated by Iran in the strategic waterway.
There was no immediate official statement from Iranian authorities regarding the incident.
Iran, Oman make 'some progress' in talks over Strait of Hormuz navigation, sources tell 'Post' Iran and mediator Oman have made "some progress" over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, though it remains unclear whether Iran will accept the proposal currently on the table, two sources familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
One of the sources said Oman has proposed establishing a regional consortium that would oversee maritime security, search-and-rescue operations, and other forms of regional cooperation.
A vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, July 16, 2026
"The key point is that participation and payments would be voluntary," the source said.
According to the source, Iran has so far opposed the idea, insisting instead on mandatory payments, arguing that vessels would otherwise be barred from transiting the strait.
Yemen’s Houthis say they carried out operations against Aramco facilities in Saudi’s Jizan and Yanbu See more Times of Israel on Google - add us as a Preferred Source By Agencies 25 July 2026, 3:22 pm Share 1 This screen grab taken on July 25, 2026 from UGC video footage posted on social media and verified by AFPTV teams shows clouds of smoke rising after strikes on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan. (various sources/AFP) This screen grab taken on July 25, 2026 from UGC video footage posted on social media and verified by AFPTV teams shows clouds of smoke rising after strikes on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan. (various sources/AFP) Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis say they carried out operations targeting Saudi Aramco oil facilities in the southern cities of Jizan and Yanbu, according to a statement by the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sare.
There is no immediate Saudi confirmation, though footage shows plumes of black smoke rising into the air from the Aramco refinery in Jizan.
Saudi Arabia earlier issued brief warnings to residents in Jizan and Yanbu after the Houthis vowed to retaliate against the kingdom for attacks this week.
DUBAI, July 27 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq reported drone attacks on Monday, two days after the United States abruptly suspended a two-week campaign of airstrikes against Iran, as Tehran appeared to put President Donald Trump's latest strategic U-turn to the test.
Saudi Arabia said it shot down drones aimed at petroleum targets, including in the capital Riyadh. It said the drones had been launched from Iraq by Iran-backed armed groups, and it reserved the right to respond.
Separately, Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen said they had targeted transit sites carrying oil to Saudi Arabia's main Red Sea oil port of Yanbu, in retaliation for what they said were Saudi drone incursions into Yemeni airspace.
Earlier, Jordan reported shooting down two drones, and Iraqi security sources reported a series of drone attacks in northern Iraq. Officials did not identify the sources of those drones.
Jordan and northern Iraq were the locations where four U.S. service members were killed during the two-week air campaign, which Trump suspended abruptly over the weekend after his top brass advised him that the strategy had run its course.
Trump said on Monday that Washington was in "very deep talks with Iran" and warned he is ready for "strong military action" if diplomacy fails.
"Not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all," he told Axios when asked how long he was willing to give for talks.
Iran, however, has said it is not seeking to resume peace talks with the U.S., although it would pause its own attacks for as long as Trump's self-imposed ceasefire continues.
It also said it was still in control of the contested Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway for global energy supplies which Trump has demanded vessels be able to pass through freely.
OIL PRICES TUMBLE AFTER TRUMP PAUSES AIRSTRIKES
In his latest strategic reversal over the weekend, which came with no prior announcement, Trump halted a campaign of 13 successive nights of intensifying bombing that had prompted Tehran to fire on U.S. bases in response.
The end of the U.S. campaign sent oil prices tumbling. Brent crude, which had briefly ticked above $100 a barrel last week for the first time since May, fell around 6.5% on Monday to just over $90, having touched levels as low as $87.55.
Trump's decision to suspend the campaign reflected advice from his military that the bombing had reached the limits of what it could achieve, according to a U.S. official and several U.S. media reports.
The U.S. official told Reuters that military commanders had advised the president they were running out of targets. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, had expressed concern over the depletion of air defence munitions, the official said.
REQUEST FOR MORE TALKS 'NOT IN OUR DNA', IRAN SPOKESMAN SAYS
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, said on Sunday Trump had paused the campaign to allow room for negotiations. Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials have described Iran as "begging for a deal, opens new tab".
But the spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said in a televised press conference on Monday that Iran had not asked to resume peace talks with the United States.
Messages were still being passed between the sides through mediators and Iran had not forsaken diplomacy, but "reports about Iran requesting negotiations with the U.S. are fabricated," Baghaei said. "This is not in our DNA."
IRAN STATE MEDIA SAY SIX SHIPS TURNED BACK IN STRAIT
Several Iranian state media outlets cited an "informed source" as saying that Iran had turned around six "offending ships" on Monday morning that had attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz without its permission. One of the vessels, the source said, had had "an accident".
Trump launched his renewed bombing campaign to punish Iran after Tehran fired on ships using a route through the strait that has been promoted by the United States, which has told vessels to sail close to the coast of Oman.
Iran says ships may pass only through a channel that runs closer to its own coast, which it controls and where it intends to impose transit fees.
The two weeks of renewed U.S. bombing killed scores of people in Iran and destroyed bridges and tunnels across the south as well as military targets. Four U.S. service members were killed by Iran's return fire against U.S. bases in neighbouring Arab states. Iran also struck civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries in what it said was retaliation for U.S. strikes on civilian targets.
The halt to the renewed U.S. bombing campaign leaves no clear indication of what leverage Washington can exert to achieve Trump's aim to break Iran's grip on the strait.
Washington and Tehran reached an agreement in June on a framework for talks meant to take place by the end of August to resolve major issues such as Iran's nuclear programme.
But the sides have disputed the meaning of the memorandum's language about the strait, with Washington insisting it requires Tehran to allow free travel while Iran says it grants it the authority to supervise transit.
I love the fact you people say you don't trust polls but when comes out that's clearly still within the margin of error that favors you you try to say make it sound like gospel.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Tensions escalate: US President Donald Trump promised retribution after the US military said it intercepted a “surprise attack” by Iran on its forces, ending days of relative calm in the Middle East. “We are going to beat the f**king sh*t out of them,” Trump told Fox News. Jordan’s military said it intercepted and brought down five missiles launched from Iran early Wednesday.
Joint US-Saudi strikes: US Central Command also said Saudi Arabian forces joined strikes against the Iran-allied Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq. The PMF said at least 20 people were killed. So far, Saudi Arabia has largely resisted being pulled fully into the Middle East conflict.
Energy shock: Oil prices rose in the wake of the renewed fighting. Tankers are looking for new shipping routes, as transits of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait have sharply fallen since a Houthi blockade against Saudi ports was announced and Strait of Hormuz traffic remains very low.
Shell profits double as oil prices rise due to Iran war
Shell's profits for the second quarter of the year have more than doubled after the Iran war pushed up oil prices.
The oil giant posted profits of $9.84bn (£7.37bn) for the April-to-June period, up from $4.26bn at the same point last year.
The price of crude has risen since the outbreak of the US-Israel war with Iran due to major disruption to global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Strait of Hormuz.
But energy prices have also seen sharp swings during the conflict, which has boosted Shell's trading business.
Shell chief executive Wael Sawan said the company's "operational performance enabled very strong results during another quarter of severe disruption in global energy markets".
Together with its profits of $6.92bn for the first three months of the year it means Shell has seen a 70% surge in first-half earnings.
Shell and other energy giants such as BP and Norway's Equinor have seen bumper profits this year, partly down to trading on oil price swings.
Before the conflict began, the price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, was around $73 a barrel.
Since then, it has peaked above $120 but also fallen back below $100 as speculation has swirled over when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
These big movements in the oil price can widen the gap between buying and selling prices which typically enables traders to make bigger profits.
However, the conflict in the Middle East has also affected some of Shell's operations.
Its LNG production in Qatar has been shut down since early March because of the conflict, and its Pearl gas-to-liquids facility in Qatar suffered "extensive damage" when it was hit by a missile attack in March. The company has said repairs could take about a year.
Overall gas production fell to 631,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day for the April to June period, from 909,000 barrels per day in the first quarter, the firm said.
Total oil and gas production in the first half of the year fell 16% compared with the first half of 2025, although Shell did point to new oil production in Brazil and the Gulf of America.
"The standout contribution came from Shell's trading operation, which once again demonstrated the value of its integrated business model, supported by healthy refining and chemicals performance and robust production growth in Brazil," said Maurizio Carulli, global energy analyst at Quilter Cheviot.
"[Shell] remains a steady ship in an industry where conditions can change rapidly."
However, environmental campaigners reacted with anger to the latest results.
"With extreme heatwaves and wildfires hitting the UK and ravaging Europe, it's outrageous that Shell is making huge profits while continuing to fuel the climate crisis," said Friends of the Earth energy campaigner Danny Gross.
"These profits have been built on an energy crisis that's left households across the country struggling with high energy bills at home and expensive fuel at the pumps. This underlines the urgent need to end our dependence on costly oil and gas."
The U.S. government is providing the fossil fuel industry with an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion annually in explicit petroleum subsidies, though comprehensive estimates including all direct handouts, public land discounts, and state-level incentives push that figure up to $34.8 billion per year.
New poll shows two-thirds of Americans say war with Iran has not been worthwhile
A new AP-NORC poll finds only 33% of U.S. adults say the Iran conflict is worthwhile, as Trump's approval rating falls to 33% — a level tied to Biden's peak inflation low.
Only 33% of U.S. adults say the conflict in Iran is worthwhile, while President Donald Trump's handling of the war sits at 33% in the same survey.
A new AP-NORC poll shows about two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war with Iran has not been worthwhile, as Americans grow increasingly frustrated with the conflict.
Trump's approval rating sits at 33% in the same poll — slightly below where it stood at this point in his first term.
About 23% of Americans say they want the U.S. to continue military action in Iran.
The poll found that 40% believe it is important the U.S. should prevent Iran from threatening Israel.
The poll was taken just days after four American troops were killed while stationed in the region.
That approval rating mirrors what President Joe Biden experienced at peak inflation during his administration, a period that carried significant political consequences for Biden.
Trump is hoping to hold on to at least one chamber of Congress, with the U.S. Senate considered the most likely scenario for Republicans to retain. The new numbers present a challenge for that effort.
For vulnerable Republicans in key districts, the poll numbers signal potential political risk heading into the next election cycle.
It works that way with most commodity items that have many price swings over a trading period. They work on a fixed gross profit margin. As the cost of goods increases, their gross profit margin as a percentage stays the same yet the dollars increase. It would be next to impossible to adjust that set margin on a daily, weekly basis.
That isn't good for you and me but it also doesn't mean the oil companies are gouging consumers. The increased net profit dollars and percentages stem from all the other expenses, such as Insurance, rent etc. which remain static. The problem with oil is it is pumped daily around the entire year. Items like corn as an example is pretty much harvested at the same time. The price is fixed at the time of harvest, then stored, eliminating the almost daily swings we see at the price at the pump. We don't have the ability to store crude the way we can store corn.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
The thing is gas has gone beyond $4.00 a gallon a few times, but that isn't double the price it was before the war which was about $3.00 a gallon. The math doesn't work. Gas was never $6.00 a gallon which would be double.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
If you buy/sell something as a supplier - and you buy a unit of "something" at $1 and sell it at $1.50 and you have an average of 20 cents of overheads (fixed and variable costs for staying in business) - you are making 30 cents of profit.
You don't need to increase the sale price by 100% (and all other factors remain the same - which they wouldn't in the real world) to double your profits. . . . In reality you could increase your price by approximately 30 cents to $1.80 and you would double profits.
Last edited by mgh888; 07/31/2611:24 AM.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
The thing is gas has gone beyond $4.00 a gallon a few times, but that isn't double the price it was before the war which was about $3.00 a gallon. The math doesn't work. Gas was never $6.00 a gallon which would be double.
Your math is correct but the way you calculate it is wrong. The cost of raw crude is up. The oil companies don't have to increase their margins to see larger profits.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Once again, the price of crude didn't double. I have no idea how you are making your calculations. Crude oil prices have fluctuated heavily, surging by roughly 20% to 25% overall compared to pre-war levels. Brent crude started the conflict around $70 to $72 per barrel and now trades near $90 a barrel.
A 25% increase in the price of crude isn't double. To keep the same profit margins as before the war based on crude prices their profit would have increased by about 25%.
So whether you calculate it according to the price of gas or the price of oil your math isn't mathing. And now these numbers have came in.....................
ExxonMobil and Chevron reported massive second-quarter profits, with ExxonMobil doubling its earnings to $14.5 billion and Chevron nearly quadrupling its profits to $12.1 billion compared to the same period last year.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34
And they aren't using a lot of the storage space they do have..........
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped to roughly 308 million to 316 million barrels, marking its lowest level since April 1983. This reduction is driven by coordinated emergency drawdowns to counter global oil market shocks and high fuel prices tied to geopolitical conflicts, including the war with Iran.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
s, marking its lowest level since April 1983. This reduction is driven by coordinated emergency drawdowns to counter global oil market shocks and high fuel prices tied to geopolitical conflicts, including the war with Iran.
And to help prevent an even bigger backlash against this pointless war of choice.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Trump Admin Now Crowdsourcing for “Creative” Ideas on Iran
The Defense Department is out of options—and reaching out to others for suggestions on what to do next about Iran.
The Trump administration is running out of ways to pressure Iran, with its airstrikes failing to end Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz or force the country back to the negotiating table. So now the military is asking for “unconventional” new ideas.
CNN reports that an officer in the U.S. Central Command’s intelligence branch sent a message Wednesday to military analysts “looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran.” It’s an unusual thing to ask over email, according to CNN, and shows that President Trump knows his options are limited as the war with Iran enters its sixth month.
The email was sent before Trump threatened new airstrikes against Iran and then relented, over the weekend, after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other Gulf leaders talked him out of it. Among the plans were attacking Pickaxe Mountain and other Iranian sites reportedly housing nuclear equipment or material.
Those sites are deep underground, however, and would have likely required deploying American ground troops, which Trump is trying to avoid. Eighteen American service members have been killed in the war, according to official counts, and the administration has been criticized for its lack of transparency on military casualties.
“At the end of the day, POTUS will want a deal, so he’ll continually look for ways to get tough and get out of this,” an unnamed source told CNN. “You need creative minds at times—especially if you’re running out of conventional options.”
But more bombing probably won’t change Iran’s negotiating position, according to the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency. Trump has effectively backed himself into a corner with his ill-advised war, and is having trouble with being able to walk away with anything he can call a victory. American missile stockpiles have dwindled, scores of civilians have been killed, and the global economy, including gas prices, has taken a massive hit. Trump needs a way out.
Just a reminder of the shake up and dismissal of some top military minds since Trump's second term began.....
Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr.: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Gen. Randy George: Army Chief of Staff
Adm. Lisa Franchetti: Chief of Naval Operations (the first woman to lead the Navy)Adm.
Linda Fagan: Commandant of the Coast GuardGen.
Timothy Haugh: Director of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command
John Phelan: Navy Secretary
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse: Head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield: U.S. Military Representative to NATO’s Military CommitteeMaj.
Gen. William Green Jr.: Army Chief of ChaplainsGen.
David Hodne: Commander of Army Transformation and Training CommandGen.
James Slife: Air Force Vice Chief of Staff
During Donald Trump's second term, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the administration have fired or forced the abrupt departure of roughly 15 to over 20 high-ranking generals, admirals, and defense leaders. (By contrast, no high-ranking officers were dismissed during his first term).
And now they're crowdsourcing!
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
This is from 3 months ago but a really brilliant commentary. I don't like the headline about "Blasting Hegseth" - that's a clickbait headline. . . . this is just a great, intelligent insight into where we were/are at.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Iran makes new strait demands, the UAE says a ship was targeted and other Middle East news
Oman says talks to manage the strait between it and Iran continue
Iran issued dramatic new demands for the Strait of Hormuz to reopen as the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile. Yemen’s military attacked the country's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And Turkey’s Kurdish peace bill won approval in parliament.
Iran says strait won't open until the US ‘corrects’ behavior
Iran's politburo-like body known as the Supreme National Security Council said the Strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States "corrects its behavior," issuing new demands that could shake up talks on a deal to manage the waterway and traffic on it.
Iran's state broadcaster published the statement by the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The U.S. must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The U.S. must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must "completely compensate" Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and "unconditionally" release frozen assets.
There was no immediate response from the U.S., which has wanted an acceptable deal first on the strait before ending the blockade.
Iran earlier said it was close to reaching a deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries.
Oman, a mediator Gulf Arab country which has said relatively little on the talks, said in a statement Saturday that the discussions were ongoing "in a positive and constructive atmosphere," and condemned attacks on ships on the strait.
Iran attacks a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, UAE says
A vessel owned by Abu Dhabi's state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company was attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Emirati authorities said. The Foreign Ministry said Iran fired the missile as part of attacks on commercial shipping.
ADNOC said in a statement that there were no casualties following the attack early Saturday. The company said over a dozen of its vessels have been attacked by missiles and drones while passing through the strait since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran in February. One crew member has been killed and 20 others wounded, it said.
ADNOC didn't elaborate on where the attack took place nor on any damage.
Later, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said a vessel east of the town of Khasab, Oman, had been struck by a projectile that caused a fire that was put out, with the vessel and crew safe. It was not immediately clear whether this was the ADNOC incident.
Iran and Oman, on the other side of the strait, have been discussing a deal to manage the waterway, which had been considered an international one before the war.
Yemen's military attacks Iran-backed Houthis
The attacks were in response to the Houthis' recent strikes in central and eastern Yemen. Col. Majed al-Nazili, spokesperson for Yemen's military, said the attacks targeted the rebels' "sites and capabilities" on multiple front lines, without elaborating.
The escalation between the Houthis and Yemen's internationally recognized government and its backer, a Saudi-supported coalition, threatens to reignite Yemen's civil war following a 2022 truce.
On Friday, United Nations envoy Hans Grundberg urged the parties to exercise restraint, saying that "Yemen today faces a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the U.N.-brokered truce of April 2022."
Turkey's Kurdish peace bill wins approval in parliament
A Turkish draft law aimed at advancing a peace effort with the country's Kurdish insurgents passed its first hurdle in parliament on Saturday, with a committee approving the measure that includes a conditional, pardon-like mechanism for thousands of former fighters.
Last year, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, declared its decision to disarm and disband as part of the peace initiative aimed at ending the decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.
The draft legislation, expected to be approved in the general assembly next week, defines the procedures for the group's disarmament and the rehabilitation of some PKK members. It would suspend some prison sentences for people convicted of membership and postpone the prosecution of others.
The measures would come into effect once Turkey's National Security Council confirms that the group has disbanded and surrendered all weapons.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since it began in the 1980s and has spilled into neighboring Iraq and Syria. Turkey and its Western allies consider the group a terrorist organization.
Just before this incident happened trump planned to announce that an official deal on opening the Strait of Hormuz had been reached and the U.S. had won the war...... again.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Trump says he’s ‘low-keying it’ on Iran: ‘It will work out’
President Trump said in a new interview he is “low-keying it” when it comes to the war with Iran as it nears its sixth month
“We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Trump told Axios on Sunday.
The president also said Tehran’s economy “is in very bad shape” and that the country cannot compensate its forces.
“It will work out. It always works out. It’s like a chess game,” Trump said of tension between the U.S. and Iran.
With the war against Iran approaching the half-year mark, the fighting is straining U.S. relations with historic allies, raising the price of oil and gas amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and polling recently as unpopular among Americans.
According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. was about $4.00 on Monday morning, with the average price being about $3.14 at this time last year.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, presented on Saturday his country’s key demands for the U.S. amid talks to reopen the strait. Iran and Oman have been taking part in discussions regarding the waterway.
Zolghadr in a message shared on state media pressed the U.S. to end its naval blockade in the strait, lift sanctions on Tehran and pay war reparations. He also demanded that the U.S. military withdraw from Iran and halt attacks on Tehran’s allies.
New day, new story. And it isn't even Tuesday yet. This excursion/conflict/war, Trump has repeatedly said from the very beginning would end “pretty quickly,” “very soon” and “pretty much, the very near future.” That has now, six months later, evolved into "low keying" it.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.
The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.
The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.
The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.
Trump’s ire with the new technology goes back to at least 2017 in his first term, when he claimed the new system is “not good” and “doesn’t have the power” of the older, steam systems in an interview with Time magazine.
“You’re going to GD steam,” Trump said at the time. The topic has frequently come up since then at rallies and other events.
While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest Chinese aircraft carriers employ electromagnetic catapults and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier.
Trump’s memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched.
However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.
General Atomics, the company that makes EMALS, told The Associated Press in an email that the decision not to proceed with the system on the USS Doris Miller “warrants careful reconsideration.”
Trump’s memo that mandates the removal of the system also noted that one of the issues facing shipbuilding is the Navy’s constant design changes, “which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations.”
General Atomics said the work on the Doris Miller’s catapults and arresting gear was already halfway complete and said “changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks.”
The move comes as Congress will weigh the necessary budget and funding bills that the Trump administration has said they need to fund the Pentagon and the Iran war.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated last month that the war’s cost grew to $37.5 billion as Republicans prepared a $95 billion package to fund the military, along with other White House priorities.
Hegseth said the supplemental war funding is an “urgent, necessary” injection of money, and with Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget a generational investment in the military.
The House narrowly adopted both but the Senate still must act when it returns in September.
Some of the key advantages to the electromagnetic system are its ability to launch aircraft at faster speeds while being easier to maintain, requiring fewer sailors to operate and using less space aboard the ship.
EMALS aboard the USS Ford cut the number of sailors need to operate the catapults from about a dozen to two.
Reverting to a system that requires more people to operate it comes as the Navy has struggled to translate its recruiting successes in the past year to actually filling jobs on warships. At the start of the year, the Navy had about 20,000 unfilled posts across the fleet.
In February, the Navy touted the system in a press release that said it allowed the USS Ford to launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its predecessor, the Nimitz-class ships.
New aircraft carrier heads toward Middle East after reports of issues on long-deployed USS Lincoln
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pacific-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington has begun heading toward the Middle East as reports have emerged of mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran, and its deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days. Several Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said were “completely misrepresented.”
Extended deployments of carriers during the Iran conflict have raised concerns about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as the increasing strain on the ship and its equipment. While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have calmed in recent weeks, the Navy has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.
Hegseth told reporters that the U.S. can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”
A new aircraft carrier is heading west from the Asia-Pacific
The USS George Washington left port in Da Nang, Vietnam, last week, a Navy statement said. The carrier, along with a cruiser and a destroyer, have since been spotted crossing the Singapore Strait.
A Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail sensitive ship details, confirmed that the Washington was in the Strait of Malacca, which links the Pacific and Indian oceans and puts the carrier on a course to head into the Indian Ocean. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the Washington would replace the Lincoln as one of the two aircraft carriers now stationed in the Middle East.
The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time. The Trump administration sees China, the dominant power in the region, as “a settled force” that only needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies and not the top global adversary that it was under the Biden administration.
The Lincoln originally deployed Nov. 21 from San Diego, and it arrived in the Middle East in January, ahead of the launch of the Iran war on Feb. 28. The Navy conceded that the conflict created a “highly contested environment where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions.” That, in turn, led to shortages and loss of mail aboard the aircraft carrier, the Navy said in a statement.
“Leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail,” the statement said, before assuring that sailors aboard the ship now have access to clean water and “healthy meal options.” Democrats call for scrutiny, while the Pentagon defends conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln
Democratic lawmakers are calling for investigations, more information and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship, which was originally set to return home in May.
“The Lincoln’s prolonged deployment is especially significant because it is occurring in the context of continuing military operations against Iran and the possibility that substantial US naval forces will be required in the region for an extended period,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter to Navy leadership asking for a response to several questions.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran, said on social media that he is looking to take a bipartisan delegation on an official oversight visit to the ship and that the way sailors are being treated is “not just disgusting; it’s dangerous.”
Hegseth told reporters during a visit to Panama that he wants the Lincoln’s sailors home and crews rotated as quickly as possible but pushed back against reports of problems aboard.
“We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible.”
Navy leaders, including acting Secretary Hung Cao, last week held a tense town hall for families of troops aboard the USS Lincoln, at which the commanders of the Navy’s air and surface forces promised to do everything they could to relieve the aircraft carrier. MS NOW reported earlier on the meeting.
When reports of food shortages aboard the ship first surfaced in April, the Navy pushed back, calling those reports “false.”
Reports of mental health concerns and more aboard the ship
Reports have since emerged that sailors on the Lincoln are struggling with mental health concerns. The Navy said in its statement that it has “not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship,” but officials declined to provide data, citing operational security and patient privacy concerns.
The Navy official said that a sailor aboard the Lincoln went overboard in early August but that the person was quickly recovered, treated by the ship’s medical department and transferred off ship for follow-on care. The official would not say if it was being considered a suicide attempt.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, pushed back on reports about poor conditions.
“The Sailors and Marines of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 aircraft flights, and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance expended,” the command said on social media.
Other carriers also have had long runs that have raised concerns about morale. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the U.S. war with Iran and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
During its deployment, the Ford experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.
Concerns about the demands of battle and the dangers of overextending ships and their crew predate the Iran war, with a number of mishaps on ships battling Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2024 and 2025, including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman on a longer-than-expected deployment.
Iran rejects Trump’s ‘delusions’ on making Strait of Hormuz a US territory
Iran on Saturday rejected President Trump’s assertion that he could declare the Strait of Hormuz a “territory of the United States,” saying the opening and closure of the key waterway will remain up to Iran’s control.
In a post on the social platform X, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the U.S. has no authority to claim the strait, which has become a major flashpoint in the nearly six-month conflict.
“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” he wrote in a post translated from Persian to English. “This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command.”
He added that as long as the U.S. does “not accept the reality of defeat” and stop indulging in its “delusions,” Iran will continue to enforce its blockade of the crucial waterway carrying one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
Trump floated the idea of taking control of the strait during a speech at a police academy in New York on Friday, despite the fact that it is currently under the shared jurisdiction of Iran and Oman.
“Pretty soon, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” he said.
Trump, who has twice deployed a U.S. naval blockade of the strait during the course of the conflict, has repeatedly reiterated this claim.
“We have control over it. Nobody else. Only us. Our Navy is unbelievable, and things are going great for our country,” he told reporters Tuesday.
Several observers have pushed back on Trump’s claim to the strait. Former U.S. diplomat Richard Haass insisted that no country is in control of the Strait of Hormuz, while Fox News host Bret Baier said that traffic through the waterway has slowed down “to a trickle” despite Trump’s claim.
About 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait prior to the start of the war on Feb. 28, 2026.
Traffic has dropped sharply since Iran moved to close the waterway after the U.S. and Israel launched its first attacks, causing global energy prices to surge.
Only six vessels traveled through the strait last weekend, according to ship-tracking firm Kpler, a fraction of the roughly 130 to 140 ships that typically crossed each day before the war.
Donald Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it ‘gets in the way’ of ending Iran war
President issues threat to ‘bomb the sh** out of them’ after previously threatening Gulf ally in May
Donald Trump has again threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of his effort to end the US-Israel war on Iran.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the [censored] out of them,” Trump told Fox News on Monday, the second time he has directed such a threat at Muscat, a longtime US strategic partner that has traditionally served as a key backchannel between Washington and Tehran.
The US president delivered the threat as he struggles to draw the conflict to a conclusion, almost six months after it was launched, and as a diplomatic window agreed with Tehran ran out with no final agreement in sight. But Trump also claimed during Monday’s interview that he is “not in a hurry” to reach a deal.
That two-month window for a negotiated settlement closed on Monday without a breakthrough. Trump has repeatedly claimed the war would end “soon”, and talked up the prospect of a lasting peace deal in recent months, without such a breakthrough materializing.
In the same interview, Trump said Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender”, but signaled he was not about to impose a fresh deadline on Tehran. “I have no time schedule. I’m not in a hurry,” he said.
Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran at the Palace of Versailles on 17 June, on the sidelines of the G7 summit, which had paused hostilities and set a maximum 60-day window – extendable only by mutual consent – for the two sides to reach a comprehensive deal covering sanctions relief, Iran’s nuclear program and other disputes.
Trump also dismissed concerns that Washington’s own arsenal was being depleted by nearly six months of fighting, telling Fox News that what the US had expended against Iran so far is “peanuts”.
He suggested many of the US’s more advanced munitions, including air defense systems, had already been “given away” to Ukraine under his predecessor, Joe Biden – a claim that echoes warnings from defense analysts earlier in the war that US and allied stockpiles were being drawn down faster than they could be replenished.
The remarks came after Trump used his Truth Social platform to restate his negotiating red line. “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon,” he wrote.
The strait of Hormuz – a crucial chokepoint for global trade, through which about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supplies typically pass – has been all but closed since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in February.
Iran is to the north of the strait. Oman is to the south. The two countries have been in talks over control of the strait.
In a casual aside at a cabinet meeting in May, the president also threatened to “blow up” Oman if it failed to “behave”.
It comes after Trump also threatened to declare the strait of Hormuz as “a territory of the United States” during a speech on Friday.
In addition to Oman’s decades-long military and economic ties with the US, the Gulf nation of 5.3 million people has played a mediation role in the war and has itself come under attack from Tehran.
Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that talks with Oman were “continuing in earnest”, despite Trump’s latest outburst.
Trump also confirmed for the first time that Washington had opened a direct backchannel to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the US and Israel have targeted throughout the conflict.
“They’re good poker players, but they’re dying,” he said of the IRGC leadership.
Yesterday trump said there were backchannel talks being conducted with Iran........
Trump confirms IRGC backchannel, but calls for Iran's 'white flag of surrender'
"They should put up the white flag of surrender," Trump said in a phone interview, confirming reports of the IRGC backchannel talks that bypass mediators and Iranian political officials.
So if these talks don't include "mediators and Iranian political officials" who the hell is he negotiating with? What the hell does that even mean?
So today he said that...............
U.S.-Iran Updates: Trump says no talks with Iran taking place as standoff over Strait of Hormuz continues.
President Trump said Tuesday that there is no ongoing dialogue with Iran to end the war, and no discussions scheduled. His son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner told Fox News on Monday that Iran is "not showing any interest" in striking a deal that "makes sense" for the United States. Nearly six months into the conflict, the U.S. and Iran remain locked in a standoff over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
And how could Oman be getting in the way of ending the war with Iran when they are the only ones trying to help negotiate an end to the stand off in the strait of Hormuz?
Yet another commercial ship was struck again yesterday.
And while trump claims the strait is once again open and under our control, only three ships passed through the strait on Sunday......
Hormuz traffic grinds to a halt
The president’s latest remarks came after shipping traffic through the strait slowed nearly to a halt over the weekend.
Only three ships passed through the critical oil passage Sunday, according to data from Kpler. The five-day average for transits stands at 12. Around 130 vessels crossed Hormuz daily before the war started on Feb. 28.
Kplr is the largest AIS network that monitor and analyse global vessel data with tools and analytics providing real-time positions, customisable map layers, notifications, vessel ownership, particulars and more in real time.
And to further muddy the waters Kushner said the talks with Iran that trump said they are not having were ongoing and "robust".
Kushner: US having robust talks with the Iranians, but they’re not ready to make deal we want
18 August 2026, 12:29 am
US special envoy Jared Kushner says conversations between the US and different areas of the Iranian government have probably been more robust than ever, but the two sides have not yet reached an understanding.
I have no idea at what point they will begin to realize that you can defeat an army, you can conquer a nation but you can't defeat an ideology. It will remain and continue to battle you. I suppose after trump claiming he defeated ISIS and Iraq continues to face security challenges from both lingering ISIS sleeper cells and powerful, Iran-backed paramilitary groups and the Taliban still controlling Afghanistan wasn't enough of a lesson for them. The writing is on the wall for anyone who has been paying attention.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
China denounces US threat of sanctions over trade with Iran
Beijing says it will take ‘all necessary measures’ to protect its interests as US steps up efforts to isolate Tehran
China has denounced the threat of US sanctions for its trade with Iran, saying any such measures would be illegal, and warned it would take “all necessary measures” to protect its national interests.
Beijing’s rejection of the US threat of secondary sanctions for any country or entity continuing to trade with Tehran had been predicted. China buys an estimated 80% of Iran’s oil exports and has defied previous US efforts to limit the flow of revenue to the Tehran regime.
Its statement of opposition raises the question of how far the Trump administration would be prepared to go in confronting China and its financial system in the drive to isolate Iran.
In making the sanctions threat on Monday, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, announced an initial set of sanctions on 60 individuals, entities and vessels for alleged involvement in trade with Iran, but there were no Chinese financial institutions on the list, despite their involvement in financing the Iranian oil trade. The omission reflected US caution.
Asked why the Trump administration had not declared immediate sanctions and had stopped short of naming potential sanctions targets, Bessent replied: “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”
Financial and trade experts say the administration is well aware of the risk of Chinese retaliation before a scheduled summit next month between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. China could strike back through financial markets or with limits on its export of critical minerals.
The spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Lin Jian, told reporters on Tuesday: “Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted.
“China has already stated many times that it firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions. China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests.”
Iran has been economically wrecked by the war and the accompanying US blockade, but it maintained its defiance in response to Bessent’s threats of total isolation.
The economy minister, Ali Madanizadeh, said on state television: “Our defence is no longer so defensive; the enemies should wait for an attack.”
An oil tanker was reportedly hit on Tuesday by an unidentified projectile at the mouth of the strait of Hormuz. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said the crew was safe and no environmental damage was immediately apparent. Only two commercial vessels were reported to have successfully made the transit through the narrow waterway on Monday.
Iran and Oman, which sits on the southern shore of the strait, held talks on Tuesday aimed at agreeing joint management of the waterway between the two countries. Oman’s foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said after the discussions had concluded that there were hopes that a temporary agreed route through the strait would be announced soon.
A Pakistani delegation was also in Tehran, leaving on Tuesday after a day’s talks with Iranian leaders. The delegation was headed by the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who has led Pakistan’s mediation efforts in the Iran conflict. The Pakistani military said the Tehran talks were focused on reopening the strait of Hormuz. A memorandum signed by the US and Iran in June was intended to reopen the strait pending further negotiations but the deal collapsed within weeks.
The declaration of what Bessent called Operation Economic Outcast suggests the prospects of a resolution to the conflict with Iran are still remote. It also suggests a lean towards economic measures and away from military force after a six-month war that has not brought about the intended Iranian capitulation.
Oil prices fell about 4% to a one-week low on Tuesday after the US sanctions announcement, as traders appeared to see economic pressure as posing less risk to oil supplies than further military escalation. But the price per barrel of about $87 remained far above the prewar average.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said further military action was not off the table. “By no means are we foreclosing using kinetic strikes anywhere in the strait of Hormuz or around Iran,” he told reporters on Monday.
Bessent called the sanctions campaign unprecedented and compared it to the D-day Normandy landings, a turning point in the second world war.
“Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe,” he said. “Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”
He said the US had identified those that continued to deal with Iran and each violator would be given a deadline to cut ties or face US sanctions. He said the deadlines imposed would depend on individual circumstances.
“Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the US dollar system,” he said. “The clock just started ticking.” Collage of Trump’s face and a map of Iran arranged in a spiral Persuasion, denial and bluster: Trump ‘stuck’ on Iran war ahead of elections Read more
Bessent said Trump was “making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime”, but he did not specify whether the US president would talk to his Chinese counterpart.
Sina Toossi, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, said: “After nearly six months without a military or diplomatic victory, Washington appears to be trying to accomplish through intensified economic strangulation what military force has so far failed to achieve. But Tehran is answering that zero-sum approach with one of its own.”
In apparent anticipation of the US measures, the United Arab Emirates, a close US and Israeli ally, announced it was suspending trade ties with Iran. Turkey, another trading partner with Iran, which has been critical of the US-led campaign against the Islamic Republic, has yet to respond to the US threat of sanctions.
Andrew Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said: “The announcement of new economic sanctions on Iran and those countries trading with it signals what is plain to all: this war has brought the United States no closer to eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme or crippling the Iranian regime. But while sanctions can be effective, it is highly unlikely they will produce a quick settlement favourable to the United States.”
Qatari PM heads to Iran to ‘de-escalate tensions’ as tanker attack tests Trump’s Hormuz claim
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani is visiting Tehran to “discuss ways to de-escalate tensions and create the conditions conducive to dialogue,” the Qatari prime minister’s spokesperson said.
An oil tanker on Tuesday caught fire after being struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz: UKMTO.
U.S. allies reportedly challenged Trump’s claims that Iran’s mines in the strait had been fully cleared.
The Prime Minister of U.S.-ally Qatar is in Iran for talks on Thursday as part of efforts to “de-escalate tensions” between Tehran and Washington.
Qatar, which has served as a back channel between the warring countries, announced Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani would visit Tehran to “discuss ways to de-escalate tensions and create the conditions conducive to dialogue.”
It came after the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said that another oil tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz early on Thursday, the latest in a string of sporadic attacks that have kept ships away from the vital energy corridor.
A spokesperson for Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in a post on X that the Qatari Prime Minister is due to “meet with a number of Iranian officials” during his visit.
“The discussions will also address freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz & the need for it to return to the status quo prior to February 28,” he said. Hormuz tanker attack undermines Trump claims
The UKMTO said the latest attack on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was reported off the Omani coast, adding that the resulting fire had been extinguished, all crew members were reported safe, and an investigation was underway.
Traffic through Hormuz has trended lower this week and remains far below pre-war levels, even as the U.S. has sought to help escort vessels along the Omani side of the strait. Last week, an attack on a cargo ship transiting the waterway killed a crew member.
Only five ships made confirmed crossings Tuesday, down from seven the day before and a collapse from more than 130 vessels a day before the war, according to Kpler. All five crossings used the unilateral route Iran has designated for shipping, the tracking firm said.
U.S. allies are skeptical that Iran’s mines in the strait have been fully cleared, Bloomberg reported, casting doubt over President Donald Trump’s claims that the waterway was safe for passage.
The report came after Trump said Wednesday that the Hormuz waterway had been fully cleared of mines, calling it “a functioning strait.”
“Yes, every once in a while there will be a drone or a rocket or something shot, but it is a very functioning strait. A lot of oil is pouring out,” Trump said.
Iran and Oman, meanwhile, have agreed on a temporary maritime corridor intended to restore safer passage through the strait.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, however, warned that the waterway will not fully reopen until the U.S. fulfils its commitments under an interim peace deal framework signed in June, which has since lapsed.
The U.S. military has maintained a naval blockade against Iranian ships in the vital chokepoint, and used the southern Omani lane to escort oil tankers in and out of the Gulf.
This week saw the Trump administration launch an “economic onslaught” against Iran’s financial connections around the world, upping the ante on countries and entities that maintain economic ties with Tehran. That escalation has scuttled prospects of peace talks between Washington and Tehran.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Trump said he has “no time schedule” for when he expects to resume the talks with Iran to put an end to the six-month war. When asked if economic pressure was more effective than military strikes, Trump said, “I think they are both effective.”
In a diplomatic outreach following the U.S. sanctions campaign against the Iranian economy, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on the UN and its member governments to condemn what he described as U.S. “economic terrorism,” arguing the UN bears “legal and moral responsibility” to denounce the sanctions campaign as “illegal and criminal.”
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