U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Iowa State Fairgoers Monday he honored the Iowa soldiers killed in Kuwait, while saying the U.S.-Iran conflict was necessary to keep Americans safe. The defense secretary also spoke on the anti-DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies and other changes made at the U.S. Department of Defense, renamed the “Department […]
American pundits love a simple story. Squeeze the Iranian elites hard enough with sanctions, blockade their oil, freeze their accounts, and the men who live in the shadows of power will finally feel the pinch on their villas, their Swiss transfers, and their children’s overseas educations. They will grow pragmatic. They will come to the table. They will trade the bomb and the axis of resistance for the chance to keep their fortunes and their comforts.
“They want to make a deal,” President Donald Trump announced. “There’s a good chance that something could happen.” He has made more than 50 such uncorroborated declarations of Iran’s intent to negotiate ending his war, and countless discordant statements of his goals. When Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins asked Congress for $11 billion for another farm […]
Indiana’s gasoline tax holiday will continue for at least a little while longer. Gov. Mike Braun issued a new executive order Wednesday extending the suspension of the state’s gas taxes for 30 days. Those taxes of 58.9 cents a gallon were set to be reimposed starting Friday as the governor said last month he didn’t […]
Donald Trump proclaimed on July 26 that he was going to “beat the f**king s**t out of” Iran. This was in response to an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Jordan. Earlier, in his meandering April Fools’ Day speech, he had vowed to send Iran “back to the stone ages.” His incantations remind […]
U.S. military operations have degraded Iranian capabilities, but they have not altered Tehran's belief that it can outlast Washington or continue threatening neighboring Arab states and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. A coordinated revenue-denial campaign across five principal channels, beginning with Kharg Island's loading infrastructure, is more likely to produce a verifiable agreement than continued attrition alone. Although the administration has adopted important components of that strategy, the revenue channels that finance Iran's endurance remain substantially open.
On July 8, President Trump announced the annulment of the MoU with Iran in response to the IRGC strikes on three vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement was followed by a massive U.S. bombardment of Iranian strategic assets, and retaliatory Iranian strikes on U.S. assets in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. The resumption of hostilities once again threatens to embroil the region in conflict and endanger global energy security as the IRGC announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
