CNN: The US launched a significant new air assault on Iranian military targets, saying it struck about 140 sites overnight into Sunday. Tehran responded with a wave of attacks targeting US military bases in the region, marking another escalation as a diplomatic breakdown between the countries deepens.
…The exchange followed what the US said was an Iranian attack on a merchant ship in the waterway, where Washington and Tehran are making contradictory claims about the status of marine traffic. It’s a familiar stalemate over the vital shipping channel, which is key to Tehran’s leverage in negotiations…
US insists Strait of Hormuz is open as it exchanges strikes with Iran
On Sunday, US Central Command reiterated the Strait was open, warning the US military was in position to make sure it stayed free-flowing.
Earlier Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the country’s chief negotiator with the US, wrote on X that the “era of one-sided deals is OVER”.
He went on: “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”…
“If the war continues at the rate it’s been going for the last [five] days … it would reduce stockpiles enough that there would be a new, higher level of risk … with the Indo-Pacific,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank…
Hard-Liners in Iran Want to Keep Fighting America
The hard-liners “are attempting to use the atmosphere of mourning, national insecurity and opposition to negotiations to narrow the range of politically acceptable debate and to portray compromise as both strategically dangerous and morally illegitimate,” said Saeid Golkar, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, who studies Iran’s security forces…
Survivors of Iranian attack that killed 6 U.S. troops say generals ignored warnings
Several soldiers interviewed for this report said they doubt that the military’s investigation, which was shared with the families of the deceased last week, will hold anyone accountable for moving troops to Port Shuaiba despite known vulnerabilities,or for the lack of medical care some soldiers said they experienced after the attack.
“If we don’t learn from these mistakes, if we just all believe the same lie, then it’ll happen to another unit later on and they’ll end up in the same situation we were in,” said Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom, who was in the building when it was hit…
Trump’s Iran Blunder Shows Strategy Can Defeat Firepower
Strategy is the art of making power matter. The Iran war has shown, unfortunately, that an asymmetry of strategic competence can offset a profound asymmetry of strength…
No Iran deal, no problem for Vance, allies say
The vice president’s aides and allies believe his early skepticism and public doubts that Tehran could be counted on to make peace will prove his saving grace…