THE NEW YORK TIMES: The United States is again exchanging strikes with Iran, just days after the president appeared to reject plans to escalate.
Over the weekend, President Trump rejected a return to full-scale war. But as he tries to find a way out of a conflict he started, Iran has proved a stubborn enemy.
On Tuesday evening, Iran fired multiple missiles on American bases in Jordan. The U.S. military intercepted the missiles with apparent ease, but the incident has drawn Mr. Trump once again back into fighting.
The United States struck back in a “powerful response” against Iran on Wednesday evening, U.S. Central Command said on social media. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them,” Mr. Trump told reporters earlier in the day.
The Iranian and U.S. moves come as the war has widened quickly, with Saudi Arabia joining U.S. forces in striking Iranian proxies in Iraq, an American tanker in Egypt set ablaze from an apparent drone strike and tensions rising between Ukraine and Iran.
The war, which Mr. Trump has been trying to bring to a diplomatic conclusion since April, is now threatening to grow bigger at the very moment the United States wants to move past it. » | Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt | The reporters have been covering the U.S. war with Iran. | Wednesday, July 29, 2026
