Trump Tells Congress Why He Doesn’t Need Its Authorization for the Iran War

THE NEW YORK TIMES: In letters to the House and Senate, the president asserted that the hostilities had “terminated,” in an apparent attempt to avoid having to seek congressional approval.

President Trump sent letters to Congress on Friday making the case that a Vietnam-era law requiring him to seek congressional authorization to continue military operations in Iran did not apply because the conflict was in a cease-fire.

In the letters — sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the president pro tempore of the Senate — Mr. Trump said that he was writing to inform them “of changes in the posture of United States Forces” and reiterated his administration’s position that a cease-fire he declared on April 7 had stopped the clock on the war.

Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, if presidents deploy American forces into hostilities without congressional authorization, they must end the operation after 60 days if the legislative branch does not grant permission for the continued use of forces on the mission. The law also allows the president a single 30-day extension, but only to safely bring troops home, not to extend combat.

But Mr. Trump’s letters made the case that there had “been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7,” and that hostilities the United States and Israel began on Feb. 28 “have terminated,” in an apparent attempt to avoid having to seek congressional approval. He did not mention that U.S. forces fired on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship on April 19. » | Erica L. Green and Megan Mineiro | Friday, May 1, 2026

Will the Iran War Cause a Global Depression? (w/ Prof. Richard Wolff) | The Chris Hedges Report

May 1, 2026 | The ill-conceived US war on Iran is leading the world to a global recession or depression. Professor Richard Wolff places the current crisis in the context of the capitalist system and the decline of US hegemonic power.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz Says US Is Being Humiliated by Iran

Apr 27, 2026 | Merz says he doesn't see what exit strategy the US has in the war with Iran, warning 'an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards'

Richard Wolff: Petrodollar Decline Unravels the US Empire

Apr 26, 2026 | Prof. Richard Wolff discusses how the Iran War undermines the petrodollar and the US-led international economic system that has sustained the US empire.

Starving to Pay Rent: The Brutal Reality of the Cost of Living Crisis | 60 Minutes Australia

Apr 26, 2026 | As the fallout from the Iran conflict triggers unprecedented fuel shortages and crippling inflation across the world, everyday Australians are being pushed to the brink. Struggling families are skipping meals to survive, desperate farmers are abandoning their crops, and top economists are warning of an imminent, severe recession. The devastating reality of the cost-of-living crisis is exposed.

Michael Hudson: Iran War Ignites Global Financial Armageddon

Apr 25, 2026 | Prof. Michael Hudson, a world-renowned classical economist, discusses why the war against Iran has changed the global economy permanently.

Trump Cancels Aides’ Trip for Iran Talks, Saying, ‘We Have aAl the Cards.’

THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Trump on Saturday called off a trip by two of his top negotiators to Islamabad, Pakistan, just before they were set to leave for talks about a potential deal to end the war in Iran.

“I’ve told my people a little while ago, they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards,’” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”

Steve Witkoff, the special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, had been scheduled to travel to Pakistan on Saturday, along with top aides to Vice President JD Vance. Officials in Pakistan have been mediating between the United States and Iran to try to end more than a month of war in the Middle East.

The cancellation of the trip is the latest sign that Iran and the United States are far from reaching a deal to end the war. A previous trip to Islamabad by Mr. Vance proved unsuccessful, and the Americans appear no closer to achieving the administration’s political goals, including convincing Iran to turn over its nuclear stockpile and curtail its future program. The two sides are also locked in a stalemate over control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

Mr. Trump’s decision came after Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who had been in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials, left the country and traveled to Oman. No direct meetings had been scheduled with U.S. officials.

After leaving Islamabad, Mr. Araghchi said in a social media post that he had shared with Pakistani officials Iran’s position on a “workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran.” He did not give details of the latest proposal. “Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy,” he added. » | Luke Broadwater | Saturday, April 25, 2026

Kushner and Witkoff to Talk With Iranian Officials in Pakistan

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will also be in Islamabad this weekend, and Iranian officials said he planned to meet with the two Americans.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, two of the United States’ lead negotiators in peace talks with Iran, will travel to Pakistan on Saturday to hold discussions with Iranian officials, an administration spokeswoman said. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, also arrived in Islamabad, according to Iranian state media, and Iranian officials said he planned to meet with the two U.S. representatives.

“Steve and Jared will be heading to Pakistan tomorrow to hear the Iranians out,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Friday afternoon. “We hope progress will be made,” she said, adding that “the president, the vice president, the secretary of state will be waiting here in the United States for updates.”

The Iranian foreign minister plans to present a new written response to a U.S. proposal for a peace deal, according to two senior Iranian officials familiar with the trip who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

President Trump announced an extension of the cease-fire in the war on Iran earlier this week. While that halted an all-out bombardment of Iran and Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Israel and Gulf countries, the war has morphed into a costly standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil and gas conduit. Both the United States and Iran are blocking the transit of ships through the waterway in an effort to gain leverage in any peace talks.

The news of the scheduled meeting in Pakistan came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ships and ports would continue for “as long as it takes” to get Iran to agree to a deal. Iranian leaders have made lifting the blockade a condition of resuming peace talks with Washington.

Many sticking points remain between the two sides, chief among them the status of the strait and Iran’s nuclear program. The last U.S.-Iran negotiations took place in mid-April in Islamabad and ended with no agreement. Iran War Live Updates » | Luke Broadwater, Helene Cooper, John Ismay, Farnaz Fassihi and Max Bearak | Reporting from Washington and New York | Friday, April 24, 2026

We can all relax now, then, knowing that Witkoff and Kushner are being sent to Pakistan to deal with those pesky Iranian officials! Between them, they have a wealth of diplomatic experience to draw on to sort out any problems they will encounter! At this rate, the war will be over in no time! 😊

Iran War Has Drained U.S. Supplies of Critical, Costly Weapons

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Pentagon’s rush to rearm its Mideast forces makes it less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, administration and congressional officials say.

Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.

The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say.

The conflict has also underscored the Pentagon’s overreliance on excessively expensive missiles and munitions, especially air-defense interceptors, as well as concerns about whether the defense industry can develop cheaper arms, especially attack drones, far more quickly. » | Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Swan | Reporting from Washington | Thursday, April 23, 2026

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A Watershed Moment? | John Mearsheimer and Sir Max Hastings

Apr 24 2026 | Historians reserve the term “watershed” for those rare moments when events do not merely shock the established order but upend it. Think of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which hastened the end of the Cold War and ushered in an era of American unipolarity. Or the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US, which ignited the global war on terror and culminated in the long, costly entanglements of the so-called forever wars.

In each case, those living through the moment could sense they were witnessing events whose consequences would extend far beyond the immediate crisis. The question now is whether the Iran war belongs in that category. On the world stage, many allies and partners increasingly worry that the United States as a friend is shrinking with extraordinary rapidity. If this is true, what does this mean for international affairs after the Iran war?

Guests are Sir Max Hastings, the British military historian, columnist and former newspaper editor, and John Mearsheimer, professor of political science from the University of Chicago.


To put it succinctly, Trump is a chump who is also off his chump! — © Mark Alexander

Trump’s War Has Backfired Spectacularly: Iran Is Now More Influential Than Ever

THE GUARDIAN: Tehran has shown that its grip over the strait of Hormuz is its most potent deterrent – arguably more consequential than its now defunct nuclear programme

Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran will be remembered as a grave strategic miscalculation – one that has reshaped the region in unintended and destabilising ways. With the ceasefire now extended indefinitely, we can see more clearly how the war has undermined the US’s standing in the world and failed to achieve its core objectives: it has neither brought about regime change in Tehran, nor forced Iran to submit to American demands. Far from it.

By inflicting economic pain far beyond the region and slowing the global economy, Iran has demonstrated that its grip over the strait of Hormuz constitutes its most potent deterrent – arguably more consequential than its now defunct nuclear programme. Control of the strait will be Tehran’s most powerful source of leverage in the years ahead.

And this strategy is not confined to Hormuz. Relying on its Houthi allies in Yemen, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also signalled its ability to threaten the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern tip of the Red Sea – a choke point through which roughly 8% of global trade and a significant share of the world’s energy and chemical shipments pass. The prospect of disruption at both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab would amount to a double shock to the global economy. » | Fawaz Gerges * | Thursday, April 23, 2026

* Fawaz Gerges is professor of international relations at the London School of Economics

Jeffrey Sachs: Iran Exposed the Limits of American Power

Apr 23, 2026 | World-renowned economics professor Jeffrey Sachs discusses the global fallout from the US and Israeli war on Iran, as the conflict approaches the two-month mark.

Condom Prices Could Rise 30% due to Iran War, Says World’s Top Producer Karex

THE GUARDIAN: Karex produces more than 5 billion condoms annually and is a supplier to leading brands like Durex and Trojan, as well as the NHS

The world’s top condom producer, Malaysia’s Karex Bhd, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war, its chief executive has said.

Karex is also seeing a surge in condom demand as rising freight costs and shipping delays have left many of its customers with lower stockpiles than usual, CEO Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

“The situation is definitely very fragile, prices are expensive … We have no choice but to transfer the costs right now to the customers,” Goh said.

Karex produces more than 5 billion condoms annually and is a supplier to leading brands like Durex and Trojan, as well as national health systems such as the UK’s NHS and global aid programmes run by the United Nations. » | Reuters | Wednesday. April 22, 2026

Karex produces 5 billion condoms per annum. Good God! There must be a hell of a lot of bonking going on! Perhaps I should turn my attention to bonking rather than blogging! 😊 From an economic standpoint, it will be interesting to find out just how elastic the demand for rubbers truly is! 😊 My best guess is that demand is highly inelastic. 😊 Bonking will go on unabated. — © Mark Alexander

Seyed M. Marandi: Total War - Attacking Nuclear Plants, Desalination & Infrastructure

Mar 22, 2026 | Seyed Mohammad Marandi discusses the targeting of nuclear plants, desalination plants, critical infrastructure, and the civilian population. Trump has given Iran 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz (capitulation), otherwise the US will destroy Iran's energy facilities. Then there will be no limits on Iran's response, and the consequences will be global. The future of global stability will be decided over the next few days. Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran's Nuclear Negotiation Team.

Joe Kent: Why Trump Went to War

Mar 21, 2026 | UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in his first international interview since his resignation from the Trump administration.

A highly decorated Green Beret and CIA veteran, Kent became the most senior official to step down in protest of the ongoing war in Iran, which he describes as a ‘quagmire’ driven by external pressure rather than national interest.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Kent alleges that the U.S. was misled into the conflict by the Israel lobby, shares personal reflections on the death of his wife in a ‘manufactured’ war, and raises questions about the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Trump Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran Power Plants over Strait of Hormuz

Mar 22, 2026 | Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate, according to senior Trump administration official Scott Bessent - while Iran launched successive waves of missile attacks on Israel, including cluster munitions. In the last hour the Ministry of Defence has said RAF Typhoon and F35 jets have continued their defensive missions - while a UK counter drone unit managed to shoot down an Iranian drone during the night. Last night, two ballistic missiles evaded Israeli air defences in the south of the country - injuring more than 150 people. A reminder of the threat still posed by Iran.

“Strait of Hormuz Will Be Closed Completely!” Iran Warns After US Threat | APT

Mar 22, 2026 | Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned of severe retaliation if U.S. threats against Iran’s energy infrastructure are carried out.

He said Iran could fully close the Strait of Hormuz and target energy, power, and IT infrastructure linked to Israel and U.S. interests across the region.

Zolfaghari stated that facilities in countries hosting American bases could also become targets. Emphasising Iran’s readiness, he said any attack would trigger a broad response aimed at American economic interests. He added that Iran does not seek war but will act decisively to defend its national interests.

Donald Trump Warned Against ‘Last Option’ of Iran Power Plant Strikes | Sir Robin Niblett

Mar 22, 2026 | “He does not want this to go as far as it would go if he were to obliterate Iran’s power plants.”

Trump threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants may trigger severe retaliation across the Gulf and global economy - making it a step even Trump likely wants to avoid, says foreign affairs expert and former director of Chatham House Sir Robin Niblett.

Tehran Is Defiant After Trump Threatens Power Plants

THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Trump said that he would “obliterate” Iran’s electricity plants if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iran dismissed the ultimatum as its missiles hit southern Israel, including near the country’s main nuclear research center.

Fresh threats between Iran and the United States to attack critical civilian infrastructure risked imperiling millions of people across the Middle East, as President Trump warned that he could target Iranian power plants and Tehran vowed that such attacks would lead to retaliation against vital energy and water facilities.

Iran dismissed Mr. Trump’s ultimatum that if the Strait of Hormuz — the vital oil shipping route choked off by Iranian strikes — were not fully reopened by Monday night, the United States would strike Iranian power plants. Tehran said the strait would be “completely closed” if its energy infrastructure were attacked, as it launched new missile attacks on Israeli cities.

Iranian missiles hit Dimona, a city eight miles away from Israel’s main nuclear facility, and the nearby city of Arad on Saturday night. More than 10 people were seriously injured and dozens more sustained minor injuries, underscoring Tehran’s ability to inflict damage despite three weeks of devastating airstrikes by the United States and Israel. More than 2,000 people have been killed across the region, mostly in Iran.

The escalating threats to attack key infrastructure increased the potential for civilian danger as the war entered its fourth week.

Just days after he warned Israel against targeting Iranian energy sites to avoid an escalating cycle of counter-strikes, Mr. Trump said late Saturday that the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants — which millions of Iranians depend on — within 48 hours if the strait were not reopened.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, vowed that his country would strike infrastructure used by Israel, the United States and American allies — including desalination plants that are a lifeline for much of the Middle East. Iran War Live Updates » | Aaron Boxerman and Pranav Baskar | Sunday, March 22, 2026

‘Is Netanyahu Dead?’ Senate Intel Committee Member Chris Van Hollen Responds.

March 22, 2026