US Begins Another Round of Attacks on Iran

On Wednesday night, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced it was launching another round of attacks on Iran as Iranian media began reporting blasts across the southern part of the country.

The attacks marked the second day in a row that the US launched strikes on Iran and came after President Trump threatened more bombings. US War Secretary Pete Hegseth also said that the US would be attacking the Islamic Republic.

“CENTCOM will be busy tonight because President Trump said we will be hitting Iran hard, and we will be,” Hegseth told reporters outside CENTCOM headquarters in Florida not long before the strikes started.

On Wednesday morning, the president said on Truth Social that Iran has “taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price.” He also claimed in the post that Iran had been “completely defeated” despite its ability to launch missile and drone attacks across the Middle East.

In comments to reporters in the Oval Office later in the day, Trump was more explicit in his threat. “We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them again hard today,” he said.

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Inflation rises to 4.2 percent in May, highest level in 3 years

The annual inflation rate increased to its highest point in three years as the cost of energy and other goods rose due to the Iran war, according to data released by the Department of Labor on Wednesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a popular gauge of inflation, rose 4.2 percent over the past 12 months and 0.5 percent in May alone.

The CPI increase matched the Wall Street consensus and marks the first time that it has surpassed 4 percent since May, 2023, making it the highest rate since April of that year.

Energy prices rose 3.9 percent in May after having risen 3.8 percent in April and 10.9 percent in March, accounting for over 60 percent of the monthly all-items increase.

The Energy Information Administration reported that the average price for gas reached $4.49 in mid-May, compared to $4.09 in mid-April. In June, the national average has so far dropped to $4.15, according to AAA. 

The price of fuel has kept increasing as peace talks between the U.S. and Iran drag out, likely threatened by the latest exchanges, which could threaten an already fragile two-month ceasefire.

The food index also saw an increase of 3.1 percent over the past year, with a 0.2 percent rise in May. All other items saw a nearly 3-percent increase in the last year after also rising by 0.2 percent in May. 

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CENTCOM: U.S. launches military strikes on Iran in response to downing of helicopter

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that the U.S. military has launched “self-defense strikes against Iran” in retaliation for the downing of an American helicopter on the orders of President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, CENTCOM released a statement on social medi confirming the strikes.

“This is a response to what they did…with our helicopter last night, and I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful, and that’s what this one is,” Trump told ABC News.

Both crew members of the downed helicopter were safely rescued hours after the crash, the president and CENTCOM confirmed.

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Kuwait Turns To Anduril For $2 Billion Counter-Drone Shield After Horrifying Airport Attack

The moment an Iranian Shahed-136 drone struck Kuwait International Airport last week appears to have been a major wake-up call for Kuwaiti officials. The incident likely crystallized a troubling reality: legacy air-defense systems are not enough to counter the Shahed drone threat spreading across the Gulf, and Kuwait needs to supercharge the deployment of layered counter-UAS systems with both electronic and kinetic defeat capabilities.

The State Department revealed shortly after the airport attack last week that it approved a potential $1.98 billion foreign military sale to Kuwait for Anduril-made counter-drone systems.

“The Government of Kuwait has requested to buy counter-unmanned aerial systems platforms,” the State Department wrote in a press release.

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Did Iran Establish a New Equation in the Middle East Through Its Attacks on Israel?

It remains unclear whether Iran’s effort to establish a new equation in the region has truly succeeded — an equation in which, for the first time, Iran would directly strike Israel if Israel attacks Lebanon.

What is clear is that recent events suggest the strategic landscape may be shifting. Israel chose to defy President Trump and carry out strikes against Iran. Yet according to both Iranian and American sources, those Israeli attacks appear to have been deliberately calibrated to inflict limited damage, perhaps reflecting U.S. pressure to avoid a broader escalation.

Iran, for its part, responded by striking Israel once more after the Israeli attacks. The full extent of the damage caused by Iran’s two rounds of attacks remains unknown, however, due to extensive Israeli military censorship. As a result, outside observers still lack a complete picture of the military and strategic consequences of these exchanges.

The real test of whether a new regional equation has emerged may not lie in what has already happened, but in what comes next. Specifically: Will Israel strike Beirut again?

Even if it does, Israeli decision-makers will now have to factor in a cost that did not previously exis t— the likelihood of a direct Iranian response against Israel. For decades, Israel enjoyed near-complete freedom of maneuver in much of the region. It could bomb targets in Lebanon at will without facing meaningful costs imposed by third parties. That assumption may no longer hold.

At the same time, the United States has signaled clearly that it no longer intends to be an active participant in Israel’s confrontation with Iran. The White House has, for instance, stated that it did not partake in Israel’s defense this time around. This would be a first and a very alarming development for Israel, if true. Washington’s desire to avoid direct involvement has become increasingly evident, even as it continues to support Israel in other ways.

Taken together, these developments suggest that a new strategic reality may be in the making. The picture remains murky, and it is far too early to declare that a durable deterrence framework has been established. Much will depend on future Israeli actions, Iranian responses, and the degree to which both sides internalize the risks of escalation.

But if Israel now has to weigh the prospect of direct Iranian retaliation before striking Lebanon, then something important has changed. Whether that change proves temporary or enduring remains to be seen.

The next question is whether this emerging equation can be translated into renewed momentum for U.S.-Iran diplomacy.

The Iranians believe that their action demonstrated to the US that the value of the Memorandum is so low that Iran is willing to risk a complete collapse of diplomacy. The hope is that Trump yields on what appears to be the last sticking point in the talks, which is the release of $12 billion of Iranian frozen assets.

Trump, on the other hand, may calculate that the exchange of fire demonstrated both the cost to Iran if full-scale war were to break out again, as well as Trump’s ability to impose certain restraints on the Israelis. As a result, the Iranians should feel confident in Trump’s ability to deliver on his end of the bargain and not insist on the release of the assets at the outset of the MOU.

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Trump Says US ‘Must Respond’ After US Apache Helicopter Shot Down Near Iran

President Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday that the US “must respond” after the US military told him that a US Army Apache helicopter was shot down by Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

His post came after US Central Command said that its forces rescued two crew members from the helicopter, and media reports said that the US was probing whether Iran was responsible for the incident, which came a day after a US F/A-18 fighter jet bombed an oil tanker that was trying to reach Oman. So far, Iran hasn’t taken credit for shooting down the helicopter, but it has made clear it will respond to US attacks on ships.

“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” the president added.

According to The Associated Press, the two crew members of the Apache spent about two hours in the water before being rescued by a 24-foot unmanned boat.

Tuesday’s incident comes after Iran struck Israel in response to Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israel then launched strikes on Iran, and President Trump called on the two sides to “stop shooting,” but shortly after his statement, CENTCOM announced the strike on an oil tanker.

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Israel Bombs Iranian Regime After Terrorist Strikes

Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, has been perpetually firing on Israelis, and an Arab terrorist murdered Master Sergeant (Res.) Haim Kalomiti and injured multiple others in a jihad attack Sunday in Tzur Natan, one of over a thousand attempted terror attacks on Israelis just since March. Then Hezbollah’s Tehran paymasters began bombarding Israel. There has never been a ceasefire. Both Hezbollah and Iran’s regime never stopped shooting at civilians, not for a single day.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted late on June 7, “The Israeli Air Force struck military targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran a short while ago.”

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Another War for Israel We Should Never Have Gotten Into

In his highly-regarded podcast, Judging Freedom, on June 1, Judge Napolitano asked British diplomat Alastair Crooke if the Israelis really cared if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and the U.S. economy, and by extension the world economy, suffered.

Crooke replied that the billionaires who support Israel so strongly have so much wealth that many would regard a recession or even a depression as an “opportunity” to buy farmland and other assets.

People of great wealth are not really affected by the higher gas and food prices and other inflation brought on by the U.S./Israeli war against Iran. But everyone else is, and this war, unpopular even at the start, is becoming less popular every day.

This is in sharp contrast with the Iraq war, which was very popular at the start but very unpopular three or four years later.

Even at the start, most polls showed 65 to 70% were against the war in Iran. And I believe that most who did not poll in opposition were really not in favor of the war, but just did not want to oppose the President on this.

Many leading conservatives, such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, Rand Paul, and many others, have come out against this war. Conservatives under 50 have polled heavily against it.

Megan Kelly said on the Piers Morgan Show that this was “clearly Israel’s war,” that it  “needed to end ugly, or any other way,” and that she favored an end even if it looked like a “surrender on our part.” She added: “It was folly to begin with. It was folly throughout. It remains folly.”

Tucker Carlson said in an interview with the BBC: “The single biggest mistake Trump, or any other American president, has made in my lifetime is going to war with Iran. We are only doing this at the behest and then the demand of Israel.”

I pointed out in several columns that almost every member of Congress would have been rushing to condemn the killing, starving, and maiming of little children that went on in Gaza if it had been done by any other Country than Israel. And the exact same thing can be said about the war in Iran.

The great majority of the American people are sick and tired of foreign wars and know that we have a mind-boggling $ 39 trillion in national debt. They want our elected officials to start putting America First, and they know this war is putting Israel First.

We have bought and paid for Congress when it comes to anything Netanyahu and Israeli warmongers want. Because of campaign contributions for members of Congress, or fear of contributions against them, from supporters of Israel, members are like the three wise monkeys: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

The late Charley Reese was once voted as the most popular columnist in a poll by many thousands of C-Span viewers. He wrote many times that the terrorism against the U. S. was the  “direct result of our one-sided support of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.”

In 2005, Reese wrote: “The big pushers for war with Iraq are the usual suspects-Americans with a long record of pretending to speak about America’s interests when in fact they are pushing an Israeli agenda.” Now put the word “Iran” where he wrote “Iraq.”

Almost everyone, if asked, will say they favor peace for the Middle East. But the United States cannot be a neutral peace broker there as long as we are so far under the thumb of the international war criminal Netanyahu.

Even the longtime Jewish New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, wrote in May last year that “This Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hard-core U.S. interests in the region. Netanyahu  is not our friend.”

Many years ago, David Halberstam wrote words about the Vietnam War that could and should be applied to the Middle East today: “I do not think we are winning in any true sense, nor do I see any signs we are about to win. That is why this is such a sad story to write.”

He added: “I do not think our Vietnamese can win their part of the war, nor do I think we can win it for them. I think we will finally end up lowering our sights, encouraging our Vietnamese to talk to their Vietnamese, hoping somehow they can settle what we cannot.”

No matter how many bombs we drop or how many billions we spend, there will never be peace in the Middle East unless and until we get out of the way and force the people there to talk to each other and work things out themselves. We cannot do it for them.

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Trump says he never promised ‘no new wars’

Amid ongoing scrutiny over the U.S. war with Iran, President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his foreign policy stance — and denied that he ever campaigned on the promise of “no new wars.”

In a wide-ranging interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that aired on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Trump said he built a “tremendous military.”

“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” Trump said. “I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military. When you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything.”

Trump said he doesn’t like “endless wars” but added that the current conflict with Iran “is not an endless war,” asserting that the Vietnam War lasted for 19 years “because of stupid people.”

“We’re there for a few months and the threat is largely over,” Trump said. “Soon, it will be over. But you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, or they will blow you up. There will be no Kristen. There will be no NBC. There will be no ‘Meet the Press.’”

Throughout his campaigns for president, Trump has repeatedly criticized the U.S.’s involvement in lengthy military action in Middle Eastern countries, including lambasting former President George W. Bush for the war in Iraq during a 2016 GOP debate.

While campaigning in Pennsylvania in 2024, Trump told rallygoers: “I will not send you to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end.” He reiterated the promise in his 2024 victory speech, stating at the time: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

And Trump’s official White House biography also states that one of the president’s top priorities is “putting a stop to endless wars.”

Trump on Sunday denied that the U.S. is at war with Iran, telling Welker he does not “consider” the current situation a war.

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Central Command Announces Strikes in Goruk and Qeshm Island After Iranian Drone and Missile Strikes – Iran Threatens to Escalate, Says Negotiations Are “At a Deadlock”

The US and Iran traded missile strikes, with Iran targeting neighboring Gulf countries and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, on Friday, as negotiations to end the war stall. 

Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN on Friday, “The negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock.”

“The ball is in Trump’s court,” Rezaei added. He further threatened that Iran will “drag the war” beyond the region “by attacking these other American bases that we have been attacking so far.”

After intercepting six Iranian missiles launched in the Strait of Hormuz,  “U.S. forces subsequently struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island to defend against further maritime attacks,” Central Command said in a statement late Friday, releasing video from the strikes.

“Initial assessments indicate six of the missiles launched by Iran were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its intended target. There are currently no reports of harm to U.S. personnel, and Iranian claims of damaging U.S. 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain are false,” Central Command said. “CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and postured to continue responding to unwarranted Iranian aggression in self-defense.”

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