Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: Israel awoke to a frightening new reality on Thursday as it absorbed, with disbelief and largely in silence, the terms of President Trump’s preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran. It accomplishes none of Israel’s war aims, analysts and officials said, and arguably leaves the country in worse shape on each of them. Regime change? The government in Tehran is emerging from the war even more hard-line and emboldened, despite being decapitated at the…

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Politico reports: Vice President JD Vance on Thursday warned Israeli political leaders critical of the Trump administration memorandum of understanding with Iran not to attack “the only powerful ally” they have “anywhere left in the entire world.” It is the latest rebuke of a close ally with which the Trump administration has apparently grown increasingly frustrated as it works to wind down the monthslong war that the U.S. and Israel have waged together against Iran. Cabinet-level officials in Israel have…

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The Guardian reports: The only available video over the last 15 months of the official who really wields power in Donald Trump’s Pentagon is a cartoon animation. Released in May on X by the US government, it shows a silver haired figure in a grey suit lighting up a cigar and sitting at a massive wooden desk with a nameplate: DEPSECWAR FEINBERG. Stephen Feinberg, the 66-year-old billionaire founder of the private equity giant Cerberus Capital Management, has served as the…

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The Guardian reports: Ukrainian drones have hit several locations across Moscow in Kyiv’s biggest air raid on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, setting a major ⁠oil refinery on fire and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport. Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as a response to Russia’s strike on a historic Kyiv monastery complex earlier this week. “We do not want this war and never did,” the Ukrainian president said in a voice message to journalists….

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Jonathan Lemire writes: President Trump lost. The war he waged against Iran promises to conclude in a humbling whimper with the signing of a cease-fire agreement later this week. The United States is left weaker—diminished militarily, strategically, economically, and perhaps morally. The war, which the United States fought alongside Israel, accomplished none of the goals that Trump named at the outset. Instead, it only empowered the hard-liners in Tehran and arguably emboldened them to someday seek a nuclear weapon. Despite…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: After more than three months of bombing and blockades, the U.S. and Iran are back to square one, preparing for what promises to be difficult negotiations over limits to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. This time, the Iranians will come to the table armed with valuable knowledge: They can survive the worst the Americans can throw at them. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that their fierce campaign of airstrikes, launched on Feb. 28…

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Axios reports: President Trump’s Iran deal has opened an explosive second front in MAGA’s civil war, waged by hawkish allies who view U.S. concessions as an existential betrayal of Israel. Why it matters: Across two terms and 11 years in the political spotlight, no issue has divided Trump’s base more than the Iran war. When U.S. strikes began, leading isolationists — from Tucker Carlson to Marjorie Taylor Greene — were excommunicated for suggesting Trump had abandoned “America First” principles on behalf of Israel. Three months later, with an…

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Shane Harris writes: Several countries can claim some credit for the tentative memorandum of understanding to end the war between Iran and the United States, which officials from both countries plan to sign later this week. Pakistan had for some time led negotiations. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Oman were involved in elements of the talks. But to hear Donald Trump tell the story, the whole deal might not have materialized without the intervention of a crucial friend in the neighborhood….

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