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Johnson Braces for a High-Stakes July with Everything on the Line

July 7, 2026/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Social Issues, The Truth, Voter REAL ID/by Family Research Council

For House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), the nicest part about the Fourth of July was that the fireworks were on the National Mall and not in his chamber. After a tense couple of weeks of infighting, GOP leaders finally pulled the plug and sent members home early, leaving a shrinking window of opportunity to get anything meaningful done before the long August recess.

Johnson, who’s been a legislative Houdini when it comes to getting out of impossible situations, has his hands full after more than a dozen Republicans brought the House to a screeching halt, refusing to move several pieces of legislation — including the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — that were on the verge of final votes because the Senate hasn’t passed election reforms demanding proof of citizenship and voter ID. “We have the smallest margin in U.S. history,” the Louisianan acknowledged after the mutiny. “People get very emotional about things, and sometimes they make irrational decisions.”

But the conservatives’ frustration over the party’s inability to move the SAVE America Act has put the speaker and his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), in a legitimate bind, experts warn. With just eight legislative days on the calendar until Congress’s summer break, the backlog of work is at a breaking point. Already, the revolt on the House floor forced leaders to scrap their plans to move forward with the NDAA and other key items of their to-do list.

“I think we have squandered away an opportunity to do something great for the Fourth of July,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) lamented when the troop bill became a casualty of the hardline conservatives’ uprising. “The American people gave us Donald Trump and a unified Congress, right?” he said. “We have both chambers, and … we’re squandering time away,” he warned. “We ain’t going to be able to get it back.”

By Wednesday, key members were hunkered down in the speaker’s office, hashing out ways to end the stalemate. The only way to get elements of the SAVE America Act through the Senate without Democrats’ help is reconciliation, but, as Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) noted, that’s a tricky process and time is short. “After this recess, if it doesn’t happen in the first couple of days, then I think it’s in real trouble,” he acknowledged. Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) agreed. “The closer we get to November, the more difficult it is.” But, he added, “I’m not ready to say we can’t do it.”

Of course, there are other reasons to pursue reconciliation — including the billions of dollars the president is requesting for the Iran war. “Safeguarding elections, along with stopping fraud and supporting our troops and dealing with the residual unaffordability that has hung over from the Biden administration’s failed policies, are all wrapped up in a Reconciliation 3.0,” Arrington stressed.

The sticky part about including elements of the SAVE America Act is that reconciliation is a budgetary tool, so the GOP will have to find a way to thread that needle. Johnson thinks Republicans have found a way to address part of that problem by creating a grant program that incentivizes states to adopt stricter election rules. “[I]f they come to their senses, and they want to avail themselves of election integrity proposals and ideas and policies, they can draw down from a federal fund and use those funds,” he explained. “We’re willing to invest heavily in that.”

Arrington thinks the carrot approach might actually work for blue states that refuse to require things like proof of citizenship and voter ID. “I haven’t seen many Democrats [who] didn’t jump when you dangled some money in front of them. So there is the hope that if you put some incentive money, states led by Democrats might just engage in implementing these safeguards. But if they don’t, it will be just another way to delineate what Democrats stand for and what Republicans want to try to do to make this country safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

The package of election reforms continues to be a massive sticking point for Trump, who not only refused to sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill that passed both chambers but also held up significant nominations in protest. He even mentioned the legislation during his late-night keynote address at the celebration on July 4. “America is back, and we want to keep America great,” Trump insisted. “And we will do so by approving the SAVE America Act, which means all voters must show voter ID. All voters must provide a little thing called proof of citizenship. And there will be no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel.”

It’s an ambitious play — but given the state of the GOP’s margins, the only one. No matter which path leadership takes, a lot hangs in the balance. At the end of the day, Johnson emphasizes, the SAVE America Act is a top priority for every Republican. “We passed it three times in the House. We’re going to try one more time on a budget reconciliation bill.”

The genius of Johnson’s speakership has been resolving his party’s (often volatile) differences. “I’ve got to work with all of them,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on Capitol Hill,” “get them all together. …But these are high stakes,” the Louisianan admitted. Not only did a dozen of his members stall one of the most important bills of the year in the NDAA, but they also sabotaged the limited time the House has left to accomplish things. “We’ve got to keep the engine moving here,” the speaker emphasized. “So when we bring them back after this short break for July 4th, we’ll get right back to it,” he vowed. “I’ll get them on board. We’ll move it forward.”

The party’s struggles, Johnson downplayed, are typical. “Just another day here.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Lost Ties between the United States and Cuba (Part 1)

June 29, 2026/in America 250, Communism, Hot Topics, Marxism, Must Read, Narco-Socialism, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Socialism/by Family Research Council

If you were to ask any 21st-century American about Cuba, most of the stories that would come to mind would be those of the Missile Crisis, the world on the brink of nuclear collapse, and the repression of freedoms against the island’s inhabitants by a socialist tyranny. And they are right.

But the rich connections between the island and the United States are not limited to the last 70 tumultuous years. There is a whole current of prior ties, in which solidarity and alliance between regional neighbors prevailed.

We discussed these with Cuban-American historian Octavio de la Suarée, who for years was a professor and head of the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture at William Paterson University in New Jersey, and who presides over the Cuban Academy of History in Exile. Here is part of that long conversation on the 250th anniversary of the United States.

In what ways did Cubans contribute to the American Revolutionary War?

The contribution of Cubans to the American Revolutionary War between 1775 and 1783 was very important, although often underappreciated. As a Spanish colony, and given its proximity to the United States, Cuba supported the Thirteen Colonies through Spain, which officially entered the war against Great Britain in 1779.

Their contributions are highlighted in various ways, but perhaps the most poetic of all was the famous collection by the ladies of Havana, whose donations helped finance the military campaign that culminated in the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, considered decisive for the American victory. Several sources refer to the large quantity of personal jewelry that, when sold, helped reach the sums required to finance that battle.

Another substantial economic foundation was the large sums of money that were collected from all over Havana to help finance the independence army.

Likewise, another significant military reinforcement was the fact that Cuba served as a strategic base for operations against the British in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Cuban troops, militias, and resources participated in campaign actions such as the capture of Pensacola, which weakened the British.

And among the logistical support was the location of Cuban ports on the island, from where weapons, gunpowder, food, and medicine were sent to the American rebels. Similarly, Havana was a key naval supply center for the Allied Forces against England.

There were figures who stood out at that historical moment, right?

Yes. I’m only going to mention two key Hispanic figures in the American Revolutionary War against the British.

Bernardo Gálvez, for example, was an essential figure in the independence of the United States, although he is little known in this country. This Spanish politician and military leader was born in Macharaviana, Spain, near Málaga, in 1746, and distinguished himself as a military strategist during the war between Spain and Great Britain. He was governor of Spanish Louisiana during the conflict and fought against the British on many occasions. Gálvez decisively aided the Thirteen Colonies, without openly declaring it at the beginning, by sending arms, gunpowder, money, and supplies to the rebels, which he received from Havana.

Later, he participated in and led important military campaigns against the British, including those of Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola in 1781. In the latter, he led a very risky naval attack, and it was there that he acquired his motto, “Yo solo” (I alone), because he sailed his ship where other military personnel thought it was impossible. These victories not only expelled the English from the region but also prevented the rebels from being attacked from the south. Gálvez ended his brilliant career as Viceroy of New Spain (present-day Mexico).

In 2014, the United States Congress named him an Honorary Citizen of the United States (a very rare honor). There is a statue of Bernardo de Gálvez in Washington, D.C., near the State Department.

The other important figure was Juan Mirallés, an 18th-century Spanish merchant and diplomat, known for his role during the American Revolutionary War. In short, he was the main informal liaison between Spain and the American revolutionaries.

Mirallés was born in Spain and later settled in Havana, which at that time was a key center of Spanish trade. He quickly became a wealthy merchant with extensive networks in the Caribbean and North America.

He was a personal friend of George Washington and lived for a time very close to the headquarters of the Continental Army. From there, he discreetly helped channel financial support, supplies, and weapons to the rebels. At the same time, he served as an observer and political advisor for Spain, reporting on the war’s progress.

Juan de Mirallés died in 1780, during the war. George Washington attended his funeral, a very significant gesture that shows the respect he had for him. Although not very well known today, Mirallés was a substantial figure in the secret diplomacy that helped make American independence successful and a reality.

In short, although Cuba did not participate directly as an independent nation, its economic, military, and logistical support was crucial to the triumph of the American colonies.

Without these resources, especially in the final stage of the conflict, the independence of the United States would have been much more difficult to achieve.

Now, let’s change direction. In the Cuban wars of independence in the 19th century, several North American names stand out. But perhaps the most well-known is Henry Reeve, also known as “the little Englishman.” What is his story?

Many Americans participated in the Cuban Wars of Independence, and among the most prominent names are Thomas Jordan, a general of the Confederate States, who served as Chief of Staff of the Mambí Army in 1869; Colonel Federico Fernández Cavada of the Union Army, who was commander-in-chief of the Mambí Army for a time; his brother Adolfo, who was a colonel; and W.A.C. Ryan, executed in Santiago de Cuba, among others.

We also have Henry Mike Reeve Carroll — who was a brigadier general in the Liberating Army during the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878), the First War of Independence of Cuba — proclaimed against Spanish colonialism by the Father of the Nation, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, with the Grito de Yara (Cry of Yara) at his La Demajagua estate on October 10, 1868. He is also known as the first president of the Republic of Cuba in Arms.

Henry Reeve, for his part, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 4, 1850, and participated as a drummer boy for the Union Army from a very young age in the American Civil War (1861-1865), where he developed a strong opposition to slavery. Three years later, upon learning of the revolution in Cuba against Spain, he felt compelled to join the Mambí Army.

Is it true that he didn’t speak Spanish?

Yes. Although he didn’t speak a word of Spanish, Reeve boarded the steamship “Perrit” in 1869 under the alias Henry Earl and arrived on the Cuban coast at the port of Nipe, eight months after the war began. The next day, he engaged the enemy in combat, where he was captured along with several other expedition members, and they were taken to be executed.

Reeve was shot four times, the bullets piercing his body, but fortunately, none of them hit a vital organ. He regained consciousness later and managed to escape his captors at night. He wandered aimlessly for two days until he found the Mambí detachment of General Luis Figueredo at El Mejías camp, where he received medical attention.

The following month, the American received the rank of Second Sergeant in the Mambí Army, and in October of the same year, he was appointed aide-de-camp to General Thomas Jourdan. Jourdan, however, resigned shortly afterward, and the young man joined the 1st Cavalry Squadron of the Northern Brigade of Camagüey under the command of Brigadier General Cristóbal Acosta. Throughout that year, he participated in several encounters with the enemy, including the battles of Tana, Imías, and Jagua, where he was wounded again.

Reeve fought on the island under the command of the legendary lawyer who fought in some 100 battles, Ignacio Agramonte, correct?

In March 1871, Reeve was transferred to Ignacio Agramonte’s cavalry unit with the rank of captain. He fought in the battles of Estrada and Mulato before taking part in the rescue of Brigadier General Manuel Sanguily on October 8, 1871, leading a machete charge of Agramonte’s cavalry against superior Spanish forces. Agramonte had selected a small group of 35 horsemen, led by Commander Reeve, to carry out the daring rescue, which resulted in a resounding success.

Later, the young commander participated in the battles of Plátano, La Redonda, San Ramón de Pacheco, Santa Deo, La Matilde, and Sitio Potrero, and, in November 1871, he was wounded again. The following year, on November 29, 1872, he received an abdominal wound during the Battle of Le Carmen, an injury that would cause him problems for the rest of his life.

In 1873, Reeve participated in the battles that took place in Ciego de Najasa, Soledad de Pacheco, and Cocal del Olimpo. His daring and valor in the Battle of Jimaguayú on May 11, 1873, in which Ignacio Agramonte died, earned him even more distinctions. During this battle, Reeve briefly assumed command of Agramonte’s division, later handing it over to General Julio Sanguily. When Agramonte died in Jimaguayú, Reeve already held the rank of colonel.

After the death of Ignacio Agramonte, Reeve was reassigned to the command of Major General Máximo Gómez and was appointed Chief of Cavalry for the First Division on July 27, 1873. Gómez described Reeve as an exceptional officer, highlighting “his proven courage, his tireless dedication, and his strict military discipline.”

AUTHOR

Yoe Suarez

Yoe Suárez is The Washington Stand’s international affairs correspondent. He is an exiled journalist, writer, and producer who investigated in Havana about torture, political police, gangs, government black lists, and cybersurveillance. A graduate of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, he was a CBN correspondent, and has written for outlets like The Hill and Newsweek. He has appeared on Vox, Univision, and Deutsche Welle as an analyst on Cuba, security, and U.S. foreign policy.

America’s Founding Fathers: A Legacy of Service

June 5, 2026/in America 250, Featured, Hot Topics, News, Social Issues, The Truth/by Family Research Council

As our nation celebrates its birth next month, I want to recognize the legacy of our Founding Father, General George Washington, who fought the battles for freedom on his knees in prayer to our Almighty Heavenly Father.

The legacy of our nation’s fathers and their service truly began with the Founding Fathers of our country. When I reflect on the journey of faith and leadership, I think of what our first President of the United States sought to achieve through independence, liberty, and freedom. These enduring principles formed the foundation of our nation, and today, our leaders remain entrusted with defending them on the battlefield of freedom.

General George Washington’s steadfast faith and leadership helped shape a nation founded on sacrifice, conviction, and trust in God. His example as both general of the Army and then president of the United States reminds us that true leadership is built upon character, courage, and unwavering purpose.

Recognizing the life of George Washington, our nation’s first president, and his powerful faith, which led to freedom, the following can be told from the best-selling author, Ron Chernow, in his book titled “Washington, A Life.”

“During the French and Indian War, Col. Washington had 4 bullets through his coat and 2 horses shot from under him and yet escaped unhurt. The heroic youth was being groomed by God for higher things, for some important service to his country.

“With a sovereign faith in leadership by example, Washington believed that courage and cowardice originated from the top of an army.

“On July 2, 1776, Washington tried to rouse his men with impassioned words. ‘The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves… The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army.’

“He made Solomon-like solutions, making him the first chief executive a dozen years before he was officially elected to the post.

“At Valley Forge, PA, Washington addressed the ‘essential rights and liberties of the present generation and of millions yet unborn.’ General and then President Washington was continually concerned about the ‘generations yet to come.’

“Washington’s job as commander in chief was much a political as a military task, and he performed it brilliantly, functioning as de facto president of the country. His stewardship of the army had been a masterly exercise in nation building. In defining the culture of the Continental Army, he had helped to mold the very character of the country. In the end, he had managed to foil the best professional generals that a chastened Great Britain could throw at him.

“An American planter was chosen by us to command our troops and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals, baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers.

“After taking the oath at the first inauguration, Washington, with devout fervency, in reverential manner, bowed down and kissed the Bible, adding ‘So help me God.’

“The fact remains that the ‘Almighty Being’ had overseen America’s birth. ‘No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States.’

“Just as Washington had proved at the end of the war that he did not lust for power, so his departure from the presidency elevated his moral standing in the world.”

George Washington proved that our nation’s strongest trailblazers also bowed their heads in reverence and humility to God. It is paramount that today’s leaders learn from the leaders of our past.

With this, I am reminded of the powerful hymn that was written during the Civil War and is still used today, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the lyrics “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.”

These powerful words not only ring true yesterday, but they also remain true now and will continue to ring true forever. They serve as a powerful reminder that the faithful fathers of this nation have always led on the battlefield of freedom, the battlefield of faith, and the battlefield of family.

Honoring our nation’s heritage does not just mean respecting those who came before us. It also provides a roadmap for future generations.

Having watched my grandfather and my father-in-law, the love of God and the love of service continue to leave a lasting legacy today. My grandfather told stories about his service in the United States Army during World War II, and my father-in-law told stories of service in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War era, an era in U.S. history that was not regarded or respected by the American people for service in a war that was dismissed and unwelcome.

My grandfather finished his furlough and reported to a center in Washington, D.C., where he was processed and prepared to deploy overseas. From there, he traveled to New York, where he was, with very little ceremony, herded aboard a troop transport, a “Liberty Ship.”

Down in the hold of the ship, he made ready, as best he could, for the trip to Europe. He was classed as one of the “replacements.” That meant he was to fill the ranks made vacant by the wounded and dead. His hammock was in a tier of four or five. He was somewhere in between, with one hammock above and two below. He had just enough room to swing himself and his duffel bag in under the one above. They were too crowded to turn over. The hold, built originally to haul other commodities, was filled to capacity with American GIs. The whistle sounded, and they felt the ship quiver as it pulled away from the dock. Up on deck, as they watched the New York City skyline slowly disappear over the horizon, a lonely feeling settled over them. They settled down, sprawling on the deck wherever they could find a place, and, at dusk, made their way, one by one, below to the hammocks in the hold which would be “home” for the next 14 days.

After arriving in Europe, my grandfather wandered through town looking for his half-track and something to eat. Finally, he found it parked along the street, but the driver was nowhere to be seen. He hunted down a “K” ration, debated a moment whether he should sit in the half-track and eat it and then catch a catnap among the blankets that were strewn all over the floor, or whether he should hunt down the driver. He decided upon the latter course.

After looking in several houses, he found the driver asleep on a bed in one of the bedrooms of a brick house. After recounting to him the escapades of the squad since they left him, he ate a bite and flopped on another bed in another room. Before long, they were rudely interrupted by an explosion just outside the house, which shook the house and sent him sprawling on the floor. After regaining composure, my grandfather crept to the window and peeked out. In the street sat the half-track, split almost in two. The shell that landed on the vehicle had lit in the driver’s seat on fire and all but demolished the vehicle. As it was examined closer later, he shuddered to think what he would have looked like if he had followed his first inclination to take a nap there. The steel armor plating on the sides of the machine was peppered with shrapnel holes, and the blankets where he would have been lying were torn to shreds.

This is just one of untold many instances where service men and women were faced with death and harm during World War II but escaped by the hand of God’s Providence.

The stories that bound our country together in the past must now be remembered and retold to bring unity once again.

Today, America faces division within our homes, workplaces, communities, and even our churches. We are searching for leaders who will not compromise truth for popularity. We are searching for fathers this Father’s Day who will boldly lead their families, defend their faith, and instill a love for the red, white, and blue.

Yet that generation of steadfast leadership is becoming increasingly rare. As many of our friends who served on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan came home to their families and their children, however, many did not return home from the battlefields, and it is our duty to carry their stories, their legacy, and their hope for a better future for their children. As we raise our children, let us raise the American flag and remember their footsteps so their sacrifice will never be in vain. It is our duty to carry their stories, their legacy, and their hope for a better future for their children.

Now more than ever, our nation needs faithful fathers, courageous leaders, and patriots willing to stand firm for faith, family, and freedom. The legacy they leave behind will shape the future of this nation for generations to come.

Eden Gordon Hill is founder and owner of Eden Gordon Media, LLC, as well as a weekend radio host at WMAL’s “The All-American Book Club,” veteran spouse, former Trump appointee, and advocate for faith, family, and freedom.

James E. Gordon, of Oxford, Pa., is a former local elected official and historian.

AUTHORS

Eden Gordon Hill and James E. Gordon

Latest Skirmish Demonstrates Why Iran Is Still the Bad Guy

June 4, 2026/in Hot Topics, Iranian influence, Islam, National Security, News, Peace Through Strength, Policy, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Terrorism, The Truth, Violence/by Family Research Council

Nearly a month after President Trump informed Congress that the Iran war is “terminated,” the belligerents continue to routinely trade fire in the Persian Gulf, as Iran refuses to abide by the ceasefire. The latest exchange of fire came Tuesday, resulting in one death and dozens of injuries after an Iranian missile struck civilian infrastructure in a country not at war with it. Iran is clearly the “bad guy,” but the breathless denunciations so freely hurled at the first insinuation of Israeli misconduct are strangely absent on the Left.

The skirmish began with Iran firing one-way attack drones at civilian shipping in the Persian Gulf. U.S. Central Command shot down three of the drones and responded with strikes on Iranian ground control stations on Qeshm Island.

After that, Iran launched a volley of projectiles toward Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Bahrain’s air defenses “intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones,” with no damage resulting.

Iran also launched a volley toward Kuwait, where the U.S. operates several military bases. Two missiles failed to reach their targets, and some were intercepted, but Kuwait had to deal with a total of 13 missiles and 17 drones.

One missile that was not intercepted crashed into Kuwait’s international airport at dawn, causing “severe material damage” and suspending air traffic. Clearly, the missile was not aimed at a U.S. military base, which would have been a legitimate military target. The Iranian attack killed one Indian national and injured 63 other people in the airport. It sounds like an open-and-shut war crime — or at least it would be, for anyone named “Israel.”

For their part, Iran pointed fingers at the U.S. Earlier on Tuesday, an American aircraft fired a missile into the engine room of a sanctioned oil tanker trying to run the U.S. blockade and reach Iran’s Kharg Island, its oil export hub. Iran claimed that it launched drones at ships in the Persian Gulf in response to this incident, and that it launched missile barrages at Bahrain and Kuwait in response to America’s retaliatory strikes.

By even issuing such an explanation, Iran continues to insult the world’s intelligence by insisting that they fall for a patent lie. Seizing or disabling ships that try to run a blockade is a basic function of maintaining a naval blockade. If there were no hazard to venturing past the U.S. Navy, then the presence of its ships would not slow traffic, and if it never made good on its threats to use force against ships that tried to slip past, then the threat of force would lose its effect.

Iran understands how this game is played. In fact, it previously blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, creating a precedent to justify America’s action. The entry to the Persian Gulf is like a high-stakes version of the playground game “sharks and minnows.” The shadowy fleet of ships aligned with Iran wants to slip past the powerful American sharks, but they understand that anyone who gets tagged in the attempt must be considered “out.”

Of course, in such a playground game, it would be entirely inappropriate for a child who was tagged out to stamp off in a huff and “retaliate” against the kid who tagged him by punching the tagger’s little sister in the face. It would be even more bizarre if he stamped off and punched some random little girl in the face and claimed that it was in retaliation. Such a child would face severe consequences, parents would be involved, and charges might even be filed. Certainly, a cloud would hang over his participation in future games.

Yet this is what Iran did Tuesday — and what it has done repeatedly and consistently since February 28. Iran’s war is with the U.S. and Israel. Yet it has fired the majority of its projectiles at defenseless shipping from unrelated nations and neutral Arab countries around the region. These are — and continued to be — unjustified acts of war, naked aggression.

The sovereign state of Iran immediately resorted to the mewling tactics of a lowly terror group — like the network of terror groups it funds. Instead of playing by the rules everyone agrees to, Iran simply delights in sadistically inflicting maximum punishment on as many people as possible. Not only that, but Iran continues to violate the ceasefire while refusing to agree to reasonable terms.

The only conclusion to draw from this situation is that Iran is the “bad guy,” which every rational American already understood Iran to be.

Yet many leftists are not acting like Iran is the “bad guy.” The loud and omnipresent denunciations of Israel — heard for the past two years in every college, urban center, street protest, and even some political campaigns — are totally lacking. Yet, compared with Iran, Israel conducts wars with the care and gentleness of Mr. Rogers.

Where are the cries of genocide, of war crimes, of demands to use America’s full power to end the evil regime? They are not there. Does this mean there is a double standard for Israel? There seems to be no other explanation. And the word for such a double standard is “anti-Semitism.”

On Wednesday, House Democrats carried a resolution to force the president to end the Iran war, with support from four Republicans. The resolution perpetuates the charade of pretending that Iran is a normal state that plays by the rules, not one that lost every play in the war and still demands to be called the victor by cheating.

Yes, Iran is certainly the “bad guy.” Will we let the bad guy win?

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

Shooting Strait: The Iranian Ceasefire That Wasn’t

May 6, 2026/in Anti-Semitism, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Iranian influence, Islam, National Security, News, Policy, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Social Issues, Socialism, Terrorism, The Truth, Violence/by Family Research Council

President Donald Trump had no sooner declared the Iran war “terminated” in a Friday letter to Congress than fighting broke out afresh. On Monday, Iranian forces chose to attack the merchant ships, the U.S. Navy, and other peaceful neighbors, and the U.S. sank six small Iranian attack boats in response. The Trump administration would rather not let such skirmishes derail the fragile ceasefire, but the Iranian regime still appears unwilling to play ball.

Two days after President Trump told Congress that hostilities with the Iranian regime were “terminated,” he announced a new operation, Project Freedom, whereby the U.S. military would create a safe corridor for civilian ships to leave the Persian Gulf. On Monday, U.S. destroyers escorted two U.S.-flagged tankers through the Strait, near the Omani shore, demonstrating that the U.S. military had cleared a “free lane” of Iranian mines. U.S. Central Command then advised commercial vessels to use the lane, while American naval vessels and military aircraft in the Strait provided a defensive shield.

For the Iranian regime, whose only remaining leverage in negotiations are the oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf, allowing America’s gambit to succeed would be effectively a final defeat. The “ceasefire” that President Trump unilaterally declared on April 7 largely consisted of the U.S. keeping its assets out of the Iranian regime’s diminished reach. But here was the U.S. Navy traipsing across Iran’s own backyard, practically daring Iran to attack. The remnants of the ruined regime reasoned they might never receive a better opportunity.

So, Iran attacked. They launched cruise missiles at American destroyers, and they launched drones on an empty Emirati tanker and a South Korean vessel trying to flee. They launched a squadron of fast attack boats — whether to lay mines, attack vessels, or capture them is unclear. And, for good measure, the Iranian regime also launched some 15 missiles and drones at its peaceful neighbor, the UAE, striking the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone on a UAE pipeline that bypasses the Strait.

Iran’s best available opportunity was still not a good one. The attack only demonstrated the regime’s impotence. The U.S. Navy intercepted the incoming missiles, and Apache helicopters sank the speedboats. Iran did manage to damage the civilian vessels and civilian targets in the UAE, but striking defenseless civilian targets is not really an impressive feat.

Iran’s pitiful provocations may elicit escalation in one form or another. President Trump declared that Iranian ships that attacked U.S. vessels would be “blown off the face of the earth,” and the furious Emiratis will insist that attacks against them must be answered. “The Iranians have fired the first shots to end the cease-fire,” observed The Wall Street Journal editors, “which is all the reason Mr. Trump needs to use the force to stop them from getting away with it again.”

However, the Trump administration has not publicly declared that Iran is in violation of the agreement. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the ceasefire “certainly holds” for now. What value there is in a “ceasefire” where both parties have resumed firing is a matter for debate.

The Trump administration’s reason for sticking to the ceasefire has nothing to do with the Iranian regime and everything to do with its domestic political situation. Finding Congress unwilling to support a campaign to finish the job, the Trump administration decided instead to tell Congress that the war was already over — whether Congress believes it or not.

“The greatest enemy is our own political dynamics,” lamented Michael Rubin, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, on “Washington Watch.” “The Iranians know that the Iranians have lost by any metric. It’s quite amazing how many people think that the United States has been stalemated.”

“In this case, the Iranians have lost a top three or four layers of their leadership,” he explained. “They’ve lost most of their military equipment, they’ve lost their economy, and so forth. We are in a position to dictate to them. We shouldn’t go into a game of poker having a full house or a royal flush and be out-bluffed by a pair of twos.”

“Historically, the American people have a short temperament for these types of things,” agreed Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “You get a new administration, and they’ll completely reverse course.”

The Iranian regime is likely counting on just that. “Their usual playbook … is simply to run down the clock in the hope that the people with whom they’re negotiating will eventually move on,” Rubin responded. “Because, of course, while Iran is a dictatorship, we’re a democracy. And therefore, what they’re doing is fishing for a future official who might rescue them from the mess which the Iranians now find themselves in.”

Of course, such a claim requires a definition of the Iranian regime — some understanding of who is actually running the country. Over the past month, the Iranian regime has maintained a defiant military posture, even with “certain conversations taking place, but the actions are not meshing with the conversations,” Perkins described. To him, this suggested that “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is actually driving the train.”

“That is precisely correct,” assented former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “I would add, I think that’s largely been true for 47 years. I think it has been the hardest of the hardcore that’s been driving this, with a theocratic veneer that’s now been shed because of the ayatollah’s demise.”

When dealing with the Iranian regime, said the man who actually did so, it’s important to remember that “there aren’t any ‘moderates’ … in the sense that we would understand people who don’t want to destroy the nation of Israel, who aren’t trying to create a caliphate. They believe all the same things that the radicals do. Their methodologies, their timing may be different, but there is not a leader inside of Iran that doesn’t believe that the Islamic Republic of Iran is entitled to rule the Middle East, and that Israel has no place in the region.”

“The IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is a powerful, capable military,” but “we’ve taken out much of that,” Pompeo described. However, in addition, IRGC operatives “are important politically — that is, they have the guns inside. They have capacity to control the populace. But they’re also an economic juggernaut. They own as much as one-fifth or one-third of the Iranian economy.”

“I happen to agree with Secretary Pompeo on this,” Rubin confirmed. “When some people have said that Donald Trump’s actions have only radicalized the regime, I don’t think they’re actually seeing the big picture. Iran, of course, is a conscript society. And therefore, you either were conscripted into the army or you had to join the Revolutionary Guard. … And as soon as the bombs started dropping, these guys who weren’t true believers simply faded into the woodwork. What remained were the true believers.”

Rubin also explained how the IRGC cultivates such “true believers” in its failing ideology. “You can go into that bubble when you’re eight years old, because they run the equivalent of evil Boy Scout programs,” he said. “Then they have student clubs. They run their own universities. And so, if you’ve been indoctrinated since the age of eight, you may actually believe what may sound like nonsense to us, which so many previous administrations in Washington were willing to dismiss as rhetorical flourish. They’re not rhetorical flourish.”

The ideological commitment of those driving Iranian policy is one reason why the Islamic regime has so stubbornly refused to negotiate a surrender of its fissile material — even after its military was all but destroyed. In its latest 14-point peace proposal, “almost each of those 14 points” was “so ridiculous on the face that really what the Iranians are trying to do is signal to the United States they’re not interested in negotiating,” said Rubin. “Ideologically, they will never accept a solution.”

Iran’s ideological inflexibility is a “conundrum that President Trump and, frankly, every president before him” has faced, said Pompeo. Rubin agreed, “The United States is very bad, traditionally, at understanding the ideology of its adversaries. And Donald Trump … is a fabulous negotiator … from this milieu of real estate dealing and so forth. But … you can’t be transactional with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

This belated realization prompted Trump to blockade Iran’s ports, deciding that the only way to break the IRGC’s hold on power was to box in the economic engine they control. “President Trump is on the right track,” cheered Pompeo. “The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is certainly impacting their revenue, their ability to pay their soldiers, their proxy forces.”

“The Iranians have never been in such poor economic straits,” reiterated Rubin. “The Iranian currency is now 1.8 million to the dollar. At the time of the revolution, it was 70 to the dollar. It’s in freefall. They can’t export their oil. They can’t import their gasoline. And remember, the Persian Gulf might be huge, but there’s only about 10 Iranian ports there that we need to control. And, right now, we’re controlling them.”

“If we’re going to negotiate, we negotiate from a position of strength,” Rubin urged. The blockade achieves that, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz strips away the last bit of leverage the Iranian regime has. Neither measure, however, is strictly peaceful. Even still, Pompeo said, “There is no negotiated solution that actually gets to a place where the regime will acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, that the United States should exist, and that the Iranian regime should not be in possession of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Pompeo and Rubin both agreed that weakening the IRGC also opened a pathway for internal revolt — though a slim one. “There’s an analogy with regard to Serbia,” Rubin proposed, “where, when Bill Clinton bombed Serbia, he didn’t unseat Slobodan Milosevic. That happened the next year because Slobodan Milosevic wasn’t able to pay the salaries, and a lot of his allies had simply been killed in this bombing.”

However, “the difference between Slobodan Milosevic and the Iranian leadership is that Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian nationalists weren’t willing to wholesale slaughter everyone in their country,” Rubin cautioned. “It appears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are. And, even if the Iranians among them aren’t, they’re importing Hezbollah and Iraqi militias to do the same thing.”

An internal uprising “is possible,” said Pompeo. “I don’t think that’s the most likely outcome, but it’s the one that we should support and pray and root for.”

Rather, the aim of the American blockade is to so weaken Iran that the IRGC is forced to agree to a deal which is effectively a surrender, Pompeo suggested. “I think that’s how this ultimately ends up being resolved. And that means more time, a little bit more patience by the American people — some more cost to the American consumers, for sure. But this is a resolve that I think is really important for Western civilization to achieve.”

However, he warned that such a “surrender” would not represent a change in heart or ideology, only a temporary surrender to circumstances. “So long as the regime is in power, they may pause for two years or five years or 10, but their determination will remain,” he said. “And so, from a Western perspective, the objective is to wipe out their capability materially. Get a verification regime around their nuclear program so that there’s no enrichment, no capacity to actually ever threaten the world again with a nuclear weapon. And then, be mindful.”

There is no permanent peace with the radical Islamic regime that rules Iran, only ceasefires of more or less value, lasting for shorter or longer periods of time.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

The Iran War Didn’t End — It Changed Shape

April 30, 2026/in America 250, Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, Islam, National Security, News, Policy, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Terrorism, The Truth, Violence/by Family Research Council

Hours after President Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Talks in Pakistan collapsed without an agreement. The nuclear stockpile is buried underground and unaccounted for. And Beijing is already cashing in.

If that sounds like peace, we have badly redefined the word.

What we are witnessing is not the end of this war. It is a transition into a more complicated — and potentially more dangerous — phase of it. The visible conflict is winding down. The harder one has already begun.

Our Military Did Its Job

Let me be direct about what our forces accomplished. Navy, Army, and Air Force crews operating in the constrained waters of the Persian Gulf and aircrews executing precision strikes imposed real costs on a dangerous regime. They degraded Iran’s conventional navy — over 150 ships now rest on the bottom. They demonstrated American reach. They restored a measure of deterrence. That matters.

But history is unambiguous on one point: military success does not automatically produce strategic success. Clausewitz understood this two centuries ago. A war is not defined by targets destroyed. It is defined by the political outcome achieved. By that standard, this conflict remains unresolved.

The Score So Far

Iran’s conventional military capabilities have been degraded. Its proxies have been pressured. Those are real, hard-won achievements. But the regime is still standing. Its nuclear ambitions are unresolved. Its grip on the world’s most critical shipping lane is intact.

The Clausewitz test makes it clear: degrading Iran’s arsenal is not the same as changing Iran’s political behavior. Regime survival is Tehran’s definition of victory. By that measure, they are still in the game.

The nuclear question is the sharpest edge of this problem. Before the war, Iran held nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium just short of weapons-grade purity, according to the IAEA. U.S. and Israeli strikes hit above-ground facilities, but the IAEA’s director general stated plainly that the program cannot be eliminated by airstrikes — that the material remains largely where it was, perhaps buried deep at Isfahan and Natanz. That is not a resolved problem. It is a deferred one.

The Strait Is the Center of Gravity

Iran’s conventional navy is gone. What remains is more dangerous in different ways. IRGC fast-attack craft now serve as the backbone of Tehran’s remaining naval strategy — armed speedboats and gunboats capable of harassment, boarding, and seizure in narrow waters where our carriers cannot maneuver effectively. Washington Institute analyst Farzin Nadimi has noted that Iran’s IRGC Navy relies on large numbers of small, fast-attack craft — with estimates ranging into the thousands of vessels — designed for swarm tactics in the Persian Gulf. That is not a fleet you eliminate with a two-week air campaign.

The strategic weight of this is enormous. The Strait handles roughly one-fifth of global oil supply and the same share of LNG during peacetime. Approximately 2,000 ships remain stranded in the Gulf, waiting for clearance from two rival militaries. The International Energy Agency has called this the largest oil supply disruption in history — larger than the 1970s shocks. Tehran knows this and is playing it deliberately.

There is, however, a structural consequence of this crisis that works against Iran long-term. Gulf states have told CNBC that Iran’s behavior has created a “huge trust gap” that may never be repaired, and they are already acting on it. Saudi Arabia has pushed its East-West Pipeline to full capacity — seven million barrels a day — routing exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu and bypassing the Strait entirely. Iraq is reopening the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline through Turkey to the Mediterranean. Every barrel that moves through those alternative corridors is a barrel that no longer depends on Iranian goodwill. Iran’s chokehold is loosening — slowly — and the Gulf states intend to make that permanent.

China Is Watching — and Winning

The dimension Washington is not discussing loudly enough is China. In “The New AI Cold War,” I argue that great-power competition plays out in every theater simultaneously. Iran is a classroom as much as a battlefield, and Beijing is studying every lesson.

Beijing purchased roughly 80 to 90% of Iran’s exported oil going into this conflict and used a shadow fleet to assemble a strategic petroleum reserve of approximately 1.2 billion barrels — about 109 days of seaborne import cover — at below-market rates, using the very oil Western sanctions were designed to strand. China entered this war with full tanks. It is learning that the United States can dominate the opening phase of a conventional conflict — and that converting military dominance into decisive political outcomes is far harder. Those observations feed directly into Beijing’s calculus on Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The Road Ahead

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News this week that Iran’s fractured leadership is the biggest obstacle to a durable agreement. They are all hardliners, he said — but split between those who understand they need to run a country and economy, and those “completely motivated by theology” with “an apocalyptic vision of the future.” The latter holds ultimate power. That does not produce flexible negotiating partners.

Iran’s strategy has never changed. It does not need to defeat the United States. It needs to endure — to survive long enough to rebuild, reposition, and reassert. That game is measured in years, not weeks.

The path forward is straightforward on paper. Maintain the naval blockade. Treat the Strait as a permanent strategic priority, not a temporary inconvenience. Keep degrading Iran’s proxy network. And stand firm on nuclear issues. The IAEA chief has already warned that any deal without inspection provisions is an “illusion of an agreement” — a lesson learned the hard way after Desert Storm, when inspectors discovered how far Iraq’s secret weapons programs had advanced.

The Test Ahead

President Trump made the right decision to act. Our military executed with distinction. But the test of strategy is not the first eight weeks.

Iran has been checked — not changed. The regime is still standing. The Strait is still contested. The uranium stockpile is still buried underground, unverified, and unresolved.

This conflict has not ended. It has changed shape. The first war was fought with force. The second will be fought with patience, discipline, and strategic clarity. That is the harder war to win. We had better be prepared to fight it.

AUTHOR

Robert Maginnis

Robert Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council, and the author of 14 books. His latest, “The New AI Cold War,” releases in April 2026.

The Backbone of America: The Military Spouse and Their Superpower

April 28, 2026/in America 250, Featured, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Peace Through Strength, The Truth/by Family Research Council

The military spouse journey is unlike any other. They have written their own handbooks on life; they trailblazed before their time with visions of a greater world for their children. They have pried open doors to military spouse career and employment opportunities that are, nine times out of 10, the overlooked column.

The month of May is known for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, but there is another day of recognition on the calendar that is often overlooked by a digitally distracted nation. National Military Spouse Appreciation Day takes place each year on the Friday before Mother’s Day. This year, we will celebrate this important day on Friday, May 8. For centuries, military spouses have stood unwavering beside our troops, carrying the vital charge of preserving our nation’s values on the home front.

The capes these heroes wear may not be shiny or glistening, but the heroes donning these capes are fierce and are covered in God’s grace. There are nearly one million military spouses who serve alongside our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. Their gift to this nation is a quiet influence, strong resilience, and selfless, unassuming service. This source of strength is often overlooked, but it is the backbone of America.

I am a proud veteran spouse, the wife of an Iraq War Army veteran, the daughter-in-law of a United States Marine, and the granddaughter of two United States Army veterans. My community is the military spouse and veteran community — the unseen people who live a life of intentional and voluntary service, too. Our “deployments” look a little different and are less visible to those around us. We support those who are serving and have served this nation we love.

My purpose and heart here is to share my personal experience and to uplift my fellow military spouses to impart a greater understanding of the importance of these heroes. Military Spouse Appreciation Day is not another “Hallmark Card” holiday; rather, it is the purposeful recognition of the spouse who is on duty 24/7/365. The ones who quietly carry out a “hurry-up-and-wait,” “I’ve-got-this-covered,” life of selfless service. They are a testament to the enduring strength and steadfast resolve of those who sustain our nation through every deployment and embody a quiet, unwavering courage of their own.

Living in and among the military community has been the way of my life for many decades. In Washington, D.C., where I served from Capitol Hill to the White House, I served alongside many military spouses who opened my eyes to an entirely new spectrum of selfless service. I have seen them in action during natural disasters, the loss of a spouse, walking with military members and/or their families through long-term sickness, and the ongoing and problematic situation of unemployment due to frequent permanent change of station (PCS) moves. I have watched the resilience demonstrated by spouses who come together to support one another and their families. When a spouse is deployed, life must continue — and it does — quietly, seamlessly, invisibly. It truly is a testament to the determination and endurance of the military spouse.

The Department of Labor reports that military spouses continue to face a high rate of unemployment, estimated at 21-25% — roughly five to six times higher than the national average. While these rates have not officially moved since 2015, I have seen and experienced this challenge up close and personal since at least early 2012. This number represents 64% of military spouses who are either under-employed or seeking work. It’s just one more uphill fight for the military spouse. Their capes might not seem perfect or shiny to many in the corporate world, but when you hire a military spouse, you hire an individual marked by exceptional dedication and unwavering commitment to their work. This is something for the boardrooms of America to consider.

These unemployment numbers are disgraceful. This is something for America’s boardrooms to consider, especially as we have a White House led by a billionaire businessman and a Congress led by small business leaders and CEOs canvassing the nation.

I have watched the veteran spouse community surround their own when one’s hero comes home with life-threatening injuries. They provide a source of strength and dignity that many civilians may not recognize. It’s the “hurry up and wait,” “get over yourself” mentality. It says, “I have a family to raise and support.” Without hesitation or complaint, they carry a deep resilience that can only be learned and developed through times of testing and hardship. This may seem like a recipe for spousal success that the modern world would look at as weakness, but, in actuality, these spouses are the strongest people I know.

The endurance and superpower of the military spouse is unmatched and deserves our full respect. The very heartbeat and backbone of these United States is the selfless service of our military spouses and children. The military spouse community exhibits a quiet strength, resilience, and vigilance. It is the true backbone of this nation.

These spouses don superhero capes that may be invisible to most, but their dignity, grace, and unapologetic love for this nation stand the test of time. And so today, and every day, I honor those who have gone before me, and those who will come behind me, as they raise their hand in honor and sacrifice for the red, white, and blue.

AUTHOR

Eden Gordon Hill

RELATED VIDEO: Melania Trump: Saluting Military Spouses

Stop Listening to the Wrong Experts

April 14, 2026/in America 250, Featured, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, The Truth/by Family Research Council

Every night for the past six weeks, cable news has assembled its panels — retired generals and decorated pilots breaking down the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, the missile exchanges across the Gulf, China’s shadow role in arming Tehran’s defenses. Confident. Credentialed. And often missing the most critical part of the picture.

I know, because I have been one of them.

Since 1993, I have provided military analysis on television — cable news, network programs, the full circuit. I know this world firsthand: the green room, the earpiece, the producer counting you down to air, the certainty expected of you in 90 seconds on a situation that took years to develop. In early 2003, I sat in a Pentagon briefing on Iraq’s alleged weapons stockpiles, looked at satellite photographs and classified assessments, and walked out certain that the analysts present — myself included — were being steered toward a conclusion the evidence did not fully support. I said nothing.

The New York Times later exposed it in David Barstow’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2008 investigation. I am not proud of that silence. The problem I was part of hasn’t been fixed. The Iran war has made it urgent.

The Mismatch Nobody Names

Since the strikes began February 28, television audiences have watched combat veterans describe operational details — carrier strike group movements, strike package composition, air defense suppression. That analysis matters. But the questions consuming Washington right now are different: Why did Iranian missile accuracy surprise U.S. planners? What is Beijing doing — intelligence support, spare parts, diplomatic cover — and why? What drove Tehran’s calculus on the Strait of Hormuz? What do the April 7 ceasefire terms signal about the next phase?

Those are not military operations questions. They require people who have lived inside those societies, learned those languages, and spent their careers reading those political systems. Researchers at War on the Rocks and investigative journalists at The Washington Post have spent years documenting how systematically television fails to make this distinction. The current crisis is why that failure matters.

The Experts Nobody Books

The U.S. military has built exactly the right people for this moment. They are called Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) — Functional Area 48 — the most rigorously trained regional specialists in uniform.

FAOs spend three to four years in a structured pipeline before advising anyone: intensive language training at the Defense Language Institute, a fully-funded graduate degree in their assigned region, and up to 12 months living and working on the ground inside the country they will spend their careers analyzing. They serve as defense attachés in U.S. embassies and as political-military advisors to combatant commanders. They bring the cultural, historical, and religious context that no amount of combat experience can substitute for.

The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies calls them “strategic scouts” — officers who read political and military terrain from the inside out. There are roughly 1,200 Army FAOs either qualified or in training right now. Almost none of them are on television explaining why Chinese satellite systems enhanced Iranian targeting accuracy, or what a ceasefire brokered through Pakistan means for Beijing’s influence in the Gulf. That is not an oversight. It is a failure with consequences that show up in body counts.

What Philip Tetlock Knew

The political scientist Philip Tetlock put hard numbers to this problem in his landmark study “Expert Political Judgment”: credentialed experts’ geopolitical forecasts are barely better than chance. Worse, the analysts who television values most — those who deliver the most confident, unqualified assessments — perform worst of all. Confidence reads as authority. Authority generates bookings. Bookings generate more perceived authority. Accuracy gets crowded out.

As Task & Purpose has reported, members of Congress and their staffers watch the same cable news as everyone else. The experts assembled nightly shape legislative priorities, budget votes, and policy judgments. In the run-up to Iraq, voices like mine made a contested decision look more settled than it was. Right now, with U.S. forces committed in the Gulf, a fragile ceasefire holding on borrowed time, and Beijing watching whether American attention has drifted far enough to move on Taiwan, getting the analysis wrong carries a cost that doesn’t show up in ratings.

What to Demand

Combat veterans belong in the public square. Their expertise on operations, readiness, and the human cost of war is irreplaceable. That is not what’s in dispute.

The point is simpler: rank is not regional expertise. Before accepting an analyst’s authority on Iran, China, or what comes next, ask whether this person has studied this country in its language and on the ground — and whether they have financial ties to defense contractors with a stake in the policy being discussed. Then ask whose expertise is missing from the panel entirely.

We would never accept a general practitioner’s opinion on a surgery he has never performed. The men and women in uniform — and the families who send them — deserve at least that same standard from the voices shaping the decisions that put them in harm’s way.

Proverbs 11:14 says there is safety in a multitude of counselors — but only when those counselors are honest and qualified to speak. Six weeks into a Middle East war with no clear off-ramp, the gap between the experts we are hearing and the experts we need has never been more visible or more costly.

The wrong experts are still talking. Someone should stop listening.

AUTHOR

Robert Maginnis

UH OH…The Iran War Is Much Bigger Than You Think!

Congressman Keith Self Calls for Banning Islamic Laws in All U.S. courts

Cracks Start to Show in Iran’s Shaky Truce with Trump

April 12, 2026/in Anti-Semitism, Culture War, Hot Topics, Iranian influence, Islam, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Terrorism, Violence/by Family Research Council

To the entire planet’s relief, Artemis II isn’t flying back to an Earth marked by a gigantic atomic plume. While no one knows what the president had planned, whatever ballistic holocaust that Donald Trump threatened for Iran on Tuesday night didn’t happen. Ninety minutes before his deadline for bombing the country into extinction, the White House declared a buzzer-beating two-week ceasefire. And while the announcement provided some much-needed breathing space for the Middle East, it also triggered an onslaught of questions about just how sincere the prospect of peace could actually be.

Unlike the president, who went from proposing the region’s annihilation to suggesting the region was about to enter its “Golden Age,” others are wondering if the two nations can even make it 10 days without trading fire. While coming to the table is a savvy way to buy time (Hamas made a professional sport of it), who’s to say Iran is interested in upholding any sort of treaty with the West? As Jim Geraghty at NRO reminds the optimists, a recurring theme of the regime is its willingness to break just about every peace deal it’s ever signed.

But then, how exactly does one have “peace” with Islamist radicals honor-bound to annihilate every non-Muslim on the planet? No one is quite sure. Maybe that’s why Vice President J.D. Vance was quick to describe the current agreement as a “fragile truce.” “If the Iranians are willing in good faith to work with us, I think we can make an agreement,” he said. “If they’re going to lie, if they’re going to cheat, if they’re trying then to prevent even the fragile truce that we’ve set up from taking place, then they’re not going to be happy,” he warned, “because what the president has also shown is that we still have clear military, diplomatic and, maybe most importantly, we have extraordinary economic leverage.”

Right now, the two sides seem to be oceans apart on terms. To hear Trump tell it, the United States will be “hangin’ around” the Strait of Hormuz to “make sure that everything goes well” in the strategic waterway. In America’s reportedly 15-point plan, there’s obviously interest in making sure that Iran never acquires — or tries to acquire — nuclear weapons again. The president is also insisting on removing the remains of Iran’s “previous stockpiles” of uranium. Then, of course, there are the concerns about the regime’s cooperation in the global oil trade.

By Wednesday afternoon, the regime was already breaking its word on the Strait of Hormuz, closing it in retaliation for Israel’s continued bombardment of Lebanon, and striking energy complexes across Kuwait, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. “That is completely unacceptable,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued. “And again, this is a case of what they’re saying publicly is different privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the Strait today. And I will reiterate the president’s expectation and demand that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately, quickly, and safely. That is his expectation.”

Meanwhile, Iran has its own list of 10 mind-boggling demands — nine and a half of which, Geraghty underscores, are complete non-starters.

“The U.S. should commit, in principle, to guarantee non-aggression
Iran’s continued control of the Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s uranium enrichment right should be accepted
Lifting of all primary sanctions
Lifting of all secondary sanctions
Termination of all U.N. Security Council resolutions
Termination of all IAEA Board of Governors resolutions
Payment of compensation for damages inflicted on Iran
Withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region
Cessation of the war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic resistance in Lebanon” (aka Hezbollah)

“A U.S. concession to just about any of them would represent a dreadful setback to American national security interests,” he underscores. “This is an ayatollah’s wish list. Late last month, I warned, ‘What’s left of the Iranian regime will make promises that they have no intention of keeping, lie at the negotiating table and in television interviews, cheat, steal, block international inspectors — you name it.’ In light of this,” Geraghty shook his head, “it is fair to wonder what the point of negotiating with them is.”

Recognizing that Iran is likely not acting in good faith, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday that American troops are “not going anywhere” until this deal is iron-clad. “Our troops are prepared to defend, prepared to go on offense, prepared to restart at a moment’s notice with whatever target package would be needed,” he insisted. “What we know is that Iran is going to say a lot of things. A lot of people are going to say a lot of things, claim a lot of things.” As for the Strait of Hormuz, Hegseth shrugged. “What has been agreed to, what’s been stated, is the strait is open. Our military is watching. I’m sure their military is watching, but commerce will flow. And that’s what you saw the market reacts to, is that reality.”

The tenuous deal did seem to at least temporarily placate Wall Street and the oil industry, where prices dropped $100 a barrel. Financial markets around the world were also up after Trump postponed Iran’s obliteration. But, as experts are quick to point out, “Keep in mind: there are a lot of oil refineries, natural gas facilities, industrial sites, and ports in the Arab states that have been damaged in the past five weeks, and repairing those sites will take time.”

Speaking of those damaged sites, the reality of what the U.S. and Israeli militaries accomplished in these few weeks is astounding. While the media spares no ink praising Trump’s unprecedented offensive against the number one state sponsor of terrorism, the breadth of destruction in Iran is impressive by any metric. Let’s review, Noah Rothman urges. “Iran’s central nervous system has been severed. … Its command-and-control, intelligence, and domestic security apparatuses have been severely degraded. Its navy and air force are gone. Its air defense network and nuclear weapons programs — two pricey sources of regime prestige — are in ruins. Its petrochemical and steel industries have been badly damaged, truncating two major sources of foreign revenue that sustain the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” When the Iranian people “come for their tormenters again,” he added, pointing to the massive protests, “they will do so knowing the state terror apparatus that has haunted them for generations is a shell of what it once was.”

Operation Epic Fury has been, by all accounts, a groundbreaking success. How it ends, however, matters — a fact that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reiterated to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch.” Look, the senator admitted, “I prefer diplomacy to end the reign of terror of the Iranian regime. But the goal is to end the Iranian regime’s terror tactics. And if we can do it through diplomacy, fine.” But, he cautioned, “The president said today that the 10-point Iranian plan he didn’t support. … He’d like to end this well, but it takes two to tango. And I’m very suspicious that Iran will ever do this,” he cautioned. “It’s in their DNA to want to acquire a nuclear weapon because this is not a normal regime.”

For Iran, Graham insisted, “It’s a face-saving deal. [But] I don’t care about saving face for somebody who’s killed 45,000 of their own people [and who’s] got American blood dripping from their hands.”

To those on the Left and around the world who shamed Trump for acting against Iran, Graham’s colleague, Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) reminds everyone, “For 47 years, they’ve been shooting at American servicemembers and [at others] in the neighborhood. They’ve been a menace, to say the least.” And to suggest that we shouldn’t have to strike, “Remember,” he told Perkins on “This Week on Capitol Hill,” “that’s what George Bush thought when the Twin Towers came down. That’s what Roosevelt thought when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That’s what we thought in World War I, ‘That’s not our problem.’”

It’s much less costly in lives and dollars, he underscored, “to hit them before they hit us.” But then, Cramer said, “I think you have to make [the case] over and over and over again, because our friends [in the] mainstream media are never going to tell that story.”

Perkins agreed, pointing to the run-up to World War II. “Had people actually listened to what Adolf Hitler was saying … his intentions were very clear, but yet no one wanted to act. And I do think it’s much easier in hindsight to say, ‘Well, we should have acted.’ And there’s a lot of criticism when people do act [from people saying], ‘We didn’t need to act.’” In this instance, the evidence was incredibly “strong.”

For now, the fate of the Middle East — and Israel especially — hangs in the balance. There will be no freedom in Iran, religious or otherwise, if the regime “ever comes back,” Graham stressed. “It’s a nightmare for Israel. We’re very close to finishing this regime off. Let’s finish them off if they don’t do a good deal.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

Iran’s New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei Secretly Owns a £100M+ Luxury Empire in London

PERKINS: God Hears the Prayers of Just Warriors

April 3, 2026/in America 250, Hot Topics, Must Read, Religion, The Truth/by Family Research Council

When God delivered the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt and defeated Pharaoh’s army, Moses responded with a song, recorded in Exodus 15. He declares, “The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is His name.”

That description is revealing. Scripture repeatedly presents God as one who defends His people, upholds justice, and ultimately triumphs over evil. He is not a distant observer of human conflict, but a righteous judge who acts in history.

And this imagery is not confined to the Old Testament. In Revelation 19, Jesus Himself is depicted as a warrior riding a white horse, bringing judgment against the nations, with a sword proceeding from His mouth. The biblical witness is consistent: God is both Redeemer and Righteous Judge.

War, therefore, is a tragic but real feature of a fallen world. The Bible does not ignore it — it regulates it. From these biblical principles, Augustine of Hippo articulated what would become known as Just War Theory, later refined by Thomas Aquinas. This framework has guided much of Western moral reasoning about war for centuries, recognizing that while war is never ideal, it may at times be necessary to restrain evil and protect the innocent.

Which is why recent comments from Pope Leo XIV in a Palm Sunday homily are both puzzling and concerning. He stated, in part, that Jesus “rejects war” and does not listen to the prayers of those who wage it.

Was the Allied effort in World War II — undertaken to stop Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the Third Reich — contrary to the will of God? Were the prayers of leaders and soldiers, offered in humility and desperation, somehow rejected?

On June 6, 1944, as American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, Franklin D. Roosevelt led the nation in prayer. He asked God’s blessing on those risking their lives to defeat tyranny and secure freedom. It was not a prayer for conquest — it was a prayer for justice, for deliverance, and for peace.

Likewise, during the brutal winter of the Battle of the Bulge, George Patton called for prayer. Facing impossible conditions, he urged his troops to seek God’s intervention. Two hundred and fifty thousand copies of that prayer were distributed to the soldiers of the Third Army.

And when the weather broke and the tide of battle turned, Patton famously remarked to his chaplain, “Well, Padre, our prayers worked.”

And thank God they did.

Scripture gives us confidence in this very truth. As the Apostle John writes in 1 John 5, if we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us — and if He hears us, we have what we have asked of Him.

That is the key: according to His will.

Not every war is just. Not every cause is righteous. But when those entrusted with authority act to restrain evil, defend the innocent, and pursue a just peace, they do not stand counter to God, they stand within the very purposes of His justice.

And in those moments, prayer is not rejected — it is heard.

The question is not whether God hears the prayers of those in battle.

The question is whether those who lead — and those who fight — are aligned with the will of the One who is both Prince of Peace and the righteous defender of the innocent.

When they are, they can pray with confidence.

And history suggests — He answers.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

Truth Matters in the Iran War — and Americans Aren’t Getting It

March 27, 2026/in America 250, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Iranian influence, Islam, Marxism, Must Read, Propaganda, Socialism, Techno-Fascism, The Truth/by Family Research Council

Truth matters. Especially when a nation is at war.

Too often, however, the truth is the first casualty. Americans have seen this before. They are seeing it again.

I know this landscape. From inside the national security establishment, I watched from the Pentagon the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. A narrative hardened — Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an urgent, immediate threat. That narrative was false. The war it justified cost 4,418 American lives, another 31,994 wounded and trillions of dollars, and reshaped U.S. foreign policy for a generation.

That is not ancient history. That is institutional memory the United States is obligated to apply.

Let me be clear: Iran is not an innocent actor. For decades, Tehran has functioned as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, funding Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. I saw firsthand in Iraq how Iranian-backed forces killed hundreds of American service members. The regime is dangerous. I argued as much in Fox News Digital after Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan.

Recognizing a threat is not the same as justifying a war.

That is where the question of truth becomes central.

The Trump administration’s core case for attacking rested on the claim that Iran was racing toward a deployable nuclear weapon. The intelligence record is inconsistent with that claim. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 18, 2026, and when Senator Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) asked directly whether the intelligence community assessed Iran as posing an “imminent nuclear threat,” Director Gabbard deflected: “The only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.” More striking, her written testimony stated Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been “obliterated” after last year’s strikes and that there had been “no efforts” to rebuild it — language she omitted from her oral remarks. When pressed, she cited time constraints. That explanation raises more questions than it answers.

The intelligence community’s 2025 annual threat assessment said plainly that Iran was “not building a nuclear weapon.” Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News in February 2026 that Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material.” Those two positions cannot both be correct. The American people deserve to know which one their government believed before launching this war.

I argued in Fox News last summer that while the June 2025 strikes inflicted significant damage on Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, the program was not eliminated. That assessment has held. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi confirmed this past week that Iran retains the knowledge, the material, and the industrial capability to rebuild. Strikes can delay a program. They cannot erase the scientists, the expertise, or the dispersed uranium stockpile—much of it buried beyond the reach of any bomb in the American arsenal.

The role of allied intelligence in shaping this conflict also deserves honest examination. Israel is a close partner and, as I have argued before, a vital ally. But shared interests are not identical interests. Intelligence assessments from allied services have been wrong before—the lead-up to the Iraq War demonstrated that conclusively. Israeli concern about Iran’s nuclear trajectory clearly drove pressure for military action. Acknowledging that is not anti-Israel. It is pro-American. Our responsibility is to make decisions based on American national interests, independently evaluated.

The war itself is expanding in ways the administration’s opening statements did not anticipate. As I wrote for Fox News last week, the U.S.-Israeli air campaign has struck more than 15,000 targets, wrecked Iran’s navy, and reduced Tehran’s ballistic missile launches by 90%. Those are real battlefield achievements. But the Strait of Hormuz — the chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply moves — is now heavily restricted and actively contested, and oil has surged above $100 a barrel. Even as diplomacy is discussed publicly — including reports of a multi-point proposal from Washington — Iran denies that meaningful talks are underway. The precision munitions being consumed in this campaign will take years to replace. Every Tomahawk fired over Tehran is one less available for the Taiwan Strait.

Now the Pentagon is deploying two Marine Expeditionary Units to the region — the 31st MEU from Japan aboard USS Tripoli and a second unit from Camp Pendleton — placing roughly 4,700 Marines trained for amphibious assault within striking distance of Iranian coastal targets. In addition, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division — America’s rapid-response ground force —are now moving into the region, further expanding potential options beyond air and naval operations. The president says he is not putting troops on the ground. That may be true today. But the deployment of amphibious and airborne forces capable of seizing key terrain is not a symbolic move. It introduces exactly the contingency the president has repeatedly said he intends to avoid.

The war has been ongoing for nearly a month. The battlefield results are real. The strategy is not. Is the objective to degrade Iran’s military capability? Neutralize its nuclear program? Open the Strait? Force regime change? Each of those goals carries a different cost, a different timeline, and a different measure of success. The administration has not answered those questions publicly. Calling that “messaging” is too generous. It is opacity dressed in press briefings.

Military force can weaken a regime. It cannot govern the vacuum that follows. Strikes can destroy facilities. They cannot engineer political succession, resolve factional competition inside a fractured regime, or guarantee that what replaces the Islamic Republic serves American interests. I made that argument on Fox News last summer. Nothing in the past three weeks has changed it.

The American people are not getting a clear, honest account of what this war is for, what it will cost, or how it ends. They were not given that account in 2003, either. We have been down this road before. The obligation is not to walk it blindly again.

AUTHOR

Robert Maginnis

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Battlefield Triumph, Diplomatic Puzzles: The Big Picture of Operation Epic Fury

March 27, 2026/in America 250, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Islam, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Propaganda, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Terrorism, Violence/by Family Research Council

As the mainstream media tells it, Operation Epic Fury is “quickly becoming a disaster.” “The U.S. has been caught flat-footed.” “Helpless America” cowers before “a bullying Iran.” The whole operation is one giant “miscalculation.” Every armchair doctor prescribes the same remedy: the Trump administration should declare defeat, take its over-priced toys back to the home barracks, and drink its sorrows away from a stream of self-flagellating tears. How dare the object of all this Derangement Syndrome ever believe America could be a winner again?

The simple answer is that President Trump dares to believe in America because America is awesome, and because our unparalleled military is currently putting on a once-in-a-generation display of dominance. The media is hung up on every small mishap, the side-effect of rising oil prices, and the unknowns about what the Iranians are thinking or where their surviving leadership is hiding. “The proper term for this is the fog of war,” Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, explained on “Washington Watch.” “And it happens in every conflict. But … all the uncertainty, all the churn, all the turmoil is being amplified by social media, and by the way, the conflict is being reported.”

“If you break through the noise, and if you take a look at what’s actually happening — if you listen to political leaders, it’s not so clear — if you listen to military leaders, it’s actually very clear … that there’s a sort of a clear, methodical plan,” argued Berman. “And it’s progressing ‘at pace.’ … It’s very clear that the plan is phased, and it’s methodical.”

“The first phase was that strategic surprise that we saw at the end of February with the decapitation of the regime, the killing of Iran’s supreme leader,” Berman listed. “The second phase is what we’re nearing the end of now, which is the elimination of Iran’s offensive capabilities: its ability to shoot drones, to fire missiles, to hold American allies and American assets in the region at risk. And what comes next is the elimination of Iran’s defensive capabilities, basically degrading Iran’s defense-industrial base so Iran can’t rebuild those capabilities.”

National Review’s Noah Rothman records that the initial decapitation strikes “neutralized roughly 40 senior Iranian leadership figures,” followed by “Iran’s armed forces and intelligence leaders, national security figureheads, senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij paramilitary commanders, and the brainpower behind Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”

In the second and third weeks of war, Rothman continued, the U.S. and Israel completely demolished both the Iranian Air Force and its Navy of 120 ships. They disabled most of Iran’s air and missile bases. And, of course, “Iran’s once formidable network of terrorist proxies across the Middle East was decimated” over the past two years of war.

From there, Operation Epic Fury began targeting Iran’s military infrastructure, targeting nuclear facilities, “missile-production facilities, drone manufacturers, explosives-production plants, and sensitive electronics developers,” Rothman added. “Before the end of the third week of fighting, the United States had achieved command of the skies in southern Iran sufficient to deploy vulnerable air assets” that could strafe attack boats, shoot drones in flight, or drop bombs without stealth technology. The U.S. and Israel have eliminated 70% of Iran’s missile launchers, struck buried missile garages, and loiter above bunkers watching for activity.

All this was achieved with only a handful of U.S. deaths and a few hundred injuries. From a tactical perspective, it’s hard to imagine how Operation Epic Fury could have been any more successful. “[Twenty-five] days in, the greatest military the world has ever known is ahead of schedule and performing exceptionally day by day,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt exulted this week. “From the outset, President Trump and the Department of War estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve this critical mission.”

Of course, strategic victories are always more important and longer-lasting than tactical ones. Thus far, America’s war effort has exposed a “trilateral strategic pact” signed by Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran to be so many empty promises, demonstrated the shortcomings in Russian and Chinese anti-air defenses offered for sale abroad, and turned the rest of the Persian Gulf countries firmly against Iran and towards the U.S. and Israel.

Yet, while those are nice side effects of the war, they aren’t sufficient to justify America’s involvement in the war or exit from it. Key members of Congress from both parties are now asking the administration for more answers about its war aims, especially after the Pentagon requested an extra $200 billion in funding.

Those are legitimate questions because “it’s not clear exactly what the ultimate objectives … actually are,” Berman noted. The question is rendered more crucial by the recent deployment of thousands of U.S. Marines and paratroopers to the Middle East. “Like the vast majority of Americans, I’m firmly against the idea of a large-scale troop deployment in Iran itself,” said Berman. “I don’t want boots on the ground in Iran. I don’t want anything resembling the repeat of Iraq.”

However, “there is a problem that the administration has to solve,” he added. “When the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in the summer of last year, there was something on the order of 440kg of highly enriched uranium —uranium that is enriched to 60% purity, which [was] left in these ruined facilities. … Somebody has to get ahold of this fissile material, whether the Iranians … turn it over, or a third party, or the U.S. itself.” He suggested “the window of opportunity” for a U.S.-led extraction effort will close if a ceasefire agreement is reached.

Iran has managed to create a second problem for the United States during the war. In a close imitation of their proxy Hamas versus Israel, Iranian officials appear to be pursuing an asymmetrical strategy of losing the military battlefield while winning the diplomatic, economic, and geopolitical struggle. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is extorting commercial ships, charging them a $2 million ransom to traverse the Strait of Hormuz in safety, behaving as if the international thoroughfare were their own private canal.

Iran is trying to wring out the Strait of Hormuz like the neck of the global energy market, believing those Western wimps will then whine their way out of the war. If the tactic holds, then the Iranian regime will establish the principle that the Strait of Hormuz is theirs, and that they can shut off 20% of the world’s oil supply whenever anyone attacks them — making it impossible to ever attack them again.

But Iran never reckoned on the contingency that the commander in chief of the flotilla sitting just outside their harbor believes in total victory. Oil price shocks may cause some pain and consternation, but they have not yet driven the Trump administration to surrender. Overnight Wednesday, Israel killed the commander of the IRGC Navy, responsible for the Strait choke-out strategy.

After President Trump’s ultimatum to up the stakes last weekend, the Iranian regime apparently responded by offering to negotiate, releasing 10 oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz to show that they are serious, said President Trump. The president recently communicated a 15-point peace plan to the Iranian regime through a Pakistani intermediary, which demanded the regime dismantle and renounce its nuclear program, limit its missiles, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. Iranian officials rejected the list of demands, but it shows the objectives Trump is fighting to obtain in the war.

The five-day pause Trump declared in order to give diplomacy a chance expires on Friday, and the U.S. is moving forces into position for potential future attacks. “There does not need to be any more death and destruction, but if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before,” Leavitt warned.

The next test will prove the most interesting. The Iranian regime is relying on its death grip over the Strait of Hormuz — since indeed that is its only card left to play. The test will be whether America’s (and Israel’s) undisputed — and now unchallenged — military superiority can pry that death grip free. Soaring gas prices may be painful for a few weeks, but America survived them in 2022 without even having the end of one of the world’s worst regimes to show for it.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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Oil Prices, Strategic Trade-offs, and the Strait of Hormuz

March 17, 2026/in America 250, Budget and Finance, Economy, Elections, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Taxes/by Family Research Council

One unavoidable side-effect of gasoline prices being prominently posted in front of every roadside service station is that Americans remain constantly aware of the volatile fluctuations in gas prices. Since the start of President Trump’s military action against Iran, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has jumped from $2.98 on February 28 to $3.72 on March 16. World oil prices, which ended December under $60 per barrel, have now reached as high as $106 per barrel (as of this writing, they sat at $93 per barrel). With a jump like that, not only Americans but the entire world is taking notice.

The current spike in oil and gas prices is a direct result of the U.S. military’s combat against Iran. Instead of acting like a responsible state that follows the laws of war and spares non-combatants, the Islamist Iranian regime reacted by launching missiles indiscriminately at all its neighbors, including at civilian targets.

Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have not spared international commercial shipping, including oil tankers. Since the conflict began, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has recorded at least 14 reported attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as the owners and crews of those vessels naturally do not wish to become foolhardy casualties of war. (Notably, Iranian and Chinese ships continue to sail through unmolested.)

This closure affects global oil markets because the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf produce 20% of the world’s oil supply, and their crude oil must pass through the strait to reach global markets. (The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is the Persian Gulf’s only outlet to the sea; at its narrowest point, it measures a mere 24 miles across, no wider than the Amazon River in the rainy season.)

Global oil markets, in turn, affect U.S. gas prices because of the basic principles of supply and demand. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. only imports a small amount of oil from the Persian Gulf, around 2%, while countries like China and India import a much larger quantity. However, when the oil supply from the Persian Gulf is cut off, all the countries that did buy its oil still have the same demand for oil, and they go looking for other suppliers to make up the difference. Thus, an impact on the oil supply in one area of the world will affect oil prices globally.

American strategists have long considered an oil price shock due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to be an expected — or at least likely — consequence of war with Iran. “Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” CNN quoted an anonymous former security official.

Yet, to hear CNN tell it, the Trump administration did not prepare for this likely scenario at all. “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes,” the original version of the article claimed.

Such an outrageous claim was bound to be challenged. “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” responded Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The National Review editors note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against closing the Strait just last year, and that one of the Trump administration’s stated goals in the current conflict is to degrade Iran’s capability to do so.

CNN’s story now includes the following “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”

There’s a big difference between, “The Trump administration totally forgot to account for this glaring vulnerability,” and, “The Trump administration considered the vulnerability but doesn’t have a near-term solution for it.”

As in all of life, politics is about trade-offs, and particularly so in war strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine briefed President Donald Trump on Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and missiles. “Trump acknowledged the risk … but moved forward” anyway, they wrote. “He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait — and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”

In hindsight, this assessment was clearly too optimistic, but every war strategy suffers from setbacks, accidents, and unknowns. On the other hand, allowing Iran the time to build more missiles and potentially a nuclear weapon could have resulted in even worse consequences.

The reason why the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in one individual is so that one seasoned leader can be responsible for weighing the various tradeoffs and reaching a final decision. In other words, the U.S. presidency exists to make hard decisions just like this one. And those who don’t like the decisions Trump makes had their opportunity to elect a different president.

While the heightened price of gas and oil is causing Americans undeniable pain at the pump, the National Review editors allow that “None of this is catastrophic. The price of Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Friday. That’s the highest in four years, not in, say, 60 years. But the clock is ticking.” Indeed, oil prices hit $113 per barrel in June 2022 and $128 per barrel in July 2008. In between, oil prices peaked in April 2011 ($108 per barrel), March 2012 ($105 per barrel), August 2013 ($102 per barrel), and June 2014 ($98 per barrel). So, administration critics do have legitimate grounds to hit Trump over high gas prices, but only as hard as they hit President Joe Biden for the historic inflation in 2021-2022.

That said, the Trump administration is not doing themselves any favors in public perception by appearing desperate and unprepared for this eventuality. The Trump administration has promised military escorts for oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but they have yet to work out the logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil — after President Trump slammed U.S. allies for doing just that — offering Russia’s tottering regime an invaluable financial lifeline.

Errors of strategy and judgment are inevitable in war, even when a superpower like the United States is dominantly pummeling a stubborn rogue regime like that of the Iranian mullahs. But just because the Trump administration has fumbled one snap does not mean that they failed to call the right play. A turnover can be costly, but the only thing that matters is the scoreboard when time expires.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

PERKINS: Leadership by Principle, Not Polling

March 13, 2026/in Elections, Featured, Hot Topics, Immigration, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, The Truth/by Family Research Council

Sir Edmund Burke, in a speech to the Electors of Bristol in 1774, said: “Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

That may not sit well in an age of polling and clamor for direct democracy, but the reality is this: the duty of statesmen is not to follow public opinion, but to lead it. In moments of crisis, leaders are not called to read the polls — they are called to rise above them.

And that is exactly what President Donald Trump has done to this point in the war with Iran. When asked about public polling — where most surveys show a majority opposing the war — Trump responded, “I don’t care about polling.”

That statement gained my immediate attention, because in almost every conversation or meeting I have had with the president, he often references the polls — favorable polls.

I note this not as criticism, but to commend the president for stepping into the role of a statesman who leads in the direction the nation needs to go, regardless of the political consequences.

The stock market — very familiar territory for the president — has gone a bit wobbly. Gas prices have risen quickly, though they remain below the peak Americans experienced in the summer of 2022, when the average gallon approached $5. Some congressional Republicans are also expressing concern about the possible impact on the midterm elections.

These are big issues — in the short term. That is why most administrations confronting the Iranian nuclear threat sought to contain it, if they could not avoid it altogether.

To use a familiar phrase from American politics over the last 60 or 70 years, they simply kicked the can down the road so the next administration — or the next generation — would deal with it.

Donald Trump concluded there was no road left.

Open sources suggest Iran possessed roughly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% before the launch of Operation Epic Fury. Iran was racing to reach the 90% weapons-grade level — enough material for roughly 10 nuclear warheads. Enough to hold the world hostage, if not destroy large parts of it.

If there has been a justifiable war since World War II, this may be it. This is not defending oil-rich countries made wealthy by American dependence. This is confronting a direct threat to our security and to that of our natural ally, Israel.

When the leadership of a rogue regime repeatedly calls America the “Great Satan,” vows to destroy us, and sponsors repeated terrorist attacks against Americans — at what point should we believe them?

As president, Donald Trump had the constitutional authority to act. Based on the available facts, the war is justified, and the stated purpose is right: peace in the Middle East and justice for the Iranian people.

President Trump should be commended for taking the regime at its word and responding — not because it was politically popular, but because it was justified, militarily and morally.

And in doing so, he illustrated the very principle Burke described 250 years ago: a leader who governs not by the polls, but by judgment.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

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Trump Pushes to ‘Finish the Job’ in Iran

March 12, 2026/in Anti-Semitism, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Terrorism, The Truth, Violence, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

While the media drones on about the unpopularity of the president’s operation in Iran, Americans’ opinions, with all due respect, don’t really matter. In eight months, voters will have the chance to grade the Trump administration’s decision to level the Islamist regime that’s terrorized the West for decades. But until then, the only thing that anyone should care about, apart from the safety of U.S. troops, is the United States and its allies getting as close to eliminating one of the world’s greatest existential threats as humanely possible.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t confusion about next steps. In one soundbite, President Trump says the war is almost over, and in the next, he allows for the possibility of ground troops. One thing he could certainly stand to improve is his messaging. And yet, as contradictory as his statements may be, the why of the administration’s action should never be in question. As Thérèse Shaheen is quick to point out in National Review, “In the case of Iran, the threat is not speculative. Iran’s intent, capabilities, and behavior have had demonstrably dangerous results for America and Americans.” If the president had intelligence that a “catastrophic conflict” was likely, then acting now, she argues, “may prevent greater destruction later.”

We may never know what classified information went into Trump’s decision-making or timeline, but the reality is this: the majority of people in this country elected him to act in the best interest of America. Like it or not, voters chose him to use his own judgment when it came to confronting the bullies of this world. And they supported him, recognizing that this was a possibility. As Trump himself bragged this week, “No other president had the guts to do it.”

And the reality is, even after months of diplomatic attempts, Iran’s leaders were never interested in peace. “[They’ve] been notorious for using negotiations to drag out talks to continue enriching uranium — while never agreeing to anything,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “They were never going to agree to stop working towards a nuclear weapons program. And so, President Trump finally said, ‘If they will kill tens of thousands of their own people, they will not hesitate to kill Americans if they get a nuclear bomb, and once they get that bomb, it’s too late to negotiate with them, because then you lose that leverage.’ This was the time to strike.”

As a planet, the hope now must be that the alliance of America, Israel, and other Arab nations finishes the job. And based on the reports from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other top officials, the U.S. will not accept anything but the complete dismantling of Iran’s military and nuclear power. Deep into its second week, Hegseth told the media that Tuesday “will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran,” which is a bold statement considering the 5,000 targets already hit.

Meanwhile, the decimated government, including new Supreme Leader Mojitaba Khamenei, is struggling to respond. According to the secretary, “The mullahs are desperate and scrambling. Like the terrorist cowards they are, they fire missiles from schools and hospitals, deliberately targeting innocents, because they know their military is being systematically degraded and annihilated.” Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine explained that Iran is “fighting, and I respect that. But I don’t think they’re more formidable than what we thought.” Even now, the conflict is dramatically one-sided. “We’ve made significant progress in reducing the number of missile and drone attacks out of Iran,” Caine acknowledged. “Ballistic missile attacks continue to trend downward, 90% from where they’ve started, and one-way attack drones have decreased 83%, since the beginning of the operation.”

Incredibly, Iran’s targets continue to be other neighbors, which most experts believe only helps the U.S. “The talking points you heard going into this [were], ‘If we ever did what needed to be done with Iran, the whole Middle East would be in an uproar against us,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) pointed out on “Washington Watch” Monday. “[And] what we’ve seen is the opposite, where we see other nations, maybe not to the extent we’d like, but they’re certainly not joining in the fight with Iran. They’re saying, ‘These guys have been a menace to our region. We want peace for our kids. We want peace for our family. We want peace for our region. And what that means is taking out the capability of Iran to do evil things in their region and around the world.’”

From a strategic standpoint, broadening their response is foolish, most agree. “Iran has done Trump a favor by attacking all its Arab neighbors,” Elliott Abrams argues, “which makes those neighbors U.S. and Israeli allies. The U.S. does not now need to cajole them into assisting our forces this week and helping to stop Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israel; we are all on the same side against Iran. We can assume that after the war, there will be new U.S. diplomatic efforts to bring Israel and the Arabs closer by expanding the Abraham Accords.”

While his crippled country tries to retaliate, the younger Khamenei remains in hiding — his dwindling lieutenants still talking tough. Almost comically, Iran’s National Security Council secretary insisted Iran isn’t losing the war before threatening Trump, “Even those greater than you have failed to eliminate the Iranian nation. Be careful not to be eliminated yourself!”

The choice of the late ayatollah’s son was a defiant shot across the bow, most believe. “He’s a chip off the old block,” Dr. David Adesnik shook his head on Monday’s “Washington Watch,” “and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. … He’s not necessarily a distinguished religious thinker,” the vice president at the Foundation for Defense of the Democracies warned. “He’s someone who’s made his way by being put in positions of power by his father and managing them relatively well, at least from his father’s perspective. I think you would count him among the hardest of the hardliners in the regime. His choice is an indication that other hardliners in the Revolutionary Guard and outside the Revolutionary Guard are continuing to steer this war in a direction of further confrontation, not one of any compromise.”

He added, “If President Trump wanted there to be a [moderate] who might be interested in a resolution, this is not his man.”

It all raises the question: where is this headed, and what does victory even look like? Adesnik isn’t sure. “I regret to say I have a fair amount of uncertainty. … I think we’ve been hoping to some extent the Iranian people would come out, renew their protests, and overthrow the regime, but of course, that would mean doing it while there’s fighting going on. And it’s not entirely clear. How long will we persist? Would we cut a deal that perhaps ended the war and left Mojtaba Khamenei, the new leader, in power? Or are we really going all the way to the end?”

Trump defined success as an Iran that’s incapable and unwilling to develop nuclear weapons, but he also had strong advice for the country’s oppressed people. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations.”

Either way, this administration and its allies are changing the course of history. “Even if the regime hangs on,” Abrams suggests, “its pretense to be the dominant regional power — with a huge ballistic missile array and a nuclear weapons program — will have been shattered. While we cannot predict the date of its collapse,” he goes on, “whether that takes weeks, months, or years, that collapse has been brought closer. The credit belongs to Donald Trump, who has made a bold and risky decision that deserves firm support.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.