Good morning! Today is Tuesday, August 25th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. On day 178 of the Iran War, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveils an "economic D-Day" targeting nations still trading with Tehran, as Iran vows to shut down Persian Gulf oil flows and Brent crude climbs past ninety-three dollars a barrel. Andrew Day argues that Trump, the self-declared nationalist-in-chief, has a curious blindspot — failing to anticipate that his aggressive posture activates nationalist backlash abroad, from a defiant Canada rallying behind Mark Carney to an Iranian public closing ranks around its regime. Jack Hunter traces Ted Cruz's remarkable ideological journey from Tea Party ally of the Pauls and critic of "crazy neocons" to the most nakedly hawkish, pro-Israel contender eyeing the 2028 Republican nomination. and now for the details. We begin on day one hundred and seventy-eight of the Iran War, where the Trump administration is opening a new front — this time financial rather than military. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, writing in a Sunday op-ed for the Financial Times, announced what he called an "economic D-Day," describing it as the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary. The specifics are expected at a Monday press conference, but Bessent's op-ed signaled new punitive measures targeting third countries that continue doing business with Tehran. Nations that cut Iranian ties, he suggested, will gain deeper access to global capital; those that don't should expect to share in Iran's isolation. Tehran responded with defiance. Mohsen Rezaei, the new head of Iran's National Security Council, warned that if the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf — and that any country participating in the American campaign will be treated as a combatant. As Jude Russo reports for The American Conservative, this escalation comes as military strikes have failed to force Iranian capitulation, and as Pakistan's military chief travels to Tehran in an effort to revive stalled peace talks. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains depressed. Brent crude opened Monday at over ninety-three dollars a barrel, and AAA reports the national average price of regular gasoline now stands at four dollars and ten cents. That economic pressure campaign against Iran is part of a broader pattern that Andrew Day examines in a new essay for The American Conservative. Day argues that President Trump, who has done more than perhaps any modern figure to promote American nationalism, has a curious blindspot: he seems unable to anticipate that other nations feel nationalism too — and that his aggressive posture can activate those sentiments against American interests. Consider Canada. Last week Trump said a trade deal was near; instead, the two countries are on the verge of a trade war. Canadian favorability toward America has dropped from fifty-four percent in 2024 to about a third today. Prime Minister Mark Carney, under domestic pressure not to yield, imposed reciprocal tariffs and framed Trump's demands as an infringement on Canadian sovereignty and French-Canadian culture. Seventy-six percent of Canadians back him. Day quotes Montreal writer Theodore Shouse, who told TAC that Canadians across the political spectrum are looking past their differences in the face of Trump's aggression, with Canadian flags now flying even in upper-middle-class Liberal neighborhoods. The same dynamic, Day writes, is playing out in Iran. After Trump killed the country's leadership and threatened to annihilate Iranian civilization, the Islamic Republic hardened and its people rallied around the regime. Tens of millions turned out for the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Day concludes that until Trump develops what analysts call strategic empathy — an intuitive grasp of the pride and attachment that motivate other peoples — he will struggle to secure the interests of the nation whose nationalism he understands so well. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Monday, August 24th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Liam Childers argues that Trump's decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea reflects sound strategic logic, opening room for diplomacy with a more capable North Korea while acknowledging Seoul's growing independence in defining its own defense interests. Kourosh Ziabari traces the unpopular Iran war, now in its 177th day with just 35 percent approval and a $37.5 billion price tag, to decades of fearmongering by hawkish think tanks and self-styled Iran experts who sold Washington a fantasy of easy regime change. and now for the details. We begin on the Korean Peninsula, where President Trump's decision to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea has stirred debate in both Washington and Seoul. Trump framed the move as a response to Seoul's refusal to aid the U.S. war against Iran, and South Korea's foreign minister appears to share that reading. But the office of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung actually welcomed the possibility of warmer U.S. relations with North Korea as a pathway to stability on the peninsula. Writing for The American Conservative, Liam Childers argues Trump has good reason to scale back. Childers notes that North Korea today is more capable than during Trump's first term, having expanded its nuclear and missile arsenal and deepened ties with Moscow and Beijing. Under these conditions, exercises long viewed by Pyongyang as invasion rehearsals may cost more diplomatically than they deliver militarily. Childers points to the collapse of the Hanoi summit as a lesson: Washington's insistence on complete denuclearization, after watching what befell Iraq, Libya, and now Iran, gives Kim Jong Un no rational incentive to disarm. Meanwhile, Childers observes, Washington itself has been quietly redeploying THAAD assets and even the USS George Washington away from Asia toward the Middle East, leaving the Pacific without a single American aircraft carrier. President Lee, rather than treating this as a crisis, has emphasized greater South Korean control over its own defense and pursued a friendlier posture toward Beijing. Childers concludes that securing peace in Asia may require America to do less, not more. Now to the ongoing war with Iran, which entered its 177th day this weekend. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of more than 4,500 American adults in early August, just 35 percent approve of the war, up only slightly from 27 percent when it began five months ago. American taxpayers have so far spent at least 37.5 billion dollars on the campaign. Writing for The American Conservative, Kourosh Ziabari examines what he calls the absence of honest advisors in Trump's second term, and traces the war back to decades of fearmongering by a network of hawkish think tanks, media conglomerates, and self-styled Iran experts. Ziabari points to groups like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and United Against Nuclear Iran, along with figures such as Joshua Muravchik and the late Michael Ledeen, who argued for years that Iran was uniquely immune to diplomacy and could only be dealt with through force. Ziabari argues these voices sold the White House a fantasy: that bombing would swiftly bring regime change and that Iranian leaders would flee to Moscow the moment ordnance began to fall. Instead, he writes, Iran has proven neither a monolith nor a fragile client state. Its borders were not drawn by post-war convention, its institutions are multi-layered, and its people carry a deep antipathy to foreign intervention that predates the 1953 coup. Ziabari cites former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent, who observed that the war is failing because of a fundamental lack of understanding of the country and the region. The stalemate today, Ziabari concludes, belongs on the ledger of the lobbyists and experts who fed Washington misinformation for a generation. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Sunday, August 23rd 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll is set to exit the Pentagon by year's end amid a broader departure of Vance allies from the administration, fueling speculation about Hegseth's rising star and a possible Vance 2028 campaign. On Day 176 of the Iran War, Tehran declares a shift from defensive to offensive posture as Trump calls the Strait of Hormuz "American territory" and gas prices climb to $4.10 a gallon. Republican lawmakers and cattle producers revolt against Trump's temporary easing of beef import tariffs, with Nebraska's delegation warning the move betrays America's ranchers. and now for the details. We begin at the Pentagon, where Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll is poised to leave the Trump administration by the end of the year. Driscoll, a former Yale Law School student and longtime friend of Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance, had at one point been widely tipped as a possible successor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Hill has reported a months-long turf war between the two, though tensions had appeared to cool for much of this year. As Curt Mills reports for The American Conservative, Hegseth's standing has been bolstered by his frontline television appearances during the administration's operations against alleged narcoterrorists, the rendition of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and the ongoing Iran War. Chatter about a possible Hegseth presidential run has grown, with the secretary visiting Iowa this week. Mills notes that Driscoll's exit comes alongside a broader wave of departures among close Vance allies. Vance's longtime chief of staff Jacob Reses, national security advisor Andy Baker, and White House legislative affairs director James Braid have all left or are on their way out. Whether this reflects the early scaffolding of a Vance presidential campaign, an internal purge of Vance loyalists, or some combination of both, Mills writes, is not yet clear. Turning overseas, we are now on Day 176 of the Iran War, and Tehran says its military posture has formally shifted from defensive to offensive. Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia told Iranian state media that Iran will respond to any act of aggression immediately and on a broader scale than the aggression itself, though he clarified that Tehran does not intend to launch preemptive attacks. Akraminia described the Strait of Hormuz as a source of decisive geopolitical influence for the Islamic Republic. Iran effectively closed the waterway after the U.S. and Israel launched the current war in late February, though Tehran has now granted Iraq limited permission for some of its oil tankers to transit the strait. As Andrew Day reports for The American Conservative, President Trump described the Strait of Hormuz as, quote, "an American territory" during a campaign rally in South Carolina on Friday. Iran's deputy foreign minister dismissed the claim as delusions. The United States is maintaining a blockade against vessels entering and exiting Iranian ports, and this week Washington escalated threats of economic warfare against Tehran, opening what Day describes as a new phase of the war. Iran's armed forces chief of staff has warned of a devastating response. Meanwhile, at home, AAA reports the average American gasoline price at four dollars and ten cents per gallon on Saturday, up from two ninety-eight on the eve of the war. To the American heartland now, where Republican lawmakers and cattle industry groups are pushing back against President Trump's decision on Friday to temporarily ease tariffs on beef imports. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said it was disappointed by the move, warning it would undercut America's beef industry. Meriwether Farms, an American beef company, responded on X with a single word: "Betrayal." Trump announced the policy on Truth Social, arguing it would lower food prices amid a shortage in America's beef herd. For the next 90 days, the U.S. will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported without the out-of-quota tariff, which normally runs 26.4 percent. As Andrew Day reports, Americans are paying about 25 percent more for beef since Trump returned to the White House, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The backlash from GOP lawmakers has been sharp, especially from Nebraska's federal delegation. Senator Deb Fischer wrote that flooding the market with foreign beef hurts the domestic livestock industry and undermines the long-term solution, which is growing the U.S. cattle herd to meet demand. Nebraska, Day notes, is known as "the beef state" because of the industry's importance to its economy. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Saturday, August 22nd 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. On day 175 of the Iran War, President Trump threatens an "economic D-Day" against Tehran as Brent crude nears $94 and gas hits $4.11 at the American pump. Jack Kieffaber warns that new SDNY U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald's prosecution of Tricolor founder Daniel Chu under the dormant "financial kingpin" statute will test whether Manhattan's era of lawfare is truly over. Jude Russo reflects on Massachusetts's new late-term abortion law and the aporia of a pro-life movement that intellectually condemns abortion as murder while politically treating it as one issue among many. and now for the details. We begin with day one hundred and seventy-five of the Iran War, where the front has shifted from the battlefield to the ledger. President Trump this week threatened what he called an "economic D-Day" against Tehran, promising the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent followed up with a warning that any nation retaining ties to Iran would face, in his words, "economic oblivion." The Treasury Department has re-designated Hezbollah as a specially designated global terrorist group, tagging it explicitly as an Iranian proxy, and Bessent is expected to unveil further measures on Monday. Reaction abroad has been mixed. China's foreign ministry rejected the pressure campaign and called for diplomacy. The United Arab Emirates, however, which was Iran's top trading partner last year, has announced it is cutting all economic ties with Tehran. As Andrew Day reports for The American Conservative, the war continues to roil global energy markets. Brent Crude sits near ninety-four dollars a barrel, and the average price of gasoline at the American pump is now four dollars and eleven cents. Iran's lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told his countrymen Friday they must prepare to weather what he called unjust sanctions. Turning to the Justice Department, and a story about whether the era of lawfare in Manhattan is truly over. Jamie McDonald was sworn in last month as the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, succeeding Jay Clayton, who has moved on to serve as director of national intelligence. McDonald inherits an office once famed for its measured independence, but one that under the Biden years developed a reputation for aggressive, politically tinged prosecutions, from the raid on Rudy Giuliani to the failed case against Mayor Eric Adams. Jack Kieffaber, writing for The American Conservative, argues that the reclamation project is far from finished. Kieffaber focuses on the case of Daniel Chu, founder of the subprime auto lender Tricolor, which collapsed into bankruptcy last September amid an industry-wide meltdown. Three senior executives have pleaded guilty to cooking the books. But prosecutors are pursuing Chu himself under a dormant statute known as the financial kingpin law, which carries a mandatory minimum of ten years and a maximum of life in prison. Kieffaber notes the lead prosecutor, Micah Fergenson, came up through Democratic politics as an aide in the Obama White House counsel's office under Norm Eisen. Kieffaber warns that under the government's theory, any CEO whose subordinates commit fraud could face life imprisonment on cooperator testimony alone. He argues that between now and the January trial, McDonald's handling of the Chu case will show whether Manhattan's era of prosecutorial weaponization is genuinely over, or merely under new management. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Friday, August 21st 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Leonid Ragozin argues that Western belligerence, not internal dissent, has become Vladimir Putin's most reliable insurance policy, as doomsday readings of the Yabloko ban and a fired state bank economist miss the reality of Russian public opinion. Ted Galen Carpenter warns that NATO's embrace of gender-equal conscription, alongside a December 2025 provision pushing automatic Selective Service registration, threatens to reverse one of America's great post-Vietnam victories for individual liberty. The U.S. gross national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time in history on Wednesday, with net interest costs alone consuming nearly 14 percent of federal spending last year. and now for the details. We begin this morning with a fresh look at Russia, its politics, and the Western assumptions driving policy toward it. Ahead of next month's elections for the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, the liberal Yabloko party has been dropped from the ballot. And Russia's state-run bank VEB has fired its chief economist, Andrey Klepach, after he offered dark predictions about the country's future at a professional gathering. Both stories are being read in the West as fresh signs that Vladimir Putin is losing his grip. As Leonid Ragozin reports for The American Conservative, the reality is more prosaic. The Yabloko ban echoes the removal of the party's founder from the 2012 presidential ballot, a technical maneuver by an authoritarian regime, not a sign of imminent collapse. And Klepach, Ragozin notes, was fired for candor at a professional event, but in the same breath expressed support for Putin's war and confidence that the Russian economy would endure. Ragozin points to Levada Centre polling showing 66 percent of Russians still support the army's actions in Ukraine. His argument cuts against a quarter-century of Western doomsday forecasts: so long as Putin can present himself as defending Russia from a hostile West, ordinary Russians are unlikely to rise up against him. Ragozin traces the pattern back to the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, when President George W. Bush opened the path for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance, and forward through the West's obstruction of successive diplomatic settlements, from Minsk in 2015 to Istanbul in 2022. His conclusion is that Western belligerence, far from weakening Putin, has become his most reliable insurance policy. Next, a warning about a quiet shift underway across NATO countries, and possibly here at home. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have now extended military conscription to women, and according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, other European members of the alliance are looking to Copenhagen's gender-equal draft as a model, alongside proposals to lengthen terms of service. Writing for The American Conservative, Ted Galen Carpenter argues this trend represents a perverse turn: instead of expanded personal liberty, women stand to become equal partners with men in what he calls militarized government serfdom. Carpenter reminds readers that the United States ended conscription in January 1973, under President Nixon, in response to public discontent during the Vietnam War. But the machinery has never been fully dismantled. In 1980, the Carter administration required male citizens and legal residents to register with the Selective Service System at age 18. And a provision in the December 2025 National Defense Authorization Act directed the agency to adopt automatic registration, a change one anti-draft activist called the largest shift in Selective Service law since 1980. Carpenter notes that in 2021, the House Armed Services Committee approved a bill creating a gender-neutral draft registration requirement, and that voices from Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank to actor Rob Schneider have called for mandatory service. Carpenter's argument is that the correct response to concerns about discrimination is not to conscript women alongside men, but to maintain an all-volunteer force limited to genuine defensive missions, not, in his words, aggressive imperialist ventures operating under the guise of defense. To the nation's finances now. The U.S. gross national debt crossed $40 trillion on Wednesday for the first time in history. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the Trump administration had inherited a troubled economy, noting that under the previous administration the debt was growing faster than American GDP, and said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is, in his words, very much on top of it. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, the New York Times projects the United States will borrow more than $2 trillion this year alone to cover its obligations, including the ongoing Iran War and the tax cuts enacted in 2025. Net interest costs on the debt approached $1 trillion in 2025, consuming nearly 14 percent of all federal

Good morning! Today is Thursday, August 20th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Ted Snider argues Ukraine is losing the air, land, and economic wars and will soon be forced back to talks on worse terms than the 2022 Istanbul deal that Washington and London pressed Kiev to abandon. On day 173 of the Iran war, the Financial Times reports Tehran is weighing strikes on U.S. assets in southeastern Europe, including Bulgaria's Bezmer airbase, as the UAE suspends trade with Iran and gas prices remain elevated. In a stunning Florida Democratic Senate primary upset, DSA-aligned Angie Nixon defeated heavy favorite Alexander Vindman, the retired Army officer and key witness in the 2019 Trump impeachment. and now for the details. Our top story this morning concerns the war in Ukraine, where the strategic picture continues to darken for Kiev. A forty-day drone campaign ordered by President Volodymyr Zelensky back in June, aimed at forcing Russia back to the negotiating table, has by most accounts failed. Over the summer, Russian forces have advanced toward the cities of Ukraine's so-called fortress belt, with Konstantinovka reportedly falling or on the verge of falling. Ukraine faces a severe manpower shortage, its supply of Patriot air defense interceptors is at or near zero, and new jet-powered Russian drones are outpacing Ukrainian defenses, battering the port of Odessa. Writing for The American Conservative, Ted Snider argues that Ukraine, not Russia, now looks likely to be the first party forced back to talks — and that the terms on offer will almost certainly be worse than what was available in the spring of 2022. Snider assembles an extensive record of testimony from Ukrainian negotiators, foreign mediators, and Western officials indicating that a deal was within reach at the Istanbul talks that year. Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia described the agreement as an eight out of ten, with Russia prepared to end the war in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. Oleksiy Arestovych called it the most profitable agreement Ukraine could have reached. Snider catalogues statements from former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Swiss ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, all pointing to the same conclusion: that Washington and London pressed Kiev to walk away. Then-Senator J.D. Vance made the same point on the Senate floor. Snider concludes that after hundreds of thousands of casualties, millions displaced, and vast territory lost, it is time to apologize to Ukrainians for pushing them off the path of negotiations in the first months of the war. Turning to the Iran war, now in its one hundred seventy-third day. The Financial Times reports that Tehran is weighing retaliatory options against U.S. assets in Europe should President Trump further escalate the conflict. Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative that Iranian planners have reportedly considered strikes in southeastern European countries such as Bulgaria, which last month approved American military use of its Bezmer airbase for refueling. Bulgaria's defense minister had assured legislators that hosting U.S. aircraft would not make his country a party to the war. Iran has also weighed targeting underwater fiber-optic cables in the Strait of Hormuz. The chief of staff of Iran's armed forces warned Wednesday that any assistance to U.S. military operations would be treated as direct participation in the conflict. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates announced it would suspend all trade with Iran, citing regional escalations, and accused Tehran of firing two ballistic missiles at maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf — a claim Iran denies. The war continues to weigh on American households at the pump. Brent crude sat above ninety-two dollars a barrel Wednesday morning, and AAA recorded the national average price of regular gasoline at four dollars and nine cents per gallon. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Wednesday, August 19th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Day one hundred seventy-two of the Iran conflict brings no diplomatic movement, with President Trump declaring the Strait of Hormuz "New U.S. Territory" as the naval blockade tightens and Brent crude climbs above ninety-one dollars. George O'Neill Jr. delivers a scathing verdict on the second Trump administration's foreign policy, arguing that operations in seven countries have shattered the America First promise and exposed the fantasy of American military supremacy. Andrew Day dismantles the multiracial realignment narrative, warning that demographic shifts in states like Texas and Georgia are pointing the GOP toward a future that looks unmistakably like New York City. and now for the details. We begin with the ongoing conflict with Iran, now in its one hundred and seventy-second day. President Trump announced on Truth Social Tuesday that there are, in his words, no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic. The president also confirmed that the U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz remains in full force, and in a separate post labeled the strait as, quote, "New U.S. Territory." According to Kpler data cited by Reuters, only six commodity ships transited the strait on Monday. Iran's Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tehran will not reopen the strait until Washington honors commitments made in a June memorandum of understanding, including lifting the blockade, releasing frozen assets, and ending military operations. That memorandum's sixty-day deadline expired Monday. As Harrison Berger reports, Ghalibaf is leading a high-level parliamentary delegation to Iraq on Wednesday, as pro-Iran militias there face a September 30th deadline from Baghdad to disarm. Meanwhile, Syria condemned reported Israeli strikes on Abu Duhur airbase, and even U.S. envoy Tom Barrack called the strikes an unnecessary escalation. Brent crude closed Tuesday morning above ninety-one dollars a barrel, with the national average gas price at four dollars and seven cents. In a sweeping essay published Tuesday, George D. O'Neill Jr. argues that the second Trump administration's foreign policy has departed sharply from the America First, anti-forever-war promises of the campaign trail. O'Neill notes that the administration has now conducted military operations in at least seven countries, while the war against Iran, along with the continuing conflict in Ukraine, is exposing what he calls the fantasy of American military supremacy. He points to the failure of expensive American defense systems to protect Persian Gulf allies from Iranian missile and drone strikes, and observes that a nation one-fourth the size of the United States, with an economy smaller than the Pentagon's budget, can practically name its next targets. O'Neill also connects this to a broader pattern of institutional decay, citing the recently released Fauci diary entries, the ongoing secrecy around the Epstein files, and decades-old assassinations whose records remain classified. His conclusion: the rules-based order has become a pretext for elite interests abroad, and Americans, especially younger ones, are moving past skepticism into what he describes as righteous fury. Turning to domestic politics, a provocative piece from Andrew Day challenges the conventional wisdom that Donald Trump's 2024 victory heralded a durable multiracial Republican realignment. Day argues that the numbers tell a different story. Around 84 percent of Trump's 2024 voters were white, only modestly more diverse than Mitt Romney's coalition in 2012. And no Republican presidential nominee since Herbert Hoover has won a majority of any nonwhite racial group. Day points to the current midterm polling in Texas and Georgia, both now majority-nonwhite states, where white voters strongly prefer Republican Senate candidates but Democrats are projected to win, in Georgia potentially by double digits. He argues that countermajoritarian institutions like the electoral college and Senate malapportionment have masked the underlying demographic trend, but that these buffers are eroding as younger, more diverse cohorts age into the electorate. Day points to New York City, once ninety percent white in 1950 and now just thirty percent white, where Republican mayoral candidates have become, in his words, comic relief, and where socialist Zohran Mamdani won last year's general election. His forecast: the political future of the country, absent a serious Republican reckoning, looks a great deal like Gotham. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Tuesday, August 18th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The 60-day U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding expired Monday with Tehran denying any extension, as Iran hardens its demands to include war reparations, sanctions relief, and a full American military withdrawal from the region. On day 171 of the Iran War, President Trump threatened to bomb Oman if it "gets in the way" of a deal, even as Vice President Vance stressed cheap gasoline as the administration's top priority and Brent crude closed above $89 a barrel. Allum Bokhari argues Anthropic's lonely stand against open-weight AI models is less about safety than about walling off competitors, aligning the company with Democratic regulatory instincts and a familiar monopoly playbook. and now for the details. We begin with the Middle East, where the 60-day deadline on the U.S.–Iran framework peace deal expired Monday. That agreement, known as the memorandum of understanding, was signed in June by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. It was meant to lock in a ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and set the stage for talks on Iran's nuclear program. It fell apart within weeks. The Saudi outlet Al Arabiya reported Monday that Washington and Tehran had agreed to extend the ceasefire, but Iran's Foreign Ministry appeared to contradict that account. Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, quote, "We did not start any negotiations at all, and the U.S. violated the understanding from the very beginning; therefore, the 60-day issue is not relevant." As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, the deal broke down after Iran accused the United States of opening an alternative shipping lane in the Strait outside Iranian management. Tehran struck vessels using that route, and Washington resumed its bombing campaign, with the most recent intensive round of strikes coming in late July. Berger notes that Iran's latest proposal, published August 8th, reflects a firmer bargaining position than what it accepted in June. The New York Times reports Tehran is now demanding the U.S. lift its naval blockade and sanctions, withdraw American forces from around Iran, pay war reparations, release frozen assets, and end attacks on Iran's regional allies. Staying with the war, now on day 171. President Trump told Fox News on Monday that if Oman, quote, "gets in the way" of an Iran deal, the United States will "bomb the s-word out of them." In a separate Truth Social post, Trump said the number one goal of the Iran War is ensuring that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon in any form. Those remarks appear to sit uneasily alongside comments from Vice President JD Vance last Thursday, who said the administration's "goal number one" is to keep oil and gasoline cheap for Americans. As Harrison Berger reports, Special Envoy Jared Kushner held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, a day after meeting Hamas's Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt. Meanwhile, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a weekend interview that Israel should be killing "thirty to forty" people each night in Gaza, adding, quote, "there are people there who are not worthy of life." On the economic front, the shipping analytics firm Kpler recorded 95 confirmed crossings through the Strait of Hormuz last week, but just three on Sunday. Yemen's Houthis said Monday they had targeted a Saudi military vessel and four escort ships in the Red Sea. Brent Crude closed above $89 a barrel, and AAA recorded the national average price of regular gasoline at $4.06 per gallon. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Good morning! Today is Monday, August 17th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Chris McCallion and Daniel DePetris warn that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for military action against Cuba, arguing the island is a collapsing state ninety miles from Florida rather than a genuine threat—and that invasion would trigger refugee flows and a Haiti-style descent into armed chaos. With the Iran war in its 170th day, Trump has ordered the USS George Washington to replace the troubled USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, leaving the western Pacific without a single U.S. aircraft carrier as China's naval buildup continues. Peter Van Buren argues that America's health care crisis is not only about insurance but access, with nearly 11 percent of insured adults unable to get an appointment and a 1997 cap on Medicare-funded residency slots still throttling the supply of new doctors. and now for the details. We begin this morning with signs that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for military action in Cuba, even as the Iran war grinds on. The Pentagon has reportedly been weighing military options for the island, and the State Department recently issued a report alleging that Havana is behind a decades-long campaign of subversion against the United States. This comes on top of a sanctions regime designed to starve Cuba of fuel, cripple its tourism industry, and shut down its medical missions abroad. President Trump has spoken vaguely about, in his words, "taking Cuba," and has pointed to January's special operation that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro as a possible precedent. Writing for The American Conservative, Chris McCallion and Daniel DePetris argue that Cuba poses no real danger to the United States. They describe the island as a quasi-failed state ninety miles from Florida, with an economy hollowed out by a 64-year embargo, an electrical grid that barely functions, and armed forces shrunk to a negligible size. The biggest threat, they contend, is not Cuban aggression but Cuban collapse. McCallion and DePetris warn that an invasion would risk large refugee flows, an explosion of armed groups, and a Haiti-style trajectory into regional drug trafficking. They urge Trump instead to reopen relations and ease sanctions in exchange for Cuba cutting security ties with Russia and China—a diplomatic win, they argue, that would beat what they call a gambler's approach to foreign policy. Turning to the Iran war, now in its 170th day. President Trump has ordered the USS George Washington to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, a move that will leave the western Pacific without a single U.S. aircraft carrier. The swap follows reports of serious mental health and supply problems aboard the Lincoln, which had been at sea for more than 200 days without a port call. Several service members reportedly attempted to jump overboard. Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper visited the ship Saturday, praising the crew as a "strong team of high-achieving Americans." As Luke Nicastro reports for The American Conservative, Washington and Tehran now appear set to blow past the timeline for a comprehensive agreement laid out in the June memorandum of understanding—Monday marks sixty days since that document was signed. Meanwhile, the Houthis say they struck Yemen's military with ballistic missiles and drones in the Red Sea. The pulling of America's last Pacific carrier to sustain a Middle Eastern war raises hard questions about strategic priorities at a moment when China's naval buildup continues apace. To the home front now, and a look at what may be the quieter half of the American health care crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 11 percent of insured U.S. adults could not get a medical appointment when they needed one in the past year—a problem unrelated to cost or coverage. Roughly 4 percent could not find a physician who would accept their insurance, and another 2 percent said providers were simply too far away, an especially acute issue in rural America. Peter Van Buren, writing for The American Conservative, describes helping a friend with a severe case of shingles who cycled through three emergency rooms and could not find a primary care physician willing to see her in under six weeks. Van Buren notes that Canada, often held up as a model, has its own access crisis, with a median wait of 30 weeks from referral to treatment and 17 percent of adults lacking a family doctor. He points instead to Denmark, which pairs universal coverage with voluntary private insurance and assigns nearly every citizen a primary care physician. Van Buren also flags a structural American bottleneck: the 1997 Balanced Budget Act froze Medicare-funded residency slots at 1996 levels, throttling the training of new doctors even as the population ages. His conclusion is blunt—coverage under any system is not the same as access. Those are toda

Good morning! Today is Sunday, August 16th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. A new trilateral defense pact signed in Mecca by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signals that the Middle East's heaviest hitters are quietly moving to diversify away from American protection. As the war with Iran drags into its 169th day, President Trump vows to declare the Strait of Hormuz U.S. territory while dismissing morale concerns aboard the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln. Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon kill at least 11, including women and children, as Defense Minister Katz declares Israel will not withdraw from occupied "security zones" in Lebanon, Syria, or Gaza. and now for the details. We begin this morning in the Middle East, where a significant realignment is taking shape. On August 7th, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Mecca to sign a new trilateral defense pact. The agreement brings together three of the region's heaviest hitters: Turkey, which fields NATO's second-largest army; Pakistan, the only Muslim nation with a nuclear arsenal; and Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil producer. Pakistan's foreign ministry says an attack on any one of the three will be regarded as an attack on all — language that echoes NATO's famous Article 5. As Ted Snider writes for The American Conservative, the pact leaves important questions unanswered — not least what concrete support each party would actually provide, and how these new commitments intersect with existing alliances like NATO. But Snider argues one thing is already clear: the region's powerhouses are quietly signaling that they no longer view American protection as sufficient. Gulf countries were badly bruised by a war with Iran they had warned Washington against, and they feel abandoned by the failure of promised U.S. protection. Turkish, Egyptian, Pakistani, and even Omani officials are now openly calling for a new regional security architecture — what Pakistan's defense minister bluntly calls an "Islamic NATO." Erdogan has said the alliance is open to other nations, and Egypt is expected to eventually join. Snider concludes that while much remains uncertain, the diversification underway could offer one silver lining for Americans: it may finally facilitate the long-overdue U.S. military disentanglement from the Middle East. Turning to the ongoing war with Iran, now in its 169th day. President Trump said Friday that "pretty soon" he will be "declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States." Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister responded on Saturday that "the Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian," vowing that Tehran would continue to enforce its blockade. On Saturday, Iran attacked a tanker owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the strait. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, President Trump also dismissed concerns about the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln following press reports of serious morale and mental health issues among its crew. Asked whether the Lincoln's more than 250-day deployment had gone on too long, Trump replied that it was "not nearly long enough," though he added the ship would be replaced soon. The war continues to weigh on American wallets: Brent Crude closed Friday at $88.52 a barrel, and AAA recorded the national average price of regular gasoline at $4.07 per gallon. In Lebanon, at least 11 people — including two women and three children — were killed Saturday in Israeli strikes on the towns of Ansar and Deir-al-Zahrani. Prime Minister Netanyahu said the strikes were a response to an earlier Hezbollah attack that he claimed seriously injured three Israeli soldiers inside what Israel calls its "security zone" in southern Lebanon. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the killing of "an entire family" in Ansar and denounced repeated Israeli violations of the framework agreement signed by Lebanon, Israel, and the United States back in June. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri went further, calling Israel's military operations a "war of extermination." As Harrison Berger reports, Israel does not appear to be moving to end its occupation. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that "under no circumstances will we withdraw from the security zones: not in Lebanon, not in Syria and not in Gaza." Hezbollah, which is not a signatory to the June agreement, has refused direct talks and warned that the U.S.-brokered deal could create conditions for civil war. According to the Lebanese health ministry, more than 4,300 Lebanese have been killed by the Israeli military since March. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.