Trump ordered military not to conduct strikes in Iran Friday

President Trump directed the U.S. military not to conduct new strikes in Iran on Friday, breaking a nearly two-week streak of daily attacks, two sources with knowledge of the decision said.Why it matters: The president's directive came after he approved daily strikes over the previous 13 days. It is unclear if Trump's order on Friday was a one-off or whether the lull will continue. Trump's decision reflects both his willingness to provide more space for diplomacy and a recognition that — short of a return to major combat operations — the current level of U.S. strikes has reached the limit of its effectiveness. If Trump orders a return to strikes, the U.S. military can mobilize on relatively short notice. The U.S. military is still preparing plans for a possible return to major combat operations, but Trump hasn't given orders to move in that direction, the sources said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.Driving the news: Every afternoon for the last two weeks, Trump has approved strike plans submitted by the military. They were conducted within hours.On Friday, Trump received a similar plan but did not give a green light. Instead, he directed the military not to conduct strikes, the sources said. Shortly after he gave the Friday directive, Trump told reporters at the White House that he has the option of continuing strikes or even escalating them, including "knocking out everything they have." But he made clear that he thinks the "smarter strategy" is to "make a deal" with Iran. "We're talking to [the Iranians] right now. I think they're getting more and more serious as the days go by. We're locked and loaded and ready to go, but we're talking to them," Trump said. Later on Friday, during his remarks at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, Trump said he didn't think Iran is ready to make a deal at the moment, "but I'm willing to listen." State of play: Trump's order to hold fire was given several hours after an Omani delegation arrived in Tehran Friday for talks on a new arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.Two regional sources with knowledge of the negotiations said progress has been made in the talks and that an agreement between Oman and Iran could be reached over the weekend. President Trump would then have to decide whether to accept the proposed deal.

Trump's 'dumbest' reasoning set to embroil him in fresh military strike: Dem

An alarmed House Democrat said Saturday that President Donald Trump may consider sending the military into yet another country — and for the "dumbest" reason. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) delivered a scathing rebuke of a new Trump administration report that takes aim at Cuba during a Saturday segment on CNN."Two-thirds of this report is about the '60s and '70s, and all of a sudden they jump to today," Pocan said. "It's so ridiculous. It's probably the dumbest report I've read in my 14 years of being here, and whoever wrote it should be embarrassed."The Trump administration's continued blockade against fuel coming into Cuba has caused trash to pile up in the streets and power outages, CNN reported. The Trump administration carried on the blockade even as it ended a naval blockade against Iran.Pocan was tearing into a report released by the State Department earlier this week that accused Cuba of promoting left-wing extremism in the United States. The Democrat described it as "fantastical" and warned, "This report by the State Department, I think, is setting up a military action."Pocan told CNN that the U.S. campaign against Cuba is largely being pushed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and added that Rubio could be arguing for greater U.S. military involvement."We're already in a quagmire in Iran, but I think this is Marco Rubio's personal South Florida pet project," Pocan said. "He wants us to go into Cuba in a way that I don't think the American people support."

Experts dump cold water on 'massive' Trump attack rumors

Amid swirling rumors that President Donald Trump and his administration are plotting a "massive" renewed military assault on Iran, experts who spoke with The Hill dumped cold water on the idea, warning that such a thing likely would not be enough to subdue Iran.In a report published Saturday morning, The Hill cited conversations with various foreign affairs and defense experts who warned about the efficacy of "an intensified air strike campaign" against Iran, even one that might, as Trump has threatened repeatedly, target "bridges, water facilities and electricity plants." They warned that even this sort of plan would not be enough to extract major concessions from Iran in the ongoing peace talks.“I don’t think it will change Iran’s calculation in any way, because from Iran’s perspective, this is when they said it publicly, that this is a war of survival for them. So bombing from the air is not going to change Iran’s calculation, even if the U.S. intensifies it,” Sina Azodi, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Washington University, told the outlet. “The only thing that will happen is that, first of all, the entire region is going to suffer more. The Iranians have made it very clear. I think it destroys any chance of diplomacy.” He added: "You can’t just do a ceasefire. You need a comprehensive agreement that it’s language is no longer open to interpretation. And quite frankly, U.S. has to, when it makes a commitment, it needs to abide by it."Another source, described as an anonymous "former senior U.S. defense official, told The Hill that airstrikes are unlikely to yield any meaningful progress, and argued that it would be impossible "without collectively enforcing the naval blockade, securing to some degree the traffic going through the Strait of Hormuz and absorbing some of the international economic cost as a long-term strategy.""But you’re not going to bomb yourself into a ceasefire," they said. "I think you’ve got to be able to put the economic instrument of power just as make it just as significant as what you’re doing [militarily]."Michael “Mick” Mulroy, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, also cast doubt on the efficacy of heavy airstrikes, but also noted that the options left to the U.S. at this point "aren’t good.""If we allow them to sell their oil, if we unfreeze assets, they’re going to use it to rebuild those capacities potentially faster than we really rebuild the precision munitions and interceptors that we use during a conflict, and we have to get into a new nuclear agreement," Mulroy explained. "If we don’t, then this, at least from the nuclear side, would be a perpetual conflict, because the other way of preventing them from ever getting a nuclear weapon is to periodically target the facilities that are making the potential nuclear weapon. So the options are not good.”

Houthis fire missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to strikes on a Yemeni city

CAIRO (AP) — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday that they fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida, in another escalation over vital shipping routes in the Middle East while the United States and Iran vie for control of the Strait of [...]

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Iran-backed Houthis launch retaliatory strikes on Saudi Arabia

Iran-backed Houthi rebels announced Saturday they fired missiles and drones toward Saudi Arabia, claiming retaliation for Saudi attacks on Yemen’s coastal city of Hodeida.  Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the militant group’s spokesperson, said in a social media post that the Houthis executed two military operations “in response to this blatant and criminal aggression” from Saudi…

Trump’s threats to expand Iran strikes come as concerns over transparency escalate

Two weeks after the ceasefire between the United States and Iran dramatically collapsed, U.S. Central Command continues to announce daily bombing attacks designed to target Tehran’s ability to target commercial shipping in the waterways off its coast. President Donald Trump has continued to talk openly this week about escalating the war by broadening the strikes […]

US ‘locked and loaded’ for ‘massive attack’ on Iran, Trump says — but he’s ‘not in a hurry’ to strike

Trump said that he sensed Iranian officials were “getting more and more serious” about reaching a new deal with the US — after a preliminary peace plan signed by the president June 17 collapsed over continued Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.