Unleashing Hell Is Easy. Reopening Hormuz Is Not.

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(Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump is pressing Iran toward the negotiating table — or, if Tehran refuses, toward consequences his administration has described in terms of unusual severity. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the president is prepared to strike Iran harder than it has ever been struck if its government fails to accept that it has been militarily defeated. “President Trump does not bluff,” she said, “and he is prepared to unleash hell.” It was among the starkest warnings the administration has issued in a conflict now entering its fourth week. The warning arrives as thousands of additional U.S.

Trump: Iran Has Agreed to Never Pursue Nuclear Weapons

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(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Something significant may be happening. On Tuesday, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Iran has agreed to never acquire nuclear weapons — the demand that has sat at the center of American policy toward Tehran for a generation, and the issue that has shadowed this three-week war from its first hour. “They’ve agreed,” the President said. “They will never have a nuclear weapon. They’ve agreed to that.” If true, it is a remarkable development. The question — and it is not a small one — is what “agreed” means in this context, and how that agreement was

The Five-Day Bet: President Trump Pauses Iran Strikes on the Hope of a Deal

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(Photo by Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)

There is a war in the Middle East, and it is three weeks old. On Monday, President Trump announced a pause — five days, no strikes on Iranian power plants or energy infrastructure — contingent, he said, on the progress of ongoing negotiations. “I am pleased to report,” the President wrote, “that the United States of America, and the country of Iran, have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.” Tehran disputed this characterization almost immediately. Iran’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement to

The Home Crowd Isn’t Cheering: California’s Verdict on Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom

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Nine percent. That is what Kamala Harris draws as a first-choice presidential candidate in her own home state, according to a new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. In the place that knows her best, where her political identity was forged, fewer than one in ten Democrats are raising their hand for her. The survey, conducted March 9 through 14 among more than five thousand registered voters, is not a national snapshot. It is something more personal than that. It is California’s verdict — and California is not being kind. Governor Gavin Newsom leads the field at

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