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May 22, 2026 - World

Days after the U.S. Senate took a pivotal step that could end the war in Iran, Arizona veterans gathered at the state Capitol to urge Congressional Republicans to coalesce behind that effort.On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate voted 50-47 to advance a War Powers Resolution that could block President Donald Trump from engaging in further military conflict against Iran without congressional approval. Several Republicans broke from their party to back the resolution, but it has yet to undergo a final vote, and it’s likely to be defeated in the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.Almost every Democrat in the upper chamber, including Arizona’s Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, who are both veterans and have been vocally opposed to the war, voted in favor of moving the resolution forward. Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman voted against doing so.More than a dozen former and current military members in Arizona called on GOP lawmakers to support the bid to end the war, and lamented the deaths that have already occurred. Since the war’s beginning in February, 13 American service members have died. Ricardo Reyes, a Marine Corps veteran and the executive director of Vets Forward, a progressive veterans advocacy group, denounced any effort to dismiss those deaths as inevitable and said elected officials should think twice about the potential human toll before agreeing to continue the war.“Today, we say to every elected leader in this country: Do not dare treat these lives like the price of doing business,” Reyes said. “Don’t dare ask more families to pay that cost without any answers. Don’t you dare send more sons and daughters into harm’s way because it’s easier to escalate rather than to lead with courage.”Derek Duba, an Army veteran and top staffer for Gallego, added that wars also affect the families and communities of military members and often harm their lives for years.“The truth is, in war, there are no unwounded soldiers,” he said. “And the friends, families, and communities we return to, dead or alive, continue carrying the cost of it for generations to come. There is no ‘four to six week’ victory.”Over the past three months, Trump has offered conflicting and vague estimates on how long the war would last, claiming multiple times in March that it would end after just a few weeks.On Wednesday, Trump said that he was “in no hurry” to make a deal that could end the conflict. Last week, the president said he wasn’t concerned about the economic toll the war he launched was having on Americans.“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters.State Rep. Aaron Marquez, D-Phoenix, a veteran who was deployed twice to Afghanistan and still serves in the Army Reserve, said that he’s hopeful more Republicans will buck their party to advance the resolution. He added that military conflict should be the last resort, but Trump jumped prematurely into the war at Israel’s prompting without seeking alternative solutions.“Going to war must be exhausting all diplomatic options,” he said. “We clearly did not exhaust all diplomatic options.”Marquez added that a failure to rein in the Trump administration will be noticed by voters.The war has been widely unpopular. In a recent New York Times poll, 64% of people said they believed Trump made the wrong decision when he launched a military campaign against Iran. But that same survey found that respondents who identified as Republican overwhelmingly supported that decision.And that’s been reflected in at least one primary race. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who vocally criticized the Iran War, lost his party’s nomination to a Trump-endorsed opponent. Massie also led the charge to force the release of the Epstein files, over Trump’s objection. Trump and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein were close in the 1990s, and he is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the files that have been released so far.To memorialize the 13 Americans who have been killed so far in the Iran War, the group paused to observe a moment of silence, and then each member took turns reading their names, their military rank, and a short biography.Thomas Solnit, a Marine Corps veteran, read the name of 42-year-old Noah L. Tietjens, who served as a vehicle mechanic. Tietjens was killed along with five others in a strike in Kuwait and left behind a wife and a teenage son.“Today we honor his life and his years of commitment,” Solnit said. “We hold his family in our hearts, and we say his name because he deserves to be remembered with dignity, not lost in the noise of war: Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens.”Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: [email protected].

May 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump has signaled plans for an "endgame in the Iran war," infuriating a key ally, according to a report from The Atlantic published Thursday.Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributor to The Atlantic, described how a Trump administration insider revealed that during a phone call on Wednesday with Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump determined the next steps with Iran. The president reportedly told Netanyahu his plan to negotiate a "letter of intent" and that Iran would "formally end the war and launch a 30-day period of negotiations" focusing on Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz."The purpose and effect of such an agreement should be clear: The United States is walking away from the crisis," Kagan wrote. "Trump may launch another limited strike to look tough and satisfy the demands of the war’s supporters, but it would be a performative gesture. Endgame in this case is a euphemism for 'surrender.'"Netanyahu, the source said, was not pleased."According to one U.S. official, Netanyahu’s 'hair was on fire' after the call with Trump—for good reason," Kagan wrote. "The Iran war may end up as the single most devastating blow to Israel’s security in its brief history. On the present trajectory, Iran will emerge from the conflict many times stronger and more influential than it was before the war. It will exercise leverage with dozens of the richest nations in the world, all of which will have an acute interest in keeping Iran happy. They will be unlikely to take Israel’s side in any conflict that it has with Tehran or with its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, because Iran will have the means to punish them if they do. Israel will emerge more isolated than it has been at any time in its history—and not least from its only reliable protector, the United States."

May 21, 2026 - World

A GOP congressman had a hard time during an appearance on Newsmax selling the Trump administration's newest moves against a foreign country.Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was trying to convince Newsmax anchor Rob Finnerty that the United States needed to take action against Cuba and its former president, Raúl Castro. The Trump administration declared on Wednesday that it indicted Castro."I get it, the Ayatollah is gone, Nicolas Maduro is in jail, but now Cuba?" Finnerty said, shaking his head. "Look, I think people struggle with how this is America first, when gas is $4.55 a gallon right now."Comer responded, "It is, and you're absolutely right," but then toed the Trump line by insisting that going after another foreign leader is necessary."Cuba has always been a national security threat," Comer said. "It's just minutes away from Miami.""But do you really think they're a threat?" Finnerty asked."If some country went in and loaded Cuba with the same drones Iran had when we first started bombing Iran, then yes, I think it could be a threat," Comer answered. "We've got to be on guard because of the new types of warfare that's out there."Finnerty didn't buy it, though."To me, this just sounds like we're just trying to make the case to attack Cuba," Finnerty said. "I don't buy it. It sounds like a false flag operation."

May 20, 2026 - World

The Department of Defense has suspended a joint military advisory board with Canada that dates to World War II, escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby announced the suspension of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, claiming Canada has failed to adequately invest in military modernization, and he pointed specifically to remarks Carney had made at the World Economic Forum in January calling on "middle powers" to unite as a bulwark against superpowers, reported The Hill.Carney downplayed the move Tuesday, noting that Canada was spending 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, including a $40 billion investment in the North American Aerospace Defense Command. "I wouldn't overplay the importance of this," he said of the suspended board.But Canadian defense experts warned the decision signals a dangerous deterioration in one of the world's most important bilateral relationships."None of this political rhetoric serves anyone's purposes but China and Russia," said Andrea Charron, director of the Center for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba.The board, composed of military and civilian advisers, typically meets once a year to consult on matters of mutual importance. Experts said its suspension is unlikely to disrupt day-to-day military cooperation between the two countries, given that other communication channels remain intact — but said the symbolism carries real weight.Trump's frustrations with Carney have been building for months. Canada is renegotiating a trade agreement with the U.S., recently awarded Australia a contract to build its Arctic radar system, and is weighing the purchase of Swedish fighter jets over American-made F-35s.Defense analyst David Perry said Canada has itself to blame, in part, for not using forums like the joint board more proactively. "I can imagine a scenario where somebody in the Pentagon said, 'What's on the agenda for this next meeting?' and thought the answer was underwhelming," he said.Carney has committed to raising defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035, though experts say achieving that target will require difficult trade-offs with domestic social programs.

May 20, 2026 - World

MS NOW host Joe Scarborough and “Morning Joe” regular John Heilemann had a good laugh on Wednesday morning over a report that Donald Trump and the Israelis had a grand plan to reinstall Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the leader of Iran.According to the New York Times report, “… the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.”The report added, “Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike” and that “after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.”On “Morning Joe,” the Times' Elizabeth Buhmiller prompted the conversation by noting that, when it comes to Iran, Trump is “ …kind of stuck in a corner. He — it's a real problem.”Pointing to the aborted Ahmadinejad plan, she added, “It just shows you how unplanned and by the seat of their pants this war is.”Co-host Scarborough then piled on as Heilemann burst into laughter. “It ended up all the time the moderate was Ahmadinejad, who would have known they were going to blow him out of prison, almost killed him,” Scarborough sarcastically pointed out as Heilemann laughed. “Of course, this is like, this is straight out of — this is, this is straight out of a South Park episode or a movie.”“What was the movie where they had the American heroes that saved Paris by blowing up the Eiffel Tower and everything else?” he joked. “Great movie a couple of years ago. But anyway, that's what, that's what we were doing.” - YouTube youtu.be