Update, July 20, 2026: What began as a single retaliatory strike on July 8 has become nine consecutive nights of US-Iran strikes, with dozens killed on both sides and the ceasefire now effectively abandoned by both governments. The sections below have been rewritten to cover the full two-week escalation; the original reporting on the July … Read more
Ali Khamenei died on February 28, 2026, killed alongside his top military command in a joint US-Israeli strike on his Tehran compound — an opening blow covered in detail in our 100-day retrospective on the Iran war. His funeral did not begin until July 4 — more than 125 days later. In a Shia tradition … Read more
After four marathon days of US-mediated talks in Washington, Israel and Lebanon signed a trilateral framework agreement on June 26, 2026, aimed at dismantling Hezbollah and ending the conflict that has devastated southern Lebanon since March. The Israel Lebanon framework agreement is being described by US officials as a historic first step — but Hezbollah … Read more
For more than three months, missiles and drones rained down on a single piece of American territory in the Persian Gulf: Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the home of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. By the time the fighting wound down in June 2026, the Iran Bahrain naval base attack campaign had left the Pentagon facing … Read more
On June 23, 2026, the U.S. Senate did something it had failed to do nine times before: it passed a war powers resolution directing President Donald Trump to pull American forces out of hostilities with Iran. The vote was 50 to 48, with four Republicans crossing party lines to join Democrats. It marked the first … Read more
Within hours of President Trump signing a framework agreement with Iran at the Palace of Versailles, a former Trump administration insider went on television to call it “the worst deal in American diplomatic history.” It was a striking line — and it spread fast. But a closer look at what the deal has actually delivered … Read more
The memorandum that Presidents Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian signed on June 17 is unambiguous on one point: the war is over “on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” Within 48 hours, Israel’s military announced four soldiers killed in a Hezbollah attack, Israeli forces were filmed crossing back into northern Israel from the south, and a sitting … Read more
Status update (June 19, 2026): The MOU is no longer tentative. Presidents Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian signed the memorandum on June 17 at the Palace of Versailles, and Vice President JD Vance confirmed on June 18 that the formal 60-day negotiation window has begun. The Strait of Hormuz is reopening to commercial traffic, and the U.S. … Read more
On the morning of June 11, President Donald Trump promised that the United States would hit Iran with a third — and “bigger” — wave of strikes that evening, and even floated seizing Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub. By early afternoon, everything had reversed: Trump announced on Truth Social that he had canceled … Read more
The Numbers: What the Data Actually Shows A major new report published in June 2026 by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), drawing on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University — the world’s leading systematic tracker of armed conflict since 1946 — has confirmed what many have felt watching the … Read more