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A U.S. soldier who went missing in the Arabian Sea was declared dead just as Trump reignited his war on Iran.The missing soldier was identified Tuesday as Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5 commanding officer Gabriel Edwards. He and three other soldiers were forced to emergency-land their helicopter in the Arabian Sea on July 1. While the others were rescued, Edwards was declared officially dead after 102 hours—over four days—of searching.“Commander Gabe Edwards was the epitome of selfless leadership, who dedicated himself to service and sacrifice for the last 20 years,” Captain Matthew Lewis said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our deepest gratitude and sympathy go out to his family, who should know that Gabe led his squadron, the HSC-5 ‘Nightdippers,’ with integrity and fortitude.”The cause of the incident remains under investigation, but the Navy insists that Edwards’s death was not caused by a hostile act.Nevertheless, Edwards’s disappearance and death coincides with a once again active war between the U.S. and Iran. President Trump on Wednesday declared any deal with Iran null and void, following the worst exchange of fire between the two countries since the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, was signed. Iran targeted tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. bases, and the U.S. bombed several coastal cities in Iran.“To me? I think it’s over,” Trump said of the MOU at the NATO summit in Turkey. “They’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”Thirteen U.S soldiers have been confirmed to be killed in Iran, although that number has been alleged to be an underestimate.

He began the war on impulse; now Trump is ending the truce impulsively. The winner: Iran. The post Trump Blows Up His Own Iran Deal appeared first on The American Prospect.

As NATO leaders gather in Ankara on July 7-8, the alliance will again speak the language it has used for decades: unity, solidarity, deterrence, and collective commitment. Yet the central political question hanging over the meeting is harder to conceal than any summit communiqué. The Iran war has exposed a growing weakness in American leadership: [...]

Absorbing the revelations in the book Regime Change by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, I posed a question to my American colleague:  why do figures like Donald Trump continue to get elected?  With his signature measured calm, he offered a chilling truth.  He suggested that Americans have not felt history’s harsh winds blow with [...]

Lina Farajallah follows the dumping trucks every morning from the window of her quaint home in Idhna, a Palestinian town in Hebron in the southern West Bank. They carry waste from Israel and the nearby Jewish settlements into her neighborhood and dump it a few hundred meters from where she lives with her daughter. The [...]

“Negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don't see it,” Trump said on the status of future discussions.

Advocates for fully normalized relations with Damascus were bullish ahead of the US president’s meeting with his Syrian counterpart.

Sacrificing the entire MOU over the question of who nominally manages the Strait for the next few weeks would be a costly and unnecessary mistake, writes Iranian-American relations expert Trita Parsi.