The latest measures have forced the cancellation of English proficiency and graduate exams, isolating many Iranians most eager to foster ties with the world.

© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

The Middle East is again on edge after the first exchange of fire between the U.S. and Iran in over a month triggered missile launches and a spike in global oil prices. President Trump responded by declaring Iran a "failed nation" and shared an AI-generated video of an Iranian energy hub under attack. Liz Landers reports.

For perspective on the latest developments in the war with Iran, Amna Nawaz spoke with retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery and Michelle Wiese Bockmann, an analyst at Windward, a London-based maritime intelligence company.

The U.S. military said its attacks against Iran were in response to a threat to the Strait of Hormuz.

© Reuters

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again war with Iran is officially on again. (So recursive is this never-ending conflict, in fact, that I had to search my inbox to confirm I hadn’t already written that sentence!)

On Sunday, the US attacked rocket launchers Sunday on Iran’s Larak Island, claiming the strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from laying mines that could once again disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, meanwhile, responded by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at US sites in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, where they were reportedly intercepted. 

The latest skirmish comes after a month of relative peace and quiet, and six months after the war began. You’ll recall that Trump initially said it would last four to five weeks at the very longest. 

But in the grand scheme of Trump’s Iran fictions, that optimistic timeline isn’t even the most flagrant. On Sunday night, the president also posted a video that purportedly showed Kharg Island, a central hub of Iran’s oil industry, “being blown to smithereens!!!” The video was, in fact, AI-generated. 

Go a little deeper

The persistence of the war in Iran isn’t merely exhausting for those of us following along at home. As a group of high-ranking military commanders recently warned the Pentagon, the drawn-out conflict could also make America less safe by limiting the military’s ability to respond to threats in other parts of the world. 

That unusual warning — first reported over the weekend by the Washington Post — suggested that the war in Iran is tying up ships and surveillance planes that the US needs elsewhere. Several top military leaders explicitly warned that the war had forced them to give up resources they needed to protect the US itself. 

That’s not the only risk of the ongoing conflict, either. Longer deployments have also eroded troop morale and disrupted ship maintenance. And as the war drags on, the US is burning through its stockpiles of advanced missiles, at a cost of many billions of dollars. 

None of this means we’re defenseless, of course. But the war in Iran is taking up a lot of bandwidth. And should another conflict break out anywhere else on earth…the US and its allies could feel it. 

One general warned the Pentagon that, without more resources, he could be forced to choose between protecting Israel and the US from ballistic missile attacks. And the Navy just moved its only dedicated aircraft carrier in the Pacific to the waters near Iran. “We are really robbing Peter to pay Paul,” one military expert told Vox in late February, even before we had any idea how long the war would last.

One link for later

➨ Ditch the doorbell camera. More than 62 percent of respondents in a recent US News survey said they had an outdoor security camera at home. But there’s not much evidence that those cameras reduce crime — and they can damage your relationship with your neighbors. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that the known world basically ended around 1200 BCE? A number of sophisticated civilizations collapsed at the same time, probably due to some combination of prolonged drought, earthquakes, migration, war and political instability.
• Today’s trivia: What was the name of Japan’s capital city before it was renamed Tokyo? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the name of the athletic conference where Georgia Tech competes. That would be the ACC, or Atlantic Coast Conference, which confusingly includes a number of schools in the West and Midwest. 

The vice president spoke to reporters before he flew to Michigan on Monday about the AI video that President Donald Trump posted on social media over the weekend that featured a stylized imaginary attack on Iran's Kharg Island, which is key to its oil exports and Trump has repeatedly threatened.

Washington says it acted after observing Iran was planning to deploy fresh mines in strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran have exchanged fire for the first time in a month, with missiles and drones fired at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in response.

The US president, Donald Trump, on Monday threatened further action. The US is to trying to prise open Tehran’s grip on shipping going through the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply. Washington claimed that Iranian control over the waterway had been loosened by repeated US attacks on Iranian missile launchers and radars.

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© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

Washington says it acted after observing Iran was planning to deploy fresh mines in strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran have exchanged fire for the first time in a month, with missiles and drones fired at Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in response.

The US president, Donald Trump, on Monday threatened further action. The US is trying to prise open Tehran’s grip on shipping going through the strait, which before the war accounted for a fifth of the world’s seaborne energy supply. Washington claimed that Iranian control over the waterway had been loosened by repeated US attacks on Iranian missile launchers and radars.

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© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

© Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

Response seeks to discredit Washington Post story that four generals and admirals advised against prolonging Iran war

Pete Hegseth regularly receives formal objections from senior commanders and proceeds anyway, the Pentagon’s top spokesman has said, as he tried to discredit a Washington Post report that four generals and admirals had advised against prolonging the war in Iran.

“Of course, we demand candid military advice,” Sean Parnell wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s how you run a real military.”

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© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is meeting with finance ministers of the world's largest economies this week at a time when the United States has disrupted the international order with aggressive tariffs on major allies and an unpopular war on Iran.

The incident comes after U.S. forces on Sunday struck Iranian rocket launchers on an Iranian island, breaking a lull in fighting in the six-month war.

Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast is expected to push many Iranians into deeper poverty as food inflation soars

For many Iranians, the new US sanctions campaign, called Operation Economic Outcast, seems superfluous given the grim economic situation in their country.

Iranians are facing runaway food inflation, closed petrol stations and a seemingly never-ending depreciation of the nation’s currency caused by a lack of foreign exchange reserves.

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© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast is expected to push many Iranians into deeper poverty as food inflation soars

For many Iranians, the new US sanctions campaign, called Operation Economic Outcast, seems superfluous given the grim economic situation in their country.

Iranians are facing runaway food inflation, closed petrol stations and a seemingly never-ending depreciation of the nation’s currency caused by a lack of foreign exchange reserves.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

© Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

The renewed attacks were the latest sign that the war that began six months ago appears far from over.

© Reuters

The US House is back after a five-week recess; government funding is guaranteed through 30 September

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Chris Hippensteel

We’re watching today as Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, and Kevin Warsh, the chair of the Federal Reserve, deliver their opening remarks at the G20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina.

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© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Plus, a groundbreaking new space telescope.

© Reuters

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• US supreme court allows Trump to keep building $400m White House ballroom

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Chris Hippensteel

We’re watching today as Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, and Kevin Warsh, the chair of the Federal Reserve, deliver their opening remarks at the G20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

© Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The first attacks in a month jolted energy markets. The average U.S. gasoline price remained 37 percent higher since the war began.

© Michelle Groskopf for The New York Times

US targets Iran’s Larak Island in first exchange of fire in more than a month as Masoud Pezeshkian says America ‘has not fulfilled its commitments’

• First US military attacks on Iran in a month prompt retaliation

Coinciding with this week’s G20 meeting, the EU has issued a statement saying it will work with the US and other allied countries to maintain economic pressure against Iran.

“The ‌EU welcomes efforts at ensuring that Iran ceases its destabilising activities and engages in peace negotiations with good ‌faith, also through additional economic pressure, including through ​the US-led Operation Economic Outcast,” it said in reference to the pressure strategy the White House describes as “an unprecedented campaign to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining” the Islamic republic.

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© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

© Photograph: Reuters

Iran responded to an assault on its Larak Island by targeting US bases in Jordan

• Trump threatens further action as US and Iran exchange fire in new flare-up

Coinciding with this week’s G20 meeting, the EU has issued a statement saying it will work with the US and other allied countries to maintain economic pressure against Iran.

“The ‌EU welcomes efforts at ensuring that Iran ceases its destabilising activities and engages in peace negotiations with good ‌faith, also through additional economic pressure, including through ​the US-led Operation Economic Outcast,” it said in reference to the pressure strategy the White House describes as “an unprecedented campaign to sever every remaining economic lifeline sustaining” the Islamic republic.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto/Shutterstock