Washington Post: “Congressional leaders have invited King Charles III to address a joint meeting of Congress when he visits the United States later this month to mark the 250th anniversary of America’s independence from Britain.”

“It would be the first such address by a member of the British monarchy in 35 years.”

New York Times: “The U.S. military’s decision to move troops away from bases under Iranian attack to hotels and office spaces in civilian areas may amount to violations of international humanitarian law and the U.S. military’s own laws of war, human rights officials and experts say.”

“The constellation of American bases in the Persian Gulf region has been essential to the U.S. military’s execution of the air war over Iran. But commanders have relocated many of their troops because the sprawling compounds did not have adequate defenses to protect from Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, U.S. defense officials said.”

President Trump claims Iran has asked the United States for a ceasefire.

But he added: “We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

He also claimed Iran has a new president, but there’s no indication the old president is gone.

New York Times: “If there is one thing American and European leaders agree on at a fractured time in trans-Atlantic relations, it’s that Europe has spent much too little, for far too long, on its own defense.”

“War in Iran has underscored that point, reducing even Europe’s strongest militaries to bystander status as the United States and Israel rain missiles on Tehran. Privately, European officials say they have little leverage to pressure President Trump to end the war quickly, largely because they do not have the offensive or defensive firepower to alter the course of the fighting.”

“The war has also complicated European leaders’ efforts to change that dynamic. It has further strained an already difficult trade-off between what governments spend on people and what they spend on the machines of war.”

Bloomberg: “A third U.S. aircraft carrier strike group is heading to the Middle East as military operations against Iran continue, after the Navy’s flagship carrier left the region for repairs.”

Robert Pape: “President Trump may signal that the Iran war is ‘over’ in his address tonight. That will dominate the headlines. It will also be deeply misleading.”

“A political declaration does not end a war when the underlying strategic reality remains unchanged. Iran has already demonstrated the ability to exert control over roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows—not by closing the Strait of Hormuz, but by making it unreliable. That power does not disappear if the United States steps back.”

“At the same time, Israel’s campaign against Iran will not stop. If anything, a U.S. pullback increases the pressure on Israel to act independently and repeatedly.”

“The result is not a return to normal.”

Nancy Youssef: “None of Trump’s four current options to bring hostilities to an end comes close to achieving the grand ambition the president outlined on the first night of the war—regime change in Tehran—in the weekslong timeline he promised. Whether his other stated goals—destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities, and targeting Iran’s proxies—can be achieved, or whether the U.S. can withdraw and claim a victory with any credibility, remains unknown.”

“All of his options come with serious liabilities, not least the fact that Iran appears to consider its own position to be relatively strong, given its de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz and, therefore, the global price of oil. Tehran may not feel that ending the war on a quick U.S. time frame is in its own interests.”

Axios: “Some Trump aides and allies say he’s mostly improvising rather than following any clear plan.”

“He likes to keep his options open, spitball with different audiences, then capitalize if he thinks he sees an opportunity… Aides have been convinced at various points that Trump was leaning toward a major escalation, and at others that he was eager for a swift resolution.”

Said a senior adviser: “Nobody knows in the end what he’s really thinking… They had a plan for the first week and since then, they are making the plan up as they go along.”

“President Trump declared on Tuesday that he had already achieved one of the primary objectives of his attack on Iran, the elimination of its ability to build a nuclear weapon,” the New York Times reports.

“But there is no evidence that the United States or Israel has removed or destroyed the country’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade fuel.”

President Trump suggested in an interview with a British newspaper that the United States is considering leaving NATO over what he cast as the alliance’s lackluster military support for his war against Iran, CNN reports.

“The United Arab Emirates is preparing to help the U.S. and other allies open the Strait of Hormuz by force, Arab officials said, a move that would make it the first Persian Gulf country to become a combatant, after being hit by Iranian attacks,” the Wall Street Journal reports.