Pegah Banihashemi and Paul Poast: “President Trump appears to careen between two opposing visions for victory in Iran: He has demanded Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” and also has signaled that he might abruptly declare victory and leave. Neither scenario is likely to end this war, because neither reflects any real understanding of the adversary.”

“Washington appears to have begun the conflict on the assumption that sustained military pressure would either collapse the Iranian regime or force its leadership to concede to fundamental political and strategic demands. But the Islamic Republic has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive crises. In fact, past crises have strengthened rather than weakened the regime’s internal cohesion.”

“A direct communications channel between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been reactivated in recent days,” Axios reports.

“The news that Israel killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official and its de facto ruler during the war, immediately fueled anxiety among Iranians about the direction of the war and the country,” the New York Times report.

“Israel, again, demonstrated it was a step ahead of Iran when it came to the security of its officials. Iranian officials have been under extra security protocols since the U.S.-Israeli strikes began more than two weeks ago, killing the former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

“Still, a wave of targeted assassinations of top officials followed.”

Times of Israel: Larijani’s death removes key pillar of regime. Will it be enough to make Iran collapse?

Adam Serwer: “Those allies aren’t exactly jumping at the chance to join Trump’s war on Iran—not a single one has taken the offer. That leaves the president trapped in a needless war of choice that he started and is unable to finish. Iran’s leverage over the global economy is increasing as oil prices rise and the strait remains closed to the U.S. and its allies.”

“Now, basically anyone could have told Trump that spending the past few years antagonizing allies with aggressive tariffs, belligerent arm-twisting, and imperial dismissiveness would hurt him when the time came to ask those same allies for help.”

“But this isn’t a simple strategic miscalculation or even a typical Trumpian incompetence—it’s the result of a particular ideological fantasy of American independence from foreign alliances, one that is oblivious to how those alliances long served American interests. Americans are learning the hard way that the economic costs of the autarky pursued by Trump are far worse than those of the ‘globalism’ he opposes.”

“Cuba’s communist government is struggling to restore electricity across the island after its obsolete power grid collapsed on Monday, exposing the magnitude of its economic implosion amid a damaging U.S. oil blockade and rising social unrest,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Authorities said on Tuesday that the cause of the nationwide power outage affecting the island’s 9 million residents was still unknown, and that there were no reports of breakdowns in the power plants that were operating.”

“Israel said it had killed Iran’s intelligence minister, the latest member of Tehran’s top leadership to be wiped out this week. Esmail Khatib was described by Israel as having played a significant role in Tehran’s crackdown on recent protests,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“President Trump and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan have built a close relationship over the past few months, bonding over baseball and shared conservative values, and heaping praise on each other even as they spar over issues like trade,” the New York Times reports.

“That friendship is about to undergo a major test on Thursday as Ms. Takaichi visits the White House for the first time.”

“Spurned by European allies, Mr. Trump is expected to use the summit meeting to urge Japan to dispatch minesweepers and maritime forces to assist in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as the war in the Mideast enters its third week. He has already piled on the pressure, suggesting that Japan owes the United States for years of defense aid and that Japan must act because of its heavy reliance on Middle Eastern oil.”

The Atlantic: “The Iran war has not quite gone to plan. The U.S. military, working alongside the Israeli armed forces, pummeled its targets in the first fortnight of war and significantly damaged the Iranian military’s capabilities, while also carrying out what is believed to be the deadliest accidental American attack on civilians in decades. Iran’s supreme leader was killed, but the nation’s hard-line regime has not crumpled.”

“Instead, it has expanded and intensified the conflict, raining rockets and drones on its Gulf neighbors. Weakened but resilient, the regime has effectively closed a vital waterway through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply travels, increasing U.S. gas prices and shocking the global economy.”

“Trump now faces a daunting decision: Does he escalate the conflict to try to achieve his ambitious goals, no matter how unpopular with the American people? Or does he declare some sort of victory and execute a quick withdrawal, minimizing the economic damage but leaving behind an embittered, violent regime with the materials to someday build a nuclear weapon? The eventual outcome may come down to just how much risk Trump is willing to accept—and how much pain he is willing to take.”

Wall Street Journal: “Israeli and American leaders said at the outset that the war with Iran would create the conditions for Iranians to topple their regime. The killings early Tuesday were milestones in that campaign made possible by the fast-accumulating damage from airstrikes and a growing harvest of intelligence about possible targets.”

“With thousands of regime members killed—from top leaders to street-level grunts—Iranians are reporting that a sense of disorder is starting to take hold. Security forces are under stress and on the run as they threaten protesters to stay off the streets and direct strikes at the U.S., Israel and Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf.”

Axios: The top Iranian officials killed since Iran war’s start.

“Battered by Iranian strikes and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, the United Arab Emirates and some fellow Persian Gulf states have come to view Iran’s theocracy as an existential enemy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“They now want the regime they once courted to be neutered, if not dismantled, when the conflict ends—so the ordeal is never repeated.”

New York Times: “In fact, listening to Mr. Trump in recent days is to hear a president debating whether to order the biggest Iran mission of all: to seize or destroy the near-bomb-grade nuclear material believed to be largely stored deep under a mountain in Isfahan.”

“It would, by any measure, be one of the boldest and riskiest military operations in modern American history, far more complex and dangerous than the effort to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011, or seize Nicolás Maduro from his bed in early January. No one is certain where all the fuel is. If the canisters holding it are pierced, the escaping gas would be both toxic and radioactive. If the canisters come too close together, there is the risk of an accelerating nuclear reaction.”