Axios: “Trump might be the most hawkish person in the top echelons of his administration on Iran, according to a U.S. source who spoke to him several times in recent days.”

Said one U.S. official: “The president is the most bloodthirsty, like a mad dog.”

“Trump has started sounding out advisers and confidants about the plan to strike power plants and bridges by asking them, ‘What do you think of Infrastructure Day?'”

Wall Street Journal: “As President Trump threatens a major escalation in Iran by a Tuesday night deadline, the Republican-led Congress is out of the picture. Lawmakers are on a holiday recess, and won’t return to Washington until next week.”

“But some Republican lawmakers have set a deadline of their own that is approaching at the end of this month: They say federal law requires the president to seek approval from Congress if military operations in Iran last longer than 60 to 90 days.”

“Crowning a year of disputes with the Trump administration over trade tariffs, support for Ukraine and the future of Greenland, the Iran war has placed America’s friends in Europe, Asia and the Middle East in front of an uneasy dilemma,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Their most important ally is acting in ways that they see as erratic and that have already caused hardship and uncertainty. The war has sapped their economies and even bigger shocks loom if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, deepening the worldwide energy crisis.”

“Many—on both sides of the Atlantic—wonder if they are even allies anymore.”

“Negotiators are pessimistic Iran will bend to meet President Trump’s demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz before his Tuesday-night deadline, paving the way for the U.S. to target Iranian bridges and power plants in a fresh escalation of the war,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Axios: “Mediators from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey are working to avert that outcome by brokering a deal — or at least putting time back on the clock.”

“Iranians who have weathered more than a month of war are bracing for things to get worse if President Trump acts on his threat to escalate attacks on civilian infrastructure,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Families in Tehran are taping up their windows and sleeping together in rooms away from the glass. Their buildings have already been shaken by nightly explosions from the most sustained bombing in the capital since the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. Some are rushing to buy generators, concerned that new attacks could cause critical services like electricity and water to unravel.”

“The bombings and threats have left many Iranians living in fear not only of their own government, which killed thousands of people in a crackdown on protesters early this year, but their would-be American rescuers, who pledged at the beginning of the war to create the conditions for their government to fall.”