Walter Mead: “One would be a clear and damaging American defeat. If a mix of global pressure and domestic opposition forces the Trump administration to end the conflict before full trade is restored through the Gulf, a battered Iran will emerge having demonstrated its ability to close the Gulf against everything the world’s greatest military power can throw at it. America’s power and prestige, not to mention Mr. Trump’s, would struggle to recover from such a fiasco.”

“Alternatively, the Americans could reopen the Gulf as a new Iranian government more focused on developing the country than on dominating its neighbors emerges. This would be a major victory for the Trump administration.”

“Most likely is an in-between scenario in which the U.S. largely clears the Gulf but the current regime survives. Operation Epic Fury would in that case be remembered as the Mother of All Lawnmowers, solving nothing fundamental but preserving a fragile balance of power in a vital part of the world.”

“U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is conducting its most intense day of strikes inside Iran with the most fighters, bombers and strikes, during a press conference Tuesday at the Pentagon,” Bloomberg reports.

President Trump said Cuba is in “deep ​trouble” on a humanitarian basis and ‌that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was dealing with the issue which may or may ​not be a “friendly takeover,” Reuters reports.

Said Trump: “He’s dealing with it ​and it may be a friendly takover, ⁠it may not be a friendly takeover. ​Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down ​to…as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money.”

CNBC: “His latest comments come less than a week after he suggested that his administration would turn its sights on Havana after U.S. military operations in Iran ended.”