Middle East crisis

Iran War
Sources: Military Advises Hegseth to Scale Back

US military leaders are warning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that continued large-scale operations against Iran are unsustainable and risk weakening the military's ability to meet other threats, according to sources to the Washington Post.

The warning was given on August 14 in a secret document that the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force, together with the commanders of foreign forces, provide to the defense secretary every two weeks.

The document contains reports on the number of warships, fighter jets, soldiers and weapons systems available, as well as the defense leaders' reflections on the military situation.

After six months of war, "too much and too long" is the general opinion of the Iran war in the US military's top echelons, according to one of the sources.

Analysis: No one wins – ordinary Iranians lose

After six months, the US has exchanged a military war against Iran for an economic one. However, the result is unlikely to be different, according to experts – the US lacks credibility, strategy and ultimate goal, writes Steven Erlanger in the New York Times.

The only constant factor is that ordinary Iranians are paying the price, he continues.

“The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military figures, sees its own survival as the survival of the nation and the sacrifice of ordinary Iranians as necessary patriotism and even martyrdom.”

To claim that Iran is winning the war is also not correct, writes Brett H McGurk for CNN.

Since mid-July, the US has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports, while working tirelessly to keep the shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz open and protect commercial ships. Oil volumes passing through the strait are now two-thirds of what they were before the war, according to Bloomberg.

“This means that the pressure is now increasing on Iran, not on the United States. And if Iran loses its ability to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage, their advantage will quickly disappear,” writes McGurk.

Gaza war
Ben-Gvir: Proud of poor conditions in prisons

Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is proud of the deteriorating conditions for Palestinian prisoners. He says this in a video posted on social media on Sunday, AFP writes.

In the video, ultra-conservative Ben-Gvir visits a prison with female prisoners, where a woman says that the prisoners live in “extremely bad” conditions and have not washed or changed their underwear for three days.

Ben-Gvir points out that the hostages taken by Hamas after the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, lived in similar conditions.

– I am proud that we have managed to reduce the prison conditions of terrorists to an absolute minimum, he says.