July 15, 2026

Good morning! Today is Wednesday, July 15th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. The war in Iran enters its 137th day as U.S. forces bomb targets across the country for a third straight night, Iran strikes American positions in Bahrain, Jordan, and Iraq, and President Trump proposes charging a twenty-percent protection fee on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Sina Toossi argues in a new report that Trump's regime-change war has become a quagmire with no military path to victory, the predictable result of a half-century pattern in which Washington has treated Iran as an irrational actor and repeatedly achieved the opposite of what it intended. And Luke Nicastro reports on Marine Le Pen's revived path to the French presidency after a court cleared her to run, with polls showing her comfortably ahead as the National Rally campaigns on national rebirth against a decade of Macron's technocratic rule. and now for the details. We begin with the war in Iran, now in its 137th day. On Monday evening, U.S. forces bombed Iran for a third straight night, striking targets in Bushehr, Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps responded with strikes on the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, an American air base in Jordan, and Iranian Kurdish opposition facilities in Iraq. The IRGC also claimed to have killed three American service members in Kuwait over the weekend. Central Command initially denied casualties, though the Pentagon's official death toll rose by one on Monday with the disclosed death of a Navy pilot in an early-July helicopter crash. Iranian media reports at least 23 people killed in U.S. strikes since hostilities resumed. The Strait of Hormuz remains the central flashpoint. Iran continues to control the northern portion of the waterway and cites article five of the memorandum of understanding signed by President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which assigned future administration of the strait to Iran and Oman. On Monday, President Trump proposed that the United States become, in his words, "the guardian of the Hormuz Strait," and charge a twenty-percent protection fee on each ship's cargo. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, Iran has attacked vessels attempting to use an alternate Omani channel, most recently striking two UAE-flagged supertankers with cruise missiles on Monday. Shipping tracker Kpler says use of that Omani channel has almost disappeared in recent days. Brent crude has climbed to 87 dollars a barrel, up roughly 17 percent since July 7. That renewed conflict is the subject of a longer analysis by Sina Toossi, drawing on his new report for the Center for International Policy, titled Beyond Maximalism. Toossi argues that President Trump, who entered office promising to end America's endless wars, has instead chosen a war openly aimed at regime change in Iran, one that has become a quagmire of tit-for-tat strikes, economic blockades, and confrontation over Hormuz, with no plausible military path to victory. Toossi's central point is that this outcome was not inevitable. He traces nearly half a century of American policy from Iran-Contra through the 2015 nuclear deal and maximum pressure, and finds a consistent pattern: Washington has treated Iran as an irrational ideological actor when senior American military leaders and realist scholars have long described it as a rational state responding to incentives. He notes that the invasion of Iraq eliminated Iran's chief regional rival and expanded Tehran's influence. Withdrawal from the nuclear deal accelerated Iran's nuclear program. Maximum pressure drove Iran closer to Russia and China. Toossi warns that the restored blockade is unlikely to force capitulation and more likely to convince Tehran that leverage over Hormuz is indispensable to its security, at a moment when U.S. strategic petroleum reserves remain historically low. His conclusion: there is no military solution. Washington's objective, he writes, should not be unconditional submission but managing a long-term rivalry through reciprocal diplomacy and regional integration. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.