Tuesday night in Washington. Wednesday morning in Tehran. The deadline is hours away.
President Donald Trump has warned Iran that power plants and bridges will be struck if his deadline to open the Strait of Hormuz passes, and then went further at Monday’s White House press conference in language that alarmed allies and opposition lawmakers alike. Iran responded through Pakistan, rejecting the ceasefire proposal and demanding a permanent end to the war. Trump called it “a significant step” but “not good enough.” The two positions do not overlap.
Also, this week in the Agenda, the intelligence failure behind the first U.S. manned aircraft shot down in the war, and why no oversight committee has asked a single on-record question about it. In Baghdad, a drone strike on Iraq’s main intelligence agency was a direct response to a leaked recording, and investigators know who launched it. In Lebanon, Israel is pushing toward the Litani River, the boundary set by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and Washington has said nothing officially.
Leila Bazzi, Rasha Ibrahim, Houda Elboukili, and Ghassan Taqi contributed to the Agenda this week.
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MBN Iran Briefing Podcast
Expert conversations unpacking the latest developments in Iran and how they are reshaping security, energy markets, and geopolitics across the Middle East.
Washington Signals
Deadline, Again
Talks aren’t producing results. Threats are flying. Deadlines keep moving.
President Trump set a Tuesday night deadline, Washington time (Wednesday morning per Arabian Standard Time), for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he warned: “If they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants, and they won’t have any bridges standing.” Hours later, he sharpened the threat further on Truth Social, writing that Tuesday would be “Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.” Then, at Monday’s White House press conference, he went further still: “The entire nation could be eliminated in a single night, and that night could be tomorrow.” He confirmed the deadline stands and is “highly unlikely” to move again.
A senior White House official told MBN the administration is also weighing a different exit: “One final, large-scale air campaign to weaken Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure further, then declare victory and step back.”
Iran responded through Pakistan. Tehran formally rejected the 45-day ceasefire proposal mediated by Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, submitting a 10-point counter-offer demanding a permanent end to the war, safe passage protocols through Hormuz, full sanctions relief, and reconstruction reparations.
Trump called Iran’s proposal “a significant step” but said, “it’s not good enough.” The strategic gap is now visible. A senior administration official told MBN that Trump is treating the reopening of Hormuz as a precondition for talks, not a subject of the talks.
Inside the White House, three camps have formed. Trump and his political loyalists are promising a fast, decisive win. The official line insists on maximalist objectives, obliterating Iran’s missile capabilities, neutering its proxies, ensuring it never obtains a nuclear weapon, without defining a political end-state. That leaves a gap between short timelines and expansive objectives, making some staffers nervous. Political advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita want Trump to declare victory and exit. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is defending a $200 billion war request. The senior White House official describes Vice President J.D. Vance as “skeptical and worried about success.”
In Washington, the questions are growing louder. Republicans have scheduled a budget hearing with Hegseth for April 29, exactly 60 days after Trump launched the offensive, the point at which the law requires congressional authorization for continued hostilities. A House Armed Services Committee aide told MBN the session is expected to become a de facto oversight hearing on the war. Twenty-seven House Democrats wrote to Committee Chairman Mike Rogers to demand a separate hearing on Operation Epic Fury, arguing that a budget session is insufficient given what they called “the constantly changing strategic and operational goals of the conflict” and the uncertainty surrounding a possible deployment of ground troops. Rogers has not scheduled one.
The sharpest dissent came from Democrat Jake Auchincloss, who told Fox News Sunday that Iran’s control of Hormuz is now “more strategically crucial” than any nuclear program, and that Trump has handed Tehran a new strategic deterrent. “China is stronger, Russia is richer,” he said. “And this is Operation Epic Failure.”
A former Omani diplomat, speaking to MBN, cautioned that Trump’s claims of imminent victory may be premature, arguing that Iran is adapting by turning its control of the Strait of Hormuz into a long-term deterrent.
Diplomatic Signals
Silence on the Litani
A Lebanese army vehicle near the Litani River. Photo: Reuters.
Eighteen European governments have condemned Israel’s military operations in southern Lebanon in a joint statement. UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher warned the Security Council that the world should “prepare for a new addition to occupied territory,” bluntly using the word occupation to describe Israel’s actions in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, said on television that Israel “might want to do in southern Lebanon what it did in Gaza.” Israel’s own defense minister, Israel Catz, invoked Rafah by name, the Gaza city Israel largely demolished, as the template for southern Lebanon.
Washington has said nothing officially.
The State Department has issued no public statement on Israel’s announced plan to establish a permanent security zone up to the Litani River, demolish border villages, and bar the return of civilian populations south of the river. No U.S. official has been quoted, on record, pressing Israel to define the limits of its territorial ambitions in Lebanon. The department’s only Lebanon-specific public action in recent days was an evacuation order for U.S. citizens, citing Iranian proxy threats, not Israeli demolitions.
A senior State Department official in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs told MBN the administration’s position had not changed. “We support Israel’s right to defend itself, and we also support Lebanese sovereignty,” the official said. “Beyond that, I’m not going to characterize private diplomatic conversations.” Asked specifically about Israel’s buffer zone plans, the official said: “Silence isn’t a signal. It’s just the absence of a new public posture.”
U.S. Special Envoy Thomas Barrack said, after meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam: “The U.S. has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything.” That statement came in direct response to Lebanon asking Washington to enforce the November 2024 ceasefire, which the United States brokered, and under which Israel committed to withdraw from Lebanese territory.
Lebanese Prime Minister Salam told U.S. officials directly, “Israel’s presence is politically counterproductive. It’s undermining my government.” There is no public record of a U.S. response.
A former Lebanese diplomat told MBN that the ceasefire Washington brokered is the ceasefire Washington is declining to enforce.
Lebanon has asked. Washington has not replied. The zone of Israeli occupation up to the Litani is becoming permanent.
Iraq Watch
Drone that Answered Back
An Iraqi security officer told MBN that investigators have identified the party responsible for the March 21 drone strike on Baghdad’s National Intelligence Service, Iraq’s main domestic intelligence agency. The attack was not random. It was a response.
One day before the strike, someone leaked a recording of Iraqi intelligence officers discussing the whereabouts of faction leaders and senior military commanders. The recording revealed that those leaders had abandoned their offices and were operating from mosques and Husseiniyas (Shiite congregation halls), raising the question of whether more intelligence could be gathered on their movements. The leak was dangerous at a moment when U.S. strikes on Iran-backed factions inside Iraq were intensifying.
The following morning, a drone launched from a nearby area struck the building housing the communications center responsible for tracking drone attacks on Baghdad and other cities. The officer, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, told MBN that investigators concluded that Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, carried out the strike. The Iraqi government did not respond to MBN’s requests for comment.
Kataib Hezbollah denied responsibility on March 22. On the same day, it accused Iraqi intelligence officers of feeding targeting information to U.S. forces conducting strikes against Popular Mobilization Forces sites. The denial and the accusation arrived together.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani condemned the attack, calling the perpetrators a “cowardly group that has overstepped against state institutions.” The ruling Shiite coalition called it a “terrorist act.”
The strike killed one intelligence officer. The message it sent was aimed at many more.
Read the full story here
Gulf Watch
Allies, Reconsidering
While Trump sets deadlines for Tehran, Gulf sovereign wealth funds are quietly reviewing their investment commitments to Washington.
Force majeure clauses are being examined. New air defense contracts are being signed with France, Australia, and Ukraine, not the United States.
The $3.2 trillion in frameworks the Gulf states announced during Trump’s May 2025 Gulf tour were letters of intent, not secured transfers. When Gulf states need to rebuild refineries and replenish interceptor stocks, commitments to America slip first.
“Gulf capitals didn’t ask for this war,” a former Kuwaiti official told MBN, “yet we are hosting the bases, absorbing the missile strikes, and now reviewing our sovereign investment pledges privately…. When your supposed security partner cannot provide interceptors but France and Ukraine can, you start to ask: What exactly did we pay for?”
Reports emerged Monday that Qatar may ask U.S. troops to leave Al Udeid Air Base (the largest American military installation in the Middle East and the operational hub for the Iran air campaign). Neither Doha nor Washington has confirmed this.
“The oil-for-security deal is dead,” the diplomat told MBN. “That is not an alliance. That is a rental agreement. And the rent is now under review.”
Trump told Gulf investors on March 27 that the war is ending and America is open for business. The officials reviewing force majeure clauses are working from different assumptions.
The gap between those two realities is the financial story of this war.
MBN Iran Briefing:
Andres Ilves’ weekly reporting and understanding of what’s going on in Tehran and its impact on the wider world.
Quote of the Day
“The Strait of Hormuz cannot be held hostage by any nation. Its security is a global economic necessity, not merely a regional bargaining point. We oppose a ceasefire that fails to address critical issues…”
–UAE diplomatic advisor Anwar Gargash, April 6, Reuters
Featured Conversation
Wrong Pathway
Henry Sokolski, a former Pentagon official on nuclear nonproliferation policy, warns that the obsession with Iran’s enriched uranium may be missing the point.
On the shores of the Persian Gulf sits the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a civilian facility with strategic consequences. Inside it, more than 200 tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored. Within that fuel is plutonium, not theoretical, not future production. It’s already there. Sokolski’s assessment: that’s enough material, if extracted and weaponized, for up to 200 nuclear weapons.
Extraction is complex. Weaponization takes time. But the gap between access and capability may be narrower than the world has assumed, particularly now, with international inspectors no longer consistently present, Russian engineers who built and maintained the plant stepping back, and a war unfolding around critical infrastructure across the region.
For decades, Bushehr was treated as a civilian red line, too dangerous to strike, too sensitive to touch. That line is blurring.
The question is not only whether Iran can build a bomb. It is whether the world has been watching the wrong path to get there.
MBN’s Editor-in-Chief Leila Bazzi sat down with Sokolski to explore what he calls the “plutonium path” that hides in plain sight.
Watch a clip here
Joe Kawly
Joe Kawly is Washington Bureau Chief for MBN and a global affairs journalist with more than twenty years covering U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics.
A CNN Journalism Fellow and Georgetown University graduate, he reports from Washington at the intersection of power and diplomacy, explaining how decisions made in the U.S. capital shape events across the Arab world.
