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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns to the White House on Tuesday with the Iran war at an uncertain juncture. He is expected to press U.S. President Donald Trump to stay the course against Tehran, even as Washington leaves the door open to negotiations and insists it is giving diplomacy with Iran “a little bit of room.”
Elsewhere this week, Pakistan steps into a larger Gulf security role as confidence in U.S. protection weakens; Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asks Washington to help defang Hezbollah without destabilizing his country; and a surprise diplomatic condition complicates the U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreement. Meanwhile, Iraq seeks Iranian guarantees for its oil exports through Hormuz, while the Houthis threaten the Red Sea route Saudi Arabia hoped could provide an escape from the growing trade crisis.
Joe Kawly, Abubakar Siddique, Sakina Abdallah, Hani Al-Farash and Asher Boiskin contributed to the Agenda this week.
Washington Signals
One Pause, Two Stories
For the first time in 13 nights, American warplanes did not strike Iran on Friday, creating a significant pause in combat just days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the White House on Tuesday.
Two explanations are in circulation in Washington. One focuses on diplomacy. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News that Trump is “giving talks some space,” while stressing that U.S. forces remain “locked and loaded.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran is “begging to make a deal” and that “the price is going to get higher every night.” That is the diplomatic framing, from named officials on the record. A State Department diplomat told MBN that President Donald Trump “is ready for more military actions if Iran fails with diplomacy.”
Then there is what officials told the New York Times, Axios, and CNN, focusing more on limited means and limited returns. Two people briefed on a White House meeting Friday told the Times that Vice President JD Vance and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine raised concerns with Trump about depleted Patriot interceptor missile stocks and an exhausted target list. Axios reported the top American military commander in the region told Trump the campaign had “reached the limits of its effectiveness.”
Asked about those reports on NBC, Waltz said: “I want to be crystal clear. The U.S. military has everything that it needs.” The Trump administration is producing both stories simultaneously. Neither has been retracted.
Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday the war ends only “when this regime is either toppled or it’s sufficiently weakened that it knows it has to end its nuclear program. With a deal or without a deal, that has to come to an end.” Rubio, asked about American regrets after five months of war, said: “The only regret is maybe we should have done it earlier.”
Tuesday’s joint press conference with the Israeli leader is the test. What Trump says will indicate, at least for now, the extent to which he is committed to diplomacy – and how much further, if at all, he wants to go toward Netanyahu’s absolutist aims.
Quote of the day
What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space… discussions are ongoing on every level.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, on NBC’s Meet The Press
Regional Watch
Pakistan Assumes a Greater Gulf Security Role
Saudi troops march during Pakistan Day celebrations in Islamabad, Pakistan. Reuters.
The stuttering U.S.-Iran conflict is helping to create a larger role for Pakistan in the Middle East. As Iran and the Houthis intensify attacks across the Gulf and Red Sea, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are deepening their defense ties with the broader region’s only nuclear-armed Muslim state, building on Islamabad’s longstanding troop deployments and military cooperation with Riyadh.
Pakistan has already sent troops and air-defense units to Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait recently ratified a defense deal covering training, intelligence and military technology. Pakistan’s leaders have also warned that they may use force to protect their maritime interests from Houthi attacks. “They will fight for the Saudis if Iran attacks the kingdom,” Asfandyar Mir of the Stimson Center told MBN.
The partnership remains primarily defensive, with Pakistan unlikely to join offensive operations inside Iran. Still, Gulf states increasingly see Islamabad as an additional layer of protection as confidence in the traditional American security guarantee weakens, while Pakistan seizes an opportunity to grow into a broader regional power rather than remaining consumed by its rivalry with India.
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Lebanon Watch
Aoun Walks Hezbollah Tightrope at White House
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 21, 2026. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
Netanyahu’s visit this week is only the latest in a procession of Middle Eastern leaders through the White House. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun was there last Tuesday seeking more U.S. support for Lebanon’s army in its fight to defang Hezbollah. He also used his visit to the White House to argue that confronting the group with too much force risked fracturing Lebanon’s fragile sectarian order.
Trump, for his part, pledged more assistance. But he also floated the possibility of Syrian forces helping to fight Hezbollah, an idea that has alarmed many in Lebanon by evoking memories of Syria’s decades-long occupation right – right as Aoun is trying to negotiate the end of an Israeli occupation in the south.
Aoun told Trump that the Lebanese army’s ability to succeed against Hezbollah in the end depends on preserving public trust and not appearing to fight on behalf of Israel. “Without the LAF, everything will collapse,” he told Trump, as he defended speaker Nabih Berri’s concerns about cooperation with Israel.
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Saudi Arabia Watch
Surprise Condition Complicates U.S.–Saudi Nuclear Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman speak as they walk at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 18, 2025. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak
Just a day after U.S. and Saudi officials announced a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, Trump added a doozy of a condition: The deal would not proceed unless Riyadh normalizes diplomatic ties with Israel — a mammoth requirement neither government had mentioned when unveiling the accord.
The discrepancy has left unclear whether normalization is written into the deal or not. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said plainly that “if they don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off,” even as Saudi Arabia’s announcement focused only on peaceful nuclear safety and nonproliferation. Riyadh has continued to insist that normalization with Israel requires meaningful progress toward a Palestinian state, something Jerusalem has outright rejected.
The nuclear deal must still go before Congress, where even some Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about its comparably lax restrictions on uranium enrichment and porous provisions on fuel inspections. In the meantime, Christian Coates Ulrichsen of Rice University told MBN the conflicting accounts may deepen perceptions of U.S. unreliability in the Gulf and help promote the idea that it is “very difficult to trust the current administration.”
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Iraq Watch
Iraq Seeks Safe Passage for Oil Through Hormuz
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in Tehran, Iran July 23, 2026. Hamed Malekpour/Iranian Parliament Speaker Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Via REUTERS.
Following his visit to Washington this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi traveled to Tehran, where he sought guarantees of safe passage for tankers carrying Iraqi oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran offered no clear answer to Zaidi but was expected to reject the request, in part because Zaidi went to Washington and signed deals with U.S. companies there before he ventured to Tehran.
Baghdad has little room to absorb further disruption. Oil provides more than 90% of Iraq’s public revenue, while monthly exports through Hormuz fell from roughly 90 million barrels before the Iran war to about 10 million by April. Only one tanker crossed the strait on July 23, the day of Zaidi’s visit to Tehran, highlighting the failure of the June 17 U.S.-Iran deal to facilitate U.S. allies’ oil exports.
The squeeze is already reaching ordinary Iraqis through a weakening dinar, pressure on the public-sector payroll and power shortages worsened by Iraq’s dependence on Iranian gas. The Tehran trip highlighted the leverage the Iranians retain over Baghdad even as Zaidi’s new government seeks closer U.S. ties: Tehran can directly strike the economic model holding the country together.
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Yemen Watch
U.S. Weighs Strikes Amid Saudi-Houthi Fighting
Smoke rises over Jizan province after the Houthis said they targeted Saudi Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia. / Reuters.
A fragile pause in the U.S.-Iran war is already being tested by renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. The group attacked two Saudi Aramco facilities on Saturday, a day after a Saudi strike on Hodeidah, while also resuming attacks on Saudi-linked shipping through the Red Sea.
The escalation threatens the Bab el-Mandeb route while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely stalled, leaving Saudi oil exports now squeezed between two maritime chokepoints. Saudi coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Malki called the Houthi attacks “reckless and cowardly” and warned of an “unrelenting, resolute response” if the Houthi attacks continue.
Trump has threatened the Houthis with “major military punishment,” but another U.S. campaign would carry substantial costs. The previous Operation Rough Rider cost more than $1 billion while doing little lasting damage to the group. The wider Iran war has already strained U.S. munitions, cost an estimated $37.5 billion and killed 18 American service members. With Washington now pushing talks with Iran, strikes could also inadvertently risk restarting a conflict.
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