Day: June 12, 2025

More than two decades after the United States invaded Iraq on the basis of phony evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the growing prospect of another war, this time pitting the U.S., Israel, or both, against Iran over its nuclear program, hovers like a ghost over Washington’s calculations in the Middle East.

On Wednesday,  the spectre of a new conflict appeared when the British Navy warned commercial shipping of “increased tensions” in the waters in and around the Persian Gulf that “could lead to an escalation of military activity.”  That quickly prompted the State Department to authorize the evacuation of all nonessential personnel and their dependents from the U.S. embassies in Baghdad, Kuwait and Bahrain. 

These precautionary moves come amid unrelenting pressure on President Trump by GOP hardliners to abandon his diplomatic effort to end Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and give Israel the green light to attack Iran’s  nuclear facilities. 

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