Iran War Reshapes Washington Agendas — Saudi, UAE Strikes

Three months into the war with Iran, the conflict spent the day swallowing Washington's other agendas. The New York Times, citing current and former senior US officials, reported that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates carried out their first direct strikes on Iranian territory during the recent fighting, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on their soil; neither government confirmed. The House of Representatives, on its third war-powers vote of the year, rejected a Democratic resolution to halt President Donald Trump's campaign against Iran by a 212-212 tie, after the Senate killed a similar measure 50-49 on Wednesday — Republican margins shrinking each time.

From Air Force One on his return from Beijing, Trump said he and Xi Jinping had agreed that Iran 'must come to the negotiating table' and that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open for energy shipping; the White House said Xi rejected militarisation of the strait and opposed transit fees. Trump confirmed he was considering lifting sanctions on Chinese firms that buy Iranian oil and would decide in coming days. He told Fox News that 'I will not be patient much longer' with Tehran, and on the same flight signalled that a 20-year moratorium on Iran's nuclear programme would be enough for a deal — a step back from his earlier insistence on permanent enrichment ban — while saying Iran's latest proposal lacked sufficient guarantees. Trump separately accused The New York Times reporter David Sanger of 'treasonous' coverage of the campaign and claimed a 'total military victory', asserting the US had 'knocked out' Iran's navy, air force, anti-aircraft and radar and eliminated 85 percent of its missiles.

Around the strait, the operational picture continued to harden:

- US Central Command said it had redirected 75 commercial vessels and disabled four others as part of its blockade of Iranian ports, with more than 20 warships maintaining the cordon since April 13. - Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi declared the Strait of Hormuz an exclusively Omani-Iranian waterway and floated a transit-toll regime, even as Iran's Revolutionary Guards said about 30 ships had passed overnight, with the Iranian agency Tasnim describing 'a number of Chinese ships' that had crossed after coordination with Tehran. - The British maritime security firm Vanguard reported that the Honduras-flagged fisheries research vessel Hui Chuan was seized off the UAE coast and was being moved into Iranian waters with its tracking off; an Indian-flagged cargo vessel sank near Oman after a suspected attack on Wednesday, drawing an Indian foreign ministry protest.

On the same day the US opened a sharp new front in Mexico. The Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors to use terrorism statutes against Mexican officials complicit in drug trafficking, an instruction the associate deputy attorney general Aakash Singh delivered on Wednesday's internal call — a step the New York Times said was 'almost certain' to further strain US-Mexico relations. CNN, citing current and former officials, reported that the CIA is directly involved in targeted assassinations of Mexican cartel leaders, building on the Trump administration's designation of cartels as foreign terrorist organisations and recent operations including the elimination of El Mencho. Both governments officially deny it.

The Ukraine track, finally, took its own hit. After a Russian cruise missile destroyed an apartment block in Kyiv on May 14 and killed at least 24 people, Trump told reporters that the Ukrainians 'took a big hit last night' and that the strikes could set back the negotiations he had described as 'looking good' the day before. He confirmed he had discussed the war with Xi during the China visit and that both leaders 'want the fighting to stop'. Analysts in German press warned in parallel that the risk of a Russian attack on a European country is rising as Putin's economic and military options narrow, the US withdraws from Germany without forward-deploying missiles, and Ukraine reaches deeper into Russia with drone strikes.