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How this war ends is as uncertain as the reasons for starting it.
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A Washington Post review found at least 16 D.C. police officers who faced the violent mob are omitted from a personnel list displayed at the U.S. Capitol.
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Attacks on oil and natural gas facilities this week could make it much harder for Persian Gulf countries to rebuild and restart production when the war eventually end.
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A warrantless wiretapping law known as Section 702 is set to expire on April 20 unless Congress votes to extend it. Past cycles have been rocky.
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Inspectors general are subject to growing partisan pressures as the White House and political figures seek greater influence over them than ever before.
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Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned a "new stage of war" has begun after Israel bombed Iran's South Pars gas field — the largest known natural gas reserve in the world. This comes as the price of oil has spiked to $118 a barrel, a 60% jump since the U.S. and Iran attacked Iran on February 28.
Professor of Gulf studies Laleh Khalili lays out the global economic implications of the effective closing of one of the world's "major choke points for oil," the Strait of Hormuz. "It doesn't benefit the average U.S. citizen … at the gas stations, but it does benefit the oil companies," says Khalili. "The higher the price of oil goes up, the relatively cheaper it becomes to actually have sustainable alternatives. Of course, that means that it benefits China … since China is way ahead of the rest of the world in producing these technologies."
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In a major escalation in the war in the Middle East, Israel has bombed Iran's South Pars gas field, the largest known natural gas reserve in the world, leading Iran to attack energy sites across the Gulf. Iranian American professor of international affairs Vali Nasr says that Iran is prepared for a much longer war than the U.S. and Israel anticipated. "The longer this war goes on, the more Iran is building leverage, and the more the strategic calculations of Israel and the United States appear to be falling short," he says. Iran "thinks the longer that the war goes on, the less Israel and the United States will be able to defend against Iranian missiles, because they're going to run out of interceptors."
In the latest sign the war on Iran could be just beginning, Reuters is reporting President Trump is considering deploying thousands of more U.S. troops to the Middle East. The Pentagon has also asked for $200 billion from Congress.
The Iranian president has proposed terms for the end of the war including reparations and guarantees against future war. Nasr suggests that the Iranians are "confident" that some of their terms may be met. "President Trump may have to accept the fact that he has started a war that is not going to give him what he expected, and he has to settle for an exit in order to be able to go back to the agenda that it had before."
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President Trump's decision not to weigh in before the deadline means both John Cornyn and Ken Paxton remain on the ballot, extending their costly and increasingly personal battle into a May runoff.
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Aided by U.S. intelligence, Mexican security forces killed the nation's most wanted man, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," on Sunday. At least 70 people were killed in the raid and aftermath as armed groups retaliated in more than a dozen states.
"There's a real sense in Mexico and beyond that governments need to show the U.S. that they are willing and able to take military action on their own, lest Washington send special forces into the country," says Reuters correspondent Laura Gottesdiener about the raid and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's wider crackdown on organized crime. While Sunday's operation will help Sheinbaum "stave off some of the pressure from Trump," Latin American historian Alexander Aviña warns that "this is not going to do much in terms of stopping the flow of illicit drugs from Mexico into United States." Instead, he says, instability within cartel leadership will likely lead to internal power struggles that spill out into local communities. "The burden of this war always falls upon the very bottom of the hierarchy within this political economy," says Aviña.
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