00 First Filter

A new round of fighting emerging in Iran this week brought a new player that could change the game entirely.

U.S. forces launched new airstrikes against Iran on Wednesday, U.S. Central Command announced, while earlier, and for the first time, the Saudi Arabian military joined with the U.S. in striking Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.

And, according to Fox News, a former deputy CENTCOM commander said those developments and others could signify Iran being pushed to a “tipping point.”

U.S. Central Command issued a statement Tuesday on the social media platform X announcing the attacks with the Saudis targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.”

https://t.co/4gooax78lx

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 29, 2026

The action also came hours after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had launched missile attacks against a U.S. military base in the region. The missiles were all shot down.

According to Fox, retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, a retired SEAL and former deputy CENTCOM commander, said the development means “you’re seeing the pressure build on Iran on all fronts.”

WASHINGTON, July 29. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump has said he is not considering ending the military operation against Iran because of Tehran’s strikes on US bases in the Middle East.

“I don’t see that,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked whether Washington could withdraw troops from the region following Iran’s attacks. “Will I always hit back? Yes, pretty much,” he added.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported on July 28 that multiple Iranian ballistic missiles had been intercepted. Earlier, Barak Ravid, a reporter for the Axios news website and Israel’s Channel 12, said, citing a US official, that Iran had launched missiles at the United States’ military base in Jordan.

It is inarguable that the war in Iran is a massive drag on Donald Trump’s numbers, as well as those of the Republican Party heading into November. This is largely driven by consistently high gas prices, which also drive up the price of everything else.

Trump obviously knows this, which is why he’s been searching for an off-ramp for months. He knows he was elected to get gas prices down and the economy in shape (which he did until the war jammed up the gears).

But a major problem for Trump’s presidency right now is that nearly everyone outside his inner circle pushing for this war — and this includes the entirety of so-called conservative pundits who never found a war they weren’t willing to make others fight and pay for — also hates Trump (and especially J.D. Vance) and sees the war’s negative effect on his popularity as a secondary benefit of the war they’ve been salivating over for decades. To them, his declining numbers are a feature, not a bug.

With the Iran war, the NeverTrump neocons have gotten everything they ever dreamed of — war (which they love), and a massive political quagmire for Trump that threatens to consume the rest of his presidency and destroy any future political chances of J.D. Vance and the entire MAGA/America First movement.