united states

They have threatened to join the war ever since it started a month ago.

Now, Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, have followed up on their threat and launched missiles towards Israel.

This move marks a significant escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran.

There are fears that the Iran-aligned group could attack shipping in the Red Sea, as it has done before.

This would further disrupt global trade, already affected by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Will Israel and the US retaliate? And if so, how?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Hisham Al-Omeisy – senior Yemen adviser at the European Institute of Peace

H A Hellyer – senior associate fellow in defence and security studies at the Royal United Services Institute

Michael Mulroy – former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East

Iran’s parliament speaker has accused the United States of plotting a ground attack despite publicly pushing for a negotiated deal, as the US deploys thousands of military personnel to the Middle East.

“Our men are waiting for the arrival of the American soldiers on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional allies once and for all,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a statement on Sunday, carried by the official IRNA news agency, as Iran struggled with power cuts amid escalating Israeli attacks on central and western areas of the country.

Iran’s Ministry of Energy reported power outages in the capital, Tehran, its surrounding region and neighbouring Alborz province on Sunday, “following attacks on electricity industry facilities”. The Fars news agency reported later that the outages were being resolved.

It was unclear whether the attacks were related to US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Tehran did not agree to a deal to end the war. Trump extended his deadline by 10 days through April 6 as Washington presented a 15-point plan for peace that critics described as “maximalist”.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said that authorities had activated substations to restore power. “This gives an indication of how much they’ve been also preparing for such situations,” he said.

Ghalibaf’s comments on Iran’s readiness for a ground assault came as The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon was preparing for weeks of limited ground operations in Iran, potentially including raids on Kharg Island, a crude export hub, and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz shipping chokepoint.

As the US-Israel war on Iran stretches into its fifth week, the Trump administration is also planning to send thousands of soldiers from the army’s 82nd Airborne to the region, following a US Central Command (CENTCOM) announcement Saturday that about 3,500 military personnel had arrived in the Middle East on board the USS Tripoli.

IRGC threatens retaliation after university attacks

The Israeli military said it dropped more than 120 munitions on sites used for research, development, and production of weaponry in Tehran on Sunday.

Iran’s Ministry of Health reported that 2,076 people had been killed since the start of the war, including 216 children.

Among the deaths, six people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential area in the Iranian village of Osmavandan, according to the Mehr news agency, which added that five houses were destroyed and 22 were severely damaged.

A university in Iran’s central city of Isfahan said it was hit by US-Israeli air strikes on Sunday for the second time since the war erupted, leaving four university staff members wounded.

The strike followed an attack the previous day on Iran’s University of Science and Technology. After that attack, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it would target two Israeli or US universities in the region in retaliation, according to Iranian state television.

Hossein Sadeghi, head of the Information and Public Relations Center at Iran’s Ministry of Education, told the IRNA news agency that at least 250 students and teachers have been killed amid strikes on 600 educational facilities across Iran since the war began.

Also on Sunday, a commercial building housing Qatar’s Al-Araby TV in Tehran was hit, with video footage showing walls and windows blown out of the multistorey block. “It was a real miracle we survived,” said Al Araby camera operator Mohammadreza Shademan. “There was no military target here”.

As the civilian cost of the war mounts, Iran is demanding compensation in a five-point plan presented to the US.

That plan also includes a halt to killings of Iranian officials, an end to hostilities, safeguards against the outbreak of more war, and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran, Hezbollah launch attacks

Israel’s military said on Sunday evening that it had detected seven new incoming missile salvoes fired from Iran during the day. These coincided with Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, with sirens triggered in more than 100 towns.

Israel’s ADAMA, a pesticide maker in the Neot Hovav industrial zone, located 9km (6 miles) south of the city of Beersheba, said its Makhteshim plant was hit either by an Iranian missile or debris ⁠from a missile. No casualties were reported, and no leak of hazardous materials was found.

Reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said it was “an incident that raises a lot of alarms”.

“This industrial zone has about 19 different factories, including a bromide factory and some pharmaceutical factories. But it’s also home to the main hazardous disposal sites in Israel. So a lot is at stake here,” she said.

Another missile hit open ground near homes in Beersheba, injuring 11 people.

Israeli media reported that missile fragments fell on the northern port city of Haifa after missiles launched by Iran and Hezbollah were intercepted.

Houthis enter fray amid talks

As the war raged on, foreign ministers from Pakistan, Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Islamabad, looking to de-escalate the conflict, which has also ensnarled Gulf nations hosting US military assets.

Across the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted 16 ballistic missiles and 42 drones launched from Iran, while Saudi Arabia reported downing 10 drones. Sirens sounded in Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Iranian army said it had targeted US forces based in Jordan, launching drones on the living quarters and military equipment sites at the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Azraq, the ISNA news agency reported.

Meanwhile, readying itself for attacks amid the US military build-up, an Iranian naval commander, cited by state media, said Iran had complete control of waters near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil.

He said Iran was waiting for US forces to come within range, warning they could be targeted with coastal missile systems.

As oil prices shoot up and the world’s economy slides, the arrival of Yemen’s Houthis into the conflict, with Saturday’s strikes on Israel, further complicates matters, raising fears that the Yemeni group could block the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Houthi attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza upended commercial traffic worth about $1 trillion a year.

Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, says a premature ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran could spark another round of fighting, pointing to a lack of trust in talks as the US ramps up troop deployments despite calls for de-escalation.

IRGC spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari dismisses threats of US ground operations. He says the US president ‘only understands force’ as the Pentagon prepares plans that could involve thousands of troops on the ground in Iran, according to a report by The Washington Post.

South African sprinter Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-metres champion, says the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a disrespect for women”.

The hyperandrogenic athlete on Sunday also expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under new IOC President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.

“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the Global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm,” Semenya said in Cape Town on the sidelines of a sporting competition.

The IOC said on Thursday that only “biological females” will be allowed to compete in women’s events, preventing transgender women from competing.

The IOC had previously used chromosomal sex testing from 1968 to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics before abandoning it in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness, and from its own athletes commission.

“It came as a failure, and that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said.

“It’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.”

Semenya has become the symbol of the struggle of hyperandrogenic athletes, a battle on the athletics tracks and then in courtrooms, to assert her rights, which she has waged since her first world title in the 800m in 2009.

In 2025, she won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

The court’s highest chamber said in a 15-2 ruling that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It had ruled in favour of track’s international governing body, World Athletics.

The original case between Semenya and Monaco-based World Athletics was about whether female athletes who have specific medical conditions, a typically male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels, should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.

The European court’s ruling did not overturn the World Athletics rules that in effect ended Semenya’s career running the 800m after she had won two Olympic gold medals and three world titles since emerging on the global stage as a teenager in 2009.

IOC’s policy shift removes conflict with Trump

In a major shift of policy, the IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 that allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and is instead implementing a policy across all Olympic sports.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening,” the IOC said in a statement.

They will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample. It will be done once in an athlete’s lifetime.

“The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts,” Coventry said.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and United States President Donald Trump as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics comes onto the horizon.

Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sport soon after he returned to office in January 2025.

The US leader took credit for the IOC’s new policy in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump wrote. “This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”

2024 Olympic gender row

While sports such as swimming, athletics, cycling and rowing have brought in bans, many others have permitted transgender women to compete in the female category if they lowered their testosterone levels, normally through taking a course of drugs.

The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women’s boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.

However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the Los Angeles Summer Games.

The plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry troops, The Washington Post reported.

The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of limited ground operations in Iran, potentially including raids on Kharg Island and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz, according to United States officials quoted by The Washington Post newspaper.

The plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry troops, the Post reported on Saturday, exposing US personnel to Iranian drones and missiles, ground fire, and improvised explosives.

Whether President Donald Trump would approve any of those plans remains uncertain, according to the report.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality. It does not mean the president has made a decision,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, responding to questions over the Post report.

The Trump administration has deployed US Marines to the Middle East as the war in Iran stretches into its fifth week, and has also been planning to send thousands of soldiers from the army’s 82nd Airborne to the region.

On Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said about 3,500 additional soldiers arrived in the Middle East on board the USS Tripoli.

The sailors and marines are with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and arrived in the region on March 27, along with “transport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as amphibious assault and tactical assets”, according to CENTCOM.

Officials speaking to The Washington Post said discussions within the administration over the past month have touched upon the possible seizure of Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub in the Gulf, and raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz to find and destroy weapons that can target commercial and military shipping.

According to the report, one person said the objectives under consideration would probably take “weeks, not months” to complete, while another put the potential timeline at “a couple of months”.

The Pentagon had not responded on Saturday to the Post’s requests for comment. Iran has yet to respond to the report.

The report comes as Pakistan, which shares a 900km-long (559-mile) border with Iran, mediates between Washington ‌and Tehran, hosting two days of talks starting on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.

Iranian threats

The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday the “enemy openly sends messages of negotiation and dialogue and secretly plans a ground attack”.

“Unaware that our men are waiting for the arrival of American soldiers on the ground to set fire to them and punish their regional partners forever. Our firing continues. Our missiles are in place,” the Tasnim news agency reported, quoting Ghalibaf.

“Our determination and faith have increased. We are aware of the enemy’s weaknesses, and we clearly see the effects of fear and terror in the enemy’s army.”

It was not clear whether Ghalibaf was responding to the Post report.

On Wednesday, Ghalibaf had warned that intelligence reports suggested that “Iran’s enemies” ⁠were planning to occupy an Iranian island with support ‌from an unnamed country in the region.

He said any such attempt would be met with targeted attacks on the “vital infrastructure” of the regional country – which he did not name – that assists in the operation.

Tasnim quoted an unnamed military source as saying on Wednesday that Iran could open a new front at the mouth of the Red Sea if military action takes place on “Iranian islands or anywhere else in our lands”.

The source told Tasnim that Iran can pose a “credible threat” in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, ⁠which lies between Yemen and Djibouti.

Tasnim later quoted an “informed source” claiming that Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, are prepared to play a role “if there is a need to control the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to further punish the enemy”.

Talks are under way in Islamabad, as the Pakistani government acts as mediator between the US and Iran.

Top diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkiye have gathered in Islamabad for two-day talks with their Pakistani counterpart on the US-Israel war on Iran, seeking to de-escalate the conflict.

The talks on Sunday and Monday are being led by Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who announced late on Saturday that Iran had allowed “20 more ships” under the Pakistani flag, or two ships daily, to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also said on Saturday that he had a “detailed telephone conversation with my brother President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran earlier today, lasting over one hour”, as part of preparations for the Islamabad talks.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Kyder, reporting from Islamabad, said Pakistan has been acting as “a key interlocutor” between the United States and Iran, passing messages between the two sides as part of the mediation efforts.

“The gathering in Islamabad, what many people say, is the beginning of a critical process that includes the only viable option: diplomacy and dialogue,” he said.

“A difficult process, given the escalation, so all eyes will be on Islamabad – what consensus can be reached here, and whether that will be acceptable to the US, whether it is looking for a way out of this war or whether it is trying to buy time,” he added.

Pezeshkian hailed Islamabad’s efforts and “thanked Pakistan for its mediation efforts to stop the aggression against the Islamic republic”, according to his office.

The pair have spoken previously in recent weeks about the conflict and Pakistan’s commitment to bringing it to an end.

Islamabad has longstanding links with Tehran and close contacts in the Gulf, while Sharif and the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, have struck up a personal rapport with US President Donald Trump.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said earlier on Friday he expected a direct US-Iran meeting in Pakistan “very soon”, without revealing his source.

The risk of an expanded Iran war grew on Saturday as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels launched their first attacks on Israel since the start of the conflict, after the first of the two contingents of the thousands of additional US forces dispatched to the Middle East arrived on Friday on an amphibious assault ship.

World number one Aryna Sabalenka edges Coco Gauff in a tense three-set final to claim the ‘Sunshine Double’ in Florida.

Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka beat hometown favourite Coco Gauff 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 in the Miami Open final on Saturday to ⁠join an exclusive club by completing the coveted “Sunshine Double”.

Top-seeded Sabalenka, who reached the final without dropping a set, won 73 percent of her first-serve points and faced just two break points en ⁠route to victory in a rematch of the 2025 French Open final won by Gauff.

Sabalenka is only the fifth woman to win the Indian Wells and Miami titles back-to-back, a feat known as the “Sunshine Double”, given the tournaments’ respective locations in California and Florida.

“I want to start with [Coco]. You’re a fighter, and you also ‌push me so hard to be a better player, and I like our rivalry,” Sabalenka, who improved to 7-6 all-time versus Gauff, said during the trophy ceremony.

Sabalenka raced out to a 2-0 lead, but Gauff, from nearby Delray Beach and appearing in her first Miami final, got on the board with a love hold and then repelled three break points in her next service game to get within 3-2.

But Sabalenka did not lose focus and eventually went up a double break ⁠on the world number four before closing out a dominant opening on her ⁠serve.

There was very little to separate the two players in the middle set, which remained on serve until Gauff broke Sabalenka for the only time in the match to force a third set. Sabalenka broke Gauff to open the decider, held ⁠at love in two consecutive service games to go 5-3 up and then sealed the victory with her fourth break of the match when Gauff ⁠sent a backhand wide.

Sabalenka is the first player to win back-to-back ⁠Miami titles since Ash Barty in 2019 and 2021. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Belarusian joins Iga Swiatek (2022), Victoria Azarenka (2016), Kim Clijsters (2005) and Steffi Graf (1994, 1996) as the only women to complete the Sunshine Double.

She also improved to 23-1 on the ‌year, her only loss coming in the Australian Open final at the hands of Elena Rybakina, whom she went on to beat in the Indian Wells final and Miami semifinals.

“Aryna, congratulations. We’ve had many ‌battles, ‌many finals and, yeah, I think you push me to be a better player,” said Gauff. “You’re a great fighter, and hopefully we can play many more. I think we will.”

Former two-time champion loses his fourth straight bout after being stopped by Pyfer in the second round.

Joe Pyfer sent former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion ‌Israel Adesanya back to the drawing board in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night headliner in ⁠Seattle, stopping Adesanya ⁠at 4:18 of the second round to cap the night.

Before the technical knockout (TKO) finish, both fighters exchanged their best punches in a stand-up battle until a Pyfer (16-3 MMA) takedown signalled the beginning ⁠of the end.

“I just have this mentality where I don’t care; I’m going to search and destroy,” Pyfer said, following the stoppage, securing the finish in top control.

Adesanya (24-6 MMA), fighting out of New Zealand, has not won a ⁠bout since regaining middleweight gold in April 2023 at UFC 287, and confirmed he has no plans to retire.

“I’m just going to keep going and going and going,” Adesanya said.

Grasso dominates Barber in rematch

A rematch five years in the making commenced at flyweight as former champion Alexa Grasso made short work of Maycee Barber with a TKO stoppage at 2:42 of the ‌opening round. The Mexican used a left hook to down Barber before jumping on top of her immediately as the referee stepped in.

The two first met in February 2021, with Grasso earning a decision. Grasso (17-5-1 MMA) snapped a two-fight losing skid, whereas Barber (15-3 MMA) had not lost since the first meeting with Grasso, having won her previous seven fights.

In his final MMA fight, welterweight Michael Chiesa (20-7 MMA) had a hometown send-off as he submitted Niko Price (16-11 MMA) with a first-round rear-naked choke. Chiesa needed just 63 seconds ⁠to put a bow on his UFC career, one that spanned a decade-plus ⁠and included winning the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter in June 2012.

Chiesa ended his UFC career at 15-7, while Price, who has been in the promotion for over a decade himself, now sits at 8-11, with two no contests in the Octagon and has ⁠dropped four straight fights.

The finishes were a theme on the night, as featherweight Lerryan Douglas (14-5 MMA) of Brazil needed 3:33 of the opening round to deliver ⁠a devastating TKO against Julian Erosa (31-13 MMA). Douglas has now won his ⁠last six in a row while Erosa continues to struggle at 9-9 in the UFC.

At middleweight, Yousri Belgaroui of the Netherlands scored a third-round TKO stoppage against Mansur Abdul-Malik by landing a perfectly timed knee to end the fight in a back-and-forth battle. Belgaroui (10-3 MMA) has ‌won five straight and remains undefeated in the UFC. Conversely, it was Abdul-Malik’s (9-1-1 MMA) first professional loss, as he had won seven of his 11 outings by KO/TKO.

The main card got under way in emphatic fashion in the ‌opener, ‌with lightweight Terrance McKinney needing just 24 seconds to dispatch Canadian Kyle Nelson with a series of punches following a head kick. McKinney (18-8 MMA) has won three of his last four, while Nelson (17-7-1 MMA) has lost two of his last three.

Thick, black smoke rose from Kuwait International Airport Saturday after suspected Iranian drone strikes damaged radar systems and fuel storage facilities, state media said. No fatalities were reported. The airport has been repeatedly targeted since the US-Israeli war on Iran erupted.

Antiwar protesters rally in Tel Aviv and US cities, as attacks kill a family of four in Iran’s Bushehr province and damage a water facility in Khuzestan.

One month after US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the conflict has escalated across the Middle East. From leadership assassinations to economic disruption, the war is reshaping the region and destabilising the global economy.

For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country.

The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race.

During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer at the top of the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election.

The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees.

But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote.

It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll.

That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent.

Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy.

But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party.

Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box.

Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low.

The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump.

While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028.

That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican.

Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran.

Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025.

Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office.

But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party.

In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently topped the CPAC straw polls.

Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition.

Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still topped the straw poll in 2021, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024.

Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised.

The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent.

Iranian opposition leader calls on Trump administration to ‘stay the course’ as the US and Israel continue to wage war on Iran.

Amid questions about the future of Iran’s government, the son of the former shah has pitched himself to a right-wing summit in the United States and received a raucous welcome.

Reza Pahlavi spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas on Saturday, urging US President Donald Trump not to cut a deal with Iran and instead seek regime change.

“Can you imagine Iran going from ‘Death to America’ to ‘God Bless America’?” the self-styled crown prince asked his audience in Grapevine, Texas.

“President Trump is making America great again. I intend to make Iran great again,” he added, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

His remarks came on the one-month anniversary of the US and Israel’s decision to launch a war against Iran. As the conflict enters its second month, at least 1,937 people in Iran have been killed, and tens of thousands more injured, with no end to the fighting in sight.

Pahlavi has become a central opposition figure in the Iranian diaspora, with a loyal base of supporters who often carry his image, along with Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag, at protests around the world.

During his speech, some in the audience chanted, “Long live the king!”

While some in the Iranian diaspora have expressed reservations about the US-Israeli attacks and their effect on the future of Iran, Pahlavi has emerged as an outspoken supporter of Trump, aligned with the administration’s most hawkish figures.

“This regime in its entirety must go,” he said on Saturday.

Analysts have warned that the Iranian government is not likely to collapse and could emerge from the conflict more hardened than before. Some exiles, meanwhile, have been criticised for lending their voices to support the US-Israeli war despite the heavy toll on Iranian civilians.

Trump has himself previously downplayed the possibility that the son of the former shah, who was expelled from Iran during the country’s 1979 revolution, could play a central role in Iran if the current government were to collapse.

Earlier this month, Trump said that Pahlavi “looks like a very nice person“, but indicated that the shah’s son lacks popularity in Iran.

“It would seem to me that somebody from within, maybe, would be more appropriate,” Trump had said.

Divides within the US right over the war in Iran were also in evidence at CPAC. Polls suggest that, while the war is widely unpopular among US voters, Republicans support it by large margins.

In a Pew Research Center poll, for instance, 71 percent of Republican voters felt the US had made the right decision to attack Iran. Overall, among voters regardless of party, 59 percent opposed the initial strikes.

Still, a handful of influential voices on the US right, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, have emerged as vocal critics of the war. Younger activists have also expressed frustration with what they see as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to avoid military adventures overseas.

“We did not want to see more wars. We wanted actual America First policies, and Trump was very explicit about that,” Benjamin Williams, a 25-year-old marketing specialist for Young Americans for Liberty, told The Associated Press. “It does feel like a betrayal, for sure.”

Demonstrators are hitting the streets of cities across the United States for the first “No Kings” protest since the joint US and Israeli war against Iran began one month ago.

Saturday’s marches and rallies mark the third round of nationwide “No Kings” protests since President Donald Trump took office for a second term.

According to the “No Kings” website, more than 3,300 events are planned across all 50 states, with large crowds expected in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Parallel events are happening internationally in cities such as Rome, Paris, and Berlin.

Organisers, however, are aiming to rally voters outside of the US’s major metropolises, in areas that tend to skew conservative. They say that roughly two-thirds of participants are expected to take part in events outside of major city centres.

“The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilisation is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,” said Leah Greenberg, cofounder of the progressive nonprofit Indivisible, which started the “No Kings” movement last year.

The main event, however, is set to take place in the Minneapolis-St Paul area of Minnesota, known as the Twin Cities.

The midwestern state became a focal point for Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown in December, when he launched Operation Metro Surge.

That operation saw more than 3,000 of federal immigration agents descend on the Twin Cities, where they were accused of using excessive force to conduct deportation raids.

In January, agents shot and killed two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, prompting nationwide outrage and calls for reform. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed as a result of the operation, which was wound down in February.

Saturday’s protest will commemorate those deaths in Minnesota, with speeches, concerts and appearances from activists, labour leaders and politicians.

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders is expected to address attendees, and rock icon Bruce Springsteen will perform at the event, along with folk singer Joan Baez.

Already, early on Saturday, marchers in Washington, DC, gathered around landmarks such as the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, holding signs and waving papier-mache effigies of the Trump administration.

The previous two “No Kings” marches took place in June and October and drew millions of people. Trump responded to the October protest by posting an AI-generated video depicting himself dumping faeces on the protesters.

The US is currently in the midst of campaigns for its pivotal midterm elections in November, which will see Trump’s Republican Party seek to defend its majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Protesters in Yemen took to the streets to voice support for Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon amid ongoing US and Israeli attacks. Houthi representatives expressed their readiness to intervene militarily.

Four weeks into the war on Iran, the White House continues to confuse the public and the press with constant pivots and contradictions.

Now the administration faces even more pressure as many of its own supporters have started to turn against it. This war has split up the MAGA movement, with an intriguing debate currently happening outside the mainstream and in the midst of their own media sphere.

Contributors:
Jamal Abdi – President, National Iranian American Council
Jude Russo – Managing editor, The American Conservative
Ben Lorber – Senior research analyst, Political Research Associates

On our radar

This week, the Israeli parliament approved the first vote on a bill that introduces a mandatory death penalty by hanging. This applies to any Palestinian convicted of killing Israelis in attacks defined as “terrorism” or motivated by “hatred”. Ryan Kohls reports on how this bill has been promoted in the media.

Memes, trash talk and AI – the online war between Washington and Tehran

The propaganda war in the ongoing war on Iran has taken a new form.

Beyond the traditional tactics, both the US and Iran are increasingly using memes and trash-talk mockery of the adversary through AI-driven animations, designed with virality in mind. We look at the strategies behind the different messaging coming out of Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran.

Featuring:
Meredith Clark – Professor, University Of North Carolina
Roger Stahl – Documentarian and author, Militainment, Inc.
Marc Owen Jones – Associate professor, Northwestern University In Qatar

Tensions continue to rise with Iran warning a ‘heavy price’ will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites.

President Donald Trump said he is “very disappointed” with NATO’s response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran, accusing the alliance of failing to support Washington despite years of US military spending on its allies.

Meanwhile, Iran warned a “heavy price” will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites, with Tehran accusing the US and Israel of “playing with fire” by targeting energy infrastructure. Iran also said there was no radioactive leak following attacks on two nuclear facilities.

The warnings come as fighting and tensions continue to escalate across the Middle East, with growing fears of a wider conflict.

Here is what we know:

In Iran

• Israel hits Tehran: Israel’s military said it launched attacks on Iranian “regime targets” early Saturday.
• Hopes for Iran talks this week: US envoy Steve Witkoff said he expects meetings with Iran “this week” and is waiting for Tehran’s response to a 15-point peace plan.
• Iran pledges “heavy price” for plant strikes: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would exact a “heavy price for Israeli crimes” after attacks on nuclear sites and two of the country’s largest steel factories.
• Iran feels “forced” into talks: Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said many Iranians believe they are being pushed into negotiations that are not in their favour, with the sense that “the Americans are bombing their way towards a negotiation table.” Rather than relying on US or Israeli promises, he said Iran is relying on “its missiles, its drones, and the resolve of its soldiers”.
• Russia likely aiding Iran with satellite intelligence: Al Jazeera’s Mansur Mirovalev reported Iran is likely receiving data on US military assets from Russia’s Liana spy satellite system, according to a space programme expert.

War diplomacy

• Trump criticises NATO over Hormuz: Trump said NATO allies “weren’t there” when asked to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, despite the US spending “hundreds of billions” protecting them. “I’ve always said NATO is a paper tiger. And I always said we help NATO, but they’ll never help us.”
• Possible Pakistan meeting: Turkiye said talks with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt could take place in Pakistan this weekend as Islamabad mediates between Iran and the US.
• UN nuclear watchdog urges “restraint”: The International Atomic Energy Agency repeated its call for “restraint” in the Middle East war after Israel struck two Iranian nuclear facilities, including a uranium processing plant.
• “Regime change” unlikely: The war is unlikely to lead to “regime change” in Iran, said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “If that’s the goal, I don’t think you’ll achieve it. It’s mostly gone wrong” in past conflicts, he said, pointing to the Afghanistan war.

In the Gulf

• Saudi Arabia intercepts missile: Saudi Arabia said it “intercepted and destroyed” a missile targeting the capital Riyadh. Meanwhile, at least 12 US military personnel were wounded, including two seriously, in an Iranian attack on an airbase in the kingdom, The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies reported on Friday.
• United Arab Emirates: The UAE’s Ministry of Defence reported that air defence systems and fighter jets intercepted and shot down incoming missiles and drones from Iran.
• Kuwait: Though experiencing some slower nights recently, residents in Kuwait say they have grown accustomed to the disruption of alarms sounding throughout the night.

In the US

• US aims to finish war in “weeks”: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington expects to complete its Iran war objectives in the “next couple weeks”, leaving Iran “weaker”.
• US soldiers wounded: More than 300 American soldiers have been wounded since the start of the war on February 28, US Central Command said.

In Israel

• Direct attacks: Israel continues to face significant incoming fire on multiple fronts. Iran launched a missile salvo that struck a busy commercial street in Tel Aviv.
• Man killed: Israeli emergency responders said a man was killed in Tel Aviv on Friday, and several others were wounded across the country after the military reported missiles fired from Iran.

In Lebanon, Yemen, occupied West Bank

• Houthis warn they’ll join the fight: Yemen’s Houthi rebels warned they would enter the war if attacks on Iran continue or if more countries join the conflict. The Houthis have in the past attacked shipping in the Red Sea in response to regional conflicts, but have so far not intervened in this war.
• Israel expands ground war in Lebanon: Israeli troops entered Khiam and clashed with Hezbollah near Tyre as Israel pushes to create a “security zone” up to the Litani River. Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli tanks and fired at a warplane over Beirut.
• Israel cites Hezbollah threat: Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Amman, said Israel is using the threat from Hezbollah in the north to justify expanding its ground incursion into southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah back and create a “buffer zone”.
• Hezbollah escalation: Hezbollah forces have fiercely resisted the Israeli advance, claiming to have carried out 82 operations against Israeli troops within 24 hours.
• West Bank violence continues: Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a 15-year-old boy in Dheisheh refugee camp and two men in Qalandiya.

Oil, food, and gas crises

• Strait of Hormuz: To prevent a “massive humanitarian crisis”, the United Nations has established a new task force led by Jorge Moreira da Silva. It aims to ensure ships carrying fertiliser and raw materials can safely cross the strait, warning that maritime trade disruptions could severely affect global agricultural production and humanitarian needs.
• Egypt imposes business curfew: Egypt has ordered shops, restaurants, and shopping malls to close at 9pm (19:00 GMT) from Saturday, hoping to curb energy bills that have more than doubled because of the Iran war.
• Overnight queues in Ethiopia: Many Ethiopians slept in their cars in hours-long queues for petrol as shortages caused by the war began to take their toll. The Horn of Africa country is particularly vulnerable as it imports all its petrol, primarily from the Gulf.
• Tea stuck in Kenya: Between 6,000 and 8,000 tonnes of tea worth $24m is stuck at Kenya’s port of Mombasa because of the war, trade officials said. About 65 percent of the East African tea market has been affected by the war that began on February 28. This is happening because the war is disrupting shipping routes through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, which are key routes for trade between Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

US President Donald Trump said Iran is ‘being decimated’ and signaled that talks are underway, claiming Tehran is seeking a deal while praising the strength of the the US military.

Rights groups in Bahrain say a 32-year-old man, arrested for opposing the war on Iran, was killed in police custody. Bahraini authorities dispute the account, but activists say the incident is part of a widening crackdown on opposition to the war.

“Cuba’s next.” Donald Trump publicly threatened Cuba with military attack while speaking at a Saudi investment conference.