“US Israel Iran War”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron — a.k.a., dumb and dumber, or gay and gayer, take your pick — have now agreed to lend their nations’ potent militaries to help open the Strait of Hormuz.

Unfortunately for them, and the dignity of the countries they allegedly lead, the U.S. has already opened the strait.

Even Iran has announced that the strait is now open.

Victor Davis Hanson says European leaders are now trying to take credit for what happened to Iran, calling it “shameless” after they stayed on the sidelines while the real work was done:

I think now that all the heavy lifting has been done and Iran is flat on its back, you’re… pic.twitter.com/yg6Vig9iSq

— Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 (@seanhannity) April 18, 2026

Regular readers will note that most of what was predicted about the Iran War in the last three weeks in this column is coming to pass. The Iranians entered into the Islamabad discussions exuding confidence that the Americans were suing for peace and that Iran had found and struck the Achilles’ heel of the West by closing the Strait of Hormuz. This revealed the infirmity of the Western Alliance and exploited the consumptive flabbiness of the American public itself with the terrifying spectre of somewhat higher gasoline prices.

If there is one thing we have learnt during the past 72 hours, it is how hard it will be to disentangle all the threads that have been drawn together in the Gulf.
It would be a big enough challenge for a seasoned diplomat with years to negotiate. Instead, it falls to a US president notoriously averse to detail and an array of Iranian leaders struggling among themselves for dominance, all underscored by the ticking time bomb of a global economic shock.

NEW: President Trump weighs in on Iran's latest actions in the Strait of Hormuz: "They can't blackmail us." pic.twitter.com/g7MbGtMsOe

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 18, 2026

Every morning, Darya looks forward to visiting her favourite café on the way to work. From her home on Yusufabad Street, an upper-middle class neighbourhood where Tehran’s old villas meet the new apartment blocks, she descends 200 zigzagging tiled steps.

From there, she catches a bus that runs down a dedicated narrow lane on Valiasr — the longest street in the Middle East — connecting the affluent north to working-class Tehran.

Some merchant vessels received a radio message from the Iranian Navy saying the Strait of Hormuz had been shut again, shipping sources have told Reuters.

The Iranian Navy told the tankers that no ships are allowed to pass through the Strait, the sources add.

As we’ve just reported, at least one tanker says it has come under fire in the strait by IRGC gunboats.

(more…)

As news of the ceasefire spread through Israel’s northern communities, sirens blared three times this evening warning of incoming rockets from Lebanon.

In the sky above the northern city of Nahariya, Israel’s air defence interceptors shot up to block them, triggering loud explosions. Ambulance crews said at least three people were wounded by shrapnel in the hours before the ceasefire took effect, including two seriously.

On the ground here – and across the country – there’s scepticism about why Israel’s leader has signed up to the truce.

The Strait of Hormuz is “declared completely open” for the “remaining period of ceasefire,” says Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

In a statement on X, he says: “In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through [the] Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by Ports and Maritime Organisation of the Islamic Rep. of Iran.

BREAKING: Iran's Foreign Minister announces that the Strait of Hormuz has officially re-opened following the U.S. naval blockade in the region. pic.twitter.com/xGvlQB3aWr

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 17, 2026

The prognosis of the Iran War is now so couched in politics and so warped by the American Left that the public has grown tired and wants it all to go away. But in truth, the situation is so fluid that any accurate prediction is impossible. Yet there is good reason to believe in an eventual outcome quite favorable to the U.S. and one far better than the status quo ante bellum.

How one Ontario mom is navigating fears for her Iranian family’s homeland — from schoolyard gossip to Trump’s taunts

It’s chaos.

At her home near Kawartha Lakes, Ont., Hollay Ghadery sits in her lounge with her laptop as her children rush over, dumping lunch bags and backpacks, kicking off shoes, and jostling to be first to tell her what happened at school.

“Let me speak first.” “No, you spoke first last time. It’s my turn!” “Mom, listen to me.”
Usually, it’s just gossip — who got in trouble, who bothered who. But lately, it’s been about remarks they’ve heard in school: that U.S. President Donald Trump is “freeing” their family’s homeland, Iran, by waging war; that Iranians should be happy about it. One of her children also heard a classmate claim that ISIS, falsely conflated with Iran, is planning an attack on the U.S. Moments like these can show how difficult it can be to parent through a war, even if it’s thousands of kilometres away.

The Star barely conceals the regime leanings of these Iranians one of whom is “Poet Laureate of Scugog Township.” 

These are the officials of the Islamic Republic who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took 52 American diplomats and staff hostage for 444 days.

I grew up in their system.

From the age of seven, we were forced to chant “Death to America.” We were made to burn the… https://t.co/Abg8j0uys1 pic.twitter.com/IWgsh6PYQL

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 16, 2026

A European-led mission to clear the Strait of Hormuz and keep it open for global oil traffic is being spun as a snub to President Donald Trump, despite it being exactly what the American leader has been asking for allies to step up and do for weeks.

Iran is attempting to “dig out” its bombed-out facilities during the ceasefire, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Thursday morning.

The country is “digging out [its] remaining launchers and missiles,” he told reporters during a press briefing, adding that it does not have the “the ability to replenish [its] remaining launchers and missiles.”

Crescendo of tiny violins. https://t.co/fXVC1h6vMj

— davrola (@davrola) April 16, 2026

A 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel will begin at midnight Israel time, US President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social Post on Thursday.

Trump stated that the ceasefire was reached after separate conversations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

Donald Trump wants to make a “grand bargain” with Iran, JD Vance has claimed, with the US considering offering incentives in return for peace.

The US vice-president said the message given to Tehran was that it would thrive if it agreed to curb its nuclear programme, hinting that a string of financial rewards could be on the table.

“[Trump] doesn’t want to make a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain,” Mr Vance told a Turning Point USA event in Georgia.