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Iran Broke the Ceasefire. Trump Notified Congress. The Strikes Are Back On.

GOVERNMENT

The memorandum of understanding is dead. The ceasefire that Iran signed, violated within weeks, and then tried to renegotiate from a position of imaginary strength is officially finished. On July 10th, President Trump formally notified Congress under the War Powers Resolution that military operations against Iran have resumed — dating the restart of hostilities to July 7th, when CENTCOM launched fresh strikes after Iranian forces fired on and damaged multiple commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz along undesignated routes.

Trump said it plainly: “The MOU was only a test for Iran.” They failed it.

The letter to Congress is direct and unapologetic. The strikes are “limited, measured, planned, and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties.” Their objectives are equally clear: degrade Iranian military capabilities threatening American forces in the region, protect the homeland, secure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and defend American allies and partners. No ground troops. No occupation. No nation-building. Just sustained, targeted military pressure until Iran stops being a threat.

“I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148),” President Trump added. “I appreciate the support of the Congress in these military actions.”

“United States Armed Forces remain postured to take further action, as necessary and appropriate,” the letter states, “to ensure the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran ceases being a threat to the United States and to our allies and partners.”

That sentence is the entire policy in one line. And CENTCOM is executing it with exactly the kind of sustained, methodical pressure that makes it credible.

Monday night marked the third consecutive night of American strikes against targets inside Iran — Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas, hitting coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites, and maritime capabilities with precision munitions over a five-hour mission window. More than 50,000 American service members are currently deployed across the Middle East. CENTCOM’s own words: “vigilant, lethal, and ready.”

This is what it looks like when an American president means what he says. For decades, the pattern was identical: Iran provokes, America issues a strongly worded statement, diplomats convene in Geneva, a deal gets signed, Iran violates it within months, the cycle repeats. Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden — every administration played a variation of the same losing game. Iran learned that American resolve had a shelf life and that if they waited long enough, the pressure would lift.

Trump ended that calculation in his first term with Soleimani. He’s ending it again now with something considerably more comprehensive. The nuclear program is rubble. The air defenses are largely gone. The military and political leadership has been substantially reduced. And now, after Iran made the catastrophic miscalculation of firing on commercial shipping after signing a ceasefire, the strikes are back — with no indication they’re stopping until Tehran produces something more than a signature on a document it has no intention of honoring.

Iran wanted a test. They got their answer Monday night over five Iranian ports.

The war is back on. This time, Trump is fighting it to win.