Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation. Critics of the law have described this provision as a “bathroom bounty,” as those individuals can collect up to $1,000 in “damages.” Trans residents began receiving letters from the state last week telling them to surrender their licenses to the Kansas Division of Vehicles (KDOV) if their gender markers were not in compliance with the state's new definition of gender. The new law “is a cruel and craven threat to public safety all in the name of fostering fear, division, and paranoia,” said Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “It undermines our state's strong constitutional protections against government overreach and persecution.” According to letters sent to residents, the law goes into effect right away, and there will be no grace period for those found in violation of the law. “[Y]our current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential,” the letter states. Penalties include up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. “SB 244 is just the most recent law in a shameful litany of statutes enacted by the Kansas Legislature meant to discriminate against and dehumanize transgender people,” the lawsuit states, citing laws that exclude trans kids from school sports, bar trans children from receiving gender-affirming care, and enshrine unfair treatment of trans people in Kansas jails. Plaintiffs, like other Kansans, also need to use restrooms when they are in public spaces. Plaintiffs, along with other transgender people around the state of Kansas, will immediately suffer harm under SB 244 because they will not be able to utilize a driver's license with their correct gender marker or access public restrooms that accord with their gender identity. According to affidavits provided by the plaintiffs, there is also concern that the provision removing people's correct gender markers from their licenses would “out” them in a way that could potentially endanger lives. Critics say the law is an unnecessary intrusion into trans people's lives for what are clearly bigoted reasons. “This bill that the Republicans forced through the Legislature so quickly is doing nothing but causing a problem that doesn't exist . It's clearly something they've wanted to do for a long time, and it's at the expense of members of marginalized communities,” said LGBTQ activist and Kansas resident Jae Moyer. “This harmful law stokes fear and puts trans people at serious risk. The ACLU's legal challenge is a crucial step toward protecting the dignity, safety, and rights of trans people in Kansas and beyond,” a statement from PFLAG said. As independent media, what we do next matters a lot. It's up to us to report the truth, demand accountability, and reckon with the consequences of U.S. militarism at this cataclysmic historical moment. Trump may be an authoritarian, but he is not entirely invulnerable, nor are the elected officials who have given him pass after pass. We cannot let him believe for a second longer that he can get away with something this wildly illegal or recklessly dangerous without accountability. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation to Truthout. This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the following terms: Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, based in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be found on most social media platforms under the handle @thatchriswalker. Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day. Truthout is working overtime to bring you the latest on Iran.

Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation. President Donald Trump's war in Iran is extraordinarily unpopular, according to a poll conducted shortly after the U.S. and Israel carried out massive strikes on the country Saturday. The survey, conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, found that just 27% of voters approved of the strikes, which have killed at least 555 Iranians as of Monday morning and resulted in retaliation from Iran that has killed at least four U.S. service members, with more casualties expected according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Still, 13% disapproved, and a noteworthy 31% said they were unsure. Any Dems who are still skittish about the war powers vote should get over it already. And though Democratic leaders in Congress have done little to stand in the way of the strikes, their voters are overwhelmingly against them: 74% said they disapproved, while just 7% approved. The poll reflects a wider skepticism of U.S. military intervention, with 56% of respondents saying the president was too quick to deploy military force in recent months, including in Venezuela, Syria, and Nigeria. Trump has most recently said the strikes were intended to stop an “imminent threat” from Iran; meanwhile, the Pentagon has told Congress there was no sign Iran was planning an attack unless the U.S. did so first. Told @AJEnglish that Trump's messaging on why he started the war with Iran signalled desperation. He is desperately trying to come up with a justification that will be convincing to his base for a war that only one out of five Americans sees as justified… pic.twitter.com/pteQ6Ey2zx “It's very clear that Trump has a tremendous difficulty finding a justification for this war of choice that he's embarked on,” he said. “So now he's suddenly, desperately, using all kinds of justifications: Liberating the Iranian people, Iran is fighting against civilization,” Parsi said. As independent media, what we do next matters a lot. It's up to us to report the truth, demand accountability, and reckon with the consequences of U.S. militarism at this cataclysmic historical moment. Trump may be an authoritarian, but he is not entirely invulnerable, nor are the elected officials who have given him pass after pass. We cannot let him believe for a second longer that he can get away with something this wildly illegal or recklessly dangerous without accountability. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation to Truthout. Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day. Truthout is working overtime to bring you the latest on Iran.

Activists who dispute safety of vaccines are pushing to limit immunization requirements in schools As South Carolina grapples with a measles outbreak that has infected nearly 1,000 people, groups with ties to the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, are pushing to eliminate immunization requirements that protect children. The Guardian found anti-vaccine groups are encouraging their followers to organize opposition to vaccine mandates in more than 20 states, including at least six with current measles outbreaks. Leaders of this campaign include the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy led for years, a group run by his longtime book publisher, and Leslie Manookian, an Idaho film-maker, homeopath and activist whom Kennedy has called his friend. We will see children missing school, parents missing work,” said Dr Jana Shaw, an infectious disease specialist who has conducted research on vaccine hesitancy. They often underpin their justifications for that position by providing false or misleading information to their supporters that plays up the risks of vaccines and downplays the dangers of illness. School immunization requirements are a crucial tool that helps keep vaccination rates high and incidents of infections such as measles and pertussis, known as whooping cough, low. Even children who are vaccinated are at a higher risk of getting infected in those communities because the illness can spread more easily. What's more, Shaw said, research has shown that children who are intentionally exempted from vaccination can end up becoming the source of pertussis and measles infections in schools. “It never is just about you,” said Shaw, a professor of pediatrics at Suny Upstate Medical University. Organizers said in interviews they oppose every kind of medical mandate. The coalition is led by Manookian's group, the Health Freedom Defense Fund, and Stand for Health Freedom, which has been working since 2019 to influence vaccine-related state legislation. Among the 15 groups that have joined are Kennedy-affiliated anti-vaccine groups including Maha Action, run by his publisher Tony Lyons, and Children's Health Defense, which Kennedy led before he joined the Trump administration. “Epidemiological data is being used politically and selectively to create a scapegoat for routine infection rates that rise and fall, every year,” Manookian said. She announced the coalition's formation on a Maha Action organizing video call in January that Kennedy and his deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, also attended. The organizing calls, which usually last an hour and are held weekly, feature speakers promoting work they are doing to advance Kennedy's “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Though Kennedy addressed a different topic – whole milk – and spoke before Manookian did, he gave her a shoutout at the end of his comments. Manookian said no one at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been involved in the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, and she doesn't know if Kennedy is aware of its work. The coalition has backed bills to end mandates in Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New York, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Vermont, Jill Hines, director of advocacy for Stand for Health Freedom, said. In New Hampshire, for example, a bill the coalition backed to prohibit school vaccine mandates died after failing to get enough support from both Republicans and Democrats. But after a medical freedom bill in Iowa died, the advocates moved on and backed a different bill that would end school vaccine mandates. Those states include at least six experiencing current measles outbreaks: South Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Washington state and North Dakota. Hines said she didn't see how removing mandates could lead to more illnesses like measles and children dying. “I don't see how the two are even connected,” Hines said, adding: “If anybody is concerned about it, they can still go get a vaccine. What we want to prevent is the coerced medicalization of individuals, especially children.” While South Carolina mandates school vaccines, it allows families to opt out of those requirements by getting a religious or medical exemption. The research paper also, however, called measles “an important health problem” and expressed hope that it could soon be eradicated thanks to “new and potent tools”. Shaw said measles causes a broad range of symptoms, some mild, but complications are common, and there's no way to know ahead of time who will become severely ill. “They're trying to make you think that there's this huge epidemic and it's just not the case,” she said in a recent video in which she discussed the coalition's anti-mandate work. In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported more than 1,100 measles cases in 2026 so far on top of more than 2,200 last year, when three people died and hundreds were hospitalized. In the same video, Manookian acknowledged that lawmakers have challenged her by raising the threat posed by a potential resurgence of polio. Medical experts attribute the near eradication of polio to vaccines. Later, Manookian said: “Your child is more likely to suffer injury or death from the meningitis vaccine than they are from meningitis. She added that if a child gets meningococcal meningitis, the chances of dying from it are about one in 10. Manookian also disputed that measles caused the deaths of two girls in Texas last year, pointing the Guardian to Kennedy's former anti-vaccine group, Children's Health Defense, as one of her sources. Local medical officials, health authorities and Kennedy's own CDC attribute their deaths to measles. In South Carolina, Hafeezah Yates of the pro-vaccine advocacy group South Carolina Families for Vaccines said she has heard false information about vaccines being shared during statehouse testimony, both from people testifying and from some lawmakers. She worries about the large number of bills being introduced around the country that, if passed, would profoundly affect how society functions – overloading the medical system, disrupting school for children and other long-term consequences not yet anticipated. Yates pointed to new modeling from the Yale School of Public Health, which predicts that a sustained 1% annual decline in the vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella could cost the US a total of $7.8bn by 2030, on top of many more people being hospitalized and dying. “Life will change for us in a way that we are not prepared to handle.”

Russia is ready to use all opportunities to stabilize the situation in the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a telephone conversation with King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isai Al Khalifa in the context of the US-Israeli attack on Iran. The current development of events "also threatens the security of many Arab states, with which Russia maintains friendly relations," according to the Russian side. "With all this in mind, Vladimir Putin confirmed the readiness of the Russian side to use all available opportunities to actively contribute to the stabilization of the situation in the region," the Kremlin's press service reported. The United States and Israel launched a large-scale military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. At the same time, US leadership openly called on the Iranian population to rise up against their government and seize power. As a result of the strikes, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several other senior figures in the leadership of the Islamic Republic were killed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia were also hit.

“Pre-recorded social media clips won't cut it,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons remarked. Trump made brief remarks about the conflict at the beginning of a previously scheduled Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday morning. But for the most part Trump is communicating on his own terms — in ways that didn't even exist for past presidents in wartime. Over the weekend he posted updates to the social media platform he controls; chatted with reporters who called his cell phone; shared links to supportive op-eds; and even cracked a joke at the Iranian Navy's expense. On Monday morning, he gave a nine-minute phone interview to CNN anchor Jake Tapper. The New York Times, after a brief phone interview with Trump, said he offered “several seemingly contradictory visions” about a transition of power in Iran. Earlier, when Trump spoke with an Axios reporter on Saturday, he suggested the military campaign might not take long: “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days.” In another phone call, this one with reporters from MS NOW, Trump — a cable news obsessive — indicated that he'd been watching news coverage of the combat operations. He said he had seen “celebrations” of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death both inside Iran and on the streets of Los Angeles. That call, MS NOW said, was less than a minute long. “There's no better communicator than our president,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press conference Monday morning. Trump officials decline Sunday show invitations amid Iran strikes The taped video format gave Trump an unusual amount of control — the opportunity to record more than once, for instance, and to edit out remarks. The videos were an end run around the news media and a break from presidential tradition, as CNN's chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins noted on air. “Typically,” she said, US presidents deliver speeches “in front of the White House press pool,” with reporters there to bear witness and try to ask questions. In another break from tradition, Trump did not deliver an Oval Office address announcing the outbreak of war, a format past presidents have utilized to amass the country's attention and influence public opinion. In a Sunday night tweet, Trump communications director Steven Cheung ridiculed talk of an Oval Office address by linking it to “failed policies of the past.” As a practical matter, Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida when the strikes began, hundreds of miles from Washington. But Cheung said Trump “spent the majority of his time monitoring the situation in a secure facility, in constant contact with world leaders,” and he called Trump's two web videos “multiple addresses to the nation” that “garnered hundreds of millions of views.” In January, the site registered only 23.8 million visits while X had 4.5 billion. But Trump's videos were almost instantly reshared by the White House on other platforms, like X, and were rebroadcast by TV networks around the world. The US Agency for Global Media, which Trump sought to dismantle last year but is still in partial operation, promoted the fact that it translated his Saturday morning video into Persian and beamed it into Iran. Trump's next post on Truth Social, after that video, was a link to a right-wing news article titled “Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.” The US intelligence community has previously assessed that Iran carried out covert influence campaigns to undercut Trump's candidacy in both 2020 and 2024. But the invocation of that fact on Saturday morning, as Trump announced strikes, perhaps suggested a more personal motivation on the president's part. When three US servicemembers were killed in an initial stage of the war, the announcement was made by US Central Command on X. Trump did not respond when reporters shouted questions to him about the military deaths on Sunday night. But when Trump had a chance to brag about a military accomplishment, he did just that, writing on Truth Social that “we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important.” He also asserted that “we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters,” then quipped, “Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!” Members of Trump's inner circle have also been active on social media platforms. Daniel Torok, the chief White House photographer, pointed out on X that his photos of Trump in a classified briefing about the strikes were taken “around the 15 hour mark of his ~17 hour workday” on Friday and into Saturday. Torok's photos were part of the administration's effort to shape public opinion – though many commentators pointed out that those efforts have paled in comparison to past American war efforts. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” he said then. “But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world's No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon, can't let that happen.” Ben Domenech, opinion editor for The Daily Wire, a Trump-aligned right-wing media outlet, wrote on Monday that Trump “didn't sell America on Iran” because “he doesn't need to.” Domenech argued that “Americans assess foreign policy and national security not as ever-running aspects of their datily lives, but as a binary: success, or failure. US market indices are shown in real time, except for the S&P 500 which is refreshed every two minutes. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Market holidays and trading hours provided by Copp Clark Limited.

RT Arabic has evacuated its office in the Iranian capital, Tehran, after a nearby airstrike, the channel reported on Monday. There were no immediate reports of casualties among its staff. Branch chief Hami Hamedi has shared several videos showing a building which he said had just been destroyed next to the RT office. He said a gas leak, which can be heard in the footage, prompted his decision to instruct staff to urgently leave the premises. A separate clip shows nearby buildings with windows shattered by the blast wave. On Saturday, the US and Israel launched a joint military attack against Iran, aimed at killing the country's leaders and replacing its government. Russia has condemned the decision to use military force as an act of unprovoked aggression and called the targeted killing of the Islamic Republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a political assassination that undermines basic principles of international relations. The channel, also known as Rusiya Al-Yaum, is headquartered in Moscow and has regional offices in several Arab-speaking nations. In 2023, RT Arabic's branch in Gaza was destroyed amid the Israeli campaign targeting the militant movement Hamas, which resulted in devastation of large parts of the Palestinian enclave. Read RT Privacy policy to find out more.

Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump's action and killing of Iranian supreme leader As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump's decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front. Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught. “President Trump has been willing to do what's right and necessary to produce real peace in the region,” tweeted John Fetterman, a Democratic senator for Pennsylvania and staunch supporter of Israel, declaring himself a “hard no” on a war powers vote and posting an image of the ayatollah with the provocative statement: “Let's see who grieves for that garbage.” Democratic leaders were outspoken during the massive US military buildup in the Middle East, decrying his unwillingness to engage with Congress and lack of long-term strategy for Iran. They noted that it was Trump, during his first term, who shredded Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran. Senator Bernie Sanders denounced the assault as “an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war”, while Senator Chris Van Hollen warned it amounted to a “regime-change war” that would leave the US less secure. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat who co-chairs the Problem Solvers caucus, wrote on X: “I agree with the President's objectives that Iran can never be allowed to obtain nuclear capabilities.” Henry Cuellar of Texas said the threat posed by Iran was “real and longstanding”. And not all Democrats are lining up behind a war powers rebuke. Greg Landsman argued that the US “is destroying Iran's missiles and bombs to stop them from taking more lives”, and said he would oppose a resolution that he fears would amount to abandoning Israel. Congressman Jared Moskowitz rehearsed Tehran's long record of sponsoring violence across the region and insisted the focus must now be on shaping what comes next rather than relitigating what has already happened. The split also exposes a deeper unease within Democratic ranks over how robustly to confront Iran and how far to go in backing Israeli military action. There are also political traps as Republicans accuse them of lacking patriotism and ignoring the Iranian diaspora who have taken to the streets to celebrate Khamenei's downfall. The discomfort is embodied by Senator Mark Kelly, a former combat pilot and potential 2028 presidential contender. But he also delivered a withering assessment of the White House's preparation. Air power can destroy targets, he added, but fully eliminating capabilities without boots on the ground is “incredibly challenging”. Even if a resolution were to pass the narrowly split Congress, Trump likely would veto it and Congress would not have the two-thirds majority needed to overturn that rejection. Congress has often failed to block other US military actions, including in a Senate vote on Venezuela, but the roll calls stand as a public record. Joel Rubin, a former assistant deputy secretary of state, said: “You have two streams on this. “The second group are basically we don't like the process, we needed to be briefed, we needed more clarity about how long it's going to be, what's the on-the-ground operation – process questions and should-have-come-to-Congress kind of stuff, but not necessarily opposed to what's happening.” Some are already casting their minds forward to the midterm elections. They will try but it'll depend a lot on their district.” Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett posted on social media: “CONGRESS, not the PRESIDENT, but CONGRESS has the EXCLUSIVE authority to declare war!” State representative James Talarico posted on social media: “No more forever wars.” His primary rival, Maine governor Janet Mills, is typically seen as a more moderate figure but appeared keen that Platner would not outflank her, accusing Trump of “recklessly pushing the United States into a dangerous conflict in the Middle East”.

Oil prices shot higher on Monday, while gold rose alongside government borrowing costs as financial markets came to grips with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran at the weekend that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has struck back at Gulf cities, with airlines halting flights and tankers carrying oil and other products suspending transit through the key Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude was up nearly 10 per cent at US$79 on Monday for a gain of nearly 30 per cent so far this year, but remains far below the US$100 level analysts reckon it would exceed in a prolonged conflict. “This is a relatively moderate reaction considering that the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 per cent of global oil consumption passes, is effectively closed,” said Commerzbank's chief economist Joerg Kraemer. “At the moment, market participants seem to be expecting a shorter war lasting only a ‌few weeks,” said Kraemer, ​who also sees this scenario as most likely. The ‌bigger risk, analysts said, may be complacency in markets that have assumed the fallout would be limited, like it was during last June's “12-Day War” in ​Iran or during Russia's numerous attacks on Ukraine. “What worries us is that investors have now ⁠learned this pattern and might be underpricing a scenario where containment fails.” They point to other factors that could exacerbate a selloff should the conflict escalate, such as existing concerns around the artificial ​intelligence boom and private credit markets. “We see further (market) downside in the coming days,” said Jefferies economist Mohit Kumar, who had already derisked last week on concerns markets were complacent on geopolitics. In typical flight to safety, the dollar was broadly higher on Monday, gold rose over 2 per cent and European stocks dropped nearly 2 per cent, with futures pointing to a similar open for U.S. stocks. Government bond yields, which initially dropped, then ticked higher as investors trimmed their rate cut bets across major central banks. “In my view, the market has already been overestimating inflationary forces, so I don't think this will change much. There will ⁠be more impact on Europe than U.S. given the closer proximity of Hormuz oil and ​gas post-Russia,” said Tariq Dennison, a wealth adviser at Zurich-based GFM Asset Management. “Investors have been overweight the euro and European assets on the recovery story this ‌year – a story that will naturally be challenged this week by higher energy prices,” ING said. Some analysts expect Iran will not be able to disrupt trade in ​the Gulf region and the impact on oil prices will be contained. “We wouldn't be surprised if any selloff in the S&P 500 on Monday morning turns into a rally, driven by expectations of lower oil prices once the latest Middle East war ends,” said Ed Yardeni, president of New York-based Yardeni Research. Bond yields might fall due to both safe-haven demand and ​post-war prospects for lower oil prices,” he said. Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

NEW YORK, March 2. /TASS/. The US leadership is considering launching a military operation on Cuba, based on the results of its similar actions against Venezuela and Iran, The Atlantic reported, citing sources. US President Donald Trump and his administration are feeling like they are "on a roll, like, this is working," the magazine wrote. Inspired by his operations against Venezuela and Iran, Trump sees himself as the first modern American leader who could complete what others only flirted with. The US president believes he could cement his legacy above that of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. The Trump administration also believes that toppling the Cuban government fits into its key objective of solidifying dominance in the Western Hemisphere. However, Washington's current emphasis is on holding talks with Cuba, coupled with intensified economic pressure on the Latin American country. The decision about a potential military operation will be made based on longer term results of US attacks on Venezuela and Iran. Besides, some in the White House warn that a potential operation against Cuba is fraught with risks as it could cause an influx of refugees to the United States.

“China urges all parties to immediately cease military actions, prevent further escalation of tensions, and avoid regional turbulence inflicting greater damage on global economic development.” A long-standing ally of Iran, Beijing appeared to have been caught off guard by this weekend's attacks on Tehran, describing the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “trampling on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and basic norms in international relations.” Some 3,000 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from Iran, she added, while at least one Chinese citizen was killed in the bombing of the Iranian capital. As with heavily sanctioned Venezuelan oil, China was a major buyer of Iranian crude. But the broader Chinese economy should be resilient to any immediate shocks from the war in Iran, said Wang Yiwei, a professor of international affairs at Renmin University in Beijing. “China already has massive petroleum reserves, plus new energy sources now account for about one-third of our structure,” he said. Oil prices surged Monday as traders priced in major disruptions to the Iranian supply, at least in the short term, which could have a knock-on effect on demand for crude from other countries. “Although China imports discounted Iranian crude – often routed through third countries as a proxy – recent trade data show no surge in purchases,” Mr. Holmes said. China will rue any regime change in Iran, as it is likely to further undermine Beijing's position in the Middle East, where only years ago it seemed poised to be a major player. Renmin University's Prof. Wang agreed, noting “the postwar international system – entirely created by the United States itself – has now been personally destroyed by America, and this is something Europe is worried about, and the world as a whole is worried about.” Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit China at the end of this month. “But I don't think that's something China is afraid of.” Asked Monday whether Mr. Trump's visit would go ahead, Ms. Mao said the two sides were “maintaining communication on this issue.” Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Since its founding in 1922, Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs. The magazine has featured contributions from many leading international affairs experts. RICHARD FONTAINE is CEO of the Center for a New American Security. There was remarkably little national debate, scant discussion with U.S. allies, and no vote in Congress about the desirability of conflict. Two days into the war, administration officials have yet to articulate a specific vision for how it will end. Instead of employing decisive force, U.S. President Donald Trump is prioritizing flexibility. This stance reflects a new way of war—visible across multiple Trump interventions, from the Red Sea to Venezuela—that inverts traditional thinking on the use of force. Indeed, in many ways, Trump's use of force is the anti–Powell Doctrine. Developed during the Gulf War (1990–91) by General Colin Powell, who later served as secretary of state, the Powell Doctrine held that force should be employed only as a last resort, after all nonviolent means have been exhausted. If war is necessary, however, it should proceed in pursuit of a clear objective, with a clear exit strategy, and with public support. It should employ overwhelming, decisive force to defeat the enemy, using every resource—military, economic, political, social—available. Derived from the lessons of Vietnam, the approach was designed to avoid protracted conflicts, high death tolls, financial losses, and domestic divisions. As Powell later wrote, military leaders could not “quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand or support.” Some critics thought the all-or-nothing approach to war would preclude the tailored use of force to achieve modest but still important goals. It declared war only after the Taliban and Iraqi leaders, respectively, ignored U.S. demands, and after the president spent considerable political capital to persuade Americans that the decisions to go to war were wise. It also sought and received congressional authorization in both cases. In Afghanistan, U.S. forces combined a lean on-the-ground presence with withering air attacks and support for fighters in the Northern Alliance, which entered Kabul and overthrew the Taliban. In Iraq, 160,000 U.S. troops launched a ground invasion to topple the regime. In both instances, the planned exit strategy was to turn governing institutions over to exiles, local leaders, and domestic security forces, after which American troops would come home. Things clearly did not go according to plan in either case. Attempting to avoid prolonged conflicts brought them about anyway. In an effort to avoid repeating such debacles, the Trump administration has pursued something like their inverse. In 2017 and 2018, Trump ordered missile strikes against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, and continued U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), including the raid that killed the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Last year, Trump launched a war against the Houthis in Yemen, destroyed key Iranian nuclear sites, and attacked militants in northern Nigeria. This year, his administration invaded Venezuela to seize its president, Nicolás Maduro, and, just two days ago, launched a major operation in Iran. Those operations' departures from more traditional ways of employing force are striking. The Powell Doctrine, for its part, holds that war should be a last resort, turned to only after political, diplomatic, and economic means have failed to attain the desired objective. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein a deadline for withdrawing his forces from Kuwait, and a decade later, President George W. Bush gave both Saddam and the Taliban public ultimatums before beginning hostilities. Trump's approach, on the other hand, has been to use ambiguity as a source of advantage, to catch his opponents off guard; the 2025 and 2026 U.S. attacks on Iran, for instance, took place as negotiations were ongoing. His administration issued no public ultimatums to Soleimani or Maduro. For Trump, it seems, force is not something to employ only when all other means have been exhausted, but rather one of several tools available to increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes. But not a single conflict during Trump's presidencies has been preceded by a campaign to win public support, and Congress has not voted to authorize any of them. Instead, each conflict began suddenly and followed an unpredictable course. Rather than lay out a case for each war, the president often insisted he hoped to avoid it. His administration put a priority on surprise, attesting, for example, that the Caribbean military buildup was to stop drug boats, not to prepare for a direct regime change operation in Venezuela. Iran today presents an even more ambitious regime change operation, but in last week's nearly two-hour State of the Union address, Trump talked about it in only a few sentences. The Trump administration has also avoided articulating clear objectives for its use of force. Trump similarly said at first that pressure on Venezuela was necessary to stop drugs and gang members from entering the United States, before later explaining that the goal was to bring Maduro to justice, that he wished to take back oil stolen from the United States, and that the operation was consistent with a new corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Where the Powell Doctrine calls for clarity, Trump instead prizes flexibility. This, rather than obvious victory, is his exit strategy. When announcing attacks on the Houthis, Trump said, “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective,” with the objective allegedly being to end Houthi attacks on American vessels in the Red Sea. Finally, Powell's dictum holds that the United States should employ overwhelming, decisive force in pursuit of its objective, defeating the enemy as swiftly and soundly as possible. Trump's approach, on the other hand, favors short, sharp military actions that employ only particular kinds of force, especially airpower and special forces, almost always excluding conventional ground forces. With the possible exception of its attacks on ISIS, the Trump administration's wars have largely employed limited, rather than decisive, force. But Assad's leadership remained secure, and he used chemical weapons again in 2018. In 2025, Trump boasted about obliterating Iran's nuclear sites, but in 2026, he cited the danger of Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon as a casus belli. Maduro is now gone from Venezuela, but his regime remains in place. In all of these cases, flexibility, rather than decisiveness, is the watchword, allowing Trump to settle for outcomes that were never clearly defined at the outset. It was also better than using pure military force, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had attempted for years. Likewise, the world is better off without Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow and Natanz, and without Soleimani running the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The jury remains out on Venezuela, but it is still possible that a democratic transition occurs and the country avoids a descent into domestic chaos. Short, sharp uses of force that preserve flexibility in decision-making, leverage ambiguity and surprise, minimize the chances of quagmire, and end with a “good enough” outcome might be the best approach to many cases. They are likely not the best approach to all cases, however, and the limits of Trump's way of war may soon be clear. Forcing regime change in a country that is much larger and more populous than Iraq or Afghanistan, through an operation with no ground component and no obvious domestic allies, and in the face of an entrenched security apparatus, will be extraordinarily difficult. The range of nightmare scenarios—from an IRGC-led military dictatorship to a descent into domestic chaos—is wider than the happy possibility of a democratic uprising. If it endures, Washington will wrap up the fight and move on to other priorities. Such a scenario would demonstrate one more limitation of the Trump approach, however: it does not pave the way for long-term peace but postpones conflict to another day. With Moscow Pressing Its Advantage, Kyiv Should Trade Land for Peace Our editors' top picks, delivered free to your inbox every Friday. * Note that when you provide your email address, the Foreign Affairs Privacy Policy and Terms of Use will apply to your newsletter subscription. 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Ukraine has struck a major oil terminal in the Russian city of Novorossiysk overnight on March 2, damaging infrastructure at the port, as well as military ships and air defense assets, a source in Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told the Kyiv Independent. The mass Ukrainian drone strike was carried out together with Ukraine's Border Guard Service, military intelligence (HUR) Unmanned Systems Forces, and Special Operations Forces. According to the SBU source, part of the attack included strikes on Russian military assets in and around the port, with several military ships, one Pantsir-S2 air defense system and an S-300 air defense radar also hit. Four residential buildings were reported damaged in the attack, Novorossiysk Mayor Andrey Kravchenko said, not mentioning the oil terminal. Fires broke out at two addresses and are being extinguished," Kravchenko later said. Ukraine regularly strikes military infrastructure deep within Russia and occupied territories in an effort to diminish Moscow's fighting power as the Kremlin wages its war against Ukraine. Kyiv considers oil facilities to be valid military targets as they directly fund Russia's war. Overnight on Feb. 27, Ukraine reportedly launched strikes, hitting a thermal power station in Belgorod Oblast and an oil depot in occupied Luhansk, according to Russian officials and eyewitness footage posted to social media. Volodymyr Ivanyshyn is a news editor for The Kyiv Independent. He is pursuing an Honors Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto, majoring in political science with a minor in anthropology and human geography. Volodymyr holds a Certificate in Business Fundamentals from Rotman Commerce at the University of Toronto. He previously completed an internship with The Kyiv Independent. A drone hit a moving passenger train near Kryvyi Rih, killing one person and injuring seven others, including two children, officials said. The U.S. launched a series of strikes against Iran as part of Operation Epic Fury, carried out jointly with Israel. Only 25% of respondents said they rather believe in the talks' potential success, while 5% remained undecided, according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). The U.S. may consider suspending attacks if Iran "can satisfy us," Trump told NBC News on March 1, adding that "they haven't been able to." Ukrainian drones struck an oil terminal, leaving fires in the southern Russian port city of Novorossiysk overnight on March 2, Telegram news channel Astra reported. "We are not joining these strikes, but we will continue with our defensive actions in the region," U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. "And we will also bring experts from Ukraine, together with our own experts, to help Gulf partners shoot down Iranian drones attacking them." Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that "the most intense operation against Israel and the United States is set to begin," while state outlets warned that "revenge is coming."