Two Regional Wars Are Merging: Is It World War 3?

Thirteen nights of strikes stopped on Friday — and the men running two wars started merging them.

Donald Trump ordered the military to stop bombing Iran on Friday. He gave the order himself, two sources told Axios, after thirteen straight nights of strikes. The Wall Street Journal reported why: the military is running low on the interceptor missiles that knock down Iran's answer. Mike Waltz, Trump's UN ambassador, blamed Joe Biden for the shortage on Sunday — then said in the same interview that the military has "everything that it needs." Both can't be true.

Ali Khamenei matched the stop. His government said Sunday that Iran holds its fire as long as Trump holds his, and Khamenei set his price for any deal: Israel ends its attacks on Lebanon. Trump says the two sides are talking. His aides told the Washington Post he is still weighing escalation. Sen. John Kennedy defended the daily strikes on Sunday television: "Sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys." Congress takes up a war-powers vote this week. Eight in ten Americans told pollsters the war has run harder than Trump promised.

Then Abbas Araqchi, Iran's foreign minister, threatened a second country. Ukraine hit an Iranian commercial vessel; the ship sank off Odesa a week later; Araqchi said Sunday the attack "cannot go unanswered." Volodymyr Zelensky says Moscow is helping Tehran. Romanian pilots downed a third Russian drone in three days. Two wars are becoming one war — and Zev has tracked the hand behind that since the Kuwait Trap. Xi Jinping built full-size models of American warships to sharpen his missiles, reopened trade with Canada and Europe, and now offers himself as the peacemaker. Nobody merges two wars by accident.

Pete Hegseth's Pentagon spent the weekend shrinking the war's death count. Officials cut the official toll from 18 to 14 — the four soldiers killed in Jordan and Iraq disappeared from it. Spokesman Joel Valdez called the change "temporary data disruptions." On Sunday a new category, "Overseas Operations," appeared on the Pentagon's casualty website, holding the four dead men and 207 wounded. Trump saluted those four coffins at Dover. His own Pentagon had already moved the dead men off the war.

Oil traders eased prices on the pause. Drivers still pay near $4 a gallon. Taxpayers have spent $37 billion and counting. Narativ reported on July 22 that Iran wanted a wider war. On Sunday, Araqchi widened it to Ukraine.

Trump stopped shooting because he is short on bullets — not because he is done.