Middle East

Time -    President Donald Trump said the U.S. will not make a deal to stop the military strikes on Iran unless the country agrees to “unconditional surrender.”  “After that, and the selection of a great acceptable leader, we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” Trump said Friday morning.

Charlie Savage, NY Times -    Mr. Trump has already established a new precedent. His Iran war expands the scope of the kinds of “major combat operations” that presidents in the modern era have demonstrated they can start on their own authority. Executive branch lawyers will be able to cite this moment as support for blessing future unilateral presidential war-making.

Headline USA -   Tensions are rising between U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio over whether the United States should deploy troops to Iran at Israel’s request, three former U.S. officials and a senior regional official told Middle East Eye.

Rubio and Hegseth were described as “at each other’s throats” over the troop deployment question, per the report by MEE. Hegseth supports the position while Rubio is deeply wary of entangling the U.S. in a long war, sources told MEE.

Axios: According to officials: Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets. It is the first indication another major U.S. adversary is participating in the war, even indirectly.

The Hill -  Iran and Lebanon were pummeled overnight, as President Trump said he wants to “clean out everything” when it comes to Iranian leadership as the conflict expands in the Middle East. “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social.

Bloomberg - Qatar’s energy minister warned that war in the region could “bring down the economies of the world” and predicted that all Gulf energy exporters would shutter production within weeks, in an interview with the Financial Times. Container shipper Maersk suspended two services in the latest sign of how the war is upending global supply lines. Follow the latest developments in our live blog.

NPR’s Hadeel Al-Shalchi, who is in Beirut, says the city is crowded with displaced people, and she found it hard to find a hotel room for herself because they are all full. People who cannot find a place to stay are sleeping in their cars or on the streets. More than 95,000 people are currently displaced, according to Lebanese officials. The attacks in Lebanon come after Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, launched rockets into Israel earlier this week. Al-Shalchi says the Lebanese government wants to distance itself from the militant group. Yesterday, Lebanon’s Justice Minister Adel Nassar told Al-Shalchi that he instructed the country’s security authorities to issue arrest warrants for the Hezbollah members who launched the rockets.