Author: Reporter

Okinawa marked the 80th anniversary of the end of one of the harshest battles of World War II fought on the southern island. With global tensions escalating, its governor said on June 23 it is the Okinawan “mission” to keep telling the tragic history and its impact today. The Battle of Okinawa killed a quarter of the island’s population, leading to a 27-year U.S. occupation and a heavy American troop presence to date. The June 23 memorial came one day after U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, adding to a sense of uncertainty on the island about the heavy...

After nearly two years of stark divisions over the war in Gaza and support for Israel, Democrats seemed at odds over policy toward Iran. Progressives demanded unified opposition before Donald Trump announced U.S. strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program, but party leaders were treading more cautiously. U.S. leaders of all stripes have found common ground for two decades on the position that Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. The longtime U.S. foe has supported groups that have killed Americans across the Mideast and threatened to destroy Israel. But Trump’s announcement on June 21 that the U.S....

His public statements have repeatedly framed Tehran’s atomic ambitions as an urgent and growing threat, a view that has shaped both Israel’s national security posture and its dealings with the United States. Netanyahu began issuing such alerts in the early 1990s, during his time as a member of Israel’s parliament. In a 1992 speech to the Knesset, he suggested that Iran was within three to five years of achieving independent nuclear weapons production. He would go on to reaffirm that assessment in his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism, arguing that Iran’s nuclear intentions posed a dire challenge to global security....