Summary
The other simmering conflict on Iran’s border
With help from Nahal Toosi
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A border spat between Pakistan and Afghanistan may further destabilize a region already roiled by the U.S.- Israeli joint assault on Iran.
And the absence of significant outside pressure — particularly on U.S. partner Pakistan — to force a ceasefire risks an escalation of violence, if not outright war on Iran’s doorstep.
President DONALD TRUMP hasn’t offered to broker a truce, perhaps because he’s got his hands full dealing with a widening war in Iran. And neither side has accepted a peace talks offer made by Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN on Wednesday.
The administration is instead encouraging Islamabad and Kabul to pursue “dialogue and diplomacy,” the White House said in a statement.
Spiraling hostilities could weaken the Taliban’s grip on power, allowing foreign fighters in the country hostile to the U.S. to expand influence. That includes 2,000 members of an offshoot of ISIS, according to a United Nations report published in August.
“The conflict risks being overlooked because of the Iran war, but the two are connected,” AFREEN AKHTER, former deputy assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia in the Biden administration, told NatSec Daily. “Both Afghanistan and Pakistan share borders with Iran, meaning the U.S. is now contending with potential instability across Iran’s eastern flank.”
Pakistani Defense Minister KHAWAJA ASIF took to X last week to declare “open war” on Afghanistan. Asif accused the Taliban regime in Kabul of becoming “a colony” of Islamabad’s arch-enemy India dedicated to “exporting terrorism.” Islamabad blames Afghanistan for enabling — with New Delhi’s connivance — a recent series of deadly terrorist attacks linked to insurgent groups based on Kabul’s side of the border.
The Pakistani embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Indian embassy in Washington declined to comment. Afghanistan doesn’t have a diplomatic outpost in the U.S.
Taliban spokesperson ZABIHULLAH MUJAHID shot back in his own X post that Kabul’s forces were repelling Pakistan’s “repeated border violations and provocations.”
Pakistan has already killed dozens of Afghan personnel, something Kabul denies, according to Deutsche Welle. The hostilities have also resulted in the deaths of dozens of Afghan civilians and dislocated tens of thousands of others, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Lingering rancor over the Taliban overthrow of the U.S.-backed Afghan government of President ASHRAF GHANI in 2021 — and the debacle of the U.S. withdrawal — may account for the White House’s hands-off approach.
“The U.S. government has zero positive sentiment for the Taliban. The Trump administration will clearly prioritize the interests of Pakistan over those of Afghanistan and not object to Pakistan’s pounding of Afghan positions,” said JAY TRUESDALE, former chief of staff in the U.S. embassy in Pakistan now with strategic advisory firm TDI.
The administration appears to be giving Islamabad a free hand to punish Kabul.
The U.S. government “supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks from the Taliban, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group,” the State Department said in a statement.
Intervention by a regional neighbor could help end the fighting. But the situation in Iran is a major distraction.
“The best country to mediate is probably Qatar, which has close contacts with both the Taliban and Pakistan,” said Lisa Curtis, former National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia in the first Trump administration. Qatar has limited bandwidth for diplomatic outreach as it repels Iranian missile and drone strikes.
A possible conflict-fueled power vacuum in Kabul could recreate the conditions that made the country a haven for al Qaeda prior to its terror attacks on the U.S. in 2001.
“Malgoverned spaces where threats like that are festering will find a way to assert themselves onto the agenda. And when they do, it will be painful,” AHMAD SHUJA, a member of Afghanistan’s National Security Council in the Ghani administration, told NatSec Daily.
The Inbox
NO MORE NOEM: President Trump said today he’s naming Sen. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-Okla.) to be the next Homeland Security secretary, moving current DHS chief KRISTI NOEM to a special envoy role around Western Hemisphere cooperation, our own Jordain Carney, Myah Ward and Eric Bazail-Eimil report.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said Noem “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!).”
The demotion was the capstone following mounting frustration with Noem over her management of DHS, including her response to federal agents killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January, Jordain, Myah and Eric write. Admin insiders were also concerned about how Noem used her agency’s funding and her relationship with her special adviser COREY LEWANDOWSKI.
READ: Noem out, Trump picks Mullin as DHS secretary
BULLISH ON IRAN: President Trump brushed off worries about the Iran war six days after it began, downplaying worries over its impact on the cost of gas and on U.S. ammunition reserves in a call with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns.
He indicated the U.S. will play a key role in reshaping the country’s leadership after the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Ayatollah ALI KHAMENEI.
“We’ll work with the people and the regime to make sure that somebody gets there that can nicely build Iran but without nuclear weapons,” Trump said. He said the late Supreme Leader’s son MOJTABA KHAMENEI is “incompetent.”
And he said he had the public’s backing (“People are loving what’s happening”), despite polls showing Americans are — at best — ambivalent. A survey of registered voters by NBC News released Wednesday found 54% of respondents disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, compared with 41% who approve. Polling began on Saturday after the U.S. announced the strikes.
While some Hill lawmakers have fretted a prolonged conflict with Iran could drive down the U.S. military stockpile, Trump pushed back.
“We’re being surgical,” he said. “We have unlimited supply of weapons, unlimited. … We have thousands, thousands, of them.”
NAVAL BOAT LATEST: The Iranian naval ship torpedoed by the U.S. had been hosted by India for naval exercises before it was struck in international waters, India said.
Sri Lanka’s navy recovered 87 bodies and rescued another 32 Iranian sailors from the IRIS Dena, the AP’s Sheikh Saaliq and Krishan Francis report.
Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH triumphantly described the attack as “the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.” Iranian Foreign Minister ABBAS ARAGHCHI accused the U.S. in a post on X of committing “an atrocity at sea.”
KANWAL SIBAL, India’s former foreign secretary, said the protocol for the military exercise required the ship to be unarmed. “It was defenceless,” he wrote, and added that a word of condolences from the Indian Navy “would be in order.”
Sri Lanka’s government spokesperson said today that it was trying to minimize the loss of lives as another Iranian ship entered its exclusive economic zone, an area just beyond its immediate territorial waters.
INTO THE VORTEX: European countries are getting drawn into the Middle East conflict sparked by U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, even as they did their best to stay out of it.
British Prime Minister KEIR STARMER said today that his country was sending four more Typhoon jets to Qatar. That’s in addition to the warship and helicopters he pledged to deploy to Cyprus on Tuesday after a drone strike hit a British base on the island.
Leaders of France, Italy and Greece say they’re coordinating their military assets to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean.
Spain has sent the Cristóbal Colón frigate to help back up air defenses in Cyprus, its first deployment as Prime Minister PEDRO SANCHEZ has refused to grant permission for the U.S. to use Spanish air bases for operations.
France has allowed U.S. refueling aircraft to use one of its bases, but said it obtained guarantees the aircraft would be used to defend regional allies and not strike Iran.
Ukraine, too, has offered to get involved. Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY said he had gotten requests from Americans and other allies for help on countering Iran’s drone strikes. He offered to exchange his country’s drone interceptors for million-dollar missiles Gulf countries are using to thwart the cheap Iranian hardware.
For more, follow POLITICO EU’s liveblog.
‘TOTALLY CRUSHED’: The White House is not taking kindly to a POLITICO story Wednesday that described the Trump administration’s scramble to beef up personnel and other resources to deal with the fallout of the expanding Iran war.
White House spokesperson ANNA KELLY said in a statement today: “Only Politico, who nonsensically said weeks ago that President Trump had ‘limited options’ on Iran, could describe the administration-wide efforts to surge resources into evacuating Americans and supporting our military amid Operation Epic Fury and conclude something negative. The Department of War and Department of State were well-prepared to execute any decision the President made, which is on full display as Iran is getting totally crushed by the United States Military and American citizens are being brought home at a rapid pace.”
The article discussed how the State Department is sending extra staff to Athens to deal with evacuees; how U.S. Central Command has requested additional military intelligence officers be sent to its headquarters in Tampa, Fla.; and how the Defense Department is trying to send more air defenses to the Middle East. The notification containing the request for the intelligence officers says they’ll be needed for at least 100 days but likely through September, offering a glimpse of how long the Pentagon suspects the conflict will last.
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Keystrokes
OUSTING ANTHROPIC: Trump said he was the one who decided Anthropic’s fate, following a dispute between the Pentagon and the AI company over its refusal to give access to its technology without guardrails.
“Well, I fired Anthropic. Anthropic is in trouble because I fired [them] like dogs, because they shouldn’t have done that,” he told our own Dasha Burns.
The Defense Department officially declared Anthropic a supply chain risk today, The Wall Street Journal reports, which will result in a blacklisting from government contracts. Our own Gabby Miller reports that’s a designation usually reserved for companies tied to foreign adversaries.
Sen. MIKE ROUNDS (R-S.D.), chair of the Senate Armed Services cybersecurity subcommittee, told reporters Tuesday he’d seek more information.
“I’ll withhold judgment until I’ve had my briefing,” Rounds said.
The Complex
CARTEL CONFAB: Defense Secretary Hegseth hosted the inaugural Americas Counter Cartel Conference today in Miami, invoking the Monroe Doctrine that prioritizes the Western Hemisphere while ignoring Trump’s current strikes in Iran.
“Under previous leaders we grew obsessed with every other theater and every other border in the world except our own,” Hegseth said, in comments carried by Fox. “These elites reduced our power and presence in this hemisphere, opting for a benign neglect that is anything but benign.”
Hegseth mentioned the January arrest of Venezuela’s President NICOLÁS MADURO and told the gathering of Caribbean, Central American and South American defense and security leaders that the operation was a sign the U.S. was willing to take action on threats to its security.
“America is prepared to take on these threats and go on the offense alone if necessary,” he said. “However, it is our preference and it is the goal of this conference that in the interest of this neighborhood we all do it together with you, with our neighbors and with our allies who are eager and willing and capable.”
Hegseth also said last month “we went a few weeks” without sinking any boats and claimed the Pentagon had established deterrence. “A new dynamic had to be put in motion,” he said.
On the Hill
COLBY STAYS IN HOTSEAT: Pentagon policy chief ELBRIDGE COLBY faced a hail of criticism from both sides of the aisle today in the House Armed Services Committee as he testified on the National Defense Strategy. He also spoke before the Senate Armed Services panel Tuesday.
Rep. RO KHANNA (D-Calif.) pushed Colby on how he reconciled the U.S. strikes on Iran with the ideas the policy chief set forth in his book “The Strategy of Denial.”
“You’ve written eloquently about how draining resources into the Middle East which has very little percentage of the GDP is actually a strategic disadvantage versus China,” Khanna said.
“I’ve always said that Iran is a threat and we’re going after it with scoped military objectives,” Colby said. “I’m very supportive of this effort.”
Chair MIKE ROGERS (R-Ala.) challenged Colby on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Romania last year.
“When I was in your office I told you there was overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress for keeping our posture in Europe at five brigades,” Rogers said. “It’s clear to me that you decided that pushing your agenda on U.S. force posture without interagency coordination and without regard to our president’s opinion or Congress’s was the way to go. Can you explain to me how you arrived at that position?”
Colby replied that he was “a loyal lieutenant” of the Trump administration and that the decision was coordinated through normal DOD channels. “Some of the reasons for doing it was the significant stress on the Army forces that were deployed there,” he said.
And Rep. MIKE TURNER (R-Ohio) took issue with Colby’s style as well as the content of the new defense strategy. “You have been so disingenuous,” Turner said.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Europe’s right-wing populists are in D.C. this week to mingle with the GOP, and House Speaker MIKE JOHNSON attended a reception Wednesday night to kick off the Alliance of Sovereign Nations. It’s a conference organized by Rep. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-Fla.) and supported by Turning Point USA, our own Karl Mathiesen, Stefanie Bolzen and Kimberly Leonard report.
Speakers include recent Romanian presidential candidate GEORGE SIMION and mid-ranking officials from Austria, Belgium, Georgia, Cyprus, Croatia, Serbia and Germany. Other U.S. lawmakers attending are Reps. RANDY FINE (R-Fla.), BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.) and RYAN ZINKE (R-Mont.).
Broadsides
GUNG-HO NUTTERS: NATO’s former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe RICHARD SHIRREFF inveighed against the U.K. joining the U.S. war on Iran in an interview with Sky News, posted today on Facebook.
“We should not in any way shape or form be involved with the Americans closely because they are being led by a couple of gung-ho nutters like Trump and Hegseth without a proper strategy, without serious thought about what the end state for this war is, and unless we keep cool heads … this thing could go the way of Iraq,” he said.
As to the so-called “special relationship” between London and Washington, Shirreff said, “It does not exist, it is a complete fantasy. America does what America wants to do and Britain’s got to look after its interest.”
Transitions
— SEAN PLANKEY, President Donald Trump’s pick for CISA director, is stepping down from his advisory role in the U.S. Coast Guard to prepare for his confirmation hearing, according to a Wednesday post on his LinkedIn.
What to Read
— Tim Ross and Eli Stokols, POLITICO: Trump’s lightbulb moment: America needs Europe after all
— Kejal Vyas and Ian Lovett, The Wall Street Journal: U.S. looks to tap Venezuela’s lawless mineral frontier
— Raja Abdulrahim, The New York Times: Iranian Kurdish forces say they may enter Iran. Who are the Kurds?
Tomorrow Today
—The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, 11a.m.: “The current state of U.S.-China bilateral relations, the challenges of strategic competition, and the future of ties between Washington and Beijing” featuring NICHOLAS BURNS
— The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, 11:30 a.m.: “A Conversation with YAËL BRAUN-PIVET, President of the French National Assembly"
— The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1 p.m.: "War With Iran: Why Now and What Comes Next"
Thanks to Benton Ives and Emma Cordover, who are guilty of repeated border violations and provocations.