Your Daily Four Star

Tuesday. The Times has the clearest picture yet of how the Iran war really went; Iran learned to punch through our air defenses as we ran out of the missiles to stop it, and three soldiers died in Jordan because of it. Meanwhile, the deal keeps slipping away, Democrats are probing the deportation of troops’ families, and Hegseth’s crackdown on complaints hit the Navy and Marines. Day 164 of the 4-week war. Here’s what you need to know.

Over five days last month, Iran hammered three U.S. bases in Jordan with maneuvering missiles and drone swarms (a tactic lifted straight from Russia’s Ukraine playbook) forcing American crews to burn through scarce Patriot interceptors until, on the fifth day, one missile got through and killed three soldiers and wounded more than 100. The math is grim: The math is bleak here. The Pentagon has fired more than 1,500 Patriots and has fewer than 1,700 left, while producing only about 600 a year. Worse, on one day alone, U.S. forces spent 50 of them, at roughly $4 million each. Four months ago, Hegseth called Iran’s missile program “functionally destroyed”; instead, a supposedly beaten adversary hunkered down, widened the war across the region, and figured out how to drain the world’s most powerful military of its munitions because of decisions made by the Commander in Chief.

Anyway, so how’s the “imminent” deal going? After Iran made war reparations a condition for reopening the strait, alongside lifting the blockade and sanctions, pulling U.S. forces back, and unfreezing its assets. Trump fired back Monday that he’ll demand Iran pay the United States instead, for “the damage they’ve done over a 50-year period.” It’s the diplomatic equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and crying, “No, YOU pay,” and it pushes a quick agreement further out of reach. Iran, meanwhile, says the strait stays closed until its terms are met and appears to be “settling in for the long haul.” Read this next to the previous story about how we’re out of munitions, because that has a direct impact on where we are right now.

The AP investigation we covered last week — 52 spouses and parents of active-duty troops detained, six deported — now has a new development. More than 60 congressional Democrats, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter Sunday demanding the Pentagon, DHS and VA explain whether they’ve been coordinating to deport service members’ families. Their letter warns the effort betrays “America’s promises to the people who put their lives on the line.” Troops have already been forced to take leave to care for their kids after a spouse was hauled off by ICE. The military asks these families to sacrifice everything; the least the country owes them is not to deport the people they come home to.

Right on cue, the Army rollback we flagged last week has jumped to the sea services: a Navy-wide message says the Navy and Marine Corps will no longer process anonymous reports of discrimination or harassment as Military Equal Opportunity complaints — mirroring changes at the Army and Air Force, all implementing Hegseth’s directive to “replace the current anonymous reporting option with a confidential complaint reporting option.” Sailors and Marines can still report anonymously for sexual assault, hazing and bullying “pending further guidance” on the Federal law that protects those. But like the Army and Air Force, racial and religious discrimination allegations no longer can be made anonymously.

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