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THE STRIKE HE CALLED OFF
On Monday evening, President Trump announced he had called off a military strike on Iran planned for Tuesday. He revealed the existence of the planned attack in the same social media post in which he cancelled it.
Trump said at the White House, after first making the announcement on Truth Social, that he believed there was “a very good chance” a deal could be reached. “If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy,” he added. He said he had planned “a very major attack” but put it off “for a little while, hopefully, maybe forever.” The Gulf leaders who asked him to wait, the rulers of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, told him they feel they are close to a deal with Iran and need two to three days. Trump instructed the US military to “be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”
Oil futures, trading at $108.83 a barrel in the minutes before Trump’s post, fell immediately. A Pakistani source told Reuters that both sides “keep changing their goalposts” and that “we don’t have much time.” That assessment, from the country doing the mediating, is the most honest accounting of where negotiations stand.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Outside the US, the announcement was read with cautious relief. Al Jazeera noted that Trump’s decision to simultaneously disclose and cancel the planned strike was itself a negotiating tactic, a public demonstration of the military option being held in reserve while talks continue. The Gulf states asking for two to three days are not asking for a deal. They are asking for more time to prevent a strike. Those are not the same request.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Trump planned a major military strike on Iran for Tuesday and called it off Monday evening without having previously disclosed it was planned. The Gulf allies who intervened say they are close to a deal. The Pakistani mediator says both sides keep changing the goalposts. Brent crude is at $111.00. The next two to three days will determine whether this was a turning point or another delay.
Sources: CBS News / AP (wire — Trump White House remarks, Truth Social post, “very major attack” quote, Pakistani source Reuters, oil price drop, confirmed this session); NPR / AP (wire — Gulf leaders named, Qatar/Saudi/UAE request, 2-3 day window, confirmed this session); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — negotiating tactic framing, Araghchi trust quotes, confirmed this session)
XI’S WEEK
Trump left Beijing on Friday. On Tuesday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived.
The same ceremonial trappings Beijing had laid out for the American president were reset for the Russian one: children waving flags on the tarmac, a brass band, a red carpet. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi greeted Putin at the airport, the same protocol extended to Trump. The meetings with President Xi are scheduled for Wednesday morning Beijing time. Around 40 bilateral documents are expected to be signed.
The official pretext is the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between Russia and China, a document signed when Xi was a provincial official and Putin was in his first year as president. The actual agenda, as CNBC’s analysts confirmed, centers on energy and trade: Putin wants China to approve the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, which would double Russian natural gas exports to China via Mongolia. China is in no hurry to approve it. “The main deal that Putin wants to discuss with Xi is, of course, the gas pipeline,” Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School, told CNBC. “Putin is playing a long game, in which he’s bringing China as close as possible.” China has the leverage. China knows it.
The significance of this visit is inseparable from its timing. Within 72 hours of Trump’s departure from Beijing, Putin’s plane landed at the same airport. The Kremlin said the dates were agreed in February, before Trump’s Beijing visit was even confirmed. Xi knew both leaders were coming. He scheduled them back to back.
Al Jazeera put it plainly: a lack of progress in US-China talks makes Putin confident to head to Beijing, while for China, hosting back-to-back visits from the leaders of both the US and Russia within a week is “a diplomatic flex.” Chinese state media embraced the optics without restraint. The Global Times — China’s state-affiliated nationalist outlet — described the sequencing as evidence that Beijing is “fast emerging as the focal point of global diplomacy,” noting that hosting both leaders within a week was “extremely rare in the post-Cold War era.” That framing is state media, not editorial. But it is also not wrong.
What Xi is doing this week is not complicated. He received the leader of the country waging war on Iran. Then he received the leader of the country waging war on Ukraine. He extracted deliverables from the first: a Boeing order, a fentanyl pledge, a “strategic stability” framework. He will extract something from the second. The US is pressing Beijing to reduce economic support for Moscow. Beijing is hosting Moscow’s leader five days after Washington’s.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The international press is covering Putin’s Beijing visit as the more consequential of the two summits, not because Russia matters more than the US, but because Putin arrives with a clearer agenda and fewer domestic constraints. Trump needed a win. Putin needs a pipeline. Xi can give or withhold both. The European press, which has been watching Beijing’s Russia relationship with alarm since 2022, is focused on whether Wednesday’s meetings produce any concrete military-related cooperation language. The UK, which has been leading the Western response to Russian arms circumvention, will be reading the joint statement carefully. The US should be too.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Five days after Trump left Beijing, Putin arrived at the same airport, was greeted by the same foreign minister, and is meeting the same president. Xi scheduled both visits. The US asked China to pressure Russia over Ukraine and to pressure Iran over Hormuz. China is hosting the leader of Russia and the leader of the country most aligned with Iran’s adversaries in the same week. “Strategic stability” is what Xi offered Washington. Putin will find out what Xi offers Moscow on Wednesday.
Sources: CNBC (markets and business — Putin arrival, Wang Yi greeting, Power of Siberia 2, Guriev quote, 40 documents, confirmed this session); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — “China holds the cards” analysis, diplomatic flex framing, Putin confidence from US-China stall, confirmed this session); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — Kremlin statement, February date agreement, 25th anniversary pretext, confirmed this session); Global Times via CNBC (China, state-affiliated, nationalist — “focal point of global diplomacy” quote, confirmed this session — note orientation)
FIRST DAY OF DHUL HIJJAH
Monday was the first day of Dhul Hijjah, the final and holiest month of the Islamic calendar, the month of Hajj, the month that ends with Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, one of the two most important holidays in Islam. It was the day two teenage gunmen drove to the Islamic Center of San Diego and opened fire.
Three men were killed outside the largest mosque complex in San Diego County, a congregation of more than 5,000 people that also houses Al Rashid School, where children aged five and older study Arabic, Islamic studies, and the Quran. Among the dead was Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the mosque and a father of eight, whom San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl credited with playing “a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from being “much worse.” “It’s fair to say his actions were heroic,” Wahl said. “Undoubtedly, he saved lives today.” The other two victims have not yet been publicly identified. A group of non-Muslims had been touring the mosque that morning to learn about Islam. Television footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands as they were walked out of the parking lot.
The two shooters, identified by law enforcement officials as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, both of San Diego, were found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a vehicle nearby. Anti-Islamic writings were found in the car. Police Chief Wahl said “hate rhetoric was definitely involved.” One shooter’s mother had called police two hours before the attack to report her son as a runaway, saying she believed he was suicidal and that several of her weapons were missing. She also told police he had left a note. The FBI is assisting in the investigation. The attack is being investigated as a hate crime. The New York Police Department deployed additional officers to mosques across New York City in response.
Imam Taha Hassane, the mosque’s director, called it “extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.” CAIR-San Diego Executive Director Tazheen Nizam said: “No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school.” The Islamic Center of San Diego has established a victim and family support fund for those affected.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The international Muslim press, from Al Jazeera to Arab News to Dawn in Pakistan, covered the San Diego shooting as a major story, not a footnote. The timing, on the first day of Dhul Hijjah, was noted explicitly and with significance in every major Islamic news outlet. The attack on the largest mosque in San Diego County during one of Islam’s holiest periods, by two teenagers carrying anti-Islamic writings, is being read internationally as evidence of a pattern of anti-Muslim violence in the United States that American domestic coverage tends to treat as isolated incidents. It is not isolated. The FBI’s own hate crime data recorded anti-Muslim incidents rising sharply from 2014 to 2016, dipping for several years, then climbing to record highs in 2022 and 2023, 49 percent higher in 2023 than the year before.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Three men were killed at a San Diego mosque on the first day of one of Islam’s holiest months. One of them died protecting everyone else. Two teenagers with anti-Islamic writings in their car carried out the attack. The mosque serves 5,000 people and runs a school for children as young as five. The FBI is investigating it as a hate crime. The community that was targeted on Monday morning had gathered to begin Dhul Hijjah. They will return to that mosque for Eid al-Adha in ten days.
Sources: NBC News / AP (wire — Clark and Vazquez identified, attack timeline, mother’s call, note, confirmed this session); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — Amin Abdullah identified, Wahl “heroic” quote, 5,000 congregation, Dhul Hijjah timing, children evacuated, confirmed this session); Washington Post / AP (wire — anti-Islamic writings confirmed, hate crime investigation, confirmed this session); PBS NewsHour / AP (wire — Hassane quote, CAIR quote, NYPD mosque deployment, confirmed this session); KPBS (local — mother’s weapons missing, camouflage companion, license plate reader detail, confirmed this session)
ALSO DEVELOPING — for the curious:
Lebanon: At least 657 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the “ceasefire” took effect on April 17, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. On May 15, an Israeli airstrike struck a primary health center near Tyre, also damaging the neighboring Hiram Hospital and wounding six medical staff. The Pentagon military track for Israeli and Lebanese military delegations opens May 29. The fourth round of political talks is scheduled for June 2-3.
Knesset dissolution: The Israeli Knesset passed the motion to hold a dissolution vote today. The actual vote, the first of four required readings, is expected tomorrow, Wednesday May 20. If passed, elections must be held within five months.
WHO Ebola emergency: The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Tuesday, its highest alert level. The outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment.
East Jerusalem: Israeli authorities are issuing demolition orders in East Jerusalem at an accelerated rate since the Iran war began, according to human rights groups and UN experts cited by NPR. The pattern is documented as part of a broader expansion of settlement activity during the conflict period.
NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,636+ killed (HRANA floor estimate — FROZEN since April 7; no updated HRANA report this session; Iranian Health Ministry figure as of May 5: 3,468 — methodology differs)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 657 killed since April 17 “ceasefire” (Lebanon Health Ministry); 2,896 total killed since March 2, 8,824 wounded, 1.6 million displaced
🇮🇶 Iraq: At least 118 killed (Iraqi health authorities — mostly PMF members)
🇮🇱 Israel: At least 19 soldiers killed in Lebanon, 26 killed across all fronts (Al Jazeera tracker, as of May 5)
🌍 Gulf states: At least 28 killed (Al Jazeera live tracker — figure stable, no update this session)
🇺🇸 US military: 15 KIA confirmed (IranWarLive tracker, as of May 12)
🛢️ Brent crude: $111.00/barrel (OilPrice.com, Tuesday evening, editor-confirmed)
⛽ US gas: $4.53/gallon national average (AAA, editor-confirmed)
Sourcing note: Iran casualties sourced to HRANA (US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency), a floor estimate. Iranian Health Ministry figure cited separately. Methodology differs; figures should not be treated as directly comparable. Lebanon figure updated this edition — 657 killed since April 17 ceasefire per Lebanon Health Ministry via MS NOW/PBS.
WATCH LIST
🔴 Gulf window: 2-3 days. Trump called off Tuesday’s strike at the request of Gulf leaders. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE say they are close to a deal. Watch for any statement from Pakistani mediators or Iranian Foreign Ministry by Thursday.
🔴 Putin-Xi Wednesday. The meetings happen Wednesday morning Beijing time. Watch for the joint statement language, particularly any reference to Ukraine, Iran, or military cooperation. The US will be reading it closely. So will London and Brussels.
🔴 Knesset dissolution vote — Wednesday. First of four required readings. Watch for whether the motion passes and what election timeline emerges.
🟡 WHO Ebola PHEI. Highest alert level declared Tuesday. Watch for whether the outbreak spreads beyond DRC and Uganda and whether international response funding is mobilized.
🟡 San Diego hate crime investigation. FBI involved. Anti-Islamic writings confirmed. Watch for whether charges are filed against anyone else and for federal hate crime prosecution.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789
