Good morning! Today is Thursday, June 11th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. A provision buried in the House defense authorization bill would deeply integrate American and Israeli weapons production, placing foreign-built parts inside U.S. systems while exempting Israel from the supply-chain safeguards applied to other foreign sources, Harrison Berger reports. The Iran War entered its 103rd day with a second night of U.S. strikes on Iranian territory, Iranian retaliation against the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and American airbases in Jordan, and President Trump weighing wider attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure. Consumer price inflation climbed to 4.2 percent in May, the highest reading in over three years, with energy shocks from the Iran War driving sixty percent of the increase and markets now expecting a Federal Reserve rate hike by year's end. and now for the details. The Iran War entered its 103rd day on Wednesday, with U.S. Central Command announcing a second consecutive evening of strikes on Iranian territory. The Tuesday strikes, which CENTCOM described as self-defense actions following the downing of an Army Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz, hit Qeshm Island and southern mainland targets. Iran's Tasnim news agency reported that the attacks damaged telecommunications and destroyed two water reservoirs in a district already suffering from severe water shortages. Tehran responded with a drone attack on the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and missile strikes on American airbases in Jordan. As Harrison Berger reports, President Trump told Fox News he is considering wider attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, accusing Tehran of stringing the United States along on a negotiated settlement. On Truth Social, Trump wrote that "The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD." Tensions are widening beyond Iran. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told lawmakers in Ankara that Israeli operations in Lebanon and Syria now threaten Turkey itself, prompting Prime Minister Netanyahu to call him an "antisemitic dictator." Lebanon's Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,696 people since early March. Brent Crude sat at $93 a barrel Wednesday morning, with the national average price of regular gas at $4.15. The economic costs of the Iran War are landing squarely on American households. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that consumer price inflation rose to 4.2 percent year-over-year in May, the highest reading since April of 2023. As David Brady reports, energy shocks from the Iran War accounted for sixty percent of the price increases, with energy prices rising 3.9 percent in May, following a 3.8 percent jump in April and a 10.9 percent surge in March. Even setting aside volatile food and energy, core inflation came in at 2.9 percent, still well above the Federal Reserve's two percent target. This is the third consecutive monthly increase in consumer prices, which had stabilized before hostilities with Iran began. The Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee meets June 16th and 17th, and financial markets now expect the central bank will have to raise interest rates by the end of the year. A provision buried in the annual defense authorization bill now before the House would order the Pentagon to deeply integrate American and Israeli defense technology. Section 224, first reported by the Quincy Institute, would replace the expiring ten-year, $3.8-billion-a-year aid package to Israel with permanent military-industrial cooperation embedded inside the Pentagon's procurement system. The Quincy Institute's Ben Freeman writes that the section lays the groundwork for bilateral research, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, and licensing agreements spanning artificial intelligence, quantum technology, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, and biotech. In Freeman's words, "the U.S. military's data could soon be the Israeli military's data." On Thursday, the House Armed Services Committee voted down by voice vote an amendment from Representative Ro Khanna to strip the provision. Chairman Mike Rogers and ranking Democrat Adam Smith both maintained the section merely codifies existing programs. As Harrison Berger reports, that characterization understates how far Section 224 goes. The text directs the Pentagon to identify Israeli-origin technologies for integration into American systems of record and to build U.S.-based co-production with Israeli industry, placing foreign-built parts inside American weapons. Berger notes that elsewhere the same bill includes elaborate supply-chain safeguards against "sources of concern" tied to foreign adversaries, but those protections do not apply to Israel, even as the Pentagon has reportedly raised its counterintelligence threat assessment of Israeli spying against Americans to the highest level, "critical." Berger argues lawmakers should distinguish Am
