Good morning! Today is Wednesday, May 6th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Murtaza Hussein examines the strained relationship between Washington and Baghdad more than two decades after the invasion, as U.S. airstrikes against Iraqi forces fuel protests and Iran reaps the spoils of a war the architects of which have never faced accountability. The Pentagon insists the Iran ceasefire holds at day 28 despite repeated clashes in the Strait of Hormuz, while "Project Freedom" Navy escorts press forward and peace talks remain deadlocked with gas at $4.48 a gallon. Scott Greer argues that the man arrested for the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner fits a pattern of "moderate lib terrorism" — mainstream Democratic politics turning lethal, from James Hodgkinson to Luigi Mangione. and now for the details. We begin this morning in Baghdad, where President Trump last week placed a congratulatory call to Iraq's new prime minister-designate, Ali al-Zaidi, after publicly opposing the bid of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over his close ties to Iran. On Truth Social, the president wished Zaidi success in forming, in his words, "a new Government free from terrorism," and spoke of "a tremendous new chapter" between the two nations. The cordial language sits oddly against the facts on the ground. As Murtaza Hussein reports for The American Conservative, more than two decades after the U.S.-led invasion, the relationship between Washington and Baghdad is one of structural dependence and mutual suspicion. Iraq never became the pro-American satellite that George W. Bush and Zalmay Khalilzad once promised. Instead, it settled into a majoritarian Shia government heavily under Iranian influence — and in recent weeks, U.S. airstrikes tied to the broader war with Iran have killed Iraqi conscripts and security personnel, sparking widespread protests. After one March strike, an Iraqi general, identifying the aircraft as an American A-10, asked simply, "Why have the Americans attacked us?" Hussein notes the financial architecture that keeps Baghdad on a short leash: since 2003, Iraq's oil revenues have flowed through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with executive orders renewed by every administration shielding those funds and giving Washington a quiet veto over Iraqi political decisions. Hussein argues that the war benefited not ordinary Americans, and not the Iraqi people, but the Iranian government — which gained preferential access to a country whose state the United States dismantled with no plan to replace. And he observes that the architects of that war have never faced real accountability, even as Washington now wages another campaign against Iran with similar promises about American interests. That war remains in an uneasy pause. Harrison Berger reports that the Pentagon insists the Iran ceasefire — now in its 28th day — is still in effect, despite repeated clashes in the Strait of Hormuz. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine told reporters Tuesday that since the truce was announced, Iran has fired on commercial vessels nine times, seized two container ships, and attacked U.S. forces more than ten times — all, he said, below the threshold for resuming major combat. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed: "No, the ceasefire is not over." Over the weekend, the president announced "Project Freedom," a U.S. Navy escort operation to move stranded ships through the strait. On Monday, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper said American forces struck six Iranian small boats; Iran says five civilians were killed and claims two missiles struck a U.S. destroyer, which Cooper denied. A South Korean-flagged vessel caught fire under unclear circumstances, and Iranian missiles and drones struck the UAE's Fujairah oil zone. Peace talks, meanwhile, remain deadlocked. An Iranian proposal delivered through Pakistani mediators demands a lifting of the blockade, sanctions relief, the return of frozen assets, U.S. troop withdrawals from the region, and an end to Israeli operations in Lebanon. Nuclear talks, Tehran says, are off the table for now. The national average gasoline price stands at $4.48. Turning to the home front. Harrison Berger also reports that the Department of Defense announced Friday it has signed agreements with seven major technology companies — Alphabet, OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, SpaceX, and Reflection — to deploy artificial intelligence tools on classified military networks. The Pentagon described the goal as building an "AI-first fighting force." The deals follow the administration's break with Anthropic earlier this year after that company objected to requests it said would enable mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The arrangement deepens an already substantial fusion of Silicon Valley with the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus. To the question of political violence. Scott Greer writes on the man arrested for the shoot
