Good morning! Today is Friday, May 15th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. A war powers resolution to rein in Trump's Iran campaign died on a 212-to-212 tie in the House, even as April import prices posted their steepest annual jump since 2022 and Brent crude held at $104 a barrel. More than twenty House Democrats are pushing to end decades of official ambiguity around Israel's estimated 90-warhead nuclear arsenal, a move Geoffrey Aronson warns could unravel the bargain at the heart of the U.S.-Israel security partnership. Havana erupted in protest Thursday night after Cuba's energy minister admitted the island has no diesel or fuel oil left, blaming Washington as blackouts stretch beyond a full day in some regions. and now for the details. We begin this morning in the Middle East, where the fallout from the Iran war continues to ripple through Washington, the markets, and the global energy system. On Capitol Hill yesterday, a war powers resolution from Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, which would have required President Trump to seek congressional authorization to continue the war with Iran, failed on a tied 212-to-212 vote. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, three Republicans—Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Tom Barrett of Michigan—crossed the aisle to support the resolution, while Maine Democrat Jared Golden was the only member of his party to vote against it. A parallel measure in the Senate failed on Wednesday by 49 to 50. The vote came as President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on the 37th day of the Iran ceasefire. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told NBC News that the Chinese side indicated it does not favor militarizing the Strait of Hormuz or imposing a tolling system on shipping. But as Harrison Berger notes, Beijing's own readout of the talks made no direct mention of Iran, and Chinese tankers, including a crude oil vessel, transited the Strait on Wednesday under new Iranian management protocols. Iran's standing conditions for ending the war—lifting U.S. sanctions, Iranian control of the Strait, an end to the naval blockade, and a halt to fighting in Lebanon—have been rejected by Washington. Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed at least 15 people on Wednesday, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. The economic costs of that conflict are now showing up in hard data. According to a piece by David Brady, U.S. import prices rose 4.2 percent year-over-year in April, the steepest annual jump since October 2022. Fuel import prices alone surged 16.3 percent for the month, with petroleum imports up 22 percent over twelve months. Export prices climbed 3.3 percent for the month and 8.8 percent year-over-year. Brent crude sat at $104 a barrel yesterday morning, and AAA put the national average for a gallon of regular gas at $4.53. A second front in the Iran debate is opening up over Israel's own nuclear arsenal. Geoffrey Aronson writes for The American Conservative that Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas, joined by more than twenty House Democrats, is calling on the United States to formally acknowledge Israel's nuclear weapons program and end what they describe as decades of official ambiguity. Aronson traces the policy back to a 1969 understanding between Pentagon official Paul Warnke and future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin: in exchange for keeping Israel's bomb "in the basement," Washington would guarantee Israel's qualitative military edge over any combination of regional adversaries. Israel's arsenal is now estimated at roughly 90 warheads across land, sea, and air delivery systems. Aronson argues that lifting the veil of ambiguity would force a wholesale reconsideration of the U.S.-Israel security partnership that has flourished, in his words, in darkness for more than half a century—an outcome neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor President Trump anticipated when they launched the assault on Iran. The war's strategic ripples are also reshaping coalitions inside American politics. Jack Hunter writes that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking at the University of Chicago last week, dismissed former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene as a "proven bigot and antisemite" and said she would not work with her on Gaza or Israel policy. Hunter points out that Greene was the first House Republican to describe events in Gaza as genocide, and contrasts Ocasio-Cortez's stance with the working partnership between progressive Democrat Ro Khanna of California and Republicans like Greene, Thomas Massie, and Senator Rand Paul. It was Khanna and Massie who shepherded the Epstein Files Transparency Act through the House last November. Hunter argues that durable left-right antiwar coalitions—of the kind once formed by Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich—are what actually produce results, and that dismissing such alliances on identity grounds renders the pol
