Good morning! Today is Thursday, May 28th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. As ceasefire talks advance into their fiftieth day, Harrison Berger reports that the framework now mediated by Pakistan closely mirrors the 2010 uranium swap deal Lula da Silva personally handed Trump at the White House this month. W. James Antle III argues that Trump, having tamed both the GOP establishment and the Freedom Caucus, may now find his fiercest opposition to ending the Iran war coming from hawkish allies like Lindsey Graham and Roger Wicker. Tony Blair has detonated a five-thousand-word broadside against Keir Starmer and his would-be Labour successors, warning that the party's retreat into tax-and-spend orthodoxy will doom both Britain's economy and Labour's electoral future. and now for the details. We begin with the Iran War, where a ceasefire has now entered its fiftieth day. President Trump is meeting with his cabinet to weigh an emerging deal to bring the conflict to a close. According to Iran's Tasnim News Agency, the first phase of the memorandum under consideration would have the United States lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and waive sanctions on Iranian oil during the negotiation period, while Tehran would allow vessels to transit the strait at pre-war levels. The arrangement also reportedly extends to ending fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon. As Harrison Berger reports for The American Conservative, Trump signaled new flexibility on Monday, posting that his preference is for Iran's enriched uranium to be destroyed in place inside Iran, or at another acceptable location, under the supervision of an atomic energy authority. That marks a notable shift from his earlier demand that the uranium be shipped to the United States. Berger notes that, according to a senior Iranian official cited by Drop Site News, Iran would suspend enrichment above 3.6 percent for ten years and dilute its higher-enriched stockpile inside the country under international supervision. Iranian officials say the American team has accepted Tehran's red lines but is asking for more time to, as they put it, manage domestic public opinion. Meanwhile Israeli airstrikes killed at least 31 people in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the IDF issued displacement orders for fifty villages in the south. Brent Crude eased to just over 96 dollars a barrel on word of progress, though gas at the pump still averages 4 dollars and 46 cents a gallon. The diplomatic framework now taking shape has a surprisingly long history. Harrison Berger reports that back in 2010, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan flew to Tehran and persuaded Iran to ship roughly seventy percent of its enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for medical reactor fuel rods, under IAEA observation. That deal, initially blessed by President Obama in a handwritten letter, was scuttled after lobbying by Hillary Clinton's State Department and the Israel lobby pushed Congress to impose new sanctions. Berger writes that on May 7th, the day after meeting Trump at the White House, Lula told reporters he had handed the president a physical copy of that aborted 2010 agreement, the second time he had done so. The terms now being mediated by Pakistan bear a close resemblance to what Lula carried into the Oval Office. Berger argues it is too early to say what role Lula's intervention played in Trump's apparent change of heart, but the trajectory has moved away from maximalist demands for dismantlement and toward the supervised, sovereignty-preserving framework Lula has championed for over a decade. For Lula himself, it caps a remarkable reversal of political fortunes back home, with a corruption scandal that once threatened his reelection now consuming his leading opponent, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, and a tariff dispute with Washington moving toward resolution. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.
