Would you say Trump has a ceasefire? JD heads for Pakistan as Pete hunts uranium

(Originally published Apr. 9 in “What in the World“) Trump’s two-week ceasefire in Iran is looking largely fictitious.

Israel on Wednesday launched its heaviest bombardment of Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon since the war began. Iran and Pakistan have said bombing Lebanon is a violation of the ceasefire. U.S. Vice President JD Vance, campaigning in Budapest for Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban’s reelection before he heads to Islamabad to lead peace talks with Iran, said that it wasn’t. And Iran, hardline regime still very much intact and control over the Strait of Hormuz still firm, continued Wednesday to launch drones and missiles against at least five of its Gulf neighbors.

The only military that seems to have ceased firing, therefore, is the U.S. Trump warned Wednesday that, if negotiations don’t yield a peace agreement, “then the ‘Shootin’ Starts, bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded Wednesday that Iran turn over the 400-odd kilograms of enriched uranium that Trump claimed last June had been destroyed by U.S. bombs, but which is now believed to be buried in the rubble those bombs created. There were concerns that Iran had managed to evacuate what Trump on Wednesday called the “Nuclear ‘Dust’” before the attacks and hide it elsewhere. While Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran to dig it up as part of the ceasefire, Hegseth warned that if Iran didn’t hand it over, U.S. forces would go in and get it themselves.

After the war in Ukraine demonstrated the importance of artillery in modern combat, the U.S. Army is expanding its supply of howitzers, and will pay $146 million for a second supplier to begin making cannons for its M777 towed 155mm howitzers.