The Week Magazine July 4/11, 2025

War, history tells us, invariably has unforeseen consequences. No one can now predict the full repercussions of President Trump’s decision to drop 14 bunker busters on Iran, but one darker possibility is that Iran serves its revenge cold months from now, in the form of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. If a bomb goes off in an American city or on a passenger plane, or a lone wolf armed with an AR-15 shoots up a mall, what then? Trump might announce that the U.S. is under foreign attack and thus must be governed under martial law. The Army would be deployed in the streets, and constitutional rights would be suspended. The possibility of a terrorist response is quite real; so is its potential usefulness to Trump’s authoritarian project.…

What happened President Trump reacted with rage this week after a preliminary intelligence assessment concluded that the U.S. military strikes he ordered on Iran had not “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program, as he’d claimed, and likely set it back by only a few months. Last week, some 30 hours after saying he’d decide on joining Israel’s offensive against Iran within the next two weeks, Trump ordered the largest-ever strike by B-2 stealth bombers. Seven of the planes undertook a 37-hour surprise mission during which they dropped 14 bunker busters—each weighing 30,000 pounds—on deeply buried nuclear sites at Fordo and Natanz. A third site, at Isfahan, was hit by Tomahawk missiles launched from a submarine. In a national address, Trump hailed the operation as “a spectacular military success” that “totally…

Iran now faces “difficult decisions about whether and how to resume its long nuclear quest,” said Gary Samore in the Financial Times. A key question is whether it will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international pact it’s been party to for over 50 years. If Iran pulled out, it would no longer have to submit to international inspections and “could pursue nuclear weapons with greater secrecy.” But such a move might draw tough economic sanctions and opposition from allies like Russia and China, and would make it “easier for the U.S. and Israel to justify future use of force.” In the U.S., law enforcement officials remain “on high alert for Iranian retaliation,” said Bill Hutchinson in ABCNews.com. The Department of Homeland Security has warned of a “heightened…

What happened In a volcanic upset that shook the nation’s Democratic establishment, self-professed socialist Zohran Mamdani this week clinched the party’s nomination for mayor of New York City over 10 other candidates, including former three-term Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani, 33, once a little-known state assemblyman, polled at 1% as recently as February but surged on promises of a rent freeze, free child care, and other measures intended to ease the cost of living. After polls closed, he opened a 7-percentage-point lead over Cuomo, 67, who received endorsements from former President Bill Clinton and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with $25 million in Super PAC donations. Though Cuomo had warned that Mamdani’s socialist policies would cost the city billions of dollars and spark a business exodus, he quickly conceded…

What happened At a summit in The Hague this week, NATO allies pledged to increase defense spending to 5% of national GDP over the next decade, handing a significant foreign policy victory to President Trump. Ahead of the meeting, Trump had cast doubt on U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5, which states that an armed attack on one member is an attack on all. But on the flight to the Netherlands, he publicly shared a flattering private message from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that said, “Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, and it will be your win.” At the summit, Rutte continued to lavish praise on Trump, crediting him for rallying member countries to boost their spending from the previous 2% target. Trump then reaffirmed…

What the Supreme Court just did to transgender people “will live in infamy,” said Elie Mystal in The Nation. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices last week upheld a Tennessee law that bans minors from using hormones and puberty blockers for gender transition. The plaintiffs in U.S. v. Skrmetti, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the law discriminates illegally on the basis of sex, because it lets a late-developing teenage “boy” take testosterone but prohibits the same treatment for a trans teen deemed a “girl” at birth. The courts’ conservatives were having none of it. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts dusted off one of “the oldest legal tricks” in the bigot’s playbook, explaining that the law can’t be discriminatory because…