CNN:

Vice President JD Vance, in his first public comments since President Donald Trump authorized US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, emphasized that the US is “not at war” with Iran as he laid out the president’s decision-making process.

“We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” Vance said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” calling the strikes a “testament to the power of the American military.”

…

Vance added, “Of course we trust our intelligence community, but we also trust our instincts. … The Iranians stopped negotiating in good faith – that was the real catalyst.”

The vice president also suggested that Trump arrived at the conclusion to authorize the strikes after issuing what he described as “private ultimatums” to Iran. He declined to detail those ultimatums.

‚If,‘ says I, ‚if Fate has wronged you and me cruelly, it’s no good asking for her favor and bowing down to her, but you despise her and laugh at her, or else she will laugh at you.‘

—Anton Chekhov, „In Exile“, Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003), 74.

https://www.sfgate.com/
https://www.inquirer.com/

On June 20, 2025, after days of Israel bombing Iran, Iran hitting Israel with missiles, the US threatening bombing, the San Francisco Gate and Philadelphia Inquirer home pages do not mention the word „Iran“. Go ahead, search for it. I did.

A Song on the End of the World

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

—Czesław Miłosz, translated by Anthony Miłosz
Warsaw, 1944