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Welcome to The Morning Sixpack Podcast, where today’s foreign-policy strategy appears to involve expiring ceasefires, threats against countries trying to mediate them, irritated allies, and the uncomfortable discovery that NATO hasn’t fully gamed out what happens if everybody decides to start a war at once. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has another answer for Donald Trump, and Meta is walking into a California courtroom where the price tag could contain an alarming number of zeroes.
The 60-day US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding officially expired Monday, but the ceasefire was effectively falling apart within 10 days of being signed. The Pakistan-brokered agreement was supposed to halt military operations, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lead toward a larger peace agreement. Instead, disagreements over who controlled shipping routes through Hormuz helped restart US and Iranian strikes. The agreement also contained ambiguities involving Lebanon, sanctions and a proposed $300 billion reconstruction package. Now negotiations are deadlocked, and the piece of paper promising peace has lasted considerably longer than the peace itself.
Trump then raised the temperature by threatening to bomb Oman if the Gulf nation “gets in the way.” Oman has been negotiating with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz while Washington maintains its blockade of Iranian ports. Trump says informal discussions are occurring with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, while Iranian officials deny that direct negotiations with Washington are underway. Meanwhile, Hormuz traffic has cratered—from roughly 130 ships a day before the war to only three on Sunday. Nothing says “we’re not in a hurry” quite like threatening another country while one of the world’s most important energy corridors nearly shuts down.
The Supreme Court has rejected Trump for a second time in his attempt to overturn the $5 million E. Jean Carroll verdict. A jury found Trump liable in 2023 for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and she has already collected nearly $5.63 million, including interest. Trump asked the justices to reconsider their June refusal to hear his appeal. They declined. A separate $83.3 million defamation judgment remains before the Court as Trump argues that presidential immunity should shield him from claims involving statements made while he was president.
Trump also ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea after Seoul declined to join Washington’s effort to denuclearize Iran. Trump called the exercises expensive and unnecessarily hostile toward North Korea, which he described as “unthreatening and respectful.” The timing is notable because North Korea recently resumed ballistic missile testing. The exercises were designed specifically to prepare US and South Korean forces for threats from Pyongyang. So an Iran disagreement with Seoul is now affecting military deterrence against Kim Jong Un—which is quite the geopolitical three-cushion bank shot.
Then there’s NATO’s nightmare: Russia attacks Europe while China moves against Taiwan, forcing the United States to fight major wars on opposite sides of the planet. Western military planners acknowledge they haven’t adequately prepared for that possibility. NATO Defense College research director Florence Gaub summed it up: “Let’s just say this is the scenario we’re currently not ready for.” War games suggest Washington would likely prioritize China and shift resources toward Asia, leaving European allies with greater responsibility for confronting Russia. Add America’s current commitments in the Middle East and depleted weapons inventories, and the hypothetical gets uncomfortable quickly.
Finally, Meta heads into a California federal trial that could threaten not only hundreds of billions of dollars but the machinery behind Facebook and Instagram. A coalition of 29 state attorneys general accuses Meta of designing products that foster addictive behavior among children and teens while misleading families about safety. The states have floated potential damages around $200 billion, while Meta’s attorneys have previously cited theoretical exposure as high as $1.4 trillion. More consequentially, the states want changes to features including infinite scroll, autoplay, beauty filters and engagement-optimized algorithms. That’s the part Mark Zuckerberg may really dislike: Governments aren’t merely asking for money anymore—they’re asking to get under the hood.
That’s your Morning Sixpack: One dead Iran agreement, one new bombing threat, another Supreme Court rejection, a Korean alliance getting tangled up with Tehran, NATO confronting its worst-case scenario, and Meta discovering that California might be considerably more expensive than New Mexico. Six stories, several geopolitical fires, and one social-media algorithm wondering whether it should start updating its résumé.
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