{"id":122410,"date":"2026-05-20T04:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/122410\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T04:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T04:12:07","slug":"iran-israel-war-live-updates-vance-says-us-locked-and-loaded-for-military-action-if-iran-talks-collapse-firstpost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/122410\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Israel War Live Updates: Vance says US \u2018locked and loaded\u2019 for military action if Iran talks collapse \u2013 Firstpost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tense confrontation unfolded in the US House of Representatives after Centcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper sharply rebuked a Democratic lawmaker questioning Washington\u2019s handling of the war on Iran.<\/p>\n<p>During the hearing, Congressman Seth Moulton pressed Cooper on the administration\u2019s strategy to \u201cactually win this war\u201d, arguing that the conflict appeared to be moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n<p>Moulton, a former US Marine Corps officer who served during the Iraq war, said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have a nuclear deal. We don\u2019t have the [Strait of Hormuz] open.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that the war \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to be going well\u201d and questioned \u201chow many more Americans we have to ask to die for this mistake?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper, who oversees US military operations linked to the conflict with Iran and is widely regarded for his composed public demeanour, reacted strongly to the remarks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that is an entirely inappropriate statement from you,\u201d the admiral responded during the heated exchange.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the hearing, Cooper had maintained that the United States had met all of its military objectives in the war on Iran. He also said that although a ceasefire remained in place, \u201cwe are prepared for a broad range of contingencies\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The Centcom chief also declined to accept responsibility for the US strike on a school on February 28 that killed about 170 Iranians, most of them schoolchildren.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">With all due respect, the CENTCOM commander should be able to explain why we\u2019ve been asking Americans to die in this war. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sSdIru1eHI\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/sSdIru1eHI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sethmoulton\/status\/2056879249525559377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 19, 2026<\/a><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tense confrontation unfolded in the US House of Representatives after Centcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper sharply rebuked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[3745,2241,2340,6028,5171,102,2085,218,13005,34768,1747,2344,12090,40080,40078,816,27969,101,3772,40079],"class_list":["post-122410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-crude-oil-prices","tag-cyber-warfare","tag-global-markets","tag-global-oil-prices","tag-gulf-tensions","tag-hormuz","tag-iran-drones","tag-iran-israel-war","tag-iran-missile-attack","tag-iran-nuclear-tensions","tag-iran-israel-conflict","tag-iron-dome","tag-israel-airstrike","tag-israel-defence-system","tag-israel-iran-latest-news","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-oil-supply-crisis","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-us-iran-israel-conflict","tag-world-war-3-fears"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116604957092964474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}