Apr. 18, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

As a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, a Navy SEAL and a member of the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush, I spent decades helping oversee U.S. military operations across the Middle East under leaders including Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austinboth of whom later served this nation as Defense secretary. If I were advising President Donald Trump now, my message would be simple: Do not confuse a pause in hostilities with Iran — or even a limited, chaotic “opening” of the Strait of Hormuz — with a durable solution to the hostility between our nations.

The president’s position on Iran has, at times, appeared inconsistent. At times, he has suggested regime change in Iran as an objective. At others, his focus has shifted toward more limited goals, such as preventing a nuclear weaponreopening the Strait of Hormuz or securing concessions through negotiation. Those are important objectives but they are not, by themselves, a strategy for ending the threat posed by the regime in Tehran. A lasting resolution requires a clearly defined end state.

That kind of clarity has been missing in how the United States has communicated its objectives. Statements suggesting overwhelming or immediate destruction may project strength, but they can also create ambiguity about U.S. intent. Deterrence works best when it’s consistent and tied to clear strategic objectives.

That starts with being clear about the threat. Iran’s leadership has consistently pursued nuclear capability, advanced its missile program, expanded proxy networks across the region and actively supported U.S. adversaries. Those are still their goals, and those goals are not going away. Iran will continue pursuing them regardless of temporary pauses or agreements.

For nearly five decades, U.S. policy has focused on slowing Iran’s progress rather than stopping it outright. Sanctions, limited strikes and negotiated agreements have each had moments of success. But nothing yet has altered the regime’s direction. Instead, our actions have bought more time for Iran to rebuild and continue advancing under less immediate pressure. The current ceasefire fits that pattern. It will lower tensions in the short term, but it will not resolve the underlying conflict.

That raises a more fundamental question: What is the objective? If the goal is simply to manage the threat, then another ceasefire and another round of negotiations may suffice. But if the goal is a lasting resolution, then the U.S. must be clear about what that requires. As long as the current regime remains in power, Iran will continue pursuing the same policies it has for decades. That’s why regime change is not a secondary objective; it is the only path to a durable resolution.

But that does not mean a U.S. invasion of Iran. It means pursuing a different strategy: one that applies sustained economic and operational pressure to the regime’s core institutions, including measures such as targeted economic and maritime restrictions, one that sets clear and enforceable conditions in any negotiation and creates the conditions for internal change over time.

First, any negotiation must be anchored in non-negotiable outcomes. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure must be fully dismantled. Its stockpile of highly enriched uranium must be removed. Support for proxy militias and terrorist networks must end. The free flow of commerce through critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz must be guaranteed.

Second, pressure must extend beyond military targets to the core structures that sustain the regime’s power. That includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its financial networks and the internal security apparatus that enforces control at home.

Third, the U.S. should more clearly support Iranians. If regime change is to occur, then it will ultimately be driven from within. American policy can influence the conditions under which that change becomes possible: through information access, economic pressure and coordinated international isolation of the regime’s leadership.

The events of the past several weeks have already shifted the landscape. Iran’s leadership is under greater strain, its capabilities have been tested and its vulnerabilities are more visible than they have been in years. This is not a moment to reset the status quo on a regime that’s now operating from a weaker and more exposed position.

Trump was right to act on the threat Iran poses. But a ceasefire without a clearly defined political objective risks turning military gains into another temporary pause in a decades-long cycle. If the U.S. wants something more than a moment of calm, then it must be willing to define and pursue a different outcome.

There can be no lasting peace with the current regime in Tehran, which is why the current blockade is a step in the right direction. By applying sustained economic pressure without causing further destruction, or making sweeping financial concessions to Iran, it weakens the regime from within and moves us closer to the only outcome that can deliver lasting stability and peace.

Robert “Bob” Harward is a retired vice admiral, and former Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command who served under General James Mattis helping oversee U.S. military operations across the Middle East. Harward lived in Tehran as a teenager and graduated from the Tehran American School

Apr. 18, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the disbarment of John Eastmana former attorney for President Donald Trump and former dean of Chapman University Fowler School of Law, for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Eastman was the Trump attorney who wrote out a Jan. 6, 2021, plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to wrongly reject some of the electoral votes Biden won to keep Trump in the White House.

Contrary to what his supporters have said, Eastman wasn’t disbarred  for protected political speech but for sanctionable professional misconduct.

He’s not being prohibited from practicing law  because of the client he represented, for unpopular political advocacy, aggressive lawyering or espousing a particular ideology or legal view. He was tossed for what California’s State Bar Court Hearing Department deemed “egregious and deceitful conduct.” When Eastman tried to overturn valid election results, he engaged in the type of conduct that threatens not only the integrity of the legal profession, but also the rule of law itself. Indeed, the State Bar of California found that Eastman’s false claims about the presidential election misled the “courts, public officials, and the American public.”

Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, said the decision “raises pivotal constitutional concerns” and that Eastman plans to seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s help. But his predictable argument that Eastman’s disbarment raises serious First Amendment concerns is unpersuasive. The First Amendment is not absolute. It does not give lawyers a license to violate professional obligations.

Here’s how Eastman landed on the receiving end of the legal profession’s most serious sanction. After extensive proceedings, the State Bar Court Hearing Department found Eastman liable for 10 of the 11 charges against him. Eastman was found culpable for promoting claims of election fraud that he failed to adequately investigate (perhaps because they were almost certainly baseless). He was similarly found culpable of misleading courts and public officials, attempting to create “alternative slates of electors to those that certified the 2020 presidential election” (meaning he advocated the use of “fake” electors) and pushing an unconstitutional legal strategy: namely the vice president unilaterally rejecting some states’ slate of electors.

Eastman, like all other lawyers, was an officer of the court. That role carries obligations that go beyond advocacy, including duties of candor, honesty and respect for the rule of law. Eastman didn’t just cross those lines — he leaped over them. The State Bar’s conclusion was blunt: His actions constituted “egregious and deceitful conduct” incompatible with the obligations of an attorney.

States can regulate the licensing of certain professionals, including lawyers, to protect the public. Love us, or hate us, lawyers are important in our society. As the Supreme Court has recognized“[t]he interest of the States in regulating lawyers is especially great, since lawyers are essential to the primary governmental function of administering justice, and have historically been ‘officers of the courts.’” Simply put, lawyers have power in our society to protect clients’ interest, shape policy arguments, influence courts and, even in some cases, national events.

As a result, when lawyers speak in our professional capacity, especially in written and verbal statements in court, our speech can be regulated in ways that other people’s speech cannot. We can be disciplined for false or misleading statements, even when those statements address matters of public concern. Many of Eastman’s statements show exactly why and how these punishments exist. Eastman crossed the line from advocacy to deception. As a judge of the State Bar Court found, Eastman made “multiple false and misleading statements in his professional capacity as attorney for President Trump in court filings and other written statements, as well as in conversations with others and in public remarks.” Any attorneys who engage in similar behavior should also expect to be voted off the island.

As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Eastman’s disbarment should serve as a deterrent to any lawyers who contemplate knowingly making false statements or misleading judges, government officials, voters and the public. Lawyers will almost certainly play a central role in pre- and post-election disputes. We can and should zealously advocate for our clients. But we should not advance baseless claims with no factual or legal support. Eastman’s disbarment sends a clear message to lawyers: Don’t abandon your legal and ethical obligations.

Eastman’s disbarment is a successful example of lawyers policing lawyers to protect not just the legal profession, but also the public at large. This episode should not serve to chill zealous or creative legal advocacy. Neither should it make lawyers who want to engage in political advocacy pause and think before they speak. Eastman’s disbarment is not about politics or ideology. It is not about the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. It is about upholding the rule of law.

Jessica Levinson is a Loyola Law School professor and MS NOW columnist.

Apr. 18, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

Two things can be true at once: Many American presidents have wanted a more compliant Federal Reserve. And President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Fed Chair Jerome Powell has taken tactics to a disturbing level — further eroding the Justice Department’s traditional independence.

The issue is no longer simply Powell, or Trump’s preferences on interest rates or even Fed independence in the abstract. What became unmistakable this week was that a criminal investigation of Powell has been used as a political weapon, abusing prosecutorial powers.

Simply put, prosecutors were never meant to be part of a president’s plan to break the Fed.

Powell’s term as Fed chair ends on May 15. But he holds a separate tenure on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors that runs through Jan. 31, 2028. So he could remain at the central bank after a successor takes over. In an interview broadcast Wednesday, Trump said, “I’ll have to fire him” if Powell does not step aside from the board when his term ends. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors arrived at a Fed building renovation site without warning.

Those seemingly disparate facts form an ominous truth about how the administration has attempted to force out an independent Fed chair.

The world — and global markets — were shocked to learn in January that the DOJ had opened a criminal investigation into Powell purportedly over renovations of historic Fed buildings in Washington. White House officials have alleged that Powell made false statements to Congress over the $2.5 billion project’s costs or failed to comply with permitting regulations.

In a video statement in January, Powell was unusually blunt, saying, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

The Wall Street Journal’s analysis of Powell’s decision to disclose the investigation noted, “The threat of the prosecution of a sitting Fed chair would be material information for investors or anyone else trying to understand the forces shaping interest-rate deliberations.”

Renovations can run over cost, of course, and large public projects can be mismanaged. Prosecutors are entitled to investigate credible evidence of fraud, corruption or intentional deception. But that is precisely the difficulty here: The public record suggests the legal basis for this investigation is weak.

In March, a federal judge quashed subpoenas directed at Powell with unusually terse language. A “mountain of evidence” suggested “the Government served these subpoenas on the [Federal Reserve] Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,”  Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote.

Prosecutors “produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime,” he added, calling the case “so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

The court did not merely reject the subpoenas on a technical ground. It identified the broader political campaign against Powell as part of the legal problem.

Trump’s criticism of Powell over interest rates dates back to his first term. But this is not merely pressure over monetary policy. While Trump was publicly threatening Powell’s future at the Fed, prosecutors’ unannounced arrival at the Fed construction site suggested prosecutorial pressure will remain part of the campaign until the dispute is resolved on terms the president prefers.

A criminal investigation is supposed to determine whether a crime occurred. It is not supposed to become a cloud kept in place because the cloud itself is useful.

And the criminal investigation is hanging over more than Powell. Trump has named Kevin Warsh as his choice for the next Fed chair. But Powell has said he intends to remain on the Fed board until the investigation is over, and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, has said he will not vote to confirm Warsh until the DOJ’s probe of Powell is closed. The unresolved criminal probe has become entangled with the leadership transition.

Prosecutors wield extraordinary authority. That authority is justified by the expectation that it will be used for law-enforcement purposes, not as a political instrument against independent actors the president wants removed. This situation has all the problems that accompany selective prosecution as well as the more subtle but equally corrosive use of unresolved criminal process to wear down resistance, damage credibility and make institutional independence more difficult to sustain.

That is why this story is bigger than Powell. The danger is not just what happens to one Fed chair. It is the precedent set when a criminal investigation can be kept alive because the pressure it creates is politically useful. Once that line is crossed, other officials and institutions with legal independence become vulnerable to the same tactic. And the boundary between prosecution and politics becomes less real, less enforceable and easier to cross the next time.

The administration has also gone to the Supreme Court to remove another Fed governor, Lisa Cook, before her Senate-confirmed term runs out. The high court has allowed Cook to keep her seat while the justices consider how much power a president has to force out Fed officials. That underscores that this is not just a feud over interest rates but part of a larger effort to break down the legal protections that keep the Fed independent.

Past presidents have attacked the Fed, and public institutions are not above scrutiny. But the criminal process cannot become a tool for forcing institutional submission or the mechanism by which independence is made untenable. And one that does so where the strategic value of the investigation appears to exceed its legal merit further corrodes the DOJ’s independence and our broader national commitment to the rule of law.

The threat to fire Powell is serious enough on its own. The deeper problem is a government willing to use the pressure of criminal process to make that threat stick.

Duncan Levin is a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor who serves as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and is a frequent contributor to MS NOW.