19JUL

AUMF unfiled, blackout hits 1,728 hours

3 min read

13:35UTC

Senator Lisa Murkowski's Iran AUMF remained unfiled on 13 May, rendered procedurally moot by Hegseth's Article 2 testimony. Iran's internet blackout reached 1,728 cumulative hours by 12 May, projecting the 2,000-hour milestone to 18-19 May.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Murkowski's AUMF stayed unfiled on 13 May while Iran's blackout passed 1,728 cumulative hours.

Senator Lisa Murkowski's threatened Iran AUMF remained unfiled on 13 May 2026, the deadline she set on 9 May having passed and Pete Hegseth's Article 2 testimony on 12 May having rendered the instrument procedurally moot. Murkowski's earlier condition for filing had been a credible White House plan with defined objectives, success metrics, exit criteria and congressional reporting. None of those documents has arrived; what arrived instead was a cabinet officer telling appropriators under oath that none of them is required.

Iran's internet blackout reached 1,728 cumulative hours by 12 May, per NetBlocks data extending the 1,704-hour figure logged on 11 May . At the current round-the-clock accrual rate, the 2,000-hour milestone falls around 18-19 May, the week Trump returns from Beijing. Seventy-two days of near-total global isolation for roughly 90 million Iranians, with ATMs and hospital systems routed through the loyalist tier that still carries IRGC command and control, is now a domestic governance fact rather than a wartime emergency measure.

The Trump-Xi summit in Beijing on 14-15 May formally lists Iran as an agenda item alongside trade and Taiwan ¹. The agenda line is the only paper on which Iran appears this week; everything else (Hegseth's testimony, the blackout extension, the BRICS Delhi meeting, the $29 billion war cost) runs on the verbal track that the Day 75 unsigned streak now confirms as method.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Three things that have stayed the same since the Iran conflict began are worth summarising together. First: Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, had threatened to introduce legislation requiring President Trump to get congressional approval for the Iran war. As of 13 May, she still had not introduced it. The day before, a senior US official told Congress that Trump does not need congressional approval anyway. Second: Iran has had its internet cut off almost entirely since the war began in February. By 12 May that had added up to 1,728 hours, about 72 days, with no internet access for roughly 90 million people. At the current rate, the 2,000-hour mark arrives around 18-19 May. Third: the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, starting 14 May, officially listed Iran on its agenda alongside trade and Taiwan. Both the US and China have now acknowledged Iran as a topic requiring bilateral discussion.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United States

United States

Primary parallel: Myanmar's internet shutdowns during the 2021 military coup reached approximately 1,600 cumulative hours before international pressure produced a partial restoration. Iran's 1,728-hour total surpassed that threshold on 12 May and continues to accrue. The structural parallel is the gap between international documentation of the blackout and any mechanism capable of compelling restoration: in Myanmar as in Iran, no UN body had the enforcement authority to compel reconnection.

Counter-parallel: Belarus imposed a 61-hour internet blackout during the August 2020 post-election protests. Unlike the Myanmar or Iran cases, Belarus's shutdown was short enough that international condemnation focused on the political repression rather than the infrastructure shutdown itself.

The counter-parallel is that Iran's 1,728-hour duration has moved the infrastructure shutdown itself into the category of the primary human rights violation, independent of the political repression it was designed to facilitate.

Consensus view: The Stimson Center's congressional affairs programme and Freedom House both assess that Murkowski's unfiled AUMF, combined with Hegseth's Article 2 testimony, has effectively ended the legislative pathway to constraining the Iran campaign without a funding cut.

An AUMF cannot deauthorise a war the executive branch has declared it never needed authorisation for; the only remaining instrument is Senate Appropriations withholding the next OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) transfer.

Counter-view: Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy argues that Murkowski's continued non-filing preserves her leverage: an AUMF filed and debated would either pass, endorsing the war, or fail, which Hegseth would cite as Congress rejecting oversight rather than The Administration accepting it. Non-filing keeps the political pressure without resolving it.

Key tension: Whether Iran's 1,728-hour internet blackout, now documented as the longest sustained national blackout in modern history, will produce the conditions for a formal ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) complaint before or after the Trump-Xi summit concludes.

Sources:The White House·Washington Times

Mentions:Lisa Murkowski →Trump-Xi summit →Iran →AUMF →Taiwan →BRICS →White House →Pete Hegseth →China →Belarus →Freedom House →Beijing →Senate Appropriations Committee →NetBlocks →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →

First Reported In

Update #96 · Hegseth: no AUMF needed. Trump flies east

The White House· 13 May 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

AUMF unfiled, blackout hits 1,728 hours

Three loose ends crystallise the week's posture: the legislative brake formally moot, the domestic isolation extending toward a new milestone, and the Trump-Xi summit listing Iran without any signed text behind the agenda line.

Led to

Senate rejects Iran war-powers vote 49-50; Murkowski crosses first time

The unfiled AUMF as of 13 May left Murkowski the Democratic resolution as her only remaining floor option.

Occurred 13 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

The United Kingdom

Starmer pledged £300 million in Kyiv on 16 July toward Ukraine's Gripen E squadron, adding to the PURL expansion Trump and Rutte had announced two days earlier. London is paying into a scheme built around a shortfall NATO's own published $4bn-plus pledge does not close against Zelenskyy's roughly $15bn stated need.

Brussels

The EU's 21st sanctions package missed its Coreper vote on 15 July over Greek LNG re-export rights and an Austrian bank compensation demand, the same week Hungary stalled accession clusters on procedure rather than veto. Both processes run on unanimity, so a single national interest, not Russia policy, sets the pace either can move at.

Hungary's Tisza government

Budapest refused to open EU accession Clusters 2 and 3 for Ukraine at COELA on 17 July, offering Moldova a standalone opening instead, and the question returns on 22 July. Having ended Orbán's blanket loan veto in May, it now blocks the narrower rule-of-law chapters where its own electorate is least comfortable.

Washington

Trump and Rutte expanded PURL on 14 July, letting allies fund the American interceptors and jets Washington will license but no longer gift outright. The same week, Lockheed Martin told allies it cannot guarantee PAC-3 MSE delivery timelines even after tripling output, so Washington now shapes Ukraine's air defence through a supply queue rather than a donation decision.

Moscow

Novak ordered a study into cutting the diesel exchange quota to 10% within a week of his export ban, while June delivered Russia's first budget surplus of 2026 and National Wealth Fund liquidity above its own May forecast. Its own investors disagree: the Moscow Exchange has fallen for its longest losing streak since 1997.

Ukraine's government and its street protesters

Zelenskyy sacked Fedorov on 15 July, installed an acting SBU officer in his place, and did not move against three days of protest that followed across eight cities. He is betting that visible tolerance for dissent, timed to EU accession hearings on rule of law, outweighs whatever command dispute forced the reshuffle.