8pm ET: The Trump Last Judgement

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Trump on Tuesday morning threatened to completely annihilate the entirety of Iranian civilization should their government ignore his 8pm ET deadline to reopen the strait of Hormuz.

The president’s own words, posted publicly and tied to a specific deadline and set of demands, provide unusually direct evidence of intent to violate international law, and were being met with shock and dismay by Democrats.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the US president posted on Truth Social about the country with more than 90 million people. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

“This is an extremely sick person,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said, accusing Republicans of abetting the president in plunging the US into a seemingly open-ended war.

“Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”

Trump followed with a reference to “complete and total regime change” and signed off with “God Bless the Great People of Iran”, making a formulation that suggested the destruction of the state and the benediction of its people were in his telling, compatible.

“47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end,” he wrote, referencing the Islamic regime’s takeover of the country in 1979.

“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”

Neither the US nor Iran is a member of the international criminal court, meaning no formal ICC jurisdiction applies.

The more immediate legal framework is the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, which both countries have ratified. Article 33 of the Fourth Convention explicitly prohibits collective punishment of a civilian population.

Article 54 of Additional Protocol I – whose core principles are binding as customary international law even on states, like the US and Iran, that never ratified it – prohibits attacks on infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival, with only a narrow exception for objects used exclusively to sustain enemy armed forces.

The US has itself acknowledged this customary obligation, though the adoption of this position came under the Biden administration in 2024. In one formal UN submission, Washington said it treated the fundamental protections of Additional Protocol I as legally binding even without ratification.

Trump’s latest threat against the totality of Iranian civilization “shocks the conscience”, House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement, calling for a “decisive congressional response”.

“The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III,” Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California said in their statement.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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Questions about the president’s mental state have grown louder since Trump’s expletive-ridden Easter Sunday message, with Democrats and critics calling him “unhinged” and a “madman”.

Senator Patty Murray described Trump’s post as “the rantings of a bloodthirsty lunatic” while Senator Chris Coons said: “This is a threat to commit a war crime.”

Representative Joaquin Castro said the threat “suggests he’s either considering using a nuclear weapon or wants Iran to believe he would”.

Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman said it was time to invoke the 25th amendment against Trump, a call to remove him from office and replace him with the next in line to the presidency.

“In just 48 hours, the president has gone from threatening war crimes to threatening genocide,” Watson Coleman wrote. “He is clearly unstable and must be set aside.” It is not only Democrats.

Trump’s Middle East war has fractured the American right, driving a deep divide between traditional hawkish conservatives who have long clamored for military action against Iran and the president’s anti-interventionist “America First” loyalists.

Reacting to Trump’s Tuesday post, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently split with the president, in part over what she said was his abandonment of America First policy principles, called for invoking the “25TH AMENDMENT!!!”

“Not a single bomb has dropped on America,” she wrote. “We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”

The Truth Social post came the morning after a chaotic White House press conference in which Trump voiced his threats to reporters.

“The entire country could be taken out in one night,” he told reporters on Monday, “and that night might be tomorrow night.”

When a reporter noted that deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva conventions, Trump did not dispute the point.

“I hope I don’t have to do it,” he said, then pivoted: “Forty-seven years they’ve been negotiating with these people. They’re great negotiators, and because they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

Asked whether the war was winding down or escalating, he said only: “I can’t tell you.” Asked about a ceasefire, he said: “I can’t talk about the ceasefire.”

He reiterated the 8pm ET Tuesday deadline for Iran to reopen the strait or face strikes on energy infrastructure and bridges. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard navy for their part said on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz “will never return to its previous state” for the US and its allies.

Trump also claimed, without providing evidence, that US intelligence had intercepted communications from Iranian civilians near active bombing sites urging American forces to continue.

“Please keep bombing,” he quoted the alleged intercepts as saying. He dismissed concerns that destroying power and water infrastructure would harm ordinary Iranians, insisting they would willingly endure such losses for the chance at regime change.

The rhetorical escalation of recent days also sits alongside a pattern of contradictions. Trump said in recent weeks that the US had no strategic need for the strait of Hormuz; days later he made its reopening the central condition of his ultimatum to Tehran.

He claimed total dominance of Iranian airspace even as a US fighter jet was shot down over the country.

#democrats #trump #iran #middle #east #strait #hormuz

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The Negotiations With Iran Went Belly Up. Will the War Re-Start?

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Trump has said the US will begin blockading the strait of Hormuz in an attempt to take control of the strategic waterway from Iran in the aftermath of failed peace negotiations between the countries in Pakistan.

The US president also threatened to bomb Iran’s water treatment facilities, power plants and bridges, repeating an earlier threat, if Tehran does not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, the key sticking point between the two sides.

Trump’s surprise announcement of a blockade came after face-to-face peace negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad that lasted 21 hours collapsed on Sunday morning.

Vance said Iran had refused to give up the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, while the Iranian delegates said Washington needed to do more to win their trust.

Risking another increase in oil prices, Trump said he had instructed the US navy to begin “blockading any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” and he accused Iran of extortion with its own scheme of charging tolls to tankers.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by declaring that if any warships approached the strait to enforce a blockade – usually considered an act of war – it would be considered a breach of the current ceasefire and would be dealt with strongly. They insisted the strait remained under Iranian control.

Two US destroyers crossed and recrossed the strait without incident on Saturday, although Iranian media said they were threatened as they left. The US military said it was the start of a mine-clearance mission.

Trump said US warships would “seek and interdict every vessel” that had paid Iran since the start of the conflict and begin de-mining the central section of the strait, previously declared a “hazardous area” by Tehran, although it is unclear how many mines have been laid.

About 100 tankers have transited the strait since the US and Israel started bombing Iran, paying up to $2m each time for passage.

Many were bound for China and India, carrying Iranian oil products, and chasing them down could complicate relations between the US and the importing nations.

#trump #iran #strait #hormuz #vance #blockading

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The US and Iranian delegations left Pakistan soon after the talks ended. Vance said he spoke with Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, held during a 14-day ceasefire announced by the US, Israel and Iran overnight on 7 and 8 April.

“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.

“That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”

Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, who led Tehran’s negotiators, said he and his colleagues had offered “constructive initiatives” while the US had been “unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations”.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement, and the foreign ministry said more time was needed.

“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” the ministry’s spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB.

Pakistani mediators called on the US and Iran to refrain from renewing hostilities and said they would try to arrange a fresh round of talks.

“It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to the ceasefire,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar.

Vance was accompanied by the US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner.

They met Ghalibaf and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, for several negotiating sessions at the Serena hotel in Islamabad, with Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, also present.

Iran’s delegation arrived on Friday dressed in black in mourning for the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war.

They carried shoes and bags of children killed during the bombing of a school next to a military compound, the Iranian government said.

A Pakistani source said the discussions, the highest-level direct contact between the US and Iran since 1979, were unpredictable in tone.

“There were mood swings from the two sides, and the temperature went up and down during the meeting,” a Pakistani source said after the first round.

Trump said: “The only thing left, really, is their water, which would be very devastating to hit. I would hate to do it, but it’s their water, their desalinisation plans, their electric generating plants, which are very easy to hit.”

The president was asked if gas and oil prices might be lower by the US midterms in November, an indication that attacking Iran was not an economic mistake. Prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher,” a non-committal Trump replied.

At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire after his Sunday prayers and said he felt “closer than ever” to Lebanon’s people.

#trump #iran #strait #hormuz #vance #blockading

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Could Trump Put Any Kind of Trust In a Deal With Iran?


Iran’s foreign minister said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling despite analysts’ warnings that there will be no immediate widespread resumption of passage through the vital waterway.

In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”

However, Abbas Araghchi’s pledge was given only qualified support by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has reinforced its already powerful authority in Tehran during the war.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Ghalibaf, later warned that if the US blockade continued, “the strait of Hormuz will not remain open”.

Whether the strait was open or closed and the regulations governing it “will be determined by the field, not by social media”, Ghalibaf added, in a swipe at the US president.

Trump also said that Iran had agreed to indefinitely suspend its nuclear programme, and would not receive any frozen funds from the US.

In an interview with Bloomberg, he said that talks over a deal to end the war would “probably” be held this weekend.

Separately, the US president told Reuters that Washington would work with Iran to recover its enriched uranium, which he referred to as “nuclear dust” that would be retrieved at “a nice leisurely pace” and moved to the US. Iranian authorities made no immediate comment on the claim, but Tehran has long asserted that its right to enrich uranium inside the country is sacrosanct.

When asked about a report that the US was considering a $20bn cash for uranium deal, Trump said: “It’s totally false. No money is changing hands.”

Araghchi statement that the strait was “declared completely open” came as a new 10-day truce in Lebanon entered its first full day, partly pausing fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah Islamist militant movement and offering a fragile relief in parts of the country after weeks of relentless Israeli airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians.

Trump said that Israel would cease attacks on Lebanon, claiming: “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A.”

Minutes before that post, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, uploaded a video to his official YouTube page declaring that Israel was not done yet with Hezbollah.

He said: “We have not yet finished the job. There are things we plan to do to address the remaining rocket threat and the drone threat.”

Soon after, reports emerged that an Israeli drone strike had killed one person in southern Lebanon. The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, insisted that the IDF was not withdrawing from the country and that military action could resume.

Iranian state television quoted a senior military official saying commercial vessels would be allowed to travel through the strait of Hormuz but only along a determined route and with the permission of the IRGC navy.

The US blockade of Iranian ports and shipping will remain in place for the moment, Trump said, and few vessels are likely to risk passage through the strait in such uncertain circumstances, meaning any return to normality is still distant.

“The naval blockade will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran, only, until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete,” the US president posted on his Truth Social network, adding that “this process should go very quickly”.

The strait’s closure by Iran shortly after the conflict began has spiked the price of oil, fuelled inflation and threatens a deep economic crisis that could trigger recessions around the world.

Trump, however, said that he had rebuffed an offer from Nato. “They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!” he posted on social media, before thanking Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Qatar.

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Mojtaba Khamenei: the Strait of Hormuz Remains Under Iran’s Control

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Iran’s supreme leader has broken his recent silence with a defiant statement hailing Iran’s control over shipping in the strait of Hormuz and vowing to guard the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the strait of Hormuz,” Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement read by a state television anchor.

The statement said Tehran would secure the Gulf region and eliminate what he described as “the enemy’s abuses of the waterway”, and that “new management of the strait will bring comfort and progress for the benefit of all the nations of the region and economic blessings will being joy to the hearts of the people”.

Iran has sought to extract a price for being attacked by exerting control over the strait, the narrow waterway through which about one-fifth of global oil typically transits.

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei also vowed that Iran would “guard its modern technological capacities – from nano to bio to nuclear and missile – as their national capital and will guard it like their maritime land and air borders”.

No recording or visual sighting of Khamenei has been broadcast since he was appointed supreme leader in early March.

Reports have suggested that he was severely injured in the bombing that killed his 86-year-old father and predecessor on 28 February. He is said to be in hospital being treated for injuries.

His new statement suggests Iran is determined to implement a new fees regime in the strait that it will present as benefiting the entire region as a belated assertion of regional sovereignty.

Since 13 April the US has mounted a counter-blockade designed to stop oil tankers moving in or out of Iranian ports, seizing up the Iranian oil industry.

With Pakistan-mediated talks at an impasse, there is little sign of either blockade being lifted, pushing the oil price above $120 a barrel. Vessel traffic levels are still extremely low, sometimes as low as three ships a day compared with 120–140 in normal conditions.

“Foreigners who maliciously covet it [the strait] from thousands of kilometres away have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” Khamenei’s statement said.

The strait’s closure has put pressure on Trump, as oil and petrol prices have rocketed before crucial midterm elections, as well as on his Gulf allies, which use the waterway to export their oil and gas.

#khamenei #strait #hormuz #iran #control

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Trump’s admission on Wednesday that he knew no short way out of the impasse pushed oil prices close to $125 a barrel – as high as during the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Maj Gen Mohsen Rezaee, the military adviser to the supreme leader, wrote on his X account: “The siege scenario will fail and Iran will never lose the strait of Hormuz. History will record that the Iranian nation sank the superpower of America in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of ​​Oman.

Both the field and diplomacy are moving forward with the coordination of the leader of the revolution and the support of the people.”

The world considers the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls, and Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran’s control of the strait as akin to piracy.

Iran has proposed that talks with the US on its nuclear programme be parked while both sides agree terms for allowing ships to resume passage along the strait.

In Iran the foreign ministry has urged its parliament to recognise that Iran’s plans being hatched in conjunction with Oman do not require fresh Iranian legislation. It is also urging that Iran avoid terms such as “tolls”, and instead assert its pre-existing right to charge fees for services rendered.

Rubio, and the UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, held talks in Washington on Wednesday about the strait.

An email sent by the state department to embassies reported by the Wall Street Journal suggested the US was trying to become involved in largely European-led plans for the oversight of the strait once the conflict ends.

The US is offering to coordinate diplomacy and communications between countries using the strait by reviving and broadening a 12 nation International Maritime Security Construct, a pre-existing naval operation set up in after threats to shipping by the Iranian navy.

#khamenei #strait #hormuz #iran #control

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Will Trump's “Project Freedom” Streamline the Post-War Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz?

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Trump has announced that the US will “guide” ships trapped by the Iran war out of the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz on Monday morning, and claimed his representatives were having “very positive” discussions with Iran.

Trump wrote on his social media site that the operation, called “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.

“I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait. In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else.”

The president gave no details of how the more than 850 vessels trapped in the Gulf would be freed, and the WSJ cited a US official as saying the plan doesn’t currently involve US Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait.

Instead it would reportedly be a process through which shipping stakeholders can coordinate traffic through the strait.

After Trump’s announcement a senior Iranian official warned any US attempt to interfere in the strait of Hormuz would be seen as a breach of the ceasefire by Tehran.

Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the Hormuz strait soon after the war began with a US-Israeli attack on 28 February. Trump imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April.

US central command said “Project Freedom” would support “merchant vessels seeking to freely transit through the essential international trade corridor” and would be aided by “guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members”.

Trump’s announcement on Sunday came nearly three days after the presentation of a 14-point peace plan by Iran, which reportedly focused on an initial agreement to open the strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s foreign ministry announced on Sunday it had received a response from Washington and would study it.

#trump #projectfreedom #shipping #strait #hormuz

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It was unclear on Sunday night how the Iranian proposal and Trump’s announcement were directly linked, but the president said in his social media post:

“I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all.”

However, Trump added: “If, in any way, this humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”

Until Sunday night, messages between the US and Iran had been conveyed by Pakistan, with no reported direct contacts between the warring parties.

Trump’s upbeat post about freeing Gulf shipping represented a characteristically dramatic change of course and tone.

On Saturday, he told reporters he had received the Iranian plan but had not read it in full, then later posted sceptical remarks casting doubt on a diplomatic breakthrough and musing whether the Tehran regime had “paid a big enough price” for its past wrongs, triggering speculation about a new wave of US strikes.

An estimated 20,000 sailors are stuck on the tankers, bulk carriers, container ships and other vessels trapped in the Gulf by the closing of the strait, and there are growing concerns for their welfare.

Trump said the US had been approached by countries around the world for help.

Trump said on his Truth Social site on Sunday that the US would use its “best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait”.

There has been growing speculation over the possibility of another round of US strikes against Iran aimed at forcing concessions, including a halt to the country’s nuclear programme.

Israeli press reports quoted senior military officials as saying they were preparing for possible US strikes on Iran, and the likelihood that Tehran would hit back at Israel.

A senior Israeli officer who briefed reporters on Friday said any peace agreement without a cessation of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme and the surrender of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be considered a failure.

Iran’s military-backed Fars news agency had quoted a senior official as saying a return to all-out conflict was “likely”, four weeks after a ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan.

Pakistani efforts to rekindle peace talks in Islamabad, after a first round ended without agreement, have so far failed as each side set preconditions that the other refused to fulfil.

The war has led to an additional crisis as both sides have imposed parallel blockades of the strait of Hormuz, the gateway for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies, as a means of exerting economic pressure to gain concessions, with dire implications for energy prices and the global economy.

It also included the payment of compensation to Tehran for war damage, the lifting of sanctions and cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel continues to exchange fire with Hezbollah despite a ceasefire having been declared by Trump.

#trump #projectfreedom #shipping #strait #hormuz

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Trump: To Smash Iran by Opening a Passway Through the Strait of Hormuz

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The US has launched Trump’s operation to open a route through the strait of Hormuz for hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, in a move that brought the region back to the brink of full-scale war as Iran sought to reassert its blockade.

The US operation, which got under way on Monday after being announced as “Project Freedom” by Trump on Sunday night on his social media site, dramatically raised the stakes in a conflict that had been in a month-long period of uneasy limbo.

Speaking hours after the operation began, the head of US Central Command, (Centcom), Adm Brad Cooper, said that US forces had destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted both Iranian cruise missiles and drones.

He “strongly advised” Iranian forces to remain clear of US military assets in the region, which include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, drones and 15,000 troops.

Iran swiftly denied the claim. On a day of successive claims and counter-claims, it also denied Centcom’s assertion that two US-flagged merchant vessels had “successfully transited” the strait, while US navy guided-missile destroyers had crossed in the opposite direction, travelling westwards, and had begun patrolling the Gulf.

Late on Monday, the container shipping company Maersk said the Alliance Fairfax – a US-flagged vehicle carrier – exited the Gulf via the strait accompanied by US military assets.

Iran, where military central command had warned that any US naval vessel approaching the strait would be fired on, earlier claimed to have hit a US frigate in the area with two missiles.

#smash #iran #passway #strait #hormuz

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Late on Sunday, after Trump’s announcement, a tanker reported having been hit by “unknown projectiles”.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) later said an oil tanker operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the MV Barakah had come under Iranian drone attack off the coast of Oman. No one was injured, it said.

More than 850 ships are estimated to have been trapped in the Gulf since the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran on 28 February. Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the strait of Hormuz soon afterwards and Trump imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April.

A Pakistani-brokered ceasefire, announced by Trump in early April, stopped hostilities but failed to open the strait.

An estimated 20,000 sailors are stuck on the tankers, bulk carriers, container ships and other vessels, and there are growing concerns for their welfare.

The operation launched by the US does not involve military escorts but aims to provide coordination and guidance for commercial shipping along a southern route through the strait, mostly through Omani territorial waters.

Shipping executives responded cautiously to the move, amid uncertainty over how or if it would work.

Richard Hext, the chair of Vanmar Shipping and the Hong Kong Shipowners Association, pointed out that Iran had previously declared that unapproved transit of the strait would be considered a “violation of the ceasefire” agreed last month.

On Monday morning, a US-led military organisation, the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), said the US had established an “enhanced security area” south of the established prewar shipping lanes through the strait.

The route would take ships through Omani territorial waters, the JMIC said, and owing to high anticipated traffic, ship operators were told to coordinate with Omani authorities by radio.

Ships were advised to avoid navigating in or close to the usual shipping lanes which “should be considered extremely hazardous due the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated”.

Iran’s military command insisted that ships passing must coordinate with them.

“We will manage the security of the Strait of Hormuz with all might, and inform all commercial ships and tankers to refrain from any attempt to transit without the coordination of the Iranian armed forces stationed in the Strait of Hormuz in order not to jeopardise their security,” Maj Gen Ali Abdollahi said, according to Mehr news agency.

Earlier, Abdollahi had said Iran would attack “any foreign armed force” that tried to approach or enter the strait, “especially, the aggressive US army”.

#smash #iran #passway #strait #hormuz

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Trump Is Doing a Complete About-Face

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Just two weeks ago, opening the Great American State Fair, President Trump triumphantly declared: “For the first time in 3,000 years, we are going to have peace in the Middle East.”

It was typical bravado for Trump. But the “peace” he was celebrating — the cease-fire with Iran that on Wednesday he declared “over” after less than a month — was already beginning to unravel.

The result was perhaps predictable for a 14-paragraph memorandum of understanding that skirted major issues and was hastily assembled so Trump could declare he had reached a deal, any deal.

Now Trump appears to be confronting the consequences of his haste, and of his assumption, born of his time in the real estate business, that his adversary would prize economic benefits over the revolutionary ideology that has driven its politics since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

That has left him facing a range of unpalatable options amid seemingly intractable sticking points over the fate of Iran’s nuclear program — to say nothing of its missile program, its support for terrorist groups and its repression of its own people.

At the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday after the two sides had exchanged strikes, he threatened major new combat operations.

Those included seizing a key Iranian oil processing island and attacking the country’s infrastructure and desalination plants, which experts have said could constitute a war crime. (Trump did say he was most hesitant to hit the desalination facilities.)

The president could instead reimpose the American blockade of Iranian ports, an attempt to cut off the country’s economic lifeline. But that would require a continued, intense American presence in the region, and while Trump contended in April that it would lead to Iranian economic collapse, his earlier imposition of it did not.

Or he could elect to live in a world of neither war nor peace, an era of episodic skirmishes in the Persian Gulf, punctuated by periodic negotiations, with traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil-shipping route, greatly reduced from the 130 or so ships that passed through each day before the war. The energy markets would most likely adjust; to some degree they already have.

But for a president who promised a quick, cost-free confrontation with an old adversary — “four to six weeks” was the White House prediction in the opening weeks — an ongoing conflict would amount to near-total failure on the mission he initially set out upon.

And the price would be staggering: The Pentagon has already asked Congress for about $70 billion to cover the early operations around Iran, and the cost rises every week.

“The problem is that all the options — endure, escalate or agree — are unattractive in different ways,” Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security and a former aide to Senator John McCain, said on Wednesday.

“The likeliest outcome is a continuing series of low-level, tit-for-tat attacks, followed by frantic diplomacy by mediators, the emergence of a new and fragile cease-fire, and then probably another round of strikes.

Fontaine added: “It will be a long oscillation between cold war and low-level hot war.” Many of the problems Trump is facing today were exacerbated by the cease-fire deal itself.

#iran #trump #war #strait #hormuz

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It left unresolved, for a later negotiation that Trump now says he has little interest in pursuing, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel, the most prominent among the administration’s shifting reasons for attacking Iran on Feb. 28.

The agreement appeared to hand Iran at least some control over passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the superweapon that Tehran, and specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has skillfully manipulated to drive up oil prices, and now has used to justify attacks on tankers and cargo ships not hewing to its new rules.

“What we’re seeing now is Iran, and more specifically the I.R.G.C., trying to exert control over the strait and declaring that this control is their sovereign right,” said Kevin Donegan, a retired Navy vice admiral who served as a Navy commander in the Middle East.

“That’s the main card they have to play, and as a result we can expect they will continue to try to disrupt any ship traffic that uses routes different from the ones they have published.”

The deal was silent on Iran’s missile arsenal, the key issue for Israel. And it depended on a cease-fire in Lebanon, though the parties to that conflict, Israel and Hezbollah, were not signatories of the agreement. And it set an unrealistic deadline, 60 days, to deal diplomatically with those and other issues that months of active combat had failed to resolve.

There are, of course, many more turns ahead in this drama. Trump threatened again on Wednesday to try to seize Kharg Island, where giant tankers collect Iran’s oil and head to world markets.

He may seek to seize the 60 percent enriched nuclear material deep underground at Isfahan, a mission for which Special Operations forces have trained extensively, though he dismissed the need for it on Wednesday.

“We’ve already got the nuclear material, because it’s so far underground,” he said, noting that the Iranians do not have the heavy equipment needed to unearth it.

If Trump is right about that, and many nuclear experts agree that the material would be enormously difficult to recover, it raises a fundamental question: If the nuclear fuel was successfully buried in the June 2025 American bombing of three major nuclear sites, why did he go to war to begin with?

His statement on Wednesday, a repeat of comments he has made several times in recent months, undercuts the argument he made in the days after the initial attack in February that there was an “imminent” threat.

That initial justification has been overtaken by subsequent contradictions. Trump has periodically praised the new Iranian leadership, and even its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain ayatollah, as more “reasonable.”

He has said many times that, unlike their predecessors, the new leaders would open up the strait and dilute the nuclear stockpile because it will be in their economic interest.

Vance sounded exactly that note last month, when he was signing the memorandum of understanding in Switzerland.

“The coolest thing about the progress we’ve made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even I.R.G.C. officials say, ‘You know what, we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we’ve done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake,” he said.

On Wednesday, Trump had a different word for those leaders: “scum.”

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The Strait of Hormuz As Trump's Asset. Why the War Again?

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Trump has said that the United States will charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, despite his own administration’s position that such fees violate international law.

He made the announcement on Monday amid an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the waterway, a crucial artery for global energy supplies.

The two countries have traded attacks over the strait for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire.

Since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in February that set off the war, Iran has periodically fired on commercial ships transiting the strait as it seeks to compel vessels to use a route close to its coast, a potential precursor to charging its own fees.

In announcing his plan to levy a toll, the president described it as a way for the United States to recover the cost of providing military protection to vessels using the waterway.

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Trump wrote on social media. He added that the United States would levy the 20 percent fee for “any and all costs necessary,” describing it as “a matter of FAIRNESS,” and also said the United States would resume a blockade of Iranian ports.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened such a toll. He raised the possibility last month after signing a temporary cease-fire agreement with Iran, even though that deal included language that Tehran has interpreted to mean it has authority over the strait.

The memorandum also said that no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left open the possibility for such charges beyond that.

This isn’t exactly clear. Trump did not elaborate on how the 20 percent fee would be calculated or how it would be collected.

Trump and his aides also have not explained why his position contradicts the assertions of top officials in his administration.

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Last month, Secretary of State Rubio said that tolls could not be imposed on the Strait of Hormuz.

“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” he said.

Trump’s announcement, along with ordering a resumption of the blockade of Iran, reflected how his options for resolving the war were narrowing.

A 20 percent fee on the value of a vessel’s cargo could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait, experts said.

For a large tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, for example, the fee could add over $30 million in costs. Consumers would likely face higher prices as a result.

Because of the high cost, some analysts said they doubted whether the fee would come into force. For ship operators in the region, the prospect of fees is less of a concern right now than an escalation of the conflict between Iran and the United States, experts said.

Another crucial waterway offers a potential precedent: the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, through which transit about 23 million barrels of oil a day.

Ships passing through that strait, which is jointly administered by Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, pay fees when they need specific services, such as towing assistance or help navigating the narrowest stretches. But ships do not pay for passage.

The political and security environment of the Strait of Malacca is also fundamentally different, with the three countries administering it largely without major conflict, and having avoided interstate war for about six decades.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted the irony of Trump announcing a toll in the strait after his administration rejected the idea of Iran collecting one.

Trump was “absolutely right” that whoever provided safe passage through the strait should be compensated, Araghchi said on social media — and then repeated Iran’s claim to that role.

He added with evident sarcasm: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

Since Tehran effectively blockaded the waterway earlier in the war, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared their intent to monetize the strait.

Iran and Oman, which is on the southern side of the strait, are said to be exploring ways to the two countries to charge ships transiting through it.

Oman’s proposal is modeled in part on arrangements in the Strait of Malacca. It is unclear whether any payment would be voluntary or mandatory.

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Iran Ordered Houthies To Close the Red Sea Oil Route 🇮🇷

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If the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, three sources told Reuters on Thursday, posing a potent new threat ​to global energy supplies.

The idea has been discussed within the Islamic Republic's leadership, and the message has been conveyed to Iran's Houthi allies, two senior Iranian ‌sources and a regional source familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The sources said the Houthis had been informed recently of Tehran's request, which has not been previously reported.

They did not give further details on how it had been conveyed or whether it was after Trump’s threat to attack Iranian power infrastructure on Tuesday.

A source close to the Houthis said the group had completed preparations to attack shipping by deploying missiles and drones ​near Bab el-Mandeb strait, the gateway to the Red Sea, in Yemen's highlands overlooking Hodeidah and the Gulf of Aden and was awaiting the ⁠order to begin.

Any threat to the Red Sea and its Bab el-Mandeb gateway risks hugely exacerbating the global energy crisis triggered by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and underscores the explosive ​risks stemming from a new round of warfare.

With the Hormuz strait already shut, any Houthi attacks on vessels or ports in the Red Sea would leave the Middle East's two main oil export ​routes disrupted simultaneously, opening a new front in both the energy crisis and Iran's wider conflict with the United States.

Representatives of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who are already in Yemen will control the decision on when to close the Bab el-Mandeb strait, said the source close to the Houthis.

In a sign of escalating tensions in the region, the Houthis fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under ​their control on Monday, breaking a four-year truce in the conflict between the kingdom and the group.

Torbjorn Solvedt, principal Middle East analyst with risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said the flare-up between ​the Houthis and Saudi Arabia had come at a bad time.

Two regional sources close to Riyadh said the kingdom was taking threats from Iran and the Houthis very seriously, adding that Riyadh was aware the Yemeni group was now closely coordinating with Iran over the Red Sea.

The conflict began on February 28, when Israel and the United States attacked Iran, leading Tehran to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the main route before the war for around a fifth of global energy supplies.

Tensions have mounted since a fragile June truce between Tehran and Washington collapsed, reviving fears of full-scale war and disrupting energy flows through the Strait.

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A significant amount ​of Gulf oil has since been diverted ⁠to the Red Sea through a Saudi pipeline, and the waterway now carries around 7% of global energy supplies.

When the Houthis attacked shipping during the Gaza war, major shipping companies diverted their cargoes to the much longer, more expensive route around Africa.

With Saudi Arabia having itself diverted 70% ​of its energy exports through its Red Sea port of Yanbu, any direct attacks there would also be a big problem for oil ​markets.

One of the regional ⁠sources said Iran's clerical rulers were seeking to pressure the United States by raising the potential cost to the global economy, threatening Red Sea shipping and the flow of Saudi oil exports through the waterway, in what the source described as part of "Iranian thinking."

Closing down the strait would not be difficult, the source said, adding: "Anybody with a firing rifle can interrupt the shipping. You don't have to have sophisticated ⁠missiles to ​interrupt the shipping."

Iran views the Houthis as part of its regional “Axis of Resistance”, an alliance that also includes Lebanon's ​Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'ite armed groups that have already joined the regional conflict between Tehran and Washington.

But the Houthi rebels have not formally entered the fray.

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Trump’s Iran Victory Tour: One Problem — The Victory


Six months ago, Trump promised Iran a quick lesson in the consequences of challenging the United States. The bombs arrived. The missiles flew. Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure was hammered. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. The message from Washington was unmistakable: this would be decisive.

And then, rather inconveniently, Iran failed to read the script.

Six months later, Tehran is battered but still standing. Its economy is under extraordinary pressure, inflation is soaring, food prices have exploded, military infrastructure has been badly damaged — and yet Iran has not surrendered, signed the deal Trump wanted, or simply gone home.

Instead, the Strait of Hormuz has become Tehran’s favorite bargaining chip, turning a narrow stretch of water into one of the most consequential pieces of real estate in global politics. Nothing says “quick and easy victory” quite like a war in which everyone suddenly starts worrying about the price of oil.

Washington’s response? More sanctions.

When military pressure failed to produce the desired political outcome, the administration turned increasingly to economic coercion — the familiar instrument of a government discovering that destroying an adversary is considerably easier than persuading it to surrender.

The original promise was simple: overwhelming American power would force Iran to capitulate. The reality has proved considerably messier.

Iran has taken extraordinary punishment, but it has also demonstrated the classic survival skill of an embattled regime: refusing to cooperate with the enemy’s definition of victory.

Diplomacy has not exactly been a triumph either. The June ceasefire and subsequent negotiating effort failed to produce a lasting settlement.

Mediation efforts involving Oman, Pakistan and Qatar have gone nowhere. Washington and Tehran continue to disagree over sanctions, the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz and the fundamental terms of any agreement.

Trump now faces the strategic question that every president eventually encounters after starting a war: How do you get out?

It is a particularly awkward question for a president who built much of his political identity around ending America’s endless wars.

The irony is difficult to miss. Trump promised to use American strength to prevent another Middle Eastern quagmire. Six months later, the United States is trying to turn military devastation into political leverage, economic pressure into surrender, and a war that was supposed to be short into something resembling an exit strategy.

Iran has certainly paid an enormous price. There is no serious argument otherwise.

But Iran has not collapsed.

And Washington has not yet produced the clean political victory that all those missiles were supposed to buy.

So perhaps the most revealing measure is not how many Iranian targets were destroyed, but how many months later we are still asking the same question: When exactly does the victory begin?

Because at the moment, Trump has won the bombing campaign. Iran has won the irritating privilege of still being there.

Time and again, the Middle East has once again declined to follow the PowerPoint presentation.

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