Add the Gazzetta del Sud as a source
The truce between Iran and the United States is increasingly hanging by a thread. After announcing for the umpteenth time the imminence of an agreement, Donald Trump has decided to raise the bar. And the winds of war have begun to blow again in the Persian Gulf, with Tehran responding blow for blow to the US raids. And with an oil tanker hit by a US missile off the coast of Oman which has also heated up the climate between Washington and New Delhi: 21 Indian sailors have been rescued and at least 3 are missing, with the Modi government having summoned the American diplomatic representative.
Iran “is wasting time, it’s just talk from them, and now it will have to pay the price”, threatened the commander-in-chief after a night of crossfire, saying he was ready to order new attacks against Iranian power plants and bridges”. No longer, therefore, just “defensive and proportionate” raids like those in retaliation for the shooting down of an Apache helicopter.
“We have hit them hard, and we will hit them hard today too,” threatened the US president from the Oval Office on the sidelines of the signing of the Secure America Act, the law that will bring 70 billion dollars into the coffers of the immigration authorities.
However, Trump reiterated his desire to reach an agreement which, he states, “is done and just needs to be signed”. An agreement that puts an end to the conflict and allows him to free himself from a “debacle that is transforming him – notes the Financial Times – into a sort of Jimmy Carter in the 1979 hostage crisis.
Diplomacy therefore continues to work to try to break the impasse that has arisen in the negotiations. The administration follows the path of maximum pressure to force Tehran to give in and sign an agreement.
To speed up the talks, Qatari negotiators flew to Tehran in an attempt to bridge the remaining differences and reach an agreement. The three waves of American attacks in response to the helicopter shot down in Hormuz, in fact, pushed Iran to respond with raids on some American bases in the region – in Bahrain and Jordan – leaving people to fear the worst and rekindling the fear of a prolonged war that would spread like wildfire.
“We reserve the right to self-defense and legitimate retaliation against attacks,” warned Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, after urging countries in the region to deny the use of their infrastructure to the United States and Israel.
«They have nothing, they don’t have a navy. They are a failed state. They think we’re idiots: I gave them time but they continue to dawdle”, reiterated an increasingly frustrated commander-in-chief. Mutual reprisals in fact make the situation extremely volatile, increasing the risk that the two sides could cross their respective red lines.
And Russia and China are loudly calling for a de-escalation: “It is necessary to maintain calm and take concrete measures to ease and cool tensions”, warns Beijing. While threatening to use force, the United States nevertheless continues to leverage economic pressure to strangle Iran’s leadership. The US Treasury has imposed new sanctions on nine individuals and entities accused of helping the Pasdaran obtain weapons. The US military maintains a blockade of Iranian ports to turn off the regime’s oil revenue taps.
«It’s effective. It’s a wall of steel,” Trump said, defending the blockade, one of the most powerful levers at his disposal to push Tehran into a corner. But Tehran does not seem to be intimidated and raises the issue: “Every time the US president spoke he received a resounding slap in response from us”, thundered the spokesman for the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces. Provocations that it is not clear how much longer Trump will tolerate.