Trump's Address

 

Trump said the United States plans to attack Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks in a speech last night that made little mention of diplomacy. It was his first formal address about the Iran war since its start more than a month ago. Yet Trump made no major announcements, instead reiterating recent talking points: core U.S. goals are “nearing completion,” Trump said, giving no assurances about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and saying that other countries should “take the lead” on the matter. Iran’s military command responded by vowing to carry out “more crushing, broader, and more destructive” attacks, according to state media. 

Trump said the United States plans to attack Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks in a speech last night that made little mention of diplomacy. It was his first formal address about the Iran war since its start more than a month ago. Yet Trump made no major announcements, instead reiterating recent talking points: core U.S. goals are “nearing completion,” Trump said, giving no assurances about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and saying that other countries should “take the lead” on the matter. Iran’s military command responded by vowing to carry out “more crushing, broader, and more destructive” attacks, according to state media. 

The president voiced plans to bomb Iran—a nation of more than 90 million— “back to the stone ages.” Trump threatened to strike Iran’s power plants and possibly its oil infrastructure if a deal to end the war is not reached. He also said the United States was surveilling Iran’s nuclear materials and would attack if Iran were to “make a move” toward them, while praising the degradation of Iran’s navy and air force as a result of the war. Global oil prices rose and stocks tumbled in the wake of Trump’s address.

The status of U.S.-Iran diplomacy: Unnamed U.S. and Iranian officials told the New York Times the two countries are exchanging messages but have not entered formal negotiations over a truce or peace deal. While Trump wrote on social media yesterday that Tehran had requested a ceasefire, Iran denied it. Iranian officials have said they instead seek a broad deal to end the conflict. Iran believes the United States is not serious about diplomacy, according to comments from its foreign ministry spokesperson published on state media.

The status of talks on Hormuz: The United Kingdom (UK) is hosting a virtual meeting of some thirty-five countries today to discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz. For now, ships passing through the strait have done so via negotiations with Tehran; the Philippines said today it had gained permission to transit. Some ships have been required to make payments in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency in order to get through, Bloomberg reported.  “In abandoning both military restraint and the strategy of great-power competition, the current Trump administration has pivoted to what it calls ‘flexible realism.’ Anchored in the principle that might makes right, this new approach seems designed to justify the president’s expansive use of coercion…But a penchant for power, unmoored from strategy or a clear definition of the national interest, does not qualify a leader as realist.”

—CFR expert Rebecca Lissner and the Brookings Institution’s Mira Rapp-Hooper, Foreign Affairs