Hopes for quick peace deal fade
The United States launched fresh attacks against Iran on Thursday, prompting Tehran to retaliate, as US leaders accused their counterparts of dragging out negotiations for a deal to end the three-month war.
The second straight day of tit-for-tat strikes, with Iran targeting US bases across the Gulf, sent oil prices rising again.
US President Donald Trump, who had repeatedly said negotiations with Tehran were close to an end, said on Wednesday that Iran keeps “playing us for suckers” and will now “have to pay the price.”
Hours after, US Central Command said American forces began “additional self-defense strikes” at 5:15 pm on Wednesday Washington time—early on Thursday in Iran—in response to what it called Tehran’s “unwarranted and continued aggression.”
The renewed hostilities came as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that if Trump required it, “we’ll negotiate with bombs and we’re very good at it.”
In response to the US strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said they had struck US targets on bases in Kuwait and Bahrain and that they also “hit and destroyed Sheikh Isa air bases,” according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Sacred ‘Strait’
Iran also renewed its warning over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas transport, which it has essentially closed.
“Are you making the sacred Strait of Hormuz unsafe?! We will make the region hell for you,” Majid Mousavi, the head of the Iranian Guards’ aerospace force, said in a social media post.
The Iranian navy said it had hit two ships trying to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, state television IRIB and the Mehr agency reported.
Earlier, American broadcaster Fox News reported that Trump said Iranian leaders had called him directly in the White House Situation Room as the US bombs began falling.
Iran’s Guards quickly denied Tehran had done so, the IRNA news agency said.
Fox News reporter Trey Yingst, who spoke to Trump, quoted the president as saying that if Iran did not accept US terms for ending the war, “We’ll bomb the S out of them tomorrow night.”
Calls for restraint
The escalation drew international calls for restraint on the eve of the World Cup, which the US is cohosting and Iran is participating in.
UN chief Antonio Guterres cautioned against a return to “full war.”
Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, meanwhile, rejected Trump’s threat, saying “no sustainable deal can be reached through threats, intimidation or the use of force.”
Still, diplomacy has not collapsed entirely, with Qatari negotiators traveling to Tehran “to meet with the Iranians in an effort to bridge the remaining gaps,” a diplomat with knowledge of the situation said.
Iran has insisted that any deal to end the war must include a truce in Lebanon, drawn into the conflict when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2.
