Dem
47
GOP
53
Last Thursday, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard fired four drones at a Taiwan-owned, Singapore-flagged container ship in the Strait of Hormuz. One of them struck the ship's bridge and damaged it. The Guard said that ships trying to avoid the main shipping routes by taking a route hugging the coast of Oman will be attacked.
On Friday, Donald Trump accused Iran of violating the temporary ceasefire and ordered U.S. forces to attack Iranian missile and drone storage sites. Iran responded on Saturday by hitting U.S. bases in the region with drones. Also on Saturday, a tanker in the Strait was hit by an unidentified projectile. Probably not an American one, though. The U.S. then attacked targets on Iran's southern shore, including surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, minelayer capabilities, and more. In retaliation, early Sunday local time, Iran carried out missile and drone strikes against U.S. naval bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. This caused Trump to bleat: "There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!" The Iranians are now undoubtedly quaking in their boots, awaiting the next 13,000 U.S. strikes. Except they know the U.S. is running low on munitions.
This is more tit-for-tat than all-out war, but it is certainly not all-out peace, either. Negotiations are ongoing. J.D. Vance, who has been assigned the job of taking the fall when the negotiations do not achieve any of Trump's stated goals for starting the war, suggested that there could be an agreement on an enrichment moratorium for a period of time. Note: "could be" and "period of time." That is somewhat different from what Trump proclaimed at the start of the war, namely that Iran would not be permitted to do any uranium enrichment, ever. Vance has also said that Iran has agreed to have its uranium inspected by IAEA officials. Iran has said that no such thing has been agreed to.
Another key point of contention is tolls and fees. The U.S. says they are intolerable. Iran says they are necessary. One possible compromise Trump might accept is "fees" with Trump getting a nice cut of the take.
So right now, there is a kind of fragile truce that could break down at any point. Iran says the Strait is closed and the U.S. says it is open. How long can that go on? In Korea, the truce there will soon celebrate its 73rd birthday. (V)