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The United States military said late Wednesday its forces carried out new ‘defensive strikes’ on Iran after President Donald Trump asserted that Tehran was “negotiating on fumes”.
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According to US Central Command (Centcom), its forces struck four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz and an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone.
The new US attack, the second in three days, comes amid a fragile weekslong ceasefire and active talks between both sides on ending the nearly three-month-old war and a settlement that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Details about the strikes emerged after Trump, at a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, expressed confidence that his administration was making headway on settling the war, even as he later warned the US ‘will have to finish the job’ should talks fail.
“They want very much to make a deal,” Trump said. “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be — either that or we’ll have to just finish the job.”
Wednesday’s strikes also come as Trump races ahead of November’s midterm elections in the United States and as Republicans worry that rising costs and fuel prices are darkening the American electorate’s mood.
Trump says he doesn’t care about midterm elections
Analysts say Trump is looking for a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that’s been politically unpopular for Republicans.
But as things stand, Trump also risks finding that closure to his war of choice comes with an unsatisfactory ending.
Details of an emerging deal have already exposed the US president to fierce criticism — even from some of his own supporters — that Iran’s hardline leaders will come from the conflict battered but emboldened.
But Trump on Wednesday dismissed the idea that the upcoming elections would shape his Iran strategy. “They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, ‘We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms,’” Trump said. “I don’t care about the midterms.”
Trump insists a deal is within reach despite what appears to be daylight between the US and Iran on several key issues, key amongst them what to do with Iran’s stockpiles of uranium and Israel’s war on Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Tehran wants stopped.
Under the potential deal, Tehran would agree to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — a key Trump demand — in return for sanctions relief.
Trump said Wednesday that he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with either Russia or China taking Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
The two countries have the closest relations with Tehran, and nuclear analysts have said they could be a potential acceptable third party to the Iranian Republic to take possession of the enriched uranium as part of a potential deal.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran has not publicly committed to giving up its uranium.
