Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the murky status of U.S. talks to end the Iran war, Lebanon balancing threats from Iran and Israel, and Taiwan’s opposition leader preparing to visit China.

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that “[g]reat progress has been made” in negotiations to end the Iran war. At the same time, though, Trump warned that if Tehran does not agree to a peace deal soon and immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, then “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).”

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the murky status of U.S. talks to end the Iran war, Lebanon balancing threats from Iran and Israel, and Taiwan’s opposition leader preparing to visit China.

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that “[g]reat progress has been made” in negotiations to end the Iran war. At the same time, though, Trump warned that if Tehran does not agree to a peace deal soon and immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, then “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).”

The White House has issued this threat before. On March 21, Trump gave Iran 48 hours to reopen the strategic waterway or else face attacks on its energy infrastructure; however, despite Iran failing to comply, on March 23, Trump extended the deadline to March 27. Then, less than 24 hours before that deadline was due to expire, Trump extended it again, this time to April 6. Each time that he has moved the cutoff date, Trump has cited negotiations with Iran as the reason.

An attack on Iran’s energy sector—particularly its critical Kharg Island, where around 90 percent of the country’s crude exports pass before transiting the Strait of Hormuz—could have devastating consequences for Tehran.

“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday, adding, “I don’t think they have any defense. We could take it very easily.” Kharg is believed to have a loading capacity of some 7 million barrels a day.

While the White House purports to be making progress in Iran negotiations, the U.S. military is........

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