Trump chickens out on Iran deadline – The Latest

0:00Patrick Wintour:This is The Guardian.

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0:54Patrick Wintour:Just before the markets opened, we decided to make this announcement. As ever, it's Armageddon postponed, so we have to live on this sort of the edge the whole time. No, we have a very serious chance of making a deal. That doesn't guarantee anything. I'm not guaranteeing anything. If I were a betting man, I'd bet for it. But again, I'm not guaranteeing anything. I think maybe the Americans are discovering that the Iranians are willing to go further up the escalation ladder. There isn't any sign that they're fracturing as a regime. They're taking big, big hits, but they are aimed at one thing, which is survival.

1:26Trump says there's been productive talks with Iran as he extends a deadline on military strikes to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But what's really going on? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Half. I'm joined by Patrick Wintour, the Guardians diplomatic editor. Thanks for joining us again, Patrick. So quite a lot of confused messaging coming out of the White House over the weekend. We've had a post from the President Trump this morning on Truth Social, his social media platform, saying that he has postponed strikes on Iranian power plants because of talks between the US and the Iranians.

2:06But that came not long after this ultimatum of 48 hours for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hamuz. So obviously quite a convoluted picture there. But I wonder if you can help clarify if that's possible.

2:19Patrick Wintour:Unravel all this. Well, there was a very good tweet by the FT's Washington correspondent, Edward Luce, who said it's a rather odd situation where we have to wait to see what Tehran's saying before we understand the truth of the matter. Because trying to work out what Trump has done and we're all living in his headspace is kind of quite grueling activity. But it certainly seems that just before the markets opened, and I think that's significant, he decided to make this announcement that he was holding back for five days. But as ever, it's Armageddon postponed. So we have to live on this sort of the edge the whole time.

2:55Patrick Wintour:But it doesn't seem like there was any direct talks between Iran and the Americans, which led to this, what must look like a decision. What's called this taco? Trump always chickens out. Looks like another decision to climb down. And he hasn't got anything back in return as yet. Yeah, and we'll come on to the markets in a second. But as far as these talks are concerned, so Trump says that there were very productive conversations between US and Iranian officials, conversations, he says, about complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East. But the Iranian side is much less clear about whether those talks took place or to what extent they were able to talk about.

3:40Patrick Wintour:Well, there's bound to be some crowing going on in Tehran about this and saying we haven't spoken to him at all. But it's gradually emerging that there were some kind of talks happening. And those would probably be via one of two intermediaries, either Oman or Turkey, both of whom have got kind of respect in Washington and in Tehran. And it may be that the talks were very much focused on this issue of how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and on what terms. And then that might broaden out into a wider discussion of how Iran and America are going to live with one another. But we've been living in this situation where everyone's been escalating and escalating.

4:22And I think maybe the Americans are discovering that the Iranians are willing to go further up the escalation ladder than either America or its allies are willing to go.

4:33Patrick Wintour:And so that's maybe leading to some considerations inside Washington as to what to do. Yes, and this blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and we're now entering the fourth week of this war, oil prices over the weekend were at$113 a barrel, even higher than they were last week. Since that post on True Social this morning, oil prices have plummeted, there's been some improvement in the markets. Like you say, there's that Wall Street expression, taco, Trump always chickens out, but that seems to be quite an important factor in all of this. Yes, I mean, I think markets are going to move according to whatever the latest posting from Donald Trump is.

5:09Patrick Wintour:But I think at some point, we're gonna have to move on from taking him as seriously and literally as we do. But it's so difficult when the stakes are so high. And when we're seeing such carnage occurring throughout the Middle East. And I think, you know, you'll bear in mind, I mean, how the Iranians were thinking, in terms of seeing their own electricity grid being attacked, have seen what's happened to Ukraine. And I think they were both worried and angry and defiant. And there would have been consequences back in the sense of there would have been a big Iranian response. And I think the way they would have raised the escalation ladder a bit more would have been to attack these desalination plants inside.

5:52Which are these facilities that clean water? a very vital infrastructure that would, I mean, Amnesty International would say that that sort of attack would account to a war crime. It would cause huge disruption across the Middle East. But that was in response to this 48-hour deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Do you think because of this taco-type quality of Trump, there's some reliability that Iran feels it's in a stronger position to keep going, to not bow to US action?

6:23Patrick Wintour:I think at the moment there isn't any sign that they're either fracturing as a regime or that the sort of resilience of the nation is under attack. I mean, obviously, they're taking big, big hits and their whole kind of structure of the security state is being attacked daily. But they are, as many people have said, they are aimed at one thing, which is survival. And they believe they can achieve that. And there are differing estimates around about how many missile launches they've still got. And even if it's a third of what they had before, that's still enough to cause a lot of damage. And there's sort of ambiguity within the Gulf states as to how to continue with this.

7:09Patrick Wintour:I mean, there are some, like the United Arab Emirates, that would probably like to go on the offensive against Iran. But there are others that are holding back. And I think the Gulf states, whatever they do, they'll do it together. So there's no movement of a really significant nature there. But as we were discussing last week, there has been huge damage to the Iranian regime. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei obviously killed at the start of the conflict. His son Mujtaba Khamenei reportedly to be injured. We had Lara Jani, this very senior official in the regime, also killed last week.

7:45So, I mean, we've talked about that unity that they're trying to project, but they must be in a much weakened position.

7:51Patrick Wintour:Yes, but they seem to be able to keep going. Ultimately, the measure of it is whether they're still attacking Gulf states, whether they've still got the Strait of Formus under their stranglehold. And they do. So even if the names on the leadership are changing or sometimes there are interim leaders or the Ministry of Intelligence, there's a vacancy. it doesn't matter. They're still functioning as a state. There are 90 million people there. There's about a thousand families that are involved in Iranian political leadership in various ways. So you just cannot wipe them all out. You can wipe out the leaders and you can weaken them.

8:28Patrick Wintour:But ultimately, they renew and reproduce. And in terms of the state of play in the Strait of Hamus, I mean, obviously, military attacks have continued over the weekend. The Strait of Hamus is still technically blockaded, but there has been some ships, about 100 let through. Yes, but it's all being done under the control of the Iranians. The Iranians are deciding which ships can go through and which can't. And there are negotiations going on between South Korea sort of ringing up saying, can we get our ships through? We haven't done anything to offend you. Japan's in sort of quite a good odour with the Iranians, partly because the foreign minister used to be the ambassador to Japan.

9:06Patrick Wintour:Obviously, the Indians are getting some ships through and the Chinese, which is the main market, are getting ships through, but the West is not getting any ships through. And also the Iranians have got to judge it right because if they let too much oil onto the market, then the oil price will descend and that's not what they want. Their big measure, their big metric of their success is what the oil price is standing at. But ultimately there is this sense, I think, of just a bit of a ticking time bomb. I mean, this ultimatum that has been extended to five days to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, But very conflicting messages from a president who has been isolated from much of the West, from NATO, from allies, an Iran that is weakened but very determined.

9:51I mean, what Iran is threatening could be intensely dangerous and destabilizing in the Middle East and therefore for the wider world. What are the risks in the next week?

10:04Patrick Wintour:Well, the risks are that Donald Trump sort of looks again, he'll be laughed at, I'm sure, today. He'll find that very difficult to take and he might by tonight sort of revise his opinions. or he could press ahead with this idea of some kind of land invasion to take these islands in the Strait of Hormuz and try to actually militarily take control. And that might be the military saying to him that is a better way to pursue this than just some kind of retributive attack on the energy facilities of Iran, which would be a war crime anyway. It would be an absolute clear is a daylight war crime because, I mean, the British have described what the Russians do in Ukraine is barbaric.

10:48Patrick Wintour:And I think it'd be very hard for the UK Attorney General not to say the same thing about America doing that to Iran's energies. And there are already a large number of US military personnel in the Strait of Hormuz, aren't there? They're moving in that direction, but there's huge risks involved in that. Trying to take islands which are quite close to the Iranian main coastland is going to be difficult because they can be fired at very easily. I mean, it's fair to say that the Iranian Navy is pretty well reduced to non-existent, but you don't need very complicated boats to cause a lot of damage.

11:23Patrick Wintour:And they'd have to hold the straits indefinitely, militarily. And I just think that's going to be really, really difficult to pull off. In the end, there has to be a sort of diplomatic solution to all this. Well, it's going to be a quiet news week, Patrick. Thank you so much for your time. Pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Patrick Wintour, The Guardian's diplomatic editor. And for more on how Trump's U-turn has played out in the UK and what the government made of the SNL sketch about Keir Starmer, do listen to today's episode of our sister podcast, Politics Weekly. Tomorrow's episode of Today in Focus will be on the situation on the ground in Lebanon.

12:01The latest will be back as usual tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Briony Moore. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

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12:46Patrick Wintour:This is The Guardian.

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