Trump’s blockade battle with Iran – The Latest

0:00Patrick Wintour:This is The Guardian.

0:12Patrick Wintour:We're switching from an air campaign, which could only take you so far, to this naval blockade. We can't let a country blackmail or extort the world, because that's what they're doing. They're really blackmailing the world. We're not going to let that happen. I don't think in itself it's going to bring an end to the war, but it is a piece of leverage which they haven't had before. This would have to last many weeks and into months for it to have any real impact upon the Iranian economy. It's the battle of the blockades as Trump threatens to lay siege to Iranian ports in a move designed to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table and reopen the Strait of Hamuz.

0:51From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff. Well, I'm happy to be joined again by Patrick Winter, our diplomatic editor, but increasingly the latest Iran war correspondent. Thank you for coming up to speak to us again. So just about a week ago, we were talking about a ceasefire that had been agreed between the US and Iran. But now the US has imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports, despite, you know, pressure on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz being a key part of that ceasefire. What's going on and what does that look like in military terms?

1:30Patrick Wintour:Well, sure. I think it's actually one of the first sort of semi-sensible things Americans have done in this war. war and I mean obviously on the surface it seems paradoxical in the sense that the Americans are trying to get the Strait of Hormuz opened and now they seem to be mounting a blockade but it's actually a specific blockade of Iranian ports of which there are about seven or so along the strait and they're trying to make sure that no Iranian oil ships can leave those ports. I mean whether it will work or not I don't know but it obviously has the impact of trying to reduce the amount of income the Iranian government receives.

2:07Patrick Wintour:But it also has a particular political pressure on China because China is the most keen to import Iranian oil and liquid gas. And more than 50 % of the Iranian oil goes to China. And China has always been trying to avoid taking too forward a position in this conflict. And now that may put some pressure on them to try to end this war. And they're probably the only country apart from America in an actual battle that can use its diplomatic clout to bring this to an end. And mercifully, China has made it clear that it doesn't wish to engage in a military conflict with the US. So as you say, there is perhaps some strategy there, but it feels really dicey, this idea of there being this naval blockade, Chinese ships passing through, Iran responding, they do have the capacity to send missiles, out to these ships.

3:02Does this not just risk re-escalation?

3:05Patrick Wintour:Sure. I mean, it is a bit of an attempt at escalation, more leverage, and there are risks. I mean, for instance, I don't think the Chinese would take kindly if an American destroyer actually attacked a Chinese-laden oil tanker. So those are the risks. But I think in an odd way, Donald Trump's always thought about trying to recreate the Venezuela experience in Iran and This is the targeting of narco ships. Yes, and he's seeing this image of small Iranian patrol boats that he can strafe and destroy if they try to attack any of the American destroyers. And he's been saying repeatedly that the Iranian Navy is at the bottom of the sea, so there's not much for him to worry about in terms of this naval battle.

3:54Patrick Wintour:So he's switching from an air campaign, which could only take you so far, to this naval blockade. I don't think in itself it's going to bring an end to the war or it wouldn't bring an end to war sufficiently quickly. But it is a piece of leverage which they haven't had before. So it's about trying to inflict economic pain on Iran, presumably to bring them to the negotiating table. How have Iran responded to that? Well, with the usual threats you might expect that they're saying that if their ports aren't open to Iran, they will respond by attacking American ships. As yet, that's not happened. And there has been occasions at least two Chinese bound oil ships that have left and have not been attacked by America.

4:40Patrick Wintour:So I think everyone's maneuvering at this stage trying to guess where they are militarily and in naval terms and what kind of assets they have available. We're still in the kind of last first 48 hours of all this. Yeah, this is the first full day. In terms of Iran's capacity to withstand that economic pain, how well resourced is it to cope with a blockade that may run into several days, potentially weeks? It would have to be, this would have to last many weeks into months for it to have any impact upon, real impact upon the Iranian economy. And I don't know whether by chance or by design, they have, the Iranians have managed to get quite a lot of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz now.

5:23Patrick Wintour:And it's on in the open seas heading towards its export market. So they have a good sort of cushion there in terms of income. So I don't think it's a kind of short term problem. The bigger problem is going to be negotiating a kind of future governance system for the Strait of Hormuz, which is going to be very, very complicated. Yeah. And perhaps the confusing dynamics of this are best summarised by the fact that Iran is making these kind of military threats, but the South African embassy of Iran has just posted a video of Donald Trump as a kind of Duran Duran style organist singing blockade, blockade.

6:12You know, there's this kind of trolling that we've seen throughout the last few weeks. But if this is designed about, you know, like serious diplomacy, serious negotiations, it does seem that we are some way from that.

6:22Patrick Wintour:Well, there is a war is fought on many fronts and communications is one of them. And it has been a rather kind of strange aspect to this war is that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which regards one of the most conservative outfits in the world, seems to have given leeway to a kind of younger Iranian generation to make these social media interventions, both via embassies and other means. So it's like Gen Z memes. Exactly. And there has been some sort of kind of serious work done which shows this but had a quite a big impact in America and that younger Americans are watching this stuff. And it's slightly changing their view of Iran where, you know, Mommel's images of sort of the idea of communications within Iran is sort of clerics sort of using manuscript means to write out the Koran.

7:12Patrick Wintour:But in fact, when I've been in Tarrant, I've been to some of these very younger newspapers, which are very kind of socially media, very cultural. And they're staffed by people, you know, at least five decades younger than me and really understand how social media works. But there's an irony, isn't it, in that, you know, thousands of Iranian young people killed by that very same regime earlier this year. And it's easy these memes sort of sanitize in that way and confuse perceptions in a way I'm sure that is by design. So Patrick, this sort of battle of the blockades is happening amidst this very complex web of negotiations that are happening on a number of different fronts, aren't they?

7:52There were the talks in Islamabad over the weekend, failed talks that stalled over the issue of Iran's nuclear enrichment. There are these unprecedented in more than four decades talks between Israel and Lebanon that this morning's today in Focus did an excellent deep dive into with Will Christou, our reporter based in Beirut. But then we've also got European leaders who've been talking to each other this morning about how to monitor the situation in the state of Hamus and how to look at reopening that strait. But in all of this, Trump feels like quite an isolated figure, right? And leaning very heavily on his relationship with Israel and its Prime Minister Netanyahu.

8:31Patrick Wintour:Yeah, well, you're right to say that the talks are now happening at three different levels. not quite simultaneously because although you described the Islamabad talks as failed, I mean, I think it's probably fair to describe them as sort of adjourned or suspended. And I think the likelihood is that that will reconvene. And in reality, there are private negotiations going on now about the terms on which they would reconvene. So there's that. And then there's this issue of whether there should be a ceasefire in Lebanon, which had been a precondition of the Iranians before they would meet with the Americans in Islamabad, and they had to drop that.

9:08I'm interested in the announcement in the last hour or so about this summit with European leaders. Our own Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been talking to the Mirror, and she says she's frustrated and angry about what seems to be the lack of an exit strategy from this conflict, and specifically the economic damage that's being inflicted on Europe because of the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, Donald Trump yesterday, when he was talking to reporters prior to the blockade being implemented, was sort of proudly saying, well, we're OK because we've got our own massive resources of shale gas.

9:40But that isn't true for Europe. And this is causing real economic harm that will continue. Sure.

9:46Patrick Wintour:Well, I think the Labour ministers have slightly been given license to be more rude about Donald Trump in the last few days, partly because of these ridiculous statements he's been making about civilisation or erasure and then likening himself to God or Pope or whatever. all this nonsense that's been coming out. As to the talks between France, the UK and other countries, this is the third in a series about what could be done to govern the Straits of Hormuz after the conflict is over. And there are two crunchy issues, I think, in there. One is whether there could be any attempt to try to demine the Straits of Hormuz before the conflict ends, and would that be seen as defensive civil would that be seen as supportive of America and the second is I think they're looking at what kind of further economic sanctions they could impose upon Iran their bottom line seems to be this must be freedom of navigation means that you don't have to pay freedom of navigation is is not just an abstract term it's something that has to be real but the Iranians are talking in terms of there being a fee or a toll paid in crypto to avoid sanctions how you police that is incredibly hard.

10:58Patrick Wintour:So it may be ambitious rather than a reality. Yes, and deeply complex by the sounds of things. We will no doubt speak again very soon, Patrick. Thank you. Pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Patrick Wintour, The Guardian's diplomatic editor. You can keep up with his reporting and his analysis over at theguardian.com. And do listen to this morning's episode of Today in Focus if you haven't already, which is looking at the Israel-Lebanon talks and the view from the ground in Lebanon with our reporter there, Will Christy. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus.

11:31Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

11:55Patrick Wintour:This is The Guardian.

12:26Patrick Wintour:We'll see you next time. No bills in sight. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search XERO for your free trial. Conditions apply.