US and Iran exchange strikes: is Trump’s peace deal over? - The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11It's clear that Trump is trying to sort of escalate out of this. We just hit him very hard and I say we hit him 20 to 1. Every time they hit us, we're going to hit him 20. Two railway bridges have been hit between Tehran and Masha. Both sides, I think, would want to find a way of climbing down. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Donald Trump has said the truce with Iran is over as the US has struck 170 sites in Iran over the past two nights. Julian Borgia, you are our senior international correspondent. We're speaking to you from Jerusalem. What's caused this escalation?

0:51Well, on Monday night, Tuesday morning, Iran appears to have struck three ships were going through the Strait of Hormuz. And what seems to have happened is these ships, which included an oil tanker and an LNG gas tanker, were going along a route that hadn't been approved by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the IRGC. And that seems to be, at the crux of it, control of the strait. Okay. Yes, because control of the strait is clearly the big issue or was the big issue in terms of finding some kind of truce ceasefire. But it was quite broadly written, wasn't it? And I think contained many holes that we're starting to see now.

1:38Iran say they feel that the memorandum of understanding gave them control of this part. The US disagrees. So do they have an argument here? Does Iran have a point? Well, I think it's fair to say that shooting at ships goes against the spirit of the memorandum of understanding. I think the language in the memorandum was that Iran would make arrangement for its best efforts to ensure safe passage. It was an odd kind of language. But obviously shooting at ships doesn't really fit under that. And it's worth remembering that in Iran there are a lot of factions, groups, power centers who are very much against this whole agreement.

2:25So there are spoilers in there. But yes, it is hazy. There are implications that Iran does have a claim to have some kind of control. It's not supposed to make any charges or tolls for 60 days. But it is given the opportunity to discuss with Oman and other states in the region what the future of the strait should be, which implies some kind of some kind of ownership. Yeah, right. Well, at least clearer terms on this agreement on the Strait of Henry. So what's likely to happen next? Because, I mean, 170 strikes in two nights is a very large military offensive. Can we expect days of violence at that scale, do you think?

3:14Well, it's clear that Trump is trying to sort of escalate out of this. It was about 80 strikes on the first night and then 90. and he's threatened, oh, this is only going to get worse. And this is how he approaches these kind of situations, trying to escalate out and then, as we've seen before, climb back down. And I think it's likely both major parties in this situation don't want a return to a full-scale war. U.S. because of all the economic ripple effects from that and the approach of elections. and Iran because it's only just getting some relief after months of war and years of sanctions. And it was getting some sanctions relief on its oil exports.

4:04That's now been revoked for the time being. Both sides, I think, would want to find a way of climbing down. Yeah, yeah, and moving forward back to this more stable position. But the timing of this is all very sensitive, isn't it, because it's the week-long funeral of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the early strikes when war broke out at the end of February, that he is due to be buried today. So the idea that a revival of military action is happening as the former Supreme Leader is buried is significant. Yeah, very significant. And most of the targets have been along Iran's southern coast.

4:50There have been reports that two railway bridges have been hit between Tehran and Mashhad, which is where the funeral is taking place. So, you know, that looks very much like a pointed message. It'd be presumably one of the routes that people attending the funeral would be hoping to go back on. So it does look like a message. Yeah, and I would really recommend anyone to listen to Wednesday's episode of Today in Focus, because our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, was one of the very few foreign journalists to be allowed into Iran in this very historic week. You're in Jerusalem and Israel is obviously a key player in all of this, given that the strikes were initially, it was a US-Israeli military operation on Iran.

5:35What's been the reaction from the Israeli government? Well, the only public official reaction has been to have security meetings, defense meetings in the case of an escalation that hits Israel and that Israel should be able to defend itself and strike back. There haven't been any sort of official cheering from the sidelines from Benjamin Netanyahu. But this clearly suits him, the agreement between the US and Iran. Because he wanted no end to the war. Absolutely. The U.S.-Iran agreement and the prospect of something more enduring that addressed the nuclear issue as well would have been a complete disaster for him going into elections because he vowed that he was going to get rid of the Iranian threat to Israel, which he's always portrayed as being existential.

6:32this was going to be what his delivery was for the electorate. The US-Iran deal definitely is not that. Yes, yes. And it's impossible to sell a victory to the Israeli public as things currently stand. I'm just wondering also what you're hearing on the ground in Jerusalem and perhaps how this is being reported in the Israeli press. Well, I think there's an expectation that this won't escalate back to full-scale war and that there won't be an attack on Israel because that would be very unwise for Iran. In recent days, the Israeli press have been more worried about the prospective U.S. sale of F-35 stealth warplanes to Turkey than the Iranian flare-up, and that is because they're very concerned about the route that Turkey is taking.

7:24It's got closer and closer. Hamas has been very outspoken about Gaza, And so the idea that a potential adversary would have technology on a par with the best that Israel has is deeply worrying for the Israeli defence establishment. Well, it's been a busy week for Donald Trump because he's also been at the NATO summit in Ankara, where he's been making a series of very inflammatory statements on seizing Greenland, on cutting trade with Spain. He announced there that the truce with Iran was over. But are negotiations still going on behind the scenes? And one hopes that there are some serious US diplomats that are engaged in this process to bring this to a close.

8:09Well, that's been one of the questions all along. Are there serious US diplomats involved in this? I mean, they're taking the two property developers who Trump trusts, who believe that they know everything about the history of the Middle East and nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but actually don't. And we're talking about Steve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner. And they are being blamed by some, many in the US for the very vagueness of the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding, with the holes that some are blaming for this flare-up. Yeah. Well, goodness. It feels like Groundhog Day, Julian. But thank you so much for your time.

8:55Thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Julian Borger, The Guardian's senior international correspondent. You can keep up with all his reporting and live coverage of this story over at theguardian.com. And I really recommend today's episode of our sister podcast, Politics Weekly. Kieran Stacey and Jess Elgott will have a roundup from the week's news in Westminster. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Angus Neal and Leo Schick.

9:28The senior producer was Ryan Ramgoban.

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