Breaking news from the NYT. Is Don playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with the Iranians? And Pistol Pete Hegseth sure has a way with words. It seems like these two guys think that the best way to extinguish a fire is to pour more gasoline on it.
"The United States launched a new wave of airstrikes on Iran early Thursday morning local time, hours after President Trump vowed to keep up military pressure on Tehran because Iranian leaders were taking “too long to negotiate.”
U.S. Central Command said the attack began at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, which was 12:45 a.m. Thursday in Iran. Explosions were heard in Qeshm and Kish Islands near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the southern cities of Bandar Abbas, Minab and Sirik, according to Iranian news outlets.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military said that its jets had hit multiple Iranian targets in response to the downing of an American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz the previous day. But Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made clear that the latest strikes were meant not as retaliation for a particular military action, but to pressure Tehran to agree to peace on terms agreeable to Mr. Trump.
“If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. “And we’re very good at it. Nobody better in the world.”
The comments were the latest threats the United States had directed at Iran, which have, somewhat confusingly, been layered in with Mr. Trump’s repeated reassurances that a peace deal with Iran was imminent.
Since a cease-fire was declared two months ago, fire has slowed but not ceased. U.S. and Iranian forces have traded occasional attacks and issued almost daily contradictory claims about blame, the fighting and peace talks.
The claimed cease-fire “is more like a lesser-fire, as we have seen with the escalating attacks and rhetoric over the last 48 hours,” António Guterres, the United Nations’ secretary general, said on Wednesday.
The U.S. military said on Tuesday that its jets had hit multiple targets in southern Iran after the downing of an American helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Iran has not admitted or denied downing the helicopter, but its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said the American strikes had been conducted “under false premises.”
Among the sites damaged were critical waterworks in Sirik County, leaving thousands of people without drinking water for at least 12 hours, according to high-ranking officials quoted in Iranian news media.
In retaliation, Iran said it had launched attack drones against U.S. naval targets in Bahrain and fired missiles at American military facilities in Jordan. Officials in the countries said that the strikes
U.S. Central Command said the attack began at 5:15 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, which was 12:45 a.m. Thursday in Iran. Explosions were heard in Qeshm and Kish Islands near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the southern cities of Bandar Abbas, Minab and Sirik, according to Iranian news outlets.
On Tuesday, the U.S. military said that its jets had hit multiple Iranian targets in response to the downing of an American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz the previous day. But Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made clear that the latest strikes were meant not as retaliation for a particular military action, but to pressure Tehran to agree to peace on terms agreeable to Mr. Trump.
“If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. “And we’re very good at it. Nobody better in the world.”
The comments were the latest threats the United States had directed at Iran, which have, somewhat confusingly, been layered in with Mr. Trump’s repeated reassurances that a peace deal with Iran was imminent.
Since a cease-fire was declared two months ago, fire has slowed but not ceased. U.S. and Iranian forces have traded occasional attacks and issued almost daily contradictory claims about blame, the fighting and peace talks.
The claimed cease-fire “is more like a lesser-fire, as we have seen with the escalating attacks and rhetoric over the last 48 hours,” António Guterres, the United Nations’ secretary general, said on Wednesday.
The U.S. military said on Tuesday that its jets had hit multiple targets in southern Iran after the downing of an American helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Iran has not admitted or denied downing the helicopter, but its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said the American strikes had been conducted “under false premises.”
Among the sites damaged were critical waterworks in Sirik County, leaving thousands of people without drinking water for at least 12 hours, according to high-ranking officials quoted in Iranian news media.
In retaliation, Iran said it had launched attack drones against U.S. naval targets in Bahrain and fired missiles at American military facilities in Jordan. Officials in the countries said that the strikes had been intercepted."