U.S. media claim that Iran has set out new conditions to solve the conflict with the U.S. But the new text it has published is just a repetition of clauses the U.S. had already signed on to.
On Saturday Iran published ‘new’ demands for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz:
[Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr] said the US should observe the six following conditions:
“1. Never, and in no language, threaten Iran or insult the sanctities of this nation.
2. Permanently end the war and aggression against Iran and Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq.
3. Lift the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (naval and air) from around Iran.
4. Pay in full, without any reduction, the damages caused to Iran by the two wars of aggression and imposition.
5. Lift the unjust and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation.
6. Unconditionally release the blocked and stolen assets of the Iranian people.”
These demands seem to have confused U.S. observers. The Wall Street Journal claimed (archived) that these were somehow more harsh than those which had been previously issued:
[..] Iran insisted Saturday on its highest price yet for permitting the free flow of traffic in the waterway, seeking billions of dollars in U.S. payments, the removal of American troops from the region and an end of the U.S. naval blockade, among other things.
…
“Iran’s recent hardline demands for reopening the strait make it increasingly difficult for the president to manufacture a face-saving off-ramp from the conflict,” said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
The WSJ author and his ‘expert’ are mistaken. There is nothing new in the Iranian demands. They are direct repetitions of clauses laid down in Memorandum of Understanding which the White House had negotiated and President Trump had publicly signed.
Iran’s IRGC is holding the line, reiterating that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to international shipping only after the United States accepts all of its conditions, which we outlined previously. Also, on Saturday Iran’s army spokesman Amir Akraminia statedthatIran’s new protocols in the Strait of Hormuz are “irreversible” and shall not be thwarted by the US. “The United States has no choice but to accept the existing situation; otherwise, it will incur costs far greater than those it has faced in the past,” Akraminia said.
Trump should have listened to the non-interventionists and he wouldn’t have put himself and the American people in this mess. American troops would not have been caught so flat-footed and directly in harm’s way (given what was clearly lack of proper US military planning and preparedness for Iran to fight back as fiercely as it did), and hundreds of Iranian civilian lives – including massacred schoolgirls – would have been sparred.
Roth Note: Looks like even Trump’s option to ‘declare victory’ and simply walk away has now been removed from consideration by Iran.
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