By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

After the downing of an American plane over Iranian territory, Iran calls on public to find ‘enemy pilot’ as US continues frantic search.

The US military pressed ahead on Saturday in a desperate search for a missing pilot over a remote area in Iran, a day after the Islamic Republic shot down a US warplane and promised a reward for whoever turns in the pilot (AP/Associated Press, April 4).

The plane, identified by Iran as a F-15E Strike Eagle, was one of two attacked on Friday, with one service member rescued.

It was the first time the United States lost aircraft in Iran’s territory at war, now in its sixth week, and could add pressure on the Trump administration to end its attacks.

The war, which began with joint US-Israeli strikes on February 28, has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off a key shipping route and spiked fuel prices.

It shows no signs of slowing as Iran responds to airstrikes with its own attacks across the region after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the United States had “beaten and completely decimated Iran.”

The US and Israel had also boasted that Iran’s air defences were obliterated.

On Saturday, an apparent Iranian drone damaged the headquarters of US technology company Oracle in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets and infrastructure in the war.

According to international law, this could amount to war crimes.

The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said that an airstrike hit near its Bushehr nuclear facility, killing a security guard and damaging a support building.

It’s the fourth time the facility has been targeted.

The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said that 198 workers were being evacuated.

Thankfully, there has been no signs of nuclear contamination, which would not only affect Iran, but the whole region as well.

Iran signals willingness to join talks in Pakistan

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that they “have never refused to go to Islamabad.” 

Last week, Pakistan said that it would soon host talks between the US and Iran.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told The Associated Press that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track”.

Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt are working to bring the U.S. and Iran back to the negotiating table in Islamabad, according to two regional officials.

They said that they were working on a compromise to bridge the gap between the two sides’ demands to stop the war and reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the matter.

The UN Security Council was expected to take up the matter of reopening the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.

And Trump reminded Iran of his Monday ultimatum to open the strait or make a deal, warning on his social media platform Truth Social, of “48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”

As usual, this will turn out to be mere bravado and an empty threat.

Iran hunts for ‘enemy pilot’

Now Trump says the American officer who went missing in Iran after the downing of his F-15E fighter jet has been rescued and is “now safe and sound.”

Iran claims the downing of two further C-130 planes and two Black Hawk helicopters belonging to the U.S.

State television broadcast footage of the wreckage, saying it belonged to one of the planes (Al Jazeera, 5. April).

Previously, the search for the missing U.S. pilot focussed on a mountainous region in Iran’s southern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad near Iraq.

In a telephone interview with NBC News, Trump said that what happened wouldn’t affect negotiations with Iran.

Iran’s veiled threat to disrupt second waterway

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab-el Mandeb.

The strait, 32 kilometres wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Presumably, this would be in close cooperation with the Iranian allies, the Houthis in neighbouring Yemen.

More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it and the Suez Canal.  

“What share of global oil, LNG, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait?” Qalibaf wrote pointedly.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?”

The terrible toll of the war

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In the Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 US service members have been killed.

In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and there have been more than 1 million displaced people. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there (AP).

Iran’s former top diplomat suggests terms to end the war

In a sign that part of Iran’s theocracy would be willing to negotiate, the country’s former foreign minister published a proposal for ending the conflict in the influential American magazine, Foreign Affairs.

Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javed Zarif – a diplomat with long experience negotiating with the West who remains close to a pragmatic wing of Iran’s leadership wrote that the time had come to end the suffering.

“Prolonged hostility will cause a greater loss of precious lives and irreplaceable resources without actually altering the existing stalemate, Zarif wrote.

Zarif had helped negotiate Iran’s 2015 agreement with world powers.

The US had presented Iran – through intermediaries – a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities and limiting its missile production in exchange for sanctions relief.

But no signs of progress were apparent in the diplomatic effort.

Iran’s initial five-point counter-proposal aired by hard-line state television, included recognizing Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, the removal of US bases from the region, compensation for war damage, and a guarantee against further aggression – all things unpalatable to the Trump administration.

Zarif’s proposal included elements of both the plans

Iran ‘should offer to place limits on its nuclear programme and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions—a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now,’ He wrote.

It’s not clear how much to read into Zarif’s proposal.

While he has no official position in Iran’s government, he helped get reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian elected and would likely not have published such a piece without at least some authorization from senior leaders.

However, immediately after the article came out, Zarif wrote he had been ‘torn’ about it – a sign he may already face pressure at home.

Iran Expert on Trump’s War

Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group has written in The New York Times that Trump was right when he said on Wednesday that the United States has won every tactical exchange against Iran.

What he did not admit to is that as commander in chief, he still managed to lose command of events.

He has thus lost control of the Iran war (NYT, April 6).

The writer can be reached at: shashimalla125@gmail.com