By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

U.S. delegation heading to Pakistan for new talks

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was sending negotiators to Pakistan for new talks with Iran for ending the war – but that Vice President J.D. Vance would not lead the delegation (AFP/Agence France Presse, April 19).

The news that Vance – who lead the last round of talks with Tehran in Islamabad, but came away with no deal – would not travel this time emerged in a confusing manner, as members of Trump’s cabinet had said he would in fact go.

“It’s only because of security,” Trump told ABC News, dismissing any notion that Vance was removed from the trip due to concerns about his ability to secure an agreement with the Islamic Republic.

“J.D’s great,” Trump added.

Trump it seems was not satisfied with Vance’s contribution the last time around in Islamabad. Security concerns [for Vance? For Whom?] is indeed a lame excuse, since Pakistan has done the utmost in this regard.

In fact, Washington’s envoy to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, had told ABC News’ “This Week” programme: “As the president announced, the vice president with our key negotiators looks like they are going to head out for another round.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that Vance had been “leading the negotiations from the start” though he did not explicitly say Vance would also lead this time around.

It was thus not clear who would lead the US team for talks expected to begin on Monday.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner were on hand last time around on April 11-12.

However, both have been abject failures in negotiating with Iran.

Fickle-minded as he is, Trump may choose his favourite, the U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio to be the chief negotiator.

Earlier in a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused Iran of a “Total Violation” of the countries’ two week ceasefire with attacks on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz – and threatened to destroy its power plants and bridges if no deal is reached.

Trump said he was offering Iran “a reasonable deal” and if Tehran refuses, “the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

He also wrote: “They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honour to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.”

Waltz said he believed the new round of talks would lead to an “incredibly consequential” outcome.     

Iran’s military declared the Strait of Hormuz closed again last Saturday, its military command said hours after reopening it and with more than a dozen commercial ships passing through the vital waterway (AFP/Agence France Presse, April 18).

The war of nerves between the U.S. and Iran cast doubt on Trump’s optimism the day before, that a comprehensive peace deal to end the US-Israel war with Iran was ‘very close’.

It is very difficult to gauge the veracity of Trump’s statements. He not only sends mixed messages, he also contradicts himself, sometimes even the same day.

Tehran had previously declared the strait, which usually carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, open after a ceasefire was agreed in Lebanon to halt Israel’s war with Hezbollah, the powerful militant group in the country.

That prompted elation in global markets and sent oil prices plunging.

But with Trump insisting that a US naval blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a deal was concluded, Tehran threatened to shutter the strait once more.

Iran then reacted pretty fast.

Late Saturday morning, citing a statement from military central command, Iran state TV reported that ‘control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned  to its previous status’ and ‘is under strict management and control of the armed forces,’ blaming the continued US blockade.

Iran cannot claim sovereignty over the Strait, and Trump’s naval blockade is an act of war under international law!

A UK maritime security agency said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had fired at one tanker on Saturday, while security intelligence firm Vanguard Tech reported the force had threatened to “destroy” an empty cruise ship that was fleeing the Gulf.

In the third incident, the UK agency said it received a report of a vessel “being hit by an unknown projectile, which caused damage” to shipping containers but no fire.

The US-Iran ceasefire is scheduled to end on Wednesday, even as Washington and Tehran remain in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz.

For Iran, Strait Acts as a Way to Tighten Control

The United States and Israel started their war against Iran on the argument that if Iran one day managed to get a nuclear weapon, it would have the ultimate deterrent against future attacks [ like North Korea ].

According to The New York Times, it turns out that Iran already has a deterrent: its own geography (April 20).

Iran’s decision to tighten its control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has already brought global economic pain in the form of higher prices for gasoline, liquefied natural gas, fertilizer and other staples.

It has also radically changed the war planning in the United States and Israel, where officials have had to devise military options to wrest the Strait from Iranian control.

The US-Israeli war has no doubt significantly damaged Iran’s leadership structure, larger naval vessels and missile production facilities, abut it has done little to restrict Iran’s ability to control the Strait.

The NYT concludes that Iran could thus  emerge from the conflict with a blueprint for its hard-line theocratic government to keep its adversaries at bay, regardless of any restrictions on its nuclear programme.

If there is a conflict in the future, closing the Strait will be the first thing in the Iranian war manual, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israel’s military intelligence agency and now a fellow of the Atlantic Council, “You cannot beat geography”.

However, the future prosperity of the other Gulf countries is also at stake, and they cannot be expected to twiddle their thumbs.

In the short term, they may bow their heads to Geography, but in the middle and long term, they will surely find ways and means to utilize that very geography for their own benefit:

• Saudi Arabia already has a pipeline connecting some of its oil wells across the peninsula to the Red Sea coast.

From here the oil can be transported to Europe via the Suez Canal and via the Bab el Mandab and the Arabian Sea to the Asia Pacific.

• The United Arab Emirates also has a coastline in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. It could invest heavily in building a strong pipeline connecting its oil sources in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
• A long-term project could also be a pipeline connecting Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to the Mediterranean Sea.

Thus just as land-locked countries have found ways and means to overcome the ‘unsurmountable’ difficulties posed by geography, the ‘southern’ Persian Gulf countries can make geography their partner.

The writer can be reached at:

shashimalla125@gmail.com