Iran: Trump threatens to bomb Oman too; Tehran prepares for an escalation

Donald Trump continues to insist on negotiations with the Iranian regime, claiming to have a ‘confidential channel open with the Pasdaran’, but he has also resumed threatening Tehran and says he is ‘ready to bomb Oman’, which is currently finalising transit routes through the Strait of Hormuz with Iran. Once again, however, the Iranian authorities deny any negotiations with the US and are reportedly preparing a plan for further escalation – including military action – to put the United States and the Gulf states in even greater difficulty. This comes in response to Washington, which last Friday, through Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, had outlined ‘unprecedented measures to isolate Iran’.

The 60-day truce agreed between Washington and Tehran expired yesterday: under the memorandum of understanding signed in June, the halt to air strikes and the reopening of shipping lanes in the Strait were intended to give the delegations time to reach a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and the lifting of US sanctions. But everything has gone wrong, and the conflict unleashed by the US and Israel through their attacks on Iran, which began in late February, has so far achieved nothing. Diplomatic overtures, threats and denials have been repeating themselves for six months now in an unchanging pattern that serves only to heighten tensions over oil and international trade.

“Iran should wave the white flag of surrender,” Trump also told Fox News yesterday. “I can’t say how long it will take,” he added, “and I’m in no hurry: they’re good poker players, but they’re on their last legs.” The US President then reiterated that “the number one objective of the war is, and always will be, to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon”. In the immediate term, however, the concern centres on the Strait of Hormuz, to the extent that even Oman – one of the United States’ most important strategic partners in the Gulf – “will be heavily bombed if it gets in the way”, that is, if it continues to negotiate in parallel with Iran over the map and tolls of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian regime ruled out any possibility of negotiations once again yesterday. “Trump’s claims regarding confidential talks with the Revolutionary Guards are a lie and an illusion, born of failure,” said Pasdaran spokesman Hossein Mohebi. “Trump’s fantasies will not help him on the ground; the only way out,” Mohebi continued, “is to accept defeat and implement the conditions set by Iran. The sooner the Americans accept defeat, the more they will save their country from ever-greater losses.”

The war between the United States and Iran risks spreading to the entire region, starting with Yemen and the Red Sea, where the Houthis are allies of Tehran. Bessent aims to isolate Iran by supplementing the naval blockade of Iranian ports with control over land trade routes: a move that would require the assistance of neighbouring countries, from Iraq to Turkey and as far as Afghanistan. However, the United States could also impose extremely harsh sanctions to target independent refineries, banks and individuals who help Iran circumvent existing sanctions. In this case, it would mean entering into direct confrontation with China.