RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 10 sourcesUS President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to bomb Oman and urged Iran to surrender, after Tehran announced that it had reached an agreement with Muscat on a plan for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between the two countries.
In a wide-ranging phone interview with Fox News, Trump called on Iran to "put up the white flag of surrender," and said he had "no time schedule" for the conflict.
"I'm not in a hurry," he said, "the [US] midterm [elections] have nothing to do with my thinking."
Turning to the ongoing push to reach a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said the Iranians are "good poker players, but they're dying," indicating that the continued US naval blockade has added pressure on the regime.
Iran and the United States have been locked in a stalemate over control of the key waterway and Tehran’s nuclear program, with Tehran effectively putting a closure on the strait while the US has blockaded Iranian ports in a bid to pressure the Islamic Republic into an acceptable deal to open the strait.
Turning to the parallel talks between Iran and Oman to reach a deal on managing the strait, Trump warned that "if Oman gets in the way" of Washington's dealings with Iran, "we'll bomb the shit out of them."
Trump issued the unprecedented threat against Oman after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that “an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route" with Muscat.
He did not elaborate, but details that have previously emerged suggest the deal would reopen the strait, with ships entering through a route close to Iran and exiting through a route close to Oman. Ships would transit without paying fees or tolls during the interim period.
Baghaei conceded the talks with Oman have gone slowly, “but we had planned, and still plan, to finalize the understanding in the form of a package: the map plus a joint statement.”
His comments came as a 60-day deadline for finding an agreement to end the war under a June memorandum of understanding expired, with no signs of a deal between the US and Iran. The MOU, which Israel is not a party to, largely broke down soon after it was announced, and Iran resumed attacks on ships it accuses of trying to transit the strait without its permission, leading to US retaliatory strikes.
With the deadline expiring, Trump confirmed to Fox News that Washington has established a secret backchannel with officials from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, following an Axios report on the matter.
Iran appeared unmoved by Trump's comments on Monday, with a senior official telling Reuters that Tehran will escalate tensions on the Strait of Hormuz and beyond if Washington fails to fully implement the terms of the MOU in the coming weeks.
If the US does not meet that deadline and diplomacy fails, Tehran would conduct a "timely and precise" military attack to break the US naval blockade on the Islamic Republic, the official said.
"Iranian entities must be prepared to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region, as Iran will be ready to make decisions and take action on difficult decisions."
The official added that "It is a proven fact that the US is not serious about a ceasefire and won't commit to any, so putting pressure on the enemy or relying on mediators in the hope of reaching a permanent ceasefire is not realistic."
In a social media post on Sunday, the US president asserted that the US's top priority was to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapon.
"The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
His words appeared to be a direct contradiction to US Vice President JD Vance's comments last week that the US's top goal was to lower gas prices for Americans, and only the second priority was preventing Iran from going nuclear.
Trump asserted last year that the June 2025 bombing of three Iranian uranium enrichment facilities had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability and set back its nuclear program by decades. But the exact extent of the damage is unknown.
Prior to last year’s strikes, Iran was enriching uranium to 60 percent, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That is far higher than is necessary for civilian reactor levels, and a short step away from the 90% required to build a nuclear weapon.
Reports have said 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of highly enriched uranium stored in the facilities was buried by the strikes, but Israel reportedly believes that Iran managed to transfer some of it to the nearby Pickaxe Mountain site following that conflict.
Pickaxe Mountain was not hit then or in the latest war, although Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb it.
Separately, Baghaei on Monday blamed pollution in Gulf waters on the US military's operations in the region, after several reported oil spills.
"This environmental damage stems from the US military presence and the wars it has waged in the region over the past five decades," he said. "The damage caused to the environment of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is not solely linked to this war."
He called for the United States to be held accountable, estimating the damage at "trillions of dollars."
Last week, Iran called for compensation after an oil slick in the Strait of Hormuz reached the island of Qeshm, affecting beaches and an environmentally sensitive mangrove forest.
At the time, Baghaei cited preliminary evidence identifying "a foreign bulk carrier" as the source of the spill, which Iranian officials later said had been "completely cleaned up."
Meanwhile, two officials in northern Iraq were targeted in drone attacks that the regional counterterrorism service said were launched from the border with Iran.
One was fired at the office of Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, and the other targeted the home of a top regional intelligence official, th...
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