Trump Suggests Economic, Not Military, Pressure Now Favored Against Iran
US President Donald Trump appeared to back off threats of immediate military action against Iran, despite ongoing disputes with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting he would allow economic pressure to force the Islamic republic to make a long-elusive peace deal.
“We are low-keying it," Trump told news outlet Axios in a brief phone conversation on August 9, using a term generally referring to restrained action.
"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," he was quoted as saying. Axios added that Trump did not make any further military threats during the interview.
Trump said Iran is “in very bad shape” economically, with no money to pay its troops, and that the US naval blockade has intensified the economic crisis being endured by the country’s government.
According to Axios, he said that, with oil prices falling from recent highs, the American people are feeling less pain from the war -- which, according to many polls, remains highly unpopular with the US public.
"It will work out. It always works out. It's like a chess game," Trump said of the off-and-on negotiating process with the regime in Tehran.
Since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Trump has toggled between threats of massive military strikes and a potential long-term peace deal. He has often insisted that a permanent peace agreement was imminent, only to have Tehran deny such progress, leading to tit-for-tat attacks by both sides.
'Locked And Loaded'
On August 1, Trump said he had decided to "hold off" on any new attacks on Iran, saying a deal with Tehran was near.
"The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat."
"Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL," he wrote, adding that Israel joins him in this "commitment."
According to Iranian media, military sources in Iran denied Trump's claim that Tehran had asked Washington to refrain from launching new attacks.
On August 9, amid US remarks that a deal was close to allow the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s powerful elite military branch said the waterway would not be reopened until the US accepted all of Tehran's demands.
Iran has shut down the critical waterway, crimping a major source of oil tanker traffic for global markets. Tehran has used the shutdown as an essential card in its negotiations with Washington.
Although Trump initially said the elimination of Tehran's nuclear threat was the major aim of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began on February 28, in recent weeks he has focused on the free flow of traffic through the important Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world's oil and natural gas supplies transited prewar.
Trump Suggests Economic, Not Military, Pressure Now Favored Against Iran
US President Donald Trump appeared to back off threats of immediate military action against Iran, despite ongoing disputes with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting he would allow economic pressure to force the Islamic republic to make a long-elusive peace deal.
“We are low-keying it," Trump told news outlet Axios in a brief phone conversation on August 9, using a term generally referring to restrained action.
"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," he was quoted as saying. Axios added that Trump did not make any further military threats during the interview.
Trump said Iran is “in very bad shape” economically, with no money to pay its troops, and that the US naval blockade has intensified the economic crisis being endured by the country’s government.
According to Axios, he said that, with oil prices falling from recent highs, the American people are feeling less pain from the war -- which, according to many polls, remains highly unpopular with the US public.
"It will work out. It always works out. It's like a chess game," Trump said of the off-and-on negotiating process with the regime in Tehran.
Since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Trump has toggled between threats of massive military strikes and a potential long-term peace deal. He has often insisted that a permanent peace agreement was imminent, only to have Tehran deny such progress, leading to tit-for-tat attacks by both sides.
'Locked And Loaded'
On August 1, Trump said he had decided to "hold off" on any new attacks on Iran, saying a deal with Tehran was near.
"The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat."
"Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL," he wrote, adding that Israel joins him in this "commitment."
According to Iranian media, military sources in Iran denied Trump's claim that Tehran had asked Washington to refrain from launching new attacks.
On August 9, amid US remarks that a deal was close to allow the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s powerful elite military branch said the waterway would not be reopened until the US accepted all of Tehran's demands.
Iran has shut down the critical waterway, crimping a major source of oil tanker traffic for global markets. Tehran has used the shutdown as an essential card in its negotiations with Washington.
Although Trump initially said the elimination of Tehran's nuclear threat was the major aim of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began on February 28, in recent weeks he has focused on the free flow of traffic through the important Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world's oil and natural gas supplies transited prewar.
Iran-Allied Houthis Hit Saudi Refinery, Threaten To Widen Middle East Conflict
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen struck an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, threatening to bring in members of a new Saudi-based military alliance into the conflict, and also attacked a Yemeni-government controlled port city as a 2022 UN-brokered truce in the war-torn country further frayed.
The rebels on August 9 said they attacked Saudi Aramco's refinery in the city of Jazan, with the Saudi Energy Ministry saying a fire had broken out at the site but was later extinguished with no injuries, without giving a cause.
Two days earlier, Saudi Arabia signed a defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan in response to growing regional dangers developing out of the US-Israeli war with Iran.
The alliance stipulates that an armed attack against any of the three would be regarded as an attack on all, similar to NATO’s Article 5.
Turkey and Pakistan did not immediately comment following the latest strikes.
Meanwhile, at least 11 people were killed and 20 injured in a Houthi drone and missile strike on the port of Mokha near the important Strait of Bab al-Mandab, Yemeni government military sources told news agencies.
The attack further endangered a 4-year-old UN-brokered truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government of Yemen.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, descended into civil war in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, ousting the internationally recognized government. The Tehran-allied group now controls much of the northwest, including Red Sea ports like Hodeidah that are lifelines for food and fuel.
Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite-majority Iran have long been bitter rivals seeking geopolitical and religious influence in the Middle East.
The rebels have announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, hitting Saudi tankers in the Red Sea and the kingdom's oil infrastructure, in parallel with Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Official Says Images Of New Supreme Leader To Be Released
A top Iranian official has said images of Mojtaba Khamenei --the man who became Iran’s supreme leader following the death of his father in an Israeli air strike -- will be released in the future.
Khamenei has not been seen in publicly since March when he was announced to be Iran’s next supreme leader.
He’s reportedly suffered serious injuries in the same strike that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28 -- the first day of the war. Iranian officials have insisted he is alive and capable of performing his official duties.
Khamenei did not attend his father’s funeral in early July furthering speculation about his condition. Iranian officials said he did not attend out of security concerns.
In comments to the Mizan news outlet on August 9, Qasem Qoraishi, a top official with the Basij organization said footage of Khamenei will be released in future, showing him “among the people and out in streets, as well in meetings with the commanders of armed forces.
Qoraishi did not elaborate; Mizan, the news outlet for Iran’s judiciary, provided no further details.
Basij is a volunteer paramilitary militia affiliated with the elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Another official news outlet, the Mehr News Agency released a short report on August 9 saying Khamenei had met with Pezeshkian, discussing a range of subjects including the US-Israeli war. The conflict, in its fifth month, is in a lull for the moment.
No photographs, audio, or video were released.
Last week, Pezeshkian said that communication with Khamenei was very "difficult at the moment.”
Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Hormuz Reopens When US Accepts Iran’s Demands
Iran’s powerful elite military branch said the Strait of Hormuz would not be reopened until the United States accepted all of Tehran's demands.
The comment by Hussein Mohebi, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was the latest defiant message from Iranian officials, as efforts to negotiate an end to the more-than-five-month-old, US and Israeli-led war grind on.
Iran has shut down the critical waterway, crimping a major source of oil tanker traffic for global markets. Tehran has used the shutdown as an essential card in its negotiations with Washington.
Iran and Oman, whose territorial waters sit on the southern side of the strait, have been holding talks to create a tolling system to charge passing ships.
Mohebi was quoted by Iranian state TV on August 9 as saying the IRGC would keep the waterway closed.
"Our current strategy is to maintain this strait until the enemy accepts all our conditions,” he was quoted as saying. “The strait is now actually a theater of war for us and not just a waterway.”
Iran’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said there were no direct talks with Washington ongoing, only via intermediaries.
Speaking to the Mehr news agency, Abbas Araqchi accused Washington of violating an interim deal the two sides signed in June.
Araqchi also said that Iran and Oman were in the "final stages" of their negotiations over transit for the strait.
In an interview with Fox News broadcast August 8, US Vice President JD Vance said Washington's goal was "to see the same amount of oil and gas come out of the Gulf that you saw before the conflict started."
"That is what the Iranians have told us that they are going to do," he was quoted as saying
"But you know, we don't trust them.”
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, Reuters, AFP
Turkey Insists New Pact Not Targeting Iran, Says Egypt Could Eventually Join
Turkey's foreign minister claimed a defense agreement signed by Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia is not targeting Iran, although he said it is technically the same as NATO's Article 5 mutual defense pact that means an attack on one is an attack on all.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on August 8 added that the pact -- signed a day earlier by leaders of the three nations -- could eventually be joined by Egypt and other countries once a number of technical matters were resolved.
"NATO is a giant military alliance where there are 32 countries. We have started here as three countries and we have to take very humble but concrete steps," he said.
Fidan told state-run Anadolu news agency that a committee of ministers similar to that within the NATO alliance would be established, as well as a general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia.
Fidan did not immediately disclose the issues that needed to be resolved to clear the way for Egypt to joint the accord, led by mostly Sunni Muslim nations. Iran is majority Shi'ite Muslim.
On August 7, the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan came together in the Saudi city of Mecca to sign the joint defense pact aimed at strengthening "collective deterrence against any act of aggression."
In the initial announcement, the Turkish government said the "agreement is not in contradiction with the commitments of Turkey's existing international alliances, including those at the heart of NATO." Turkey is a member of the Western military alliance.
“The agreement is of particular importance in light of the escalating challenges and threats facing the region, foremost among them terrorist attacks, arms smuggling, and threats targeting neighboring countries and international maritime routes,” the ministry added.
The development came amid growing uncertainty in the Middle East, with no immediate end in sight to the confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
Separately, Saudi Arabia last year signed a Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement with Pakistan that included a clause along the lines of NATO's Article 5, which states "any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.
Saudi Arabia, a US ally and long a bitter rival of Iran for regional influence in political, military, and religious matters, has often been a target of Iranian missile and drone launches after the US and Israel struck Iran beginning on February 28.
Oman Condemns Attack On Tanker As Talks Progress With Iran On Hormuz
Oman condemned the latest attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz -- suspected to have been carried out by Iran -- even as it said talks were “positive” and "constructive" with Tehran aimed at reaching agreement on a new route through the crucial waterway.
The Omani Foreign Ministry on August 8 expressed its” condemnation of the repeated attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which constitute a violation of international law and the sovereignty of territorial waters, and pose a threat to the safety of maritime navigation and the security and stability of the region.”
It added in the X posting that “the ongoing negotiations regarding arrangements for navigation in the Strait of Hormuz are proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere.”
It also stressed “the importance of avoiding any actions that could affect these negotiations and the progress achieved, which takes into account the interests of all parties.”
The United Arab Emirates said Iran had targeted a tanker belonging to the state-owned oil company as it was transiting the strait on August 8.
The UAE’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called a "hostile Iranian attack that targeted a tanker,” adding that a missile caused damages but no casualties on the vessel.
Hours earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran and Muscat were "very close" to reaching an agreement on a new route through the strait.
However, Araqchi also said that Tehran would set conditions for the deal, including compensation for what he called US violations of the agreement between Iran and the United States mediated by Pakistan earlier this year.
There was no immediate comment from US officials.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said he believed Iran could not sustain the conflict much longer and that negotiations with Tehran over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were ongoing.
Iranian officials denied that talks with Washington were taking place, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei saying Tehran and Muscat had nearly finalized a joint announcement, "provided that certain third parties do not obstruct the process."
The effective closure of the strait has long been one of the central issues in the war between the United States and Iran and one of the main obstacles to a negotiated settlement aimed at ending the broader conflict in the Middle East.
Turkey Says Defense Pact With Saudi Arabia, Pakistan Doesn't Contradict Ankara's NATO Commitments
Turkey said on August 7 that its new defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan did not contradict the country's commitments to the NATO alliance.
"The agreement is not in contradiction with the commitments of Turkey's existing international alliances, including those at the heart of NATO," the Turkish government's anti-disinformation service wrote on X.
The service said it was responding to "baseless claims and manipulative posts" criticizing the new agreement. It added that the agreement served as an additional mechanism to support regional security and was "not an alternative to its NATO membership."
Earlier in the day, the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan came together in the Saudi city of Mecca to sign a joint defense pact aimed at strengthening "collective deterrence against any act of aggression."
The development came amid growing uncertainty in the Middle East, with no immediate end in sight to the confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
With reporting by AFP.
US Targets Network Of Exchanges, Front Companies Linked To Iran
The US State Department announced on August 7 that the Treasury Department had targeted three Iranian foreign currency exchange houses and their associated front companies.
The announcement emphasized that the United States was taking decisive steps to cut off the financial arteries that sustain the Iranian regime.
"Today, the US Department of the Treasury took steps to dismantle a web of currency exchange houses and shell companies that helped Iran secretly move hundreds of millions of dollars through the international financial system," spokesman Thomas Pigott said in a statement on the State Department's website.
"Through these networks, Tehran accessed oil revenue and evaded sanctions designed to curb its destabilizing activities, laundering funds using front companies," he added.
According to the State Department, the sanctions target banks, currency exchange businesses, and individuals involved in the network to demonstrate that financial institutions and other parties that assist Iran in operating or using such channels expose themselves to serious penalties.
The department said the latest Treasury measures are consistent with the White House's "maximum pressure" policy toward Iran, which aims to deprive Tehran of the financial resources Washington says it uses to undermine regional stability, back terrorist groups, and bolster its military capabilities.
The statement also said the measures came as Iran faced growing public scrutiny over government corruption and economic mismanagement. It added that the sanctions were intended to deepen the country's isolation from the international financial system while signaling that continued Iranian support for terrorism and other aggressive regional activities would result in substantial and enduring costs.
UAE Oil Giant Says Attacks Have Significantly Impacted Operations
The United Arab Emirates’ energy giant, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), said attacks on its employees and vessels in the Persian Gulf have significantly impacted its operations.
ADNOC said in an August 7 statement that 15 of its vessels, including three in the past week, have been targeted by missiles and drones while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global oil and gas supplies, since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran in late February.
The company, one of the world's largest energy producers, added that the attacks have left one of its employees dead and 20 others injured.
In retaliation for US and Israeli air strikes, Iran has effectively closed the strait and fired thousands of ballistic missiles and combat drones at American allies in the Persian Gulf, including the UAE.
ADNOC’s statement came amid diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran and Oman in talks to establish new safe routes through the strategic waterway.
The effective closure of the strait has rattled international energy markets and sent global oil prices soaring.
With reporting by Reuters.
At A Closed-Door Senate GOP Briefing, Ukrainian Commanders Offer Drone War Lessons As US Confronts Iran
WASHINGTON -- This wasn't the first time during Russia's full-scale invasion that Ukrainian officials came to Washington seeking weapons, ammunition, and financial support. But the message was markedly different.
According to lawmakers, organizers, and participants interviewed by RFE/RL, two frontline Ukrainian drone commanders visited Capitol Hill on July 29 not to ask for more aid but to explain what the United States can learn from nearly five years of fighting the world's first large-scale drone war.
The closed-door Senate Republican Steering Committee luncheon, chaired by Senator Rick Scott of Florida, brought together almost every Republican senator for an unusually candid briefing on the changing nature of warfare seen in the more than four years of combat in Ukraine.
The meeting coincided with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Washington and came as Kyiv and Washington negotiate a broader drone cooperation agreement after signing an initial framework earlier this summer.
To read the full news analysis, click here.