|
At a convention in New York, several Democrats mulling presidential bids rallied around opposition to President Trump's decision to attack Iran.
|
|
(Second column, 11th story, link)
Related stories: STRAIT CHOKE... Oil Shock Deepens... Countries turning against U.S. fossil fuels... Pawn Shops Flash Warning Signs About Toll of High Prices... Trump started war with 5 goals. How far has he really gotten? JD High-Profile Test of Skills... White House warns staff on insider trading amid bets...
| RELATED ARTICLES | | |
|
Even with a cease-fire deal in place, vital energy and fertilizer flows remain trapped.
| RELATED ARTICLES | | |
|
(Third column, 1st story, link)
Drudge Report Feed needs your support! Become a Patron
|
|
(Top headline, 1st story, link)
Related stories: Vance Faces High-Profile Test of Negotiating Skills...
Drudge Report Feed needs your support! Become a Patron
|
|
As the United States and Iran prepare to hold talks in Pakistan aimed at ending the war, Israel is continuing to bomb Lebanon, where the death toll from Wednesday's massive wave of attacks has topped 300.
"It was 10 minutes of terror, a day that the Lebanese are calling Black Wednesday," says Lebanese Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid, speaking with Democracy Now! from Beirut. "It was hard to tell what was blowing up where, because those hundred or so attacks were all happening simultaneously."
Israel and the U.S. have claimed the Iran ceasefire deal struck this week does not include Lebanon, contradicting Iran's position. Abouzeid says direct talks between Israel and Lebanon are very "divisive" as many Lebanese fear being left out of a regional settlement, with Israel allowed to continue its attacks, displacement and occupation in the country.
|
|
The U.S. war with Iran has shattered their economic model.
|
|
(Second column, 12th story, link)
Related stories: STRAIT CHOKE... Oil Shock Deepens... Countries turning against U.S. fossil fuels... Pawn Shops Flash Warning Signs About Toll of High Prices... Trump started war with 5 goals. How far has he really gotten? Iran wanted to negotiate with Vance. They got their wish... White House warns staff on insider trading amid bets...
| RELATED ARTICLES | | |
|
On April 8, less than one day after the Trump administration agreed to a two-week ceasefire deal with Iran, Israel struck Lebanon in its heaviest and deadliest attack on the country since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began. At least 250 deaths have been reported. Israeli and U.S. authorities are insisting that the ceasefire proposal did not include Lebanon, where Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah. Iran and Pakistan, which brokered the deal, say the agreed-upon pause in hostilities applied to both countries. Since Israel's genocide of Gaza, "the silence of states and the continued flow of weapons has only emboldened Israel," says Beirut-based Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss. "The response from the international community has been limited by words of condemnation, but no effective action has been taken yet in order to stop these atrocities from happening."
|
|
As Iran destroyed energy facilities and infrastructure in all six of its Persian Gulf neighbors and blocks their shipments of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — are reevaluating their strategic alliances with the United States. We speak to Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at the International Crisis Group, about where else the Arab Gulf is looking toward in Asia and Europe to diversify its defense relationships, and what exactly the war has put at risk in the region. "Let's remember the ceasefire came at a moment when energy infrastructures, desalination, power plants, nuclear plants could have been in the crossfire. So what is at stake here is an uncontrolled escalation that everyone, everyone wants to stop."
|
|
The United States and Iran have announced a two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, under which Iran has agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Israel is also part of the agreement, but it has said it will continue its attacks and occupation inside Lebanon. The deal was reached less than two hours before President Trump's 8 p.m. ET deadline Tuesday for Iran to reopen the strait under threat of destroying every power plant and major bridge in Iran.
Although both parties have "strong incentives" to maintain a ceasefire, the deal is "extremely precarious," says Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, professor of international relations of the Middle East at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "We're already seeing it being imperiled as we speak, with ongoing attacks in Lebanon, as well as reports of [Iranian] attacks in the Persian Gulf."
We are also joined by Naghmeh Sohrabi, professor of Middle East history at Brandeis University, who has been translating articles from Persian to English by writers inside Iran. Sohrabi speaks to the economic suffering — which had already led to protests in Iran earlier this year — that has been compounded by war. "People are losing their jobs. People are losing their homes. Food prices are going up," she says. "And the question is, even if the ceasefire holds, how they're going to pull this country out of the situation."
|
|
President Donald Trump gave a primetime televised address Wednesday to discuss the war on Iran, his first since the United States and Israel launched attacks on February 28. Trump gave few clues about when or how the war could end, but he boasted about killing top Iranian leaders and degrading the country's military. He threatened to bomb Iran "back to the stone ages, where they belong."
Despite the grandiose claims, built on "lies and delusions," Trump "did not add anything new," says Iranian American scholar Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, who calls Trump's shifting justifications an admission of "defeat in the war of narratives."
We also speak with journalist Spencer Ackerman, who says the U.S. has already lost the war. "Iran has changed the entirety of this conflict," he says. "It has pivoted this conflict onto its own territory and its own goals, and the United States does not have a military mechanism to redress that, primarily the throttling of the Strait of Hormuz."
|
|