In the midst of growing chaos Donald Trump has sent his real estate agents to Islamabad in what looks like a unilateral effort at renewed peace talks. He says if there’s no deal this week he’ll start destroying Iran’s power plants and bridges, writes Joe Lauria.
The George Washington Bridge (Acroterion/Wikimedia Commons)
Saturday, April 18 to Sunday, April 20
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Donald Trump said in a flurry of posts Sunday that the U.S. has seized an Iranian ship in the Oman Sea “blowing a hole in the engine room;” that he’s sent negotiators to Islamabad to resume peace talks that Iran may not attend; and that he will commit the war crime of destroying Iran’s civilian infrastructure if they don’t make a deal this week.
All in a night’s time on Truth Social. By one count there were 47 posts in one hour.
“Today, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA, nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier, tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them. The U.S. Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave them fair warning to stop. The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom. Right now, U.S. Marines have custody of the vessel. The TOUSKA is under U.S. Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what’s on board! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
This is how Iran’s Press TV reported it as tensions heat up in a fraying ceasefire:
“The United States has carried out a flagrant act of aggression on an Iranian merchant vessel in the waters of the Sea of Oman, deploying its terrorist marines onto the ship’s deck and disabling its navigation systems.
The spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters on Sunday night condemned the criminal operation by the US Navy.
‘The aggressor United States violated the ceasefire and committed maritime piracy by firing at an Iranian merchant ship in the waters of the Sea of Oman and landing a number of its terrorist marines on the deck of the vessel, disabling its navigation system,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari said.
‘We warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond to this armed piracy and retaliation by the US army,’ he added.”
Meanwhile, in the midst of this growing chaos Trump his sending his real estate agents to Islamabad in what looks like a unilateral effort at renewed peace talks. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner may have no one to talk to when they get there as Iran says it won’t show up unless the U.S. lifts the blockade.
Besides the fact that buying or selling a New York apartment building is no preparation for negotiating the end of the biggest Middle Eastern war in decades, the Iranians despise Witkoff & Kushner because it was they who twice deceived the Iranians that talks would continue while the U.S. and Israel launched their sneak attacks.
Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran does not trust the U.S., calling Trump a “master of lying and psychological warfare.”
The White House can’t get its messaging clear on whether Vice President J.D. Vance will be returning to Islamabad or not. A White House official told by the FT he would, while Trump said he would not.
The Iranians do not have a unified position either. The Tasnim News Agency, owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), says no decision has been taken on whether to go to Islamabad. This could be part of the split between the hardline IRGC and the more conciliatory Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, which the blogger Simplicius highlighted in a weekend post.
The split became evident over a tweet by Araghchi on Friday saying that after the ceasefire with Lebanon the Strait of Hormuz was now “completely open.” Minutes later the IRGC said it was closed until the U.S. lifts its blockade.
On X, Tasnim very frankly reported the split:
“Bad and Incomplete Tweet by Araghchi and Incorrect Ambiguity-Creation Regarding the Reopening of the Strait of Hormuz Our country’s Foreign Minister wrote in a tweet just minutes ago that, following the ceasefire in Lebanon, the Strait of Hormuz will be fully open for the passage of commercial ships for the remaining duration of the ceasefire period.
This tweet by Araghchi, which was published without the necessary and sufficient explanations, created various ambiguities regarding the conditions for passage, details, and mechanisms of passage, and led to a great deal of criticism.
While various conditions have been considered for this matter, one of the most important among them is the complete oversight by Iran’s armed forces over the passage of ships, and this passage shall be deemed null and void in the event of the continuation of the claimed naval blockade.
Publishing this tweet, without any verbal explanation or at least sufficient written explanations, constitutes a complete lack of tact in communication. It is obvious that the Foreign Ministry itself must either reconsider this type of communication or the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council must fulfill its duty.
And while providing proper notifications in its own domain, it should create a more cohesive and better mechanism for notifications from some institutions, including the Foreign Ministry, and control them. The tweets that officials publish—even if they write them in English—are not seen only by foreign officials!
The great nation of Iran, too, is fully monitoring the scene in accordance with its revolutionary duty. Any attempt to create anxiety or despair among this divinely inspired nation constitutes political disobedience and disruption of national unity.”
Trump meanwhile threatened again to unleash hell on Iran’s civilian infrastructure if Witkoff & Kushner don’t get a deal this week. Trump wrote in the middle of the night:
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years. IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
“No more Mr. Nice Guy,” is a saying originated in a 1960 newspaper column by Walter Winchell as a humorous reference to Adolf Hitler’s response as the Soviets were moving in on Berlin.
Trump’s U.N. ambassador, Mike Walz, went on the Sunday morning talk shows in the U.S. spewing nonsense about such threats of destroying bridges and power stations not being war crimes. He said:
“Just to get ahead of a lot of the critics and hand-wringing, throwing out irresponsible terms like ‘war crimes’, attacking, destroying infrastructure that has clearly and historically been used for dual military purposes is not a war crime. … And, by the way, bridges, power plants that are run by the IRGC, which runs the entire military, are absolute legitimate military targets, not only now, but have been historically. That is a false, fake and ridiculous notion that this is some type of war crime.”
What Walz doesn’t understand is that like the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the IRGC is allowed under the Iranian system to run businesses. It would be as if the Pentagon ran Con Edison electricity plants and the George Washington Bridge in New York City. Would Walz think that makes them legitimate targets for a foreign power to destroy?
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
