Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, issued new threats to the United States on Sunday. Following the apparent crippling of three Iranian oil tankers in U.S. strikes on Saturday, Ghalibaf said his country would escalate its responses. “The era of proportionate responses has come to an end,” Ghalibaf asserted in a speech broadcast in Iran, adding that “any aggression against Iran’s interests and security will receive a faster, more intense and more painful response.” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also said it launched retaliatory attacks on several U.S.-affiliated ships Saturday, including what it claimed was a successful strike on a U.S. Navy drone (a Pentagon spokesman denied this).
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel conducted strikes in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Press reports indicate the strikes in Lebanon—which the IDF said followed an attempted Hezbollah attack on its troops—killed at least 7 and left 20 more injured. The strike in Gaza reportedly left two people dead, including a six-year-old girl.
In the United States, Energy Secretary Chris Wright suggested the White House may never reach a deal to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. “There may not be a nuclear agreement,” Wright told ABC News on Sunday, “it may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it. An agreement may await the next administration in Iran. We simply don’t know that.”
AAA reported that the average price of gasoline in the United States was $4.15 per gallon.
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