President Donald Trump has said an Iranian peace proposal delivered last week is “not good enough” and that it’s “possible” he’ll ramp up bombing after the midterm elections in November.
The comments came in a Monday interview with Time magazine published Thursday.
During the United Nations General Assembly last week, Iran offered to suspend hostilities for seven days and open the Strait of Hormuz if America ended its own naval blockade of the waterway and released frozen Iranian assets, among other measures. The proposal resembled the “memorandum of understanding” signed this June by Trump and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, a framework peace deal that swiftly fell apart.
Trump, asked why he had rejected the latest proposal, answered, “Because things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”
Asked how a self-styled peace president could threaten to “annihilate” Iran, as Trump did at the UN summit, he said, “Because by annihilating Iran, we’ve created peace in the world.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded that Iran’s UN delegation leave New York, Axios reported Wednesday night. Iranian negotiators had stayed in the city after the General Assembly to continue peace talks mediated by Qatar and Pakistan. Rubio had issued his order—which Axios called “a highly unusual diplomatic rebuke”—on Monday. The Iranians departed hours later, though U.S. officials said they were scheduled to soon leave in any case.
The Pentagon on Wednesday declared an end to its military operations against ISIS in Iraq and announced it had withdrawn all U.S. forces from the country. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards—a major force in the Iranian military—had also fought against ISIS but celebrated the American withdrawal, vowing to continue supporting Iraqi militia groups. Analysts say Iran’s influence in the region grew after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein, an enemy of Tehran.
Read the full article here
