Diplomacy or war?

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video clip on social media that he said showed Iran’s oil hub, Kharg Island, being “blown to smithereens”. An Iranian official dismissed it as “laughable”. Kharg, which handled 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports before the US-Israel war began on February 28, has not been attacked as the video implied. The Iranians are brave to laugh this off – but the threat is serious. Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize or destroy the island, including during earlier US military operations targeting Iranian positions there. An attack on Kharg would severely disrupt Iran’s energy trade and place enormous pressure on its economy. The US has also used strikes on Kharg to pressure Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz.

Some believe Trump may be getting ready to do something reckless and that US military sources may be leaking information to the American media because they fear the president could take a step that the entire world would regret. According to The Washington Post, several senior US military commanders have warned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth against sustaining large-scale operations against Iran, saying the campaign is stretching US forces globally. The warnings came from the chiefs of the American army, navy and air force as well as commanders overseeing US forces in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The concerns were recorded in a regularly issued classified report on US military deployments worldwide. The senior officials formally recorded their disagreement with the deployment orders but said they would carry them out. This suggests the US military understands that Trump wants an escalation but disagrees with him, while ultimately being unable to overrule the president.

We have said it repeatedly: any escalation, particularly an attack on Kharg, will mean that nothing is off the table. The consequences could be catastrophic. There is still time to stop this madness through diplomacy. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has reiterated that there are people in the US interested in the “continuation of the war”, while stressing that “Iran never welcomes war” and that the American side “has not fulfilled its commitments”. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has meanwhile called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “serpent” who tricked Washington into going to war with Iran on Israel’s behalf. The Iranian leadership is not without grounds for these accusations. The war began despite Iran being engaged in negotiations with the US until the attacks started at the end of February. Iranian political leaders are now trying to reopen the doors to negotiations despite what Tehran says was a US violation of the Islamabad MoU. At the same time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has adopted a more hawkish position, arguing that the US violated the UN Charter and that Iran had to retaliate. It has warned that if the attacks continue, Iran will retaliate even more harshly. Trump must be stopped from turning this conflict into a regional war. No country except Israel wants this conflict to continue, yet Trump appears increasingly willing to give in to the Zionist wish list. There is still a choice between diplomacy and war. The former may be difficult, but the alternative could be an unprecedented disaster.