CNN: Delegations from the US, Iran Pakistan and Qatar are in Switzerland, with talks expected to start later today. US Vice President JD Vance said his top priorities are to set up the structure of the talks, make progress on the question of Iran’s nuclear program and to achieve a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Strait of Hormuz: The talks come as the US military said traffic “continues to flow” in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s claims yesterday that it closed the vital waterway over what it said were Israeli ceasefire violations in Lebanon and the US’ failure to implement the first clause of their agreement…
Rahm Emanuel says Trump ‘got schooled’ by Iran in bad ceasefire deal
Emanuel, a veteran Democratic powerbroker who is a long-shot presidential candidate, slammed the deal signed by Trump in Versailles this week as “the memorandum of misunderstanding”.
“While the president thinks he wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, they’re going to teach him a lesson — which is the Persian lesson, the art of the negotiation,” he said. “And he just got schooled, unbelievably.”…
Trump wanted out of the Iran war. The aftermath is pulling him back in.
“There’s not a lot of room now for him to maneuver to go back and punch back at the Iranians,” said Aaron David Miller, an expert on U.S.-Israeli relations, who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations on Middle East policy.
Pressuring Iran “means essentially resuming the war or reimposing the naval blockade, but those have consequences,” he said, including ones Trump has said he is eager to avoid.
“We have so undermined our own deterrence with Iran,” Miller said…
What Changed After Almost Four Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.
Neither the war nor the agreement ended what U.S. and Israeli officials regard as the main threats emanating from Iran. The country’s nuclear program, while heavily damaged, was not eliminated — its fate punted to future negotiation.
The same goes for its ballistic missiles, which the deal does not address. Iran’s authoritarian regime endured, albeit with new leaders. Its proxies remain a threat to the region. Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, persisted in attacking each other…
For cash-strapped farmers, deal to end Iran fighting comes too late
Tough times on the farm are souring some of the president’s most loyal supporters little more than four months before November’s congressional elections. Rural voters backed Trump’s economic policies by a 45 percent to 43 percent margin early last year but now disapprove of them 61 percent to 31 percent, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll released this month…
While the World Scrambles for Oil, China Sits on Full Tanks
China cut its daily oil imports by roughly a third during the war. The pullback, driven largely by higher prices, helped ease some of the upward pressure on global oil markets caused by the almost complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
China was able to reduce imports so sharply in part because it had been buying more oil than it needed before the war. For years, it accumulated inventories whenever prices were low as part of a broader push to strengthen national self-reliance and improve its ability to withstand supply disruptions…