Renewed US-Iran hostilities likely, Iranian commander says
JNS Staff
The U.S. Defense Department estimates that Tehran has lost almost $5 billion due to the blockade.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (foregound) sails in front of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (not seen) and behind a cargo ship (in photo’s background) during a transit of the Singapore Strait on Aug. 15, 2024. Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kassandra Alanis/U.S. Navy Photo.
“A renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely,” a senior Iranian military officer said on Saturday in the wake of President Donald Trump’s statement that he was “not satisfied” with Tehran’s latest proposal to end the conflict.
“Evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” AFP quoted IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad Jafar Asadi, as saying in an interview published by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Fars News Agency.
Asadi is deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran’s highest operational military command, which is responsible for planning, coordinating and controlling joint operations between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Artesh (regular army).
On Friday, Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said the Islamic Republic had “never shied away from negotiations,” but that it would not accept an “imposition” of peace terms, AFP reported.
Also on Friday, Trump told reporters at the White House that the Iranian regime wants to “make a deal because they have no military left.”
However, Tehran is “asking for things that I can’t agree to,” he added.
The president attributed the stalemate in negotiations to Iran’s “extremely disjointed” leadership, which was effectively decapitated during the joint U.S.-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic launched on Feb. 28.
Speaking at a rally in The Villages, Fla., on Saturday, Trump said that America is “in a war because, I think you would agree, we cannot let lunatics have a nuclear weapon.”
According to Axios, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had submitted a counter-proposal to Tehran that includes a section on its nuclear program, demanding no movement of enriched uranium from bombed facilities or resumption of activity there during negotiations.
Iran’s storage capacity problem
In a separate report on Saturday, Axios said that the U.S. military has denied the Islamic Republic close to $5 billion in oil revenue since imposing a blockade on Iranian ports, according to U.S. Defense Department estimates.
Some 53 million barrels of Iranian oil on 31 tankers are currently stranded in the Gulf waters, the report cited Pentagon officials as saying.
This has prompted Iran to use older tankers as floating storage, with some vessels attempting “a costlier and longer route to deliver oil to China for fear of U.S. maritime interdiction,” the officials added.
Gregory Brew, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, told Axios that Iran is “probably several weeks, or perhaps as much as a month, away from running out of storage.” If that happens, it could be forced to shut down its oil wells, which has the potential to permanently destroy the flow of oil from the ground.
A senior Iranian official told Bloomberg on Saturday that the country has begun curbing production of oil as a result.
However, the report added that Tehran has plenty of experience in dealing with the situation after years of sanctions and economic disruptions. The official was cited as saying that Iranian engineers have learned how to idle wells without lasting damage and restart them quickly.
Hamid Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Association, said, “We have enough expertise and experience. We’re not worried,” the report continued.
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