Trump chickens out on Iran deadline – The Latest

0:00This is the Guardian. Just before the market's opened, he decided to make this announcement. As ever, it's Armageddon postponed, so we have to live on this sort of the edge the whole time. No, we have a very serious chance of making a deal. That doesn't guarantee anything. I'm not guaranteeing anything. If I were a betting man, I'd bet for it. But again, I'm not guaranteeing anything. I think maybe the Americans are discovering that the Iranians are willing to go further up, escalation ladder. There isn't any sign that they're fracturing as a regime. They're taking big, big hits, but they are aimed at one thing which is survival. Trump says there's been productive talks with Iran as he extends a deadline on military strikes to force the reopening of the straight-up moves. But what's really going on? From the Guardians today in focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Half.

1:00I'm joined by Patrick Winter, with the Guardians Diplomatic Editor. Thanks for joining us again, Patrick. So quite a lot of confused messaging coming out of the White House over the weekend. We've had a post from the President from this morning on True Social, his social media platform, saying that he has postponed strikes on Iranian power plants because of talks between the US and the Iranians. But that came not long after this ultimatum of 48 hours for Iran to reopen the straight-up moves. So obviously quite a convoluted picture there, but I wonder if you can help clarify if that's possible. I'm going to raffle all this. Well, there was a very good tweet by the FT's, Washington, of course, on Edward Lucy. Said it's rather odd situation where we have to wait to see what Tehran saying before we understand the truth of the matter. Right. Because trying to work out what Trump has done we're all living in his head spaces is kind of quite grueling activity. But it certainly seems like just before the market's opened

2:00and I think that's significant, he decided to make this announcement that he was holding back for five days. But as ever, it's Armageddon postponed, so we have to live on this sort of the edge the whole time. But it doesn't seem like there was any direct talks between Iran and the Americans which led to this, what must look like a decision what's called this taco. Trump always chickens out. Looks like another decision to climb down and he hasn't got anything back in return as yet. Yeah, and we'll come onto the markets in a second, but as far as these talks are concerned, so Trump says that there were very productive conversations between US and Iranian officials. Conversations, he says, about complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East. But the Iranian side is much less clear about whether those talks took place or what extent they were able to do. Well, there's bound to be some crowing going on in Tehran about this and saying we haven't spoken to him at all.

3:03But it's gradually emerging that there were some kind of talks happening and those would probably be via one of two intermediaries either Oman or Turkey, both of whom have got kind of respect in Washington and Tehran. And it may be that the talks were very much focused on this issue of how to reopen the straighter four moves and on what terms. And then that might broaden out into a wider discussion of how Iran and America are going to live with one another. But we've been living in this situation where everyone's been escalating and escalating. And I think maybe the Americans are discovering that the Iranians are willing to go further up the escalation ladder than either America or its allies are willing to go. And so that may be leading to some considerations inside Washington as to what to do. Yes, and this blockade of the state of Hamuz and we're now entering the fourth week of this war. Oil prices over the weekend were $113 a barrel

4:03even higher than they were last week. Since that post on true social this morning, oil prices have plummeted. There's been some improvement in the markets. Like you say, there's that Wall Street expression. Taco Trump always chickens out. But that seems to be quite an important factor in all of this. Yes, I mean, I think the markets are going to move according to whatever the latest posting from Donald Trump is. But I think at some point we're going to have to move on from taking him as seriously and literally as we do. But it's so difficult when the stakes are so high and when we're seeing such carnage occurring throughout the Middle East and I think, you know, you've got a bear in mind. I mean, how the Iranians were thinking in terms of seeing their own electricity grid being attacked, have seen what's happened to Ukraine. And I think they were both worried and angry and defiant. And there would have been consequences back in the sense of there would have been a big Iranian response. And I think the way they would have raised the escalation ladder a bit more would have been to attack

5:06these desalination plants inside the... Which of these facilities is that clean water? That's a very vital infrastructure that would... I mean, I'm listening to internationals say that that sort of attack would account to a war crime. It would cause huge disruption across the Middle East. But that was in response to this 48-hour deadline to reopen the straighter for moves. Do you think because of this taco-type quality of Trump? It's unreliability that Iran feels it's in a stronger position to keep going, to not bow to U.S. I think at the moment there isn't any sign that they're either fracturing as a regime or that the sort of resilience of the nation is under attack. I mean, obviously they're taking big, big hits and their whole kind of structure of the security state is being attacked daily. But they are, as big as many people have said, they are aimed at one thing which is survival

6:06and they believe they can achieve that. And there are differing estimates around about how many missile launches they've still got and even if it's a third of what they had before, that's still enough to cause a lot of damage. And there's sort of ambiguity within the Gulf States as to how to continue with this. I mean, there are some like the United Arab Emirates that would probably like to go on the offensive against Iran. But there are others that are holding back and I think the Gulf States, whatever they do, they'll do it together. So there's no movement of a really significant nature there. But as we were discussing last week, there has been huge damage to the Iranian regime, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hamine, obviously, killed at the start of the conflict. His summer's taba, Hamine reported to be injured. We had Larajani, this very senior official in the regime also killed last week. So I mean, we've talked about that unity that they're trying to project, but they must be in a much weaker position.

7:07Yes, but they seem to be able to keep going. The ultimately, the measure of it is whether they're still attacking Gulf States, whether they've still got the straight or full moves under their stranglehold, and they do. So even if they're named on the leadership of changing or sometimes they're interim leaders or the Ministry of Intelligence, there's a vacancy, it doesn't matter. They're still functioning as a state. There are 90 million people there. There's about 1,000 families. That are involved in Iranian political leadership in various ways. So you just cannot wipe them all out. You can wipe out the leaders and you can weaken them. But ultimately, they renew and reproduce. Yeah. And in terms of the state of play and the straight of her moves, I mean, obviously, the military attacks have continued over the weekend. The straight of her moves is still technically blockaded, but there has been some ships about a hundred let's through. Yes, but it's all being done under the control of the Iranians, the Iranians are deciding which ships can go through and which can't. And there are negotiations going on between South Korea

8:09sort of ringing up saying, can we get our ships through? We haven't done anything to offend you. Japan's in sort of quite good. Oda with the Iranians partly, because the foreign minister used to be the ambassador to Japan. The Indians are getting some ships through. And the Chinese, which is the main market are getting ships through, but the West and is not getting any ships through. And also, the Iranians got a judge it right, because if they let too much oil onto the market, then the oil price will descend. And that's not what they want. Their big measure, their big metric of their success is what the oil price is standing out. But ultimately, there is this sense, I think, of just a bit of a ticking time bomb. I mean, this ultimatum that has been extended to five days to reopen the straight of her moves, but very conflicting messages from a present who has been isolated from much of the West, from NATO, from allies, and Iran that is weakened, but very determined. I mean, what Iran is threatening could be intensely dangerous

9:13and destabilizing in the Middle East and therefore for the wide world. What are the risks in the next week? Well, the risks are that Donald Trump sort of looks again. He'll be laughed at. I'm sure today he'll find that very difficult to take and he might, by tonight, sort of revise his opinions. Or he could press ahead with this idea of some kind of land invasion to take these islands in the straight of four moves and try to actually militarily take control. And that might be the military saying to him that is a better way to pursue this than just some kind of retributive attack on the energy facilities of Iran, which would be a war crime anyway. Being absolutely clear is a day-like war crime because, I mean, the British have described what the Russians do in Ukraine as barbaric and I think it'd be very hard for the UK Attorney General not to say the same thing about America doing that to Iran's energies. And there are already a large number of US militarily

10:14personnel in the straight of four moves, aren't there? They're moving in that direction but there's huge risks involved in that trying to take islands which are quite close to the Iranian main coastland is going to be difficult because they can be fired at very easily. I don't think it's fair to say that the Iranian navy is pretty well reduced or non-existent but you don't need very complicated boats to cause a lot of damage. And they would have to hold the straits for indefinitely militarily. And I just think that's going to be really, really difficult to pull off in the end. There has to be a sort of diplomatic solution to all this. What's going to be a quiet news week Patrick? Thank you so much for your time. Pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Patrick Wintour, the Guardian's diplomatic editor. And for more on how Trump's U-turn has played out in the UK and what the government made of the SNL sketch about Keir Starmer. Do listen to today's episode of our Sister Podcast Politics Weekly. Tomorrow's episode of today in focus

11:14will be on the situation on the ground in Lebanon. The latest will be back as usual tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hough. It was produced by Brynie Moore. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch. Chicago, 2011. A cop is murdered. Police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man. He swears he didn't do it. How far will each side go to prove their right? Like it's just one bombshell after another. You know where you're like, what, what? The story of a playstation. A brain eating amoeba. And the relentless pursuit of justice. Off duty, out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is The Guardian.