As Iran Truce Expires and Options Shrivel, Trump Lashes Out
New York Times · LC · trust 45/100
President Trump took aim at Oman, a U.S. ally that has been mediating the talks, as efforts to end a war he started have faltered.
Listen · 5:42 min Share full article 350 President Trump has claimed that Iran wants to “make a deal, but they’re not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary.” Credit... Al Drago for The New York Times By Luke Broadwater
Luke Broadwater is a White House correspondent. He reported from Washington.
In an interview with Fox News, the president lashed out at an American ally, Oman, that has been trying to mediate negotiations with Iran.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Mr. Trump said in a phone interview, according to Fox News’s Trey Yingst.
The latest threat toward Oman, which has facilitated talks between the United States and Iran for years and maintains that it is still a neutral mediator, came as Mr. Trump found himself without much leverage to reach the goals he set out at the start of the war .
“I think, ultimately, his threats against Oman are just a reflection of his frustration with the situation he’s created, where he has no good options,” said Nate Swanson, of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project. “He’s just reflexively lashing out, and this time Oman got in the cross hairs.”
Hostilities have now stretched past the six-month mark in a conflict that began with the United States and Israel launching strikes across Iran in February. Administration officials pledged at the time that the war would be over in four to six weeks.
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