*This post went out as a draft originally….
I’ve done the completed post below….Sorry about that!)
With a noose around some of the worlds oil and gas….
Iran gets to a dream come true on the world stage even while taking beat down….
(US Intel says Iran STILL has ample missiles, drones and Uranium after the massive bombongs laid on it by American and Israeli aircraft ….The Intel evaluation IS counter to what Trump and Hegseth have been trying to sell in the media…)
That beatdown has NOT changed much of anything for America , Israel and the Outside World….
And American Vice President brought in to sit-down with them…..
The talks have gone long (over 15 hours , til just past 4:oo AM their time) between Vance and Iran in Pakistan….
Vance IS supposed to do a media chat before leaving there?..
One COULD look at this as Vance’s Foreign Affairs audaition?
Israeli Prime Minisiter Netanyahu, like Trump, IS NOT getting good marks among his citizens for his driving the his war attacks against Iran’s missiles and uranium ….
Marathon talks between high-level officials from the United States and Iran in Pakistan stretched into the early hours of Sunday, a historic encounter between decades-old adversaries as they sought to broker peace after more than a month of war.
The sheer length of the discussions — the U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance arrived at the hotel where talks were taking place more than 14 hours ago — suggested the two sides remained engaged and still had topics to discuss. Control of the Strait of Hormuz, the economically vital waterway that Iran closed at the start of the war, remains a sticking point, according to two senior Iranian officials familiar with the negotiations.
The negotiating session, mediated by Pakistan, was the highest-level face-to-face meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which put the two countries on a collision course.
Teams of experts from each delegation negotiated for multiple rounds, and negotiators continued exchanging messages into the early hours of Sunday through Pakistani mediators, according to IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster.
While the talks have yet to produce a diplomatic breakthrough, the fact that the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, who was leading Iran’s delegation, met face to face with the American vice president is still extraordinary, given the long history of animosity between the two nations. Just six weeks ago American and Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, and Iranian officials pledged to avenge his blood.
The United States and Iran agreed to a provisional cease-fire on Tuesday that suspended the fighting for at least two weeks.
In a Friday address, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan said the talks were a “make or break” moment. Negotiators from the two countries have laid out red lines on Iran’s nuclear program that leave little clear path to a resolution.
Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, killing many of Iran’s top leaders and calling for the ouster of its government. Iran retaliated with attacks that have since drawn in much of the Middle East and battered the world economy. Iran also began blockading the Strait of Hormuz, sending global energy prices skyrocketing.
Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, has threatened to derail the truce. Iran had accused Israel of breaking the cease-fire by continuing to attack in Lebanon, leading Mr. Trump to ask Israel to rein in its assault.
Israeli fighter jets have not attacked the Lebanese capital of Beirut since Wednesday. But Israel has kept up its airstrikes in southern Lebanon, including on Saturday morning, according to Lebanon’s state media.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
-
Negotiating team: Mr. Vance was joined in Islamabad by President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Iranian delegation, which includes Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, arrived earlier in the Pakistani capital. Read more about them here.
-
Strait of Hormuz: The Defense Department said on Saturday that two U.S. warships crossed the Strait of Hormuz to begin an operation to clear mines from the critical waterway. Iran denied the claim. Only a handful of ships have passed through the strait since the cease-fire began this week. U.S. officials said one reason Iran had been unable to get more ships through was that it could not locate and remove all of the mines it laid in the waterway.
-
Israel and Lebanon: The countries’ ambassadors to the United States are expected to meet in Washington next week for direct talks, but a settlement to end the war in Lebanon is not expected imminently. More than a million people — roughly a fifth of the population — have been forced from their homes since the renewed war erupted last month between Israel and Hezbollah. Take a closer look in photos and video here.
-
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,701 civilians, including 254 children, had been killed in Iran as of Wednesday. Lebanon’s health ministry on Saturday said that 2,020 people had been killed in the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, including 357 in a wave of Israeli strikes on Wednesday. In attacks attributed to Iran, at least 32 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 20 people had been killed as of Monday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.
…
- Three-party talks with the U.S., Iran and Pakistan started Saturday days after a fragile, two-week ceasefire was announced, as the war that has killed thousands of people and shaken global markets entered its seventh week. The talks came after U.S. and Iranian officials met separately with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
- Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected next week in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he had approved direct talks, while Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office said Friday that negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to begin Tuesday. Attacks intensified Friday between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. At least 2,020 people in Lebanon have been killed by Israeli strikes, according to Lebanon’s heath ministry
- Stocks have wavered on Wall Street, and oil prices eased ahead of planned talks. The U.S. government reported the biggest spike in inflation in four yearsas prices at the gas pump jumped.
- Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, where ships carrying much of the world’s traded oil have bottlenecked, has proved a strategic advantage, but U.S. President Donald Trump said this was the nation’s only leverage.
A third round of ceasefire talks between the United States and Iran concluded before dawn Sunday local time, and discussions between the heads of the delegations will resume after a break, two Pakistani officials said.
Some technical personnel from both teams are still meeting, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.
The U.S. delegation is led by Vice President JD Vance and the Iranian delegation by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf….
…
AP….
Trump trying to make himself happy and big, by saying he ‘Wins’ even if his Vice President is trying to keep the Strait of Hormuz open as the Main goal of his talks with Iran…
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Saturday, Trump claimed military victory against Iran and downplayed the importance of ongoing ceasefire negotiations involving Vice President JD Vance because “regardless what happens we win.”
“Let’s see what happens – maybe they make a deal maybe they don’t,” the president said. “It doesn’t matter. From the standpoint of America, we win.”
Trump acknowledged “very deep negotiations” with Iran. But he also said the U.S. military was searching for mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which still remained effectively closed to most freighters carrying oil and natural gas out of the Persian Gulf.
…
Israel…Hezbollah…..Iran…Russia
The war has also made clear that Hezbollah retained a sizable arsenal of rockets, missiles and drones and carried on producing weapons locally. Hezbollah’s operations suggest that it saw the 15-month cease-fire not as an end to its conflict with Israel, but as a crucial window to prepare for another round of fighting, according to Israeli, Western and Arab officials and analysts who spoke to The New York Times.
“There was a very wrong widespread assumption that Hezbollah was finished,” said Heiko Wimmen, a Lebanon expert at the research organization International Crisis Group. “But it now appears that was not the case. They did prepare. They did rebuild. They did regroup.”…
…
Lebanese military experts, an analyst close to the group and one Israeli official say that Hezbollah and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards force still coordinate operationally, though that collaboration has weakened. The foreign arm of the Guards, the Quds Force, oversees Iran’s proxy militias around the Middle East.
In early March, Israel targeted what it said were Revolutionary Guards operatives at a hotel in Beirut. More than 100 Iranian nationals, including Revolutionary Guards officers, were among those who were evacuated to Russia in early March, according to a senior Lebanese civil aviation officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss confidential matters….
…
American intelligence agencies have obtained information that China in recent weeks may have sent a shipment of shoulder-fired missiles to Iran for its conflict with the United States and Israel, according to U.S. officials.
The officials said that the intelligence is not definitive that the shipment has been sent, and that there is no evidence that the Chinese missiles have yet been used against American or Israeli forces during the conflict.
But even a debate in Beijing over sending missiles to Iran suggests the degree that China sees itself as having a stake in the conflict. Intelligence agencies have assessed that China is secretly taking an active stance in the war, allowing some companies to ship chemicals, fuel and components that can be used in military production to Iran for the war…..
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.