Iran won’t give up the Strait of Hormuz, its “new nuclear weapon,” an analyst told CBS News on Wednesday.
Speaking soon after President Trump said the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was, in his view, “over,” Aaron David Miller, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former State Department adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations, said: “Iran is not going to give up what is now their new nuclear weapon,” the Strait of Hormuz, “which is leverage and control over a choke point through which 20% of the world’s daily global oil supply transits.”
The two countries’ dramatic flare-up this week began with an attack on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, which had demanded that all ships pass through the waterway in coordination with its maritime authorities. The U.S. wants the strait to be freely open to all vessels, like it was before the war launched jointly by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28.
The memorandum of understanding between the two countries in mid-June called for a period of 60 days to negotiate a final peace deal, including a resolution to the Hormuz situation.
“I think that was tethered to a galaxy far, far away, rather than the realities back on the planet,” said Miller of the proposed timeline.
“Flawed military campaign produces flawed memorandum of understanding, produces flawed process of implementation,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump, who called Iranian leadership “scum,” “cuckoo” and a “cancer” Wednesday, “cannot leave this conflict completely humiliated when none of his objectives [have been] achieved” said Miller. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for him simply to walk away.”
