Trump says he is negotiating with "a new Iranian regime" and threatens to destroy its oil infrastructure

BarcelonaDonald Trump insists he is holding "serious" talks with "a new, more reasonable" Iranian "regime." He stated this in a message on his social media network, Truth Social, in which he again threatened Iran with attacks on electrical, oil, and civilian facilities. "Great progress has been made, but if for some reason a deal is not reached soon [...] and if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately "open for business," we will conclude our charming "stay" in Iran by completely blowing up and destroying all of its power plants, oil wells, and the island of Kharg (and possibly all desalination plants!), which, by the way, we have not "touched" yet," the message stated.

Hours earlier, Donald Trump had made his intentions clear to Iran in an interview with the British newspaper Financial Times. The American president stated that he would "like to take control of the oil" of the Islamic Republic, just as he did in Venezuela, where Washington intends to control the oil industry "indefinitely." "If I'm being honest, what I'd most like to do is take Iran's oil. But some stupid people in the United States reply: "Why are you doing this?" But they are stupid," Trump said in the interview.

The Republican also leaves the door open to the possibility of taking the island of Kharg, through which the vast majority of Iranian crude oil is exported. To do so, he acknowledged, the United States would need to have a prolonged presence on the ground.

In this regard, the Pentagon has been sending trained soldiers to the region for days. According to the most recent estimates from the New York Times, the United States already has more than 50,000 troops deployed in the Middle East, about 10,000 more than usual. The latest to arrive were 3,500 soldiers, who arrived this Friday. Among them were about 2,200 Marines who came on an Amphibious ship. This convoy joins another 2,200 Marines who are en route and thousands of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, who have also been ordered to deploy there.

"Perhaps we'll take Kharg Island, or perhaps we won't. We have many options," Turmp stated in the interview. "It would also mean we'd have to stay there [on the island] for a while." In any case, experts assure that an assault on the island would carry significant risks for the American administration, as soldier casualties could further call into question their management of the conflict.

These threats come after the American president stated on Sunday that Washington and Iran had held "direct and indirect" talks in which the new Iranian leaders had been "very reasonable." After Pakistan assured that it would host "meaningful talks" in the coming days with the aim of ending the war, Trump again sowed doubt: "I think we'll make a deal with them, I'm pretty sure, but we might not," he told reporters on Sunday night while traveling aboard Air Force One to Washington.

Therefore, the speaker of the Iranian parliament has criticized the contradictory stance of the White House, which, he says, while sending messages about negotiations, at the same time plans a ground invasion. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf affirmed that Tehran is "waiting for American soldiers to enter the land so we can shoot them."

More crossfire

Meanwhile, on the military front, four weeks of American and Israeli bombing do not seem to be depleting Tehran's missile batteries, which has promised to "punish the aggressor" for the constant attacks. This Monday, Iranian forces fired several waves of rockets at Israel. Some have hit the Haifa oil refinery, Israel's most important northern city, for the second time during the war, according to various local media reports, which state that the attack did not leave any victims.

For its part, the Israeli army continued bombing Tehran early this morning, in attacks that allegedly targeted military infrastructure. Tel Aviv also claims to have intercepted two drones from Yemen, two days after the Houthis, allies of Iran, entered the war in the region with an attack on Israel.

Israeli fire also reached Beirut, where the aerial offensive continues while ground troops are deployed in southern Lebanon. The army claims to have attacked "terrorist" infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah south of the Lebanese capital, and that the Shiite militia has also launched projectiles against Israel. In total, more than a million people have been displaced in Lebanon since the beginning of the conflict, and the death toll exceeds 1,100.