Iran hits Gulf targets, US-Israel hits Tehran as war enters 5th week – National
Tehran fired missiles at targets in the Middle East on Friday, damaging a desalination plant and setting fire to a refinery in Kuwait, while US and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic Republic of Iran as the war neared its fifth week.
Tehran has maintained pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, despite US and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military might has been destroyed. Showing that part of the Iranian regime is willing to negotiate, the former diplomat published a proposal to end the conflict in an influential American magazine.
Iran’s attack on Gulf energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas flows in peacetime, have rattled stock markets, sent oil prices soaring, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.
Iran’s ability to wreak havoc on the global economy has proven a huge strategic advantage, and world leaders have struggled to figure out how to reopen the waterway. The UN Security Council was expected to consider the new proposal.
Iran’s former diplomat raises the stakes
The former Foreign Minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif – a diplomat with long experience in negotiating with Western countries who is close to the intellectual wing of the Iranian leadership – wrote on Friday that the time has come to end the suffering.
“Prolonged hostilities will cause a huge loss of precious lives and resources that cannot be restored without changing the status quo,” Zarif, who helped negotiate Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.
The US has presented Iran with a 15-point denuclearization plan that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities and reducing its missile production in exchange for sanctions relief. But there were no signs of progress in the diplomatic effort.
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Iran’s first five-point proposal aired on state television included recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over the crisis, the removal of US bases in the region, compensation for war damages, and a guarantee against further aggression — all things likely to be unpalatable to the Trump administration.
Zarif’s proposal combined elements of both plans.
Iran “must offer to limit its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions — a deal Washington would not have accepted before but may now accept,” he wrote.
Tehran and Washington were negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program when the US and Israel began bombing on February 28 – the second time under US President Donald Trump that the US has attacked while negotiating.
It is not clear how much to read into Zarif’s proposal. Although he has no official position in the Iranian government, he helped elect the revolutionary President Masoud Pezeshkian and would probably not have published such a piece without the approval of at least the top leadership.
But it is also clear who in Iran has the authority to negotiate since many leaders were killed in the war. Soon after the episode aired, Zarif tweeted that he was “sad” about it – a sign that he may be facing pressure at home.
Moreover, it is unclear how Trump will respond. He has veered between saying the US is negotiating an end to the war and threatening to extend it. Thousands of US Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region, prompting speculation that there could be a ground attack.
Iran directs desalination plant, refinery
Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery was attacked by Iran, and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp said firefighters were working to control several flames.
Kuwait also said the Iranian attack caused “material damage” to the desalination plant. Such plants are responsible for much of the drinking water in the Gulf states, and have been the main victims of the war.
Sirens were also heard in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian planes, and Israel reported incoming missiles.
The authorities in the United Arab Emirates closed the gas station after the missiles were intercepted and it was reported that debris rained down on it and started a fire.
Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it was not immediately clear what had been struck. A day earlier, Iran said the US had hit a major bridge, which was still under construction, killing eight people.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war. In an update released on Friday, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-based group, said it found casualties were concentrated in security strikes on government-linked areas “rather than indiscriminate bombing” of urban areas.
More than a dozen people have died in the Gulf states and the West Bank, while 13 members of the US were killed, and 19 were reported dead in Israel.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched its war against the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Ten Israeli soldiers also died there.
The UN Security Council will discuss the Strait of Hormuz
Brent crude prices, the international benchmark, were at US$109 on Friday, up more than 50 percent since the start of the war, when Iran began restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The UN Security Council was expected to vote Saturday on a proposal from Bahrain that would authorize defensive action to ensure safe passage of ships through the waters. Bahrain’s original draft would have allowed countries to “use all necessary means” to defend themselves, but Russia, China and France – who have veto power in the Council – have expressed opposition to authorizing the use of force.
After meetings in Seoul between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and French President Emmanuel Macron, the two leaders said they had decided to “cooperate to ensure a safe passage” from the crisis but did not give details.
