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1 month ago
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Summary
Trump’s pause on his threat of strikes at Iran’s energy infrastructure is being met with sighs of relief globally, as it should. A disastrous escalation in hostilities has been held off for five days. It needs to be called off entirely.
A silver lining seems to have appeared around the clouds of war over West Asia. Donald Trump put off by five days the US threat of bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure just hours before his 48-hour deadline was to expire for Iranian forces to open the Strait of Hormuz.
The US President cited “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East” between the US and Iran over the past two days as the reason for his decision. Meanwhile, Iran’s embassy in Kabul sought to portray this as the US backing down in the face of Tehran’s counter-threat of reprisal strikes across the Gulf.
Whether or not Trump has “chickened” out, as some market watchers claim he always does when the stakes rise, the world wouldn’t complain. His statement raises the hope of a truce. To be sure, Trump has a tendency to quickly change stance.
Yet, just the relief of his ultimatum being postponed led crude oil prices to soften and sparked stock rallies in Europe. Asian markets like India’s that closed earlier on Monday had been reeling under the fear of conflict escalation. Now we just need Trump’s five-day extension to stretch on indefinitely.
English (US) ·