Counting the hours. Why only Trump knows it, but the truth is that the 47th president of the United States has the world counting the hours until deadline of 20:00 (in Washington, 2 AM in peninsular Spain) that has given Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
If Tehran does not accept, . Real threat or one more of his verbal broadsides? “We’ll find out tonight, in one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world“added the Republican president in his Truth Social in response to a question that we are all asking ourselves right now.
Several ultimatums have been cancelled, numerous changes in tone and Trump’s attitude towards Iran. Now aggressive, now conciliatory. In the global confusion and after a dispute between the parties, a few hours from the limit, the Iranian regime at the moment seems to ignore to the most recent alert. From Tehran they raise the flag of being “a civilization that has survived centuries of turmoil and delusions” of its many enemies in history.
Precisely about its legacy and its weight in the development of the world, Iran claims to be “not an ‘incident’ in history, but history itself; a civilization that has survived centuries of turmoil and delusions of those who wish it harm.” This is what Mohammad Reza Aref, advisor to the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has expressed… waiting for the Late Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khameneido or say something. Or at least show it.
Tehran does not give too much information as is the usual rule of a regime accustomed to obscurantism; Trump didn’t either, but he did make it clear that the targets of the American bombs would be the power plants and other critical infrastructure. In the run-up, both the US and Israel have been hitting relevant points of the Iranian industry, including Jark Island oilfield.
Historiographic diatribes aside, Iran has made it clear in these critical hours that “it will not be bowed down by Trump’s primitive rhetoric” with the parallel promise to “respond to the barbarities of the enemy”. He does it with words and at the entrances and surroundings of power plants, bridges and other potential American targets.
The diplomacy that does not arrive
In between—literally, except in the case of China—the rest of the powers maintain a discreet background. Like the United Nations, which, meeting in its umpteenth Security Council, has not even been able to reach a minimum agreement to avoid the escalation around Hormuz. They have been Russia and China are in charge of vetoing Bahrain’s resolution in the Security Council to demand an “immediate” end to Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the strait.
Moscow went further in its veto, arguing that the proposal from Bahrain, a US trading partner, ignored “the deep cause of the crisis in the Middle East”, in reference to the “aggression of the United States and Israel”. For Russia, the voted and vetoed text “gives carte blanche for the continuation of aggressive acts and the constant escalation of the conflict.
The European Union has practically disappeared in these hours Regarding Iran, it has been some of its member states that have raised their voices to avoid ‘greater evils’.
It is the case of Spain, which “is where it has always been: in favor of de-escalation and that the negotiation table be resumed,” the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, pointed out this Tuesday. In this there is a certain agreement between the Government and the opposition. Núñez Feijóo assured shortly after that “in delicate moments we need common sense, not brutality. The West is not this.”
