(Al Jazeera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhat has Trump said about the Strait of Hormuz?<\/h2>\n
During an interview with CBS News on Monday, Trump said he was \u201cthinking about taking over\u201d the Strait of Hormuz to ensure it remains open.<\/p>\n
Trump also threatened to increase attacks on Iran if it disrupts the flow of oil in the Hormuz Strait.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,\u201d Trump said during a news conference in Florida on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe\u2019s oil supply. And if Iran does anything to do that, they\u2019ll get hit at a much, much harder level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump also said he expects the war to be over in a short amount of time.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, Trump told Republicans at his golf club in Doral, Florida: \u201cWe took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some people. We\u2019ve already won in many ways, but we haven\u2019t won enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Trump said that the war, which began on February 28, could last \u201cfour to five weeks\u201d and that the US military had the \u201ccapability to go far longer than that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Can the US occupy the Strait of Hormuz?<\/h2>\n
During his CBS interview, Trump did not explain what the US plans for \u201ctaking over\u201d the Strait would be. Technically, the US cannot \u201coccupy\u201d the strait, however.<\/p>\n
Alexander Freeman, a partner in the shipping team at UK-based law firm Hill Dickinson, said: \u201cThe United States has no jurisdiction over the Strait of Hormuz, which are not international waters under UNCLOS [the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea]. Without the consent of Iran and Oman \u2013 whose sovereign territorial waters cover the Strait \u2013 the US taking over the Strait would likely amount to an incursion on Iran and Oman\u2019s jurisdiction \u2013 even where it is aimed to protect the safe passage of vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the absence of a ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, however, it is possible that ships could be escorted through the strait by US or international navies.<\/p>\n
During an interview last week, Trump said the US Navy would escort ships in the waterway \u201cif necessary\u2026 as soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Florida, on Monday, Trump reiterated this, saying: \u201cWe\u2019ll perhaps go alongside them for protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking in Cyprus on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France and its allies are also preparing a \u201cpurely defensive\u201d mission to escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz once the \u201cmost intense phase\u201d of the US-Israeli war on Iran\u00a0ends.<\/p>\n
Macron did not provide further details, but he said the \u201cpurely escort mission\u201d must be prepared by both European and non-European countries.<\/p>\n
How has Iran responded, and what is its strategy?<\/h2>\n
Iranian leaders have not shown any signs of backing down over the war or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that Iran would keep fighting for as long as necessary.<\/p>\n
In an interview with CNN, Kamal Kharazi, foreign policy adviser to the office of the supreme leader, ruled out diplomacy and said the war would continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see any room for diplomacy any more. Because Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations \u2013 that while we were engaged in negotiation, they struck us,\u201d Kharazi said.<\/p>\n
He suggested that Gulf and other countries need to place economic pressure on the US and Israel to end the war in Iran for diplomacy to be back on the table.<\/p>\n
Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer in international security at King\u2019s College London, told Al Jazeera that Iran has been engaging in a \u201ccompletely different approach to war fighting\u201d than in the past, when it seemed to opt for slow and steady escalation.<\/p>\n
Pinfold said Iran\u2019s claim that it is attacking only US assets in the Gulf \u201chas to be taken with far more than a pinch of salt\u201d. Iran\u2019s targets are primarily large-scale infrastructure and civilian ones, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they\u2019re doing now is trying to unleash as much chaos as possible to destabilise the region and global markets, hurt the economy, hurt the GCC states, in order that the US will at some point decide that this conflict is no longer worth its while any more and will push for a ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n
What could happen next?<\/h2>\n
Scott Lucas, a professor of US and international politics at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera that if the domestic situation worsens for Trump, there may be an opening for the Gulf states to ask for a pullback.<\/p>\n
Lucas added that this would be \u201cespecially true\u201d if there is another surge in the price of oil in the coming days.<\/p>\n
With the US mid-term elections approaching in November, the domestic pressure on the Trump administration to halt the war on Iran could build up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States President Donald Trump has said he is \u201cthinking about taking over\u201d the Strait of Hormuz so that it remains open. The strait links the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. It is the only route to the open ocean for oil producers in the Gulf. The war in Iran entered its 11th day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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