特朗普拒绝伊朗停火方案拟11月后重启轰炸

Overnight, the Wall Street Journal reported president Trump has rejected the latest proposal aimed at resolving the Iran war and reopening the Strait Of Hormuz. US officials telling the journal that Trump has said it's planned to resume bombing in Iran after the midterm elections in November. We spoke with Dina Esfandiary, Bloomberg's Mideast geoeconomics lead about the next phase of the conflict, what it could look like, and why a solution won't be easy to find.

Internally inside Iran, there's a real debate going on about whether they're making too many concessions, whether they're giving up too much. Because from their perspective, the Strait Of Hormuz is a strategic gain. So there really has to be a recognition of Iran's control over the Strait, which, of course, is exactly what's making The US bulk. So it really remains to be seen if we even get there. You've also said that you think a lot of the leadership in Iran right now believes that the Trump administration is only going to respond to threats and escalations.

And they've said pretty openly that they are more sensitive, that they believe Trump is more sensitive to this war leading up to the midterms. And are they trying to use that as leverage? Absolutely. I think I think most importantly, they believe that if they are to escalate, they have to do it before the midterms because of the reason that you outlined, that Trump is more sensitive to that pressure. I think that's a little bit of misreading on Iran's part, though.

President Trump has indicated that he doesn't really care about the midterm elections, And there's a lot of rumors floating around also that post the midterms, he'll feel even more unconstrained, and so maybe he'll escalate then. So I think on the Iranian side, what they're trying to do is really figure out if they need to preempt that American escalation or if they need to double down and really try to extract as much as possible from The United States in the lead up to the elections.

And I think right now the jury's out. That debate is really active. It's really vocal, but they don't seem to have made a decision, really. We just finished the UN General Assembly. Netanyahu made an incredibly fiery speech, at UNGA. It was basically an enemies list, naming everyone from, The United Kingdom to the mayor of New York as people who kind of had it out for Israel. Is there any indication, any willingness on behalf of Israel to play ball here or abide by any kind of agreement?

Honestly, the short answer to that is absolutely not. Every indication coming out of Israel shows that that, actually, they want to double down. They want to continue the wars in their backyard because from their perspective, those are now important Israeli foreign policy issues. It it they don't see the war in Lebanon or the war in Gaza as a part of the Iran conflict. They see it as separate, actually, much like the Houthis in Yemen see their war as separate from the Iran war.

We tend to group them into one and see them as different fronts of the Iran war, but they certainly don't. That means that this is gonna be a huge sticking point. It was a sticking point in the first MOU. It's definitely gonna be a sticking point in this MOU, this deal because, president Trump has pressure. He can exert pressure on Israel. But at the end of the day, it really is gonna be down to the Israelis whether they want to listen to it or not.

And what's more, the Israelis are preparing for their own elections. I was just gonna say all politics are local in Netanyahu. That seemed like a domestic speech more that more so than an international speech almost. Absolutely. Absolutely. They're preparing for their own elections. They're worried about their own domestic issues. They're they're, you know, playing the political game internally. And I don't think it would look good for any candidate domestically if they suddenly turned around and walked away from Lebanon and Gaza.

I just don't think that this is something that Israel wants. Alright. Speaking of domestic politics, you've written recently about what the potential endgame could be for Iran. And you see you you kinda lay out three scenarios as to where this could go based on who's in leadership right now and kind of the different political factors. Can you walk us through what you see as the most likely scenarios? Our base case scenario right now is that we find ourselves in a protracted war.

Now what does that look like? It looks like cycles of escalation punctuated by pauses in the fighting where each side regroups and rearms and really prepares for the next round, so, like, strategizes for the next round. That doesn't augur anything good for the region nor for the global economy, really. I think disruption in regional waterways is going to continue for the foreseeable future. It's likely to have more impact in the Strait Of Hormuz than in the Red Sea because the Red Sea has already been affected by the Houthi maritime campaign last year.

But freedom of navigation is a thing of the past in those waterways. I don't think we're gonna come back to it. It's also intended to keep The US kind of stuck in its in its campaign to get oil through the Strait, which is gonna be a very costly endeavor for Washington. And finally, it deprives the Gulf Arab states of the most important thing, which is a return to a normal state of affairs that would allow them to kind of rebuild infrastructure that was affected, that would allow their economies to get back on track, and really for them to get back on their feet.

That's all of the things that are not going to happen in the next few months. That's why there was some reporting out in the Wall Street Journal this week saying, essentially, Gulf allies don't want The US to give any inch on Iran. They would rather continue this conflict than than not take a hard line against Iran. I wanted to ask you about that because that goes counter to my own reporting, what I heard with Gulf leaders as I was speaking to them at the UN this week.

Does that track with what you're hearing? Actually, what I'm hearing tracks with what you're reporting. Okay. Alright. We'll we'll go there then. Yeah. Absolutely. It from my perspective, it looks like actually the Gulf Arab states are putting whatever pressure they have at their disposal without actually escalating to to use using financial means to pressure the But everything else, diplomacy, you know, really insisting and ensuring that The US kind of walks away or, at the very least, doesn't escalate in this conflict.

Now they understand that that would leave them in a vulnerable position, but war for them is their worst worst case scenario. I mean, Iran striking at their facilities is the worst thing that could happen to them. Now that's not to say that there aren't elements within the Gulf Arab states who actually probably would want this war to continue and the US to finish this war. But, generally, based on my conversations, they're adamant that they want this to end, and they're adamant that they want to deal with the Iranians in such a way as to incentivize them not to target them in future rounds.

Right. It's important to remember that it's not a monolith. There are different countries with different priorities. But, yes, I most of the folks I've talked to recently this week seem to be working very hard behind the scenes to try to quell this exactly what you're just saying. Before I let you go, I do also wanna ask you about these airplane flight sanctions that the treasury department put into place. How big of a deal is this, and what is the goal here?

Is it really impacting commerce for Iran, or is it antagonizing the population and and fomenting disruption and malcontent within the state at the government? So I struggle to understand or to see what the goal is. What I do know is that the result is that it effectively cuts the Iranian population off from the rest of the world, from their fam