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Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial ships during Israel- Lebanon ceasefire, but US naval blockade stays in place
Still no significant movement on the maritime trackers. Ships are still grouped at the anchorages on both sides of the Strait. But Trump says Iran is working with the US to remove them. If Trump offers sanctions reliefs and ends the US blockade (which I doubt) in exchange for giving up their nuclear program and ceasing support for proxies against Israel, maybe this war could end quickly and we can return to pre-war status quo by the end of the year.
This is as close to a win-win situation as we can get. For Israel, there's a weaker defeated Iran in the region without means to develop nuclear weapons quickly, and for Iran, they get to survive and have access to sustenance funds. Trump can also claim some victory points for his base.
All of this is of course assuming Trump is being truthful and wants to end the war that he started. There's so much we don't understand or know behind the scenes.
Seems that Iran has closed the strait again, because the US blocked their ships.
To be honest, seems fair. A blockade is an act of war. A ceasefire where one side blocks economic activity while the other does not seems unbalanced. If Trump or Iran had merely blocked weapon systems from passing through the strait, that would be different.
No one ever said this before when anyone did this against ships flagged by or en route to neutral countries.
People are making up a bunch of new rules just to help Iran out.
Also fails to note that the blockade came about after Iran failed to open the strait as agreed as part of the ceasefire. It's conflict theory all the way down, and for many, siding with the IRGC is preferable to siding with Trump.
April 7-April 8: They agreed to a ceasefire, but the stated conditions were not fulfilled from the US end of the bargain. Israel and Lebanon were still at war. They did not "fail to open the strait as agreed" as the conditions they set were not met.
April 13th: US blockade takes effect, Israel/Lebanon still at war.
April 16th: Israel/Lebanon ceasefire.
April 18th: Iran makes some moves to open up but says
Iran of course had not agreed to conditions including a US blockade during the ceasefire talks. They did not "fail to open the strait as agreed" as the conditions they set have now not been met due to the US adding a blockade in and changing the situation.
People acknowledging reality are not "siding" with anyone but public truth. We can't see their closed door talks but we can see things like the Pakistan PM who negotiated the ceasefire who literally said
This isn't siding with the IRGC to acknowledge the publicly stated ceasefire terms were being violated by Israel up until the 16th. It's not siding with the IRGC to acknowledge the obvious truths that the ceasefire agreement did not include the US blockade that came after the talks.
The United States did not agree to an Israel/Lebanon ceasefire on April 7-8.
Then why did the Pakistan PM announce it as such? Maybe there was a misunderstanding and the conditions were not actually agreed upon, but the publicly stated conditions did include Israel/Lebanon.
Perhaps to stir up trouble. In any case, that Pakistan was the location of the talks does not let the Pakistan PM speak for either party.
That seems unlikely. In peace negotiations, you generally can't chose whom you are negotiating with. Iran can't say they would prefer not to talk with the US and talk with the UK instead, nor can Trump negotiate a ceasefire with Iraq instead.
But generally the host country is one which both sides can agree on. Iran can reject peace talks in Israel, and the US can reject peace talks in Lebanon. Pakistan was something both were willing to agree to, presumably because both thought that Islamabad would not fuck them over.
Generally, the host country has diplomatic influence on the line. If they fuck over either side, e.g. by misrepresenting the ceasefire terms, their diplomatic influence with one side will evaporate. With the Taliban trouble, Pakistan is unlikely to stab the US in the back. So in short, I would trust the host much more than I would trust either side.
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Then why has the US not said anything about Pakistan, their continued host for negotiations, fucking with the ceasefire?
There's only three explanations I can come up with.
There was a misunderstanding of the conditions, and therefore there was no agreed upon ceasefire conditions to violate by either side.
The US side has lied, Israel/Lebanon was included and they realized they couldn't get Israel to stop in time/never planned to follow through on it anyway and just hoped Iran would open regardless.
Pakistan lied, despite no accusations from the US about this and continued usage of them as a host for negotiations, actively interfered in the agreed on ceasefire conditions and destroyed the deal.
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