'"WAR is continuation of politics by other means" :::::: "Very dishonourable people': Trump rejects Iran’s leaked deal claims, accuses Tehran of drone attack on Indian ships :::: Netanyahu says says he is “in full agreement” with Trump to keep Iran from obtaining Nukes

 The US and Iran stepped back from the brink of returning to all-out war on June 11. Hours after saying the US military would carry out strikes against Iran for a third consecutive night, Donald Trump postponed the attack.   

The difficulty begins with the absence of any discernible plan in Washington. Trump has articulated no strategy and no definition of victory beyond a vague aspiration to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Weeks of intensive bombing earlier in the war did not shatter the regime’s centre of gravity. 

Rather, it consolidated the regime and has left it more cohesive and determined than it was before. 

In contrast to the more cautious regime of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which tended to wait and to respond, the new regime has become assertive.

It has been quick to retaliate against US and Israel attacks with severity and to set the pace of escalation. On June 8, for example, Iran launched barrages of missiles towards Israel in protest at the Israeli military’s escalating campaign in Lebanon.

War, as Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz observed in his 1832 book, 'On War', is the continuation of politics by other means.

The Iranian military had said the US would “receive a more severe response than before” if it followed through on its threats.  

Trump claimed to have cancelled the strikes because of progress in negotiations between the two countries. In a statement posted on social media, Trump said: “Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved.” He later added that the deal is set to be signed over the “next few days”.  

'Very dishonourable people': Trump rejects Iran’s leaked deal claims, accuses Tehran of drone attack on Indian ships

A senior Iranian source says that the draft would waive sanctions on Iran's oil, unfreeze billions of dollars of its funds, and require a cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon.  

An emerging deal between the United States and Iran is “performance-based”, a senior Trump administration official said on Friday. They added that Tehran will get none of its frozen assets until it carries out its part of the agreement.

Trump dismissed Iranian media reports on an imminent deal with the US as “fake news”, saying they were not the terms Washington agreed to. Several Iranian media outlets have been reporting what they described as details of a draft proposal being reviewed by Iran’s leadership. 

Some of the terms of the agreement, according to the reports, include Iran’s control of the strait of Hormuz and postponed discussions on its nuclear programme 

The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he is “in full agreement” with Donald Trump to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.  

And, even if it is signed, the agreement Trump is talking about is far from a final peace deal. It appears to be a memorandum of understanding, establishing a framework for the two countries to talk about unresolved issues. 

These include Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and nuclear programme. (Reuters)