The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Iranian war

  • Newswire: Iran will receive significant concessions in the deal to end the war, according to officials

    Newswire: Iran will receive significant concessions in the deal to end the war, according to officials

    BY JON GAMBRELL, ZEKE MILLER, MICHELLE L. PRICE AND SAMY MAGDY, AP NEWS

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once a tentative deal with the U.S. to end the war is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, according to leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document. 

    The accord, due to be signed in Switzerland on Friday, also envisions Iran receiving at least $300 billion to rebuild after the war and says the U.S. would work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran — if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

    The deal will stop the fighting and start more negotiations

    Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities, restarting negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and reopening the strait, which is a crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas and whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

    The deal includes an end to the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal, although the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.

    A person who was briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and another who viewed a copy beforehand said it largely matched the text of what was published by the Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the deal on Tuesday. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

    Another two officials in the Mideast, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg broadly matched the final agreement.

    The White House and other American officials have not published the terms and did not immediately respond to questions. However, White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote online Wednesday after CNN published a leaked version of the deal that it “does not reflect the language of the actual” agreement, without elaborating. 

    Iran also has not published an official version of the deal. Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed Wednesday that Bloomberg’s version had missing portions, without offering a full accounting. 

    Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government. 

    The interim deal falls short of all of these goals, but Trump hailed it Wednesday. “Nobody knows what it is but it’s very strong,” Trump said in France, where he is attending a Group of Seven summit.

    But he also opened the door to abandoning it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

    The deal provides major concessions to Iran

    Some concessions to Iran — including the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — would happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to officials from Pakistan, a key mediator. They outlined some of the deal’s major points on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

    But in the meantime, the U.S. will issue waivers to sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely. Iran’s main buyer of oil, China, is believed to have bought at below-market prices because of its willingness to ignore the sanctions.

    Granting oil waivers at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were sanctions on Iran’s oil lifted.

    The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that is far beyond the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

    The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild after an intense U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. That also appears dependent on the progress of further negotiations. 

    U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount. Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. would not contribute and said it was up to other countries if they wanted to invest.

    The deal would provide relief to the global economy

    The deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait. 

    The strait’s closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let out some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which has long has been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic was nowhere near levels before the war. 

    The deal also says the U.S. will lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the strait will return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.

    The deal leaves much more to be resolved in future negotiations

    The interim deal sets a 60-day window, which can be extended, to negotiate over limiting Iran’s nuclear program, which has been discussed at multiple rounds of talks during Trump’s second administration without success. The U.S. promises not to make threats of military action under the current deal after two rounds of talks were interrupted by attacks.

    Featured Image:  A small motorboat passes anchored vessels in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)

  • Newswire: Pentagon official threatens Vatican and Pope Leo XIV over Iran War criticism

    Newswire: Pentagon official threatens Vatican and Pope Leo XIV over Iran War criticism

    Pope Leo XIV

    By Zack Linly, NewsOne

    On a regular basis, members of the Trump administration, especially President Donald Trump himself, prove they are not the champions of free speech that they purport themselves to be, and now their glaring constitutional hypocrisy has Pentagon officials threatening the Vatican and Pope Leo XIV — who is no fan of the president — just because the pope joined most of the world in criticizing Trump’s disastrous war on Iran.

    According to a detailed report by the Free Press, on Easter Sunday, while Trump was threatening to bomb Iran’s bridges and power plants and unleash “Hell” on the nation, Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, delivered his State of the World speech, during which he urged world leaders to lay down their weapons, choose peace and relieve themselves of the “desire to dominate other.” The global leader of the Catholic Church also condemned “the imperialist occupation of the world” and warned that God rejects the prayers “of those who wage war” — which seems to be a direct rebuke of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been hosting a monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, and has been praying to his god that “every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”

    So, according to the Free Press, Leo’s speech angered some officials at the Pentagon, resulting in Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, being summoned to a closed-door Pentagon meeting, where he received a stern lecture from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, who reportedly told Pierre: “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

    Besides the fact that these so-called Christian leaders of a so-called Christian nation are out here threatening to unleash the U.S. military on the world’s highest authority on all things Christ, just because the pope said things that are Christ-like, we really should be more concerned that Trump officials keep boasting about how they can do anything they want because they have the most powerful military.

    Remember when Trump was talking about “running” Venezuela and taking over Greenland, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller defended those remarks by beating his little bird chest and declaring, “We are in charge because we have the United States military stationed outside the country,” and “we’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower” as if he himself had ever served even a day in the U.S. mlitary.

    MAGA minions keep defending the Trump administration against allegations that it’s an authoritarian regime, and the administration just keeps undermining that defense by vocally vindicating its accusers.
    The truth is that Trump and his band of stooges — who have been given way more power than incompetent, imbecilic sycophants like them should ever have — have been scrambling and struggling to control the narrative around which side is “winning” regarding the conflict in Iran, and they’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with endless criticism, both globally and domestically, and the growing consensus that this war and the administration’s lack of competent leadership makes the nation look weak.

    Trump is even out here threatening news outlets for reporting statements of “victory” made by Iranian leadership that have also been reported by Iranian media, which brings us to a reminder that the Pentagon recently tried to ban every mainstream news outlet from reporting on it after all of those outlets refused to bend to its new policy that reporters cannot obtain or solicit any information that hasn’t been pre-approved by the Department of Defense. Thankfully, a federal judge stepped in and essentially told Hegseth and other Pentagon officials that they were out of their freedom-of-the-press-defying minds.

  • Newswire: Trump announces ceasefire with Iran, fends off allegations that the US caved

    Newswire: Trump announces ceasefire with Iran, fends off allegations that the US caved

    by Zack Linly, NewsOne

    On Tuesday evening, after weeks of mixed messaging on our progress in the Iran war turned into threats to end the nation’s entire “civilization,” President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform to announce a two-week pause on his plans to start bombing Iranian bridges, electricity plants, and factories because a ceasefire has been negotiated. And because we’ve all heard this song before, folks on social media seem to largely believe that Trump caved to end the war that is bringing his administration nothing but embarrassment and bad press. 

    Meanwhile, Trump, his Cabinet, and MAGA-friendly media outlets are working overtime to spin the narrative that it was actually Iran that caved, ignoring all evidence to the contrary — including the myriad of reports that the missile strikes have not ended.

    “Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” Trump wrote Tuesday evening. “This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. 

    We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution.

    Now, to anyone who isn’t a MAGA sycophant, dedicated to spinning Trump’s confused social media posts into golden nuggets, it looks like Trump stumbled across an excuse to back off from his tough talk and save a little face in the process.

    After all, Trump has been claiming for weeks that  Iran is “begging” for a deal, and that the administration “had very, very strong talks,” and “points of agreement,” only for the Iranian government to deny the “talks” are even happening. Trump previously told reporters that a 15-point proposal to end the war was sent to the Iranian government, and that it “gave us most of the points,” only for the Iranian government to completely reject Trump’s terms shortly after.

    Now, Trump is saying Iran’s 10-point counter-proposal to the U.S. is a “workable basis on which to negotiate,” which really makes it seem like he was the one “begging for a deal,” especially since the contents of Iran’s 10-point plan seem to largely benefit Iran.

    I mean, Iran even included a $2 million toll on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz that no one had to pay before Trump decided to help the Israeli government launch an unprovoked war on Iran. What exactly are we winning here?

    That’s a lot of tough talk, only for Trump to eagerly announce that he is open to Iran’s demands, which, again, came after the nation rejected his.

    And that’s why Trump and his administration are scrambling to force-feed Americans the narrative that it’s a mutual deal that both nations will benefit from, and he’s out here launching investigations against any media outlet that says otherwise.In fact, Trump had another one of his social media meltdowns after CNN reported, “Iran claims victory, says it forced US to accept 10-point plan,” and that the Iranian Security Council said in a statement, “The enemy, in its unfair, unlawful, and criminal war against the Iranian nation, has suffered an undeniable, historic, and crushing defeat.”