Iran warns US that 'we are just getting started' after attacks in Strait of Hormuz — BBC News

[0:00] The fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire is under new strain after the two sides exchange fire on Monday [0:06] as they wrestle for control of the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. [0:10] Posting on social media, the Speaker of Iran's Parliament and their chief negotiator [0:14] says the U.S. has violated the ceasefire and jeopardized the security of shipping and energy [0:20] transit through the critical waterway. He writes, [0:23] We know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America, while we have not even begun yet. [0:31] His comments come after the U.S. military began an operation to guide stranded cargo ships out of the Key Channel. [0:38] The U.S. says two American guided missile destroyers and two U.S.-flagged merchant ships successfully sailed through the strait, [0:45] while six Iranian small boats were attacked and destroyed. [0:49] Elsewhere in the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates blamed Iran for an attack that caused a fire at the largest oil storage facility in the country. [0:58] The strike on the port of Fujairah is the first on the UAE since a ceasefire was agreed between Iran and the U.S. at the beginning of April. [1:06] In a moment, we'll hear from our Middle East correspondent. But first, David Willis has our top story. [1:11] Smoke rising over the UAE's biggest oil port. [1:16] This, the first strike on the Emirates since a ceasefire in the conflict came into place a month ago, [1:23] and some believe a potentially ominous sign of things to come. [1:28] President Trump is calling the operation to break Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, [1:34] Project Freedom, and continues to insist the war effort is going entirely to plan. [1:39] It's working out very nicely. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft [1:47] equipment. They have no radar. They have no nothing. They have no leaders, actually. [1:51] The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent petrol prices skyrocketing around the world. [1:59] And with elections only months away, President Trump has grown frustrated by the current stalemate. [2:04] Project Freedom will see U.S. cruise missile destroyers, helicopters, drones, and fighter jets [2:12] deployed to help ships pass safely through the Gulf. [2:15] A move that has already antagonized Iran, whose foreign minister, Abbas Arrachi, tweeted, [2:22] Events in Hormuz make clear there's no military solution to a political crisis. [2:28] Project Freedom is Project Deadlock. [2:30] Iranian State TV said its Navy had fired warning shots at American warships, but claims that [2:38] it had hit an American Navy destroyer have been denied by the U.S. [2:42] The United States says two of its guided missile destroyers and two merchant ships have made [2:49] it through the Strait of Hormuz. The shipping company Maersk told the BBC that the U.S.-registered [2:55] Alliance Fairfax had passed through the Strait under military protection, but hundreds of other [3:02] vessels remain stranded. Donald Trump has called the operation to restore freedom of navigation [3:08] in the area and humanitarian gesture, but with it comes the very real threat of a return [3:15] to war. David Willis, BBC News. [3:19] Former UK Ambassador to Iran, Nicholas Hopton, gave us his assessment of where we are in this [3:25] conflict. [3:25] Before this conflict, the Strait of Hormuz was not a part of the negotiations taking place [3:32] between the U.S. and Iran. They were focused on Iran's nuclear threat and from Iran's perspective [3:37] on the possibility of raising the sanctions on them. Now it's all about the Strait of Hormuz [3:43] because one of the unintended consequences of this war has been that Iran has demonstrated [3:48] that it controls de facto the narrow waterway which serves a large part of the global economy. [3:56] And we've seen the devastating consequences and the potential for much worse by Iran controlling [4:03] those straits, closing those straits, and then the U.S. imposing a further blockade on top [4:07] of that. [4:08] So we're at a messy stalemate where the war has ended in an inconclusive fashion. There [4:14] is a ceasefire, formally at least, which has been violated regularly by both sides, it seems. [4:19] And the President of the United States, it would appear, has grown frustrated by this, and feeling [4:27] that he needs to be seen to be doing something to unblock the situation, has launched Project [4:31] Freedom, which looks on the face of it unsustainable given the amount of military resources it will [4:38] require, and also highly unlikely to free up the Strait of Hormuz for maritime traffic in [4:45] the long term, certainly not to return it to as it was before the 28th of February. [4:50] So it looks, I'm afraid, it looks like another gamble from the White House, and the hope is [4:56] that it doesn't lead to a new escalation of the war. [5:00] Behind the scenes, though, what's going on, do you believe, in terms of efforts to resolve [5:08] this diplomatically? [5:09] Well, certainly there's a huge amount of diplomacy going on behind the scenes, not that directly, [5:15] it seems, between the two main parties, US and Iran, but with many mediators, particularly [5:20] the Pakistanis, but others, also trying to help bring the sides together to the point [5:25] where they might rejoin talks, and then move towards more meaningful discussions and even [5:31] negotiations for a settlement. [5:34] And the shape of that settlement is not hard to detect, but it would involve significant [5:39] compromises on both sides, particularly with the White House from its position at the moment. [5:46] And the two sides do seem a long way apart. [5:49] So I think behind all the confusion and noise we're hearing around Project Freedom in the [5:53] last 24 hours, the reality is that the fundamentals haven't changed significantly. [6:00] There is no return to major war at this point. [6:03] The ceasefire is worth something. [6:05] It is still holding to an extent, but the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz effectively. [6:10] There are many, many ships and thousands of sailors trapped in the Gulf at the moment, [6:16] and the global economy is suffering as a result. [6:18] So it will take a return to the diplomatic track in a more meaningful way to find a stable [6:25] long-term solution. [6:27] And the former U.K. ambassador to Iran, Nicholas Hopton. [6:29] Thank you. [6:30] Thank you. [6:31] Thank you.