Trump Warns About Iran's Agreement and Military Collapse

Trump warned Tuesday that Washington would react if Iran didn’t stick to their aGreement. He insisted, though, that Tehran was significantly weakened by everything that happened recently. No longer had real leverage over Washington, he claimed.

“If Iran doesn’t live up to their aGreement, or if they aren't behaving, I will do what I have to do,” Trump told reporters when asked about the future of that understanding between them. It felt like a threat hanging there.

This warning came just days after Trump and President Pezeshkian had signed some interim deal. The whole thing was meant to open up negotiations about ending the fighting that started after US and Israeli strikes against Iran, followed by Tehran’s retaliation against Israel and those Gulf states hosting American bases. A messy start, really.

When pressed on whether the aGreement suddenly gave Iran more power over him? Trump dismissed the idea immediately. Instead, he launched into a blistering assessment of where Iran actually stood politically and militarily.

“Oh, their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their leaders are all dead. Their whole country is a mess. Their economy is shot,” he said. It was blunt.

He claimed that over the last four months, Iran had suffered devastating losses. He argued that reports suggesting the country was mostly intact were just misleading noise.

“Four months ago, they had a navy, 159 ships to be exact. It’s gone. The whole navy is gone. Their 250 airplanes, all gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone. Their radar is gone,” he continued.

Then there was the missile situation. Trump asserted that most of Iran’s launch facilities and drone manufacturing capabilities had been destroyed. He pegged it pretty high.

“Most of their missiles are gone. Most of their launching pads are gone. Most of their manufacturing capacity for drones and missiles is gone. About 87 per cent gone,” he stated.

He also hammered home the damage to leadership structure. It wasn't just equipment. “Their first level of leaders, gone. Their second level of leaders is gone. Their third level of leaders, you have to hear the conversations,” Trump added. A total collapse, he implied.

During this time, Trump took a shot at the media itself. He accused them of downplaying how much the conflict actually wrecked Iran. “The reason that I won in a landslide, even though I got 92 per cent negative press, all fake press, is because nobody believes the press anymore,” he said.

According to his view, reports suggesting Iran was still doing okay were just ignoring the sheer scale of military infrastructure destruction. That damage was real.

Then there was the whole messy issue of frozen funds. Reuters reported that Trump defended the terms of the aGreement regarding those assets. He claimed the money released would end up helping American farmers.

“All that money’s coming back in the form of purchases of food which they desperately need. They have 91 million people, they can’t feed them. So, the money that we lift is going to go to our farmers,” Trump argued. A very specific justification for him.

But Iran pushed back on this. Their semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted their central bank governor saying Tehran wasn't obligated to buy agricultural goods exclusively from the United States under whatever memorandum existed. The obligation felt shaky there.

Meanwhile, things were moving separately on the nuclear front. AFP reported that the US had temporarily paused sanctions on Iranian oil. This followed remarks by Vice President Vance suggesting Tehran would let UN nuclear inspectors back in.

The US Treasury confirmed the pause through August 21st. They cited Iran’s commitment to letting free transit through the Strait of Hormuz and allowing IAEA inspectors into the country.

Trump commented on these talks, saying progress was happening. But he kept stressing one thing above all else: Iran would never get a nuclear weapon.

“We’re negotiating, we’ll see how that all goes, but we have two things,” Trump said. “We have an open Strait, and we have a country that will never have a nuclear weapon.”

He also touched on the Strait of Hormuz itself. It was previously closed during the fighting. Now? He claimed it was functioning normally. “We’re doing very well with respect to the Hormuz Strait. We took in more oil yesterday than has ever gone through the strait,” he noted, shifting focus back to energy flow.

The actual talks were happening over in Switzerland now. Pakistan and Qatar are the mediators. They said both sides managed to aGree on a roadmap. The goal is a final deal within sixty days. It's slow work, that kind of thing.