(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to “bomb the shit” out of Oman over the Gulf state’s talks with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz, despite US officials previously backing Muscat’s efforts to reach a deal with Tehran.
Fox News reporter Trey Yingst said he asked the president about the talks between Oman and Iran, and Trump replied, ” If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
Back in May, Trump threatened to “blow up” Oman if the country reached a deal with Iran that would involve joint control with Iran of the Strait of Hormuz, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent followed with a threat to “aggressively” target Muscat with sanctions if it was involved in a tolling system for the strait.
Iran has said it reached an understanding with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz, but that it didn’t mean the waterway would be fully opened until the US ends the blockade of Iranian ports and fulfills other commitments it agreed to under the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, which officially expired on Monday.
In his interview with Yingst, Trump also said that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender” and suggested he was content with the current status quo.
“I have no time schedule,” Trump said. “I’m not in a hurry…the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking.” Trump and other officials in his administration have said that they are now focusing on economic pressure through sanctions and the blockade.
Iranian officials have suggested they will not sit back and allow the US to maintain the current status quo and could go on the offensive. “The enemy should know that it cannot catch us off guard,” Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, the political deputy of the IRGC, said on Monday, according to PressTV. “Instead, it is the enemy that must anticipate strategic surprises.”
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
