Trump 'Slaps' Netanyahu, Nearly Derails US-Iran Peace Deal
US President Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming Israel’s air strikes in Lebanon threw the schedule for signing a peace deal between Washington and Tehran into disarray. Trump vented his fury because the aggression occurred on a day considered sacred for Middle East peace. The agreement was intended to be followed by the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for global shipping.
“Why did Bibi have to carry out that damn attack? I was very angry and I let him know it. He showed absolutely no sound judgement,” Trump fumed to Axios on Sunday, as reported on Monday, regarding his frustration with the Israeli leader.
The report confirmed that the Israeli bombing delayed the signing of the peace documents for several hours. The situation forced Trump to move quickly to salvage the deal mediated by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
As the key message courier between Washington and Tehran, Sharif confirmed that Islamabad had actually been prepared to proceed with an electronic signing. However, Israel’s unilateral action provoked the fury of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which is now threatening to launch retaliatory strikes in the near future.
Although Trump boasted at the White House that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, had approved the draft agreement, Tehran immediately denied this. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei stressed that an official signing is definitely not happening anytime soon.
Iran’s state-run Fars news agency also emphasised that Tehran’s diplomatic team is still in the process of reviewing the contents of the agreement. The three-month-long diplomatic process has been extremely arduous due to the starkly contrasting conditions set by both sides.
Trump continues to insist on an absolute international guarantee that Iran will never be able to develop nuclear weapons technology. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed that his country’s absolute condition for peace is the complete lifting of economic sanctions and the return of billions of dollars in frozen assets.
“When the time is right, once everything has calmed down, we will go in and take the Nuclear Dust… and destroy it. If this process doesn’t work, we have a primary alternative that I hope we never have to use again,” Trump warned in a hard-line post on his social media account.