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IT IS DAY 68 OF Trump's war in Ira and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz seems balanced on a knife's edge. In a statement earlier today, U.S. Central Command said forces responded in self-defense after Iran fired at three separate Navy destroyers, adding, quote, CENTCOM does not seek escalation. Afterwards, President Donald Trump posted in part the following. We'll knock them out a lot harder and a lot more violently in the future if they don't get their deal signed fast.
Three senior Iranian officials told The New York Times that Tehran and Washington are discussing a one-page plan for both sides to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end hostilities for 30 days while they try to reach a comprehensive deal. And The New York Times is also reporting tonight that Trump's announcement that the U.S. military would escort ships through the Strait angered Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who denied U.S. access to Saudi airspace and American bases in the country. The U.S. blockade has remained in place. The Washington Post is reporting that U.S. intelligence shows Iran can withstand this pressure for months with that.
Let's get smarter with help of our lead off panel tonight. Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. Michael Crowley, a diplomatic correspondent also with the Times and Evo Daldir, former U.S. ambassador to NATO. He is now a senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center. Gang, I am so happy you're here. We need the best reporting. We need the best analysis. This is serious stuff. So Evo, let's start with you.
We've got both sides firing at each other while there is this one-page proposal to reopen the street. Tell us where things truly stand. Well, if only we knew in some ways because every hour, frankly, is a different moment, a different story, a different deal. On the one hand, we're close to a deal. In fact, the deal's done. Everybody has signed on to the deal. And then the next moment, we're shooting at each other. I think it-I think we are in a state of other confusion, certainly in Washington, perhaps less so in Tehran. And that is what's dangerous and leads to escalation.
I think what's happening is that the United States, particularly President Trump, desperately wants to find a way out of this war. He doesn't want to escalate. He doesn't want to find a new round of fighting. He didn't respond when the Iranians shot at the-at the UAE and the energy facilities that were attacked by the Iranians. He didn't do anything, and I think that's one of the reasons the Saudis were so upset. And, yet, we-we're not going to get the deal that the president wants.
The uranium is not going to be handed over for nothing. The enrichment is not going to be ending for nothing. And I-and we are on a standoff. And at some point, one of the two sides is going to blink. And I don't know who, but my money would be on Donald Trump rather than on the Iranian leadership at this point. Peter, what are you hearing from the White House tonight? Is there concern that the ceasefire could fall apart? Well, there's concern. But I think they seem very determined at this point to maintain the ceasefire, even as there's plenty of fire, right?
You know, missiles are flying. Boats are being shot at. Can we just hold on. Can you just say that again? Because that's absolutely absurd. And we need to just punctuate where we are. Just say it again. It's a ceasefire with lots of fire going on. Now, it's relatively modest fire compared to what we saw earlier. And so they're able to play it down a little bit, but they're determined to maintain the idea anyway that they're in a ceasefire and they're trying to basically find a path to get out of this. as Ambassador Dalton just talked about. And so if you get all worked up about some of the relatively small, you know, violations of what we would normally consider
to be violations of a ceasefire, then you put the pressure on yourself to then return to a state of more fulsome, you know, fulsome attacks, which they don't want to do. Right? They don't want to get back to where they were just a couple of weeks ago. They're trying to find a path out of this, this one-page idea is a way to get there. But it's so remarkably general at this point, the idea that they would somehow end a war based on terms you could put on a single sheet of paper is pretty remarkable.
Obviously, the details really matter. The reason why Trump got out of the Obama deal with Iran was because he didn't think it was a good enough deal. Well, what kind of deal are you going to get with a one page set of terms that doesn't have any kind of verification doesn't have any kind of specifics to it that in fact really leaves all the difficult conversations for the future. Michael I was excited you were coming on tonight and then I saw your reporting and I got really excited because you've got this information about Trump's announcement on the military escorting ships through the strait has angered the Saudi
crown prince MBS tell us the real story here because you know who doesn't want to I don't want to say piss you know who doesn't want to tick off MBS Jared Kushner that's his biggest investor you have got enormous U.S. corporations you've got investors all over the U.S. and their daddy investor in the Middle East is MBS him mad at the U.S. is not good for any of them. Yeah thanks Stephanie and let me be sure. to nod to my colleagues who co-authored that story with me with their great reporting. It wasn't just me, but I'm happy to talk to you about our work, which reports that, you know, President Trump announced this plan on Saturday to conduct what he called, he depicted as a humanitarian mission for the U.S.
military to escort ships and their crews out of the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, many of whom had been stranded there for weeks. And this operation lasted for all of not even 24 hours before the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, denied the United States the use of Saudi territory and airspace to support this operation. Now, you might say, well, hey, that was a maritime operation using Navy ships to escort commercial tankers on the water. But the key here is that you needed really substantial air support, fighter jets, attack helicopters. You needed the airspace around that waterway. And the Saudi crown prince was not happy with the president's plan. And, you know, among the things we know was a sense
in Saudi Arabia that it was just not clearly thought through and that it involved more risk than likely benefit. And the larger context here is that the Saudi crown prince, although my colleagues at The Times have reported that MBS Mohammed bin Salman was just weeks ago urging President Trump to continue bombing Iran quite forcefully and essentially finish the job, hopefully finish off the clerical regime in Tehran. He's now kind of changed course, I think, because it's become clear that regime is going to be very hard to dislodge. It's dug in.
It's growing more hard line by most accounts. And so the Saudi crown prince is now actually eager to get this thing wrapped up and has been supporting the U.S.-Iranian peace talks through the Saudi ally Pakistan. And, in fact, I'm told that the Saudi foreign minister has been talking to the Iranian foreign minister. So MBS is now in more of a de-escalatory frame of mind and appears to have seen this Trump plan as not well thought out and prone to further escalation with the Iranians, the American ships, of course, being relatively easy targets for the Iranians if they wanted to attack. And so basically said, no, we're not in for this.
We didn't sign up for this. And, you know, I'll just conclude by saying it's quite remarkable. I mean, the U.S.-Saudi military relationship has been quite strong for a while and particularly under President Trump, as you know, he's cultivated a very close relationship with all of the Gulf Arab leaders, particularly Mohammed bin Salman. And for the Saudis to kind of pull the rug out from under us in that situation, I know through the reporting of my colleagues in particular, it left U.S. military officials quite stunned. And I spoke to several analysts today who were kind of shocked by this. In conclusion, I have to say, we have reported the airspace is now open,
but it's not clear whether the Saudis will allow the airspace to be used for that operation. So, the airspace is open, but we're not quite back to where President Trump wanted things to be. And this is a very dramatic subplot right now. So, Ivo, the Saudis want de-escalation, right?
