to use its sea routes<\/a> to evade the waterways precariously designated by the Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\nThe former US top diplomat in Oman said Trump\u2019s previous threats \u201cupset\u201d Oman, but Muscat \u201cought to see risk\u201d in the repeated warnings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the second time that President Trump has issued (a) threat. \u2026 There is obviously something behind it that you would think the Omanis would want to pay attention to,\u201d Sievers said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear how much progress Oman and Iran have made in their talks, or whether Washington has been involved in the ongoing negotiations \u2013 an absence that could factor into Trump\u2019s anger toward the Gulf nation.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Trump\u2019s) frustration broadly stems from the fact that Muscat pursues an independent policy toward Iran that does not always align with US preferences. Ironically, however, this is precisely what enables Muscat to play the mediating role that Washington often relies upon to facilitate contact with Tehran,\u201d Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told CNN.<\/p>\n
Qatar, another Gulf Arab country that has successfully mediated agreements with Iran, had coordinated its negotiations closely with the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Oman gets in the way, we\u2019ll bomb the shit out of them,\u201d Trump said in an interview with Fox News\u2019 Trey Yingst.<\/p>\n
In Oman and across the wider region, governments remained quiet and issued no condemnation or rebuke of Trump\u2019s threats. CNN reached out to the Omani Foreign Ministry for comment but has received no response.<\/p>\n
Yet Omani social media commentators were critical of Trump\u2019s threats. One commentator, Zakaria Al-Muharrmi, spoke about Oman\u2019s past diplomatic assistance to the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica\u2019s wise leaders know that Oman is the one that freed many detained American citizens in Tehran, and that it is the one that convinced the Houthis to stop shelling American warships, and that it is the key to the solution in the Strait of Hormuz crisis,\u201d Al-Muharrmi wrote on X.<\/p>\n
The Omani commentator added that Trump\u2019s \u201crude language\u201d could lead to Oman freezing its efforts to save Republicans from \u201crising fuel bills\u201d and an \u201canticipated loss in the midterm elections\u201d<\/p>\n
Another Omani commentator, Abdullah Adawi, said that Trump chose \u201cescalation and threats\u201d against a US ally because it \u201cstuck to its position and its independent decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a political scientist from neighboring United Arab Emirates, said Trump\u2019s threats are \u201ccompletely rejected\u201d and must be condemned by Gulf Arab countries in the \u201cstrongest terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Misdirected and short-sighted\u2019<\/h2>\n
An agreement intended to lead to peace talks between the US and Iran expired Monday, leaving both nations deadlocked in a stalemate over management of the Strait of Hormuz, the future of frozen Iranian funds and Tehran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n
Both countries committed in the Memorandum of Understanding in June to achieve a \u201cfinal deal in maximum 60 days\u201d but the ceasefire was soon mired by infringements.<\/p>\n
Iran had rejected how ships were choosing to transit through the strait and began targeting vessels, and the US launched intensive strikes against Iranian targets in response. The Islamic Republic also fired missiles and drones onto neighboring countries hosting US bases.<\/p>\n
Oman and Iran are now engaged in negotiations to resolve how ships cross the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian officials. If the issue of movement in the maritime chokepoint is resolved with agreement from Washington and its allies across the region, it may remove a major hurdle towards unlocking further negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear program and sanctions.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s anger at Oman is both misdirected and short-sighted,\u201d Alhasan, the IISS analyst, said. \u201cIt is misdirected because Omani mediation has been sought by successive US administrations including the current one to facilitate talks with Tehran. \u2026 It is short sighted because Oman will likely be key to any future US-Iran peace deal and transit regime in the strait that emerges from it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US, whose strategic credibility in the region is already in shambles, cannot afford to lose a partner as critical as Oman is to the future of one of the world\u2019s most significant and hotly contested maritime choke points.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oman, a historic partner for the United States and proven mediator to Iran, was once again threatened by President Donald Trump over its negotiations with the Islamic Republic, leaving many in the region confused. Trump\u2019s warning on Monday reiterated a threat he issued in May to \u201cblow up\u201d Oman over its ongoing negotiations with Iran,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2073,1520,4762,4761,4763,4760,457],"class_list":["post-2917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-anger","tag-leave","tag-observers","tag-omanis","tag-puzzled","tag-threats","tag-trumps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}