A senior U.S. Central Command official sent an email last week to colleagues looking for new and creative ideas for how to pressure Iran into capitulating to U.S. demands.
“We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” an officer in CENTCOM’s intelligence branch wrote in the email to a group of military analysts.
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The crowdsourcing effort and the need for new ideas demonstrate the conundrum President Donald Trump finds himself in now, more than five months into a war he repeatedly says the U.S. has won, and that Iran is eager to make a deal to end.
“To say the least, it sounds a bit unusual,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, former U.S. Central Command Commander, told the Washington Examiner.
Capt. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, directed the Washington Examiner to a statement he made to CNN, which reported first on the email.
“U.S. Central Command has a long history of thinking and working in innovative ways,” he said. “Admiral [Brad] Cooper, in particular, reaches out to members of our great team, regardless of rank, to achieve the highest levels of operational performance possible.”
Trump has said publicly he was weighing whether to authorize a major attack on Iran, though he also acknowledged calling off the attack over the weekend at the request of U.S. allies in the region with the possibility of a diplomatic offramp. The president maintains negotiations are ongoing even though Iranian officials have disputed that.
“We’re talking at the request of Iran, backed by Saudi Arabia, backed by UAE, and backed by Qatar in particular, but others also. Many, many countries called,” Trump said on Monday. “They all wanted to give this a last chance. This is a last chance. This is not something that, if it doesn’t happen, this is the last chance for them to sign a good document.”
Despite Trump’s statement that this is Iran’s “last chance,” he has repeatedly called off impending escalatory operations against Iran at the last minute over requests from U.S. allies in the region that have come under attack due to Iranian retaliation. The negotiations, Trump said, would conclude “today or tomorrow.”
“They’re going to go quickly, one way or the other. It’s not very complex. We’re talking about the Strait [of Hormuz], the opening of the Strait, having it open literally by tomorrow, completely open, and that’s phase one,” he explained. “Phase two is we then will talk about the nuclear capacity, the nuclear, as we’ve been mentioned basically, it’s I think most say the denuclearization of Iran has to happen. It has to happen, and that’ll be the second phase.”
TRUMP: US WILL ‘BEAT THE F***ING S*** OUT OF’ IRAN AFTER SURPRISE ATTACK
Over the month of July, the U.S. military carried out nearly two weeks of consecutive bombing campaigns targeting Iran’s ability to threaten ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, off Iran’s coast. The threats and attacks have led to a global spike in oil and gas prices, which have not yet returned to their pre-war levels.
Four U.S. service members were killed last month, bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed in the war to 18. In total, the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System has recorded 685 troops wounded in action. 417 of the troops were injured between the start of the war and early July. Since July 7, 268 troops have been injured.
