President Donald Trump, in a marathon of media engagements on Wednesday at the NATO summit, declared the U.S.-Iran ceasefire “over,” warned that the United States could carry out additional strikes on them that night, but also downplayed the possibility of an escalation, which he’s long threatened.
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JINSA Generals & Admirals Program participant GEN (ret.) Joseph Votel, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, described the current tension as “controlled escalation,” designed to “degrade the regime’s ability to have influence over the Strait of Hormuz,” during an interview with the Washington Examiner.
“This is the most acute flare-up since the signing of the MOU on June 17th, and it highlights the fragility of this agreement,” he added. “I don’t know if it’s in our interests or if it’s the president’s desire to go back to a much broader campaign, like you saw back at the beginning of this, in late February, early March. I don’t know that that will get us where we need to get, but I think we have to get back to some type of political process here, negotiation process that begins to address these issues, and I think it’s clear that what we had in the MOU was not sufficient to move this forward in a meaningful way.”
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