{"id":458574,"date":"2026-05-20T15:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/458574\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T15:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:34:08","slug":"iran-threatens-to-spread-war-beyond-middle-east-if-us-attacks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/458574\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran threatens to spread war beyond Middle East if US attacks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran<\/a> threatened on Wednesday to spread war beyond the Middle East if the United States attacks again, after US president Donald Trump <\/a>said he had come within \u200can hour of restarting the military campaign.<\/p>\n

Six weeks since Trump paused the campaign for a ceasefire, talks to end the war have largely stalled.<\/p>\n

Iran submitted a new offer to the United States this week, but its public accounts of it repeat terms previously rejected by Trump, including demands \u200bfor control of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, compensation for war damage, lifting of sanctions, release of frozen assets and the withdrawal of US troops from the area.<\/p>\n

Trump said on Monday, and again on Tuesday, that he had come close to ordering a new bombing campaign but had put it off at the last minute to give more time for diplomacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was an hour away from making the decision to go today,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate for any new attacks by striking countries in the Middle East that \u200bhouse US bases. On Wednesday it suggested it would also hit targets further afield.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf aggression against Iran is repeated, the promised regional war will extend beyond the region this time,\u201d the Islamic Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried on state media.<\/p>\n

In the latest diplomacy, Iran\u2019s Tasnim news agency reported that Pakistan\u2019s interior minister \u2060had arrived in Tehran. Pakistan hosted the only round of peace talks last month and has been conveying messages between the sides.<\/p>\n

Iran has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz to all ships apart \u200cfrom \u200cits \u200bown since the US-Israeli campaign began in February, causing the biggest disruption to global energy supplies in history. The United States responded last month with its own blockade of Iran\u2019s ports.<\/p>\n

Iran says its aim is to reopen the strait to friendly countries that abide by its terms to use it. That could potentially include fees for access, which Washington says would be \u2060unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Two giant Chinese tankers laden with a total of about four million barrels of oil left the \u200bstrait on Wednesday. Iran had announced last week, while Trump was in Beijing for a summit, that it had reached \u200bagreement to ease rules for Chinese ships.<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s foreign minister said on Wednesday a Korean tanker was crossing the strait in co-operation with Iran.<\/p>\n

Shipping monitor Lloyd\u2019s List said at least 54 ships had passed through the strait last week, about double the \u200cnumber from the week before. But that is a fraction of \u200bthe 140 or so each day that typically crossed before the war.<\/p>\n

Trump is under pressure to end the war, with soaring energy prices hurting his Republican Party ahead of congressional elections in November. Since the ceasefire, his public comments have veered from threats to restart bombing to declarations that a peace deal was at hand.<\/p>\n

Despite saying he had come close to restarting the war on Tuesday he also said negotiations were going well and it would be over \u201cvery quickly\u201d. Vice president JD Vance, who led the US delegation at last month\u2019s sole round of peace talks, also spoke optimistically of progress, saying \u201cWe\u2019re in a pretty good spot here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fluctuating US stances have sent oil prices bouncing from hour to hour, though on a clear upward trend week by week.<\/p>\n

The US-Israeli bombing killed \u200cthousands of people in Iran before it was suspended in \u2060a ceasefire in early April. Israel has also killed thousands more and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes in Lebanon, which it invaded in pursuit of the Iran-backed Hizbullah militia. Iranian strikes on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states have killed dozens of people.<\/p>\n

The Iran ceasefire has mostly held, though there was a spike in attacks on shipping and on Gulf states in early May when Trump announced a naval \u200cmission to reopen the strait, only to call it off after just 48 hours.<\/p>\n

This week saw a new volley of drones launched at Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which said they came from Iraq where militia allied to Iran operate. Jordan reported shooting down a drone on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Trump and \u200bIsraeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said when they launched the war that their aims were to curb Iran\u2019s support for regional militias, dismantle its nuclear programme, destroy its \u200bmissile capabilities and make it easier for Iranians to topple their rulers.<\/p>\n

But Iran has so far retained its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, and its ability to threaten neighbours with missiles, drones and proxy militias. Its clerical rulers, who put down a mass uprising at the start of the year, have faced no sign of organised opposition since the war began.- Reuters<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How a secret plan to install Ahmadinejad as Iran’s leader quickly fell apartOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran threatened on Wednesday to spread war beyond the Middle East if the United States attacks again, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[114,969,42,11829,150432,5461,43,150177,40,38,41,39,90],"class_list":["post-458574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-jd-vance","tag-news","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}