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Photographer: MAJID\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) — The Pentagon said it\u2019s conducting the most intense day of attacks against Iran and won\u2019t give up until the Islamic Republic is defeated, striking a more aggressive tone after President Donald Trump\u2019s suggestion the war could end soon.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the comments during a press conference Tuesday. They suggested the US-Israeli campaign that began on Feb. 28 may still have some way to run, creating further disruption in the oil industry and global markets. <\/p>\n
Asked whether he would be willing to talk to the Iranians, Trump said it would be possible but was non-committal, Fox News reported. Iranian officials have pushed back against that idea, with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf saying the country is \u201cabsolutely\u201d not seeking a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told PBS\u2019s News Hour on Monday that talks with the US are not \u201con our agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US comments came as strikes continued into an 11th day. Washington and Israel continued to bomb Iran overnight and into Tuesday morning, with the Islamic Republic firing drones and missiles at targets across the Middle East in return. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re concerned at the apparent lack of a joint plan on how this war can quickly be brought to a convincing conclusion,\u201d German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters.<\/p>\n
WATCH: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be finished pretty quickly,\u201d President Donald Trump says during an event in Florida referencing the war in Iran.Source: Bloomberg <\/p>\n
The biggest oil refinery at Ruwais in the United Arab Emirates halted operations after a drone strike caused a fire in the industrial area in which it\u2019s located, according to people familiar with the matter. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. was assessing damage at the plant, the people said.<\/p>\n
Addressing concerns about soaring energy prices, Trump said Monday that the US Navy will escort tankers to maintain a steady oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz. The effective closure of the waterway \u2014 vital to the world\u2019s flow of petroleum \u2014 has created bottlenecks and caused regional energy giants to slash production. <\/p>\n
Brent crude, having climbed to almost $120 a barrel early Monday, eased to about $91 following Trump\u2019s comments about the war ending soon. That\u2019s still more than 50% higher than at the start of the year.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have lowered their collective output by as much as 6.7 million barrels a day, people with knowledge of the matter said. That amounts to about 6% of global supply. There\u2019s little sign Hormuz can be opened quickly without at least a pause in hostilities.<\/p>\n
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Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser called the disruption \u201cthe biggest crisis the region\u2019s oil and gas industry has faced.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Trump told Republican lawmakers on Monday that the US and Israel are \u201ccrushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.\u201d \u00a0He later said the US had hit 5,000 targets in Iran, reducing the country\u2019s missile capability to a 10th of what it was. The military objectives of the war could be described as \u201cpretty well complete,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Even so, Iran pressed ahead with attacks on Israel and Arab states on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates said it was responding to a missile threat from the Islamic Republic, hours after it reported a drone attack on its consulate in Iraq\u2019s Kurdistan region. One person was killed in an attack on the Bahraini capital of Manama, while Kuwait intercepted six drones.<\/p>\n
There are early signs the attacks on some countries, including the UAE, are waning. Countries from Australia to South Korea and the UK have either helped to boost defenses of Gulf allies or are assessing requests to do so.<\/p>\n
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran is prepared to scale back the conflict \u201con the condition that the airspace, territory, and waters\u201d of neighboring countries aren\u2019t used to launch attacks on the Islamic Republic, according to semi-official Mehr news agency.<\/p>\n
Pezeshkian made those remarks during a phone call with Turkey\u2019s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, following the interception of an Iranian missile in Turkish airspace by NATO\u2019s air defenses on Monday. He\u2019s made similar comments in the past week, yet Iran continues to attack the likes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which say they aren\u2019t allowing Israel or the US to use their airspace for strikes.<\/p>\n
NATO is increasing air defenses in southeast Turkey, where the US operates a key radar supporting the alliance\u2019s ballistic missile shield.<\/p>\n
More than 1,300 Iranians have been killed in the war so far, according to an official toll that number hasn\u2019t been updated for several days. The US reported its seventh casualty on Sunday. Two Israeli soldiers and about a dozen civilians also have died, while several deaths have been reported in Gulf countries.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces maintained attacks on southern Lebanon on Tuesday, aiming to degrade Iran-aligned Hezbollah. Some 486 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the nation\u2019s health ministry.<\/p>\n
Trump pledged during his election campaign not to allow the US to become involved in protracted foreign wars, and there\u2019s a risk that more American casualties and sustained high gasoline prices will weigh on the Republican Party\u2019s chances in mid-term elections in November.<\/p>\n
Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the war, and it\u2019s been condemned by several GOP politicians.<\/p>\n
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Trump said he could waive \u201ccertain oil-related sanctions to reduce prices\u201d but didn\u2019t offer specifics beyond acknowledging he had discussed the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow has faced a range of restrictions on its vast oil industry, including a price cap on its crude and US sanctions on its two largest producers \u2014 a bid to deprive the country of revenue over its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking to keep the oil prices down,\u201d the US president said. \u201cThey went artificially up because of this excursion.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Iran chose Mojtaba Khamenei as the country\u2019s new supreme leader. His father Ali Khamenei ruled the country for almost 37 years and was killed when US-Israeli strikes began on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n
The 56-year-old has deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, about the most powerful military and economic organization in Iran. The group pledged full obedience to the new leader. He\u2019s yet to speak publicly since being elected.<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Omar Tamo, Galit Altstein, Dan Williams and Paul Wallace.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photographer: MAJID\/AFP\/Getty Images (Bloomberg) — The Pentagon said it\u2019s conducting the most intense day of attacks against Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":645685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[3638,69,10291,83,8787,99,220040,50,162382,6986,139346,10317,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-645684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-bloomberg","tag-donald-trump","tag-global-markets","tag-iran","tag-islamic-republic","tag-israel","tag-mohammad-bagher-qalibaf","tag-news","tag-oil-industry","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-the-pentagon","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116205233700108875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}