By Emmanuel Thomas I Wednesday, July 08
ANKARA, Turkey — President Donald J. Trump declared on Wednesday that the fragile, weeks-old cease-fire between the United States and Iran is officially “over,” unleashing a scathing rhetorical broadside against Tehran’s leadership that threatens to plunge the Middle East back into a full-scale regional war.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a high-stakes NATO summit in Ankara, alongside a visible uncomfortable NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Mr. Trump permanently cast aside the diplomatic breakthrough brokered in April, which had temporarily paused months of intense military hostilities.
“To me, I think the ceasefire is over,” Mr. Trump said, when pressed on the status of the 14-point memorandum of understanding that had governed the tense truce. “I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum. They’re sick people.”
The president’s fiery declarations followed a dangerous overnight escalation in the Persian Gulf. Late Tuesday, the United States launched massive “offensive strikes” hitting more than 80 targets across southern Iran, including air defense networks, coastal radar sites, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fast-attack boats.
The Pentagon characterized the bombardment as a direct retaliation after Iran allegedly targeted three commercial oil tankers transiting the strategic Strait of Hormuz earlier in the week.
Tehran responded swiftly on Wednesday morning, firing a salvo of missiles at bases hosting American military forces in Kuwait and Bahrain, completely shattering any remaining pretense of a truce.
Facing the sudden collapse of his administration’s cornerstone foreign policy effort, Mr. Trump showed no interest in salvaging the diplomatic track, which had been led behind the scenes by his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
”There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo,” Mr. Trump said of the Iranian regime. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I don’t care if the talks with Iran do not resume.”
The sudden re-ignition of hostilities ends a volatile diplomatic experiment that began earlier this year. The conflict initially erupted on Feb. 28, following a sequence of highly disruptive, joint U.S. and Israeli operations.
The conflict initially resulted in the death of Iran’s longtime Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The early weeks of the war devastated regional shipping, sent global energy markets into a tailspin, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz—the vital maritime artery through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s traded oil flows.
Seeking to avert an economic catastrophe, Pakistan stepped in as a mediator, successfully routing a temporary two-week pause in hostilities on April 8. Against the expectations of many hardliners in Washington, Mr. Trump extended that cease-fire indefinitely on April 21, dangling the prospect of partial sanctions relief and the unfreezing of assets if Tehran agreed to roll back its nuclear enrichment and guarantee unhindered maritime traffic.
By June 12, international mediators announced that a structured text for a final peace agreement had been provisionally “agreed.”
The relative calm was supposed to endure through this week as Iran observed an extended, multi-day national funeral procession for Ayatollah Khamenei.
However, the truce proved too brittle to survive deep-seated mutual distrust.
In his remarks in Ankara, Mr. Trump expressed personal betrayal, accusing Iranian officials of using the cover of diplomatic talks and state funerals to plot maritime ambushes.
”They’re a bunch of lying guys,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re liars. They’re cheats. They’re sick people. They’re bad people. And frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them.”
The geopolitical fallout from the collapse of the cease-fire reverberated instantly. Global oil prices spiked on Wednesday morning as traders braced for protracted disruptions in the Gulf. In Europe and Asia, diplomats scrambled to contain the damage, with China’s Foreign Ministry issuing an urgent statement warning both Washington and Tehran against “reigniting” a broader conflagration.
Within the NATO alliance, the developments have laid bare sharp strategic fractures. While Mr. Rutte defended the American retaliation on Wednesday, calling the U.S. strikes “absolutely necessary” to enforce international maritime law, other member states expressed profound anxiety over the American president’s total abandonment of the diplomatic track.
European Union officials cautioned that returning to an open-ended war would severely complicate any long-term stabilization of the Middle East.
Mr. Trump, however, signaled that the era of American patience had run out. While he noted that his envoys could technically continue talking if Tehran chose to return to the table with massive concessions, he made it clear he views the pursuit of a negotiated settlement as an exercise in futility.
”They can talk,” the president said, “but I think they’re wasting their time.”
