US hits Qeshm while talking diplomacy

The US struck Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, even as President Donald Trump talked up the prospect of a diplomatic agreement, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing US officials. This was the latest in a string of small-scale strikes that Washington has carried out against Iran in recent weeks, the officials said, and comes even as Trump told reporters he doesn’t plan on restarting military strikes after the midterm elections. Qeshm sits at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz and is home to an Iranian naval base, a major desalination plant, and a large underground missile facility.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday evening that it had brought down two US MQM-170 reconnaissance drones south of Qeshm using electronic warfare systems. The IRGC said that brings the number of these drones it has downed to four, and it called the incident a fresh failure for US Central Command, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The IRGC did not provide further details about this incident.

Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz unless its conditions are accepted, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the IRNA on Monday. After “dozens of phone calls and intensive shuttle diplomacy,” Iran sent a clear plan for diplomacy to the mediators, Qatar and Pakistan, he said. Iran’s top diplomat added that the “ball is in Washington’s court” to choose between “a wise path of negotiation” and repeating the “mistakes of military aggression.”

Washington has warned several Gulf states to prepare for a brief but forceful US military operation against Iran once the US midterm elections are over, The Wall Street Journal reported in late October, citing sources in the know. The US is also shipping a Patriot missile defense system from Texas to Israel, and has pulled troops away from exposed bases in the Middle East to prepare for possible escalation.