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00:00Abir Abu Omar is a Bloomberg News correspondent. She's joining us now from Dubai.
00:04And Shannon Kingston is ABC News State Department reporter. She is joining us from Washington.
00:09Abir, I want to start with you. Do we have any kind of idea of what was hit overnight?
00:13I was seeing reports as we were coming in this morning of possibly the death of a child in Qatar,
00:17also strikes in Oman and elsewhere, maybe Jordan throughout the region.
00:20What is the damage report as everyone's waking up today?
00:24Yeah, good morning, guys.
00:25So we're hearing of these explosions happening across the Middle East and these tit-for-tat attacks continue to happen.
00:32Now, they started at the beginning of this week or the past week, should I say,
00:36when Iran targeted a Qatar-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:40And then the U.S. went on to attack Iran military targets there for two straight days.
00:45Now, it seemed to have calmed down throughout the end of last week, at least,
00:50especially after President Trump came out during the NATO summit and said that as far as he's concerned,
00:55the ceasefire is over.
00:56But then we heard some caveats from the people around him, but also from the Middle Eastern part of the
01:02world,
01:02where we heard the talks are set to continue despite that very strong escalation in the rhetoric.
01:09But then over the weekend, and especially today, this Cyprus-flagged ship was hit by Iran.
01:15And we're hearing just at the top of your show, I was just following the news,
01:18we're seeing headlines across the Bloomberg terminal saying that Amman,
01:21which works alongside Iran to sort of monitor the Strait of Hormuz,
01:27said that it rescued 23 crew members of the GFS galaxy after the incident.
01:32This is the Cyprus-flagged ship.
01:33And so the U.S., as David had mentioned, targeted 140 targets across Iran.
01:38Most of those military targets earlier in the week, it had targeted bridges.
01:44Some dozen people or so were killed in Iran.
01:47Some 78 people were injured.
01:50And just this morning, we're hearing these sirens across the Middle East in the UAE, in Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
01:57Christina, as you've mentioned as well,
01:58Qatar saying that three people were injured, including a child.
02:03And so we're seeing this escalation in the rhetoric quite a bit this morning.
02:06It's still unclear if we're going to see a return to diplomacy,
02:10a return to those technical talks that were taking place up until a couple of weeks ago in Doha.
02:17But it seems that the situation is slightly a little bit more complicated,
02:21especially with P-Texas saying that Iran will pay,
02:24and this is a quote from him, will pay for the damage that it had ensued on the Strait of
02:30Hormuz.
02:31Iran for, on its own, saying that the Strait of Hormuz is shut and that no ships can make movement.
02:37So we're back to, I don't want to say square one,
02:40because we're not seeing a kinetic sort of warfare similar to what we've seen in March.
02:45But we're going back to a place that we didn't think we would be at
02:50after that MOU was signed just three and a half weeks ago.
02:54Shannon, let me pick up on that point about these talks,
02:57the technical talks that were supposed to be underway this weekend.
02:58We know the Iranian foreign minister traveled to Amman.
03:01Seems unclear if there were any U.S. representatives who were there as well.
03:04What is your sense of the status of those looking at the backdrop to all of this,
03:08the wide geography that Abir just mentioned a moment ago that's been hit overnight?
03:12What grounds for optimism are there here that these technical talks are going to continue
03:16as we look at the end of that 60-day period not too far off?
03:20Well, David, one of the reasons that the events of the last 12 hours or so have been so head
03:25-spitting
03:26is that there was at least a brief moment yesterday where it seemed like diplomacy had a chance,
03:32at least, to win the day.
03:34We did see those high-level talks between mediating powers and an Iranian delegation of negotiators.
03:40The U.S. was not directly involved, but they were closely monitoring the play-by-play from afar.
03:45And sources say that during that high-level meeting, the Omanis laid out a plan to fully open both lanes
03:52of the Strait of Hormuz and that Iranians indicated that maybe this was something that could work for them.
03:57But they said they had to go back to their country first to talk to the highest levels of leadership
04:03and see if they could get buy-in.
04:05Well, it wasn't long after that delegation landed back in Iran that we did see the IRGC Navy
04:11come out and say that it was fully closing the Strait and that it had hit that commercial vessel
04:17in the waterway, hitting another commercial ship yet again.
04:20So that was a very clear answer and very far away from what the Trump administration was hoping to accomplish.
04:26But we have seen through the conflict that U.S. officials have said that there are these more
04:32moderate factions within the Iranian government now that are willing to listen, that they can negotiate with.
04:38But what the events overnight prove is that so long as there are these hardliners within the Iranian government
04:45and so long as those hardliners are willing and able to pull the trigger on military action,
04:51on maximalist stances, that those are going to be the voices that are much louder at the end of the
04:57day.
04:57And there was some reporting from our colleagues at CBS yesterday that Iran had possibly said
05:01we shouldn't have done those strikes.
05:03That was a bit of one of those factions you mentioned kind of getting out over ahead of where we
05:07wanted to be operationally.
05:09Shannon, I want to follow up with you as well because I'm wondering if we've heard any more
05:12about these U.S. installations throughout the region and if it's changed the force posture of any of the embassies.
05:17I know some of the embassies there have been on authorized departure, ordered departure for months now.
05:23Friends in the embassy in Israel have not been able to leave that embassy for months and months.
05:27I'm wondering if you've seen any of those alerts go out or warnings to citizens in the region.
05:32What is the status of diplomats and what are the warnings for Americans who might be in harm's way?
05:37That's a great question.
05:38And we have seen that the security posture at embassies, many on ordered or authorized departure,
05:43largely hasn't changed.
05:45The one difference at the embassy in Kuwait, that was the only one where operations were fully suspended
05:51during the hottest days of the conflict.
05:53That was recently reopened, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
05:58He took a trip there, attended the flag raising himself.
06:01But there is no question that this in-person diplomacy has been degraded somewhat because
06:07the U.S. diplomats just can't have the same position that they did have before this conflict.
06:13That was one of the reasons that Secretary Rubio did travel to the region.
06:17He wanted to meet with Gulf allies.
06:19He wanted to assure them that their security was of the utmost importance to the Trump administration.
06:26Now, officials do say that that was a successful mission.
06:29But clearly, these widespread strikes by Iran overnight, even though they are largely expected
06:35when we see incidents like this, it's clear that from the Gulf allies, Gulf partners,
06:40they're saying this really can't be the new normal.
06:43It's been bad enough.
06:44But if it continues unchecked, there are going to be some very real consequences for the air economies.
06:50Abir, I want to pick up on that and just go back to what you mentioned a moment ago,
06:53all of the places that have been hit overnight.
06:55So we're looking at an air base in Jordan, attacks on Qatar, Kuwait, communications array,
07:01radar installation in Bahrain as well.
07:04Shannon mentioned a moment ago just sort of the way that these Gulf allies are watching all of this unfold.
07:08And I'm curious, sort of among them, is there much coalescing in terms of encouraging these talks to continue,
07:14stressing the importance of there being some resolution to this?
07:17Again, we're kind of focused on this binary between the U.S. and Iran, yes,
07:20with the help of Pakistan and with other nations kind of trying to force those conversations to take place.
07:25Are we seeing a wider movement to kind of convey the seriousness of this
07:28and kind of push for some resolution here?
07:31Yeah, David, look, Qatar is one of them, right?
07:33Qatar is one of, or has emerged as one of the key mediators over the past few weeks or so
07:38to try to bring a resolution to this.
07:40But even Qatar today was attacked.
07:42And again, we mentioned the three people injured in Qatar.
07:45And so it does seem like there is some kind of, you know,
07:48lack of communication within Iran's own leadership.
07:51For example, we've seen, we haven't seen at all,
07:54Mushtaba Khamenei, who is the current Supreme Leader,
07:56but we've seen a post of him on X saying that Iran must seek revenge for the killing of his
08:03late father,
08:04whose funeral was taking place last week,
08:06where the suspended talks were happening because of that mass mourning.
08:11But when it comes to GCC nations, yes, behind the scenes,
08:13what we've reported on multiple times is that they're really pushing for an end to this war
08:18and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,
08:20simply because for the time being,
08:23it is still the waterway where the majority of their crude exports go through.
08:27Now, again, we've reported that Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
08:29have been doubling down on other routes to try to get their shipments across.
08:33But realistically, that's going to take a year to 18 months to start working.
08:39And then for Qatar's LNG shipments,
08:41we reported when the MOU was signed that Qatar will start ramping up production of its LNG shipments.
08:47And then just last week, we reported that actually they're going to pause that
08:51because of the skirmishes that we're seeing across the Strait of Hormuz.
08:54But when it comes to officials from the GCC, we heard last week from Anwar Gargash.
08:59He is a senior advisor to the UAE's president,
09:02essentially calling Iran a rogue player,
09:05saying that the skirmishes that are happening in the Strait of Hormuz
09:09just proved that it doesn't want an end to the war.
09:11And just now we're hearing from Saudi officials saying that
09:14what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz
09:18also proved that it really doesn't want an end to the war.
09:22So the question here really is, what does Iran want?
09:25And how can we arrive at those concessions that they agreed on with the United States?
09:30It does feel, for the time being, that the nuclear component of that MOU,
09:35that 14 concession MOU, David, that we've reported on,
09:39it does feel like the nuclear component is taking a back seat.
09:42It does feel like the Strait of Hormuz is front and center.
09:46And those attacks that are happening there are everyone's concern at the time being.
09:51Well, that's true.
09:51I mean, we've talked about how it's such an easier trigger for them to pull,
09:54and it has almost an instantaneous reaction from the world,
09:57whereas the nuclear threat is just, it's more amorphous,
10:00and it's not impacting your day-to-day prices.
10:05Shannon, before we let you go, I do want to ask you about Senator Lindsey Graham,
10:09who we found out overnight has passed away,
10:11because I know we've traveled together on State Department trips,
10:13and it's always so funny to me that Lindsey Graham is one of those people
10:16that world leaders have met almost as often as the U.S. president, right?
10:20He seems to always be everywhere and almost a de facto Secretary of State.
10:24Can you talk about the role Graham played internationally
10:27and kind of what his standing was in these countries,
10:31especially countries that are closely allied with the U.S. when it comes to military cooperation?
10:36That's right.
10:37And many world leaders have met with him more times than they have the sitting president of the United States.
10:42You don't have to go back very far.
10:44In fact, it was just this last week that Senator Graham traveled to Ukraine.
10:49He made that long, arduous, sometimes dangerous journey to go to Kiev and meet with President Zelensky,
10:55sat down with him face-to-face for his 10th wartime visit to Ukraine.
10:59He has, of course, been a major supporter of that country throughout its war with Russia
11:05and has been pushing for harsher sanctions against Russia to try to bolster Ukraine.
11:11He said just before he died that finally a Trump administration agreement had been reached
11:17with a bipartisan group of senators to push forward his package of sanctions
11:21and that they were looking forward to doing that in the coming weeks.
11:25It's very likely that we'll see those sanctions, that new package, push forward in his honor
11:31because that is something that he would want his legacy to reflect.
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