AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump said this week that the current ceasefire with Iran is on, quote, "life support." He also described Iran's latest negotiating terms as garbage. In fact, he said he didn't even finish reading them. Iran says it will not bow down or submit to U.S. demands. It insists on control of the Strait of Hormuz. And oil is trading above $107 a barrel today. That is more than 60% higher than before the war. For more, we're joined now by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Hello to both of you.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: Hi. OK, Tom, let's start with you. I saw that Pentagon leaders were on Capitol Hill this week talking with lawmakers about defense spending, the defense budget. But I understand the conversation went well beyond that, yeah?
BOWMAN: Right. Right to the Strait of Hormuz. And lawmakers are asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine about how they plan to reopen it. They didn't offer any answer to that at all, with Hegseth, as usual, combative and calling Democrats defeatist for saying the war is not going well. And there also, there was a remarkable exchange between Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and General Caine. Let's listen.
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DICK DURBIN: Can you explain to the American people, who are facing these gasoline and diesel oil prices, what is going on in the Straits of Hormuz where Iran, which was attacked by us, seemingly has the Straits of Hormuz at a standstill, with 1,500 tankers waiting for either permission or peaceful circumstances to navigate?
DAN CAINE: So I think it's, militarily, it's a case where Iran is choosing to hold the world's economy hostage through their use of military power across their southern flank. And so I would encourage Iran to reconsider that. And I would encourage those allies and partners who have an opportunity to come assist with that tactical problem to do so.
BOWMAN: So you have the top military adviser to the president during a war reaching out to an adversary that you've repeatedly bombed and blockaded its ports to help the U.S. and the world out of this so-called tactical problem.
CHANG: Yeah, that's...
BOWMAN: That as a point is difficult to resolve. It really is, again, remarkable.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, Aya, how is Iran responding? And, like, what did it propose that President Trump is calling garbage, exactly?
BATRAWY: So we don't know what Trump and his team had laid out in their proposal to Iran.
CHANG: OK
BATRAWY: But we know that Iran's response was rejected outright by Trump on Monday. And in the couple of days since then, Iranian media and Iranian officials have been laying out some of what those terms were, what they were sent to Trump. So Iran's powerful lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, says Iran has 14 points. And he said today in a short message on his Telegram channel that there's no path forward but to recognize the rights of the Iranian people based on those points.
Now, what those are? Well, it appears that beyond questions around its nuclear enrichment or its stockpiling of nuclear material, or whether it would agree to a moratorium on enrichment, that there are new demands that didn't exist before this war that was launched in late February by the U.S. and Israel on Iran. And those include, for example, an end to Israel's war on the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Israel controls a huge part of the south of Lebanon and where people are being killed daily in Lebanon.
And also, some of these demands now include war reparations, so compensation for the war. A total lifting of a U.S. naval blockade out at sea that's keeping Iran from freely being able to export its oil and the removal of U.S. sanctions, the unfreezing of billions of dollars in overseas assets. And apparently, also, acceptance of what Iran says is its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. And Kazem Gharibabadi, a deputy foreign minister in Iran, said yesterday these are, quote, "the minimum requirements" of any serious arrangement.
CHANG: OK. Well, in the meantime during this stalemate, Pakistan is still the mediator here. Any word from Pakistan or any of the Gulf countries?
BATRAWY: I mean, yeah, there was this flurry of diplomacy over the weekend to try and keep the ceasefire intact. We saw Qatar's prime minister meeting with Vice President JD Vance and other top White House officials in the U.S. But this week, two things happened. The first, Ailsa, is we saw a more frustrated tone from President Trump after he saw Iran's response to his terms for ending the war.
And then, this week, we saw leaks to The Wall Street Journal and to Reuters that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia did retaliate against Iran during the war, as well as Saudi Arabia telling Reuters - or Reuters reporting Saudi Arabia also attacked Iraq during the war, some of those Iran-backed groups there. Now, neither country has outright confirmed nor outright denied these reports. And NPR hasn't confirmed these attacks. But it's clear that Gulf countries are signaling that they will not sit idly if another operation is launched that includes Iranian attacks on their energy facilities.
Also, Kuwait yesterday said its forces clashed with a group of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who had infiltrated one of its islands in early May to carry out what they say were hostile acts. Kuwait said it apprehended four of them and that two fled. Iran says these were men on a routine maritime patrol mission when their navigation system failed and they ended up in Kuwaiti waters. But look, diplomacy is hard. And right now, it seems to be the most viable pathway for this region, for the Gulf. There's nothing to suggest that a newly branded U.S.-Israeli operation on Iran would soften Tehran's position or that Gulf Arab states would be, you know, less likely this time around to hit back...
CHANG: Yeah
BATRAWY: ...If their energy sites are attacked again.
CHANG: Well, Tom, real quick, where does that leave us? Like, what are the possible roads ahead for the U.S.?
BOWMAN: Well, if Iran is not encouraged by the U.S. and other nations to open up the strait and allow free passage, you could see the U.S. start launching attacks to come up with a more palatable deal with or proposal with Iran. But if that happens, if there are more attacks, you could see Iran launch attacks on some of the Gulf states, which is a very, very tough situation.
CHANG: Indeed. That is NPR's Tom Bowman and Aya Batrawy. Thank you to both of you.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
BATRAWY: Thanks a lot. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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