In the headlines

The US-Iran ceasefire is on the brink after the two countries exchanged strikes in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. The US said two American-flagged merchant vessels had successfully passed through the waterway and that its forces had destroyed several Iranian small boats. Iran carried out drone strikes on two tankers and UAE oil infrastructure, warning the US that “we are just getting started”. Labour MPs are discussing plans to demand that Keir Starmer resign after what is expected to be a drubbing for their party in Thursday’s local elections. A group of disgruntled backbenchers intend to send the PM an open letter blaming him for Labour’s losses and requesting he sets out a timetable for his departure. Hundreds of celebrities arrived at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art last night for the annual Met Gala dressed in their interpretation of this year’s theme: “Fashion is Art”. The event, controversially funded by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, celebrates the opening of a new exhibition, Costume Art.

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US forces patrolling the Arabian Sea last month. US Navy/Getty

Has Trump “outmanoeuvred” Iran?

Now that Iran has broken the ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, Donald Trump has two options, says The Wall Street Journal: keep the Strait of Hormuz open or “give Iran’s regime what it wants”. In other words: it’s a no-brainer. The US Navy has evidently spent the past few weeks clearing mines from the waterway to create a “free lane” for commercial traffic. Tehran’s forceful response – drone strikes on tankers and UAE oil facilities – shows that they know their control of the strait is their last remaining leverage in negotiations. And the American blockade of Iran’s ports has successfully increased Iran’s economic pain, making the mullahs even more inclined to get a deal done. If the US Navy can keep Hormuz open – by extreme force, if necessary – the regime in Tehran “will have been outmanoeuvred”.

Don’t get your hopes up, says William Hague in The Times. I was involved with the 2015 nuclear deal, and that took a “painstaking” 20 months to negotiate. It only happened because the US and Iran had secret backchannel talks, enabling the two sides to build up trust. It’s true that the Iranians are under greater pressure this time because of the US blockade. But the revolutionary guard corps (IRGC) are probably thinking that continued tension helps them consolidate their power internally; that Trump will fold before they do because of rising fuel prices ahead of November’s midterms; that their regime has survived crippling air strikes before and can do so again; and that they will give up their Hormuz leverage only when they have tested US resolve to the limit, “which will take weeks or months”. Striking the 2015 deal took much longer than anyone expected, in considerably easier circumstances. Those expecting a quick fix now are guilty of “wishful thinking”.

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Photography

Winners of this year’s GDT Nature Photographer of the Year competition include shots of a young African bullfrog lunging at a butterfly in Botswana; shards of ice covering a German forest floor after a nearby river flooded the area; an elephant calf seeking shelter from the blazing Kenyan sun in the shadow of its mother; mosses, ferns and wood sorrel blooming in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains; a black-headed gull coming in to land in France’s Camargue; and cranes flying across Germany’s Lower Oder Valley National Park on a misty morning. To see more, click on the image.

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