Coming Days Will Be Decisive For Iran — Hegseth

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday the next few days in the war against Iran would be decisive and warned Tehran that the conflict would intensify if it did not make a deal.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards hit back with a new threat, saying that they will target U.S. companies in the region in retaliation for attacks on Iran from Wednesday, listing ‌18 groups including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, IBM, Tesla and Boeing.

Iran earlier set ablaze a fully loaded oil tanker off Dubai, its latest attack on merchant vessels in the Gulf or in the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to obliterate Iran’s energy plants if it does not agree to a peace deal and open the strait, a vital waterway for global oil shipments that has effectively been blocked by Iran.

On Tuesday, Trump criticised countries that have not helped in the war, including France and Britain, saying they should find “some delayed courage” to take the strait and get their own oil. Sources told Reuters France had not allowed its airspace to be used to transport U.S. weapons for use in the war

Hegseth, who said he visited U.S. troops in the Middle East on Saturday, said Trump ⁠was willing to make a deal and talks were ongoing and gaining strength, but that the U.S. was prepared to continue the war if Iran did not comply.

“We have more and more options, and they have less … in only one month we set the terms, the upcoming days will be decisive,” Hegseth said in Washington. “Iran knows that, and there’s almost nothing they can militarily do about it.”

The month-long conflict has spread across the region, killing thousands, disrupting energy supplies and threatening to send the global economy into a tailspin.

Crude oil prices briefly spiked again after the attack on the tanker, which can carry around 2 million barrels of oil worth more than $200 million at current prices.

Higher oil and fuel prices have also started to weigh on U.S. household finances and are a political headache for Trump and his Republican Party before November midterm elections.

U.S. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington that the U.S. was continuing to degrade and destroy Iran’s capabilities.

He said the U.S. military was continuing to strike key manufacturing and research sites and had taken out over 150 Iranian naval vessels. Hegseth said U.S. strikes were causing widespread desertions in Iran.

Thousands ⁠of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, reinforcements that could expand Trump’s options to include a ground assault in Iran.

With attacks showing no sign of easing, Pakistan is seeking to mediate in the war. The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire, urging peace talks to be held as soon as possible after they met in Beijing.

Iran has remained defiant despite heavy US and Israeli attacks for the past ⁠month. It has received U.S. peace proposals via intermediaries, but its foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday they were “unrealistic, illogical and excessive.”