48 hours to avoid a new 'hell' in Iran

It was, of course, to be expected… Wielding the threat of a deluge of fire that could soon fall upon Iranian strategic infrastructure, President Donald Trump reminded the leaders of the Islamic Republic that the last 10-day deadline he had given them to endorse the 15-point plan presented by Washington expires in 48 hours (i.e., Monday) or to ensure free maritime navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. “Iran has 48 hours before facing hell,” President Trump declared.

Saturday evening, April 4, no indication yet allowed for forecasting a possible breakthrough capable of avoiding a large-scale escalation in military operations, but last-minute twists are obviously not to be excluded in this kind of situation.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps reiterated its firm position on Saturday, stating that it was not willing to meet American negotiators “in the coming days,” asserting, in any event, that the American demands (formulated in the fifteen-point plan) are “unacceptable.” The coming days will tell whether this is a matter of principle to strengthen the Iranian negotiator’s position or if, on the contrary, this attitude truly reflects an intransigent line of conduct based on a rigid ideological foundation whose essence is to go all the way in the standoff engaged with the United States, and the West in general.

The question that also arises in this context is to what extent the Pasdaran have become the sole masters of the situation in Iran and to what extent the camp described as “moderate” and “pragmatic” has lost all influence on the internal scene, under the overwhelming weight of the radicals.

At the American level, the brief statement made on Saturday by President Trump encourages reflection and can open the door to all sorts of speculation. The head of the White House indeed gave the mullahs’ regime 48 hours to “conclude an agreement” (the fifteen-point plan) or restore free circulation in the Strait of Hormuz. The “or” makes all the difference… Does this mean that the White House would be content with this last point to end the war? In which case – very unlikely, but in such a context nothing is truly impossible – President Trump would have abandoned his repeatedly proclaimed objectives, concerning the nuclear program, the ballistic arsenal, and the abandonment of destabilizing regional expansionism, maintained through proxies subservient to the Revolutionary Guards.

Therefore, apart from a total capitulation of the government in Tehran – also unlikely – it would be hard to imagine President Trump resolving to end military operations on the basis of a lame solution that would not resolve any of the disputes underlying this war and which, by that very fact, would maintain the roots of evil and plunge, in the more or less short term, the region and the international community into a new acute existential crisis, or even a new armed conflict.

Late on Saturday evening, certain sources indicated that Washington had informed Tel Aviv that contacts with the Islamic Republic were at an impasse. As if to confirm this information, official Israeli sources affirmed that the US Administration could give its green light “this week” to strikes against energy facilities, which would represent a very severe blow to the Iranian economy, and by rebound to the regime in power.

Major industry already targeted

While awaiting the expiration of this deadline set by the US president, developments in military operations currently indicate that the balance is clearly, distinctly, tilting towards escalation. Proof of this is that American and Israeli air forces have targeted a highly strategic sector in the last forty-eight hours that they had been careful to spare since the beginning of the war, namely heavy industry. Important petrochemical infrastructures have thus been heavily bombed and damaged. This is particularly the case for the large petrochemical complex in the Ahwaz region which, according to various sources, provides no less than 70 percent of the Iranian market's needs for gasoline and fuels. The blows dealt to this vital sector will have a disastrous impact on the Iranian economy as a whole, which has already been going through a critical phase for several months.

At the same time, the Israeli air force raged on Friday night to Saturday against the military, strategic, and administrative installations of the vast Revolutionary Guards apparatus in the Tehran region. The escalation in raids also reached steel complexes, which constitute another vital part of the Iranian economy. A notable fact in this context: Iranian posts on the border with Iraq were bombed by Israeli aviation.

Alongside these military operations, US special forces continued their search throughout Saturday day and evening for the second pilot of the F-15 aircraft that had been shot down at the end of the week. Elite units have been deployed in Iranian territory as part of these rescue efforts and have been operating deep inside Iran for two days without being in the least bothered by any hostile force, which speaks volumes about the state of the armed and security units of the Islamic Republic.

New raids against the southern suburbs

On the Lebanese front, the Israeli army indicated on Saturday that its air force had bombed Hezbollah infrastructures in the southern suburbs as well as positions of “the Lebanon brigade, within the Jerusalem brigade.” It is only since the middle of last week that this “Lebanon brigade” within the “Jerusalem brigade,” which constitutes the armed wing of the Pasdaran in the Middle East, has been openly discussed.

Concomitant with the raids against the southern suburbs, the Israeli air force particularly focused its bombings on Saturday on certain important localities in West Beqaa, a new hotspot on the “Lebanese front” which risks being soon at the center of Israeli operations, in parallel with the southern area.