Donald Trump said he was “highly unlikely” to extend the ceasefire in Iran and threatened to resume bombing if a deal was not reached by Wednesday night.
On Tuesday, the US president said he would not be “rushed into making a bad deal” as JD Vance prepared to travel to Islamabad to lead a second round of peace talks.
But uncertainty hung over the prospect of direct negotiations after Iran refused to say whether it would attend the talks as the clock on the two-week ceasefire deadline ticked on.
In New York social circles, he was known as the “Jewish James Bond”: a refugee from Nazi Germany whose gratitude to his American hosts was such that he volunteered to join the US army and became the CIA’s first station chief in Berlin as a mere twentysomething, filing early warnings about Soviet activity that have been credited with ringing in the cold war.
Like 007, Peter Sichel also appreciated a fine tipple, and after leaving the US foreign intelligence service it was he who briefly turned a sweet German white, Blue Nun, into one of the best-selling wines in the world.
A film released in UK cinemas a year after his death aged 102, however, shows Sichel as something more akin to a Jewish Jason Bourne: a former agent who grew increasingly disillusioned with CIA meddling and turned a trenchant critic from beyond his grave of US foreign policy – especially in Iran.
I remember Blue Nun alright.
The consequences stemming from the overthrow of the Mossadegh government are certainly worthy of debate but there is no comparison to be made with today’s Iran given its status as a terror state and the broad anti-regime resistance of the Iranian people.
Mixed signals from Iran and the US cloud the reality in the Strait of Hormuz.
Is the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on or off? Is the parallel U.S. blockade of Iranian ports off or on? And why do we care about the @#$!& Strait anyway?
Ok, let’s get a few things straight, which is going to take a while because both the U.S. and Iran have been spreading the fog of war to the best of our (and their) ability.
US President Donald J. Trump’s negotiations and ceasefire deals with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are not seen by these actors as steps toward peace.
Rather, they are viewed by Tehran, Gaza and Beirut as infidels trying to tell Muslims what to do. For them, such a situation is unimaginable, unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand.
President Donald Trump rejected claims that Israel pressured the United States into initiating Operation Epic Fury, a joint operation that launched the Iran war in late February.
“Israel never talked me into the war with Iran, the results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “I watch and read the FAKE NEWS Pundits and Polls in total disbelief. 90% of what they say are lies and made up stories.”
Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has been quoted by Al Jazeera as having said that Iran has no plans for a new round of talks with the US, saying Washington has violated the agreement from its implementation.
The spokesperson also said Tehran can’t forget US attacks on Iran during previous diplomatic talks as he insisted that Iran will continue defending its national interests.
U.S. Marines depart amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7) by helicopter and transit over the Arabian Sea to board and seize M/V Touska. The Marines rappelled onto the Iranian-flagged vessel, April 19, after guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) disabled Touska’s… pic.twitter.com/mFxI5RzYCS
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 20, 2026
Like many other residents of Tehran, Sohrab* is used to seeing a new face staring down at him: AI-generated portraits of Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader.
“They’ve made the city ugly,” the 35-year-old restaurant manager said. “Everywhere, there are pictures of [the late ayatollah] Ali Khamenei and his son, Mojtaba. When I see this propaganda, I curse [them].”
In Iran’s capital, the war is portrayed on the city’s walls, flyovers and public squares, where the Islamic regime has plastered propaganda campaigns to project control and glorify resistance.
On Friday afternoon, out of nowhere, Iran’s foreign minister announced that the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open” to commercial vessels.
Just hours later, however, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reminded Abbas Araghchi and the world who was really in charge. In an apparent rebuke, it said it retained “strict management and control” over the waterway and shot at ships attempting to cross.
Two days later, the foreign minister was still under attack by hardliners in Tehran. Newspapers demanded that Mr Araghchi reverse his decision. State television criticised him for tweeting policy rather than explaining to Iranians. Some officials and moderate outlets defended the opening with conflicting explanations.
One of the most persistent and dangerous misreadings of the confrontation with Iran is the stubborn confusion between a brutal ideological regime and the people it has oppressed for nearly five decades.
This is no accident. Tehran has long understood that its best defense is not its missiles or its proxies, but its control of the narrative. In Western capitals, where moral clarity too often yields to political expediency, this confusion produces a strange paralysis: the fear of “hurting the Iranian people” serves as an excuse to tolerate a regime that has hurt them far more cruelly and systematically than any outside power ever has.
WASHINGTON — The US seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship after “blowing a hole” in its engine room when it tried to break past the Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump revealed Sunday.
The USS Spruance destroyer intercepted Iran’s Touska cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman, taking custody of the ship after it refused warnings to stop, according to the president.
NEW – CENTCOM releases footage of the U.S. forces intercepting M/V Touska and says that "since the blockade’s commencement, U.S. forces have directed 25 commercial vessels to turn around or return to an Iranian port." pic.twitter.com/KPrGF7mYHb
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) April 19, 2026
Iran has reportedly rejected participation in a second round of peace talks with the US in Pakistan, citing “Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire”, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Iran’s quick reversal of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz has laid bare a rift between the country’s political leaders and the military hard-liners who have deepened their hold on the government since the war began.
A day after the country’s foreign minister announced that the strait was open, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on at least two commercial ships in the Gulf for the first time during the cease-fire—and broadcast warnings to mariners that the waterway remained closed, causing ships that were attempting the transit to turn back. Ships would be targeted if they moved, it said.
The public display of division points to the difficulty ahead as President Trump tries to nail down concessions that would allow him to end the war with a clear win.
After telling Fox News that talks with Iran will resume on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump says on Truth Social, “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”
“NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” he writes.
The U.S. military is preparing in coming days to board Iran-linked oil tankers and seize commercial ships in international waters, according to U.S. officials, expanding its naval crackdown beyond the Middle East.
The planning comes as the Iranian military continues to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, attacking several commercial vessels on Saturday as it declared the waterway was being “strictly controlled” by Iran. The developments sent shipping companies scrambling a day after Iran’s foreign minister said the strait was fully open to commercial traffic—an announcement that was welcomed by President Trump.
Nine in ten Iranian Canadians “strongly or somewhat support regime change in Iran,” according to a new community survey.
The survey was conducted by the Metropolis Institute (a division of the Association for Canadian Studies) on behalf of the non-profit Advancement of Human Rights Organization for the Middle East (AHROME). Metropolis Institute distributed 1,768 surveys between March 29 and April 13, most of them at large Iranian community gatherings in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, and 1,166 were fully completed.
