AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran tonight, contingent on Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz. It's a stark reversal from earlier today when he announced online that, quote, "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." That was what he had threatened if an agreement to reopen the strait was not reached by 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight. The U.S. and Iran had been holding indirect talks on ways to pause or even end the war. We're going to discuss all of this now with NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Hello to both of you.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hello.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: All right, Deepa, this is a big shift from where we started today. What is the latest from the White House at this point?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, I mean, the president set the table for today with that very stark warning that you mentioned, referencing his 8 p.m. deadline for striking a deal. He threatened dramatic consequences, as you mentioned, in his post on social media. He said, quote, "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." And after this very tense day, we did not see the president publicly. Very little was known about the negotiations going on. Trump announced at about 6:30 p.m. that there had been a breakthrough. He said in a post on social media, again, that if Iran agreed to a, quote, "complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz," quote, "I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks."
Now, earlier in the day, the prime minister of Pakistan, who has been leading in this facilitation between the U.S. and Iran, he posted a request to the president on social media to extend the deadline for Iran for these two more weeks period. He also called on Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, which they closed during the conflict. And I will say that closure, of course, has been really critical for the passage of oil globally, and it's raised prices for - gas prices for countries around the world, including the U.S.
CHANG: Right. OK, well, Tom, before this particular news developed, the U.S. had already carried out an attack today on a sensitive site. We're talking about Iran's Kharg Island. What do we know about that attack?
BOWMAN: That's right. There were attacks - U.S. struck military targets, including radar facilities, runways, bunkers on the island. And this comes from a U.S. official who's not authorized to speak publicly. The official described them as restrikes, targets that the U.S. had hit previously. The official said the U.S. did not hit oil infrastructure, which is the most important part of the island. And of course, President Trump previously threatened to seize control of the island and its oil facilities. There's been a lot of speculation about a possible ground operation to take the island. By the way, the Marines have been studying taking this island for decades.
CHANG: And can you just remind us briefly about the significance of this island to Iran?
BOWMAN: Well, Kharg Island is a critical part of Iran's oil industry. Iran pumps the oil on the mainland and sends it for export to the island. It's about 15 miles off the coast in the northern Gulf. It's loaded on tankers and then heads straight through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran controls right now. The U.S. also hit Kharg Island on March 13, targeting dozens of, again, military sites. Trump said the military facilities suffered a total obliteration and described it as an example of what the U.S. could do to its oil facilities.
CHANG: And meanwhile, Tom, Israel also announced new military strikes, again, before this deal was announced, the ceasefire deal. What did Israel hit so far?
BOWMAN: Well, the Israeli strikes seem directly related to what President Trump is threatening. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country hit railways and bridges because - used to transport weapons and other military equipment. And also, you know, Trump said in his Truth Social pokes (ph) tonight that the U.S. has met most of its military objectives. He said that on Truth Social. But, you know, there's still - Iran still has, you know, quite a capability with thousands of drones and missiles. It still has its enriched uranium, and it still controls the Strait of Hormuz. So there's still a long way to go before this is all resolved.
CHANG: OK. Well, Deepa, President Trump, of course, has set multiple deadlines and then postponed them for these attacks on Iran's power plants and bridges. So do you think we can trust this new timetable? What's your sense?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, I mean, it's been weeks of the president doing this - right? - making these threats to target civilian infrastructure or increase these attacks on Iran. Then he pulls back or extends the deadlines. So we've done this before, right? At this point, it doesn't seem like he has any intention to, you know, flip-flop again. But of course, you know, it's hard to say what the president's thinking. He's got a track record in the last month of saying a lot of different things.
But in announcing this ceasefire, Trump also shared some other details of the negotiations, and he was - sounded pretty optimistic in his post on social media. He said that the U.S. received a 10-point proposal from Iran and called that a, quote, "workable basis" on which to negotiate. And he said that almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the U.S. and Iran. And so that two-week period will allow for some of the agreements here to be finalized. But of course, the process of negotiating anything in the last, you know, couple weeks has not been smooth, so that's kind of something we'll have to keep watching for.
CHANG: Indeed. And can you talk about the domestic politics here for President Trump? Like, what kind of pressure has he been under, even from fellow Republicans and supporters, to come to terms to end this war?
SHIVARAM: Right. I mean, polling shows that the war has been really unpopular overall among Americans, and even some of Trump's own supporters, Republicans have been feeling less enthused about Trump in these last few weeks, according to polling. That's pretty rare. And so politically, this has been putting a lot of pressure on Republicans, on Trump, especially in this tough spot in the midterm election year. It's coming up in, like, seven months. And so after all of that and with how Americans are feeling this in their pocketbooks, there has been a lot of pressure on the Trump administration. And even just today in the last 24 hours, some criticisms from some Republican supporters of the president who didn't like his threats on attacks on civilian infrastructure - so there have been some fissures there.
CHANG: Right. Well, Tom, there are still thousands of U.S. ground troops in the region, and this U.S. military buildup remains. So do you have any sense of what happens next at this point?
BOWMAN: You know, we really don't. There are 2,200 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne in the region. You also have Marines afloat - 2,500 Marines, of that 800 Marine infantry. Another 2,500 Marines afloat should be arriving in the coming days. So, you know, it's sizable if you want to grab Kharg Island, like we were talking about, or some areas along the coast. But we really have no sense, at this point, what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. Again, Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. That is the key element here, and it's driving up oil prices. How do you get that strait open, not just for two weeks but for a long, long time?
CHANG: All right. That is NPR's Tom Bowman and Deepa Shivaram. Thank you both so much.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
SHIVARAM: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
