U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday gave an ultimatum to Iran that the United States would strike again unless Tehran stopped its own attacks against commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“They were good. They were well behaved for about a week, but then they started shooting at ships,” Vance told reporters in Milwaukee. “The deal is very simple. If they shoot at ships, we’re going to knock the hell out of them.”
The vice president said that “they can either follow it or they can have exactly what happened to them last night,” saying U.S. strikes are “just going to keep on happening until they open up that lane and stop shooting at ships.”
The Trump administration will stay committed to keeping the strait open to commercial shipping, Vance also said at the event, calling it “that crucial artery through which we ship a lot of the world’s energy.”
The comment from Vance comes as the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a post Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump began carrying out “additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation” through the waterway, which on a normal day allows for the transportation of about a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas.
“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” it stated.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had attacked U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait and shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone attempting to interfere with the operation. Bahrain’s army later said it had thwarted Iranian attacks.
The new strikes from the U.S. military came after Trump said at an event in Turkey that he would likely launch more attacks against Iran and that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran was over. “I'll give a little warning: We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” Trump told reporters.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them,” he also said in Ankara, adding, “Now, I'll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it. I don’t like these people, you know that.”
CENTCOM said on Tuesday evening that dozens of small boats used by the IRGC were among the targets hit in an operation intended to impose a heavy cost on Iran for strikes on shipping in violation of the ceasefire.
“U.S. forces struck Iranian air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce flowing through the international trade corridor,” it said.
