renews

Iran says it will respond with “long and painful strikes” on US positions across the Gulf region if Washington renews attacks, and has restated its claim to the Strait of Hormuz, complicating the plans of the United States for a coalition to reopen the waterway.

Two months into the US-Israel war on Iran, the strait remains closed, choking off 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies. That has sent global energy prices surging and heightened concerns about the risks of an economic downturn.

Pakistan-led efforts to resolve the conflict have hit an impasse. Despite a ceasefire in place since April 8, Iran continues to block the strait in response to a US naval blockade of its ports, preventing oil exports – Tehran’s economic lifeline.

Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei defended the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “This is because of the war and the defence of our right – that is, according to international law, it is legitimate, legal, and accepted,” he said on Thursday night, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.

He accused the US of “exploiting a waterway” of which Iran is the coastal state. “In such circumstances, you cannot allow this waterway to be misused,” he said.

Baghaei also justified attacks on US assets in Gulf countries.

“Unfortunately, the regional countries also truly acted unjustly; during the holy month of Ramadan, they cooperated with a foreign party in attacking an Islamic country, and this is something that will remain a permanent demand.”

On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates said it had banned its citizens from travelling to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, and urged those currently in those countries to leave immediately and return home.

Then, on Friday, in response to Iran’s threat to hit targets in the Gulf, the adviser to the UAE’s president, Anwar Gargash, said: “No unilateral Iranian arrangements can be trusted or relied upon, following its treacherous aggression against all its neighbours.”

Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa also condemned what he described as Iranian aggression against Manama and accused Tehran of threatening its security and stability and exposing internal collaborators.

In a statement, the king expressed anger at individuals and some legislators accused of siding with the attackers, warning that traitors could face imprisonment, loss of citizenship and expulsion. He stressed that loyalty to the nation is “paramount”, urging unity and accountability, and said parliament must be “cleansed” of those who support enemies.

New US strikes?

It is unclear whether the US is planning to renew its attacks on Iran.

Friday is the deadline for Congress to approve the war. Without that – or a 30-day extension, which the Trump administration must also justify by the day – the US will have to scale back its offensive significantly under the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

A senior administration official said late on Thursday that, for the resolution, hostilities had ceased with the start of the April ceasefire between Tehran and Washington, effectively resetting the clock.

President Donald Trump received a briefing from officials on Thursday on plans for a series of further military strikes to pressure Iran to negotiate an end to the conflict, US publication Axios reported, quoting sources.

US Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN on Thursday that he had the “impression from some of the briefings”, as well as from other sources, that “an imminent military strike is very much on the table”.

He added that this prospect was “deeply disturbing” because it could “well involve American sons and daughters in harm’s way” and lead to “potential massive casualties”.

Bracing for attack

Meanwhile, Iran has been bracing itself for likely attacks. Air defence activity was heard in some areas of the capital, Tehran, late on Thursday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported, and the Tasnim news agency said air defences were engaging small drones and unmanned surveillance aerial vehicles.

A senior official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said any new US attack on Iran, even if limited, would usher in “long and painful strikes” on its regional positions. Iranian media reports, quoting the aerospace force commander, Majid Mousavi, said: “We’ve seen what happened to your regional bases, we will see the same thing happen to your warships.”

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message to Iranians that “the enemies’ abuses of the waterway” would be eliminated under the new management of the strait, indicating that Tehran intended to maintain its hold over it.

“Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometres away … have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” he said.

Multiple scenarios

Reporting from the White House, in Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said: “There’s no doubt that there have been various scenarios laid out for him [Trump] by his military advisers and by his intelligence advisers as to what to do should the ceasefire no longer be extended.”

“Obviously, that would involve some form of armed action, some form of intensified economic action.”

“There’s absolutely no doubt that President Trump has all sorts of scenarios that have been laid out in front of him, but very clearly as well, it’s going to be him and him alone who will choose what to do next,” Hanna added.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — As President Bush was out promoting his stalled plan to allow drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge, the leader of a Senate committee said Wednesday that he would try a new strategy to navigate the proposal through Congress.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said he would add into a budget bill a measure to allow companies to drill for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Because Senate rules treat the budget measure differently from other legislation, successfully attaching the drilling provision to it means it could pass with support from 51 senators. That would end opponents’ chances to block the drilling measure with a filibuster. A filibuster would force supporters to find 60 votes.

In 2003, Senate Democrats and several Republicans blocked a proposal for drilling in the refuge by a vote of 52 to 48. The GOP has gained four seats in the Senate since then, giving them 55.

Traveling to Ohio, Bush toured a technology development institute and made his first major speech on energy in his second term, calling on Congress to adopt his energy policy.

“We have had four years of debate about a national energy bill,” Bush said. “Now is the time to get the job done.”

The president called for greater reliance on coal and nuclear power, as well as for greater efforts at conservation and the modernization of the energy infrastructure. He said the U.S. could achieve all of that while remaining a good steward of the environment.

The energy bill before Congress includes a number of politically popular features, such as requiring greater use of ethanol, an alternative fuel made from corn. It also has measures that supporters say would strengthen the nation’s electric grids and prevent fuel shortages and price spikes, such as those that occurred during California’s electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001.

Bush’s speech comes at a time when gas prices have been rising — to an average of nearly $2 per gallon nationwide as of Monday, according to Energy Department figures. Retail prices on average are 26 cents higher than at this time last year. Prices in California are nearly $2.23 on average.

The president said that “higher prices at the gas pump and rising home heating bills and the possibility of blackout are legitimate concerns for all Americans. And all these uncertainties about energy supply are a drag on our economy…. To meet America’s energy needs in the 21st century, we need a comprehensive national energy policy.”

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that Bush remained opposed to tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to increase supply and cut prices. Some Democrats have called for releasing oil from the reserve, which they say could be replaced after prices decline.

Speaking about plans to drill in the Arctic refuge, Bush said the Department of Energy believed the effort would yield 10 billion barrels from “a small corner” of the reserve — “just 2,000 acres,” or roughly the size of the airport here in Ohio’s capital. By using innovative techniques, he said, such development would have “almost no impact” on the land or local wildlife.

He noted that no nuclear power plant had been ordered since the 1970s, and declared: “It’s time to start building again,” adding that decades of experience and advances had proven the reliability and security of nuclear power.

Bush, whose environmental policies have been condemned by groups such as the Sierra Club, renewed his push for energy legislation just as Congress was preparing to take up one of his most controversial initiatives: opening a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.

“The votes are extremely close,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said. He called Gregg’s maneuver to attach the drilling approval to the budget bill an aberration of the budget process.

By contrast, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, welcomed Gregg’s approach. He told the Budget Committee, of which he is also a member, that “the cleanest energy development in the world” was proceeding in the North Slope, near the Arctic reserve.

Energy legislation has been one of Bush’s priorities virtually from the day he took office, during the California energy crisis. An energy bill that included measures to promote conservation and production passed the House in 2003, but fell two votes short of overcoming a filibuster in the Senate.

A significant hurdle to passage of an energy bill is a dispute over whether it should limit manufacturers’ liability in lawsuits over the controversial fuel additive MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether.

Senators from states contaminated by the fuel additive — including California’s Democratic senators and New Hampshire’s Republican senators — have objected to the provision, complaining it could force their taxpayers to pick up the tab for cleaning up the contamination.

But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose home state of Texas has been a big producer of the fuel additive, has insisted on the liability shield.

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Chen reported from Columbus and Simon from Washington. Times staff writer Joel Havemann in Washington contributed to this report.