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Iranian ships are evading the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz
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and Iran says it has no plans to return to peace talks before the ceasefire deadline runs out tomorrow morning
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On the American side, the Vice President J.D. Vann says he's ready to return to Pakistan to discuss the future
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but his boss, Donald Trump, says he expects to be back bombing Iran again
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Time is short. Is there any prospect of a breakthrough quickly? Let's talk now to our man in Washington, Simon Marks
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Simon, it's very hard to decode quite where President Trump is on the peace talks issue
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It changes every few minutes. Where are we now? Well, we just heard within the last few minutes, Andrew
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that Vice President J.D. Vance's trip to Islamabad is officially on hold
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We've all been watching for the last 24 hours to see whether the Vice President would clamber aboard a jet
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Air Force Two and begin that 17 hour journey from Washington, D.C. back to the Pakistani capital for more talks with the Iranians
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When he didn't leave on Monday, it suggested that the talks were not going to take place today
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Now he's not leaving today. So there as things currently stand with the vice president not going to Islamabad and the Iranians saying they're not going to Islamabad
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There do not appear to be any talks in the offing this side of the ceasefire between the United States and Iran expiring tomorrow And the president here says he is unlikely to agree to an extension of that ceasefire
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He is itching, at least in some of his social media messages, to begin bombing Iran's bridges and its power plants
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as he threatened to do in that death of a civilization social media message a few days ago
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Yeah, I saw those comments, Simon. I don't want to be silly about this, but if your plan is to take out power plants on which people depend for their survival and bridges, is that not a war crime
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Well, human rights organisations absolutely assert that that would be a war crime
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The White House disagrees with that assessment, saying that these will be legitimate targets
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because they will be power plants and bridges that play some role in supporting the IRGC
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the Revolutionary Guards in Iran that President Trump, of course, had suggested seven weeks ago
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ought to surrender. When he said that there was no one to surrender to, there is still
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no one to surrender to inside Iran. So he's wandering down for him and his administration
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again a very dangerous avenue here if indeed he does go after civilian targets that human rights organizations all say would constitute war crimes were they to be attacked by the American or Israeli militaries And would kill many of the same people he said he was trying to liberate and were great and wonderful and brave people very very recently
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Let me ask you also about the reports that more and more American troops are arriving in the Middle East, are being sent to some of these aircraft carriers
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because there have been suggestions that the next thing the Americans might have to do
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is seize some of the islands in the Strait of Hormuz and even part of the coast
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Is there any more sign that that is where President Trump may go next? Well, there is a continuing conversation here about the possibility of ground troops being deployed
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And as you say, more forces are being sent in. I mean, that's partly also because they've got to rotate some of the forces out
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because this conflict is now in its seventh week when the president thought it would all be wrapped up over a weekend
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He is reported to have rejected an earlier plan to deploy ground troops on Khag Island
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that port through which 90% of Iran's oil is loaded aboard ships
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that then head to the Strait of Hormuz, not because he is said to think that the Americans would not succeed
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in taking control of Khag Island, but because he thought the casualties, the death toll, would be too great for the American public to bear
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Now whether his calculus in that regard has changed or not is unclear He also of course is insisting that Iran has to hand over what he refers to as its nuclear dust the enriched uranium that he says American forces destroyed
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in Operation Midnight Hammer last July. Again, an incredibly hazardous operation were he to deploy
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ground troops to Isfahan to try and find it. Final, almost entirely unrelated question, Simon
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And Donald Trump has weighed into our little local difficulty here around Peter Mandelson
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Donald Trump, of course, the man who created the sneaky Pete epithet for Mandelson
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Yeah, I think another example of the fact that Donald Trump is not going to avoid hitting the prime minister when he's down, even when he's up
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So President Trump weighing into events in the UK, saying that it's not too late for Keir Starmer to recover from what was clearly a bad decision to select Peter Mandelson or Sneaky Pete, as the president reportedly referred to the former UK ambassador as while he was in office here
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Important to underscore, Andrew, that Christian Turner, the new UK ambassador here, was making a public appearance last week when this story first started breaking in London and made the point of saying that he had been completely and thoroughly vetted as indeed you would expect
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He would not be drawn on the politics, of course, of what was taking place back in Whitehall
