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US president’s 19-minute Wednesday address at the White House was met with bewilderment from commentatorsDonald Trump’s primetime nationwide address on the war with Iran caused widespread bewilderment, with commentators voicing shock at his vow to continue bombing to “bring them back to the stone ages”.Speculation before Wednesday’s speech from the White House Blue Room suggested that the president might be about to signal a winding up of the US military effort, which began on 28 February. Continue reading...

President is expected to offer a timeline for end of the war, and speak about his threat to withdraw the US from Nato as he faces falling poll numbers and global energy crisisTrump says he is ‘absolutely’ considering withdrawing US from Nato Israel hits Iran with waves of attacks and says it killed top Hezbollah commanderWelcome to our continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, as Donald Trump prepares to address America for the first time since the US-Israel war on Iran was launched.The president will deliver the prime-time speech at 9pm ET from the White House.Iran has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that its leadership asked for a ceasefire, calling the US president’s statement “false” and “baseless”. Trump made the claim in a post on Truth Social, which said: “Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”Trump also said he is “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from Nato, warning that the matter was “beyond reconsideration” after the refusal of US allies to join the US-Israeli war against Iran. The president’s threats, his most determined to date, have left the alliance facing its worst crisis in its 77-year history, a former US ambassador has said. Here’s our story.Meanwhile, in an open letter to the American people, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said relations between Washington and Tehran were “misunderstood” and that Iran was not an aggressor. The Iranian “harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighbouring countries,” he said, adding that portrayals of Iran as a security threat were inaccurate, and Tehran was acting in self-defence – not aggression.In Tehran, Kamal Kharazi, a top foreign policy official and former Iranian foreign minister, has been severely injured in an airstrike on his home in the Iranian capital. His wife was reportedly killed in the attack. Kharazi, considered a moderate politician and veteran policy expert, also served as an adviser to the assassinated former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Reports suggest his targeting is being viewed as an attempt to derail diplomacy. Continue reading...