US Strikes Iran After Helicopter Downed, Escalating Conflict Amid Peace Talks

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The U.S. is striking Iran again after Iran shot down a U.S. Army helicopter last night. The two pilots in that helicopter are unharmed, and they are safe. It's just the most recent escalation in the war, even as the two sides have sought to make a peace deal. NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram is here with the latest. Hi, Deepa.

DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.

CHANG: OK, so what do we know about these latest strikes and what led up to this point?

SHIVARAM: Yeah, so at 5 p.m. this evening, the U.S. began strikes on Iran as ordered by the president. U.S. Central Command posted on social media and said the attacks are, quote, "proportional response" to aggression from Iran. And these attacks are in response to this incident that happened last night when a U.S. Army helicopter with two pilots was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, and it went down near the coast of Oman. Both the pilots are safe. They're unharmed, no injuries. President Trump said on social media today, though, that Iran was responsible. And he said that the U.S., quote, "must, out of necessity, respond to this attack."

Now, Iran's foreign minister posted on X this evening after the strikes that the U.S. conducted and said, quote, "our powerful armed forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered." So a definite reescalation that's happening here, and it's coming as both sides have, you know, been trying to negotiate some kind of a peace deal for weeks now...

CHANG: Yeah.

SHIVARAM: ...Which hasn't really seen much forward movement and now, at this point, is likely to take a lot longer.

CHANG: That's the thing, Deepa. I mean, the Iran war, it's been pretty politically disastrous for Trump, to put it mildly. Why would he want the U.S. to reignite conflict if there were these ongoing negotiations for a peace deal?

SHIVARAM: Yeah. It's a little complicated, and you're right on that. The president's polling numbers have really tanked in the last few months. In the short term, I will say, it seems like Trump is facing a bit of a credibility issue. He's previously said that he would end this ceasefire agreement that was agreed to if U.S. troops were killed. Now, that didn't happen with this incident last night, but Trump is also in a position here to sort of demonstrate that attacks on U.S. troops have consequences.

But in the longer term, Trump is also under tremendous pressure to find a way to end this war that, we should point out, he and Israel started. The conflict has, you know, closed key shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. It's created this growing strain on the global economy. And Trump spoke to reporters late last night about the peace deal negotiations, and he acknowledged that a deal would be stronger than more bombing.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If we go and bomb, which we can do very easily if we want, and we spend another two or three weeks bombing, they'll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won't have the strait open for months.

SHIVARAM: So he's pointing out that some kind of a deal and negotiation would be better than increasing attacks, but, you know, like with many things Trump has said over the course of this war, it's a lot of back-and-forth and contradiction. He says a peace deal is close and then the next day starts attacks once again.

CHANG: Right. Well, do we have any sense of how negotiations were going?

SHIVARAM: You know, there was very little coming out of the actual negotiations, but Trump has claimed dozens and dozens of times since the war started that a deal is close. He even said last night that they could reach a deal in the next two to three days. But at this point, of course, that seems very unlikely.

CHANG: That is NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Thank you, Deepa.

SHIVARAM: Thank you.

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