The Monday surprise visit of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to Israel where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set off an avalanche of speculation regarding the likelihood of another major round of fighting in the Iran war.
The trip has been presented by Axios as happening under some degree of secrecy, with talks having taken place at the Ovda Air Base in southern Israel, which plays host to US refueling planes and fighter jets. While the Pentagon did not immediately comment, Israeli media has also been reporting on the high profile visit to the airbase. The Trump administration has remained silent on the visit.
But what has taken over by Tuesday morning are more 'deal imminent'-style headlines, coming out of Gulf-aligned sources:
Mediation efforts said that "Qatar and Pakistan presented a 'compromise proposal' that meets the demands of both the American and Iranian sides", Al Araby Al Jadeed reports, citing unnamed officials.
The timing of all this is most interesting, given that in the Hormuz Strait, Iran is mounting daily attacks against international shipping (it's been a record-breaking pace this month) - but with nothing seen in the way of direct retaliation by the US military. On the Arabian peninsula, the Houthis have stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, a situation which threatens to merge the Persian Gulf and Yemeni theatres o
