Live Updates: Iranian military says war will only end when US admits defeat, asks American public to protest Trump

Iranian authorities said Wednesday they had received the official response from the United States to their proposal to end the war in the Middle East, state media reported, days after President Trump publicly rejected the plan.

“During today’s cabinet meeting, the American proposal was presented to President Masoud Pezeshkian by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,” government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the official IRNA news agency.

Pakistan will use “all available means” to defend Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the country’s defense minister said Tuesday, offering one of the clearest indications yet from Islamabad that it could be directly involved in the widening regional conflict.

Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif refused to say whether Pakistani forces had already participated in the airstrikes. He, however, said Pakistan’s military capabilities would be made available to Saudi Arabia under a new mutual defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

“I’m not going into details, but obviously when I say we are bound by this arrangement to defend Saudi Arabia, it means that whatever means are at our disposal, they will also be at the disposal of Saudi Arabia. I think that is a categorical statement,” Asif told reporters during a visit to Rome when asked whether Pakistan had been involved in airstrikes against Iranian operators in Yemen.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has received feedback from the United States on the proposed seven-day ceasefire plan, which would aim to build trust between the two sides, according to an official cited by the Reuters news agency.

Iran last week proposed a plan for a seven-day ceasefire and gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, subject to the United States fulfilling the conditions outlined in the mid-June memorandum of understanding that collapsed after several weeks. Mr. Trump publicly rejected the Iranian proposal.

According to Reuters, the disagreement between the two sides is currently over the sequence of the plan, and Araghchi will discuss it on Wednesday in Tehran.

President Trump is stuck when it comes to choosing between continuing the war and negotiations, according to Major General Mohsen Rezaei, head of Iran’s influential Supreme National Security Council.

“We set our conditions, but Trump is incapable of making decisions,” Rezaei said Tuesday during a meeting with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev. “Trump is stuck in a quagmire where he can neither negotiate nor fight.”

Several Iranian officials said they were awaiting a response on the proposal made at the U.N. General Assembly last week. However, Mr Trump already rejected the plan on Saturday.

“Our plan, known as the seven-point plan, was conveyed to the Americans through Qatar,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in New York on Monday. “Despite what the U.S. president and others have said, I said we are waiting for an official response from America through.”

Rezaei pointed to the tough sanctions put in place last week against airlines, calling them an “air blockade,” as a sign of “desperation.”

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on 10 individuals and companies accused of helping Iran’s military logistics agency acquire weapons and electronic devices.

Targets include people based in Iran, Beijing, Hong Kong and Pakistan.

The sanctions are part of a Trump administration initiative called Operation Economic Outcast, aimed at putting pressure on Iran by isolating its government and economy.

“Treasury will not tolerate any support for the regime and will continue to identify, expose and isolate supporters of Iran,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps has said the only way to end the war in Iran is for Washington to admit defeat and leave.

IRGC spokesperson General Hossein Mohebbi delivered the message at a press conference Tuesday in Tehran, reading what he called a “letter to the American people.”

The message was apparently aimed at the American public just weeks before the November 3 midterm elections for the US Senate and Congress – a vote in which Mr Trump’s Republican Party faces fierce headwinds as it seeks to maintain control of Congress.

Later, in remarks to the Associated Press, Mohebbi urged Americans to reconsider their leadership and take to the streets to protest the president’s policies to denounce what he called the hawkish policies of the U.S. government.

He accused the United States of using Iran’s nuclear program as a ruse to “loot Iran’s wealth” and turn the country “into a colony.”