President Trump has told senior aides that he may delay any further military strikes against Iran, despite repeated warnings that the US could attack if Tehran threatens American interests.
Trump said in recent days that the United States would not launch new strikes as long as Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen refrain from provoking Washington, Reuters reported.
A week earlier, Trump confirmed that US forces had carried out what he called “minor strikes” against Iranian defense facilities on Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz.
On Thursday, the president told Salem News Channel that he would strike Iran “without hesitation” to prevent it from threatening US allies and American vessels.
Later that day, however, he told sports journalist Stephen A. Smith that he was delaying additional attacks at the request of regional allies.
“I could end it immediately, but at the request of the nations that I am looking to protect, we are doing it a little bit longer way, a bit more civilly,” Trump told Smith, who dined with the president and talk-show host Bill Maher in October.
The administration’s conflicting statements continued on Friday, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Federalist Society that the war was “militarily effectively over.”
“And right now, frankly, the economic pain that we are inflicting on that regime is so great that there’s no need for military action because we’ve weakened them so much,” Rubio said. “But I think victory is ensuring that they never have a nuclear weapon.”
The United States continues to enforce a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, putting further pressure on Iran’s economy and fueling a sharp rise in inflation.
Intermittent negotiations conducted through Qatar and other intermediaries have so far failed to produce an agreement. Trump said Wednesday that “we won” the war, but wrote on Truth Social the following day that Washington no longer needed a deal with Tehran.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed,” he wrote. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
A senior official said behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts in recent weeks have also involved Trump’s conversations with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both leaders pressed for restraint.
The mixed public and private signals followed Trump’s suggestion that the US could resume its strikes after the midterm elections, when Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate. Congressional opponents of the war are now threatening to block its funding.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump had said he would refrain from further attacks unless Iran or its proxies carried out new provocations.
Tensions nevertheless remain elevated in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy claimed Friday that two oil tankers exploded after hitting sea mines while attempting to transit the waterway without coordinating with Iranian authorities, Iranian state television reported.
Iran also renewed its warnings at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, threatening an “immediate and decisive response” to any new US or Israeli attack, according to Iran’s deputy UN envoy, Gholamhossein Darzi.