President Donald Trump has once again reversed course and called off planned airstrikes on Iran just hours after he threatened to escalate the current wave of American attacks on Iran and potentially dispatch ground troops to seize the country’s main oil export facility.
Writing on Truth Social Thursday afternoon, Trump said: “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, canceled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.”
The president’s announcement walking back his early morning declaration that the U.S. “will be hitting Iran … VERY HARD TONIGHT” came after what he said were “discussions” between the U.S. and Iran as well as Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt “and others.”
He also said the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports would “remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized” with a signing ceremony of some sort “to be announced shortly.”
Trump’s most recent retreat from threats to escalate attacks also followed new threats in which he claimed American forces would be “taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points” and assuming “total control” of Tehran’s petroleum sector “at some point in the not too distant future.”
If carried out, Trump’s threat to have American forces seize Kharg Island would represent a major escalation and a deepening involvement in the war by U.S. forces in the absence of any clear authorization for such force by Congress. It would also be a significant breach of his longstanding campaign promises not to involve the country in further “endless wars” in the Middle East.
But Trump appeared to at least offer himself a small off-ramp to dispatching ground forces onto Iranian sovereign territory during a meandering phone interview with Fox News on Thursday.
“My preference has always been to take Kharg Island … You’d make a fortune, but I don’t know if America has the stomach for it,” he said while speaking on the morning show Fox & Friends.
Trump compared a potential American invasion of Iran’s main oil terminal to the decapitation of Venezuela’s government and replacement of dictator Nicolás Maduro with his more pliable vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and boasted how that action has “worked out great for everybody” because Rodriguez has allowed the U.S. to import “millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela.”
“We brought them to Houston and various other places, Louisiana, where refineries that we have that are incredible,” Trump said. “They’re going 24 hours a day making a fortune, and you know, I like that in this case too, but I’m not sure that America has a long time.”
Trump added that a potential takeover of Kharg Island and Iran’s oil exporting capacity would be “a guarantee if I want to do it” but conceded that it would be “a little longer process” than what has happened in Venezuela.
He also told Fox News that Iranian forces “have no defense” and “can’t do anything about” any U.S. attacks while their leaders are, in his view, “dying to make a deal” even though negotiations have stalled amid the renewed U.S. attacks.
“We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy, but and they’re, and they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet,” he said.
The president’s new escalatory threats come as the on-again, off-again talks between Tehran and Washington through Pakistani intermediaries appear to have collapsed amid a round of tit-for-tat strikes that began after Iranian drones brought down an American helicopter over the weekend.
Trump has threatened to keep up the bombing campaign unless Iran accepts a “deal” he has proposed which would largely echo the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — an agreement Trump has routinely derided because of his predecessor Barack Obama’s involvement.
Any agreement would also have to provide for the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz after months of Iranian efforts to prevent commercial traffic from transiting the key waterway as a way of stifling the global economy and punishing the U.S. for starting the war.
He told Fox that he’d “like to get a deal now” and complained about negative press coverage over the deaths of 13 American service members in the early days of the war.
“We’ve lost 13 soldiers in two wars. In Venezuela, we lost none … in Iran, we lost 13. In Vietnam, we lost hundreds of thousands in 19 years, nobody says that,” he said. “They go crazy because I’ve been there for three months. I’ve decimated the country.”
Trump added that the war is a “much bigger situation now” compared with what had been envisioned when he launched the air campaign alongside Israel on February 28 and suggested he could have ended the Vietnam War in as much time as the Iran war has taken.
“We were in Vietnam 19 years but we didn’t do the job because we didn’t have the right leadership … if it were me, I would have had that war done in three months, four months,” he said.
He then said attacks on Iran’s bridges and power plants would be next while conceding that he’d “rather not do it because once you do that, the people suffer.”
“Water is really a devastating loss for them. I could do that in one minute,” he said.
The president’s new threats come after Iran declared the ceasefire with Washington “practically meaningless” after American forces fired 49 Tomahawk missiles on Wednesday.
Both sides traded strikes for the second day in a row, throwing a fragile ceasefire in jeopardy.
Tehran also condemned the “illegal and criminal attacks” and accused Washington of violating the U.N. Charter while warning that American leaders would be held responsible.
U.S. Central Command described the latest attacks as “self-defense strikes” on targets across Iran, including military surveillance and air defense sites, which took place late Wednesday.
In response, Iran launched strikes targeting 18 U.S. airbases in the Gulf region, forcing the Kuwaiti government to temporarily shut its airspace and Bahrain to sound air sirens.
