Donald Trump said Tuesday the United States may launch new attacks on Iran if Tehran keeps refusing the concessions he wants before any deal can end the Middle East war. He said he had called off a fresh wave of strikes that would have broken the ceasefire that has been in place since 8 April.
Trump said he was “an hour away from making the decision to go today” and warned that any new U.S. attack would deliver “a big hit” within days if no agreement is reached. He added that the timing could be “two or three days, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something, maybe early next week, a limited period of time, because we can’t let them have a new nuclear weapon.”
The remarks landed after what appeared to be a further peace proposal sent by Tehran through Pakistan, which has been shuttling messages between the two sides as mediator. Since the ceasefire began, Tehran and Washington have held only one round of talks, an unsuccessful 21-hour session in Islamabad, and Pakistani mediators have complained that both sides are changing their goalposts. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been reluctant to see hostilities resume, a sign of how quickly any new strike could widen the crisis beyond Iran and the United States.
The friction is not just over the air war. Iran continues to block most shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that carried about a fifth of the world’s supply of oil and liquid gas before the conflict, while the United States has imposed its own naval blockade on Iranian ports. On Monday, Iran announced the formation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to manage traffic through the waterway, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened to impose permits on the internet fibre optic cables passing through the strait.
Mohammed Akraminia said Tuesday that Tehran would continue to manage the strait and that the United States needed to “respect the Iranian nation and observe the legitimate rights of the Islamic republic.” He said any fresh attack would lead Iran to “open new fronts” against the United States and that Tehran had used the ceasefire “to strengthen its combat capabilities.” Iranian state media said the latest peace proposal involved ending hostilities on all fronts.
The negotiating gap remains wide. Iranian officials have described U.S. demands as excessive, while Trump portrayed Iran’s leaders as “begging” for a deal. Neil Quilliam said, “Trumps’ threats have lost all credibility … Both sides are too far apart in terms of what they are willing to accept or work on but neither side want to go back to war. So they are just stuck … and neither side really knows how to get out of this.”
That leaves the ceasefire intact but unstable, with both capitals resisting a return to war and still failing to reach terms. Experts say Iran would likely redouble efforts to retaliate against Israel and nearby Gulf states if the truce breaks again, which is why Trump’s warning on Tuesday mattered not just as rhetoric but as a possible deadline for the next phase of the conflict.
