President Trump said late Saturday that he had canceled threatened U.S. strikes on Iran, opting to pull back from the brink of renewed war in the Middle East for the second time in two weeks.
Mr. Trump said in a post on social media that Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked him to refrain from military action. He also said the “perimeters of a deal” had been reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas blockaded by Iran for months now.
Iran has yet to give any indication that an agreement to end its grip over the strait was close, and Mr. Trump gave few specifics. The president has repeatedly claimed that Iran’s leaders were on the brink of accepting his conditions without any progress.
But at least one major U.S. ally appeared to have sought to steer Mr. Trump away from the attacks. Saudi state media reported on Sunday morning that Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, recently spoke with Mr. Trump to urge “the necessity of prioritizing dialogue to de-escalate tensions” and “prevent a wider conflict.”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened a massive attack on Iran’s critical infrastructure, only to abruptly de-escalate while claiming a diplomatic breakthrough was in the offing. But the promised progress has rarely materialized, sending the two sides back to a cycle of attacks and counterattacks.
More than five months since the United States and Israel jointly launched a war on Iran in late February, neither military attacks nor negotiations have achieved their stated goal of forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program.
Nor has Mr. Trump been able to prevent Iran from throttling ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to pressure the U.S. to end the conflict. The disruption has spiked fuel prices and disrupted global markets and economies.
Speaking on Friday from Camp David, Mr. Trump said the United States was weighing additional military action against Iran in an effort to force its leaders to accept U.S. terms. The U.S. military has rushed additional bombers and fighters to the region, laying the groundwork for a potential renewed offensive.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard, and you know at some point they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore,’” Mr. Trump told reporters at the time.
But few in Mr. Trump’s inner circle believed that a renewed escalation with Iran was wise, The New York Times has reported. U.S. officials have warned the escalation could seriously deplete supplies of essential interceptors capable of shooting down Iranian drones and ballistic missiles, and leave American troops and allies more exposed than they were earlier in the conflict.
Because both war and diplomacy having brought little progress, Mr. Trump has been left wrestling with a raft of risky and unpalatable choices for how to proceed. The prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the vulnerability of key Gulf allies to Iranian attack and a global economic crunch have weighed on the president and his top aides.
As Mr. Trump’s threatened strikes loomed, Abbas Aragchi, the Iranian foreign minister, conducted a marathon run of phone calls on Saturday with officials in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, as well as Britain and India. The Iranian foreign ministry said Mr. Araghchi told his counterparts that Iran would forcefully retaliate if attacked by the United States or Israel.
Trump administration officials signed a cease-fire with Iran in late June that they hoped would lead to negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But the truce was short-lived. Weeks later, it collapsed after Iran again throttled the strait, which it has used as a powerful bargaining chip in talks with the United States.
For weeks, the U.S. military has bombarded Iranian military targets around the strait in response to Iranian attacks on passing commercial ships. But the American attacks have failed to ensure safe passage for vessels there or force an Iranian retreat.
Instead, the conflict has at many moments seemed poised to expand. Yemen’s Houthis, who are backed by Iran, tried to impose a blockade on Saudi Arabia in another maritime choke point in the Red Sea, further rattling global energy markets.
And this past week, two gas tankers, including a U.S.-owned vessel, caught fire after an apparent drone attack at an Egyptian port near the Suez Canal, and missiles flew toward a base housing U.S. personnel in Jordan.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia carried out joint airstrikes with the United States against Iran-linked militias in Iraq, accusing them of attacking Saudi oil facilities on Monday. Saudi government statements appeared to portray the strikes as a limited reaction to specific attacks, rather than an entry into the wider war waged by U.S. and Israel against Iran.
The risk of escalation prompted security warnings from the State Department. On Saturday, the U.S. embassies in Jordan, Iraq and Israel urged Americans to consider departing the region, or to be prepared to leave if the conflict intensified.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
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