US President Donald Trump, over the course of a day, went from threatening Iran with “annihilation” to proclaiming that the battered Islamic Republic’s leadership had presented a “workable” plan that led him to agree to a 14-day ceasefire that he expects to pave the way to end the nearly six-week-old war.
The dramatic shift in tenor came as intermediaries, led by Pakistan, worked feverishly to head off a further escalation of the conflict. Even China, Iran’s biggest trading partner and the United States’ most significant economic competitor, quietly pulled strings to find a pathway toward a ceasefire, according to two officials briefed on the matter who were not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump declared in a social media post announcing the temporary ceasefire, about 90 minutes before his deadline for Tehran to open the critical Strait of Hormuz or see its power plants and other critical infrastructure obliterated.
As the deadline neared, Democratic lawmakers decried Trump’s threat to wipe away an entire civilisation as “a moral failure” and Pope Leo XIV warned strikes against civilian infrastructure would violate international law, calling the president’s comments “truly unacceptable.”
Trump knew he might back down on Iran war
But in the end, Trump may have ultimately backed down because of a simple truth: Escalation could risk involving the United States in the sort of “forever war” that had bedevilled his predecessors and that he had vowed he’d keep the United States out of if voters sent him back to the White House.
Any escalation will force America to send additional 40,000-45,000 soldiers to Hormuz. Again, this is very risk deal for Trump who had criticised his predecessors for sending American soldiers to war zones.
“This would be an indefinite operation — so, you know, think: be ready to do this for 20 years,” said Connable, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer. “We didn’t think we were going to be in Afghanistan for 20 years. We didn’t think we’re going to have to be in Vietnam as long as we were, or Iraq.”
Trump has a pattern of backing down from maximalist demands
The ceasefire announcement came after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance while also asking Iran to open the strait for two weeks.
Two weeks has become Trump’s favorite interval to buy himself time when making major decisions. Last summer, the White House said he’d decide about launching an initial bombing campaign against Iran within two weeks, only to have the president order airstrikes that he said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program before that interval was up.
Trump has also repeatedly used two weeks to set deadlines that ultimately led to very little during negotiations to end Russia’s war with Ukraine and even going back to his first term, suggesting he’d have major policy issues like health care solved over such a timeframe.
(With inputs from agency)