President Trump said he will hold off on his plan to attack Iran on Tuesday at the request of leaders in the Middle East, indicating a peace deal could be imminent.
“We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow, and I’ve put it off for a little while, hopefully, maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, because we’ve had very big discussions with Iran and we’ll see what they amount to,” Trump said at a White House event Monday.
“I was asked by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, [United Arab Emirates] and some others if we could put it off for 2 or 3 days, a short period of time, because they think that they are getting very close to making a deal,” he added.
The president’s remarks came about an hour after he fired off a social media post announcing that he would delay new strikes amid progress in negotiations.
“Serious negotiations are now taking place,” he wrote on Truth Social.
He added that the leaders believed “a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond. This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!”
Trump had been prepared to restart Operation Epic Fury after the ceasefire, which began on April 8th, continued to drag on without any progress made toward a deal.
However, an intervention from the Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan made him hold off.
But Trump is prepared to launch another military assault if no peace deal is made, saying he’s instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff General Daniel Caine to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”
The president told The Post earlier Monday that he didn’t have time to chat about Iran as “too many things are happening.”
But he did warn that Tehran knows “what’s going to be happening soon,” adding that he was “not open” to any concession.
The president has been pressuring Iran to concede to his demands regarding ending its nuclear program, which Tehran has been reluctant to do.
Trump described the apparent peace deal progress as a “positive development” and suggested talks are more advanced than previous ones that failed to result in a deal.
“We’ve had periods of time where we had, we thought [we were] pretty much getting close to making a deal and it didn’t work out – but this is a little bit different now,” he said.
Taking to social media to add on the pressure, Trump warned on Sunday that Iran had to move fast “or there won’t be anything left,” adding “the Clock is Ticking.”
Trump gave some indications to reporters on Friday that he would accept a 20-year suspension of its nuclear program by Tehran. However, it’s unclear if that option remains on the table.
“Twenty years is enough, but the level of guarantee from them is not enough,” he told reporters on Air Force One about Tehran’s latest offer, which he had rejected. “In other words, it’s got to be a real 20 years.”
The president has been showing signs of frustration with the slow-paced negotiations. He gathered Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and special envoy Steve Witkoff at his Washington DC area golf club on Saturday for a planning session, according to CNN.
And he also spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he prepared to order another attack.
Several hawks in the Republican Party are urging Trump to return to the war front.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the president’s, on Sunday called for US forces to strike anyone who comes within a certain distance of Iran’s nuclear material, calling it the “circle of death.”
“Draw a circle around where we know it’s at. Call it the circle of death. Anybody [who] goes inside the circle is going to die until we can find a way to deal with this,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The goal is to make sure they can’t retrieve it. They can’t make a dirty bomb. They can’t further enrich — their enrichment capability has been obliterated at least for a couple years.”
And Gen. Jack Keane — acting Army chief of staff at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — on Monday told Fox News Channel the US and Israel are ready to possibly launch a new round of attacks relying on intelligence collected since the six-week-old cease-fire began.
“It’ll be a combined operation with the United States and Israel going full-throttle, all-out, no half-measures here whatsoever,” Keane said on FNC’s “America’s Newsroom.”
“The president has exhibited a huge amount of patience here since the cease-fire [began] on April the 8th. And we’ve tried to work a deal with these guys, and it just doesn’t seem possible,” he added.
But whatever plans the president had to restart Operation Epic Fury have been put on hold after the intervention of the Middle East leadership.
Two Pakistani sources told The Post they continue to believe progress is coming with the ongoing indirect negotiations.
“As far as the deal is concerned, Pakistani leadership has been optimistic about securing an amicable agreement between US and Iran, and that’s exactly what Pakistan is doing at the moment with the new proposal shared with the US,” a government source said.
Meanwhile, the critical Strait of Hormuz remains closed and gas prices remain high. The national average sits at $4.52 with prices continuing to climb ahead of the holiday weekend.
