WASHINGTON—President Trump said he would hold off on a planned U.S. attack on Iran at the request of Gulf leaders to make room for negotiations with Tehran over a prospective deal to end the war.
In a social-media post on Monday, Trump said he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other U.S. military officials not to proceed with the attack, which he said was scheduled to take place on Tuesday. But he warned that he had “further instructed them 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 said the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates asked him to hold off on the attack because “serious negotiations are now taking place.” A day earlier, he warned that the “clock is ticking” and that if Iran didn’t move on peace negotiations “there won’t be anything left of them.”
Trump, who was scheduled to meet with national security advisers on Tuesday, had been leaning toward ordering an attack, according to a U.S. official. In recent weeks, he was advised by aides and outside allies that authorizing a limited strike could pressure Iran into a deal, the official said.
Trump’s post comes after weeks of stalled efforts to reach a deal to end the war since a fragile cease-fire was announced in April. Tehran has so far refused to meet U.S. demands that it dismantle key parts of its nuclear program and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for the global oil trade. Iranian leaders responded to the latest U.S. proposal, delivered through Pakistani mediators, by offering a gradual reopening of the strait while leaving critical nuclear issues unsolved.
“This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!” Trump wrote on Monday.
As Trump has wavered between threatening to resume a full-scale military assault on Iran and leaving open the prospect of a diplomatic settlement, the standoff has kept oil markets on edge, with Brent crude trading around $110 a barrel.
In Beijing last week, Trump sought Chinese President Xi Jinping’s help to get Iran to the table, according to a U.S. official. After the summit, the White House emphasized that both sides shared an interest in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later played down the outreach, saying that Trump “didn’t ask him for anything.”
Officials and analysts in the region say that despite the U.S. severely battering Iran’s leadership structure and defenses, the country still wields significant leverage over trade through the Strait of Hormuz, and its remaining stock of missiles and attack drones will make it difficult to return to a prewar status quo.
The roughly 11-week conflict is increasingly drawing in Gulf states, as Iran seeks to raise the costs for U.S. allies. Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. have both carried out secret strikes on Iranian targets after attacks on their infrastructure and energy facilities, in an effort to restore military deterrence against Tehran. A drone sparked a fire near a nuclear power plant in the U.A.E. on Sunday. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have also attacked Iran-backed militias in Iraq multiple times.
Trump has argued that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, and the broader economic pressure campaign officials have called “Operation Economic Fury,” will leave Tehran with few options. “It’s just a question of time, we don’t have to rush anything,” he said last week. “We have a blockade, which gives them no money, allows them no money.”
Since the naval blockade began on April 13, the U.S. military has diverted at least 85 ships and disabled four others, according to U.S. Central Command.
