President Trump says Iran will ‘eventually agree’ to US demands
President Trump said Iran would eventually accept U.S. demands on the nuclear issue and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
WASHINGTON – Bombs had been falling for just six days as President Donald Trump spelled out his demands for an end to the Iran war.
He said there would be no peace agreement without Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”
But with soaring gas prices, low approval ratings and polls showing most Americans oppose war, Trump has signaled a peace deal may be possible.
President Trump predicted this week that “it will be over soon” as Iran considers a U.S. proposal that would halt fighting but leave many of the most contentious issues between the two countries unresolved. Since the war with Iran began on February 28, President Trump has said that the war with Iran would soon end and that Iran should quickly sign a peace deal or be annihilated.
Just this week, President Trump said peace talks to end the war were ongoing but needed to be resolved or Iran would face further military action and possibly a nuclear attack. Key elements of the negotiations are that Iran agree not to develop nuclear weapons and that commercial traffic be allowed through the Strait of Hormuz.
Regarding Iran, President Trump said, “Negotiations are progressing very well, but you need to understand that there will be great pain if we cannot sign the agreement.” However, he pointed out that he had no intention of abandoning the ceasefire agreement currently in effect. He said he thought it was clear that even if the deal were to be scrapped, “there would be a lot of light coming out of Iran.”
From the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu to the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, military experts and philosophers have historically pointed out that starting wars is much easier than ending them. Trump and his team appear to be discovering the hard truth behind that theory as they seek a way out of a conflict that has already killed thousands across the Middle East.
“We went from a President Trump demanding total surrender to a President Trump essentially taking Iran at its word,” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who served as the White House director of international engagement under President Barack Obama.
Dina Esfandiari, Iran state and Middle East policy expert at Bloomberg Economics, a Geneva-based geopolitical analyst, said the Trump administration’s efforts to end the war and emerge from the conflict are not going as planned, with oil prices soaring and contrary to U.S. public opinion.
“We’re trying to see what we can do within the constraints of the domestic situation in the United States without incurring significant political costs,” she said.
President Trump’s early statements about war threatened complete destruction if Iran did not act quickly to comply with U.S. demands. “The whole civilization will perish,” he warned in April. But so far, Iran has not taken the bait, and President Trump continues to talk about annihilation in the context of a peace deal.
However, the tough negotiations did not lead to Iran’s surrender. This “reflects the dilemma he’s in right now,” said Daniel R. DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank that advocates reducing the footprint of U.S. troops worldwide.
“He remains reluctant to offer the Iranians the kinds of concessions that could actually end the war, and continues to believe that coercion will ultimately force Iran to sign a settlement on U.S. terms,” DePetris said.
In another development, Trump and his aides insist the war is over, even as bombs fly across the Strait of Hormuz and Israel continues airstrikes in Lebanon.
For example, the United States launched an attack on Iran on May 7 in response to an attack on a U.S. warship, the Pentagon said. The attack was described as a “self-defense attack” following attacks on three U.S. Navy ships. U.S. Central Command said in a statement that no warships were hit.
War Powers Act was ignored
President Trump informed Congress on Friday, May 1, that the two-week ceasefire reached on April 7 has been extended and hostilities have ceased, so authorization is not needed to continue operations in Iran. A federal law called the War Powers Act requires the president to seek Congressional approval if a military conflict lasts longer than 60 days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made essentially the same argument at a White House briefing on Tuesday.
“Operation Epic Fury is over,” Rubio said, using the war’s military code name. “We achieved the objective of that operation.”
Rubio also argued that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional, suggesting this is a position shared by “every president” since it was passed in 1973.
The truth is a little more hazy. According to the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the Library of Congress, U.S. presidents have generally accepted parts of the law, although they have objected to certain mechanisms.
Still, analysts question how the war can end as the United States and Iran continue to exchange fire in the Strait of Hormuz. They also point out that there is little evidence that the United States achieved its goals, which changed many times during the war.
At the start of the military operation, President Trump indicated that the United States’ goal was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran’s ballistic missile program was severely damaged by the attack, reducing its operational capability by up to 60%. However, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, which analyzes U.S. foreign policy and international relations, Iran still has enough nuclear material to make about a dozen bombs if it decides to use its remaining nuclear facilities to make these weapons.
Just hours into the conflict, President Trump appeared to signal that his campaign goal was regime change. “The time for freedom is at hand,” he said in a message to the Iranian people. “Now is the time to take control of your destiny and unlock a prosperous and bright future,” he added.
Iran’s political and military leadership was decimated by the war. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike that targeted his residence in the first salvo of the conflict. He was succeeded by his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who is considered more of an ideological extremist than his father. Other political and military leaders were also killed in the attack, but despite a change of leadership, Iran’s ruling regime continues to rule.
In some ways, Bruen said, the regime has become even more powerful. Before the war, he says, “the government seemed to be at a standstill and on the verge of collapse.” “They are now able to strengthen their position with key groups inside, and that will likely give them decades more power.”
Looking for a way out of Iran
In recent weeks, the Trump administration’s focus appears to have shifted to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil supplies must be transported to global markets. On May 4, the U.S. military launched an operation to escort commercial ships passing through the strait after Iran refused to reopen it. But President Trump suspended the mission the next day, citing “significant progress” in negotiating a final peace deal with Iran.
President Trump and his aides insist the operation should not be considered part of the war effort. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it a “temporary mission.”
However, Bruen et al. do not accept that argument. “The closure of this strait was a direct result of our attack,” he said. “The war cannot be said to be over if the enemy captures maritime areas or territory.”
Meanwhile, Gregory Akhtandilian, a foreign policy professor at American University in Washington, said growing economic pain on both sides has increased pressure to stop the war, but neither side intends to “cry uncle.”
The challenge for Trump, he said, is to end an unpopular war that has led to soaring gas prices in a way that shows tangible benefits.
“Certainly he’s looking for a way out,” Akhtandilian said, one that the deal with Iran would bring in new concessions that would allow him to “tell the American people it’s worth it.”
Aftandilian said an agreement to lift the naval blockade imposed by the United States on Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz would be the easy part. An even more thorny issue is reaching a nuclear deal, which is central to the regime’s rationale for war. Deciding to negotiate later could be a political risk for Trump, he said.
“I don’t know if that’s acceptable to President Trump, because how is he going to sell that to the American people?” he said. “His critics will jump on that and say, ‘So what have you actually accomplished here? This strait was open before the war, and now you’re negotiating endlessly with Iran over the nuclear issue. So what was the point of the war?'”
Complicating matters is the nuclear deal the Obama administration negotiated with Iran in 2015 in conjunction with a handful of other countries. Under the deal, Iran agreed not to produce highly enriched uranium or plutonium for weapons. But despite a consensus among experts at nuclear watchdogs such as the International Atomic Energy Agency that the deal was working, President Trump derided it as a bad deal and withdrew from it during his first term.
Mr. Aftandilian said that President Trump’s decision to abandon the deal means that “he cannot accept Obama’s terms, even though probably whatever deal is made will be pretty close to Obama’s terms.”
Despite considering the Trump administration’s proposal to end the war, Iran is anticipating a new U.S. attack and believes it could come before the U.S. president leaves for a May 14-15 summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, said Tehran-based Iranian-American academic and political analyst Syed Mohammad Marandi. Marandi served as an advisor to the Iranian negotiating team during the 2015 nuclear negotiations and remains close to the Iranian government.
In a message on WhatsApp, Marandi said Iran is finding it difficult to understand the Trump administration’s changing war rhetoric.
“President Trump is impossible to decipher,” he said.
