Donald Trump has declared the Iran war “effectively over” as he revealed the US will hold off on threatened military strikes after a disastrous defeat in the midterm elections.
“Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We’re just keeping it the status quo,” he told reporters on Monday. “But if we do have to go back in, we are locked and loaded, and ready to go.”
Downplaying fears that the Pentagon would escalate its campaign, he added: “The United States of America is fully locked and loaded with the best equipment ever made, and we don’t think there’s going to be any reason to use it.”
He said he was acting “at the behest of countries that are their neighbors” and that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and others had asked the US not to launch new attacks.
He does, however, intend to keep in place a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz to maintain economic pressure on Iran.
Trump’s comments followed a meeting with Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who has acted as a vital intermediary between Washington and Iran since the US and Israel launched the war on 28 February.
It is the latest in a series of flip-flops from the US president, who for several months has repeatedly switched from threatening a huge military attack on Iran to suggesting that a peace deal was imminent.
Attacks between the two sides are ongoing, although not at full intensity, with Iranian state media saying the US again struck Iran’s Qeshm island overnight. Tehran struck tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.
Iran’s allies in Yemen, the Houthis, have also scaled up their attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent months.
But Trump has remained unwilling to accept an existing Iranian plan for a ceasefire, which involves an end to the US blockade of its ports, the lifting of some sanctions and a halt to bombing in return for Tehran demilitarising the Strait of Hormuz, with talks on its nuclear programme and other sanctions to follow.
The unpopularity of the Iran war, along with its impact on gasoline prices and other parts of the economy, helped the Democrats to victory. Vice-president JD Vance put the blame for the Republicans’ historic defeat squarely on the conflict, admitting it had increased the cost of living for Americans.
Senior US and Gulf officials have cast doubt on the chances of an imminent deal. Although Al-Thani described the talks with Trump and vice-president JD Vance as “positive”.
The meeting came after Iranian security council chief Mohsen Rezaei said the US should “stop manufacturing fake news about imaginary talks” in a post on X, adding that it was “time to surrender to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out”.
The US has repeatedly rejected the Iranian plan, criticised by secretary of state Marco Rubio as “outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic”.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei defended the plan on Monday as the most reasonable offer on the table.
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