Trump Pulls Back From Iran Strikes After Saudi Call, Threats From Tehran
President says a deal is close; Iran warns neighbors of a 'decisive' response if attacked
By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Saturday night, Donald Trump told the world he was standing down — for now. The president said the United States would hold off on new military strikes against Iran, claiming that "the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to" after Iran and other Middle Eastern countries asked Washington "to hold off any attack."
It was a climbdown from days of harder talk. Media reports over the weekend indicated Trump had been planning intense new strikes on Iran; he had earlier vowed to hit Tehran "hard." That threat was enough to send US embassies across the Middle East into alert status, bracing for possible retaliation.
According to reporting relayed by The Guardian, the reversal came only after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally called Trump to voice alarm about the strike plans. Iran, for its part, was making its own case with force and with diplomacy. Kuwait reported being hit by Iranian drones on Saturday, and two ships were attacked off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil passes. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told his counterparts in Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in phone calls that Tehran would respond "decisively" to any US "aggression."
Trump described the pause as conditional — "subject to being able to rapidly make a deal," in his words — leaving the region in a familiar posture: not war, not peace, just waiting.
What exactly the "deal" contains, who signed off on its perimeters, and how long the pause holds are all questions without public answers yet. Readers should treat "agreed to" as a claim from one man, not a signed document anyone has seen.
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— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian, NPR, the BBC and Al Jazeera.
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