US President Donald Trump appeared to back off threats of immediate military action against Iran, despite ongoing disputes with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting he would allow economic pressure to force the Islamic republic to make a long-elusive peace deal.
“We are low-keying it," Trump told news outlet Axios in a brief phone conversation on August 9, using a term generally referring to restrained action.
"We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money," he was quoted as saying. Axios added that Trump did not make any further military threats during the interview.
Trump said Iran is “in very bad shape” economically, with no money to pay its troops, and that the US naval blockade has intensified the economic crisis being endured by the country’s government.
According to Axios, he said that, with oil prices falling from recent highs, the American people are feeling less pain from the war -- which, according to many polls, remains highly unpopular with the US public.
"It will work out. It always works out. It's like a chess game," Trump said of the off-and-on negotiating process with the regime in Tehran.
Since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Trump has toggled between threats of massive military strikes and a potential long-term peace deal. He has often insisted that a permanent peace agreement was imminent, only to have Tehran deny such progress, leading to tit-for-tat attacks by both sides.
'Locked And Loaded'
On August 1, Trump said he had decided to "hold off" on any new attacks on Iran, saying a deal with Tehran was near.
"The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," Trump posted on Truth Social.
"This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat."
"Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL," he wrote, adding that Israel joins him in this "commitment."
According to Iranian media, military sources in Iran denied Trump's claim that Tehran had asked Washington to refrain from launching new attacks.
On August 9, amid US remarks that a deal was close to allow the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s powerful elite military branch said the waterway would not be reopened until the US accepted all of Tehran's demands.
Iran has shut down the critical waterway, crimping a major source of oil tanker traffic for global markets. Tehran has used the shutdown as an essential card in its negotiations with Washington.
Although Trump initially said the elimination of Tehran's nuclear threat was the major aim of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began on February 28, in recent weeks he has focused on the free flow of traffic through the important Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of the world's oil and natural gas supplies transited prewar.
