US pauses Iran attacks for second night after Trump advised to halt bombing | Iran
The United States has paused attacks on Iran for a second night after senior military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign and diplomatic negotiations continued to avoid a return to all-out war.
While Trump is said to be evaluating diplomatic and military options in the conflict that has been going on for about five months, Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister has vociferously criticized Washington’s negotiations with Iranian leaders and pressed for the United States to continue its attacks on Iran.
Netanyahu is under serious political pressure to show that his military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon are paying off before elections scheduled for October.
Tehran said on Sunday it would stop what it called “retaliatory” attacks against US allies in the region. “These [US] “The attacks continued until two nights ago, but in the last two nights the Americans stopped their attacks,” said army spokesman Mohammed Akraminia. “Our strategy was essentially retaliatory, we also stopped our retaliatory operations.”
Senior officials in the Trump administration reportedly told the president about dwindling ammunition stocks that could hinder a sustained military campaign in the region.
Axios reported Sunday that Admiral Bradley Cooper, the top U.S. military commander in the region, told Trump that U.S. military action had reached the limits of its effectiveness.
It was said that the message would influence Trump’s decision to launch an attack on Iran for the first time in about two weeks. Cooper told Trump that the United States had nearly exhausted the list of targets it had developed to attack Iran and that there was little point in continuing the bombing campaign without returning to major combat operations, the news website reported.
Asked Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press whether Trump ruled out additional strikes on Iran, the president’s ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, said: “I wouldn’t go that far. The president is keeping all options on the table.”
The lull in the fighting, which began Friday evening, followed nearly two weeks of attacks on Iran and the collapse of a Trump-brokered ceasefire. Washington has blamed Iran for attacks on US forces and allies in the region and for closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which an estimated 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas passes.
Top diplomats from Iran and Oman were said to be holding talks on Sunday on reopening the vital waterway, and an official in Tehran confirmed their counterparts were in contact with US negotiators to prevent a return to war. Iran demanded control of which ships would pass through the strait and payment.
“Mediators are working and trying to prevent tensions from escalating,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said at a press conference on Sunday.
But an Iranian military spokesman signaled defiance, saying the United States had no clear strategy and was “experiencing strategic decision-making fatigue.”
According to media outlets, US vice president J.D. Vance and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine warned Trump about the risks of a new military action against Iran during a meeting in the Oval Office on Friday. The president then ordered the military to halt new attacks, which he warned could “destroy everything they have.”
“We are talking [the Iranians] “Right now, I think they’re getting more and more serious by the day. We’re locked and loaded and ready to go, but we’re talking to them,” Trump told reporters Friday.
That evening, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, he said he didn’t think Iran was ready to make a deal, but he was ready to listen.
Caine warned Trump about dwindling ammunition stocks, including offensive weapons such as Patriot missile interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Vance campaigned against US military interventions in the Middle East and became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the war in Iran.
Netanyahu’s office announced on Sunday that he would convene a meeting of his security cabinet before heading to Washington on Monday. He played a key role in lobbying Trump to launch a joint strike on Iran in February and said U.S. negotiators should take a strong stance on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. US negotiators instead prioritized opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Netanyahu will travel to Washington at a time of the worst violence this year in the West Bank, where his army launched a “comprehensive” operation after four Palestinians and two Israelis died when armed settlers entered a Palestinian village on Thursday.
The United States and Britain, chaired by new prime minister Andy Burnham, are discussing plans for a high-level meeting in London this week to discuss the potential for a coalition to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and clear the waterway of mines. The debates will be an early test for the Burnham administration. The Labor government has so far refused to allow Washington to use a British air base for offensive operations against Iran.
