Trump appeared to delay US action on Iran for two weeks on Thursday, but is it just a negotiation tactic?
United States President Donald Trump will decide Washington’s course of action in relation to the Israel-Iran conflict in two weeks’ time, the White House said on Thursday.
Speculation has been rising this week that the US could decide to assist its longstanding ally, Israel, in strikes against Iran, which it claims are designed to neutralise Iran’s nuclear programme. In particular, Israel wants the US to provide “bunker buster” bombs, which may be able to penetrate deep within the mountain in northwest Iran, where the Fordow nuclear facility is located.
This comes after a week of Trump shifting his position on the conflict.
Here is what we know:
On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared what she described as a direct quote from the US president with reporters: “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”
When Israel first attacked Iran late on June 13, the Trump administration clearly stated that it had not been involved, calling Israel’s attack “unilateral action”. It has become clear since then, however, that the US did have knowledge of the attacks in advance.
Trump also said he believed Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear weapon during the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Canada this week, contradicting his own US intelligence reports. This marked a shift from his position in May, when he made public statements that Tehran and Washington were close to a nuclear deal.
On Wednesday, Trump refused to say whether the US would join the conflict.
No. It also does not necessarily mean the US will attack Iran at all. Leavitt remained ambiguous on what could happen after two weeks.
The press secretary said: “The president is always interested in a diplomatic solution … he is a peacemaker-in-chief. He is the peace-through-strength president. And so, if there’s a chance for diplomacy, the president’s always going to grab it. But he’s not afraid to use strength as well.”
But Mona Yacoubian, senior adviser and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that while two weeks would give time for more negotiations with Iran, it would also provide the US with time to “flow in additional forces should it decide to join Israel in the conflict”.
For now, it is impossible to say which of these two possibilities is more likely – or if the “two weeks” mentioned by Trump is even a deadline at all.
“I don’t even know if President Trump knows what he wants,” Iranian American analyst Negar Mortazavi told media.
What has Trump said about potential US action in Iran?
“He campaigned as the president of peace … he promised he’s going to end conflicts. Russia-Ukraine hasn’t ended. Gaza has escalated, and he just let the third big Middle East war, which looks like a regime-change war, start under his watch. So, he says one thing. He does another.”
Others believe Trump’s “two weeks” comment is a negotiation tactic to apply pressure on Iran during talks.
“The delay certainly could be part of a broader negotiating strategy which exploits Iran’s weakened position as a result of wide-ranging military strikes to extract more substantial concessions from Iran on the nuclear issue and potentially on other points of contention as well, for example its ballistic missiles programme,” Yacoubian said.
”It’s extremely difficult to predict what will happen next,” she added. “President Trump’s idiosyncratic negotiating strategy alongside his instinctual, ‘from-the-gut’ decision-making approach underscores the unpredictability of the coming days – which may well be the point!”
In the past, Trump has assigned similar timelines relating to Iran’s nuclear programme, the Russia-Ukraine war and global trade tariffs. But he does not always stick to them.
“Imposing deadlines stands as perhaps the one predictable element of Trump’s approach to finding solutions to complex problems,” said Yacoubian. “Setting explicit deadlines has characterised Trump’s negotiating style in several realms, from Ukraine to politically sensitive domestic challenges.”
In the lead-up to the current conflict, Trump says he gave Iran a 60-day deadline to negotiate an agreement over its nuclear programme, but talks continued beyond its expiry, Yacoubian noted. In the end, it was Israel which took action, launching a series of strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites on June 13.
Since the beginning of his presidency in January this year, Trump has been attempting to lead peace negotiations to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
On May 28, Trump set a two-week deadline to determine whether his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was willing to end the conflict.
Trump told reporters then: “Within two weeks. We’re gonna find out whether or not [Putin is] tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently.”
As the two-week window approached an end, the New York Post asked Trump in a podcast whether Putin cared about Russia losing thousands of soldiers in Ukraine. He said, “I’m starting to think maybe he doesn’t.”
Since the two-week window ended, Russia and Ukraine do not appear to be any closer to a peace agreement. But Trump has not signalled a shift in US policy towards Russia despite his previous threat.
A report by the Reuters news agency, published on Tuesday, further claimed that the Trump administration had disbanded an interagency working group aimed at placing pressure on Russia to speed up talks with Ukraine. Reuters cited three unnamed US officials in its report. The existence of this working group had not been made public.
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