Donald Trump has threatened to strike Iran “hard again tonight” just hours after declaring the ceasefire “over”, in a fresh barrage of threats that revealed the deep fragility of any negotiated settlement between the two powers.
Speaking at the Nato summit in Turkey, the US president called Iranians “scum” and “sick people”, adding: “If they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.” Later he doubled down: “We will probably hit them harder again tonight. I gave them a little warning. We’re going to hit them hard again tonight.”
“Trump threatens more strikes on Iran even as talks continue, revealing fragility of any deal.”
But buried in the verbal onslaught was an admission that talks are not over. The negotiations, mediated by third parties, have been on hold while Iran observes days of funeral obsequies for its former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by Israel and the US on the first day of the war, 28 February.
Asked if the reciprocal strikes meant talks were finished, Trump referred to his chief negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner: “I don’t care, they can talk. But I think they’re wasting their time.” On the Iranian regime, he said: “They’re a bunch of lying guys.”
The BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen noted that Trump’s comments can be read as another admission that the US president, for all his bluster, does not have a better option than negotiations. With Israel, the US tried and failed to destroy the Iranian regime.
But the negotiating process is fragile. A source among the mediators described what has happened as “a setback for sure”. The atmosphere is said to be “very tense” – a diplomatic way of saying that recent events are a terrible backdrop for talks between two powers that have zero trust the other will keep its word.
America’s capacity to hit Iran, doing great damage, is not in doubt. But it has not been able to break the regime’s will to drop any of its fundamental demands, starting with control of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. The latest strikes – launched after Trump declared the ceasefire over – underscore the chasm between the president’s threats and the limits of military power.
