As the clock ticks down on President Donald Trump’s Tuesday evening deadline to reach an agreement to end the war with Iran, the Arab Gulf countries are in the dark. America’s European allies don’t know. Even people close to the White House are not sure what will happen next.
And Trump’sTuesday morning threatthat “the whole civilization will die tonight” – unless “something revolutionary” happens in the next few hours – contains some of the worst-case scenario fears: that the president will use nuclear weapons against Iran.
It’s exactly the kind of made-for-television, edge-of-your-seat show that has become one of the president’s hallmarks — complete with a prime-time deadline. And it comes with a dire, apocalyptic scenario that has left Washington — and indeed, the world — on a knife’s edge.
Trump has given Iran until 8pm on Tuesday to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which it has almost completely closed by using drones to target oil tankers passing through it without permission. In the absence of an agreement, Trump has threatened to strike critical infrastructure, such as mills and bridges.
When asked about the status of negotiations with Iran, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “only the president knows where things stand and what he will do” and that Iran has until the end of time to “meet the time and make an agreement with the United States.”
A senior Gulf official, who did not want to be named to speak openly, said that their country “doesn’t know” what Trump was thinking.
“It could be a ploy to try to get Iran to accept what’s on the table, the deal that Pakistan has brought to them. But we don’t have any visibility into that deal, if there is a deal,” the person said. “And if he attacks Iran, then we know Iran will retaliate against us and other countries in the region.”
Trump has long used uncertainty as a negotiating tool, unwilling to deny himself any options that could increase his power. But at a time when the stakes are the highest they’ve ever been for a president, his ambivalent behavior creates something more than a strategic dilemma.
It creates real fear in partner capitals, regional authorities, and within its circle about what comes next – and at what cost.
“It’s very sad to see the president of the United States talking about war in these ways,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist who served in the first Trump administration. “Many people are used to the president appearing on social networks as he has done for more than a decade now, but now the consequences are war and peace… No one knows how to do that. Our allies do not know, our enemies do not know. And no one is convinced that the president really knows what will happen next.”
Human rights groups say the president’s attacks on Iran’s infrastructure – including power plants and desalination plants, which are essential for supplying drinking water to millions of people – will have a devastating effect on the country’s population, which is already suffering from shortages.
A major strike against Iran would escalate a nearly six-week regional firestorm that has threatened oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows. Ready, war readyspread throughout the world economythreatening almost every supply chain and destroying the affordability argument that the president’s political advisers planned to make earlier this year. The price of oil has gone upmore than 50 percentsince the war began more than a month ago, and further power outages could send prices even higher.
But international leaders, including some of America’s closest allies, are signaling hope for some kind of 11th-hour deal that pulls the United States off the brink. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, asked about the president’s social media post Tuesday morning, suggested there is a gap between public and private conversations about America’s next steps.
“I’ll just look at there’s some conversation going on, and that there’s often a gap between what’s being said in public and what’s happening in private,” Carney said. “We are not in the middle of those negotiations, although we appear to be in them.”
Carney also strongly condemned the suggestion that the US would target civilian infrastructure.
“We encourage all parties in this war to adhere to those obligations,” he added.
Still, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters before his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand on Tuesday, said that “Iran violates every known law by striking commercial ships” in the ocean and “it is a big problem for the world.”
“This is an administration that doesn’t believe in laws, regulations, or anything like that,” he added. “It is a state sponsor of terrorism, so it is no surprise that they are now conducting terrorist activities against commercial shipping.”
Many of the president’s allies on Tuesday appeared hopeful that the United States would weaken, or launch smaller attacks against Iran that would fall short of the mass destruction the president has promised. Instead of attacking energy infrastructure, he could, for example, choose to target bridges.
“I would be surprised if he went forward. He has had two previous times to go forward. He blinked,” said one person close to the White House, who did not want to be named to speak openly. “That’s been his MO throughout the history of the business. Whenever he can’t get something he comes in and says something offensive and lets others put him in the crosshairs.”
And some in Washington are dismissive of the prospect that the president will use nuclear weapons, with some former Trump officials seeing the White House’s silence on the issue more as a negotiating tactic than a real threat.
“I don’t think he’s thinking about nuclear weapons at all; I think there’s no possibility. Nor is there any reason to use them,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Trump administration.
But he warned that even the kind of drastic action Trump is threatening may not move Iran’s leadership.
“They don’t care about the Iranian people, that’s why they killed 30,000 in January,” he said. “They can only hold on, because they are not worried about Iran’s economy in the future; they are worried about their necks.”
Cheyenne Haslett and Nick Taylor-Vaisey contributed to this report.
