Neither the U.S. nor Israel seem close to ending their attacks on Iran as the war stretches into its 16th day. U.S. President Donald Trump says he is not yet prepared to make a deal with Tehran while Israeli officials say there are still “thousands of targets” to be hit.
In an interview with NBC news Saturday night, Trump said he wants Tehran to offer a better “deal” before he would agree to ending hostilities.
“Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet,” the president told the network in a 30-minute phone call. He added that the terms offered would have to be “very solid.”
The U.S. leader, however, declined to say what conditions he is seeking.
“I don’t want to say that to you,” Trump stated, while acknowledging that Iran would have to completely abandon any nuclear ambitions as part of any agreement.
Israel, meanwhile, told CNN it plans for at least three more weeks of its campaign in Iran.
“We have thousands of targets ahead,” IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told the cable outlet. “We are ready, in coordination with our U.S. allies, with plans through at least the Jewish holiday of Passover, about three weeks from now. And we have deeper plans for even three weeks beyond that.”
Defrin added that the IDF is “not working according to a stopwatch, or a timetable, but rather to achieve our goals” which are to “weaken the Iranian regime severely.”
At the same time, Chris Wright, Trump’s Energy Secretary, has also said the war will end within the next few weeks:
“I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks – could be sooner than that. But the conflict will come to the end in the next few weeks, and we’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down in prices after that,”
While another three weeks of war would roughly fit into Trump’s previous statements that the conflict could last as five weeks, this is such a fluid situation that it is extremely difficult to make predictions about timelines.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to pound targets in Iran, including the continued use of bomber sorties.
Trump appears to be looking to build a coalition to reopen the Strait, including long-time European allies. That ask does conflict with his previous statements on Truth Social about the war already being won and not needing at least one key ally, the UK. At the same time, the UK has opened its bases to U.S. bomber deployments. Trump has also commented that the “last person he needs help from is Zelensky” in regard to Ukraine sending capabilities to the region to defend against drones.
Zelensky, for his part, told CNN that Russia is supplying Iran with Shahed drones and is aiding Iran in targeting U.S. assets in the Middle East. Though Iran initially supplied these weapons to Russia for its war on Ukraine, Moscow has made numerous improvements since as we have frequently noted.