The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.
Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict, with Benjamin Netanyahu expected to visit the White House on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister is a vocal critic of Washington's negotiations with Iranian leaders and has pressed for the US to continue its strikes against Iran.
Netanyahu is under considerable political pressure to show that his military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have yielded results before elections scheduled for October.
Tehran said on Sunday it would pause what it called “retaliatory†attacks against US allies in the region. “These [US] attacks continued until two nights ago, but over the past two nights the Americans have stopped their attacks,†said the army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia. “Our strategy has essentially been retaliatory, we have also halted our retaliatory operations.â€
Senior officials in the Trump administration are reported to have told the president about dwindling munitions stockpiles that could hamper a sustained military campaign in the region.
Axios reported on Sunday that Adm Bradley Cooper, the top US military commander in the region, had told Trump the US military campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness.
The message was said to affect Trump's decision to hold strikes on Iran for the first time in nearly two weeks. Cooper told Trump the US had nearly exhausted the list of targets that it had developed to attack in Iran, and without a return to major combat operations there was little point in continuing the bombing campaign, the news website reported.
Asked on Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press whether Trump was ruling out additional strikes in Iran, the president's UN ambassador Mike Waltz said: “I wouldn't go that far at all. The president is keeping all options on the table.â€
The lull in fighting, which began on Friday evening, follows nearly two weeks of strikes against Iran and the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Trump. Washington blamed Iran for strikes on US forces and allies in the region and its closure of the strait of Hormuz, a conduit for an estimated 20% of the world's oil and gas.
Senior diplomats from Iran and Oman were said to be holding negotiations on Sunday on reopening the vital waterway and an official in Tehran confirmed colleagues had been in touch with US negotiators to prevent a return to war. Iran has demanded payment and control over which ships pass through the strait.
“Mediators are working and trying to prevent tension from escalating,†the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told a press conference on Sunday.
But an Iranian army spokesperson signalled defiance, saying the US had no clear strategy and was “experiencing strategic decision-making fatigueâ€.
The US vice-president, JD Vance, and Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, warned Trump of the risks of a renewed military campaign against Iran at an Oval Office meeting on Friday, according to media outlets. The president then ordered the military to call off new strikes, which he had warned could “knock out everything they haveâ€.
“We're talking to [the Iranians] right now,†Trump told reporters on Friday. “I think they're getting more and more serious as the days go by. We're locked and loaded and ready to go, but we're talking to them.â€
At a White House Correspondents' Association dinner that evening he said he did not think Iran was ready to make a deal but he was ready to listen.
Caine warned Trump about dwindling munitions stockpiles, which include Patriot missile interceptors and offensive weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles. Vance campaigned on his opposition to US military interventions in the Middle East and has grown more 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 leaving for Washington on Monday. He played a crucial role in lobbying Trump to launch joint strikes against Iran in February and has said that US negotiators must take a strong line on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme. US negotiators have instead prioritised opening the strait of Hormuz.
Netanyahu will travel to Washington amid some of the worst violence this year in the West Bank, where his military is launching an “extensive†operation after the deaths of four Palestinians and two Israelis when armed settlers entered a Palestinian village on Thursday.
The US and the UK under its 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 ships in the strait of Hormuz and de-mine the waterway. The discussions will be an early test for Burnham's administration. The Labour government has so far refused to allow Washington to use a British airbase for offensive operations against Iran.
