The president Donald Trump said on Monday that he halted the attacks on Iran after 13 consecutive nights of heavy bombings to give a new and final chance to the diplomatic route. Fighting resumed earlier this month and the United States had been attacking with the aim of degrading the military capabilities of the terrorist regime in the Strait of Hormuz.
"We are in very deep conversations with Iran. If they don't work, we will return to very strong military action," Trump told Axios in a recent interview, in which he highlighted that the countries mediating in the peace negotiations asked him to suspend the offensive.
The president added that this new attempt at diplomacy will have "very little time". "It either moves quickly or it doesn't move at all," declared the Republican magnate, who had previously stated that he was considering a "massive" and "bigger than ever" attack on Iran.
Trump pauses attacks against Iran after two weeks of offensive and evaluates the diplomatic route
The generals' analysis
The decision to suspend the attacks came after the head of the U.S. Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, assessed that the bombing campaign in the Strait of Hormuz had sufficiently degraded Iran's ability to attack ships in this maritime passage, stating that the offensive had reached its limit.
According to the New York Times, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, assessed that the depletion of U.S. missile and drone interceptors to counter Iranian projectiles was a cause for concern, a leak disputed by the military leadership.
On Thursday, Trump had threatened to "hold Iran accountable" and inflict a "greater military punishment" on both the military regime and its allies, the Houthis from Yemen, who began attacking commercial navigation in the Red Sea and Saudi oil facilities last week.
