Conflicting Signals on Timeline and Strategy in Middle East

As thousands of troops head to the Middle East, US President Trumps claims US is "considering winding down" the war. Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, Elisa Ewers, and the Heritage Foundation's Senior Research Fellow, Steve Yates, discuss the conflicting signals with Bloomberg's David Gura and Christina Ruffini. Watch the full conversation on 'Bloomberg This Weekend.' The US military said it has been able to degrade Iran’s ability to target ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz as President Donald Trump floated the idea of “winding down” military efforts in the Persian Gulf.

Trump’s comments came shortly after he ruled out a ceasefire and kept the door open to deploying ground troops, highlighting how the president continues to send wildly divergent signals about his objectives and plans for the US and Israeli war on Iran. The conflict, entering its fourth week, has sent energy prices soaring, prompting the US Treasury to take the extraordinary step of allowing the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemical products that had already been loaded onto tankers. “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East,” Trump said in a social media post on Friday.  But Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that the joint campaign would intensify significantly, a day after Tehran launched ballistic missiles at the joint US-UK military base in Diego Garcia — nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) away from Iran. The base suffered no damage, according to a person familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity, but the attack demonstrated a capability that goes beyond what Iran was known to have possessed.

Read More: Trump’s Iran War Drive Exposes Limits of ‘Yes Sir’ Cabinet

The US Central Command, meanwhile, announced that earlier this week it had bombed Iranian facilities that menaced commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas. Centcom commander Admiral Brad Cooper said in a video posted on X that the US struck Iran’s underground facilities and anti-ship missiles along with intelligence support and radar.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Saturday that Tehran had informed it that the Natanz nuclear site had been attacked. The IAEA said in a statement on X there were no reports of an increase in off-site radiation levels at the site, which is one of Iran’s key enrichment facilities and was bombed during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last June and attacked during the first week of the current conflict.

The war also continued to affect Gulf neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates, which said on X that Iran had fired eight drones and three missiles at the country.

It’s unclear how Iran would respond to any unilateral decision by the US to pause strikes after recent attacks that targeted the country’s energy infrastructure and killed more high-profile officials, including security chief Ali Larijani.

Despite weeks of US-Israeli bombardment, the regime isn’t close to falling, and is instead coalescing around the remaining hardliners, according to western intelligence assessments and people familiar with the matter.

Iranian officials have become reluctant to even discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz amid the intense US-Israeli bombing campaign, which continued overnight. The Israeli army said Saturday morning it was striking targets in Tehran and had detected missiles launched from Iran, which continued to launch retaliatory strikes at Gulf Arab neighbors as well.

Trump has been pressuring allies to help the US secure the strait militarily but indicated Friday that he will leave that effort to other nations.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump said. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them.”

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