The stop-start fighting between the United States and Iran appears to have entered a new phase as Saudi Arabia has publicly joined military escalations against Tehran-backed proxies. Concurrently, an already untenable diplomatic effort to end the war has faltered again due to deepening mistrust between the long-standing adversaries.
Despite several days of relative calm, both sides conducted military strikes in the last 24 hours that once again risk a return to all-out war—and further regional expansion—while little is clear regarding any strategy American or Iranian officials possess for moving forward.
While President Donald Trump and his allies have recently argued that Iran is eager to return to negotiations, Iran’s deputy foreign minister stated on Tuesday that his country has made no requests to restart the diplomatic track in over two weeks.
Following a thwarted attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, Trump shifted back to threats on Wednesday even while maintaining the possibility of continued talks.
“They’ve already apologized, but, you know, we got to smack them a little bit,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. He added, “It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point. But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
Hours later, strikes followed as the U.S. military posted on social media that it launched a “powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.” The targets of the attack were not immediately disclosed.
There is a sense of déjà vu as the Republican president has wavered over the past several months between insisting a deal was near to end the war concerning Tehran’s nuclear program and then using vulgarities and threats to compel Iran to meet U.S. demands—to no avail.
The stakes for continued U.S. military action have never been higher for Trump and his party, as the conflict, which is unpopular among many Americans, has jolted the world economy just months before critical midterm elections in November. The renewed fighting has also resulted in more American troops being killed and injured and has been complicated by concerns that the U.S. is further depleting stockpiles of key air defense systems required to defend its bases and allies.
In the past day, Iran reported firing ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a crucial U.S. military hub for the region, which Trump claimed were intercepted. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. in striking multiple logistics and weapons sites utilized by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.
The first publicly announced joint U.S.-Saudi strikes occurred after drone attacks on the kingdom, complicating a conflict that now involves nearly every country in the region. A U.S. official, speaking anonymously to detail sensitive military operations, stated that the two attacks were not connected.
Saudi Defense Minister Visits White House
Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman met separately with Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, according to two individuals familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly about the private meeting.
The defense minister conveyed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s view—the kingdom’s de facto leader—that Iran has lost leverage in Syria and Lebanon but continues to support the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq, according to one of the individuals familiar with Prince Khalid’s talks with Trump and Vance.
The Iran-aligned Houthi group stated earlier this week that it fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi oil tanker, days after declaring it was imposing a naval blockade on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea.
The person added that the Saudi decision to join the U.S. attacks against Iraqi militias was intended to signal to Iran that it would not tolerate Iran or its proxies targeting the Saudi oil industry and other vital infrastructure.
At the same time, the defense minister stressed to Trump and Vance that the Saudis desire a de-escalation in the war and wish for Washington and Tehran to resume negotiations.
Drone strikes also ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at a port in Egypt, a close U.S. ally and regional mediator that remains one of the few countries in the Middle East spared from direct military action during the war. A strike by Iran or its allies, if confirmed, would signify a significant widening of the conflict.
The U.S.-Saudi strikes occurred hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left his first meeting with Trump since they launched the war against Iran on February 28.
An Israeli official briefed on the Tuesday White House meeting stated that Netanyahu assured Trump that the U.S., not Israel, was in control regarding Iran, attempting to counter the idea that he is increasingly out of sync with his closest ally concerning the path forward.
However, Israeli officials have also privately expressed concern that Trump, with midterm elections approaching, is trying to “keep this war on a low flame,” according to a person familiar with Netanyahu’s government’s internal deliberations. This person and the Israeli official were not authorized to comment and spoke anonymously.
The person added that Israeli officials are growing more concerned about Trump’s sensitivity to surging oil prices as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to global energy shipments, and about the increasing apprehension among some in the U.S. administration regarding the consumption rate of critical missile interceptors.
According to an analysis released this week from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, recent fighting with Iran has used up more of the U.S. military’s already reduced stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD interceptors, potentially increasing risk to American troops if hostilities resume.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has informed Trump that the condition of the munitions stockpile could affect military operations in Iran, according to another U.S. official. This official, speaking anonymously about sensitive conversations, said the message was delivered as part of Caine’s routine duty of offering military advice and options to Trump.
A History of Failed Diplomacy Plagues US-Iran Prospects
The Trump administration does not appear to have a strategy for resuming negotiations with Iran to end the conflict.
Despite efforts by some mediators to restart talks—or at least find a point where they could begin again—a senior U.S. official said the administration is not actively pursuing talks currently.
The official, speaking anonymously about internal deliberations, stated that recent regional developments suggested any resumption of direct diplomacy was not imminent.
Analysts attribute the uncertainty and lack of strategy to deep, growing mistrust between Washington and Tehran, particularly after an interim ceasefire proposal signed in mid-June collapsed in recent weeks.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said senior Iranian officials were nearly unanimous in their decision to approve that memorandum of understanding with the U.S.
“But now none of them believe that Trump is a reliable negotiating partner,” he said. “The problem, I think, is that Trump also has now the same impression about the Iranians.”
In some aspects, the on-again, off-again nature of talks and the back-and-forth military attacks should not be surprising.
The history of U.S. negotiations with Iran after 1979 is marked by failure, false starts and stops, and military actions that have nonetheless stopped short of the conflict the two nations are currently experiencing.
Despite its shortcomings, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, secured by the Obama administration, was the first major agreement between the two countries since the Algiers Accords in 1981, which ended the American hostage crisis and established a partial path toward resolving other issues, including the unfreezing of Shah-era Iranian assets seized by the U.S. after the Islamic Revolution.
However, from the outset, both sides accused each other of violating the terms of these agreements.
Accusations of violating the Algiers Accords, which led to a period of intense animosity—including U.S. support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war—became commonplace.
Despite the semi-rapprochement around the 2015 nuclear deal, Trump's withdrawal from it in 2018 during his first term, his imposition of a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Tehran, and the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top military leader Qassem Soleimani in early 2020 sent the relationship to new lows.