Three months after President Trump launched war on Iran, his seemingly haphazard approach to the conflict is bewildering allies at home and abroad as he veers between diplomatic dealing, military strikes and increasingly far-fetched ideas.
It is possible that Mr. Trump is near a breakthrough in the form of what both sides call an interim agreement that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin detailed talks on Iran’s nuclear program. But U.S. officials said on Thursday that Mr. Trump had not yet signed off on the agreement, and several others like it have fallen apart.
The latest diplomatic crescendo comes just after a new round of clashes between the United States and Iran tested a fragile cease-fire that has held since early April. Mr. Trump has threatened to restart the war if Iran does not reopen the strait to commercial shipping. Last Friday, U.S. officials hinted that he was reviewing military options for potentially resuming the bombing campaign.
But neither saber rattling nor outright shooting has derailed diplomacy between Washington and Tehran, which has continued in fits and starts in the weeks since Mr. Trump canceled a round of planned talks with Iranian officials in Pakistan earlier this month.
A long post on Mr. Trump’s Truth Social account on Monday typified his mixed message, declaring at once that negotiations with Iran were “proceeding nicely!” before warning that anything short of a “great deal” would mean “Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!”
At the Defense Department, military officials expressed bewilderment over the stop-start nature of the conflict. A senior defense official said that the more than 50,000 U.S. troops assigned to Iran who are scattered throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States were “in limbo” as Mr. Trump swings from option to option.
For centuries, statesmen from Otto von Bismarck to Henry Kissinger have argued that diplomacy with adversaries is most effective when backed by force, real or threatened. “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz said in a 1986 speech.
But Mr. Trump’s pendulum swings on Iran have often seemed driven by mood and moment rather than any discernible strategy. Adding to the confusion are his many claims of diplomatic progress that later proved unfounded.
Mr. Trump’s shifts also reflect a political tug of war between hawkish supporters urging him to hit Iran harder and noninterventionists — along with Republicans nervous about rising gas prices and sagging poll numbers — urging him to make a quick deal.
Some members of the pro-war camp were especially exasperated on Thursday as details of the possible interim deal emerged. They maintained that Mr. Trump might relieve pressure on Iran in order to reopen the strait without winning firm Iranian commitments to surrender its nuclear material and stop enriching uranium.
“The cease-fire has become rather farcical,” said Michael Makovsky, the president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based think tank that promotes hawkish pro-Israel policies. “It has reduced U.S. leverage for a good deal, and made America look weak — that we’re vulnerable if gasoline prices go above $5.”
“No deal with this regime will be worth the paper it’s written on, and better to end this war with a bang than a whimper,” added Mr. Makovsky, who urged Mr. Trump to resume strikes against Iran’s military and its nuclear sites while continuing a blockade of Iranian oil exports.
Mr. Trump has further clouded matters with recent statements that seem poorly thought out, if not disconnected from reality altogether.
On Monday, for instance, he bewildered Middle Eastern allies by suggesting that a peace deal with Iran should include pledges by several Arab states to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel and join the pact known as the Abraham Accords.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump threatened to attack Oman, a Gulf Arab nation and a longtime U.S. partner, if it entered into a notional agreement with Iran to share control of the strait. “We’ll have to blow them up,” Mr. Trump said, before indicating that was not likely to happen.
More substantively, Mr. Trump reversed course almost immediately after unveiling a plan for U.S. warships to escort stranded tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Firm opposition from Saudi Arabia — which was caught by surprise and feared that Iran would respond with escalation — forced Mr. Trump to abort the operation, called Project Freedom, after just one day.
“Trump’s uttering confuses everyone,” said James F. Jeffrey, a retired career diplomat who worked in the George W. Bush White House and served as Syria envoy in Mr. Trump’s first term.
But Mr. Jeffrey added that the world had grown somewhat inured to Mr. Trump’s theatrics.
“It’s ugly and confusing, but after six years of it there is a certain discounting of the crazy stuff,” he said.
Iranian officials, however, have suggested that Mr. Trump’s about-faces are making diplomacy more difficult.
“The American side tweets a lot, talks a lot. Sometimes confusing, sometimes, you know, contradictory,” Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told reporters during a mid-April visit to Turkey.
American and Iranian forces have had other skirmishes since a cease-fire took effect more than seven weeks ago. But the recent round of military action suggests that if the latest diplomatic proposal falls apart, the fighting could escalate.
The latest skirmish came late Wednesday night when American forces knocked down four one-way attack drones that a U.S. official said Iran launched over the strait. The drones, according to the official, threatened U.S. air and naval forces in the region and what little commercial maritime traffic is passing through the strait, which Iran has effectively blockaded with the threat of mines, armed boats, drones and missiles.
The U.S. military then conducted airstrikes against a drone ground-control station near Bandar Abbas, a major commercial port and Navy base in southern Iran, before Iran could fire a fifth drone, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
On Thursday, U.S. Central Command accused Iran of violating the cease-fire by launching a ballistic missile toward Kuwait hours after the United States attacked the targets in Bandar Abbas.
On Monday, U.S. forces struck Iranian missile launch sites and boats trying to place mines in the strait, Central Command said.
Iran also launched one-way attack drones near some of the scores of American attack planes and Navy warships positioned in or around the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea that are enforcing the blockade against vessels trying to enter or leave Iranian ports, the U.S. official said.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesman, said the strikes on Monday were in “self-defense” in order “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.”
Central Command did not issue a statement about the strikes Wednesday night in an apparent effort to tamp down fears that the skirmishes were escalating and could undermine the negotiations.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting.
