When Israel Katz, the defence minister and namesake of his country, said on Saturday that attacks against Iran will “increase significantly” in the coming week, it appeared to contradict what Donald Trump said just hours earlier.
The US President had said he was considering “winding down” military operations. But this was typical Trump — unpredictable, even incoherent.
Even the American military itself continues to take actions that seem to contradict Commander-in-Chief Trump, as the US administration has announced it’s sending more warships and Marines or troops to the Middle East (West Asia). Trump’s “winding down” comment also came shortly after he, too, ruled out a ceasefire and kept the door open to deploying ground troops.
“We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East,” he later said in a social media post on Friday, US time.
He later told reporters, in his own words, that he “may have a plan, or may not” about where the conflict goes from here.
Trump-led mixed messaging from the US came after another spike in oil prices plunged the US stock market.
So much so, that the Trump administration even announced that it will lift sanctions on Iranian oil loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring prices. Iran has said it has nothing on ships at sea anyway.
Social media was ablaze with hot takes on how Trump’s war had led to lifting of sanctions against the very country that it had attacked.
The irony was in sync with how Trump has oscillated between claims and fears and calls for help over the three weeks of the war, which began when US and Israel bombed Tehran on February 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
War continues to rage
Iran has since widened the conflict to Gulf states that house US bases. The war, thus, has shown no signs of abating.
Iran on Saturday said its Natanz nuclear facility was hit in an airstrike on Saturday but that there has been no radiation leakage. Israel said Iran continued to fire missiles at it through the day, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region, which is home to major oil installations.
Iran has also hit an elite F-35 jet of the US military, and tried to attack a US-UK combined base on the Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean, about 4,000 km away. This raised some brows about Iran’s stated position, and the US claim, that Tehran has missiles that can go a maximum distance of 2,000 km.
Trump’s climbdown was being linked to these instances. But Trump’s commitment about more troops, and even staying open to the ground invasion of Iran, muddled the messaging a little more.
Political mood inside America
Inside the US, despite a high-profile resignation of Joe Kent, Trump’s main man on counter-terror, less than a week ago, the Repiblican Party has so far backed Trump.
Under the War Powers Act, the President can conduct military operations for 60 days without approval from the US Congress. So far, Republicans have easily voted down several resolutions from Democrats designed to halt the military campaign.
“The real question is: What ultimately are we trying to accomplish?” Republican Senator Thom Tillis told news agency AP. “I generally support anything that takes out the mullahs,” he said, referring to Islamist radicals.
“But at the end of the day, there has to be a kind of strategic articulation of the strategy, what our objectives are,” he said, underlining the confoundment so far at Trump’s many stances. Trump’s Truth Social also shows this oscillation, as the Hindustan Times analysed earlier this week.
On objectives, Trump and his team have spoken of regime change, oil security, “freedom for women”, avoiding nuclear war, and general instability among reasons why Iran was attacked. Israel’s leaders have spoke of it in religious terms too. For now, a lot is at stake in the Strait of Hormuz, taking this conflict beyond immediate political, or religious, objectives of just the US and Israel.
Support for the war remains tenuous inside the US. A poll by NBC News found last week that 54% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict.
Iran’s ability, or even a foiled attempt, to hit the Diego Garcia base adds a whole new dimension to the conflict.
Iran has already likened the ongoing conflict to “another Vietnam” for the US, referring to the war of the 1960s in which the US lost over 50,000 troops.
Why Diego Garcia matters
The Diego Garcia air base is home to about 2,500 mostly American personnel and has supported US military operations from Vietnam to Iraq, Afghanistan and strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels. It is part of the Chagos Islands, a remote archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the tip of India. The islands have been under British control since 1814.
They are also at the centre of UK’s spat with Trump over Britain’s plans to hand sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, and then lease back only the Diego Garcia base. UK PM Keir Starmer says that will safeguard the future of the base, which is currently vulnerable to legal challenge. The Trump administration initially welcomed the deal, but in January Trump called it “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY”.
What Iran says on state of war
Iran has, meanwhile, conveyed to India that the US and Israel must cease hostilities, and that international blocs such as India-led BRICS must play “an independent role”.
It asserted that it did not start the war, and has a right to protect itself.
The death toll from the war has risen to more than 1,300 in Iran; more than 1,000 people in Lebanon which is being attacked by Israel in parallel over the presence of Iran-backed Hezbollah; 15 in Israel and 13 US military members. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
Russia reaffirms Iran ties
As for Iran’s allies, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the strikes on the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility “a brazen violation of international law”. In a statement posted on the ministry’s website on Saturday, Zakharova said such “irresponsible actions” posed a “real risk of catastrophic disaster throughout the Middle East” and were “clearly aimed at further undermining peace, stability, and security in the region”.
As the war now covers almost all countries in the Gulf region, sirens continue to sound, including in Bahrain on Saturday.
Strait of Hormuz remains blockaded
At the heart of the war getting protracted from the US standpoint, is Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, on which too Trump has claimed the US can open it anytime, to calling for help from NATO that was refused, to now saying it will open on its own at some point.
On that, the head of US Central said in his latest video update on the war that American forces “remain on plan to eliminate Iran’s ability to project meaningful power outside its borders”.
Admiral Brad Cooper also detailed steps taken to undermine Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway vital to international commerce such as oil shipments. He said in a post on X that earlier in the week, multiple 5,000-pound bombs were dropped on an underground facility along Iran’s coastline that was used to store anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile missile launchers and other equipment “that presented a dangerous risk to international shipping”.
“Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz is degraded as a result and we will not stop pursuing these targets,” he said in the video.
Meanwhile, countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea and Australia have all condemned Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels as well as oil and gas facilities in the region.
Eid prayers in Tehran
Amid this, thousands of Iranian worshipers on Saturday converged on Tehran’s grand mosque for Eid-ul-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. AP footage showed worshippers lining up at Imam Khomeini Mosalla and in its vast courtyard for the prayers as Israel and the United States continued launch massive airstrikes against Iran.
“It’s really a painful feeling,” Masoud Alibenam, 50, said about prayers are being offered without Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The leader is no longer here, and we are offering the prayers in his absence.”
Worshippers also held funeral services for Gen Ali Mohammad Naeini, spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Friday. The funeral procession of Amir Hossein Bidi, a pro-government cultural activist, was also held after Eid prayers.
