Donald Trump declared on Friday night that the United States was considering to “reduce” their military efforts in Iran “even as thousands of Marines were en route to the region,” casting doubt “on the White House’s intention to either withdraw from the conflict or, on the contrary, intensify this war that has been going on for three weeks,” as noted by The Washington Post.
“We are on the verge of achieving our goals as we consider gradually reducing our significant military efforts in the Middle East against the Iranian terrorist regime,” the American president wrote on his Truth Social network.
According to the Washington, DC newspaper, this announcement “aims to increase pressure on allies to take on a larger role in securing the region’s oil transports, an increasingly urgent concern as energy prices soar.”
“President Trump has complained, in increasingly virulent terms, that U.S. allies were dragging their feet to engage in a war he initiated without consulting them,” going so far as to call them “cowards” on Friday, the newspaper adds.
No “ceasefire”
The New York Times sees mainly in this message “a shift towards more modest American goals in this conflict,” noting that it no longer mentions “support for regime change through a popular uprising, an objective the president had set at the start of the American-Israeli attacks.”
“Instead, President Trump has focused on weakening Iran’s military and defense capabilities, while committing to defending U.S. allies in the Middle East,” and leaving “the question of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to the countries that use it, stating that the U.S. does not use it,” the newspaper notes.
Earlier in the day, before departing from Washington to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Donald Trump told the press that he was willing to “dialogue” with Iranian leaders but did not want to “conclude a ceasefire,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “You don’t conclude a ceasefire when you’re literally annihilating the enemy,” he declared.
“Gross miscalculation”
The message was markedly different on the Iranian side, as the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, affirmed on Friday that “the enemy [had] been defeated” and that the Iranians had delivered “a staggering blow, to the point where he [was] now making contradictory and absurd statements,” read his statement on Iranian television, according to Al-Jazeera.
And the ayatollah did not hesitate to note that “if the U.S. and Israel believed that after one or two days of attacks, the Iranian people would overthrow the government,” it was a “gross miscalculation,” adds the Qatari channel.
“Is there an adult in the Oval Office?”
For The Atlantic, “three weeks after the start of Donald Trump’s war against Iran, the president still refuses to define victory, except by asserting that the war will soon be over.” And for good reason: his “plan A” was to “strike Iran hard, see the theocrats flee, then hand over power to a government of his choice. In case that didn’t happen, plan B was […] well, apparently there was no plan B.”
“Whatever path Trump will choose to take from now on, the president is more led by events than he masters them,” adds the American magazine. “Like a gambler trying to make up for his losses, he continues to inject new sums to stay at the table.”
“Is there an adult in the Oval Office?” wonders Le Soir in its editorial. “Because Donald Trump astounds, but now mainly frightens and shatters the world, dragging it into his quagmire, and his madness.”
And it notes: “Here is a man who, breaking all his promises, entangles America in a global war, which he would have decided under Israeli influence, and, by his own admission, without knowing the potential responses of an enemy who has nevertheless displayed them, and with objectives that change according to his frustrations and increasingly numerous setbacks.”
