U.S. President Donald Trump pulled back on his threats to launch devastating strikes on Iran late Tuesday, swerving to deescalate the war less than two hours before the deadline he set for Tehran to capitulate or else a “whole civilization will die.”
Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets, subject to Tehran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped during peacetime.
He also said Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan that could help end the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted a two-week ceasefire and that it would negotiate with the United States in Islamabad beginning Friday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said passage through the strait would be allowed for the next two weeks under Iranian military management. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that meant Iran would loosen its chokehold on the waterway.
In a post on his social media site, Trump said that he would suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks provided Tehran agreed “to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING" of the strait.
Even as the ceasefire was announced, missile alerts continued in the United Arab Emirates and Israel early Wednesday, hinting at the chaos surrounding the diplomatic moves.
Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly backed off deadlines just before they expire.
In doing so again Tuesday, Trump said he had come to the decision “based on conversations” with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief.
Sharif, in a post on X hours earlier, urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance.
He used the same post to ask Iran to open the strait for two weeks.
The president said in his social media post that Iran has presented “a workable basis on which to negotiate.”
“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump said.
Earlier Trump threats raised alarms
Trump’s expansive threat Tuesday did not seem to account for potential harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.
Tehran’s representative at the U.N., Amir-Saeid Iravani, said the threats “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide” and that Iran would "take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures” if Trump launches devastating strikes.
The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with attacks targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. Iran has responded with a stream of strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors, causing regional chaos and outsized economic and political shock.
Late Tuesday, Pakistan's prime minister urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. In a post on X, Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has been leading negotiations, also asked Iran to open up for two weeks the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station, and the U.S. hit military infrastructure on Kharg Island, a key hub for Iranian oil production.
Trump has extended deadlines before
Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly imposed deadlines linked to threats, only to extend them. Tehran previously rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal by Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators, saying it wants a permanent end to the war.
Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight. That's despite Trump saying that U.S. forces could wipe out all bridges in Iran in a matter of hours and reduce all power plants to smoking rubble in roughly the same time frame.
It was not clear if airstrikes against Iran on Tuesday were linked to Trump’s threats to widen the civilian target list.
At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli warplanes struck bridges and railways in Iran.
Tehran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.
While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait since the war began in late February is roiling the world economy and raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.
Trump keeps an off-ramp open
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. But he also seemed to keep open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”
Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.
Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. State media posted videos online that showed hundreds of flag-waving people massed at two bridges and at a power plant hundreds of kilometers (miles) from Tehran, though it was not clear how widespread the practice was.
“They’re not allowed to do that,” Trump said in a phone call with NBC News.
A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard general warned that Iran would “deprive the U.S. and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its attacks across the Gulf region if Trump carries out his threat.
In Tehran, the mood was bleak. A young teacher said that many opponents of Iran's Islamic system had hoped Trump's attacks would quickly topple it. As the war drags on, she fears U.S. and Israeli strikes will spread chaos.
“If we don’t have the internet, and if we don’t have electricity, water, and gas, we’re really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump said,” she told The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity for her safety.
