An ambulance damaged by Israeli attacks in Tehran during the Israel-Iran conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post that a 'complete and total ceasefire' would take effect on Tuesday.Majid Asgaripour/Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday evening that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire that would end their nearly two-week-old war, just two days after he entered the conflict with a series of air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied that his country had made such a deal but said that, if Israel stopped its attacks, Tehran would also stand down. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
“As of now, there is NO ‘agreement’ on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations,” Mr. Araghchi said in a social media post. “The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later.”
Mr. Trump’s abrupt announcement, if it holds, would cap a campaign launched by Israel to destroy Tehran’s nuclear capabilities. It would also represent the latest whipsaw by Mr. Trump, who 24 hours earlier had called for the toppling of Iran’s government.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said Iran and Israel’s “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” would take effect Tuesday after both countries had “completed their in progress, final missions” of the war.
“An Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World,” the President wrote after hunkering down for part of the day in the White House Situation Room with his National Security Council. “God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!”
Reuters, citing unnamed officials, said Mr. Trump told Qatar’s Emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, that he had Israel’s agreement for a ceasefire and Qatar’s Prime Minister then secured Iran’s.
The development came after Iran’s firing of a barrage of missiles on Monday at U.S. military bases in Qatar and Iraq. Qatar said it shot down all missiles heading for Al Udeid Air Base and there were no casualties. There was no immediate word on damage to Ain al-Assad base in Iraq.
Iran said the number of missiles fired at Qatar was the same as the number of bombs the U.S. dropped on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Tehran also tipped off Doha ahead of time, signalling an effort to de-escalate the conflict.
Mr. Trump said Iran had given the U.S. “early notice,” no Americans or Qataris were killed or injured, and “hardly any damage was done.”
“Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered,” he wrote on Truth Social a little more than two hours before announcing the ceasefire. “Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”
He then encouraged both Iran and Israel to “proceed to Peace and Harmony.”
Missiles were seen in the sky over Doha on Monday as Iran's military said it had carried out a missile attack on the U.S. airbase in Qatar. Qatar said it intercepted the missiles and there were no casualties.
Reuters
In the hours before the start of the President’s announced ceasefire, overnight between Monday and Tuesday, residents of Tehran reported air strikes hitting the city.
Thomas Juneau, a Middle East expert and professor at the University of Ottawa, said Iran’s conduct in its retaliatory strikes showed Tehran wanted a way out of the conflict.
While Iran wanted to retaliate so as not to appear weak, he said, it did not want to do so in a way that would push Mr. Trump to make good on his threat to escalate the conflict if Tehran attacked U.S. personnel in the region. So, Iran telegraphed what it would do ahead of time in order to avoid casualties.
“Trump had clearly said that if Iran retaliated in a serious way, there would be retaliation, and at this point, Iran is suffering so many losses from the strikes that it does not want escalation,” Prof. Juneau said, adding that Tehran had offered an “off-ramp” from the fighting.
The President’s actions on Iran over the last two weeks have often appeared erratic.
Opinion: The U.S. military’s show of force in Iran sends a message to every global capital
Mr. Trump at first asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on an attack while the U.S. tried to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear program. When Mr. Netanyahu attacked anyway, Mr. Trump presented it as part of a co-ordinated plan to bring Tehran to the negotiating table.
Then, Mr. Trump joined the fight this past weekend and even called for “regime change” in Tehran in direct contradiction of his own Vice-President and Defence Secretary, who insisted bombing the nuclear facilities was a limited strike.
Mr. Trump’s military interventionism was also a sharp break from the President’s own isolationist past and promises to pull the U.S. back from foreign military entanglements.
During the 2016 election, Mr. Trump described the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as “a big, fat mistake” and said then-president George W. Bush “lied” about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. In bombing Iran, however, Mr. Trump dismissed the evaluation of his own Director of National Intelligence that Tehran was not building a nuclear weapon.
American voters, for their part, showed reservations about the U.S. entering the conflict.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll after Mr. Trump’s air strikes, 79 per cent of respondents said they worried Iran would target U.S. civilians in retaliation. Only 32 per cent said they supported more bombing, compared with 49 per cent who said they opposed it.
Analysis: U.S. bombing raid on Iran raises countless questions despite apparent ceasefire
Questions, meanwhile, swirled about whether the U.S. attacks on Iran had destroyed the country’s stockpile of enriched uranium. While the bombings caused significant damage to the three nuclear sites, some reports have suggested Iran moved its enriched uranium out of the way before the strikes.
On Monday, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said his inspectors want to “go back to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium and, most importantly, the 400 kilograms enriched to 60 per cent.”
Iran insists it is only enriching uranium for use in power plants, medical devices and other civilian purposes, while Israel says Tehran is aiming for the 90-per-cent enrichment necessary to build a bomb.
Mr. Trump on Monday lashed out at “sleazebags” on various TV news programs for questioning the effectiveness of his air strikes. “The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it. Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Vice-President JD Vance, in a Fox News appearance on Monday, said the U.S. had damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities severely enough that they could not turn uranium into a bomb. “Now Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it,” he said.
With a report from the Associated Press