Washington: President Donald Trump has had a lot to say about his thinking on the way ahead in the Iran war since Republicans were trounced in last week's midterm elections.
In exchanges with reporters, broadcast interviews and social media posts since Election Day, he's somehow managed to back away from carrying out additional strikes while also backing away from the prospect of additional talks with the Islamic Republic's negotiators on ending the 8-month-old conflict.
The president acknowledged on the day after the midterms that the war and the global economic tumult it's caused were partly to blame for Republicans' electoral losses, while maintaining it was the right thing to do.
Then, at the start of this week, he huddled with Qatar's prime minister at the White House and afterward told reporters that he believed it was highly unlikely he'd need to order new major strikes on Iran, declaring that the war "militarily is effectively over."
But by Thursday, he was again raising questions about whether he needed to rush to find an endgame. He declared that the US no longer needs a deal with Tehran and brusquely directed Vice President JD Vance - who served as his chief negotiator in earlier peace talks with Iran - to shift his attention to the administration's domestic anti-fraud campaign.
All the while, Trump warned Iran that the US military is "locked and loaded" and keeping an eye on Pickaxe Mountain, a facility linked to Iran's nuclear program, for signs of activity.
Trump's tonal shifts have only added to the uncertainty about what comes next in a war in which America's allies were not consulted before it was started but nonetheless struggle to deal with its economic ramifications.
"President Trump is now acting like an arsonist who has set ablaze our foreign policy," Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said in an interview Friday on the sidelines of the Democrats' postelection gathering in Denver. "And now he just wants to walk away."
The president's ambiguous positioning on the war is expected to loom large during a visit next week to the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen.
"The economic pain that we are inflicting on that regime is so great that there's no need for military action because we've weakened them so much," Rubio said in a Friday evening speech to the Federalist Society.
Chief mediator Qatar continues to try to negotiate an interim agreement that would restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for the flow of oil and natural gas from the Arabian Gulf to global markets, while leaving open options for further discussions between the US and Iran.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the situation had appeared to be on the right track earlier this week after Qatar's prime minister met with Trump.
But Trump's social media post Thursday declaring that the US doesn't need a deal with Iran and directing Vance "to focus his complete and total attention" on his anti-fraud campaign has created a sense of limbo.
One of the diplomats said the post raised questions about why Trump appeared to be sidelining Vance, who was skeptical about launching the war but ultimately supported Trump.
Trump's post came as Vance had been weighing a possible reengagement with senior Iranian negotiators, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The president posted his message calling on Vance to steer away from Iran negotiations the morning after The Wall Street Journal reported Vance was thinking about resuming talks. Trump - who had been aware of Vance's deliberations - believed the Iranians weren't acting in good faith, the person added.
Still, Trump believes with oil shipments through the strait reaching near-prewar levels, he could potentially leave it to Gulf countries to negotiate a deal with the Iranians on governing the critical waterway, the person said.
That diplomat added it was not entirely clear to mediators or the Iranians if Trump's comments meant he was abandoning a negotiated agreement or was just posturing after the congressional midterm elections that cost his Republican Party control of Congress.
Iran remains unwilling to engage in negotiations over its nuclear program until the US agrees to several core conditions that Iran has been demanding be part of any ceasefire agreement.
Differences with Iran over its nuclear activities remain the thorniest issue and one that Trump insists must be resolved as part of any deal meant to end the war.
Tehran's rhetoric has hardly cooled. Iran's deputy UN ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi told the United Nations Security Council on Friday that Iran "has never closed the door to diplomacy." But he warned that should the US or Israel return to bombing, his country would offer "an immediate and decisive response."
"If there's a deal to be done, the president will be the first one to be in favour of it," Rubio said. "But it's not going to be a stupid deal. It's not going to be a bad deal."
Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he expects the status quo to persist for some time, with the US and Iran locked in a stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz and the US continuing its monthslong naval blockade that's curbing the flow of Iranian crude to the global market.
"It's probably the most sensible path as well to sort of be patient, keep the pressure on, allow the mediators to keep doing their work," said Singh, who worked on Middle East issues in former President George W. Bush's White House. "And when the time is right, but not before then, is when you want to engage senior officials like the vice president and so forth."
