Ceasefire Whiplash: Fragile Iran-Israel Deal Appears To Hold — For Now
The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran appears to be holding — at least for now. After the deal was announced Monday, it appeared to be on the verge of collapse with Israel launching a heavy bombardment of Tehran and Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel, killing several civilians.
President Trump lashed out early Tuesday at Iran and Israel as the deal looked like it was on the brink of collapse. On the White House lawn, he said, “Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel.”
Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call-off its final attack — a conversation where Trump was reportedly “exceptionally firm.”
Trump posted on Truth Social: “ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly “Plane Wave” to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!”
Hours later, Trump was back to praising the deal:
Despite Trump’s claims that “All Nuclear facilities & capability” in Iran are destroyed, initial reports from the U.S. and Israel say otherwise. The reports have differing assessments about how badly Iran’s nuclear capabilities were actually damaged.
Israel claims its 12 days of strikes set Iran back by several years, while preliminary U.S. assessments say dropping bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s sites only delayed the nuclear program by a matter of months.
Trump has previously asserted that Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites were "totally obliterated."
It will likely take weeks/months for Israeli and US intelligence to get a real assessment of how much damage was done to the program.
Iran said Tuesday that it is prepared to resume its nuclear program and uranium enrichment without interruption.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video stating that "Operation Rising Lion" was a "historic victory" that “sent Iran’s nuclear program down the drain.”
The 12-day war killed 29 civilians in Israel and hospitalized over 3,000. In Iran, local authorities say 610 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured, though some estimates by human rights watchers say the Iranian death toll could be higher than 800.
Trump appeared Tuesday to walk back earlier comments suggesting support for regime change in Iran.
"No, I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible. Regime change makes chaos," he said aboard Air Force One headed to the NATO summit in the Netherlands.
Just Sunday in a Truth Social post, Trump appeared to float the idea of regime change. He posted: “If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”
The Senate will hold a delayed classified briefing on Thursday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) forced a vote on impeaching Trump for unilaterally striking Iran without congressional approval. The House overwhelmingly voted to table the motion, with 344 representatives voting in favor and 79 voting against it.
