On Sunday, President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had a plan in place for U.S. forces to carry out "the biggest attack since World War II" against Iran.
But after hearing appeals from Persian Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as requests from unnamed Iranian officials, Trump, reiterating his remarks, decided to give diplomacy more time.
However, Iranian state media and Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei stated that Tehran was not holding negotiations with the United States, directly contradicting the president's claim that bilateral talks to end the conflict were set to begin Monday.
Meanwhile, Washington Times columnist Robert Knight points out that the midterms are closer every day.
"Right now, President Trump is a drag on Republican tickets," he states. "He's got an unpopular war going with Iran that he doesn't seem determined to win."
He says a lot of people want Trump to "get it over with," win, and bring down gas prices, and that Trump's talk of discussions and negotiations is not doing Republican candidates any good.
He also wants people to understand that if the Democrats take power in Congress again, "bad things will happen."
"You'll see impeachments of President Trump; you'll see the rest of his term strangled with these legal concerns," the columnist warns. "They would empower outright communists and Islamists. We've seen it happen in New York City, and I think Mayor Zohran Mamdani ought to be the poster child for the Republicans to point out how radical the Democrats have become."
Though Trump's first-term Iran policy did not achieve its central diplomatic objective of securing a broader replacement for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it was successful in imposing substantial economic costs on Iran and increasing pressure on its leadership.
Supporters argue the pressure created leverage and constrained Iran economically, while critics contend it accelerated Iran's nuclear advances without producing a negotiated settlement.
Amid deep mutual distrust, Trump's second-term diplomacy has emphasized using that leverage while relying more heavily on Gulf allies and Oman to keep indirect negotiations alive. So far, that has produced incremental progress toward de-escalation, but not a comprehensive agreement or resolution of the underlying disputes.
