The United States and Iran reached a tentative deal for a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday evening.
The deal, which would also re-open the Strait of Hormuz, was confirmed less than two hours before Donald Trump’s proposed Tuesday night deadline. The president had threatened to destroy Iranian “civilization” if ceasefire terms weren’t agreed upon in time.
Trump called the 10-point plan floated by Iran “a workable basis on which to negotiate,” in a Tuesday evening post announcing the deal. Vice President JD Vance called the ceasefire deal a “fragile truce” while speaking in Hungary.
Trump later boosted his assessment of the ceasefire, calling it a “total and complete victory” in an interview with the French outlet AFP. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was equally optimistic about the deal in a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.
“Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital-V military victory by any measure,” he said. “Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.”
Hegseth also repeated the Trump administration’s threats to Iran’s civilian infrastructure like bridges and power plants.
Though a ceasefire is in place, it remains unclear whether this deal will lead to the end of the war — or even last the agreed upon 14 days. Issues within the deal are already cropping up.
Though halting attacks on Iran, Israel continues to bombard Lebanon, targeting the Iranian-supported group Hezbollah. There also appear to be discrepancies between the deal Trump says he agreed to and the 10-point plan Iran publicly released Wednesday.
The largest difference in public rhetoric is the Iran reaffirming the country’s right to nuclear enrichment of uranium. Trump told AFP that he “wouldn’t have settled” if Iran’s uranium wasn’t “perfectly taken care of.” Trump made the point clearer on Wednesday morning, saying on social media that “there will be no enrichment of uranium” within Iran.
Further contributing to the fragility of the ceasefire, many countries in the region claimed Iran carried out drone and missile attacks on their territory Wednesday. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates claimed a total of 80 airborne attacks after the ceasefire deal was struck. Bahrain, Israel and Saudi Arabia have also reacted to drone and missile strikes. Iran itself also claimed an oil refinery on Lavan Island was struck by a missile.
