After Trump calls off bombing, Iran signals it will halt strikes as long as US does
By Parisa Hafezi and Raphael Satter
DUBAI/WASHINGTON, July 26 (Reuters) - Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States maintains its latest pause on airstrikes, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, after President Donald Trump abruptly called off his two-week-old bombing campaign.
After 13 nights of intensifying U.S. airstrikes on Iran, the Pentagon abruptly suspended the campaign late on Friday, with no U.S. attacks reported on either Saturday or Sunday.
Iran, which had been following each night of U.S. attacks with its own strikes on neighbouring countries that host U.S. bases, has also so far held fire for two days.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had decided to pause U.S. attacks to allow more time for diplomacy.
"He's giving talks some space, he's giving it a little bit of room," Waltz said, without providing further details.
U.S. media including CNN, the New York Times and Axios reported that Trump called off his campaign of strikes after being advised by top military and civilian aides against further escalating the war he launched alongside Israel in February.
The senior Iranian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "Iran’s position remains ‘attack for attack’: if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States."
Asked about the pause, a senior official in Trump's administration said on Saturday that the president "has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way."
The senior Iranian source said Tehran did not hold much hope that Trump's decision to pause strikes represented a major shift in the U.S. negotiating position.
"There is more scepticism than optimism about the halt in attacks. The prevailing view is that the pause is tactical rather than genuine. Iran has accumulated enough bitter experience with what it sees as U.S. deception," the source said.
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For the past two weeks, U.S. forces had been striking Iran nightly in what Washington said was retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it aims to retain control of the strait, through which a fifth of global oil flows passed before the war.
The renewed U.S. military campaign effectively torpedoed last month's interim agreement aimed at ending the war.
Trump's decision to pause the strikes followed what several media outlets described as a meeting on Friday where some of his most senior military and political advisers raised concerns.
CNN and the New York Times said Pentagon Chief of Staff Dan Caine had pointed to the depletion of stocks of Patriot air defence missiles, which U.S. forces have relied on to defend bases in the Middle East. CNN said Vice President JD Vance had also expressed reservations.
News site Axios reported that the overall commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, had advised halting the U.S. bombing campaign because it had reached the limits of its effectiveness.
Axios cited two sources with knowledge of Cooper's position, and said the briefing to Trump represented an acknowledgment by both civilian and military officials that there were limits to what could be achieved through a military campaign, particularly with air power.
Inside Iran, residents remain apprehensive. Nader, 49, an import-export business owner in Tehran, said he doubted any pause in strikes would last.
"They keep announcing pauses, and then the war starts again. Everyone in the country is stuck in limbo," he told Reuters by telephone. "Trump is playing games with Iran. He neither ends the war and leaves the region nor strikes decisively. It's exhausting."
Trump's decision to pause strikes has come at a turning point in the war, with both sides testing the boundaries of escalation that they set before a ceasefire ended major fighting in April and the interim agreement reopened Hormuz in June.
U.S. forces have already struck bridges and tunnels in southern Iran, prompting Iran to strike water desalination plants that nearby Gulf Arab states rely on to make their desert cities habitable.
Over the past week, Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen have announced a blockade on Saudi oil in the Red Sea, potentially shutting a second major chokepoint for energy shipping.
That pushed the benchmark Brent crude price above $100 for the first time since May. On Saturday, the Houthis fired on Saudi Red Sea oil targets for the first time in years.
(Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alexander Smith and Ros Russell)
