Trump Backs Down on Iran, and an A.I. ‘Reckoning’
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What led to Trump's sudden threat against Iran?
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From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, April 8th. Here's what we're covering. At 8.06 a.m. yesterday morning, President Trump issued an apocalyptic threat to Iran, saying he was prepared to order widespread attacks against civilian infrastructure and that a whole civilization will die. Just over 10 hours later, he backed down from that threat, announcing on social media that the U.S. and Iran have reached a two-week ceasefire deal. The idea is that negotiators will spend that time trying to finalize a permanent peace agreement. The breakthrough came after a frantic diplomatic effort by Pakistan, which had been urging Trump not to carry out the devastating attacks, and pushing Iran to accept the proposal, which Pakistan had drafted.
Under the terms of the deal, Iran will let ships carrying oil, gas, and other goods through the Strait of Hormuz. During those two weeks, all fighting is supposed to stop. Though, as of this morning, there have been a number of strikes reported across the Persian Gulf. raising questions about whether news of the deal has reached all corners of Iran's decentralized military. Israel, which has been carrying out strikes on Iran alongside the U.S., said it also supports the agreement, but explicitly noted that the ceasefire doesn't apply to Lebanon, where it has been attacking the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia and trying to seize territory. When it comes to Trump, who called yesterday, quote, a big day for world peace, the whole head-spinning situation appears to be the latest example of a kind of playbook that he has come to rely on, of making increasingly drastic threats before securing some kind of deal that he can claim as a victory.
If this ceasefire essentially becomes permanent with no change, then the White House will have accomplished virtually none of its major goals.
Times White House correspondent David Sanger says that while the war has dealt crushing blows to Iran's leadership and military, the major points of tension between Iran and the U.S. remain.
The country is still run by a military and theocratic group of elites who have terrorized their own population. They still have their nuclear material. They still have missile supplies and drones. And most importantly, I think, they still have a sense that they were able to stand up to the United States and Israel and resist against a much larger invading force.
David has more on the last-minute ceasefire on today's episode of The Daily. Meanwhile, The Times has learned new details about President Trump's decision to go to war in the first place. My colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan conducted extensive interviews on the condition of anonymity to get the inside story of the closed-door meetings and internal White House discussions that led up to Trump's go order. They found three key things. First, there was a crucial meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February. Netanyahu flew to Washington and sat down with Trump and his team in the Situation Room at the White House, and he pitched Trump on war. He laid out what he portrayed as a near-certain plan for victory.
The whole thing would take a couple weeks, retaliation would be minimal, and the Strait of Hormuz would stay open. Netanyahu and his team said that Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, would also spark an uprising inside Iran as a final blow to take down the regime. Sounds good to me, Trump said. The next step was for U.S. analysts to assess the plan Israel had presented, which they scrambled to do overnight.
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