President Donald Trump on May 19 suggested that he had given Iran two or three days to come up with a proposal on a peace deal, a day after he announced he had suspended pre-planned strikes against the country.
The Iranian regime "knew I was getting ready to attack," Trump told reporters near the White House's ballroom construction site.
"I didn't tell them. I never tell anybody when. I never tell anybody when, but they knew that we were very close," the president said. "I was an hour away from making the decision to go today, and we would probably not be talking about a beautiful ballroom today, we'd be talking about that."
Trump said he told Iranian officials that he will give them "two or three days, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something, maybe early next week, a limited period of time" to come up with a deal, or U.S. strikes will commence again.
"We can't let them have a new nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would start with Israel, they would blow it up, and they would blow it up fast," he said, adding that Iran would also attack Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar after Israel.
The president had not previously disclosed that he was planning a strike for Tuesday before the announcement on Monday. He also did not offer details about the scheduled attack.
Trump wrote that he instructed the U.S. armed forces “to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”
For several weeks, Trump has been threatening that the ceasefire reached in mid-April could end if Iran did not make a deal. Over the weekend, he warned, “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.”
Trump, in recent days, has also spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese leader Xi Jinping about the Iran war.
Iran and allied groups in Iraq have launched drone attacks targeting the Gulf Arab states during the war. The UAE recently accused Iran of launching drone and missile attacks despite the ceasefire.
Iranian officials, through state-run Tasnim News, issued new threats against the United States and its allies on Monday.
“If our enemies commit another mistake, we will confront them with power and capabilities far greater" than the previous conflict, an Iranian general, Ali Abdollahi, said in a statement carried by Tasnim. The state-run media outlet also reported that if the U.S. military launches fresh attacks, new fronts in the war will be opened by Iran.
Since the start of the conflict, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been severely restricted, driving up the price of a barrel of oil. As of Tuesday, a barrel of Brent crude oil had surpassed $110, while U.S. gas prices have remained around $4.50 or higher on average in recent days.