President Donald Trump said on May 6 he has had positive conversations over the last 24 hours with Iran and it was “very possible” the two countries would make a deal to end the war.
“We’ve had some good talks before and all of sudden the next day ... they forgot what happened,” Trump told reporters. “Look, this is very simple, Iran can not have a nuclear weapon. ... And they won’t and they’ve agreed to that among other things.”
Trump had put out a warning that Iran would be bombed again if a deal could not be made.
“Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran,” Trump wrote in a May 6 post on Truth Social. “If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.”
Senior Israeli political officials told Epoch Magazine in Israel that Jerusalem believed there were signs of progress in contacts involving Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The Israeli officials cautioned that divisions within Iran’s leadership continued to threaten prospects for a durable agreement.
Iran has said it is reviewing the peace proposal.
Trump has painted a picture of a decimated Iranian military.
“We cannot ever let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They are militarily defeated. They have no navy. They have no air force. They have no anti-aircraft weaponry. They have no radar. They have no leaders. Their leaders are gone. It’s very interesting because, you know, they make a deal and then they break it, they make it a deal and they break it. It’s a difficult group. … If we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild.”
The war, named Operation Epic Fury, commenced on Feb. 28. Initial targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields, according to the U.S. military.
The U.S. military called the operation “the largest regional concentration of American military firepower” in a generation.