Iran President Sees Trump Backing Away From Threats

Rouhani credits Iranian unity for deterring US attack

US officials appear to be backing away from threats to attack Iran, claiming that the non-specific Iranian threats that were underpinning the American threats have subsided. The Pentagon is trying to take credit, suggesting that the non-specific actions the Pentagon took convinced Iran to put their threats on hold.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sees things cooling down as well, but unsurprisingly has an entirely different take on what happened. Rouhani says Trump and has aides have backed away from threatening Iran after the advice of the Pentagon.

Rouhani termed Trump and his team “novice politicians with naive ideas,” and credited the unity of the Iranian public with convincing the US to back away from talk of starting a war against Iran.

The reality is likely more complex than that, with President Trump having been mostly silent while some of his aides talked up war, and recent indications are that Trump’s reticence was part of why the US is now changing the narrative.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.