After months of predicting a nuclear deal with Iran was just around the corner, President Donald Trump appears to be testing whether military pressure can accomplish what diplomacy alone has not.The strategy was on full display over the past 24 hours.Trump followed through on his threat to strike Iran again overnight, launching a barrage of Tomahawk missiles and fighter jet attacks against Iranian targets while warning that additional bombing would follow unless Iran agreed to a deal.
Hours later, however, he announced he had canceled planned strikes for Thursday evening, saying negotiations had been elevated to the highest levels of Iran's leadership and that the parties had approved the final contours of an agreement.The rapid sequence of threats, strikes and renewed diplomacy highlights an increasingly familiar pattern in Trump's approach to Iran: using military pressure to push negotiations forward while keeping a diplomatic off-ramp open.The question is whether the strategy is increasing Washington's leverage — or reinforcing Iran's belief that the United States ultimately wants a deal more than continued confrontation."He has made so many threats that he has not carried through on and telegraphed on many occasions his strong desire to end this war as soon as possible, that I think Iran does not take these threats seriously," Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Fox News Digital.TRUMP KEEPS FORECASTING AN IRAN DEAL — WHY THE WHITE HOUSE STILL THINKS IT CAN HAPPENPresident Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press )Trump said Iranian officials contacted him during the strikes and asked for the bombing to stop. "If they don't sign the deal, we'll bomb the sh*t out of them tomorrow night," he said.Trump suggested Thursday the cam...