Israel and the US conducted a joint air force drill in the Eastern Mediterranean that included long-range bombers, as some analysts warned that the window for US President Donald Trump to engage Iran on a nuclear deal is closing.
Israeli F-35 and F-15 jet fighters took part in drills in the Eastern Mediterranean alongside a US B-52, a long-range strategic bomber, the Israeli army said in a statement on Thursday.
The US has long used B-52 bombers, which are capable of carrying bombs to strike Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, as a show of force against Tehran during times of tension.
The exercises come at a critical time, with a mercurial Trump under mixed pressures from Iran hawks and America First isolationists on whether to engage with Iran on a nuclear deal or ramp up tensions and potentially attack.
Triti Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, wrote recently that a “unique window of opportunity” for Trump to strike a nuclear deal with Iran “is closing fast”.
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He suggested Trump’s Iran policy is tilting in the direction of hawks, as opposed to America First isolationists.
“Iran policy is once again falling into the hands of the neocons who sabotaged Trump’s hope to reach a deal with Iran during his first term with war lurking around the corner,” Parsi said.
Unique window closing?
Trump bills himself as a negotiator and some of his moves could be read as attempts to ramp up pressure on Tehran to advantageously position the US for negotiations.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that Trump’s administration is considering a plan to stop and inspect Iranian oil tankers at sea, invoking an international accord that aims to prevent the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.
The Trump administration would use the 2003 Proliferation Security Initiative to try and clamp down on Iran’s oil exports – the main source of the Islamic Republic’s revenue.
Trump has vowed to return to a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.
Former and current US officials have been telling Middle East Eye for months that the Trump administration would look to choke Iran’s oil exports. China is by far the main recipient of Iranian oil, much of it passing through the strategic Strait of Malacca in Asia.
In January, Reuters reported that China’s state-owned Shandong Port Group decided to start blocking tankers under US sanctions. Analysts described that move as a blow to Iran, whose ageing shadow fleet ships most of its oil to China.
Between Tucker Carlson and Marco Rubio
On the surface, the Trump administration is ultra-hardline on Iran.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear accord with Iran during his first term.
Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and his appointees, like Joel Rayburn, tapped to run the State Department’s Near East Bureau, are all Iran hawks.
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However, Trump’s inner circle is more open to dealing with the Islamic Republic.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, and increasingly global troubleshooter, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News the administration wanted a diplomatic deal with Iran.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and one of Trump’s closest allies, reportedly met Iran’s ambassador to the UN in New York in November. Musk has also shared social media posts revealing he is reading about Iranian history.
Tucker Carlson, the media personality close to Trump, has railed against the US entering a war with Iran.
Trump himself has said he wants a “verified nuclear peace agreement”. He has also shared social media posts deriding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a warmonger.
Talking to Hamas and Russia. Why not Iran?
During his first term in office, Trump was backed by both Israel and Arab Gulf States in its maximum pressure campaign on Tehran. But the region has changed dramatically.
Israel is likely keen to strike Iran while its premier proxy, Hezbollah, is degraded, former senior US officials told MEE. However, the Gulf states are no longer such willing warriors.
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A case in point is Saudi Arabia. While Riyadh would benefit from the US ramping up sanctions on Iran’s oil trade because it can fill the vacuum in sales to China, it has gone out of its way to mend fences with Iran.
One senior US defence official also told MEE that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states still maintain a ban on the US using air bases in their countries to strike the Houthis, Iran’s allies in Yemen. That remains a source of frustration with rank-and-file defence officials.
In his first few months in office, Trump has burned the establishment on files like Iran. He reopened channels to Russia and basked in publicly browbeating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire with Russia, on his terms, not Ukraine’s.
Likewise, on Wednesday, the White House acknowledged entering direct talks with Hamas, a US-listed terror organisation. While Arab analysts welcomed the unprecedented outreach, the Washington think-tank crowd revolted. One former senior US official said it was a “disgrace”.
The Trump administration’s willingness to brush aside the protocols of the policy establishment could fit into his Iran policy. According to Bloomberg, Russia told the Trump administration it could jumpstart nuclear talks with Tehran on the US’s behalf.
