Trump claims Iran and Israel agree to cease-fire on eve of NATO summit

The Hague – The question of whether the United States launched a broader war against Iran after having bombed its nuclear facilities can be summed up at President Trump’s meetings at the Dutch summit of NATO this week, a long planned rally which now bears much higher issues.

Trump said late Monday on his social media platform on Monday that Israel and Iran accepted a cease-fire that would quickly lead to a war. “Assuming that everything works as it should be, what will do, I would like to congratulate the two countries, Israel and Iran, to have endurance, courage and intelligence to end, which should be called” the 12-day war “,” he wrote.

There was no immediate response from Iran or Israel.

Washington’s transatlantic partners welcomed the American operation, which completed an in progress Israeli campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, air defenses and military leaders. But European officials told Times that their hope was to bring Trump to flirt with a change in government in Iran, a prospect that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have discussed in recent days.

Trump is expected to arrive on Tuesday morning in The Hague for two days of meetings, which should now focus on the emerging crisis, while US intelligence and military officials continue to assess the result of American strikes during the weekend against the main Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

The organization of the North Atlantic Treaty was directly involved in the last two American wars in the Middle East, participating in a coalition led by the United States in Afghanistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks and helping to train and advise the security forces in Iraq. And although he is not a member of NATO, Israel is coordinating with the security block through a process called Mediterranean dialogue, which includes work against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In Mauritsshuis on Monday evening, overlooking the pond of the Hugé historic court and under the gaze of “Girl With A Pearl Earge” by Vermeer, NATO officials, European military leaders and American senators discussed the obvious: a summit which had been considered an opportunity to pass 5% consumed instead of the possibility of a new war.

As the event ended, Iran hit the American military base in Qatar, its largest in the Middle East. But the Iranians gave Doha an opinion in advance of the strike in order to take losses, indicating that Tehran could seek an out of the ramp of continuous climbing with Washington.

“Iran officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear installations with a very low response, which we expected,” wrote Trump on social networks after the attack. “Most importantly, they have left everything from their” system “and there will be hope, hate.”

“I would like to thank Iran for giving us an early notice, which has not allowed any life to lose, and no one to be injured,” he added. “Perhaps Iran can now proceed with peace and harmony in the region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”

Although the Pentagon said that the American bombardment, nicknamed the Midnight Hammer operation, “seriously damaged” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, American and Israeli officials recognized at the time that it was not entirely clear how many equipment and fissile equipment Tehran Tehran was able to save before the start of the attacks.

And as concerns emerge that Iran may have been able to preserve a rupture capacity, the target list of Israel through Iran seemed to expand on Monday to reflect military ambitions beyond the Iranian nuclear program, including the seat of the Basij militia and a clock in downtown Tehran, counting to the destruction of Israel.

“Trump spoke too early,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Iranian expert in the American Enterprise Institute, of the President’s declaration that the United States had “erased” Iran’s nuclear capacity with his weekend strikes.

“We may have simply waited too long with our hands in the hand, and had Iranian time to evacuate their enriched stocks. If this is the case, this represents a leadership failure,” he added, noting that the trucks could be seen on the Fordo site leading to the American attack. “If they then dispersed and the American intelligence community lost track of their entry, then it is a failure of intelligence which could potentially be as expensive as that which preceded the war in Iraq.”

The European powers, in particular France, Germany and the United Kingdom, took care to rent Trump for ordering strikes. But they also urged an immediate return to the negotiations and expressed their concern that Israel began to target tangential sites and unrelated to the Iran nuclear program.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, warning of “volatility” in the region, encouraged Iran “to return to the negotiation table and to reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis”. And the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Johann Wadephul, wondered if the nuclear knowledge of Tehran could be bombed. “No one thinks it’s a good thing to continue fighting,” he told local media.

“I called for de -escalation and Iran to exercise the greatest restraint in this dangerous context, to allow a return to diplomacy,” said French president Emmanuel Macron. “It is essential to engage in dialogue and guarantee a clear commitment from Iran to give up nuclear weapons to avoid the worst for the whole region. There is no alternative. “

Later Monday, after Israel struck the notorious of Iran’s prison of Evin, where foreign nationals are detained, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noel Barrot, published a more scathing reprimand. “All strikes must now stop,” he said.

A European official said efforts would be made once Trump arrives to underline his military successes, noting the example he has given – using military force to dissuade an authoritarian enemy – could still be applied to Russia in his war against Ukraine. Now that Trump has demonstrated peace by force, said the manager, it is time to give another chance to diplomacy.

But it is not clear if Iran would be receptive to pleadings for a diplomatic breakthrough.

In an article on X on Sunday, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, noted that Israel’s attacks last week and that the American strikes coincided this week with negotiations, reversing any chance of talks to succeed.

“Last week, we were in negotiations with the United States when Israel decided to explode this diplomacy. This week, we had talks with E3 / EU when the United States decided to explode this diplomacy,” he wrote, adding that European calls to bring Iran to negotiations were lost. E3 consists of France, Germany and Italy.

“How can Iran come back to something he has ever left, and even less explode?” He added.

On Monday, before his strikes against the American base in Qatar, Iranian military leaders promised revenge against the United States for strikes.

Reprisals “will impose severe consequences, inducing regrets and unpredictable,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaqari, head of the central seat of the Iranian army, in a video declaration on the Iranian broadcaster Press TV. He added that the American attack “will expand the range of legitimate and various targets for the Iran’s armed forces”.

The staff editor Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.