The weekend has passed without a U.S. attack on Iran.
Trump would have probably liked to strike if there had been a decent chance of a short, successful war. But there was and is none. Iran would retaliate sharply for any attack and set the region on fire.
A early sharp strike would have been Trump’s best chance of success. The longer he is deterred from a strike the smaller the likelihood that any attack will occur at all.
Trump now needs to find a way to chicken out from his grandiose threats to Iran. He has sent out feelers for negotiations:
The Trump administration has told Iran through multiple channels that it’s open to meeting to negotiate a deal, a senior U.S. official tells Axios.
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Turkey, Egypt and Qatar are working to organize a meeting between White House envoy Steve Witkoff and senior Iranian officials in Ankara later this week, two regional sources tell Axios.
Yves Smith concludes that:
Trump Will TACO With Intent to Strike Later
The most likely course is for some sort of sham negotiations to allow the US to climb down for now and for Trump to depict the mere fact of talks as a win and a proof of US domination. But don’t expect the US to relent. As Greg Stoker pointed out, the Israeli minister of defense was in Washington last week to hand over the strike packages. Israel has not given up on Project Iran. The hawks most assuredly have not.
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Israel can be expected to do the obvious, which is to continue to engage in what is too politely called asymmetric warfare or more accurately called terrorism, both to try to destabilize Iran and to preserve credibility among the warmongers in the Beltway. How far that gets in the next few months will be an indicator of how much Iran has been able to ferret out and destroy Mossad networks in Iran after its 12 Day War decapitation attacks and its recent protest escalations.Trump is admittedly becoming more and more erratic every day. He might wind up concluding he has too much manhood at stake to back down now or any time very soon with Iran. But as you can see, he has many many reasons to try to find a way to retreat, even if he tells himself it is only temporary.
Just after Yves had published her piece we learned that Iran has agreed to negotiations:
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered the start of nuclear talks with the United States, local media said Monday, after US leader Donald Trump said he was hopeful of a deal to avert military action against the Islamic republic.
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“President Pezeshkian has ordered the opening of talks with the United States,” the news agency Fars reported on Monday, citing an unnamed government source.“Iran and the United States will hold talks on the nuclear file,” Fars said, without specifying a date. The report was also carried by the government newspaper Iran and the reformist daily Shargh.
The talks will likely be held in Turkey:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Turkey last week and held further calls with his Egyptian, Saudi and Turkish counterparts, he said on Telegram.
“President Trump said no nuclear weapons, and we fully agree. We fully agree with that. That could be a very good deal,” Araghchi told CNN on Sunday.
“Of course, in return, we expect sanctions lifting. So, that deal is possible. Let’s do not talk about impossible things.”
The likely outcome: Trump will have to lift some sanctions and, in exchange, will get some limited nuclear agreement with Iran. I assume that it will be softer on Iran than the JCPOA agreement which had been signed under Obama only to be trashed later by Trump.
The other demands on Iran which the Israelis had made through Trump: – no enrichment, a curb on the number and range of its ballistic missiles, an end of support for militia in the region – will not be part of the negotiations.
Those points are not of interest for Trump. He wants and needs an agreement – any agreement – that can be sold to the public has his personal success. The details will matter less to him than the fact that an agreement was made.
Israel will not like this. It wants Iran to be destroyed as a potential regional leader. Israel itself is too weak to defeat Iran. It may well try false flag strikes or terrorism to get the U.S. to finally do what it wants.
But the U.S. is no longer the all powerful force in the Arab region that it had been 30 years ago. It is lacking the means to defend its ships and bases against attacks by ballistic missiles and drones. This while Iran has systematically build up such weapons and forces.
Iran has also gained allies. Russian and Chinese help had allowed it to disable the Starlink network that was used to control recent rioters in its streets.
China is openly publishing high resolution satellite pictures of U.S. forces in Iran’s region:
A new set of foreign satellite images obtained by Global Times from MizarVision shows that as of January 25, the number of KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft parked on the apron at Al Udeid Air Base had increased significantly.
In addition, another satellite image taken on January 25 shows new equipment deployments around Al Udeid Air Base. After analysis, technical personnel from the MizarVision company assessed that the site is likely a newly installed Patriot air defense system at the base.
We can reasonably assume that Iran has full access to such Chinese and Russian satellite images and the intelligence analyses derived from them.
New naval maneuvers are also planned:
The commander of the regular Iranian navy (Nedaja) Rear Admiral Shahram Irani has announced that Iran will once again host Chinese and Russian naval vessels in Exercise Maritime Security Belt 2026, to be held in the northern Indian Ocean in late February. There have been no confirmatory announcements as yet from the Chinese and Russians, but the Iranians will be anxious to secure their participation again in this annual exercise, needing the reassurance of having allies alongside at a time of high tension.
The Chinese participants can be expected to be drawn from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s Djibouti-based 48th Flotilla, made up of the Type 052DL guided-missile destroyer Tangshan (D122), the Type 054A guided-missile frigate Daqing (F576) and the Type 903A replenishment ship Taihu (K889).
The Russian contingent is likely to consist of the Russian Udaloy Class frigate RFS Marshal Shaposhnikov (F543), still in the region having participated in the DIMDEX 2026 defense exhibition held January 19-20 in Port Hamad, Qatar.
Neither Russia nor China will fight a war for Iran. But they will do their best to supply it with all it needs while it continues to bind U.S. forces in the Middle East.
While the chance of a war on Iran has now been diminished it has not vanished at all. U.S. forces are still in the Middle East and ready to strike on short notice.
In the U.S. Trump is under pressure. His ratings are sinking. The brutal enforcement of immigration laws continues to erode his support. Over the weekend the Republicans lost a state Senate seat to Democrats in a formerly deep red district:
While Republicans including Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had been sounding alarms about the North Texas race being too close for comfort in recent weeks, the 31-point-swing leftward was a surprise across the board. The loss is a “wake-up call for Republicans across Texas,” Patrick wrote on social media after the face. “Our voters cannot take anything for granted.”
It is a bad sign for Republicans hoping to maintain a Senate majority and an already-slim majority in the House, said Jason Villalba, a former GOP state lawmaker who now leads the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, a research group.
“Whatever inroads the GOP was making recently among Latinos in Texas has begun to really revert back to what it was originally,” he said, pointing to Saturday’s shifts in Texas precincts with large Hispanic populations. “That will have implications around Texas and around the country.”
Trump needs a victory. A war on Iran is unlikely to bring one. A new agreement that can be claimed to curb Iran’s non- existent nuclear weapons can be sold as one. For now Trump seems to have decided to try that route.