The saying goes, more than valid for international relations, that if you deceive me once, the fault (or merit) is yours. If you deceive me twice, the fault is mine. The same principle applies to threats, ultimatums, and bluffs: if you keep issuing them over and over, and there is always a retreat, they lose much of their usefulness.
At 6:32 PM in Washington on this Tuesday (12:32 AM in the Spanish mainland), the President of the United States, Donald Trump has once again backtracked. An hour and a half before the deadline he had set to order a bombing capable of annihilating "an entire civilization," Trump has reversed course and offered a two-week ceasefire to the Iranian regime, conditioned on Tehran also agreeing to remove restrictions on the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. According to government sources, the cessation of hostilities also includes Israel.
Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced that it had accepted the two-week ceasefire and will negotiate with the United States in Islamabad starting Friday. "It is emphasized that this does not mean the end of the war," the statement says. "Our hands remain on the trigger, and if the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be met with full force," they have stated.
"After discussions with Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, in which they asked me to halt the attack tonight against Iran, and provided that the Islamic Republic of Iran accepts the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend bombings and attacks against Iran for two weeks. It will be a bilateral ceasefire," Trump said.
The sequence seemed to have been announced a couple of hours earlier when the Pakistani Prime Minister on social media had suggested that two-week pause formula, also including an Iranian acceptance of the temporary reopening of the strait. What is striking is that the Pakistani, in his initial version published in X, had even copied a phrase that hinted that the message was not his own but sent directly from Washington.
"The reason is that we have already achieved and surpassed all military objectives and we are very advanced in negotiating a definitive Agreement on long-term PEACE with Iran and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it constitutes a viable basis for negotiation. The United States and Iran have agreed on almost all previous points of contention, but two weeks will allow for finalizing and specifying the Agreement," Trump stated. "On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also on behalf of the countries of the Middle East, it is an honor that this long-standing issue is close to being resolved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" he concluded.
Trump is a completely unpredictable leader, and at the same time extraordinarily repetitive in his strategies. Exactly what he has done in Iran, he had previously done with tariffs, for example. A threat, followed by a grandiose announcement, followed by a retraction, an extension, an even greater threat, spreading half-truths about very advanced negotiations, a brutal bluff, and a new retreat boasting of negotiations about to conclude... thanks precisely to his work and his threats.
That's what he has done in recent weeks. With Jarg Island, energy facilities, bridges, and then with the tweet anticipating civilization's destruction. After swearing the day before that there would be no new extensions or deadline extensions under any circumstances, and that if Iran did not surrender, the only solution would be destruction.
However, in his message, Trump announces a bilateral pause... after actually declaring a unilateral ceasefire, trusting that Iran will then, thanks to Pakistan's mediation, accept its part. This comes just hours after Tehran said it was breaking off direct diplomatic talks and after thousands of people filled the streets and bridges of the country as human shields. A few weeks ago, Washington sent a 15-point plan tailored to its needs, and the Iranians rejected it. Now they have sent a 10-point plan, and Trump has provisionally accepted it.
The Iranian government's details on the 10-point plan include the assertion that the Strait of Hormuz will be subject to a "regulated passage... under the coordination of the Iranian Armed Forces," giving "Iran a unique economic and geopolitical position." Additionally, the agreement would entail a complete lifting of sanctions on the country.
The pressure on Washington this Tuesday has been brutal on the White House. Congress but also the MAGA world have lashed out at the president, accusing him of being a "genocidal lunatic," of being "evil," and calling for the invocation of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to remove him. All while The New York Times published a detailed report on how Benjamin Netanyahu managed to convince the president to attack Iran, something he had been seeking for 25 years and had not achieved with any of his predecessors.
Pakistani mediation has been crucial in recent days, with dozens of calls in the last hours to all countries in the region to involve them and make a lasting ceasefire possible. In fact, to try to make it definitive so that Washington can find a way to withdraw.