Decoding Trump’s wildly divergent signalling on Iran war; why he’s trapped in a crisis of his own making

In the last 48 hours, Donald Trump has issued several contradictory statements on Iran. It is a manifestation of several truths clashing in Trump’s world of bending realities. The messages are intended at various constituencies. The juggler, addicted to showing off, has thrown several balls up in the air. He wants to display dexterity and control. And yet none of the balls landed back the way he was expecting, leaving him increasingly confused, frustrated and angry.

On Friday afternoon, the US President told reporters outside the White House that he intends to keep going. “I don’t want to do a ceasefire. You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side.” It suggested the US and Israel won’t cease hostilities for now. Also note the words “literally obliterating”, the kind of maximalist rhetoric Trump has been deploying from the beginning.

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Within hours of that post, as the US equity markets suffered a meltdown and fuel prices shot up, Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media network, the opposite of what he told reporters. “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran.”

On the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said it “will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it -- The United States does not!”. He had earlier in the day called NATO allies “COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!” for refusing to help with keeping the chokepoint open.

Almost nearly simultaneously, Axios, an American media outlet, quoting unnamed sources reported that Trump’s advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff “are involved in the discussions around potential diplomacy”, and that Egypt and Qatar “have informed the US and Israel that Iran is interested in negotiating, but with very tough terms.”

And on Saturday, Trump again walked back his stance on the maritime chokepoint, telling Iran that if it doesn’t “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”

These are not disjointed statements, but curated messages aimed at specific audiences. The stark incongruity reflects the predicament that has turned operation ‘Epic Fury’ into ‘Epic Confusion’.

To the MAGA base and Republicans still backing this war Trump’s rhetoric such as “obliterating”, “no ceasefire”, maintains the façade of ‘America Winning’ regardless of ground realities that suggest the campaign isn’t going according to plan. In fact, it isn’t clear what Trump’s ‘plans’ were if he didn’t factor in obvious repercussions such as Iran closing the strait or hitting out at the Gulf Arab states.

In his more unguarded moments, Trump let slip his worries.

“They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. Those missiles were sent to go after them. They hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait… Nobody expected that. We were shocked. You know, they fought back.”

Who knew Iran may fight back when cornered? For a US president privy to the world’s best intelligence network, such naivete is telling. Fact remains that Trump was told about the possible scenarios that he chose to ignore.

As the Economist puts it, “Trump’s failure to heed warnings about the Strait of Hormuz is typical of his contempt for strategy and his hubris in thinking he knows better than people who really do.”

But for the most part, Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is classic bombast for the MAGA base, which responds to images of total dominance and refusal to compromise. It casts the US as an ‘unstoppable winner’ humiliating a weaker enemy, and flatters supporters’ self‑image as part of a tough, no‑limits nation that never backs down under “woke” or international pressure.

At the same time, Trump is effectively cosplaying his old reality TV persona: the omnipotent host who decides when the game ends and who gets “fired,” now transposed onto a real war. The hyperbolic language about Iran having “no navy” or “any equipment” sets up a cartoonish conflict in which he alone controls the script, reinforcing the illusion that he and his America are invincible characters in a show that can never truly go wrong.

Similarly, Trump’s post that he’s considering “winding down” the campaign because he’s “very close to meeting objectives” is aimed at calming the nerves of markets that are getting increasingly jittery at the prospect of a long war of attrition. Nothing gets Trump’s attention more than market volatility, and this is a textbook example of intervention to arrest the fall in bourses. In reality, instead of “winding down”, as he claimed, Trump is sending three more warships and 2500 more US marines to West Asia, to add to 50,000 currently deployed in the theatre.

Therefore, Trump’s message is best read as a signal to reassure investors after another bruising session driven by war anxiety. Major US benchmarks were down more than 2% intraday before paring losses into the close Friday, as investors grappled with surging crude, sticky inflation fears and the prospect of a drawn‑out conflict.

By floating the prospect of an end‑game, Trump was effectively trying to cap the market’s perception of a long, open‑ended campaign that keeps Brent crude above $110, volatility elevated and the US Federal Reserve adopting a more hawkish stance. The language closely echoes earlier comments that the Iran war is “very complete” and could end “very soon,” remarks that previously triggered rallies in global equities and a sharp pullback in oil and volatility.

The source-based reports in American media signifies that a quiet effort is under way to search for a diplomatic off-ramp. Such an effort, however, is dead on arrival. Neither the US nor Israel can afford to walk away from the conflict with the regime still calling the shots, and on Iran’s side, attitude has hardened because Tehran believes time is on its side.

The civilian leadership has laid down three core conditions for ending the war — recognition of Iran’s “legitimate rights,” payment of reparations for war damage, and firm international guarantees that the US and Israel will not attack again.

Other officials have gone further, talking of “ironclad” guarantees, a permanent end to all strikes, and even expansive ideas like closing or rolling back American bases in the region and asserting stronger control over the Strait of Hormuz, which from Washington’s perspective look indistinguishable from a strategic defeat.

Strait of Hormuz is not blocked but ships can pass only if Iran permits. On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian clarified his country’s policy. “The Strait of Hormuz is open to all except those who violate our soil.” It indicates the opposite outcome of what US and Israel had planned for. Iran may now essentially impose a ‘toll booth’ at two ends of the maritime chokepoint.

Alongside, Iran’s strategy is coming in sharper focus. It has absorbed the initial wave of attacks and suffered debilitating losses, but the American and Israeli bombing blizzard hasn’t been able to decapitate the regime that still retains significant offensive capabilities as Israel witnessed Saturday when Iranian ballistic missiles hit Tel Aviv, Arad and Dimona, injuring 160 people by the latest count. Dimona hosts Israel’s nuclear facility, and the missile landed within a 5km radius, delivering an ominous message.

“The Iranians aren’t ready to end the war because they have learned an important lesson: They can, comparatively easily and cheaply, cause a lot of damage and disruption. They now want the whole world to learn that lesson, too,” Dina Esfandiary, an analyst on Iran, told Wall Street Journal.

Trump understands that too. That may explain his Saturday’s post where he gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum to force open the Strait of Hormuz. The US President is sensitive to the pressure at home from rising fuel prices due to the blocked causeway that acts as the transit point for a fifth of global oil and gas traffic. The US has already suffered a strategic defeat of sorts by allowing the sale of Iranian oil and petrochemical products that are already on sea in a bid to cap the rising crude prices.

Bloomberg is reporting that Trump administration has “released more than 45 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves and temporarily waived a century-old shipping mandate in order to lower transport costs.”

And that’s exactly why Iran, instead of cowering before Trump’s warning that US will take out its electricity grid, has issued a series of counter threats in return.

Tehran has said that if Trump follows through on his threat, “vital infrastructure as well as energy and oil infrastructure across the entire region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed,” according to Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The IRGC has added that Strait of Hormuz will be “completely shut” until the “destroyed power plants are rebuilt” and Iranian military has threatened to take out the Gulf region’s desalination plants that may result in catastrophic consequences.

At the root of Trump’s problems lies two incongruent realities. Trump may either leave or continue, and both are sub-par options.

If Trump decides that enough is enough, cuts his losses and leaves the theatre declaring ‘TOTAL VICTORY’ – a very Trumpian possibility – in reality he will have precipitated a crisis that results in further strengthening, not weakening Iran. That goes against the very fabric of this war. The exit of US (and Israel) may result in Iran fortifying its control over Strait of Hormuz and revamping the security architecture of West Asia, forcing Gulf Arab nations to compromise on Iran’s terms.

The 400kg of enriched uranium will become a potent leverage with the new Khamenei lurching towards the bomb. This is an unsustainable outcome, and may result in another, deeper conflict down the road.

The second option for Trump, one he has hinted at but hasn’t committed to, mindful of the explosive political repercussions at home, is to launch a ground operation with American boots on ground. This might prolong the war, play into Iran’s hands, and the prospect of American marines returning home in bodybags would be a mountain too steep for even Trump to climb.

This points to the inevitable conclusion that Trump launched operation “Epic Fury” amid a near‑total absence of coherent objectives, with the White House rotating through rationales ranging from counter‑proliferation and deterrence to regime change and “obliteration” without ever defining what concrete end‑state would count as victory.

The American president overestimated coercive airpower, underestimated the resilience of Iranian regime, ignored intelligence feedback and jumped into the fray without anticipating regional blowback and Iran’s capacity to widen the frame of the war. To top it all, he now lacks a viable exit strategy.

(Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)