(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump on Thursday convened the first meeting of his so-called “Board of Peace,” a body he formed to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, which Israel continues to violate, and appeared to threaten that a US attack on Iran could come within 10 days.
In a speech at the meeting, Trump referenced his June 2025 attack on Iran, which targeted the country’s nuclear facilities. “Now, we may have to take it a step further — or we may not. Maybe we’re going to make a deal. You’re going to be finding out over the next, probably 10 days,” he said.
Trump also said that Iran “must make a deal. If that doesn’t happen… bad things will happen.”
The US president convened the “Board of Peace” while overseeing what The Wall Street Journal has described as the largest gathering of US airpower in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The US has sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East and deployed dozens of additional fighter jets there in recent days.
While Trump claims Iran has the opportunity to “make a deal” with the US, it’s unclear what sort of agreement he would accept, and his administration hasn’t made a coherent case for why it needs to attack the country.
In his remarks on Thursday, Trump said Iran cannot have a “nuclear weapon,” but for months, he insisted the US airstrikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities, and there’s no sign Tehran is even capable of enriching uranium at the moment. According to The New York Times, Iran has suggested it’s willing to suspend nuclear enrichment for three to five years, and then enter a regional consortium to enrich civilian-grade uranium, an arrangement that would give Tehran no path to a nuclear weapon.
The US’s real goal with Iran is likely either regime change or removing Iran’s ability to strike Israel. Israeli officials have demanded that any deal must include restrictions on Iran’s missiles, a condition Tehran would never accept since its missiles are its only form of deterrence and way to launch counterattacks if it’s bombed by the US or Israel.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
