Recent weeks have seen U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly state that the war with Iran will soon be over, including during an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday. "I think it's close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over," he said. "We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly."
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said the Iran conflict will end soon, but critics note there is little evidence to support this claim.
Recent weeks have seen Trump repeatedly state that the war with Iran will soon be over, including during an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday.
"I think it's close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over," Trump said in an interview. "We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly."
While his administration points to a ceasefire and ongoing mediation as progress, critics and analysts point to significant evidence that the conflict remains volatile.
On Monday, Trump imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, further escalating tensions after peace talks in Pakistan failed to yield a deal mainly due to the nuclear issue, and putting the two-week ceasefire, which took effect on April 8, on shaky ground.
Despite peace rhetoric, Trump has threatened to obliterate the Islamic Republic if that country does not make a deal to end the war. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently emphasized that U.S. forces are "locked and loaded" to restart active combat operations if diplomatic efforts fail.
Experts note that those factors do not make it seem like the war is coming to a peaceful resolution. Indeed, experts have mixed opinions on when the conflict will end.
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon told Xinhua that while there was a chance the conflict could end as soon as this month, it was more likely to continue into next month or the summer.
Some experts note there are myriad factors to consider when assessing how the war might end.
Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua: "Trump has a political need to say that peace on his terms is coming soon. That does not make it true."
He added that if the ceasefire is extended, that could mean the end of the war.
"That (the ceasefire) could take place while negotiations continue, even for many months. I think this is the best feasible outcome," Ramsay said, adding that the Trump administration is "not capable of negotiating a grand settlement."
Uncertainty also persists over whether the ceasefire between the United States and Iran will be extended. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Tuesday that such speculation could not yet be confirmed, citing what he described as inconsistent U.S. positions and questioning Washington's commitment to honoring any potential agreement.
In addition, Ramsay said, "Iran could agree to not impede ship traffic in the Persian Gulf, and it could accept a nuclear agreement similar to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency."
The JCPOA, known as the Iran nuclear deal, was a 2015 landmark agreement between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. Under the deal, Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. However, the United States withdrew from the deal during the first Trump administration.
Iran has always maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.
A potentially positive development was that a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect at midnight between Thursday and Friday local time (2100 GMT).
Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, an ally of Tehran, threatened to upend the two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran.■
