US-Iran conflict enters new phase as Saudi Arabia helps hit proxies and diplomacy stalls again

WASHINGTON (AP) — The stop-start fighting between the United States and Iran appears to have entered a new phase as Saudi Arabia has publicly joined military escalations against Tehran-backed proxies. At the same time, an already untenable diplomatic effort to end the war has faltered once again as mistrust deepens between the longtime adversaries. Despite several days of relative calm, both sides carried out military strikes in the last 24 hours that once again risk a return to all-out war — and further expansion in the region — while little is clear about what strategy, if any, American or Iranian officials have for a path forward. While President Donald Trump and his allies have spent recent days arguing that Iran is begging to return to the negotiating table, Iran's deputy foreign minister said Tuesday that his country has made no requests to restart the diplomatic track in more than two weeks. Following a thwarted attack on the U.S. base in Jordan, Trump turned back to threats Wednesday even while sustaining the prospect of continued talks. "They've already apologized, but, you know, we got to smack them a little bit," he told reporters in the Oval Office. He added: "It's our turn, and we'll see if we get there with an agreement at some point. But we're going to hit them very hard." Hours later, the strikes followed as the U.S. military said it launched a "a powerful response to yesterday's attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East" in a social media post. It did not immediately disclose the targets of the attack. There's a sense of déjà vu as the Republican president has vacillated for the past several months between insisting a deal was near to end the war and Tehran's nuclear program and then using vulgarities and threats to get Iran to capitulate to U.S. demands — to no avail. The stakes for continued U.S. military action have never been higher for Trump and his party as the conflict, unpopular among many Americans, has jolted the world economy just months before critical midterm elections in November. The renewed fighting also has killed and injured more American troops and been complicated by concerns that the U.S. is further drawing down stockpiles of key air defense systems needed to defend its bases and allies. In the past day, Iran said it fired ballistic missiles at Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a key U.S. military hub for the region, which Trump said were intercepted. And Saudi Arabia joined the U.S. in striking multiple logistics and weapons sites used by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. The first publicly announced joint U.S.-Saudi strikes followed drone attacks on the kingdom, complicating a conflict that now includes nearly every country in the region. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military operations, said the two attacks were not connected. Saudi defense minister makes White House visit Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman met separately Wednesday with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly about the private meeting. The defense minister conveyed the view of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto leader, that Iran has lost leverage in Syria and Lebanon but is still managing to provide support to the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq, according to one of the people familiar with Prince Khalid's talks with Trump and Vance. The Iran-aligned Houthi group earlier this week said it fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi oil tanker, days after declaring it was imposing a naval blockade on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea. The Saudi decision to join the U.S. attacks against the Iraqi militias was meant to send a message to Iran that it wouldn't tolerate Iran or its proxies targeting the Saudi oil industry and other critical infrastructure, the person added. At the same time, the defense minister underscored to Trump and Vance that the Saudis want to see a de-escalation in the war and want Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations. Drone strikes also ignited fires on two natural gas vessels at a port in Egypt, a close U.S. ally and regional mediator that is one of the only countries in the Middle East to have been spared from direct military action during the war. A strike by Iran or its allies, if confirmed, would mark a significant widening of the conflict. The U.S.-Saudi strikes came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed his first meeting with Trump since they launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28. An Israeli official briefed on the meeting Tuesday at the White House said Netanyahu assured Trump that it is the U.S., not Israel, that is in the driver's seat with Iran, attempting to push back on the notion that he's increasingly out of step with his closest ally on the way ahead. Yet, Israeli officials also have privately expressed concern that Trump, with midterm elections looming, is trying to "keep this war on a low flame," according to a person familiar with Netanyahu's government's internal deliberations. The person and the Israeli official were not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The person added that Israeli officials have become increasingly concerned about Trump's sensitivity to surging oil prices as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to global energy shipments and about the growing trepidation among some in the U.S. administration about the burn rate of critical missile interceptors. The recent fighting with Iran used up more of the U.S. military's already diminished stockpiles of Patriot and THAAD interceptors, potentially putting American troops at more risk if hostilities resume, according to an analysis released this week from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told Trump that the state of the munitions stockpile could have an impact on military operations in Iran, according to another U.S. official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations, said the message was delivered as part of Caine's regular duties of providing military advice and options to Trump. A history of failed diplomacy plagues US-Iran prospects The Trump administration does not seem to have a strategy to resume negotiations with Iran over ending the conflict. Despite efforts by some mediators to get talks restarted — or at least find a point at which they could begin again — the administration is not actively pursuing talks at the moment, a senior U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the latest developments in the region suggested that any resumption in direct diplomacy was not imminent. Analysts called the uncertainty and lack of strategy a result of deep, growing mistrust between Washington and Tehran, especially after an interim ceasefire proposal signed in mid-June collapsed in recent weeks. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said senior Iranian officials were nearly unanimous in their decision to approve that memorandum of understanding with the U.S. "But now none of them believe that Trump is a reliable negotiating partner," he said. "The problem, I think, is that Trump also has now the same impression about the Iranians." In some respects, the on-again, off-again nature of talks and back-and-forth military attacks should not be surprising. The history of U.S. negotiations with Iran after 1979 is littered with failure, false starts and stops, and military actions that have nonetheless stopped short of the kind of conflict the two countries are now in. Despite its flaws, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran secured by the Obama administration was the first major agreement between the two countries since the Algiers Accords in 1981 that ended the American hostage crisis and laid a patchwork path for the resolution of other issues, including the unfreezing of Shah-era Iranian assets seized by the U.S. after the Islamic Revolution. However, even from the beginning, both sides accused each other of violating the terms of these deals. Accusations of violations of the Algiers Accords, which led to a period of great animosity, including U.S. support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, became the norm. Despite the semi-rapprochement around the 2015 nuclear deal, Trump's withdrawal from it in 2018 during his first term, his imposition of a "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign against Tehran, and the U.S. assassination of Iran's top military leader Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, sent the relationship to new lows.