“I didn’t say I was looking for a cease-fire,” Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One a few hours ago as he cut short his G-7 meetings in Canada. “I said I wanted an end.”
After Iranian foreign minister Seyed Araghchi begged Trump yesterday to call off Israel, Trump made a counter-offer. He also offered a warning about what would happen if the Iranians didn’t take it:
President Trump said on Air Force One that he wants “a real end,” with #Iran “giving up entirely” on its nuclear program. He predicted that Israeli won’t be slowing up its barrage on Iran. “You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed… pic.twitter.com/z9PLFNdjhj
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) June 17, 2025
Trump also poured cold water on the notion that his unscheduled return to Washington had anything to do with cease-fire talks. He scolded French president Emmanuel Macron for leaving that impression. The time for talk is largely over, Trump suggested, and the time for capitulation — at least on nuclear development — was at hand. And again, Trump warned that the time for capitulation was itself short:
Earlier, the president said on his Truth Social platform that French President Emmanuel Macron had “mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a ‘cease fire’ between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that.”
Mr. Trump predicted that Israel would not slow its assault on Iran, which has largely decapitated the Islamic republic’s military command and inflicted significant damage to its controversial nuclear program.
“You’re going to find out over the next two days. You’re going to find out. Nobody’s slowed up so far,” he said, hours after issuing an ominous warning that all of Tehran’s roughly 10 million inhabitants should “immediately evacuate.”
In fact, Trump told reporters on AF1 that “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.” Neither are the Israelis, who are teeing up more strikes on reported nuclear-development sites in Tehran itself. They have also told the Russians “thanks but no thanks” to Vladimir Putin’s offer for mediation:
The Kremlin says Israel is uninterested in mediation efforts over its conflict with Iran, amid a “galloping escalation.”
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calls on both sides to exercise “maximum restraint.”
“The situation is continuing to escalate rapidly. The level of unpredictability is absolute,” he says.
Until the Iranian nuclear and ballistic-missile threats to Israel are removed or destroyed, there’s nothing to talk about, the IDF made clear:
Israel’s operation against Iran will not end until the IDF has removed the threat of Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, the military says, but refuses to provide a timeline. …
The IDF says it is in the midst of the operation, not at its end. The goal by the end is to remove the “existential threat” of the Iranian nuclear program and its missile array, it says.
“We are striking the terror regime, not the people, who deserve a better future. Those who endanger us are the leadership in Tehran, not the people walking the streets of Shiraz,” Basiuk says.
The military says it will continue to strike nuclear facilities and related targets, including nuclear scientists, as well as ballistic missiles, air defenses, military command centers, and other targets that are considered “critical” to the Iranian regime.
And speaking of “or else,” the Israelis took another major piece off the chessboard today. A couple of days ago, Major General Ali Shademani got promoted to replace Ali Khamenei’s wartime consigliere, Gholam Ali Rashid, killed in the opening hours of the war. Now Khamenei needs to find another chief of staff and commander of Iranian forces:
The IDF on Tuesday assassinated the replacement Iranian Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters commander Maj.-Gen. Ali Shademani only days after it assassinated his predecessor, Gholam Ali Rashid, this past Friday.
Shademani’s position made him Iran’s “War-Time Chief of Staff, the most senior military commander, and the closest figure to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” the IDF stated.
Khatam al-Anbiya is “responsible for managing combat operations and approving Iran’s firepower plans. In his various roles, he directly influenced Iran’s operational plans targeting the State of Israel,” they added.
Israel’s success in killing Shademani so soon after its initial successes in killing dozens of Iranian commanders on the first day of the current Israel-Iran war showed that despite the Islamic Republic trying to adjust and outfox Jerusalem, that the Jewish state still has an overwhelming upper hand in intelligence and war capabilities.
The Iranians had better take this offer from Trump both seriously and literally. They can either have a regime (for a while), or they can have nukes and ballistic missiles, but they can’t have both. They are rapidly approaching the “or else” conclusion, and at some point even this group of incompetent kakistocrats have to realize it.
