U.S. President Donald Trump backed away from further military confrontation with Iran on Wednesday after a barrage of missiles fired at American troops killed no one and Tehran indicated that would be the end of its retaliation for the killing of a top general, The New York Times reported.
“Iran appears to be standing down which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world,” Mr. Trump said in a televised statement from the Grand Foyer of the White House, flanked by his vice president, cabinet secretaries and senior military officers in their uniforms.
His comments came the morning after Iran fired a reported 22 ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq that house United States troops in response to last week’s American drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of Iran’s elite security and intelligence forces. No American troops were injured or killed in the attacks, the president said.
In the hours since, some analysts expressed cautious optimism that the missile strikes might prove the end of the immediate conflict rather than the start of a larger confrontation that could spiral into a full-fledged war. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said afterward that Iran had “concluded proportionate measures” in its retribution for General Suleimani’s death, and Mr. Trump’s response seemed to indicate an openness to letting it go without further reprisals since no casualties were reported.
But analysts cautioned that even if the two sides ease off a further military clash in the short term, the conflict could very well play out in other ways in the weeks and months to come. Iran has many proxy groups in the Middle East that could stir trouble in new ways for American troops or American allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and American experts remained wary of a possible Iranian cyberstrike on domestic facilities.
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran made clear that his country still saw its mission over the long run as driving the United States out of the Middle East after the killing of General Suleimani. “Our final answer to his assassination will be to kick all US forces out of the region,” Mr. Rouhani wrote on Twitter.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, likewise suggested on Wednesday that an incremental operation would not be the end of the clash. “What matters is that the presence of America, which is a source of corruption in this region, should come to an end,” he said.
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