By Saqib S. Qureshi | The Changer
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the war with Iran could be approaching its end and claimed Washington was in direct contact with Tehran, raising fresh prospects of diplomacy after months of fighting that have disrupted energy markets and spread instability across the Middle East. Trump’s latest remarks represent a notable shift from his comments only days ago, when he suggested the conflict could continue until after the November U.S. midterm elections, but there was no independently confirmed agreement on ending the war.
Trump told reporters that the United States was talking directly with Iran and said he hoped the conflict was moving toward a conclusion. His administration has maintained for months that contacts with Tehran were taking place even when Iranian officials disputed Washington’s descriptions of the negotiations, making the existence, level and substance of any current direct channel an important unanswered question. In July, Trump similarly said the two sides were communicating but cautioned at the time that negotiations did not necessarily mean an agreement would follow.
Tehran’s public messaging on Wednesday was considerably less optimistic. Iranian military officials vowed to continue fighting, while Iranian statements indicated that negotiations would not resume without conditions being met. That gap between Washington’s description of diplomatic progress and Tehran’s public position means Trump’s assertion that the war is nearing an end should, for now, be treated as the U.S. president’s assessment rather than evidence that a ceasefire or peace agreement has been reached.
The diplomatic signals come at a particularly volatile moment. The six-month conflict has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while renewed fighting involving the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia has opened another dangerous front near the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. Saudi forces have carried out strikes in Yemen as the Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Saudi territory, including attacks reported around energy infrastructure and an incident in which Riyadh said it intercepted a drone south of Makkah. The Houthis denied targeting the holy city.
Those developments have increased the economic cost of allowing the wider conflict to continue. Brent crude was trading around $108 a barrel on Wednesday, while disruption to Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline has intensified concerns over global supply. The combination of restricted Gulf shipping and renewed instability around Red Sea routes means an eventual U.S.-Iran settlement could have consequences extending far beyond the battlefield, particularly for oil prices, shipping costs and inflation.
Trump’s own timetable for ending the conflict has shifted repeatedly. On September 9, he said he expected the war to end immediately after the November midterm elections, arguing that economic pressure was becoming increasingly difficult for Tehran to withstand. Four days later, he again said he expected the conflict to end this year while claiming Iran was seeking negotiations, an assertion Tehran had previously rejected.
The administration is also beginning to consider what comes after the fighting. Trump is expected to meet leaders or senior representatives from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, with discussions expected to include the Iran conflict and a possible postwar framework. The planned meeting suggests Washington is considering a regional endgame even as the conditions for ending hostilities remain unsettled.
Any diplomatic breakthrough would also have to address issues that have repeatedly derailed previous negotiations, including Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions, regional security arrangements and maritime access. Earlier U.S.-Iran talks produced periods of reduced tensions but failed to prevent fighting from resuming, while disagreements over the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. military operations remained major obstacles. Reuters reported in June that Washington temporarily waived some Iran sanctions following talks under an emerging peace arrangement, demonstrating that negotiations have previously produced limited agreements without delivering a durable end to the conflict.
The immediate significance of Trump’s latest comments is therefore not that peace has arrived, but that Washington is again publicly presenting diplomacy as a possible route out of the war while simultaneously preparing consultations with Gulf governments over what could follow it. Whether that develops into an actual settlement will depend on whether Tehran confirms substantive negotiations and whether the two sides can bridge the issues that have repeatedly pushed them back toward confrontation.
For a region now dealing simultaneously with the Iran war, disrupted Gulf shipping and renewed Saudi-Houthi fighting, the distinction between diplomatic signalling and an enforceable agreement is critical. Trump may be describing the conflict as approaching its end, but until Washington and Tehran acknowledge common terms for stopping the fighting, the emerging endgame remains a possibility rather than a settlement.