A deal or a mirage? Trump’s Iran ceasefire collides with chaos on the ground

Less than three hours before President Donald Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to make a deal or face his apocalyptic warning of death and destruction, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, the country’s top two military officials, were summoned to the White House.

Top military officials, including Caine, were bracing for the beginning of an expanded military operation, while White House aides busily prepared for possible contingencies, including having Hegseth and Caine on hand should the president decide to make a video address to the nation, officials familiar with the matter told CNN.

No one was quite sure what Trump was going to do, the officials said.

In the end, 90 minutes ahead of his own deadline, Trump announced on Truth Social that a two-week ceasefire deal had been reached, capping off a frantic diplomatic scramble to try to stave off Trump’s threat in the morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”

Trump’s sudden ceasefire declaration triggered immediate relief across global financial markets. But the announcement also fueled more chaos and confusion over what Trump and Iran had actually agreed to — including whether the US had secured one of its main objectives: opening the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed for the past month in response to US-Israeli operations, choking off a main artery for global energy and tanking markets.

The first glimpse of the breakdown came a little over an hour after Trump announced that a 10-point proposal from Iran was “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” The president was livid over a statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declaring victory, two sources familiar with the matter said. Claiming the statement was fake, Trump attacked CNN for reporting it from the country’s top security body.

While top Trump officials insisted Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz had been reopened for oil tankers and that they had seen an uptick in traffic, there’s been little indication that the reality in the narrow strait has changed much.

Iran on Wednesday said that the ceasefire had already been violated, pointing to Israel’s continued bombing of Lebanon as the two sides disagreed on whether Lebanon was included in the agreement.

While the fragile ceasefire was holding as of Thursday morning, the disconnect underscored the challenge ahead for Trump, who is now faced with bringing an end to a 40-day war in which the US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader but did not change the fact that hardliners are still running the government — despite Trump’s continued claims of regime change — and that global oil traffic remains at a trickle.

“We’ve seen some of the largest attacks from Iran into the Gulf today, against Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, even an attack in Saudi Arabia, missiles and drones,” Brett McGurk, a CNN global affairs analyst and former US special envoy who’s previously negotiated with the Iranians, said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Arena.”

“We can count missiles, we count drones, and we can count ships, whether ships are moving, and so far, all of those indicators went at least today in the wrong direction,” McGurk added.

Late Wednesday night, Trump warned on Truth Social that the US was prepared to restart military operations if Iran did not ultimately agree to a deal.

“All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with,” he wrote.

The focus now shifts to the next round of negotiations and Vice President JD Vance, who is headed to Pakistan for talks this weekend with US envoy Steve Wikoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Vance downplayed the confusion over the ceasefire and Lebanon, telling reporters Wednesday it was the result of “a legitimate misunderstanding.”

“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case,” Vance said when departing Hungary. “What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America’s allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.”

Vance was a crucial player in working with the Pakistanis on the proposal, sources familiar with the talks said. The meeting in Pakistan is expected to be the first of several intense negotiations regarding a longer term, lasting deal to end the war, the sources said.

The Trump administration is currently operating under the posture that the two-week ceasefire could provide enough time reach a more substantial compromise with Iran. The current ceasefire could be extended if the White House believes enough progress is being made, US officials added.

One regional source described what has emerged as a “manageable mess.”

“They’re trying to win a 24-hour news cycle at a time,” said another source familiar with the internal discussions. “We’re all going to see the boats. We’ll all know shortly what’s real.”

Stock futures shot up immediately following Trump’s ceasefire announcement as oil prices plunged, with traders clinging optimistically to the prospect that peace would lead to the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an easing of the energy crisis that has gripped much of the world over the last month.

Trump suggested in an interview with ABC News’ Jon Karl Wednesday morning that the US may be involved in securing the Strait in a “joint venture” with Iran, floating the possibility that both countries could charge tolls for safe passage.

Inside the administration, however, there was far less certainty as to how such a reopening would work.

In the hours ahead of the abrupt ceasefire declaration, Trump officials had privately warned energy executives that a breakthrough seemed unlikely and that the situation was likely “going to get worse before it gets better,” said a source familiar.

In a sign of their pessimism, officials on Tuesday were working to reassure the industry that they would stick to their earlier commitment not to restrict US companies’ ability to export oil abroad, regardless of how high prices rose in the near future, the person familiar said. Energy executives have long worried that the administration would limit exports in an effort to preserve supply and slow the increase in domestic oil and gas prices.

The competing peace plans floated by the White House and Iranian regime on Tuesday night have only deepened concerns that Iran will retain long-term control of the strait, allowing it to decide which ships are allowed through and at what price.

“He got fed up, he doesn’t care about the strait, he wants to keep the pressure on the Iranians but he now sees scope for a deal,” another person briefed on the internal discussions said of Trump’s calculus in quickly agreeing to such a vague set of principles for peace.

Attacks also appeared to continue Wednesday on both sides of the war, with a reported strike on a critical Saudi Arabian pipeline rattling nerves. Throughout the uncertainty, traffic remained effectively stalled in the Persian Gulf.

“You can have proclamations and announcements and everything, but it’s the same situation that it has been since early March unless and until ship operators believe it’s safe,” said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a longtime energy analyst.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Iran has assured the White House that it is allowing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, despite reports of Tehran once again closing the waterway.

“This is a case of what they’re saying publicly is different,” she said during a press briefing, though she acknowledged that it may “take time” for ships to begin crossing the waterway again. “Privately, we have seen an uptick of traffic in the strait today.”

Tuesday’s agreement marked what was ultimately an anti-climactic end to a remarkable 72-hour period of the war.

Just after midnight early Sunday morning, Trump announced a US military triumph on Truth Social: the US successfully carried out a dangerous mission in Iran to rescue the second of two US airmen whose fighter jet was shot down.

Later that morning, Trump’s threats against Iran began escalating as his self-imposed deadline approached. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Then on Tuesday morning, Trump ramped up his apocalyptic rhetoric even more: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Trump’s ominous missive caught many in the administration off guard and raised internal questions about the extent the president was willing to go to force Tehran to a deal, sources familiar with the discussions said.

In the days leading up to it, there was constant communication between Witkoff, Kushner and regional players, including Pakistan and Turkey, as they scrambled to find a diplomatic agreement, regional sources told CNN — and it was unclear until Trump’s post whether they would be able to get one.

Administration officials had hoped that some level of agreement through indirect negotiations would result in another delay of Trump’s deadline, or at least minimize the severity of his retaliation, multiple sources familiar with the talks told CNN. However, it was not clear until Trump’s Tuesday evening announcement that such a breakthrough would be enough, the sources said.

Discussions were made more challenging by the fact that they were done across borders and time zones, rather than two parties in a room together, sources said.

Still, in the lead up to the announcement of Tuesday’s temporary ceasefire, responses from the Iranians, who had at times been difficult to reach, became more prompt, with interlocutors receiving messages back within a matter of hours, one of the regional sources said.

In the hours before Trump’s post, the Pakistani foreign minister made a flurry of phone calls, including to counterparts in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to compare notes, one source said.

“Even at that point, people had to make sure that everyone had the same understanding,” the source told CNN. Within hours of the ceasefire announcement, it became apparent that everyone did not have the same understanding, particularly when it came to Lebanon.

Late in the day, new life was breathed into the process brokered by Pakistan, with the head of the army, Field Martial Asim Munir, personally involved.

One well-placed source said that officials from the CIA were involved in covert discussions with Iranian representatives in an effort to break the impasse.

At around 3 p.m. Tuesday, five hours before Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline, a source with knowledge of the Pakistani government’s thinking sent a message to a CNN reporter to say “good news” was coming, and advised keeping a close eye on the X feed of Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Minutes later, Sharif posted a message noting that diplomatic efforts were “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully,” and formally asked Trump to extend his deadline for two weeks. Sharif also requested Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period.

The message appeared as an 11th-hour plea to the leaders of Washington and Tehran. But sources familiar with the talks told CNN that the White House had previously been made aware of the statement, and had largely signed off on the specific elements Sharif had proposed. Top Trump administration officials had been communicating with the Pakistanis throughout the day, and had made clear what the US priorities were for an ultimate deal.

Meanwhile, the US military was prepared to escalate and carry out additional strikes if a ceasefire agreement had not been announced, a US official said.

It’s not clear, however, that the military would have had the capability to carry out the scale of an operation like the one Trump had threatened publicly.

From a military perspective, US service members prepared for a possible escalation, anticipating Trump would order strikes against a “massive target list” if Iran did not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a source familiar with the Pentagon’s planning process told CNN.

That included the possibility of using the US military to try to reopen the Strait by force and ordering an invasion force to remove Iran’s existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, a mission CNN previously reported would require a large number of troops on the ground and carry significant risks.

“We had a target set, locked and loaded, of infrastructure, bridges, power plants,” Hegseth said at a press briefing Wednesday morning.

Unlike previous US military campaigns, there was a “wait-and-see period” for American troops before finding out what is included in the mission list. That wait-and-see period appeared to be in effect less than three hours before Trump’s deadline, only adding to the uncertainty of what the president would ultimately do when decision time came.

According to three Israeli sources, Israel was preparing the ground for a last-minute extension of Trump’s deadline, but the army was also standing by for a further escalation of the conflict. Two sources said plans were in place for a combined US-Israeli operation against Iran’s national infrastructure, with targets identified.

A US source familiar with the situation said troops in the Middle East were bracing for the 8 p.m. deadline, and the potential of further attacks by Iran in response. The source said the mood among US forces as the deadline neared was “tense.”

Caine said at Wednesday’s briefing that US forces remain ready “if ordered or called upon to resume combat operations” in Iran.

By Wednesday morning, it quickly became clear that all sides did not have the same understanding of the specific terms of the ceasefire, particularly whether it applied to Lebanon.

Israel carried out what it said was the largest coordinated strike in Lebanon since the war began on Wednesday, along with a strike in Beirut Wednesday evening,

The parties disputed whether Lebanon was covered in the agreement: The Pakistanis and Iranians indicated it was part of the temporary truce, while Israel and the US have said otherwise.

An Israeli source familiar with the matter said that Israel worked overnight with the US to ensure it didn’t accept the Iranian demand to have Lebanon be part of the ceasefire agreement.

On Wednesday morning, after the deal was announced, Netanyahu insisted that the US coordinated the temporary ceasefire with Israel in advance, according to a senior Israeli official.

The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Wednesday that three parts of Iran’s 10-point proposal had been violated, citing Israel’s Lebanon strikes, a drone that Tehran said entered Iranian airspace, and that Iran’s right to enrichment has not been recognized.

Vance downplayed the claims of a violation as he was leaving Budapest, Hungary, telling reporters that Ghalibaf’s complaints “didn’t make sense in the context of the negotiations that we’ve had.”

Vance’s presence at this weekend’s talks will mark the highest level US official involved in diplomatic discussions with Iran thus far, which had been ongoing for several months before the US war began in late February.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Trump continues to believe that the new leadership of the Iranian regime are more willing to compromise than the government under former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a White House official told CNN.

That belief is what helped make Saturday morning’s meeting of top US and Iranian officials in Islamabad possible, the officials said.

But there are doubts that an agreement can be finalized in within the two-week period and questions about the extent to which the expected Iranian mediators – Abbas Araghchi and Ghalibaf — will be empowered to reach a deal. Araghchi is seen by some as a minority figure in an even harder-line Iranian regime, and according to one of the regional sources, “many people see him as a traitor because he wants a diplomatic solution.”

CNN’s Nic Robertson, Haley Britzky, Kristen Holmes and Izzy Lippolis contributed to this report.