From ‘winding down’ to 48-hour ultimatum: Trump’s Iran war has no exit, just escalation. What it means

On the morning of Nowruz, Iran’s Persian New Year, the air raid sirens went off again. Natanz uranium enrichment facility got bombed, missiles hit a kindergarten in central Israel and Kuwait’s biggest refinery burned for the second day running. This comes even as US President Donald Trump said the war was almost over.

Twenty-two days in, the exit Trump keeps announcing keeps moving further away. And on Day 23, it stopped being an exit entirely.

Late Saturday, after Iranian missiles punched through Israeli air defences and landed in Dimona, a city sitting two kilometres from Israel’s nuclear research centre, Trump ditched the off-ramp and went full caps lock. “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST,” the president posted on Truth Social at 11:44 pm GMT Saturday.

🚨 “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST…” – President DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/htLz1A0Mf7 — The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 22, 2026

🚨 “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST…” – President DONALD J. TRUMP pic.twitter.com/htLz1A0Mf7

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 22, 2026

It means the deadline is Monday evening US time. Iran’s response came within hours; all US energy infrastructure in the region is now a target if its power plants are hit, according to an Al Jazeera report.

Trump’s exit signal and what it actually means

Trump’s “winding down” post was the clearest exit signal he had sent since the war began on February 28. But within hours of posting it, he told reporters at the White House South Lawn he had no interest in a ceasefire. “You don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side,” CNBC and Al Jazeera quoted him as saying. “They don’t have a navy. They don’t have an air force. They don’t have any equipment.”

The contradiction is not merely coincidental; it is structural. Trump wants to declare victory without achieving the conditions that would constitute one. In a phone interview with CNBC, the president said the US could leave “right now” but called that “not an acceptable situation”, explaining, “If we left right now, it would take them at least 10 years to rebuild, but rebuild they will. If we stay longer, they’ll never rebuild.”

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explained to NPR what that logic produces on the ground. “What began as a war of choice has morphed into a war of necessity. I don’t think President Trump is going to simply be able to end the war and claim victory.”

The Associated Press reported that within a single 24-hour window, Trump said he was considering winding down the war, his administration confirmed it was sending more troops to West Asia, and the US lifted sanctions on Iranian oil for the first time in decades, simultaneously de-escalating, escalating, and economically assisting the enemy.

On Capitol Hill, even members of Trump’s own party are growing restless. “The real question is: What ultimately are we trying to accomplish?” Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told the Associated Press.

Hormuz trap for Trump

While Iran has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which 20–25 per cent of global oil supply normally flows, Trump cannot declare victory until he reopens it. But even he knows it risks catastrophic escalation. Axios reported that Trump originally wanted the war to be over by the end of March; however, the Hormuz crisis has already blown past that deadline, the conflict entered its fourth week on Saturday.

On the economic front, consequences are compounding daily. Brent crude has gone from roughly $70 a barrel before the war to a peak of $119.50 this week, according to NPR and NBC News. US gas prices have spiked roughly 90 cents a gallon since February 28, with at least 11 states recording jumps above $1, NBC News reported.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby warned employees in an internal memo, as reported by NBC News, that the airline was preparing for oil at $175 a barrel, with jet fuel costs having already doubled in three weeks, costing United $11 billion annually at current prices. Goldman Sachs warned, cited by CNN, that elevated prices could persist through 2027.

In a moment of extraordinary contradiction, the Trump administration quietly lifted sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil stranded on ships, valid until April 19, to contain the energy crisis the bombing itself caused, as confirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

It effectively means the US is simultaneously funding and fighting Iran at the same time.

Now, with the Hormuz deadline set for Monday, Trump has moved from economic improvisation to outright threat. Analysts noted that 140 million barrels represents only a few days of global supply, nowhere near enough to offset the disruption caused by the Hormuz closure. The only reliable fix is reopening the strait itself, reported Newsweek.

Iran’s response was to warn that it may go further. Reuters, citing an Iranian lawmaker, reported that parliament is considering a bill requiring countries using the strait to pay tolls and taxes to Tehran. The blockade is no longer just a weapon. It is becoming a revenue stream.

NATO allies seem not interested, but Israel continues to attack

Trump’s exit is further complicated by two partners pulling in opposite directions. NATO allies have refused to join a naval coalition to reopen Hormuz, prompting Trump to call them “cowards” and brand the alliance “a paper tiger” on March 20. Germany said the war “has nothing to do with NATO”.

But Israel doesn’t seem interested in slowing down. While Trump speaks of winding down, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is speaking of escalation. At a press conference, Netanyahu suggested the campaign would need “a ground component”, saying, “You can do a lot of things from the air, but there has to be a ground component, as well.”

Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, the world’s largest, without informing Washington. When confronted, Netanyahu acknowledged that Trump “asked us to hold off on future attacks”, indicating it was Israel’s sovereign decision. Israeli strikes on Tehran continued Saturday even as Trump was posting about de-escalation.

The Dimona strikes hardened Israel further. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces and the US would “significantly increase the intensity of strikes” against Iran this week, reported Al Jazeera. Netanyahu vowed to “continue striking our enemies on all fronts”. The Israeli military chief said the campaign is only at its “halfway stage”. Over the past few days, the differences between the US and Israel have come to the fore; it seems they are not fighting the same war.

Iran’s response: ‘No exit on your terms’

Iran has maintained throughout that it would not accept Trump’s framing of victory. The Revolutionary Guards told Iranian state media, according to NPR on March 10, that “Iran will determine when the war ends”.

Foreign minister Araghchi, in an interview with PBS Newshour, said negotiations with the US were effectively off the table. “We have a very bitter experience of talking with Americans,” he said, highlighting that indirect talks were underway in both June 2025 and February 2026 when Washington launched strikes both times.

However, Iran is not simply absorbing the blows. It is deploying the Hormuz blockade with surgical precision, telling Japan’s Kyodo News that Tokyo’s vessels may negotiate passage through the strait. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Saturday it was in “multifaceted” talks with Iran on securing energy routes. This is seen as a tactical move, aimed at fracturing the coalition behind the US policy by selectively rewarding nations willing to engage Tehran directly.

Iran’s representative to the International Maritime Organization was equally calculated in his public response, telling Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, as reported by CNN, that the Strait “is open to everyone except enemies”, and that Tehran was ready to coordinate with the IMO on maritime safety, but only after “a complete cessation of aggression”. This was Iran’s clearest articulation yet of its terms.

Jon Alterman, global security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera the fundamental flaw in Trump’s exit calculus: “A halt in American bombing alone will neither stop the war nor necessarily open the Strait of Hormuz, let alone lead to security in the Gulf.”

Any withdrawal that leaves Iran controlling the world’s most critical oil chokepoint would be, he said, “a colossal strategic failure on the part of the US.”

What’s next for Trump?

Trump’s flip-flop on the Iran war is no secret now. His definition of victory changes in nearly every public appearance, nuclear disarmament one day, regime change the next, a Venezuela-style deal with new Iranian leadership after that. The Pentagon is now asking Congress for up to $200 billion in supplemental war funding, as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has confirmed.

Under the War Powers Act, the president can conduct military operations for 60 days without congressional approval, a clock that started on February 28 and expires at the end of April.

When asked directly when he would know it was time to stop, Trump made the only clear answer amid contradictions, telling journalists: “When I feel it in my bones.”

American television host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel was quick to take a dig at Trump. “That’s the problem: he uses his bones to feel things instead of his brain,” Kimmel joked. “He doesn’t know when this war is going to be over. The only war Trump had an exit plan for was Vietnam,” he added, referencing Trump dodging the draft in the 1960s, The Guardian reported.

*(With inputs from agencies)*

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram