Iran Gets Tough, And Trump Seeks A Deal
Time|September 30, 2019
AS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP WEIGHED how to respond to a Sept. 14 drone and missile attack on Saudi oil facilities, which temporarily cut the kingdom’s output in half and-roiled markets, he had several options.
Brian Bennett and John Walcott
Iran Gets Tough, And Trump Seeks A Deal
One, U.S. officials briefed on the White House deliberations tell TIME, was familiar: a Pentagon plan to bomb Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps targets on Persian Gulf islands. Trump was offered that plan after the Iranians shot down a U.S. Navy drone on June 20, and top advisers recommended he act on it then, but he turned it down, the officials say.

A second option was quite different. In recent weeks, Trump had pressed aides to arrange for him to talk to Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City at the end of September. One idea, the officials say, was to set up a moment of stagecraft when France’s President Emmanuel Macron would be talking to Rouhani and, seemingly impromptu, encourage Trump, press cameras in tow, to join them. Trump went with a third option: slapping new sanctions on Iran. Now, Iran may back out of the U.N. gathering altogether.

This story is from the September 30, 2019 edition of Time.

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This story is from the September 30, 2019 edition of Time.

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