President Donald Trump said Saturday night that the United States would wait before launching any new attacks on Iran, as long as a deal to end the conflict is reached quickly. The announcement came hours after Saudi Arabia's leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, called Trump to ask him to calm things down. At the same time, Iran was threatening to strike back hard against its neighbors.

Trump posted that "the USA is locked and loaded" to strike Iran with military force "not seen since World War II." But he said he would hold off after Iran and other Middle Eastern countries asked him to wait. He said the deal he wants would include the "Immediate, Complete, and Total Opening of the Hormuz Strait" and an end to Iran's nuclear threat, according to CBS News. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman where about a fifth of the world's oil supply passes through on ships.

The call between Trump and Prince Mohammed took place on Saturday, August 1, confirmed by a White House official speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, as well as by AP reporting. A source with knowledge of the conversation told Axios that the Saudi crown prince urged Trump to step back from the strikes. The Associated Press, citing its own source, reported that the Saudis were worried: if the US targets Iran's energy facilities, Iran could respond by attacking Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the same way.

Those Saudi concerns were not hypothetical. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, told senior Turkish, Pakistani, and Saudi officials in separate phone calls on Saturday that any attacks by the US and Israel would be met with a "proportionate response" (meaning a response matched in scale to the original attack). Nournews, a media outlet tied to Iran's top security body, was more specific: if the US attacks Iranian energy facilities, Iran would strike oilfields in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, plus gasfields in Qatar and Israel.

Iranian threats already played out in several places. Kuwait reported being hit by Iranian drones on Saturday. The Kuwaiti army said it destroyed hostile drones launched against several vital facilities, though a government facility in northern Kuwait and civilian property on Bubiyan Island were hit by falling debris, causing damage but no casualties. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said it received reports of two maritime incidents off Oman, including one in which a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile that damaged the engine room. Two ships were attacked off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, according to The Guardian.

CBS News had reported that the US and Israel were planning joint strikes, possibly through the weekend, with oil refineries and power plants among the targets. Saudi Arabia earlier in the week had joined the US in striking sites used by Iranian-backed armed groups in Iraq. This put Riyadh on the side of the broader campaign against Iranian-aligned forces, even as it tried to stop direct strikes on Iran itself.

This is not the first time Trump has threatened massive strikes on Iran only to step back. In June, Axios reported that Trump said he had canceled planned strikes and claimed Iran's leadership had "approved" a draft agreement. Iran then told Reuters it had not reached a final decision. The Associated Press similarly reported that Trump called off new military strikes hours after threatening to escalate. A June 17 deal signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian set a 60-day timeline for an agreement on unresolved issues, according to Britannica. That 60-day window is now closing, raising the pressure to reach a full settlement before time runs out.

The pattern of threats followed by pauses has happened repeatedly during the 2026 Iran war. In March, Trump threatened to "massively blow up" the entire South Pars gasfield if Iran carried out further retaliatory strikes, and separately threatened to "blow up" all of South Pars if Tehran struck Qatar. Iranian strikes at that time also hit Saudi Arabia's Red Sea region. In April, oil prices opened higher after Trump threatened that Iran would be "living in Hell" if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz. At least 15 people were killed in strikes on Lebanon during the same period. Cathay Pacific suspended flights to and from Dubai. Israel denied "dragging" the US into war, with Netanyahu saying Trump had "asked us to hold" off.

In July, the US launched strikes on Iran, which retaliated by hitting US bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, per Reuters. Iran attacked Kuwait and Bahrain, both of which host US military bases. Trump addressed the conflict and deal while speaking at a NATO summit in Turkey. NATO is a military alliance between the US, Canada, and many European countries. PBS NewsHour reported on August 1 that Trump was threatening more strikes amid tensions spanning Hormuz, Kuwait, and Gaza.

The broader context here is a confrontation in which every country involved is testing how far it can push without triggering a wider war. The Saudi role is especially important: Riyadh has joined strikes against Iranian-backed groups in Iraq, but it draws a hard line at direct strikes on Iran's energy facilities. The Saudi calculation is that Iran's retaliation would hit Gulf oilfields and gas facilities, not US territory. Iran has already shown it is willing to launch drones at Kuwait and attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which gives weight to its threats. The June 17 deal's 60-day timeline adds a deadline that squeezes the room for negotiation. Whether Tehran will accept Trump's terms, especially on Hormuz access and the nuclear issue, or whether this pause falls apart into another round of strikes and counterstrikes, is the central question for the region's immediate future.