Trump Cancels Strike After Gulf States Urge Restraint, Iran Says

Senior Iranian Supreme Leader’s senior adviser Mohsen Rezaei says Tehran will force the United States to withdraw and surrender. The assertion was made after US President Donald Trump said he had cancelled a planned large-scale attack on Iran, at the request of Gulf states. Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a statement reported by Press TV on Tuesday 19 May 2026, that the US approach was inconsistent and cowardly. In a statement posted on X on Monday night, 18 May, Rezaei said that Trump ‘set a deadline for military action and then cancelled it himself, in vain hope of forcing the nation and Iranian officials to surrender!’ ‘The strength of the armed forces and the great Iranian nation will force them (the US) to withdraw and surrender,’ Rezaei said. Rezaei’s statement followed Trump’s sudden social media post on Monday local time, about postponing the large-scale military strike scheduled for Tuesday. In his announcement, Trump said he had been asked by the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to ‘delay the military strike planned against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow.’ He also mentioned that serious negotiations were currently ongoing. According to Trump, the three Gulf state leaders, whom he called ‘great leaders and allies’, believed that ‘a deal will be reached’ that includes ‘NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!’ Trump also stated in his announcement that he had ordered the US military ‘that we WILL NOT carry out the strike scheduled against Iran tomorrow’. However, he added that he had ‘further instructed them to be prepared to carry out a full-scale strike against Iran at any time, if the deal reached is not achieved’. Iranian Commander: New US or ally aggression will be answered ‘extraordinary’. The highest-level operational command head in Iran’s military, the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, Major General Ali Abdollahi, in a separate statement, said any new aggression by the US or its allies would be met with overwhelming force. ‘They must know that any aggression or invasion again by the enemies of our homeland and our proud nation will be responded to with swift, firm, strong, and wide-scale retaliation,’ Abdollahi said. He warned that if enemies dared to miscalculate again, they would face Tehran’s power and capabilities far greater than the war that has raged so far. ‘We will defend the rights of the Iranian nation with all our might and cut off the hand of every aggressor,’ Abdollahi concluded.