When Israel Katz, the defence minister, said attacks against Iran will “increase significantly” in the coming week, it appeared to contradict what Donald Trump said just hours earlier.
The US President had said he was considering “winding down” military operations, but this was typical Trump — unpredictable, even incoherent.
Even the American military itself continues to take actions that seem to contradict Commander-in-Chief Trump, as the US administration has announced it's sending more warships and Marines or troops to the Middle East.
Trump’s “winding down” comment also came shortly after he, too, ruled out a ceasefire and kept the door open to deploying ground troops.
“We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East,” he later said in a social media post on Friday, US time.
He later told reporters, in his own words, that he “may have a plan, or may not” about where the conflict goes from here.
Trump-led mixed messaging from the US came after another spike in oil prices plunged the US stock market.
So much so, that the Trump administration even announced that it will lift sanctions on Iranian oil loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring prices.
Iran has said it has nothing on ships at sea anyway.
Social media was ablaze with hot takes on how Trump's war had led to lifting of sanctions against the very country that it had attacked.
The irony was in sync with how Trump has oscillated between claims and fears and calls for help over the three weeks of the war, which began when US and Israel bombed Tehran on February 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
War continues to rage
Iran has since widened the conflict to Gulf states that house US bases.
The war, thus, has shown no signs of abating.
Iran on Saturday said its Natanz nuclear facility was hit in an airstrike on Saturday but that there has been no radiation leakage.
Israel said Iran continued to fire missiles at it through the day, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region, which is home to major oil installations.
Iran has also hit an elite F-35 jet of the US military, and tried to attack a US-UK combined base on the Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean, about 4,000 km away.
This raised some brows about Iran's stated position, and the US claim, that Tehran has missiles that can go a maximum distance of 2,000 km.
Trump's climbdown was being linked to these instances.
But Trump's commitment about more troops, and even staying open to the ground invasion of Iran, muddled the messaging a little more.
