U.S. fighter jets struck two Iranian oil tankers on May 9, NBC News reports, even as Washington awaits Tehran's formal response to the latest American nuclear proposal. The military action and the diplomacy are running on parallel tracks — which tells you something about who's actually in control of this process.
Said Trump, describing the U.S. offer: the conditions include Iran handing over nuclear material — "nuclear dust" — to the United States, plus "many other things we want." That framing is a public maximalist position, not a negotiating posture. You don't describe your ask as everything you want if you're trying to get the other side to yes.
The play here: Trump gets to claim diplomacy is alive while conducting military pressure simultaneously. Tehran gets a pretext to walk. The ceasefire, Trump insists, "still holds" — but firing on tankers mid-negotiation is a stress test, not a confidence-builder.