- 2 months ago
Oman has long been recognized as one of the most discreet and effective diplomatic actors in the Middle East. Its foreign policy is shaped by patience, neutrality, and a deep preference for dialogue over confrontation. When tensions escalate between the United States and regional adversaries, Oman often emerges as a trusted intermediary. In the case of the reported halt after 13 consecutive nights of bombing, Oman’s influence was not loud or public. Instead, it operated through private channels, careful timing, and the credibility of a state that many parties are willing to trust.
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00:00After 13 consecutive nights of bombing, the fighting appeared far from over.
00:04We're locked and loaded.
00:06Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield.
00:12Then Oman stepped in, quietly opening a diplomatic channel that changed the conversation.
00:17But he's giving talk some space. He's giving it a little bit of room.
00:21How exactly did Oman persuade President Trump to pause the bombing? Here's the full story.
00:26The ceasefire.
00:27For 13 nights, the United States hit Iran from the air.
00:31U.S. Central Command ran the strikes each night and the targets were tied to one place, the Strait of
00:35Hormuz.
00:36The strikes hit coastal radar, anti-ship missile launchers, fast attack boats, drone storage, command centers and communication lines.
00:43The stated goal was to lower the threat to ships in the strait.
00:46The 13th night landed around July 23-24, 2026.
00:50Then, late on Friday, the Pentagon stopped.
00:52There were no U.S. strikes on Saturday and none on Sunday.
00:55The nights that had run in a row for two weeks went quiet.
00:57The pause did not come from one cause.
00:59It came from three and they lined up on the same Friday.
01:02The first was diplomacy.
01:03This was the reason the administration put in front of the cameras.
01:06The U.S. envoy said Trump held the strikes to give the talks room to work.
01:10The envoy said the pause was not a weakness.
01:12He said U.S. forces were still ready and that more assets were moving into the region.
01:16As the president said, we are locked and loaded.
01:19Even more assets are going into theater.
01:22Then he explained why the bombs had stopped.
01:24He said the president was giving the talks space.
01:26But he's giving talks some space.
01:28He's giving it a little bit of room.
01:30Trump said the same thing in his own way.
01:32He told Axios that mediators in regional countries asked him not to fire, that deep talks were going on, and
01:37that he thought Iran wanted a deal.
01:39He called the pause, nothing gained, nothing lost, and he pointed to the drop in oil prices.
01:43But he added that time was short and that he was ready for strong military action if the talks failed.
01:48The second reason was on the map, not at the table.
01:51Admiral Brad Cooper, the top U.S. commander in the region, told the Pentagon the campaign had hit its limit.
01:56Two weeks of strikes had cut down Iran's power to hit ships near Hormuz.
01:59Most of the chosen targets were gone.
02:01Reports said about 80% had been struck, leaving around 20%.
02:05More nightly strikes would add little unless the U.S. went bigger.
02:08The third reason was the stockpile.
02:09U.S. officials warned they were running low on precision munitions and more so on air defense interceptors like the
02:15Patriot.
02:15Those interceptors protect U.S. troops and bases from Iran's missiles.
02:19General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, warned about the risk of running them down.
02:23The New York Times reported this was a real factor in shelving the plan for a bigger attack.
02:28A short time earlier, an Iranian missile had gotten through defenses in Jordan and killed three U.S. service members,
02:34which showed the gaps were real.
02:35The administration, though, told the public a different story on that last point.
02:39Officials said the stocks were fine and that shortages were not the reason for the pause.
02:43The envoy pushed back on the report.
02:45On Friday after briefings from his advisors and commanders, Trump made the call.
02:49He had received the daily strike plans for two weeks and signed off on them.
02:53This time he did not.
02:54He also set aside the larger options he had floated in public, like a massive attack.
02:58A reporter asked him about that idea directly.
03:00You told Axios that you were considering a, quote, massive attack on Iran.
03:05What is the tipping point for you to make the decision?
03:08Well, I can't tell you that.
03:09Trump had kept the same line for days.
03:12He said the U.S. was ready to strike but was still talking.
03:14We're locked and loaded.
03:16We're locked and loaded and ready to go.
03:18But we're talking to them.
03:20So I think while we're talking, we'll see what comes of it.
03:23While the U.S. held fire, Iran did too.
03:25A senior Iranian official said Tehran's rule was attack for attack.
03:29Iran would stop its strikes on U.S. bases in nearby states as long as the U.S. pause held.
03:33Iranian sources sounded more doubtful than hopeful about the quiet.
03:36The markets moved with the news.
03:38Oil prices dropped by about 4% or more as traders bet on calm.
03:41But the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports stayed in place,
03:44and the straits stayed shut under Iran's own order.
03:47The quiet held into the following days.
03:49By reports around July 26-28, there were still no new U.S. strikes,
03:53and Iran had not restarted its attacks on U.S. bases.
03:56The Friday call had followed a review meeting where Trump sat with his advisors
04:00and his commanders and chose not to run the plan they brought him.
04:03Both sides kept their weapons ready while the talks went on.
04:06That is the frame.
04:07The bombs stopped for talks, for a target list that was nearly done,
04:11and for a missile count that was falling.
04:12And at the center of the talks was one small country that both sides could still speak to.
04:17That country was Oman.
04:19Oman's role in the war.
04:21Oman is often called the Switzerland of the Middle East.
04:24For years it has kept open doors to Tehran, Washington, and the Gulf states all at once.
04:29It talks quietly, carries messages, and stays out of the fight.
04:32Oman was the backchannel that helped set up the 2015 nuclear deal,
04:35the same deal Trump later left in his first term.
04:38In February 2026, Oman was close to something big.
04:41Its foreign minister, Syed Badr bin Hamid al-Buseti,
04:44was leading U.S.-Iran talks that Omani officials believed were near a breakthrough.
04:48He said in public that a peace deal was within our reach.
04:50Then the U.S. and Israel launched their strikes on February 28, right in the middle of that push.
04:55Al-Buseti did something Omani diplomats almost never do.
04:58He spoke out.
04:58He said serious talks had been undermined again.
05:01He warned Washington not to get pulled in deeper.
05:03And he said plainly, this is not your war.
05:05A few weeks later he wrote a hard piece in The Economist.
05:08He called the war unlawful and a mistake,
05:10and he argued that Iran's answer, while wrong, was the response anyone should have expected.
05:15That honesty cost Oman.
05:16The Trump team saw Muscat as too soft on Iran and no longer on side.
05:20So other countries took the lead.
05:21Pakistan ran the main track for the June deal,
05:24with help from Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
05:27Oman was pushed to the edge of the process.
05:29The pressure did not stop there.
05:31When word spread that Oman might work with Iran on running the Strait of Hormuz,
05:34or on service fees for ships,
05:36Trump warned that Oman would behave just like everybody else or will have to blow them up.
05:39U.S. Treasury officials warned of sanctions if Oman helped set up any toll system.
05:43Behind closed doors, administration figures called Oman duplicitous,
05:47and said it was acting almost like a staff for the Iranians.
05:50Oman was, in effect, thrown out of the main talks for the June deal.
05:54But there is one thing no threat could change.
05:56Geography.
05:57Oman sits on the Strait of Hormuz through the Musindam Peninsula.
06:00It is a coastal state on that water, just like Iran.
06:02That means no lasting deal on the Strait can work without Oman.
06:05This is why Oman kept a seat even after Washington tried to sideline it.
06:09The June deal made that role official.
06:11The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding told Iran to hold talks with Oman
06:15to shape the future running of the Strait and its shipping services,
06:18in line with international law and the rights of both coastal states.
06:22The plan called for toll-free passage for ships, at first for 60 days,
06:25and a full return of traffic after mines and other blocks were cleared.
06:29So Oman and Iran set up a joint Hormuz committee.
06:32They held early meetings in Muscat and put out joint statements on safe passage and sovereignty.
06:36Iran's parliament speaker and its foreign minister visited Muscat and met the sultan.
06:40Both sides said they were committed to safe passage through the strait.
06:42They talked about service fees for safety and navigation,
06:45with Oman pointing to models like the Strait of Malacca, where ships give voluntary payments.
06:49The U.S. rejected any charges at all.
06:52It did not run smoothly.
06:53Oman announced a temporary shipping lane near its own coast,
06:56with input from the International Maritime Organization.
06:59Iran said that lane was not acceptable without its own say-so, and more incidents followed.
07:04Which brings us back to the pause.
07:05After the 13 nights ended late on Friday, an Omani team traveled to Tehran for talks on Friday and Saturday.
07:12The talks were at the deputy foreign minister level.
07:14Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghi, called the talks constructive,
07:18useful and forward-looking, and said there was some progress.
07:21The two sides talked about shared rules for safe transit,
07:24and about respect for the rights of both coastal states.
07:27An Iranian official framed the talks as a matter between two neighbors,
07:30not between Tehran and the White House, and he made it clear that the work was not done.
07:35Baghi was honest about the limits.
07:37He said the status of ship traffic had not changed, and the straits stayed restricted.
07:40But other mediators called the overall progress significant.
07:43The hope is simple.
07:44If Iran and Oman can agree on how to run safe transit,
07:47ships can move again, and the U.S. and Iran can go back to bigger talks.
07:51The U.S.-Iran War
07:53The 2026 U.S.-Iran War began on February 28, 2026, with joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
08:00But the roots go back much further, to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the hostage crisis,
08:05and decades of anger over Iran's nuclear work, its missiles, and its support for armed groups across
08:10the region.
08:11Trump left the 2015 nuclear deal in his first term.
08:14When he returned to office in 2025, he brought back maximum pressure, ran on-end off indirect
08:19talks, and built up U.S. forces in the Gulf.
08:21When those talks failed to end Iran's enrichment, the choice was made for military action.
08:26The opening was massive.
08:27The U.S. ran Operation Epic Fury, and Israel ran Operation Roaring Lion,
08:31with close to 900 strikes in the first 12 hours and more than 1,000 targets in a day.
08:36The strikes hit Iran's leaders, its nuclear sites, its missile plants, its air defenses,
08:40and its navy.
08:41Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the opening phase along with top commanders,
08:45and his son Majtaba later took his place.
08:47One U.S. official, summed up the early phase in plain terms.
08:51Iran hit back fast.
08:53It fired waves of missiles and drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE
08:58and Jordan, and at Israel.
08:59It choked the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. and allied shipping.
09:02That move sent oil prices flying.
09:04Then came a break.
09:05A Pakistan-brokered ceasefire took hold around April 7-8, 2026, but it was weak and broke
09:10often.
09:11The U.S. put a naval blockade on Iran's ports.
09:13Shipping through Hormuz stayed jammed.
09:15Then in mid-June, the two sides signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, a 14-point
09:21interim deal.
09:21It called for an end to strikes, a reopening of the Strait, a lift of the blockade, and
09:2660 days of talks toward a full deal on Iran's nuclear program and sanctions.
09:30It also told Iran to work with Oman on the future of the Strait.
09:33The deal helped for a moment.
09:35Oil calmed and ships began to move, but the two sides read it in two ways.
09:38Iran claimed the right to manage the Strait and to charge service fees one day.
09:42The U.S. demanded free and open passage with no charges.
09:45Fights over routes near Oman made it worse.
09:48In early July, the deal fell apart.
09:49Iran was accused of attacking ships on non-approved routes, and Trump declared the ceasefire over
09:54on July 7.
09:55The U.S. launched new strikes on Iran's coastal radars, anti-ship weapons, drones, and naval
09:59assets.
10:00Iran struck back at U.S. forces in their host states.
10:03Iran's missile attacks killed U.S. service members, including three in Jordan, and U.S.
10:07deaths across the war reached around 18 by late July, with hundreds wounded.
10:11From mid-July, the U.S. ran the 13 straight nights of strikes.
10:15Now the drivers of the pause make sense.
10:17The nightly strikes were narrow.
10:18They chipped away at the same short list of Hormuz targets.
10:21By the end, most of that list was gone, and only a wider war hitting the deeper targets
10:25from the opening phase would add much.
10:27And the war ate munitions at a brutal rate.
10:30The U.S. had already burned through Patriots and other interceptors by the hundreds, and those
10:34took a long time to replace.
10:36Every night of strikes meant more risk that Iran's missiles could get through to U.S. troops,
10:41as one already had in Jordan.
10:42Put it together and the Friday call comes into focus.
10:45The targets were nearly used up.
10:46The interceptors were dropping.
10:48Gulf allies were hurting from Iran's return fire.
10:50A wider war could bring a global oil shock.
10:53And on that same Friday, Oman was in Tehran with a plan for the strait.
10:56Trump held the bombs, called it nothing gained, nothing lost, and let the talks breathe.
11:00The costs by then were heavy.
11:02Iran reported thousands of civilian dead, with higher counts once military losses are
11:06added.
11:07Lebanon lost thousands in linked fighting.
11:09U.S. military costs ran into the tens of billions of dollars, with broader economic
11:13hits from oil and inflation pushing the total much higher.
11:17As of late July 2026, the war was in its sixth month and the quiet was fragile.
11:21The blockade was still on.
11:22The strait was still restricted.
11:23Iran's rule was still attack for attack.
11:25So the bombs stopped for now, not because the fight was over, but because three pressures
11:29met one open door, and Oman, the country Washington had tried to push aside, was the one still
11:34able to talk to both sides.
11:35And that is how Oman helped stop the bombing after 13 nights in a row.
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