May hold off on Iran attacks unless provoked

US President Donald Trump has told senior advisers in recent days that he may hold off on attacking Iran if the US faces no new provocations from Tehran or the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, according to three people familiar with the matter.          
Trump has alternated between threats of escalating the war with new strikes and winding down hostilities, and current and former officials say he does not appear to have made up his mind about how to resolve the unpopular conflict, which he launched in February with Israel.
But in meetings with his national security advisers and after a series of intelligence briefings, Trump said he was considering holding off on strikes, said the people, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity. 
He has also indicated sympathy for allies in the region who have asked him not to return to a full-fledged war.
“I could end it immediately, but at the request of the nations that I am looking to protect, we are doing it a little bit longer way, a bit more civilly,” Trump told sports broadcaster Stephen A. Smith on Thursday.
In phone calls over the past two weeks, Trump asked for opinions from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who both urged him not to resume attacks on Iran.
Israeli officials have continued to lobby the administration to engage in another military campaign, according to a US official.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that further US military action against Iran is unnecessary because the economic pain the US is inflicting on a weakened Islamic Republic is so great.
Iran’s deputy UN ambassador, Gholamhossein Darzi, told the UN Security Council Friday that its response to any renewed fighting would be “directed against the source of aggression, wherever it may be.”
Darzi clashed with Bahrain, which called the meeting on behalf of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, as well as the United States.
A third aircraft carrier was moving into the Middle East in the coming days to replace one of the two currently operating in the region, but all three carriers could stay if needed, the people said.   
Meanwhile, Iran’s navy and Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that fires had broken out on a total of three oil tankers that struck mines in the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has restricted navigation.
US forces responded to possible unauthorized drone activity over a military base in Britain Friday, spokespeople from the two countries said, in the latest security incident at a facility hosting American warplanes.
“No personnel, aircraft or infrastructure were affected” at the RAF Lakenheath base, a US Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.
On the other hand, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said it intercepted and destroyed two drones launched by the Iran-aligned group towards the Saudi capital Riyadh and the kingdom’s southern region on Saturday.