Donald Trump is weighing a return to open war with Tehran and met with defense secretary Pete Hegseth and his most senior general to discuss renewing strikes, according to a report.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that the US president would prefer to continue with diplomatic efforts, believing that further conflict could undermine Washington’s efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump has told aides he is fine with negotiations for a nuclear deal dragging on past the 18 August deadline as it would give them more time to work with.
However, the president said if Iran violated the “memorandum of understanding”, he would order one-off strikes in return, as happened last week.
In an interview on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News “what the president has told us is, work the problem, see where the negotiation is going to lead. And if it doesn’t lead to a successful resolution on the diplomatic side, we still have a lot of optionality, and we still accomplished a whole lot for the American people.”
Publicly, Trump maintains the talks are succeeding and that military options remain should they deteriorate. “They’re agreeing to everything that I want, and they have to,” he told reporters last week. “Otherwise, we just go back and do what we have to do.”
Other details, however, appear to indicate a flagging peace process.
The arrival of Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Doha on Tuesday was followed by the news that they would only be speaking with their Iranian counterparts indirectly, Qatari officials said.
Another obstacle is Tehran’s insistence upon charging billions of dollars in service fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz. However, the US insists the waterway should be free to all transit, as it was before the war.
Iran also refuses to accept strict limitations on its nuclear work, despite Trump insisting Tehran has already agreed to do so.
However there are signs of constructive diplomacy between the US and Iran, including the establishment of a crisis communication line between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and US Central Command. A White House official told the WSJ the said the channel is already open and in use by both sides.
“Iran has not been cooperative at all yet,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday on Fox News.
“With or without Iran, we will ensure energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Of course, better with their cooperation. We want to put an end to their nuclear program,” he added.
