Trump briefed on all-out war options in Iran but opts to stick with talks

President Trump has weighed a return to all-out war with Iran, holding multiple conversations in recent days with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine on more strikes, but has decided to stick with diplomatic talks for now, according to U.S. officials familiar with the discussion.

The conversations have centered on whether the U.S. should abandon negotiations and resume full-scale attacks on Iran, the officials said, a move some of them describe as “finishing the job.” While not making a final decision, Trump has told aides he believes another round of full-scale attacks could derail diplomacy and hurt Washington’s chances of ultimately dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump also has told aides that he is fine if negotiations with Tehran blow past an Aug. 18 deadline for a nuclear deal, the officials said, a decision that gives the talks more time to work. Meanwhile, the president said he is currently satisfied with ordering one-off strikes on Iran when it violates the “memorandum of understanding,” which sparked back-and-forth fighting over the weekend that undermined a fragile ceasefire clinched two weeks ago.

Pentagon briefings on a president’s military options in a conflict aren’t unusual, with Trump routinely holding formal and impromptu meetings on Iran. But the latest discussions suggest he is looking for ways to break the deadlock with Tehran and hasn’t yet ruled out a return to fighting. Resuming the conflict, some officials acknowledge, would be a tacit admission that the much-touted Iran deal failed.

Publicly, Trump says the talks are succeeding and that he retains military options should they fall apart. “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.”

A White House official said Trump’s preference is always diplomacy and that the Iranians would be wise to make a good deal with the U.S. Spokesmen for Hegseth and Caine declined to comment.

In an interview Tuesday on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said “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...”

The president’s Iran envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Doha Tuesday for a new round of negotiations, though they spoke through mediators and not their Iranian counterparts, Qatari officials said.

The U.S. and Iran are more than a week into negotiations since agreeing to 60 days of talks. A key point of contention is Iran’s insistence upon charging billions of dollars in service fees for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.